Let it never be said that Steve Himmer is anything but a class act. Or, go ahead and say it, but you’d better not mean it.
I say this first with reference to Steve’s gentle, thoughtful observations about his latent atheistic monastic streak. Steve ventures to reflect thoughtfully on how it might be that someone such as he, who knows in the full depth of his being, the of any divine phantasms, nonetheless finds himself drawn to a life of contemplative devotion.
Then, after I indicated my appreciation for the care he exercised in not disparaging others’ faith, but my inability to find a way to address his remarks within the frame that his narrative constructed for the conversation, Steve even more graciously disassembled the frame. So although I’d rather ask how his camera got broken, or trade flu stories, I find myself obliged by Steve’s generosity to comment on faith and devotion.
Conversations about faith suffer from the turbulence induced by cultural knowledge, the kind of thing everyone knows about religion—premises that may not actually be true or applicable or well-constructed when brought to bear on particular (alleged) instances of the category. Some of what the predominant public discourses of religion just take for granted falsifies what particular people, or (better) communities do and say and think. It’s tough to dislodge that cultural knowledge, though, since it gets picked up and underscored and repeated and endorsed by people who are presented to us as authorities (maybe I can use this as a springboard back to the “authority” topic in a day or so).
For instance: cultural knowledge holds that ritual is empty, meaningless and separate from a true personal encounter with God; that only from theological vanity might one believe one’s own faith to be true, in contradistinction to different ways of life; that the true goal of authentic faith is a spirituality distinguishable from “outward forms” or “the institutional church”; the individual’s soul is the paramount matter of religious importance; and a bunch of others I’ll probably tack on as I keep nattering.
None of these premises is simply, neutrally, given; some of them are demonstrably polemical claims which have become so successful that their hostile origins no longer appear on the surface, even to those against whom the claim may once have been directed (who thus reproduce the problematic assumptions within the camp the assumption was designed to undermine). None is groundless, either, so that conversation partners can always cite situations and quotations that back the premises. I don’t know what Steve thinks about any of these; he’s a very wise man, except perhaps about snow shovelling, so I expect that he has a nuanced appreciation for the complexities swirling around these a/theological points. (If I try to talk about “orthodoxy” or “authority” or “pacifism” sometime later, I’ll run into similar problems again.)
But if I’m to speak out in public about Steve’ essay in which he ponders the possibility that God not be a necessary component of a life of devotion on the Christian monastic model, I need to answer not only Steve, but also all the cultural overhead that many readers will (inasmuch as there are many readers to this node in the networked digital imagination of the world) bring to bear on my response.
So, first, Steve allows that he may have picked up the stick by the wrong end by concentrating on the devoted individual, rather than on that to which the individual is devoted. That’s a tremendous insight, and touches on one of those bits of cultural knowledge to which I object. I’d go even further, though, and say that some dimensions of the faith that expresses itself in Christian monasticism (and from here on, I’ll use less cumbersome sepcifications, though I risk missing my step in so doing because at the end all my reservations have to do with specificity and particularity) understand the individual’s own devotion not be that important. One way of thinking about devotion involves doing something with one’s individuality that isn’ simply pointing it in a dogmatically “correct” direction and praying, or feeling a warmish glow when one says an appropriate prayer. This way of imagining devotion sets as a more fitting goal the harmonization of an individual’s sense of self-importance with a vastly greater, deeper, wiser, longer-enduring, suffering, persisting, rejoicing communion of one’s sisters and brothers to whose shared devotion one commits oneself, whatever one’s private, individual feelings, preferences, or beliefs.
On this premise, one would draw the wrong conclusion if one deduced from a devout person’s non-specific (or misdefined) faith that the end of faith or its precise contours don’t matter. Rather, one may observe how profoundly appropriate it is for religious communities to welcome people with uncertain, irregular faith (or none at all), since it’s by the community’s embracing any who aspire to that life of devotion that all who partake in the life find the fullness of the sharing that crosses time, location, doctrinal precision, and all the other variables that distinguish believers and non-believers of our various flavors. This “welcoming” doesn’t mean the community reshapes itself in the welcomed-one’s reflected (distorted) image, though. The community welcomes people by speaking and practicing the truth it has received, by making as clear and convincing as possible the Way that justifies the community’s common life.
