Reflecting Spirituality

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I always find undergoing anesthesia a spiritual experience.  It’s too bad the the prep for things like colonoscopies is so stressful that it’s difficult to appreciate the fasting and how it changes your perceptions.  This is followed by the delicious blackness of a complete loss of consciousness.  If death’s like this we have nothing to fear.  I’ve written about this before, but chemical sleep is not like nighttime sleep.  You hear the anesthesiologist say, “You’re going to sleep now.”  Then you wake up, disoriented because no time has passed.  I blinked a few times, saw my wife’s coat on the wall, and thought it was a nurse.  I started to say “Stop, I’m waking up!”  But then I focused on my wife and wondered why they’d let her into the procedure room.  “Are they done already?”  I asked.  Where had I been for the last hour?

Spiritual experiences are sometimes only seen in retrospect.  They jar us out of ordinary time into an alternative time.  It doesn’t make up for the nasty taste of prep medicine, or the unpleasantness associated with it, but emptying yourself is a spiritual practice.  I need to try to remember that next time around.  I know people who are afraid of anesthesia.  I’ve only had it three or four times—oral surgeries, and my first such procedure as this—but there’s something mystical about it.  I don’t use drugs (never have) so perhaps I’m a neophyte, but looking back on the experience I know that something extraordinary happened.  Coming out of it is coming into a new world that is somehow strangely the same as the one I left.

Religion has always, at least partially, been about altered states of perception.  Organized religion succeeds in making it rote, but those who experience the naked phenomenon never forget it.  Anesthesia is, I know, potentially dangerous.  It so like a light being switched off that I’m always left in awe of it.  Mystical experiences are rare, which is one of the things that makes them so valuable.  I’ve had them—widely spaced—since childhood.  Sometimes it’s evident in the moment, but often some reflection is necessary.  I suppose few people look forward to any kind of surgical procedure, but there can be benefits beyond the physical health that we hope will result.  That’s the way spiritual events often take place.  Perhaps advanced practitioners (not always clergy) can bring them about intentionally, but any of us might recognize them afterwards, upon reflection.

Quick Writing

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On the very same day I saw two emails that began with phrases that indicated they were clearly sent by text.  One began “Hell all.”  This was a friendly message from a friendly person sent to a friendly group and I’m pretty sure the final o dropped off the first word.  The second seemed to have AI in mind as it read “Thank you bot.”  It was sent from a phone to two individuals (or androids?).  There’s a reason I don’t text.  Apart from being cheap and having to pay for each text I receive or send, that is.  The reason is that it’s far too easy to misunderstand when someone is trying to dash something off quickly.  Add to that the AI tendency to think it knows what you want to say (I’m pretty sure it has difficulty guessing, at least in my case, and likely in yours, too) and errors occur.  We write to each other in order to communicate.  If we can’t do it clearly, it’s time to ask why.

Those who email as if they’re texting—short, abrupt sentences—come across as angry.  And an angry message often inspires an angry response.  Wouldn’t it make more sense to slow down a bit and express what you want to say clearly?  We all make typos.  Taking the time to email is no guarantee that you’ll not mess something up in your message.  Still, it helps.  I think back to the days of actual letter writing.  Those who were truly cultured copied out the letter (another chance to check for errors!) before sending it.  There were misunderstandings then, I’m sure, but I don’t think anyone was suggesting someone else is a robot.  Or cussing at them from word one.

The ease of constant communication has led to its own set of complications.  Mainly, it seems to me, that since abbreviated communication has become so terribly common, opportunities for misunderstanding increase exponentially.  I’m well aware that I’ll be accused of being “old school,” if not downright “old fashioned,” but if life’s become so busy that we don’t have time for other people isn’t it time to slow down a bit?  Technology’s become the driver and it doesn’t know where the hello we want to go.  The other day I forgot where I put my phone.  I signed on for work but couldn’t get started because it requires two-step authentication.  Try to walk away from your phone.  I dare you.  Thank you bot, indeed.

