Day 10: Hold On, Pain Ends

 

I found this acronym for Hope when I was doing my Advent journey.  I was looking for a definition of sorts to describe the very thing others seem to think I have lost since leaving Christianity as a religion and belief system.  I have often wondered what "they" think hope means.  

Hope is a future focused word.  It takes me beyond the moment and seems to remind me that it is the only life preserver I have to navigate tomorrow.  I'm not a big navigator of tomorrow.  For me, it is a place I don't live.  Things like imagination, planning, dreaming take me there on occasion, but I don't live there.  

I woke up this morning with strange thought. 

 "Hope is the vaccine for anxiety." 

 I pondered that for a moment and figured that the only way I can get up in the morning, without feeling totally paralyzed by the possibility that the next moments could be catastrophic, is because of a good dose of Hope that energizes my neurons.  Hope isn't something I have to consciously embrace, but it is a constant presence that moves me to the next moment.  

If the only thing I have to anticipate in this world is that one day my pain will end, then I'll be alright with that.  Whether that means I go on somehow or I cease to exist, either way... Hope to me means "Hold On, Pain Ends".  That also works in the short term.  Hope is what gets me to tolerate the pain in my life.  The intensity of the moment is survivable because I understand that the pain will end sometime, somehow.  

I remember the best advice I got in relation to grief.  A friend of mine, who was navigating my Dad's cancer and ultimate death with me, told me something profound.  I listened to him because his own father had just passed from cancer.  

"Ruby, the pain will end, but the sadness will remain." 

I understand that in so many ways and I think that is the effectiveness of Hope.  It gets us, not just through life as a whole, but through every moment of struggle and opposition during life. 

The last words that my Opa said to his pastor were about hope. Opa was a faithful Mennonite farmer.  He wasn't a big mouth when it came to what he thought, felt or believed... but his last words summed it up.  

"I have hope here, but I also have hope over there." 

Today's reading had me dive into what Immanuel Kant said about hope.  That is where the rabbit trail of "hope" began today.  

“Rules for happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for.” IK

Day 9: Why I stopped asking "Why?"

 "Why, Why, Why?"

Those were the words that came from the lips of my only sister as she told her story in her church exactly one year after her first born son died in a tragic accident.  It was a word she was familiar with.  Her whole family was familiar with it.  Nothing had rocked her world like this before.  

It's been six years since my nephew Ben's death.  Looking back on that event and the events that followed, I remember the process of letting go of the word that had everyone messed up.  "Why?"

I had already amassed quite the resume of experiences in my life that found that word rearing its pesky head. But all I had in my arsenal for the first forty years of my life was "God is in control." and "God must have a plan."  They were impotent ideas that couldn't get rid of the knots in my stomach.  Could I really say those things when the news of my girlfriend's rape reached my ears?  And then hearing that she was pregnant as a result. Was that supposed to fix everything?   Like that baby was God's plan?  

It wasn't until years later and I found myself navigating a loss I never imagined navigating.  Ben was supposed to look after his Auntie Ruby when she got old.  Ben was supposed to organize and plan MY funeral.  

I came across a book by Thomas Jay Oord that screamed at me and got my attention.  The book was "God Can't". Those two words started me down a path that led me to let go of that pesky word "Why".  Oord's book invited me to look at life through Love's eyes.  Love doesn't control.  So if "God" is Love... as I had been told so many times of years of religious training, than "God" doesn't control, therefore, "God Can't" sometimes.  

My journey eventually took me beyond Oord's theology, but I am still grateful for what it started.  "Why" became unnecessary.  It only added to my confusion and got me nowhere.  The word begged for answers and answers were unavailable.  Even the explanations didn't soothe the pain inside.  Things made sense as the story of my nephew's accident unravelled.  I was able to see it as a mix of human stupidity and freaky circumstances.   I didn't need "God" to figure into it at all.  

