Lazy Atheism and other Religious Reflections

I struggle with religion.

I was born a Buddhist, raised in Science and then kind of.. set free. I think it was around A/Ls and my first few years of college that I had strong atheistic leanings; the latter part of college I was enthralled by Taoism and the Bhagavad Gita (note to self: get my textbooks back). Now, after many discussions with my very religious boyfriend, I've settled into agnosticism- the lazy man's atheism. In the words of Jeff Winger, "to me, religion is like Paul Rudd. I see the appeal, and I would never take it away from anyone. But I would also never stand in line for it".

I think religion is whatever gives you peace of mind. For instance, the hours I spend browsing  Vintage Rose Garden some would called procrastinating; I call it meditating. But what spurred this post was actually this article on New Atheism and some interesting points it raises. Particularly interesting to me was the juxtaposition between fundamentalists and New Atheists, who are radical in their own right. Which took me back to a conversation I had with G about something he wrote last year. Initially, I couldn't see anything wrong with the particular sign but after hearing his side of the argument I understood that religious freedom and the right to express yourself should not come at the expense of another's belief. Which is technically what New Atheists do, which turns it into another radical philosophy, and we have enough of those already.

Something else that caught my eye was this statement left as a comment on the same article:

Fundamentalism IS religion, everywhere. It's just been watered down by people's innate humanity, real common sense, and science and art - all of which it hates instinctively, as it recognises its most formidable enemies.

 which I thought was a really interesting way of looking at it, given that we generally believe religion to be peaceful and loving and giving, and is in fact the way defenders of religion will argue for it, sectioning themselves off from the "fundamentalists" who distort religion for their own gain. This argument instead makes religion the distorter instead of the distortee..

Thought?

A Life - Sylvia Plath

Touch it: it won't shrink like an eyeball,
This egg-shaped bailiwick, clear as a tear.
Here's yesterday, last year ---
Palm-spear and lily distinct as flora in the vast
Windless threadwork of a tapestry.

Flick the glass with your fingernail:
It will ping like a Chinese chime in the slightest air stir
Though nobody in there looks up or bothers to answer.
The inhabitants are light as cork,
Every one of them permanently busy.

At their feet, the sea waves bow in single file.
Never trespassing in bad temper:
Stalling in midair,
Short-reined, pawing like paradeground horses.
Overhead, the clouds sit tasseled and fancy

As Victorian cushions. This family
Of valentine faces might please a collector:
They ring true, like good china.

Elsewhere the landscape is more frank.
The light falls without letup, blindingly.

A woman is dragging her shadow in a circle
About a bald hospital saucer.
It resembles the moon, or a sheet of blank paper
And appears to have suffered a sort of private blitzkrieg.
She lives quietly

With no attachments, like a foetus in a bottle,
The obsolete house, the sea, flattened to a picture
She has one too many dimensions to enter.
Grief and anger, exorcised,
Leave her alone now.

The future is a grey seagull
Tattling in its cat-voice of departure.
Age and terror, like nurses, attend her,
And a drowned man, complaining of the great cold,
Crawls up out of the sea.

 ---

I don't understand this poem at all, but the imagery is haunting. If I were to fathom a guess, I would say she's describing a photograph in the first few stanza, of people and a place frozen in time, and then talks about the demons of the woman (herself?) within it. 

For Rumi, Across a Thousand Years, Kathleen McLeod (for 11/21)

Oh lover, trace me like biro, blue veined and pure.
The way your words move in me, like a sea
to flood the heart: calling the masses out of the mosque and into the square.
See there, my hand is fair
I will scribe the discomfort, the longing -
The ache for your art.

Prayers falling on white marble,
This is the Passover.
Drink from the cup of ecstasy and spin.
The blood of Egypt washes clean from doorways,
And as the true son you are spared.
Let’s celebrate, I’ll bake bread and you will rise.
Eat it for energy, while I devour your poetry.

from.

Love in the Cathedral - Miller Williams

“…except you ravish me.”

In the beginning I couldn’t speak to you.
Not because the words wouldn’t come;
it was because they might. Not words like love,
blooming where they fall; words like come here.
When once you turned to look straight at me
out of a crowd, I thought I must have let

the sounds inside my head come out, like “let
us all go home.” I wouldn’t say to you
the wet, small words that moved inside of me.
I have thought that faith and patience would come
to no good end, that you would say, “See here!”
and never say, “Well yes, I think I’d love

to follow you home; to tell the truth, I’d love
to have some wine, then talk awhile, then let
you pleasure me.” Expelled to suffer here,
John Milton wrote of us. I look at you
and in my mind your awful kinsmen come
around every corner, looking for me.

You once talking about the weather with me
and that was something, but it was not love,
did not resemble love. Love ought to come
in recognizable clothes. One day I let
my plain and earthy self talk to you
most gently, saying plainly, “Please come here,”

but everything went wrong, a bah-bah here,
a bah-bah there. You have bumped into me
by accident, I have bumped into you
on purpose on the street where talk of love
was inappropriate, then I have let
my heart hide in the cold and watched you come

laughing and blind. No matter what may come,
give me this: that all this time I stood here
ignored to death and loved you while you let
every chance go; say your glances at me
suggested almost anything but love;
say I know you cry in bed, poor you.

Believe in love. You know that I am here
to let you loose. Here is my flesh for you
who ay abide with me till kingdom come.

from. 

