Who are my mother and my brothers?
I'm still reading that book by Jesuit Paul Coutinho, How Big Is Your God?. It reminds me of books by William A Barry SJ, perhaps because they're both Jesuits, but I like Fr. Barry's books more, so far, I think because though a lot of their ideas are the same, they're presented more starkly in Fr. Coutinho's book. Here's an example from Chapter 9, Do You Have a Living Relationship with God, or Are You Just Practicing Religion? ......
***********************
Here is a little test to determine whether you have a living relationship with God or you just practice religion: Imagine yourself as a passenger on the Titanic, and it is sinking. Then see yourself in a lifeboat all by yourself, safe and secure. Around your lifeboat are little children struggling to stay afloat. You can reach out to them and save them all. But a little off in the distance are your loved ones - your father, your mother, your brothers and sisters, your children perhaps, maybe your spouse or the love of your life. If you do not try to reach out to them, they will all certainly drown and die. Unfortunately, you cannot save both the children and your loved ones. Who would you save?
Now, if you save the children who are physically closer to you and painfully watch your loved ones die, you have the compassion that comes from a deep relationship with the Divine. Your God is an infinite God connecting and unifying all. Who is my father, my mother, my brothers and sisters? Everyone is. And if you reach out to your loved ones because they have supported you and cared for you and you have a relationship with them of mutual dedication and commitment of some kind, this is good, but you practice charity that comes from religion and has the self as motivation. This act of charity is good, but we need to strive to attain the ideal of compassion ...
*******************************
There are passages in the gospels that seem to support this take. Here's one of them ..... And his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting about him; and they said to him, "Your mother and your brothers are outside, asking for you." And he answered, "Who are my mother and my brothers?" And looking around on those who sat about him, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother." (Mark 3:31-35)
But I'll never make a good Christian because I don't think I could save others while watching my loved ones die. I'd probably be so conflicted I'd be immobilized and would watch everyone else die while I chewed my nails. I tried to imagine what a really "good" person would do, or at least what a good person in the movies would do :) If this was Die Hard # 5, I think Bruce Willis' character would manage to find a way to save them all, thus resolving the conflict, and I like that idea.
The way Fr. Coutinho's Titanic scenario is set up, it is, at least to me, a no-win situation. I think for Fr. Coutinho, though, it is not ..... for him, one wins when one saves the children, because one person is just like another, interchangeable and of equal value, when you have a living relationship with God. I think he's wrong. It's not that I think some people are more valuable than others, but I thnk love is complicated ..... or maybe that's just what I want to believe because I can't do what's requird.
***********************
Here is a little test to determine whether you have a living relationship with God or you just practice religion: Imagine yourself as a passenger on the Titanic, and it is sinking. Then see yourself in a lifeboat all by yourself, safe and secure. Around your lifeboat are little children struggling to stay afloat. You can reach out to them and save them all. But a little off in the distance are your loved ones - your father, your mother, your brothers and sisters, your children perhaps, maybe your spouse or the love of your life. If you do not try to reach out to them, they will all certainly drown and die. Unfortunately, you cannot save both the children and your loved ones. Who would you save?
Now, if you save the children who are physically closer to you and painfully watch your loved ones die, you have the compassion that comes from a deep relationship with the Divine. Your God is an infinite God connecting and unifying all. Who is my father, my mother, my brothers and sisters? Everyone is. And if you reach out to your loved ones because they have supported you and cared for you and you have a relationship with them of mutual dedication and commitment of some kind, this is good, but you practice charity that comes from religion and has the self as motivation. This act of charity is good, but we need to strive to attain the ideal of compassion ...
*******************************
There are passages in the gospels that seem to support this take. Here's one of them ..... And his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting about him; and they said to him, "Your mother and your brothers are outside, asking for you." And he answered, "Who are my mother and my brothers?" And looking around on those who sat about him, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother." (Mark 3:31-35)
But I'll never make a good Christian because I don't think I could save others while watching my loved ones die. I'd probably be so conflicted I'd be immobilized and would watch everyone else die while I chewed my nails. I tried to imagine what a really "good" person would do, or at least what a good person in the movies would do :) If this was Die Hard # 5, I think Bruce Willis' character would manage to find a way to save them all, thus resolving the conflict, and I like that idea.
The way Fr. Coutinho's Titanic scenario is set up, it is, at least to me, a no-win situation. I think for Fr. Coutinho, though, it is not ..... for him, one wins when one saves the children, because one person is just like another, interchangeable and of equal value, when you have a living relationship with God. I think he's wrong. It's not that I think some people are more valuable than others, but I thnk love is complicated ..... or maybe that's just what I want to believe because I can't do what's requird.
posted by crystal | 2:40 PM
5 Comments:
Hrmm. I think Fr.Coutinho is setting the bar a little too high there for mere human beings, don't you?
I see what he's trying to put across, I do, but I think he's putting forth a rather impossible scenario in a "test" he has no right to give. We all might be very surprised at what we'd do in such a situation. It may turn out to be entirely different from what we think we'd do sitting in the comfort of our own rooms. Is this a case where a celibate cleric may be speaking a bit too much of what he knows little about?
William Barry, though. :)
Jeff,
Yeah, William Barry. Still jealous of you meeting him :)
Fr. Couinho became a Jeauit when he was 17, so you may have something there.
This exercise is a welcomed escape from the news of the stock market crash of today and the ongoing election.
I know I would fail this "living relationship with God" test if I were to ever find myself in a position where I had to choose between saving my loved ones and saving strangers. I would save my loved ones, but I would certainly try to do a Bruce Willis and look for a way to save everyone.
I have some questions about this scenario. Why is it that children are the ones who surround the lifeboat? Why not a mixed group of human beings some old, some middle aged, and some young? Or another combination of human beings perhaps with some who are homely and unappealing in other ways?
And why can't a person be just as compassionate toward loved ones as she is toward strangers? Does the bond we have with another person mean that we can not possibly have true compassion toward that person? Is it only with strangers that we can have true, selfless compassion?
Can it be said that a person in such a lifeboat scenario who chooses to save the nearby children rather than her loved ones off in the distance is absolutely NOT motivated by the self? I wonder how much spiritual pride might drive a person to choose to save strangers rather than her own loved ones.
In the end, I acknowledge that I am a spiritual flop and that it is only through the grace of God that I have any kind of relationship with him. I give him all the credit for any good that is in me.
Thanks for this post, Crystal.
Hi SusieQ,
I think all your questions are really good ones and you're not a spiritual flop! :)
My sister asked the same thing - why are the people around the boat children? Some people seem to have the idea that children are more valuable than others, whther because of their supposed innocence or because they have more ahead of them to be lost, but I think all people have the same inherent worth, regardless of age, appearance, moral goodness, productivity, etc. It's like he's setting up a situation that will elicit a certain response. I wonder if I'm spiritually doomed if I prefer the morals of Bruce Willis's Die Hard character to those of a Jesuit :)
I signed up to read this book for an online book group, and they gave us the book for free, so I feel obligated to read it and send in my comments, but I'm kind of disappointed in it. Maybe it will get better as I go along.
"...and you're not a spiritual flop!" Okay, maybe I was being a little too humble there. :-)
"I wonder if I'm spiritually doomed if I prefer the morals of Bruce Willis's Die Hard character to those of a Jesuit :)"
The Die Hard character could be a moral diamond in the rough. God works in mysterious ways and with the strangest of angels.
As always, I enjoy your writing.
Post a Comment
<< Home