Back to my girlfriend who became pregnant after being raped.  It was almost a couple decades later when I got to meet the boy that she had given birth to and gave up for adoption.  I attended a choir concert and he was one of the members of the choir.  I remember the feeling of watching him more than listening to the music.  In the back of my head, I found myself not able to wish away his life just to preserve my friend and prevent the consequences that have followed her and will follow her for the rest of her life.  There, before me, stood a human who, in his own way, was going to make a difference in the world and I needed to let all my "Why"'s go and just let him be.  

All I can do in my space and time is just be.  I have no interest in even trying to address the problem of evil and suffering, but I am grateful that it isn't mine to even analyze in a blog post.  I will do what I can in my world to add life and joy, it is really all I have energy for.  

Day 8: Camped at the Crossroads

Today's reflection "lost" me... but I found out, from the social chat,  that I wasn't the only one.   I decided I wasn't going to give up on David Hume.  So I googled "David Hume quotes" and I found a few interesting nuggets.  

When I go hunting for quotes, I don't always find ones I agree or disagree with, but for the most part, I find thoughts that make me think further and dwell there for awhile.  I think that is the whole purpose of the AFL journey.  Not to agree or disagree, but to dwell in the thoughts.  It isn't always an easy place.

When I woke up this morning to greet my favourite month of the year, I had an imagination of sorts.  I imagined myself camped at a crossroad.  My tent was set up and there were paths going past my tent and in different directions.  I couldn't see far past each path.  Maybe because the trees in the forest were blocking the view.  I imagined myself setting up a chair in front of my tent and putting the tea pot on.  My imagination turned into a poem (which you can find on my poetry blog here. ).  

Atheism for Lent is like that for me.  I feel myself camped and not willing to venture far from my place at the point of choice, but I want to sit down for tea with some of the travellers that come by.  Some won't stop.  They have their destination in mind, and they aren't up for a conversation unless it is with someone who is on the same path as they are.  So I wave and they move along.  But what about those who stop?  What kind of conversations will we have?  

David Hume stopped by today and this is what I heard from him.

"It is an absurdity to believe that the Deity has human passions, and one of the lowest of human passions, a restless appetite for applause." DH

"Your corn is ripe today; mine will be so tomorrow. 'Tis profitable for us both, that I should labour with you today, and that you should aid me tomorrow. I have no kindness for you, and know you have as little for me. I will not, therefore, take any pains upon your account; and should I labour with you upon my own account, in expectation of a return, I know I should be disappointed, and that I should in vain depend upon your gratitude. Here then I leave you to labour alone; You treat me in the same manner. The seasons change; and both of us lose our harvests for want of mutual confidence and security." DH

"The identity that we ascribe to things is only a fictitious one, established by the mind, not a peculiar nature belonging to what we’re talking about." DH

"Indulge your passion for science…but let your science be human, and such as may have a direct reference to action and society. Be a philosopher; but amidst all your philosophy, be still a man." DH

"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." DH

"In public affairs men are often better pleased that the truth, though known to everybody, should be wrapped up under a decent cover than if it were exposed in open daylight to the eyes of all the world." DH

"Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty. One person may even perceive deformity, where another is sensible beauty; and every individual ought to acquiesce in his own sentiment, without pretending to regulate those of others. To seek the real beauty, or real deformity, is as fruitless an enquiry, as to pretend to ascertain the real sweet or real bitter." DH

"When I shall be dead, the principles of which I am composed will still perform their part in the universe, and will be equally useful in the grand fabric, as when they composed this individual creature. The difference to the whole will be no greater betwixt my being in a chamber and in the open air. The one change is of more importance to me than the other; but not more so to the universe." DH

Day 7: I already have lost too much

 I was looking forward to today.  This beautiful picture with Bertrand Russell's quote hangs on my office wall and I was excited to dive into more of his thoughts.  Early this morning, when I opened my email and got access to what was being provided of Bertrand Russell; the essay "Why I am Not a Christian",   I discovered it was an audio recording.  Still tucked cozy in my blankets, I downloaded the essay from Ibooks and read it.  Then later when I made my way to my office, I put on my headphones and listened to the audio.   I will end this post with some quotes I found inspiring.  

