Evolving Past God

It seems to me that perhaps the greatest wish that most parents have is the desire to see their children grow up to be self-sufficient. In effect, if they have parented effectively, they have protected, nurtured, fed, and encouraged their child and that child no longer "needs" them. Of course in healthy child-parent relationships, they still are happy to be in one another's lives, but it's different now, it's a relationship between two grown adults.

I wonder if the same can be said about our relationship with God. Early in our spiritual or religious lives we learn to rely on God for nurturing, encouragement, insight, and a kind of spiritual feeding.  We even call God Father or Mother and we talk to this kind of Celestial Parent. I've previously wrote about this God as being viewed or used as a sort of Santa-God figure in the sky. He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake. He knows if we've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake. Just like any parent corrects and punishes their children, so does God we say. What's more, we think we can influence this God to give us good things, just like when we were a child and behaved nicely whenever we wanted ice cream. We think that we can influence God with our prayers. If we pray enough or using the right words, God will heal us or provide jobs for us or help our favourite team win the World Series. 

I had some thoughts on this tonight as I readied myself for bed. What if humankind can not evolve spiritually until we leave behind this parent-like view of God? As it is, we all-too-often and currently see examples of warring humans who in effect are saying, "I am God's favoured child, and you are not!" Divisions abound and millions are destroyed all in the name of this God. But what's more, we may never grow into who we were meant to be if we continue to see God as a separate Being from us. What a difference it would be if instead we saw each other, in each and every human being on the face of this fragile planet, as nothing less than an expression, an imprint, a manifestation of the Divine. I wouldn't be suspicious of you and you wouldn't even think of harming me. (Expand this to all living creatures and even our habitat and you can see the tremendously positive repercussions for our world!) 

What if God isn't a separate Being to be worshiped, but a living, breathing reality to be lived out and experienced? 

What if it's time to put off childish things?

What if it's time to evolve past this view of God?

mark-andrew

God Breathes As We Breathe

Sometimes I think we believe that in order to connect with God we must "go within" or effectively tune out the things that we feel and sense around us. We think that we can experience God mainly by eliminating all of the sensory stimulants that we feel; that is, we say, when true prayer can begin.

But what if God is instead fully incarnate in our bodies? What if a good thorough cry is as good as a prayer, a belly laugh as beneficial as going away on retreat, and making love as divine as times of worship? Surely it's not an either/or dichotomy, but how often do we retreat from the very vessels - temples - that we have been provided with in our bodies?

What if God cries as we cry, laughs as we laugh, makes love as we make love, and suffers along with us when we feel pain? Furthermore, what if God inhabits the very parts of us that we find undesirable in ourselves - the gut, the stretch marks, the receding hairline, the blemishes?

As long as we have breath in these mortal bodies, we have countless opportunities to encounter the divine.

God Is Like An Octopus - Updated

I believe that God is like an octopus and we are their tentacles. Each person, each living thing has been and is a chance for the Creator to experience this thing called life and to be in relationship. There are so many colours and cultures and religions, each seemingly different but really we're all One. Instead of simply being God, we have - so far - made an idol, called God separate and worshiped them. When all God desires is to live and to experience and to love. Each of us is a wave in the great ocean of God. We are never truly born and we never truly die - we just change shape. We rise and we fall. It is so tempting to pray TO God, but today I feel like praying AS an expression, an extension of God in this grand universe. And all I can say is this: May I swim boldly in God's great sea of love, experiencing love in every face and with every interaction and every relationship. Amen.

The New Years Blues

It shouldn't come as a real surprise that this would happen. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've sunken into a depression several times shortly after Christmas and New Years are over. This year is no different. Maybe it's because I look forward to, and enjoy, the holidays so much, with all the strings of lights, the lit-up tree, the movies and the kitschy music. Maybe it's just a natural let-down. Maybe it's because the specter of 2.5 or 3 months more of darkness, cold and snow are ahead. Whatever it is, this feeling sucks. I've felt it coming on for the last week or so, and today it's obvious. Depression is visiting me again.  

I notice when I'm depressed because the actual feeling of depression is rather rare for me anymore. I mean, I can and do get very down with a poor outlook, but the actual physical feeling of depression is more than often staved off by a concoction of medications. I'm thankful for said meds, but there's a significant drawback: the inability to feel deeply, namely the inability to shed a tear, when a good cry might be all that I need some days. 

