Tuesday, October 23rd
Ya gotta love country music
All I've really go to do is live and die
But I'm in a hurry and I don't know why
One thing that has bugged me these past several months has been my apparent lack of interest in things musical. This apparently had something to do with my crisis of faith, which seems to be more or less resolved now. So, finally, slowly, I am crawling back to my first love, which is music.
Some things have changed. I still haven't plugged in my ipod, since the place I always used to indulge my ipod lust was at work. I've been in the process of learning four new routes, and have not wanted to be distracted from this by music. So the only music I've really been getting other than the occasional LP is snatches of radio stations in the mail van. I'm no connoisseur of radio by any means, so I basically listen to whatever the last guy listened to. One station that came up was The Hawk, which if I'm remembering correctly, is a country music station broadcasting out of Lancaster.
Today I heard the above two lines that I tracked down to the group Alabama. For some reason these lines just grabbed me. There seems to be something about country music that enables it to cut to the chase quicker and more succinctly than any other form of popular music, I think.
I also wrote a song while on vacation, which is something I think I vowed I would never try again. Most of my previous songs ended up being bland Christian stuff and the others aren't something I'm proud of either. But I had an idea for a song about my family and writing it helped me work out some of my grief over the loss of Michael and my dad. I think someday soon I may record it, not for general consumption, but because it's something my kids might like to have knocking around to remind them of dad.
Monday, October 22nd
The Metaphor of Foundation
Last night the Mormons came and we chatted for a while. I have been delivering mail to Mormon missionaries for a bit over four years now on Clinton Heights Ave., so they feel more like neighbors than religious adversaries. These young men and women come here to Ohio usually from far away, and I suspect are not often received well by the people they are trying to reach.
MY main purpose was to pick up a book of Mormon and read it again. I realized I would have to listen to their shpiel but didn't think that this would be a problem. I was surprised that they asked me about my beliefs, although in retrospect it seemed very natural. I told them about my former life as a Christian and my current life as a skeptic. When they got to the part about humankind receiving it's moral sense by eating the apple in the garden, I told them I believe that the human conscience was the product of evolution. One of the elders respectfully told me that he thought evolution didn't seem like much to base belief on. Evolution is a mass of change, as opposed to the teachings of Christ which are a sure foundation.
I know how he feels. I'd like to feel that there was one solid thing that I could put my feet on. But new knowledge has a habit of destroying old foundations. Science pulled our foundations out from under us centuries ago much more dramatically than the theory of evolution. The very metaphor of a foundation is based on the idea that the ground on which we stand is solid and won't be yanked out from under us. But this is an illusion. In fact, the earth is whirling through space at a ferocious speed and rotating at slightly more than a thousand miles per hour. And we should thank our lucky stars that it is. An earth which didn't rotate wouldn't be inhabitable. The half that faced the sun would roast while the other half would freeze solid.
So Copernicus may in fact have been more devilish than Darwin in the pulling down of foundations. Although we don't give it a thought now, he and Galileo took far more personal heat for their far fetched scientific ideas than Darwin did. Maybe the churchmen of their age were more perceptive than we give them credit for in understanding that the demise of the Ptolemaic universe could be the death knell of Christianity. For if the earth doesn't stand still, then it is nonsense to speak of foundations.
The flat earthers had it right when they said that the Copernican model was completely contrary to what the Bible taught. And they kept their teaching alive up until the 20th century. I wonder if Darwin will also have to wait four hundred years for the objections to his theory to die down.
Wednesday, October 17th
Vacation and Dream
So we just got back from our little hop to Arizona including the Grand Canyon. Nancy and I were both wondering if seeing the Grand Canyon would reawaken my God sense. Things were not that easy, although I did have something of a spiritual experience. Surprisingly, it had not so much to do with the Canyon as with the people that had lived there before. I felt more of a connection with those people as fellow members of the human race. The Canyon of course was awe inspiring, but not in the sense of "look what God did" so much as "Gosh I'm so small and insignificant."
While we were away I had a dream that did feel significant. I was going to Chuck and Mary's house to do two very important errands. Chuck and Mary were friends of ours from our previous church whom we have not seen in over a year. In my dream I knocked on the door and Mary answered. She told me Chuck was unavailable. I told her that was ok, I just wanted to return the Lear Jet they had loaned my. I had made two trips in the jet, one on the ground and one in the air. I told Mary that both trips were fun but I was done with the jet now. I also told her that I thought that it was time that I slipped out of their lives. She nodded and told me that she thought that was a good idea. Then I got into my old Ford Festiva to leave, but when I pulled out of their driveway I was slipping backwards down the road because it was covered with slushy ice. Instinctively I backed into the driveway of the next house down. The driveway wasn't finished- it was just dirt which had turned to mud because the weather was so wet. I realized the driveway was in good order but if I pulled off of it to try to go back up the road I would mess it all up with my tires. I also realized that it was probably futile to try because the sharply slanted road was impossible to get up.
I lay awake for several minutes after this dream trying to figure out what it meant. I'm not sure of course, but I think that the Lear Jet represents Christianity. When I told Nancy this she was excited because she thought that this might mean that I saw the superiority of a Lear Jet to an old Ford Festiva. Alas, I don't think this is what it means. I think that in this dream I see my former Christianity as an exciting thing that I tried out but ultimately doesn't fit me. The person who owns it (God) is ultimately unavailable despite the promises, just as the owner of the Lear Jet was unavailable in my dream. The old Ford Festiva in my dream was a car that I actually owned for many years and I think it will always be my favorite car. Despite its inferiority it was mine, and it was honest transportation.
Sunday, October 7th
Conscience
My prayer is that your absence from Him is short, minimizing the damage that you do to yourself and to those that love you as I had done.
Gary Lannon's concern is the same one that my wife Nancy had when she learned I had lost my belief in God. How can an atheist have a moral base? Won't he indulge his every whim and sinful desire?
This was something I hadn't considered when I "decided" to become an unbeliever and it did give me pause for concern. I had been taught and had believed for years that the only way to do what is right is by the power of the Holy Spirit. Now that I don't believe that there is a Holy Spirit, by what power do I do what is right?
But beside this thought came another awareness. I was suddenly aware that there was no magical forgiveness of my wrongdoing, no mysterious metaphysical transaction by which a supernatural being somehow takes care of the consequences of my bad actions. My sin was "ever before me" as the Bible says. But instead of leading me to despair, this realization gave me determination to be a better person than I was before. I looked at my life as I had led it for at least the past several years and realized that I didn't like the way I had been leading it. And there was no one to fix things but me.
So I am in the process of "repenting." I'm trying to be a different kind of person than I was when I was a Christian. I'm not saying that becoming an unbeliever has magically turned me into a saint. Far from it. But I think I'm beginning to notice a difference for the better. And so is Nancy.
Thursday, October 4th
Preparation
Next week we go on vacation. We will be gone about a week and a half. This is good. I'm more than ready.
Nancy is doing most of the hard work: lining up airline tickets, hotel reservations, rental car; that kind of stuff. I'm just trying to keep my head on straight. Nancy took Guide for the Perplexed and the other philosophy books from the library back and has hidden my other ones. She doesn't want a repeat of my manic episode just before we leave.
My psychiatrist has upped my medication. Really, these pills seem to be changing how I think. A couple times now I've sat down and tried to blog about intellectual stuff and I just can't wrap my thoughts around it. I've switched from philosophy books to novels and the change is doing me good, I guess.
|
