It's not words, and it's not events, and it's not retreats, though those are all good things. No, it's about the every day, boring habit of love. If you want to help others be free in love, you don't focus on events, you focus on the every day interior battle to develop a habit of love.

Perhaps this is the problem with a spiritual or ecclesial life or ministry that is event-oriented. It can build excitement for a moment, but it cannot build the daily habit of love.

Events are easy; they are quantifiable; they can generate "energy." But by themselves they cannot build the habits of heart in which God may find the space and freedom and peace in which to dwell.

9:37:26 PM    please comment []

Classic argument from nature. It's gotten lots of play in our "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" culture. Sounds pretty persuasive.

Except maybe it's completely wrong.

Read this article in the New York Times. And note the unbelievably catty tone these guys take in disagreeing with one another.

Experiment design is critical (maybe women think they're supposed to be forgiving of sexual peccadilloes, but that their femininity is comprised if they don't express deep dismay at an emotional betrayal; perhaps men are acculturated to see any sexual betrayal as a slight to their masculinity, but that it would be wussy to say that having their feelings hurt would be worse ~ how would you design an experiment to tell what their unmediated response would be?). And then, well, then there's how you interpret the data.

Evolutionary psychology is a fascinating and deeply dodgy field. And unbiased, pan-cultural scientific evidence is extremely difficult to come by. It sure is entertaining watching them try, though!

Proceed with caution, though: there be dragons. When people start developing laws, educational curricula, and social policy based on this kind of science the consequences can be far reaching and deeply problematic (viz: Stephen Jay Gould's The Mismeasure of Man).

We don't know enough to be making decisions in this arena. Maybe we will one day, and then we'll have to decide which is more important (which should be weighted in what proportion), the factors of human evolution or the way we want to encourage or expect people to behave.

[Update: Oh, and skull morphology is useless in determining "racial" characteristics or "continent of origin" because environment has a much more prominent role in shaping noggins. Right? Umm. Maybe not. Another piece of received wisdom is in question again... and wouldn't you know it, it's because somebody or somebodies had axes to grind (in this case, a noble goal of ending racial policies). Another reason to be very very careful when appealing to "scientific evidence" about human nature as a basis for social policy. If the science turns out to be wrong, the baby may get thrown out with the bathwater. See this article in the New York Times.]
12:34:16 AM    please comment []