Back on the Path
On the Path Again:
There’s nothing so freeing as having everything you need to survive on your back, in such a way as it’s comfortable to walk. I need no car, no house… no purse nor anything else in my hands. All I have is the path before me, and a fork in a road.
I take the path that looks better, for whatever implicit reason I don’t know. I have never been here before, and aside from finding my way back sometime in the next couple days I don’t think I plan to be again. The farther I am from civilization right now, the better: I need to be alone. Yet all at the same time I feel a sense of belonging that I haven’t felt in quite some time before this point… and in other ways, I know exactly where I’m going, and I know exactly why.
I walk for an hour or so, trying a couple different deer paths off of the main track looking for clearing big enough to place my tent. Eventually I find one where I feel I should, and with it comes a fallen tree for a chair and another with a tree nearby perfect for sitting on a ways away from camp. It reminds me of the “butt-shaped” log that used to exist at a favorite spot over the river in the forest where I’d used to go to be alone in Ithaca. The log was very comfortable, and my friend Aran had noted that this log was a reason he believed in god.
The bastard broke the log later, but I’ll ignore the spiritual implications =).
In the woods I sit and drink some water before setting up the tent, the fire… and going off to do what I came for: to clear my mind of weeks and in some ways months of psychological and emotional baggage, to meditate, and to hopefully pray and get a sense of purpose that I have been otherwise lacking. I used to live by the adage : “the soul has a path it must follow and it will languish if it looses it’s way.” The problem was, I still found this maxim to be true even when I doubted if I had a soul. I found myself with no reason to wake up in the morning. I was depressed, and sooner or later my friends began to notice… I was not who I used to be, I was not psychologically healthy, and I had no one to distract me from my problems anymore. This was good.
I prayed. For the most part this process stopped working a long time ago… the last time I got it to “work” there was another person with me. Granted he was an agnostic, but that was what it took for me to find a friend who I respected and was respected by enough to find praying with them not an awkward prospect. Christians I’d pray with would have formats they followed… they might expect to use words and hear nothing back… even the prospect of using words: whether scripted or not, rubbed me the wrong way. I pray to set things right, and mostly to listen. I figure anything I could say is already understood: what is said is only to hear myself reach my own conclusions.
I had a hawk flying above trying to figure out what the out of place looking red and black thing was in her forest (my tent)… a crow which did the same, and a lot of wind through the trees asking me why I was there. It wasn’t my woods: I was a stranger here. But it was enough to clear my mind, and there enough of a sense of community for me to move beyond that. In the ends I felt as if the woods accepted my presence.
I did a lot of sleeping and a lot of dreaming… about the stressors related to my father, to my school… and to the people I miss in my life and will continue to do so indefinitely. I was given new ways to see these people and others: insights into what I could do in the near future, and what I couldn’t. I knew where I belonged, and I had the strength to begin walking in that direction regardless of the consequences.
Yes, prayer worked. Unfortunately for me, I forgot to bring a pen, for now I can only hold so many answers in my mind, and I received many. But when I eventually hiked out of there the following day, taking some necessary detours in the process… I left with a new sense of direction… peace… purpose. I left with the method to reach those answers again… I am again on the path.
Before I left for the woods I had had lunch with an old friend I hadn’t seen in almost a year. We were both much more depressed than we used to be, and when we talked… we both admitted we were a little out of phase with our respective feelings of purpose in life. I told her I had concluded recently I was no longer psychologically healthy… and that this was something I needed to fix. However I didn’t feel that medication or psychologists would be able to help me. What had worked in the past was spirituality, or more correctly, God in one name or another had been the saving force for me throughout much worse things in life. It wasn’t just a warm fuzzy feeling that everything would be alright: it came in dreams, warnings, signs… things I don’t really feel the need to elaborate on. It’s enough to say a psychologist couldn’t give that back to me. If anything… they wouldn’t believe me. These are not safe beliefs to have.
I did not have that faith any longer, these signs and communications had for the most part stopped. I did not find people I could relate to spiritually anymore… and between that and other things, it was a very lonely period of life. I felt that if what I experienced is real, there should be more people like me.
