Alrighty! This is my take on one of the ways that the World has gone all wonky!
Today's topic?... Spirituality.
It seems to me that this is one of those key elements indicative of an individual's humanity. Sadly, it seems that it is also sorely lacking throughout much of today's society.
Let me see if I can explain.
First of all, let me say right off the bat that I am not Christian.
I am also not Catholic, Protestant, Atheist, Buddhist or Wiccan. Hell, if I am going to be honest here, my spirituality and beliefs fail to line up with any particular established set out there.
So where does that leave me?
Well... In most situations I use the word Pagan because it tends to cover a wide variety of belief systems, many of which I draw from in an effort to define my own spirituality. Maybe spiritualist would be a better term but I hate to come across all new agey.
The bottom line here, however, is that I am a spiritual individual. Not as deeply spiritual as I used to be but spiritual none-the-less.
Alright then... Why am I saying that spirituality is something that has gone wrong with the world?
Because it occurs to me that most people are lacking in this area. I mean, people swear to have faith and live by His word and all that but, for the most part, it appears to be an empty faith. People are told to do this, not do that and believe in this because it is what He wants. "You have to have faith," they say. "Have faith and He will deliver you."
Only on rare occasions have I met someone who truly felt and believed in all of this. More often than not, it seems, people go to church on Sunday, not because they know deep down in their souls that it is right, but because they have been told that it is right and they never thought about it again from that moment to this.
Even more distressing to me are the number of people I have seen desperately seeking for something that felt right to them and wound up clinging with all their might to the elusive olive branch offered to them from this or that religious institution. It seems as though the shoeless man will wear any shoe, regardless of size, provided it means he no longer has to go barefoot.
It looks, to my eyes, as if religion has taken up a post as Keeper of the Void. People have come so very very far from our animalistic roots that something basic is now missing and rather than look deep inside of ourselves to see that void and learn best how to recapture that missing essence, we turn to religion as a crutch or a bandaid.
Now, I am not saying that religion is bad. If you have faith in something, by all means keep it close to your heart and never let anyone tell you that you are wrong. What I am saying, is that faith is not the only ingredient. There is more missing from us than words and ritual can replace.
For example, look at the food we eat. Not only is a hardy portion of it unnatural but there are words in ingredient lists that 9 out of 10 people can't even identify! And as if that weren't bad enough, those people who strive to maintain an organic diet are ridiculed for doing so. The same thing goes for vegetarians and vegans. It is more than a little bit distressing that those people who are doing their damnedest to live a healthy, natural lifestyle are being put down by people who are living lives so far removed from nature that they no longer have so much as a frame of reference.
Hell, I am as guilty of this as anyone and still it disgusts me. I really need to try to keep that in check.
Please understand that I am not a health food nut. I eat the same crap most other Americans eat. All I am saying is that I can see where the desire and need is coming from. In a way, it is almost as much a religion as Catholicism. It is choosing to live a life style based on the truths held closest to someone's heart. Seems to me as if they are more or less the same thing.
Need another example? Talk to your parents... Hell talk to THEIR parents and ask them what community means. Friends? Family? Probably not followers...
Social media is an absolutely wonderful thing but once again, it is only guarding a void.
At this point, so many people live their lives through the internet that it is a wonder anyone goes out of their houses anymore. I for one, have friends I would never have known if it weren't for this machine. I mean GODS! I live with a person I met playing World of Warcraft!
I think my Grandfather would be appalled. (Of course, he would have to bite me and get over it but that isn't the point I am trying to make today.)
When my parents grew up, their friends were the people they knew from school. Everyone was in the same geographical location and, unless they had close ties to family elsewhere, that was their world. Their family were the people related to them and that they knew in person.
Followers weren't even something that existed back then. (Unless you knew some o' them freaks up the block what wears der funny lookin' robes an' calls 'emselves the Followers o' Brother Zeke or some such nonsense. Don't go near em', don't talk to 'em, don't meet their eyes, and whatever you do, don't drink their Koolaid!)
Now each of us has a million followers on Twitter, 497 friends on Facebook and Myspace, and my family are people who are 2000 miles or more away and who I talk to once a week on a phone I keep in my pocket. Shit, I get to watch my sister grow up on Skype for fucks sake!
My community is made up of thousands of people I have never even met. Yet, I don't think that I know more than a handful of my neighbors and I have lived here for well over two years now.
Once again, let me point out that I do not mean to disparage these wonderful social networking tools we have arrayed before us. I use them daily and I have no intentions of giving them up. I am merely trying to find ways to illustrate how our spirituality is suffering from the fact that we have moved so very very far from our roots in nature.
Albert Einstein is quoted as having said, "It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity."
Spiritualism, I think, is an extension of the closeness we feel with the world around us; An extension of our humanity and as we have grown farther and farther apart we have lost something so basic that most people don't even realize that it is missing.
Maybe it is time we stop and examine that a little bit.
I'm just sayin'.
The gross heathenism of civilization has generally destroyed nature, and poetry, and all that is spiritual.
