It's bed time and I don't have much energy to write anything profound. Maybe that will come tomorrow. We have one more week...
I am grateful, and tired. It's time to move on soon. My head needs a refresh and a different direction.
There is nothing like a Naked Pastor cartoon to fill the empty void in my inspiration.
I said I'd be back... but with what conclusion. Slavoj Žižek made me laugh... But was that the point.
He's funny, but wasn't I supposed to take away more than just his humour.
So instead of reflecting on his humour, I thought I would redirect to someone whose job it was to make me laugh and also reflect. David Hayward, aka the Naked Pastor, is a cartoonist. It is coming up on the end of AFL. This Sunday is Poplar Sunday . So I went looking for a cartoon from The Naked Pastor.
This one reminded me of something Matt Dillahunty said about the whole crucifixion, resurrection event.
"What was the sacrifice? Jesus had a bad weekend." It went something like that. David Hayward illustrated it perfectly. I guess that question has yet to be discussed or pondered, much less answered.
There were a lot of things that came up for question with the narrative of Christianity for me. This is one that still sits in my cranium begging to be asked and discussed. The same question is asked in a song in the musical "Jesus Christ Superstar." (The 2012 Arena Tour is my favourite. )
"Who are you, what have you sacrificed?"
I am looking forward to making that my continued Good Friday tradition. Andrew Lloyd Webber dared ask the question.
I saw the moon this morning... and then I didn't see the moon. It is almost full. In two days it will be full. This is what a google search told me about Friday's full moon.
"The first full moon of spring — the pink moon — will light up the night sky on Friday, April 12, 2025. Although it won't actually appear pink, this full moon is named after the early blooming pink phlox flowers, which signal the arrival of springtime."
I've never heard the first full moon of spring referred to the pink moon. It didn't look very pink this morning, but I will have to keep my eye on it to see if I can see pink.
There is "what is"
There is "what I believe about what is"
There is "what some say that it is"
There is "what I believe about what some say that it is"
There is "what I see"
There is "what I believe about what I see"
There is what is
* * *
Today's reflection title bothers me... so much so that I don't want to listen to the reflection.
"Why only an Atheist can believe". Slavoj Žižek.
I am already surmising that each word gets reinterpreted under another set of standards. He doesn't stipulate in the title "what" the Atheist can only believe. There is the conundrum. The reader has to already assume meaning based on lack of specifics.
I looked up my AFL history and didn't find any inspiration from Žižek over the past years. Not every voice inspires me. But since this is my last year of AFL... maybe I need to give this voice a chance. Even though I am skeptical about his premise from the get go.
I am in for a long listen. This sound bite is two hours long. Yikes. I guess this will be something I will have to chew on for a while. I will be back... if I make it through the two hours. And even if I don't make it through... I will be back ... Even if that means tomorrow. I think we will get two days to chew on Žižek.
They come for the bird seed we have on a plate that we can observe from our kitchen window. That's right... these messengers of love like bird seed. They almost never show up in the daylight hours. They come when it's dark. Like the stars... their beauty is only visible at night.
I won't ever see love as ethereal anymore. Love has air in its lungs and a warm beating heart in its body. And sometimes love comes covered in fur.
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| "Larch Valley" by Alison Philpotts (StumpCraft Puzzles) |
Day 34: The Torment of Saying Nothing
Two weeks left. I think I am coasting now. When I read posts from past years, I see a lot of "I don't know if I will make it" moments. Today was Richard Boothby day... and my posts in 2023 about Boothby had me more mesmerized with his story than his philosophy. I'm not sure that is the goal of the AFL journey. I am supposed to soaking up more than the stories.
This week looks like the voice are more alive than dead. So that is encouraging. It's nice to see that we haven't had to bury everyone on this journey. It is nice to see that the world is still producing some great minds.
I don't have much to share today. And I'm not really tormented by that... sorry Boothby! Maybe tomorrow will more inspirational.
“Religion, in the largest and most basic sense of the word, is ultimate concern. And ultimate concern is manifest in all creative functions of the human spirit.” Paul Tillich
I am wondering this morning why it took three years of AFL for me to finally get Paul Tillich's message of acceptance. Maybe I still had to purge the remainder of the baggage around terms like 'sin' and 'grace', so Tillich could redefine them for me. Courtney helped me into that space this morning. I am so grateful for her guidance on this journey. It really as made all the difference this time around. Thank you Courtney!
