Avatar’s “Hidden Messages”: Who’s Hiding?

During this last holiday season one of the biggest selling new releases was the movie, Avatar.  Today’s post is by a guest writer, Kurt Kessler, who read my original post titled Avatar-Hidden Messages Not So Hidden, But Still Entertaining. Kurt has a graduate degree in Philosophy and Religion from Syracuse University.  

I agree with The Wild Mind; the messages in Avatar are far from hidden, but I’d go further and point out that they’re not messages. They are themes integral to the movie. And I’d add that underlying the designation of a particular movie as having “hidden messages” is the assumption that stories, be they cinematic, printed or oral, don’t generally have themes, don’t generally grapple with relevant issues. Throughout history and across cultures, the role of stories has specifically been to challenge and teach, as well as entertain. And yet, when a film addresses an issue overtly, the tabloid critics (i.e. those that write criticism that sells specifically because it doesn’t challenge or teach), act as though it’s an odd thing for movies to do.

The reason the tabloid critics act in this way has every thing to do with the nature of their market. Their intended audience (real or imagined) doesn’t want to be challenged or taught. They don’t look for themes in movies and only find them when they are particularly overt. If those themes support their current beliefs and values, they either feel all warm inside or pumped and proud. If those themes challenge them to rethink things, or see another side of an issue, they are offended. The tabloid critics can’t point out the obvious fact that almost all movies have themes and deal with issues, because if they did, they’d be pointing out that there is a depth and complexity to movies, and the arts in general, an entire sphere of meaning, that the tabloid audience is missing even though they are surrounded by it. They’d be challenging the tabloid audience to accept that they’ve been missing it, and maybe even challenging them to step up and see that depth and complexity for themselves, challenging them to be challenged and taught by the arts. Issuing this sort of challenge can only reduce the critic’s market share. Either the tabloid audience will be repulsed by the challenge and turn to a non-challenging critic, or they’ll take the challenge on and start thinking thematically about film as well as criticism, which is to say, they won’t have much use for the tabloid critic.

The Challenge of Religion and the Tabloid Congregation

There is a parallel in religion. Here, the themes are always more or less explicit, and the stakes are more directly personal. Accordingly, there are those who go to the temple, church, schul, or mosque because that is where they will hear and experience their beliefs and values validated. They go to feel right and righteous, and to support each other to that end. Others go, maybe even to the same temple, church, schul or mosque, to be challenged to the very core of their being, to be transformed into who they truly are, in relation to the world as it truly is. Of course, even the most challenging priests, rabbis and clerics back off now and again. If you want people to stay in the vehicle (of Truth) you’ve got to go easy on the pedals. People like a cushy ride. That said, in the mystic Jewish and Islamic traditions, angels are terrifying, as is the presence of God. On the Christian side, Meister Eckhart once said of hell, that the dying person who is attached to worldly things thinks that demons are tearing his life away, when in fact angels are freeing him of his or her attachments, so he can move on to communion with God. Buddhists teach that the only way to escape suffering, is through the heart of it. Shamans, vision quests, and sweat lodges need to be understood in this same vein. Through all traditions there is this dichotomy. Those who want to be told there is no need for them to learn or change, as they’ve already got it right, and those who seek to be challenged and transformed. There are those who cling to what they know, and those who seek the challenge to become what they don’t yet understand or even imagine. And of course, there are the people in the middle that need to be coaxed to the side of seeking challenge.

Perhaps I should tell a story of my own, drawn from one of my several traditions, to help pull this all together. When Moses ascended Mt. Sinai, those left behind were afflicted with doubt and grew scared. In order to protect themselves, they built a golden calf, something concrete and solid they could believe in. Had they created and viewed that golden calf as art, in all its meaning and complexity, it wouldn’t have made them feel safe. It would have challenged them to stand in the presence of God; it would have become Sinai rather than merely a golden calf. And so I offer that the theme I have been addressing since the beginning of this rant is the nature of idolatry. Given the explicit and personal nature of religion, escaping religions challenge demands explicit and personal idols, in our age, this is usually specific beliefs about the nature of Reality. In the case of the arts, things are less personal and more subtle, and therefore so is idolatry in film criticism when it occurs. Here, the golden calf is the belief that the only legitimate thing going on in film and the arts in general, as well as in life itself, is entertainment and validation. The deeper spheres of meaning, those that challenge us to venture into what we don’t yet understand, these deeper spheres, don’t exist.

Oh, About Avatar

Since I am purportedly writing about Avatar, I should probably say a few things about it at some point. First, I’m not saying that Avatar is a sort of Mt. Sinai, far from it. It’s the arts in general that I’m talking about. But as for Avatar, it did deal somewhat accurately, albeit superficially and therefore inadequately, with the relationship between Western colonial and post-colonial powers, and indigenous peoples, and the exploitation, lack of understanding, disrespect and oppression that characterized that relationship.

I think the problem with Avatar is its tendency to over idealize its characters. The characters we are presented in this film basically fall into three pure and simple categories: the good, the bad, and the redeemably ignorant. The good are the indigenous people. The bad are the committed mercenaries and corporate leadership. And the redeemably ignorant are the colonizers who overcome their ignorance and learn to respect the indigenous ways. We don’t have any indigenous people selling out or suffering from any other moral or spiritual failings. We don’t have access to the internality or conflictedness of any hardened soldiers, and none their values are presented as positive. The sympathizers all move toward recognizing the indigenous worldview is correct, without expressing any positives in their own Earthly worldview. The movie suffers from the same characterological over simplification that afflicts similar efforts by Disney to address this subject. It reduces all its characters to monochromatic symbols expressing the new age liberal Gaia cosmology and ethos. This is problematic not only in terms of inadequately addressing the complexity of the issue, but it actually participates in the exploitation it attempts to criticize.

