I have discovered recently that the underlying reason for my codependence is anxiety. The way I came to that was by recognizing my overdependence on external validation and seeking approval of others. The reason for this, as it turns out, is my lack of trusting myself. And the result has been living from a place of ongoing anxiety. The anecdote is confidence. So I am slowly working on building my confidence in various areas of my life.
Once I recognized the weak boundaries I have with certain individuals in my life, at one point it dawned on me that I likewise have weak boundaries with the Catholic Church. I seek the approval of Church figures, I don't trust my own conscience, and I operate from a place of anxiety. This led to a spiritual quest that took me on a mission of finding a place of worship where I already agree with the people there so that I don't have to face disapproval! It did finally occur to me that no such place exists, and that what I actually need is to work on embracing the potential conflict that may arise if and when I speak my mind.
An interesting but sad thing happened as I allowed myself the freedom to think for myself. You see, that's the problem with codependence, boundary violations, external validation - you let someone or something outside of yourself tell you who you are, what to think, and how to feel about any given thing. I grew up with this sort of dysfunction in my family of origin, but it was once I realized it bled over into my faith life that the rubber hit the road. I realized that I didn't understand the very word "conscience" itself, supposedly something the Catechism of the Catholic Church claims is of paramount importance even above and beyond church teaching. Because the RCC teaches that a conscience ought to be "formed" by thorough study of what the Church teaches and why. Basically, if I didn't agree with something the Church taught, my conscience "wasn't formed" well enough. Come again?! So only people who agreed with the Church had a fully working conscience? This of course is ludicrous. The very definition of conscience implies that no one outside of oneself can affect it.
Once I allowed myself to listen to my own conscience, without fear of judgment from "Catholic authorities", I started to ask questions that I never dared ask before. The trajectory of my unraveling faith was as follows.
1. Even before I started down this road, I believed in universal "salvation" (though I use that term loosely, for I don't believe in original sin nor the idea that God "needed" the atoning death of Jesus in order to let me back into His good graces in the afterlife). What this meant was that I didn't believe my religion was the one true religion. Perhaps, at my most serious in the faith, I thought we were "the closest", but certainly still missing bits and pieces of information.
2. I started to object to certain teachings of the Church that went against my inner sense of justice. Namely, I disagree with the Church's stance on LGBTQ rights. I disagree with the excessive fixation on sexual ethics to the near exclusion of all other transgressions. I disagree that God would make some people attracted to the same sex and then impose lifelong celibacy on them. Celibacy ought to be something entered into willingly, after discernment, and given there is the other valid option of a lifelong committed relationship (namely, marriage) held out as an alternative. In other words, I couldn't get on board with the Church's anti-gay marriage rhetoric and the various discriminatory practices by Catholic institutions done in the name of "religious freedom".
3. Once I loosened the control the Church had on my conscience, I started exploring various religions, which I've done previously. But this time, I started to notice something. Each group seemed to be using certain critiques to discount the teachings of other groups, without applying the same critiques to themselves. This became most noticeable when I was watching a popular Orthodox Rabbi on YouTube. He was of course critiquing Christianity as a whole, but he said - how can mainstream Christians reject the idea of Mormons or Muslims reinterpreting Christian Scriptures and claiming additional revelations and prophets, yet they accept their own changes and reinterpretations of the original Hebrew Scriptures? I knew he was right. And then I added... and what is so uniquely sacred about the Hebrew Scriptures that makes them sacred beyond questioning? If we don't believe in the more recent prophets' revelations, why should we believe in more ancient prophets' revelations? Why can't God simply reveal Himself to each of us directly, based on our receptivity? And so, I realized I could not follow any religion based on the supposed limited "special" revelation of supposed prophets. The prophets of the world, or at least their followers and the interpretations of their revelations, don't agree. Hence, we have as many different religions as we do today. Some, like the Bahai, claim that all prophets are saying the same message, yet this has not at all been a universal understanding of religious prophecy. The most recent prophet is always thought to be the more relevant one.
4. Once I left revealed religion behind, I automatically had to put down written Scriptures. The Bible was no longer a source of authority for me. A modern group of influential leaders could gather the inspired writings of more recent spiritual gurus, like Deepak Chopra, let's say, and declare these to be the Modern Testament, Scriptures that supersede all the others.
5. Without Scriptures or organized religion of any kind dictating the boundaries of where my thoughts could wonder, I began to look at how other faiths envision Ultimate Reality. I started to question the nature of God as He is presented in the Bible and in Christianity. I realized that this God, indeed was made in the image of man - with human weaknesses of character that led him to be full of wrath, fickle, power-hungry, jealous, violent, and then to smooth things over, merciful and forgiving. It sounded like a control freak show, honestly. You never knew "which" god you would get. Mainstream Christians would tell gay people that their active engagement in homosexuality would invoke the wrath of God, but their own tendencies to lie, cheat, even kill - well, God was all loving and all forgiving then. It was utter nonsense. I couldn't believe in "this" god any longer. I realized that this god was simply too small.
6. I was ok with God being less personal, more mysterious. After all, technically that is what Christians already believe about God, yet they continue to try to make sense of Him with various attempts at domesticating Him. If it's not the Trinity, then it's calling Him Our Father. We are never forced to just accept the fact that God -whatever and whoever God is - is simply beyond our understanding. We ought to just be grateful God created us, and do our best to live a life of purpose and charity, so that we can better know God in the afterlife.
7. Ah, the afterlife. I started to wonder about what sort of an afterlife we might have, since I didn't have to parrot back "bodily resurrection" or "heaven and hell". I was never particularly attached to the idea of having a physical body in the afterlife. I was more or less thinking that our soul was what lived on. I just didn't know the details. As I pondered what the soul might be, I thought of consciousness. Because it did me no good to think that we simply got reabsorbed into the Universal Force after death, and that the way we "lived forever" was in terms of the energy we left behind or our molecular restructuring or mere memories of those still living. The kind of afterlife I always imagined was one where I was aware of myself. Very anti-Buddhist. I wanted to keep the Ego.
8. So I looked into what consciousness really was. I watched a certain video by an atheist that explained the biological functions of consciousness, how certain parts of the brain are involved in our ability to be conscious of ourselves, and then it dawned on me - the implication is that once the body dies, so does the consciousness. There goes my afterlife. And this created a bit of a panic on my existential journey. For better or worse, I am not prepared to abandon the idea of immortality. I know it may sound cliche, and to some even naive. But if I have to go through the rest of my life believing that when I die, that is the literal end of me and I will never again see any of my loved one, not the ones who went before me and not the ones I'm leaving behind? Well, I'm sorry but I simply cannot imagine going through life with that world-view.
9. Thank God ( ;) ) I remembered an old argument by religionists against the secular materialistic scientific world-view. Science as we know it today is actually rather new in the history of humanity. It has definitively answered lots of questions that previously religions merely had theories about. Yet I realized I was finding myself being swayed - yet again - by an outside source. I was allowing the "scientific community" to tell me who I am, what to think, and how to feel. So I shook off the depression and despair long enough to think this through.
In a way, science can be compared to religions in that it provides an alternate world-view. Just like religions, it makes certain assumptions. It holds certain values in higher esteem than others. It has well-respected "prophets" and "authoritative writings". Most markedly, it has set up a system of checking for evidence of theories within the material world, and rejects out of hand anything that doesn't exactly fit into its scientific method. Sound familiar? Religions likewise draw certain boundaries and just don't venture past them for fear of being proven wrong.
What's more, by definition science deals with the material world. How, then, can science possibly answer any questions about the existence or nonexistence of a spiritual realm, when it is simply not equipped to measure frequencies beyond the physical? It is easy to say that if we can't measure it, it doesn't exist. But it is not very honest to do so.
10. And so where I find myself is here: I do not know what the nature of God is, nor what exactly awaits us in the afterlife. However, I have had enough spiritual experiences to tell me that there must be something worthy of mention there. That science has no more ultimate truth than does religion. One thing I think science does a much better job of than does religion is to focus on the improvement of our world, here and now. Religion often prioritizes the afterlife over the here and now to the point of ignoring the legitimate needs of our planet and certain marginalized people. Religions tend to cater to the poor, though not universally and often with limitations, not to mention failing to see how minority group membership status affects poverty. Yet for all the bad things that religion has done and sadly continues to do, there are also things that religion is doing better than science, providing hope, meaning, purpose, comfort, as well as high standard for character formation. We need both. Perhaps in a few hundred years, there will be talk of ecumenical discussions between the scientific community and the religious community (singular), like there is today within religions. Religions need to band together and focus on what they as a whole bring to the table, because if they continue to bicker among themselves, greedy to win maximum adherents, people will simply trickle out and get lost in the sea of science, living for today, but with no hope for tomorrow.
I know some people don't need the affirmation of God or an afterlife to feel fulfilled. There are also people who don't seem bothered by their religion going against what science has already established as fact. We need to accept that different people need different things to lead a happy life. We need to find a way for science and religion to talk to each other, not over each other. But that's for another day. For now, suffice it to say that I am holding on to that last shred of spirituality that was nearly extinguished by my newfound freedom of thought. And that I need to focus my attention on reframing my own religious tradition in a way that I will find meaningful, a way that I can teach to my children while maintaining integrity.
If indeed I need a label for this new spiritual adventure, perhaps Spiritual and Religious is the best available term. Not specific to any one religion, but rather valuing different aspects of several different religions. Yet spiritual first and foremost, pursuing an individual and unique spiritual practice, building fellowship in unusual places, and only supplementing and falling back on religion as a way of being grounded in something that - while I don't believe in it literally - has stood the test of time and certainly holds certain valuable truths about the human condition.
Alternately, I certainly am "Spiritually Independent", and so perhaps this term is even more appropriate, since I am in need of labels ;)
Showing posts with label interpretation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label interpretation. Show all posts
Monday, February 24, 2020
Sunday, September 15, 2019
Two Dreams and Facing the Truth
I am trying to pay more attention to my dreams as I begin to discern where Jesus is leading me.
The first dream, I was in our church's chapel. There was a children's rosary going on, they called it the alphabet rosary, and there were pastel-colored tokens all over that supposedly were supposed to help the kids understand the mysteries. At the altar was the monstrance, and behind it was a young man (?) and several others next to him. The youth directly behind the monstrance was wearing a wide, red blindfold. I walked up to him and untied the blindfold.
Red is my favorite color, but also the color of the Holy Spirit and love. The fact that I untied it leads me to believe that I have been blind to Jesus's true presence permeating everything everywhere, and not being held hostage in the tabernacles of Catholic churches. Also, the sense of clutter all around in an attempt to "help" the kids pray the rosary also strikes me as the various additions and elaborations the Catholic church has laid on top of Scriptures, presumably in an effort to clarify and explain the Word of God to the faithful.
The second dream, there was some sort of retreat or even going on. Lots of movement. People gathering for pictures, eating at the table, etc. There were three different people in the dream who were moving around on their hands because their legs were missing. One was a white lady, there was an Asian young man who presumably was the white lady's son, and later a Black man, that I though was a comedian. The Black man was climbing a rope ladder.
Also, I peaked into a church to see a couple getting married. The lady was wearing a dirty white gown and what looked like a red apron or sash. They were exchanging vows into microphones. She was trying to hang up her microphone when she was done, but there wasn't anywhere for her mic to go. She then lifted her dress inappropriately high as she tried to step over the high threshold, exposing the crotch area of her pantyhose.
The three people walking around without legs seem to be telling me these are people operating with only half of what they need. The different races seem to suggest the universality of the Catholic church. Scriptures make up only half of the Catholic faith - the other half is Tradition. It seems that these people represent the Catholic walk in Christ. They do have the Scriptures, but it only makes up half of their faith, and as a result, their walk is wobbly and slow, and unnecessarily difficult to get around.
Then, the bride stepping over the threshold (with her legs) again highlights the importance of legs in this dream. I couldn't see the legs of the three people, and I didn't want to see the top of the legs (the crotch) of the bride. I didn't want to see her stepping away. She tried to speak into the mic but when that frustrated her, she stepped out. In the stepping out, she revealed something unseemly. Is she revealing something problematic about herself, or about the situation she's leaving? Is the act of leaving highlighting the problems I'm realizing about the Catholic church?
It's hard to tell at this point if I want to stay in the Catholic church or if I want to leave, and therefore I don't know if I'm reading into the dreams based on my presuppositions. Would it be easier if I could resolve whatever this crisis of faith is and remain in the Catholic church? Yes. A lot easier. For one, we wouldn't have to look for another faith community, which would include deciding on a denominational affiliation (nondenominational is still a denomination in my book). For another thing, we could continue as planned with my daughter's sacramental preparation (and my son's three years later). Also, I wouldn't have to weigh every religious practice I'm used to and determine whether or not it is unbiblical or rather worse, anti-biblical. Finally, I wouldn't have to worry about convincing my husband to join me on this journey.
But there is something compelling me not to take the easy road this time. There is something tugging on my heart that tells me there really is ultimate Truth, and that I want to find it. Up until now, Truth has been evasive and unknowable as far as I can tell. The idea of non-Christians not being saved really troubles my inner sense of justice. What of the countless people who died before Jesus was born? Before His message could reach them? What about those who have only been exposed to watered down or misguided interpretations of the Gospel, making it completely unappealing? Can God really blame a person for rejecting what they really never knew? Because even hearing "of" Jesus doesn't mean they were really presented with the Gospel as it ought to be presented. And what about those who really were evangelized properly, but their background presents a psychological obstacle to accepting the premises of Christianity? And how much of this worry is just my inner codependent?
I believe in a merciful God. I believe that even at the moment of death (immediately after?) a person can repent. But is this belief what God has revealed in His Word? Should I really worry so much about other people? Of course I want their good, that's the basic command of the Christian. But it has been an impediment to my own faith. If I admit that without accepting Jesus's free gift on the cross, I am lost and remain in my sin, what about those I love who also haven't accepted Jesus? And so I shy away from admitting that this is what the Bible calls me to.
What if I just worry about my side of the street? "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." (Joshua 24:15)
The first dream, I was in our church's chapel. There was a children's rosary going on, they called it the alphabet rosary, and there were pastel-colored tokens all over that supposedly were supposed to help the kids understand the mysteries. At the altar was the monstrance, and behind it was a young man (?) and several others next to him. The youth directly behind the monstrance was wearing a wide, red blindfold. I walked up to him and untied the blindfold.
Red is my favorite color, but also the color of the Holy Spirit and love. The fact that I untied it leads me to believe that I have been blind to Jesus's true presence permeating everything everywhere, and not being held hostage in the tabernacles of Catholic churches. Also, the sense of clutter all around in an attempt to "help" the kids pray the rosary also strikes me as the various additions and elaborations the Catholic church has laid on top of Scriptures, presumably in an effort to clarify and explain the Word of God to the faithful.
The second dream, there was some sort of retreat or even going on. Lots of movement. People gathering for pictures, eating at the table, etc. There were three different people in the dream who were moving around on their hands because their legs were missing. One was a white lady, there was an Asian young man who presumably was the white lady's son, and later a Black man, that I though was a comedian. The Black man was climbing a rope ladder.
Also, I peaked into a church to see a couple getting married. The lady was wearing a dirty white gown and what looked like a red apron or sash. They were exchanging vows into microphones. She was trying to hang up her microphone when she was done, but there wasn't anywhere for her mic to go. She then lifted her dress inappropriately high as she tried to step over the high threshold, exposing the crotch area of her pantyhose.
The three people walking around without legs seem to be telling me these are people operating with only half of what they need. The different races seem to suggest the universality of the Catholic church. Scriptures make up only half of the Catholic faith - the other half is Tradition. It seems that these people represent the Catholic walk in Christ. They do have the Scriptures, but it only makes up half of their faith, and as a result, their walk is wobbly and slow, and unnecessarily difficult to get around.
