Ivan Illich and a Call for a New Story

“Neither revolution nor reformation can ultimately change a society, rather you must tell a new powerful tale, one so persuasive that it sweeps away the old myths and becomes the preferred story . . . one so inclusive that it gathers all the bits of our past and our present into a coherent whole, one that even shines some light into the future so that we can take the next step . . . If you want to change a society, then you have to tell an alternative story.” Ivan Illich (Austrian former priest, philosopher, social critic, 1926-2002)

This gentle cynic wants to be less ambiguous and ambivalent about and be intellectually honest about the social reality of competing and incomplete stories—the often conventional, usually unquestioned variations of a dominate script—which serve only to distract from a story that is purely and rightly a “new” and “good” story, one worthy of our allegiance.

We could say that the dominant scripting in our American society is one of “technological, therapeutic, consumer militarism” which socializes all on both extremes, liberal and conservative. It is a script that for most part is about “certitude, privilege, and entitlement” and has always and will always—as long as it is the dominant script—promise safety, prosperity, and happiness. However it is not hard to conclude that we are one of the most discontent (unhappiest) societies in the world. Thus, the dominant script has failed and it cannot make us safe or happy.

Remember the response after September 11, 2001, when the dominant script exhibited itself? People, prompted by our governmental leadership, knew nothing better to do than to go shopping. Then there came the abuse and opportunism by banks and mortgage services on the backs of the consumer. And yet, most revealing, our society has become the most determinative killers without even thinking about it. If we are to pause, listen, and contemplate before acting (something we should have done as a whole society after September 11, 2001), we would do well to consider the call of Ivan Illich for an alternative, “new” story, which may in its emergence seem like a extraordinary act of disengagement from and relinquishment of that dominant script by way of a counterspeech, seizing the conventional and habitually unquestioned script that has been leading us to unhealthy choices, unhappiness, and abuse by the powerful over the naïve and the weak. Such a story and such an act will gradually restore us on a path to health and wholeness.

Dialogue with William Lobdell's Story

Below is my brief response to an interview with William Lobdell with Tom Ashbrook (NPR, On Point)

Having heard William Lobdell’s story from various news venues over the past year, I am struck by his genuineness, openness and sense of “peace” with doubt. His journey is quite interesting and prompts me to reflect upon the ancient Jewish spiritual roots, which can be accessed in the wisdom literature of the Old Testament. Unfortunately, various kinds of “Christians” dismiss what I have come to recognize as normative in this literature and further conveyed in the radical life and teaching of Jesus.

Severely lacking in practice and the spiritual vocabulary of many American Christian churches is this normative and valuable experience of doubt. There are clearly large questions that revolve around an active formation of faith, and they can present themselves in complex periods of disorientation, dislocation, and a deep sense of abandonment. Active doubt, such as portrayed in the life of the Qohelet in Ecclesiastes, many Psalms, Job, and the life of Jesus remind us that life can naturally move from periods of orientation into profound and long-standing periods of disorientation. While many American Christians write off experiences of doubt as “lacking faith”, my own journey has allowed me to see doubt as a path to the formation of faith and coming to terms with the hidden-ness, illusiveness, and darkness surrounding concepts of God, the large questions and perplexing experiences of suffering and evil in the world. (I am grateful for the works of Paul Ricoeur and Walter Brueggemann on this topic.)

The ancient Jewish tradition offers some almost lost practices which can be quite redeeming at best or at least able to help move individuals and communities into some sense of being re-oriented. For example, there is the practice of lament and complaint in the literature mentioned above. In my many years of religious experiences (predominately Christian), it has only been recently that I have met a religious community comfortable with practicing lament and complaint within their corporate lives. I am learning that while doubt is normative in human experience, practices such as lament and doubt can assist us in moving into some surprising places: places where we are more comfortable, imaginative, and at peace with the unknown and life as it is.

On

As spring emerges after what has been a challenging winter, this Gentle Cynic continues to find resources, support and movement away from the cultural sway of Western individualization and the neo-humanist view of personality to one of community and harmony with the "other". As he gains greater insight, becomes more comfortable with ambiguity, and cultivates self-differentiation (with reference to his functioning in family, group, and community), he senses more connectedness along with a feeling of being "on", and not so as his past when hyper-vigilent doubt led to a feeling of being "off".

On

On I go

as past winds

blow me

from the road.

With swells

and flying debris,

I push

through the snow.

I trudge along

often alone;

at times

I join another.

Like geese

we are lifted

up and

forward

On a path

that has no

precise

markings,

Only a

placid

place of

challenge.

