Day 31: I can't, I can't, I can't...

 

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... 

Day 30: Uncomfortable

 

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.  

Day 29: "Imagine there's no [religion], it's easy if you try."

"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

“In Barth’s view, any attempt to comprehend or define God is an attempt to “humanize the divine, to bring it within the sphere of the world of time and things....”​[482] But this accomplishes only a widening of the unbreachable gulf between us and God. We can’t put God in a box—not even if that box is labeled “religion.” God is not what’s contained in religion—”

“God is also what ruptures our political beliefs. Try to connect Jesus to a specific political party, and it’s eventually going to go bad; you’ll end up manipulated and deceived, manipulating and deceiving. What is going on in the name “God” can’t be reduced to any one ideology; if you try to reduce it to one, you’ll end up with nothing but projections of your own personal history. Or, perhaps worse, someone else’s history.” 

Courtney Cantrell

Excerpts From

Appetite for Antithesis: (De)Knowing God in a Lenten Practice

Today, my inspiration doesn't come directly from Karl Barth... but from Pete and Courtney about Karl Barth.  

After all my readings this morning, I pondered what the world would look like if John Lennon's imagination became reality... "No Heaven, No Hell, No Religion".   According to Lennon, it was easy to imagine Earth with no Heaven, Hell or Religion.  But does "God" still show up if Religion vanishes?  That is the ultimate exercise in imagination.  Is "God" the product of Religion, or according to Barth... beyond religion and only accessible when religion gets out of the way.  Some would say that even embracing the idea of "God" puts you in religion's bubble.  

I stalled at getting anything from Karl Barth when he opened up his discourse with these words. "…We know that God is...  "  Who is "We"?  What does it mean to "know"?  And who is "God", Karl???  That is why I just blanked out for the rest of the reading.  He lost me.  So many assumptions and I feel like the ass.  

It's Day 29... and I am nearing happiness that I anticipate this AFL journey will be the last one.  I am almost done trying to get any wisdom out of Old dead white guys that are trying to keep the character of "God" in the story while tossing out the book that the story is written in.  Religion is the book.  Religion is the framework that gives "God" structure and substance.  Without Religion... "God" ceases.  Maybe then the mystery of the cosmos is magnified and we would be left wondering.  I don't see anything bad about that.  That would be a world without answers, without conclusions, without certainty, without division, without wars, without....  It would be a world without... and humans will never let that happen, because humans can't live without and be satisfied... we only know how to live with.  Even then... satisfaction is still beyond our reach.  

Day 28: Foolish Frustration

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.