I wrote this in 2018. Just found it. I still like it. Trust that it will speak to something in you as well. Stay Safe! Thanks.
2018.08.08 Interesting Week
Well, it has been an interesting week. You might call it my End of Life Crisis or something - like the mid life crisis. A confluence of things just hit me to make me pause and reflect a bit. Not a bad thing to do - probably the best response I could come up with.
These are the events:
I took a stress test for my heart, and followed that up with a CAT Angiogram - who knew they could do these things? I am now scheduled for an angioplasty or stent or some such. End of life indeed.
I just finished reading The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science by Will Storr. Very interesting but odd book about the problems of trying to persuade people about anything. He has some good insights though - one is that THIS IS NORMAL behavior for humans.
I also finished reading John Shelby Spong’s book, Unbelievable: Why Neither Ancient Creeds Nor the Reformation Can Produce a Living Faith Today - which I enjoyed thoroughly. And then Jude and I listened to a recording of his final lectures at Chautauqua - which were given to us by a good friend. His comments on his legacy led me to review mine - or lack thereof! The short version - he does not think he has made much of a dent in traditional Christianity, but hope remains.
Nicaragua has gone to blazes in a handbasket. All the work we have been helping with there for 30 years, and the non profit we started here to assist, are all up in the air, and potentially gone for good.
SO - a crisis of the limits. It all made me think, what good is all this stuff that I have been messing with for all these years. It is like it is all gone up in smoke. So, I had another chance to reflect - always a good thing - and I have recovered a bit of wisdom about life and love and such. See what you think. And if this makes you think, maybe, just maybe, there is some small hope!
Heart Problems
I now have a cardiologist! Marvelous! He is Dr. Dayuan Li - of Chinese extraction, with an MD from China and a PhD from the University of Sweden - and quite a remarkable individual. He taught me a little bit about Chinese customs with respect to education and just who pays for it - and a few things about my heart. I had been huffing and puffing up the hill at the lake - note - we own a lake place - how bad can this be? My son noticed my labored breathing, and said, “You should get a stress test.” Note, one of my sons is an MD - another positive thing. All of my kids are positive in my life - but at that moment having an MD right next to me was a pretty good thing. I have been laboring up that hill for a year or more. I thought it had to do with my cutting back my exercise routine because I fell off my bike - I FELL off my bike. Not a good thing, that.
My response, “What’s a stress test?” was met with a bit more information. I had my annual physical coming up, with another wonderful MD, with whom I have shared wisdom over the decades - and he scheduled one - “Just to be sure,” he said. The stress test is interesting. They get you all hooked up to a heart monitor, you walk uphill until your heart gets to the required rate, they pump you with some radioactive something, and watch your recovering heart in some kind of radioactivity scanner while it tries to pump blood at some accelerated rate. As my son Tom said, it’s not dangerous, but you probably don’t want to go through an airport scanner too soon after the procedure!
My family practice doc called the minute he saw the results and said, “Not terrible results, but not good either.” And he prescribed a beta blocker and nitroglycerin - just in case! Nitroglycerin! I asked, “What is that for?” His response: “That is for WHEN you have your heart attack.” What!? Got my attention. Bottom line, things are not wonderful in a small portion of my heart, and we need to look more closely. So, now I have a cardiologist.
The cardiologist looked at the stress test results and said - “We may have a problem here, but we need another test to be sure.” There is a procedure called a CTA - CT Angiogram. It’s like the angiogram where they put a little camera in your heart but they do it with a shot of dye and a bit of nitroglycerin and an external CT scanner. So I had the test, and he calls the next evening, with the news that one artery is 75% blocked, and a couple of others compromised. Do you know what statins are? So I am taking those too. Statins and beta blockers. Rats. There goes my image of my healthy self.
Here I had thought that my consistent exercise routine would protect me forever from the heart disease that both of my parents had - my mom died at 51, and my dad at 68. Well, it may have delayed things a bit, but . . . I have never even had an elevated cholesterol reading - but that does not cut any mustard now.
As I was talking with the cardiologist, I asked him what I need to do to prevent this from getting worse - and he said, and I quote: “You know what you need to do - follow the mediterranean diet, fruits and vegetables and no red meat!”. Does not mince words, that fellow. I liked the exercise approach better, it is easier than controlling my diet. I even thought about doubling up on the exercise and forgetting about the diet thing - but . . .
So, now that I have the procedure scheduled, I need to ignore those phony problems that I feel in my chest when my heart does its flip / flop thing. Crazy how our brain works. OK, so now I am reminded that I am going to die - and not too far into the future - and there is a good chance that heart disease is going to be the culprit. Fine! Makes one think a bit.
