can i be a christian while not taking the bible literally? October 16, 2009
Posted by relsdork in God, bible, christian, religion, scripture, struggle.Tags: bible, christianity, faith, literalism, scripture
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I am living the Bible, but I am living it differently than many Christians. A lot of people create a false dichotomy between biblical literalism and humanism. I do not believe that the Bible is the Word of God in the sense that it is dictated either directly or indirectly to individuals from God. I do believe that the Bible is the Word of God in that it describes a history of people seeking God and describing their experience with God. I claim a profound connection with the Bible and find it to be the paramount scripture by which I can relate to God. However, it doesn’t mean that I think it inerrant or beyond critical inquiry. I don’t believe that God zipped God’s lip the day that the last book of the Bible was penned or that the Bible is homogeneous enough to somehow gain a definitive vision of God from its pages. It is because of the relative views of God presented by different authors in different books of the Bible that I don’t believe we can quote scripture in ways that many do, nor can we derive seemingly “If A + B then C” ideas from scripture… the Bible is too diverse to not be seen as a whole.
I believe that Jesus was more closely aligned with the Will of God than any other being who’s existed and therefore seek to understand his Life and ministry as best I can, since I believe his vision of God to be paramount to all others in the way that it compells me to live.
While I am slipping into a somewhat relativistic position by making these statements, I would suggest that all biblically derived beliefs are necessarily relativistic to some degree just by the very nature of the Bible, which is by no means completely uniform in its descriptions of God. I am not going to tell anyone that I am doing things right and that they are doing things wrong (thereby assuming that my interpretation is more in line with God’s will than others’), but I do have faith that that is so. I have faith that I am endeavoring to live out the Bible as best I can and that I share a connection with God and am working God’s will in the world. I also understand that other Christians believe this as well, but that we are cleary getting different things when we read the Bible.
I most certainly take the Bible more seriously than reducing it to a nice story or poems with morals– but obviously my approach to how I can best take the text seriously is different than many Christians’. My attempt is to learn the languages these texts were originally written in, learn about the historical backgrounds of the people described in the text, and seek to understand the many layers of meaning that are available through experiencing the Bible. In that sense, I am not at all trying to make the Bible say what I want it to be, but am trying to best understand what it meant to those who wrote it down and why it made sense to them, given their context. A lot of people don’t like to involve academics with their scripture, but I strongly believe in doing so. It is my belief that the Bible should be studied from every angle possible.
It is precisely my study of the Bible and my experience of God through study and worship that has brought me to the way that I live out my faith.
shifting baseline syndrome October 8, 2009
Posted by relsdork in God, bible, christian, religion, scripture, struggle.Tags: absolute truth claims, elective monotheism, language, religion, truth
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Religious fundamentalists “suffer” from shifting baseline syndrome. Fundamentalism would be a good idea if it weren’t founded in ignorance of what the fundamentals of a religion are. I wonder if this’ll get hate mail? Anyway, I just… don’t understand. People think that because the gospels are synoptic (less John), that they should be identical. People use this to dismiss the historical validity of the gospels (I’m not saying that the gospels are completely literal and/or completely accurate, but they’re pretty historically valid when viewed contextually). We have to keep in mind that the gospels were not written for you (nor the epistles). They’re written in their respective contexts. Matthew is writing for a Jewish audience (hence the Sermon on the Mount). John was removed from Judaism (Christianity was on its own more by this point). He doesn’t know anything about Judaism.
So what does it mean that the gospels are synoptic? Break it down. Syn = together. Optic = eyes. To see something together. They tell the same stories, but they’re telling them for different audiences. Jesus says, “blah blah blah,” but Jesus is speaking for Group A. When early Christians try and tell this story to Group B, it makes no sense.
Por Exemple: when missionaries were telling the story of Jesus to the Inuit, they explained how he was the Lamb of God, but the Innuit were like, “What’s a lamb?” The idea of a seal pup works better for them, because ‘lamb’ is meaningless within their context (example stolen from a lecture by Professor Rycenga).
The gospels fit together idea for idea, not necessarily word for word. They were trying to transmit a message. History was understood differently.
