Friday, April 20, 2018
Wednesday, June 7, 2017
I met President John F. Kennedy in 1962
Thursday, April 6, 2017
April 6, 2017
CATCH 22 - The Republican Senate instituted the "nuclear option" to cut off debate (filibuster) over Supreme Court candidate. My feeling is that is bad idea, but according to the ThoughtCo above, doing so is not unconstitutional, it is only a "rule," set up by the Senate itself. But somehow it seems like a "CATCH 22" - take a majority vote, to change a super-majority rule into simply majority rule.
......But it has a single precedent - cloture was done November 21, 2013 by the Democrats on the "important" issue of cabinet appointments.
... Akhil Reed Amar, in the progressive Slate Magazine warned, at that time that it was a dangerous precedent, saying, "Thursday’s vote to restore majority rule in the Senate is politically earth-shaking. The principle that a simple majority of truly determined Senators may properly modify filibuster rules on any day....has now been firmly established in actual Senate practice, and there is no going back. The nuclear-option genie is now out of the bottle.
......The filibuster-reform vote applies only to certain nominations—Supreme Court slots are not covered—but Friday (or any day thereafter) the Senate is free to sweep in the Supreme Court confirmation votes, or ordinary legislative votes, or anything else.
......When the Republicans next control the Senate—and of course one day, they will—they too will be free to insist on simple majority rule. What goes round, comes round." (Amar is author of The Constitution Today: Timeless Lessons for the Issues of Our Era)
.....I would argue that in the case of supreme court justices, it is really justifiably "important." They are appointed for life, not like cabinet members who at least are subject to ever-changing political will voting a succession of administrations.
....With the Supreme Court anchoring a co-equal branch of government in a dynamic tension of checks and balances, it would seem that maybe this is one situation that should be included with the other Constitutional Rules for Super-majorities, and not be created or invoked at the level of Senate rules.... We should try to anticipate scenarios and unintended consequences, but I think an amendment should be considered. There has been a lot of talking about confirmation, filibuster, closure, nuclear option. Here on ThoughtGo is excellent background explanation about what are the Constitutional rules and the Legislative Rules. https://www.thoughtco.com/the-supermajority-vote-in-us-gove… Well worth a read, as well as scrolling down for more background articles about our government past and present.
Thursday, March 2, 2017
Meaning of Oikos - House
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. - Nobel Peace Prize Lecture Dec. 11, 1964"We have inherited a big house, a great "world house"[oikoumene] in which we have to live together - black and white, Easterners and Westerners, Gentiles and Jews, Catholics and Protestants, Moslem and Hindu, a family unduly separated in ideas, culture, and interests who, because we can never again live without each other, must learn, somehow, in this one big world, to live with each other. This means that more and more our loyalties must become ecumenical [oikoumene] rather than sectional. We must now give an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in our individual societies. This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men." -
Another Greek word tells us how to participate in God's goal -- that is, to turn strangers into companions around the table of dialogue. Xenos means "stranger," as in xenophobia "fear of strangers (we see that as an overriding social/political pathology). Paradoxically, the Greek word for "hospitality" is xenia which means a "stranger turned into a guest."
While the word "ecumenical" has traditionally described the movement for unity within the Christian house, as against the words "interreligious" or "interfaith" meaning relationships to religions outside Christianity, I believe "ecumenical" can be correctly used to in relation to other faiths. As such it connotes, not a movement to co-opt into unity, but a recognition of the Holy Spirit working amid the whole household, amid other religions goal toward the telos/end of a world family reconciled in a just peace. Interfaithing is a imperative verb for this whole household. You can draw some ecumenical views from Ephesians 1:10; John 17:21; Acts 2; Acts 9:10f; Acts 15:12f; Luke 4:24f; Mark 7:24-36.
Another Greek word tells us how to participate in God's goal -- that is, to turn strangers into companions around the table of dialogue. Xenos means "stranger," as in xenophobia "fear of strangers (we see that as an overriding social/political pathology). Paradoxically, the Greek word for "hospitality" is xenia which means a "stranger turned into a guest."
While the word "ecumenical" has traditionally described the movement for unity within the Christian house, as against the words "interreligious" or "interfaith" meaning relationships to religions outside Christianity, I believe "ecumenical" can be correctly used to in relation to other faiths. As such it connotes, not a movement to co-opt into unity, but a recognition of the Holy Spirit working amid the whole household, amid other religions goal toward the telos/end of a world family reconciled in a just peace. Interfaithing is a imperative verb for this whole household. You can draw some ecumenical views from Ephesians 1:10; John 17:21; Acts 2; Acts 9:10f; Acts 15:12f; Luke 4:24f; Mark 7:24-36.
[ok Snopes it’s not about the Plague] yet yes: “Ashes, Ashes, we all fall down.”
A Dance, a Carnivalesque Mardi Gras Totentanz –“no-ing and yes-ing Joel.
Intensely aware that “zero” is a reality [awesome invention: the “0.”]
Dominants’ “Zero Tolerance” zeroing out the infinite variations of human circumstance.
Military/Industrial/Political/$/ “Zero Sum Game” – It’s “Them or Us” Binarism
Lifeboat Earth “Zero Sum” resources.
