Angels & Magazines

This pair of angels somehow clamored for attention in the murky light this morning as I groped towards the coffeemaker:

Speaking of murky......its basically been that way all day today. Gloomy, rainy, and very windy. Husband and I watched an old Hitchcock movie this afternoon, "The Lady Vanishes". It has a unique plot, unlike anything I've seen before, so for that reason it easily kept my attention from falling victim to an attack of snoozing.

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Over the years, I've tried to cut down on the number of magazine subscriptions coming to this farm's address. Usually, glossy stacks of them languish, unread, their main purpose being to fill a recycling tote. Over time, there have been subscriptions to Good Housekeeping, Oprah, Country Woman, Country, Farm & Ranch, Midwest Living, The Iowan, Readers' Digest, and others. Loads of farm magazines and publications come seemingly of their own free will......we certainly never pay for them, but they keep showing up in the mailbox........Farm Journal, Dairyman's Digest, Wallace's Farmer, Midwest Dairy Business, Dairy Today, DairyStar, and believe it or not, many others. The only farm magazine we actually pay for is Hoard's Dairyman.

Needless to say, the stacks of magazines really pile up around here, along with bull catalogs, and catalogs for every little thing under the sun. Its practically a full-time job trying to keep up with shifting them from mailbox to kitchen table to kitchen counter to Husband's "office" to end tables, and finally, to the recycling tote.

There is one little magazine I've subscribed to for years and years, because my mom always did, and that is "Guideposts". I remember even as a kid reading the amazing and inspirational stories in it. There was one Guideposts story I remember reading over and over back then......it was about a woman whose car had gone over a cliff, throwing her out onto a narrow ledge high above a gorge. There, for several days, I think, she clung to a small tree and kept shouting for help, and praying. Finally, miraculously, she was rescued. Anyway, the story seemed simply amazing to me.......and Guideposts is famous for featuring true stories such as that. I also subscribe to "Angels", which is another small magazine published by the Guideposts group. There's wonderfully fascinating stories in there, too.

Everyone around here enjoys Discover magazine, so that's one subscription that repeatedly gets renewed. Last year, in a fit of strange madness, I somehow managed to subscribe to two rather high-minded Christian magazines, "First Things" and "Touchstone". "First Things" is way above my head most of the time. "Touchstone" is a tad bit easier to comprehend, most of the time.

Last week, the newest copy of "First Things" arrived. Last evening, I waded into one of the articles, entitled "Uncomfortable Unbelief" by Wilfred M. McClay. He was reviewing the book, A Secular Age, by Charles Taylor, which the article's author describes as a "sprawling, ambitious, exasperating, confusing, and profoundly important new book".

Most of the article, as per most "First Things" offerings, is way beyond what I know or care about. One paragraph, though, I found interesting. McClay is stating that the book states:

"At the outset of the human story, religion was 'naive' and the world was permeated with spirits. Individual self-consciousness was nonexistent, for the 'porous' self remained open to the currents of external influence, unable to discern clear boundaries between self and nonself, or make clear distinctions between personal agency and impersonal force. Unbelief under such circumstances was literally unthinkable."

This caught my attention because I've read this type of thing before.......that at one time humans did not have a concept of an individual self. They identified totally with their tribe or community. Try to imagine that.......not being aware that you are a separate individual. Like part of a flock of birds flying around.....you move as one in a group.

I've also read that in some cases of "mental illness", the affected person seems to come to a similar "porous" condition, thinking the world is speaking to them, and they are too open and aware of the world around them. The ego sinks away and too much information comes pouring in. Sorry to blog about something so bizarre, but I find it fascinating.

Near the end of the article, McClay says, "......consciously shared and historically grounded belief and practice is the absolutely necessary basis of healthy community----in a church or anyplace else." He says we suffer today from "rootless radical individualism". He also states that the book's author "observes that 'we are just at the beginning of a new age of religious searching, whose outcome no one can foresee.' "

I'm in favor of Christians being united......I firmly believe all believers in Christ should be able to share Communion together.......but, that doesn't happen.....how to correctly view the bread and wine seems to be the stickler. They can rant and rant all they want about Christians needing to be like-minded, blah, blah, blah......but they never make efforts to remove the fences surrounding Communion beliefs. And far as all of us being too individualistic, especially us Americans.......how in the heck else are we supposed to live?? We don't exist all clumped together in little villages like back in Bible times.......everything is, for better or for worse, entirely different now.

There now, I've ranted on this rainy day about something I'm not qualified to rant about. I doubt I'll renew the "First Things" subscription, though......its just too much work to read the articles.