You Want the Truth? You can’t Handle the Truth!

That is one of my favorite movie lines from all time, and it was what popped into my head when I worried about how to continue my discussion on illusion. I thought of using “breaking bad”, but since the series just ended, I didn’t feel right usurping any searches that way. While I think the first instinct for most people is that they would really like the truth, to see it, know it and live it…I have to be honest and say that I don’t believe that for a minute.

I didn’t sleep much last night, and as I often do, I prayed hard that God may break any illusions that may hold me prisoner, and to bless me with even greater truth. And that is exactly what God did. Except not at first, at first there was just silence…so I turned on the TV, as I often do when I can’t sleep. As I pressed the guide on my remote, there was a movie on called “Desert Flower”, thinking that it might be an opportunity to get an answer to my questions, I watched it. It was about the life of Waris Dirie, a super model who suffered the humility of female genital mutilation, or female circumcision and became the world’s foremost crusader against it. I’m not shifting gears into this heroic struggle, but there was a point in the film, when she flashes back to when she was a three year old girl, playing and kissing her mother and the graphic horror of what happened when held by two woman who mutilated her without anesthesia . I sobbed long and hard, of course as a mother at what pain and horror that baby went through, and because of the horrible subjugation of women that still occurs around the world. Through my tears, though, I still wasn’t ready for sleep, so I kept watching T.V.

The movie that followed, was called “The Magdalene Sisters.” It told the stories of four young women in 1964 Ireland who labeled”fallen” by their families, were sent to Magdalene Asylums to suffer manual labor doing laundry and other penance as appeasement for their sins. The abuse and humiliation these young woman suffered all under the tutelage of the Roman Catholic Church, was just as painful to watch. Again, I don’t want to talk about that injustice right now either. Here was my uncomfortable truth: In this moment of time, I have it unbelievably easy, I have control over my body, my mind and my voice, and I won’t be punished for it. I am free to choose the life I live and choose what I want to believe, the operative word being “choose.”

While it is not perfect, my country allows me this freedom. I am grateful for it, and proud to live as an American citizen. Of course, that isn’t the greater truth. The greater truth is this; All of our voices matter. We, the people represent different ethnicity’s, religious beliefs, sexual orientations, socioeconomic status, intelligence and gender. That is why we have a republic, a representative government. Coming up with solutions that will represent all of us is tricky and hard. I think Congress has forgotten that fact. In this crisis I have become biased, and angry that one small group of people thinks that their voice matters more than anybody else’s. So I’m using my voice to declare loudly, “Knock it off! put your dicks back in your pants and pass a CR to reopen the government. Quit pointing the finger at each other and COMPROMISE! and that doesn’t include what has already been made into law and upheld by the court. DO A BETTER JOB. QUIT CLAIMING TO SPEAK FOR ONLY THOSE THAT THINK LIKE YOU DO AND TRY AND WORK FOR US ALL FOR A CHANGE…that is what we elected you to do.

To conclude, let me just say that I had to be reminded of how little power many woman have around the world before I was challenged to exercise my own. I will do better.

Shadow Masters

Plato, in his allegory of the cave, gives a perfect illustration of how we can become captive by illusions. As a result of believing the shadows on the wall to be true reality, the world becomes a fabrication, like the old tale of the Emperor’s invisible clothes. Like the fundamental assumptions that society believes often without question or in many instances fails to even notice, the world’s illusions seem to have snuck up on us slowly, so much so that it appears that we have lost the ability to distinguish between what is real and what is simply a shadow on the wall. What is most frightening, though, is the level of ferocity (even violence) with which we as individuals and as a society have chosen to hold on to illusions, rather than recognize, grieve, and surrender the deceptions we believed and then move upward and outward into the light.

It may appear to be the greatest of arrogance for me to tell you that you’ve been staring at shadows your whole life. So I won’t say it. Of course if your life is not hunky dory then you’ll have to draw your own conclusions as to the reason why, and let me suggest that the list begins with the primary source…yourself. The only claim of expertise made here will be from what I’ve learned as a fellow observer, one with the added vantage point of standing in the middle. Not only is there an equidistant view from where I stand, if I’ve been lulled into believing in shadows, the chances are pretty good that others have been lulled into believing them too. So if you see room for improvement in your life, then take a chance and read on. I won’t even attempt to tell you what illusions you may be staring at in shadow form. The starting point is to simply admit that you may have them. It will be your job to figure out what those shadows are. And let me tell you that when you do that, the chains dissolve away. There is no trick to escape, no enormous locks; it all centers on personal choice. Those first few steps in relative darkness are the hardest because it demands that you have faith in something that isn’t known yet. It’s after you take those first steps and go outside that you will understand the difference; the light makes it impossible to transfer one shadow for another, they are lost forever. But take heed to this warning: the process of escape usually really sucks. The pain is a necessary part, but like a painkiller I’ll try to dull it a bit. If you were able to accept the challenge and let go of all the rules you live by and live in cosmic anarchy for a while, then you’re already 10 steps ahead of everyone else.

One of the rules that I’ve adopted (post cleaning my own cosmic closet) is that things are not always what they appear to be, so making rigid judgments about any given situation doesn’t even factor into the movie in my head; when I have done so in the past, the result is most often catastrophic. Most people are aware on some level that what they see is often colored by who they are and what has happened to them thus far in life. What trips me up most often is not that things are something other than what they appear to be, but that I hold on to the judgments that I create about them (often rigidly) even in the face of knowing better. A shadow is a shadow, regardless of how articulate or insightful modern commentary is in trying to justify the truth of its existence. Real change happens in the heart. Any person can say they believe in something over and over, but if their heart isn’t willing to follow along, especially in terms of their behavior, then the chains will never be let loose making it impossible to move out of the darkness.

As an observer, besides using my native good judgment in determining at any given time when I’m living in the land of illusion, there is also a process I use taken from the rules of Evidence in the American Judicial System. One of the most basic rules of evidence is that only evidence that is relevant may be permitted, that is only that material which has the tendency to help prove the truth of the issue at hand. The most obvious relevant evidence would be something like a murder weapon or an eye witness to a crime. Even when evidence is relevant, though, it may still be excluded if the value of the evidence is outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues or misleading the jury. Other forms of evidence like hearsay: a statement made outside of the courtroom but is offered in court to prove the truth of the matter asserted; or character evidence: using a person’s character to prove that person acted in conformity to that character, may not be allowed because of the risk of unfair prejudice. The bottom line is that the rules of evidence are very restrictive because those who decide the case whether it be the judge or a jury deserve the kind of evidence that best leads to the truth.

Unfortunately, this kind of filtering isn’t necessarily applied when it comes to dispelling many of the illusions our culture lives by today. Look at how most of us receive information, especially from television. It is common to utilize deeply biased and second and third hand information to inform the public about an issue. It is also more and more common to attack someone’s character as a means of uncovering “the truth,” or to diminish the validity of their perspective. It appears that the means by which we prove the truth in our lives would never hold muster in a court room. Is it because the truth by which we live is less important than the truth that will prove us guilty or innocent?

There are three things that I have found helpful in destroying the illusions that pop up in my life: 1) coming to terms with the judgments of my heart, 2) steering away from that kind of evidence that distracts me from the truth and 3) refusing to engage in “king of the hill” behavior, meaning defending with such vigor those judgments/illusions I have that truth is forced to take the back seat to winning the argument. Have you ever had an argument with someone and fought to the death even though you knew full well that you were wrong? Just wanting to be right never got me anywhere, whereas shifting my thinking from a win/lose mentality to an exploration of what new information I may gain, has usually gotten me everywhere. Take a moment to listen to your innate good judgment and see if there is truth in what others are saying. Feeling super defensive is a sure sign that it is a crucial time to listen. Ego thrives on illusion. I’ve also learned, the hard way, that truth never prevails when the impetus to present an idea is rooted in fear (even if the fear is as simple as not wanting to lose the upper hand).

Although chances are also great that the other person doesn’t know what they are talking about either and are also just trying to win, when you remove the competitive element either the wind will completely blow out of the conversation (being there is nothing left for the other person to conquer) or you will find out the other person is really trying to make a point. There may even be the not so rare occasion when they weren’t listening to you anyway and just like to hear themselves talk. Even in these situations discovery may happen. The focus should not be on the other person, but on what your heart tells you in response to them. Face it change is hard…in Plato’s allegory, there were plenty of people who wanted to kill the messenger, the one who escaped the chains and wanted to share his expanded frame of reference. We often shoot down new information if it requires us to shift beyond what we believe at any given point. Holding onto shadows may be easier, but then one must accept the kind of darkness that will forever shield one from true illumination. Faith in light beyond the darkness is the only escape.

Why did Eve Eat that Damn Apple Anyway?

One of my own first experiences of following my sensibilities occurred early on in grade school. One day, when my teacher made an innocent mistake in pronouncing a classmate’s name, I raised my hand and corrected her. Much to my complete amazement she was furious and made me put my head in the desk to “suffer the humiliation of Eve.” The point of this little story is that my behavior was labeled “bad” for a reason that was rooted in one of the most pervasive assumptions (and one I was constantly plagued with) of all time—women are responsible for original sin, and as part of the punishment we should know our place.

The concept of Original Sin continues to slap women in the face in one form or another constantly. For the most part, my time in Catholic school was a testimony of penance for that very belief. For example, a priest once wrote my address on the board when I demanded to know where hell was. Please save the explanations. There is no parallel universe anywhere where treating a child like this would ever be acceptable.

So let’s take a look at the story that describes humanities’ fall from grace. Did Eve’s choice to eat the apple from the tree of knowledge warrant plaguing womankind with that kind of burden? Yes, she was disobedient, and yes, she convinced her mate to follow suit. What about Adam’s culpability, though? Eve had to contend with the serpent, pure evil; Adam just did what Eve asked him to do—how weak is that? (Remember that old maternal adage: if your friend jumped off a bridge would you as well? Well, Adam did.)