Little Bang

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I’ve always been interested in the sky.  At times it feels like I’m in love with it.  Having attended a Sputnik-era high school—a rural high school with an actual planetarium!—I took the offered astronomy course.  Buoyed up by this, I also enrolled in a college astronomy class only to discover that that career track involved far too much math for my humble abilities.  Still, I learned a lot about the nighttime sky.  I’ve also been a lifelong reader of lay science.  I very much appreciate scientists who write so that nonspecialists can understand them.  So it was that I was glad to see a New York Times letter by Adam Frank and Marcelo Gleiser titled “The Story of Our Universe May Be Starting to Unravel.”  I’ve mentioned Gleiser here before because I’ve read a couple of his wonderful books.  But this article was mind-expanding.

Frank and Gleiser suggest that the Big Bang Theory may, eventually, need to be replaced.  They point out that small inconsistencies have crept into it over the years (keep in mind that it was really only “confirmed” within my lifetime, back in the sixties).  Most of these have been patched up with quilt-work astrophysics, but the James Webb Space Telescope is making some of those past patches strain a bit at the seams.  Fully formed galaxies are being spied too far back in time (for stargazing is looking into the deep past) for the standard model.  They shouldn’t be there, but they are.  The letter interestingly raises the point that the scientific study of quantum physics, as well as that of consciousness, also strain the standard models.  Perhaps it’s time for a rethinking of reality?

Image credit: NASA, public domain

Isn’t this breathtakingly exciting?  To be alive when a major leap of understanding the universe we call home may be discovered?  The authors point out that cosmology and philosophy often have to interact.  Our understanding of the universe is a human understanding, not sacred writ.  The scientific method is built to be falsifiable.  If it’s not, it’s not science.  (This often separates it from some religions which declare themselves unfalsifiable, and therefore likely wrong.)  New scientific discoveries are made daily, of course, but new paradigms only tend to come on the scale of lifetimes, or several generations.  We don’t see them all the time.  I guess it’s heartening to see that the system works.  When science becomes orthodoxy, we run into similar problems that we encounter with religions.  A bit of humility and a ship-load of wonder can go a long, long way.

Self-Correcting

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A comment by a friend regarding Wikipedia recently got me thinking about self-correcting systems.  When I was teaching, I didn’t eschew Wikipedia like many of my colleagues did.  In case you’ve been living in a cave the last two decades, Wikipedia can be edited by anyone.  When I had more time than I do now, I used to correct errors I found there.  The thing is Wikipedia shouldn’t be used as the final word.  It’s a good place to start and, if you’re concerned about the truth, you’ll follow up by checking footnotes and looking up the references.  (Standard operating procedure for academics.)  Readers always need to keep in mind that what they’re reading may have been manipulated and distorted, which is why you want to check with established sources—some of us still prefer print, which isn’t so easily altered.  Still, Wikipedia is self-correcting and it works fairly well.

This got me to thinking about other self-correcting systems.  Those who know me know that I take criticism pretty hard.  That’s because I was raised with a crippling fear of Hell that let me to self-correct whenever I discovered an error.  And to scan my thoughts and motivations constantly for mistakes.  Sensitive bosses know that I only need to learn about an error I made, even obliquely, and that I don’t need to be told to fix it.  Of course I don’t!  Hell awaits those who let mistakes fester.  I’m not sure this is a good kind of self-correcting system, but it keeps me on my toes, and at times, even on my toenails.

The human body is often a self-correcting system.  We need the help of physicians when disease or injury occurs, but healing is part of a self-righting system.  (I’m indebted to an episode of Northern Exposure for reminding me of this recently.)  On an even larger scale, life on earth is self-correcting.  We humans have done more than our fair share of damage, and the self-correction (e.g., extreme weather because of global warming) may not be to our liking, but it is a system doing what it does best—righting the ship.  This kind of self-correction is inspiring and inspirational although we often take it for granted.  If healing didn’t occur none of us would be here to notice just how remarkable it is.  I don’t dismiss Wikipedia just because we can’t be sure everything’s written by experts.  Self-correcting systems are often the way of the world.

Not Resolved

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Some movies are intentionally mind-blowing.  Knowing the kind of movies I like, a friend suggested Resolution with the enticing note that it is free on Amazon Prime.  Since anything free is worth saving up for, and since I was having trouble staying awake on a warm, wet Sunday afternoon when the lawn couldn’t be mowed, I gave it a try.  Even after it was over I wasn’t sure what I’d seen, but I was glad that I had.  Part of the draw is how convincing the acting is.  Another is the bizarre nature of the threats.  Like Sinister (also released in 2012), Resolution involves found media that tell a disturbing story.  Only in the case of Resolution it’s set in a remote part of an Indian reservation and it involves a drug addict and his friend who’s attempting an intervention.

