After reading Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, I toyed with the idea of calling myself an atheist, because atheists, he explains, are not people who firmly believe there is no God. Rather, they simply live is if there isn't one. That could describe me. But so could a lot of watered down definitions of "Christian."
I was once a teenager and a young adult who was prematurely permitted to insert my hand into every aspect of the church's functioning. I taught children and teenagers, I ran programs, attended some sort of church function most days of the week. I was frequently called upon to give expression to my faith and I frequently complied.
At some point in my slow evolution into a functioning member of society, many of my own words came back to haunt me. The hollowness of my platitudes plagued me. Each phrase had been handed down to me and while I internalized them, believed them and tried to act upon them, I had not gained a single insight through experience, struggle or grief. My expressions of faith were no more real than a child playing dress-up, modeling the behavior of those around me.
I have slowly shed all of the aspects of faith that seem unreal to me. I know the Bible. Its verses still sing away in me and there are some that are very insightful. But I don't miss the charade of churchgoing one bit. I don't miss my awkward attempts at making mine a story that I don't fully believe, the pat responses, the myopia. I don't trust myself to approach Christian teachings honestly when they are so deeply embedded in a culture that strikes me as wrong and subversively demanding on my internal resources, that quietly prods me toward spiritual falsity. Perhaps it does not have this effect on everyone, but that is how it affects me. It silences the part of me that is capable of insight, the part of me that that is serene in the face of death, the part that understands and accepts my nothingness in the flux of time, the part capable of spontaneous joy.
But here is what I have left. Sometimes when I finish a grueling run and everything in me is spent and I am full of joy, I whisper a silent, "Thank you." And I mean it. I mean it from the bottom of my heart and I am thanking the Creator of all things that in that moment, I truly believe in. It is for no one but Him and it is rich and full and real. I know that this is very poor. But my spirit is poor and this is all it has. I may be weak, I may be poor and I may be misguided. But I am not false.
This is the point where my Christian teenage self would have said, "That's great that you've recognized your spiritual poverty, but now..." And the church urges us to recognize our poverty and then go fill ourselves with spiritual riches and sing God's praises. But I will always be poor. The widow who gave her last mite did not go home rich. She went home as poor as she always was. We are broken and it's ok to live that way. It's only in my poverty that I can see the true value of what little I do possess. I will take a thousand runs to feel that tiny moment of true gratitude. Because that is all I am capable of.
One of those Bible verses that still courses through me is the promise that the Kingdom of God belongs to the poor in spirit. I don't really even know what that means. But it sounds pretty good, and I know I am poor and I don't hope to be fixed. I feel grateful.
Friday, April 26, 2013
Monday, April 22, 2013
Memories are a hiding place.
Memories are a hiding place. All kinds of information is packed away in them that the brain that stored them was not yet equipped to understand. Fortunately life sometimes gives us enough distance from some of them that we can begin to understand their many layers.
My family lived in an apartment building until I was four years old. Sometime before that, and after I learned to walk, my father and I were walking hand-in-hand along the network of sidewalks that wound around the buildings in that complex. One and only one of them featured an elaborate balcony hanging off the back: Florence's apartment. My dad and I would walk there once a month to pay the rent in person, in cash. This day was not rent day; we just happened to pass by there. Little did we expect to see Florence gracing her balcony, or the invitation that would follow.
Florence was the landlady that some writer would invent for a sitcom. She had what must have been translucent white hair, dyed into a poof of orange that she would wear piled on her head in some bewitching manner that was capable of acting like a light catcher on sunny afternoons. And so it was-- sunny, mid-day, perhaps spring. Perhaps a day like today.
I don't remember any of the words she and my father exchanged. But I do remember the textures, the emotions. Florence stood on the balcony engaging my father in a conversation he would rather not be having, but which he felt obliged to carry on. I remember feeling like we were fish and she was up in her big boat casting her line, willing to reel in anything that would bite. She invited us inside and we went. It was the only time I remember being inside her living room and not just the rent office. She had an ornate golden couch, on either side of which stood two stone lions. She smoked a cigarette out of a holder until it became hard to breathe. Everything intimidated. Eventually we left, apparently, because I am not still there.
My mind has traveled back to that memory numerous times over the years, and I think the reason that it stuck was because I knew there was more to it than what I could understand at the time- the feeling of being on the underside of a class difference, the person above us barely at the top of our own class but striving to feel higher, and needing us in order to do so; the feeling of my father's reluctance to engage in the charade, perhaps not perceiving all of its elements himself, but feeling inexplicably shier than usual. My 3 or 4 year old self could not possibly have comprehended those aspects of the scene, yet there they are in my memory-- my early observations seared into my brain as images and textures of emotion, without words, and dubbed over by my more mature mind. It's hard to tell whether I perceived what was going on at the time without having the words to convey it, or whether I perceived those things only later, like someone watching a silent movie. Either way, the memory is laid over by a part of my mind and spirit that developed much, much later.
