Redefining Belief

Belief. What is it? What is the standard answer? The best defintion I could find on dictionary.com says that belief is "confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof." How about that? I'm especially a fan of the idea of having confidence in something exists, yet I can't immediately and rigorously proove it. So what is belief then? What's the correct answer? If by a standard grammatical definion we can't proove what a belief is, then the word cancels itself out by default. Doesn't it?

I don't think so. When I think of belief I have to go way back in my life to a time when I thought the only thing anyone was supposed to believe was in Jesus as God. I don't know why, but I always had this walking-on-eggshells feeling whenever I went to youth group or church with my best childhood friend. For some reason, I thought that God had blessed these buildings where people gathered one morning a week and sometimes Wednesday nights for youth group. Warped as that was. Thankfully this wasn't my parents doing, as I feel I would have grown up feeling a lot more guilty, albiet a lot more insincerely so.

As I grew, I started realizing that these church youth functions that I was attending with my friends weren't church functions at all. They were social gatherings. They were opportunities for me, the socially awkward, self-confidence lacking nerd from a small school in a small town, to go to the big city or to summer camp and meet girls who had no knowledge of how nerdy I was. I loved that part. I'd be lying if I didn't feel some sort of inspiration from them playing the delightfully emo songs that made everyone emotional. It's like Dashboard Confessional wrote all of the evangelical teenage hymnals, except the songs were about you breaking the heart of Jesus, not the heart of the girl you loved or had your summer romance with.

The part that offended the most about the big city social gatherings, events like "Acquire the Fire" or "Shake the Nations", was how much I didn't get at the time. Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't have stuck around. It's fun to get into joyous shouting matches with 10,000 of my new closest friends about how much "I love Jesus, yes I do! I love Jesus, how about you?!" and meet all of these beautiful Katherine Heigl-looking 17-year-old evangelist girls from nice suburban schools. I loved that part. But the parts that didn't register at the time were the stories about the American Christian Missionary who went to Iraq and told people they would burn in hell for not accepting the gospel. He cried recounting the torture he recieved, the ill treatment he was given in return for his generosity in sharing the word. He mustered up all of his strength and courage to talk about how he wanted to turn Islam into Was-lam. For some reason, I glazed over this.

I feel that when you're a teenager, you don't get lots of things. You think you do at the time, but all of us old fogies know that we knew nothing until we were almost 30. The only exceptions are the people who have had major life-changing things happen to them in the past, people who had lost their parents at a very early age or people like me whose only child dies before their first birthday. Or there are the soldiers who come back from wars after serving their four or six year tour, having memories of having to shoot a child who could have had a bomb strapped to them; the young men hardened by years on the streets of the biggest cities, seeing death, some causing death, before they're old enough to drive a car.

So much chaos in the world.

We grow up, and we see things differently, regardless of the positivity or negativity of the things that impact our life. It changes our perceptions. It allows us to grow. We see what seemed like a social gathering of friendly teenagers in our youth turn into a bigoted hate-mongering speech against not just a nation or a civilization, but an entire religion, a religion that shares it's roots with the one preaching it's destruction! It's amazing what a few years can do for changing one's perspective.

As I mature, I see that my parents did, in fact, take me to church every weekend. My church didn't have four walls and a steeple outside. It didn't have someone reading from some book. It didn't have a steeple outside. My church had a breeze with the scent of juniper berries. My church had the smell of a wet dog. My church made me tired and fed me sandwiches and trail mix.

So what do I believe? What do I have confidence in that exists or isn't immediately susceptible to rigorous proof? Well, maybe the answer is in the question. Spiritually speaking, maybe it's not good to know what you believe in. Maybe I believe in not knowing what I believe in. Maybe I don't believe in a thing, but it's how I believe it that is even more important than what I believe. I do believe what I believe in respect to the planet and everything living on it. I believe that beyond a shadow of a doubt. I also believe what I believe in respect to everyone else. Maybe I'm not putting this as eloquently as I would like, so I'll try again.

