Posts
The Twelve Blogs of Christmas: Eleven
On going a bit mad every now and then.
Well, the quiz deadline has passed, and we have a winner! I'll be announcing their name, and giving you the answers, tomorrow.
So yesterday's blog caused something of a reaction, eh? I do think it's a bit weird that a lot of the people in the comments section did exactly those things I talked about. A couple of them even started with 'really, Paul...' (It's not the use of my first name that's annoying - what else would you call me? - it's the use of it like a long, sighing breath as if to a wayward child.) It's like they didn't read the blog, but just saw that it was about illegal downloading and said what they always say in those circumstances. Amongst that, of course, there were also many good points made. At any rate, I have withheld my approval in many places, and I hope nobody thinks my silence constitutes acceptance. (And, oh, hey, I discovered I was spelling 'withheld' wrong.) I may get that on a t-shirt: 'I withhold my approval of your copyright theft.' But people would just make cheap knock-offs.
Which brings us to today's, potentially even more contentious, subject. I've been psyching myself up for this one too. But for entirely different reasons.
I was recently at dinner with the guests of the Fortean Times Unconvention when the charming chap across from me started talking about people he'd encountered who'd had life-changing mystical experiences. And I actually started to say 'well, in my own case...' He perked up as any good Fortean would, but I found myself waving it away, saying I didn't want to talk about it. It was then I realised that I've being doing that for ten years. I've started to speak about it to a couple of friends when drunk (one of whom got very alienated by that conversation), but I really haven't said a thing.
A writer who primarily works in television is expected to be a good deal less eccentric that any other sort of writer. Middle class but with a bit of a regional accent that indicates working class roots, smart casual verging on fashionable, could almost be a producer, like any reasonable person would want to be, talks about last night's soaps. That's your ideal in UK TV circles. (In those meetings I tend to feel like I'm from the wrong social class, without quite knowing what class I'm from.) Novelists don't have to play as well with others. Romantic shabbiness, wild hair and odd opinions are all allowed. And any comic book writer who hasn't had an encounter with extraterrestrials and doesn't look like they've woken up in a hedge isn't really trying.
So where am I in all that? A bit lost, really. Wanting, desperately, sometimes, to be one thing rather than another, but not instinctively, naturally, anything. I have gangs I hang out with in all those media, people I love utterly, but none I've told the whole truth to.
I've had three and a half numinous experiences in my life, one of which lasted for most of an evening, on and off. (I use that word, 'numinous', because it doesn't seem to frighten people, and because it's got a ring to it.) It's why I don't regard myself as having a faith, because faith tends to mean belief without proof, and I feel I've had (at least a bit of) proof. Though of exactly what I have no idea.
All of the following sounds, frankly, ridiculous. But I suppose that's what stuff from outside consensus reality would sound like.
Back in the day, I used to get in rows on the internet all the time. Ten years ago, I'd have been in that comments thread fighting every single commenter, including those who agreed with me. I used to get into very personal slagging matches, which I took very seriously. (No, I'm not saying mystical experiences changed that, I just grew up a bit.) But one day, sitting in my flat in Bath, I thought to myself that rather than fight this one particular guy to the death online, for what I saw as his failings, I could just forgive him and let it go. It would actually be easier. An ordinary thought. But then, something kind of... well, let me be as precise as I can be. A sudden, incredibly huge, feeling of love burst into my mind. It made me fall back on my bed and lie there, for about a minute I think, somewhat luxuriating in it and somewhat wondering if I was having a stroke. Then it gradually faded. It was simply a feeling of love, like something cosmically enormous was delighted about and at me. No words were involved. It was like being hugged by the universe. Or rather by something from outside it.
If there was a message, it was implicit: that the moment I forgave, something felt excited and delighted and almost compelled to communicate that to me. I tried it out in the next few days, tried to find things that felt like it, reached for it, like I could make it happen, replicate it, but I couldn't.
Still being young, stupid, me, a week or so later I became furious about a negative review of something of mine that somebody had written. But this time I made a conscious effort to act in the way that the feeling seemed to have been pleased by. I forgave the writer, and, as I was driving along the motorway, on the way to a cricket match, just got a precise flash of that same feeling, as if a reminder was necessary and apt. (That's the 'half', because it really was a tiny dose.)
