Tumbling Worlds
Mar. 28th, 2004 09:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qosI've been wanting to post on this theme for a while, but it's taken ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
toesontheground responding to philosofialogos to prompt me to address this question: What one statement, experience, or realization in your life "tumbled your world" and made you look at the world differently from then on?
The Big One for me was the film "A Passage to India" -- which is what precipitated my existential crisis in the early spring of my sophomore year of college.
I had grown up with an image of God the Father based very much on my relationship with my own father, who was the superintendent of the school district, filled the pulpit when the pastor was on vacation, taught adult and junior Sunday School, and was, at various times, president of Rotary, the Rose Society, the fly fisherman's club, and etc. Everywhere I turned, he was there, and he was in charge, and so the world for me was a very safe place. God, like my own father, loved me, and was truly in charge of "everything" so I was blissfully secure.
In "A Passage to India," an Indian doctor tries to do a favor for two European women, and through no fault of his own ends up ruined. It was the first time I truly realized that the universe is not a safe place, that bad things do happen to good people, that pain is inevitable, and etc. I went back to my dorm room, and within about thirty minutes my faith in just about everything collapsed into rubble. I could no longer believe in God. I truly realized for the first time that I was going to die one day. I despaired of ever truly knowing anything. I was horribly conscious of how vast the universe is, and it seemed a place of chaos and blind chance, not beauty and order.
I no longer am in the grip of existential despair, but I was irrevocably changed that night.
Enchantress from the Stars, by Sylvia Louise Engdahl.
When I was in the sixth grade, I read this book about three different cultures - two of them star-faring ones - coming into contact near a medieval community. The story is told from the viewpoints of a person of each culture, and it taught me that how a person interprets reality depends very much on his or her "world".
Star Wars
I was twelve years old when "Star Wars" came out, and was absolutely overwhelmed by it. For many years, Princess Leia was my primary heroine, my exemplar of what female courage looked like. It also reinforced the wonder of science fiction I first discovered in "Enchantress from the Stars" and kept me gazing outward, toward the stars, rather than allowing myself to be defined by the horizons of the mill town in which I grew up.
"We are all free. To do. Whatever. We Want. To do."
This line from Richard Bach's novel Illusions gave me the courage to take a leave of absence from college after my freshman year. It broke me out of the nearly-invisible trap of "expectations" and worke me up to the fact that we are all free to choose. The question is whether or not we are willing to accept the consequences of certain choices. Since then, I am acutely aware of my own responsibility for whatever situation I find myself in, since I know I always have the power to change my situation by making a new choice.
"Women in Greco-Roman Antiquity"
This class, which I signed up for believing it to be a history class, was actually about women's experience and the Feminine Divine in Western religious history. In Prof. Wicker's class, I realized that imaging the Divine in exclusively masculine terms is a kind of idolatry. I discovered the power of the concept of "A God Who Looks Like Me" (that is: female) -- but also the seductive danger of creating any 'god' in my/our own image. This has liberated and complicated my spiritual life to no end.
Original Blessing by Matthew Fox
Some five years after my existential crisis and my alienation from Christianity, this book helped me re-connect with my deepest spiritual roots.
The Crafted Cup by Shadwynn
Shadwynn finds harmony between Christianity and Paganism in the Grail lore. This book reconciled the two sides of my spiritual world for the first time. Ten years after reading it, I was ordained as a Priestess within the Ordo Arcanorum Gradalis, the Grail fellowship founded by Shadwynn.
What about you?
toesontheground responding to philosofialogos to prompt me to address this question: What one statement, experience, or realization in your life "tumbled your world" and made you look at the world differently from then on?The Big One for me was the film "A Passage to India" -- which is what precipitated my existential crisis in the early spring of my sophomore year of college.
I had grown up with an image of God the Father based very much on my relationship with my own father, who was the superintendent of the school district, filled the pulpit when the pastor was on vacation, taught adult and junior Sunday School, and was, at various times, president of Rotary, the Rose Society, the fly fisherman's club, and etc. Everywhere I turned, he was there, and he was in charge, and so the world for me was a very safe place. God, like my own father, loved me, and was truly in charge of "everything" so I was blissfully secure.
In "A Passage to India," an Indian doctor tries to do a favor for two European women, and through no fault of his own ends up ruined. It was the first time I truly realized that the universe is not a safe place, that bad things do happen to good people, that pain is inevitable, and etc. I went back to my dorm room, and within about thirty minutes my faith in just about everything collapsed into rubble. I could no longer believe in God. I truly realized for the first time that I was going to die one day. I despaired of ever truly knowing anything. I was horribly conscious of how vast the universe is, and it seemed a place of chaos and blind chance, not beauty and order.
I no longer am in the grip of existential despair, but I was irrevocably changed that night.
Enchantress from the Stars, by Sylvia Louise Engdahl.
