Get together-ism

China Cat Sunflower said:
I find the ritual of what I do on the weekend starting to gell into an almost religious experience. There's the ritual of cleaning the house on Saturday, followed by ritual sex with the wife on Saturday night. I take my ritual shave Sat. morning in preperation. Sunday is my ritual game of golf followed by playing with the kids so momma can rest, and then an awesome meal in the evening, usually with good friends, and then good conversation over drinks until it's night, night time.
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I think you'd really like the book "The Soul's Religion" by Thomas Moore. Your words above are one of the best (inadvertent) summations of Moore's philosophy as I've ever read. :) You might also like his "The Re-enchantment of Everyday Life."
 
InLove said:
Would that be the "Old Farmer's Almanac" or the "TV Version"? Because I have heard that the latter is not true to the original Almanaic text.
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:D:D:D:D
 
So, since I like you so much, will you bear with me for a moment while I speak my "native Christian language"? Please don't take this as an attempt to proseletyze, okay? That is not what CR is for. But in order for me to properly address your questions, I have to be able to speak freely about my personal experience. So here goes: For me, the things that Christ shows me are the wonders of the universe. Christianity, with all its anachronisms, problems, and even ambiguities, has still served to teach me about this Christ. And I will never deny Him, for He is my Shepherd. But where I diverge from many of my Christian brothers and sisters is here: I will not place limits on Christ. I do not know exactly how He may show Himself to others. I wait with great anticipation to find out. And I want to learn everything I can about how that might be, but I don't know for sure when or how God reveals himself to my non-Christian brothers and sisters. Now, this right here is enough to earn me the heretic's curse in the eyes of many. But this is what I have been shown by the very same Christ of Christian belief. And it is where I stand. Would I still believe this if I had never partaken of religion? I have to say that I don't know how, but I strongly believe that God would reveal "Himself" to me in one way or another. I think either we all search for something beyond ourselves, or this Entity finds us--and I really believe that it is a mutual endeavor, whether we realize it or not. And really, I do trust that we see HIm in the face of others, if we want to.
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I like this, Debora! I'm always interested in other people's spiritual experience. I'm always wondering what it's like for them; what it does for them. What I'm trying to do these days is say what I actually think. I tried a lot of different flavors of spirituality, organized and disorganized, but I always felt as though I was just repeating things I'd read and heard. I've put all of that aside so that I can see what will grow naturally out of my own experience.

Remember that story about Elijah (or was it Elisha) looking for God in the whirlwind, but finding It instead in the still, small voice? I spent a huge amount of time and effort looking everywhere outside of myself for something spectacular. Something that would come and take me out of myself and make me into...whatever. But what I was missing was all the little ordinary things, the small and mundane expressions, the nuts and bolts of nature and my own life. I couldn't stop and smell the roses because I was too busy chasing something ever-elusive and grand.

Anyway, thanks for the nice post, I really enjoyed it!

Chris
 
A few years ago my wife and I did a sweat lodge ceremony with some friends in New Mexico. This wasn't a touristy thing, it was in some people's back yard. They were an extended family with part white hippy kinda people and part Hopi Indian people. Nice folks. Anyway, while we were making our prayer ties with tobacco tied up in little squares of colored cloth the indian grandma told us the story of how the sweat lodge was invented.

It seems that the men were jealous of the women because they had their "moon-time" ceremonies. Of course the men didn't menstrate so there was no point in them participating. So the women said "why don't you men go and have your own ceremonies." So they came up with the sweatlodge.

Anyway, I was thinking about that and the Farmers Almanac thing. How the Farmers Almanac is a sort of guide for people who still want to plant and do other seasonal things in tune with the moon cycles and other natural occurences. The sweat lodge has evolved beyond an exclusively male activity, and men have embraced the moon cycle in their own way too. It seems that the perrenial wisdom of the natural cycles and the socially reinforcing aspects of ceremonialism can evolve into something more than anachronistic forms, but there doesn't seem to be much interest in a practical kind of ritualism that evolves to suit the modern experience. In fact, it seems like people cultivate a sort of anachronistic seperation, or space, between the known, mundane world of daily life, and a kind of spiritual fantasy fiction realm in order to create a sort of magical mystery zone out of the dark space in between.

I don't know if that makes any sense.

Chris
 
Chris:

That makes sense to me. There's nothing more safe than some imagined place where your spirit can go and not be threatened by the mundane and profane realities of this world. People have been doing this for as long as there have been people, IMHO. But it takes dedication, concentration, and discipline. If you haven't read any of Carlos Castanedas' books from the 70's you should.

flow....:cool:
 
"The kind of spirituality that fosters enchantment is not the variety that feeds on creeds alone. It is the kind that discovers holiness around every corner.

Some forms of spirituality aim infinitely high and we see them reflected in towering buildings and church steeples. But there is a spirituality that is more like a lowly emanation from the most humble and earthbound things that of a particular house, a garden, a neighborhood, a grove of trees, a pristine beach, a holy well, a field of wheat.

Here spirituality is indistinguishable from enchantment, for in an enchanted world the things of nature and even of culture reek of holiness. Enchantment is nothing more than spirituality deeply rooted in the Earth.

It is particularly exciting to encounter such exalted expressions of spirituality connected to plants, rocks and earth, for there we find the marriage of heaven and earth, and the reconciliation of the infinite with the finite.

Human life stands between these two realms, for human life is defined essentially by the soul, which is the mediating element that enjoys both the aspirations of the most transcendent spirituality and the lowliest devotion to nature and human endeavor."
 
Flow,

I read a couple of the Castenada books many years ago. A lot of people were really bummed when they found out that they were fictional.

Chris
 
neosnoia said:
"The kind of spirituality that fosters enchantment is not the variety that feeds on creeds alone. It is the kind that discovers holiness around every corner.

Some forms of spirituality aim infinitely high and we see them reflected in towering buildings and church steeples. But there is a spirituality that is more like a lowly emanation from the most humble and earthbound things that of a particular house, a garden, a neighborhood, a grove of trees, a pristine beach, a holy well, a field of wheat.

Here spirituality is indistinguishable from enchantment, for in an enchanted world the things of nature and even of culture reek of holiness. Enchantment is nothing more than spirituality deeply rooted in the Earth.

It is particularly exciting to encounter such exalted expressions of spirituality connected to plants, rocks and earth, for there we find the marriage of heaven and earth, and the reconciliation of the infinite with the finite.

Human life stands between these two realms, for human life is defined essentially by the soul, which is the mediating element that enjoys both the aspirations of the most transcendent spirituality and the lowliest devotion to nature and human endeavor."
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Hi, neosnoia. :) Your quote bring to mind one of my favorite quotes:
This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted.
C. S. Lewis
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