Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

‘Implicit in the core structures of modern society, there appears to be an imperative that things be ordered so as to avoid situations in which I need to throw myself on the kindness of strangers. Through the impersonal structure of the market, I can exercise my will by using money, and through the impersonal structure of the state, I can claim my rights to certain basic goods and forms of support. We all know how often these structures fall short of delivering on their promises, yet these remain the promises around which our way of living has been built. And at least for the lucky ones – the “winners” of modernity – this means that we rarely find ourselves in the situation of depending on the freely given help of people who did not have to help us.

It’s hard to argue that this is a bad thing – and harder still, if I seem to be saying that what makes it a bad thing is that it cuts us off from forms of religious faith which no longer seem conceivable to many of us, anyway. So bear with me, because this is not exactly what I want to argue. Try putting it this way, instead: it seems that the effect of these forms of security, around which modern life is organised, has been to cut us off from certain important aspects of what the world is like. If we never find ourselves in the situation of needing the kindness of strangers, then we do not learn how much kindness there is out there, nor do we get much chance to exercise our own capacity for kindness. Another word for what is freely given is “grace”, and in a life which includes some exposure to the kindness of strangers, there is an experience of grace, which may appear as a clue to something larger that lies beyond the surface of these experiences, and this in turn may lead us into the territory in which faith begins to make sense.’ (from the Writing Home Substack)