shark nets of belief

This morning, my mind seems to be full of bits and shards unearthed at some Aegean dig ... there are discoveries to be made, perhaps, but discoveries of what, precisely, is not yet clear. Still, rooting around in the dirt like some kid in a sandbox is ... well, it's kind of fun.

Bits and shards through the 'spiritual' prism ...

-- If ego is little more than the desire to correct the world (including something called ego), then clarity is little more than the willingness, at last, to see. Once seen, there is nothing to hinder correction, but without seeing, correction goes endlessly unrewarded.

-- In the past, I have been pretty snarky when it came to belief. With the smooth self-congratulation of a rabid Muslim, Christian or humanist, I can say that the historical record of belief certainly deserves every lump it gets ... every bit of cranky snarkiness. But it was never the history lessons (grisly as they may be) that interested me so much. It was on a personal level that the empirical drawbacks of belief etched compelling lines for me.

Briefly, my snarkiness found a home in the observation that belief was invariably trumped by experience and that the unwillingness to put belief to the experiential test was a sure recipe for an uncertain life. Dumber than a box of rocks ... and yet testing belief is very frightening ... sometimes it is just easier to be a believer ....

OK ... enough of my snarkiness. I would like to say something good about belief.

Karl Marx is often (partially) quoted as saying, "Religion is the opium of the people." If ever I heard a more religious observation, I'm not sure what it might be. On the face of it, it sounds like a snippy comeback to the  door-knocking evangelizers who simply cannot credit a world without a belief in God. Their down-your-throat message, in brief: If you don't believe in God, you are royally fucked. The down-your-throat message from their detractors, in brief: If you do believe in God, you are royally fucked. (Perhaps this ping-pong dichotomy gave rise (or maybe not) to the uncouth but sometimes-apt observation, "Fucked if you do and fucked if you don't.")

None of this interests me so much in a sociological sense. What interests me is the applications within -- the to'ings and fro'ings in the human heart that seeks a bit of peace, a bit of resolution, a bit of relief, a bit of understanding. It is within that heart, I would say, that belief springs up. And, although that belief, whether in God or intellect, may be laced with Claymore mines of sorrow, still, I think it is potentially a good thing.

Why? Because belief is simply doubt dressed in well-pressed robes. And where some might say that belief is a sine qua non of a fruited spiritual life, I would say that the life-blood of spiritual life lies in the realm of doubt... the very doubt that belief encourages and nourishes in a serious spiritual aspirant.

As an intellectual or philosophical or psychological matter, none of this interests me much. What does interest me is the individual beliefs anyone holds ... about damned near anything. That and the desire to settle down and be at peace.

And it is within that very personal spectrum -- that get-real intimacy -- that beliefs might be likened to the shark nets that I understand are implanted along Australia's sea shores. Within those nets, children and adults can frolic and swim in relative safety. The nets hold at bay the predators of the deep. It is fun to have fun. It is consoling to be safe. And yet, for anyone who looks out along the buoys that might mark off the oceanic arena ... there is a tumultuous and wondrous and dangerous and undemarcated 'rest' of the ocean. And it is the demarcations themselves that point unerringly to a way of being -- an ocean -- that cannot be corralled.

Don't beliefs do much the same, offering an initial safety and sense of peace and yet, eventually, calling into question the safety and peace they were erected to provide? The answer is clearly not 'yes' in all instances. Sometimes the relative safety is just too enthralling and convincing and agreeable. Graveyards are littered with those who lived a believable lifestyle. It's human.

But likewise human is the curiosity and courage and doubt that springs up around the shark nets of belief. Since life demonstrably offers no guarantees, what might it be like to swim at peace in waters that likewise offer no guarantees? Those waters are no different from these waters ... except that these waters are surrounded by nets that seem to lack any fershur quality that might be found in a peaceful swim.

Isn't it the demarcations themselves -- be they beliefs or shark nets -- that point out a wider world? Isn't it they who help to encourage a willingness to go for a real and unfettered swim? I think maybe they are -- or can be -- and it is in this sense that beliefs may be seen as a pretty good thing.

-- At the Aegean dig site, bits and pieces are lovingly gathered. What urn or ewer -- what whole might emerge from all these parts? Bit by loving bit, rummaging around in an ancient soil. And yet, for all the effort and fun, how sensible is it to try to make whole what is already whole? It's just a question, not some smug, opium-laced criticism.