spirituality

Yes I made up the word spearichewallity, how’d you know? Yes I am going to write about all that “out there” stuff; religion, spirituality, beliefs (or lack thereof), etc. I don’t plan on getting too deep into this, just want to make a simple observation on how our modern culture is handling faith.

YOUR UMMM….. A WHAT?

We have a problem on our hands. It would seem that our  culture has reached a point of  almost complete spiritual blindness, all the while believing we are “evolving” into a new “enlightened” state of being. Many of the so-called “progressives” are operating on the belief that a new “age of Aquarius” (or whatever pseudo-prophetic soup-o’-the-day)  will usher in a new dawn of enlightened people that are loving, tolerant, environmentally aware; and just so much better than the “old” people. The “old” ones who based their thinking on a Christian outlook. These “new” thinkers completely disregard that the christian world view is the foundation of western civilization, and that it is the most “successful” civilization that has ever walked the earth.

ROUGH BEGINNINGS…BUT GOOD FOUNDATIONS

I am not saying that all of the people who contributed to western thought were good christians, or even christians at all, but it was christian morality that philosophically anchored the entire endeavour of a just society. It was christian thinking that pushed back the ignorance of “magic” to find the “creator in the clockworks”, believing that the Designer followed his own rules. I know that many would point out the political debacles of the church suppressing science, deciding that the sun MUST go around the earth and all that, for the moment lets just call them growing pains. You can see how one can get lost in this debate, considering all the animosity toward christianity today, so I’m going to just jump to the point of this post and talk about spiritual blindness.

I think the best way to illustrate my point is to refer to a book by C.S. Lewis, a very astute christian apologist and writer, called “The Screwtape Letters”.  In this book Lewis uses fictional correspondence between an upper echelon demon (Screwtape) and his demon nephew (Wormwood).  Wormwood is an underling assigned as a tempter to humans on earth, Screwtape is mentoring him on the finer points of tempting. The novel was excellent as a means to show the interplay between good and evil, the Designer and the destroyer, challenging a readers worldview. I think, however, Lewis was a visionary. Lewis wrote his books in the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s but I think ol’ C.S. could see the trends in modern thought. He could see the path that our society was taking (try reading “The Abolition of Man” with an open mind sometime) and he pretty much nailed modern “progressive” spearichewallity.

In one section of the novel, Screwtape is lecturing Wormwood about the advantages and disadvantages of humans believing in demons vs. believing that all spiritual stuff is nonsense. Wormwood writes that, for the present, the policy of the “lowerarchy” (hell) is to suppress all spiritual knowledge in order to befuddle the humans. Wormwood then opines how, with that policy, they cannot spiritually tempt the humans with magic and the like. Wormwood then goes on to talk about the perfect spiritual situation that hell was trying to engineer into humanity, the age of the materialist magician. Here is Wormwood’s explanation: (read it in Churchil’s voice)

“I have high hopes that we shall learn in due time how to emotionalise and mythologise their science to such an extent that what is, in effect, belief in us, (though not under that name) will creep in while the human mind remains closed to the Enemy [God]. The “Life Force,” the worship of sex, and some aspects of Psychoanalysis may here prove useful. If once we can produce our perfect work–the Materialist Magician, the man, not using, but veritably worshipping, what he vaguely calls “Forces” while denying the existence of “spirits”–then the end of the war will be in sight.”– C.S. Lewis “The Screwtape Letters” (note to self: youtube a Churchill speech)

STANDING FOR NOTHING AND FALLING FOR……WHATEVER

I think we are at this point. We have been taught for generations now, about mysterious forces. All our modern culture is filled with a combination of angry atheists, declaring that our whole existence is just a random product of biology; that we are just sacks of meat living out a pointless existence. God is dead and all that. Life is just a series of electro/chemical pulses that will soon rot.

The other side to that cultural coin are the mysterious forces. Shall I list them? E.T. , X-files, X-men, close encounters (of whatever kind), star trek (think of all the pseudo science “forces”), all the “ghost” stuff, all the “indigenous-peoples-earth-power-symbolic-power-wisdom-power” stuff, all the pseudo spearichewall “wow-maybe-it’s-not-all-about-biology” earth-power-spinning-stars, candles, chanting monks, depth with no depth; black holes, blah, blah,blah. OK maybe I get a little “blasphemous” at this point, at the very least I’ve ruined a lot of popular entertainment.

