Considering Circles

Grateful: The Subversive Practice of Giving Thanks by public theologian Diana Butler Bass is an impressive book that I finished reading a few months ago.* The last chapter is “Circles of Gratitude,” and I have been thinking, off and on, about circles ever since. 

Western society emphasizes pyramids more than circles. Bass (b. 1959) makes this point as she reflects on how she was reprimanded for arranging a classroom in a circle. She then realized, “Circles can be upsetting.” She goes on to say,

For many generations, the structure of Western culture imprinted on our imaginations was that of rows, lines, and pyramids. We were taught that everything was ordered from top to bottom, in vertical structures of family, social institutions, and politics by role, gender, and race (p. 174).

Other societies/traditions are different. For example, in Zen Buddhism what is called the enso circle (pictured above) is considered paradigmatic (see here). At the beginning of “Circles of Gratitude,” Bass cites Tanahashi Kazuaki (b. 1933), a noted Japanese Zen teacher:

The circle is a reminder that each moment is not just the present, but is inclusive of our gratitude to the past and our responsibility to the future.

Also, as explained on this website, “The circle has always been an important symbol to the Native American. It represents the sun, the moon, the cycles of the seasons, and the cycle of life to death to rebirth.”

There has, of course, been some recognition of the importance of circles in both traditional and contemporary Western culture. Most of us are familiar with the story of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table. The round table of that 12th-century tale was a symbol of the equality of the knights.  

Although I’m not sure what it signifies, I was surprised to learn that Apple Park, which was completed about five years ago as the headquarters of Apple Inc., is “a perfect circle.”  

So perhaps there has been some recognition in most cultures that circles can represent ideals such as completeness, harmony, and balance. But, still, in much of the Western world, the hierarchical pyramid is often the dominant diagram of relationships.

Perhaps much of the dysfunction, dissatisfaction, and divisiveness in the U.S. currently is rooted in the pervasiveness of over/under relationships. Maybe a paradigm shift to seeing others in a relationship circle would help solve such problems.

Circles can be either inclusive or exclusive. Recently I was reading through my diary/journal for 1982, considering what I was doing/thinking forty years ago. In June of that year, I spoke at the annual Alumni Reunion of my high school. My talk was titled “How big a circle can you draw?”

Of course, I based part of that talk on Edwin Markham’s well-known, four-line poem “Outwitted”:

He drew a circle that shut me out—
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in! **

The following image graphically depicts the difference between the circle of inclusion from not only the circle of exclusion but also from what often occurs not only in segregation but also in integration.

Sociologists have long talked about “in-groups” and “out-groups.” In-groups are homogeneous and tend to exclude those who differ. That is clearly depicted in the exclusion circle. Out-groups might form a segregated circle excluded from the in-group—and if forced to integrate they might still be separated although within the in-group circle.

The inclusion circle, though, is the ideal, although it presents various challenges. But at some point, we all need to learn that, deep down, there is no “them”; there is only “us.”

Can you, can I, draw a circle large enough to include all of us? May it be so.

_____ 

* Since Bass’s book was published in 1989, I was surprised, but happy, to see in last Sunday’s Kansas City Star that it was one of the bestselling non-fiction books in Kansas City last week.

** My blog post for Oct. 15, 2015, was titled “Becoming Inclusive,” and it began with a reference to Markham and his poem. Here is the link, if you would like to look at that post (again).

 

Understanding One Thing is to Understand Everything

Although not always expressed the same way, here is an idea I heard reference to from time to time through the years I lived in Japan:

The Zen Perspective

The words above are attributed to Suzuki Shunryu, a Zen monk and teacher who helped popularize Zen Buddhism in the United States. In 1962 Suzuki (1904~71) founded the San Francisco Zen Center, which was the first Zen monastery outside Asia.

Suzuki was also the author of Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, and last year the 50^th anniversary edition of that book was published.

Fifty years ago when I first heard the idea encapsulated in Suzuki’s words, I didn’t know they were rooted in a Zen concept. But perhaps that helps explain the use made of koans in Zen. To understand one thing, such as a koan, leads to satori (enlightenment), that is, understanding everything.

Granted, there are lingering problems here; still, it is an interesting perspective.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Perspective

I have long liked, and often quoted, the widely known words of poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning:  

Seeing depth, or transcendence, in the ordinary is what Barrett Browning was emphasizing, and that is likely true for Suzuki also. The problem, and shame, is that there are so many who are content to just pluck blackberries, never seeing more than the obvious.

In this connection, I recently happened to read this important statement by Henri Nouwen: “. . . the whole of nature is a sacrament pointing to a reality far beyond itself” (Seeds of Hope, 1989, p. 100). Unfortunately, so many people don’t see the sacramental nature of the universe.

When we don’t fully see/understand “one thing,” we are unable to see/understand “everything.”

Gifty’s Perspective

Originally, I planned to write this whole blog article about Gifty, the precocious central character of Yaa Gyasi’s fascinating novel Transcendent Kingdom (2020). Gifty, like the author, was born to Ghanaian parents and grew up in Huntsville, Alabama.

But unlike author Gyasi (b. 1989), who has an MFA degree, Gifty is a sixth-year Ph.D. candidate in neuroscience at the Stanford University School of Medicine studying reward-seeking behavior in mice and the neural circuits of depression and addiction.

In her experiments on the brains of mice, Gifty realized that in the case of humans, at least, there is something more to human consciousness than just the physical brain.

For example, Gifty asks, “ . . . if the brain can’t account for things like reason and emotion, then what can? If the brain makes it possible for ‘us’ to feel and think then what is ‘us’?” (p. 197).

At the very end of the novel, Gifty says, “I’ve seen enough in a mouse to understand transcendence, holiness, redemption.”

Gifty likely didn’t know anything about Barrett Browning’s poems nor much, if anything, about Zen. But she seemed to intuit that to understand one thing is to understand everything.

What about us, now?