Divinity
It is a breezy evening. I sit in my car with the window rolled down, waiting for a friend to leave on an excursion to Hamilton. I'm reading I Touch the Earth, the Earth Touches Me, by Hugh Prather. He talks about "a spiritual way of seeing." Spirituality has been a sensitive topic lately. I doubt there's a spirit, or that it's distinct from the mind, but undoubtedly the mind itself is beyond understanding. Prather says:Sometimes I doubt and sometimes I believe. And I like not making myself believe when I'm doubting, and not making myself doubt when I am believing. Surely neither God nor Accident require my consistency.
Years ago I concluded the God of a literal reading of the Bible was an egomaniac. If a real divinity exists, it offers no simple revelation, in fact its truth would most likely be incomprehensible to us. Even love itself, that thing we lift so high, is only a thing we need, to do what we humans do, and is a minute part of the big picture. Annie Dillard says:You see the creatures die and you know you will die. And one day it occurs to you that you must not need life. Obviously. And then you're gone. You have finally understood that you're dealing with a maniac.
God must not need our faith. Accepting that, I set myself free to embrace doubt, and discovered philosophical naturalism made sense to me.
Glancing up from Prather, I watch wind lick the row of grass poking between edges of parking lots. Momentarily I glimpse the breath of god, and long to revisit the bare face of intimacy and power. But this desire still seems a blind, irrational grasp for security in the dark.
In Hamilton I attend the opening of a group art show, Reading Hamilton, in which a set of bitterlawngnome's photographs appears. It's at the you/me gallery, presenting a novel interpretation of the voice of a city, and I recommend viewing it between now and July 9.
Bill mentions his recent experiment in writing upon, and then photographing, the human body. In a future project he would like to use the beginning of the Gospel of John, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." In Latin, he says, the word verbum connotes movement and action. The entire passage expresses a profound mystical experience of divinity. As a writer I enjoy the image of god as word, and word as action. Writing is one of my most purely personal acts.
Fundamentalist faith promises "a personal relationship with Jesus Christ," and yet it can only be personal insofar as it measures faithfully against a literal interpretation of 2,000-year-old texts. You might think God is telling you it's okay to be gay but, honestly folks, the Bible calls it a degrading passion. People will reinterpret it up and down, but frankly there's little scope for imagination. This god is more reliable than any living creature I've ever known, the easy answer to human insecurity.
Any religious text is useful only if inconsistency, recreation and skepticism are allowed, and the boundaries of faith are cast down. If the word is not active, it is dead.
Sitting in my car, I do not see the breath of god bending blades to silver. I see a force driven by the great dynamo of this planet, turning sun's nuclear energy to restless, unpredictable creation. I hear resonance of the planets in their ancient dance, the whispered messages of stars across time. Looking inward I glimpse the deep pool of mysticism, with the face of nature reflected on its surface. In my friend's company, I feel the endless theme of love replayed with new nuances and harmonies. These things are as close to the divine as I will ever know.
Years ago I concluded the God of a literal reading of the Bible was an egomaniac. If a real divinity exists, it offers no simple revelation, in fact its truth would most likely be incomprehensible to us. Even love itself, that thing we lift so high, is only a thing we need, to do what we humans do, and is a minute part of the big picture. Annie Dillard says:You see the creatures die and you know you will die. And one day it occurs to you that you must not need life. Obviously. And then you're gone. You have finally understood that you're dealing with a maniac.
God must not need our faith. Accepting that, I set myself free to embrace doubt, and discovered philosophical naturalism made sense to me.
Glancing up from Prather, I watch wind lick the row of grass poking between edges of parking lots. Momentarily I glimpse the breath of god, and long to revisit the bare face of intimacy and power. But this desire still seems a blind, irrational grasp for security in the dark.
In Hamilton I attend the opening of a group art show, Reading Hamilton, in which a set of bitterlawngnome's photographs appears. It's at the you/me gallery, presenting a novel interpretation of the voice of a city, and I recommend viewing it between now and July 9.
Bill mentions his recent experiment in writing upon, and then photographing, the human body. In a future project he would like to use the beginning of the Gospel of John, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." In Latin, he says, the word verbum connotes movement and action. The entire passage expresses a profound mystical experience of divinity. As a writer I enjoy the image of god as word, and word as action. Writing is one of my most purely personal acts.
Fundamentalist faith promises "a personal relationship with Jesus Christ," and yet it can only be personal insofar as it measures faithfully against a literal interpretation of 2,000-year-old texts. You might think God is telling you it's okay to be gay but, honestly folks, the Bible calls it a degrading passion. People will reinterpret it up and down, but frankly there's little scope for imagination. This god is more reliable than any living creature I've ever known, the easy answer to human insecurity.
Any religious text is useful only if inconsistency, recreation and skepticism are allowed, and the boundaries of faith are cast down. If the word is not active, it is dead.
Sitting in my car, I do not see the breath of god bending blades to silver. I see a force driven by the great dynamo of this planet, turning sun's nuclear energy to restless, unpredictable creation. I hear resonance of the planets in their ancient dance, the whispered messages of stars across time. Looking inward I glimpse the deep pool of mysticism, with the face of nature reflected on its surface. In my friend's company, I feel the endless theme of love replayed with new nuances and harmonies. These things are as close to the divine as I will ever know.