April 14, 2007

How I got here

(The following was my contribution to an essay in the St. Ignatius Loyola newsletter.) I've been a spiritual seeker all my life. Raised atheist by ex-Mormons, I journeyed through Quakerism and Buddhism, and Centering Prayer acquainted me with Catholic monasticism, which I explored but abandoned. Last year, grace led me into a new close friendship with someone who embodies loving Catholicism. Our rich conversations about spiritual matters and my discovery of St. Augustine's writings helped me see the Church and a life of faith in an entirely new way. She guided me to St. Ignatius and as I sat near the back that first Sunday, though I had yet to understand the mysteries of the Trinity and Eucharist, the relevance of objects all around me -- our amazing RCIA program would later fill those in -- the moment the plainchant...

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February 26, 2007

Last Temptation

So I'm sitting in Saint Patrick's Cathedral on the first Sunday of Lent, preparing to go up, along with every other person in the New York metro area being baptized Catholic this Easter, one by one, to sign our names in the book and transition from being "catechumens" to being "members of the elect." I'm sitting there in my suit and tie, overwhelmed by the number of people and the diversity of the crowd and the beauty of the moment. But I'm also steeling myself as I have done at various stages along this nearly year-long path in anticipation that THIS Catholic situation will somehow offend my morals or beliefs. I'm assuming this because I'm outside of the cozy liberal enclave of the Jesuits, out in the messy mainstream Catholic world. I'm assuming this because a lot of the catechumens...

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February 08, 2006

alt3rd v2

This is a new version of my alternate language for s3. After living with what I wrote for over six months, I wanted to make some changes -- make it a little less precious, more straightforward. Again, this alternate language makes it possible to voice the words without reservation, making it a powerful part of my spiritual life. I don't say it is right for anyone else, but it is useful for me:

"I give myself to love — and to the
connectedness of all life, which it represents —
that it may flow through me and guide me.
Relieve me of the bondage of self,
that I may better serve to advance that Oneness.
Let the grace that fills me when I act out of love
remove my difficulties, that victory over them
may bear witness of its power to those I would help.
May I abide in love always."
- Phil R.

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August 07, 2004

Watching Watching the Friedmans

Recently, I saw Watching the Friedmans. Immediately after that, I put on The Mating Game, a "60s" romantic comedy (it was from 59 actually) with Tony Randall and Debbie Reynolds. To me, these movies and movie experiences side by side offer a perfect case for asking whether the point of life is to be happy and if so what choices one might make. Why the hell did I submit myself to the ugliness of Watching the Friedmans? I felt dirty and sad afterwards. Watching The Mating Game I was between amused and laughing out loud. Tell me, why would one choose the former over the latter? Life is hard enough, filled with enough ugliness. I don't need to add to it by looking inside the minds of sick people that the world would be better off without. Give me farce....

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August 03, 2004

Myers-Briggs Personality Test

My Myers Briggs Jung Test Results

Introverted (I) 59.46% Extroverted (E) 40.54% Intuitive (N) 55.26% Sensing (S) 44.74% Feeling (F) 52.78% Thinking (T) 47.22% Perceiving (P) 60% Judging (J) 40%

Your type is: INFP

...

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April 30, 2004

Karma or God's Will

There's a difference between fighting the flow and choosing your path through it. Many people, when faced with the epiphany that much of the struggle and unhappiness in their life comes from fighting the flow, the Tao, the natural order, God's will, whatever they call it, respond by flipping 180 degrees and denying free will, believing this flow, this order is in control, and their job is simply to submit to it. This results inevitably in lots of magical thinking. God's-willers -- whether in Christian Fundamentalism, AA, Taoism, or whatever -- take the frequent remarkable coincidences in their daily lives as proof that "things happen for a reason" and that God is determining these little events in our lives based on some pre-planned roadmap. But a much simpler explanation is synchronicity -- seemingly predetermined events are actually the result...

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August 26, 2003

God is love

"Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love." [1 John 4:8 ] "... God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. " [1 John 4:16] Some talk about God being the source of all love. Some talk about God’s love for us, God's servants, God's creation. Others talk about God’s love being a perfect unconditional love that is distinct from the petty earthly love we express between each other. But there's another interpretation: take the statement at face value. You know love? Well, guess what, that’s God. It’s not something God does; it’s not separate from God; it is God. God is love. It's the other descriptions of God that are the metaphors, metaphors for the life force that strives for connection with others, that recognizes the...

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April 14, 2003

Everything is not science

In the 20th century the scientific method and worldview was forced onto every aspect of life with disastrous results. The belief that one can control something by gaining information about it is at the heart of much of this. The scientific method of observing controlled repeatable experiments and predicting future behavior from the results, while appropriate when dealing with consistent physical phenomena, can produce misleading and invalid results when applied to other things. (And of course, even with physical phenomena one's powers of observation are limited and are likely not revealing the full reality.) The most blatant examples are in pseudo-sciences such as psychology and economics. Of course, plenty of good work does get done in these disciplines, but by labeling them sciences rather than arts, we give them an aura of being tapped into some fundamental natural truth,...

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February 18, 2003

Empowerment and Truth

I have often struggled, in talking to people with more traditional political views, to explain how truth and empowerment work as the central organizing principles for my politics. Here's one attempt: In Scott Peck's The Road Less Traveled, the book that in many ways kicked off the self-help phenomenon (but from which that movement strayed very far), he says that when people "blame someone else – a spouse, a child, a friend, a parent, an employer – or something else – bad influences, the schools, the government, racism, sexism, society, the 'system' – for their problems, these problems persist. Nothing has been accomplished. By casting away their responsibility they may feel comfortable with themselves, but they have ceased to solve the problems of living, have ceased to grow spiritually, and have become dead weight for society. They have cast their...

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