Bonaventure's Soul's Journey in a contemporary note: Part Two

In Part One I discussed Days 1 & 2 of Bonaventure’s Soul's Journey into God. In Part Two, I take up

Days 3 & 4

Over the many centuries of Christian history, Christian thinkers have reflected upon the Genesis account of creation, especially the creation of humans. Genesis 1:26 states, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness.” The issue has to do with what it means to be created in the image and likeness of God. Many Christian thinkers thought that what distinguishes us from other animals is our rational faculty. Thus, in our ability to reason we are most like God. Some would add the faculty of the will, thus in our rational deliberations, we are able to freely choose between various goods.

          In modern biblical studies, there has been a recognition of the influences of other ancient Middle Eastern cultures on the formation of the biblical texts. These include such mythical accounts of origins as the Enuma Elish, the Gilgamesh Epic, as well as the many and various social-cultural practices that would form ancient people’s cosmologies and religious imaginations. In ancient Babylon, for instance, the king would be the prime manifestation and image of the deity. Thus, when the king spoke his will, it was legitimized and grounded in the belief that he was the mouthpiece of Marduk. Thus, in the biblical account, there is a democratization of those who contain the divine image.

          Despite how different thinkers in Christian history came to define what it means to be created in the image and likeness of God, there was a general agreement that with the advent of sin, i.e., disobedience to the will and commands of God, humanity had damaged the image and likeness of God and could not recover either through their own volition. The will to live according to the commands of God had been irreparably damaged. This narrative of the ‘Fall’ would be incorporated into the western, Augustinian theology of original sin. Human desire would now be bound to a will congenitally self-focused, intent on self-construction. The creature comes to believe in the illusion of being its own creator.

          In day three of Bonaventure’s Journey of the Soul to God, the individual is called to move from looking at the outer world of creation, to the inner world of one’s mind/soul. Bonaventure, in the psychology of his day, will look at the natural powers that we have, that is, our capacities and abilities that are unique to human beings. One very important capacity that humans have is the ability to love ourselves. We desire good things for ourselves, and in some cases, we desire the good for others. In order to love ourselves, we must have some knowledge of ourselves.

          Memory will be important in self-knowledge. In this case, memory is not simply a recall of random events. Rather, our memories that form our sense of self include the many choices we have made over our lifetime. Thus, the will plays an important role in the formation of our self-identity.

          When reflecting upon our many choices, we can see that in most, if not all cases, our choices have been for the love of self. We desire happiness, wellbeing, and despite the fact that many of our choices, looked at objectively, have in fact been to our detriment, we nevertheless made these choices hoping for some kind of fulfillment, a means to satisfying some unconscious identity need (meaning, connectedness/belonging, recognition, and security).

          Bonaventure was convinced that our minds are built for truth, and that such apprehension of truth brings us satisfaction. Using mathematical examples, knowing that 2 + 2 = 4 brings us a sense of satisfaction, while claiming 5 to be the correct answer is disjointing. When we work out a problem, coming to a truthful resolution, we gain a sense of satisfaction, a sense of happiness. When we find something that we at first thought to be true, but discovered later to be a lie, we find such an occasion to be disheartening. Thus, our minds desire truth.

          However, we did not come out of the womb with a comprehensive list of what is true about the world. We have had to work at finding truth in the various areas and aspects of our lives. Even more disconcerting, our means of finding truth, especially when it comes to those truths that will genuinely fulfill our identity needs, can only be arrived at by means of others. We are dependent upon the various models who enter our social landscape. This is – with a great deal of understatement – problematic.

          Combining the various ingredients discussed above, we can begin to see our dilemma. First, as humans, we have the facility to love ourselves, thus, to know ourselves to some degree. Second, we are designed for truth. Knowing and grasping the truth of things informs a sense of satisfaction and happiness in our minds and hearts. Third, we can only come to knowledge of anything through experience, and when it comes to understanding our experiences, we are reliant upon the influences of others. We have to choose between the many and various options of interpretations offered from the many and various models in our life. Over time, our memories are formed by the various choices we have made, i.e., those modelled interpretations concerning what a meaningful life consists of. Those choices concerning who we will connect our affections to, whose recognition of our selfhood is deemed more rewarding. These choices will form a world in which we feel either safe or anxious.

          In this journey for self-knowledge, for truth, for happiness, we begin to make judgments about how we determine the good. We gain a sense of degrees to goodness. We form judgments about what a good life consists of. Unfortunately, these judgments are profoundly informed and shaped by the models we have formed our will and desires in. Over time, our worldviews, our emotional constructs, will become a habitus. Our automatic responses to the world will become a type of second nature.

Thus, our judgments will have the feeling of truth. However, from a Christian perspective, these judgments may in fact be falsehoods. But in our believing these falsehoods as true, Bonaventure, borrowing from Augustine, would state that we have been curved in upon ourselves. We no longer stand (metaphorically) arrect, able to look above us; above our deformed imagination, and see the truth for what it really is. Rather, we can only gaze upon our actual deformed minds which deceive us into believing the illusions we have convinced ourselves of.

          The deformation of our minds and hearts is manifested in many ways. We see it in such attitudes of tribalism, nationalism, bigotry, prejudice, violence, mean spiritedness, misogyny, patriarchy, and a myriad of other things that set humans against one another. And we know, by just the most minimal of historical knowledge, that such deformation of human beliefs and behaviors are seemingly beyond reformation. Even the most enlightened of individuals struggle to overcome inclinations to desire the self over the wellbeing of others. From a Christian theological anthropological view, the human condition is in need of salvation, that is, a healing, from a source beyond its own capacity. Thus, the need for a savior.

