Mexican Grace, Agassi’s hate, and a celebration

I’ve had so many emails/messages asking about the new project and why it’s taking me so long in between blog entries.

Well, the most I can tell you is: until the new project is fully secured, I can’t tell you about it.

But I will reveal that it involves an incredible human being, a story-worthy set of circumstances that led to us meeting, and an even more unusual set of circumstances surrounding what we are currently producing to secure the project. Yes, New York is involved. But that’s all you get.

In the meantime, I’ve had the privilege of reviewing a book before it’s New York launch for Dr. Jean Benedict Raffa. This review will be published in the Summer issue of Radical Grace (based out of New Mexico).

For anyone interested in the story of Q. or similar topics, I can not recommend this book enough. It is easily one of the most important books of 2012 and the future.

Here’s an excerpt from the review:

“Dr. Jean Benedict Raffa’s new book, Healing the Sacred Divide: Making Peace with Ourselves, Each Other, and the World looks at the difference between religion and God through the lens of Jungian psychology, and speaks to the deepest spiritual seekings of the human heart.

The power in this book lies not in its ability to reveal a recognizable truth, but in the way it communicates this truth. Through memory, psychology, emotion, and the powerfully secret relevance of our dreams….

Refreshingly, Healing the Sacred Divide tackles topics often left to the university classroom in such a way that makes them generously accessible to the mind as well as the soul. Engaging a powerful conversation about the evolution of our God image (where it comes from and how it came to be what it is today), Raffa reveals the dysfunctions associated with the image, the how and why it often feels incomplete when presented through the orthodox and especially the fundamental religious lens. In this sense, as we learn more about ourselves, we also become powerfully privy to the truth and effect behind the reality that our patriarchal God view is as much constructed as our gender divisions – both resulting in an inability to experience wholeness on the human journey or in a spiritual sense, as children of God…”

(Advance copies of Healing the Sacred Divide are available here)

 

In the rest of this wee lovely little break, I will also answer one quick Naked Author question:

Q.  “Do you find writing easy or hard?”

 

N.  Let me say first that I love writing. Love. It.

Let me say also that it is absolutely one of the most consistently difficult things I have ever done.

There is nothing easy about writing. It challenges you intellectually, psychologically, and even emotionally on a regular basis.

To write successfully, I believe you have to be fully committed to four things:

1)  Trust your instinct completely (which can be terrifying and confidence boosting!)

2)  Be able to be critical of your own work without stifling your creativity from self-criticism.

3)  Lose the ego! Drop it like a bad habit. Immediately. (If you work with your ego, you can not be honest with your self, your intentions, the truth you want to be communicated through your work.)

4)  Become excellent at your craft. Have a relationship with language. Love words. Better yet, marry your thesaurus (figuratively of course), and never be afraid to look up a word you don’t understand, or learn how to use a new one effectively. Eventually, all of those words and their correct usage infuse your thoughts until suddenly you are using them without having to look them up.

So, to answer your question…yes, I find writing difficult (sometimes very difficult), but wonderfully so.

The first time I heard Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness, The Secret Agent etc.) say that he hated writing. I didn’t understand. Now that I’m a writer, I do. It’s not an ‘Agassi hates tennis’ hate, but a relationship that challenges you so much, you sometimes pray for a reprieve…and then you find a pen and paper because you don’t really want one.

 

read. write. live.

celebrate.

www.thestoryofQ.com

Will Smith, placards, and the eternal wisdom of a Chinese chef

Q. “There’s a famous quote (I can’t remember who said it), that as a writer, they felt they were a but a vehicle for the words of God. Being that your book essentially attacks the way some people view God, can you say you are a vehicle for his words?”

N. Two days ago I read this: “…all other religions in the world are founded by the Devil and run by demons.”

Normally, I come across fundamentalist zeal and marvel with incredulity. This one made me wish I hadn’t turned on my wi-fi.

About a week ago, a friend posted a cartoon with the devil leering over a group of fundamentalists carrying signs that said, “God hates fags”, “You’re going to Hell”, “Thank God for dead soldiers.” etc etc. The devil replied something along the lines of, “As it turns out, God actually hates small minded, bigoted, blind fanatics…” (Said sign holders were of course surrounded by flames.)

I think most definitely there is some sort of curiously beautiful, born-from-somewhere-pure mystery working at the center of creative inspiration. The most important aspect of this belief, the center from which the entire belief unfolds, lies in the intention behind that creation.

Will Smith brilliantly told his kids, Before putting anything out in the world, you need to ask yourself. Is my art going to do good?

Kylie Kwong, a beautifully talented Chinese chef in Australia said, I always question my motivation before I do anything. If I know my motivation is from and for good, I know it is the right thing to do. If I am only motivated by my ego, financial gain, or pride, (religious hate) then I have to say to myself, no, you’re not doing the right thing and you know it.

