Stripper stories...

Strippers make me uncomfortable. It's a lot more difficult to fantasize when flesh and blood is before your eyes. When sex objects are visible through the cold, impersonal interface of television, magazines or the computer, it's easy to pretend. They aren't real. But when they are in front of you, flesh and blood, with families, daugthers and siblings of someone, with feelings and a family and dreams and desires, the impersonalization and compartmentalization of the same becomes much more difficult.

I do have stripper stories but, like most things I've done, the stories have a different perspective. Why do I bring this up? Who cares? Let's just say someone close to me was found to be stripping. Maybe not naked stripping but leaving little enough to the imagination that it may as well have been. Don't know that money was exchanged so technically perhaps it wasn't really stripping. What is the distinction between a lingerie party at a club and stripping at a club? Anyone?

Anyhow, it conjured up a few stripper stories. Life is, after all, the stories we can tell isn't it?

The first time I ever saw a woman strip live before my eyes was as a freshman at the University of Cincinnati. Not sure how I hooked up with the guys I hooked up with but we road tripped to Dayton to see the Beastie Boys in concert on their Licensed to Ill tour with Fishbone and Murphy's Law. We stopped at a seedy little adult book/video store before the show. The booths where you continually pop in a quarter to keep the video going frazzled me after about one dollar so I wandered back to the "live" show.

It took me a minute or so to figure out that you had to keep putting money in for the blind to go up to see the girl dancing. It was a strange experience. I felt sad for her. She was not very attractive and looked bored, beaten down even. I learned quickly that if you put more money in she would come right up to your little window and show you, well, everything...in up close detail. I wasn't quite ready for that and was quite suprised to see, right in front of me, behind the veil of the window, an explicit presentation in female anatomy. It left me feeling even more sad.

The next time I was in the presence of strippers was visiting a friend in Lexington, Kentucky and we ventured off to a "gentleman's club". What the hell is that anyhow? All I remembe was that it was dark in the club with the stage the dominant feature in the club. I vaguely remember the girls (isn't that always the case?) but do remember watching one girl in particular. She came over to our table after dancing. I was the one who ended up talking to her.

She proceeded to tell me about being in nursing school with two children she was raising and she was stripping for the money. Maybe it was just a story I don't know but I believed her. We talked for a brief period of time and she seemed like a really nice girl. When she got ready to go back up on stage she told me she would do a special dance for me. It's quite possible, maybe even likely, that talking to customers is part of the gig as a way of making more money. I didn't know any of that but could now no longer watch her because I knew her as a person.

In the later years of college, one of my roommates had a girlfriend who stripped. He asked a group of us to come up and watch her dance. I told him that was weird but we went anyhow. This time I was a bit closer to the action and, though not a fully nude strip club, was rather disturbed by strange men putting money in what little clothing she had on. Intriguing as this was, I still couldn't watch her dance.

My final reminisce was a strip club in The Flats in Cleveland, Ohio where a group of us were participating in a bachelor party. We were in a club, a large stage in the center and a group of men standing around, cheering, yelling, throwing money on the stage with an MC egging the crowd on. As I get closer I noticed two fully naked women writhing around on the stage, oiled up, wrestling. It was almost surreal. Someone threw some suckers on the floor and within a few moments both of these suckers were put to their intended purpose, each woman inserting the sucker into a place I never imagined a sucker being inserted and, upon removal, licking the suckers.

The guys in the room went crazy. Watching on film is one thing. Somehow it is pretend, distant, fantastic, relatively easy to turn off. Here it was live in my face and rather than being turned on I was horrified. There was no distance. To hear the MC begging for more money to be thrown on stage, for the women to be wiggling around on stage like that in front of a bunch of strange, and rather barbaric, men was more than I cared to see. The whole scene just left me scarred for the human condition and the things we do to one another in the name of entertainment. It was the last time I went to a strip club.

Prude? Nah. Afraid? Maybe. Naive? Sure. But really just a little too sensitive. Even then, in the midst of various addictions, there was a heart of compassion. I didn't fully understand it at the time but I understand how women and men, lonely women and men, get sucked into this world. It is a world of fantasy but it's only as real as the dollars you wield and is ultimately empty.

Reminds me of a Moby song, one of his best:

I had to close down everything
I had to close down my mind
Too many things to cover me
Too much can make me blind
I've seen so much in so many places
So many heartaches, so many faces
So many dirty things
You couldn't believe

My wife will tell you that if I were to ever get busted picking up a prostitute it would not be to have sex with her but to talk to her, even take her out to eat, not as a date, but in an effort to somehow help. Though I did come to know a few prostitutes while working with the homeless in Youngstown, I have no prostitute stories.

Seattle 1994 Baraka and the World of Illusion

I am listening to the soundtrack for the film Baraka as ripped from the DVD (seems this is heading for obsolence as the Blu-Ray is said to be astonishing...).

In 1994 I was living in Seattle, having found myself there after several months on the road after quitting a "real" job and hitting the road (fueled by confusion, madness and drug use...). It was quite an experience.

One of the memorable moments in the drug-fueled period of my life was the opportunity to see the film Baraka in all it glory on the big screen. I doubt it was in the original 70 mm Todd-AO format though it may have been. All I know is that I was stoned when I went to see it and was mesmerized. In the midst of a spiritual crisis/catharis, the subject matter of the film was right on point. It was where I was at the time; it was also where I wanted to be. I sat in a stupor for about an hour and a half as I asborbed the images and sounds of the film. If you've never see it, you must see it at least once.

One of the pivotal moments, at the height of my buzz no less, was a scene in a trash dump in India where people are rummaging through the trash while Dead Can Dance's "Host of Seraphim" is playing. I was frozen in time. Never had I been so moved during a film; never had I felt a song so powerfully. It was, for that moment, transcendent. Even now as I listen to the song, it takes me there, a perfect memory capsule of a moment frozen in song.

Now, fifteen years later and a bit more worldly wise, I have found that many of the images in the film are based in settings that would be considered the tourist variety and the film itself is structured to "sell" a point. Though profound and moving it is now fairly obvious. Perhaps maturity and experience has shattered the illusion but it doesn't take away from the original experience for which this was a pivotal moment. This is a risk as we age, that we condemn and become cynical about those things that profoundly altered our worldview. But this film educated me and was instrumental in my desire to see the world in context.

One of the scenes which freaked me out at first was early in the film when a group of men, all seated, perform some kind of a dance in the jungle, all led by an older "shamanic" figure, eyes glazed over in a hypnotic trance, arms in unison as the bodies sway back and forth to the rhythm of the chant. A striking visual.

Years later I would learn that this is a staged performance called Kecak, or Ramayana Monkey Chant, a musical drama performed in Bali that celebrates an ancient Sanskrit epic. While it has its roots in sanghyang, a trance-inducing exorcism dance, it has become a "Westernized" version of the original.

A German painter and musician, Walter Spies, became interested in it during the 1930s and transformed it into a performance piece. Spies worked with Wayan Limbak, a Balinese dancer, and Limbak popularized the dance by traveling throughout the world with Balinese performance groups. These travels helped to make the Kecak known throughout the world.

This transformation is an example of what James Clifford describes as part of the "modern art-culture system" in which, "the West or the central power adopts, transforms, and consumes non-Western or peripheral cultural elements, while making 'art' which was once embedded in the culture as a while, into a separate entity."

