I wrote up a post about Transcendentalism and how my views do or do not match with those of the Transcendentalists and tied that in to my objections such as they are to wintry spirituality. I posted it on Tuesday.
Has anyone seen it? Because I'd really like it to come home so I don't have to remember everything I said.
Thursday, March 26
Thursday, March 12
Not up for a spiritual post this week, I guess.
I've had this window open for four hours now, and haven't typed one damn thing.
Oh, I have ideas for posts: discussing the neo-pagan "In perfect love and perfect trust," or discussing why I don't pray "Coyote, you are here. Coyote, I am here." But I haven't really had any clear thoughts about what I want to say about either.
And, of course, there's the follow-up to last week's post about "wintry spirituality," but I'm not sure what I have to say on that topic, either. Not yet, anyway.
So, instead, I am typing up this post to say that I have nothing to say.
How very meta.
Oh, I have ideas for posts: discussing the neo-pagan "In perfect love and perfect trust," or discussing why I don't pray "Coyote, you are here. Coyote, I am here." But I haven't really had any clear thoughts about what I want to say about either.
And, of course, there's the follow-up to last week's post about "wintry spirituality," but I'm not sure what I have to say on that topic, either. Not yet, anyway.
So, instead, I am typing up this post to say that I have nothing to say.
How very meta.
Thursday, March 5
Some pondering about spirituality
Prompted by the article Imagineers of Soul in UU World Magazine. Sort of.
Speaking specifically of UU children, the author says:
Given the general subject of this blog, I suppose it's not going to come as a surprise to all two of you who are reading that I disagree with the last two sentences. I don't think we fail to discuss spirituality because it's "frightening" or "embarrassing." Personal, yes. Delicate, also. But I think a bigger problem is a lack of agreement about what it means to be spiritual, to have a spirituality to discuss in the first place. I also think that part of the problem is that we lack the language to express our feelings about the spiritual or the holy.
I often fall back on dictionary definitions when I'm writing these posts. I think that's because I feel that, on certain subjects, the only way I can be sure we're all on the same page is to start with an "agreed upon" term. Particularly when I want to use a word (like "holy") that solely belongs to the religious sphere, or that is perceived as belonging solely to the religious sphere.
I do not think we need religion, or G∞d or god or gods or goddesses or any sort of Divine Overarching (or Overbearing) presence to have a sense of the holy, using definitions six and eight back at the link. In this sense, I suppose it might be better to use the word "awesome," although as a child of the 80s I'm afraid awesome has rather been tainted, as well, though by secular rather than religious usage. Language is in flux and changes all the time, whether we like it or not. It's funny that way.
I have been awed by the majesty of the mountains, and awed by the destructive power of the natural forces that drove Mt. St. Helens. I have been in awe of courageous actions that I, myself, could probably not have taken. I have been in awe of some phenomenally stupid stuff that has been said. Awe does not require God or god or gods or goddesses, nor does "awesome" imply the same in the way that "holy" does.
Likewise, "spiritual" pretty much requires a belief in soul or spirit. I cannot think of any way in which it is used (with the possible exception of definition nine, and I seriously cannot think of a time when I've ever seen it used in that fashion) that doesn't at the very least imply a religion. I don't disagree with those who say they are "spiritual but not religious," I just think they're using spiritual in a new way. And I think that's because they have to; to my knowledge, there is no word in English that means "I believe that there are awesome things in the world, things that are full of worth and valuable, but I do not believe that anything other than natural forces made them." One of spiritual's synonyms is "immaterial," and I don't think anyone would go around saying "I am immaterial, but not religious."
I am willing to be educated on this point, of course.
And what I'm really looking for, anyway, is a word to use when I want to say there is somethingincorporeal intangible about me nurtured using other methods than the food and touch that nurture my body. Whatever it is that makes me, me, and not someone else. It's not incorporeal, this me-ness; I'm sure it's generated somewhere in the way my neurons fire, even if that specific center of "self" hasn't been found yet. In that sense, because a physical "self" hasn't been found, "I" am spiritual. Only I know that "I" am actually quite corporeal; that if there were no corpus doing all the awesome things it does every day that there would likewise be no "me" groping around in the dark for a term to use that doesn't rely on religion to give it meaning.
Which is all my long-winded, round-about way of saying that I think the author of the "Imagineers of Soul" is wrong. Those of us who don't already have the language to talk to our children about what we believe aren't afraid or embarrassed. No one has ever explained to us how we are supposed to explain what we believe. Without words with generations of weight and meaning, connotation and denotation, behind them, we are in a delicate position, because we have to talk around the concept we want but can never quite get there.
