Is spirituality real?

Picture by Moyan Brenn

I'm listening to a series of lectures on cds. They're all about skepticism (in a scientific sense). It's all about debunking spiritual "myths," conspiracy theories, clairvoyance and prophetic dreams. That sort of thing. It's fascinating really. The speaker gets into the difference between gender beliefs, social class, intelligence and how they influence what we believe. In a short form he says a skeptic is from Missouri, aka the "show me" state. A skeptic, he says, will believe anything as long as he is shown rational proof of its existence.

It's all very appealing. As I continued to listen I thought, "Yeah, that's me. I don't fall for all the spiritual hype out there." And really who would?

But is that the truth? Is spirituality a hoax? Is it simply explained by statistical analysis? (The author gets into prophetic dreams. How there are so many dreams that we dream that simple statistical chance explains many of them being prophetic.)

Well, don't get me wrong—I am a rationalist. I think reason is a necessary (and excellent) tool for living. But I also believe in spirituality.

Why?

Because of my experience. I believe every once in a while (and maybe it's all the time and I'm just not able to perceive it on a regular basis) God anoints my life, directs it so it flows with a grace and effectiveness that tremendously exceeds my natural ability. It's amazing really and the times I'm aware of it I'm so very grateful for it.

A brief example. I am a lousy golfer. But I love this little 9-hole golf course by my apartment called Falling Squirrel. Well, alas, corporate development swallowed up Falling Squirrel and it just closed not even a week ago.

A good friend and I had made plans to play the last day it was open. But the weather was turbulent, the clouds coal-black and a mass of rain was on the radar screen heading right for Falling Squirrel. It was such a shame that we wouldn't be able to play the course one last time (and say goodbye).

Well, it rained for only about ten minutes and then the sun came out! (On the radar the mass of rain that was headed our way just kept disappearing as it got near!) We were able to play the course.

When we got there, the course superintendent warned that the mosquitoes were bad. My friend and I discussed getting a cart (we usually walk) and the course superintendent said, "Hey, it's the last day. The cart's on me."

So off we drove and we had so much fun playing the course. And I (remember I am a lousy golfer) was playing with nearly supernatural skill. (I birdied the second to last hole and parred the very last—and very difficult—hole.)

As we stood on the last hole finishing up (the black clouds were encroaching), the first rain drop hit the bill of my hat. We hustled to my car and a deluge ensued.

The timing. The friendship. The weather. The new-found skill. Everything came together to make for a remarkable good time and for a satisfying goodbye to the course we both loved so much.

Could such good fortune be explained by statistical odds? Maybe. A meteorological quirk, fronts colliding? Yeah, it could. Could the improvement in my golf game have come from the practicing I'd done? Yes.

But I'm telling you I knew in my bones that it was more than any of that. I could just feel it. Everything we did that day had the touch of the magical. Had the touch of God's grace. His anointing.

So, there you have it. Can I prove that spirituality is real? Absolutely not. I'm just grateful to have experienced it that day and look forward to experiencing it more and more.

Is life fair?

Dustin Johnson

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A couple of days ago the U.S. Open golf championship was played in Washington state. I watched it with interest, especially since the Pacific Northwest is so beautiful. But really it was how the tournament wound down that left me pondering, pondering, Is life fair?

The guy undoubtedly playing the best was a lean, powerful twenty-something named Dustin Johnson. Dustin's had a troubled past: drugs, wild living, gang association, but he's worked hard at cleaning up his act. And this particular day he was hitting the golf ball so far and then hitting it so close to the flagstick on the greens. Only thing is—he couldn't make any putts. Even the short ones. And you need to make putts, especially the short ones, if you are going to win a major tournament like the U.S. Open.

On the very last hole of the tournament, Dustin was tied with Jordan Spieth, who is golf's new "golden boy." Only twenty-one, an easy smile and a graciousness not often found in twenty-one-year-olds, Jordan Spieth has endeared himself to the golfing world.

In many ways it was a white hat vs. black hat showdown. Spieth had already finished playing and now Dustin Johnson had a chance to win the tournament by making a relatively easy twelve-foot putt. The guy played the best. I don't particularly like him as a player but as I watched the TV broadcast I said aloud: "He deserves to win."

He lined up the putt meticulously. Crouching low. Squinting. Looking at the contour of the green from every possible angle to increase his chances of the ball dropping into the hole. The glory of being the United States Open Champion was his if he could make this one putt.

He missed.

And the ball ran by the hole three feet. Now he had to make this little three-foot putt just to tie Spieth. Again, he went through the process of endlessly lining it up, leaving no avenue or contingency unexplored. Finally he settled over the putt and made his stroke.

