Who Am I?

Original Sin 4 – Karma

Posted: February 25th, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Original Sin | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Original Sin 4 – Karma

Although not directly related to the topic of original sin, I think it’s important to briefly touch upon the framework of karma as I explore the ways I interacted with the idea of inherited guilt in my personal journey. Before my turn toward Christianity, the primary lens through which I interpreted and made sense of reality was largely karmic in nature.

Karma is often caricatured in Christian discussion as a lens which is fatalistic, deterministic, or pessimistic. But that’s not really the case. While it is nuanced differently in different settings and traditions, the karmic tapestry is rich and multivalenced. There are different ways to categorize karma according to time, priority of effect, or function. While karma plays a part in determining your present position, it is not the only force at work and beings are not bound or limited by their karma.

Within a karmic perception of reality, every birth is conditioned (though rarely solely) by the karma of the past life. However, this is different from the idea of inherited guilt in several important ways. First, it is not “guilt” or “innocence” in a juridical sense. Instead, your karma consists of the accumulated weight and causal effect of your past attitudes, decisions, and actions. There is no external judge rendering a verdict in the system. Moreover, though the karma of your parents can physically condition circumstances of  your birth (a healthy mother, for instance, is more likely to give birth to a healthy baby than an unhealthy mother), your karma is your own, is specifically separate from that of your parents, and is not bound by their karma.

When compared to that system, a framework that posits inherited guilt before an external deity with determined condemnation on that basis alone looks … shallow and capricious. I was not particularly willing to exchange a framework with which I was comfortable for an inferior one, yet I was undeniably attracted to this Jesus of Nazareth.

While the percentage of people who formally adhere to an Eastern religion remains low in the United States, I think many people underestimate the extent to which that mindset has influenced our present culture. That influence will only deepen over time. While a proper Christian perspective of reality, of a good God who loves mankind, of a Lord who joins his nature with ours in order to rescue us from death provides, I think, a superior view of reality to the far Eastern one, much of what is espoused as Christian today does not. And this is one of the places where it does not at all. I’m sure that was a factor in my initial reaction against the Western doctrine of original sin.


St. Valentine’s Day

Posted: February 14th, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Personal | Tags: , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Today, of course, is Valentine’s Day, one of the modern Hallmark days for celebrating romantic love. I thought I would reflect on it a bit, both in general, and in my own personal experience.

There seem to have been at least three martyrs named Valentine in the early church. There is not a great deal known about any of them, but what little is known is easy to find online. There is a romantic story that one of them was a priest who performed marriages illegally against the wishes of Emperor Claudius II, but that’s simply a legend. As I’ve explored elsewhere, Christian priests didn’t perform any sort of marriage ceremony until after the Church became the official religion of the Empire.

None of the feast days for the three St. Valentines are on February 14, either. That day seems to have become significant in medieval Europe because it was considered to be the day on which the birds began to pair up with mates. Romance in the Middle Ages was not quite what it is today.

Now, of course, it’s a highly commercialized holiday that many men fear screwing up more than with any anticipation. I’ve never really been one of those sorts of men, but I have grown tired at times of the relentless commercial and unrealistic messages with which we are all bombarded at this time of the year.

Our first Valentine’s Day after we were married, my wife and I were embroiled in the medical care and custody battle for my older son. It was something that dominated many of the early years of our marriage and continued to one extent or another perhaps even up to the present.

Going out for Valentine’s was out of the question and we had little money. So I bought what I could at the grocery store and turned it into the best late night feast and celebration that I could.

The following Valentine’s Day, we added a newborn and so the whirlwind of life continued. We’ve maintained our little tradition through it all to this day. Sometimes now I can afford to be more extravagant with the ingredients than I could those early years. And the “late night” dinner has crept earlier and earlier over time. Traditions are good, I think. They become imbued with meaning and with remembrance. They tie together the years.

Anyone else have any Valentine’s Day traditions?