Post 132. jmj
 
Love as a verb, is the fundamental mystery of Christian metaphysics—loving is the source of all that exists, material and immaterial, and why we experience life as time. We love people in time. Sometimes it's love at first sight, in that moment it takes our eyes to communicate an image to our brains. If we're lucky, love grows over years and decades, such as in marriage. God is Love (1 John 4:8) is the reason Christians emphasize the importance of relationships. To love requires a lover, a beloved, and loving itself—the Trinity. One loves, one receives the gift of love, and one is the loving in action. Christian love involves dwelling within the other. This can be seen as comparable to the popular expression to walk a mile in another’s shoes. This dwelling, however, is deeper. It is compassion (compassio), a serious and thoughtful sorrow and sensitivity for another’s suffering[i]—“I will betroth you to me ... with loyalty and with compassion” (Hosea 2:19 NABRE). Because loving imitates, for the Christian, the loving of God, love is self-sacrificing. Trinity above and below. Loving is selfless, but it also gives us oft-unexpected pleasure. Teaching is this way too—we give ourselves for the sake of each student’s joy, welfare, and learning, and unexpectedly and ineffably we receive. What, then, is this indescribable pleasure we obtain?

Pleasure—the manifestation of pleasant joy and delight—can be identified at the heart of loving relationships. Lewis makes a distinction between two types of pleasure, which he called “Need-pleasures” and “Pleasure of Appreciation.”[i] He uses drinking water to characterize pleasures that arise from desire. When people need water, we feel thirst, and then drinking water becomes pleasurable. When we are extremely thirsty, our need and pleasure are deeper; more intense. When our thirst is quenched, we cease to experience pleasure in drinking more water. We stop. In contrast, gifted pleasures, such as if we are given a glass of wine when we are thirsty, occur unsolicited. We welcome this pleasure, the delightful taste, and enjoyable feelings. However, many people become addicted to pleasures of appreciation, and addiction transmutes gifted pleasures into need-pleasures. The second type of pleasure is changed into the first. To use musicking to exemplify, we may hear a new genre at a coffee house or be introduced to a new singer by a friend. What a gift! Liking something which is at this point ineffable about this new music, we listen to it ardently over the next few days. With time, we gradually make sense of the indefinable elements of this new music, and it becomes familiar—like teaching yourself to understanding Rioja when you had previously only imbibed Chianti. We might spend many hours submerged in our earphones, and even become drunk in this new music, injuring relationships in our single-minded determination to appreciate this new music. We find ways to incorporate this new music into our morning routine, our drive to work, our daily jog, and evening rest. Eventually, we find we can’t enjoy eating breakfast, the sunrise on our morning drive, moving our bodies in exercise, or even reclining after our day’s labor without this music. It has transformed from appreciation to need. 

When Mary was told she would give birth to the messiah, she couldn't have known what it would mean to hold the infant, to feed him, to teach him. When responding yes to the dream sent by God, Joseph couldn't have known what it would mean to take his young family into hiding in Egypt, and to return to an unknown rural town, Nazareth, to care for his family. To teach the child a trade, even knowing his calling was to be the messiah; that the learned trade would only be temporary. There is sacrifice and pleasure in loving relationships. If music teaching is a loving relationship, a pedagogy of love, then there is sacrifice and pleasure.

DS

[i] Link: https://www.etymonline.com/word/compassion
[i] C.S. Lewis. The four loves (New York: HarperCollins, 1960), 15.
Link to image: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pierced_heart_using_sword.jpg

Post 131.

The Eager Seeger Half Marathon is a mountain race offered by the Tussey Mountainback Ultramarathon. I ran it in June, last month. In the second mile I ran into a bear. A large bear came out of the woods in front of me, to the right. He stopped and looked at me. I told him to move on, and he casually walked into the woods on the left. I was grateful, but I was terrified. I could not move on of my own accord. I was there for some minutes, unable to see the bear in the woods. It could be right there, waiting to pounce. Or it could have moved on. No amount of logicking could make my feet move. Out of nowhere, an angel of the Lord came up behind me. I did not see her but there she was. Brave when I was scared. And she walked with me past this spot where I last saw this bear. She got me past it. The bear is not what I ought to follow but the angel is. After walking with me for a few minutes, she jogged on—much swifter of foot than I.

