In the USA, we have a freedom of belief. We’re not alone in the world in that respect, but that’s not what I’m writing about. I’m writing about what to do with that freedom.

I used to hold a view that the universe was entirely deterministic. No God guided anything along in the view I held then. I looked at other religions and saw the man-made alterations and inventions in them and felt no sense of the divine. I heard preachers on the television – years before their public downfalls in stories of corruption and lies – and heard the hypocrisy in their voices. I could not believe that which was built upon vain imaginings and crass manipulation.

To me, if a faith was worth having, it would have to be based upon something pure and honest. It would have to be self-consistent enough to provide a framework that would allow belief to cover the yet-unexplained gaps. I never wanted perfect proof for a faith. The very definition of faith means it cannot be based upon perfect proof. But it still had to answer my questions in a manner both consistent and…

And what?

I didn’t know at the time what else was needed, but I knew it needed to be more than a Geometry proof or a Physics experiment. Science had no answers for me for things beyond its reach, that of the senses and their extensions. Death stood before me as a grand, dark gate, blacker than the blackest hole of the cosmos, to which we could send no instruments to gather data, let alone have them return. Science draws up at the gate of death and confesses defeat. In a world with only explanations for the world, that which lies beyond can never be known.

And that left me as cold as a hypocrite’s plea for gold in the guise of a gospel.

Rene Descartes said, “Cogito, ergo sum.” Translated, “I think, therefore I am.” In that Cartesian summation, the inner awareness is supreme. Even if it is in error, it is supreme. This is the point from which we all begin – the self – and it is where every journey of life begins. We determine in our own conscience what we are willing to accept, what we are willing to believe in, and what we are willing to allow to change our lives. We have that will, that freedom, and one of the great wars of humanity is in the question of allowing individuals to exercise that free will.

At its most base expression, one holds a freedom of belief to be in effect only for the self, that all others must then conform to the belief one has chosen. This is the cardinal mistake of fundamentalism, for it denies others the opportunity to express their own dictates of their own consciences. As much as I would desire everyone to believe and to be acted upon by that belief as I am, to impose the decisions of my conscience upon others is to assault the souls of others with the intent of murdering them.

Sadly, I used to be that way to some extent. In my own realization of a thing worth believing in, I sought to replicate that experience in the lives and minds of others. Not something like it, but the very experience itself. I wanted, as in the words of Stanislav Lem, to create mirrors in that which faced me. I never was entirely comfortable with that, as it smacked too much of the hypocrisy which revulsed me.

Defending my faith with loud arguments and aggressive proofs was a step up from that, I suppose, but it was still not satisfactory in that it still did not respect the views others were free to form. While I realize that acquiring my faith was a massive turning-point in my life, I realize that an equally massive turning point was in learning that I had no right to impose or force my views. Each time I have learned about that, and those lessons stretch all the way to this day, I have felt my own faith strengthen and grow.

Even today, I just had the realization that I was as right when I believed there was no God as now, when I very much do believe that there is a God. At each step of the way, I was – and am – convinced that I was – and am – right in my thinking. The person I was thirty years ago is not the person I am right now, but he was still competent and capable of figuring things out for himself. I mean, after all, he is the person that got me to where I am today.

What helped that young man to get here was the guidance of others that had already walked long paths of life with dignity and humility. Many of those men and women were of my own faith, but not all. Thankfully, I do hold to a religion that, while it proclaims to be the only true one on the earth, does not claim to have a monopoly on truth. It also teaches that, in order to live in the most harmonious way possible, we need to tolerate others. It specifically warns against forcing others to do or act in ways contrary to their conscience. Yes, there are exceptions for self-defense and other extreme cases, but those are the extremes. In everyday life, we have to let other people do things that we think are wrong because they think they are right in doing them.

We must forgive and allow them to do those things. We must be tolerant and respect their ways if we wish to have any claim on a right to be respected in our own ways. We must avoid the sin of fundamentalism and embrace the virtue of greater wisdom.

This is why I choose to emphasize that people should never stop seeking the truth. I know there is a grand, unifying truth that binds the universe in its loving eternity. While there may be one truth, I know that I do not yet know the whole of it: I only know enough to know where to keep looking to find more of it. But I do know that anyone who creates rules in his or her own life to seek after truth and then, upon discovery, to allow it to change his or her life will eventually find the same truth I have found and it will change their lives in the ways they need to be changed. Not to make them mirrors of me, but to make them the best that they can be, which is what I seek for myself.

