beyond reason

The CDB gave me this quote, and it very much applies to my questions. Apparently it is Mr Lewis. All the more reason to quote...
"We believe that the death of Christ is just that point in History at which something absolutely unimaginable from outside show through onto our own world. And if we cannot picture even the atoms of which would own world is built, of course we are not going to be able to picture this. Indeed if we found that we could fully understand it , that very fact would show it was not what it professed to be--the inconceivable, the uncreated, the thing from beyond nature, striking down into nature like lightening you may ask what good it will be to us if we do not understand it. But that is easily answered. A man can eat is dinner without understanding exactly how the food nourishes him. A man can accept what Christ has done without knowing how it works: indeed, he certainly would not know how it works until he has accepted it.
We are told that Christ was killed for us, that his death how it washed out our sins, and that by dying he disabled death itself. That is the formula. That is Christianity. That is what has to be believed. Any theories we build up as to how Christ'’s death did all this are, on my view, quite secondary: mere plans or diagrams to be left alone if they do not help us, and, even if they do help us, not to be confused with the thing itself."

But how is faith real? How do we "accept" it, without it being a pleasent sort of subjective emotional experience? And what is real? I wonder what Mr MacDonald would say to my question. I wrote a little scene as I was listening to Yo Yo Ma and Bobby McFerrin perform Bach's Air from the Orchestral suite #3... And to write was very similar as to have experienced it myself. Only it was through the immagination. But what are visions, after all? or dreams? Reality is a slippery subject if you admit it. Here is the scene.

Bach’s Air.

As we were siting in our chairs she began to play Bach’s Air. Each low cello note resonated with the building and surrounded us with a feeling of something beyond. The painted forrest on the screen, which had served to help the ethos of the concert hall, began to change colours and dimension. A feeling that I had not felt since that night before mother died was there again. The feeling of a life without precautions and experiences weighing down the conscious. The music reminded us there was more. The cello played, and dropped each note which resembled drops of rain on a thick forrest ground. I remember the moment when the trees looked more than a painting, they had changed. They were real trees, framed by the screen and limited, bounded by it. But then, that dew that the cello played.. or did it call it forth, filled the air. And a fresh cool smell of an afternoon in a damp forrest filled the room. I did not believe at first, I was afraid to. But I let myself, and as I did, the forest exceeded it’s bounds and I was no longer in the church auditorium, I was in a forrest, faintly aware of Bach’s Air and cello somewhere. I took a step. The ground was wet, the light was real. My mind gave one attempt to interpret the experience, but then surrendered itself to be carried by my senses.
I walked and found a path. I had no worry, or any trace of fear. Perhaps this was because I was completely out of control. I was in a sense a child again, who had no agenda of what to find and what should happen. I was not even sure the whole experience was not a glorified dream and I would awake to my husband shaking me to awake. Thus I walked, letting what thoughts come, and grateful for the break of life and rest into an entirely different one.
The forrest, mostly cedar, had the effect of being familiar, though I did not recognise it. I found a path and followed it. It led to a little grove of trees and a patch of sunlight. Beyond this was a ruin of an old church. The day was in the late afternoon, and I decided I would take a nap. So I lay down facing the ruins under a tree, on a mossy patch. Eventually i drifted off and dreamed of the sea and ships and light pouring into my soul.

I awoke to applause. The cellist had finished the Air and was taking a bow. I looked over at my husband, who gave me a little smile and kissed my forehead. My mind again began to come to some sort of interpretation and failed, so I began to clap and allowed myself to let the experience be what it was.

Sleep over tonight.
I am sick, or getting there.
Apparently swishing salt water in your mouth helps to cure you. Kills lots of small black germs.
hm.
Still thinking about the meaning of life.
Maybe I will stay in Winnipeg and be Sasha Smith. I am surrounded by finiteness and trying to press it to infinity. But maybe I will learn how to engage in this life and not demand it to be the same nature of the next.