Will Storr - The Unpersuadables
This was a very interesting book. I got into it as a referral from Amazon when I bought Jonathan Haidt’s book, The Righteous Mind, which was published in 2013. I bought both of them some time ago, but had not gotten around to reading them. Then I read Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow. Kahneman and Haidt are scientists of a sort - a psychologist and a behavioral or evolutionary sociologist / psychologist. Whatever. If you have not read those two books yet, you need to do that. I’ve written a bit about both in this blog, and they are excellent introductions to the behavioral approach to modern psychology, behavioral economics, and the like. To be clear, these are not books of their OPINIONS. These are wonderful books which talk about their EXPERIMENTS with people and groups, and how we think and operate. Kahneman kind of opened the door, but Haidt has taken things much further.
The “fast brain” analogy that Kahneman uses refers to our “emotional” brain, our “gut” in Haidt’s world. The “slow brain” analogy is the thinking brain - where we actually do some thinking. All of the research indicates that we do 99% of responding with the FAST brain - no thinking required. We can think, but it is a lot of work, we are not very good at it, and many, many other things are going on in our brain that make it very hard to actually pay attention to what we are trying to think about. Haidt uses the analogy of the elephant - our emotional brain - and the rider on top who thinks he is controlling the elephant - our thinking brain. I tend to write things down because it helps me focus my thinking - a trick I learned. You should try it.
Storr talks about Haidt’s research a lot, but in a narrative style. He tells you a story about someone who has a firm opinion about something, and how he interviews them, and explores with them the basis for their opinion, and why they hold it, and the like. In some of his stories he talks to both sides of the coin - at considerable length. The interesting thing about the book is how much Storr intervenes to express his opinions and likes and dislikes. I found it annoying at first, but toward the end, it became quite enlightening.
Storr talks with people who travel the world speaking against evolution, and for creation. He visits with an honest to god climate scientist who denies that global warming is a problem. He interviews a noted historian who thinks that Adolf Hitler knew nothing about the holocaust or mass extermination of the Jewish population. This guy was actually sued for libel and defamation because he denied that the holocaust even happened. Storr paid good money to take part in one of his guided tours of Auschwitz. While they were standing in the gas chambers, this guy maintained that they were designed to eliminate lice. He noted that they had handles on the inside of the doors - ignoring the separate locks on the outside.
I could go on - the book is good fun, in a perverse way. Storr’s bottom line is that there is nothing wrong with these people and their ideas. This is perfectly normal human behavior, given the research that Kahneman and Haidt have identified. These people may not be mainstream, but they are serious, they are not evil, they are normal human beings who cannot get beyond the tribal view they have of life. We are ALL in that tribal, or team view. We simply cannot step outside of it.
So, I have spent the last decade reading neuroscience and psychology, trying to figure out what is wrong with these people, and how we can possibly raise a campaign, a method, a way to persuade them about the actual truth of these things. They are NOT persuadable. Can’t be done. Your neighbor that voted for Donald Trump is not going to change their mind based on any information from any source. This is not a rational thing - this is a gut, emotional thing. The causes lie in their genetics, childhood, and emotional experiences. As Haidt points out, we have a genetic propensity to be either progressive or conservative. I know where mine comes down - where is yours? If you are mostly focused on hierarchy, authority, sacred and tradition - you are traditional. If you are focused on fairness and harm, you are likely progressive, or “liberal”. I give up!
John Shelby Spong - Unbelievable
I liked Spong’s book, and I am glad I paid him for the privilege. I can also find someone to give it to and to try to persuade them to change their mind - oh - wait - that isn’t going to work. RATS.
Spong is a retired Episcopal bishop of the progressive ilk. He is also an eminent scripture scholar. My scripture professor of long ago would have loved him. Bultman and Dibelius have nothing on him. His insight into the Bible is pretty amazing, and his grasp of the New Testament is stellar. I hold an advanced degree in this stuff, and he taught me plenty. There - I threw out my credentials - trying to persuade you again - but it will not work. RATS.
The book is a call for a “new reformation”. Let’s get rid of the middle ages approach to science and technology, and get with the program. Copernicus was right. There is nothing literal in the Bible - it is a wonderful collection of oral myths and stories that were of tremendous importance to the people when they were written down. The gospel message was cast into Greek ideas, and forged by warring controversies to come up with dogmas that fit the time - but no longer work at all. Creation is a mythical story trying to explain human values. The fall from Paradise is like every other origin story trying to explain how the all powerful deity could create a reality with so many flaws in it. The idea of salvation from some original guilt has more to do with Paul’s and Augustine’s psychological problems than anything related to the deity. The idea of personal deity that is listening and intervening is totally wishful thinking.
