Interlude - Three Cemetary Peaces +

Before embarking on a circumstantial proof of the existence of God, I wanted to share some spiritual places I have experienced, listed somewhat in chronological order of my visits.

Ryefield Bridge cemetery - This is where I'd like to spend my eternity. I grew up less than a mile from this cemetery in Harrison, Maine. I mowed it as a youngster, and find that its peaceful location above a river with a constant wind in the pines ambient sound makes it a very fond place for me. My nephew is also buried there, so I'd be in good company.

Valley of the Temples - On the island of Oahu, my first experience with a Buddhist Temple, and the peaceful atmosphere impresses me to this day. Part of what impressed me was also the fact that many religions were there side by side.

Normandy American Cemetery - I'm not the most enthusiastic flag-waving patriot you'll ever meet. I save my patriotism for Maine and for the New England Patriots. But a visit to this cemetery in Normandy with row after row of white headstone was moving. I'm sure Arlington would be as moving as well. All those people who gave their lives. I hope one day we'll stop having that need.

USS Arizona Memorial from the back of a US submarine - Again, I'm no patriot, but sailing past the Arizona Memorial on a submarine looking in awe at the memorial and paying respects while those inside look in awe at the submarine passing by makes for a special moment.

Grand Canyon at dawn - I went expecting a big postcard and a big ho-hum. I did have the foresight to get there before dawn and was well rewarded. The magic isn't the size of the hole, but the constantly changing colors as the sun moves through the sky. Much greater than I expected.

Japanese Friendship Garden in San Diego - Kudos to the Koi Club of San Diego for maintaining the most amazingly striking Koi Pond I have ever seen. The garden is lovely, and next time I am in San Diego I plan to spend hours there.

The Ocean any time - I used to laugh at the whole idea of "they that go down to the sea in ships" until I joined the Navy and spent lots of time near the ocean. Now I live within walking distance of it and intend to spend many hours there this summer. Aren't you jealous?

I'm sure I'll think of more to share. I haven't even mentioned Haifa Israel and the Baha'i Shrines and Gardens. Maybe later...

It could have ended, but instead it began

"I'm not sure you'll want to go in there."

Hearing those words, my world as I knew it ended. It was 1987. Hard to believe it has been twenty years.

I was in the Navy serving on submarines. My wife had just picked me up at the pier upon my return from three months at sea. As we got to the front door of the condo we were renting, she spoke those understated, euphemistic words. As I write this I can still feel a sense of trepidation and nervousness as I place myself at that moment. Wow. I can hardly believe the unsettled feelings I am having now just thinking about it, and I am on the verge of tears.

That period of my life is a bit of a blur, but its impact is monumental, so please bear with me.

I learned what she meant as soon as I entered the condo. She had moved out all of her stuff and she said she herself would be moving out at the end of the week. Shazam!

I still don't know why she did things the way she did. I had heard many horror stories of sailors coming home to all sorts of unimaginable situations. Locks changed, lovers moved in, houses and bank accounts cleaned out and no trace of the wife and kids, those sorts of things. Thank God she didn't do that. She stayed the week and she picked me up at the pier. It could not have been easy for her. God bless her for that much.

To say I was blind-sided would have been a gross understatement. Yes, in retrospect I can say that there were warning signs, but signs only do any good if they are in a language you understand. The idea of her leaving was as foreign as the idea of, well, something I cannot even imagine right now. Perhaps sprouting a diesel engine out of my left ear and living the rest of my life in a U-Haul truck.

It was probably the most desperate time in my life, certainly one of the two most painful emotionally and three or four most momentous. But for the grace of God, I wouldn't be here now.

I spent the next week begging, pleading, sighing, crying, trying to understand. I probably shouted and raved, I don't know. By turns I felt like imploding or exploding. I could barely function. I don't know how I got to work or performed my duties. Part of that work involved standing watch on the submarine for a few days until the other crew took over and eventually left port. I remember a night in particular that still haunts me.

That week I stood watch in the missile compartment of the submarine on an overnight watch. It was a very quiet place at night, and I stood watch armed with a pistol. In a very detached way I remember thinking to myself that it would be easy to end it all. I had the opportunity and the means. I started imagining what the other watch would think when he came by and found me. I started imagining what the newspapers would say. There had been two accounts of members of the military in the last year or so who had committed suicide in the area. I kept handling the gun, feeling it, looking at it, thinking about it. We kept them unloaded, the clips on our belts. I don't remember ever loading the pistol. I don't know what stayed my hand, though I like to give credit to God. It was a very close thing.

