A Walk on the Farm

I walked on the farm this morning. It is the only home I knew growing up. It remained my father’s home until he died five years ago. Now it belongs to my sister, my two brothers, and me. It is a sort of pilgrimage site for me. It contains layers of memories.

We rent the land to a young farmer who rented it from my father after he retired. That farmer bought and lives on the farm a mile or so to the east where my dad grew up and where my grandparents lived until Grandma died 12 years ago.

I start back the lane, a cornfield on my left and soy beans on my bright, serenaded by red-winged black birds.

I pass by the spot where a big walnut tree used to stand. I remember the purply black stains handling the light yellow-green husks would leave on my hands.

A rabbit hops across the lane a few yards ahead of me.

At the dog leg I turn left then right and continue back the lane, now with a cornfield on my right. On my left is the solid green wall of the Huckleberry Marsh where we used to pick the berries for which it was named. It is also the place where, as a boy, I imagined exploring a prehistoric swamp. And where I hunted frogs. 

I can hear the huu huu grunt of a deer but cannot see him.

I cross under the electric lines and the great steel tower that was built beside the lane when I was a kid. My father had offered to pay to have them go around our farm, but imminent domain won out and so an electric buzz drowns out most natural sounds for a bit.

Passing beyond th Huckleberry Marsh I have a field of corn on my left. As I approach what is now the end of the lane, a kite or falcon skims the top of the corn and flies to the electrical tower behind me.

I stop for a bit where the lane ends. A couple of monarch butterflies dance among a stand of trees on my left. Ahead and to the right is the Muck Field planted in soy beans. Across the muck field, to the right, is Windmill Hill. The windmill is long gone, but I remember it. The lane picks up at the hill and enters the Back Woods.

Straight ahead, at the end of the field, is Christmas Tree Hill. When my dad first bought the farm, he planted some pine trees there. When I was little we went back to this hill to select our Christmas trees. I remember the tree dragging behind the tractor leaving a pine-swept trail in the snow.

Between the hills a bluish mist blankets the soy beans and the tall grass beyond.

At the far left corner of the field I see a doe. After watching her for some time, I notice a buck almost straight ahead at the foot of Christmas Tree Hill near where the Gravel Pit used to be – now a grass-covered scoop in the hill. He must be the one I heard grunting earlier. I head in that direction, walking between the rows of soy beans. I get a little closer to the buck and stop. We stare at each other for a while. Then he bounds up the hill and disappears among the trees. But I can hear him snorting and stamping for a while longer.

Continuing to the scoop that was the gravel pit I walk up the hill. I hear the deep chatter of squirrels and see one in a tree to my left and another in an oak tree to my right. I walk to the base of the oak, notice the entry to a ground hog den at its base, and look up at the loquacious squirrel. He scolds me for a while and then climbs further up the tree. 

I come down the hill and head into the field between Christmas Tree Hill and the Back Woods. The soy beans end where I suppose the field has become too wet to plant. There is nothing but tall grass soaked with dew. I head into it and am soon soaked myself up to my hips. I try to avoid the occasional nettle plant. Despite my caution I begin to feel a familiar sting on the outside of my left calf where I must have brushed a nettle.

At the end of this field I reach the Muskrat Pond. Though it might not be particularly ‘PC’ I have fond memories of trapping the eponymous water rodents to sell to a furrier for spending money when I was a teenager. The pond is full of lilly pads – more than I remember.

There is a scar on the side of my left hand from a barbed wire incident near here. This place has marked me in more ways than one.

I turn right and head into the Back Woods. It is good to get out of the wet grass, but my hiking boots and socks continue to squish as I walk on the brown carpet of last year’s leaves.

Now I am home. These trees were – are – my friends. This was the refuge of a young, day-dreamy introvert.

Here is where extended family and friends would hunt mushrooms each spring. Soaked in brine, rolled in a soda cracker batter and fried in large batches, they tasted simultaneously wild and homey.

Walking on I see a hickory tree that, about twenty feet up the trunk, is split – I suppose by lightning. One half rests on the ground, its leaves still green. The other half is cradled in the branches of neighboring trees.

A little further on there is an old rotting, sawed-off stump. I am filled with memories. My father, who owned a sawmill along with the farm, would occasionally cull lumber-worthy trees from these woods. I am flooded with memories of the sound of whining chainsaws and crashing timber and the smell of sawdust. And the biting cold of frozen steel log chains, numb fingers and toes when the logging happened in winter.

I walk on and come upon an arrow on the ground. It has not been here long. Perhaps last fall’s hunting season? The three-bladed tip is slightly rusted, but still looks deadly. It evidently missed its target. Did that deer live to see another day? I take the arrow with me.