And so the same goes for any creative process, or any process of creation: What is your intention? The true, authentic, bone-marrow-honesty intention behind your work?

If it is not to provoke, hurt, divide, patronize, alienate, invoke hatred, marginalize, breed animosity, disempower…if it is to enliven contemplation, ease, encourage, embody hope that crosses divisive boundaries (cultural, gender, religious)…

Any discussion that works as a catalyst for change will inevitably harbour aspects of discomfort in the lives of some, but the lesson then, I would say, lies in the lives of those being challenged to grow. Sometimes the lessons intended for us, are the ones we want to blame others for ‘causing’.

I do think God works in the world. I do think the energy of ‘coincidence’ that results in creation, growth, powerful change, a harbouring of enlightenment – pure and delicious inspiration – are linked to a greater mystery of interconnection that in turn links us all (by heart, mind, action, by life and death).

When I imagine creation/creative inspiration influenced by God, I see it as a pulse of beautiful compulsion that stirs the soul, the mind into thought, the body into action.

If your question was about my intention in writing the story of Q., I’m hoping I’ve already answered it. But I do have to correct you – the story does not attack the way some people view God, it asks us to ask ourselves how indeed we view God.

And how does the way we view God influence the way we view ourselves, each other, and the world?

Is there any disparity there that we might like to heal?

If God/good and the Devil/evil exist, I imagine they are wondering the same thing.

www.thestoryofQ.com

How you feel, anyway

The other day someone asked me if I pray.

Maybe a personal question, maybe one that it doesn’t matter if I answer.

What I have found however, since writing the story of Q., is that more people want to know this from me than ever.

What do I believe?

Do I go to church?

What do I make of the Mayan Prophecy? The end of the world?

Do I think God approves?

Approves of what, I always wonder. Whether or not I conform to standards of thought developed over time? Or whether or not I have made use of the gift of human mind, to invoke discussion about a topic that is our right to have a conversation about?

Life. Death. And the meaning of everything in between.

Do I worry that invoking bold, controversial, beautifully thought provoking conversation about the difference between religion and God, might get me sent to Hell?

In a word, No. (You have to believe in Hell, to think you’re actually going to be sent there.)

Do I go to church? (A version of this has come up before.)

Does it matter?

What you should ask yourself is how you feel if I tell you I do, versus how you feel if I tell you I don’t. Therein lies a more interesting discussion.

What do I make of the Mayan Prophecy? The end of the world?

A great email was circulating the other day which cleverly observed that if we counted years according the the Mayan Calender in use at the time of the prophecy, it would now already be the end of 2013. (Something to do with leap years etc.) And we’re still here. This too has come up before. Twice.

My answer: No. I do not believe in apocalyptic prophecies of any kind. Old or New Testament, Koran, Mayan, what-have-you. And I do not believe it is any more disrespectful to say so, than it is for someone who believes in them pressuring me to participate in that type of fear based belief system.

Do I pray?

If this means having a conversation with my own definition of God on a regular basis, then Yes. I do.

If it means searching life’s difficult circumstances for a concept of meaning contained within, understanding that this is a meaning I might not yet realize, then Yes. I do that too.

As for the repeated, ultimate question: What do I believe?

I think what’s more important is to ask, what do you believe.

When you read the final pages of the story of Q., you come to realize what the story is actually about. At that point – what I think doesn’t really matter because just as it was when you started reading, it’s all about you.

www.thestoryofQ.com       thestoryofQ@gmail.com

Feist & what you noticed

Q.  How is it possible you wrote an entire book without describing the way any of your characters look? As a writing student I found this an incredible feat! Was it intentional?

And what was the last thing you downloaded from itunes (I know it sounds stupid, but my friend wanted me to ask).

 

 

N.  I love that you noticed this.

It was indeed intentional.

I was lucky to be writing about a topic that is generally so visceral to people, how they look is largely irrelevant to how they cope with the experiences they are having.

I also find that the only people overly concerned with how the characters might ‘look’ are those feeling a need to categorize them in a way that will reinforce any potential judgements they want to maintain about the characters actions or reactions to the content of the tale, as it unfolds.

It is, after all, a story about a lost meaning of the Bible (verified by ancient and modern Biblical scholarship) that completely contradicts everything we’ve been told is true about life, death, and the meaning of being human.

I always thought that how the characters cope with discovering this information was far more important than how they looked, so made every effort to maintain ambiguity about specifics.

 

Re: itunes

I’m fascinated that anyone would want to know what I download.

The last single: Walk off the Earth – Somebody that I used to know (cover)

The last album: Feist – Metals

the other reality

Over the holidays a series of questions were posed to me from someone I did not expect. Someone very close to me who has followed my work intricately for the last 7 years.

