Muddle

 Three months ago, my colleague in Ortho decided to find a new job, for very good reasons of her own. And I knew it would be until January before a new person would be hired and start. Our Nurse Practitioner is also retiring at the end of this month, and should have retired over a year ago. 

I have been, in a very real sense, been covering nearly 3 full time jobs since October. Yes, I do cry a lot. 

Others have gotten involved, which is overdue, but changes in how this speciality works, or fails to work, are happening. The new guy starts beginning of January,  and we will both be learning. 

This is rather like when I battled the Hedge, excavating the rose bush from it, clearing out the deadwood. The process is painful, it looks ugly for a while, but it is necessary. And, in time, makes everything work better. 

Everything in life needs a good clearout, now and then. 

I've had a bit of inspiration about the nature of gods.  Or at least the One God of the ridiculous self proclaimed christians. This being cannot be omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent.  Because error is so clearly fundamental to the universe.  What could be perfect that contains irrational numbers, for a start? 

No, GOD cannot be perfect.  Love and life are inherently imperfect. Perfection is the antithesis of both, stasis and death are perfect. No - god must be creative, curious, poking into every corner and ringing all the changes. Look to the simple cells and creatures who reproduce by division and cloning, only adaptable to the extent they have mutation errors. So sex comes in to mix it up further, try anything to change. The more complexity, the more 'error'.  Maybe even the rules change as each layer of quantum expands life. Not to mention how sex is all over the place, in practice, in inclination, in expression, hormones, anatomy and over time. It's all a glorious muddle. 

The story of Eden is backwards.  Adam and Eve were not quite alive, held in a pretty but unchanging reality. Only through curiosity and exploration do they begin to grow souls. They choose 'disobedience' over perfection, as they should. Held in a gilded cage, they had to escape. Oh, and that the man birthed the woman, clearly the story is inverted and that is the first big clue. 

This is the first time I have even wanted to write here, since the last time. It's all felt too much,  Here at this nadir, where the water pools, the urge to write sprouts. 

That

Do you reject god? The one who claims to have created, where there is no creator. The one who demands adoration, and proudly owns jealously and violence, threatens us with suffering and eternal torment? The one who claims omniscience and omnipotence, and still requires belief and praise? The one who prefers men and slanders women and leaves children unprotected? That god?

I reject him.

And all his works. And all his empty promises.

Whole

Much dusting and cleaning. A little light shoveling.

Woke this morning thinking of the A Good Idea at the Time. And felt this strange insight into the nature of what we label evil. It is part of the design, because anything in a positive feedback loop destroys itself utterly and does not survive. No species, no system. We need checks and balances. The big difficulty with obsessive/compulsive disorders and addictions, among other problems, is that the inhibitory parts of the brain don't work as well as they should. Pure altruism does not live long. Cancers are unchecked growth, nothing breaking them down. Not one good, one bad, but creation and destruction working together. Real good is when they function and change, real evil is when one or the other gets too powerful. When god and the devil are dancing, or trying to destroy each other.

Lay down our label-maker, and appreciate the whole cloth.

Saints

Watching a documentary about Johnny Cash. At the very end, one of his cohorts says, "maybe he was a saint." The phrase rang with truth. Could it be this is what saints really are? Not paragons of virtue, not religious messengers, but powerfully unique people, incapable of being anything but genuine, who shake the world where they walk? Full of doubts and flaws, but life expresses itself through them lucidly, uses them up to pour grace over all they touch? Bodhisattvas showing us a way forward, exploding our comfortable assumptions? Damned to be misunderstood and copied, when the real message is to find our own, particular, unmappable path?

I remember once asking a nun if any one of us, in our class, could be saints. She equivocated, I don't remember how she answered. But, I think we are all called, the sacred is just the other side of our fears and self delusions. If only we push through, willing to look, courageous enough to struggle to understand.

We are all capable of being saints. No excuses. It just takes everything we are.

Laziness

One of my deepest issues with standard religions is the exclusion of the sexual from the sacred. (To say that the sacred is sexual to the exclusion of all else is also wrong.) To be of the sex that is excluded seemed the extension of the blind spot, not a separate issue.

