Day 30: Looking for something a lot more simple.

 

Ten days left and I don't know what to write about.  These last two weeks have been draining on me physically.  My brain started out okay with AFL material, but I am over whelmed and feeling like I did when I was taking Computer Programming at NAIT.  I feel like I got in over my head.  

Some of the conversations over the last month have been helpful and encouraging.  Maybe I got what I needed to get out of the course.  I can still hang in there, but maybe I don't have to feel bad about losing interest in the heady material and weighty theological journey.  

I think I will be okay and that is all I really wanted.  I have some good leads in books going forward that will keep me interested in the journey toward letting go of "God" and embracing the Creator beyond the religious paint job.  I hope so. 

Day 29: Reaching Maximum Potential

Paul Tillich Quotes from today's reading

 Here I can say that something is holy to everyone, even to those who deny that they have experienced the holy

The ultimate in being and meaning cannot be limited, cannot be caught in any particular religion, in any particular sacred place or by any particular sacred action. 

The religions of the world must acknowledge this struggle and not destroy it by an arrogant dogmatism. They must open themselves to those who ask the question of the absolute with passion and unconditional seriousness, both inside and outside the churches.

Well.  this is called Authentic Lent.  I am at day 29 and authentically have reached my maximum potential for intake on this course.  I am tired, worn out, sick, and my brain isn't processing the great stuff like I had hoped.  But I will keep going until the end and will find something of value.   

I think this might be the last time I commit to daily writing of anything.  

Day 28: My Birthday Experiment

I turned my Birthday Zoom meetings into an experiment that helped me see how church works.

A last minute bout of laryngitis/bronchitis has encouraged me to be a fly on the wall of my birthday conversation. I hadn't planned for it to go this way, but I decided to mute myself and blacken out my video and invited people into the Zoom room.

The morning meeting started at 10:00 am. I activated the Zoom room at 10:00 am sharp and let people dwindle in for five minutes. I did a screen share and played my welcome video with the instructions. I didn't mute anyone, so as the video was playing, people were talking... and missing some of the instruction. I figured that out because it took a while for the conversation to move forward, and then one friend had a poem for me, but suggested we wait until I showed up before she shared her poem. My mother reminded her that I wasn't going to show up. (I had mentioned something like that in the introductory video.)

It wasn't long before the conversation started rolling without me. One attendant had technical issues and that kept others from continuing the conversation. Her screen would keep freezing. That halted the conversation for a few minutes.

Eventually, the conversation started rolling again, and during the next half hour, I noticed a few funny things.

The attendees spoke about me in third person even through I was in the room. (I never hid that fact)

They told me that they can't wait until they can see my face and hear my voice.

And eventually they just did their own thing and had their own conversation.

And at the end they remembered me again and sang me Happy Birthday.

This reminded me of the average church service. People gather around the celebration of someone who they don't see and can't hear. That person is in attendance... at least that is what they have been told. But there is no real evidence of that. There maybe moments when they think that someone is communicating to them, but then others are clueless.

I had the chat window open and my Mom messaged with me. She knew how to use chat. But I messaged my other friends, and they weren't getting my messages. Mom later figured because they didn't know how to operate chat. She figured that was my job to enlighten everyone on all the nuances of Zoom. I told Mom as I explained my experiment to her, that it gave her something more to share. She could pass the messages along.

The second meeting went well, but also had a glitch of the electronic variety. One of the attendants didn't have audio, but soon figured a way to compensate and she hand wrote messages. Something different... she had access to chat, but went old school. More for the story.

I did reveal myself with ten minutes left on the clock. We had a nice visit and I enjoyed the discovery of what it was like to be invisible, yet present.

My take away from both meetings... It is an exercise in humility for someone who is used to being the centre of attention.

Day 27: Had I only known

 

Had I only known that I would have nothing to say today of any value today, I might not have started this blog.  Had I known that I was to start something I couldn't finish, I wouldn't have started it at all.  Had I known that I'd be in too much pain today to write, I just might have listened to that voice inside.  

"No one is going to read this.  No one is going to care.  No one will know what boils in the heart of you."

Had I known, I could have just said "To hell with it all... Time to fly off into the sunset." 

I didn't know.  So I stammer to get some words down in this post while the tears flow from my face.  And I hope that the clock doesn't strike midnight before I can get today's picture.  

Day 26: Only one thought today.

