I am spending this summer at home from seminary, thinking about it all, reading, and hoping for clarity. My heart has indeed unlocked somewhat during this year, in spite of some painful family complications.
After seeing Serene Jones, Gary Dorrien (Union Theological School), and Jonathan West on Bill Moyers' last show, I went running to the UTS web site. Drs. Jones and Dorrien were talking about how their students differ from previous years, they demand what is 'real,' are breaking the old theologies and rituals, committed to social justice and love, matters of the heart. These professors seemed proud of this. I was excited - a lot of what they were expressing seemed to match my own inarticulate searching as a seminary student, and it is not clear if my own school is as enthusiastic about this emerging redefinition of religious activity.
What I do know is that there are people who are uncomfortable, dissatisfied, with the expression of spirituality that is possible within the current form of our Meetings and churches. Many new forms of 'worship' groups are appearing, experimental groups of people from all denominations across the U.S.
What I also know is that I am still a bit lost in terms of how I want to express my own spirituality. As soon as I start to put words to it, my mind starts complaining about lack of content while my heart shrinks back a bit. It is as if I am afraid to hope.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Friday, March 6, 2009
The World Of Being
Less than 2 weeks after the last post, I applied for and was accepted into seminary. Since I am a member of a Quaker Meeting that does not use Pastors or formal Ministers, this is perfect. I have been practical for far too long. I have completed one semester and am about half way through the second, with no major mishaps so far, as far as I know.
This is a different world from the large multinational corporations I was used to. Ten people in the incoming residential class with about 15 in the 'remote' classes. I am getting used to having a name and face again. And I am remembering what it means to live according to conscience and heart instead of corporate policy, though, of course, a school is a corporate body and there are rules and things. This is actually a hard adjustment to make. My heart has been locked up for so long that it is unwilling to emerge quite yet.
At the time I wrote that last post, I had no idea what I would do with myself. Now that I am in school, the question is temporarily answered. In the longer term, though, I still have no idea what I will do, but somehow it seems less important a question. All I have to do is be. And that is the point of this post. We all of us really need to 'be' ahead of 'do' if we want to make a world that we can stand to live in, it seems to me.
This is a different world from the large multinational corporations I was used to. Ten people in the incoming residential class with about 15 in the 'remote' classes. I am getting used to having a name and face again. And I am remembering what it means to live according to conscience and heart instead of corporate policy, though, of course, a school is a corporate body and there are rules and things. This is actually a hard adjustment to make. My heart has been locked up for so long that it is unwilling to emerge quite yet.
At the time I wrote that last post, I had no idea what I would do with myself. Now that I am in school, the question is temporarily answered. In the longer term, though, I still have no idea what I will do, but somehow it seems less important a question. All I have to do is be. And that is the point of this post. We all of us really need to 'be' ahead of 'do' if we want to make a world that we can stand to live in, it seems to me.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Wow
Well, I have been relieved of my job and career. In 11 years of odd jobs and 26 years of cpu (computer) design, I survived many rounds of layoffs. In the last 2 positions, however, I was laid off after less than 3 years each.
There are certain disadvantages to being someone like me in a competitive high-tech environment. The longer one works, the more one is expected to rise up into quasi-administrative, 'leadership' roles. These roles are, quite frankly, awful for one's health. I did not want to take them on. I do not dissemble very well, and so became less and less able to pass, as they say. My self presentation became pretty terrible as I lost respect for the current theory, to put it generously, of corporate structure and policy.
In short, my main objective for the past 10 or so years has been to remain employed while avoiding rising too high in the organization, and the game has finally played itself out. I am relieved, though grateful for the interesting technical work and good salary given to me during this ride. I worked hard to produce the technical results needed by the companies and enjoyed many of the people in them. The exchange has been fair throughout, and all benefited from it.
It has now taken me 3 months to figure out that (1) I don't have a job, and (2) I now have the opporutnity to make whatever I want out of the rest of my life. Wow.
I am still pretty much speechless about this.
