within or without

a powerful understanding amongst many is that of there being a “heaven” waiting for the faithful and obedient …

a glorious realm out there where a personified God dwells in all power, perfection, peace and presence

… a place that is reserved for those who are the faithful and obedient down here on earth…

however, as with all things there is always more than one angle to it all and in this instance a powerful statement is also made, …

“people will not say, ‘here it is,’ or ‘there it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you”

it seems reasonable that this heaven is not somewhere else but actually inside us … not “out there” somewhere but “in here” somewhere… very close indeed

and perhaps not necessarily a physical place, but more a perception, … a tangible concept… a consuming state of awareness … a reality that stems from within … which flows up and outwards … perhaps like rivers of living waters?

an equally powerful understanding amongst many is that of there being a “hell” waiting for the unfaithful and disobedient …

some realm of eternal torment out there where personified evil dwells in all vulgar violation, violence and degradation

… a place reserved for those who are the unfaithful and disobedient down here on earth

… and perhaps not necessarily a physical place, but more a perception, … a tangible concept…

and as with all things there is always more than one angle to it all…

 

so it appears that there are these two opposites, heaven and hell

…two different places?

or perhaps two different ends of the same string?

 

… could it not be equally true that the kingdom of hell is within us…?

and we mean business

… the man stood at the top point of a very high bridge as the frenzied crowd gathered below…
he held the loaded gun to his head, cocked the trigger and yelled tauntingly,
“just one move to save me and I’ll shoot the hostage!”

“wait, before you do …. where did you get the gun?” the crowd yelled up at him in lustful desperation…

that’s us … we have achieved the unthinkable… we have invaded ourselves… we are resolute … and we mean business!

gagging on gaga

she’s in our country doing her thing at the moment and there’s great commotion this way and that about all that’s happening…

but in reality Gaga may just be far less controversial than we make her out to be?

it well may be that she is merely a representative of the vain plasticity of the world we have created… and maybe she’s no more or less ‘righteous’ than anyone of us?
perhaps when we hate her we judge ourselves in our own hypocrisy…

and when we love her we also judge ourselves in our  addiction to superficiality, mediocrity and vanity?
… more alarmingly maybe we are her and she is us?

and maybe that’s why we love to hate her and we hate to love her… and all other ‘popular’ persona

after all, in the end it’s all about us … you and me… and perhaps we deserve her and she deserves us?

are we able to consider that possibly the only reason she exists is because we give her life and we sustain her present and ongoing dominance in our consciousness?

could it be that we need her as much as she needs us?

and maybe Gaga is not alone?

… there’s the Zuma’s, Malema’s, Obama’s (and virtually every politician and pop celebrity there ever was and ever will be), social, cultural and religious leaders …

… and of course, then there’s you and me

embracing with daggers unsheathed

living in a world

where science is shrouded by faith

and faith is clouded by science

one assuming the limitations of linear logic

to be universally all encompassing

the other attempting to justify a sacred intuition

with linear empiricism
the day might come

where faith is substantiated

and where empirical science removes the blinkers of self-determinism

 

but until then we continue to embrace each other with daggers unsheathed

 

one grasping at self ascendency

assuming be placed high amongst the stars

 

the other dragging the heavens down

to be strapped to the loins of mortal man

 

words, having lost their meaning…

we say “I do” – but we don’t

 

it was written

that the word

became flesh

became man

took form

and shaped

reshaped the form

lived amongst us

 

it is also written

that we must do

as was done

as the word fleshed

so must we

 

so when, do tell

so when will our words

become flesh?

when will our words

live amongst us?

through us

in us

 

for no greater…

has any

than to…

 

“I love you”

what?

what does that mean?

just words

 

we hear

lots of them

spun beautifully

we read

feel the glow of their presence

what do you meme?

what is the meme-ing of life?