I find the lane and continue to walk through the woods, soaking up the sights and sounds and smells. I come out of the woods at the top of Wind Mill Hill. And there in the middle of the muck field is another doe prancing through the soy beans. She meets up with another and together they gracefully bound away from me across the field, waving their white-flag tails until they disappear into some trees.

Crossing the muck field I head back up the lane, grasshoppers, dragonflies, and little white butterflies dancing in front of my feet now and again as I walk.

Nostalgia and contentment mingle as I make my way back. Much has changed. I have changed. But this place endures. And being here grounds me and nourishes my spirit like nowhere else. In the homogenized, contextless space that is much of our contemporary world where we are reduced to tourists and consumers, I am aware of the gift it is to have such a sense of place. And I am grateful.

5 tips for creating civil discourse in an era of polarization

In an essay for The Seattle Times, Charles C. Camosy proposes five practices for moving beyond the polarization which currently dominates our public discourse:

Congress is now more polarized than at any time since Civil War Reconstruction. As we barrel toward a nasty presidential election, things will get even worse.

Whether it is the news channels we watch, the blogs we read, the people we follow on Twitter, our physical neighbors, our Facebook friends, our churches, or the people with whom we socialize, most of us consume information in communities which do not invite us to critically examine our positions.

The polarization is particularly powerful during those increasingly rare times during which we are forced to engage ideas to which we are seldom exposed: say, at Thanksgiving dinner, or in a required course in college or while watching a presidential debate. When we do have our safe, comfortable views directly and thoughtfully challenged, we are often unable to come up with something other than a polarizing response.

Happily, there are signs that we can do things differently. A recent international conference on abortion that I planned at Princeton University called "Open Hearts, Open Minds, and Fair-Minded Words" brought several dozen academics, public figures and activists from all sides of the debate together for dialogue.

We talked honestly about our differences, but also explored areas where some of us might be able to come together: protecting the consciences of workers and institutions, the implications of a later-term fetus' sensitivity to pain, and giving women the resources to choose their pregnancies and provide for their children.

I also started an annual dialogue between a group of young theologians dedicated to getting beyond the liberal/conservative polarization in the Catholic Church, and have just released a book which details my conversation and personal relationship with perhaps Christianity's most infamous opponent: atheist philosopher Peter Singer.

On the basis of these experiences, I propose five practices for moving beyond the polarization which currently dominates our public discourse:

• Humility. We are finite, flawed beings and are prone to making serious mistakes. We need to enter into discussions and arguments with this at the very front of our minds — not only in being comfortable with someone challenging our point of view, but also reserving the right to change our mind when our argument is shown to be problematic.

• Solidarity with our conversation partner. This involves active listening, presuming that one has something to learn, and (if possible) getting to know them personally beyond an abstraction. Never reduce another's ideas because of their gender, race, level of privilege, sexual orientation, or social location. Similarly, never reduce them to what you suspect are their "secret personal motivations." Instead, give your partner the courtesy of carefully responding to the actual idea or argument that she is offering for your consideration.

• Avoiding binary thinking. The issues that are seriously debated in our public sphere are almost always too complex to fit into simplistic categories like liberal/conservative, religious/secular, open/close-minded, pro-life/pro-choice, etc. Furthermore, it sets up framework in which taking one side automatically defines one against "the other side" — thus further limiting serious and open engagement.

• Avoiding fence-building and dismissive words and phrases. It might feel good to score these rhetorical points, but doing so is one of the major contributors to our polarized discourse. Let us simply stop using words and phrases like: radical feminist, war on women, neocon, limousine liberal, prude, heretic, tree-hugger, anti-science, anti-life, and so on. Instead, use language that engages and draws the other into a fruitful engage of ideas.

• Leading with what you are for. Not only is this the best way to make a convincing case for the view you currently hold, but this practice often reveals that we are actually after very similar things and simply need to be able to talk in an open and coherent way about the best plan for getting there.

Charles C. Camosy is assistant professor of Christian ethics at Fordham University in New York City and author of "Peter Singer and Christian Ethics: Beyond Polarization."

On Not Bearing False Witness

"If Luther’s interpretation is correct, the eighth commandment is an epistemic principle: it has to do with figuring out when we have found the truth about our neighbor. When it comes to the assessment of our neighbor’s words and deeds, we should ‘find ways of excusing him, speak well of him and make the best of everything’ – or as it is often rendered, ‘put the best construction on everything (Small Catechism I.16). This is not just a rule of etiquette. We cannot keep this commandment by first discovering what we suppose to be the hard truth about another’s words and deeds, and then politely keeping quiet about, or softening up the rough edges. The commandment not to bear false witness surely cannot be an injunction to dissemble. Rather, obedience to this commandment has to enter into our very effort to discern the truth about our neighbor in the first place; we cannot suppose that we have got the truth about our neighbor’s words and deeds until we are sure we have put the best possible construction on them. In just this sense, presumably, the apostle Paul enjoins us to speak the truth in love, and warns against ‘evil talk,’ namely that which fails to build up and give grace to those who hear (Ephesians 4:15, 29). If we sense a conflict between what we want to say about our neighbor and that kindness and tenderness of heart without which we grieve the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30, 32) we have a sure sign that we have so far failed to find the truth, and have fastened onto falsehoods of our own invention."

