Reason and Soul

One really intelligent thing that was mentioned in the "Talking to God" workshop I attended at the poetry conference the other day was something the instructor said: "If you talk to God, it's called prayer. If God talks to you, it's called psychosis." That's the truth of our modern era. I get called crazy or stupid all the time because I am very spiritual. The atheist lady who attended the same workshop and criticized religion had an attitude very prevalent in those of her philosophical persuasion. It seems very common to feel that reason and belief in God are diametrically opposed and cannot coexist, ergo, if one believes in God, something that cannot be proved by reason alone, that one must be foolish or insane. I don't believe in God because I am naive or unstable, I believe in God because I see clear evidence on an ongoing basis that He is real, and very active in my life. I write about art and I make art, and to me art and God are inseparable. The creative urge itself is sacred, and was seen as such by the ancients. I am glad that we had the age of enlightenment and outgrew at least some of the modes of the past, but now we need to outgrow the modern reliance on reason alone. We have two halves to our brains, one which processes information in a rational and linear way and one which does - something else. It's the "something else" where God comes through for me. He also usually shows up through the back door, like in this ticketing nightmare - I tried to do something straighforward and it degenerated into chaos, but the chaos proved to be fertile. I got onto the flight He wants me on. I am going to this conference to try to advance the cause of my King Arthur books, and in my Parsifal, the Holy Grail draws mankind to itself in an unbroken circle. "Brotherly love" is a pretty good summation of that theme. The spiritual book I am reading where I saw the word "Philadelphos" is about the Greek god Dionysos. One of the places I plan to visit in France is St. Denis, the seat of the royal chapel during the Middle Ages. I wrote a paper about it in college, and found out in my trip research that inhabitants of the village are called "Dionysiens." It could not be clearer to me that this is a pattern to which I need to pay attention. That is how God talks to me, call me crazy all you want. The cup itself, the Grail, has origins in Eastern religions of antiquity. The cup of Dionysos is similar in function - the cup is always a metaphor for whole consciousness, and I see God as transcendent consciousness. My experiences with God are an interaction between the real world and the psychological realm - inner and outer worlds interact. Archetypes such as this sacred cup are the indicators of that interaction.

The flip side of being as spiritual as I am in this modern world is that while I get denigrated and dismissed a lot, I also get complimented for speaking up by people who have experiences similar to mine. I tend to hang out with like-minded people and seek out the kinds of environments that foster spiritual experiences. I've been to churches, cathedrals, synagogues, mosques, Hindu and Buddhist temples, non-denominational retreats, Native American ceremonies, pagan services and so forth. I have found God at all of them because I was looking for Him. I am interested in religion and theology in general and how it interacts with art. I have written primarily about art in my journalism, and spirituality in my personal writing including the books and my music. I am starting to bring them together, mostly through this blog at the moment, and I want to continue to do so, because that marriage is where my greatest opportunities for self-development lie.

The sad thing about the very vocal atheist I met last weekend was that she was clearly wounded by patriarchy, not by religion. Without going into the particulars of her life, she had a very bad experience early in life with a male member of the clergy which colored her subsequent view of God and religion. She felt it was all worthless after that, because if a "man of God" could be so heartless, it must all be a crock. That is understandable but regrettable. A man, or a manmade system of religion, is not the same thing as God, not at all. And the misbehavior of one man should not negate millenia of positive human experiences with theological pursuits. I also often get attacked for my positions about religion because there are those who hold that religion has been responsible for many and horrible wars. I see their point, but the fact that wars have been fought in the name of religion does not mean that religion is to blame - humans fight the wars and humans are to blame. Wars are fought over power and resources. Religion is a cover for that. Saying that a war is backed by divine purpose or that one's foe is demonic makes one's aggressive position pretty much unassailable, doesn't it? To use God or religion in that manner is an abomination, to use a Biblical-sounding word of condemnation. Anyone who would use God as an impetus for a war doesn't really believe in God at all, or they could not commit something so terrible in the name of what is widely perceived as the highest worth. The problem is not God or religion - the problem is mankind's need for domination and control of one another. That is the purest abomination, and the least human thing about us. It is an animal characteristic, a trait found in the primates from whom we evolved. The world religions can be used to advance those worst traits when applied coercively, but when used properly, they also offer means to work one's way out of the ego-driven mindset by increasing consciousness, the factor that lifts us out of a purely animal existence. To ignore that truth is in fact the mindless position. It's easier to blame religion than to look the awful truth of the worst side of our nature full in the face, but it's cowardly to take that easy way out. The base nature cannot be transcended until it is known. None of the churches I've been to has been perfect. I've left some because of major dysfucntion, but again that had nothing to do with religion and everything to do with personal behavior and attitudes, warfare on an individual level rather than a societal one. It's also very interesting to me that in modern churches and temples, the ancient texts are read and the traditions followed, but many people even amongst those practicing religion on a regular basis are threatened when God comes too close. It's one thing to read about prophets in the Old Testament or Koran experiencing revelation and acting upon it. It would be something else entirely if a real person living now were to say that they are experiencing something similar. One would be almost universally denounced for doing so, instantly labelled a lunatic or seen as some kind of venal attention-seeker. It's somehow believable to read about God talking to those people, back then, far away, as He is recounted in the Torah to have done on the Exodus. It's just not ok to admit it if you listen for that kind of guidance now.