In All Things

Cambridge, MA. We just finished the second week of the semester at Harvard, and things are settling down. I am team-teaching a first year Master of Divinity course, “Theories and Methods in the Study of Religion,” which raises some interesting questions about whether and where academic scholarship about religion meets the perspectives of insiders, and whether thinking about religion helps religious people think more clearly in their faith and works of service. More on that in a later blog, but here I would like to introduce my seminar, “Tamil Love.”

     This is a seminar devoted to the close reading of selected texts, in English translation, from the Tamil language tradition of south India. Tamil, you may know, is one of the world’s oldest living languages, with literature dating back two millennia, and currently serving as the mother tongue of more than 75 million people. The course focuses on religious poetry expressive of devotion to God, particularly the songs of the alvars (7^th-9^th century poet saints who wrote songs, poetry, in praise of the deity Narayana (who descends into the world as Rama, Krsna, and in other ways) with his consort, Sri Laksmi. The poetry is lovely, elegantly composed, and rich in religious meaning, sentiments of praise, worship, longing, service. This is the first verse of the 9^th century Tiruvaymoli, the most famous alvar work: “Who possesses the highest, unsurpassable good? that one / who graciously gives the good of a mind without confusion? that one / who is the first lord of the unforgetting immortals? that one / so bow down at those radiant feet that destroy affliction, and arise, my mind.” (We read everything in English, but keep puttering and fighting with the translations, including my own.)

     But first we read some still older poetry, from a 1^st century anthology known as the “Short Poem Collection” (the Kuruntokai), expressive of the mixed emotions of a young woman in love. Attuned to every facet of nature, from geography to flora and fauna to times and seasons, the poetry, these short poems explore subtly and indirectly the desires and expectations of a lover. Thus, we read poems such as this one, wherein the young woman is not sure whether her beloved is delayed, or the monsoon rain early: “These fat konrai trees / Are gullible: / the season of rains / that he spoke of / when he went through the stones / of the desert / is not yet here / / though these trees / mistaking the untimely rains / have put out / their long arrangements of flowers / on the twigs / / as if for a proper monsoon.” (as translated by A K Ramanujan, my teacher in graduate school, in his lovely collect, The Interior Landscape, Indiana University, 1967). Hundreds of such elegant little poems gently and powerfully disclose how the mind and heart of people in love care for, await, get angry at, despair of, melt into one another.

     Such poetry is spiritual, to be sure, and it sets up a model for later explicitly religious poetry. Consider for example another poem from Tiruvaymoli: “The south wind fragrant with mallikai scent cuts deep, / the sound of the splendid kurinji is piercing, / the evening’s waning light bewilders me, / those fine clouds red in the waning light bring ruin, and / my lord, his eyes lovely delicate lotuses, / my lord, great bull among the cowherds, great lion, / my dark one once tightly clasped my shoulders, my breasts — / but now I don’t know where to find shelter, I am alone.” (IX.9.1) Here too the beloved does not come — yet now the mystery is all the deeper and more poignant, since it is God who is delaying. (Some of you may remember that I have commented on these songs back in the summer; what I research often finds its way into my teaching.)

     We are still near the course’s beginning, but we will in time go further, reading the Song of Songs along with the Tamil songs, notably passages in which the Song’s young woman in love wonders where her beloved is: “Upon my bed at night? I sought him whom my soul loves;? I sought him, but found him not;? I called him, but he gave no answer. ?‘I will rise now and go about the city,? in the streets and in the squares;? I will seek him whom my soul loves.’? I sought him, but found him not.” (3.1-2; NRSV) Part of the inquiry of the course is interreligious, as I encourage my students to relate what we read to their own religious and spiritual traditions, but the inquiry is this time around more poetic than philosophical, more the dynamic of reading one poem next to and after another.

     So for me, and implicitly in the course, the questions are not, “What does Christianity have to do with Hinduism?” or “What does Krsna have to do with Christ?” since such questions are easy to ask, easy to answer in a self-reassuring way, hard to answer in a way that helps anyone. Rather, we ask, what is it like to hear and learn from early south Indian love poetry? how did gifted artists in medieval India turn that subtle psychology and longing and doubt toward God? how do Catholics like me find a way from that poetry to a new hearing of the Song of Songs, and new sense of what it means to say we really do desire God, and often enough miss a seemingly absent God? And finally - how can we make sense of Christ who comes, who goes, as one we cannot take for granted? I think this through more clearly after studying Tamil Hindu poetry.

     I have a fine group of students, and they approach the course and its readings from many different angles; yet we all read together. All this is, I suggest, not only wonderful opportunity in the classroom, a cultural exchange, a crossover among languages and translations and histories; it is also, for those who choose to take it this way, an interreligious dialogue as deep as any we might imagine, a dialogue in the heart. I'll tell you more, as the semester progresses.

Cambridge, MA. I have never had great sympathy for Pat Robertson and his evangelical slant on the Gospel and Christian life. In part, it is a matter of cultural differences — I am a Jesuit, in Cambridge, at Harvard, after all — and also a matter of what seems to be a rather different experience of what Christianity and the Gospel mean. For the most part, I share everyone’s disappointment, even offense, at his more controversial statements — about the Holocaust, about assassinating Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, and about how 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina were punishments for the sins of Americans — in retribution for homosexuality, abortion, and a host of other sins. As readers know, he was recently in the news again, commenting on the terrible earthquake in Haiti:

"Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the Devil. They said, we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the Devil said, okay it's a deal."

     On one level, it is easy to dismiss Mr. Robertson entirely, as a bad historian, as talking way too much without sufficient reflection, as tone deaf and insensitive to the sufferings of large numbers of people, and as self-serving in conveniently discovering that immense tragedies are God at work punishing behavior he finds sinful. Most of us disapprove of such sweeping explanations, and indeed, cannot imagine that God would cause an earthquake or hurricane to punish behavior we find distasteful or wrong, particularly when the victims are most often those who have already been suffering systemic injustice, including our neglect, for a very long time. We do not share either his opinions about America or those of the 9/11 hijackers. Certainly, Mr. Robertson has once again suffered wide, proper disapproval due to his Haiti remarks. 

