R D Laing: Selected Works: Knots

He is devoured
by his devouring fear of
being devoured by
her devouring desire
for him to devour her.

Laing, R. D. R.D. Laing : Selected Works : Knots, Volume 7.
Florence, KY, USA: Routledge, 1999. p 16.

If we could talk about our talking we might talk like that. Often I wonder - yes, sometimes during the conversation - what I am talking about. And of course, when I say "what I am talking about," I mean what we are talking about. What is the underlying fear, rage or shame that is "driving" the conversation? It finally sunk in last semester: most people are uncomfortable talking about what they are talking about. I suppose I'm uncomfortable but I'm also invigorated - energized. But then tragedy hits... the experience of interacting becomes circular. I'm afraid you're afraid I'm afraid; and I'm afraid that is not good - like a never ending, "No after you..." we get stuck.

So I've been reading about Heinz von Foerester too; and his kubernetes (cybernetics) contribution seems like just like a primary prinicple of my own upbringing, "maximize the options." My dad taught and sold programs of corporate strategic planning and decision making. So I felt right at home with that principle; as well as it fitting the image of the therapeutic process I see. New options are created by new relationships; and a new relationship can also be intentional about maximizing possibilities. And since the expansion of possibitlites or options means the expansion of reality, therapy is generative or healing.

Who is burning in Hell?

A pentacostal preacher from Tulsa no longer "believes in hell" and the number of people who come to hear him on a Sunday morning from many thousands to a couple hundred. A really great report from NPR:

http://thisamericanlife.org/pages/descriptions/05/304.html

As I continue to think about the popularity of claiming the power of Hell, I came across this quote in E. Peterson's Reversed Thunder: the Revelation of John and Praying Imagination:

"We are now able to look upon the events around us not as a hopeless morass of pagan decption and human misery, but as the birth pangs of a new creation and a beckoning to partcipate in God's remaking of God's creation."

I do not have the faith to encourage people to participate in a life of faith marked by participation in a faith community because I fear for their soul. There is no "hell" for someone who feels so isolated, neglected or abused she or he feels unable to join a community that nutures faith. Still, I do believe life is diminished, limited in its fulfillment if there is no fuller expression of our numinous experiences than the individual. So I BECKON - call, exhort, impolore, enjoin, instruct, direct, charge - so that people participate more fully in "God's remaking of God's creation."

Certainly, not every group of people is such a community. However, they do exist and they support that participation.

I wrote this in an attempt to be clear - some voices are so clear claiming the powers of Hell. The power of heaven must be greater. Who will receive the invitation to participate in that heaven from me today? Who will recieve an inviation from you?

Medicalization

This article in the NY Times is what got me started:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/02/health/02essa.html?em&ex=1167973200&en=8eab6866ab9bd19d&ei=5087%0A

January 2, 2007
Essay
What’s Making Us Sick Is an Epidemic of Diagnoses
By H. GILBERT WELCH, LISA SCHWARTZ and STEVEN WOLOSHIN

Medicalization. I get it. The success of the modern allopathic medicine is awe inspiring - from syphilis to yellow fever. But our minds - by which I mean thoughts, feelings, visions, judgments, maybe even sensations, etc., that arise out of and beyond our bodies/brains - is not reducible in the same sorts of ways our spleens are. It is normal - both average and normative - to feel sad and elated. We can even grieve and not be accurately described as having depression. Not everything is an illness. Not everything needs to be treated or cured. Some things simply have to be lived. And life IS painful. It is the absence of life which is numb to pain.

I cried this morning reading a saccharine story about a busboy with Downs Syndrome around whom a Truck Stop community gathers in support during a time of crisis. The sweetness and the pain make the story real - even if it isn't.

Sure I'm glad I've got Ibuprofen, Loratadine, etc... but I'm also feel blessed to know the sadness of loss, the pain of neglect because it means I am alive. I am not those experiences - any more than I am Hodgkins Lymphoma - but they have all shaped my experiences and responses to the my family, the world, to you. To "cure" any of those pains would be to eliminate those moments of my life as well as the richness of my future.

Tag?

Okay... I'm easy... not cheap... but easy. So I've been "tagged" to write 4 truths adn a lie. Fine. Can you tell?

1. I don't like professional sports (although I will watch World Cup games).
2. I've built a canoe - AND it floated - actually 3 canoes!
3. I don't like ice cream.
4. I've run naked on the Philadelphia Art Museum steps (yes, like Rocky - only better)
5. I usually think in lines from movies.