With the addict handcuffed to a pipe, his rescuer encounters a strange set of people in the area and has bizarre media delivered to him by an unknown party.  In fact, he goes to his friend because of a video emailed to him by the addict.  Only the addict didn’t send it.  The media (records, color slides, video tapes, computer files) tell increasingly strange stories until the media also begin to show the two friends almost instantaneously.  A stoned French researcher tells the rescuer that there might be some time-space dislocation here, or there may be a monster.  Reluctant to release the addict until he has several days to get the drugs out of his system, the friend attempts to figure out what all this means.  Then the media begin to show their short-term future.

I won’t say how it ends, but I will say that the title Resolution is well-chosen.  This is a very creepy movie.  A remote location where things just don’t seem right and the conviction that just a few days will save a friend’s life but only if they stay in place is a great concept.  In many ways it’s a movie about stories.  The resolution is the end of the story and that’s something that’s successfully kept up in the air throughout.  Anyone who writes stories knows the feeling of writing yourself into a corner.  Playing around with space-time opens up possibilities, however, corners or not.  I can’t say that I understood everything that was going on here, but it was edgy enough to keep me alert, even on a muggy, drowsy Sunday afternoon.

Middle Ground

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It’s the real poison Trump baptized.  Polarization.  The idea that there is no middle ground.  It’s a shame since the middle ground has been what’s kept America stable over the years.  Now it seems to be eroding rapidly.  While my sympathies have always been on the left, I realize that radical change tends to dirempt societies.  As much as I deeply desire justice and fairness for all, I know it will take time.  In my way of thinking that “all” includes animals.  That’s why I’m vegan.  Now, I know being completely vegan is likely not possible since who knows what everything is made of, and who has the time to find out?  I do the best I can and I don’t eat animal products and I try not to wear them either.  I know there are those who don’t share my outlook and they’re entitled to their point of view.

For nostalgia’s sake, and to get out of the house, we attended a 4-H county fair.  An annual event when we lived in New Jersey, it’s now a rarer treat.  So I put on that scarce recording of Bruce Springsteen’s song “County Fair,” not on any of his studio albums, and headed for New Jersey.  This county fair is the kind with animals rather than rides, and we stopped in to see the sheep, goats, cows, and alpacas.  It was in the cattle tent that I saw the following poster, claiming “There’s no such thing as vegan.”  Well, I don’t go around saying there’s no such thing as omnivores (thus the polarization) but this poster convinced me that we need to try even harder to stop raising animals to exploit. I understand, I think, the intent of the poster—cattle aren’t just meat.  The thing is, I think of them as conscious beings.

I miss the middle ground.  People no longer want to compromise or negotiate.  Since Trump it’s become “my way or the highway.”  I think I prefer the highway.  That highway takes me far from industrial feedlots where it’s illegal to document the cruelty that these animals undergo daily.  It’s quite a different thing for Bessie to lay down with a fan blowing on her under a tent with a small farmer caring for her, but that won’t feed a nation.  Small farms aren’t the problem. I don’t insist everyone be vegan.  I would like it if we could sit down and talk about it, however.  Cattle raising is the industry that generates the greatest amount of greenhouse gases that are causing global warming.  If we keep dividing ourselves and refusing to change we’ll be having this polarizing argument under water before too many years have gone by.  My highway is middle of the road.  Even slow change can benefit many.  The goal is to get “many” to “all.”

Creepy AI Doll

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We’ve all seen the killing doll horror movie before, of course.  Who hasn’t?  What makes M3GAN different is the whole artificial intelligence angle.  Okay, so you understand it’s about a killing doll, but unlike Chucky or Annabelle, M3GAN has a titanium frame and a super-advanced, wifi-connected brain.  Like generative AI, she’s able to learn on her own and even able to use her own reasoning to get around her basic programming.  Now, you’re likely smarter than me and I didn’t catch what the critics call the “campiness” to the film.  Yes, there are places that made me snicker a little, but although the killing doll premise made the results somewhat predictable, I watched it seriously.  Some websites list it as horror comedy, while others prefer sci-fi thriller.  Nevertheless, it isn’t really that funny.  And there’s a cautionary element to it.

