On knowing when to shut up, and when to say something

Sometimes a thing is just what it is, and it doesn't require explanation.  Just a decision to believe or not believe.  Seems to me that's what Ann is saying here.  In response to this, and with respect to Ann Barnhardt's posts, for example on the subject of the Eucharist, I choose to believe even though I'm not a Catholic.  I choose to believe based upon my own thoughts on the matter plus what I've read on her blog.

Now, the Meadows family that I grew up in likes to argue everything, so I want to argue about Barnhardt's posts, but I have a strong tendency to talk out my ass about subjects I don't know much about, so maybe I should shut up already.

A sister-in-law knows this tendency all too well.  Once upon a time in the long ago past, when an argument was quivering on the horizon, she intervened to no avail something-to-the-effect to "shut up already": Just sit down, shut up and listen.  But keeping my mouth shut isn't what I do all the time.  But I can be pretty quiet most of the time.  Maybe it's a matter of knowing when to shut up and when to speak up.

I once believe that I was an atheist.  In a classroom discussion the teacher asked me if I believed that there was such a thing as a spirit, and I said yes.  Then the teacher said that made me an agnostic, not an atheist.  How do I account for that?  Maybe the thing that I heard and saw on the subject of religion did not do it for me; it turned out to be not the message, but the messengers that I rejected.  Once I read the Gospels, I started to respect it and believe in it.  But I tend to overreact to things, so I overdid it for awhile.  The feeling died down and I didn't return until recently when I read Barnhardt's posts.

Now she seems to be saying with respect to the faith: are all of you ashamed to say it?  No, I just-don't-know is the reason for my reticence.  But I can open my big mouth sometimes and say some shocking things.

An example was one time on jury duty. I said something that made enough people gasp that you could hear it--- got jury duty again on June 3rd.  Will I open my big mouth again, or just shut up?  Who knows?

A scene in the movie Jurassic Park comes to mind when Ellie tells John Hammond that he has to feel his way through, you can't think your way through it.  I'm feeling my way though, not thinking my way through.  All my life, I was like Hammond--- I wanted to think my way through.  But you don't connect that way with people.  There has to be an emotional connection somehow.  A thought has to make its way from your head to your heart.  It has to light your fire and the fire has to spread to another person, otherwise it dies.  Love is like that--- it can die like a flower dies that isn't nurtured into full blossom.  Faith can be like that too, or so I suppose.  Without the passion, it dies out.

Ann Barnhardt isn't crazy.  She passionate about what she believes.  But she is fearful, I suspect, that something is dying.  It is making her appear crazy to those who don't understand.  I think I understand.  She is a lot like the way a lot of women, let's say almost all the women in the 1920's--- said and felt.  It is almost like she was transported from that time to this and is horrified at what we've become.  I believe that any woman transported from that time to this time would have had the same reactions she is having.  She only appears crazy to some, because it seems out of place, but it wouldn't have been out of place back then.  Why is it out of place now?  Are we crazy instead?  You look closely at what's happening, and perhaps that slow realization may creep in on you and say --- could be.

Any audible gasps in the audience?  Maybe I said too much?  Or is it too little?

Another thing I like to do, besides arguing, is to illustrate my point from movie scenes, as shown above.  There's a scene from Jerry Maguire when the football player is trying to get Jerry to "feel him".  "Are you feeling me Jerry?"  It is quite a good scene there.  I recommend it for this point.  You have to feel it in your heart.  It can't be something in your head, or gets repeated ritualistically going through the motions.  You have to feel your way through.  And you have to say it loud and with passion--- Show me the MONEY!!!!!!

It doesn't have to be money.  It is whatever it takes to float your boat, or the boat of somebody or something that you care about deeply.