Here is a more telling photo:

Sounds familiar...

Americanization

To what extent is education exploitation? Too cynical? Is my desire to keep such cultural elements confined to their historical roots a sign of the same "spirit" of Westernization, an elitist version of creating an exotic "other" for voyeuristic purpose?

Speaking of exploitation, tourism and Sufism, this all reminds me of an article from Hakim Bey, one of my favorite anarchist writers, about Overcoming Tourism...

This film was my first exposure to the music of Dead Can Dance and I would, over time, absorb anything related to their music, discovering many artists on the legendary 4AD label. Even today, it is still some of my favorite music.

However, much of this had to do with the mystique I created around their music. I envisioned some mysterious, mystical, exotic group whose music was angelic, ethereal, transcendent. That wasn't the case but the music of Lisa Gerrard, vocalist for Dead Can Dance, is truly amazing. She is perhaps most known for her work in the film score for Gladiator. Like much of my early spirituality, I chose to believe in a myth of my own making, a self-idealized projection that led to living in a world of illusion I created.

Time, age and maturity can often dampen the original joy of an event but this film changed my worldview and instilled a deeper desire for exploring the religious life. With music from around the world buoyed by a score from Michael Stearn (a favorite of Hearts of Space), it's a gem. The music is incredible though I think the weed enhanced the music to an extent I haven't experienced since.

Actually, the last time I watched the film itself I was tripping on LSD and in one of the early scenes of a mountain, I saw the face of Jesus being molded, melting, out of the mountains, a liquid face morphing and changing but still clearly Jesus.

I don't expect you to see Jesus there but I did, plain as could be. It was a charcoal etched vision of him in Fritz Eichenberg or Gustav Dore style (no halo, though) but it was unmistakable. I wanted to stay in that moment forever. Sadly, the crew I was with wanted to trip to something else and ejected the video.

A soundbyte from this film can be found in Jonathan Lisle's incredible Original OS.0_2 mix on John Digweed's Bedrock label and if you watch closely you'll see stills of the film in The Matrix Reloaded when Neo speaks with The Architect.

It's amazing the things that frame our worldview. Because this film so impacted my life (and, obviously, the lives of others) it has become a way of framing my perception of the world and is thus instantly recognizable when placed in various cultural media, a signpost, common ground among a larger tribe, all on the same journey, like product placement (is that irony or cynicism?).

The CD version of the film was too short and left out a lot of the subtle musical gems from the film as was the case with both Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi. Certainly these will be on Blu-Ray soon. What a peculiar twist having paid $75 for a used VHS version of this movie off of ebay after it was pulled from the shelves of Blockbuster when it went out of print. I can't help but think that there is something ugly and sinister about the material product of media proliferation.

It looks as if an "upgrade" to the soundtrack to Koyaanisqatsi is forthcoming as well.

My wife and I saw Koyaanisqatsi performed live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with Philip Glass leading his orchestra as part of an effort to fund the finishing touches on the third piece of the trilogy, Naqoyqatsi (or, as my wife calls it, quite prophetically, Not Quite Qatsi). Having heard this live with the film playing on a movie screen in the background was comparable to my viewing of Baraka, though I was sober this time.

Life without drugs and addictions. Being grateful. No regrets. Enjoying the now. To live without illusion. It really is possible.

WALSTIB...

What kind of a Christian?

That's a really tough question. I guess I am "supposed" to be a Christian of the Trintarian variety. To a degree I am though sometimes I feel as if I hold to this as an objective categorization to keep it separate from the "other" variations of the Christian, defined more by what it is not than by what it is, the apophaticism of the mystics.

I do see how it developed and the need for it. Something was necessary to give a cohesive structure to the Church in order for it to survive as it has for 2,000 years. Given what we have in the Bible - Father, Son, Spirit - and their workings throughout the New Testament writings, it is sensible that the Trinitarian doctrine developed. It is not, as many claim, illogical, as it was logic that built the Trinitarian edifice. There is a limit to this logic, however, and there does come a point where logic is baffled because we recognize the limits of words and language to convey the deeper things of religious experience. This also is not illogical. All religious traditions agree that while words are necessary to take us "there" a point comes where words fail.

But there are times when I view Jesus as universal soul, the "celestial self" of whom Henry Corbin writes, the fravarti, the Daena we will meet on the road to the Cinvat Bridge. This vision is found in Manichaeism, Sufism and Pure Land Buddhism. But it is not foreign to Christianity. In Corbin's view, Jesus was viewed by some (e.g. in the Shepherd of Hermas) as an Angel along the same lines. And the more I understand the idea of the Imam in Shi'ite Islam the more it makes sense. There can be no doubt that there are parallel lines of "seeing" between this vision of Islam and the Christ who is "angelic" in this sense.

So which Jesus?

Then there is the cultural Jesus, the "substitute Jesus" of the cult of celebrity, whether musicians, movie stars, pro athletes, talk show hosts or any other "famous" person in whom we place our trust and allegiance, only to cruficy them when they fail. Why else are the tabloids so popular? It's because we want to know the dirt they do. We prop them up, support their lifestyles so that we can, in a sense, fund them the lives we wish to live, watch them as voyeurs, safely from a distance, and then thrive when they fall.

There is the Islamic Jesus, the Buddhist Jesus, the Jewish Jesus, the Jesus Seminar Jesus, the macho Jesus, the feminist Jesus, even the atheist Jesus. Lots of Jesuses out there. Which Jesus?

Isn't it quite possible that all these views of Jesus actually embrace him? Perhaps Jesus has become nothing more than a collective projection of an innate goodness onto a "figure" named Jesus, whose roots are found in the New Testament but who has become the repository of the collective human consciousness. Perhaps the "New Age" Jesus is in full effect.

I think any vision of Jesus will always develop and change over time. After all, this is theology plain and simple. There is really no theology proper in Islam. Theology implies an independent interpretation and, as such, has been controversial in Islamic history. Judaism also does not place great emphasis on theology. Theology, in these two faiths, are basically the equivalent of what is believed. But there are, in general, no disputations about the "nature" of God.

Theology really developed in answer to the question Jesus poses: "Who do you say that I am?" It is this, when analyzed through independent reason and the adoption of Greek philosophical methods and terms to a Christian paradigm, that drove Christian theology. So while every avenue of who Jesus was/is has been, throughout the great debates in Church history, analyzed and discussed and argued about, there is still a challenge on the individual level to wrestle with this question.

It is this wrestling, and a more independent streak in the post-Enlightenment world, that has led to all the divisions within Christendom and has given rise to the post-denominational world of the Church today. Add to this the Jesus of culture or of other religions and the mystery of who he really was/is increases.

As a Christian to not wrestle with this question requires blind allegiance to a teacher or pastor or blind allegiance to ignorance (i.e. fear). As a thinking Christian, wrestling with this question, while potentially dangerous, can be liberating. This does not mean leaving Christianity or abandoning Jesus or somehow failing God.

No, this means that you, as an individual, take responsibility for finding the answer on your own. Any visionary, anyone who has had an experience with the "risen Christ" has done so when he ventured beyond the confines of familiarity and contentment and journeyed out beyond into the realms of darkness where the soul is on its own, where the soul can find a true and genuine faith.