Then, the bride stepping over the threshold (with her legs) again highlights the importance of legs in this dream. I couldn't see the legs of the three people, and I didn't want to see the top of the legs (the crotch) of the bride. I didn't want to see her stepping away. She tried to speak into the mic but when that frustrated her, she stepped out. In the stepping out, she revealed something unseemly. Is she revealing something problematic about herself, or about the situation she's leaving? Is the act of leaving highlighting the problems I'm realizing about the Catholic church?
It's hard to tell at this point if I want to stay in the Catholic church or if I want to leave, and therefore I don't know if I'm reading into the dreams based on my presuppositions. Would it be easier if I could resolve whatever this crisis of faith is and remain in the Catholic church? Yes. A lot easier. For one, we wouldn't have to look for another faith community, which would include deciding on a denominational affiliation (nondenominational is still a denomination in my book). For another thing, we could continue as planned with my daughter's sacramental preparation (and my son's three years later). Also, I wouldn't have to weigh every religious practice I'm used to and determine whether or not it is unbiblical or rather worse, anti-biblical. Finally, I wouldn't have to worry about convincing my husband to join me on this journey.
But there is something compelling me not to take the easy road this time. There is something tugging on my heart that tells me there really is ultimate Truth, and that I want to find it. Up until now, Truth has been evasive and unknowable as far as I can tell. The idea of non-Christians not being saved really troubles my inner sense of justice. What of the countless people who died before Jesus was born? Before His message could reach them? What about those who have only been exposed to watered down or misguided interpretations of the Gospel, making it completely unappealing? Can God really blame a person for rejecting what they really never knew? Because even hearing "of" Jesus doesn't mean they were really presented with the Gospel as it ought to be presented. And what about those who really were evangelized properly, but their background presents a psychological obstacle to accepting the premises of Christianity? And how much of this worry is just my inner codependent?
I believe in a merciful God. I believe that even at the moment of death (immediately after?) a person can repent. But is this belief what God has revealed in His Word? Should I really worry so much about other people? Of course I want their good, that's the basic command of the Christian. But it has been an impediment to my own faith. If I admit that without accepting Jesus's free gift on the cross, I am lost and remain in my sin, what about those I love who also haven't accepted Jesus? And so I shy away from admitting that this is what the Bible calls me to.
What if I just worry about my side of the street? "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." (Joshua 24:15)
Thursday, September 5, 2019
Purpose of Religion
When I think of religion, I think of a set of beliefs shared by a group of people, beliefs that are meant to motivate said people to live up to their potential, continuously become a better version of themselves, and empty themselves in order to allow the Divine to better live through them.
To me, religion is the science of things we cannot see or explain using current sets of knowledge. It is esoteric, experimental, subtle, massively grand, fascinatingly awe-inspiring… or at least these descriptions can be applied to the Divine (aka God to many people) that religion seeks to explain.
Religion is supposed to be an easy label to help categorize people according to the style of worship, core values, meaningful traditions and rituals, and underlying beliefs.
Is religion necessary in order to live a life pleasing to God? Religion, by definition, requires a group of people agreeing on certain core tenets. As such, it is true to say that there is no such think as a “religion of one”. However, is religion even necessary to please God?
One thing that is grossly missing in a lot of religious people’s lives is the process of personal discernment. Discernment requires a one-on-one relationship with the Almighty. Many Christians use the phrase “personal relationship with Christ”, but discernment isn’t merely “having” a relationship, but rather it describes how we are in this relationship. Discernment is quiet listening and waiting for the subtleties of God speaking to our hearts with His instructions, guidance, encouragement, consolation. Lots of people like to talk to God, many fewer ever take the time to listen to God speaking back.
Discernment is how Abraham went down in history as the father of monotheism. Discernment is how Jesus asserted His role in salvific history. Discernment is how Muhammad brought monotheism to people who may not have otherwise known it. Abraham was not Jewish; Jesus was not Christian; Muhammad was not Muslim. What made them great is not their religious affiliation, but their one-on-one relationship with the Almighty, which was defined by a life of discernment. We, too, can have that kind of relationship with God, regardless of where, when, or how we worship, or how we try to differentiate ourselves from others, or which of the many worthy values we choose to prioritize.
The worst thing that can happen to a spiritually minded person is group-think. Group-think, in the case of religion, is the idea that there is only one way to interpret ultimate reality, and that we (rather than anyone else) have it all figured out. Group-think forces people to choose a sense of community over the much scarier and lonelier road that leads to personal revelation. Group-think limits believers’ freedom, tries to tell them “they” (meaning whoever happens to be in a position of greatest authority in the group) have the correct interpretation and we ought to just fall in line if we know what’s good for us. Group-think uses fear tactics to herd people together. Group-think limits the very thing God created each of us for – freedom (think free will), courage, service, self-lessness.
If I’m being honest with myself, I do a lot of religious things. I do a lot of spiritual things. But I’m not truly following Jesus yet because I am constantly checking with “the powers that be” to see if what I’m receiving in prayer fits with what others have already acknowledged and affirmed. I’m not following Jesus because I worry about being questioned, being accused of wrong interpretation, being wrong. I’m not following Jesus because there is no fear in perfect love, and love is what Jesus is calling me to.
Much like the Sabbath, which Jesus said was made for man, not the other way around, I believe the Church likewise was made for man. The Church is supposed to be there to strengthen its members, to encourage its members, to support its members. Instead, what I often see is the Church dangling the promise of belongingness to those who check their critical thinking at the door. I see the Church manipulating control away from individuals for the sake of the group, but in the process the entire group suffers, not to mention all those outside the group. Jesus didn’t come to save one group among many. He came to save everybody. Regardless of religious affiliation.
Jesus was clear when He said there was only one thing needed for eternal life: to love God with everything we’ve got, and to love others the way we love ourselves (which also requires us to actually love ourselves in the first place, by the way) (Matthew 22:36-40). Elsewhere He also said that many people will cry out “Lord, Lord”, but He will look at the lives they led (not the beliefs they held) when admitting people into the Kingdom of God (Matthew 7:22-28). It’s interesting to note that the last verse here (Matthew 7:28) says, “when Jesus had finished these words, the multitudes were astonished at his teaching.” Even today, I think many religious, pious people would be “astonished” at this teaching. They’d be saying “yes, but…” Jesus doesn’t leave anything left to interpretation here. To follow Jesus means to DO God’s will. Not to talk about it, not to believe in it, but to DO it.
Yet most religiously-affiliated people are much too concerned about “right beliefs” or “right interpretations” than “right actions”. Oh, lots of people worry about the “right actions” of other people – quick to point out what people shouldn’t be doing because “the Bible says…”, but less people apply this standard to themselves. (Matthew 7:3 calls this “looking at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and paying no attention to the plank in your own eye.”)
Jesus calls us to change ourselves in order to change the world. He does not call us to strong-handedly attempt to change others by preaching at them, making laws that force people into a certain lifestyle over another, or denying people civil rights “on principle”. Recently, I’m saddened at the way people have used the catch-phrase “religious freedom” to try to force their own interpretations of Scriptures onto other people. They are held up by many religious people as modern day quasi-martyrs, when in fact, Jesus had something to say about the place of secular law in a spiritual person’s life when He said in Mathew 12:17, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Civil rights, social justice, these are secular ideals and they belong in the secular realm. Our spiritual beliefs ought to motivate us to live them out, not to change them according to our own interpretations. What applies to one group of people must apply to all groups of people.
There are people who will read this and cry “heretic”! Yet to be a heretic, one must first accept the premise that there even is such a thing as “accepted belief or doctrine”. Accepted by whom? Doesn’t this term basically mean that everyone is a heretic in relation to some set of beliefs? What is the point of such a label?
The beauty of Scriptures is that it is the living word of God. It is open to interpretation, and as such, is capable of speaking directly to the condition of an individual reader’s (or hearer’s) heart, based on their unique circumstances, life experiences, and personality traits. This is the subtlety of God at it’s finest. This is discernment. There is no “how-to” guide to pleasing God that is equally applicable to everyone. Each of us must consult God directly and honestly, willing to be called a heretic, willing to be ostracized, willing to be threatened with the withdrawal of community, willing to put one’s conscience on the line for the sake of truth. Truth is ultimate, but it is not simple nor easy to explain.
Truth and application are in fact not one and the same. Gravity is true. Yet how gravity applies to someone walking a tightrope versus how it applies to our very planet in orbit differs. The point of reference for each is different. It doesn’t make gravity any less true in one of the circumstances. While on Earth, gravity pulls us towards its center. While in the cosmos, our Earth orbits around the Sun, not itself. The planet is no longer the source of that gravity. Likewise, God calls each of us to Himself in different ways, and none of us are able to discern on behalf of anyone else. It simply cannot be done. We can impose our own interpretations onto others, but this is not the same, nor is it in any way helpful to either party, and certainly it’s not what God calls each individual to do.
So, if I can’t simply trust my religion to tell me what God wants me to do, how do I please God? What exactly do I need to be doing, on a regular, even daily, basis, so that I know that I am right with God? How exactly does a life following Jesus look like?
I know it doesn’t look like sitting comfortably in my middle-class suburban home, enjoying many luxuries that my husband’s salary can afford our family of 4, without actually sharing the wealth with others. I know it doesn’t look like writing a check here and there and patting myself on the back for “being generous.” I know it doesn’t look like enjoying myself in worship, being intellectually stimulated by a provocative homily, moved to tears by inspiring music, comforted by beautiful stained glass or other decorations. It doesn’t look like simply being known by name by many people who happen to spend time at the same place as I do during the same times (Mass at my church, the same events and small groups, etc). I know that it does not mean simply following the 10 commandments. Um, those are pretty basic. Like, Kindergarten in the school of life. You have to have those down before moving on to bigger and better things, but you certainly have not graduated if that’s all you’ve got.
Jesus actually did give us several ideas, both through His words and through His actions. He spent time with people no respectable person wanted to be caught with. He talked to them as if He didn’t realize their past mistakes. Yet He did not coddle them. He called them out of themselves, challenged them to keep striving to be better, not to settle. He healed those who were in need of healing. He celebrated the good times and wept along side others during the sad times. He got justifiably upset at people who were cheating others (turning over tables at the temple). He called out those who said one thing but did another. He welcomed everyone willing to follow Him. He turned no one away. Sometimes people turned away from Him on their own, but it was never He who turned them away. He also took time for Himself. He lived by example form start to finish. He knew that time alone with God the Father Almighty was what gave Him the Spirit of conviction, courage, wisdom. He knew there must be a balance between service and self-care.
And He told us in the Beatitudes some examples of what following Him entails (in Matthew 5:3-12): Blessed (happy) are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those who are persecuted because of righteousness, those who are insulted or persecuted or falsely accused because of Him.
To me, religion is the science of things we cannot see or explain using current sets of knowledge. It is esoteric, experimental, subtle, massively grand, fascinatingly awe-inspiring… or at least these descriptions can be applied to the Divine (aka God to many people) that religion seeks to explain.
Religion is supposed to be an easy label to help categorize people according to the style of worship, core values, meaningful traditions and rituals, and underlying beliefs.
Is religion necessary in order to live a life pleasing to God? Religion, by definition, requires a group of people agreeing on certain core tenets. As such, it is true to say that there is no such think as a “religion of one”. However, is religion even necessary to please God?
One thing that is grossly missing in a lot of religious people’s lives is the process of personal discernment. Discernment requires a one-on-one relationship with the Almighty. Many Christians use the phrase “personal relationship with Christ”, but discernment isn’t merely “having” a relationship, but rather it describes how we are in this relationship. Discernment is quiet listening and waiting for the subtleties of God speaking to our hearts with His instructions, guidance, encouragement, consolation. Lots of people like to talk to God, many fewer ever take the time to listen to God speaking back.
Discernment is how Abraham went down in history as the father of monotheism. Discernment is how Jesus asserted His role in salvific history. Discernment is how Muhammad brought monotheism to people who may not have otherwise known it. Abraham was not Jewish; Jesus was not Christian; Muhammad was not Muslim. What made them great is not their religious affiliation, but their one-on-one relationship with the Almighty, which was defined by a life of discernment. We, too, can have that kind of relationship with God, regardless of where, when, or how we worship, or how we try to differentiate ourselves from others, or which of the many worthy values we choose to prioritize.
The worst thing that can happen to a spiritually minded person is group-think. Group-think, in the case of religion, is the idea that there is only one way to interpret ultimate reality, and that we (rather than anyone else) have it all figured out. Group-think forces people to choose a sense of community over the much scarier and lonelier road that leads to personal revelation. Group-think limits believers’ freedom, tries to tell them “they” (meaning whoever happens to be in a position of greatest authority in the group) have the correct interpretation and we ought to just fall in line if we know what’s good for us. Group-think uses fear tactics to herd people together. Group-think limits the very thing God created each of us for – freedom (think free will), courage, service, self-lessness.
If I’m being honest with myself, I do a lot of religious things. I do a lot of spiritual things. But I’m not truly following Jesus yet because I am constantly checking with “the powers that be” to see if what I’m receiving in prayer fits with what others have already acknowledged and affirmed. I’m not following Jesus because I worry about being questioned, being accused of wrong interpretation, being wrong. I’m not following Jesus because there is no fear in perfect love, and love is what Jesus is calling me to.
Much like the Sabbath, which Jesus said was made for man, not the other way around, I believe the Church likewise was made for man. The Church is supposed to be there to strengthen its members, to encourage its members, to support its members. Instead, what I often see is the Church dangling the promise of belongingness to those who check their critical thinking at the door. I see the Church manipulating control away from individuals for the sake of the group, but in the process the entire group suffers, not to mention all those outside the group. Jesus didn’t come to save one group among many. He came to save everybody. Regardless of religious affiliation.
Jesus was clear when He said there was only one thing needed for eternal life: to love God with everything we’ve got, and to love others the way we love ourselves (which also requires us to actually love ourselves in the first place, by the way) (Matthew 22:36-40). Elsewhere He also said that many people will cry out “Lord, Lord”, but He will look at the lives they led (not the beliefs they held) when admitting people into the Kingdom of God (Matthew 7:22-28). It’s interesting to note that the last verse here (Matthew 7:28) says, “when Jesus had finished these words, the multitudes were astonished at his teaching.” Even today, I think many religious, pious people would be “astonished” at this teaching. They’d be saying “yes, but…” Jesus doesn’t leave anything left to interpretation here. To follow Jesus means to DO God’s will. Not to talk about it, not to believe in it, but to DO it.
Yet most religiously-affiliated people are much too concerned about “right beliefs” or “right interpretations” than “right actions”. Oh, lots of people worry about the “right actions” of other people – quick to point out what people shouldn’t be doing because “the Bible says…”, but less people apply this standard to themselves. (Matthew 7:3 calls this “looking at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and paying no attention to the plank in your own eye.”)
Jesus calls us to change ourselves in order to change the world. He does not call us to strong-handedly attempt to change others by preaching at them, making laws that force people into a certain lifestyle over another, or denying people civil rights “on principle”. Recently, I’m saddened at the way people have used the catch-phrase “religious freedom” to try to force their own interpretations of Scriptures onto other people. They are held up by many religious people as modern day quasi-martyrs, when in fact, Jesus had something to say about the place of secular law in a spiritual person’s life when He said in Mathew 12:17, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Civil rights, social justice, these are secular ideals and they belong in the secular realm. Our spiritual beliefs ought to motivate us to live them out, not to change them according to our own interpretations. What applies to one group of people must apply to all groups of people.
There are people who will read this and cry “heretic”! Yet to be a heretic, one must first accept the premise that there even is such a thing as “accepted belief or doctrine”. Accepted by whom? Doesn’t this term basically mean that everyone is a heretic in relation to some set of beliefs? What is the point of such a label?
