OTTER's CalorieKing blog
Saturday, May 3 2008 - Putting words to the God experience...
View OTTER's food & exercise for this day
I have two God books concurrently on loan from my library.
Conversations With God by Neale Donald Walsch I picked up because I like the DVD created from the same story. The DVD depiction felt moving, and seemed to mirror my own strange journey to a life of faith. But reading the book feels trite, the words wrong, the journey a "miss" and just some bourgeois's idea of how to have a god experience in the material world.
Also reading My Story As Told By Water by David James Duncan (if you write about god, do you have to have three names?). While this one is a better fit for me Mr. Duncan writes about his connection to god by his connections to wilderness and the natural world I still feel keenly aware of his white-maleness in his writing.
I'm trying to remember, now, if I've ever read a coming-to-god-experience book authored by a woman. The works of Joy Davidman I have been able to find have struck me a different way. They resonate holy, sacred, profound, earthy, and wise. I definitely also resonate to Anne LaMott's work. Could gender be a quintessential part of how human beings relate to the Divine?
Funny, this is something I think about a lot. How do we share our faith (how do I share my faith), without sounding like a wacko? And can anything meaningful be said to someone who really is an out and out un-believer? And why should I care if I am perceived as a wacko?
Faith is a meaningful aspect of my life. Or maybe, more accurately, it is the meaning of my life, all life's experiences are "gravy." (Another food phrase.) I was one of those furious closed-minded atheists who had a hard time listening to a believer, much less granting the benefit of the doubt. Even with hind-sight being 20/20, I still look back and can remember so many interactions with faithful people that were wonderful. (Not forgetting the unpleasant interactions with the religious nuts more food references.) When my life "broke" after my mother's death and my lover's departure, I had to acknowledge that nothing I believed up to that point, nothing I was doing, nothing I dreamed of, was working. All of it was failing. I felt dumped on the scrap heap of life. What do you reach for at a point like that? For me, it was faith. Not because I believed, but because people I admired and respected were believers. So I participated in services, read books, and learned to pray as a step on the path, a prescription to hope and the possibility for more. I have been challenged, and frightened. I have felt exuberant, and joyous. I have been blah, and bored. But I do not regret one moment on this journey and, God willing, I look forward to whatever more the journey may bring me.
Enough waxing philosophical for today.
Back to C.K. World
So, that pound plus I gained last week? Looks like less than a half a pound of it left me this week. Time to refresh my seriousness about meal plan, vigorous exercise, and evaluating the reports. Things I've sloughed off for the last two weeks.
At blog MOUGHI's recommendation, I found The Beck Diet Solution and borrowed it from my library. Looks like some excellent information and pegs me perfectly. I can see behaviors that, if not changed, will assure that I regain my lost weight. So at least I have new awareness now, and the chance to address the issue. I'd like to find the Beck Diet Solution Workbook for myself, and continue to use the library hardcopy. I also don't think I'm ready to begin a six week program. I'm a "muller" (is that a food reference?), I like to think about what I'm going to do, make a plan, set a start date, and then begin. Some folks think that looks like procrastination, but it works for me.
Beck Diet Solution also makes me realize I can accomplish many things in my life if I just make a plan!
From Wishes to Plans?
So, I'm throwing these wishes out to the world, in hopes that when made public they'll become things I plan on:
|- I'd like to learn to speak Spanish before I'm dead.
|- I'd like to take a cruise with my husband for our vacation this year.
|- I'd like to have my kitchen remodeled so that I can have good counter space and appliances built in the 21st century (our house is 45 years old, and so is the stove).
Picture defined. I'm sitting in my kitchen, watching birds out the sliding glass door. In front of me is a mug I decorated to send my baby sister as a celebration for her second mother's day. My little niece is so wonderful!
Wish me luck. Or maybe God speed.
Shalom alechem, -otter
Conversations With God by Neale Donald Walsch I picked up because I like the DVD created from the same story. The DVD depiction felt moving, and seemed to mirror my own strange journey to a life of faith. But reading the book feels trite, the words wrong, the journey a "miss" and just some bourgeois's idea of how to have a god experience in the material world.
Also reading My Story As Told By Water by David James Duncan (if you write about god, do you have to have three names?). While this one is a better fit for me Mr. Duncan writes about his connection to god by his connections to wilderness and the natural world I still feel keenly aware of his white-maleness in his writing.
