I have heard various versions of “Let God and Let God.” from the time I was very young. “Trust in God” I often heard. “One will get what one needs- not necessarily what one wants.” “It is God’s will.” The implied truth was always that the only way that one can find peace is to let go of one’s own wishes or will and trust that this mysterious God knows what she/she/it is doing. Somehow this God, whom we are expected to obey, is in charge and, yet, we have the option of sinning/exercising free will. Intermixed with these truth, in the Christian tradition was the riddle of somehow one must die in order to live. I grew in the Christian church with lots of paintings and sculptures of this Jesus fellow nailed to the cross; the same Jesus who would emerge alive from the tomb.
One was advised to study the Bible daily while trusting that God would give one what one needed but apparently only if one quit sinning and when one did sin, ask for forgiveness. In the tradition in which I grew up there was no limit to the number of behaviors which were likely to make God angry. It seems as if one must daily die as this sinful person and momentarily – if that long – accept God’s grace. I was well aware that I failed miserably and was destined to be cast into the everlasting fire of Hell for all of eternity. It was a frightening thought. Although frightened, I seem both unwilling and/or constitutionally unable to refrain from sinful thoughts which contained the earnest desire for sinful behavior. The desire for the later always outweighed my fear or so it seemed.
Much later in life, I would be introduced to many philosophers and theologians who posited many ways to view this human existence and the purpose thereof. It was at this period of my life that I began to truly understand the concept of death and resurrection. I began the slow and seemingly non-ending practice of accepting that I knew/know nothing. This body of so called knowledge had to be “killed off’/put aside/let go of. There was no end to the “truths” which I had unwittingly accepted. Some of them were very personal truths about myself and others were more generalized truths about this life journey. This “truths” included:
· Jesus is going to be really pissed if you do not acknowledge He saved you by dying.
· At the very least one will be developed huge warts with will tell the world that one is a masturbator and ultimately those very same warts will prevent you from entering Heaven. It will take eternity to burn them off! Oh my!
· There is absolute knowledge
· One will get rewarded in the next life for one’s good needs.
· Good people lived on the right side of the tracks.
· God loved all people but only if they stayed on their side of the tracks.
· Killing in the name of God and Country was a good thing.
· Killing if not sanctioned by the larger community was sinful.
· If we are good and study we will have a good job, financial security and live on the right side of the tracks.
· God made man and woman so that he could put his thing into her thing to make babies but it was not for enjoyment.
· All good people lived in little house with white pickett fences and kept a neat lawn.
· One should be proud of and loyal to one’s country no matter how they behaved.
· White Christians were good people although there was the occasional person of color such as my Aunt Pleasie (Cherokee Indian) who was an exception.
· The United States was America – this one still confuses me.
· Our way of government should be adopted by the rest of the world.
· We should share our food and other riches with deserving people but make sure we are not communists or socialists.
· Children should be eternally grateful for their parents even if parents were angry most of the time and very mean.
· We should show our concern to the starving children of China by eating food on our plate that we hated.
· If someone heard you crying when a parent was beating you it was your fault for embarrassing them.
One gets the idea. The point is, of course that we present information to our children as if we have absolute truths to impart. Death and resurrection is a theological concept but has not relevance for how one lives one’s life. Then one gets introduced to philosophers and poets such as Rumi.
TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 2013
[Sunlight] How shall we seek real knowledge?
~
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How shall we seek real knowledge?
By renouncing knowledge.
How shall we seek salvation?
By renouncing our own salvation.
How shall we seek Existence?
By renouncing our existence.
-- Muriel Maufroy
"Breathing Truth - Quotations from Jalaluddin Rumi"
Sanyar Press - London, 1997
One may also be exposed to the Socratic method. If lucky one also meets folks such as Aberjhani
“A bridge of silver wings stretches from the dead ashes of an unforgiving nightmare
to the jeweled vision of a life started anew.”
― Aberjhani, Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry
Along comes Walt Whitman. What to make of the following which is attributed to him:
“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”
― Walt Whitman
One might even be exposed to the clearly irrelevant “wisdom” of Mark Twain in such sacrilegious works as Letters from the Earth. To wit:
“Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute. Indeed, my experiments have proven to me that he is the Unreasoning Animal... In truth, man is incurably foolish. Simple things which other animals easily learn, he is incapable of learning. Among my experiments was this. In an hour I taught a cat and a dog to be friends. I put them in a cage. In another hour I taught them to be friends with a rabbit. In the course of two days I was able to add a fox, a goose, a squirrel and some doves. Finally a monkey. They lived together in peace; even affectionately.
Next, in another cage I confined an Irish Catholic from Tipperary, and as soon as he seemed tame I added a Scotch Presbyterian from Aberdeen. Next a Turk from Constantinople; a Greek Christian from Crete; an Armenian; a Methodist from the wilds of Arkansas; a Buddhist from China; a Brahman from Benares. Finally, a Salvation Army Colonel from Wapping. Then I stayed away for two whole days. When I came back to note results, the cage of Higher Animals was all right, but in the other there was but a chaos of gory odds and ends of turbans and fezzes and plaids and bones and flesh--not a specimen left alive. These Reasoning Animals had disagreed on a theological detail and carried the matter to a Higher Court.”
― Mark Twain, Letters from the Earth: Uncensored Writings
I am again reminded of the quote from Rumi with which I started these musings:
How shall we seek real knowledge?
By renouncing knowledge.
How shall we seek salvation?
By renouncing our own salvation.
How shall we seek Existence?
By renouncing our existence.
The “truth” seems to be that I will to learn by accepting the contradiction of what Rumi and others continue to teach me. Indeed it is by letting go and letting God that I have any measure of control. It is only not attaching myself to living that I can live. It is only by being intentional about my breath that I can let go of any thoughts. It is only by letting go of thoughts that I have the possibility of thought rather than memory. For it is memory of what I have previously been taught that I want to let go of if I am to learn.
The student says I “I am going to try x.” The teacher reminds the student, ”We cannot accomplish by trying but only by doing. If you try to pick up this dish you are not picking it up. It is, thus, by the absence of seeking salvation that we are saved. It is only by being open to death that we live. It is only by letting of love that we love.” These are the paradoxes which we can examine, meditate about, discuss, write endless about, just smile about or jut accept.
We laugh at the idea of the truth. We embrace those who we see as unworthy of embracing. We love the unlovable.
We embrace the cup of coffee. We breathe. We smile. We accept that we are not which allow us to be.
Written October 19, 2015
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