Original Faith

Magnifying Suffering

2008-05-03T23:30:00.002-04:00

Unhappiness about being unhappy is a tremendous source of human suffering. It magnifies suffering of every kind. It can turn potentially small and transitory discomforts into torments and can make major pain unbearable. It can even refract and distort light from odd angles, so that we are unhappy not about unhappiness but about lacking things that we only imagine would make us happy.

God Be Praised?

2008-04-27T00:14:00.001-04:00

A note to regular readers/commenters: If lately I seem slower than usual visiting your blogs/replying to comments, I am – my condition’s progressive and it’s cutting into my time online. I appreciate your patience and the fact that you keep on reading/commenting.
___________

We find that we exist; we don’t choose existence.

This is to say that we are not the primary source of either the good or the evil that comes from us.

Therefore: No one is blameworthy – or praiseworthy?

Therefore: All praise – and blame – belongs to God?

Therefore: Praise and blame are problematic concepts?

Babies & Being: A Spirit of Non Judgment

2008-04-23T00:14:00.003-04:00

How can any of us possibly be in a position to judge being for being being?

A baby’s born – a unique set of genetic predispositions enters a unique environment. Even identical twins growing up with the same parents don’t end up becoming identical persons. The complex paths of their experiences over time, even within the same family, are nowhere near identical, and result in the creation of two unique human beings despite their similarities. In infancy, a person’s potential is vast.

Now, picture Adolf Hitler as an infant. Yes, I know – it’s hard to get around the moustache. Yet surely it wasn’t congenital…

And surely that baby only could have developed into the Adolf Hitler the world has come to know and hate under the specific familial, social and historical circumstances in which he found himself.

Or picture a William Wordsworth or Robert Frost born one or two centuries from now, when the likelihood of finding woods to stop by on a snowy evening will be remote. Someone with the potential to become a great nature poet can’t become one after we’ve decimated our environment to the point where people lack access to relatively unspoiled nature.

Isn’t every one of us a kind of crystallization-in-context – something that develops when a certain set of genetic predispositions enters a specific and highly complex set of circumstances?

We need to make moral discriminations about human conduct as harmful or helpful, good or bad. But who are we to judge the very being of another – or ourselves – as either “good” or “evil?” And not because good and bad don’t exist; moral discrimination concerning human actions and failures to act, and on a global scale, is arguably needed more urgently today than ever.

But because when you look around for someone’s essential self to judge – where’d it go??

Forgiveness: Closing Thoughts

2008-04-19T23:24:00.002-04:00

Thanks for your thoughts about forgiveness last post. Here are a few additional ideas that impress me:

Martin Luther’s Attitude Adjustment

Forgiveness is not an occasional art, it is a permanent attitude.

I found this online attributed to ML. It calls to mind the Buddhist concept of compassion and the Christian concept of agape or universal love. It also places forgiveness in the larger context of overall spiritual development.

St. Paul and the Beatles: “All You Need Is Love”

Love… does not take offense. –from I Corinthians 13

There would be nothing to forgive if we didn’t react to others with bitterness and resentment when personally wronged. “But how could a person not react that way?” anyone might ask. That’s because living from beyond our egoism is often an unfamiliar idea. Although I think that every one of us has at least had intimations of it, “picking up our cross and following” – or walking the walk – is often emphasized much less than worshipping the person of Jesus Christ for having walked the walk. But the New Testament doesn’t present “Love one another and love God” as things that Jesus alone must do.

Forgiving Debt – and Letting your Accountant Go…

Forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors comes from the prayer, so familiar to Christians, that Jesus teaches his disciples in the New Testament.

I like the debt analogy for the impact on our inner lives of another’s wrongdoing. When a monetary debt is forgiven, it’s really forgiven – gone. If the creditor decides to let it go, then there’s nothing left. Not a cent.

One way that a creditor might forgive a debt would be to notice that the other person never owed him anything to begin with.

Certainly if people are owed anything by other people, it’s hard to tell. Children, the elderly and the disabled are routinely neglected and abused. Warfare creates mass refugees living and often dying in miserable conditions. Every day large numbers of people die from preventable illnesses and starvation. Innocent people languish in secret detention centers for years, sometimes committing suicide.

Where are the debtors of all these folks? What is the meaning of a “debt” that can’t be collected – of being “owed” when there’s no enforceable law requiring payment of debt?

