[MD] Boromir's Journey

[Steve Peterson]

Hi Matt,

>>> Steve said:
>>> ...
>>> For example, a mother cries with a smile on her face as
>>> she consoles her daughter who has just had her heart
>>> broken for the first time. Everything is wrong in the world,
>>> but will get better. Everything always is exactly as it
>>> should be.
>>>
>>> Matt:
>>> Ah--interesting.  But notice the condescension in the
>>> smile: "if you only understood," while all the daughter
>>> wants to give such knowingness is a big fuck-you.  Tell
>>> the people living in shit, literally in the case of Indian
>>> untouchables, and if they _don't_ give you a fuck-you, we
>>> might want to wonder why not--don't you _want_ things to
>>> get better?
>>
>>
>> Steve:
>> If the smile were condescending, the girl wouldn't keep going back to
>> her mom for comfort. But she does. I know for a fact that she does
>> because they are my hypothetical people, and they do whatever I say
>> they do! But I also think that people like the made up mother really
>> exist and that people are drawn to such people--people who are
>> completely engaged in the world (with hope) and also have a sense of
>> an imperturbable calm about them (faith). They can sympathize with
>> us, and we don't need to worry about dragging them down by our
>> sorrows. I think we all know people like that, and the words
>> "condescending" and "arrogant" don't come to mind when we think of  
>> them.
>
> Matt:
> Perhaps.  The notion of "teenage angst" probably looms
> larger in my mind than yours.
>
> To me, the non-perturbation would _not_ be what I was
> going for in venting to a person.  I think of sympathy as an
> imaginative effort, on the analogy of "putting yourself in
> someone else's shoes," and if they just sat there serene, I
> would think there was a disconnect going on, at the
> least--either an unknowingness (not enough imagination) or
> a knowingness (oh silly person, you must transcend these
> ephemeral delinquencies).

Steve:
I agree that when we are venting to someone we don't want someone to  
merely empathize (know how we feel) but also sympathize (feel with  
us), and I do know where you are coming from with the "oh silly  
person" smugness. My complaint is that the religious people touting  
their faith in a "we have something that you don't have" sort of way,  
don't really have anything that I want or that I think they ought to  
be smug about. They only seem to have a bunch of factual beliefs  
rather than anything of spiritual worth. Likewise, those that do have  
this something aren't smug about it at all. Smugness would be a clue  
to me that a person does not have this something worth seeking. Based  
on reading about such people and knowing some people who seem to be  
closer than others to what is called Enlightenment, I think it is  
possibly to feel extreme outrage and deep sorrow and also have a deep  
sense of inner peace. Unfortunately, the phenomenon of holding these  
two perspectives simultaneously tends to only be spoken about in  
religious terms such as in the quotes below.

Best,
Steve

“It is possible to grieve for a child’s death with all your heart and  
at the same time to realize that everything is as it should be.  The  
world according to God, the world that includes death is far more  
beautiful than the world according to our desire.  What we must  
constantly keep learning is not to interfere—to receive, to accept,  
to trust the supreme intelligence of the universe (I am what I am).   
If Jesus had reversed one death, that would not have taught us  
anything useful.  But for him to show us how to die and how to accept  
the death of those we love is a teaching beyond price.”   Maria Rilke


“What is “the good news”?  That true life, eternal life, has been  
found—it is not something promised, it is already here, it is within  
you:  as life lived in love, in love without subtraction or  
exclusion, without distance.  Everyone is the child of God—Jesus  
definitely claims nothing for himself alone—and as a child of God  
everyone is equal to everyone else.”  Nietzche


Stephen Mitchell:
What is the gospel according to Jesus?  Simply this:  that the love  
we all long for in our innermost heart is already present, beyond  
longing.  Most of us can remember a time (it may have been just a  
moment) when we felt that everything in the world was exactly as it  
should be.  Or we can think of a joy (it happened when we were  
children, perhaps, or the first time we fell in love) so vast that it  
was no longer inside us, but we were inside it.  What we intuited  
then, and what we later thought was too good to be true, isn’t an  
illusion.  It is realer than real, more intimate than anything we can  
see or touch, unreachable, yet nearer than breath, than heartbeat.   
The more we receive it, the more real it becomes. . . The luminous,  
compassionate intelligence of the universe, is not somewhere else, in  
some heaven light-years away.  It didn’t manifest itself more fully  
to Abraham or Moses than to us, nor will it be any more present to  
some Messiah at the end of time.  It is always right here, right  
now.  That is what the Bible means when it says that God’s true name  
is “I am.”