     I raise all this here, however, because on one level at least he is quite right, in throwing a direct challenge in the face of any of us who call ourselves Christians. Does the world make sense from a Christian perspective, or not? For he is attempting to explain why God allows such catastrophes to take place. God allows: the question — that of theodicy — is the age-old one: if God is all-good and all-powerful, why the hurricane? the earthquake? the slaughter of innocents? History is full of failed answers, of course, and most of us simply step around the issue of why, and express, rightly, our solidarity with victims, the need for action to help those in need, and our speechlessness at the mystery of such evils. We cannot explain why God would allow any place to be hit by such an earthquake, or in particular why Haitians, who have suffered so much for so long, could possibly be singled out by God for such punishment, while the rest of us look on. Mr. Robertson is clearly trying to come up with reasons for why such things take place — to preserve his conviction that the world is in God’s hands, that nothing happens except by divine decree.

     We can, rightly, insist that asking, “Why do these tragedies happen?” is the wrong question to ask, it is a question to which there will never be a good answer — certainly not one of moral retribution, as if this or that group of thousands of people deserves to die, or serves merely as the tool of a strict master’s lesson, or as if God has somehow stepped back and let the devil have his way. But we have to be careful not to abandon the idea that the world can still be seen in light of what we know of God. We have to believe that in some way, such events are still “in the hands — mind, heart — of God,” lest we simply be admitting a chasm between our faith and the events of the real world.

     Better to ask, I suggest, “Where is God when such events take place? Where is God when Haitians — none of them deserving this calamity — are suffering?” God is present in that suffering, calling to us from the midst of it, in a way that should deeply shake our ordinary way of viewing the world. Our everyday values and measurements are pushed aside, our normal list of complaints made to seem trivial. Death, the possibility of the sudden end to life as we know it, is suddenly before us, in our face. And God, ever present among the hungry, the outcaste, the oppressed, asks us to find God in the face of those who suffer, yet again.

     It is not just a matter of thinking, “God wants us to help those in trouble,” though that is very true. Nor is it to say, “God causes disasters so as to communicate with us more dramatically,” as if to educate North Americans by suffering that happens somewhere else — another trivial, cruel notion. Rather, we do well to see God not as the cause of disasters, nor as somehow failing to stop them, but as a God who dwells in that extreme suffering — as in extreme bliss — in the evil as in the good. Not quite God speaking out of whirlwind, as in the Book of Job, but something rather like that. We need to not turn away, not justify, not excuse, the sufferings of 9/11, Katrina, the 2005 tsunami, this recent earthquake, but rather, in the face of such events, to encounter God there too, in such places. This is what it means to say that Christ was crucified not only 2000 years ago, but in every moment of unspeakable suffering, loss, cruelty, large and small, in 2010 too. What is God telling, showing us, if Haiti is where God has now shown up?

     This approach — sketched very briefly, perhaps a bit inarticulately here (30 minutes of writing is not enough on such a topic!) — is not likely to satisfy a preacher who wants to reassure his flock, in detail and with certitude, that everything happens according to God’s intention to punish sin. But what I am suggesting (as have numerous thinkers through the ages) moves toward a specifically religious and Christian — though with some adjustments, it could be Hindu as well — alternative to Mr. Robertson’s grasp at meaning. He has, therefore, pushed us to deepen and yes, darken our Christian view of the world. Christ is there, under that collapsed building.

     What do you think?  

