A Fresh Start

We are watching The Secret of Kells. It is absolutely spectacular. Pagan and Christian, mysterious and historical. It is visually rich, the music is beautiful. We only watched one hour of it (or so) before it was B's bedtime wind-down, and I'd gotten chills twice.

I've been having a long and interesting discussion about religion with a distant cousin. I make no claims to have any of the answers, though I do spend damn near all my waking hours engaged in religious thinking in some capacity or another. What's KILLING me is his inability to reason, while all the time trying to convince me that he's too logical and I'm too emotional. Now, I am very emotional: I get passionate, yes, sir. But in my engagement with him I've been very even handed, perhaps too even. But his refusal to understand that in the world of religion X *and* Y need to be considered not incompatible Truths but simultaneous truths, has me coming off as emotional to him. It's not out of some namby-pamby love-fest that I say this. It's because after practicing and studying religions and spending time with people who believe differently than I do, to assume that only Jesus is THE God is to basically tell 4.5 billion other people to fuck off and die. It's not saying Jesus is MY God, but Jesus is THE God. I know the vast majority of Christians don't see it that way, but that's how it is.

I have spend considerable time in Jewish communities and developing friendships with both cultural and religious Jews (which doesn't make me an expert, merely informed to some degree), I have never ever had a Jew tell me that their God was THE God and boy I'd be a lot better off if I argreed. If I want to join their party, many would welcome me (many would not, since I'm not ethnically Jewish), but the Jewish people are content to worship their god and go on their merry way. They don't need to convince the rest of the world of their religious superiority. I would love to know if the Jewish world sees their God as THE God, or merely as THEIR God - that's a huge difference.

I'm really fed up with the mainstream idea that logic means there can only be one big-T Truth. I fear that modern Western schooling has ruined the brains of generations who were taught to find Right Answers - there can be only One! - rather than to develop arguments and think critically. Unless you are in the hard sciences, there is rarely One Answer. I think this is why academics are stereotyped as elitists: because it's very difficult to talk with people for whom there is only One Right Answer. If I had to talk with people like my cousin (who's a Nice Guy) regularly I think my head would explode. This is why people like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin give America/politics/conservatives/Christianity such a bad name, because they don't reason. At all. Cuz reasoning and arguing is some Lefty Agenda out to confuse the Average Joe. Of course it confuses the Average Joe - because they went to school where there was only one right answer!! (Excuse me while I go stab out my eyes in the corner.)

I'm starting to wonder if there isn't some religious causation here. In the Protestant Christian world (which makes up the vast majority of America) there is one sacred text - the Bible. It is entirely correct. It is The Right Answer. Everything must be squared with it. There is One God. The Bible says X, so X it is. There is no tradition of critical engagement. No tradition of wrestling or questioning. No understanding that the Bible is a sacred text that grew up in certain times and places and is relevant to certain people. One billion Hindus grew up in a different time, place and culture with different sacred texts? Well, fuck them. They're Wrong. How mind-bogglingly ignorant and arrogant is it that?? Oh, says my cousin, truth is truth. Gahhhhh! Religion is not a hard science! The same rules do not apply as when we determine, say, that the earth rotates around sun.

I wonder too if perhaps (stereotypically) more Jews go into academia because of their tradition with engaging with texts. The Jewish tradition has a long and rich tradition of arguing and engaging with their sacred texts and teachers - Midrash and Talmud come immediately to mind. Perhaps there is less of a need for One Right Answer, and therefore the world of academia, where it's not about Right Answers but more about better and worse arguments, comes more naturally?*

I don't know. All I know right now is that mainstream reasoning seems to be dying a slow, disgraced death. Many people considered themselves religiously well educated if they made it through 5 years of Sunday school. It makes me want to hide under the bed and weep. Or just hole up with other people who can think, like the elitist I am.

*hraffntinna and msmidge please smack me upside the head if I'm full of shit.

Some quotes from my reading:

Prayer as a concentration of will and desire is a subversive act. (paraphraase)

"You have to look our for a person with out fear; he is capable of anything."

"A person cannot tell you anything about God as long as he rules over you." (quote from Thomas Muntzer)

We keep waiting for some one to save us. Some external force to sweep us off our feet, swoop down, legislate, give us a magic cure. A magic diet for our body issues, the True Love that will relieve us of our loneliness or dissatisfying relationships, the make over that reveals we were beautiful all along, the audience that confirms our brilliance, the Saviour that will come down from heaven and restore our Faith and Truth. But these are external forces of salvation. No one can make us feel beautiful, worthy, or powerful if we don't believe these things first. We have to realize those things on our own. No one can save the world if we don't. Who else is going to care for this earth if we don't? Who else is going to stop war, injustice, and grief if we don't?

We save ourselves and each other. THAT is what Jesus revealed (among a few other things). We are of worth. Matter and spirit are entwined. God is with/in us. He wasn't a substitution. We sacrifice ourselves all the time, just usually we are sacrificing our hope, our self-worth, our joy at the altar of deception and duality. What do I let deceive me? We save ourselves every time we embrace wholeness, every time we move from a place of love - not frilly fantasy love, but the Love of Self-worth and Joy.

This spring let us resurrect ourselves and one another from the constructs of our fear, our loneliness, the things that separate us from our fullness and one another. I love Easter/the Resurrection. If sin is the separation from God/Divinity, the Incarnation reveals to us that that separation is false. The image of God is inside each of us, so who are we not to be beautiful? Not to be loved? Not to be bold? Not to be powerful?

About church. I know. Not surprising. It is the story of my life. Now that I no longer feel a desire to Belong to Christianity I find that there is more room for me to enjoy it and participate. I like going to the school chapel on a Sunday morning. I like singing and I like the hour to sit quietly and meditatively smelling incense and thinking about divinity and being child free. In fact, I'd even go from time to time if I wasn't singing.

But the choir. It's awful. Two weeks ago I was running late and sat in the congregation listening. Oh man, the choir blows. There are more sopranos than anything else and one of them goes sharp and bright all the time. I'm sure I add something nice. But it's really uninspiring putting in two extra hours a week and sounding like crap. And it's no fun barely learning music. I don't know. It's still singing. It's also the best group in Lampeter. Lower my standards and be a part of a nice community?

As you can tell from the time stamp, I'm skipping church this morning. There's a second service tonight and normally I'd be super excited about it: evensong. But our chanting sucks. Suuuuuper uninspiring.

Of my sickness and the five questions meme?

( From Erinya )

I am totally in love with this blog.

This article on the Vatican, excommunication and 9 yr old pregnant girls is devastating. Were I not fighting dizzy to function at work today I would write something articulate and scathing.

Pope Ratzinger/Benedict is a horrible man for sticking by policy. Black and white rules do not help those in grey situations.

I would rant but really I want to weep for the child. Not the children terminated, they never knew what hit them, and it's doubtful at four months that they even had consciousness. I mourn for the girl, who lives in a world where for choosing her own health, mental and physical, she is excommunicated from her faith community, where her rapist is still allowed to be a communing member of her faith community, where those in power think her life and body are merely vessels and contain no worth in and of itself, where rape at all exists.

This world is fucked up beyond measure. The Vatican is morally corrupt.

It is heartbreaking. I'm too tired to rail today, so instead I mourn.