Subject: Re:'I believe, Lord. Help thou my unbeleif....'
From: Cecilia Baader (cbaader@cubsmvp.com)
Date: Thu Apr 26 2001 - 13:11:45 GMT
Scottie Bowman <rbowman@indigo.ie> wrote:
> Have you no problem, Cecilia, with the way highly
> sensitive, highly intelligent people can hold totally
> contradictory beliefs with an equally intense conviction?
The transubstatiators v. the consubstantiators? Frick v. Frack?
No. Not at all. You see, I basically live my life under the assumption
that everyone else is wrong, and that the truth lies somewhere in
between. I cannot answer for anyone else, I can only answer for
myself.
There's a device in literary fiction that has become more and more popular
in the last fifteen years -- magical realism. That is, treating the
impossible as if it were possible. A dream holds just as much force
as "reality". The dead are still available for conversations. Your
sock drawer can open itself up and talk to you. Or maybe a deaf-mute
uncle of your new sister-in-law rides along with you in a crowded
motorcar.
Good examples of this sort of thing can be found in books like
Louise Erdrich's THE ANTELOPE WIFE or Cristina Garcia's DREAMING IN CUBAN.
It captures the imagination and forces you to confront the question of what,
precisely, is reality. I like this fiction. I like it a lot. The reason
that I like it is that it rejects the norm. It allows for the fantastic
and forces me to look at things from a direction that would never occur
to me otherwise.
So no, I'm not worried about what is deemed "right" by other people, or even
by myself. I accept my truths as fallible. I'm changing my mind every day.
Perhaps the coffee cup sitting at my right hand is not really a coffee cup
but a gateway to Nirvana. Perhaps I've been blind all this time, and will
continue to be so for years to come. All that I can do is operate under
the understanding that the quest for truth is eternal.
> It always seemed to me the more disadvantaged, the greater
> the need to believe. It doesn't seem to matter greatly
> WHAT one believes so long as it's SOMETHING.
> Or rather, as Chesterton pointed out, ANYTHING.
> Anything at all.
The opiate of the masses? What system of thought is not, when you look
at it closely enough? It's a way to decide how you are going to live.
You believe, you decide what path you're going to take, and then you
take it.
Even not believing is a sort of belief. When you disbelieve, you choose
to put your faith in the concrete rather than the abstract. To try to
separate the nonbelievers from the believers is meaningless, as far
as I'm concerned. It's a matter of choice.
Regards,
Cecilia.
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Thu May 17 2001 - 17:47:53 GMT