Day 13 of the great clean up

Today I'm away from my cluttered apartment, there's still a lot of stuff on the floor but it's getting there. Over the last week I've been reading about tiny homes and tiny apartments partly because I wanted ideas and partly for inspiration. My first rental apartment was probably 350 square feet (32 m2) and several friends can tell the story of me reaching into a pile of stuff to pull out a cello! My current place is around 600 (64) and I have simply expanded or perhaps exploded if you remember how much there was in the old place. Can I learn to live simpler?

An interesting introduction to tiny houses can be found here. people can live in incredibly compact spaces. My old world apartment had a German fitted kitchen with cupboards and cupboards and more cupboards and surprisingly it was pretty clear for years because everything had its place.

I've also been following up Japanese lifestyle and living simply because their living spaces are substantially smaller than N. American. A very helpful blog (here) by a Westerner living in Japan helped me realize that it's not all about storage. As I have almost maxed out my storage, it is also about scale of living. Her blog points to living at the appropriate scale. Most of what she says is common sense and a lot about storage but she finishes with this:

The best way to tell how well you've organized your space is by seeing how comfortable you feel in it when you're not occupied with T.V. or the computer or whatever. If you feel a sense of peace and comfort, you've probably got it set up pretty well to suit your needs.

So I have a goal which I'm reaching out for namely space through simplifying things, condensing things, and decluttering. A while ago I wrote about constant partial attention and how exhausting that can be in the info tech filled world we live in. Somehow for me, perhaps exacerbated by synaesthesia, I suspect that it is also a physical emotional issue. Perhaps even a spiritual life issue for many of us.

Day 12 and What shape is your spirituality?

Have you listened to others pray? Have you noted how they refer to God? Do you listen to yourself? Often this says a lot about someone's theology of who God is. Very early in theological studies I was exposed to Trinitarian theology, it's implications in ethics, theological anthropology and theology. In fact it impinges in all areas of doctrine. Yet many people have a very narrow vision and often than not, it isn't trinitarian because at least one of the persons is missing.

I bit the bullet yesterday and worked hard to clear a line of boxes in the bedroom. I emptied 4 of them and sorted or disposed of contents. There were phone bills from 2002 onwards and all manner of bits and pieces. I am trying to experience God in the cleaning and tidying but it is a struggle. However the exercise of will is an important lesson and I am trying not the shirk the need to focus and not to run away. (taking a lesson from John Cassian.) However I have been thinking and realizing that I don't see God as a critical task master/parent but more as strengthener or encourager. God is less and less distant and more an accepted norm of every day life.

Candeo recently blogged about failure and its importance. I wonder whether we need both the little failures and the acknowledgment of little successes to remove fear of failure. In Christian classical spirituality these elements are known as desolations and consolations. In the times when we feel failures and feel God is far away we need the memory of God being close and active to carry us through. These days I have had my good moments and bad moments and I still moving forwards slowly. However most of all I need the encouragement of others to keep going, to keep moving forwards. Trinity is essentially a mysterious relationship full of paradoxes which we need to hold together and yet also this relationship is perhaps what it is to be humans together and in the image of God.

God said, "Let us make human beings in our image, in our likeness... Genesis 1:26

Synaesthesia/synesthesia

To test synaesthesia, V.S. Ramachandran and collaborators designed a test, the picture (on left). Pick out the twos as quickly as possible.

Most ordinary people can do it within about twenty seconds. (I can do it in about 2 seconds.) A majority of aesthetes supposedly see numbers or letters as colours e.g. five might be green and 2 red. But I feel the differences 5's are closed mouth and 2 are open mouth. In fact 5's are smooth, 3's are sharp and 2' simply slimey.

Here's another quick test:-



Do you hear, smell, feel(through touch), taste? Synaesthesia is a condition where stimulation for one of the senses provokes a response in another whether or not it has been directly activated.

I'm quite interested in the links between physical, emotional, and spiritual. Especially as discernment for me is linked to a semi-physical feeling.