“Sin, to Tillich, is separation, an aspect of the experience of every human. “To be in the state of sin is to be in the state of separation...[which] constitutes the state of everything that exists...it is the fate of every life.”[641] There are three aspects of this separation (state of sin):
1. separation of individuals from each other,
2. separation of an individual from self, and
3. our collective separation from what Tillich calls the “ground of being.” ”
(Courtney Cantrell: Appetite for Antithesis)
This takes the concept of sin and gives it wings instead of the five thousand pound weight around my neck that the Christianity of my past gave me. Separation Is Normal. Separation happens as part of the human condition. That is the wings part of the picture. There seems no shame in that, there is only an awareness of that separation and an invitation for a coming together again. I think I just got recharged. Understanding that it is part of the human condition to be separated, even from myself, I can now make strides to find a coming together...even within me. That is beautiful. And that coming together might look alot like Paul Tillich's picture of 'grace'. Courtney again gives me such a beautiful synopsis of this.
“Grace is the acceptance of the rejected. Grace is one Life looking another (an Other) Life straight in the face and saying, “I accept you. I take you as you are, not asking for you to change. Not asking for you to make restitution. Not asking you to do anything. You don’t have to try harder. You don’t even have to try. You can rest in this acceptance. You can breathe. I accept you, and now you can breathe.” ”
(Courtney Cantrell: Appetite for Antithesis)
I am accepted. I started feeling like that in my star time. When I am alone with the stars, I feel like I belong to the greaterness of the space around me. I feel less alone and less alienated and less separated. Maybe that is my grace from the "Ground of Being" and I don't need anymore labels for it. I am here. Maybe that is enough. Maybe I don't need to limit that to just my parents having sex in summer of 1967. Maybe "I am here" can find a reality beyond that. Some would call that purpose. Again... no need for more labels.
“I want to state bluntly this point Tillich is making: you will never feel grace permeating you...you will never feel accepted...you will never be able to accept that you are accepted...until you acknowledge and admit sincerely that you cannot know who the other person is, you cannot know who you are, and you cannot know who/what “God” is because you are essentially (in your essence) abysmally divided from every last physical and “metaphysical” atom of all of it.
(You are not an onion. You are a mystery.)”
Courtney Cantrell: Appetite for Antithesis
I already embrace the idea that knowledge is beyond me. This isn't frustrating anymore, it's freeing!
I will end with the synopsis of this chapter that Courtney so beautifully left for me to ponder and wonder if I can join her in that space. It's kind of hard for me to forget what is still so prevalent around me, but I will try, if only for me in my own space.
“I am forgetting everything traditional I’ve learned about God. I am forgetting the word itself.
But I involve myself with mystery. I involve myself with depth. And that’s more of God than I’ve ever had before.”
Courtney Cantrell : Appetite for Antithesis:
So today was Paul Tillich. Maybe I will catch up with him tomorrow. But today... before I head to bed... soon... I want to talk about something that was on the Whatsapp conversation. Someone brought up "Christian Atheism". It sparked quite the discussion. I dropped in on the weekly Zoom chat and it even made it there. Maybe my mind isn't tracking with most of the conversation that happens around the AFL table... but this one... blows my mind completely. I'm almost glad that no one is reading my posts this year. (That's right... not that many hits). I feel like I can be a bit more candid and less morphing into what others are saying.
Since I have no interest anymore in the label Christian, and the label of Atheist isn't that appealing for me to embrace, do I even need to go there with Christian Atheism? Do I even need to try and understand the premise? I am understanding that with AFL, we are seeing Theism and Atheism as two sides of the same coin. It just gets flipped each week and we see a different side. I am not seeing the attraction factor for keeping the Christian label for anything other than the 2000 year old narrative that needs people to conform to one way of doing life. There is no whitewashing the exclusivity of Christianity and anything that holds to that label. There is no room for the whole world for anything bearing that label. Atheism is also pretty exclusive. For the most part... it doesn't allow for spirituality. I remember Sam Harris being somewhat mocked for his embrace of spirituality along side his staunch atheism.
