Radisson Walk: A Personal Spiritulaity and Notes on the Nature of God

Sunday, March 19, 2006, 5:06 PM

                We had six inches of new snow this morning and it is still snowing.  But at the same time it is snowing, the snow is settling.  Even though it has snowed all day, we probably have less snow in inches, but it is heavier, denser.

                It is time for my constitutional, but I can't find my wind pants and I want to start some stew before I go out. I was so cold yesterday that I would prefer to find my wind pants and get them on.  They might be in the trunk of the car.  Aiee!

                5:49 PM Yesterday, I walked from my Baldwinsville house down to the river and along the wild river shore which is all Hawthorne and buckthorn and not comfortable to walk, especially while attempting to write an answer to your thought-provoking questions.

                Today, tonight, really, I drove along the river and parked at the Radisson Golf course and walking down the narrow lane between tall trees through snow and ice, also not conducive to good writing!  It doesn't help that the snow is deeper than my boots.

                I came here because twice this week or more, maybe three or ore times, I walked from my house, and twice I didn't walk at all.  I'm trying to accomplish something at the house, but I'm so bad at it.

                I have to stop typing and attempt to warm my hands in my pockets!  Already it is getting dark, and I'd hoped to take a picture to show you our "signs of spring," LOL!  Six inches of snow over everything!

 

Some notes on a Personal Spirituality and the Nature of God:

 

                My mother is English Irish, Welsh and Scottish. Half English, 1/4 Irish, and 1/8 each Welsh and Scottish.  She used to profess agnosticism, but later, after my father died, seemed interested in God.

                (I stop to take a few pix before all the light is gone entirely.)

                My father was Italian and his family was Catholic, and he was a professed atheist.  My parents like to sing and we lived in a small community, so they were member of the Baptist Church and sang in the choir.  I also went to the Catholic Church with my aunt and Grandmother and to the Methodist Church with my best friend and later, my parents switched to the Unitarian church and we went there.

                I was never told what to believe by my parents.

                As a young teen, I sang in the choirs at both the Methodist and Baptist Churches.  As an older teenager, I joined the Presbyterian Church, took confirmation classes, was baptized, and confirmed. 

                (I walk along Stickleback creek and lost pond and stop and take some pictures but it is so dark I have to use 1600 ISO and the pictures aren't that great anyway.  I had two tripods in the car, no three, but I didn't carry them because it was so windy and snowing so hard that it seemed pointless.  But both the wind and snow have stopped and the scenery might relinquish a fair shot with a tripod.  Or not.  The creek is open, but the pond is covered with rotted ice that has those fractal-like cracks that I love so much.)

                (Photography seems hopeless at this point, so I stop and put the camera back in the day pack).

                I went to a Christian College.  In spite of the name, St. Lawrence, it never occurred to me that it was a Christian college when I went there, and I was quite appalled that we were required every single at 8 AM and 4 PM to go to Chapel.  What a horrifying concept.  It turned me off to Christianity and I fell in with a wild crowd and at the end of my first year of college, I made conscious choice to "turn my back on God."

                I wanted "to be free."

                I thought that God's requirements were onerous.

                (I am not supposed to be doing anything EXTRA and the walk is already going to take too long because of the snow, but I just detoured over to the willet pond overlook and set the camera on a post and took a couple shots that probably won't be worth the walk over.  Aiee!)

                I began a study of comparative religions, not in college, but through reading and participation in various groups.  I studied Buddhism, Zen, Yoga, and a bunch of other stuff, eventually getting into Wiccanism and Shamanism.  I studied Dream Shamanism and discovered I had a talent for it.

                During this period, I started having "visions," and I do NOT mean drug-induced visions.  For example, one day, I had to work late at the museum where I worked for 22 years.  I was in my 49s, I think, and I went out to "lunch" (dinner, in the evening) before the program.  It was a pleasant summer evening, still totally light and sunny, (maybe 5:30 PM) and I took my meal from Nancy's coffee shop out into the little park in front of the museum and sat and a bench to eat it and was reading a book.  I closed my eyes to think about what I had been reading and I saw Jesus.  I saw him as plain as day.  He was naked, and standing very close to me (but I could see anything inappropriate).  I could see his skin and individual hairs and send grains clinging to his skin.  He had been out on the desert fasting and praying and he spoke to me.  This is what he said, "You are mine, you have always been mine, and you will always be mine.  You are forgiven now and forever."

