What is your sacred space?

JBP/Stephen Crowder Bitchute link**

JBP/Stephen Crowder YouTube link

(Length of dialogue: approx 1 hour)

I haven’t been listening to “political things” in a while. I find the oppositional stances people take to each other on issues unhelpful when repeated constantly. Dialectical conversation can be useful, but that rarely is what actually happens: it’s just one side trying to humiliate the other. The real world is very complicated and none of us perceive it in its entirety; I don’t know why this is such a hard thing to admit.

What I particularly appreciated in this dialogue was JBP’s comment on how people are not recognizing the need for the spiritual and religious in their daily lives. He argues that it is a universal human need, not a choice. Lacking a deliberate, conscious religious practice, religion comes back through unconscious patterns. 

My friend Joe responded and added to my observations with this insightful comment I want to share and keep for my own reference:

“I agree with you and JBP about people not recognizing the need for the religious and sacred in their lives. I would go further and say people are not recognizing the religious and sacred in their lives. We still have the religious and the sacred, we have substituted things like politics and various other ideologies for what was once the domain of a more singular idea of the religious and the sacred.

“I think we have forgotten that it was our shared story - the thing that bound us together as a community - that was the main value proposition of religion. It represented the shared story that served as the social glue to define the membrane of community. Because of the current lack of a shared story, we tend to treat people who have a different map of the world as if they are less than, or unworthy.

“A media engine that feeds on attention and is willing to take on that role religion once had - of crafting the narrative of what's true and not - what's sacred and not - what's good or evil - is breath cancer. It destroys the necessary integrity we need to function at our best by straining on our focus that we are best served when we understand that community is ultimately what we need to live in and depend on to carry us forward through time.

“I could be missing something (s).”

**As a side note, it’s interesting to compare the sort of comments on the Bitchute video versus YouTube. The commenters on Bitchute sound a lot more…..angry and alienated?  I am aware that there are people out there who might think less of me for listening to Dr. Peterson (whom I know a lot about) and Mr Crowder (whom I know much less about, but he says nothing here that I find particularly startling). To my ear though, the dialogue between the two of them is inviting and reasonable. The Bitchute commenters disagree: they see the dialogue as stupid and irrelevant at best, and proof of some truth-suppressing conspiracy at worst. They have dismissed both men because they do not support the views that the commenters endorse.

The Bitchute commentary is not something I would participate in. But I found it interesting to read, once I figured out what I was reading. There are groups of people who have formed their conclusions and simply stopped paying attention to what others are saying. Of course it is impossible to pay attention to everything and everyone, but I think it’s worth some thought that when people are shut out of conversations or leave them, they are still around, somewhere. You can’t wish or censor people out of existence.

Mere mortals dancing

I found this recent post on Fr. Stephen Freeman’s blog quite gripping:

“Make it so!” vs “Let it be!”

The themes are ones I’ve discussed before, in my own mind and with others. What is truth; to what extent do we control reality; should we be fixated on who does  and who doesn’t have power. More importantly, what sort of power is really worth having and is that the right word for it.

“The truth” is that which is real, that which truly exists. It is the case that some things have more existence than others. Our own existence is tenuous and ephemeral. We seek that which truly exists that we might, through it, have true existence ourselves. We cannot grant existence to ourselves – it comes as a gift from the only truly Existing One.

Recognizing our existence as tenuous and ephemeral is one thing that might lead us to see the value of tradition. Tradition has, from one perspective, attracted me for a long time. The earliest I can remember being consciously aware of this was in my late teens/early 20s, when I participated on a listserv discussion about Cape Breton Celtic music. (Ah, the good old days of the frontier internet.)

Celtic music was enjoying a bit of a popular revival at the time, with appealing, youthful musicians blending traditional instruments, melodies and themes with contemporary ones. All of it was wholesome, truly: you’d have to stretch to find anything subversive or disturbing in it. Nevertheless, on this listserv I first encountered openly the tension between innovation and tradition. It was the first time I met people who unapologetically argued that traditional forms have more value in the long term than popular innovations. This was quite shocking to me, at first. Somehow, all my education, if not my own experience, had reinforced the message that tradition was something you break away from. It had not occurred to me that there was another side to the story, and that kind and intelligent people might believe in it.

The conversation on that listserv was mostly convivial however, and everyone that I recall was friendly and more than willing to talk with willing listeners. Starting with these discussions, I discovered a way to resolve the tension, at least in the realm of the arts. Tradition is a way of preserving something valuable through community. It allows creative people to encounter something meaningful, giving them a direction and a discipline. Truly innovative people should not be discouraged from experimenting (though it doesn’t hurt them to be challenged, either.). But neither is it possible for everyone, or even most, to be innovative geniuses. A healthy tradition will create a few, but they will never be the majority. However, anybody can participate in the tradition: learning it, supporting it,  passing it on to the best of their ability. This participation is just as meaningful in real life as innovation, most of the time. It’s much more meaningful than being part of nothing, that’s for sure.

Once I had articulated this insight, I found a lot of my anxiety about (not) being special, or noticed, or uniquely talented or (yikes!) famous melting away. I could actually enjoy my own creativity more because I wasn’t over-analyzing it. The realization that I could be part, even in a small way, of a tradition that embraced multiple generations, geographies, countries and cultures was amazing. I could be fully myself and more than myself at the same time.

