HOLY SPACE BETWEEN RELIGION AND THEOLOGY

Donald A. Windsor

Religion belongs to the clergy and theology belongs to academia.  Both of these camps would like the rest of us to just follow along with whatever they dole out.  Shepherding sheep is the clergy's model.  Gobbledygook is the theologians' fortress.

I do not need or want a shepherd because I like to go my own way.  I am not a follower.

I do not like, or even tolerate, the approach of academic theologians because they seem to be more preoccupied with the works of each other than they are with God.  Theology is supposed to be the study of God, not the study of theologians.  Academic theology is profound, but useless.  It has no practical applications to every day personal life.

So, I am left free-ranging in whatever ground I can scrounge between the two mighty realms of religion and theology.  To me, this sacred stretch is my holy space.  I can shop around in both realms, pick and choose what I like, and escape back to my precious sanctum.

Furthermore, I doubt whether God wants me to be anywhere else.  The clergy and the theologians, as well as those who are both, are middlemen.  I want direct access to God.

But conversing with God is a one-way street.  I talk, but God remains silent.  No conversation takes place.  But that is why I remain driven to explore.  Perhaps God responds in ways other than linguistic.  Perhaps God dialogs in terms of fate.

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FINDING PURPOSE IN LIFE

Donald A. Windsor

Assume that God has a purpose for each of us, or at least, some of us.  Our mission, then, is to decipher what it is -- and then accomplish it.  The actions performed carrying out this mission would constitute religious behavior.

The problem is determining what is the will of God, and what is our will, and what would be the proper mix.  Thinking that you are doing the will of God can be dangerous.  Atrocities have been committed by persons who firmly believe that they were doing what God told them to do.  Suicide bombers and other mass murderers immediately come to mind, as do psychotics and extreme zealots.  The harsh truth is that none of us can really know the mind of God.  After all, we can not even be sure that God exists.

An old joke states that Shakespeare did not really write all those works attributed to him.  Someone else with the same name did.  OK, then if God does not exist, assume that someone else is doing all the things attributed to God.  For it is obvious that the Universe exists and that something keeps it running.  Call that something God.

One way or another, we strive throughout our lives to find our purpose, our reason for being.  For some folks, it seems to have been easy.  They do everything right, earn the proper credentials, and practice their profession.

Unfortunately, for the rest of us, life is not so smooth.  We get jostled from one disappointment to another.   Our lives are jumbled misadventures full of agonizing frustrations.  Attempts at success are smacked back with abject failures.  Our every hope, our every dream, our every aspiration is crushed.  Sometimes we even come very close -- and then get walloped.

Sometimes I think that my purpose in life is to fail.  But maybe life is like trying to get out of a maze, where each dead end is a sign that the path chosen is not the correct one.  If that were indeed the case, then finding one's purpose would be a simple procedure.  Just keep plugging away, trying one damn thing after another, until the right one turns up.  Hackers use this approach when looking for passwords.  In fact, trial-and-error is widely used in trouble-shooting everything from machines to computer programs.  Why not use it where it counts, in our own lives?

However, what if trial-and-error never produces any successes?  Does success equal purpose?  Is our purpose in life to be successful?  It may not be.  Perhaps God's purpose for us was, or will be, achieved by some of the actions we performed as we struggled to achieve success.  After all, strange and devious are the ways of God.

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TALENTS, DEFECTS, AND FATE - A PERSONAL RELIGION

Donald A. Windsor

Religion on a personal level uses our God-given talents while overcoming our defects, all within the guidance of fate.  We are endowed with talents so that we can use them for God's purposes.

Organized religion is for community worship.  As such, it emphasizes rituals and organizational bureaucracies to provide social cohesion and control.

Some of us, such as yours truly, are not comfortable in the environments generated by these groups.  We like to go our own ways.  In fact, I believe God wants us to.  Does this mean that we are not able to have a religion?  No.  It merely means that we have to practice our own personal religions.  We certainly can belong to religious groups, but we cannot get too bogged down with them.

My personal religion is based on three components:  talents, defects, and fate.

TALENTS.  Talents are abilities that we were blessed with.  Of all our abilities, talents are the ones which are way above average, the ones at which we excel.  Many people seem to have no talents, which figures because most people are, by definition, average.  Or, if they do have talents, they do not display them.  They may even suppress them, out of fear of ridicule or abuse.  Exercising your talents can make your companions jealous, even contemptuous and vengeful.  Society punishes showoffs, except when they become successful; then they are merely envied.  Most successful people, especially in show business, came up the hard way, by overcoming rejections.

DEFECTS.  Defects are disabilities that we were cursed with.  These are the ones that distract us from or interfere with the development of our talents.  The most obvious defects are physical, but they can also be mental.  Some people are crippled.  Some are psychotic.  Some are highly emotional.  Some people with great talent are also saddled with devastating defects.

FATE.  Fate is how God communicates with us on a personal level.  The holy books and holy persons of organized religions tend to intrude between us and God.  Fate manifests itself in mysterious ways, sometimes jarring and painful, other times exhilarating and joyous.  Everyone experiences fate.  It is best recognized, and appreciated, when it saves us from horrible events.  Somehow, we come out unscathed.  However, sometimes we do suffer from terrible calamities.  Sometimes we react by asking, "Why me?"  Then again, sometimes fate is so benign that we hardly notice it.

Fate does not nullify free will.  If we choose to do something stupid, it is our own fault when we suffer the consequences.  Fate is usually expressed as improbable coincidences, such as being in the right place at the right time, or its opposite, being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Fate is very mysterious, but as I review my own long life, I can see how it has shaped me into what I am today.

I tried very hard to be a success.  In fact, I am still trying.  But every time I come close, something untoward happens to knock me off course.  However, when ever I get very discouraged to the point of giving up, something positive happens to inspire me to keep striving.  It is as if my life has been an eight-decades long channel in which I bounce between almost success and almost failure.  I consider this channelization to be my religious struggle.  I have been trying to push my talents and overcome my defects within the bounds that fate has allowed.

Practicing such a personal religion is not for everyone, only for those of us who believe that we really are talented, even if we have been presented with plenty of evidence that we are not.  We have a fire-in-the-belly motivation, and I assume that it has been bestowed on us by God to give us the perseverance to move forward.

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