SACRED SATURDAY

Today will be my last post here for this season.  I am not even adding today in the count down.  My Lenten season countdown ended yesterday.  But today is something I still want to write about.  Today is where I live.  

I grew up going to church at least four times over the the Easter weekend.  Once on Thursday, once on Friday and twice on Sunday. Five times if one included the Lenten Wednesday service.  Needless to say... for a youth, it was harrowing.  But one day stood out in that week.  It was Saturday.  We had a reprieve from church.  It was breathing space for a girl who went to church because it was required of her, but she rarely if ever voiced her inner discontent with it.  

I never spent much time wondering what Saturday was all about.  Why didn't that day deserve a service of some kind? Why didn't the people gather and reflect on what that space in between death and life meant.  We never talked about it.  We just saw "death" and then waited for "life" because it came every year.  There was no sadness because "death" was not permanent.  

This religious event in my life didn't teach me about the reality of death.  When death came in my life, there wasn't life in two days.  There was sadness and sorrow and pain and heartache and Saturday existed where Sunday did not.  

Now I have the freedom to sit in Saturday.  I will let Sunday go as if it were another day of the week.  I let the loss permeate my being and I find meaning in what is now Sacred to me.  

I do want to send out a special thank you to all my AFL sojourners.  Your words and companionship have been a great part of this journey.  Thank you for your wisdom and vulnerability.  Thank you for being available to listen and love.  Thank you!

Day 45: Bad Friday

 

Like Poplar Sunday, I have a strong desire to rename today to "Bad Friday".  I could do some added research to discover the reason that today was labeled "Good", and I would probably find out that it has something to do with the atonement theory.  

I've seen over time that it is human nature for most people to want to colour over the pain, loss and sadness.  We as humans wouldn't survive long as a species if we dwelled in the pits of life for too long.  So we take our sadness and try to spin it for something beneficial.  We look for character building moments in our tragedies.  We look for a rainbow after a storm.  We look for some way (to use a phrase from a common worship song) to  "trade our sorrows".  Maybe that is why today is called "Good" 

But what if we just had the opportunity to sit in the gravity of the the story of that Friday (if it even was a Friday).  Every year, millions of people gather for a traditional service to "remember" the events of the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth.  How often in those services can someone remove themselves from the repetitive liturgy and traditional practices to sit in the sadness.  I don't think we can.  It's not in us to leave the picture and it's lines without what a crayon provides.  We need to colour in the picture.  It is incomplete without it.  Or maybe it isn't. 

Today is Bad Friday because it was really was a bad day.  

Day 44: Sad Easter

 I want to scream right now.  I want to let the world know that I have had enough.  "UNDERSTAND ME, OKAY?"

I can't even explain myself in detail and get a corresponding... "Okay, I understand."  Maybe it would have been better to hide in the closet.  Maybe little Enneagram 4 needs a kick in the pants.  The world doesn't want my authenticity.  The world doesn't want my grief.  They want my joy,  my happiness, my laughter... they don't want my sadness and my pain.  

Easter is painful, like Christmas is painful.  The world is happy because Jesus is born or Jesus is alive... "So let's celebrate!".  It would be much easier if I could be apathetic, but I'm not.  I hurt and I hurt bad.  This is real.  Maybe it is easier for some to sweep me under the carpet and pretend that I haven't lost the biggest thing in my life.  

What is this going to do for any pain or loss I encounter in the future?  How will I receive people's affection and compassion for any other loss I will experience?  If the biggest loss of my life goes unnoticed, will I ever be able to feel like my sadness matters. 

Day 43: Toxic tulips

There are three days left before the end of this leg of the journey.  Writing every day isn't easy.  I don't know why I still do it, but somehow, my fingers don't want to retire yet.  

I probably won't do AFL next year.  Maybe this year was too much, hard to know.  I got a few things out of it, but it wasn't quite as transformative as my first run through last year.  Maybe some things are just best done only once.  

Next year Good Friday will be a different experience for me.  I am debating what to do for Lent next year with the end landing on my birthday.  Maybe Authentic Lent will be a different journey, not including atheists or theists or mystics.  

I enjoy the challenge of my writing spurts.  It keeps me exercised and practiced in the art of expressing my thoughts.  Maybe one more way to prevent Alzheimer's.  

I learned something last week... Tulips are toxic for cats.  It is a bummer.  I knew a lot of plants don't go well with the feline variety, that is why I don't have them in my house.  But my neighbour brought some tulips over and it was the first time in a long time that someone brought me flowers.  Most people close to me know that I can't have flowers in the house.  But I kept them... and that lasted a short time and I ended up taking them out and laying them on my neighbour's grave.  How can something so beautiful be so toxic? 

Day 42: Tasting the pain

 

She welcomed each guest into her home.  Each had come with an invitation from her own hands.  She knew some, others, she had only heard of.  No one brought flowers or cards.  She had requested that they come without any offerings, except what was inside of them.  

As the guests found a place to sit down, she looked over the faces.  There were no smiles, no laughter, no tears.  Their sullen faces told only one story.  They had come because they had tasted. 

A knock on the door brought her away from the gazes of her guests.  She opened the door to find her best friend.  They looked in each others eyes for only a moment before came the interruption of words.

"Why didn't I get an invitation?" her friend asked.  "I have been your friend for thirty years.  There is nothing we have not done together.  We were playmates and confidants.  I stood up for you at your wedding, you stood up for me at mine.  We are best friends. Your husband died and yet I am not invited to your home.  Why can't I be with you in this sad time? 

She looked with compassion at her friend.  This woman had been with her for decades of joy and laughter.  They shared so many days of love together.  But when she had penned the invitations to this event, this great sadness, her friends name didn't make the list.  