Cambridge, MA. Many readers will know that Professor Mary Daly, pioneering, brilliant, and controversial feminist theologian, died last week at age 81.  See Jim Martin's note on this too. Professor Daly taught for some 30 years at Boston College, and so she was my colleague there from 1984, when I joined the faculty, until her retirement (forced or free) about a decade ago. Her years at BC were in general not happy ones, at least in a contextual sense. Long before I arrived, the relationship between Professor Daly and her colleagues had gone sour, at times contentious, angry, demonstrative (including student strikes), distant, absent, silent. By 1984, she was no longer participating in departmental meetings and committees, and was largely not present at all in the Department — except in the way a very famous, monumental intellectual and spiritual force made her presence felt. We would nod to one another in the hallway, occasionally say hello, but that was the limit of our contact. It was sad.
     Mary Daly was by all accounts a radical thinker. I am not a scholar of her work, and cannot summarize it with any precision, but my sense that when she assessed the condition of women in the modern world, in religions, and in the Catholic Church, all taken in light of her own experience trying to make her way as a pioneering woman theologian – with multiple doctorates — in a 1960s Church not quite ready for women theologians, she came to the stark conclusion that there was no simple remedy to the bias, as if small changes would right the wrongs and make women equal to men. Rather, the biases and distortions so harmful to women permeated the entirety of human experience, and traditional religions were infected with pervasive bias, in ideas, language, practices, and social structures. Accordingly, women had to be radical in their critiques, taking apart of the whole structures and not just adjusting details. For this, women were better off outside the religions, Catholicism included, and for a time at least, better off nurturing their own conversations and ways of living, without the presence, help or hindrance of men, even well-meaning men. So Mary Daly was a Catholic intellectual who decided for theological reasons, and by personal imperative, that she could no longer be a Christian. 
     I heard Professor Daly speak once on campus at BC, and was impressed with the force of her ideas and her totally brilliant play with the English language. I remember most vividly how, in keeping with her classroom practice (such as led to her departure from the faculty), after the lecture she did not take questions from men. When finally one of the women in the audience asked her why, she replied that it was important for men to have the experience of being ignored, overlooked, not allowed to speak. I didn’t have a question for her that evening, but appreciated her point: unless we ourselves experience marginalization, the brute force of power imposed on us, we really won’t be able to get what it is like to be a perennially demeaned and oppressed person.
     Only once did I actually sit down and talk with her, about 20 years ago, when she and I and another colleague met off campus for tea. As I recall now, it was a bit uncomfortable, since such moments were so rare. I cannot recall much of what we talked about — her academic work and ours, I suppose, not wanting to ruin a moment of peace — but I am glad that I had the opportunity to meet her in a more humane and open setting, at least once.
     Did she affect my work? Not directly, though her presence at BC kept reminding us all that safe ideas safely expressed within safe structures are rather useless in the long run, and harmful. No one who lives by ideas, and gets paid for it as a living (as do professors), should be satisfied with just saying things that sound good but never actually change things. I agree, even if my writing has headed in a different direction. Indeed, I remain resolutely Roman Catholic, in and of the Church, and I would not step away from a commitment to Christ. My entire career’s work has been based on the confidence that conversations are possible, that we need people like and unlike ourselves, that radical resistance is nonviolent even in word, and that God is always helping us to overcome even what may seem at some level irreconcilable differences. I also disagree with her on particular issues, even if one must be careful to keep even her radical ideas — about sexuality, abortion, and so forth — in the larger and vastly intelligent context of her overall vision and word. She did not simply think like the rest of us and differ on one or another point of ethics; rather, she recast the entire discussion in light of women's experience, as it is and ideally should be. But despite divergences, Mary Daly still reminded me that unless we are radical, we are not really thinking.
     I would guess that if she ever read or thought about any of my writings, she mostly likely would have seen me as still part of, caught in, structures she thought had to be overturned. The situation in which we found ourselves in at BC was one in which we could not easily talk to one another. But she, unlike me, probably felt that distance and non-communication were necessary visible signs of an extreme and extremely unjust situation, while I felt that there is no situation in which we cannot do better by finding ways to talk to one another, vulnerable even to one another’s hard words.
     But I also know that Professor Daly was a mentor and inspiration to a generation and more of feminist theologians. Some parted company with her, because they found her too radical, or too old-fashioned absolutist or too separatist, or after a while no longer imaginative enough about the hybridity of human experience, gendered and otherwise. But even then, a vast multitude of women thinkers, and men too, owe so very much to her, this angry, relentless, clear-sighted magician and priestess of theological and sacred words. Even if I have not much quoted from her books (I did that only once, I think), the way I think about Hinduism and Christianity, and about the nature of the Church today, is inevitably, implicitly indebted to Mary Daly, who changed the context in which we think about humans and God.
     I close on a different note: It is a tribute to her person and presence, I have learned, that even in her long last illness, unprotected by family, she was surrounded and supported by women who loved her dearly and made it possible that she not be alone in those last days. To get a feel for her work, to inspire you and/or rile you, try for instance this site that lists some quotations from her work. I close with just several of the quotations given there: “If God is male, then male is God. The divine patriarch castrates women as long as he is allowed to live on in the human imagination;” “Courage is like -- it's a habitus, a habit, a virtue: you get it by courageous acts. It's like you learn to swim by swimming. You learn courage by couraging;” “Why indeed must 'God' be a noun? Why not a verb - the most active and dynamic of all.”
     Mary Daly, rest in peace.

Cambridge, MA. I blog for America under the “In All Things” title, not “The Good Word,” but since I preach most Sundays, I am occasionally tempted to cross the line and comment on the Sunday readings. Perhaps it is auspicious to begin 2010 this way, so here is a reflection on the Gospel for Epiphany, Matthew 2.1-12, the famous account of the arrival of the wise magi from the East, to see and worship the newborn Jesus. (Though I happily leave the expert exegesis to my fellow writers at "The Good Word" and Barbara Reid's The Word column.)
     While the Church calendar usually serves us well and draws our attention to key Gospel texts and their special insights, sometimes we lose something too. This is the case, I think, in the Christmas season, when Matthew 2.1-12 is reserved for Epiphany, while the sequel, Matthew 2.13-18, the account of the slaughter of all the boys under two years old, is heard only on December 28, the Feast of the Holy Innocents.
     However we understand the account of the magi, one key element is surely the contrast between these wise seekers and king Herod, a contrast that perhaps encouraged tradition to turn the magi into kings, that they might stand beside Herod as marking a very different kind of king. Here we have two models of power, and two utterly different reactions to the newborn Jesus, the promised Messiah.
     The magi - let us suppose them to be men (or men and women?) of considerable wealth and status - go to extraordinary lengths to find and see Jesus. They leave behind their home and its securities, and travel to a distant land; even at the end of their journey, they reach only Jerusalem, the too-obvious and too-famous center of religious truth and right practice, and must ask directions from cynical Herod and his bookish advisors. They finally get to see the child, to offer gifts, to experience overwhelming joy, and then, still following their dreams, to return home. They do not ask favors, they do not stay for a long time, and there is no expectation that these strange visitors will become disciples of Jesus or even abandon the religion they have long practiced at home. They simply find within them, and act out, the instinct-for-Jesus, and willingly suffer all the trouble and travel it entails.
     Herod, by contrast, is nearby, at home in Jerusalem, surrounded by advisors well versed in the scriptures. Yet he did not know what was happening in Bethlehem, had not noticed the star, had no instinct-for-Jesus. Quite the contrary: his entire way of life is secured against such bothersome events, and the last thing he wants to know is that a messenger from God has been born in his neighborhood, without his permission.
     Matthew is asking us, among other things, to look at the magi and Herod next to one another, and to ponder how differently people can react to God’s work and the birth of Jesus. We too are invited to contemplate the differences. I close with just two of my own insights, and please then add your own.
     First, the scenario begs us to consider how people are, or aren’t, willing to risk themselves in encounter with God. The magi have no particular relationship to Israel or expectations of a Messiah, and yet come from outside, far off, to risk everything to find the child. Herod, by contrast, has much at stake in keeping things in good order: the work of God is to be kept safely in the temple, interpreted by duly authorized religious leaders, and God’s anointed king — Herod himself — seated securely on his throne. The magi have the freedom to visit, but Herod knows that if it is true that God is now working anew, surprisingly, without prior authorization, then his throne is no longer safe. The magi very much want to find God in the unexpected place, and Herod is very much terrified by the unexpected place. He has too much to lose. Perhaps we recognize a bit of ourselves in Herod and in the magi? And perhaps we should rejoice a bit more heartily when people who are not members of any Christian community find Jesus on their own terms, give the gifts they have, and yet still return home? Epiphany is about the universality of the light of Christ, but that includes the wisdom of these magi who find Christ in their own way.
      Second, in their instinctive reactions to Jesus, both the magi and Herod go to extremes. There is no moderation in this difficult, uncertain journey of the magi, who have much to lose, and might indeed make fools of themselves should they find nothing at journey’s end. Yet, they go to the extreme, because Jesus has been born. Herod too goes beyond any normal reaction, even hostile, to the birth of a rival. His fear and disquiet are so deep that he seeks to kill the child and, to be safe, all boys young enough to be like the one he fears. In presenting us with the lavish, unexpected desire of the magi to see Jesus, and the extremity of Herod’s violence, Matthew wants us to realize that this is what Jesus can do to people: bring out the very best in us, and the very worst. Much of our lives are lived in moderate zones, where we act neither too positively nor too negatively in response to the Jesus who suddenly appears in our lives. But sometimes extremity is called for, as the light reveals how dark the darkness is. Matthew is reminding us that if we really understand what is happening when God shows up, then it is worth risking everything to see for ourselves — but also that, in a perverse way, it is also not unexpected that we’d rather do anything than allow God to rise up unexpectedly in most ordinary place, in our stables and our Bethlehems.
     In the harsh dark as well as light of Matthew 2, we see ourselves at our best and worst, when God, though long expected, manages to show up unexpectedly. We are chastened, that we not romanticize our prospects in 2010, not underestimate our human capacity for extreme violence, yet too not foreclose the possibility that there are still wise women and men, from somewhere else, who find Christ more honestly than we ever thought we could, in our fear of traveling too far from home.

