The topic is reverence, but perhaps it’s relevant. If you follow medical and genetic / neurological studies, it’s more or less been established that we are inherently creatures of faith. There have even been extensive studies on the relationship between faith and health/recovery finding a scientifically viable positive result, but we live as a society in a way that doesn’t exactly encourage faith.
How are people who have faith treated? In the positive side of my experience, they are held dear but treated like a lovable eccentric. On the negative side, they are the object of outright hostility. This is more the norm than the exception. People of faith are treated as naïve, are they not? In the general? Though science establishes that it’s not only human nature but healthy.
Having faith draws good things to you. It does, and could do so for whole communities. But the communal pattern is to lack reverence, give no regard for your neighbour. This is even judged to be civility, keeping your nose out of other peoples business. How is this in any way connected to civility? Civility literally meaning living as a community?
In the past, heretics and orthodoxy have lived side by side in peace. How was this possible? They differed in their object of worship and fight now over it. Why isn’t this fight constant?
Agreement to be different as we have now and yet still honor the spirit of each. You said it. Honouring the spirit of each group. Honouring the spirit of any faith. This is reverence.
A perfect example of this was an arrest made at a protest. We on one side, cops on the other. Do not cross line or else. The thing is, on both sides we were family. We were strangers. But we have this thing about honor spirit, so we greet aloha uncle, or brother, or sister. Apologies, but we have our mission both sides would say. Then we would say aloha blessings to both, cross the lines, and have very orderly arrests with huge apologies. This is a perfect example of reverence, and many cultures once had this spirit/attitude.
Martial arts? Yes. A dojo is not a place of worship, but it is a place of spirituality as well as self development. Are these any different? They require an attitude of reverence for the teaching and the lineage that shaped it. The reason being, they feel it’s the only way you will be fully empty to receive what they have to offer. If you cannot revere their way, then you aren’t a bad person, but you aren’t fit for learning their way.
Reverence is not confined to specific places. In fact, if you do it leads to the attitude that has moved people to burn so many temples and desecrate so many sacred sites. In life there are things that seem vital to life as a process, and very often we don’t really know why we perceive them as so vital.
We are human beings and those organs of ours as impressive as they are (we call them brains) do have limitations, and yet we can intuit that there is something there even if it escapes our understanding.
Awe? Yes, a sense of awe. What do you hold in awe? You revere that. What when you experience it just makes you begin to speak like Keanu Reeves “Whoa …”? But that you revere, and we need to allow for that reverence.
In Hawaii we go; aueeeeeeeeee, awwwwwwwwesome! Very spirited response. We all know things like that in life, be they profound moral guidelines or experiencing the connection between ourselves and other life, or even just contemplating the vastness of the universe. It doesn’t matter what your religion is, you will be called to seek this. It is a human need like breathing, and yet people seem committed to destroying this.
One of the things about modern warfare is the basic training of soldiers. They are brainwashed to despise the enemy of the time by any and all means. Honour and reverence of the other has gone far and away. This is true, and they are taught to hold their commanding officers in awe, automatic obedience. In truth, even without corporal punishment their lives do depend on it, that and that of their squad. In warfare, you hesitate you die. I promise you, even if your religion is patriotism, you may be standing for things that your sense of reverence rejects. Reverence is not something you learn, but it is something we can be made to unlearn.
Reverence is that sense of respect you have, and maybe notice most when you are in the “unknown.” But people give into egotism and begin to generalize what they “know” to every aspect of life. Is this sound reasoning?
Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.
Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~