Transition from Fundamentalism to Agnosticism, part four.

 

I here continue posting passages from my private journal, in which I document my transition away from fundamentalism and toward Christian agnosticism.

Here is some of what I wrote on 17 February of 2005. “Churchy people imagine God with a sword and a plan, who hands them the sword and reveals the plan which, marvelously enough, just happens to be what they were going to do anyway.”

I particularly struggled with the Trinity. Nobody seems to have a clue about the Holy Spirit. Much of my angst came from trying to force two-thirds of a God to do the work of the other one-third. It finally became apparent to me that what I was seeking was the Spirit, not God or Jesus. This Spirit “is the only presence of God in our universe—to love the flowers and trees, and help others do so, and associate with those who do; to not be surprised when people we had assumed to have true inner goodness turn out to be merely selfish; to await and use opportunities for helping to bring light into the world. This is all we can do, in a world where God’s presence is only through a Spirit who does not impart any answers but only creates love, where God’s presence does not create any miraculous interventions, but works only through the quiet mulch of those who love…I cannot ask God to humble the arrogant; I must just be happy that the arrogant have not yet stamped dead every flower in the world.”

On 24 February, I wrote, “But the main lesson, for those of us who truly have the Spirit of love in our hearts and are always in exile in a world run by selfishness at best, cruelty at worst, is that we must settle in, live our lives, raise families, take care of the earth, and be a blessing to all of society around us.”

Then in that same entry I wrote some humor that had occurred to me during my sleep study, when I was wired up to a computer with lots of sticky electrodes on my scalp. “In Hansel and Gretel, Englebert Humperdinck wrote something like, When I lay me down to sleep, fourteen angels watch do keep… Why stop at fourteen? Why not one for each organ, each hair follicle, or…During the sleep study, the computer (and the technician) monitored at least fourteen things, like an angel for each eyelid, my nose, four points on my cranium—is that what a Humperdinckian God is like? The computer recorded my every breath and blink. Not my every fart, there were no sensors there, but if pressed to answer, a fundamentalist would say God notices and remembers our every flatus.”

But I also wondered about the synchronicities I experienced in my life—things happening at just the eerily right times. As if “God has written me into His novel which is being carefully read by fourteen angels who have infinite time, since they have all the time in the world.” I still do not know if there might be some hidden structure to the universe, or whether these synchronicities were merely coincidences. And there is not much chance that I will ever figure it out.