Driving in fog

[vaneramos]

Photo: Trees in the fog near Caledon yesterday.

~~~~~~~~~~

Yesterday I drove through fog on the way to pick up Brenna. They call Dufferin County the "roof of Ontario" and for good reason. I had to drive through clouds to get where I was going. Golden maples and trembling aspens lurched through the gloom at the roadside. Once I pulled over, got out and waded through tall weeds to photograph a barn beside brilliant foliage, muted by the mist. When I got back in the car, my overalls were drenched to the knees by moisture condensed on the grasses.

It was a good atmosphere for reflection. I made some decisions about my NaNoWriMo project. Part of the narrative will consist of a series of personal journal entries by the protagonist. For years before I started a handwritten journal in the style advocated by writers like Natalie Goldberg and Julia Cameron, I kept a devotional diary, writing down my impressions from Bible readings. Sometimes I wrote prayers. That was the only personal writing I recorded for 13 years. It doesn't reveal much about what I was doing, but elucidates my thoughts and beliefs at the time.

I remember when, shortly after my born again experience, one of my friends started talking about Creationism. We went to hear a Christian scientist explain why evolution was a lie. That was one of the hardest things for me to swallow because I had been fascinated by dinosaurs and evolution ever since I was a small boy. But swallow it I did. It's amazing what we can convince ourselves to believe when sanity and order depend on it.

Anthropologists have just announced the discovery of bones of a tiny species of human on the island of Flores in Indonesia. It is touted as the most important human fossil find in half a century. What's most remarkable about this creature is that it lived so recently, as little as 13,000 years ago. This new species, Homo floresiensis, is not a relic from the dawn of human evolution. It crossed paths with modern humans at the same as civilization was arising in the Middle East.

H. floresiensis was smaller than a modern pygmy, about 1 metre tall, the size of a three-year-old child. The adult female whose skeleton has been uncovered was about 30 years old when she died. Her species cohabited Flores with giant prehistoric rodents, a dwarf elephant, and Komodo dragons, a reptile that still inhabits Indonesia. The tiny humans and elephants are believed to have been wiped out by a volcanic eruption.

Creation science had many ways of explaining away the evidence for evolution. The truth of the Bible hinged, so they claimed, on proving that the earth was created in six days. They come up with all kinds of irrational arguments to discredit the truth. For example: that dinosaur fossils were placed there by the devil to lead us astray. I wonder what they'll have to say about H. floresiensis. Nothing new, I imagine. The lies we tell ourselves when our minds are not open.

Christianity also taught me some wisdom: about compassion for instance. And thinking about what is good and beautiful instead of what is hateful. For years I have closed down a large storehouse of experiences because of pain and grief too virulent to consider. Closing that door was necessary to distance myself and create a place of safety within my own mind.

Now I have a stronger sense of my identity. I know what I believe, and more importantly I know how to think and question things. The negative associations can't hurt me anymore. It's time to revisit those years of the past; time for reconciling different parts of myself. There are two sides to everything, maybe more.

Comments

[vaysha.livejournal.com]

Oh...
this was such a beautiful read. I enjoyed reading something so personal about you and the pictures that go along are so fitting, poignant and sort of evoke this bittersweet feeling inside.

I enjoy so many of the principals of Christianity particularly I have a great respect for and relate to this piece of your post here:

Christianity also taught me some wisdom: about compassion for instance. And thinking about what is good and beautiful instead of what is hateful. For years I have closed down a large storehouse of experiences because of pain and grief too virulent to consider. Closing that door was necessary to distance myself and create a place of safety within my own mind.

I don't know what your faith is like these days- My own feeling is that my relationship with the Divine and what I feel to be God are between myself and that energy it may be based on many of the principals of religion but I can't help feeling that man has warped religion, the context twisted to suit those who would oppress and hoard power. I have many christian friends and love and respect their faith and their fellowship with the church- I guess I have grown to prefer to greet God in Nature.

thank you so much for sharing and welcoming me into your world in this small way to share back.

happy day to you
V

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

You could say I revere nature. No, irreverant wonderment expresses it better. I don't believe there is any conscious or supernatural force behind the power of the cosmos, but nature far surpasses our understanding, in fact it probably surpasses our capacity to understand.

I have had a difficult relationship with religion. For several years I stopped identifying myself as a Christian, even before I stopped worshipping Jesus, because I couldn't relate to the legacy of bigotry, some of which I had experienced personally. I didn't associate with Christians, in fact I actively avoided religious people of all varieites. My feelings have changed. It is good for us to learn how to respect and learn from people who think differently.

