Lightness and Gratitude (but not in that order)

Entry # 3

In an earlier entry I mentioned a lightness of being which I have been experiencing since trying on the naturalistic viewpoint. I also mentioned the dilemma I had faced concerning my disposition toward gratitude and no one to be grateful to.

Well, I'll explain the lightness but let me tackle the latter first and put it to bed.

If I have no one "celestial" to thank for my good fortune to date I must, of necessity acknowledge that my good run has been due to a few things beyond the luck of the draw.

First off, my subjective and most often successful interactions with the world , controlling for the random serendipity which we all do get occasionally by sheer happenstance, are the result of two things: my relationships and the inner values which have guided my choices. Those inner values have come about because of the positive role models in my life and my response to both their input and the values which emerged from within. Therefore, for all the good in my life I do have cause to be grateful - to my family and friends and acquaintances who have shaped me and to me for not being too obtuse to absorb and internalize the values and turn them into good choices, habits, thoughts and perspectives.

Now, on to the lightness. I guess there are multiple reasons for it. Here is one:

I never appreciated how much of my life was spend in an internal dialogue with "the other". I was a very prayerful person , but quietly so and, although I was a Jew by choice, my college years' Jesuit influence was always at work in me. I was consciously practicing the divine presence in my life and drew a lot of comfort and perspective from it. But in the practice, and unbeknown to me, there was an internal tension because my training was running afoul of the observations I was making.

Case in point:

I remember being in the Holocaust museum in DC and seeing a photo which mesmerized me: a young woman was sitting nude on a chair with a terrified look on her face as she was being threatened by several sharply dressed SS men who were obviously enjoying her terror. Her face and form were truly beautiful despite the anguish on her features. So much so that, in a more benign circumstance she would have been an object of desire. But all I could feel for her was an anguished pity. Where was her savior, where was her protector where was the one who watched her going out and coming in ? Where was her god?

And yet ,I prayed every day "you open your hand and satisfy the desires of all the living" in the Ashrei prayer (psalm 145). That image and that prayer stand in total contradiction - and yet I as a believer had to come to terms with both. I guess I never did. I could only imagine what happened to that poor girl before she died: rape, beating, mutilation with no hope of respite or rescue short of a painful and brutal death.

Following the disciplines of the Ignatius spiritual exercises ( from the Jesuit founder) I was taught to always reflect on a circumstance and ask "where in that circumstance was god" - I no longer have to make excuses for him - he was not there - never was --- that feels so good!

The world in it's stark hideousness makes sense now for me. Evil is here , not for any other reason but that it is (and is it really evil, per se, or more like Camus' benign indifference interacting with human fear and limitation with its resulting selfishness - perhaps that's as good a definition for evil as any). And there is no security blanket - no free exemptions or passes. That girl, except for the randomness of time and circumstance could have been my daughter or my wife or me! The mental gymnastics of convincing myself otherwise are gone. A weight I didn't know I was carrying , is lifted.

My nephew and I were corresponding around 3 weeks ago with regard to my second post and I mentioned to him that

I don't look for the world to make sense, beyond the need to be able to make sense in an empirical sort of way. It doesn't worry me - it's actually exhilarating to have climbed to the mountain top and to see beyond the horizon and to see --- NOTHING!