The Slickrock Sermon

Greetings ye Vulcans of VALIS!  This post is inspired by brainstorms on a run of The Slickrock Trail on Sunday, 04-12-20 (Easter):





Oh, what a glorious day!  I have jogged from my house up Sand Flats Road to the famous Slickrock Trail, and am going to run the entire trail (instead of riding a bicycle on it, which is what I've done in the past, and how most humans move along this course).  There is bright shining sun, but also enough of a breeze and drifting clouds to make it bearable.  Running along the trail allows one to see all of the wind-blown grooves and shapes that form the smooth, rolling, petrified sand-dunes.  There's a few bicyclists and dirt-bikers out as well.  With Nine Inch Nails abrasively pumping through my earbuds, it's difficult to tell whether a dirt-bike is approaching from behind me or it is just the sonic texture of The Downward Spiral.



As Mr. Self-Destruct goes off through my ears and into my brain, I ponder on the lyrics.  Trent Reznor was dealing with a majorly dark period of his life when he wrote them - haunted by himself as it were, or rather one "Mr. Self-Destruct."  He was on a path to annihilate himself, only to find some sort of rebirth in his thinking & feeling eventually, which would lead him to a loving wife and then literal birth to their daughter as well as a high plateau of musical career achievement.  Since The Downward Spiral screams about religion (especially track 3, Heresy) and it is Easter Sunday, I'm also thinking about the whole story with the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazaraeth, and how my understanding of it transformed drastically from what I was taught in Sunday School relative to what I learned about its meaning through my own research & reflections in psychology, philosophy, and religion.

Some jaw-dropping views along Slickrock Trail.

The church I was raised in (and many others) revolve around the idea that Jesus live & died on a mission to save us all from Hell / damnation / isolation from God / or whatever else you want to call it.  This is the foundation of these church's beliefs:  that humans let some curse called "sin" into the picture, and Jesus was sent as a sacrificial lamb to wash away this abstract demerit that is "sin" (the Hebrew word for "sin" actually meant "losing the way" or "straying from the path.")

Petrified sand-dunes.

I remember as a teenager, as I was beginning to think for myself and with a rational perspective, this idea of Christ-as-ransom never boded well with me.   It opens so many questions that, when answered by theologians who stand by it, only beg to open up cans of worms for more questions without sensible answers.  Why would The Creator make a world that could be corrupted and need a blood-sacrifice to fix?  Why does God (the Father) "sending" his son into the world into a body that is also somehow him and dying and then resurrecting fix YOUR personal sins, when you accept that this is what happened?

Here is a bit from the monumental pioneer of psychology, Carl Jung, to guide us in understanding why it matters that we understand "the big picture" in a certain way:

One of my idols.

Ah, Jung - you've nailed it as usual.  What happens if we think / worship the idea that Jesus dying is for salvation?  We are afraid - we believe our transgressions mean we are somehow doomed - and we need a human blood-sacrifice to be okay. . . to get that ticket to blissful eternal life instead of eternal pain & confusion.  What kind of god is this to follow. . . someone who lets people's souls slip from his grip into a nether-world?  Nay - I can't get behind this, and it concerns me that people live by it and for it and believe they need to get other people to believe it also to "be saved."

Happy Fungi Day! (04-21).

But what if our beliefs are based "on wonder" as Jung suggests. . . then, our "chief emotion will be gratitude!"  Yes - now here is an angle worth taking.  When we wonder at creation - at the bounty of the Earth, at our ability to be together and do all we can do, we are grateful.  Gratitude is the foundation of a live worth living - I've learned this from personal experience, and also from observing others' hearts & outlooks.  Your brain even rewires towards happiness when you live in gratitude - and the possibilities of success & satisfaction open up accordingly.

"Cycles & Bikes", maybe even bikecycles.

