Category Archives: Spirituality

I consider this blogpost a bit of  housekeeping.  In fact, I’m posting it now as to be pushed away quickly by the inevitable tide of blogposts on the SLC conference.

A few months ago, I wrote a blogpost on the “ups and downs” of life experiences like university.  Well, it turns out I’ve been in a down for a while.  This explains why I blogged only twice in the last two months.  I’ve felt self-doubting and insecure, anxious, and lacking in motivation.  I have faced many upsetting realizations about myself in this time that have forced me to rethink my very existence.  (I mean this all in a rather reflective/existentialist sense and I am safe, so don’t worry.)

In this time, I’ve learned that I need to spend just as much time and effort as I do in pursuing intellectual activities, in dealing with my pyschological weaknesses and immaturities.  Wisdom cannot be achieved with religion and philosophy alone, but a great deal of psychological work.  I’m not looking forward to it (it’s like cleaning my roomates’ bathroom on the chore list…), but I believe in the adage, “know thyself.”

To self-discovery.

So,  hopefully I can get back to regularly blogging.

Best,
Miriam

As everyone has heard already, the second last Harry Potter movie is out now.  I walked into the theatre somewhat ambivalently.  I hadn’t encountered anything Harry Potter or fantasy related for a couple years now.  All my textbooks and readings dealt with real-life social and political issues.

But watching the movie reminded me why  Harry Potter, and fantasy, is so important to us.

First, there certainly is that “escape with us” aspect (also happens to be Cineplex’s motto).  This can be taken to the extreme:  like those people who were triggered into committing suicide or developing  depression over the fact that the world in Avatar was only fantasy.
But there can still be a healthy attachment to the unreal, I think.  Having this unreal world nurtures imagination and creativity, and encourages us to look at things differently.

More importantly though, it is a means for conveying messages.  In a fantasy land, you don’t take the physical seriously.  Yet  the messages transcend the physical differences between the fantasy world and our own.  Meaning is not contingent upon the physical.

What I’m saying is that, Harry Potter brought to our generation what the ancient stories, like the Bible, often could not.   The common discourse around these holy texts is about physical nature, not meaning.   People ridicule prophets, and place velocirapter heads on portraits of Jesus because they fancy themselves witty for critiquing the literal translations of the Bible.  On the other side of the debate, people actually reject evolution as an evil conspiracy.   In other words, the issues have become physical in nature: did evolution actually occur, did Jesus actually come alive again? (admittedly, the Christian case has always a little bit more contingent on physical world because of the whole resurrection ordeal, but there are some Christians who have a metaphorical interpretation.)

But with Harry Potter, no one is arguing that Harry Potter actually exists.  Alright, so some of us were a little disappointed when we didn’t get a letter inviting us to Hogwarts at age 11, but I think it’s safe to say that most people don’t focus on the fantasy vs. reality issue, but the messages.  The books taught us values  of courage, friendship, love, and goodness.  They helped us grapple with questions of death, jealousy, fear, and sacrifice.  Harry Potter has left an indelible stain on my generation.

I often joke about how, when my generation grows up to be in power a few decades from now, we will be living our childhood dreams:  inventing broomsticks, playing real quidditch, inventing a Sorting Hat.  But what I really wonder is if the messages in the books will remain with us.  I think if the churches, synagogues, temples and mosques want to affect people’s way of life, they should focus less on the physical details, and more on the meaning.  Fantasy can effectively convey messages because everyone knows it isn’t reality.  But when you, religion, are focused on proving the physical aspects, the meanings are lost.  It all becomes a question of science, and quite frankly, you’re not good at it.

Wait, how did I start talking about Harry Potter and up talking about religion? Typical of me!

[Free] Lecture Binge is exactly what it sounds like:  excessively indulging in free lectures.

Lecture: “Where was God when Pakistan was devastated?”
Speaker: Dr. John Stackhouse, Regent College UBC

So my first “free lecture binge” lecture is not what you would expect.  By a whim of Facebook interconnectedness, I ended up going to an event hosted by UCM, University Christian Ministry.  The topic wasn’t Pakistan but the Problem of Evil, seen from the Christian perspective.  I don’t have a Christian background, but it seems I know a lot about its basic theology because I found the lecture rather introductory.   As some people noted, he may have made it so because he was expecting more people new to the religion (and he only had one hour.)  I think these types of lectures are great for people who do not often consider such problems on their own but I personally came out with nothing too new…except for an intercultural experience, of course!  While the free hot chocolate was nice, I don’t think theology lectures are right for me.

Over the summer, I read the ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ by Dostoevsky: it also dealt with suffering through a (19^th century Russian Orthodox) Christian perspective.  Digging through literature for meaning is so much more enriching to me than attending lectures and reading books that spell out basic summaries of theological study.  Just in case you’re wondering, it wasn’t all overwhelmingly Christian, or proselytizing, or anything.

If you attended and have anything to say, the comment section is always open to discussion.

I was helping someone create a resume, and we were on the ‘Interests/Activities’ section.  She spoke in Farsi, I translated to English.  Sports, psychology etc.  But then she said I word I cannot quite translate to English.  Literally, it means “self-knowing” and it is a word I hear often, as if it is as much of a normal activity as cooking.  Why is it that English doesn’t have a  commonly used word for this activity?  If it simply my ignorance, please let me know of the word!

In relation to this psychology-esque anecdote:

~ I watched Inception, finally.  It was a great action movie, but not a great movie because it was action.  There’s only so much glorification of violence that I can take (and innocence [and beauty ]of powerful CEOs) Still, it brought a new dimension to action, and I’m starting to like this interpretation of the film: SPOILERS.
~Brothers Karamazov is turning out to be another great insight into the minds of people so far!

The Case for GOD
Karen Armstrong

Review/Critique by the Noob

The title of this book is ironic; one of Armstrong’s main arguments is that you can’t argue for or against God.   No, this is not some agnostic stating of the obvious, but rather a response to the types of book Richard Dawkins & Co.  are putting out.   Armstrong argues that Dawkins and Co. are a reflection of the modern-day, personalized, intelligent designer, miracle-inducing, creator God.  Armstrong believes this conceptualization of God and religion (particularly the modern idea that religion is about belief, not action) is narrow-minded and do not represent the variety of ways in which we have thought of God through out history.  She recounts the basics from poets, philosophers, and theologians of all backgrounds and times (though I found she was heavy on Christian theology and lacked on the Eastern/Buddhist perspective) and concludes that God was much more transcendent and impossible to know and give labels to than we currently do.

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