Christian Life 23 - Random Thoughts

     This is where I'm writing down various ideas as they come to me so that I don't forget them.  It will be added to periodically as memorable thoughts occur to me.  It is for my own remembrance, so please feel free to ignore it.

    People always complaining about God being cruel and allowing us to suffer remind me of the old joke about the man who goes to the doctor and, violently shaking his wrist, says, "Doc, it hurts when I do this," to which the doctor replies, "well, don't do that."  I'm just now thinking about what happens after the punchline.  In all likelihood, the man goes home and complains to his wife that the doctor is a quack, having done nothing about the pain "when I do this."  Since suffering is an attitude in which we engage by choice, I feel like, when we pray to God to end our suffering, God's response is almost certainly, "Well, don't do that."

 

    I was going down a rabbit hole on YouTube the other day and came across a video in which a neuroscientist named Heather (the video didn't include her full name) was discussing the concept of free will.  She described experiments conducted by neuroscientists beginning in the 80's in which subjects are strapped into a fMRI machine and given a small panel containing a button.  The subject is instructed to press the button any time they want to.  Then the subject is instructed to tell the test proctor when they've decided to press the button, even before they actually do so.  By watching and listening to the test subject while monitoring the fMRI readouts, the scientists found that they could detect heightened neurological activity in the brain up to 10 seconds before the subject consciously makes a decision.  The conclusion is that our concept of free will is actually an illusion; what we consciously perceive as decision making is actually nothing more than the firing of neurons in the brain.

    Okay, I am aware that this was a YouTube video and, as such, highly edited.  There has almost certainly been a great deal more data collected than what winds up here in the video, so I am basing an opinion on incomplete information.  Then again, so are almost all the non-scientific viewers watching the post.  This incomplete data left me with a number of questions, but my overall impression was that this represents the most idiotic leap of logic I have heard come from a scientist in a very long time.  The premise seems to be that, since we have been able to map how the decision making process works on a neurological level, we have thus proven that the process doesn't actually work at all.  This simply makes no sense.  If that were the case, then why are the neuroscientists trusting that the data collected by the fMRI is valid?  There are electrical engineers who know precisely how a fMRI machine works.  Doesn't that prove that it doesn't actually work, that the functionality of a fMRI machine is just an illusion?  Any general contractor fully understands all of the details involved in building a home.  Does this understanding alone indicate that homes don't actually exist?  Hmm...

    Everyone knows that there are quacks practicing medicine.  But, having found myself sitting in the office of a quack, should I then decide to simply stop seeing doctors altogether, you would rightfully think me a fool.  Yes, there are hypocrites in the church, but that's no reason to stop attending.  You're not there looking for quacks; you're looking for the good doctors, and they outnumber the quacks.

(1) We are always chasing after happiness either in the future ("when my ship comes in...") or the past ("when I was a child..."), never realizing that happiness only exists in the present.

(2) To end suffering, we must first embrace it, just as a mother's first instinct is to pick up and embrace the crying child even before she knows the cause of the child's crying.  And, as often as not, just the act of being embraced brings a certain amount of relief to the child, even before the mother has actually fed the child or changed its nappie or otherwise relieved its suffering.

(3) As we use mindfulness to acknowledge and embrace our suffering, it becomes easier and easier to acknowledge and embrace the suffering of others; our parents, our neighbors, our fellow humans.  Like the roots of the grass, we are all interconnected; no one of us suffers without causing suffering in others.  Just so, when one of us trades in our suffering for happiness, the relief can be felt among all those around us.  As a test, I am currently imagining a famous political figure with whom I vehemently disagree and trying to embrace his suffering.  So far this is proving to be an effective exercise in mindfulness.  If I can embrace the suffering of someone whom I consider an enemy, how much easier to embrace the suffering of a friend or stranger.

(4) By "embrace" we do not mean "give in to."  Giving in to our suffering simply leads to depression.  What we mean is that fighting our fears and suffering just leads to frustration, and yielding to them leads to depression.  Using our breathing techniques and our mindfulness we gently acknowledge their presence.  "Yes, I know you're there.  I can see you.  It's okay.  Let us sit and chat."  By simply acknowledging our suffering without judging, condemning or entrapping, we have already begun to heal it.  When we learn to heal our own suffering, we are in a better position to help heal the suffering of others.

