Indeed. Ive thought about this quite a bit. When I was a teenager and very active in the Orthodox church, I found a ton of meaning in the symbolism and cycles of the church. It was a shared meaning with hundred of people. But as an adult I found those stories to be a type of "narrow universality" - Where all questions have answers.
I've since widened my universe beyond dogma and certainty, accepting a deep ineffability and therefore a profound solitude. It's very hard to create/ find a community of ineffability :) no one has patience for unknowing. And even when you find someone who does, the conversation quickly goes quite .. because words are not enough.
I still attend church but I do it for mostly anthropological reasons. I observe, evaluate and maintain a distance that gives the ineffability space.
And finally I realized as David Whyte said, pain is the ultimate portal to the present. Being incarnate in the world, being vulnerable in the most mortal way is what gives life meaning. And this, slowly, connects me to all life on this rich plane of existence.
I love this! There is something ineffable about existence and meaning. We are so uncomfortable in the unknown, that we seek resolution and simple answers wherever we turn. I find myself falling in the patterns of constantly trying to answer "so what" when perhaps the real meaning is just sitting with the unanswerable and staying present with it.
Indeed. Ive thought about this quite a bit. When I was a teenager and very active in the Orthodox church, I found a ton of meaning in the symbolism and cycles of the church. It was a shared meaning with hundred of people. But as an adult I found those stories to be a type of "narrow universality" - Where all questions have answers.
I've since widened my universe beyond dogma and certainty, accepting a deep ineffability and therefore a profound solitude. It's very hard to create/ find a community of ineffability :) no one has patience for unknowing. And even when you find someone who does, the conversation quickly goes quite .. because words are not enough.
I still attend church but I do it for mostly anthropological reasons. I observe, evaluate and maintain a distance that gives the ineffability space.
And finally I realized as David Whyte said, pain is the ultimate portal to the present. Being incarnate in the world, being vulnerable in the most mortal way is what gives life meaning. And this, slowly, connects me to all life on this rich plane of existence.
I love this! There is something ineffable about existence and meaning. We are so uncomfortable in the unknown, that we seek resolution and simple answers wherever we turn. I find myself falling in the patterns of constantly trying to answer "so what" when perhaps the real meaning is just sitting with the unanswerable and staying present with it.