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Spiritual Sayings for Earthlings, Prelude

NOTE: This and upcoming posts will become the contents of a book, Spiritual Sayings for Earthlings. Enjoy...

Earthlings

Some might be
spiritual beings from
somewhere else.
An invisible place.
A higher, better place.
Extraterrestrials.

They might be
divine sparks in
bodies, skin bags, worm sacks
they despise and
don’t identify with.

They might just be
visitors passing through
this vale of tears,
impatient to get home.

There might be
many different ways
for them to get back home.

To us earthlings
they live strange lives.
We are at home here.
There is no better
place to go.

They live in fear.
They do not feel
safe here, away
from their home,
among us earthlings.

Since they feel safer when
everyone else is like them,
they force their ways
on us earthlings.
They seek to eliminate
our earthling ways.

These spiritual sayings
are for us earthlings.

The Breathing Thing, Part Two

When we use the word “breath” to refer to one cycle in a narrative of cycles called breathing, then it does refer to a thing; that is, a meeting that is a narrative with many participants.

Now “breath” no longer refers to an abstract mental concept. It is one narrative cycle in the larger narrative of a meeting with many participants, a meeting called breathing. It refers to a concrete thing; a meeting with concrete, actively breathing participants. 

You are participating in the meeting of breathing right now. You joined the breathing meeting with your first breath and have been participating in it ever since. You will participate in the meeting until your last expiration.

Everyone that is now breathing is an active participant in the thing, the on-going meeting, called breathing. The meeting has been going on since breathing began. It will go on as long as breathing continues. While we’re breathing, we’re participating in the meeting with everyone else that is breathing. It’s an inter-species meeting.

This cycle of the cosmic, inter-species breathing meeting will end with the last expiration of the last one breathing.

What we do while we breathe together matters. How we treat everyone else we’re breathing with matters.

How we treat air especially matters. It matters to everyone breathing in this cosmic breathing meeting that is happening now. It will matter as well to those who inhale the first breath that begins the next meeting of the cosmic cycle of breathing.

The Breathing Thing, Part One of Two

Breath. The word is not the thing. Nor does the word refer to the thing itself.

We cannot see breath with our eyes. We cannot imagine it. The word “breath” refers to an abstract concept in our mind.

[There is no image of breath to insert here]

 Breathing is a thing. The word “breathing” isn’t the thing; it refers to the thing.

And here’s the thing: breathing happens. We can see, hear, feel, and smell it. But it’s not an object. We cannot hold it in our hand. We cannot put breathing in a box and sell it.

Breathing is a meeting. It is a narrative with many participants. In non-technical terms, the narrative goes like this:

Diaphragm draws downward. Belly and lungs expand outward. Air responds and flows into nostrils downward into lungs. As air fills lungs, lungs expand making room for air. Diaphragm pauses a split second, relaxes, and pushes upward. In response to diaphragm’s push, lungs contract; air retreats from lungs and flows out nostrils. Diaphragm draws downward again…

The narrative of breathing is cyclic. Like the cycles of seasonal winds, each cycle is unique.

Part Two is about the importance of how we treat everyone we breathe with.
 

Our Life Here Together

No, we’re not spiritual beings
having a human experience.

We’re not just visitors here,
passing through,
on our way to a better
or worse place.

This is not a boarding school.
We’re not just here to
learn lessons, pass this grade,
take a break back home,
and return for the next grade,
until we graduate and no longer
have to come back.

Our home is not an invisible,
better place somewhere else.

This is our true home.
We were born here.
We’re from here.
We live here now.
We will die here.

We do not have bodies.
We are bodies.
You’re somebody.
I’m somebody too.

We’re human beings.
We’re neighbors.
We depend on each other
for our lives.

What we say matters.
Our words help and harm.

What we do matters.
Our actions help and harm.

The children we see, of all species,
inherit the consequences of
what we say and do.

How we live affects everyone else
for generations to come.

We’re all in this together.
We cannot do this alone.
We all need each other.

We need each other to live
the best lives we can live.