* * * 

But before I share more of Bertrand Russell, I do want to share a profound revelation of sorts.  This week, I have been wondering about the labels that come with this kind of journey.  It's not a new thought, but revived now that I am learning how others see different labels such as atheist and agnostic.  I have been wondering how important labels are for me.  This past year, I have indirectly referred to myself as agnostic because it seems like a less abrasive way of communicating that what I had doesn't work for me now.  Even so,  I am not willing right now to jump on another band wagon of another kind of certainty.  

This morning during my read of Russell, I was amazed at how much I sympathized with what he was saying.  Just understanding that he had good points shook me up.  I asked myself... who are you really?  How do you see this world you live in?  And I came to understand that I will never be able to answer those questions apart from the people who dwell in the world with me.  My language of the cosmos and divine need to include my people.  I can let go of a lot of things, but because I am not an island in this world, I can't let go of some sort of something beyond me.  Redefine it, yes, but let go, no.  

I watched a documentary last night by Richard Dawkins and Laurence Krauss called "Unbelievers" .  Nothing in that documentary caused any defences in me.  I didn't agree with the "all religion needs to die" approach that is common with Dawkins.  But he seems to have the freedom to have that platform.  I don't.  I rather admire him for his freedom.  Maybe it's harsh for most, but I think he is driven by a passion that is well deserved, given the history of Christianity.  I admire that passion; I just can't share it.  

Maybe somewhere inside me lies a longing to lose it all, and in some sense, Atheism for Lent allows me that space... if only for a short season every year.  I am reminded often, however, that "It's not always about me."  I will only continue to breathe in this world as I connect and commune with others.  I can't trade my friends and family anymore just so I can be wholly authentic.  I could lose more than my self and my identity if I do that.  In fact, I already have lost too much.  

* * * 

"The word [Christian] does not have quite such a full-blooded meaning now as it had in the times of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. In those days, if a man said that he was a Christian it was known what he meant. You accepted a whole collection of creeds which were set out with great precision, and every single syllable of those creeds you believed with the whole strength of your convictions." BR

"The arguments that are used for the existence of God change their character as time goes on. " BR

"It is not that their environment was made to be suitable to them but that they grew to be suitable to it, and that is the basis of adaptation. There is no evidence of design about it." BR

"Do you think that, if you were granted omnipotence and omniscience and millions of years in which to perfect your world, you could produce nothing better than the Ku Klux Klan or the Fascists?" BR

"Most people believe in God because they have been taught from early infancy to do it, and that is the main reason.

Then I think that the next most powerful reason is the wish for safety, a sort of feeling that there is a big brother who will look after you. That plays a very profound part in influencing people’s desire for a belief in God." BR

 "Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. ... Fear is the basis of the whole thing -- fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death." BR

"Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a better place to live in, instead of the sort of place that the churches in all these centuries have made it." BR

"A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men. It needs a fearless outlook and a free intelligence. It needs hope for the future, not looking back all the time toward a past that is dead, which we trust will be far surpassed by the future that our intelligence can create." BR

Day 6: Puzzles and Philosophy

The beginning of a 2000 pc puzzle.  

...What then are the aims by reference to which an atheist presumption might be justified? One key word in the answer, if not the key word, must be 'knowledge'. The context for which such a policy is proposed is that of inquiry about the existence of God; and the object of the exercise is, presumably, to discover whether it is possible to establish that the word 'God' does in fact have application. Now to establish must here be either to show that you know or to come to know. But knowledge is crucially different from mere true belief. All knowledge involves true belief; not all true belief constitutes knowledge. To have a true belief is simply and solely to believe that something is so, and to be in fact right. But someone may believe that this or that is so, and his belief may in fact be true, without its thereby and necessarily constituting knowledge. If a true belief is to achieve this more elevated status, then the believer has to be properly warranted so to believe. He must, that is, be in a position to know. " 

Antony Flew

Currently, I have two time consuming interests - Puzzles and Philosophy.  I am by no means an expert in either one.  I like dabbling in both, but also enjoy listening to others who are much more invested and skilled in both. 