The sentiment was specific, almost pained, and less to do with the difficulty of the work load as it was more to do with the content itself.

 

Why do you do this? The red wine sipped, the glass placed down.

Why must you discuss these things in this way? The glass now used to gesture in earnest.

Why…why do you need to talk about God?

(especially when you know it makes so many people uncomfortable.)

 

As the query unfolded, I found myself lost in thought but the angle of my own internal dialogue differed greatly.

The question for me became about the final point – What makes us uncomfortable, and why.

 

What is it about religion that makes us not want to talk about it?

What is it about religion that makes us afraid to talk about God?

(or even reject the idea of God altogether)

 

In Letters to a Young Contrarian, Christopher Hitchens writes: “…I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches and the effect of religious belief, is positively harmful.”

Hitchens, recently deceased, often debated brilliantly about or rather against religion on the premise that it commits more harm in the world and between human relationships than good.

Hitchens believed that religion compromised, in every way, ever discovering a balanced view of what it means to be human. He argued that the veil of religious doctrine tainted our ability to fully understand ourselves – intellectually, emotionally, psychologically, or even sexually (religion, of course, famously demonizes human sexuality).

Human kind, or even the world, can never be fully understood or interact in a healthy way as long as religious views dominate.

With the majority of Hitchens’ argument, I agree.   His debate is largely indisputable – what I disagree with, however, is his further argument that a belief in God should be eliminated altogether (because it, after all, is the root of the problem).

 

“To give up belief in God is a big ask because for many, many, many people a feeling of spiritual connection with life or life beyond, with each other, or even some form of guidance or ‘Godly’ presence as an integral part of life, is just as indisputable as Hitchens’ argument against religion.”

“Fine,” my friend said. “But why the need to write about it? Can’t you write about something else, like kids and a dog, or something fun?” We were both leaned back in our chairs, looking skyward. The moon beamed down, palm fronds swayed above us in a light breeze.

 

Because in the quiet of our minds, I thought, in the chambers of our hearts, it matters.

 

Within me, the answer seemed obvious, but I understood that from the outside, it might not seem so. From the outside, the confrontational aspects of The Story of Q. could look similar to how Hitchens was often interpreted – hostile, vitriolic, a trenchant polemic with the express purpose of smack talking religion (even though anyone who looks deeper into Hitchen’s work knows it is far more important than simple smack talk – Hitchens was fighting for reason against the very real, and undeniable harm that the presence of religion has inflicted over history and the present. His was an argument fighting for a humanity that can come to understand its own wisdom in the context of the great wonder that is the world itself. But I digress.)

 

“If we lived in a world where religion didn’t soak the fibers of our relationships, or exist between the layers of our thinking, if we lived in a world where religion wasn’t a motivator for often harmful and dangerous divisions, then these types of conversations wouldn’t matter. But the reality is that they do.”

My own glass of red felt warm between my palms.

“The other reality is that there are people out there who want this exact conversation. Not a debate or an ultimatum (be religious or be an athiest), but a conversation of this like…”

(Recently, Dr. Jean Raffa mentioned The Story of Q. in one of her blogs. The response was heartfelt and certain – she was not alone.

By the number of people writing in and buying copies for friends, it appears none of us with these types of questions or concerns but with still a sense of Godliess as part of existence, are alone. By any means.)

 

“Ultimately, this is a conversation about the future…Change comes to the outside world when we begin to change within. When we can stop looking at others through the divisive lens of religion, we are changing the world. When we understand there is a difference between religion and God, we are changing the world.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Our lives end the moment we stop talking about things that matter.”

In the quiet of our minds, in the chambers of our hearts, a conversation within about God, matters.

Do we know why?

Maybe we never will – somehow that’s part of the delicious mystery of being alive – but peace about belief is a kingdom everyone is looking for. The sentiment leading into 2012, is that this is a peace that can only be found beyond the borders of religion.

Even the Mayans knew that.

 

www.thestoryofQ.com

eggnog for thought

Christmas is an incredibly special time of year.

Half the people I know love it for some ambiguous reason or other: everyone is kinder, there’s so much love in the air, it’s a cozy warm-cup-of-something, hugging time of year when people smile and extend hands of kindness more freely. Christmas carols warm the heart and the warm hearth of goodwill unites us in the common goal of making others feel good.

At Christmas time, we love. And we feel free to love.

 

The other half appreciate Christmas for another reason, updating Facebook profiles with sayings like, “Don’t forget – Jesus is the reason for the season!” And, “Let’s put the Christ back in Christmas.”

Christmas for this half is about the sacrifice of one life to save the lives of many. The birth of God’s only son, who died for us so we could live forever.

