The Invisible Counterpoint

My qualm, right now, with the political left is that it is so taken over by sexual issues, sexual questions, that we have forgotten the traditional concern of the left was always social class and those at the bottom. And now we’re faced with a pope who is compassionate towards the poor and we want to know his position on abortion. It seems to me that at one point when Pope Francis said, “You know the church has been too preoccupied with those issues, gay marriage and abortion…” at some level the secular left has been too preoccupied with those issues. You’re saying that the church — it’s not exactly Catholics, it’s the church itself, the Vatican — has been obsessed with these questions at the same time the Anglo-American cultural left has been obsessed with these as well. To the exclusion of other important issues? Yes, particularly the very poor.  And it seems to me what the pope doesn’t say when he says we’ve been too preoccupied with these issues is: why? And that ...

The moving force we likely know, but is not worthy of our love The universe, according to Dawkins, was put together randomly--not out of love, or hate, or volition, or disinterest. We find this disconcerting, because we are meaning-craving human beings. What I find strange is that Dawkins isn't more respectful of our need for things to BE beautiful, by which I mean, moved out of true love, not just out of fascinating processes, not just SEEM beautiful--to see in a forest something that is intrinsically spiritual and good, rather than just a marvelously successfully adaptive/adapting manifestation. If everything before us was made without intent--conditions simply lead to changes, formations--then why should it interest us so? That is, Shouldn't we become less interested in the fact of what is out there, now that we know it better, and more interested in how we--as meaning-making, as makers with the potential to create out of empathy, true love--are prone to see/perceive thi...