I observed a similar phenomenon with my oldest daughter, whose every development I had the pleasure of observing without distraction. The most mystifying part of her growth, to me, was that brief period where she was just on the cusp of language. There were a few occasions where she would talk about something that I realized had happened before she could talk. I found it hard to wrap my mind around the idea of describing a pre-lingual experience.
But we do this all the time. And as we age, we do it even more. We can even force it sometimes. Once you realize that your brain is storing things you can't yet decode, you can try to focus on experiences that your brain hooks on, that you know hold more than you can yet comprehend- a look on someone's face, the way someone reacts to information, a dream that seems to hold meaning. Your soul can learn to act as a scale for the weight of moments. It can alert you when there's something worth paying attention to.
But largely, this process is passive. Our minds bring us back memories when we are ready for them, when we are capable of understanding everything that they hold. Time does bear some wonderful gifts.
My family lived in an apartment building until I was four years old. Sometime before that, and after I learned to walk, my father and I were walking hand-in-hand along the network of sidewalks that wound around the buildings in that complex. One and only one of them featured an elaborate balcony hanging off the back: Florence's apartment. My dad and I would walk there once a month to pay the rent in person, in cash. This day was not rent day; we just happened to pass by there. Little did we expect to see Florence gracing her balcony, or the invitation that would follow.
Florence was the landlady that some writer would invent for a sitcom. She had what must have been translucent white hair, dyed into a poof of orange that she would wear piled on her head in some bewitching manner that was capable of acting like a light catcher on sunny afternoons. And so it was-- sunny, mid-day, perhaps spring. Perhaps a day like today.
I don't remember any of the words she and my father exchanged. But I do remember the textures, the emotions. Florence stood on the balcony engaging my father in a conversation he would rather not be having, but which he felt obliged to carry on. I remember feeling like we were fish and she was up in her big boat casting her line, willing to reel in anything that would bite. She invited us inside and we went. It was the only time I remember being inside her living room and not just the rent office. She had an ornate golden couch, on either side of which stood two stone lions. She smoked a cigarette out of a holder until it became hard to breathe. Everything intimidated. Eventually we left, apparently, because I am not still there.
My mind has traveled back to that memory numerous times over the years, and I think the reason that it stuck was because I knew there was more to it than what I could understand at the time- the feeling of being on the underside of a class difference, the person above us barely at the top of our own class but striving to feel higher, and needing us in order to do so; the feeling of my father's reluctance to engage in the charade, perhaps not perceiving all of its elements himself, but feeling inexplicably shier than usual. My 3 or 4 year old self could not possibly have comprehended those aspects of the scene, yet there they are in my memory-- my early observations seared into my brain as images and textures of emotion, without words, and dubbed over by my more mature mind. It's hard to tell whether I perceived what was going on at the time without having the words to convey it, or whether I perceived those things only later, like someone watching a silent movie. Either way, the memory is laid over by a part of my mind and spirit that developed much, much later.
I observed a similar phenomenon with my oldest daughter, whose every development I had the pleasure of observing without distraction. The most mystifying part of her growth, to me, was that brief period where she was just on the cusp of language. There were a few occasions where she would talk about something that I realized had happened before she could talk. I found it hard to wrap my mind around the idea of describing a pre-lingual experience.
But we do this all the time. And as we age, we do it even more. We can even force it sometimes. Once you realize that your brain is storing things you can't yet decode, you can try to focus on experiences that your brain hooks on, that you know hold more than you can yet comprehend- a look on someone's face, the way someone reacts to information, a dream that seems to hold meaning. Your soul can learn to act as a scale for the weight of moments. It can alert you when there's something worth paying attention to.
But largely, this process is passive. Our minds bring us back memories when we are ready for them, when we are capable of understanding everything that they hold. Time does bear some wonderful gifts.
Monday, April 15, 2013
To See
The first things I always notice when I meet a person are the factors that might shape their worldview- their socio-economic position, place of upbringing, parental status- there are a million other possibilities, but you can't just ask about these things outright. At best, I function like a metal detector, honing in on the important bits just enough to send off a little alarm in my brain to let me know when I'm close. But those are always the pieces I look for first- sort of like how when I do a puzzle, I look for all the edge pieces first. Sometimes I map out the perimeter and get bored with it and walk away. Other times I see unfathomable mysteries, I become intrigued, I slave over all the bits I can find, shaping them into a proper picture in my heart and in my mind- right down to that last piece that magically completes the puzzle. It may take months or years, but some pictures just demand to be seen, and those of us who are able, should.