I should point out, by the way, that, in the case of the review writer, there was nothing to forgive. I don't think 'forgiveness' implies wrongdoing on the part of the person being forgiven (and I hate it when it's used in that horrible passive/aggressive way). Forgiveness just means dropping the whole burden of anger and desire for revenge and letting the fight end with you.
I became, after that, an Anglican. I still flinch from using the word 'Christian', half because of the sharp intake of breath it causes from people, the 'I have to take care to behave in a particular way/I don't know what way that is/How mad is he?/How much of a bigot is he?' reflex that's common in Britain, half because the word has been hijacked by lunatics who persecute gay people. I chose the Anglican church not because I was directed to, in any sense, but because I liked their loose commonwealth of different versions and their military devotion to wishywashyness. Or meekness, if you prefer. I'm not a very good churchgoer. I don't go often. I loathe most hymns and almost all forms of sung church music, can't be bothered to sit in the cold, and get bored easily. I like a good intellectual sermon, and the old stones, and getting blessed. (I don't want to be confirmed and drink from the cup, and I'm not sure I'd ever have the space to say why.) I like offering those around me a sign of peace. I like the opportunity to let my mind venture outwards, to consider my failings and ask for forgiveness, but I've never got the hang of prayer. I don't think God should or will save me or my loved ones from anything, so I don't know what I'm meant to be asking for. (I'm told it's more complicated than that.)
In asking for forgiveness, I try and tune into what I remember of that numinous feeling, but really get nowhere near it (there's usually some awful music blaring in my ear to make sure I don't). I know of people who replicate such highs through various practices (such as meditation), but I've never managed that and haven't much tried. It doesn't seem like a thing that's up to me.
Now, if, like me, you're of a sceptical and scientific turn of mind, you'll be saying to yourself: hmm, didn't he get romantically involved with someone who was planning to be a vicar before he had his numinous experience? Yes, I did, and wasn't that convenient? I'm pretty sure that if I'd met a Hindu I'd have chosen to become a Hindu. But as a hard ecumenicalist (I think every way of seeing the divine is as valid as every other, all being vague human glimpses of the beyond), I don't see that as much different. I couldn't have called down my numinous experience just because I was in a relationship.
I think my experience was probably some form of temporal lobe event, as has been witnessed in brain scans of meditating monks and nuns. But meeting any human being in person is just a question of photons hitting the back of one's eye and pressure waves moving the air in one's ears. This was a communication and a presence that used different organs. I was also quite a heavy ecstasy user a few years previously, but I'd let that dwindle away for some considerable time before the experience, and there's really no comparison between the two states. I'm also no stranger to ritual magic (and I still like a bit of Wicca), but I've always had my transcendent experiences accidentally, rather than during any form of working.
After those experiences there was nothing, not for many years, not when I forgave people and was kind, not when I was a complete bastard, no sense of contact at all. The moment had stopped being something enormous that might happen again at any time, and had instead become, through civilised experience, an ethical ruler with which to measure my own behaviour (and not anyone else's).
The second major experience was just kind of fun. I was sitting on a train, in January last year, reading the New Scientist magazine (#2691 if you want to replicate the experiment). The feature article about the holographic universe (a concept I was already familiar with from Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe amongst others) blew my mind... a bit literally. The idea is that our entire experienced reality is just the three dimensional playback of existing, rather more 'real' 2D data stored in the event horizon of the universe. I've often felt what Kate Bush called 'my terrible fear of dying', but have never felt able to believe in a religious afterlife (Christ having not at all clearly promised such a thing, despite every link in the human oral tradition through which we hear his sometimes garbled words presumably wanting him to). But the idea of being kept whole and entire, outside time, as part of all information gives me more solid ground for hope that our collective hunch as a species that mind doesn't end with bodily death may be correct. At any rate, I had, as I clattered along on that train into London, a kind of secular epiphany of which atheists would be proud, filled with that familiar form of sudden joy, but this time about the awe and mystery of cosmology. (The fact that the battle between science and religion is in the field of evolutionary biology, where the religious people fighting it are obviously wrong, serves both camps. In cosmology, astrophysics, the study of mind, we find much to draw us together.) That feeling hung around for a while, as I stumbled off the train at Paddington with my brain all 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds', and offered me the sort of 'comfort' that non-religious types seem to feel is the only possible reason for faith, when more usually the experience of professing a religion is rather more a burden.