Image: Andrew Wythe, The Snow Hill, 1989

Sent

(Re-posted for editing purposes, from April 2008)

This gentle cynic recently found himself working out the idea of “being sent” as he entered the threshold of completing his MDIV at Eastern Mennonite Seminary and entering the complex world as one sent to minister in some purposeful way. The thoughts below have become a way to express his own sense of movement and to declare before his seminary community during their Baccalaureate his own present sense of mission—something that has come through much constructive critique, formative influences and struggle.

Some influential images in this particular episode of discerning what it means to be sent, have emerged from the artistic work of Andrew Wyeth. What is shared below is this gentle cynic’s way of sharing a recent glimpse into his own musing and grappling with the discernment of movement and mission; i.e., being sent (Baccalaureate theme included the reading of the Scriptural text of John 20:21-22).

Andrew Wyeth reminds me a little of myself, while his complex work reveals themes which have been a part of my seminary journey. Wyeth is one who began his work constructing an image of himself as “a contented loner, a modern-day Henry Thoreau, who sought inspiration from rural and coastal landscapes; only to see his work transformed as it progressed into interconnected themes of life and death, and time and eternity.

His ‘”pure” unpeopled landscapes’ took on profound human presence where he portrayed the physical lives and intense feelings of people, such as his work surrounding the Olson family and their dilapidated home which includes his famous Christina’s World, a scene which appears to be a young, thin women reclining in a field while looking up at her home just above the hill; when actually it portrays an aging women who had a disability that left her unable to walk; proudly refusing a wheelchair, she resorted to dragging her body around when her legs became permanently disabled.

Wyeth’s numerous works try to speak into harsh realities and embrace the complexities of life—the humorous, beautiful, painful, simple and tragic—while reflecting on the mystery and seasons of life, much of which have become a part of my rhythm of reflection as I am sent into a world filled with harsh realities and complexities.

Connected with this kind of awareness, I am summoned to believe, imagine, and serve knowing the transcending and far-reaching peace which Jesus Christ has promised and fulfills—the Shalom of God*, which when faithfully held before us yields perceptive imaginations, interpretive vision, unique solutions, and leaps of faith that are in tune with God’s creative and redemptive ways.

One of Wyeth’s lesser known works, Schooner Aground, depicts a scene that speaks into my experience of renewal in relation to the church and world. In the foreground are a host of people spread out presumably from the local coastal community along with some militia, all of which are watching a steam-powered tugboat (smoke billowing out of its stack) trying to pull out a grounded three masted schooner from the rocky shoreline. What stands out for me is a small boat (possibly a row boat) out at sea having a vague figure who seems to have his back turned against the struggling tug and is facing elsewhere—the smallest of the three vessels and yet the only one that is moving somewhere with purpose while not being preoccupied nor sidetracked by the surrounding activity. It is a vessel free to move unencumbered by the wider activities and the community of spectators. It is a vessel that yearns for the open waters; it’s on a mission. my experience of renewal in relation to the church and world. In the foreground are a host of people spread out presumably from the local coastal community along with some militia, all of which are watching a steam-powered tugboat (smoke billowing ).

With increasing concentration and influence over the last several months, I have considered what ministry might look like for me and have found myself content to pursue “bi-vocational” ministry; i.e., faithfully participating in the church as an alternative society—whatever that may look like—while faithfully serving the world directly through a vocation which allows me to invest in others with gifts I possess and have cultivated. Thus, both church and a specific vocation should make use of my gifts at places of margin and boundaries where I and others might move in and out of providing connections for ministry, resources, rest, and partnerships, where transformations are wanting to happen, and where a claim of God’s rule—God’s shalom—against the momentum of injustice and “the powers” is needed.


Sources:
* Ben Wenn and Adam D. Weinberg, Unknown Terrain: The Landscapes of Andrew Wythe (New York: Whitney Museum of Art, 1998), 12.

Anne Claussen Knutson, “Andrew Wyeth’s Language of Things” in Memory and Magic (New York: Rizzoli, 2005), 70.

Images of Andrew Wyeth’s works: Image 1, Baleen, 1982; Image 2, Christina’s World, 1948; Image 3 Schooner Aground

* Shalom of God speaks of a promised and emerging profound salvation of every aspect of God's creation, which, of course, includes humanity. There is in this meaning a deep sense of welfare, peace, soundness, and deliverance that transcends any institutional or nationalistic notion.

A Postmodern Advent Reflection

In the Beginning:

The Creation of Mother and Child

On the first day of creation

the dark waters of the deep

that surround you

gave way to a brightness so commanding

you unfolded like petals

responding to the sun’s heat

while the spirit that lurked within me

departed

leaving a strange red trace.

On the first day we learned

separation and difference

and someone said it was good.