Matthew is written for Jews. It’s written thematically.
Mark loved Jesus as a youth, but he was too young to join the ministry. Mark is amazing. The last supper was held in his home (his mother– Mary of Jerusalem–’s house). He traveled with Paul, Barnabas, and Peter. He gathers Jesus’ story from Peter.
Luke is Greek. He’s writing for the Gentiles (hence, Sermon on the Plain). He’s a historian. He cuts and pastes to create his story.
John understands Greek and knows how to use the language. It’s beautifully written. He understands stoicism. It’s an apology (in reaction to Docetism).
The agraphas (sayings), between the gospels and patristic writings, are historically confirmed.
The gospels are amazing. I have to learn Greek.
what i want to do with my life September 19, 2009
Posted by relsdork in christian, religion, struggle.Tags: ministry, religion
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What I want to do with my life… the operative words being “I” and “my.”
When one talks about ministry, people want to know about your “call.” It’s like, “when was that day you received a telephone call from Jesus?” Of course that’s never what anyone means, but really… it’s kind of what it amounts to.
Jesus never gave me a telephone call.
Jesus fingerpainted in the dust on my windows and every day, I wiped it off—“That doesn’t belong in this room!”
My family is not religious. In fact, there are certain (unnamed) members of my family that have quite a distaste for religion. It’s not easy to talk about religion in my house and it’s not easy to be religious in my family.
I decided to major in Religious Studies. I went into SJSU as a Liberal Studies major (the teaching track, like my sister is doing). I pondered changing to a music major—on days when I am not full of timidity, I know I have a gift. But after taking a religious studies class, I had to major in religion… and while “religious studies” doesn’t lend itself to a career choice so much as my previous major, I just didn’t care.
When I transferred, I got all of the questions from family and friends… or really, the same question asked by each: “What are you going to do with that?”
“I dunno. Maybe teach in a private school or go on with my education and eventually teach at a university level.”
I didn’t know. I just knew that I wanted to major in rels. Everything after that was a slow-motion explosion.
I have a gift in music. But I have a gift in religion. The more I learned, the more I wanted to learn. The more I share, the more I want to share. When I speak, people hear me.
I don’t think I one day got a call. I think I one day stopped fighting it. I think one day, enough people had told me I belonged in ministry. I think one day, I knew it was the way I could best love God. I think one day, I realized that I will never be able to live up to whatever expectations and desires people in my life have for me. I think one day, I realized that what I am is what God wants me to be. I think one day, I realized that living fully is not about how long I can go between cuss words, but how effective my Life can be in producing positive change—and one night sitting in a bar with one of my ministers, I realized that I can be who I am and be a minister. One day, I realized that what I am and what I am meant to be is a minister.
People can think it’s weird that I go to church. People can think it’s weird that I want to be a minister. People can think that my faith is backwards and wrong and can tell me I am not a Christian or whatever they want. I am not going to try out for American Idol, like my grandmother wants, but my musical abilities will be an asset to my ministry. I am not going to become a journalist or a poet, but my writing skills will be an asset to my ministry. I am going to be a minister. I am going to fight for what I believe in, even if it’s different from what others believe.
One day, I looked at my window and realized that the fingerpainting really said something… I could no longer pass it off as misplaced dust. I have to not worry about what people think and worry about what God’s work is. Then I have to do it.
christian ignorance September 1, 2009
Posted by relsdork in bible, christian, church, religion, scripture, struggle.Tags: christian liberalism, christianity, dogmatism, ignorance
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While some communities simply view religious texts differently, there is a great deal of ignorance on the part of many Christian communities. There are many Christians who could tell you little to nothing about the context within which their sacred texts were written and have less knowledge than that about the complications that arise in translation processes, not only because of the differences in language, but because of understanding the context.
Much of the disagreement has to do with different interpretations and selective readings of sacred texts… to an extent, every reading is selective because of how much contradiction there is within scripture.
