Complete and total reliance on a "someone" you can't see is either the most ingenious decision possible or the most insane. The "invisible man." Hmmm. " I seriously contemplate this recognizing that everyday I go into a room (a chapel) with a beautifully painted wooden box and I fervently pour out my heart to the person within that box. Now is that extreme? Or what? My certainty of the rationality of my action is more certain than saying to you, "I am not a figment of someone's imagination." Those matters that deal with the ultimate question, you know, "what is the purpose, end, goal, objective of putting up with the vicissitudes thrown in our way as we seek happiness, are tricky. On one extreme is the approach I take. On the other, is the approach taken by the "atheists". I actually agree with many of them when they conclude that the God many believe in does not exist. But my problem is not so much with atheists or even agnostics but rather with the middle path-ers."
I have concluded that those who try to be moderate in their perspectives and actions relative to that ultimate question simply end abiding by certain behavioral tenants. If you, for instance, go to church on Sunday, sit in a lotus position, say ooooohmmmm a thousand times, eat kelp and drink green tea, you will achieve some level of "understanding", "peace", happiness, but God forgive us, never be "holy". After all, there is no way anyone in this world can be truly so dis-attached from the world as to be able to be called "holy." So people do stuff. We do stuff that appears religious or we do stuff that might make some one out there that we cannot see make a call or judgment, "He's a good guy, look, he took a buck out of his pocket and gave it to the homeless guy on the street. These are the things that perhaps give us the ability to mark our daily check off list. "Yup, check that one off, gave to the poor."
In the English language, the concept or word "religion" is so ill defined. Dastardly "religion" is known by the "rational man" to be the cause of world wars, tortures, the inquisition, the brain washing of mankind. It is accused of being the cause of division throughout the history. It is targeted as the cause of class warfare, the development of caste systems in India, and the "black death". And anymore, at least in America, if you talk to just anyone, you'll get, "I'm not religious but I am spiritual." It makes me want to roll my eyes and say to them, "Um...spiritual...as in Ouija Board spiritual? Perhaps, Oda Mae Brown from the movie "Ghost" kind of spiritual? So if you say you are spiritual but not religious, what's the context wherein your behavioral choices albeit "spiritual and not religious" mean something relevant to the great question in the sky: Is there an afterward? Is this all there is? Pascal wagered otherwise and even that makes more sense than a wager against a proposition that there is a "something" (call it a reality) beyond the bookends of birth and death.
So we introduce a word in English that also is mushy and difficult to touch: the word "faith." I prefer Latin when it comes to concrete meanings. The mushy English word "faith" comes from the solid Latin words "confideo" or "credo": to have confidence in, trust in, believe in. And the word's use in English is also a bit difficult to "get." It seems a little "lame" telling others in the midst of their troubles to "have faith." Saying that to someone gives rise to the question: "Ok, then what?" So what does "having faith" mean? Does it produce a change in the circumstances we may see ourselves trapped within? Does faith cause me to be more happy? Is it a kind of "laughing gas" designed to change my emotional state? Is there any emotional relief if I have faith? And exactly what is the action of "having faith?" Simply saying you believe in some proposition that there is a Nirvana somewhere out there is clearly not enough.
Relative to our conclusions about that ultimate question, there must be some kind of "acting out" of that acknowledgement in a manner that is so radical that it would make no sense using the parameters of this world of space and time, the paradigm of success, prosperity, growth, longevity, happiness ever after, etc, etc.. And there is almost a "willing suspension of disbelief" so as to no longer be afraid of the context of our definable world allowing our inner eyes feel the hugging grasp of an undefinable world that we could never grasp by our own "volition." For this reason, theologians have always called this "faith experience" a gift, a revealed gift not dependent upon our own "grasping" at a world of fairy tales that give cause to very temporary smiles that disappear when we wake up next day with the same pain we had yesterday. Faith is an acting out of an inner rationally arrived upon proposition (one that makes a lot of sense) in the context of space and time, and beyond the boundaries of what we can understand whether we use Boolean systems of connecting symbols in numerical form, letters, pictures, fractals, or even cave drawings. In other words, we will never be able to relate a statement of fact; or as Wittgenstein phrased it, "what is the case," in a world where there are no cases, and "isness" is all there is. Faith is not a blind thrust of oneself into a darkness, although it may appear that way. The darkness may be there to the senses, but the act of walking into it is not "blind." It is let's just say for argument's sake: radically reasonable.
Faith is a radical departure from the context of our symbols and those things that make "sense" (in the common form of the usage of the term...as being understandable) or in some respects from the empirical standpoint "have factual and therefor, understandable meaning." If I say that something has "meaning to me," that means I "understand" a portion of some revelation to me by a source (i.e. a book, a video, an experience, and even an indescribable phenomena of which our symbols are so weak and inadequate to replicate in a way that educates to the fullest extent). The source is the fullness that by its having been ushered into my world or my experiential sense of it through a library, book store, a burning bush that does not burn, or an interaction with another person, place or thing, a mere "fractal" of the reality contains enough of an essence of the entirety that we can say, "eureka", "epiphania", "I get it".... but, even so, can I then explain it? Most times, we don't get it and that is what is ok.