“Perhaps you are not ready to meet those people. When you are ready, they will be there.” Although my friend’s words had added a “perhaps” to her statement, there was only certainly in her gaze. And she was right… I wasn’t ready… but I’m starting to be. My friend walked her own path, and though the details were a bit different, we found that we understood each other very well that day. It wasn’t out of the water to assume we could be that kind of an ally for each other, if we found our way back to our respective paths.
I don’t know what my religion is. I don’t even know if what I hold on to can be defined by the word religion, or if I need to define it. I have experienced things which are not explainable with purely naturalistic definitions all my life: I can ignore them and they will go away… but only for a while. And in those instances I find myself empty… and worse yet… losing my reason to wake up in the morning, my very life and sanity. I cannot live without spirituality, as much as I’d like to live in a word I understand: I live in a world where things happen that I cannot explain and I cannot control. I can walk with these things, or I can close my eyes or walk against them.
Before my coincidences and experiences were interpreted by way of Christianity… but among Christ’s followers I am constantly on the outside looking in… and always has been: either exalted or rejected for experiences I have had and their implications. There are some things in Christianity I like very much, especially the early teachings: “ lead a quiet life…. work with your hands… be dependent on no one, ” (1 Thess 4). I resonate with the teachings of Christ, Paul, and to some degree Peter. I like the stories of Elijah, I like Genesis… but do not feel the need to interpret it as literally as many Christians in this country do. I like Revelation… and also feel that by definition, prophecy is non-literal. I find the literal and linear interpretations of that book by the average American Christian most dangerous of all… and yes… I mean dangerous.
I saw a T-shirt once that said “Jesus, save me from your followers”. I agree wholeheartedly… I’ve met many who would rather spend their money going to a foreign country to go to some school to teach them how to worship or pray better… but they aren’t doing anything useful. Many churches and group kill more then they save: they aren’t those who feed and clothe the poor or visit those in prison. That was the message of Christ… he didn’t say to anyone “I wasn’t going to church, and you invited me” he said “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat.” Paul and Peter both refused alms for their teachings in most cases, and Christ’s early followers only accepted lodging and food. Yet today this is the standard way in which Christian missionaries live so they can bring bibles to the starving children of… wherever.
I’ve met some missionaries who aren’t like this too… and I do believe that one needs to treat the whole person. The fact that we need food and shelter isn’t what makes us human, and I believe spirituality is: (even if on a particularly bad day I believe humans made God up). So when I list my grievances know that I do know and respect exceptions to every rule I set. Hence I stuck around Christianity for a while, hoping to find my exceptions… and to be one: to reform it from within.
I was very lonely within that religion: the friends I made who could “understand” me really couldn’t... Many of them confused me more than anything else. Among those who have claimed to “hear from God” are many who just want attention, or many who feel that to hear from God makes you as inerrant as they believe the bible is. I have problems with both assumptions. The bible came to us through human hands, and it contains human errors… to what degree? That is the question… I found many when I looked at it very closely… I’m afraid I can only take it so far. Fortunately I believe I don’t really need to take it as literally true. What is true will prove itself.
This will be my own path… and the details of it will remain my own, at least for now. I used to think I’d need some kind of a “master” or at least someone who was a few steps ahead going in the same direction. I’ve yet to meet anyone who fits this role, at least for very long. I meet people, and with them come a lesson: but only one at a time for me to assimilate.
Perhaps that’s only because I can only handle one lesson at a time…
Yet I do believe my friend was right. I HAVE met people like me, And far beyond what I’ve experienced in fact. Granted most of them are in Asia, but not all. I’ve meeting many more people who experience spirituality in a different way, but may lead to similar hypotheses about the spiritual world. I know none now may just mean that I need to be alone for this next phase of development. I am ok with that… because prayer worked, and the “divine coincidences” are back.
I’m being general… because this is a general blog, and some of my readers may not believe in spirituality at all. I have another where I go into more spiritual details, but that one is more protected from anyone on the internet who can stumble across it. If you want access to it, or want to hear more details… let me know.
