Skeptic AND Mystic

Today I realized, in conversation with a woman younger than I am, that I am BOTH skeptic and mystic.

I have no need to reconcile these two aspects.

I like being thoroughly rational to the extent that I am able to achieve that state.

I also make provision for that huge area called "I do not know."

If through opening myself to what words cannot state and to which reason cannot point, I learn something - call it spiritual or something else - I like that.

All that I ask of myself as a mystic is that I don't go along with what is patently without logic. I cannot accept a god (or God) who would send to eternal torment a human who denies said god's (or God's) existence.

I cannot believe in a morality based on fear of Big Poppa in the sky.

For the skeptic, especially the arrogant "rational hu(man)", who scoffs at the mystical experiences of others, I offer the image of the blind man who cannot understand what "blue" is.

I very much value my ability to reason. I am far more the skeptic than the mystic. Sometimes, though, I want to send a shout-out to The Cosmos, to Life, to Whatever or Whoever is Listening (anyone there???) and say "Thanks" or "Please . . . " Perhaps my prayer is but an internal echo.

And yet sometimes I pray.

If God is or has consciousness, we and all that exists, are God's dream

I Guess I knew It In Nursery School

It occurs to me how naive I am in over-estimating my own intelligence, intellectual depth and/or mental health. I remember from nursery school days the little tune with the words:

Row row row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily merrily merrily merrily
Life is but a dream

From the earliest days, I've had this sense of illusion thrust at me. Sometimes this whole Life thing seems so impossible to me that it almost takes an act of faith to believe that there even is an external world beyond my imagining it. Of course, this act of faith is buttressed by the taste of chocolate, the twinges of neck pain that I constantly feel, the warmth from my cats as a nestle in their soft fur, and the warm sense of connection at those times when Matt's eyes meet mine in that oh-so-special way. All these may indeed be the products of my imagination or of some external source playing out this adventure in my mind. However it is, I call such things "Other" and, in so doing, am not alone in the world.

But again, the terrifying thought. If this is the playing out of God's imagination and if All this is, is God, then knowing the truth, really knowing it, would be to acknowledge an Aloneness that seems unbearable to me. I keep coming back to the same points, like a cat chasing multiple tails, all her own. If God is, how lonely, how without peer, God would be. At one level, I certainly don't imput to God, human emotions. On the other, it would seem to me that a God who would feel joy would be a God who wasn't aware of God's own singularity, an ignorant God if you will. Is our (or my) inability to really understand the nature of our (or my) existence a protection of sorts against a sense of utter futility. As long as we (or I) stay locked in our separate egos, we have peers. We can also get a sense of fulfillment when we feel at one with that which we define as God. It would be devastating to be the One and Only God. Except for this: If such an entity became alive Itself through its act of creation. If God is, does God know God's own nature as separate from (or a part of) God's creation. I want to know these things that I am not equipped to understand. Yet I don't want to know these things because the answers might emotionally devastate me. And yet I keep pondering all of this because it is my nature to do so.

In The Beginning

For the sake of simplicity I've been calling the pre-Big Bang Thing/Energy/Entity "God." I don't want to get careless in my thinking by doing so. When I reread what I wrote yesterday, it seemed that I had slipped into personifying God. How did I allow that to happen? I retraced my thoughts.

Whether I go the Cartesian route (I think, therefore I am) or the Einsteinium matter/energy route (to the very limited extent that I understand it), I come back to the mystery of my awareness which is the only thing that I know for certain exists. Where did this awareness come from? And is Awareness THE distinguishing characteristic of God?

As a child of the modern era and with a limited understanding of physics, I accept that matter and energy are transformable; each can become the other. If the Big Bang, or some version of it, is The moment of birth of the Universe, what existed prior to that moment? The Mysterious "It" that philosophers and scientists and ordinary people have been trying to understand for eons. Whatever the nature of "It," "It" had the seeds of matter/energy. Was there a third component, Awareness, such that this "It" had the seeds of matter/energy/awareness? If so, I would call that "It" God. My current view of things, tinged with a bit of faith as well as reason, is in this direction. This may not be the case at all. It may (must) be far more complicated. It is also possible that awareness developed at some point after the Big Bang, that it evolved out of matter/energy or something else. In this case, I'd come down on the side of a Godless universe.

