How I Found My Spirituality

Facing this homework assignment I had first to address the question “What is Spirituality?”

          Is it a belief in a higher power?

          Is it good thoughts?

          Is it good deeds?

          Is it inner peace?

For me the belief in a higher power is religion and not spirituality.  Good thoughts and good deeds are not spirituality, but rather the natural response to spirituality or, perhaps, the dictates of some religion.  My idea of spirituality is a fuzzy something akin to inner peace.

Religious belief does not equal spirituality.  Religious beliefs may lead to spirituality.  It may follow from spirituality.

My lifetime experiences may have laid the groundwork for my spirituality.  Although my parents were Episcopalians, until I was nine years old they were paid choir members of the Presbyterian Church in Riverside.  I attended the Presbyterian Sunday school.  Upon moving to Petaluma I was baptized and confirmed in the Episcopal Church.  Later in high school I joined my parents in St. Mark’s church where my father was music director.  I sang all of the hymns, oratorios, etc.  I recited all of the creeds.  None of this was because I had some great calling, but rather because it was the thing to do.

Without reciting the details I have experienced numerous medical misadventures.  While there have been many such instances since, the most significant was a bout with throat cancer.  Following surgery, chemo, and radiation I adopted the following approach to life:

“I shall not treat each day as if it were my last, but rather if, at the end of the day, it turns out to have been my last, I would not change a thing.”

With this I have achieved an inner peace.

Returning to my religious experiences, as a young man I was fond of quoting Einstein.  When asked whether he believed in God, he waved his hand at the beautiful landscape outside his office window and replied “I can’t believe this all happened by accident.”  As I have gotten older and learned more about the universe (evolution, DNA, sub-atomic physics, stellar and galactic physics, etc.) I now admit that I can believe it all happened by accident.  Note “can believe”, not “do believe”.

Robert Niel Beatie – January 17, 2013

My Vision of a Perfect World

(So our Creative Writing class has morphed into a philosophy symposium.)

My vision of a perfect world:  from whose perspective?

·        A dog’s?  (I wish I could bark any time I wanted, just for fun.)

·        A dinosaur’s?  (Please don’t let that meteor hit earth.)

·        A cow’s?  (I wish these mornings were not so cold that my udder freezes.)

·        Mine?  I’ll have to investigate that.

What does a “perfect world” mean to me?  That is not an easy question to answer.  I am not particularly dissatisfied with the world we have.  Should I start by adjusting our current world?   (Teachers should earn more than football players.  The Navy should have to hold bake sales to buy a new aircraft carrier and PTAs should have funding to start new lunch programs.)  That list could go on forever

Perhaps I should start defining my vision from scratch.  What about the human population?  I certainly would not want a population composed entirely of copies of me.  That would be boring and uninteresting.  Could we add a few different types?  Better, but still boring.  What’s wrong with the current population?  What then about the Adolph Hitlers and Jeffrey Dahmers?  Removing those types from the gene pool would probably have unintended consequences!  The Einsteins, Edisons, and Listers might never have arrived.

The same sort of discussion applies to Nature.  Nature is both beautiful and violent:  the redwood forests, the Grand Canyon, killer whales eating seals,…

If there ever were an Eden, it would never last.  Human beings need stimulation.

Recent studies with babies as young as four months old show that they prefer “nice” to “mean”.  One implication is that while “nice” is inherent, “mean” is learned.

So my vision of a perfect world is pretty much the one we have with perhaps a tweaking of the genes that emphasize “nice”, without unpleasant unintended consequences.

Robert Niel Beatie – November 27, 2012

Morals and Truisms

Look before you leap

You can’t tell a book by its cover

Engage brain before engaging mouth

Let sleeping dogs lie

If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again

A penny saved is a penny earned

A stitch in time saves nine

When in Rome, do as the Romans

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy

All work and no play makes Jack and plenty of it

Don’t count your chickens before they hatch

A pint’s a pound the world around

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you

Calling a dog’s hind leg his tail does not make it so

Opinions are like assholes: everybody has one

You are entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts

Chickens?

Jack, of beanstalk fame, was faced with a dilemma.  A dozen eggs was all he had to feed his new family.  He headed off to town with his eggs to try to trade for a week’s worth of food.  His first stop was at the grocers.

          “I have a dozen eggs that are about to hatch.  I want to trade them for food for my family.  There will be a dozen chickens that should grow up and you can sell for a profit.”

          The grocer responded: “No, I have no way to care for chickens growing up.  I am sorry.”

          Next Jack stopped at the farmer’s.  “I have a dozen eggs that are about to hatch.  I want to trade them for food for my family.  There will be a dozen chickens that should grow up and you can sell for a profit.”

          “I am sorry, Jack, but I have more chickens than I can sell already” replied the farmer.

          Out of desperation Jack stopped by the Giant’s house.  While they had not become friends, at least they had become polite neighbors.  “I have a dozen eggs that are about to hatch.  I want to trade them for food for my family.  There will be a dozen chickens that should grow up and you can sell for a profit.”

          After some thought the giant agreed to trade a bushel of beans and a bushel of corn for Jack’s dozen eggs.

          Jack returned home with food for his family, happy that he had mended fences with the Giant.

          The next day the eggs hatched:  three chickens, three ducks, three geese, and three pheasants.  The giant was very happy that he had mended fences with Jack and with his bargain.

Robert Niel Beatie – November 14, 2012