Nativity and the Miracle of Childbirth

The poet John Keats once referred to the imagination as a "chamber of maiden thought" in which the conceptions of the mind spring to life, manifesting themselves in the same way that a rabbit miraculously jumps out of a magician's hat.

The miracle of dreams, thoughts and ideas, where they come from and how they "pop into" a person's head like a dream or a voice from nowhere, has puzzled people for thousands of years.  Likewise, to mothers as well as brain scientists, the notion that a baby may be conceived and born with a unique and independent personality of its own, a spirit and personality that arrives out of the blue, is a cause for anxiety and endless wonder.

Underlying this anxiety (will my child be a boy or a girl, a demon or an angel, a sad little runt or a powerful world-hero?) lies a secret: No one really knows where all of these children, their minds, personalities and spirits are coming from.   Explain it away as biology and chemistry if you want to, but any mother can tell you that you've missed the point if you think the birth of her child is simply a routine process of organic chemistry.

It's a miracle.

Nature has only one trick, but it's a good one.  Peakaboo!  People appear from nowhere (birth) and they disappear to nowhere (death) and nobody seems to have a very convincing explanation for why this is happening or how this is possible. 

Cynics delight in pointing out that the Christian tradition of celebrating the Nativity of Christ is nothing but a fairytale told to little children, much in the manner of a bedtime story full of make-believe characters (Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, the three wisemen who follow a shining star, and, perhaps, as the playwright Christopher Durang has suggested, a camel named Misty.)

Mythologers affirm that many elements in the Nativity story are borrowed from the myths of Horus, Dionysus, Mithra and Krishna.  According to legend, Horus, Dionysus, Mithra and Krishna were sun-gods and world-saviors born on or near the winter soltice (December 21), born in a dark cave or stable surrounded by animals (the animal characters of the Zodiac) and visited by shepherds or wise men.  It's interesting to note that on December 24 the three stars in the belt of Orion (called "the three kings") align themselves with the star Sirius (the brightest star in the East) and point to the place on the horizon where the Sun will rise on December 25. These story elements originate with ancient astronomy, ancient star lore, and the worship of sun gods, not Christianity.

Historians, meanwhile, assure us that the commercialized forms of Christmas ritual we practice today have nothing to do with historical Christianity.  See, for example, the History Channel series of videos on the history of Christmas, which note that Christmas trees and Santa Claus were adopted from the Yuletide traditions of Scandinavia.  The Catholic Church has adopted these and many other pagan symbols during its 2,000 year history, with the result that the modern practice of Christmas has precious little to do with ancient Christian beliefs. The Dead Sea Scrolls constantly amaze people by refusing to mention smoothe jazz, reindeer or Santa Claus.  There is nary an eggnog or a Starbucks employee in a funny Christmas hat to be found among any of the ancient scrolls.

Economists agree the modern practice of pigging out on consumer goods one day of the year, December 25, has nothing to do with Christianity.  It's not about prophecy.  It's about profit.  Those who give more than they get at Christmas (charity) have mortally sinned against the Gospel of Greed, which commands us to make a profit and pray to Santa that we will get more than we give.

Evidently Christmas has become a perverse and tinsel-covered hash of the original nativity story found in the gospels of Matthew and Luke.  Many are understandably bitter about this fact.  This is a season when the worshippers of Mammon and Moloch mask their greed and the cold, cutthroat calculus of profit with a colorful but tissue-thin veneer of charity, and by doing so for only one day a year they seem to be giving themselves permission to behave with brutal indifference toward humanity the remaining 364.

As a lie told to little children and a hollow mockery of true Christian charity, the commercial version of Christmas sold at department stores deserves to be bashed. What the cynical Christmas-bashers miss, however, is the universal truth that got lost among all of this tinsel and wrapping paper: The miracle of childbirth.

Childbirth and the miraculous manifestation of new life in the world remain a mystery. The magic of a baby's grasp around one's finger and the breathtaking joy of gazing into the eyes of a newborn child remain every bit as powerful and amazing now in the year 2011 A.D. as they were 2,000 years ago.

Those who have grown old, cynical, tired or bitterly disappointed by the degraded form of commercialized Christmas practiced in our day, need to look back at the original fairytale of Christmas and ask themselves a simple question:  Were our ancestors really so stupid, when they invented this bedtime story for children?