This is the realm where the "mystic" or the "visionary" who comes back with a tale to tell and a desire to help others. But this is also the realm in which, if not careful, the self-declared mystic and visionary comes back and leads eager and gullible souls to hell (think Jim Jones).

Self-definition is tough. I hate labels and categories. Labels and categories serve as a reference point, a leaping off point, but in the end they too need abandoned. Even the name of Jesus can become a hindrance as we creat an idol out of the imagery we attach to the name.

I am reminded, as is often the case, of the Dao De Jing:

"The Dao that can be told is not the eternal Dao.

The name that can be named, is not the eternal name." DDJ, 1, Feng translation

Yet the question remains: "Who do you say that I am?"

Americanization of Sufism...

Rather than a specifically Americanized version, there is a larger Western scholarly category called Orientalist which is basically the Western study, often biased or with a specific agenda, of things "Oriental" under which Islam falls.

An article from Carl W. Ernst in Brannon Wheeler's compilation of essays pertaining to Teaching Islam goes more deeply into how Sufism has been isolated from its historical roots. Brannon Wheeler, in several articles on Khidr/Khezr (one of my favorite characters of any religion), radically altered my views in "influence/borrowing" in Islam. On this, I'll post more when I get time.

According to Ernst the term and category Sufism was first coined by British Orientalists in India, particularly Sir William Jones. He notes that the "dervishes", the symbol of Sufism, were known but only as exotic curiosities. The term Sufi was given primarily to the literary phase, particularly the poetry, convinced that the elegant poems of Hafiz and Rumi could have nothing to do with the Islamic (then called "Mahometan") religion. The Sufis (whose character was gleaned from within the literature) were free spirits and thus had little in common with the "stern faith" of Muhammad.

Ernst notes that

the term Sufism was invented at the end of the eighteenth century as an appropriation of those portions of "Oriental" culture that Europeans found attractive.

Ernst seeks to make the point that the nonpolitical image of Sufism is illusory. It's a different angle than merely criticizing Sufism's excision from its Islamic roots which has overtones of a strictly "religious" critique. After all, Islam is a worldview and this includes politics under its umbrella.

There is often a polarity posed between Islam and Sufism, as if Sufism is somehow not Islamic or as if it intentionally freed itself from the grasps of a fundamentalist faith. While historically there have been clashes between the fundamentalist variety of Islam and the more "mystical" strain (which Orientalists have coined "Sufi"), the battle has been for the "control of [Islam's] central religious symbols" (113).

Fundamentalists (in any faith or political worldview, for that matter), who fear any alternative interpretation as threatening, have taken the lead of the Orientalist view and have sought to make Sufism into a subject separable from Islam, even hostile to it, as Ernst points out. This makes the fundamentalists the "sole authentic custodians of tradition" even though such groups constitute only 20 percent of any Muslim population. Sufism is thus not included in the "history" of Islam from this paradigm.

However, many a Sufi order has been actively involved in politics even, ironically, active in resiting colonial rule. Hasan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood and Abu al-'Ala' Mawdudi, founder of the Jama'at-i Islami, were admirers of the structure of the Sufi orders. While they may not adopt the spiritual practices, they acted in relation to their followers "with all the charisma of a Sufi master in the company of disciples" (113). So the Sufi "mystique" has a powerful hold over on Muslim society so the fundamentalist reinterpretation of history is a powerful spin.

With differing motives, both Orientalists and fundamentalist have sought, quite successfully, to separate Sufism from its Islamic roots. Those associaetd with that which is now generically called "Sufism" are not called on to make explicit statements regarding their relation to "mainstream" Islam. However, according to Ernst, prior to the nineteenth and twentiety centuries, it was scarcely necessary for a Sufi, "steeped in the Quran and the example of Prophet Muhammad", to have to provide self-definition in terms of Islam. This has been a result of Islam becoming "the eternal other" as opposition to the modern West (115).

Ernst ends his essay discussing mysticism as a category. He notes that it is "often reduced to a bare universalism...and...to the private experience of the individual" (121). In this view, then, military and economic activities inherent in Sufism's past do not fit this picture of mysticism and is disgarded. However, Ernst notes that this is difficult to do with the truth about Sufism's history. Sufis are constantly reminded of this by the model of the Prophet Muhammad, who is, for them, the role of social and political leader, as well as mystical exemplar.

In essence, then, Sufism should be studied in its context for understanding. It is much more than Rumi; it is much more than the "mystical" side of Islam; it is much more than the "real" Islam. All of these are subjective, isolated views which, when not taken as part of a larger whole, become private affairs and cease to have any real application in the world at large. Religion as a solely private thing can be just as dangerous as religion at the institutional level.

In other words, "mysticism", a generic category into which Sufism has been lumped, has come to mean "I'm spiritual, not religious" or "I don't like organized religion" or "All religions are the same" or "All religions lead to the same place", well-meaning slogans that really equate to unwillingness to commit to any form of religious or doctrinal affiliation, Man as the measure of all things. Really, it is nothing more than the Great Em Ee desiring to be the center of all things, including the judge of Truth.

The problem isn't whether "Sufism" is "mystical" or Sufism vs. Islam or Sufism devoid of content as much it is the problem of how few of us are really willing to commit, i.e. surrender self, to any Path requiring genuine sacrifice. Believe me, I only recognize it when I see it because I am just as guilty of this as the next person.

Faith is messy because it changes us.

The Youngstown Goodfellas Mob Connection...

Back in the early 90s I worked in the up and coming cellular phone industry for a local company called Wilcom Cellular, an offshoot of a local media family. It was a good time to be in the field and I did well for myself (this was how I was able to afford a year of travel...). But I learned how to sell and got to meet some interesting people.

I remember receiving a call late one afternoon from a woman who said she was from California and her boss was coming in to town and needed a local hookup. I said I'd wait. He arrived late and we began talking and he informed me that he was a producer from California who had worked with Michael Jackson and some other well known figures and had been in Goodfellas and was friends with the cast. I was skeptical, of course, but found his story interesting. We talked for a while and he told me he had a home south of where we were. He had a "flip phone" which, at the time, was a big deal as these cost upwards of $1000 at the time. I hooked him up and he was on his way.

So of course I went home and got out the Goodfellas VHS (pre-DVD remember...) and watched the move and lo and behold there he is hanging out on the street when Ray Liotta's future wife cusses him out. Far out. Go to the credits and, yep, there he is, Frank DiLeo. He was also "Mr. Big" in Wayne's World. Apparently, based on his Wikipedia entry, he has been a big player in the music industry. Kinda cool...

But this is not about him or meeting someone famous. I find it more fascinating in a six degrees of separation kind of way.

I remember the very first time I saw the film and was immediately struck at the very end of the film when Ray Liotta, now in the witness protection program, bends down to pick up the newspaper. I instantly recognize the Youngstown Vindicator with its old typeface (anyone know when it was last used?).

I am not too surprised because of Youngstown's notorious history thinking maybe they filmed in Youngstown or something. Goodfellas, mob, Youngstown...makes sense. After meeting Frank DiLeo I knew it was the Vindicator.