Doubt, Darkness and Dutch boys

I got to a point where I could not remember why it is so scary to doubt. I speak of the "“darkness" that I am in but I often do not feel it. Recently, however, I have come to link together my insecurities with people. It is when I see myself through the eyes of people that I face my deepest insecuritieses. I am no longer surprised at the fact that boys are often my catalystst to deep self analysis and maturing. Boys seem to be the archetypepe for love, security, home, and all longing.
It has also been interesting not to pray this past week. I have noticed that the times that I long to pray are the times when I feel that I can do nothing to control and have in the past called on God to control. But now I will not allow myself to call on help that I do not know, and I have been surprised at what a discipline it is. I wonder if I have ever really prayed or if all my prayers were an escape from facing honesty..

Why is honesty so dark? Why is it when I face my doubt it both it hurts and heals?

I asked Wietse if he was willing to be my friend if our relationship did not end in romance. What I did not know was that I was really exposing myself. As it turns out, he has never had any intention of a relationship, and any behavior that might have suggested so would have been a misinterpretation. There went all my hope, and there was my challenge to answer the question I thought I had given him. There is no future with him, and with the very hard cut line staring me in the face it exposes myself into my most extreem vulnerability and insecurity. Never: what if never anyone were to love me? I don't want to be a lone figure, however beautiful and honest, if it means being alone. Rejection suggests that I have no choice. So as I felt extreemly uncomfortable I began to see that I had to make a choice to look full face or turn away.

And there is the heart of the darkness I have decided to face. That is the fear of doubt that I had forgotten. It is the fear of being honest, and the fear of questioning. No turning to God to give me some anesthesiaia. I am here in the middle of the ocean and I might as well choose to swim back to safety or swim on deeper. I choose to go deeper and look at this darkness. I choose to be honest and to learn how to swim.

In retrospect no wonder that God has seemed so unreal. He was onlanesthesiaia from truth. What does it mean for me to be honest and face my darkness and for the Christian message to not be a "“crutch"”? Or is it a crutch? Does it forbid us from looking into reality because it blocks it out?

Agnostic

I am offcially agnostic. My questions come not from whether God exists, though while I am at it I might as well question that. My questions come from beginning to understand how pompous it is for any human to claim they know absolute truth. I am learning about both the nature of finitude and the social creation of meaning. What has primarily made me step back from my faith is the idea that humans create meaning, individually and collectively, and that humans are unable to give a boundary to the infinite.
Christianity then comes under some hard analysis when it boxes in the infinite and claims that meaning is revealed. It produces a human mind that is closed to truth rather than free to be humble and accept the reality of being a finite being who is unable to say for certainty anything beyond a finite realm. Three finite areas which constantly get idolized as being infinite are the Church, the Bible and prayer.

Good night

It is aporaching Midnight. Full day, as they all are. Why is it that couples isolate themselves? Does this have to be? If it is so then I do not want to be a couple. But if it is possible to have other good friendships and have a life and will of my own and yet be romantic then that is something I am interested in. However, at the present form of couplehood I will pass.
Other than that, I found out this late afternoon that I will live. I am happy about that. I doubted all existence for a while. Or at least I doubted the existence of love, which is existence.

God of the Sky

Love. It seems like such a simple concept. Like eternity: no boundaries to time. But the moment we look at it its simplicity seems to disappear and we are left with a mass of concepts and presumptions of the meaning and soon we have to leave it and go get a snack or something.
I read the bible for the first time today. I now believe in its existence. Before Kim left for church I asked whether she thought I would like it. She replied that she enjoyed it, but that I would get more out of staying here. So nothing in mind I stayed here and read Merton and journaled a bit. Lying our on the counter was a bible opened to the psalms. It is a sight that might be expected in the house of any evangelical: the very confident trust in the Word of God as infallible and inspired. I cease to understand what they mean by that. I thought I once knew and read the bible as such, but I found I was force feeding myself mouldy bread. So I stopped eating it.
But today I happen to focus my attention to whatever the bible happened to be opened to. My eyes found Psalm 123. Which begins with a very King James-ish start “Unto thee.” usually after a beginning like that my mind goes down a very repeated path for the rest of the psalm and I want to puke by the end of the reading from all the images and connotations that assault me as I read. I continued, fairly unconsciously. “Unto thee I lift up my eyes, o thou that dwellest in the heavens”

Thou that dwellest in the heavens. A subject very much on my mind since my flights home. At first I just found that it affirmed what I was already thinking. That somehow God and heaven are tied together. That there is a kingdom somewhere that his law and nature are just as alive and awake as our government. And as good as ours is corrupt--eternally. In Calgary I sat by a huge window watching the sunset. There I met God as a lover, and as a relevant God, not as a harsh abstraction.