          Day three is a difficult part of the journey to self-knowledge. It requires radical honesty and fortitude to face the brokenness of one’s inner subjective reality. It takes radical humility to admit one may be desperately in need of transformation, and willing to ask for help.

          Day three is Bonaventure’s exploration of the natural human condition before the advent of grace. Grace is that necessary gift each requires to be brought to a state of rectitude impeded by a self-centeredness that places the needs and desires of the individual first. Grace is needed as well in order to overcome the illusion of self-creation. In day four, Bonaventure explores the dimension of faith and grace, found in the work of Christ.

          Day four has to do with redemption, the transformation of the individual, bringing a re/birth of the true image and likeness of God that has been lost by the malformation of the mind and heart through a will consumed with distorted desires for self-construction. Bridging day 3 and day 4, Bonaventure again looks at the faculty of memory. Memory, for Bonaventure, is somehow an aspect of the human person that touches eternity, as it allows us to transcend time by helping us to go back to the past, capturing the present, and draws us into the future through foresight, using the imagination. By recalling our experiences of the past, along with our awareness of the present, we can predict, to a small degree, a bit of our future. We can do this, because we have come to experience things happening in an orderly manner.

          In Bonaventure’s account of this day in the journey, he associates the different aspects of human psychology with the three members of the trinity. Such comparisons do not seem to relate to our contemporary understanding of human psychology. Thus, I will forgo using such comparisons in my interpretation of this day. Instead, I will use categories I believe are more relatable to our contemporary experiences.

          From a Girardian perspective, we each have models, or as Bonaventure would call it, exemplars, who mediate for us values, principles, convictions, and desires by which we learn how to shape our worlds of meaning. These models originate from the outer world, brought in through our senses, as I discussed in Part One. Over time, the acclimation and information of our models’ desires, values, principles, and convictions will become instantiated into the makeup of our very selves. We will embody these ‘others’ into the construction of our ‘self. Recognizing this is the first step in discarding the illusion of self-construction.

          When it comes to the theology of grace, the question as to how grace brings about transformation can be rather opaque. We can easily observe the seeming contradiction of those claiming to have been ‘saved’ by grace yet live in such a fashion that clearly contradicts the teachings of Jesus in the gospels. Such hypocrisy has been a source of animus towards Christianity for many.

          For Bonaventure, Jesus is the exemplar of God’s character. In Jesus, through his teachings and actions narrated in the gospels, we see the nature of the divine. By reflecting and meditating on the life of Christ, one begins to see what God’s desires and values consist of. For Franciscans like Bonaventure, Francis is the example par excellence of the imitation of Christ. He did this so profoundly that even his body became conformed to the body of Christ through the five wounds, the stigmata he received on Mount La Verna. But more importantly, Francis was profoundly conformed to the desires and values of Jesus as he spent hours upon hours in prayer, reflecting on the gospels.

          Thus, from a Girardian perspective, grace operates through the conscious and intentional act of conforming one’s desires upon those of the Christ. This includes imitation of the Christ in his teachings, his attitudes, his behaviors, his conformity to the will of God. Of course, this means that one must willingly seek to discard those desires that have been directed towards the self as a means of self-construction. This means that one must recognize the many dead-end journeys towards identity satisfaction that have created false constructions of one’s meaning world, based on the limited and distorted models whose own desires are formed in such misdirected ways.

          Days three and four, as with all the days on the journey, are ongoing endeavors. They are part of an overall pilgrimage that takes a lifetime of commitment and dedication. However, despite the incompleteness of the journey through days three and four, there must be some evidence/manifestation of the journey’s progress through the outward praxis of one’s inner conversion and transformation. Such evidence/manifestation will be the subject of Part Three, which will take up days five and six in Bonaventure’s schema.  

 

Bonaventure's Soul's Journey in a contemporary note: Part One

For several years, in a couple of different courses I have taught, I have had to attempt to teach Bonaventure’s Soul’s Journey to God. Anyone familiar with this text will know how difficult a task it is, especially with freshmen. On top of that, I am not by any stretch of the imagination a Bonaventurian scholar. However, teach it I have had to do. I found my first experiences in trying to convey Bonaventure’s medieval text, using his medieval categories, to be a losing battle. (I am sure an actual Bonaventure scholar might succeed). So, I decided to use his schema of the seven days and translate as best I could his medieval categories into modern categories. Because of my interest in Girardian studies, as well as the profound influence of Vern Redekop’s description of identity needs, I translated Bonaventure’s concepts into Girardian and human identity needs categories. This seems to resonate with many students. For some time, I have been thinking about putting my efforts into writing. I thought that I would start with writing the basics of what I present in class. In time I hope to expand this. But first, I need to get the basics down into a text of some form. Here is the beginning of this endeavor. I hope to actually finish this in four parts. Fingers crossed.

 

I begin this adventure with days 1 and 2 of the Bonaventure’s journey.

 

Part One: Day 1 & 2

 

Life is a journey as the saying goes. Like any journey, if there is a particular destination, one needs some kind of map to direct one’s path. The map itself is the result of previous journeys by others. The problem is, whose map should we follow?

          Bonaventure begins the journey paying attention to the created world. He believes, as a Christian, that creation came about by the will of a benevolent deity. And like an artist, creation contains traces, vestiges (footprints), of the artist. In the macrocosm of God’s creation, Bonaventure looks for patterns, for order. As God brought about order from chaos in Genesis 1, so we should see order in the created world around us.