I get it... If I had paid more attention to conversations... maybe I would see some sense in people's explanations... but I don't see the sense. Co-opting those two exclusive terms into one package seems messed up. Just my thoughts. Another reason to make AFL 2025 my last go around. I'm getting dizzy!!!
For the record... here is what Wikipedia says about Christian Atheism...
"Christian atheism is an ideology that embraces the teachings, narratives, symbols, practices, or communities associated with Christianity without accepting the literal existence of God. It often overlaps with nontheism and post-theism."
I strangely understand Jewish Atheism more. Jewish culture is exactly that ... a culture. Christianity is a religion, a belief system. It's not a people group or a cultural entity. So for me, it makes more sense that someone who is Jewish can still attend Passover even through they don't believe in "Yahweh" that it is for a Christian to take communion if they don't believe in Jesus.
I ditched the symbolism of Christianity long before I let go of Jesus and God. All the trappings were the first to go. So the letting go of Jesus and God didn't give me an invite back to the rituals. Those were long since buried. Now it makes sense why it doesn't make sense.
I don't know if this picture and this quote have anything to do with AFL... but I wanted to put it somewhere other than the desktop of my computer. I only have one question when I see this.
How do you know the Sun is loud, when you can't hear it?
This is the issue I have with science and theology and every certainty in between. It's things like this that make it hard for me to believe anyone or anything at face value. At the end of the day... which it is right now... I can't ride on any train that requires me to sign on the dotted line. I can listen, say nothing, let the person have a right to say what they want to say, give them their platform... but in my heart of hearts, I can't ride the train with them. I can't get on their platform with them. I can't, I can't, I can't...
 |
| This evening's sunset in Calmar |
Okay... Thirty Days in and I am sad today. Sad that Simone Weil only had 34 years of life. At first I found it hard to think that she had something of wisdom to pass along to me at 57. I remember me around her age. I was heavy into the Pentecostal scene. I couldn't even imagine walking near to the thoughts and queries that Simone Weil had. I wasn't introduced to the idea of thinking beyond denominational belief structures back then. I was told what, how and why to believe what I did. Church wasn't about thinking... I was just looking for a place that wasn't boring and I found it. That's right. The Lutheran church was boring; The Pentecostal church wasn't.
I did find something interesting in Courtney's chapter on Weil.
“In La Pesanteur et la Grâce (Gravity and Grace), a collection of her reflections, she says religion hinders true faith when religion gives us God in a way that consoles us. In other words:
if we find rest and comfort
in the God our religion presents to us
(seen)
then the God we’re accepting is an idol
standing between us and the Real God
(unseen).
For Weil, the Real God is one that disturbs and destabilizes instead of comforting, and she insists that the purpose of religion is to open us up to longing. Instead of offering succor, religion should continuously generate our desire for the Real.” Courtney Cantrell
Excerpt From Appetite for Antithesis: (De)Knowing God in a Lenten Practice
Comfort seems to be the bedrock of the religion I grew up with and embraced for four decades. Who doesn't want to be comfortable. It explains so much cognitive dissonance in religious circles. There's not thinking and not questions... because comfort is the requirement. To think and to ask questions is uncomfortable... and we aren't going for that.
I checked my blog. I didn't find any reflecting in the other AFL years on Simone Weil. I don't know why I didn't register with her. Maybe it was her age. Not sure. Her story captivates me more than her words. Oh yeah... that would hurt right there. As a writer... I would hope my words captivate people, but maybe all I have to offer is my story.
"For Barth, atheism becomes an unlikely ally in this struggle. Insofar as atheism rejects the human-made religious constructs that mask themselves as theology, it serves a theological function—it exposes conceptual idolatry, stripping away the false gods that we create in our own image. The true theologian, then, must take atheism seriously, recognizing in it a necessary negation: the refusal to equate human thought with divine reality. God is not an object within human understanding but a disruptive, destabilising presence who breaks into the world from beyond.
Barth’s vision of theology is thus profoundly unsettling. It demands that we abandon any attempt to ground God in reason, experience, or tradition, accepting instead that true knowledge of God begins in the recognition of our own ignorance. Faith, for Barth, is not a matter of grasping divine truth but of being grasped by it—of encountering a revelation that overturns all our assumptions rather than confirming them."