The point is that there is depth to the human experience. I’m not sure why there are so many angry atheists running around (why are they so angry at something they don’t believe in?) trying to convince people that we’re all just 3 dimensional meat sacks. The majority of the population (throughout history) believed otherwise. Most folks can sense that there is much more controlling us than some fabled vestigial impulse left over from our supposed evolutionary past,a  herd instinct, if you can believe. Leave the lizard brain in the desert and the monkey brain in the jungle, mankind needs to own up to our own failures; quit blaming the animals. All of creation groans since the fall of man.

This cultural double vision is a creative force to influence that strange declaration of this brave new world; “I’m spiritual but not religious“. That statement, for me, is devoid of meaning (and kind of moronic). More on that later. The people who are the candidates for Lewis’s “materialist magicians” treat  spirituality as a smorgasbord. Heaps-o’-the spearichewall to be sampled by any individual looking to be comforted by a pseudo depth to their shallow personality, or they just follow what is fashionable in pop culture.

THE YELLOW SUBMARINE, AFTER STOPPING IN INDIA, GOES……….

If the beetles idolizated the hindu religion that’s good enough for them. If Madonna makes the cabala cool, it’s cool; for awhile. I disparage no honest hindu, buddhist, or whatever, in their own quest for truth (besides thinking they missed it by a bit). However I find myself feeling a shortness of patience with people that cherry pick beliefs from a multiple of ideas, and then think they’re now plugged into a universal power. These folks then think they have become a beacon for truth. It’s like coming out of a cave somewhere and welding a wheel to a computer, drenching it in liquid antibiotics; and declaring yourself a lighthouse of science and technology. To anyone serious about faith, it’s absurd.

Let’s analyze the “progressives” love affair with the hindu/yogi stuff. The hype in the west is that if you bow to this belief system, it makes you this deeeep, compassionate, enlightened, hip, loving individual. You are now in contrast to all the narrow traditionalist types, you’re ready to accept all goodness, softhearted to a universal truth and compassionate to the downtrodden. You do yoga moves and hang with enlightened, loving people; you’re certain you’re going to fart a rainbow in the near future. But take an honest look at the hindu belief. They have a rigid caste system. They didn’t ask for the attention of the western idols, but it was good money.  The reality is the hindu enlightened have been stepping over the bodies of the “under caste”  for eons. The working poor can’t even afford enough fuel to properly cremate their dead; and end up hurling the remains of half burned relatives into the “holy” Ganges River. The hippies didn’t bang that one out on their tambourines; doesn’t fit the narrative. The lower castes were not on the beetles concert itinerary, it took a catholic nun to touch the untouchables of India.

WHY CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG

Mankind has tried the “multicultural” spiritual tactic in the past, the drawing of all belief into a single system that satisfies all. Think of the Roman pantheon of gods and demigods, also the religious openness of the babylonian empire; man’s idea of consolidating the power of faith in order to fuel a great society. One can find the Creators view of such systems, it’s in the guide, the stories are there for all to read. The quest to unite all beliefs, or simply make a spiritual buffet for people to pick and choose is an old story, not a new “enlightened” one. I could say that the Designer of the universe became perturbed and blasted such systems with His heavenly magic, but the truth is he didn’t need to, the inevitable destruction of a spiritual democracy is built into the design of reality. Let me explain:

C’MON MAN…..GET REAL

If one is honest about reality, and all the hard truths of who we are, and how much we wish we were different. Always trying to work our way into something better; only to see it all fall apart in front of us. We can try to detach from this, meditate (or medicate) our way to a different existence, buuuut that’s just playing peek-a-boo with absoluteness. All religions are expressions of these: trying to understand reality, or, trying to harness a power to change reality, or, trying to pretend reality doesn’t exist. We’ve been on this endeavour as far back as we know. The world’s  religions are ancient, many have been “not nice” much of the time, some have been downright evil; some still are. A person can learn  much by examining the varying beliefs, in the end somebody will be right. You get to pick, it’s called free will. Cool eh?

