Desire vs Reason

I was thinking Sunday about how reason should inform us of what is true and what is right and what is good.  This is particularly so if our reason is informed by our conscience, and our conscience by our faith and the Scriptures.

For those not so informed, however, reason devolves into what is naturally a value system derived from what we think is true, right and good, APART from such sources as faith and the Scriptures.  More on this in a minute.

We are often presented today with the supposed truism that if we are more educated, we have more facts to reason with and thus will make better decisions and more "moral" choices.  This supposes the supremacy of reason over other motivations (like emotion and desire).  But even the great proponents of rationalism were also driven by desire.

Desire and reason often work at cross purposes with each other.  Not that desire is bad (although the Stoics thought so) in and of itself, it's simple different.  Each are strong motivators.  Those who argue for the supremacy of reason also believe that as education increases, the power of reason increases and so education leads to the triumph of reason.

Balderdash!  I say.  Poppycock!  Horse hockey, even!  Desire is every bit as strong a motivator as reason and often wins out over it.  The head and the heart can be adversaries... but they don't have to be.  Many desires are reasonable ones:

We desire to be: Loved.  Accepted.  Successful.  Comforted.  Thought (and spoken) well of.  Protected.  Understood.

There's nothing wrong with these things.  They are natural and reasonable desires.  It's when they get out of control that we are seen to "behave irrationally", when our desire to be successful leads to overwork, when our desire to be loved leads to promiscuity, when our desire for protection leads to paranoia.

So, wouldn't it be a good thing to see what we know is true and right and good, and find our where our desires line up with our reason?  When reason and desire can partner up, then motivation can be wholistic and more powerful than if reason and desire oppose each other.

There are times when you can't explain why you want something, you can't explain desire.  From this flows the old saying "the heart has reasons that reason doesn't know."  But if you can think through your desires and discover whether they align well with what you know, then perhaps you will be unified and live a life of well-being.  And that well-being, that "Shalom", will be ever more such if our reason is informed by the Creator and the Author of our faith, who said: "My peace (shalom) I leave with you."

Perhaps I will live a life of well-being, of Shalom, too, if I heed my own advice.

Life in Thirds

In the shower the other day (where almost all big ideas happen - don't ask me why), I thought about human life (at least in the West) in 3 segments.  Maybe it was the occasion of my wife turning 60 this year and my son turning 30 next year.  Whatever the reason I puzzled over what the main purpose was of these 30-year cohorts of time, assuming one lives until 90.

The first 30 years seem to be best described as a period of FORMATION.  You are learning, growing, forming personality and character, settling on a career direction, choosing values and beliefs.  You are becoming who you will be as an adult.

The next 30 years seem to be best described as a period of GENERATION.  Between 30 and 60 most people are out there doing and being what they were formed into in their first 30 years.  They are producing, creating, earning, interacting with others, building relationships, having babies in some cases, and so on.  They are using what they were formed to be in order to generate spouses, heirs, friendships, wealth, service, etc.

Well, if these are true, what then are the last 30 years to be, the years from 60 to 90 (or death, if it comes sooner)?  That, maybe, was the real question I was noodling over.  What should this last third of my life be about?  The conclusion I came to was this:

The last 30 years seem to be best described as a period of DISTRIBUTION.  After age 60 you begin to distribute what you have learned and produced to others who will succeed you, who will come up behind you.  You dispense wisdom you've accumulated, you offer advice based on years of life experience, you arrange to leave your assets to your heirs, you define what your legacy will be, what people will remember you for (at least for 4 generations; see this post for details).

This thought process was helpful, I think.  It reminds me that I have really passed the age of accumulation, and I need to think about what I will be leaving behind.  I suppose it's called "getting your house in order"; but it's also called "leaving a legacy".  I was formed into who I am today a long time ago.  I have only a few years left to generate wealth or accumulate useful life experience.  Soon I will be faced with sharing all that with others - to communicate, to share, to give, to leave it behind (hopefully in some meaningful and organized fashion).

FORMING, GENERATING, DISTRIBUTING.

I think that covers it.

Are there many paths to God?

That's the popular concept of those philosophies that are not exclusivist. There are religions that claim exclusivity, and those who claim no such thing. The latter usually emphasize the truths that are largely common among religions, and ignore their differences. The former focus on the differences between religions and show why their particular religious belief is superior to the others. If they can't demonstrate superiority in terms of how their adherents live, they will appeal to the superiority (usually read as recency) of the revelation which launched their religious movement. As examples, Judaism had spinoff movements claiming more recent (and therefore superior) revelation; they were Christianity and Islam. (this doesn't even consider the differences between Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Judaism.) Christianity had spinoff movements also claiming the same thing, namely Protestantism, Mormonism, Christian Science and Jehovah's Witnesses. Islam had similar spinoff movements, such as Sunni vs Shia, and last of all Ba'hai.