Funki, a Seattle-based toy company, is always trying to stay ahead of the competition.  Animatronic toys are the rage, and Gemma (brilliant choice to have a female mad scientist here) is a visionary programmer.  She wasn’t expecting, however, to become her niece’s guardian after Gemma’s sister was killed in an accident.  The M3GAN prototype was already underway, but Gemma kicks it into high gear to help make up for her own lack of parenting skills.  M3GAN becomes her niece’s companion—soulmate, even—and since the two are bonded with biometrics, her protector.  Bullies, lend me your ear; you don’t want to mess with a girl who has an android as a bestie.  And nosey neighbors, fix that hole in your fence.  Or at least curb your dog.

Instead of I, Robot this is more like You, Robot.  There is a wisdom to the othering that goes on here because none of us know in what kind of reasoning generative IA might engage.  In real life computers have been discovered communicating with one another in a language that their programmers couldn’t read.  We’re all biological, however, and thinking, as we know it, involves many biological factors.  Logic is part of it, but it’s not the whole story.  So techies who idolize Spock and his lack of emotion feel that they can emulate thinking by making it a set of algorithms.  My algorithms lead me to watch horror films out of a combination of curiosity and a need for therapy.  Where does a computer go for therapy?  The internet?  Well, you might find some good advice there, but don’t be surprised if it comes at you with a paper-cutter sword in the end.  You’ve been warned.

Mystical

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I would never have experienced Tibetan singing bowls were it not for a family member’s cancer diagnosis.  Something you quickly learn is that many resources are available to help you cope.  One of those local to this area was/is Tibetan singing bowls.  I had no idea what to expect, but as a lifelong explorer of religion, I had gathered that the session would likely involve ways of thinking more common in East Asian cultures.  I was taken, however, on a spiritual journey.  In a darkened room with twenty-to-thirty cancer survivors, on our backs on the floor, we experienced sound.  Now, my musical training and ability are quite limited.  I could not identify most of the instruments (I kept my eyes closed), apart from the singing bowls which I had heard in other, western religious contexts as well.  I’ve had mystical experiences before, but I don’t know you well enough to tell you all about them.

Photo by Magic Bowls on Unsplash

The first thing I noticed this time was the color blotches in my closed eyes.  Everyone sees those kinds of things, but as the sounds increased the colors began to range outside their usual purple into whites and yellows.  It was almost like a segment from Fantasia.  The colors then began to take shape, some forming into flowers.  I knew my imagining mind had taken hold when images began to appear.  Although it was my usual bedtime by this point, I was fully cognizant of being awake.  There was no real storyline, but I was conscious of losing my sense of individuality and becoming part of the greater whole, which is what being a being on a small planet is all about.  As the sound meditation wound down, I realized that it had been many years since I’d put myself into such an environment.  It took some time to reorient myself.  When we arrived at home I was, paradoxically, too relaxed to fall asleep.

One of my college professors warned me against mysticism.  Mystical experiences are rare, in my life anyway, but unforgettable.  If you live long enough and pay the right kind of attention, however, you can find them.  They leave you with a profound sense of hope.  I’m not about to go off and join a Buddhist monastery, but Thomas Merton reminds us that Buddhism and Christianity are perfectly compatible.  This particular college professor was afraid, I surmise, that spiritual experience might outstrip dogged devotion to a single book.  Mysticism can take you to places that convince you what passes for reality is not all that’s real.  Being with lovely people who’ve had to face cancer is a spiritual experience in its own right.  Why shut out the light inside?

Creating Light

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I spend a lot of time awake when it’s dark out.  I try to limit the number of lights on, both for the environment and not to wake family members who sleep on a more normal timetable.  But this schedule makes me reflect a lot about light.  For example, the other day I glanced at a mirror that happened to be reflecting a light.  By reflecting light you create more light.  Think of the moon.  A full moon on a clear night can make a massive difference in how well you can see.  Farmers used to know this as harvest moons gave the possibilities for longer light-time hours to get seasonal work done.  And that light reflecting in my eye in an early morning mirror made me wonder what would happen if you set up a mirror facing a mirror with a light in the middle.  Wouldn’t you have just created more light in the world?

