May 12, 2011 · 9:00 am

Finding Community as a Nontheist

The best part about growing up as a preacher’s kid: community. Healthy churches can offer unconditional acceptance, warm friendships with people from a wide variety of backgrounds and as many free or inexpensive social events as you care to squeeze into your free time.

When I de-converted I missed these instant connections more than anything else. Yes, there are nonreligious groups out there that are dedicated to a wide variety of issues and pastimes. Gelling together a community is easier when the leaders are experienced and when everyone shares something important in common and while they are at no means the only ones able to do it many churches excel at figuring out how to quickly fold new people into their midst.

To further complicate the situation I don’t care about many subjects that are often discussed: sports, celebrity gossip, political debates, (most) contemporary music, fashion, or how, why, when and with whom other people are reproducing.

As I’ve mentioned before I’m also an introvert. My idea of a good time is a tranquil hiking or going out to dinner with a few close friends. I can enjoy larger groups but it takes a little time to prepare for that sort of socialization.

Because of all this it has taken me quite some time to build a new community. Slowly what Anne Shirley would call kindred spirits have trickled into my life. One day I’ll drag all of them out to dinner, finally meet the ones I’ve only known online in person and smile as they (hopefully) grow to like one another as much as I like them.

Another piece of the puzzle: Creative Copy Challenge. Ostensibly it’s a writing prompt blog but I’m beginning to go there because as much as I love writing a poem or short story in response to the new list of words twice a week I care about the people there more.

Originally my title for this post was How to Find Community as a Nontheist. The only problem with it is that I don’t have the answer sheet. All I know is what works for me.

What works for you?

Leave a Comment

Filed under Uncategorised

Tagged as ,

May 9, 2011 · 9:00 am

Policing Your Utopia

The human mind is inspired enough when it comes to inventing horrors; it is when it tries to invent a Heaven that it shows itself cloddish.  ~Evelyn Waugh

The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of truth – that the error and truth are simply opposite.  They are nothing of the sort.  What the world turns to, when it is cured on one error, is usually simply another error, and maybe one worse than the first one.  ~H.L. Mencken

The optimist thinks that this is the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist knows it.- J. Robert Oppenheimer

David Hayward had an absolutely fantastic post last week about how difficult it can be to communicate with people whose worldview conflicts with your own. (You do not have to read it to understand the rest of this post but his ideas did influence my thought processes while writing this.)

I’ve mentioned my love of dystopian fiction here before but I’ve known precious few books about life in an utopia. Even the most well-written science fiction or fantasy novels on this topic tend to either comically over-react to whatever social ills the authors believes are plaguing us in the present or create characters so ploddingly virtuous and prone to splitting that I assume they were meant to be read as unreliable narrators …but I digress.

What would be the best possible world? What sort of lives would people lead? How would the problems that plague our current society be solved?  Imagine that all of these questions are answered and that we’re walking around in whatever it is we’ve decided is utopia. Everyone is healthy and happy now.

Well, almost everyone. A small group of people who don’t want to cooperate are throwing a wrench in our new system. Maybe they miss the way things were before, resent us for changing everything so drastically,  or maybe they follow a contradictory set of rules (or none at all).

How would you react if they began protesting violently? What about if they started to harm other people? Would controlling or punishing them mean that a specific utopia no longer exists or never actually did exist? Would sending them elsewhere mean that utopia is only appropriate for certain types of people? Would it still be a utopia if people were unable to make destructive choices?

So, these are the cheerful thoughts that rolled around in my head this past weekend. 😉 I’m still having trouble coming up with answers that don’t change two minutes after a contradictory thought comes to mind. What do you think?

2 Comments

Filed under Uncategorised

Tagged as

May 7, 2011 · 9:00 am

Suggestion Saturday: May 7, 2011

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, videos, games and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

This is Only a Test.  If I could influence traditional movie plots the hero of an action movie would be the first person to stop and help at the scene of an accident. I can think of no better definition of the term than someone who reacts to a dangerous situation in this manner (especially if he or she is a civilian).

25 Abandoned Yugoslavia Monuments That Look Like They’re From the Future. These are great monuments. I don’t know the social or political significance behind any of them but they are a good inspiration when you’re working on story ideas. The otherworldly Tjentište one was by far my favourite.

