Saving Whole

「古之慾明明德於天下者，先治其國；欲治其國者，先齊其家；欲齊其家者，先修其身；欲修其身者，先正其心；欲正其心者，先誠其意；欲誠其意者，先致其知，致知在格物。物格而後知至，知至而後意誠，意誠而後心正，心正而後身修，身修而後家齊，家齊而後國治，國治而後天下平。 」 

《禮記·大學》

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Dear Kate,

I am not going to translate everything above for you, not only because they are Chinese words spoken about 500 years before Christ (and how different the speaking was from today I can't begin to explain), but also, without knowing the world/political view of that age (the "Spring and Autumn period" in Chinese history), one is prone to misinterpret them.

In this saying, for example, the words "family" and "nation" do not mean what we mean by these same words today.  Most interestingly, "nation" as we understand it now is "heaven and earth" (the "world") to the speaker of that age.

Here is the best translation I can find online, and, with my big caveat above in mind, here you go:

"From ancient times, those who want to promote great virtue to the world, first need to govern their states; in order to govern their states, they need to first manage their family; in order to manage their family, they need to first improve themselves; in order to improve oneself, they need to regulate their mind; in order to regulate their mind, one needs to maintain sincere intention; in order to maintain sincere intention, one needs to exhaust one's knowledge; in order to exhaust one's knowledge, one needs to study the essence of the physical world. Study the physical world, learn everything you can learn, be sincere with your intentions and regulate your mind; with your mind at the right place, you'll be able to improve yourself. After you improve yourself, you can manage your family, after your family is managed, you can govern your states and bring justice and virtue to the World."

I guess you get the drift: the many steps, one after another in proper order, to lead a nation to peace and prosperity, begin with a personal one taken by an individual, You, standing somewhere between heaven and earth, cultivating the ultimate vision, answering to the cosmic call, with every successive action you take.

Yesterday I heard a question: since climate change is the most urgent crisis we are now facing (and I agree), should we Christians be speaking more about it, engaging ourselves better to address it, or should we be staying in the niche business of "saving souls"?

This question posts a false dichotomy that even the most superficial reading of the very beginning of the Bible would reveal: that when Man, a person, is unpeaceable, has a "fallout" with God, he is unpeaceable in all his actions big and small, one tragic step leading to another.  And what would an unpeaceable Man do to herself, her family, her nation, and the world, God's entire Creation?  The rest of the Hebrew Bible answers us by telling a story, about a nation, a microcosm of the world, "heaven and earth."

Of course this story is not a tragedy of fate, but a comedy of destiny, about God's redemptive actions in history, fashioned with the very materiality of His loved Creation, to save the unpeaceable Man.  There is no either-or, body or soul, when it comes to God's salvation of mankind; our entire humanity, warts and all, every bit of our observable and ineffable realities, is at stake, held in His eternal, loving gaze.

Our everyday experience attests to this simple truth about ourselves.  It doesn't take an "environmentalist," who wouldn't mind killing a brother or two to hug a tree, to make us feel the unpeaceable beatings of our own restless hearts.  On our path to destroy, everything we touch is good for the purpose: a glance, a word, a torch, a gun, whatever convenient, whatever we see fit to prove ourselves right in magnifying our restlessness to the ends of heaven and earth.  In chaos, that's how the Hebrew Bible ends: yet somehow it is still meant to be a comedy.  This is one trippy story.

"Only the body saves the soul," Rowan Williams reflected.  "It sounds rather shocking put like that, but the point is that the soul left to itself, the inner life or whatever you want to call it, is not capable of transforming itself. It needs the gifts that only the external life can deliver: the actual events of God’s action in history, heard by physical ears; the actual material fact of the meeting of believers where bread and wine are shared; the actual wonderful, disagreeable, impossible, unpredictable human beings we encounter daily, in and out of the church. Only in this setting do we become holy, and holy in a way unique to each one of us."

An unpeaceable Man is unpeaceable through and through, even as peace is what he sincerely aims for.  As to how sincere we truly are to remain so unpeaceable, that's one of the many questions the crucifixion of Jesus posts for humanity.

Yours, Alex