Cambridge, MA. Some of you may remember that I marked the Triduum 2009 by drawing on Paramahamsa Yogananda’s The Second Coming of Christ, reflecting on how he explained the meaning of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Resurrection. Take a look. My point was in part that we do well to listen carefully to how people who are not Christian see Christ, since we can learn from their wisdom. I close the year similarly, with attention to how Yogananda values the birth of Christ in Volume I (pages 54-56) of The Second Coming.

     Yogananda first comments on how it was appropriate that the birth of Jesus was seen by peasants who were simple — and more importantly, pure of heart, and bereft of large egos. (He mentions having personally met one such simple and clear-eyed person, the mystic Therese Neumann, famed for her meditations on the crucifixion and her bearing the stigmata.) The whole scene of the Nativity, he says, makes this point: “As with the shepherds on the hillside, the shepherds of man’s faith, devotion, and meditation will be bathed in the light of realization and lead those devotees who are humble in spirit to behold the infinite presence of Christ newborn within them.”

     In the face of the crass materialism surrounding Christmas — Yogananda speaks in the first part of the 20^th century — he says that he initiated for his followers a daylong meditation service to the worship of Christ: “The ideal is to honor Christ in spiritual meditation from morning till evening, absorbed in feeling in one’s own consciousness the Infinite Christ that was born in Jesus.” This meditation, he says, is the doorway to profound peace and joy.

     He concludes that the peace of Christ, which is the gift of Christmas, “is found in the interiorized state of one’s God-communion in meditation. Then, like an ever full reservoir, it pours out freely to one’s family, friends, community, nation, and the world.” In Yogananda’s view, he pleads that we take all this to heart: if we live this way, rooted in the ideals of the life of Jesus, “a millennium of peace and brotherhood would come on earth.”

     Indeed, we need to see anew our own lives and possibilities in light of Christ’s birth: “A person who is imbued with God’s peace can feel naught but goodwill toward all. The crib of ordinary consciousness is very small, filled to capacity with self-love. The cradle of goodwill of Christ-love holds the Infinite Consciousness that includes all beings, all nations, all races and faiths as one.”

     Yogananda has more to say on the Gospel accounts, but the preceding paragraphs suffice for this year. I recommend getting a copy of his Second Coming — two volumes, over one thousand pages — or asking for it in your library, since it really is a book from which we have much to learn.

     In particular, his own Christmas practice is one we would do well to embrace: however busy we are in church or with family and friends, we are still called to contemplate in still silence and simple light the birth of Jesus, thus setting time aside in which we can absorb the light of Christ into our lives. In and through the familiar Christmas events, we too should be able to see the light of God shining in our darkness. Perhaps then we — you, me — can rise to Yogananda’s level of hope too, not letting sin and cynicism too heavily darken our view of the world. I can be more confident that my own personal, interior illumination will be my first, maybe best contribution to the transformation of our world, local and global.

     If you have other good examples of how Christ’s birth has been appreciated by people of other religious traditions, please add them, or links to them, by way of comment!

Merry Christmas!

Cambridge, MA. In November, Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster and President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, visited the great Hindu temple in the Neasden section of London. As the Westminster website explains, “the visit took place on Saturday 21 November 2009 during Interfaith Week and on the birth anniversary of the worldwide spiritual leader of the Hindus who pray at the Mandir (Hindu Temple) at Neasden, His Holiness Pramukh Swami Maharaj.” The Archbishop toured the temple, prayed with those present for peace and understanding, and offered flowers at the central shrines in the temple. As he left, he and the Swami exchanged gifts: “Archbishop Nichols presented Yogvivek Swami with a special candle, ‘a sign of the lovely light of God in our lives and a sign of the prayer which, in return, we offer to God.’ Yogvivek Swami also presented Archbishop Nichols with a memento of his visit to the Mandir.”

     It is a very fine temple, which I had the opportunity to visit just once, when teaching at Oxford earlier in this decade. (For a full explanation of the concept of “temple” — or better, “mandir,” see the temple’s own explanation. The founder of the Hindu community with which the temple is associated, the Swaminarayan Community, traces itself back to the 18^th – 19^th century in Gujarat, north India, and is inspired by the life and example of a holy man known most familiarly as Swaminarayan.)

