Giving Freely

Charity's a constant problem with me. I hate just giving money and watching it go .. I fear what it may do. Where it may go. But that's what people want .. money. It's hard to find places to volunteer, and harder to find places where the volunteering means something. And even when you volunteer, the people want money as well (which really infurates me. You get one or the other from me .. you only get both AFTER I decide you're worth it. If then).

I also feel, rightly or wrongly, that charity is part of actually enforcing the system which leaves people at the bottom. I'd rather change the system than pay into it .. even if that's not always a reasonable goal. So giving to charity makes me feel sometimes almost dirty .. which isn't reasonable, but is very scary. I get burned out very quickly in places where I feel all I'm doing is enforcing the system.

It's a problem for which I don't see any real solution .. if I did, I'd probably be working on implementing it. I just think .. we celebrate the Divine poorly with our charity system. We encourage apathy, not among those that scramble at the bottom to survive (Because they are not apathetic, whatever we tell ourselves) but among those that feel that a gift of money settles things. We sit with our fancy televisions on expensive furniture and feel virtuous because we're giving that dollar a day to some children's charity, and then ignore the people we pass daily that are starving in our streets.

We have the ability to feed everyone, but we don't. We have the ability to give everyone access to clean water, but we don't. Why don't we? I don't know .. but even more, I don't know why more people don't ask that question.

Questions:
What do I give and why? I don't give much, and I should. But I get paralized by the choices. Right now my favorite charity is the Heifer Project .. because it gives wealth, not just cash. Wealth has meaning and brings value far beyond the cash value .. cash just feeds once and is done. Feeding is important .. but building wealth is so much more so.

What do I think about charitable systems? I think they're full of people, and as such, there comes a point they become self-sustaining. I suspect a lot of them would absolutely freak out if hunger just disappeared. That said, I think a lot of them are full of good, caring people .. I've worked in nonprofits. But once it becomes about the money and not what you can do with it, you've reached a serious problem state. And they almost all reach that point.

What would I change and why? That's the problem, I just don't know. I'd rather change things at the government level to keep people in housing in the first place than build a house with Habitat for Humanity, for example. Not that building that house isn't important .. but if ten people get kicked out of housing, and we build one of them a house, are we really helping? The system is too big and I see too much, and it paralyzes me. I need to see smaller, and I don't know how. (or maybe I need to see bigger and find an answer somewhere .. but I don't know how to do that either).

Other People's Flames

This one's hard. I have an easy time seeing the Flame in myself. Seeing it in other people .... that's harder.

As far as the selection of people I've picked for this .. I think it's important to remember that the Divine is in all people, from the clerk at the grocery store to your spouse to your boss. The more we see the Divine in other people, the more we treat them as Divine and worth celebrating, the better we become and the better we make the Universe.

This is a goal-state, though, not something I expect everyone to manage every time. When I have to deal with people that I think are idiots (that's my big problem .. people that aren't using the brains they have), I have a hard time seeing them as Divine. I like to think that the Divine has and uses whatever intelligence it has.

That all said, idiots are still of the Divine .. and, even more embarrassing but true, I'm sure there are things that I do that makes other people think that I'm an insane idiot. So it goes both ways.

As much as one might want to, you can't go around picking people you don't like and claiming they're not part of the Divine, or they've renounced their Divine heritage, or anything like that. They might be people that need to be confined, or corrected, or otherwise kept from harming other people, but that doesn't make them less Divine, simply less connected. It's so easy to look at people and say that THIS one can't possibly be Divine, can't possibly be connected, and simply is lesser. But in the eyes of the Divine, no person is less than another: all are loved. This does not mean that mortal justice doesn't matter .. of course it does. If you do bad things you need to be made to stop doing them .. and if that takes away from your freedoms, well, you should of thought of that before you did the bad thing.

But all is Divine. Celebrate Creation.

What is Morality?

I've been asked in the past where the morals are in FlameKeeping .. where are the parables, the rules, the strictures. I don't believe in them. It's far too easy to make up a list of rules .. and have people twist them, ignore them, rewrite them. The more rules there are, the more grey area there is to wiggle free. (don't believe me? Look at the IRS tax code!)