And finally, and this is the most ridiculous experience of them all, one which I can hardly credit and makes me feel like a Roman seeing omens... okay, so earlier this year I went to see Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, in 3D... It's not that the psychedelic movie and imaging process took me into another world. I was sitting there utterly bored by what I was swiftly deciding was one of the worst movies ever made (and I'm normally a huge fan of Burton). I won't offer a critique here. The point is I wasn't dragged into the experience of the film, I was shut off from it. My mind started to wander, and I found myself considering, as I often do, another cosmological theory, the idea that reality is a simulation. Normally, people react to this as if they've been told they're living in a diluted version of something better. But what I started to consider, watching the movie, was: if reality is a simulation, what a fantastic work of art it is. Everything from free will to elephants: great stuff, five stars, 99% say PC Gamer Magazine. Even the plot holes, like the Young's Slits experiment, the fact that the apparent size of the moon is exactly the apparent size of the sun (so much for Earthly ordinariness, total eclipses from a planetary surface would make us a galactic tourist destination), Sheldrake's various speculations, the placebo effect, Kantian theories of knowledge and virtually everything in the excellent (and purely scientific, those afraid of weirdness) Thirteen Things that Don't Make Sense, they all seem like imperfections to be flaunted.
Considering all this, I went off to the toilet. As I stood there... no, come on, this is really what happened... I thought to myself the thought that all religious texts tell us not to think. I wondered if, since I was offering such applause to the genius behind this wonderful simulation, they might just say hello, make themselves known for a moment, tap me on the shoulder. (It's exactly what happens in the wonderful 2010 when HAL tells Floyd to look behind him.) I tested the cosmos a little. And then when I turned round (yes, I had zipped up), there was a little boy at the door of the bathroom, who pointed at me, burst out laughing and ran out the door.
I took a look around the door, and I wish I could say he'd vanished, but no, there he was, with his Dad, talking about something else, entirely ordinary. It felt like he was the representation of something, not the thing itself. It was the feeling that went with that moment that was tremendous, that persisted, the 'Oz factor' that experiencers of Fortean weirdness report. The world seemed alive with portents. In a way which I've never felt before or since, that primitive religiosity that suggests another reality above and under this one. It really is very Roman, and talking about it now, I both recall the fringes of it, and look down on it as too blunt, too silly. I took it with me to a car park in Faringdon, hours later, where, just before I stopped the car, I found myself thinking that the one thing one should absolutely not do is build a new belief system around the happenings of that day, do what so many people have done and make a tower of stupid and harmful human assumptions on the foundation of something numinous. (Any ancient religion, I believe, is something that's had a lot of evolutionary checks and balances arrived at, and usually accepts a wide spectrum of truths.) And as I had that thought, a stranger walking past laughed again and nodded enthusiastically, right at me.
Well, yes, as I told you, ridiculous. Kind of crass, almost. I'm pleased that I didn't make up something that obvious.
And that's been that, from then on. I hope to have no more such experiences, particularly not like that latter walk through the dreamtime. I continue to think that seeking the faults in oneself, forgiving, being kind, not enjoying conflict, is the measure of what we do, and that my religion is one of many approaches that support those ethics. I think, even given the actions of many of those who profess the same belief system while judging and harming people, my folk do hugely more good than bad. I also think that scepticism, rationality and the scientific method are the most valuable tools human beings have.
But I think the universe is big. And that there is much beyond it. And that the meeting point of what's ours and what's beyond is Christmas.
Phew, told you. I do believe I've come out. In a way. Tomorrow, it'll get even more intense, when... no, actually, it'll just be the answers to the quiz. And hopefully some rude lesbian nurses, because I haven't mentioned them yet this year and the more page hits the merrier. Until tomorrow... erm... if you're still here... Cheerio!
Labels:
2010,
Fortean,
The Elegant Universe,
The Numinous,
Thirteen Things that don't make sense
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Thank you - that was very interesting and I hope the your honesty and openness is received with the respect it deserves.
Thanks for sharing - what a fascinating post! Oh, and I hope you and Caroline have a wonderful Christmas :)
Jo
So you have this stuff happen to you too?
