News from the Congregation May 21, 2021
‘To Serve is Perfect Freedom;’ ‘The Modern Mind, Part I’ | Diocesan Lecture Series on Reparations, Volunteer at CCC’s Sunday Soup Kitchen, EfM Open Meetings | Sunday Programs (9:30 am Vicar’s Open Space, 10 am Genesis Bible Study, 11 am Worship Service, 12 pm Coffee Half-Hour - Titus Presler on Episcopal Evangelism) |Weekday Programs (M-S Morning and Evening Prayer; Thursday: 6:30 pm EfM Class).
Canon Lee
In his essay Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing, the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard notes that people think a preacher is an actor on stage, and members of a congregation are the critics. “But the speaker is not the actor—not in the remotest sense. No, the speaker is the prompter… The stage is eternity, and the listener... stands before God during the talk. The prompter whispers to the actor what he is to say.” Instead, for Kierkegaard, members of a congregation are the actors. The preacher is the prompter, who stands off-stage and whispers to the congregation their forgotten lines. God is the audience.
***
In 1978, the English theater critic Kenneth Tynan published a profile of Johnny Carson in the New Yorker. Tynan describes vividly the experience of being a guest on Carson's Tonight Show: “Once you are on Carson's turf, the onus is on you to demonstrate your right to stay there; if you fail, you will decorously get the boot. You feel like the tourist who on entering the Uffizi Gallery, in Florence, was greeted by a guide with the minatory remark: Remember, Signore, that here it is not the pictures that are on trial.”
It is not the pictures that are on trial. We are.
A natural reaction to this thought is rage. God is like Johnny Carson, ready to boot us off the stage if we forget our lines? Who does God think God is, anyway? Yet, as we follow Jesus on the Way, we lose the desire for a starring role. We learn the universe doesn't owe us anything. Rage turns to gratitude. Gratitude brings us one step closer to liberation.
***
The Collect for Tuesday Morning Prayer begins with these words:
O God, the author of peace and lover of concord, to know you is eternal life and to serve you is perfect freedom.
Service to God is perfect freedom. It brings us infinitely more than we can ask or imagine:
(1) Last Sunday, the Vestry approved a revised 2021 budget. The suspension of the Crafts Fair has required cutting $50,000 from the Congregation's $200,000 budget. The Crafts Fair funds our ministries, including the Congregation's financial support of Cathedral Community Cares (CCC). A new member of the Congregation has helped offset this lost income. This member identified, and then worked on, a new grant opportunity to support CCC. We recently learned that we won the $50,000 grant.
(2) Several months ago, the Reparations and Racial Reconciliation Committee, with the help of Fr. Daniels, sent a letter of interest to the Luce Foundation for a grant to explore the "Theology of Reparations." This past week, we learned that we passed the initial screening round. The Luce Foundation has invited us to send in a full proposal for a $250,000 grant.
(3) This week, the Chapter and Senior Leadership Team discussed a recent BBC article: St. Paul's Cathedral could close without tourism cash. What a providential blessing that Canon Malloy's intentional community project started before the pandemic. Here is a new and compelling vision for the Cathedral that goes beyond collecting "tourism cash." A vision that goes beyond filling seats for services, concerts, art exhibitions, or theater performances.
O God, the author of peace and lover of concord, to know you is eternal life and to serve you is perfect freedom.
EASTER SEASON: COFFEE HOUR CONVERSATIONS WITH THE VICAR
Conversations begin approximately 12:00 PM - 12:15 PM
Sunday, May 23 - The Rev. Canon Dr. Titus Presler, vicar of St. Matthew’s Church in Enosburg Falls, Vermont; convener of Green Mountain Witness, the evangelism initiative of the Diocese of Vermont; and president of the Global Episcopal Mission Network.
Sunday, May 30 - Join the clergy and staff from the music and liturgy departments for a conversation about the Cathedral's re-gathering plans.
Marsha and Bob
Reflection One of Four on the Modern Mind
For the last two months, I have been excited about this opportunity. I believe this is what I am supposed to be doing presently in relation to the Congregation and the Cathedral. I also believe this is where I am supposed to show leadership. I need four reflections to make and to illustrate my case; in other words, this is the first in a series of four interrelated postings.
My objective is to explore the modern mind. The subject is relevant to the Cathedral because where we worship ever faces the challenge of turning toward modern times, however that might be construed.
