Well, it always depends on how you look at it, doesn't it?  If pressed, I'd probably have to say no, but since no one's pressing me right now, I'm going to say yes!  I'm thinking now of an incident at college that I have never forgotten.  I had almost not returned to college that year because I really didn't have the money to afford it, but I didn't want to drop out, so I registered and was just managing to eke by.  One place I tried to save money was on food -- I ate mostly from Taco Bell or the "Day Old Bread" store, where I could pick up rolls and pastries for $1.  I remember my stomach was beginning to ache, and I was losing energy, no longer enjoying running or working out.  I don't remember saying anything to anyone or complaining about this, but someone apparently noticed, because I came home to my dorm one evening and a booklet of meal vouchers was sitting at the foot of my door.  It contained 30 or 40 vouchers in it, as I recall, all for full meals at a nice local restaurant.  That gesture helped me greatly during that semester at school, and I'm still thankful to the anonymous person or people who were thoughtful enough to give me all those "free lunches."

A Postmetaphysical Approach to the Scandal of Particularlity

This blog was inspired by Cameron's interesting and provocative entry, The Role of Jesus in Inter-spiritual Dialogue , and the (still ongoing) discussion that it inspired.  Reading it might provide helpful background to this entry, but I think it can also stand on its own.  One of the questions that arose in that conversation is whether the Christian 'scandal of particularity,' the notion that Jesus is the Only Way, the only example of God-in-the-flesh and the ultimate source of human salvation, can be carried forward in any way into postmodern and Integral forms of Christianity, and that is one of the questions I'm trying to address with this entry.

 

One of the implications of an enactive, postmetaphysical understanding for Christian spirituality that I've been considering is that, in some sense, it invites one to take seriously the notion of spiritual marriage -- where one's spouse, although not really the only choice available to you before you married, becomes the One, the Only, the Absolute object of your commitment and devotion.  And that choice has creative, transformative potential -- it makes you a New Man or Woman, someone you would not have been but for the love and presence of the other and your commitment to them.  Together, you enact a unique way of being, one which is not closed or final, but which is still particular. 

For Christians, to take Christ as Bridegroom is to enter into a unique relationship -- one which calls forth your potential in a way no other way ("spouse") can.  To "marry Christ" is, one might say, the "Only Way" to realize the unique Christian vision of the Kingdom (which becomes the universal horizon for all those so engaged). 

If you remove the "assurance" of a metaphysical, absolutized center -- a necessity which robs one, really, of truly free choice, since to "choose against" that metaphysical center is to choose Death or Eternal Damnation (in the traditional formulations) -- then you have a situation which is actually much closer to the love-commitment of marriage.  In modern Western society, at least, we marry in freedom, out of love, out of a mature willingness to devote ourselves fully and passionately to the other.  Can this work in the religious sphere?  I wonder:  How many people would choose to marry Jesus, spiritually -- to enter into the unique transformative crucible of love that he offers -- if the church took away the absolutized language and metaphysical assurances (and the accompanying existential threats), and instead offered only a challenging, difficult, creative, generative relationship?  One in which profound 'spiritual transformation' was still a potential, but one in which the 'end' was also, in some sense, 'open-ended,' still-to-be-enacted? 

In a postmodern society, of course, even the traditional marriage model is changing, so the forms of spiritual marriage would also likely change.  But in any event, I'm not really trying to argue for this approach, necessarily, for anyone.  I'm just looking at a way that a challenging spiritual 'particularity' or 'exclusivity' might show up in the post/postmodern world, this time as the particularity of freely chosen love and commitment, not the particularity of metaphysical givens.  Jesus is God means: We see in Jesus a vision of our own fullness and freedom en-fleshed.  Being a Christian means: Passionately choosing and committing to the promise and challenge of this love relationship.

This approach, of course, already has precedents in the teachings and metaphors of Christianity (Jesus as bridegroom, Church as bride) and other religions (Sufi and Hindu bhakti paths, for instance, or certain Tantric forms of guru yoga and yidam-practice).  But it is an approach that can 'fly' in post/postmodern space without requiring commitment to metaphysical idols, or adherence to the problematic triumphalist/inclusivist approaches to intercultural and interfaith relations that commitment to those metaphysical givens typically entails.

Here is a new Stephan Micus song, "Almond Eyes," from the 2008 CD, Snow, which I'm looking forward to purchasing soon; as well as an older one from one of my favorite of his albums, The Garden of Mirrors.

Two songs in remebrance of my late Gaia friend, Michael Sheppard, by the Austin band, Balmorhea, from their album, All Is Wild, All Is Silent.

Two videos featuring music from the post-rock group, The Mercury Program.

A two-part piece from Nik Bartsch's quintet, Ronin -- sometimes described as minimalist jazz or (Zen-influenced) 'ritual groove music.'

Here's my first Youtube video -- a recording of a song by my old band, The Dog Soldiers.  The band was led by Jimmy Thornton, Billy Bob Thornton's brother, and the song was recorded in a little home studio.





And here is a video of another one of our songs, "Island Avenue," which Billy Bob later covered on his album, The Edge of the World.

Here's a truncated but enticing excerpt from an essay that was recently posted on the Integral Post-metaphysical Spirituality forum (thanks, Edward).

