THE PHYSICAL BODY AS NECESSARY INSULATION

'Origen did not, like many of his contemporaries, degrade the body to the status of an unwanted encrustation imprisoning the soul; for him, the body is a necessary principle of limitation, providing each soul with a unique identity. This is an important point for an understanding of Origen’s epistemology, which is based upon the idea that God educates each soul according to its inherent abilities, and that the abilities of each soul will determine the manner of its knowledge. We may say, then, that the uniqueness of the soul’s body is an image of its uniqueness of mind.'

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosopy, "Origen of Alexandria"

I have written about the body being a form of insulation (not Origen's word) necessary to give the soul individuality and focus by shutting out perceptions which would otherwise overwhelm it.  I postulated that in a schizophrenic person this insulation has failed to some extent.  http://flightsofpegasus.blogspot.com/2006/11/writings-of-schizophrenics.html

PRAYER AS RECEPTIVENESS

The urge to pray seems instinctive in most humans. As an attempt to communicate with a being higher and more powerful than oneself, prayer generally devolves into requests for help and favors intermingled with flattering thanks designed to wheedle future gifts  -- as a small child would beg a parent.  That is certainly the way I was exposed to it in the United States.

I've written before about the evident uselessness of such begging prayers as far as their bringing special help from the Divine is concerned.  I certainly cannot say that some kind of godly intervention never occurs as a result of a cry for help, but observation shows that most prayer requests are not granted. The pleasing results of those which seem to be granted may be explained more by chance, or by a focus of the individual's visualization and desire and belief, than to action by a deity.

Nevertheless, I have a persistent inclination to pray, to find some means of communication with the higher power or powers I sense exist and have helped and guided me.  As I struggled one night with the question of how to pray, it came to me that prayer should consist of a receptive state rather than talk aimed at a beneficent deity.  In other words, prayer should consist of listening rather than speaking.

Relax, eyes closed, with a listening and watchfully waiting attitude. Signal in some way that a prayer has begun. What follows is like meditation, in which one discourages the inner word-stream and tries to make the mind clear, perhaps using attention to one's breathing to drive mundane thoughts away. Concentrate on the dark screen before your eyes, watching expectantly for something to appear and be alert to anything resembling inspiration or thoughts coming from a higher source.

You are tuned to receive.

Taking Dictation from God

One of Protestant Christianity's basic tenets -- at least among the more fundamentalist sects -- is that the Bible is the "word of God" and therefore all true, the ultimate authority on everything.

I ask myself increasingly what is the authority for that assertion. Having been dunked in the Southern Baptist church as a child, I was shown pictures of ancient men sitting at tables with pens in their hands while beams of light entered their heads from above. These were the Bible writers, obedient secretaries receiving dictation directly from God . . . of which every syllable was true. But I do not recall ever being told who said that the Bible was the infallible "Word of God", nor do I recall anything in the Bible itself which asserted that it was all written by God.

Considering how filled with contradictions and inconsistencies the Bible is, it seems that the Roman Catholic Church was very wise in not encouraging its believers to read it.  By unleashing hordes of the generally unintelligent to read and interpret the Old and New Testaments for themselves, Protestantism deserved what it got -- a multitude of sects claiming to give the correct interpretation of a collection of writings which can only be considered, if not schizophrenic, fragmented with inconsistencies and outright contradictions.

Years ago I thought that by now the Christian churches would have dried up for the most part, but based on what I hear around me, and on what we read, the traditionalist churches remain a powerful force in the United States, not only ideologically but also politically. And the main pillar of their existence is that the Bible is all true.

This makes me feel about as comfortable as I would if one of those wild-eyed street preachers who scream at imaginary crowds on corners had been elected Governor on a platform of education reform.

AN ODD FACT

Here is an odd fact probably uninteresting to anyone but me: As I was pushing a beach ball around on the surface of my swimming pool, I suddenly realized that I have never enjoyed a sport that uses a ball larger than a tennis ball. Tennis and golf I have loved, and I have enjoyed billiards, but other ball games I've never liked.

(Yes, a baseball is larger than a tennis ball.)

The greatest sport of all, however, uses no ball. It is sailboat racing. Being propelled over the water by the wind, and wind alone, is the closest a human can come to Harmony with Heaven.

BREAKING OUT OF THE EGGSHELL

I was standing looking up at the blue dome of the morning sky above the oak trees, pondering questions of life and death, when I had the fleeting image of a baby bird pecking out of its eggshell. This came after I'd been mulling over the theories of what our life on earth is. A divinely designed testing ground for future reward or punishment? A semester in a cosmic educational system? A prison? A chemical accident? A beautifully landscaped hell? A scientific experiment whose instigators observe us in the way that human scientists observe a bacterial culture in a petri dish?

To me, the little bird breaking out of its shell and seeing the sky and sunshine for the first time was an analogy of what happens at the end of this life on earth, and a hint at our earth life's function.