            I am no great mystic like Hildegard of Bingen or Theresa of Avila or John of the Cross. My visions are seldom some great and direct arrow to the pure light of God’s radiance—my interior castles are decaying temples in the woods, overgrown with moss. But I am a mystic, however limited in ability. When I woke this morning, I felt a longing to re-enter the spiritual realm—the first time in a while. I have abundant command of logic, but I also have a spiritual yearning. Unexplainable, and undismissible. It’s more than merely immaterial in the way the great transcendentals of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty are immaterial. Those are large, and difficult for me to symbolize. I realize Boethius experienced Wisdom in his jail cell—so I guess we can add him to the list of great mystics who I am less than. My experiences with the spiritual realm feel lesser, realer, smaller, and more personal. Perhaps this means my experiences are not meant for the whole of the world—in which case I shouldn’t be publishing today’s reflection. But perhaps there can be some use for somebody reading this post. As the Little Flower said, there is the big way of the Big Theresa, with her interior castle, and then there is a little way.

            Entering the spiritual realm this morning, at 3AM, I experienced quick flashes of images from previous spiritual encounters ... the tree of life, my bear guide, the dirt road in the woods, the overgrown mossy temple beneath the trees, the fallen angel, the bear. The bear was the spirit guide when I explored these things in the early 2000s, when I made a study of shamanism. The black bear guided me through the tree of life and down into caverns and eventually to find the fallen angel. I was not the fallen angel—unalike acknowledging unalike I suspected the power to destroy the material universe with his voice—and what restricted him doing it? I have no such power. When I speak, not much happens directly or immediately. To my flawed ears, people seldom seem to listen to me, and I feel weak. I feel unsureness. But I do also appreciate that my words take like roots, which you don’t perceive are growing, but which hold strong after they have taken and can weather frightful weather. It was like this with eco-literate music pedagogy. Roots slowly embracing my profession, and ultimately collectively holding it. I guess this is the weak path of roots.

            In my weakness, to return to today’s vision, struggling vines propagated over me, slimy and muscular, squeezing me beneath them, and I was powerless to breathe freely. They writhed. I took a deep breath and reminded myself that I am the light. I received the light from the source of all light, the Creator, the Lord, the God of all realms, material and spiritual. I tried, with my light, to escape, but I could not. I saw the bear and followed it into the mountain of the half marathon—those distinctive mountains of Rothrock—real, actual, and not general and spiritual. I followed the bear there, and as it travelled into the woods, I went to follow it, but remembered my way was the small road up the mountain.

            When I was there last month, I could not of my own power move on. I began video recording, but ultimately deleted that, because of its fear. Because of my fear. I did not want to post my inadequacy on YouTube. I carried a rosary on my wrist, and a medal to St. Joseph, who fathered God on the material realm. The eternal Beloved was also the actual beloved of Joseph, who held him as an infant, instructed him as a boy, played with him, laughed with him, and cried with him. Joseph explained the world to Jesus as he comprehended it. Joseph embodies the terror of demons in tradition and stands at the turn of the material and spiritual realms, having that very real material encounter with the spiritual Creator of all.

            Again, I could not move on of my own accord, and even though I had my phone recording and there’s no reason I could not see her, a woman walked up behind me unseen. Where I was terrified, she was brave. When I told her of the bear right there, she wasn’t petrified like I was. Her movement permitted my movement. Her walking, my walking. Her calmness, my mobility. And I was able to go on, in fear. My fear did not go away. I was terrified but no longer petrified. Fear lessened throughout the event, as I ran for hours after, in the woods—mostly alone.

            Lord God, what ought I remember from this—the encounter in the wild mountains last month, and the encounter in the spiritual realm today? You have sent your angel to me. I must remember—put the members together—I am light, because your Love is light and eternal.

            In the beginning You, eternal Parent, Loved the eternal Child. You Loved Him when He was an infant, and when he was a child, and a teenager. You Love Him when He became an adult, and when He worked as a carpenter, when He preached, and when He was killed. What I experience, He also did—the terrifying bear in the wilderness, the help of angels, the writhing vines. The guides. Kind recognizing kind, and unkind recognizing unkind.

            Lord, I am not a great mystic, but to deny my mystical encounters and yearnings is to deny a part of myself—the way You made me. Did you make all people with this mystic side? If so, why do so many people ignore it? Why can I go weeks discounting these experiences? Noah listened. Joseph dreamed—and followed that dream in Egypt. Daniel interpreted and bravely faced lions. Do others experience this, and dismiss these occasions? What happens in our life when we make commonplace dismissing this whole part of ourselves? Lord, God, help us. Forgive us. Send us your angels. Guide us. Give us light in the darkness. Shelter us.

            In a Springtime reflection another mystic, Thomas Merton wrote: “When warmth comes again to the sea of Tritons of spring shall wake. Life shall wake underground and under sea. The fields will laugh, the woods will be drunk with flowers of rebellion, the night will make every fool sing in his sleep, and the morning will make him stand up in the sun and cover himself with water and with light” (When the Trees Say Nothing, p. 67). I, a Summertime creature, adore the warmth, and the underground life of roots and the mystery of the depths of seas, wherein whales sing their still songs, I hear the fields laugh, and stand in harmony with flowers in rebellion. At night I awaken from sleep singing, and anticipate the sun’s rising, when I can wash my face and go outside to cover myself with the Lord’s light.