Peter Rollins
I find it hilarious that Barnett Newman is scheduled for April Fool's Day. It seems like a joke on me, even if it's probably not a joke on anyone else. Maybe I'm the only one who sees this artwork appreciation exercise as a joke. And I will only admit it here. But it's not a joke. I just don't appreciate his art like others have found a way to appreciate his art.
In 2023, Barnett Newman came in to the reflections on Day 29, but I ignored him. I think I was too frustrated. But after calming down for a day, I did mention in in the following post and shared why I was so uncomfortable.
2023: Day 30: Wolves in the Snow
I did feel abandoned as my Day 29 post indicated. I felt like I was the only one not welcome into the space that everyone else so willingly found understanding in. No one was critiquing the artistry of Newman as insignificant in their journey. It is the awkwardness of walking into an art gallery and seeing a painting that makes no sense to you, but the artist is standing behind you wanting your thoughts and feelings. It's two years later, and I still don't have any positive or inspirational thoughts and feelings about Newman's artwork. I have frustration. Maybe today... I can call it foolish frustration.
In the late nineties, I got my hands on a book by David Mason called "Shadow over Babylon"
"The assassination plot is the brainchild of the most powerful men in government. It is manned by the most savagely skilled death team money can buy. It is armed with the most advanced weapons and technological systems on earth. It is assembled behind the backs of its own and its allies' intelligence agencies. And it is perfectly calculated to bypass the defenses of its target - President Saddam Hussein." \(Good Reads)
This fictional story account of the plan to assassinate Saddam Hussein was a game changer for me in so many ways. It changed my understanding that maybe one person couldn't be ultimately responsible for the tyranny that followed the dictatorial leadership of that person. We have seen in history so many leaders that have had their names synonymous with the destruction to their countries. We don't seem to look farther than the head cheese to blame all the problems on.
When I got to the end of "Shadow of Babylon", it provided me with an ongoing story after the man. There was something bigger than the name and face often blamed. There was something more ominous and unseen that arose after that name was taken out. There was a system, a seemingly lifeless organism that had been given life... not by the leader, but by the people that supported it. In the absence of the man, the system still had to live. It was the real leader.
My uncomfortability with Dietrick Bonhoeffer to this day is that he couldn't see past Hitler to the system that made Hitler what he became. What did DB figure he would accomplish if Hitler was assassinated? Did he think that all the cards to his country's tyranny lay in the hands of one man? Maybe it's a pipe dream to think that one person can change the world... but it's reality that understands that one person does not change the world alone. Hitler couldn't have done what he did on his own. He needed believers. He may have been the voice to the ideologies of his time, but he would have just been a fart in the wind if he didn't have people who came along side of him that embraced the same ideologies that he held to.
I'm not saying that people in their own selves are not capable of destruction. I am just understanding that the men we blame for the wars in this world aren't the only one's responsible. The blame needs to be shared and owned by a lot more.
This hasn't changed. We blame our politicians today for the chaos in our countries. We can't see past the media buzz to own our part in the mess. I think it goes beyond our vote. Once the tallies are in, we sit back and expect our leaders to be the best of our consciences. Then we bicker when they don't meet our expectations, but we don't own our part in the story.
I have no more answers as to how to fix our problems than anyone else does. I just don't blame the problems on one body anymore.
I did find some inspiration from Bonhoeffer in today's reading... so I will end this post with those quotes. I see a feeble attempt at restructuring a failed system in his attempt to redirect Christianity into a social justice religion. He's not the only one. Tony Campolo came to mind when I was reading this morning. But what still sticks in my mind is something Tony's son Bart shared at the Wild Goose festival in 2021
"When I see you progressive Christians at Wild Goose trying to remake Christianity into a gay friendly, inclusive, warm and wonderful, nobody's going to hell, universalist narrative... I think you guys are brilliant, but you remind me of a bunch of engineers trying to take a submarine and retrofit it to fly. I have no doubt that with the proper engineering skills you can take a submarine and make it fly. But wouldn't it be easier to just start from scratch and just build an airplane?" Bart Campolo
Christianity is and will always be a submarine. It wasn't built to fly like an airplane, it was built to be sunk in the oceans of doctrine, dogma, rituals and regulations. It's why there are thousands of denominational expressions that label themselves as Christianity's best expression... but they are all just attempts at flying a submarine.