          While Bonaventure lived a life infused with theological reflection, most of us live in a world in which the culture is no longer so infused with religious influences. Much of our life is primarily a plethora of secular concerns. There is no dominant, or hegemonic, ideology by which one can order one’s life. We are instead offered a smorgasbord of possible paths to follow. Yet, we intuitively know that order is a human need. We order our lives in order to experience a sense of security, a sense of meaning, a sense of connectedness with others. When our world of constructed security, meaning, and connectedness are disturbed or severed, we suffer a sense of chaos. In these moments, we seek to regain our sense of order by whatever means available.

          Bonaventure looked to the outer world of creation to find traces of order. He did this in a couple of different ways. One was to look at the world as if through a highly polished mirror. When we look into a mirror, of course we see an image of ourselves, surrounded by those objects around us. However, Bonaventure wants to look at actual created objects, like rocks, animals, and plants as though these were mirrors. What does he expect to see? He sees patterns, which he attributes to the intelligence of the creator.

          Most moderns rarely look at objects expecting to find some traces of the divine, and thus vestiges of divine order and intelligence. However, we do look to society and culture, seeking, both consciously and unconsciously, patterns by which to navigate the contingencies of our lives. This attentiveness to ordered patterns is typically focused on the many models presented to us in our social and cultural location. It begins with our parents, our siblings, and the various friends we make. It also includes the many other models our society offers us – celebrities, sports figures, intellectuals, and so forth. It is from these various models that we begin to build our internal maps. And from a Bonaventurian schema, these models are related to day 1 as they are parts of the created world outside our selves.

          For Bonaventure, looking attentively to the patterns and order of the created world, one not only sees vestiges of the divine, but one also begins to acquire wisdom. Of course, for Bonaventure, such wisdom is associated with the second person of the Trinity, who is the logos, the wisdom and reason of God. However, for most of us in the contemporary world, such reflection on the created world rarely leads to such religiously inclined conclusions. However, in our reflection and attentiveness to the social and cultural world outside us, we begin to recognize patterns of ideological constructs that offer promises of wisdom. We see this in such myths as the ‘American dream’, and the various nationalistic ideologies that promise security, connectedness, and meaning.

          Bonaventure will associate these various reflections on the order and wisdom of creation with goodness. For Bonaventure, in contradistinction with the heresy of Catharism – which claimed the world to be created by an evil deity – the world is good, created by the fulness of goodness, God. And as he reflects on this goodness, he realizes that we begin to perceive degrees of goodness. The height of goodness for Bonaventure manifests as beautiful. Goodness is beautiful. I think we can agree with him that when we experience goodness, we find it beautiful. We even say things like, ‘she has such a beautiful soul’ in relation to one’s goodness.

          However, in our contemporary lives, while we may experience aspects of goodness, we may not reflect beyond immediate experiences to the conclusion that life, and the universe, is ultimately good because it has been created by goodness itself. While Bonaventure, by means of his Christian lens, sees in the ordered, patterned created world, with its wisdom and goodness, the vestiges of the triune God, most of us merely experience random events that rarely lead to such a vision of the divine. Our universe is, rather, contracted by the immediacy of everyday events and responsibilities.

          Despite our different ways of reflecting on the world, i.e., looking at the created world (Bonaventure), or looking at social and cultural patterns (moderns), I believe we can still utilize Bonaventure’s schema. In our journey to God, we can see reflections of the divine in the cacophony of human voices offering us maps to a meaningful life that includes a sense of security and connectedness. We see such reflections of the divine in human identity needs. Every person, no matter where one comes from, no matter one’s cultural particularities, shares in some basic needs. Each one of us needs to be loved. Such love is experienced through connection with another, or others. Related to such connectedness is the fact that another, or others, have recognized us as worthy of such connectedness. In such recognition we experience the reality of our own goodness and lovableness. This in turn gives us a sense of wellbeing, of security. Together with these satisfied needs, we form a sense of meaning about life, a sense of purposefulness.

          At the same time, the failure to satisfy these needs can lead to the formation of inner angst and insecurity, leading to a variety of negative results. We may form dispositions of resentment towards the world, accompanied by attitudes of envy or jealousy. This in turn may impede one’s ability to form loving and trusting relationships. Such negative experiences tend to lead to occasions of conflict. Such formation by the influences of the outer world leads, as Bonaventure will tell us, to inner worlds reflecting such influences.

          After reflecting on the created world outside us (which, in my reflection is turned to the social and cultural world outside us), Bonaventure will, from his medieval scholastic training, turn to a reflection on the processes of how the world outside us finds its way into our inner world. He takes this up in his reflection on day 2 of his journey.

          While Bonaventure had issues with aspects of Aristotle’s philosophy – Bonaventure seems to have preferred Plato – he nevertheless knew Aristotle well. He utilizes Aristotle’s epistemology as to how one’s knowledge of the outer world is obtained via the senses of touch, taste, smell, and sight. These senses are doorways into the mind. They bridge the world outside us to the world within.

          We begin early in life constructing an inner world shaped by a plethora of experiences of social and cultural influences. We will form dispositions, memories, attitudes, and ideologies that will inform our relationships with those in our social spaces. Bonaventure tells us that one’s relationship with the outer world will in turn form in us various judgments, evaluations, and analysis about the world around us.

