I've been a Christian for a long time now, and I've drifted in and out of the Sunday schools from a quagmire of denominations (and rigid non-denominations which are kind of their own denominations) since the dawn of human perception, or at least my perception. The best part of this is listening to all the explanations on the “whys” of the world. It's very exciting and it took me a long time to stop being confused by all the theological collisions whirling 'round in my head which I didn't even notice until someone pointed them out to me.
If only we could see the tapestries of our thoughts all at once so that we can find the big picture and sort out where all the discrepancies lie. I say that now, but if it ever really happened and we could see how all the things we believe at once fail miserably to work together, probably the suicide rate would rise exponentially. The method of realising it slowly or never bothering with it at all is probably the better alternative.
A n y w a y... I can remember at least three explanations for why God created humankind to begin with. One was because He was lonely which was really convincing for a long time until I thought about if for a bit and...well...apart from the fundamental problem that this implies a God who has needs and is therefore not perfect and is therefore not God (the Koran explains the logic behind this nicely when it describes why it doesn't think that Christ could be the son of God but it doesn't apply the logic to creation, so it doesn't realise that there could be more than one reason for doing or having something)...YOU try being three beings all at once and see if you get lonely. I mean, even people with multiple personalities are only one of themselves at a time, and even when you're in a crowd of people it's very easy to get lonely, so it might be hard to imagine what it could be like for three perfect beings to come together eternally, but loneliness is not a by-product of that kind of communion. Also, considering the above observation about crowds, I disagree with the theory that creating a massive amount of noisy little megalomaniacs is the best solution to loneliness.
Somebody very clever proposed that God created the universe and all the peeps within because He wanted to have people who would choose to glorify Him freely, not angels because angels have no free will. He created beings who had free will so that they could freely chose to love and worship Him. I expect that Lucifer was the rare and wonderful exception to this logic strain...but really, what a short sell, huh? God practically has to resuscitate us and rebuild our core being from scratch before it will occur to us to worship anything except our own humanity and/or the trimmings that come along with it. This is on par with being given the most awesome of ice cream flavours and refusing to eat it because we have just discovered the sugar jar and are gorging ourselves on it. We're silly that way. So, ya...if that's why He made us...He got gypped.
Free will isn't really all it's cracked up to be, anyway. It seems that unless we dig and search and struggle to find out what His will is over ours, we just keep screwing up or getting screwed or both. “Free” is such a nebulous concept: there are too many definitions of it. Perhaps I shall invent my own word to describe what I think “free” means, but first I shall have to satisfactorily define it and that's such a trouble, I'll probably end up just taking a nap.
The theory that made the most sense was “He did it for His own pleasure.” Really, if you're God, and you have everything you need, and you ARE everything you need then that's the only reason to do anything including but not limited to creating stuff and having a son.
It's a pity Muhammad isn't listening, though he'd probably just send me a she-camel and then kill me for hamstringing it anyway. It appears that it was impossible to resist the temptation to hamstring the she-camels that Muhammad gave out, he talked about it so much. I'm trying to imagine standing in a tent with a she-camel, holding a knife in my trembling hands and thinking “Must...resist...urge...to...hamstring! MUST!!!” and then looking down and finding that, despite my struggles, I had done it already as if mystically propelled by some unknown force, and my next thought would be nothing more than an obscene expletive. I just can't stay on track to-day, can I?
No matter how I thought about it, the explanation “for His own pleasure” kinda felt insulting. All this human suffering, all this agony and pain and disappointment and all that stupid rotten sodding hope, hope, HOPE that only turns around and stabs you in the face anyway, all because He felt like it? Seriously?! Did I really have to be a part of this arrangement? Couldn't I have just never existed? Yes....yes, yes, yes. I know the suffering is a by-product of original sin, but it's not like He didn't see it coming. Couldn't He have found some other thing to do “for His own pleasure”, like croquet or something?
