August 30, 2009
Dear People Whom God Loves,
DANGER OF BEING LEFT OR RIGHT
Here are my thoughts about the thinking of Charles Peguy as found in the book A Secular Age by Charles Taylor.
Peguy was deeply traditional and deeply creative. He drove both the left and the right crazy. He also maintained connections with both and excluded no one.
He saw tradition as essential. He would not neglect the past. At the same time, he saw it encrusted in certain forms, rules, and codes. He believed that it was important to get behind the encrustation and see the spirit that the encrustation both hid and revealed.
He saw the danger of the right as trying to go back to the encrusted form. He saw the danger of the left, in their creativity, as dismissing the whole past. He also saw that even when the left’s creativity did a good job, the good thinking would inevitably get encrusted into certain forms, rules, and codes. He saw that this was inevitable because we are human.
I see a catch 22 in this. If the best thinking and ideas are not in some way institutionalized, they will be lost. But as soon as they become institutionalized, they begin to be distorted. For example. Without the church, the message and mission of Jesus would likely have been lost. At the same time, the message and mission of Jesus would be distorted. An example is that our church turned “heretics” over to the state to be killed. My own belief is that the Love we name God will work through all of our distortions to bring us to love.
Here is an example of being traditional and creative. I use images of God. The transformation of the image of God from king, judge, rewarder, and punisher to love that continually helps us and challenges us on the painful, difficult journey of growing spiritually.
The danger on the right is to cling to the old image even as the old image helps fewer and fewer people. The danger on the left is to discard belief in God because the old image doesn’t work anymore.
Being traditional and creative is extremely difficult for us. I believe that it is an essential goal for us.
Smile, God Loves You,
Father Clay
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