What do I believe? I believe that we are all tied in together. You. Me. My dad. Your brother. That guy. This lady over here. That one dude on the bus that one time. I believe that we all believe something, and I believe we all believe it together. I believe that we are all tied in to this planet, which is tied in to the galaxy, which is tied into the universe. Even simpler? I think I have this pegged now.

Belief, to me, isn't a philosophical matter. It's scientific. We are all matter. Belief is energy. When we cease to become matter, we become belief. Our souls are pure belief. Things that are destroyed become beliefs in our memories.

I will redefine belief here. I believe this: belief: n. purely positive energy created through will-power, prayer, meditation, and death.

So what is it that I believe? I believe that every thought and feeling I have is feeding into this world, so I will do my best to have the best thoughts and actions I can. And when I die, I believe I will become pure energy, and that I will be a part of the force that creates, nurtures, and protects the universe. The name for this belief, as best I've found, is Universalism, but you call it what you will.

Just believe it.

Now THIS is Colorado!

Last night, when I got off work, I decided to drive up to visit my parents in the Upper Arkansas River Valley. The Valley is a remarkable enclave of hippies & artists, ranchers & church folk, all of whom seem to get along pretty well (the letters to the editor of the Mountain Mail not withstanding). It's always a very pleasant place to go.

On the way down, I stopped at the infamous Coney

Island in Bailey for a hot polish sausage and some fries. I wish I would have snagged a picture of thi s place for you... the building is

a little diner on the side of the road, but it's shaped like

a giant hot dog, about the size of a bus. When I was a kid, a really little kid, Coney Island used to

be in Conifer, just up the road, and before that, it was in Denver off Colfax, the legendary longest-running east west street in the country, but I digress...

This lady and her husband loved the van! She asked me a bunch of questions, and I gave her a quasi tour. It's proof that vehicle graphics work, and proof that Graphic Rabbit stickers WILL draw attention to your vehicle!

After a pleasant, quick conversation, I hopped in the BW, and drove through South Park and over Trout Creek Pass into the valley of my home. I was following a bunch of traffic, which made me slow up. At one point, you used to pass this sign that welcomed you to Chaffee County when you rounded the last corner that gave up the view of Mount Princeton in all of its grace and royalty. It's a stunning peak at that, reaching over 14,000 at its summit. These signs would say "Welcome to Chaffee County. Now THIS is Co

lorado!" The new signs that say

"Headwaters of Adventure" in promotion of the spectacular whitewater rafting in the Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area, a state park. While I appreciate the focus on the

tourism that makes the county the most money, but in a county that has more 14,000 peaks than the entire state of Alaska, I feel a neglect for the mountains.

Anyway, driving on, I got to a scenic overlook, and I had to stop to hang a leak. When I got out of the van, I looked around. The view...

the sunset... the music I was listening to ("Aqueous

Transmission" by Incubus)... the temperature... everything was perfect. So I snagged a set of

pictures, lit some incense, and drove the 25 miles home. The only thing I could think when I snagged the pictures... "Now THIS is Colorado!"

Just an FYI, the pictures, top to bottom, are looking north to south. Download them and put them together side-by side, right to left.

Chilling at Home

I sit here in the B-Dub, having just read two chapters from a heady book about a conventional God, I contemplate many things. However, these things I contemplate are often heavier than I feel like relaying to you, the reader, right now. So, that being said, I want to talk about the rain, the beautiful thing we seem to have stolen from the Pacific Northwest.

As temperatures in Portland and Seattle break record highs, here in Denver, where we average 90 degrees this time of year, we've had a few days of 70s and rain. It's been absolutely glorious. It's everything in me not to go into work tomorrow, give my two-weeks notice, and take off for the Alaskan panhandle. I love the rain.

