The pique of spirituality; or, Is the Pope just another guy with a funny hat?

It's been an interesting weekend.

Me and Jesus, we're buds. We have an understanding, I think. I don't demand to know the details of The Plan, and he's OK with me being human. It's a good working relationship. Church, however, is another matter. As a kid, I grew up in the Methodist Church. Frankly, I don't have a clue about the details of Methodist doctrine. I assume that it doesn't include transubstantiation, but I'm not clear on the issue of predetermination, predestination, or total free will. Some people find that important. I grew up with varying ideas of God, and frankly I think I always tried to keep a low profile. It didn't seem right to proclaim piddling items of faith as the Absolute Truth, when I really didn't have a clue. Church was, to me, about friendship and connection with society. As you know, I've always been socially retarded, and that certainly applied to me as a kid. I remember an "interdemoninational youth group" that I was a part of in high school. It was ethnically diverse, in retrospect, and I'm amused that I even remember that. We certainly weren't aware of that, we were just friends, learning the basics of independent interaction and loving friendship. (Note elsewhere, I've said that the current prohibition against teens touching each other is moronic.) The youth leader was Al, a senior at PHS, a big fellow with an outrageous sense of humor and who showed about as much fellowship and love as was permissable for a high school kid. I remember when he was killed when he rolled his little red MG convertible on Route 50. That did not make sense at the time, and still doesn't. Was that ordained by God? If so, He needs glasses. Why couldn't he have killed a young Saddam Hussein or Usama bin Laden? Perhaps I'm wrong, but I think Al would have been a much better human than either of those two. (And here I remember a song by . . . by . . . damn, I forget - Springsteen? Anyway, one line was "Only the good die young," and when it was popular, it was sort of an anthem for paramedics. Many a drunken episode in a nice bar was livened up with that song. It may even be true. It was true for Al.) I remember showing a senior girl the way up to the dome of the church, and fantasizing about "getting lucky" up over the stained glass. When she bent over to look down the long way down into the sanctuary, my eyes were focused intensely on the tops of her legs. (This in the days before panty hose, which are both ridiculous and not too darn enticing.)