 

but we still need

to carry the book

feel compelled

to quote

unquote

because we forget

so immediately

 

not backed up

with nothing to back it up

except a leather binding

words

letters

thin ink

on thin paper

 

as shadows

we see a reflection

glance away for a second…

and we are found

having lost our place

 

in a smoked mirror

we have forgotten

we have lost

our space

we have lost

our face

 

and the face

of God

 

conformation class

to be a conformist to what already is,

regardless of how noble it may be

is sadly, somewhat pathetic

to be a non-conformist intentionally

is merely reactionary

no more and no less

to be an authentic original could well be the minimum standard

perhaps the highest goal is neither to conform nor non-conform

but rather to be transformed by the reality that we each have no equal

and to embrace this with unbridled enthusiasm

 

unended

some hoped, some expected, some feared, some jeered … but so far it looks like it will all pass over uneventfully … except for the residue of the experience which will very possibly last a lot longer than the memory of the event in our lives – if only subconsciously perhaps.

on sunday morning many who in the secret place of hope and fear in their hearts who believed it would all end, or even hoped it were the truth, will most probably agree with those who scoff saying that they knew all along that it was not true … but inside?

a lot of what we believe is determined not by faith but by the apparent facts that seem to manifest around us and are either ratified or denied by the other mortals we associate with.  perhaps we may choose to deny it but to my mind it’s a very social gospel we live by – one that is rooted so much more in the natural than the spiritual or eternal.

me, i think i’m with those whose hopes were dashed

perhaps a fair amount of those who secretly hoped the world would end are those who really qualify – and perhaps by default – for a true spiritual faith?  perhaps they hoped not because of a theology or intelligence this way or that but because they are suffering in some way or another? – financially, emotionally, physically?  perhaps they are extremely lonely even in the crowd and the laughter?  perhaps just the thought of being taken out of here is such an attraction?  perhaps they truly feel like aliens in this harsh and cruel world?  they might not be able to admit it publicly but they may feel like they are unloved, lonely, desperate with very few to tell about it let alone understand.  perhaps these people long for a reboot of the whole damn thing?  for some a total change, however drastic and costly would be such welcome relief?  my faithful scepticism tends towards their world – especially at times like these.

for many of the brazen and outspoken, those who verbosely quote chapter and verse and pontificate on what the latest apostle/prophet/preacher/author last published … well, they too have fears and doubts – only their inner fears won’t allow them to acknowledge it.  but they feel safe inside their own minds because in this modern era volume is believed to be the all powerful answer

what is it about us that so easily wishes on things? why is it so easy for us to be effected by this kind of stuff?

as my blogname suggests, i am a faithful skeptic.  My views are not at all acceptable by the mainstream out there yet i too have a belief system and an extremely strong one at that.  this is what impacts me so greatly.  for me, having an extremely strong faith is not an achievement at all – as much as romantic love for another is not an achievement.  it just happens and we are swept along by it.  it tends to consume us.  and it leaks out for all except usually ourselves to see.  me, i am mostly shocked by my beliefs.  i have grown comfortable with them not because they are correct necessarily but because they are mine and they are all I have.  i doubt a lot and never stop questioning, but i cannot shake off my beliefs.  they sort of consume me

so, it looks like the world may not end today and for some this may very well be the end of their world

there is a song penned by phil keaggy long ago that has made an indelible impact on my thinking ever since i first heard it sung. the opening lyrics go something like this,

“who will speak up for the little ones?

hopeless and half abandoned

they’ve got a right to choose

life they don’t want to lose

i’ve got to speak up, won’t you?”

he was writing on the abortion issue as far as i can recall but it is nevertheless equally true for the lonely, the suffering, the desperate, those in despair and hopelessness, those whose personal reality clashes so dramatically with the theology and meme-artistry around them.

who will speak up for such as these?

me, i tend towards being brazen and self-possessed … but i’ve got quieten down a whole lot and speak up – won’t you?

my name is not

So there were these people from long ago who basically led seemingly very unexciting and mostly uneventful lives, or at least it appears that way.  Every now and then there was the occasional conflict, maybe a tribal feud, a battle over territorial rights, perhaps a minor war even, but mostly there were huge gaps of sometimes even decades between one recorded event and the next.  During these long gaps these people mostly were peaceful shepherds.  Nomads on a vast and seemingly endless horizon.  Yet even then not many strayed far from the place of their birth or where their family had dwelled for generations before.  They had flocks of goats, sheep, maybe even camels or some horses.  Really very primitive and pedestrian compared to our present day.  There was technology of sorts yes,  but nothing compared to what we know of now-a-days.  Attention to detail was probably exclusively centred around weather patterns and the well-being of their flocks, you know, ticks, fleas, hoof-rot and finding adequate grazing and water and also preparing for the dry periods or cold winter times when natural provisions from the land were usually far less plentiful.

