Eastern Orthodox Friend
A Greek friend of mine and I were talking the other day. We were talking about spirituality. He is, of course, Greek Orthodox. We were talking about understanding spirituality, scripture translations, and how some spiritual concepts require advanced spirituality to understand.
His stance was that scripture translations were dangerous, and it should be understood in the Greek language. I tend to agree with the little I know about subtle meanings of certain greek words. He said the passages that are difficult to understand requires talking to someone with a certain level of Charisma who can understand the difficult passages.
Starters
Thus, the great conversation and my journey into the word Charisma began!
When the Greek word is used, it has a few different meanings, my Greek friend confirmed. It can be a free gift without a thought of reciprocation. It can mean graceful. It can mean unmerited favor.
Opening Up
If we open up this word, we find many delightful things. The word for Christ, Christos, means the anointed one. Charity, or Caritas is also of a similar sound. The gift of the Holy Spirit - the Holy Breath, is the "Charisma of the Holy Breath." It is as if God breathes within you as you then shine with grace. The word Karma also seems to be related intuitively to Charisma with very similar consonant rhythms. Thus, there is a field of meanings for Charisma, since it defies strict definition. It has an Eastern mysterious flavor to it. It goes beyond, over and under the conscious mind and directly to the soul and spirit.
Max Weber
Max Weber described three kinds of power. (1) Bureaucratic Authority based upon laws rules and procedures, (2) Traditional Authority based upon feudalism, personal relationships, honor, contests, war, etc, and (3) Charismatic Authority, based upon a person's unique abilities and talents.
Charismatic Authority derives from a person's divinely granted talents and gifts. It is somewhat undefinable, and only descriptive, because it is mysterious. These people can lead nations, or smaller organizations and groups. Some modern examples include Tony Robbins, Steve Jobs, Bill Clinton, and Ronald Reagan. Others possessing the gift: Franklin Roosevelt, George Patton, Douglas MacArthur, and Winston Churchill. Charismatic women include Marylyn Monroe, Madonna, Mother Theresa, Princess Diana, and Elizabeth Taylor.
Note that this list contains people that are not necessarily the most physically attractive people. However, in all case, their personalities are all larger than life, and in almost all cases, continued even after their physical features faded with age.
Charm
The root of the word charm comes from the Latin,
carmen, which means a song, verse or incantation. However, if you know your French, you also know the word
chanter.
Chanter means to
sing. The root of Chant appears to be the Latin
canere, which means
to sing. So, we have a field of words and meanings here with the word charm. This cluster of words, related to
carmen, appear even closer in consonant structure to the word
karma.
Charity
Charity comes from the Latin caritas, one of the the Three Theological Virtues of classical Christianity. The equivalent Greek term is
agape. In reading modern scripture, it is a very strange thing to see this term translated into the English word,
love. This is quite bizarre and disturbing once you understand what the word really means. The Modern English meaning refers almost solely to giving to the poor and less fortunate, which is quite bizarre from the original meaning of the term.
The idea of Charity is Divine Love, given as a free gift. What is a Free Gift? Charisma!
Olivia Fox Cabane
She wrote the very pragmatic, and authority text on charisma, called
The Charisma Myth. She claims that there are three elements to Charisma: Presence, Power and Warmth. Power and Warmth seem obvious to normal people, but Presence is hard to define.
The way I see it is that Presence is a description of the natural capacities and talents given to a person that makes him Charismatic, if he first possesses the two other elements of Power and Warmth.
First Century Christians
There is some research suggesting that the spread, power, and sustaining element of first century christianity was the Charisma of its leaders, and to some extent the followers. Apparently,
Rudolph Sohm, the forerunner of Max Weber, made this claim.
As the story goes, Jesus Christ was the Fountainhead of the Charisma. He transferred this Charisma to the Apostles and Disciples. These unique powers of personality and talent enabled them to spread the Gospel to the entire Roman Empire in record time, by sheer force of personality and individual and collective talent, all contained within the concept of Charisma - personal gifts granted by the Gods, and then given to the world as a gift.
Over time, this charismatic authority, power, and vision, was encapsulated within ritual and praxis within the Liturgy. Some of it was encoded in writing called "scripture." Apparently after the initial glow of talent and charisma waned, Traditional Authority took over, as it does all institutions, and Christianity became an institution with books, hierarchy, procedures, bureaucracy, etc. This is apparently the natural progression of all Charismatic movements: initial charisma gives way to tradition and codified bureaucracy.
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Perhaps the same can be said of Mohamet. The Prophet of Islam was a charismatic leader that conquered half the word in record time. This is pure natural or divine talent, we rarely see.
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Perhaps history would unfold into a boring progression, mostly predictable, if it were not for charismatic individuals with specially, divinely inspired gifts and powers that stir up our souls and imaginations, and show us a new way of life, blasting away all previous traditions, into a new way of life, which is to be encoded into Tradition after the First, Second or third generation of charismatic leaders fade away.
