The Point of Prayer

  There comes a moment in life when a prayer rises up from your heart to your head and then up to God.  I experienced this today and decided to make a note of it.  The process is spontaneous, though I suppose one's personality and memory have their places in the background.  What I'm talking about is the transformation of an aesthetic experience into a religious act.  The primary experience is basically a feeling of bliss prompted by some external stimulus, music, a painting, which suddenly changes into a request to God.  We ask God for something we want.  This 'something' is what we're passionate about.
  The process, which is certainly an emotional process, is sudden, unexpected and quick.  It leaves one wondering.  Did God hear my prayer?  Where did that come from?  Why did that happen?  The feeling is tantamount to joy.  It quickly dissipates.  Where did it go?

Film-critical Note to Self

I just saw a film on Netflix called The Suicide Theory (2015), directed by Dru Brown.  A very violent film it is, centering on the doings of an assassin named Steve, who is hired by a gay man named Percival to kill him (Percival himself, that is).  You see, Percival has tried to commit suicide numerous times since he lost his lover, Christopher and has been unsuccessful.  Percival has come to believe in Fate and that he will die only when he wants to live, when he is is not expecting death. Percival asks Steve to be creative and kill him at the proper time.  We witness several horrific attempts at killing Percival and he survives them.  Steve kills other people, but he is having a hard time with Percival.  Steve himself, like Percival, is psychologically depressed, as he is mourning the loss of his pregnant wife, killed in a hit and run accident.  We witness a bond of understanding develop between these two main characters.  Psychiatrist Elizabeth Kubler Ross, theorist on death and grief, is mentioned by Percival as contributing to his thoughts and beliefs on 'fate, astrology and God.'  Steve wants Percival to read Voltaire's 'Candide,' which will enrich his take on Fate and the place of pessimism and evil in our world.                                     

It turns out that Percival was the driver of the vehicle that killed Steve's wife and that Steve murdered Christopher, Percival's lover; truly a coincidence that would support a doctrine of Fate in which things happen for a reason or according to some higher purpose.  The writers of the screenplay (Michael and Joseph Kospiah) lead me to wonder about fate and reality, free will and determinism, good and evil.  Sadly I must admit I know not the truth of these matters.  Am I lucky to be alive? Percival and Steve have been told that they are lucky to be alive and I know they don't believe it.

One Speck of Evil

One speck of evil in the world is too much.  Evil is or ought to be evidence (to a human mind) that there is a better world/existence somewhere else.

A Quiet Place

In a quiet place, far from planet Earth, I will sit on a rock in a forest and think about who I am.  I will look around and see the tall trees and the grass and shrubs at the edge of the small clearing where I am and open my mouth and call out - "anyone here?"  I listen and hear only the wind rustling leaves and know that I am alone.  The wind is diminutive, so soft and pleasant, hardly there, except for the tiny sensations of my skin and and the leaves gently stirring.  I have looked up and viewed a blue sky and yellow sun and felt content, no desire at all, but I am wondering who I am.  "Who am I" I think.  I understand that I am here by the power of my imagination, which somehow transported me across the galaxy that contains my Earth and sun to a star system imaged but once by Hubble.  I know my name is Paul and I have many memories of my existence back home.  I feel inner stirrings as I remember parents and sisters and brothers.  I love them, my mind contains so many pictures and words of growing up in my family.  I understand that I am not immortal, that my body is fragile and is growing old and dying.  I will cease to exist or will I survive in ghostly form?  Do I have soul?  I do not know.                                                                          
Do I wish to live forever?  I guess so, but not on Earth, too many troubles there.  That is why I have come to this new place where I am now, a forest glade with a firm, smooth rock for resting and reflecting.  It is safe here, very little sound, no animal life, only vegetation and microorganisms.  Who am I?  Why must I die?

I feel sad inside, so sad.  I think, 'it's a shame that God is absent,' 'it does not make sense.'  Why would our Creator, so great that She made the universe, play hide and seek with us?  Hide and seek is a good game.  It serves to refresh our understanding of self and others.  I think, 'God lives outside of time, in infinity.'  I think to myself, 'this could be proved by number theory; if there were an absolute number, a number that cancels every other number, that would point to an absolute reality, something akin to what we call God.'

I think about Jesus and his fine understanding of God.  In the sunlight twisting through the forest canopy I imagine the crucifixion of that master and his powerful, labored dignity on the cross.  I see it in the sunlight.  I think to myself, 'a very potent symbol, the Christian cross, because of the spirit of that man who died upon it.'  I remember that Jesus said to Annas and other interrogators, "if I have spoken wrongly, then tell it; if I have spoken truthfully, why do you strike me?"  So practical and calm before his enemies was Jesus.

I am a human being.  I wonder how I got here.