So—to restrict myself (for reasons of preservation of limited energies) to Steve’ attraction to monastic devotion, I would append the utterly vital aspect of allying oneself to a community, to a tradition, to which one makes oneself accountable. In that sense, God is not a necessary aspect of one’s own life of devotion, as God is not on pins and needles waiting to observe the outcome of a theological plebescite (sort of Bill Clinton with wings and a harp) but the life of devotion to which Steve feels attracted would be something radically different if it were not directed toward God, if such a life continued to exist at all.
(Explicit reservation: Steve was talking about Christian monasticism, at least in all his specific references. Stepping away from my area of first-hand knowledge and the specifically Christian context, one might argue that non-belief in God constitutes a requisite ingredient of some monasticism. I’m not one to assess such claims in public, though—imply to report that I’m not unaware of them.)
(As I conclude these remarks, iTunes supplies a tremendously a propos conjunction of theologically-determined favorites: “Bread and Circuses” by Billy Bragg and Natalie Merchant, and immediately afterward “Alleluia,” by Dar Williams.)
That’s too much for now.
Posted by AKMA at February 18, 2003 10:49 AM | TrackBackWell said, professor. I have been wrestling with some of the language you use in attempts to make sense of the baptist faith as separate from American individualism. It is a difficult task to say the least. I have been rereading Romans, trying to get a handle on what Paul means by conscience and the movement of the Spirit (Chp. 9). So far, no real luck.
Steve may have a cohort of sorts in this nominal Christian. Our focus certainly must be God. Certainly a tradition has a structural benefit that may shield us from our own wider cultural foibles. Nevertheless, is not the relationship between the Worshiped and the worshiper not paramount? I think that even the loss of self into the Godhead is a relationship that demands a consciousness of self. How else am I to love God with all my heart, mind and soul unless it is I who do it?
Hmm...interesting stuff. Important stuff. Thank you!
Posted by: Tripp at February 18, 2003 11:49 AMThis is indeed interesting, and I think you're getting at the right question, but I also think you might want to refine that concept of "cultural knowledge" down just a bit into something a little more contingent (in fact, I'm reminded of Bourdieu's habitus, and of how unfortunately clever he was to use a Latin noun that has the exact same form in nominative singular and plural). My mental responses to the phrase "cultural knowledge holds that ritual is empty, meaningless and separate from a true personal encounter with God" were, in order: (1) "Nuh-uh!"
(2) "Silly Christians, Trix is for--"
(3) "--no, wait, silly Protestants."
Seriously, the categories you're using (specifically, "faith" and "monasticism") and the weight put on both of them at once are explicitly Christian, even though both concepts have parallels and cognates in other world religions. The twenty-first-century U.S. is pretty consciously majority Christian, and most of the other religious options around us have been influenced by Christianity in one way or another, but this country is also made up of many, many cultural enclaves, with many forms of Christianity, not to mention all those other faiths. (In many neighborhoods of Chicago proper, I daresay, residents (whatever their personal beliefs and practices) are unlikely to consider ritual completely pointless for reasons having much to do with Catholicism -- not to mention all those parades.)
Posted by: Naomi Chana at February 18, 2003 01:32 PMI'll talk about this in the main blog when the conversation goes ’round once, but I think I was trying to make a point that complements what you’re saying here. One can publicaly air the sentiment that “ritual is empty and pointless” and expect that the Visible Promoters of Cultural Homogeneity (which, of course, skew heavily toward the Protestant Christian) will endorse that view. Will everyone agree? No—and I was thinking quite specifically of Judaism and Catholicism when I (somewhat resentfully) posted that datum, though we ought not ignore the increasing number of Hindu and Muslim congregations as well. And that too is an element of what I had hoped to say, since the “cultural knowledge” to which I advert sometimes (often?) runs against the grain of one’s explicitly-held beliefs and practices. To conclude with a tangentailly-related example, I know a number of loyal Anglo-Catholics who can explain the importance for the order of procession of Presider, Preacher, Deacon, Subdeacon, Verger, Lector, Torches, and Master of Ceremonies—but who feel comfortable suggesting that Judaism partakes of “legalism.” This isn’t a simple matter of theological bigotry (though only a fool would expunge that as a factor); it has a lot to do with the assumptions they’ve been taught to make.
Likewise, TV-watching, movie-going, newspaper-reading, politics-observing, radio-listening participants in US dominant culture are liable, so far as I can tell, to think of “ritual” as almost tautologically implicated with “empty formality.” Do you see a different flavor of (dominant-)cultural response to faith?