     All this seems very fine, and so it was, until I received from a Hindu friend in India a link to a blog at The Telegraph site by Damian Thompson, "Archbishop Nichols 'offered flowers at the altar of Hindu deities.'" Mr Thompson was highly critical of the visit. According to Mr Thompson, the Archbishop could not have thought through the visit carefully, since when he placed flowers at the altar, he was in fact reverencing Hindu deities. As Mr Thompson puts it, “This is a blunder, however well-intentioned. Inter-faith dialogue is a minefield for Christian leaders, as Pope John Paul II discovered when he prayed alongside non-Christians at Assisi in 1986. This visit sounds ill-conceived from start to finish. The offer of the candle and the words accompanying it imply that Hindus worship the same God as Christians, which I would have thought even a primary-school textbook would make clear is not the case. And there’s the clue, right in Westminster diocese’s own press release – offering flowers at the altar of “the deities”. Yes, there’s a distinction between offering flowers at an altar and offering them to the gods themselves, but I think the general public and the average Catholic can be forgiven if they fail to appreciate it at once. Of course Archbishop Vincent Nichols doesn’t believe in these pagan gods (which is what they are, from a Christian perspective). But, as we saw when he allowed a chapel in Birmingham to be used for a celebration of Mohammed’s birthday, his famous common sense deserts him when he is in the hands of his ‘inter-faith’ advisers.”

     I am writing about this small controversy for two reasons. First, it raises some interesting questions about the limits of interfaith courtesy and respect. Second, it compels to ask how our strongest faith beliefs affect how we relate to our religious neighbors. On the first, it seems to me that the Archbishop did exactly the right thing, and rather courageously. We do better in interfaith relations when we are willing to visit each other’s holy places, with an attitude of prayer and reverence; and if we visit, we must observe at least the basics of respect: removing one’s shoes, for instance or, as did the Archbishop, paying our respects at the holy altars, by gesture and tokens of esteem, such as flowers. I would hope that a Hindu Swami visiting a Catholic Church would also come with a sense of respect, bowing or genuflecting as is appropriate, perhaps even lighting a vigil light. Words and theories are not enough; we have to be able to show, by how we act, that we really do respect one another’s religions. And this is what the Archbishop did.

     The second question is more complex, since Mr Thompson legitimately asks whether the Archbishop was seeming to worship, or at least recognize, idols, false gods which have no place in Christianity. My understanding is this, as I have expressed many times in this space: yes, we must adhere deeply to our Christian faith, in its fullness; yes, we must avoid watering things down, and must steer clear of relativism. But it is also true that our deep faith commitment to Christ need not translate into disrespect for the beliefs and practices of others, and not-visiting and not-paying respect can end up being a deficiency too; there is nothing to be gained if true believing Catholics avoid the holy places of other religious traditions and by our body language seem unable to respond to what is good and beautiful and holy, in these other places. If we believe that there is one God who made heaven and earth, there is not, I suggest, any reason to think that our God cannot be present in the Neasden Temple, and there is no reason why we would feel compelled to stay away or to refuse to offer signs of respect upon entering the holy space. If a HIndu might conversely still feel that the Christian who comes with this attitude of reverence is too narrow and cautious, and trapped in a limited view of the divine, so be it: I cannot live by my faith while expecting others to refrain from judgments in accord with theirs.

     If this makes it seem as if there is a gap between our faith in Jesus Christ, and our intuitively generous respect for the deities and worship of others, it may be so: our beliefs and our theology does not easily translate into exactly right practice; in our bewilderingly complex 21^st century, we need not demand that the certainties of faith be acted out in a rigid, entirely logical attitude toward what is holy to our neighbors. Better to say, “I have received the gift of faith, and live by it; as I enter this temple, the God who has given me that faith walks with me; may I be as reverent and gracious as possible, for God is everywhere here too; and may God show me how to make sense of this deeply Christian deep reverence for our neighbors’ faith.” If my experience goes beyond what I can explain, that is probably for the better.

     I add a footnote: In fact, nowadays I rarely visit Hindu temples here in the United States – not because I am disinterested, or uncomfortable, but because after so many years, I find it so easy to be at home in the temples, so easy to pray and worship. Since I cannot say, or explain theologically, that God would want me to pray regularly with a Hindu community, then more reserve, more careful abstinence seems the better idea, most of the time. Fasting purifies the heart, and the pure of heart shall see God.

     I will stop with that, and leave it to you, my reader, to add your comments. What do you think?

Cambridge, MA. As you know, President Obama gave his Nobel Prize speech the other day in Oslo. It is a fine and thoughtful speech, well worth our meditation, so be sure to read it. It should make us proud that we have this very intelligent and insightful man as our president.

I worry, though, that his intelligent words, quite appropriate for a man who strove very hard to become president of the United States, might seem to count as universal common sense of the sort that sidelines radical non-violence. Yes, he returns several times over to the heritage of Mahatma Gandhi (who was never awarded the prize) and the Reverend Martin Luther King (who did receive it), with great respect. But in the heart of his speech, he also looks beyond their wisdom, as if he is the greater realist:

The President said: “We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations — acting individually or in concert — will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified. I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King said in this same ceremony years ago: ‘Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: It merely creates new and more complicated ones.’ As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King's life's work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there is nothing weak, nothing passive, nothing naive in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King. But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaidas leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism — it is a recognition of history, the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.”

To a large extent, Gandhi would have agreed with this sentiment, and the President is quite honest about his respect for proponents of nonviolence. Gandhi knew about realism; he had, after all, helped the British (albeit in nonviolent ways) in World War I, and favored the Allies in World War II. Yet he was also clearly skeptical about well-intentioned realists who do use violence, even reluctantly, to fight evil. Sensitized to the Indian doctrine of karma, perhaps, he knew that violence leads to more violence, in the long run.

My guess – since I am not a Gandhi expert either – is that he would admire President Obama’s thoughtful position, but also argue that those of us who have not chosen to be politicians and political leaders can do better: We are the ones who can and will not stand idle in the face of evil, letting others fight in our place. We, who are not politicians, can dare to be more radically non-violent, drawing on a greater realism and deeper Truth (in satya-agraha), to face down the lies, cowardice, concealed systemic oppressions that are the perfect breeding ground for the overt violence that gains headlines only once in a while.

