professional success and the cost

Would you exchange a tremendous professional triumph for a severe personal blow? Dave Brooks New York Times

Sandra Bullock's success with an Oscar and that great acclaim that it brings is contrasted with her personal life and marital failure. Even larger salaries and endorsements and possibly a longer life as Oscar winners tend to live longer. Getting my hair cut, it was noted I don't have any gray or white hair. When asked I said that I think it's because I don't worry so much especially about the need to make money and have things. A woman in the salon started on about how surely more money means you'll be more happy. Well a few people chipped in. One hair stylist asked if I exercise and meditate, which is what I do. But then I was asked if I was Buddhist. I said No I'm Christian. The conversation died into silence? Why?

Research according to Dave Brooks shows that once the basic necessities have been met then income is only lightly connected to well-being. In fact lottery winners tend not to be happier rather sadder with greater problems. Yet don't we also long for more money? If we apply Maslow's hierarchy of needs to our glasses it is interesting that Brooks says "According to one study, joining a group that meets even just once a month produces the same happiness gain as doubling your income. According to another, being married produces a psychic gain equivalent to more than $100,000 a year." The need to belong being met contributes far more than having stuff and possessions and money.

Christians do forget where to lay up their treasures. We need to see the world in a different light. Workaholism and striving for personal success are real, very real. To pursue these has a real cost. The alternative is we all need to enjoy the present moment and the little blessings and not lust after the big things.

in the skies

What emotions are stirred in you watching and listening?
Why is the moon associated with mental illness?


(I shot this feb 2oth on a cold bitter night)

Salvador Dali

Salvador Dali's The Temptation of St Anthony

Years ago I read The Life of Antony by Athanasius. A fascinating story of his struggles with himself and his desire to follow and be faithful to God. Antony/Anthony was the founder of Christian monasticism and asceticism

Dali reused a number of key themes from the history of art. The Temptation of St. Anthony is one used by some of the more fantasy-oriented Renaissance artists (e.g. Matthais Grunewald). In this version, the saint is walking through the desert when he is confronted with a number of temptations. The first a monstrous horse often a symbol of power or strength and them a number of elephants on stilt-like legs. There carry different temptations, including the golden cup of lust and perhaps symbols of greed. There are many Freudian interpretators out there but I find Athansius' biography more helpful. He was being tempted by "memories of his possessions, the guardianship of his sister, the bonds of kinship, love of money and of glory, the manifold pleasure of food, the relaxations of life , and finally, the rigor of virtue and how great the labor is that earns it...".

After two long conferences this month where my sleep patterns have been severely disrupted, I've just returned and slept 3.30pm Wednesday to 10.30 am Thursday. And last night I slept a further 10 hours. We all have our temptations to deal with and their desire to turn us from the path of virtue. They may not be the same but they come at us steadily and we struggle with each of them in turn.

Waiting for rain

Saturday saw a visit to Crawford Lake which is a glacial lake, a rare meromictic lake where layers of water do not intermix. The water is so oxygen deficient that little is able to live in the water and the lake being so deep preserves whatever falls into it.

This tree seemed to be making a statement to the environment around it. The forecast was for showers and on this cold cloudy day, next to this half dead lake, this tree seemed to be dancing its Fall shimmy, with a spiral of colour.

ThisThanksgiving time in 2003 was a difficult time as I've already said earlier. My bike had been stolen and I was offered a replacement. In 1986 mother, Ma passed away but I dreamt about her again in this difficult period. "I got a bike but it was sort of falling apart - the chain was rusty and broken into small sections of links ... I realise that I'm not going anywhere! ... now [in the dream] I own or have my own place - Ma is trying to sell the family home and looking for a buyer ... then she tells me she has one but she has to move out Monday!" I noted in my journal that this dream was different and significant, because normally I was trying to move out but here Ma is leaving and looking for a home with me.

This seemed to be so special given that life was being drawn from me and I found life, instead of moving away or being driven away, I decided to stay in a difficult situation. In my dream Ma wanted to sell up and move in with me. This tree reminds me so much of the life and comfort that comes from the memories of Ma and her values, compassion and wisdom, and the beauty that came with her long-sufferingness with and scars from racial prejudice. For me she has been very much the archetypical wounded healer offering colour in a difficult world.

Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord's coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord's coming is near. James 5:7-8

Dreams and hopes

Friday evening I decided to watch a Korean movie Do You Like a Spring Bear? 봄날의 곰을 좋아하세요? with actress Bae Du-Na 배두나.

Bae Du-Na plays a supermarket worker who has lost many boyfriends because of her less than traditional feminine traits. One day she find a message in a library book of art linked to a painting. "You're like a little bear awaken from hibernation. I am starting to fall in love with you..." She begins a paper chase from book to book captured by the mysteriously attractive words convinced the words are from Vincent for her. In the pursuit of this imagined love she almost misses and almost loses the love of someone much closer. It's very definitely a chick flick and almost a mirror image of I Wish I Had a Wife 나도 아내가 있었으면 좋겠다. Both epitomise the idiom that 'a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush'.