Three Minutes
After finishing a long run over the sun-soaked, shadow-torn rolling hills south of Buffalo, NY yesterday, I walked a quarter mile to my car. It took only about three minutes to walk the last length of the dead end road where my car was waiting for me in the late afternoon sun, which was just beginning to wane at around 5 p.m. I recall the light being about the same when I ran a similar course last fall, probably October, a parallel place in the earth's ellipsis around the sun. And the day had other parallels as well.
On that day the fall had just begun to creep into my bones and I walked this same stretch of road feeling the fullness of its presence. Three minutes gave me leaves falling across my path, a three legged black dog doing its strange gallop beside me-- black dogs always the harbinger of death. Geese honked their departure overhead. A sad new grayness settled into the sky, the sunlight losing its luster. I could feel the slow ebb of all the small things that make smiling inevitable, leaving me alone with my thoughts in what would soon be a much quieter landscape, to test my body and my mind against harsher elements.
And yesterday, in the same three minute walk, spring was making its presence known. In that tiny sliver of time, the fullness of the season worked its way into me. The black dog was lazing in the sunshine on its porch and in the front corner of the yard, in a closet of leafless vines, a brother and sister were playing in what is really no more than a puddle. But it was large enough for the girl to paddle around it in her inner tube, which is what she was doing while her brother, a few years older at most, stood atop the upturned roots of a fallen tree-- likely soaked through by the collected water-- engaged in a make-believe drama that prompted him to shout, "I'm going to be doomed!" as he teetered on the edge of falling. He did not see me but his sister did, and she smiled quietly at me, seeming to share for a second my outsider's perspective on her brother. She said nothing to him or to me, but paddled on in small circles.
I carried on and saw three roosters pecking away under the giant pine tree in front of their house, watched geese gliding to a landing in the pond across the street. And much to my surprise, I could hear in the thicket what I can only imagine was the sound of geese mating. What a brutal and sensuous racket!
Two three-minute walks form my deepest impressions of fall and spring. Time slices the tiniest slivers of its passage into our souls, marking the seasons on our bones like a prisoner passing the days by carving a tally mark for each one into his wall. These are the loveliest scars to bear.
On that day the fall had just begun to creep into my bones and I walked this same stretch of road feeling the fullness of its presence. Three minutes gave me leaves falling across my path, a three legged black dog doing its strange gallop beside me-- black dogs always the harbinger of death. Geese honked their departure overhead. A sad new grayness settled into the sky, the sunlight losing its luster. I could feel the slow ebb of all the small things that make smiling inevitable, leaving me alone with my thoughts in what would soon be a much quieter landscape, to test my body and my mind against harsher elements.
And yesterday, in the same three minute walk, spring was making its presence known. In that tiny sliver of time, the fullness of the season worked its way into me. The black dog was lazing in the sunshine on its porch and in the front corner of the yard, in a closet of leafless vines, a brother and sister were playing in what is really no more than a puddle. But it was large enough for the girl to paddle around it in her inner tube, which is what she was doing while her brother, a few years older at most, stood atop the upturned roots of a fallen tree-- likely soaked through by the collected water-- engaged in a make-believe drama that prompted him to shout, "I'm going to be doomed!" as he teetered on the edge of falling. He did not see me but his sister did, and she smiled quietly at me, seeming to share for a second my outsider's perspective on her brother. She said nothing to him or to me, but paddled on in small circles.
I carried on and saw three roosters pecking away under the giant pine tree in front of their house, watched geese gliding to a landing in the pond across the street. And much to my surprise, I could hear in the thicket what I can only imagine was the sound of geese mating. What a brutal and sensuous racket!
Two three-minute walks form my deepest impressions of fall and spring. Time slices the tiniest slivers of its passage into our souls, marking the seasons on our bones like a prisoner passing the days by carving a tally mark for each one into his wall. These are the loveliest scars to bear.
Friday, March 29, 2013
The Invisible Audience
Last night in a journal entry, wherein I attempted to sort out what it is that troubles me about Facebook, exactly, I concluded with, "It's the invisible audience we all imagine for our thoughts, sprung to life." Then I started wondering if everyone imagines an invisible audience for their thoughts, and of course turned to Google for the answer. As it turns out, the idea of an "invisible audience" is considered a psychological stage of development that adolescents go through, which accounts for their extreme anxiety over little pimples and the phenomenon of their changing clothes five times before going to a social event: they believe that everyone is as preoccupied with them as they are with themselves.
At first, I was admittedly troubled by the fact that I am 33 years old and still imagine an audience for my thoughts. Surely this indicates some psychological problem or lack of maturity on my part. But the more I read, the more I realized that I do not have the same type of imaginary audience that psychologists talk about when they analyze adolescents. I don't think people are preoccupied with me or spend much time at all thinking about me-- at least, not most people. I would be surprised if they noticed me at all.