So what dictates whether people get caught up in seeking salvation or wonder?  The necessity for salvation is driven by the gut feeling that you are bad or have committed wrongs that you cannot move beyond.  Jung would call these sins "The Shadow" in an individual.  In his brand of psychotherapy, it is crucial to learn to BE AWARE of one's Shadow. . . to honestly and rigorously see what actions you've committed or tendencies you've got that don't initiate love, growth, and compassion but rather tend towards selfishness, destruction, hate, greed, etc.  When someone seeks salvation through the blood of a savior, it seems they're attempting a short-cut past self-improvement and Shadow-Work.  I get the appeal. . . I've seen people in church services with their eyes downcast and feeling unworthy of the salvation they have claimed to accept.  They just don't understand that they can be loved - that with the right therapy, friendships, and / or community support, it is possible to be okay and not feel unworthy or rotten.   We may all "stray from the path" in some way or another - but there's always the chance to navigate back onto it!

How do we interpret The Crucifixion Story?

When I look at the story of the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, it seems sad to me - sad that a peaceful, enlightening teacher would be convicted of wrong-doing, tormented, and killed.  When I watched The Passion of The Christ in the theater, the saddest part to me were the flashbacks of Jesus with his mother, Mary.  This is where life plucks at our heartstrings!  Mother and child. . . love & care, family bonds and sweetness towards one another.  I didn't watch that film thinking at all "wow, I'm so glad God could turn into human-spawn-God and die for me like this."  According to the resurrection story, he didn't even die really because he woke back up and ascended into the sky.  So what absolved the sins exactly and saved me from damnation. . . an eternal being staying eternal?



Wait - maybe that's just it.  An eternal being stays eternal!  Jesus was moved by the same spark as you and I and everything and everyone else. . .the spark that set The Cosmos into motion.  Here is the true power in the story of The Cross - that The Great Spirit lives in all his creatures and feels the pain and suffering along with us!  When Jesus dies or anyone else dies, the rest of us keep moving, grooving, and giving birth to new children.  Sure, Jesus is a son of God, but you and I are also the children of The Union of VALIS & Gaia.  Life is the intentional offspring of a Creator.  This is an Easter story worth celebrating.  (Easter, by the way, is named from a goddess of The Spring).  Yes, life is born again - and again and again and again.  This is rebirth.  When you realize we're part of a unifying spirit that gives life to all, you understand and WONDER at such ability for birth & rebirth. 

A La Sal backdrop is common on Moab treks.

Rebirth happens in a bodily lifetime as well.  Old parts of us die and new parts are born.   Every day even is a sort of death and rebirth, as we lay down to sleep in the night and awake to a sunrise each morning.  Charles Bukowski even expressed that "I have a feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you're allowed to return to life and being all over the next day.  It's like killing yourself, and then you're reborn.  I guess I've lived about ten or fifteen thousand times."  I can attest to this as well.  In my former years of hard drinking and partying, there's certainly a sense of destroying oneself and then bouncing back to health before repeating the process.  Ideally, this is a temporary lifestyle that one can grow beyond (as Trent Reznor did in an exemplary fashion), but there are those among us who've accomplished an artistically awe-inspiring life chock full of booze and / or other hard substances which trigger this sort of "death" and rebirth (Bukowski, Hunter S. Thompson, and William S. Burroughs all pulled it off with relative longevity , but others like Jack Kerouac & "27 Club" type rock-stars as Jimi Hendrix bit it early, being "born-again" fewer times).  How dangerously close will you dance with Death?  It's a risk that many, especially creative types, find themselves at war with. 

On the way down from Sand Flats.

Let us have wonder and rejoice in rebirth each Spring / Easter season.  Divisive religious notions that "these people go to Heaven" and "the others go to Hell" no longer serve us (did they ever really serve us anyhow?  As Nietzsche and Nine Inch Nails both drive home:  that "God is dead.").   Today (04-21) is Fungi Day and tomorrow (04-22) is Earth Day - hooray!  This planet is our Cradle of Life, and this is our time to rediscover a way in which we can live in harmony with one another and with the rest of nature.