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January 31, 2005

Glimpsing Lucifer Jones

Once I get to the point where money doesn't matter - when I resign myself to where more or less makes no difference in my self-esteem, I will work towards spritual completion. I fully expect that it will be a work of criticism, entangled as I am with the institutions of American influence and organization.

I have already given a name to that worker within me, Lucifer Jones.

I expect that his task will be that of reconciliation between a number of areas of my own sprirituality. And I see them arising from criticisms of a number of twists of faith that some see as srtaight lines. For one thing, I am profoundly resonant with the aspect of ritual. This is expressed for me in the love of the Catholic and Episcopal traditions. It's something that rather hit me like a brick when I traveled to il Duomo in Milan. The same service, the same symbols, half a world away. So I am critical of evangelicals because they are too much Jazz and not enough Standard. It gives the minister too much power, and I think this power devolved to the minister coming out of the Protestant revolution has been abused.

I am also hip, somewhat, to Karen Armstrong's observations of fundamentalists in their overreach has made their Church into a Government. When I wrote this comic, I think it really encapsulated the entire point. Taxes or Tithes.

I really rebel against the Puritanical tradition, the kind of minimalist anti-aesthetic which drives so much of this society. These people have taken all of the beauty out of religion. There are really few things as hideously unimaginative as these new ecumenical worship domes. I can't tell you how selfish it is to be a vessel of the Holy Spirit and simply jump up and down and holler, or wake people up knocking on their door. This whole, look how the Holy Spirit makes me beautiful / righteous / pure , is just wrong wrong wrong. Where is the music? Where is the architecture? It's dead, and there's the proof.

Prayer is meditation is mental discipline. It is not supplication nor public acknowledgement of an anthropomorphized divine will. I have been so polite over the years that I have almost completely sublimated my disgust for the phrase 'Heavenly Father', and other aspects of 'glorification'. I don't worship, and I think it's really difficult for me to express that as a Christian. It's something that needs working out. But I think it's best to start out with the Gospel of Thomas - understanding the difference between he an Paul, at which point we get into the reason that the Bible contains so many of these epistles of warning.

I have to believe, but for which reasons I am not sure, that religion ought to be that which fits in our lives in harmony with our other endeavors. That in fulfilling ourselves, we fulfill any notion of God's purpose for us. If I could make an analogy, that we are dogs and God wants us to fetch. And guess what, dogs like to fetch, and would fetch even if we were strays. I am particularly wary of the church that has us bear some of its burden, subtley misdirecting our boundless energies to know God. Interestingly, the consequence of this is understanding that God *is* on our side. And God is on their side too. God is on all sides, including the inside. We just need to clear up the contradictions in our lives to see that, and there is not one single way to do so.

So as you might imagine, I've got a lot of ground to cover. Money is in the way primarily because I have decided to be a man for others. It is the instrument of this world. If I were to lock myself away and flog myself into Heaven, then sure, I'd pretensiously be quoting scripture - hell even memorizing. But I have to do, and doing requires great effort, right here right now.

But as the monks and nuns told NPR, the great challenge is to deal with the overwhelming silence of God. The nothing that is there. The zero, the black hole in the center of the Galaxy. The irresistable gravity of God from which no answer ever escapes and yet tugs at us all ripping the very fabric of the Universe.

Posted by mbowen at January 31, 2005 12:06 PM

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Posted by: JW Richard at January 31, 2005 08:04 PM