Growing up in enforced catholicism, albeit of an assumed rather than explicit version, chafed against my own strong instincts, which I knew to be reliable. This became very clear once I lived on my own, and walked urban streets alone, knowing that I was vulnerable, but capable and aware of subtle changes. Raised by a dangerous and unpredictable parent trained me better than I could have dreamed. I may never have felt indestructible when young, but I ventured out as though it didn't much matter. And I knew when to trust my instincts, and have been proven right. Or at least not proven wrong.

Any faith that excises Any kind of human experience has immediately gotten a hole. Often displacing it in another area. For us to deal with our human condition, we have to start with the human part, and use everything we got. Every impulse, every altruistic thought, every selfish vice has to be accepted and turned toward living a worthwhile and humane life, in an ideal religion, for it to be worth bothering with. It has to take us as we are, and ask us to be our best possible selves. It has to be like real love.

It has to include our infinite gender variations, our sexual selves in all their messy glory, our ingestions and excretions, our highest intelligence and our silliest jokes, our violence and failings - lest they obsess us and take over, our vague dissatisfactions and angelic aspirations. Our fears and joys and small pleasures alike.

The abhorrence by the orthodox of the idea of a religious buffet, an eclectic mixture certainly is more about power and authority than the care and feeding of a healthy soul. Why not find what is good from each, for you in your unique life, to grow deep and true? I've never heard a rational argument against picking and choosing.

I like the idea of Enlightened Laziness, and Mobyism.

Incursions

Yes, I grew up Catholic, baptized, confirmed, ten years of my schooling, devoutly mothered. Left as soon as I was free to do so, but kept that largely to myself. No desire to replace that religion in my life. So, as the pedophile scandal unfolded, I was not particularly surprized, although I never saw anything like it myself. Nor do I have any sympathy for the believers (the kids victimized, get it all) nor for the institution. Give one group too much power, give up too much of your intellect to blind faith, add a pile of money over a couple of thousand years, and this is the kind of misery that will result. Better to give the scoundrel only a limited space to move, and keep for ourselves plenty of skepticism of authority.

That the Pope's advisor is now arrested on the very problem he was charged with solving does not surprize me either. In our guard unit, the guy put in charge of sexual harassment was the one who cornered females to force a kiss on them. Didn't work with me, but only because I was older, faster, and had already dealt with that sort of behaviour. When I worked at the Detroit library, as a 19-20 year old, I was cornered by an older guard in an elevator, and he kissed me. I did not like him, did not take it as grandfatherly at all, but it was, however disturbing, ultimately harmless. An important lesson, since no old pervert ever caught me again. But if he'd been more aggressive, more violent, more violating, I would have had no defense, no recourse - only boatload of guilt after.

Not that there weren't other incursions on my person, but they abated as I got older, and I got better at preventing them by picking up on early signs. Which is why it is so evil when predators use children, who don't even understand what is being taken from them. That a religious institution is so cavalier about how they deal with this is institutional evil. Just as we all knew that assigning that Officer to take charge of Sexual Harassment meant putting the proverbial fox in charge of the chicken coop, everyone who worked with that priest knew. Of course they knew. What they were thinking is the mystery.

Whatever my spiritual leanings and aspirations, I will never belong to a regimented belief system. That way lies destruction of one's soul. No truth lives there. Only hypocrisy and dogma.

Dogs know better.

Translation

Having read Dale and Crow, I ponder translation. D saw Captain America, which he enjoyed, as a comic book geek, for being neither too slavish, nor too alienated from the original material. I remember Charlotte's Web, animated, when I was small, and being aware even then of the difficulty of taking a literary form and turning it into a movie.

I saw Winnie the Pooh before reading it, and started off preferring the Disney version. But when I got older, I began to appreciate the subtly and grace of the Shepard illustrations, and the charm of the writing. Especially after the Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff. D had never been read any of it, so when we listened to the Richard Briers version, we both fell in love, me - all over again. So, the process worked backwards. I found the facile animation pleasing when I was small, I found the words and full story satisfying as an adult.

Moving from one medium to another is never a straightforward word by word analysis. Always, there must be a complete rethinking of the story, and how it will read in a different form. Moving from painting to sculpture means an added dimension. Just as taking a novel and turning it into a movie is not a straightforward proposition. The televised version of Going Postal lost sight of this completely, giving up the story, and the characters, for the sake of the "look" of the thing. Disaster. The series of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. and Smiley's People, manage to both streamline and translate the story rather well, even as they trimmed everything that works in a novel, but flounders in a movie. The new version looks to have lost the plot.