So there are two rules, but those rules put all the burden on the practitioner. All are Divine isn't an easy rule (of course, neither is "love thy neighbor" and people flub that one all over the place too). You can't just give lip service to people being Divine and then treat them badly, either. And you can't apply a simple rule to interactions .. you have to actually think. It's hard (I flub it sometimes too .. sometimes it's hard to remember someone's Divine when they've just done something irritating!) but it is, I believe, honoring the Divine in all things .. and all people. Even the ones I don't like. (some parts of the Divine, though, belong over THERE and not near me).

And the other rule, to improve the Universe. We're all going to tackle that one in different places too .. some people are going to see that as an injunction to keep their house clean (not me!), other people will see that as an injunction to get out and be a political activist, others will give to charity .. there are so many ways to improve the Universe, and there is no one true way here. The important thing to keep in mind is that everyone, still, is part of the Divine .. even the people who have different ideas on how to improve the Divine. Good people of good will can sit down and talk this out and at least understand why their ideas differ.

I'm very afraid of giving moral rules more narrow than this. I'm absolutely terrified of how my words could be twisted, having seen it happen to so many before, and perhaps I don't speak enough because I'm afraid of what might come of it. But also, I don't want to narrow the scope of people's creativity. There are so many ways to make things better, so many places to improve life, so many ways to relate with people. If I start giving rules, I narrow the scope and narrow the imagination. Think freely.

Questions:
What does morality mean to me? It means doing all I can. I don't worry about what I can't do .. of course, I have no particular desire to go around murdering people anyway, so it's not like I feel narrowed down. But it's not enough to not-do. There are also things I need to go out and DO.

What does it mean that everyone's Divine? Well, it does mean that the fact that I hold grudges is a problem. I'm very fiercely self-protective, and it's hard for me to remember that the other people, no matter what they've done, no matter that they've hurt me .. are still Divine. Even if I don't like them much. But it's hard for me to remember that people I think are idiots or mean are still Divine, and still need to be treated as such. It is, always, easier to see as Divine people that think like me and act like me. But of course that's also meaningless .. I was going to be nice to them anyway. It's a stretch to remember sometimes that it's the people I don't like that I have to treat as Divine .. even as I continue to not like them.

What does it mean to improve the Universe? I find this one easier, although I'm never sure if I'm doing enough (or even anything at all .. I tend to have a hard time seeing my words as having a real effect, even though I believe in the power of words). It does speak against my own personal hangup, though .. apathy. I'm the sort of person that would be happy to just sit at home and let the world go by and "think" about changing things. This calls me to get off my butt and actually DO something. Hopefully these blogs count.

Inward Flame

The important part of this particular ritual is pulling together the two flames, bright and dark, into one. The two flames make for easier imagry, but we are each one person, one soul.

I use the split flame as imagry in a number of places because I think it's easier to grasp. The two flames feed off each other, certainly .. there is no one without the other. But I think the split can be seen as a little too real .. as though we have two aspects that are actually separable.

We are ONE Flame, light and dark both. When we look into ourselves and see one light-dark Flame filling all we are, then we see Truth.

me be buff!

This is one of the harder essays for me, both to write and to put in practice. I've had body issues my entire life .. when I was younger, I was chubby. I wasn't *fat*, but I was on my way there, and children can be very cruel. So it didn't take much for me to think of myself as *fat*, even though I was really only a little chubby. Now I'm much thinner, but I have health problems .. stomach issues and carpal tunnel problems. Lately, I've started having migraines that leave me dizzy and disconnected, which is really a pain when taking care of a baby! So I don't like having a body, I don't like BEING a body .. I try to escape into the realms of the mental and the spiritual, where I feel healthier and don't have to deal with pain. But that doesn't change the reality of the fact that I AM a body, and that if I neglect it, I am neglecting the Divine as well.

However, as of writing this, I've managed to exercise for five days in a row. For me, this is quite an accomplishment. I'm very bad with exercise .. and until recently, I couldn't really put my baby down long enough to exercise anyway. But I'm making a concerted effort to get myself into some kind of shape. I'm just looking for the astonishing energy boost working out is supposed to give me .. I'm ready for it any time now .....

I've gotten better about what my mind chatters on about. I no longer think of myself as fat or as lazy. (well, not often on the lazy). I try to think well of myself while also being honest about it. I don't think there's any point in puffing myself up, given that reality will just cut me back down to size. But there's also no point in beating reality to the punch and putting myself down first. It's something I'm working at.