In now time like this Ash Wednesday:
I/we mortals are intensely aware
Our time and space are zero sum finite
Cannot be in two places at same time
Cannot be in two times in same place
OR – [the 40 day question] can we?
Can love imagine and acting an Enough for All beyond the zero sum realities?
Can we cling to Psalm 103 BUT/HOPE “God remembers that we are dust… BUT God’s love is everlasting.”
Now Lent’s post Ash Wednesday,
A Dance rehearsal toward Easter
Zorba: “When a man is full what can he do? I got up and I danced. They said: "Zorba is mad."
A man needs a little madness, or else he never dares cut the rope and be free.”
Me: “God, teach me to dance!"
Tuesday, January 17, 2017
January 15, 2017 Epiphany-Baptism of Jesus - Sermon "Identity" by Jenny Weber
Jenny R. Weber “Identity Theft” January 15, 2017
Identity theft. Fortunately I haven’t had to deal with this and I hope you haven’t either.
But it is a scary possibility isn’t it?
The idea that someone would take your name, social security number, address,
credit card accounts and begin posing as you on the internet and other places
is unsettling to say the least.
To think that someone not at all like you in their morals and character is pretending to be you
is disturbing and can make life chaotic.
The technology that we so value and can’t imagine living without,
has also caused problems we never imagined.
Hacking that leads to security breaches and lack of privacy can be devastating.
When I did an internet search for “identity theft,” of the 69 million hits,
one of the top articles is about identity theft recovery.
It’s a traumatic experience to have your name taken from you
and can cause problems for months or even years.
In the world, we are identified by our name and often by a number—
social security or driver’s license.
We have identification cards to prove who we are.
And it is hard to function without these particular identities.
But for those of us gathered in this place, the church,
we have another identity—beloved child of God.
As Christians, we have been called from the very beginning, Beloved.
This is our most important identity.
And fortunately, it isn’t one that can be stolen.
No one can take that identity from us.
One greater than us, the indescribable and mysterious God who brought the world into being,
our Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer, has a claim on us.
This is our identity from the time we are born.
This is our identity made clear in our baptism.
Our God has named us.
But we live in a world that is constantly trying to tell us that this identity is false.
We live in a world that wants to strip us of this identity.
Our challenge as people of faith is to hold on it.
Our challenge is to never forget that we are called Beloved.
This is difficult in a world that is constantly trying to make us something else.
The media—TV, movies, web-sites, bill boards—they all place images before us.
Images of success, wealth, and happiness are linked with products and experiences for sale.
And so we buy these things in hopes of becoming the happy person we see
in the images of the world.
But it’s not just consumer goods and the marketplace that give us messages
about who we should be.
The systems of which we are a part do it, too.
We are taught in our families of origin what proper behavior is
and what a family should look like.
Sometimes we learn dysfunctional ways of behaving or learn that the way to get love
is to do something really well.
Our schools grade us on our performance and those grades are based on standards
that are supposed to fit all of us.
But in reality, we are all different and learn in a variety of ways and
how in the world can these grading systems really evaluate
how we are going to do as a person in the world?
Even the church can instill behaviors or attitudes
that are not really about being who Jesus taught us to be.
As society has advanced, it seems to have pushed all of us, who are unique individuals,
into molds with particular assumptions and expectations.
And when we don’t meet those expectations then we disappoint someone or
are considered a failure in the eyes of someone or some larger entity.
That was never the goal.
There wasn’t a committee who deliberately said, “Let’s make everyone alike.”
But many of us find ourselves flailing in the world as adults because we felt pushed into
doing particular things that in retrospect, really weren’t appropriate for us
or what we wanted.
Was college really where you belonged?
Was the college you attended your choice or someone else’s?
Was that the major you really wanted?
As adults then, whose true identity has often been somewhat hi-jacked,
we have to re-discover who we are.
In psychological terms, this is one’s true self rather than the false one.
In Christian terms I would say this is remembering that we are called Beloved.
Jesus is baptized at the beginning of his public ministry.
The moment when John baptized Jesus with water and God’s voice spoke from heaven
was the beginning of something new.
Baptism was what solidified who Jesus was and grounded him for all that lay ahead.
God wanted Jesus to know that the most important part of who he was,
was that he was loved by God.
His very being was all about being loved and being adored by his father.
God didn’t give Jesus a plan or a list of objectives.
God simply said, “You are my beloved.”
That was the most important piece to understand as Jesus set his course.
We, too, need to be grounded in who we are.
For most of us who were baptized as infants,
we do not remember the waters of baptism or the words spoken.
But when we know we have been baptized and
when a faith community has invested themselves in us
and our spiritual formation and nurture, then, from the very beginning,
we have some sense that we are loved unconditionally and that our identity
is found in God our Creator.
If we cannot claim the identity as one of God’s Beloved children,
it can be incredibly difficult to go forth in our journey of life and faith
and be confident in who we are.
Yesterday I attended an event hosted by our Annual Conference’s
Reconciling Ministry Task Force called “Winter Warming.”
Reconciling congregations are those United Methodist faith communities
who have stated that they are open and affirming of GLBTQ folks.
