Celebration of Discipline #2

In Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline, I was interested to see the comparison of a spiritual take on service versus the usually-secular "community service" idea we have in society. Foster claims "self-righteous service comes through human effort ... so we can 'help those people'" and is not true service, which is the "grace of humility" (130). Service is mainly a hidden service, and receives very little recognition if any by others. When we engage in service, we have to be sure that we are approaching it for the goal of being unknown and lifting up others, instead of for the feel-good result of being recognized for your work. I can remember as a kid picking up food pantry donations every Friday at our church for years with my parents, after which we brought them to the food bank to be handed out the following morning. I always wondered if anyone knew who picked up the food, and imagined having some sort of recognition for doing it for years. Since I was so young I obviously wasn't engaging in this service to humbly serve other people, and while I recognized that what we were doing was "good" because I had been told it was, it seemed weird that doing something good had no tangible impact on my own life. Overall, I think our society does have a good representation of service because whether or not the organization takes on spiritual beliefs, the motives often remain the same (to help people). Most people, if they encountered a "service" organization that was self-serving, would be very uncomfortable. This is why we choose to donate to charities which spend significant percentages of their donations on the people they purport to serve and not on themselves through administrative costs. While there is evidence that our society does support selfless service, there are far fewer people who actually take the time to engage in it.

Celebration of Discipline #1

Many topics are covered by Richard Foster in his book Celebration of Discipline on spiritual growth. One that I took specific note of was a chapter on "The Discipline of Solitude." Solitude and aloneness in general is something that I am interested in studying because it's often something I reject in my own life. Although I greatly enjoy hiking and being outdoors, I often wish when I am alone that I had someone to share the experience with. Sometimes I find myself already formulating the story that I will tell my friends once I get back to them instead of fully enjoying what's right in front of me.

Foster writes that "Without silence there is no solitude. Though silence sometimes involves the absence of speech, it always involves the act of listening" (98). Silence is another thing I often struggle with, because I often get anxious that I am wasting my time. I love to listen to audiobooks and podcasts while I am traveling or doing some menial task, because it allows me to discover and learn new things while I would otherwise be occupied. If I am driving without any music or discussion going on at all, things feel quite odd to me. I have noticed, though, that even though I avoid silence I do have some of my best opportunities to think when they are forced upon me. In a wilderness setting, it is easier to rationalize being in silence because it seems wrong to disrespect the sights and sounds nature is giving you by adding your own soundtrack over it. In regular society, we see that everything has been constructed around us, and that also instructs us to engineer what we want to be hearing.

To suggest when to go about seeking silence, Foster suggests "slip outside just before bed and taste the silent night. These tiny snatches of time are often lost to us ... they are times for inner quiet, for reorienting our lives like a compass needle" (106). It was with this idea that I connected the dislike for solitude with the dislike for silence. We determined in class that being in the wilderness is a liminal experience, which allows us to reorder our priorities and discover what controls us. Silence, in a similar way, allows us to have thoughts and experience things that we would have otherwise covered up with incessant noise, sometimes just for the sake of having something to listen to. I think this process, while helpful, is often initially unwanted. If we have a chance between taking time to be silent and seeing our friends, we (or I, at least) usually choose the latter until I am so fed up with society that I need silence. I think a good goal would be to equalize these times in life and choose true silence just as often through enjoyable activities like hiking.

Nature

My initial reaction to "marveling" at the outdoors is the thought that I already know the outdoors -- I walk through it every day, and have been on many hiking trips both long and short. There are trees, there are squirrels, some water, grass, and a bunch of insects I still don't really want to touch me. It's hard to overcome this idea that nature is familiar and often boring. Nature itself doesn't seem to have any of the things we deem "interesting" -- it's only when we hear that a nice view can be had at the end of a hike that we'll see it as worth our time to walk through the woods to get to it. I often use nature as a means to an end, to satisfy a craving for seeing something cool or having an awesome experience in the woods. Just as often, it's just to reinforce my own image as a hiker or someone who enjoys the outdoors. But all of these uses are just that: uses of nature. Being forced to be in nature with no real purpose or idea of what is supposed to happen is slightly disconcerting.

