Lessons

"Blessings only come to those who notice."

(Dove candy wrapper that has traveled with me since high school)

I’m learning a lot from random places. For all the years I’ve spent learning about things listed under category headings or course descriptions, now the lessons are coming sporadically, and you have to keep your head up and your ears perked just to catch them. Being a student of the real world is its own quirky challenge, just like being a student at any school.

Actually one thing that’s been really tricky is learning the patience to be a good student of the real world. Or maybe it’s just the patience to learn independently, since I haven’t had a prof nudging me along or leaving me clues. It takes a while! Especially when you’re collecting evidence and factoids sporadically, as they arrive in the form of (mostly) unsolicited feedback. You have to read between the lines a lot more. And you have to trust your interpretations more; the homework doesn’t come with an answer sheet in the back of a book.

Quaker meeting is where this finally came together for me. I am not Quaker, but I went to a Quaker high school and I am a big fan of the way Quakers approach the divine. Firstly, I really like their emphasis on silence. It certainly took some getting used to (I wouldn’t even swallow for my first 4 months of silent meetings, it seemed so loud. Try not swallowing for 40 minutes sometime – it’s surprisingly difficult), but boy is it a gift to be allowed to sit, with the energy of a thoughtful, supportive community pooling around you, and to let your thoughts roam. It creates a spiritual place without spiritual pressure, and it was the first place that felt safe and welcoming enough for me to begin to grapple with the idea of the divine. There’s such a sense of purpose, in a room of silent people. Such a willingness to look at each other and ourselves and our problems, and, without the pressure of speaking, take the time to really see what’s there.

But there’s one thing in particular that I think the Quakers have gotten especially right. Quakers believe that the divine exists all around us, in every human being we ever encounter. Whether there is a greater spiritual figure in Heaven or elsewhere, I don’t know, but this I’m pretty sure about. Coming back to Quaker meeting this year, after four years away, was an incredible reminder that I can’t try too hard to guide my life where I want it to go. We can’t always know what path we’re on, and where it’s leading. I’ve been so focused this year on living a deliberate life, to pursue the career I want, to travel to the places I want to see, to have the experiences I want to have, but living deliberately can become so calculating that you forget to be in the moment and open to what’s around you. (I spoke about this at meeting in January. It was kind of amazing, actually – it’s been so long since that potent energy thundered through my chest, the sudden, demanding certainty that I’m about to speak; I have to. I remembered Nura Yingling, my creative writing teacher at Tandem, answering the question, “when should you stand and speak at Meeting?” with, “when your heart is beating so hard against the walls of your chest that you have to speak, or it will burst through.” She’s an old hippie elder filled with more light and rainbows than should be allowed in a human body, but she’s not wrong.) You just don’t know where your lessons and revelations will come from, so you have to watch for them. Blessings, and lessons, only come to those who notice.

What is "God?"

Suppose, for a second, that you were asked to describe a powerful thing/force/being that created the every living thing around us. One that created a diverse array of living creatures: everything from Golden Retrievers to E. Coli bacteria to Redwood trees. This thing made us look, act, and feel the way we do. What’s more, it gave us the concept of self-consciousness, the ability to think, and the power of love. It even helped form our moral principles and was a major influence in shaping how we set up our society. How then, would you describe this?

I ask because I would describe this thing as a type of “God.” The above list seems to describe everything that I think a “God” would do and, in essence, describes what “God” is. Others seem to feel the same way; a definition I found described god as “the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority.”

And yet the force I described above was not my description of the Christian God (or G-d or Allah for that matter). Instead, I was describing the force of evolution, as presented in a book called “The Moral Animal.” The book talked about how many evolutionary psychologists believe evolution created not only the way we look, but also the way we feel and act. The arguments are long and complex (and I think fascinating), but the basic idea is that everything from our hands to our moral system of beliefs evolved through a process of natural selection. A parent’s love for their children, for example, evolved as a way to make the parents willing sacrifice everything to help their children survive and thus pass on their genes.

At first this thought scared me. It almost made me feel “fake,” like my love for my parents (and all of you) wasn’t real and instead just a way of my genes “tricking” me. I was fine with the idea that proto-humans evolved millennia ago and weren’t just abracadabra-ed to existence by a God 6,000 years ago. But I always took comfort in the fact that there seemed to be space for some other power (God) to enter somewhere: how else would you explain morals or altruism or love? Yet here was an explanation laid out in front of me… it was all the same force and a brutal, cold-hearted, unthinking force at that… it was all evolution.

But then I stepped back and looked at it in a different way, which, I should add, I was only able to do after Gwen nudged me that way. I spent the entire book looking for a place to insert “God” into the story, but what if “God” was already there, staring me in the face the whole time? What if the evolutionary force is “God?”

When it comes to religion, I’m not certain of much. But one thing I am certain of is that God is not some guy who looks like Dumbledore and sits on a cloud. I think “God” is not a “he,” nor is it a “she,” nor, do I think, is it something that we would generally think of as being an “it.” In my mind, “God” is something that we won’t, or even can’t, fully understand; just an unknowable force that shapes our world. And the more I learn, the more that evolution seems to fit that definition perfectly.

An all-powerful force that created love, morals, and friendship? Sounds like a "God" to me. Unfortunately, it also sounds like evolution. But maybe, just maybe, that isn't the contradiction that it at first seemed. Plus, just think how deliciously ironic the religious right's campaign to keep evolution(God?) out of the the schools would then be.

More thoughts, which are all even less well developed than my undeveloped thought above.

• I’ve also thought that you could also tell a story where there is a higher power than evolution somewhere. After all, who’s to say a “random” gene mutation that would create a feeling of love between a father and son is actually random. Maybe it’s a careful manipulation by a higher power, but because we could never understand the higher power, we just chalk up to “randomness.” In that case, maybe “God” did create love and morals and creatures everywhere and used the might of evolution as the path with which to implement “its” creations.
• Evolution does some fucked up things. I still have a tough time thinking of the evolutionary force as “god” because I have a tough time thinking about a “god” that would do evil things. But maybe there’s no getting around that.
• The related thing that bothers me a bit is that humans seemingly have controlled, or at least influenced, evolution in the past by breeding only the best animals, sowing the best seeds, etc. and genetically modified products are basically a souped-up version of that. Clearly, I can't believe that we've managed to control "God." But maybe that's just me being anthropocentric. I guess you could argue that domesticated plants and animals made us evolve (by moving to cities, which changes what the "best" genetic traits are) just as much as we made them evolve (by selectively breeding/sowing them). Or, in this line of thinking, neither one caused the other to evolve, but the power of "God" caused them both, with the interaction between the two only enforcing its power.
  

11th Commandment?

I stumbled upon this thought-provoking post on an econ blog and I'm curious what you all think. Here's the post in full:

"At the conference I attended in Israel, Shimon Peres said that if he could, he would add an 11th commandment, “Respect your sons and daughters.” I would go for “Thou shalt not spread my word with the sword,” which sounds appropriately biblical and might have done some good. If you could write an 11th commandment what would it be?"

Some good/interesting ones have been proposed in the comments, which include:

• Thou shalt laugh in times of duress
  
• Question everything for only in this way does one become closer to God.
• Endeavor to leave the world a better place than when you found it.
• Thou shalt not outsource your judgment to experts.
• Honor the earth
• Thou shalt keep thy religion to thyself

Some other comment highlights include, "Don't be THAT guy," "Mind your own business," a quotation from a early Jewish scholar saying "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn," and finally , as a nominee for new worst commandment "If you think you are the physical incarnation of God Himself, it’s because YOU DEFINITELY ARE!"