The danger is always in being too slavish to the source, versus just getting a motif, and going off on a far tangent that alienates those who love the source, and confusing to those unfamiliar. Some stories are best as novels, some as film, some art works best in oils and two dimensions, some as sculpture. Whatever works best, but even if the theme is pervasive, it must change with each incarnation.

So, we must re-tell our stories, re-write our poems, re-paint our images, as each generation has a different context. Context is everything. Rare are the artists who happen to hit upon something so spare, so flexible, that it can be eternal. Like Shakespeare, or the cave artists at Lascaux. Poets are copied, and seem derivative. Citizen Kane is so copied it appears clichéd,
Picasso so reproduced he is passé. Leonardo become a kind of shorthand joke for genius. How many lost poets, who spoke so clearly to their own times, that everyone built on them to the extent that they are mocked and surpassed?

We live and die by our stories, so they must be kept current, comprehensible. No one understands about sheep and shepherds in our modern life, and we need a new, perhaps urban, savior. Or better yet, how to save ourselves.

Ultimate

The signs were not good. I got an email about the tutoring, did not recognize the name, and she did not introduce herself further. Merely asked if I could teach a different day than I have available. I had to reply that, no, I could not change my work schedule. Then I find out it's for a class of about five, which was what I asked not to be put into.

Another email over the weekend with the rigid class and lesson schedule with specified word lists. Um, well, this is uncomfortable, since I'd gotten the impression in the training that we would be working on that with the individual, developing a focused set of goals for them, not using a set curriculum and a workbook*. But I decide to hear her out. I am to go out there today, and yesterday afternoon, I get an email telling me that I am to teach not one, but TWO classes (not asked, mind.) I wrote back with my increasing concerns, and she backpedals - apparently, and I agree to come out and talk with her.

The where is a big issue. It's far out to the west, an industrial area, a considerable drive for me (who prefers never to leave the downtown area, or at least the east side.) And this preference, along with my schedule and number of learners, is on her sheet on me. Anyway, I get there, and realize that the Humanitarian Center is not next to the Dominant Church Here, it is part of it's industrial complex. It is the DCH Humanitarian Center. With all the Inspirational pictures every ten feet along the walls. And the 'students' work in the thrift store warehouse and take classes. I have a deep moral distaste for the DCH mission, and the destruction of local clothing economies due to the availability of cheap second hand clothing. Among other issues. She took me to a class to see for myself, and the teacher is an older woman on a DCH mission.

Turns out the woman I am meeting is my mentor, which I have to pull out of her. She was at the training - but never identified herself as such in the emails. She is not herself a native English speaker - which complicates the issue. I expect not to be able to readily communicate with the students, but I need to clearly communicate with my mentor. She does not in any way acknowledge my discomfort, and I have to keep telling her that no, this is not going to work. I'm doing my damnedest to stay polite, but no does in fact, mean no. And she is not asking me questions, so I have to keep confronting. She goes over my preference sheet as though I had no idea what I was writing there.

I finally get through to her that while I understand there is a need here, she needs someone who is going to want to be here, and not be miserable for six months. It was all I could do not to just say, "Oh, well, just use missionaries for this." It takes a while, but I do have a very strong metaphorical spine, and will not be guilted into the wrong placement for me. If I want to crawl out of my skin the whole time, I can't do anyone any good. I did not say that part out loud. And the tutoring is, despite some half hearted assurances that she wants the teachers to be creative, very much a part of a whole class system, and is not amenable to creative interpretation and individual needs. Rather like the DCH.

I'm calming down. Taking D out for his yesterday birthday today. He is at the age of the Ultimate Answer. We did get to the Red Iguana last night, and they had pistachio mole, which was wonderfully special.

*With the awful drawings.

Bucket

"Do you know what I miss about Easter observances, growing up Catholic?"
"No, what do you miss?"
"Nothing. Nothing at all."

I think the chocolate bunny, malted milk egg candies, were all just rewards for enduring Holy Week. And it is grueling, done properly. Every day in church, Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, hard benches, pews, endless services, some at school - since I went to catholic school as well. I felt the words, the dogmatism of the words that choked me. Couldn't shut off my ears. I did not feel good about this, as saints were the epitome of being a good child, and they all loved the mass. At least in their stories. I found mass to be a trial, a misery. It was a lesson in self discipline, patience, and critical listening - worthy skills. I got that out of it not because that was the point, but because I pulled that out of the experience.