Maybe you and I aren’t exceptions. Maybe we’re not “owed” anything any more than the millions of folks around the world who don’t get what they deserve. Maybe our indignation and resentment when it’s us who happen to be wronged are profoundly unrealistic.

Maybe we’re just lucky to be alive.

Forgiveness: a "How-To" Spirit, Sort of...

2008-04-15T22:41:00.002-04:00

No How-To Manual

The preceding posts and comments suggest that forgiveness is a process and often a major struggle, but one that’s worthwhile. If we can let go of resenting someone who has wronged us, then our freedom from bitterness enhances our own quality of life and can only improve our ability to relate to others. So how do we do it?

The kind and degree of wrongdoing, whether we were close to the wrongdoer prior to the harm done, where we happen to be in our present circumstances and overall view of life – such variables assure that a “one size fits all” approach to forgiveness won’t work.

Your Practical Thoughts

What are some things you’ve told yourself that have helped you let go of resentment and bitterness? Your thoughts may be useful to someone else.

Conversely, what are some things you’ve told yourself to help hang onto bitterness and resentment? How has hanging onto it help you – or hasn’t it? If it has, can you identify how it's helped?

Forgiveness: Why it’s Hard to Do

2008-04-13T01:47:00.003-04:00

Forgiveness is something that people can struggle with for years, decades or even a lifetime. Recent posts have included looking at factors that can affect how hard we find it to forgive – for example, whether the harm was serious and lasting or whether the person is someone with whom we continue to interact.

Psychologically, perhaps what makes forgiveness so hard is that if we have something to forgive, then someone’s gotten the better of us. If someone has in fact managed to hurt or wrong us, then the other guy’s “won.” And the more certain we are in our judgment that this individual should have known better or in fact did know exactly what he or she was doing, then the more we experience the matter as a full frontal assault with victory by their ego over ours.

We feel like striking back – and at least as hard. There’s nothing like serious one-upmanship to fuel our own ego reactions.
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Thought for Today . . .

Few of us possess an encyclopedic knowledge of anything; yet each of us may have a Wikipedic knowledge of everything!

Religion, Spirituality, God, Faith, Interfaith – & Wikipedia

2008-04-08T23:31:00.003-04:00

Forgive Me, but I Don’t Feel Like Thinking Today

And so I just wanted to mention that if anyone hasn’t noticed by now that the words “religion,” “spirituality,” “God,” “faith” and “interfaith” are crammed into as many post titles as I can manage, it’s because I don’t know what I’m doing, but somebody else does. That is, my webmeister tells me she’s optimized my whatever for these words – my search engines? Browser? Cache? Cachet? Tricorder? Anyway, I’m told that for technical reasons, it’s a good idea for me to use those words in blog post titles, and so I do.

Like most semi-bedridden guys trying to launch a book, I want to do what I can to help people who might be interested in my topic locate this site. But those particular words for titles are becoming so much mental mush. Some days I have to wonder if I can come up with another bunch. I feel out to lunch - or sometimes, in my darkest hours, like I’m alone on the decks of the Titlanic.

Normally, I like doing titles; but who likes the feeling of having his titles constrained? It would be so titillating to title more expansively. As it is, I feel that my titles have become merely titular – and just at a time when, owing, perhaps, to my condition, I desire to impregnate them more than ever with warmth, creativity, verve, vernacular, joie de vivre, double entendre, je ne sais quoi. Or at least a greater variety of vocabulary words, perhaps French.

But no such scintillating titles for me; I’m on a diet – not entitled. It feels like a diet of worms. Diet of Worms?? What was “The Diet of Worms?” I should know that, even if it does sound bad... let’s see… click… type… enter… oh, yeah - thanks, Wikipedia.

But I digress . . .

Thought for Today

Thanks to Wikipedia, the many free associations still rattling around in our heads from college have become the seeds of Knowledge.

Yes! Those long years of multiple choice tests were worth it after all... Wire mesh monkey! Stanley Milgram! Tricorder!

Up Next, Back to Seriousness – What makes forgiveness so hard?

Forgiveness – Religious and Irreligious

2008-04-05T11:36:00.002-04:00

To Err is Human, to Forgive Divine – Unless it’s Pretentious...

“Forgiveness” has religious connotations for many Christians as viewed from the perspective of believing that Jesus died to save humankind from its sins. In person-to-person forgiveness, we participate or reflect the grace of this divine forgiveness, which is seen as closely related to a love that is unconditional and even undeserved. By forgiving, we also follow the example and teaching of Jesus in the New Testament.

