This is his Sacred Wound – perceiving the fake in religion. His recollections concerning Catholic are bill’s family, the primary school and masses; most of it was fake. In terms of his family there were two truths – his maternal grandfather and paternal grandmother; their religion shone through them as good people. He should mention his Auntie, his father’s older sister; she was very hospitable and her church was an important part of her community – beyond this he is not sure but it wasn’t fake. But were any of these religious people spiritual?
Zandtao noted this fake when Anita was talking in Heart over Mind (transcript). “[37.23] when they said we're looking for Jesus he said “I am he” and slayed hundreds of soldiers - two seconds off his knees hollering and crying to God about how scared he was. But some of you won't do that in your prayer closet. You get yourself together before you go before the lord. You don't bring him all that - you bring him faith. Okay whatever. Number one, it don't mean you're not scared just because you acting like you not; and two, it seemed to clear the path for Jesus to go from broken to powerful.” For Anita the point was that being fake in front of God doesn’t remove fear, and secondly that being open to his fear Jesus was more powerful.
This kind of fake – “But some of you won't do that in your prayer closet. You get yourself together before you go before the lord. You don't bring him all that - you bring him faith.” – typical of what alienated young bill from church. People were getting themselves together to be seen in the back pews of the church. This had nothing to do with God, it was not about bettering themselves, it was about being seen doing the supposed right thing – fake. And because these catholics were faking, they weren’t getting any power or grace from God.
To his nuclear family catholic was fake, and he has to be careful here because his mother was spiritual. But when he was young church was only for his paternal grandmother; for bill’s father it was fake. There was no spirit in his father’s limited adherence to the rituals he followed for his mother's sake (bill’s Nana). And this led to bill’s spirituality turning fake. He remembers one Lent going to church before school, this was to impress a powerful teacher. Zandtao’s immediate recollections of her were fear but also that she was devout; in retrospect that devotion feels good. When he said he was going to attend the local grammar (non-catholic shool), there was embarrassment because she was upset – not just fear but shame. Yet even at that age he was happy with his father’s decision concerning distance to possible catholic schools.
But his recollections of the church itself was almost complete fake. Towards the end of his own fake following, he left home well into the mass to arrive to stand at the back towards the end. He could recall faces of women who arrived early to be seen sitting in the back pews. What had this to do with devotion and spiritual development?
After this young age there was little religion in his life. As his numbness slowly took him into deep alcohol at uni and his early work, there was no soul or spirit. At upheaval in came the path that could have been about connection to God or Source, but instead that connection was mainly Muse although it was connection to Source as compassion; it could never be God then because to bill connection with God was just fake. As his spiritual connection developed, there was a theosophy year whose motto was “There was no religion higher than truth.”; in this year his path crossed with genuine Christians looking for path – what he would see now as a genuine connection to God.
The next thing he recalls was 10 years later - the footstompers in Botswana, and N’s deep white-outfit faith. He loved N, and she could listen to his truth about the path; but the relationship was dishonest on her side – her religion did not have enough truth – maybe it was truth that made her dump him. The religion of these footstomping Tswana was natural and animist. Now whilst zandtao can see this in harmony with God, 19th century missionaries who were the justifying vanguard of colonial exploitation tried to suppress it; the consequence was this hybrid footstomping that is part of Southern African Christianity. For zandtao nature and animism were true, and the imposed was false – but that might be his political analysis at the fore.
But the deepest fake he met was in the apparent devotion in Nigeria – the Christianity in Lagos. He didn’t see nature and animism in Lagos, what he saw was materialism. Buy the pastor a car and you will go to heaven. But there was a good memory that shames him because he didn’t see it at the time. This was his last job before a Buddhist retirement, and he was trying some meditation stuff. Year 7 lessons started with meditation and the kids liked it. Sometimes he would have meditational quiet before tests but he was not totally committed. Two girls showed him up. They always started tests with deep prayer, even when there was meditation they took additional time out of the test for deep prayer. Excellent and shame on bill; there was so much Christian falseness around that school that bill missed the truth of these kids - young women.
This is enough for him to see that his catholic wound is about fake - just in religion or more? He found his truth in Buddhism until autonomy made him see the lack of love-wisdom balance. Now he sees grace focussed on love in Agape tradition, and he is looking for the Christian aspect of the 5 graces, vision and connection that came from Buddhism – that came from his practice developed through Buddhist teachings.
He sees this wound of fake in his approach to Buddhism. He never embraced the institution, never attended wats except for funerals, and is now taking from Buddhism the wisdom tradition and its lack of love-wisdom balance; fakeness in the institution – a fake reaction to love?
|
