Saturday, April 30, 2005

Experiment Post

I notice that it feels kind of awkward--even somewhat inauthentic-- to keep up an orderly non-repeating sequence of Life-Dance entries the way I have been doing. For instance, I notice that a part of me wants to do another soul entry, since that issue feels especially up for me right now. What is stopping me is that some other part of me doesnt want to get dissociated around any one of the venues or "steps" of the Life-Dance--in this case, dissociated around soul issues. There is also some vauge intuitive sense of another and better possibility that is keeping me from doing so. I could write another soul entry and just tack it on to the previous soul entry, but that seems awkard and somewhat misleading. Two other possibilities are; one, to try to integrate whats up for me into a posting in another venue of Personhood, thereby rediscovering and affirming the paradoxial togetherness of the "seperate" venues of this five-fold dance, or I could use the other blog, and write an essay that focuses on the more theoretical aspects of what is up with me, with supporting concrete examples. Also, I suppose I could create another category such as "hot topic" to deal with this issue. For now I think I'll experiment more with the second option and perhaps also a little of the first and see how it goes

I also want to express that I notice myself becoming somewhat annoyed about how Public/Private this experiment is being, as it was originally intended as a civil gesture and an invitation to an Individual-Personal dance of Healthy Culture with others. Since I started more than a year ago, I have only gotten one comment, although I have gotten a fair number of "Hits" considering the lack of advertizing on my part. Obviously people are keeping there identities, agreements, disagreements etc.. to themselves, in the normal, public/private way that denies the existence of any inherent relationship, responcibility, or mutually-healing possibily between us. This is understandable in a culture such as the dominant one, but I don't want to just contribute to the dissociated phenomenon of public/private active/passive "voyerism" which is so easy to fall into with most kinds of media. Because of this consideration I have been thinking of, after the present round of enrtries is complete, restarting both my blogs in forms that can only be viewed by myself and others who have at least introduced themselves to me. I intend to leave these present blogs up as a general introduction to what I am up to for the "general public". Hopefully, some of that public will be inspired to make some Individual, Personal contact with me and even to become an actual friend. This step is just a continuation of this experiment and I might come back to these two blogs in the future if nothing happens because of the change or if it seems like a good Idea for some other reason. At any rate I still have a few entries to go on this blog and the other one before switching over. Hope to hear from you.

posted by: piankhy | 23:25 | comments

Monday, April 25, 2005

Soul entry

Since my last blog entry in the "Soul" venue I have visited the Unitarian Universalist Church in Charlottesville twice. As I thought it would, it has led to me becoming somewhat more clear as to just what the soul aspect of the identity of Individual-Personhood is about.

My first Soul checkin online gave the impression that soulfullness means some kind of "confession"; some kind of attempt on my part to risk vulnerability and self-disclosure. Yet while that is certainly a soulfull thing in its way,and I will be doing more of it, I am beginning to see that comming-together as Individual-Person with others in venues and situations evocative of ultimate concerns is about more than a willingness for self-disclosure; its about Good Faith and its cultivation and expression with others.

But what is this Good Faith exactly? While I still want to post an essay on this subject for the other Blog, i'll venture a relatively brief explanation here and then try to illustrate it somewhat with the example of my encounters so far with the Unitarian Universalists.

Good Faith

Just as Good Sense is the sense of Togetherness (the sense of the distinction between yet paradoxical togetherness of nonsense or anesthesia and complete sense or wholesthesia), just as Good Will is the will toward such healing paradoxical Togetherness and the expression of its culture of in the political and collective sphere, and just as Good Taste is the appreciation of such dynamically balanced and paradoxical Togetherness inwardly and outwardly, so Good Faith is the Faith in this paradoxical Togetherness, faith in its very existance as well as in the possiblity of reaching it, in the realm of ultimate concerns. Good Faith is the kind of faith that assumes and accents the implicite common and consensable Theme behind the many Variations implicit in diverse beliefs. Thus it is a Faith in Truth, both as the consensually reached and collectively shared and alterable formulation of such a Theme and as the very process of consensual, inner and outer comming-together that can lead to such a shared and pragmatically usefull formulation.

Since Good Faith is Faith in Togetherness within the context of Healthy Culture, it is faith in Togetherness as whole Indivdidual-Persons and not merely as Souls. This means that the soul considerations cannot be dissociated from familial, local, civil, or individual considerations any more than Good Faith can be dissociated from Good Will,Good Sense, and Good Taste. Indeed such a catagorical dissociation is itself a kind Apartness and faith in its primacy would be faith in Apartness rather than in Togetherness.

Because of this, the Good Faith I write of seems to me to be more general and encompassing than any particular religious, or philosophical creed since it determines the sense and the spirit in which that creed is held. When a creed or belief (deist, fundamentalist, Atheist, or other)is held within the context of this broader and more incompassing Faith in Togetherness, then that creed is itself alive, and, like all living things, flexible in substance and faithfull to the spirit of Togetherness that informs it. Such a creed does not strengthen rigid factional, or alienatingly self-rightious identity politics because it is not held in a artificially dissociated, public/private spirit but in an integrated Individual-Personal one. Such a Creed, held in such Good Faith is implicitly acknowledged to be flawed,to be imperfect, to have its shadow just as we who hold it are flawed, imperfect, and have our shadow. Because it is in service to a Truth inclusive of the Process and experience of comming-together and of the Good Faith imlied in this, a religious creed held in good faith understands itself as a usefull and more or less existentially helpful, but necessicarily imperfect approximation to That Truth. In other words, such a creed understands itself to be a piece of the Truth but also to be a piece of the Lie and is therefore held, not as end point but a starting point in a process of inner and outer comming-together in which it can expect to be altered, integrated and healed as we ourselves who hold it are altered integrated and healed from our alienated, public/private stance as dissociated souls to a healthy and responcible one as whole Indivual-Persons.

