Káromkodásból katedrálist: lelkigondozás és spiritualitás összefüggései Jób könyvében

A Cathedral Built on Swearing? Interrelations between Counselling and Spirituality in the Book of Job. Given its enormous exegetical potential, pastoral care could clearly lay hold more of the Book of Job’s kerygmatic rather than its psychological certainties. In addition to the Book of Job being often read as a case study about the suffering person’s sense of justice and quest for meaning, Job’s experience has a spiritual overtone as well: he is faced with the question of the true nature of God and the need to find an adequate human response to it. Also, the Book is indicative of how people respond to the suffering and what witness and support they offer. In this paper, I evaluate the counselling strategies in the Book of Job identified by Manfred Oeming. I pay special attention to Job’s wife, and I argue that she should not be considered a proper counsellor, as she herself is stricken by the same tragic events as is Job. Instead, she is a fellow sufferer, although acknowledged as such only by extracanonical literature. What is more, she may be identified as the partner or the first and foremost caregiver of the sufferer whose challenges and difficulties remain unidentified, unspoken of, and unaddressed most of the time. As for the spiritual issues aroused by suffering, I suggest that both counsellor and counsellee must reach spiritual maturity to be able to understand and accept their experience of suffering as a genuine experience of God, and so, given time, this may make space for God’s theophany and healing presence. Keywords: Book of Job, suffering, spirituality, pastoral care, counselling, fellow sufferer, caregiver

Existential Thought in American Psycho and Fight Club

<p>Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho (1991) and Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club (1996) demonstrate a strong basis in existential thought. Both novels reference the philosophical and literary works of Sartre and Camus—two French intellectuals associated with the midtwentieth- century movement existentialism—as well as existentialism’s nineteenth-century antecedents Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche. More importantly, American Psycho and Fight Club also modify the philosophy and its expression, incorporating postmodern satire, graphically violent content, and the Gothic conventions of "the double" and "the unspeakable", in order to update existential thought to suit the contemporary milieu in which these texts were produced. This new expression of existential thought is interlaced with the social critique American Psycho and Fight Club advance, particularly their satirical accounts of the vacuous banality of modern consumer culture and their disturbing representations of the repression and violent excesses ensuing from the crisis of masculinity. The engagement with existentialism in these novels also serves a playful function, as Ellis and Palahniuk frequently subvert the philosophy, keeping its idealism secondary to their experiments with its implications within the realm of fiction, emphasising the symptoms of existential crisis, rather than the resolution of the ontological quest for meaning. While these two novels can be considered existential in relation to the tradition of classic existentialist texts, they also represent a distinctive development of existential fiction—one that explores the existential condition of the postmodern subject at the end of the twentieth century.</p>

The Architecture of Pilgrimage: Sacred Site and Sacred Self in the Quest for Meaning

<p>As an historic cultural phenomenon that has been practiced throughout the globe for centuries, from ancient Greeks through to Vietnam veterans, the practise of pilgrimage has undergone a renaissance in the last few decades. This revival has seen the definition of pilgrimage re-examined and re-evaluated in terms that reflect the contemporary positions of religion and spirituality in society. It is up to the individual now to decide what they consider to be sacred and where they will find value and meaningfulness (Reader, 2007). As one of the oldest forms of seeking meaning and meaningfulness, pilgrimage is intimately connected with the human need and desire to become "complete embodied and spiritual beings" (Pallasmaa, 2005). So too is architecture concerned with our ability to find and occupy a meaningful existence. Yet the relationship between architecture and pilgrimage hasn't yet been explored in a meaningful manner. By exploring the concept of pilgrimage, this research aims at demonstrating how pilgrimage can be used to anchor meaning and meaningfulness in architecture. This aim is investigated though the design of a hospice facility. Architecture and pilgrimage are both concerned with humanity's search and desire for meaning and meaningfulness; pilgrimage, as a metaphor for life and as the physical act of journeying in order to find meaning; architecture and its ability to allow us to have, be and create meaningful experiences within our everyday lives.</p>

The Architecture of Pilgrimage: Sacred Site and Sacred Self in the Quest for Meaning

<p>As an historic cultural phenomenon that has been practiced throughout the globe for centuries, from ancient Greeks through to Vietnam veterans, the practise of pilgrimage has undergone a renaissance in the last few decades. This revival has seen the definition of pilgrimage re-examined and re-evaluated in terms that reflect the contemporary positions of religion and spirituality in society. It is up to the individual now to decide what they consider to be sacred and where they will find value and meaningfulness (Reader, 2007). As one of the oldest forms of seeking meaning and meaningfulness, pilgrimage is intimately connected with the human need and desire to become "complete embodied and spiritual beings" (Pallasmaa, 2005). So too is architecture concerned with our ability to find and occupy a meaningful existence. Yet the relationship between architecture and pilgrimage hasn't yet been explored in a meaningful manner. By exploring the concept of pilgrimage, this research aims at demonstrating how pilgrimage can be used to anchor meaning and meaningfulness in architecture. This aim is investigated though the design of a hospice facility. Architecture and pilgrimage are both concerned with humanity's search and desire for meaning and meaningfulness; pilgrimage, as a metaphor for life and as the physical act of journeying in order to find meaning; architecture and its ability to allow us to have, be and create meaningful experiences within our everyday lives.</p>

