(un)Veilings

Au revoir, Merci beaucoup, and Hey! You're all invited!

Well, today is an historic day in the life of (un)Veilings.  Today marks the last post that (un)Veilings will unveil.  That's right:  the last post.  What a strange thing to hear myself say!

The joy in my nastalgia is that I get to invite you to where the soul of this space has moved:  KristinNoelle.com.  I welcome you to my new online space!  Come on over and take a look around.  The archives from here will live there now, and any comments you want to leave can be left there, too (beyond this post, comments on unveilings will now be closed).

And if you want a live link to my site (this one will be taken down completely in a couple of weeks), don't forget to update your blogrolls/feeds with the new address!

Thank you for a wonderful two years here.  I can't say enough how healing and inspiring and hope-inducing this space has been for me.  Your ears have been the gravity for my words, and because of their pull, my life as a writer has grown wings.  Thank you.  You are a gift.

Kristin

Fall

Everywhere I turn now, I see Fall.  Pumpkins and decked-out leaves and cooler air and sweaters.  People are buzzing about snow, even, in some parts of the world (I won't tell you what our highs have been here this week).  And alongside all that change, we people just keep changing too.  For the better, in so many cases.  And sometimes neither for better nor worse, but just becoming happier or sadder, or more reflective, or wishing for less change.  Or for far, far more of it.

Here's to all of us, in every stage of Fall there is. 

(and a few photos of a very sweet pumpkin)

Birds of many feathers Part II: As long as the birds can get high enough to see beyond the crevasse

Thank you everyone for such a great discussion!  I hope those whose perspectives differ from the ones offered so far feel free to join in.

Here is some of what I've heard us saying:

• Devoutness comes in many forms--both religious and not, evangelical and not.  And we're all devoted to something...many things.
• This begins a list of ways that people are alike:
  • Early formation probably has a lot to do with our epistemology--the stories we internalize about how to know what's true.  Some epistemologies have more wiggle room than others, and therefore lend themselves more naturally to a variety of ways of finding truth.
  • Regardless of our epistemology, respect and tolerance are challenges for all of us, inside and outside of religion.
  • Seeking security/self-protection is a natural instinct, and making sense of the world/self/God is part of how we protect ourselves.  Establishing a shared reality around this sense furthers our protection; camaraderie makes us feel (and actually be more) secure, and feel more like the sense that we've made is right.
  • When the sense we've made gets challenged, we instinctually move to protect ourselves more, by protecting what's being challenged.  This is normal.  There's nothing wrong with this.
  • Unlike many other types of animals, we can more easily (I say more easily because I think this doesn't come easily for everyone) self-reflect and recognize we're feeling challenged, feeling self-protective, and make decisions about how we want to respond to such feelings.  We can consider the ramifications of our responses for our relationships.
• Religious devotion (and possibly any devotion at all) that includes vulnerability and insecurity may be and open up the possibility for non-violence in ways that other types of devotion cannot.
• Religious devotion (and any kind of devotion at all) that requires assent to a set of assertions--assent, specifically, that claims security and invulnerability--may be and open up the possibility for violence in ways the alternatives do not.

In light of all of this, I've been thinking more about that list that began the last post.  I'm wondering whether all of it needs to be changed.  I have this image in my mind of what it means to differ from another person about some fundamental thing--whether God exists, for example, or what God is actually like, or what in our heart of hearts, we're like.  It's the image of a chasm, opened wide between you two.  I suppose the wideness of the chasm depends on how different your views actually are from each another's.  But still, I think the chasm's there.

And I think it's possible to live one's entire life feeling, and therefore believing, that that chasm defines, entirely, relationship with that other person (or group.  I think we often see people as members of groups, rather than as individuals--Jews/non-Jews, Christians/non-Christians, theists/athiests, gays/straights, men/women).  Sometimes that chasm is so deep, and so wide, that it's nearly impossible to ever, even with the best of luck, see anything beyond it.

But this is the other thing I'm becoming convinced of:  these chasms aren't all there is.  In any dyad, and a dyad can be two people, or two groups, or one person and a group, whatever--in any dyad I think there are multiple chasms, as well as multiple stretches where the ground between the two parts comes completely together.  And I think that even in the case of chasms, there are often also bridges, where abysses can actually be crossed, albeit sometimes only skillfully, and sometimes at great peril...or great cost.

But the terrain is varied, is what I'm saying.  Between all of us.  Try living with someone--even someone you're madly in love with--for any length of time, and any dream of only solid, crackless ground will dissipate into all the little and big things that drive you nuts about them (God bless their soul), or, and this may be more pertinent to this conversation, all the ways you realize you don't see things as similarly as you thought.  You'll realize that for the sake of love, and of peace, and of sane cohabitation, both of you must work to find ways around those chasms.  Or through them.  Both of you must believe that they aren't the only thing there is.

I think this is true of relationships across any religious or devotional divide.