For others, the word has irreligious connotations of egocentricity and hypocrisy. To take on the role of the “forgiver” has the feel of asserting an untenable loftiness over the one that we forgive. This reminds us that if we bear even a passing resemblance to Jesus Christ, no one’s happened to mention it lately. To forgive another seems a grandly altruistic gesture that we’re not especially well suited for.

Forgiveness and Altruism

Speaking of altruism, that’s a word whose connotations ring false to me. It seems to imply that doing what we really want to do for ourselves is necessarily in tension or contradiction with doing good for others. When applied to the idea of forgiveness, this might suggest that to forgive someone else primarily for the sake of one’s own peace of mind is a selfish act.

We all have a self. If selfishness is doing what we most want to do, then anytime we do what we most want, we’re being selfish by definition. The gospels present a Jesus Christ who elected to be crucified rather than disobey God’s will. He did exactly what he most wanted to do, and yet the word “selfish” clearly doesn’t apply...

Forgiveness – A Spirit of Clarification

2008-04-01T23:14:00.002-04:00

Here’s toward conceptualizing forgiveness – after giving it some thought while looking over comments to the last couple threads.

To forgive is to let go of a form of anger – specifically, resentment. Even more specifically, the resentment we feel toward someone who has wronged us is a deep and long-lasting blame. Blame is based on judgment: he or she shouldn’t have done that because they should have known better; or because it was unjust; or because, in the same situation, I wouldn’t have done that…

In most cases where we struggle with the issue of how to forgive someone, the primary motive is our own peace of mind, not how to help the person who has wronged us. This is because the odds are that we, as the wronged party, remain disturbed over the incident long after the person who wronged us has moved on.

Forgiveness is related to love. To understand just how, we’d need to know just what we mean by love – a big topic. But to briefly mention one angle on this, we can easily see that forgiveness is related to self love when we realize that to forgive someone else is to promote our own mental health and spiritual peace.

A love-related question: in letting go of resentment toward someone, is the resentment necessarily replaced by positive feelings of warmth and affection?

Next up – unless your comments lead me to post something else: What makes it so hard to forgive? Can we get more specific about this?

Forgiveness and Probably Not

2008-03-29T22:46:00.002-04:00

Looking at comments to the last couple posts leads me to think that forgiveness is something that requires effort and volition. If it happens automatically, then whatever it is and however helpful it is, it seems to me that forgiveness may not be the right word for it. Forgiveness is something that we struggle with; that we may need help or encouragement with; and that we may even fail to do.

Here are a couple examples of constructive changes in our attitudes toward others that to me don’t sound so much like forgiveness:

Someone mentioned responding favorably to a sincere apology or a relationship that had changed for the better. If that response is pretty much automatic, so that now, despite past events, we feel positively about the other person because he or she has changed, then to me this sounds essentially like a matter of liking another person because that person is behaving well toward us – a relatively straightforward matter. It’s true that if the offense had been great, then accepting the apology or the other person’s change in attitude could well include real personal effort and struggle; to that extent, forgiveness would be involved.

Someone else mentioned having been wronged but no longer feeling upset about it because in the long run, he recognized that the experience had proved beneficial to him. Again, while forgiveness may be involved to some degree, it probably isn’t central.

At least one commenter has identified forgiveness with “letting go.” Sounds right to me. If something just falls away from us, that’s wonderful – but it isn’t forgiveness. To forgive is to release – to deliberately let go of something that’s hard to let go of.

What is it that we need to let go of? What makes it so hard to do?

Forgive Me: A Spirit of Plagiarism

2008-03-27T10:01:00.002-04:00

For this post, I just organized everyone’s comments from the previous thread. Here’s what I came up with – I’ve paraphrased at times, sometimes turned statements into questions and added a few questions of my own.

Toward Conceptualizing Forgiveness: Forgiveness is…

1. Not taking revenge; this involves a healing process.
2. A release of anger and resentment that can become a habit (Beth’s link).
3. Letting go with no expectations. (Letting go of what?)
4. “Giving completely” – as based on the word’s etymology. (Giving what completely?)
5. Recognizing that everyone makes mistakes and not judging others.
6. A way of expressing love.
7. It’s one way of not clinging or attaching to the egoistic self. Forgiveness can be viewed as part of the larger process of personal growth.
8. It’s for one’s own sake and not others. {I added this one since it usually comes up.}

Forgiveness-Distinctions

1. Forgiving vs. forgetting: we don’t forget in order not to get hurt again in the same way.
2. Forgiving self vs. forgiving others.