It's very easy to treat oneself badly. It can become a challenge, to see who can mistreat themselves the most before reality has a chance to get there first. But it's the wrong idea and the wrong game. We are all of the Divine. We are all special. And when we degrade ourselves, we are degrading the Divine.

Questions:
How do I take care of my body? Well, I'm exercising. I watch what I eat, although my eating habits aren't something dieticians would approve of .. it's right for MY body. (if I ate a *proper* diet as is usually described, I'd make myself very sick due to my stomach problems). I'm better at taking care of my mind .. I try to think about things, I write creatively, I write here. I don't let myself stagnate.

Do I do a good job celebrating my sacred nature? oof. I try to. It's not something I think about regularly .. it's something I am. Of course, I spend a lot of time babychasing .. so one could say I spend a lot more time celebrating my son's sacred nature. But I try to celebrate myself as well. Exercising! Five whole days!

How do I love myself? This took the most work for me to accept. I am sacred, I am lovable .. the two are one. It's taken a long time for me to accept myself as what I am, and longer for me to see the worth in that. There's nothing wrong with being imaginative. There's nothing wrong with being creative. There's nothing wrong with being different and uniquely myself, and I love myself for it. (most of the time ....)

He loves me .. he loves me not ..

I get so irritated at the "love story" motif of our civilization. And don't get me wrong .. I love the happy ending, I'm even a closet romantic .. but ... not EVERYTHING involves being in love. Not everything involves being coupled. Life is most certainly more than the constant falling in and out of love and the euphoria of the moment. There is more to life than being "in love", and the more we focus on the euphoria of falling in love as the central state of life, the more we damage ourselves in being capable of actually having a sane relationship.

My biggest problem, I think, it the fetishization of romance and falling in love. It's a state that usually has the stupidest thinking, and we're turning it into the central point of our lives. Yes, it's a nice feeling when one looks at one's beloved and gets all warm and mushy. I don't want to detract from that. But it's a very stupid state. You can't live there. The more we view that state as what "love" should be, the more we detract from the very real work of being in a relationship. It's not all hearts and flowers. Sometimes it's babypoop everywhere and 3AM runs to the emergency room. When we look at love just as the flowers and ignore the babypoop, we end up falling out of love regularly and then blaming the other person for not being perfect.

We need to fall in love with the person, not the fantasy. (at least when we actually do something about it. As a teen, I fell for a lot of fantasies. I never dated them, though .. I knew enough to know I didn't even want to. Fantasies were a lot safer). But when another person is actually involved, we need to remove the blinders. I can honestly say that I love my HUSBAND .. not the man I wish he was, not the man I think I can turn him into (and how stupid is that? You get what you marry .. you don't get to remold the person into what you want later!)

Questions!
How does the Divine relate to my love life? Well, I found someone that I can see the Divine in on a daily basis .. no small task. The people one sees every day are the easiest to see the flaws in, after all. How does my partner being Divine relate? I can't just treat him as an object or someone in my way. He is my husband, my life partner, and a part of the Divine. I can't just blow him off when I'm tired or when I don't want to deal .. which, of course, makes for a stronger marriage as well.

What happens when both people aren't seen as Divine? Things can get out of balance if only one person is seen as Divine. If it's the other person, you neglect yourself. If it's you, then the other person becomes merely your sattelite. In neither case is it love. Love comes from a place of balance .. neither person "better". If one person is "better" than the other, there will be problems no matter how much love there is to start.

What's better, being whole or being in love? It's been brought to my attention I worded this badly. :) But if you're not a whole person before you fall in love, you won't be a whole person after, either. I do think I'm a better and more complete person with my husband than without him .. however, that doesn't mean I was half a person before I met him. I'm myself first, part of a couple close behind that. The second that changes, the system is broken.

Time, time .. for quiet.

I want to make it clear: I've nothing against entertainment. I watch TV .. I read novels voraciously and write them myself. I'm a rabid computer gamer. *grins* There's nothing wrong with entertainment.

