Funny how those happen at critical moments for us: first it was during the dai breaking up announcement, and now the database decided to screw up two days after our Emperor told us the forum might close. So far, Mav' took the whole thing up, and thanx to some generous anonymous, the forum fees should be paid for the next year at least. . A big thanks to Alex, who is making a great job as an Admin', let's hope for the best.
This and a possible dissolution of the company I work for scheduled on early January. Time to polish my resume.
Else than this, I try and forget my anxiety (yes, losing a home, even a virtual one, is a stressful experience), reading away a lot of various materials. From blogs to the bible, NArnia and Harry Potter, I use this urge for reading as thre were no tomorrow to keep my brain processing something else than adrenaline. Bye bye to coffee and chocolate too, and with New year's celebration coming, must be agood thing.
The Bible yes, you read correctly. Thse who know me might wonder, for I am not what you call your regular Christian. I do believe that's a fact, in God and after-life, but have some troubles with His religion. However, I periodically have those urge to browse around in this compilation of sacred books that are the foundation of a whole civilization. How we think, how we react, how we love, how we hate, how we judge.
Generally I do not read it from alpha to omega, I simple peruse to some of my favourite passages, the Apocalypse being my all time favourite. Then comes the Wisdom books, proverbs and ecclesiastes; Genesis, and Qohelet.
Reading also various articles from a magazine dedicating its pages to the Bokk of all books, I am also interested by the relation that non-believers have with the Bible. Believer or not, it still fascinates its reader, by its form simply, or by the strenght of its language. (then again, translations are so numerous it resembles more a maze than a revelation).
Narnia then. I try to read it with children eyes. I try to segregate it from JR Tolkien and the whole aspect of love/hate relationship with CS Lewis. I think I read Narnia to have a mental image first, I don't want Disney's to pollute my imagination.
some many informations, with so little time to deal with. After work, I think I gonna browse around for books and records. Don't wanna buy any, just empty my mind from the pollution of stress.
3 comments:
I stopped going to church 7-8 years ago (was required before that), but only in the last 2-3 years have I really begun to appreciate how Christianity has affected my thinking, from my aesthetic tastes to how I think of stories, to morality, even to what people I reflexively like or dislike. I know pitifully little, but the more I learn the more I see it in myself and culture, especially in situations which call for an expression of value(s)...
It's actually difficult for me to divorce my sense of something being very important at all from a Christian- or at least Church-inflected understanding of sacredness.
I think I see your point..
I stopped going to Church after my high school years. Back then, we had a church in our own school and it was something "part of life", required too, something you do not really pay attention to it, but do just because.
But then after, I started my College years, as well as an 'identity crisis" as well ...I simply couldn't make up with God, with the French liturgy, all the "modern" mumbo-jumbo and the like: stupid songs and empty speech...That's when I began to grow an interest to Asian cultures... I was fascinated by the Zen Buddhism, and the Martial Arts especially...the sacred spirit about it, the codified, sacred rituals I cound't find in my own religion any more...
But I met my best friend, in my first year of College too..... She is a Catholic (Roman), and does go to Church... She attends the mass in latin (even though it has been forbidden to say the mass in latin since 1962 or so...)and her upbringing is totally different from mine...though we got on together really well, and our differences really helped building a solid friendship..until now. She, too, made me realise I understood thing completely wrong..
I cannot say I am totally reconciled with religion (as a system, since I do believe in God, for sure), but attending the Mass in the latin ritual (I mean, with everything said in latin language, codified gestures, incense,Gregorian siongs (i even tried some: they have a real powerful chanting atmosphere, and when practising them, you can get to something unknown, a bit like listening to Bach on a higher level, sort of..)) oddly gave much more sense to it all... like the fact that a Mass is the rememberance of a sacrifice, as opposed to the new rite, who loks more like Barnum circus...It was like seeing the same things but from a totally different point of view, dare I say, a more higher one. I did have many talks about God, with priests still wearing the black robes, like in those old movies by Bresson...For the first time, I could talk with a priest about my age who didn't try to send me to Hell since i do not go to the Mass, but was listening why I had quit going..(and who was a fan of Tolkien ^^) and their talk sounded more modern thatn the modern priest in my old parish...Funny how their sense of the sacred, of the righgeousness sounded so much more respectable than any priest trying to get modern (by this, i mean modern masses, inept songs,ect..)
I am not certain I will ever go back on a regular basis..there are still too many unanswered questions.. decisions and/or cultural aspects I still cannot agree with ...
But being born in Western civilisation country , I guess it is part of the very system of thoughts I am in...th ewhole philosophy is based on that Manichean aspect between evil and good... Quite impossible to deny it on a wink.
Somehow, a better knowledge of its roots helps me better open my eyes on different cultures...And on that , I think it might not be a bad thing..
I have no plans of going back to church either. Churches are really quasi-corporate entities whose devotion to teaching about Christianity is divided at best. There are surely some excellent ones, and the social experience is obviously valuable too, but ultimately a priest and a teacher approach religion with different intents.
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