Both yesterday and today have been spiritually thought-provoking for me. Yesterday, I was at No. 3 most of the day, doing the Saturday routine, which frankly isn't all that strenuous. I.e., I spend some time screwing off in the cushy chair in LaElu's office, reading. I went to my desk and was sorting through some papers. I came upon a postcard (remember those) from my Masonic Lodge which announced the "Past Masters Night" for that evening. It is hard to get away from No. 3 in time to go to lodge during the week, and when the meeting runs very late, that makes the next day's schedule all the more difficult. But whenever I see that we're having a Saturday meeting, I do my best to attend. So, I stayed late at No. 3, found a blazer that fit, and went to lodge. (I'm going down in clothes sizes quickly now - the nature of solids and geometry is that at a lower weight, the same weight loss produces larger linear reductions.) I got there early, because parking is a bear there, and sat through the dinner. That night, it wasn't prepared by the "stewards" of the Lodge, it was prepared by ladies from the Eastern Star, to make money for their organization. (That's bothersome to me. It feels like they are taking a subservient role. Note elsewhere my extreme -- if occasionally ruinous -- love of women.) The meal was "traditional rib-sticking American food," i.e., way too much and loaded with grease. (I'm soooo concerned about the diet long term - for this to be successful, I have to keep that stuff out of my life.) We went upstairs to the Lodge room, and held a "Master Mason's Lodge," in which there is ritual including prayer. (dear friend is a lawyer here, whose grandfather was Master of my Lodge in 1921, and whose father was Master in 1950. I'm going to mail her the little program of remembrance that was printed up.) As I've noted elsewhere, you can find versions of Masonic ritual in hundreds of places online. Every time I am a part of it, it gives me an opportunity to reflect and learn. LaElu surprised me today - noting that she thought I was an atheist, given my avoidance of church services. In fact, no atheist can be a Mason. I was disturbed during the meeting and afterwards when I learned of the illness of four brothers I'm close to. My "coach," Billy R., is in the hospital with severe respiratory problems probably due to years and years in the coal mines. The Lodge chaplain, Bob E., is a fellow I dearly love. He was an assistant scoutmaster in a troop I belonged to nearly 40 years ago. He came over during a break, and was telling me about just being diagnosed with prostrate cancer, and what the medical mill had in store for him. He talked about the fact that he has always prayed every day, and doesn't expect something miraculous of the burning-bush variety. Rather, he prays for the strength to fight. He is a man's man. Then there's Butch, who occupies a post called the "tiler." Butch is a contractor who smoked for years, quit 3 or 4 years ago, but got cancer anyway. He has cancer of the jaw, throat and tonsils, and he too has been tossed into the medical grinder. He's doing pretty poorly. He's a great guy. Due to my legendary ineptitude at fixing things, he's taken care of my Mom's house since Dad died in 1999. He stops in to visit her every month or so, usually bringing a bag of hamburgers from a greasy spoon near the college. And finally, there was Harold. I really love that guy, he is giving and loving and altogether pleasant. He has long been a brittle diabetic, and a couple of years ago, had to have a pancreas transplant. (I'd never heard of a pancreas transplant before that.) This cured his diabetes, and he's had a couple of great years. Now, though, the immune-suppressing drugs that he absolutely must take to avoid organ rejection are now causing squamous cell skin cancers, which are accumulating faster and more aggressively than surgeons can remove them, and he is truly screwed and he knows it. There's an interesting conundrum, what is the right thing to say to someone who is dying and knows it? Oops? Bad luck, old boy? Well, I told him I didn't know what to say, and he laughed because he enjoyed my perplexed look. Then I told him that I'll be there to help his wife "when the time comes," and that was a comfort to him. Here are 4 guys, 4 brothers, who have lived really good and decent and productive and honest and worthwhile lives, and they could each conclude that God has deserted them. None of them are saying that, and I pray to God that I'll be able to buck up like them when my Time comes. I left rather sad, and not understanding the justice or fairness of this. As if I believed in justice and fairness.

Then, today, I started with the typical Sunday routine. That means getting up when I damn well feel like it (although, as I age, it gets earlier and earlier), heading for No. 3, putting on the coffee and reading the Sunday paper. That doesn't take a great deal of time, I only read the local paper. Oh, I cannot claim originality in the use of "mizpah" at the end of most posts, as that comes from a local columnist who writes in a way that shows he absolutely doesn't care what people think about him, he's saying what he wants. I like that attitude. (A girlfriend once got me to read the New York Times and Washington Post on Sundays. It took too much time, and didn't cure my cultural isolation, and besides, CV News, the only place in town I know of that sold them, closed a couple of years ago.) I got dressed up again mid-morning, because I promised my Mom that I would take her to church. She's been depressed because the people she has sat with for years have either died or sickened to the point that they cannot attend services. Given my adult-life record of formal church attendance, she didn't believe that I'd follow through until I showed up at her door. To feed my caffeine addiction, I stopped at McDonad's and got a "senior coffee," which annoys me but still saves 41 cents. While I was there, I saw a grizzled, bearded fellow go inside and then emerge with his own coffee. The car thermometer said 38 degrees F., so I figured that he would go back to his car and take off. He went to the little balcony overlooking a simple, working-class neighborhood, wiped the dew from the railing, and stood there drinking coffee, leaning on the railing and "observing the scene." I'm not sure why I mention this - it struck me as significant at the time.