There are certain disadvantages to being someone like me in a competitive high-tech environment. The longer one works, the more one is expected to rise up into quasi-administrative, 'leadership' roles. These roles are, quite frankly, awful for one's health. I did not want to take them on. I do not dissemble very well, and so became less and less able to pass, as they say. My self presentation became pretty terrible as I lost respect for the current theory, to put it generously, of corporate structure and policy.
In short, my main objective for the past 10 or so years has been to remain employed while avoiding rising too high in the organization, and the game has finally played itself out. I am relieved, though grateful for the interesting technical work and good salary given to me during this ride. I worked hard to produce the technical results needed by the companies and enjoyed many of the people in them. The exchange has been fair throughout, and all benefited from it.
It has now taken me 3 months to figure out that (1) I don't have a job, and (2) I now have the opporutnity to make whatever I want out of the rest of my life. Wow.
I am still pretty much speechless about this.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Reality is ... what?
For the most part, humans do not create the conditions into which they become conscious. Persistent consciousness, that is, processing of events, thoughts, and sensory input with persistent memory of same, does not begin until well after initiation of life for almost all people (allowing for extraordinary cases reported in Buddhist literature).
This interesting observation leads to the conclusion that consciousness is not essential to human life, much as we might forget this at times. Beyond that, as we go through our lives, we are often unconscious. We sleep. We daydream. We look at one thing and walk into something else.
We cannot pay attention to all sensory input at every moment, but must continuously select that part to which we attend. It has been said that, of the million or so inputs to our senses every moment, we attend to about 70.
Thus, one might say that we are mostly unconscious.
Ahem. This puts things in perspective, doesn't it? The only way to use our consciousness is to focus, or, in other words, to become unconscious of many other things.
So, then who/what is running the show?
[pause for reflection]
What, then, is consciousness? This part of us does not seem to be that connected to a massive part of our surroundings each moment.
Awareness seems to us to be continuous and organized, in general. We seem to be in control of our actions and, sometimes, our thoughts. We seem to form opinions on our own. We think we're pretty smart most of the time.
But we're also mostly unconscious.
This reminds me of the fact that solid materials are overwhelmingly empty of 'hard' substance, being made of molecules which are 99+% space in which tiny wave-particles fly about at indeterminate (sic) speeds.
Reality is not what it seems, it seems.
This interesting observation leads to the conclusion that consciousness is not essential to human life, much as we might forget this at times. Beyond that, as we go through our lives, we are often unconscious. We sleep. We daydream. We look at one thing and walk into something else.
We cannot pay attention to all sensory input at every moment, but must continuously select that part to which we attend. It has been said that, of the million or so inputs to our senses every moment, we attend to about 70.
Thus, one might say that we are mostly unconscious.
Ahem. This puts things in perspective, doesn't it? The only way to use our consciousness is to focus, or, in other words, to become unconscious of many other things.
So, then who/what is running the show?
[pause for reflection]
What, then, is consciousness? This part of us does not seem to be that connected to a massive part of our surroundings each moment.
Awareness seems to us to be continuous and organized, in general. We seem to be in control of our actions and, sometimes, our thoughts. We seem to form opinions on our own. We think we're pretty smart most of the time.
But we're also mostly unconscious.
This reminds me of the fact that solid materials are overwhelmingly empty of 'hard' substance, being made of molecules which are 99+% space in which tiny wave-particles fly about at indeterminate (sic) speeds.
Reality is not what it seems, it seems.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Are you a believer?
All I can say is that I do not and cannot know the circumstances that led to my consciousness. The physical body I inhabit and the planet upon which I walk are an abundant vessel for this consciousness, supplied by some agency that is beyond my control and outside of my personal knowledge.
There are arguments between those who favor evolution as an explanation of all that lives and those who favor a divine entity as one who created this rich environment and our overactive mentalities. There are those who think that these arguments have substance. I do not.
I am awed by the possibility that I am part some greater whole than is apparent on Earth. I am equally awed by the thought that I might not be part of anything beyond the apparent senselessness of our daily struggle for bread, water, mental and physical procreation.
The only certain knowledge that I have is that I cannot be sure how thoughts occur to me nor where they originate. My efforts to generate clear thought are merely those of removing obstacles. They are not generative; I cannot set about to manufacture a line of thinking as I might, say, set about constructing an article of clothing. All I can do is to follow the thinking that presents itself to myself, assuming that I can understand its merit and remember the point long enough to make note of it.