My life was such pain, desperation, hopelessness, and lack of control. I felt that life had ended for all intents and purposes. There was nothing to hang on to, no light at the end of this tunnel. The person who felt that any problem was solvable, who had ultimate faith in the power of intellect, could not solve this one. It involved another human, and that person had free will. Nothing I could do could make her stay. No appeal to logic or intellect or promises to change or pleas for time could change the fact that my wife was going to leave. In desperation a few nights later I turned to God.

I spent many sleepless hours on the couch, pleading for God to make her stay, trying to bargain. I'd do anything He wanted. Go to church, read the Bible, whatever He wanted. Just make her stay. Needless to say, it didn't work, and I felt just as miserable.

I am realizing now that the remarkable thing was that I could have said "well, obviously God doesn't care, and this proves that He is of no use to me." Instead, I took the road less traveled by, and it has made all the difference.

I reasoned that I could not control my wife, nor did I really feel it would have been a good thing even if I could. To compel her love me would have been meaningless. Why would I expect God to do differently? If he compelled her to love me in order to grant my prayer, it would be the same thing. I couldn't control her through my own devices or through God's help, and if I could it wouldn't be fair to her. I could only control myself. So I had to accept that she would leave. Score one for logic. Now how do I accept the unacceptable? I changed my prayer strategy and asked God to give me the strength and courage I would need to deal with her leaving.

Click! Prayer granted.

Almost overnight, I felt I could breathe. I wasn't going to collapse in on myself. I could live if she left. The Navy therapist I was seeing wondered what my secret was and said I should bottle it for others.

Some skeptics might think that I just grew emotionally enough to deal with it out of necessity, survival mode kicking into gear, and that God was not the means by which I was able to deal with things. All I can say is you are giving me way too much credit for that time in my life. To attribute any degree of emotional maturity to me at that stage in my life is to give credit where credit is not due. I am barely capable of emotional maturity now.

So I said to myself "Wow, maybe there is something to this God thing after all." And that leads to the next question: Does God really exist, and is He relevant to me?

Stay tuned.

A thinking man's spiritual quest - prologue

Since religion is near and dear to my heart, and since I fancy myself a thinking man, I thought I'd spend a bit of time exploring how I reconcile the two mighty combatants of science and religion.

Before I embark on this mini-memoir/process I feel it is important to disclose my background.

I would say I was not raised as a religious person. My family doesn't espouse a particular religion, I didn't grow up going to church or saying grace or even having any kind of religious connection to holidays. Easter was about candy and bunnies and Christmas about Santa and gifts. I think I was the only person at my high school baccalaureate who didn't know the Lord's Prayer. (I remember feeling ashamed at that.) Does anyone even have baccalaureate any more?

For some reason I am not clear on, while I was in junior high (I think) my two brothers went to Sunday school for a while. I'm not sure why I didn't, but I might guess that it was because at the time my best friend was a Jehovah's Witness so I would go to Kingdom Hall with him and considered myself a Jehovah's Witness for about a year. I think my JW time and my brothers' Sunday school probably coincided, but I am not sure. I do remember that one of my brothers' "homework" exercises was to memorize the names of the first five books of the Bible, a task I took on and was very proud of at the time.

I would sometimes go to church with friends from school if I happened to stay overnight at a friend's house where church on Sunday was the norm. I didn't "get it" enough to even know that different churches had different beliefs and practices. This may have happened at most a dozen times.

I remember in 7th grade social studies that I learned about Muhammad and Islam and how they called God Allah and it just naturally occurred to me that it was just a different name for the same God. (So at this time I was developing my belief that regardless of whether you called God Jehovah, Allah, or Great Spirit in the Sky, it was probably the same thing.)

I remember a time in 3rd grade where we were lining up in the hall for something (lunch maybe) and they would line up girls on one side and boys on the other. I was first in the boys line, and the person behind me was trying to talk me out of my prized position and said "Don't you want to trade with me? You don't want to be across from that Jewish girl." I thought that was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard and wondered why her being Jewish would be any reason to think negatively of her. (So even at that age I think I was developing a tolerance for other religions, maybe because I felt I did not have enough knowledge to know which one was "better" than another rather than through some explicit lessons of religious tolerance.)