Stop Disasters Game. How would you minimize property damage and the loss of human life if you had $50,000 to upgrade a village before a natural disaster hit? It’s not an easy game but it is something I’ve returned to over and over again. Either the game makers want us to realize that there is never enough money to save everyone or there is some sort of trick to it I have yet to discover.

Music Cubes. Making music has always been a bit of a mystery to me despite growing up in in a musical family. I’ve never been able to figure out how to string notes together to make something ear-pleasing…until now. It’s funny how that works and it makes me wonder why a slightly different approach can have such a big impact on how well someone understands something. Any theories on this?

Drew and I discovered something odd on a recent walk. It looks like part of an old fence. What I don’t understand is why it has been wedged into and tied onto a tree. None of the surrounding trees had anything unusual in or on them. Do you have any theories? If I can’t come up with a good explanation I may need to dream up a short story about this to satisfy my curiosity. 😉

I’m reading another Jodi Picoult  brain candy book this week: Second Glance. It’s about, among other things, a developer who is trying to turn an ancient Abenaki Indian burial ground into a strip mall, a ghost hunter who has never actually seen a ghost, and small town secrets that are bubbling into general knowledge after decades of being submerged.

What have you been reading?

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under Uncategorised

May 5, 2011 · 9:00 am

Sometimes It’s a Molehill

Last fall Drew’s parents arranged for the family to gather for a long overdue family photo. My first thought: can I get away with not wearing makeup for this event?

His mom was concerned about color coordination and everyone looking his or her best for the photo. Choosing complimentary outfits wasn’t an issue. I’ll wear almost anything but I really didn’t want to deal with an itchy, irritated face for the next few days just to satisfy social expectations.

Normally I can sniff out a compromise in almost any disagreement or misalignment of expectations. This wasn’t one of them. Knowing the expectations and traditions of certain family members I braced for friendly persuasion and mentally prepared a list of reasons why I was declining to participate in this ritual. The conversation began…

Family member #1: “Lydia, I noticed you’re not wearing any makeup. Do you want to borrow some of ours?”

Me: “No thanks.”

Family member #2: “You don’t need it, anyway.”

The introduction, climax and conclusion of a conversation I’d spent so much time preparing for ended up occurring in a handful of sentences. It was the last thing I’d expected to happen.

Sometimes there are mountains.

Sometimes there are molehills.

Slowly I’m learning not to assume how steep the hike will be until it actually begins. 🙂

Respond

Have you overreacted to anything recently? Is there anything that reminds you not to worry about what will happen tomorrow, next month or next year?

Leave a Comment

Filed under Uncategorised

Tagged as

May 2, 2011 · 9:00 am

Celebrating Osama’s Death

Osama bin Laden was killed in a U.S. raid of his home in Pakistan over the weekend. I found out about this last night when Drew logged onto one of his social networking sites.

The first wave of reactions: nearly universal glee.

This makes me uncomfortable. Yes, Osama was responsible  for decades of severe human suffering. I completely understand feeling relieved or happy that he can no longer orchestrate the injury or death of anyone but there’s something that bothers me about spontaneous outdoor parties celebrating the fact that someone else is no longer alive.

Osama’s death is the end of possibilities. When someone is still alive there is always the hope of rehabilitation. A corpse can’t be tried in a court of law or sentenced for his crimes. The dead cannot atone for what they have done any more than they help those they have hurt find closure. Death is the last sentence in the life story of an individual. The loose strings of everything left unsaid and unlearned flap in the breeze. In this case there are a a hell of a lot of strings.

A single death isn’t going to nullify the danger of al-Qaeda. If anything I’ve read speculation that it will energize their followers and we will see more acts of violence against innocent people in retaliation. I hope these predictions are wrong, that if nothing else Osama’s death will mark the beginning of the end of their power.

No comment on what the U.S. should or could have done instead. I don’t know what the best answer is but neither can I celebrate the death of another human being.

A final thought. I’m borrowing this from the Facebook page of a friend but will leave self-identification up to that individual. 🙂

As you talk about this news, I hope you will consider how your response can counter rather than reinforce the cycles of violence that spin around us. And please God, help us bring healing beauty to the ugliness of violence in whatever small way we can. Today.

