The World Brain

Having been an avid user of the Internet for many years, I was startled to have a friend remark, "David is addicted to the Internet."

I don't think it is fair to say addicted. Rather, the Internet has become something of a World Brain. Just as not everything in life that a human brain dictates is correct or useful, the same is true of the World Brain. The Internet does have a great deal of foolishness and error. Yet, when queried wisely, it is an amazing resource of good information.

It has become fashionable to decry the amount of garbage floating on the Internet. Certainly it does contain a great deal of misinformation posted by biased writers, but in that particular it is no different than any other information resource. On the other hand, just looked at as another locus for the free exchange of ideas, it has the potential to enhance the level of discourse.

Like any other venue, one must look for multiple sources to approximate truth. Those who take their news only from the Washington Times will believe they have facts that back an ultra-conservative political position. Only getting "the truth" from AlterNet will give a contrary perspective. Similarly, on Palestine, one can read Al Jazeera, Haaretz, The Jordan Times, Iran Daily and The Jerusalem Times will all have different slants and interpretations of the same event.

That said, there is a great deal of good information. Whether it is a recipe for making sauerkraut at home or the latest information about Super-string theory, there is a vast resource of knowledge. Looking for a new laptop but confused by all the different models and the vast number of central processing units being used. There are websites for that. Do you want a list, as I did today, of Barack Obama's accomplishments prior to becoming president? Within five minutes I had a fairly complete list of his Illinois record as well as his actions in the US Senate. Of course the Republicans also had a list of his "accomplishments" detailing what they see as his failures.

I have two friends who have mentioned Scientology to me recently. One was positive, the other negative. A quick search with Dogpile (An agglomeration of search engines) gave me a great deal of information, much propaganda and very divergent opinions. Of course, I then had to use my own personal and individual brain.

Things get murkier when searching for information about spirituality, religion, faith and God. This won't surprise anyone. Every person deals with these concepts differently. Words fail to convey the truths understood in the human heart. Still, at the very least, one does find out what others believe, feel and act on. Thus, a willing and inquisitive soul will find an ally in The World Brain. (Let me suggest http://www.religioustolerance.org/ as a good starting point.)

The Internet, which began as an adjunct to the military establishment, has become a vital, cultural, "game-changing", social phenomenon. The World Brain is the boundary between generations, but for those who are TWB savvy, it promotes the possibility of a world of peaceful, inter-cultural exchange. China may wish to block news of Tienaman Square and they do have a very powerful filter to prevent their citizens from fully participating in the world dialogue, but they will fail. There is a community of very clever programmers, themselves relying on TWB, who will overcome the barriers.

The world is becoming one large community, enriching each person's life through inter-connections. The World Brain helps make this possible.

The Personal "Week-In-Review"

When I began this blog, I thought I would post frequently; never expected anything daily, but surely once a week. Yet it has been about two weeks since my last entry. One who knows my history might not be surprised. I have been too busy living life to stop and reflect. That's not a good thing, but it is too often what happens. And not just with me; I see many others who have the same tendency.

To make sense of some of my posts, you might need to know that I spend my time in several endeavors: I work at a hospital two days a week, providing spiritual and emotional support to patients. Then, two other days are committed to my practice of spiritually-integrated psychotherapy. The rest of the time I pursue other interests including photography, spiritual and intellectual pursuits and my myriad friendships.

I share this with you because I have had some extraordinary occurances recently. On Saturday, I attended a one-day workshop on Understanding Buddhism. Most of my contact with Buddhism over the years has been with Soto Zen. This workshop helped me remember how much broader Buddhism is; how much it resembles Christianity in the variety of "denominations." One extraordinary thing about the workshop was that it was sponsored by the local Sufi community, but held in a Roman Catholic Convent, one of the emcees was a Hindu Swami, and most of the attendees were from other faith traditions.

In another post, I may discuss the contributions that the various faith traditions have to make for each other, but I don't want to digress at this point.

Another part of my life is as the adopted father of two daughters. They each have their amazing qualities. They each also are going through divorces, and look to me for understanding and sympathy.