Contrast this with the writing of James Welch, a Native American Novelist. In Welch’s work, such as Fools Crow, the Native American characters are allowed to be human. There are sins committed entirely within the native community, there is a respect for the wisdom in tradition and a deep understanding of how oppression has negatively impacted the Native American community, but also there is insight into the need to adapt to changing circumstances (rather than merely hanging on to the old ways) and there is a willingness to accept cultural exchange. (For example, novels are a Western genre, and Welch is a Native American novelist). In short, Welch doesn’t reduce his Native American characters or his portrayal of Native American communities, to rarified symbols of romantic naturalism, but leaves them in as much complexity as he can as a writer. His characters and communities are struggling not only with white men and white culture, but with themselves and their own culture as they make their way in the world. They are Native American people.

In reducing indigenous peoples to mere symbols of romantic naturalism, Avatar, and similar works, are appropriating images of indigenous people and culture to create a Western (liberal) morality play. These images are the raw materials for a product intended for Western consumption. In short, such works engaged in a form of post-colonial cultural exploitation. Rather than encountering indigenous cultures in these movies, we merely encounter a liberal Western cultural commodity fabricated from processed images of indigenous people.

How does Avatar Fair as a Morality Play?

I need to clarify some things. First, I’ve got no problem with morality plays. They, more often than not, are an effective genre of story telling: They can challenge, they can teach, and they can entertain. I’m also not saying that any story can some how be a window onto the material it deals with. When I was in the service, I visited the Louvre. I remember looking at some of Rembrandt’s paintings, the portraits with the lace collars. They are so vividly three dimensional that it’s breathtaking, until you step closer to the canvas. Seen up close, those collars are crosshatched swaths of paint. The three dimensionality, the portrait itself, is an illusion. The same is true of Welch’s writing. In his work, we are not encountering Native Americans or their world. We are encountering language. It’s merely a linguistic illusion, a story. The question I’m asking, in relation to Avatar, is what kind of story is it, one that challenges and teaches (while entertaining), or one that merely validates and entertains.

Avatar is a Western liberal morality play that provides a critique of Western post-colonial conservatism as it relates to indigenous peoples and the environment. It offers no critique of the Western left’s romanticization of indigenous cultures and nature, and it provides no substantial encounter with the issues and conflictedness indigenous peoples grapple with in their encounter with the West. Because of this one-sidedness, the right will be entertained by the special effects but reject the critique. They leave the vehicle because Avatar is too heavy on the pedals. The left will merely find validation for their “appreciation” of indigenous peoples (“appreciation” should be read “patronization”). For the left, this is merely a golden calf. Neither side will be challenged and taught.

Avatar could have presented us with the depth and complexity of our relationship to indigenous people, and their relationship to us without sacrificing its entertainment value. It could even have given an appropriate amount of ambiguity to the distinction between indigenous and Western, but it doesn’t. As a story, as a morality play, it falls flat. The only dimensionality and depth it provides go away when you take off the 3-D glasses.

Religious vs. Non-Religious

There are several reasons why I don’t usually venture down the road of the theological. 

First, it is because it doesn’t matter.  Okay, wait.  Hear me out. It’s not that theology, religion or spirituality isn’t important to me, it is just that the discussions are not necessarily important, especially those discussions that tend to divide and take sides as in the theist vs. non-theist discussion that occur ad nauseum all over the blogging world. 

Seriously.  What good are these discussions?  Has anyone ever been converted from their standpoint as the result of one of these dialogues? I’d like to hear if they have.  I suspect though that if they have then that’s the exception and not the rule.  Most of the discussions of this nature seem to me to be people picking fights with other people just to create some drama so they can get their daily adrenaline rush.  Not something I’m inclined to want to do much of. 

The next reason I don’t really go there with the spiritual or religious or theological or lack there of is because again, it doesn’t matter if I do.  Here’s what I mean by that this time.  It means, I know what I think pretty much.  I have some definite convictions, I have lots of questions and sometimes even some real serious doubts.  None of it can be “proven” from a scientific point of view (neither theism nor non-theism can be proven) though many make some very logical arguments for their particular side.  Nevertheless, regardless of the amount of logic, it is generally isn’t sufficient enough to sway my perspectives from those that after my own study, reflection and research and the conclusions I’ve come to as the result.  Nor are my arguments going to be convincing enough to alter anyone else’s views…usually. 

Another reason I don’t go here is that if I were to do so, I’d immediately have a bunch of people from all ends of the spectrum throwing their dogma at me in an effort to a.) share their opinion or b.) try to change my perspective.  I don’t so much mind a.  but I really hate b.

Finally, and probaby the real reason I don’t deal with the more religious or spiritual much is because I’ve placed my own views squarely under the microscope and am refining my own focus.  I’m not abandoning my conclusions per se, but some of my own warped and misguided and misinformed thinking has to be reassessed and quite possibly adjusted.  This is not a process I necessarily want to make public…yet.  Not saying I never will I just don’t feel like it right now.

Where Do We Go When We Go From Here?

Do you ever stop to think what happens to you when you leave this place, when you breathe your last, when you finally, due to the failure of vital bodily systems to keep pumping blood, pushing air and firing synapses, cease to exist in this physical world we call Life?

Do you think a person with thoughts, energy, vibrant enthusiasm, humor, intelligence, emotion, passion and spirit ceases to completely exist altogether or do we simply continue our existence elsewhere in a different realm or a further, deeper, greater dimension?

Do we really become food for worms, mulch for the cemetery garden, dust returning to dust?

Or is there more, another reality, an eternal existence and, if so, have you ever pondered the nature of such an existence?

What have you wondered when you’ve wandered in off the busy, hectic, chaotic activity of your life filled days just long enough to find some silence, a bit of solitude and a nagging question that irrespective of religious leanings must sneak in sometimes if ever so fleetingly?

Have you ever stopped, silenced your soul, your spirit, yourself long enough to entertain the little question, “Where do we go when we go from here?