Eve suffered for her curiosity and then some, and Adam suffered for his weakness. There is no inference that Adam was charged with dominating Eve, the two of them were considered one body. According to the first Genesis story, man and woman were created at the same time and God gave dominion over the earth to both of them. It’s curious that most people only pay attention to the second creation story, where Adam is king of the world and Eve is made just to keep him company. It is clear that part of Eve’s punishment was that she would have an “urge” for her husband and be mastered by it—that appears to be an independent struggle for woman to contend with, not an excuse for gender subjugation. If anything, Adam’s punishment is the clearer representation of slavery; he is destined to toil and sweat until he returns to dust.

Perhaps Eve and Adam knew intuitively that it was time to move on to a place of individual choice, and with that choice they lost their innocence. Isn’t that the whole point of growing up though? In order to mature in wisdom we have to leave our childhood behind and take what we’ve been taught and try it on for size. So rather than getting too wrapped up in original sin and having woman bear the greater portion of it, perhaps it would be more productive to admit that both Eve and Adam made a choice that we have been living with ever since. Even from the church’s perspective that may not be such a bad thing. The Catholic Mass at the Easter Vigil has this to say about original sin: “Oh happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!” It is curious though: when the “sin” becomes a good thing, Adam gets credit for it and Eve isn’t even mentioned?

Focusing so much on the sin detracts from the great responsibility that humans were given: to subdue and cultivate the earth. The direction of the game of life had been set down. In order for humanity to be successful, it appears to me anyway, that men and women would have to use their inherently unique talents together: the power of dominion coupled with the grace to nurture the ordinary things that God made. The formula for this cosmic union is contingent upon male and female rising above fighting over which perspective is right, to embrace both perspectives as necessary to fulfill, successfully, the charge of God.

Another reason I bring up Original Sin as a fundamental assumption that desperately needs critiquing is that it still fuels one of the most pervasive myths that plague culture: that women are weaker and thus inferior to men. There are those of you who may think that statement is inaccurate, but really, look around you; there is evidence everywhere of that belief regardless of what level of consciousness you’re coming from. How many women are in “high places,” positions of power? Even if you really believe that the place of women in the world isn’t inferior just different, you need only look at the way the law has treated woman in this country. One need only recall what some of the great jurists (even the fathers of our country) did to women legally, especially in terms of rights. Rather than assume that the subjugation of women is the natural order of things, I choose to believe it is not. But if not, how were masses of people led to believe that it was?

While studying theology as an undergraduate, I was aghast at some of the opinions the church’s greatest teachers had about women. Thomas Aquinas (the guy who pondered the number of angels that could fit on the head of a pin) said in his Summa Theologica, that every woman should have a man as her personal master, because her intellect is no better than that of a child or an imbecile. What is up with that? History has demonstrated that statement to be inaccurate. In all honesty, there have been more than a few men who’ve crossed my path that have defied accepted boundaries of stupidity. St. Augustine, one of the most influential of Latin Church Fathers and whose work created the foundation for western Christendom, had this to say about women (and it’s a gem): “women should not be enlightened or educated in any way. They should, in fact, be segregated as they are the cause of hideous and involuntary erections in holy men.” My response is the same one given to my sons when they point the finger at each other: “Don’t blame someone else because you can’t control yourself.” My utmost favorite though, is a church writer named Tertullian who said this about women: “You are the devil’s gateway, you are the unsealer of that (forbidden) tree, you are the first deserter of the divine law, you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack, you destroyed so easily God’s image, man. On account of your desert—that is, death—even the Son of God had to die”. Methinks there was a bit of sexual repression going on there. Even Martin Luther, a great reformer, believed that women were made by God to be wives or prostitutes. And don’t even get me started on the Puritans.

But what does a young, female theology student feel when she finds out that many of the founding fathers of western Christendom had pretty skewed views of womankind? Well, indignation at first, but there was also conflict because much of what these great men had to say was also brilliant. It was at this point when using common sense, my innate sensibility, regarding the truth of the matter was essential: 1) there are plenty of men who are less intelligent than me; 2) it certainly is not my fault that men cannot control their sexual appetites; and 3) an entire gender, who, by the way was also created in the image of God, isn’t the gateway to hell. These church fathers had great minds and were brilliant, yes, but like me were creatures of culture and human experience which made them most undeniably—fallible.

Herein lies the problem with our concept of great leaders and rule-makes: a majority of folk take every word, hook, line and sinker of what they say without using any discretion at all. Generally speaking, their edicts for their supporters are sacrosanct, and those who oppose them are often vilified. It’s black or white, with no amount of grey in between. There seems to be a certain amount of infallible mysticism that surrounds the rules they create. If they are brilliant and/or holy, then everything they say must be right and we must never disagree or criticize them. Later, when we’ve evolved beyond them, or we tire of them and a flaw or two is exposed, we chew them up and spit them out, or, if they die before we tire of them, we make them saints. Given that kind of attitude, how can the voice of a common student compare to the voice of the Church Fathers? Well, if David could defeat Goliath, why not? Seriously, if the names of the men who said those horrible things about women had been left out, wouldn’t it have been easy to write them off? There have been plenty of times when I thought the men in my house were demons sent straight from hell, but that is my problem and no reason to make it a sweeping generalization for the rest of mankind. We often vilify what we don’t understand, agree with, or are afraid of, because somehow on a deep level we do want to subscribe to the “there is only one true perspective” rule. I, however, find it necessary to dispel this fundamental assumption when ever the spirit moves me—needless to say, the humiliation of Eve never quite stuck.

It is by questioning assumptions that we often have to contend with many conflicting perspectives, some of which seem to fit and others that do not. It is during the process of questioning, though, that we can begin to recognize that inner voice, one rooted in being a completely unique person whose perspective is of no greater or lesser value than anyone else in the universe. What I share with others doesn’t have to be right or better than anybody else’s perspective, it just has to be mine. Have you ever been in conversation with someone and they pull out a masterful source from the Bible or the Constitution just to prove how right they are and how wrong you are? Ultimately, both of the sources mentioned have always been subject to interpretation. It is a rarity to hear someone say, “I believe this way because it serves me personally” and just leaves it at that. Even though my inner voice may be inspired by my faith, it doesn’t mean that I have a better handle than anybody else on the mind of God or what God says to them. It is the process of sharing our ideas that keeps us moving forward. Sharing different ideas, regardless of who you are, should be encouraged rather than discouraged because you never know when another person’s perspective may be the needed ingredient for germinating an idea in someone else. When personal truths are shared, the world becomes a better place.

Let me tell you something else I learned about some of our rule-makers out there: that many of them are completely and utterly crazy. Throughout my life I’ve witnessed the amazing power crazy people have in establishing rules by which they demand others to follow. Most often people, (including myself) side step around them to avoid the scenes they create when we don’t follow the rules they set down. They come in many shapes and sizes, from some of the priests and nuns I had in school to people with substance abuse, or people who are generally miserable people and want to make sure the rest of us are made miserable too. None of us are on this planet long enough to abdicate our person freedom and follow the rules of crazy people who sap away sanity like syrup from a tree. Curiously, though, there is an upside to having crossed paths with all you sap suckers out there, because you gave me the opportunity to use and thereby hone my native good judgment.

So, back to the rules in respect to men and women, why can’t there be two equally respected perspectives? Why can’t we simply appreciate that reality is divided into two equal parts, like two sides of a coin? Well, besides equality and balance being absolutely no fun at all, with balance there is also no difference, no discord, and without difference there is no perceptual universe. If there were never any conflicts what reason would there be for any of us go beyond our limitations? If there were no darkness, could we truly know light? It’s the same dilemma with good and evil. Although the rules that I choose to follow may not be the same as yours, and many people in other parts of the world live according to a different rhythm, it doesn’t give me license to “live in my own private Idaho.” My own growth depends on bumping up against other rules and ideas that often run contrary to mine. That may sound a bit like I am contradicting myself, but just bear with me.

While studying Constitutional Law in law school, I was aghast at the lack of discussion that was encouraged about controversial issues, and in Con Law, there was a new one every day, from abortion to affirmative action. What saddened me most was that many class mates had their minds made up about an issue already and refused to even entertain the possibility that in actually listening to the “other side” they may be gaining a greater truth. The atmosphere became not one of learning, but of debating who was right. Inside the walls of a law school should be a forum for good intelligent discussion, a place to exercise the skills we were learning: to conflict with each other and in doing so achieve a greater understanding. Sadly enough, there may be a legitimate reason for societies’ mistrust of lawyers. The one thing I regret most about law school is that I didn’t take enough time to tell those students and teachers who had thought provoking things to say that I appreciated their insights because it challenged me to look at issues a little more broadly.

So although inequity exists and may be the natural order of things, it doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be my goal to abolish it anyway and actively engage in conflict with the intent to create harmony, even if the harmony is only internal. Because it was during my biggest struggles that truth often exposed itself and led me to seek an ever greater truth—inevitably leading to another conflict. Again, it all turns on perspective. One person may want to win and have their perspective prevail and happily remain ruler of their own little hill; another person may want to clash just to see what there is to learn in the process. It makes the most sense to me to choose the latter. The most important reason not to be too concerned about any controlling perspective is not only are they fleeting, regardless of who claims to be right at any given time, truth has a way of eventually prevailing anyway, like a phoenix rising out of the ashes. There is so much more out there that we, as human beings, have yet to discover that no one person can ever claim to have any complete answers. I believe that God has them, but the rest of us are a far cry from being “in the know” like God is. We simply have to get over the fear to engage in conflict.

As a result of not being in the know, here is another fundamental assumption about the game of life that proved to be inaccurate: that the rules should never change. The fact is that the rules change constantly, whether we want them to or not, as they should. As long as humanity keeps moving, discovering, inventing, loving, and hopefully evolving, the one thing we can be sure of is change. The ending of the game I play isn’t etched in stone; that is the great thing about free will. The rules I live my life by now are not the same as those that guided my life in my teens, twenties, thirties, forties and yes even my fifties. There may be a consistent theme in the rules I follow, but I’ve learned not to rigidly hold on to rules that no longer fit my life.