In The Story of Q., Farah doesn’t understand why, if Jesus died so she could live forever, the granting of this gift was conditional upon whether or not she was a Christian. Lyrics such as those from the Christmas carol, ‘O Holy Night’: Long lay the world, in sin and error pining, ‘Till He appeared and the soul felt it’s worth, leave her with a great sense of confusion, because Farah was certain she felt the worth of her own soul, until she was told it wasn’t there.

In the vein of The Story of Q., I’m going to raise my own question as part of this week’s Naked Author Sessions – Before religion defined anything (sin, heaven, hell, life, death, you), did your soul feel it’s worth? Does it?

Without the definitions that religions provide us, would we feel what Christmas brings anyway?

If the non-religious feel what it is that Christ represented, is there any reason to think all of us aren’t already in touch with God? That we, perhaps, were born in touch with God and all God’s love abounding?

Is it possible, somewhere along the line, something was misunderstood? (www.thestoryofQ.com)

 

 

All I know for sure is that when Christmas approaches my heart shines. Inside I feel … glory. And peace. I feel love.

It’s undeniable. There’s something sacred in the air. Whatever it is, we seem to come together whenever we know it’s okay to let ourselves shine with it.

The question is, does ‘it’ exist without religion?

Because a religious definition of this feeling, or any holy day, is the only thing that divides us.

 

Some eggnog* for thought.

(*Instead of food – for obvious reasons.)

www.thestoryofQ.com

An experience of meaning

Q.  I’ve seen a few copies of your book inscribed, “If you are thinking about reading this book, you are meant to.” Why do you write that?

 

A.  I refer to this often because I think it’s one of the most fascinating aspects of human existence – the idea that a feeling, some sort of instinct, can draw us toward something we are meant to experience.

This powerful, mysterious sensation appears to emerge from somewhere deep within as a feeling – a thought - I know this is where I’m supposed to be / what I’m supposed to be doing - I don’t know how I know, but I do.

It also seems to come from a place void of all the things we’re told, where fear doesn’t exist because we haven’t been told to have it. Here, we get guided – to places, people, things. And often, what awaits us there is a reason.

The mystery brings us, and the reason takes us forward.

Were the characters meant to find out what they did about the Q-document, the Bible, themselves?

Were you?

 

Are you meant to find out?

 

(If you’re thinking about reading the book, it seems you are.)

www.thestoryofQ.com

the smile.

Q.  Water is a significant theme in your book. Was this intentional?

A.  Yes.

Sort of.

The linguistic, symbolic, and metaphorical links were indeed intentional.

I wanted to connect everything back to the central tenets of the lessons and what was appearing to become a lost meaning of the actual Bible.

But there were times (and I only realized this afterward, reading the final draft before it went to print) that water emerged in places I hadn’t ‘expected’.

This to me, is the mystery at the heart of writing – of any creative process really.

There is the part of us thinking and planning our way through a book, and then the part that just listens, expresses, composes, lets flow whatever it is that seems to be flowing through our thoughts that creates them into stories. It’s a huge, wonder-filled mystery how this works.

So when I saw water in places I didn’t perhaps plan for it to be, and that these places often bolstered – somehow cinched – the edges of the story together tighter, more powerfully, I smiled.

What else was there to do, but that.

Death and Life and Reading

When liaising with a reader whose parents refused to finish reading the story of Q., it emerged that their least favourite character was Roger.

“He’s lost in the wilderness! He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Everything he says is untrue.”

This moment to me was perfect. Exactly representative of the exchanges encountered through Roger’s character. The nuances, the rumbling often thunderous conflict between established religious belief and the discovery of little know ancient truths that contradict it.

But it was also a moment filled with thoughts and statements created by the only thing people would never admit created them.

Fear.

This has come up before.

And it forever will again.

Fear does many things – in the story of Q., Mateo, Farah, Rose, and Roger teach us different degrees of the power of fear.

But they also teach us something else: the power a new reality can have to change the world.

My question is, what if the fear wasn’t there? Could Roger then be lost in the wilderness? Could any of us?

And what could that mean for the rest of the meaning of life? Or life after death?

Just wondering.

Paul Simon, breakfast, and more…

In a clip where he talks about his album So Beautiful or So What, Paul Simon makes the point that “God seems to be a recurring theme in many of my songs”. He found this curious, almost a surprise, because he is “by no means a religious man.”

My son loves this clip – I play it sometimes while he’s eating breakfast. He loves the images, the music, the instruments, and watching Paul Simon talk about his music. We chair dance to Getting Ready for Christmas Day.

Even though I’ve heard the words a dozen or so times, this morning they seemed to stick differently in my thoughts – the juxtaposition of a man who writes and sings about God but makes a point of disassociating himself with religion, and a baby whose idea of God has not yet been influenced or shaped by religion.

And the thought to me was wonderful as we chair danced, took bites of porridge and fruit, and randomly clapped hands, that God could be known, danced with, sung and written about, without religion. It made me feel free.