Forgiveness Variables

1. Whether the wrongdoer has apologized or changed their behavior for the better.
2. How severe is the harm inflicted? There’s a broad range – from, say, a stinging insult to being physically tortured.
3. What if the wrongdoing is ongoing instead of in the past? Can we, for example, remain in a relationship with someone whose behavior is harmful to us and keep forgiving them at the same time that we’re being harmed? What if we’re unable to leave the relationship? Think, for example, of the frail elderly and severely disabled who may literally be unable to escape situations of abuse or neglect.
4. Relationship of forgiveness to the idea of sin.

Anything to clarify? Add? Do you think any of these ideas are especially on target concerning what forgiveness is, how people manage to forgive and what can make forgiveness difficult?

Deconstructing the Spirit of Forgiveness: So What Is It?

2008-03-25T00:07:00.001-04:00

Forgiveness is a topic that comes up a lot on religion and spirituality blogs.

What is it?

What do we do when we forgive – how do we feel, what do we think, who is it for? Does the word “forgive” cover a host of sins, so to speak, so that it means different things under different circumstances, or does it refer to something quite specific?

I’ve seen this subject approached from lots of different directions and may construct follow up posts from your comments . . .

Good Friday: God-Forsaken, and Not

2008-03-21T20:41:00.003-04:00

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? --Mat 27:46

I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish
it were already kindled! --Luke 12:49

Crossing

His head was lifting; then pain
Shot from underneath both arms
Into his contorted palms. He slumped and slipped
Some fraction of an inch, hearing himself moan.

Like an animal, he thought,
Feeling his two feet curled in upon themselves,
Tangled in the burning. With every breath
He felt a tearing through the tightening

Length of muscles in his chest, between each separate rib,
It seemed, when in another half-dream, he found himself
A child again, running to his mother’s arms
For safety; but there were soldiers and he knew

He’d taken his last step, then slept a second time.
He woke to find his breath constrained;
His chest felt flattened in the starving air,
A pressured pain, submerged and weary.

The gray sky drizzled intimately, drowning
His whole skin. Eyes on the horizon, distant white shapes –
Houses; and yet he thought of sails against
The sea and slumbered deeply into weariness again.

Once more he woke, now in near-dark: My God,
My God, he called: Why have you forsaken me?
Then still more deeply thought: how I have forsaken you,
My God, never meaning to, never thinking it could end

So soon. And Lord, I know they haven’t understood
The way that we’ve been one, and how your kingdom,
With us like a mustard seed, is sown to raise a Word
We do not hear until we learn to speak, Our Father;

And not as though the Father of my self alone, or any other lonely
Mortal self; but now I’ve failed, my God, my God –
They never understood! Denied his only purpose and desire,
Regretting everything, his eyes were lost behind themselves

To find the only Ocean’s face
Salted bright with fire.

--Paul Martin

For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another. --Mark 9:49-50

They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. --Mark 1:22

Metaphor: God as Nature or Being-Itself

2008-03-18T19:23:00.001-04:00

Anthem

Inverted needs, and one’s between another’s knees.
What’s steeped in sleep becomes submerged awake,
Beyond our understanding and below belief
To steal an ancient instinct kiss more real than scripture;
Rapture proved without a prophecy or doubt,
Speechless teaching of a Breath made flesh
From long before it learned to speak a single word.

Unheard below the broken surfaces,
All unselfknown,
Moans lose themselves in other moans.
No wave knows anything but water.
Two shocked faces in a one and only holy place
Can meld.

Sleek images of doe and cat,
Stern images of steed or stud,
Fall like falsehood fossils in sediments like mud.
All sentiments of human scent, subservient or dominant,
Reveal themselves irrelevant—obscene, brief human themes
That stay within the solitary self’s own dream:
Carnal without knowledge.

Our dreams are meant to meet, mate, marry, and evaporate.
Strong’s made gentle, gentle strengthened;
Playful leveled is how level plays.
Both stop and stay. This is the way
Of galaxies and light and stars, of teeming darknesses,
Liquefying earth, and shapely drops of steel.
This is how the universe unreels
And stays at play for eons. This is how ease feels.

And still by day we live afraid to live
And still at night we sleep afraid to die,
Dreaming of a solid ground.