"Yes, you are right.  We have been friends for so many years.  We have been playmates and confidants.  We stood up for each other as we started our journeys of marriage.  There isn't a joy we haven't shared.  I am grateful for all those times and thankful for the love we have shared.  

"Then why have I not been invited to your husband's memorial?  Why can't I sit with those who have gathered to walk you through this loss?

"Because as much as you have shared my joy and love, you have never tasted loss.  You have lived your life avoiding heartache and death.  Maybe one day you will, but until then... If you have never tasted your own pain, how can you taste mine? 

* * * 

I think, like food, pain can be present, but not tasted.  Bread crumbs swept under a carpet instead of consumed... that is untasted pain.  There are so many ways to live with pain and loss and not take it in, stay with it, consume it.  I personally think death is untasted when "Heaven" is embraced.  The loss is temporary.  "Heaven" becomes a place where we can have it all again.  It's kind of like having Easter Sunday two days after Good Friday.  There is no time to be sad.  It seems like it's a performance... but there is no tasting the loss of that which is presented.  

Most have been conditioned to see death as a hiccup in the total experience.  It is seen in how we talk of death to children and even adults.  What if we are doing a great disservice to people by not giving then the chance to sit in their loss and in their pain.  

Here is how the gathering ended...

* * * 

After she left her friend at the open door, she returned to her guests.  

"I have asked that you come here, without flowers, without cards, without anything but the pain that dwells in the core of your being.  I ask that you give me only that.  Share your pain, share your loss.  Let this be a place where the fragrance of your shared sadness becomes greater than the scent of any roses or carnations.  That is the best gift you can give me today." 

And she sat down in silence and tasted their pain.  

Day 41: Finding Figment

"God exists for those who imagine God

God doesn't exist for those who imagine something else" 

Ruby Neumann

Lent is coming to an end soon.  This is the last week.  I am glad to be done with the conversations around the existence or non-existence of "God".  I am content to return to being a loving partner to my husband, playing with my cats, visiting my mother once in a while and take her on an occasional road trip.  Life goes on.  Our imaginations will be our companion on this journey.  

My parents, my sister and I went to Disney World/Epcot Center in 1985.  I fell in love with Figment on my first day there.  Figment was the mascot of one of the Epcot attractions called "Journey to Imagination".  He was a lovable looking purple dragon.  It took three days of walking by gift shops before I could take home a stuffed version of Figment.  I still have that stuffie somewhere in my collection.  He became my favourite stuffie of all time.  I never got a t-shirt.  I was allowed one memorabilia from Disney World, and I chose Figment.  

I had a wild love for the idea of Imagination.  I could be, go, or do anything I wanted to in the realm of imagination.  That love gave birth to my creativity.  My world became more livable, joyful and meaningful... all because of a little thing called imagination.  That little dragon Figment was the picture of that for me.  

Imagination plays a very different role for me now.  It helps me understand religion and spirituality a lot more.  It helps me understand humanity a lot more.  We as humans need imagination in our lives.  We need to stretch ourselves beyond ourselves.  Imagination does that.  It largely explains religion.  We use that creativity within us to give us something beyond that we can't experience with our own senses.  

But most adherents to religion will not claim imagination as the ground for their religious practices and beliefs.  For them, imagination has moved into the realm of reality.  I think that is where the power of imagination lies.  Somehow, we can embrace our hopes, wishes, longings so hard that they start to become real.  This might just be what the Journey to Imagination is all about.  This is what being human is all about.  We are given limitations in our existence and it seems it's up to us to go farther than those limitations.  

What drew me to that purple dragon was his uniqueness.  It seemed that most people went to the Disney parks for Mickey Mouse.  I wasn't into the normal even back then. I wanted something or someone that wasn't the norm.  That dragon invited me on a journey and that was exciting for me.  

Today... I am still on the journey.  Every day can take me on turns and around bends that still give me something to hope for and dream about.  That is what I find beautiful, and that is what I found when I found Figment. 

Day 40: The Holy Hole

 

Last year, I christened this day as Poplar Sunday. It was my way of finding spiritual relevance in my place in the planet instead of depending on a tropical narrative that really didn't inspire me.  

The poplar leaves aren't out yet, in fact, this morning, we had another dusting of snow.  So the imagery is out of season, but does it really matter.  I just want something from my Canadian world to relate to.  Is that so much to ask? 

This coming week, I am asked if I can embrace the lack.  Does that also mean that I get to embrace the struggle as well.  I read that somewhere.  I wonder if the idea of peace still can include struggle.  I personally think it's a pipe dream that I have all this figured out.  That is why I call it a journey.  And in reality... a journey with no real destination at the end.  Maybe that imagery looks more like aimless wandering, but what if that is all that life is... aimless wandering.  

My life can be the poster of aimless wandering.  I didn't grow up with a big academic dream that I brought to fruition a few years out of high school.  I just grew up and found things to do.  I remember telling my nephew something like this.  "If you can't figure out what you want to do when you "grow up"... just do something."

I can tell him again that maybe all of life is about "just doing something". Maybe it's okay of some of us we never "grow up".  The world needs some people to be focused performers, and the world also needs people on a journey.  

I woke up this morning with a muddle of thoughts in my brain.  I wondered if any of them will find a place of rest.  I wonder what it would look like for me to just wake up and be okay to just be.  Maybe that is the lack in my life.  Maybe that is the "holy hole"...   Interesting...  Mmmmm... 

Day 39: A day for Fools

 

It is evening again, which is a good indicator that I am losing steam with the AFL content.  At the beginning, I had inspiration in the morning and now... not so much.  