Synesthesia is emotional. The experience is accompanied by a sense of certitude (the "this is it" feeling) and a conviction that what synesthetes perceive is real and valid. This accompaniment brings to mind that transitory change in self-awareness that is known as ecstasy. Ecstasy is any passion by which the thoughts are absorbed and in which the mind is for a time lost. In The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James spoke of ecstasy's four qualities of ineffability, passivity, noesis, and transience. These same qualities are shared by synesthesia.
Richard E. Cytowic http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v2/psyche-2-10-cytowic.html

Most spiritual directors, I know are concerned with the symbolic universe and the metaphorical nature of life especially in arts and natural forms. I wonder how many are synaesthetes?

Day 10 and the great clean up

Day 10 and I'm still not significantly out of the living room. This presents a problem as I've not really been home much today. There is a new pile of things in the middle of the floor much of which is awaiting a new home but a lot of paper is gone/shredded or filed.

Yesterday I did some research on tiny houses and tiny homes and have found new ideas for clearing up and new inspiration for stuff reduction. With my incredible tendency to collect and hoard, like a squirrel or hamster there are issues. Looking through my receipts for the last 10 years music has occupied a significant part of my expenditure. However there are many things that did not work out and some I have given away but other are still in a closet. Time to clear out! I'm returning to an old theme that small is beautiful and perhaps smaller and simpler is better. Frequently stuff just causes me more distress than relief, more stress than security. Perhaps this is a new stage for me in understanding purgation, an important stage in spiritual growth.

depth and space

Sunday late afternoon and evening I was really up lifted. I stopped off on at the Danforth street festival to hear a local blues band, harmonica, guitar, keyboard and drumkit. In the rain with storm clouds overhead there is something about the blues which seems to be inherently spiritual. Perhaps it is in its emergence from the songs of the oppressed. Both the wailing nature of the songs harmonica. guitar and voice and the blues scale itself lend a certain transcendence. This was followed by watching George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh from Google Video and followed by G3 live featuring the guitar artistry of Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson and Steve Vai.

Blues seems to touch deeply. Perhaps because of the absence of the major third in the blues scale brings an existential feeling of space inside the chording. I forget the book I was reading but looking at Christian worship music it presented 3 categories for music with sufficient depth. One was folk music, the music of the people. Blues reflects truly the human condition and human struggle.

Acedia and Day 8 of the great cleanup

OUR sixth combat is with what the Greeks call acedia, which we may term weariness or distress of heart. This is akin to gloominess, ... It also makes the man lazy and sluggish about all manner of work which has to be done within the enclosure of his dormitory. It does not suffer him to stay in his cell, or to take any pains about reading, and he often groans because he can do no good while he stays there, and complains and sighs because he can bear no spiritual fruit so long as he is joined to that society; and he complains that he is cut off from spiritual gain, and is of no use in the place, ... John Cassian Institutes

I have written a little about acedia earlier back in September last year. (here) But as I struggle with trying to keep myself cleaning up so then the reflections on slovenliness continue to follow on. Our physical, emotional and spiritual lives are intrinsically linked.

John Cassian (circa AD 360-435) is probably the most quoted figure on the subject (actually are far as I can see the only figure I've read to date!) It is his recording of the Desert Fathers' sayings and his influence on St Benedict and subsequent monastic traditions that makes him so important. In his Institutes, Book 10, he give an important illustration from his own life concerning acedia.

WHEN I was beginning my stay in the desert, and had said to Abbot Moses, the chief of all the saints, that I had been terribly troubled yesterday by an attack of acedia, and that I could only be freed from it by running at once to Abbot Paul, he said, “You have not freed yourself from it, but rather have given yourself up to it as its slave and subject. For the enemy will henceforth attack you more strongly as a deserter and runaway, since it has seen that you fled at once when overcome in the conflict: unless on a second occasion when you join battle with it you make up your mind not to dispel its attacks and heats for the moment by deserting your cell, or by the inactivity of sleep, but rather learn to triumph over it by endurance and conflict.” Whence it is proved by experience that a fit of acedia should not be evaded by running away from it, but overcome by resisting it.

In Cassian's writing he indicates some key obstacles for the monks in the spiritual life; gluttony, impurity, covetousness, anger, dejection, acedia, vainglory, and pride. I suspect I have begun to gain insight into why people get stuck in the spiritual lives and it's all to be found here. So its back to work will all my might to clear the kitchen.