Let me stress that although there are certain fundamental rules that are necessary they aren’t always obvious. I’ve usually discovered what they were the hard way but at times there were a few people who were older and wiser that held my attention. And although there are lines drawn for the kinds of rules that help our world vs. destroy it, I can’t say, unequivocally, what they are. Throughout my life though, (usually by running smack dab right into a brick wall) I have picked up on some universal themes which are laid out at the end of this chapter. I am also aware that I can’t change another’s perspective any more than I can make pigs fly—with any level of concentration. For example, the men in my house won’t be transformed into clean freaks simply because I choose to believe that dirty underwear doesn’t belong on the kitchen floor. And although my opinions are made known to the men in my house, picking up underwear, laughing about bodily functions, and carrying the burden that it will always be my job to replace the toilet paper are things I’ve simply accepted, one, as a means to preserve my sanity and second, that men and women will always exist together and it would behoove us to try and get along.

So before you continue reading, let me offer a challenge: if you want to free yourself from the chains that bind you then suspend all your beliefs for a moment and try living by the seat of your pants for a bit. The Upanishads (Hindu scripture) says, “Whether we know it or not, all things take on their existence from that which perceives them”. When you’re done reading, go for it. Put on your old beliefs if they fit, but in order to see if the rules you are following fit the movie in your head, you should be willing to, at the very least, entertain the possibility that everything you think you know for sure right now maybe nothing more than a shadow created by someone else. Only you can bring to life the movie that is in your head. Then it becomes life as you see it, not how it has been told to you. Oh and one more thing, once I chose which rules I was going to follow, the responsibility of achieving my dreams was on me. Like the parable of the talents, God has given me a treasure, and it was up to me to go and make something out of it. That may sound like a big responsibility, but I try to think of it more as a golden opportunity.

Things that I know are true:

1) Things are not always what they appear to be, so pay attention and don’t judge too quickly—and by all means, have a sense of humor, especially when you’ve judged incorrectly.

2) Shit happens—and that can be a good thing.

3) One need not be perceived as an influential person to be a powerful influence.

4) What goes around comes around, or a slight variation: what ever you put out there comes back to you tenfold.

5) Love (or God) is a constant (like in math) and is greater than and is never changed by our perception—love is separate from and not defined by our expression of it.

6) The opposite of love is not hate, but fear

7) What is essential is invisible to the eye; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly.

8) Fame is not necessary for me to shape the world in a powerful way…no one, not even me need be conscious of it.

9) Real power has nothing to do with control.

10) Having faith demands that I let go (not give up) of an outcome; and doing that will almost guarantee things will work out.

11) Just because I cannot understand “why” now, doesn’t mean that I will never understand, sometimes I have to be open to looking at an issue from a multi-dimensional perspective.

12) Unexplained phenomenon is simply proof that I am continuing to evolve and that I don’t have all the answers yet.

13) Vengeance never brings peace.

14) Money is never a reason to do, or not do anything.

15) I may not control all that happens in my life, but I do control how I respond to it.

16) Destruction and death are essential elements in growth and life.

17) Things gained without lessons learned are empty successes.

18) Without God (love), I am nothing.

Native Good Judgement

The phrase “common sense” means native good judgment and is derived from the Greek koinē aesthēsis which refers to the total perception of the five senses. If you have senses, then those of you who read this have, potentially anyway, as much common sense as anybody else. The problem lies in the execution. Like any other gift, native good judgment must be exercised. Over my lifetime, my mother and father constantly challenged me and my siblings to use good common sense, and it’s never been easy considering the world we live in. I never forgot those simple edicts that came from my parents: “If you eat all that Halloween candy, you will get sick”; “If you wait until the last-minute to study, you probably won’t really understand the material and not do well on the test”; “If you treat your siblings like crap, crap is what you will get in return.”; “The most important lessons always contain some form of difficulty.” Those pearls of wisdom created a strong base for much of my decision-making as an adult, (that and scoring the 97th percentile in an aptitude test measuring common sense…which I’ve bragged about before). Common sense should also never be confused with intelligence-it is not the same thing. Some of the most intelligent people I know actually seem to be lacking in common sense. Like the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, they really should give diplomas for that kind of smarts. The scarecrow discovered that the only way to increase the wisdom of one’s native good judgment is not by always doing what one is told, but by figuring it out on ones own and actually taking personal responsibility for those choices that go awry.

Taking personal responsibility for the choices one makes and developing common sense are intimately connected. Unfortunately one can’t develop without the other. Based on what I observe in the world at large, be it politics or religion, common sense is on hiatus. It has simply left the building. And that is the root of much my of my anger and sadness about the world today.

While in college, I had the chance to study and to meet Lawrence Kohlberg, a professor at Harvard University who was well-known for his theory of moral development. In his theory, there are three levels of moral development with two stages within each level. Kohlberg also maintained that individuals could only progress through these stages one at a time, in order, without jumping any stage. The first level, termed “pre-conventional” is generally found in elementary school age children. At stage 1, (ages 1-5) children behave according to socially acceptable norms created by an authority figure. Obedience is compelled by threat of punishment. At stage 2, (ages 5-10) right behavior means acting in one’s own interest, “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine.” The next level, “conventional,” is where most of society lies. Beginning with stage 3 (ages 8-16) right choices are based on being a “good boy/girl or doing what will gain the approval of important others such as parents, teachers or friends. Stage 4 (ages 16 and above and if they reach it, where most adults remain) is defined by abiding the law and fulfilling one’s obligation of duty. In this stage, leaders are assumed to be right and individuals adopt social rules without considering the underlying ethical principles involved. People who break rules, deserved to be punished.

What I found most disturbing was Kohlberg’s conclusion that only about 20-25% of today’s adults (most in their late twenties) ever reach the last level of moral development, labeled “post-conventional.” In stage 5, people do recognize the underlying moral principles served by laws, and if a law no longer serves a good purpose, they actively work to change it through legal and democratic means. Respect for the law and a sense of obligation to live by the rules is still important, but an individual uses only legally acceptable means to make changes. Less than 1% of adults ever make a stage 6 moral decision. Kohlberg believed, theoretically, that civil disobedience was often how a stage 6 moral decision distinguished itself. In this instance, breaking a law in defense of an individual right can be justified. Martin Luther King, for example, argued that laws are only valid insofar as they are grounded in justice, and that a commitment to justice carries with it an obligation to disobey unjust laws and accept whatever consequences may come.

It is the kind of strength of conscience that defines Kohlberg’s sixth level that led me to conclude that developing one’s native good judgment is a necessary step in reaching the latter stages of moral development. It is by exercising and honing one’s native good judgment that acts as a moral compass in not only determining what rules we are going to live by, but gives an individual the internal fortitude and certainty to actually live by them.

In the Judeo/Christian tradition, we are taught that human beings are created in the image of God so the obvious conclusion is that we should have a great deal of faith in our native good judgment. If we are going to continue to evolve as human beings it doesn’t make sense to think that by questioning cultural rules we would encourage anarchy, rather, it should encourage just the exact opposite. It is often through questioning that truth itself becomes clearer and that clarity will ultimately shed light on what rules are working in each individual life. Of course any challenge to these rules most likely leads to conflict but, it was and still is from this kind of vantage point that I make most decisions to co-direct my destiny.

As I mentioned before, exercising the senses to develop that inherent native good judgment is a must. Lack of use weakens our ability to use them and leaves one vulnerable to outside influences. Of course, there are many reasons that all of us have, at times, chosen to disregard what we know to be true, subjecting ourselves to a whole other set of unhealthy rules. Catholic school taught me that they were the seven deadly sins: pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed and sloth. There are a host of others, to be sure, but these seven are as good as any. Knowing what rules serve a higher purpose doesn’t mean that I was always capable of listening to that inner voice and adhering to them—which is normal because sometimes the best way to learn is by making mistakes. Note the distinction between discovering what rules are good to follow and actually choosing to follow them; it is very important. Obviously, the proof is in what kind of choices we have made in our lives thus far and the people who influence us on a daily basis. However, the more adept we become at using native good judgment, the more difficult it becomes to fall prey to those deadly sins.

It would be inaccurate to assume that “proof” of using native good judgment will always result in being labeled “good” by society. In thinking of my own childhood a little poem comes to mind: “When I was good, I was very, very good and when I was bad I was clueless.” The ditty needed changing because sometimes challenging the rules means embracing the willingness to accept judgment as being bad. Being labeled “naughty” by some of my teachers perhaps was the inevitable result of not behaving as little girls should, meaning I always spoke my mind and never stopped barraging teachers with questions about things that were difficult to wrap my young brain around. Mind you, I never wanted to be bad; being arbitrary just didn’t come naturally. All I wanted to know, if I was expected to act a certain way, was the reason why. Perhaps one of the results of questioning the validity of the rules we follow is to turn up the volume on those innate sensibilities. So, what does this all mean in practical terms? Stay tuned…

Let the Games Begin!

For a moment, imagine the point in time when humankind’s consciousness became aware of itself. The phrase, “Let the games begin” comes to mind. From that point forward, complete with cutthroat competition for an elusive prize at the end, whether it be immortality or eternal life, humankind has been in a race against itself up the evolutionary ladder. Throughout history, humanity has also established cultural rules by which to play. The rules may not be listed as clearly as they are in a Milton-Bradley game, but they’re there. Face it; rules are important to any game especially when the stakes include life and death, and in many cases, heaven. I don’t have a problem with living by cultural rules, but I do take issue, however, with who made up the rules we are supposed to live by and what it takes to win. For the most part, history has been retold by a pretty select group of people, usually men of European background. Why is this fact important? Because there is a symbiotic relationship between whomever holds power, who records history and who has made up most of the rules. The result: defining the appropriate way to observe the world.

Because men have made up most of the rules simply means it has never been a level playing field for anyone that is not in this majority. Don’t get me wrong, I love men—a lot, so much so that I married one and gave birth to two. However, in order for me to embrace my full potential and become that unique ingredient in making a better world, it was and still is a necessity to challenge and question cultural rules, regardless of how far women have come in our historical journey, there is quite a distance left to travel. Dreams begin their genesis in a form that is as small as a mustard seed. And it is often the perimeters and basic assumptions created by cultural rules that are the biggest impediment to a dream’s development. As a woman, I am certainly aware of what impact they had on mine. It is sad to think of the dreams that may have died because they weren’t able to thrive a midst the rules imposed by one’s culture.