This event is an opportunity to be with like-minded folks and
to get resources for work in this area of justice ministry.
I went primarily to hear Bishop Karen Oliveto, the first out lesbian bishop
in the United Methodist Church preach during worship.
Karen was my pastor when I was a young adult missionary in San Francisco
and it was a joy to reconnect with her.
Her sermon was wonderful.
She reminded everyone in the room that God’s love is all-inclusive.
But before Bishop Oliveto spoke, there was a lay witness by a woman named Suzanne.
Suzanne is a teacher in the northwest suburbs and a member
of First UMC of Arlington Heights.
She is a lesbian and is the advisor for the LGBTQ student group at her school.
She talked about how so many students who are coming out,
don’t have any idea that there are churches who would welcome them fully
for who they are.
The experiences they have had or have heard about, give them a negative impression
about Christianity.
Suzanne is able to witness in this setting by sharing about her own faith experience
and her congregation, that is a fully inclusive and welcoming congregation.
She can share with these students that who they are is who God created them to be.
She can encourage them to claim their identity and not allow society
or the dominant culture to take that away from them or cause them to hide it
or to be ashamed.
She can offer them a safe space and that unconditional love which God has for us.
Suzanne can help these youth hold on to their identity.
Claiming our identity and living out God’s call for us can be risky.
There will be people who don’t like us.
We may disagree with our family and friends.
This shouldn’t be a surprise.
Jesus warned his disciples of this as he talked about families being divided
and having to take up one’s cross in order to follow him.
The road of Christian faith and life will not always be easy.
On this Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday weekend,
we are provided with a great example of someone who lived out his identity
but with great risk.
He lost his life for living his identity as a justice seeker.
King spoke about the “Beloved Community,” a term coined by Josiah Royce,
founder of The Fellowship of Reconciliation, but popularized by King.
This “Beloved Community”
is a global vision, in which all people can share in the wealth of the earth. In the Beloved Community, poverty, hunger and homelessness will not be tolerated because international standards of human decency will not allow it. Racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood. In the Beloved Community, international disputes will be resolved by peaceful conflict-resolution and reconciliation of adversaries, instead of military power. Love and trust will triumph over fear and hatred. Peace with justice will prevail over war and military conflict.[1]
The Beloved Community, composed of God’s beloved children,
is one of peace and justice.
As we follow Jesus and live as a covenant people,
we live into the prophet Isaiah’s call to be a light to the nations.
As we embrace ourselves as beloved, the possibility of the Beloved Community
being realized increases.
As we resist the attempts of the world at “identity theft,”
we become stronger witnesses of what it means to be beloved
and to the vision of Beloved Community.
When we see all people as beloved, then any act of violence or hate is at odds
with who and whose we are.
When we see all people as beloved, we are patient and kind to those with whom we disagree.
Rather than lash out, we continue to model what it means to live
as a beloved child of God and to keep that vision of Beloved Community
at the forefront.
Yes, this can be very difficult work.
It is a challenge to love our enemies and to stay strong in the midst of disagreements.
But receiving God’s unconditional love and accepting the person God created us to be,
is the gift bestowed upon us at our baptism.
Living out of this love and sharing it with the world is our call.
Jesus said, when asked what the greatest commandment was,
that all of the Law was summed up in this way:
to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength,
and to love your neighbor as yourself.
We are beloved and we are called to love one another.
As King reminds us, this is not eros love or filial love.
It’s not romantic love or love between friends.
The love we experience and enact as God’s beloved is agape love.
It is God’s unending, unconditional and constant love for all of creation.
Agape is the love Paul describes in I Corinthians 13—
love that is patient and kind, not jealous or boastful or rude.
This love is the love expressed by Jesus for us as he suffered and died.
The love of God is so strong, in fact, that it conquers death.
Jesus’ death on the cross was not the end.
Life and love conquered death through the resurrection.
This is the love that formed us.
This is the love that claims us and live in us.
As we remember our baptism, we remember our true identity as Beloved children of God.
No one can take this from us. No one.
This is the Good News of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Monday, December 26, 2016
Published on Dec 26, 2016
Cindy (Hiestand) Krebaum's 2016 Christmas Dinner featured Michael Kleinerman playing her grandfather Donald Innis violin.
In this video, her Mother, Nancy Innis Hiestand tells of how her father learned to play the violine and went on to playing in silent movies, Chautauqua, and a slow boat to China.
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light
Next year all our troubles will be out of sight
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Make the yuletide gay
Next year all our troubles will be miles away
Let your heart be light
Next year all our troubles will be out of sight
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Make the yuletide gay
Next year all our troubles will be miles away
Once again as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Will be near to us once more
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Will be near to us once more
Someday soon we all will be together
If the fates allow
Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now
If the fates allow
Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now
Saturday, May 14, 2016
At the Day in the Village of Oak Park in 1985, when I was pastor at River Forest United Methodist Church, our United Methodist United Cluster of Oak Park and River Forest Churches had bell ringing and a young adult street theater. This video mainly shows the bell ringing by First United Methodist Church and Euclid Churches, and part of the Young Adult Focus Group Street Theater. I'm the guy in the red tea shirt with the loud speaker, and I see there daughter Amy, and son John with Claudia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OVpatzW7O8
This morning I heard a good sermon - and since have pondered thoughts about the messiness of
shepherds, stables but divinity shines within - and also the
paradox that John August Swanson pictured as beautifull but paradox expressing the messy events through which simultaneously let grace get
through.
