Synchronicity

For the last two weeks, I've been in the grips of a mild obsession brought about by a random event that seems anything but random. First, a little background.

Thirty years ago or so, partly because of a scholarly interest related to my graduate school studies and partly because of simple personal interest, I became deeply interested in the symbols of mythology, both as they related to the history of religion and as they applied to human psychology. For several years as a young man, I read everything I could get my hands on from Jung, Joseph Campbell, Eric Neuman, Sir George Fazier,  and other such people.

One thing led to another, and I started a family, began a career, and my interests moved onto to other things: gardening, politics, science, publishing. My collected works of Jung not only weren't on the shelves anymore, but I couldn't even tell you for sure what boxes they might be found in.

Then, two weeks ago, though, while riding the bus to work, I glanced up at two illuminated billboards on adjoining faces of an office building near the downtown basketball arena, Target Center. One electronic sign was advertising the University of Phoenix, the other was a commercial advertisement for Bacardi rum. Nothing particularly unusual about that, but what leaped out to my view was that the symbol for the University of Phoenix was, predictably, the mythological bird the Phoenix, renowned for rebirth from ashes. The symbol for Bacardi, on the other hand, is the somewhat sinister bird of the night, the bat. The juxtaposition was striking, to say the least, and it seemed impossible that it was mere coincidence these symbols of light and dark, rebirth and death, should appear adjacently and simultaneously.

Jogged from sleep,  I began to see symbols everywhere in the days after that; in the partial sunrises engraved on building entries, in the intertwined snakes on the office stationary of my medical clinic, in the peacock that still stands for NBC broadcasting, in the arch and ornament of a road bridge spanning the Mississippi.

From boxes in the basement, I've now retrieved dozens of yellowing books on the subject matter, and on my busride today was thoroughly engrossed in Joseph Campbell's "Masks of God: Primitive Mythology."  Also out of the boxes are Jung's titles on alchemy and collective unconsciousness, waiting for me at home.

The time must be right, because what I now lack in sheer scholarly stamina I now seem to make up for with perspective.  Now in the last trimester of life, I read things much differently, and with greater understanding, than I was an impatient though energetic young man of 20.

I feel like I'm rediscovering a favorite hobby, and can't wait for the long bus rides to and from work.

Neither Fish Nor Fowl

For each of us, a religion or any other form of spiritual practice really serves as an allegory, an approximation of our deepest spiritual truth, offering ideas and practices that aid us in our pursuit of happiness. I know of virtually no one, though, who can say that their religion perfectly represents what they believe. I've known devout Christians who quietly but vehemently sense that reincarnation is a fact of existence. I've known Hindus for whom Catholic rituals resonate profoundly. In fact, if you find anybody who subscribes heart and soul to every aspect of their chosen religion, it's likely you've found somebody with a rather serious mental defect. (No Sarah Palin jokes, please.)

While most of us have practices that lean toward one of the major faith systems, it seems to me that in the final measure, each of us has an entirely individual structure of beliefs that can resemble, but never be identical to, another person's.

I'm now 54, and for fully 30 years now, my spiritual practice has been most closely represented by Buddhism. I respond most positively to Buddhist philosophy because of its intellectual precision, its cool detachment, and its belief in following the evidence of logic and experience. In its better moments, Buddhism can be one of the most tolerant of belief systems, though it, too, can have its parochial moments, especially when it comes to individual schools within the Buddhist world passing judgement on one another.

Yet for all of that, when asked to name my religious membership, I take pause and have to acknowledge that I can't really say that I'm a Buddhist. I miss membership in the club because of a single belief that most definitely violates the rules for authentication as a Buddhist.

Strictly speaking, Buddhists simply do not believe in a deity called God, thinking that such beliefs are largely irrelevant to the the pursuit of enlightenment. That is, in fact, one of the central appeals of Buddhism, that it is free of the heavy-handedness found in most deity-based religions. The inherent atheism of Buddhism is the Achilles heel for me, the final membership requirement that just eludes me. 