On the second day you learned

hunger and disappointment

because milk and honey did not yet flow

and you returned to an inward curl

to cry or hide

while I appealed to angels on high,

whispered in your ear mysteries of Bethlehem,

sang Joy to the World (for it was the season).

And so we passed day and night

Wondering that this could be good.

On the third day we learned

that a certain let-down is part of life,

that paradise,

if it existed once,

comes now in fits and spurts

and is often messy.

By the sixth day I was sure

that in the beginning

was desire,

that this mother-child relation happened

not because you bore my image

but because a wild love

flared at every union

as though my emptied self

were a burning mystery.

Julie Robinson in The Hermeneutics of Charity: Interpretation, Selfhood, and Postmodern Faith, James K. A. Smith and Henry Isaac Venema, Ed. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2004, 19-20.

Image from The Presentation at the Temple, by Andrea Mantegna

Reflections on an American tendency toward a Civil Religion

This gentle cynic has become puzzled and curious about the capacity of dependence or devotion many American’s give to the presidency or executive power of this nation. This social phenomenon, of course, has been recently amplified with the current presidential race. One could think with all the energy given to the prospects and assumed roles of this office, my community, my family, and self would be in jeopardy without the right person presiding in the executive office.

Granted, one sitting president has the potential of making an awful mess out of things as well as making a significant mark in the course of events; yet I cannot conceive how this individual and his or her administration can make much difference in my life of hopes and dreams, unless he or she has become for me (us) a high priest of sorts in what has been termed an "American civil religion." All the talk of faith with individuals running for the presidency informs this cultural notion and a clearly vibrant fight to keep it alive.

History has proven too many times that nationalism and religion do not mix well; for there becomes a strong tendency of religious influence on a national level or movement to produce a greater likelihood for discrimination and human rights violations. As Stjepan Gabriel Mestrovic argues, civil religious notions actually smack the genuine face of true religion. "Civil religion is neither bona fide religion nor ordinary patriotism, but a new alloy formed by blending religion with nationalism. If civil religions were bona fide religions then one would expect to find a soft side to them, teaching love of neighbor and upholding peace and compassion. But this is not the case." (Quoted by Gerald A. Parsons, "From nationalism to internationalism: civil religion and the festival of Saint Catherine of Siena" in Journal of Church and State, September 22, 2004)

Hence, refusing to be part of supporting civil religion does not mean abandoning religious commitment and belief. If anything, it requires of us a rigorous re-examination of our religious traditions with our current experience with religious nationalism. Thus, this gentle cynic is glad to see and hear of a growing civil unrest against a belief in this kind of America among various religious groups, communities, and organizations. He is thankful for the present polarization of the so called "right" and "left" and the many growing, organic groups that make up a chaotic bouquet seeking a more universal order transcending any merely human office and power.

A Brief Response to "The Culpability of Christianity in the Destruction of the Natural World"

Here are some brief theological implications from Christian teaching that inform and guide this gentle cynic on a recovery path to becoming a faithful human steward of Creation.

My own search for theological insight emerged partly from Wendell Berry’s indictment (voiced by the conservation movement): “the culpability of Christianity in the destruction of the natural world and the uselessness of Christianity in any effort to correct that destruction.”

The following reflection focuses on three areas: 1.) a creaturely contemplation, 2.) a descending dominion, and 3.) a life of holiness.

A Creaturely Contemplation

For most of my adult life, I, along with many in the Christian tradition, have given little attention to how our modern view of nature and its resulting praxis affects the rest of creation, e.g., animals and the environment. Over time, my indifference has become my sin, a gaping void that thankfully is slowly being filled with human wholeness in every aspect of life through the embodiment of Jesus Christ. The beginning of this conversion has included, along with reading from various Christian perspectives, spending almost five years intimately connected to the outdoors and experiencing what Eugene Peterson, calls “the only adequate launching pad for exploring a spirituality of creation”—wonder.[2]

Most recently, I have been silenced again during the season of Epiphany, a celebration of the manifestation of God in the midst of the world of humankind. In the Eastern tradition, Epiphany is “the season of silent mystic contemplation.” It is an occasion for wonder. God is openly present within humanity; and is to be found in the material things of life; i.e., in the space between you and me when we deeply care for one another within the everyday stuff of life.[3]

Tradition instructs us that silence is a necessary discipline that helps open our eyes to the presence of God in the created world and order. McClendon reminds us that Christian prayer imagines the reality of God’s presence in the “created cosmos in which prayer occurs.” He cites the “Disciples’ Prayer” as a way to illustrate the ancient practice of grounding ourselves theologically in respect to a holy God who is deeply involved in the created world and order with a nurturing presence. Furthermore, the Disciples’ Prayer with its various petitions declares “the divine creative purpose” and looks to God’s sustaining presence “for created and creative wholeness in our earthly journey.”[4]

A Descending Dominion

One of the challenges many Christians have to sort out is how we think about ourselves as creatures in relation to our view of creation. For Berry, the prominent concern of this enquiry is ecological; and it is rooted in the recognition that God calls humans to care for the earth and its resources in responsible and just ways.[5] McClendon rightly calls for a view of creation that replaces the old, worn, and destructive vision of human dominion that is so often inclined toward the primacy of consumption which leads to corruption and destruction of natural resources.