Happiness is not the absence of suffering.  Jesus made this abundantly clear when he said that in order to be happy one must "Take up his cross and follow me."  Happiness and suffering must coexist, and true happiness begins when we understand this.

I'm beginning to see what the 10 year wait everyone mentions is all about.  I've been at this now for what, 3 years?  4?  And yet, every day seems to be the same.  I beg for some indication that I'm learning more humility, then at every sign of progress, I puff up and start dreaming about how wonderful a teacher and prophet people will someday think me to be.  It seems to be a vicious cycle.  At this point, all I can say is that God seems to be still working on me, and patience is evidently on the list of things to learn!

You know how to dive, don't you?  It's the easiest thing in the world; just don't hold on.

On paper, write a list of your worst traits and habits, those embarrassing things about yourself that you most hate and would change if you could.  On a separate page, write down those things about yourself of which you're most proud; those traits, habits and accomplishments that are and have been successful.  Now throw the first list away; it means nothing.  The second list is what you need to work on, for those are the things that are holding you back, standing between you and your Maker.  Those are the things you need to purge.

I've been working on this steadily for nine months now, and I think the most important thing I've learned so far is that the root of pride goes A LOT deeper into my soul than I thought.  Every time I think I'm approaching the bottom, I realize I still have a lot more digging to do.  No wonder Westerners don't do this!  What a mess I've become!

"Here's a question for you: is it possible to be religious without being judgemental toward others' religions?" - Lyle Lovett

"To continue as an atheist, I would need to believe that nothing produces everything, non-life produces life, randomness produces fine-tuning, chaos produces information, unconsciousness produces consciousness, and non-reason produces reason.  I simply didn't have that much faith." - Lee Strobel

Four burdens I have so far learn to lay aside on the path to Enlightenment:

1. my need for justice.

2. my need for conflict.

3. my need for relevance.

4. my need to be right.

Make that five: my need for control.

 I've been thinking recently about our self-identities: those things about ourselves that we think of as Self.  One of the things that comes to mind is how very few of the aspects of our self-identities we can actually control.  We don't choose our heredity, our genetics as it were.  Nor do we choose our names or our upbringings.  As children, at least, we have no control over where we live, what language we speak, where and how we are educated or, to a certain extent, who our friends are (by which I mean we must select our friends from among the pool available within our environments).

As adults, it gets better, but not much.  Our control over our higher education is somewhat better than that of our lower, but we are still limited by location, finances and scholarship opportunities.  While there, we get to choose the major discipline we might study, but even so, getting a degree in a given field doesn't guarantee a future career in that field.  True, we can choose to which positions we might later apply, but we have very limited control over whether we get hired to the job.  We do have at least half control over choosing a life partner, but, with little advice to go on, we often find we've made poor choices, or perhaps we learn 10 years up the road that we are no longer living with the same person we married.

Upon rational examination, the advice we give our children to "just be who you are" begins to seem at best asinine if not, in fact, impossible.  I begin to think the better advice would be to "be who you were meant to be."  The problem here, of course, is that I've only just realized this as I approach my 65th birthday.  Not only am I late to the party, but I'm too late to pass this piece of wisdom on to my children who are long beyond my influence.

Speaking of self-identities, this whole concept of "Be Yourself" is a Western concoction and a primary reason why I keep insisting that we just toss Western ideology out altogether and start over.  Western ideas regarding the ego stem from the "guilt-free" ideas expressed by Sigmund Freud, who thought that all psychological issues derive from a sense of guilt, ergo guilt should be avoided at all times and at all costs.  I am in no position to argue with Herr Freud, but frankly, I think Siggy needed to grow up a bit himself.  Of course, guilt can be debilitating if we let it, but that's no reason to go so far out of our way to avoid it.  Everything in life worth having involves a certain amount of pain and suffering to achieve.  If one is afraid to fail, one will never succeed, for the one necessarily precedes the other.  Well, guilt is the catalyst that urges us to self-improvement.  If one is afraid of guilt, one will never improve, and that is the whole point behind the "Be Yourself" adage: that one needs no improvement; we're all fine just the way we are.  Always "accept me for who I am," never "accept me for the person you see me able to become."  What balderdash!