One of them lives on the "Right Coast", in Boston. I received a call from her on Tuesday of last week saying that she and my grandson were coming to visit this weekend. Much of the last few days has been about them; especially helping Adri deal with her feelings about her husband's rejection, her trying to figure out the next chapter in her life as she considers relocating back to the "Left Coast", getting into law school and finding a job.

I love my work at the hospital. Much of the time I am listening to or working with people who are in great physical and emotional pain. Often they want to talk about their loss of capabilities, or the "death sentence" they have received. A lot of it is around end-of-life issues that most of us avoid considering. In order to function, I have to be empathetic, but also recognize that this is their life, their burden and not my own; all I can do is "be there" for them.

Occasionally I am especially touched by a patient. I have begun expecting that, of the 10 or 15 I see in a day, one or two will give me a gift--or be a gift to me. Yesterday was no exception. One patient with a broken arm, in her mid-80s, greeted me with a tease about my beard. When I responded positively to her spirit, she threw out another one-liner. We went back and forth like a couple of stand-up comics. We finally stopped and got serious as she began to relate her life story. She had been married several times--after number three, I began to lose track--to very weak men. She understood her error and asked, "David, do you think I'll get it right next time?" I sat there with my mouth open in amazement. Finally, all I could say was, "I sure hope so." Pretty lame--as she pointed out. I left the room chuckling. She had been a gift, and spiced up my day.

If patients say they have a faith affiliation, we try to visit with them whether they say they specifically want a chaplain's visit or not. On any given day I may see a few Protestants of varied denominations, two Jews, a couple of Roman Catholics, one or two Buddhists, and perhaps a Wiccan, or Muslim, Atheist or other faith community.

Yesterday's list included a young woman from a Roman Catholic background. As I entered her room, she began by saying, "I have a lot of issues with the church". Who doesn't? She is a Latin America major at a local university. She has spent some time in Venezuela, speaks fluent Spanish and is now preparing for an intern year in Colombia. She began talking about the loss of the changes from Vatican II, liberation theology and other movement for reform in the church. She has wonderful views of how the church should be about an "option for the poor", working for the benefit of the working class, the hungry, the orphan and widow. (Oh, do you hear echoes of Jesus' words?) She has been preparing herself for a life of service in this vein.

She was about to be discharged but will spend the next year recovering from a devastating illness. I can only hope that her idealism will maintain her through the year and she will be ready to continue her path. My too few minutes with her was an inspiration.

Life As A Table! Huh?

Don't panic. It is a metaphor, of course. A table usually has four legs. So does my life, at least as I am envisioning it this morning. Okay, maybe tomorrow it will be an umbrella, but today it's a table.

I have a strong sense of the physical; not that I'm a great athlete. In fact I have some arthritis in my knees and ankles. But that doesn't stop me from working out at the gym, or riding my motorcycle, or enjoying sex.

The Spiritual leg is also important. People associate various words with this leg. Some folk talk about "God", others envision a god who sits up in "heaven". There are many names, "Allah", "Gaia", "Paresha", "Shang Ti", etc. But it is not the name, the word, that is important, it is the experience of The Sacred. William James, who wrote the great The Varieties of Religious Experience (Note: not The Varieties of Religions) referred to "The More". Today and for me, a belief in a theistic "god", somewhere out there, is no longer tenable. But there is still something more and something Sacred that I experience in life, in the presence of death and, as much of a cliche as it may be, yes, on looking out at the vistas of Yosemite.

The emotions hold sway over our lives much more than most of us are aware. We learn anger, disgust, joy, and sadness as children. They control much of our existence and interaction with others and the world as a whole. Of course, we recognize our emotions on occasion, but most people live and react with them outside awareness most of the time. Others may recognize Mary's pain far earlier than Mary does. John functions coolly all day at his work, but then lashes out at the cat (Or worse, his wife or children) when he comes home. If someone asks, "John, why are you angry?" The reply may be "What? I'm not angry, the cat was just in the way."