A favorite philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead, said that in investigating any philosophy of an era, there will be fundamental assumptions that adherents to that philosophy will presuppose, even if unconsciously. These assumptions appear so obvious that the people adhering to them don’t even know they are assuming them because putting them another way has never even occurred to them. These assumptions also color the way in which we observe the world. Eternity with God in heaven for those who follow the right rules and eternal suffering with the Devil in hell for those who don’t are two simple examples.

Since all of us are a part of, potentially, many different philosophical groups (religious, political, economic, etc.) it is important to ask what the fundamental assumptions of these groups are, and how are said assumptions translated into rules, and by following said rules, who exactly benefits? Perhaps the most important realization of our time is to consider the possibility that our assumptions about the world are deeply flawed or at least inaccurate, and by critiquing them, there may be a new way to see and appreciate our place in the world.

Essentially, the problem is not that there are conflicting perspectives but that there only seems to be one “right” one that should prevail at any given time. Whitehead also said that goodness and badness are relative to those fundamental assumptions endorsed by a ruling majority. Given that we all experience life differently, how logical is that? And although there are also perceptual inaccuracies based on race and sexual orientation, I am not the person to discuss them here. Since I am Caucasian, female, Irish, Christian and heterosexual, and this blog is about my observations, I can’t really speak to their perspectives. However, since male and female go beyond race and sexual orientation, and are universal to being human, hopefully anyone can resonate with some of the fundamental assumptions that exist, involving gender.

All of us are rooted in a gender that is male or female. While the argument regarding nature vs. nurture still exists, my own personal experience has shown me that biology does affect perspective. I tried to steer away from gender oriented toys when my sons were small, but no amount of influence on my part to raise them outside gender stereotypes could change the fact that they would rather sleep with a car than a teddy bear, they loved dirt more than anything, they figured out how to pee in the woods before the toilet, and no matter how hard I tried to keep guns out of the house, they made them out of anything else they could find. I don’t believe in the nature side of the argument in a definitive sense but let me remind you these are my observations.

Scaling it down to the simplest form, look at how gender rules surface every day. One need only look at the amount of literature that has been put out trying to help men and women understand one another. Since spending the last several years in a household of men, my husband, two sons, it has become even clearer to me that the world they observe isn’t at all like the one in my head, and is most often the source of conflict in our household. None of the men in my life think like me. (I’m not sure anybody does, but for the sake of conjecture let’s just say one of the reasons is because I’m a girl) They march to a completely different rhythm. The world for them appears to be just one big continuous playing field, one competition after another. The rules they live by are not the same as my rules. More than anything, a woman’s perspective regarding the rules of our household is not wanted or necessary for their happiness. They do, however, know what happens when I am unhappy…life can become pretty miserable. As a result, they choose to include my rules sometimes, not necessarily because their lives will be enhanced but just so that they get to live-period. And if on my small level, I have to fight to include my rules in our household, it isn’t surprising at all that our cultural rule makers still disregard women in general.

So, let me just describe my personal jumping off point in shaking the foundations of this historical king of the hill that society has been playing, so to speak (notice the game isn’t called queen of the hill). For a certain amount of time I held all rules suspended; not so much as an excuse to wreak havoc, but to use a girly metaphor, more to clean out my own cosmic closet and get rid of all the stuff that no longer fit or was, to put it bluntly, just tacky and outdated. Arguing in favor of any particular new paradigm that only benefits me and trying to shove it down anyone else’s throat will never work. The reason for starting here, challenging the established rules and assumptions of our present time, had a lot to do with my own personal development. It never made good sense to follow a lot of rules blindly, especially those that were oppressive, simply because I was born female.

Here again was my first step, and probably the most difficult: accepting the challenge to break away from my own belief systems and rules, and entertain the possibility that they may not have served me all too well, not just from a place of indulgence but of personal fulfillment. From this standpoint, there was absolutely nothing to lose except, perhaps, the realization that I might be wasting precious time. If your own life is hunky dory then stop reading right now, no harm, no foul. But if deep down in your spiritual self you also find there is a sense of discord created by the rules you’ve followed up to this point, then read on and try what I did. Personal beliefs should at least be scrutinized every once in a while, even if it only acts as a reminder of why we started following them in the first place. A function of free will is not to embrace matters of belief blindly; Jesus told us that “if you seek, you will find.”

It doesn’t seem logical that questioning the rules that control our lives would have any effect on real truth, especially if the questions stem from a desire to further understanding. It’s worked for me because I question everything (which contrary to my catechism teachers turned out to be a very good thing) and my faith in God, myself and humanity is even stronger as a result. Culturally, asking “why” after about the age of three usually labels you a trouble maker, and I’ve had to deal with that unfair moniker most of my life. Remember the phrase “misery loves company?” well, perhaps enlightenment loves it just as much; the kind of enlightenment that is predicated by artfully and continually asking questions. There is nothing greater than being in the company of people who want to know and understand as much as they can.

It never occurred to me to get hung up on the notion that even if an individual did disagree with some of the rules imposed by modern culture,that said individual lacked the power to do anything about it. No personal evolution can take place without individual choice regarding the rules that one follows. Changing cultural rules may not be easy, slavery and women’s suffrage being only two examples, but the alternative is to choose a life burdened by cultural rules that not only dash ones personal dreams but all the dreams out there that were dependent on your unique perspective. Has anyone ever told you that the world will be a better place for everyone if you were able to live your dreams? That my happiness may hinge on yours? I didn’t think so. Hopefully, by the end of this little essay you will entertain the possibility that there is everything you can do about changing cultural rules. So for now, don’t worry about changing anything, just take a deep look at what makes you tick, and let go of the rest.

So what does one do in the absence of any system of belief, live by the seat of one’s pants? Well, yes, I guess. What it boils down to is that people are inherently really quite sensible about which rules are good for them and which rules are not: whether we have the strength to listen to that sensibility and follow it is another matter entirely. In order to begin perceiving the world from a higher, spiritual place, it was necessary for me to master the inherent gifts God had given me. And let me tell you there have been plenty of times when I wondered if I had any at all—and that concern turned out to be a gift in itself because it forced to me to keep my eyes open and pay attention and embrace some good common sense…but I’ll leave that for next time

Let Go, Let Love

So how does one apply this immutable force in everyday life? Is there some sort of mechanism or practical application that can aid us in harnessing the power of love? Organized religion, whether or not it seems to be the most obvious choice, is only one place and it doesn’t always do the best job. It appears to have fallen victim to “there is only one true perspective rule.” Let me tell you that admitting that love may not be harnessed through organized religion, gives me a great deal of sadness.

The portrayal of love in literature lifts up and celebrates its bond between sex and desire, but as I learned in Catholic school, this dangerous mix also offers, potentially, a lot of sadness. I understand that love and desire can be a lethal combination, but if King Solomon and Shakespeare are correct, it can also greatly enhance human life. Another wise teacher told me this about love and attraction: “Attraction is like a beautiful coat. We are all brought into the world with a certain beauty, like a beautiful coat that catches a certain person’s eye. But it is, after all, only a coat merely attracting someone to the true essence of a person. Truly, how can a simple coat compare to the beauty that lies underneath?”

Seeing love as an immutable force also dispels another assumption I had about love: for love to be true, reciprocation is necessary. In fact, reciprocation should never enter the equation. In the First Letter of John, in the Christian New Testament I used to ponder this line: “Love, then, consists in this: not that we have loved God, but that God loved us and has sent his Son as an offering for our sins”. We should never choose to love expecting that it will be returned. Loving another should be open ended and fearless, for John continues, “Love has no room for fear; rather, perfect love casts out all fear. And since fear has to do with punishment, love is not perfect in one who is afraid.” 1 John 4: 7-9. When we love without fear, the consequence often inspires reciprocation but it is in no way contingent on it. Love should never be withheld when it isn’t returned because then love’s true power becomes squelched (just ask any parent). It was enduring the experiences of unrequited love where I learned the most about love’s true nature and was transformed as a result. Those experiences may have caused burns but it was also those experiences where I began to discover how to wield love’s energy effectively. Love is often most powerful when it continues to propel us forward even in the face of opposition. When you look at love this way, the phrase “love your enemies” begins to make a lot more sense.

As an individual, the most important insight that I gained through all my trials was that the power to love on my own would always be deficient, leaving me vulnerable to harm. With God, though, who, is love, my heart is augmented with a power that knows no boundaries. I’ve truly found that even with the limited capacity humanity has for a full understanding of its nature, when openly and embracing the love of God, we are transformed. For me, being burned isn’t so much of a concern any more because I have become flame-proof. That is quite a statement to make and I have never been quite as confident to say it as I am now. In consciously praying for God to assist my simple heart, I get results. I can’t explain it any more clearly than that, except to say for those of you who may believe that I’ve just embraced another illusion, that the results I get aren’t anything I could have foreseen. Of course there are always set backs, but the knowledge and experience of its power never goes away. It’s like riding a bike—once you learn how, you never forget.

As a parent, I also have the opportunity to experience love on an even greater level. Throughout the lives of my children, i have engaged in many things that as I single person I never would do, from boy scouts and camping, to endless amounts of time in my car and sitting on my ass while they fulfilled simple dreams. I always talk about life in crazy town, and with three men I have very legitimate reasons for saying so. But love is a little bit cray-cray. When we put personal desire aside for the sake of one we love, amazing things can happen. I was never transformed into a person who enjoyed the activities of the men in my house—in fact I still wouldn’t choose them for myself. Yet some how I am still renewed and transformed. It is hard to put it into words, but like the Grinch I really feel my heart grow 10 times its size, even if it is for just a few moments.

The discovery here may seem to be a simple twist of the language, but it really isn’t. If we are to harness the great power of love, it has to be done in the way love intends, not the way we intend it. This may seem paradoxical, at first. How can one harness something by relinquishing control? We can’t change the nature of love any more than we can change the nature of fire. We, as human beings, place way too much emphasis on what love should look like, rather than simply allowing it to propel us forward. In the face of that, remember, any expression is incidental. Opening my heart to love means forsaking all fear and trusting that some power greater than I, knows what to do. When love is the true conduit there is no mistaking the power that will flow through. It is truly empowering. In order for love to move us, we must place our own will aside, because there is too much risk of being burned if we don’t.

