Supersition and the Curved Cosmos

Over the last year or two, a cultural shift toward anti-religion has become pretty prominent in popular media. My profession is the printed word, and in the Religion category in various publishing digests, you'll now see prominent discussion of best-selling books condemning religion and touting atheism. Five years ago, it was Christian fiction dominating these categories.

In blog land, it's much the same. Recently I have come across some extremely intelligent, articulate, and skillful blogs that exist almost exclusively to torpedo religious extremist views, or religion in general. A couple of the better ones, in fact, can be seen if you browse my list of recommmended blogs shown in the left column.

Researching this blog trend shows that some blogs like to puncture one religion alone. There are a lot of blogs that seem intent on skewering Islam, as well as lots of them that want to set the world free of Christian extremism. A number of the more compelling ones are written by former evangelicals who have escaped that world. Other blogs are multi-denominational, and will point out the ridiculous and bigoted aspects of any faith. Still other blogs celebrate science as its own religion, and argue that science alone offers the road to truth.

I am fascinated by this trend, as well as awed by the skill of many of these bloggers. And I do think its justifiable to point out the lunacy inherent in much religious dogma—that's why I read these blogs. How can you not roll your eyes in disbelief when you listen to strict Christians ignore the evidence of biological evolution; or when you hear of Muslims trying to force toy stores to stop selling piggy banks because swine are unclean animals?

But I also sometimes fear that we want to throw out the baby with the bathwater during this anti-religion jihad. Is there room, I wonder, for denouncing the silliness of religion while still holding a space in our hearts for what William James called the "Religious Experience."? (See his book, The Varieties of Religious Experience.")

The God depicted in the Christian/Judaic bible, the Quran, is a quaint mythological representation of something inexpressible. And I agree that it's not only silly, but dangerous, to insist that such an entity exists in literal form, and that he has graced you and your friends with his favor.

But I will also insist on my right to believe in the spiritual impulse behind it all, and I'll also express my strong intuition that there is a spiritual and evolutionary goal that causes us to seek an enlightened state of mind.

That's all God really represents, after all: our desire for a peaceful existence.

And I also think that some apologists for "science" are just as deluded as any snake-handling hillbilly Christian in the mountains of Tennessee. Elevating science to a religion is complete folly—a fact that all the true geniuses of science have acknowledged. Scientific theories are always just theories, and the history of reason shows that these paradigms are nothing more than useful fictions, which can be discarded and replaced as circumstances require.

Do you think, for example, that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line? Then you haven't been reading your modern astro-physics, which now suggests that the cosmos is a curved phenomenon.

Any science and any religion is equally silly and dangerous at the point where it begins insisting that it owns the keys to certainty. This is the principle human folly, in fact—to insist on certainty, and I'd argue that it is the impulse behind most everything we think of as evil.

But what other option is there? I've heard people ask. Our job as rational humans is to find the truth, the certainty. That's what we do. Isn't it?

That's what most people do, I'll grant you, which may explain the condition of the human world. It's not the only way, though. The other way to live, the path less taken, is the one described by Irish song-writer Van Morrison, among many others:

Let go, into the mystery.

Citizens of 4F

On the 7:00 pm southbound 4F bus the other night, three young black men, strong and tall, boarded at Hennepin and 5th St. in downtown Minneapolis just as night was falling. At the end of rush hour, the buses are no longer densely packed, and this one had a few empty seats and no one was standing.

A number of white passengers tensed noticeably when the young men boarded. Time was that Minneapolis was just a large small town, but no more. The town has its share of racial tension these days, and for many white citizens, young black men traveling together is reason for nervousness.

White women sitting near the front of the bus drew their knees together and clutched bags closer. Some of the white men frowned, their lips pressed in tight lines. The three young men were clearly Warriors, and this unsettled the middle-class white folks headed for the southern residential neighborhoods and the inner tier suburb to the south.

Much as I wanted not to, I also felt a bit of unease when two of the young men sat close to me on either side of my center-facing seat, and the third sat directly across from me. They literally towered over me.

Like virtually all fear, though, its reason for being evaporated almost immediately upon clear seeing. These young men were indeed Warriors, but it was because their black stocking hats proclaimed it. Their "gang" was the DeLasalle high school basketball team, and it appeared that the three had simply been having a bit of fun downtown after school before going home. They talked quietly among themselves, joking about their coach and basketball practice. Their eyes were dark and beautiful, and each young man had that faint haze on the upper lip, common to all boys who aren't quite old enough to shave.

"Your coach, is he a real hardass, or is it just his coaching act?" I said to the boy sitting next to me. There was a moment of dead silence; they were, I think, surprised to hear me talk to them. Then they laughed warmly and told me some stories about their basketball coach. They seemed genuinely tickled that this middle-aged white guy would eavesdrop on their conversation and talk to them. It doesn't happen all that often, I imagine.

They began to talk about their physics class then, and I respectfully left the conversation, since I had no desire to be obviously stupid in front of 17-year old boys.

The young man across from me was carrying a small shopping bag from the Hallmark store, and I wondered if under the flowering white tissue paper there was a gift for some sweetheart, or perhaps a sister or his mother. A sheet of paper peeked up out of the bag, and I saw that it was a job application. In addition to being an athlete- scholar, the young man was looking for a part-time job.

The three young black men left the bus on 46th St., and I heard several of the passengers sigh and give reflexive laughs of relief.

It's a pity they hadn't really seen these young men.

I went to a funeral service for the tragic death of an acquaintance over the weekend, and was surprised at the nature of the Mennonite service.

I was raised a Lutheran, and have plenty of friends of this and other Protestant denominations as well as Catholic acquaintances. So I have a working knowledge of the principles of most Christian denominations. Frankly, none of them has really spoken to my soul, which is why most of my adult life has been spent studying eastern philosophies and disciplines. I'm not sure you could really pin me to any religious group, though if the issue was pushed I'd fit most neatly into the Buddhist club.

So this was my first ever exposure to Mennonites. This particular congregation belongs to what is commonly called "modern Mennonites," which means that they are main stream ocitizens that don't wear any special clothing, and wh by all appearances live pretty much like the rest of us. Many years ago, the Amish split off from the Mennonites because they wanted a much more conservative, disciplined practice.

In fact, though I was aware that Mike, the deceased, was a highly religious man, there was never a moment where he visibly "witnessed" his faith to the world at large. Mennonites are pretty private people, and would rather die than proselytize as do the Mormons, for example,

The first major surprise was that compared to other Protestant groups, the modern Mennonites have almost no discernible liturgy to their services. No creeds, no ritualized prayers, no communion. I"m told they do not even bother with baptism. The service was filled with music, and with personal stories about the deceased, and this appears to be what almost every worship service consists of. The members of the congregation move around the chapel quite freely during the service, and may roam about talking to one another, or may pop out to the lobby for a drink of water at any time. The kids roam about, and all the adults care for them as though they're parents.

The closest thing to gospel readings were a couple of brief quotes from Jesus, in which he instructed people to care for the poor, the sick, and for children with great compassion.

And this is about the only "rules" by which the modern Mennonites live: to try and emulate this compassion as modeled by Jesus. They don't really care about this "Jesus is the son of God" thing; they just believe it's the greatest good to care for others. They spend a lot of effort and time building schools in third world countries, rebuilding homes in places like hurricane ravaged Louisiana. And they do it pretty much without trying to convert anybody. This was what Mike's life had been about, and while he wasn't perfect, I can't point to many people who tried any harder to lead a good life.

I'm sure that digging a little deeper would reveal some not-so-nice features of the Mennonites. But my quick glimpse of it made we wonder if the Lutherans and the Catholics and the Pentecostals might not get a clearer picture of what Jesus was really thinking by paying attention to this little group.

The Gospel According to Mercurious

My friend Kiyoto, at The Dragon (see list at left) asked me to repeat a list of messages sent to me from a spiritual friend. They are descriptions of what an enlightened existence includes. There are twelve of them. Here they are, with just a bit of amplification for each.

• It Is Not Elsewhere

The Christians and Muslims have it wrong when they say that heaven (enlightenment) is something we'll only enjoy in some kind of afterlife. Much the contrary. The blissful state is at ready reach, here and now, at every moment. There is never any reason to look for it beyond ourselves, for it is not found in a different place, a different time, or even a different frame of mind than the one we find ourselves in right now.

• It is Fond

While I have no argument with the Christian idea that God is Love, it has never felt that way to me. Love, as it's normally defined, is full of possessiveness and ownership and longing, and these things seem antithetical to the true goal. On the other hand, truly peaceful moments are full of quiet fondness for just about everything. This fondness is quiet and lacking in the ferocious passion that characterizes love as we normally know it. Fondness, I think, is characteristic of the enlightened state.


• It is One

False spiritual pursuit is quite often about separating and dividing and catagorizing one group of people as superior to others. There is nothing so clearly faulty than this attitude, and thus a great many religious traditions and practices are clearly false ones. On an individual level, we undermine our spiritual growth by creating separation between our selves and our experiences. The object-observer, subject-object dichotomy must be abandoned if we're going to glimpse the pure state.