Another aspect of Western thought that I believe we need to get rid of: impatience.  Here in the West, we have no patience with traffic, queue lines, even conversations.  We are taught from an early age that down time is wasted time, but we don't seem to realize that our parents told us that so that we would prioritize cleaning our rooms or doing our homework over playing our video games.  While it is true that, when a job presents itself we should do it immediately and cheerily,  that doesn't mean we are to begrudge each moment that life forces us to slow down.  Stuck in traffic?  Turn up the radio, send a couple of texts, or just grouse about "that idiot" up ahead.  Standing in line at the pharmacy?  Make a phone call, scroll through social media.  An interlocutor taking too long to make their point?  Anticipate their point, interrupt them with your injection and move the conversation onto your own (far more important and profound) point.

Somehow we Westerners have developed the idea that we must always be doing, when a tally of our most loved ones shows that they are far more interested in our being than in our doing.  Those of us striving for enlightenment have no excuse for this behavior whatsoever.  Our greatest complaint is our failures in mindfulness, which we know is improved through practice, and yet, when life throws these little opportunities to slow down and practice throughout the day, we don't take advantage of them.  Instead, we complain about how these periods of waiting are an interruption to our flow of doing.  Relax!  You can't control the traffic or the line or the other person's efforts at clarity.  Rather than grow annoyed, just breathe and enjoy the unplanned practice time.

 

Wisdom is not marked by the ability to question others' judgement, but by the ability to question one's own.

 

Suffering comes from the conflict between the many people we are.  Our inner child is frightened and craves safety.  Our inner pubescent is insecure and craves attention.  Our inner teen is angry and craves justice.  Our inner senior is tired and craves peace and quiet.

 

 "Certain beyond question" is generally all the evidence one needs to prove oneself wrong.

 

So often we live our lives as though standing on the edge of a coin with only two ways to fall.  We reduce life's possibilities to a series of "either/or" options.  Some few of our more progressive thinkers allow that life is not a coin edge, but more a line segment with a good number of points along it edge.  And a handful of radicals hold that life is an entire spectrum of possibilities.

In this blog I'm trying to explain that all of the above are way too limiting.  Indeed, life provides an infinity of possibilities, only an infinitesimally small percentage of which will fit within our ability to imagine.  No matter how broad your thinking, you're still selling yourself - and the rest of the universe - short.

 

When I'm not writing, I'm probably talking.  Ironically, although I seem to spend virtually all my time talking and writing, I really have no evidence that anyone has ever read what I've written or listened to what I've said with any attention beyond that which is required to argue with me. Perhaps that's telling! ☺

 

In Western Christianity (I don't know enough about Eastern Christianity to say), we seem to fall into two major groups.  On one side are people who really love the "love one another" parts of Scripture, but aren't terribly fond of the "wives, obey your husbands" part.  On the other side are people who go crazy for the "each man must work and earn his own way" parts, but can't stand the "give everything you own to the poor" parts.  Both sides are quick to recite the "no one comes to the Father but through me" parts, but don't even acknowledge the "I have other sheep not of this flock" parts.  And, of course, neither side is wild about the "love you enemies" parts.  I don't see how we can ever even hope to understanding True Christianity until we're willing to take it as a whole, not just the bits and pieces we prefer. 

Anger, guilt and hatred all live in the past.  Fear, anxiety and worry all live in the future.  Peace, joy and love all live in the present.  Where do you want to spend your time?

 

Thomas Aquinas on atheism -  five quia ("natural") proofs of God's existence: from motion (since rest is the natural state of things, a universe in motion requires a prime, unmoved mover), from efficient causation (since every effect requires a cause, one can work backward from any effect in nature and must eventually arrive at a prime cause), from contingency (a universe of completely contingent beings could not exist; a prime being in necessary), from degrees (all things have degrees, including perfection, which must have a pinnacle), and from the governance of things (the universe reflects intelligent design).

 

The more one knows, the less certain one is of one's facts.  And vice versa.

 

The antidote for anger, hatred, indignation and sanctimony is curiosity.

 

Why is it that, whenever we discuss time travel, we're always worried that we will radically alter the present by doing something small in the past, but no one thinks they can radically alter the future by doing something small in the present?

 

"If God is so good, why does He allow so much suffering among His children?"  That question, or any one of it's variations, has been asked for as long as there have been people to ask it.  It is a complicated question, so, of course, the answer is equally complicated, but here's one aspect that many may never have thought about.  I've certainly never heard it discussed.