What crossed my mind was how I've seen xrays of the picture painted on the underlying layer beneath the overlying masterpiece, and the computer generated living face on top of a skeleton's skull. Can these bones live?
All of which got me thinking about underlying a picture of dirty shepherds, or stable, or baby refugees as would now be in Syria. I experimented with the Swanson drawings and some photos off the internet. I was shook up with thought which came during church - of seeing the divinity in the faces we have seen so much in the Aleppo news.
In this process of experimenting these few hours, I almost stopped because the photos were so painful, so sad, so un-nerving. But here it is.
What crossed my mind was how I've seen xrays of the picture painted on the underlying layer beneath the overlying masterpiece, and the computer generated living face on top of a skeleton's skull. Can these bones live?
All of which got me thinking about underlying a picture of dirty shepherds, or stable, or baby refugees as would now be in Syria. I experimented with the Swanson drawings and some photos off the internet. I was shook up with thought which came during church - of seeing the divinity in the faces we have seen so much in the Aleppo news.
In this process of experimenting these few hours, I almost stopped because the photos were so painful, so sad, so un-nerving. But here it is.
Thursday, December 17, 2015
Thoughts on "same god" - interreligious
REFLECTIONS ON "SAME" GOD
Thoughts generated by a challenge to this resolution
To Encourage Words as Bridges, not Walls
Resolution of Northern Illinois Conference United
Methodist Church
June 2006
Whereas, words can be thoughtless, engendering
alienation; or compassionate encouraging reconciliation.
Whereas, civil discourse and problem solving has been
swamped by intolerant speech, or inflammatory metaphors of "clash, war,
crusade, jihad," and parochial narratives of events.
Whereas, since 9/11 a climate of anxiety about world
events and relations between religions has promoted a fight or flight mentality
- circling the wagons against "them."
Whereas, even Robert Frost's poem "Mending
Wall" gets misread as if it advocates that "good walls make good
neighbors," instead of its real message that "Something there is that
doesn't love a wall."
Whereas, bridges are anchored in the identity of each
bank, but recognize the common purpose of common good and truth in crossing the
separation.
Whereas, we discover, in the crossing, that the same
God is worshipped on both sides of the bridge.
Therefore, be it resolved
That Northern Illinois Conference Churches will be
conscious of the overt and covert messages in their communities; constantly
challenging alienating words, and moreover speaking the healing words.
Be it further resolved
That Northern Illinois Conference churches are
encouraged to use the resources of bridge-building dialogue provided by the
General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns such as
Building New Bridges in Hope (on Christian Jewish relations) and Our Muslim
Neighbors available on the NIC-CCUIC web site
http://www.gbgm-umc.org/interrelig/
Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious
Concerns
Catiana McKay - chairperson June 10, 2006
SAME
How do I respond to a challenge to the above
resolution: "No we do not worship the same God?"
First off, this final "whereas" is the
central premise in the resolution. Some have suggested, pragmatically to get
the "be it resolved" why not compromise on this? Or one could imagine
a motion to refer it back to the Commission on Christian Unity and
Interreligious Concerns for a more winnable wording. I contend that the issue
raised here is so central that if there is any referral, the prophetic thing
would be to refer it to the churches where the people need a solid encounter
with the issues of Biblical interpretation, and the work of the Holy Spirit,
viz. a viz. the diverse religions with whom we are global and local neighbors.
Next, let me say I too struggle with reservations
about applying the word "same" to the God concept and religious
practice that seems unlike the God that was incarnate in Jesus Christ., and the
ideal of discipleship God calls us to in the mission of reconciliation and
peace.
A god of jihad or crusade is equally an affront to a
God of mercy, and a command to love one's enemies. A Joshua obeying an herem
against a city and destroying everyone does not fit with "I tell you, love
your enemies," nor do Muslim suicide bombers fit with the Qur'an statement
that killing an innocent is the same as killing the world. When one thinks of
Old Testament stories of God stopping the sun so more enemies could be killed
by Joshua, it is no wonder that the heretic Marcion (144 C.E..) said get rid of
the Old Testament – it is not the "same" God. But that was declared a
heresy. http://www.christianorigins.com/marcion.html. The picture of Jephthah
(Judges 11) killing his daughter because of a vow to YHWH to kill the first
person through the door trumped his love of his daughter is just too similar to
the status of women doing sati, or subject to "honor" killings.
And maybe it is a heresy too, when within the United Methodist
Church, there is a spirit of schism in 2006, that violates koinonia, because
contentious caucuses left and right say, "I can’t believe THEY belong to
the SAME church.
But while I commiserate with those disturbed by giving
credence and honor to a "same" God that violates the higher values of
what God should be like, it seems to me that now is the time for those who
believe in one God to help one another claim the highest values of faith in
each other’s religion. By saying "same" we declare as monotheists
that the Spirit of God that we know in Christ, has been experienced in some way
among people all across the earth.
