One of the many benefits of a Jesuit education, among others, is the ability to ponder the universe during the early hours of the morning in a night interrupted by the nocturnal emission of one cat puking on the bed. So I sit upon my bed and wonder and wander.
I was coming back from therapy, which was actually a better session than I have had in recent weeks, probably due to my query about therapeutic yoga. The Bird seems quite engaged that I would be willing to try this. She did.not seem to be disappointed with me any longer for not giving EMDR a fair shake. But I digress. My buddy and I were talking about AA (which I think is a great program if it works for you...it did not suit my needs and I have still been sober over eighteen years) and the concept of a Higher Power. To me AA substitutes in addiction, in this case booze, with another, in that case religion, and seems to abandon the concept of owning the process of sobriety and abandoning responsibility for The Self. You admit you are powerless over your addiction and turn yourself over to a Higher Power. Again, if it has worked for you that is wonderful. Didn't work for me as I had a hard time with the Higher Power business and in the meetings I attended, and I did attend meetings, the Higher Power that was often very Christian and full of God. So, my buddy and I were talking about this and she was saying that she thought of a higher power (lower case) as nature, not God-driven. And I was saying I had trouble with the concept of higher powers. At once I was an atheist, later a more rational agnostic. Now I don't know what. I told her of my experience as an undergraduate at a Jesuit college (to which I had earned a scholarship). I spoke to a Jesuit who had a Ph.D. In physics and I asked how could he reconcile his faith in God with a scientific mindset, he said he believed in the Big Bang Theory but a God had provided the 'divine spark' to start the ball rolling. Whatever gets you through the night I guess. This to me was a less that satisfactory explanation of the whole soup,of the universe, to wit to woo GOD.
Later in my collegiate career I learned of Pascal's Wager. Blaise Pascal was a French mathematician in the 17th century. He posited the following logic about the existence of God. If you believe in God and there is one you have won the wager. If you believe in God and there isn't one you have neither won nor lost. If you don't believe in God and their is one then you have lost. So, in other words, all humans bet their lives that either God exists or doesn't. Given the possibility that God does exist and assuming an infinite gain or loss associated with the believe or unbelief, a 'rational' person should live as though God exists and seek to believe in God. If Gid does not actually exists you only have a finite loss. What is most significant about the Wager is it gave rise to new ground in probability theory, marked the first use of decision theory and actually can be said to anticipate such future philosophies such as Existentialism, Pragmatism and Volunteerism. This is but a brief explanation of the concept. It had a grip on me and still does. I tend towards an Existential world view. Yet I believe in a God, basically because I believe in music and creation thereof. When first I heard Mendelssohn's violin concerto, the one in E minor, op.,64, i believed in a God. Such beauty had to arise from sacred space. Less than logical but every time I hear that piece I am reduced to tears at its sheer beauty and harmony with my universe.
So like my buddy who believes Nature is a higher power of no particular religiosity, I hear in music God's Trombone being played. (A tribute to James Weldon Johnson). Many more to my point is the concept that we are all in this together, whatever this is, And there is only one way out and there is no knowing what exists in the great beyond. All we can know is what is here and now, what came before is merely prologue, to swipe a line from the National Archives.
I am sitting here in bed pondering and sweating as it is so humid not a sound is audible. I am waiting for first light so I can take a walk and appreciated the beauty of the day. Chalk this up to ramblings of a not so mad woman.
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