Only twice for me (Chris was terrified that I'd turn into a shining eyed zealot!).
Honest and refreshing! After reading your books and watching the shows that you have written, I think your love for human beings and the universe really shines through.
Thanks for sharing :)
Kudos to you; takes a lot to reveal stuff like that. As you know from conversations we've had before, I'm an atheist myself, but it's getting to a point where I'm nervous about saying so, because you're expected to be a Dawkins-esque crusader for the cause, and that strikes me as odd: adopting the tactics we're supposed to deplore in theist extremism? Not what I signed up for, I can tell you.
I think if things are to change, we need to have more honesty and openness and - dare I say it - compassion on both sides of the fence. Taking a stand like this is a brave thing to do, and I salute you for it. Happy holidays to you and yours, sir. :)
Excellent post, and as good a set of descriptions of numinosity as I've read.
And coming out as "person who has some spiritual/religious affiliation" is weird and tough.
Ta very much and Happy Christmas.
One of the things I've always admired about you was your openness to discussing the numinous.
I really, really love this entry, especially: "But I think the universe is big. And that there is much beyond it. And that the meeting point of what's ours and what's beyond is Christmas."
Genuine congratulations on coming out. I'm a humanist, and it's great to read a personal exposition of a spiritual feeling that 100% acknowledges the physical, but doesn't end with the usual punchline that the rest of us interpret these events differently because we're missing something.
Thank you for sharing. You shouldn't be worried about expressing your experiences, telling others about it. In no way can it cheapen what you felt and helps others who have or will experience something similar come to their own conclusions.
Very interesting post. Thank you.
I was raised with the belief that everyday we are surrounded by the Divine. I was taught that symbols and meaning are all around us. The world is amazing, but the crushing weight of existing seems to blind us to it so often.
I've had my own 'experiences' while listening to music, while watching s sunset or while gathered peacefully with friends. The context doesn't matter, really, just the experience itself. What meaning you choose to take from it is your alone and deeply personal.
I'm reminded of some lyrics to a song:
Sometimes I forget, how mighty this Earth.
Astounding winter skies. The truth as in birth.
Peace that it brings to me, my naked eyes.
Be a good day.
Have a good Christmas, Mr. Paul.
What an excellent blog post! It was thoroughly refreshing to read something so nuanced on a subject that, on the net, comes down to people shouting in each other's faces. I'm not an atheist, nor am I a Christian. Not quite sure what label to attach, to be honest. But I understood everything you said, having had similarly inexplicable - in terms of science - experiences. Have to tell you about them sometime...
I raise a glass to your bravery and to your honesty, Mr Cornell.
Fascinating stuff, Paul. I remember having a sense of the world falling into place like that at least once, as a child... I really wish I could still reach that sense of yes, even if only for the occasional brief but solid glimpse like you had.
And I wouldn't worry about the reaction to this entry so much; you won't get people reacting like you're trying to take something away from them. :-)
Lovely post Paul! Numinous is the perfect word for these kinds of experiences. They are personal, and impossible to properly convey to other people. It always reminds me of the scene at the end of Sagan's Contact, in which the scientist has to have faith in an experience that no one else shares.
One of my favourite quotes is by Robert Anton Wilson: "I don't believe anything, but I have many suspicions."
The issue of course is with the word believe. I try not to take things on faith, and I believe in a scientific approach to problems. Yet, within each of us is a universe of experiences that don't always 'make sense'.
I'm constantly astonished and blown away by the beauty in the universe (especially what is shown to us by scientific branches such as cosmology). There is also a great deal of kindness about - which is observable if we just pay attention.
That is not to say that terrible things don't happen, but I do what I can in my own way to offset that.
Thanks so much for sharing those personal moments, Paul. It describes some similar experience and feelings I have about God and spirituality quite well.
I rarely read complete blogs word for word, but last two days saw me come back for more even when I had to go offline. I really do appreciate the honesty and great insight into the industry and human mind.
And while I didn't feel I could contribute anything to the piracy-ebook post, I do have a question for you that I'd like to know the answer to sometime in the future.
Since you say that your experience is purely spiritual and that you even hate certain aspects of the Anglican church rituals, I didn't quite gather why you decided to associate yourself with that organisation. Other than because of certain moral and ethical values that are, to a certain extent and by your own admission, same in most of World religions.
