So, too, we

1) http://thevelvetrocket.com/2010/11/14/the-living-bridges-of-meghalaya/

I felt suddenly the weight of the downtown
Tall office buildings on my shoulders
Renew us Spirit and the whole world
I begged, my fingers holding on to the prayer rope
As if it could float

The wind blew cold
                                          blew me
Across the street away from the legless, homeless man
Who sits on the corner of the bank plaza
                                                                        begging
Not today, I prayed, not today again

A leaf scratched along the street
Like a broken heart, given up dreams
Startling me from my prayers

This winter, which never really started
And which will never end
Begging the question, undecided, passionless
This winter stands for nothing

Almighty set up your kingdom upon the world

Here’s a good question: "[I]s religion just an old-fashioned social network in a world full of new social opportunities? "

This is more important to me than I can fully express. I know that a large number of people go to church because that’s their "second family", or perhaps even their first. It is a place where you can mingle with like-minded individuals.

It irks me, but it is a fact. Most of these good church-going folk are there to mingle not to worship – at least no in the strict sense of the word. In the end there is a clear disconnect between the practices on a Sunday and the purposes of the attendees.

I have been reading around issues of Process theology. At this early (v. early) stage I have a lot of sympathy with it. There is much in classical theology which does not speak to me. Some of it tends to be a lot of effort in re-explaining the beliefs of ancestors in the faith with modern language – rather akin to a new translation of the Bible. While intellectually this is both satisfying and a worthy exercise, existentially it is not that profitable. It does clarify the sandbox which we have defined as "orthodox" but I am not sure it helps me answer the question as to why play in this sandbox when there is a whole beach out there? Process theology seems to want to take a hard look at that beach, which is nice.

I feel more comfortable with the Whiteheadian idea that God’s "power" is not one of "control" (traditional omnipotence) but as "influence", as aptness to both influence and be influenced by one’s relationships. In my view god seduces rather than commands. it is hard to understand "commanded love", but much more probably that there is seduction.

The Process guys (and I am muddy in all of this) say that God is doubly related to all things: he is the object of every subject, and the subject of every object (that does sound mystical!). God is fully felt by all things and fully feels all creation…or, to use traditional language, God is fully transcendent and fully immanent.

But I get easily bored with semantics. I am a Wisdom kind of guy. What is the use of all of this? Well, it gives a new perspective to life, doesn’t it? The future is unknown by both myself and God. Granted, just as I can with a certain degree predict the future, especially my future, God can also do the same with a LOT more knowledge! But, fundamentally, God does not know all and is in this journey WITH me. And that’s the second point: the relationship between myself and God could not possibly be closer, and God walks step-by-step with me through all trials and tribulations, joys and successes. That is good news!

Apparently one of Whitehead’s chief goals was to practice natural or "general" theology. One of its premises is that the Incarnation tells us nothing about God that cannot be known by examining the structure of human experience. Oof! This is a big bone to chew on. What are the implications of such a statement? One of the consequences (and here’s where it links back to this article) is that Christianity is not based on the supernatural (traditionally called "special revelation").

If this is the case, and it is a BIG "if", then it would mesh well with the author’s hope that "[p]erhaps mythology will give way to elegant metaphysics, creating a sort of Religion 2.0, wherein authority comes from reason and philosophy instead of the supposed revelations of a divine being."

This touches at another very interesting topic. One man’s metaphysics is another’s mythology, I guess. My bone of contention is that of criticism. If I approach a secular text, let’s say a modern philosopher, and critique it based on its lack of universal maxims, or supernatural stories, then it will fail. Does that mean I have to discard it? Conversely, to approach a religious text and critique it from an evidential approach is disingenuous at best.

It is worth clicking on the link in the article and read the other essay on "Can religion survive without all the hocus-pocus?" While the whole essay itself is rather weak and more often than not begs the question (as for e.g. when the author says: "Without Yahweh behind them, the ten commandments would be seen as a fairly pointless, and even silly, list of suggestions." really?), the main focus is with what I call secular Buddhism, or American Buddhism. This desire to take the health benefits accrued from Buddhist practice and do away with the theology.

One of my concerns, as an outsider to Buddhism, is the large amount of Buddhist jerks who are faithful in their meditative practices, but precisely because they can drop the "unnecessary" bits are not exactly living up to the highest standards of their path.

It goes without saying that the same is true of Christianity (and all other beliefs).

The main point of this article is the concept of mystical experience. Personally I am very suspicious of anyone who claims them. Most people I know are the same. Here’s where we critique in a positive way our ancestors in the faith. Mystical experiences are not available to all. In fact I would say they are available to practically none. But, most importantly, they are not needed for a functional and non-hypocritical practice of religion.

If, at its core, all religions requires mystical axioms (and they do) how is that different than any other form of human knowledge? Any deductive system (and religion surely is one) at some point butts heads with Godel and will have at its core a set of propositions that can neither be proved nor disproved from the given set of axioms. The best we can look for is consistency.

