A NEW ATTITUDE

A NEW ATTITUDE

I had thought for quite a while now that there is nothing new in the area of feelings and attitudes, now I am not so sure that what I knew to be true is so. Here is what has happened so far:

Until about two weeks ago it looked as if I could expect to live another three or four years; this is from the statistics for people who have what I have, and is a number not too far from the average expectancy for all men in this country. I am well aware that these statistics imply and I intend to do anything that I can to come out on the far side of that bell-curve; I also found the study that found people with heart failure often over estimate how long they have to go. I had asked a few medical people, found more than a few articles online that all said about the same thing. My chore had been to get my head around that notion, to accept what was and then to get on with my life.

As I wrote a week or so ago I had an appointment with someone who discovered that I have severe apnea, but that with treatment I can expect to add perhaps four years to this cruise that I am on. And one other thing, he now has probable cause for something that I had been told many times was idiopathic. Treatable and redeeming–quantity and quality.

In effect I have just have just been offered a doubling of my expectancy; this idea is taking a while to root in my cranium and germinate, but it will. There are events and situations all through life that cause feelings and attitudes; except that this business is different, what I am feeling and how I am seeing the world is not quite like any I have ever experienced. I am not ready to say that this is unique, it might just be a variation on one or more, I just can’t say yet.

Obviously I am happy with the news, I have long ago discarded any wish to be dead notions; have reached the conclusion that whatever pains and discomfort come along, no matter how intense, they cannot overwhelm that of being, of becoming. This new thing is a testimony to perseverance, to scratching at the tunnel face until the gold vein is completely discovered; and for that I am relieved, perhaps more than a bit smug. This that I have just received is a gift, more to God than from; but it is such an overwhelming gift that no words are appropriate. Perhaps it would be as if someone gave me a new car–then I see that it is a brand-new Rolls convertible; what the hell do you do with such a thing! A great problem to work at as I go on.

I may write more about this as I figure it out and believe it would be of interest to someone, anyone else. Let me add one more thing: To say that this is more a gift to God than from God is because I know that without man God is irrelevant; He is what we are about, that makes us what we are.

Out of beans

I went out for coffee this morning; it was my habit to go to Peet’s every morning, did this for several years until I realized that firing up a cold car on a winter morning for a drive of less than three miles wasn’t quite right just for a cup of coffee. Today I was out of beans so I had this morning’s coffee there and bought a pound of Sumatra; I had a chance to say hello to most everyone who goes there in the morning.

Eric came in on his way to take his dog to the beach, he is about finished his police training, something he had wanted for years, now he has it. I asked if he is learning not to talk to civilians, he agreed that he is learning to stay clear of people who are not cops, people who want to talk to him, ask him, about everything in the world, or out of it. I also asked him if he was carrying, he allowed as he was; there are some crazy guys who hang around the beach where he exercises his dog, you can’t be too careful. Eric has become the attitude of the weapon: have a gun because you might meet up with a crazy guy while at the beach with your dog—–that sums it up.

I was reading that great article by Elizabeth Drew in this week’s New York Review of Books, the one analyzing the state of the political race. Steve came in, Paul came in: all three of us agreed on who should step down, why it should be soon, that the heavyweights of the party need to step in and settle things. There came out again that thing about the need for an idea that will lift us from where we are right now.

I went for a walk afterwards, stopped at Transitions Bookstore to see what books were in their window display, Transitions is a new-age store, a store that sells books at list price, that is success. All of the titles and blurbs offer an answer, the answer; you can tell the really important answers because they are endorsed by Deepak or Oprah, who are the Housekeeping Seals of Approval for answers to your life.

Yesterday I was reading Tillich’s Courage to Be, the part where he writes that faith is being grasped by that that carries you where you ought to be (the book is in the car, so the quote may not be exact).