It is the tendency for Christians to label those Christians who hold different positions on such things as the “wrong” ones (I will certainly acknowledge that to a certain extent, I am guilty of that). I believe that there are certain things which Christians currently disagree about that needn’t be disagreed about– one side is simply wrong. There are other issues which I disagree with other Christians about, yet understand their position and their religious justification for their position
The reality of the world is that there are many people who will never change their paradigms; they are raised in worldviews which I would consider damaging. I would have little success arguing with people in communities like those, where minds are made and people obey blindly leadership and completely trust voices of authority uncritically. I don’t have a solution, though I would definitely have arguments with these people, hoping that some logic might get through…
My “solution,” though it isn’t really one, is to raise my own voice. I choose to engage in dialogue and participate in furthering the causes I believe in, hoping that for those whose minds are not made up (or at least are not so set in stone) the voice that I raise will be persuasive. I hope that the voice of my church will be persuasive, that people will hear our message and hear it as a more holistic, spiritual, and just answer to the soul and the world. I believe that the worldview my church perpetuates is working toward a better world than the ones that others seem to be holding onto. I hope that in our actions and that in walking our own path, that becomes apparent to people.
I guess that I see living by example as most effective. I think that’s what Jesus did (as well as some arguing). While I do think interventionary action is necessary in groups where their actions become violent and destructive, I don’t think it’s ever very effective to try to break up causes that people truly believe in (you make them victims and yourself the villain when doing so).
meh.
hardly August 25, 2009
Posted by relsdork in religion.add a comment
“If heaven is on earth, it’s hardly contradictory to love sunshine chevroned with tree shadows in the woods, plus the low-slung moss, a tiger-colored butterfly, the Tiffany glitter of a spider’s web after a gust of rain, and the yellow-spotted salamander emerging from under the nearest log—yet feel content to die.”
–from Curtain Calls: The fever called “living” is conquered at last by Edward Hoagland
absolute truth claims August 15, 2009
Posted by relsdork in God, christian, religion.Tags: absolute truth, christianity, elective monotheism, evangelism, faith, God, missionary work, religion
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Humankind has endlessly been struggling to understand God, so I think it quite offensive and arrogant to shove one’s personal religion in the face of someone who is quite happy with their own. Really, if a Muslim came up to you and read you some stuff from the Quran and told you that you were stupid for being a Christian and that your morals were bankrupt and would land you in hell unless you were willing to claim Mohammad as the paramount prophet, how responsive would you be?
It’s ridiculously naive to think that any of us, especially those of us who are not fluent in the original languages of the Bible, can truly understand its message, especially now that we are some 3500 years after much of it was written and completely absent of the Bible’s original context. Of course we have endeavored to find the historical context of these writings, but so little is available to us. Even for those scholars who can read Koine Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, it’s incredibly difficult to discern what kinds of intricacies and poetic structure was used in scripture, what kinds of allegory, puns, metaphors, etc. that simply don’t translate into English or the year 2008.
One of my goals as a Christian is to faithfully embrace the mystery that is God. While I seek to understand scripture as fully as I can (I am majoring in Comparative Religious Studies, learning Ancient Greek, and intend to enter seminary), I will never be able to define God or God’s will in any kind of certainty… I can only have faith. Therefore, I should be respectful of whatever faith claims other people have, so long as they are not damaging anyone, imposing themselves on others, or interfering with my faith practice.
quotation August 9, 2009
Posted by relsdork in God, christian, politics, religion, struggle.Tags: politics, religion
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So… political parties. I was reading something from Burnside Writers Collective about the language around cancer. I think it was from there. I could be wrong. But something had me thinking of the language that creates mentalities surrounding certain subjects, just from the nature of the vocabulary. Actually, I think it was from Blue Like Jazz, but check out the collective anyway.
ANYWAY… the Red State/Blue State thing. A recent conversation reminded me how we like to divide the states as either “red” or “blue”, when we forget that within those states, the numbers are frequently very close, but they tip one way and are labeled one party or another. Beyond that, of course, there are party members that don’t vote on all of the issues the way that their party typically does. But we create this division, like it’s Republicans against Democrats and we further drill in extremists. Like we have to battle each other or something.
I’m guilty of it, too. I often get frustrated with people. I need to work on my ability to give and receive love.