They lived mostly in tents or possibly in natural shelters like caves.  Occasionally they established villages or cities but this was not often and usually only when circumstance really dictated the need.  They lived with no running water other than the occasional river or brook  and no mechanised ablution systems.  A stroll just outside of nose, eye and ear-shot with a bundle of dry leaves sufficed it seems.  Times were tough in some ways perhaps but it was all they knew and there’s no significant record of any consumer complaints for inadequate or untimely service delivery.

It seems as if their major value was life itself.  Prosperity was measured in terms of  new life and the health and abundance thereof.  Children were a blessing worthy of the highest joy and celebration as were the offspring of their livestock.  Wealth was measured in years lived and the simple yet profound fruits of the living body – whether that body was human or animal or the earth itself.  They were born, lived, gave birth and then they died.  There is seemingly very little evidence of 2, 5, or even 10 year plans, neither the need for annual vacations or retirement.  To hand the riches of experience and close-knit company to their offspring was more than enough, a celebration in and of itself.

As for me, I have traveled more in one day than most of these ancients did in their entire lifetime.  My personal environment is so advanced compared to theirs that from their point of view it would most probably seem like unfounded, fictitious fantasy of the highest order.  More has happened to me in a few short years than has happened in an entire lifetime with them.  I know more, I have access to almost everything I desire and amazingly most of it is attainable if I truly put my mind to it although the vast majority of the world are living way under the most very basic of subsistence levels.  To add to this my days are cluttered by all manner of things, plans, procedures and activities that mostly will not last longer than a few short years if I am lucky.  It seems I am on call 24/7 to and from people and things, most of which I have no real relationship with at all.

My life expectancy is higher, yes, this is true, but only due to the medical technology and artificial chemicals pumped into my body over generations and the way our modern age has developed machines to keep alive those who should have died and kill those who should be living.  What I can look forward to is leaving behind for my offspring a totally disposable world that has exponentially reducing sustainability and no real hope of a livable future … yet we celebrate our achievements and even regard ourselves as the most enlightened, educated, sophisticated and technologically advanced generation to have ever lived on earth.

Maybe I’m just an incurable romantic, disenchanted with the life we now lead and consequently doomed to wander restlessly in search of ever illusive meaning and peace, forever looking for those paths that lead elsewhere?  Maybe I am simply dwelling in a past I don’t or really cannot ever begin to fully understand and therefore wishing on futile, vain fantasy?  Perhaps I am totally deceived?  And perhaps there are some of those out there who lay claim to know who they are, where they are going, what they believe, and what this all is about?  I have no fight with these people, but I also have no envy of them.

I do have a nagging thought that won’t leave me though.

The thought that disturbs me personally is that these ancient, primitive, uneducated people I write about, …  their names are recorded in the ancient texts which have survived in some form to this very day.  They have a powerful legacy and their story, though primitive, possibly overly simplified and mostly culturally veiled and vague lives on, and will most probably live on for as long as mankind is around.

Their  names are written down in the sacred scriptures.