 "One man's meat is another man's poison."

Day 25: Nietzsche speaks

Friedrich Nietzsche

(October 15, 1844 - August 25, 1900)

To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.

We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.

Without music, life would be a mistake.

On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.

There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play.

There are no facts, only interpretations.

Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders.

It is impossible to suffer without making someone pay for it; every complaint already contains revenge.

When one has not had a good father, one must create one.

To forget one's purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.

We have art in order not to die of the truth.

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.

There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths.

I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you..

All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.

He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.

It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.

A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.

The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.

Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings - always darker, emptier and simpler.

The future influences the present just as much as the past.

When marrying, ask yourself this question: Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this person into your old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory.

The irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, rather a condition of it.

Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called 'Ego'.

All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.

Faith: not wanting to know what is true.

Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal.

Thank you Friedrich, for some amazing wisdom.  

I downloaded a collection of quotes from the internet, and selected some that I either resonate with, or am challenged by, or need to seriously reflect further on.  That doesn't mean that I agree or disagree with any or all of them.  I like that I don't have to agree or disagree in order to gain from someone's wisdom.  

Day 24: How Not to Speak

Today, the readings were of Freud, and I felt no inspiration.  I didn't read the first one, because it was so long.  I went into the additional readings and read the shorter essay on religious experience. 

I can't speak very well today, my throat hurts, I am tired, I can't eat.  It hurts to swallow, I haven't slept well because of my pain and discomfort.   I am silent again.  Laryngitis is what it seems, so I have shut down my voice and am doing what I can to soothe the soreness.  

I got "How (Not) To Speak of God" today.  I started reading it.  It might be a lot of stuff I have already read in the other books, but it is Pete's first. 

I actually got the book based on Brian McLaren's raving Forward.  With him speaking so highly of it, it was a no brainer for me.  I didn't have it accessible on my Ibooks, so Manfred ordered from Amazon for me.  It's my birthday present.  

I found an interesting quote:  

"Just because you're offended, doesn't make you right." 

Day 23: Emma Goldman: The Philosophy of Atheism

Excerpts from 

The Philosophy of Atheism

 by Emma Goldman

Published February 1916, in the Mother Earth journal

"The concept God… has become more indefinite and obscure in the course of time and progress. In other words, the God idea is growing more impersonal and nebulous in proportion as the human mind is learning to understand natural phenomena and in the degree that science progressively correlates human and social events

God, today, no longer represents the same forces as in the beginning of His existence; neither does He direct human destiny with the same Iron hand as of yore… In the course of human development the God idea has been forced to adapt itself to every phase of human affairs, which is perfectly consistent with the origin of the idea itself.

The decline of theism is a most interesting spectacle, especially as manifested in the anxiety of the theists, whatever their particular brand…

Have not all theists painted their Deity as the god of love and goodness? Yet after thousands of years of such preachments the gods remain deaf to the agony of the human race. Confucius cares not for the poverty, squalor and misery of people of China. Buddha remains undisturbed in his philosophical indifference to the famine and starvation of outraged Hindus; Jehovah continues deaf to the bitter cry of Israel; while Jesus refuses to rise from the dead against his Christians who are butchering each other.

Beauty as a gift from heaven has proved useless. It will, however, become the essence and impetus of life when man learns to see in the earth the only heaven fit for man. Atheism is already helping to free man from his dependence upon punishment and reward as the heavenly bargain.

Do not all theists insist that there can be no morality, no justice, honesty or fidelity without the belief in a Divine Power? Based upon fear and hope, such morality has always been a vile  product, imbued parity with self-righteousness, partly with hypocrisy… [Atheists] knew that justice, truth, and fidelity are not, conditioned in heaven, but that they are related to and interwoven with the tremendous changes going on in the social and material life of the human race; not fixed and eternal, but fluctuating, even as life itself…" Emma Goldman

"Emma Goldman (1869 – 1940) was an anarchist political activist and writer. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the 20th century.

Goldman became a writer and a renowned lecturer on anarchist philosophy, women's rights, and social issues. She was also part of a plan to assassinate industrialist Henry Clay Frick as an act of ‘propaganda of the deed’. Goldman was imprisoned several times for "inciting to riot" and illegally distributing information about birth control. In 1906, Goldman founded the anarchist journal Mother Earth.