With a lack of goal, it's easier to find something new to take note of. What I found after sitting down was that in front of me was a line of ants crawling off towards a tree. I watched the ants and realized they were both heading towards and away from the tree, seeming to return off to under the log I was sitting on. I watched the ants as they interacted with each other in both directions, and was impressed to see there was some sort of communication going on. The ants returning from the tree would come fact to face with one heading in that direction, and they would both momentarily stop before splitting and heading in their respective directions. This happened multiple times on the way with any given ant, and the pause lasted less than a second. After watching for a while, I realized there were far more ants than I had initially noticed, that they were literally crawling all over the ground.

I tried to remember the last time I had taken more than 5 seconds to watch ants, and guessed it must have been more than 10 years ago. It's just not something you notice and stop to watch because of the tiny scale, but it's equally amazing that such a complex system is going on where you can barely see it. This reminded me of Buber's distinction between Experience and Encounter. Buber claims that an experience happens within and that those who have one do not participate in the world. That is, a person can have an experience of something that is entirely individual, and is between the I and the It. An encounter is between the I and the You; it is something that inherently involves another individual and exists between them. I believe that in most previous cases, my hikes in the woods followed the 'experience' line -- I went into nature with preconceived notions about what it would be like and what I wanted to get out of it. Thus, I treat an inherently separate and wild entity as an 'It' and not as a 'You'.

I began to wonder, though, whether one could consider being in nature such as this an encounter, since it does not necessarily include another individual. That is, what does it take to have a true encounter with nature? I, by observing nature, was not participating in the ant's journey. I did not communicate with the ants, but by observing them did have discoveries and thoughts brought on by their behavior. Buber says "True community does not come into being because people have feelings for each other (thought that is required, too), but rather on two accounts: all of them have to stand in a living, reciprocal relationship to a single living center, and they have to stand in a living, reciprocal relationship to one another." A simple viewing of nature is obviously separate from being in community with nature, and we usually think of community as being between two humans. But we would also think of a community of animals living together, like monkeys or possibly even ants. And if we lived more closely to nature we might consider ourselves to be apart of these relationships. However, we have transformed our world so much for our own benefit that we consider nature as something apart from ourselves.

To have an encounter with nature, I believe we must have a much closer constant relationship with it. This is often what people who engage in long-distance hikes do, and it's what we've considered as "shaking off the village." Not only does this allow one to be in a new mindset where they allow themselves to be removed from their normal modes, it allows them to consider themselves to be apart of a new community. Through Buber's logic, it's only when a true interaction of purpose takes place between two entities that they can truly encounter each other.

Phenomenology #2

When considering how prayer practices might apply to wilderness travels, one of the aspects of traditional worship which almost entirely fails to carry over is communal prayer. In my experience at least, the nature of a wilderness trail like the Appalachian Trail (and hiking in general) is very much solitary. Hikers are allowed and encouraged to have and share whatever beliefs they hold, but the inherent nature of the trail is antagonistic towards community in a traditional sense. Because each hiker is taking on a certain number of miles each day and walking along a path rarely wide enough for more than one person, the trail becomes inherently individual. The individual hiker is encouraged to "hike their own hike" and to engage with others but not to demand that a regular community emerges out of the non-structured environment.

Benson & Wirzba discuss communal prayer in chapter 11, where they speak of the Lord's Prayer and claim "'Our Father' is a prayer spoken in the first person plural rather than the first-person singular, implying that prayer is something done in community" (156). In this spirit, a large chunk of the Bible is spent building and encouraging the community of Christians to support and worship with one another. While it is obviously important to have such a group of fellow believers in one's faith, the authors claim, citing Levinas, that "it is not possible to have an individual relationship with God." (157). One of the reasons why we find this claim to be somewhat outrageous is because we often see examples of how prayer has been distorted when used in public. When we say prayer before dinner around the table, we are obviously aware of the other people who hear what we say and judge our requests and words to God, and therefore we create a very scripted, predictable, and surface-level prayer. When in a public setting we are quick to notice those who kneel on the ground or put their hands up to embrace music. We believe that it is only away from other ears where we can be alone with God and to properly converse.