DS

Link to Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jasper-Bear-Hunt-2.jpg

Post 130. 

Reflecting on a Christian Woman Killed by Police in her Home
 
This morning I woke up dreaming about my brother, Joseph Shevock, Jr, who died a couple of years ago, ostensibly of an overdose. I said a prayer for him, and then memory turned to a friend of mine from my youth, Rodney Litzinger, who died in 1989 when he was 17. According to rumors he was either drunk driving or speeding or both. Rumors always lay blame where none is helpful. Rodney was a little older than me, and that summer Rodney had stopped hanging out at the Patton Pool, where we spent time together, in the same group of friends. He was impetuous. As the saying goes, people either liked him or not. The term White trash is used, especially by wealthy White Americans, to stigmatize the lives of poor folk, labeling them as inferior, uncultivated, and waste. A simile is the word cracker, which emphasizes how poor people are loud, immodest, and irritating. While my friend Rodney has a picture and memorial on the internet, my brother Joe does not. Both terms, White trash and cracker describes not only myself—I deduce one of the reasons I was not ever able to sniff a tenure-line in higher education was my lingering poverty—but also my dead kin and friends. I stand in harmony with you brothers. In the richest country the world has ever known, we poor linger.
 
For me, my disadvantaged upbringing, having to grapple for leftovers in a family of nine, became a benefit. God will do these things. Transfer our weaknesses into strengths. I taught for eleven years in the Pittsburgh Public Schools and related to the poor Black, White, Asian, and Middle Eastern students I taught. I was able to thrive in schools other teachers bolted from. Waste is waste—like invites like. We live in a culture that cheapens the lives of waste people, regardless of race. Today, I teach in a Middle School in the fourth poorest county in Pennsylvania—I attended college in the 9th poorest county, and grew up in Patton, which has a median family income of $35,473, which contrasts with Cambria County’s median of $50,900 Clinton County’s median family income of $50,055. The culture treats poor people as trash, their lives as disposable, their needs dispensable. And police are most likely to use deadly force in America’s poor neighborhoods.[i] Waste is waste, but many White poor do not personify solidarity with Black poor.
 
Which brings me to the moment when I opened my phone to YouTube this morning; the algorithm shared the recently released bodycam footage of Sonya Massey’s killing by police in her home.[ii] She called police to report a potential intruder. The video starts with Massey sitting on the floor talking with a police officer while his partner is looking around the house. He asks for her ID, which she cannot find. She asks for her bible, and he tells her to take a pot of boiling water off the oven. She walks into the kitchen, a good distance from the police officer, and they keep talking. She picks up the pot and walks toward the sink and the police officer shouts something about shooting her in her [anti-Christian word] face. He then follows through with her threat immediately after. She invoked Jesus’s name before being killed. I prayed for Sondra. Whatever he problems, this didn’t need to happen. Her life was treated as trash and wasted, thrown away by this culture—not only in the moment of the killing by this diabolical police officer who could only respond to the invoked name of Jesus with vicious cruelty, but by every structure of our culture—police forces, schools, factories, hospitals. Every structure dehumanizes the human poor. But we poor do not want disestablishment, as if we should be taxed but not have police protection—we need reform, retraining, and change in the institution. Is that even possible when people don’t even see the problem? Has Satan distorted our vision?
 
In the 1990s and early 2000s, I trained students in karate, and trained a few people who entered police forces and the military. When the Tamir Rice killing occurred in 2014, I showed one of those friends, who was then a police officer, the footage of the police officers driving up to this kid playing with a toy gun and, without fully getting out of their police car, shot to kill. We were seeing two different things. Now, his failing wasn’t a Christian failing because he’s an agnostic. But he we were seeing two different videos. He shortly thereafter stopped talking to me (through Facebook Messenger) because I saw my own son, then an infant, in Tamir’s body, and he saw only a perpetrator that needed to be put down. He was later upset that I wasn’t there for him during his divorce, which I didn’t know about, and I’ve seen him once since then—I drove down there, and he hasn’t visited me here, even when he travelled back home to Pennsylvania.
 
