God fer Heathens
I
come from a Roman Catholic family. I
was raised Roman Catholic. Like many of
this time, near the end of the dark ages, I found this faith did not meet all
the requirements I had for spirituality.
I haven’t been a Roman Catholic for quite awhile. However, unlike many I had unknowingly
acquired an alternative spirituality.
One that has proved remarkably adaptable and pragmatic in this era when
knowledge and spirituality often seem so contradictory.
I
began to hunt at my father’s side as a very young child. He thought himself Roman Catholic, but it
turns out, likely unknown to him, his spirituality was more complicated than
that. What he had was an adaptation of
aboriginal Cree spirituality to Catholicism.
It took many years after his death for me to understand this and that I
had inherited it. Though it was there
all the time in some fashion meeting requirements the Catholic faith did not
for me. My indoctrination into this
belief system began at about age five.
It grew out of the experiences of hunting and killing animals. My father in a likely subconscious to him
fashion impressed upon me the idea the animals are related to us. Animals are distant brothers, sisters and
cousins. It was part of teaching me
common anatomical features of animals which is required knowledge for killing
quickly and humanely as well as for cleaning and cutting up the animals. It led me vaguely to a question I had
difficulty approaching and formulating at that early age.
In
many indirect conversations over years I managed to ask my father, “If the
animals are our brothers and sisters, what gives us the right to take their
lives to sustain our own?” In similar
fashion he eventually passed on the idea we are higher beings and this is what
gives us this right. With his help I
also eventually understood for myself this right has to be earned. We must live as higher beings! We must be more than animal! Even the plants
we eat are living beings or potential living beings. And so by the way we live from the lives of other beings we are
charged with certain duties. These
duties can found writ in spiritual text everywhere and in every time. However they should be eventually self
evident to any higher being and need not necessarily be the word of the
Creator. (I generally think the Creator
would have little need or use for words.
Words are a contraption of humans.)
There’s
grasp of evolutionary theory in this thinking.
We are related to the animals, so we therefore must have a common parent
to all somewhere in the mists of time.
We are the pinnacle of many generations and must strive to reach even
higher. This seems the natural course to
me now with my modern knowledge of evolution.
Aboriginal hunter gatherer knowledge of the biosphere overwhelming
supports evolutionary theory. The
related aboriginal spirituality is an easy fit with this modern science.
Another
important idea gained from close association with the biosphere is there need
not be an afterlife. Might this not be
enough? Even in the briefest spark of
light that is our lives, is not the marvel of creation enough? Such bounty, such diversity, such depth of
experience and wonder! Even for the
mere senses of my aboriginal ancestors it was exquisite transcendence of the
animal. The everyday material universe,
very real without illusion or being just a shadow of something greater, as it
is now revealed by modern science is staggering beyond any mere belief
system. We see billions of light years
into the universe and at the same time billions of years into the past nearly
to the birth of Creation itself. We see
the dance of the equally small motes of light that make up the entire universe. We have begun to unravel the deepest
mysteries and puzzles of biological life and evolution. Even if one were allowed one breath of such
awareness as higher being, would not the sheer “joy” of it all take that breath
away and make even such a brief existence more than worthwhile?
There
need not even be a God or Creator! If
this be cosmic chance alone, even then, are we not privileged beyond
immortality to be one of its parts and bear its witness? If this universe sprang into being of its own
accord, are we not directly experiencing the self creating God and in the same
experience we are a part of its continuous whole? Even more precious and rare the flash of awareness is so brief
and finite! In this briefest of
flashes, is it not right, is it not most important to be the brightest flash,
the highest being possible? Because
these nearly insignificant flashes at their very limit of reaching higher will
eventually be the highest awareness of Creation. With this idea I point to the self evident duties of all higher
beings! Even for all us heathens! Perhaps we face an even a greater imperative
and harsher assessment than those we so often scorn supplicated in
idolatry! If evolutionary theory is
correct eventually a much brighter and enduring awareness will emerge from our
efforts at discharging duty. Since we
are part and parcel of Creation, it may well be this will be the final actual
awakening of the Godhead’s full awareness!
No doubt all that we do in our brief flash of existence is writ in some
fashion as the heritage of the highest awareness to come! How will this consciousness looking back at
us, its nearly insignificant progenitors, perceive and assess you? Are you part of its awakening or do you hinder
its ascension? Do you choose to rise
above the animal to meet the duties of a higher being?
MoFoPoHo