Today, there is inspiration of another kind.  It is the beginning of April and someone somewhere decided to give today over to "Fools".  According to Google sources, the tradition of April Fools goes back to the Middle ages.  I don't know.  I can't say I had great memories of April Fools Day as a child.  I was always the brunt of jokes... but I don't remember them from classmates... I remember them from my mother.  Mom like April Fools and didn't waste too many opportunities to mess with us on that day.  Mothers are to be trusted, so I had no problem falling for Mom's misdirections every years. 

I didn't call her today.  I figure today is a good day not to have a conversation with my mom, because I don't know if I can still trust her on this day.  Maybe she has let that sly side of her dissipate with age... but why take the chance. 

I did something today. I started a book fast.  I am fasting from reading books for a year.  How's that for a good April Fool's gag.  We will see how long it lasts.  I am hoping that a year away from books will give me a renewed interest in reading again.  My passion has waned and it depresses me.  I share more about this in my book blog.  

If books are the road to wisdom, maybe going without them for a year is the road to foolishness.  So today is a good day to start this journey.  

Day 38: What's so "good" about Good Friday?

 

One week until Christianity's National Day of Mourning.  I would call it Good Friday, but after how I spend the day last year, I don't think "Good" makes any sense to me know.  I wonder if the "Good" part of Friday is linked to the atonement theory of the crucifixion.  What else do Christian see as good about the bloody two thousand year old narrative? 

I googled this question and came up with a lot of Christian websites.  I can imagine they are all going be sharing the same answer. So I didn't bother look.  

I can understand if this day was kept within the confines of the church calendar, but it is a national statutory holiday. How do the rest of Canadians see Good Friday?  What kind of questions are they asking as to what this day actually means for them.   

Last year, it wasn't so good.  Last year is when I had a burial ceremony for Jesus and I didn't bring him back to life in two days.  Next year, my 56th birthday lands on Good Friday, so I will be asking that question from a different perspective.  

Anyway... I have no answer, so I will call it Christianity's national day of mourning.  After all, that is what they do ever year.  It seems strange.  How authentic can it  be when every year, they bring Jesus back to life in two days.  Are they really mourning, or is it just a redundant ritual?  Good question.  I  have my thoughts on that, but I don't think I will be too vocal about them.  

Rob Bell, says it is the day that God becomes an atheist.  How's that for irony.  I wish I still had a grain of confidence in the words of Jesus... because then maybe I could find some inspiration in them.

"My God, My God... why have you forsaken me?"  Like Rob Bell said... the day God became an atheist.  

Day 37: Two Flowers

 

Now I know why I have tolerated being misunderstood.  It requires too much emotional energy to educate others about who I really am. 

But how much do I tolerate?  When is enough?  When will I feel justified in causing a scene so I can feel more known? 

I couldn't even make a scene at my own birthday party.  At the risk of making it a 100% painful event, I tolerated what I had to in order to make it a 90% enjoyable party.  But today... that ten percent came back to mind and I spend about a half an hour in the hot tub releasing the emotions that stuffed in the back just so I can have some time with my family.  

I risked a lot yesterday.  I risked being rejected.  I risked being ignored.  I risked my creativity and wisdom being swept under the table.  

But not everyone swept my offerings under the table.  I got to spend a few moments in a sweet discussion about the words I shared.  I understand that you can throw a whole bag of seed into the wind and only get one or two flowers.  Maybe those two flowers are beautiful on their own.  Maybe I don't need all the seed to germinate.  But something in me still wish it had.  

Day 36: Sharing Space

 So today was a wash for anything AFL related.  Today is my birthday and I had better things to do than dive deep with the reading material... so I will pick it up tomorrow.  

Today I was trying to understand myself.  I am trying to figure out what is really important in my moments and wondering if I can learn some valuable lessons from the past.  I don't want to be that person who needs to burn all their mementos and discard their memories from their Christian past.  I have given away a lot of those things I no longer find value in, but I haven't garbaged them.  I am taking this journey very differently and I still wonder if I am being true to myself.  Can I share space with my family and friends who are still Christian.  Can I sit and observe and just release any temptation to judge what I am observing?  Can I just be with my Mom in her space?  Why not?  Mom and Dad were able to be themselves in my space.  They came into a very different faith culture back in the day and were able to maintain their own culture.  Why can't I do the same for my Mom?

I thought today that maybe I can just let everyone else be who they need to be.  I don't need to perform alongside to be alongside.  I can be grateful in a different way, and invite my family into those expressions of gratitude, as I discovered today.  My family needed to pray before the meal we shared... and that is something I don't do, but I still needed to express some gratitude for the people who provided the meal.  So I got a thank you card for the restaurant staff, and had everyone sign it.  In my way... that was my prayer.  I was saying thank you to those who provided my meal.  I didn't explain it that way to my family... but they unknowingly participated and thought that was a beautiful gesture.  We got to share space.  

Maybe that is all I can do... be myself, let others be themselves and together we can share space.  

Day 35: Creeds

 

It's almost bedtime and I haven't written my daily blog yet.  I have been procrastinating.  For a good portion of the day, the chat room has been a buzz on the subject of creeds.  I was taken back a few decades when "The Apostle's Creed" was something that was ingrained in my memory.  We recited it often at Lutheran services like mindless drones.  There was nothing personal to me and when I stopped saying it and started listening to the others recite it, all I could hear was monotonous droolery.  Nothing in the recitation of the creed at all convinced me that anyone one was personally invested in its message.  It was only tradition.  

I am grateful to be beyond the necessity of traditional recitations like "The Apostle's Creed".  But I am still sad to here people fall into the cadence of the recitation, when I know that they are personally invested in their faith.  It is truly beyond understanding.  

