To my considerable surprise, the series on James resulted in him getting his preaching reputation buffed up, as the logical gymnastics needed to get through the book resulted in a run of sermons so complex the head of Oral Roberts University couldn't have understood them.
See, I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but the fact is for a variety of reasons I know a LOT about the scriptures, their origins, their histories — and I do my level best to keep all that undercover. As far as anyone at the church knows, I'm just another redneck whiling away a perfectly good weekend listening to the Preacher whinging about one apocalyptic societal issue or another and trying to herd the congregation closer to the true faith, the better to be handy when the end times arrive, which is probably shortly.
I'm not taking notes. I'm actually writing this, instead.
To me, it just seems that the "herding" project would be simpler if he'd stop preaching on James (which is practically an entirely different religion) and Romans (which is Paul trying to explain to a powerful proto-church that he's not a dangerous nutbag regardless of his other letters to other churches and oh, by the way, he would very much like them to fund a missionary trip to a part of the world we now call Spain).
Both books present some real problems to True Believer Literalists and both seem like the sort of thing that a country preacher ought to just do a quick under-the-rug sweep and move on to Corinthians, a perfectly suitable doctrinal standby. I mean, even Martin Luther hated James so much he wouldn't preach it, and classified Romans as "difficult", as in "requires some pretty flexible logic to make it work". Not a soul in the church would notice the "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" slight-of-hand of skipping James altogether, or at least probably no one but me and the occasional theology student passing through.
But, none of this has anything to do with why I'm writing. As I'm writing this, it occurs to me to clarify — If I know (and I do) that when my time is done, it's done, why would I waste what little time I have in this pointless exercise every week?
Good question. The answer is that she is here. I'm with her, and she makes me (generally) happy.
But what of capital-T "Truth" in the midst of all this pointless superstition and ritual? Well, the short answer is that Truth is highly over-rated, of much less import to the universe in general and my life in particular than even the religious claptrap. I'm here with her, and that's enough.
How does it work? She knows I'm a rationalist. She has faith that God has me in his hand because of my true (and, by the way, it really was) conversion decades ago. It makes her happy to believe it, even if I know better.
How long do I argue the point? How unhappy do I have to make her to feel confident that Truth has won the argument?
Not at all, as it happens. She has faith. I have Truth. And we are happy together, each utterly confident that our version will pan out, and neither of us disturbed in any significant way by the difference.
Philosophers and life-coachs, not to mention "Common Wisdom" in the skeptical community preaches that Truth is the gold standard. Spreading it and living it is your best life, and the best thing to be doing with your life. For them, knowing it isn't enough — insisting on Truth at all costs is the point.
Bullshit. That just makes it another religion.
The real point of it all, if there is any, is to live my life in the present and enjoy it to the fullest degree possible. Those possibilities boil down to:
WITH her AND the fiction of religion is still "With Her".Can I reconcile those without making one or both of us miserable? No. "Truth" has no bearing or input here. My BEST life is "with her". Period. Everything else is decoration, ego, pride, bad philosophy, and angel-counting bullshit.
WITHOUT her AND with Truth as my life and goal is still "Without Her".
The Truth camp agrees with me here: We're all here for almost no time at all. There are no extra points, no winners or losers either way. The Truth and the Universe exists now and forever in the space-time matrix virtually 100% beyond our least bit of control, and without any slightest regard for whether we're in favor of it or not. The only question is how do I maximize my ideal "best life" in this microscopic flash in the pan that is mine? By being with her as many bits of it as possible. They are vanishingly few as it is.
Thus, the bemused, low-grade annoyance of church on Sunday.
That such nonsense exists does not rattle my knowledge of Truth, nor does Truth existing make it necessary for me to use it to ruin someone else's life. A much ignored fact is that there are a lot of lives for which Truth is bad news, a corrosive thing that turns a small, or damaged, or sad life with faith into a shit life that has nothing. I'm not going to do that. Certainly not to someone who is happy and who makes me happy. The Universe doesn't demand it. The Universe doesn't give a shit. There's your Truth, and if your religion of Truth guides you any other way, you've fallen from the One Path.
Read irony there.
And now they're passing around the host, and we will all partake in another meaningless ritual, grape juice and wafers of maybe bread maybe Styrofoam. It's ridiculous of course, but no more than sitting on a mountaintop at the solstice praying to the sun as it recharges our crystals, or stomp-dancing the dubstep-vibrating dust on the playa, or meditation, or SkeptiCon cosplay conventions, or sacrificing life to Truth. Frankly, people are pretty silly at the best of times. This particular version doesn't even make a mark on even today's normalcy scales, never mind historical weirdness.
And I'm good with all that because I'm with her, and its not perfect, but its pretty close, and that for me is my time in Elysium, for all that it will last barely a flash.
End of discussion.
(NOTE: That was the end of the entry in the journal — of course, feel free to continue the discussion as you will.)
This is completely fuckin' awesome. <-- Truth
ReplyDeleteI am in a relationship with a true believer, who exited the pentacostal church she grew up with down there in Pioneer Louisiana so fast there was a thunderclap heard in Monroe as the air collapsed around the void she left, and now listens to animals and trees and her Higher Self whenever they speak, and cusses like a construction worker, and calls me on my bullshit just about every day (and yes, her relatives think California turned her into a witch, except she got caught doing Tarot cards inside the church before she even left town, so hey), and we also have a deal whereby she does her beliefs and I do mine and any possible conflict is just an opportunity to explore our egos and our imaginations and agree we don't really know a fuckin' thing.
It works, and it's interesting that it works, because I tend to think my parents split up over religion and their inability to accept an alternate view, and that's just silly, and it really would have been better had they stayed together ("better" being a value judgment for which neither I nor anyone else is in the least bit qualified), except that 60 years is a leeetle bit longer to ponder that question than it actually deserves.
So, there we go. Be "with" every moment you can.
Yup. It continues outside the church doors, of course. It's made simpler by the fact that she's a reasonably rational True Believer who simply ignores the occasional conflicts between the two as "mystery" which she anticipates God will clear up in due time. This sort of mental gymnastics and strip clubs are where one finds how impossibly flexible people are. As a result when science or medicine fixes a problem, I'll let prayer and heavenly intervention take the credit, if that's where she heads with it, because she figures the ampicillin and the competent docs are part of God's plan and she allows that's part of it all. On the other hand, when something has a less wonderful outcome, she avoids making "lack of faith" or insufficient praying time a likely cause. She just says we just don't know enough yet to fix whatever it was, and we'll learn better maybe, and either way if God didn't intend it, it wouldn't have happened. It's not too far off Stoicism, actually. I view most of existence as actually being beyond our control because that's the way the universe works. She views most of it as actually being beyond our control because it's chugging down the rails of divine planning. (shrug) Po-tay-toe / Po-tah-toe. After we flicker out, if she gets to rag me because she was right, I'll let her have it, because in fact she will have been. If on the other hand, we're not around for me to take a bow for being right, neither of us will notice. I'm good either way.
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