Her writing and lectures spanned a wide variety of issues. The following are extensive excerpts from an article she wrote on atheism." Peter Rollins

I let another day go by with a body lacking energy to expound on this... so I will let Emma and Peter do the talking once again.  I have included segments of Emma's essay... these snippets are what moved me the most in the reading.  

Day 22: The Preacher and the Slave

If our faith does not throw us into the arms of the world, if it does not lead to our experience of responsibility, love, celebration, and our commitment to transformation, then, whatever we call it, we have nothing but an empty shell. Pete Rollins (Insurrection) 

Joe Hill (1879 – 1915) was a labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World. An immigrant worker frequently facing unemployment and underemployment, became a popular songwriter and cartoonist for the union.

Hill was convicted of murder in a controversial trial. Following an unsuccessful appeal, political debates, and international calls for clemency from high-profile figures, Hill was executed in November 1915.

One of his most famous songs is "The Preacher and the Slave" a parody of Joseph Webster’s hymn "The Sweet By and By". Hill composed his response because migrant workers would often be greeted by the Salvation Army singing "The Sweet By and By" as they returned to the city each evening after having worked all day in dire conditions. The original hymn told them that life would begin after death. For Hill, life was possible before death, but only as we put our shoulder to the plow of historical struggle and fight for equality here and now.

"The Preacher and the Slave" Joe Hill 

Long-haired preachers come out every night,

Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right;

But when asked how 'bout something to eat

They will answer in voices so sweet

Chorus (sung as a call and response)

You will eat [You will eat] bye and bye [bye and bye]

In that glorious land above the sky [Way up high]

Work and pray [Work and pray] live on hay [live on hay]

You'll get pie in the sky when you die [That's a lie!]

Holy Rollers and Jumpers come out

And they holler, they jump and they shout

Give your money to Jesus, they say,

He will cure all diseases today

(Chorus)

And the Starvation Army, they play,

And they sing and they clap and they pray,

Till they get all your coin on the drum,

Then they tell you when you're on the bum

(Chorus)

If you fight hard for children and wife

Try to get something good in this life

You're a sinner and bad man, they tell,

When you die you will sure go to hell.

(Chorus)

Workingmen of all countries, unite

Side by side we for freedom will fight

When the world and its wealth we have gained

To the grafters we'll sing this refrain

Chorus (modified)

You will eat [You will eat] bye and bye [bye and bye]

When you've learned how to cook and how to fry [How to fry]

Chop some wood [Chop some wood], 'twill do you good [do you good]

Then you'll eat in the sweet bye and bye [That's no lie]

Today I will let Pete and Joe dominate this post.  I am weak and sick and tired and have little energy to contribute to this forty day commitment to write something.  All I can say.... beautiful song, Joe! 

Day 21: The Living Flowers

Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. Karl Marx

Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. Karl Marx

Just as Feuerbach helped us to see that God is a reflection of ourselves, so Marx argued that we must do the same with those in power. In other words, we must see through their claim that they reflect some ahistorical truth about reality, and realize that they simply reflect the current ideological system. A system that generates contradictions, and that must eventually give way to something better. Pete Rollins

I took a photo today that says more than I can say with words today.  Let me talk about flowers and graves.  

Graves collect two kind of flowers... real and artificial.  There are reasons for both.  The real are natural and have life in them, but once picked for the grave they will wither and dry up.  The artificial retain their beauty but they are plastic and have never had life in them.  

I don't know when real flowers die.  Do they die when they wither or do they die when they are cut?  Good question.  

What is the story of artificial flowers?  Are they a suitable replacement for real flowers?  What is their purpose?  Do they mock humanity by trying to convince us that the artificial is just as beautiful if not more than the real?  

My sister-in-law and I had this conversation already.  She does not put artificial flowers on graves and she does not want artificial flowers on her grave when she has one.  

The photo has real flowers, long since dried up and one artificial sunflower that is as radiantly yellow as the day it was manufactured.  How can I judge either?  

Maybe Marx saw Christians as the artificial sunflower on the grave of life.  He understood that plucking the living flower would still mean its death, but at least it would be real.  

There is a season to real flowers and there is procreation: Seeds die and give life.  What artificial flowers deny us as a human race is the seasons.  They deny us death. 

I agree with Marx and my sister... Let's cut the living flowers and put the manufacturers of the artificial replicas on a new mission.  Maybe they can make money with plastic bags, plates or cutlery.  Just leave the flowers to the Creator.  