The inconvenience with Gandhi’s position, of course, is that it is not radical merely at the moment when violence erupts, but long before that. If we wish to be nonviolent, we need to find ways to live radically truthfully, without security, rejecting the comfortable ways in which societies such as ours hide injustice and oppression. We have to be bolder in refusing to live in peace — while others fight wars on our behalf. As if to say: if you can do only so much, then be a political leader; if you are capable of more, leave aside political and military power and practice non-violence as a way of life.

I think Gandhi, whose views I have merely sketched vaguely here (and I welcome comments from expert readers), is more right than President Obama. Yet I close with two other comments. First, my own position is contradictory, since I do not practice what I preach (or blog). I live in a very nice section of Cambridge, MA, and I would be shocked if someone broke into my Jesuit house or my office and started taking things or threatening me — and it would be a great shock too if the police did not come, guns in hand, to protect me and save my body and my books. It is easy to imagine being personally nonviolent when others carry the guns. So the harder issue is, if I agree with Gandhi (or the Reverend King, or Dorothy Day) more than the President, what are the implications for the life of the Jesuit scholar? How does a Jesuit and Harvard professor live out radical nonviolence, while still a professor? How do you, my reader, live out radical nonviolence at work, at home?

Second, it is interesting to note that the President, while mentioning Rev King, Gandhi and others, never refers to Jesus. This is understandable, I suppose, given the audiences that Presidents have to address; the President is not, thankfully, chief preacher of the United States. But we here at the America blogsite cannot get off the hook so easily. I think I am right in saying the following: Jesus, the ultimate realist, would not drop bombs on Al Qaeda hideouts; would not have gone to war against Hitler; would not shoot someone breaking into his house; would not, did not, fight even to save his own life. He would, however, keep confronting violence close-up, letting the truth be known and secret systems of wickedness be uncovered; he would keep turning the other cheek, and when necessary die again, in vulnerable love, in the face of violence. Such is Life: imitatio Christi.

While we may be secretly glad that Jesus is not President or in charge of security in the towns where we live, and while we may honestly thank God for our very good young president, if we are serious about our Faith, we know deep down that it is not one government or another, whatever its philosophy, that will save the world, but rather this Jesus who refused to take up arms, who died at the hands of his oppressors.

Isn’t this the Truth that sets us free? Let me/us know what you think.

PS: Thanks to everyone who commented on my previous entry, on the Mass after Vatican II. I did not agree with every comment, but appreciate them all very much: they constitute a course in themselves!

Cambridge, MA. You may have read Kenneth Wolfe’s Op-Ed piece in Sunday’s New York Times (Week in Review), Latin Mass Appeal. Mr Wolfe’s argument has to do with what he considers the undue and ill-considered influence of Father (and later Archbishop) Annibale Bugnini on the reform – or deform – of the Eucharistic liturgy of the Church in the years before Vatican II. Mr Wolfe laments the movement away from the Latin Mass, the turning around of the altar to face the people, and an array of later changes including altar girls, communion in the hand, etc.

I am not sure why the Times chose to publish this piece — because it was the First Sunday of Advent? — but I found it unconvincing, not as a liturgist or liturgical historian or Vatican-watcher (I am none of these), but as a Catholic who is old enough to have served Mass in Latin as an altar boy, young enough to had no say about the changes in the liturgy, but nevertheless privileged to serve as a priest for more than 30 years thus far in the parishes and campuses of our Church, here and abroad. So here’s what I think:

First, we’ve been taught for centuries to trust the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church. Many a time the Vatican has called to work in the Vatican men without any particular training or experience that would justify their appointment; many a time, Popes have trusted such individuals with very important roles in shaping the theology and practice of the Church; and many a time, God has worked through such men. Archbishop Bugnini is one such person, and I see no reason to think that the Spirit, and intention of the Church, did not work through his sincere and humble efforts.

Second, while as a child I found the liturgy of the pre-Vatican II Church deeply satisfying and loved the ritual, the Latin, the mystery of this worship, I have never found it the case that the conciliar changes were a mistake or a loss. The typical Eucharistic celebration is no less holy or sacred now than it was in 1960. Many of the reforms were intended to restore practices of the Church far older than Trent, and it is good that we were — and are — reminded that neither Latin nor particular forms of music and piety are essential to the effective celebration of the Eucharist or to the grace that is the real presence of Christ in our midst through it.

Third, Mr Wolfe notes that Archbishop Bugnini sought to reform the liturgy to remove barriers dividing us from our Christian neighbors in Protestant traditions. I gather that he sees this as a fatal mistake, but I think it was a very good thing to remove, for many good reasons including the ecumenical one, barriers that made the Eucharist needlessly different or divisive. It is not a good thing when we Christians are divided to no good purpose; and when there are real differences, such as different theologies of the Mass (as meal, as sacrifice), we can still seek, as did Archbishop Bugnini, to show in our practice that such differences can be signaled in various ways. There is nothing essential or unchanging about receiving communion on the tongue, for instance, or faddish about welcoming girls as well as boys to serve at the altar — and if some of Archbishop Bugnini’s changes meant that our worship would become more like Protestant worship, that seems to have been for the better. (Yet even today, I doubt very much that even newcomers will confuse Catholic and Protestant Sunday worship.)

Fourth, Mr Wolfe finds it particularly disappointing that the altar was turned around to face the people; he cites Pope Benedict that externally at least, when the priest faces the people, this signifies a community “closed in on itself.” But this is unfair, just as it would be to complain that in the old liturgy the priest kept turning his back on the community. If there is deep meaning to the community and priest facing forward together, in worship, so too there is deep meaning in a community context where priest and people face one another: in my 30+ years of presiding at the Eucharist, I have always found it a grace that in this way we gather around the sacrificial gifts, face to face, and in attentiveness and vulnerability stand together before our Lord, around the altar. Given the rich and beautiful and deep commitments and faith that people bring to a parish Mass on Sunday morning, there is nothing merely “closed in on itself” in our way of worship, and I am sorry that Mr Wolfe has found it to be so.