I start with a possible source of confusion with my main descriptor term, modern. In the academic realm, there has been modernism and now I think we are in an era called postmodernism. For these reflections, I use modern as a general, or broad, term: something relatively recent. My choice of modern seems fitting in our context. As members of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, we are aware of a contrast between the old, deeply rooted traditions of Christianity and the Gothic Cathedral and something comparatively modern or new.
I rely on three books as jumping off points. One was published in 1991; two in 2011.
Merlin Donald, a Canadian psychologist and cognitive neuroscientist, wrote Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution of Culture and Cognition (1991) about the evolution of the human being over approximately a two-million-year period. The final stage is a hybrid of biological and technological factors. Thirty years have passed since the original publication of Origins of the Modern Mind and I can see widespread evidence of the relevancy of Donald’s characterization. Walking around I cannot help but notice many people gazing at their cell phones. This is suggestive of the blend of biology and technology.
Daniel Kahneman, an Israeli-American psychologist and economist, wrote Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011). Kahneman offers a dual processing view of the human being. He describes two parts which he calls System 1 and System 2. System 1 is automatic, the thinking fast component that generates our feelings, impressions, intuitions, and thoughts. System 2 is effortful, the thinking slow component in which we follow up on something and seek to make headway.
Kahneman indicates that these terms, System1 and System 2, came from the work of Keith Stanovich and his collaborator Richard West. In Stanovich’s case, he calls them Type 1 and Type 2 processes.
After reading Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011), I read Keith Stanovich’s Rationality and the Reflective Mind (2011). Keith Stanovich, an American psychologist, proposes a tripartite view of the human. There is the autonomous mind, which is the fast Type 1 processing. For the slow Type 2 processing, there are the reflective and the algorithmic minds.
At this point, I share my bias and my preference for an elementary modification. I prefer the three-part formulation of Stanovich to the two-part formulation of Kahneman. My reasoning is derived largely from my religious heritage: God in the Christian tradition is represented as the trinity and human beings are made in the image of God.
Below is Figure 2.1 on page 33 in Stanovich’s Rationality and the Reflective Mind (2011).
The base is the Autonomous Mind of Type 1 Processing; the upper portions of Type 2 Processing have the Algorithmic Mind below and the Reflective Mind above.
My preference is to view the three parts on a temporal timeline. The Autonomous Mind belongs on the left, the thinking fast beginning. The Reflective Mind belongs in the center, the thinking slow mediating part. The Algorithmic Mind belongs on the right, the thinking slower ending part. This structuring can correspond to the three types of memory: Autonomous Mind fits with sensory memory which is very brief; Reflective Mind fits with short-term memory; and Algorithmic Mind fits with long-term memory.
About a decade has passed since the initial publishing of Stanovich’s Rationality and the Reflective Mind (2011) and Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011). The influence of the computer realm has spread greatly, and algorithms have become much more widespread. I like that a formulation of the modern mind—Autonomous Mind, Reflective Mind and Algorithmic Mind—can also extend into humans’ interactions with the digital universe.
This first reflection provides one last illustration, a Google search of the term, modern mind. As I share the results of the search, I also superimpose these three parts of the modern mind. The Autonomous Mind is the first to come into play. Google responds with its many finds, even including mind boggling statistics (about 1,810,000,000 results in 0.65 seconds). The Reflective Mind then becomes front and center. On the first page of the Google results, there are eight links, some links to YouTube Videos, images for modern mind, and links to related searches (modern mind meaning, contemporary mind meaning, modern mind mother 4, modern mind community, breakfast with champions book, vedic meditation retreat, and best history of ideas books). The Algorithmic Mind is supposed to be the culmination. I decide to click on modern mind meaning, and I am happy to discover on the first page of results a link to Origins of the Modern Mind by Merlin Donald at Harvard University Press. I choose to stop my research, although in the back of my mind I know that I can easily recreate the search to look again and to make further steps in the future.
There are three more reflections to go. I look forward to share where I take new thinking about pictures and prototypes of the modern mind.
(For engagement or for communication about something of note, my email address is available in the Realm Directory, under my name Robert Deming.)
LEARN
Education for Ministry (EfM) Open Meetings 2021
Here’s a chance to do EfM and never have to go out in the rain or snow or even dressed—come Zoom with us! There are two open sessions coming up— Thursday, May 27, Thursday, June 3. These will be an opportunity to see what a typical EfM meeting is like. We’ll open at 6:30 and be ready to say goodnight around 8:30. There is no obligation, no strings, just visit with us—maybe you’ll like us enough to join next term in September. For more information, email Donna Devlin.