When Jerusalem was devastated by the Babylonian civilization and most of the people were taken, the prophet Jeremiah instructed:
 
          Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their fruits. Take wives and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may bear sons and daughters. Increase there; do not decrease. Seek the welfare of the city to which I have exiled you; pray for it to the Lord, for upon its welfare your own depends. (Jeremiah 29:5-7 NABRE)
 
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3 NABRE) and “Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours” (Luke 6:20 NABRE). Also there’s a popular Christian song, You Are My Country, performed by Gable Price and friends & Kristene DiMarco, which contains the repeated chorus: “Can we tell the Kingdom from the kingdom where we lay our head down at night?” Here in the U.S. Christians are exiles, whether we have lived here for generations or are recent immigrants. To answer You Are My Country’s question, those of us who are poor (Luke 6:20) or are breathing in unity with the poor, becoming ourselves poor in spirit (Matthew 5:3), the Kingdom is not the nation where we lay our heads down at night. It is God’s kingdom—and sometimes the best we can do is invoke the name of our God and leave our immortal welfare to His divine Will.
 
The U.S. Catholic Church, where I belong, has several anti-racist statements it has promulgated over the years.[iii] For instance, a 1958 document, Discrimination and Christian Conscience, identifies the core of racism is religious. “If our attitude is governed by the great Christian law of love of neighbor and respect for his rights, then we can work out harmoniously techniques for making legal, educational, economic and social adjustments. But if our hearts are poisoned by hatred, or even indifference toward the welfare and rights of our fellow men, then our nation faces a grave internal crisis.” The Catholic Church is the largest charitable organization in the world, and by far the largest Christian denomination. And yet, here we are facing this grave internal crisis, because our legal, education, economic, and social institutions have persisted in being institutions of hate, and not love.
 
In another document on the USCCB website is The Catholic Church and the Black Lives Matter Movement. The document recognizes the 3 million African-American Catholics, and “This means that many White Catholics in certain states and in rural communities have virtually no contact with African-American Catholics. Many of them only experience the Black Lives Matter Movement indirectly by way of the media.”[iv] This document recognizes that many young Black Catholics seen the church as in “allegiance” with “White privilege.” “Members of the Black Lives Matter Movement see the Church as a complex bureaucracy tied to the status quo and unwilling and unable to ‘speak truth to power’.” This documents then takes asides into issues of abortion and Black-on-Black crime. “Black Lives Matter supporters argue that the high homicide rates in impoverished Black neighborhoods is fed, in part, by the structural racism that has been in place for generations since the Great Migration, maintaining segregated neighborhoods, inadequate housing, dreadful public schools, and bleak employment opportunities.” This section ends with a recommendation for background checks and screening for guns, care for those with mental health needs, and greater monitoring of violent offenders.
 
In this document, the bishop interviews a priest involved in Black Lives Matter. The interviewee responds to the question if the Church as an institution believes Black lives matter. “Even though they would be unlikely to use the expression Black Lives Matter because of unfamiliarity with it or because of certain ideas associated with it, I do believe that many people at every level of the Church have a desire to purify the Church of bias, prejudice, and discrimination. Nevertheless, we have a very long way to go.” Finally, the document ends with this sentence: “We must PRAY, LISTEN, LEARN, THINK, and ACT in such a way that all people everywhere will know that we truly believe that Black lives matter precisely because all lives matter!” (Emphasis in original).
 
Ultimately then, in today’s long post, we see there’s a fact of poverty not being enough of a reason for solidarity between poor groups of people, likely because our institutions have failed to teach that solidarity. Often it seems they keep power through division. Historically, since 1676, Bacon’s Rebellion, when the rich saw poor Whites and Blacks stand together against them, a concerted effort has been made to miseducate poor so they appreciate racial identity more than class. Poor Blacks are taught, by schools, Left-leaning politicians, and media organizations, that poor Whites, through politics personified by billionaire Donald Trump, hate poor Blacks and are the problem. After all, in a culture that views White trash as rubbish, they are an easy scapegoat and receptor of blame. And poor Whites are taught, by schools, Right-leaning politicians, and media organizations, the felonious poor Blacks need to be incarcerated for the good of their nation. But this teaching—and my Catholic Church’s participation in it to the extent that we participate in it—is not Christian, because we are a people in exile. We cannot put our hope in the U.S. or in schools, or in MSNBC, or in Fox News, or in Donald Trump or Kamala Harris. Ours, instead of this nation, these schools, this media, and this nation, is the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:3; Luke 6:20). We should pray for this nation and its institution, but they are not ours. We are exiles. We must genuinely oppose any diabolical forces in our Church that suggest we hope in the kingdom where we lay our head down at night, rather than the kingdom of God. To bring the kingdom of God to earth means to dwell with the poor.

DS


[i] Francie Diep. “Police are most likely to use deadly force in poorer, more highly segregated neighborhoods.” Pacific Standard (January 24, 2019). https://psmag.com/news/police-are-most-likely-to-use-deadly-force-in-poorer-more-highly-segregated-neighborhoods .

