Unity

[f4f3]

This promises to be a long one, and, after all these years, I still can’t do an LJ Cut with any guarantee of success. So look away now, if you don’t fancy some travelogue with sophomore spirituality thrown in for size.

Hmm, this feels like that scene from “Downfall” when Adolph sends the riff-raff out of the bunker.

Ok, so what did I get up to tonight? Providence is an industrial city that learned in the late 20^th C that this was not a good time to be an industrial city. With inspiration from a colourful mayor (Capone colourful, not Boris colourful) the city reinvented itself as a financial, cultural and educational centre. An indication of the size of the task is that they decided to uncover the city’s rivers, their (if you’ll pardon the pun) font and origin, which had been laid over with railway lines and roads. So uncovering them was a major step in the city becoming a more welcoming place. Landscaping (and waterscaping) the waterways with riverside parks and walks was another.

One of the things the river brought with it (along with expensive riverside properties and gondola rides) was a local festival called Water Fire. They light up maybe 200 bonfires along a stretch of the river, and blast some music at the resulting shimmer and smoke. It’s a hugely affecting sight – for 15 minutes or so.

After fifteen minutes my attention was drawn to one of the braziers, maybe fifteen feet or so from me out on the river. After 30 seconds of looking at the flame, and at how it reflected in the water, my attention was somewhere else altogether.

Fire and Water are two of the Ideal elements which I’m convinced we all deal with. Earth, well, Earth abides. And while I’d hate to be without it, air isn’t particularly glamorous. It’s no coincidence that prophets rarely threaten us with landslides and hurricanes. No, nine times out of ten it’s fires and floods that will be rained on the unbelievers on the day of judgement. Fire and water. We’d come a long way towards civilisation when we could kindle one and had a bucket of the other ready to extinguish it when things got out of hand.

So tonight I gazed into the fire, and it wasn’t long before I’d slipped into meditation. The first thing I thought was “Why 200 flames?” It seemed to me that everything a fire could be was in the single flame in front of me. The second was that it’s not surprise that so many religions come from the fire. You can see just about anything in there, when your head is at the right angle, and you can also see why Moses, Zoroaster and the rest of those guys saw truth.

And that made me wonder, if all fires are in one fire, are all gods in one god? In general I like religions that accept the existence of multiple gods. I tend to raise an eyebrow at any doctrine that says “Ours is the one, true God. Worship any false gods, and you’re for a smiting.” Almost as soon as I understood the words “I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church.” I had to stop saying them. While I can believe in a God, I’m very wary of anyone who looks at the flame as it bends in a particular way, and believes they have captured the fire.

After a few minutes of this, I had to look away from the fire. For one thing, I was sweating pretty badly. The fire does that to you. I looked up at the crowds lining the river banks, a good few thousand of them gathered at the little basin I’d stopped at.

I’d been prepared to be condescending, maybe even have a little sneer, at these crowds, ranged along concrete walkways waving fibre optic rods and nodding along to some glorified muzak. After all, I’ve floated along the Ganges as Hindu priests raised fire and incense to mother Ganga. Except I found that I couldn’t sneer, or condescend. It was plain that the same impulse brought the crowds to the fire and the water in Providence as brought them there in Varanasi. An impulse to be together and join in some form of worship as the sun went down, and the fires played on the waters.

If there is one fire, and one God, then we are also one people. John Donne got there a long time before I did, along with Jesus, Buddha, Moses and that other Prophet from the desert. “I am involved in mankind.”

That’s the lesson I’ll take tonight, shown in fire and water, brought out of Providence. 

Comments

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

I went to the BM exhibition on the Hajj in February and was struck by the importance of the shared, collective worship. (Google some pictures of the pilgrims circling the Ka'ba if you aren't familiar with it, which you probably are - it's incredibly affecting and startling when you think about the numbers involved and what the experience must be like.) It's not something I was in touch with when I used to go to Quaker meetings, but I think I get it more now (perhaps from another kind of meeting) and I'm seriously thinking about going back to the Society of Friends, inter alia to see if it's possible for me to get in touch with that sharedness. I think it's true for every religion, though, with the possible exception of Buddhism (about which you know more than I do) - that there is some element of collective spiritual practice.

A lot of modern focus on religion is on shared religious practice as community glue, but I think it's more than that. We are a social animal - "90% chimp but 10% bee", as my particular hero Jon Haidt would have it - and we do many of our most important things together. Spiritual practice can be one of them.

(Many other angles on this also. See Bonfire Night fr'ex.)

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

I overuse brackets.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

I love the Haidt quote, and I suspect that Chimps are also 90% Chimp and 10% Bee.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

You've got nothing on me (on the subject of brackets).

[parthenia14.livejournal.com]

I remember the same feeling when I went to Providence - I was all ready to pooh-pooh it, and yet it was mesmerising. Even more so with the contrast between the water and the large rather forbidding warehouses that tower around. It was some sort of strange futurescape. mmm.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

You've got an infinite recursion going there.

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

This is why I hate church services where the music is a performance and the congregation is just an audience. Singing together is the most moving part of worship for me. That is the connection I strive to make when I go to church.

I'm also not really a monotheist at heart. Christianity remains the best cultural fit for me, but I think the Catholic saints operate pretty much like the multiple gods of other pantheons, so I'm happier thinking about them.

[radialcell.livejournal.com]

I’m very wary of anyone who looks at the flame as it bends in a particular way, and believes they have captured the fire.

I like this sentence very much. As I get older, I'm less inclined to be the more doctrinal Roman Catholic I used to be, and more inclined towards practicing compassion and looking for that practice in others, regardless of their religious/spiritual bent.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

"inclined towards practicing compassion and looking for that practice in others, regardless of their religious/spiritual bent"

And I like that sentence very much indeed.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

I'm a monotheist with bells on - I believe that any god we can imagine is a facet of the one god, or spirit, or principle. And you've also reminded me to post my favourite belief quote...

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Why thank you.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Most of those warehouses are apartment blocks now. I've just been reminded of Providence's Lovecraftian heritage, so fire and water should work here quite well.