This is certainly the sense that some people undertake when engaging on a hike on the Appalachian Trail. Though not all hikers are the religious sort, a good deal of them are attempting to find their relationship with God or to come upon a purpose in their life from him. This practice is harder to do in our society, where there is so much noise and input from others that it is difficult to determine what is from God and what is not. Therefore, if one removes themselves from society and communes with the natural world as it was created, the idea is that it is easier to determine what God is saying. Hikers then rarely go to the trail for the purpose of praying with others, though they may do so when the opportunity arises. The communities where this is possible on the trail are always transient: one may come upon a church hostel or a shelter of other believers for the night where discussion and prayer can take place. Or the encounter may be with a sole individual on the path for a couple of hours. It is difficult in these circumstances to feel rooted in a community of believers, because the entire philosophy of rooting oneself is all but thrown away on a thru-hike.

It is obvious that there are benefits and drawbacks to undertaking such a journey from a spiritual standpoint. Benson & Wirzba conclude that ultimately "prayer ... is part of a spiritual economy which is concerned with giving and ... loving" (162). In this view, there is certainly no lack of prayer on the Appalachian Trail, even among those who don't seem to be engaging in it. Giving and loving is the focal point of almost all "trail magic" which graces travelers with food and good deeds to assist their journey. In this view, almost all prayer on the trail is public and communal prayer.

Phenomenology #1

Benson & Wirzba introduce us to the idea of an "Earthly Economy" wherein "we pray to God for some object and often promise something to God, some sacrifice on our part, in return" (63). This obviously seems quite lopsided on first inspection: a human offers something to God in return for something God will give to him. Certainly whatever man has to offer to God is completely useless if one believes that God is the creator of all things. What man wants or expects from God, is usually a sort of miraculous intervention. They go on to point out: "What benefit could the gods receive from us?" (63) and then to explain how this can be so primarily through kenosis, or self-emptying. I believe that this explanation does make sense, especially when one is considering a "wholly other" God who has no interest in us or our possessions, possibly a view of an indifferent God.

However, it does seem to me like the premise of this "earthly economy" doesn't quite make sense when thinking about a God who created and cares for us. Many religious people believe that God created everything, humans and their possessions included, and that often times those possessions are gifts from God himself. Furthermore, it is commonly understood that God has a plan for people's lives, and does not want them to go astray or to be influenced by forces of evil. In these beliefs, it is more clear to see how humans and God can communicate and make exchanges. The idea that a human who makes a personal sacrifice cannot benefit God at all is at odds with the idea that God cares about us. If God cares about us, one would understand he would empathize with the sacrifice being made at the level it is being made. The biblical story of the Widow's Offering provides evidence for this idea -- even though Jesus is God incarnate and has no need at all for coins or human currency, he sees the offering as more worthy than the money of the rich. This suggests that God sees sacrifices as the sacrifices seem to us. It makes sense, then, that if we are able to make requests and attach sacrifices to them which are truly sacrifices for us, this notion of the "earthly economy" is removed. As for whether sacrifices should be offered contingent upon a fulfilled request, that's another story.

Image and Pilgrimage #2

Turner & Turner in Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture wrap up their studies by noting that "when a religious system becomes tightly structured and organized, ... its pilgrimages tend to revert from the liminoid to the liminal or 'pseudo-liminal'; that is, they 'regress' from voluntaristic processes to become pseudo-tribal, initiatory institutions, stressing relics, ritualistic acts, and the 'miraculous' properties of wells, trees, places where saints stood or rested, and other concrete objects associated with holy individuals" (232). To me this is an excellent example of Lane's caution that when one attempts to study and find the root of a myth, it ceases to have meaning. In this way pilgrimages that were once meaningful for people in a specific way are forced to take on the same meaning for future pilgrims, and becomes an "on-rails" experience that one might have in a theme park ride. I believe that the Appalachian Trail viewed as a pilgrimage is a good way to look at how this caution can be put into use.

