Some thoughts on Spirituality

I understand completely that some people are wired for spirituality while others are not as much. This has nothing to do with church attendance. Those who don't have many, or any peak experiences spiritually can be just as attached to the church in the logical and legalistic sense as others are in the emotional sense. I have the "God gene", while my husband does not. I lift my hands during praise choruses and float away to a world of real feeling entirely apart from the present. He forces himself to mouth the words, then later will carry on a lively debate over some nuance of spiritual knowledge.

I remember one strong instance as a child. I was in our dim bathroom at night, staring at my shadowed reflection over the dull glow of a nightlight. I was saying in my head"I could have been a dog. I could have been a tree. I could have been a fly" I was stirring amazement that God had determined I would be one of the most complex creatures on the planet. I intensely concentrated on these thoughts when, Boom! I came to a place of utter astonishment: a feeling of such awe I can't describe. The moment was so intense that I can't even fully remember it. I just know it was amazing. Other times I tried to repeat this scenario with only limited success in reaching a similar outcome.

To this day, mostly when I am in nature, alone and quiet, I can commune with the spiritual in a way that almost stops time. I sense I can reach thought the living, non-thinking Earth into the unknown life of space, of God. These moments are very real. They seem more important than life. When I have been able to stay in these moments my thinking has been clearer than in regular life. Things fell into place. I gained confidence, peace, I learned valuable truths. This is quite a responsibility for me. An insanity most people won't understand. It's significance is mysterious even to me. But it is part of my experience and has vastly affected who I have become, and the path I have followed. Where to follow this sense I have now, and what exactly this God is I'm following is overwhelming to consider.

Beach Pictures

Nina had her 4th (5 year old) birthday party with a rocket ship cake and her aunts and uncles gathered around.

Uncle Seth is on the right

Below right is Nina opening a couple present for her party

Arin and cousin Heidi

Todd put these pictures together for me and snuck in one of me. Oh well

All of the kids helped to bury uncle Dustin

Nina playing in St. Augustine on the way back.

This is all of the kids eating lunch on the anchored boat we rented

Evan helped Daddy drive the boat.

Beach Pictures

And for now there are five

I apologize for the long break between posts. The interruption started early in September when I got a call asking if we would be interested in the possible foster placement of two girls, 1 and 2. I went to a meeting later in the week to see if they would be coming into care, and after a long day in a stuffy board room, I brought the girls home.

Getting used to the girls has been an adjustment, but getting used to the system that brought them to us has been interesting as well. I am realizing that "the system" runs on a somewhat different set of values than I do. Some of this is out of necessity, some convenience and some habit. I try to keep in mind the greater good. That beyond the importance of matching socks and proper snack food in the diaper bag we are allowed the opportunity to help these girls at an important time in their lives.

It is a fascinating and rewarding, if exhausting at times, experience. I care very much for the girls we have in our home, and I very dearly want the best for them and their birth family, whatever that may mean.

Our adventrue into Indian culture

Obviously Arin’s ancestry does not lie in the hills of Germany, as most of the sunscreen-loving members of our family do. Arin is from Kolkata, India, and we do our best to make him proud of that. After looking at some Rupees I had laying around a number of months ago, each of which featured Mahatma Gandhi’s picture. We launched into a month long research mission into who Gandhi was and his significance to India. Even Todd and I had the chance to watch the Gandhi movie, look online, and talk to friends to learn about him ourselves (he is not exactly an important enough figure to America to be delved into in a typical education). All of this culminated in our hosting “Gandhi Day” for our homeschool group. We talked about where India was, Arin explained some significant things he did. We did a science experiment to see how salt could be extracted from water (referring to the salt march Gandhi instigated), and we clothed little Gandhi paper dolls (while talking about how Gandhi made his own clothes)

Lately we have finally made a friend in the Indian community who is happy to share her experiences growing up in India with us. Last Saturday Shubha took us to an Indian restaurant, and ordered for us, thank goodness. We are so inexperienced with Indian food. We tried a number of dishes, and only Nina left hungry. Then Shubha took us to an Indian store. We got some Indian snacks, a coconut, and looked at all the Indian goods. We walked by small statues of Ganesh and Krishna. Arin and I actually learned a lot of what we know about Ganesh by watching “Cheetah Girls, One World” in conjunction with factual bits from the internet. I saw that the movie was filmed in India so we watched it together. Arin really wanted a statue so Daddy got it for him. We also got Nina some Bindhis to wear. We had a great time talking to Shubha about differences between our cultures. She is so open with us, and we are grateful to her for her honesty, and introspection.