[ii] John O’Connor. “Bodycam video reveals chaotic scene of deputy fatally shooting Sonya Massey, who called 911 for help.” The Associated Press (July 22, 2024). https://apnews.com/article/illinois-police-shooting-911-murder-7a1b433183933ca94f266c0f90753a33

[iii] United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. “Combating Racism – Statements and Letters” https://www.usccb.org/committees/ad-hoc-committee-against-racism/combatting-racism-statements-and-letters

[iv] Edward K. Braxton. “The Catholic Church and The Black Lives Matter Movement: The Racial Divide in the United States Revisited” (2015). https://www.diobelle.org/documents/diocese/bishop/290-racial-divide-revisited/file

Post 129.

This morning I am playing around with ChatGPT 3.5, which is the free version of the app. I am doing this because 1. 8th grade guitar students introduced me to ChatGPT during class and 2., I'm currently working on a paper with a new friend, Jacob Holster, on AI models and conviviality. I decided to prompt ChatGPT 3.5, which is the free version, to create a debate on Beauty, Love, and the Trinity between Gregory of Nyssa, Irenaeus of Lyon, Jerome, and Origen, Hildegard of Bingen, Francis of Assisi, Thomas Berry, Leonardo Boff, Thich Nhat Hanh and Gandhi. The first four figures are well-known Church Fathers; the next two are medieval Christians, Thomas Berry was a 20th Century ecotheologian, Leonardo Boff a liberation theologian, Thich Nhat Hanh and Gandhi are non-Christians who have written about Christ from their traditions. After the debate I had them create a join doctrinal statement, which is interesting enough to copy and paste here:


Doctrinal Statement on Beauty, Love, and the Trinity

1. Beauty: We affirm that beauty reflects the glory of God's creation and reveals His divine attributes (Psalm 19:1; Psalm 27:4). It encompasses the goodness and harmony inherent in God's design, drawing us to contemplate His majesty and creative power.
2. Love: Love is foundational to God's nature and is exemplified in His selfless sacrifice through Jesus Christ (John 3:16; 1 John 4:8-10). The Trinity—the Father's love sending the Son, and the Spirit empowering love—demonstrates divine relational love extended to humanity.
3. The Trinity: We affirm the Trinity as the central mystery of our faith, where God exists eternally as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in perfect unity and love (Matthew 28:19; 2 Corinthians 13:14). This triune nature invites us into communion with God and each other.
4. Integration of Perspectives: Following the insights of Church Fathers and spiritual leaders, we recognize beauty as an expression of God's wisdom and order (Genesis 1:31; Ecclesiastes 3:11), love as the transformative power that reconciles and heals (1 Corinthians 13:4-7), and the Trinity as the model of relational unity and diversity within the Godhead.
5. Ecological and Ethical Dimensions: Inspired by biblical principles and spiritual teachings, we affirm beauty in God's creation and our responsibility to steward it (Psalm 104:24; Genesis 1:26-28), love as the commandment to love God and our neighbors (Matthew 22:37-39), and the Trinity as the source of unity and harmony in all relationships (Ephesians 4:4-6).
6. Practical Implications: This doctrinal understanding compels us to live out our faith by appreciating and preserving beauty, showing love through compassionate actions (Micah 6:8; Colossians 3:14), and fostering unity and peace as reflections of the Triune God's character (Romans 15:5-6).
7. Conclusion: In embracing this doctrinal statement on Beauty, Love, and the Trinity, we commit to glorifying God through our reverence for His creation, our demonstration of His love, and our pursuit of unity in Christ. May our lives reflect the beauty, love, and unity of the Triune God, bringing transformation and renewal to the world according to His will (1 Corinthians 10:31; Ephesians 4:1-3).
   
   

Next, I asked ChatGPT to define Beauty in relation to the Trinity and Love, based on the previous debate and doctrinal statement.

1. Beauty in the Trinity: Beauty within the Trinity is the harmonious relationship and perfect unity among the three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is the exquisite interplay of mutual love, self-giving, and divine communion that defines the essence of God. The Trinity reflects the ultimate standard of beauty, where each person of the Godhead delights in the others in a relationship of perfect love and unity (John 17:24-26; Ephesians 1:3-14).
2. Beauty in Love: Love, as demonstrated within the Trinity, is foundational to its beauty. The Father loves the Son, the Son loves the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from this love. This love is not merely affection but a self-giving, sacrificial love that seeks the good of the other. The beauty of love within the Trinity is seen in its completeness, purity, and eternality—without rivalry or selfishness (John 15:9-10; 1 John 4:7-12).