          Much of Bonaventure’s discussion of day 2 has lost its appeal, as it focuses on scholastic categories that we simply do not find meaningful in our contemporary world. Bonaventure felt the need to defend the positive gift that the material world is, along with our physical bodies. This was due to the matter-hating Cathars who believed the material world, including the body, was an obstacle to one’s spiritual progress. Fortunately, though there are still those who denigrate the body, we modern Christians have come to see the gift of embodiment, including the positive gift of sexuality. It is in such embodiment that we encounter other bodies, whose influence on us is immeasurable. Bonaventure will embrace the goodness of the created world. We too, in our journey to God, must embrace the goodness of our embodied reality, as it relates to our relationship with both God and others. It is only in our embodied state that we can experience anything at all. It is the means by which the outer world is brought into our inner worlds.

          However, the constructions of our inner worlds are fraught with complications and distortions. Our perceptions of the world are formed and deformed by the many different relationships we encounter and maintain. Bonaventure tells us that in one’s reflection on day 2 of the journey, we recognize that we learn to give names to the many objects we encounter. Such acts of naming give us the ability to understand the relationships between these many objects. Bonaventure sees such reflections as leading to a deeper understanding of God, moving beyond the vestiges (footprints) of the divine in the world, to a recognition of the image of God more clearly within ourselves. He makes this conclusion because, in reflecting upon our ability to make such connections, we can see in our depths a trace of the intelligent creator, who is loving and wise, and who has ordered all things for goodness.

Unfortunately, most of us simply do not come to the same conclusions as Bonaventure. We tend not to think in terms of the imago Dei (seeing ourselves created in the divine image). We see ourselves as formed by our own self-autonomous choices. We even neglect to see how our mimetic nature necessarily informs our need to imitate other’s maps in order to direct our journey. Such blindness is a real impediment to one’s journey to God. Such blindness creates the illusion of self-creation. In fact, until one acknowledges such illusions, one will never go further in the journey. This is why so many live lives of quiet, or not so quiet, desperation. The many sources of meaning and connectedness are ephemeral, changing with the social and cultural winds.

The heart of the first two days of the journey is twofold. First, we need the desire to take the journey in the first place, wanting to see the deeper meaning of one’s life. Second, we need a willingness to strive for a deeper self-knowledge, even when this might lead to unpleasant acknowledgement of one’s limitations, shallowness, and brokenness. In the search for such self-knowledge, one looks to the profound influences of one’s many models in the formation of one’s worldview, dispositions, attitudes, ideologies, and behaviors. Bonaventure would most likely encourage us to ask whether such influences are true, good, and beautiful, reflecting the creator’s truth, goodness, and beauty.

If one does in fact choose to continue this journey, there will be the difficult but necessary requirement of looking honestly at one’s brokenness, one’s illusions, one’s lack of love, and the need for conversion and transformation. Such reflections are taken up in days 3 and 4 in Bonaventure’s journey of the mind into God. I will look at this part of the journey in Part Two.

 

Calling Down Fire? A Reflection on Luke 9:51-56.

Today the gospel reading for Mass comes from Luke 9:51-56. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, where he will meet his tragic fate. As he and the disciples made their way south through Samaria, they were rebuffed and rejected by the Samaritans whose animus against the Jews informed their rejection of Jesus and his Jewish companions. In their anger towards the Samaritans, two disciples, James and John, inquired of Jesus whether they should call down fire upon the Samaritans. Jesus was incensed by this violent attitude and rebuked the two.

          In the early 17^th century, Miguel de Cervantes wrote a narrative about a hidalgo, a low level noble, Alonso Quijano. Alonso was a veracious consumer of chivalric novels, so much so that his fantasy life began to distort his mind, from which he ended up falling into madness. Alonso came to believe he was in fact a knight, a nobleman higher up the social ladder from his lowly hidalgo station. Of course, we know his fantasied alter ego as Don Quixote, that slayer of windmills and seeker of knightly adventures. Guiding the Don was the paragon of knightly virtue, Amadis de Gaul, the perfect model of knightly disposition. Amadis’s storied legend shaped the purposes, values, and attitudes of Quixote, so much so that even physical objects in the visual space around Quixote were transmogrified, taking on meaning through the lens of Amadis’s modelled perspective. A simple washbowl becomes a knight’s helmet. Amadis’s narrative influence on the mind and affections of Quixote, while entertaining, were also the cause of Alonso’s madness. Alonso had lost touch with reality, with how the world actually was. Rather, as he gave his mind and will over to his hero, his model, Alonso became a character – a caricature – of knightly manners and disposition. For all intents and purposes, Amadis de Gaul led Alonso Quijano on the path to madness because of Alonso’s desire to become one with a world he found more meaningful than the one he found in his mundane day-to-day existence. The world of chivalry and knightly adventures formed an ontic force and attraction greater than what the ‘real’ world could offer Alonso.

          In the gospel narrative, the shocking, for us, request of James and John, to call down fire from heaven, found its legitimacy in the Old Testament prophetic model, Elijah. Elijah had bravely faced opposition from the priests of Baal, who threated to draw Israelites away from the worship of Yahweh, a sin of which there is no greater in the Old Testament. In this epic battle of religious wills, Elijah, in his triumph over the priests of Baal, calls upon Yahweh to send down fire to consume the offerings offered by both religious sides. And low and behold, God answers Elijah’s request in the affirmative, and thus commenced a Baalic embarrassing BarBQ. Hurray for our side and our powerful, vengeful deity who smites our enemies. Adding insult to injury, Elijah has the priests of Baal slaughtered, in the name and honor of Yahweh, who is pleased with this massacre. We sing our hallelujahs as our Don Quixote of Israel successfully topples this idolatrous windmill.

