Thank you, Church of the Churchless visitors

It’s sort of clichéd for a blogger to devote his last post of the year to thanking his readers. But who’s afraid of a big bad cliché? Not me. I’m doing it anyway.

Thank you.

TypePad, my blog host, tells me that on average a few hundred people enter the cyberspacey Church of the Churchless door every day. I’m grateful.

I talk to myself a lot of the time. That gets old. It’s nice to reach out and touch someone else, even if they’re repulsed by the gesture. Today I caught up on some unreplied emails and came across one from a woman who said:

I do read your blogs once in a while – initially I used to get angry, upset, baffled, and confused by reading them but now I enjoy them…

Apparently not because they’re any less of an irritant. She’s just come to accept that my skeptical/heretical attitude toward religion in general, and Radha Soami Satsang Beas in particular, is simply part of the burden that God’s truth-bearers have to put up with.

You know, the “Take up thy cross and follow me” sort of thing.

Well, I’m happy to hear from everyone who comments on my posts, emails me, or gives me an earful in person about something I’ve written. Really.

I’m the child of my mother, Carolyn Hines. She was a ferocious conversationalist, in the nicest sense. She loved nothing more than a spirited debate. My mother could be a hugely irritating know-it-all, yet she truly did know a lot.

She’d inspire others to bring forth what they knew, or thought they knew, because if you didn’t bring your best game when you debated her, you were going to get blown out of the give-and-take ballpark.

From my mother I got my intellectualism. From my grandmother, Eva H. Lewis, I was inspired to seek the truth that lies beyond thought. Mystery.

As I wrote about in “Tracking the trajectory of my Wu Project,” she affirmed a 13 year-old’s poem about the void of unknowing. And who knows? Echoing Robert Frost, being encouraged at just the right time to take the road less traveled by may have made all the difference for me.

Religion is a well-traveled road. So is science. Another way—I don’t have a good name for it—is what I’m drawn to. As are, it’s pretty evident, many if not most of you. That way is difficult to pin down because it defies description.

It’s the road that I’m sure exists, and will get me where I want to go to, but which is so damn difficult to find it often makes me want to scream. Or, blog about. Or, shed tears for, as I related in “An old koan rises from my past.”

“There will be light when there is no darkness and through darkness we cannot find the light.” Like I said, fuck! What kind of bullshit is this? Well, the kind my mind has been wallowing around in since that 13-year old stared at the California night sky and thought, “What’s in the darkness past the stars?”

I’ve never regretted setting out to answer that question. The search can be lonely, though. Necessarily, it’s taken me into myself, where so far I’ve encountered mostly me. Well, for all I know, entirely me.

Via this blog it’s nice to share what is sharable about the ramblings I take around my state of consciousness. I enjoy feeling a connection with fellow travelers. I’m not sure what direction we’re heading, individually or collectively.

I simply appreciate knowing that there are others on a roughly similar ride. Gracias for being willing to jump on board my train of thought now and then. And special thanks to those who take my musings in a different direction through your comments and emails.

Fresh vistas. New scenery. You guys are great travel companions. May we all get closer to our final destinations in 2007.

Happy New Year.

Comments

[tao]

Thank YOU Brian... for being you. And a very H.N.Y. too.

[ET]

Brian -

I enjoy riding on your train and will happily ride along for another year.

Happy New Year and good luck in the coming year -- Brian and all!

ET

[Edward]

I have enjoyed a year of chatting with all of you. Thanks for the conversation, and thank you Brian for hosting.

[Veronica]

Many thanks Brian for running this site. My New Years resolution is to give up feeling guilty (Catholic and RSSB background)- and many of the ideas expressed here are a great help!

[Roger]

Same for me. I really enjoyed the "Common Sense" theme to many of the discussions.
Best wishes to all..........look forward to more 2007 common sense approaches.........

[benandante]

Brian, the ride has been contemplative, thrilling, challenging but always... Honest. Sincere. Real.

I feel priveleged to have stumbled into this holy place. I do feel Spirit here. I do recognise God here. I feel at home here.

I am happy to ride until we meet at the restaurant at the end of the universe. Tapas is on me.

Jeanine