A father goes out to the driveway to wash the family car.  Within a few minutes, the 5-year-old comes out and asks to help. I don't really need to finish this story, do I?  You already know how it turns out.  While dear old Dad originally imagined a perfect, showroom shine on the old sedan, he's now resigned himself to driving to work with smeared windows and tiny hand prints on the fenders.  Why?  Because the priority shifted.  As soon as the 5-year-old appeared in the driveway, the job was no longer about getting it right, but about giving the kid a chance, no matter how imperfect the results.  And Dad can take comfort in the fact that it could be worse; just wait 5 more years when the 10-year-old decides he no longer needs Dad at all, he can do it all by himself.  Dad will end up being quite lucky if the car wash actually represents an improvement at all!

Maybe our suffering has less to do with God's goodness (or lack thereof) and more to do with tolerating all the help God gets from the 5- and 10-year-old kids!  Ever think of that?  ☺

 

You'll never find your purpose in life as long as you insist on defining "purpose" as "goal-based achievement." 

 

An interesting image floated into my mind this morning during my meditations.  I was at that exact moment mildly chastising myself for having not yet achieved what I assume to be Enlightenment.  I saw an image of an old man sitting on a stump.  Asking if I wanted to know the true secret to Enlightenment, he picked up a stick from the ground and pulled a pen knife from his pocket.  "This stick is you," he said.  "Let's take away everything impeding your Enlightenment."  And with that, he began whittling on the stick.  As each shaving of wood was removed, I became increasingly enthralled.  'What beautiful figure would remain when he finished whittling?'  I wondered.  After a very long time, anticipation mounting, the old man continued to whittle until nothing remained of the stick whatsoever.  He had nothing but a pile of shavings at his feet.  I stared in confusion, but the old man simply smiled and returned the knife to his pocket.

 

A while back, I was on a flight from DFW to JFK with a 20-minute holdover in Charlotte.  Twenty minutes is too long to sit on the plane, but not long enough to go anywhere, so I sat in the terminal watching a big screen TV air the local newscast.  It was a typical newscast; the local city council was about to vote on a street repair bond, the school board was seeking a new superintendent,  the area's favorite football team may make it to the playoffs, and here's the weather forecast.  After we were again in the air, I noticed something that made me go "hmm..."  While the newscast had seemed almost exactly like the one I normally watched at home, I hadn't viewed this one with the same enthusiasm.  I found it interesting, curious even, but I certainly didn't give it the rapt attention I would have done in my own living room.  Of course, I don't actually live in Charlotte.  I was literally "just passing through."  Then it hit me...why should I be more than mildly curious about the doings of this world?  I am, after all, just passing through. 

 

This morning I found myself meditating on "They," that undefined, nebulous group of people who are a constant source of irritation to me and whom I am constantly having to correct with my mental lectures.  They are the people I have the most trouble loving as myself.  As I was meditating on They, I realized that I don't actually know any representatives of Them.  I seem to like everyone I meet in real life.  I don't know any actual hard-headed Theys.  So why are They such a formidable part of my mental life, when They don't exist in my physical life at all?  Why do I tarry on with the delusion of They?  Is it simply because, in the great novel of my life that I am constantly weaving in my head, I feel compelled to provide myself an antagonist?  What would happen in my quest for Enlightenment if I simply dropped the pretense of They?  Hmm...

 

Our eyes cannot actually see light, merely the reflection of light as it bounces off objects.  Nor can we directly detect the wind, but simply the changes the wind brings to what we see (blowing leaves), hear (howling tree branches), and feel (sudden cold, forward pressure).  In fact, we never actually experience reality at all; we really only experience our nervous systems' reactions to that reality.  Want to change your reality?  Change your reactions!

 

I hope to live my life such that, when I shuffle off this mortal coil, there may be some few who will miss me, rather than just a bunch of folk who are glad it's finally over.

 

5 Things to Practice

1. Let it go.  When someone triggers you, just let it go.  They're just showing you where you still need to heal.

2. Accept what is.  There's no point in wishing your reality was something else.  Start where you are with what you have.

3. Let them.  If they want to leave, let them.  If they want to be unhappy, let them.  Let everyone have their own experience.

4. Trust in timing.  Believe that things happen exactly when they shall, when they must.

5. Look for glimmers.  Glimmers are the opposite of triggers.  They are tiny moments of joy.  Notice them! 

 

Three poisons - aversion, clinging and delusions. 

 

For a long time, we understood that there was God with godly characteristics which was distinct from humans with human characteristics.  Nowadays, we believe that God doesn't exist, so we attribute godly characteristics to humans and spend our lives in frustration and disappointment that humans, despite this new attribution, continue to act like humans.  And this, by the way, is what we call "superior rationality."