          As Elijah is a biblical hero, it is only fitting that two first century Jews find in him their Amadis de Gaul, their paragon of righteous zealotry, their guide in confronting and dispensing with the enemy of God and tribe. However, Jesus seems to have missed this lesson in synagogue kindergarten class. In fact, he seems to down right revolt against this acclamation of heroic status brought about by Elijah’s violent act, an act lauded in its defense of exclusive Yahwistic worship. Could Jesus’s rebuke of such modelling inform us as to a paradigm shift in divine imaging?

          While it is a dangerous thing to make critical remarks about long held religious convictions, especially when it comes to scripture, I feel compelled to tread where angels fear to go. But let it be noted, Jesus seems to be giving me permission by his implicit teaching, found in a seemingly simple rebuke. Could it be possible that those who formed the many narratives and traditions of the Hebrew people, weaved into these narratives ideological constructs formed from cultural attitudes and dispositions towards ‘others’ that would be legitimized and justified through unconscious projections upon the divine, thus divinizing these varied and all too human constructs of violence and revenge? Could the various accounts of God’s violent responses to human behavior, especially behaviors transgressing deeply held and revered religious cultural frameworks, have been Feurbachian projections of human violence? I dare say, probably. Well, actually, uh, yes. And Jesus was not having any of it. In this simple rebuke, Jesus turned the religious imagination of his disciples on its head. A long held and revered model had been casually sidelined by Jesus in his refusal to entertain a very traditional response to a perceived enemy of God’s chosen.

          Our models, those we chose to inform and form our images of the world and the divine – how we both see and respond to our social encounters and experiences – shape our phenomenological hermeneutics, our interpretations of what is true, valuable, and meaningful. Even characters in the Bible play such a role for many Christians. And yet, in some cases, missing the all too human construction of God images found in various texts of scripture can actually lead us to misunderstand and misrepresent the God of Jesus Christ. And sometimes Jesus’s words will come to us in rebuke for our misunderstandings and dispositions. As the gospel of Matthew instructs us, ‘you have one instructor (model), the Messiah’ (Matthew 23:10). Even our interpretation of the Old Testament must be through the lens of our true divine model, Jesus Christ. Any other ultimate model will more than likely lead to madness, which in turn will lead to our condemning others, scapegoating others who we might wish to call down fire upon.

Not Seven times, but Seventy times. Forgiveness and the presence of God.

Matthew 18: 21-22

21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”

22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.

In preparation for celebrating the Mass for the third Tuesday of Lent, I did what I always do. I began the night before by reading the scriptures for the day, and then began reading various commentaries to spark some ideas as to what to preach. Since weekday Mass homilies are meant to be short, I usually try to find a core idea from the gospel to offer a short reflection.
            While I was pondering how I should approach the text, I recalled an experience that happened a number of years ago, and I decided to use that experience for my homily. Here is the gist of what I preached:
            A few years ago a friar from my province invited me to give a retreat to a group of secular Franciscans at his retreat center in North Carolina. Having never given a retreat before I had to figure out what I would offer them. I decided to go with what I taught in one of my theology courses. In this particular class I spend some time on the ideas of Rene Girard and St. Bonaventure. I specifically lecture on Bonaventure’s Souls Journey to God. I attempted to show them that in our Christian journey, we direct our course to God in a mimetic fashion. That is, because of our mimetic nature we form our ideas and attitudes about the journey through the modeling of others who we deem worthy of imitation. We Franciscans like to use the likes of Francis and Clare as models of spiritual wisdom.
            When I began talking about Bonaventure’s seventh day, when the journey into God is finding its destination in the full presence of the divine, I make note of something that I figured some would find strange. Let me explain. When I was in high school I would spend my free hour, in which I didn’t have a class, in the library. At the time I wasn’t much for reading anything heavy. I usually stuck with popular magazines, or else take a nap. But I did have a fascination with book covers (I’m weird like that). But around 1978 (I was a sophomore to best of my recollection) I saw a fairly new book on the shelf called Life After Life by Dr. Raymond Moody, MD. When I read the description of the book, that being near death experiences, I decided to give it a read. I couldn’t put it down. From that time until now I have been fascinated by near death stories. I have read dozens of books on the subject.
            In the retreat I noted my seeing a correlation between Bonaventure’s seventh day and near death experiences. I acknowledged that it probably sounded odd, and that it just might be my imagination. But no one challenged me. So I figured that they were either open to the idea, or else let the nutty friar prattle on about this mystical mumble jumble.
            At the end of the retreat, I celebrated Mass for the group. Afterwards we took photos, and then people began to depart. But one elderly gentleman stayed behind, and I could tell he wanted to talk privately. So we waited for everyone to leave the chapel, and he then proceeded to tell me his story. When he started with “when you talked about near death experiences” I figured he was going to challenge me. But in fact, he stated that he himself had had a near death experience not long ago. He stated that the experience had most of the qualities found in many other accounts: the universe was saturated by love, it was like swimming in liquid love, one could feel the overwhelming waves of forgiveness, etc. He even saw members of his family.
            But his story had a twist. He confessed that he had been harboring for years a grudge against someone who had deeply hurt him. He said he carried that inability to forgive into that experience. He was trying hard to put an ineffable experience into words, and said that he knew in the deepest core of his being that one cannot remain in that place of pure love and forgiveness holding on to unforgiveness. He looked intently at me and said, “Father, I am afraid that when I die for good I will still have that unforgiveness in me. I don’t know what to do.”
            To be honest, I didn’t know what to tell him. No words will magically free someone from something that they have cultivated over many years. Even though I could not fix him, I knew that I needed to take his experience very seriously. His story has stayed with me all these years, and it has haunted me. I know that I hold grudges. I don’t like this about myself. There are some people, especially those that I am close to – like some I have lived with in community – who I find to be emotional and spiritual thorns in my side. I know that in some cases I have cultivated unforgiveness towards those who have done real emotional damage in their actions towards and against me. And yet this man’s story keeps banging in my head and heart.
            In Matthew’s account, Peter wants to know how generous we must be in forgiving someone. He wanted to put a limit on it. But Jesus explodes all boundaries. I believe this is because we have been created in the divine image, from a God of eternal relationality. While the triune God is in the divine nature fully self-giving and fully other receiving without competition or caught up in selfish self-regard, we humans are broken in our inability to fully image that divine relational reality. We need grace to more fully participate and imitate the divine nature. Ultimately the wrath that is felt by the one who cannot forgive – even the trifles – creates the experience of being bound and imprisoned by chains of unforgiveness holding fast our souls. Such bondage is a deviation from our true nature, our true selves, selves called to the freedom of the children of God. We will be imprisoned until we can pay the debt of holding our grudges, our unforgiving hurts, and will only be released when we finally allow ourselves to let them go, and then bathe in the inexpressible joy of God’s loving forgiveness, a forgiveness that is eternally ready and willing to be given in full.