Thinking of the moments in my life where I felt love in its purest form move me forward, usually isn’t a Kodak moment. It usually meant reluctantly letting go of my personal will, and moving through the tightness in my stomach that meant I was moving into uncomfortable territory and watching what unfolded. The result was always amazing, even in a tough love situation. The clarity of those moments can never be questioned it is just so pure. When I allow the force of love, which for me is God, replace my small and imperfect heart, the power of those moments is truly death-defying.

My favorite Gospel is John’s. It is my favorite not so much because of his poetry, but because of the great lengths to which he goes to help us understand love’s true nature. For Christians, the death of Jesus on the cross is clear evidence of a love and devotion that continued even in the face of rejection by almost everyone. It also strikes at the heart of God’s attitude toward human beings. It isn’t the only story of a god so benevolent that he makes a sacrifice, but it surely is the best one (in my humble opinion). It also may feel like the love bar is set too high for us lowly humans. To utilize a power that strong may take some practice.

Love and Logic

So how can we be sure if love is present and is what propels us forward? Where do we go to find out what it really is so that we can begin the process of harnessing it? There are volumes of literature, music, psychology, philosophy and theology that have tried to depict what love really is. What more could I possibly say about love that would amount to a major discovery? Are there any new ways to talk about the true nature of love? Well, based on humanity’s past observations and experiences of love, we should be able to understand a few things about what it is and what it is not. So I offer another kind of construct or tool that may offer us a unique perspective.

Let’s start with a short discussion about love via logic and mathematics. During law-school, I was re-introduced to Boolean logic as a research tool. When searching for cases on West Law or Lexis, my classmates and I would use Boolean language which reduces words, mostly connectors like “and” and “or” to symbols. (search engines like “Google” and “Yahoo” also use this tool) George Boole, an Irish school teacher of the mid-nineteenth century, reduced logical statements to simple arithmetic by inventing an artificial language which reduced ordinary language to its barest form. It introduced symbols for complete sentences and for the conjunctions that connect them such as “or,” “and,” and “If/then.” It uses different symbols for the logical subject and the logical predicate of a sentence and it has symbols for classes, members of classes, and the relationships of class membership and class inclusion. A picture description of this would be a Venn diagram. It also differs from classical logic and its assumptions regarding the existence of the things referred to in its universal statements. The statement “All A’s are B’s” is rendered in modern logic to mean, “If anything is an A, then it is a B.” When applying this kind of logic to the word love (A), we cannot assume that A exists, but once we do prove it does it will be the standard for everything that flows from it. So if we can prove that A exists and know what A is, we will know if anything else, B or C for example (let’s call them given expressions), fit into the class.

I’ve already suggested that love exists beyond the human plane making it virtually impossible to “prove” in a definitive sense. I can say emphatically, however, that love is endemic to all people. Perhaps that is proof enough of its existence. Having studied world religions, there are some universal qualities that give even further clarity to what love is. Using these universal qualities (some of which will be laid out in a moment) helps to define “A”. We should be able to exclude or include other classes, some of which, according to my research have been incorrectly applied. How do we go about the process of inclusion/exclusion? What follows was my first step in harnessing the power of love.

When teaching a science and religion class, I, with the help of our math teacher, used symbolic language and resulting truth tables to determine whether two statements were logically equivalent or not. When something is A, when would it be B as well? The reason for this approach is because when you begin speaking about love, especially to a group of individuals in the throes of hormones, not only is it hard to be objective, it’s almost impossible to break away from all the cultural baggage that they already associate with love. Most students could not get out of the rut of interpreting or defining love merely by their physical senses, especially in a sexual or romantic sense. While senses are important in understanding the effect love has on humanity, love is not an effect or expression, because they are unique to each individual. But because effect and expression, or “the results” of love are what we observe, it is understandable why we have so often tried to define in love in this way.

By using a language that is, by nature, devoid of subjectivity, it’s easy to avoid defining love just as an effect or expression and see it from a different angle. Using a truth table can tell you the conditions for which a conjunction (two statements joined by the word “and”) and dis junction (two statements joined by the word “or”) would be considered true or false from a logical perspective. My concern was to help students apply this simple logic to qualitative statements and not only determine whether or not they were logically equivalent but also if they were true. Not to infer that this particular approach reduces love to a mere logical process, but if we begin with universal definitions of love, then any expression (B), or effect (C) of love (A) should, logically, flow from that definer. This seemed to be one approach to help clean up the past conclusions we have made about love. For demonstration purposes let me use two of my favorite authorities on love: Jesus and Shakespeare.

Initially, students were provided with quotes from Shakespeare and Jesus that defined aspects of love: “A rose by any other name…”, “love is patient, kind…”, “love has no room for fear…”, “love is not love which alters when it alteration finds…”, and a host of others too numerous to list. After discussion about these statements and their validity, we listed those traits as being in the class of “A.” We then posited conditional statements: If “A” then “B” or “C” to see if the statements were logically equivalent.

The conditional statement I always liked to use, and which was certainly apropos to high school students, went like this: “If you love me then you will have sex with me.” Students set up tables that included converting the statement “If you have sex with me then you love me”, adding negation “If you don’t love me then you won’t have sex with me” and what is called the contrapositive, “If you don’t have sex with me then you don’t love me,” which interesting enough, should be true (or false) when the original statement is true (or false). The crushing blow for this particular phrase (to the students I taught anyway) was that in every word or phrase we use to define love (love is patient, love is kind, etc.) sex was never used. So, if sex were in class “C,” it wasn’t a logical equivalent of “A.” In fact, we discovered by our truth tables that (I admit this may have been manipulative on my part) sex, which inherently focuses on the pleasure of the individual, can actually oppose love (in its purest sense of course). Besides generating many loud discussions by many students, they were also challenged to view love differently.

Love, like a constant in math (k), is an immutable force in the face of which an individual expression is of small consequence. The Bhagava-gītā, states that love is indestructible and eternally existing, its constitution never changes. So let us not define ourselves by how we express love to each other, but rather allow love to define who we can be as individuals. The result, my friends, is heaven. Any time I start to judge someone else’s expression of love, I remember that love is a lot bigger than I am.

Let me go even further. Even if we can find some universal qualities to better understand the nature of love, as far as individual experience of love goes, it is as unique as a snow-flake. Love as experienced by me is always different from how it is experienced by someone else, even if the difference is only subtle. That is not to say that love is a personal invention. As an individual, though, I am a unique accumulation of millions of observations and experiences so accordingly, my expressions of love will be unique to my journey. Here is my challenge: the more we each discover about the true nature of love independently, and share it, the broader our understanding of love’s true nature will be. The result is like a spectrum of colors, the likes of which has never been seen before. Mind you, this kind of discovery is a process of trial and error; most of us will be burned a few times. Despite the painful risks the rewards have to be worth it. Whenever I feel defeated, I just try and image what modern life would be like had we not harnessed the power of fire.

Like a Seal on my Arm

“The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides, and gravitation, we shall harness for God, the energies of love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, we shall have discovered fire.” Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

This is one of my most favorite quotes of all time, and what always struck me about it was the realization that fire became most useful to human evolution when we learned to harness it. Maybe the power of love, like fire, lies in its utility. Love serves no function in a vacuum or high in the heavens; it demands engagement and a course of action.

When humanity first harnessed fire, civilization rose to a completely different level. Early civilization understood the ramification of fire in their lives, it was bigger and more powerful than they were, they worshiped it, and they feared it. As civilization progressed, however, fire was no longer a source of fear; its function became a means of sustenance, of survival. They learned how to actually utilize it to improve their lives. When it comes to the power of love do we know what its function is? Have we the slightest clue how to utilize it?

As a child, the Catholic Church taught me that “God is love, God is bigger and more powerful than us, and we are supposed to worship and fear God”. Looking at love as an adult, especially in view of human history, those assumptions didn’t seem to fit anymore. Can you really harness what you can’t see or are afraid of? When it comes to fire there is obvious proof of how successful humanity has been in harnessing it in just about every element of life. Love, however is quite another story. Look around. Where is the proof? We can wield power through: violence via sophisticated weaponry, money, and political control. But where is the love? Violence in schools, terrorism, addiction, starvation, child abuse, and religious wars are just a few examples of how poorly today’s culture has harnessed love’s energy. From the looks of it, we are missing something. As a source of power, love appears to sit up high on a shelf like grandma’s best china: brilliant and delicate but hardly utilized for fear of breaking it. On the contrary, love isn’t fragile, as King Solomon wrote: “for stern as death is love.” A good way to observe our past failures is to see them as an indicator that we continue to hold onto some pretty inaccurate fundamental assumptions about love and how to harness its power. We can’t utilize what we don’t understand or fear. I certainly know that I can’t.

This is a pivotal point in history and like fire, it is important to see love as powerful, life affirming and absolutely necessary for survival. It cannot be worshiped from afar. Love serves no purpose from a distance. We have to be willing to get burned in the process of harnessing its strength. It is at this point where application of everything else from previous posts should be taken into consideration, especially in terms of stripping ourselves of illusions. Our past assumptions have to be cleaned up in order to determine how to move ahead at this point. Fear must be placed by the wayside, because as the first letter of John in the New Testament tells us, fear is the very thing that is diametrically opposed to love. First and foremost, though, as individuals, we need to personally be willing to take love down off the shelf and see it as it truly is. There are a few, throughout history who have had the fortitude to make the attempt to look at love without blinders on. King Solomon in the Old Testament, for one, also understood the relationship between love and fire and depicts it beautifully in a poem of a bride and bridegroom:

Set me as a seal on your heart

as a seal on your arm;

For stern as death is love,

Relentless as the nether world is devotion;

its flames are a blazing fire.

Deep waters cannot quench love,

nor floods sweep it away.

Were one to offer all he owns to purchase love

he would be roundly mocked.

