Body, Mind, Heart, Soul
Between my search for sobriety and running for hours and hours in the woods, i spend a lot of time thinking and talking about god, the universe, and the meaning of life. The best i can come up with for the meaning of life is, "to live." The meaning of life is to live. Get food, don't get eaten. And maybe as beings of a somewhat higher conscious, to also help others. Be it animals, the earth it's self or other humans. As far as god and the universe, i see no separation.
When I was about eight years old, i was taken out of class once a week and brought to a classroom with only about five other kids and we were taught evolution. Of course I didn't realize that's what we were being taught at the time but i do remember pretty much being on the edge of my seat listening to this. At one point while the teacher is explaining the big bang theory, one of the other kids, a little girl, interrupts and asks, 'I thought God made everything....'
Are you fucking crazy? I don't think I thought those exact words that i thought but even in my eight year old mind I knew this made a lot more sense than the stuff that guy at my church was trying to get me to believe. To the teacher's credit, she just explained that that's HOW God made everything.
THIS...has stuck with me ever since. about 40 years. From a dumb ass kid who just believed whatever then wondered about whatever then questioned EVERYTHING, this has been the seed that sprouted it all. If the teacher would have just said, 'That big bang IS God.'
That big bang is God. I don't know about any "bigger plan" but i DO know there is an order. An order in how the days get either longer or shorter by the same time schedule year after year, millennium after millennium. An order to how certain insects hatch and flowers bloom to coincide with certain bird migration times and patterns. Even a kind of order to volcanoes erupting along the ring of fire.
It's hard to stand on the Oregon beach during a storm or watching the sunset in the horizon of that beach and not believe there's an order in the universe and that universe being a living breathing source of energy that just keeps recycling life and more energy over the millions of years and will continue to do so long after our kind has long since ceased to exist. After some of my mountain bike rides around the blast zone of Mt. St. Helen's, it's very easy to understand how indigenous cultures have regarded volcanos as gods and an erupting volcano as an angry god. Who's to say they're wrong. This planet, this universe is a living breathing being with it's own source of life and intention. Much like our own bodies as our heart, lungs, kidneys, brain works on their own without our thinking about the process. If there is a plan, WE are barely even a part of it.
Any religion that separates the body from the mind from the earth from the spirit is incomplete. So many people, religious or not, have lost touch with even the idea of the "oneness" of these things. It's both irresponsible and disrespectful to ignore, or worse yet abuse our bodies and the earth and think we can find enlightenment. They are one. As beings that are only a collection of atoms vibrating into forms just like the air around us and the trees, buildings and other animate and inanimate objects that surround us, we are connected. The "butterfly effect" is happening all the time.
No guy in a funny hat, suit or shouting and waving snakes around are going to lead you to salvation and enlightenment. They may make you feel nice and safe and reassured in your decisions but they won't save you. A run in the rain, a week of fasting, a barefoot walk on a trail, playing with a dog or paying it forward might. Actually, the guy shouting and waving snakes may be on a pretty good path to enlightenment.
Physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. In that order. The body, mind, heart, soul. God isn't in the trees, the mountains, the desert, the ocean. God IS the trees, mountains, deserts, oceans and every element that keeps this universe moving and changing, evolving, burning, flooding and freezing over and over and over again.
When I was about eight years old, i was taken out of class once a week and brought to a classroom with only about five other kids and we were taught evolution. Of course I didn't realize that's what we were being taught at the time but i do remember pretty much being on the edge of my seat listening to this. At one point while the teacher is explaining the big bang theory, one of the other kids, a little girl, interrupts and asks, 'I thought God made everything....'
Are you fucking crazy? I don't think I thought those exact words that i thought but even in my eight year old mind I knew this made a lot more sense than the stuff that guy at my church was trying to get me to believe. To the teacher's credit, she just explained that that's HOW God made everything.THIS...has stuck with me ever since. about 40 years. From a dumb ass kid who just believed whatever then wondered about whatever then questioned EVERYTHING, this has been the seed that sprouted it all. If the teacher would have just said, 'That big bang IS God.'
That big bang is God. I don't know about any "bigger plan" but i DO know there is an order. An order in how the days get either longer or shorter by the same time schedule year after year, millennium after millennium. An order to how certain insects hatch and flowers bloom to coincide with certain bird migration times and patterns. Even a kind of order to volcanoes erupting along the ring of fire.
It's hard to stand on the Oregon beach during a storm or watching the sunset in the horizon of that beach and not believe there's an order in the universe and that universe being a living breathing source of energy that just keeps recycling life and more energy over the millions of years and will continue to do so long after our kind has long since ceased to exist. After some of my mountain bike rides around the blast zone of Mt. St. Helen's, it's very easy to understand how indigenous cultures have regarded volcanos as gods and an erupting volcano as an angry god. Who's to say they're wrong. This planet, this universe is a living breathing being with it's own source of life and intention. Much like our own bodies as our heart, lungs, kidneys, brain works on their own without our thinking about the process. If there is a plan, WE are barely even a part of it.
Any religion that separates the body from the mind from the earth from the spirit is incomplete. So many people, religious or not, have lost touch with even the idea of the "oneness" of these things. It's both irresponsible and disrespectful to ignore, or worse yet abuse our bodies and the earth and think we can find enlightenment. They are one. As beings that are only a collection of atoms vibrating into forms just like the air around us and the trees, buildings and other animate and inanimate objects that surround us, we are connected. The "butterfly effect" is happening all the time.
No guy in a funny hat, suit or shouting and waving snakes around are going to lead you to salvation and enlightenment. They may make you feel nice and safe and reassured in your decisions but they won't save you. A run in the rain, a week of fasting, a barefoot walk on a trail, playing with a dog or paying it forward might. Actually, the guy shouting and waving snakes may be on a pretty good path to enlightenment.
Physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. In that order. The body, mind, heart, soul. God isn't in the trees, the mountains, the desert, the ocean. God IS the trees, mountains, deserts, oceans and every element that keeps this universe moving and changing, evolving, burning, flooding and freezing over and over and over again.