-- Bruce Marshall, quoted by Eugene Rogers in Sexuality and the Christian Body, p. 33

See also: Interpreting One Another with Charity

Embracing Wrongness

In this brief lecture, Kathryn Schulz, poses the question, “How does it feel to be wrong?” We all know the feeling. It is usually unpleasant – embarrassing, shameful, etc. It is a feeling we try to avoid. But, Schulz points out that that feeling is not the feeling of being wrong, but the feeling of realizing we are wrong. Before we realize we are wrong, being wrong feels just like being right.

She goes on to point out that while we all acknowledge that we could be wrong in theory, we mostly avoid thinking about the possibility we ourselves might actually be wrong.

 

It is unsettling to concede that right now there are things about which I am convinced I am right but about which I am in fact wrong. Of course, if I realize I am wrong, I hope I will adopt a more correct view. But, at the moment I cannot think of a single thing I know about which I know I am wrong. Can you?

Schulz observes that we are, “Trapped in a little bubble of feeling very right about everything.”

Assuming we are right about everything is, of course, presumptuous. But, trusting too much in the feeling of being on the right side of anything is also dangerous. It is dangerous to our own spirits because it is an expression of the deadly sin of pride. And it is dangerous because attachment to our own rightness causes us to treat each other badly – a failure of charity which is also deadly to the spirit.

Given our habitual assumption of our own rightness – morally, politically, religiously, professionally, scientifically, or whatever – we are faced with a problem – how do we explain all those people who don’t see it our way?

Schulz suggests that we typically make three “unfortunate assumptions” about those who do not agree that we are right. We assume they are:

1. Ignorant – they don’t know the facts that we know

2. Idiots – if it becomes clear that they know the facts, but still resist our rightness, we assume they are not smart enough to draw the right conclusion from those facts.

 

3. Evil – if it is clear they know the facts and are actually quite smart, we resort to the assumption that they are deliberately misconstruing things for malevolent purposes.

I would add two more unfortunate assumptions that seem pretty common:

4. Fearful – those who disagree with me are afraid of what it would mean for them if I am right.

5. Biased – informed, bright, and well-meaning though they might be, those who don’t see things my way must be blinded by biases that prevent them from coming to the proper conclusion.

It is not hard to find examples of these unfortunate assumptions. They are pervasive in our political discourse. And each of them shows up regularly in church debates. The problem is it is always easy to see how those with whom we disagree make these assumptions. It is harder to acknowlege the same assumptions in those with whom we agree. And it is almost impossible to admit them in ourselves.

The truth is (unless I am wrong) some configuration of all of these assumptions is true of each of us all the time.

If we want to resist pride and cultivate humility, we will accept the reality that we are wrong. We will look to our own ignorance, lack of intelligence, maliciousness, fear, and prejudice. And confess them. We will take to heart John Calvin's warning, “There is no worse screen to block out the Spirit than confidence in our own intelligence.“

If we want to live in charity, we will resist the temptation to bear false witness against our neighbor. Rather than making the “unfortunate assumptions” about those with whom we disagree, we will begin by assuming the opposite of those assumptions.

 

And we will embrace with sincerity the possibility that we are the ones who are wrong.

I suggest that Christians are both bound to practice such humility and charity and freed to do so. We are bound by the commands of our Lord to do so. We are freed to do so by the fundamental reality of grace that frees us from the obsession with being right and the fear of being wrong.

 

Perhaps this is what it means to speak the truth in love. (Ephesians 4:15).

The truth – as best I understand it and sincerely confessing that I could very well be wrong

In love – with gentleness and reverence toward those who I am trying to persuade (1 Peter 3:15). In love – which, by any Christian account, is more important than being right.
 

"Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge" 1 Corinthians 8:1-2

My Prejudices vs Your Prejudices

The difference between my prejudices and your prejudices is that my prejudices (convictions and values so obvious they don’t need explaining) don’t really count as prejudices. They are just the way reasonable, intelligent, faithful [insert whatever self-congratulatory designation suits you] people know things to be. Thus, those who don’t see it that way must be operating out of sin, ignorance, or blind prejudice. And it is, therefore, not mean when we refer to you as ignorant, stupid, afraid, or nefarious. We are merely stating the truth.

This is how most contemporary political rhetoric sounds to me.

It is how a fair amount of Facebook status updates sound to me - whether the prejudices reflected are conservative or liberal/progressive.

