Existential Gloom.

c. David Grim (taken 3/9/09)

Ok. I understand why so many Americans self-identify as Christians. And all of a sudden the worldwide fervor over Islam makes more sense. When you've got all your ducks in a row, and you're finding the success in life that you want, it's easy to dismiss religion as a collection of unnecessary superstitions and dogma meant to take all the critical thinking out of life.

But when you're desperate or depressed, and things are not falling into place, it's easy to turn to outside help. Who doesn't want someone to tell them exactly what they need to break out of a deep funk?

I'm not saying I've had any kind of conversion experience. Most of the answers provided by spiritual leaders come off to me as too general, too rigid, and/or beyond sense or sensibility. Plus there is too much sociocultural baggage that seems to come with the territory.

All I'm saying is that sometimes I wish I could rely on an otherworldly authority to let me know the direction I need to be going in. But on the other hand, perhaps that would be the source of further complications that I just don't need in my life.

To Receive Revelation.

c. David Grim
(taken 4/8/08)

I just finished reading "The Wordy Shipmates" by Sarah Vowell. I had read a couple of her books, and I knew enough to expect her to inject her own personal tangents into the story of the religious squabbles of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Sure she's full of herself, but I suppose this tale would likely be fairly dry in less capable hands.

So I got through it pretty quickly despite my reservations about the rather superficial treatment that Vowell lent the subject. I learned stuff I didn't know about 17th century figures like John Winthrop, Anne Hutchinson, and Roger Williams. For instance I never realized that Williams (the founder of Rhode Island after he was banished from Massachusetts) was actually an early proponent of the separation of church and state. I vaguely knew that he encouraged eccentric oddballs to settle alongside him, but I didn't know that he was ready to defend a citizen's right to atheism.

As far as Hutchinson is concerned- I had heard of her but I couldn't have told you anything about what she stood for. And apparently what she believed was very radical for her milieu. She believed in personal revelation. In other words, she honestly thought that God was speaking to her and through her. This was a dangerous challenge to the authoritarian structure of the early Protestant church leaders in New England.

I'm not particularly religious, but I find myself drawn to the belief that one's God actually dwells within. Why bother with it otherwise if it's not that personal? What good is a god that require human translation?