We concluded a three-part meditation on the meaning of saintliness from Leonard Cohen in yesterday’s DM with his definition that a saint is “a balancing monster of love.”
How does this fit with your versions of saintliness? Does it trigger some open-heartedness in yourself? Does it work for yourself as a saint? And for other saints you admire and wish to emulate?
Today we take up another thoughtful person’s wrestling with sainthood in our day, namely Ernest Becker, author of the Pulitzer-prize winning book Denial of Death. In that book, he gives Otto Rank ample credit for inspiring and substantiating his primary thesis that repression of death results in the repression of life. I am indebted to Becker for introducing me to Rank in that book when he said that Rank’s Art and Artist was the most important book of his life.
When I was invited years ago to give four lectures at the University of Vancouver, the first on “Wisdom in the University,” I met the Lutheran chaplain who knew Becker who lived there while he wrote his Denial of Death. He told me that when Becker shared his manuscript with the University only four people showed up!
Becker’s last book was on evil, called Escape From Evil. I cite from it in the preface to the revised edition of my major study on evil, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society. There Becker discusses his interest in saintliness.
He writes that healthy religion offers the possibility of a new heroism, the heroism of sainthood. This meant living in primary awe at the miracle of the created object…including oneself in one’s own godlikeness. Notice that living in awe of creation is Becker’s definition of a new heroism of saintliness. And it includes entertaining the idea that we too are godlike. All compassion is godlikeness in action after all.
This parallels Thomas Berry’s teaching that “the universe is the primary sacred reality. We become sacred by our participation in this more sublime dimension of the world about us.” And when the sacred is lost, we find it again by way of awe and wonder.
Becker goes on: Remember the awesome fascination of St. Francis with the revelations of the everyday world—a bird, a flower. It also meant unafraidness of one’s own death, because of the incomparable majesty and power of God.
Teilhard de Chardin observed that “religion is becoming enfeebled” because “it is not exalted by a sufficiently passionate admiration of the universe.” Do you find religion enfeebled or becoming enfeebled? And awe and wonder at a premium? The Via Positiva ignored?
Becker returns to the issue of saintliness. If we were not fear-stricken animals who repressed awareness of ourselves and our world, then we would live in peace and unafraid of death, trusting to the Creator God and celebrating His creation.
The idea of religious sainthood, like that of psychoanalysis, is thus the opening up of perception: this is where religion and science meet.
Saints are involved in the opening up of perception and for that reason rejoice when religion and science meet. The sacred is lost when creation is lost. Those who study creation, scientists, are part of the solution.
~To be continued
Banner image: Angels and saints. Photo by Viktor Talashuk on Unsplash
Queries for Contemplation
What follows from Becker’s observation that sainthood is related to the opening up of perception? Do you agree that science can contribute heartily to that? How does your perception get opened up? How do we best contribute to opening up one another’s perception?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul & Society (2016), pp. xxxviii-xli.
Fox, “Otto Rank on the Artistic Journey as a Spiritual Journey, the Spiritual Journey as an Artistic Journey,” Wrestling with the Prophets: Essays on Creation Spirituality and Everyday Life, pp. 199-214.
Fox, “Psychotherapy and the ‘Unio Mystica’: Meister Eckhart Meets Otto Rank,” in Fox, Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior For Our Times, pp. 139-156.
Christian Mystics: 365 Readings & Meditations, pp. 361, 218.
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.
Natural Grace: Dialogues on creation, darkness, and the soul in spirituality and science, Matthew Fox and Rupert Sheldrake.
llluminations of Hildegard of Bingen.
Sheer Joy: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality.
The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times.
6 thoughts on “Ernest Becker Offering More Thoughts on Saintliness”
“Sainthood” is unfortunately widely seen as a Catholic Nobel Prize. The word “saint” is etymologically related to “sacred” and hence to “consecrated,” the latter meaning “united with the sacred.” Another word for it is “contemplative,” i.e. “united with the temple.” When Thomas Berry writes that “the universe is the primary sacred reality. We become sacred by our participation in this more sublime dimension of the world about us,” he is indeed saying that active contemplation is sainthood. For T. S. Eliot and most of us: “ . . . to apprehend / The point of intersection of the timeless / With time, is an occupation for the saint—/No occupation either, but something given / And taken, in a lifetime’s death in love, / Ardour and selflessness and self-surrender. / For most of us, there is only the unattended / Moment, the moment in and out of time, / The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight, / The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning / Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply / That it is not heard at all, but you are the music / While the music lasts. These are only hints and guesses, / Hints followed by guesses; and the rest / Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.”
I believe science enabled the likes of Albert Einstein to appreciate religion. Indeed, he is known for having stated that “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” He similarly stated that the religion of the future would be a cosmic religion without dogmas. To that end, scientists estimate that there are more suns in the universe than all the grains of sand upon Earth. It’s a staggering almost totally unbelievable thought which should utterly overwhelm us with Absolute awe for the magnificence of Being!
Removal from the Via Transformativa is not Saintliness but hell.
Good morning. I am a daily reader of your meditations. This morning, as a resident of British Columbia, I just want to let you know that there is no university of Vancouver. I trust you mean the university of British Columbia in a Vancouver.
Yes! Thank you for re-introducing me to Otto Rank and Ernest Becker, and I’ve started reading their books. I agree with them that our daily perceptions are very important on our transformative spiritual journeys. The mystics also share in their experiences about the sacrament of the Present Moment…
Thank you, Matthew, for reminding me of Becker’s Denial of Death. Your meditation today gave me a delightful and very unexpected boost. It reminded me, at the venerable age of 75, that, yes, I’m going to die and therefore get out there and really enjoy life plus do the writing I’ve kept on hold. You inspired me!
You inspired me, too, when I was lucky enough to take your 4-day course in Vancouver where I live. A little friendly edit, though, in case you put that experience into one of your wonderful books. The course was at the University of British Columbia, or UBC, here in Vancouver.
Many thanks. I read your meditation every day.
Beverley