Day 20: "God is the explanation for the unexplainable." Feuerbach

Excerpts from The Essence of Christianity By Ludwig Feuerbach

Man first unconsciously and involuntarily creates God in his own image, and after this God (Religion) consciously and voluntarily creates man in his own image

If therefore my work is negative, irreligious, atheistic, let it be remembered that atheism — at least in the sense of this work — is the secret of religion itself; that religion itself, not indeed on the surface, but fundamentally, not in intention or according to its own supposition, but in its heart, in its essence, believes in nothing else than the truth and divinity of human nature.

My only wish is to transform friends of God into friends of man, believers into thinkers, devotees of prayer into devotees of work, candidates for the hereafter into students of the world,

Christians who, by their own procession and admission, are "half animal, half angel" into persons, into whole persons... I negate the fantastic hypocrisy of theology and religion only in order to affirm the true nature of man.

To the truly religious man, God is not being without qualities... the denial of determinate, positive predicates... is nothing else than a denial of religion, with, however, an appearance of religion in its favour, so that it is not recognized as a denial; it is simply a subtle, disguised atheism.

I have always taken as the standard of the mode of teaching and writing, not the abstract, particular, professional philosopher, but universal man, that I have regarded man as the criterion of truth, and not this or that founder of a system, and have from the first placed the highest excellence of the philosopher in this, that he abstains, both as a man and as an author, from the ostentation of philosophy, i.e., that he is a philosopher only in reality, not formally, that he is a quiet philosopher, not a loud and still less a brawling one.

Religion is the dream of the human mind. But even in dreams we do not find ourselves in emptiness or in heaven, but on earth, in the realm of reality; we only see real things in the entrancing splendor of imagination and caprice, instead of in the simple daylight of reality and necessity. 

I would rather be a devil in alliance with truth, than an angel in alliance with falsehood.

The first philosophers were astronomers. The heavens remind man ... that he is destined not merely to act, but also to contemplate.

God is the explanation for the unexplainable which explains nothing because it explains everything without distinction -

- he is the night of theory, nonetheless making everything clear to the mind by removing any measure of darkness and extinguishing the light of discriminating comprehension -- the not-knowing which solves all doubts by repudiating them, which knows everything because it knows nothing in particular and because all things which impress reason are nothing to religion, lose their identity and are nil in God's eye. The night is the mother of religion. 

I added "The Essence of Christianity" by Ludwig Feuerbach to my up and coming reads.  There is something about this man's wisdom and genius that I want to dive further into.  This collection of quotes if from our AFL daily reading.  I bolded the ones that really stand out for me.  

I do want to embellish on one of Feuerbach's quotes.  

My only wish is to transform friends of God into friends of man, believers into thinkers, devotees of prayer into devotees of work, candidates for the hereafter into students of the world,

What if we don't have to transform anyone to change from one to another... but maybe we can have "friends of God" who are also "friends of man"  We could have believers who are also thinkers and people devoted to prayer and work... still making them students of the world.  

I don't want to take away a person's faith and belief if that is their lens to see the world and be a better person... but to add to that... now that would be something worth wishing for.  Then maybe I wouldn't be so scared of thinking anymore.  

Day 19: Too many amazing minds, not enough years left to read them all

 

I am overwhelmed at all the books and literature I wish I could pile into the processor that rests on top of my neck.  Since I started reading great minds, the supply of great books is endless.  I want to read more authors, so that means I have to limit myself to one two and sometimes even three books per author.  It gets hard when I find a good mind and a great author, to leave behind some of their great books, just because I don't have enough energy and years to read them all.  

It is not always about time.  Some books take longer to digest than others.  Some get started and never get finished.  Some look great on the outside, and don't draw me in to the depth of the story or message.  All that takes away from those books that are out there with great stuff in the covers.  

Atheism for Lent is introducing me to a lot of great minds and other than Peter Rollins, I have only cracked one book.  I am still reading Jean Meslier.  How many others will I pass by in my journey?

I have been harvesting quotes from some of these great minds, because I don't think I will get to read their books.  Authors like Feuerbach, Ingersoll, Kierkegaard all are inspiring me, but to invest more time and energy in reading them all... well, I don't know if I can... so I will collect the best thoughts and peruse them from time to time.  