An experience in Scotland when I was 26 catalyzed this idea for me. I was attending a week long music festival, learning step dancing. From my account of that time:

Toward the end of the week, our dance teacher, Frank, went over all the [dance] steps we had learned. Then he solemnly told us to "stop thinking." We aren't just dancing to the music. We aren't just responding to it. We must get right inside it. And to do that, he said, we can't be worrying about what we are doing. Otherwise we are focused on ourselves, and not on the music.

High on endorphins, I wished he would stop making pretty speeches and let us start dancing. But he continued:

"If you relax and let the dance into you, it will teach you. Because I believe music and dancing are much more powerful than mere mortals.

Frank was saying something very similar, if not the same, as Fr. Freeman above. Reality is not something you create. It is discovered, encountered, as a gift.

Frank’s words have stuck with me, as I have continued to dance, write, play music and eventually to teach. I am lucky to sometimes have chances to perform for an audience. Of course this always causes some nervousness. It’s also easy (sadly) to become hyper critical of yourself. After many performances, dancers often start talking obsessively about all the mistakes we made, although these are rarely obvious to those watching and nobody will remember them anyway. It is all self consciousness. But I have found that I can ease the anxiety by remembering Frank’s words. I frame the performance in my mind as an opportunity to share something beautiful I have been given. Dancing with me are unseen generations of people who have transcended time, space and mortality to give me this gift and opportunity. The nerves are there, but I am filled with joy and excitement and I do not have to force a smile for the audience. And if I have practiced and I stay in the moment, I also make fewer mistakes (but regardless, I am part of a long line of people who have made mistakes and danced on).

So that is one side of the story: the attraction to tradition. There is another one too. But this entry has become longer than I expected, so I think I will engage that topic separately. (I do not necessarily know what direction these blog entries will take and often end up writing about something quite different than I originally intended.)

5 ways to talk about love

This post started because someone in one of my discussion groups asked "Why do people pursue romantic love?" He claimed to have never been in love and to not understand the experience. He asked why people think it worthwhile, if  they do.

After many had weighed in with their ideas, I found myself thinking about songs that best express what is worthwhile about love. Of course there are endless answers to this question and I might answer differently depending on the day, but these are the ones that came to mind at the time.

1) Love found. I think the song "Now I see the Light" from the movie Tangled captures the transformative experience of finding love.  "Now that I see you": the lover sees the divine in his/her beloved. In true love  for another we see what is good and beautiful in the world. The part is the whole, and the whole is the part.

"And at last I see the light
And it's like the fog has lifted
And at last I see the light
And it's like the sky is new
And it's warm and real and bright
And the world has somehow shifted
All at once everything looks different
Now that I see you"





2) Love Lost. Leonard Cohen's "Hallejulah" both shows the pain of losing love and is a refusal to sink into despair.

 "Even though it all went wrong, I'll stand up here before the lord of song, with nothing on my tongue by Hallejulah."






3) Love when it's a struggle: One True Love, by Jill Barber, sung by Jill and Matthew Barber

This song explores why love is worth fighting for.  We do not get the impression that the speaker in the song has had an easy life. He or she has made mistakes, but has found a love worth standing up for. I love the throwaway relativism of "If you believe in that sorta thing" in the chorus contrasted with the speaker's firm belief that there is one true love.

Below is the live acoustic version. Look how cute they are! But I do actually prefer the non-acoustic version because it suits the aggressive nature of the lyrics. This song will get in your personal space and elevate your heart rate, in a good way.

Tooth and nail I would fight for you
Use my heart like a fist till it’s black and blue
Cause when you find your one true love
That is the time to show what you are made of

Sure I’ve loved and lost before
Bitten and bruised and sorry and sore
But this time I am back for more
And to fight

[Chorus]
For your one true love
Your one true love
If you believe in that sorta thing like I do
Your one true love
Your one true love
If you believe in that sorta thing like I do





4) Seeking, but not (yet) finding love: "No One Talks" by Moya Brennan

It is extremely hard to be looking for love and not finding it. If this struggle goes on for any length of time, then often people wonder, is there something wrong with me? is love even real? is looking for it worthwhile? It can be easy to make excuses to give up, to not bother. This song is about questioning those impulses and pushing through. Looking for love can force you to confront what you actually believe about yourself and life and can be an impetus to transform.

Now no one talks, no one to listen
No one to laugh with to share a life
Now no one cries, no one to pray with
Now who will love?
Is this what you believe?
Is this what you believe?
That no one loves, no one to warm to
Does no one care?






5) So finally, how did I come to believe what I believe about love? Well, I could write books about that, as could most people if so inclined. But I will just say here, this next song went though my head over and over when I was living abroad, and when I started to listen to it, I think it taught me something about myself, and maybe life in general.

Youth will in time decay, Eileen Aroon
Beauty must fade away, Eileen Aroon
Castles are sacked in war, chieftains are scattered far
Truth is a fixed star, Eileen Aroon

I need and want my "fixed star." I don't mind the long journey, the doubt, the uncertainty, the complexity of the world. All this I accept, and more than that, I find it fascinating. But I also believe in following the "fixed star." We will make mistakes on the way and get lost, and believe wrong and foolish things. This is inevitable. More important is to know where we are going and what we are aiming at. Love is something worth aiming at, whether or not at the present moment one can grasp it.