I have found a lot of commonalities in both the jigsaw puzzles I spend hours assembling and the philosophical thoughts that look a lot more like pieces in my mind than finished pictures.  In fact, when I am doing a puzzle, it's not hard to see the process of thinking through the questions of life.   Neither one is easy or quick.  Both are time consuming, but still beautiful and rewarding.  

I get some puzzles that never find total completion.  But I try to make them beautiful anyway.  Missing pieces get coloured in and stubborn time wasters find a home on my shelf.  Creativity moves in when conventional methods of completion are not going to happen.  I find the same with philosophy.  

I wish I could understand everything I hear and read, but I don't. But it doesn't stop me from reading or listening.  Most of today's reading seemed redundant. I felt like Flew could have said what he wanted to say in one paragraph, instead of three pages, but I understand writers like this. I am one of them.    Words are our friends and we want to hang out with a lot of them.  

Bart Ehrman was the one who turned me onto the difference in meaning between agnostic and atheist.  They are not two degrees of the same thing, they are very different things.  Knowledge and Belief are two different camps.  Understanding this has helped me greatly in the area of grace with myself and with others.  

Some things we can know, and some things we get to believe.  It is not my job to identify what others know or believe, only for me to understand that both are at play in our day to day lives and sometimes they might cross paths.  I know that I am writing a blog post right now; because I believe that what I have to say matters.  If I don't believe in what I write, I won't write but I don't have to know in the moment that what I'm writing will make any difference.  I just get to believe it and that keeps me writing.  

I have to admit, it is easier to call myself an agnostic than an atheist, even through I may literally be both.  When it comes to labels, The agnostic label is a lot softer than atheist and requires less explaining.  It's why I don't like labels because they rarely define me or my journey. I don't know what lies beyond my senses, and I often don't know what lies within them.  I also can't navigate my life without  believing in something beyond myself... I just don't call it "God" and definitely don't call it the "God" I embraced for most of my life ... thus applying the atheist label, I guess. 

Back to the puzzles and philosophy.  There is one difference between the two in my world.  Most of my family and friends can, in some way, share my passion of puzzles.  Whether that is doing a jigsaw together or simply admiring the completed picture.  Jigsaw puzzles  are universally enjoyable.  But that isn't the case with my interest in philosophy.  I am very much alone in that pursuit.  Maybe some can track with me for a while out of tolerance, but most don't care.  Life goes on and most would rather just look at the picture on the box than spend time assembling the pieces of the puzzle. 

What person doesn't want others to be interested in what they are doing?  - Especially family and close friends.  But for those who aren't into the philosophy... we have puzzles. 

Day 5: No one ever asked me... other than Darwin

 This is me... a long time ago.  Maybe forty five years ago.  For me... that is a long time.  This picture still haunts me when I look at it.  It was taken in the school yard of the elementary school where I spent eight years of my life.  I'm not posing for the camera... at least it doesn't look like I am.  I am alone, which was often the picture for me in the playground.  I look happy, there is a smile on my face.  The grass seems to have me mesmerized.  

I wish I could read her mind.   Pardon the tense change, but that girl is not me anymore.  Every molecule in my body has changed, multiple times since she was me.  I don't even remember this day, this moment in time.  It is a complete mystery to me. What if... what if that was the same day? 

I woke up too early again and couldn't get back to sleep, because a memory kept me awake.  I don't remember how old I was or what grade I was in, but I remember.  I remember the place I stood when a classmate of mine, by the name of Darwin, asked me a question that no one had ever asked me before.  We were standing in the teacher's lounge.  I don't know why we were there... we were students, and that place was off limits to students, but my memory has that one etched in deep.  

"Do you believe in God?" 

I wish I could walk back into the mind of that child and discover what that question initiated.  It would be interesting to see the spark, the beginning of an ember that had to hold itself for four more decades.  No one had ever asked me that question before.  I was four days old on the first trip I made to church.  I was born Christian.  Believing in God came with the package.  I was taught and raised with the assumption that God was and my opinion in the matter wasn't relevant.  But that day, to Darwin, it was.  