 

Attachment Theory, God Images, and Religious Exclusion

 

John Bowlby (1907-1990) pioneered what is known in psychology as Attachment Theory. His theory and research are found in a trilogy of books, the first of which was published in 1969. One of the interesting things about his theory is that it is still highly influential in the discipline of psychology. Numerous theoreticians have subsequently built on Bowlby’s work, and some have fruitfully applied Attachment Theory to the field of religious psychology.

            As humans have evolved as social creatures, there is a natural tendency for attachments to form, beginning in infancy. Unlike animals whose attachment occurs through the instinct of imprinting, humans form attachments over time towards those who they see and experience on a regular basis. Typically, this is the mother. But studies have shown that any other caregiver will do as long as there is a constant and consistent presence.

            Attachment theorists, building off the work of Mary Ainsworth, have categorized three general patterns of attachment in young children, A B and C. B types are those labeled secure. These are children who experience a moderate sense of distress when there is a separation from the mother. Because there has been a generally positive experience between the mother/caregiver and the child, the child is not overly distressed, having instilled a confidence in the return of the mother/caregiver.

Type A children are categorized as avoidant. The child manifests a type of indifference to the absence of the mother/caregiver, as most likely due to such previous and consistent behavior on the part of the mother/caregiver. However, in clinical studies, children are monitored for physical reactions, manifesting increased heart rates, indicating an internal distress over the mothers/caregivers absence.

Type C children are categorized as resistant, often also referred as anxious, ambivalent, or anxious/ambivalent. These types of children find separation from the mother/caregiver as highly stressful, and when the mother/caregiver returns manifests anger.

Bowlby maintained that children internalized these early attachment relationships, and these in turn became what he called Internal Working Models (IWM). This consists in how the child interprets and responds to the mother/caregiver’s behavior. This in turn will form cognitive and emotional structures shaping the sense of security in the individual’s relational experiences. This in turn will inform strategies of behavior and reaction to others. Lee Kirkpatrick writes in Attachment, Evolution, and the Psychology of Religion, “Bowlby argued that in early life, IWMs concerning the degree to which caregivers are reliable providers of love, care, and protection are linked inextricably to mental models of the self as worthy of love, care, and protection. As a consequence of cognitive development, along with more varied experience with individuals other than the primary attachment figure, the models of self and others can become decoupled.”

            Kirkpatrick makes a convincing argument, in my opinion, that one’s God, or god, acts as a type of attachment figure. He writes,

 

For many people in many religions, I suggest that this attachment system is fundamentally involved in their thinking, beliefs, and reasoning about God and their relationship to God. This strong position suggests that, beyond apparent (and potentially only superficial) similarities, our knowledge of how attachment processes work in other relationships should prove useful in understanding the ways in which people construe God and interact with God. How does one tell if God “really” functions psychologically as an attachment figure? A good place to start is by identifying the principal criteria for defining an attachment figure—specifically, criteria that distinguish attachments from other functionally distinct kinds of interpersonal relationships—and examine how well beliefs about God meet these criteria. Ainsworth (1985) summarized five defining characteristics that are widely acknowledged to distinguish attachment relationships from other types of close relationships: (1) the attached person seeks proximity to the caregiver, particularly when frightened or alarmed; (2) the caregiver provides care and protection (the haven of safety function) as well as (3) a sense of security (the secure base function); (4) the threat of separation causes anxiety in the attached person; and (5) loss of the attachment figure would cause grief in the attached person.

 

Kirkpatrick notes that Bowlby

 

identified three classes of stimuli hypothesized to activate the attachment system: (1) frightening or alarming environmental events, that is, stimuli that evoke fear and distress; (2) illness, injury, or fatigue; and (3) separation or threat of separation from attachment figures. If God functions psychologically as an attachment figure, then we should find that people turn to God, and evince attachment-like behaviors toward God, under these conditions. Moreover, the experience of God as a haven of safety in these circumstances should give rise to the same kinds of feelings of comfort and security provided by secure human attachments. In fact, considerable research suggests that these are indeed the very conditions under which people, at least in Western Christian traditions, are most likely to seek God's support and comfort. In their textbook treatment of the topic, Hood et al. (1996) conclude that people are most likely to “turn to their gods in times of trouble and crisis,” and list three general classes of potential triggers: “illness, disability, and other negative life events that cause both mental and physical distress; the anticipated or actual death of friends and relatives; and dealing with an adverse life situation” (pp. 386–387)—in short, the same list provided by Bowlby.

