Saturday 15 August 2015

Old Feelings Aroused

          Of late I have turned to reading the New Testament, admittedly in small chunks. In particular, I am reading some portions taken from St. Paul's letters to the peoples of various cities, such as those of Galatia to whom I referred in a previous post. The reasons for this are perhaps a little obscure, and need not detain us here. What intrigued me were the feelings that arose as I read his words.
          When I was a child and in the process of being educated about the love of God and the excruciating agony suffered by the Christ at Calvary - all for the benefit of saving my pretty worthless soul - I swallowed everything I was taught hook, line and sinker, as the saying goes. As a child Christian, the fishy metaphor is apt. What I could not see then, but can see all too clearly now, was the complete contradiction between what I was taught, and how it was taught to me, and what I trust is spiritual reality.
          To begin with (and let me say here at the outset that this is not a judgemental outburst against those who for all their supposed knowledge and wisdom really seemed to have lost the plot) the teaching of Christ's loving message was completely out of touch with the background of his vengeful Father, ever waiting to dole out punishment for all my little transgressions. Also, the way in which I was taught, so beloved of the Protestant low Church, was very much in the Pauline mode. Thus I developed a mindset that was overloaded with guilt, imminent divine punishment, coupled with a need that I abhorred of seeking to convert others to "my way" of thinking. (I never was very successful at doing that, and maintain my abhorrence at indulging in that practice even now.) Suddenly, my reading of St. Paul threw into high relief a kind of familiarity that was pressing all the wrong buttons.
          Perhaps that would have been a good time to dump my copy of the Holy Bible in the nearest bin, but I have always had a powerful aversion to destroying books. In any case, it was possible that I would have been throwing away the good with the bad. I have spent some days thinking over the feelings that have arisen, and the end result is a deep sadness. No real anger remains over my father's........oh hell, let him go!
          It is the sadness of apparent loss of something that may yet reveal something of deep value. I just don't know. It all seems to be so far too late! And when I look around the world, and frankly I am no lover of mankind, I nevertheless sense a deep regret at the huge loss that our species is suffering in the name of religious and political fundamentalism and egoistic arrogance, of arid intellectualism on the one hand and a swamping by an ocean of emotionalism on the other. Yet for all that is wrong, divisive, demanding and non-loving in this suffering world, I cannot deny that there is some intuitive good. For all the mistakes we make, there are some redemptive aspects to our behaviour. On such small and shaky foundations lies all the hope I can muster.
          A long time ago, I was told that I had barely scratched the surface of Christianity. Maybe, just maybe, the Christ said, and still says, something we - or at least this non-religious I - have a need to hear.

12 comments:

  1. Hi Tom
    Perhaps you have never really lost what you always had - a sense that we are not privy to the ultimate explanation nor what was said to felt strangely alien to the Christ as a father figure.
    Good intentions arise from beliefs, but that can also have dire consequences if they are committed to seeing reality only in one particular way. They can make one miserable instead of joyful. I think so much has been passed down by well-meaning people from the perspective of "'beliefs " from which good intentions arise, but theses intentions give rise to a need to win the argument when there is no argument to be won. What we have is a gift?
    Maybe the quote from John Dominic Crossan in The Historical Jesus puts it aptly. " My point, once again, is not that those ancient people told literal stories and we are now smart enough to take them symbolically, but that they told them symbolically and we are now dumb enough to take them literally.”

    Best wishes

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    1. Hi Lindsay; I like your quote from John Dominic Crossan. That beautifully sums up the fundamentalist stance.

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  2. Ofttimes (is that a word?) the message gets drowned out in the shouting.

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    1. Hullo Bruce; I suspect it is two words - Oft times - but who's counting? I believe you are quite correct. There is too much noise, always; and indeed the message often (oft times is so much better!) does get lost. It must not be allowed to happen in this case.

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  3. I have always been extremely wary of Paul, Tom. Christianity has become "Pauline" in the modern church - because Christ wrote nothing down.
    Kipling's poem, The Disciple says it all: http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_disciple.htm

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    1. Ah what a deeply sad poem, and one that implies a terrible warning. Thank you for this.

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  4. So much of what we believe...or come to believe...depends on the experiences we have had, especially in childhood, and later, on how we unravel those experiences. It's as if everything that happens to us is a school and it's up to us to work out what the lessons mean to us individually - what to discard and what to build on. That's what I sense is happening in this journey you're on, Tom.

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    1. Hullo Natalie; There is much in what you say. What never ceases to surprise me is how, so often, the material universe around us - both on a small and a large scale - is symbolic of what is happening inside us. I have said before that the Universe Is symbol, but that statement (where did that come from?) falls far short of the experience.

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  5. Looking back on what have turned out to be my strongest, most lasting and useful beliefs, the surprise is how many were the result of intuition; what some might call gut instinct while I prefer to think of it as a refined crap detector.
    On those times when I ignored those intuitions, more often than not it caused me regret.

    Reading the gospels, while noticing some minor inconsistency, it has never offended my instincts. The letters and especially those of Paul set off warming bells regularly.
    Hardly an objective criticism, but as a personal guide, it will have to do.

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    1. Hullo Halle; I think your comment puts the finger on what I have been trying to say recently, namely, that beliefs-as-gifts, rather than the other kind of ego-pleasing beliefs, come from somewhere "else". For me that comes from the Higher Self, but from one's intuition may be just as good a description of that place beyond consciousness.

      I still maintain a certain reserve about St. Paul, although that will not stop me reading his letters. As I hope I implied, it's his evangelical, missionary approach that pushed too many ex-childhood bells for me.

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  6. lovely post. it reminded me that when i was going through my born again phase (i shudder) i always felt a deep revulsion at the idea of converting others. i suppose that even then, at the height of this emotionally fulfilling (but intellectually barren) time, i felt, as i do now, though much more vocally, that one needs to keep god "in one's pants" so to speak. some things should remain private.

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    1. Hullo Agnieszka; Yes, those born again times are difficult (I agree with your shudder response!). Peak experiences are not that easy to deal with either, and I recall being told that someone undergoing such an experience (for 5 days in my case) can be something of a pain as well. It's difficult living with a god. :)

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