Okay, this is from Burnside:
On my way to work one day, I turned off of my street and found myself behind one of those SUVs with flags waving in the car exhaust and American Nationalist propa… I mean… patriotic stickers covering every inch of the bumper. “What an idiot! Ugh! God bless the WORLD not just America!” I practically yelled– at the car. I was yelling at a car. I caught myself up short, completely amazed and ashamed at my anger.
In that moment, I realized I was behaving just like a bigot who judges a person’s intelligence and character based on the color of their skin. At that point, I realized that there was a prejudice within me, the same prejudice that resides in the heart of a white supremacist… Part of God’s plan? Certainly not. No matter how often I may think that ultra-conservative fundamentalist Christians were put on earth to torment me, they are here for a purpose. They are here because God made them and loves them, and oh, guess what? I’m just as broken as they are.
…all of us have places in our hearts in need of God’s grace. It is far easier to point our fingers and judge than to look at our own lives and ask God to weed out our sin. I am at fault if I judge the multi-millionaire who won’t part with his wealth to help get treatment to people dying of AIDS. I am the one who suffers if I choose to judge rather than change myself.
–Penny Carothers, from “Flag-Waving SUV – An Introduction”
relativism July 28, 2009
Posted by relsdork in God, christian, religion.Tags: christianity, God, relativism
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If I held a completely relativistic position, I wouldn’t vote or march in Pride or spend so much time trying to elaborate on the things I believe. I believe, however, in living as an example, not taking up “selling” methods.
I do believe that other paths can lead to encounters with the divine. God certainly appears differently to different figures in the Bible. Each Biblical story takes on different meanings and shows many ways to encounter God and many ways God interacts with people. I by no means think that God stopped communicating with Humanity after the crucifixion, nor do I believe that God is only made available to those who hear the Gospel or those who respond to the way that Christian tradition presents itself and has presented itself throughout history.
I would say that I don’t believe in a God that is exclusivist in any sense. I don’t believe that God is revealed solely through the words of one book, solely through the Life of one being, or solely to certain groups of people. The God I embrace is not boxed in such ways. Therefore, I find it irritating when some people place God into a box and sell God, defining and making promises on God’s behalf. I find it androcentric and arrogant, though I understand the motivations of such people and can appreciate their sincerest intent at helping Humanity, even if I strongly disagree with their validity.
gendered language July 19, 2009
Posted by relsdork in bible, religion, scripture.Tags: bible translations, feminism, language, sexism
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One of the topics hot in circles considering religious translations is always the idea of gendered language. Radicals like Mary Daly completely restructure tradition and take feminism to points which can arguably be damaging, but the debate seems relevant.
A lot of people believe that “He” language is simply a reflection of the times which certain documents were written in. This is, of course, true. However, in cases of texts like religious documents which serve as important spiritual sources for many people and of modern writing, is it important to eliminate gendered language?
I admit that I’m often surprised when I see an author throwing a “she” in there in an attempt to be more inclusive. While the fact that it jumps out at me should be cause for me to consider the effects that gendered language has had on me, it generally only seems to me an obvious and conscious attempt of the author to give fair time to the Other. As in forms of positive racism, I have to ask to what extent it’s useful. While using “she” seeks to include the sex generally left out of history until more recent decades, when used in ways that are not direct references to a female, it only contributes to a view of humanity as gendered in circumstances where gender is completely irrelevant. Just like we can’t eliminate racism by continuing to note it in situations of complete irrelevance, it does no more good to note gender.
While that “she” jumps out at me in my reading, I recently noticed that “he” does as well. I’m currently reading America Unlimited by Eric Johnston; upon running my eyes through the words of the first page, “he” could have been bold or underlined, it seemed so overly used. Of course, the book, written in the 40’s, would have made absolutely no attempt to say “Americans” or “one,” and so it didn’t. My mind, accustomed to reading academic books penned in more recent years by scholars progressive enough to use ungendered (is that a word?) language more often than not, my mind now sees uses of “he” and “she” as quite equally ridiculous.
