Another Reason to Like Kerouac

The ultimate dharma bum talks to God ...

Found in Jack Kerouac's journals from 1947, the year I was born, no further comment required (fom Harper's magazine):

And what do I owe You, God, for my gifts:
I owe you perspiration and suffering and
all the dark nights of my life:
God I owe you godliness and diligence,
God I owe you this blackest loneliness,
and terrified dreams--
but humbleness, God, I have none and
I owe it You: for I would have You
reach down a hand to me, to help me
up to You--Oh I am not humble.
Give me this last gift, God, and I will
be humble, I will owe You humbleness,
but only give me the gift.
Spit in my soul, God, for asking and
always asking, and for not giving and
owing what I have given, and give,
and shall give: God make me give.
Old Job there of the three thousand five
hundred years a-mouldering in his grave,
Old Job there is your servant, God:
forgive me for my youth, then, forgive
me for it, God, oh make me a giver.

God on the Brain

So who created whom?

Recently several scientific articles have been published that describe how a belief in God and the idea of Creation may be "wired" into our brains, and that these beliefs may have evolved in us because they were beneficial to our survival.

Oddly enough, the first conclusion that comes to mind is that this means God is just a figment of our imaginations. But this is just another example of how our minds work. Belief in something is no proof it is false any more than it proves it is true; it is simply belief. Our beliefs may be based on observation, logical deduction, and reasoning, or they may be based on faith, superstition, or whatever innate sense we have of right and wrong. Belief can even be purely pragmatic, leading us to believe whatever seems to work at the moment, even if it is contradictory. Thus I might be an ardent supporter of the right to privacy, but still be in favor of wiretapping when it makes me feel safer. (It doesn't, by the way.)

As to the survival value of religious systems, you could certainly argue both ways. It might be the case that believing in something larger than ourselves can induce us to sacrifice our individual survival for that of the whole species. On the other hand, look how quickly Christianity evolved from a doctrine of love and charity to the bloodbath of the Crusades and the horrors of the Inquisition. Wouldn't we have done better to avoid those chapters of our history? Of course, some would argue that is what happens when we turn religious faith into religious organizations or institutions, which behave more the way states and politicians behave than like the figures such as Jesus and Buddha who inspired them.

And when it comes to personal sacrifice, consider the case of the house cat I saw on the news who repeatedly entered a burning house to pull out her kittens one by one. The poor feline had her ears burned, her eyes blistered shut, and the fur singed from her face, yet she saved their lives. It would seem that we could achieve as much for our collective survival just by emulating this cat, tapping into this same deeply seated instinct in our own animal brains, without having to resort to a belief in anything supernatural.

I'm a little surprised there hasn't been more of an outcry against this new research by the proponents of Intelligent Design. You might expect it to start another round in the battle of the Jesus-fish emblems seen on the backs of cars. You know the ones. The first fish contains the letters "Jesus." The second fish, with legs, contains "Darwin." The third fish is a pair of them -- a smaller Darwin fish being eaten by a larger one labeled "TRUTH." And now we seem to have the potential for an Evolution fish big enough to swallow a God fish.

But I think a better parable would be the one about Li Po, the ancient Chinese poet who, on waking up, could not decide if he had been dreaming he was a butterfly, of if he were now a butterfly dreaming he was Li Po. If God did not exist, would we create one? If God created us, would we believe it? If we didn't believe it would it still be true? If we were God, and forgot how we had created ourselves, could we find out?

The God of the Falls

Is God personal or impersonal? You choose ...

Niagara Falls came back to me recently when I read the accounts of Charles Dickens' and Anthony Trollope's visits to it in the past. I was there once myself, and carried away with me a vision that will last for a lifetime.

The most common images of the Falls, which everyone has seen, are those of the white plumes of spray cascading down the the face of it and exploding against the rocks below. But the most powerful impression that has stayed with me was the view from the top.

On the American side you can stand just a few feet from the edge of the river, protected only by a low stone wall, right at the point where it curves over the precipice. The sheer mass of the water, green and clear, makes it seem almost calm as it tips over the brink and disappears into the chaos below. The sight is compelling, almost hypnotic--you can get lost in it as if watching the flames in a fireplace.

Looking at this, it is impossible not to imagine floating in the water yourself and getting swept over the side. Yet the feeling that came over me as I stared was not one of fear but rather one of peacefulness and awe.

It strikes me that this vision is close to the one I normally have of God--an incredibly powerful rushing torrent of force in which we are carried along like so many twigs and leaves. It is a vision of an "impersonal" God, one whose business is only to flow, without concern for those myriad individuals carried along in the current. We are sustained by the waters of existence, borne up and moved, in a state of perfect magnanimity in which none of us matters any more or less than the least of creatures or the greatest of galaxies.

Yet the personal aspect of God exists as well, within each of us. Our own fates matter greatly to us, and to those who know and love us, as they should. It is left for us each to do our portion of the personal caring, and to make our own individual connections with that great river that supports us. We are the persons who make God "personal."

There are people who really have been caught up in such mighty rivers and carried over similar falls. Some of them have survived to tell the tale. And what some of them say is that in the moment when they knew all was lost, that the river was going over the side and they were going with it, that there was nothing they could do to prevent it -- in that moment they felt a kind of peace and oneness with their surroundings, almost a form of joy.

They had become the river.