Been trying to make more time to write, mostly on the bus ride to work. 
Was listening to Modest Mouse “Third Planet” the other day walking to the bus and was prompted by the “gonna shake that eye’s hand” line to start waxing philosophical.
Well, the truth of the matter is that ultimately, you don’t have to defend your understanding of the universe to anyone but yourself. And that’s not to suggest an I’m ok you’re ok sort of philosophy, far from it.
It’s more like putting trust into the integrity of every individual human mind: you must make peace with and/or conquer your own demons, de-haunt your own ghosts, solve your own internal riddles. No one can do it for you- why would anyone even bother, given everyone possess their own shadow, claimed or unclaimed? This excludes, of course, the innocent child.
Sure, there is earnest altruism, good parenting for example; there is also codependency where someone gets to ignore their own haunts by focusing on someone else’s. The best that can be done is guidance, whether finding or giving.
If you’ve ever received guidance, then you know, it can come from anywhere and in any form. If you’ve ever given guidance, then you should remember: often things are internalized differently than intended, and what most helps someone could be a throw away line or flippant statement off the cuff. Whereas the most well thought out advice often falls on deaf ears. Guidance is tricky … both finding and giving.
This is sorta where another kind of faith comes in to compliment the aforementioned trust in every human’s own desire/need for mental integrity. And this is a faith in … well, I’m catholic, so I call it the Holy Spirit, but lots of people call it many different things, karma even sometimes. We’ll have to have another post about karma vs. divine justice in the future.
Anyway, here we run into a faith & understanding that the Holy Spirit wants every individual soul to be as holy as it can be. Being a divine spiritual being formed out of the purity of the love between the Father and the Son, it is entirely probable the Holy Spirit wants this far more than any human possibly could. This is why overly intrusive/regulatory systems of enforcing holiness become tiresome. Not only do they forget there is no virtue in coercion, but they also demonstrate a lack of faith in the Holy Spirit’s work.
It is my understanding the Holy Spirit can sculpt any soul into a saint, can sculpt any substance from sand to clay to metal to diamond. It goes better for us the more pliable we are, of course, but diamond, which would presumably make for a beautiful saint, is not pliable at all. Hmmm. Father Carapi used to talk about this sort of thing, and I guess he would really know … at least his story always made him seem to be as stubborn as diamond …
And that’s about all I got around to on the bus ride. There are so many caveats to make that weren’t made. Still, there really aren’t any caveats to be made, are there? That was sort of the point. It doesn’t matter to me if someone thinks like Terry Pratchett that there are worlds out there existing in discs balanced on the backs of elephants surfing a great cosmic turtle through space.
That’s cool, as long as that’s what works for them … like it passes their own integrity test in the silent solitude of their own minds. And then, maybe it doesn’t pass this test, but it doesn’t count as a significant test to that person … that’s fine too. We can discuss it … I will not argue it … we may can debate some things if it can be done in the right spirit of mutual illumination, but again … when it comes to understanding the universe … read that first line of the second paragraph again.
Of course, there are always those who have to stretch the limits of all things … I give you, Pastafarians:
Nah, I’m just kidding … I could probably party with these dudes … esp. if they catered the event. 🙂
Poetry On Everyone's Mind 