To “have dominion” (a translation of Genesis 1:26) derives from the same root as “to descend.” This latter meaning helps to orient the human steward in its rightful place: a representative of God faithfully upholding divine principles of law and justice, and promoting peace and prosperity for the nature (ecology) put under their care.[6] It may well be that this command corresponds with the New Testament model of servant-leadership, which appears upside down in relation to the domineering or “ascending” management behaviors we experience and find so often in history. We could say that servant-leadership is to the church what proper stewardship is to ecology, or to our “economics” as defined by Berry (connecting religion with the way we live). Berry is right about the destruction of nature through our lording over it. “It is flinging God’s gifts into His face, as if they were of no worth beyond that assigned to them by our destruction of them.”[7]

To “descend” is to affirm our place in Creation, rising above the Platonic dichotomy that pulls us apart and in competition with the material gifts and blessings of God’s abundant creation while seeing ourselves as “members of the holy community of creation.”[8] On one hand, I am made in the image of God; on the other hand, like the animal, plants, and environment, “I face something that is like myself.”[9]

Moreover, to “descend” is to respond appropriately in deep-awe “rising from the immeasurable gap that separates Creator and creature.” Thus, our sense of “creatureliness” lays any conceived crown of dominion before the One who sits on the throne depicted in Revelation 4, as a rightful response to the “all embracing rule of God.”[10] Instead of acting as independent agents on a crusade to master a turbulent world, we find ourselves radically dependent on God, who “is one who contains all things, works richly in them, gives them their individual places within the whole, and thus bestows harmony on all things. The human creature likewise is at home in the creation, not a stranger and pilgrim in an alien world.”[11]

A Life of Holiness

Berry calls for a clear distinction between what the Bible instructs about Creation and the actual behavior of the instructed. Essentially, it is a call to holiness, a comprehensive and far-reaching “holiness of life.” He reminds us that “holiness” is not only possible in our Christian activities and behaviors practiced at church and the seminary, but in every day life at our places of labor, at home, our communities, and beyond.[12] To practice this holiness of life means making shifts in the way we live, subtle changes that are built on what Brueggemann calls “creation faith”; i.e., a “declaration of truth that makes a decisive difference in the public life of the world.”[13]

In the Northwest coastline, there is a place called “Salmon Nation.” It is not outlined by political boundaries, but by its coastline and by the rivers that reach deep into its lands. Salmon Nation’s geographical boundaries are simply defined as “anywhere Pacific salmon have ever run.” Salmon Nation is real, made up of a community of caretakers and citizens, a community that stretches across arbitrary boundaries and divides. They bring new meaning to the word cooperative, communitarian “with unusual alliances of tribes, fishermen, farmers, ranchers, loggers, and urban-dwellers working together to improve their neighborhoods and watersheds.” Salmon Nation is a gift. The prosperity of Salmon Nation is based on mutual trust and not special interests. It is an economy that nourishes the human spirit and conserves the natural resources.[14] It is an illustration, which begs our attention as we seek to live holy in an effort to correct the destruction of the natural world.

---

[1] Wendell Berry, “Christianity and the Survival of Creation” in Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community (New York: Pantheon Books, 1992), 93-94.

[2] Eugene H. Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2005) 52.

[3] Jay Rochelle, The Revolutionary Year: Recapturing the Meaning of the Christian Year (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1973), 26.

[4] James Wm. McClendon, Systematic Theology: Volume II, Doctrine (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), 155-156.

[5] McClendon, 156.

[6] Gordon J. Wenham, Word Biblical Commentary: Volume I, Genesis 1-15 (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1987), 33

[7] Berry, 98

[8] Ibid, 106.

[9] Francis Schaeffer, Pollution and the Death of Man: The Christian View of Ecology (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1970), 51.

[10] McClendon, 148.

[11] Ibid., 158; here quoting Paul Santmire, The Travail of Nature: The Ambiguous Ecological Promise of Christian Theology.

[12] Berry, 100.

[13] Walter Brueggemann, “Creation” in Reverberation of Faith (Louisville: Westminster, 2002), 42.

[14] Salmon Nation official web site, http://www.salmonnation.com.