Be still. Reality is here and all around,
Swiftest current of streams that merge and urge
The only One tumultuous tranquility
To shake world-stuff such as we like wind through trees,
Freeing every branch to play in autumn’s lordly, orderly disorder,
Raking clamorous leaves to clap and snap their brazen, long-drawn
Holy hush, then tremulously rush to hush again,
Another season’s tide to raise the possibility of bright infinity
Breaking wide and blue forever on this planet’s flashing eye:
Sustaining outcry living what it means to live,
Dying what it means to die to dread,
And fleeing solid dreams like liquid truth,
Forever Now.

Born into an Ocean’s roar, submerged in sound,
We barely resonate with All we must resound.

--Paul Martin

Metaphor: God as Father

2008-03-15T19:59:00.002-04:00

I Know Where My Father Lives

“I know where my father lives,” she said –
Near as a poem or a warm hand
Safe and close as a child’s
Soft breath against the sheet
Near as this lithesome flower
Bedazzling the new light
Surprising the world with the wonder of her blossoming –
Like every good thing,
Like every well-made child of earth,
Fragile, but insistently becoming,
Delicate, but unswerving in her
Light filled, sun bound purposes.

“I know where my father lives,” her dark eyes said –
Far, far as the faintest fleck
Of waning half light on the blackened brink;
Distant, distant like a vast expanse of continent
That lies between a father and his little girl,
Distant even as the father’s clouded face
That sees a daughter’s need and turns away
Compassionless.

I know where my Father lives:
Near as the loving heart
That, young or old,
Seeks kindred warmth,
Creates well-being;
Distant as the human face averted,
A child’s letter returned, marked
Moved, no forwarding address.

- Paul Martin

(The previous post describes the incident this poem was based on.)

God the Father and Fathers – the Jerks...

2008-03-13T13:06:00.003-04:00

The previous post included looking at God conceived as person vs. God conceived of as Nature or Being itself. It’s possible for people to feel and express spirituality either way – or both. Here’s some background on a poem I wrote that employs the traditional Judeo-Christian image of God the Father.

Amy, let’s call her, was a first-grader whose teacher brought her to me one morning because she’d been crying non-stop ever since she’d arrived in class. It took some time for me to get Amy’s attention focused on me to the point where her tears subsided enough for her to talk. When she finally did, I was able to figure out that her father had left – suddenly and recently. Amy had tried to send him a letter, and it had been returned because the jerk (I, uh, avoided using this word with Amy) wasn’t at that address. The returned letter was the immediate cause of her tears.

She was practically inconsolable – this was a really bad day for her – and all I wanted to do was make her feel a little better to get past the immediate crisis and make it through the rest of her school day. I had crayons and paper at the table and found myself trying to diminish her feeling of abandonment by explaining that sometimes a kid’s father can move SO far away that it’s hard to stay in touch. (Yeah, right . . . I know . . .)

I drew an outline of North America. I put a dot on about the spot that our small town in New Hampshire was located. I put a second dot in the middle of the Florida peninsula and explained that when I was little, my dad moved away too, and we didn’t get to see him or talk to him much because even though he loved us he was so far away.

Amy thought about that, looked up at me with big dark eyes that were much darker than they should have been, and quietly spoke the words, “I know where my father lives.” She picked up a crayon. She placed a dot on the farthest possible point away from the dot marking our location – it would have been northwest Alaska.

I had to struggle to keep from losing it myself.

Up next, poem: I Know Where My Father Lives

A rose is a rose is a Rose is God?

2008-03-11T17:09:00.001-04:00

When God is conceived in personal terms, God is still thought of as being vastly transcendent of human nature. Do we know enough about the nature of all-nature and the nature of God to be able to distinguish their two characters, one from the other?

It’s true that nature as we can examine it through microscopes and telescopes appears non-affirming of our human lives, both individually and collectively – if you forget about the fact that its laws and properties allow us to exist. Setting that aside to focus on the fact that in natural terms, life ends with death as far as we can see… How far can we see? Do we already know the full extent of all-nature? Has science already grasped the fullness of the biggest picture to know that all-that-is does not ultimately affirm us in some way?

To paraphrase St. Paul: with regard to the One in whom we live and move and have our being, how do we know whether to call that one God or Nature? Would it make a difference?

I Wanna Hold God’s Hand - ?