I never really grew up knowing anyone who was not a Christian unless you include people who didn't practice any religion in which case my world was filled with them. My first roommate in college was Jewish, my first exposure to something different, although having grown up in rural Maine just going to college in New Jersey was exposure to thousands of things I had never seen. Drugs, prostitution, cities, people with money. I had known about four people who were African American, one of whom sat with me every day on the bus going to school. (I often wonder where he is now.)

While all this religious non-indoctrination was going on, I was well acquainted with science. Being a boy I was pretty well socialized towards math and science. Being someone who did well in school, I ended up in the advanced classes and enjoyed them. (I think I got most of my self-esteem from doing well in school and the praise I got for my academic accomplishments, so it was something I reveled in.) I was very logical and grew up in a family where feelings were not expressed well. In fact were pretty much discouraged. (This is my current understanding in looking back after years of analysis and may not be the experience or understanding of everyone in the family.) I grew to rely heavily on logic, thinking, and intelligence to solve problems, approach life, and engage in relationships. My pendulum had swung heavily away from emotions and intuition. They were for girls and not to be relied on. (More silly socialization.)

I used to believe in evolution and creation because they had been completely compartmentalized in my mind and never thought of together. One day that cocoon was burst and I realized that I had to choose between them. (More on that in a later post.) It was a quick decision based on my proclivity for science and logic. It was then I really started to question religion, and even grew eventually to consider that while I had nothing against it or people who practiced it, it really was only applicable to those who were weaker or less intelligent and couldn't make their own decisions about life. They needed rules within which to live. I officially labeled myself agnostic, though would freely associate with anyone of any religion. I had no prejudice against people I started to meet who were Wiccan or Pagan, though my provincial upbringing did preclude me from being comfortable with the idea of actually attending Wiccan religious observances. I had no qualms about going to church with friends, though I would often feel a little bit of guilt about not getting it or for not living according to the espoused message during a sermon thinking that if there was a God and it was really important, that He would certainly judge me among those who were wanting. Sometimes the guilt was just about being bored and not "feeling" anything during prayer and wishing I was somewhere else more fun.

I had two huge influences growing up and one later in life. My big lesson from my mother was to do what was right even if it wasn't popular. Don't be afraid to take an unpopular stand. My grandmother was the epitome of unconditional acceptance. She would accept and welcome anyone who appeared at her door. Later in life my provincial outlook, lack of worldly experience, and homophobia were all challenged, changed, and discarded through my association with my best friend.

I think that pretty much describes my background and the environment within which my spiritual quest would take place. Next time, "Look out for the first step! It's a doozy!"

Peace.

Extreme Ungame and other variants

Before I begin, my apologies to the wonderful woman who created the game and I offer my undying appreciation for her original impetus to create the Ungame. Please buy it.

I started playing the Ungame with friends around 1985. I was newly married and living on the West Coast, surrounded by a constellation of friends, acquaintances, and fellow Navy personnel. The group of us played many games, mostly of the strategy genre, from Dungeons and Dragons to Axis and Allies to Fortress America and Risk. The Ungame became a sort of break from strategy, a light-hearted diversion. It was during this period of time that I met my best friend who to this day remains for all intents and purposes my true brother.

For those that haven't heard of it or played it, the Ungame basically consists of a board around which you move your playing piece, two decks of cards with questions, and a six-sided die. You land on one of three types of spaces - Tell It Like It Is (take a card to answer a question), Do Your Own Thing (ask a question of someone, make a comment, or draw a card) or a Hang-Up space which sends you to another space on the board.

Many months later I got divorced (which I don't blame on the Ungame) and I emerged from that experience to participate socially with an ever-evolving group of friends. It became a time of experimenting with the limits of brutal honesty, vulnerability, trust, intimacy, and mutuality. The game which originated with questions like "Say something about America" or "When was the last time you felt afraid?" became a white-knuckle version of truth or dare where the dare was to tell the truth. This was the seed of "Extreme Ungame" which is a name I conferred only recently in retrospect.