                You could say I fell asleep and had a little dream, but I swear I was wide awake and even opened my eyes.  There were a lot of people walking around and a little band setting up to play music and guy talking on the phone to his girl friend and I heard and saw everything. 

                You could say I had a little fantasy, and indeed maybe I did, but if I were CHOOSING a fantasy myself, why would I choose that?  I was not interested in Jesus at that time.  And it was so real and VIVID.

                And only the first in a series of these.

                You could say I was going crazy, that I was schizophrenic.   Maybe I was.  But I was able to work, and go to school and live a somewhat normal life.

                So whatever.

                I haven't time to tell you all about it.   In the mean time, after living a very "spiritual" life for a number of years, I have fallen away from it and am not any more.  Not living like that.

                I'd like to tell you a little more about that life, but I'm almost out of time.

                I loved that life, in some ways, and would like to recover parts of it.

                So, after all that, what then do I believe?   I don't know what I believe.  I guess I'm an agnostic.  I don't go to Church, and never have since I was a child.  I believe we are spiritual beings, or that at least some of us are.  I believe we are hardwired to be spiritual, seeking beings.  But I do not necessarily believe there is anything OUT THRERE to be found.

                I believe in essential goodness, I believe in love, I believe in behaving honorably.  And I believe in the search for meaning, even if there is none.

                I am walking through the snow in the dark, trying to type.   There are icy spots and slippery spots and the walking is hard.  It's dark and I can't see what I am writing or where I am going.

                This reminds me of a saying, only I don't remember how it goes.

                Something about life and the search for meaning being like driving at night.  You can only see as far as your headlights penetrate the darkness, but you can get all the way home that way.

                I am beginning to feel like I'll never get back to my car.  I thought I was close, but dragging along through the snow is tiring and makes it seem farther.

                I am very hungry.  Before I left, I put on some stew.  Beef, carrots and cabbage.  No potatoes, nightshades exacerbate my arthritis.  I should be done when I get home and I'm eager for it. 

                I've made it to the road and am heading for the car park.  It's gotten colder and the road is icy and slippery.

                I am back at my car finally, 7:11 PM.  I walked 62 minutes, which is almost 20 minutes longer than I meant to walk, bad me, between the detour and the snow.  On the other hnd, I missed two walks earlier in the week.

                The part I hadn't gotten to is who God is, and what S/he expects of us.

                This is what I think.  If there is a God/dess, S/he is unknowable.  She is both genedered and genderless.  She is light and dark, she is the mind of the universe, the combined mind of the stars and galaxies, she is paradox and she is personal.  And when they say we fall sort of the Glory of God, they are right, but at the same time we are God, we partake of God, we are a part of that vast amazing unknowable mind.  IF God exists at all.

                I think God exists and doesn't exist.  Simultaneously.  I think we create God and that God creates us, that God is both unknowable and personal.  MY God believes in LOVE and Goodness, a goodness born of pure love and of human love.  I think God, the personal aspect of God, wants us to be fully human and fully spiritual and actualized.  To be the best and most we can be.  And that's a lot and a little.  We are both individuals and cogs in a vast machinery of Godness, and if we, each of us, do our part, God's will is done.

                So how does that relate to the very personal question of what God's will is for us and how much time should be spend on BP?

                I say, talk to God about it.  Art is one of God's works in the world, and there are many ways to minister to people.  God works in strange ways.  It could e through BP that God could have us work-like my helping Dorothy, that 80-year-old woman.  I'm not making excuses.  It can also be a bad addiction.  And I do have more important things to do.

                Today on NPR I heard a comedy piece on the Rapture and all the peace activists were taken up to Heaven and George Bush and Billy Graham were left behind, LOL!  I often think that George Bush is the incarnation of evil, but he might think the same about me.  (If he thought about me at all).  I'm sure BP is less harmful to the world that "Shrub" is!  But, like I said, I do have more important things to do—that's what it comes down to.

                I ate my stew and it was DELICIOUS!! Utterly fantastic, just perfect.  Now I need to do some work!  (I wish I could have a little dessert, but I don't know what is safe for me to eat.)