conversations with kathy
(part two)


"words are merely utterances: noises that stand for feelings, thoughts and experience. they are symbols. signs. insignias. they are not Truth. they are not the real thing." ...

..."in fact, you place so little value on experience that when your experience of God differs from what you've heard of God, you automatically discount the experience and own the words, when it should be just the other way around."

thematically, one of the things that kathy and i agree on with the book, the dialogue between walsch and God has a terrific flow to it. the questions and answers build nicely from one to the other just as any good and honest back and forth should. my guess is that my and kathy's conversation will probably end up being a lot like that. one topic will inspire the next and then the next and so forth and so on. going into this endeavor, i know i, personally, had a list of things that i wanted to talk about, and we may end up covering them all. however, i think it will be more enjoyable for us and those of you that are riding along for our "conversations" to feel connected, if you will, in thought and line.

which brings us to our second part. words (what we've been told or have read) versus experience.

thank you to all of those that joined our last "conversation" on free will in the comments. i hope we can continue to incite reaction as we go forth. the more voices, the better!!! as i've reflected on my and kathy's discussion and those shared in the comments, i have wondered to myself how much or how many of our convictions are built upon the foundation of words and how much is built on true experience. when push comes to shove, which, in turn, provides to be the stronger foundation.

i will start with a very basic example. an exchange from the movie, contact, that has always and will always stay with me.

{ellie (jodie foster's character) challenges palmer joss (dude from dazed and confused, likes the look of himself shirtless) to prove the existence of god.}

palmer: did you love your father?
ellie: what?
palmer: your dad. did you love him?
ellie: yes, very much. 
palmer: prove it.

what do scientists, by definition, do? they theorize and then set out to prove or disprove their theories, right? the exchange between ellie and palmer very simply, but very profoundly, illustrates the impossible equation that any of us (life scientists, if you will) that consider to be in relationship with a God that we can't see find ourselves in.

how can we prove our love for god when we can't prove there even is a god? how can we be so sure about our definition of free will when we won't know that free will or fate was the right "answer" until we are too far under the ground to be able to share our revelation with anyone.

is it because the bible tells us so? maybe. maybe, it depends on who told you so. and who told them. gasp. what if they were wrong?  how much of everything that we've learned about anything have we learned through true experience? how much of everything that we've learned about anything have we learned because someone told us or we read it in someone else's book?

how much of your relationship with god is based on what you've heard or read? how much of it is based on what you've experienced for yourself?

now, we are getting somewhere.

kathy?

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My search for God has taken me to many strange places, both figuratively and literally. Figuratively, I’ve opened my mind to exploring different religions and practices, I’ve learned to read tarot cards (which are just ancient Rorschach ink blot cards, in my opinion), I’ve dallied in energy healing, I own a crystal pendulum and Runes (thanks Tanya!), and I’m fascinated by astrology.

Literally, I once communed with a small wildflower on Mount Shasta.

What???

A couple of years ago, my sister-in-law and I journeyed to the New Age hippie capital of the USA- Mount Shasta. We hiked up the mountain and found a “sacred” wildflower prairie. Since we’re both seekers of the God experience, we went to separate areas of the prairie for a short meditation. I sat on a flat stone on the ground and just listened to the sound of the wind. I noticed a small patch of wildflowers in front of me- small purple flowers no bigger than my pinkie. As I stared at one of the flowers, I felt recognition, like I knew the flower. Then I realized that what I recognized in the flower was myself- the essence that gave life to the flower was the same essence that gave life to me. It’s hard to explain, but it was like the flower had my personality.

It’s easy, in theory, to extrapolate from there- if the same essence that gives me life gives the flower life…gives the trees life…gives the squirrel life…gives you life…

I wouldn’t have been capable of crushing that small blossom under my shoe- it would have been like crushing myself…

“What you do unto the least of these, you do unto me…”

I think Jesus understood the connectedness of life, and that the thing that connects us is God.

Religion would have us believe that God is a man in the sky who rewards or punishes us based on whether or not he approves of our behavior. Religion would have us substitute Santa Claus for God.

But my experience of God is much more subtle, more metaphysical. I can hardly reconcile my experience with the picture that my religion has painted for me. The only reason I hang on to Christianity is because I think Jesus GOT IT.