The thread here is that every single one of us is looking for an answer, a guide, a direction: so you can spend some money to have a certified author tell you what you are missing; next month you can spend money for that month’s certified author to tell you what you are missing. Or you can wait for a political leader to become a national leader, to become an international moral leader to tell you what you need to be, to become. There seems no end of options of answers to what you need.

On the other hand Tillich leaves his answer as “that that grasps you”, you can’t be less specific than that; but he is right, just as Jesus was right when he suggested that whatever I require I already have. If I would only accept that I have it all I could stop searching, why do I hesitate?

It takes a whole bunch of courage to look deeply, to examine clearly each brick of my foundation, to know what it is that I am about, to peek at pillars that are usually left in the dark; a truly scary experience.

It’d be so much better to open a beer, watch some television, read a new book, work a little bit longer; that would be so much easier.

I visited Bert in the home yesterday, he was hospitalized earlier, now his agitation is so strong that he can’t talk about anything other than a single idea, he cycles it again and again, there was nothing to do but leave—nothing that I could do but to leave him. That is hard idea to accept.

There are more than a few hard ideas to accept, but I bet that I can.

This is what I have seen

It has been at least six months since I wrote the ‘Lydia Aello’ thing, it was a way of tying a few things together, to see how they looked on paper and screen. It is a good time to add something to the business of experiencing whatever it was that I experienced.

All my bridges were burning, there was no way out of this horrible mess that my life had become, death was my only option. I had gone over my situation repeatedly, had burned out a number of therapists in attempts to find a solution to the depression and anxiety that destroyed all that I might have been. I truly believed that I was going to use the setup I had made, that I would no longer be alive in fifteen minutes, no hope was left unturned.

It was the absolute belief that nothing I held important was useful, no cavalry troop was going to ride in from off stage at the last minute; no smooth, moist thighs were going to open as a safe harbor; that is when I began to sense something else, I now call it ‘Presence’ even though it was and is not a thing, a presence. It is more like a verb than a noun, and it has no character other than it was through me, about me, it was me and more than me, I would never be alone again.

In the months and years to follow I went through James’ Varieties of Religious Experience, fought my way through a number of Tillich’s books, listed myself at the University of Wales, Lampeter where religious experiences can be registered. I have come to believe that I had what those others have had over the millenia, and it has led me to a few notions:

Jesus couldn’t have experienced the ultimate transcendence if he had not been brought to death by the Romans, Jesus the man teaching what all men can know.

That the guy who stood on the dessert and said ‘God is God’ pretty much said it all, and I empathize with his experience.

That people who have spiritual knowledge did not all stop two thousand years ago, there is no reason to think that there is less opportunity to know the divine than there was in Palestine back then, no reason at all.

That it is the goal of everyone to have this knowledge, whether that goal is expressed or kept hidden, there is intuitive knowledge of what it is.

I will post this as is, even though I know its inadequacy, know that what was experienced can never be portrayed accurately and fully: not by Bach, Jackson Pollock or Jesus, but we feel the need to try.

A man from Darfur

I met a man from Darfur; it was an early evening in August, I was walking in the livery staging area at O’Hare. The lot can hold about 200 livery cars and over 300 taxi cabs, a lively place to be on a pleasant evening. I doing what exercise I do, he the same, we walked and talked together for a while, I never saw him again.

The man told me that he had just returned from Darfur, that he had grown up in that area, emigrated to the U. S., had just returned from a visit. He described holding a child as it died, knowing there were other children in the village who were about to die, so many had died in the place he had grown up, so many more would die in the future. There was nothing he could do about it. He was sad, angry, confused, frustrated, and had to come back from that place.

He told me that he was a Muslim, but not a practicing one, that the religion based destruction and killing kept him from the rituals and ceremonies that he had learned growing up. They were responsible for the death of this child, the other child, and all of the others, they who were supposed to be his spiritual guides.