The first page of America Unlimited elicited a knee-jerk reaction in me—What do you mean he? Are we women so incompetent that we can’t understand politics or the economy? (The funny part is that the copy I’m reading was originally my grandmother’s.) While uses of “she” jump out as well-intentioned positive sexism, uses of “he” jump out as archaic and ignorant. My sexist radar soon subsided as I reminded myself of the copyright date on the book, but a little red string in my head reminded me to mull over the implications of that experience at a later point.
While I once thought that a removal of gendered language was a task a little pointless, thinking that simply educating people on the contexts of works prior to shoving them before them to read would remedy the situation, I now think it quite necessary. Regardless of whether I know that language is gendered because of its context or the limits of the original language, the use of unnecessarily gendered language apparently does affect my experience, whether I notice it or not. It’s only been the absence of gendered language that has allowed me to notice this.
So that is my argument for removing unnecessary gendered language from scripture and writing in gender neutral language. Thank you and goodnight.
i am temporal July 13, 2009
Posted by relsdork in God, nature, religion.Tags: books, life, process theology, religion
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Preface:I am reading a book on process theology (derived from Whitehead’s process philosophy, which you may or may not be familiar with). Process theology is hard to explain, not only because it requires a familiarity with religious language used for centuries (while it also turns such language on its head and completely redefines much of religious language, most notably the term “God”) but because it requires a degree of familiarity with science and nature. It’s like the high culture of religion, but without the pretensions. Or something.
While I will avoid trying to explain process theology, I’ll try to explain some of what’s going on in my head (if I haven’t lost all of that exciting bubble that happened right before I decided an introduction was necessary… crap).
Here is a quotation (which makes more sense if you understand process theology, but whatever):
“We have bodies and hands that can reach out and pull a trigger or grab a child. God does not. So we can overrule God’s freedom in ways that God cannot. God is everywhere and everytime. God can make freedom possible for an entire universe, moving it through an evolutionary process to create a universe of experience. We cannot. We are only here and now. Our powers are ours, not God’s. And God’s powers are God’s, not ours. God cannot overrule our freedom.”
Taken out of its context, this quote could be taken to mean that God acts somehow “consciously” as a controlling force in evolution, which is not so. Just to clarify.
I guess what’s going through my head right now is the crazy reality that something always exists (I’m calling this “God”). There is always an energy bouncing between the tiniest elements of existence. It has these elements reacting to each other in enormously complex ways that are both predictable and unpredictable. Through an amazing domino effect taking literally an infinite amount of time, they have led to me and my temporal existence.
What’s amazing about my existence, though it’s so much more temporally limited than many other existences (actual occasions), is that I seem to have consciousness. While freedom extends to every particle of the universe, I can make choices which take into account how those choices will affect the future and an emotional reaction to things. I have morality. Thus, what makes my existence quite spectacular is how I can use this “morality” to guide my decisions and choices in ways that can have lasting consequence and understand that in each moment of choice. I can try to orient the world, in whatever small way, toward a reality that is pleasurable and meaningful to everyone else and whoever else might come after.
But holy crap! I only have 50 or 60 years left! In the grand scheme of things, my existence is a tiny blip, but in the grand scheme of things, my existence has weight because of the magic of consciousness which somehow manifested out of the chance freedom of every little element bouncing around before I came into being. I am a miracle in that I am a possibility out of a bazillion possibilities and I have the capacity to understand that. I understand that not only in a way which can lead me to be remarkably grateful for the chance arrangement of matter and energy that is me, but in a way makes me aware of the lasting footprint I will have, of the ripples that I create in every moment by using a light bulb or saying a word to someone hugging my cat or driving my car or eating zucchini. Holy Jesus, I am so meaningful!
So (gosh darn it), I’d better do something meaningful.