There IS a problem, however, with living one's life for television, or novels, or computer games .. and refusing to give space for oneself and one's own thoughts. I have learned so much more about myself and, I think, become a much better person since I've started giving myself time just for myself: no television, no book, no computer. Just sitting and thinking. And it's a hard habit to get into .. I'm used to having something in front of me. But I think it's good for me to just let my mind wander. And if that's into daydreams, that's fine. The important thing is that my mind is active and creative.

But also, I know myself better. And in that knowledge, the things that I don't like I'm working to change. It's scary. I don't want to blow this off and make it sound like this is an easy task, because it's not. Sometimes the things one finds rattling around in one's head are scary .. I routinely get images of myself sick or dead. And that doesn't mean there's something wrong with me, it means that it's a fear that comes back .. I'm not always in great health, and sometimes I almost expect to fall over at some point. Dealing with the image helps me cope with the fear. It's not easy or convenient, but I think I'm better off since I've started accepting those images.

Questions:
Do I know and like who I am? I think so. Some days more than others, of course. There are days when I don't like myself much. But most of the time, I think I like who I am. And more, I like who it is I'm becoming, because life is about becoming, not about being. Life is a process of change.

Emptiness and stillness ... it's about being alone with myself. It's about not being empty, paradoxically. When I let myself be empty, I'm also full .. I have myself. When I fear emptiness, I fear that I cannot fill it myself. When I accept it, I find so much more on the inside than can exist on the outside.

What are the advantages and disadvantages? Well, the disadvantage is in part time. There's ALWAYS something for me to do, especially with a wee widdle baby that doesn't like napping. But the advantages .. I can be alone with myself. I know who I am and I like that person. And I'm better able to deal with being with other people and being responsible for my child, because I'm stronger in myself. I know who and what I am and where I'm going, and there's very little that could be a disadvantage to outweight that.

Acting Judgement

I wrote this because I get really pissed at all the people I run into that are so afraid of choosing the wrong thing that they "choose nothing." It doesn't help that most people that do this somehow manage to ethically excuse what they WANT to do, while making everything that's hard somehow "wrong" or "interfering with another's free will" or something like that.

Life is interference. There's no way to live without affecting the people around us, and any attempt to do otherwise is either delusion or survivalism to an extreme (and probably an unhealthy one). As I've noted before, we're a social animal. Trying to be anything else is not only counterproductive but unhealthy.

I accept that I'm going to screw up sometimes. I don't like it much, but that's just tough. If I don't live so that I can screw up, I'm also not living so that I actually LIVE, and what's the point of existance if I'm going to spend it cowering in fear of what I might do? I truly believe inaction is as much a choice as action, and we are responsible for what we could do but don't.

Questions!
Why is fault irrelevant? Well, it's useful if you're trying to figure out WHY something happened .. where the problem occurred. But the blame game doesn't solve much of anything. If you're actually using it to solve a problem, that's one thing. If it's just to blame someone for the mistake, it's useless. And when you're spending your time on who's to blame instead of how to keep something from happening again, you're focusing totally on the wrong problem.

Why is inaction a moral choice and action? Well, because it's still something we choose. It doesn't always FEEL like a choice .. but it is one. (by inaction, I really do mean where you knew and didn't do something .. if you don't have the knowledge, and you've no reason that you SHOULD have gotten the knowledge and didn't, then it's just one of those things). Inaction is a copout, and a dangerous one. We live through what we do. When we choose to do nothing, that's still a choice and it can often be a dangerous one.

How do we get past confusion to action? Gods I wish I knew .. and I'm not being flippant. I often have the problem of being so overwhelmed I don't know which direction to go in. Usually I just pick one .. especially if it's multiple choices, none of which are any more clearly morally good or bad .. Just do one and go from there. It's like when it's time to clean the house .. the entire thing as a project looks miserable, but if you start with cleaning up the sink (or the bathroom, or finding the floor) you can do one piece, then the next piece, and so on. Sometimes we just need to stop looking at all that forest and look at a tree.

Love me Love me Love me!!!!!!

We are, at heart, a social animal. A herd animal, a pack animal .. we don't necessarily fit into any clear-cut distinction, but we are clearly a social animal. While we may need differing amounts of alone time, we starve if we don't get enough social contact. Friendship is where we go for that contact and how we view healthy contact.