If, however, you are of the “spiritual, but not religious” school; it only shows your spiritual ignorance. History is carpeted with temples built and levelled, men have bled and died for what they believed.  Our language is full of the wisdom of great religious speakers, lights have been shone into the darkness, scrolls have been written and mistakes in belief of interpretation have been wept over. All these different belief systems have been forged in the fires of time. Now, here comes miss “spearichewall, but not religious” looking for cute spearichewall things to put in her basket, and mister earthy, looking for abstract spearichewall  stuff to impress her, what is their true motivation? It’s. all. about. them.

TESTING TO DESTRUCTION

Oh, I know, there is plenty of selfishness practised in all religions. There are myriads of religious megalomaniacs littered throughout history. Religions conquered, or were used as a weapon to conquer. Religions have been used as a tool for control, they’re good at that.  However, at the core of most religions is the basic premise of a belief in some higher power. Something that is bigger than self. Something that will hold us accountable for our failures in righteousness, and rejoice in all that is holy and true. Most religions that go off their rails have rails to find again, they have a belief system that others can hold them accountable to.

Not mr. and miss. spearitchewall, they are making up their own system on the fly, whatever feels right. If they’re doing yoga on a mountain top, meditating in a tea house at sunrise, or doing a voodoo dance on an island; its about how connected they feel to a mysterious universal force. If the next day they want to do something shabby or shady (in order to get ahead in life), that’s ok. If such actions can’t be excused or explained away by their personal belief system, well, look at all the good feeling spearichewallity they’ve put away. It gives the individual special powers to look down on all poor un-spearichewall people, while not holding the “believer” accountable to anything concrete. Any rules are made up in the head, and can be changed daily. Imaginary “new”-age belief buffets have all the thrill, and non of the suck. The “universe” that these people “pray” to is no bigger than the circumference of their head, and holds only the  contents of their heart. In the end, they are worshipping themselves.

COULD WE GET BACK TO ME

Self worship is weak, baked into the bricks of a culture, it crumbles under pressure. Self worship is old, the fall of man was orchestrated by the sly, hissing words of “you can be a god“. Self worship is vulnerable, any false prophet (as long as he’s cool, spearichewall, and powerful), can pull a pied piper, and draw crowds of narcissistic followers. Self worship is destructive, the human soul can hollow out like a tree; it’s rotten core can cause a crash, while appearing green and attractive on the outside. Self worship, leads to, in the end, self hatred. That is why the worshipped among us, the movie stars and rock moguls, die in such blazing frenzies of self destruction. Man is not built to be worshipped, it’s not in our design parameters, it causes horrific consequences, to both individuals and societies.

I am a simple man, I hold no degrees in either theology or paranormal phenomena. I have a basic understanding of christianity, and have only lightly studied other belief systems. All that being said, only a fool cannot see that any society made up of individuals who believe in something greater than themselves; thrive. Any society of people that believe in the greatness of themselves (spiritual or not), have fallen. If I could be so bold, I will use examples from my own religion to finish this point, you can disregard or believe what you wish; it is truth.

THE DEVIL YOU KNOW

Lucifer (the designers masterpiece) fell due to the pride of self worship, Lucifer then tempted mankind into self worship and they fell away from the design. The guide is full of stories of men, who, once started down the path of self worship tumbled in spectacular ways. If things follow according to prophesy, mankind will be so spiritually blind, they will follow a dictator that will be in lucifers pocket. The total destruction of the

THE END…….and everyone lived,uhhh, ever after!

design will be the goal of Lucifer.  Then the Designer will intervene; it will be the end of the story. All who worship themselves will be granted their wish, they will occupy their own personal universe forever (do I need to use the word hell?) Those that sought out their creator with an open heart will have eternity to view the vastness of the “I AM” and his creation (need I say heaven?)

I will leave this topic now. I am not impressed with spirituality. Humans were designed to be spiritual beings in the beginning, but are now broken; Humpty Dumpty style. Men cannot fix themselves or each other, the designer enacted a plan for re-assembly in the end, on His terms. Redemption flows from Him throughout the story, it is enacted by a cross, an empty tomb, and a promise to return. The story stretches like a line through our history, as far back as written time goes…..take it for what you will. For me, I believe, I think, I study, and I leave these papers under a rock.

P.S.   You can leave a paper for me, I’m sure to circle back this way eventually. Don’t have to leave a name, just be civil. It’s my rock after all.