• It is Precise

There is nothing gray or wishy-washy about the state of mind we seek. It is precise,and like all precise things, it is very, very simple. Complexity always hides the truth.


• It is Our Nature

Enlightenment, genuine happiness, is the logical outcome of evolution. Our spiritual growth doesn't come through fighting our nature, but by realizing it. Unhappiness is an artificial, unnatural state; peace and happiness is what is natural. Any spiritual practice that argues for inherent evil and corruption is dead wrong.

• There Are No Words

"It the beginning was the Word..." No, it wasn't. The true nature of things is more like the Taoist principle, which states, "The Tao that can be named is not the true Tao." Words by definition are symbols, and symbols, by definition are representations of objects, they are not objects themselves. Dwelling in words alone is automatically to keep yourself separate from your experience. The enlightened state is found in a place that is pre-verbal, best approached by abandoning language altogether. The waterfall of thoughts and analyis that fills our minds is not enlightenment, but a hindrance to enlightenment.


• It is Not Me

Heaven is not a place for I-me-mine, and the insistence on dividing the world into I and Not-I is the thing that prevents us from realizing it. We fear that abandoning ego will cause us to cease to exist, when in reality, to surrender the tyranny of the self makes us far, far larger than we could ever dream. In a meditation sitting, to abandon the I, even for a moment, gives a glimpse of what is to come.


• This, Too

We spend much of our lives in simple disagreement with whatever happens to be true in the moment. We think we must change things,strive for different things, when it fact we could not keep things static, even if we wanted to. Small glimpses of a truly peaceful existence shows that it is marked by a simple acceptance of whatever arises. Every moment is a perfect one, since it is the beautiful, logical result of what has preceded. To disagree with the moment is the worst kind of folly.


• It is Free

We try to capture peace and tranquility. We try to understand and catalog it and fix it in time and space. But this effort is the very thing that prevents us from knowing it, because the nature of enlightenment is that it flows endlessly and cannot be captured in any fashion. To know happiness, do not try to grasp it.


• It is As Water

Ever flowing, completely malleable. Always changing, never static. One moment, an ice crystal at the top of the atmosphere; the next, a molecule of ocean at the bottom of the deepest sea trench. Indestructible.

• It Knows

The enlightened state is not one that requires knowledge, but simple awareness alone. Dwelling in the part of the mind that simply knows, without judgment or evaluation of any kind, is the approach to peace. Unhappiness is always a function of flawed seeing. Clear seeing always leads to bliss.


• It Is What It Is

It isn't a mystery or secret; it is open right before your eyes. I used to think that the truth required a search to some cavern deep, deep within the soul. It does lie within, but only barely inside the front door. The truth is right in front of your nose.

The unhappy man is the one who spends his life trying to keep one particular sand castle in pristine condition, constantly defending it against wind and waves. The enlightened man surveys the truth of the beach, then takes delight in playing with sand.

Mike

Mike and I have known each other for 20 years. We became acquainted when our sons entered kindergarten together, and as the boys played soccer together, wrestled on park board teams and the highschool wrestling team together, Mike and I saw a lot of each other then, not so much now. We're not close, close friends, but good acquaintences nonetheless. During the kids' highschool years in particular, our families saw a lot of one another, and would occasionally socialize at one another's homes.

As the boys graduated high school and drifted apart into different lives, MIke and I saw less of one another, but when we run into each other at neighborhood festivals or political meetings, we always catch with 15 or 20 minutes of enjoyable talk.

Mike is a very devout Mennonite, which puts us on slightly different planets, me being a fallen Lutheran and mostly Buddhist these days. But for a strongly religious fellow, Mike never pushes his belief on others. And I admire the good quality of his life. MIke and his family host foreign visitors from Africa frequently. They travel to central America to do social work in depressed neighborhoods. MIke has also overcome some personal problems in an admirable manner. Mike is an all-around good guy, who has rightly earned the respect of others.

Last weekend Mike traveled up to Fargo to handle funeral arrangements for his father, who just passed away. One night he went out for a jog on the streets of Fargo, and a driver struck and killed Mike on a blind corner.

Mike was 53 years old, just months older than me. He leaves a wife and two sons, ages 23 and 18——exactly the same ages as my kids.

It was pretty somber at my house last night. My son was home, and he seemed especially quiet. We were all, in our own ways, reflecting on the fact that life is so precious, so fleeting, and so uncertain. I'm sure my son was thinking about his friend, imagining what it's like to lose a father so suddenly, so randomly.

If ever there was a fellow who deserved to live happily into decrepit old age, it was Mike. But there is nothing whatsoever fair or certain about life.

And so we must live it right now.