(no subject)
This is copied out of my handwritten journal. I think I am translocating my IJ themes to LJ since my IJ is unused for the most part:
"I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; Wait for the Lord." Ps 27: 13-14
This passage struck me today because lately the reality of a higher power has seemed altogether questionable. To rely on something I feel I cannot see or sense is frightening and unreal, and I don't know if I can reconcile, as a "person of faith", exactly what that means. If I cannot put my hands in something and control it myself, ten I cannot reconcile it with my life, and the idea of God lately has undergone scrutiny by this habit of mine of needing to test the whims of my faculties. I want very much to have the whole of my life guaranteed by measurable results, and to rest in a stability that I do not trust to really exist.
I am wondering whether religion is a faculty designed to keep excessive anxiety at bay. Humans are thinking, reasoning animals able to intellectualize the terror and uncertainty of a hostile world, so perhaps our situation is no more depserate than that of ordinary animals, but that we can articulate and reflect on it makes things entirely worse: action seems futile in the face of inevitable death. I ask myself what is so tempting about viewing death as an ultimate ending. To imagine the annihilation of the self and the annihilation of the lives who gave that life meaning is daunting. On the other hand, I want to trust absolutely that this is false because I do not know if I can bear the loneliness of the opposite.
If a creature has the ability to ask why, why me? then I think there should be, and must be an answer.
Reading list for the summer is mostly nonfiction, but I've gotten in The Moon and Sixpence by Maugham who is slowly becoming one of my favorite authors- if only I could make myself get through Of Human Bondage without sinking into a funk.
Joined a local women's choir and am intending to audition for a second, so that will erase my Monday and Tuesday nights. Socialist meetings are Wednesday nights and I haven't yet decided if I want to keep attending, though I keep saying that and keep going, SO. Bow to the power of my resolve and my powers of I Have No Effing Time For This! CHURCH choir is on Thursday nights. That I may have to do half time if I do the other two or else I am looking at being totally fried by mid-October.
"I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; Wait for the Lord." Ps 27: 13-14
This passage struck me today because lately the reality of a higher power has seemed altogether questionable. To rely on something I feel I cannot see or sense is frightening and unreal, and I don't know if I can reconcile, as a "person of faith", exactly what that means. If I cannot put my hands in something and control it myself, ten I cannot reconcile it with my life, and the idea of God lately has undergone scrutiny by this habit of mine of needing to test the whims of my faculties. I want very much to have the whole of my life guaranteed by measurable results, and to rest in a stability that I do not trust to really exist.
I am wondering whether religion is a faculty designed to keep excessive anxiety at bay. Humans are thinking, reasoning animals able to intellectualize the terror and uncertainty of a hostile world, so perhaps our situation is no more depserate than that of ordinary animals, but that we can articulate and reflect on it makes things entirely worse: action seems futile in the face of inevitable death. I ask myself what is so tempting about viewing death as an ultimate ending. To imagine the annihilation of the self and the annihilation of the lives who gave that life meaning is daunting. On the other hand, I want to trust absolutely that this is false because I do not know if I can bear the loneliness of the opposite.
If a creature has the ability to ask why, why me? then I think there should be, and must be an answer.
Reading list for the summer is mostly nonfiction, but I've gotten in The Moon and Sixpence by Maugham who is slowly becoming one of my favorite authors- if only I could make myself get through Of Human Bondage without sinking into a funk.
Joined a local women's choir and am intending to audition for a second, so that will erase my Monday and Tuesday nights. Socialist meetings are Wednesday nights and I haven't yet decided if I want to keep attending, though I keep saying that and keep going, SO. Bow to the power of my resolve and my powers of I Have No Effing Time For This! CHURCH choir is on Thursday nights. That I may have to do half time if I do the other two or else I am looking at being totally fried by mid-October.