Religion is nothing more than a vehicle for truth. I mentioned that great gate of death before: religion claims to have the answers for what lies beyond that gate. These claims, however, must be subjected to different tests than claims about what the physical world around us is like. The experiments one performs on faith are personal and strictly so. My experiences are my own. I think and therefore I am. You think and therefore you are. What the I experiences is available to the you, the he, and the she, but only on terms acceptable to the you, he, or she. What is in my mind, I cannot re-create in the mind of another. All I can do is hope to expose that grand, universal truth to another and hope that it is something the other will see value in. If not, so be it. If so, happy day!

I have read much of other faiths and I have tried my very best to comprehend them all. I do this not to point out where they are wrong, but to realize where they are right. In so doing, I have realized that, over time, men have encountered personal proofs of what lies beyond that gate of death. They take their personal accounts, many of them bewildering and strange on first examination, and commit them to paper or legend for others to learn by them. In so doing, there are core, resonating ideas that show to me how there is that one, grand truth. Peoples separated by time and space have independently verified, so to speak, that their encounters with the other side of death have given them certain conclusions which I think are safe to say are universal.

Now, anyone who rubbishes that idea of mine is right. The nay-sayer is free to say nay. In his mind, he’s right and in my mind, I’m right. Both of us will be amazed when we come face to face with absolute truth in its entirety – when we realize how wrong we were to think we were so right before. But I do see a danger in absolute rejection of the idea that there is more to life than what we see and experience with our senses and their extensions, the lab equipment of the scientific world. In a sense, it is another form of fundamentalism. It is another form of refusing to seek after truth.

The hypocrites that demanded gold for gospels refused truth: they saw the search for knowledge, peace, and harmony, as an opportunity to enrich themselves. The fundamentalists that killed those that did not believe as they did refused truth: they did not know that, blind as we are, we are bound to think different things as we are individually exposed to different aspects of the grand truth of the universe. The strident arch-defenders of a particular religion refused truth: they presumed they had already learned all there was worth learning and that no one else could offer a view that would add to their wisdom.

I have a freedom of belief. So do you. We can do whatever we want with it, even nothing. I have chosen to seek after truth, wherever I can find it, and to encourage others to do the same, with the faith that those who are honest in their search – who never abandon it, even when it means they must confront the sin in their own life and repent of it – will make a journey worth all the sacrifice. I have faith that I will be standing in the same place eventually as all other honest and earnest seekers of truth.

I should take some inventory in my life at this time. There are so many wonderful things I’ve been able to see and experience. The greatness of life is not in the fame we have for our works, nor in fortunes amassed. True greatness is being able to look back on what we have done and to know, in spite of obstacles and mistakes, that we have indeed fought the good fight. True hope is in the realization that even if we haven’t fought the good fight in our past, that the resolve to fight the good fight in the future can make our lives great from this point forward.

So what does this have to do with the Grand Canyon at dawn?

Well, one day at the Grand Canyon, I decided to wake up before dawn so I could be in position to take photos of the “first sunrise.” While my choice wasn’t fraught with danger, it was still an act of will to get up, get ready, head out, and hike over a difficult path to Bright Angel Point. I fought the good fight that day… and, what do you know, my life was great that day.

Living life over again is a recurring fictional theme. It’s a grand daydream, taking another run at life and making some changes. But would we truly make those changes? Or if they did, would they be the right things for us?

In Strange Life of Ivan Osokin, P.D. Ouspensky put forward the idea that if we had the chance to change our life, we’d do the same things over and over again. If we would make changes, then we wouldn’t desire to live our lives over again: we’d accept the mistakes of the past and live the rest of our lives without being trapped in fear. I understood that through my own moral filter: if we repent of our sins, it is as if they are undone and we need not re-live the pains of the past.

But what about decisions that weren’t revolving around our sins? What about correcting simple mistakes that could change everything?

Back in 1995, a member of the Dallas ISD administration committed defamation per se against me and some of my fellow teachers. We sued, but we mistakenly sued the district instead of the person. Had we sued the person, we would have had the potential to have a major settlement. By suing the district, we wound up with nothing. Change that one thing, and I change my entire life…

… but I thought about that, and I asked myself, “Would I have forgiven that man?” I have forgiven that administrator in this life. That burden does not trouble my heart. After the lawsuit fell apart, I started seeing him at my neighborhood grocery store. He was now a neighbor, and if I had really forgiven him, I reasoned, I should be able to smile and wave hello at him when I saw him at the store.