Kip’s Challenge

My last little benign (or so I thought) post elicited some pointed discussion from a long time reader, Kip. I encourage you to scroll back read the post and his comments and my initial response.  His follow up comment, I will deal with here.  He’s been enough of a burr under my saddle ( I do mean that affectionately)  to earn his own post in response to his last comment.

First his entire comment:

Yes, well, there’s no mystery about the hose attraction, is there? When in doubt, introduce prurience and the mob will take it from there (present company included).

And drama, well, of course. That’s why we read novels and go to plays and watch the tube and if we can’t find it there we create our own.

I expect you’ll keep doing with this blog what you’ve been doing all along. Doing your brain dumps, sifting and sorting the experience of your life, putting it out there for better or worse. Which is fine. But what do you really really want to achieve by doing this in a blog? What role to you want your audience to play, if any? If you want them to acknowledge their presence by talking back, you’re darn well gonna have to provoke them. Get out the big guns. Start spilling out the things we all think about but never say. The things we all want but never acquire. The things we’ve all suffered in silence. Sex, love, death, money. All the biggies. You go girl, I’ll be watching.

*The Wild Mind raps her fingers on the desk in a monotonous pattern while staring pensively at Kip’s comments*

I expect you’ll keep doing with this blog what you’ve been doing all along. Doing your brain dumps, sifting and sorting the experience of your life, putting it out there for better or worse. Which is fine. But what do you really really want to achieve by doing this in a blog?

I originally began this blog to play with writing.  My goals for writing were to improve my writing and to play with a variety of topics and approaches.  This I stated up front.  Another goal, though unstated, was to improve my confidence in my own writing.  I have achieved both these goals to some degree though they are goals that are by nature never completely achievable. While it might not show it here, my writing in other venues has improved tremendously to the point that I am routinely called on to write and edit materials others create before they go to print.  My confidence in my ability to write has improved as well.  Writing for an audience and getting audience feedback albeit sporadically through this blog was a bonus.

I admit, I do not write to intentionally arouse debate or discussion.  I have reasons for this.  Reasons I am scrutinizing myself right now.  It is true that comments are the life of a blog.

Another added benefit of writing on this blog was the sifting sorting process I undertook which Kip refers to in his comment.  Unplanned but valuable to me personally.  I don’t apologize for that, because in the end I don’t write to please others here, I write for my own purposes. I have achieved those purposes with this blog so far.  If it seems less than interesting or meaningful to others based on the presence or absence of comments or interesting content then so be it.  This is my personal journey and it has been valuable to me to sort through the crap I’ve encountered along the way in this format.  Whether I continue in this vein is something I’m weighing.  If I do, I will have achieved my own humble purposes in doing so, audience participation or not.  I am decisively undecided about the direction I want to go with this.

Kip brings up a good point.  What the hell is my purpose here?  Writers generally always write for a purpose. What is mine?  It is a fair question and one I must address.

Next….

What role to you want your audience to play, if any? If you want them to acknowledge their presence by talking back, you’re darn well gonna have to provoke them.

I haven’t decided about this either.  Provoking kind of puts me on the line and I’m not sure I want to take the heat…I’m also not sure I don’t want to either. It is an investment in time and energy which quite frankly I’m not entirely certain I have loads of either to invest in order to present a quality forum.  Certainly not on a daily schedule for sure.  Again, I’m pondering this direction too.

It seems the real question here is not can I or do I want to take the heat, it is, am I up for the mental challenge?  Face it.  It just requires some clarity of thought and some conviction.  While I at times have both of these in spades, I’m not sure I want to put it out there just yet.  On the other hand, maybe it is time I quit lurking in the sidelines and really begin to bring it.

Sigh. This is almost as painful as deciding what to do for a graduate research project.

Start spilling out the things we all think about but never say. The things we all want but never acquire. The things we’ve all suffered in silence. Sex, love, death, money. All the biggies.

Now this is the most interesting thing you’ve said yet.  By that I mean, this is the the statment that has me staring blankly at the screen pondering…pondering…pondering.

Because…

Because if they are the things we all think about but never say there is a reason we never say them!  Maybe they shouldn’t be said? Maybe they can’t be articulated adequately.  Or maybe it would be very healthy to say them. 

And, yes, there is a bit of the chickensh*t in me that says I really don’t want to face the heat!

I get that there’s a challenge that’s been laid down.  Picture me quizzically analyzing said challenge, weighing the costs in terms of time to research, write and respond and then where to focus in light of the many other things I’m also considering.  Plus, there is the knowledge that even after a great deal of time and energy expended my efforts will be lame and weak at best. 

You see, in the end, it isn’t an issue of the quality of writing here, it is a reflection of the quality of my thinking and it is this component I am evaluating and dealing with right now. I simply cannot write anything of quality if I’m not thinking those really wild thoughts and these days, thinking is tough when just as I’m beginning to formulate a thesis statement I’m beset with sibling rivalries, dirty laundry, leaves in the pool and the eternally nagging question of what to fix for dinner.  I hate it, but it is my reality for now.  While I’m fighting it ever so valiantly, sometimes it all just gets me stuck.

Then again, maybe I am just the little podunk cowgirl who really doesn’t have the mental abilities to tango with the big boys. 

Okay, now them’s fightin’ words!

And now, after reading this post,  you must have no doubt that the moniker, “The Wild Mind”, refers not to the bizarre quality and content of the thoughts occurring within said Mind, but instead to the undisciplined and untamed nature of that Mind.

My 2009 Off To A Great Start

My year is off to a great start.  Already, I’ve renewed what once was a valuable friendship to me. Yesterday, I met up with a friend of mine that I haven’t seen in almost a decade.  In a previous life, our husbands worked together for the same big church in my area.  She is still married to the same husband she was married to then (yay for them!) and my husband from that former life is now my ex.  He still works for the same big church.  Things changed, my marriage and my life erupted like the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima as failing marriages of staff people in  large conservative fundamentalist churches have a way of doing. My friend and her husband moved away to Portland, Oregon, went to school and well, though I’ve thought of them over the years often, we just lost contact.  But our daughters, who were born about the same time nearly 15 years ago, stayed in touch.  Earlier this week I received a surprising phone call from Portland Friend with the request that our daughters get together since Portland Friend and her family were in town for the holidays. 