The experience of comfort from God in times of distress can be a lifesaver for many people. Attachment to a God/god of comfort, however else one’s image of God is filled out, can become something worthy of protection. Any challenge to one’s God image then can be an occasion of emotional distress, a fear of losing an important form of attachment that has been life sustaining.

            Attachment theory has some resonance with the mimetic theory of Rene Girard, in that the influence of a model, in this case the mother/caregiver, has an effect on the formation of the child’s worldview. Where mimetic theory goes further is in the model’s influence in the formation of more than just a sense of security, but the formation of desires, values, principles, cultural taboos, and social rules shaping attitudes and behavior.

The formation of God images is complex. It involves a myriad of influences on the individual’s consciousness. Of great influence is the impact that models have in the formation of God images. Such models are found in individual’s relational social space, i.e., parents, siblings, friends, famous people in history or contemporary, and so forth. Models can also be found in more abstract realities, such as institutions, i.e., government and church. It is important to recall Ainsworth's five defining characteristics of attachment: (1) the attached person seeks proximity to the caregiver, particularly when frightened or alarmed; (2) the caregiver provides care and protection (the haven of safety function) as well as (3) a sense of security (the secure base function); (4) the threat of separation causes anxiety in the attached person; and (5) loss of the attachment figure would cause grief in the attached person. God images are always formed with human conceptual constructs. We cannot escape this reality. This means that how we articulate our understanding of the divine is necessarily with the categories presented to us through social and cultural artifacts.

Thus, as we form a deeper and deeper attachment to our God images, we form a more binding attachment to the social and cultural influences that have shaped these images. We tend to become protective of these constructs, believing them to proceed from a divine, thus infallible, source. To question one’s image is to question the deity itself. As noted in characteristic (5) above, loss of an attachment figure can cause grief. This is why there is such a fear of death of a loved one, because it is an experience of absence. A void in the heart occurs and it reminds us of the fragility of life and relationships. We become creative in both our denial of death and in filling the void. However, when it comes to God images (even though destructive in some cases), we tend to fight against any threat to that which has given us a sense of security and comfort. Such an image is replete with the many value systems that attend to a particular God image, formed in the mimetic relationships of significant models, be they an individual, a group, or an institution. In terms of the institution, the principles, rules, taboos, conventions, morals, etc., that attend to one’s adherence to the institution, are protected as being ontologically intrinsic to the very nature of the divine.

Dylan Thomas railed against the dying of the light. Attachments to our God images is like attachments to our loved one’s – we can’t bare to see them end. We crave the security and comfort they give us. We will protect, fight, kill to keep at bay the dying of the light. But the fact is, all God images are metaphors, incomplete, and do not manifest the fulness of the divine. I John 4:16 tells us that God is love. Jesus told us to love one another. How do these statements form our God images? For some, God’s love must be protected against impurity, the ‘other’ who does not profess/confess accurately the true image of the divine that we have, in truth, constructed. The fact that any deity needs protection says a great deal both about the weakness of such a deity, and the implicit need to play God. Attachments to such a small deity will inevitably manifest in fear and anger.

So, my question to you. What is your God image? How does it lead to greater love, humility, empathy, or judgmentalism, condemnation, and bigotry? 

The Prodigal Father

Growing up in a broken home in which family members held secrets had a powerful affect on me. I remember an inner world monologue screaming for honesty and humility. But humans don’t seem to work that way.

Childhood never seems to leave us. Those formative years find their ways of popping out at the most inopportune times. The insecurities that plant their seeds in those tempestuous days always find their way of blooming, no matter how we spray insecticide to kill their psychological toxicity.

Humans have this incessant need to be affirmed, to be accepted, to belong. We devise so many strategies in order to find a home among a tribe that sees us, acknowledges us, esteems us. And the walls we build, dear God, the walls we build, the ramparts that shield against the illumination that could possibly shine upon the open wounds, the pulsing exposed nerves that shudder when seen in the light of day. Oh, the shame of vulnerability, the horror that our true intentions, our underlying motives are prosaically for simple acceptance. We present our peacock feathers in a fury of vanity, hiding the nakedness that reveals our every blemish.

In our journey to succeed, to accomplish, to shine among the dazzling stars, we convince ourselves of higher motives. We believe that our striving is for the greater glory of…name it what you will. But ultimately it comes down to being noticed, to hope that we count in a universe, that in its vastness, if comprehended, would swallow us in an ocean of insignificance. Thus, we scream, NOTICE ME! See my uniqueness, admire my originality. Jealousy, envy, these are the fuel that compels us along the path of delusion.

We demand our inheritance, the means to be ‘ourselves’. Father, give me my inheritance. If spoken without filter, “Father, I wish you dead’. Let me shine in the light of my own making. But alas, once the substance of my own being is pulled from underneath me like a floor holding my weight, a terrible tumbling into an abyss becomes my vertiginous reality.

I see my fall in the words I speak to protect my vulnerability, my fear to expose my nothingness. My very being without Being becomes a cosmic joke, an empty laughter. To prop myself on this illusion, I look to create a world where others fall for my narrative of self-creation, self-importance.

Alas, self-knowledge is an inconvenience. We become addicted to the portrait we have created of ourselves and believe it true. Success, a delusional prop confirmed by a culture happy to affirm its truth. And when the admiration ceases, when the famine of adulation sucks away the resources of our lavish delusions, we seek the slop of the swine. And when despair brings us to the nadir of our existence, we devise a means to find a way out, even if it means becoming the utter negation of our grand schemes for glory. Father, I am only good for slavery, take me as your slave.