The beauty of Scriptures is that it is the living word of God. It is open to interpretation, and as such, is capable of speaking directly to the condition of an individual reader’s (or hearer’s) heart, based on their unique circumstances, life experiences, and personality traits. This is the subtlety of God at it’s finest. This is discernment. There is no “how-to” guide to pleasing God that is equally applicable to everyone. Each of us must consult God directly and honestly, willing to be called a heretic, willing to be ostracized, willing to be threatened with the withdrawal of community, willing to put one’s conscience on the line for the sake of truth. Truth is ultimate, but it is not simple nor easy to explain.
Truth and application are in fact not one and the same. Gravity is true. Yet how gravity applies to someone walking a tightrope versus how it applies to our very planet in orbit differs. The point of reference for each is different. It doesn’t make gravity any less true in one of the circumstances. While on Earth, gravity pulls us towards its center. While in the cosmos, our Earth orbits around the Sun, not itself. The planet is no longer the source of that gravity. Likewise, God calls each of us to Himself in different ways, and none of us are able to discern on behalf of anyone else. It simply cannot be done. We can impose our own interpretations onto others, but this is not the same, nor is it in any way helpful to either party, and certainly it’s not what God calls each individual to do.
So, if I can’t simply trust my religion to tell me what God wants me to do, how do I please God? What exactly do I need to be doing, on a regular, even daily, basis, so that I know that I am right with God? How exactly does a life following Jesus look like?
I know it doesn’t look like sitting comfortably in my middle-class suburban home, enjoying many luxuries that my husband’s salary can afford our family of 4, without actually sharing the wealth with others. I know it doesn’t look like writing a check here and there and patting myself on the back for “being generous.” I know it doesn’t look like enjoying myself in worship, being intellectually stimulated by a provocative homily, moved to tears by inspiring music, comforted by beautiful stained glass or other decorations. It doesn’t look like simply being known by name by many people who happen to spend time at the same place as I do during the same times (Mass at my church, the same events and small groups, etc). I know that it does not mean simply following the 10 commandments. Um, those are pretty basic. Like, Kindergarten in the school of life. You have to have those down before moving on to bigger and better things, but you certainly have not graduated if that’s all you’ve got.
Jesus actually did give us several ideas, both through His words and through His actions. He spent time with people no respectable person wanted to be caught with. He talked to them as if He didn’t realize their past mistakes. Yet He did not coddle them. He called them out of themselves, challenged them to keep striving to be better, not to settle. He healed those who were in need of healing. He celebrated the good times and wept along side others during the sad times. He got justifiably upset at people who were cheating others (turning over tables at the temple). He called out those who said one thing but did another. He welcomed everyone willing to follow Him. He turned no one away. Sometimes people turned away from Him on their own, but it was never He who turned them away. He also took time for Himself. He lived by example form start to finish. He knew that time alone with God the Father Almighty was what gave Him the Spirit of conviction, courage, wisdom. He knew there must be a balance between service and self-care.
And He told us in the Beatitudes some examples of what following Him entails (in Matthew 5:3-12): Blessed (happy) are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those who are persecuted because of righteousness, those who are insulted or persecuted or falsely accused because of Him.
Thursday, September 6, 2018
Scandal and Fallout
So I have been living under a rock. I mean, I "knew" about the previous sex abuse scandal in the Catholic church, but I never took any time to learn any details about it. As recently as last month, I assured fellow Catholics that no one threatens to leave the country when scandal breaks out at the White House or among the police, because we know the country is built on something greater than the individuals that disappoint us. I didn't think it was any different with church membership. But you know what, that's a little like comparing apples and oranges. It's nowhere near as feasible for most people to migrate to a foreign country as it is for them to choose a different church to go to.
I also engaged in a little bit of "blame the victim" mentality, or rather, blame the victims' parents. I thought - where were the parents of the kids being abused? Why did they trust clergy to be alone with their children? I've never been an altar server, nor have I ever attended vacation bible school. I didn't meet many priests personally until recently. So this is foreign territory for me. But my daughter has now experienced her first vacation bible school. I remember writing in my first letter to her that I support whatever path she may follow in life, consecrated religious life included. I thought about the possibility of my son being a priest someday since before I had confirmation that I was pregnant with him. Today, I have to say that I would be very cautious about the idea, and I don't know that I'll actively encourage my kids to discern this possibility anymore.
And in a much more pressing, immediate scenario... Confession. We may need to seek out the old screened confessional booths again to maintain some level of security and safety. I love and trust our current pastor, but the sad truth is that these clerical criminals have tainted the reputation of all the clergy. Their victims and their victims' parents also trusted them. So my feelings of trust are no consolation anymore.
It is a sad day when I feel I have to take it upon myself to put into effect safety mechanisms to protect my family from the leaders of my church. It shouldn't be like that. The church is not supposed to be just another secular organization. Yet, I don't see how I can see it as anything other than anymore.
Jesus said to Peter in Matthew 16:18 "upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it." So I'm left with a few thoughts on this. One - I believe that Jesus meant to establish a church based on the leadership of Peter. Two - I believe Satan has been attacking Christ's church and this is a renewed effort. Three - I don't believe Jesus started an organization, so I don't think it is necessary to think of His Church in terms of a hierarchy. I believe it is more appropriate to think of the fellowship of all believers as Christ's church. I don't feel bound by loyalty to the Pope anymore. The Pope has failed me. He has failed his calling to lead his flock. But his failure does not negate the value of the church. I just have to reassess how I define "church".
But there's a much bigger obstacle to my "leaving" Catholicism. Ironically, it's an obstacle many converts to Catholicism struggle with before finally embracing the faith: the Eucharist. But there is no denying Christ's words in the 6th chapter of the gospel of John, verses 35-66. I'm finding myself on a mission of interpretation. Because let's be honest. If I were to not believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, then I would see no reason to remain a Catholic.
The current scandal is merely forcing the issue because I'm having a hard time believing in anything - having faith in anything - coming from the same hierarchy that has shown itself to be completely unconcerned with its mission and calling. If they don't take their position seriously, how can we, the laity?
I also engaged in a little bit of "blame the victim" mentality, or rather, blame the victims' parents. I thought - where were the parents of the kids being abused? Why did they trust clergy to be alone with their children? I've never been an altar server, nor have I ever attended vacation bible school. I didn't meet many priests personally until recently. So this is foreign territory for me. But my daughter has now experienced her first vacation bible school. I remember writing in my first letter to her that I support whatever path she may follow in life, consecrated religious life included. I thought about the possibility of my son being a priest someday since before I had confirmation that I was pregnant with him. Today, I have to say that I would be very cautious about the idea, and I don't know that I'll actively encourage my kids to discern this possibility anymore.
And in a much more pressing, immediate scenario... Confession. We may need to seek out the old screened confessional booths again to maintain some level of security and safety. I love and trust our current pastor, but the sad truth is that these clerical criminals have tainted the reputation of all the clergy. Their victims and their victims' parents also trusted them. So my feelings of trust are no consolation anymore.
It is a sad day when I feel I have to take it upon myself to put into effect safety mechanisms to protect my family from the leaders of my church. It shouldn't be like that. The church is not supposed to be just another secular organization. Yet, I don't see how I can see it as anything other than anymore.
Jesus said to Peter in Matthew 16:18 "upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it." So I'm left with a few thoughts on this. One - I believe that Jesus meant to establish a church based on the leadership of Peter. Two - I believe Satan has been attacking Christ's church and this is a renewed effort. Three - I don't believe Jesus started an organization, so I don't think it is necessary to think of His Church in terms of a hierarchy. I believe it is more appropriate to think of the fellowship of all believers as Christ's church. I don't feel bound by loyalty to the Pope anymore. The Pope has failed me. He has failed his calling to lead his flock. But his failure does not negate the value of the church. I just have to reassess how I define "church".
But there's a much bigger obstacle to my "leaving" Catholicism. Ironically, it's an obstacle many converts to Catholicism struggle with before finally embracing the faith: the Eucharist. But there is no denying Christ's words in the 6th chapter of the gospel of John, verses 35-66. I'm finding myself on a mission of interpretation. Because let's be honest. If I were to not believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, then I would see no reason to remain a Catholic.
The current scandal is merely forcing the issue because I'm having a hard time believing in anything - having faith in anything - coming from the same hierarchy that has shown itself to be completely unconcerned with its mission and calling. If they don't take their position seriously, how can we, the laity?
Friday, January 6, 2017
Affirmative Ten Commandments
I don't know about you, but I always find it easier to apply affirmative directives instead of negative ones. For one thing, when we hear "don't do X", we still hear the forbidden "X", and subconsciously we nonetheless focus on that which we are supposed to be avoiding. Also, abstaining from doing something is not the same as doing the opposite.
When it comes to the 10 Commandments, I've always thought that perhaps linguistics is where Moses went wrong. (I know, it'd be way too easy if all it took for world peace is to change the focus of how the 10 Commandments are written.) At any rate, I've decided to give it a try myself, so that when I'm going over them in preparation for the sacrament of reconciliation, for instance, I'm better challenged to grow in character instead of just checking off all the ways I'm not failing God!
So without further ado, here are the 10 Commandments, as I understand them, that go beyond just what not to do, and instead note what we are to do instead.
1. Remember Who made you; therefore worship God alone, prioritizing Him above all else. (Two ways to do this follow.)
2. When you speak about God, do so with respect.
3. Every week, set aside time to honor God.
4. Honor our parents as God's co-creators; know your place and hence be humble.
5. Safeguard life; be a steward of it.
6. Be chaste.
7. Share what you have with others.
8. Be honest and trustworthy.
9. Be modest.
10. Be content with what you've got.
A bit of commentary on the above. The first three commandments I think are self-explanatory, as they already appear in the affirmative on the original templates. The only observation I've made here is that commandments 2 & 3 are examples of 1.
The fourth commandment is also in the affirmative, but I've always found it confusing how to apply it to my life as an adult child of my parents. I think when looking at my parents in the grand scheme of things, I'm reminded of my place in the pecking order, which should lead to an attitude of humility in life in general.
The fifth commandment I found a bit passe. I mean, don't murder, really? I would think in this day and age, this sort of goes without saying. People of course ignore it, but not because they're confused about whether they should or shouldn't take life. I am always tempted to skim right over this one as I do my examination of conscience, bc of course I haven't killed anyone. But when looked at through a life-affirming lense, ah, now I'm a lot more challenged. Do I build people up or shut them down? And what about other creatures of God? I do not give life, not to animals or plants, and not to people (even my own children); I merely assist at best. So it should go without saying that I can't take that life. But do I look the other way when others take life into their own hands? Or do I stand on the side of God, trying to safeguard it?
The sixth and ninth commandments always confused me because I didn't understand why there needed to be two commandments that essentially say the same thing. Do not commit adultery, and do not covet your neighbor's wife (or husband, though if you want to be a literalist, us women appear to be getting a free pass on this one ;) ). I get that one is physical action and the other is thought, but is that really sufficient enough difference? But when looked at as what we ought to be doing instead - being chaste and modest, all of a sudden I understand the difference. Chastity has to do with our actions when it comes to our sexuality. We are to keep sexual intimacy inside the marriage covenant. That is the definition of chastity. So if we're not married, no sex. If we are married, sex only with our spouse. Easy enough. But then modesty is a lot more nuanced. It's in our dress, our demeanor, in our sense of humor, our entertainment, our words. Do we tempt others towards unchastity by our immodesty? Or do we do our part to safeguard marital sexuality?
The seventh and tenth commandments also gave me trouble over the years. Again, I thought they were saying the same thing. Don't steal, and don't covet. Instead, go beyond merely not taking what doesn't belong to you (because sometimes this is actually up for debate), and share whatever you do have. That way, there's no question that you're not stealing because your focus is on how you can share what you have instead of how others ought to share with you. And then there's the coveting. That leads to envy, jealousy, and all around a nasty selfish attitude, as you think about all the things you don't have instead of counting your blessings. Instead, be content, ie. count your blessings!
Finally, the eight commandment has to do with honesty, and here too I think we can grow so much more if we live our lives focusing on integrity and authenticity instead of just not telling any lies. We lie with much more than our words. Omissions can be lies. Disingeniousness can be lies. The way we present ourselves in life can be a lie - putting on a facade to try to impress others. There's no truth in that. But we can still glaze over this commandment and say we don't technically tell any lies, so we're all good. No, we're not. That's just not good enough. Be honest and trustworthy. There's the goal of this commandment.
So I plan on looking to this version of the 10 commandments from now on as I try to improve as a human being. Maybe it can help someone else as well.
When it comes to the 10 Commandments, I've always thought that perhaps linguistics is where Moses went wrong. (I know, it'd be way too easy if all it took for world peace is to change the focus of how the 10 Commandments are written.) At any rate, I've decided to give it a try myself, so that when I'm going over them in preparation for the sacrament of reconciliation, for instance, I'm better challenged to grow in character instead of just checking off all the ways I'm not failing God!
So without further ado, here are the 10 Commandments, as I understand them, that go beyond just what not to do, and instead note what we are to do instead.
1. Remember Who made you; therefore worship God alone, prioritizing Him above all else. (Two ways to do this follow.)
2. When you speak about God, do so with respect.
3. Every week, set aside time to honor God.
4. Honor our parents as God's co-creators; know your place and hence be humble.
5. Safeguard life; be a steward of it.
6. Be chaste.
7. Share what you have with others.
8. Be honest and trustworthy.
9. Be modest.
10. Be content with what you've got.
A bit of commentary on the above. The first three commandments I think are self-explanatory, as they already appear in the affirmative on the original templates. The only observation I've made here is that commandments 2 & 3 are examples of 1.
The fourth commandment is also in the affirmative, but I've always found it confusing how to apply it to my life as an adult child of my parents. I think when looking at my parents in the grand scheme of things, I'm reminded of my place in the pecking order, which should lead to an attitude of humility in life in general.
The fifth commandment I found a bit passe. I mean, don't murder, really? I would think in this day and age, this sort of goes without saying. People of course ignore it, but not because they're confused about whether they should or shouldn't take life. I am always tempted to skim right over this one as I do my examination of conscience, bc of course I haven't killed anyone. But when looked at through a life-affirming lense, ah, now I'm a lot more challenged. Do I build people up or shut them down? And what about other creatures of God? I do not give life, not to animals or plants, and not to people (even my own children); I merely assist at best. So it should go without saying that I can't take that life. But do I look the other way when others take life into their own hands? Or do I stand on the side of God, trying to safeguard it?
The sixth and ninth commandments always confused me because I didn't understand why there needed to be two commandments that essentially say the same thing. Do not commit adultery, and do not covet your neighbor's wife (or husband, though if you want to be a literalist, us women appear to be getting a free pass on this one ;) ). I get that one is physical action and the other is thought, but is that really sufficient enough difference? But when looked at as what we ought to be doing instead - being chaste and modest, all of a sudden I understand the difference. Chastity has to do with our actions when it comes to our sexuality. We are to keep sexual intimacy inside the marriage covenant. That is the definition of chastity. So if we're not married, no sex. If we are married, sex only with our spouse. Easy enough. But then modesty is a lot more nuanced. It's in our dress, our demeanor, in our sense of humor, our entertainment, our words. Do we tempt others towards unchastity by our immodesty? Or do we do our part to safeguard marital sexuality?
The seventh and tenth commandments also gave me trouble over the years. Again, I thought they were saying the same thing. Don't steal, and don't covet. Instead, go beyond merely not taking what doesn't belong to you (because sometimes this is actually up for debate), and share whatever you do have. That way, there's no question that you're not stealing because your focus is on how you can share what you have instead of how others ought to share with you. And then there's the coveting. That leads to envy, jealousy, and all around a nasty selfish attitude, as you think about all the things you don't have instead of counting your blessings. Instead, be content, ie. count your blessings!
