Punctum Saliens

That’s the hakuna mattata way of thinking. No worries because God’s gonna save our asses before things get real bad. So all these environmental, racial, terrorism, educational, political, &c. issues are God’s problem, not ours. He’ll clean them all up before his 1000 year reign and he’ll have 7 long years to do it — piece of cake for the great omnipotent one.

Ah, t’would be easier, t’wouldn’t it!

But back on the sane planet Earth, I’m watching a show about the biggest science discoveries of 2007 and one of them was that we lost an amount of ice in the Arctic equal in surface area to half of the U.S.A.! They didn’t expect that amount of loss for another 30 years but it happened this year! Talk about ahead of schedule.

So, I’m watching this show and imagining cities under domes to protect them from the poisonous atmosphere and scorching temperatures; and cave dwelling, marauding hordes of starving, bear-skin-wearing pirates; and underground cities where the temperature is cool enough to sustain life but it’s completely dark so the people mutate into walking, talking mole-people. And I’m imagining all this happening in the next 20 years or so because it’s getting serious out there, folks. It’s all rather depressing.

Then I ran across “On Hopelessness” at Sacred Awe. Fitting title, I thought, for my mood. One of the excellent points made in this meditation is that of “committed action, non-attachment to outcome.” This comes from Buddhism but I think it can be equally stated as “love your neighbor as yourself, do not worry about tomorrow.” You know, maybe it’s because I grew up with the “Christian version” and I heard the words so often that I became almost numb to them, but a simple rephrasing in different words makes the difficulty in carrying it out much more clear. Non-attachment to outcome: it doesn’t matter whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game. Non-attachment to outcome: don’t lie awake at night worrying about all the changes that are raining into your life like fire and brimstone, just do what you have to do right now. Non-attachment to outcome: don’t worry about being annihilated but don’t expect God to save your ass, either.

Something else from the mediation was part of a poem by Patricia Lay-Dorsay:

But it’s OK if sometimes we’re out of balance because the Universe goes on whether we’re along for the ride or not. Nothing humanity can do will disrupt the perfect balance of the Universe. We are not that powerful. Even though our choices can throw certain elements like climate species survival land and water ecology out of whack nothing we can do will throw off the beauty of the Universe itself.

I appreciate the motivation behind this poem but, honestly, my first reaction was: knowing the Universe will outlast our globally-warmed, nuclear-weapon-destroyed, raped-to-the-point-of-sterility little planet is not a whole lot of comfort. Maybe I just need to get out and look at the stars more often but I live in a city and it was snowing all day so there weren’t any to see. But maybe there is more here . . .

I’m not really sure it is relevant, but the first thing I thought of was the following from Alan Watts’ Myth and Religion where he is talking about the Hindu and Buddhist concept that “everybody is a manifestation of the divine, playing this game and that game. Your not knowing it, if you do not know it, is part of the game. It makes it all the more fun.” Watts says:

I would say to those among you who are the most ignorant, unspiritual, and stuffy, Congratulations! You are so lost in the game you do not even know where you stand, and are taking a gorgeous risk. Because of you we might even blow up the planet, and how close are we going to get with that one? In the same way as that car racer watches the speedometer needle going up, up, and up, there are people feeling more and more self-righteously determined that good shall prevail in the world, all the while watching that needle of world tension go up. It is getting hotter and hotter and hotter, and finally we may all go out in a blaze of glory. When the dust settles they will say, “That was quite a dream we have just woken up from. What shall we do next?”

Talk about non-attachment to outcome! But how do you get there??? That seems to be the question I’m asking a lot these days. I can see — off in the distance, across the chasm — an alternative viewpoint, one that seems like it will actually work for me (unlike Fundamental Christianity) but the bridge is out, my GPS is broken and it’s the longest, moonless night of the year. So, for now, I’m walking around in circles waiting for sunrise.