If the uni­verse responded only to your motives, would you suc­ceed or fail? If it was geared pri­mar­ily to atti­tude rather than actions, what would hap­pen in your life?

For as sec­ondary as those ques­tions appear in our mate­ri­al­is­tic world, they may actu­ally be pri­mary. We think we live in an “objec­tive” world that can be manip­u­lated by sheer will power and deft actions aimed at sur­vival. Why we do what we do is not con­sid­ered a big deal. Whether your sur­geon, lawyer, or other ser­vice provider is a crook or not does not enter into the equa­tion, if he or she can do the job. I have read books on amoral pol­i­tics (the model for this coun­try more than you might real­ize). In the­ory it does not mat­ter about a politician’s per­sonal life. He or she is to be judged only by effectiveness.

In real­ity, we are con­cerned about motives. It seems to make a dif­fer­ence to us if the pro­fes­sion­als work­ing with and for us are of char­ac­ter or have our best inter­ests at heart. What is on paper and what is real­ity are very often two entirely dif­fer­ent things. Politi­cians do fall out of power over per­sonal scan­dals. Uncar­ing med­ical work­ers and other pro­fes­sion­als are sued more fre­quently, even though they are just as com­pe­tent as the ones that seem to care. We seem to care whether or not peo­ple care.

Mys­tics have always believed that the heart has more to do with des­tiny than actions alone. This belief is being born out by some quan­tum physics stud­ies. What we think does indeed seem to radi­ate out into the uni­verse. Whether we call them “vibes” (that chil­dren and pets seem to detect per­fectly) or exten­sions of “force fields” that make up the phys­i­cal uni­verse itself, we must come to grips with motives, imag­i­na­tion, and heart. Jesus treated them as actu­al­i­ties and did not dis­miss them as merely feel­ings. Mind, body, and soul are not sep­a­rate enti­ties but a work­ing inter­ac­tive exten­sion of the phys­i­cal and the meta­phys­i­cal worlds com­bined. As Jesus said, “As a man thinks in his heart so is he.”

I have learned to work first with my motives. They do not con­trol every­thing but they do deter­mine how I will feel and to a very large degree how I will be per­ceived. Bet­ter yet, they may have reper­cus­sions in ways I do not imme­di­ately sense. “Why” may have more to do with “what” than we might esti­mate. There is some­thing almost noble about hon­est mis­takes. Some­times even the best inten­tions are sub­ject to irra­tional forces. Motives may not con­trol imme­di­ate out­comes, but they seem to have a lot to do with ulti­mate destinies.

I have always had a bit of an iden­tity with philo­soph­i­cal roman­ti­cism, as depicted in the late nine­teenth cen­tury. I iden­tify with the lone poet — gaz­ing at the var­i­ous inten­si­ties of nature. Dur­ing a thun­der­storm, I will be at the win­dow watch­ing, rather than at my desk com­plain­ing about the light­ning and what it might do to the com­puter. Then, as now, this phi­los­o­phy is a reac­tion — a bal­ance to a world over-sold on the purely ratio­nal (total ratio­nal­ity can never be fully attained no mat­ter how hard it is asserted). Life is greater than the sum of its parts. Ratio­nal­ism alone is drab. It presents forces and for­mu­las that sug­gest human­ity is merely a spoke in some great wheel. It is thus up to poets and painters to give mean­ing to the great machine uni­verse. What is dis­counted as “reli­gion” finds new form in sci­ence fic­tion. We humans just can­not “live by bread alone.”

Chris­tians are roman­tics. We believe there is more than what meets the eye. Our build­ings are some­times odd, and stained glass con­tin­ues to be the sym­bol of enlight­en­ment — divine light through many facets of ancient and mod­ern expe­ri­ence. Our most pow­er­ful sto­ries are myth­i­cal in nature. In other words, they are sto­ry­lines of inter­ac­tions between the ulti­mate and the finite — God and peo­ple. The sto­ries are grand but gen­tle, sober­ing but silly, hope­ful and prac­ti­cal — all at the same time. Our rit­u­als are about divine con­nec­tion; our wor­ship is art­ful play, as much as a liv­ing ther­apy and an imi­ta­tion of what we believe about the promises and pit­falls of the metaphysical.

I have no doubt that I would be happy being the last roman­tic left on earth if it came to that, for roman­ti­cism is its own reward. It is bet­ter to see life as more than biol­ogy and believe that the sci­ences are bet­ter off point­ing to the mirac­u­lous, rather than cook­ing up pseudo-explanations that ulti­mately give it false lim­i­ta­tions. So far, the sci­ences have described and manip­u­lated a few ele­ments in nature, but have yet to actu­ally explain any of them com­pletely. Obser­va­tion remains as much art as cold fact, for the observer is a human and not a machine.

The ratio­nal has its place. It is an ingre­di­ent in com­mon sense, but it is only one of many needed to make a per­son wise. For me, the roman­tic terms that know no mea­sure are pre­ferred: love, joy, peace, patience, kind­ness, good­ness, gen­tle­ness, faithfulness…a list made by the Apos­tle Paul — him­self a reli­gious roman­tic liv­ing out a vision of his own con­tact with God. Add to these words: beauty, the sub­lime, and the end­less list of terms that describe food, wine, the­ater, art, music, and all that goes with hav­ing an imagination.