There’s nothing so freeing as having everything you need to survive on your back, in such a way as it’s comfortable to walk. I need no car, no house… no purse nor anything else in my hands. All I have is the path before me, and a fork in a road.
I take the path that looks better, for whatever implicit reason I don’t know. I have never been here before, and aside from finding my way back sometime in the next couple days I don’t think I plan to be again. The farther I am from civilization right now, the better: I need to be alone. Yet all at the same time I feel a sense of belonging that I haven’t felt in quite some time before this point… and in other ways, I know exactly where I’m going, and I know exactly why.
I walk for an hour or so, trying a couple different deer paths off of the main track looking for clearing big enough to place my tent. Eventually I find one where I feel I should, and with it comes a fallen tree for a chair and another with a tree nearby perfect for sitting on a ways away from camp. It reminds me of the “butt-shaped” log that used to exist at a favorite spot over the river in the forest where I’d used to go to be alone in Ithaca. The log was very comfortable, and my friend Aran had noted that this log was a reason he believed in god.
The bastard broke the log later, but I’ll ignore the spiritual implications =).
In the woods I sit and drink some water before setting up the tent, the fire… and going off to do what I came for: to clear my mind of weeks and in some ways months of psychological and emotional baggage, to meditate, and to hopefully pray and get a sense of purpose that I have been otherwise lacking. I used to live by the adage : “the soul has a path it must follow and it will languish if it looses it’s way.” The problem was, I still found this maxim to be true even when I doubted if I had a soul. I found myself with no reason to wake up in the morning. I was depressed, and sooner or later my friends began to notice… I was not who I used to be, I was not psychologically healthy, and I had no one to distract me from my problems anymore. This was good.
I prayed. For the most part this process stopped working a long time ago… the last time I got it to “work” there was another person with me. Granted he was an agnostic, but that was what it took for me to find a friend who I respected and was respected by enough to find praying with them not an awkward prospect. Christians I’d pray with would have formats they followed… they might expect to use words and hear nothing back… even the prospect of using words: whether scripted or not, rubbed me the wrong way. I pray to set things right, and mostly to listen. I figure anything I could say is already understood: what is said is only to hear myself reach my own conclusions.
I had a hawk flying above trying to figure out what the out of place looking red and black thing was in her forest (my tent)… a crow which did the same, and a lot of wind through the trees asking me why I was there. It wasn’t my woods: I was a stranger here. But it was enough to clear my mind, and there enough of a sense of community for me to move beyond that. In the ends I felt as if the woods accepted my presence.
I did a lot of sleeping and a lot of dreaming… about the stressors related to my father, to my school… and to the people I miss in my life and will continue to do so indefinitely. I was given new ways to see these people and others: insights into what I could do in the near future, and what I couldn’t. I knew where I belonged, and I had the strength to begin walking in that direction regardless of the consequences.
Yes, prayer worked. Unfortunately for me, I forgot to bring a pen, for now I can only hold so many answers in my mind, and I received many. But when I eventually hiked out of there the following day, taking some necessary detours in the process… I left with a new sense of direction… peace… purpose. I left with the method to reach those answers again… I am again on the path.
Before I left for the woods I had had lunch with an old friend I hadn’t seen in almost a year. We were both much more depressed than we used to be, and when we talked… we both admitted we were a little out of phase with our respective feelings of purpose in life. I told her I had concluded recently I was no longer psychologically healthy… and that this was something I needed to fix. However I didn’t feel that medication or psychologists would be able to help me. What had worked in the past was spirituality, or more correctly, God in one name or another had been the saving force for me throughout much worse things in life. It wasn’t just a warm fuzzy feeling that everything would be alright: it came in dreams, warnings, signs… things I don’t really feel the need to elaborate on. It’s enough to say a psychologist couldn’t give that back to me. If anything… they wouldn’t believe me. These are not safe beliefs to have.
I did not have that faith any longer, these signs and communications had for the most part stopped. I did not find people I could relate to spiritually anymore… and between that and other things, it was a very lonely period of life. I felt that if what I experienced is real, there should be more people like me.