Day 34: The torment of saying nothing

"It was the beginning of a long period of nausea, in which the only thing greater than the pain of talking was the torment of saying nothing."  Richard Boothby (Blown Away) 

I decided to go in a different direction with Richard Boothby today.  I have already heard his Wake discussions and found them fascinating.  But something that catches my attention about Richard Boothby more than his philosophy. It is his story.  Which is why I went to "Blown Away" instead of "Embracing the Void".  I read the first two chapters and stopped.  Do I really need to read another story of someone who's son died?  Am I just torturing myself again.  What exactly am I looking for in one more story?   And then I found it in the above quote.  I am still tormented by the silence.  

If writing my story was enough, then I wouldn't be so tormented.  I wrote my story.  I just wasn't able to tell it.  No...wait...  it wasn't about me telling my story... it was about a story I am still waiting from them.  There is the torment of silence.  It was their son that died and it is their silence that torments me.  

I can't ask my family to open up their wounds in order for my torment to end.  I long for their story, but at what expense if they are not ready to tell it.  I guess that's why I am still drawn to stories like Richard Boothby's.  He was able to see that staying silent was worse than reliving his story in order to share it.  If someone has gone through the agony of walking down those dark corridors in their memory, then maybe I can find time to embrace the holiness of their story.  Maybe it isn't about how many more stranger's stories do I get to read before I can read the story of my own family.  Maybe I get to keep  reading one more because their story still matters to me.  

Day 33: Words can still be beautiful

It's easier to start a new puzzle than it is to start a new book.  I find it strange.  I thought I liked both.  But lately, reading has become a chore.  Words are flying past me and not doing much landing.  

I shared a story in today's Processing Group about a phone call with my mother.  Fifty-five minutes of phone time equated to about fifteen minutes of speaking time between both of us.  It might seem strange, but there is a lot of space in the phone calls I have with my mom.  We don't always have words to share with each other, but we don't know how to hang up when the words aren't there.  She might be washing dishes, or knitting, or playing solitaire and I might be puzzling or putting a load of clothes in the washing machine.  We hear each other do things, but it almost seems that words are unnecessary for us.  Three days may go by and I don't have any news for Mom, but I still phone her.  I want to connect.  

What if my best moments in life don't include words.  That is a sad revelation for a writer and somewhat avid reader (though not as of late).  This Wednesday, I am planning to gather with my family and a few friends to celebrate my fifty fifth birthday.  I am worried about only one thing... the words.  The food will be great, the hugs will be fantastic, the laughs will be welcome and the smiles will fill me up inside... but the words... I am dreading those. 

It is why I like puzzles.  Puzzles don't require words.  They don't require that I process anything.  I just need to build and enjoy the beauty of the finished product.  Puzzles are so easy to share; Words are not.  I have lost friends because of words.  I am scared of losing more because of words.  

All that being said... all I have of value to leave behind me are completed puzzles and words.  Not much for fifty five years of living.  Maybe in those puzzles and among those words... There will be a residue of love.  It is all I can hope for.  If anything is hopeful for me, it is that I long to leave behind love.  I don't want to mess that up.  

I just got an encouraging email from my sister-in-law... 

"You have such a gift for expressing your deepest thoughts on paper and you write so well - I always enjoy reading your emails."

Wow... Words can still be beautiful... almost as beautiful as puzzles. 

Day 32: The Nugget I hung in there for.

"And in the light of this grace we perceive the power of grace in our relation to ourselves. We experience moments in which we accept ourselves, because we feel that we have been accepted by that which is greater than we. If only more such moments were given to us! For it is such moments that make us love our life, that make us accept ourselves, riot in our goodness and self-complacency, but in our certainty of the eternal meaning of our life. We cannot force ourselves to accept ourselves. We cannot compel anyone to accept himself. But sometimes it happens that we receive the power to say "yes" to ourselves, that peace enters into us and makes us whole, that self-hate and self-contempt disappear, and that our self is reunited with itself. Then we can say that grace has come upon us." Paul Tillich

After spilling my innards about having enough yesterday, I did say something about the possibility of a nugget or two still coming if I hung in there.  Sometimes those nuggets are buried in some pretty smelly ground and it would be easy to give up the search.  But today, I dug a little deeper because of three words: The title of Paul Tillich's sermon - "You are accepted".   I wanted to find that nugget.  So I had to dig a little past the smell of the "sin" talk (don't get me started on the baggage that word brings to the table).  

I am constantly looking for acceptance from others in order to validate the acceptance of myself.  I understand that.  I am no more looking to the cosmos for acceptance.  I am here.  That tells me that the cosmos has accepted me into the midst of its energy and substance.  For as long as I have existed on this planet, I have been accepted by whatever forces keep this world rotating.  The moment I succumb to a disease or tragedy is the moment that I am not accepted.  

The real challenge of acceptance is within myself.  I think there is enough evidence that some others have accepted me.  Even those who eventually un-accept me due to choice or circumstances, they initially accepted me, if only out of ignorance.  

So do I need the acceptance of others for me to accept myself?  Maybe some days I do.  Maybe I just need to be needed and that is what gives me the acceptance I look for.  I still don't understand being accepted without a contribution to that which is doing the accepting.  I can't expect a relationship to survive if I do nothing to help it grow. Therefore, I am not accepted just on the fact that I exist, I am accepted for what I add to life and add to relationships.  Maybe that is what I can look at for a more internal introspection.  What do I bring to me?  What do I add to my life that makes it one I want to continue having?  Now maybe after I make that list... I will find there that I have found acceptance within me.  That's a good place to start.  