As with many fairytales told by a clever writer, there is a second (hidden) meaning behind the innocent (literal) meaning. This hidden story speaks not only to the imagination of children, but also to the hearts of wise and world-weary adults. At the heart of the Christmas nativity story lies an ancient and archetypal symbol: A child held in its mother's arms.

Those who do not understand the love and hope behind this image have a great deal to learn.

Walking on Water

Image Source: PS Ministry Blog (Plain and Simple Bible Reading)


Earth, Wind, Fire and Water, the four elements of nature, represent the natural limitations of mortal beings, the hard-core elements that any spiritual person must understand, respect and master if they are to exercise mind over matter and rise above the limits of the physical world.

Among these elements, the element of Water seemed especially magical to ancient philosophers, and water still fascinates scientists today. We now understand that water is not a single element but a combination of hydrogen and oxygen (H2O). Nevertheless, it's amazing stuff because it can take three forms: solid (ice), liquid (stream) or gas (steam). With gravity, it falls to Earth, yet with the heat of the Sun's fire it can evaporate, defy gravity and ride on the wind to heaven.

Clearly there is something very special about water that allows it to transform or transfigure itself, and it seems to be absolutely essential to life and the life-spirit. Without water one dies very quickly!

We are not surprised, then, to find in today's Biblical readings the theme of transfiguration mixed with references to the four elements. We begin with 1 Kings 19, an Old Testament reference to the prophet Elijah's mystical experience on Mount Horeb, where he encounters three of the elements (wind, earthquake, and fire).

Elijah discovers that the Lord (the master and giver of life) is not in the wind, not in the earthquake, not in the fire. Where then are we to conclude that the Lord resides?

In the New Testament reading that follows (Matthew 14:22-23) we find (surprise!) the miracle of Christ walking on the water. Having just performed the miracle of the feeding of the 5000, Jesus dimisses the crowd and climbs a mountain to pray. The disciples, meanwhile, pile into their boat and sail a few miles from shore, where they are tempest-tossed by waves because the wind is against them.

Later that night, after the fourth watch, they are startled to see Jesus walking across the water towards them.

Peter gets out of the boat, walks a few steps toward Christ, but becomes frightened and falls in. The disciples are so impressed by Christ's mastery of the element of water, that they declare "Truly you are the Son of God!"

To this day, Ninja warriors and martial artists like those in the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon consider the sign of a superior man (hsien) to be self-discipline and physical training so rigorous and excellent that they seem to fly through the air and walk upon water.

The clear implication is that, through faith, one can strengthen one's body, mind and spirit to the point where the mind and spirit really do dominate nature and the elements. But one must have an extremely strong discipline and faith in the power of mind over matter!

"Oh you of little faith!" says the Christ to Peter, when the disciple Peter sinks into the water and calls for help. "Why did you doubt?"

For some amusing examples of modern-day disciplinarians and doubters trying to walk on water, see the following YouTube videos:

Walk on Water (Liquid Mountaineering). Strangely, trying to run on water has become a popular and a genuinely fun sport of self-discipline. Wearing wet suits and waterproof shoes, athletes learn that if you get a running start at a cold mountain lake and follow an oblique curve, moving your feet very quickly like a stone skimming the water, you can actually stay on the water's surface for more than a dozen strides. But you mustn't think about sinking -- "just go for it!"

Mythbusters - Walking on Water. Jamie uses corn starch with blue food coloring to create a non-Newtonian fluid (goo) that has enough viscosity and surface tension to allow Adam to run across the surface. When Adam's feet hit the surface of the goo, they temporarily creates enough surface tension to make it act like a solid. Jamie and Adam cannot imagine any other way to walk on water. Therefore they illogically conclude that it can't be done unless the water contains lots of blue, gooey corn starch. They don't believe in God or miracles (the power of mind over matter) and conclude the Myth is busted.

Oh ye of little faith! Why do you doubt?

Via Dolorosa - The Stations of the Cross

Above: The first two Stations of the Cross, Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Paris

Praying the Stations of the Cross during the Lenten season is a very ancient tradition. Indeed many churches and cathedrals throughout the world have lined their walls with statuary and stained-glass windows that serve as prayer stations for precisely this purpose. At each station, the penitent Christian pauses, gazes upward and reflects upon the many sufferings endured by the Christ as He walked on the "way of sorrow" to His death. This Lenten tradition has been formalized, but still takes on a wondrous variety of expressions.

