on god and nature

"he once wrote of the young man standing alone in a church, juggling balls in the air, each one tossed in a swirly feat of personal mastery; it was something he could do. It was the one thing he could offer up to god when they were, as best as he could arrange it, alone together" - Chris Matthews on William F. Buckley

its always too much white and never enough green. All medicine and no immune system. If these people were lawyers, the letter of the law would trump the spirit...

I lost god somewhere after Maire. I couldn't explain why but I'm glad for it, because back then I had it all wrong. It was all white back then.

I took a course on Christianity when I was at UMass, it was more of a historical view that was taught by this Methodist preacher. We read some letters once that were written during the Inquisition and one of them was from the paladins lead oprative in the field; it said that should the holy father (meaning the pope) decree that "black" was "white" then he would see it no other way.

The way it was written was more powerful and more alarming but thats along the lines of where I was before it all fell apart. All white, all letter. No spirit. I was dictated to, afraid, and slavish. I look back and think of what an embarassment I'd made of myself.

I've come back to religion slowly, like a healing wound, where my beliefs were made with experience and a tangible knowledge, where text is a consideration but nature and its forever shifting and reinterperting is truth.

if forces in the universe were truely the work of god, then the truisms about life must be true about the afterlife and god too. in many ways I liken life to architecture, if only for good metaphors. I looked at destruction, or things that have been badly damaged and I'd think that they should be abandoned.

Through experience I know that parts are taken apart and put to use while others are melted down and crafted again, but ultimatly I learned that nothing was really destroyed.

Recently i went to the House of Seven Gables and while touring the facility they told us about the many changes the house had undergone in its time; additions, detractions, transplants, internal reworking. Previously I'd have thought reconstruction to this degree would have ultimatly compramised the structure, but not only was it rebuilt stronger, it was coming up on a 400 year anniversery. The idea of change in any capacity was aboloished.

While architecture can't account for everything, it had certainly made its point.

For a time back in the 80's, Prince used to think you could fuck your way closer to god. thats too cursory for me to applaud on just that mark and it would likely send the wrong message, not to kids, but to spiritually lazy adults should I leave it there at that point, though I can't say that he's wrong. To each their own, and I guess thats my point.

As a linguist I'm aware of the potent poison stagnant words become. god may be eternal but his lessons are ever-changing. What one man learned 700 years ago and committed to paper should never trump the lesson god would be teaching you now. In short, he had no script to learn from, he only had experince. While he should not be faulted for writing it, those who follow it as eternal and unwavering should.

i've never subscribed to the idea that one mans writing should supercede what you feel. I don't have it in me to think that I should teach people things, or preach to them because they've not felt what I have or that they might have missed their clarion call.

What we come to know is universal, what we learn is common and in our own way we will eventually understand. Like a child learning the proper way to hammer a nail so that his thumb remains healthy. The lessons may hurt but they will be learned. Boards will break and nails bent and rendered useless, but all things like knowledge are reuseable.

Our experience is a treasure, but stagnant words cannot save a generation from smashing their thumbs. Black and blue. Bloody and bloated. they will regenerate, reborn from the damaged and destroyed.

Have faith in god that he will show us faith in ourselves. Have knowledge in ourselves that god will show others in time. And understand that our paths our are own, even if they appear to be exactly the same.