The spirituality of insecurity

"When I sing the hymns of faith in Jesus' love, I am drawn by their intimacy, their allure, their poetry. But in the end, such faith is simply not available to me. I can't do it.  I lack the resources to render my capacity for love and my need to be loved to supernatural Beings. And so I have no choice but to pour these capacities and needs into earthly relationships, fragile and mortal and difficult as they often are."  (Ursula Goodenough, The Sacred Depths of Nature)

I recognize this quandary.  There is that in us which reaches back through time to our mother's breast, even the womb, to a security and succor we have been hard-pressed to find and maintain in our adulthood.  The scriptures, saviors, and guardian angels of our traditions are no longer within reach of our needs for assurance.

I do envy those who say they've never turned to God for that assurance, or they've never needed heaven at all in any form.  If they're being honest they have a rugged sense of individuality I'm not likely to achieve.  But I wonder if they're also not missing out on something.  The constant tug between the draw of religion and the quest for the ever-elusive horizon of knowledge is itself character-forming.  Maybe the stalwart prefer to be rock-solid in their world view.  I prefer the soft crumbling loam of insecurity and growth.

Unfolding my return

I used to think I was the only one whose spiritual journey was helicoid in trajectory -- that is, circular and progressive at the same time, like a helix.  As it was, this corkscrewy tendency was just one item in the cornucopia of queerness that has accompanied me from early on.  Coming out as gay was the first, but least disorienting fruit to roll from the basket.  Going from meetinghouse to church, synagogue, temple, mosque, and gurdwara (a Sikh house of worship) came next, and proved to be as enervating as illuminating.  For nearly 45 years I've been promiscuously praying around, hoping that a clue would drop from heaven as to my true path.  Well, the clues have abounded, but they lacked sufficient special effect for me to notice.

I'm at a telling juncture in my life.  I'm approaching 60 and I've developed Lou Gehrig's Disease (ALS).  My future is uncertain but certainly foreshortened.  When on a Facebook group I mentioned I had an incurable, progressive, terminal disease, one individual cavalierly replied: "We all have an incurable, progressive, terminal disease.  It's called life."  "So," I wrote back, "you would have no problem trading places?" As those of us know who are staring into the black hole of our mortality, you never really prepare for death, you play chicken with it until you run out of road.

The disease didn't create the aforementioned juncture, it just arrived at the same time.  What characterizes this time for me is my lack of caring whether my beliefs are internally consistent, pleasing to others, rational, or worthy of publishing.  So with this kaleidoscopic picture of life before me, I opt for a second coming-out -- this time as the pagan pantheist I've apparently always been.

Not for me the casting of spells, great rites of sex (the public, ritual kind that is), naive self-herbalizing (there is a place for herbs, but for Goddess' sake read up on the contraindications), astrology and divination (except for fun), and so on.  Not for me prayers to Gaia.  Not for me any hope of a conscious existence free from the round of birth and death.  What, you may ask, then?

Simply put I hope to leave the earth in somewhat better shape then it was left me: cleaner, more just and equitable; inclined to sustain rather than obsolesce its myriad lifeforms; less inclined towards religious and political fundamentalisms; compassionate and joyful, embracing life-affirming expressions of diversity.  This is no Sweet Jesus, you say, and you are right.  The truly tough thing is going to sleep knowing that there is no guardian angel circling your bed, and that if you wake in the morning it is just as much by chance as anything else.

But life is divine.  Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy. (Abraham Joshua Heschel)  The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.  (Albert Schweitzer)  This juncture, this holy moment, is how my return is unfolding.

Guanyin

Early on I became enchanted with the figure of the celestial bodhisattva (one who refuses to pass into eternal nirvana in order to to save mortal beings) Guanshiyin.  Although originally exclusively male in representation, Guanyin (whose full name means "Regarder of the Cries of the World") is now regarded by half of Asia (and, increasingly, in the West) as female, though not unambiguously so.  In the transition from male to female there was a period when Guanyin was pictured with feminine facial features and a mustache.  And even without the mustache, Guanyin was rarely pictured with breasts, except in Chinese folk (as opposed to Buddhist monastic) art.

I have images and statues and jewelry with the image of Guanyin (also spelled Kuan Yin, Kwan Yin, Quan Yin) all over my house in every room except the bathrooms.  My favorite icon was fashioned for me by my prayer partner Tanya Sydney who, if you ask nicely and pay a few extra bucks, will lay glitter and rhinestones expertly on key lines and points of a classic art print.  This image is unabashedly fabulous.  When it catches the light it is magical.