2008-03-08T14:15:00.002-05:00

“Yeah God’s/Got that somethin’/I think you’ll understand . . .”

The Beatles, I Wanna Hold God’s Hand, 1963 – first draft

Atheist readers, please bear with me; you’re included below even if you don’t really believe that this was the original lyric from the first draft of I Wanna Hold Your Hand.

A theme that comes up from time to time both here and on other religion blogs is the distinction between a personal God and God as pointed to by contemplative or “mystical” traditions (not crazy about that word, but don’t want to digress).

But is the distinction truly meaningful?

In meditation or contemplative prayer, the experience certainly isn’t “impersonal.” It doesn’t feel cold. There’s no sense, say, of waiting at a divine deli counter with God indifferently having you take a number to stand at the back of the line. Rather, it’s an immense experience, more than can be described – the opposite of feeling left out or dehumanized.

For those who conceive of God in personal terms, isn’t this conception more of a helpful image than a matter of literally seeing God as human? Even if God (in Christianity as the Father or for that matter as the Son) has a human dimension, isn’t that which makes God God – the Father and the Son and not the father and son – something that transcends humanness? Furthermore, isn’t this “something” likely to be along the lines of what mystics try to suggest with other sorts of language?

Now consider an atheist looking up at the stars and experiencing awe in the face of what he or she understands as nature or being-itself. The atheist is amazed at nature’s immensity and how such a vast force ended up briefly washing her up on time’s changing shoreline to feel such things.

How much of a stretch is it to capitalize Being in this experience?

Should we really distinguish among a personal God as given names by Christianity and other religions; the ineffable God of mysticism; and Being-Itself as the atheist responds to it? If so, what’s the critical distinction?

It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing – but doesn’t it mean everything if it does?

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet . . . A Being by any other name would be the same?

Mixing Religion & Politics

2008-02-26T19:01:00.002-05:00

Or at least doing a segway from one to the other . . .

(Medical complications – for at least a week after today I won’t get out much into the blogosphere. I do expect to continue posting.)

Beyond Reward & Punishment Spirituality:

In traditional Christian terms:

Jesus gave his life for the sake of the world, not for the sake of getting to sit at the head of the table at the right hand of the Father.

The Father sent his only begotten Son into the world because God loved the world, not because God wanted to sit with himself forever at the head of the table after the ascension.

If Christians focus on something as narrow as scoring points for personal salvation, how can they claim to be followers of their God? Maybe God’s looking at placing a want ad for followers that at least bear him a vague resemblance.

If we were made in God’s image, maybe the reference wasn’t to a nose, mouth and white beard. Besides, not that many of us have the white beard.

And speaking of true leadership without a white beard . . .

Beyond Business as Usual Politics:

Ford Simms for President! A Face You Can Trust and The Real Candidate for Change.

Talking Religion with Stem Cells

2008-02-23T10:58:00.007-05:00

Thanks to Hayden for inspiring (?) this long awaited (more than 12 hours) “poem” with her informed comments about stem cell research on recent discussion threads. The opinions expressed in this poem are not necessarily hers. Any resemblance between the stem cells featured here to any actual stem cells, living or deceased, is strictly coincidental, although they do look a lot alike. The poem is a collective “work for hire” based on contractual arrangement between the author and his brain cells. Offer void where prohibited.

The Great Stem Cell Debate
For Hayden

I met a little stem cell
Who said, “I’m human too.
“It’s possible I could divide
“And then feel pain, like you.”

“Right now,” I said, “You’re like… the same,
“That is, as all your neighbors.
“Undifferentiated as can be –
“You’re lamer than an egg is.”

“An Egg’s not lame!” Sir Stem replied,
“And no, nor Sperm Cells neither.
“If they met, they would divide
“And be like you and me are.”

“I’m not like you,” I countered,
“Please note who wrote this poem.
“Without my fingers at the keys
“No words would you intone.”

“I am a full-fledged Cell!” cried Stem,
“So stop your condescension;
“I hold my rights unconsciously –
“And in God’s name, I’ll mention...”

“But what of us!?” my cells rejoined,
They really were dismayed;
They’d multiplied already
And had a lot to say.

“One hundred trillion of us live
“In just one human being –
“That is, the kind that walks and talks
“And likes the taste of ice cream.”

“Without the needed research
“We prematurely die;
“You’re telling us God likes you best…
“How come – is God a scientist?!”