It's a loaded concept. To some people, anyone they associate with on a semi-regular basis is a friend. To others, it's a carefully guarded prize to be sought. I'm one of the carefully-guarded types .. I'm very choosy who I'm going to consider a real friend, and who's just someone I associate with/hang out with. I'm also quick to drop friends if I feel hurt, and I need to be a little less quick to cut and run .. I've been hurt a lot by people that claim to be friends. It makes me very leery of ones that might hurt me. It's far too easy to demand things of "friends" that would never be asked of other people and to hurt them accordingly.

That said, it's also far too easy to hermit and refuse to let anyone get close to me, and that's not healthy either. But I'm very picky who I trust as a friend, and very picky about how much I trust them.

Questions:
What do I give and receive? Is it balanced? Oof, I asky hard questions. I think it's fairly balanced .. I don't feel taken advantage of, at least. For the people in writing group, I give and receive critiques. It's the purpose of the group. For the people I chat with, we give each other advice about our lives, commiserate, and otherwise discuss life. The conversations do feel balanced, though, which is important.

Why is it wrong to expect people close to "understand"? Well, because we're not mind readers, for one. And it's so very easy to let one's own life take over everything, and expect other people to feel the same way. But they've got their own life taking over their own stuff .. they don't need MY life on top of everything else. When we just let ourselves take over and expect other people to "understand", what we're really saying is that we're more important than they are, and that their life doesn't matter.

Am I friends with "safe" people or people that challenge me? Well, some of each, of course. I'm challenged sometimes, and I know I challenge others sometimes. But I refuse to lower my standards of right and wrong for friends (which has cost me a few .. oh well) or otherwise lessen myself for the sake of friendship. I tried being someone people could love instead of myself a few times .. it lasted for about three days, then my usual charming self emerged. These days, love me for me or not at all. I refuse to be less than what I can be, and I refuse to make myself into something that's "comfortable" for other people. If what I am challenges you, live up to the challenge.

I give the gift of Flame

Like the post on copyright, this is an odd post. It's more about the nuts and bolts instead of the structure itself.

But nuts and bolts are important, or there is no structure. Sure, a structure built this way, with anyone able to tack on pieces, isn't going to look the same as if it was designed and drafted by a single hand or group.

FlameKeeping is inherently built to include other people's ideas and contributions. It does not exist except as built by its followers. I feel incredibly strongly about this. The more you give to FlameKeeping, the more you get out of it. It's easy to say you're a member. It's incredibly hard to get your hands into the dirt and plant the seeds yourself.

We all explore the Universe our own way. This is a chance to share your viewpoint and bring it to others as we bring our viewpoints to you. I cannot emphasize enough how important this is to me. It's easy to say our viewpoint isn't meaningful and that we have nothing to contribute. But I don't think that's even remotely reasonable. We are all the eyes and hands of the Divine. We all have minds to think and hands to act. Every time we say we have nothing to share, we denigrate the Divine.

I challenge every person reading this to come up with a way to share their view of the Divine and to find a way to make it grow.

A sacred calling

I don't think we, societally, believe that much in callings anymore. After all, what matters is money, right? You can buy anything else you need.

Of course, you can't. There are so many things money can't buy. If your job is killing you, is the money worth it? I don't think so.

We've also lost our ability to think smaller. Everything has to be the big leagues. Either I will write the next Great American Novel, or I won't write at all .. because what good is being a second-rate hack? Either I will be President of the US, or I will never run for political office. The fear of being second-rate cripples us from doing what we love. Even if we let ourselves do what we love, we refuse to give it a priority in our lives, calling it a "hobby" and letting it get shunted aside.

I am doing what I love. I am a mother and an author. Even if I never get a novel published, I'm still going to keep writing, keep working at it. (I'll be ticked, but that's to be expected). And I love being a stay-at-home mom, although part of me really can't wait for him to go to school. :) But because I love it, I do a better job and am happier. I might be able to make more money out of the house, but would it be worth it to me? No.

Questions:

What are my callings? Right now, mommy, author, and this religious stuff. Conveniently, that's also what I'm doing. And I'm content with that.

What have I given up as a calling? As a child/teen, I wanted to go into medical research. I saw myself as coming up with a cure for AIDS or cancer or something. And yes, I gave that up. Flunking Organic Chemistry was a bit of a wake-up call there, that I was in over my head. I also realized I was a lot more interested in behavior than chemistry, and changed my major. Is a dream gone? Yes, but it's been replaced by better ones. I don't regret the change.