I think both movies reveal that there is an important difference between hope and dreams. The main characters in both movies have to lay aside dreams to find something more concrete, someone right under their nose. Both movies are also open ended as to whether the relationship will really happen and therefore all there is, is hope. They both do not have as yet good endings rather bring new beginnings.

So many people want solutions to situations (including myself!). Recent conversations with those hurting for different reasons has made me want their situations changed. But all I can do is listen, pray and give them an insight or vision of God's love. We want quick fixes. But really things are more about opportunities, seeing situations as a gift perhaps to be creative or hopeful or trusting of God. To dream in a situation is to escape it, to hope in it is to live it out.

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot Ecclesiastes 3:1-2

The Pain of God

In May 2003 I was feeling pretty broken, feeling the effects of rejected love and dealing with a lot of unfinished business in my life. I was also reading profusely and had been thinking a lot about The Wounded Healer by Henri Nouwen. On Monday May 12th I read the whole of Theology of the Pain of God by Kazoh Kitamori, a Japanese theologian. In my journal notes I recorded :-

"The fact of Jesus Christ becomes the fact of the Gospel only when seen as the fact of the love of God enfolding us. Only when the birth and death of Jesus Christ as seen as the "pain of God' and his resurrection as the "love rooted in the pain of God" do these facts become the fact of the gospel." ... "The love of God which loves only those who love, fear and obey God may be called simply "God's Love." But the love which loves sinners who become his enemies is called "God's love rooted in the pain of God." And the "pain of God" means this coexistence of the wrath of God with the love of God in tension."

Kitamori wrote further :-

"To forgive is to forget... However the pain, if real, penetrates the one who forgives and issues forth in the intent love. ...Forgiveness exhibits its true nature and pain proves to be real, only when intent love enfolds others, forgetting its pain."

Through my life I have the awesome experience of being aware of people's inner lives and frequently their pain and tears have become a part of my journey in life. Yesterday a student told me that when younger she learned that despair leads people to death and now years on she knows it is true both physically and mentally. All I can do is watch, care, monitor for I feel all I can do is to extend an intentional love and bring the God of hope to them. It is important to me that people should never cry alone.

On Tuesday morning May 13th 2003, the day after reading about the pain of God, I drew the image of the heart being held together by the hair which was growing buds. (As I write now I remember the woman who came to Jesus and washed his feet with her tears and dried them with her hair.) Later that Tuesday night I dreamt I was in the garden clearing up and it was getting more and more muddy and more and more water was coming from inside the house. Everything was becoming waterlogged even though there was a slope for runoff. I went inside and could see the water was coming from a pipe in the lounge. There was no wrench to be found and the tool I found wouldn't do the job of switching off the water. I wasn't worried or distressed by this.

Kitamori asserted towards the end of his book, "Only by the sustaining hand of transcendental grace at this moment can the study of pain be pursued." I, in writing now, am also a recipient and continuing receiver of that grace.

The breath of community

Over the last five years I have had a lot of dreams including these themes of the cello just out of reach, forgotten or separated. This image I found just so strongly epitomizes the essence of those dreams even to the subterranean elements.

Leaving my old home town for another city on another continent, I left a very specific community which helped me understand togetherness or community in a distinctly esoteric manner. There are eight of us in this group, 4 violins, 2 violas and 2 cellos, but we aren't an orchestra. This is Schubert's octet where each has their own part to put into the ensemble. No single part is more nor less important than another and this so true that everyone knows when one player is not playing their part either sufficiently fully or excessively. The effect may be that the harmony and balance may be wrong and perhaps even the whole function and meaning of the piece is lost. In fact playing the piece of music (I am not talking of rehearsal here) becomes unsatisfying. Joy and pleasure are lost. I spent over 20 years playing string quartets but it was the quintets and larger that gave me greater pleasure. A chance to play Schubert's octet was always a high point in my year.

The late John Denver aired in a PBS special tonight said Bands are like breathing together. Over the years my music coaches have told us that we should endeavor to breathe together in order to play effectively together. Breath/wind and spirit are overlapping concepts in Biblical language and spirituality. One of the great problems of the 21st century is a lostness and feelings of isolation and loneliness. Yet there are tensions in our identities how to maintain our individuality, what makes us unique and also our collectivity in what we need to feel we belong. If we could learn to breath together, in order to play together in the one purpose, so to create good and enjoyable experiences for those participating then perhaps we are beginning to learn what true community is about.

Loss as necessary to life

In September 2003, I was working through Margaret Silf's book The Inner Compass. I wrote that I was disturbed by the following reading.

"Each breath [is] a stepping stone to God. ... As time passes I learn to recognize God's ways and to trust when I stand in the middle of the fast-moving water, that he will always bring me one more stone ... he is a little late today, still there on the river bank searching out the right stone. And only now I see how he is doing it. He is taking the stones away, one by one, from my cottage on the riverbank. Already it is half demolished. He is dismantling my kingdom [my home], bit by bit, to provide me with ways to discover his."

Days later I added a second quotation "as we have noticed in our painful experience, getting unhooked can be devastating. It feels like losing so much of what we must value. Freedom is costly - we pay with the currency of our hearts."

