By Daniel Rigney
Everyone needs a Shangri-La, and I think Berkeley may be mine. The weather here today is cool and sunny. There’s evergreen in the air. The city and its university exude a youthful energy and a maturing intelligence that makes me nostalgic for my own college years. So here I am on urban retreat in San Francisco’s east bay, playing the student again and having myself a creative and regenerative retirement.
I’ve enrolled for a couple of short courses in the Graduate Theological Union adjoining the University of California campus. Having described myself previously as “religious but not spiritual” (I’m still trying to figure out what the word “spiritual” means), I’m here today in the land of the ‘49ers, panning for fool’s gold.
Though not conventionally religious myself (I’m Unitarian), I’ve been interested in religious questions from a young age. But what others may call “God,” I prefer to call Reality. I’m simply not interested in the tired old theism-atheism debate, which sounds to me like a musty relic of nineteenth-century anti-Darwinism.
By whatever names we know it, Reality in all its fullness is surely beyond human comprehension, and for that reason it will always remain mysterious to us. When we contemplate the ultimate nature of things, we’re likes ants trying to understand calculus. Or string theory.
Yet as it exceeds our grasp, the infinite Mystery of the universe arouses in some of us feelings of wonder and even amazement. We’re astonished that we’re somehow a part of the Mystery, and participating in it, and even, like sparks in the dark, briefly conscious of it, and of ourselves, and of each other.
Can I get an amen? No? Okay.
So that’s why I’m on urban retreat in Berkeley for the next two weeks. To ask questions whose answers are unknowable, and to enjoy the hell out of doing it.
Peace and quiet,
Danagram
Everyone needs a Shangri-La, and I think Berkeley may be mine. The weather here today is cool and sunny. There’s evergreen in the air. The city and its university exude a youthful energy and a maturing intelligence that makes me nostalgic for my own college years. So here I am on urban retreat in San Francisco’s east bay, playing the student again and having myself a creative and regenerative retirement.
I’ve enrolled for a couple of short courses in the Graduate Theological Union adjoining the University of California campus. Having described myself previously as “religious but not spiritual” (I’m still trying to figure out what the word “spiritual” means), I’m here today in the land of the ‘49ers, panning for fool’s gold.
Though not conventionally religious myself (I’m Unitarian), I’ve been interested in religious questions from a young age. But what others may call “God,” I prefer to call Reality. I’m simply not interested in the tired old theism-atheism debate, which sounds to me like a musty relic of nineteenth-century anti-Darwinism.
By whatever names we know it, Reality in all its fullness is surely beyond human comprehension, and for that reason it will always remain mysterious to us. When we contemplate the ultimate nature of things, we’re likes ants trying to understand calculus. Or string theory.
Yet as it exceeds our grasp, the infinite Mystery of the universe arouses in some of us feelings of wonder and even amazement. We’re astonished that we’re somehow a part of the Mystery, and participating in it, and even, like sparks in the dark, briefly conscious of it, and of ourselves, and of each other.
Can I get an amen? No? Okay.
So that’s why I’m on urban retreat in Berkeley for the next two weeks. To ask questions whose answers are unknowable, and to enjoy the hell out of doing it.
Peace and quiet,
Danagram
No comments:
Post a Comment