Finally, the eight commandment has to do with honesty, and here too I think we can grow so much more if we live our lives focusing on integrity and authenticity instead of just not telling any lies. We lie with much more than our words. Omissions can be lies. Disingeniousness can be lies. The way we present ourselves in life can be a lie - putting on a facade to try to impress others. There's no truth in that. But we can still glaze over this commandment and say we don't technically tell any lies, so we're all good. No, we're not. That's just not good enough. Be honest and trustworthy. There's the goal of this commandment.
So I plan on looking to this version of the 10 commandments from now on as I try to improve as a human being. Maybe it can help someone else as well.
Wednesday, June 29, 2016
Are We Related?
I have been doing a little geneology with the help of DNA tests with the ultimate goal of finding Maya's genetic siblings and donors. In the process, I tested myself, my dad, and Alex, just to get my feet wet before we figured out how to collect Maya's saliva, and to get a little used to all the jargon and navigation of the various websites.
Two things I've learned that have sort of put on its head everything we think we know about family relations. I've long held to the belief that blood is NOT thicker than water. That circumstantial relationships are in now way inherently more valuable than those we forge out of our own free will (ie. family vs friends).
Likewise, I've never doubted that if we adopted a child, it would be our child through and through, no questions asked. Adoption was actually our plan A. When we were pursuing open adoption, I likened incorporating the birth family the same way one incorporates one's in-laws - you inherit them with the spouse or child that you gain. You may not like them or get along, but they are important to your spouse (or child), so they're important to you. End of discussion.
But nonetheless, I still believed that these were philosophical interpretations of family relations, and that in the end, if push came to shove, genetics were still important and still defined the basic, natural (as in based in nature, not to be confused with "normal"), idealized definition of what it means to be a family, to be related to someone, to know one's roots.
Ah, one's roots. And this is where things start to get interesting. As it turns out, our DNA, our genetics, is not the be-all-end-all of our heritage the way we might think. For instance, one might accept that if someone is related to one of my parents, then automatically, that person is related to me. Right? Not necessarily, if your definition is based on pure genetics. You see, we don't inherit all of the genes of both of our parents, as this would mean a doubling of genes with every generation since the dawn of time. So we lose many of those genetic markers that would tell us that we are related to someone because we share the same genes.
One can have two siblings with the same two parents come up related to different people based on DNA test results. There's not even a generational gap to blame here! It's just that which genes we inherit are completely random. Granted, this generally happens as you start to move a bit away from the nuclear family and get into cousin territory, but the point is that when looking at a physical drawing of a family tree, there likely wouldn't be hard core genetic evidence to prove each person on that tree is related to each other person in that same line!
So what makes us related to the relatives we don't share genes with? Social convention! Not even the fact of growing up together, as would be the case with an adoptive family. Not even knowing each other intimately, as in the case of spouses. There are people in your family tree whom you've never met, never even heard of, with whom you may or may not share a single gene, and yet they're "family".
Or are they?
And this is where I think defining family becomes of utmost importance. I grew up in my own biological family. My immediate family is small by most standards. I know my grandparents (4), aunts (3), and first cousins (5), which add up to 13 people (I also knew my maternal great-grandmother). I have never seen all of them together in one spot. We were never very close. So to have a DNA test suggest that people with last names I've never heard of, from areas of the world I've never been to, are my "family" is completely ludicrous. I don't know anything about my parent's cousins, much less their kids, or the siblings of my grandparents (with the exception of my maternal grandmother, who was an only child). We share relatively close family members, and yet if you put us in a room together, we would be complete strangers to each other.
Another interesting layer is the fact that gene loss over generations in families that have mixed between ethnicities (I'd venture to say this means all of our families if you look back far enough), this means that not only that we have relatives of ethnicites different from our own (which in modern times is a very common occurrence), but more surprisingly, that depending on who procreated with whom, our own ethnicity could have been totally different from what we accept it to be.
With mixed race individuals, whose relatives intermingled recently enough to be aware of it, some people claim one race over the other (often the one that they most stereotypically resemble as far as their phenotype goes, but other times the one of the parent who had the biggest influence on their upbringing, regardless of shared phenotype), while others insist on membership in both. (I say "both" rather than "all" because it is most common to have each parent strongly identify with one race or ethnicity, even if they themselves are mixed, resulting in two main competing racial identities for the offspring.)
But what about several generations into the future to our modern day mixed race individuals? They are not a new phenomenon. So what about that mixed race individual in our own family tree, say a hundred years ago? For instance, I am Polish, of two Polish parents, born in Poland. Until I took my DNA test, I thought of myself as "100% Polish", at least genetically speaking. (Socially, I went back and forth between Polish, American, and Polish-American.) My DNA test revealed mixing among most of the European peoples over the years, with only 75% "Eastern European" (so not even 75% Polish - this could include modern day Ukraine, Lithuania, Slovakia, Belarus, the Czech Republic, and Russia (countries that currently border Poland), as well as more than a dozen other countries considered part of the eastern bloc. Believe me, we differentiate between each other! So who knows how much of that 75% is "truly" Polish.
But these are still all white nationalities, albeit with some phenotypical variation among the northern versus southern countries. What about that interesting 0.2% West African and 0.1% North African ancestry that may be small percentage-wise but nonetheless was enough to come up on my chromosomes. I also tested my father, and I got these genes from my dad - his mom, to be exact, as they're only on my X chromosome that corresponds to my dad, and only on his X chromosome. But he also has 0.4% South Asian and 0.2% East Asian that was not passed on to me. At what point did his ancestors stop being African and Asian? Had they procreated with other Africans and Asians instead of Europeans, we'd be seeing very different results.
Am I supposed to identify only with my most recent ancestors' race/ethnicity? What if the percentages had been much higher, and I'd be much closer to my African and Asian ancestors? (Are my dad's Asian ancestors my ancestors too? Because I didn't inherit any of those traits.) This is what mixed race individuals with recently mixed relatives (parents, grandparents) are forced to decide, because society sees us as belonging to whatever race or ethnicity we happen to resemble, completely regardless of what our genetics say, or in what culture we were raised.
Perhaps that is the problem - that we allow others to label our racial and ethnic identities, and that we think we can do likewise for others. This is what is wrong with our modern American racial categorization system. It's not based on science. It's not based on people's lived experiences. It's based on looks.
And yet.... what about the now infamous Rachel Dolezal? That controversy proved that while we may like to label people based on what they look like, we don't like it when people once labeled a certain way take it upon themselves to try to change that. It's not enough to be labeled by others based on one's looks. Those looks have to also conform to our preconceived notions of what people with certain recent ancestors are supposed to look like. Confused?
I'm not saying Rachel Dolezal had a right to claim membership in the Black community. But let's be honest, if her DNA test happened to reveal a previously unknown 6% African ancestry, even though she had two "white" parents and "looked white" herself, would she then have a right to that part of her ancestry? Or would it have to be more recent? 25% (one grandparent)? Where would the acceptable claim to African heritage change over for her? At 12%? And why that number and not 50%? So really, the idea that someone can label someone else based on something as fickle as DNA or - even worse - as unreliable as phenotype is highly unscientific and subjective, not to mention seemingly a waste of time.
In summary, we may claim membership in an ethnicity of a more recent ancestor even if we didn't actually inherit any of their genes. But someone else with a more distant ancestor of a different ethnicity who passed on mere trace amounts of that ethnicity may not have a right to claim membership in that ethnicity. Kind of blows your mind, doesn't it? I know for me, it makes me question everything we think we know about what makes a family and what constitutes one's ethnic or racial identity.
When I first shared my DNA results with some friends, mentioning my 0.3% African heritage, the immediate question-in-jest was, "So now you're Black?" But it's a valid question. Remember the "one drop rule"? A person with 50% Black parentage was marked as Black on their birth certificate, and if they went on to procreate with a white person, even though their child would technically be 25% Black, their birth certificate would state Black. And then that child could grow up to procreate with another white person, but still their technically 12% Black/88% white child would be marked as Black on their birth certificate. All because of a social convention that allowed outsiders to label people according to the mere presence - however small - of Black ancestry. According to this reasoning, yes, I would be Black!
But does that actually make sense? No, you say? How is this any different from any of the racial labeling that we do? There's not really a good solution, is there? We can't exactly say that people can label themselves whatever race they feel like it, because racial labels would lose all meaning that way.... Or, wait, maybe that's exactly what we need to do to forge into a post-racial society? Then again, that sounds too much like a color-blind society, which would be pretty dull and also divorced from reality. We do have differences based on cultural upbringing and physical features, and these should be celebrated. We shouldn't fight over who is the biggest victim or whose culture or features should determine the standard. I don't have the answers, just more questions. But I've definitely become a stronger racial skeptic through considering these questions.
Two things I've learned that have sort of put on its head everything we think we know about family relations. I've long held to the belief that blood is NOT thicker than water. That circumstantial relationships are in now way inherently more valuable than those we forge out of our own free will (ie. family vs friends).
Likewise, I've never doubted that if we adopted a child, it would be our child through and through, no questions asked. Adoption was actually our plan A. When we were pursuing open adoption, I likened incorporating the birth family the same way one incorporates one's in-laws - you inherit them with the spouse or child that you gain. You may not like them or get along, but they are important to your spouse (or child), so they're important to you. End of discussion.
But nonetheless, I still believed that these were philosophical interpretations of family relations, and that in the end, if push came to shove, genetics were still important and still defined the basic, natural (as in based in nature, not to be confused with "normal"), idealized definition of what it means to be a family, to be related to someone, to know one's roots.
Ah, one's roots. And this is where things start to get interesting. As it turns out, our DNA, our genetics, is not the be-all-end-all of our heritage the way we might think. For instance, one might accept that if someone is related to one of my parents, then automatically, that person is related to me. Right? Not necessarily, if your definition is based on pure genetics. You see, we don't inherit all of the genes of both of our parents, as this would mean a doubling of genes with every generation since the dawn of time. So we lose many of those genetic markers that would tell us that we are related to someone because we share the same genes.
One can have two siblings with the same two parents come up related to different people based on DNA test results. There's not even a generational gap to blame here! It's just that which genes we inherit are completely random. Granted, this generally happens as you start to move a bit away from the nuclear family and get into cousin territory, but the point is that when looking at a physical drawing of a family tree, there likely wouldn't be hard core genetic evidence to prove each person on that tree is related to each other person in that same line!
So what makes us related to the relatives we don't share genes with? Social convention! Not even the fact of growing up together, as would be the case with an adoptive family. Not even knowing each other intimately, as in the case of spouses. There are people in your family tree whom you've never met, never even heard of, with whom you may or may not share a single gene, and yet they're "family".
Or are they?
And this is where I think defining family becomes of utmost importance. I grew up in my own biological family. My immediate family is small by most standards. I know my grandparents (4), aunts (3), and first cousins (5), which add up to 13 people (I also knew my maternal great-grandmother). I have never seen all of them together in one spot. We were never very close. So to have a DNA test suggest that people with last names I've never heard of, from areas of the world I've never been to, are my "family" is completely ludicrous. I don't know anything about my parent's cousins, much less their kids, or the siblings of my grandparents (with the exception of my maternal grandmother, who was an only child). We share relatively close family members, and yet if you put us in a room together, we would be complete strangers to each other.
Another interesting layer is the fact that gene loss over generations in families that have mixed between ethnicities (I'd venture to say this means all of our families if you look back far enough), this means that not only that we have relatives of ethnicites different from our own (which in modern times is a very common occurrence), but more surprisingly, that depending on who procreated with whom, our own ethnicity could have been totally different from what we accept it to be.
With mixed race individuals, whose relatives intermingled recently enough to be aware of it, some people claim one race over the other (often the one that they most stereotypically resemble as far as their phenotype goes, but other times the one of the parent who had the biggest influence on their upbringing, regardless of shared phenotype), while others insist on membership in both. (I say "both" rather than "all" because it is most common to have each parent strongly identify with one race or ethnicity, even if they themselves are mixed, resulting in two main competing racial identities for the offspring.)
But what about several generations into the future to our modern day mixed race individuals? They are not a new phenomenon. So what about that mixed race individual in our own family tree, say a hundred years ago? For instance, I am Polish, of two Polish parents, born in Poland. Until I took my DNA test, I thought of myself as "100% Polish", at least genetically speaking. (Socially, I went back and forth between Polish, American, and Polish-American.) My DNA test revealed mixing among most of the European peoples over the years, with only 75% "Eastern European" (so not even 75% Polish - this could include modern day Ukraine, Lithuania, Slovakia, Belarus, the Czech Republic, and Russia (countries that currently border Poland), as well as more than a dozen other countries considered part of the eastern bloc. Believe me, we differentiate between each other! So who knows how much of that 75% is "truly" Polish.
But these are still all white nationalities, albeit with some phenotypical variation among the northern versus southern countries. What about that interesting 0.2% West African and 0.1% North African ancestry that may be small percentage-wise but nonetheless was enough to come up on my chromosomes. I also tested my father, and I got these genes from my dad - his mom, to be exact, as they're only on my X chromosome that corresponds to my dad, and only on his X chromosome. But he also has 0.4% South Asian and 0.2% East Asian that was not passed on to me. At what point did his ancestors stop being African and Asian? Had they procreated with other Africans and Asians instead of Europeans, we'd be seeing very different results.
Am I supposed to identify only with my most recent ancestors' race/ethnicity? What if the percentages had been much higher, and I'd be much closer to my African and Asian ancestors? (Are my dad's Asian ancestors my ancestors too? Because I didn't inherit any of those traits.) This is what mixed race individuals with recently mixed relatives (parents, grandparents) are forced to decide, because society sees us as belonging to whatever race or ethnicity we happen to resemble, completely regardless of what our genetics say, or in what culture we were raised.
Perhaps that is the problem - that we allow others to label our racial and ethnic identities, and that we think we can do likewise for others. This is what is wrong with our modern American racial categorization system. It's not based on science. It's not based on people's lived experiences. It's based on looks.
And yet.... what about the now infamous Rachel Dolezal? That controversy proved that while we may like to label people based on what they look like, we don't like it when people once labeled a certain way take it upon themselves to try to change that. It's not enough to be labeled by others based on one's looks. Those looks have to also conform to our preconceived notions of what people with certain recent ancestors are supposed to look like. Confused?
I'm not saying Rachel Dolezal had a right to claim membership in the Black community. But let's be honest, if her DNA test happened to reveal a previously unknown 6% African ancestry, even though she had two "white" parents and "looked white" herself, would she then have a right to that part of her ancestry? Or would it have to be more recent? 25% (one grandparent)? Where would the acceptable claim to African heritage change over for her? At 12%? And why that number and not 50%? So really, the idea that someone can label someone else based on something as fickle as DNA or - even worse - as unreliable as phenotype is highly unscientific and subjective, not to mention seemingly a waste of time.
In summary, we may claim membership in an ethnicity of a more recent ancestor even if we didn't actually inherit any of their genes. But someone else with a more distant ancestor of a different ethnicity who passed on mere trace amounts of that ethnicity may not have a right to claim membership in that ethnicity. Kind of blows your mind, doesn't it? I know for me, it makes me question everything we think we know about what makes a family and what constitutes one's ethnic or racial identity.
When I first shared my DNA results with some friends, mentioning my 0.3% African heritage, the immediate question-in-jest was, "So now you're Black?" But it's a valid question. Remember the "one drop rule"? A person with 50% Black parentage was marked as Black on their birth certificate, and if they went on to procreate with a white person, even though their child would technically be 25% Black, their birth certificate would state Black. And then that child could grow up to procreate with another white person, but still their technically 12% Black/88% white child would be marked as Black on their birth certificate. All because of a social convention that allowed outsiders to label people according to the mere presence - however small - of Black ancestry. According to this reasoning, yes, I would be Black!