We need to love each other
and help each other live.

Our lives are so short.
We have so little time.

We can do better.
We must do better.
We have to do better
than we are now.

I am committed to doing my best.
I trust you’re committed to doing your best too.

Re-Visioning “Things”: Part Five and Conclusion

Reflecting on Things as Meetings

Humans as Meetings with Narratives

In Part Four of this series, the illustration of re-visioning a thing as a meeting is inspired by an indigenous, pre-Christian, Anglo-Saxon view of things. The Ancient Greeks and Romans had similar views. For example, Ancient Greeks viewed humans more as meetings of smaller wholes than as it-objects. They had no word for a human being as a whole. They were a specific meeting of soma, thumos, psyche, logos, phrenes, noos and others. They were things with names, ancestors, places where they lived, and stories of the things (meetings) that revealed their vices and virtues.

Naming Those with Whom We Often Meet

Perhaps now we can now better understand why our pre-Christian ancestors named those with whom they often met. They gave personal names to trees, herbs, swords, axes, hammers, horses, houses, castles, rivers, ships, mountains, springs, valleys, caves, and large stones. We still often nick name those with whom we often meet. 

Meetings as Co-created by All Participants 

More importantly, perhaps we can see how re-visioning things as meetings can change how we interact and live in this world. We are not doing things to it-objects. We are co-creating things with the immediate living and non-living participants in our things. 

Each Meeting is New and Unique

As far as we know now, the things we co-create are new and unique. They did not exist before we met and co-created them. They exist nowhere else in the world. They happen once, never again.

Each Participant has Power and Influence

We have power. Every one of us influences the narratives of the things we co-create. Whether we believe in heavenly things or not, we know without a doubt that what we do matters. What we do has consequences. We get to choose how we use our power and influence in the things we co-create.

Each Participant is Responsible

The things we co-create affect us and everyone else. They affect the whole world. We are responsible to everyone else in the world, living and non-living, for how we wield our power and influence in the things we co-create. Are we wielding our power and influence in ways that affirm life or deny it?

Conclusion

The Newtonian and Christian views of things were significant re-visionings of the indigenous Western views that preceded them.  The time has come for us Westerners today to re-vision “things” again. It is time for us to re-vision “things” in the light of both our own indigenous Western views and the views of our modern physics.

The Anglo-Saxon view of “things” is compatible with modern physics. Modern physics can inform, develop, and expand our re-visioned view of things as meetings. However, the Anglo-Saxon view of things as meetings is much easier than modern physics to understand and apply in our everyday lives. It holds much promise for us transforming our own lives, the lives of others, and the whole world to more life-affirming ways. We can and must accelerate our transformation now, before it is too late.

Re-Visioning “Things”: Part Four

Let’s Re-Vision “Things” Again

We have re-visioned “things” in the past when our circumstances required us to do so. It is time for us to re-vision “things” again. We must re-vision “things” in more life-affirming ways. If we do not, we will continue to lengthen the list of extinct species, and in the foreseeable future, add ourselves to the list. Fortunately, we have in pre-Christian Western culture the seeds of re-visioning “things” in more life-affirming ways.

One such seed is our word “thing.” It is an Anglo-Saxon word. It originally referred to a meeting, assembly, or gathering. It did not refer to objects. To have a thing was to have a meeting with another, not an object in our possession. To go to a thing was to go to a meeting, not to an object in another place. Consider the following illustration:

Things as Meetings

If you are digging a hole in the ground with a shovel, meet a rock, toss the shovel, pick up a hammer, and strike the rock with the hammer, you are engaged in a thing, a meeting. The immediate parties in the thing are you, the shovel, the rock, and the hammer. None are passive. All are active participants in the meeting.

The thing is not an object. It is a meeting that has a narrative: The shovel and your hand meet and join. The shovel goes with your thrust, meets and cuts the ground. The ground splits in response to the shovel’s cut. The shovel and rock meet. The rock blunts the shovel as it repels its attempted cut. The shovel falls and meets the ground when you toss it aside. The hammer you grab meets you hand, joins, complies with your swing, and delivers a blow to the rock. Rock and hammer meet. The rock responds to the blow you and the hammer deliver together. The rock chips but repels the blow, and moves out of the way.

