Seeing ‘Jesus’ From Below #16

July 1998 journal entry]

My starting point re ‘church’ and ‘organized religion’ is that ‘church’ and ‘organized religion’ today are analogous to the Sanhedrin, (chief) priests, scribes, rabbis, lawyers, Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, synagogues, temple, . . . in Jesus’ day. Re ‘church’ and ‘organized religion’, I have in mind denominations, clergy, seminaries, ‘Christian’ businesses (e.g., music, books, tours, supplies, radio stations, television networks, . . .), church staffs, evangelistic agencies, political lobbying groups, . . . .

Seeing ‘Jesus’ From Below #15

[July 1998 journal entry]

Christian scripture covers a short period of time when compared to Jewish scripture. This point should alter the interpretation of the exclusive language in Christian scripture. In Jewish thought and scripture,

1. there is a tension between exclusive and inclusive interpretations of ‘God’ in relation to the ‘nations’, and
2. there are challenges (such as Ecclesiastes and the story of Job) to Deuteronomic theology.

Neither of these traits is found in Christian scripture.

Seeing ‘Jesus’ From Below #14

[May 1998 journal entry]

Once I began to consider ‘Jesus’ as an ‘outsider’ or ‘guest’ to the ‘religious’ sphere of his day, I began to notice --

1. the diminished place he assigned ritual and tradition,
2. how he saw others (especially those dismembered by the ‘religious’ sphere),
3. the way he was misunderstood and how he was viewed as a threat,
4. his ‘non-religious’ interpretations of the Jewish Torah and related writings.

Seeing ‘Jesus’ From Below #13

[January 1998 journal entry]

A ‘non-religious’ experience of communion has to do with a time to see/hear ‘Jesus’ by recovering/reinforcing his language, thinking, decisions. Implicit in this approach is the realization that communion can be an experience of seeing life events and neighbors/strangers through the vocabulary (prism) inherent in the way ‘Jesus’ saw his life events and neighbors/strangers.

Fragment -- #70

[August 1998 journal entry]

At a recent breakfast gathering of young physicians, I was asked what has a ‘reviving’ effect on me. My response – stillness, silence, music, glass of wine, being with individuals such as the K-Bar-B ranch kids. [Today I would give special attention to photography. When I wrote this journal entry, I had earlier in the summer started to meet regularly with a local landscape photographer whose mentoring would, over the next several years, significantly expand for me the artistic and spiritual experiences possible through photography.]

Fragment -- #69

[July 1998 journal entry]

I have been thinking about the metaphor in how one’s skin is sunburned before the skin surface indicates such.

Fragment -- #68

[July 1998 journal entry]

I am finding value in the ‘angle of repose’ metaphor drawn from the arrangement of rocks that enables them to be settled and dependable (cf., Stegner’s Angle of Repose).

Fragment -- #67

[July 1998 journal entry]

The following thoughts are reflections on the approach a well-educated couple – one a physician -- took to their newborn’s devastating chromosomal abnormality plus serious heart malformation (i.e., they began and then withdrew prednisone, they brought the baby home in anticipation of death, they interpreted the situation down to the finest details as designed by ‘God’ even to the point of concluding that the baby’s being born now explains why they are in their present location).

1. I have noticed how some religiously fundamentalist-leaning Christian physicians – as with this physician -- struggle and are awkward with references to ‘chance’ or ‘randomness’.
2. The couple’s perspective seems to be analogous to a ‘house of cards’, comes across as very self-centered, leads them to interpret others’ experiences in the same way as they interpret their newborn’s tragedy.

Fragment -- #66

[July 1998 journal entry]

I was asked recently how I would respond/react if one of our children told me she is homosexual in sexual orientation. My initial thoughts were the following.

