Here are two things I've been thinking about that came from books read recently. The common thread is that they both have altered my thoughts on basic spiritual issues.
The first is again from Gilead, based on an observation of the main character while watching his son's cat. My adaptation is goes like this: A human trying to understand God's mind and workings in the world is like a cat trying to understand the political situation of the Middle East.
It sounds silly and simple, I know. But the part that strikes me about this analogy is that a cat doesn't even have the language or the understanding to get the underlying concepts (not even that a location could exist so far removed from the cat), much less the intricacies and complexities. There is nothing wrong with cats; they have enough understanding to thrive in their little cat lives. But there is nothing like Middle Eastern politics in the cat's world to help it grasp the subject matter. It's impossible.
If this analogy is correct, than it's no wonder that so many spiritual concepts seem contradictory or nonsensical. We just don't get it, and we are not even in the ballpark for grasping the basic elements essential to understanding God's big picture. In fact, it's comforting to have a God is so far ahead of us intellectually -- a God we perfectly understood would not be that much smarter than us, and so we might as well worship ourselves instead (as so some do).
The second comes from a book whose name and author escape me. I'll add it later. "Heaven" is described as a place where everyone goes when they die. It's a place of all virtue and goodness and beauty because it's in the presence of God. So, if you lived your life loving and worshiping God and growing in virtue, then you will love heaven. However, if you lived your life hating/rejecting God and not learning love, joy, peace, kindness, etc., then you will be miserable -- you'll be in hell.
Regardless of whether or not this is actually true, I like thinking about this concept because it shows that the goal isn't just to get into heaven. It's not a "you're-in-or-you're-out" situation, as most people think, in which you need to reach some threshhold of virtue to get into heaven. Rather, how you life on earth directly coorelates to what your experience in the afterlife will be. The more in tune your life is with God's will through loving Him and holy living, the more prepared you are to enjoy the afterlife with God. Worded differently, you are rewarded in heaven according to how much you learned on earth. Hell, then, wouldn't be a physical separation from God but a complete and painful disconnect. In some ways, that's more painful than physical separation: an analogy being a troubled marriage in which living together is more painful than separating.
[As an aside, I thought this concept of different "degrees" of heaven was Biblical (inspiration for Dante's Paradise and the term "seventh heaven"), but my NIV Study Bible footnote on II Corinthians 12:2, in which Paul describes a man "caught up to the third heaven", says "third heaven" just distinguishes the spiritual heaven from the physical heavens containing stars and so forth. I'll have to do more searching on this topic.]
Both these "deep thoughts" also explain why Christianity and rational intelligence don't correlate. You need not be smart or understand God's purpose for your life or humanity. (1) No matter how smart you are, it's impossible. In fact, intelligence can be a hinder, if you think you are smart enough to attempt understanding God. Those for whom life is regularly a mystery do not have to overcome the need to know before accepting (faith). (2) Anyone can live a virtuous life, regardless of intelligence. You don't need to understand more theology to love God more. You just need to practice love of God and others in your daily life.
Friday, February 17, 2006
Thursday, February 09, 2006
A trip into The Valley of the Shadow
I haven't written in over a month because things got too tough to write about. (There's the proof that I'll never be a "real" writer, if I ever needed proof.) The unexpected baby is no longer to be expected at all. It was a long, tough ordeal, knowing for several weeks that the child in me was dying. And then there's the guilt from knowing that it hadn't initially been wanted anyway. But the worst is the sense of losing someone who was special and whom I would have loved to know.
It's ironic that few people know that I had this miscarriage, and yet I feel strongly that women should discuss miscarriage more openly. Losing a baby during pregnancy is far more common than anyone is willing to admit. And, coming from a family of 5 healthy children (and married to someone from a family of 4 healthy children), I never imagined that 2 of 4 my pregnancies might end in loss. After the fact, I learned that both aunts, a cousin, and my grandmother on one side of the family all had multiple miscarriages. Going through mine alone, before learning what a large company I was in, was tough. Are we ashamed? Irrationally, I do feel a sense of failure, vaguely feeling that my body did something wrong or wasn't capable of something important and maternal.
When my very first pregnancy ended at 3 months almost 4 years ago, the shock was unbelievable. Everything had been fine at the first ultrasound, and I had enough nausea, food aversions, and exhaustion to warrant several babies. There was no hint of anything being amiss. I still can picture everything that happened the day I found out and I still have those emotions when I recall the experience. I cried every day for 3 months afterwards and thought about my baby every day for several months beyond that. Holding my first child 14 months later is the only thing that fully healed me.
This recent miscarriage was the opposite in many respects: the pregnancy was the unexpected part and the miscarriage no surprise. It was a prolonged horror of a wait, knowing that my symptoms were too weak and the ultrasound results were bad news. Most of the mourning was completed during the pregnancy instead of after it. The rest came out with the "pregnancy products" (did they really call my baby that??) as I lay unanesthetized on an exam table in the doctor's office in serious pain -- physical and emotional.
On the day of the first ultrasound last month showing that all was not well, my 3-yr-old son, who didn't even know of the pregnancy, asked me why God sends babies down from heaven instead of keeping them with Him. Darling, He DOES choose to keep some babies with Him. Blessed child!
How strange that this mother of 2 will be a mother of 4 when I get there too.
It's ironic that few people know that I had this miscarriage, and yet I feel strongly that women should discuss miscarriage more openly. Losing a baby during pregnancy is far more common than anyone is willing to admit. And, coming from a family of 5 healthy children (and married to someone from a family of 4 healthy children), I never imagined that 2 of 4 my pregnancies might end in loss. After the fact, I learned that both aunts, a cousin, and my grandmother on one side of the family all had multiple miscarriages. Going through mine alone, before learning what a large company I was in, was tough. Are we ashamed? Irrationally, I do feel a sense of failure, vaguely feeling that my body did something wrong or wasn't capable of something important and maternal.
When my very first pregnancy ended at 3 months almost 4 years ago, the shock was unbelievable. Everything had been fine at the first ultrasound, and I had enough nausea, food aversions, and exhaustion to warrant several babies. There was no hint of anything being amiss. I still can picture everything that happened the day I found out and I still have those emotions when I recall the experience. I cried every day for 3 months afterwards and thought about my baby every day for several months beyond that. Holding my first child 14 months later is the only thing that fully healed me.
This recent miscarriage was the opposite in many respects: the pregnancy was the unexpected part and the miscarriage no surprise. It was a prolonged horror of a wait, knowing that my symptoms were too weak and the ultrasound results were bad news. Most of the mourning was completed during the pregnancy instead of after it. The rest came out with the "pregnancy products" (did they really call my baby that??) as I lay unanesthetized on an exam table in the doctor's office in serious pain -- physical and emotional.
On the day of the first ultrasound last month showing that all was not well, my 3-yr-old son, who didn't even know of the pregnancy, asked me why God sends babies down from heaven instead of keeping them with Him. Darling, He DOES choose to keep some babies with Him. Blessed child!
How strange that this mother of 2 will be a mother of 4 when I get there too.
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