Category: FWIW

The “fear and trembling” that comes over me at times when I consider the state of our society is not that wholesome awe one feels in the presence of greatness, but a quivering aprehension about what the future holds for my children–a future that does not seem to hold the sort of promise that it held for me when I was their ages.

I ran across a link to this over at Jerry Pournelle’s place. Read more than the snippet below. I believe you’ll find it time well spent.

We live in a society saturated with information. The paradox of this spectacle is that we no longer possess the ability to integrate and evaluate the information which assaults us from every direction. One moment the news ticker at the bottom of the screen shows some mind-numbing drop in the stock market; the next moment, we are enthralled with some bitch queen trying to kick the shins of his lesbian competitor on Project Runway. The news media jumps from the crisis of the second to the latest Hollywood dalliance, and from there to some hopeless hyped hysteria about global warming or the health scare of the week, providing no sense of perspective about which of these might be the more important.

So it behooves us to stand back; to turn off the TV, shut down the browser, put down the paper, turn off talk radio, and truly listen — not to the screeching banshees with their banal hysteria, but rather to that inner source, be it spirit, or soul, or mind, or the wisdom acquired by life’s experiences.

And later, speaking to my own discomfort with the political landscape before ue,

We have elected those politicians who are like us in every way — and we hate them for it. They are, after all, created in our own image.

Go. Read.

Take a deep breath. Slow down. Consider current events in light of your own life’s experience, your (hopefully rich) knowledge of history and the wisdom of the sages of the ages, if you can bring yourself to even consider–as my spirit is wont to avoid doing because my own “wisdom” is such a weak and palid thing by comparison*sigh*–wisdom that has actually stood the test of time.

Stop. Look. Listen. No, really listen. Is that light at the end of the tunnel a train or what?

Just asking.

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.–Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

I was over at Cathouse chat, just checking in to see what has been going on in Kat’s life recently, when I stumbled across a comment that referred to Charles Chaput’s “Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life”. Now, I’ve not yet read the book, but I have some taste of the probable thrust from the title. I’m not Roman Catholic either, but again, I think I can infer a bit of the content from my knowedge of Roman Catholicism, as well.

Looks/sounds interesting from what reviews I’ve seen. If its content is anything close to what I can infer from reviews/title/current knowledge about RC thought, I may well find myself in substantial agreement with Chaput.

Backing up a bit. I grew up in a Southern Baptist subculture where Matthew 22:17-21 ws usually applied thusly: pay your taxes and pay your tithe. Now, that’s always–even from childhood–struck me as a particularly shallow exegesis (*heh* from long before I had an inkling of an idea of what the word exegesis even meant). As I grew “in wisdom and in stature” (and in girdth and breadth *heh*), I became able to put some meat on the bones of my disatisfaction with that shallow interpretation. And so follows my shirt tail exegesis… a group of Pharisees came to Jesus and said,

Matthew 22:17 Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not? 18 but Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, [ye] hypocrites? 19 Shew me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a penny. 20 And he saith unto them, Whose [is] this image and superscription? 21 They say unto him, Caesar’s. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.

First, this was a group of Jewish “lawyers” attempting to pull Katie Couric on Jesus. Roman occupation (and Roman taxes) were strongly disliked by the Jews of Israel, so, they thought, if Jesus did not denounce paying Roman taxes they’d have trapped him into an unpopular stand. On the other hand, the Romans really came down hard on anything that even smacked of fomenting tax evasion or revolt, so if he did choose the popular answer they more than half expected, they could have him up on charges before the Roman government lickety split.

Horns of a dilemma? Not so. Jesus simply invoked the very orthodox Jewish principle of the imago dei–the concept that we are all made in God’s image, and then turned the Pharisees’ challenge on its head. “Whose image” is stamped upon the coin? Caesar’s. But you see, when Jesus followed that up with both “render to Caesar” and “render to God” he directly invoked the principle of imago dei, essentially saying, “This coin comes from Caesar, so pay him with it, but YOU are stamped with God’s image and belong to Him, therefore, you owe Him yourselves.”

