Dìthreabhachd 220309

Quite recently I've begun watching iPlayer programmes again - as in sitting and really watching, rather than just having them on as background noise to hear the language(s) of Eden. Funnily, but perhaps inevitably, it turned out I consequently lack the time for reading books, so without meaning to stopped completely, although as usual I'm into a few. It's as if books (arguably my surest pleasure) turned into my Lenten sacrifice, and I was dedicating the time to whittling down the exorbitant to-do list related to my laptop and 'non-virtual' life.

[Added 19/3/22: Later I indeed decided to not read fiction as my Lenten sacrifice.]

Pseudo -zazen

I'm not actually practising zazen, or trying to. But I do spend a lot of time 'sitting quietly, doing nothing', letting my thoughts ramble here, there and everywhere, only trying to divert them when I notice they are getting too morbid, or notice myself beginning to wallow in self-pity.

Chaochail Desmond Tutu

Tha fhios gum b' aithne dhomh dè cho cudromach agus a bha an t-easbaig Afraganach seo anns an t-strì an aghaidh apartheid. Ach mus do thug mi sùil ghoirid air an aiste Uicipeid Bheurla mu dheidhinn an-diugh, cha b' aithne dhomh gun robh e cuideachd a' bruidhinn gu làidir às leth co-ionnannachd gèidh ann an Afraga a Deas agus anns an Eaglais Anglican. Hmm, chan eil aiste Uicipeid Ghàidhlig mu dheidhinn ann; 's dòcha gum bu chòir dhomh ga sgrìobhadh latha de na làithean.

Religiousness as a form of immaturity

I don't mean this condescendingly. But it occurred to me the other day that one of the reasons why people believe in a god is a certain reluctance to accept that childhood is over. When you are a child, it seems that your parents are omnipotent and however much you mess up, in the end they can mend the shambles, they can - and will - get you out of any problem you might have stumbled into. As you grow up, you gradually realise this is not true. But you are reluctant to admit that some mistakes are final, even fatal, that you can't rely on ultimately getting justice, and so on, up to and including the horror that in the end you will inevitably die. So to keep sane you replace your no longer tenable belief in all-powerful, all-healing parents with a belief in an all-powerful, all-healing god.

Advices and Queries

I've read again after some time Jim Pym's Listening to the Light, which includes in its appendix Advices and Queries (the latest, 1994 revision by the British Yearly Meeting), the "potted guidebook to the Quaker Life" as he describes it.

These 42 paragraphs are not categorical commandments to follow unquestioningly ("for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life"), but short statements and rhetorical questions meant to make those concerned ponder whether their behaviour is really consistent with the Quaker philosophy and way of life.

Naturally, Quakers being an offshoot of Christianity, their God is sometimes invoked in a way as irritatingly servile as in the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Nevertheless, there is a lot or really good passages and I'll try to gradually write a bit more about some of these in the coming weeks.

Iain Banks: The Crow Road

 

Kenneth had never given Freud much credence; maybe because he had looked as honestly into himself as he could, found much that was not to his taste, found a little that was even just plain bad, but nothing much that fitted with what Freud’s teachings said he ought to find.

 

Of course, I only have the popular knowledge of ‘according to Freud, deep down it’s all about sex’, which I found grossly exaggerated.

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You might imagine supporting them [people], talking with them when they needed to talk, trying to help, but you didn’t imagine that you would be the one desperate to talk (or the one too embarrased to talk, too ashamed or too proud to talk); you didn’t imagine you would be the one who needed help.

(of Fiona Urvill) 

For most of my life I was always ready to be ‘the shoulder to cry on’ for others, and needed none myself, but as I grow old I more and more often miss having one.

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Shit, original sin? What sick fuckwit thought that one up?

(Kenneth McHoan)

I never gave the concept much thought, it seemed so blatantly stupid, but considering that people were beguiled into believing it does make it quite repulsive as well.

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In Glasgow I had taken to sitting in churches. It was mostly just for the atmosphere.

(Prentice McHoan) 

I had occasionally sat in a church to ‘meditate’ before (never outwith Scotland though), but only after settling for some time in Glasgow did I begin doing this with any frequency.

(originally posted on WordPress)