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February 24, 2008Newsletter
Making Your Move Out of the City: The Spiritual Dimension
I have not really discussed religion and spiritual issues on this site (but I do on my "religion blog" here), but I confess they are not separate issues. My sole concession to "political correctness" is that I have not wanted to "offend" atheists who, lacking spirituality that I can understand, still might be part of what I call "the remnant" who survives any coming catastrophe because they prepared. Yet I guess that atheists and I have a big difference of opinion on one core issue: because they don't believe in a higher spiritual power, atheists must believe that mankind can solve all of mankind's problems regardless of the fact that it is mankind that created these problems in the first place. That logically leads to which sector of mankind will solve the problems? Here is where I think atheists really zing it to themselves: only the completely "rational" elite can do this, because everyone else is "irrational" or mentally incapable or not smart or "educated enough" for solving the problems rationally. Logically, this elite would be part of some sort of "enlightenment". Historically, a movement of this sort is associated with France of the late 18th and early 19th century; history shows just how this "enlightenment" elite solved (and continues to solve--think of a generic name for these elites..."enlightenment" = "Illuminati") mankind's problems! Any atheists who still think science and rationalism can solve all of mankind's problems need to go back to their history books and rethink their position. "Illuminati" indeed! Either that, or these "atheists" are not "atheists" at all...it is just that maybe at some point in their lives some "Christian" pissed them off too much, or "God" did a nasty on them and they won't get over it.
Does God exist? I think you have to look no further--if you are a "rationalist"--than Saint Thomas Aquinas's argument of "First Cause" (at this point if you don't know what I'm talking about I'd advise you to Google "St. Thomas Aquinas plus First Cause" or perhaps do a Wikipedia Search, though I don't find them reliable...if the editors don't like the entry they simply edit it!). Anyway, I learned this in a college Philosophy 101 class. This argument states simply that everything in the universe had to have a "first cause" and, he says, that first cause is God. Atheists and others claim the first cause is the "Big Bang." But who or what caused the Big Bang to happen? Was all this matter "just floating around in space" waiting to exhale? And speaking of matter, science rightly teaches that matter can niether be created nor destroyed, but can change from one form to another. Now, apply this to the "first cause" argument. The atheist would say that in the Big Bang (well, what else could he say?) all that matter floating round in space collided, and then instantaneously exploded into different forms, changing from one form to another. Now most "Christians" (or Jews or Muslims or Hindus or Buddhists or animists or new age pagans, I'll speculate) wouls say (I believe wrongly, being strongly deluded) that since God exists outside of the universe, He simply (as the Bible puts it) "made" the heavens and everything in it, the earth and everything in it and on it, and "it was good, and on the seventh day He rested." Now, it is true that God exists outside of time, but God also exists in time simultaneously (because God "was, is, and will be" simultaneously! Yes, I know, this is hard to understand, but how else do you explain God "knows the end from the beginning?"), so that also God exists outside of the universe and in the universe simultaneously (because "God is everywhere at once"). For those really metaphysically inclined, it means God also exists in all dimensions simultaneously. The problem for Christians (or anyone else) trying to explain to atheists why they believe in God (or whatever they call God...Jehova or Yahweh or G-d or Allah or Nirvana or whatever) is that they don't connect the spiritual to the rational enough for the atheist's liking, or explain it in terms of religious dogma. Atheists, who are (rightly) fed up with religious dogma, cannot be dealt with this way; you'll only piss him off even more. I would say this: God is in everything, in every cell of every living thing, whereas every non-living thing "resonates" with the living material that is "God", and, further, that when everything living does die, that part of it that is God gets "changed" from one form to another, and lives again in something else. So that, according to science, matter changes from one form to another, it can be said that "God" changes from spirit to substance. After all, Christ said, "God is spirit." Thus: every living thing has matter and spirit (and all non-living substances can be moved by spirit..."faith that moves mountains..."). Actually, the "religious" and the "irreligious" are not so far apart after all! It all depends on how you frame the argument. An atheist can be reached as long as you leave the religious dogma out of it. Unfortunately, religious dogma so permeates the Body of Christ today you can cut it with a knife.
So, what does living in the city vs. the country have to do with all this? I say this: in the city, because it is so much more densely populated, it is so much noisier, it is so much dirtier, and your space is so much more crowded, your personal space (and thus your spiritual space) is so much smaller and thus cluttered--and more conformity is demanded of you (thus, it is less likely that you can get rid of the dogma, religious or not). But the same can be said of small towns...in fact, small towns can be even worse because you are EXPECTED to conform and small towns are where the religious and other dogma can be smothering because everyone knows exactly what you are doing, starting with the town gossip. (I'll say it right now--if I couldn't live in a rural remote area, I would have to live in the most anonymous big city there is. This might be New York City (and yes, I've lived in New York City!). Why? Because no one gives a crap about you in New York City--in an uncaring, bad way. Yet, in the rural remote, no one gives a crap about you, either, but in a good way--the libertarian, mind my own business way. Now, big cities and rural remote areas do have gossips, but these individuals are much more likely to NOT be believed. And further: while dangerous individuals (psychopaths, sociopaths, convicted sex offenders and the like) in big cities as well as suburbs and small towns are potentially more dangerous, these "bad" people are much less dangerous in the remote: these people are less likely to find the "right kind of victim" and, as I said in one of my early articles, these people come to the remote precisely because they do not want to be tempted to commit their crimes again. Furthermore, people who choose to live in the rural remote are less likely to be "victims" anyway! Even the rare rural remote person who doesn't own a gun (yes, there are a few out here that don't, but I can count them on one hand.)