Hikers on the Appalachian Trail often take the mantra "hike your own hike" to heart. This is a secular embodiment of Turner & Turner's observation because it is designed to avoid the creation of an experience on the trail. Hike your own hike means that you should encounter and move along the trail at your own pace and however you prefer to do so, provided that it respects the environment. Some hikers are comfortable with taking side trails or separate means of transportation to cover the distance, and some wish to walk every step of the way along the marked path. This idea accepts both of these means of travel and more, because it inherently understands that two different people will have very different hiking experiences even along the same trail. While there is a marked path, it remains merely a suggestion and hikers are allowed and even encouraged to deviate when they see fit. This flexibility allows hikers to have their own experiences and attach their own meaning to their journey, instead of being forced to encounter the trail in the same way that the very first thru-hikers did, which might be meaningful for some but not for others.

Image and Pilgrimage #1

Turner & Turner offer an interesting warning in Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture that can be easily overlooked. It reads on page 9: "Pilgrimage, then, offers liberation from profane social structures that are symbolic with a specific religious system, but they do this only in order to intensify the pilgrim's attachment to his own religion, often in fanatical opposition to other religions. That is why some pilgrimages have become crusades and jihads." This is so wildly against the idea of a pilgrimage, it is strange that it is so common as to be mentioned in the introduction to the book. In our society we certainly see the fanatical opposition mentioned, even among those who have not been on a traditional pilgrimage.

What Turner & Turner are speaking about is the ability for a sacred pilgrimage to intensify a pilgrim's beliefs in a specific religion, often due to the fullness of its presence and acceptance in the culture around them. Walking the Appalachian Trail, one might expect to see a mix of religious, spiritual-but-not-religious, and secular hikers. Walking the Camino de Santiago, one would expect most pilgrims to be Christians, although not all are. Walking to Mecca, one would expect to see almost completely Muslim pilgrims. This shows us that there are degrees of traditionally and isolation in pilgrimages. However, the purpose of a pilgrimage is to search for spiritual significance, to be tried as a human and tested in one's faith to determine what is true. I would argue that the purpose of a pilgrimage is not to be isolated with fellow believers, but to be surrounded by many different ideas so that the truth can shine more brightly in comparison.

It is probably true that the degree of separation from opposing viewpoints can increase the chances that the pilgrim will take on fanatical views, and if so this effect can also take place outside of a traditional pilgrimage. I believe that in our recent election cycle this has been shown in full force, with a truly fanatical opposition by some Christian voters to Muslim immigrants. When one surrounds oneself with only those of the same faith and does not allow their views to be tested, it is easy to take on these radical beliefs and be so strongly opposed to others. After all, if a true pilgrim walks so many miles and encounters so many different ways of thinking about the world, how is it possible to condemn people so quickly for what they believe?

Landscapes of the Sacred #2

This reflection is mainly a dispute of the claim Lane makes on page 24 when he says "That which we analyze with thorough objectivity -- turning into psychology, history, or social geography, has ceased to exercise any formative power on us." Lane is speaking here about myth of sacred place, and the axiom that "sacred place is storied place." He argues that myths and stories have a certain power on us, that they are able to create wonder and drive within us. This is obviously true, as anyone who has attempted to or even wanted to climb Mount Everest can tell us. We are all influenced by myth even about our own college campus (don't step on the Santoro Circle or you won't graduate in four years..). These myths literally control our lives, making us sometimes fly long distances to subject ourselves to terrible extremes, or more likely to take a few steps to the left while walking to class. The whole space in between these two examples is where myth can have power over our lives.

Lane continues to argue that this power is defeated when we dive into the psychology or history of a myth, when we begin to try and understand it. I believe this is not always true. Lane himself would certainly not argue that these academic subjects are completely useless and should not be studied, so it is obvious that they must have some ability to impact our lives in a similar way that myth does. Our human attempts to understand our world are usually flawed for a very long time, and only when we discover our error do we balk at what we thought a few decades before. As the time goes on, the beliefs and rationalizations of older generations seem sillier and sillier, until we categorize them as uninformed or stupid. For instance, when one thinks of the backlash against the heliocentric model of the solar system, it is easy to see the society and church especially as idiots for not accepting this idea -- or more importantly, for failing to even examine the possibility. Once we find a new explanation that seems to make sense, though, we very quickly discard with older notions. Our impulse is then to believe, since we have "found the answer," that we are now correct. We fail to realize that the previous hypothesis was a revision of what came before it, and that it at one point seemed completely correct. Thus, the process of balking begins until another truth comes along to revise our correct answer.