The view that religions channel a basic human response
to the One God, that calls upon the higher moral values, is a faith and hope of
many people, including the President of the United States. George Bush, Nov.
20, 2003, when questioned whether the Muslims worship the same Almighty, said
"I believe we worship the same God." This is an important statement
to enhance the position of those who do not want their religion hijacked to be
a weapon of separation and hatred.
There is one philosophical stumbling block to using
the word "same," which may also behind the reluctance of some to use
it describing God. The philosopher Heraclitus would be the extreme, saying
"all is in flux, you can never step into the SAME stream twice. On that
slippery slope common sense language disappears along with the word
"is" and "same" because the river of experience has moved
on. One person’s "Experience" (part of Wesley’s quadrilateral) of God
would always be different from any other person’s experience. So there seems to
be a human agreement that language is metaphorical. We agree to the fact that a
metaphor is always limited, in the sense that while parts of a metaphor apply
to likeness, other parts push the envelope too much. So there is always a like
and an unlike to a metaphor. We agree that we can even use the word
"same" knowing its inherent limitation within any radical
empiricism.. But we agree that we can talk about, and discern within community
the nuances, connotations, differentia, essential parts, of the experiences
that are on both sides of the metaphor.
This is why the resolution above has whereases that
are blatantly metaphors. The step of saying, "same," and to resolve
to use language carefully and sensitively, grows out of the image of a bridge
anchored on two banks which represent the experiential world, including
perceived revelation. It is in the process of going over the bridge, experiencing
each others banks of experience, that one finds not only the "unlike"
but the "likeness;" one finds that the One God Holy Spirit was on the
banks, and on the bridge itself.
The bridge crossing must be done time and time again
and on many bridges, because neither bank (the various religions and movements
and sects within them) is monolithic nor unchangeable. The choice to cross is
not an easy task either. While applying math logic of objects to God may seem
easy (i.e. things = to the same thing are = to each other, therefore GOD = YHWH
= ALLAH = SAME), emotionally it means trusting analogical imagination.
Trust is not easy in the midst of varied views and
hermeneutical traditions in relation to our holy books. For United Methodists
saying the "same" means taking a risk to be ahead of the curve of
cultural history. Such a stance amid the bridge-crossing will open up important
dialogue concerning how God / Spirit has moved/is moving in the world, and how
we unpack that movement in scripture, experience, tradition and reason. Like
Pentecost, we are called into God’s mission to risk saying "same" as
a proleptic word for all to hear in their own language.
Ed Hiestand
In 2004 Christian Century had a series on "Do
Christians and Muslims worship the same God?
Edgar Hiestand
GRAY MATTER
Presented to
Belles Lettres Society of River Forest
By Edgar Hiestand December 3, 2001
THE ABSTRACT
What is happening in the brain at that threshold, or tip
point, when a young child moves between venturesomeness and the anxiety cry of
separation; when Tevye finally says, "I can't bend that far" in
breaking tradition without breaking himself; or when a pluralist society
swings toward its unum after attack?
This is a paper, combining science and philosophy, on the
relationship of Body (brain, world) and Mind. Gray Matter refers to both the
cells of the Brain and the ambiguity of life that the brain seeks to
modulate. The ambiguity of life is in
part because of the nature of the brain itself.
How do we handle dichotomies of reason and emotion, self and other,
centering or crossing frontiers, tip points of fear and trust,
fight/flight/embrace?
This paper was planned for a year. but little did I know
that September 1,2001 would be the context for its presentation. In the years
since presenting this paper, I have been struck often by the realization that
we live in a time fraught with suspicion and distrust of the Other. Such a culture of fear of the xenos --
the stranger, in civil, religious, and international relationships has created
a context for violence against the other. In all of this, the mental evolution
of my twin granddaughters is a paradigm for hope that the mental state of all
people in human culture can evolve toward trust and embrace.
GRAY MATTER
Presented to
Belles Lettres Society of River Forest
By Edgar Hiestand December 3, 2001
(20 Minutes)
I have twin grandchildren, Alison and Ashley. Nancy and I see them often. Generally they are trusting and gregarious. Last May, at
one year old, as I held one; she smiled in at
my face; then a dark cloud came over her face, her smile was gone, it was a
slow movement of her muscles in response to some sort of non-recognition - I
was not mommy or daddy. Then arose the cry of separation.[i] [TEVYE]
The title of my talk tonight is "Gray Matter" —in
two senses —1. the gray colored cells of the brain, and 2. The various issues
we think about that are ambiguous — neither black nor white but gray. This
paper will be about the relation of these two gray matters. A philosopher would
say it is "the Mind/Body relationship"; a scientist would say
"the Mind/Brain relationship". How
does our brain interact with ambiguity? What is happening when we feel
competing impulses? James Ashbrook, my
Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary professor, got me interested in this
subject. In The Humanizing Brain
he wrote that the brain combines order and predictability on the one hand with
flexibility and experimentation on the other. It is both centering and outward
seeking."[ii]
http://www.dhushara.com/book/brainp/brainil/brain.jpg
A surgical papyrus
3700 years ago contains the first recorded use of the word "brain."