The author is right about "spirituality" (I don't know. What shall I call it? Intangible nurturance?) being personal. But that's true no matter whose spirituality we're talking about, really. Christians all basically agree that the Bible is the Word of G∞d, but they don't agree on who Jesus was, whether or not the Bible is the inerrant Word of G∞d, whether or not the Pope speaks using G∞d's voice...the list of disagreements goes on. I'm sure that similar schisms exist in Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism, but I don't know enough about those religions to speak in the same way to their points of contention. Even within the same church, these disagreements will exist. How much more, then, are such schisms likely to exist within a denomination that prides itself on its inclusiveness? And how are we supposed to speak to a confused child about what "we" believe? "We" don't believe the same things at all!
This might be a good time to consider using a method recommended by someone I know off-line: answer a question with a question. Although, when asked "what do you believe?" by a child, I suppose turning it back around on them with "What should I believe?" probably won't be very effective. Though I think the answers might be educational!
I had more to say about the article, specifically about "wintry spirituality," but I think this is quite long enough for now.
Speaking specifically of UU children, the author says:
We teach them to be respectful of all the things we don't believe, but don't tell them what we do believe—in part because their teachers are not prepared to talk about such frightening, personal, delicate matters as spirituality. It's just too embarrassing.
Given the general subject of this blog, I suppose it's not going to come as a surprise to all two of you who are reading that I disagree with the last two sentences. I don't think we fail to discuss spirituality because it's "frightening" or "embarrassing." Personal, yes. Delicate, also. But I think a bigger problem is a lack of agreement about what it means to be spiritual, to have a spirituality to discuss in the first place. I also think that part of the problem is that we lack the language to express our feelings about the spiritual or the holy.
I often fall back on dictionary definitions when I'm writing these posts. I think that's because I feel that, on certain subjects, the only way I can be sure we're all on the same page is to start with an "agreed upon" term. Particularly when I want to use a word (like "holy") that solely belongs to the religious sphere, or that is perceived as belonging solely to the religious sphere.
I do not think we need religion, or G∞d or god or gods or goddesses or any sort of Divine Overarching (or Overbearing) presence to have a sense of the holy, using definitions six and eight back at the link. In this sense, I suppose it might be better to use the word "awesome," although as a child of the 80s I'm afraid awesome has rather been tainted, as well, though by secular rather than religious usage. Language is in flux and changes all the time, whether we like it or not. It's funny that way.
I have been awed by the majesty of the mountains, and awed by the destructive power of the natural forces that drove Mt. St. Helens. I have been in awe of courageous actions that I, myself, could probably not have taken. I have been in awe of some phenomenally stupid stuff that has been said. Awe does not require God or god or gods or goddesses, nor does "awesome" imply the same in the way that "holy" does.
Likewise, "spiritual" pretty much requires a belief in soul or spirit. I cannot think of any way in which it is used (with the possible exception of definition nine, and I seriously cannot think of a time when I've ever seen it used in that fashion) that doesn't at the very least imply a religion. I don't disagree with those who say they are "spiritual but not religious," I just think they're using spiritual in a new way. And I think that's because they have to; to my knowledge, there is no word in English that means "I believe that there are awesome things in the world, things that are full of worth and valuable, but I do not believe that anything other than natural forces made them." One of spiritual's synonyms is "immaterial," and I don't think anyone would go around saying "I am immaterial, but not religious."
I am willing to be educated on this point, of course.
And what I'm really looking for, anyway, is a word to use when I want to say there is something
Which is all my long-winded, round-about way of saying that I think the author of the "Imagineers of Soul" is wrong. Those of us who don't already have the language to talk to our children about what we believe aren't afraid or embarrassed. No one has ever explained to us how we are supposed to explain what we believe. Without words with generations of weight and meaning, connotation and denotation, behind them, we are in a delicate position, because we have to talk around the concept we want but can never quite get there.
The author is right about "spirituality" (I don't know. What shall I call it? Intangible nurturance?) being personal. But that's true no matter whose spirituality we're talking about, really. Christians all basically agree that the Bible is the Word of G∞d, but they don't agree on who Jesus was, whether or not the Bible is the inerrant Word of G∞d, whether or not the Pope speaks using G∞d's voice...the list of disagreements goes on. I'm sure that similar schisms exist in Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism, but I don't know enough about those religions to speak in the same way to their points of contention. Even within the same church, these disagreements will exist. How much more, then, are such schisms likely to exist within a denomination that prides itself on its inclusiveness? And how are we supposed to speak to a confused child about what "we" believe? "We" don't believe the same things at all!
This might be a good time to consider using a method recommended by someone I know off-line: answer a question with a question. Although, when asked "what do you believe?" by a child, I suppose turning it back around on them with "What should I believe?" probably won't be very effective. Though I think the answers might be educational!
I had more to say about the article, specifically about "wintry spirituality," but I think this is quite long enough for now.
Thursday, February 26
Stories and memory
God made man because he loves stories. (In this form, by Elie Wiesel but possibly older.)