Day 31: I don't want to leave the ocean

 Computers had my attention in Grade 10.  I loved computer science.  It was back in the mid eighties when Basic was the language that students were sinking their skills into and Commodore 64's were the computers we used.  I found my creativity in that class.  When my classmates were trying to get a butterfly to fly across the screen, I was composing Christmas carols in two part harmony.  I literally made the computers sing.  

Programming was simple back then.   That is why they called it Basic.  When I got to college, I found myself still enthralled with computers.  I even got a job as a part time computer tutor for other students.  My most memorable task was getting printers unstuck for them and retrieving programs they accidentally deleted.  That was in the early nineties and our computers then were IBM 386 clones.  My computer tutoring job got me connected with the colleges computer technician, and I even got a little experience with the clone building that he did.  It was fascinating.  Looking back... I almost wish I could have left it at fascinating... but I decided to go further.  

When I graduated from that college, I enrolled at a technical institute in Computer Systems Technology.  Little did I know that I was swimming too far into the ocean with no way to keep my head about the water I was in.  I didn't even make the four months of the first semester.  I found myself at the subway  enroute to take an exam in C++ and deciding then to let it all go.  I didn't finish, I quit, I abandoned it... whatever verb I use, I can only find myself either trying to whitewash the experience or remind myself of the shame I felt at not feeling smart enough to keep up.  

I have started a lot of things in my life.  The passion to learn something new is constant with me, but seeing most attempts through to some sort of completion... well that is a whole different story.  Now that I am my mid fifties, I have a different perspective.  Did I really expect myself to finish every attempt I made at further education?  I don't know.  Why would I spend the money and time if not to finish?  

I am fluent in English only... but I have made attempts at French, Spanish, German, Greek and ASL.  I find languages fascinating, but I have never had the strong community to enforce my use of the languages in my day to day activities.  But I am glad I tried.

All those attempts at learning something new, that never saw completion, were still life lessons.  I am going to be fifty-five in less than a week, and I still want to attempt learning new things.  I just don't have the high expectations I had when I was younger.  I realize that starting something can be valuable.  If I needed the assurance of completion everytime I started something, I might not start anything.  I never know when I start a project, if I can make something of it, or if I will have to scrap it mid way... but I need to be able to have the confidence to still begin.  

* * * 

At this point... Day 29... I am ready to let go, quit, abandon AFL.  I am not getting much out of the readings in the last weeks and I find myself scrolling through the Whats App messages at alarming speed.  I wonder if I am not trying to get more out of the course because I am not struggling as much with how I see things.  I don't need Freud or Neitsche to help convince me that I'm okay being agnostic or atheist... I think I am just okay.  I am coming around to being okay with how I see the world.  Maybe part of me still wants to understand a few things, but I don't think I need the struggle.  I am grateful for some amazing voices I have been exposed to over the last two years of taking AFL.  I have found friends in some of those voices.  I just feel that I can't keep up and I am not all that disappointed in my lack of keeping up.  Maybe it's okay to say "Enough".  

Am I there yet?  I don't know.  I still open my AFL emails, hoping for something that I don't need Pete's "Coles Notes" summary in order to make sense of it.  Maybe I can hang in there until Good Friday and find a nugget or two yet.  I probably won't be back next year.  I think I might try something else for my Lenten journey.  I might still write, but maybe I can be less dependant on someone else's curriculum.  

I think I am getting too old to be someone I'm not and my time needs to be spent with less unnecessary struggling.  Maybe even that is the takeaway.  How can I know that I'm over my head if I don't first venture out in the water?  I don't want to leave the ocean; I just need to be able to swim enough to get to where I can still enjoy the water without the fear of drowning. 

Day 30: Wolves in the Snow

 This morning I awoke with an email in my inbox from my husband.  He sent me a link to a 2000 pc Ravensburger puzzle on Amazon, entitled "Wolves in the Snow".  I was amazed by the beauty of the picture.  The print is called Wolves in the Snow.  As I looked at the detail and the different elements in the picture, my mind went to yesterday's reflection and I was somewhat conflicted.  I wondered if I was odd that I couldn't grasp the significance or inspiration behind the artwork of Barnet Newman.  I felt like my mind was drifting back to the story of "The Emperor's New Clothes" again.  Am I supposed to be like the crowd and fall into amazement at the lack of artistry?  Maybe the lack is what is important, but I can't find it beautiful.  So this morning my husband's email was timely.  He sent me an affirmation that someone understands what I find beautiful, because he finds it beautiful.  

I was looking for my next 2000 pc puzzle, and it came in the form of a beautiful gift and gesture from someone who is trying to make me happy in this journey of life that provides so much sadness.  So as I work on this puzzle, I will hold him in my heart and embrace the beauty and inspiration that reaches my heart and let go of the stuff that doesn't.  

I don't want to pretend to get something out of these AFL readings when in reality some of them fly way over my head.  Authentic Lent is exactly that... Authentic.  So I will leave the Newman art for others to find space for and inspiration on their journey.  I won't deny them that experience.  But I am back to my wilderness pictures and my "Give me Bob Ross" conclusion.  And I don't have to feel alone in my passion because the person I love the most in this world, shares it with me.  

Day 29: Abandoned

Abandoned 

Yet filled

So much left 

Yet something moved in

Soft 

Welcoming

Stay here

Play with me

I'm not a big fan of abstract art.  But I try to find a story in a picture that is not always available at the average glance.  I wonder how the sand got in this house.   But what if something abandoned isn't always empty.  What if... 

I am tired and it is almost the end of the day.  I have been on the road with my husband and don't really feel all that inspired.  I am losing momentum with AFL.  This will probably be my last year.  I think I gained what I could from the course and it is soon time to move on.  But I am grateful for the nuggets.  

