Of course it had to be. The last blog was to be only about UFO’s and the bearers of its weirdness, and it ended up spiritual-religious. Again. It was not my intention, but that’s the way this bus is rolling.
And so it will roll today, because we have just finished another religious retreat, which is something of a brain-washing session. But there is no equivalency with it to Kim Jong Un’s little paradise, because you can leave at will and you really, really WANT to be brainwashed because you really, really want to get the desired results – a glimpse at ultimate reality. In comparison, Kim’s reality is the ultimate in superficiality, what we at the retreat are running from. Whether his ‘People’s Republic” wins gold at the Winter Olympics or not is ultimately unimportant – they, even Kim, are still slaves.
But I digress; what happens to one on retreat depends on one’s time in life, but I do believe two things happen to everyone who goes along with the program: one, they get a deeper sense of the spirit they seek; and two, they also get a deeper sense of how far they usually are from that spirit.
I will exhibit my own case, which is the only one I really know, beginning with what happened on the third day, which was the Big Day (as the third day often is in Christianity). It was in the morning, when a large crystal bowl filled with water (the living water of life – all sorts of symbolism there) was placed towards the front, or altar, of the church and sanctified (made into holy water) by the priest. This was to be our renewal of baptism, and one was supposed to stand before it and perhaps touch the fingertips to the water to cross oneself, and then let the spirit come in. For me, as I suppose for most everyone there, it did indeed come in.
Here’s the thing, though – it comes in differently, both to the same person at different times, and to different people. For me this time, it came as subtle deliciousness, like frothed icing on a cake. Light of touch, I could sense that everything was filled with a luminous meaning; that is, that our reality radiates a deep knowledge that surpasses language, and that it is filled somehow with light itself. It was not intense – it was not some cosmic mind-blow like I had gotten from some hallucinogens in my youth, but tantalizing and, well, almost tasty, as if to say: “This is only the beginning. Stick around and you get to eat the cake, too.”
Are you kidding? Could I get more hooked? And why, oh, why would I not want to deepen this dependency, for it is exactly what I have wanted from the days I took up anthropology and the study of comparative religions. I had not really wanted to be a scholar, I understood, but to be a participant. I was only searching for my own way. As with UFOs, I had always wanted to believe - and not to just belief, but to live inside the belief.
Ah, but then there is that other side. With this sense of light – it is usually called the Holy Spirit – also comes a sense of purity, of perfection. When I got home that night, I opened the garage door and, because of the snow that had piled up against the door and melted, was immediately spattered with dirty water. I said, “Oh for Christ’s sake!” and then had to laugh – this, a note of blasphemy, was blemish number one from the pure time of the spirit. Oh well, I thought, it was unintentional, and it seemed clever to reflect on how easy it is to slip back into the common world.
But when I turned on the TV to catch up on the Olympics, this reflection on impurity no longer seemed clever of funny. Ads blared out, and they were so obviously manipulative, however wholesome some seemed to be. Look at that healthy and happy family: if you had what they had, maybe you, too, could be healthy and happy and normal! Other ads virtue-signaled with homosexual couples, people with tats and piercings galore, mixed-race couples, and a girl (?) who could have, maybe, was a guy, but who could tell? Regardless of what one thinks of these situations (racism, for instance, is against most Christian teachings), the exploitation was obvious and dark. Buy our product and be hip and non-judgmental!
All adults know of this exploitation in ads, but we usually don’t think of what it does to us. From a perceived state of near-purity, I could tell easily – it was written on my face, for my mouth had turned into a cynical smirk. I had been brought back into the real world just like that, and the greatest fault of it was my own. I had allowed myself to fall back into the same old tired pattern. I would then go out and spread this cynicism, and on and on it would go. The world would be luminescent no longer, but smirched and tainted, with only occasional glimpses of beauty flashing out from behind clouds or through snow-covered pines.
The news is worse. We have to harden ourselves to what we are presented with or we would wither away in horror, but that leaves us with hardened hearts. We also have to protect ourselves from mindlessly viscous people, or crabby people who might sometimes be ourselves. We live in a dark world, but again, it is primarily ourselves who are responsible, for to live under this cloud, we must first accept this darkness – and we do, out of ignorance and for fear of pain or loss.
What we need, then, is courage and knowledge. Both are reached through experience of the true (universal) spirit, through whatever religion, or practice, or random act of grace that will deliver it. We need the courage to allow ourselves to be hurt or ridiculed because we know the truth, and we need the knowledge that this truth brings, the knowledge that the world, that all of us, are born from light – that all of us are part of one great, beautiful whole; and that our darkness is superficial, banal, a coarse paint job over gold, sent by some negative or evil force to deceive.
We must find this spirit to truly live, but it comes and goes like smoke in the wind. And so, we need further courage – to not only find this truth, but to embrace it, even as it fades behind ads and bad news and general nastiness. This courage is called faith; and that is why it is the noblest of virtues, for it makes us whole even as we live in this world.
It is also the most difficult of virtues. People fast, people abstain from sex and diversion, but faith: even the apostles lost faith after all those miracles, after all that time living with the very embodiment of truth.
And so something is needed: a renewal, a retreat, a lone pilgrimage, a routine of daily prayers – something that will hold our faith after the holiness has left us - for the world will only change when enough of us keep the faith, when enough of us relive the presence of spirit so that we might bring it home, at last to stay.
