God (Again)
Jun. 23rd, 2005 09:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloMost people make religions last a lifetime. I wear them out in a decade. I was a Christian for ten years, then I was a Witch for ten years. Right now I'm nothing in particular.
I think (but I'm not predicting what will happen tomorrow) that I've worn out religion altogether. And I mean every religion, all possible religions. I no longer see the point of getting together with other people to commune with A Mutual Friend who isn't actually there. I'm not saying there isn't a value in this for others, or that I didn't derive benefit from it in the past, but right now, at this particular point in my earthly pilgrimage- no.
For much of my life I was crazy for it. I left Christianity because I was desperate for something sharper and bubblier. But when I eased myself out of Wicca it was because the whole enterprise had gone flat. If I'm still interested in religion (and I am or I wouldn't be writing this) it's as an outsider- almost as an anthropologist.
But I still believe in God. Though "believe" isn't really the right word. It implies that God is there and we're here and there's a gulf between us across which messages may or may not be sent. That's not how I see it. Ask me how I do see it and I find myself lapsing into the kind of mystical twittering that has come to seem stale to me. So I'm not going to try. Any God I can verbalise, even if it's in the woolliest terms- "ineffable, inexpressible, unknowable"- becomes a presumption that stands in the way of the true God taking me by surprise.
I know what She isn't and that's enough.
I think (but I'm not predicting what will happen tomorrow) that I've worn out religion altogether. And I mean every religion, all possible religions. I no longer see the point of getting together with other people to commune with A Mutual Friend who isn't actually there. I'm not saying there isn't a value in this for others, or that I didn't derive benefit from it in the past, but right now, at this particular point in my earthly pilgrimage- no.
For much of my life I was crazy for it. I left Christianity because I was desperate for something sharper and bubblier. But when I eased myself out of Wicca it was because the whole enterprise had gone flat. If I'm still interested in religion (and I am or I wouldn't be writing this) it's as an outsider- almost as an anthropologist.
But I still believe in God. Though "believe" isn't really the right word. It implies that God is there and we're here and there's a gulf between us across which messages may or may not be sent. That's not how I see it. Ask me how I do see it and I find myself lapsing into the kind of mystical twittering that has come to seem stale to me. So I'm not going to try. Any God I can verbalise, even if it's in the woolliest terms- "ineffable, inexpressible, unknowable"- becomes a presumption that stands in the way of the true God taking me by surprise.
I know what She isn't and that's enough.
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no subject
Date: 2005-06-23 11:33 am (UTC)He admitted to being a Democrat, and he adroitly avoided the Gay issue. He said, "I don't want people to focus there. I want to talk about Christ."
The interviewer somewhat tackily asked him how it felt to be in the "Twillight of life" (he is 86 and unwell). He smiled and said he was in the "final period of life."
"Are you afraid to die?" she asked him.
"No," he said. "I'm looking forward to it."
Wow.
Looking forward to dying.
We had a local priest who found out he had cancer. He told a reporter that he "couldn't wait to die!" He said he found it very "exciting."
I don't know anything anymore. I know that anything we think up is shorthand--irritatingly so.
I feel Something that cares, and then I wonder if that is a trick of my mind, but I want to believe it so much, and I do--I can't help myself. And I find myself loving that Something, although it's hidden from me.
Just ten years ago, I thought of God as: Male, in the air, looking down, frowning.
Now I have let go of all those concepts. I think I am a pantheist, but I'm not sure. And then I think: so what? It's all conjecture. No one knows. We guess.
We write poetry, and perhaps that is as close as we come to knowing.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-23 12:23 pm (UTC)I've never understood the undue fear some confessed Christians have towards dying. If your faith is truly there, you might not be rushing out to suicide but death should NOT be something you avoid discussing or contemplating. For Graham and that priest to say what they did is testament to the power of their conviction, IMO.
Conceptions of God
For myself, I tend to like the idea of panentheism, although I couldn't really explain the nuts and bolts of it. The Orthodox Christians have the notion of "essence" and "energy" of God. They feel God is transcendent in his "essence" but his "energy" infuses all creation. I like that notion. The material world separate from God, and yet somehow still completely permeated and supported by him.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-23 12:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-23 01:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-23 12:31 pm (UTC)When he came to England in the 60s a group of boys from my school went to one of his rallys with the intention of having a good laugh at his expense. He didn't convert them, but they came back oddly muted.
I don't like his style or his theology, but I'm willing to concede that he may be a good- and even a godly- man.
I don't want to die just yet, but I think I understand how your priest felt. It's the Peter Pan thing- death as "an awfully big adventure."
I really want to find out what lies on the other side of that door.
And I'm convinced there's something.......
no subject
Date: 2005-06-23 12:35 pm (UTC)I fervently hope so.