Here are some stills:



And, though a bit fuzzy, a better one:

If anyone can find out the exact date of the paper that would be really cool.

For years and years I've thought this and told people about it but looked up the IMDB entry for Goodfellas the other day and found this:

"During one of the final scenes in the movie, Henry Hill is shown opening his front door and picking up a newspaper. Close inspection reveals that the newspaper is the Youngstown Vindicator. This detail was included by Martin Scorsese as an homage to Youngstown, Ohio, which has been referred to as Mobtown USA."

It's August 23, 2023. I finally found out exactly which Vindicator he picks up. 

It's the 7/12/1989 paper. 

A Spiritual Mutt exclusive: 

Unity in Diversity - Worship

Having come from a "shh...we're in church" background, being introduced to the "born again" version of Christianity in a charismatic Oneness Pentecostal church in the heart of the inner city in Youngstown was a swing to other end of the pendulum. However, because of this I was able to discern the cultural elements in this church.

There is a tendency to take the cultural elements and impose them as if they are part of the necessary truth of the faith. So if you aren't doing "X" enough or doing "Y" enough you aren't "saved" enough or "Christian" enough. It's a subtle form of enslavement. This imposition of the cultural elements is a potential in any faith tradition.

When we left there (due, in large part, to the overemphasis on the emotionalism and the cult of celebrity), we found a church with an upbeat style of worship but much more subdued (i.e. white). We thoroughly enjoy the worship even though I miss the style of worship at the church we left.

Anyhow, over the years I've realized that it's really all beautiful. The fact that grown people have found something that inspires them to praise in such a dynamic fashion in whatever form it is expressed is a powerful thing. Sometimes, however, it is easy to look at "other" religious traditions and admire their praise and their forms of worship. For some reason I found the worship within the tradition I found myself in to be strange, weird, overdone.

So at church this morning I noticed the people at the altar and their various forms of expression. At times there is a critical spirit that comes over me and I judge what they are doing. I have to stop myself and realize that it's easy to sit on my a** and be a critic. Instead of lifting my spirit up to God I am playing judge and jury on earth.

I realized this morning that I have no idea what the two men who were laid out on the floor have been going through. I have no idea what the woman jumping and bouncing has been going through. I don't know what is in their hearts. The point is I don't know. So who am I to sit back and criticize? It's a really disgusting feeling.

So with all the diversity within the Christian church, there is a unity in the diversity. It's just easier to notice the division. Embrace the diversity. We're all on the same team.

There is a series of videos circulating on the Web that are brilliantly done and highlight this quite well. For the cynic, it's obviously a slam. The video is pretty funny (and well edited).

But if you just stop for a moment and see the beauty in it the joy will become infectious. It really is pretty cool. Just different.

Enjoy:



Still haven't found any rave videos set to worship music. I think the contrast would point out that music is a form of or means toward expanding the mind toward something "higher". There are many parallels between the "trance" effect of both techno music and worship music.

So for the religious folk who think raves and techno music are somehow evil or some such thing, keep in mind that what people seek at raves are the same things people seek in church: community, relationship, connection, even spirituality.

So we come to where cultures and faith collide: check this video out (sorry if you aren't a techno fan...give it a chance anyhow, it's brief...):



This video is a snippet from a "Club Worship" in Reading PA featuring Andy Hunter, a Christian DJ though if you look at his website and such you may have to search a little to find this fact. His music appeared in The Matrix Reloaded so he has respect as a musician. Here's an interview with him.

So what do you think? Is this "true" worship music? Compromise? Sell out? Something to ponder.

I find it interesting but I'm not sure giving something a "Christian" stamp means a whole lot, kind of like Christian yoga and the Christian martial arts center down the street from my home (now for sale). Can't yoga just be yoga, martial arts just be martial arts, a DJ be a DJ and techno be techno?

Henry Corbin and Docetism

Trying to further elaborate on the post on Henry Corbin's discussion on Angelology, he delves further into the gnostic idea and its trajectory. As should be pretty clear, Corbin's writings have had a tremendous impact on me. In terms of comparative religion, he puts to shame the superficiality of many so-called comparative religious studies and gets to a genuine "core", the real crux of where relgions meet, not in doctrine and dogma, which are areas where divisions have been drawn, but in those fringe areas where religions truly intersect and interweave.

The Christ of the Acts of Peter and John has been called Docetic. Corbin notes, however, that Docetism is not a set doctrine but a "tendency" (63). He points out that the Christology of the Qur'an is Docetic as is the Imamology particular to Shi'ite Gnosis and that the "Buddhology" of Mahayana Buddhism is Docetic as well. In terms of a Christian Docetism this is in contrast to the hypostatic union which was "a material fact that entered into history" and became an "external and objective datum" 62). In other words, this is not your "orthodox" variety of Christianity.

This Docetic Christology does not view Christ as a "phantasm" or a spook or a ghost but as a "real apparition" which is "proportionate to the theophanic dimension of the soul, that is, its aptitude for being shown a divine Figure". The soul, therefore, is thus not a witness to an external event but "the medium in which the event takes place" (62).

Peculiar to Ebionite Christianity is the idea of the True Prophet or Prophet of Truth, not the God incarnate or God-man of what would become "orthodox" Christianity.

"Running through the ages since the beginning of the world, he hastens toward the place of his repose".

All that matters to the Ebionites is whether or not Jesus is this Prophet. The first Adam was the first epiphanic Form of the True Prophet, what Corbin calls the Christus aeternus, i.e. Adam-Christos. The True Prophet, having in him the breath of the divine nature, cannot sin. In Ebionism, the True Prophet appeared to Moses and Abraham and in Adam and Jesus the True Prophet was present.

In Jesus, then, the True Prophet finds his "final repose." He is not messianic Lord because his death effects redemption; according to Corbin it is because a community was "waiting for the Epiphany of the...Angelos Christos, the return of him who dispenses Knowledge that delivers and who will thereby establish a supraterrestrial kingdom...of Angels." (71) He is an Illuminator, not a Redeemer.

Now if Adam, the initial Prophet, could not sin, what of the "fall" of man? Providing a unique spin of Satan/Iblis, Adam's "fall" was not sin but of divulging the secret of the end of the Cycle of history, the knowledge of the Last Imam of the Cycle, the Resurrector (Qa'im) and the Resurrection. But this may only be divulged in symbols proportionate to the spiritual adept's "degree of dignity and capacity." (84)

This is where Corbin gets into the meat of his essay. He discusses the hadd, the limit, of each spiritual adept. It is the degree of consciousness, the mode of knowledge proportionate to the mode of being realized by the adept. The next higher hadd is, then, the Lord - that is to say, the Self - of its own mahdud ("limited"), the Self of what which it limits, that whose horizon it is." (85)

Our spiritual journey, in this scheme, is a journey through levels, or horizons or, as Corbin calls them, Angels. Each adept must rely upon his imam who is responsible for leading him up to the next level which thus becomes his hadd and the adept too is responsible for leading the one below him up to his former hadd. Each ascent of degrees, or horizon, is called a qiyamat, a "resurrection." So Adam, as True Prophet, is the repository of all souls, each individual soul on its journey toward the Qiyamat al-Qiyamat, or Grand Resurrection. In Shi'ite Islam this is the advent of the Qa'im, the last Imam. This, according to this schema, is the consummation of all religion.

So where does this leave us besides bewildered? Though this is a weak summation of what is truly a dense distilation of comparative religion in Corbin's work, it is leading somewhere.

Several concepts as generally understood in Christianity are tweaked:

1) Docetism is presented in a different form that is stereotypically understood as mere "appearance" or "phantasm"

2) Jesus is not an incarnate God; he is the repository of the True Prophet and is thus, at least according to Ebionite Christianity, messianic in the sense of bringer of Knowledge

3) Each spiritual adept (i.e. all of us) is where he/she us based on the adept's "horizon" or ability to see

4) The Qiyamat al-Qiyamat (Grand Resurrection) is when the Qa'im (the Final Imam), akin to the parousia of traditional Christianity, will appear to "recapitulte" all souls and religion, the Epiphanic Cycle of this Gnostic vision will be complete.

This connects to another of my favorite writers, Vladimir Lossky and his writings on Eastern Orthodox Theology. The connection between Christianity's "eastern" coloring and its influence on Islam is unmistakable. What is surprising is that in a work as "orthodox" as Lossky's there seems to be a connection, no matter how slight, with Corbin's vision of the Christianity almost lost to the paradise of archetypes.

A great blog about Henry Corbin's works

Here is the link to the blog:

The Legacy of Henry Corbin

A new book is due in August of 2009 which looks quite adventurous and tags right along with Corbin's Cyclical Time and Ismaili Gnosis. Norman O. Brown's The Challenge of Islam: The Prophetic Tradition looks to be an interesting read.

Henry Corbin and Angelology

In Henry Corbin's densely packed book on the trajectory of "gnosticism" from Zoroastrianism through Christianity to its final "resting" place of Shi'ism he discusses the theophanic vision, as I've posted elsewhere quoting the Acts of Peter and Acts of John.

This stuff is heady and my summation is not as clean as I'd like but it's a start. Corbin's stuff is the densest thing I've ever read. But the work is worth it for those nuggets, when they come, make it all worth while.

Here's what he has to say about the theophanic vision:

"There is actual perception of an object, of a concrete person: the figure and the features are sharply defined; this person presents all the "appearances" of a sensuous object, and yet it is not given to the perception of the sense organs. This perception is essentially an event of the soul, taking place in the soul and for the soul. As such its reality is essentially individuated for and with each soul; what the soul really sees, it is in each case alone in seeing." (Henry Corbin, Cyclical Time and Ismaili Gnosis, 60).

And here is the key to this entire essay in the book:

"The field of its vision, its horizon, is in every case defined by the capacity, the dimension of its own being: Talem eum vidi qualem capere potui" (60-61)

Quoting Origen's discussion of the Transfiguration he notes that Jesus appeared in the form in which he was normally seen but also in his transfigured form "he appeared to each one according as each man was worthy."

The core of Corbin's book is in essence the transformation of such a "gnosis" in Islamic, specifically Ismaili, soil. Having traced its origins in Zoroastrianism, Corbin goes on to discuss the connection between Zoroastrianism, Christianity (specifically Ebionite Christianity) and Islam (specifically Shi'ite and, more speficially, Ismaili Shi'ite) in a mindbending trip. Corbin has "no wish to debate the question of historical filiation...nor to determine the 'influences'" which, he says, "reads causality into things" (31). The connection between them is not doctrinal: it is a common angelology.

By angel he is not talking about the winged variety or the Touched By An Angel variety or any of those other media caricatures. For Corbin the "angel" is the "celestial Idea" of all human beings. Writing on Ibn Arabi, he says:

"...that which a human being regains in the mystical experience, is the "celestial pole" of his being, which is to say his "person" whereby and as which, the Divine Being from the very beginning in the origin of origins in the world of Mystery, manifested himself to himself, and made himself known to it in this Form [its own form, the form it was given to assume] which is equally the Form in which he knew himself in it. It is the Idea, or rather the "Angel" of his person whose present self is no more than the terrestrial pole."

And again:

"I am your own Daênâ", -which means: I am, in person, the faith that you professed and that which inspired it in you, she for whom you have answered and she who guided you, she who comforted you and she who now judges you, for I am, in person, the Image proposed to you from the birth of your being and the Image which finally you have yourself wished for ("I was beautiful, you have made me still more beautiful").

These paragraphs draw out the distinctions behind Corbin's aversion to traditional Christianity and its teaching of the singular event of the Incarnation of Christ. Rather than a universal, singular Christ, this Angel of which Corbin speaks is personal, unique to each soul, and is the Image to which the soul longs to unite.

He further breaks down this angelology. Rather than being a "metaphorical luxury" the Angel's significance is twofold, theophanic and soteriological ("salvific"). It can be thought about in several ways. There are angels who have remained in the celestial world, the intermediary between heaven and earth, and other angels who have fallen to Earth. The angels in the celestial world (the pleroma) are "angels in actu" and the angels who are on earth are the "angels in potentia".

Another way of looking at it is that this division may refer to a single being, an unus ambo. The Spirit is the person or Angel who has remained in heaven, the "celestial twin", while the soul is his companion who has fallen to Earth, to whose help he comes and with whom he will be reunited if he issues victorious from the cosmic battle between good and evil. (103)

The human lot is thus, quoting Nasir Khusraw, a transitory status, the "horizon" of which Corbin speaks. Man is a "not-yet": an angel (or demon) in potentia awaiting reunion with his celestial twin, the angel in actu.

Heady? Yeah. And I can't do it justice. But there is a certain logic to it that is quite appealing. Rather than a heavenly Jesus to whom we turn, we all have inherent in us this "Idea" of perfection, this idea of the "Divine" and it is this "Idea" that Corbin terms the Angel with whom we seek union or re-union. It has been placed in us from the very beginning; it is this that guides us and it is to this we seek to return.

Corbin's main thrust is this:

"Man is called, by right of his origin and if he consents, to an angelomorphosis, his acceptance of which precisely regulates his aptitude for theophanic visions." (64)

It is this angelomorphosis (Corbin invents mroe than a few terms in this work) that is the key. Ismailian Gnosis, according to Corbin, in a sense saves a Christianity, specifically of the Ebionite variety, that had long ago been lost to the "paradise of archetypes" (65).

My journey through Islam...

In 1999, having been a "born again" Christian at a Oneness Pentecostal church in the heart of the inner city in Youngstown, I was journeying toward Islam. That is a story in itself. In 2005, having just been interviewed for the CBS Saturday Evening News, I contributed an article to my local newspaper about my experience as a "Muslim" for a weekend.

At some point I will rewrite it through the lens of time and experience. It's pretty airy but if you read between the lines you can get a real point of view. Though it's pretty much as I wrote it, I hated the title and found it interesting to see what was edited ("conflated" in the original was changed to "blended" which completely changed what I was saying).

Even more interesting was the interview on the CBS Saturday Evening News. I was interviewed in my home for about fifteen minutes by an interviewer from New York via phone. The camera man was in my house and I had to look as if I was talking to the interviewer as if he were in front of me. Fascinating the prep and posing we see on the news. Though a great experience, it reinforced my skepticism of the news as selling a point of view.

The questions got to be pretty in depth and the interviewer was genuinely curious as to how a Christian firm in his faith could genuinely study and participate in Islam without feeling threatened and without, in the end, losing faith.