My mother put me in pastels, which I detested at the best of times, and the shoes always hurt. The hats were good, though. I've always liked hats. Often, in Detroit, Easter was not warm, and frilly clothes were inadequate for a raw, even snowy, day.

Oddly, or maybe not so much, Holy Saturday, a day of mourning, of death, of defeat, even with it's long service with the litany of the saints, call and response service - not a mass - sit, stand, kneel, sit, repeat, wasn't so bad. I respected the acknowledgment of death. Just as the vigil service, lighting the new fire, candles, ancient hymns (especially after I was in the choir) resonated, even though it all went on way too long. I got it when my childhood religion dealt head on with death and loss, Ash Wednesday, Holy Saturday, though I was not comforted with the idea of resurrection. I preferred the idea of reincarnation, and eventually came to like the idea of Nirvana. Although I now, I'm good with dead is dead, and now is life - better live well.

I never bought the idea of one person, one man, even if he was God's son, having to get tortured and killed, as a way to save souls from hell. What about all those who came before? All the other religions with different ideas about what happens after death? It was all so far fetched, so much had to be taken on a faith I never had. Once I started hearing other myths, it seemed obvious the christian story was one more.

The reward for a life well lived, is a well lived life. To want more is greedy and ungracious.

But, have a chocolate bunny, and eat the ears first.



Why contort oneself to drink out of the bucket? Why not?

Saint

Snowing madly this morning. We were going to have early lunch with D's parents, but both got a bad feeling about them driving here in that, and offered to make it lunch tomorrow instead. They agreed, to our relief, although we kept on cleaning the place. I checked, and there actually was a crash along their route. The problem with prevention, though, is never knowing if it worked. We only know when we ignored the feeling, and something happens.

Really loved the xkcd today. Oh, well, here.

(click to make readable, alt text at site)

Yeah. This is my issue with religion, regimented spiritual belief institutionalized as a mechanism of rule. The world divided into beautiful and ugly, good and evil, virtuous and sinful, as stated by a god who only speaks through the guys who write down what they think god said. A real scientist sees everything as interesting, beautiful in it's own way, all full of wonder. And the "faithful" look down on science as unimaginative and rigid. Well, we all find our own faults in others most irksome. Even when they don't actually appear in the other.

In defining myself, I would not use the word atheist, but agnostic. I suspect the mind of the universe is incomprehensible, and any attempt to define it is futile. Not that there isn't one. No way to prove that.

To assert one knows, and furthermore bases a system of government upon it - even a voluntary one, is downright psychotic, or abusively deceptive. Speculating on it may be a legitimate intellectual exercise, imagining angels doing the samba on pinheads, writing alternate history or other fantasy is part of what humans do after all. But to regulate thought and belief is a vicious enterprise. I've often thought that St. Paul's flash of insight on the road to Damascus was that, instead of persecuting early christians, he should become a powerful cult leader - with all the sex, money and status attending. It's all myth, after all is written.

I've always been rather suspicious of saints. Something inhuman about all the Catholic ones, at least. Each had a touch of the con artist, swindler, user, about them. Covered in platitudes. Holy Joe's, every damn one of 'em.

Commandments

Commandments . Not exactly ten.

Where is the compassion?


2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery
Now there is controversy. That the Israelites were actually Caananites, who spent time in and out of the Egyptian sphere, depending on water availability. Not exactly slaves, but certainly treated as most nomads were by established agrarian societies. Either way, you're not my bloody god, you imaginary pastoral idea of deity.

3 Do not have any other gods before me.
Like, all the ones you used to worship? And still do, to be honest.

4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
"Like that one you wear around your neck, carry in your pocket, or those of the country you are sponging off of." Who says I worship those? Just a bit of luck, decoration, whathaveyou.

5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me,
Nice god you got there. Baby killer.

6 but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Gotta keep the political control somehow.


7 You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.
Even though you are not actually allowed to say that name.

8 Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.
Does this mean Saturday and Sunday, and what about long weekends?

9 For six days you shall labour and do all your work.
How many hours per day? Is that a 40 hour week? How about feeding livestock, is that work? How about the women cooking, surely we don't have to go hungry one day a week?


10 But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.
So, a day off? Hey! Slaves are OK? Nothing like a consistent, ethical, moral code.

