CowPi Journal

Holy Cross Be My Light

Wednesday, 11 Jul 2007, 2 pm

It has been well over a year, maybe two, since I started wearing a wearing a small crucifix on a chain around my next. I wanted it close to my heart, so I wore it underneath my shirt.

Sometime after Christmas, I added a St. Benedict’s medal to the chain. (Technically, it is referred to as the Jubilee Medal of 1880 because that is when it was first struck.) It is attached to the same link as the crucifix and lays behind the cross as I wear it. It looks very much like the all-in-one St. Benedict Crucifix but with two separate pieces.

I was drawn to the St. Benedict medal not so much for a devotion to St. Benedict. I deeply respect St. Benedict and the monastic tradition the Spirit started through him. Here in Oklahoma, the spirituality of the Benedictines have a very strong presence. I choose this medal, or it choose me, for the prayer inscribed within the cross. The letters in the cross are the first letters of words in Latin.

Crux Sacra sit mihi lux
Holy Cross be my light

Nunquam draco sit mihi dux
Never the dragon be my lead

The first line is what really captured my attention. The second line is just bonus as with the other inscriptions on the medal (especially the word pax (peace) at the top). In addition, the Latin word sit is the verb “to be”, and it sits (no pun intended) in the very center of the cross. To be in Christ, to be in the Cross, to be—to exist is the gift from God.

C.S.S.M.L. is a signpost for me. I know the signpost is written in Latin, but I never think about the words in Latin, always in English. I am not sure what this says about me. Do I need a signpost in one language pointing to another signpost in my native language to point me where I should follow? Am I going to focus on the signpost, or toward what—or Who—it points?

Clothes readily identify a cleric or a monastic as devoted to Jesus, but what does a a lay person wear? So sometime in the early spring, I decided to start wearing the crucifix and medal outside of my shirt. It was still close to my heart, but I felt the urge to make a statement to all who see me. I am a Christian; the Cross is my light and my lead.

At first I was a little nervous to wear it outside of my clothing. Some of it was due to the fear of what someone might say or think of me. It was not so much as, “Gee, I didn’t know you were a Christian?” It was more of a fear that I may be less approachable as a person, as if I was no longer struggling with temptation and sin like everyone else. Sheesh! If they only knew. The other fear is can I ignore the illusions in my mind, and in the minds of others, of what it means to be “labeled” a Christian and just simply be? I don’t always fit the stereotype for anything. As a priest recently said, “Whatever baby!”

Thank you Saint Benedict for the prayer. Pray for us.

My God of Mercies

Tuesday, 10 Jul 2007, 9 pm

My God, why does it have to be so hard to love You?
My God, why do I always try so hard to be where You are?

See You’re the God of every person
You’re the one who reigns in me
You are all that I could ask for
You’re my world, my everything
And so I say to You, for all You have done
You’re the God of every mountain
You’re the God of earth and sun
And I don’t know why it’s so hard
It’s so hard for me to see
That You’re my God, my God of mercy

My God, why do I always run so fast to get where You are?
My God, why does it always seem so far when You’re right here with me?

The more I try to run, the more I’m standing still
The broken heart can’t bear the emptiness I feel
I want to take Your cup, I want to drink my fill
I know it won’t be easy, but I know that it’s Your will
My God, why does it have to be so hard to love You?
My God, why do I always try so hard to be where You are?

See You’re the God of every person
You’re the one who reigns in me
You’re the bread of life that feeds me
You’re my world, my everything
And so I say to You, for all You have done
You’re the God of every mountain
You’re the God of earth and sun
And I don’t know why it’s so hard
It’s so hard for me to see
That You’re my God, my God of mercy

My God, why does it have to be so hard to love You?

— Adam Bitter

From the Inside Out

Tuesday, 10 Jul 2007, 2 pm

In my heart and my soul
Lord I give You control
Consume me from the inside out
Lord let justice and praise
Become my embrace
To love You from the inside out

Everlasting, Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame
And the cry of my heart
Is to bring You praise
From the inside out
Lord my soul cries out
To You

— Hillsong United

Bad Theology

Wednesday, 4 Jul 2007, 3 pm

In The Courage to Be, Paul Tillich describes bad and painfully wrong theology.