Even among the exclusivists, there are branches contending that they alone hold the truth about God.


So, the question remains: do all paths lead to God?


To me it makes much more sense to say that each path to God is unique, not because we strive to find our own way to God, but because God travels down many different paths to reach us. We are all unique individuals, one person's story about "finding God" is different from everyone else's story. Christianity claims (in Rom 3:10-12, which quotes from Psalms 14:1-3; 53:1-3; Eccl. 7:20) "there is no one who seeks God; no, not one." It claims instead that God pursues us as if we were lost sheep from the flock in God's care. God takes the initiative to offer salvation to us, we do not take the initiative to pursue God.


So, do all paths lead to God? No. I can't follow someone else's path to God. God blazes the trail uniquely to get to me where I am. God creates as many paths as are needed to save those whom God is calling. Yes, there are many paths to God, but only one for me to follow... the one God created exclusively for my use.

The Limits of Patriotism

This weekend is an odd mixture of the 15th anniversary of 9/11 and the start of "football season". This memory popped up on Facebook today:

“The cheapest form of pride however is national pride. For it betrays in the one thus afflicted the lack of individual qualities of which he could be proud, while he would not otherwise reach for what he shares with so many millions. He who possesses significant personal merits will rather recognise the defects of his own nation, as he has them constantly before his eyes, most clearly. But that poor beggar who has nothing in the world of which he can be proud, latches onto the last means of being proud, the nation to which he belongs. Thus he recovers, and is now in gratitude ready to defend with hands and feet all its errors and follies.”

----- Arthur Schopenhauer

and it made me think of mixing the two concepts. The recent controversy over sports figures kneeling in protest during the National Anthem, and the counter-protests seen at pro football stadiums today during the opening ceremonies reinforced the linkage of sports and patriotism.

Of the Schopenhauer quote, you could say the same for the kind of "sports patriotism" known as team spirit. Usually, whether in war or sport, it's those who sit and watch who are the most hardened in their convictions of their side's superiority; those actually contending in the battle have a more keen awareness of their side's weaknesses, whether in strategy or skills. I've loved this song for years, but it sure sums up the idea of "my school (or country), right or wrong." Another very popular song is like it, not in style but in sentiment.

I would prefer instead that we sing a song that emphasizes what we've been given as a country and admits our need for humility and guidance, "America The Beautiful", to wit in verses 2 & 3:

O beautiful for pilgrim feet,

Whose stern, impassioned stress

A thoroughfare for freedom beat 

Across the wilderness! 

America! America! 

God mend thine every flaw, 

Confirm thy soul in self-control, 

Thy liberty in law! 

O beautiful for heroes proved

In liberating strife, 

Who more than self their country loved 

And mercy more than life! 

America! America! 

May God thy gold refine, 

Till all success be nobleness, 

And every gain divine!

What we need now is a viable third party

The present presidential election situation is as bizarre as any in memory.  The candidates put forth by the two major political parties are both an extraordinary disappointment, and as jointly reviled as any pair of leading candidates in American history.  If there was ever a time when a third party was called for, it's this year.

So, I went on Saturday to a rally for Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party, which is on the ballot in all 50 states, but not yet in the upcoming presidential debates. Could be that flawed polling methods are responsible, could be that limited campaign funding is at fault; whatever the reason, based on what I heard in Des Moines on Saturday, having Johnson/Weld in the debates would turn the entire hyper-partisan hyperbolic dialogue completely on its head.  

My bumper sticker went on yesterday and the yard sign is going up Tuesday (as soon as it arrives).  This political nonsense has got to change, and I think the two major party candidates we are stuck with are making it clear that a vote for a third party is no longer a "wasted" vote; the only wasted vote this year is a vote for someone you don't believe in.

Marlene-Dietrich-Platz is the place for me!

Duty called last week and took me to Berlin, Germany (yes, on business!).  It was a "client event", and I was one of the clients.  Spouses were graciously invited and so there was a vacation element to the trip as well.  :)

Berlin is a city that defies definition - it's as if there were four cities there simultaneously: 1) Medieval Berlin, the historic center of Slavic trade in the middle ages, where Celts and Germanic tribes crossed paths, crossed swords, and eventually crossed purposes with the Austro-Hungarian rule of the Habsburgs, as the Kingdom of Prussia rose to prominence.  2) Pre-WW2 Berlin, its trendy, sophisticated arts & culture juxtaposed with its beastial brutality to non-Aryan "tribes" of people.   3) Post WW2 divided Berlin, occupied by 4 different countries (none of them German), with West Berlin being an island of prosperity in a sea of communist impoverishment.  4)  Modern united Berlin, gleaming with brilliant architectural design and clean as a whistle.

What follows are photos without comment, but I trust you can see the different sides of Berlin in the images below: