As diametrically opposed as Religious Fundamentalism and Secularism are, they both share one thing in common. They are two dimensional ways of living.
Religious Fundamentalism doesn’t look beyond the rules. For Religious Fundamentalists living the rules is the end. The rule is Deified and becomes God. It is very ironic that by worshipping religious law, the Fundamentalist defies the 1st commandment, “Thou shalt not have strange gods before me.”
Secularism, on the other extreme, cannot see anything beyond what is offered in this world. The careers we have, the possessions we own, the material accoutrements, the self of a person becomes Deified because one cannot perceive anything else beyond the self.
Both ways of living are two dimensional ways of living. It is like looking at a blue sky on a sunny day and not seeing beyond the blue to the mystery and deepness of the universe that lies beyond what our eyes can perceive.
The mystics call us to be three dimensional people. We are called to see and to live beyond the blue skies of our two dimensional worlds of religious laws and secular materialism and enter into the deep mystery that created all things.
A symbol is not the end, but calls us to look beyond the concrete to what really is real. As. St. Paul writes in his 2nd letter to the Corinthians, that which we see and experience in this life is at best transitory. That which is real lays just beyond the realm of our five senses.
The music that I attached to this reflection is more than just a collection of pitches on a staff of different duration, pitch variation and articulation. It is more than just something composed in rudimentary Sonata-Allegro form. It is more than just the A melody in D minor expressed in Italian as fast and with great agitation. The B melody in F major and later in D major is more than just a pretty melody played a little slower.
Conflicts, challenges, tragedies in life are the allegro agitato parts of human life. There are times when our lives seem overwhelming and out of control. To hear this music two dimensionally is to hear a chronological progression of a fast minor key melody seguing into a slower more appealing melody, only to go back into the minor key melody that eventually segues once more into the second melody.
To hear this music three dimensionally requires us to hear deep within the conflicts and tragedies the presence of grace. We are called to open our eyes and all our other senses and to find the grace buried deep within the conflicts, the hurts and the tragedies of our lives. Though we may experience an oasis of calm and beauty from time to time in our lives, the manic and agitated pace of life hold within the mania and conflict, the core or seed of Divine peace and contentment.