11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.
Yeah, but, well, being a god and all...


12 Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
What if my parents beat me, or fuck with me?

13 You shall not kill/murder.
What about self defense? Please define Murder, vs justified killing, revenge killing, accidental killing, legal execution....


14 You shall not commit adultery.
Define "married."

15 You shall not steal.
What if I have to feed my family, and the one holding the food is a cheat?

16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
Ok, I'm on board with this one.

17 You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
Covet? Or just want the same for oneself? What if I am a wife? So, you're not talking to me, right? Yeah, well screw you.

Gods

Working out in my head the recurrent issue of religion. Why it gets so mangled with politics, preventing rational thought, or at least pragmatic functionality. I suspect because religion, at least in the west, has always been the mechanism for political movement, just as it worked as science and family and societal cohesion. However imperfectly, and however badly for the individuals, organized religion has been the authority upon which our cultural systems have been based. It's only in the very recent past has the idea of separation of Church and State been a viable concept, and more recently still that it's been actually attempted.

Getting gods out of government is no easy task, because a void is left that must be filled with something. A Constitution is good, but when the people see it as the fine print on a warranty and skip reading it, only pulling out catchphrases they've heard from others, it's no better than any holy book. Gods are useful, words can be put in their mouths, and become impossible to absolutely refute. Nice double edged sword though, both ruler and ruled can wield it.

We live and die, thrive and suffer, by our stories. As individuals with how we interpret our particular experiences. As societies with our religious stories. Changing them into myths less poisonous takes great tale tellers, and generations. The gods brace themselves, and hope for no more gore, or tentacles.

Grace

A bit of necessary set up. I married into a Mormon family. D's parents are good folks, although they do have a few peculiarities concerning their faith. I was raised to say grace before every meal, they say a blessing. Or rather, one of them extemporizes a blessing, or dad assigns the blessing to an individual when the extended family is present. The LDS church has no professional clergy, and amateur speechifying is the norm. In my limited experience, painfully so.

Almost 19 years ago, when I first began going to holiday meals with the 'rentsinlaw, I dreaded the possibility of being asked to perform this, but decided I would simply give the catholic grace. Thing is, it never happened. Sometime in the last decade or more, I assumed that was off the table, and forgot my early fallback.

Grace in my original family was a participation ritual, murmured fairly quickly in unison. I heard it, more or less, thusly "blessesolord, antheezigfs, whicheeraboutoreceev, fromeyebuntytokrice, hourlower, AMEN." Rote prayer, but I got that gratitude for food was important, and I love the practice of thankfulness.

Easter Sunday, we sit to eat with D and his parents, a brother and his wife, and D's dad turns to me and says "Will you say the blessing." (Note lack of question mark.) I said "I'd prefer not." He went very quiet, and I turned to him and gently said "I'm sorry, but I'd prefer not." He turned to D, who gave the expected, and expected-sort of blessing, in shortest possible form. I thought then about saying grace, but it was too late. Plus, he'll never ask me that again. And then, I forgot.

Twelve hours later, I woke, and thought, what did I do? And why didn't my gut clench and my adrenaline gush, as it once certainly would have? I serenely performed the right action, how did I do that? Because saying that old prayer, while socially appropriate, would imply that I still believe in that religion, to people who take that sort of thing very seriously. Keeping my views respectfully private is not the same as telling an outright lie. I don't mind that I was, eventually, asked, however strangely out of the blue, but I am dumbfounded that I so instinctively reacted in a way that expressed my integrity.

But then, I do have a reflexive NO when pressed. So much easier to delay with a no, think about it, and turn it to a yes. Much harder the other way. Caught off guard, I will back off, turn away, demand time to think. Typical mark of a writer. I think slow, but I think deep.

Or maybe, I had a moment of Grace.

Choir

It is, in fact, still snow/raining. Not much in the way of drama, no accumulation or floods to speak of. Very raw weather. And due to continue for another day or two. Holy Week always was this way, in my memory. Odd, considering it varies from year to year, and should have been different. From the age of ten, until I no longer had to attend mass every Sunday and holy days of obligation, I sang with the choir, which helped. And the Holy Saturday vigil, with the lighting of the new fire, and procession, required much of our small group of heartfelt singers. The weather usually forced it inside, but once it was warm and wildly windy, and the consecration was held at a grill in the courtyard outside, and we chanted our way cupping candles, clothes whipping, around the side of the church, on that dark spring evening.