A fourth leg of the table is the cognitive or intellectual. It takes various forms. For some it is directed and instrumental. Much of their cognitive function is "in order to." They need to fix the computer or a broken chair. Some are trying to solve a puzzle, whether Sudoku or space travel. Other's intellectual or cognitive inclination is simply to learn. They are curious about the cosmos, the great unified theory, or--as I tend to be--why people behave, feel and think as they do. My tendency is to want to know everything. (In fact my life motif is "I want to know everything about everything before I die." You needn't remind me of the impossibility of this.)

These table legs are all necessary to having a satisfying life. Most of us have known someone whose legs were unequal, unbalanced. We have all had the experience, in a restaurant, of sitting at a table whose legs were not equal. The table rocks and the coffee or water spills. The same thing happens with the table of life. Our lives can't be "the best that they can be" if they are unbalanced. Worse yet, at some point if one leg is even shorter, the cup will fall off the table, break and spill coffee all over the floor.

Of course in our life table, the legs are all connected by . . . connections. (I can only push the metaphor so far.) Our emotions control our physical, spiritual and intellectual aspects. In turn, cognitive activity controls our emotions. One of the great psychotherapy breakthroughs has been the discovery that emotions are largely learned (cognitive) and that they can be relearned; that we have automatic thoughts and habitual emotional states. It is as though parents teach their children how to feel. "In our family, when we are frustrated, we get angry. That's the Smith family way," or "We are Johnsons. When life is hard, we get sad." It works with the other legs too. Some people think better when they are working hard on the treadmill. Our behavior also controls our emotions and, obviously, our emotions control our behavior.

So what? I've been sitting here for a couple minutes and can't decide how to end this post. The best final message for today is to remind myself to keep my table well balanced and to work at becoming more aware of the legs.

The Sacred

Here's the rub: If I can actually describe it, it is not the Sacred. I can call things sacred, meaning that they are important to me or that they fill me with awe, but the word sacred implies something more. In fact, William James, writing in his famous The Varieties of Religious Experience used the phrase "The More" to designate whatever it was that some people called "God", others "Allah"; still other people, such as the Hindus, refer to various characteristics, but do not name The More. The Christian theologian, Paul Tillich, referred to the Sacred as "the ground of being."

Why is this so difficult? Because the Sacred can only be experienced, not described, every attempt to describe it is untrue. We can only speak of the Sacred in metaphor. And the metaphor only refers to our own experience of the Sacred. Others may, in fact will, have a different experience. Therefore, even if they use the same words as I do, they will mean something different. My metaphor can never be prescriptive.

Religious doctrines, dogma and creeds are always wrong, except for the people who wrote them. This is the origin of my belief that orthodoxy is always wrong. The Sacred is always more than we can encompass with our orthodoxies.

I prefer to use the word "heterodox", but in a new and positive light. Often heterodox is associated with heretical. But, as I see it, heterodox thinking deliberately rejects any orthodoxy in its entirety, seeing in orthodoxy the error of mistaking metaphor for reality. Orthodoxy sees the finger pointing to the moon and makes the mistake of creating doctrines and "truths" about the finger, worshiping the finger rather than seeing the moon. "Heresy", is simply the rejection of one or more orthodox positions, replacing it with its own alternative orthodoxy.

Of course, the same logic holds for almost all human endeavors. Those who "believe in" science, think themselves more rational than those who acknowledge their spirituality. Yet science is, by definition, not about absolutes, but about probabilities and approximations. The nature of science is asymptotic. That is, scientific "truth" is always approaching the truth but never quite reaching it.

Does that mean all is hopeless in communicating our experiences of the Sacred, our spiritual experiences? Yes and No! (Yeah. I hate that too.) Yes, if your goal is that others completely understand you and your experience, the most you can do is create the metaphors and give them to others (Even if some people actually convince themselves that their metaphors are the reality). One can, of course, make corrections to the other person's understanding of your metaphor and through dialog come closer to understanding. But it is still a metaphor and not the reality of your experience.

On the other hand, "No"; there can be value in religion. It can provide a common language, if it isn't taken too seriously, too literally, and too dogmatically. Having a common language means that we can come closer to understanding each other's experience of The More. A religion could, potentially, be a community of spirituality recognizing that each person must apprehend the Sacred for herself, but the members supporting each other's spiritual practice and growth. When this happens, we are facilitated in communicating our experience of The Sacred.