From the bits and pieces of Oprah's "Belief" series that I have seen, it looks to be a beautifully produced exploration of religion and spirituality as it plays out in the lives of ordinary people from a variety of cultures and traditions. The episode I viewed tonight had the story of a Moroccan boy who is memorizing all eighty-thousand words of the Koran. Another story featured an Australian physician who walked the Camino de Santiago, and discovered a resurgence of purpose and meaning that had left his life decades earlier.

The series does not downplay the capacity for religion to be implicated in disagreement and violence, but focuses on the role of religion and spirituality where they are part of positive developments for individuals and their communities. The show's epigram is, "See the world through someone else's soul."

In the story of the man who hikes the Camino, his pilgrimage seems to have restored his ability to care and to love. The tears he cried along the way had the markings of tears someone might cry when they are beginning to heal from deep trauma--in this case, the trauma of being in dis-relationship to one's own life. The window into this man's healing provoked me to think about how difficult it is to judge another person's deep life perspective, especially as that perspective manifests in particular expressions that might be described as spiritual or religious. One person's medicine may be meaningless or even repugnant to another. In some cases, at least, I'm sure it's because the one making the judgment has never suffered from the sickness for which that particular medicine appears to be the agent of healing.

If I squint hard and am willing to lie to myself, I can believe whatever I choose to, and can disengage from any argument to the contrary, even when the argument makes sense. When this approach begins to fail, I can reinforce it by posting my belief online, and be comforted by the "likes" I get. I can also seek out sources and sites that share the same belief, and that yell it at a volume level that assures me they must know what they are talking about. I can congregate online with others and we can simultaneously shout the belief, until no sound from outside can reach us. We can pat each other on the back as we shoot down the occasional peep of dissent that sneaks in past the din of our own echoing opinion.

The merger of self-deception and social media frees me from the pain that used to come in those moments when I realized that facts did not support my belief, and I had to find ways to modify it--which caused great disruption to me and to my friends who also had the same belief. I now have a way turn off the discomfort that used to nearly paralyze me. In the past, alcohol and drugs together were barely able to accomplish this.

I have to admit, there still is a part of me inside that occasionally refuses to go along with this way of being sure that my beliefs are not threatened. That part can be tricky. I have had to use my best defenses against it. One of the most powerful ways that I have found to fight against it is to come up with religious reasons for why my beliefs are right. This allows me the added advantage of being able to label those who challenge my beliefs as evil--maybe even of the devil. There are lots of other people who are eager to confirm for me that my beliefs are the ones that God himself endorses. I love listening to those people and having them around. They are good people, in an evil world.

Still, that part inside is persistent. One time, it even dared to question my religious beliefs--I mean, the beliefs that I had protected by wrapping them in religious ideas. This part tried to get at me in the most devious way I can imagine. It appeared to me, inside my conscience, as though it were Jesus himself! It asked me things like: "Are you sure I would have agreed with the things you are saying that I stand for?"; "Are you sure that I would always agree with you and your friends and never with the people who disagree with you?"; and, "Do you think it will ultimately matter if what is really true is different from the internal map that you are using to guide you in your decisions--both in this life and (by your own admission) the next one too?"

Like I said, that part is really sneaky. I am working at it, though. Hopefully, before long, I will figure out a way to make that part be quiet, so I don't have to hear it at all.

The art of reporting a fire,
conveying to people the nature of the fire,
convincing them of the dangers of the fire,
without needing to light yet one more fire in the process,
is rare indeed.
The world today is full of firestarters,
masquerading as opinionators
and bearers of news.