Nevertheless we try. We try so that others can share the unusual sense of positive expectation that such phenomena bring to a life "compressed" between birth and death. In today's experience, that compression has speeded up the distance between our birth day and our death day. What we do in between is mere "stuff," as humanity has always done mere stuff. Only today, we often times don't really get a chance to do mere stuff over again because of the speed and increasing velocity and ferocity of our "doing mere stuff." You close your eyes one night as a child in a bed with daddy in the room, and when you wake up, daddy has been dead for thirty years, mom has died, your child is married and moved away, and you have high blood pressure. But what if we can sanctify (set apart) the stuff we do so it is no longer "mere"? What if we include our radical belief in a God who is involved in the stuff we do? I can tell you if a person radically believed that God was present in the "doing of stuff," you'd see less lies, murder, sexual excess, egotism, pride, gluttony, propensities to assuage our passing fancies with temporary fixes; and certainly, you'd see less addictions. Imagine if we could lessen those things, we'd maybe be "happier?" (using the colloquial usage of a misused word, but that's another blog.).
So all this religion thing, faith thing, must result in an "action thing" otherwise, the "stuff things" mean nothing except passing fancies and when one day the eyes close for the last time, and our minds wake up to the ultimate reality, in a boundless dimension of thought, light, and being, we are asked to account for the precursors of thought, light, and being we experienced on this side of eternity. We will have to open our hands to see what return on God's investment we have brought back. I know, I know, it is a tenant of the Christian faith that Jesus paid the price of a ticket to heaven. Sorry to say, even He said we will have to account for the "stuff we do"; we will have to account for our lack of faith in what to the unenlightened eye seems radical but is wholly reasonable. No. It's not an "if you do "x" you will get "y" approach to living. It is, however, a recognition of a radical reality, not of a thought, concept, a simple idea, or an untethered action of "doing stuff", but, rather, a radical reality of a Person who breathes in resurrected, transformed, transfigured, food-form and is constantly and eternally in loving action even unto having experienced physical death. There is no burial plot with Jesus in it anywhere. You can see Buddha's grave somewhere, and Mohammed's, and there is plenty of evidence of Julius Caesar's existence, but the man in the box "IS" (present tense verb of the infinitive "being") --- as opposed to simply "was." That is the power of the physical presence brought forward by Catholicism. The man in the box to whom I pray daily is not a pipe dream or a figment. He is. Finally, He radically believes in my persistence at trying when I fail, and counting Him into every single calculation of mine, relationship of mine, disappointment of mine, and victory of mine. Complete and total reliance on a "someone" my eyes can't see in a form that others recognize is indeed the most ingenious and even "divine" solution to this trek of ours from birth through death. If you radically believe otherwise, explain what makes you tick cause I know who makes me tick more precisely than a Timex -- not always perfect, but "takes a licking and keeps on ticking."
I have concluded that those who try to be moderate in their perspectives and actions relative to that ultimate question simply end abiding by certain behavioral tenants. If you, for instance, go to church on Sunday, sit in a lotus position, say ooooohmmmm a thousand times, eat kelp and drink green tea, you will achieve some level of "understanding", "peace", happiness, but God forgive us, never be "holy". After all, there is no way anyone in this world can be truly so dis-attached from the world as to be able to be called "holy." So people do stuff. We do stuff that appears religious or we do stuff that might make some one out there that we cannot see make a call or judgment, "He's a good guy, look, he took a buck out of his pocket and gave it to the homeless guy on the street. These are the things that perhaps give us the ability to mark our daily check off list. "Yup, check that one off, gave to the poor."
In the English language, the concept or word "religion" is so ill defined. Dastardly "religion" is known by the "rational man" to be the cause of world wars, tortures, the inquisition, the brain washing of mankind. It is accused of being the cause of division throughout the history. It is targeted as the cause of class warfare, the development of caste systems in India, and the "black death". And anymore, at least in America, if you talk to just anyone, you'll get, "I'm not religious but I am spiritual." It makes me want to roll my eyes and say to them, "Um...spiritual...as in Ouija Board spiritual? Perhaps, Oda Mae Brown from the movie "Ghost" kind of spiritual? So if you say you are spiritual but not religious, what's the context wherein your behavioral choices albeit "spiritual and not religious" mean something relevant to the great question in the sky: Is there an afterward? Is this all there is? Pascal wagered otherwise and even that makes more sense than a wager against a proposition that there is a "something" (call it a reality) beyond the bookends of birth and death.
So we introduce a word in English that also is mushy and difficult to touch: the word "faith." I prefer Latin when it comes to concrete meanings. The mushy English word "faith" comes from the solid Latin words "confideo" or "credo": to have confidence in, trust in, believe in. And the word's use in English is also a bit difficult to "get." It seems a little "lame" telling others in the midst of their troubles to "have faith." Saying that to someone gives rise to the question: "Ok, then what?" So what does "having faith" mean? Does it produce a change in the circumstances we may see ourselves trapped within? Does faith cause me to be more happy? Is it a kind of "laughing gas" designed to change my emotional state? Is there any emotional relief if I have faith? And exactly what is the action of "having faith?" Simply saying you believe in some proposition that there is a Nirvana somewhere out there is clearly not enough.