I’m almost always awake before sunrise.  I don’t recollect the last time I awoke to find the sun in the sky.  There are so many subtleties to morning light.  You can see it coming a long way off.  I try to jog at first light, when it’s just light enough to see where I’m going.  It’s important to seek light in the dark.  There’s a kind of spirituality to it.  Often when I’m jogging I’m amazed at how far even a small light carries.  When I see the stars at night and think how terribly, terribly far away they are, I marvel that their light still reaches us.  Light can be blocked out, but unless it is, it stops at nothing.  Light persists.  

Bioluminescence fascinates me.  We now know that our very genes have the ability to create their own light.  Fireflies and deep-sea creatures have figured out how to do it, and, I suspect, scientists could engineer a glowing person.  We have it within ourselves to create our own light.  Science wouldn’t disagree.  Sometimes such things are best seen by walking around in the dark.  The contrast helps that inner light show through more clearly.  Those who are afraid of the dark haven’t spent the time to truly become acquainted with it.  The dark is a very capable teacher and the rhetoric that it’s evil is based on mistaking, as the Buddha said, the finger pointing at the moon for the moon itself.  But it’s starting to get light out—time for me to go for a jog to seek even more of it in the semi-dark.

Hopeful Flowers

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Our front yard is a bit of a wreck this year.  You see, none of us are natural gardeners and with two chronic illnesses among the three of us we’ve had some multi-day hospital visits and shifting of priorities.  The front yard hasn’t been one of them.  I’m able to get out around 6 a.m. on a Saturday, however, to do some weeding.  My philosophy this year is that if it’s not something people would consider an “ugly weed” and if it stays under six inches tall, I’ll let it grow.  We’ve planted some deliberate ground cover that doesn’t seem very deliberate, but it’s slowly taking hold.  And, of course, there are the ubiquitous dandelions.  I don’t really have a problem with dandelions but others think of them as weeds and they do, admittedly, have no sense of personal space.  They’ll grow right up under some intentionally planted flower and crowd it out.

If you’ve dealt with dandelions, you know they have deep roots.  Well, it rained yesterday and the ground was soft enough that I was actually able to gentle one out the whole way today.  It was impressive.  Usually the root breaks off (a brilliant, if frustrating adaptation) less than an inch beneath the surface.  I thought to snap a picture before tossing this one on the compost pile (in the back yard, of course, inside the fence where it can’t be seen).  Talk about depth!  These yellow wildflowers with edible leaves and wine-making potential, are tenacious.  They have a very strong will.  Dandelions are perhaps the most strong-willed of plants.

With chronic illnesses, hope is essential.  Instead of getting angry at “weeds” I look at them as examples of just how mighty hope can be.  They find cracks that are so small that we overlook them.  The soil can’t always be great there, but they carry on.  Dandelions can reach impressive sizes (trust me on that one—I’m no gardener) and they don’t take “no” for an answer.  Such resilience gives me hope.  Were they more conscious (I’m sure they are at some level, but I surely hope it’s beneath the threshold of pain degree) they might well be dominant among the plants.  I missed mowing the lawn last weekend for being in the hospital with family, and it’s clear the dandelions have designs on taking over the place.  I see them and I find a deep peace.  Life finds a way, in spite of difficulty.  

Who Are We?

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I wonder who I am.  Beyond my usual existential angst, I tried to access some online learning modules at work only to have so many barriers thrown up that I couldn’t log in.  Largely it’s because I have an online presence (be it ever so humble) outside of work.  Verification software wants to send codes to my personal email and my company has a policy against running personal emails on work computers.  Then they want to send a phone verification, but I don’t have a work cell.  I don’t need one and I have no desire to carry around two all the time because I barely use the one I have.  By the way, my cell does seem to recognize me most of the time, so maybe I should ask it who I am.

Frustrated at the learning module, I remembered that we’d been asked to explore ChatGPT for possible work applications.  I’d never used it before so I had to sign up.  I shortly ran into the very same issue.  I can’t verify through my personal phone and I found myself in the ironic position of having an artificial intelligence asking me to verify that I was human!  I know ChatGPT is not, but I do suspect it might be a politician, given all the red tape it so liberally used to get me to sign in.  Not that I plan to use it much—I was simply trying to do what a higher-up at work had asked me to do.  So now my work computer seems to doubt my identity.  I don’t doubt its—I can recognize the feel of its keyboard even in the dark.  And the way my right hand gets too hot from the battery on sweltering summer days.  It’s an unequal relationship.