Jesus replied, No-one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God. Luke 9:62

From South of the border

“I think one of the primary ‘things of ourselves’ that American Christians chase after is financial independence. In fact, most of the books on Christian financial principles in print assume that this is the goal of Christian finance. However, countless verses in the New Testament make it clear that this isn't a Biblical value.” Mark went on to discuss the value of mutual dependence in Christ, a well noted but mostly overlooked principle. Rusty Kelley @ Common Grounds citing Mark Upton

Years ago one of my cousins thinking out loud asked how he could ensure his children didn't get handed everything on a plate. He was concerned that he, himself had to struggle to attain success in his life and he wanted to ensure his children would be strong as well, having the will to reach for and achieve. All this reminds me I've been struggling for a few years trying to understand the empirical connection between an individual's relationship with God and their membership within a community/Body of Christ. This comes to focus again today as I worry about:- those who feel they have to go away on missions find God. Those who rely more on the prayers of their friends than on their relationship with God. Those who come to only half a worship service or those for whom attendance in a communal service Sunday's is optional.

This week I read that Christianity is a social religion to be conducted in community. That is not earth shattering as such but still a good reminder. I suspect that extroverts prefer community in services and prayer meetings and introverts prefer solitude in quiet times and meditation - and the lazy neither. I wrote about slovenliness as few days ago and the remedy is of course will-power. When we are called to love God we are called to love with all our (your) strength. της ισχυος σου tes ischuos sou. What is this strength?

I would disagree in part with what I heard today. Rather than fall into a Greek understanding of human person which has heart(spiritual), soul (emotional), mind (rational), and strength (physical) I would like draw on a stronger theological tradition one where the church realized the importance of the will or will-power - this is our source of strength. This last week my 5 year old godson and his older brother learned about will power (Yes, I was teaching!). Resisting the want to switch on the TV and watch a DVD. I invited them to consider will-power and not simply following their wants. Ironically William, the older brother was the one lacking Will-power however my godson Daniel put up a good fight and beat the want. In the Catholic tradition these wants are distinguished as passions and desires. Desires are what God has placed in our hearts. Passions are what arise out of human wants and needs. Passions are not necessarily bad but like an untamed unbridled horse very risky for rider. (Notice passions are very closely allied to feelings.)

What then of human action within passions ?

"When regulated by reason, and subjected to the control of the will, the passions may be considered good and used as means of acquiring and exercising virtue. ... The flesh and its appetites, if allowed, will throw everything into confusion and vitiate our whole nature by sin and its consequences. It is therefore man's duty to control and regulate it by reason and a strong will aided by God's grace."

Thus enjoying a good cooked meal is not bad. But to overeat is bad. I may have a passion for serving God and even go to India but the desire placed in me is to be with God and bring him to those that need to meet him.

How do I know whether my passions are headed in the right direction? Discernment and communal discernment because self-deception is still very effective. Discernment is a struggle and becomes stronger in community but the community itself needs to want to discern rather than make decisions. We need to get our spirituality out in front not behind us.

What's difference?

It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. The latter do so in love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice. Paul Philippians 1:15-18

I worry perhaps too much about motives. Jesus seemed to point to the importance of motives in the Divine assessment of action and life. But What does it matter?. Joey in Missions and Theology points out "In essence he was saying, their motives are between them and God. Whether the preaching was done for false motives or pure, whether for show or for the sake of what was right, Paul was genuinely pleased that the gospel was being spread."

What does it matter as long as the gospel is being proclaimed in some way? People's impure hearts and motives doesn't matter as long as God remains centre stage. I suppose this is where it is. If the person becomes centre stage then there is a problem. Whether preacher or worship leader if it is all about me, then we've entered idolatry - substituting us for God. I have not quite understood the N. American phenomenon of the "secret of" or "how to" book titles. Now I think it is all about the author and is a new form of the older gnosticism appearing in society. Perhaps also revealed in a renewed interest in the Gnostic gospels as well. For us below re: peoples actions and words, as long as Christ is preached then motives become secondary, as long as God is in centre then an impure heart is not the issue. God sees, searches and knows the hearts of humans.