Yesterday I Killed My Cat

Yesterday I killed my cat.  [I was going to write this yesterday because "today I killed my cat" sounds more raw and shocking, but I just couldn't bring myself to write it, and I can't make myself tell a falsehood about something so significant.]  Actually, I didn't kill the cat myself, I brought it to its executioner.  Even that is not quite correct.  My sister-in-law brought me and my spouse to the executioner, where I delivered it up for the lethal injection.  He didn't want to go.

Later in the day we were talking about some horrible boys the family once knew who tried to drown a cat, and how something like that was so unthinkably inhuman and cruel.  And yet, everyone told me that I was doing the right and kind thing.  How can that be so?  Yes, my cat had a horrible tumor that was making him increasingly miserable.  He wasn't going to live long anyway, but he trusted me to speak for him, and to make him better.  I did ask him what he wanted -- to live longer, even though he would be miserable and in pain, or to go now.  He said he wanted to feel better and stay with me just like always. [ It was just like with my dad before he died, who made my sister take him to doctor after doctor to get his eyes fixed because he couldn't accept the truth of advanced macular degeneration.  Reading was, by then, about all he had left and he wanted his sight back; the only acceptable solution.] 

So, I made the decision for my cat.  He was very good when I had the vet examine him, and even calm when they gave him the injection and put him in my arms.  But, when he could feel the cold and stiffness taking him, he gave three sharp cries, not in pain but in protest.  Then he went far away, all alone.  He didn't want to go, and I didn't want him to.  I did it anyway.  Life is so insane.

Thoughts on Hellbound? (the documentary)

Hellbound?: 

I finally got a chance to watch this 2012 film.  Wow!  Not an easy movie to watch.  Some parts (Westboro Baptist Church, in particular) just almost impossible to sit through.  I hated that so many of the strict evangelicals they interviewed insisted on framing "the way the world works" so narrowly that there was no way to even begin to argue.  They start off with "well, since this is true, then THIS has to be the case..."  but their initial "since this is true" is so far from how I view things that there is no common point to even begin a dialog!

I did end up thinking a lot better of Brian McLaren, though.  He's really come a long way in his thinking since his earlier evangelicalism, and he just keeps getting better.  There was a lot of real depth to his perspective, I'm impressed.  I also liked the Frankie Shaffer interviews.  That man has been through hell already, and is now creating a bit of heaven, I believe.  What a powerful witness.

But, my biggest problem is with the presupposition that the film only partially questions; that something special happens when we die, and that the concept of an eternal individual personhood even makes sense.  The film essentially presupposes that its only atheists who don't believe in continuint conscious life after death, and if you do believe in some kind of God than you must also believe that an individual, specific, conscious identity survives after death in some kind of heaven or hell, for eternity (which is a concept that doesn't even make sense if you believe that God is the creator of the universe, since time is a property of the universe--not an independent reality).  As for me, I don't even need to contemplate death to wonder if there is someone unique and absolutely defined who is called "Ann," someone who could objectively exist for more than just the present moment.  I am not the same person I was as a child, or young woman.  I don't expect to be the same person tomorrow as I am today.  And, when I really look inside myself, I don't find "Ann." I find bits and pieces of my mom, my grandmother, of Jan, of my friends, my enemies, all the people who have been important to me in my life, and even some whom I never really thought of as important.  "I" am a jumble of past and present influences, thoughts, experiences, actions, feelings, ...  I keep changing.  What kind of separate "me" would I expect to continue after death?  How would that work?

I think maybe a lot of our western problem with the concepts of life, death, and something beyond is too much individualism.  We see ourselves as intrinsically separate from everything and everyone else.  Eastern philosophy is more in tune with everything being a part of everything else.  My present, shadow, imagined existence will pass away even before I die -- tomorrow I will be something different than I am today.  But, the core of life that is in me (the "real self" of Hindu thought, for example) is unchanging and is shared by all life, perhaps by all existence.  I do believe that THAT self is not bound by time, and that it surpasses the universe itself, and that I am a part of it as everything else is also.  And, I believe that the words or thoughts we use to express that concept, ("God" in our language): wonder, gratitude, compassion, creativity -- are expressed best, lived out best, in "love God and love your neighbor."  As Hillel said, "everything else is commentary."  I think that "heaven" is the world as it could be if we all were true to our shared true self and lived this reality.  Hell is what we create when we allow our illusions to lead us to behave differently from what that "real self" is telling us to be.  I do think these concepts refer both to "now" and to "eternity" (or maybe that our choices have lasting, permanent effect would be a better way to say it). I think we are given a finite amount of time to live out our purpose in life, and the compassion and gratefulness we experience and share become part of what lives on in the world in others who continue as part of us, as I continue as part of all those who influenced my life.  And, hell is lost opportunities, the negative influences I've left because of my selfishness, the harm that I have done or allowed to happen because of my lack of care -- and those things live on too from generation to generation.  The film depicts universalism as being a philosophy that says you can do either good or ill in this world, but after death God eventually saves everybody.  I see universalism more as a belief that the essence of life, of being, in all that exists originates in the one source--which can be neither created or destroyed, and which never changes. However far we run afoul of it, we are created in God's image, God is inside us, and nothing can change that.