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under Uncategorised

Tagged as , ,

April 30, 2011 · 9:00 am

Suggestion Saturday: April 30, 2011

Here is this week’s list of charts, videos, quotes and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

My mother loved children – she would have given anything if I had been one. Groucho Marx

Tree of Life. A visual representation of every known species on earth. I never would have guessed there were so many fungi.

Should You Bring It Up? Despite what the rest of the site may say I’d argue that this chart is as handy with family and friends as it would be with a significant other. Don’t bash people over the head with complaints or dive into complicated disagreements when you’re sick, tired or hungry. Do give them the benefit of the doubt and listen to what is actually being communicated. It isn’t anything I haven’t heard before but there’s something eye-catching about seeing it in a flowchart.

Spam. Someone has finally figured out a use for those unsolicited emails that pop up in your inbox promising to improve your sex life. I love how each image plays around with our preconceived expectations of language.

Via Cynthia from A Life Profound:

What I’m reading: Kale Capek’s The Absolute at Large, a classic scifi tale about a scientist who accidentally releases God into the world.

What have you been reading?

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under Uncategorised

April 28, 2011 · 9:00 am

Why Are You So Crabby?

Some fairly serious posts are tentatively scheduled for next week. In the meantime I’d like to dissect this strip from one of my favourite web comics, Mimi and Eunice.

It is one of the few items on my RSS feed that made me cringe-fully laugh out loud this week. When I was a kid I used to subtly irritate my brothers until they reacted. As far as I can recall it was never anything cruel or painful – just standard sibling teasing. When they retaliated mom and dad would often blame them for instigating the entire thing.

I don’t remember why I did those things. Maybe they had teased me earlier,  maybe I thought it was funny or it might have just been a bizarre developmental phase. When my youngest brother finished high school I apologized to them for being sneaky and annoying. Despite the decade or so that had passed since we’d stopped interacting in those ways I still felt a touch of guilt for my part in it.

Why do adults act like this? We (typically) don’t physically jab one another with our fingers but I’ve seen more than one person a few decades removed from elementary school draw out the same reactions in others with a sharp word or aggressive body language. Every time it happens I wish I could temporarily re-write the rules of polite behaviour so I could ask what was happening in his or her life that made it seem ok to agitate someone else like this.

Is someone else poking their buttons? Have they had a horrible day, month, year and are running dangerously low on compassion? Do they enjoy introducing more pain into the lives of others? Why play innocent when the other person finally reacts? Have they missed social cues and don’t realize what they did?

I also wonder why more of the Eunices of the world don’t climb out of their comic strips. Sometimes this isn’t possible, of course, but if I was in her cartoon feet I would have disappeared halfway through the first panel. When Mimi was ready to apologize and stop poking me I’d come back and forgive her…but not before then.

 

7 Comments

Filed under Uncategorised

Tagged as

April 25, 2011 · 9:00 am

Choosing Friends, Choosing Enemies

This post is a response to Why Not Want to Like? Ever since this short poem was posted last week I’ve been mulling over why we like some people and dislike others. From the link:

Why wouldn’t I want to try to like everybody I meet?

This isn’t something I’ve discussed here before but everyone has what I can best describe as their own flavour, scent or musical note. That is, each of us has a unique combination of personality traits, general interests, character, beliefs and outlook on life. Sometimes there’s an automatic sense of compatibility when two new friends meet. At other times there isn’t and personalities clash. When this happens it doesn’t mean that one person is right and the other wrong any more than it’s right or wrong to mix musical notes or spices. Some combinations work well, others won’t.

Liking someone in a platonic way has two different meanings to me: one has to do with how one acts, the other with how one feels.  I can treat others with kindness, courtesy and respect but I cannot  sit down one day and decide, “I’m going to enjoy person X’s company this afternoon” or “person Y is my closest friend starting…now.” My brain just doesn’t work that way. Relationships tend to have lives of their own and I’ve been surprised more than once by who has and has not become a good friend.

So I’m going to assume that liking people in the above link refers to how we treat them. Under that assumption I completely agree with the above post. (It would be incredible if we were able to flip a brain switch and choose which emotions others stir up, though!)

