Ok, no, I am not really advocating for this. First of all, I don’t believe in baptizing anything and secondly, I would never, ever do that to a cat.
No this is more one of those Erin things...getting into alignment with myself and spiritual principles has felt like I am trying to baptize a cat. Lots of water flung everywhere, blood is involved, and in the end, I am left with a pervasive feeling of “what the actual fuck?” Repeatedly.
I think the whole of my life I have spent trying to align myself with some sort of spiritual ideal. I remember being a little kid and walking to church on Sunday mornings, alone because I was a seeker even back then. I didn’t find anything. At least I didn’t seem to get what everyone else seemed to get out of the service. I always, without exception, felt worse about myself. First of all, I was alone and not a part of. Secondly, I didn’t believe what they said and even though I really wanted to drink the cool-aid, I just couldn’t. And finally, there seemed, to me, to be far too much judgment. We like people who believe this and we don’t like people who believe that. That didn’t feel particularly spiritual to me even as an 11 year old.
Regardless, I was seeking. Then my sophmore year of high school, this poor chap I was desperately in love with who wasn’t interested in me in the slightest, became my friend. I say friend out of default because I wouldn’t leave him alone. I think he got tired of dodging my calls so he just decided to talk to me and we would have three hour long conversations about living, and dying and spiritual shit. He was rebelling from his Southern Baptist upbringing and I just wanted to buy whatever he was selling.
His ultimate fuck you to his parents was to become Buddhist. Now, I had not ever really heard much, if anything, about Buddhism. I had read Siddhartha many times but other than that, Buddhism was something that remained out of reach for someone like me. Mike showed me it wasn’t. And slowly over time, I spent more time reading books than talking to Mike. Which was a good thing because he got this amazing girlfriend and they were off having lots of sex and being happy. And I was happy for him even though I was devastated.
But in his absence, I had been given the Buddha and the dharma and while I lacked a sangha I found solace and comfort and understanding in the eight fold path.
And so began my journey towards enlightenment. And I can claim little progress on any given day. But I keep trying. And that is the most Buddhist thing I can do really. Is to accept that it is in my nature to suffer and that feeling like I shouldn't suffer is what makes me suffer more. And to attempt to practice the tenants of Buddhism to the best of my ability. I don’t kill things. I try practice right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort right mindfulness and right samadhi (state of meditative absorption or union).
These are the principles I have attempted to use to guide my life, my thoughts, my speech, my actions and my understanding. And I will tell you that it looks way more like the baptism of cats than it does human spiritual growth...sadly. But, hey, at least I am trying. And I haven’t given up yet. And I have never actually dunked a cat in anything. However, I will admit to dripping water on their backs when they visit me in the bathtub...
I falter a lot. I backslide. I capitulate. I hinder my own progress. But I keep trying. Every single day. I try to be in alignment with what I believe any kind of Divinity might exist in this world might expect or want from me. I try, every single day, to trust that Divinity, clean up my side of the street (which seems to have an inordinate amount of shit that keeps piling up) and to use all that I have learned on this spiritual journey called living to help others along the way. I am not perfect and so far off from enlightenment that it is often a laughable goal. But what else am I supposed to do with this life? I can think of no better use of this life than to do my best and then share my journey with others.
And sometimes, maybe a lot of the time, it is going to look like I am baptizing cats. And sometimes I am the cat and sometimes I am the baptizer. But no matter, I am always, absolutely attempting to align my will with whatever Divinity might exist in this world.
Again...still.
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