Day 28: I can hug a tree

Why is it easier to believe in a miracle, then in the value of a story? 

It is 2:14 am my time right now, and I can't get back to sleep.  I had a very deep conversation with my hubby an hour ago and it eventually results in him being able to sleep again, and me not.  

I want an answer to my question.  Why is it easier to read a story about a woman who gave birth to child when she is in her late "old age" ... and believe that it is possible for a post menopausal woman to give birth?  Wouldn't it be easier to just believe that the Jewish people wrote good stories?  Whether Sarah, the mother of Isaac or Elizabeth the mother of John the Baptist... it doesn't matter.  What makes it so easy to believe the outrageous is possible, and not easy to believe in good creative writing?  

Maybe I can sit and stew on that for another hour before going unconscious again for another few hours before daylight or my cats wake me up.  

7:16 am

I am awake again.  Wanting so much not to take one more step into the future.  Longing for the ability to stay in the now.  Putting one foot or one thought in the future at this moment is fraught with anxiety.  There is not much in my day that I can find that won't at some point cause me to be anxious.  So if I can stay in the moment, then I won't reduce myself to tears.  No "What if's", no projections, no looking outside to see if the rest of the world is okay.  I am tired of being afraid.  I am exhausted from the fear.  

All that being said, I don't want a life where everything is okay.  I don't want relationships that don't experience a little conflict now and then.  I don't want it easy.  Easy is boring, Easy is fruitless, Easy isn't beautiful.  

Maybe what I need to do today is hug a tree.  I like hugging trees.  I like being thankful for what trees are to me.  They are a life force.  They provide oxygen.  They remind me that longevity is possible.  They remind me that strength doesn't always look or feel smooth.  They remind me of the seasons where death moves and life returns. A tree will never leave the hug before you are ready.  A tree will stand there until you are strong enough to let go.  A tree will take all the emotion you have and soak it in to its core.  That's what I can do.  I can hug a tree.  

 

Day 27: The Beginning of Spring

 Today starts my favourite season of all... Spring.  Spring is about beginnings, especially in my life.  I was born in Spring.  I got married in Spring. My flowers start blooming in Spring (much later than my birthday and anniversary thanks to the Alberta climate).  The snow melts in Spring giving a whole lot of beginnings for the new years.  There is a fresh start for my world every Spring.  It never gets old. 

What am I hoping for as the snow melts and the tulips I just planted in the fall start to emerge?  I hope I can see the last vestiges of the shame disappear with the snow.  It's a specific shame.  It is the shame that came to visit me when I started to leave the comforts of Christianity as an expression of life focus.  

"Ruby, your opinion doesn't matter... especially with your family and friends.  You have embarrassed them and brought a heavy weight on their lives that will never be lifted.  Your words and actions have done damage to those you love.  You are not worth all this." 

That is the message I have been hearing in my head over the years. I have listened to a voice telling me that I am not worth all the effort of authentic living.  I need to perform; I need to be someone I'm not.  I need to martyr myself because the comfort of my family and friends is more important than exposing my honest understanding of life.  

I am feeling like this year has done more to help me a little farther along the road away from that kind of shame.  I feel like the shame is  slowly melting along with the snow.  To borrow a tennis expression... I realize the ball is in my court and I get the serve.  I get to believe I'm valuable.  I get to feel good about myself.  I get to smile and live and love on just the way I am.  I get to leave the baggage behind and walk free.  

Day 26: The Death of my need to be right about "God"

 

This week we are heading into "The Death of God" Theology in our AFL journey.  I wanted to go back to last years posts and see what inspired me about "The Death of God" idea.  I found my April Fools Day Post.  It wasn't so much about the "Death of God" as it was about the death of some perceptions of "God" that I wanted to talk about.  Here's the post: 

AL Post  2022  Day 31: The Death of God as Father and Mother

Almost a year later, I get to see how much my perspective has changed.  Strangely, not much.  I still see the whole gender thing as a balance issue: making "God" in our image.  But the more I spend immersed in history lessons of Christianity, I understand more now that maybe perceptions is all we have.  Billions of humans have billions of perceptions.  There seemed to be a need over recordable history to find the right way to understand that which in reality can never  be understood.  But not for a lack of trying.  And then there are the wars and persecutions that arise from all those perceptions and all that need to be right.  

Maybe its a pipe dream, but what would this world look like if it didn't matter what someone else thought or believed?  What if we didn't need to have others on the same page as us or even in the same book.  What if we could all be a library, still sharing space with our own expressions and perspectives? 

What if Christians could share Jesus like they pass along their love of chocolate.   Maybe others would like our favourite flavour of chocolate... so we give them a taste and then they can decide.  

"Mmmm... I like Lindor dark chocolate.  Thanks for introducing me to it.  I think I might pick some up on my next shopping trip." 

And maybe they won't like our brand... 

"Mmmm... Not bad, but my favourite is still Hershey's Hugs.  But thank you for the Lindor experience.  I hope you enjoy." 

What is the response?  Can we still share space?  What if Christian Evangelism stopped at the introduction  and didn't add things like shame, hell and condemnation in the mix.  It's no better than saying that every other brand of chocolate out there is laced with Strychnine.  I'm not saying that Jesus is irrelevant in our world and in our culture. But in the early accounts of Jesus, he didn't seem all that motivated about convincing the world that he was the only good "chocolate" around.  He seemed to be more about his little community.  It looks like it was his followers that needed him to be "the be all and end all".  

Is it "God" that needs to die... or just our need to be right about our perception of "God".  Maybe "God" has a place in the world and doesn't need dying.  For some people, there is not other way to look at the world than through the "God" lens.  So why take that away from them?

