AT THE CUSP - A Poem

At The Cusp

                      At the cusp where endings and beginnings meet,

                      at the liminality of the present; where the past and 

                      the future pause ever so briefly, where time seemingly

                      stops at the pivotal point where the dusk of hopes not met

                      and the dawn of hopes yet to be converge, all is peace.

                      In that space look at the night sky between the last

                      minute of the old year and the first minute of the new year

                      to contemplate the absence of that which disturbs and 

                      ponder the absence of that which disrupts.  Consider the vastness                                                                of being before entertaining the anxiety of hope.

                      Norm Wright,

                      January 18, 2025

THE UNIVERSE AND US

The advantage of being an agnostic is that I can admit to not being certain about much of anything.  This is not to say that I don't have beliefs and opinions about things that are based on factual knowledge as we know it today, but facts are not immutable.  Facts are prone to change as new facts are established about our world, ourselves, and the universe we inhabit.  There is much that we humans have opinions about and believe that have no basis in fact apart from us having them.  Unfortunately, these are the types of opinions and beliefs that are often treated as concrete, absolute truths, which only serve to divert us from seeking the factual. 

Being at the debatable top of the food chain on the speck of cosmic dust we call our planet home has led us to become rather arrogant and self-possessed about our place in the universe.  After all, as far as we can tell we humans are the only life form that we actually and factually know to be cognitively aware of ourselves and our surroundings.  We are intellectually capable of creating diverse cultures and keeping a historical record of our activities unlike any other life forms on this planet (or so we believe at the moment). At presents, we can only speculate that if we exist there is a good chance that there are other intelligent life forms we share the universe with. 

That we humans are conscious beings is as much of a mystery as our existing at all.  Consciousness is a mystery to brain scientists and neurobiologist.   Where consciousness comes from remains unknown.  It's not traceable in the brain even though the brain is obviously involved.   It is not a sense like the other senses which can be traced to their geographic locations in the brain.  It is a phenomenon that simply is.  

I speculate that consciousness is foundational to the "I" capabilities all life forms possess:  Instinct, Intuition, and Intelligence.  I have no doubt that some readers will argue that plants and some animals do not possess any of these capabilities; that only higher forms of animal life may possess them.  While these particular "I" capabilities are unique to Homo sapiens, other life forms have similar or like capabilities unique to them.  

Plants behave in conscious ways.  They possess an awareness of their surroundings even though they are largely immobile and having nothing that represents a central nervous system, yet they are capable of  responding to their environment and sending messages to members of their species when endangered.  Even single cell life-form is reactive to its environment and behaves in conscious ways via the impulsive nature of DNA.  If that were not the case, evolution could not have occurred and I wouldn't be writing this post.  

What does this say about the universe we live in?

* * *

Before answering that question, it is best to spend some time examining us human beings.  Perhaps the most conscious and cognizant creatures on our planet (at least in our collective opinions), the mystery that is us conscious beings points to the greater mystery of a conscious universe.  This simple correlation is based on the fact that we have evolved from the universe itself; that there is something about and within the universe that gives rise to consciousness and suggests that the universe is conscious in a way completely unknown to us.  

The universe appears to have an awareness of itself as demonstrated by the laws by which it operates and can be deciphered by conscious beings like us.  We know things about the universe because it is knowable and because the universe is a reactive entity imbued with the knowable which it emits to conscious receptors like us who seek to understand it. You might ask how the universe communicates as sense of  consciousness.  

The observable universe communicates through chemical means, light, and colors.  It pulsates and emits sounds that can be heard.  It has a gravitational pull on us both literally and figuratively. We sentient creatures must remember we do not stand above or below nature; we are merely part of it.  Our purpose may simply consist in our being the sensors that makes the Universe conscious.  We could be part of an extensive neural (organic transmitting) system made up of other sentient and conscious beings that are located throughout its vast expanse.  Within the scope of the universe, we are no more than a spark of a consciousness transmitter by which a possible eternal universe experiences itself.  