Reason I ask this (in form of an observation, but nevertheless) is why I decided to disassociate myself with any organised religion: hypocrisy of any and all ruling structures (be it religious or secular) in propagating certain ideals and doing completely the opposite. In this sense, if I decided to show my support to a religion, even by just admitting I was their member and participating in certain rituals, while I don't and cannot condone actions (both past and present) of other members, especially the self proclaimed leaders... would just be hypocrisy on my part as well.
And that's the first reason why I refuse to associate my spiritual life with an organised religion and look for my own path. Refusal of my scientific mind to believe in dogmas is the other, of course.
I'd really like to hear your opinion on this.
Nice post, and kudos for not using the word 'supernatural'. Actually that word is appropriate here, but not with the baggage it usually carries.
'Natural philosophy' is the precursor to science, 'natural' in that context meaning not so much 'trees and greenery' as 'the world as we find it and systematically understand it'. Then you get the term 'supernatural', which has acquired a contradictory common meaning that can never really make sense. It's usually assumed to mean 'as real as science but simultaneously flying in the face of science', which is a nonsense concept.
If what is 'natural' is what can be objectively observed, modelled (a scientific model being capable of accurate prediction) and reproduced in a laboratory or equivalent context, then what is 'supernatural' is simply everything else. That 'everything else' includes a large part of our individual thoughts and experiences. We can keep these to ourselves, we can share them, we can do what we like with them – with some important exceptions.
Those exceptions include doing things and building things that really need to be objectively observed and modelled in order to fulfil their purpose. You'd be very silly to build a house or a space rocket, or to perform brain surgery, without availing yourself of the modelling (via trial and error) of the natural world that's gone on throughout human history. Otherwise, your house will probably fall down, your rocket probably won't fly, and your patient will probably die or be debilitated.
But if you want to consider the meaning and purpose of life and the best way to live it and to relate to others, and you want to draw on things that don't fall into the category 'natural', then knock yourself out. You aren't necessarily impugning science by doing so, and nor is science necessarily impugning you.
One could make a very similar point about 'alternative medicine', a term as confused as 'supernatural'. If your child bangs their knee and you 'kiss it better', as parents everywhere do, then you've done something important but non-medical to address the situation. If your child BREAKS their knee, you'd be best advised to seek medical treatment to address the situation. The only thing that's objectionable is the failure to distinguish between the two.
Merry Christmas Paul (no 'long, sighing breath' intended) and all the other fine people who post here.
Alex S
I don't think you've said anything particularly contentious there. I think we all, at some point in our lives, have some kind of "weird stuff" event happen to us. But most of the time - like the last example you gave - we don't recognise it for what it is in amongst the randomness of every day life.
Thank you for sharing your experiences. I've had some very like those, and I think the fact that they can come in such a variety of forms from the sublime to the very ordinary, and even the faintly ridiculous, is one of the great things about them. There's something rather wonderful about a Beyond that doesn't think itself above appearing to people in public toilets and car parks.
I absolutely LOVE this post, and I love when you just come out and say things. Aesop was right: honesty IS the best policy. Please don't be afraid to share stuff like this with us!
I wanted to share a similar experience I had which you can read or not as you wish. :)
PART ONE
I was living in Dublin in 2000 and taking a walk up the Liffey, further than I'd ever been. I was a student, and didn't have much money.I came across a block where there were these broken-down or burnt-out trailers. As I turned onto that block to investigate, I realized that people were living in them and I'd stumbled into a little slum area.
As I walked along, a woman in her 30s-ish stuck her head out of the door of one of the trailers and asked me for change. I honestly didn't have any, as I'd left my money at my apartment. A cute, blond little boy that I assumed was her son poked his head out the window and he looked dirty and hungry. I told the woman I didn't have anything, and she sighed her thanks and went back inside. The boy waved at me, but he wasn't smiling. I felt so bad.
When I got back to my apartment, though, I got an idea. I was going to take what little money I had, run to Tesco, and buy that boy and his mother some groceries! I got a big bag milk, bread, eggs, cereal, stuff like that. Cold cuts for sandwiches. A big bottle of juice. And a couple of packets of chicken and a small bag of rice and a box of mashed potatoes. I pretty much spent my weekly work-study stipend on these groceries.