-John Muir, letter to J.B. McChesney, 19 September 1871-
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As far at the technology thing goes, I find it's a double egded sword. For some it's a good thing, those that do not have access to a social network locally, or is some cases, access to one that's not comparable to a rhubarb patch. Others find it an easy escape and lose touch with thsoe around them. I see a stong tendancy in a lot of people to seek the anonimenity found in the virtual world, or the feeling of popularity that comes from having a friends list of 836, even if you only talk to 3 of them. The problem is that this network of friends that you don't really know at all, leaves you feeling empty. I fond that the empty feeling, void, hole, etc, is mostly a product of your own self image. No matter what you try to fill your hole with (religeon, sex, love, adrenaline, fetish, vegitables...) You will still have that whole, it's bottomless. Only you can get rid of that emptiness, because it's only a product of your own self perception. There is no hole, you just see/feel one. The quote that comes to mind is "...the secret is to realize that there is no spoon." Yes, a Matrix quote, therefore I am a movie geek, lol, but I find that it applies. In one of my favorite philosophy books states, "Everyone's world is an illusion created by their own perceptions", which prompts the question of just what is reality because our only sense of the world is through our perceptions. So you must find a way to find happiness and fullfillment with yourself, then when that hole disappears, you share what overflows with those around you.
ReplyDeleteOK, now I need to meditate on the plethera of bad sexual references and puns in that discussion....;p
"It seems as though the shoeless man will wear any shoe, regardless of size, provided it means he no longer has to go barefoot."
ReplyDeleteThis was a good one! I agree - and there have been a few studies to show that not only are people sadder and more lonely thanks to the internet - but they are also angrier. Kids today are literally growing up socially retarded - they can't read human faces! They don't speak face to face enough - it is all 'tick-tick-tick' on facebook and texting and what have you! They can't even communicate in the most base and important way, through physical language, and so they all feel even more awkward and lonely when they do see people and so they decide to stay in again instead.
I love the internet - I have spent my time here and seen shit I can't "unsee" but I was lucky - I didn't get into it I was like 18! I was already formed - in a time before all this cell phone, gps, twitter bullshit. Don't get me started on Twitter! Texting!? What the fuck?! "They" are passing notes like a 13 year olds! They can't even talk on the phone anymore!
I absolutely love the barefoot quote. Original, or found? Lemme know.
ReplyDeleteYou, good sir, *are* a very spiritual individual. I've certainly logged enough 4 a.m. man-hours at the coffee shack to know that.
I tend to end up being lumped into the "Pagan" thing, too, for many of the same reasons you do.
The difference between us is, I DO consider myself a Christian. Not a Baptist, a Pentecostal, or a Methodist, though, so it's hard to explain what I mean by that.
The way I see things is pretty simple. I do know there's a God, because I've met Him. If you don't, no biggie. I'm convinced. You don't have to be. Not my job to regulate your belief system.
By God, I probably don't mean what the average Joe does, though, either. I'm okay with the idea of God as a cosmic force of good, who literally intervenes and knows everybody and everything. And from our conversations, we seem to agree on that pretty regularly. I just have a name for it, that's all.
There are parts of the Bible I really take issue with. I think anyone who reads it for themselves would. There are contradictions, and some downright evil things, that I can't be okay with.
I try to keep in mind that people wrote that book, regardless of whether they were or weren't inspired by some outside universal force. But then, of course, you quickly get into whether it's "infallible" or not.
I'm willing to think that there are parts that got exaggerated, reworked, and left out all together. Read the Second Apocalypse of Peter. Here's a hint--it's not in the Bible. Some of the non-canonical stuff even makes the rest of it make sense.
In the end, I believe what I want--including in the possibilities of psychism, ghosts, and other assorted oddities--and it gets me labelled.
The only sanctioned church I've found that's close is Unitarian Universalist. You'd probably like it, actually... they don't believe there's a Hell, and I do, so that's different, but I haven't found anything else I disagree with, and I know you and I agree on a lot (barring that whole ends/means thing). :)
Sidenote... To give you an idea of what I mean--the service when Jerry and I went to try the church out started with a candle lighting invocation, a general prayer, an acapella eight-part round, and a Tibetan bowl ringing. It ended with a Buddist reading and a dramatic interp scene from a couple of teenagers. The main speaker stopped the sermon anytime anyone wanted to discuss something further in depth--kids AND adults, and this was the mural on the side of the sanctary wall:
http://gnuuc.freeservers.com/inspiration_gallery/inspiration_gallery.html
No, really--seriously go look at that picture.
If I claim "Pagan", it gets me left alone. People are afterwards surprised to learn that I believe wholly in God and worship as a Christian, but then they don't tune out and they take me seriously. Because I'm safe. Because I'm a Pagan. People who won't listen in the first place and get hung up on denominational segregation crap aren't anyone I care about, and this weeds them out pretty quickly.
Oddly enough, would you believe, my Christian faith is stronger since I've quit claiming to wear the word. Go figure.
Sigh.
Dude, this so makes me miss Der Awful Waffle.
Well said, well spoken.
ReplyDelete@ Craig - Stop punning... It makes my ears bleed. Even when I am just reading it :p
ReplyDelete@ Joan - Thanks... As for things you can't unsee... Window Licker ... I strongly recommend never watching the video... Really, I mean it. That being said, I am sure you will at some point (human nature being what it is and all) and when you do, remember that I warned you. I have no idea why it freaks me out the way it does but, well, there it is.
@ Tracy - I miss der Waffle House often. I mean, really often. And yes, we have had enough conversations that lasted all noght long that I figured you would at least understand. The quote is actually mine and I made it up on the spot. Glad something good is coming from all this writing. By the way, Manda now believes the two of us need to write together... Mayhaps it is nearly time for us to start discussing some of those project ideas again.
@ Nik - Welcome and thanx for joining us! I look forward to getting to chat with you along with all these other beautiful peeps.
See you all soon!
Nik is an in-person friend of mine from my writer's group.
ReplyDeleteShe's of the same mold; you'd like her.
Check out her blog, iff'n you want to.