Let's look at this 3 Lb. mass of soft tissue. [Figure 1 - Show Model][iii] White cells, as in the corpus collosum, do
connecting things like linking right and left brain hemispheres. Gray cells are
mainly in the new brain, and the gray matter layer
is only 3-4 mm thick. Synapses connections are made between neurons in the
brain when electrochemical impulses shoot between the dendrites. This
hardwiring of the brain manages everything from bodily functions, to emotions,
to things like music, language, and sight. The Mind then, is not just in the
gray matter but in spaces for fluid, the chemicals, the glands, the organs,
immune system.[iv]
We begin life with billions of gray cells. A Tribune Nov. 25 article said that though we lose a
million cells a day, the mind's decline is no longer a given, because of
neurogenesis, the creation of cells.[v]
Old dogs can learn new tricks and build
new neuron pathways. The article wisely advised getting sleep, and exercise and
avoiding stress
The human brain has about 100 billion neurons. There are 1
quadrillion synapses in the human brain.
That's a half-billion synapses per cubic millimeter[vi]
The weight of the human brain triples during the first year of life, going from
300 grams to 900 grams.
The brain, like a computer
is hardwired. The brain structure is a given for any individual. To illustrate:
You've probably heard about right and left brain people. Now, everyone fold
your hands together. Where is your right thumb—on top or bottom? Now fold them
so it is the other way. How does it feel? We are inclined, hard wired one way
or the other. Professor Ashbrook suggested
facetiously that some cultural fights are similar to "fighting about the 'Right' way to fold
one's hands.[vii]
Are you an analytical wordy person?- you are left brain; Are
you more intuitive and artistic? -you are right brain. Maybe you have taken the
Meyers-Briggs type tests (invented in the 1950s as a parlor game by
mother/daughter Katharine Briggs and Isabel Myers)
|
E
|
Extrovert
|
I
|
Introvert
|
|
S
|
Sensing present
|
I
|
Intuitive future
|
|
T
|
Thinking logic
|
F
|
Feeling values
|
|
J
|
Judging planners
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P
|
Perceiving flexible
|
I'm approaching this paper as an amateur -1 defer to medical
people here. Maybe I should say that I approach Mind/Brain
with metaphors, as is obvious in Maps of the Mind, (SHOW j drawings) by Charles
Hampden-Tumer. Before we had MRIs it was philosophers and theologians who tried
to figure out how what is "out there" - got into "in
here"= ie. Mind. They spoke metaphorically, as implied in Nancy's
"art of memory" paper last time.
For Julian Jaynes author of Origin of Consciousness in
the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind "consciousness is a metaphor—a
relationship between two unlike experiences joined by likenesses[viii].
Two persons looking at metaphors
will see different things, (in the words of a President, "it depends on
what is 'IS'") Therefore, our
metaphors, like our brains and like reality, are going to betray in the sense
of ambiguity. We have "wars of metaphors."
Mind talk is metaphorical because it posits correspondence
between levels of mental function with three historical stages of the brain's
evolution - reptilian, mammalian, new brain (or cortex). The tripartite
brain was the analysis of Paul D. MacLean, head of the Laboratory for Brain
Evolution and Behavior at the National Institutes for Mental Health [Figure
2]. [MAKE FIST][ix]
The oldest is the reptilian
brain which is the brain stem, and evolved more than 500 million years ago.
The mammalian brain with the limbic system developed in the center of
the brain, on top of the reptilian brain stem some 200 to 300 million years
ago. The third and latest part of the brain to develop, about 50 million years
ago, is the cerebral cortex, or new brain.
MacClean says there is a basic schizophrenia between the
older and newer brains. We have a chronic disassociation in our brains between
the emotion in the older mammalian limbic area and reason in the cortex- The struggle between reason and emotion is historically long (cf. the battle of the centaurs and
humans on the Parthenon frieze), but also internal to each person's struggle
with conflicting modes of thought.
A "lethal design error"[x] (MacClean) may be that we have few vertical
neuron pathways between cortex and mammalian limbic to reconcile emotion and
reason. That causes us to be at war within ourselves—centaur and human,
cultures, political blocks, enlightenment and
superstition. We are divided. --Think of all the "dis" words in our
language (from Greek DI -separation into "two") which hint about the
feelings of discontinuity of the human condition
post-Sept. 11: disorient, dismember, distraught, distrust, discombobulate
and "Don't Dis us![xi] These words of cognitive
dissonance fit other world issues, from weapons of mass destruction to ecology.
Everywhere emotions (good or ill) and logic (good or ill)
confront each other, In spite of this, the author of Maps of the Mind, leans to a hope
that the hardwiring of brain is only a tendency, not a sentence by destiny.[xii] REPEAT
To quote from Maps of the Mind about this three part
brain. "The older two are involved in the
ancestral lore of the species. They contrast with the third part, the new
mammalian brain, which is "adept at learning new ways to cope and
adapt."[xiii]
Though the reptilian brain is the oldest, humans still
spatially orient as individuals and nations, as Robert Audrey described in The
Territorial Imperative.[xiv] He asserts all animals have to establish a
space that serves basically two needs: center and boundary. The center is the
place of family, nourishing, rest, etc. while the boundary is the limiting edge of
that space,
The next brain to
evolve was the Mammalian Brain [Figure 3].