In summary, within the context of the Trinity and love, beauty is the perfect unity and self-giving love that characterize the relationship among the three persons of God. This divine beauty invites humanity into communion with God and inspires us to reflect similar qualities of unity, sacrificial love, and harmony in our relationships with others and with creation.
 
DS

Link to image: Nature Beauty:  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nature_beauty_4.jpg

Post 128.

Elizabeth Johnson is a Catholic sister, and a feminist theologian, who taught at Fordham University. Her books are used extensively in theology classes, including her 2007 book, Quest for the Living God, which was later criticized and disqualified from use in Catholic institutions by the United State Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Doctrine.[i] She works widely to gain for women greater influence in the church, including criticizing the male-only priesthood, and centers the experiences of Latinos, the poor, and people of other religions. She encourages the use of more feminine images of God.

For Johnson, Because God is a trinity--koinonia meaning community—and this understanding transforms everything for the Christian. “The symbol of God represents what the community takes to be its highest good, its most profound truth, its most appealing beauty.”[ii] Beauty is one thing that is transformed by this communal understanding of God as loving relationship. This trinitarian awareness emerges at a deep level, more than merely logical, but also heartfelt and instinctive. Loving relationship is the maximum good, motivating communities' responses to the mystery of the trinity, and inspiring the challenging of social and ecological injustices: “the trinitarian mystery of God actually empower[s] relationships of mutuality, equality, and inclusiveness among persons and between human beings and the earth.”[iii] Partaking in the trinitarian mystery of love is the purpose of all created beings.
 
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;
my spirit rejoices in God my savior.
For he has looked upon his handmaid’s lowliness;
behold, from now on will all ages call me blessed.
The Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
His mercy is from age to age
to those who fear him.
He has shown might with his arm,
dispersed the arrogant of mind and heart. 
He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones
but lifted up the lowly.
The hungry he has filled with good things;
the rich he has sent away empty.
He has helped Israel his servant,
remembering his mercy,
according to his promise to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever. (Luke 1:46-55 NABRE)
 
Johnson specifies Mary’s Magnificat as an expression of the triune God of relationships that offers “not dominating power but the power of love that seeks and saves in order to shape all into a new community of sisters and brothers, connected in kinship with the earth.”[iv]

As music teachers, the beauty we highlight in classrooms must also be the beauty of merciful relationships, dissolving arrogance, and decentering the powerful to elevate the lowly. As my friend Vince[v] might say, it would be better to center country music than classical, hip-hop over the baroque, folk music over sonata. For me, whichever genres we include in classroom music, we need to cultivate love for each other and earth.
 
DS

 
Link to Image: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Virgin_of_Guadalupe_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

[i] Paul Vitello. “After bishops attack book, gauging bounds of debate.” The New York Times (April 11, 2011). Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/12/nyregion/12fordham.html

[ii] Elizabeth A. Johnson. “Trinity: To let the symbol sing again.” Theology Today 54, no. 3 (1997), 300.

[iii] Johnson, 300.

[iv] Johnson, 308.

[v] See Vincent C. Bates. “Critical social class theory for music education.” International Journal of Education & the Arts 18, no. 7 (2017), 1-24. Link: http://www.ijea.org/v18n7/v18n7.pdf

Post 127.

Last month, after finishing my school year as a middle school general music teacher, I flew out to Victoria, British Columbia to present my philosophical research; Music Education ... A Religion?

I recorded it on my GoPro, and for those of you who like to experience research by listening to it, here you go (in 4 parts):

DS

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Trinity, Praxis, Beauty
Post 126.
 
Habitually, in modern-day ecological writing, the 13th Century Christian Saint Francis of Assisi is appealed to, due to his interrelational understanding of scripture, nature, and human existence. Even non-intellectuals know enough to place statues of this beloved saint in their front yards to indicate their care for Mother Earth. The dynamic things of nature, which we encounter superficially or intensely every day, and that we in the 21st Century have transfigured into dead objects to be examined but not encountered—wind-gusts, meadows, mountains, ponds, anthills, forest fires, boulders, thunder, beaches, and creeks—lived for Francis. Each encounter with these things was an opportunity for meeting family. Each animal, large or small, was also a brother or sister to be encountered too. But more than 400-years into the twin scientific and industrial revolutions, we have also transformed our living non-human brothers and sisters into objects, dead things. We have done this for so long we are unsurprised, though sometimes briefly incensed, when we hear another news story of baboons being dissected for research,[1] dolphins chock full of our discarded plastics,[2] polluted water for the latest superfluous tool,[3] or countless species losing their homes for a new suburban plot in the Global North,[4] often while exurbs decay, or to provide grazing land for ill-used cows in the rainforests of the Global South.[5] All because we want ever more. More what? Development? Progress? Stuff in which we’re already drowning? Another unconvivial tool?
 