And so it will roll today, because we have just finished another religious retreat, which is something of a brain-washing session. But there is no equivalency with it to Kim Jong Un’s little paradise, because you can leave at will and you really, really WANT to be brainwashed because you really, really want to get the desired results – a glimpse at ultimate reality. In comparison, Kim’s reality is the ultimate in superficiality, what we at the retreat are running from. Whether his ‘People’s Republic” wins gold at the Winter Olympics or not is ultimately unimportant – they, even Kim, are still slaves.
But I digress; what happens to one on retreat depends on one’s time in life, but I do believe two things happen to everyone who goes along with the program: one, they get a deeper sense of the spirit they seek; and two, they also get a deeper sense of how far they usually are from that spirit.
I will exhibit my own case, which is the only one I really know, beginning with what happened on the third day, which was the Big Day (as the third day often is in Christianity). It was in the morning, when a large crystal bowl filled with water (the living water of life – all sorts of symbolism there) was placed towards the front, or altar, of the church and sanctified (made into holy water) by the priest. This was to be our renewal of baptism, and one was supposed to stand before it and perhaps touch the fingertips to the water to cross oneself, and then let the spirit come in. For me, as I suppose for most everyone there, it did indeed come in.
Here’s the thing, though – it comes in differently, both to the same person at different times, and to different people. For me this time, it came as subtle deliciousness, like frothed icing on a cake. Light of touch, I could sense that everything was filled with a luminous meaning; that is, that our reality radiates a deep knowledge that surpasses language, and that it is filled somehow with light itself. It was not intense – it was not some cosmic mind-blow like I had gotten from some hallucinogens in my youth, but tantalizing and, well, almost tasty, as if to say: “This is only the beginning. Stick around and you get to eat the cake, too.”
Are you kidding? Could I get more hooked? And why, oh, why would I not want to deepen this dependency, for it is exactly what I have wanted from the days I took up anthropology and the study of comparative religions. I had not really wanted to be a scholar, I understood, but to be a participant. I was only searching for my own way. As with UFOs, I had always wanted to believe - and not to just belief, but to live inside the belief.
Ah, but then there is that other side. With this sense of light – it is usually called the Holy Spirit – also comes a sense of purity, of perfection. When I got home that night, I opened the garage door and, because of the snow that had piled up against the door and melted, was immediately spattered with dirty water. I said, “Oh for Christ’s sake!” and then had to laugh – this, a note of blasphemy, was blemish number one from the pure time of the spirit. Oh well, I thought, it was unintentional, and it seemed clever to reflect on how easy it is to slip back into the common world.
But when I turned on the TV to catch up on the Olympics, this reflection on impurity no longer seemed clever of funny. Ads blared out, and they were so obviously manipulative, however wholesome some seemed to be. Look at that healthy and happy family: if you had what they had, maybe you, too, could be healthy and happy and normal! Other ads virtue-signaled with homosexual couples, people with tats and piercings galore, mixed-race couples, and a girl (?) who could have, maybe, was a guy, but who could tell? Regardless of what one thinks of these situations (racism, for instance, is against most Christian teachings), the exploitation was obvious and dark. Buy our product and be hip and non-judgmental!
All adults know of this exploitation in ads, but we usually don’t think of what it does to us. From a perceived state of near-purity, I could tell easily – it was written on my face, for my mouth had turned into a cynical smirk. I had been brought back into the real world just like that, and the greatest fault of it was my own. I had allowed myself to fall back into the same old tired pattern. I would then go out and spread this cynicism, and on and on it would go. The world would be luminescent no longer, but smirched and tainted, with only occasional glimpses of beauty flashing out from behind clouds or through snow-covered pines.
The news is worse. We have to harden ourselves to what we are presented with or we would wither away in horror, but that leaves us with hardened hearts. We also have to protect ourselves from mindlessly viscous people, or crabby people who might sometimes be ourselves. We live in a dark world, but again, it is primarily ourselves who are responsible, for to live under this cloud, we must first accept this darkness – and we do, out of ignorance and for fear of pain or loss.
What we need, then, is courage and knowledge. Both are reached through experience of the true (universal) spirit, through whatever religion, or practice, or random act of grace that will deliver it. We need the courage to allow ourselves to be hurt or ridiculed because we know the truth, and we need the knowledge that this truth brings, the knowledge that the world, that all of us, are born from light – that all of us are part of one great, beautiful whole; and that our darkness is superficial, banal, a coarse paint job over gold, sent by some negative or evil force to deceive.
We must find this spirit to truly live, but it comes and goes like smoke in the wind. And so, we need further courage – to not only find this truth, but to embrace it, even as it fades behind ads and bad news and general nastiness. This courage is called faith; and that is why it is the noblest of virtues, for it makes us whole even as we live in this world.
It is also the most difficult of virtues. People fast, people abstain from sex and diversion, but faith: even the apostles lost faith after all those miracles, after all that time living with the very embodiment of truth.
And so something is needed: a renewal, a retreat, a lone pilgrimage, a routine of daily prayers – something that will hold our faith after the holiness has left us - for the world will only change when enough of us keep the faith, when enough of us relive the presence of spirit so that we might bring it home, at last to stay.
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