I have been thinking a lot lately about how differently most of us look at the possibility of our own death vs. the death of those we love.  We, most of us, fear losing those we love much more than we fear death itself.  I am wondering if how we look at our own life isn't telling us something about the real nature of life.  When I think about dying there is a brief sadness about plans I might have, things I wanted to accomplish or experience, maybe wrongs that I would have liked to right.  But, basically, it's not a huge deal.  I am not really capable of thinking that the "essence" inside me can die -- it maybe returns to the cosmos, or is reborn, or returns to God.  Whatever.  It is simply that I am incapable of feeling that what I truly value about life, the "real me," is temporal--can die.  Maybe other people don't feel that way, but it just doesn't seem to me that there is any possibility of losing what I really value.  I guess that is the part I think is God, the spirit of God in me.  [God told Abraham that his name is "I am."  The source and essence of being.]  I believe it is the same spirit of God in everyone. But I guess in being one layer more separated from that spirit in another person, I am less intuitively convinced that I cannot lose the essence of someone I love. Part of me fears and dreads that the separation might be permanent.  Over time, I have come to feel that I have not lost anyone from whom I've been separated by death, but it's a much greater struggle to get to that point, hence a much greater grief and dislocation when we are separated by death. 

So, a lot of musings that may or may not  have much to do with the film or the discussion of heaven and hell, but I'm inclined to bring it all down to what Paul wrote in Corinthians; "love never fails."  Everything else fails. Doctrine easily becomes ideology, and ideologies keep us from being open to the truth.  My friend Ori Soltes wrote in his last book: "We believe what we believe and the proof of the correctness of our beliefs is simply that we believe as we believe." I'm not saying that it's not all worth our questions and hard thought, but ultimately only love never fails!

Why do we pray?

A friend asked this recently in a discussion group we both belong to:

 A similar question was posed to the four "Abrahamic Program for Young Adults" coordinators this year at Chautauqua; "How to you deal with the reality of evil and still believe that God is almighty?" I thought they (all mid-20's!) had some great insights towards their question, and also yours.

A couple of them talked about recognizing the difference between tragedy/disaster and evil. Evil is a human concept, the intentional betrayal of the transcendental bit of God (our true self in Hindu terms, the Holy Spirit in Christian terms, etc., etc.) that exists in every human being, or perhaps in every living thing, or even in every created thing -- pick your philosophy. Thus, the essential role of the believer is in to engage in "fixing the world" -- trying to return, self and others, individually and collectively, to a proper relationship with their essential nature, the part of G_d that is within us all. I think then, in this view, prayer could be considered the ego-self engaging with the true-self (Allah, G_d, Holy Spirit) and attempting to willingly submit the ego to what this inner spirit is saying.

But natural disaster is a disaster only in human terms. For the planet as a whole, earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes, etc., are not disasters. In fact, they are essential for renewing the Earth. And cosmologically, even stars that collide, planets that burn out; we could potentially be wiped out as a planet at any moment. And yet that, as much human pain as it may bring, is not evil, although we often assume that it is so. In truth, is there really anything in our understanding of God and creation that requires that humans are central in the grand scheme of things?

In neither case, against evil or in the wake of disaster, are our temporal selves ever "safe" or protected, and I can't imagine why or how the Almighty we say we believe in could or would intervene. Evil must have its consequences, if we are ever to choose to listen to the spirit rather than to our own ego. And, G_d pronounced the Universe majestic and "good" and reflecting Her glory, even though it does not in any way appear to revolve around humans and our needs.

As long as we are primarily concerned about our temporal selves and physical/emotional wants and needs, we will never be in control or safe. Psychologists say most of us need to block out how "iffy" life actually is just to function effectively, and I think some people do use prayer to this end. As you say, to feel in control. But, I don't personally believe that this the purpose or intent for prayer that the great religions put forward.

If there is (and I believe there is) something before "in the beginning" and after "the end," something that is light and life, the full reality of love, that exists beyond our definitions and our understanding of existence -- that is not only transcendent, forever beyond and ultimately unknowable, but that also is our innermost self and essence and intimately knowable, then I think prayer is meant to be about trying to know, to merge with, to become that which in truth we already are. And which is the only constant in this ever-changing and unpredictable world.

In Christian scriptures, Jesus says that we must love God with all our heart, mind, strength and soul, and, interestingly, that a second command is "like" the first, to love others as we love ourselves. Not "as important" but "like." As in, you can't love God if you don't love others, because the two are sides of the same coin. I think of it as the active/passive aspects of the same concept. Prayer/worship/meditation/study are the passive components and service to others/compassion for others are the active components of loving God, just as God is the only true reality, both transcendent/beyond and intimate/inside.

So, as I see it, this is not much to hold onto if you are looking for security or comfort. Life is still scary and unpredictable and full of evil and disasters, and we are in many ways truly powerless. In another way of looking at things, though, the exercise of trying to know that which we call G_d is everything and exceedingly more than everything.