Living with Open Hands 2.0 -- a continuing evolvement

Living With Open Hands -- A CONTINUING EVOLVEMENT

When I started blogging, little did I know what was in store for my life. My blog became a way of documenting my spiritual journey through the storms: divorce, job loss, foreclosure, depression, loss of health benefits, single parenting, etc.

Often I became so world weary that I have often asked, "Am I done? Can I be done? Please?" Or at least stop the rollercoaster so I can get off for a minute!

But I began to realize that life is more than my expectations, my wishes and longings, my happiness.

It is the storms that carry me to another level, another depth, as I continued my downward growth and evolvement (or devolvement).

What am I learning?
Where am I heading?

I'm learning to quiet the answers
and live the questions.

Writing has become a sort of
History of My Heart. 
A journey that I did not choose, 
but that chose me. 
A journey that has both given me life 
and kept me alive.

A journey that took me so much further

than I ever imagined.

A journey that ended up

not being a journey at all!

Now, after 17 years of blogging, I've had over 90,000 hits from over 150 countries.

http://ronirvine.wordpress.com

Throughout this process I've been asked about publishing my writing by enough people that I began playing with organizing my blog posts into a Table of Contents that could be used for a book. A friend of mine is a publisher (https://www.facebook.com/pg/WeaselWorks/posts/) and we have been toying with the idea for a few years. Whether I do or not is no great matter compared to the transformative process that writing has been for me. Here is Living with Open Hands 1.0.
https://ronirvine.wordpress.com/

I have also transferred the main page to this new Blogger blog, which links back the the Wordpress blog posts:  https://livingwithopenhands1.blogspot.com/ 

So I now have Living with Open Hands 1.0
and Living with Open Hands 2.0

I've found that Living with Open Hands has been deeply shaping my personal values and beliefs about life. But it has also greatly challenged my bigger world and life view, which has brought me to a point of realizing the extent that in many ways I have been a second hand person. I've believed stories about life that I have been told to believe. I've accepted the packaged, canned version of the culture and religion that I was raised in. In so many ways, I miss that and have wanted to climb back into that cozy box. But once the milk has been spilled and the cat is out of the bag, there is no real going back. That cocoon is gone.

I have found that once my eyes open, once I See, 

there is no unseeing; 
once I understand at a deeper level, 
there is no way to un-understand
the deeper things of life;
I can only keep on Seeing

further and more deeply.

Once my heart and mind has been stretched 
into a new and powerful paradigm, 
it can no longer find its old shape. 
Going backwards is not possible. 

As I wrote Living with Open Hands, my understanding shifted greatly and my views of God deepened, broadened, and became more mystical. I realized the limitations of language to describe things that are abstract, like God and beliefs. I realized that even labels like mysticism was a way for me to describe a God created in my image. I've realized that the word "God" is nothing more than a label for an image in my head that may or may not correlate with the image in your head. But I do know that this label confuses anything that is real. I did know that the "God" I have believed in is a god created in my image, a mental graven image. That is all we are capable of.

But then as I studied the work of Joseph Campbell, I realized that humans naturally create myths to describe things in concrete terms that cannot be described in words at all. But we are story-telling, meaning-making creatures. We can't help it. Too often it is our discomfort with mystery and the unknown that drives us to label things with words and stories. It deepens our comfort, security, and certainty which many of us worship.

“You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”
(Ann Lamott)

So anyway, this Blogger blog is Living with Open Hands 2.0, as I continue to work out my own world and life view. It is the unfettered version where I can be free to fully express my doubts and continue to be open to all people, all ideas, all beliefs, all values so that I can be true to myself and my own integrity; while also taking in new ideas and incubating my progressing concepts of truth within over time.

By switching to another platform for blogging, I can continue to be honest without worrying about "offending" people that believe the things I used to believe. I affirm all people and realize the beliefs and values of all people are sacred and to be honored and respected. Therefore, I have no interest in arguing and even defending what life is showing me. I simply need to embrace what I learn while digesting new ideas; always open, always learning. A process that will reveal truth in the way life has always taught me;
by reminding me what I already know and
by truth resonating deep in my bones in undeniable ways.

For 15 years of writing, I've been uncomfortable using the word God
while describing my spiritual journey.
God means something different to each and every person.
But defining God does not help at all.
Using words like God is very divisive and decisive.
I've sensed this during my downward journey.

See Theological Noncognitivism.

This holds true stronger now than ever.

Looking back on this deep impulse, I can now see that there are words that describe what I was sensing:
Theological Non-cognitivist
Nontheist
Ignostic
Agnostic

These reflect the depth that I've had to go to in order to "let go" so that I can "let come" new understandings. I have found that at this point in my life, two things ring true:
1. As soon as "God" is defined, we have then recreated God in our image.
2. Definition creates perception but neither of these come anywhere near reality.

3. All we are left with is a mental indelible graven image.

It reminds me of the parable of the wineskins where Jesus explains that old wineskins cannot hold new wine. The new wine will expand, ferment, becoming stronger and stronger, destroying the old wineskins. For me, my old myths and stories are my old wineskins. The new revelations of truth that are anchored in my bones can no longer endure or be contained by my old wineskins.