This sequence of images constitutes my adult spiritual journey and thematically records transitions and losses. During September I recorded that I dreamt I was trying to chew up fried pieces of Tofu with discomfort and difficulty. Furthermore I kept finding more pieces I must eat and they were too big to swallow. Things happening in my life were difficult to understand and digest.

Necessary Losses, by Judith Viorst, is one of those books that made clear that loss is essentially part of what it is to be human. I find that this is countercultural to our consumer capitalist worldview which suggests to be human is to have, to want, to collect, to accumulate.

I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle: be patient, bearing with one another in love. Eph 4:1

Cracked, scarred beauty

Five years after I dropped out of university my mum bought me a cello at the same time as she bought my sister's graduation present. It is a 1913 Hawkes French cello. I was attracted to it and am still attached to it. It carries the scars and wounds of the past. I heard it spent 3 years in the workshop of Paul Voigt in London after a nasty accident at the Sadler's Wells Theatre. The instrument is full of re-glued cracks and pins. Under the bridge 's left foot (right side of picture) is a new piece of wood 0.5 cm wide and close to 42 cm long. You can see two other vertical cracks rising from the lower loops of the f-holes. Yet she has a voice I love and on a good day I have pulled a wide ranging nice tone. What makes her beautiful in my eyes is her uniqueness in the marks of the past, the wounds and scars she carries, and her distinctive voice.

A cello frequently features in my dreams and I see it very much as a metaphor for myself. At the end of February 2003 I read Henri Nouwen's The Wounded Healer and it was one of those moments when I realised that I don't have to have it all put together to be effective. The Talmud records a Rabbi came to Elijah the prophet asking "When will the Messiah come?" to which the reply was "Go ask him yourself!" "How shall I know him?" "He is sitting among the poor covered with wounds. The others unbind all their wounds at the same time and then bind them up again. But he unbinds one at a time and binds it up again saying to himself, 'Perhaps I shall be needed: If so I must always be ready so as not to delay for a moment.'"

Nouwen names these wounds as alienation, separation, isolation, and loneliness. For the healing task Nouwen uses the word hospitality which "is the virtue which allows us to break through the narrowness of our own fears and to open our house to the stranger, with the intuition that salvation comes to us in the form of a tired traveller."

My pastor has been strong enough to call the presentation of "having it all together, heresy!" I'm not sure of the word but at minimum it is a lie or deception. Ronald Rolheiser's classic book The Restless Heart notes that to be humans is in fact to be intrinsically lonely, but to be human is also to have a choice to respond. But loneliness is not wholly a negative experience because being human carries a call to love. "For loneliness is one of the deepest, most universal, and most profound experiences that we have... we pay a heavy price for not admitting our loneliness, facing it squarely, and grappling with it honestly." Brokenness is part of authenticity, however when it becomes Nietzsche's ressentiment it acquires the vengeful bitterness applied to or used by victims. When wounds become a weapon as will to power then heresy becomes real with all the bandages pulled off. What should create community is a common loneliness and call to tend each other's wounds.

Blaise Pascal noted that the sole cause of humanity's unhappiness is that each does not know how to stay quietly in their room. But staying in our room is impossible. For Augustine, the 4th century theologian, to be human is to have a restlessness in built and our mixed existence of partially living in the city of God and partially in the city of men leaves us "incomplete and thirsty, restless and lonely, longing always to bring this pilgrimage to an end, to return to God and our true homeland." A dark night experience demonstrates this, that in darkness the soul searches ever more desperately and finds authentic faith through the experience of casting prayers to God in raw faith into the darkness. It is this very restlessness/darkness that calls forth hospitality and reminder that there are fellow travellers.

Dreams, cyberspace and reality

Paprika (パプリカ, Papurika) is a Japanese full length anime based on Yasutaka Tsutsui's novel, about a research psychologist involved in developing a device that will permit therapists to help patients by entering their dreams. However somehow the world of dreams and physical reality becomes blurred and a bizarre parade of symbols, which we might attribute to the Japanese collective unconsciousness, takes over. What happens is that people are drawn into and immersed in this parade. The device was created for good ends, in fact healing, but the human condition creates problems. This anime is not for the faint hearted the imagery is strong and effective, and it exposes fundamental human urges.

Joseph and Daniel were important ancient figures who took note of dreams, and Peter and Paul were early church figures who found importance in recognizing the divine presence in them. They are important but care is needed in their interpretation and discernment in the origin or source of the dream. Over the years, I have had very few dreams that I could remember on waking up. But since starting journaling the number has increased and I have kept a record of the dreams, and sought to understand them and their purpose and perhaps message. I believe dreaming is a sort of visual journalling and can contribute to the knowledge of self and therefore knowledge of God.

Recent scientific work has studied the ability of humans to project themselves into cyber identities whether in games or facebook, chat rooms or forums or even blogs. My fragments are consolidated here in this blog but I am not here. It is important to not live in our dreams, nor cyberspace. I would like to think that reality is where God is with us. An old confession was that God is the creator and sustainer of all things. It has been years since I heard the second spoken or discussed yet if God as sustainer defines what is real then all of life is lived in the presence of God. If we define what is real then perhaps Paprika's nightmare is closer than we imagine.