I have to say I was a bit nervous about this.  I felt the shame of my past come rushing up as it sometimes still does when I come into contact with folks who were in on the front lines of the action when that whole nightmare went down. I needn’t have troubled myself.  When Portland Friend walked in the door, it was like time had never passed.  Her first words to me were, “You know, Cat, one of these days you’re going to start aging!”  I laughed at her.  I was thinking the exact thing about her.  “You look great!”  I fumbled.

We spent some time getting caught up on each other’s lives and just talking about bigger things.  Like God. Like Church.  Like life, dreams, goals and purpose.  Like how we’ll probably neither of us do the organized church ministry again and how that entire experience changed our lives. Like how we really take issue at some points with organized religion…at a lot of points.  Portland Friend and her husband are now working with people in crisis, homeless people, drug addicts, those most people would call the dregs of society.  Church image, attendance, activity and rules are no longer the focus of their lives.  She relayed to me how her husband was noted as saying, “If given the option to spend an hour with heroin addicts or the church board, I’ll choose heroin addicts.  They are the ones who know they need to change.”   

I found as we talked that though our lives had gone different directions over the years our perspectives continued to be as congruent as they’d ever been.  We’d ended up in the same place on many issues though our roads to get there diverged greatly.  It was a fascinating almost revelatory conversation for me in some ways.  I told her of my feelings of restlessness here and that I felt I was nearing a bit of a crossroads.  I’m not exactly at the place where I can make the choice to go one direction or another but I see something like that appearing on the horizon. 

“I definitely wouldn’t be surprised if it meant I moved away from this area”, I told her, “But right now the liklihood of that seems so remote.”  

“It sounds like you smell a change coming.  It will be interesting to see what happens to you.  Let’s keep in better touch from now on.  And I want you to come up, stay with us for a weekend and explore the possibilities in our area,”  she smiled.  I knew she was not just offering that invite out of courtesy either. I know this about Portland Friend, she doesn’t have a false bone in her body.

Eventually we both realized that though we could have talked all night, we had to get back to reality. We exchanged phone numbers and emails, said our goodbyes and off Portland Friend and her daughter went.

I don’t believe people enter our lives or leave them on accident.  I don’t believe Portland Friend’s re-entrance in my life at this particular time was inconsequential.  What does it mean?  I have no idea. What will come of it?  I may not see the significance of that particular event for years to come.  It is nice to know, that if I should ever want to consider relocating to Portland, there is someone there who could help me navigate what could be an overwhelming transition were I to go it alone.  That reality alone is significant.  I’m reminded again how life turns on a dime and sometimes the little things turn out to be really big things.  I’m wondering if this little conversation might be one such little thing.

I can tell you this: Because of that conversation I’m anticipating an interesting year.

Life Sucks…But I Can See Clearly Now!

Life sucks.  Have you noticed that?  I mean, okay, it doesn’t always suck, but a lot of it really sucks.  The older I get the more I notice that more of life simply sucks.  Just watch the news.  Most of it is bad, even deplorable.  Think of this.  You are beatuiful and energetic when you are young but but you are also hopelessly stupid, naive and inexperienced or else you are so jaded and calloused as to be well, no fun.  Then, just when you have life sort of figured out, or more figured out than you ever have, you die.  So life sucks. 

There is this one aspect of life sucking that I was thinking about today.  Life sucks because it is filled with change and often this change is accompanied by loss and grief.  Every little change has encapsulated in it some sort of loss.  Even if the change is good and positive, there is some loss of the old way, the way things were, the way things have been until this specific change however grand or minute it might be occurs. Even if it means one must part ways with some preferred way of thinking about things, the change can be dramatic and can range from being merely uncomfortable to completely life altering.  Today, I experienced one such change which inconsequential as it might seem on the surface refracted shades of larger changes and the dynamic of emotion contained within those changes.  Change and transition which happen to us on a small scale each and every day and on a much larger scale, once or twice in a lifetime, can be pivotal  points in our lives.

 Today, I had to go to my eye doctor and have my eyes checked.  Now, my eyes are fine, but I’ve had glasses since I was 17 years old and probably should have had them earlier, based on the number of car accidents I was in before I got corrective lenses.  Maybe I’m just a crappy driver, but since the carnage inflicted on the auto industry diminished greatly after I started wearing glasses and my driving did not, I’m thinking I probably needed them long before I was 17.  Anyway, since then, about every year or so I have to go to the eye doc to get the peepers examined.  Today, was the day for that exam this year. 

But the sucky part was that it wasn’t my usual eye doctor anymore.  I’ve been going to the same eye doctor for about 15 years now.  He’s a great little Greek guy who’s been practicing in my area forever.  Certainly, long before my first husband and I moved here in ’93.  He’s funny, personable and competent.  He also houses his practice in this old two story craftsman style home that has been turned into office space.  The place is warm, inviting and quiet when you walk  in.  Though there are other customers in the place, you don’t know it.  There is this feel that you are the only person there and the only one that matters.  There are also pictures of Greece taken when my doctor would travel back each year to visit his family.  The white of the buildings and the blue of the ocean mesmerized me.  I always liked going early and sitting in the lobby and thinking what it would be like to be in that place, Greece.  Would the sun be warmer, would I be tanner, thinner?  Yes, I was most certain I would be  warmer,tanner and thinner if I were there.   I really liked those pictures.

My eye doctor is retiring.  He will not be practicing anymore after tomorrow.  I tried to get in to see him one last time and was unable to.  Instead, I had to book an appointment with the new offices that my doctor sold his practice to.  This is what sucks.  No more warm, cozy, two-story craftsman style home office building with mesmerizing pictures of Greece.  I now must drive to the other end of town to go get my eyes checked at a trendy, upscale Eye Center. Ugh. Flourescent lights, office carpeting, a big, huge waiting area that rivaled the Department of Motor Vehicles and pictures depicting the cross section of the eye instead of the coast of Greece.  Like I said, life sucks. 