“Maybe up in heaven, then,
“God’s researching a fix
“For fuzzy stem-cell thinking –
“The kind that makes us sick.”

With that, my cells had had enough,
We had to call it quits;
By now we’re mostly bedridden
Like Petri in a dish.

-- Paul Martin

Hell III: The Human Animal in Hell

2008-02-19T16:41:00.002-05:00

“Blessed are those for whom pain is a metaphor.” Of course, there are metaphorical pains that are bad too, and can even prove fatal, as when they lead to suicide. But to riff off the old jazz ballad, nothing says “My pain is here to stay” like the intractable physical pain connected with an untreatable progressive illness.

Remaining who we are can be tough. Real pain that is severe and protracted enough can make an animal lose sight of everything, including, at first, the human animal.

The human animal has one essential advantage over other animals when it comes to hell: we can keep our eyes open longer. When other animals would have reached the point of growling and groaning huddled in a corner of the room, we can still rouse the convolutions of the cortex and raise our fat heads, so to speak, to notice things around us and about ourselves, even as hell deepens.

We can overhear the happiness of others – and eventually, most of the time, with little to no jealousy. We can remember the sun, remember when we ran or laughed outside, and it becomes a moment of clear pleasure cutting a fine ray through pain instead of adding to it.

We can even describe hell, partly for the hell of it, or as a way of telling hell to go to hell just because we can – perversely enjoying our remaining potency to describe near impotence.

Hell! Go to hell, hell, even though you’ve got me where you want me. Go to the hell of me saying to you: I will be fully me until the end of me, until the fully unavoidable occurs. While in hell, I am Hell-Fighter, the flip-side of my coin – a calm blinder than rage whose name hell can’t contain.

And we can try to describe hell in order to tell people who don’t have to live there: do everything you can while you can. You have it good. Run with it. Run like hell. Run all together now like hell, seeing if some day we can pull this world out of the fire.

Go.

Hell II: Beyond the Costume Party

2008-02-16T00:00:00.001-05:00

So finally you say something like, “Oh Lord, why have you forsaken me?” – but after that, there’s just this long silence lasting until the end of your life. One of the things about hell is that it defies your expectations, especially the religious ones.

In irreligious terminology, this is called, “really getting nailed.” But if you’ve managed to survive this long, you come down from your cross. And again, since you’re only human and this is hell on earth, you just quietly walk away. For you, there is no ascent into heaven or saving the world.

However, you now begin to be governed by the instinct above instinct. It tells you to stop howling. You walk slowly and carefully, picking your way over the flaming logs, trying hard not to stub your toe even though it’s on fire, or to unnecessarily hurt others by throwing flaming objects at them. You start being kind again and smiling sometimes. People think you are becoming yourself again. In reality, your self is dying back there on the cross. It was only after it got weak and lost a lot of blood that you were able to get most of it off your back to start walking around a bit again, even if, in some cases, the walking has to be figurative.

People think that you are becoming sane again. In a way you are, but in a way you aren’t. You could easily argue that from the perspective of being in hell, you’re acting crazy. Howling and wailing is truly “the way to be” in hell. All the devils do it. But once the fangs and horns wear down the costume party’s over. And there you are, in hell, but still human and with an instinct for it.

Hell Trilogy, I: Going to Hell

2008-02-12T16:32:00.000-05:00

Hell is where nothing is as it should be, and all your concentration has to start going into remaining your most simple self.

Hell is where you let go of every expectation, every ideal - the way you would have wanted it, your personal favorites – in order not to let them weigh you down and drown you in the flames. Hell is the place of places in which to say: what the hell.

In hell, everything is instinctual and reflexive. Even this thought is instinctual and reflexive. Even your thoughts about your thoughts are instinctual and reflexive when you’ve been in hell long enough.

At first, however, you are ungovernable, governed by the instinct below instinct. You jump over flaming logs, your feet on fire, tripping, nearly falling off ledges. (Some do.) You are the anti-human animal, ranting and raving, threatening to bite off their faces – anyone and everyone’s. Because the world has let you down by sending you down here.

You roll around the hell-forest floor howling tears of abandonment and pain. Of course, no one comes. You are in hell.

Happily – kind of -- you can only weep, wail, and gnash your teeth for a limited amount of time. When your teeth start hurting from the gnashing, this is one of the signs that you really are in hell and not starring in a dramatic film of self-visualization.