Beauty is as beauty does

Yesterday morning I was horrified, as many of you were, to hear of the (de)construction on Independence Ave. where the decades old willow trees that proudly lined the avenue are now being cut down, to be replaced by Na trees, the country's national tree. As noted here by Groundviews and here by the Sunday Times, the military headed operation is a part of the Colombo beautification process. Were there complaints that Independence Ave. wasn't pretty enough? To this taxpayer the whole thing stinks of misguided pandering and patriotic nationalist bullshit, where anything foreign (as the willow trees are, apparently) is replaced with local flavour (enter Na). As Apelankawe tweeted today "The last I heard, one Bo tree in Anuradhapura was of confirmed foreign origin! Sshh! don't tell Gota!". And yet, Galle Face land is being sold to build a Chinese mall. Is there a method to this madness?

A few months ago we also heard of the plans to move the flower show at Vihara Maha Devi Park to a different location, also under the beautification scheme; earlier this year Gregory's Road underwent a cut and pave trauma of its own; the police stations and other old buildings have had their walls torn down.  The irony of removing flora and fauna in order to make something look nice does not escape me, but I won't hesitate to say that I do love seeing the wonderful buildings in and around Colombo which were once hidden behind walls. What concerns me is the lack of any public awareness on what falls under this beautification scheme until it is taking place before our eyes. Of course we did know, even before the oppostion to the Freedom of Information bill, that transparency is not a high priority for this government, but we as taxpayers need to demand that we know where our money is going. I would rather my money go into painting two yellow lines at the Horton Place junction so pedestrians can cross the road without fearing their lives, instead of cutting down the trees in what is already the prettiest spot in Colombo.

Today's Sunday Times also carries an article on the UDA development plan for Kandy where similar acts will take place. While no one can deny that Kandy city proper is a congested mess that needs to be dealt with, the method this development takes place needs to ensure that people's rights and livelihoods are safeguarded. This article from over a year ago talks about the problems faced by street hawkers due to the cleanup process, a problem that will no doubt be exacerbated if the government continues its bullish methods of operations, where no prior notice and no feasible alternatives are given to people.

I am not opposed to development. I like nice roads and clean sidewalks as much as the next person. I am however opposed to development that disregards the needs and rights of the people. I don't want to live in a beautiful city that is only beautiful because hundreds of people had their homes demolished in a day, or where trees are uprooted, animals are relocated and land is reclaimed from the ocean. I want to live in a city that is sustainably developed, with respect paid to humans, animals and trees alike. But it looks like that may be the stuff that dreams are made of.

The poet sees the thing you cannot name - Allison Chopin

Her language mimics yours, but it isn’t the same.
Sounds are softer, longer, rhythmic.
You carry the world around in pieces and snapshots,
She sees it all at once in blurs, and that is enough.

Those strange scenes you dream?
Visions of unsolved mysteries,
The dancing bliss, the envy that you’re too frightened to speak,
She knows them and recalls them
And long after you’ve given up and left your haze,
She’s painting them stark and perfect
On sidewalks in yellow and gray, in the shade
Of maple trees, in permanent ink.

Her world spins in blues and dark magenta,
A little deeper than you’d like to believe,
Thick like summer air before a storm.
A little rough around the edges, but serene.
The dewdrops linger for a longer while,
And you might not notice the smile in the sun but she does.

An image, a thought—each iridescent strand of rain, each echo of tears that no one else hears—
The song in the chirp of the cricket, solitary but alive—
Tries to elude us.
But the poet knows it when she sees it,
Through her stained glass crystal window
While you’re stuck at the door.

You wake in the night and shove your nightmares away;
The poet wraps herself in a blanket of pure sense
She wakes and pens the language of dreams.

Protest thoughts

Twitter is a marvelous thing. I've been watching the coverage of the London riots with great interest, and my timeline is full of nothing but updates on it. Then this article written by Laurie Penny began doing the rounds on facebook. It is a powerful piece on recognising and addressing root causes, something which I hold in very high esteem. I read it and my mind began drawing wild parallels which I'll put down here because I can.

The thing that seems to outrage people the most is the looting done by the rioters. It has been condemned as "opportunistic", "criminal", "sickening". When the middle east erupted in protests earlier this year, it was called a revolution; it was praised and supported the world over. Is it the method then, that gives one's cause credibility? It can't be denied that both groups have serious issues that need to be addressed, but is it a Gandhian approach that make one cause more important than another?

Closer to home, this reminds me of how the violent LTTE movement completely overshadowed very real Tamil grievances. The government can now tout their war victories and development projects because the conflict was so violent, so horrific, that everyone is just glad it's over. The LTTE walked out of peace talks, used the very people they were supposedly fighting for as human shields, so how can their cause be taken seriously?

Similarly now in London, people are looting for a laugh. What may have started out as unheard voices rebelling against unemployment, poverty and injustice is now overshadowed by opportunistic greed. Long after the fires have died, the UK legal system will be focused on bringing the culprits to book, and once again, legitimate grievances will be sidelined.

Perhaps then peaceful protests are the way to go. But I'm thinking now of the FTZ protests. If the police had not fired on the protesters, if Roshen Shanaka had not been killed, would there have been half as much reaction to the issue? Any one who has stood holding placards at Lipton Circus or written countless articles to newspapers will know of the futility of peaceful protests. In fact, the more peaceful they are, the more likely they are to be ignored by the higher ups.

So what then is the correct modus operandi for social justice, advocacy and protest?

Failing and Flying - Jack Gilbert

When the time comes, I''ll remember this poem.

**

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It’s the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights
that anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe that Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.