I'm trying to remember, now, if I've ever read a coming-to-god-experience book authored by a woman. The works of Joy Davidman I have been able to find have struck me a different way. They resonate holy, sacred, profound, earthy, and wise. I definitely also resonate to Anne LaMott's work. Could gender be a quintessential part of how human beings relate to the Divine?
Funny, this is something I think about a lot. How do we share our faith (how do I share my faith), without sounding like a wacko? And can anything meaningful be said to someone who really is an out and out un-believer? And why should I care if I am perceived as a wacko?
Faith is a meaningful aspect of my life. Or maybe, more accurately, it is the meaning of my life, all life's experiences are "gravy." (Another food phrase.) I was one of those furious closed-minded atheists who had a hard time listening to a believer, much less granting the benefit of the doubt. Even with hind-sight being 20/20, I still look back and can remember so many interactions with faithful people that were wonderful. (Not forgetting the unpleasant interactions with the religious nuts more food references.) When my life "broke" after my mother's death and my lover's departure, I had to acknowledge that nothing I believed up to that point, nothing I was doing, nothing I dreamed of, was working. All of it was failing. I felt dumped on the scrap heap of life. What do you reach for at a point like that? For me, it was faith. Not because I believed, but because people I admired and respected were believers. So I participated in services, read books, and learned to pray as a step on the path, a prescription to hope and the possibility for more. I have been challenged, and frightened. I have felt exuberant, and joyous. I have been blah, and bored. But I do not regret one moment on this journey and, God willing, I look forward to whatever more the journey may bring me.
Enough waxing philosophical for today.
Back to C.K. World
So, that pound plus I gained last week? Looks like less than a half a pound of it left me this week. Time to refresh my seriousness about meal plan, vigorous exercise, and evaluating the reports. Things I've sloughed off for the last two weeks.
At blog MOUGHI's recommendation, I found The Beck Diet Solution and borrowed it from my library. Looks like some excellent information and pegs me perfectly. I can see behaviors that, if not changed, will assure that I regain my lost weight. So at least I have new awareness now, and the chance to address the issue. I'd like to find the Beck Diet Solution Workbook for myself, and continue to use the library hardcopy. I also don't think I'm ready to begin a six week program. I'm a "muller" (is that a food reference?), I like to think about what I'm going to do, make a plan, set a start date, and then begin. Some folks think that looks like procrastination, but it works for me.
Beck Diet Solution also makes me realize I can accomplish many things in my life if I just make a plan!
From Wishes to Plans?
So, I'm throwing these wishes out to the world, in hopes that when made public they'll become things I plan on:
|- I'd like to learn to speak Spanish before I'm dead.
|- I'd like to take a cruise with my husband for our vacation this year.
|- I'd like to have my kitchen remodeled so that I can have good counter space and appliances built in the 21st century (our house is 45 years old, and so is the stove).
Picture defined. I'm sitting in my kitchen, watching birds out the sliding glass door. In front of me is a mug I decorated to send my baby sister as a celebration for her second mother's day. My little niece is so wonderful!
Wish me luck. Or maybe God speed.
Shalom alechem, -otter
2 comments so far.
2.
a decade ago
Beautiful mug, beautiful you. -- In my opinion the best way to show what faith means, is to live it.
by MIRIAM
1.
a decade ago
A thought provoking post as always! I'll have to check out the Beck book -- sounds interesting. (I love that there are still people out there who go to the public library. By the way - if you like listening to audio books, see if your library carries anything by The Teachning Company. They have a lot of fantastic audio lectures on an amazing variety of topics -- including a comprehensive religious studies section. I got my mom hooked on them and buy her a new series every year for her birthday. She sent me a series on St. Augustine that is absolutely fascinating. ----------------- Oh - in kind with being an insatiable learner, I'm a bit of a language nut. I'd like to recommend two things for Spanish: If you can get into a class, that is your best bet. If you are planning self study, I strongly recommend that you check out Pimsleur's Spanish series. Pimsleur's instructional method is the ONLY effective self-study audio series that I come across... (I have an entire book shelf at home dedicated to language books) Pimsleur is an audio only course... The trick is to use Pimsleur simultaneously with a written course of some sort. (Sorry this is so long!) --B
by BRIENMALONE