Southwest Sierra #115 – The Hope Essays: #2 Part 2

(Revisiting the writings of my youth) ~ I am sharing these essays originally written in Alleghany in 1994-1995.

The Garden continued

Even though we had quit attending church, my parents continued to study the bible on a regular basis. I also had my own bible which I read on my own. I mostly read the words of Christ; this was what my heart responded to. Whenever we went for drives, we would sing gospel songs together.

When I was 10 we moved to Alleghany proper for a year. A group of women in town started a bible study group. I remember one evening my mom came home from this group very flustered. I sat and listened as she told my dad that they had an argument in bible study. My mom and another woman felt the bible could say and mean different things to different people at different times. The rest of the group felt that there was a right and a wrong way to interpret the bible. I understood my mom’s point of view and agreed with it. This helped me resolved the problem of how a “good” person like my teacher could be Catholic.

During summer vacation I would often go and stay with my maternal grandparents in southern California. We would go to their Baptist church every Sunday. After being away and studying the bible with my parents and on my own, I had a very different perception of Church. It was apparent to me that the preacher was very materialistic. Also, I could not help noticing that most of the church people seemed overly concerned about what others thought of them, and that they were very judgmental of others. I knew this to be contrary to the teachings of Christ. You could say that I was judging the church people, and I guess I was.

It is very sad that people put so much energy into “proving” that a specific religion or way of viewing things is the only right way rather than concentrating on the real challenge which is living the truth that we know. Actions really do speak louder than words. The strongest way to influence another is by example. A bit of Native American wisdom that applies here is this: Take a group of people and place them in a circle. Put an object in the center of the circle, and no two people will have the same exact view of that object. It will appear differently to each person. This is how it is in life; we each have our own unique view of reality.

My family moved back to the mine after about a year in Alleghany. During the winters, when we were snowed in, my dad and I would read the New Testament out loud to each other. My mom also began to study metaphysics and Jungian Psychology. I began to read some of the material that my mom was studying. I’m going to mention the texts that my heart responded to. I have not read these books since, so keep in mind: this is my memory of my interpretation as a young adolescent.

When I was 13 I read a book written by an anonymous author: The Impersonal Life. This book taught me how to recognize three different parts of myself. My low-self and high-self or what psychologists call ego and conscience and the third part: simple awareness. The trinity of self. When I read Christ’s teachings as a child and young teenager, I sensed that when Jesus spoke of “being in the world but not of it” and of the “kingdom of heaven within” he was referring to a state of being. The Impersonal Life confirmed this concept.

An insight that I gained as a result of my childhood realization about the Garden of Eden story, was that on a certain level, some things are only “bad” or “good” because people think they are. The Impersonal Life also touches on this. This idea hit home for me when I met a very proper, older woman who had a different list of “bad” words than my maternal grandparents. I had been taught that the word “damn” is bad, but this woman, who was offended by most “bad” words used the word “damn” all the time.

In the Garden of Eden story it was partaking of the fruit of knowledge of good an evil that caused our expulsion from the garden. After eating the fruit our relationship with God changed from one of mutual trust to one of fear. Years later, I came to view the “eating of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil” in another way. I came to perceive it as a symbol of our change in consciousness from that of animals, to that of beings possessing free will. As animals we could only follow our instincts, as beings with free will we were given the responsibility of choice. A paradox here is that this very knowledge which caused our departure from the garden, is the key to our return. Not a return to pure instinct, but a return by choice to knowing and understanding the laws of nature and how to live in harmony with them.

To be continued