What is this? Who is this that runs with glee, with joy, with rejoicing towards my ravished ego, my soul stripped of meaning and purpose? Why does he look at me this way? Why is he embracing me in my unwashed filth? This is what I unconsciously left home to find, this is what my heart desired beyond all imagining. Why did I go to far off lands where I was convinced, I would find that which was always here, in my home?

My childhood haunts me. My need for approval abounds. I do and say things that hide the underlying desire to be loved, to be affirmed, to be accepted. I have looked, and will likely continue to look, in lands that will be exposed as deserts, barren, waterless. But the Father runs after me. The Father runs after me. I am safe. I am loved. Awake my soul. See, your redemption is near.

Traditionis Custodes: Some Thoughts

Keeping up the Girardian theme that flows through most of my posts, I would like to use some of the research I did for my book Embodied Idolatry to exam the latest kerfuffle over the Pope’s publication, Traditionis Custodes, which concerns the restriction of the Latin Mass.

In a tweet, Massimo Faggioli wrote, “‘Traditionis Custodes’ is much more about the authority of Vatican II than about papal authority.” I am in agreement with this assessment. He also wrote, “I think dialogue with extremists is not an absolute and cannot become the mission of the Church.” I also agree with this view. The sentiment to dialogue is a noble one, grounded in a desire to respect the individual, despite differences of worldviews. But as virtuous as this sentiment is, it neglects to take into account a number of realities about the nature of ideological intransigence. Let me attempt to explain.

Girard’s theory of mimetic desire has given a profound insight into the nature of human formation. We imitate the desires and values of important models in our lives. The research in this field is staggering, and is, in my opinion, convincing. Along with Girardian theories in human mimesis, there are additional studies in human social formation. There are numerous studies done in the field of social psychology. I wrote about these studies in my book. Here I will summarize a portion of my research.

Daniel Bar-Tal has done a good deal of work in the field of group formation and social identity. He has demonstrated that an integral part of group formation is shared beliefs held by the members of a social group. He writes that such beliefs incorporate both personal and shared beliefs, though maintenance of one’s position in the group requires that the adoption of the groups shared beliefs is requisite to remaining in good standing with the group. Bar-Tal writes that shared beliefs can influence the type of “social reality that group members construct, the sense of solidarity and unity that they experience, the intensity and involvement of group members with these beliefs, the conformity expected from group members, the pressure exerted on leaders, and the direction of action taken by the group.”

As I wrote in my book: The theory of self-categorization, based on the research of Henri Talfel, proposes “that individuals form social identity by being psychologically connected to social groups through their self-definition as members of social categories.” There are “emotional and psychological implications,” in this categorization process. It is “meaningful for intergroup relations because [Talfel] assumed that people are motivated to maintain positive self-evaluation through differentiation between ingroups and outgroups.” 

Bar-Tal notes that the recognition of shared beliefs “instigates a general sense of power among group members on the basis of the aroused sense of similarity, which indicates unity and solidarity, and on the basis of the confidence in these beliefs, which arouses a sense of rightness. Group members feel strong and influential, believing that they are right in their opinions and can influence the decision making of their leaders and the course of group action.”

A tactic used by many right-winged groups is the use of fear. The world is described in vividly dystopian images. Among such groups in the Roman Catholic church, there is the conviction that the modern world has embraced a secular modernism at war with the traditions of the Church, and thus has denigrated and marginalized traditions that contain eternal soteriological truths, without which there are only the portents of eternal damnation. By embracing such modernist thoughts and practices, modernist Catholics have become disloyal to the clear teachings of the traditions, and thus are not only excluded from grace, but also threaten to bring about the wrath of God. 

Such modernist heresies plaguing modern Catholicism, as I understand from the many social media posts I read, include such horrors as: the idea that women are equal to men and should be given a voice in the institution of the Church; the belief that sexual orientation is not only not a matter of morality, but same sex attraction, and other issues of sexual identity, are a gift from God; that the divine liturgy has an ancient pedigree and is thus sacred in its antique practice (despite the fact, or lack of acknowledgment of, the liturgies evolution). I am sure there are other issues I am missing, but I think that makes the point.

Religious fundamentalism, which I believe right-wing Catholicism can be categorized as, has a Manichean foundation that sees a war between good and evil, the righteous and the wicked, in cosmological terms. When I was entrenched in a fundamentalist church in my youth, we were constantly reminded of the dangers of becoming friends with non-believers. We could become infected with their worldly ways and risk our salvation. There was a lot of devil talk among such church people, and we were convinced the devil was around almost every corner. Devil talk is quite prevalent among right-wing Catholics. There was also a good deal of militaristic lingo, such as: we are at war; we must defeat the enemy; the forces of evil have their army, we must be like good soldiers and always be prepared for battle, etc. I highly recommend Kristin Kobes Du Mez’s book Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation to get a perspective on this. The psychological ramifications from being exposed to such ideology is profound, and can haunt one for years after leaving fundamentalism. I can personally testify to this experience.

Attempting to dialogue with those who believe that they are absolutely right, that they hold the absolute truth, and who believe that they are in a war against the forces of evil, incarnated in those who disagree with them, is a fools errand, even if the sentiment is noble.

Finally, quoting Massimo Faggioli one more time, in regards to those who are upset with the pope seemingly using strong arm tactics in the publication of this text. Faggioli writes, “on the theology and ecclesiology of ‘Traditionis Custodes’ pope Francis is right because he is right, not just because he is the pope.” Well, sometimes that is the role of a leader. For the good of the faithful I believe that Pope Francis has acted for the wellbeing of the universal church, because it was, and is, the right thing to do.