It has been a very long time since I have added anything to this blog. Partly this has been because I have been living a less wandering life, and partly it has been because I have more or less stopped playing the game of Christianity, mostly scaling issues. I have tried not to be harsh towards those who continue to call themselves Christians, because it is such a deeply-interwoven part of western culture that pulling on loose threads could be disastrous. However, today I want to think out loud within the Christian tradition again. Please understand this is a ramble, another kind of peregrination, rather than a scholarly discourse.
One of my favourite parts of Facebook is 'On This Day'. Eight years ago on this day, I posted a link to this blog about what was my Lenten tradition: meditating on a 'word'. Being given 'a word' for meditation was the western monastic parallel in many ways of the Zen koans. Eight years ago, my word was 'genesis'. I had been particularly struck by the use of 'palingenesis' in the Gospel according to Matthew. Reading my old post, I realized that although I had not formally chosen a word this Lenten season, I have informally been meditating on one: 'privacy'. And that led me to think about privacy in the life of Jesus, a life that was ended by the church and state of his day in a very public way that allowed for no privacy at all. It struck me that not only was there no privacy in Jesus' death, but there had been no privacy in the modern sense in his life, either.
In orthodox Christian belief, Jesus is Son of God. This is a strange thing in among folks who are more likely to think of God in the images of the Walter C. Smith's hymn: 'Immortal, invisible, God only wise,/In light inaccessible hid from our eyes . . . .' These images did not apply to Jesus.
Again and again the situation was like Philip's reply when Nathanael wondered if Jesus, coming from the fringes of Jewry, could be a good thing: 'Come and see.' Three years later, when the high priest was questioning Jesus, the answer was similar: 'I spake openly in the world; I ever taught in the synagogue, and in the temple, whither the Jews always resort; and in secret have I said nothing.' There were in between of course those times when Jesus wanted to be alone, but it was not from need to do something secretly, but from need to rest.
In orthodox Christian belief, Jesus is not just Son of God, but the Son of Man. This is his most frequent title in the gospels. Jesus is what man can be at his best. This makes more important Pilate's famous 'Behold the man' statement, a statement he made as he was showing his prisoner to the crowds. It is not Jesus or his disciples who claim that he is Son of God, but a roman centurion who witnessed his death.
This is a short blog post triggered by an eight-year old memory, so I am not going to fill in all the times in between the beginning of Jesus' preaching and his death to show how public was his life. But amidst the concern over privacy that pervades our public outcry this week, I would suggest that what made Jesus so remarkable, what made his life salvific even, was it's being public, it's being a life lead out loud, with no shouting but also without whispers. He warned us that any other sort of life is unsustainable: 'whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light, and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.'
It has been fascinating to me as I have pondered privacy in contemporary life that many of us are calling for more transparency in 'social media' so that we may keep our lives more opaque. I guess I looked at social media as 'some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us.' It is a tool I can use better to know myself, as well as better to know my fellow travelers on this little planet.
Twenty-five years ago I knew a wise woman in Santa Fe who said that what made Jesus' singularity came from his knowing who he was. If she was correct, this knowledge was not a given. I don't think that his questions to the disciples, 'Whom say the people that I am?' and "Whom say ye That I am?' were merely rhetorical. Self-knowledge needs feedback.
One of the wiser voices I have heard on the internet about privacy issues, Grey Scott, speaks about 'our data being used against us to advertise things to us'. I find it odd to think that my data can be used against me. Rather it seems to me that the adverts generated by my data help me understand what the real 'devices and desires of [my] own heart' are rather than what I pretend that they are.
Six years ago, following R. J. Stewart's ideas about winter quests, quests in darkness, from his understanding of celtic traditions, I spent three months in a tiny camper near Port Angeles, pondering mostly what were the 'devices and desires of my own heart'. The darkness was actually quite enlightening, and I changed many of my habits to allow myself to be what I wanted to be rather than what gave me 'likes' in social acceptability. Not everyone has the luxury to take three months off to do such a thing. Nor, I suspect, is everyone ready to know oneself. There is also a very important difference between putting oneself out there as a sort of exhibitionism and simply not hiding oneself. I do think it is very helpful to know one's 'one identity', as Mark Zuckerberg said our Facebook identities should be.
So, I ponder on this Good Friday, as Christians remember Jesus' being strung up naked for all the world to see on a cross, how much of what we hide from others are we really trying to hide from ourselves? The Gospel of Thomas claims, 'If your bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do hot bring forth will destroy you.
