Knowing God

 

The more I think about agency and voluntary action, the more I come to believe that we experience god ( “the divine”) in a similar way to how we feel love, or hate or fear or anger. 

The divine as an emotion, essentially. 

And so if you ask the question, do I believe in the existence of emotions, of having the phenomenological experience of fear or love or hate or anger, then I answer in the affirmative. 

These are feelings I’ve had and have and for which there is considerable evidence that others have had, do have, whose prevalence is thought to be extensive, if not universal among us humans.  And so, if you ask me do I believe in a feeling of the divine, of some ineffable agency that pervades my awareness of everything I know about myself and my existence in the world, as well as the world around me, then yes, I believe with certainty that this is part of my experience and likely part of the experience of most, if not all, others – at least those who are open to it. 

Yet I also view my emotions as having a strong correlation to states of my nervous system; states related to neurochemical and electrophysiological systems that evolved over millennia to promote survival in an uncertain, unpredictable world. 

Saying that you believe in the existence of fear or love or hate does not imply that such things are material or even ephemeral vapors that float on clouds or exist within the ether of outer space. 

We don’t’ have a very good theory about consciousness, about how or why it exists or how it relates to our intentional, voluntary actions or even those subconsciously driven aspects of our being.  Presumably, our dreams are manifest from brains that first gather and process information when awake, the stages of sleep promoting and eliciting involuntary thought that string together Jungian archetypes of belief from our deepest subconscious. 

We can track electrical patterns and neurochemical activity in the brain. But we don’t really know if the spark of a feeling or an idea stems from the realm of some conscious or preconscious event or begins with a molecule moving across a membrane, or some other physical activity in our body. 

Perhaps consciousness is the product of certain neural events, or conversely, that our conscious realm dictates key nerves to activate in our brains, or maybe both.

Whether epiphenomenon or interactive, our mind, comprised of conscious and unconscious activity is what we experience.  And through our mind’s eye, it is the conduit through which we experience our bodies and the world around us. 

So I believe in the feeling of the divine, and I have learned that it is usually beneficial to pay attention to my feelings.  That knowing if I am in love, or afraid, or angry is useful when evaluating a circumstance.   My feelings provide me with a gauge as to the importance of a thing, whether I understand what’s going on at a  deeper level or not, I know that the stronger the emotion, the more importance I should attach to the circumstances eliciting it.  And the more attention I need to bring to bear on what is going on, and in determining what the reality is around me.  To the extent that I have a feeling of agency to affect the circumstances I find myself in, how might I act for a propitious beneficial outcome?  Knowing god, having a sense of divine agency offers me a motivation and context in which to interpret events and a context in which to determine a course of action and to proceed with a perspective and intent most suitable for the circumstances.

Journal entry from November 10, 2006

It’s 7 something pm.  I’m at the Chicago O’Hare airport.  My 6:00 flight was delayed until 8:40 Pm, then delayed again until 10:05 pm. There was an earlier flight, leaving at 9:00, but, of course, it was full.  The public address system keeps reminding us that that homeland security has issued an orange alert.  Something about the brits M15 releasing information on several London terrorist plots that have been uncovered.  The earlier flight that brought me to O’Hare was a harrowing white-knuckle ride through a thunderstorm.  The pilot aborted the first landing attempt and came in again after the storm had shifted a bit, and with a new runway to try. 

I’m sitting at a table for two at the Chili Grille with a beer and chips.  Nothing else to eat but chicken and burgers.  It’s crowded and I offer the other seat at the table to a trim 50 something man with white hair and a white mustache.  He tells me he just got back from Hong Kong.  He’s on his way home somewhere in Florida.  Of course, I have to ask how he’s managed to get over to Hong Kong.  It’s business, he says.  His business.  He manufactures motor yachts.  They build ‘em in Hong Kong and China.  He’s having ten to fifteen a year being made right now but hopes to tool up to fifty or so in a year.  I ask how’d he got into the business?  He was a movie producer working on a low budget slasher flick being made with Mafia money.  The cast and crew were perpetually stoned.  They wanted him to burn through the money so they could get more out of their mafia funders.  The “funders” were giving him bum checks, having their own money issues.  One day he tells both groups, apparently in the same room at the same time, you guys deserve each other – have at it, and leaves.

He’d been drawing boats since he was a kid.  He went ahead and drew another one, and then, with seventeen thou or so built it.  Or had it built, I’m not sure which.  Now he’s running Island Pilot LLC.  Marketing and Sales, he says.  He’s got no back office, no employees, though he’s thinking about having his son do some of the books.  A website, a cell phone, he doesn’t need much else.  He’s got buyers and people to make the boats, people to fund the process.  There’s no inventory and, with no employees, he can keep what he needs to know on a spreadsheet or two. 

Reuban Trane, the grandson of another Trane who made his living making, manufacturing, air conditioners.  He’s got a new idea he’s pursuing – hybrid boats that run off of solar cells.  A natural for the tropics.  Seven knots and seven watts or something like that.  They’ve done some research and will be rolling out the first production unit within the year. 

Reuban highly recommends Hong Kong.  A driver meets him and his wife when they’re traveling together as they de-plane.  She prefers 5-star hotels.  The roads are lined with manicured gardens.  Live fish and geese and, ugh, cats at the better eateries.  Reuban can do this stuff like “falling off a log.”  He doesn’t have to think about it much, making oodles of money with no investment and no real drudgery, short of the travel, I suppose.  Reuban doesn’t appear to have any sensibilities around class or social justice or even environmental issues.  The hybrid boat wasn’t about saving the environment; it was about a marketable product.  Self assured and confident, cutting through a livelihood like a hot knife through butter. Oh, sure, he’s had some projects that tanked, but he’s in his stride now. 