Right now, at this juncture of my life, I don't eat much chocolate.  It's a sugar thing.  I have arthritis, and sugar is bad for arthritis.  So I gave up my regular consumption of chocolate.  I miss it and I don't miss it. There may come days when I take a bite or two, but the days are probably over when it is my regular source of pleasure.  I will still buy chocolate for my family because I know they like it.  Life is hard... sometimes we just have to find ways to make it feel better. Some need religion, some  need chocolate, some need both,  some don't need either.  But maybe we can still sit at the same table and enjoy each other while we nibble on what tastes good for us.  

Day 25: Crazy Beliefs

 "Religious ideas are teachings and assertions about facts and conditions of external (or internal) reality which tell one  something one has not discovered for oneself and which lay claim to one's  belief."  Sigmund Freud

All teachings like these, then, demand belief in their contents, but not without producing grounds for their claim.  They are put forward as the epitomized result of a longer process of thought based on observation and certainly also on inferences.  If anyone wants to go through this process himself instead of accepting its result, they show him how to set about it.  Moreover, we are always in addition given the source of knowledge conveyed by them, where that source is not self-evident, as it is the case of geographical assertions.  For instance, the earth is shaped like a sphere; the proofs adduced for this are Foucault's pendulum experiment, the behaviour of the horizon and the possibility of circumnavigating the earth.  Since it is impractical, as everyone concerned realizes, to send every schoolchild on a voyage round the world, we are satisfied with letting what is taught at school be taken on trust; but we know that the path to acquiring a personal conviction remains open. 

Let us try to apply the same test to the teachings of religion.  When we ask on what their claim to be believed is founded, we are met with three answers, which harmonize remarkably badly with one another.  Firstly these teachings deserve to be believed because they were already believed by our primal ancestors; secondly, we possess proofs which have been handed down to us from those same primaeval times; and thirdly, it is forbidden to raise the question of their authentication at all.  In former days anything so presumptuous was visited with the severest penalties and even today society looks askance at any attempt to raise the question again. " SF

" We ought to believe because our forefathers believed. But these ancestors of ours were far more ignorant than we are. They believed in things we could not possibly accept today..."    SF

"The riddles of the universe reveal themselves only slowly to our investigation; there are many questions to which science today can give no answer.  But scientific work is the only road which can lead us to a knowledge of reality outside ourselves." SF

Someone I love very much believes that the Earth is flat.  I didn't understand, until this person came into my life, that in the twenty-first century people could believe in a flat Earth; but a quick Google search made me aware that there are communities around the world that can't accept a globe like planet for their home.  

I have had the opportunity to listen to my friend on many an occasion, but I have no rebuttal.  I haven't been in orbit about the Earth to see what it looks like.  So I can't defend a position I only accept on faith myself.  A round earth makes sense to me.  All the evidence makes sense.  A flat earth seems like a crazy belief.  But I have known my friend for a long time, and it's not a "crazy belief" to my friend.  

This helps me understand the world I came out of and now get to look in at from the outside.  I once believed with certainty in a cosmic figure that listened to me every time I opened my mouth and my thoughts.  I believed that cosmic figure had power and could change my circumstances, but often wouldn't either because a lack of faith... or because what I was asking for wasn't what I needed.  (ie... like a living Dad instead of a dead one). I had then, what seems to me now, as crazy beliefs.  But I was convinced in them.   No one then called me crazy.  Maybe because the communities I was hanging out with believed the same things.  Still...  I wasn't called crazy... and all I had was belief... no proof.  

What if I could give my friend proof of a round earth?  What if I was given the opportunity to fly out of the earth's atmosphere?  What if I took a picture of the earth from orbit?  Would my friend believe me?  So many pictures exist today by people who have had that  opportunity.  My friend doesn't believe them.  

I have learned over the years that what I might see as "crazy beliefs" are a sort of life blood to people I love.  I have no desire to call them illusions or delusions.  I only can smile, listen and say nothing in response.  This is the world I live in, these are the people I love.  

Day 24: Sharing my thoughts without Sartre today.

Today, I didn't get much out of the AFL reading... but  I have something else that excited me.  I am working on a little project for my up and coming birthday party.  I am inviting my family and some friends to celebrate my Freedom 55 at a restaurant that has a Chinese Food buffet.  Since I don't do the fortune cookies anymore, I thought I might provide a replacement.  I understand that fortune cookies are a standard with Canadian Chinese food meals, but I don't eat them anymore.  It's my party and I want to feel included in the whole experience.  So I am making something else.  Part of the project includes quotes that I have harvested from a collection of my writings over the years.  I found a few that I will be using in the fortune cookie replacements.  I figured that since my family and friends don't read my AFL blog, it would be safe to share them here.   

"Isn't that the way Love works?  Once you see what it does when it touches your heart and life, it seems impossible to keep it to yourself." 

"Maybe instead of pictures, we need to pass along an invitation to seeing nature's beauty bloom in person.  Maybe we do a disservice to another human being by just providing pictures, when what they really need to fill their soul is a walk outside without the electronics."  

"You don't have to like someone to have compassion for them." 

"Hope in the little things when the big things look hopeless."

"One person's act of love done over and over, risks becoming a tradition. When it becomes tradition, it risks turning into an obligation. An act done out of obligation is seldom an act of love." 

"Asking someone to love you, is like asking a cat to purr. First find a way to love them and then hope that your love will mean something to them, eventually initiating a response of love in return." 

"Wisdom always takes a little extra effort." 

"There is an attraction and even a romance in the LETTING GO of the need to have all the answers; to understand everything; to know it all, and to be able to explain what is really beyond all explaining." 

