*May has been a very busy month for me, so I reached out to my father for a guest post. I am very grateful for the time he put into this thought provoking and complex post. We worked together to craft this entry that takes on the simple little subject of spirituality.
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A Sign
I was on a run recently, and I saw a sign that helped me form an opinion for a common ground on God. No, really- after seeing this sign, I got closer to God. I will explain later about the sign, but it's probably not what you are thinking. In this post, I will use the words Spirit and God interchangeably. I will equate the physical and time-based concepts with the term “Things”, and I will ask you to accept that the world of Things is different than the Spirit world. Lastly, I will analogize the ocean to the domain of Spirit/God, and I will analogize an iceberg to the domain of Things. Stay with me and we’ll take an interesting ride.
The Life Cycle of Things
It seems like we should be able to understand Spirit because many of us practice spirituality in our lives. Yet we can NOT understand the complete spiritual world because it implies a level of totality and finality. Totality and finality are spatial and time-based concepts that exist in the world of Things but are absent from the world of the Spirit. Humans understand the physical and time-bound world because, at its very core, it has a natural and identifiable life cycle (life and death/ existence and non-existence). Our minds fluidly recognize this reality because we are physical. We play a part in the destruction of old things and we happily make new things and we get paid wages for these contributions. We manage our Things through systems of power, politics and violence, and even though some of these things are not tangible and can't be physically touched, they are still squarely in the world of things.
But this is NOT Spirit, which is unchangeable and not a part the familiar life cycle of Things. If our perception of the physical world varies slightly through differing levels of sensitivity and culture, there still is a possible shared understanding because we are linked by underlying universal truths (e.g. gravity, growth, death, etc.). But common ground in the Spirit world is impossible for those that dwell in the world of Things.
The Easily Blurred Line Between Things and Spirit
Even though we live in a dual world of Spirit and Things, we often fall in the trap of ascribing elements of Spirit in terms of physical things (e.g. God has caused my corn crop to flourish). Conversely, we imbue Things in terms of Spirit (e.g. My crucifix around my neck gives me physical access to God).
Well-known atheist Richard Dawkins has railed against God from the vantage point of what is wrong with organized religion. But the basis of his argument against organized religion is based on Things and not Spirit (the teachings and dogmas of religion subvert true spirituality). Yet, in his words, he acknowledged that atheists can have a “happy, balanced, moral, and intellectually fulfilled” life. He talks about a harmony, which in itself could be spiritual, but espouses that this harmonic balance should attained by a refuting organized religion. In short, he criticizes the Things associated with religion and claims that their influence will deter the effort to attain a happy, balanced life. According to Dawkins, This fulfilled life is a life that only atheists can enjoy. In essence, he believes that a deepening awareness (and ultimately refutation) of the world of Things (the corruption of organized religion) can lead to a spiritual outcome.
Not to pick on Dawkins, but the door does swing both ways. Religions have always tried to explain the unknown from the vantage point of Things. The world we live in is a world of Things, and we are seduced by our mastery this world. Is it bad to keep this link of Spirit and Things? I don’t think so, and perhaps this understanding of Things is a necessary conduit to the Spirit - just as one needs a boat to attempt to understand the depth of the ocean. And now, with the advent of the Internet and other knowledge enabling technological advancements, it is time for humanity to begin draw clear distinctions between the world of Spirit and the physical and time-bound world of Things.
The Ocean Analogy
To understand this distinction between the Spirit world and the world of Things, allow me to use an extended analogy – the world of Things is an iceberg floating in the ocean of Spirit. Living on the iceberg, humans rely on Things to survive. We use ice picks, pick axes, and even a chain saw if the ice is thick enough. In this world Things, we can appropriately criticize our tools on the merits of their utility – “this ice pick is too small for this ice block in front of me.” However, the use of these tools is incompatible in the world of the spirit. Trying to use them in the spiritual world would be like using a chain saw to cut the ocean. It is precisely this attempt to understand the spiritual world through the lens of the world of Things, where we have failed as humans to get closer to the world of Spirit. Many of our greatest disasters are an outcome of this misapplication. The Crusades is an obvious example that comes to mind.
As we look to get closer to God, we must think differently. We must constantly keep in mind that which is Spirit and that which are Things. Just as the ocean is vast and incomprehensible, we can’t fully grasp the world of the Spiritual and are limited by our own human physical condition. Therefore, in order to begin to gain an understanding of the Spirit world, it is necessary to consciously separate the iceberg of Things from the ocean of the Spirit. The natural tendency to understand the unknown with the known makes us want to define the Spirit in terms of Things. But we can obtain a greater the deep ocean of Spirit by first simply negating all we know of the iceberg of Things. This backhanded logic may initially seem foreign, but it does drive home the fact that we are viewing two distinctly different concepts that have been historically intertwined since humans first began to explain the unknown.
Harmony Between the Iceberg and the Ocean
Only after separating the two realms, can we begin to understand their relationship and the impact on each other. In this ocean analogy, the iceberg and the ocean are in constant contact though they are completely distinct. The truth is there is harmony in this relationship, but we need to re-frame our thinking to understand this complex symbiotic relationship.
If we get caught up in the criticism of any institution, be it Atheistic or Religions, then we become Thing-based. We think in terms of winners and losers, and through this Thing-based thinking we create divisions and distinctions. But after exploring and understanding the Spirit world (as distinct from the Thing-based world), we can begin view things from a newer definition and approach decisions differently. We can replace traditional moral concepts of “good” and “bad” with the concepts of More Learning and Less Learning. The ultimate result of this type of thinking is tolerance. The traditional Thing-based logic produces judgment and creates a divisive belief system (e.g. religious vs. the non-religious).
The quest for learning, however, implies a journey that we have individually and collectively been taking since we first showed up on this planet. There is no good or bad in the concept of true learning. True spiritual growth is the successive filtering out of Thing-based thinking. It is harder to criticize a persons' journey if we stay Spirit-based. This is the essence to understanding the Spirit world - it's a journey not a judgment. We are more tolerant of travelers from all walks of life. Thing-based thinking understands the concept of opponents because the physical world requires winners and losers because of its dynamic physical nature. In contrast, wayfarers on a journey are constantly learning and adjusting to the creative, the Spirit. These are fellow journeyers not competitors.
My Sign of God
As I ran recently, I saw a sign. It was a physical sign that was blown to the ground, likely ripped from a pole by the wind. The sign said “Growing with God.” It was probably for a vacation Bible school...who knows. This “Growing with God” sign implies that we get closer to an unchanging, static God. However, maybe God and humanity are equally dynamic, and, just as the impermanent iceberg eventually becomes one with the perpetually changing sea, we should strive to understand the relationship between these forces.
This sign therefore could mean that God actually grows with us, and similarly we grow with Him. We are Him and He is us. The world of Things implies a static god with inherent divisions. But the journey-based world of Spirit allow us to develop a constant (we are all on a journey) and open belief system (we accept that everyone is on their own journey). The natural life cycle that guides the world of Things creates divisive change. But understanding the divisive change in the world of Things and accepting the journey-oriented change in the world of the Spirit, will allow us to unite these worlds and find our path to pure spirituality. Perhaps now is the time for mature thinking. If we unfetter our thinking with Thing-centered concepts, we can “Grow with God” and God can grow with us. All Things pass away or, more aptly, melt. Once our icebergs melt, the notion of Things will sink and dissolve in to oblivion while our Spirit blends with the ocean of spirituality.
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