So I did. And I realized I had to force myself at first – the forgiveness wasn’t yet complete. It took about a month before I could honestly offer up that smile and wave without hesitation. More important to my soul was the forgiveness, not the money.

And so, in my brief daydream about changing one term on that lawsuit, I went back in time and changed nothing.

What happened in my past, had to happen. It is not for me to wish for ways to change it, but to instead seek how I may be enlightened by it.

While it would be nice to have a life of material ease, it is more important to have a life of spiritual struggle and growth. This life is a chapter in an ongoing story, the beginning hidden from us as surely as is the end. What we attain to in this life means everything in what is yet to come. Worldly riches are not important for that next phase. Our spirituality, fidelity, and humility are what we take with us to the next experience and those found lacking in those qualities will have their progress hindered.

Yes, we need things of the world to survive in the world, but only just. Should we amass too much of the world for ourselves, we risk denying it to others in need of those resources and then our spirituality is in jeopardy. Should we covet the riches of others, we fall into the same jeopardy. Should we instead strive to gather more spiritual experiences, to be more charitable, to live more with faith guiding our actions, then we take on the challenges of the spirit and enjoy what can unfold to be the most fulfilling moments possible of our lives.

Yes, it is more difficult to live in the middle of a spiritual challenge. It demands of us study, contemplation, meditation, fasting, prayer, and faith. It demands of us that we surrender our priorities and accept that what we ultimately want is not necessarily something we know best at this point in time. It means we await the clarity that comes with divine inspiration and then make the sometimes difficult choice to trust in that revelation with only faith to go on – not a shred of proof will shine a light on our path.

So be it: Our faith leads us to a greater light. It is a personal journey and one person’s steps are by no means the same as another’s. For those who choose to walk in faith, it is like passing through a dark and rough landscape, with only an iron railing to hold to as we press forward to our hoped-for destination. There is no proof that the rod will take us to where we want to be, only an assurance from someone who says he knows it will work out. We don’t even know for sure if that person ever got to where he wanted to be by holding to that iron bar. We have the choice to hold on for our own sake or to let go to see what happens to those that choose to wander off in the pitch blackness that surrounds us. Some head into the darkness and emerge in a vast building, clothed in rich apparel, bedecked with the tokens of great wealth. They mock those who hold to the iron in the wilderness. At the same time, they do nothing to help anyone trying to join them. They also have nothing more than those riches. Those who hold to the iron railing retain their faithfulness, which will be so important to them in the tests that lie ahead.

The search for spiritual truth is not easy, but it is worth doing.

One of my favorite teachings I’ve gleaned from Islam is that smiling is a form of charity. I love that thought, and it’s something that’s universally true, I believe. It’s certainly where we can start giving to each other, and from it can follow so much other goodness.

Take some time to smile at other people today. I know that every time I’ve been smiled at by a random stranger as we pass by, I’ve had a better day. When a good friend or someone in my family smiles, it’s even better. If reading this makes you smile, I’m glad I helped in some way. If you go and start smiling at others because of this, then we may have a movement on our hands.

Or should I say on our faces? No matter: smile, and make your brothers and sisters in humanity feel better. 🙂

Merry Christ’s Day, to one and all. May your heart be full of joy and your world know peace. Mourn with those who mourn and share the burdens of others, that in the sharing of pain we uncover strange joys.

I love this film. It has been criticized for a sentimental bent and for not being as biting as Kubrick’s Paths of Glory, but the film still has a punch to it, before and after the quiet dignity of a moment of peace celebrated in the middle of a war.

There really was a Christmas Truce in 1914, and I see it as one of the most glorious moments of history, no matter how brief it may have been. The film looks at the consequences of the truce, and that’s the part that speaks volumes in its subtlety.

Basically, after the truce happened, the generals in charge realized that fighting would not happen, which would spoil their lovely little mindless war. There was absolutely no point to World War One, remember that. It was not a war to save anyone from anything. It was the ludicrous conclusion of jingoistic nineteenth-century nationalistic bombast. It was Europe attempting to commit suicide. It was a war that should have been cancelled. There was no justification for it at all, and there the soldiers were at the end of 1914, cancelling it. And that made the generals furious.

Soldiers were transferred to different fronts, units were disbanded, and officers were disciplined. In the film, all that is shown. It’s easy to shrug that off and say, “Oh well, no good deed goes unpunished. So what else is new?” The repercussions, however, are juxtaposed with the reverence and quiet joy of a mass celebrated in no-man’s land. That makes a key difference.