Here are a few:

 "God did not, as the Bible says, make man in His image; on the contrary man, as I have shown in The Essence of Christianity, made God in his image."  Ludwig Feuerbach

"It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages." Frederick Nietzsche

"Few rich men own their own property. The property owns them." Robert G. Ingersoll

"What is a poet? An unhappy person who conceals profound anguish in his heart but whose lips are so formed that as sighs and cries pass over them they sound like beautiful music. Soren Kierkegaard

We used to wonder where war lived, what it was that made it so vile. And now we realize that we know where it lives... inside ourselves." Albert Camus

Day 18: God is not a god

 "The Jewish discovery that God is not a god but Creator is the discovery of absolute Mystery behind and underpinning reality.  Those who share it (either in it's Judaic or its Christian form) are not monotheists who have reduced the number of gods to one.  They, we, have abolished the gods; there is only the Mystery sustaining all that is.  The Mystery is unfathomable, but it is not remote as the gods are remote.  The gods live somewhere else, on Olympus or above the starry sky.  The Mystery is everywhere and always, in every grain of sand and every flash of colour, every hint of flavour in a wine, keeping all these things in existence every microsecond.  We could not literally approach God or get nearer to God for God is already nearer to us than we are to ourselves.  God is at the ultimate depth of our beings making us to be ourselves. "  Friar Herbert McCabe.  

Someone in the AFL group posted this quote and it moved deeper in me as a closer picture of how I see that which gave me breath.  Mystery... a name of sorts, at least that is how it sounds in Friar Herb's depiction.  I like how he separated the idea of god and mystery.  That god is something envisioned and named, where as mystery is unknown, undefined and unimagined.  

As I travel through this Lenten period, I have no goal but enlightenment.  I long to shed light (awareness) into those areas of my world that have been dominated by the shadows.  I don't want to be that person that is fearful of the unknown because of where it will take me.  I want to be encouraged and challenged by that which I have avoided my whole life.  

Today I admitted to the AFL Processing Group that I wanted a funeral on Good Friday, but one that wasn't followed up two days later by a white wash of my pain and loss.  I want to soak in the grief and loss of "The Death of God" and more specifically... the death of Jesus for as long as it takes to be okay with it.  I don't need to have an annual funeral that gets annulled in two days.  I need to mourn the loss of someone who I loved and have lost. I need a really long Saturday.   I need to let the sand pour from my hands as if never to hold it again.  

Day 17: Katie and Eilish: Beautiful Because of Chance

The Story of Katie and Eilish

After watching this story of these twin girls this evening, I am finding myself contemplative.  I am not feeling much of anything except peace.  Maybe this story is allowing me to see that had I still embraced a controlling God narrative, then I couldn't embrace the beauty amid the chance of this story.  There is no normal.  There is only beauty.  

It is a precious waste of  brain cells to explain the whys and hows of these two girls and their story.  I have nothing in my core being now that needs to explain or justify the circumstances of their life.  I can see only beauty and the chance that nature has given them to be in this world.  There is no normal.  There is no expectation for these girls to look like the other seven billion people in this world.  They have only to embrace their own beauty and their own uniqueness as a gift from the Creative Flow of the Cosmos.  There was no grand design flaw; there was no malfunction in creation; there was only Love in action.  Love manifested itself in this story and that is what came across.  Love made these two as they were... and Love gave their family the freedom to make choices to move forward in life.  Love is the only explanation needed.  

The continued story of Eilish... without Katie

Day 16: "God Hates us ALL"... A message worth risky graffiti?

 

Manfred and I were out for a drive and something inspired him to pull off the road and drive us down to the river's edge.  The ice still covered the water and there wasn't a trail to go hiking too far.  We noticed the graffiti on the bridge and admired the dexterity it must have taken for the "monkeys" to walk out on the bridge beams and share their messages.  Some were less brave than others, as they just kept their artwork to the underside of the bridge.  But there was 

someone who traversed the narrow edge out to the first pile, a very risky venture, and wrote the words "God Hates us ALL.

What kind of "God" inspired that risky graffiti venture?  What kind of pain was so horrid and oozed through that person that made them risk their life to paint those words on the bridge?  What kind of doctrine was painted in their mind that convinced them of that response?   

That painter could have written "God hates me" as a response to internal pain or self absorbed pain,  but that wasn't what was written.  "God Hates us ALL" and ALL was in all caps and underlined.  