I think that every faith (even the faith that the bible is the inerrent word of God) can be "held" in, and informed by such Good Faith and so be a part of a culture of Togetherness, just as every faith (even one as seemingly broad and embracing as that of the Unitarian-Universalists)can be held in a kind of bad faith that only reinforces alienation and the Culture of Apartness.

Having said that, it is still the case that, when I decided to visit the Unitarian Universalist, I thought, (and still do think to some extent), that i would be more likely to find Good Faith informing that creed and its expression in specific individual-persons holding that creed really, then I might find elsewhere.

Church experiences

I was late to the church and crept to one of the back pews as discetely as possible. Nobody seemed to mind. Although I didn't like the arrangment of the pews (like seating in most public/private venues,it was rigidly arranged to emphasize the relatively false dualism of "performer" and audience), I found the general ambience of the church extreemly cheerfull and friendly. I suppose the lack of a dress code contributed to this feeling as well as the spaciousness and light of the architecture and the sky-blue and white motif.

The sermon (by a guest speaker)was about the willingness to purchase "the Pearl of Great Price" (the "Kingdom of Heaven" interpreted with suitable openness)with a daily spiritual practice. Its was a good enough sermon. Other parts of the service; the singing, the inspirational reading (a poem by Mary Oliver), and the offer to come forward and share good news or bad, I found quite uplifting and joyful. I realized how much I had missed certain,rare moments of "fellowship" that i experienced (or maybe I just fantisized about experiencing)within the church I attended 30 or so years ago as a baptist Christian Baptist.

After the service I was invited to socialize with other first-timers over snacks in another part of the church. I did so,briefly met and spoke with one of the ministers,and having given them contact information, left to meet my ride, pretty happy that I had come.

In the interum before my next visit a month later, I recieved a friendly e-mail from one of the ministers that seemed to invite communication by phone. I think is was a standard kind of follow-up for those whe leave contact info, but I decide to take it seriously and wrote back saying that I would like to talk to him about my reasons for attending his church and equirering as to a good time to call for what might be a rather long conversation.

Now all of my e-mails end with my electronic "signature' which includes the following "integrams" (Healthy Culture proverbs"): "Truth is the first casualty of war;it is also the first condition of peace", "Everybody has a piece of the Truth; Everybody also has a piece of the Lie", and "Violence doen't work, non-violence doent work either; maybe Healthy Cuture will work".

In retrospect, I suppose that these 3 quotes, especially the last two, are pretty challenging to the public/private norm in the world, including the world of Unitarian Universalists as such. I dont suppose many people really want to admit to having a piece of the Lie, and unless one is practiced in holding paradox and approaching things in a wholistic way, the statement "Non-violence doesn't work" is likely to defeat and outlast its complement of "Violence doesn't work" in ones memory.

At any rate the minister never got around to writing me back, and my reception by both ministers, when I attended the church again the next month, was noticably cooler. Indeed the minister I had e-mailed, although I am sure he knew who I was, declined to introduce himself to me when an opportunity presented itself, while the other minister, who I had met in person also declined to acknowledge that we had met.

This impression of coolness could of course only be my own missaprehension of what was going on, but for now its all I have to go by. Others there (who i assume had not read or heard about my missive) where as cheerfull and welcoming as before. {though I did feel, on both occasions, a mildly awkward energy that seemed to be about my being a black male together with with some sense of a presence of a least the ghost of various related stereotypical expectations. However I am used to such things and they hardly bother me;we do live in culture of apart-ness after all}

But the coolness got me thinking about the difficulty of having real Good Faith within this dominant culture of appartness and about the effective primacy of Culture (cosmology, identity, ritual, infrastructure)over any kind of religion. A specialized public/private identity such as that of a minister within a church is, after all, inherently dissociated as an identity and therefore sumewhat hard to square with Healthy Culture. Though perhaps no more so than any other institutionalised indentity, it might require, on the other hand, a more rigid a seperation of ones own "piece of the Truth" from one owns "piece of the Lie" and perhaps even a denial of the latter. At any rate, one can expect that in a culture of apart-ness, a public/private figure specializing in the venue of religion is going to be more prone to the projection of the normal dissociation of light from shadow on the part of their "parishoners", so that they feel pressured to go along just as a price of keeping their position as a leader within the dominant paradigm. I occurs to me that within a sick, public/private culture, being onesidedly respectable and being "phoney" must be pretty much the same thing, and that the respected, as well as the unrespected, condemned,and even the ignored, are all just accepting and acting out false, onesided roles in a myth that springs from the implications of the cosmology, ritual, and infrastructure of a culture of alienation and Apart-ness.

Of course, as I said, all of these ruminations,however generally true they may be, may not be as relavent as I think they are to my experiences at Unitarian Universalist Church so far. I could just be being over sensitive. And even if what I am saying is as active as I think it is in those experiences, it is not part of my intention to blame the church or its ministers or members for this, any more than I blame my own present or past self for my own lapses in to the culture of Apart-ness. I Like the Church its members, and its ministers too, and I certainly have inner consensus to keep going there every month. I also have the Good Faith that, sooner or later, we will have occasion to come-together in good will, and though engaging and learning from our differences, open ourselves to the experience a healing transformation, not only of ourselves but of others and of the world as a whole. Mostly, I view my time there as all just part of the process of my own growing and increasing insight, at least in this more "civil" venue, into the meaning of religion and of Good Faith from the point of view of Healthy Culture.

posted by: piankhy | 10:25 | comments