Is there something I've always wished I could be and am not? Well, part of me wishes I was Christian, but that's so I wouldn't have to do the work of STARTING a religion .. I could just go with what someone else did. But that's my lazy side talking. :) And I wish I could sing well .. I can hold a tune, but only sometimes. There are many things I wish I could be and am not. However, none of them are integral to who I am .. they're just nice things that I'd like to add in to myself. (ability to draw would be stellar!) And I've played around with them, too. I just suck at it. :) But I've always tried.

Loving Gods

Gods are something difficult to talk about. They don't match a world of bills and computers, televisions and automobiles. That doesn't mean they're not there, but it does feel a bit like talking about the Tooth Fairy. They're simply not quite reasonable, not quite logical. They're analog in a digital world.

Why do the gods even exist? Well, I'm fairly certain they do exist, so that's a bit of a silly question. I mean, squirrels exist, and the only thing they've ever done for me is fall on my head. Not exactly useful here. I don't know the why. I just know that they do.

Gods are part of us, and we are part of them. I don't think every person needs to have direct contact with gods, but I do think that contact is part of what makes us what we are as a species. Opening ourselves up to what's beyond us brings us closer to both the gods and ourselves. The Divine cannot speak to us in language we can understand. The gods, being closer to us, can whisper more directly. It's still difficult, but it is possible.

Questions:

Do I deal directly with any gods? Yes. I often speak with Apollo. He set my feet upon this path many years ago. It was and is my choice to walk it, but he certainly pushed me in this direction. Do I deal indirectly with gods? Quite probably, but it's hard to know.

Do I have any use for gods? Wow that's an arrogant question .. and I asked it! I have use for the concept of gods, certainly .. and my life has been richer with gods involved in it. I cannot imagine what life would be without them.

How do gods relate to the Divine? Like all things, gods are part of the Divine as well. And not just as puppets, but as independant beings. So they interrelate with the Divine much as we do, only with a closer understanding of the Divine and their interrelated nature. This, of course, doesn't stop gods from having disagreements as humans do. They are also individuals, and as such, are going to disagree. But they are also part of the Divine Whole.

Idealism

I am, clearly, an idealist. I believe in a better world and that humans can bring it around if we're willing to try hard enough. I'm going to try to not be overly political here, but it's difficult, because religion is inherently political, inherently subversive. When we focus on the big picture and go beyond petty distinctions and borders, when we ignore the things that separate us for the things that bring us together and point to humanity's commonality: these are subversive acts. Governments and groups focus on the power they hold and the people they control. Taking back control and refusing to play the same game is a subversive act.

But I'm not being political here. I'm talking about ideals. I do dream of a world in which everyone has enough to eat (which is more a matter of transportation than anything else .. we HAVE enough food. We just need to change the market forces so that feeding people is necessary). I dream of a world where we judge people on their words and actions, not their ancestry or orientation. I dream of a world without bigotry in all its forms. (hey, why dream small?) But I recognize that these are dreams.

This doesn't mean I don't work towards them, though. I usually try to work on bigotry, as I don't know enough about market forces to work on hunger. I speak out wherever I am about the subject when it comes up. I vote against bigoted laws, and I write congresscritters about them. It might not be much, but I also don't just sit there and decide that since it's not me they're after, I can just ignore it.

I say this not as a polemic against bigotry (but don't be bigotted!) but to point out that ideals are meaningless if you don't live them and work towards them. It takes people and a lot of work to change things. It's not enough to be idealistic and to hold good morals. You then have to take them into the world and work with them, and butt heads with reality to try and make them work. It's a long slogging process, but the ideals are fairly meaningless if you don't use them to start action.

Questions!
Where is reality lacking, and what would I change or make better? Oh, there's not enough space for that. I think I'll leave it at, what I would change would be separating the views of moral and economic worth, and caring for people based on the fact that we all morally have a right to exist simply because we do. There will always be some kind of economic divide for as long as we have a money system, but we can make poor a lot more survivable than it is. Let's stop blaming them for what they are and start bringing them up to what they can be.