Posted by: AKMA at February 18, 2003 04:09 PMMm, what about weddings? Not generally thought to be 'empty' ritual exactly, but the religiosity of the ritual is a) practically always present (what TV or movie wedding ever has a judge as officiant?), and b) practically always swept under the carpet.
(Hey, don't look at me like that. My wedding ceremony *was* performed by a judge.)
Posted by: Dorothea Salo at February 18, 2003 08:58 PMOut of my depths here, but, fool, plunge in. The community in "community of saints" attracts me; the fallibility (and assumed hypocrisy) of the people in my fundamentalist upbringing repels me from that community and that fundamentalism, even now, makes me chary of "ritual." And yet, I yearn. . . Thanks for keeping some things in front of me.
Posted by: Kent Kelly at February 18, 2003 09:48 PMI’m not looking at you, Dorothea—I’m looking at them, over there. No, them.
Weddings are a good example, right? On one hand, the religious appurtenances make media representations of weddings seem “real,” but (as you point out) no one ever seems to express the faintest shred of theological conviction about the wedding (though I haven’t seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which would seem a candidate for contradicting my claim here). At the same time, one does hear guys (mostly) kvetching about how meaningless the whole thing is.
Try to stand up in public and say, though, “It’s essential that we perform the wedding ritual whether we feel like it or not, whether we find it ‘meaningful’ or not, because this is the necessary way to join two lives in an indissoluble bond in the eyes of God and with the participation of the saints”? I don’t think so.
Kent—thank you for your patience on this topic. One of the biggest peculiarities about the sort of theology I propound lies in the scandalous claim that it’s not about what I feel like, or enjoy, or get warm spiritual vibes from. (I’m not against any of those things, though I tend to be suspicious of “warm spiritual vibes.”) Theological practice has much in common with acquiescing to the laws of gravity or nutrition, in that these don’t depend on how one likes them, or whether one feels like adhering to them. If there be any comfort available in these circumstances, it probably involves the gifts of hope and persistence and patience that grow as they are exercised, and the possibility that seeing so clearly others’ shortcomings may to some extent sharpen our awareness of our own frailty and folly.
But that’s not much consolation when someone feels the doors to the congregation barred against them.
Posted by: AKMA at February 19, 2003 01:40 PMShading off into realms where I sometimes question whether or not I am even a theist much less have a theological foundation for discussion, I never-the-less must assert that custom and community -- practice and the warmth of shared faith -- make a wedding meaningful, not the ritual. The same applies I think to monastic devotion; and, although one could infer that "custom" or "practice" imply ritual, I think this is not true if practice is stripped to bare simplicity and god is found within.
Posted by: Frank at February 19, 2003 06:29 PMMy only comment would be that Steve is indeed a class act. He's also one of my favorite reads.
That is all.
Posted by: Ryan at February 19, 2003 07:17 PMInside each stack frame is a slew of useful information. It tells the computer what code is currently executing, where to go next, where to go in the case a return statement is found, and a whole lot of other things that are incredible useful to the computer, but not very useful to you most of the time. One of the things that is useful to you is the part of the frame that keeps track of all the variables you're using. So the first place for a variable to live is on the Stack. This is a very nice place to live, in that all the creation and destruction of space is handled for you as Stack Frames are created and destroyed. You seldom have to worry about making space for the variables on the stack. The only problem is that the variables here only live as long as the stack frame does, which is to say the length of the function those variables are declared in. This is often a fine situation, but when you need to store information for longer than a single function, you are instantly out of luck.
Posted by: Ralph at January 13, 2004 09:55 AMThis back and forth is an important concept to understand in C programming, especially on the Mac's RISC architecture. Almost every variable you work with can be represented in 32 bits of memory: thirty-two 1s and 0s define the data that a simple variable can hold. There are exceptions, like on the new 64-bit G5s and in the 128-bit world of AltiVec
Posted by: Albert at January 13, 2004 09:56 AMThis variable is then used in various lines of code, holding values given it by variable assignments along the way. In the course of its life, a variable can hold any number of variables and be used in any number of different ways. This flexibility is built on the precept we just learned: a variable is really just a block of bits, and those bits can hold whatever data the program needs to remember. They can hold enough data to remember an integer from as low as -2,147,483,647 up to 2,147,483,647 (one less than plus or minus 2^31). They can remember one character of writing. They can keep a decimal number with a huge amount of precision and a giant range. They can hold a time accurate to the second in a range of centuries. A few bits is not to be scoffed at.
Posted by: Garret at January 13, 2004 09:56 AM