I like to ask myself further, “What does this image of God look like when stamped on a man?” Now, we can look all through scripture and nature to discern what God’s image might “look” like, but I think Jesus was talking about His image as to character and behavior, and probably no other description succinctly distills the imago dei like Micah 6:8

He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

That is what the “coin” stamped with the image of God looks like: Justice; Mercy; Humility. Look for those traits in someone who’s “render[ing] untoi God the things that are God’s” and you’ll see someone who has internalized 2 Corinthians 5:17… and who exemplifies submission to Jesus command in Matthew 22:21.

Yes, “render unto Caesar” means much more than simply paying our taxes. It also–at the very least–means obeying those laws that do not directly contradict biblical precepts (see Acts 3-4), and in a representative republic (with democratic elements), it also means we have a responsibility to govern well. (Which in my experience largely means we ought to concentrate on throwing the bums out of office at every election, but that’s just my view, of course. :-))

“Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.”

From slightly off-the-wall territory, seeing this video of Joe Biden at Nuke’s place sent me down a rabbit trail. (Some might say down the rabbit hole. *heh*)

Let’s start with the premise that p-sychology is about as scientific as voodoo and p-sychs might as well wear dreadlock wigs and shake chicken bone rattles as inflict any one of the current fads in p-sych on their unwitting victims. Still, voodoo does help some folks deal with life, and so does p-sych. Seriously. It’s not all bad, and some perceptive p-sychs can actually do genuine good despite their training.

That said, I do find some personality theories/p-sych models interesting and even useful constructs for viewing the world. Without much comment, here’s a list of some p-sych thinkers I find intriguing, even sometimes useful:

Roberto Assagioli–Psychosynthesis
Viktor Frankl–Noetic counseling (more useful than most, IMO)
Medard Boss–Daseinsanalysis (useful framework)
William James–known as a Pragmatist who attempted to present psychology as a natural science (failed, IMO), but his “Varieties of Religious Experience” is a p-sych tome that’s a very interesting read.
Ludwig Binswanger–a pioneer existential p-sych

It’s interesting to me that while James attempted to cram p-sych into a natural science mold, Medard Boss–who attempted no such thing–came closer to actually providing some sort of falsifiable model of personality (close but no cigar–still, he wasn’t trying to do so). No, I’ve never heard a p-sych professor claim this, but then I’ve yet to meet a p-sych professor who had much understanding of scientific modeling. (OK, OK, one.)

There. A throwaway post having not much to do with anything at all, just one of those voices in my head (or two or three) clamoring* for an opportunity to speak… *heh*

Addendum: I guess this’ll be a kind of catchall post. Here’s an unrelated thought found while reading about eating pine bark:

It has been my frequent observation that many writers merely regurgitate what they have read elsewhere, rehashing over and over the same errors so much so that eventually the error becomes embedded in nearly all literature on the subject and is thought of as the gospel truth even by those considered an authority on the subject.

Well, of course. Glad someone else has noticed that as well. *heh* “Conventional wisdom” often isn’t, of course. Oh, it’s conventional, all right, just often not very wise. I’m reminded of self-described “conservative” writers touting “traditional values” who, when asked to define them, often stumble and mutter a bit about “family and religion or something” demonstrating that all they’re really doing is parroting someone else’s catch phrase. And even when they can delineate what they really mean by the term (indicating they’ve given it some thought) just as often they’ll reveal a stunning lack of historical knowlege while doing so.

Ditto with ideologues of other persuasions (heck, anarcho-tyranist lefties often can’t even define their terms at all, because, often, all they have is parroting-points).

Off to catalog stands of pine trees in America’s Third World County, now…

* I always seem to have to pause and think to differentiate between “clamor” (make an outcry, hubbub, commotion) and “clamber” (climb awkwardly, scramble, struggle gropingly), although here either would probably have worked. 😉