Central to the Mammalian Brain is the limbic lobe. "Limbic" is Latin for a "border."
The limbic system decides |if it is necessary to attack,
flight or mate, for survival. It allows the animal to distinguish
between the agreeable and the disagreeable, it induces the females to nurse and
protect their toddlers. The limbic system is
the center of the emotional "self-ish" brain, which is primarily
responsible for the integrity and centering of the body.[xv]
The third and last part of the brain to develop is the cerebral cortex. It is our "thinking cap."
This thin folded layer is where decisions are made, models
of the external and internal worlds are formed, memories are accessed, language
is produced, and sight and sound are appreciated.
Now I want to use the experience of my grandchild's
cry of separation as a parable for dealing with the gray of ambiguity in
crossing boundaries. She had the inborn fear of abandonment. The familiar was
absent—representing hundreds of hours of parent/child
bonding and mutual physical bodies that symbiotically gurgle, eat, and move
together. I was the "stranger," the xenos (xenos) of
xenophobia, the alien, the Other. (Incidentally, it is significant that the Greek word for hospitality is xenia
(also from xenos, but implying that the Other has been welcomed as a
guest.)
After birth, three cerebral layers appeared, one after the
other during the development of her embryo and fetus. Ontology replicates philogeny in the
development--first comes the reptilian brain, then old mammalian, then the new
brain. Her infant's cry was an
innate mammalian emotion, a universal human survival behavior which
appeared simultaneously with the onset of strong material behavior.[xvi] Infants naturally suck, get close, and
bond. They mesh with the parent,
synchronize action, face to face with parent.
Complementary to her memory attachment to her mother's face, is her fear
of strangers, peaking at 8 months with separation anxiety, and the separation
cry.
But IMPORTANT, then, from the secure base of her mother, she
begins to explore. Finally, she tests
the newcomer to see if he fits some safe scheme -- namely that mommy hugs
grandma and grandpa every time they come.
In a while learning and memory will differentiate the face of
grandpa. Yes, grandpa is
"Other," but it will be safe to venture out appropriately beyond the
closest boundaries of identity. A
paradigm for crossing boundaries is established.
Let's look inside the brain at what is happening in these
opposite tendencies -- the cry of separation and reaching out. Through experiences, default memories are
established. At worst they are memories
of some fearful trauma, at best they are memories that trust is rewarded. Go back to the limbic area of the Mammalian
brain. Here are the two hippocampi
- (seahorse shaped) areas of the cortex.
The hippocampus converts information from short term to long-term
cortex-memory. It takes in new
information, and checks it out for remembered previous dangers.[xvii] Subconsciously then she checks out the plots
from the three brains (instinctual, emotional, meaningful) from stories of
previous defeats, or survivals, allowing her to weigh the relative risks.[xviii]
There is a tendency within our brain that pushes us
outward. Exploration is evolutionary. The animal that pushes beyond the
limit of the reptilian territory may find food. The rat frantically searching
the maze to find Who moved my cheese? is being creative. The baby
searching for the suckling spot is rewarded with food.
The venturesome hero may find a specially winsome fertile maiden in the next
country, even though part of his brain is saying watch out for the strangers
and monsters over there. The Promethean venture is risky, but it does get fire
and Prometheus' sister-in-law, Pandora, hangs
on to Hope.
Creativity is a form of stretching — the hippocampus
stretches a remembered metaphor "is like" to some other "is
like" metaphor It mediates the dissonances that make up life. Like a third
eye it jumps unrelated experiences together, links opposites, tries out links between the old metaphors with new
ones— creatively[xix]. It orders and prioritizes raw experience
polarities such as[xx]
|
Pain
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Pleasure
|
|
Tension
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Relaxation
|
|
Fight
|
Flight
|
However when cognitive dissonance overwhelms the
hippocampus, its mediating crashes. I'd call that threshold a "tip
point." Anxiety takes over. Our reaction is to get hyper or chill out.
The solution to overwhelming anxiety at the border is not
just cortex rule over the lower brain -ala the Parthenon friezes of the
mythic battle between humans victorious over centaurs. We need to engage the best of the limbic with
the best of the neocortex (both right
with its leaps of imagination and intuition,
and left with its analysis and ordering). We can breathe deep and
believe our center will hold.
As an evolutionary survivor I can intentionally move the tip
point toward the presence of the Other. I can go from my kin, to my clan, to
tribe, to nation, to humanity.
It is a viewpoint like Robert Frost in Mending Wall,
reflecting on his neighbor who thinks that good fences make good neighbors.[xxi]
Before I built a wall I'd like
to know
What I was walling in or
walling out,
Frost implies that his neighbor is
at a previous evolutionary stage, with a stone
In each hand, like an
old-stone savage armed
He moves in darkness as it
seems to me --
Miroslav Volf, warns in Exclusion & Embrace that
such idealism comes only at a high price. He is a Croatian who
approaches identity, otherness and reconciliation with memories of violence
that are impossible to forget. For him, getting beyond the tip point abyss is
to remember but to risk an embrace.[xxii] His four necessary elements for an embrace
are: Opening the arms, waiting, closing the arms, and opening them again (so as
not to make a new in-group We vs. Them).[xxiii]
This border of WE/They is a gray matter—we feel ambiguous-
If we are confident, centered, have a cortex worldview that is pretty sure of
the trustworthiness of the world, then we will cross the thresholds. If we are
anxious, we will hold back. Which will it be?