But does that actually make sense? No, you say? How is this any different from any of the racial labeling that we do? There's not really a good solution, is there? We can't exactly say that people can label themselves whatever race they feel like it, because racial labels would lose all meaning that way.... Or, wait, maybe that's exactly what we need to do to forge into a post-racial society? Then again, that sounds too much like a color-blind society, which would be pretty dull and also divorced from reality. We do have differences based on cultural upbringing and physical features, and these should be celebrated. We shouldn't fight over who is the biggest victim or whose culture or features should determine the standard. I don't have the answers, just more questions. But I've definitely become a stronger racial skeptic through considering these questions.
Tuesday, May 31, 2016
Religion, Emotion, Community
This may be obvious to some, but I've been thinking how being religious is essentially being emotionally-driven. At least that's what it means to me. When I think about the time of my life when I was most religious, I was on an ongoing emotional ride. I don't mean that I was moody, but rather that I saw the world through a series of feelings. I interpreted everything around me according to how it made me feel. Actually, I think I still do, in general.
What's changed is the feelings that now arise when it comes to religious topics are no longer what they used to be. They're not passionate, mysterious, encouraging, even interesting or interested feelings. Overall, religion stirs in me a feeling of ambivalence. There are aspects of religion that actually make me feel slightly disappointed, repulsed even.
And yet, I know I still have it in me to experience feelings of awe, gratitude, beauty, enormity, peace, joy around religion. It has to be a particular scenario. It looks like this.
I'm alone, and it's quiet. I'm surrounded by beauty - either of nature (which I hardly think I need to explain), or traditional church art: stained glass letting the sun's rays sparkle as they sneak in. Statues of figures expressing their own emotions, of piety, wisdom, compassion, sorrow, peace.
Given enough time alone with my thoughts, I'm able to allow my surroundings to penetrate past the outer layer of my earthly identity, and resonate deep inside, reminding me of my spiritual self. I feel - yes, feel - a part of something bigger, something that isn't limited by religious explanations or human labels. I'm reassured of life being something far beyond mere earthly existence. It's vague, yes, but familiar and certain.
Religion, the religion of my upbringing, is likewise familiar, but neither vague nor certain. Organized religion is very specific as to how the world around us ought to be explained, and how each of us ought to live our lives. And yet, there is only flimsy evidence, at best, to support any of their claims. It's the familiarity that keeps me coming back. It's the link I have to my personal spirituality.
The two used to go hand in hand so well. At first, because I was ignorant of what the Church actually taught, so I was free to run with whatever interpretation happened to occur to me. Also, because I was surrounded by family who likewise had their own interpretations, and those are the ones I went with. Finally, because I was convinced of the Church's own explanations and fully believed what was taught.
Over time, I lost a sense of community I didn't even realize I had. I no longer believed what the Church taught, so I was at odds with other church members. And I didn't maintain relationships with relatives nor form new ones with others who had similar views. It's hard to find people with my same views on spiritual matters because they are so eclectic. (That's why Alex and I get along so well.)
So here I am, with no religious or spiritual community in spite of regular church attendance. And no personal spiritual practice that I blame on the business of motherhood. And all that's left is complaints and guesses as to when exactly my exodus from the faith began, and if there's any hope of ever returning.
I don't care about being "right" or even knowing "truth", which so many religions claim to provide, but which I don't believe can be explained, only experienced. I only miss the emotions that gave me a consistent spiritual high from my religiosity.
Pious people will say this is the wrong reason to seek religion. That one shouldn't expect religion to make us feel good. These are the people who believe their religion is "the truth", so we can't really find common ground.
Secular folks will tell me to find fulfillment in other areas of my life. But this is dismissive of the very real grief that I feel for having lost something that was once very dear to me. I don't expect them to understand, either.
There's probably others like me who just muddle through, keeping their disappointments - in themselves, circumstances, their religion, or all three - to themselves. They put on a happy face, pretend that nothing has changed, and just find other passions to occupy the empty space inside that was once fulfilled by their faith.
I find it hard to believe that that's the best I can do. That that's what God wants for my life. Yes, that's right, just because I'm not religious doesn't mean I don't believe in God. I most certainly do. I do not know the nature of God, other than that God is creative and awe-inspiring and eternal. I don't know if God is personal, in that I can talk to Him or that He has a personalized interest in my life. I used to believe this, but I just don't know anymore.
Perhaps the problem really is just with having to reset my expectations. Religion has always been a big part of my life in one way or another. I turned to it for comfort and explanations and community. Maybe I just need to find these elsewhere in order to be satisfied with the diminished role that religion now plays in my life. I may need to split these up - comfort from one thing, explanations from elsewhere, community somewhere unrelated to either one.
What's changed is the feelings that now arise when it comes to religious topics are no longer what they used to be. They're not passionate, mysterious, encouraging, even interesting or interested feelings. Overall, religion stirs in me a feeling of ambivalence. There are aspects of religion that actually make me feel slightly disappointed, repulsed even.
And yet, I know I still have it in me to experience feelings of awe, gratitude, beauty, enormity, peace, joy around religion. It has to be a particular scenario. It looks like this.
I'm alone, and it's quiet. I'm surrounded by beauty - either of nature (which I hardly think I need to explain), or traditional church art: stained glass letting the sun's rays sparkle as they sneak in. Statues of figures expressing their own emotions, of piety, wisdom, compassion, sorrow, peace.
Given enough time alone with my thoughts, I'm able to allow my surroundings to penetrate past the outer layer of my earthly identity, and resonate deep inside, reminding me of my spiritual self. I feel - yes, feel - a part of something bigger, something that isn't limited by religious explanations or human labels. I'm reassured of life being something far beyond mere earthly existence. It's vague, yes, but familiar and certain.
Religion, the religion of my upbringing, is likewise familiar, but neither vague nor certain. Organized religion is very specific as to how the world around us ought to be explained, and how each of us ought to live our lives. And yet, there is only flimsy evidence, at best, to support any of their claims. It's the familiarity that keeps me coming back. It's the link I have to my personal spirituality.
The two used to go hand in hand so well. At first, because I was ignorant of what the Church actually taught, so I was free to run with whatever interpretation happened to occur to me. Also, because I was surrounded by family who likewise had their own interpretations, and those are the ones I went with. Finally, because I was convinced of the Church's own explanations and fully believed what was taught.
Over time, I lost a sense of community I didn't even realize I had. I no longer believed what the Church taught, so I was at odds with other church members. And I didn't maintain relationships with relatives nor form new ones with others who had similar views. It's hard to find people with my same views on spiritual matters because they are so eclectic. (That's why Alex and I get along so well.)
So here I am, with no religious or spiritual community in spite of regular church attendance. And no personal spiritual practice that I blame on the business of motherhood. And all that's left is complaints and guesses as to when exactly my exodus from the faith began, and if there's any hope of ever returning.
I don't care about being "right" or even knowing "truth", which so many religions claim to provide, but which I don't believe can be explained, only experienced. I only miss the emotions that gave me a consistent spiritual high from my religiosity.
Pious people will say this is the wrong reason to seek religion. That one shouldn't expect religion to make us feel good. These are the people who believe their religion is "the truth", so we can't really find common ground.
Secular folks will tell me to find fulfillment in other areas of my life. But this is dismissive of the very real grief that I feel for having lost something that was once very dear to me. I don't expect them to understand, either.
There's probably others like me who just muddle through, keeping their disappointments - in themselves, circumstances, their religion, or all three - to themselves. They put on a happy face, pretend that nothing has changed, and just find other passions to occupy the empty space inside that was once fulfilled by their faith.
I find it hard to believe that that's the best I can do. That that's what God wants for my life. Yes, that's right, just because I'm not religious doesn't mean I don't believe in God. I most certainly do. I do not know the nature of God, other than that God is creative and awe-inspiring and eternal. I don't know if God is personal, in that I can talk to Him or that He has a personalized interest in my life. I used to believe this, but I just don't know anymore.
Perhaps the problem really is just with having to reset my expectations. Religion has always been a big part of my life in one way or another. I turned to it for comfort and explanations and community. Maybe I just need to find these elsewhere in order to be satisfied with the diminished role that religion now plays in my life. I may need to split these up - comfort from one thing, explanations from elsewhere, community somewhere unrelated to either one.
Sunday, March 20, 2016
Spring is in the Air!
And with it, it brings new life! Today marks the third anniversary of Maya's homecoming (ie. the day we transferred her embryo). Tomorrow we will find out if our last FET will give her a sibling or not. And over the weekend, yesterday in particular, there has been a resurrection of a different kind in my life.
For about the past two years, since after Maya's baptism and our move to Maryland, I have struggled with my faith. At first it was just not a priority, then as I tried to get back into it, I realized I didn't feel it was a good fit and considered other faith traditions (yet again), and finally, I tried to makes sense of the label of spiritual independent and/or Deist. Last August, I attended a women's retreat through my Catholic church as a last ditch effort to remain Catholic. The advice I was given on that retreat was to not only keep attending mass, but to go back to receiving Communion, even if I didn't believe in the Real Presence or the creed, because God would meet me where I was.
So I decided that I still had a birthright to the label Catholic, even if others might call me "lapsed". I tried to grow in the faith again by attending a Discovering Christ series with Alex (and Maya!), which went OK but didn't convince me of anything. This was all of fall. This spring we attended the follow-up to it, Following Christ, and it was even worse. I was bored out of my mind and I might as well have been attending an atheist convention, because I didn't share any of the beliefs or assumptions that were being presented. I had pretty much given up hope on truly being Catholic again, and made my peace with being a Deist. I joined a couple of online Deist groups, which actually haven't been very active, and that was that.
But I wasn't happy. This weekend I got an incredible urge to want to believe again. I researched "making yourself believe something you don't" and "what's the harm in believing something that isn't true" and I read with great interest what a bunch of skeptics/atheists/Deists had to say on the subject. At the end of their arguments, I was left with a singular observation.
I have long held at my core that the meaning of life is to find happiness, and to help others find contentment. And my current spiritual trajectory just wasn't bringing me happiness. I thought I was quite rational, believing only what the objective evidence (nature) would allow for, and simply didn't believe in the concept of God revealing Himself through a prophet or holy book. But in the end, what good does it do me even if I do only believe in evidence-based facts, if this doesn't bring me joy? Is truth only the sum of rational facts?
Upon further reflection, I realized that truth is relative. Truth, beauty, love - these are not experienced equally by every individual. One person can love another when others do not. One person can find something beautiful when others do not. One experience can be true for someone when it isn't true for someone else. So while religion doesn't agree that truth is relative, and neither do atheists apparently (who reveal themselves to be just as religious as theists in that sense), my personal conviction is that truth and fact are not interchangeable.
There may not be facts to back up everything taught by my religion, but I can find universal truth in the interpretation, in the metaphorical meaning. My problem has always been that I have been too literal. I assume what I hear and read is literal unless and until proven otherwise. I've tried to accept Catholic teaching on a non-literal level before, but yesterday, I think I was finally granted the grace to do so!
I started praying again. Praying in the sense of speaking my heart to God. Not just in lifting an intention in my mind's eye and envisioning it being immersed and enveloped in God's purifying light. I still think I'll treat intercessory prayer that way, at least for now. But I actually spoke to God, to Jesus, to be specific. I called Him Lord and it didn't make my stomach churn. I think I have distanced myself from my previous literal understanding of God long enough that it is no longer a conflict for me to think of Jesus as Lord. In the interim, God has become very distant, abstract, impersonal, unapproachable, unknowable. Jesus is the opposite of all of those things. And I do not feel like I'm betraying God-the-Father by lifting my heart to God-the-Son, bc I now consider the way God-the-Father operates is more from a distance, by delegating - if you will - to Jesus. As I was praying in front of our Divine Mercy image of Jesus, I felt God's approval - all of God, including God-the-Father. And I thought about the Trinity, a concept that gave me so much trouble before, and realized that it's not literal. The Trinity is simply a Christian koan, a riddle that is meant to make us realize that we are never going to be able to comprehend the full nature of God, so we really should stop trying!
The timing couldn't have been much better. I didn't even realize we were entering Holy Week. We have a secular calendar hanging in the kitchen, and I have missed mass the last few weeks, so I had no idea where we were in the liturgical year. And then yesterday at mass, I looked around at all the familiar rituals, objects, words, and I found comfort in them, and realized they were "true" all along, I just kept interpreting them too literally.
I give myself permission to disagree with certain interpretations and teachings of the Church, following the advice of the priest from my last retreat, namely that God would meet me where I'm at. I don't feel the need to be in agreement with other Catholics, or the Catechism, or the Vatican, in order to reap the rewards of Catholicism. I give myself permission to be a part of an imperfect church, even as the church denies being wrong on such issues as gay rights. I believe it will come around, though perhaps not in my lifetime. But instead of trying to find a perfect place of worship, which I think had become a scapegoat for my own personal imperfections, I am embracing an imperfect church. And by extension, I am accepting myself as an imperfect being.
I don't like the term "sin" and "sinner", but synonyms such as missing the mark, being broken, veering off the path, having shortcomings... these are all undeniable and essentially all that "sinning" really means. It's funny, I don't like to think of myself as a sinner. It bothered me to no end how much focus there seems to be in Christianity on all the wrong we do, all of our mistakes, instead of focusing on how we can improve. But if I'm being honest, how can I know what to aim for if I don't know where I'm coming from? The message of Jesus is that my mistakes do not define me. It's critical to be honest with myself and realize that I'm not perfect, but that it's ok. It's my own fault if I focus on the mistake and not on the remedy. The church has opportunities for both.
Later today I will be leaving the two Deist online groups. I will continue focusing all of my attention on finding meaning within the religious tradition that was given to me as a tool as part of my birthright. Yes, there is truth to be found in other religions, but that doesn't lessen the value of my own religion. The other religions are not there for me to convert to, but to learn from. My task is to work on my spirituality within the context of Catholicism. There will be challenges and disagreements, but I know from exploring other faith traditions that this was going to happen no matter what, in every conceivable tradition. The lesson is that we are not perfect, and neither are our human institutions (say, organized religion), but that's ok. The challenge is to learn to live within an imperfect world. To embrace acceptance. To be content with what is. To stop striving for a future time, a different place, and to get into the habit of perfecting every present moment, wherever we find ourselves.
Tomorrow I find out if we will have another baby. I'm leaning towards yes, that he's a boy, and that he will become a priest. And that he's the reason I have fully returned to the Church. I can't explain it any other way, except that today, I feel like fully Catholic again. And I thank God for that.
For about the past two years, since after Maya's baptism and our move to Maryland, I have struggled with my faith. At first it was just not a priority, then as I tried to get back into it, I realized I didn't feel it was a good fit and considered other faith traditions (yet again), and finally, I tried to makes sense of the label of spiritual independent and/or Deist. Last August, I attended a women's retreat through my Catholic church as a last ditch effort to remain Catholic. The advice I was given on that retreat was to not only keep attending mass, but to go back to receiving Communion, even if I didn't believe in the Real Presence or the creed, because God would meet me where I was.
So I decided that I still had a birthright to the label Catholic, even if others might call me "lapsed". I tried to grow in the faith again by attending a Discovering Christ series with Alex (and Maya!), which went OK but didn't convince me of anything. This was all of fall. This spring we attended the follow-up to it, Following Christ, and it was even worse. I was bored out of my mind and I might as well have been attending an atheist convention, because I didn't share any of the beliefs or assumptions that were being presented. I had pretty much given up hope on truly being Catholic again, and made my peace with being a Deist. I joined a couple of online Deist groups, which actually haven't been very active, and that was that.
