*
If there were a God, "how would we know?" the scientist asked. (American Scientist, Jan-Feb 2006, p, 4).
The answer might be that If I *didn't* know, then I *wouldn't* know. There is no way I "would" know unless I "did" know. In pretending the slate is bare the writer is starting from a fictional position and so will never come to the one awkward fact. It is more than pre-supposed. I would say that my "knowledge" of God was hard-wired in my being -- certainly deeper than a postulate. Whatever in me knows would come from this, or this would be what knew, or what did the knowing. You can't exactly dispute about a wiring nor can you, the wire, redo the wire. Nor prove, nor disprove. This is deeper territory than the flat hall of debate, unless you imagine a debate that you ride inside like a wild train and come out as a being changed and disclosed, maybe killed. That would not be very scientific.
*
Monday, February 27, 2006
Saturday, February 25, 2006
The landscape
*
Had the landscape then been evil? She could not see it that way. Even the bugs being eaten were not in themselves suffering evil. Death was not an evil, it was something that occurred. Death gave life its shape.
Where then did evil come from, since it was so swarmingly there? Was the devil -- who was not a real entity on his own but more like a virus that could seize a distracted will and simulate existence -- so was his whole existence nothing but your own loss of focus?
*
Suppose that suffering were something external that the will encountered as an object. Its final meaning might be what the will made of it. It might be like a weight whose lifting made you stronger. That was what it was as an object, not a subject. Why didn't it stay that way?
*
Through some terrible metamorphosis, no, it was a literal invasion and a passing through the membrance, suffering became subject instead of object, it became you. The person suffering the pain became the pain. all sentience about anything became pain's mentation, a damned entity to be sure. There was evil. There was damage. You might say that when this happened, even the devil now had hands and feet of his own to flex. But how did it happen?
*
Was it about focus? Did it happen because a human, knowing it had a goal, took its eyes off the goal?
*
Was it about the periphery being allowed to seep in and take control?
*
Was it when the creature, already full, felt its own fangs being sunk into food that it didn't even want? Then food rose into consciousness and began its ugly sobbing. And the sobbing was waste and about waste. Something now gone off track.
*
Had the landscape then been evil? She could not see it that way. Even the bugs being eaten were not in themselves suffering evil. Death was not an evil, it was something that occurred. Death gave life its shape.
Where then did evil come from, since it was so swarmingly there? Was the devil -- who was not a real entity on his own but more like a virus that could seize a distracted will and simulate existence -- so was his whole existence nothing but your own loss of focus?
*
Suppose that suffering were something external that the will encountered as an object. Its final meaning might be what the will made of it. It might be like a weight whose lifting made you stronger. That was what it was as an object, not a subject. Why didn't it stay that way?
*
Through some terrible metamorphosis, no, it was a literal invasion and a passing through the membrance, suffering became subject instead of object, it became you. The person suffering the pain became the pain. all sentience about anything became pain's mentation, a damned entity to be sure. There was evil. There was damage. You might say that when this happened, even the devil now had hands and feet of his own to flex. But how did it happen?
*
Was it about focus? Did it happen because a human, knowing it had a goal, took its eyes off the goal?
*
Was it about the periphery being allowed to seep in and take control?
*
Was it when the creature, already full, felt its own fangs being sunk into food that it didn't even want? Then food rose into consciousness and began its ugly sobbing. And the sobbing was waste and about waste. Something now gone off track.
*
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
The mud
*
What was the mud? The mud was penance. The mud was made of penance, soul-building pain.
Her body was softer than a worm's, more vulnerable. She fell through this putty-like water and felt it reshape her. That was yieldedness. It was terrifying. An ana-baptism!
The process: you yielded to God (a yielding like death), you felt God knead you, and you then resurfaced into the world but it was now a different world. The world you left was a godless one, the world you re-entered was God's world. Here you were in no way alone.
And the filth made no difference.
And it didn't matter now how frail and damageable your own being was. You no longer brooded on that. God was in control.
And in that thought you submerged and were kneaded once again.
*
What was the mud? The mud was penance. The mud was made of penance, soul-building pain.
Her body was softer than a worm's, more vulnerable. She fell through this putty-like water and felt it reshape her. That was yieldedness. It was terrifying. An ana-baptism!
The process: you yielded to God (a yielding like death), you felt God knead you, and you then resurfaced into the world but it was now a different world. The world you left was a godless one, the world you re-entered was God's world. Here you were in no way alone.
And the filth made no difference.
And it didn't matter now how frail and damageable your own being was. You no longer brooded on that. God was in control.
And in that thought you submerged and were kneaded once again.
*
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Chapter 13: The invertebrate
*
So Una gave herself to God to be kneaded -- a worm within the mud. The walls of the body were just about nothing -- they were liquid or putty. They were ready -- to be shaped into anything.
She fell off an invisible cliff without any purchase at all. The risk of death -- well, it was more than a risk. Was this nothing but the force of gravity? Was God really there?
As for gravity, that too was no more than a shape that God shaped.
All of the elements dissassembled and gave themselves to God.
I hate a world where all the creatures eat each other, she cried. But the cry, that was eaten too.
And the falling continued to fall. She felt her being continue to pull into pieces, softish ones. A poor shell-less invertebrate, what could it do but expose its own weakness in utter hope?
*
So Una gave herself to God to be kneaded -- a worm within the mud. The walls of the body were just about nothing -- they were liquid or putty. They were ready -- to be shaped into anything.
She fell off an invisible cliff without any purchase at all. The risk of death -- well, it was more than a risk. Was this nothing but the force of gravity? Was God really there?
As for gravity, that too was no more than a shape that God shaped.
All of the elements dissassembled and gave themselves to God.
I hate a world where all the creatures eat each other, she cried. But the cry, that was eaten too.
And the falling continued to fall. She felt her being continue to pull into pieces, softish ones. A poor shell-less invertebrate, what could it do but expose its own weakness in utter hope?
*
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