Here are my airport reflections:

I was just reading a closing collect for noon prayers. It ends like this:

give to us the peace and unity of that heavenly City,
where with the Father and the Holy Spirit
you live and reign, now and for ever

And as i read the picture of that castle in the clouds that haunts every ones consciousness. A grand house, dwelling, palace--all cultures understand it. Surrounded by light, or goodness itself. A longing to Go there. Not here. Somewhere else. But what if. What if there is a place there somewhere. There the Trinity reigns lives and present. Here, where on the brightest moments we have a glimpse of the idea of such a place and spend our life looking for that glimpse. It is what we live for, and to think that every moment this place exists, just not here. It is as bad as knowing that your friend exists thousands of miles away and while you know the date of returning, yet you can only imagine what that distance of time. Death will come and that is the door from our separation from it. We cross this barrier and we are there. Such a hard way? Why? Why is the passing into that most glorious place not celebrated and all those remaining here apart not that mix of utter happiness and longing for their own entrance? Where is this place?
Later written in Calgary airport

I see mountains under a sunset that gives me an idea of how great the sky really is. “When I look at the sky what are humans that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?” You, infinite in being, lights, life and me one loved before all this. Deeper, longer and more real than anything I yet know or understand. You, for whom all this is given, made and through. Does it matter now if I am ever known by any but You in this life? My existence is legitimate. I am part of this whole creation. I have to do even with the vaulted sky. And it has to do with me because you have to do with it and I have to do with you. Even if I do not fit in with one people group, even if I do not do some major act of help or give insight, I can know now that I am yet included in the world. if God so loved the World, I can know that that is me.
Are the heavens fallen? They are not tied to this earth? Why will they be destroyed? Will they be? What does Wietse feel when he is half way to them? Why is God “in the heavens”?
Calgary. Do I like this airport because I have met God here? Or is there something about the ethos here that is just enjoyable?



This past weekend I have felt very vulnerable. I have felt like I am wearing tee-shirt and jeans around machine saws and fast moving metal. I have been staring down at this black absence of life which for some reason I was more aware of this past weekend. I was constantly aware of its size and hopeless pain that can not be closed up by any little thing. It would take something very big. And then I thought of the sky at Calgary. How big and how bright it was, and yet how personal was the One who made it. So personal that you are not far off if you can even imagine your name called by this person. It is something like this sky that can fill that huge darkness that is in me. And this thought has given me hope all weekend. The God of the heavens, one which I have looked at with my eyes and not just read or heard about, it is He, and he only who carries the ability to fill me with light and love. It’s as though the sky, infinite and personal in all its vastness and light, were inside me filling me with itself.

If I had not been thinking about the sky and how God who lives there this weekend the psalm from this morning would have been passed aside as it always has been. Meaningless words to fill the trite consciousness of Christians. As I read that first line there was this moment of surprise that the bible actually agreed with my experience. Not only did it agree, but it added to it. It revealed more of the nature of this experience and interprets life here.

Psalm 123

Unto thee I lift up my eyes, o thou that dwellest in the heavens.

Were you aware of the country in the sky? Were you aware of the being, the Creator, infinite who is personal? Were you aware that he called you by name? Surely you know there is blackness in your being. A hole that nothing small can fill, nothing trivial. Look at the sky. Watch the symphony as it unfolds, the lights, wind, clouds. Behold how great in size it is, and remember that there is someone behind it all. Next time you feel that emptiness remember the sky and its symphony of light and movement. This is the Lord of heaven. Only he can ever bring enough content to fill that dark absence.

“Unto thee I lift up my eyes, o thou that dwellest in the heavens.”
Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters,
and as the eyes of a maiden look unto the hand of her mistress;
So our eyes wait upon the Lord our God,
until that he have mercy upon us.

