“Spiritual” Responds to edjog’s sharing of “deepest despair”

Well written and interesting. Couple of points though - Spirit doesn't always raise us up from deepest despair. I’ve known too many whom despair conquered; who died through recklessness or deliberately. It's only chance/divine intervention/my soul (who knows?) that saved me from a similar fate. Far from a sense of transcendence, this period of my life was characterized, almost mantra like, by the thought, "Fuck you, i won't..." Not that i can really say who this was directed at, even after therapy. It was very general, possibly even myself. Nor could i have defined exactly what it was that i wouldn't: die possibly, give in, and knuckle under? All these would have been possibilities.

This is what brings me to Soul. I think it's immutable, immortal, rather than a gift, actually part of the divine. I was a particularly questioning child, not just, "why?" but "why not?" Now, it's possible that my parents were just spectacularly bad at the platitudes which are used to deflect the questions of children, when the answer isn't known/dare not be contemplated, but that seems unlikely. I was just not satisfied with them. I believe this was my soul's response to finding itself in a world where so much, not only makes no sense, but is plain wrong. Intellectually, i didn't have the capacity of a chimpanzee, but my soul knew mendacity when it was confronted by it. Strangely (it seems, in comparison to most people I’ve met, because obviously, it's not strange to me), i can clearly remember these times, right back to times where my view of the world was obstructed by the bars of my cot.

That was the nature of my soul being manifest. Regardless of how it was different from anybody around who might possibly have inspired my intellectual development, or how it made adults uncomfortable and thus got me into trouble. To what else would i ascribe a 4 year old's realization that religion was a means by which adults where told how to live, just as rules like bed time were for me? I didn't know any adults who even thought about such questions until i was much older.

To go back to my first point, this is what i now believe i would not: abandon my soul so i could fit in, nor give up on life. Somehow, i would reconcile my conflicts or at least learn to accept that they are irreconcilable and crack on regardless.

There is another reason for "the Pagan" to engage with the world through an alternate model than the modern scientific: curiosity. Much like blogging, we put our thoughts out there and only the determinedly self-centered would believe that, individually, they will make any difference to the grand scheme of things, but we are curious to see what comes back. For me, the nature of what's come back, metaphysically, is enough to convince me of the numinous nature of all life (although I’d been vegetarian for 14 years by then). Like you say, it's a relationship, but for me one that's always been there, just that i wasn't aware of it before.

Friends: true friendship asks only for respect. Everything else is a mutual coping strategy, likely based on some form of dishonesty.
Have a good one, bah humbug and all that, e

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Submitted by edjog


Reply to edjog
Edjog, it’s always a pleasure to read your comments. I was not aware that you were a vegetarian. Does that just mean you do not eat meat or are you a Vegan and do not consume any animal products: eggs, milk, etc?

I do not remember much about my early youth, a little more about adolescence and more clearly my early adulthood, but I do recall feelings of inadequacy possibly because of my religious convictions. I do not, however, remember so much the rules of religion as I do the overall burden of it, the suffocating desire to please something or someone who could never be satisfied.

I like your definition of friendship. I have come to regard that which cannot be controlled (God) as a friend. I find it irritating when others refer to God as love, even when they say “God loves you.” Somehow this seems to diminish that which cannot be controlled (God) by binding Him in a loving (potentially overpowering and certainly dependent on my emotional attachment) relationship. I see the relationship as one of mutual respect and affection, and not dependent one on the other.

You always seem to end your comments with a really insightful statement. It seems to suggest that whatever route you take, you always know where you’re going, and you get there.

Hey PaulEdward
No not Vegan, merely nothing that was once a living creature. I have to make a daily compromise with my hypocrisy and try to do better. I have been Vegan but ended up very ill. The organization that's needed to get a properly balanced diet without eggs and dairy has always eluded me except as part of a collective, of which i am no longer.
Yes, i identify with that "suffocating desire to please something or someone who could never be satisfied" although for me it was society in general and specifically those who were in positions of authority over me. As with religion, i rejected the lot of it. It was a classic 'baby out with the bath-water' job and I’m only now relearning many of the strictures of life and that some of them are there because that is actually the least burdensome of ways of going about whatever they pertain to. The mad thing is, despite my clear memories of earlier, there are whole sections of my early adulthood that are like a memory of one long day: insanely running around amassing resources, dealing drugs and consuming them, interspersed with moments of particular pain or joy.
I'm suspicious when anyone tries to define God (and it almost always is just that, not 'Goddess', 'The Divine' or even just 'A Spiritual Higher Power'), how one should seek to apprehend the reality of such, behave towards or as a result of said. One either gets it or one is more than likely looking in the wrong places, probably blinded by a dogmatic approach to life. From my own experience: religion is the antithesis of what my spiritual nature tells me; precisely because of its nature, it precludes me from telling anybody else what it is. It's personal and thus could not but hinder another's search. Clues, though, truthful accounts of others' journeys: that makes sense to me.
Re: "really insightful statement." Thanks but i suspect that, in as much as I’m aware of it, it's probably vanity; a desire to imitate that which has seemed cool to me. So, in that vein: it only seems to suggest that i know where I’m going and that in itself may well be part of what I’m about, i.e. trying to convince myself of this, whereas the truth is: I’m as confused as the next fool, but at least i know that and am neither content nor blaming anybody else.
Submitted by edjog