I astonished my wife in bed tonight.
We were both drifting off to sleep, talking about this and that, and got onto the subject of religion, when I told her that the thought of death terrifies me. She knows that I am not fond of religion - I like the idea of religion, I like virtues they promote, but I don't particularly care for the institutions - so she was surprised to hear me say that, since she personally gets a lot of solace from the practice; consequently, she would think that if the idea of death terrified me, I'd want to be involved more with an organization that promises death won't be a bad thing. I guess it makes sense, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I think that religious people are looking for security in their daily lives and hope for the future, both of which are good things; they also want a sense that their life matters to someone -- I suppose in this context I should say Someone -- because it often doesn't seem to matter to anyone whether they live or die, prosper or fail. I’d like that security, but I can’t seem to find it in religion. Or anything else.
So dying terrifies me. I want to believe that either I just go out, never to be heard from again, or that my consciousness gets recycled into another body ( I like the idea of reincarnation, because it implies that I have the chance to see again people that I would like to see again. I guess it also implies I'll see people again that I didn't want to see again, or at all -- Hitler reincarnated? ) But the possibility that yes, there really is a judgment, that scares me. Because no matter how benevolent a God there is, I just can't see that deity looking me over and saying Yep, come on in. I'm not a bad person, but I'm not particularly Good.
That series of thoughts about the reason for religion got me to thinking about sports teams. I am not a sports fan. I don't understand how people can get excited about sports. Admire it, enjoy it, sure, but to listen to the discussions at my office, they attach their identity to some degree to how well 'their' team did. Tiger Woods not doing so well? They agonize over his decline. The Red Sox win? They are deliriously excited. I wondered if its a spin-off of the religious idea -- that by identifying with the team or the player, they're saying that there is a part of them that is rich, powerful, respected. I'm sure there are people writing sociology papers and dissertations on this kind of thing. I'd love to read them. I might not understand them, but I'd love to read them. The cool part is, half would say Yes and half would say No. Well, some might say It Depends.
I remember reading one of the Aubrey-Maturin naval novels (which I loved, pretty much all of them), wherein Maturin, the scientist (among other things) says confidently "I am a urinator", to the surprise and dismay of the captain, who tries to cut off his conversation, only to have Maturin continue on, it becoming apparent that what he is referring to is the act of diving (I think with the aid of a diving apparatus, not sure). I wondered at the time what word could possibly be taken to mean 'diving' when it currently has the meaning it does. All I could think of was that sleazy joke about Uranus and Klingons.
The author of one of the blogs that I like to read mentions that her favorite musician is Barry Manilow, and then says 'Deal with it". I was tickled by that concept, and by her aggressiveness about it. I think it makes perfect sense that she should like him -- the older I get, the more I appreciate music that's presented well, and done with style and flair. Not to say that there aren't musicians whose work appeals mostly to people much younger than me who do it with the same level of professionalism, but I don't know of them (after all, they're not talking to me). Manilow delivers, no doubt about it. I was surprised, the other day, to realize that I enjoy the singing of Tom Jones. I remember liking his work, oh, thirty years ago, but still? And yet, he fits the bill -- he's professional, he's creative, he does it with flair. He delivers.
Back to sleep.
3 comments:
I haven't given much thought to my tombstone -- in fact, I sort of thought I'd be cremated, as the idea of decomposing bodies creeps me out, a bit, but the idea of being scattered in the breeze, making the mourners sneeze, is kind of appealing. If I did have a tombstone, I've always liked "I TOLD you I was sick." Either that, or "Keep off the grass".
I am uneasy about the idea of mixing church and state -- the Sunday before the election, I came out of church to find a leaflet on my car which was, I believe, put there by a church member, and even that struck me as beyond the pale. (Pale what? No idea.) Yet I do like the idea of a government that is infused by the virtues that religion encourages. Basically, I want Jed Bartlett. (g) I think of this as essentially a Christian country, having difficulty as it begins to think about the people who don't believe in the Christian ethic, or in any religion at all. Intensely religious people don't scare me, but intensely religious people who damn those not in their pew, do.
I don't agree with people who want to take 'under God' from coins or the Pledge of Allegiance, yet I understand why reasonable people could want that. I wonder if we will get to the point where -- as we have state-specific coins now -- we have some coins with 'under God' or similar phrases, and others that do not. I can just see the far right and far left now, picking through their change at the supermarket.
As for the final judgement, if there is one, I mean well, too. Question is whether an objective -- let alone an omnipotent -- evaluator would agree. My next life might be as a bug. A very *small* bug.
Well, perhaps you're descended from superior gene lines. My daughter complained yesterday that we have no one famous in our family, and when I pointed out that this might simply mean that our famous relative might be still coming -- might in fact be *her* -- she gave me The Look.
Could that come from not having a clear view of what we want, and what we're willing to do to get it? Henry Kissinger was a big fan of seeing things clearly, as I recall. Very little emotion in his analyses -- but they were awfully hard to accept, on occasion.
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