"I should like to speak of God not on the boundaries but at the centre, not in weaknesses but in strength; andtherefore not in death and guilt but in man’s life and goodness." DB
"So we live, in some degree, on these so-called ultimate
questions of humanity. But what if one day they no longer exist as such, if they too can be answered ‘without God’?" DB
"It is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. One must completely abandon any attempt to make something of oneself, whether it be a saint, or a converted sinner, or a churchman (a so-called priestly type!) a righteous man or an unrighteous one, a sick man or a healthy one. By this-worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life’s duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities." DB
I'm tired and just want to go to bed. There you have it... my Sunday sadness has drained me. Maybe I woke up feeling like I was 57. That made me sad. I'm the same age now that my sister was when she died. I don't know when I will perk up with that heaviness on my heart and mind. I'm just rambling now, trying to fill up this space with some words... all so I can read this next year and know where I was and what I was thinking on this day in history.
Tomorrow the plan is to start a major writing project. I don't know how I will balance the inspiration and writing mojo with AFL, but I will do my best to get words down for both avenues. Oh yeah... and I am working on a 1000 pc puzzle that I wanted to post on my birthday. Usually it takes three days to finish a 1000 pc puzzle... so we will see how we do. It's my first puzzle in two months. I guess my hiatus is over... or maybe just put on hold.
"Is there truth on this planet?
There are convictions opinions, beliefs, hypotheses, interpretations, stories, myths, facts, fact checks, ideologies, answers, reactions, observations, deductions, doctrines, creeds and dogma.
There is a desire for truth.
There is a belief in truth.
There is an understanding of what truth could be and even a hope for truth to be real.
But does truth itself still evade us?
If truth is even real, I don't see it or hear it resting on this cosmic rock we call Earth, among these cosmic travellers we call humans.
Maybe truth drops in from time to time in search of what could be a receptive soul but quickly retreats because the wars, the fighting, the division, the domination, the petty disagreements, arrogance and power.
Me saying all this, is my conviction, but it is not truth. It is my opinion, my belief, my hypothesis, my interpretation ... and that is my story." Ruby Neumann
I posted this on Whatsapp... and got quite the conversation going. I think there is no consensus as to what truth is, never mind what is true. English... such a vague language. But it's all I have to make a feeble attempt to describe what is mostly indescribable.
It was Freud day today... but there was too much to read today.
Simone De Beauvoire 1975 interview "One is not born, but rather one becomes a woman"
Today, I am finding it hard to find my thoughts. This whole blog is called "Authentic Lent". I would hope that I still feel free to be authentic here.
Simone De Beauvoir lived in my lifetime. We breathed air on this planet at the same time in history. She is not just a relic of the past... she is someone who was very much part of my world.
She died in 1985. I remember 1985. I was in boarding school at the time taking my Grade 11 year. I remember studying Macbeth in English class. I remember choir tour down to Minnesota. I remember my grandfather's funeral.
A voice like Simone's was not welcome in most circles in the world I grew up in. Women knew their place and I was being trained and guided to "know my place" too. I saw a big divide between the sexes at a young age. There were things I didn't have because my Dad didn't see fit to give them to me... even though my mother had them.
1. I didn't get a middle name. My Mom had one, my dad didn't. It was his decision. No need for further discussion
2. I didn't attend Kindergarten. My Mom was a kindergarten teacher when she was single. My dad didn't think it was necessary for his daughters, so we didn't go. I still feel a twinge of bitterness at that decision. The kindergarten teacher I would have had to start out my schooling was a sweetheart and loved children. Her name was Mrs. Schuster. My grade one teacher was an abusive alcoholic by the name of Mrs. Dixon. I wonder today if I had started out school with Mrs. Schuster if I would have had a better chance at feeling better about myself as a child.
3. It was Dad's decision to go back to town for church instead of staying in our farming community. I don't think Mom would have argued the point... because she preferred her Lutheran church. I just remember it being Dad's decision. It definitely wasn't with his daughter's input.
I don't remember my mother having much of a contradictory relationship with my Dad. He had his way and that was that. It was how he was raised and the culture he was raised in. Woman had their place and he never questioned that. He didn't have to. He was a man.