But this wasn't the topic of the piece on the news.

CAIR was giving away a free copy of the Qur'an to anyone who was interested and the news piece covered this. A professor of Islam at my local university who I had gotten fairly well had been contacted by CBS News and asked if he knew of anyone who was a non-Muslim and a non-scholar who had read the Qur'an in its entirety. He gave them my name. Imagine the surprise when CBS News called my house for an interview. I didn't really care so much about that. I was more honored that he thought of me.

Here's a copy of the transcript:

Thousands of Americans Seek Copies of Qur'an

Out of everything I said, they took one snippet, out of context, and highlighted it. I learned a lot about media and how they "sell" a point of view. Though I meant what I said, without the context it is easy to see how soundbytes get misconstrued. Requests for the videotaped interview were denied and the video of the clip from the news (June 5 or 12, 2005) have disappeared from the Web.

The copies they were giving away was the Yusuf Ali translation (which is the "safest" translation to give away to an American audience). They ran out and sent me a copy of Muhammad Asad's translation, The Message of the Qur'an.

I already had a copy of his so kept the one sent from CAIR (it's beautiful) and listed the other copy online. Were I to become a Muslim it would have been Islam as presented in Asad's translation. In fact, Islam as I had come to understand it aligned with his view even before I had found his translation.

I hold an "if only..." nostalgia for his translation and Islam as presented by the Traditionalist school. On occasion I do read it though certainly not as much as during the period of time in which I lived and breathed Islam.

This period of time radically altered my view of both Christianity and Islam for the better.

It comes down to choice...

It is a choice, certainly and I think that is the key. You might say it's a choice to choose. But then commitment to that choice is just as important. In my case, after the initial choice, my sincere desire to know the answers led me down many a winding path. But it always came back to Jesus. Always.

And the Jesus of Islam wasn't the answer (as I've noted in various places in my blog), nor was it the Jesus of the scholars, the Jesus of the Jesus Seminar, the Jesus of the New Age or the Jesus of historians. I gorged myself on these works, studying them in great depth and detail, trying to justify and prove that the whole thing was a myth, a charade, a lie. In the end I found, by and large, that the Jesus of these methods turned out to look a lot like the scholars the scholars themselves. In the end, ironically enough, it enhanced my faith.

I had some "visions" that were a turning point for me. I've written about them in the blog. We got away from the circus style church and found a place where true and genuine preaching was heard weekly. Practical, earthly, relevant stuff that, when applied, revealed the Truth greater than any studying could ever do.

And, lately, the healing of my soul. I sourced mine to events when I was around ten years old.

Strangely enough, this healing led to and coincided with intellectual rest and freedom. My intellect was a defense, protection of a wounded soul. Rather than be open and honest, I filtered it through analysis and intellect first. It was just another method of numbing the pain I was hiding. Once my soul began to heal, my intellect, though still on hyperdrive, was no longer my idol. It balanced my soul.

In hindsight, by hiding the pain, I learned that it was more painful to hide it than to feel the actual pain of the pain I was hiding...if that makes sense.

Make a choice and watch that party in your head come along and even support you in your choice. Rather than a cacophony make it a symphony. Start exploring the reasons for not being able to make a choice, to what degree addiction and depression are a front for selfishness and what part of the soul is in need of healing.

I'm not all the way there yet. Sometimes my writing is the conceptual grasp that I have yet to achieve but it's a goal. And I do slip back into depression and self-pity and addictive tendencies are always lurking. But I have a consistent hope these days.

But it's taken me over ten long and adventurous years after "accepting Christ" to begin to find it. I do believe, however, that the wisdom I found in diving into other traditions provided fertile soil and I cherish the wisdom and experiences. I remain open to listening to the whisper of the Spirit from wherever it may come.

Stop and smell the roses...

Along with being a spiritual mutt, I have also been a career mutt. It has certainly been an adventure. In late 2004 I was hired as executive director of a local treasure, Stambaugh Auditorium. It is a magnificent structure. Never one for the spotlight, I was even interviewed for radio and had a photo spread in the local paper to put the facility back in the public eye.

I was working as a manager of an Aldi grocery when I saw the ad for the auditorium. I wasn't really looking and gave it a "what the hell" try. After three interviews with various members of a board of directors I somehow managed to get the job. I should have listened to my mother who asked: "Are you sure you can handle those people?" I thought she meant the celebrities with all their brown M&M riders (maybe that's where the brown M&M in my dream came from...). She meant the board of directors. Moms are wise.

The auditorium was built in 1929, long before speakers and amplification equipment. It is one of those rare venues where every seat is perfect and a whisper on stage can be heard in the back of the hall. But, with modernity, amplification comes with the territory. A set of JBL speakers had been placed in the hall but they weren't installed well and had been sitting unused for quite some time. A temporary hodgepodge of speakers acted as amplification and it was generally quite ugly and not very functional.

So, having talked to the stage manager who had been there for almost forty years, give or take, I learned that the JBL speakers should still be under warranty. A phone call and an appointment later, I met with a JBL rep. He wanted to hear how they sounded and asked if I had a CD. I happened to have Paul Oakenfold's Global Underground New York mix, a favorite of mine I used almost daily while stocking groceries at 5 a.m. at Aldi.

So I popped it in and moved it right to Junk Project's "Composure". Give it a listen. It is awesome.

Now imagine an empty concert hall, acoustically perfect and a set of rockin' JBL speakers. It was a magnificent experience. Not quite a rave but truly magical. The concert hall is the photo on top.

In my naivete I had visions of DJs performing on the stage, DJ as art form. Seems the board had visions of opera. We were certainly not a match. At the time of this appointment I was a sinking ship. I lasted 5 months and 31 days there, just enough so as not to collect unemployment. One of the board members with whom I clashed stepped down to take the position when I was gone. She didn't last six months either. Nor did the next director. I wonder what the problem was. Hmmm....

Upon reflection I realize that had my attitude been different, the result may have been different. But it was one of those positions where, within a few short weeks, I knew I was in the wrong place.

Having gotten to explore every nook and cranny in the building and listen to Oakey "live" and see the inner workings of concert promotion and set-up the adventure wore out rather quickly (and sitting through board meetings where board members almost, quite literally, threw temper tantrums was horrifying...).

Reminds me of a Zen story. This is from Zen Speaks: Shouts of Nothingness, a delightful but profound "comic" of Zen wisdom:

But it is still a really nice building and music (like the track above) sounds amazing in the hall.

My grandma's words would ring true: it all works out in the end.

Thoughts on race

My wife is black. I'm not. She is not African American. She is from Jamaica. Jamaican American? Jamerican? African Jamaican? And what is Caucasian anyhow? I'm puzzled when people reference white people as Caucasian. My little niece, when she was a babe, when asked what color we are stated it thus: I am pink, my wife is brown and our daughter is yellow.

I love my wife's blackness. I find it very attractive. Always have. One of my earliest celebrity crushes was the Olympic skater Debi Thomas circa 1984. Kind of a strange crush when considering where I grew up. The race issue made things a bit rocky in the beginning but that was my fault, not hers. The discomfort was mine, more influenced by what others thought than I cared to admit. One of my decisive acts of maturity was the decision to marry her no matter what anyone said. Once the decision was made, people came along. The problem had been me all along.