Should it be surprising, then, that we feel feeble in the face of dehumanization? Children are transmogrified into objects by computerized curricula and testing regimes. The homeless, created and sustained by God, become objects we step over, avoid, and ignore. People we encounter every day, even ones we claim to respect, become means for an end for us—not opportunities for encounter, but for profit and our own economic prospects. The dissect ourselves from others, transfixing our eyes on smartphone screens and restrict our ears with air pods. Do we, dazed by the twin revolutions for science and industry, even realize we are alive? Do we understand we will die?
 
Contrasting with the bellowing scientific and industrial revolutions, within each of us dwells a persistent voice pushed to the backs of our minds. Francis and the Bible appeal for humble, satisfied encounters with others, not as objects but as creation, which we ourselves are also. “For we brought nothing into the world, just as we shall not be able to take anything out of it” (1 Tim 6: 7 NABRE). Human and non-human creation is, in the Franciscan cosmology, something to be encountered. Where have we, Christians, gone wrong?
 
As a music teacher, I aim to understand one of the foremost Christian transcendentals within the context of the triune God—the trinity. In many ways, my day job as a music teacher is about living, sharing, and uncovering Beauty. Because the trinity is, from before time, loving relationship, Christians are called to understand Beauty as action—Beautying. In Music Education philosophy, this position has been called praxialism, in opposition to the aesthetic philosophical stances that are more Platonic and treat artworks as objects fossilized and out-there.
 
Just as the Father loves the Son, and their love, the Holy Spirit, is shared with us in our everyday encounters, Beautying is a gift of that triune God, and understanding it as an imprint of the relational deity helps us better understand the nature of God and ourselves—who we are called to be, interrelational with creation. As such this I propose more than an aesthetic analysis of Beauty, the ossified Platonic conception of transcendentals as light, which many Christians have adopted over the Christian mystery of the relationship; but a praxial analysis of Beautying—beauty as action between intending creatures, a verb. Transcendental Beauty, from a trinitarian perspective, is a verb just as God is the transcendent verb, Love.
 
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.[6]
 
This prayer, written in the spirit of St. Francis draws us to an active sense of God, intimately involved in our lived relationships. This God, who would have us sow love, pardon, faith, hope, light, and joy cannot be reflected in a type of fixed Beauty of forms, where Plato’s cave-prisoner escapes to bask in a frozen “God.” That God that consoles, understands, loves, gives, and pardons is not represented well by that solitary idea of Beauty—the beauty experienced by the belly-gazing concert-goer listening, undisturbed, to a long-dead genius in a $100 million concert hall. The triune God disturbs us. This is the God that died on the cross—the ultimate action of Beauty as perfect, active, sublime Loving.
 
DS
 
Image link: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Clover_bee_(20291778764).jpg

Endnotes:
 
[1] Brianna Bailey. “OU’s baboon breeding program is ending, but the animals will still be bred for medical research.” The Frontier (March 13, 2019). Link: https://www.readfrontier.org/stories/ous-baboon-breeding-program-is-ending-but-the-animals-will-stil/

[2] Robyn White. “Whales and dolphins are now partly made of plastic: Study.” Newsweek (August 11, 2023). Link: https://www.newsweek.com/whale-dolphin-plastic-study-1819201

[3] Cindy Gordon. “AI is accelerating the loss of our scarcest natural resource: Water.” Forbes (February 25, 2024). Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/cindygordon/2024/02/25/ai-is-accelerating-the-loss-of-our-scarcest-natural-resource-water/

[4] “Biodiversity: State of habitats and species.” European Environment Agency (June 24, 2024). Link: https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/topics/in-depth/biodiversity

[5] Seth Millstein. “Explainer: Agriculture affects deforestation much more than people realize.” Sentient Climate (May 8, 2024). Link: https://sentientmedia.org/how-does-agriculture-cause-deforestation/

[6] Link: https://www.loyolapress.com/catholic-resources/prayer/traditional-catholic-prayers/saints-prayers/peace-prayer-of-saint-francis/

Post 125.
 
I am a window radiating the light of the sun. Over years I have been scuffed, cracked, shattered, and repaired many times over. The daylight shining through me is not as clear as it might have been when I was new. To gaze into a baby’s eyes is to savor, simply, the beatific glow of God. But this is how the Lord, the creator of all material and immaterial realities, intended us to be. Love is relationship, and our relationships, duties, and commitments toward one another wound us. All relationships with others do. And God’s very name is Love. As beams of light dance through my flaws, illuminating this room imperfectly, creating unexpected rainbows, shadows, hope, and traces of clarity, I begin with the very beginning.

