Cultures that endure carve out a protected space for those
who question and challenge national myths.” [1]
I have traversed another year aware of the expanding, living
dynamism that comes by way of the practice and art of gentle cynicism. While
this site provides numerous examples of my thinking and musing around this
practice, gentle cynicism has and continues to be a dynamic filter of
sorts (dialectical in aspect, phenomenological in mind) between myself and the
world that in a way sifts chaff from wheat, i.e., what is accepted from what is
best, what misses the mark from what is actually participating with or working
toward a higher ideal/reality/vision—Shalom, the Way, Tao, The Middle Way, truly
and fully living substance.
The Society of Gentle Cynicism has become a personal
nomenclature for me that identifies a way of existence in a culture that is at
large unaware that it follows a failed dominate script (story ) that promotes an
illusion of safety, health and happiness. This dominant script in the society
at large is therapeutic, technological, consumerist militarism [2] that unfortunately
imbues almost every dimension of the common life. Gentle cynicism supports disengagement from
and relinquishment of that script while mediating the de-scripting and disengagement
and the unfolding via a steady patient intentional articulation of an
alternative/counter script that opens the actual, self−becoming,
self−development experiencing fully and realizing human flourishing.
While the roots of gentle cynicism may go back a ways for me
(and have ancient roots), my experience in the military between 2003-8 became
an encounter that called for serious engagement and relinquishment from the
dominant script. See “From Soldier to Conscientious Objector” [3]. After more
than eight years Gentle Cynicism” continues to be
a way of moving
through (not stepping away from) tensions where there is a complex array of
easy-to-get-to thin practices, answers and ideals on one side; while on the
other, profound, thick sources of questions and insights that invite persistent
souls toward the way of becoming more fully human. The task is one of becoming
comfortable with doubt, negation and integration via dialectic process knowing
that forms are dynamic and developing in time.
My recent projects practicing gentle cynicism have focused
around how I work and live in the day-to-day, being aware of the challenges
that comes from living in a society that widely turns a blind eye, is ensnared
by the technological craze at the expense of their minds (geist); taking on the dominant story, for they have no story; and
realizing that I need and want to be and stay awake/alive in a way that surmounts
the dark reality expressed by Thomas Merton, and William Stafford.
The flesh
and passions, of themselves, tend to anarchy, being at the mercy of sense
stimulation, and hence responding blindly and automatically to every stimulus
that presents itself . . . the psyche of man struggles in a thousand ways to
silence the secret voice
of anxiety. [4]
If you
don't know the kind of person I am
and I
don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.
For there
is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug
that lets the fragile sequence break
sending
with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming
out to play through the broken dyke.
And as
elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if
one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it
cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.
And so I
appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we
could fool each other, we should consider--
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.
For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the
signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--
should be
clear: the darkness around us is deep. [5]
Why resist in anxious quest the vast,
expanding universe defending our
plans,
imaginations
and desires against the cruel, dark world, when instead we could go with a flow
that overtime unfolds a journey, hidden wholeness, expressions of reality, all infusing
essential substance and knowing within and around our human lives with dignity,
contributing to eudaimonia.
I commit afresh to
the practice of and Society of Gentle Cynics . . .
Touring as a recusant
of hegemonic norms, arrive
a gentle cynic
negating Deus Aderit. [6]
-----------------------
[1] From “How to Think”; e.g., Prophets,
Artist, Poets, Writers, Journalist, Philosophers, Musicians, Theologians
[2] Tim Suttle, “Walter
Brueggemann’s 19 Theses Revisited: A Clarification from Brueggemann Himself”
(4/15/2014);
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/paperbacktheology/2014/04/walter-brueggemanns-19-thesis-revisited-a-clarification-from-brueggemann-himself.html
[4] Thomas Merton, The New Man
[5] William Stafford, “A
Ritual to Read to Each Other”, The
Darkness Around Us Is Deep. New
York: Harper Collins, 1993, 135.
[6] Daniel J. Seifert, the
last stanza of “The Ride” 2012.
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