Mass.

It's my birthday today and for my birthday, I decided that I would attend a Catholic Mass. I've been thinking about this for a long time but I finally worked up the courage to take the plunge. What swayed me in the end was my own sense of protocol. I give people such a hard time about making assumptions. I figured that there were plenty of men I respected who were Catholic and I can't really say I disagree with their doctrine because I don't know what that doctrine is beyond what I hear people say. So yesterday was my step to finding out for myself and maintaining some sense of intellectual integrity.

Far be it from me to judge (when I am no position to do so) but I was kind of put off by the music. I have always been moved to tears by devotional hymns. I don't know why. I never grew up with them. The music is invariably powerful though and I have always been deeply affected by pieces of music such as Ave Maria and the like. The service I attended was much more contemporary with modern almost "poppy" music. I didn't like that. I would have like to hear some Latin too. But that's just the snob in me.

All those who know me that I have always struggled with religion. My cognition is most definitely Hellenic and I have never been able to reconcile that with my strong belief that I'm one of God's favorite sons. Surely, nobody actually deserves as many chances as I've had to be a good person. Yesterday's sermon only confirmed this hubris. Father Michael mentioned both Alexander and Aristotle-- both major figures in my life. The lesson he spoke of was Aristotle's admonishment to Alexander-- "He who cannot obey cannot lead." I felt like he was speaking specifically to me. I was shocked. Yeah, I know it's ridiculous but Alexander is such an important character to me. When I turned 32, I went through a week of serious depression because I compared my accomplishments to date with his. Of course, I found myself woefully lacking.

Father Michael asked me to rate my level of interest in the Church. I wasn't quite sure how to answer that. I'm not interested in joining anything for the sake of joining. I don't have the pressing need to be a part of any community. But I'd like to understand my spiritual longing better and if there is indeed a plan for me, I'd like to be of some use.

A friend of mine (who is a Buddhist) said to me when I first got out of the hospital and battling a bout of depression revolving around my shit state that even if I spent the rest of my life in a room doing nothing, I'd still be worthwhile as a person. That idea shocked me silly. A man's worth is measured by his usefulness. If I'm sure of anything, I'm sure of that. As the saying goes, "Talent is God's gift to you. What you do with it is your gift to God." My unfortunate circumstance is that my particular talent is mostly centered around violence. I'm not sure what that means.

But as usual, this leads me back to the Arts. At it's core, martial arts are about training specific instincts. For instance, when somebody pulls you, your body instinctive answer is to pull back. Vice versa if the person pushes you. Well,at its highest levels, MA training seeks to change a person's reactive instinct to resist. This is extremely difficult, particularly under pressure but it can be done and reliably so. It's taken me a long time to realize that the true gift of the arts is beyond the physical and self-defense realm. This training method gives me a glimpse of what it takes to train my emotional responses. If I can train my body to react properly under stress, I can do the same with my emotions and much the same way.

So how do you train instinct? It starts with basic foundational training. I have a strong foundation in traditional martial arts and I've always felt that this grounding gave me certain advantages when I started studying the hybrid arts when compared with those who started with the hybrid arts. There were ineffable qualities that a person picked up from doing things by rote, from learning certain inviolable rules that cannot be learned any other way. It is not enough to know the rules, they have to ooze from your pores. My students are most guilty of saying, "I know" every time I make a correction. The fact is they don't know. If they did, they wouldn't make the mistake. Knowing it in their heads means nothing to me. I only care if they can do it. And that's the connection to the emotional. How many times do we know the right thing but fail to do it? It's much easier to see this phenomenon when its big and physical as opposed to when it's subtle and emotional. But despite the difference in proportion, what goes on in the body is exactly the same.

I wonder if this is the same with religion. I've been trying to create an ethical framework for myself out of a million different things and I think what I've come up with is some kind of Frankenstein monster. Is it the same as the martial arts? Do I have to learn to framework, live it, believe, breathe it in the very fiber of my being in order to earn the right to move beyond it? Why should this be any different from everything else I've developed a high level of skill in? All wisdom and skill comes at a price and the more acute my understanding, the greater the price.

I've paid the price with my body to know and understand what I do. I've never regretted it for a second. I suppose that was only preparing me for this. I'll keep you informed.