Shifting gears

As I sit here, observing my fingers moving over my key board (I am yet to master touchtyping) I am aware of the possibility for thought to transform worlds. Maybe not my thought, but thought generally.

Mr Science (first name undisclosed –he’s a rather formal chap), having left the subjectively perceiving human out of the equation of his analyses, only relates to the world as something dead, as something alien.

Still, when I can get him off topic, he can be rather funny I find. And he sure can do wizardly wonderful things with matter.

Here’s something I wrote about 11 months ago, which compasses satisfactorily, I find, some issues I have with the Christian religion. Readers may have noted that I have some kind of relationship with Christianity. This is true. But whether I am a ‘Christian’ or not is not for me to say, and anyway, it’s just a label. Remember, neither Jesus nor his disciples, nor Paul, called themselves Christians.

So, here is what I wrote:

“Expecting non-Christians to understand and accept what Christians talk about when they profess the Gospel is asking a lot, even if, as it rarely is, that Gospel were to be explained and set forth in a rational, logical, universally loving and embracing way.

Quite why this is, I think, is because of two related factors:

1) The intrinsically strange, unusual nature of what the Gospel says about life, humanity and existence.

2) These Christians, though they will have had experience of other Christians, may not have themselves experienced Christ directly. Hard as it is to understand Christ as a Christian, how much harder must it be for non-Christians to understand the Christian religion”

My own experiential relationship with the spirit of Christ I find it hard to talk about. I know that language is not an unsullied, frictionless portal into the minds of those I commune with. I cannot presume, even if I express myself perfectly as far as I am concerned, that for that reason I have been understood, even if my interlocutor (or interscriber –if that's a word) is more intelligent than I and a master decrypter of other's linguistic creations.

This is a major reason why I refuse to engage in mudslinging, or what I call argument, with anyone about Religion (actually I am averse to all argumentation really). Discussion is great and exploration even better but few, it seems, are ready not to take Religion so seriously that they are able to bracket out and suspend the impulse either to ‘defend the Lord’, as if he were their mother, or on the other hand, strike forcefully for the jugular of another's faith with all the rapacity of a viper.

Most of the time we misunderstand each other. We dance alone in each other’s company. It's rarely a gracious dance I find.

On a different notation, I am now back from the mountains where I saw in the new year in the Slovak village of Strba on a street surrounded by exploding fireworks exploding. Usually into the air though some boisterous fellows set off a few at random angles too.

Earlier I returned to Barcelona, a beautiful city reminded me a lot of Florence, because of its architecture and narrow, tall passageways. Because my mind was predominantly consumed with reading an excellent book by Pat Reid called “Morrissey” (which treats him with the seriousness he deserves), I inclined to cafes and bars to read more than to hunt round for everything Gaudiesque. I saw the famous, richly bizarre Cathedral, Sangrada Familia, however, and finally located the Picasso museum. Yet, because of my unenglish disdain for queuing and lack of time I declined to enter either. Also, I don’t approve of paying to enter religious buildings, though I would pay if I really had to I suppose.

My mind must now recoil and return to the vulgar world of work. Banished from Eden I cannot presume Mother Earth will tend to my needs simply because I grace her with my existence. This is an unfortunate fact, but a reality nonetheless.