Perhaps in an Advent mode of expectation, Mr Wolfe concludes with a visionary look foward: the Pope, and good Catholics, are doing away with the reforms and putting things back the way they were, and should be. But I think he has not seen deeply enough: God does bless us in the way we worship today, Christ is present in the Eucharist as we celebrate it, the Spirit touches our minds and hearts as we stand, hands outstretched, to receive the Body of Christ, and then proceed to drink his Blood from the cup.

Even the English language serves very well as the language of prayer. Thanks be to God, Deo Gratias.

As always, I welcome reader comments.

Cambridge, MA. As indicated several entries ago, I want to tell you now about my seminar at Harvard Divinity School this semester. But first, regarding several of the comments you’ve sent in: 1. The photo of Dorothy Day, as Luke Hansen, SJ, indicated, is indeed from a United Farm Worker protest in 1973, apparently one of the last times when she was arrested in solidarity with the oppressed. 2. I take to heart Jordan Henderson’s comment that canonizations should not be made into competitive sports; but since popular support has very often mattered regarding who is canonized, and since politics do influence how fast causes move forward, I think it not a bad thing to mention our favorite saints-to-be now and then; one could go further and argue that some favored candidates should not be rushed to sainthood any time soon, but I’d rather not get into that now. 3. Regarding my description of my course, Hindu Goddesses and the Virgin Mary, David Power asked whether relativism is not a danger in the classroom. It indeed is, but I find that the remedy that works best is more knowledge, well-presented; the more we know about Goddesses and Mary, for instance, the less likely we are to conflate them or imagine indifferently that they are more or less the same. As for offense, I think my job in the classroom is to make clear what is at stake, and trust my students to make up their minds. Thanks to all who commented recently!
     As for my seminar, “Sankara on the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad,” the concept is simple: this Brhadaranyaka (“Great Forest”) Upanisad (c. 700 BCE) is one of the oldest of India’s ancient Upanisads — speculative, mystical texts inquiring into the nature of reality and self. It explores the symbolic meaning of ritual acts, the creative process by which the world was created (once and again), the deepest, unsurpassable ground of life, the possibilities and limits of language — the poetic, the argued word, the power of teaching, the symbolic connection, the denial of limitations — and the search for the self who makes all knowing possible, while yet remaining itself elusive and never quite the object of knowledge. Yajnavalkya, one of the greatest teachers of ancient India, stands at the center of the Upanisad, as skilled guide, debater, philosopher, and as brave soul who renounces the world at the end of the Upanisad’s climactic fourth book. The largest of the Upanisads, the Brhadaranyaka is also difficult to understand, full of references and symbols that have been obscure for centuries, hard to discern even in the order of some of its chapters — and therefore in need of an interpreter who can unpack its mysteries, and help us to see why the text unfolds as it does.

     This is where Sankara (8th century CE) enters, as one of the greatest interpreters and theologians of Hindu tradition. He is part of the Vedanta lineage of teachers dedicated to teaching the Upanisads. For Sankara, the Upanisad, at least in its first four books, has a direction and purpose that leads the student, reader, through a world of ritual and social conventions, through inquiries into the external and internal meanings of self, toward a still more intense self-scrutiny and eventually to self-transformation in the realization that difference is temporary and secondary, while deep down all reality is one, without a second. While not even all Vedanta theologians agreed with Sankara’s strictly nondualistic reading — Brahman is Atman — it is clear that he is a great exemplar of how one is to read a sacred scripture for its intellectual and spiritual meanings.
     So the seminar is simple: using Swami Madhavananda’s translation of the Upanisad — 663 pages — the eleven of us (myself and ten students) are reading as much as we can of the Upanisad and Sankara’s comments, in 12 2.5 hours seminar meetings. I check the Sanskrit and commentaries as needed, and read more of the Sanskrit with several of the students on another day. As when I’ve taught such courses in the past, this one too has three phases: 1. the hard start-up period, when everything is new, confusing, and hard; 2. the middle period, when all seems to flow along with greater understanding and appreciation; 3. the final weeks, when we see that course is not nearly long enough (My friend Swami Tyagananda came to class one day, and reminded us that doing proper justice to such a text might take 4-5 years, even if we were to meet thrice a week.)
     But, difficulties aside, the course is a wonderful exercise in close reading, putting aside mere generalities and staying with a classic text, intense conversation, and allowing ourselves to be drawn gradually into the Upanisad’s explorations, into Sankara’s powerful rendering of it as the most exquisite path toward a radical conversion of life and realization that all is One. At stake, as we proceed, is what to do with what we understand: the Upanisad is not a Biblical text, and in style and aim does not coincide with Christian teachings; and so we are compelled to decide how to use what we read, where to allow our thinking to be really changed, and where to stop.
     The seminar is part of a cycle of courses entitled “Reading Hindu Texts Interreligiously,” and so here too I draw in a Christian classic, this time St. Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Moses. Gregory too is struggling with the meaning of scripture (Exodus, in particular), events, rites and symbols which he finds difficult and obscure and yet which he insists have power still for the Christian reader: for in Moses, and with him, we find our way up the mountain, into the darkness that is the divine light of God’s presence, Christ revealed in the darkness. Is this the same as the radical, ineffable nonduality into which Sankara guides his readers? We have reasons to believe the end points are not the same, yet often enough we also have instincts that tell us we must be ending up in the same Mystery of God. We may get confused at the prospect of such sublime and intense endpoints that meet or don't, are one or not, but the nice thing about reading a classic text, being it the Upanisad or Exodus, Sankara or Gregory, is that we can read and think and meditation, then put the text down, and pick it up again when we are finally ready for more. No one needs a final decision on the meaning of such reading A fine education of mind, heart, and spirit, I would say; not all my students are Christian, but reading such texts with great attention speaks to a value deep in our Christian tradition.

Cambridge, MA. I was glad to read Jim Martin's post on the likely beatification and canonization of Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa. We may, as he suggests, rejoice at such a prospect, and I have indeed admired Mother Teresa for a very long time.