NEWS FROM THE DIOCESE
Voices Heard: A Diocese Explores Pathways Toward Reparations
A webinar series sponsored by the Reparations Committee of the Diocese of New York
The legacy of the transatlantic slave trade is deeply entrenched in the structural systems and legislative actions that govern communities today. This series of panel discussions organized by the Reparations Committee for the Diocese intends to broaden awareness and deepen our understanding of the pressing topics of an intractable nature of systemic racism on education, health, economics, gender, policing and the criminal justice system, the church and more that negatively impact people of African heritage.
Bringing experts, community organizers, civic leaders, clergy and laity into dialogue will help to inform us and make commitments for engagement in our own communities as we prepare our cause for action in making recommendations for the task brought forth through Resolution regarding the Reparations Fund.
All webinars are on Tuesdays, 7:00-8:30 p.m.
Educational Opportunity Denied: The Legacy of Segregated Housing
Tuesday, May 25
Register in advance for this webinar:
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_goRIk0xDTW-9VLBLZQ44wQ
Medical Apartheid and Systemic Racism
Tuesday, June 8
Register in advance for this webinar:
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_nFHMDwq8Tb-n1eP7l9VIrw
Reaching For a Better Tomorrow: The Work and Mission of Hudson Link Working For Higher Education in Prison
Tuesday, June 22
Register in advance for this webinar:
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_j5SokWcXRq-2Aj_VW1m-Ng
The Awakening of Unwoke People: Church, Religion and State
Tuesday, July 6
Register in advance for this webinar:
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_O7p4u1B2RT6JOI8VH4F7lQ
Rectors of Color: Examining the Missed Opportunities of Deployment
Tuesday, July 20
Register in advance for this webinar:
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_We8dfFOxSrmEbPHnK1WZmA
NEWS FROM THE CATHEDRAL - Give
Opportunity to Support Organ Scholar
Despite the limitations of this past year, organ scholar Sam Kuffuor-Afriyie has become an integral part of the Cathedral's music program. In addition to playing the organ frequently for our online Sunday services, he has also performed recitals for Tuesdays at 6 and been very active with our in-person choir rehearsals. We hope that Sam can continue his important ministry at St. John the Divine. To do so will require additional financial support. Members of the Congregation who are interested are invited to contact the Cathedral's Director of Music, Kent Tritle.
GIVE/SERVE
Questions about Realm
Christopher Clowdus and Neil Reilly invite your questions about Realm, the Congregation's giving database, at this email address: stewardship@saintsaviour.org.
CCC - Volunteer Opportunity at Sunday Soup Kitchen
Join us at CCC's Sunday Soup Kitchen (8:30 am - 11:00 am) to help prepare and distribute food and to staff Saint Saviour's Table. Please CLICK HERE to sign up! Shifts are open through the first week in June. Thank you so much for volunteering!
THIS SUNDAY, April May 16, 2021
9:30 AM - Open Space with the Vicar
Join Vicar Lee and others for 30 minutes of conversation, community, and pastoral support. Come and go as you please!
10:00 AM - In the Beginning: A Study of Genesis
Join the Vicar for a study of the first book of the Bible. Discover Genesis, not as a collection of ancient mythological stories, but as the Word of God addressing our fundamental and deepest needs.
11:00 AM - Watch the Cathedral worship service on Zoom with other members of the Congregation. As a way to maintain a prayerful atmosphere, we will be turning off Zoom chat for the duration of the service.
You can also watch the Cathedral Worship Service
On Facebook: http://facebook.com/StJohnDivineNYC
On the Cathedral website: http://www.stjohndivine.org
12:00 PM - Digital Coffee Half-Hour
Join us at this week’s Digital Coffee Hour to meet members of the congregation or hear guest speakers, This week we meet the Rev. Canon Dr. Titus Presler, vicar of St. Matthew’s Church in Enosburg Falls, Vermont; convener of Green Mountain Witness, the evangelism initiative of the Diocese of Vermont; and president of the Global Episcopal Mission Network.
WEEKLY CATHEDRAL CONGREGATION PROGRAMS
Monday-Saturday | 8:30 AM Morning Prayer | 5:30 PM Evening Prayer
Thursdays | 6:30 PM - Education for Ministry
Education for Ministry is designed for lay people who want to delve more deeply but are not necessarily interested in ordination; EfM classes provide a more formal study of scriptures and the history of the faith. Current Topic: “Living into the Journey with God”