"The Theology of Fear"

.
Yesterday, I found myself reading the first few pages of Emmett Coyne's "The Theology of Fear" (the stupid link won't go to the "first pages" but they're there) as offered on the Internet by book-seller Amazon. Coyne is a longtime Roman Catholic priest who has, as the title of his book suggests, put his money where his mouth is and challenged the institution to which he belongs.

The book reached the Catholic hierarchy in lickety-split time and, as Coyne noted elsewhere, "The turnaround time was swifter than a pedophilia complaint." Coyne has a command performance on Oct. 26 with his 'superiors.' Anyone with two brain cells to rub together can imagine the likely content of that meeting.

Well, if you stick your finger in a beehive, you can't imagine that outpourings of honey will be the result.

I read the Amazon dollop of Coyne's book despite the fact that, in general, A. I don't do books any more and B. I especially don't do books about theology which strikes me as a discipline that proves only that human beings are wont to travel West in a determined and  heart-rending search for what is in the East.

But...

Emmet and I came into email conversations a few days ago after I read a column about his book. I carry no brief for or against the institutions of Christianity though I have been critical of what I consider its flaws in the past. But I readily admit to carrying a torch for anyone, of any spiritual or human persuasion, who has actually tried out and dug deep into whatever his or her theology can prattle on about. Two-bit believers like two-bit atheists don't press my buzzers. But those who have forsaken the saddle and mounted the horse ... well, it may be insane, but it's my kind of insanity. My kind of insanity and my kind of courage.

Emmet's argument, to do it an over-simplified injustice, is that the Roman Catholic Church has fallen victim to its own over-dressed and self-anointing public relations and the result is that those who love God or love Jesus have been hung out to dry. The message has been lost among messengers who are damned if they are going to cop to their own apostasy.

Yes, I will read the book, contrary to my own inclinations, when I get the money to buy one. But I will read it because it is about a man, a human being -- someone who has loved and then come to the irreducible conclusion that that love was spurned and/or manipulated. This is no small matter. A life-long intimacy has been cast aside in favor of a one-night stand. What does a man do with a lifelong love that he can no longer accept and yet simultaneously cannot escape?

All of the above is a long-winded introduction to a line from "The Theology of Fear"  that popped off the Internet page at me ... a line that anyone might do well to heed. That line, describing the role and stature of the Roman Catholic Priest was this:

"Ordination underscores the uniqueness of a priest in the Church. He is a man set apart." (Emphasis added).

In various sects of Zen Buddhism, a part of the practice can include the study of koans, those intellectually-insoluble riddles that throw the intellectual and emotional mind into disarray. Common examples include such things as "what is the sound of one hand clapping," "what did I look like before my parents were born," or "what is this?" Formally, there are sometimes said to be 1,700 such koans. But as I have said before, it beggars my mind to think that anyone might make such things up and then enshrine them when a plain old life -- irrespective of prattling theologies or 'spiritual' leanings -- make them as plain as the nose on anyone's face.

"He is a man set apart." This is well and truly a mind-fucker, as delicious as it is painful.

The pop artist Andy Warhol was credited with suggesting that sooner or later everyone will experience "fifteen minutes of fame."  And which one of us hasn't yearned for such a time -- a time when our meanings and beliefs and actions would be acknowledged from without as they are lovingly acknowledged from within? Ahhhhh ... finally, someone understands me and is willing to anoint me as I have anointed myself! I am unique and worthy and acknowledged as such. Gimme, gimme, gimme! I may not want to lord it over anyone else (although of course I may), but I'd like the kudos just once ... for maybe 15 minutes. A man apart.

And not only do I wish it on myself, I also insist on it in others. Hollywood stars, spiritual teachers, saints and sinners from every elevated walk of life. They are my shining stars or despicable devils ... these are men and women apart in my mind. Deeeeelicious and bringing my life into focus.

OK ... there's the yummy part.

And then along come the whispers of doubt, perhaps in the person of 'spiritual' teachers asserting we are all connected, we are all one, we are united and deserve to treat each other that way ... unique and beloved and part of some well-lubricated 'oneness.' And perhaps in the face of such suggestions, or perhaps at the suggestion of life-experience itself, there is some effort to grow a little (or a lot) of something described as "humility," to pull on the reins of my longing for "15 minutes of fame" and get with some clearer and less self-absorbed outlook.

A man set apart? No way, Jose! Group Hugs R Us.

What to do? What to do? On the one hand I am unique and on the other hand I am not unique. The mind reels as it tries to maintain two such opposite notions. The querulous 'egalitarian' insists that "every man puts on his trousers one leg at a time" while simultaneously demanding that the emperors of this mind wear eye-catching new clothes. A koan beyond any bookshelf laden with koans.

And of course there are those who never even think about such things.

Koans are aimed at taking the student outside the intellectual and emotional box. Or, more appropriately, to an understanding that there never was a box in the first place. There is no philosophy or theology or religion that can do this. Their answers are limited... pointing, perhaps, encouraging, perhaps, wise perhaps ... but full of Shakespeare's "sound and fury signifying nothing." Only a (wo)man can answer the koan of the "man set apart." If there were a 'right' answer, it would be inherently in error.

A man set apart.

When the deliciousness has passed and the painfulness has past, who is s/he?

Don't blame me if you can't stop laughing.
.