For reasons not completely known to me - hot weather, too many late nights watching the Olympics, being left alone (besides the dog and cat) for a week, or all of the above - a few days ago, I had a pity fest. I got mad that things hadn't worked out as I had planned and still weren't working out as hoped. I got sarcastic with myself - well, so much for f---ing life! - even though I knew at the time that I was acting like a spoiled brat. A Syrian refugee would risk death for what I, and most other Americans, have. As the song goes, "I don't have to complain, but sometimes I still do," a paean to the immaturity of the spoiled grown-up child. It was very good that no one else was around.
Meh. It happens now and then. It happens because we never get what we want out of life, not everything. It also happens because of a concept of the Sky King.
I saw it again reading the "comment" section to an article out of Yahoo. The article was by a man who believes the push to cross-gender self-appointment by children is a big mistake; that children don't know what they are sexually. He pointed out that 80 to 90% of males who are "uncertain" in adolescence are stable heterosexuals by age 25, with the same results for 50% of similarly confused girls. He went on about the unknowns of origins of sexual orientation, expressing a view contrary to current progressive ideology. Agree or disagree, it was at least a well-thought out argument with several cited facts thrown in.
I suppose what I read in the comment section should have been expected: lots of cursing, sarcasm and spite by those with a different point of view, which is a typical response towards anyone, right or left, taking a pointed view on a hot-spot issue. However, again and again, I saw reference to the Sky King god that they said this man had to believe in (he expressed no religious affiliation, although some seemed to know it). I had seen such references before to the sky king, and always they are associated with contempt for those with such beliefs. Leaving the article aside, I thought, "aw, come on! As if you know anything! It is far more logical to have a creator of some kind in this world than for all its laws and our self awareness to just pop up out of nothing -something no experiment could ever prove," but then I caught myself. Yes, belief in a sky king does have a lot to do with our problems.
It is not that there is no God - of Its existence I have no doubt - but of what "It" is. Outside of many forms of Buddhism, the lower-level beliefs of every religion I can think of anthropomorphize God (or the gods). In the Western traditions (including Islam), we have made of "It" a sky king, just as the sneering commentator said. The inner traditions - the saints of Catholicism, for instance - know better, but for the laity as for most priests, God is a great Father up above. This belief is fostered because we usually need a reference, a foothold, to get a handle on spirituality. Even the amorphous "nirvana" of Buddhism has at its center the holy being of the Buddha, a once-living man. Such humanization is necessary for most to direct attention to the spiritual, but does NOT adequately encompass the spiritual (as Marshal McLuhan said, the map is not the territory). When it is taken to do so, as most of us simply have to do, it leads to distortion. It leads to the sky king, and our wrong-headed expectations from this all-too-human superman.
In other words, in my pity fest, I was arguing with the sky king, just as a brat would with his father at Christmas, when the toy he wanted wasn't under the tree. Yes, I know that even the sky king works in mysterious ways, but in most of our minds he is still dad. He should still grant us our wishes.
But that's not what God is. On the one hand, it is true that we live every moment through the will of God, and from that alone we should be eternally grateful. God owes me absolutely nothing. In fact, God knows, just as the real father does, that getting what I want could be the worst thing for me (a age nine, I wanted fireworks). But there is much more than that. The destiny of life, for instance, is not about fame or impressing one's neighbor. It is not about having the kid who goes to Harvard or about the big 401K. It is about - if I can put it such - sacred knowledge, about knowing who we are, and in that, knowing what God is. And as the saints and prophets and wise men from all lands know, God is not the sky king. The sky king is only a metaphor, which keeps our eyes to the deep, to the eternal that we see in the sky, but it is not IT. To take the concept literally is to fall short. It allows one to get snooty, holier-than-thou (although many an atheist can do that without the sky king, as the comment section above showed) and, sometimes, pissed off at a dad who will not see things our way, no matter how we cry.
The religions in general point us in the right way. Better a sky king than the self as king. But better still to go deeper and find what those few have found - or to at least understand that our concepts of God all fall short.
