Since we are still more or less in Eastertide, this is perhaps an appropriate time for a post like this.
Catholic catechism engraves the above phrase into your mind from when you reach the age of reason (age 7) till your death.
It's not quite beaten into you, but close :-)
So, it's not something any Catholic should forget.
But alas, we do. At least I do.
So it is with great surprise that I was reminded of this by a woman who is in fact an atheist, or so she claims.
This woman was spectacularly intriguing, to say the least.
Watching a 1984 interview of hers, I was stupefied by her kindly face and her patient answers and rapport with her interviewer (who was a young man).
The woman in question was Swiss adventurer, sportswoman and writer Ella Maillart.
I have no idea why I had never heard of this woman before.
At the time of that interview, she would have been 81. She died in 1997.
Born to a french-speaking Swiss father and a Danish mother in Geneva, she and a friend skied the Alps and sailed the lake of Geneva every winter and summer respectively.
She was known to drive from Geneva to Afghanistan in 1939 (wow!) and was a true daredevil, to say the least.
She was captain of the Swiss national women's hockey team, and participated in the 1924 Olympics in sailing.
I don't think she ever married, or had children (at least I cannot find evidence to support this, except that in the interview I saw of her, she was wearing what seemed like a wedding ring).
She was by no means a 'traditional' woman.
For someone born in 1903, let's just say she was a bit of a 'free spirit'.
Understatement of the year :-)
Ella Maillart is described as a feminist.
I can see why.
Here is a woman who never followed what was on the script. She never became the 'pregnant and barefoot wife' she was supposed to become. Apparently, she got too much of her father's adventurous spirit :-)
I have a slight problem with this labelling of Ella Maillart but I shall drop this angle, because in fact she is not the main focus of this post.
Something she said in her interview, is.
She ended up in India on a 'search for the truth' and spent three months in some temple with some holy men/gurus who were her spiritual advisors. They gave her heavy-duty spiritual books to read and she lived the life of a 'monk' (her own words) for all that time, learning from these holy men. She says with humour and humility that it took her 3 whole months to 'get it', i.e. the 'truth', which was what she was looking for, when it took most other people a few days.
She claims she did not believe in God. She was a bona fide atheist.
God was un mot vide, to her. An empty word.
And yet, Ella Maillart said this more than once in her interview:
Human beings have a divinity within them which is a reflection of God's image in them.
She went on to write several books on this topic, and to my eternal shame, I have never read any of them, yet.
But I shall. I am sure I will learn something from them.
This is where I get all philosophical on you :-)
Ella Maillart's words made me think of human beings as a whole.
Our failings, our joys, our sorrows, our fears, our pains, our successes and our challenges.
With all of these, we are still a reflecion of our Creator.
That's deep.
So, if each of us is a reflection of God, then we are all co-creators of each other, really.
Makes sense.
We reap what we sow. We create and destroy.
One of the laws of Nature is, every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
Everything we do affects someone, somewhere.
Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday.
Maybe not here, maybe not there, but somewhere.
And everything that is happening now, is simply another event in the chain reaction that happened long before we were born.
We can swing that chain reaction in any way we want, while we are capable.
We can choose to do good, in which case we align ourselves with God's good Nature, or we do bad in a conscious way, in which case we deviate from His innate Nature and hurt ourselves and others in the process.
Not a bad catechism lesson from an atheist.
And a feminist to boot.
The above are my thoughts as inspired by Ella Maillart.
But it appears I am not the only one waxing lyrical about philosophy round these parts.
Shortly after I drafted this post, I came across this comment from BeijaFlor regarding this post of his about 'closure'.
"There is a system of religious philosophy – often labeled “gnosticism” – that sees us as immortal beings, splinters of the Godhead if you will, who live out our lives on Earth in order to experience life as a mortal being; to learn from its pains, its struggles, its inequity, and all its “wrongnesses,” up to and including death. Some versions of this belief system hold that we come straight into this life, all unwitting, from our previous death. Some hold that we spend most of our existence as spiritual beings in a spiritual plane of existence, parallel to Earth, and that we map out the lesson-plan of each Earthly life before we cross over from “the other side” and take up our new life. It’s a matter that is outside the realm of this physical universe, and so it’s impervious to scientific proof. But I find it comforting, and I have had experiences in this life that convince me to trust this belief."
Holy schmoly, that's profound!
Ella Maillart and BeijaFlor are probably kindred spirits.
Interesting that the other thing they have in common is sailing.
Does sailing do this to you? :-)
Any other sailors out there? Do you share these views on the 'Godhead' and His image as reflected in human beings?
Is this one of the symptoms of 'sea sickness'?
Just kidding...
All I wanna know is, is Rasana a sailor too?
He said this recently:
"There is a point to blaming the dead. Shall I meet them after death, I'm giving them a whack, even if we're all part of the same Godhead/matterium such that I feel the pain too."
:-)
Formal Catholic Catechism for me began at age 7 just before First Confession and First Holy Communion and ended at age 8 just before Confirmation.
After that, it was kinda like, 'yer on yer own now, kid!'.
I exaggerate...but let's just say I am no expert on philosophy.
Bellita once said she was religious but not spiritual. I thought spirituality was a big part of religion and therefore found Bellita's comment incomprehensible. I am still confused.
Is all this what we call 'karma'? Is 'karma' a necessary part of religion or is it more like 'stand-alone'?
Ella Maillart has passed on, God rest her soul.
BeijaFlor is thankfully still with us.
I hope he enlightens us with his expertise on this matter. He has previously shared with us that he trained as a spiritual counselor.
This stuff intrigues me.
And it is increasingly clear that I need some education on it.
Please spill the beans, BeijaFlor.
I am curious.