My imaginary audience is not constantly looking on with a critical or admiring eye. Rather, I am always formulating my thoughts for the purpose of writing, whether it be a journal entry, Facebook post, blog post or poem. How can anyone write without an audience, real or imaginary? At this point, I haven't even publicized the fact that this blog exists to my friends. They are not the audience. Humanity is. The humanity whose pulse I imagine running through my veins, the universal lot of us, who all live and think and feel in this slice of time. I don't believe I have any really unique experiences; I simply take the time to formulate things that others experience but may leave unsaid, unpackaged. I want to write it down for all of us, for the sake of common awareness, shared experience or at best, deeper living.
At first, I was admittedly troubled by the fact that I am 33 years old and still imagine an audience for my thoughts. Surely this indicates some psychological problem or lack of maturity on my part. But the more I read, the more I realized that I do not have the same type of imaginary audience that psychologists talk about when they analyze adolescents. I don't think people are preoccupied with me or spend much time at all thinking about me-- at least, not most people. I would be surprised if they noticed me at all.
My imaginary audience is not constantly looking on with a critical or admiring eye. Rather, I am always formulating my thoughts for the purpose of writing, whether it be a journal entry, Facebook post, blog post or poem. How can anyone write without an audience, real or imaginary? At this point, I haven't even publicized the fact that this blog exists to my friends. They are not the audience. Humanity is. The humanity whose pulse I imagine running through my veins, the universal lot of us, who all live and think and feel in this slice of time. I don't believe I have any really unique experiences; I simply take the time to formulate things that others experience but may leave unsaid, unpackaged. I want to write it down for all of us, for the sake of common awareness, shared experience or at best, deeper living.
Friday, March 22, 2013
Moving Day
A friend of mine recently shared a photograph of his grandson on "moving day," a 4 year old child seated at a small table, looking at a computer screen while surrounded by empty shelves, packed boxes, and the random detritus that hadn't quite yet detached itself from its familiar surroundings-- the stuff that is either so inconsequential or so important as to seem a part of the house until everything else is removed. The photograph struck me as inexplicably sad and moving-- the child as yet innocent to the passage of time and the way it changes things, oblivious even to the change that is upon him, to the way this very room will remain lodged in a corner of his memory that maybe he will associate with the feeling of home or warmth on a dark, distant day. His awareness is likely just dawning that the seasons change, that even this long, harsh winter will end one day soon. But still that understanding cannot cover this -- despite the obvious correlation in the mind of We Who Have Seen so many things slip away.
Why does it stir me so to see him placid in the face of change? Perhaps it's knowing how deeply big changes wound us all as we wind the anchor up to sail on, and need to learn anew the angle of sunlight and cast of wind that will carry us through the day; knowing that children feel these things but cannot put them to words yet. Perhaps it's just the way he's already learning to stare into the blankness of the computer screen as a distraction from his surroundings. Mostly, though, I think it's the knowledge that this is the beginning of his understanding of the way of the world-- perhaps his first taste of "no more" and "gone" and "forever" and "goodbye."
Why does it stir me so to see him placid in the face of change? Perhaps it's knowing how deeply big changes wound us all as we wind the anchor up to sail on, and need to learn anew the angle of sunlight and cast of wind that will carry us through the day; knowing that children feel these things but cannot put them to words yet. Perhaps it's just the way he's already learning to stare into the blankness of the computer screen as a distraction from his surroundings. Mostly, though, I think it's the knowledge that this is the beginning of his understanding of the way of the world-- perhaps his first taste of "no more" and "gone" and "forever" and "goodbye."
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Landscape With the Fall of Icarus
Bruegel's painting, "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus," is often discussed for the way it draws attention to the ordinary work of the peasants in the scene and casts Icarus' tragic plunge into the sea as an inconsequential mishap in the scheme of daily life. But rather than draw a contrast between Icarus' airy exploits and the peasants' earthly endeavors, I think it points up a similarity among them: that the townsfolk, like Icarus, are concerned only with their own affairs. They are all engaged in some kind of labor- plowing, sailing, climbing, fishing. And it is on their own work, their own daily travails, that each one is focused, not because any one's work is more important than another, but because it is for his own lot that each man is responsible. To one is given a field, to another water, to another the skies. And if one should fall in the course of his affairs, be it due to pride or insolence or for striving after a beautiful dream that we condemn only because it could not be realized in the end, so be it. So will we all lay down when our work is done-- either because it is complete, or we are no longer equal to it-- and everyone else will do as they must, as Robert Frost noted when he said said:
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