Dear Cxxxx, November 6, 2003
Thanks for the letter. My first thought was the impact of my words must have been weighing heavily on your mind. I'm sorry if our conversation implied your motherhood as unloving or uncaring, as I know this is not the case. Your a loving mother and if your still the person I used to know, then I understand you. I just wish we still knew each other as we once understood. I think if I had to say my message over, I would have done so without Jxxxx and Axxxx present. I know it is the both of us that want the best for our children, and it is my fervent cry for autonomy and inner-directed authenticity, of self affirmation, individualization and higher conscious level development that I want for both Jxxxx and Axxxx.
I do worry at times, while other times am much more at ease in faith. I will admit I do have a degree of paranoia, but I do believe it to be a reasonable amount, and am always attempting on reconciling my feelings with all possible reactions, choosing which is the most productive, but unfortunately this is not always the case. My worry for them is not unwarranted, as my personal experience speaks volumes, as I have acquired a perception of fundamental thinking and the dangers of living in such confinement, and what such does to the human psyche, in this case our children, as I know I was there. I am speaking of rational thinking as the sole driving force. That which can be found in both religion and science, thus they are in many ways equal. They both exist as the formulated thought systems of human thinking. While they have both admirable values and advancement for human evolutionary growth, they are interpreted under human phenomenalism and believed to be by many as solid indestructible foundations, when in reality they are simply the conceptual frameworks from within the human filtering mind, apart from naked reality, a false and relative reality, but nevertheless, one that is needed for human survival. The balance is in paradoxically having the ability to both have strong fundamentals, while simultaneously recognizing their utter relativity, thus enabling flexibility, mercy over sacrifice, inclusiveness over exclusion and paradox over one-sided answers. As a great man of theosophy, J.J. Vander Leeuw once said,
"Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced. Beware of the man who claims to have solved the problem of life, who would explain its complexities and, with deadly logic, build a system in which all the facts of our existence may be pigeon-holed and neatly stored away. He stands condemned by his own claim. The child which sees wonder in all the world around it, to whom the shells with which it plays on the beach are objects of breathless excitement and thrilled amazement, is nearer to divine truth than the intellectualist who would strip a world of its mystery and takes pride in showing us its anatomy in ruthless dissection. For a while it may satisfy evolving man to know that the splendors of a sunset are but the breaking of light-rays in moist atmosphere; he will come to realize that he may have explained the method, but has not touched the mystery at all. Recovering from the sureness of youth, never doubting itself, awakened man returns to the wonder of childhood and once again sees a world which, as the years pass by, deepens in mystery and beauty, but is never exhausted or explained."
To answer life in scientific analysis, political philosophy, metaphysical formulas and religious theology is the illusion of having the problem solved. This is when living ceases, in mere existence and stagnation. This is the human need for comfort, security and certainty, the inability to live apart from fear. This is the danger of fundamental thinking, and in this case, I believe, biblical literalism. Life is ever flowing, changing in constant movement as the atoms are in our bodies. A mystery is not a cop-out, nor is it evasion to truth, but rather the acknowledgment of a living reality far grander and awesome then mere human intellectual thought can contain, another wards an experience, not an explanation. The moment such experiential observation is explained, all integrity is both compromised and lost, as language itself acts as a prison for something that cannot be constrained behind bars, as such cannot even be retained in the intellect, yet it is there alive, it is reality.
I have for Jxxxx and Axxxx one of deep concern, as I have my own experiential observation and intellectual analysis. Like yourself, I want Jxxxx and Axxxx to be successful, yet this success is not merely in shallow indulgent of empty ego fulfillment, nor is it lost in the intellectual thinking of dry rationalism, in theological formulations and collective authoritarianism, but in a balanced understanding of logic and science with the contrasting mysterious, the irrational realty that lives in symbolism, that which is found in mythology, art, poetry, and music. In the early part of this century, Sigmund Freud was logically deducting religion, and I believe he hit some crucial and essential points of human psychology and illusionary thinking in religious thinking, yet I also think he missed the most important part, that what Rudolph Otto was writing in about the same time period, the idea of the holy, or simplistically explained, the element of awe, the numinous and transcendence, the presence of being and act of becoming, that simply cannot be explained in human language, as language is a rational tool of the intellect and exegetical deduction, for this essence, this glimpse of an absolute I am speaking about is outside of all discursive thinking and is internal alluded to in all forms of religious symbolism, mythology, and art. Yet in the depths of the higher self, this existential center, is also a vital part in education and central in human evolutionary development.
