Anyway, by the time I was able to get into bed I must have been a bit too wound up to go right to sleep, and as I often do if I’m not dead tired, I look for a podcast to listen to. Jonathon Pageau’s Christian Life and Symbolic Living seemed like a good choice.....and it turned out to have unnerving relevance to my thoughts during the service. I will try to summarize the parts that stood out for me here, for my benefit and that of those who are interested, but of course I recommend listening to the original.
Pageau’s theme was why the practise of Christianity is relevant in modern times and why going to church and following traditions holds society and individuals together.
He begins with a bold statement: when you go to church, you are “participating in the existence of the world.” And he goes on to say that this is a defensible statement, and to explain why.
Human consciousness is what brings shape to the world. People name parts of the world and beyond that, people perceive how groups of things are also coherent wholes. For example, we know a family is a family and not just a group of unrelated individuals. A country is also more than just its parts. Purpose is what makes groups cohere and purpose is what we see when we look at the world.
Science looks at how things work and the way the pieces of each thing function together. However, science has overlooked how human consciousness functions to see meaning and unity in the world. (That is how I so far understand his argument; it might be better explained in other lectures). Now that we have tried for a hundred years or more to organize society without religion, it is easier to see the failures of this way of living.
Pageau gives the example of how a medieval town was put together: the church was built first, then houses, then farmland around it, then public buildings and markets. Small towns in his home province of Quebec were built this way. The church was always the highest point, so it could be seen from everywhere in the town. This reminded people of their common purpose.
A group can be united by any purpose: knitting, collecting, making music for example. But in a church people are supposed to be centring the highest purpose, and this makes churches unique among other groups. Likewise going to church and following the rituals helps align the individual with her highest purpose. The communal rites, saying the same words, looking in the same direction, coming to the same place, create unity and strengthen resolve and purpose.
Pageau contrasts this picture with how secular societies attempt to build communities. They build suburbs. There is no centre to a suburb, nothing that unifies people or reminds them of a common purpose. It is normal to not know your neighbours a few doors down. It is possible for there to be someone in the community that nobody talks to or is aware of at all.
Later in the talk an audience member asks Pageau what he thinks of malls. The speaker has fond memories of going to malls in his youth and hanging out with friends. It was not a spiritual experience but it was a place where people came together. However, he observes that now malls are starting to go away, replaced by online shopping. He asks what Pageau thinks of this?
Pageau answers by talking about hierarchy: the church is at top, then beneath it the state, then the market, etc. When the top piece is ignored or removed, then people turn to the next piece on the hierarchy for meaning. But eventually each one fails. The state doesn’t unite people, neither does the market (the mall), and then finally people turn to increasingly fragmented groups online.
This argument could use some more exploring for sure, but it certainly is relatable for me. In fact I saw an example of it on New Year’s Eve a few days later. Again my husband was working and I tried to think what I could do to make New Year’s Eve a bit special for myself and our daughters. I looked for family friendly events in our city and saw one at a nearby mall. So we got dressed up and off we went, not without a few tears and fuss as that is often how it goes.
When we got to the mall we saw that a great many people had had the same idea: five thousand was a number someone later claimed. We went to the centre of the mall, looking for the unifying purpose as Pageau might put it. There was a deejay and some laser lights and a dance floor, and a lot of people, but nobody seemed to really know what to do. No one was actually dancing, and though more and more people kept pressing in on us I increasingly wondered why any of us bothered to be there at all. We finally left for another slightly less crowded part of the mall. But the kids were bored and confused and I was left with a sense of existential doom: I was surrounded by people, but none of us had anything in common except that we were all looking for something that wasn’t there. Quite a difference from my experience at St Barnabas Anglican.
But that is getting a bit ahead of myself. As I lay in bed listening to this podcast, my experiences on Christmas Eve fresh in my mind and the anticipated ones of Christmas Day looming, I felt that there was a message in these two events. I felt, and still feel, that I need to find a community centred on a higher purpose. I see how I have tried to do this sporadically in my life, and have succeeded, often not knowing quite how to define the success. I have acted intuitively at times and ignored my intuition at others. I have looked for higher purpose in my own relationships and work and pastimes, and I have found it, but I have also fragmented and lost confidence and interest in things trivial and crucial.
I see in myself the desperate seeking of novelty and distraction. I have tried mindfulness and meditation, and indeed it has helped through some tough moments. But my mind is restless and refuses to be merely soothed. I want to stay functional to meet my considerable responsibilities, but I cringe at the thought of taking medication to dull my thoughts and feelings. More than any of this I want to be truthful in my thoughts and words and actions, and while I don’t think I’m a liar, I don’t think I tell the whole truth either. I need to try. I need to be the kind of person who can say what needs to be said. And since I am alive, here, now, I can do it.
Those are my thoughts as I wrap up my first entries on my blog. It’s getting late; I will probably look for something to listen to now and set a sleep timer. Tomorrow I start the second half of the school year and a very busy and challenging month. I don’t know how much progress I will make on this project of religious exploration. I hope I can keep up the thinking and researching. I did discuss these ideas with Mr Turtle over dinner in my birthday, and found him if similar mind, which was very encouraging. And a couple of people have expressed some interest in this blog. I hope to be back to explore, and I feel good for finishing these two first entries, because they were a lot of work. It’s not a small thing, to grow your life and mind and soul.
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