To begin the story at the beginning, read "Part 1: Post 1: Beginning Again," published in January, 2013. To consult a description of the campus, read "Part 1: Post 14: The Greening of Campus," published in March, 2013.

Monday, March 26, 2018

Mastery Year 2: Part 2: Post 2: Beliefs

Note: in 2008, the year this is set, Easter was on March 23'rd, which is why the discussion quoted below refers to Easter as having already happened. On the other hand, Passover--which begins later this week--occurred mid-April that year.--D.

"Well, how was Easter around here?" I asked at breakfast.
"Miraculous," Steve, with his customary smile. Sarah sat next to him, nursing Sean, but she said nothing. She has seemed uncharacteristically quiet since they got back to campus.
“Aside from that,” I said.

“Pretty quiet,” Steve explained. “Ollie lead a service, a dozen or so attended, a group of us had dinner together….”
“Yeah, what did you have?” asked June. She and I spent the weekend with my parents, as we usually do, and got back well after dinner.
“Excuse me,” interjected Aimee, a yearling, “I don’t mean to be rude, but do you really believe Jesus rose from the dead?” Aimee is an agnostic and is somewhat scientifically inclined.

Steve shrugged.

“I suppose so,” he said. “I don’t see how the early Christian movement would have come up with the idea if he hadn’t, and a lot of people did claim to have seen him risen. But if somebody proved to me that he hadn’t, I wouldn’t live my life any differently than I do.”
“You suppose so?” exclaimed Diana, who is also Christian, but takes a much more literalist approach. “That Jesus was killed and rose again on the third day is the whole point!”
I think the point is that He was alive in the first place,” countered Steve.

I don’t understand you,” said Freydis, speaking to Diana. “We’re friends, and we have lots of things in common, and then you say something that makes we think we’re living on different planets.”
I believe what I believe,” said Diana, a little defensively.
I know,” said Freydis, “and that’s what I have trouble believing.”

Aimee spoke up.

You’re the one who sacrifices animals, though, right?”
Lots of people sacrifice animals,” Freydis said, a bit defensive herself. “To hunger, to convenience, to money, to fashion…. I sacrifice animals to the gods.”
Yes, but do you really believe Odin demands goat blood, or something?” Aimee persisted.
No, I believe Odin—and the others—appreciate being asked to dinner. It’s not like paying my taxes, or something. It’s sharing, it’s giving something back because they have given me so much.”
But do you really believe it?”
Of course, I do!”
Then why aren’t you angry that I don’t?”
Huh?”
If I never invited Charlie to dinner because I didn’t think he exists, I’d expect Daniel to get mad.”
The idea of Charlie as Teutonic deity made me laugh into my scrambled eggs. Oddly, the idea kind of fits. Freydis had nothing to say. She just sat there, looking puzzled. 
 
At the end of the table, little Sean had fallen asleep. Sarah reattached the cup of her nursing bra and lowered her shirt. She had been watching the whole conversation carefully and returned her attention to it, but I realized she hadn’t been eating. Her plate contained nothing but a blob of ketchup. Something seemed “off” about that.

But spiritual beliefs don’t work like that,” put in Apple, a yearling with New Age affiliations. “How each person conceives of the Archetypes is up to them.”
And those are your beliefs,” insisted Hawk, the rather aptly-named falconer—he gave himself the name, of course. “Diana wouldn’t call them ‘archetypes.’ I wouldn’t. You can’t really speak on religious diversity if you don’t accept that other people’s paradigms are different from yours.”
Yes, even the stars have their own beliefs,” said Sarah, and I saw everyone else at the table frown slightly. Steve looked frankly alarmed. Again, I had a sense of something being “off.”

Well, what do you believe,” said Apple, challenging Hawk, perhaps. Hawk is Wiccan.
I don’t have any beliefs,” he replied. “I know things, or I don’t know them. And if I can know, I find out.”

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