He missed again.

He lost the U.S. Open.

Was it fair?

Was God or the Universe or as golfers say "the golfing gods" favoring Jordan Spieth over Dustin Johnson? Was it a case of good prevailing over evil?

As in most questions like this, there is no answer.

Try to figure it out. You won't be able to. Life is a mystery. Life is life.

Some will make deep-thinking speculations that Dustin Johnson needed to learn something from the defeat. I don't buy it.

Some will say Jordan Spieth needed to learn from winning. I don't think so.

Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. You'll do plenty of both during your lifetime.

Keeping things that simple makes it easier to accept that that's just the way life is.

When life knocks you flat

My porch is great for watching storms. It's a simple porch but it's sturdy, practically wrap-around windows. You couldn’t ask for more. So one scorchingly hot July day I was out there watching a thunderstorm roll in. The first winds starting up, the dark clouds encroaching, a grumble of thunder and then BAM the storm hits full-force, vicious screaming winds, rain squalls, blistering lightning, deafening thunderclaps. It was so intense. I half worried about tornadoes and being hit by lightning but I stayed the course. Then I saw something that really transfixed me.

I need to back up just a touch. The company next door to the apartment building where I live had just put in new landscaping a couple of weeks before. Top shelf stuff. Sod. Mulch. Everything first-class, including fully-grown trees. Well, it was kind of odd to suddenly see the trees especially. It's like there's nothing but a worn-out lawn, brown patches everywhere one day and then you wake up and it's like the Garden of Eden. (Okay, maybe a slight exaggeration.)

Back to the storm. The windows were bowing. Plastered by angry rain. Butterflies racing through my stomach but I kept watching. Then a wind shear cut across the earth and—snap!—one of the fully formed trees broke right off at the root. That was it. Where there once was a beautiful tree there was nothing.

And the storm left leaving no apologies.

A couple of years went by with nothing but a lawn where the beautiful tree had been. But then...but then one spring there was a tiny little shoot that rose from the earth. Not much bigger than a dandelion. In fact, at first I thought it might be a weed. But that summer the little shoot grew to maybe two feet high. And then it survived a brutal winter, buried under mountains of ice and snow. The following spring it came back and now there were two shoots and they were thicker and stronger.

And year after year the process continued until where there once had been nothing now stands the tree you see in the photo in this post.

Oh, maybe it's not the lean beautiful tree it once was. But it is. It survived. Maybe when it went down people wrote if off. "Too bad," they might have said. "That used to be a nice tree." But they didn't know that little tree wasn't done, that it wasn't giving up, that it wasn't influenced by what people said or didn't say. It was going to live.

The tree looks different now. More like a bush than a tree. But it's stronger now too. All the shoots protect each other. Year after year it's weathered every storm with ease, and it's going to keep growing and growing and getting stronger and stronger.

And all that from something that got knocked flat.

My friend the mouse.

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I was startled the other day when I walked out of our office and saw a mouse. He was right next to the building. I expected him to dart away, but he didn't. He just sat there, plain as day.

We've had some mice in the basement but I'd never seen one outside. I kept waiting for him to take off but he didn't. He just sat there and sat there and sat there. And I just kept watching him.

Watching his little pelt flex with every breath. Watching his little ears wrinkle. His eyes blink. And he seemed like an old mouse.

Well, I had to get back to work so I figured I'd make a noise and see where he ran to (and see if maybe he had found a way to get into the building). So I clapped my hands.

The mouse definitely reacted but in a way I didn't expect. He just kind of turned and ran into the wall. Then he stopped and stayed there panting.

That really piqued my curiosity—and my compassion.

I started to wonder if the mouse was perhaps blind, and then if he was perhaps dying. (And I felt like a jerk for having clapped my hands.)

This little thing was so vulnerable, and yet was he really that different than me? A mammal. Warm blood in his veins. A heart beating. The same sense organs. And he was struggling and just trying to stay alive. And perhaps dying.

I felt an immense compassion for this little creature and for all the animal world really. It's tough out there for everybody: humans and all creatures. We're all just trying to live, to be safe, to have a home. And some of us are blind or sick or scared or dying.

I had to go back into work. The next time I came out the mouse was gone. But I really hoped he had found a peaceful, safe place to spend the rest of his days. He probably saw me as a giant terror, but I saw him as a fellow vulnerable traveller on this planet spinning through the universe. I wished him well.

Perhaps that's the true gift of being human. We are beyond instinct. No longer slaves to 'fight or flight.' We can stop, think, relate, empathize, change, care. And not just for ourselves or other people, but for all the creatures on this planet who are sharing the same scary, vulnerable, glorious ride along with us.