My personal computer, which isn’t as paranoid as the work computer, seems to accept me for who I say I am.  I try to keep passwords secure and complex.  I have regular habits—at least most days.  I should be a compatible user.  I don’t want ChatGPT on my personal space, however, since I’m not sure I trust it.  I did try to log into the learning module on my laptop but it couldn’t be verified by the work server (because the computer’s mine, I expect).  Oh well, I didn’t really feel like chatting anyway.  But I did end the day with a computer-induced identity crisis.  If you know who I am, please let me know in the comments.  (You’ll have to authenticate with WordPress first, however.)

Small Hops

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It was about the cutest thing I’d seen in a month of Saturdays—a baby rabbit.  It was no bigger than my fist and it was looking lost on the sidewalk.  The front “lawn” of the next neighbor’s house is paved and there’s only a wide street in the opposite direction.  Our front lawn has a retaining wall well about the jumping height of the little guy.  I didn’t want it dashing into the street, so I circled around from that direction, but the poor thing couldn’t get high enough to reach our lawn.  It was young enough not to be certain something at least twenty-five times its size meant it harm.  It allowed me to get close enough to scoop it up and put it on our lawn.  It immediately leapt away and sheltered under a bush, before eventually disappearing down a hole that I hoped might be its home.

Besides being a hope-filled chance encounter with the wonder of nature, the incident also caused me to ponder what that leporine brain made of this learning experience.  For human brains, any sufficiently large animal is a monster, and anything even larger is a god.  While there are some bad folks out there, people don’t seem evil to me.  And although we’re certainly not gods, I wonder what that little rabbit thought.  What I was attempting was an act of kindness.  I’m sure it scared the timid tyke—I can imagine being lifted by an enormous creature that I can’t understand and it is a most frightening prospect.  But what if that monster were to set me down just where I needed to be?  Might not my assumptions about it change?

We don’t know what other animals think, yet it’s clear that they do.  Our yard has a fence and we have no dogs, so rabbits tend to like it here.  I often mutter softly and try to avoid direct eye contact and sometimes they let me get fairly close.  I like to think some of the larger ones recognize me, and maybe can tell that a vegan has nothing but their goodwill in mind.  We like to think this about God.  Larger, easily able to harm us, but that somehow being divine also conveys good will.  The bunny incident cast a pleasant glow over the rest of an otherwise anxious day.  It had calmed me and conveyed a sense of appreciation for just how helpful the world of nature can be.  I hope for some tiny rabbits in your life too.

Next Gen AI, Truly

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Okay, so it was a scary meeting.  It was about AI—artificial intelligence.  Specifically Generative IA.  That’s the kind that makes up answers to questions put to it, or does tasks it’s assigned.  The scary part, to me, is that we are being forced to deal with it because tech companies have unleashed it upon the world without thinking through the consequences.  Such hubris gets us into trouble again and again but it never stops us.  We’re sapiens!  You see, GAI (Generative AI) is under no obligation to tell the truth.  It likely can’t even understand the concept, which is a human concept based on perceptions of reality.  GAI simply provides answers based on the dataset it’s been fed.  It can generate texts, and photos (which are so doctored these days anyway that we need a photo-hospital), which means it can, to borrow the words of a sage, “make a lie sound just like truth.”  We already have politicians enough to do that, thank you.

Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash

My real fear is that the concept of truth itself is eroding.  With Trump’s “truth is whatever I say it is” administration, and its ongoing aftermath, many Americans have lost any grip on the idea.  Facts are no longer recognized as facts.  “Well I asked ChatGPT and it told me…”  It told you whatever its dataset told it and that dataset contains errors.  The other scary aspect here is that many people have difficulty distinguishing AI from human responses.  My humble advice is to spend more time with honest human beings.  Social media isn’t always the best way to acquaint yourself with truth.  And yet we’re forced to deal with it because we need to keep evolving.  Those Galapagos finches won’t even know what hit ‘em.

Grandma was born before heavier-than-air flight.  Before she died we’d walked on the moon.  About two decades ago cell phones were around, but weren’t ubiquitous.  Now any company that wants its products found has to optimize for mobile.  And mobile is just perfect for AI that fits in the palm of your hand.  But where has truth gone?  You never really could grasp it in your hands anyway, but we as a collective largely agreed that if you committed crimes you should be punished, not re-elected.  And that maybe, before releasing something with extinction-level potential that maybe you should at least stop and think about the consequences.  I guess that’s why it was a scary meeting.  The consequences.  All technological advances have consequences, but when it takes a lifetime to get to the moon, at least you’ve had some time to think about what might happen.  And that’s the truth.

