"What can we know? What are we all? Poor silly half-brained things peering out at the infinite, with the aspirations of angels and the instincts of beasts."
----Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
I've tried Christianity before, but it just never worked for me. It wasn't what I was looking for. However, I recognize that like most humans, I need a spiritual connection... hence the India trip.
So, I understand the need for that spiritual connection, what I have never been able to understand was this whole focus on original sin and the Garden of Eden and God being perfect and heaven and hell....and so on.
Last night Jesus and I watched "The Bank Job" at the movie theater. This movie, in light of Eliot Spitzer and all the other men/women of power who project an image of "holiness" but are in fact far from it, plus some recent news I have received of local people I know and their "sins", has opened my eyes to this need to have something or someone to look up to.
The movie is based on a true story of a bank robbery (of safe deposit boxes) in London that ends up revealing some very ugly secrets about some very important people. These important people will stop at nothing to keep these secrets or "sins" hidden.
I have always had a tendency to put people I respect up on a pedestal and then being totally horrified when I discover that they have no business being up there. I have always liked believing that there are these amazing people out there that I can model myself after. Jesus has never had that problem. At least, not that I can tell. After the movie he said, "We can admire certain characteristics that a person might have, but not 'worship' the person [or put them on a pedestal]." And that is when the following conversation took place in my head...
Me: Well then, who are we supposed to look up to?
Voice in my head: Why do you need someone to look up to?
M: I don't know, I just have always been looking for someone.
VIMH: That's why people turn to God. He is the only one you can look up to, everyone else is human and therefore flawed.
M: Ok, but like you said, "Why do I need someone to look up to?"
VIMH: Why do you need spirituality?
M: I don't know. I just feel like all the little mundane things of life sap all my energy, and giving it all meaning and purpose gives me energy to do all again tomorrow.
VIMH: So, why do you need someone to look up to?
M: [After a Loooooooong pause to think] Well, I've always said that adults are just big kids, I truly don't think there is much difference other than we are better liars and we fidget less (well some of us anyway). So, I guess just like a child needs parents to model themselves after, I am looking for someone to model myself after. Still, I'm left with the question, "Why do humans have this need to look up to someone who is morally better than they are?"
VIMH: Have you been able to answer the question, "Why do humans feel the need to make meaning of their lives?"
M: No.
VIMH: Yet you have given yourself permission to go after that meaning, without truly understanding it, true?
M: Yes.
VIMH: Then why not go after God without understanding it?
M: Good question. I don't know.
VIMH: Maybe you should watch Joseph Campbell's The Power of Myth again.
M: Good idea.
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4 comments:
Great topic, great questions to ponder. Of course you know I'm going to have to say (because I've got my little viewpoint going on) it might help if you obliterate all vision of God as "he" or "she." Of course, that's may be way too radical for your current framework.
um mighit i go out on a limb and suggest lee stobel's "case for christ" and "case for faith"?
Charmi, I totally agree on the god with a sex thing...I was using the language I am used to hearing, but the truth is that my idea of god is hard to explain -- I think of god as more of a force, spirit, or energy than an actual being.
Erica, my brother has sent me the book "case for christ" and I did try to read, but didn't get very far. Maybe I'll have to give it another go.
It's so interesting, though, how pervasive the language is. We debate language in our English classes like the chicken and egg dilemma. Does language perpetuate our versions of the world or is language a reflection of the world? It's probably both. And if we have a new vision of the how the world/god, or whatever looks like, it's extremely hard to unharness ourselves from the old language that keeps the old vision in place.
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