"Imagine an artist that paints a landscape.  The artist asks nothing of the painting. They don't even sign it.  They just paint it and let the beauty be enjoyed by others.  No one knows the artist, and maybe some wonder who that artist is, but the artist cares not about recognition.  It was never about recognition... it was always and only about the beauty of the painting."  

"I used to believe I needed to change the world to think like me. I now want to embrace the only thing that can change the world... Love.  And the way I understand Love... it doesn't require that I change anyone.  Love only invites me into its flow and that is the most beautiful thing." 

"Life is too short and too valuable for us to spend it pretending we are someone we are not." 

"The "best conversation" happens when we are both okay with our different approaches to life and our differing journeys.   Having a conversation with someone doesn't in anyway mean that you have support their conclusions." 

Day 23: Who is Jesus... really?

"The average mind is easily content with inherited and acquired things, or with the dicta of parents and teachers, because it is much easier to imitate than to create." Emma Goldman

When looking for a picture of Jesus... I landed on "Forensic Jesus" ... I have to snicker at the idea, but it suits this blog more than "Swedish Jesus" or "Hollywood Jesus".  I want to share about my recent educational journey through the "History of Christianity".  But I found a lot interesting bits in today's reading, so I will intersperse my thoughts between some Emma Goldman quotes.  

"The rulers of the earth have realized long ago what potent poison inheres in the Christian religion. That is the reason they foster it; that is why they leave nothing undone to instill it into the blood of the people. They know only too well that the subtleness of the Christian teachings is a more powerful protection against rebellion and discontent than the club or the gun." EG

An authentic history lesson of Christianity would probably deconvert most evangelical Christians.  Maybe that is why history isn't a topic of most sermons.  If Christians understood the messiness of their historic roots, it would change everything.  Like the Bertrand Russell quote in my office reads. " People's opinions are mainly designed to make them feel comfortable; truth, for most people is a secondary consideration."  

"No doubt I will be told that, though religion is a poison and institutionalized Christianity the greatest enemy of progress and freedom, there is some good in Christianity “itself.” What about the teachings of Christ and — early Christianity, I may be asked; do they not stand for the spirit of humanity, for right and justice?" EG

Who is Jesus?  I have been learning something significant from Bart Ehrmann.  That question has baggage.  It is like googling Jesus in images and finding out that there are so many portraits of a man who two millennia ago and long before there were cameras.  So people have to get creative.  

Who is Jesus?  It depends on which gospel you read.  The Jesus of Mark is not the Jesus of John. And the Jesus of Matthew and Luke is not Paul's Jesus.  And Paul's Jesus is not the Jesus in Revelation.  

"But the ethical and poetical Christ-myth has so thoroughly saturated our lives that even some of the most advanced minds find it difficult to emancipate themselves from its yoke. They have rid themselves of the letter, but have retained the spirit; yet it is the spirit which is back of all the crimes and horrors committed by orthodox Christianity." EG 

According to Bart Ehrmann, There is enough evidence to conclude that a man called Jesus of Nazareth existed 2000 years ago, but what people have said about him following his thirty some years on earth... well that is where the baggage comes into play.  

"And the poor? They cling to the promise of the Christian heaven, as the home for old age, the sanitarium for crippled bodies and weak minds. They endure and submit, they suffer and wait, until every bit of self-respect has been knocked out of them, until their bodies become emaciated and withered, and their spirit broken from the wait, the weary endless wait for the Christian heaven." EG

Wondrium has opened my mind and my eyes.  It offers some great intellectual courses for home bodies like me that can't make it to the local university. I've already listened to the following courses by Bart Ehrman. "Historical Jesus", "How Jesus became God", "The Triumph of Christianity" and "New Testament". I have one more in the Ehrman collection of courses "Lost Christianities" before I maybe sum up the courage to take on Ancient Greek 101.  I told myself I would never read the bible in English again... so maybe I can start again seriously trying to get a handle on some Greek.  I turn 55 this month.  Maybe it's not too late.  

"When the Jews, according to the gospels, withdrew from Jesus, when they turned him over to the cross, they may have been bitterly disappointed in him who promised them so much and gave them so little. He promised joy and bliss in another world, while the people were starving, suffering, and enduring before his very eyes." EG

Who is the Jesus I'm learning about in all these courses? I wish I knew.  There are so many versions of Jesus, it's hard to embrace one kind.  I don't know if I like Mark's Jesus, and John's Jesus is so far away from what might even be real, it's not even attractive anymore.  I figured out years ago that all those monologues had to be creative writing.  No one could keep that good of notes.  And then during the courses, and Bart's other resources, I discovered that no one was keeping notes at all.  The gospels don't start getting written until forty years after Jesus' death.   

"Much as I am opposed to every religion, much as I think them an imposition upon, and crime against, reason and progress, I yet feel that no other religion has done so much harm or has helped so much in the enslavement of man as the religion of Christ." EG

Bart mentions several times that Christianity is not the religion of Jesus, but the religion about Jesus.  Christianity didn't get started with Jesus, or with the death of Jesus, or even with the supposed resurrection of Jesus.  It was only when people started believing the resurrection of Jesus that Christianity took off.  And then it wasn't even about Jesus and what he did for thirty three years that mattered.  It was about what happened to him over the course of three days.  If someone doesn't get the last three days right... then nothing else matters.  That seems to be the premise of Christianity. 

So who is Jesus?  Good question.  Christianity, for two thousand years, hasn't been much help with the answer.  

"Christianity is the conspiracy of ignorance against reason, of darkness against light, of submission and slavery against independence and freedom; of the denial of strength and beauty, against the affirmation of the joy and glory of life." EG