SIMPLE REMEDIES

Don't read this unless you are interested in remedies for physical problems that afflict old people. Yes, “old” people. Please never call me a “senior citizen” or, worse, a “senior.” I was a senior in high school. Let that word stay in high school where it belongs and not be one of those condescending euphemisms that has become almost mandatory in the United States.

First, don't go to a doctor except in extremis. The body has an amazing ability to heal itself. Like bureaucratic pests, bad things in the body will often go away if you ignore them for awhile. The exception would be if you find a lump growing somewhere.

Second, don't have surgery just because a doctor thinks it's a good idea, especially where the bones, joints, and connective tissues are involved. I once joked to my golf foursome, “I'm the only one here with real knees.” We had all experienced very painful knee problems. Why was I the only one with the knees I was born with? Because instead of hopping into a hospital gown I just waited until my knee eventually stopped hurting. Such joint problems take a very long time to heal even with treatment. Use a crutch if necessary, and common sense, and you probably won't need to go under a knife.

I learned as I got older that the way one holds and moves the body – posture in the broadest sense – is extremely important.

For lower back pain: Let the upper body hang forward from the waist. Simply relax and bend forward and let the arms dangle. Keep the legs straight. Don't try to touch the floor – just let gravity take over. Do this every day for at least 2 minutes. It completely cured me of terrible back pains after several doctors had been able to do nothing except run up large bills with tests, x-rays, and conflicting diagnoses, and consultations about exploratory surgery. One, who was obsessed with malpractice, wanted me to go to the Mayo Clinic. I healed myself completely by “dangling” for a few minutes each day while my coffee was brewing.

For spasms or blockage of the esophagus when eating: I'm not sure how to describe the inner mechanism, but for years I suffered an affliction which might hit me during a meal. The passageway through which I swallowed food became blocked so that I couldn't swallow, but at the same time I couldn't burp up the air which I felt pressing upward. . . as if two trucks had met on a one lane road. It was a frightening feeling, and it brought eating to a complete halt unless something happened to end the impasse . . . possibly vomiting. Dr. Malpractice said it could be very serious and that a journey to a Mayo Clinic was in order. A less frightened doctor told me to sip warm coffee or tea – but when this thing happened, I couldn't sip. When that doctor retired, my present doctor could offer no cure. And then one day at lunch I discovered what caused the affliction: Posture. I suddenly realized that when I ate I tended to slump forward, chin down toward my plate while my somewhat portly middle section pressed upward into my lower chest. Despite my rudimentary knowledge of anatomy, I concluded that I was crimping my esophagus, so that my food-swallowing tube was like a severely bent garden hose. As soon as I had this realization and began to sit up completely straight when eating (sometimes raising my chin toward the ceiling in the manner of a chicken), my embarrassing affliction was gone forever. It also helps, of course, to swallow food in moderate amounts rather than to gulp it ravenously.

To avoid falls: Between watching where you're going, and watching what your feet are going to encounter, favor keeping an eye on your feet. I feel sure that a lot more old-age falls are caused by tripping over things or kicking into things than by bumping into walls or doors because people weren't looking where they were going. Also, never stand on a ladder or stool.

To bring sleep: Take very deep, slow breaths. I certainly did not invent this technique, but it works. Relax in the bed, take one long, slow, very deep breath after another, and use the meditation method of paying attention to the breathing rather than letting the mind wander off into thoughts, plans, worries.

Above all, realize that you are as young as you were at the age of seven because only the body ages, not the soul or spirit. Your spirit can command the body.

MY BOATING ACCIDENT

One fine winter day in Arlington, Virginia I attached my brand new Hobie Cat to the back of the Oldsmobile and set out with my almost brand new wife, Julia, on the thirteen hour drive to Gainesville, Florida. My mother, now widowed, was waiting to greet us at her cottage on Swan Lake, thirty minutes from her home in Gainesville.

I've titled this little narrative “My Boating Accident” in the singular because in spite of my being in love with boats for as long as I can remember, and acquiring sailboats from the smallest imaginable to larger and larger, I had never had an accident. I count the numerous times I ran sailboats harmlessly aground on submerged sand not as “accidents” but as part of the routine process of sailing.

When we parked in front of the lake house and saw the wind lashing the Spanish moss on the oak trees, it was obvious that we were going to have much more than enough wind to move the catamaran. Even though Swan Lake is probably no more than a mile across, it flashed frothy white caps like a stormy sea.

It was very cold for a Florida late morning –- in the Fahrenheit 40's -- and the warm glassed-in porch of the cozy little house was the closest a normal person would have wanted to come to the blustery outdoors. The weather radio warned, “Lake Wind Advisory”. But one of my primary and most disaster-provoking characteristics is impatience. The boat was new. We had sailed it only during an orientation provided by the dealer. I had owned a smaller catamaran, a Seacat, and had plenty of experience sailing. Therefore Mr. Impatience announced that it was time to release the Hobie Cat into its natural element.

My mother, bundled up to the chin with a sweater and scarf, stood in front of the house and looked down the slope to the water while Julia and I slid the boat into the lake (I could almost hear it sighing with happiness at being afloat), turned the bow into the wind, and raised the sail.