So, where do we begin? How do we go about shaking off all the layers of illusion that have accumulated over the years (remember the flasher metaphor)? And once we do that, then, what are the risks that come with learning how to use it? To be honest, there have only been a few people that I’ve studied who have been pretty successful at harnessing love’s energy, but when it comes to the rest of us, we’re pretty much in the dark.

Perhaps part of the reason that the nature of love isn’t fully understood is that the word itself is often trivialized in language. It is as easy to use the word love to describe ones feelings about pizza as it is to describe one’s soul-mate. So, to talk about seeing love in a different way is even more difficult than talking about evil. What source do I have but my experiences, my observations, many of which are entrenched in a culture that is obsessed with a cartoon version of love? As a source, how am I any more accurate than anyone else? Well, this is where it’s necessary to rely on quantum physics again. As an observer, I am limited to certain dimensions. Love is not limited. Love stretches beyond experienced reality rendering our simple human expressions of it incidental in the face of what it truly is. Love won’t be confined to what I or anybody else determines is appropriate; it is larger than we are. Without love driving the expression, it is empty. Let me clarify that last statement; simply saying love is the reason behind an action, even if we are under the misguided belief that it really is guiding an action, won’t necessarily make it so. Love is so much bigger than our desire for it.

So how can we be sure if love is present and is what propels us forward? Where do we go to find out what it really is so that we can begin the process of harnessing it? There are volumes of literature, music, psychology, philosophy and theology that have tried to depict what love really is. What more could I possibly say about love that would amount to a major discovery? Are there any new ways to talk about the true nature of love so we may harness its power? Well, based on humanity’s past observations and experiences of love, we should be able to understand a few things about what it is and what it is not. Stay tuned.

To See or Not to See

Here is something that must be said. Simply stated, my faith in God is central to the way in which I observe the world—but that is just me. Although devout, I wouldn’t describe my faith as typical. I know I’ve said this before, but as a theology student I was given an assignment to find a biblical passage to represent my faith…my choice?: King David dancing naked before the Ark of the Covenant—draw your own conclusions. In the rash of religious fundamentalism that has taken hold of many in today’s world, I am almost a bit embarrassed to share my passion and devotion to God for fear of being pigeon-holed as an advocate for some of the idiocy that has come out of some religious fundamentalists. However, this post can be helpful to anyone regardless of where they are in life’s great journey or what philosophy or theology they embrace. My purpose here is to simply help people reflect on, and have a stake in how they choose to observe the ordinary things in this world because it matters more than you may realize. The many Christian and other spiritual images I use serve to illustrate what I have learned, and they just seem to make a lot of sense to me. More than anything, it is faith that God is behind me at all times that gives me the strength of this conviction: All things, are indeed possible.

Let me say this: the connections I’ve made based on how I observe the world have led me to new ideas which have resulted in becoming an effective force for change (or a force to be reckoned with depending on the day). Simply put, I found that most of the materials necessary to live out the movie in my head and the answers to my life’s questions came wrapped in ordinary brown paper, free for the taking. As much fun as it is to believe that a secret society, centuries ago, has buried the secret to happiness in countless riddles all over the globe, the truth is that it has been right in front of us all along.

The key lies in how to observe the ordinary: using ones own cosmic imagination to see everyday raw materials as essential ingredients in creating something greater, to achieve ones dream. I may just be stating the obvious, but I’m amazed at how many people don’t even begin to use the simple things that are right in front of them. They look, but do not really see. The growing sense of fear and despair in the world is all the proof that I need to bring a message of hope. Observing the world as one that is evolving into greatness shapes the very way one moves and creates in it. This is not just another take on “attitude is everything.” When I use the word “observation,” I’m not speaking about a passive action, rather, one that is the root of all creation and growth. I, in my ordinary-ness, am as essential a factor in the world’s equation for success as any president or king, because my observations are unique to me alone. And because they are unique to me alone, they can be the exact ingredient necessary for my greatness somewhere else.

Another observation I’ve made is that too many people want to bypass the middle of any process. We live in a day and age where the easiest route is always the best route, regardless of the cost. Having status is far more important than the process by which one attains it. What happens when one is given something too easily, without the opportunity to earn it? In an age where technology has made all our lives so much easier, perhaps we have lost the motivation to work hard…for anything. That may be a hard bit to swallow, but there is evidence out there to prove my point. I find the amount of money that goes into gambling and lottery pots around the world staggering. It is certainly more than the GNP of many third world countries in the world. What really is the end result for bypassing the middle where all the hard work is and jumping to the end? I think part of the reason that we want to bypass the middle is that there is a subtle underlying message today that tempts us into believing that life shouldn’t be hard, that there are ways to bypass any difficulty and that if you can’t fix it within a moment’s time, throw it away and buy something better. Sadly enough, there are more than enough individuals out there who have, to put it bluntly, just stopped moving period, forcing the rest of us to find our way around them.

I would also venture to say that most people out there have, at times, considered themselves to be inconsequential when it comes to making an impact on the world. They don’t see themselves as an essential element in something much greater. It is this belief that has created the grey cloud that is obstructing clear sight. I am here to say this: the roots of colossal change lie in the smallest and simplest things which often go unnoticed by the naked eye. When you bypass the middle of any process, you miss all the important stuff. It is the mustard seed approach that Jesus spoke about: taking something small and seemingly insignificant and learning to have faith in its potential, to put forth the effort to nurture it and see its place in the distant future, far after it has left my circle of influence. Like the beauty of our DNA’s double helix, every single element is essential in creating the blueprint that becomes a human being. It is the compilation of many different elements that expresses our potential. Why not look at our human family the same way?

Being in the middle of a process can also be, at times, tedious, hard work, full of uncertainty, and time-consuming. It also demands a great deal of humility and faith in the work being done and the process as a whole. It is my hope to give credit and encouragement to anyone in that middle place, where the effort is not glamorous, but is no less essential than finishing the job. All of us, at one time or another has had the tedious job of passing a bucket. Columbus may have been credited for discovering America, but when it came to the discovery of chocolate he was just a middle man

Back to Observation

From my unrecognizable place in the world, I’ve seen a lot. Being in the middle has had its advantages. I’ve learned a lot from being a middle child, living in the Midwest, graduating several times in the middle of my class, having a middle-income, juggling the challenges of the middle class etc. Far from being mediocre, though, being in the middle has offered me an equidistant view to the world. From the thick of it, I see an increasing sense of discontentment, anxiety, stress and a loss of hope. It seems that my penchant for average has kept me, sometimes against my will in a position of observation. There seems to be a ubiquitous grey cloud that hangs over society today, even a midst the plethora of groups who have laid claim to the key to happiness or in the alternative try to isolate the exact source of our discontent and eradicate it. In all honesty, most of those groups on high who offer solutions to any and all problems if I would just surrender my control and give into “the right way of thinking” are never all that hopeful or happy, which truly doesn’t inspire much credibility on their part.

And yet, I’m not offering any magical solution either. However, it doesn’t mean that a solution isn’t there, just waiting to be recognized. After years of honing my observation skills, I think I understand why we aren’t necessarily in a better place. It all lies in our perception and our ability to see the solution. No solution to any problem is helpful if you can’t see it. So let me use another sense to focus on the problem. Focus on your hearing for a moment: I cannot sing. I’m not being modest. I really can’t sing. But, just because I’m aware of my own limitations vocally doesn’t mean that I also forgo the ability to make a decision about whether someone else can sing or not. Pretend you’re on a variation of the show American Idol. Now, instead of it being your job to listen to potential singers, focus on the contestant’s perception of their singing. The truth, or proof of talent, is what comes out of their mouths, not from voicing the opinion that they are the one you are looking for. Very often, you respond with incredulity, because it is painfully obvious that many of the contestants are delusional. Then, just when it feels like there is no hope, and you’re ready to accept anybody that may have only a glimmer of talent, a pure tone and melody presents itself often from the least likely contestant. It is keeping alive the hope, like a beautiful song, that an answer to a prayer exists out there for each one of us. All of us ordinary folk have been inundated with really bad singers for too long now. The negativity of the information we receive from almost every angle, like nails on a blackboard, is making my head hurt. Like those terrible singers on American Idol, some people are just plain off-key and should be told so. When truth becomes buried so deeply under the screeching of the tone-deaf, it does have an effect on the rest of the world, making it harder for the rest of us to hear the clear tones of truth.

Bad things happen, to be sure. The cure, though, is much more basic and a lot more boring, which may, to many people, make it far less interesting than being delusional. Truth is often the bitterest of pills and it is indeed a challenge to encourage consumption in a way that is palatable…but I do feel obligated to try. The answer lies in not what one sees, but how one sees it: the process of observation. For example, take something simple like the cacao bean, cane sugar, and cow’s milk. Looking at these raw materials singularly one may not see anything remarkable, but who could have guessed that, as an addendum to a long and adventurous journey of discovering a new world, these ordinary elements would work in concert together to become one of the great culinary discoveries of all time: chocolate.

The fact that chocolate has been a delicacy and has delighted our taste buds for centuries isn’t at all surprising. What may be surprising, though, are recent scientific studies that have also shown the impact that the properties of the cocoa bean has on our health. Many of you are probably aware that consuming chocolate releases endorphins : a natural morphine like substance that your body produces that inspires well-being. Were you aware that chocolate may also improve cognitive function and make your heart healthier also? Had the cocoa bean been left in its natural and bitter state, perhaps we wouldn’t have been so willing to include it as practically its own food group. Again, so there is a great food that is good for you, not such a big deal. The biggest miracle of chocolate though, doesn’t lie in our taste buds or sense of well-being, but how it came about in the first place.

The truly amazing part about the interactions between the Mayans, Aztecs, Columbus, Cortez, and some Spanish monks, is that individually they never intended to discover a new food. The creation of chocolate is only one example of what can happen when simple elements of different worlds unwittingly merge and then emerge into something entirely new and different. Like children do, the key is to observe the world in a way that is teeming full of potential. Perhaps it is God’s intent to present us the necessary raw materials and let our hearts be the source of seeing what ordinary elements mixed together can do to transform the bitter into the delightful. It also took time, some failures and a host of different players to find the perfect recipe. The creation of chocolate is the perfect metaphor for the plot of the movie in my head: there is always something great that can come out of any journey, even if it is unintentional. The challenge is to believe that any road can lead to chocolate by learning to see the infinite potential in ourselves, and the ordinary things and people one sees along the way. My entire life thus far is a living testimony to this truth.