The God of [bad] theological theism is a being beside others and as such a part of the whole of reality. He certainly is considered its most important part, but as a part and therefore as subjected to the structure of the whole. He is supposed to be beyond the ontological elements and categories which constitute reality. But every statement subjects him to them. He is seen as a self which has a world, as an ego which is related to a thou, as a cause which is separated from its effect, as having a definite space and an endless time. He is a being, not being-itself.

As such he is bound to the subject-object structure of reality, he is an object for us as subjects. At the same time we are objects for him as a subject. And this is decisive for the necessity of transcending theological theism. For God as a subject makes me into an object which is nothing more than an object. He deprives me of my subjectivity because he is all-powerful and all-knowing. I revolt and try to make him into an object, but the revolt fails and becomes desperate.

God appears as the invincible tyrant, the being in contrast with whom all other beings are without freedom and subjectivity. He is equated with the recent tyrants who with the help of terror try to transform everything into a mere object, a thing among things, a cog in the machine they control. He becomes the model of everything against which Existentialism revolted. This is the God Nietzsche said had to be killed because nobody can tolerate being made into a mere object of absolute knowledge and absolute control. This is the deepest root of atheism. It is an atheism which is justified as the reaction against theological theism and its disturbing implications.

(Paragraphs added. Original written in one paragraph.)

This gives a possible explanation for the rise of atheism in the 19th and 20th centuries. They simply reject this kind of god. I don’t blame them. Unfortunately many Christians (and those from other faiths) seem to act this way. Maybe it is the fault of our language with its subject-verb-object formula. We take the role of the subject, and nouns—things, places, and people—fill the role of object. We make people objects. We make God an object. (Another word for object is idol.) We assume God makes people objects too. Our language implies it. Just listen carefully to people as they talk about God. Listen carefully to the words used in prayer.

The God of good theology is pure subject-subject relationship. I-Thou as Martin Buber would say. Never I-It of subject-object relations like our language. We have a hard time staying within the presence of an I-Thou relation with anyone for very long. We always slip back into I-It. Even our very own thoughts, memories, and emotions become its to us. It is only in I-Thou, within subject-subject relation, that true freedom exists because I must give Thou the freedom to be thou, to be an I also.

Please forgive me when I have treated and used you as an object, be it within my actions, my words and thoughts, or within my prayer. I am sorry. I love you as you.

Accepting Meaninglessness

Tuesday, 3 Jul 2007, 5 pm

In The Courage to Be, Paul Tillich writes (after page 148):

The act of accepting meaninglessness is in itself a meaningful act. It is an act of faith. We have seen that he who has the courage to affirm his being in spite of fate and guilt has not removed them. He remains threatened and hit by them. But he accepts his acceptance by the power of being-itself in which he participates and gives him the courage to take the anxieties of fate and guilt upon himself. The same is true of doubt and meaninglessness.

In other words, as Tillich points out earlier in the book, the three types of ontological anxiety—fate and death, guilt and condemnation, emptiness and meaninglessness—within man cannot be eliminated. It is part of being human. Courage faces anxiety by taking it upon itself. Tillich uses the words “by affirming ones being in spite of”. The courage to face fate takes it upon itself, but does not eliminate it. The courage to face guilt is the same; guilt is not eliminated. And same with the courage to face meaninglessness; it must take it upon itself but it does not eliminate it. “The act of accepting meaninglessness is in itself a meaningful act.” That is, “the negative lives from the positive it negates.”

There is more but it needs awhile to percolate.

None of this does not answer my original question directly, “What is the meaning?” I was afraid (Existential fear and despair?) that meaning did not even exist let alone have an answer. The direct answer does not seem so important now. I now have a way to connect it to the source of my courage to face meaninglessness.

Thank YOU! Kinda ironic that this is the feast day for Doubting Thomas…