I keep seeing bits of the story that are in fragments, and incomplete, friends who moved mountains to be with their grandma, only to miss her death by one day. I see the whisper of children and precious little things who never saw the outside of their mum...just because. Grandmas ought to be allowed to live until their granddaughters can at least say good-bye. Surely it's a design flaw that our umbilical cord is so noose-like, those babies just don't stand a chance. People who are much better at being upstanding citizens than I have no right, no business, getting into fatal car wrecks, and don't get me started on all those beloved people who were simply snuffed out, no chance to wrap your head around the matter or come to terms with it, whoosh! They're gone! There can be no explanation for why any of this had to happen in the first place.
And yet “His own pleasure” is the only thing that makes sense. “Because He wanted to,” “because He felt like it.” What is He, an adolescent? Oh! I get so irritated when I think of it.
This coming from a person who creates people in her head, puts them through hell (at least once I've done that literally) “for her own pleasure.” And I don't see anything selfish about that. I do it because I am inclined to do it, not because I like imagining the tortured screams of people that I carefully crafted out of bits of grammar, but because it is right, it's where the story needed to go. And it doesn't stop with writing, Everything I do I do “for my own pleasure” except, maybe, working at the fast food joint. When I sit down to paint a picture, or make clothing or jewelry out of the nothings and cast-offs of the thrift stores, when I sit down to play the piano, or sometimes when I sing obnoxiously loud while other people are trying to do their jobs, I go into a zone of pleasure, and it is MIGHTY. Look what I am able to do, look what I have done with nothing but a larynx and a set of lungs, or a piece of paper (sometimes not even blank) and something with a smutty tip. Marvel at it. That's an order.
Thinking about how I might do it was pleasurable of course, and one would expect that the delight of theorising into eternity all the wonderful things that I am capable of would be sufficient, but while I knew I could do it, duh, I'm awesome, thinking about it was nothing, peanuts, compared to actually doing it. And when I get down to it, the itty gritty parts of it, everything, the sewing, the writing, the drawing, the singing and playing of pianos, all start to become the same thing; it's all another way of “doing”.
Art is a language, I tell my students that. I tell their mothers that. Crafting is a language, too. Music. Math. Science. Everything is saying something to a different part of our brains. Every aspect of the universe has been coated over with a new iteration of Word. Anyone who creates, or works with their hands, or studies the world, or breathes the air has access to some version of a language. Even time is a language, the way it repeats itself over and over, the way everything seems to fall naturally into a cycle, often so well that I can see what is going to happen tomorrow or the next day or the next because I've memorized the pattern.
Occasionally when I create, I can hear all the languages, all working together and melding together, swirling into eddies and currents and tides until they all rise up like the singing of the ocean, and I am at its shore, listening to Everything, and it all says the same thing, “Glory to God in the Highest. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come.” And I almost understand what “His own pleasure” means, and it's not the least bit insulting: it is perfect. It is right. It is the most beautiful, most thought-out story ever. It is the subtlest of systems and equations. It is an anthology of poetry, every person a poem, a song, all indicating the absolute, and it barely delves into the creator.
I once painted a picture of a black box while trying to translate a part of this, before I knew all the words I needed, but only some of the people I showed it to could understand it. Others appended their own meaning onto it and got their conclusions all muddled up and talked for a ridiculously long time trying to blunder their way into it until I interrupted them with a verbal translation multiple times and even then they didn't understand it. The current fixation on subjectivity can be very frustrating.
How important it must be to follow your calling. Even if you can't find a career in it, you have to stick with it, you have to keep fighting for it. If you don't, you're wandering away from the language you understand best, and the language you speak best, like plugging into the wrong interpreter at an international convention. Why would anyone do that?
That “happy place” I'm supposed to find when I need to relax or calm down quickly used to be lying a trampoline, looking up at the sky just before a rainstorm (you're supposed to stimulate all five senses when you go to that “happy place,” did you know that? Hence the eccentric complexity.) Nowadays it is on a cliff covered in lavender above the ocean at sunrise, I am wearing a white linen dress that glows orange in the sunlight, listening to the roar of the sea and feeling the morning wind on my face. I know why it changed. The whole point of having a “happy place” is to get away from Everything, but you can't really get away from it, can you? The best you can do is step outside of it for a moment.