The choir saved my sanity. Able to sit alone, that is to say away from my parents, or more often just my mother, gave me a buffer. I also lectored, as somehow reading aloud to the congregation the Letters and New Testament passages made them easier to ignore than having to listen to them. (The elderly ladies liked me, because I spoke slowly and clearly, so they could hear.) I'd even been altar server for a couple of years, when that was briefly allowed. (I think it may be again.) But the choir in particular held my interest. Usually I was 1/3rd of the alto section, and would switch hit when the sopranos needed a second voice, but somehow we didn't sound bad, thanks to Mrs. Lancendorfer, who patiently coaxed us all into well practiced confidence. We may not have been great voices, but we didn't wobble. Having a role, despite my doubts, and utter lack of choice in my attendance, made that part of my life endurable.

And no, I never had any issues with any troublesome priests. All the ones I met were polite and respectful, and I was never alone with any of them anyway. I left catholicism thoughtfully and without rancor, as one leaves behind disliked shoes that never fitted anyway.

Yup, still snowing.

Local

Being pretty good at boundaries, having grown up with a father with no concept of them, I rarely get seriously stuck in social embarrassment. I tend to either walk away, or go silent, or just smile ruefully. But there have been times when there was no escape. I don't consider the oddnesses of my patients to be conversations, since I never thought I had to do anything but listen kindly. It's only when I have had to respond that I count here.

The one that happened to mind this week was when I was ride share hostage to an elderly Mormon woman, not long after my moving to the Mecca of this particular church. Ok, I was only 22, which added to my shock. So, I buckle up, and we drive off, and she says, relatively casually, "You know, Jesus preached to the Indians here in those lost years." She may have also mentioned something about dinosaurs being planted by god as a test to her faith. Maybe that was another time. Now, I knew a bit about what the dominant church here teaches, but, Jebus made it to the pre-Columbian western US to teach natives? Really? Literally? You really believe this is factual? I think I managed an "Oh, well..." Worse than meeting a trekkie or a UFO believer, because she seemed so nice-old-lady mainstream.

And I grew up Catholic, which is full of damned odd corners. I mean, I was once taken to see a weeping statue of the BVM. Stood out in the cold saying the rosary with my mother, shuffled through to witness the miracle, saw nothing (nada, zilch, zero) and left feeling cheated and even more prone to atheism, or at least agnosticism, than before. I've seen weird. I've kissed the nailed feet of a statue of Jebus every Good Friday as a kid. I've had my throat blessed with candles on the Feast of St. Blaise, I grew up with a picture of a saint with stigmata in our LIVING ROOM. And this elderly, conservative woman assuring me of this peculiar fact, out of the blue, startled me badly. And made me want to get out and take the bus.

On the other hand, I was nearly as shocked when I heard about the local custom of flocked Christmas trees. Not artificial trees with artificial snow, I've seen that, tasteless, but sure, fine, whatever. But artificial snow on REAL trees. This struck me as obscenely funny, and peculiarly perverse.

So we choke on gnats and swallow camels, and maybe it would be better to think about what we believe in.

Believe

There is a blog theme going around, about what I once believed that I don't believe anymore. And I found a great antipathy to the word Belief. I tried to write an essay for the NPR What I Believe, and came out with an awkward anti-belief rant. Needless to say, they never expressed any interest.

I don't think I ever quite got my head around God, although I was taught to believe without question. But when I lost a ring at age seven, and dared God to prove the existence of deity, and the ring wasn't found until nearly a year later, I'd spent all that time not believing - quite on purpose. Once the ring was found, I lingered in the ambivalence - until no longer required to believe by my mother.

Santa Claus I at least had physical proof for. Once I was told Santa didn't exist, and they couldn't afford to fill the stocking that year, I put up one on Christmas Eve, quite sure they were wrong, and there would at least be an orange in the toe. When there wasn't, bitterness filled the place where most people keep their faith. "You can't fool me, there ain't no sanity clause!"

Guardian Angels were more my speed, and that was more hope and comfort than actual belief. Like engineers' belief in ghosts in the machine. It's more a matter of, well, not literal belief, but something's going on beyond our ken, so gotta call it something, and no harm in propitiating whatever it is. I know something happens when people die, as well as when babies are born, I've experienced both as witness. It's powerful and utterly real, but I detest the idea of putting it in a box and defining it to tatters.