Even more sadly, it is also how too much of the 'conversation' on church blogs and listserves sounds to me.

Turns out none of us is a smart as we think we are. Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Laureate and professor of psychology at Princeton has spent decades studying how the brain - and our reasoning with it - actually works. The results are unsettling. Some of those results were described in a recent article in the New Yorker, Why Smart People Are Stupid:

Perhaps our most dangerous bias is that we naturally assume that everyone else is more susceptible to thinking errors, a tendency known as the “bias blind spot.” This “meta-bias” is rooted in our ability to spot systematic mistakes in the decisions of others—we excel at noticing the flaws of friends—and inability to spot those same mistakes in ourselves. Although the bias blind spot itself isn’t a new concept, West’s latest paper demonstrates that it applies to every single bias under consideration, from anchoring to so-called “framing effects.” In each instance, we readily forgive our own minds but look harshly upon the minds of other people.

And here’s the upsetting punch line: intelligence seems to make things worse. The scientists gave the students four measures of “cognitive sophistication.” As they report in the paper, all four of the measures showed positive correlations, “indicating that more cognitively sophisticated participants showed larger bias blind spots.” This trend held for many of the specific biases, indicating that smarter people (at least as measured by S.A.T. scores) and those more likely to engage in deliberation were slightly more vulnerable to common mental mistakes. Education also isn’t a savior; as Kahneman and Shane Frederick first noted many years ago, more than fifty per cent of students at Harvard, Princeton, and M.I.T. gave the incorrect answer to the bat-and-ball question.

I am reminded of St. Paul's assertion, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge; but anyone who loves God is known by him.” (1 Corinthians 8:1-3)

 

 

Given that we are all fallible and sinful, we will probably never, this side of the kingdom of God, be free of blind spots in our reasoning. But, I think we can begin to take them into account and soften their effects.

Cultivating humility is one way. Again from St. Paul,

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. (Philippians 2:1-3)

It is good for us all to remember continually that each of us is blind, and thus we should be very slow to judge others. For judging others is a fearful thing. Jesus said,

Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back." He also told them a parable: "Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit? A disciple is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully qualified will be like the teacher. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, "Friend, let me take out the speck in your eye,' when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye. (Luke 6:37-42)

Related post: Reason and It's Discontents

Seven Roads to Hell

Evelyn Underhill on the seven deadly sins:

There are seven dispositions in us which specially block the action of God and are hostile to the Holy; which twists our souls out of shape. Theology calls them the seven deadly sins – deadly because once they get their claws into us they tend to spiritual extinction instead of spiritual life.

1.   Pride, uppishness, the great instinct of self-regard. No one can see straight in religion till they get rid of that.

2.   Envy – an inimical, snarky attitude to others, ill-wind in all, even its most subtle and refined forms.

3.   Anger, the combative instinct, turbulence, emotional uproar, self-centered vehemence, the negation of Peace.

4.   Sloth, the opposite number of wholesome zest, the deadly spirit of slackness, fed-up-ness, “is it worth while-ness.”

5.   Avarice, the possessive spirit, grab and hold-tight in all its manifestations.

6.   Gluttony, intemperate enjoyment for its own sake of what is in reason good and allowable.

7.   Lust – letting our instinct and emotional nature get the upper hand and leading us, instead of our leading it, being ruled by our longings.

 

Now we may feel prepared to repudiate some of these on sight, as having nothing to do with ordinary civilized life. We consider that we are not envious, avaricious, wrathful, greedy. It’s not done!  But it is not only our natural life that is concerned. Those tendencies are ingrained in human nature and infect the most subtle reaches of our personal and spiritual life too; they colour our prayer because genuine prayer reflects character. For they all mean at bottom three great disorders of our power of love – loving wrong things, loving too much, loving too little.

Pride and avarice mean the drive of energy set towards our selves and our possessions.  Lust and gluttony love too much. Sloth and envy love too little. They all turn up in our relations to the things God gives us to deal with – family, friends, work and the practice of religion. As we wake up more towards spiritual reality and our world grows, the form of our sinfulness probably changes. The great wrong instincts of self-importance, pugnacity, grab, self-indulgence, slackness, are still there, but gradually pass from cruder to more and more subtle forms – spiritual pride, spiritual envy, spiritual greed; these still lie in wait for souls who believe they want nothing but God.

The Mount of Purification

Julian on the Trinity

“Suddenly the Trinity filled my heart full of the greatest joy, and I understood that it will be so in heaven without end to all who will come there. For the Trinity is God, God is the Trinity. The Trinity is our maker, the Trinity is our protector, the Trinity is our everlasting lover, the Trinity is our endless joy and our bliss, by our Lord Jesus Christ and in our Lord Jesus Christ. . . for where Jesus appears the Trinity is understood.”
– Julian of Norwich (1342-1423)