During times like this I feel purposeless, hopeless, directionless, and kind of a waste of space. These are longstanding feelings/outlooks that I've had for probably 15 years or so. It is absolutely true that once you're an adult it is your responsibility to find healing from the trauma you may have faced earlier on on your life. But that doesn't make it fucking easier. Over the years I've tried individual and group therapy, CBT, DBT, mindfulness groups, even brief hospitalizations to try to move on from the trauma and abuse that I lived throughout my childhood/formative years. But there seems to be some trauma that therapy or meds or a positive outlook or spirituality cannot touch. If you were to ask me several years ago what the tangible effects of my trauma were, I'd list off my psychiatric diagnoses: major depression, generalized anxiety, a touch of OCD just for the hell of it, and complex PTSD. 

Complex PTSD is the most recent and most accurate diagnosis for me. Unlike regular PTSD (which I hear is also a nightmare), complex PTSD happens when someone experiences prolonged trauma over a long period of time, not just on one occasion. Depression and anxiety often ensue. But another thing that can result, and this is the case with me, is that a person can feel adrift, rudderless, without purpose. STUCK. That's the truth about me, there it is folks. Behind the puns and the inspirational religious quotes that I post on social media, there's this feeling of being lost in a deep wood without a compass of any kind. There are myriads of self-help books out there that aim/promise? to help you achieve your dreams and goals. But here's the rub: What if you have no idea what your dreams or goals are? Find me a book or guru talking about that and I'll owe you a coffee! 

All in all, it's a more than frustrating place to be in, and a positive outlook just seems next to impossible on some days. Today is a rather bad one. 

Thanks for journeying along with me by reading this, and for your friendships, which truly does make a huge difference in my life. I don't know where I'd be if not for my close friends and family. You know who you are. 

Whatever you may be dealing with today, I offer my love and support. I'm only a message away.

Mark-Andrew 

Bogart, Bacall, & A Bottle Of Shiraz

Tuesday, August 29, 2023 - 12:01a.m.

Waterloo, Ontario

A few days ago a delightful old college friend messaged me and attached scans of our old college newsletter, wherein I would publish my ramblings from time to time. We're talking back around the year 2000/01. One thing that I wrote about back then was getting together with my friend Darren at his house, where we'd watch an old black and white movie and listen to some soft jazz while imbibing Banrock Station Shiraz from Australia. It sounds like the perfect date cone to think of it, but alas it was just two dudes who loved classic movies, jazz, and wine hanging out while his little dachshund Princess furiously dug into the carpet. We'd watch Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall among others. I really miss those days. Tonight I searched for this friend on Facebook and Google and found very little.

This afternoon I went to my friend Jay's place and let his dog Clancy out for awhile on a sunny day. He's a King Charles Cavalier Spaniel, and I've looked after him and his late brother Buttons from time to time. As I was walking home later on and nearing my house, I reached into my pocket as usual to fetch my key, and alas it was gone. Drats! Off to the hardware store tomorrow to duplicate my housemates key.

The other day I wrote a post mainly about where I am when it comes to religion. I wrote about how I was close to leaving Christianity again, and that there wasn't much tying me there. Tonight I'm not so sure. Of course more than a few of my old friends/acquaintances would argue that I haven't been a true Christian at all since I left evangelicalism 20 years ago, but I would turn around and say that progressive Christianity is a more than valid path. Anyways, I plan on re-reading one of the best books by a progressive Christian author I've read. It's called "Convictions: How I Learned What Matters Most" by Marcus J. Borg. If there are 2 books I would recommend to people that explain the progressive Christianity that I am drawn to it's that one, as well as "The Evolution of Faith: How God Is Creating A Better Christianity" by Phillip Gulley. He's a Quaker pastor in Indiana. Speaking of the Quakers, I've been meaning to pay them a visit again sometime soon. 

Anyways, thanks for reading my ramblings. It feels good to put pen to paper (okay, I'm using the app on my smartphone but still...) again - something I used to do 20 years ago. I'll call it a day aoon, right after listening to the soft jazz of Diana Krall.

Be well,

Mark-Andrew

Belonging To The Grand Human Family

Friday, August 25, 2023 4:23pm

Indigo Starbucks, Conestoga Mall Waterloo

The other night before I went to sleep I went on a deep dive into my old blogposts. If you look far back enough, there are posts going back to 2008 or 2009. I wrote a lot back then and in the ensuing decade about chasing your dreams, urging people that it wasn't too late to do so and to see them become reality. Oh, how very idealistic I was back then. Part of me misses that about myself, now that I am a bit more weathered with life.