There was no discussion, no philosophy, no inquiry as to what he meant by "God" .  We both had in our minds what "God" meant, even at that age.  We had been told what "God" meant.  So whatever story we each had received from our parents and Sunday School teachers, we embraced that as reality.  My answer was simple.   

"Yes"

No further discussion needed.  No bravery to discover that maybe in that moment I could have asked him what he meant or why he asked.  No conversation to be had.  But forty-five years later, those two verbal exchanges haunt me like the picture does.  

What if after that interchange, I went outside to find a space to be alone in my thoughts.  The thing in front of me was the grass, so I pick up a blade and caress it in my hand.  What if that was the only place that question could really be answered. 

I, like so many, had been given narrative to embrace.  No one...  well, other than Darwin, asked me how I interpreted my existence.  No one asked me, other than Darwin, if everything that I had been given was something I wanted to receive for myself.  No one... other than Darwin thought my opinion mattered on the subject.  And all I could give him was the one word I had been given to say.  "Yes".  I couldn't give him my thoughts, because my thoughts on that subject were not my own yet.  But one day they would be, and one day, I would look back on that very moment and whisper, if only Darwin could here.

"Thank you! Thank you for asking.  Thank you for valuing my opinion on the matter.  Thank you daring to ask what no one else ever did... Thank you!"   

Day 4: In the Valley is where you will find the Poet

"Because I have been accustomed with every other object to distinguish between existence and essence, it is natural for me to believe that the existence of God can be separated from the essence of God, and that thus God may be conceived as not actually existing." Decartes

I got excited when I read that part... that sounded like something I discovered in AFL last year... that "God" doesn't exist, but like Love... "God" is that which brings everything into existence.  That was one of my favourite takeaways from last year's AFL.  And then I read on...

"But, nevertheless, when I think of it more attentively, it appears that the existence of God can no more be separated from the essence of God than the idea of a mountain can be separated from the idea of a valley, or the equality of its three angles to two right angles, can be separated from the essence of a [rectilineal] triangle. It is as impossible to conceive of God, that is, a supremely perfect being, as lacking a certain perfection, as it is to conceive a mountain without a valley." Decartes

Decartes lost me during his math lecture.  I'm a poet, not a mathematician.  I can't look at the idea of "the Absolute" through the lens of a triangle.  So that part didn't impress me at all.  

But the mountain and valley analogy... that one will stay with me for more than just the argument of the existence or non-existence of what most call "God".  (That's right, Tom... most, not all.)

I posed the following inquiry on the AFL group chat:

When one has to decide or argue ... Does God exist or does God not exist. Does that not already come with presupposed baggage? What kind of God are they talking about. The answer to that question can go in any direction depending on their conclusions about the God that exists or doesn’t exist.  And does not that baggage change with every one that’s arguing? 

I already put forward in Day 2 why "God" doesn't work for me as a descriptor.  And arguing isn't why I'm taking Atheism for Lent.  It is about discovery for me.  I'm a poet.  I'm not a theologian, I'm not a scientist, I'm not a mathematician, I'm not a lot of things.  But the artistic, poetic part of me wants to delve in to the dark with the all of them, but maybe bringing to the table a different perspective.  I value those voices... the ones that come with their own unique voice and offer something profound at a table filled with theologians, scientists and mathematicians.  

I don't get that tired from the material of AFL, but I get tired and overwhelmed at some of the banter on the social media platforms.  I realize that when sitting at this table, I am with heads more intensely invested in this than I am.  When I started dabbling in philosophy, I wasn't really prepared for what looked more like my high school biology lab.  I wanted to be in for the discovery of thought, not the dissecting of the frogs.  I understand there is a place for all that... I just feel overwhelmed listening to it.  I find myself wanting to go back to my poetry and find something in my own language I can understand.  

