God

I used to want to be a priest. Then Sister Regina told me that wouldn't be possible.

After that, I settled on the thought of being a nun, a teaching nun. I wanted to join the order of Saint Joseph of Cluny and go to teach in Senegal. Sister Josee talked me out of that one.

Sometimes I still think about how my life would have been different had I pursued those earliest heartfelt desires.

I thought that the Catholic Church was too lenient in granting an annulment of my marriage on grounds that neither my husband nor I was adequately prepared to take the commitment of marriage seriously. Bull. He was/is sexually deviant. He was unfaithful. He is an alcoholic. He told me to have an abortion when I got pregnant. The rationale for granting an annulment of our marriage should have been solely due to his misdeeds. I did none of those things. He did them. I should have been granted the annulment based on his wrongdoings.

Between the Catholic Church's hypocrisy with respect to annulments, because of the fact that priests cannot be married, and because of the fact that women cannot be priests, I have seriously considered converting to being an Episcopalian, for some time now, and especially since my ex-husband sought an annulment on bogus grounds, and remarried.

When I mentioned that to my mother, she said she believed the Catholic and Episcopalian Churches would merge in our (or at least my) lifetime(s).

When I told him, my mother's husband said he hoped I'd enjoy Hell.

Until recently, I fervently believed in a good, all-knowing, and all-forgiving God. Now I am unsure.

I thought that, if the fundamental essence of each human being, what makes you you, if you will, is not tangible, and cannot be assigned a physical home, then that thing, the spirit, or the soul, if you will, must not be limited to a person's physical body, and therefore, cannot die.

I believed that dream communications were not any less "real" than conscious communication.

I believed, like Picasso, that everything you can imagine is real... God, infinity, spirits, souls, ghosts, unicorns, etc.

Now I don't know.

I know that I hold a steadfast commitment to the belief that, when it comes to the measure of our lives, of each person's human existence, all that matters is love. That belief is unwavering.

I have talked to a couple of friends, read and read and read, and done so much thinking that my brain sometimes literally hurts. What is it that defines life, or living? Or really, what is that defines human existence? Not necessarily with respect to, or in juxtaposition with other living creatures, for I do not think humans superior to any other living creatures. Nor do I think that we are possessed of enough understanding of reality, or of life, to judge other living beings. Independent of such comparisons, I have come to realize that, perhaps the most defining characteristic of the human experience is consciousness.

Now, I do not believe that people in a "persistent vegetative state" or newborn babies, or other people whose consciousness is not measurable, are any less human or any less deserving of living than anybody else.

If life is consciousness, measurable or not, then what constitutes death, or the state of being dead, when the physical body is no more? The way I see it, there are two possibilities. Either life is consciousness, a consciousness that is not measurable, and that is inherent to and a "possession of" the spirit or soul of that "person." Or, life is consciousness, and death, being the lack of life, is nothing more than a lack of consciousness. And, in that case, without the consciousness being inherent to any intangible facet of a person's being, then life must be consciousness, and death must be nothing. Nothing complicated. Nothing dark. No despair. No agony. No joy. No paradise. Nothing. Just nothing. A simple lack of anything at all.

So, if God exists, as the creator of the soul, the holder of consciousness, and, therefore, of life, then the body dies and nothing else changes. It, life, the self, the soul, the person, the fundamental essence that makes one particular being real, consciousness just moves on to a different plane of reality.

And, if consciousness simply stops when the body dies, then, necessarily, that's all that there is. No heaven or hell. No God. No ultimate battle between evil and good or right and wrong. If life is consciousness and death is the absence of consciousness, period. Then there must not be a God.

I already learned that religion is an artificial construct created to explain the unexplainable. But I still believed in the soul or spirit. I still thought that who I am was not defined by my corporeal existence. I thought that, since I can cut my hair or lose my limbs, organs, senses, and still be me, then that "thing" that defines me must be a soul, and implies a spiritual existence separate and distinct for the physical body.

But what if that's wrong? What if, not only was religion created by mankind to explain the unexplainable, but God himself or herself was created by people to alleviate the fear of the ultimate unknown, death?

If that is the case, if consciousness ends simultaneously with a body's expiration, then the existentialists are right. Life is what you make of it. And that's it.

This notion does not change my original thesis, that what matters in life is love. In fact, it reinforces the necessity to treat people, all of them, well, respectfully, with kindness, compassion, and with commitment. It does, however, make me a little sad. It makes me miss my mother more.


My son told me that I have to read the book, Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn. I bought it today. I also bought a copy for a friend. I haven't yet started to read it. But I did read the cover. The Los Angeles Times said this of the book: "Arthur Koestler in an essay in which he wondered whether mankind would go the way of dinosaur, formulated what he called the dinosaur's prayer: 'Lord, a little more time!' Ishmael does its bit to answer that prayer and may just possibly have bought us all a little more time."

No matter what, what matters most is love.
And, now more than ever, either way, but, especially if there is nothing other than this, I want a little more time. I'm not ready for this to be it.