What is it that accounts for his success?  What lesson is there to learn from his story?  How can I redraw his story, add some humanitarian elements and the details of my own vision to come up with a story of my own?  One thing, he was open to opportunity.  I offered my table and he was on it.  Another, he was clear about where he’d been and where he was going.  Little doubt was voiced.  Maybe a bit too much ego, but I don’t think so.  He knew what he did well, and it aligned somehow with a long standing interest of his.  He likely had a lot going for him, grandson of an air-conditioning tycoon, rich boy playing movie producer, with even a hit movie now on DVD – the name of which escapes me now – some horror flick if I’m not mistaken.  At the end of his movie carrier he didn’t even want to see the moving he was making – it was that bad.  There’s money, there’s the enterprise, and there’s the work you do.  They all need to align.  The Chicago O’Hare PA blares: “The department of homeland security has raised the threat level to orange.”  My 10:05 pm flight has been cancelled.  Looking for a place to hang until airport security opens at 6 am tomorrow. 

Trust in the Midst of a Pandemic

In the midst of a pandemic that is killing friends and family and that is, or will soon be, imposing inordinate financial hardship on many,  I find it interesting that there is a quiet certitude about things.  That the noise of living has abated and I can see some things more clearly. 

My neighbor, who usually is coming and going with little more than a wave, sits on his porch in the evening with a drink.  I walk over and we chat, me on the sidewalk, he on his porch.  His partner joins us and we discuss the situation we are in.  And learn a little more about one another. 

Down the street there is a fire going in a fire pit on another neighbors’ front lawn.  It’s a signal that they are around and wouldn’t mind company.  People stop by and hang out by the fire, keeping their distance and talking. 

Some days we have a scheduled “cocktail hour” with friends via Zoom or Houseparty.  Recently, we took turns singing solo some of the  songs we particularly liked. 

I started a text thread  with family, which allowed us to share relevant info, but also provided some personal moments of our day, moments that would otherwise have gone unshared.

A neighbor, 92 and still living a vibrant life at her home, needed help with her car.  The battery warning light went on and she was concerned.  Not that she’s going anywhere.  But having her car in good shape and operational was important to her.  So I suited-up, wore a mask and used some alcohol to wipe the steering wheel and drove the car to her mechanic. The battery replaced, I returned to pick up the car, swabbing everything down again before driving it back to my neighbor.

Going grocery shopping, as most of you know, is like entering a nuclear contamination site, using mask and gloves, if you’ve got ‘em, and alcohol or other disinfectant to wipe down grocery carts.  Back at home there is a another half hour process to clean the groceries and bags before putting them away. 

Though the risk of infection is ever present, there is also this clarity about what risk people pose to you.  Walking on the sidewalk, people veer to walk in the street if there isn’t enough clearance, or, if they don’t change course, then you do.  It’s easy to see when people come toward you, or walk behind you, how far away they are.  When a respectful distance is the norm, you can track the rate at which people are moving, you can tell if somebody is keeping their distance, and they can tell if you are keeping yours.

Somehow we’ve lost the ability to recognize and manage an acceptable social distance with others.  The noise of a zillion Internet voices and a lack of respect and courtesy in how we conduct social discourse has blurred these boundaries. Trust doesn’t just happen, it is something that we work to establish.  Being trustworthy is something we seek in other people, and something we wish others see in us.  We value trust between members of our family.  We value the trust we share among our religious brethren.  We take comfort in the trust we have for those whose political views we share.  Yet trust eludes us in the wider sphere of discourse beyond these familial, religious and partisan groups.  We’ve lost our ability to recognize and trust the intentions of strangers, of those who we don’t know. 

Yet our trust in strangers is essential.  How else could we do the multitude of things we do without trust?  Trust that people will stop at stop signs and red lights.  Trust that most people will obey the law. Trust that people use standard hygiene.  Trust that doctors, engineers, and other professionals use their expertise wisely and unselfishly. 

We have become attuned to discrepancies from our highest ideals, when racial bias mars the integrity of a police force, when a business cuts corners or manipulates the market to cheat people, when individuals in positions of authority and trust take advantage of, and hurt, others to satisfy some selfish desire.

We see the imperfections of people and systems and become cynical, rather than hopeful that, while not perfect, our laws and governance are tools by which we can achieve a more perfect union.  Focusing solely or primarily on these problems distorts an awareness of all those things that are working well, that are serving us, providing safety and equitable treatment to most of us. 

Not seeing what’s working distorts our view and makes it appear that nothing is working.  This adds to a  climate of distrust, a climate of suspicion that people of different faiths, of different political persuasion, of different economic status are inherently untrustworthy.  We do not see that they have a difference of opinion. We do not see that they are essentially good people with whom we can debate.  Rather, we view them as people who are not to be trusted.

 We’ve extended this suspicion to our social institutions, to experts  in various fields of endeavor, to scientific methods and procedures.  In short, we have come to suspect a large portion of the social systems that have evolved to improve our lives, that let us live longer and better, with more choices and more freedoms then at, perhaps, any other time in the history of human societies. 

Trust must be earned.  I am not advocating for some blind uncritical acceptance. It is important for us to discuss, debate, evaluate, and use science as well as our gut instincts.   This pandemic as tragic as it is, is also a wake up call, an opportunity to throw off our knee-jerk biases and favorite shibboleths. Let us continue to strive for what we individually believe in, but also recognize what we hold in common.  Religious beliefs, partisan divisions, and economic disparities will always create a certain tension between people.  It is the balance between this tension and what we can do together that defines us as a nation and as a model for what others can achieve.