I believe that this is why Lane claims that mythical power is defeated by study: often times, we leave no room for mystery and attempt to perfectly explain things. However, this process itself of trying to explain our world is not a bad one. Very often we attempt to do so and find only more things that we don't know. For instance, the discovery of quantum particle mechanics lead scientists to an entire realization that there was a whole world of interactivity that we had no knowledge of before, and knew nothing about. This IS the mystery Lane speaks about, and sometimes we are forced to throw up our hands and say we don't know. By studying things and attempting to understand them we are met with the truth that we rarely have any idea what's going on even in our information-filled society. If we simply think about what it must have been like to encounter these mysteries in earlier years, we can fully understand how myths are created.

Landscapes of the Sacred #1

What struck me reading Lane's Landscapes of the Sacred was the following quote from page 9: "Knowing God, like falling in love or living through a near-death experience, is inescapably contextual." Lane classifies a relationship with God as a "limit experience" where one seems to come just short of the end of what is possible and experiences the thrill and terror of doing so. These experiences, he says, are inherently tied to context, and specifically the place in which they occur. I think of my high school and all the memories tied to that building when I walk into it, how easy it makes it to reminisce and remember things I might otherwise have forgotten when I'm there. However, there's something different about the examples given; while falling in love or having a near-death experience can certainly tie memories to the place where it happened, knowing God is fundamentally a totally different sort of limit experience.

There are, of course, many definitions of God: Christians often think of God as a Him (although it is agreed that "he" does not have any requirement to fit human gender), but more importantly as a all-knowing and all-powerful God who fights against Satan and judges us for allowance to Heaven after we die. There are many other religions who fit a similar viewpoint, as well as those that do not. Some see God as "The Universe," or a similar non-anthropomorphic deity, possibly just an "energy source" that underlies all things. In all of these examples, though the notion of "God" is very fluid the understanding that He or She or It is completely separate from us does persist. We agree that whatever lies beyond our dimensions and ability to understand is God.

It is curious, then, why we should say "knowing God" is an experience that takes its context from the place it occurs. God is inherently a non-place idea, one that completely transcends the three-dimensional space that we live in as well as the whole concept of time that we are bound by. Because of our human instinct to associate our experiences with where we are and the time that it took place, we attempt to root God in a place that "he" doesn't exist, or at least exists wholly outside of. In other words, we put God in a box.

Still, we do this all the time. This practice takes place in as fundamental texts as the Bible, because although we agree that God is outside of time and place, we still record the events and miracles which take place in our reality. The most prominent example is obviously the life of Jesus in Christianity, which records God himself placing himself on the same stage as his "subjects," coming fully down to their level and restricting himself to our time and space. These biblical stories are of course where many of the holy lands and places come from, where we believe that God himself once walked as a man. In our personal experiences today we continue to want to make these associations in our experiences with God because, for us, we experience them in a certain time and place.

I believe that we do this to believe that we have an understanding of the character or nature of God; if we can say that a specific spiritual event took place at a specific hour in a specific place, we can go on to make assumptions about the purpose of such an event. If we collect many of these events together, we can designate specific places as "holy" and make further claims as to what God is doing because of the things we know about those places or what happened in our reality. Should we do this? I don't know.

Journey #2

Journey #2

Cancer sucks. Quite plain and simple. Having to watch loved ones go through the scary battle alone and not understanding the pain they are enduring, just makes you wish you could switch lives with them and see them no longer suffering. In August of 2015, my grandfather got the call that there were four tumors in his lungs; later, it was found that these tumors were in fact lung cancer, ranging from stage two to stage four. When I heard the news, I was infuriated and pissed at God because why did it have to happen to him? He was a hardworking, lovable, kind family man and so much more; why did God have to punish him? Was it something I did? Was it to show consequences of actions that I did not know of? All of these questions were being asked in my head and never did I receive an answer.