My name is not.

life and death in the balance

life and death, death and life

strange characters these

one appears dark

the other appears light

though they may appear so,

are they mutually exclusive?

or are they two ends of the same piece of string?

or maybe alter egos on the altar of space and time?

both have been personalized as well as depersonalized

either way they appear clearly as migrant morphs

melting in and out of character

merging into each other

even the contrast each gives us illuminates the other

a concept one day, a person the next

a friend, a foe

a beginning and an end

the end of a beginning

or the beginning of an end?

personally, I wrestle with this all the time

this disturbing little idea has a deep and turbulent history

you see, I passionately seek life all the time

but quite honestly, I must acknowledge that I really don’t know what it is, or what it looks like

sometimes I seek death … the concept much more than the person that is….

or at least, I hope so

there are many who claim they know what life is, what it’s all about,

but quite frankly for me it’s really one of those improvable things

there are few test tubes that can hold the solution

I have my views, you have yours

but at best I think we can only hold opinions

and yes, there are many who have strong beliefs this way or that about what it is….

life and death, death and life, ….

but that’s the strange thing about beliefs …. they are beliefs

now I believe that there is nothing wrong with believing

in fact believing, or faith as we call it

… is perhaps life itself?

and maybe life itself is just faith?

…. believing

maybe it’s all we have really …

but then again …

perhaps believing is also death itself – ask any martyr

but for me, to pitch tent and camp in a belief

… to declare it to be life, reality, truth or any such absolute is ….

… as sincerely as you wish …

… well, it’s what we all tend to do

and in the end, some of us may or may not be more accurate than the others

but one thing that does happen when we lock on

when we put down roots

… is that it tends to cause us to stop believing

…. and that in itself could be death

so we are back again to life and death, death and life

and there are some things I have come to consider:

I have come to consider that death always precedes life
and life drags death along as a shadow

but death also returns the favour

and there are some questions too:

… when we first arrived

at birth, when life began for us …

what death preceded that?

strange sojourners these two
witnesses to a journey
witnesses of a journey

companions in arms

armed in companionship

and strange as it may seem
…  perhaps friends and not foes?

and yes, maybe we do have to pitch a tent somewhere …

but perhaps we don’t have to use steel tent pegs and a concrete base

a myth is as good as a mile

I personally think that modern science has dealt a harsh, low-blow to mythology and the ancient oral traditions of wisdom and understanding as well as to the inarticulate speech of the heart.  These days it seems to me clearly apparent that myths and ancient oral traditions have virtually been totally discredited, even disqualified and relegated to the irrelevant, irredeemably primitive, uneducated, unsubstantiated, fanciful, even useless ‘old wives tales’, fit only for ignorant children as placatory bed-time stories.

Our modern scientific culture now demands more detail, more qualification, more empirical evidence, more factual substantiation for meaning and truth.  For me this could be seen as a very unscientific process in and of itself.  My reason for saying this is that our scientific era is extremely youthful and a very, very late entry onto the stage of the history of the universe and even that of man.  In terms of man’s history it is only very recently that deductive reasoning has entered into the equation.  Perhaps for this ‘new-kid-on-the-block’ to be standing up and confidently declaring such brazen categorical absolutes is very arrogant and possibly much like a kindergarten child babbling on about their own wisdom in the presence of others more than 10 times their age and experience.  It’s not that the kindergarten child is less than human, disqualified or even in error, but the reality is that at around 6 years of age the average child still has a great number of years of practical testing and application to go through to let experience catch up and test the eternal wisdom thus far acquired.

There is an old saying that goes something like this, “before you criticise someone, walk a mile in their moccasins.”  I’d like us to attempt to walk a mile if we could in the moccasins of Jesus who was not a scientist according to our times or interpretation of scientific and who spoke not in detailed, scientific terms but almost exclusively in parables, ‘dark’ sayings, stories, mystically veiled teachings, even somewhat confusing metaphors and mysteries, and not only that, but in a local language that was very possibly much like that used by a loving  parent honouring the inexperienced, infantile logic and comprehension of the precious but young and naïve offspring and using analogies and subject matter and content easily accessible to the infant.

In his life and conduct he never closed down the teachings of the law or the prophets but instead opened them up.  He seemed to turn the restrictive funnel of the legislated religious code into an open sluice gate of freedom and opportunity.  This served to open and liberate the minds of his hearers to such an extent that they even began to threaten the political grip the religious leaders had in that day.  He never did this by bringing systematic religious definition or empirical detail but instead he unveiled a compassionate, gracious revelation of the ancient sacred traditions in word and deed that was of such magnitude that even the highly educated teachers themselves tried persistently to get him to clarify his meaning and intent over and over again.  He never responded to them to their satisfaction so they relentlessly tried to trap and corner him as to who exactly he was, what exactly he was doing, what exactly he was meaning, by what authority he spoke and why he spoke and lived the way he did.  Eventually they could only trump up fictitious charges against him and use these as the only desperate way they could aim any accusation his way.

