Church and religion are human artifacts, and fraught with the frailties and failings of human beings. Faith is a something different, and talking about it, or writing about it, invariably butts up against religion and all the human baggage that accompanies it.
I don't begrudge anyone their particular faith practice, but I don't wish to embrace any particular one either. I think they're all wrestling with the same thing, we just get too caught up in our perceptions and prejudices.
Anyway, in my subjective experience, which may be borne out of confirmation bias and other cognitive weakness, I find some comfort in the occasional indication from the divine that I may be on the right track.
The first tip was, oddly enough, from NPR on Saturday morning. I listen to NPR while I'm making breakfast every day, and on Saturdays, Travel With Rick Steves is the show that's on during that time. I usually don't hear the whole thing, but I tuned in just in time to hear a guest, Michael Scott Moore, who has a paperback edition of his book out, The Desert and the Sea, talk about his experience as a Somali captive.
During the interview, Moore talks about essentially abandoning hope, and how that was essential for him. We often talk about "having" hope, and that being "hopeless" is akin to despair. But hope is desire, and desire is a source of suffering. Hope is not faith. I try to have faith, and not to hope.
Anyway, I thought it was cool to hear that, because I agree, even though I still hope. Here's a link to the show. I don't know how long it'll point to this show (It's Program 754, for future reference). It doesn't seem to have a "permalink" anywhere that I can find. Listen to the Program Extra at the bottom too.
The second little nudge came in this morning's email from Nick Cave. You can read the whole thing here, but this is the quote,
This realisation shook me to the core, that the meaning of life - its joy, boundless beauty and love - emerges out of our most devastating losses.
The harmony of binding opposites.
And not long after that, I was going through my feed in NetNewsWire and read Heather Cox Richardson's post about Biden's commencement address at Morehouse College:
Then Biden turned to a speech that centered on faith. Churches talk a lot about Jesus being buried on Friday and rising from the dead on Sunday, he said, “but we don’t talk enough about Saturday, when… his disciples felt all hope was lost. In our lives and the lives of the nation, we have those Saturdays—to bear witness the day before glory, seeing people’s pain and not looking away. But what work is done on Saturday to move pain to purpose? How can faith get a man, get a nation through what was to come?”
"Move pain to purpose." I love alliteration.
Love is faith in action, moving pain to purpose.
It's probably been almost 20 years now, when I had what I suppose I have to call a "spiritual experience."
It was during all the drama of the end of my marriage and the end of my career, during therapy and a lot of meditation. Sandy used to say, "David, just be still."
After one morning's meditation, for no particular reason that I recall, I stepped outside my cheap, shabby apartment and it seemed as though everything within my perception shifted, rotated, it changed somehow. And after that apparent movement, everything within my perception appeared illuminated from within, in a kind of golden hue. Everything glowed. And the feeling that came over me was one of complete peace, and the knowledge, the utter certainty that everything was exactly the way it was supposed to be.
And this perception and feeling wasn't just a flash, it persisted for what I think I recall has hours. At least a couple, because I recall walking around feeling lighter than air.
Anyway, this idea that "everything is exactly the way it is supposed to be," has stayed with me, even if it doesn't feel that way most of the time now. Having had that experience, it's hard to ignore or deny it. It doesn't prevent suffering, it doesn't relieve it, but it does help to remove some of the anger. Some of it.
And I suppose if I spent more time these days being still, it'd probably remove more of it.
Originally posted at Nice Marmot 10:21 Monday, 20 May 2024