Christmas Eve
I'm sitting on my couch watching Wedding Crashers by myself on Christmas Eve, and I find myself perfectly happy to do so.
Earlier today, I watched a Tivoed episode of 20/20 in which Barbara Walters focused on Heaven. She interviewed several people of various faiths, including athiests, and I find the coincidence of that particular program showing at this particular time rather, well, coincidental, considering my religous ruminations lately.
One thing the show did mention is a "belief gene," or something that scientists have discovered in human biochemistry that leads to a propensity to believe. The people with the gene are, by their nature, more open to the spiritual and comfortable with the unexplainable than others.
Anyway, to reprise ideas of Heaven, I can't help remembering something from my latest favorite book, Eat, Pray, Love. Liz, the narrator, was discussing Heaven with the Balinese medicine man whom she had befriended. He said something about Heaven and Hell being the same. One goes up, through happiness and joy, and the other goes down, through darkness and suffering, but at the end, they arrive at the same thing: love. Interesting idea, isn't it? I feel convinced that there is more to life than we can understand, and I definitely get the yin-yang of love, but unlike Liz's medicine man, the preachers in the 20/20 episode or even the Dalai Lama (whom Walters interviewed as well), I still feel no confidence making assertions of the nature of life beyond this obvious one.
Earlier today, I watched a Tivoed episode of 20/20 in which Barbara Walters focused on Heaven. She interviewed several people of various faiths, including athiests, and I find the coincidence of that particular program showing at this particular time rather, well, coincidental, considering my religous ruminations lately.
One thing the show did mention is a "belief gene," or something that scientists have discovered in human biochemistry that leads to a propensity to believe. The people with the gene are, by their nature, more open to the spiritual and comfortable with the unexplainable than others.
Anyway, to reprise ideas of Heaven, I can't help remembering something from my latest favorite book, Eat, Pray, Love. Liz, the narrator, was discussing Heaven with the Balinese medicine man whom she had befriended. He said something about Heaven and Hell being the same. One goes up, through happiness and joy, and the other goes down, through darkness and suffering, but at the end, they arrive at the same thing: love. Interesting idea, isn't it? I feel convinced that there is more to life than we can understand, and I definitely get the yin-yang of love, but unlike Liz's medicine man, the preachers in the 20/20 episode or even the Dalai Lama (whom Walters interviewed as well), I still feel no confidence making assertions of the nature of life beyond this obvious one.
posted by bluedana @ 6:12 PM
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