Where have I compromised my ideals? Like everyone, more times than I can count, more places than I can mention. Sometimes my ideals are in conflict. Also, I hate confrontation. If someone gets in my face, I tend to back down or hedge. But I always hate myself for it later. It's sometimes necessary to compromise .. to hold one's nose while one votes for the lesser evil. But that doesn't make it desirable.

Where have I given up and what questions am I afraid to ask? Well, I'm spending an awful lot of time specifically asking the hard questions, so that's a hard question to answer. The more afraid I am of a question, the more likely I am to write an entire essay about it.

There was a while that I just gave up. It's very hard when it looks like yourself against a world of indifference. And all I have to offer are ideas, which are fragile against the light when compared to the gaping wounds of society. But ideas are the only thing that have ever changed anything. Without the idea, we wouldn't have agriculture, sanitation, or this computer we're communicating through. Without the idea, there is no change. The only sure thing is that if you give up, nothing will happen or change.

Feeding Flame

These two flames are the symbol and metaphor for everything in FlameKeeping. As the central metaphor, of course, they become both imperative to talk about and incredibly difficult to talk about, because anything I say leaves more out than it does in. So there are bits and pieces here and there as I try to explain the Flames.

I speak about them as though they're separate, but really they aren't. They're a single two-headed flame shooting out light and darkness simultaniously. The problem is that we fear the darkness. We fear the selfish, but I think more, we fear the fact that we aren't in control of the darkness. The dark flame is inherently a place which moves us, as opposed to us moving it. In the darkness we aren't simply our own individual self, we are also a mote of the Divine, subject to the influences of that which lies within and outside ourselves.

Question time!

Which flame do I nurture more? My knee-jerk reaction is to say the dark flame. I'm much more comfortable by myself doing religious things than I am with people. On the other hand, I spend a lot of time working on things that I intend to share with other people, like these essays. So I'm not sure if it wouldn't be easier to say that I have an easier time with the dark flame, but spend my effort on nurturing the bright one. It's complicated.

How would I nurture the other flame? Well, I don't have a problem with my dark flame. So I'd nurture the bright flame by actually doing things where I can see an affect .. by talking to people, interacting. Doing things. I should also give money, but I really HATE giving money to charities. It just disappears and I have no idea where it's going or what it's funding, and I never feel like I'm doing anything. Personal issue. I'd volunteer more, but I'm busy mommying .. when he's older, though, and I can leave the house with him. Although I suppose mommying counts as nurturing the bright flame .. I'm doing for someone else and all.

Do I think balancing them is important, and how do they interrelate? Well, that's one question. Balance is important because they interrelate. If you don't nurture your dark flame, you lose the "you" that makes life worth living. If all you do is nurture the dark flame, you also lose the "you" because there's nothing for you to push against, and you're alone in the dark.

We need darkness and we need light. Only when we balance these and grow them both can we grow as a person and better the Divine. Otherwise, all we're doing is chasing ourselves in circles.

I am Individual, One of Many, and part of the Divine Whole

Perspective in life really can be everything. It's so easy to see ourselves as the center of the universe, and forget that everyone else is the center of their own universe, too. And it's easy to see ourselves as nothing but a speck and forget that we're also important in ourselves.

I've never believed we create our own reality. To me, that's a way of blaming the victim. Poor people don't choose to be poor, and hungry people don't choose to be hungry. And if I was creating my reality, it would be a much healthier one, and I'd be better looking. That said, we do choose how to perceive our reality. I can easily make myself feel horribly worse by thinking only of the pain in my life, and how insignificant I am, and feel like absolutely nothing. Or I can focus on all the good things in my life, and how I'm connected to others, and all that there is for me to explore, and be happy. It's a choice. Not always an easy one (some days, life is just miserable. And of course, I'm not talking about clinical depression here .. I'm talking about the words we tell ourselves. Clinical depression is something very different, go see a doctor).

But perspective can be everything. For a long time, I could only see myself as one person among many. I didn't see anything particularly redeeming about myself, and wondered why I even existed. And the more I saw myself that way, the worse it got, because when you use only that perspective, there's nothing particularly special about any one person. It's what you do with your life that matters, and I was a college student. I hadn't done anything yet. When I changed my perspective and saw myself as special to myself, many things became easier for me. (This was not an easy change. It took a long time for me to stop thinking I was useless, to get rid of the nagging thoughts that asked why I was special. I don't want to make it sound easy .. just doable and necessary).

