More on Statues

The last post is a bit obscure, so let me correct that by some comments on what I think really happens when people address artifacts in prayer or treat them with reverence. This sort of behavior in our culture may be observed especially among Catholics and sometimes Asians. Mine is a subjective view, of course, but that, I think is what is required, a look at the psychological aspects of this phenomenon. I can only offer mine. But I would assert with confidence that other people’s behavior arises from the same sort of understanding I have. Not in detail, to be sure, but in basic outline.

Here are some facts. First, when I go on my usual one-hour walk in my neighborhood, I can so arrange my path that I’ll see at least six Madonnas on the way. All of these are statues of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Two stand on the grounds of a church, one is in a cemetery, and three others (at least) are in private backyards but visible from the sidewalk. I no more think that these stone or plaster figures are the Virgin Mary than does any believer or atheist. The sheer numbers of them would make that obvious. The value of these figures lies in their function. They serve as a reminder of something else and in physically localizing that reminder in certain integrated acts.

Let me develop that. Many people who ignore religious statues still visit the cemetery. They are engaged in an integrated act of remembrance at minimum and often in an act of at least one-way communication. The hope is present, at least in the feelings, that the communication is two-sided. Now why bother to go to the cemetery? The reason for that is that this act is integrated. It involves both body and soul, it isn’t just a thought. It involves a ceremonial in which the whole person takes part. We often additionally, physically mark it by taking flowers. The grave site serves the same function as the statue. It localizes an integrated act.

Second, I am entirely persuaded that spiritual beings exist in another dimension. This means that I have what some call faith but I just view as a conviction. In my own personal case, in the course of all of my ritual behaviors—including sometimes mentally greeting a Madonna as I pass her, sometimes stopping to say a prayer—I am operating at several levels at once. At one level I’m fully aware of Mary as a person—but not of a particular historical woman who, once, required for bureaucratic reasons to travel, to Bethlehem, although she was pregnant, had trouble finding hotel accommodations. No. I’m aware of the spiritual being that that woman has, since then, become. At another level, I reject the notion that Mary is an intermediary—thus as someone closer to God than others and therefore more likely to “get results” for me from a God who is less likely to pay attention to me. I can understand that attitude on the part of others, but I know better. At that higher level, all of my ritual acts toward the higher dimension really only address the High. And Mary in that sense is one of the thinkable symbols for it.

Do I think that prayers work? Yes. But my conviction must be phrased in a specific way. I think that grace flows to us and helps us, but that this requires changes in us rather than arbitrary acts of individual higher beings tossing bits of bread to squawking ducks and favoring those that squawk loudest. The statues serve me as reminders of my general condition. They give me opportunities to mark the occasions by ritual acts which, involving me as a whole person serve to raise my entire being above the levels of constant distraction.

I’m not in any way tempted to imagine that speaking to the Virgin requires the presence of a statue—never mind that the stone image is the Virgin. Nor do I assume that anybody else does either. Some people are highly self-aware and analytical. Most are not. But even those who’re not can be awakened. And when they pay attention, they would say more or less what I do. They just don’t usually think about it.

What matters in these cases, I submit, is the nature of the intention involved. My intention is to acknowledge a higher realm and the possibility of communicating with it—as in touching it, coming in contact. The rest is detail. Statues are helpful focal points for carrying out this intention. They remind me.

Not surprisingly, the statues themselves are the product of intentions. They were commissioned or purchased—and then displayed—to mark physically some person’s or group’s intention to acknowledge a reality invisible to all of us. Those of us who stop before the statue join in that intention.

Now a word about the statue-breakers. Iconoclastic dogmas within religious communities are, in seems to me, elitist interventions by those who would correct the ignorant common people by beady-eyed command. They don’t like low-level displays of piety. They believe, quite ignorantly, it seems to me, that people really worship statues. I don’t think they do—not even the most primitive. And if some do, the act itself will eventually act to correct that view. If we wish to find people who really worship idols, we might look for them among those lavishing excessive time and wax on fancy cars or excessive time on their portfolios.

Scourging the Statues

For the committed believer in modern nihilism, there is no better whipping boy—or whipping girl, for that matter—than the religious statue. No really educated person can possibly believe that this stone thing, this rain-bleached Madonna on its pedestal here, is really there. But I see people standing there, head bowed, and I can see their lips moving in prayer. But, of course, people actually do that, so we must explain it. And we must also explain the wider context, Religion, the whole nine yards. It’s been around, why—forever it seems. So something must explain it. And we all know, we the knowledgeable few, that religion doesn’t work. That in turn means that Natural Selection couldn’t have produced it. But then what is the source of it? Because nothing exists if Natural Selection hasn’t selected it. Does it? No. You’ve got it. — Therefore? Therefore it must be some kind of misfiring, some kind of flaw, some kind of glitch, a kind of aberration in something genuinely useful, something that really has been selected by relentless nature for retention, something valued. Oh! I’ve got it. It’s a spandrel, a non-adaptive trait that happens to be the byproduct of an adaptive trait. Hhm... But why would that byproduct persist for endless ages? Wouldn’t Natural Selection eventually get rid of it? Especially if it doesn’t work? If it costs money? Those statues cost money. So does going on pilgrimages. Nature is efficient. All kinds of creatures other than humans enjoy the useful function of which religion is the byproduct—the agent detection subroutine in our blessed brain—and theirs. That came about by accident and it was selected for—because it’s useful. So why don’t squirrels worship, build temples and statues, go to church, and bow their little heads? Ah, problems. Science is long and time is short. Add it to the list of things to do. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

This brief meditation was inspired by a post on Siris dated January 3 of this year. I invite you to read it here.

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“Agent detection” is defined by Wikipedia here.