1. I hope I would listen with respect, seeking to understand what she is telling me and how she is interpreting her sense of self.
2. Her age would make a difference.
3. Since most individuals are heterosexual, I would give particular attention to indications that environmental factors might at least partially account for her self-understanding. I see no evidence of such environmental factors to date in our children’s experience. Therefore, I would anticipate a genetics explanation to be most compelling.
4. Neither a ‘nature’ paradigm nor a ‘nurture’ paradigm was considered in the times when Jewish scripture and Christian scripture were being written.
5. I find references to homosexuality in Jewish scripture and Christian scripture to be restricted in meaning to selfish, exploiting, and reckless behavior (not uniquely found among individuals with a homosexual orientation).
   

My first serious experience face to face with questions about sexual orientation occurred a number of years ago when a very capable and sensitive female graduate student for whom I was an academic advisor and who had taken several of my courses disclosed to me her confusion since adolescence about her sexuality. Many hours of conversation with her followed. Several years later, I learned firsthand about babies born with ambiguous genitalia when I worked as an ethics consultant for a lawyer who represented a medical school in lawsuits filed by parents of such babies against faculty physicians involved in the disputed decisions made and actions taken at birth. At one of the medical schools where I have collaborated with various academic physicians, I worked closely with a very compassionate and highly respected female physician who eventually trusted our friendship enough to disclose her homosexual orientation.

These examples illustrate experiences over the past twenty-five years that have discredited the condemnations, the jokes, the stereotypes, the prejudices, the violence tolerated/sanctioned in the culture and the ‘religious’ milieu of my youth.

Fragment -- #65

[July 1998 journal entry]

I have often wondered how an advocate of the views that “faith is a gift/work of God” and that “grace is prevenient” (from the later Augustine to Luther and Calvin to Barth et al) comes to have these views – by/from birth? chosen among varying theological options? How can these views be inherited or chosen without violating the idea itself?

Fragment -- #64

[July 1998 journal entry] I was asked during a breakfast meeting with a group of young physicians what happens for me in the exercise of silence. I commented on:

1. ‘centering down’ (inner simplification),
2. reflection,
3. a widening range of vision,
4. humility/modesty,
5. recovered balance between action and contemplation,
6. sharpened ability/capacity to listen (which relates so directly to effectiveness in being truly present with others).

Fragment -- #63

[July 1998 journal entry]
‘Post-modern’ does not (should not) exempt traditional/orthodox (T/O) interpretations of (Christian) faith from ‘modern’ questions or critiques. ‘Religious’ T/O paradigm views and interpretations are not more compelling in a ‘post-modern’ than in a ‘modern’ setting unless ‘modern’ is totally disregarded.

Fragment -- #62

[July 1998 journal entry]
In a recent professional formation meeting with a young physician, we discussed an essay he is writing. I prompted him to consider the following points:

1. Speak/write out to but not beyond your ability to explain, defend, and pursue your ideas when open to unrestricted questioning and criticism.
2. Editors, publishers, and program planners often push toward broader thinking in order to increase readership/audience.
3. Speak/write in a way that retains the liberty to retract later what you have said/written and the liberty to continue as a student of the subject about which you have spoken/written.
   
4. Speak/write in a manner that protects your credibility (as a seeker of truth, insight, reality) when you speak/write again.
   
5. When rigorously self-critical, one’s autobiography is a place where each one can speak/write. Then widen the perspective/subject in a timely manner.
   
6. In an optimal tutorial experience, you can presume (a) the tutor is more often in the lead, (b) the tutor’s perspective is not necessarily the ‘trump’, (c) the tutor is able to acknowledge when s/he gains insight from a student’s essay.

Fragment -- #61

[May 1998 journal entry]
Perhaps the most difficult consequence associated with repositioning one’s self as an ‘outsider’ or ‘guest’ re previous memberships/places in societal spheres (including but not limited to the ‘religious’ sphere) is the diminishment of relationships that had been, as an ‘insider’, central and cherished. The motive for becoming an ‘outsider’ must be critical to one’s integrity in order to pay this heavy price. For this reason, I have disciplined myself against admonishing others to move ‘outside’ their societal spheres. I am willing to counsel and learn from individuals who take the initiative to move ‘outside’ or who, for reasons they did not encourage but cannot deny/avoid, have been forced ‘outside’.