In a general sense, the purpose of these post’s on observation is to create a cosmic sort of chocolate, so to speak: to create a process by which one can see the world in a way that looks as good as chocolate tastes…and is still healthy for you. It just doesn’t make sense that from this world of amazing raw materials God would give any of us great visuals without also setting us in the right direction and providing means necessary to be a part of bringing them to fruition. It’s simply a question of being able to see and then bring together the right ingredients. I’ve also learned not to be too rigid about what the final result will look like, to limit the number of roads necessary to get there or even stay around long enough to actually see the fruits of my labor. And I can say with confidence that I have never been disappointed. Confused at times, perhaps, but never disappointed.

That being said, because each of our lives are different I wouldn’t necessarily expect anyone else to fully understand or appreciate the movie in my head, like I probably wouldn’t fully appreciate what is going on in anybody else’s either. It’s important to preserve subjectivity. Not only are we all predisposed genetically to certain traits, we all have accumulated millions of different experiences, resulting in millions of unique personal dioramas. So really, no one individual will ever see the world in the same way any other does. This also means that no one else can give you an instruction book on how to live out the movie in your own head. What I’ve observed is that too many people rely on others to tell them how they must see the world to find success which is one of the causes of the world’s deluded thinking.

The whole point here is not to have you embrace the movie in my head, but to embrace the movie in your own head and learn to observe the world in such a way so that it can happen. Figuring out what ones uniqueness is and putting it out there in the world to mix with others is the first step. This is not without challenges, especially in this day and age, because being a totally different and unique individual often runs contrary to societies’ push to be defined by and live within specific cultural rules created by bigger and seemingly more powerful people than us ordinary folk. It is easy to succumb to the pressure to allow an external standard to tell you what to think and define who you are and your place of importance in this world. If we all saw the world the same way, there would never be growth, which depends on a myriad of different perspectives, from the grandest to the simplest. As an ingredient, my addition to the mix might be the most basic, but essential nonetheless. Like chocolate, it’s the different ingredients coming together that can bring a dream to life.

Because each of us is different, the need to have outside acceptance or approval can be fatal when striving to live one’s dream. Understanding what goes on in one’s head is central to the individual only. Don’t get me wrong, acceptance and approval is nice, but it isn’t a requirement. When I think of some of human histories greatest thinkers, Socrates, Plato, Jesus, Galileo, Shakespeare, Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Susan B. Anthony, Einstein, to a personal favorite of mine, Teilhard De Chardin, they were far more familiar with condemnation than acceptance. Where would we be if they hadn’t persisted in the face of societies’ disapproval? The simple reality is that no one else can live my life or fulfill my dreams, but me. Most of the things that I’ve accomplished in my life never would have happened had I waited for permission, approval, or enough of an understanding by other people of what goes on in my head for anyone to give me support in the first place.

While approval isn’t essential, it is also impossible to achieve one’s dream in a vacuum. We are all dependent on ordinary elements to make the movie in our heads a reality, whether it comes in the form of a person, an idea, or a simple experience. And it is being able to see the importance of those simple things and have faith in their potential in whatever guise they are presented to us that will determine one’s failure or success. Expecting that someone else can give you all the answers will almost guarantee failure, and rarely are they packaged with a bow and flashy wrapping. Although acceptance by others is never necessary in bringing a dream to life, the knowledge that each individual out there may be essentially the exact ingredient necessary for a dream is reason enough to encourage everyone to “be all that they can be.” The more I actualize my own dreams, the better chance, even if unwittingly, I can help actualize someone else’s. How often does that thought come into your heads? How often to do you start your day with this thought: I may be the exact ingredient necessary to help someone’s dream come true? Even if it is in the subtlest way, that thought should change everything about how you observe the world…when was the last time anyone told you that you were essential to success of the world…to the success of building the Kingdom of God? I thought so. So, let it start now. Be cosmic chocolate to someone. They don’t even need to be aware of it…only you do.

The Golden Mean

So how does one go about judging perspective? Is it even appropriate, especially given that we all walk in our own pair of shoes, is there any kind of measurement that we can use to create some kind of standard? Empathy for our fellow humans can only take us so far. Is there a human blueprint or archetype that we can use as a starting point? When I observe the men in my house, a great deal of the time I truly believe that I’m the only sane person in crazy town. Therein lies the rub…is it possible to truly understand perspective when all you have is your own…is there anything substantive to point to judge what is truly illusory and crazy? I know there are a million self-help books out there, and I’ve actually read a few…but I’m looking for something more subtle. Is there an underlying beat, deeply embedded in our DNA, that we humans march too? Let’s talk about the Golden Mean.

The Golden Mean, or Golden Proportion is a particular construct I’ve used to help me give shape and form to a concept that is usually so illusive. Some of you who read this may be already familiar with this concept and for those of you who aren’t, I’ll explain it to the best of my ability (or you can always look it up in Wikipedia).

The Golden proportion is a special proportion deeply rooted in nature, art, math and philosophy that represents harmony and balance. According to ancient history, the Greek mathematician and astronomer Eudoxus of Cnidus (c.370 B.C.), noted that when he asked his associates to find the most pleasing placement of a crossbar, they naturally did so according to this proportion, 1 to .618. Here is a diagram (great thing, the internet).

The golden mean is also called PHI (pronounced “fee”, not to be confused with PI) in the language of mathematics. PHI was derived from a sequence of numbers created by a thirteenth century mathematician named Leonardo Fibonacci. The sequence is a progression in which each term is equal to the sum of the two preceding numbers: 1-1-2-3-5-8-13-21, and the quotients of the adjacent terms possessed the property of achieving the number 1.618, which is PHI, or the golden proportion. PHI is found throughout some of the best architecture in history, including the Great Pyramid and the Parthenon. You’ll see it in art, (a classic Greek urn, da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man) nature, (the spiral of a sea shell) biology, (the proportion of male to female bees in a honeybee community) and music (organizational structures in music or the shape of a violin).

What was insightful to me was not that we conceptually understand all the implications of the golden proportion, or mean, but that we, somehow by nature, abide by its rhythm. Somehow we intuitively know this balance point. Up there out in the world, there is a consistent melody that life moves to. There is supposed to be a connection to something larger and I think that we stopped listening to that melody a long time ago. In the human scale, our hearts lie right at the golden proportion point, so it isn’t surprising to me that the heart, not the head is the archetype where true wisdom and love is found.

The lack of reliance on intuition, that internal melody evidenced historically by how dominant pure reason became. Reason, historically a male characteristic, has been considered superior to intuition. Think of it, it’s common to tell someone to be reasonable but have you ever heard someone ask you to be intuitive? The general tenor of history has taught that intuition, because it is vague and illusive, is also something that can’t be relied on and is something that should be evolved from, replaced by science and reason, again, probably rooted in that whole “sinful human nature” thing. There is also plenty of examples in history when it was even vilified—note, burning “witches” at the stake. In working to regain a better sense of balance in this world, hence a better perspective, there is nothing to lose by looking at the possibility that “reason” may have shown us just one side of the coin. Visiting the other side of the coin, via my intuition, certainly added clarity and a new dimension to my world. And adding that dimension was as pivotal as learning the world was no longer flat.

Although intuition is intensely personal, outside resources were helpful in learning to tap into it, understanding the golden mean only being one of them. We all receive plenty of guidance from outside sources, mine happened to be from scripture, scholars, educational programs and all sorts of other mediums and everyday people like my parents. Most often I listened to these sources not because of a command but as the result of a conscious choice, they hit a harmonious chord deep within. Like the story of the Garden of Eden, there is a point when we all have to learn to rely on ourselves when making choices. Ultimately, I am the direct beneficiary of all my personal choices, even if the choice is only limited to whom or what I’m seeking direction. The greatest challenge is to have the courage to let go of the control of the rational world and allow ones self to move according to the rhythm of the universe. In this age of rigid rules and control it feels overwhelming to trust what’s “out there.” It has, for me, been the only way that I have stumbled across the answers to many of my life’s questions. That isn’t to say reason wasn’t essential as a check when something sounded too good to be true. It has always been the balance of both my innate sense and rational mind that has kept me pretty balanced (unless you ask the men in my house…)

As a result of remaining fairly ignorant about the power of intuition, I wonder how often we second guess ourselves. The sense of knowing what choice is the right one comes to me by gut instinct far more often than I may realize or accept. The result of weakening the credibility of our inner voice is that it becomes a whole lot easier for the world outside to dictate how we live. As you already may realize, the outside world perpetuates a lot of illusions guaranteed to obstruct clear sight. Without a strong inner voice, it’s easy to succumb to those illusions. Perhaps living from the outside-in is less effective than to root how we live in the world from the inside-out. So, from this point onward, try letting your intuition be your guide in what is presented as only one woman’s take on what lies on the other side of the coin.

How we observe the world is essential, but let me go into detail about that later. It was my intuition that added a whole different dimension to the power and accuracy of my observations. But it isn’t always easy listening to my inner voice. First, because it means shutting off my own babble long enough to listen and second, by its very nature it tends to be elusive. In this day and age, it is even more difficult to listen to the voice within sometimes because of the noise of everyday life, from everything we’re wired into, to the noise of modern life outside. We are all bombarded by sounds from practically the moment we wake up in the morning, and it takes a conscious effort to turn them off. It is possible, however, to learn how to tune them out. When things get really crazy and loud in my life, I remember a line from one of the Psalms that says “Be still and know that I am God.”