His angry argument against the religious authorities was familiar, I don’t imagine that there is anyone growing up in our culture who has not gone through the argument and history of religion based cruelty, it is something that we start in high school and keep through the early years of college: examples and blame, the frustration of not having a spiritual organization with clean hands. That there is no religious group that has not killed and injured. I don’t need to go through this old harangue, there isn’t anything new about it.

I suggested that he should temporarily lift the words from this business, Allah, Muslim, whatever the nouns are they should be set aside for now. Don’t throw them away, keep them close to hand, within sight and reach. Then go to how he had once felt, what feeling that the practice had given him, just the feeling experience. Stay with just that for a while. He understood what I was offering, agreed that it felt good, was a comfort against his frustration.

All of the words of a Spiritual life carry baggage, so much of it that it is almost impossible to grow from under that weight. Put aside God, Jesus, Christianity, Jehovah, Allah and whatever words, and let whatever it is that is behind those words rise to the surface. There is, always has been, something that needs to be felt, that can’t be ignored, it is the basis for all religions and cults. Just go to that place within, relive the feeling that that you find.

This is nothing more difficult than doing this, nothing takes more courage, and it is the most wonderful. Leave the safe words passed down from your father and mother, the authoritarian laws and directions that were to give lifelong guidance; set them aside, for a short time, be courageous.

The symbols, ceremonies, laws will always be there, they can be picked up and carried at any time—-but for just this short time set them beside me, when I come back to them they will have even more power than previous.

This piece has been the most difficult to complete, has taken nearly a week to get this far. It is far from complete, is disjointed, the words not exact. Writing about this is like engraving smoke. I feel as if I had done too much exercising, I am sore and creaky, and I have a headache; all for those couple of paragraphs. I’ll post this today, will come back to it again, and then once more.

Slicing through the now

Yesterday I received two different comments that disturbed me. They disturbed me in that good way, put me just somewhat askew, and I thank both of my correspondent friends for sending them to me, they were just what I needed. I have spent much of the last day trying to nudge my gyroscope back on course. The first comment was in reaction to a shot I’d made about the U/Us, that she felt ‘at home with this bunch of seekers’. The second comment had to do with the birds at the feeder experiencing the joy of being in the present to an extent that man cannot. (I hope that I have transferred both ideas in the correct spirit.)

In 1960 I went to Europe on an ocean liner, the Q. S. S. Arkadia, quadruple screws was the reason for the Q. S. S.; this was still the standard method of going overseas, we were 7 days Montreal to Bremerhaven, with a couple of intermediate stops.

I liked to go to the bow and look down to where the prow cut the water, fascinated by looking slightly ahead at the smooth surface that will be cut and disturbed by this monster shoving through. Tens of thousands of horsepower drove us at 25 knots through cold dark water; the North Atlantic Ocean in October is cold, the water under our keel several miles thick; the contrast of this great ship as just a speck; the little curl of the bow wave and the wake changing nothing of the 2,000 fathoms.

Perhaps a foot or two in advance of the prow a small hill of water formed from the standing pressure wave of our progress, in a way this bump was as looking into the future, the present was where the steel split the ocean, the mound was just prior to that. Looking into the future is impossible but here it was happening, and it was irrelevant, by the time the hill of water was recognized it was under us, gone under foot. Seeing that short distance meant nothing, and once it passed under us it meant nothing. One couldn’t contemplate that patch of water rising to meet us, it would be gone by then.

The only thing that mattered was our moving through. The present is only important because it is now become the past. It is the becoming that is important to our being. One can focus on the wake of the ship, as would a conservative; one could look a mile ahead, as foolishly optimistic as Mr. Micawber; but it is where that hull disturbed the surface of the great ocean that one knows excitement.

To say that the birds feel joy is to misunderstand what joy is, it is because the present passes us and we know it, that is what makes us special, we know that what is is now gone, and that there is more coming. We know grief, despair, surprise, we feel joy in all of it.

I don’t know if any of this makes sense, it did for an hour or so at 5 a. m.

I am not sure that I feel less disturbed than I did, but I sure feel alive, feel the joy of sailing the deeper ocean.

