I’ve had two major life-changing spiritual experiences. The first, at seventeen, helped propel me into the LDS Church. The second, some seventeen years later, eased me back out. The former was dominated by a sense of beauty, connection and purpose; because I was investigating the LDS Church at the time, I understood the sublime experience through a heavy Mormon interpretive layer. The latter was a deep realization of the purposelessness and profound indifference of the universe. I accepted this intellectually, but had never let it sink in before then. Here is an excerpt from my description of the experience:
…reality can be scary and bleak. Hide as we might, the seeming random callousness of the universe intrudes in some way, shattering our expectations for ourselves, our loved ones, our world. The only thing to do the end is to embrace it wholly. I am reminded of Jesus praying in the garden, preparing to face a horrible death and the worse torture of the sins and pains of the world‚Äìa horrible, unfair burden for one man alone to bear. He wants to reject the bitter cup, but in the end says, ‚Äúnot my will but thine be done.‚Äù
One of my favorite Christian theologian is Paul Tillich–he is famous for reconciling Christian theology with existentialism. He is my personal 20th century San Juan de la Cruz, and has given me a different sort of narrative lens through which to view my dark encounter with the apathetic universe:
He reacts with the courage of despair, the courage to take his despair upon himself and to resist the radical threat of non-being by the courage to be as oneself. Every analyst of present day Existentialist philosophy, art, and literature can show their ambiguous structure: the meaningless which drives to despair, a passionate denunciation of this situation, and the successful or unsuccessful attempt to take the anxiety of meaninglessness into the courage to be as oneself.
It’s taken me a couple of years, and may take me many more, but I am slowly owning up to this reality at a deep, emotional level. Mine is certainly the courage of despair. I have my moments where I turn to faith out of fear–this tendency is neatly summed up in Bad Religion’s Materialist: “The process of belief is an elixir when you’re weak. I must confess at times I indulge it on the sneak.”
Religion still has some relevance to me. I choose to read religion like poetry–and much of it is really, really bad poetry. But there are a few stanzas, a couplet or two here and there that are sublime, that allegorize all of humanity’s deepest fears and wildest hopes. I feel that there is beauty and even utility in the poetry that is religion. It’s why I, as an atheist, continue to hold to the metaphorical value of spiritual experience and the connecting power of religious imagery. It is why I seek out skeptics who can feel sacred awe at the majesty of the cosmos, like Carl Sagan and Richard Dawkins, as well as theologians who realize the terrible apathy of the universe and face it with courage, like Paul Tillich and Simone Weil. My dark night continues, but I choose to open my eyes wide to the black void. For the moment, my candle burns strong, and I take comfort in the dancing flicker of a few other flames.
This post is dedicated to Carl Sagan, in honor of the ten year anniversary of his death. Thanks, Watt, for the reminder.
10 responses so far ↓
1 Kirk // Dec 10, 2006 at 4:29 am
What a beautiful post. You expressedsome thi8ngs I haven’t been ableto fully work out in mymind. I would love to hang out one night. Are you in Utah?
Is it too much to hope that you smoke pot? Cause that would make it extra deep.
2 Miko // Dec 10, 2006 at 9:02 am
When I came out on the other side of my dark night, I ended up with a world view that did not allow for an afterlife. It was actually very liberating; here I had been, pretending to be something I was not just so that I could spend eternity doing the same thing. Although I’ve read Christian theologians/philosphers arguing that this is a very pessimistic viewpoint, somehow I feel more hopeful. This is it! This is what we have to work with. If we believe in heaven, we can create it here; if we believe in hell, we will also, very likely, create it here.
3 AmyB // Dec 10, 2006 at 3:33 pm
Ken Wilber calls much of religion a “map laced with morphine.” His point, as I understand it, is that we all use metaphorical maps to navigate through life. There are some maps that dull the pain of the harsh realities. Religion is very good at telling us that things will all work out, but it can also dull our senses. While a dark night of the soul is indeed dark and painful, would you want to exchange or give up that experience? Would you ever want to go back to the reassured stance that religion gives you?
It’s certainly harder, and more terrifying, but I know I can’t go back. I want to face life with all of its brilliant color, even if that means I am more open to the pain, rather than going back to the black and white existence that I used to have.
4 John // Dec 10, 2006 at 10:33 pm
Thanks, Kirk. We’re in Southern California. Are you back in Utah? The closest I’ve gotten to smoking pot was watching a few of the professors and grad students in my department suck grape-flavored tobacco smoke through a hookah a few hours ago, and marching for a few hours behind a bunch of Rastafarians at a peace protest (that was close to a spiritual encounter!).
Miko & AmyB: I don’t want to go back. In some ways, this is the optimistic approach: that humanity is mature enough to handle the truth and has the courage to gaze unflinchingly into the night.
5 Elise // Dec 12, 2006 at 10:39 am
Miko - I liked what you said about creating heaven on earth or hell on earth, right here in the moment of our existence.
One of the doctrines I really like about the LDS church is the idea that heaven is pretty much exactly like what we have here. They teach about three different “levels” of heaven, and though I can’t reference this to scripture, I was always taught that the third level of heaven was pretty much identical to this life as we know it now. I always thought that was kind of cool because I’ve always loved this life as we know it now.
It’s interesting that you said not believing in an afterlife was liberating. I’ve never thought of it in those terms, but I’ve felt that way. I do believe in an afterlife, but I don’t think about it much and don’t worry about it. I have to admit I really, really hope there is one, but I’ve also reached a level of maturity where I realize that there might not be, so I should be concerned with today’s existence and not something that I absolutely can’t know. I used to think about it a lot more. Choosing to just stop thinking about it and think about my life now instead was liberating for me, too. It makes me want to actually live better, because if this is my only chance, I want to live the best life I can and do as much good with my life as possible.
6 Kirk // Dec 13, 2006 at 2:53 am
I sometimes think about what it would be like to go back. But it has become just a comparative exercise. I really can’t see a way to ever go all the way back in. I find the question now tends to be “I wonder where I’d be if I had stayed?” and even after the dark times, I think I like this answer better.
But that whole “not being afraid to die because you knew where you were going” feeling, I miss that guy.
7 Kirk // Dec 13, 2006 at 2:57 am
Oh! I live in Southern California as well. I am currently living it up in the 90403. At least that is the zipcode where my car is parked.
Santa Monica for those in the know.
8 Miko // Dec 13, 2006 at 6:56 pm
Elise–truth be told, I do believe that this life is not all there is but I don’t believe in an afterlife in the sense that I, me, this being I call “self”, will be similarly selfaware in the hereafter. Which, in my day-to-day is just as good as not believing in the afterlife.
9 nee // Dec 14, 2006 at 7:16 am
My departure from Christianity was difficult because it started with doubts about things I’d been taught and believed about the life after this.
I’d read a bit about existentialism in high school after reading Albert Camus’s “The Stranger” (which was spurred on by The Cure but I digree). Existentialism seemed incredibly bleak.
I found myself facing incredible bleakness again as I found myself having no idea what happened after death but being pretty sure it wasn’t what I had thought before.
I wanted to believe there is something better because of all the suffering we go through here. I wonder now if that is merely ego. We see ourselves as so evolved and special. I don’t know that we are.
Eventually I came to acceptance that there likely isn’t an afterlife that I’ll be conscious of. And if there is, I don’t think it’s a heaven/hell sort of reward/punishment. All this pushes me to try and make this life better because I think this is most likely it.
10 Kirk // Dec 14, 2006 at 10:28 pm
That same thought process has also gotten me to drive slower on the freeway.
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