All in the vicinity attend this meeting: the ground surrounding the cut you and the shovel make, the bugs in that ground, the trees in the vicinity, the birds and bugs on the trees’ limbs and in their leaves, and all the other plants, rocks, and animals in the vicinity. 

The living and non-living have dynamic roles in the thing, they influence its narrative. If they influence the narrative of the thing, they have power. If they have influence and power, they are alive. The thing is an organic, creative process that all the participants create together. Together they affect the thing and are affected by it. By their co-created thing, they are forever changed.

Part Five of this series provides additional reflections on things as meetings and the conclusion of this series.

Re-Visioning "Things": Part 3

Things as Objects + Earthly Things as Worthless = Death

Both Newtonian and Christian views of things still influence us Westerners today. Regardless of modern scientific developments like quantum physics, we still commonly view things as it-objects, independent from us, other than us. Whether they are alive or not, we tend to treat them as it-objects we do things to.

Regardless of Christianity’s waning influence on Western culture, whether we are Christian or not, we often still see things as Christians. We still tend to hold monotheistic beliefs and value heavenly, metaphysical, incorruptible, eternal things over earthly, physical, corruptible, temporary things. 

Many Westerners have made the Eastward turn to Asian religions and/or identify as “spiritual but not religious.” However, our spirituality is, more often than not, a personal collection of beliefs and practices picked from various traditional religions. We often pick them from religions which, like Christianity, express a valuing of heavenly things and devaluing of earthly things.

One example is Vedanta beliefs and practices, many of which inform Buddhism. They clearly express a valuing of heavenly, metaphysical, incorruptible, eternal things over earthly, physical, corruptible, temporary things. Like Christianity, they encourage forsaking secular life for monastic life to pursue higher things. They also inform many New Age beliefs and practices adopted by Westerners today. The deplorable social and environmental conditions of the cultures they influence clearly reflect their value of heavenly things.

 The most sacred river in India, the Ganges

While many Westerners are turning Eastward, creating their own personal religions, and identifying as “spiritual but not religious”, self-identifying Christians are moving further to their right and becoming more activist in their attempts to re-establish Christendom. They are abandoning evangelizing in favor of enforcing their religion by legislation. They persevere in chipping away at the wall the separates Church and State. Some are resorting to violence. It is quite ironic: Those who consider the things of this world ultimately worthless are fighting doggedly for them. 

The dual influence in Western culture of Newtonian physics and Christianity, of physical things as objects and physical things as ultimately worthless, is deadly. We see the consequences in, for example, our poor health; sub-standard health care industry; poverty levels; our chemical pollution of the land we live on, the food we harvest from it and eat, the air we breathe, and the water we drink; our militarism; and extinction of other species.

Part Four of this series re-visions "things" as meetings rather than objects.

Re-Visioning "Things": Part 2

Earthly, Physical, Temporal Things: Worthless

Before we Westerners re-visioned our view of “things” to “it-objects” worth our attention and money, we viewed physical things as ultimately worthless. We did so under the dominance of Christianity.

Under Christianity’s dominance, we saw “things” in two categories: earthly and heavenly. Earthly things were physical, corruptible, and temporary. Heavenly things were metaphysical, incorruptible, and eternal. Only heavenly, metaphysical, incorruptible, eternal things were worthy of our attention, study, and development. We viewed earthly things as ultimately worthless.

Church authorities encouraged us to devote our earthly lives to heavenly things. They encouraged us all to follow the example of Christ: to deny ourselves, bear our crosses, and endure suffering. They encouraged obedience to God and his ordained clergy, poverty, begging for alms, sexual abstinence, celibacy, virginity, and childlessness. They encouraged suppressing all physical desires and needs, receiving the sacraments, praying, fasting, keeping vigils, working, avoiding play, and going on pilgrimages to holy sites.  