Yet amazingly Jesus simply continued to tell stories.  He never took the bait by entering into the fray at their level.  He just continued to speak in parables and veiled sayings, presenting a tapestry for the sincere and humble to enjoy and the less than open to hate.  Yes, he did say many other things as well and some of these were specific and mostly quite revolutionary, but even these seemed to be so veiled to all who heard (including his closest disciples), that they too were like mysterious stories in and of themselves.  He spoke of the kingdom of heaven not being an external thing in accordance with any legislated, ritual, social, political, religious, ethical or even moral code, but rather something that was within each individual person, right there, within easy reach, but yet also so far away.  He also said that if they destroyed the holy temple he would raise it up in 3 days.  This really set them all flapping.  Once when questioned as to his authority he even said most disturbingly that he himself was alive before Abraham was born.  Today we would have mocked and certified him without a moments hesitation and would have felt content with this act of worship.  For this we killed him yet he never even began to respond by explaining what he meant even when his own life hung literally in the balance.  This amazes me and opens up even more questions.  … and so the stories continue to this day.

The way I see it is that empirical science, as much as it thrills and fascinates me, as much as it amazingly answers so many of my  questions, challenges my myopia and rattles my complacency, unwittingly seems to assume that the universe is all completely rational, finite, measurable, comprehensible, and ordered according to our own very linear, deductive way of thinking and in so doing to my mind,  sadly it closes down truth.  In its quest to fully understand and discover the truth, to define, contain, measure and systematise the laws of the universe, to bring order to our thinking, it to my mind seems only to limit, contain and perhaps even deploy at times great faith in order to close down the threatening wonder of the vastness that is all around us.  Science’s passionate quest to uncover the secrets of the universe and thereby comprehend all things fully by way of reasonable research is to my mind very possibly a reaction to the presence of the vast unanswered reaches of the universe we find ourselves in and something the religious order of society had long held the reigns in …  but in light of this all I do have to ask logically if anyone can really open up the truth by closing it down?  For me the only way I can imagine personally standing on the outstretched head of my own shadow at sunrise is to extinguish the sun itself.

And also for me, as frail and as whimsical as they might appear to us all to be, the ancient oral traditions, the parables, the fables, even mythology, theology, the sacred texts, the deep mysticisms, spirituality, the intuitive and the like, all seem in many ways mostly to assume by faith that there are more questions than answers, that there might well even be more than one possible answer or explanation to anything and that the universe is infinite and eternally vast – perhaps even forever beyond our ability to fully comprehend.  They seem to be able in some ways to embrace that the origins, like the ends of the universe are possibly equally beyond our full understanding but that the journey is well worth the taking.  ….  Except perhaps for the fanatically religious fundamentalists, I must add, who sadly to my mind have perhaps unwittingly managed to adopt more of a scientific paradigm to their spirituality than they are prepared to acknowledge, persistently seeking not the truth, but justification for their mostly unexplored beliefs.  They also seem to be preoccupied with trying to quantify, systematise, and codify the sacred texts not necessarily because they have faith, but probably mostly through insecurity and fear.  In my opinion the obsessive quoting of chapter, verse and intellectual reference is not really used because of godly wisdom or humble, righteous respect and accuracy, but primarily as a fear based reaction to the scientific era and strangely, strangely, what can be seen as actually an emulation of the scientific revolutions methodologies that seem to threatens their frail religious and political stability.  To these too I have to ask reasonably if anyone can really open up the truth by closing it down?

But maybe there is a way ahead for the humble and meek, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the poor in spirit, those who mourn and hunger and thirst for right standing in a universe that persists in spinning like wheels within wheels, even spinning in many directions all at once and filling us with virtually unquenchable wonder?

Maybe a myth is indeed as good as a mile?