Important things

Last night I was reminded and provoked to really get down to doing what's important. I only have so long, you know.

I met Lai-yan and Meghan for dinner last night. We had been meeting weekly for a few weeks there, until spring break and some other things made us take a 3-week hiatus. Our custom was to eat (after they said a brief prayer of thanks), chat about life and random things, and then read aloud some Bible verses selected by Lai-yan and discuss their possible meaning, with me offering an uncertain conjecture, and then them providing a more certain conjecture.


Lai-yan also suggested that I start reading through the gospels on my own and taking notes; so at our meal meetings I would also have the chance to ask questions that arose in my independent reading.

This most recent meeting was the result of a rather prolonged scheduling process, during which I responded to Lai-yan's texts in quite a delayed manner, until we finally settled on a time. I imagined she might have gotten a sense of disrespect or disinterest from me, which was probably intensified by my admission, when we finally met yesterday, that I had not been thinking about or reading much of the Bible recently, as things had been pretty "crazy," except for when I was on spring break, when I just didn't do anything except relax and eat, basically.

So when, in response to her question a la "where are you at right now," when I described the state of my faith-searching (namely that I am still interested in learning more about the Bible and Christianity, enough so to continue reading the Bible at "some" pace, and enough to have decided to meet with them for dinner, yet on the other hand I still feel quite skeptical, and there are certain themes, e.g. eternal life, that I still don't understand, so that there are moments when I think to myself, how long should I give something a chance for before giving up on it?), she got down to business.

It was probably a combination of my recently diminished display of interest and the fact that we have been meeting for quite some time now and I have shown few indications of an imminent conversion. I had actually been wondering how long she would let things continue before coming out with the kind of impatient, unbending appeal that my friend, who had what he considered an awful experience with this church, warned me about.

Lai-yan said nothing judgmental or unreasonable, nothing like my friend's mentor with his talk of the need to be saved, which can only happen through baptism into their church, and his accusation that my friend was an "enemy of God." Lai-yan's words were cautiously respectful, and they touched me sharply with their earnest message.

She explained that is one of those things that you can't come to understand gradually. Basically, it's the kind of thing you have to plunge into fully and really seriously commit to, in order to get it. "Seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you" (Matthew 7:7). She pointed to that passage as an example of how finding God requires an active, hearty pursuit, and is only accomplished by people who really care about finding Him. "It's not for everyone," she noted, acknowledging that people are at different places and levels of readiness to receive God's word.

That idea of making a wholehearted commitment to seeking and finding God struck a vibrant chord in me that I felt had recently been muffled. I have thought at various times in the past couple of years that I would like to follow the "greatest commandment of all," to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind" (Matthew 22:37-38). Given my blurry conception of God, I don't know exactly what it would mean for me to do that, but Lai-yan reminded me that I really do want to make a SERIOUS commitment to SOmething, I want to give myself completely to some kind of spiritual practice or goal, so that all the actions of my life are united in that greater goal or practice.

I really appreciated her reminding me of that, and expressed this to her. I told them I would try praying, and asked for their help with how to conceptualize God while trying to pray They offered me some relevant Bible verses, told me that they would be praying for me, and asked me to report back to them next time.

Later that night, after getting ready for bed, I decided I should read one of the psalm's they'd recommended, to get started right away on my commitment to take this soul-searching and faith-seeking SEriously. So I got out my Bible and started reading, even though it was getting past my bedtime.

But within moments I suddenly stopped and realized that I was at that moment succumbing to a temptation; I was not exercising my strong commitment to soul-searching, but rather I had been blinded by the weight of Lai-yan's words and my own desire to re-commit, and was in fact undermining my goals.

In my confusion I was about to sacrifice a full night's sleep, which, as I have observed countless times, is actually quite crucial in order for me to have healthy thoughts and feelings and to be full of life. I was almost seduced by the easy pseudo-solution of immediately reading the Bible and finding the answers. Thankfully, I stayed true to my own wisdom and reason and went to bed.

Today I was thinking more about what really is important to me, and what I want to seriously commit to. I came across some good Zen Habits posts about doing "amazing things," and I want to spend some more time fleshing out what might be some "amazing things" for me to do.

Looking through my Google docs, searching the word "goals," I came across a document of notes entitled "Humanist Music Ideas," which reminded me of my vision of a humanist liturgy that would include beautiful, soul-stirring, spirit-lifting, heart-strengthening vocal music on all kinds of important life and spiritual themes (e.g. inspiration for times of trouble, moral advice, expression of gratitude).

And since I have recently been wanting to do some more composing, I think one of my goals will be to compose at least one beautiful a cappella humanist hymn.

I will write more soon, since I am quite sleepy and it is QUITE past my bedtime now (though thankfully I don't have to wake up for prayers tomorrow morning).

The only other thing I wanted to note was on the subject of communicating with God. I like the idea of trying to communicate with God and asking for guidance. I was contemplating that on my walk to the square to get Tallis Scholars tickets with K, and it occurred to me that if I asked for God's guidance, and if He were to tell me that I ought to stop walking, sit down on the sidewalk and contemplate my course of action, which is more or less the response I seemed to hear when I did ask for guidance during my walk, I did not obey; my aversion to such violation of social norms was stronger than my respect for the God with whom I was trying to communicate.

Of course, I in part rationalized my decision by noting that, with such little experience praying and an unformed conception of God, it was quite possible that the "answers" I was hearing to my questions were not from God but were from some mundane part of my brain, not unrelated to the part governing OCD-type impulses that might encourage me to touch a certain wall, or make some prominent, abnormal gesture in public. It occurred to me, as it has before, that there may not be much difference between prophets who hear God, and "crazy people" who hear voices.

For that reason, it might be better to hear God's word as a combination of potentially verbal mental answers to my questions along with feelings and conclusions that my heart, intuition and reasoning might bring me to - those latter forms of guidance might be even truer expressions of God's word than any words I might hear in my head.