Everything in the universe is derived from the constancy of its mass and energy, including us.  That the universe expands or contracts neither adds or subtracts from this constancy.   In other words, we consist of recycled atoms that are likewise an eternal factor that comprises the universe.  No matter how much we make or destroy on this speck of dust, it has no effect on the weight of universe's mass and energy.  The only thing new about us or about anything in the universe is the particular arrangement of its atoms and their particles that currently take our form.  

Interestingly enough, this reality was intuited by writer of the Ecclesiastes 1:9, who said, "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun." That is certainly true at the atomic level of existence.  In this sense, reincarnation seems a bit more likely than resurrection, but one must keep an open mind about this because the universe likely has its own methods when it comes to such processes.  

What seems to be factual is that the sum of our parts consists of recycled particles rearranged as us.  The you and me that exist now may be a one time life form that will never exist again, in the dimensional sense we exist now.  What we leave behind in the macrocosm is our atomic particles that may or may not be used with other atomic particles found in the universe to create newer life forms sometime in the distant future.

* * *

Early on in my posts I mentioned that I did not like to use the word mystery.  My reticence in using that word within a theistic context was that mystery serves as a locked door to keep questioning minds out; as in, "It's a mystery.  You can't understand it.  Just believe it."  In the realm of science, however, mysteries are the things that stimulate a need to seek an explanation, to explore and to establish facts and theories that deepen our understanding.  In the scientific world mysteries abound regarding the universe and  life on our planet home.  There is a great deal that we do not know but that does not mean we won't increasingly discover the universe's secrets and solve its mysteries.  

Norm

  

HOW DID WE COME THIS WAY? - A Poem

 

                                        How Did We Come This Way?

                             How did we come this way?

                              Did we miss a fork in the road?

                              Did we ignore a sign?

                             Was this path meant to be?

                                                                                               * * *

     

                                Stony the road ahead we tread,

                                Watching one’s step along the way.

                                The thoughtful mind filled with dread,

                               Its thoughts shall never say.

                                                                                              

                                                                                               * * *

                                 The careful do not speak,

                                The complacent do not hear,

                               The compliant do not see,

                              The arrival of their fear.

                                                           Norm Wright

                                                           December 1, 2024

ART'S PERSPECTIVES

When exploring the variant realities we humans create, the museum, the theatrical stage, the concert hall, the library and the restaurant prove to be the best resources by which to navigate the broad spectrum of those realities.  Sight, smell, sound, taste, and touch flood the emotional senses of awe, ambivalence, joy, happiness, love, compassion, longing, anger, fear, hate, disgust, sorrow, sadness, and the like to create and recall memories that shape our perspectives and understanding of the realities we humans have created.   Similarities can be as shocking as the differences we discover which challenge our perspectives and understandings of the realities we have created within this creative universe.  

Art is paradoxical.  To construct art always involves the deconstructing of something; usually the products of nature like rocks, plants, and animals to create the food we eat, the sculptures, the musical instruments, the paints, the theaters, the libraries we make and the books we write, and so on.  The art of living things is made up of living things that have been deconstructed by nature.  The atoms we are made of are recycled from the atoms that once made up dinosaurs and one-celled animals that evolved from stellar and planetary collisions billions of years ago.  Birdsong, hoots, howlers, squeals, booms, and the human voice evolved into the language of earth's species that began with the deconstruction of a universal silence, known as the Big Bang which created an eternal hum that sings throughout the universe to this day.  

Art is analytical.  All art is an analysis of what is.  The tools that we and other animals have created to feed ourselves and make life more comfortable began with an analysis of the conditions in which we live.  Even plants, perhaps amongst the most creative life forms on the planet, are analytically reacting to the conditions of their environment; having the ability to create chemicals from light in order to protect themselves and which other life forms, including we humans, have become dependent on in order to exist. For us humans we use every form of art to express and analyze who and what we are.