So, after filling out my customary mountain of  insurance paperwork, which I guarantee is going to create more work for me in clarifying the transitional screwups that always happen when you change service providers, I sat and looked around.  I thought about this sucky part of life.  My eye doctor was really awesome.  I didn’t want a change here.  I wanted things to continue just as they always had.  I did not want my doctor to retire.  I mean, what’s he going to do to keep busy anyway? Go to Greece and take more pictures?  Well, he can’t hang them in his office anymore, so what good is that?!  In addition, I began to ponder how weird it is to get to know new people in settings like these where everyone is a stranger, in spite of the fact that I’ve lived in this community for 15 years.  I looked around and I realized I knew no one.  The folks in the other office all knew me by name and greeted me by name. They didn’t need to ask who I was, they just pulled my file when they saw me check in.  They knew me.  These people didn’t know who I was from Adam. Well, I’m sure they probably figured out I wasn’t Adam, or John or Harold either, but they didn’t know me, not really.

I also didn’t know how this system worked.  I mean, go here, fill out this paperwork, return it or don’t, or should I eat it after reading?  I had no idea.  Whatever, I filled out the paperwork.  I had a momentary urge to put some really hysterical off the wall stuff on the form when they asked about family history, alcohol consumption or smoking habits and what sex I was, but I decided to simply stay with the boring straight answers this time.  As if the paperwork wasn’t enough of a puzzle, just trying to figure out the layout of the place was a challenge.  I wondered if I were to start at the check in desk and someone were to shout go, how long it would take me to dodge down the first hallway and go through the whole place till I found my way back to the starting point.  It was a good thing that the assistant came and rescued me from my reverie at this point.

She led me back to the interior of the building, past a little additional waiting room and millions of little examination rooms.  This was not feeling comfortable at all.  Too sterile, too professional, too impersonal.  I was feeling kind of sad by this time. I know my doctor wants to retire, but why did this change have to feel like losing my home on some levels?  It reminded me that this town is growing so quickly and there is less and less personal interaction anymore.  I do not like this part of life.  The part where the people you love and care about leave and move on or, worse, die, really sucks.  Sometimes when someone I love leaves my life the pain is so real I feel it on a physical level, right in my chest.  It physically hurts.  Now, okay, I wasn’t this torn up about the retiring eye doctor, but it did feel like that when my marriages were disintegrating or my parents died.

So, with all this deep, philosophical introspection and musing going on I followed the pretty young lady assistant with a diamond stud in her nose back to the examination room.  I put my purse in the place she motioned to and sat in the big blue…or was it red…chair with the eye apparatus near it.  As she takes my chart and pulls up my information on the computer screen, we talk and I size up the place.  Okay, so far so good, no weird stuff here.  I figured out quickly why they hired her though, she could input that data fast! She was also personable and friendly and pretty.  Now, in spite of my fairly melancholy and somewhat negative musings, I’m a bit of an adventurer and though I regretted being forced into this particular change in this particular area of my healthcare at this particular juncture of my life, I’m usually up for a bit of adventure and I do like meeting new people and going new places.  There’s something about new and different that is good every now and then to change things up a bit.  So, before I knew it we were chatting away and she had figured out what my prescription should be and she had me fitted for new contacts.  Well, it wasn’t exactly that instantaneous.  I was there for three house, but it really didn’t seem that long even though I had to go to the little waiting room, get put in front of the refraction machine and then go back to the little waiting room then back to the original room and all that before I even met my new Eye Doctor.  But the assistant and I had a great time.  We determined that the monovision correction I’d been using for the last two years, which required I carry a pair of granny glasses around on a chain around my neck in case I should ever need to read a book or a menu while I had my contacts in, was not the most effective method of correcting my distance vision.   Duh!!! Instead, she suggested I try this kind of contact lense with multifocal correction in it.  It essentially operates like the old bifocal but corrects for distance, mid-distance and near.  I looked at her stunned.  “This is possible?” I asked.  She nodded.  I asked about pricing, and it was only slightly more than the contacts I’d been using.  I mean, the idea of not having to have a pair of reader glasses in my purse, at my bedside table, at every location in my classroom and in my home where I might need to read something up close will not only save me the extra amount these contacts cost, but just the freedom of not having to pack around granny glasses on a chain around my neck floored me.  I was ecstatic.  By this time I was beginning to really be glad my eye doc was choosing to retire. 

Then they dilated my eyes and I met my new Eye Doctor.  She was personable, professional and competent.  She looked nice but I had a hard time seeing her since my eyes were dilated and I thought she was kind of cruel to blast my eyes with that bright light thing but other than that she was alright.   I mean, I wondered what I was expecting, that she’d be some kind of monster? She wasn’t.  I would have much preferred that she be male, attractive, and single and really into me but, hey, I can’t have it all my way can I?

Well, I left the doctor’s office today with my eyes so dilated they hurt.  I stumbled, sort of, out to my car and put on my sunglasses and sat and thought for a moment. What things we can learn from the most benign events in our lives if only we pay attention and observe. Four hours ago I was bemoaning the sad but normal changes we all experience in life.  Four hours later and I can see perfectly, both distance and close up and I’m not having to reach for my granny reader glasses.  Life is funny.  It’s downright strange and bizarre.  Life does suck.  There are parts of it that are so painfully sad that I’d almost rather not live it.   (Okay,  I’m not suicidal, please, even though when given the option I will usually choose to avoid the pain rather than face it head on…I hate pain so much I could never do myself in…it would simply hurt too much, besides, it’s a fairly permanent solution to what, I’ve found, are mostly temporaray problems.)  I hate goodbyes.  Having my eye doctor retire, not being able to go to his office in that nice craftsman style home with the pictures of Greece on the walls and where everyone knew me by name felt a bit like what I’d imagine being shoved out of my home as a kid before I was quite ready to go would feel like. It sucked.