I have known all of this since about 1967. I am an atheist Catholic. The personified deity doesn’t cut it for me. Ground of our Being - perhaps. Source of meaning and purpose - perhaps. My bottom line is that I CHOOSE to believe that life has meaning and purpose, and I am going to work to support human growth and development. If you want to call that FAITH, I won’t stop you. But it is a choice to me - nothing emotional about it. Or, wait, . . . that IS my emotional need, to have meaning and purpose. So be it.
Spong’s legacy
The good bishop has tried mightily to save Christianity by moving it into the 21st century. This book was his last. His talk at Chautauqua was his last public appearance. After his final talk, one person asked him what he thought of his legacy. His simple reply, he hoped that someone would appear in the next one to two years that would carry this on, or change it, or move it further down the road. He doubted that anyone would care about his contribution in a few years. He said that the progress toward a new Christianity may take many years.
When I look back on the biblical scholarship of the past, we have been at this a long time. Bultmann wrote in the 1930s and 1940s, exploring the mythical and historical Jesus. His scholarship and the progressive tradition have flourished, but the impact on mainstream Christianity is hard to identify. The literal interpretation of the Bible myths still reigns supreme. In spite of the Enlightenment, in spite of great scholarship, the vast majority of Christians hold beliefs that are “unbelievable”. I read John A T Robinson’s book Honest To God in 1964. Most Christians would find it problematic to this day. On the other hand, the number of Christians continues to decline precipitously. Perhaps there is hope.
Nicaragua
Our parish started a relationship with a small community in Nicaragua back in 1980 or so when my lovely wife worked at the parish. We have traveled there as a couple. I have been there nine times - studying Spanish - working with the non profit which is our liaison and support there. I lived there once for two months - trying to help organize things and improve my Spanish. I started a non-profit to help them with fundraising and grants - the whole ball of wax. I am on the non profit board there, and the one here.
AND . . . Nicaragua has gone to heck. The current fearless leader, the original leader of the great revolution against the dictator Somoza, has become a corrupt oligarch. He and his family are wealthy and in charge. His supporters have taken to the streets with guns to keep him in power. He has destroyed the constitutional democracy, and he is not going to leave. The police do not intervene to stop the gangs that threaten every demonstration, that shoot and kidnap people. Civil order has disappeared. It has all gone to hell in a handbasket. I have no plans to ever visit there again. I hope our friends there will survive in some form or other - but their economy has collapsed. Their outside income has disappeared. Their sense of peace and tranquility may never return.
RATS
So, all the work to understand how humans work and think. All the effort to persuade people to vote, how to think. All the labor for the poor in Nicaragua. It’s all come down to naught! AND, I am going to die from a heart attack someday. RATS.
Reflection
Well, that was fun. What did I learn? I learned that it is a total waste of time trying to persuade anyone of anything. I spent a lot of time trying to learn how we think, so I could persuade others. I’d like to persuade them about economics, politics, and religion. I have wisdom and insight from my 80 years of reading and studying - listen to me, darnn it.
Not going to happen. Let it go. There is nothing wrong with those people - that is just how people are - different from you. Unpersuadable, irrational, defensive, protective, frightened of the unknown and the progressive.
So, what is life about? What is the role of Christianity? As Spong has put it, the key thing about the Jesus experience is the same today. Paul was the earliest writer about the new Judaism, and he said it well. “When Paul tried to describe to the Galatians what was involved in his call to ‘put on Christ,’ he said that it meant that human divisions must disappear. In Christ there is no longer ‘Jew nor Greek,’ ‘slave nor free,’ ‘male nor female’. All are ‘one in Christ Jesus’ (Gal. 3:26-29). That is what Jesus meant, and that is what the original Christ experience was. . .”
The Jesus experience is about life and love, to experience life, to become all that you can be. Love is the power that enhances life. Love is the gift of life and consciousness. We are at our fullest when we love fully. “It is in the act of loving ‘wastefully’ that I believe I make God visible.” p. 286. I choose that life of meaning and purpose. The Christian experience is about the universal value of life and love. All of life is priceless - human life is even more so. That is the hope of monotheism - all children of the one God, all sharing the one gift of life and love.
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Post Note. I wrote ALL of the above in 1988.
I have moved on in many areas - especially my diet and health - but this still speaks to me. Hopefully it speaks to you as well. Let me know. Thanks.
We are all in this together, and I’m pulling for you.