I don't believe in God, and the inherent sexism in the above quote bothers me but as it is a quotation written before concerns were raised about "man" as being a gender neutral method of talking about humans, I'll give Dr. Wiesel a pass. This time. Maybe. For now, anyway. I want to turn the sentence on its head, though:
Humans created God because they love stories.
Because I think this is much truer to the human experience. We love our stories; we tell them to ourselves and to others, we read them (when we can). Memory is the story we tell ourselves about our lives; how we frame our narrative - no matter how unconscious the framing - determines how we believe our story has gone and will continue to go. The stories we tell are who we become.
The truest memory is one we have not told ourselves over and over, because each time we re-tell a memory we re-work the neural pathways that hold that memory, and each re-working leads to a change. Nothing we remember is real, but everything we remember makes us who we are.
Only how can I say that? How can I say nothing we remember is "real?" What is real, anyway? If real is what we experience, what we know to be true, then memory is real, isn't it? Otherwise, we're all walking around inside a fake reality.
Oh, there's that paradox again.
Again, I say, memory is the story we tell ourselves. The dendrites in our brain that contain these memories are re-written when they are accessed. So yes, our memories are real in that they are not to be taken lightly and can be treated as fact, but they are not real as a completely 100% accurate replica of what we experienced. The human brain is not a computer, but a computer doesn't tell itself a story, either. Not the way we humans do.
We need our stories, not only for self-understanding but also for other-understanding (though, of course, the story someone else is telling themselves about the interaction we are having is undoubtedly different than the story I am telling myself about that exact same interaction). We need our stories to tell us what has happened. If memory is inexact at best, how can history be any better? History, after all, is the story of what was. And all we really have of what was are the stories that were told (yes, we have relics and artifacts and ruins that tell us that this object or city stood in this particular latitude and longitude, of course) and the necessarily flawed memories of those who lived through history. And all of this within the sign-signifier limitations of the language that constrains how we are able to communicate about our experiences, as well.
It is undoubtedly true, to use Santyana's words, that "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." Not literally, of course, because we do not have an exact history, but the lessons we can take away from the themes and plots of the stories we are told, the stories we tell about ourselves.
And our divinities.
I don't believe in God, and the inherent sexism in the above quote bothers me but as it is a quotation written before concerns were raised about "man" as being a gender neutral method of talking about humans, I'll give Dr. Wiesel a pass. This time. Maybe. For now, anyway. I want to turn the sentence on its head, though:
Humans created God because they love stories.
Because I think this is much truer to the human experience. We love our stories; we tell them to ourselves and to others, we read them (when we can). Memory is the story we tell ourselves about our lives; how we frame our narrative - no matter how unconscious the framing - determines how we believe our story has gone and will continue to go. The stories we tell are who we become.
The truest memory is one we have not told ourselves over and over, because each time we re-tell a memory we re-work the neural pathways that hold that memory, and each re-working leads to a change. Nothing we remember is real, but everything we remember makes us who we are.
Only how can I say that? How can I say nothing we remember is "real?" What is real, anyway? If real is what we experience, what we know to be true, then memory is real, isn't it? Otherwise, we're all walking around inside a fake reality.
Oh, there's that paradox again.
Again, I say, memory is the story we tell ourselves. The dendrites in our brain that contain these memories are re-written when they are accessed. So yes, our memories are real in that they are not to be taken lightly and can be treated as fact, but they are not real as a completely 100% accurate replica of what we experienced. The human brain is not a computer, but a computer doesn't tell itself a story, either. Not the way we humans do.
We need our stories, not only for self-understanding but also for other-understanding (though, of course, the story someone else is telling themselves about the interaction we are having is undoubtedly different than the story I am telling myself about that exact same interaction). We need our stories to tell us what has happened. If memory is inexact at best, how can history be any better? History, after all, is the story of what was. And all we really have of what was are the stories that were told (yes, we have relics and artifacts and ruins that tell us that this object or city stood in this particular latitude and longitude, of course) and the necessarily flawed memories of those who lived through history. And all of this within the sign-signifier limitations of the language that constrains how we are able to communicate about our experiences, as well.
It is undoubtedly true, to use Santyana's words, that "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." Not literally, of course, because we do not have an exact history, but the lessons we can take away from the themes and plots of the stories we are told, the stories we tell about ourselves.
And our divinities.
Wednesday, February 25
Not really a post about prayer, but a comment on how my day is going.
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I cannot accept,
And the wisdom to hide the bodies of those people
I had to kill today because they pissed me off.
Also, help me to be careful of the toes I step on today,
as they may be connected to the ass that I may have to kiss tomorrow.
I may come back and discuss the "Serenity Prayer" at a later date.
The courage to change the things I cannot accept,
And the wisdom to hide the bodies of those people
I had to kill today because they pissed me off.
Also, help me to be careful of the toes I step on today,
as they may be connected to the ass that I may have to kiss tomorrow.
I may come back and discuss the "Serenity Prayer" at a later date.
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