And I say this as well: because you are pretty much "on your own" in the rural remote, your spirit has a chance to breath in "the free air". Further you are surrounded by uncontaminated, dogma-free space filled less with people and more with nature (also called "God's country"). The deer in your back yard is not interested in your dogma or your negative energy. Your house plants might shrink from it, however. In fact in the country, you can be more alive than anywhere else (though you'd be hard pressed to convince your kids who grew up out here of that. I suspect though that those kids who want to go to the city will come back to the country eventually--even if it's a different "country"). But living out here can be a living hell UNLESS YOU ARE PREPARED to deal with the issues, such as I present in this article, "Thinking of Moving to the Rural Remote?". If you have already read this, read it again and consider each point thoughtfully.
In fact, though I live in the mountains, I can use the spirituality argument to make a case for living in the desert...but do research on where the water holes are, and, if there is no underground water supply, have water hauled in BUT build yourself water collection devices anyway, because it does usually rain somewhat in the deserts of this country. I speak of course of the desert Southwest: Chihuahuan Desert (far west Texas in the Big Bend area), Sonoran Desert (western New Mexcio and Eastern Arizona) and Mojave Desert (western Arizona, southern Nevada, and eastern California, especially Inyo County where "Death Valley" is, and the Barstowe-to-Needles corridor). It might be a myth that there is more spirituality here per square mile than anywhere else, but it might be true: what else would explain the actual fact that religious cults do very well in a desert type environment (examples: fundamentalist Mormonism; Carlos Casteneda's "Yaqui Way of Knowledge" cults, last seen around Pahrump, Nevada, in the Mojave Desert; Charles Manson's "Helter Skelter" cult on the border of Death Valley)? But what I speak of are individuals and even families (monogamous, of course!) living in desert areas. It is in these areas that you truly get to know what "you are made of." It is no accident or irony that, having received the Holy Spirit, Jesus made straight for the desert and lived off basically nothing for "40 days and 40 nights." (Note: it may actually have been "40 days and 40 nights," but since "40 days and 40 nights" appears on several other occassions in the Bible--"it rained 40 days and 40 nights" in Noah's Flood, for example--I tend to think this time period is more symbolic than fact (still Jesus being God and all, it is certainly not out of the realm of the possibility that Jesus could live on nothing in the desert for 40 days and nights!) It is also no accident that Jesus, in front of three disciples, showed His true nature (the Transfiguration) in a desert on a mountain. Nor is it an accident that most of the major and minor prophets (such as Elijah, Elisha, Ezekiel, and Isaiah) in the Bible lived in the deserts. When you live in the desert is when you are seemingly totally dependent on God.
Yet, I don't think I could live in the desert. Too hot in the summer and too dry in the winter. A woman in her mid-50s, with the female conditions that occur at that time of life, would not do well, period. So I am glad I live in the cooler and greener mountains surrounded by trees and wildlife. It is also no accident or irony that Christ gave what might be His most important sermon on a mountainside, "The Sermon on the Mount." In fact, other than in instances where the Pharisees and other no-good-niks tried to entrap Him by trying to get Him to "blaspheme" what was in their corrupted "Mosaic Law", Christ generally did not preach in the cities EXCEPT when in a temple or synagogue. Generally, He preached either on mountains near deserts or at the seashore. These are areas where the spirit doesn't have to be cluttered and is in a cleaner place: "God's Country" if you will. And I think it is also no accident or irony that I live in the mountains on the edge of the northern American-side Chihuahuan Desert which has allowed me to be given more spiritual discernment that I would otherwise get living in a more crowded place.
Now, the best of all worlds would be living by a mountain at the seashore. If you have ever been to a beach (at least in the US; Brit beaches are different), there are desert qualities to it: lots of sand, few plants, lots of odd-looking critters. Visiting here is no feat if you live close by. But buying a good-sized plot of land, nowadays, is usually only for those with lots of money. And the other thing is these areas are being so built up (again, this is not true in some third world countries, but their day is coming, unfortunately) that it is becoming more questionable if this is a proper spiritual environment. The more yuppies, the more spiritual yuck. Sorry I couldn't be more clever with my words. I meant emptiness.
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