Scientists tell us that the physics of our known universe indicates that less than 0.00000001 percent (sic - some very small number) of our personal space actually contains 'matter.' We are beings largely composed of empty space; our bodies are held up by mutually repelling forces of elementary particles standing aground the same mutually repelling force fields.
This is extraordinary, and should, one would think, lead a person to consider the equally extraordinary gulf between our everyday experience of human existence and its physical reality.
It occurs to me that this may be the only subject worthy of religious examination. This massive discrepancy in our perceptive apparatus indicates that we are apparently beings inhabiting force fields rather than 'solidness' and that we do not generally relate to this fact. Thus, humans, by this one fact, can be defined as belief generators, living in the belief that we are situated with a solid "physical" reality.
Once this is established, notions of higher beings are just more of the same, generated by a talent we cannot suppress nor avoid. There may be truth to these beliefs or not. Whether we conceive of personal gods or impersonal natural forces, they are constructed as part of the act of consciousness and as unavoidable as life/death itself.
So, yes, I am a believer, just as you are.
There are arguments between those who favor evolution as an explanation of all that lives and those who favor a divine entity as one who created this rich environment and our overactive mentalities. There are those who think that these arguments have substance. I do not.
I am awed by the possibility that I am part some greater whole than is apparent on Earth. I am equally awed by the thought that I might not be part of anything beyond the apparent senselessness of our daily struggle for bread, water, mental and physical procreation.
The only certain knowledge that I have is that I cannot be sure how thoughts occur to me nor where they originate. My efforts to generate clear thought are merely those of removing obstacles. They are not generative; I cannot set about to manufacture a line of thinking as I might, say, set about constructing an article of clothing. All I can do is to follow the thinking that presents itself to myself, assuming that I can understand its merit and remember the point long enough to make note of it.
Scientists tell us that the physics of our known universe indicates that less than 0.00000001 percent (sic - some very small number) of our personal space actually contains 'matter.' We are beings largely composed of empty space; our bodies are held up by mutually repelling forces of elementary particles standing aground the same mutually repelling force fields.
This is extraordinary, and should, one would think, lead a person to consider the equally extraordinary gulf between our everyday experience of human existence and its physical reality.
It occurs to me that this may be the only subject worthy of religious examination. This massive discrepancy in our perceptive apparatus indicates that we are apparently beings inhabiting force fields rather than 'solidness' and that we do not generally relate to this fact. Thus, humans, by this one fact, can be defined as belief generators, living in the belief that we are situated with a solid "physical" reality.
Once this is established, notions of higher beings are just more of the same, generated by a talent we cannot suppress nor avoid. There may be truth to these beliefs or not. Whether we conceive of personal gods or impersonal natural forces, they are constructed as part of the act of consciousness and as unavoidable as life/death itself.
So, yes, I am a believer, just as you are.
Friday, February 8, 2008
Entrophy
Several converging threads of my life have together dampened my urge to write things for public consumption in this blog. The near death of a family member coincided with what I experienced as another deep disappointment with a beloved religious body. These, among other things, have left me without a place to stand, in terms of public discussion and inquiry. I can find little energy to offer thoughts, questions, and opinions. I do not sense that the endeavor will be fruitful.
Maybe this is the best place to start. I don't know, frankly. What I do know is that there is a better way for all of us to arrange our lives, our medical care, our politics, our economics, our nourishment, our use of resources, our interactions with each other. I think that this way is to tell the truth, to feel our disappointments, to give up competition, to feel our imagined humiliations, to stare into the face of the unknown. Simple things, done simply. Genuine things, done genuinely.
Maybe this is also the best place to end. I don't know, frankly.
Maybe this is the best place to start. I don't know, frankly. What I do know is that there is a better way for all of us to arrange our lives, our medical care, our politics, our economics, our nourishment, our use of resources, our interactions with each other. I think that this way is to tell the truth, to feel our disappointments, to give up competition, to feel our imagined humiliations, to stare into the face of the unknown. Simple things, done simply. Genuine things, done genuinely.
