One Extreme to Another

The last post concerned a tarot card, not something I believe in, but an interesting little diversion. I don't think that any one "thing" can predict the future, and if you need to be told what you're like (i.e. what card are you?) then you've got other problems that need addressing. Or at least that's my take on it, and I'm a judgemental sort so don't go getting all in a knot because I think you've got issues because you need someone/thing else to tell you about yourself.

Today's topic instead concerns The Church, and you know that if I capitalize it, that I mean The Holy Roman Catholic Church, an institution to which I belong and which I attend regularly. My children attend a Catholic school that is attached to the church we attend. We go to the early mass on Sunday mornings, because what the hell, we're up anyway, it's finished early and we can get on with the day. If you're reading this and thinking "Oh! a found member of the flock! We can talk about The Pope! about finding Jesus in your heart!" (and why I think enthusiastic Christians/Catholics only speak in excalamations I don't know).

You would be far, far from the truth, however, if you believed me to be a card-carrying Christian. Now I think that it's quite possible that Jesus existed, seeing as there's a fairly detailed book out there all about his life and times, however, I do not for an instant believe that he's the only teacher that's ever existed, and that there haven't been some outstanding spiritual teachers both before and after his existence. So let's get the first thing straight: I don't accept Jesus into my heart as my one and only true saviour, although he's pretty good and there's a lot of documentation regarding his words and what he preached. Sadly, not very many people read everything that he preached, and the bibles in print now also make things very easy, they take out the "difficult" language and put in simple words that may or may not capture the essence of his teachings. There's no way to tell except to go back to the original documents, and that's mostly not possible. So a lot of what was said has been reinterpreted, rewritten...oh, and all by men. Which is great, if you're a man. Not so good if you're not, and I happen not to be, so I take a lot of what's in the bible (both old and new testaments) with a grain of salt or two. After a while, you get to liking salt quite a bit when you're immersed in the bible, and then that salt business gets rather tired.

Okay, so the first premise is that I'm not a particularly stellar Christian. I do the Christian things, I do Christmas and Easter for example. I like a good leg of lamb at Easter, and a goose or some other fowl that isn't turkey at Christmas. I let my kids say grace at every meal because they think it's fun. And I go to church.

I love going to church, but I love it for all the "wrong" reasons. I love it because it is utterly steeped in pagan rituals, from the chanting of the Lord's Prayer and the Apostle's Creed, to the little prayers and rituals that the priest performs before he takes the host and the cup of wine. Standupsitdownkneel? ritual. Singing? Just another form of chanting, although sometimes the hymns have rather dour lyrics and aren't particularly uplifting. When we baptized the kids I could not believe how pagan it all seemed. At the time we hadn't been attending church at all, and we've gone from never going to going every week and sometimes more than once a week. Here we are at the cusp of Christmas, and you can be that since Christmas eve falls on a Sunday, we're going to church twice, plus Christmas morning. Can you say fanatic?

No, but what you can say is I love a good spiritual experience, and I'm addicted to ritual. And maybe pagan has been the wrong word here, but some aspects of attending the church have definitely felt that way. One things I've noticed is that I think that the Catholic church (and probably every other Christian sect) could use a healthy dose of non-attachment (cue the Buddhists). The main message in Christianity is "let Jesus into your heart, let him guide you through life etc etc...." although I guess the etc. part is probably not accurate, but you get the idea. At the same time, there seems to be no balance, it's all or nothing all the time. If you don't do it right, you've sinned. We all sin, all the time. I can live with that, and I have the advantage that if I go to confession, I get the opportunity to clean the slate and start again. Thing is, as quickly as one leaves the confessional one is on the way to sinning...but this isn't my point. What I really think is that, if at all possible, those of the Christian faith should really take some time, meditate, sit somewhere and ponder, not Jesus or God, but a foray into nonattachment in order that the acceptance of Christ becomes more attainable. If that's what you're after, that is, because you may find, once you clear your mind...and oh it's so easy haha...that Christ is not so easy to follow. His words weren't so simple and his ideal is a really, really difficult act to follow. Even getting to the point of being able to accept the teachings without being attached to them would take years, and I suppose that this is an issue for Christianity, especially because quick conversion (hello missionaries!) is one of its mainstays.

Nothing spiritual is easy. Simple perhaps. The edicts for Christians are simple: follow Christ, "be a Christian", all is well. And I am using Christianity because I have experience with that, not because I think it's the best path, and I actually don't think it's the best path, as stated above.

I have a lot more to say about this, but I should post it already and get some actual work done.

I made myself into a crystallographer because a friend of mine who was doing her PhD a little before me suggested that above and beyond being a synthetic chemist, I should think about having a secondary, necessary technical skill that would make me indispensible somehow. Her specialty was nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, her "supplement" to being a synthetic chemist. Nowadays we all cross boundaries, and nobody is simply one thing or another. The dividing lines in science have all softened so that we can cross over or go down the hall or across campus to ask someone something we don't know. and then we collaborate, and we do this across the country, across borders, as necessary.

So now I'm a chemist, but I never call myself a crystallographer, I let other people do that.

I'm a lot of things and I try not to be stuck with any one label. I knit, for example, and I knit quite well, but I'm not particularly interested in designing. Not that I can't, and not that I haven't, but mostly that it takes a long time and I don't have a lot in the way of spare time. And this then inspires the question: why do the blog, if you don't have spare time?

Why do this? I am doing it because I want to write things, keep a record. Right now I feel like putting my opinions out in public. I may not always be motivated to do this, but I am motivated to do it right now. I don't know why. Exhibitionist? Possibly. Curiosity? Perhaps. A public forum...inasmuch as a blog is public if no one is actually reading it...is not a threat if it's an anonymous public forum. Therefore the "no names" policy on here. I won't name names because no one has given me their permission to use their names or information about them. And so I can be Hilary, and my best friends and family will get their monikers as the need arises, and I probably won't talk about where I work except in a very roundabout way or to rant about something stupid, and I won't tell you very much about my children except that there are two of them.

And this introduction stuff will stop soon.

on the news:

I am watching the liberal leadership campaign here on the CBC, and Michael Ignatieff has just given the last speech of the night. It will be interesting tomorrow; Ignatieff has been the leader in this race for a while, but I really, really prefer Bob Rae. First ballots run tonight, and there are rumours that Joe Volpe will cross to Bob Rae's camp, pulling Rae up closer to Ignatieff. Now, as far as Gerard Kennedy and Stephane Dion, who are tied more or less for third...hell, I'd rather see any of them rather than Ignatieff. And Ignatieff is really smart, and I do love the smart boys, but he's been out of the country for most of his adult life, and I don't believe that, outside of his own invented foreign outlook, he really knows the country very well.

As far as the politics go, and descriptions of the Liberal convention and its eventual outcome, Rick Mercer does a far better and far more entertaining job than I'll ever do. He was there after all. (Dec. 5/06)