Perspectives

The book 'The Life of Pi' won the 2002 Man Booker prize and was bought and thus presumably read by thousands of people. And still....I have yet to speak to anyone who has liked the book. Just me. And I LOVED the book. I loved Piscine Patel, the description of how he got his name, his childhood in Pondicherry, the zoo, then later his crossing of the ocean on a lifeboat with a tiger called Richard Parker. I revelled in it all. But most of all I loved that Piscine, Pi, was religiously promiscuous. He was cheating on his priest with the Imam, on the Imam with the pandit. He couldn't get enough, he found beauty in all three and couldn't settle for just one. I could empathise with Pi.

Most people I know have grown up with some kind of religion, and that is especially true in Britain as I have said several times before, where an established Church means we have RE lessons, a 'broadly Christian' assembly or daily act of communal worship, and a lot more Christianity incidental on TV.
But now that I am in Canada, I have met one or two people who have not been brought up with a faith, and that is quite, quite different from rejecting religion.

When I taught A-level Philosophy, one of the components was the Philosophy of religion. I found that to teach that I had to be non-partisan, never revealing my own views, but looking at everything objectively. It was oddly liberating. Standing outside and looking in I was able to see things I couldn't from the inside.

From the inside, the Church provides comfort food for the soul. From the outside it stood up to all but logic, and Kirkegaard gave us absolution for that. But the cold wind on the top of the Sceptic's mountain made me look around. I suppose it was like Zarathustra. A bit. Except that God wasn't dead, just expanding exponentially. Or perhaps I was on the rim of that wheel, trying all the spokes out for size, like Simmi's grandfather said.

When I looked in as an observer, I saw some things that stood up whether or not God was involved. And I was able to see I believe dispassionately, what we humans got from religion, some from any religion and some from our particular one.

Most give us a Deity or Deities. I'm covering, it may be that by definition a religious system needs at least one god except.....like I said, you could kick away that ladder, embrace a religion but not its god. And ... is Gaia a religion? It is kinda, but no god is worshipped, just that our planet is cherished and anthropomorphised.
Some form of ethical system is usually involved, nay, insisted upon, and often based on the word of the deity. Even so, a good ethical system can stand alone. Say, for the sake of argument, you were making up a new religion, well then you'd get your god to say sensible things that simply allow people to live together - because that's what an ethical system is, bottom line.

There are often religious system police, those who preach and polish the system, like guard bees in a hive, sniffing out interlopers, making sure everyone's producing the honey. I make it sound harsh and sterile when in fact most of the priests I have met are warm, interesting people.

And so soon I have moved to the personal. Because so far, substitute 'State' for 'God' and I could have been talking about a political system. What I think keeps people coming back for that cup is the depth of their personal experience.

And now I won't call it religion, I'll call it Faith. People have a personal relationship with their God. I was going to say 'and in my case gods', but the truth is I have chosen to reflect upon different aspects of mine. I often speak about the Goddess, but I think that few these days would truly claim that God is a man, because female qualities and male qualities have to both be present in perfection. I sometimes feel like tuning in to the yin side.

We have a sense of comfort, I do, I know. However old I get, and how ever many years seperate me from the time when I had a mum, there are still moments of fear, or despair when I need her. And that deep-seated sense of God is there at those times.

And there is that sense of awe, of wonderment, of simply looking around and wanting to give thanks for everything that stirs our soul. I cannot come close to the beauty of this piece of writing that expresses that deeply personal 'round of applause', so I would like to encourage you to read Heelers' post of that title.

Then communion. Not just 'The Communion' although for me that is the communion I mean, but I think that it an important part of any faith. To share that act of worship. To have a communal act with all others of your Faith.
For Christians, the sharing of the bread and wine is so focussing. It takes the symbolism so deep.
In my son and daughter-in-law's church, which is an Anglo-Catholic church, I feel that the whole service enables the deepest level of meditiation. I respect the needs of others to raise their arms and praise God loudly, that too is an act of communion. But my needs are different. I love the steps that lead me down into my own soul, the bells, the incense, the intoned prayer. I'd have it in Latin if I could. Is there a shamanism to this? Maybe, perhaps that's why I also love the Celtic beliefs. But just to be in a building, cool, stone, where generations have worshipped before, with the familiar words like a mantra. What we need so often is that still, small voice of calm. And to sink into our own soul. Perhaps the collective soul. And maybe that is God.