Maybe this is also the best place to end. I don't know, frankly.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Disjoint Necessities
For the past 2 1/2 months, I have had the opportunity to study our American medical system in some detail. Spending time visiting a family member in Intensive Care, critical care units, rehabilitation hospitals, and skilled care rehabilitation units has simultaneously increased and decreased my respect for the quality of medical care in our fine country.
The one word that stands out to me in thinking about this experience is disjoint. Every aspect of the medical care is disjoint from every other. Doctors are disjoint from their institutions, each other, the nursing staff, the patients, and, of course, the patient's families.
Institutions are disjoint from each other. Medical priorities are reset at every transfer, and transfers are often done to satisfy non-medical priorities. Care givers change every day, even within one institution, and thus the patient is confronted with an interpersonal environment that is chaotic and confusing - especially bad for those with head injuries, memory and perception problems.
Some of the disjointness is due to the "Patient's Bill of Rights." Under this law, people are not allowed to talk to each other, to put it crudely. In order to avoid breaking patient confidentiality, communication is limited to 'need to know' which, IMO, cuts down on options presented to patients, for patients, and which forces family members to execute "Medical Power Of Attorney" for people who are temporarily incapacitated. This, in itself, is somewhat traumatic,for patient and family, possibly causing further disjointness.
All in all, I am humbled by the care with which all of the medical staffs have worked on behalf of the our patient, and by the quality of the medical decisions made at times. The medical care itself has seemed to be quite good, done diligently and with care and respect.
On the other hand, I am somewhat mystified at the medical system we have, in which every action is made into a commodity, weighted, measured, and doled out through distant invisible money agents through medical agents that are constrained in what they can say to others due to confidentiality and also due to fear of later lawsuit. Calling it a system is generous, being an impossible collection of competing interests.
Longer term questions are neglected - institutions can cherry-pick what procedures they want to provide - leaving the overall trajectory of the patient's care up to the family, who are generally informed enough to make those decisions only after the care has been rendered.
My family member is recovering, but, in the process, my family has become somewhat sick at heart, exhausted, and in great fear of ever ourselves needing critical medical care. This is less due to projected pain and suffering than to the prospect of being at the mercy of a mindless set of financial and legal strictures that possibly override our own best interests.
Profit motive is not good medicine.
The one word that stands out to me in thinking about this experience is disjoint. Every aspect of the medical care is disjoint from every other. Doctors are disjoint from their institutions, each other, the nursing staff, the patients, and, of course, the patient's families.
Institutions are disjoint from each other. Medical priorities are reset at every transfer, and transfers are often done to satisfy non-medical priorities. Care givers change every day, even within one institution, and thus the patient is confronted with an interpersonal environment that is chaotic and confusing - especially bad for those with head injuries, memory and perception problems.
Some of the disjointness is due to the "Patient's Bill of Rights." Under this law, people are not allowed to talk to each other, to put it crudely. In order to avoid breaking patient confidentiality, communication is limited to 'need to know' which, IMO, cuts down on options presented to patients, for patients, and which forces family members to execute "Medical Power Of Attorney" for people who are temporarily incapacitated. This, in itself, is somewhat traumatic,for patient and family, possibly causing further disjointness.
All in all, I am humbled by the care with which all of the medical staffs have worked on behalf of the our patient, and by the quality of the medical decisions made at times. The medical care itself has seemed to be quite good, done diligently and with care and respect.
On the other hand, I am somewhat mystified at the medical system we have, in which every action is made into a commodity, weighted, measured, and doled out through distant invisible money agents through medical agents that are constrained in what they can say to others due to confidentiality and also due to fear of later lawsuit. Calling it a system is generous, being an impossible collection of competing interests.
Longer term questions are neglected - institutions can cherry-pick what procedures they want to provide - leaving the overall trajectory of the patient's care up to the family, who are generally informed enough to make those decisions only after the care has been rendered.
My family member is recovering, but, in the process, my family has become somewhat sick at heart, exhausted, and in great fear of ever ourselves needing critical medical care. This is less due to projected pain and suffering than to the prospect of being at the mercy of a mindless set of financial and legal strictures that possibly override our own best interests.
Profit motive is not good medicine.
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