What is fascinating is how much choosing to act in certain ways around others can influence what one thinks about them over time. I’ve seen people who were once defensive or angry but who chose to remain respectful and de-escalatory gradually repair unhealthy relationships. Others I’ve known have forged adamantium-strength bonds with people from such radically different paths that I never would have pictured them getting along so splendidly.

The entire topic reminds me of being told to love everyone when I was a Christian. As a child and teenager I couldn’t imagine doing this. Love was a natural outgrowth of relationships formed over many years. It wasn’t something that could be harvested and passed out to the hungry like ripe tomatoes.

Eventually someone explained that what it meant was we should be treating everyone the way we’d want our relatives to be treated by strangers, not that I literally had to love every other person in the universe as much as I did family and friends. That helped. Mostly. (What can I say? I was the sort of Christian who took these things extremely seriously!)

Respond

How do you interpret calls to “love your neighbour” or “like everyone you meet” in your daily life? Can you control whether or not you like someone? If so, will you teach me how to do it? 😛

Leave a Comment

Filed under Uncategorised

Tagged as ,

April 23, 2011 · 9:00 am

Suggestion Saturday: April 23, 2011

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, interviews, photos and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

Sun and the Moon. There’s something in this photo that I didn’t notice the first time I viewed it. Can you figure out what it is? The answer is in the text at the bottom of the link if you need help.

Zombie Boy. What stood out to me the most about this interview was how much the man who is covered in tattoos that make him look like a rotting corpse changed when the people around him began treating him with kindness and curiosity. It was not the reaction he expected!

Honest Logos. I didn’t understand all of these logos. Do you? I will say, though, that the ones I did figure out are far more entertaining to look at than the real logos they’re mocking.

Global Warming Solutions Mind Map. These are all great habits to acquire but I can’t help wondering if it would actually make a big difference even  if we could convince every household to cooperate. From what I’ve read most pollution either comes from corporations or is a result of our infrastructure. (I could be wrong about that.)

What I’m reading: Jodi Picoult’s Sing You Home. It’s about a divorced couple who goes to court to determine if one of them is allowed to use their frozen embryos to have a child when the other vehemently disagrees with that plan. Fascinating stuff.

Is this photo as mesmerizing for you as it is for me? I wish I could paddle into it and see what is hidden behind the fog.

What have you been reading?

 

4 Comments

Filed under Uncategorised

April 21, 2011 · 9:00 am

A Review of Fall to Grace

Jay Bakker’s new book Fall to Grace: A Revolution of God, Self and Society explores the meaning of grace and how to live out the idea that God loves us unconditionally.

For anyone who isn’t familiar with what Christians mean by the word grace: think of it as being loved, honoured and favoured by someone without doing anything to make them feel that way about you. Usually, but not always, that someone is God.

To be honest I spent the first half of this book waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’ve known more than one Christian who segues from talking about the gift of grace to sharing their list of rules that need to be followed in order to keep it. Jay never does this which was intriguing and surprising.

The best part of the book by far were the grace notes, interludes written by people Jay knows who have lived through difficult experiences.  True stories have always been my favourite part of reading books about theology or ethics. There is something about learning what another human being has been through and what he or she has discovered as a result that is a thousand times more informative and instructive than reading a hundred pages of even the most well-written ideas.

This book focuses heavily on the application of grace as it is related to one particular issue. I would have preferred to hear how Jay’s ideas about grace impact his reaction on a wider variety of topics. Too often conversations about grace whittles down to the same subjects over and over again and his message would have been been more effective had its arguments drawn from multiple examples.

I’d recommend this book for Christians who are interested in taking a second look at how they think about God and live out their beliefs. Most of the arguments and Bible stories that are used as examples in this can be easily understood by someone who isn’t already familiar with them but it isn’t written specifically for non-Christians. It’s sort of like visiting a family in the middle of a (good-natured) debate. Those of us outside of the family listen to various points of view but we don’t have a personal stake in how it is all sorted out.

Note: I received this book for free through the viral blogging program at www.theooze.com.

 

 

1 Comment

Filed under Uncategorised

Tagged as