If peace on earth and good will to men are the words of Jesus – and truly, they’re also the words of Moses, Buddha, Zoroaster, Mohammed, and Lao Tzu – then what of the notion of “kill them all, every one?” Even if one rejects the notion of the existence of a Satan, the notion itself is a Satanic one. The governments and their state religions, educators, and civil servants in uniforms present an enemy to peace and good will. The men in those places hold power, and they use the threat of violence to compel otherwise good people to do things that maintain that power while exploiting or harming other people. This is something that was not unique to the world of the Great War. It is something that is a standard condition here on earth.

In essence, government is naturally the enemy of peace. In a blissful anarchy, it is the man who grabs a weapon to enforce his will that shatters the tranquility with the ugliness of despotism. Therefore, it is the duty of the righteous to provide an alternative to despotism in which justice and peace can prevail as much as possible for the people so governed. Sadly, what men can no longer seize from without they corrupt from within and what men created to ensure liberty and order becomes the very thing that destroys both. This message is conveyed quite clearly in the film.

Looking at the world of today, it is quite evident that no politician in the USA, not even my locally-elected representative, is truly working for the people. Each is beholden to interests that form a plutocratic oligarchy that I have no access to. To preserve the special privileges for those at the top, we here down below are made to suffer. It matters not who is in Congress or the Presidency or the Supreme Court: only those who will betray the poor in a Satanic bargain with the rich will be permitted to rule. The film shows that they will continue to do so, but hints to us all through the scenes of peace that there is a higher power and we are all accountable to it.

While those that promote the ideals of peace and good will are the dread enemies of the worldly power brokers, it is still worth promoting the ideals of peace and good will. One will never see massive wealth or great power through a policy of peace and good will, but why would one want that massive wealth or great power if it meant harming one’s fellow man? It is the Satanic bargain of murdering – even if only a little, through a lie or a cheat – to get gain versus the Godlike covenant of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you in order to have peace.

When I was in the 8th grade, I found a biography about Frank Zappa. I read it and it changed my life. It changed my life because of this quote:

“Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mediocre educational system. Forget about the Senior Prom and go to the library and educate yourself if you’ve got any guts. Some of you like pep rallies and plastic robots who tell you what to read. Forget I mentioned it… Rise for the flag salute.” – Frank Zappa

I already didn’t like pep rallies, so this resonated with me. Then I thought about the “drop out… and go to the library” part. I knew dropping out wasn’t an option, but the library was right there. I took Mr. Zappa’s advice that day and resolved to educate myself. I decided I had the guts to do it.

30 years later, I’m glad I took that advice to heart. Never mind my college degree: my real education happened whenever a teacher went on a tangent, when I got a chance to listen in on a discussion, and when I got to hit the library. The best thing about the University of Texas at Austin was its massive library system. I used it. If there was something I wanted to learn, I made the time to get to the library and to read all about it. I didn’t necessarily need a class in a subject: after all, a class was pretty much reading books, listening to a professor rehash his own book, and taking a test. If I read the books on my own, what need was there to test to see if I’d read them? And if I read enough books, it would be like a graduate course, right?

With the advent of the Internet, I found it that much easier to continue my education. I hate seeing people sit and wonder about answers to questions while they wait for someone else to Google up the answer. Start with Google and Wikipedia, and see where it takes you, if you want to know the answers. They’re great places to start, but please make sure you don’t finish there.

Another key part of my self-education was the original 10-part series of James Burke’s Connections. The episodes are as vital today as they were when they first came out. If you haven’t seen them, you need to. Burke shows how anyone can teach himself or herself anything and then use that information to make his or her life better.

By “better,” I don’t necessarily mean making vast fortunes with huge inventions. I do mean keeping the wolf from the door through clever thinking and innovation. I mean having a good life through constant learning.

Not everyone is with family on this day we here in the USA take stock of our blessings and things to give thanks for. Take some time today to say hello and share a message of hope and gratitude. I know I’m thankful for the joys I’ve had this year and the obstacles I’ve overcome. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

I told my daughter yesterday that if she wanted to maximize her chances of getting scholarships she should read as much as possible. Upon reflection, reading as much as possible is good, regardless of age. So go read. Wikipedia is good, because it usually leads to more reading elsewhere. So read. Enjoy. Find one of those books that’s supposed to be totally awesome and find out why.