But I wasn't happy. This weekend I got an incredible urge to want to believe again. I researched "making yourself believe something you don't" and "what's the harm in believing something that isn't true" and I read with great interest what a bunch of skeptics/atheists/Deists had to say on the subject. At the end of their arguments, I was left with a singular observation.
I have long held at my core that the meaning of life is to find happiness, and to help others find contentment. And my current spiritual trajectory just wasn't bringing me happiness. I thought I was quite rational, believing only what the objective evidence (nature) would allow for, and simply didn't believe in the concept of God revealing Himself through a prophet or holy book. But in the end, what good does it do me even if I do only believe in evidence-based facts, if this doesn't bring me joy? Is truth only the sum of rational facts?
Upon further reflection, I realized that truth is relative. Truth, beauty, love - these are not experienced equally by every individual. One person can love another when others do not. One person can find something beautiful when others do not. One experience can be true for someone when it isn't true for someone else. So while religion doesn't agree that truth is relative, and neither do atheists apparently (who reveal themselves to be just as religious as theists in that sense), my personal conviction is that truth and fact are not interchangeable.
There may not be facts to back up everything taught by my religion, but I can find universal truth in the interpretation, in the metaphorical meaning. My problem has always been that I have been too literal. I assume what I hear and read is literal unless and until proven otherwise. I've tried to accept Catholic teaching on a non-literal level before, but yesterday, I think I was finally granted the grace to do so!
I started praying again. Praying in the sense of speaking my heart to God. Not just in lifting an intention in my mind's eye and envisioning it being immersed and enveloped in God's purifying light. I still think I'll treat intercessory prayer that way, at least for now. But I actually spoke to God, to Jesus, to be specific. I called Him Lord and it didn't make my stomach churn. I think I have distanced myself from my previous literal understanding of God long enough that it is no longer a conflict for me to think of Jesus as Lord. In the interim, God has become very distant, abstract, impersonal, unapproachable, unknowable. Jesus is the opposite of all of those things. And I do not feel like I'm betraying God-the-Father by lifting my heart to God-the-Son, bc I now consider the way God-the-Father operates is more from a distance, by delegating - if you will - to Jesus. As I was praying in front of our Divine Mercy image of Jesus, I felt God's approval - all of God, including God-the-Father. And I thought about the Trinity, a concept that gave me so much trouble before, and realized that it's not literal. The Trinity is simply a Christian koan, a riddle that is meant to make us realize that we are never going to be able to comprehend the full nature of God, so we really should stop trying!
The timing couldn't have been much better. I didn't even realize we were entering Holy Week. We have a secular calendar hanging in the kitchen, and I have missed mass the last few weeks, so I had no idea where we were in the liturgical year. And then yesterday at mass, I looked around at all the familiar rituals, objects, words, and I found comfort in them, and realized they were "true" all along, I just kept interpreting them too literally.
I give myself permission to disagree with certain interpretations and teachings of the Church, following the advice of the priest from my last retreat, namely that God would meet me where I'm at. I don't feel the need to be in agreement with other Catholics, or the Catechism, or the Vatican, in order to reap the rewards of Catholicism. I give myself permission to be a part of an imperfect church, even as the church denies being wrong on such issues as gay rights. I believe it will come around, though perhaps not in my lifetime. But instead of trying to find a perfect place of worship, which I think had become a scapegoat for my own personal imperfections, I am embracing an imperfect church. And by extension, I am accepting myself as an imperfect being.
I don't like the term "sin" and "sinner", but synonyms such as missing the mark, being broken, veering off the path, having shortcomings... these are all undeniable and essentially all that "sinning" really means. It's funny, I don't like to think of myself as a sinner. It bothered me to no end how much focus there seems to be in Christianity on all the wrong we do, all of our mistakes, instead of focusing on how we can improve. But if I'm being honest, how can I know what to aim for if I don't know where I'm coming from? The message of Jesus is that my mistakes do not define me. It's critical to be honest with myself and realize that I'm not perfect, but that it's ok. It's my own fault if I focus on the mistake and not on the remedy. The church has opportunities for both.
Later today I will be leaving the two Deist online groups. I will continue focusing all of my attention on finding meaning within the religious tradition that was given to me as a tool as part of my birthright. Yes, there is truth to be found in other religions, but that doesn't lessen the value of my own religion. The other religions are not there for me to convert to, but to learn from. My task is to work on my spirituality within the context of Catholicism. There will be challenges and disagreements, but I know from exploring other faith traditions that this was going to happen no matter what, in every conceivable tradition. The lesson is that we are not perfect, and neither are our human institutions (say, organized religion), but that's ok. The challenge is to learn to live within an imperfect world. To embrace acceptance. To be content with what is. To stop striving for a future time, a different place, and to get into the habit of perfecting every present moment, wherever we find ourselves.
Tomorrow I find out if we will have another baby. I'm leaning towards yes, that he's a boy, and that he will become a priest. And that he's the reason I have fully returned to the Church. I can't explain it any other way, except that today, I feel like fully Catholic again. And I thank God for that.
Thursday, February 11, 2016
A Religious Rock and a Spiritual Hard Place
In my search for "the perfect place of worship", I've come to realize that I cannot make peace between my desire for a racially diverse community and, well, all the other things that are important to me. Racial diversity among religions tends to be the result of a long-standing tradition with missionary work.
Seventh Day Adventists, Muslims, and Jehovah's Witnesses top the chart of most diverse religions in the US, each having a significant demographic of at least three different heritages (white, Black, Latino; white, Black, Asian; and white, Black, Latino, respectively). Catholicism ranks just a bit below these, right around the general adult US population, but mostly divided between whites and Latinos. As can be expected, the actual demographics of any particular congregation will be determined by the overall diversity of the region of the country.
And the faiths I find most resonant with my personal belief-system - Quakers and Unitarian Universalists - rank quite low on the diversity scale, both being overwhelmingly white. (The site above doesn't list Quakers, but from other research and my personal experience, I have found this to be true.)
In no particular order, here is a list of characteristics that I would love to find in a spiritual home community.
Racial and ethnic diversity
LGBTQ rights and feminism
Environmentalism
Pro-Life post-implantation
Inclusivity of Freethinkers
Access to religious service while traveling and geographically local
Meaningful ritual
A Sense of community, especially via small groups
Children's program for religious education
Uplifting music
Beautiful art and architecture
Inspiring sermons
Social justice, including racial justice
Bottom line, the spiritual home I envision and have been searching for simply does not exist. Therefore, I must prioritize the above and choose accordingly. Nothing is standing in the way of me attending more than one place of worship on a regular basis. In fact, I already know that this will happen because I have a birthright to Catholicism and a vested interest in Catholicism for the sake of maintaining a cultural link to my daughter's Filipino heritage. That said, my personal spirituality is no longer being nourished in the Catholic church, so I must look elsewhere.
Below is how I would divide the aspects of a religious community that I am looking for.
CATHOLIC
+ Due to universal missions, racial and ethnic diversity is greater than in many other religions.
+ For the same reason, I can count on finding a Catholic mass being celebrated pretty much wherever I travel. Including local to where I live.
+ The ritual is meaningful for me due to my upbringing.
+? In older churches in particular, beautiful art and architecture are part of the landscape.
+? As for social justice, there is some of that in the Church's stance on immigration, and definitely in terms of poverty, but lacking in terms of the racial component.
? The music and sermons are hit-and-miss, dependent on individual churches, much like the art and architecture. I've been to some very inspiring churches and some very abysmal ones.
? The Franciscan tradition does take an active interest in environmental issues, but there isn't nearly enough support or interest in these issues church-wide. I've only ever been to one church that bothered to recycle, and it was a Franciscan parish that was also getting certified by GreenFaith.
? And while I have long agreed with the Pro-Life stance of the Catholic church when it comes to abortion, even the death penalty, I disagree with the way it has been expanded to include restrictions on birth control and fertility treatments.
NON-CATHOLIC
I realize this will need to be specific to the religious community I am considering. Liberal Quakers and Unitarian Universalists are on my horizon currently. I've attended services in both traditions, but what will make a difference is the specific places of worship that are local to me.
At least these four tend to be a given in both traditions:
+ LBBTQ rights and feminism
+ Environmentalism
+ Inclusivity of Freethinkers
+ Social justice, including racial justice
Very likely are also these three points:
+? A Sense of community, especially via small groups
+? Children's program for religious education
+? Geographically local
The rest of these will need to be analyzed on a case-by-case basis
Uplifting music. I've only been to one unprogrammed (liberal) Quaker meeting where they had music, and it can hardly be said to be "uplifting". I have better chances of hearing inspiring music at my own Catholic church. Unprogrammed meetings do not tend to include music, period.
Beautiful art and architecture. Part of the value-system of Quakerism is simplicity, and so generally speaking, the meethinghouses are not meant to inspire and uplift but to be humble and non-distracting.
Inspiring sermons. Again, unprogrammed Quaker meetings do not have prepared sermons. There may be spoken testimony by anyone present.... or there may not be. In that sense, it's a very individual-based worship service.
Overall, what I remember liking about Quaker faith were the values and beliefs as well as social justice outreach - all things that I can easily carry with me into the UU church. But three things I definitely have a better chance finding inside the UU church are sermons, music, and art/architecture. Perhaps the music won't be gregorian chant or gospel music - two of my favorite styles of religious music. And the art and architecture found in old Catholic and Orthodox churches would be hard to find elsewhere. But at least I can hope to glean some insights relevant to my spiritual walk from the sermons, since I know they won't be based on the assumption of original sin.
And the aspects of UU churches that I remember not really jiving with me were the service not being particularly meaningful because of lack of the ritual familiar to me, as well as no objection to abortion. What it is coming down to is a matter of prioritizing. So here goes.
Most important in a potential spiritual community for me:
1. A Sense of community, especially via small groups (the ability to get to know a manageable group of like-minded individuals where I can express my spiritual beliefs and gain insights without fear of judgment or the expectation of conformity)
2. LGBTQ rights and feminism (I need to qualify that by feminism I do not mean what has become of modern feminists, where essentially women think they should be able to get away with abortion on demand in the name of "equal rights" [um, because men do have access to abortion-on-demand??], or where women who chose to dress modestly or stay home with their children in lieu of a career are seen as enemies of the movement. As for LGBTQ, for a long time now I have been a sympathizer with LGBTQ rights to equal treatment under the law, and nothing short of that is acceptable to me, no matter the archaic scriptural reasoning.)
3. Environmentalism. (I've been accused of being un-Christian, back when I identified as Christian, for my concern and focus on green issues. I kid you not. Disgusting to think that God cares more about the afterlife than the life we are living right now.)
4. Social Justice, including racial justice. (After getting hung up on the racial/ethnic diversity aspect, I now realize that who the members are is one thing, but providing meaningful support to those of all backgrounds, even those who are not members of one's church, is another. [Yes, a diverse demographic would be better able to provide racial mirrors for my daughter. But that's why I intend to continue with Catholic Filipino mass. My commitment to helping her build a healthy self-identity cannot be outsourced to an activity we do once a month though, and once a week would be no better. From the Filipino mass, I need to branch out into the various events and make meaningful friendships for the sake of my daughter.] Equally important is to actually work towards peace and justice in the world.)
5. Inclusivity of Freethinkers. (This is essentially the reason my spirituality cannot be contained by the Catholic identity.)
6. Inspiring sermons. (While I like to think that I think for myself, I also enjoy learning from others whose experiences and knowledge surpass my own.)
7. Children's program for religious education. (How I want to raise my daughter in terms of spirituality is never far from my mind. While I think she will most likely go through the typical Catholic rites of passage of First Communion/Confession, I also want her to have access to non-Catholic/Christian beliefs in order to make an educated decision for herself when she grows up.)
8. Meaningful ritual. (I realize that this will involve some compromise on my part, having to be open-minded to a new normal. What used to resonate with me about the mystery of the Eucharist within the Catholic mass no longer does so, except in a more intellectual manner. So I need to be open to totally new rituals that express what I actually do believe and want to stand for.)
9. Uplifting music. (I can always hope. And if I don't find this, there's always the internet and concerts for me to find music as a part of my personal spiritual practice. I don't need to always expect to be entertained by wonderful music when I gather for worship.)
10. Beautiful art and architecture. (While I do think there is value in helping us lift our thoughts to things greater than us via various art expressions, the lack of such expressions should not be reason for me to stay away. I've found just as much inspiration out in nature as I have in expensively adorned churches.)
11. Racial and ethnic diversity. (So this is what prompted me to write this post. My conclusion is that I cannot reasonably expect my local place of worship to look like a chapel at an international airport, as much as I would love that. I need to have enough dimensions to my life, enough connections, that between the various activities and friends I have the diversity I desire, both for myself and especially for my daughter.)
12. Pro-Life post-implantation. (There is a whole pro-life movement that is not affiliated with any particular religion. If I felt truly dedicated to the cause, I could always join in its efforts. The fact that I have only sporadically been involved with the March for Life and 40 Days for Life shows that I can hardly call myself dedicated, nor can I blame my religious community for my lack of deeper involvement.)
13. Access to religious service while traveling and geographically local. (So I can reasonably get to the closest UU church from where I live without much of a commute, and when I travel, I can always attend Catholic mass and benefit from the various other aspects of spiritual inspiration that I find more so among Catholic churches anyway, like the architecture and art.)
The next step is to attend my local UU church. Attend a few times. Attend with an open mind. Attend not so that I can see if the label "UU" fits me, but attend to see if I see myself contributing to - and benefiting from - the spiritual community available there. This is actually much different from my previous attempts at "finding a spiritual home", which were always based on a search for an apt label for myself. I think my current labels would remain the same - cultural/birthright Catholic, Deist, Spiritually Independent. If I do find a sense of community in the UU church, I'd only be adding to this list of labels, not replacing any of them. My spirituality is my own responsibility, not the church where I attend. Hopefully this attitude will serve me well on my journey.
Thursday, February 4, 2016
On My Fifth Life
I'm going to attempt to put into words something that I know will be elusive without having personally experienced the idea yourself. I'm sure you've heard people reflect back on some past phase of their life and say that it was a different life, or that they were a different person back then. Well, I actually think there is a lot more truth to this than meets the eye.
Take my "life" for instance. We already know that our physical bodies replace all their cells in a span of something like 7 years, so we are literally not the same physical person that we were seven years ago. But when I think of being a different person, I think of my circumstances, the people that were most influential on me during that phase of life, my attitudes and values of the time, how I saw the world and my place in it.
According to my completely nonscientific calculations and estimations, I am currently on life #5. My first "life within this life" started in the womb and continued during my childhood in Poland. It smoothly transitioned into life #2 when I immigrated to the United States. These two lives may be the easiest to compare due to the drastic geographical relocation. But there was so much more to that. There was an ending - death, if you will - to my Polish life, and a beginning - birth, if you will - to my American life. I did travel across with my parents, but other than that, I left behind other people with whom I had close relationships - my grandmother, great-grandmother, aunt. I also left behind people with whom I wasn't as close, but who nonetheless had a significant influence on who I was - my teacher and friends from school, my grandpa and my dad's side of the family, even my neighbors and really, random strangers on the street.
Being outside the house in my Polish life and being outside the home in my American life meant completely different experiences. In Poland, there were sidewalks and public transportation, and a greater freedom as to with whom I was out and about. There were always other people also walking around, taking the trolley or the bus like us, and with that came inevitable pleasantries or even just quiet observations of others.