But there’s an up side. The up side is this:  I now can see clearly and I don’t have to use Granny glasses and I’m not in pain.  I’m so going to love that!  I mean just the thought of it, let alone the reality of it, is enough to make me feel twenty years younger.  In addition, I’m not fumbling around half the time trying to adjust from one visual task to another.  And I don’t have a headache.  This is the best part of it.  I am not experiencing pain like I was before.

Now, silly as it seems, this little routine somewhat undramatic (or maybe a bit overdramatized)  change in vision doctors revealed a timely lesson for me.  Sometimes the pain, loss and corresponding grief we go through in life are necessary for our greater growth, development, ultimate maturity and improved vision.  (If I were writing to a strictly religious Christian audience this is where I’d insert any number of Bible references and there are many which would apply.  Those folks will know what they are so I’ll skip that part for now and let them provide them if they are so motivated.)  Any one of the maybe eight or ten people following my blog regularly will note that I’ve bemoaned my dating fate of late with folks going silent and perfectly good candidates opting out.  True, I haven’t shared the number of times I’ve opted out first, but, be that as it may, the dating life has been sucky and painful just as the eye doctor thing was painful and sucky…at first.  But here’s the thing that crystallized for me today.  The pain I experience or the sadness or, better, the disappointment I experience, only serves to help me clarify for myself what it is that I’m about in this journey we call life.  People opting out, aren’t necessarily a rejection of me, though it does feel that way for a few minutes.  It’s life.  My eye doctor didn’t retire because he didn’t want to provide services to me anymore.  How ludicrous is that thinking?  Yet that is exactly the logic behind the woe is me mentality that bends us up into knots when something we thought could really be great or was really great doesn’t work out.  Whether it is a dating relationship, a marriage, a career or a healthcare provider, all these things are just other people making choices that impact us.  Our value is not determined by their choices.  It is  painful to lose something that was wonderful, fulfilling,  warm, cozy, beneficial and positive.  It is painful to lose the familiarity of someone knowing my name and having a cute, cozy office with Greek pictures on the wall.  It was wonderful pondering the possibilities that might have transpired had any number of those wonderful men not gone silent. But it was simply not to be and because of it my vision is improved.  My vision is improved because I now see more clearly what I’m about in relationship and I see much more accurately the great qualities that I do hope Mr. Right, if he appears, will possess.  I also see much more clearly and with less pain and effort physically because I was able to change doctors and benefit from improved technology and service. 

I think there are greater lessons to be extrapolated here.  Simply put, sometimes we have to wade through some misery to figure out what doesn’t work so that when we come face to face with what does work, we recognize it.  One of my Christian friends was talking to me the other day and he said, “Check it out.  God gave Adam the task of naming all the animals before He brought Eve into the picture.  After looking all the animals over, Adam probably had a really good idea that none of those were a good fit for him and he was better able to recognize/appreciate  Eve’s beauty and fit for him because of the process God took him through”.  Now, I know, sounds a bit churchy, at points, but the idea still holds.  If we pay attention, we learn.  We learn what works and what doesn’t.  We learn how to be better people.  We learn to recognize those things and people that  are healthy and positive for us and those who are dangerous and toxic and we are able to make this determination with increasing effectiveness, accuracy and efficiency…but we must experience some pain in order to get there. 

That’s the part about life that sucks the most: going through the pain to learn how to avoid it, but, to be honest, I wouldn’t trade it for anything, because, guess what, now I can see!!!!  In so many ways beyond just my physical vision, I can see!    I love the freedom, the confidence and the convenience that this improved vision brings.  For example, I’ve been at the computer for hours now and no headaches and I can see perfectly, without taking out my contacts or using Granny glasses. It is worth enduring the suckiness to benefit from the lessons.  Of course, I’d never say that while the lesson is being taught.  I, like many others, will drown in the misery, but, unlike many others, I’ll be watching, listening, thinking and learning all the while.  I’ll be glad when I’ve finally aced the test. So, while life sucks, I guess it isn’t completely for naught.  I’ll take the suckiness to gain the vision. 

I’m still going to miss those pictures of Greece though.

God’s Gone To Meddling–He’s Gotten Involved In My Love Life

I’ve been thinking a lot about the romantic notion that there is “someone for everyone”.  I’ve also been thinking about the notion I’ve had from my youth that I really don’t need to spend my time looking for Mr. Right.  I should just go about my life and he (if he indeed exists) will somehow magically surface. Well, that is a very oversimplified way of stating the idea that if there is someone out there for me, I do not need to spend any energy looking for him, he will come to me.  Instead, I should be spending my energy being the best me I can be, pursuing my own interests, being authentically me and Prince Charming will see me from afar or from one of those areas of interest I’m pursuing and come riding in on his mighty steed (or his whatever fuel efficient economy car) to woo me and carry me away to happily-ever-after land.

 

Now, 30 years later and I’m thinking that these ideas need revision.  First, we don’t know for sure that there is “someone for everyone”. How would we prove this…if such an idea were provable?  If two people were born on opposite ends of the earth and were “meant” for each other how would anyone, including the two in question know?  How would we know if Person A were meant for Person B? What would happen if Person A died before they could meet?  Would Person C then become the perfect match for Person B or is Person B flat out of luck?  No, we cannot determine for sure that there is indeed someone for everyone.  In fact, if we just look at the birth statistics in any given year or series of years we find that one or the other of the sexes born in a given year, outweighs the other.  In romance, there is simply not a clean scientific one-to-one correspondence.