Decartes mentioned that without valleys, you have no mountains.  I imagine that the mountains are the theologians and scientists... up in the heights trying to outdo each other.  But the Poet is the valley.  The one trying to find meaning, but choosing to look in the dark places, the low places, and content when not seen or heard.  Where Decartes says... What are mountains without valleys? ... I say... what are theologians and scientists without poets?  

Richard Rohr has been an amazing voice in the last years for me.  I did a google search for Richard Rohr and Poetry and found the following on a blog post from 2015 entitled "Richard Rohr on Religion and Poetry".  I found a nugget in one of the paragraphs, but read the article and figured I needed to share the whole thing.  I bolded the paragraph that stuck out for me.  

The Apostle Paul stood on Mars Hill in Greece and rebuked his listeners for what they called “the unknown God.” He could explain God to them, as I feel like I could do myself as well, and of course we assume we are correct based on dramatic demonstrations of divine law. So in that spirit I take issue here with the semantics of the word “Mystery”, but I share this quote anyway because I wholeheartedly agree that we need to do much more with metaphor:

“Robert Frost wrote that great poetry ‘begins as a lump in the throat . . . a homesickness, a lovesickness.’ Poetry stirs something you can’t explain. When it comes, you just know that it is given out of nowhere. That’s when you experience radical grace. Poets try to find the perfect word to name the inner experience. The goal of great poetry is to get right to the heart of the experience so that it resonates with your own inner knowing and you can say, ‘Yes! That is true!’

Before 500 BCE, religion and poetry were largely the same thing. People did not presume to be able to define the Mystery. They looked for words that could describe the mystery. Poetry doesn’t claim to be a perfect description as dogma foolishly does. It’s a ‘hint half guessed,’ to use T. S. Eliot’s phrase. That’s why poetry seduces you and entices you into being a searcher for the Mystery yourself. It creates the heart leap, the gasp of breath, inspiring you to go further and deeper; you want to fill in the blanks for yourself.

Poetry does this by speaking in metaphors. All religious language is metaphor by necessity. It’s always pointing toward this Mystery that you don’t know until you have experienced it. Without the experience, the metaphors largely remain empty. I think this has led to the ineffectiveness of much organized religion. The metaphors religions use are usually true, but we too often defend the words instead of seeking the experience itself. Merton once said that when you hear Jesus say that you must ‘eat my flesh and drink my blood’ you are supposed to stop breathing for a few minutes. Instead we just argue about it.

The word metaphor comes from the Greek and means ‘to carry across’–to carry a meaning across, to carry you across. If you’re still living mostly out of the left brain, you think that the word has to perfectly define. But the right brain realizes that the better way to describe the moment is through a metaphor, indirectly. Probably the most quoted lines from Emily Dickinson are, ‘Tell all the truth but tell it slant — / . . . / The Truth must dazzle gradually / Or every man be blind –.’

I’m convinced this is the present impasse with so much of institutional religion: that we have for centuries “perfectly” defined, delineated, and described the Mystery. And all you have to do is believe your denomination’s dogmatic definitions and you are a member in good standing. This is not working. It is not transforming people.

C. G. Jung did not consider himself an opponent of Christianity, but wanted to be its “pastor” to re-enliven its life changing myths and metaphors. He looked at his father and his six uncles, who were all Swiss Reformed pastors, and he knew they were not happy, generative, or in love. For them it was all just ‘a human commandment, a lesson memorized’ (Isaiah 29:13). Jung believed that the course of Jesus’ life was the perfect map for the transformative journey–if only people would go inside their own souls.

I think poetry gives you resonance more than logical proof, and resonance is much more healing and integrating. It resounds inside of you. It evokes and calls forth a deeper self. That is the power of good poetry and why poetry can work so deeply. When religion becomes mere philosophy, accurate definitions, moralisms about others, rituals and dogmas in the head–that is the beginning of the end of religion as actual transformation. Now no one knows what to do with their pain except project it onto other people.

Mary Oliver, one of my favorite poets, says, ‘Poetry is a life-cherishing force, for poems are not words, after all, but fires for the coal, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread for the hungry.'”

Richard Rohr