The best way to devote our life to heavenly things was to forsake secular life and join a monastic order. As a monk or nun, we could live apart from the world, fully devoted to heavenly things, and begin living now as we would in Heaven.

The second-best way to devote our life to heavenly things was to join in life-long, monogamous, heterosexual marriage. But even in marriage, sex was fraught with danger. Having sex in the missionary position to have children, to raise as Christians, was the only approved form of sex. Any hints of lust or pleasure were sinful and required confession to and absolution from a priest.

Church authorities promised heavenly rewards for denying ourselves and devoting ourselves to heavenly things. By pursuing heavenly things in this fallen world, we could rise above it, draw near to heavenly things, live a higher life, please God, receive his blessings, and avoid his wrath.

They promised that, if we devoted our earthly lives to heavenly things, heavenly rewards awaited us after we died, endured Purgatory, and went to Heaven. If we did not, we were damned to the eternal punishment in the flames of Hell.

Church authorities strongly discouraged pursuing earthly, physical, corruptible, temporary things. Such pursuits meant giving up heavenly things for earthly things. Those devoted to earthly things not only received their rewards in this life, they tempted those devoted to heavenly things to follow them. Church authorities shunned, punished, and killed them. They also granted pardons to those who confessed their sins, did penance, and turned correctly to pursuing heavenly things.

Consequently, Western culture was a Christian theocracy, Christendom. Its public language was Latin, the language of the Church. Its politics, economy, and laws enforced the theocracy of Christendom. Its clergy justified wars in Biblical terms as defending the faithful and spreading the one true faith. Christendom’s music, painting, statuary, architecture, and calendar of holy days celebrated heavenly, metaphysical, incorruptible, eternal things. Its clergy controlled its science, medicine, and healing (what little there was).

Even after the Renaissance, Protestant Reformation, Religious Wars between Roman Catholics and Protestants, and the Enlightenment ended Christendom, the influence of Christianity on Western culture remained.

Part Three of this series discusses the lingering affects in Western culture of both Newtonian physics and the Christian religion.

Re-Visioning "Things": Part 1

This is Part One of a five-part series called Re-Visioning "Things." It inspires us to consider how seeing the everyday "things"of our lives as meetings rather than it-objects can transform our lives for the better.

Why “Things” Are Important

It is impossible to live and not experience “things”. Our interactions with “things” weave the fabric of every moment of every day of our lives. Rather than take “things” as granted, we do well to look closely at the “things” of our everyday lives. By re-visioning “things,” we can transform our lives in more life-affirming ways. When we transform our own lives, we transform the lives of others and the world.

Things as It-Objects

Things as mechanical objects dominates the view of “things” in Western culture. Isaac Newton inspired this view. In this view, we see, hear, smell, touch, and taste things as objects. They are objects other than and unattached to us. We do things to things. We test, measure, and form opinions about them. We own them, give them away, and throw them away when we are finished using them. They are it-objects.

We distinguish between living and non-living things, but we see and treat them same. We see and treat them both as it-objects. Seeing and treating each other as it-objects is the norm in Western culture. 

Take visiting our physicians, for example. Physicians tend to treat us as it-objects. They work in the health care industry like assembly line workers in factories. They have a quota of patient visits to produce each day. To reach their quota, physicians must limit how much time they spend with us. On average, they limit their time with us to seven minutes per visit. During those few minutes, many get financial bonuses for “giving” us injections, prescribed medications, and diagnostic tests. Treating us as it-objects on an assembly line serves the capital investors who want a quick return on their investment in the business.

Businesses other than health care follow the same factory assembly line model: manufacturers of products, insurance companies, department stores, agribusinesses, grocery stores, gas stations, music producers, mining companies, and any business driven by reducing all costs of production to increase the financial gains of the capital investors. To increase profits, they must spend as little time and money on us it-objects as possible. It is the matrix in which we live, move, and have our being.

Part Two of this series sketches how we Westerners, dominated by Christianity, re-visioned things as either earthly or heavenly and what happened as a result