I write, speak, invest, network, and question to stimulate fruitful conversation. Let's talk about human flourishing! It begins with freedom. Holy leisure is the key to human being, freedom and generativity. Please join me in the adventure of realizing Christ!
Find Your Remove
I can be in unity with anyone, at some remove. Perhaps I’m not your cup of tea, or we just don’t sync well, or you’re just ‘not that into’ me, or a little bit goes a long way in our relationship. It may just not be our time yet. We both will continue to grow and change, and maybe the Great Dance will find us, someday, back in phase for a few steps. Or maybe not.
Ultimately, in the kairos of the Eternal present, we’ll reconnect. Meanwhile, we are held in the Spirit’s tether – his net of relationship. It’s a dynamic tension that generates a context between us – a space that we (or even just one of us, with the Spirit’s help) can fill with love.
In the comedy movie Hallalujah Trail, one character tries to keep step with others surreptitiously. The name he gives this maneuver is “maintaining detached contact,” and it’s what I love to do when I feel you’ve dumped me, abandoned me, blown me off, ignored me, or otherwise let go of our unity.
I know from experience that I don’t need your cooperation to hold you in my heart, to fill the space between us with love, to let my yearning for you become a prayer, to offer the pain of separation for your blessing.
If I’m maintaining detached contact with you, watch out! The Spirit is ever at work drawing us closer. One of these days, you may be surprised to find yourself wanting to see me, write to me, touch base with me, or remembering me fondly. I wish you well, and look forward to our reunion.
Going Home Empty Handed
Prodigality has two meanings:
to fritter away your riches and to give generously of them.
The Father of the Prodigal Son actually exhibited prodigality that pours itself out to provide. The Son fulfills that generous impulse in both the abandoned (if impudent and imprudent) spending, and in the trust implicit in showing up at his door empty handed.
Emptying the Self
I want, in a sense, to show up at my heavenly Father’s door ‘empty-handed’. I hope to be purged of my pickiness, crochetiness, self-centered-ness, defensiveness and pusillanimity, among other things. These are all problematic for anyone, but are especially nasty in old people. We don’t suddenly acquire the qualities, but they show up more in old-age ‘relief’. I want to let go of all that I carry, all that I’m attached to, all that impedes my opening to receive Him.
Empty Money, Impotent Money
The Prodigal and his older brother both had lessons to learn. One refused to own the greatness of his Father’s house and move its riches generously into celebration and licit enjoyment. The other abstracted money from its context in home, community, and responsibility, to ‘move’ it impotently. Whether merely spilled, or merely saved, money (as token of the Father’s character and intentions) is useless.
Two Sons, Two Lessons
The word ‘prodigal’ came up in a writing group recently – focus for an off-the-cuff 5-minute writing flow exercise. Here’s my take:
He gave it all away, yes…squandered it, maybe…lost it, no – because in the waste was the wielding of what was his. In the prodigality was the essence of the Father’s generosity. In the life with the poor and lowly was the movement of the Father’s heart: out, through his son, beyond the bounds of place and property, his yearning, his watchfulness, his hope filing the newly enlarged space between the sonship of pure love and the sonship of pure law; of begetting and begging; of justice and mercy. In that space between the Father who gave all and the son who spent all was a world of hurt and need, now reunited in one embrace to Comfort and Fulfillment!
Oh, long-suffering son of the house, how the Father longs for you to know the joy of prodigality!
Questions for Atheists
It might seem hostile to pepper a live atheist with so many questions, but these are things I’d really like to know:
- Is it possible to live so immersed in atheism, so aligned with its principles that they become a life support system to you in alien, or hostile environments?
- Is atheism so important, or helpful to you that you can’t live without it, can’t stand without its support?
- Is it possible to live so fully in correspondence with atheism that your life does not make sense without it? Nothing else makes sense of YOU. Atheism is the key to your coherence, without which every aspect of your being falls apart into incoherence. Is that true for you?
- Does the word ‘atheism’ live so richly in you that it shapes and colors and fills your every word, act, gesture and work of art?
- Does atheism bond you to other atheists in a community that extends from generation to generation and to every corner of the globe? Does it give you a kind of real unity with other atheists that irritate you, disagree with you about everything but atheism, get in your way, or make demands on you?
- Do you find yourself wanting to express atheism in works of great beauty, profound joy or hopefulness? What works by atheists do this? I would like to experience their works of art.
- Does your atheism overflow to immerse and influence people around you?
- Does your atheism enliven and ennoble and edify people when you share it with them? Do they feel more hopeful if they convert to atheism?
- By the light of atheism, can you examine the natural world more deeply, understand interpersonal dynamics and mental illness more fully, or perceive paths to renewing the world more clearly?
- What would it mean for someone to adopt a distorted or malformed atheism? Are there ways someone could know if their atheism was becoming deformed, dangerous, or confused with other beliefs?
- Can you be a ‘fundamentalist atheist’? What would that look like? How ‘bout an ‘orthodox atheist’? A ‘non-practicing atheist’? A ‘cultural atheist’?
- Are there any obligations imposed upon you by atheism?
- What are an atheist’s guidelines for getting along with non-atheists (and answering their questions)?
- What, for you, is the most compelling argument for the doctrine that there is no God?
If you substitute your religion for ‘atheist’ in each question, then answer them all, it will be good for you and for our future dialogue! Here’s a contact form in case you want to share your answers with me. I’d be honored!
My Desires
I want to help Catholics:
Build Community
(not to be self-sufficient or satisfied with virtual relationships)
Network
(not to circle wagons or schmooze superficially)
Trust
(not to be suspicious or gullible)
Dialogue
(not to lecture or debate)
Be Creative
(not to be ‘artistes’ or to scribble)
Bear Tension
(not to collapse or snap)
Respond
(not to react or to be silenced)
Be Interested
(not to remain confused or indifferent)
Be Teachable
(not to over-rely on experts or be self-referential)
Take Risks
(not to remain afraid or be foolhardy)
Start Small
(not to wait for big but hold hope for great possibilities)
Smile, have fun, play, enjoy other people, live life as an adventure
(not to be self-righteous party poopers or satisfied with inane amusement)
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