"I could not express my own lifelong relationship with the Divine Mystery any more fittingly than in the sentence "i am through you so i."* What makes us persons is the richness and depth of our relationships. One's being a person deepens and matures through each new encounter. In every deep human encounter, we can say: you make me be what I am. But in our encounter with the Great Mystery, we realize an even deeper truth: that we can say "I" only because we stand face to face with a primordial You.
David Steindl-Rast, summarizing his relationship with the God, the Great Mystery, after 90 years of life, most of it lived as a Zen-practicing Benedictine monk:
"I could not express my own lifelong relationship with the Divine Mystery any more fittingly than in the sentence "i am through you so i."* What makes us persons is the richness and depth of our relationships. One's being a person deepens and matures through each new encounter. In every deep human encounter, we can say: you make me be what I am. But in our encounter with the Great Mystery, we realize an even deeper truth: that we can say "I" only because we stand face to face with a primordial You.
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This video from Louie Schwartzberg and David Steindl-Rast is a gift. Watch it every day. Louie Schwartzberg is an award winning director, videographer, and producer who is widely recognized as an innovator in high definition time lapse cinematography.
Brother David Steindl-Rast was born in Austria in 1926. Fleeing the chaos of WW2, he moved to the US and earned a PhD in psychology, before joining a Benedictine monastery and becoming a monk. In 1966, the church commissioned him to pursue Buddhist-Christian dialogue under several Zen Buddhist teachers, including Shunryu Suzuki. You can learn more about Brother David his Gratefulness.org project here. I first encountered Andy Warhol's as a freshman in college. A friend, an art student, invited me to an art show at Michigan State University where one of Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans was on exhibit. I was aware of his work, but had never encountered it in person, and it made an impression: All the way home my friend and I argued about what constitutes "art." Warhol had hit a nerve. I was adamant that we were being conned, that pop art was a cheap trick and someone was taking advantage of our naiveté. My friend couldn't make up her mind one way or the other. I let the issue rest for several years, until another of Warhol’s pieces caught my eye. I was doing a Masters degree in theology at the time, when I became intrigued by Warhol's “The Big C.”
Andy Warhol was an anomaly at a time when people still believed in a mass-produced American dream. Although he was not outspoken enough to be a preacher, through his art he became a prophet ushering in a new America. Warhol prompted questions in viewers by rebelling against the standards of the time. Taking preexisting cultural images like a Campbell's Soup can or a photo of Marilyn Monroe, he presented them back to the American public as art. These common images were transformed into icons mediating between the way viewers’ perceived themselves and the way they acted within culture.
Global life expectancy is on the rise. Since 1990, life expectancy has increased from 65.3 to 71.5. Over the next decade and a half, it is expected to climb another ten years to 81. This average includes countries like the U.S. that have seen a steady increase every year since at least the 1930s, as well as areas like East Asia where life expectancy skyrocketed by thirty years in a short period of time. In other words, it's a great time to be alive!
While unexpected deaths still occur even in the most developed countries, they are not nearly as common as they have been throughout history. Accidents, diseases, and infections that once caused sudden death can now be cured or prevented, and despite public perception, deaths caused by war have been in steady decline since the end of the Cold War. As a result, people are are not only living longer, they are dying slower. Medicine and modern health care are able to detect the signs of fatal maladies early on and often slow their progression, effectively easing us gently into the ground. In Reflections on the Psalms, C.S. Lewis points out that westerners have been largely spared an age-old experience regarding our legal system. "In most times and places it has been very difficult for the 'small man' to get his case heard. The judge (and doubtless, one or two of his underlings) has to be bribed. If you can't afford to 'oil his palm,' your case will never reach court. Our judges do not receive bribes. (We probably take this blessing too much for granted; it will not remain with us automatically). We need not therefore be surprised if the Psalms, and the Prophets are full of the longing for judgment, and regard the announcement that "judgement" is coming as good news. Hundreds and thousands of people who have been stripped of all they possess and who have the right entirely on their side will at last be heard. They know their case is unanswerable- if only it could be heard. When God comes to judge, at last it will." What would you do if you only had three weeks to live? Everyone has toyed with answers to this question, but few wrestle with their answers as seriously as writer/director Lorene Scafaria in the 2012 film, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. Don’t let the casting fool you. Comedian Steve Carrell (Michael Scott in the Office) plays the lead, across from Keira Knightley, but if this is a comedy, it still leaves you sober. I don't remember laughing, but I definitely cried.
With just weeks to live, some people would be checking off their bucket list, traveling to exotic locations and chasing final adventures. Others might opt out of the whole experience with a simple suicide note. Surely at least a few would pull out sandwich boards and megaphones to proclaim "The end is near!" All of these responses appear in this movie, but Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is about something more, something timeless. The haunting hollowness that so many feel, but few admit except in the face of death: Loneliness. |
Intersecting is a blog that explores the connections between religion, philosophy, politics, film, psychology, science... and everything else
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-The Medici Effect If the medicine is good, the disease will be cured. It is not necessary to know who prepared it, or where it came from -Walpola Rahula When you water the root of the tree, that water naturally extends to every branch and every leaf and every flower on that tree. So when we actually find the origin of true pleasure, in feeling the infinite sweet love that God has for us, and in realizing our potential to love God, that love naturally extends to all living beings. -Radhanath Swami Archives
August 2020
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