My wife's race doesn't matter to me in terms of who she is as a person but there is a difference in culture, no matter how similar our worldviews. This has been part of the challenge and part of the growth in our relationship. In terms of her appearance it is a part of her makeup. And I find to be a part of her beauty and thus embrace it. It was she who told me that she hates the statement "I don't see color" from well meaning white people. Though she is understanding of the intent, she says you better damn well see her color. If you don't you are whitewashing (no pun intended) a part of who she is. See it. Recognize it. Embrace it. Value it.

I've had the comment made by black people we know that I am a "cool" white guy, that I don't act white, whatever that means. Maybe it simply means that I am seen as a person first. We all harbor stereotypes and attitudes about race. The key isn't to deny this but to be willing and open to changing our attitudes.

We need to learn to embrace and value our differences, of which race is one difference out of many, and not try and somehow blend everything into one homogeneous stew. Obama's presidential campaign brought this out. For some he was too black; for others he wasn't black enough.

This goes deeper than diversity which has become a legal, institutional effort at making sure that we represent as many races as possible in commercials and promotional literature. It's basically become a marketing tool. It is, for the most part, a positive thing but it doesn't really help anyone embrace the difference; it educates and ensures a level of tolerance or acceptance. It's a great place to start but it has become just too obvious, almost cliche. And once this happens, people stop seeing it.

So I embrace my wife's blackness. I embrace her color. And respect her pride in the same. Yet because of the same, and my relationship with her, I have also learned firsthand about the racism that still lingers in this country. We still have a ways to go.

I have seen it from a perspective I would never have seen otherwise. Why? Because I am part of the dominant culture and, as such, I can't really see it. I take things for granted. I don't worry about being pulled over while driving through my small, suburban hometown because of my color. I don't worry about being profiled or being watched while shopping.

Our daughter, who would probably pass the brown paper bag test, was pulled over the other day in my small, suburban hometown because of a broken tail light. Legally, the officer had right to pull her over. And he did. But I can tell you without a doubt that it was the very large, very dark black man in the passenger seat that raised the red flag.

Paranoia? Not so fast. My wife and I have been stopped on more than one occasion under suspicious circumstances. While using a drive-up pay phone one night, a police cruiser with two officers in front pulled up along side of us and asked if everything was ok. Just being nice? We were pulled over another time for I can't remember what and the officer asked my wife for her license, even though I was the one driving. He most likely thought I had picked up a prostitute.

During the holiday season one year we were going to return a phone that wasn't working. The return line was at least ten people deep so we thought we'd go back and grab a replacement item to save time. My wife made certain that I carried the bag. I looked at her with a puzzled look in my eye. "Trust me," she said.

They didn't have the phone we were looking for so while on our way out of the store we were stopped by two plain clothes cops who accused us of stealing, stating that we placed a new phone in the bag. My wife read him the riot act while I sat there stupefied. It never even crossed my mind that this would happen. Outside, my wife told me that was exactly the reason she wanted me to carry the bag.

We have, however, been able to shine a different light on interracial couples. A woman came up to my wife in church several weeks ago, singling her out to talk to her. After several minutes of conversation the woman confessed that she has always had a problem with interracial relationships but for some reason she had no problem with ours. This is not the first time something like this has happened. We've grown quite comfortable with it.

By and large we haven't experienced much trouble with our relationship as an interracial couple. In fact, if anything, we have many, many more positive than negative stories. But most of this comes from how we present ourselves and live our lives. We are aware of the differences and are quite open about them, seeing the value, the beauty, and often the humor, in the differences.

Pornography is not about sex

I stumbled across two very interesting articles over the past few days. Neither one of them are religious in nature and both of them expose the darker elements of pornography. Both of them are written by individuals who are or were in some way involved in the porn industry.

The first is by Evan Wright, perhaps most known for his book Generation Kill which was the basis for an HBO miniseries. His new book is Hella Nation and it was because of this book and an interview with him that I learned of his past. Wikipedia contains a link to his article on Salon.com describing his experience as entertainment editor and chief pornographic reviewer for Hustler magazine (in his interview he discussed, quite humorously, how he landed this job).

The article discusses his experience and how it caused him to wonder if it had made him misogynistic or if it drew out the misogyny already present.

CAUTION: This is not for the fainthearted. Though there are no photos, the descriptions are blunt and graphic. Addicts are at once repulsed and yet drawn to the darkness of the things described herein.

I'm reminded of the words of William S. Burroughs from Naked Lunch (no pun intended):

Look down LOOK DOWN along that junk road before you travel there and get in with the Wrong Mob...

A word to the wise guy.

Maxed Out

The most recent article is from AdBusters magazine and this one came via email as I've semi-followed AdBusters for many years now. This article is by Douglas Haddow, described as "the last of the great film-school slackers." The article discusses the rise of the porn industry and its relation to the "fragmented state of modern masculinity."

CAUTION: This one is even more explicit (i.e. there's lost of profanity and graphic description of "sex" acts). The language is harsh and the subject matter is described in all its rawness, no holds barred. Again, it's not for the fainthearted but it's spot on.

Here's a snippet:

In order to compete with porn, the mainstream media appropriates the pornographic, which in turn forces porn producers and websites to create more vicious and chaotic content. The mainstream becomes porn and porn gradually edges closer to snuff.

Pornocalypse Now

It's refreshing that such critiques and exposes are being brought openly to the mainstream.

Jesus' sacrifice is Jewish, not pagan, in origin...part two

Round two of Conclusions:

1) The Palestinian Targum proves quite conclusively that already in the first century AD there existed a firm belief that the principal merit of the Akedah sprang from the virture of Isaac's self-offering...

2) ...the Akedah, although ritually incomplete, was indeed a true sacrifice and Israel's chief title to forgiveness and redemption. The purpose of other sacrifices, including the sacrifice of the Passover lamb, was to remind God of Isaac's perfect self-oblation and to invoke his merits.

3) ...in the ancient liturgy of Israel a powerful bond linked the Binding of Isaac with Passover and eschatological salvation.

Vermes then goes on, with scholarly support, to further the view that Paul's symbolic use of the Akedah is the bridge between "the genuinely Jewish teaching of atoning suffering" and "the non-Jewish concept of a Saviour who was both man and God." (p. 218)

Vermes notes that Paul follows a traditional Jewish pattern enabling him to "coordinate with the framework of a coherent synthesis the most profound and anomalous religious concept ever known to the human mind....For although he is undoubtedly the greatest theologian of the Redemption, he worked with inherited materials..." (p. 221)

Using the premise that the early chapters of Acts are from a Palestinian stratum more ancient than Paul's writings, he notes that Jesus is called "Servant of God" and ties this not to Psalm 2 but to Genesis 22. On this premise he poses the possibility that it was Jesus, not Paul, who introduces the Akedah motif into Christianity.

Finally, noting that the Passover lamb of John's Gospel is problematic in many respects because the Passover lamb is not an expiatory sacrifice, he notes that, for the Palestinian Jew, all lamb sacrifice hearkens back to the Akedah and its effects of "deliverance, forgiveness of sin and messianic salvation." (p. 225) Jesus is the new Isaac.

