The Dalai Lama makes his 10th visit to Madison on March 9. Last week it was reported that the Department of Motor Vehicles must allow a guy to wear a colander on his head for his driver’s license photo because he was practicing his religion. He’s a Pastafarian.
Even the mayor said that Pastafarianism was one reason that he loved leading our city. I get that much of this is directed at some of the overlap between church and state, and in that sense I might feel the same way.
But my guess is that the mayor and most Madisonians would not take so much pleasure in the pasta guy’s mocking of religion if they thought it was aimed at the city’s guest this week. After all, Buddhism is an acceptable religion for educated liberals.
It seems to me that people are most engaged in religious or spiritual endeavors when they are at either of life’s extremes. For those whose lives are brutal and hard, religion helps them get by with the promise that there is more to life than grinding poverty and abuse. For African Americans, that often manifested itself in evangelical religions like the Baptists. For poor whites from places like Ireland, Poland and Italy, it was the Catholic Church. My own people were pretty devout Polish Catholics.
On the other end of the spectrum, affluent folks who no longer have to worry about meeting life’s basic needs start to wonder what it’s all about. Their spiritual journey starts with the luxury of time and education to help them to think about it, and their inquiry tends to be less about community building and more about personal fulfillment and their own “journey.” They tend to become Unitarians or maybe Buddhists.
For me, religion and spirituality is like a sixth sense that I just don’t have. I think the most honest answer to all basic questions is, “How on earth should I know?” I would be an atheist, but that would mean expressing a certainty that there was no god. I’m not so sure. Still, I haven’t practiced any religion or taken on any kind of spiritual practice for my entire adult life, and I’ve never felt a void because of it. I revel in my shallowness.
I can work up a fair amount of antipathy towards organized religion. It lurks behind a lot of awful things from the Crusades to the Spanish Inquisition to the 9/11 attacks and a lot more. These days I find it hard to reconcile the hateful preachings of Donald Trump and his strong support among Evangelical Christians. But on the other hand I know too many people — Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals, Jews, Unitarians and Buddhists, among others — for whom I have a great deal of respect. I look at their lives and the role religion or spirituality plays in it and I have to conclude that it has value for them. Who am I to diminish that or to ridicule it?
So I’m not proud that the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster finds a following in our city. It seems to me to be a petty, snide, immature mocking of people’s heartfelt beliefs.
I am not a believer, but I believe in those who believe. Welcome the Dalai Lama.