In September of this year, my grandfather was admitted to the hospital because of pneumonia. Each day, I prayed he would get better. Each day, I prayed he would come home. Each day, I prayed to God to heal him; but, those prayers went unnoticed. You see, I had a connection to my grandfather like none of my other cousins or siblings; we called each other “Chunk” - I have no idea how this came about but I still loved it - he would give me advice for my adulthood, I would go over just to watch him watch Nascar, help him with yardwork, decorate his house for the holidays and much more. On Friday, October 21^st, I was supposed to go to classes and then ride to Charlottesville to see him; however, there was a feeling that I had to go right then and forget my classes, I needed to be there with him. On Friday, October 21^st, my grandfather took his last breath with his children and wife of 65 years beside him; while I was in the waiting room.

When my mother and I got there, she received a text from her sister that his heartrate and pulse were dropping and to get there quickly. We rushed to the floor he was on and my mom went back to his room, and I sat in the waiting room praying that he would be miraculously healed. My mom came back to me and told me to go say goodbye; since, there was not much time left. I got to his room and paused because I did not know if I was ready to see what I was about to see; last time I saw him, he was talking, drifting in and out of sleep and holding my hand and this time, his eyes were closed and motionless and groggy. I walked to his side, beside my grandmother, grabbed his hand, leaned over and said “Hey Chunk, I love you so much okay? I will see you soon. I love you,” then kissed his cheek. He let out a small whimper or moan and I knew he heard me. I walked back to the waiting room and my mom went back to his room; 25 minutes later he passed away.

I would have never forgiven myself if I did not go that day; I would never be emotionally settled like I am today, in the sense that, I am at peace because I was able to say goodbye. Looking back, I realize God did answer my prayers; he was the one who gave me the urge to go see him, in way giving me a heads-up. A couple years back, someone told me that “God gives you people that you need most in your life. He allows you to have one of His children to make you see things differently and to love that person and for them to love you. But, when the time comes, He will call His son back to Heaven because it is time for them to return home.” Having faith and knowing that my “Chunk” is up in Heaven, has allowed me to overcome all anger and aggravation I had towards God because He has a plan that no one knows but it is for the greater good. In Isaiah 41:10, of the New International Version, God speaks out and professes:

10    So do not fear, for I am with you;

                      do not be dismayed, for I am your God.

        I will strengthen you and help you;

           I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. (“25 Encouraging Bible”)

This verse explains that God is always with you; whether you believe that or not. You must trust His plans and do not fear for what He has in store for you; God will give you the strength you need to carry forward. I know that I have to have a strong spiritual connection because in order to see my grandfather again, I have to believe.

Journey

Journey #1

"The journey through life is transitioning through things."


The quote above means a lot to me; I believe that it means that the life's journey is going through tough or challenging situations and being able to overcome and conquer them. This has been a recent theme in my life with my grandfather's passing in October. I was truly heartbroken during this time and did not know which way to turn. I did not feel like doing much of anything and I hated to talk about it to anyone because I wanted to be strong for my family and especially my grandmother (they had been married for 65 years). I missed a lot of school during this time because of him being in the hospital and me having to take care of my younger siblings while my parents were with him. When his funeral passed, I did not want to care for school and I wanted to just be over with it. But, I knew that my grandfather wanted each of his children and grandchildren to have the best education out there and to always work hard. With this in the back of my head, I knew I had to push forward and work hard for him and myself. This theme can relate to anything; however, in recent times, it has really broken the surface.