 

The idea that if I just go about doing my life, Mr. Prince will appear, is also a theory that needs revision.  Why?  Because, it made sense when I was young, beautiful, childless, and had my entire life ahead of me and the possibilities for how I could spend my time as well as who I could spend my time with were virtually unlimited.  Such is not the case in post-40 single-mom-of-four-kids world.  The possibilities for how I can spend my time are now relegated to working to keep a roof over our heads, parenting the said four children, eating, sleeping, grocery shopping, housecleaning, laundry, yard work, and paying bills.  There isn’t much time left over, except for every other weekend and about five weeks the rest of the year that I can just do whatever I want. In addition, the possibilities concerning who I spend my time with, have significantly diminished since those carefree college days where the men-to-women ratio was 7 men to every 1 woman.  Add that reality to the fact that I now know myself better and have been shaped by all the experiences in the last 46 years.  I’m now far more scrutinizing and, yes, picky, about who I spend my time with, let alone, who I might consider becoming romantically involved with. To further complicate the situation, I have my children to consider.  My children have already experienced the worst of the blended family scenario and it was so abusive and bad that we had to get out.  It failed.  We aren’t ready to repeat that experience any time ever.  The nuances and intricacies of any relationship that would work for me and mine, are complicated indeed. The old romantic notions just don’t fit or work anymore.

 

Yes, these romantic notions need to be completely revised, or maybe rewritten altogether.  Hmmm, possibly, even discarded outright. I think it is possible to make an intelligent, considered and deliberate decision regarding who I become romantically involved with.  However, I also know that it is completely in the realm of possibility for me to overanalyze things and thus completely miss a good thing were it to come my way. I’m actually more concerned that this second option would happen.  I fear I will find so many reasons not to invest, instead of seeing that the person in front of me fits me like hand and glove.  It might feel right but I’ll pick it to death on the intellectual end and walk away.

 

It is along these lines that I’ve been also thinking more about God.

 

I have always been part of the Christian religion.  However, I have not always been a Christian and most of the time I have been a Christian, I have not been very spiritual. In fact, I’ve struggled to be a “good Christian”.  I’ve struggled so much, I finally decided to give it up.  But that’s another story altogether. I am not a religious person.  I do nothing out of “religion”, however, spiritually, I ascribe to the Christian principals as communicated in the Bible.  I disagree most of the time with what the established Christian church (regardless of denomination) does, simply because I feel that the church today has fallen into the same trap the religious leaders in Jesus’ day fell into:  they are all about building their own little power kingdoms and not at all about true communion with God.  I’ll be the first to say that my problems and failures in my own spiritual journey cannot be blamed on the effectiveness or inadequacy of any human religious institution, however, I can say that more often than not, the “church” has done more to isolate me from God than to draw me near to Him. This should not be.  So…after a great many years of involvement, over-involvement to the point of collapse almost, I spun wildly out of control spiritually, made some very foolish mistakes and landed myself on a very long sabbatical from “the ministry”.  My head was messed up, my heart was broken and my spirituality was at an all time low.  That was the state of affairs for me as I entered my second marriage, which failed, for a number of reasons, none of which, added to my spiritual health.

 

So, I took a break from all things religious.

 

For a long time.  For about two years now, maybe almost three.

 

And…surprisingly…now that the human voices of guilt, condemnation and disapproval have faded to silence, I think, I actually think I can hear God’s voice.

 

Okay, now, this is not the venue to discuss the validity or otherwise of the existence of God.  That’s not my purpose here.  Long ago, I mucked through all that for myself.  I was not brought up in a religious home though I did get some church in my younger years. If anything, my parents were staunchly agnostic almost moving toward atheistic.  They hated religion and were very intellectual.  I’m sure I’m an embarrassment to them. I know what that world view holds.  I know.  I grew up in it and was immersed in it just as fundamentalist right wing religious zealots immerse their children in their world view.  I didn’t rebel. I just watched and looked and considered. But this is not the venue to go into that particular journey either.  Suffice it to say that it seemed more conceivable to me that this intricate and finely tuned universe we live in was carefully and thoughtfully designed rather than originating by random chance and thus, I took a step and opted in favor of a loving, creator God who desired relationship with me as opposed to the futile thinking that we are here by chance and we die and become food for worms (which we do but that’s only because we no longer have need of our physical houses).  I made this decision at the ripe old age of 18.  I haven’t been much of a “super Christian”, but I haven’t regretted the choice either.  I believe there is a loving God, who desires intimate connection with humanity and not just humanity, but each one of us as individuals.  He wants to orchestrate wonderful things for us that we cannot imagine, but He has by His own design limited himself in some ways.  He will not force Himself on us.

 

So it is into this context that over the last two years and more specifically over the last six to eight months that spirituality and my dating life have converged.  The questions I have about having never really been in love, wondering if there is indeed someone “out there” for me even at this “final hour”, how do I go about meeting him and what part God would play in all this ultimately boil down to trust.  The issue, really, for me, is trust.  If I believe there is a personal God out there who loves me and cares about me as an individual and not just as part of a collective whole why am I not willing to trust Him with my love life? 

 

Would he care about my love life?

 

I think so.  Great theological question.  Also a lengthy topic for another blog, but yes, I think God cares about this element of our humanity.  God says it is not good for us to be alone.  He’s a God of community and commitment, so, yes, I think He’d care about my love life.  And, I know I have issues of trust originating from way back when and continuing on to the present day.  It is hard for me to totally trust that someone truly cares about me without having an agenda.  So, of course, I shift that over to my dealings with God.  Trusting God has been tough for me.  Not trusting God has landed me in a heap o’ trouble that I think I could well have avoided, but I don’t know for sure since I haven’t ever really trusted God and observed the results.

 

So, the other day, somewhere out of nowhere, that still, small voice whispered to me as I was frantically going about my daily business.  It was such a different thought that it stopped me cold, “So, after two failed marriages, an active dating life with no interesting possibilities for a relationship that looks like it might go the distance, a bunch of people wasting your time then going silent, don’t you think you might try trusting me with your love life?”

The question stopped me in my tracks.

Trust God with my love life? I almost laughed.

