Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 58 Editor's Choice: 5
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Religion is not about bombs or theology
[Read the article: Religion is poetry]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Religion is a human faculty and urge like abstraction or play. The question is how that tendency is expressed. Will it be constructive and lead to human fulfillment or destructive and lead to the death of the other faculties we value?
Carse makes a very important point that most of the readers miss. Religion doesn't have that much to do with what you believe. It has a lot more to do with what you do. One can be a perfectly good Jew and not believe all that much if one is observant, involved in the Jewish community, a good human being and studies Torah. The idea that theology determines religion is very much an artifact of modern Christianity.
I would contend (and this is a topic for another time) that it has a lot to do with what the Christians did to their mystics. There's a saying "Mystics recognize each other. Fundamentalists only see themselves and sin."
Judaism has its Chassids and Kabbalists. Islam has its Sufis. Buddhism has its esoteric schools. Shamanism is all about tearing your brain down to the bare metal to more clearly see the greater world. There are cautionary tales and safeguards in all of these traditions. The dangers to sanity and to the community at large are very real. Four great Rabbis went into the garden. Only one returned with his life, religion and sanity. Mansur Al-Hallaj's vision was greater than his capacity. He said "I am the Truth" and was killed for his blasphemy. And so on.
But they have always been there. The technology for direct perception of the larger reality is available for those who are serious. The Catholics and the Orthodox allow a few captive mystics in a very few cloistered monasteries. The Protestants have completely eliminated the breed. When there is no reality or Reality check you're left with nothing but theology and dogma. In many ways the decline of Islam came with the rise of Wahabism and the declaration that Sufi practice was heresy and punishable by death.
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On Religion and Poetry
[Read the article: Religion is poetry]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Once again Carse, who has studied this subject for his entire adult life, has the truth of it.
Good religion of any sort opens and expands the mind. And it comes with perceptions which everyday language is incapable of encompassing. By our very nature - pick any tradition from the Abrahamic faiths, Buddhism, Hinduism, Shamanism, Shinto and so on - our minds are limited. There are things they can not completely understand. Reason is an important tool, but our reason is also imperfect. To perceive and to grow into a real, functioning, adult human being you have to stretch yourself.
All of the methods for doing this of which I am aware require a lot of work. You have to take what your mind and body can do, break them out of their habits, push the boundaries and tear the hell out of your preconceptions. In secular philosophy there are "breaching experiments". The US Army Special Forces pushes you past your physical, mental and emotional limits and rebuilds you as something different, hopefully better and more capable. Shamans fast, take drugs, cut pieces off their bodies, and abandon their normal humanity periodically.
For a purely secular view of this read Spiritual Enlightenment, the Damnedest Thing and Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment/
If you want to communicate the insights and perceptions to others it's difficult or impossible to do it with regular conversation. That's where the poetry comes in. It's no accident that the important Buddhist Sutras are beautiful and sonically compelling even if you don't understand the Sanskrit or Pali. The greatest Muslim mystics - Hafiz, Rumi, Al-Ghazali, Gilani and many others - were all poets. Metaphor, rhythm and the evocative power of verse are potent tools for taking a person out of her normal consciousness and showing her what lies just outside the stone-hard boundaries of habit.
When my wife, a lifelong atheist and scientist (evolutionary biology), became a Sufi she started to write poetry. She had never done it before. But what she experienced and the ways it changed her demanded expression. That expression came in the form of poems because "Simple explanatory prose would not do it. I can not hope to convey my experience and perceptions. The best I can hope to do is invoke in the reader some similar sense. And we shall greet each other only with a knowing smile."
That is why the first command of the Angel Jibril was "Recite, oh Mohammed."
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Lateagain: Here's the link
[Read the article: Religion is poetry]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]http://knockingfrominside.blogspot.com
Some of the poems are religious. Some are secular. Two of my favorites are the ones she opened and closed her first book with: "Drinking From the Source" and "Bitter Wells". And a short story - "John Henry and the Golem" - not a bad Jewish story for a Muslim girl :)
Of the most recent poems, let's see...
Eclipse, Flight, Soul Train Depot, Abrasion, Half-Moon, Dervish Lion, Trumpet Rose, Glass Knives and God Train are all explicitly religious.
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And Apropos of the Conversation
[Read the article: Religion is poetry]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]http://knockingfrominside.blogspot.com/2008/04/1000-pieces.html
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It just sounds wrong
[Read the article: "WTF" of the day: Wii sex game]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"New: You can play sex games with your Wii!"
There are some shots that are just too cheap to take.
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Absolutely right, Ashely Madison.
[Read the article: "Life is short. Have an affair"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If I were to have an affair my wife would find out. Life would suddenly get a lot shorter.