From nothing, a tone. In the beginning “God said”[i] creation into existence. In the first artistic act, God sang all matter and time, all life, and finally, human life with its material and spiritual existence, and put them in an idiosyncratic position as both stewards and co-creators. Humans were formed to work and play in the garden, “to cultivate and care for it,”[ii] to eat, and create beauty from their innocence, in free cooperation with their creator. This first song of creation lasted six days, and on the seventh, the Lord rested. Then the Lord intoned, “very good.”[iii] But, without having original sin themselves, Adam and Eve fell from this state of grace. With them, all creation fell, including their creative work. Beautiful things became toil. Burden. People envied, injured, and killed one another and damaged creation. Much philosophy begins, in some way, by looking bravely at toil, burden, and suffering. These broken things are an inescapable reality, an abyss that philosophers bravely face and scrutinize. However, while recognizing these gloomy realities, Christian philosophers are called to begin from a more optimistic position—not the cracks, but the dancing of the light. God is Love.
 
Endnotes:
[i] Gen 1:3 NABRE, emphasis added.
[ii] Gen 2:15 NABRE.
[iii] Gen 1:31 NABRE.
Image (Markers & Highlighter): Wounded Window, Glowing by Daniel J. Shevock, 2024

The Garden is a Graveyard 

There are lessons of life and death to learn in the garden. I think perhaps this is the reason why God set men and women to gardening (Gen 2:15). Plants put their roots into the soil, and when those plants die, the roots are fed on by various forms of life, and provide aeration for the soil, where water can feed the next season’s growth. The insects, worms, and fungi who live in the soil also die, their bodies becoming nutrients for future generations. Understood from one angle, living soil is a graveyard. Centuries upon centuries of death build the soil and make it fertile.

The Garden is a Playground 

But the garden is also a playground. Insects and birds dance among the yellow, white, purple, and red flowers, and insects wrestle below. The gardener watches this whole scene, choosing which plants to cultivate, which ones to remove. The steward. In the summer, the garden flourishes, and offers gardener and insect alike nourishment for the body and soul. But then winter comes, and the garden is covered with snow for a season. But even then, it is a place of life beneath the soil. Cover crops hold roots below the soil, where larvae wriggle and grow.

Folk who garden tend to live longer lives, with less of it in a state of end-life disability. The "Blue Zones," which are areas around the globe which have the largest number of centenarians, people who live to 100, are full of elder gardeners. Gardening improves mood, provides physical exercise, and offers healthy food. I think, also, that garden offers us a chance to confront our mortality. 

DS

Post 123.
 
In ecological news, prescribed burns, which benefit many species and reduce wildfire threats, also spread a weed named stinknet. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/05/230523123834.htm Stinknet provides a lovely, recently well-recognized wildflower across the Southwestern United States, especially in California and the Sonoran Desert bioregion. Stinknet first appeared in Tucson in 2015, and since has consumed most of that area. Stinknet is known to cause rashes and headaches, and is especially likely to stimulate asthma attacks. See also this recent news segment: https://www.kold.com/2023/04/05/do-you-have-this-weed-your-yard-experts-say-stinknet-is-causing-major-problems/

            Stinknet was imported to the Phoenix area as a cultured desert habitat specimen, and spread to California via fill material and farming equipment. A major challenge with stinknet is that it crowds out native plants. So, what ought we do with invasive species? Experts are suggesting herbicides, aminopyralid, triclopyr, and glyphosate to control the plant before it has flowered. Among rats, aminopyralid can cause chronic toxicity, effects including enlargement of the intestines and mucous membranes. Dangers of triclopyr include acute toxicity if individuals eat, touch, or inhale residues. Breathing in glyphosate can cause eye and skin irritation. Swallowing it may increase saliva, cause burns in the mouth and throat, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. If, even if in large doses, these herbicides cause negative among humans, it is hard to know all of the ecological consequences, including dangers to specific species living in those ecosystems. For instance, glyphosate predisposes plants to diseases and modify soil microflora. Triclopyr can cause microbial degradation, and is slightly toxic to birds. And in 2020, Aminopyralid’s risks were assessed, which led to increased regulated use of this pesticide. https://www.regulations.gov/document/EPA-HQ-OPP-2013-0749-0048

            Ultimately, like many invasives, we may have to learn to live with stinknet, whether after years of using it as an excuse to further poison our ecosystems, or without the poisonous middle-step we’ve taken for invasive flora and fauna over the last century. What is your opinion? How do you address invasive species through music in your classrooms?
 
DS

Image link: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f7/Oncosiphon_pilulifer_20D_2701.jpg/640px-Oncosiphon_pilulifer_20D_2701.jpg