Category Archives: spirituality

atheism

So Help Me Flying Spaghetti Monster

If Agnostics had a holiday...

Image by Dante Shepherd at Surviving the World.
(Brought to my attention via Jesse Galef at Friendly Atheist.)

Not only is it disappointing that there is only one openly nontheistic representative in Congress, but it’s amazing that there are laws in several states prohibiting nontheists from holding public office.

It’s also disappointing that there are “closeted” atheists in public office, both in Congress and (likely) around the nation. The unfortunate truth, however, is that many atheist public servants would be voted out of office by their Christian constituents, just like many atheists who “come out” to their families are shunned or disowned (not me, thank goodness — my Mom is loving and understanding, if confused by my lack of belief).

I look forward to the day when believers and nonbelievers alike can get past their personal beliefs and coexist openly in society, without fear of discrimination or prejudice.

atheism

The Atheist Tenor

The first atheist I ever met — knowingly, anyway — was a boy named Aaron Roberts*. He was two years behind me in high school, and was a Sophomore when I was a Senior. We both sang in the chamber choir, which was a small, tight-knit group of about 16 students. We got to know one another well and to feel comfortable being ourselves, and it was in that context that the rest of us learned about Aaron’s atheism.

I honestly don’t remember it being a problem, or even how it came up in the first place. He never made a fuss about any of the “sacred” songs we sang, and his non-belief was really just kind of a running joke amongst all of us. I don’t remember any of us seriously chastising him for not believing in God — which, looking back on the ultra-conservative cornfield that encompassed our school, is surprising in retrospect. We engaged in a brief high-school-level discussion about proof and reason, and we all (as I remember it) agreed to disagree, with no hard feelings. (Aaron Roberts might remember it differently, I suppose.)

The only time I distinctly remember his atheism coming up, other than the initial discussion, was near the end of the school year. One of the pieces of music we were learning had been photocopied on the reverse side of some letterhead for a Lutheran church, and Aaron was one of the first to notice. He joked about being offended by the photocopies, and we all laughed, and went on singing. The end.

As for myself, I do remember being a little sad for Aaron. After all, I knew God’s Plan. I imagined that Aaron’s life must be so sterile and bleak, not believing in the Hereafter… but Aaron actually seemed quite happy and sure of himself, if still a little introverted and geeky at age 15. (Weren’t we all?)

Before the midpoint of the school year, the chamber choir suffered a tragic loss: Scott, one of our tenors, died in a car accident. For many of us, it was our first experience with the death of a peer, and we didn’t really know how it was appropriate to react. I didn’t, anyway.

Our choir director, Ms. Beall, was sensitive to our feelings, and knew how we would deal best: she led us in “The Lord Bless You And Keep You,” then let us have the class period to cry and talk and deal as we felt best. That was a Monday, as I recall; on Tuesday, we had to get back to work, and the tenors suddenly found themselves underbalanced, with one less member. I think that having to deal with the immediate ramifications of a missing member may have helped us deal with the fact that he was gone for good.

At least half the school went to Scott’s funeral later that week, and I’m pretty sure that the vast majority of the choral program and the sports program turned out to pay their respects. Honestly, I don’t remember if Aaron dealt with Scott’s death any differently than the rest of us — outwardly, at least. If he did, I probably chalked it up to the awkwardness of dealing with strong emotions in front of other people, since I definitely had that problem myself.

Life is so short. So precious. Even more so when you realize that there IS nothing else. This is all we have. In all the eons of time, of all the potential people who could have lived, but didn’t, we get to exist and be present and alive and conscious for a tiny fraction of eternity. Whether that’s 16 short years or 90 short years, we’ve still beaten the odds.

It’s amazing.

* I couldn’t for the life of me remember Aaron Roberts’ name when I sat down to write this, and had to look him up in the choir photo in my high school yearbook from 1994. Funny how people look different in photos than they do in memories, especially from high school.

spirituality

Alone Time

I want you to try something.

Yes, you. I’m serious.

Take five minutes out of your day today — it doesn’t have to be right now, but it really should be sometime today — and make it your time to be alone with yourself. Just five minutes. But make sure you won’t be interrupted or distracted — don’t let your quality time with yourself be upstaged by a TV commercial or your e-mail. Set a timer on the stove or on the microwave or something, so you won’t even be distracted by looking at the clock every 30 seconds.

You don’t really have a goal in mind, or anything to think about in particular. Just be with yourself. Chill out on the couch or in a chair (or in bed, assuming you won’t fall asleep) and let your eyes kind of focus on a spot on the wall or on the ceiling. But keep them open.

Oh, and here’s something to keep your mind occupied: count to ten with your breaths. Breathe in, count one; out, count two; in, count three; and so on, up to ten, then repeat. Thoughts will kind of float in and out; don’t really focus on them, but allow them to exist for a moment. Imagine each thought is a helium balloon: hang onto it for just a second, then let it drift off and stop worrying about it.

You’re seeing through my ruse now, aren’t you? “You’re trying to get me to do some of this hippie-dippy Zen shit, aren’t you?” Well, sort of. Hanging out on the couch and staring at the ceiling for five minutes isn’t exactly zazen. If you’ve never spent any quality time with yourself, though, this is a good start.

Seriously. Try it, just once, and tell me it doesn’t make you feel more at ease with yourself.

spirituality

Ritualistic, Yet Mindful

At the service for Grammie last week, I was really taken by the concept of the prayer book. Not just what the rector was reading, but the call and response portions of the program — or the “audience participation,” if you prefer, a la Rocky Horror. It was almost unnerving to hear the muttered and mumbled responses coming from the back of the church, where the normal parishioners were sitting during the service. I wondered if they really paid attention to what they were saying, or if they were just mumbling, “And also with you” because that’s just what you say when someone says, “The Lord be with you.”

When I gave it some thought, though, I realized that was a little hypocritical of me. After all, I go to Zen every week and chant sutras and gathas and whatnot, and any casual observer or listener (like, say, my husband) might not even realize we were speaking English, much less saying something like, “The Dharma, incomparably profound and infinitely subtle, is rarely encountered, even in millions of ages.” And we bow to the Buddha on the altar (graven images! false idols! o noes!), and we sit on little cushions and make little shapes out of our hands. That’s no weirder than having little padded flip-down contraptions attached to your pews for kneeling, or reading responses out of a red prayer book.

It brought me back to something Sensei had said a few months ago about being mindful:

“One of the things that people run smack into when they come to a place like this for the first time is, there’s a bunch of ritual happening. What’s that all about? What’s the deal with all the bowing and the incense and all that kind of thing? These are moments of re-awakening, if they’re used well. They’re supposed to be moments of re-checking-in to the moment, to the now.”

We as a society, and as human beings in general, tend to cling to ritual. It’s something comforting, a thing that we always do and always know and always expect the same returns from. The danger is forgetting why we do these things, or what they mean.

I remember growing up Mormon — it seemed to me that people made a big deal out of our not having predetermined prayers (except for “important” things, like sacrament and baptisms and temple work and whatnot). Still, though, people (and children especially) would get into a groove and say the same prayer for, say, blessing the food or going to bed. This was quite embarrassing when someone would be saying the opening prayer in Sunday School, and accidentally slip into “we thank Thee for this food that Thou hast set before us…” (which I don’t remember doing myself, but was done more than once by others).

There’s nothing wrong with having rituals, spiritual or otherwise. The challenge is to keep your rituals meaningful. They’re important — they’re touchstones for what’s important to us, either literally or symbolically — but we can’t let ourselves get hooked by the comfort of the ritualistic repetition itself, or it becomes meaningless.