I am left to wonder.  All I have to understand that tortured artist is four words on the back side of the bridge.  Well, maybe not only four words.  A closer look and I see three more words on the other side of the beam plate.  "I'm watching You"  Who is watching, and who is being watched?  More questions.  

I ordered Pete Rollins book "How (Not) to Speak of God" today.  I asked my husband to order it as he has the family Amazon account.  There was one left in stock... so hopefully I get it in time for my birthday... as I told Manfred that it was my birthday present from him.  It will be my fourth Peter Rollins book, but my first paperback. I am primarily an E-reader... but iBooks didn't have this one in it's collection.  I think I will keep soaking up the wisdom as long as it is there to absorb!!!  

One more question.  Why is St. Patrick's day observed in Canada?  We are far away from Ireland.  It seems odd that Canada would need a Catholic missionary from the fifth century to promote green here.  We have JD tractors to do that.  

Day 15: Marguerite Porete and Love worth burning for

What kind of love would be worth burning for?

Marquerite Porete inspires me... I am so grateful for living in this century. If I would exist in her time, someone would be tying me to a stake and burning me for what I write. I would rather be ignored as an author than condemned and burned at the stake. Today... I honour this woman for sharing her soul and words at great cost to her.

It helps me to understand Jean Meslier more... There was no freedom to struggle with "God" back then. Church was Power and decided your spiritual path for you. It was better to write in private and let your words go out after you are done breathing.

I thought her dialogue of Love and Reason was beautiful and poetic. "I am God, says Love, for Love is God and God is Love" ... and for that they killed her... not very loving.

I have it so good, yet I still feel like the shame hides within me lying to me...

"You will burn, like them, only by my fire. I will consume you."

I write and publish, if only on this obscure blog, to remind "Shame" that I know those lies, and I don't want to believe them anymore. Love is real and Love wants to drive out Fear and Shame. I am whole. I am free. I am intertwined with Love.

Reason. And who are you, Love? says Reason. Are you not also one of the Virtues, and one of us, even though you be above us?

Love. I am God, says Love, for Love is God, and God is Love, and this Soul is God through its condition of Love, and I am God through my divine nature, and this Soul is God by Love’s just law. So that this my precious beloved is taught and guided by me, without herself for she has been changed into me. And this is the outcome, says Love, of being nourished by me.

MARGUERITE PORETE (1250-1310)

Day 14: Revisiting Robert Ingersoll and the Agnostic Message

(The Thinker: original creator Auguste Rodin)

"The agnostic does not simply say "I do not know".  He goes another step and he says with great emphasis that YOU do not know. 

He insists that you are trading on the ignorance of others and on the fear of others.  He is not satisfied with saying that you do not know - he demonstrates that you do not know and he drives you from the field of fact.  He drives you from the realm of reason.  He drives you from the light, into the darkness of conjecture  - into the world of dreams and shadows and he compels you to say, at last, that your faith has no foundation in fact." Robert Ingersoll. 

Robert Ingersoll Quotes and Audio from Edison

 (This is the Youtube video where I found the quote) 

The poet in me is excited at the idea that casting doubt on religion's factual foundations is indeed a beautiful thing.  The agnostic in me is thinking it is necessary for my sanity. The lover in me wonders at the timing and where Love fits into the dance.  But the child in me is frightened that doing so will be another invitation to abandonment.  

It is the whole certainty message that needs to be challenged, but not necessarily the faith aspect.  Let anyone believe what they need to believe to navigate this world.   Yet let us challenge their fact claims that damage other not-so-certain humans on the journey of life.  

I am thankful that I am not the first one to rise up in THE world, for I feel less alone.  I just feel like in MY world, I would be the first to rise up, and then I do feel alone.  Aye... What a conundrum! 

Day 13: The Great "I Don't Know"

"One day some of the brethren came to see Abba Antony, and among them was Abba Joseph. Wishing to test them, the old man mentioned a text from Scripture, and starting with the youngest he asked them what it meant. Each explained it as best he could. But to each one the old man said, ‘You have not yet found the answer.' Last of all he said to Abba Joseph, 'And what do you think the text means?' He replied, 'I do not know.' Then Abba Antony said, 'Truly, Abba Joseph has found the way, for he said: I do not know.' ~ The Sayings of the Desert Fathers" I told my Mom once: "We are a planet of agnostics." ... I thought at the time, It was me trying to fit in, instead of embracing my isolation from the world because... "I don't know". But I still understand this more than ever. Maybe the best we have in life is the great "I don't know" and that is the journey. What if... the "what if's" became more valuable as we lay aside certainty and absolute knowledge. Our imagination becomes the springboard of the conversation and we can discover an amazing world, not bound by the need to have the answers.