I still believe religious fundamentalism is dangerous, promoting hatred and intolerance, but that is another matter.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I sometimes go through phases when I start remembering things, like the stuff about my music teacher that I posted a few days ago. Usually these are pleasant memories, which have become repressed along with a preponderance of unhappiness.

One of the most useful self-help books I have ever read was Intimacy and Solitude by Stephanie Dowrick, along with the accompanying workbook. One important principle I learned from her is the value of reclaiming good memories like this one you described. She asserts that no relationship is entirely negative. Even if your father was abusive, you undoubtedly had some enjoyable or meaningful experiences in his company. According to Dowrick, part of healing and actualizing your identity depends on being able to recall incidents like this in which you felt a sense of strength, value and belonging. This will help us face confusing or ambiguous circumstances in the future, which is an important life skill.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

The local newspaper article referred to H. floresiensis as "hobbit-sized". Maybe JRRT knew more than we supposed...

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Yes, that was mentioned in the National Geographic article I linked here, too. Tolkien is amazing.

[poetbear.livejournal.com]

lovely fog photos, Van.~paul

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :-)

[poetbear.livejournal.com]

yvw~paul

[ubermunkey.livejournal.com]

It's amazing what we can convince ourselves to believe when sanity and order depend on it.

this line says so much. really incredible how well it sums up my thoughts and feelings about mormonism. The chaos that I looked into as I tried to pull myself out of that was so frightening that I ducked back into mormonism just for the sense of order it brought.

great entry and great pics.
be well

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Where do you stand with that now? Maybe that's an uncomfortable question. Feel free not to answer it. I would be interested to know more of the story.

I dropped my fundamentalist beliefs and homophobia essentially overnight in a huge about-shift a few days after the separation. I attended a Metropolitan Community Church for about a year, but was disillusioned when I encountered religious bigotry even there. So I stopped attending and identifying myself as a Christian, even though I still identified with Jesus for a while. It took a few years for my beliefs to evolve to what they are now.

[ubermunkey.livejournal.com]

I think that mormonism isn't what it used to be. It used to be much stronger much more black and white. Now the ideas are watered down and spoon fed to the congregations to just keep them in check. With all things there are usually levels. The cult of mormonism is no different, on the surface it was pretty mild, but once you cracked that surface the religion actually attempted to have concrete answers to all those tough questions. Some of those answers were pretty bizarre. Now it is so watered down I don't think they encourage you to go directly to the source anymore. They seem to encourage you to just sit there and accept all that they tell you.

I no longer am a part of any organized religion. I am not near as bitter as I used to be, but I have learned that it just isn't for me. Instead of any one religion, I have the smorgasboard approach. If I find some ideal lovely and to have merrit for me, well I then try to incorporate it into my life.

My family is still mormon, and all convinced that I am going to burn outside the gates of their heaven. In the eyes of the church being homosexual is a sin second only to murder. My first look at escaping the dogma and manipulation of the church was around 16 when I moved out of my mothers house to rent a place on my own. I went a bit wild for a few months. This was when I found my cousin in bed with a "girlfriend" of mine. This was also about the time when I looked into the face of change and only saw chaos, that chaos drove me back into the church. I had no way to deal with releasing the belief structure I'd been raised with. I could not take the absence of it and contemplated suicide.

Realizing I was in over my head I moved home and got involved back into the church. Where I'd end up remaining for the next 7 years. I went on to fullfill a mission to Sweden for the church. It was in Sweden that my answers started to come to me. I met a man who was the most pure, intelligent, sincere, and loving human I'd ever experienced. It was when my mission president told me that I must convert him or he'd burn in hell, that I realized some things.

To this day I have never met a man as good and decent as Per-Gunnar. I could not fathom a good of love being dark enough to set things up this way. So after much "looking into the heart of chaos" I came to some of the realizations I now live by.

I hope that this wasn't too much Van. I just got on a roll this morning, but now must run off to work.

lots of love
connor

[ubermunkey.livejournal.com]

if that is too much please feel free to delete it, i would not be offended.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Not too much at all. It's interesting really. I can see some parallels with my own life and others I have known. The Christian teaching of compassion started to get to me the same way; I saw that people around me were preaching but not practicing unconditional love. I couldn't see how a god of love could condemn the feelings I wanted to share with someone.

love
Van