Of course a lot of my posts are about religion, and Christianity specifically. Some of them are a little angry, reflecting that period of my life after I left evangelical Christianity where I felt the need to distance myself from almost everything that I had once believed in. But most of all, it is the frequency of the posts that I noted. Back in the day I would take my laptop to a coffee shop and sit with my coffee and write down whatever thoughts were in my head. Sometimes I'd be there for hours. I never do that anymore, and I miss that. 

So today, I find myself sitting at Starbucks with my grandè Pike Place roast, having resisted the temptation to order the newly in-stock pumpkin drink - that can wait til September at the very least. While I don't have my laptop with me (which is falling apart again), I do have my smartphone and there's this handy Blogger app, so I thought I would write for a bit.

I have been thinking a lot about belonging lately, and how most of us feel the need to belong to something or someone. Just over three years ago now I posted a Facebook post declaring that I was returning to Christianity in some sense, albeit not to the conservative evangelical version that I grew up with. One of my reasons for doing so was because Christianity is familiar to me. Indeed it was my home, my reference point for the first 20+ years of my life. Another reason why I took up the label "Christian" again is because it bothered/bothers me how many hear that word and immediately think of the conservative evangelical/fundamentalist brand of it. I didn't want that to be the case. I still don't. 

I started to check out a local church and attended sporadically, but honestly I've found it challenging. Here's where I say the quiet part out loud: I left behind my belief in a supernatural God and supernaturalism altogether almost 20 years ago, and I've never regained it. Thus, all the God talk that is naturally found in Christian churches is almost like a foreign language to me. It's a language I once spoke and fluently, but one that I have little desire to pick back up. 

Prayer is another thing that I don't believe in, which is a natural extension of not believing in a Supreme Being who can hear said prayers. 

The Bible is not a book that I gravitate toward at all anymore. Perhaps that is a natural result of growing up worrying that if I didn't pray and read the Bible everyday that I would somehow be out of God's good graces. 

All of this leaves me wondering "What keeps me calling myself a Christian then?" Honestly, as I sit here sipping on my Pike Place, I am awfully close to shedding the label again because there really isn't that much keeping me there. The values of Jesus, such as love, kindness, mercy, gentleness, compassion - the fruits of the Spirit if you will - they appeal to me and I find them laudable for sure. But if I ask myself "Am I devoted to Jesus?" or if I ask myself in situations "What Would Jesus Do?" then the answer is no to both.  For me, the truth is that all those laudable qualities that I just listed above, they are not merely Christian qualities. They're human qualities. Atheists, Buddhists, Muslims, Agnostics, Jews, you name it - they are often just as loving and compassionate as followers of Christ.

So maybe it will be the case that, while I undoubtedly will always be highly interested and fascinated with Christianity, the only label I'll really use and need going forward is that of human. I belong to the interdependent web of all life, and that's enough. I must admit it is sad to think of leaving my "home" once more. While I may and will go back and visit from time to time, I no longer take up residence there. 

Thanks for reading this. Perhaps I'll force myself to write again more often to keep the depression at bay.

mark-andrew

Are Religious People Suffering From OCD?

I'm currently downtown Kitchener at Starbucks and spending some time journaling. One of my recurring thoughts goes something like this: 

Sometimes I think religious people - at least some of us/them - are suffering from a large, chronic case of obsessive-compulsive disorder. I know quite vividly and personally what OCD looks like. It's the obsession that something bad or worse is going to happen if we don't complete some sort of compulsive task. For me, a bit earlier in my life, it meant exhaustively and repeatedly washing my hands or checking that the stove was off or that the doors were locked. So what would religious OCD look like? Perhaps for many people it's the persistent, obsessive thought (and fear) that "I must believe certain things or do certain things, or else God is going to be disappointed or even angry with me and will cast me aside, maybe even into Hell." I lived with these thoughts and fears all through til the end of my Bible college days. I thought that if committed certain "sins" and didn't pray and repent enough, that I was going to be cast into Hell by God (who paradoxically I surmised was also all-loving.) It was utterly exhausting. 

A question that I have is: If grace and love are to be taken seriously, especially what is thought to be perfect grace and the purest love, then how can it be dependent on what we do or what we believe? Exactly when did my present state and eternal fate become dependent on my ability to give mental assent to a set of theological doctrines?

I was somehow able to leave regular OCD behind (except for minor exceptions) some time ago. Now there is no need to take on religious doom and gloom and fret over my eternal soul.

mark-andrew