The Spiritual Dilution of Showing Off

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There’s a religious cycle I see regularly. Someone who’s a Christian, almost inevitably of an Evangelical variety, does some extremely public preaching, often to the inconvenience of others (say, on an airplane). People discussing them inevitably invoke the Bible, Matthew 6:5-6 (give or take):

5. And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

(King James version, naturally)

I’ve seen this quote bought up many times over the decades and never thought about it too much. It’s advice against being a preening asshole and showoff, and hey, good enough for me. These people who supposedly know their Bible might want a refresher course and to also leave us alone.

However the latest round of this inevitable evangelism-leads-to-bible-quoting (a woman annoying people on an airplane) got me thinking. I’d gotten so used to this cycle, but in this case I got thinking about it more deeply. I suspect my own spiritual studies and contemplations of media had me in the right headspace to ask “why is this so important?”

Now I’m all for Jesus’ injunction against showing off spiritual practice. I mean I’m all for public rituals and shared spiritual spaces and the like, those have their place. But also that warning against being some big public religions showoff seemed so obvious I never analyzed it.

So I got to thinking about it. I also didn’t have to think much to realize that such a warning is actually pretty good for people of any religious persuasion. Yes, that includes atheists.

When you’re busy showing off your religious beliefs, really putting on the show for maximum exposure, it’s not about your religious beliefs. It’s about showing off, it’s about being noticed, it’s about whatever agenda you have. You’ve turned serious practice into marketing and influence-chasing.

When you’re in private in your spiritual practice, whatever it is, it’s focusing on the actual practice. The temptations to embellish, to show off, etc. are minimized. But when you’re alone, or maybe in a small group, you’re focused on what you’re supposedly actually trying to do.

When you’re running around in public engaging in aggressive religious behavior then it’s not focused on the supposed goals. It’s just showing off and has nothing to do with deeper beliefs. An emphasis on publicity inevitably leads to hypocrisy, and that’s not good for you or your (possibly unhappy) audience.

If you are actually sincere in your religious beliefs, you risk deadening them (and pissing people off). If you’re not sincere you’re just going to get worse and are probably avoiding the therapy you so desperately need.

I think this also extends, honestly, to public preaching in some cases. At my campus we used to have preachers show up in public space. But know what? They used public space, they kept to their own areas, I can respect that. They weren’t trapping someone on a plane or a bus.

Religious displays need to be approached with caution. You can end up turning your deep beliefs into a performance, and loose that spiritual connection to what you believe.

Also you’re probably being an asshole. But that goes without saying.

–Xenofact

The Adventure Of Enthusiasm

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I want you to follow that thread of enthusiasm.

When I was a teenager, I read Huston Smith’s “The Religions of Man.” That was my introduction to Taoism (and to Huston Smith’s biases). Years later I read the Tao Te Ching, and several analyses, and knew there was something there. Later I discovered more documents translated by Thomas Cleary, and got into both the deeper philosophies and Taoist mystical practices. Then I kept going.

I discovered other authors – Wong, Roth, and more. I read more books on Taoism, both on techniques but also religion and history. I began to get a greater sense of Chinese history and culture.

Early Taoist writings often contained arguments with Confucians. So I read the Analects, and discovered Confucius and his crew weren’t quite the sticklers you’d assume from Taoists and honestly some historical Confucians.. I read the Mencius and found him a charming fellow. My understanding of Chinese history and culture deepened.

Then as the Internet Age continued, I realized I this piecemeal knowledge of Chinese history involved printing and writing, and that meant it might help me understand the impact of communication changes. I took up reading about the early age of print in China, and found it to provide excellent parallels to the internet age. The evolution of language, disruption of systems, decrying pornography, new opportunities – history in China held echoes of today.

Of course through out this I also took an interest in the history of China as a bureaucracy. I’m a Project Manager and I kept finding people like myself – organized weirdoes – throughout Chinese history. I even found China arguably had the first ever management magazine for professionals, printed on silk, a story I still share to remind people folks like me have always been here.

Then, realizing I knew so little while talking to a friend who did traditional Chinese arts, I read Sabrina Knight’s “Chinese Literature,” from the Very Short Introductions series. That filled in a number of gaps in my knowledge and understanding of China, connecting the elements I had to something much larger. It also introduced me to even more interesting historical figures and works to read.

Who knows what I’ll learn next? I’ve even considered getting a B.A. degree just to do it.

I followed one thread in my teenage years on and it led me to mystics and bureaucrats, printing presses and imperial records, and to a deeper understanding of myself and humanity. In fact because of my Taoist interests, this very column wouldn’t exist without me picking up a book in the family library and reading on.

I want to exhort you to follow the threads of your interests. You never know where they’ll lead, so see what happens. You’ll enjoy yourself, you’ll connect ideas, you’ll get an intimate understanding of some part of the world.

-Xenofact

The Tiny Men Who Can’t Solve Anything

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Last column I wrote about how in our spiritual journeys, opening up to others is part of the path, that somehow by being smaller we become big, how we become more human and more divine by wanting the same for others. I’d like to talk about the opposite in painful and obvious detail.

So let’s cut to the chase. The racists, sexists, and bigot grifters that bedevil us make themselves and others smaller.

It seems we’re currently beset by a bunch of public bigots, Influencers of hatred, high on something beyond their own supply (probably ketamine or uppers) who are so ready to declare themselves superior. Their culture is superior (even as it churns out the same slop). Their genes are superior (they say from the position of luck). They are superior and they must fight the bad people (who look different and think different and also don’t send them money).

So thus the real thing is to fight the bad people, who somehow often seem to be the poor, immigrants, and various minorities. They’re the threat. Sometimes the bigots will invoke ANOTHER group to blame them for the threat. And by that I mean, 90% of the time, that eternal scapegoat – Jewish people. These bigots say we must fight the bad guys to preserve our culture, and by that they mean hate people and revive old bigotries.

But what is the culture of these small and angry bigots? A washed out Disney-meets-fascism version of real history. It’s often someones modern idea of the 1950’s idea of the 1800’s idea of the past. They’re preserving an image of an image of an image so many layers deep Guy Debord and Jean Baudrillard would utterly shit themselves if they saw it.

There’s no growth to these haters’ idea of culture. it’s all about a replica of an imagined replica. It’s all about going back, not going forward or even going at all. It’s destructive, it’s isolating, and it’s not real – nor was it ever.

And thus there’s no real culture for these bigots except a simulacra of a simulacra. Burdened with hate, lashing out at easy targets, they’re constantly attacking others verbally if not physically. Their entire existence is attack for the purpose of nothing but a temporary high.

As they go on, unsatisfied, they only get more angry. Ultima Thule, Atlantis, the City on a Hill will never come because they can’t build. They will never have the illusinary genetic purity they crave for some reason because they’ll find reason to attack anyone as that’s all they have. Eternally unsatisfied, the Hungry Ghosts of Buddhism armed with bats and guns, making bad AI memes.

They are so very small and making themselves smaller.

They cannot develop a better society as they are trying to go back to an illusion. They can’t become larger people because they are cutting off the world, the people in it, and thus cutting off themselves. They think they are getting larger, but they are becoming so very, very small behind their walls. You’d almost pity them, perhaps you do – but it’s hard as they’re both so stupid and so vicious.

They’re spending so much time cutting off parts of the world they’re cutting off parts of themselves.

They could be larger, they could expand, they could grow, they could evolve. They could walk into this diverse world and be part of it. They could become smaller and thus become larger. But instead they try to be large and mutilate their souls, becoming so very, truly small.

–Xenofact