One of the things about hell is that it has to last a really long time, usually eternity or until the end of your life, which can feel pretty similar. If it’s very much shorter than this and just feels like hell, seems like hell, or is miserable as hell, then be happy. It isn’t hell.

Nobody’s-Listening Spirituality: When Hell Isn’t Just a Place for Others Anymore

2008-02-09T11:44:00.000-05:00

People don't generally like to hear about stuff like this. Still...

Hello Hell

Imagine a disease progression in its 15th year that affects your nerves, muscles, connective tissue and bones and that by now has you mostly bedridden and in widespread, intractable pain. Picture the associated losses, the least of which include career and friends. You’ve been unable to leave the house for over 3 years. You can’t sit to use a wheelchair and you almost can’t walk, spending your upright time kneeling at a keyboard, a lot of it holding your bladder because you can only make so many trips to the bathroom each day. Your reach has deteriorated to about the length of your forearms, and to make a long story a short metaphor that often works literally, your physical state puts most of life’s comforts as well as pleasures out of reach.

Helpful idea? You’ve tried it. Prayers, words of hope? Whatever you have - it's eluded diagnosis even at NIH and Johns Hopkins - is innately progressive, similar to MS or Lou Gehrig’s. Over the past 15 years, you’ve received more thoughts, prayers and positive energy vibes than you can count. You’ve had to come to terms with the fact that this thing has really happened to you.

Stem Cell Health and Wellness

While you know that no situation is literally hopeless, this one’s about as hopeless as a situation can get. The interrelated ways in which your body’s muscles, connective tissue, peripheral nerves and bones have been affected make it pretty clear that your best chance of a cure is when scientists figure out how to run time backwards. It might have been different if stem cell research hadn’t been blocked all these years. You’ll never know, but take comfort in realizing that generations of stem cells have continued to be lovingly nurtured and cared for until the fertility clinics holding them dump them out at the next bio-waste pickup. As the good book says, right in the middle of that long section where it op-eds on contemporary reproductive issues: “What greater love is there than this: that a man should give up all chance of recovery for the sake of other people’s ineffectual love of cells that lack a central nervous system?”

You learn that good things don’t come to all who wait, that sometimes bad things happen to good people – and you especially learn that this rule doesn’t get bent just because it’s you. You put yourself in perspective. You stop reflexively comparing yourself to people who are better off than you, learning not to ask “Why me?" but “Why not me?” – although occasionally you still go, “Why me instead of a stem cell?”

But finally, something like this is just the downside of ordinary life. Being mortal, sooner or later most of us get to some real pain. So some of the things that one notices when the heat gets turned up for a very long time may be worth mentioning.

Up next: Hell Trilogy, Part I...

EZ Listening Religion & Spirituality

2008-02-05T13:39:00.000-05:00

Please note: In what follows, I'm not rejecting concepts like blessing, grace, or God's purpose for one's life; I'm rejecting what strike me as misunderstandings of these ideas.

Have you been good? Then you're so very special that God won't let YOU suffer!

In times of trouble:

Ask and you will receive. Receive what?

Guidance toward your soul mate, resolution of marital problems, a meaningful career, restored heath – or even, with “prosperity theology,” more stuff!

Grace, grace, abundant grace! Only open yourself up to it and all will be well.

Turn to the angels and no harm can come . . .

Only believe . . .

In good fortune:

I’m blessed . . .

Heaven and earth support those who pray to the Lord!

We’ve led good lives; God has opened doors for us.

I survived the crash because God has a special purpose for me - and apparently not for those other folks that got killed.

In Sum, and with reference to all of the above:

Blah blah blah . . .

Beyond Spiritual Materialism

Feel-good spirituality isn’t the real thing. Not all {Christians - or insert any other religious/spiritual affiliation} who get into car accidents find that they make a good recovery. Not all spiritual people are physically healthy. Not all prayers are answered. Believing in angels, saints, in Christian doctrine, or any other doctrine, is absolutely no guarantee of safety, security, health, wealth, or happiness.

If it were that easy, only the mentally incompetent would have (additional) difficulties. If ask and you will receive worked materialistically, then obviously any mentally competent person who saw all the believers asking and having and getting what they wanted would observe this, believe in it, and ask for and receive the things they wanted too.

Religion and spirituality have never been about people obtaining goodies, despite the fact that large segments of humankind have perennially tried to make it about that and supported each other in this delusion.

Blessed are those whose happiness is founded upon peace; woe to those whose peace is founded upon happiness.