Once again, I've killed another thread. People post articles, and, while I rarely comment, when I do, I like to offer honest, meditative responses that show why an article grasped my attention so vigorously. For myself, I find that I have a strong need to discuss ideas of belief, spirituality, philosophy--ideas about what it means to be.

I'm not sure the blog world needs my blather, and I'm fairly sure that no one wants me to drop the life-long load of my inner journeys upon their blog doors. But I'm convinced that if something is worth saying, or worth a response, then it is worth what ever time and thought it requires. Here are two, joined thoughts I had, and while I expect no response on those threads (we always more posts, more comments, more recognition! Nothing that slows our pace toward blog immortality, please!), still, I am not done thinking these thoughts. I still need them.

These thoughts are my response to a recent tBLOG post, an article wondering about the miracle of a single leaf--and the sin of omission, of not having an awareness, until now.

Thought #1: Suppose you suddenly become "aware" of a leaf.

How old are you now? After all these years of knowing that leaves exist, you are now considering the value of a single leaf.

Why now? You believe that god thanklessly produces leaves, among many miracles, each leaf as special and miraculous as the others. But now you recognize a leaf--perhaps before you were mesmerized by the amazement of being alive, or the beauty and power of mountains, or the sea, and the simple leaf fell below your radar of experience.

Suppose (as I suspect you believe) that god is separate from you, that god is a Being who creates such miracles without your knowledge, your awareness, or your participation. Such a god has the power to do things that you cannot. Such a god doesn't ask for you to do things that you cannot--in fact, such a god tends toward anger (biblically speaking) when you try to do things reserved by the province of god. So why do you assume that meditation on the miracle of a leaf now reveals your old habit of sin?

This wasn't the first time you have expressed your love for god. If your job is to have faith, perhaps to show your deepest thanks, then noticing this small leaf is another step, another heart-felt, imperfect way of showing thanks, of having faith. If you believe in such things, then your limitation is nothing but the condition of your humanity. Christians believe (I think) that a sacrifice was necessary--a sacrifice that humanity was incapable of making for itself. So the sacrifice was made, and your faith is now your fated task.

My own belief system revolves around a different perspective.

I believe in belief. If I believe something (in the most profound sense of the word belief) then that belief is the Creation. My truest beliefs create the world.

Since day one, humanity has struggled with finding a way to communicate with everything external to itself. A man tries to establish a relationship with what he sees, hears, tastes, smells, and touches. It feels real; it looks real. Is it real? Why do I see differently than the way you see? Why does someone who lives before Copernicus KNOW that the world is flat, that it is the center of the universe? Why does a post-enlightenment human being KNOW that the world is round ("like an orange," to quote Jose Arcadio Buendia)?

What does it mean to KNOW something that isn't real?

From the confusion of knowledge, I intuit two things:

One: knowledge is subjective;
Two: knowledge has power over reality.

Why bring this up here? Because I always wonder at moments such as the one you described. If the leaf is a true miracle, why have you (we) suddenly discovered its worth now? And why do you (we) need to believe that we must make up for, or at least recognize, the sin of our previous ignorance?

What I believe is this: that leaf never existed before your (our) moment. It came to you at the moment that you needed it, and not before.

I think this is the heart of creation, of faith, and of miracle. If any sin exists anywhere on life, then it is that we are not aware of how intimately and completely we create our world.

I'm not talking about pantheism (which, among other ideas, suggests that god is in all things); I'm not talking about buddhism (which, among other ideas, suggests that the external world, and for the most part the internal world, is an illusion, or cannot be seen correctly).

What I'm talking about is who we are, why things happen and when, and what it means to love and to believe. Many philosophers have said that desire controls reason, that desire controls what our senses tell us. But this doesn't go far enough--this absolves us of responsibility. Again, I'm not talking about sin, I'm not talking about evil. You need love, you need belief and wonder: you discover a leaf. You need to feel guilty, you need to feel powerless: you discover a new sin.

It's a circle, and if people want to change (myself always included) one needs to meditate on why beauty makes us feel incomplete. ***

Thought #2: I believe that your concern with saving other people is misplaced.

Your "job" is not to save people. Your job is not even to save yourself.

You seem to be saying that you believe in Christ.

You seem to be saying that by believing in Christ and (I assume) his sacrifice, you have saved yourself.

That is as it may be. It isn't my job to say otherwise, and I would never want to convince you otherwise. My own beliefs tell me that if you believe in such things, if you TRULY believe them, then the power of all things right and real will go with you.

But if Christ represents a sacrifice made that you couldn't make for yourself, even to alleviate the curse of your human condition--and that sacrifice is subsumed by the grace of god--then it isn't YOU who has saved yourself. If your god wants your faith in that sacrifice, then it is god's grace that has saved you, and never your own grace.

If any of my assumptions about your faith are true, then you must also believe that you were never capable of saving yourself. You aren't capable now. You will never be capable. If your human condition prevents you from saving yourself, then it surely prevents you from saving someone else.

This business of saving other people is dangerous--not only to other people, but to yourself, as well. If your christ thought you could save other people, then his sacrifice would never have been necessary.

Would your christ want you to believe that you can save others? Would you want others to have faith in you? Wouldn't you rather have them place their faith in your christ?

If you believe--if your faith is true--then you must give up your self-importance, and instead concern yourself with the grace that has been given you through no inherent worth of your own. I'm not trying to be insulting. I'm not scoffing at your faith. I'm trying to understand: the grace you believe in is a gift from god, rather than a quality of your own.

For my part, as I said in my earlier comment, I believe that belief itself makes the world. You believe that others have not been saved, that you have some ability to control other people's eternal life. I believe that your concern with saving others is a strange way of proving your faith to yourself.

Many people throughout the years felt that it was their job to correct other people's beliefs. Many people thought they knew when other people were damned--were unworthy in the eyes of god.

Such was the inquisition. Such was the holocaust. Such was genocide after genocide, jihad after jihad, terrorist act after act, invasion after invasion.

I suspect that whatever god you think you believe in has no truck with such "conversions". Isn't it said that "he who is without sin . . . .?" Isn't it believed by many that all the pomp of the Roman church can be found in, if not surpassed by (as perhaps Graceshaker discovered in an encounter with beauty) the meditation upon a simple, lowly leaf?

If such truths exist, then that ability to meditate on the most simple of beauties is the only grace that has been given.***

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