When I was in the sixth grade, I read this book about three different cultures - two of them star-faring ones - coming into contact near a medieval community. The story is told from the viewpoints of a person of each culture, and it taught me that how a person interprets reality depends very much on his or her "world".
Star Wars
I was twelve years old when "Star Wars" came out, and was absolutely overwhelmed by it. For many years, Princess Leia was my primary heroine, my exemplar of what female courage looked like. It also reinforced the wonder of science fiction I first discovered in "Enchantress from the Stars" and kept me gazing outward, toward the stars, rather than allowing myself to be defined by the horizons of the mill town in which I grew up.
"We are all free. To do. Whatever. We Want. To do."
This line from Richard Bach's novel Illusions gave me the courage to take a leave of absence from college after my freshman year. It broke me out of the nearly-invisible trap of "expectations" and worke me up to the fact that we are all free to choose. The question is whether or not we are willing to accept the consequences of certain choices. Since then, I am acutely aware of my own responsibility for whatever situation I find myself in, since I know I always have the power to change my situation by making a new choice.
"Women in Greco-Roman Antiquity"
This class, which I signed up for believing it to be a history class, was actually about women's experience and the Feminine Divine in Western religious history. In Prof. Wicker's class, I realized that imaging the Divine in exclusively masculine terms is a kind of idolatry. I discovered the power of the concept of "A God Who Looks Like Me" (that is: female) -- but also the seductive danger of creating any 'god' in my/our own image. This has liberated and complicated my spiritual life to no end.
Original Blessing by Matthew Fox
Some five years after my existential crisis and my alienation from Christianity, this book helped me re-connect with my deepest spiritual roots.
The Crafted Cup by Shadwynn
Shadwynn finds harmony between Christianity and Paganism in the Grail lore. This book reconciled the two sides of my spiritual world for the first time. Ten years after reading it, I was ordained as a Priestess within the Ordo Arcanorum Gradalis, the Grail fellowship founded by Shadwynn.
What about you?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-28 09:57 am (UTC)The Spiral Dance came out when I was thirteen, and it completely turned me around for a few years. Original Blessing was the book that allowed me, too, to find my Christianity again. I'm still looking for the right way to bring the two sides of my spiritual self together.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-28 10:19 am (UTC)I panicked at first when I read this, thinking "I can't be that much older than her!" But checking the copyright date, perhaps you simply got your hands on it before I did. I wouldn't have dared to pick it up when it first came out, being still of the belief that witchcraft, tarot cards, and etc. were all dangerous at worst and delusional at best.
I didn't read Spiral Dance until the end of my senior year of college, which was spring of 1988. Reading it was a direct result of the class mentioned above, and it was the first such book I read. I went down to the Wild Iris Bookstore and bought The Spiral Dance, Z. Budapest's Holy Book of Women's Mysteries, vol. 1, and the Motherpeace Tarot deck. Definitely a rite of passage for a former Good Christian Girl(tm).
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-28 11:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-28 11:55 am (UTC)The Moon Under Her Feet
Date: 2004-03-28 10:23 am (UTC)It's based on poor scholarship, but it's great myth-making. She tells the story of Mary Magdalene as a priestess of Inanna-Ishtar, whose worship is part of the Jerusalem temple worship. It combines the gospel narrative with the ancient Near Eastern motifs of the hieros gamos, Inanna's descent, and the dying-and-rising God. Mary is a priestess who experiences both faith and doubt, grief and exaltation.
It's at the top of my recommended reading list for people who wonder how Christianity and Paganism can be combined or reconciled.
Re: The Moon Under Her Feet
Date: 2004-03-28 11:06 am (UTC)Re: The Moon Under Her Feet
Date: 2004-03-28 11:52 am (UTC)LOL!
I feel this way about "Jesus Christ Superstar" -- especially the British Y2K production I have on DVD. Jesus just seems so ineffectual and moody, unable to cope with Judas, and swept up in events beyond his control.
Is there a portrayal of Jesus you particularly like?
And as I think more about the difficulty of finding a masculine figure who blends spiritual enlightenment, love, and wisdom, with virility and toughness, it occurs to me that if I could find such a mortal man I might be tempted to emerge from the virginal state I've been in these past few years!
Re: The Moon Under Her Feet
Date: 2004-03-29 06:55 am (UTC)The character who is the Jesus figure in Jesus of Montreal hit a lot of the right notes for me. Unfortunately, my video store lost their copy of this film in a fire, and Amazon is selling a version without subtitles (it's French Canadian)!
The guy in the Jesus movie that was on last night was not bad, but I wanted him to have more of a sense of direction--to come out of the desert with a *plan*. That was the fault of the script, though, not of the acting.
There doesn't seem to be a portrayal of Jesus I'm really rah-rah over. I think Jesus needs to have some of the razzle-dazzle of Robert Preston in The Music Man, coupled with utter sincerity.
Re: The Moon Under Her Feet
Date: 2004-03-29 07:23 am (UTC)Oh my goodness -- there's an image!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-28 10:59 am (UTC)