Chess Club

Evan is playing chess with his teacher below while he waits for other boys to finish. The game on the top ended in a draw mostly because Evan kept saying "Are you sure you want to do that?", and "I know if I do this then you are going to come get my..." whatever. He was just thinking out loud, and being nice, but we are going to have to work on Evan's poker face.




My kids have participated in typical American extra curriculars like Evan with his soccer and Nina with gymnastics, but Evan has also shown interest in chess, and he has been playing with Daddy for a couple of years. About a year ago I was flipping through our Raleigh parks and rec programming guide when I spotted a FREE chess club at one of the community centers. I called about it and Evan has been participating every other Saturday for probably close to a year now. The teacher has taken time each week to show the kids how chess works and some strategy, so now when I play Evan he uses words I don’t understand. Evan is getting much better. I actually didn’t play him for a long time after he started chess club because I knew soon the day was coming when he would beat me and I was trying to put off that day for as long as possible (hasn’t happened quite yet).

Recently the teacher began keeping track of points and ranking the chess club members in anticipation of a meet he is organizing with a local charter school. The boys get half a point for playing a grown-up, a whole point for winning, etc. Evan has been doing well and as of last week he was ranked number one. The chess club is for kids from ages 5-12 and Evan has beaten kids that were older than him, but he also has the advantage that many of the very good players have not been attending recently and the kids get half a point for attending. So the boy who came one day and beat everyone he played still would not get as many points as Evan if Evan came and played grownups consistently. At the same time if we get to the meet and Evan is ranked number one he will most likey get whupped by the number one player on the other team. The teacher is doing his best to even out the odds and bring back some of the stronger players before fall. I am glad Evan found this niche, just as I am happy that Arin found X-men, and Nina is a good helper.

Let's go out for Dinner and a Philosophy Discussion

I have begun to really look forward to going to the philosophy meetup Todd organizes. In the past year I have begun to recognize the regulars, and I feel like I belong. This meetup is one reason it is wonderful to be married to a man with slightly different interests than me. He was a natural to go converse with philosophers. He is a deep analytical thinker, who can easily connect philosophies with their originators. I talk from experience and impressions. While I have done my best to gain experiences and expose myself to a variety of thoughts repeatedly so my impressions better reflect reality, the specifics of these are for the most part lost on me. I sputter back colloquial summarizations of what profound thinkers spent their lives perfecting.

Todd tried the group once, then as fate would have things work, he landed in charge. The group attracts women and men, a few young, and many more mature. There are software designers, professors, peace corp volunteers, authors, students, and me: the mother of three. We have covered the capital punishment, death, Eastern thought, the post modern economy (I did a lot of listening during that one, and I am still not completely sure what it entails).

Our last two meetups have been presented by Will Langley. He is a (rock star) um, student from the Baptist seminary in Wake Forest. He and his wife have had dinner with us a couple of times, and he is fascinating to talk to. His wife, Jen, loves our kids and I love anyone who loves my kids, of course. His destiny is to become a (rock star), I mean professor of philosophy one day, and I would love to be in his classes. Actually I have been, while eating a burger and fries at that. His first meetup was about transhumanism, or, could machines take over the world by becoming alive? Will brought a multi-media presentation with lots of condensed facts about machines, their capabilities, what leading thinkers had to say about the possibility of their potential humanity, and a spot of goofiness. He isn’t really a musical rock star, but he wowed our group, not just with facts, but with great contemporary humor and determined objectivity. We all loved the presentation, which is why he came back on Monday to introduce us to quantum physics.

I have never known the origins of quantum physics on such a workable level. I had heard about infinite worlds, and that all possible scenarios exist, quite a fantastic theory, but I didn’t know very clearly where that came from. He brought us back to the original light wave/particle duality experiment that began the stir and took us from that point to the possibilities that could exist if there really were more to science than could meet measurement. We learned about Einstein’s discomfort with the philosophical implications, (“God does not play dice with the universe” after all) and he introduced us to a few of the many theories that try to explain such an inconsistency in science. Then we all spouted our own insight amongst ourselves. Most people don’t go to these meetups if they don’t have opinions they are more than happy to share.

I have my opinions, though on some topics I am struck by my utter unworthiness to express them. I love to put in my two cents, but I also love to steal away with the knowledge I gain from the people I meet there. For example not only did I learn about quantum physics, but I learned how a children’s book author finds an illustrator, and a little about how a professor goes about funding her research. I just get chills thinking about how I am broadening my horizons. Does that mean I’m a nerd? I guess excitement as knowledge and rock star as philosophy professor are not signs of a very hip mind.