Recently I came across an old Saturday Night Live skit on YouTube. Sally Field was playing a religious fanatic that prayed about everything. From matching socks to a hedge of protection around her husband as he walked out to the garage. Phil Hartman played a very outdone Jesus who was trying to get her to understand that she was over praying trivial matters. It's funny and Google is your friend if you want to look it up.
But the skit while funny was a little mean spirited and yet accurate. Let me explain what I mean. I have been on the other side of the obsessed religious wall. So a part of me was squirming with how easily I identified with the religious fanaticism. So I felt that by making so much fun that there were actually people of faith on the other side of that skit who were possibly being tormented by being made fun of.
I've never understood why people who don't believe anything think that trashing hope in others is a sign of intelligence. On the other hand the truth is that we all wake up in our own skin everyday and we all have our own coping mechanisms. Unless you are harming a child or abusing another person or creature I tend to think it's an individual journey and where you find strength is fine by me.
I no longer follow a religion. I was raised in church. I have read the bible. I have earned my worldview and it's still evolving. I still identify as Christian. Notice I didn't say "A Christian." the idea that the divine would have so much love that he/she/source would join us in this dance of the flesh inspires my life. Every cancer patient, rape victim, war ravaged refugee or homeless person is God breathed and God expressed. However, every evil act and selfish prick is also an image of the corruption of the divine. Not that the divine in us is corrupt but that we have cut off others from the source in us and therefore corrupted our true being.
I'm not a philosopher or a theologian so I'm bowing out of stating that my above conclusions are true. It seems right to me or I wouldn't have said it. But, I'm still asking questions and working through life. So your own mileage will vary.
I understand some people think prayer is just talking to one's self. Maybe it is. But, I find that I am calmed and at times can talk it out with God and come to an inner honesty that I otherwise didn't have. I'm 65 years old. I have read some spiritual teachings that talk about a higher self. At one time in my life I considered that ridiculous. But, as I've heard and read more about consciousness as fundamental cause instead of a product of a material universe the thought of higher consciousness seems feasible to me.
Meditation also keeps me sane. I can move to a quiet place. Breathe and put in my ear buds and close my eyes and listen to a guided meditation or a soundscape of running water via a phone app. Or just get quiet. Watch my thoughts and my breath and consider the other person's point of view. My anger gets less as the need to be "right" subsides. It's not a one size fits all. But it works for me.
I remember taking a psychology class when I "wore a younger man's clothes" as Billy Joel said in his song. The teacher if memory serves was a psychologist. During class discussion I told her about a friend of mine who had a lot of issues. I asked her how to fix him. Insert laughing eye roll At my ignorance here. Not that she rolled her eyes. But, I roll mine now at my silliness.
She said something I never forgot. She said "well Steve are you willing to spend weeks, months and maybe years in building your friend back up after you tear down his coping mechanisms?"
Of course not! I don't have time for that. She said exactly. So unless you can offer strength and a better solution to your friends mental health maybe you should leave it alone. Just be a friend.
I hope I was. I miss my friend terribly. He left the earth too soon. Not out of self harm thankfully.
I don't know why bad things happen to good people. I don't think anybody deserves torment from a supreme deity just for the "sin" of being born a human being.
But, the idea that the death and torture of the Jewish people or the cancer ward of a children's hospital is answered better by a cold insane useless and meaningless atheism than by hope is completely insane even stupidly insane in my opinion
So, no. My hope isn't in angry gods and biblical inerrancy. It's not in saying magic words and quoting Allah or Buddha or Jehovah. It's not in winning Darwin's sperm lottery.
It's in the time I had a childhood dream and 65 years later I still remember it. It was a confirmation that I have purpose and meaning and belong to God. Not religion. It's in the times I railed at the Almighty about the stupid way the world worked and in my own spirit heard "I know." just that. No explanation or one size fits all religion. Just "I know" that's enough at times and at times it isn't. But, it gets me through some rough times.
I keep my visions to myself...Stevie Nicks
Since I don't want to offend my devout friends any more than I have or cause my more secular friends to get a straight jacket. I won't go into the dreams, visions or intuitions I've had that point me towards hope in this world but mainly on the flip side of this life. So I'll hush now.
I find for me Meditation and prayer keep me sane and balanced.
Once I came to a river. I knew it was cold. Beside me I heard get in. You have to go to the other bank. I said it was too cold! It will kill me. But I jumped in. My body froze. It was absolutely chilling. I was dying. My spirit soared. Absolutely glorious! I was in joy....A dream from several years ago.
So, I know this journey is hard. We have little pockets of joy and pleasure. We have accidents, disease and oppression. It's not fair. But, one thing I have hope of. There is a river and we are never truly alone.
I wrote the last part of this after the massacre in Texas of innocent babies and teachers. A mentally disturbed person committed a great evil. So, I'm aware of how shallow words can be in the teeth of real tragedy and grief. I'm not going to give new agey blather about spirit or Christian just so stories about God's will. But, I'm also not going to the hopeless idiocy of a blind indifferent universe to the suffering of human kind and all creatures.
I still know there's a river. I still know there is purpose to the existence of every life and there is a world that this world is a pale reflection of.
Peace!
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