The argument, seems to me, about a choice of deductive systems rather than an argument about whose axioms are "better". Different systems propose to answer different questions. Religions seem to want to answer questions of human relationships: between self and existence as a whole, and between self and other.

Philosophical ethics, without theism, goes a long way in answering questions of the quality of relationships between self and other. The hard nut to crack is the question of self-existence.

Conclusion: "We may not necessarily be hardwired for mystical experiences, but we are hardwired to benefit from a robust belief system shared by our peers and a contemplative spiritual practice, even if not necessarily a theistic one. Where we’re headed is unlikely to be completely sacred, but it’s probably not going to be entirely profane, either."

We cannot upon lesser seas fly and be great.
Be void, winged above the palace of this night
Which does not hold a new moon in its midst
Behold
            Whales in the sky swimming like clouds

Man! Be yourself for years of abundant yield
Like waters
                        and light – bearing all appearance
The beginning of grass is mud
This is a profound mystery to my heart
Mud made to appear as grass unto the open skies
Dark earth holds nothing but all life
Grows out into space
All life seeks to leave the Earth and join itself to the void
From void you are made and to the void you yearn to fly

I came across this lovely article with a powerful little idea, which the Japanese call danshari, which is translated as "de-clutter": http://www.missminimalist.com/2011/08/minimalism-around-the-world-danshari/

The money shot for me is a quote inside this little article:

断捨離 Danshari – “de-clutter.”

The three kanji in this compound mean “refuse – throw away – separate.”

Self-help author Hideko Yamashita, drawing on yoga philosophy, promotes a three-step system for de-cluttering one’s life (both physical and mental) in Japan:

1. refuse to bring unnecessary new possessions into your life;
2. throw away existing clutter in your living space; and
3. separate from a desire for material possessions.

I love the asceticism implied in this lifestyle. The trick is how to make it work as a family? How to inspire danshari in your kids? Or your spouse?

There is an obvious connection with the Japanese aesthetic of wabi, or simplicity – the idea that three peaches in a simple black bowl will do for decoration.

She turned on her running suit, adjusted her her shoes, made sure the settings were right and went off on her run.

Try as she might the words kept running through her mind "Who are you creating yourself to be?" She sped up, as if going faster could help her outdistance her own mind. Intellectually she knew that life wasn’t about finding herself. That was the same kind of lie that people who said they "fell" in love believed. No, life, like love (weren’t they the same thing?) was about creativity. It was about bringing something unique and personal into existence, and sustaining it. She knew all this, but after last night it was the unavoidable question.

She suddenly realized her suit had been beeping to warn her she had gone over her training pace and she slowed down. it was pointless anyway, to run away from the obvious questions. but hadn’t she done that all her life? After high school? After college? After her first husband.

And now…what kind of life was she creating? Paradoxically, running was the only thing that brought her back. "Kicking and screaming," she said out loud. Her music player interrupted: "Command not recognized. Please repeat."

She shook her head, "This will be a long run."

QUOTE: "When it comes to what we think about, what we like and what we do Walt Whitman captured our natural hypocrisies and inconsistencies with this famous and keenly insightful remark: ‘Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)’"

What if I approach inner work more in the manner of modules? A nice metaphor is that of apps on your cell phone. Apps are small programs who are designed to do one thing, and do it extremely well. Maybe an app is for connecting you to a certain site, say your bank. Another app is to watch movies. Another app might be a GPS. And so on.

There is a long history in spiritual circles of the illusoriness of the self. pretty much everything the Buddha had to say was about it. Within the Christian tradition there is the John Main strand, popularized by of the false v. real self – although I am getting to the point where I find even that dichotomy illusory, or at least misguided.

to back me up it is worth following the link in the article to the lecture by Julian Baggini who explains that, “the fact that we are a very complex collection of things does not mean we are not real.” The article then outlines Baggini’s metaphor of the waterfall which is an "illusion" though very real.

The question for inner work then becomes what are these collected experiences? What to make of them? What to make of the collection of experiences, and what to make of the Collector? Baggini suggests that the way forward is to understand the history of the collection and the process of collecting.

I find the waterfall imagery and metaphor quite powerful and fruitful going forward.

Great quote: “I gave both lucky and unlucky people a newspaper, and asked them to look through it and tell me how many photographs were inside. On average, the unlucky people took about two minutes to count the photographs, whereas the lucky people took just seconds. Why? Because the second page of the newspaper contained the message: "Stop counting. There are 43 photographs in this newspaper." This message took up half of the page and was written in type that was more than 2in high. It was staring everyone straight in the face, but the unlucky people tended to miss it and the lucky people tended to spot it.”

The whole concept of "luck" is best summed up by the title of this entry – see what is there rather then what you wish/dread is there. But is it really that easy?

Reminds me of the song by the Stones:

No, you can’t always get what you want

You can’t always get what you want

You can’t always get what you want

And if you try sometime you find

You get what you need

The trick is the trying – active engagement in your making your "luck."