It would be much more dramatic if I could say that I thought that was absurd.  I did not.  I did not think anything of it.  I just thought about the concept.  Trust God with my love life?

Then I thought, “Wait. If God is who He says and who I say I believe He is then He most definitely cares about my love life. There are plenty of examples in the Bible where God orchestrated romance on behalf of the individuals involved and He had nothing or very little to work with and He had human beings screwing it up all along the way. Hmmm,”  I continued in my thoughtful reverie, “If I believe what I say I believe about God then I must put Him to the trust test. I must trust Him with my love life or my spirituality is not worth the energy it takes to explain it.

 

So, my response to God?

 

Just this, “Okay, God, I’m going to trust you with my love life because if I can’t trust you with that then I can’t trust you with anything, but please don’t let that mean that my only options are those emasculated mamby pamby fundamentalist nuts whose Christianity keeps them from speaking English and whose chief desire is finding a woman to wait on them, because after all ‘by God, they are the man of the household’. God, just give me a man who is into you, not hung up on Christian image and who is 100% male and masculine and still respectful, kind, and not afraid to show he cares.  And, oh, yeah, God, if it isn’t too much to ask, make him one of those guys who can do more than just show up.  I’d like to be able to talk to him and, better yet, have him carry enough of the conversation that I get a chance to listen to him and that I can admire what he has to say for a lifetime, or the rest of our lifetime together.  And then, God, I really simply just want that one companion that fits, like hand and glove in so many millions of different and impossible ways, and, please God, let me recognize him when you put him there in front of me….but I guess you already know all that about me. Okay, God, have fun with that, it won’t be easy.”

 

And that’s how God got involved with my love life.

Deplorable Behavior of “Theists”

Paul Sunstone over at his blog titled, “Cafe Philos”, has tacked a “Scarlett A” on his sight and declared that he is “pissed at the way atheists are treated in America”.  (See his full article titled, “Standing Up For Nontheists Like Nicole” here.) I agree with him in that the behavior he describes is deplorable.

I am what Paul would prbably describe as a theist.  Worse, yet, I could probably fall quite squarely in the middle of what most people refer to as “the religious right”, though I am neither religious nor right in my behavior or political perspectives.  I have done more than my full day pondering the metaphysics that Paul refers to in his article, and having grown up in an atheist/agnostic home, I have decided for myself that a theist approach is one I prefer. It was not mere rebellion to my parents way of doing things.  It was carefully researched and considered over a number of years and I do revisit the question regularly.  I have also done my share of really skanky things and poor choices.  However,  I am ashamed at the behavior of those “theists” Paul describes.   For those folks, who are out there, who profess a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ” and who are behaving toward anyone, not just theists, but anyone who doesn’t “profess a personal relationship with Jesus Christ”, hateful behavior like this is deplorable and antithetical to the very purposes of Christ. 

I am once again ashamed and saddened by the reality that those who, at least theoretically, ought to have a clear grasp on the good qualities of love, forgiveness, tolerance, kindness, patience, peace, self-control and a whole host of other fine attributes espoused by most theists regardless of their religious leanings, simply do not.  We, and I claim guilt by association not by agreement, ought never to behave this way! 

If Jesus walked the earth today, He would never, ever have treated Nicole or anyone else with such vile hatred or contempt.  Of that, I am absolutely certain.

Heaven?

Alright, for all you spiritual wannabe theologians, or…okay…regular people who just are living this life…here are some questions for you.  They are one’s I’ve often pondered and, hmmm, well, I kind of wonder if other people ponder these same questions and, if they do or don’t, what do they ponder regarding the existence or nature of “heaven”.

Here are the questions:

1.  Do you believe in Heaven?

 

2.  What is Heaven like?

 

3.  Who gets in to Heaven?

 

4.  How do you get into Heaven…or is there a requirement of any kind?

 

5.  Is there a Hell? 

 

6.  If you believe there is a Hell, who goes there?

 

7.  If you don’t believe there is a Hell…why not? 

Hey, there are no right or wrong answers here as far as I’m concerned.  I personally believe we are all on some sort of journey, but who am I to judge the rightness or wrongness of others’ journeys.  I just simply want to know what the world thinks on these things. 

Love to hear from you.  Make a comment.  It will broaden and enrich me, I know that for sure!

What Good Is A God?

I find it interesting that there are so many blogs out there that deal with spirituality and the need for a god.  Okay, I’m really oversimplifying here, but, these blogs talk about how there are human emotional or psychological needs that require us to invent a god to supposedly “make it” through life.  There are other sites that talk about god as a psychological invention, and still others who consider the human institution of religion as having an evolutionary cause.  All these blogs view God or a god or gods as the creation of some human design.  Now, I really don’t want to get into the logic, flawed or otherwise, of this kind of thinking.  And, I am for the purposes of this discussion, separating, God as diety from the complete human institution called religion. I would like to propose some vital questions to consider:

1.  What good is a god who is created or made up?  Stated differently, why worship something I, myself, or humanity itself, invented?  This is not God, this is imagination, or invention, but it is, by very definition, not God. 

2. If God doesn’t really exist, then none of this matters.  Why are we wasting our time and why do people on both sides of the argument waste their time getting so emotionally involved in this?

3.  If God does exist, doesn’t it by logical reasoning, make sense that He existed before we did, and that He, being God, is calling the shots and not asking our opinion about it, and that He, if He is who He says He is (ahhhh, there’s the catch now, isn’t it?), ought to at least be taken somewhat seriously on His or Her terms instead of our own? 

4.  We speak a great deal of intellect and reasoning, logic and proof in these discussions.  My question is where does faith come into play? Faith cannot be proved by anything other than personal experience which requires trust.

Like I said, if there is no God, then none of this matters, if there is God, then wouldn’t it make sense that nothing else matters or at very minimum all possibilities ought to be carefully examined and logically dismissed only after serious and thorough consideration of those possibilities for deity on the deity’s terms instead of our own preferences?