Day 12: Longing to be a bird

Today marks the beginning of week three.   How is it going, one might ask?  Well... Enlightening.  Definitely enlightening.  I am enriched by listening to people's stories.  I think that is what is changing me the most.  

I can't remember who it was that impressed this on me, but it was something like... it is much harder to judge someone when you have heard their story.  

I am much better at reading stories than I am listening to them.  When I read, I am alone and in my own head and space and I can process the story better and go back if I have to.  When I am with the person, there is so much I miss and so many distractions and I only get one chance.  

I think my goal in the next few weeks is not so much to embrace into my core what I am reading, but to let it join my arsenal of thought.  I want access to as many thoughts as I can so I am not limited by my prejudice.  I don't want to live like that anymore.  I don't want to restrict myself because of fear.  I want to continuously learn and then take away what helps me on my journey. 

Today, I am feeling low.  I am lacking enthusiasm, creativity and joy.  It is usually temporary... but dismal and painful when I am going through the slump.  It is hard to write when I am like this.  

Today,  I feel like I am flying in an airplane looking out the window, longing to be a bird... sad, but happy that at least I am up in the clouds.   I wonder if I am free.  Maybe being on the ground was free and being in this hollow metal tube pretending I'm a bird is not freedom, but captivity.  

Day 11: The Invisible Gardener and my Struggle with Authenticity

Once upon a time two explorers came upon a clearing in the jungle. In the clearing were growing many flowers and many weeds. One explorer says, "some gardener must tend this plot." The other disagrees, "There is no gardener." So they pitch their tents and set a watch. No gardener is ever seen. "But perhaps he is an invisible gardener."

So they, set up a barbed-wire fence. They electrify it. They patrol with bloodhounds. (For they remember how H.G. Wells's The Invisible Man could be both smelt and touched though he could not he seen.) But no shrieks ever suggest that some intruder has received a shock. No movements of the wire ever betray an invisible climber. The bloodhounds never give cry. Yet still the Believer is not convinced. "But there is a gardener, invisible, intangible, insensible to electric shocks, a gardener who has no scent and makes no sound, a gardener who comes secretly to look after the garden which he loves." At last the Sceptic despairs, "But what remains of your original assertion? Just how does what you call an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener at all?” 

 (John Wisdom and Anthony Flew)

What have I to gain by embracing belief in an invisible gardener or imagining an invisible gardener or just totally negating the idea of a gardener all together.  I seems that I have to choose and maybe I don't want to choose.  Maybe I don't mind believing, imagining and negating.  Maybe all three have value in the world I live in and with the people I live with.  

My biggest struggle as of late has been that of authenticity.  Do I have to pick a side and show it and even prove it?  Is that what being real is all about?  Or is there more to it.  Maybe it's not about picking a side for life, as much as it is to side with Love and how and where that Love wants to manifest itself.  Maybe in one place or with some people it is more loving to believe.  Maybe imagining is more loving and maybe even struggling and negating is more loving.  Maybe it isn't always the same in every place and with every person... and I think that is the case... so I don't even need a maybe.  

Something the Enneagram has taught me is that authenticity isn't an obvious longing for everyone.  It seems to show up as a longing with those who are more heart focused.  So if it isn't a requirement for living, maybe then it is okay if I limit my authentic moments to those places and with those people with whom it matters.  

I have noticed that not too many people are asking me to reveal my inner soul with them.  Most just enjoy my presence on a social level and express that.  Much beyond that can get awkward.  I have been feeling the lack of the deep places in my relationships,  but I am seeing more clearly that its not always  required to navigate life.  Aaahhhh the journey... 

DAY 10: Learning from Robert Ingersoll

Day 10... 1/4 of the way through the journey called "Atheism for Lent".   And I've learned so much and downloaded more reading material that I can digest in forty days.  

Today I am heavy with thought.  Bart Campolo has introduced me to Robert Ingersoll over and over again on the "Humanize Me" podcast.  Ingersoll is a big influence for Bart and I can understand why.  There is so much depth in the dives of his thoughts.  I had to share a few quotes that I gleaned from my internet search.  I will end this post with a few of them.  

