About Time for Some Inspiration

   Yesterday was Alexandra (Bo) Fuller's birthday. I met her a few years back at a writer's workshop in Jackson Hole, WY.   Before that I'd read an excellent article of hers in The New Yorker about meth addiction in central Wyoming. I made a point of attending her seminar about non-fiction writing and markets and was bowled over by her honesty and charisma. I must have made a small impression on her as well because, following a short confessional presentation I gave on the last day of the workshop, she tearfully begged me to stay with non-fiction. This was on the heels of a savaging I received of a novel I'd taken there to be reviewed for advice. Bo's comments steered me away from fiction and have kept me dabbling with these short essays and journal entries every since. I'm no closer now than I was then to getting published, but I have kept up with Bo's books and numerous articles (especially in The National Geographic). She continues to inspire me and her advice to me echoes, sounding as clear in my imagination as the day she gave it.

   And so, to my right there is the fourth edition of Strunk and White's The Elements of Style and beneath that are William Zinsser's On Writing Well (about non-fiction) and Writing About Your Life.  I am re-reading Strunk and White for my continuing benefit, and to be ready to answer questions from my son, Sean, who just bought his own copy to inform and improve his writing for college courses.  The second two sit suggestively on my desk, waiting for me to take them on.  I intend to read them them for inspiration and guidance and to  deepen my own skills and commitment to the aforementioned non-fiction writing that Bo urged me to stay with. I believe she had my measure then, and that she'd offer the same advice today. So I'd best get on with it, eh?

   Here's a quote from one of Bo's fine books (and her website, www.alexandrafuller.org) that I will keep in mind as I move forward:

"What is important is the story. Because when we are all dust and teeth and kicked-up bits of skin - when we're dancing with our own skeletons - our words might be all that's left of us."

From Scribbling The Cat

Some Thoughts on Religious Conditioning

I spent some time with the Humanist Association's newsletter (see americanhumanist.org/hnn) the other day. Fascinating article by Eric McMullan, a former Jehovah's Witness (JW), who, after twenty five years in the cult, left and built a new life. Doing so required much courage and the help of a psychotherapist. His article was followed by many supportive comments including several by former JW's with similar stories, and often a similar need for the services of psychotherapists to help them regain mental health. I was moved by the courage the author displayed in exposing the inner world of this cult, and of those who commented so honestly about their own painful experiences.

I never really thought of myself as one who was raised in a closed or painful environment, certainly nothing resembling what Mr. McMullan endured. For the most part I think my upbringing was stable and nurturing. But the religion pushed on me by my mother and, especially, my grandmother was unhealthy. They conditioned me with guilt borne of their assurances that sin was my lot and that God was forever looking over my shoulder, watching every move. This latter message instilled a good measure of paranoia in my young mind. I have largely succeeded in putting these feelings to rest. Even so, I still feel the pull of the very strong instinct to obey my parents. Once negative qualities have been internalized, they are hard to purge. My mother hasn't given up even now...I regularly hear pleas to return to the faith.

I listen patiently out of respect to her wishes, but I've simply gone too far to turn back. I adopted a humanist, agnostic outlook years ago. Recently I've resumed my research into the historical, logical and epistemological underpinnings of this life stance that is shared by an impressive list of fellow free-thinkers. The result is a deepening of my convictions, and a growing sense of that freedom so honestly expressed by Robert G. Ingersol in the nineteenth century: 

When I became convinced that the universe is natural, that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell. The dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts and bars and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave... I was free-free to think, to express my thoughts-free to live my own ideal, free to live for myself and those I loved, free to use all my faculties, all my senses, free to spread imagination's wings, free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope, free to judge and determine for myself . . . I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously faced all worlds. (see Fred Edwords article: "What is Humanism" http://www.americanhumanist.org/humanism/What_is_Humanism):

This somewhat wordy outpouring captures how I feel these days. It is the same feeling, I hope, that Eric McMullan has come to experience as he's adjusted to leaving and then being excommunicated from the JW cult. It is the freedom to think for oneself, to reason, to engage with this world without recourse to myth, unhindered by guilt, self-negation, and superstitious paranoia.

Another Close Call -- Ours

From my journal of 1 Feb 2012. "We (I) rolled the Avalanche near mile marker 250 on I-80 last Wednesday morning at about 9:45 A.M. Ruined car, two ambulances to take us both to the E.R. in Rawlins. X-rays, doctors, super-glue for my deeper cuts. Then our sons and daughter-in-law drove through awful weather to pick us up, bring us home, and return to Laramie. Closest Suzie and I have ever come to being killed. Damned lucky to escape with minor cuts and some persistent body aches (neck, ribs, etc)."

Fast forward to 7 Mar 2012. We've had some time to get over this accident, but it's still very much on our minds.  What are you supposed to feel after an experience like this? Neither of us had that 'life passing before our eyes' experience. We were certainly frightened, and there are those poignant memories: the EMTs pulling us separately from the wreck strapped to body boards, separate ambulance rides, CT-scans for possible neck and head injuries, all of the emergency room measures that resolved into our being pronounced okay and released and waiting for our family to come and take us home. All of those memories are fading into a blur now. But what are we supposed to think about? What did we learn?

First of all, we've learned that getting past an accident like this one is slow going. We've now driven over 1200 miles in all kinds of weather in our new truck; diving in winter isn't an option when you live in rural Wyoming. I no longer grip the wheel so hard that my hands hurt, Suzie doesn't automatically shudder at the sight of blowing snow or those dark spots that foretell of black ice. I'm also over what can best be described as a prolonged period of surreal drift -- a persistent aura of unreality.

My mother, who certainly means well, continually reminds us that our survival was nothing short of a miracle. In her unshakeable opinion God was looking out for us. I'm not sure I want Him to keep doing that. The very next day in Florida seven people, including an entire family, were killed in a massive pile-up on a highway shrouded in smoke from an arson's brush fire. God wasn't there for those folks any more than he was for those small children who died in the flash flood I wrote of in my last post. So, no, I cannot believe that there's any point in finding meaning or some special omen arising from supernatural intervention. I'm certainly not deserving of it in any case.

Perhaps (and this may be closer to the heart of it ) there isn't really any intrinsic existential meaning to what happened to us. That brutally close call could be viewed as no more than a timely reminder that life --our lives -- are mixed up in a whole series of interdependent events and ongoing processes, some of them potentially deadly. Our survival is not a 'sign' of anything as much as confirmation of the conditionality that Buddhists are always going on about. Events went our way. For others they bend in another direction. Our lives are both fragile and clearly impermanent. Accepting that reality may be the only way to move on, clear-headed. But not unchanged.