I find nothing enlightening in organized religion: Some guys sitting around a table, deciding a program, that doesn’t enlighten in any way. The only thing holy about that scene is the word hot-stamped on the cover of a book. What I get from the business of Jesus, Judas and the Romans is that Jesus intuitively knew that to transcend what came before he had to feel the depth of scorn and rejection, feel the impersonal indignity of torture, feel the despair of certain and prolonged dying. Jesus had to feel the knowledge that God was not about relieving that pain, it was then that he could and did leave port on a new course. His boat then sailed a different sea. It is now our opportunity and obligation to gain a grain of wisdom from that unique example.

More on why Jesus is not God

That so many worship Jesus, and yet fail to have a spiritual experience, should lead to realize an important truth:

Jesus is not God, God is God, and Jesus understood this.

That God is ineffable been realized from the beginning, it is the reason that everything written about God must be a metaphor, a way of understanding and passing along that knowledge; whenever a description is taken literally there is trouble, defending the interpretation, aggressively promoting it all end in ignorance and suffering, there are innumerable examples of this, this is a principle reason that so many leave the church.

Even the label ‘God’ is a metaphor.

When Jesus asked why God was not protecting him he came to know this great truth, God is not about the mundane, it was then that Jesus left the worldly and came upon infinite transcendence. He knew intuitively that he must be rejected and killed, he had assistance to have this take place; he had to carry the cross each step himself, had to feel torture and his own murder in order to get to that place:

This is the great truth that may assist us in transcending, to understand the holy.

I don’t see God as a noun, more of a verb, the Wellspring of Being; Tillich’s term the ground of being led me to find my own; I cannot ignore another term of his ultimate concern.

The search for the right term is proper, it is a tool for looking within oneself for the truth, taking that kernel of intuitive knowledge and making it relevant for the self.

Our intuitive and ultimately true task is that search, it has always been so.

Memorizing and repeating the writings of those who have had the spiritual experience doesn’t work, it has never worked, but it is easier than introspection, and so lies the reason so many do it.

Lack of response to ‘Jesus isn’t God’

I was surprised that there was no response to a couple of things I wrote about Jesus and God, but then I found that Pages are not published, just Posts. It is taking me a longer time to figure out what WordPress is about than I expected or wished, the time and effort needed to become facile with the features here could be spent on putting the right words down, words that someone might want to read and respond; I know that these quick posts are easy, but I’d like to start some kind of coherent string of things, ideas that have a lifetime longer than a bacillus.

Jesus is not God, the blind belief that he is misses the whole point of the Spiritual Journey, that is to have a personal relationship with God, to explore that wonderful area just beyond the mundane, the known, the easy. Jesus knew all of this, tried to explain it to some others, knew that to be rejected and murdered was necessary for him to know the true Him, and then to take it beyond that. The idea is and was transcendence, that most difficult of ideas that incorporates acceptance, forgiveness, looking beyond the mundane.

This is not an easy concept, the fundamentalists fear it more than anything else, the atheists cannot acknowledge the spiritual aspect of their humanity, the established Church erect ritual barricades to combat it, and they miss all the fun.

About God, Jesus & the Bible

This in response to something from a week or so ago:Of course Jesus was and is Man, how else could He be relevant for these two millennia? Another definition would involve magic, the supernatural, a suspension of reason, and that has always been a weak theological line.

And yes, anything other than God is blasphemy, that is the definition of blasphemy; what Jesus did and does is enable us to transcend the mundane, to assist us in joining the Spirit.

The whole point of the spiritual journey is to become one again, to become more than we were, to get as close to the ineffable as possible.

And, as a last note: The bible becomes holy only when it assists us in going to where we ought to be. If it is just a recipe book to be memorized and followed mindlessly, it remains merely a book.

I think that how I understand the Spirit, the direction along the Path, that it is in the spirit of Luther, that he showed us the courage to know directly.