A ‘non-religious’ view of Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- #16

Reflections from journal entries

Now for another set of reflections. These reflections have been selected/adapted from journal entries written during the years we lived and worked as a family in rural East Tennessee Appalachia (November 1997-July 1999).

64 [April 1998 journal entry] My transition from ‘insider’ to ‘outsider’ re the ‘religious’ sphere (in which I was born and raised) involved at least the following factors:

1. attending public schools,
2. attending a state university,
3. choosing history as my field of study for graduate/doctoral education,
   
4. being existentially near to my first wife (d. 1987) as she fought multiple sclerosis,
   
5. entering the medical education sphere as a prompter/interpreter,
   
6. focusing on society’s marginalized and dismembered.
   

At least for me, once fully ‘outside’ there is no way back to membership in the ‘religious’ sphere with integrity. I saw too much. I learned too much. Yet this ‘outside’ experience is daunting (e.g., the patience necessary as ‘religious’ language and experience die, as familiar places and relationships diminish, as the number of previous acquaintances with whom to talk shrinks, as what lies ahead remains uncertain).

The ‘outsider’ approach to ethics, spirituality, theology I am following

1. requires a critical/historical approach to Jewish scripture and Christian scripture,
   
2. has the ‘scrap heap’ Job and Ecclesiastes’ Koheleth as the entry/exit points for studying the life of ‘Jesus’,
3. regards organized ‘religion’ today to be equivalent to the organized ‘religion’ in Jesus’ day,
   
4. exercises an existential honesty and a face-to-face posture toward being human in concrete situations, with the focus on the most vulnerable,
   
5. measures ideas/convictions from the perspective of those in greatest vulnerability,
   
6. thinks and makes decisions ‘from below’.

65 [July 1998 journal entry] What would a ‘non-religious’ reading/interpretation of Dietrich Bonhoeffer be?

1. Note the ‘non-religious’ to ‘religious’ to ‘non-religious’ movements in his life story. The ‘non-religious’ perspective at the beginning of his life was not equivalent to the ‘non-religious’ thoughts expressed in the prison correspondence.
   
2. Note interpreters of his prison correspondence who hold positions within the ‘religious’ sphere predictably offer a ‘religious’ reading/interpretation of Dietrich.
   
3. Note Eberhard Bethge’s pointing in more than one of our conversations to the significance of Dietrich’s older brother Karl-Friedrich for the formation of Dietrich’s later ‘non-religious’ ideas.

66 [July 1998 journal entry] Further thoughts about be(com)ing ‘non-religious’:

1. Is the phrase ‘beyond religion’ better than the word ‘non-religious’? or ‘outside religion’?
   
2. Moving from denomination to denomination within the ‘religious’ sphere is not be(com)ing ‘non-religious’.
3. Critiquing ‘religion’ from another sphere is not be(com)ing ‘non-religious’.
   
4. ‘Non-religious’ reflects a set of experiences and/or a decision to see, listen, think, act with unqualified integrity (i.e., not compromised by institutionalized spheres).

‘the ethical dimensions of patient care’ -- #25

[December 2005 journal entry]

Safe and stable medical practices and hospitals expect their physicians to be fluent (in the full/rich sense of vocabulary and syntax so deeply imbedded, instinctive, readily at hand that the speaker/writer can focus completely on the subject and the one addressed) in three professional languages – i.e., clinical/scientific language, legal language, and business language. Fluency in these three languages remains fresh due to daily use with patients, with support staff members, and in peer-to-peer exchanges.