These are my ramblings. For most of my life, I've thought about these things and come up with different answers. I'm not sure if sharing them on a public blog is the wisest idea and I feel like I'm taking a risk in doing so. It doesn't "feel" right, but it seems like something that I "should"do, though I'm not sure why. I don't expect to arrive at an unwavering understanding of all this. I value the process of following these thoughts without pushing them towards any particular conclusion.

Maybe God Wants An Occassional Shout Out

It occurred to me this evening that EVERYTHING that exists is a manifestation of God. This is a thought that is neither new to me nor original with me. It's been a part of my thinking for the better part of two decades. I felt it differently this evening, though its ingredients have been simmering for a number of weeks or months. In recognizing that a pre-incarnated God may have experienced unimaginable despair in God's utter loneliness, I've made room for the possibility of feelings that I'd previously thought God could not possibly hold. Jealousy, for example, the whole "have no other gods before me" thing. The God that postulated, to the extent that I postulated any God, would have had no desire for prayers of any kind. Indeed, that God would be devoid of feelings. I find myself coming to the conclusion that the pre-incarnated God contained at least the seeds of all the flaws of humankind (as well as everything else that is). I continue to wonder if there is a God beyond that which has been created (incarnated). If so, what is that aspect of God like? To what extent has God evolved both pre and post incarnation? Is creation itself, the Big Bang if that theory is true, a result of God's evolution?

These are the thoughts that currently play across my mind.

The Vast Loneliness of God

Suddenly it occurred to me, after drinking some very good Chablis, that God may not be so tormented after all. While recognizing the transient nature of that which followed the Big Bang, God may be glorying in its magnificence. God is still fundamentally and profoundly alone and, when this Creation thing burns itself out, may once again experience the full measure of his loneliness. That is, if the pre-Big Bang Thing/Energy/Entity experiences consciousness. And after that, what then? Will God, if conscious, remember that which has been? Is God, if conscious, remembering now? Will God, if conscious, again erupt into that state which, at least this once, created a universe?

The Old Woman In Purple

Matt and I went to hear the San Francisco Symphony at Stern Grove last Sunday. For Matt, it was a symbol of a "return to normalcy," a return to his pre-Leukemia, pre- tumor on the parathyroid, days. We parked our car in a handicapped zone and waited at the corner for the shuttle that brings "seniors" and handicapped people to the concert area.

We were about third in line at the front of the shuttle bus when I noticed an old woman standing by herself at its rear. She was wearing purple pants, a purple jacket, and a purple cap decorated with flowers. Her beaded earrings were garishly large and predominantly purple. She reminded me of the first line in Jenny Joseph's poem, "Warning:" "When I am an old woman I shall wear purple." Someone ahead of us in line told the driver that the the woman in purple could go ahead of him. "Oh no," said the driver, "we have a special place up front for Shirley." I liked that the driver knew who Shirley was. I liked that she went alone to the concert. I liked her purpleness. Some day, I thought, I shall be the grandly alone in purple Shirley.

Shirley's presence was a peek into only one of my potential futures. I am in no rush to hasten that future. If and when it comes, it will be at the cost of the life that I am now so blessed be living. I embraced it as such and silently cheered Shirley on in her purple aloneness.

Later, as Matt and I waited at the end of a very long line for the return shuttle trip, I saw Shirley sitting on one of the folding chairs that were toward the front of that line. As the line moved forward, I saw that Shirley remained in her seat. When, at last, Matt and I were in the group that would be next to board the bus, I heard the woman who was guiding people onto the bus ask Shirley if she was waiting for someone. I could only hear enough of her answer to learn that she wasn't and that the bus driver would be taking her somewhere. For all I know this "somewhere" could have been only up the hill to where the shuttle route ended or to a bus station or possibly even home. The questioner lightly kidded Shirley about wanting to hang out with the young people. Shirley made some good natured response. I wonder what she was really feeling.

I thought about Shirley on the return drive. Matt and I had plans for a dinner at a local restaurant. I wondered what Shirley was returning to. I imagined that the concert was the highlight of her day, possibly the highlight of her week. I imagined that waiting for the shuttle driver to give her a ride was an event in itself, that it was not something which stood between her and the march of events in a life full of them. Of course, I don't know any of this. Possibly Shirley has managed to arrange for herself a highly fulfilling life with as many events as she could possibly want.

It is only a peek into one of my potential futures. And this is true both for how it is for Shirley and how I imagine it to be.