I am Individual, One of Many, and part of the Divine Whole. All of these are true at the same time.

Questions!

How am I individual? Well, I'm the only mommy of my son, the only wife of my husband, the only me. One of many? I'm a FlameKeeper (which makes me both individual, as I was the first, and one of many, because there are others), I'm part of a writer's group, I'm part of a group of friends, I'm part of a community, a country .. all of which are important as well. And I am part of the Divine Whole in that, simply, I exist. I bring joy and light and darkness to the Divine, as it does to me.

Do I love myself for who I am? Well, I do now. I didn't used to. I wanted to be anything else .. or I wanted who I was to be more desirable and acceptable. I had to train myself to deal with people, and I'm still not always great at it. I had to learn to accept that I would always be short, that my brother would have better hair (although he's going bald! hee!), and that I would never be classically socially acceptable. On the other hand, now I value my abilities more. I may not be classically socially acceptable, but then, I fit in well with the people that I enjoy talking to, and I don't have to spend a lot of time trying to fit in with people I don't understand. It might be better if I tried harder, but I have other things to do with my time that are more rewarding. :) There comes a time when you stop bashing your head against a brick wall. Do I love other people for who they are and being part of the Divine? I try to. Sometimes I fail with individuals .. again, I don't deal well with people often. Which makes people doing things I just don't understand hard to deal with. But I try.

How do I balance being special with being insignificant? Oddly, I find it easier to accept being special if I'm also insignificant, if it is just perspective. Because there are so many people out there, and I am just one of them. Even if I do something extraordinary, odds are good someone else could have done it at least as well given the tools. But I am also special: others might have done it as well, but they could not have done it the same way. My perspective brings a viewpoint that other perspectives cannot give. It may be a similar viewpoint, the differences may well be almost nonexistant. But I am unique, and my viewpoint therefore is too.

I know only that there is so much left to know

I often wonder at people's certainty. They "know" what reality holds, whether it's what God is or that there is no God or something else. The interesting part is that they "know." They have all the answers, and shove every question into their own worldview to fit the answers they already have.

It's convenient to try to shrink the world to what we can already understand and hold. We want to understand things. But when we try to shrink the world to what we can understand, we limit our own ability to grow. Sure, it's easier to think God created the world as opposed to evolution, with all the twisty paths that created us. But just because it's easier doesn't make it true. Just because we want it to be true doesn't make it true, either. I want it to be true that I'm rich and God loves me especially more than anyone else because darn it, I deserve it. I accept that I'm not rich, and that I'm not any more special than anyone else .. I AM special because I'm me, but that doesn't make me better than other people.

I guess what I've always wondered is, what are people so afraid of? Why can't what exists be larger than what we can hold? I find the Universe more beautiful knowing that there is always more for me to learn, both on a macroscopic and microscopic scale. Why shrink the Universe? It's more beautiful as it is.

Questions:

How do I try to hold the world smaller, and how does it limit me? I hermit. I don't try so much as to hold the world smaller as I try to limit my interaction with it. And it limits me because life is enriched by experience, and I'm not experiencing as much when I limit my interactions with people to just what I want to deal with. It's "safer", certainly, but growth comes from risk.

Do I see a conflict between science/reality and religion? Nope. If there is one, religion looses. If my religion tells me the sky is really pink with purple polka dots, and I look outside and it's blue, and everyone I talk to says it's blue, the sky is blue. The most I'll hedge is that it's blue for all effective purposes, but really, it's blue. There would have to be phenominal cosmic reason for me to doubt not just my eyes (Because they screw up, although not on color so far) but everyone else's eyes as well.

Part of the problem with that confusion, of course, is that religion frequently speaks in allegory. There might be a reason there's a myth where the sky is pink with purple polka dots that has great meaning. That doesn't mean it needs to be taken literally. We limit ourselves when we don't allow for multiple meanings at the same time .. some of which contradict each other. Regardless, if reality says there's a box there, religion isn't going to save you from kicking it by pretending it's not there.

Faith needs to be free. If it can't stand up to what it faces, the problem is with the faith, not the Universe. The more we try to hold our faith secure and refuse to examine it, the more we say we don't really believe. If we're right, after all, our faith will hold up to whatever the world throws at us. If we're wrong, what's the advantage of holding the faith?