It has been my experience/observation that medical practices rarely expect their physicians to be fluent in a fourth professional language – i.e., what I call the language of caring (e.g., language for reflection on being gentle, minimizing harm, making an appreciated difference, facing failures, respecting self-determination, seeking fairness, acknowledging/resolving conflicts of interest, . . . ).

Perhaps the reason is the time and energy required to maintain fluency in the language of caring. Learning/using the language of caring must not diminish fluency in the other three professional languages. In fact, fluency in the three required professional languages must be exceptional in order for seeking/maintaining fluency in the language of caring not to be criticized.

Perhaps the reason is the depth/quality of caring to which a medical practice is actually committed. Where in most medical practices does the language of caring appear to be (thought in fact is not) a priority? The marketing and public relations departments. Medical practices striving for profit and/or for their physicians’ lifestyle interests do not encourage or give incentives for meaningful discourse using the language of caring.

Perhaps the reason is the self-examination – e.g., transparency, vulnerability, disappointment, accountability, vision, passion, . . . . Meaningful discourse using the language of caring probes/stimulates one’s sensitivities – e.g., “What is the link between caring deeply and becoming jaded/cynical?” “Can I end up giving less by trying to give more?” “Dare I admit times when my capacity to care is fatigued?” “Can I practice very good medicine without caring for the patient?” “When my capacity to care is low, who around me bear/s the consequences?” “What would cause my spouse and children to think I care more for my patients than I care for them?” “What conclusions about my professional character would be drawn by observing how I handle my most difficult patients?” “How do I protect myself without sacrificing why I became a physician?” “When does scaled back care cease to be care?” “How do I recover my capacity to care?”

The ‘scrapheap’ Job -- #50

[5/1998] “__________ has such a wonderful attitude.” It is common to hear such said about individuals within the ‘religious’ sphere who, in reaction to devastating circumstances, raise no hard or persistent questions toward or about ‘God’ as understood within the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm. By not challenging/threatening the assumptions and expectations of the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm, such individuals are recognized/honored within the ‘religious’ sphere as exemplary. This approval in turn reinforces their attempt to see devastating experiences as interpreted by/within the ‘religious’ sphere.

The ‘scrapheap’ Job -- #49

[4/1998] The ‘non-religious’ approach to spirituality and ethics I am following necessitates sorting out and relentlessly critiquing the various meanings proposed for the word ‘God’. ‘Relentlessly’ (L., unwilling to melt or to soften in temper/resolve or to become less severe) is an aggressive but not overstated description of the necessary critique.

The ‘scrapheap’ Job -- #48

[6/1996] The story/play Job (specifically the dialogue sections and 42:7) and the essay of Ecclesiastes (minus the last paragraph) have become, for me, the windows into Jewish scripture and Christian scripture.

[Note: Without the series of exchanges between the prologue and epilogue, the 42:7 statement has no logical place in the story/play Job. So the statement is not part of the epilogue that -- together with the prologue -- forms the ‘happily ever after’ short version of the story/play Job. I think the composer surprises the audience with the implied task of searching back through the extended story asking, “What did Job say about ‘God’ that the composer thinks is right?”]

[Note: I started giving Ecclesiastes careful attention during my Louisville years (1976-79) when I saw the similarities with modern existential writings. I remember concluding that Ecclesiastes stands alone in Jewish scripture and Christian scripture in requiring so little commentary to be accessible. When I began offering a systematic theology graduate seminar (1981), the format I chose was to imagine a series of conversations between ‘Jesus’ and the author of Ecclesiastes. For many years, I read Ecclesiastes as the personal statement of Koheleth (the speaker in the text). More recently, I have come to regard Koheleth as a literary device created by the essay’s anonymous author. I see Koheleth as similar to a court fool – i.e., giving rather blunt analyses that those threatened can easily dismiss. Another analogy is Shostakovich’s precarious position before Stalin. Distinguishing Koheleth from the author aligns well with the tenuous place of the essay in the canon of Jewish scripture and accounts for the outlandish, even clownish, statements attributed to Koheleth in the essay (e.g., Koheleth’s excessive claims to know more than anyone else before him and to be the best student by far there had ever been).]