Lesson to me: don't expect anything. Hope for everything, but don't whine when you don't get it. You are living by a miracle of will and until you understand it in essence, don't think you know what you should have, or what you deserve. Instead, stand in awe and hope that understanding comes. FK
Meh. It happens now and then. It happens because we never get what we want out of life, not everything. It also happens because of a concept of the Sky King.
I saw it again reading the "comment" section to an article out of Yahoo. The article was by a man who believes the push to cross-gender self-appointment by children is a big mistake; that children don't know what they are sexually. He pointed out that 80 to 90% of males who are "uncertain" in adolescence are stable heterosexuals by age 25, with the same results for 50% of similarly confused girls. He went on about the unknowns of origins of sexual orientation, expressing a view contrary to current progressive ideology. Agree or disagree, it was at least a well-thought out argument with several cited facts thrown in.
I suppose what I read in the comment section should have been expected: lots of cursing, sarcasm and spite by those with a different point of view, which is a typical response towards anyone, right or left, taking a pointed view on a hot-spot issue. However, again and again, I saw reference to the Sky King god that they said this man had to believe in (he expressed no religious affiliation, although some seemed to know it). I had seen such references before to the sky king, and always they are associated with contempt for those with such beliefs. Leaving the article aside, I thought, "aw, come on! As if you know anything! It is far more logical to have a creator of some kind in this world than for all its laws and our self awareness to just pop up out of nothing -something no experiment could ever prove," but then I caught myself. Yes, belief in a sky king does have a lot to do with our problems.
It is not that there is no God - of Its existence I have no doubt - but of what "It" is. Outside of many forms of Buddhism, the lower-level beliefs of every religion I can think of anthropomorphize God (or the gods). In the Western traditions (including Islam), we have made of "It" a sky king, just as the sneering commentator said. The inner traditions - the saints of Catholicism, for instance - know better, but for the laity as for most priests, God is a great Father up above. This belief is fostered because we usually need a reference, a foothold, to get a handle on spirituality. Even the amorphous "nirvana" of Buddhism has at its center the holy being of the Buddha, a once-living man. Such humanization is necessary for most to direct attention to the spiritual, but does NOT adequately encompass the spiritual (as Marshal McLuhan said, the map is not the territory). When it is taken to do so, as most of us simply have to do, it leads to distortion. It leads to the sky king, and our wrong-headed expectations from this all-too-human superman.
In other words, in my pity fest, I was arguing with the sky king, just as a brat would with his father at Christmas, when the toy he wanted wasn't under the tree. Yes, I know that even the sky king works in mysterious ways, but in most of our minds he is still dad. He should still grant us our wishes.
But that's not what God is. On the one hand, it is true that we live every moment through the will of God, and from that alone we should be eternally grateful. God owes me absolutely nothing. In fact, God knows, just as the real father does, that getting what I want could be the worst thing for me (a age nine, I wanted fireworks). But there is much more than that. The destiny of life, for instance, is not about fame or impressing one's neighbor. It is not about having the kid who goes to Harvard or about the big 401K. It is about - if I can put it such - sacred knowledge, about knowing who we are, and in that, knowing what God is. And as the saints and prophets and wise men from all lands know, God is not the sky king. The sky king is only a metaphor, which keeps our eyes to the deep, to the eternal that we see in the sky, but it is not IT. To take the concept literally is to fall short. It allows one to get snooty, holier-than-thou (although many an atheist can do that without the sky king, as the comment section above showed) and, sometimes, pissed off at a dad who will not see things our way, no matter how we cry.
The religions in general point us in the right way. Better a sky king than the self as king. But better still to go deeper and find what those few have found - or to at least understand that our concepts of God all fall short.
Lesson to me: don't expect anything. Hope for everything, but don't whine when you don't get it. You are living by a miracle of will and until you understand it in essence, don't think you know what you should have, or what you deserve. Instead, stand in awe and hope that understanding comes. FK
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