A catamaran is much more lively and responsive to the air than any other boat, and as soon as we were on board and I allowed the sail to catch some wind, we were riding a wild tiger. The Cat surged forward with speedier acceleration than I'd ever experienced on the water, bounding from wave to wave, throwing out a white wake like a speedboat. I tried to keep the bow as close to the wind as I could, to avoid extreme heeling of the craft which would raise one pontoon too high above the water.

We were on the other side of the lake in an incredibly short time, and I didn't look forward to coming about and sailing with the wind behind me to some degree or other. The worst thing about sailing on this small lake was that the wind constantly shifted direction. Had even a wind this strong wind held steady from one direction, the most dramatic part of this little story would not have occurred, but as soon as I'd try to sail before the wind, the wind would start coming from another direction and I'd have to adjust the sail and the course of the boat. At times the sail would flap loudly and pointlessly like a flag, and then suddenly it would billow out and we'd be off once more like a race horse out of the gate.

Shooting along more or less toward Mother's house, we were suddenly moving with greater speed than I imagined possible. As catastrophe struck, I had time to glimpse the tip of the starboard pontoon slip under the water. In a gasp I was high in the air, the world tumbling around me. Then I was in the water up to my neck, with Julia in the same situation a few yards from me, and only the bottoms of the two pontoon hulls showing above the icy water.

We had pitchpoled, which is the most undesirable event a sailor can suffer short of seeing his boat torn apart on rocks. The bow of the boat goes under water, the now-blocked motion brings the stern up into the air, and the boat does a somersault, stern over bow, and lands upside down.

I swam around the boat and helped Julia scramble onto a pontoon. I was all right, but she had been badly bruised when she was thrown high into the air and came down on some part of the boat. But at least we had a place to sit and contemplate the situation. We were approximately in the middle of the lake, and suddenly, in spite of the wind, everything seemed extremely quiet and still. . . and lonely. There were no other boats on the lake, and no signs of life around any of the houses scattered around the shores. They were summer cottages, perhaps all abandoned for the winter.

Well, we said, thank goodness we had that lesson on how to right the boat if it capsized. So we descended fully into the water again, took hold of the proper parts of the catamaran, and did as we had been taught. But nothing happened. It was like trying to turn over a dock. Were we doing something wrong? We kept trying, but the boat stayed exactly as it was.

We climbed back onto a pontoon to contemplate our fate, feeling colder and colder. I had the strength and ability to swim to the nearest shore, but I had read again and again, “Always stay with the boat.” Most boat accident drownings occur when people swim away from the boat, and I was going to risk that only as a desperate last resort. Surely somebody would see us. My mother would soon look and realize what had happened. What on earth was she doing?

As frigid, windy minutes went by, I had never felt more isolated. After awhile a unique thought entered my mind: I might die out here.

Finally the little figure of my mother emerged from the house and hurried down the to lakeside, waving. We waved back. There was no way voices could be heard. We made motions which we hoped looked helpless and pleading.

Mother turned and disappeared into the house. Soon after, we saw her car moving onto the dirt road that circled the lake. Clearly she was driving from house to house, seeking help. Minutes passed as we watched the car sporadically moving along the road, never stopping long enough to encourage a belief that she had found somebody to speak with.

Then came the dreary moment when the car had completed the circuit and Mother came down the slope, raising her arms in a gesture of failure. She then hurried back into the house. What seemed like another hour day passed – it was by then after noon – before a Sheriff's car drove up. Rescue couldn't be far away! The world was alerted to our plight.

The deputy went down to my brother's boat, which was under a shelter on the beach. Good, good. Now just start the outboard motor . . . The deputy suddenly jumped back from the motor as if electrified and scampered back up the slope. As we later learned, wasps had built a nest under the motor cowling and swarmed in a horde after the deputy when he opened it.

Freezing and disappointed, but comforted by the knowledge that the Sheriff's Department probably wouldn't leave us to die, we waited, and waited and waited.

Then dejection turned to elation as we saw a small boat heading out into the lake from one of the houses on the eastern side.

Does it see us? Yes!

The boat putted up to us, and an angel in the form of a middle-aged, heavily suntanned woman helped us clamber from the pontoons into her rocking little skiff. It turned out that my mother had stopped at her house, but that only the lady's disabled husband had been at home, unable to help us. As soon as our angel had come home and learned the story, she came out to rescue us.

In Mother's house, warmed, dryly clothed, and fed, we gazed out at the underside of the Hobie Cat for several more hours before a Sheriff's Department boat was launched and swiftly dispatched to the site of the pitchpole.

Then we learned why we had been unable to turn the capsized catamaran upright: The mast had plunged deep into the mud at the bottom of the lake. When, with the help of ropes and full power, the Sheriff's boat finally worked the point of the mast free, the boat bobbed up sharply and comically above the water like a cork released below the surface.

So, there is the story of my boating accident, complete with happy ending and the lesson learned, never sail on small lakes on windy days.

(I put this story in writing for my friend Adriana, who makes blogging seem worthwhile.)