Thanks, Johnaster, richie and JetLag. I mean it.
Re religion, I'm still Catholic, at least more than I'm anything else, only for the first time since my conversion I can't honestly say I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic church. At least not in the sense I used to mean it. I'm currently very interested in Gnosticism. Too bad it died out finally in the Middle Ages probably, the Bogomils of Eastern Europe being the last with any connection to historical Gnostic religions. (I'm not counting the Mandaeans, who may have been the earliest of all and who have not all yet been exterminated or driven from their homeland somewhere in northern Iraq, 'cause I don't know much about them.) The self-proclaimed Gnostics on the 'Net seems to be crackpots, i.e., worse crackpots than most humans even. Anyway, I can still puzzle myself over what the old guys wrote.
I don't know much about Jehovah's Witnesses and don't want to diss anybody, hope my self-preoccupiedness above didn't come across as a diss (spelling?--God, I'm old). Or the self-preoccupiedness below:
The reason I'm preoccupied with religion (and a certain familial relation, but maybe I'll discuss that sometime in a less public forum) is that I first noticed I had relapsed into another depressive episode after a homily by our pastor, a man whom I almost idolized before and now I want to spit when I think of him. One bad homily does not equal a bad man, much less a bad Church, I know that with my most rational mind: doesn't help the gut feeling though. Also, it was his description of his (and most of the clergy's) vision of what God's peace--Hebrew "shalom"--means. It was a vision of a world in which everyone had a part, everyone belonged to the greater whole, no one was excluded--of course, autism and true brain sicknesses such as dementia and schizophrenia were conveniently forgotten. In the terms he used, they could never be accepted as they are. My immediate reaction was not rational, it was much deeper than that. Sometimes you have to trust those gut feelings, sometimes they're wrong though. It was that I, me, myself, would have no place in this world of "shalom". Rejected, I rejected back. Later I added the rationalizations about schizophrenics etc being left out too. Now tomorrow I have to face another Mass for the first time since (last week I was visiting a sick uncle and didn't attend a Mass).
This idea of peace in this world, that Creation is basically an OK place, just a little cracked around the edges like a good old piece of china that's too wonderful to throw away 'cause it's cracked, that people are the same--I can't stand it. Since I was probably 4 or 5 I've fought the feeling that I'm miserable because I'm bad with the thought that the world is bad and anyone with eyes to see damn well ought to feel miserable. That moment two weeks ago, I gave up fighting this core belief that (along with a thousand other things) makes me who I am. But it's a profoundly un-Catholic belief, as Catholicism is currently preached and expressed. It's been different in the past, but right now that thread of the tradition is dominant. My belief or knowledge or gnosis in God is unshaken, just my current expression of that belief et al. is shaken badly.
Anyway, I thought this confluence (at least in my mind) of religion and Asperger's/Autism was interesting, if extremely distressing for me personally.
Of course I'm not saying that "The world is bad" is or should be a "normative" Asp belief. I hope there's no such thing as a "normative" Asp belief.
Of course "Asps are worth just as much as Normals" is something everybody should believe. So maybe that's one "normative" belief for you. Pardon my idiosyncratic nomenclature.
I've ranted enough. Hello again everyone.
23 May 2009, 10:44 am