I am in my fifties now wondering if much has changed in my life. Do I believe that I, as a woman, have the same ground as my husband or any other male for that matter? There are moments when my past creeps up on me and reminds me... "Remember your place."
I admire the tenacity of Simone De Beauvoir. It is women like her that keep me inspired to believe that women's voices matter. I just wish they mattered more.
2022 DAY 21: The Living Flowers
"The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo." Karl Marx
Because I'm reading the same passage that I read two and three years ago, I go back into my blog to see what part of that passage resonated with me, before I even read the reflection again. I want something else to stand out for me this time.
I think Marx understood that there was more needed than just the debunking of the Christian Narrative. To do that like pulling the tops off the weeds and hope they don't come back. The roots create the plant again and again. Pull the roots, and the weed dies. For a well established Canada Thistle, it's not as easy to pull the roots. Maybe that is how Marx saw the story. Maybe he understood Christianity as a weed that needed removal... but criticism was like cutting the tops off. It was not removing the weed.
Three years ago, I talked about living flowers. Canada Thistle still has living flowers that are kind of beautiful. They are invasive as a plant and choke out a lot of other plants in the process. They are the bullies of the vegetation world. But they are still stubbornly beautiful. I guess I would call them a contradiction... much like I would call Christianity a contradiction. Interesting analogy today!
Kudos for Deutschland Post for honouring a philosopher on a stamp. It gives me the pleasure of knowing that one country values thinkers and confrontational thinkers at that.
Feuerbach has helped me to a place of peace when it comes to accepting "God" as something that is real inside of a person, instead of real outside of the person.
"A God to whom his determinateness is an insult lacks the courage and strength to exist. Determinateness is the fire, the oxygen, the salt of existence. An existence in general, an existence without qualities, is an insipid and preposterous existence. But there is nothing more, and nothing less, in God than what religion puts in him…" Ludwig Feuerbach
I grew up around a narrative that was contradictory at its best. Jesus was coming back some day, but Jesus also lived inside of me. I remember having that conversation with my great uncle before he passed away. I told him that Jesus coming back and Jesus living within couldn't logistically happen at the same time. That was a contradiction that I couldn't ignore anymore. I have become a little more brave to catch people on their Christian catch phrases. I ask them to explain what they mean when they hand me one of those easy to say but harder to explain collection of words. I am not trying to dislodge their faith... but their faith needs to be a little more secure if it is going to last the storms of life. So my questioning commonly used idioms can't be so damaging to someone who has what they deem as a solid faith.
"To every religion, the gods of other religions are only conceptions of God; but its own conception of God is itself its God – God as it conceives him to be, God genuinely and truly so, God as he is in himself. Religion is satisfied only with a complete and total God – it will not have merely an appearance of God, it can be satisfied with nothing less than God himself, God in person…" LF
I am enjoying the back and forth of AFL... finally. I understand the need for balancing different views. It keeps the story fresh and relevant. I guess that is the whole point.
"In order to enrich God, man must become poor; that God may be all, man must be nothing. But he also does not need to be anything for himself, because everything for himself, everything he takes from himself, is not lost, but preserved in God. Since man has his being in God, why then should he have it in and for himself? Why should it be necessary to posit and have the same thing twice? What man withdraws from himself, what he lacks in himself, he only enjoys in an incomparably higher and richer measure in God." LF.
When I was reading through Feuerbach's reading today, I had this thought come through my mind. Sometimes I don't know what do do with my thoughts other than my write them down and share them with the online ether.
"When you reach out to embrace God, you will need to embrace the God that's been handed down to you. If you want to reach outside that God that was handed down to you, you may find that there is no God to embrace." Ruby Neumann
Three weeks down already and I am wondering how this time through AFL is different for me. Maybe it doesn't have to be so different. Maybe it just has to be another leg of the journey. This will most likely be my last time through Atheism for Lent. It's time to move on again. I don't like to stay in one camp for too long lest those voices become more like pastors than itinerant preachers. I don't want to go back to church. But I love to stop in once in a while in a community and see what the stories are. I can learn a lot from a short time in those camps.
Who am I looking forward to this week? As I peruse the list of names slated for week four, I am hoping for a female voice to speak to me. Can that be too much to ask. It's not that I am tired of the old dead men... but it would be nice to find a woman's voice to connect with.