Guanyin's glitter and flat-chested androgyny suggest an early middle-aged auntie, the sort of gay man many of us remember from before the days of liberation:  the soft, pudgy, feminine man who was at home in caftans, muumuus, or turbans, and who, at his/her best, could be turned to for warm advice born out of bittersweet experience.  The Guanyin of my icon is regally dressed with a tiara, soft and indeed slightly pudgy, and with just the hint of a cookie duster on her upper lip.

A transvestite archangel might seem an odd choice as a tutelary spirit, but she has been with me in this way for 40 years.  I talk with her, I pray with her, I exchange joy with her.  I find words from Rabindranath Tagore's Gitanjali apropos of our prismatic relationship:

Light, my light, the world-filling light, the eye-kissing light, heart-sweetening light!

Ah, the light dances, my darling, at the centre of my life; the light strikes, my darling, the chords of my love; the sky opens, the wind runs wild, laughter passes over the earth.

The butterflies spread their sails on the sea of light. Lilies and jasmines surge up on the crest of the waves of light.

The light is shattered into gold on every cloud, my darling, and it scatters gems in profusion.

Mirth spreads from leaf to leaf, my darling, and gladness without measure. The heaven's river has drowned its banks and the flood of joy is abroad.

In the Lotus Sutra, Guanyin's chief role is to assume whatever persona is necessary to bring people to the Dharma (the truth of the world as it is: impermanent, without enduring substance, interdependent).  She does so by relieving one's life's dramas so as to free us to understand how life really is.  This she does by her supreme gift of abhaya (non-fear).  What keeps us from seeing the world as impermanent, without enduring substance, and interdependent, is the fear of loss of all we hold close and dear to prevent this realization:  our intransigence, craving, avarice, envy, ignorance, hatred, delusion, and pride, among others.  Guanyin works to dislodge these fears (as so understood in Buddhism) so we can experience life in its fearless fullness.

Is Guanyin 'real' or merely a metaphor, a pious fiction, an imaginary friend?  In the end it matters only if a relationship with her is fruitful or not.  Returning to my prayer from my last blog post, whatever healing (which is not to say curing) occurs from my actions on my own behalf is Guanyin's response.  She is the nurturing, life-affirming, and compassionate impulses amidst the destructive, murderous, and selfish actions of the many.

I take refuge with she who hears our fears.

Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali

Poem 57, 1913

Praying for oneself

All petitionary prayer, even the most frivolous, is at heart an expression of fear.  Fear of lack, fear of loss, fear of pain.  I recall a coworker telling me she had asked God to sell her Cadillac.  I thought that was ridiculous at the time.  I now realize she may have needed the money, or the car may have reminded her of an old relationship, or possibly she no longer wanted to appear nouveau riche.  In any case, she was afraid of something.

Some people who no longer pray do so out of fear as well.  Fear that their peers will think them superstitious, fear that prayer compromises their rationality, fear that their prayers will go unanswered.  In my experience, many people who no longer pray experience a hole in their souls which they look to fill with art, music, poetry, psychoactive drugs, ritual, sex.  Sometimes these experiences succeed in establishing a connection with interiority or ultimacy and sometimes they don't.  But if they don't people will be less likely disappointed that heaven has let them down.

I believe that praying out of fear is rational and effective even for those whose world view is entirely naturalistic (i.e. without gods or demons, heavens or hells, lives before or after).  Let me illustrate with an actual example:

I am afraid.  I have an incurable, progressive disease.  I don't want to die.  I don't want to die soon.  I don't want to die painfully.  Is there any help for me?

Once the prayer is expressed a relationship is formed between need and action.  The uncanny thing is, however, that the one who responds to the prayer is the one who is praying!  I have verbalized my fear, but I've also signed up for experimental drug trials, become part of support networks, made plans to live in a more accessible and comfortable space.  I am doing what I can to answer my own prayer.  If in fact I die, soon, and painfully, it won't be because my prayer went unanswered.  It will be because what could be done was done and the rest is up to the vagaries of nature.