Although I have no idea how my understanding will evolve,
I do know this:

I do not write because I understand... 
or have answers.
I write because I do not understand... 

because I do not know.
All I can do is continue 

working out the questions

knowing that if I already know

I can no longer learn.

and
I do know this:

When things stop making sense 
for me in life, 
stop working in my life, 
I will listen 
to what I am being told by life. 
I am willing to 
learn, unlearn, and relearn 
what is necessary to continue.

“Be patient toward all that is unresolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the question now. Perhaps you will then gradually without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answers.” (Rainer Maria Rilke)
Also see, A Page of Lost Questions

At this point in my life, the traditional answers really don't have much meaning anymore. That is why I find Joseph Campbell's work on the Power of Myth so fascinating and meaningful for me now. In our present culture, the word "myth" has come to mean something that is untrue. But the way it has been used by many great philosophers is that a myth is simply a story that gives meaning to life and explains things that are not very understandable; a story that gives us meaning for our lives. The power and value of a myth is the meaning that it gives and impact that it has on your life no matter whether it is true or not.

I've been fascinated by religions all my life, especially the way they organize people, give meaning and purpose, focus us in one direction, and do good in the world. But this power can be seen as both good and bad. No one can deny how damaging some belief systems are.

I guess that one of my greatest intellectual realizations is that all religions and theological systems are human constructs and that is how we create societies, cultures, and religions. Their value can only be measured by the impact for good that they have on the lives of the people that follow them and the cultures that are shaped by them.

So what do we do with what we know, what we learn, what we see, what we hear?

How then shall I live???

We go on... 
We continue...
We let go...
We let come...

Without judgment...

Without attachment...

Without resistance...

Waiting without expectation
Listening for that inner teacher
Reminding us what we already know.

Living with Open Hands
an expression of
an Open Mind,
an Open Heart, and
an Open Will.

Eye Wide Open,
Ears Wide Open,
in the Face of Mystery, Chaos, and the Absurd
I Walk Forth in Awe and Wonder.

I've learned to be gentle with my own soul during this devastating and destructive journey. It is downward journey, a loss of everything I thought dear to me. A journey I would not choose. BUT a journey I could not UN-choose. But I have found the following articles that deeply resonate with my inner condition; a sort of lostness or groundlessness that is so FREEING!!!!

The Nones versus The Dones:

For me this article describes a very distinct difference between those that do not identify as religious (nones) and those that have had a life long deep commitment to religion but have had experiences that have opened their eyes and that no longer allow them to keep believing what they have been told all their lives (dones). Been there, done that. But the emotional and social ties and trauma to their old lives and beliefs keep tearing at the fabric of their new understandings. This is an experience that many atheists or agnostics really can't identify with. Those deep personal ties will be there the rest of their lives.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/godlessindixie/2015/03/27/the-nones-vs-the-dones/

The In-Between State:

The secret of Zen is just two words: not always so.
—Shunryu Suzuki Roshi

"It takes some training to equate complete letting go with comfort. But in fact, 'nothing to hold on to' is the root of happiness. There’s a sense of freedom when we accept that we’re not in control. Pointing ourselves toward what we would most like to avoid makes our barriers and shields permeable."

https://tricycle.org/magazine/pema-chodron-teachings/

Other People's Gods

"Take religion, for example. Once you start formally studying world religions you learn there are logical, natural explanations for how they came to be.

"Life in ancient Egypt was predictable and consistent because the climate in that area was equally predictable and consistent. Rains came and went with reliable punctuality, and the waters of the Nile rose and fell at the same leisurely pace every year, making agriculture pleasantly manageable.

"Now how do you suppose their gods behaved? If you guessed they were predictable and consistent, you’d be correct. Like the natural environment in which the ancient Egyptians lived, the gods of Egypt were orderly and even-tempered. You knew what they wanted, and when you gave them what they asked for (through the priests, who benefited most from this system of worship), your crops thrived and your family enjoyed good health and fortune.

"Over in ancient Mesopotamia, however, things were considerably different. Their climate was shifty and unpredictable. Floods came and went with little warning and often with devastating effect. The rains which produced their floods fell far away from the best farmlands, so they rarely knew what to expect. And since ancient people believed Nature measured the moods of the gods, ancient Mesopotamian gods were always getting mad about one thing or another. They were capricious and vindictive, and the trick was figuring out what set them off…and what could be done to appease their wrath.

"That’s where the priesthood came in. Ancient Sumerian and Babylonian religions were filled with instructions about what you could and couldn’t do, and most importantly of all they had systems in place for atoning for the sins you committed against their deities. It almost always had something to do with feeding the priests—either through sacrificing animals or through offering grain and produce from the fruits of your own labors. How convenient for them."

The author goes on to very logically explain how human beings tend to create gods in our image." (Neil Carter)   https://www.patheos.com/blogs/godlessindixie/2019/04/13/a-religion-obsessed-with-blood/

Why We Made God in our own Image

Why We Make Gods (Neil Carter)

Check out this very interesting description of the god most of us in the west were thoughtlessly raised with... Behold Thy God!