Because in my heart of hearts, an intuition tells me that underlying our experience is some kind of central Truth that universally present for all of us. This energy feels to me quite concrete,with an inherent intelligence and humor about it. It's not that I adhere to any kid of cult of personality when it comes to deity——I certainly don't think of God as some kind of uber-personality that dwells in someplace called heaven. But for all of that, the supernormal energy I sense is something that communicates with me when I choose to ask and listen, and it's distinct enough for me to feel a kind of "I-thou" relationship to it.

Uneasy about this lingering belief, I sometimes pretend that it's "buddha-nature" I'm sensing here. To no avail; something that feels a lot like God continues to lurk around the corner, like a drug dealer trying to tempt school children. At the end of the day,  it appears I'm a Missouri-Synod Buddhist.

Citizens of 4F, Oct. 20, 2010

Grey-haired Martha sits at nearly the same latitude each morning on the 4F bus into downtown Minneapolis. Sometimes it's the left, and sometimes the right, but always she is very nearly one-third of the distance back from the front of the bus.

Each morning she reads the same magazine: TV Digest. Until I noticed this, I wasn't even aware that the magazine was still published anymore. Now it's an oversized publication, like People or Newsweek, not the small Readers-Digest size that I remember from years ago. I'm kind of amazed that it's still in print anymore, though if any magazine has a chance to survive in our culture, it would be one devoted to television, I suppose.

I'm also impressed that Martha finds enough new to read there each morning. Other than the schedule logs themselves, the editorial content of TV Digest looks to be pretty sparse. Is Martha just boning up on the evening TV schedules each and every day? Or does the magazine now have enough editorial content to offer 4 hours or so of reading each week?

Martha begins each morning sitting adjacent to the window, but as the bus begins to fill up, by about Franklin Avenue, she moves to an aisle seat. This has the impact of making it hard for anyone to sit next to her, and so it seems like a slightly mean-spirited thing to do, like those people who place their briefcases or backpacks on the seat next to themselves, effectively denying the seat to folks who might wind up standing. I don't like thinking that this is the kind of person she is.

So I settle on a more charitable explanation. She moves to the aisle seat so that, if another person comes and takes the window seat, she won't have to disturb them when her bus stop comes on the south edge of downtown and she arises to exit.

I'm not entirely convinced, though. It's the TV Digest that spoils it for me.

Autumn in More Ways than One

Here in Minnesota, by the time the calendar announces the start of autumn, we're already in full sway. A few of the maples begin turning their colors in early September, and my staghorn sumac was hinting yellow by mid month. Winter, too, will impatiently come well before the Dec. 22 calendar date, often settling in here shortly after Halloween.

Autumn has always been my favorite time of year. There's a poignancy about it, as we're always well aware that the first killing frost is just around the corner, even while the gardens and landscapes are at their most colorful. Minnesota is mid summer is a lush place dominated by greens, but as autumn begins, the greens are beginning to turn to yellows and browns, and the garden plants still flowering take on an almost neon intensity: brown-eyed susans, asters, mums.

For some people, autumn is a somewhat sad time, but I've never felt that way about it. There is just a hint of melancholy about it, but it's that kind of nice melancholy, like you get before going to bed after a full day of boisterous, fun activity. Winter for me is a time of peace and contentment, as so it doesn't particularly bother me that summer is over. Summer 2010 was a little stressful for me this year, with a difficult economy making for a challenging work situation, and a bum knee giving me a fair amount of physical pain to accommodate. So I find myself ready for a more restful autumn and winter.

The last couple of years have found me feeling even more nostalgic in autumn, and I wonder if this is perhaps because I'm now in the early autumn phase of life myself. I'll be turning 55 later this year, eligible for senior citizen discounts at Perkins restaurants, and with a family legacy that has most everyone moving onward in their 60s or 70s, I'd be fooling myself to imagine that I'm still a young man. You might think that this would be sobering or depressing, but strangely it's not.

I suppose I take comfort from the fact that I've never seen a winter that wasn't followed by spring. It's just that one day in the future, spring will look quite a bit different than ever before.

Leaving the Club I Once Belonged To

I'm perilously close to handing in my lifetime membership card as a Christian.

I've not really been a practicing Christian for awhile, but the last I looked I had some rights to be grandfathered into the club. As an infant, I was baptized in the church, and if I'm not mistaken this kind of makes me a member by default, much the way being born in the US automatically makes you a citizen.

Christianity is certainly my heritage and my culture, but events over the last week or so——some dramatic, some quiet—are making me seriously think about formal and forever disavowal.

• The nutcase preacher in Florida who is promising to burn copies of the Qu'ran on 9/11.... Now, I know that freedom of speech makes such a thing legal and technically defensible, but surely we can all agree that it's a bad idea, in incredibly poor taste. The outpouring of criticism of this wack job, though, has been slow to emerge if you ask me. The fact that "normal" Christians remain so silent in response to this and other actions of their lunatic fringe is disheartening. And this morning, I even heard some member of the conservative press begin to express defense of his planned actions.

• On the bus the other day, a fellow sitting near the front bid me farewell when I reached my stop, with the words. "God bless you sir. Jesus loves you." Now, normally I don't particularly care about such displays, but on this day I suddenly was struck by the fact that this demonstrates a kind of arrogance I don't much appreciate. Especially in the more fundamentalist wings of Christianity this kind of "witnessing" is expected, but it seems to me to be quite a presumptuous stance to assume that your God is the one that I really want blessings from. I wonder what this fellow would think or say, for example, if I replied " Blessing of the prophet of Allah upon you." My hunch is that he might be offended, perhaps even enraged. Hari Krishnas were banned from handing out flowers at the airport years ago around here, but nobody thinks twice about trying to impose Jesus on others.

• A pair of women offering the Gospel knocked on the door last night, wishing to speak with me about Christ. "Sorry," I said, quite politely, "But I don't share your particular practice."

"You're not a Christian?" One said, aghast. "What, then?"

"Well, I might well be Jewish," I said. "Or I could be a Hindu, or Buddhist, for example. Actually, I don't really care to discuss that with you, as it's really a private matter."

"We'll pray to the Lord for you, sir," the other said as they turned away in horror.

• At the bus stop this morning, a Chevy Impala with a fish decal in the back passenger side window pulled up and began honking frantically at a stopped car holding five members of Somali family, the distinctive headwear of the mother and three daughters being unmistakable. Our fellow in the Impala desperately wanted to turn right on red light, but the Somali father ahead of him was obeying the traffic prohibition, which dictated "no turn on red."

Once the light turned green, the Somali driver quietly turned the corner and pulled over to the curb to let the American driver roar by. As the Impala turned, I saw additional Christian decals and bumper stickers on the back of the car.

This, frankly, has been my general experience of Muslims in my own community——as conservative, law-abiding folks who rarely make waves at all, and tolerate a good deal of angry abuse at the hands of Christians, some of whom vocally express their hatred.

I know that it's certainly not fair of me to paint all Christians with the same brush that colors the wacky few; just like it's illogical for Westerners to dress all Muslims in the robes of Bin Laden. But damn it, it begins to make you ashamed of your own heritage. On the eve on 9/11 anniversary, I read statistics that western retribution for 9/11 over the last 9 years has led to the death of at least 110,000 Muslims in Iraq, of which 95,000 are thought to be civilians, according to the Associated Press. That's a ratio of 30 teeth for one tooth, and Lord almighty, we appear to have no intention of stopping anytime soon, as the crusade continues in Afghanistan.

Do the Christians I see around me really, truly believe that this is how Jesus would act? If not, then why aren't they speaking up?

Here's my membership card. Take it, please.