The problem with experience is that no one has the same experience as another. If I told you that God is a flower, that wouldn’t be exactly right, and you might think I’m crazy and call me a heretic. Religion requires structure- and that is why it discounts personal experience and embraces uniform “beliefs.” But by embracing uniform beliefs, we’ve squelched the acceptance of personal experience- unless it confirms what we’ve already been told by our religion. Yikes.
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i agree with that...to a point.

i don't think religion or the practice thereof inherently squelches the ability of one to truly experience god. if we limit ourselves and our experience, though, to what we've been told we are supposed to get out of it, then sure, you are right.

a small and relatively trivial example is being told to sing louder and sing prouder during our worship service at humc in the past. why? does volume contribute to one or many of the congregation feeling a deeper or meaningful connection to the god we are all searching for? i would argue "no". i don't think that god needs our worship or our voices to validate his importance in our lives or his connection to us. the experience of worship, just like the experience of eating a really good peanut butter and banana sandwich should be the most personal of experiences at it's root. if we are able to convey our connection to god through song or through good food, great. if not, though, that doesn't make the experience any less meaningful. it just makes it ours.

we all need and want structure in our life. that's not just a religion thing, right? you are married. so am i. we opt for a certain structure in those relationships and work individually with the interest of the entire unit (ideally) in mind. if we are successful, the sum will operate more effectively than it's separated parts. the same could and should, in my opinion, be said for the way the human collective has been built in god's image. if we, as a population, were ever willing to understand, as you suggest with your flower, that we are connected using the concept of one, big, happy family, we would treat each other accordingly. obviously, somewhere along the grand scheme of things, something happened and we started to turn on each other. people started drawing lines. making rules. dividing. doing the "if you're not with me, you're against me" thing. same with religion. evidenced by the hundreds of different "truths" and denominations that you can find driving down anywhere street, usa, division is now the rule. collective interest, the exception.

this past sunday, limbo talked a lot about platitudes and boiled them down to "a comment perceived to be shallow or unoriginal that terminates all cognitive thought."

isn't this what religion, in and of itself, has become? a broken system of antiquated rules and irrelevant thoughts that end up terminating all cognitive thought?

but i say that to say this. i don't think that's what our creator intended. i do think the world, the universe even, is governed by rules and a structure. we can talk about those later on. but the number one rule has been and always will be, in so many words, "love your fellow man as i (god) love you."

how does god love us? well, he experiences us, of course.

how does he do that?

how doesn't he?

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I definitely agree that we all need structure in our lives- even our religious lives. That's why many religions have "practices" such as prayer and meditation. I guess the structure that rubs me the wrong way is the litany of creeds. Our creeds, or lists of agreed upon beliefs, were created to EXCLUDE people, not help bring us all closer to our awareness of God.

Maybe that's what I feel that Christianity is missing. We focus on getting everyone to believe what we believe, when what we're all really after is an experience of God. The thing is, what makes me more aware of God won't necessarily work for you - and vice versa.

Also, one thing I've found in my "search" for the God experience is that the experience that I'm searching for has been defined by others. In other words- I don't know exactly what I'm after because I haven't experienced it yet.

Or have I?

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i hear what you are saying about the creeds, but the way that i look at them is similar to their suggested value in marcus borg's book, the heart of christianity. through being familiar with those creeds or familiar hymns and saying them or singing them surrounded by a congregation that, in theory, is searching for the same thing i am, i hope to find myself in a "thin place". i don't see them as binding or exclusive contracts, rather an open expression of where i find my current faith. even on the days that i feel farthest away from god, saying the apostle's creed or singing "be thou my vision" reels me back in, removes some of my cynicism and allows me a breath of fresh god, if only for the few moments that i am participating in those elements of worship.

the closest i feel i have ever been to truly and honestly experiencing god, not surprisingly, was in the presence of my two girls being born. there i was. beaten down, skeptical, selfish and narcissistic kevin o'kelley, partially responsible for freaking creating a life!!! i mean..., jesus! i've said this before, but both times, i thought that i literally felt my heart grow to make room for my children. i had never felt anything like that before. i haven't been able to replicate it since.

that's what i am looking for now. every day. in most of the intentional things that i do. looking to find that experience again. i know the common denominator in each experience was unconditional love. it didn't have anything to do with a creed, or the denomination i subscribe to. it had everything to do with letting go of the ties that bind me to this world just for a few minutes, and focus on those two little girls. it was magical, but in my heart of hearts, i felt like it was what we are intended to feel. to experience.

all the time. 

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At the risk of going off on a tangent...

As we've had this discussion (hot on the heels of me seeing Avatar), I keep thinking about "I see you."
For me, knowing that God is present in all things and all people, I find myself strangely uneasy when I really look into someone else's eyes. It feels extremely intimate in a way that we, as a culture or a species or whatever, are not "into." We separate ourselves from each other, we draw boundaries, we throw up aversive personalities or humor or whatever keeps the other at arm's length.

As you point out, that barrier doesn't exist with our children. I don't know about you, but I could stare into my children's eyes and experience a total lovefest. "I see you..." and love you.

Frankly, I'm not sure I'm ready for the full God experience. I'm not sure I can fall into intimacy with everyone I lock eyes with. I think I'd be a total crybaby all the time.

Maybe creeds are easier.

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easy is overrated.