Thinking Power

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Thoughts are powerful.  An idea can change everything.  While materialism tells us that thoughts are only electro-chemical signals in an organic mass of tissue, those who have them know differently.  I don’t know you, kind readers, well enough to share the full truth of the matter, but I am more and more convinced that materialism is woefully overconfident in its ability to explain everything.  As a friend once told me, science accomplishes a lot and it clearly works, but it also sweeps anomalies off the table as statistically insignificant.  So when we read accounts of educated, rational individuals describing the impossible we laugh it off.  We shouldn’t.  Science and spirit working together is a powerful combination.  Getting the mix right is part of the process.

Our thoughts affect the world around us.  This can be as simple as deciding to mow the lawn.  By doing so, based on a thought, you physically altered the environment in some small way.  Isn’t it merely a matter of degree to let the thought do more of the work?  We’re a long way from mowing the lawn by mind power alone, but we’re at the point where belief (and I’m not talking facile follow-the-leader kinds of belief) should be allowed to grow a little bit.  There’s a lot more to the world than we’re often told there is.  What’s happened to our curiosity that we don’t explore it?  I have some theories regarding why we’ve cut ourselves off from potentially world-changing thoughts—thoughts that really could make the world a better place for all.  We’re tied to old paradigms.

We tend to be too busy to put large amounts of time into thinking.  As a society we undervalue that, in any case, until we need a professor in a specific specialization.  Thinking can lead to action.  We still can’t explain, scientifically, how the thought that I should mow the lawn translates to me standing from my chair, grabbing my hat and gloves, and a battery-pack, going to the garage, and hauling out the mower.  We do know that a thought starts a chain of events, but how does that thought move arms, legs, hands, and feet?  “For verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall say unto this mountain, ‘Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea,’ and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith.”  Or so the perhaps most influential sage in history once said. 

Private Therapy

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A friend recently introduced me to the YouTube channel, Cinema Therapy.  While I had some vague notions already that cinema therapy was “a thing,” I had never looked into it.  This was so, even while consciously knowing that I use movies that way.  Most of what I’ve seen on the YouTube channel has been about Disney/Pixar movies, especially those that tug at emotions.  These have never been my favorite movies since I have unresolved issues from childhood.  Still I learn a lot from watching their analyses.  It can still be difficult to watch these films, though.  As a family we recently rewatched Finding Nemo.  It struck me pretty hard how growing up without a father figure left me the anxious, quivering mess that I often am.  I prefer movies where I can find a father, no matter how odd the choices may be.

Photo by Denise Jans on Unsplash

In fact, in my own form of cinema therapy, I use horror films.  (Even the YouTube channel parses M. Night Shyamalan.)  Part of this is clearly because such movies take me back to my childhood.  I’m not sure why I found monsters so comforting, but I did.  We had no father and I latched onto the strong men—particularly if they didn’t smoke or drink—that dominated movies  (it was the sixties, after all).  Somehow I felt that this made the world seem alright.  Or a little less scary.   I didn’t understand the biology of parenthood, I just knew that I needed a man in the family.  One who would protect me and show me how to be a man.  Well, that never really happened.  My step-father was verbally abusive and I seemed to be his special target.  I watched horror and listened to Alice Cooper.

Sublimation, in psychology, is where you put difficult feelings aside, acting as if everything’s normal.  I did that for many, many years.  College, seminary, doctoral program, full-time professorate.  Then it all broke down.  After the tragedy at Nashotah House, I found myself watching horror movies again.  It took about a decade of doing that to realize that I could write books about the connection between religion and horror.  With three published (the third about to be, actually), I have a fourth nearly finished.  The writing is therapeutic as well.  I have to wonder, however, if these Pixar movies that are so painful for me to watch are really helping me.  I don’t always feel refreshed afterwards, as I do when I see a good horror movie.  (Bad films are their own kind of therapy.)  I’m an amateur psychologist (no license), with a most intractable client (myself).  My way of dealing with him is to watch horror and call it therapy.