So.  In the case of that list from last time, maybe people from different sides of religious divides can actually talk honestly about religion--even openly about thinking the other person is wrong--and remain genuinely respectful of one another if, and this is an enormous if, I think--they can also include in their active awareness the knowledge that the terrain between them is varied, and includes long stretches of connection.  Long stretches of ground that's in common, and passed easily between.  Sometimes it's probably even necessary--not optional, but necessary--for the two to explore together where those places of connection are.  Not doing so can mean the chasm (or chasms) defining the whole relationship, and consequently coloring completely both party's feelings about one another.  Feelings for people across chasms, at least as far as I can see, aren't generally pretty.

This "if" is a big one, though, and one that's hard to find in many circles.

So the question then begs asking:  is it really worth finding places of connection and common ground when a) the chasms between two people or two groups are immense, and/or b) one half of the dyad in question isn't interested in searching for them?

I think in many cases it's not.

I think there are cases where all this kind of searching does is leave one or both parties constantly scraped and bruised, constantly hopeless and frustrated, constantly yearning for some kind of home, some kind of place to relax and be at ease.  I think there are times in certain lives when peace is what's needed most--needed to heal, needed to discover oneself actually normal, rather than whatever alternate labels keep getting lobbed across those voids.

Maybe there are times for unpeace, too, though.  Times for unrest.  Times when getting bruised constantly is a kind of gift a person gives to those who come after.  Examples paint history, where people of color and homosexuals and women and youth and elderly--where people of all kinds have participated in the very groups that would exclude them and call them evil or less than or stupid.  Those who have stayed active in such groups, doggedly proclaiming, even if by their silent presence alone, that chasms aren't all there is:  I could weep in gratitude.  Thank you.  What a silly, tinny phrase to give to such world-changing work.

I'm thinking that that work isn't everyone's though, and that each of us must decide which relationships, or potential relationships, we need to walk away from, and which ones we must navigate the chasms of.  Because chasms, it seems to me, mark them all.

What do you think, though?  Am I wrong in some of this?  And in which cases are the BIGGIES, the canyons that can make the Grand one look small, worth working around for the sake of relationship?

Birds of many feathers (as long as we don't talk about feathers)

I'm really interested in this whole discussion (from the last post).  It sounds like we all agree that meaningful relationship across the religious divide is possible, but only if:

a) we don't talk about religion, or
b) we're open to the other person being right (about their religious beliefs) or both of us being wrong or
c) we think we're right, but we nevertheless don't see other people as projects, in need of conversion.

Here's the problem I see:  none of these seem like options for the deeply devout.  Am I wrong in this?  When I was an evangelical Christian, I took my faith very seriously.  My feelings, on one level, so confirmed for me the rightness of my spiritual path, and the teachings of my holy book seemed to so clearly say mine was the only True way, that the thought of another religion being more true than mine was nearly inconceivable.  Furthermore, my understanding of hell, and my conviction that many would end up there if they didn't turn to Jesus:  these made it nearly impossible for me NOT to see anyone not so turned as a mission field.  I didn't use in-your-face conversion tactics, but I was very aware of trying to be a good witness for the Truth, of watching for chances to speak of Jesus, of feeling a warm gladness if conversation turned to religious things.  My heart was good; I genuinely wanted non-Christians to know the Truth, and to spend eternity with God.  But the effect of this good-heartedness was to make people into projects.  My relationships were colored by this conversion agenda, and when things stayed "light" (i.e. I just had fun with non-Christians and didn't think or talk about anything goddish) I felt by the end of the time a little disappointed, and a little bit guilty.

Is is possible to not be like this, and also be deeply devout?  I'd love to hear what it would look like if it is.

Taking steps away from religion, I think it's entirely possible to have conversion agendas about things other than God.  We all have them--desires for friends to try the beer we like, or join the neighborhood watch, or be convinced of global warming, or that we need to do something about Darfur, Congo, AIDS, cancer research, etc.  The difference, though--and this is part of Harris's point I think--is that all of these other agendas can be discussed in terms of observable evidence, while the finer points of religious belief cannot.  At the end of the day, a "leap of faith" must be made when it comes to trusting that God has revealed God's ultimate plan for the world in the Bible, or Allah dictated the Quran, or a man named Noah existed, and all of us--black, brown, white, yellow, red--are his descendants.

So the agendas on the plates of the religiously devout have a different sort of charge to them I think, and a really challenging combination of having everything at stake (i.e. eternal location), and no luxury of observable evidence, beyond our subjective feelings of our religion being true, of God being one way versus another, etc., to use for the convincing.  How can we as humans NOT get a little dogmatic, even if just in our hearts, when we're up against this sort of challenge, and needing to psyche ourselves up for the work we feel God's given us to do?

I'm still back to wondering whether it's possible for the religously devout to come to relationship with people of other faiths, or no faith, and have the kind of intimacy with them, or just merely the respect, that seems built on seeing each other as equals.  I'm thinking that it's not.