"Towards a Postmodern Middle," by Roger Jackson; from Buddhist Theology by John J. Makransky and Roger Jackson (Routledge,2000):

"At this point, nine years after taking refuge, my belief in the basics of the Buddhist worldview -- of those metaphysical doctrines I had first imbibed at Kopan, and sought for a decade to comprehend -- had almost completely evaporated. Logically, I should have stopped being a Buddhist. But I did not. I reached the end of my long skeptical inquiry and found that my sense of "being Buddhist" was nearly as strong as ever. How could this be? Shouldn't my painful awakening from religious dogmaticism have spelled the end of my relation to Buddhism? That it did not is due, I believe, to at least three separate factors, which may not be entirely idiosyncratic to my own personal history.

First, while over the course of time my confidence in the literal accuracy of metaphysical Buddhist claims weakened, other aspects of Buddhist doctrine and practice continued to seem irrefutable. In particular, I still found utterly compelling, and endlessly fruitful, (a) the central Mahayana philosophical claim that all entities and concepts are empty of self-existence because they are dependently originated; (b) the basic Mahayana ethical injunction, that one ought to be a compassionate bodhisattva, working as much as possible for the benefit of others, and; (c) the basic Buddhist claim that meditation -- whether concentrative or analytical, complex or formless -- is the best tool yet developed for disciplining one's mind, hence of altering one's way of seeing the world and living within it. All three of these perspectives, it seemed to me, were valuable quite independently of whether there are or are not multiple lives, does or does not exist a universal karmic law, is or is not a transcendent perfection like that ascribed to buddhas. In certain respects, to focus on emptiness, compassion and meditation, while letting Buddhist metaphysics go, is to make a move very much like that chosen by many Christians in the last two centuries: demythologizing one's tradition, and selecting from it certain doctrines that, whether or not they can be upheld in a traditional manner, seemed existentially meaningful and useful, regardless of one's historical or cultural situation. The advantages of such a demythologized, bare-bones Buddhism is that is allows one to preserve a core set of Buddhist beliefs and practices without having to subject oneself to the cognitive dissonance involved in trying to subscribe to "medieval" beliefs while living in a world shaped by modernity; its disadvantage is that it threatens to deprive Buddhism of the majesty of its vision, the mystery of its great narratives, the resonance of its art and rituals. Indeed, bare-bones Buddhism has little to differentiate it from secular humanism; one may as well read Camus as the Dhammapada.

There was, however, a second, crucial dimension to my sense of being Buddhist in a post-metaphysical mode, which put some flesh back on those bare doctrinal bones. Not only had my confidence in certain key perspectives survived my skeptical inquiry, but so too had my "feel" for the myths, symbols and metaphors, the sights, sounds and sensations of Buddhism. Subtly, inexorably, years of exposure to and internalization of these "aesthetic" aspects of the tradition had brought me to a point where they became the most powerful, single lens though which I viewed the world, a paradigm to which I had grown so accustomed that it seemed to form an a priori condition for much of my experience. So, my confidence in emptiness, compassion and meditation was not deprived of its rich, surrounding context; indeed, such doctrines and practices were for me quite inseparable from the scent of juniper incense on a cold morning, the sense or rightness I felt when prostrating to an image or circumambulating a stupa, the shiver sent through me by the very word shunyata, the sweet possibilities conjured by certain ritual songs, the mystery contained in the smile of a Buddha statue from Borobudur. Nor, despite my skepticism, did I separate those basic doctrines from the rich vision and language of traditional Buddhist metaphysics: I still could recite the Buddha's life-story, Mara and all, though I knew it bore little relation to what historians accept; could praise enlightened beings for qualities I doubted they, or anyone, literally could possess; could vow to liberate sentient beings in future lives I was not certain they would experience; could contemplate as primordially pure a mind I was not convinced was more than a byproduct of the brain. This "aestheticized" but non-metaphysical Buddhism has an advantage over the demythologized version of thoroughly engaging not just the intellect but all of one's imaginative and sensory powers, thereby providing a fuller context and greater incentives for belief and practice (see, e.g., Guenther; Trungpa). It is possible, on the other hand, to interpret such an aestheticized Buddhism as a mere exercise in nostalgia and self-delusion, a predictable by-product of the perpetual human need to create a vision, with reinforcing experiences, that will help make sense of a chaotic world. On such a view, an aestheticized and non-metaphysical Buddhism is the result of a cowardly compromise, in which one has the courage neither to accept traditional metaphysics in the face of modern doubts, nor to rest satisfied merely with those doctrines that stand up to the rigorous empirical and logical tests to which they, like all truth-claims, must be subjected.

The inadequacy of this critique of an aestheticized Buddhism lies, I believe, in a third factor of which I had become aware by the time I had finished my dissertation: the postmodernist discovery of (a) the impossibility of determining finally the "truth" of any particular worldview or vision, whether traditional or modern and (b) the inadequacy of defining religion on the basis of primarily core metaphysical doctrines, or determining the meaningfulness of a religion on the basis of the "correspondence to reality" of those metaphysical doctrines..." (pp. 223 - 225).

I had an interesting dream last night.  I entered into and merged with a sense of boundless space -- no forms, no experiences or discriminations for an indeterminate amount of time, until the world began to coalesce 'out of' this space, showing up first as transparent, luminous outlines, like a visionary field.  The interesting part of the dream for me was being at the 'edge' of space and form, where form was experienced as being 'pervaded by' and an expression of space.  At this edge, I recall a moment's pause, like a question, and then a distinct feeling of 'Yes.'  The transparent expanse of form filled out, becoming substantial, heavy, opaque, an abundant multiplicity of objects and beings.  This transition was very satisfying, and momentarily, I 'felt' all these distinct forms at once, not as one, but as multiple, teeming.  It was beautiful, precious, 'right.'

The next thing I remember is not the dream, but the waking 'me here,' looking out at the world.