Art is proportional.  This may strike some as me exposing a bias to certain forms of art that "make sense" mathematically.  Math certainly is evident in art and almost all art forms can be understood and dissected mathematically, but where art is concerned, proportionality must also fall within the domain of art's paradoxical and analytical domains to express the disproportionate.  In the visual arts, proportion and disproportion exist in classical and abstract forms of art.  In music, proportion and disproportion exist in classical harmonies and lyrical sequences as well as dissonant harmonies, syncopations and tonal qualities.  In the theatrical performance, we find both classical and absurdist theater.  In literature, especially in poetry, there are classical, abstract, and dissonant forms.  Even novels are increasingly exploring proportionality with the twisted or absurdist plots that apparently have no connection to reality as we know it, but which make us think about the reality we live in, the purpose behind all art. 

Human beings as works of art from which the variant perspectives of reality emerge and are expressed is too big a topic to include in this post, but collectively we are the outcome of universe's creative processes, works of art.  Within that creative process we have created realities that are expressed and analyzed in the art we create.  The universe is an ever expanding work of art that we cognitive creatures are blessed to enjoy and ponder in the time we are given to interact with it.  

Norm

   

  

 

FAITHFULLY AGNOSTIC

What does it mean to be a faithful agnostic?    

When I began this blog, my definition of a faithful agnostic was one who remained faithful to the Christian faith I belonged to as I questioned certain aspects of its teachings.  It comes as no surprise that  I have come to understand that Christianity does not lend itself to being questioned. 

While some theologians claim that doubt is a path to faith, as an agnostic I can only respond paradoxically by saying, "Perhaps but perhaps not."   Both theists and atheists dislike that sort of answer.   For Christians, doubt is tolerable as long as it doesn't result in denial of its main tenets.  On the other hand, atheists are frustrated with someone who doubts but holds that there might be some meaning to a long-held beliefs that have no factual backing.  Humans are uncomfortable with the grayness of ambiguity.  "Either be for something or be against it."    

There is a Christian (and thus a cultural) bias against being non-committal which I grew up with and is expressed in the third chapter of the Book of Revelation where its author writes:  

"To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:  ... I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth."   That's an image that can stick with one. 

What about religion?

When it comes to theistic religion, I have cooled down to the point of being on the cool side of tepid rather than lukewarm.  I get that a good many people feel they need religion in their lives as it gives them a hint of certainty and a modicum of control over the chaos we all fear.  On the other hand, I also know that all religions have their ardent ideologists who have caused much of the chaos we fear and have led to the most violent wars in history.    

I am reticent to discuss the topic of God, which I've done a great deal of in past posts, but I feel compelled to give a brief repost of where I'm at on the topic.  The term God is problematic as it generally personates something as accessible and capable of being appeased or manipulated to do what we ask.  There has never been nor can there ever be any proof that such an individuated being exists.  

When I use the term God, I am thinking of a ubiquitous force that permeates the universe, including us.  Hypothetically speaking, we are because it (the universe) is.  That is perhaps the closest one can get to certainty with regard one's existence.  

What about reality?

I have said in past posts, that reality is consensus of perceptions.  In that sense we humans are dealing with a multitude of realities at any given point in our collective history.  Every religion, theistic and secular, creates its perceptions of reality.  All perceptions are malleable.  Those that constitute common shared perceptions of objects are those which have been handed down as a continuous chain of perceptions.  Ultimately, reality is nothing more than  perceptions that have no intrinsic meaning.  

Beyond shared mundane perceptions of objects, reality becomes increasingly diverse as abstract perceptions called ideologies.  Most malleable realties are those that broadly fall under the domains of economics, politics, and religion; realities that have an impact on the welfare of every living creature on our planet home. 

Being an agnostic does not mean I don't care about such ideological realities.  I care very much about them.  My skepticism does not make me ambivalent to them - quite the opposite.  Skepticism leads me to research and understand the ideological realities that we humans create and are dealing with.  