Now I begin to see content in the psalms. If the black and white word was my only reality it is meaningless. But if I engage in life and look at these scriptures then I begin to see their meaning and it is not irrelevant. I have read them only as a detached member of both this life and of God’s country. The words I tried to paste on meaning and significance, but I soon get sick of fake food. I was tired to pretending. So I stopped. I am not pretending now when I read this psalm. I am listening and I hear what God has told me the last few days in my travels. I have heard that God lives, that the heavens are his “dwelling” and that it is there that I will find some comfort to my great emptiness.
I do not have servants, nor am I a maiden with a mistress. I might look into the meaning here. But I do know what it means to be a master. I know how my cat looks to me for food, and I wonder if it is not the same idea. That there is someone above another who is the giver of needs. It is not a using the other. It is the legitimate nature of things. My cat does not use me when she asks countless times for food or affirmation. I expect her to do so and am happy to give it and do not think twice of it.
As the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters
The hand is the source of power to give what that person needs I am thinking. The servant is powerless to take for himself. So are we with He who dwells in the sky. We wait.

“Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us:
For we are exceedingly filled with contempt
Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease
And with the contempt of the proud”

I am not alienated from this one. My soul is filled to the brim with the contempt of all who have told me that because I am a woman I am lesser. But isn’t this interesting, affirmation can not be demanded, but must be received. The affirmation that I need to live on God knows that I need this. And yet to demand it is to neglect the nature that has been created: as the eyes of a servant” To demand that someone love me on this earth is ridiculous. So we are reduced to manipulation and flirting to take power over another human and to objectify them.
Stoopid. But we need this love so much.

So our eyes wait upon the Lord our God,
until that he have mercy upon us.

So we wait knowing that our Lord of the sky will give it. And this is not only about my feminist, but also about all that in me that has illegitimately been pressed down. The God of the sky hears me.

Thomas Merton

Yesterday I went to a Franciscan retreat center. It was very refreshing to be in a place devoted to spirituality. There was a meditation chapel with stained glass and carpets. Out side there were trees, roses, and a desert path and labyrinth. There has been this constant feeling of being surrounded by city and city consciousness this entire trip. But here was a place that was hidden from that life, and living one altogether different.
I bought two books there, both journals of two spiritual men, Nouwen and Merton. Keeping a journal myself, I enjoy reading these because they ask and comment like humans and it is easier for me to connect with them, as opposed to reading a book they’vewrittenn.

I have started Mertons. And that is another thing that is good about journal books: you do not have to start in the beginning. Somehow that helps me to get into a book, not having to start on page one of chapter one. There is a lot to digest in his writing and it is very refreshing to refreshing to read a mystic, someone concerned with Eros as much as Agape.

I wonder if Agape is really higher thanEross? Perhaps to ourcnditionn it is what saves us? But thenEross from God I wouldventuree to say is transformational to know that He who created you longs after you.

I am reading sections where he talks about a littlehermitagee that has just been built.

“After having thought for ten years obuildingng hermitagege, and thought of the ten places where one might be built, now having built one in the best place, I can not believe it.
It ineverthelessss real--if anything is real. In it everything becomes unreal. Just silence, sky, and trees.”

I know the feeling that is so amazing, if only I know it to a small degree. In Costa Rica there was a littbodesega that held the library, music kiln and dance floor. There, alone, I spent most my day. Hm. I have never thought of that before. I thought I was weird for spending so little time in my room now, but as I think about it I never did spend much time in my room. I have always been an outside person and one to spend time in places that no one else likes much. (especially with books)

Anyway, the Bodega was locatbetweenewn the cedForrestest and the “Forrestrest”. In front of it was an orchard. Next to it was the barn and animals. The gardener would come in the morning and be gone over the property most the day. This was my sanctuary, and indeed when I think back to Costa Rica I long for this place. It is here where I feel that I have been the closest contemplativeative life.

I suppose that if it were not for the Bodega I would run off to join a convent wihermitagetiage. But I know that one can live these sorts of lives outside of an order, and because I am not really any denomination but all of them combined I have a hard time limiting myself to one way of life. As a Catholic I miss the theology and philosophy developed by the reformation. And as a Protestant I miss the wonder and mysticism that the Reformed church is lacking.

So all this to say, yes, I am a mystic, but one who does not have an outlet to be mystical in a country where the cold forbids you to spend hours in stillness outside with trees. And a life that isbusybuisy to think about it. But it sure is refreshing to remember it and read about it.