Dear Pneuma,

I am struck by the thought that the statement, "Everything is meaningless!" expresses an inward cowardice. This statement underlies the entirety of Ecclesiastes, and it is the bored refrain of many privileged folks. It is a refrain that says, I have been there, done that, and it wasn't that great. It is a refrain that suggests disengagement and ennui are the necessary conclusions to any form of life.

I say, that attitude is way too easy. It is way too easy to claim, "this endeavor doesn't matter," or "I am above caring about the outcome." It is also way too easy to pull out of relationships with people because "nothing ever changes," and that what has been experienced thus far is a disappointment. When I distance myself from broken relationships, lost expectations, or grief, I avoid pain and I gain a sense of shallow superiority, but I deny my basic being in the process. If everything is meaningless, joy and sorrow together, then breathing itself is unnecessary, and uneventful. According to the creed that everything is meaningless, a will to nihilism makes sense-why endure anything? Why try anything? By self-obliterating, the human being can then avoid altogether the boredom, disappointment, and difficulties that arise when it interrelates with this world. What's more, that being has then quite efficiently avoided the extra work and energy necessary to discover meaninglessness on it's own. Yet, this will to non-being arises from a fear to find that being has no meaning.

That strikes me as cowardly in the extreme. What is to be lost in trying for meaning if there is no meaning? What is to be lost in asking questions and searching for the miracle implied by Creation herself? What is to be lost in believing? What is to be lost in touching and being touched? If I don't matter, if I am meaningless, then I should do my damnedest to prove it. I should live so passionately, so strongly, so brilliantly, so fully, that whether I am 38 or 88, I still haven't "been there and done that."

If I don't, then I won't have held the hand of a dying child, to know whether that child matters. If I don't, then I won't have kissed my Beloved under a full moon in the spring, to know whether that experience matters. If I don't, then I won't have buried my brother to know whether he mattered to me. If I don't then I won't have tried to teach someone to sing, to know if her voice matters. If I don't . . .

Maybe the author of Ecclesiastes meant to imply that hedonism and material wealth do not supply meaning. Maybe the author meant that when relationships become commodities and when avoidance of pain becomes the purpose, life is meaningless. Maybe, when we have every resource we can imagine simply for the asking, we start to spiritually whither; but if the point is to state: "ho-hum," I say "how dare you?" I say, "I challenge you to live a life that not only looks pain in the face, but acknowledges its implacable reality. I challenge you to love imperfections as you love perfections. I challenge you to prove to me that you have given up all of yourself for another being. I challenge you to show me how your life is so meaningless, you don't exist, either in your own mind or mine."

Then I might believe that you know whether life has meaning. Then I might believe that you have the courage to see life as it is. Until then, "Life is meaningless!" is the cry of self interested self-indulgence that shrinks in the face of human being, and chooses retreat from life over living.

As Ever,
Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

One thing I hate about Christian religion: its bent toward control. So often, the religious start defining themselves and their beliefs. When they realize how many others share those definitions and beliefs, they start to band together. They feel so wonderful about no longer being alone, they make a fatal error: they start to think that the validity of their religious experiences comes from this very communal uniformity. The next step is to develop conformity, and those that do not share the same definitions and beliefs become "others." Once there are "others," the religious start to worry about them. Those "others" need to be "taught." Their lifestyles, beliefs, definitions and ways of seeing the cosmos need to be controlled. In other words, the religious seek power over "others."

Being religious, I can say that I believe this kind of movement always starts out for the best. I believe that most religious people are genuinely worried about the fate of the "others." They genuinely convince themselves that because they believe in Hell, it must be real. Once it is real, it is an extremely loving goal to try and "save" folks from it. They genuinely believe that God needs to be named, and so they wrangle and natter about how God/ess is to be addressed so people can know It, as if, without a Name, the Nameless cannot know us. When being known is a promise of Christian religion, then sharing that promise, naming to be known, is an act of gracious kindness.

As though the Divine were defined by the beliefs of the believers. As though reality is the dream of us. As though the constant newness of creation and the individual in the creation of change are the forces of evil which keep humanity fettered to death and destruction. If we can just control this one group's behavior, creeds, and sense of self, say the religious, the Divine will continue to speak to us, but if we fail, we will be cast into "the outer dark;" but control is power, and I distrust human politics, a venture wherein the currency is power over other people, more than I distrust anything else on this earth. So when religion seeks to control, I distrust it. When religious goals become goals of power over the free being of persons, I distrust them. In fact, when my institutions tell me that they are bigger than the Nameless Known, I know they are lying. When concern over my creed or my sexual organs outweighs the need to provide love, shelter, medicine and food for the starving, crying, dying in the world, a world given for us, I know we Christian religious are getting it wrong.

Love Always,
Cobalt Dreams