Thing is, the whole time I was thinking about how grateful they were going to be. How the little boy was going to look at me like I was freaking Santa Claus, and how the mother was going to cry. It was playing out in my head as I paid for the food and walked back to that block down the Liffey. She was going to tell her friends about how kind I was. The little boy was going to want me to stay and play, and I was going to put him up on my shoulders and run him around the neighborhood. I was going to be a hero.
So, of course, when I turned onto that block again, I couldn't find the trailer. They all looked alike, and I couldn't spot the mother or the boy in any of the windows. I went up and down the block a couple of times feeling like an idiot for not having memorized which one I was coming back to.
PART TWO (I hope Part One came through all right)
Then this group of about 4-5 boys, all of them a bit dirty and wearing ratty clothing, came up to me - they couldn't have been more than 9 or 10 years old - asking me for change. I said I didn't have any, which I most certainly didn't then, having spent all my money. Then I said, "Well, I have these groceries. Do you want these?" One of the boys says "Nah! We wanted money so we could go into a shop and eat proper-like!" I said "Well, like I said, I don't have money, but I will give you this food if you want it." The one who looked like the oldest sighed as if this was hugely inconvenient, but then tore the bags out of my hand and went off running, the others following behind with out so much as a "how do you do?"
And suddenly I had the urge to laugh and laugh, which I did standing there on a cobblestone street between a couple of burnt-out trailers. And after laughing, I looked up at the sky and thought "Thanks. Thanks a whole lot."
Because it was as if God was trying to teach me something. That if I was going to bother doing good, I should maybe just do it without thinking so much about how heroic I'm going to look. So God sent me the most ungrateful, rude bunch of needy little boys to make use of my food instead. And as I walked away, I noticed them kneeling behind a broken-down car dividing up the spoils, and I heard one of them say "Why didn't she give us anything good?" And I chuckled to myself again.
And as I walked home, I was filled with a deep sense of humility. I'd never been so humbled before. I was thoroughly being called on my crap, which feels a whole lot worse when it's the Universe doing it. Strangely, though, it was a good feeling, too. It's like when a really good friend or loved one calls you on your crap, and while it might not be easy to hear, there's a simultaneous feeling of gratitude because you feel known. Someone knows you well enough to know when you're full of crap. In that moment I felt known by the Universe. I wasn't just one of many people on the planet. I was Teresa Jusino Who Is Full Of Herself And Needs To Learn That Doing Good Is Its Own Reward. It felt like God was leaning down and talking just to me...even if it WAS to raise an eyebrow and shake His/Her head.
The point of all this being that, yes, God was totally laughing at you while you were in the bathroom. :)
Paul, that was marvellous.
I stopped discussing my own experiences with others because on the whole it was like trying to convince them that the Easter Bunny exists. I took comfort in reading this.
Thanks for posting this. As a Christian myself, it's sometimes disheartening that many of the people in the arts and media fields whose opinions I admire and respect are atheists. So I always appreciate your comments on the subject, as they give me some vague feeling of, I don't know, solidarity.
I call myself a Christian, though I don't attend Church and find myself uncomfortable with certain elements of the religion. I too don't like the association our faith has with homophobia and bigotry. These are not feelings I share, and I don't feel like those who harbor those sentiments are representative of me or even my faith.
I try my best (and frequently fail, I'll admit) to live a life that abides by the teachings of Jesus, and try to apply the "What Would Jesus Do?" mantra if I can. And I frankly can't see Jesus waving "God Hates Fags" placards or shouting abuse at vulnerable women entering abortion clinics.
It's often forgotten that Jesus, in his time, was frequently at odds with the religious establishment of the day for its obsession with the letter-and-verse of The Bible getting in the way of the core message behind it all. What would he think of some of us now, using a doctrine that was meant to bring us all together to instead divide, discriminate and alienate?
A non-religious friend of mine recently said, "The problem with God is that he has terrible PR." And I think that statement rings somewhat true, though it wasn't always the case. Even a few decades ago, the face of religion was the likes of Martin Luthor King: figures that represented compassion and equality. Now the face of Christianity seems to be the Glenn Becks and the Westboro Baptist Churches of the world.