For an excellent illustration of the traditional stations, see this Stations of the Cross slideshow, found at Flickr.com. It provides prayers and images for each of the 14 stations that line the walls of St. Francis of Assisi Church in Sacramento, CA.

A video version of the traditional prayers, with images from Mel Gibson's 2004 film "The Passion of the Christ" may be found here.

Note - The images in this video are very bloody and gruesome. They may not be appropriate for sensitive people and young children. For those with doubts, the slideshow is recommended.

Sacred Heart

Photo: Stained glass window, Sacred Heart Church, Georgetown, CT

What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard,

and what has not entered the human heart,

what God has prepared for those who love him,

this God has revealed to us through the Spirit.

For the Spirit scrutinizes everything, even the depths of God.

1 Corinthians 2:6-10

A Wikipedia article on Catholic devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus may be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_Heart

Promises of the Sacred Heart

1. I will give them all the graces necessary for their state of life.

2. I will give peace in their families.

3. I will console them in their troubles.

4. I will be their refuge in life and especially in death.

5. I will abundantly bless all their undertakings.

6. Sinners shall find in my Heart the source and infinite ocean of mercy.

7. Tepid souls shall become fervent.

8. Fervent souls shall rise speedily to great perfection.

9. I will bless those places wherein the image of My Sacred Heart shall be exposed and venerated.

10. I will give to priests the power to touch the most hardened hearts.

11. Persons who propagate this devotion shall have their names eternally written in my Heart.

12. In the excess of the mercy of my Heart, I promise you that my all powerful love will grant to all those who will receive Communion on the First Fridays, for nine consecutive months, the grace of final repentance: they will not die in my displeasure, nor without receiving the sacraments; and my Heart will be their secure refuge in that last hour.

Maya (Illusion) in Hindu Philosophy

In the last post, we considered the problem of infinity, also known as the "continuum problem." If the world is made up of many, many, many small particles (an infinite number of atoms) that are somehow all separated by space, then what is it that unifies the world? What makes the world a continuous, solid, unified whole?

Put into mathematical terms by George Cantor, the father of set theory, the question is how many points can be counted on a simple line, AB, in Euclidean space.

Because a single point is defined, in geometry, as having no height, no width, and no depth, the answer is paradoxical and extremely counter-intuitive: A simple line that begins at point A and ends at point B may contain an infinite and unlimited number of points between the two end points.

By that very fact, every segment of the line AB also contains, within the smaller subset, an infinite number of points between the two endpoints of the segment. Like its Father (the line AB or BA), the Son (a baby segment of the whole) can be infinite.

But how, wondered George Cantor, can there be such a thing as a small infinity within a larger infinity? Wouldn't this make the Father (big line) and Son (little line) identical? Beginning with these questions, Cantor developed his theories of infinite and well-ordered sets -- infinite sets that differ in order, kind and magnitude, as if baby infinities could somehow be held and embraced by mother infinities.

Magnificat: The Lord Doth Magnify My Soul

When the continuum problem is put into purely human terms, the paradox becomes a very real problem of perceiving and assigning social values. Can we really judge a human's value based on the category or "set" it belongs to?

How can one say that the life of one human being is infinitely valuable, while the life that belongs to another category or set of human beings is somehow "expendable"? Is the life of a poor carpenter's son worth less then the life of a King? Are they not both part of the very same set -- the set of all human life? Why distinguish between the small set of one's own family and the much greater set that is the family of the human race?

Why not treat all strangers as friends?

.

Maya and Mary

In her puzzling and paradoxical nature, the Blessed Virgin Mary is very similar to the Hindu goddess Maya, the goddess of Illusion who veils the reality of the Hindu god Brahman. The following article on Maya, taken from Wikipedia, certainly gives one food for thought:

"In Advaita Vedanta philosophy, Maya is the limited, purely physical and mental reality in which our everyday consciousness has become entangled. Maya is held to be an illusion, a veiling of the true unitary Self -- the Cosmic Spirit also known as Brahman . . . .

