Sunday 21 September 2003

Pic of the day: Tricks of the Light? I got this painting on wood from a Friend in the Church, not so long before he went to rest from all earthly labor. The Norwegian text means "Thy word is a light upon my path", but in truth the sun in the picture is the flash from my camera. The original painting had a cloudy sunset quality of color.

Grateful wretch

My previous entry may have given the impression that I was born to be good, then perfected myself through years of meditation, and now I'm hurrying to gloat before it is too late. That's pretty far from the truth. Now let us take a look at the other side of the coin.

It is true that I was born into a good family. My parents were not very emotional, rather of a stoic nature, but they were treating us almost like we were borrowed from God. I thought this was normal, until I was old enough to visit other homes and see how relations were between family members there. In my own family, my one true enemy was my oldest brother. I don't think he ever hated me the way I hated him, he just had fun pushing my buttons because he liked the spectacular effects when I got angry or scared. When I no longer reacted like that, we became friends pretty quickly. Well, sort of friends. We live apart both geographically and culturally, now. But it is still kinda weird that he was my first archetype of the Devil.

He was certainly not long alone in that business. I was small and weak for my age, sickly with asthma (this was before the recent asthma pandemic all over the rich world), and to top it all off I started school as the youngest in my class. Seven years of nightmare followed, as neither I nor the local bullies had any social skills to speak of, and they were far stronger than I. Only during the last year and a half or so of school did I get some respite, and then I left the village to attend high school on the south coast (still in Norway).

***

My change of luck happened around the same time as I got to know "Smith's Friends", or The Christian Church as they somewhat generically call themselves. You may say the word "church" implies Christianity by default, and indeed they would always refer to themselves as simply "the church" in everyday English. In Norwegian, which I spoke at the time, they used a word that more correctly translates as "congregation". In Norwegian, there is a strong tradition of using that word about the people and "church" about the buildings with spires and crosses. The Friends had little sympathy for pretty buildings or anything else that looked good to the world.

It was luck to the point of miracle that just I should happen to find just them. Unlike many churches which are more like social clubs, being a Friend was something that shaped your whole life. People were constantly trying to learn what was God's will, and put it into practice. Luckily for all involved, the Bible was pretty clear that God wanted people to do honest work for their money, so the Friends fit reasonably well into society. But society in general did not fit well into the Church. It was a society unto itself, and friendship with the World was unacceptable. No, it was unthinkable. You did not tell someone to not have friends in the World, except the very young and ignorant. It was a given.

The qualification for friendship was to confess faith. You did not need any social skills, which was a true blessing to me as I had none. And I did not fake the faith either; I would not even have the skill for that. I think I came across as a very honest, earnest, and barely sane young man. Despite my utter lack of polish and manners, I was treated with the utmost respect and all reasonable display of friendship. It was quite a turn-around for someone who had been stomped on for most of his life. It was in fact much like coming home to my own family.

After a long time, our paths diverged. Not because of theological differences so much as social. The Church is very family-oriented, no, extremely so. I am not. Also the separation from the rest of humanity is something I don't feel convinced about. (It may be two sides of the same coin really – if you have small impressionable children, you may want them to be shielded against the harsher world out there as much as possible.)

Anyway, the Friends have contributed a lot toward my sanity and what social skills I have eventually acquired.

***

It was as a Christian I first came in contact with meditation, although I did not know what it was at the time. Sometimes when praying, I did not have anything I wanted to say to God, I just didn't want to hang up. So I kinda remained in contact, without any words, but in a setting of peace and safety. I still thought of it as prayer, even though I did not say anything or hear anything. I had heard about meditation briefly, but did not recognize it until one day on Brunstad (the conference site) where I was sitting quietly in the park area praying (as I thought) when a more advanced Friend came by and remarked that I seemed to be meditating. Indeed I was, and later I have found out more about this remarkable state of mind.

As I started to do more scientific, non-religious meditation, I slowly started to experience some unusual side effects. You may call them magic or mind powers or psionics, or you may call them illusions, delusions and coincidences. Perhaps the best expression is synchronicity, because it is used by psychologists and mystics both but in different meanings. It truly depends on how you see it. Do we create meaning out of coincidences, or do our spiritual nature cause coincidences to happen at just the right time and place to fulfill the meaning? God knows. But I have found that people who like to speak on behalf of God don't always know what they are doing, much less what God is doing. So I won't give any answers to this, just the question. Anyway, I prayed to Yahweh to take away from me those "supernatural" skills while they were still just buds, and it seems I was heard. I live now in a simpler, more scientific world. I like it here, mostly.

But I still pray, in a manner of speaking. And still, when my soul is empty and weak and tired, it sometimes reaches out. And goosebumps spread across my skin as something flows into my soul, something like the stuff from which consciousness is made. And in my soul's hunger, there comes satisfaction. In my weakness, there comes new strength. In my empty mind, awareness rises. In my loneliness, there is a presence. There is no form, there is no speech, not even a name. But in a dimension at an angle to all three dimensions of our world, there is something or someone so close, I feel it is within arm's reach. But when I try to put it into words, when I try to analyze it, when I try to bring it into my scientific world ... I lose it.

I wonder, when my life in these three dimensions are over, will that presence be there again? I cannot say, and I am not eager to find out yet. Just now, I am thankful for what I have, and what I have had.