Relative to our conclusions about that ultimate question, there must be some kind of "acting out" of that acknowledgement in a manner that is so radical that it would make no sense using the parameters of this world of space and time, the paradigm of success, prosperity, growth, longevity, happiness ever after, etc, etc.. And there is almost a "willing suspension of disbelief" so as to no longer be afraid of the context of our definable world allowing our inner eyes feel the hugging grasp of an undefinable world that we could never grasp by our own "volition." For this reason, theologians have always called this "faith experience" a gift, a revealed gift not dependent upon our own "grasping" at a world of fairy tales that give cause to very temporary smiles that disappear when we wake up next day with the same pain we had yesterday. Faith is an acting out of an inner rationally arrived upon proposition (one that makes a lot of sense) in the context of space and time, and beyond the boundaries of what we can understand whether we use Boolean systems of connecting symbols in numerical form, letters, pictures, fractals, or even cave drawings. In other words, we will never be able to relate a statement of fact; or as Wittgenstein phrased it, "what is the case," in a world where there are no cases, and "isness" is all there is. Faith is not a blind thrust of oneself into a darkness, although it may appear that way. The darkness may be there to the senses, but the act of walking into it is not "blind." It is let's just say for argument's sake: radically reasonable.
Faith is a radical departure from the context of our symbols and those things that make "sense" (in the common form of the usage of the term...as being understandable) or in some respects from the empirical standpoint "have factual and therefor, understandable meaning." If I say that something has "meaning to me," that means I "understand" a portion of some revelation to me by a source (i.e. a book, a video, an experience, and even an indescribable phenomena of which our symbols are so weak and inadequate to replicate in a way that educates to the fullest extent). The source is the fullness that by its having been ushered into my world or my experiential sense of it through a library, book store, a burning bush that does not burn, or an interaction with another person, place or thing, a mere "fractal" of the reality contains enough of an essence of the entirety that we can say, "eureka", "epiphania", "I get it".... but, even so, can I then explain it? Most times, we don't get it and that is what is ok.
Nevertheless we try. We try so that others can share the unusual sense of positive expectation that such phenomena bring to a life "compressed" between birth and death. In today's experience, that compression has speeded up the distance between our birth day and our death day. What we do in between is mere "stuff," as humanity has always done mere stuff. Only today, we often times don't really get a chance to do mere stuff over again because of the speed and increasing velocity and ferocity of our "doing mere stuff." You close your eyes one night as a child in a bed with daddy in the room, and when you wake up, daddy has been dead for thirty years, mom has died, your child is married and moved away, and you have high blood pressure. But what if we can sanctify (set apart) the stuff we do so it is no longer "mere"? What if we include our radical belief in a God who is involved in the stuff we do? I can tell you if a person radically believed that God was present in the "doing of stuff," you'd see less lies, murder, sexual excess, egotism, pride, gluttony, propensities to assuage our passing fancies with temporary fixes; and certainly, you'd see less addictions. Imagine if we could lessen those things, we'd maybe be "happier?" (using the colloquial usage of a misused word, but that's another blog.).
So all this religion thing, faith thing, must result in an "action thing" otherwise, the "stuff things" mean nothing except passing fancies and when one day the eyes close for the last time, and our minds wake up to the ultimate reality, in a boundless dimension of thought, light, and being, we are asked to account for the precursors of thought, light, and being we experienced on this side of eternity. We will have to open our hands to see what return on God's investment we have brought back. I know, I know, it is a tenant of the Christian faith that Jesus paid the price of a ticket to heaven. Sorry to say, even He said we will have to account for the "stuff we do"; we will have to account for our lack of faith in what to the unenlightened eye seems radical but is wholly reasonable. No. It's not an "if you do "x" you will get "y" approach to living. It is, however, a recognition of a radical reality, not of a thought, concept, a simple idea, or an untethered action of "doing stuff", but, rather, a radical reality of a Person who breathes in resurrected, transformed, transfigured, food-form and is constantly and eternally in loving action even unto having experienced physical death. There is no burial plot with Jesus in it anywhere. You can see Buddha's grave somewhere, and Mohammed's, and there is plenty of evidence of Julius Caesar's existence, but the man in the box "IS" (present tense verb of the infinitive "being") --- as opposed to simply "was." That is the power of the physical presence brought forward by Catholicism. The man in the box to whom I pray daily is not a pipe dream or a figment. He is. Finally, He radically believes in my persistence at trying when I fail, and counting Him into every single calculation of mine, relationship of mine, disappointment of mine, and victory of mine. Complete and total reliance on a "someone" my eyes can't see in a form that others recognize is indeed the most ingenious and even "divine" solution to this trek of ours from birth through death. If you radically believe otherwise, explain what makes you tick cause I know who makes me tick more precisely than a Timex -- not always perfect, but "takes a licking and keeps on ticking."
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