TheBanyanTree: why I get turned off, and how I turn back on

[Indiglow]

I so agree with you, Julie!  I think it was another Spooner (Theta, was it you?) who long ago described herself as a Zen-Animist-Methodist, and that stuck in my mind as quite sensible.  For the most part, I'm content with the Methodist church which tends to focus on community and "do unto others" (stewardship) - and for the most part leaves the dogma alone.  But there are times when a flowing river or a good wild wind or a gurgling baby are all I need to feel connected to what I call God.
 
J

--- On Mon, 9/13/10, Julie Anna Teague <jateague at indiana.edu> wrote:


From: Julie Anna Teague <jateague at indiana.edu>
Subject: TheBanyanTree: why I get turned off, and how I turn back on
To: "banyantree" <thebanyantree at remsset.com>
Date: Monday, September 13, 2010, 6:32 AM


I have gone to some church or other most of my life, albeit with
years-long lapses thrown in here and there.  I suppose you'd say I have
always been a spiritual-minded person, a truth seeker.  "Keep the
company of those who seek the truth--run from those who have found it."
So says Václav Havel, and I have to say I agree.  I was raised,
indoctrinated, and dunked under water in the Methodist church, which
was more about community in our very tiny town of 500 people than it
was about spirituality.  I guess the one good thing that came out of it
was that I was forced to read the bible, and that has served me in good
stead in many a Literary Criticism class.  It also gave me a decent
foundation in knowing what I'm talking about in discussions that take
on a religious bent.  Likewise, I'd indulged a little in most of the
major religions' holy books.  You can't argue about something you don't
know without sounding like an idiot.  There are a few parts of the
bible that I've always felt were uplifting and worth remembering.

Lost my senses a time or two and attended some Southern Baptist
churches, either at the request of my mom or of a boyfriend I once had,
and egads, was it ever frightening to realize I would burn in hell for
having any kind of fun at all.  I think not.  Even went to Catholic
mass a few times with my MIL who is a dyed-in-the-wool Catholic and
husband who is a severely lapsed Catholic. Attended a church called
Unity for a few years because I liked the preacher, a real down to
earth guy who had some useful life advice and who ended up marrying my
husband and I.  But then he left and the Susie Creamcheeses took over
and we couldn't handle going there anymore for fear of being encased in
a  permanent sugar coating.  I've gone to the Unitarian Universalist
church on and off for twenty plus years.  They are about the closest
thing to what is going on in my head concerning spirituality, but
sometimes I just have to run screaming, even from UU types.

This past Sunday for instance.  The music is usually great (they pull
from the University's world reknowned music school).  And they had an
Arabic professor read from the Quran in Arabic, "sung" the way it is
supposed to be in it's native language, which was stunningly beautiful
and moving.  But I swear, the whole rest of the service was about
patting ourselves on our backs because we were UUs and thus more
enlightened than everybody else.  Not in so many words, but that's how
it came across to me.  Even the humorous moments had a feeling of, "We
can laugh at ourselves because we are so damned superior to everyone
who is not as enlightened and open minded as ourselves and wouldn't get
the joke."

It wasn't just me, either.  Husband expressed the exact same sentiment
when we talked about it afterwards.  I like a good dose of humility in
my spirituality.  I'm not better than anyone else.  Maybe I've had some
of the scales fall from my eyes in some respects, but so have a lot of
folks, in this way or that. I tend to believe that Karma will come back
and bite me in the ass for feeling superior to anyone else, for
believing that *I* know the truth, as hard as it will for stealing
something or lying to someone or any of those seven deadly sins, or
however many there might be in this day and age. (Surely we've added
the deadly sin of scamming people out of their life savings and secure
retirement in a ponzi scheme or by running a large corporation into the
dust while making off with ones own billions?)

Most of the time, I just go on my own way, puttering in my garden and
thinking about spiritual matters as I watch stuff grow.  Or hike in the
woods or look at the sky or watch a bird or commune with my sons until
I'm completely wonderstruck by it all.  I can appreciate a sense of
community.  I can appreciate the power of a hundred souls all
meditating on world peace in the same room.  But, bottom line, I can do
without all the other bullshit, because I realize I have most of the
tools right here in my own heart to make some kind of path through this
crazy world.

Julie