I confess to some nervousness as we went into the church. I hadn't been in there since my Dad's funeral, and I busied myself with examining the physical plant. There are laminated wooden arches which create an impressive free span. On the sharply curved ends of them, there are whatever the modern equivalent of flying butresses distribuing the load, and that both amused and impressed me. It was some comfort to me that I know the pastor pretty well. It's Jim N., a very pleasant retired Methodist minister who is the temporary preacher at this Disciples of Christ Church. He was Bro. Dave's pastor for years, and that's how I met him. He's a sort of philosopher of "Flexidoxy," my word for love and not iron-bound doctrine, not to be confused with a hooker who has been a gymnast. Early in the service, he asked if he had any "young friends" he could talk to, and several little kids came forward. (I was impressed that this church doesn't banish the kids to some alternate room for the service, they understand that sometimes kids make a fuss, and it's not a big deal.) One of the children brought a "lava rock" for him to look at, and he gave what I think was an impromptu sermon (I hate that word for some reason) about science and how it is consistent with God. He talked geology and somehow transitioned to cosmology. Actually, he didn't do a bad job, even touching upon the contra-intuitiveness of relativity. He did opine that the universe is eternally expanding, and I need to talk with him about that not being settled. It depends on the presence of currently-unmeasurable "dark matter" as to whether the universe we know is open or closed. Some of the rituals of the church aren't so flexible, but I guess tradition supports them without requiring that they be taken seriously. One is a song or chant or something, the name of which I don't recall, which promises "world without end." Personally, I find Carl Sagan's concept of a "last perfect day" on Earth to be pretty convincing. Indeed, it's inevitable. The sun is going to run out of hydrogen in a few billion years, begin to burn helium and expand beyond Earth's orbit. So it's not "world without end," but of course I won't be corporeally here to confirm that. I think. (Aside: The new novel by Ken Follett, World Without End, is totally superior and I highly recommend it.) There was, of course, singing, which I don't really understand. I had a couple of problems. Where my Mom had to hold the hymnal to see it, I couldn't make out the printing with my bifocals. Also, I have an untrained but decent baritone voice, but I've never really read music well enough to follow accurately the baritone line. So, I just went with the flow without singing. Another confusing part of the service is the "Lord's Prayer," where God is implored, among other things, to "lead us not into temptation." I wonder why that's still a part of that prayer. Prayer may be answered in some respects, but I don't know that this phrase has ever gotten an affirmative response. A better request, in my opinion, would be to "help us have the strength and good judgment not to jump at temptation like a cliff-diver at Acapulco." God hasn't always answered that one affirmatively, but it strikes me that it has a better chance of working.

I enjoyed the service. For some reason, I was reminded of my favorite bit of e.e. cummings.:
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i thank You God for most this amazing day:
for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky;
and for everything wich is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun's birthday;
this is the birth day of life and love and wings:
and of the gay great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing breathing any-lifted from the no of all nothing-human merely being doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake
and now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
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This afternoon, I was reading a bit of Scott Adams' new book. One essay talks about religion and how the adherents of each of the world's faiths "pray to different invisible friends." The First Amendment is healthy and vibrant in some respects (those which do not threaten profits).
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I'm gearing up to drive to a far-away jail tomorrow to talk to Tina the Crack Dealer. Perhaps the acid test for a belief system is one that will help her make sense of her life, and live in peace and love in the future. She certainly has the potential for that - she is a nice person. But I do so worry about all of the horrible influences in her life, and her willingness to put them aside. Here is the test of religion: How does this spiritual body treat Tina the Crack Dealer? If the only people who get saved are the meek, pious and lucky, the whole thing strikes me as a sham.

Oh, I'm going back to church with my Mom next week. Go figure.

A worrisome thought for today: This is Veteran's Day, formerly Armistice Day, marking the end of World War I. Whoever decided the terms of the peace determined that there was some sort of important symbolism is ending the war at 11:00 AM, so that it ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. In McCullough's bio of Harry Truman, he says that Truman's battery fired their 75 mm cannons right up until 11:00. Who's dumbass idea was that? Rather, fucking immoral idea. Who was killed simply because some symbol-bound moron decided to delay peace by a few hours. God wasn't on the ball on this occasion.

What also impressed me a lot is that Pastor Jim pronounced "gunwale" correctly when he was citing Kierkegaard. Not many ministers know how it's pronounced.

Pippa passes. Mizpah.

R