The Shroud

I love the fog. It's my favorite weather. It's like mother nature is wrapping you up in a creepy yet comfortable blanket. It's hard to feel safe at first, but once you give up a little bit of trust to nature, you are home, surrounded by pure mystery and imagination. When you see tops of mountains, you can only imagine what lives underneath. When you see the bottoms of mountains, they seem to rival the heights of the highest peaks in the Himilaya or Karakoram. The forests grow denser. The deserts become vaster. The ocean becomes deeper. The shroud nature creates forces my brain to fill in the gaps, and it does so with unavoidably fantastic results.

I was seemingly purposely lost driving around Colorado, and I wound up cresting Loveland Pass on US Highway 6. It had just rained, and the clouds were around me, not above me. It was beautiful. It makes me want to live where there is continuous fog and rain, some place like Washington, British Columbia, or Alaska. Sigh...

The Journal

One thing that I've found a love for is writing. Obviously by starting a blog, I've found a way to share this love with people. But I also enjoy sharing it with myself. I've been doing fairly well at keeping a journal since December of 2007, when I first moved to downtown Denver. Looking back at some of those experiences, I have to sometimes just stop and live for a second in those great experiences which I've been so lucky to be able to enjoy.

Today, this 87 degree Wednesday afternoon, I sit here in my tiny, climate-controlled office, and I catch up on my journal and my blog, along with a little reading. I'll go to the gym later tonight and do some running since, with my late foray into pretty regular climbing, I seem to be tweaking a myriad of different muscles and joints, like my right shoulder, my left wrist, and now my neck, which stabs me every time I have to hold my head up from leaning back.

There's a glimmer of hope for rain tonight in the gray clouds sneaking over the western horizon. Will we get more tornadoes here in Denver? More hail? Will more people lose power like Monday night's storm caused? One can only hope!

Nature is amazing, writing it's own journal all over the earth with pens of rain, crayons of wind, and an ever shifting typewriter of plate techtonics. The story goes back for millions of years, eons, ages, or whatever insignificant label we throw at it. It's awesome in the true sense of the word.

The Second Turkey Rocks Excursion

Today Dan "StrongSad", Ryan "StrongBad", Keith "Sylar" and I went climbing again at Turkey Rocks. Ryan led a 5.8 something called "Bloody Englishman" and I led the first half of a 5.6 until I fell into the crack. My left arm has a nice gash on the inside. Anyway, here's some video of Sylar way up in the "Bloody Englishman", shimmying like you would not imagine, as we all were. Today was awesome.

Soul Laundry

Today, a Saturday, I will do my laundry. The BattleWagon has been running well, well enough to deliver me to the coin-operated laundromat in Arvada, Colorado. It's a drive from anywhere logical to where I regularly park, but it was the first laundromat I used when I moved to Denver in 2004, five years ago. It's that comfort of knowing where one came from that helps us face where we are going.  In my case, it's like soul food. It's Soul Laundry.

Soul Laundry is a metaphor for lots of things, I suppose. One could have their own facsimile, like a Soul Couch or a Soul House. I'm willing to bet many a middle-aged or retired male would have a Soul Car or a Soul Quarterback. (Mine's John Elway, but don't tell anyone.)

What is it about these people, places, or things, these Soul Nouns, that are so good for us? Why do we always think back to them for inspiration? Different reasons. in John Elway's case, he was a sports hero to me all the way up to when I was in high school. He led the Denver Broncos to two Super Bowls in a row after more than a decade of mediocre seasons. He was an inspiration in determination.

Then there's my Soul Jeep... dilipated and decrepid. A true direlect. What does it represent for me? Hope. I see it not for what it is, but for what it could be, what I hope to make of it someday.

Sitting here, doing my Soul Laundry, I'm reminded of the courage I had years ago to drop everything and leave my innocent, small town and move to the big city. It renews my courage for my life's present future, captures the optimism that I had when I was 22 years old, and encourages me to keep going.

It's Soul Laundry. It makes you feel goooood.