Death, Transcendence, and the Longing for God
A few years ago, in the midst of what might be called a “spiritual crisis,” I found myself writing a lot of poetry. I was depressed, disheartened, questioning everything I’d been taught about life, death, and all my esoteric notions of spirituality. I needed to articulate the whirlwind running through my mind, yet the only words I could manage to purge onto paper were poems.
Looking back through my journal the other day, I found this piece:
I notice I’m talking to myself more.
Or maybe it’s God I’m having these deep, existential conversations with?
Sometimes I think Great Grandmother Roff’s genes are finally methylating in the deep recesses of my brain.
Maybe these conversations are signalling my descent into the lunatic’s abyss.
I tell the emptiness about the great plans I have for my life
As if this feeble mind of mine has some prophetic wisdom to impart
Ha! As if I — a silly sack of self-replicating cells — am in on some grand plan for the universe
As if I’ve somehow managed to transcend the walls of my own heart.
And another:
Today I peered into the walls of my chest and witnessed a few cells in my heart die.
We don’t think about this part of life do we? The massacre of the old to make room for what’s being born anew?
There’s a genocide going on within the bud of the spring blossom.
This rebirth word — it hides the truth.
My heart, it didn’t pass on peacefully.
No, death doesn’t take things with gentle hands.
It wretches life from your innards with a cold, hard swoop.
It says, come on girl… you call yourself a wo-MAN?
In the wretching, I fell. On hands and knees
I surrendered, hands reaching for a childish God
And alas, when no one answered my woebegone call
I turned inward and saw… this was all.
It’s interesting to look back. It’s heartbreaking to read the desperation between the words — the yearning for answers, the need for refuge, the longing to know that I — that we — are not alone.
Human beings are seekers. We all long for answers to those timeless questions… Who am I? What am I here for? What happens when I die?
Now, years after I etched those longings onto paper, I’m not any closer to having answers than I ever was. But I no longer reach toward some hollow, supernatural notion of an animate universe to subdue my fears of the unknown. I don’t need to quell my hunger for answers with beliefs that the universe is conspiring in my favor. I don’t need to imagine a wise guy in the sky, some invisible ether bringing my prayers into manifestation, or an Eden-like paradise where my deceased friends and family members are waiting for me to join them. But I understand — oh, how I understand — those who do. When you’re lonely, afraid, desperate for reassurance… God, the Universe, the Great Mother, whatever you choose to name it… believing that “it” is out there may feel like all you have.
Sometimes I still pray. Sometimes I still talk to myself at night, almost pretend that there’s someone there to listen. The process of prayer — of getting quiet, seeking clarity, listening to the inner voice that emerges — is one I still cherish, though no longer with any supernatural belief attached. Now, prayer isn’t so much about reaching for someone or something transcendent and eternal, but an act of listening and noticing what comes to the surface. I’ve let go of the need for certain answers to those existential questions, embraced the fact that there’s beauty and value in the act of questioning itself. I’m more at ease with the fact that life will bring suffering — and if I have faith in anything, it’s the knowledge that it will pass.
Questionless. Answerless. Birthless. Deathless. Eternal and unending. LOVE your sharing, Chelsea. It’s music to my soul to read and feel the spaciousness and honesty. You are brave to step out of the comfort zone of belief, into the raw blaze of integration.
Beautiful Chelsea. So well articulated…such great writing. The last paragraph is brilliant. Profoundly accurate and satisfying.
beautiful, brave and honest – thanks chelsea.
what strikes me most about the longing many people have for god (and i have felt it too) is that it is so almost obviously parental.
what i have observed for myself and several others is that the more one works through the unresolved parental issues, unmet childhood needs, and internalizes more of a set of real life resources and capacity to relate to one’s own feelings in a kind and nurturing way (as a good parent might) the less the longing for anything supernatural has a foot hold in our psyches.
then of course there is the problem of our brain’s ability to conceptualize our own death – and for many this is unbearable, and a strong spur toward supernatural faith. personally i have never, ever felt this – i have a hunch it is because my parents normalized death when i asked questions about it as a kid. they never fed me any life after death, god, jesus, type stories as a way to cover over the reality of death, so i have never been afraid or conflicted about it.
i think too there is a temperament piece, as well as an IQ piece: people with a more emotive/intuitive temperament can i think become more easily caught up in the sense that there MUST be some hidden force/intelligence/personality/pattern etc in life/the universe and the literalize this intuitive/emotive conviction.
not to say that some of these folks are not highly intelligent (and even accomplished scientists like francis collins) but i think there is also an intelligence/education piece here too. i think we innately imagine disembodied gods for reasons that have to do with various side-effects to our evolution , and this is further amplified by socialization and unmet psychological needs. so it takes a great deal of curiosity and self-driven intelligence to not only question this but start to move beyond it.
many people simply don’t have more curiosity, intelligence and/or education than they have socialization, unreasonable/ungrounded intuitive/emotive conviction or psychological/existential need.
my sense is that by putting an intelligent, spiritual, well-informed, non-supernaturalist perspective out there we make it more likely that those teetering on the fence can keep waking up and a greater percentage of americans can move beyond the limiting and limited framework of supernaturalist faith.
i also think you perfectly illuminate here how in the depths of deep suffering we reach for notions of a god – and if the suffering is deep enough, we are confronted with how empty this gesture truly is…..
i will admit that when the 1994 earthquake hit venice california at 4:29 am and i became convinced that i was about to die, i pulled the covers over my head and relaxed into savasana, breathing deep like a good yogi – and then wouldn’t you know it, the lord’s prayer that i heard and recited so often as a kid in a church school moved though my lips in a whisper.
It feels like you peered into the same abyss I found myself falling through. Beautifully stated. Thank you for your words, and the wisdom shining through them.