Phenomenology of Prayer Response 1

One chapter that caught my eye in the book, largely for its many pictures in the middle was the chapter on Mexican Pilgrimages. Since I learned of her in my Modern Mexican Art class last semester, I have been fascinated by the Virgin de Guadalupe. The story goes that Madonna showed herself to a mere peasant, Juan Diego, who was working in the fields, but after this peasant came forth with his account of the Virgin’s apparition, the bishop did not believe him. Following this, the virgin appeared to him again three more times and then the people began to realize that the peasant may have been telling the truth. The virgin miraculously cured Juan Diego’s uncle of his sickness, proving to the people of what would later become Mexico City that the young man was telling the truth the whole time. To me this little story is reminiscent of tales that would be told time and time again to teach our children to have good morals and to remind them of biblical events. I was raised a Christian but my family went to a traditional Methodist church so we didn’t learn very accepting or diverse ideas of Christianity. When I was twelve, I stopped attending church with my family and have yet to join another church. I feel that stories like this from religions around the world should be taught to children alongside the ones we hear regularly. I wish it wasn’t until college that I learned about Christianity around the world and I think that should definitely be part of the learning process if religion is to be instilled in a young brain.

The Noland Trail

Noland Trail Experience


The Noland Trail was a nice break out of the classroom. Having the chance to have class out of the typical setting (sitting for hours, listening to a lecture and looking a screens) was one I greatly appreciate. There has been many times where I get bored with being in a class and cannot focus because I do not quite grasp a concept; so, in return, I tune out those around me and try to do things that have nothing to do with the class. But, walking the Noland trail and talking about the things we see first-hand and not through a screen allowed me to truly see what was in front of me. I believe that nature is a true illustration of a human's life. For instance, we all start as something small, like a seed, and we grow up to be something either pretty or ugly, like a type of flower or a tree. However, what makes us ugly all depends on the environment we grow up in, just like that of nature. People tarnish the world with trash and harsh chemicals; people tarnish each other's lives with negativity and hate. And in the end, our lives come to the finish line, just like nature.

Nature Response #2

Do you ever sit in the sand at the beach and just listen? Or try to pick out the different smells as they fly by? I can smell the salt of the sea and the hint of the barbeque being prepared down the way. I can hear the birds off in the distance fighting for the attention of the children by the water’s edge and the parents unleashing pleads to “Please stop drawing them closer.” They can come over to my blanket. That’s okay. I have no food to offer but my I’ll sit quietly while they snoop around. This is the place where I feel my soul come alive. Where there water meets the land and the boundaries between free and confined blur. Some of my earliest memories are of the open water. I can remember being unable to stand, unable to float, unable to do anything but clutch my arms and legs around my mom as she floats like a jelly up and over the waves. “Let them take you. You’ll be fine.” “Allow yourself to rise with the water, it doesn’t want to take you under. Let go with your legs, just hold my fingers.” This was how I was taught to swim. The same as my siblings, with our mother’s hand ready to save us when we inevitably fell under the surface. To this day I feel that I cannot be away from the water. I feel the need to have open water in my life regularly. I may have been raised on a farm but I was made for the water.

Nature Response #1

In this day in time, it can be a difficult thing, to separate yourself from the machine that is society and allow your mind to relax into the natural beauty around. On our class trek through the Noland Trail, we examined the fauna  at our toes and journeyed deeper into the green, away from the sounds of passing cars and constant hubbub. I began to note the path that we took as a class. The path we chose put us in the way of others using the trail, causing interactions that would not have otherwise  happen, had we been elsewhere. People come to run, to think, to regain their energy before returning to their busy day. Its interesting to sit and watch as people go about their planned activities in on the trail. Some chose to sit at the benches and take in the views, some chose to photograph the changing colors of a turning season. I want to sit and silence and breathe. I want to smell the decaying leaves and dirt kicked up by the runners. I want to feel the crunch of the leaves under my fingers and caress the soft plumes of cotton fly-aways by the edge of the river. When the world is too much to comprehend. I return here. To the place where we are the visitors and the flora and fauna are the hosts.

Ben Pearce: IPCC 2 Blog 15

On Mariology

(Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture)

Iconophily and Iconoclasm

            The book Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture devotes a large portion to Marian devotion and Marian pilgrimage. In this blog post, I will be questioning the quotation of a Church Father which is used to demonstrate certain aspects of Mariology in the modern Marian Pilgrimage.

            The first quote is by the Church Father Irenaeus. He says in his book Adversus Haereses volume 3:

“As Eve, who had Adam as her husband but was nevertheless a virgin, was disobedient, and thereby became the cause of death to herself and to the whole of mankind, so also Mary, who had a preordained husband and was still a virgin, by obedience became a cause of her own salvation and the salvation of the whole human race”.