I had to download his work for further reading, but it may take time... I'm still reading Jean Meslier and Pete Rollins.  

When I became convinced that the universe is natural, that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell. The dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts and bars and manacles became dust.  ROBERT GREEN INGERSOLL, Why I Am An Agnostic

We can be as honest as we are ignorant. If we are, when asked what is beyond the horizon of the known, we must say that we do not know. We can tell the truth, and we can enjoy the blessed freedom that the brave have won. We can destroy the monsters of superstition, the hissing snakes of ignorance and fear. We can drive from our minds the frightful things that tear and wound with beak and fang. We can civilize our fellow-men. We can fill our lives with generous deeds, with loving words, with art and song, and all the ecstasies of love. We can flood our years with sunshine -- with the divine climate of kindness, and we can drain to the last drop the golden cup of joy.

ROBERT G. INGERSOLL, "Why I Am an Agnostic", The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll

Great virtues may draw attention from defects, they cannot sanctify them. A pebble surrounded by diamonds remains a common stone, and a diamond surrounded by pebbles is still a gem.

ROBERT G. INGERSOLL, The Great Infidels

Justice is the only worship.
Love is the only priest.

ROBERT G. INGERSOLL, The Philosophy of Ingersoll

Take theology from the world, and the money wasted on superstition will do away with want.

ROBERT G. INGERSOLL, Six Interviews with Robert G. Ingersoll on Six Sermons by the Rev. T. De Witt Talmage

It is hard for many people to give up the religion in which they were born; to admit that their fathers were utterly mistaken, and that the sacred records of their country are but collections of myths and fables.

ROBERT GREEN INGERSOLL, Some Mistakes of Moses

Mankind will be enslaved until there is mental grandeur enough to allow each man to have his thought and say. This earth will be a paradise when men can, upon all these questions differ, and yet grasp each other's hands as friends.

ROBERT G. INGERSOLL, Some Mistakes of Moses

It may be that ministers really think that their prayers do good, and it may be that frogs imagine that their croaking brings spring.

ROBERT G. INGERSOLL, "Which Way?"

There is but one blasphemy, and that is injustice.

ROBERT GREEN INGERSOLL, lecture, Chicago, September 20, 1880

Day 9: Seeing the people behind the words

 

What kind of legacy am I leaving behind and is it even important that I leave one?  

Four years ago, I started thinking about leaving behind something.  I was turning fifty and was feeling forgotten.  So I started Youtubing.  I figured that if I took some video footage of me just talking about some things.  I figured I would, if nothing more substantial, be leaving a memory of me behind for people who loved me.  It seemed important at the time.   

I had been writing for a long time already, but my words seemed to fall on deaf ears for the most part.  Some have valued my written words, but most have just valued me.  I guess I would rather be valued for me than for my words, but my words are like children to me.  What mother doesn't want her children valued?  I feel the same way about my cats.  

As I venture more into skeptic thought and an agnostic understanding of life, my words seem to become more meaningless to those around me.  I don't blame them.   My words would mean nothing to the Ruby of twenty years ago.  I was convinced that reading anything outside of my religious convictions was dangerous to my soul.  I had almost no interest in understanding anyone who didn't share the ideology I carried.  I say almost, because in my life there has been one woman who has never shared my religious ideologies, but has been my longest friend.  I think she was an anomaly that I could have learned more from.  I could have taken that relationship and made it my guide for my other interactions in the world... but I didn't.  So the years went by and I stayed in my world.  

When fifty came, I found myself wanting to leave a legacy, but without the one person who I wanted to leave a legacy for.  "Who am I now that my words need to matter?"... is a question I often ask myself.  That one person who I am without... my words didn't matter much to him either... at least enough to let me know they mattered. Maybe they did matter, but he died without telling me.  But one thing I know... I mattered to him.  Maybe that is the legacy I really need to leave behind.  I need to leave myself more than my words.  But sadly enough.... the only thing that will survive my death is my words.  I just hope enough of me is visible between the lines and around the syllables.  Maybe that is all a writer can hope for after they die.  

Today, I heard the words of Charles Darwin.  I saw some of him left behind in his words, and I could connect.  His story is not unlike my own.  But I wonder if most don't know his story, because, like me, they didn't take the time to see him through and around his words.  This is what I am gaining in "Atheism for Lent".  I am getting a chance to see the people behind the words.