Extreme Ungame

Do Your Own Thing - you can ask group questions where everyone but the questioner answers
People must use subsequent turns to find out the questioner's answer if they want to know
No topic is off-limits
The truth must be told, and you must agree to this to play

Modifying the Do Your Own Thing rule so that you could ask a group question where everyone but the questioner had to answer created a very tension-filled game. If someone wanted to find out what the questioner's answer was, they needed to use their next Do Your Own Thing. When you kept landing on Tell It Like It Is, it became rather entertaining.

It was a brutal, anxious, and educational experience. I don't play that way anymore, nor would I recommend it to anyone. My goal now isn't testing limits. It is getting to know people in an environment of love and respect, but I'll describe that in the Extreme Ungame II rules.

Our group didn't spend all our time playing games. We would also do what we affectionately dubbed "24-hour restaurant hopping" which involved visiting Denny's and other 24-hour restaurants all night for conversation and other diversions. It made sense to create a travel version of the Ungame because Trivial Pursuit isn't as fun for everyone and you can only play so much Cosmic Wimpout.

Ungame - Travel Version

Leave the board home, take only the cards and the die.
Each person rolls the die for their turn.
An even roll was Do Your Own Thing (an even number of words)
An odd roll was Tell It Like It Is (an odd number of words)
Hang-Ups were ditched with the board.

Not being a fan of the Hang-Ups spaces, we used the travel version even when we weren't traveling and we used it that way for years. We started giving everyone pencil and paper to write down their thoughts so they wouldn't feel the need to interrupt and wouldn't lose their inspirations between turns.

Two things have influenced the way we play the Ungame today. Maturity and religion. I don't feel the need to test those limits anymore, and now I am a Baha'i, so the last thing I would want to do is make someone uncomfortable or anxious or embarrassed. Since I often play the game with people who don't know each other well or who have a different level of tolerance for self-disclosure, we have amended the game as follows:

Extreme Ungame II

Do Your Own Thing - you can ask group questions, the questioner can choose whether to answer or the group can decide at the beginning of the game whether questioner must answer too
Topics are off-limits to the extent that anyone can refuse to answer a question (without shame)
The truth must be told, but as stated you can refuse to answer
The board is not used, so people can be sprawled around the living room
Every turn is Do Your Own Thing, you can always opt to take a card
One person reads the questions so the decks of cards can be in one place with the reader
Paper and pencil are supplied
Talk is kept to a minimum between turns, but this is flexible depending on who is playing. Those uncomfortable with self-disclosure often need some nervous chatter to stay engaged.

I have experimented with other cards, either home-made or from other games. Loaded Questions can work well. We experimented with Gender Bender and Scruples cards, but found them to be unsuitable or uninteresting. The home made versions I have made are the Baha'i version (which I am still working on) and a Spiritual Version based on the book The Little Book of Big Questions by Jonathan Robinson. I plan to expand the Baha'i version to be an Interfaith version (thanks for the idea, Jeannie). We now have what we call the Bag O' Questions which we can take with us at any time. It contains pencils, paper, and several sets of question cards.

Whenever my best friend and I get together (he is a West-Coaster and I am an East-Coaster) we often spend at least one night playing the Ungame with whoever will join us, and it will often dwindle into the wee hours as people peter out, and us hard-core Ungamers will savor the intimacy, respect, honesty and love that the game has come to represent.

In this post I have left out much of the emotional impact of my experiences playing the Ungame and concentrated on the nuts and bolts. I hope others get enjoyment out of the "house rules" we use. Perhaps some other time I'll share some of the experiences - I can think of two questions in particular that made for memorable nights. In the meantime, I think I'm going to embark on a bit of a memoir, and share a spiritual quest.

I'll leave you with one of my favorite questions. If you could hang a slogan in every house in the world, what would it be?

Think about it.

The Naming of a Blog

I promised I would write about the naming of this blog, and that I'll do.

Did you know if you search Amazon.com for the term "baby names" you'll get 9703 results? Even typing in "naming your baby" returns 126 results.

Naming your blog: 4 results
Blog names: 103 results
Neither of these sets of results deal specifically with naming your blog.

With baby names you can find books with lists of 50,000 to 100,000 names. You can find the "best" or the "very best" or the "complete" or the "perfect" or the "everything" or the "ultimate" baby naming book. You can find the "town and country" baby name book or the "wizard" that will walk you through the process.