This quote says that Mary was the cause of her own salvation through Obedience. This has a few possible meanings. It could mean that Mary never sinned and therefore earned eternal life, or she bore a child who in turn saved her from her sins because she was obedient to bear him. This in turn though assumes that God asked Mary to do something rather than told her something that she was going to do no matter her opinion. This would thereby question the statement where Mary calls God her savior in her Magnificat. Had she been perfect, she would not need a savior. Had she no need for a savior, she wouldn’t have called God one. Do we then assume that Mary had sinned and Irenaeus is mistaken?

            Should Irenaeus had been right, by what means does Mary play in the healing during pilgrimage as page 157 suggests? How should she hear those pilgrims who come to her shrines if she is in heaven with the Lord? She would then have to be omnipresent to hear the prayers of pilgrims who come to her shrines on pilgrimage. Would this not make her God though? We know she is not, so there must be another reason. Does Christ, who is omnipresent present her with the request to pray to him for healing. Why then doesn’t the pilgrim simply pray directly to Christ? If we don’t have a righteousness of our own as Philippians 3:9 says, then why would a saint praying for us have a greater affect than a friend praying for us?

            These are just a few questions and thoughts I had while reading the chapter on Iconophily and Iconoclasm in Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture.

Ben Pearce: Outside Reading 3 Blog 14

A Pilgrim’s Pilgrimage

(Outside Reading 3)

The Pilgrim’s Progress

            The Pilgrim’s Progress is a book written by the Puritan Paul Bunyan. It was written as an allegory for the Christian life by detailing it as a pilgrimage from the City of Destruction to the Celestial Kingdom. The Pilgrim’s Progress comes from a tradition that has famously been hesitant on pilgrimages. This book, whether it was the author’s intention or not, details in what way a person of the Puritan tradition can experience a sacred journey within the bounds of their religious sensibilities.

            The main character’s name is, forthrightly, Christian, and Christian finds a unique book which causes a pilgrim’s pack to appear on his back; Christian cannot get the backpack off. He runs to the City of Destruction where his family lives, and he warns everyone to come with him and leave the City which the book said would be destroyed. No one comes with him. This is symbolic of the pilgrim’s natural isolation from the world in their pilgrimage. He flees without his family and meets Evangelist who points him in the right direction. This is symbolic of the trail and those people who help guide you along. The pilgrim’s backpack is representative of his burdensome sins which he is unable to remove until he gives himself over to Christ. Christian runs through many obstacles which are part of the Christian life and they represent the motivation a pilgrim must have when walking the trail. If they do not want to be there, then they will flee at the first sign of struggle. This is representative of a Christian’s life when they face obstacles that stumble their way to Jesus. Eventually Christian runs into more and more people who help him on his journey. This resembles the communitas which pilgrims enjoy on the trail. There are people who are all along to help you in your personal and individual quest. They are people who are generous and care about your completion of the journey.

            This book perfectly displays what a Christian pilgrimage should look like. It should be representative physically of their spiritual walk to Christ. In fact, I plan on hiking the Appalachian Trail this summer in this manner. 

#4 The Phenomenology of Prayer

 “One must abandon the project of being the center in terms of which meaning, and truth, and goodness are defined.” P .31 The Phenomenology of Prayer

Regarding absolutes, we must understand that truth has the capability to stand alone, with or without us. Regarding belief, what we believe about absolute truth is relative because whether we believe it or not, gravity still applies if are living, dead, or if we never existed. I’m not saying truth is relative. I’m saying we will have to face the truth at some point in our lives whether we believe it or not, contrary to whatever we believe. From conception until today, I’ve ventured many paths trying to find purpose, reason an understand of it all, and most importantly, I sought the why questions. Why does truth mater? Why do I exist? Why is life so painful? The questions are endless. I’ve come to realize that truth and goodness are not just opposite to mans nature but they aren’t reliant on our belief and we aren’t the authors. Truth and goodness stand alone and they aren’t reliant on our belief. They are attainable, not to become, but to have.