Transmutations

"What makes us say of any discourse that it has or that it lacks ‘integrity’?  Usually we can answer this in terms of whether such a discourse is really talking about what it says it is talking about… Discourse that conceals is discourse that (consciously or not) sets out to foreclose the possibility of a genuine response… 

Honest discourse permits response and continuation; it invites collaboration by showing that it does not claim to be, in and of itself, final.  It does not seek to prescribe the tone, the direction, or even the vocabulary of a response…  And it does all this by showing in its own working a critical self-perception, displaying the axioms to which it believes itself accountable; that is to say, it makes it clear that it accepts, even within its own terms of reference, that there are ways in which it may be questioned and criticized.  It sets out a possible framework for talk and perception, a field for debate, and so field for its own future transmutations."

—Rowan Williams, Theological Integrity (1991)

_______

When one person sees one thing and another sees something else in the same thing, then the one discovers what the other conceals. Insofar as the object viewed belongs to the external world, then how the observer is constituted is probably less important, or, more correctly then what is necessary for the observation is something irrelevant to his deeper nature. But the more the object of observation belongs to the world of the spirit, the more important is the way he himself is constituted in his innermost nature, because everything spiritual is appropriated only in freedom; but what is appropriated in freedom is also brought forth. The difference, then, is not the external but the internal, and everything that makes a person impure and his observation impure comes from within.

—Søren Kierkegaard, Three Upbuilding Discourses (1843)

*********

Dear Kate,

I don't intend you to understand or even finish reading the two quotes above.  They are just my prideful display of what I like to read.

Reading is not easy, reading good stuffs that is, like living a good life.  Say, the adjective "prideful" has two meanings: (1) conceited,  (2) having an exuberant sense of self-worth, deep satisfaction and feeling it all legit.

You know which definition you've used on me when you were reading my second sentence.

I am not really going to write about the two quotes today.  I need to leave this computer asap before coming back soon enough to work.

In fact I am so lazy I will quote one author speaking about another. Here's a paragraph from Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks's new book Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times:

"In The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt includes an intriguing analysis of two types of morality. One is supremely thin, consisting of two principles only: the avoidance of harm, and justice as fairness. This is an approach to morality he associates with what he labels “WEIRD” cultures: Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. The other-most common in traditional cultures-has three different sensibilities: loyalty, reverence, and respect. These are thick values. You can find both in contemporary America, he says, depending on the extent to which individuals and groups preserve the sensibilities of the past."

Something in the air cleared my head when I climbed up my roof, many times as you know in the last little while.  But last Thursday was different.  It wasn't raining, nothing to distract me from what I should attend to.

And what was I attending to?

Was it the roof?  Well, I never cared about it as long as it's working the way it should.

Was it the source of my trouble, the crack, the hole, whatever opening that let the water in?  Well, I couldn't identify it, not even now, after having supposedly fixed the leak.  A hole is nothingness, something missing, an emptying of what once was or should be there.  How does one attend to what is not there?

Loyalty, reverence, respect; I was attending to someone, something, paying tribute to the honorable, praiseworthy.  Repeatedly I put myself in harm's way, knowing that if justice is merely about being treated fairly, having an equitable access to resources and thus evasion from work and fear, then I was enduring a gross injustice.  My kids never asked how I was doing up there.  They have their values, which do not involve praying for their father.

From where you are sitting you can't see how this piece is sticking together, right?  Before we get that tar, we'll need the integrity to attend to what is not there in us.

Yours, Alex