You can find the latest trends in baby naming, such as antique names, foreign names, surnames, meaning names, or make-it-up names.

No such help with blogs.

Blog names could really use some help, too. I won't name names, but there are some real stinkers and very few creative, inspirational, or even cute blog names. Being the slightly compulsive perfectionist that I am, I needed the very best perfect ultimate everything blog name for my blog. Not too specific or limiting, not too obvious or obtuse, memorable, worthy of me.

I wanted it to reflect the idea that it is about critically thinking about life around us and peeling away layers of spin for the inner kernel of truth. I considered "Counterspin" but it is too popular and obvious.

I considered something grandiose or explicit, like "Critical Thinker's Corner" or "Critically Yours" or something else that ultimately felt too critical.

My original idea was to include an image of Rodin's "The Thinker" to signify the inspiration for my blog, namely thinking. I immediately thought of the name "Rodin's Muse." I figured something inspired Rodin to create this famous piece of art. Why not give a nod to some temporal paradox of some kind and assume it could be my blog? When I searched the web for the phrase, I was surprised to find out that he actually had a muse whose name was Camille Claudel, so I threw that name out too.

Then came the birth day of my blog. I tried a few things, but they were taken. I don't even remember what I was thinking that day, but I think I tried things based on "Thinker" and "The Thinker" but whatever I tried that day was taken already.

Update from the future - I found the scribblings where I was exploring other names. Counterspin, Reality Check, Critical Think, and Why? were some of the others.

The more I tried to avoid Rodin's Muse, the less progress I made. I didn't want to go down the road of just picking something off the cuff. So I fell back to Rodin's Muse which I pretty much wanted anyway. It does serve several purposes for me.

It pays homage to my personal inspiration from and respect for The Thinker.
It pays homage to Camille Claudel.
It includes a double meaning for the word muse, and I always love the clever use of words.
It even includes a double meaning through the pronunciation of Rodin, since it is pronounced the same as Godzilla's compatriot Rodan and had I thought longer I might have chosen "Rodan's Muse" instead.

So, it works for me. I hope to have less trouble when I end up naming my children. I'll certainly have more help. I'd love to hear blog names you think are particularly clever or memorable.

Next time, the unveiling of rules for Extreme Ungame.

Quiet times

So it looks like another lame blogger has jumped online with no intention of regular updates for his large and devoted following. :-)

I implore just a little bit more patience, dear readers. As I mentioned in the previous post, Ayyam-i-Ha is followed by the Baha'i Fast which is followed by the New Year celebration of Naw-Ruz. I kind of glossed over the whole Fast part, so let me add a few quick tidbits (if you'll pardon the pun).

During the 19 days of the Fast Baha'is forego eating and drinking from sunrise until sunset.

[Allow times for gasps of horror.]

It really isn't that bad, and only those who are able to do so are allowed to fast, but that is just the physical aspect of the Fast. The physical part is simply the outward symbol of the inward or spiritual aspect of it. It is a time of reflection, contemplation, prayer, meditation, and personal assessment. It is a time to reflect on where your life is going and what changes you can make to more closely align your will with your understanding of God's will.

Anyway, this is all part of my justification for not writing regularly in this hallowed blog. For me the fast creates its own sort of insular routine that revolves around the pillars of food, sleep, and prayer with doses of socializing, low energy, and watching the clock. After March 21st and Naw-Ruz I plan to write more regularly.

Besides, I've got a lot to say.

Ayyam-i-Ha mubarak!

Lest you think, dear readers, that I have forgotten you, I have not. It is just a very busy time of year for party-going Baha'is.

Baha'is observe Ayyam-i-Ha from February 26 to March 1, the few days before they start their Nineteen Day Fast. You can see more about Ayyam-i-Ha here and more about the Fast here. Basically it is four days (five during leap years) of festivity, charity, socializing, and gift-giving before 19 days of fasting where we forego eating and drinking from sunrise to sunset. It is a time of spiritual reconsecration and focus. It all ends with a celebration of Naw-Ruz on the first day of Spring. It has become a favorite time of year for me, especially since I became a Baha'i 18 years ago today.

So Ayyam-i-Ha mubarak, everyone! (Happy Ayyam-i-Ha!)

My next post will be about the process of naming a blog and which is more difficult, naming a blog or naming a baby.

Why did I call this Rodin's Muse?

Think about it.