Vermes does qualify this by noting that the Christian doctrine of Redemption is not just a Christian version of the Akedah. He simply emphasizes that the essential role of the targumic representation of the Binding of Isaac in its development.

"Indeed," he notes, "without the help of Jewish exegesis it is impossible to perceive any Christian teaching in its true perspective." (p .227)

Jesus' sacrifice is Jewish, not pagan, in origin...

I'm going to ease into this one as I haven't read all posts so am not certain what has been covered. However, this is primarily in response to the debate about dating Mithraism and whether its predating Christianity would equate to Christianity borrowing from it.

Geza Vermes, a Christian who reverted back to Judaism, discusses, in a stellar article, the conncetion between the Akedah and Jesus' crucifixion and its redemptive power. The article itself is over 30 pages long and is thick with exegesis, drawing from the Midrash, the Targums and Second Temple literature to draw out the connection. It can be found in Scripture and Tradition in Judaism: Haggadic Studies.

While not his primary focus, this article does reveal that the crufixion of Jesus is drawn from within Judaism and accusations of "pagan" borrowings are quite simplistic (making the early Christians look like a bunch of comparative religious scholars which, ironically enough, looks a lot like the scholars who make such accusations). In fact, these accusations are not necessary at all. In fact, by drawing the "pagan" connection, it actually casts misunderstanding on the significance of the crufixion from the understanding of the early Christian movement as many of these scholars may point out the similarities but they often fail to spend any time on the differences.

Anyhow, part one brings forth the following conclusions:

1) The two main targumic themes of the Akedah story, namely, Isaac's willingness to be offered in sacrifice and the atoning virtue of his action, were already traditional in the first century AD.

2) Genesis 22 was interpreted in association with Isaiah 53. That is to say, the link between these two texts was established by Jews independently from, and almost certainly prior to, the New Testament.

3) The theological problem which apparently led to the creation of this exegetical tradition was that of martyrdom.

4) The tradition must consequently have established itself some time between the middle of the second century BC and the beginning of the Christian era.

I'll try and draw this out more but questions are welcomed to help focus my responses.

The other work that is significant in this regard is Shalom Spiegel's The Last Trial. He shows, in much greater detail (Vermes references this work), the tradition where Isaac was actually killed and resurrected by God.

Though not a common belief, it is not unknown in Jewish circles. This idea is mentioned briefly in the movie The Believer.

Again, this stuff is dense but it convincingly shows that there is no need to go outside of Judaism to explain the core of Christian beliefs. If there is any "pagan" influence it either came to Christianity through Judaism (what Spiegel calls the residual "dust" of paganism) or by those who interpreted Christianity once it left the environs of Jerusalem.

Samson and the Pirate Monks

God is a trip. Sometimes you can pick up a book and you don't know why. You may even try to read it. But it doesn't click. So it sits on a shelf. But sometime later you pick it up and at that moment it is exactly what you need. I have lots of books like that.

But sometimes a book crosses your path at just the right time. You know it. You may not know why but you just know.

Nate Larkin's Samson and the Pirate Monks: Calling Men to Authentic Brotherhood is one of those books. It is one man's journey through addiction, specifically sexual addiction, and his way out. For those of us who have suffered silently, independently, stubbornly alone, this is a refreshing book. He taps into the experiences of men who share this worldview.

Traveling through life alone, living to share the adventure stories of what he calls his "persona" with arm's length friends, all the while slipping from "deprived to depraved" he bares his soul as a mirror of our own. I can't recommend this book enough. It isn't just a vomit blog of horrible escapades. No, these escapades are a premise, a mirror against which to reflect the saving grace of the Gospel message.

It's real. The grace is not the hard part; the hard part is the surrender. The ego, in all its guises and trappings, is a tiger that does not go down easy. But it can be tamed. Nate Larkin is an excellent guide on the Path we all travel down.

Here's a snippet from the first meeting of the Samson Society:

"Welcome to the meeting of the Samson Society...We are a company of Christian men. We are also natural loners, who have recognized the dangers of isolation and are determined to escape them, natural wanderers who are finding spiritual peace and prosperity at home, natural liars who are now finding freedom in the truth, natural judges who are learning how to judge ourselves aright, and natural strongmen who are experiencing God's strength as we admit our weaknesses." (p. 115)

It is in sharing, in openness, in honesty, in accountability that freedom is found. It may be painful, it may expose every weakness, flaw and shame you've ever tried to conceal but these are all "persons" (in the sense of character masks) that we've created. They are as big a lie as the counter-person created as antithesis to these things you hide.

Nate Larkin describes these well: Church Nate. Date Nate. Mate Nate. All Alone Nate. We all have these personas we create that keep us disconnected and far removed from the present.

You are not alone. Your story is not unique. We are all in this together. The body of Christ is the entire human race, though not all realize who they are in the body. The body of Christ, in harmony, is the most powerful force on the planet. Even if it just a portion of the body, those who believe, there is power in communion. And communion requires laying aside the ego and dying to self so that Christ in us may shine.

Don't be fooled into thinking no one understands, no one cares or that you are the only one going through what you are going through. It is the silence that is cancerous. This book is a great starting point. But then take it somewhere. Do something with it.

The depth of darkness...

When I was in high school I used to write stories. Aside from the "porno stories" I used to write in middle school (!), in high school the escalated. I used to write stories about blowing up the school and killing I don't remember who. I don't know that I ever named names nor did I ever necessarily have anyone in mind, though it's quite possible.

But I was so detached and everything so external I tended to categorize and label rather than personalize anything. It led to a certain form of schizophrenia. I was able to get along with pretty much everybody and didn't really dislike anyone (though my middle school yearbooks tells a different story) and had some really good friends. I had many "girl" friends but didn't date much and this, of course, is also a pretty curious detour to travel upon.

But there was a growing darkness, a gap between who I was and who I perceived myself to be. I don't remember when I did this, but below is an image of an artistic creation of mine.



And the reverse:



It's kind of bizarre looking at these things almost thirty years later. Creative? Certainly. But pretty disturbing.

Would I have ever really gone off and done the violence I fantasized about? I may have. I found enough outlets, negative as they may have been, to distract this impulse. Perhaps this is how copycat killers evolve. Perhaps these dark dreams lurk in the shadows and are brought light when seeing others pull it off.

Perhaps that is my ego rising up again, the flare for the drama to attract attention. But in digging up this past I am seeing the signs, the answers to those drives that seemed to mysterious and so compulsive. I also see it now through the eyes of love. True healing will be present when I have worked through this darkness that seems so clear now and begin to look back and see the good. When we live in a state of anger or despair or depression, we either idolize a past golden age or we filter everything through these lenses and thus only see those things that align with how we feel.

The obsession now isn't that my past was bad. I have had a good life. But right now I have become obsessed with laying these ghosts to rest. In uncovering the source of these wounds I will be able to close the door for good, heal up the gap and live in the present with no denial, no distraction and no imitation of life.

The reality is that I did have a strong support system growing up and I did have a strong sense of right and wrong, some sense of hope, that there was a future, even if that future was only dreams of escaping the stifle of small town suburbia. In hindsight, I don't know that I ever contemplated the reality of it.

There was always a part of me that was longing, love buried deeper than the hate that covered it.