With all this said, I have no idea if you even have a clue as to what I am pointing to. Pointing is most assuredly not explaining absolute truths, but merely aiming towards an area that again does not explain but again leads to experience beyond logic. This is what I want Aubrey and Joshua to understand or shall I say experience when they reach mature intellectual ability. And that's one of the paradoxes. You must acquire intellect and climb the ladder in order to have the ability to jump off into intuitive awareness and existential despair, in higher conscious realizations that only exist in the present moment of time, without history, without chronology, science and religious theology, and yet with faith. Not faith in an object, in a personal deity from antiquated tribal identities, as in the case of the tribal Jewish God Yahweh (Jehovah) but faith apart from security to fully live, to fully love, faith to have the courage to be, to be in the "becoming." I want for them to have autonomy which only comes apart from the collective control and fundamental doctrines of logic and formulated answers, which is precisely what Jehovah's Witnesses, and fundamental thinkers do in all religious, philosophical and scientific circles. Here is a faith without a personal God to lean on or parental figure in the sky, but a God that is not an object, person and spirit, rather a God above God in existential void, or God as consciousness itself, ourselves relative parts of an absolute in outpourings of moving directions. All so, with self-affirmation and the courage to be all one can be. As one Protestant philosopher and personal hero (out of 1000) of mine, is Paul Tillich, who states this as the ability to self-affirm our Being despite of the ever and always threat of non-Being (death). It is a faith to move in uncertainty, without formula and human concept, or as Nietzsche put it,
"Truth exists only apart from all history and language."
So we can never know the absolute apart from our human relative positions. And to think, fundamental thinking humans believe truth can not only be captured in concepts, but in human language and in a sacred book no doubt! I can only hope (and pray - through my ability to fully live, fully love and fully be) that my children will not be confined to such fundamental and one-sided constraints and stagnated generalizations of fundamental imprisonment.
I am not writing this to preach some type of doctrine to you or some system of truth, or some path to follow, no, but I am stating from my own personal experience of reading, meditating and the power of contemplation. There is something so grand and marvelous working towards peace of mind. And such peace to me is the "Kingdom of God." One can search their entire life for the externals, either in material means or in intellectual and religious doctrines appeasing their external deity for favor, their parent father figure in the sky, while the essence of truth is nowhere external but within ourselves, beyond our egos to our higher portions, and this is what develops only with autonomy, something that fundamental thinking will not permit. For fundamentalism and formulated definitive answers confine conscious raising awareness, intuitive and creative development into inauthentic outer directed persons of either bland relativism with homogenized values or the extreme opposite, into staunch believers of formulated concepts.
I have read that the eye's retina has a series of holes, spaces which inhibit what we see. Yet look in front of you and what do you see? Spaces? Blank dots? No. Your brain unconsciously fills in the spaces with your perception of reality. Our perception is based on many factors (empirical observation, consciousness and power of reason) and it has been suggested by many, such as the ancient Buddhists and Hindus and such brilliant minds as Carl Jung, with the idea of a collective unconscious or consciousness that is part of all consciousness, as the waves are of the ocean. The significance of this cannot be obtained, captured and constrained under the straight jacket of language and biblical literalism. Anytime symbols, and what I believe to be Jewish midrashic writing for weekly liturgical purposes in the New Testament to be, are literalized, the entire experience is compromised. Have you ever tried reading poetry with logic? That is what happens when you read the Watchtower and theological logic. Life is ambiguous, life is paradoxical, life is inclusive. Truth, can not be captured to some orthodox interpretation, some jurisdictional exactitude, some words written in a book. Do I want my sons to grow up being exclusive? One sided? Rational devoid of the mysterum tremendum? I cannot expect to convey this to them, but I can allow their autonomy, their freedom to choose. I can lead but not with forced studies, forced meeting attendance, forced preaching and the impelled removal from observances and activities, as this is what a group which fears truth beyond their formulas must do to survive.
I suppose I'll end my dissertation here and leave you with some thoughts to ponder upon, at least I would hope so. Jxxxx is entering his pre-teens and sometimes very much thinking in such ways. I want him to have the very same opportunity we both had at his age, to observe, learn, experience life for himself, as we did ourselves. We both can direct, but not coerce, nor force our ideas, nor obligate studies, expect meetings, exert assemblies, and pressure teachings - and all conceptional ideas for that matter. Here it is a man comes over the apartment once a week to spend an entire hour with a forced question and answer Watchtower bible study, not to mention two meetings a week and what ever else I am unaware of. This is most certainly unfair persuasive tactics that we both had never to deal with as children. I beg you to allow our wonderful children the same privilege and loving ability to become all that they are and can be, apart from formulated conceptual precepts and theological interpretive structures.
Of course we must have ethical standards and moral precepts, however, they must remain in relativity of acceptable behavior within the means of our societal structure and cultural framework, yet nothing more, as further confinement in such areas not only inhibit individual growth and development but stunt emotional maturity. Such added moral constraints and ethical standards which exist within the confinement of various subcultures and religious codes must remain the ownership of each individual's autonomous decision apart from our sanctions and implement of the collective.
I will end this letter with an additional thought. I do not trust Cxxxx Wxxxx. Please understand me. I forgive, but how can I forget the influence on your prior behavior, the restraining order - directly under her supervision and persuasion - and subsequent police call and court case? I am not attempting to rehash old events, however, that fact that Aubrey was removed from school against his wishes on the day of the children's costume Halloween parade, put under Cxxxx's care, was not only unfair to Axxxx but for your cause and to myself as his father. Can we impose our causes, our belief systems, on our children? Please, I implore you to allow our sons the autonomy, the democratic freedom that we had as children. Holidays were memorable, cultural, beautiful, enchanting, and developing events that have shaped myself in maturity and love in so many ways. Please allow our children the same opportunity, as such invisible, unseen, and irrational reality lives in such symbolic observances.
Thanks for reading such a lengthy letter.
Very truly yours,
Richard