I thought I was used to the Gospel According to the Celebrity-Du-Jour mishmash of incompatible spiritualities until I stumbled across an interview with actress Goldie Hawn, in which she describes her spiritual practice as a Buddhist-Jew-Jesus-Freak:
"The interesting part of my spiritual life is studying as much as you can. Islam and Buddhism and Hinduism and Shamanism and Judaism, Christianity — you try to learn what the precepts are, what the religion is, and ultimately, it’s based in the same thought, it’s based in the same outcome, you know.
"(Whispers) It just has a different façade.
"We go into religion in order to feel warmer in our hearts, more connected to others, more connected to something greater and to have a sense of peace. I think all religions try to do that, but they corrupt themselves. I like Buddhist thought because it breaks that down; it teaches you how to view your thoughts rather than be your thoughts. We live in this crazy world, full of jobs, and we have to be there, be-be-be — it’s a very demanding, taxing world. The result of meditating is watching your thoughts, detachment from your own precepts of what is right and wrong, things that frustrate you, that you can’t grasp and want to grasp onto.
[…]
"[Domestic partner and fellow actor Kurt Russell] respects [Hawn’s religious beliefs] and I respect his — but there again, that’s not important because you realize it’s all a subjective belief system. I don’t think ‘Well, I can’ be with somebody who doesn’t believe what I do, or I can’t share my spirituality.’ Your spirituality is shared by your actions and your interconnectedness with your family and everybody else. It’s not conceptual. What’s going to make you whole is your self-reflection and examination of yourself."
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have thought Ms. Hawn’s spiritual reflections bloggable. It’s the fuzzy-warm trump of feelings that Hollywood spiritualists specialize in. Same-old, same-old. But this quote caught my attention:
"So I would say that for the rest of my life, everything I do has to be with a mode of ethics, good intentions, for a better result for the people closest to me and to the world around me."
The editors at Beliefnet.com found this pearl important enough to use as a pull-quote and compressed it into the line "For the rest of my life, everything I do has to be with good intentions." Not "everything I do must be good," but the suggestion that it doesn’t matter what you do so long as you have good intentions.
No wonder that the old saw says that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
*SIGH*
I wish some people would just shut up and act/sing/whatever-it-is-they-do. I’d rather enjoy the illusion they create than learn their “innermost warm and fuzziness.” (or, in Hawn’s case, her “innermost ditziness”)
‘thann
her comments are so filled with arrogance they are hard to read. This is the stuff pantheism is made of.
Now, I was under the impression that the road to Hell is paved with the skulls of priests.
“No wonder that the old saw says that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
Just as a side note: Strictly speaking, that old saw is incorrect theologically (from a Catholic point of view), as Chesterton points out in his book on Aquinas. I’m not trying to say that “it doesn’t matter what you do so long as you have good intentions” but I am trying to say that that proverb is pessimisitic and fatalistic if taken literally.
I wish some people would just shut up and act/sing/whatever-it-is-they-do.
They’re human beings, and that includes religious inclinations. The problem isn’t that Goldie Hawn is religious and wants to express her religious beliefs. The problem is that people think it sounds “smart” just because she’s a celebrity.
Now, I was under the impression that the road to Hell is paved with the skulls of priests.
The priests’ skulls pave the streets in Hell proper. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
When people take certain celebrities so seriously as to take every utterance as gospel truth, it says as much about them as it does of the celebrity.
That said, Ms. Hawn just spawned enough mumbo-jumbo to fully fuel a gunk-burning car.
Bush had good intentions.
Still does, I bet.
He’s also *done* a lot of good, without sounding a quarter as stupid as that female. (I care not what anyone says– “misunderestimated” is a *GREAT* word!)