"Many philosophies and religions seek to 'pierce the veil' of Maya in order to glimpse the transcendent truth from which the illusion of a physical reality springs, drawing from the idea that first came to life in the Hindu stream of Vedanta.

"Maya is . . . the appearance of phenomena. Since Brahman is the only truth, Maya is true but not the truth, the difference being that the truth is the truth forever while what [appears to be] true is only true for now."

In other words, Maya is the world of sensory perception, the world as it appears to our minds and our senses rather than the world as it actually is. As a goddess of appearances she might be called false, or deceptive, but in fact she is being absolutely honest and true. The error lies in our own minds and our own perceptions -- we have not seen her rightly.

The Mystery of the Aleph: Mathematics, the Kabbalah, and the Human Mind

Author: Amir Aczel

The Mystery of the Aleph: Mathematics, the Kabbalah, and the Human Mind

New York: Basic Books, 2000.

Amazon.com Book Review

by Gregory McNamee

Source: http://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Aleph-Mathematics-Kabbalah-Human/dp/156858105X

"The search for infinity, that sublime and barely comprehensible mystery, has exercised both mathematicians and theologians over many generations. Jewish mystics, in particular, labored with elaborate numerological schema to imagine the pure nothingness of infinity, while scientists such as Galileo, the great astronomer, and George Cantor, the inventor of modern set theory (as well as a gifted Shakespearean scholar), brought their training to bear on the unimaginable infinitude of numbers and of space, seeking the key to the universe.

"In this sometimes technical but always accessible narrative, Amir Aczel, author of the spirited study Fermat's Last Theorem, contemplates such matters as the Greek philosopher Zeno's several paradoxes; the curious careers of defrocked priests, (literal) mad scientists, and sober scholars whose work helped untangle some of those paradoxes; and the conundrums that modern mathematics has substituted for the puzzles of yore.

"To negotiate some of those enigmas requires a belief not unlike faith, Aczel hints, noting, 'We may find it hard to believe that an elegant and seemingly very simple system of numbers and operations such as addition and multiplication -- elements so intuitive that children learn them at school -- should be fraught with holes and logical hurdles.'

"Hard to believe, indeed.

"Aczel's book makes for a fine and fun exercise in brain-stretching, while providing a learned survey of the regions where science and religion meet."

One and Many

Title: The One and The Many

Author: Richard Hooker

Source: http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/GLOSSARY/ONEMANY.HTM

"All human cultures in some way have to deal with accounting for the myriad of objects and phenomena surrounding them. We live in a world of infinite objects that are constantly changing, yet even in this imposing world of objects and change, there seems to be an underlying unity and stability.

For instance, every human being begins as an infant and then grows into an adult. Every adult is a different object than they were as an infant -- in fact, they are unrecognizable as being the same object. Yet we recognize that they are the same object, that something has remained the same even though the infant has changed into an object that is nowhere close to its original state.

Likewise a corpse is nothing like the original living human being, but we still recognize that something has remained constant.

We can see the same stability and constancy even across objects. While the world is full of trees, there is still some constancy and stability to "treeness" which never seems to change.

This observation of the world of phenomena leads many cultures to believe that the infinity of things and their changes can ultimately be related back to a single object, material, or idea. The problem of finding the one thing that lies behind all things in the universe is called the problem of the one and the many.

Basically stated, the problem of the one and the many begins from the assumption that the universe is one thing. Because it is one thing, there must be one, unifying aspect behind everything. This aspect could be material, such as water, or air, or atoms. It could be an idea, such as a number or "mind." It could be divine, such as the Christian concept of God or the Chinese concept of Shang-ti, the "Lord on High."

The problem, of course, is figuring out what that one, unifying idea is.

Philosophy in the Western world begins with this question; the earliest Greek philosophers mainly concerned themselves with this question.

As a result, the problem of the one and the many still dominates Western concepts of the universe, including modern physics, which has set for itself the goal of finding the theory that will "unify" (unify means "make into one thing") the laws of physics.

In China, the one thing that unifies the universe is the tai chi, or Great Ultimate. The Great Ultimate is divided into two opposite forces (yang and yin) and five material agents. Beyond this, the Great Ultimate is undefined. In Taoism, the "way" or Tao contitutes this Great Ultimate; it is equally undefined."