god again

Thought about the previous post some more. I was irritated when I wrote it, but really, it was the same irritation I have about any issue where people just assume that everyone's the same (& *should* be the same), or else that there are "two sides" of an issue and the "bad" side is just a caricature. Christmas and elections bring out the same irritation in me.

Also, the reason I've tried to stop being an asshole--well, it isn't really what I said. More that I've been trying to become more open and flexible, gentle and tolerant, etc. The Buddhist stuff I've been studying teaches that basically it's rigidity and defensiveness that make us suffer and also make us hurt other people. When I define & defend my own “identity,” I have to define other people to define myself, which gets me tangled up in judgement and all these binary pigeonholes (smart/stupid, nice/mean, good/bad) that I just use to hurt myself and others. But the more I can relax and open, the more I can begin to see that everyone, myself included, is much more than these binaries. The world becomes a much more complex and interesting place.

To illustrate. We were early to the funeral people kept asking about Mom & I told them she was having surgery right then. I was a bit distracted and weird, and Mom's friends saw this and were so kind to me. When at one point I actually started to cry, one of them took my hand and said, “let's pray for her right now...Dear God, be with the surgeon and the anesthesiologist...” and she went through and described the operating room and the people in it and asked God to be with each of them and help them to be peaceful and focused and skilled. (She's a nurse so she could visualize this easily).

Well, the funny thing was that as I imagined all of this with her--imagined each of the people and imagined a peace coming over them, even though I didn't really think we were talking to anyone--the knot in my chest seemed to dissolve. I stopped trying NOT to think of the surgery and just became more present with what was happening and how I felt. I cried more, but I felt more peaceful. She said “Amen,” I said “Amen,” and then “thank you.”

So if I had been an asshole and refused her kindness, on the basis of a wholesale rejection of religion as “not my identity,” then I not only would have hurt her, I would have missed out on something that actually helped me feel better. She knew I would feel better. I just happen to think I felt better because I relaxed and accepted the situation and my feelings about it. She can think that God helped me, and if that makes her happy, that's a good thing, right?

Well, another part of my brain says, “no, it's not--religion is a problem precisely because it makes people rigid and defensive and unable to accept flexibility.” Well. That might be true too. But, it would be inflexible of me to define it that way.

Now my poor brain is tied in a knot.

I have to go eat supper anyway. At lunch Mom made me eat bread out of a can and crappy baked beans, and now she's going to make us eat this special ham that she's convinced we absolutely must try because it's so special. I'm deeply, deeply afraid. I'll let you know how it goes. Oh, and as if this isn't enough misery, later we will be forced to watch a video all about the American flag, that some right-wing group sent Dad in the mail. Is there some way to self-induce a coma that is imperceptible to others?

Damn, I guess I'm being inflexible again. Oops, there's supper.