Saturday, October 12, 2019
Evil is part of us, and yet that doesn’t excuse anything. Really, this is nothing new to religious thought, and it is ridiculous that contemporary society should need to have it explained yet again.
Contemporary society is in the process of redefining its understandings, bringing them to a new level of sophistication, and the process unavoidably involves losing ground. You recall that we explained that a new civilization’s assumptions are going to include some that the prior civilization took as fact and some that it took as fancy or superstition. Well, that is twice as true for religious thought. No new civilization accepts the prior civilization’s way of seeing things, and no new one receives the older one’s religion or religions unchanged. It may not intend to change it, or replace it; it may not realize that it has done so; it may even disapprove of the fact. Nonetheless, new wineskins and old wine. It is a reciprocal process: A new culture produces new individuals; new individuals change the culture. New individuals in a new framework are not going to fit into previous schemes of understanding the world and interacting with the older world’s gods.
To state it in crude outline, the Roman Empire was not the Roman Republic. The older Roman religion, excellent as it was for the older Roman civilization, died out in new circumstances, all the more definitely because it was not by anyone’s design. A Roman Emperor himself could not stem the tide, let alone reverse it, for neither he nor anyone else knew why the new Christian tide came flowing in. The Christian religion in turn changed its nature as the Roman Empire fell in the West and was replaced by the primitive but vigorous creators of its successors. In the East, where the Roman Empire clung to existence for another thousand years, the Christianity that lived in the civilization became almost unrecognizably different from the Christianity existing in the West. Both sides saw the difference, and each accounted for it by ascribing it to evil or stupid theological distinctions and/or by politically motivated corruption.
Similarly, in the West, when the Protestant revolution split the apparently whole fabric of Western Christianity. “Apparently” because a religion that is given only lip service by most of the population most of the time has already at least greatly changed, if it has not withered and died on the vine. But notice that Protestantism could not arise until certain societal conditions had changed things to prepare a congenial surrounding for it.
And, finally, Protestant Christianity flourished for 500 years, in turn lost its vigor and its societal support by further changes in the social world around it, and, certainly by World War I and its chaotic and catastrophic results, had actually died and was left standing, like dead trees.
This is not about religion. It is about interactions between society and the individual and the enveloping technological and scientific convictions that result in a certain way of seeing; that is, a certain way of being. Any given individual may be a communing member of a religion and live it quite sincerely and productively. But that is not the same thing as saying that that individual’s religion is (or isn’t) appropriate for the times.
We in our time of huge global change have outgrown our skins, and are in the in-between phase.
True enough but we would say more. What science is, what religion is, what art is, is changing, has changed, must continue to change, as older partial civilizations come under the continued bombardment of living among other partial civilizations that are themselves enduring the same process. A new global civilization will not universally adopt Christianity, nor Islam, nor scientific materialism. It may express itself in English as a language, in Buddhism as a philosophy, in this or that stance regarding human relations to the 3D world, but it will not adopt the prior scheme of things. How could it? It being different, how could the old ways fit it?
But do not take this to be confined to the conditions under which humans will agree to be governed or organized. We refer to the way you will see the world. And, change that, everything changes. Not just a religion, or even all religions, but religion per se. What science is seen to be; how science is to be practiced and experienced. Not “art for art’s sake” or, say, “socialist realism,” but a new conception of what art is, and therefore how it is to be pursued and experienced.
Every single manifestation of change will be, in itself, trivial. Every single problem that seems to flow from this or that policy decision will be seen, eventually, as symptomatic rather than causal. If you are in the middle of an earthquake, probably the falling crockery cannot be justly ascribed to your neighbor stamping his feet.
Hello, I have been reading your Rita´s books and find them very inspiring. In your first volume of Rita´s world in page 135 Rita says: ¨after Gateway in 1979, Lost all my capacity for being guilt-tripped.¨ Could you tell me more about this? I am asking because I tend to be guilt ridden. Thankyou, Josie
I don’t know any specifics, just that Rita said gleefully that her daughters were disappointed at losing that lever on her. (My words, not hers.)
As to your specific situation, let me suggest a thought experiment. As you know, in any community, you are going to have people with different values, making different judgments. These different individuals may not even like each other, but certainly they are going to look at the world from different windows, so to speak; they are going to see things differently.
Suppose you consider yourself to be, not the unit you usually think of yourself, but a community of elements. Use your active imagination – somewhere between a daydream and a fantasy – and call a meeting of all these elements. Invite them to speak up – lovingly, not scathingly – about anything you do that they don’t approve of, or anyway think are mistaken.
Things may well up that will surprise you. Try to remain receptive and listen. You may learn things. If you hear something that sounds like a valid criticism, acknowledge it and thank the element that brought it up. See what happens. You might make a habit of it, if it turns out to be productive.
i know this may sound strange, but consult your feelings. If something within you say, “No way!” then, all right, it is not for you. But if the idea arouses your curiosity, even perhaps a sense of excitement, then by all means try it. This is not a magic formula for anything, but it may prove to be a useful technique to deal with the day by day. If you do try it, let me know how it works. (PEM if you want to keep it private.) Because, you see, I did not know I was going to suggest this when I sat down to reply to your comment. What I got is new to me, and I think I am going to try it myself.