Why I decided to be myself

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I decided to be myself because I got burned out trying to be somebody else. Despite my most intense striving not only was I getting nowhere in my life, I was going backwards. It was no great philosophical insight that led me to this conclusion. No, I had to get physically sick, near dying, to make the change.

What had happened was I was trying to do all the "right" things. Working hard to be a great employee. A great family member. A great friend. A great Christian. A great writer. And a lot of the things I was doing in pursuit of that greatness were completely distasteful to me. It was strange—I was working as hard as I could and yet the more I did in pursuit of "my" goals, the more miserable I became. And it was hard to recognize that I was making myself sick. When you're working hard, trying to do what you think is right, what are you supposed to do as an alternative?

Be yourself. That's what I discovered. But weren't a lot of people unhappy that I changed my ways? You bet. Did I feel bad about their disappointment? You know, for the first time in my life I didn't, and I didn't because I said to myself, 'I shouldn't have to die to live.'

In a spiritual sense I thought, 'I may not know what God wants me to do, but I'm pretty sure He doesn't want me to die.'

So yeah, I started being myself. It was a huge relief. And I started recovering—physically, emotionally and spiritually.

Oh, it wasn't like I had that one experience and my life turned around forever. No, I can still drift back into that old rut, but never as deeply as before. Now I can say, 'Nope. That doesn't work for me. What do I need to do? Be myself.'

And that's it. I'm myself. It's good enough. I'm living (and plan on continuing to live). Sure, I hope you like me. I hope you like the way I'm living. But if you don't, well, I'm not going to change.

Because I found out being myself is a good thing. And everybody has the same right—to be themselves. It comes with being a human being. It's built in.

So if you need to—claim that right for yourself. It's yours for the taking.

Learn from the pigeons

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Something tells me it's all happening at the zoo.—Paul Simon

Think about it. What are animals doing all the time? Look at squirrels or sparrows. They're hustling around trying to find something to eat, or trying not to be eaten, or building their nests. Hustle hustle hustle. And hey, it's not really their fault. If you had coyotes or cats to watch out for you'd be pretty skittish too. Like the Bee Gee's song "Stayin' Alive." And then there's instinct, driving them to procreate, migrate and probably a few other things that end in -ate. So yeah, everything in the animal kingdom is doing all it can to stay alive. 24/7. Everything except well, pigeons.

Pigeons hang out. While every other animal is scrambling around in a survival frenzy the pigeons are lined up on a wire or light pole somewhere hanging out. Sometimes I imagine what they're saying to each other.

Hey, we've done enough work for one day, what's going on with this hot weather of ours?

Look at all those poor people scrambling around in their cars, honking, rushing, stressing. Glad we're not them!

Ah, life is good!

Pigeons have broken the instinctual stranglehold other animals suffer under. They're mellow. And they're social. You never see pigeons alone. 

So why not us too? Can't we live the same way? Say the same things?

'Hey, we've done enough for one day.' 'Our house is nice enough as it is—we don't need a bigger one.' 'Let's all meet down at the coffee shop for a nice chat.' 

They say dolphins and whales are smart, and they may be, but the real animal geniuses are pigeons. If only we could be more like them.

Be a different person each and every day

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Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.—Oliver Wendell Holmes

As human beings we are made to surpass ourselves and are truly ourselves only when transcending ourselves.—Huston Smith

If you're completely satisfied with who you are, I suppose this post won't appeal to you—you don't need it. But if you're anything like me, this sort of thing gives a great deal of hope.

Stretching. That's what it boils down to. I have a screensaver on my computer that says: If it doesn't challenge you, it won't change you.

Again, if you're perfectly satisfied with who you are, you don't need it. But the rest of us do.

Not that we necessarily want to be challenged all the time. But being challenged is what's good for us. It's where life is.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim.

That's it, shooting the gulf is where power is, is where life is. So maybe the challenge we could live without. But we can't live without the life. So no challenge, no life. Or perhaps, no challenge, only half a life.

And taking on challenges can be like a drug. Once you start taking them on you need more and more of a challenge the next time to be satisfied. Oh, it may take a while to get to that point. In fact, it may take a long while—for the longest time every challenge may only seem like a way to make us suffer. But you can get to the point where challenges are exciting. Like the old saying goes, There is a fine line between anxiety and excitement.

Challenge yourself enough and you'll cross that line.

If you want to live, you'll challenge yourself. And if you keep challenging yourself, pretty soon you'll come to love challenges, and your life will be a thrill a minute, and you'll be a stretched person, a different person each and every day.