     But when Jim concludes by saying, "As I've said before, if John Paul and Mother Teresa aren't canonized then no one should be!" — I would add, I cannot think of a better American saint for our times than Dorothy Day, founder of The Catholic Worker movement and newspaper along with Peter Maurin. Just to read her journals - The Duty of Delight (so wonderfully edited by Robert Ellsberg) convinced me - again - of her lifetime of true, deep, realistic holiness. That she and her best followers were/are not eager to see her canonized — too easy for the rest of us — doesn't take away from the fact that she is a truly great saint. Indeed, this wise distance from the protocols of canonization strengthens the case for her exceptional holiness.

     So I happily emend Jim's statement to read: "Let John Paul and Teresa and Dorothy be canonized together on the same day!" But then, I realize as I write this that one could add Archbishop Romero and a host of other women and men who lived and died as Catholic saints while witnessing to truth and justice... But saint-identifying isn't exactly my expertise, so I'd better stop here.

Cambridge, MA. When I wrote last, about the value of more rather than fewer religious images in our lives, I cited my essay, “Goddess in the Classroom.” Then it occurred to me that I’ve said little about my teaching this semester, even my current course on Hindu Goddesses and the Blessed Virgin Mary — which intellectually at least brings goddesses into a Harvard classroom, along with Mary. But teaching is extremely important to me; like anyone worth the title of teacher, much of my joy finds its source in the classroom amidst the learning that takes place day by day, and not in the swirl of political and ecclesial news around us,— when fascinating students read fascinating texts and we all engage in fascinating discussions. So in this entry and the next, I will report on my current courses.
     My lecture course this semester is indeed, “Hindu Goddesses and the Blessed Virgin Mary.” Though I’ve taught it before, this time around it is a complement to my 2009 spring course, “God Hindu and Christian.” I knew from my visits to India and years of study that one of the distinctive features of Hinduism is the fact of goddesses and religious traditions oriented to female deities. These religious have been practiced for a very long time and — unlike goddess cults in many parts of the world — have been lived in continuity and with a long paper trail: there are very many texts about Hindu goddesses, narratives, rites, and hymns, and images abound everywhere. So the first dimension of my course is to read three great hymns in praise of important goddesses, to get clear on what it means to believe in and worship a goddess.
     In this, I am drawing on my 2005 book, Divine Mother, Blessed Mother: Hindu Goddesses and the Blessed Virgin Mary, in which I study the three hymns and commentaries on them. Using my book, we read the Sri Guna Ratna Kosa of Parasara Bhattar (13th century), the Saundarya Lahari attributed to Sankara (8th century), and the Apirami Antati of Apirami Bhattar (18th century). These hymns respectively praise the Goddesses Sri Laksmi (the auspicious, eternal consort of Narayana), Devi (“the Goddess,” a supreme Goddess, yet associated with Siva), and Apirami (the “beautiful one,” consort of Siva). Much of the course is simply a reading of the hymns, since this is the necessary ground for comparative theological work. Studying such hymns, prayers in direct address, is also a powerful theological event, for study draws us in as we read the hymns, and opens us to their spiritual meaning.
     A second part of the course is to reconnect with the Catholic Christian tradition by attention to the Blessed Virgin Mary: not a goddess, to be sure, but that superlative woman of the Catholic piety who stands in an extraordinary position in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions. To balance the goddess hymns, we read three Marian hymns, the Greek Akathistos (6th century or so), the medieval Stabat Mater, and the Tamil Mataracamman Antati (19th century) hymns that give voice to key dimensions of Marian wisdom. Here too, reflection on the hymns was indispensable. Although Catholic tradition of course does not give us a way to worship Sri Laksmi, Devi, and Apirami, the Marian hymns and their piety offer by way of resemblance a mirror in which we who are not Hindu take seriously the wisdom of traditions that do praise superlative feminine persons. When we return to Mary after learning from the Goddesses, our Marian devotion will be different, richer, and more captivating of our minds and hearts as well. In fact, Mary turns out to be a quite popular figure in the Harvard classron, and we’ve still not gotten to Pope Pius IX’s dogmatic declaration on the Immaculate Conception.
     Our use of my book is supplemented by additional hymns, Biblical and papal teachings on Mary, several articles by feminist writers such as Carol Christ and Julia Kristeva, David Kinsley’s Hindu Goddesses, and books by theologians George Tavard (The Thousand Faces of Mary) and Elizabeth Johnson (Truly Our Sister). We take feminist questions about the divine very seriously — taught elsewhere in many courses — but our distinctive goal in this course is to learn from Hindu traditions how to think newly and freshly about God and our images of divine reality, and how to see anew Mary in Catholic tradition.
     The class is a reasonable size, just under 25, mostly graduate students. Some are Catholic, most are from a wider variety of other Christian denominations. A few are more closely aligned with Hindu traditions and quite comfortable with goddess worship. (A small group gathers to sing hymns to both the goddesses and Mary before class; while I’ve not joined them, I admire their commitment to draw the course into their practice.) We mix well in the classroom, and never has a class passed without some excitement and good discussion.
     The mix of the course is thus quite extraordinary: some wonderful Hindu and Christian texts read by a great group of students, as we discuss a wide range of issues about scripture, our images of God and humanity, and what to make of the varied religious experiences of the human race. Harvard is not the place wherein to reach single, definite conclusions about truth, but I think that this learning across religious boundaries does open us to truth, to Truth. By studying the traditions of the goddesses and Mary together, we understand both more clearly; those of us who are Catholic at Harvard find ourselves brought closer to devotion to Mary, who holds her own in every discussion. The goddesses too fare well, though each of us has to make up her or his own mind on how to appropriate these goddess traditions.
     I hope all this all makes sense; I realize that for some of you reading this, it will make little sense to reflect on Mary and Goddesses together; some may think it impossible, or at least a very bad idea. So post some questions and comments if you wish.
     Next week, I will write about my seminar on the great Hindu theologian Sankara’s reading of the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, which we study alongside St. Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Moses.