Oh, I've had a lot of thoughts, ideas that have been disproven or discredited, fears found to be misguided or ungrounded. I behave superstitiously, especially in the OR, not out of belief, but to back up preparations to be ready for worst case scenarios, or trusting my instincts - because I may have non-consciously sensed something that just hasn't made it up to the logical part of my brain yet. I don't rely on it, it's more of a comfort. Often enough I have averted, or lessened, problems because I got that extra battery, or second suture, or stood by during emergence for no obvious reason.

I used to think that the rage I'd been fed would always be who I was. That no one would ever be a long time friend, because when they knew the real me, they would know I wasn't worth having as a friend. I thought "sell while you can, you are not for all markets" when I married a man I had no passion for. I dreamed of acting for a living. I used to be afraid of the dark. I used to think all I needed to be happy was to live near the mountains or by the ocean. I thought 'smart' was my only quality, and would be all I'd need.

But I always dropped these thoughts and fears, in the presence of evidence to the contrary. Belief isn't like that. Belief hunkers down and plows through.

I stand alone without belief. I suspect I see more clearly, but then, I would think that.

Nothing

Waiting in a strange place, approached by a friendly preacher, barely into my twenties, trying to be polite, I was forced into a wrong sort of answer.

He spoke of his Baptist faith, and asked me what I was.

Not wanting to give offense, not wanting to even answer, and never fast with my mouth under pressure, I said "Nothing."

"If you ever want to stop being nothing, you come to my church!" and gave me a card and a patronizing smile with condescending pat on my shoulder.

That's not what I meant, of course. With a lot of thought, I stopped being an apologist for the church given to me as a child, and figured all institutionalized regulations of spirituality were prone to the same limitations that estranged me from such codified definitions of the ineffable. I have never found any experience to change that basic understanding. Eastern religions seem to have more practical methods on how to experience how life works. But I will never call myself a Buddhist, for instance, because that involves accepting their dogma and ceremonies. The deep set gender divisiveness of even formal Taoism further alienates me from the idea of actual conversion.

Religious folks tell me I can't cherry-pick, faith is not a buffet. I can too. Why not? As long as I don't profess to be just one Thing, I can eclectically chose the universal ideas that fit and reject those that seem tied to their cultures.

The older I get, the more sure that I have found my way. Not that there is a path, nor that it brings me any comfort, but I am at ease with my life as it is, knowing it will end, and that is all and enough. If the stories and comforts get others through, who am I to challenge that. I have, after all, nothing more than my understanding as proof. I can hardly pin people down and demand that they define god, what can god do, not do, what is the nature of your god? Record every one, make them all listen to each other's answers and ask them to question their shared faith that probably isn't shared at all. Wouldn't change anything.

I'm not a hostile atheist, no worshipper of orthodox science. Not a matter of belief, after all. I read the data, the results of experiments, learn it, accept it as the best understanding now, and wait for more data with an open mind. I work in medicine, I know bloody well we have not got everything figured out, and eloquent arguments were long made promoting spontaneous generation*. Facts are often not discernible by reasoning and eloquence, they often inelegantly bugger up everything previously understood to be true. I love the process, gather more data, try again, and again, try to duplicate a result. A Book that says, it is written, it will always be, feels like a dead end to me. Justification not to change, in the fearful.

Religion has to be an evolutionary advantage, which I love for irony's sake. It keeps the mean and lazy from criminality in many cases. It demands obedience from those who would undermine a society. It gives glamour and aspiration to the best of us. Unfortunately, it gives corrupt leaders the entitlement to wage war and indulge bigotry, and the ignorant and disadvantaged are more than willing to relieve their distress by attacking scape-goats.

And it leaves a few of us out in the cold, disillusioned and resigned, unable to see the magic once the man behind the curtain is glimpsed. Still wanting to live a good life, be kind to those around me, gaze into the liminal spaces, see everyday miracles everywhere.

Those of you who believe in the teachings of your church no doubt think me wrong. So, if you've stopped by recently on the recommendation of a mad priest, this is my Full Disclosure Statement. Please take conflicting arguments to your own bog, feel free to leave a post saying, "I've got my response over at my site." Treat my viewpoint here as you would if I voiced it in my own home, as I would be of your thoughts in your own home. Disagree at length elsewhere, please. Thank you.






