Gene's Blog

Faith in what?

I mean if you have faith, exactly what is it that means? Have had occasion to be thinking about this of late. I’ve mentioned some of the difficulties my eldest son, has been having, and as a parent, my heart goes out to him, along with my love and money, giggle. What is it though that keeps some people going through the toughest of times? It isn’t religion, well, okay for some it it, but for most it is not. One can’t talk about “fairness” when it comes to the game of “life” because there is no rule book – and don’t even start with me about the bible or the koran or any any other “sacred” text written by humans, at this stage in our species evolution, by male humans.

Because fairness only works when there is someone enforcing the rules of the game. And rules that are agreed upon by the players, in advance of beginning the game. I mean rules the participants KNOW they have agreed to. There are those, CWG, is in this group, who allege the agreements came before our entry to the relative universe, and this may be so, but how then are those “rules”? If you can’t remember what they are, how can they possibly be rules? There are some things that seem to be inherent – for instance, murder, most of us not only find that morally repugnant, but physically impossible. I mean, I do not believe I could make myself do that to another human except under the most dire of circumstances. Yet there are those who feel no particular wrong involved with strapping explosives to themselves and walking into a restaurant and detonating them. There are those who feel no particular moral problem involved with ordering airplanes half a world away to deliver bombs that kill hundreds, in at least two instance, scores of thousands, in the name of the right cause.

This is where my most recent pondering of this moral conundrum has led me. People, the world over, are crying out for fairness but no one is determining what exactly that means. No one is even really asking that question. Oh, they are arguing semantics and disagreeing, disagreeably about theology and philosophy, but no one is saying, lets figure out what FAIR means, and then DO that. It seems impossible for reasonable people to sit down somewhere and figure out what would be fair for all, and then agree to do that. Self-interest, personal or national, gets in the way and we seem unable to leave that behind. I would like to think the United Nations was envisioned as a body which could represent the world, ALL of it, fairly. And in some respects it does, but in many other respects it is nothing more than a shadow.

Robert Heinlein, whom I have mentioned here before, often posited a world that was ruled by “one” government, comprised of nation states, but subject to world-wide rules. Now, I will admit, not one of those stories was Utopian. There were real issues involved in all parts of the world, parochial issues, such as we have now, but the truth of the story was that people in every corner of the world had, if nothing else, the same gripes about government we do now, only they could find kindred souls anywhere because government was the same everywhere. Based on free elections, representatives made decisions and brokered deals in the same manner as do free governments now, and with about as much effectiveness, lol. I would like to recommend to all who might wander across this, one of his books which deals with how a free state is formed, and the pitfalls along the way, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, is a treatise on revolutionary government that is years ahead of its time, centuries perhaps. Even though it is also a history lesson. :^). Fairness was at the heart of that book.

We, the people, want so much for something to believe in. That “need” is so obvious, it is there in the earliest fossil remains we have found, people, the first people, buried their dead. Why do that? Why care about that? The only reason I can think of is faith. In something beyond what we see.

So what form does that faith take? It can’t be based on fairness, or at least not on any definition of such that I have ever read. Fairness demands rules and an impartial arbiter to enforce those rules. Fairness would not leave George W. Bush in charge of the most powerful nation on the planet, sending guns, planes, bombs and young martyrs to his cause off to die in places that not many of us would ever pay to visit. Fairness would not result in a young man or woman wanting nothing more than to care for his or her family having to make choices between buying health insurance or tires for their aging vehicle. Fairness would not result in corporations deciding that because they do not have to pay benefits to part time employees, firing their full time employees and hiring them back as part timers without the niceties of pension, vacation, sick leave or health insurance.

God is not going to solve this problem for us peeps. Sorry. If anything ought be obvious THAT should be. What has it been? 4000 years since He last spoke to one of us? And then as a burning bush? giggle. Which makes me wonder if mushrooms, not sage, might have been involved in that particular fire. I like what He says in CWG, but there is nothing in there that suggests He plans to arbitrate fairness for us either. We are going to have to figure a way to do that for ourselves. And a way to enforce it. The name of this site is not an accident. One people, one world is the truth of us, no matter how much we’d like to pretend it is not.

I am not saying take this on my word, because, hell, what do I know? I’ve had three inexplicable light experiences and one inexplicable awakening experience but I am none the wiser for them. I can’t do anything special. I can’t even say anything special. And what faith I have is limited to a certainty, that through those experiences, THIS is not all there is. But how does THAT translate to making life a particle better for anyone here, including me? If faith matters, and according to most scripture, and other ‘sacred’ writings it does, than it should be able to produce a measurable result. Well, in my thinking anyway, but it doesn’t. It doesn’t seem to mean anything. Which is where the title of this came from. I have faith that this is not all there is but that doesn’t seem to matter a whit in terms of the experience I have here. I guess the question I have been pondering, that has been worrying me like a dog with a bone of late, is why not? Why bother giving me something so incredible and nothing else? I could blame mushrooms here too but I’d not heard of them at 7, nor at 15 and even at 46 had avoided hallucinogenics like the plague, because they scared me. :^). Yes, something scared the extremist, giggle. But what that was, was loss of control, loss of being in charge of my experience. Even though, until then, and continuing to this moment, that experience has not exactly been silver-spoon, lol. Yet I KNOW something, damn it. Why do I know it? What does THAT mean? Maybe I should stick to sudoku, giggle. The easy ones. And figuring a way to help my son with his life too. And those few who depend on me in other ways and for other reasons. I am NOT saying those things, those people, are not important, on the contrary, they ARE my life in every real way possible. I am asking why give me a gift that doesn’t mean anything, that doesn’t allow me to improve life for those whom I love so much – and I am not restricting THAT phrase to my immediate family and friends either, but to the broader group whom I also love, all of us.

So, I’ve been in this odd little place of late. Which is why I’ve been so quiet here. Am still working on, okay – I HAVE it the other piece I’ve talked about, I’m just in a smaller place than I need to be to posit a larger solution. I think I need to figure out how to work things on a micro scale before I start talking about how to help things work on a macro scale. I’m not very good at either for the moment. Or at least that is how it feels. All those people who have now seen my main site, and not one with an idea for me. Which is also what jen told me would happen, but still. Faith. Sometimes I can’t believe in ME, let alone anything beyond that. Maybe that is the point of the experience? Humility. Knowing what we are not. If so? I get the point, let up already wouldya? Ah well, still some thinking to do, and with that comes growth, one hopes all this leads somewhere. Else, as Jodie’s dad says in Contact, it would be awful waste of space. For humanity, I translate that to a waste of potential. Maybe that is the faith we are lacking. Maybe that is key that turns on our ability to access all parts of what is already alive within us and waiting for our awakening call. If you find that key? Give me a buzz. I’ll do the same, promise. much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way,
choose to be a bringer of the light. much love, :^) gene