“I pre­ferred to embrace life, rather than pick it apart” — the epi­taph of the last romantic…

Hat­ing A makes a per­son blind to self-destructive ten­dency B — which sounds a lit­tle strange but makes a lot of sense when you see it through the eyes of numer­ous reli­gious tra­di­tions and par­a­digms. It is com­mon to abbre­vi­ate the process with terms and catch phrases like: “Karma” or “God is going to get you for that.” In Man Against Him­self, Karl Men­ninger says that there is an uncon­scious need that comes with guilt to pun­ish our­selves. The same idea has been stated in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Pun­ish­ment. The built-in mental/spiritual mech­a­nism works con­sis­tently. Crim­i­nals leave clear trails, due to their inner need to be caught and pun­ished for what they have done. (Check out the “Stu­pid Crim­i­nals” sec­tion of You Tube to see this in action.)

Spir­i­tual purity is not merely some Vic­to­rian nicety. It is one of the sur­vival tac­tics for not being self-destructive. The worst case sce­nario was Judas hang­ing him­self after betray­ing Jesus. It was his attempt to right his wrong by sac­ri­fic­ing him­self. Lim­ited and com­plete sui­cides hap­pen con­stantly, when peo­ple do not come to grips with this very human trait (a lim­ited sui­cide ranges from accident-prone behav­ior to actual delib­er­ate attempts that are incom­plete). Unre­solved guilt or a chronic grudge can lead us to “cut off our noses to spite our face.”

The “pure in heart will see God” — which is another way of say­ing, “Stop hat­ing A so that you will not be blinded to B.” The pure in heart “see God” in that they are free to affirm the cre­ation and its maker with­out being in a self-made spir­i­tual myopia. Crit­i­cal peo­ple, which are even­tu­ally shunned by oth­ers, are usu­ally guilt-ridden or shame-based indi­vid­u­als unable or unwill­ing to for­give oth­ers or them­selves. The self-blinding nature of it causes every­one else to see their prob­lem, but they are unable to detect it for them­selves. To hate another is to pun­ish the self. Lov­ing God, neigh­bor, and self is a pack­age con­cept. All three must be in bal­ance and prac­ticed to work.

Turn it all loose. It is too expen­sive to obsess or begrudge, and it will invari­ably trip you up. The evil we think we see in oth­ers may actu­ally be our own.

It is a pretty good idea to ride around on this planet, which is exactly what we are doing. It rotates toward the East. I would sug­gest not try­ing to get it to reverse its spin. There are few if any social trends you can directly affect. It is unlikely that you will save the world or even make much of a dent in the good or bad ten­den­cies of human­ity. Rein­vent­ing the wheel is pretty much a waste of time, when it comes to insti­tu­tions and the machin­ery of the way the world gen­er­ally works. Save your ener­gies. Use the power that comes with the efforts of oth­ers. Let seed actions run their course. Plant counter-seeds if you have to and then stand back. Life forces have ener­gies and direc­tions of their own.

Jesus often com­pared the spir­i­tual life to agri­cul­ture. He seemed to espe­cially appre­ci­ate the dynam­ics of seed-actions. Doing some­thing good today will make a big dif­fer­ence in a week, a month, a year, or even cen­turies. The beauty of this is that you do not have to muster the ener­gies for all of the after-effects. The uni­verse will join in with your ini­tial efforts. All you have to do is plant the seeds. Life has its own dynam­ics. You can either use them or get run over by them. Effort­less efforts belong to the wise. They know a phone call here or there is all it takes to get things done. Life is does not have to be a bur­den; many of them observed this as small chil­dren and learned the les­son to their benefit.

Few things in life are as futile or self­ish as try­ing to con­trol oth­ers. Being a men­tor or guide means aim­ing them if they are open to sug­ges­tions, but “con­trol” is a frus­trat­ing illu­sion. Even your chil­dren were made and are sus­tained by forces out of your con­trol. Life has them just as it has you. It will care for them as it has for you. Do not be afraid to let life be life. It is ulti­mately heal­ing and pos­i­tive. Go with the flow of it. Injus­tices are oppor­tu­ni­ties. Tragedies exist for our matu­rity. Wars are an edu­ca­tion on social and reli­gious insan­ity. If I am in the mood to protest taxes, I sim­ply invest so much in my work and my church that I do not have to pay much or any of them. It is a way of direct­ing cash flow as a form of power by not hold­ing onto it.

Plant­ing flow­ers in a grim look­ing world is the way to change the land­scape. As a metaphor, it is what is best to do with peo­ple. Plant some kind­ness and humor and then go to the next per­son. You need not hover over those actions for pos­i­tive results to occur. Go to your next oppor­tu­ni­ties. Life can be tweaked along the way but not con­trolled. Swim­ming down­stream is a lot faster. There is no dust in your eyes when the wind is at your back. Accept life — prob­lems and all. Ski down­hill. Let grav­ity sup­ply the ener­gies for the rush when you sky­dive. Let today be what it is.