The ‘scrapheap’ Job -- #47

[9/2005] The senior physician and CEO for the Appalachia community health center where I work and I have volunteered to be deployed by the federal government’s Health and Human Services Department to assist with the recovery efforts in and around New Orleans. My physician friend’s broad training and experience in the practice of comprehensive primary care with a concentration on poor patients would make him a very valuable asset. The volunteer category nearest to how I might assist is ‘chaplain’. My physician friend feels that my special usefulness would be as a ‘chaplain’ to the medical professionals and other rescue personnel as they bear/process truly awful experiences. We both are anxious to help.

Looking closely at human experience -- without sifting or filtering out any events however severe -- makes me aware that my privileges (e.g., health, education, travel, economic liberties, . . . ) separate me from the vast majority of individuals in human history. Gazing at the devastation left behind by Hurricane Katrina has intensified this awareness.

‘Catastrophe’ . . . ‘disaster’ . . . ‘tsunami’ . . . ‘edge of the abyss’ . . . ‘nightmare’ . . . ‘tragedy’ . . . .

Where do you go in Jewish Scripture to find such raw expressions of trauma, agony, desperation? Several of the prophets lamented, groaned. Habakkuk ventured a protest. But they eventually returned to ‘God’ language within a theological paradigm that implicitly if not explicitly attributed devastating events directly or indirectly to “the Lord’s hands”. Only Ecclesiastes and the extended story/play Job – hardly weight bearing texts within the ‘religious’ sphere – persisted in questioning the intent/character behind “the Lord’s hands” and the underlying theological paradigm.

Where do you go in Christian Scripture for such raw expressions of trauma, agony, desperation? A slave army’s fight for freedom had been crushed. Rome had burned to the ground. Herculaneum and Pompeii had been buried. Jerusalem had been destroyed. What does it mean for there to be no trace of such events in Christian Scripture? no lament, groaning, protest? The theologians – Jewish or Christian – to whom one seeking a ‘face to face with the world’ spirituality and ethics can turn are the few for whom such raw expressions of trauma, agony, desperation keep the ‘God’ question open.

I am very hesitant about the ‘God’ language used -- especially toward the evangelical and fundamentalist end of the theological spectrum -- in reacting to or interpreting utter disasters. I wonder, “Is such ‘God’ language used to relieve the one/s speaking? to capitalize on the survivors’ plight? to defend or ‘clean up’ after ‘God’?”

The attempt to exclude events of immeasurable suffering (e.g., in modern times the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, American slavery, the carnage of World War I, the Nazi Holocaust, Hiroshima, Cambodia, the 2004 Tsunami, . . . Hurricane Katrina) from the reality within which each day is lived can seem worth the effort/cost to those experientially detached from such events. A ‘face to face with the world’ approach to spirituality and ethics fights against this temptation, determined instead to seek deeper consciousness of such events. The liberty (even instruction) in the ‘religious’ sphere -- especially toward the evangelical and fundamentalist end of the theological spectrum -- to keep faith/theology disconnected from and untested by events of immeasurable suffering results in such clashing statements as “The Lord had his reasons” (for permitting/causing Hurricane Katrina) and “We are caring for the evacuees because God expects us to”. A ‘face to face with the world’ approach to spirituality and ethics disagrees with this insulating method, being anchored instead by the resolve to hold only to ideas that are not overwhelmed by such events. The noble and generous expressions of compassion toward survivors when immeasurable suffering is compressed into specific events tend in time to wane as the initial burden of the harmed/displaced is met and as attention returns to less disturbing matters. A ‘face to face with the world’ approach to spirituality and ethics finds in such acute events of immeasurable suffering a reminder that similarly immeasurable suffering is encountered in all directions (diffused throughout) every day.