“Perhaps you are not ready to meet those people. When you are ready, they will be there.” Although my friend’s words had added a “perhaps” to her statement, there was only certainly in her gaze. And she was right… I wasn’t ready… but I’m starting to be. My friend walked her own path, and though the details were a bit different, we found that we understood each other very well that day. It wasn’t out of the water to assume we could be that kind of an ally for each other, if we found our way back to our respective paths.
I don’t know what my religion is. I don’t even know if what I hold on to can be defined by the word religion, or if I need to define it. I have experienced things which are not explainable with purely naturalistic definitions all my life: I can ignore them and they will go away… but only for a while. And in those instances I find myself empty… and worse yet… losing my reason to wake up in the morning, my very life and sanity. I cannot live without spirituality, as much as I’d like to live in a word I understand: I live in a world where things happen that I cannot explain and I cannot control. I can walk with these things, or I can close my eyes or walk against them.
Before my coincidences and experiences were interpreted by way of Christianity… but among Christ’s followers I am constantly on the outside looking in… and always has been: either exalted or rejected for experiences I have had and their implications. There are some things in Christianity I like very much, especially the early teachings: “ lead a quiet life…. work with your hands… be dependent on no one, ” (1 Thess 4). I resonate with the teachings of Christ, Paul, and to some degree Peter. I like the stories of Elijah, I like Genesis… but do not feel the need to interpret it as literally as many Christians in this country do. I like Revelation… and also feel that by definition, prophecy is non-literal. I find the literal and linear interpretations of that book by the average American Christian most dangerous of all… and yes… I mean dangerous.
I saw a T-shirt once that said “Jesus, save me from your followers”. I agree wholeheartedly… I’ve met many who would rather spend their money going to a foreign country to go to some school to teach them how to worship or pray better… but they aren’t doing anything useful. Many churches and group kill more then they save: they aren’t those who feed and clothe the poor or visit those in prison. That was the message of Christ… he didn’t say to anyone “I wasn’t going to church, and you invited me” he said “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat.” Paul and Peter both refused alms for their teachings in most cases, and Christ’s early followers only accepted lodging and food. Yet today this is the standard way in which Christian missionaries live so they can bring bibles to the starving children of… wherever.
I’ve met some missionaries who aren’t like this too… and I do believe that one needs to treat the whole person. The fact that we need food and shelter isn’t what makes us human, and I believe spirituality is: (even if on a particularly bad day I believe humans made God up). So when I list my grievances know that I do know and respect exceptions to every rule I set. Hence I stuck around Christianity for a while, hoping to find my exceptions… and to be one: to reform it from within.
I was very lonely within that religion: the friends I made who could “understand” me really couldn’t... Many of them confused me more than anything else. Among those who have claimed to “hear from God” are many who just want attention, or many who feel that to hear from God makes you as inerrant as they believe the bible is. I have problems with both assumptions. The bible came to us through human hands, and it contains human errors… to what degree? That is the question… I found many when I looked at it very closely… I’m afraid I can only take it so far. Fortunately I believe I don’t really need to take it as literally true. What is true will prove itself.
This will be my own path… and the details of it will remain my own, at least for now. I used to think I’d need some kind of a “master” or at least someone who was a few steps ahead going in the same direction. I’ve yet to meet anyone who fits this role, at least for very long. I meet people, and with them come a lesson: but only one at a time for me to assimilate.
Perhaps that’s only because I can only handle one lesson at a time…
Yet I do believe my friend was right. I HAVE met people like me, And far beyond what I’ve experienced in fact. Granted most of them are in Asia, but not all. I’ve meeting many more people who experience spirituality in a different way, but may lead to similar hypotheses about the spiritual world. I know none now may just mean that I need to be alone for this next phase of development. I am ok with that… because prayer worked, and the “divine coincidences” are back.
I’m being general… because this is a general blog, and some of my readers may not believe in spirituality at all. I have another where I go into more spiritual details, but that one is more protected from anyone on the internet who can stumble across it. If you want access to it, or want to hear more details… let me know.
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