2023 Day 17 "ONE Can't Create"
This week end the third week of Atheism for Lent and the week of the Mystics. I think I just did a mystical thing. I downloaded two hours of German Choral Hymn music. Something in me was missing the music style of hymns and choral music. This way... I can enjoy the music in a language I adore listening to... but the words are beyond my mental comprehension, so they won't interfere in the enjoyment of the moment.
I have missed the music which is something that I mentioned this week. I have a whole playlist of German Christmas songs that got me through the Christmas Carol season. I don't know why I didn't think of German hymns earlier. Some of the hymn melodies I am familiar with and some I am not. Which is a beautiful balance.
I think this is something I can share with my mother. She will have the English words roll through her head while she listens and will be just as encouraged by the songs as I will just listening to the music. I think I might have found some common ground. I hope Mom likes it. Today, I am glad I don't know German. Today it is better that the words escape me. Today I feel lifted from the doldrums that this week. Today I can listen to music again!
I enjoyed the Meister Eckhart Chapter in Courtney's book "Appetite for Antithesis". I downloaded his book with the idea of maybe doing some more digging into his thoughts. Anyone who gives me freedom to find a connection to the beyond without using the word "God" has my attention. I think Meister Eckhart would understand me.
“Meister Eckhart insists that anything we say about God says more about us than about God. Not only that, but: since God is beyond all human comprehension, we shouldn’t even be discussing God or trying to understand God. This isn’t the “Master” trying to suppress doubt or discourage question; instead, Eckhart emphasizes that if we could understand anything about God, then God would not be God. Therefore, anything we think we have learned about God just makes us more ignorant instead of wiser."
Courtney Cantrell
Excerpt From
Appetite for Antithesis: (De)Knowing God in a Lenten Practice
2023 Day 14 "Haunted by the Music of Hildegarde"
I was haunted by Hildegarde's music back in 2023. But today... I am haunted by something else. I am haunted by the lack of music in my life. I am haunted by its absence. Music was one of the biggest losses for me when I left behind the Christian narrative. It was one of the last things to go. I was still singing songs in my solitude long after I stopped singing them in public. Even today, the music still sits in my brain wanting me to manifest its residual energy. I might find myself substituting the lyrics for gibberish, just to connect with the music again. But those moments are fleeting.
Now, the only place music has in my life is when I need a wake up pill when I'm driving. So I will put in the Oakridge Boys or Anne Murray and sing along to keep myself awake. Sometimes I might put on a playlist just to pass the time when I'm on the road, but songs bring emotion and emotion is not a wise thing to have when I'm behind the wheel. It's why podcasts have become my go to for driving noise.
There is one song that still has a special place in my heart. This year, the song is fifty-six years old. Almost as old as I am. "Snowbird" was written by Gene MacLellan and it was recorded by Anne Murray in 1969 and made a single in 1970. This song has been a favourite all my life, but recently has become what I call "My break up with Jesus" song.
I think I'm not the first woman to find a song after a breakup that resonated with the whole heartbreak story. Snowbird seemed to fit the story and because it came from the voice of my favourite singer of all time who just happens to be Canadian, it was extra special.
My favourite version of the song is a duet that Anne Murray sings with Sarah Brightman (of Phantom of the Opera). It is truly my Good bye to Jesus song... but with the hope that the "peaceful waters" still flow.
Marriage is hard. Divorce is hard. Choose your hard.
Obesity is hard. Being fit is hard. Choose your hard.
Being in debt is hard. Being financially disciplined is hard. Choose your hard.
Starting a business is hard. Working 9 to 5 is hard. Choose your hard.
Life will never be easy, but. you can choose your hard.
Choose wisely!
Today is another day where the inspiration came from outside the AFL reflections. I found this little blurb on a Facebook post. I spoke to me today. I've never heard it put this way. "Choose your hard".
Something else that came up in response to an inquiry about the reflection today. The reflection and conversation that followed was about the word "Holy"... which I also call "Sacred".
I said on Whatsapp...
"Holy, or preferably Sacred for me now is more about special than perfect... maybe even flawed, but the flaws are redeemed."
I guess I can find the sacred in flaws and find flaws in the sacred. Maybe in choosing my hard... that is where I will find the sacred.