If one wants to study the vastness of the realties we create, art in all of its various forms is a great place to start.   Dance, music, novels, plays, poetry,  paintings, sculptures, all forms of audio, culinary, and visual arts are ways to engage our senses and our variant perceptions of what is real in the world of our making.  In the post that follows, I will ponder with the reader how art projects our perceptions and shapes our sense of reality.

* * *

Norm   

THE MORNING OF HOPE - A Poem

 

The Morning Of Hope

                                            The morning of hope had vanished behind flag-striped booths 

                                            where dotted ballots erased a republic with pock marks 

                                            made on a paper wall by a firing squad, millions strong. 

                                           Darkness descended before the sun could rise; a horizon of avarice and fear

                                            shading the beacon on the hill and the golden lamp welcoming the 

                                            tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to be free.

                                    The people spoke the sentence that doomed their freedom;

                                     the irony lost with the loss of the dream once 

                                    held by those who said it.

                                            Time backwards does not flow,

                                            Molding a future from a history once lived 

                                            never lives again.

                                    The past a fading mirage, 

                                    a lifeless icon offering nothing but the semblance 

                                    of a bygone remembrance.

                                    The dictated day will be long.

                                    Where no sun rises, no sun will set.

                                   The sun will rise on a day not dictated,

                                    but on what will it shine?

                                            Norm

                                            November 6, 2024

LEAVING CHURCH - A NEW START

This was the last Sunday my wife and I were members of the church we belonged to for the past thirty years; a church where our daughters were confirmed and where our oldest daughter was married, a place where I have been an organist and lay worship leader for the past twenty-five years.   I'm sure some of my regular readers are thinking, "Well, its about time.  You're hardly a Christian."  I really can't argue with that assessment.  

* * *

I like Jesus.  I like what Jesus taught and find his teachings inspiring, but I no longer put him on the divine pedestal that Christianity has placed him on.  As many of my posts have pointed out, I find Jesus more interesting as a human like you and me than his being a god or demigod who is nothing like you or me.  For some time now, I have struggled with the thought of leaving the Church as a God-believer (of sorts) who doesn't believe God is a good term to describe what I mean when I  use the term God.  I can do without the biblical or to be more specific, the apostolic teachings about Jesus, that are the backbone of Christianity today.

Of course leaving a church is usually prompted by some form of dramatic event; a conflict or falling out with someone (usually a priest or pastor) or something like a change in the church's program or vision.  There is that, at some level, in my case which has provided an opportunity to step away, but such prompts are largely irrelevant when it comes to making a decision to leave organized religion which in essence is what I am doing.   My decision is fundamentally based on changes in my personal beliefs which were best left fully unsaid in the church I belonged to.   Having served as a lay preacher for many years, I have been finding it increasingly difficult to hold the party line, so to speak, when preparing a homily. 

* * *

Like Jesus, I am not trying to nor do I want to start a new religion.  What I truly want and, more importantly, what I need is to make peace with who I am and what I have come to believe about life and my place in an immense and unfathomable universe that has resulted in my being.  There is a great depth of spirituality present in all the life forms that are all around us.  I can no longer commit to being religious in the affiliated sense of that word. 

To forgive the abuse and the pettiness that religions frequently engage in requires me to let go and step away from such toxic environments.  Clinging to a belief system and a religion on the premise that my eternal wellbeing is dependent on doing so is self destructive. 

* * * 

At a time in one's life when religion is usually deemed important, I am finding it toxic to my very soul and the wellbeing of my family.  What I will miss most about leaving our former church is being its organist and having access to a pipe organ that I greatly enjoyed playing.  I can honestly say that I am virtually addicted to playing a pipe organ.  It had become a creative outlet for most of my life, but as the saying goes, "All good things must comes to an end."  I will survive its loss, knowing that in moving on I will feel and be more honest about myself and where I am going in life's journey. 

Speaking of moving on, this blog will likely change the topic matter as I will probably lean into my being an agnostic as opposed to trying to save Christianity from itself, which is at best a Sisyphean task.  So stay tuned as I ponder the journey I have embarked on today.

Norm