But despite my issues with the institution, I maintain a faith in the message at their core, a belief I've had my whole life. Does that make me naive, or ignorant? It's something I don't really feel comfortable talking about, even with friends, and my faith is something I don't broadcast. In fact, this is probably the most at length I've talked about my faith and my beliefs unanonymously in a long time.
So thanks for sharing. It encouraged me to share too. :)
You had me with the knock-off Tee shirts joke.
As a born-again agnostic can I just say it's a brillant post, and while I've only started reading your blog this Christmas, you've really been brightening my day recently (in a pleasently thought inspiring way way).
Many thanks and all the best to you and yours for Christmas.
Hi there. I'm not sure we've met, but we have many friends in common. I got here via Nicholas Whyte.
I've had similar transcendent experiences--also while talking with people online, actually, though in my case it's shown up a couple of times as somehow knowing exactly the right thing to say to a person who was hurting or sad. It felt like I was briefly channeling that hug from the universe and getting it to the person who needed it. If I've got any sort of belief system at all, at the heart of it is the idea that we're all actually getting that hug from the universe all the time, and I've found that belief very comforting at times when I needed to believe that I was loved and not alone.
Thanks for writing about this.
Thanks for this. You're definitely not alone in it. :)
Thanks, everyone, what a nice bunch of comments! Paul O: yes, that's a fear I share about those around me with belief, and I'm sure how they feel about me. Paul R: the problem is, as you say, the extremism, not the flavour of it. Maura: I like that quote! Emir: I haven't encountered much in the way of hypocrisy, though, starting out, I expected to. I'd need examples of what you mean. The problems I describe are aesthetic, not ethical. Christ: erm, nice to hear from you, glad you're blogging these days! For future reference, I prefer this form of communication. John: that's how I feel. And thanks everyone for your own accounts. Merry Christmas!
Approval granted! :D
I died four years ago and came back. In the long moments when I was well and truly dead I will say that the feeling you got when you forgave and let go? That's what death is like, except it goes on forever, and you are among the forgiven. In the end, everything is okay for everyone.
Merry Christmas.
I'm glad you found that, Miranda. Cheers.
Hi Paul,
Would you mind if I quoted this post without attribution in my Sunday sermon this week?! I'm in my 3rd year of curacy (so I've been through what Caroline's going through!). I'm going to reflect on the shepherds and the magi and the different things that provoke us to wonder about the divine. For the shepherds it was an experience they couldn't explain. Your experience was completely different (no angelic visitations here!) but provoked you to seek some connection with a spiritual reality (trying hard not to put a label on it - have you noticed!). I thought it would provide a thought-provoking contrast. Would this be okay?
Yours
Richard England
Sure, go ahead!
Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken is very worth reading. It's the story of Louie Zamperini, an Olympic runner who was a bombardier during WWII, crashed, spent 40 days on a raft, and then was a POW in Japan, where a guard named Watanabe, “the Bird,” made it his mission to destroy him as a human being, and spent years trying. Louie was very badly affected, until he committed himself to God, at which point he began a remarkable transformation. The book is a straightforward factual account, with no emphasis on Christianity except as part of telling Louie's story as he saw it. While I don't think it's necessary to see this on theistic terms, there is something rather wonderful happening here, and it wouldn't have happened, in Louie's case, without religion.
An excerpt:
In Sugamo, Louie asked his escort what had happened to the Bird. He was told it was believed that the former sergeant, hunted, exiled and in despair, had stabbed himself to death.
The words washed over Louie. In prison camp, Watanabe had forced him to live in incomprehensible degradation and violence. Bereft of his dignity, Louie had come home to a life lost in darkness, and had dashed himself against the memory of the Bird. But on an October night in Los Angeles, Louie had found, in Payton Jordan's word, “daybreak.” That night, the sense of shame and powerlessness that had driven his need to hate the Bird had vanished. The Bird was no longer his monster. He was only a man.
In Sugamo Prison, as he was told of Watanabe's fate, all Louie saw was a lost person, a life now beyond redemption. He felt something that he had never felt for his captors before. With a shiver of amazement, he realized that it was compassion.
At that moment, something shifted sweetly inside him. It was forgiveness, beautiful and effortless and complete. For Louie Zamperini, the war was over.