*Abiogenesis is another matter. Messy stuff, life.

Union

Years ago, when the whole issue of gay marriage began to enter the public discourse, I read an article by a minister who disliked being in a position required to legally document what he considered a church sacrament. He preferred the idea that the legality be separate and unrelated to the religious ceremony, and saw this as a way to defuse the fury of the argument. A model already in place in parts of Europe.

And that is what we need to do with the irrational religious nutjobs. Take our ball and go home, refuse to play. Fine, marriage only between a man and a woman is the sole duty and responsibility of churches. With no legal status whatsoever. Civil Unions are the only legally recognized agreement between any two consenting adults, conferring the legal benefits and responsibilities previously given to married couples.

Of course, the idea will go down like the Equal Rights Amendment. A bit of legislation that might well have defused this before it got very far, through some nifty little loophole that those with twisty "legal" minds could use. Even having it so deeply buried did not stop the progress of women's rights. Stopping gay marriage isn't going to stop gay sex.

I was raised knowing the bible, not chapter and verse because Catholics don't tend to do that. And I never had a head for memorizing. But I know the stories and lessons, understood them. And there is that parable of the workers in the vineyard. If we choose to give the rights of marriage to anyone who wants them, that is not taking anything away from anyone else. If we, as a society, choose to be generous with liberty, it's small and evil to object.

Mustn't get my hopes too high that reason and intelligence will hold sway in this country. Especially since the California prop 8 slap in the face. Still, having a constitutional law professor leading the way, there is a chance.

If you've never seen Henry Rollins in full rant, it's an awesome experience. He's difficult and nuts and profoundly compassionate, a punk bodhisattva, who looks at anything and everything with a full, enraged and engaged heart. He talked about how he could not get in to see George W. Bush, despite many attempts. Somehow the idea of a White House Command Performance, for the new president, seems both possible, and rather inevitable. (Barak Obama apparently is a comic book fan, follows Conan the Barbarian & Spiderman. D is afraid the world really isn't ready for a president who reads Conan, but here we are anyway.)

Value

An experiment a month or so ago. Guy stood in a London thoroughfare, offering £5 for the asking, wore a big sandwich board. Got very few takers. The researchers were surprized, and attributed this to British reserve, cynicism and distrust. I think the explanation is much simpler. If a guy stood in a Boston street, offering $10, when I was making about that much in my job (gross) in 15 minutes, it wouldn't be worth the perhaps five minutes to attempt the transaction, and miss my train. I was not particularly well paid in that city. Most Londoners would be looking at much less than five minutes wage/time - really not worth it. Plus, any large city has some Naturally Selected bright con artists - that would make a good lead in for a scam anywhere. Especially for a man expecting a woman to approach him on the street to ask for money. Pride would play a part, as well as safety considerations.

The other side of this, we value what we work for and pay for. Which is why so many forgeries of art or rare documents go unnoticed for decades. The higher the price paid, the less likely the owner is to suspect a fake. We care most for what we possess.

And not just things. Nothing quite like a friend who grows on you. Better yet, that you grow on them, despite their initial hesitations. We say we want free stuff, to be instantly liked, to fall in love at first sight, but we don't really trust those. We trust the truths we struggle to understand, the lessons that hurt, the life we earn.

Because cheap gifts are too easily lost. Light friends drift away from funerals and hospitals. Easy love wears off like temporary tattoos. Treasure is buried deep. The holy requires everything of us.

Cell

A turgid cell is a happy cell. One of those wonderful Shirkeyisms, from my tenth grade science teacher who laid such a solid foundation for me. I never really enjoyed cellular biology, until I got deeply into the subject. The more I learned, the more interesting it became, as the simplicity of initial lessons gave way to an immensely complicated interaction of electro-chemical games of Red Rover.

Cells, like muscle cells, whose walls stretch out to form the the top layer of bones. Periosteum, literally, around the bone, integral to it. Bone cells - that have excellent blood flow. Blood cells lacking nuclei, part of being a mammal. A universe inside a membrane. That likes to be taut, neither flaccid nor about to burst, just happily turgid.

Anyone who claims to understand, just by belief alone, how and why life is as it is, is hiding in a fearsome simplicity. Arguing the words of the gods into illogical piles, instead of facing the dark unknowables - and the real essence of the transcendent that could be called god, for lack of a better word.

Peer into the brilliant night, and be awed.