In contrast, my American life meant the home, school, and the grocery store with my parents or the mall with my friends. I had to depend on a school bus to take me to school and back, no independence with that. I had to depend on my parents to drive me to meet my friends, so again, no independence. The people I grew up around were strictly limited to my close neighbors, my parents' friends, and people I saw in school or on the school bus. We went to church, but after the first couple of years we stopped attending a Polish parish, and once at an American church, we never developed a community with the people there. It was just in and out for our Sunday mass obligation I didn't really make friends at my Confirmation classes, which didn't last long anyway.
And so there was a huge gulf of experiences that divided my first and second life, and I haven't even mentioned the language difference! My second life lasted roughly until about age 16.
After the first two years of high school, we moved (for third time inside the US) and I had to change high schools. It was here that I remember wanting to "start fresh" where no one knew me. I had fumbled my reputation at my old high school while trying to fit in with my peers while simultaneously not letting my parents down. At the new school, I didn't have to worry about previous expectations. My third life began as I started to try to establish my independence after years of having no access to independence due to to way American society in my area was set up. Had I stayed in Poland, I would've been much more independent and responsible by then, but as it was, I had a late start.
In my third life, I had all new friends yet again. I met my best friend, Rachel, who was pivotal in helping me navigate life outside of school and home. She was allowed to drive me around before I got my license (at 18!), and thanks to her I experienced eating out, dance clubs, bowling alleys, and the homes of people I never would've otherwise seen. I didn't know it at the time, but I was trying to become an American adult without any real American role models. I was expected to stay Polish by my family, who also didn't provide any Polish role models to that end, and so I embarked on a journey of self-discovery that bled into my fourth life even. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
My third life went from my junior year of high school up to just before I got married. I graduated high school, I spent 5 months in my native Poland, I worked in retail, tutoring, and telemarketing. I went to community college where I was recruited into the Army. My father had a tragic vehicular accident that left him brain injured and unable to work or communicate well. I met my now-husband, we moved back to somehow help my family, we moved in together. I graduated college and my wild days of trying to figure out who I was settled down into a sort of background hum of uncertainty.
My third life smoothly moved into my fourth life. I graduated college, Alex and I bought a house, and we got married, all within the space of a month. I spent a bit of time in admin work before starting on a decade-long teaching career and graduate school. I thought I had an idea of what my future held, or at least what I wanted it to hold, and I patiently and naively hammered away at my goal without much thought to reality or practicality. For 11 years this was my life. We found that we had severe infertility and began to try to adopt. We spent 5 years struggling with various forms of adoption, having four false starts, before finally turning to infertility treatments. In the process, we both became more religious and began to share that religious faith with each other, which helped us make a bit more sense of our struggles. I was an adult, an American, but it sort of just plateaued that way. It wasn't due to any concrete intentions, and so without any mentors, I still didn't really know why I did what I did. I knew I didn't "feel" like a grown-up, but I attributed it to the American way, with the extended adolescence that is so common among high school through college graduates and 20-somethings. This fourth life died sometime after my best friend Rachel's suicide, the year before our daughter was born.
My current life, my fifth within this Earthly journey, began when I became pregnant with our daughter...or maybe with her birth. The transitions from life to life have usually been somewhat gradual, with the exception of the transition from my first, Polish life to my second, American life. That happened on December 19th, 1986, the day we arrived in the US.
My current life is that of a mother. This has brought a whole new set of challenges along with the blessings, and it has helped me to unpack some of my old identity issues from previous lives and try to make sense of where I've come from and where I'm going. It's thanks to insights from raising my daughter that I am able to look back on my own upbringing and deal with things I didn't have names for or didn't know were the issues at hand. I imagine that my current life will continue for some time, with the next transition taking place sometime when my daughter is a teenager or moves out on her own.
As I think about these five lives of mine, I can't help but think of the parallels between these lives-within-my-life and our Earthly lives. I'm not convinced of any details regarding various afterlife theories, including the different reincarnation theories that are out there, but I do believe we are eternal beings, and that in some way, we continue on after our physical death. I also don't believe that our souls are created at the moment of conception, because I think we existed before our current incarnations. Not necessarily in another human life, but possibly.
Anyway, the point is that every death, every ending, is difficult and sad. Sometimes such transitions are bittersweet. Looking back, I see that my life with Rachel as my best friend had to end before my life as a mother to Maya could begin. This hurts my heart. I couldn't have had a life with both of them in it. Yet here I am, and as I move from life to life, very few people actually travel with me. It's tempting to think that it's those people who give us a sense of continuity withing our incarnated identity, but this can't be true. I think of adoptees who had their ties to biological relatives severed upon their adoption. They have no one from their old life in their new life. Of course, I can't speak to that experience. I only know that in my life, one thing that has helped me sense a continuity from life to life has been the people who traveled with me across the bridges.
But really, the bottom line is that just like there are multiple deaths and rebirths within our Earthly life, there is always another existence to look forward to after our physical death. But believing that doesn't make the transition any easier, not for those who go before us, nor for us as we consider our own mortality. It's always sad to say goodbye, but that's life. We cannot keep adding and adding without some emptying to make room for new - new experiences, new people, new lives.
Take my "life" for instance. We already know that our physical bodies replace all their cells in a span of something like 7 years, so we are literally not the same physical person that we were seven years ago. But when I think of being a different person, I think of my circumstances, the people that were most influential on me during that phase of life, my attitudes and values of the time, how I saw the world and my place in it.
According to my completely nonscientific calculations and estimations, I am currently on life #5. My first "life within this life" started in the womb and continued during my childhood in Poland. It smoothly transitioned into life #2 when I immigrated to the United States. These two lives may be the easiest to compare due to the drastic geographical relocation. But there was so much more to that. There was an ending - death, if you will - to my Polish life, and a beginning - birth, if you will - to my American life. I did travel across with my parents, but other than that, I left behind other people with whom I had close relationships - my grandmother, great-grandmother, aunt. I also left behind people with whom I wasn't as close, but who nonetheless had a significant influence on who I was - my teacher and friends from school, my grandpa and my dad's side of the family, even my neighbors and really, random strangers on the street.
Being outside the house in my Polish life and being outside the home in my American life meant completely different experiences. In Poland, there were sidewalks and public transportation, and a greater freedom as to with whom I was out and about. There were always other people also walking around, taking the trolley or the bus like us, and with that came inevitable pleasantries or even just quiet observations of others.
In contrast, my American life meant the home, school, and the grocery store with my parents or the mall with my friends. I had to depend on a school bus to take me to school and back, no independence with that. I had to depend on my parents to drive me to meet my friends, so again, no independence. The people I grew up around were strictly limited to my close neighbors, my parents' friends, and people I saw in school or on the school bus. We went to church, but after the first couple of years we stopped attending a Polish parish, and once at an American church, we never developed a community with the people there. It was just in and out for our Sunday mass obligation I didn't really make friends at my Confirmation classes, which didn't last long anyway.
And so there was a huge gulf of experiences that divided my first and second life, and I haven't even mentioned the language difference! My second life lasted roughly until about age 16.
After the first two years of high school, we moved (for third time inside the US) and I had to change high schools. It was here that I remember wanting to "start fresh" where no one knew me. I had fumbled my reputation at my old high school while trying to fit in with my peers while simultaneously not letting my parents down. At the new school, I didn't have to worry about previous expectations. My third life began as I started to try to establish my independence after years of having no access to independence due to to way American society in my area was set up. Had I stayed in Poland, I would've been much more independent and responsible by then, but as it was, I had a late start.
In my third life, I had all new friends yet again. I met my best friend, Rachel, who was pivotal in helping me navigate life outside of school and home. She was allowed to drive me around before I got my license (at 18!), and thanks to her I experienced eating out, dance clubs, bowling alleys, and the homes of people I never would've otherwise seen. I didn't know it at the time, but I was trying to become an American adult without any real American role models. I was expected to stay Polish by my family, who also didn't provide any Polish role models to that end, and so I embarked on a journey of self-discovery that bled into my fourth life even. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
My third life went from my junior year of high school up to just before I got married. I graduated high school, I spent 5 months in my native Poland, I worked in retail, tutoring, and telemarketing. I went to community college where I was recruited into the Army. My father had a tragic vehicular accident that left him brain injured and unable to work or communicate well. I met my now-husband, we moved back to somehow help my family, we moved in together. I graduated college and my wild days of trying to figure out who I was settled down into a sort of background hum of uncertainty.
My third life smoothly moved into my fourth life. I graduated college, Alex and I bought a house, and we got married, all within the space of a month. I spent a bit of time in admin work before starting on a decade-long teaching career and graduate school. I thought I had an idea of what my future held, or at least what I wanted it to hold, and I patiently and naively hammered away at my goal without much thought to reality or practicality. For 11 years this was my life. We found that we had severe infertility and began to try to adopt. We spent 5 years struggling with various forms of adoption, having four false starts, before finally turning to infertility treatments. In the process, we both became more religious and began to share that religious faith with each other, which helped us make a bit more sense of our struggles. I was an adult, an American, but it sort of just plateaued that way. It wasn't due to any concrete intentions, and so without any mentors, I still didn't really know why I did what I did. I knew I didn't "feel" like a grown-up, but I attributed it to the American way, with the extended adolescence that is so common among high school through college graduates and 20-somethings. This fourth life died sometime after my best friend Rachel's suicide, the year before our daughter was born.
My current life, my fifth within this Earthly journey, began when I became pregnant with our daughter...or maybe with her birth. The transitions from life to life have usually been somewhat gradual, with the exception of the transition from my first, Polish life to my second, American life. That happened on December 19th, 1986, the day we arrived in the US.
My current life is that of a mother. This has brought a whole new set of challenges along with the blessings, and it has helped me to unpack some of my old identity issues from previous lives and try to make sense of where I've come from and where I'm going. It's thanks to insights from raising my daughter that I am able to look back on my own upbringing and deal with things I didn't have names for or didn't know were the issues at hand. I imagine that my current life will continue for some time, with the next transition taking place sometime when my daughter is a teenager or moves out on her own.
As I think about these five lives of mine, I can't help but think of the parallels between these lives-within-my-life and our Earthly lives. I'm not convinced of any details regarding various afterlife theories, including the different reincarnation theories that are out there, but I do believe we are eternal beings, and that in some way, we continue on after our physical death. I also don't believe that our souls are created at the moment of conception, because I think we existed before our current incarnations. Not necessarily in another human life, but possibly.
Anyway, the point is that every death, every ending, is difficult and sad. Sometimes such transitions are bittersweet. Looking back, I see that my life with Rachel as my best friend had to end before my life as a mother to Maya could begin. This hurts my heart. I couldn't have had a life with both of them in it. Yet here I am, and as I move from life to life, very few people actually travel with me. It's tempting to think that it's those people who give us a sense of continuity withing our incarnated identity, but this can't be true. I think of adoptees who had their ties to biological relatives severed upon their adoption. They have no one from their old life in their new life. Of course, I can't speak to that experience. I only know that in my life, one thing that has helped me sense a continuity from life to life has been the people who traveled with me across the bridges.
But really, the bottom line is that just like there are multiple deaths and rebirths within our Earthly life, there is always another existence to look forward to after our physical death. But believing that doesn't make the transition any easier, not for those who go before us, nor for us as we consider our own mortality. It's always sad to say goodbye, but that's life. We cannot keep adding and adding without some emptying to make room for new - new experiences, new people, new lives.
Saturday, December 19, 2015
Personal or Impersonal God?
At the core of my spiritual quest over the years, there had always been one constant: a personal God. But with my recent reversion to Cultural Catholicism, I'm trying to make sense of the role spirituality ought to play in my life now that I'm essentially nonreligious.
My beliefs in terms of the big questions are simple and straightforward, with little explanation. With every fiber of my being, I believe, nay, I KNOW, that everything that exists was created. At some point, some laws of physics and other mysterious forces we may not yet know about (as was the case until recently with quantum mechanics, quarks and all), were placed into motion, and from there the world that we now know evolved. Somehow, for some reason. I do not speculate as to when that was, or why. But I do not doubt for one second that there was an act of will on the part of an intelligent source thanks to which we have our being.
The second point of my minimalist belief system is that death is merely a transition, like all other things in the known universe. I cannot think of a single experience, single even, that has a definitive ending and beginning. Rather, I see everything is in a constant state of transition. We are both dying and being reborn simultaneously and continuously. We fall asleep and for all intents of our personal consciousness, cease to exist (with the rare exception of lucid dreaming). Then we awake and reflect back on the fact that we were asleep and carry on in our wakeful state as if nothing happened. We do not dwell on having temporarily died, nor do we agonize over having our conscience die yet again the following night.
I find it interesting that people claim to only believe what they can see, what they can understand. I know I'm not in the minority when I say that I actually do not fully grasp how radio waves, much less television, works. All I know is that there's electricity involved, and some computer coding, software and hardware, all of which must be working in perfect alignment for me to be able to watch my favorite show. I don't understand it. But because I can experience watching my favorite show, I know there is an explanation, and that's actually enough for me. I don't need to be a physicist, computer programmer, electrician, before I can enjoy my show. So why do people insist - like I have done for years - that they must first grasp who God is and by extension what that means for us and our lives before we can start living, enjoying life, and doing the right thing?
I do not know if we reincarnate as lesser or greater beings based on our karma, or if we remain humans in our next life, or if we reincarnate at all. I do not know if we fall into a deep unconscious slumber until some designated "Judgment Day", or if we are immediately judged to be worthy of heaven or not at the moment of our death. I do not know if our bodies will by physically resurrected, and if so, will I get my 37 year old body or a younger or older version?
To be honest, I find all of these hypotheses (for that is all I see them as) to be a bit far-fetched and too literal. I think what makes spirituality and the divine mysterious is precisely that we cannot explain it in terms of our everyday experiences. We can approximate, but nothing more. I think most religious adherents are simply too literal in their understanding of their faith.
What I actually do think happens after death, and this is a work in progress, always open to adjustments as new information makes itself known, is based on who I think "I" am at my core. I don't think my body is what makes me who I am, eternally speaking. My body has changed drastically since the time I was still in the womb. We shed our cells regularly, and I read that every seven years or so, the cells in our entire body have been replaced with new ones. If this is true (from science), then how can I think that my body is what makes me who I am? There is something else that maintains my sense of self through all of those bodily changes.
I don't think it's our personality either. As we mature, as we have different experiences, as we learn and grow, we see the world in a different light. Some aspects of our personality may remain, like introversion or extroversion, but I cannot say that I am the same "person" that I was twenty years ago. At age 17, I was graduating high school and learning to toe my way into the "real world" (whatever that is) with my best friend Rachel as my guide. I was in a chaotic state of figuring out how to make my life meaningful. I went from wanting to pursue religious life (being quickly discouraged from this endeavor by my family) to joining AmeriCorp (my application missed the deadline) to shipping off for the Army's Basic Training Course.
Twenty years later, my best friend Rachel has crossed over to the other side (of death, that is). I ended up hating the Army and spent a little over one year there. Rather than finding my independence, as I had intended, I found my life's partner instead. We married, enjoyed life as a couple for a while, struggled with infertility for many years, and finally welcomed our daughter two years ago. And instead of religious life, I'm now nonreligious. No, my personality is not what makes me who I am either.
There is something mysterious, something that cannot be grasped with the intellectual faculties, that holds us together and carries us through life. It is something so nuanced that the moment you start to define it, you get it wrong. It's something that intersects who we are as physical beings, emotional beings, and intellectual beings. Many people call this something a "soul", though usually it is thought to be very non-physical in nature. I actually think it is absolutely rooted in the most minuscule particles of existence.
Quantum physics absolutely intrigues me, as it describes concepts such as bilocation and time travel as real, except on the level of quarks. How can we begin to conceptualize God or our true nature as it comes from God, if time is a construct with no basis in reality? Time-space, actually, is seen as a single phenomenon, interdependent. We experience time and space because we live in it. But after death (and for argument's sake, before conception), we are not bound by either. We can be anywhere, do anything. We are not God per se. We are God's fingers, toes, etc.