 

In Hinduism, a soul's path is guided by its mind's wants at any given moment.  These wants are:

(1) Hedonism - the mind wants nothing more than to taste widely of the sense delights its physical equipment makes possible.  With repetition, however, even the most ecstatic of these becomes monotonous and boredom sets in, whereupon the mind turns to -

(2) Social Conquest -  These conquests - the various modes of wealth, fame, and power - can hold the individual's interest for a considerable time.  The stakes are high and their attainment richly gratifying.  Eventually, however, this entire program of personal ambition is seen for what it is: a game - a fabulous, exciting, history-making game, but a game nonetheless.

As long as it holds one's interest, it satisfies.  But as there is no other ground on which to recommend it, when its novelty wears off and the winner finds himself stepping forward to accept once again the same old trophies already cluttering his mantle, he will find himself reaching out again for something new and more deeply satisfying.

(3) Duty - The total dedication of one's life to the beloved community can step in for awhile to fill the need, but the ironies and anomalies of history make this object too a revolving door.  Lean on it and it gives; in time one discovers that one is going round and round in circles.  The mind, at last, turns to -

(4) Infinity - After social dedication the only good that can satisfy is one that is infinite and eternal whose realization can turn all experience, even the experience of time and apparent defeat, into splendor, as storm clouds drifting down a valley look different viewed from the top of a high mountain bathed in sunshine.

Almost everyone will climb this scale over a lifetime, many getting stuck at one or another point along the way.   Nor is the line between the wants a straight one, but rather a zigzag, oscillating between each on a moment-by-moment basis.

 

Don't preach to someone you don't love.  Without love first, you have nothing they need to hear. 

 

Too many of us have "accepted Jesus into our hearts," as if "our hearts" were spare rooms and Jesus is a polite guest.  Jesus isn't our house guest, he is our king!  He doesn't come to support us; he comes to rule over us.  Until we understand this, there's little point in claiming Jesus at all.

 

As C.S. Lewis points out, the devil always brings us errors in opposing pairs.  That way, whichever one chooses, one can feel satisfaction in the idea that "at least it's better than the other."  In this way, he can lead us all down paths that lead to destruction while making us feel quite righteous on the way to our dooms.  Of course, what we should never consider is that neither error is better than the other, that the only true path goes right down the middle between the two. 

 

The only reason we engage in war with others is to distract ourselves from the war raging within. 

 

When we see others as separate, they become a threat.  When we see others as part of us, as connected, as interdependent, then there is no challenge we cannot face - together. (Douglas Abrams in "The Book of Joy") 

 

In a sound system, a microphone detests the changes in air waves produced by a human voice, converts them into electrical impulses, then sends those impulses down a wire to a series of filters.  These filters then manipulate the impulses to adjust for volume, intonation, compression, etc.  Finally these adjusted impulses are sent to a speaker, which converts them back into sound waves.  The sound coming out of a speaker is never exactly the same as the sound that went into the microphone.  It has been altered in some way, if only made louder.  When listening to sound through a sound system, what one hears is never quite the reality of the original sound.  And which, of all the possible sounds the system can possibly produce, is the right one?  That depends on the engineer working the system and what he/she intends to do with it.  One sound is not inherently better or worse than another.

Just so, our senses accumulate information about the world around us and converts that information into nerve impulses.  These impulses are sent to the brain, where they are filtered through our life experiences, our religious convictions, our longings and desires; our perceptions.  What results is what we call our "perspective." Like the sound in the system above, our perspective never quite matches the reality of life, no matter how carefully we apply our perceptions.  And, whose perspective is right?  That once again depends on the desired outcome; one is not inherently better or worse than another.

 

A question for my Master: any time I observe a group of any sort, be it trees or chocolate drops or people, I will instinctively begin to notice differences both subtle and gross between the individuals within the group.  Having noticed these differences, I cannot help but begin to make comparisons and from there begin to develop preferences.  So, even when doing something as simple as selecting strawberries for a pie, life becomes a competition.  Group🠊Differences🠊Comparisons🠊Preferences🠊Competition.  It seems inevitable.  So, if I want to avoid being competitive, it would seem I must learn to ignore differences altogether.  How does one learn to focus on sameness and ignore distinctions?  I hope to come back someday and type in the answer to this question.