Existential Thought in American Psycho and Fight Club

<p>Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho (1991) and Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club (1996) demonstrate a strong basis in existential thought. Both novels reference the philosophical and literary works of Sartre and Camus—two French intellectuals associated with the midtwentieth- century movement existentialism—as well as existentialism’s nineteenth-century antecedents Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche. More importantly, American Psycho and Fight Club also modify the philosophy and its expression, incorporating postmodern satire, graphically violent content, and the Gothic conventions of "the double" and "the unspeakable", in order to update existential thought to suit the contemporary milieu in which these texts were produced. This new expression of existential thought is interlaced with the social critique American Psycho and Fight Club advance, particularly their satirical accounts of the vacuous banality of modern consumer culture and their disturbing representations of the repression and violent excesses ensuing from the crisis of masculinity. The engagement with existentialism in these novels also serves a playful function, as Ellis and Palahniuk frequently subvert the philosophy, keeping its idealism secondary to their experiments with its implications within the realm of fiction, emphasising the symptoms of existential crisis, rather than the resolution of the ontological quest for meaning. While these two novels can be considered existential in relation to the tradition of classic existentialist texts, they also represent a distinctive development of existential fiction—one that explores the existential condition of the postmodern subject at the end of the twentieth century.</p>

Judaism Is the New Orient

The spiritual journeys that Israeli-Jews make to the Far East do not merely provide them with experiences and revelations, but also help them reclaim meaning, answer life’s questions, and shape their identity and lifestyle. Surprisingly, some journeys end in embracing Jewish tradition. Why—and how—do secular Israelis, who have never shown any interest in the spiritual matters and aspects of their native tradition, find, following their journey, that Jewish spirituality is relevant to their quest for meaning? This chapter conducts a critical discussion on the Easternization thesis (which claims the West is undergoing a profound paradigmatic transformation), culminating in the conclusion that the East is not Westerners’ and Israelis’ true object of desire, but rather an object on which they project their Western/Israeli discomfort, passions, and images. Judaism, which has been going through an exoticization process within the framework of local New Age ideas—much like the Far East in global spirituality—has been adapting itself to this coveted imagined model.

New Age in Australia: Social transmission and the quest for meaning

The emergence of New Age spirituality in Western cultures during the 1960s and 1970s has been described as a rejection of traditional values, fuelled by disillusionment with the Christian church and a feeling of alienation in mainstream social and work environments. While New Age has been characterised as a ‘turning away’ from dominant cultural ideologies, there is comparatively less discussion about what New Age actors are ‘turning towards’ in their pursuit of subjective spirituality. Research from Australia demonstrates that individuals were primarily searching for deeper meaning and looking for spiritual answers when they first engaged with New Age pursuits. In addition, social and intergenerational transmission are both important factors in the cultivation of New Age spirituality.

Functions

Historians encourage us to look at war in instrumental terms, in terms largely of politics. But war not only involves states but people and existential factors are equally important in explaining its persistence. For many, war involves a voyage of self – discovery. Others embark on the journey to find glory – a meme which like many memes can be highly contagious. War also attracts what Nietzsche called humanity’s ‘sportive monsters’ – it offers many opportunities to act badly. Every war confronts soldiers with the immediacy of moral choice. And, sanctioned by priests, war has also exploited what the philosopher William James called the ‘religious appetites’ – martyrdom, self-sacrifice, above all the quest for meaning. In the pursuit of the latter many warriors have discovered a vocation akin to a religious calling. Finally war has also exploited our inventiveness, our curiosity to find the limits of our own agency. War and science from the beginning have been joined at the hip

Can theology be a science? An epistemological reflection

Many dubious disciplines have been removed from academic institutions, but theology is not one of them, as it is still taught in respectable universities. This article argues that theology does not deserve that special treatment. Theology has long pretended to be a science, but it can never be, because ultimately, theology is grounded on faith and authority, two tenets that run counter to the scientific method. Natural theology appeals to evidence and reason, but it also fails in its endeavor. More recent theologians admit that their discipline is not science per se, but still consider it legitimate in its quest for meaning. There are also reasons to doubt this claim, as there is no need to appeal to the supernatural to find meaning.