Because of the mysterious and intangible quality of intuition, it is the perfect place from which God can speak most clearly. There is a great story in the Old Testament about the prophet Elijah. As a result of being a zealous advocate for God, Elijah is a hunted man. He hides in a cave and the Lord speaks to him and tells him to go outside the cave and to wait for him to pass. Elijah witnesses strong enough storms to shake the mountains and cause rocks to fall, yet the Lord was not in the storm. Afterwards there was an earthquake and then fire and the Lord was not present in these powerful acts of nature either. Then Elijah heard a tiny whispering sound in the wind, and it was in the whispering where God was present, and it was from the whispering where he received direction. Please don’t think I’m representing myself as a prophet: I’m not. I have, however, taken the MMPI , busted my hump academically, read thousands of books and danced under the full moon naked—okay scratch that last example. But like Elijah, I do believe God exists in the whispering, from deep down within me. I am confident in this statement because I’ve learned to get out of my comfort zone and test the wisdom I receive from within and then watch the results. At least at this point in my life I choose to listen to the presence and direction of God in the whispering—when I shut up long enough to listen

I’m Stuck

All crap aside, I have tried in the last couple of days to 1) figure out what exactly drives me as an observer and 2) figure out how to improve and change what drives me as an observer. Truthfully, I am stuck. I’m stuck because there is a part of me, perhaps the part that is rooted in common sense, that absolutely can’t change how I view that portion of the world that is so rooted in illusion that they are convinced it is the rest of the world that is completely insane….I KNOW! THAT VERY EXAMPLE FITS ME BOTH AS AN OBSERVER AND THOSE THAT I OBSERVE!!! It is a bit of a conundrum. So, I have begun to disassemble the illusory elements in my life…which also stands as proof that my willingness to accept that I may just be as crazy as those I’ve been judging, is a sign that I am in fact, not the crazy on in this observer/observed relationship. Also, the fact that I would never go out in public with my boobs tucked into my pants because I misplaced my bra and shirt is a point on my side as well.

As far as what drives me as an observer, I would say first and foremost it is my faith as a Christian….I KNOW! MOST OF THE CRAZY PEOPLE I’VE OBSERVED ALSO INCLUDE CHRISTIANITY AS THEIR BIGGEST DRIVING FORCE! That includes, and is not limited to those horrible spirited people who protest funerals, those that think that a woman’s body has special powers to keep from being impregnated when she is “legitimately” raped, and any or all of the “Real Housewives of Orange County.” So, what happened? Did we get it wrong? I, personally, think we did. This then, is where I will start. Read this verse John 13: 34 & 35 and answer this question…is this how you understand your faith? Actually read the whole chapter, it is the story of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. A wonderful portrayal of what is expected of authority.

I know that Jesus didn’t just grab a random person off the streets and command them to love like he did and wash their feet. He loved these disciples. He had journeyed with them, spent three years with them…he had tamed them. Because he had tamed them, he knew that they would understand his command. The ties that bound them on earth were so important when it came to building and continuing his church, and he was no longer physically with him. They were responsible to each other, just like the Little Prince taught (see post on Taming). I think is the most important part…I asked myself the same question: How am I responsible to Him?. I didn’t get tamed by Jesus personally…only spiritually, and it was through a disciple that I came to understand what he was all about. It is what made me different from any of the others that have made the same claim. It has put me on a path of not focusing on being better than or being right…but one of being better and responsible to this phrase: “They will know you are my disciple by how you love one another.” The break down of illusion starts there.

Serious Work to Do

I took a step away from deep thoughts for a moment and thought I would step outside my small circle and check out the state of my view on ordinary people out there. It’s not altogether pretty. I’m usually an optimist, but man there is some weird stuff out there, and I found myself spiraling into a deep sense of pessimism that truly is foreign to me. Just perusing through social network sites, (you would be amazed at how many are totally public) was shallow proof that the end of the world is nigh. Seriously, if the observer does has an impact on the state of the world (check the last post), I can understand why we are all slipping into hell in a dirty hand basket. I can’t get over the fact that there actually is a website dedicated to Wal-Mart people…moreover I can’t get over the fact that people on that website actually went out in public like that. I am amazed at the stupid, stupid, STUPID things that ordinary folk take to heart as fact, such as Obama is really a foreign Muslim, or the world is 6000 years old, and Climate change is really Armageddon, so there is nothing we can so do to stop it. This is not good. I am a bit ashamed and feeling a bit self-righteous as an observer and I will ponder on this a bit. Granted there is a lot of strange and stupid things out there, but it is how I, as an observer respond to it that makes on the difference in the world. At this point, I admit I don’t know how to respond…so I won’t. I will, believe me. I just wanted you to understand the silence.

Why being Ordinary can carry Extraordinary Implications

A priest once told me that the movie in my head was much better than real life and I was just setting myself up for disappointment. I actually felt sorry for him…and, hopefully, now that he is not restricted by human limitations any longer, he sees things differently. I don’t know if it a blessing or a curse, but I do believe the movie in my head is fantastic…because it’s inspired by God and God has an even better imagination than I do. I do admit, though, that priest’s words have challenged me throughout my life to understand the importance that perspective ( the movie in our heads) has on shaping reality. While the theological essence of perspective has been my choice of study…I wanted to enlarge my focus to include a scientific perspective as well. As a non scientist, though, it’s been an exciting challenge to understand the process of observation within the context of quantum physics. but I do so because it opened my eyes (pun intended) to the important position of being an observer, and my personal impact on the world. The first part may seem unbearably dry, but bear with me, it’s essential in understanding how important observation is in bringing the movie in our heads to fruition. Just as important, in a time where fame and infamy give credibility and notoriety to a select and often undeserving few, I think a pitch for the ordinary Joe or Josephine is crucial.

It is tragic that in my study of theology, we never looked at science to broaden our understanding of God. Reflecting back on my own experience with science, it always made me uncomfortable. There was always an unspoken understanding that science was diametrically opposed to religion (just look at the controversy between evolution and creationism, or “divine intelligence” as its now called). Somehow, since God transcended the material world and couldn’t be proved by extrinsic evidence, science existed in some subterranean dimension. Many scientists and theologians appear to lie in wait to challenge, as fallible, the fundamental suppositions of either discipline (although there are plenty of religious leaders who believe there is plenty of extrinsic evidence that proves the existence of God, the majority of scientists I’ve met generally, keep faith and science separate).

During my early studies, the discovery that religion hadn’t necessarily represented my role as a woman in the world fair or accurately, led logically to understanding that perhaps that the conclusions they made about other things were flawed as well. History has many sad moments when the church harshly closed a door on a scientific discovery. It didn’t seem like an in-congruent step, then, as a result of all the historical animosity that scientists were not giving religious truth a fair shot either. It appears to me, anyway, that many on both sides would be perfectly happy to cancel the other out. Nothing like throwing out the baby with the bath water, don’t you think? Let us hope that cooler heads prevail and we learn to utilize the language of the empirical and language of the spiritual to create a broader understanding of reality: where theology can nurture the observer, and science the observed.

In my own experience, I recall a conversation with a scientist about my belief that science and religion, like light, are the same thing, just observed differently. By his reaction, not only was he offended that I would reduce quantum physics in such cheap layperson’s terms, as a theology teacher, I obviously didn’t have the level of intelligence necessary to further the discussion. Unfortunately, his snub left me speechless. While hiding in a bathroom stall to hide my watering eyes and embarrassment, I began to wonder if, in terms of science anyway, his observations would always be superior to mine. My embarrassment turned out to be a good thing, however, because it also made me angry enough to begin yet another search for truth (OK, it also included the desire to prove him wrong—regardless of my motivation though, I did learn a thing or two).

It is sad that most people, like my conversation with the scientist, never get to fully understand how someone arrives at a certain perspective. Not everyone just pulls things out of thin air. I had spent countless hours studying and preparing for a class with the physics teacher at the high school where I taught: an investigation of theology from a scientific perspective and science from a theological perspective. What happened was something I couldn’t have predicted. From the onset it appeared as if the idea had its own agenda. When my colleague and I entered into the world of quantum physics (I still get a tingle up my spine thinking of that moment), I knew my life would never appear the same again.

In the world of quantum the observer, or the means by which “something” is observed, means everything. Its form depends on how it’s observed. For example, light can exist both as a particle or a wave, depending on how it is observed, which, until quantum physics, was considered impossible. Physicist Werner Heisenberg, gave even more importance to the observer via the uncertainty principle, which states that the exact position and velocity of a particle cannot both be known at the same time—the more precisely one value is known, the greater the range of possibilities that exist for the other. Even the act of observing something changes the reality of what is being observed. In the classical view of the universe, science taught that by eliminating subjective influences nature could be revealed as she really was. Quantum physics changed that classical viewpoint by exposing a dichotomy between experienced and un-experienced reality. The idea that the mechanism of observation could actually affect what form matter took forced science into a new paradigm, besides giving great weight to the observer.

The discovery of the wave/particle duality has taken us beyond the limitations of Newtonian physics. There are two levels of reality which can be said to exist: reality as experienced, or as it exists in relation to the observer; and reality that is un-experienced, or as it exists in the absence of an observer (sort of like the old question does a tree falling in a forest make a sound when no one is there to hear it?). Un-experienced reality, then, is reality as it exists before or beyond human experience (perhaps in a dimension beyond height, width, weight, depth and time). Un-experienced reality relates to experiential reality in that it forms the basis or context of experienced reality like an archetype or prototype. The issue that is of central importance to me is the relationship between what is experienced and what is not. Naturally, since human beings, as observers, are confined by certain dimensional and subjective limitations, it would seem obvious that the un-experienced dimension has the greater control over what we perceive. I’m not so sure of that anymore; from my theological background I know the power human beings have to be co-creators of the universe, and therefore color every experience with personal meaning. What I have begun to worry about in this age of information overload, is the effect that all the negativity and violence has on the observer. On a microscopic scale, are we turning into that priest that I talked about in the beginning? Are we killing the movie in our heads and living a life of fear and disappointment? Stay tuned.

The View From Another World

Observations of an Ordinary Woman

Category: observation

You Want the Truth? You can’t Handle the Truth!

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Shadow Masters

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Why did Eve Eat that Damn Apple Anyway?

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Native Good Judgement

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Let the Games Begin!

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Let Go, Let Love

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Love and Logic

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Like a Seal on my Arm

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To See or Not to See

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Back to Observation

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The Golden Mean

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I’m Stuck

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Serious Work to Do

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Why being Ordinary can carry Extraordinary Implications

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Observations of an Ordinary Woman

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