I encourage people to pray for their needs, establishing a conscious link between cause and effect.  Even if our situations are so dire that we don't have the resources or energy to act on our own behalf, we are still keeping alive our dignity, our will, our desire for life -- all pointers to transcendence.  In the end we may not be cured, but just possibly our fear may be healed.

Communion

What are you in awe of? What is the ne plus ultra of your sensibilities? For me it is life itself.

Some feel the molecular pulsations of mineral existence. Others hear the liquids circulating through cellulose. For me it is the sentience of dust: the swimming, slithering, crawling, flying, and walking beings that crowd me, insinuate themselves into my thoughts and dreams, demand I interact with the best faculties and intentions of my species, of my personality.

Life is what we share; life is what we safeguard and better; life is what I contemplate as if there could be anything more grand, more mysterious, more tragic. And in those moments when we assemble to contemplate the destiny of the dust of which we are born and to which we return, true communion is attained.

Vows

I stand in the Light of truth. I will seek with the best of my ability to know the true nature of things, to speak honestly and act courageously, while acknowledging inevitable limitations to my objectivity and impartiality.

I stand in the Light of beauty. I will make of my life an artwork from the passions of the world and all that dwell therein, while acknowledging that I am prone to attach lasting value to the transient and insubstantial.

I stand in the Light of life. I will affirm the right to an unfettered existence for all sentient beings, refusing them unnecessary harm, while acknowledging that predation and violence are part of the natural order.

I stand in the Light of mystery. I will bow before the creative power that causes, maintains, and evolves the being of all, making of that being a gift and sustenance for others, while acknowledging that I am prone to superstition and idol worship.

For myself and for all, may there be the blessings of a life lived long and well.

Inspired by A.J. Mattill, Jr.

Life is god

Life is god. Life is what creates me, sustains me, and transforms me into sustenance for other lives. I will die and become compost for the crops which the foraging animals will eat and transform into food. What life has given me it will in turn give to others.

But what of my art, my loves, my good works? Am I content that in the end they will all amount to nothing more than milk?

Perhaps it is mine to be a chronicler of impermanence -- to pass on the recognition that life never endures intact. In death even greatness is deconstructed and what emerges may bear little resemblance to the life once lived.

Perhaps to be a faithful partner in dialogue with life is its own reward. It may leave no visible residue but it may soften impermanence so that life passes through it easier, with less anxiety, more joy.

Perhaps. I have faith.

Waking up dead

I don't recall the first time I woke up dead, having done so many times since. Each time feels like the first time, so maybe it's an ongoing thing... waking up dead.

There are days when I wake up fully alive, and those are the cruelest of all. Those are the days when I feel purposeful, animated by a higher power, full of answers, and in no fear of any future. Those are the days my religious friends tell me they live for, when they are in the grip of faith and all is well with the world.

Those are the days of high promise -- and swift disappointment when the spell breaks and the true nature of things floods in. When I go to sleep those nights I know in the morning I will wake up dead:

Dead to God. Dead to destiny. Dead to a moral universe. Dead to illusion. Dead to life after death.

My deflated soul will desperately seek the breath of any good promise, and such promises abound to the desperate. And on those days I'll take the cure in the hope of waking up fully alive.

Old fool.

When your pencil's bigger than your box

I read somewhere that one liberal religious congregation passed around a questionnaire with 20 choices for "How would you describe your theology/philosophy/spirituality?" Twenty choices and yet people were still checking several! Is this a uniquely progressive phenomenon, this liberality of viewpoint, or are liberals the only ones brave or crazy enough to admit it? Could you picture the same questionnaire in a conservative church?

[ ] Fundamentalist
[ ] fundamentalist

My pencil is bigger than any one box. In fact, there are no boxes for my choices, only a large open space for narrative. It's not that my position changes from day to day, rather that when I try to explain it it bleeds across the lines.

Words like God, nature, humanity, wonder, reverence, dignity, contemplation, freedom, responsibility, all fall together in a picture of human being against a backdrop of sheer cosmic immensity. I am in a word religious, a humanist, a mystic, a naturalist, a panentheist, an existentialist. Find a box for that line!I think that rather than pigeonhole our beliefs in someone else's categories we would do best to just list words that are meaningful. One-box people will no doubt protest that words are general and anyone could speak of God meaning whatever they wanted. Yes! That's the glory! If we all write down the words that we value knowing that each of us will mean something slightly to very different by them, we have created a new forum for dialogue.

When your pencil is bigger than your box, switch to crayons.