Book: Process Theology: A Basic Introduction by C. Robert Mesle
tolerance for ignorance July 6, 2009
Posted by relsdork in christian, church, politics, religion, struggle.Tags: ignorance, religion, religious tolerance, tolerance
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My brain took some tangents as a recent speaker I saw asked the audience to try to love Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney…
I feel like so often, in conversations with conservative American Christians (not my denomination’s brand of Obama Christians), there reaches a point where Mr. Believer says, “Well, you just don’t understand.” Of course, that’s not what is meant. What is meant is that the Christian argument (subject to the circumstances, of course), generally based in scripture (ignorantly, but not quite the point) or dogma, doesn’t transcend their paradigm. Their reality is this: there exist a heaven and a hell, a fatherly god who loves you (yet is willing to disown you), and a guy named Jesus who magically defied death and floated up to the aforementioned heaven in an act that somehow saves you too from death if you simply believe that it does. This cosmology is accurate in the minds of a huge percentage of American Christians, however insane it may sound to the rest of us. They’ve arrived at this worldview by carefully following a tradition of ridiculousness perpetuated by some egomaniacal and undereducated men who think that the ability to read English at a fourth grade level somehow qualifies them to interpret collections of literature (not even originally written in English) so complex and diverse that multitudes of scholars cannot decrypt all of it. Nonetheless, believing themselves divinely inspired, they make noise in Hitler-esque fashions and convince people to believe ridiculous things.
If I can come back from the tangent from my tangent, I had a small point. These people, with their ridiculous worldviews, have the gall to tell us that we can’t understand because we haven’t accepted Jesus or we don’t have faith or we’re misled by the devil or some crap like that. So it seems to me that if these people have the right to dismiss us as incapable by virtue of being “heathens” and tell us that we’re going to Hell even though they love us (because “love the sinner, hate the sin”), we should have the right to call them ignorant (because love the stupid people, not the stupidity). There’s a point past which tolerance helps breed injustice. We can all agree on that. Liberals could stand to be a bit less tolerant of religious people.
So yes, I can love Dick Cheney, but I still think he’s a jerk.
solidarity: backstage pictures from SF Pride 2009 June 30, 2009
Posted by relsdork in church, gay rights, politics.Tags: gay pride, gay rights, pride parade, sf pride
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heaven June 24, 2009
Posted by relsdork in christian, religion.Tags: afterlife, heaven, hell
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The idea of an afterlife is something I have a hard time embracing. I’m pretty sure I just stop happening at some point and I’m pretty cool with that. I think I will continue to exist in whatever contributions I make to the world and if I’m not contributing now, I might as well not exist, because wtf is the point if I just sit around and watch American Idol until I die? I think the best way to approach religion is to relate it to the present, because that’s kind of what we have to work with. I think religion is about now and it’s completely possible to have religion that says nothing about what happens after death… or at least a sense of “it’s not what’s important.” I mean, if all I’m doing is trying to live up to expectations of a deity in order to gain admittance to a certain realm or stay out of a certain realm or get to a higher level of a certain realm, that strikes me as shallow.
what do i mean when i say “god”? June 22, 2009
Posted by relsdork in God, christian, religion.Tags: christianity, God, panentheism, process theology, religion
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This is the hardest thing to relate. When I say God, I mean the panentheistic God of Process Theology… the God that is present in all forms of life yet extends beyond all forms. God is not the all-powerful, all-knowing God that most would define God as. The past is done, the future is not yet… God acts in the now. God has no hands but our hands. I would describe God as the form of ideal Humanity and morality that is present in all forms of Life. God is communicated through acts of compassion and cries for justice and God exists in multiple forms. I believe that God is a both/and God that feels the needs of all peoples and lives in inspiration toward compassionate efforts to alleviate the pains all forms of Life experience and strive toward the creation of a world characterized by compassionate mutual understanding. I really don’t know how to describe my views in a coherent way. Think “collective unconscious” and add morality. I dunno.
I think it’s cool to think that humanity’s sense of morality might be some kind of larger connection, since we all seem to share basic moral concepts, but I think while the exploration of divinity and its play in life is awesome, attempts to define and box it are ultimately damaging. Once you claim true knowledge of divinity, you derive authority from it… and that only ever seems to be abused. I like to think of God as existing in everything as goodness, but also that sense of goodness that seems to extend past living things in a kind of intangible presence that connects us in compassion and love and things like that… kind of like Brahman in a way. That probably doesn’t make sense because I think a lot of the time it’s hard to make real sense out of, but if I could, it would become a list.