Inherited tip points are social constructs abetting and
being abetted by fear. Cultures have used fear memories for solidarity:
"Remember the Maine", the fall of Constantinople, Little Big Horn or
Wounded Knee,—you'll easily extend the list. The kindred in-group
defined those thresholds. Listen to Rogers and Hammerstein lyrics from South
Pacific:[xxiv]
You've got to be taught to hate
and fear.
You've got to be taught from
year to year.
before you are six or seven or
eight,
to hate all the people your
relative hate,
You've got to be carefully
taught!
and that is when the limbic
kicks in - stranger danger.
BUT The contrary is also true, you can be taught to use
the limbic's caring aspect for embracing the other. Move that threshold out
to be curious, venturesome, the hero journey. And we've seen heroes lately,
moving contrary to physical self-survival. We've seen boundary walkers and
bridge builders.
Is survival at any cost hard-wired? Orwell in 1984
said Big Brother placed his bets on our being infinitely malleable by fear
I ask, "is our brain malleable by our intentions, by
who we have decided to be?" Often our choices are based on our default
assumptions -- the habitual construct we have put on reality. BUT, it is
possible that ultimately survival and a really Brave New World depends on a
conscious choice to use our whole brain to counter chemical destiny; to use our default
memory of trust. Currently the data and
the answer is ambiguous and gray. . . .but my
granddaughter does always smile at me now. In that there is hope--Not just
clinging to Pandora's remnant, but... Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soule. And sings the tune without the words. And never
stops at all, (by Emily Dickenson). [xxv]
Appendix
Emily Dickenson
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soule.
And sings the tune without the words.
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the dullest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
Mending Wall by Robert Frost
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out.
And to whom I was like to give offence,
Something there is that doesn't love a wall.
That wants it down.' I could say "Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."
[i]
Tevye, in Fiddler on the Roof, could have been the seminal illustration of
separation and approach, when we are privy to his emotional thoughts at his
Jewish daughter marrying a Christian: "Accept them--How can I accept them?
Can I deny everything I believe in? On the other hand. . . can I deny my own
daughter? On the other hand, how can I turn my back on my faith, my people? If
I try and bend, that far, I'll break! On the other hand. . . No!--there is no
'other hand.'"
[iv]
Chicago Tribune Nov. 25, 2001 Perspective: Brain: Research suggests new powers
p. 10 .Statistic from Changeux, J-P. and Ricoeur, P., "What Makes Us
Think?", Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000, p. 78.)
[v]
Chicago Tribune Nov. 25, 2001 Perspective: Brain: Research suggests new powers
p. 10 .
[vi] Statistic from Changeux, J-P. and
Ricoeur, P., "What Makes Us Think?", Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2000, p. 78.)
[vii]
The Brain a& Belief by James B.Ashbrook p. 103
[viii]
Maps of the Mind p. 90 quote from Julian Jaynes [Origin of Consciousness in the
Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind)
[x]
Maps of the Mind p. 82
[xi]
Bruggeman Message of the Psalms cover: disorientation, discombobulate,
discomfit, discommode, disturb, disconcert, disequilibrium, disconnect,
dismantle, discontinuity, discord, discourage, disease, disestablish, disgrace,
disjoint, disjunction, dislocate, dismantle, dismember, disorder, displace,
disquiet, disinterest, distemporaneous, dispassion, disrupt, disturb, distance,
dissonant, dissolve, dissolution, disassociate, de construct, di-vide
[xii]
Maps of the Mind p. 83
[xiii]
Maps of the Mind p. 80
[xiv]
James B, Ashbrook The Humanizaing Brain: Where Religion and Neuroscience Meet
p. 60
[xvi]
National Geographic June 1995 "Quiet Miracles of the Brain p. 10
[xvii]
Internet html main areas involved with emotions
[xviii]
Ashbrook, The Brain & Belief pp. 169-192
[xix]
Chicago Tribune Nov. 25, 2001 Perspective: Brain: Research suggests new powers
p. 10
[xx]
Maps of the Mind p. 85
[xxii]
Miroslav Volf.Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of
Identity. Otherness, and Reconciliation, p.252-253
[xxiii]
Miroslav Volf.Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of
Identity. Otherness, and Reconciliation, p. 141
[xxiv] Rogers and Hammerstein lyrics from
"South Pacific:" You've got to be taught to hate and fear. You've got
to be taught from year to year. It's got to be drummed in your dear little ear.
You've got to be carefully taught! You've got to be taught to be afraid of people
whose eyes are oddly made, and people whose skin is a different shade, You've
got to be carefully taught! You've got to be taught before it's too late,
before you are six or seven or eight, to hate all the people your relatives
hate, You've got to be carefully taught!
[xxv]
Hope is a Thing with Fethers, Emily Dickenson
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