Teresa of Avila said it beautifully when she said:
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
And to continue a bit with the Catholic tradition, in spite of calling myself a "revert to Cultural Catholicism", I actually do currently believe in the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the essence of Jesus Christ. And it's not because the church says so, actually! It's because of quantum physics and what I've learned about quarks being able to exist simultaneously in two "time-space" places at the same time. God is outside of time, right? During the Liturgy of the Eucharist, we have an opportunity to attune ourselves to a time warp of sorts, where we are given a front row seat at Calvary.
Now, that said, just because I believe this doesn't mean it's not disturbing, or that the rest of Christian theology makes any sense to me. My immediate question is, why would I want to be present at an execution? A torturous one at that, of an innocent man! I'm not some sort of sadist who gets his kicks from watching others suffer. So what I actually think is the point of that part of our religious service is a reminder of innocent suffering (so that we are moved to act to lessen it) and a reminder of the possibility to transcend one's own suffering. I think the same role is played by the image of the crucified Christ at the altar, and the stations of the cross in every Catholic church. No, it's not feel-good religion. It's difficult, but it's real. It can truly lead us to something beyond our mundane everyday experiences, if only we let it.
While we're on the subject of Catholic belief, I also believe in the Virgin Birth. That said, I am not committed to it being unique to Jesus. Because early embryonic cells have the potential to grow into any of the necessary cells that a human needs (hence the interest in embryonic stem cell research), it doesn't sound like a stretch at all for a single cell, Mary's ovum, to somehow have carried the necessary y chromosome in order to grow baby Jesus in her womb. Of course, this isn't something she could've willed into being. This is where the hand of God comes in, and it is best if we leave it at that, because once we start to guess why God may have done such a thing, we end up with religion (aka theories and hypotheses about the unknowable will of God).
I don't think Jesus's conception needed to be miraculous (which only means "unexplained by current scientific knowledge") in order for Him to teach what He taught. Yes, I realize that the Christian religion states that it is not so much what Jesus taught that is important, but what He did (namely "take our place on the cross"). Not being Christian, I do not subscribe to this notion. I do not believe in so-called original sin or the wrath of God. Instead, I believe that Jesus's crucifixion was inevitable as far as the natural consequences of being a rebel of thought in his society. The value of his sacrifice (to me) comes in the fact that he was perfectly aware of the consequences of what he taught publicly, but he refused to stay silent. He provided an example that has been followed since, not only in the church-sanctioned saints of the faith, but also in the secular heroes and heroines who have fought for social justice and civil rights, all too often paying the ultimate price for the courage of their convictions. This is not blasphemy. After all, we are told to "be Christ to others".
Finally, we have the Resurrection, another teaching that I do not see any reason for discarding. Countless people "saw Jesus" after his death. What they saw is really moot, other than to say that it was real to them and changed their lives. It doesn't matter if they saw his literal physical body, the one that was nailed to a cross. It doesn't matter if it was some new, transcendent yet still physical body that is now held up as a promise for anyone willing to follow him. It could just as well have been a vision, a hallucination, a dream, a hologram. Why do we assign greater worth to that which can be clearly discerned with our five basic senses, yet ignore the truth that can be known through intuition or discernment?
So for me, Jesus taught very important lessons. He was willing to die for them, because he believed his lessons had the power to transform lives. And they do. And the fact that people experienced (and continue to experience) his presence in some way is only confirmation of the fact that he can continue to teach us these lessons, if we only listen.
I think the reason we are taught to focus on the person of Jesus (rather than his teachings) is simply a way to remind us to do what he said - empty ourselves and deny ourselves and put ourselves last. We cannot go though life polishing our many virtues and patting ourselves on the back and expect to live a transformed life. Jesus called us to go beyond the basic golden rule. Jesus called us to try to see the big picture. I think we are entering an age when that will be more and more possible, with the insights gleaned from quantum physics!
Why do most religions preach helping others? There must be something in the deepest part of who we are that remembers that we are all interconnected, that we are not merely individuals living together on this planet. Where I end and you begin.... there's a transition there that isn't quite as clear-cut as we like to think.
Ok, so is God personal or impersonal? I think that as far as we are persons having a personal experience in this lifetime, God is likewise personal. God encompasses whatever experiences we can imagine, because God is the source of them all. But to say that God is "a person", as in just like us, is to make God in our own image, idolatry! God is beyond simply an elder Father-King sitting in the clouds looking down at us. And this is what I believe was the intention of putting forth the belief in God as a Trinity, this "both-and-neither" answer that simply doesn't satisfy our meager human intellect, when we try to limit our understanding only to what our brains can do! I don't think the point is that God is literally a Spirit-Man (Father), Savior-Son (Jesus), and Holy Spirit (like a very important angel maybe?). The point was precisely to stop our incessant philosophizing over the nature of God, as if we have any right to understand God or grasp God's vastness or greatness, as if we have a right to qualify our worship based on our understanding. The Trinity is a western koan! What is the sound of one hand clapping? What does the color red taste like? What is the nature of God?
I actually think we will know everything we need to know once we cross from this life. I think children are still very close to our source and can better intuit God than adults can. I think some of us, probably through mere openness to the Spirit, can indeed experience God's presence without the limitations of human language, either in dreams, or visions, or just through quiet reflection. Sadly, most of us spend too much time paying lip service to how great God is and too little time acting as though we actually believe what has been taught about God by some of the greatest religious-philosophical thinkers of all time (Jesus included). Do we really treat others the way we would want to be treated? Or do we only treat those that aren't too different from us with kindness? Do we look for excuses to ignore people's struggles, or do we look for opportunities to help? That is how we really worship God; not in ritual and lip service, but in spirit and in truth.
My beliefs in terms of the big questions are simple and straightforward, with little explanation. With every fiber of my being, I believe, nay, I KNOW, that everything that exists was created. At some point, some laws of physics and other mysterious forces we may not yet know about (as was the case until recently with quantum mechanics, quarks and all), were placed into motion, and from there the world that we now know evolved. Somehow, for some reason. I do not speculate as to when that was, or why. But I do not doubt for one second that there was an act of will on the part of an intelligent source thanks to which we have our being.
The second point of my minimalist belief system is that death is merely a transition, like all other things in the known universe. I cannot think of a single experience, single even, that has a definitive ending and beginning. Rather, I see everything is in a constant state of transition. We are both dying and being reborn simultaneously and continuously. We fall asleep and for all intents of our personal consciousness, cease to exist (with the rare exception of lucid dreaming). Then we awake and reflect back on the fact that we were asleep and carry on in our wakeful state as if nothing happened. We do not dwell on having temporarily died, nor do we agonize over having our conscience die yet again the following night.
I find it interesting that people claim to only believe what they can see, what they can understand. I know I'm not in the minority when I say that I actually do not fully grasp how radio waves, much less television, works. All I know is that there's electricity involved, and some computer coding, software and hardware, all of which must be working in perfect alignment for me to be able to watch my favorite show. I don't understand it. But because I can experience watching my favorite show, I know there is an explanation, and that's actually enough for me. I don't need to be a physicist, computer programmer, electrician, before I can enjoy my show. So why do people insist - like I have done for years - that they must first grasp who God is and by extension what that means for us and our lives before we can start living, enjoying life, and doing the right thing?
I do not know if we reincarnate as lesser or greater beings based on our karma, or if we remain humans in our next life, or if we reincarnate at all. I do not know if we fall into a deep unconscious slumber until some designated "Judgment Day", or if we are immediately judged to be worthy of heaven or not at the moment of our death. I do not know if our bodies will by physically resurrected, and if so, will I get my 37 year old body or a younger or older version?
To be honest, I find all of these hypotheses (for that is all I see them as) to be a bit far-fetched and too literal. I think what makes spirituality and the divine mysterious is precisely that we cannot explain it in terms of our everyday experiences. We can approximate, but nothing more. I think most religious adherents are simply too literal in their understanding of their faith.
What I actually do think happens after death, and this is a work in progress, always open to adjustments as new information makes itself known, is based on who I think "I" am at my core. I don't think my body is what makes me who I am, eternally speaking. My body has changed drastically since the time I was still in the womb. We shed our cells regularly, and I read that every seven years or so, the cells in our entire body have been replaced with new ones. If this is true (from science), then how can I think that my body is what makes me who I am? There is something else that maintains my sense of self through all of those bodily changes.
I don't think it's our personality either. As we mature, as we have different experiences, as we learn and grow, we see the world in a different light. Some aspects of our personality may remain, like introversion or extroversion, but I cannot say that I am the same "person" that I was twenty years ago. At age 17, I was graduating high school and learning to toe my way into the "real world" (whatever that is) with my best friend Rachel as my guide. I was in a chaotic state of figuring out how to make my life meaningful. I went from wanting to pursue religious life (being quickly discouraged from this endeavor by my family) to joining AmeriCorp (my application missed the deadline) to shipping off for the Army's Basic Training Course.
Twenty years later, my best friend Rachel has crossed over to the other side (of death, that is). I ended up hating the Army and spent a little over one year there. Rather than finding my independence, as I had intended, I found my life's partner instead. We married, enjoyed life as a couple for a while, struggled with infertility for many years, and finally welcomed our daughter two years ago. And instead of religious life, I'm now nonreligious. No, my personality is not what makes me who I am either.
There is something mysterious, something that cannot be grasped with the intellectual faculties, that holds us together and carries us through life. It is something so nuanced that the moment you start to define it, you get it wrong. It's something that intersects who we are as physical beings, emotional beings, and intellectual beings. Many people call this something a "soul", though usually it is thought to be very non-physical in nature. I actually think it is absolutely rooted in the most minuscule particles of existence.
Quantum physics absolutely intrigues me, as it describes concepts such as bilocation and time travel as real, except on the level of quarks. How can we begin to conceptualize God or our true nature as it comes from God, if time is a construct with no basis in reality? Time-space, actually, is seen as a single phenomenon, interdependent. We experience time and space because we live in it. But after death (and for argument's sake, before conception), we are not bound by either. We can be anywhere, do anything. We are not God per se. We are God's fingers, toes, etc.
Teresa of Avila said it beautifully when she said:
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
And to continue a bit with the Catholic tradition, in spite of calling myself a "revert to Cultural Catholicism", I actually do currently believe in the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the essence of Jesus Christ. And it's not because the church says so, actually! It's because of quantum physics and what I've learned about quarks being able to exist simultaneously in two "time-space" places at the same time. God is outside of time, right? During the Liturgy of the Eucharist, we have an opportunity to attune ourselves to a time warp of sorts, where we are given a front row seat at Calvary.
Now, that said, just because I believe this doesn't mean it's not disturbing, or that the rest of Christian theology makes any sense to me. My immediate question is, why would I want to be present at an execution? A torturous one at that, of an innocent man! I'm not some sort of sadist who gets his kicks from watching others suffer. So what I actually think is the point of that part of our religious service is a reminder of innocent suffering (so that we are moved to act to lessen it) and a reminder of the possibility to transcend one's own suffering. I think the same role is played by the image of the crucified Christ at the altar, and the stations of the cross in every Catholic church. No, it's not feel-good religion. It's difficult, but it's real. It can truly lead us to something beyond our mundane everyday experiences, if only we let it.
While we're on the subject of Catholic belief, I also believe in the Virgin Birth. That said, I am not committed to it being unique to Jesus. Because early embryonic cells have the potential to grow into any of the necessary cells that a human needs (hence the interest in embryonic stem cell research), it doesn't sound like a stretch at all for a single cell, Mary's ovum, to somehow have carried the necessary y chromosome in order to grow baby Jesus in her womb. Of course, this isn't something she could've willed into being. This is where the hand of God comes in, and it is best if we leave it at that, because once we start to guess why God may have done such a thing, we end up with religion (aka theories and hypotheses about the unknowable will of God).
I don't think Jesus's conception needed to be miraculous (which only means "unexplained by current scientific knowledge") in order for Him to teach what He taught. Yes, I realize that the Christian religion states that it is not so much what Jesus taught that is important, but what He did (namely "take our place on the cross"). Not being Christian, I do not subscribe to this notion. I do not believe in so-called original sin or the wrath of God. Instead, I believe that Jesus's crucifixion was inevitable as far as the natural consequences of being a rebel of thought in his society. The value of his sacrifice (to me) comes in the fact that he was perfectly aware of the consequences of what he taught publicly, but he refused to stay silent. He provided an example that has been followed since, not only in the church-sanctioned saints of the faith, but also in the secular heroes and heroines who have fought for social justice and civil rights, all too often paying the ultimate price for the courage of their convictions. This is not blasphemy. After all, we are told to "be Christ to others".
Finally, we have the Resurrection, another teaching that I do not see any reason for discarding. Countless people "saw Jesus" after his death. What they saw is really moot, other than to say that it was real to them and changed their lives. It doesn't matter if they saw his literal physical body, the one that was nailed to a cross. It doesn't matter if it was some new, transcendent yet still physical body that is now held up as a promise for anyone willing to follow him. It could just as well have been a vision, a hallucination, a dream, a hologram. Why do we assign greater worth to that which can be clearly discerned with our five basic senses, yet ignore the truth that can be known through intuition or discernment?
So for me, Jesus taught very important lessons. He was willing to die for them, because he believed his lessons had the power to transform lives. And they do. And the fact that people experienced (and continue to experience) his presence in some way is only confirmation of the fact that he can continue to teach us these lessons, if we only listen.
I think the reason we are taught to focus on the person of Jesus (rather than his teachings) is simply a way to remind us to do what he said - empty ourselves and deny ourselves and put ourselves last. We cannot go though life polishing our many virtues and patting ourselves on the back and expect to live a transformed life. Jesus called us to go beyond the basic golden rule. Jesus called us to try to see the big picture. I think we are entering an age when that will be more and more possible, with the insights gleaned from quantum physics!
Why do most religions preach helping others? There must be something in the deepest part of who we are that remembers that we are all interconnected, that we are not merely individuals living together on this planet. Where I end and you begin.... there's a transition there that isn't quite as clear-cut as we like to think.
Ok, so is God personal or impersonal? I think that as far as we are persons having a personal experience in this lifetime, God is likewise personal. God encompasses whatever experiences we can imagine, because God is the source of them all. But to say that God is "a person", as in just like us, is to make God in our own image, idolatry! God is beyond simply an elder Father-King sitting in the clouds looking down at us. And this is what I believe was the intention of putting forth the belief in God as a Trinity, this "both-and-neither" answer that simply doesn't satisfy our meager human intellect, when we try to limit our understanding only to what our brains can do! I don't think the point is that God is literally a Spirit-Man (Father), Savior-Son (Jesus), and Holy Spirit (like a very important angel maybe?). The point was precisely to stop our incessant philosophizing over the nature of God, as if we have any right to understand God or grasp God's vastness or greatness, as if we have a right to qualify our worship based on our understanding. The Trinity is a western koan! What is the sound of one hand clapping? What does the color red taste like? What is the nature of God?
I actually think we will know everything we need to know once we cross from this life. I think children are still very close to our source and can better intuit God than adults can. I think some of us, probably through mere openness to the Spirit, can indeed experience God's presence without the limitations of human language, either in dreams, or visions, or just through quiet reflection. Sadly, most of us spend too much time paying lip service to how great God is and too little time acting as though we actually believe what has been taught about God by some of the greatest religious-philosophical thinkers of all time (Jesus included). Do we really treat others the way we would want to be treated? Or do we only treat those that aren't too different from us with kindness? Do we look for excuses to ignore people's struggles, or do we look for opportunities to help? That is how we really worship God; not in ritual and lip service, but in spirit and in truth.
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