Seeking God First

TOO MUCH CONVICTION?

2012-01-14T08:35:00.000-08:00

Here in the Bible belt, it is common to talk with folks very passionate about their personal beliefs - and very passionately OPPOSED to those who hold different beliefs. It is also common to hear emphatic statements to the effect that people who believe and teach differently deserve to "Burn in hell!"

I am troubled and saddened by conversations such as these. Doubly so, I think, because as a former fundamentalist my own previous convictions would have aligned nicely with this brand of evangelism. From my current understanding that the heart of Jesus' message is Love, however, the driving force behind such passion appears to be hatred and fear.

I read an article by Jay McDaniel over at Jesus, Jazz, and Buddhism that expresses some of my concerns more eloquently than I am able to, so I thought I'd post some excerpts:

What is that impulse within human beings to "strike down" others and its relation to the need to "be right?"...Why do we need to be "right" about things? Many evangelically-minded Christians and Muslims do proselytize in aggressive ways. Many believe that God commands them to seek converts across cultures; to proclaim that their religion is the only true religion; and to be clear that all who do not follow their religion are in big trouble, in this life or the next...more than a few wish they could pull bad ideas out of people's minds and replace them with what they believe is the Truth. There is only one way to salvation, they say, and we happen to have discovered it.

Jesus taught that the best hope of humanity is not violence but love...Indeed the principle of non-harm was built into Jesus' teachings. He was a pacifist, non-violent Jew. He taught that, even as people tried to follow his way of love, they should pray for those who persecute them, turn the other cheek when someone slapped them, and sell their possessions and give to the poor. He asked them to become the love they hoped to see in others.  Love was the Way which, for him, was also the Truth and the Life. When he said "I am the Way and the Truth and the Life" this is what he had in mind. He wanted others to become the Way and Truth and Life, too...

When other people are "wrong," we become angry.  Among Christians and Jews this anger is sometimes validated as righteous indignation. We say "I am outraged. I am mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore." This indignation seems holy to us. We feel right in being indignant. We want to ventilate. Some of us wrongly imagine that even God is filled with this kind of feeling. We speak of a wrathful God and say that this wrath is called holiness. We speak of God as scary and unloving: a holy warrior who is preoccupied with being right. For my part, I do not see holiness in righteous indignation. I find holiness in tenderness, in forgiveness, in gentleness, in love.

...[Sometimes belief is held] so tightly that the belief becomes a false god. When we hold on this way, we divide the world into good and bad, right and wrong. Many of us commit this sin all the time, liberals as well as conservatives.  We think they are "right" and others are "wrong."  We divide the world into believers and non-believers.  We become arrogant. Sometimes arrogance can look very sophisticated. But it is always smug and self-assured. It is never humble and honest. It wears protective armor covered with an emblem which says "I know and you don't."

...I appreciate the opening to the gospel of John, which sees Christ as the light that enlightens all people, not just Jesus; and which says that Jesus reveals the light, but does not exhaust it. I have seen more than a little of this light in people of other religions and no religion. I have also seen it in evangelical Christians. I cannot join the critics in a wholesale critique of evangelical Christianity. I think the spirit can flow even in those who might think they, and they alone, possess the spirit.

I do understand the evangelical approach, because I find it in myself. Implicitly if not explicitly, we are all evangelicals. In espousing our own values there is an implicit universalism. I would not be writing this article if I did not think it would be nice if you - my reader - might be affected by what I say. I conclude with the hope that as we try to influence others with our views, we simultaneously avoid anger and greed; we cool off and calm down; we remember that the spirit can be at work in our lives even apart from our mediation; and we recognize that our way, at its best, is but one way of being open to the spirit of wisdom at work in the world. Let's hold onto our own convictions with a relaxed grasp, lest we fall into the sin of too much conviction, and fall away from the very hope that rightly inspires our hearts: namely that the will of God be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Read the entire article here.

THE CHRISTIAN MEANING OF ENLIGHTMENT

2011-12-31T11:56:00.000-08:00

This video was recorded at Science and Nonduality Conference in 2011. Father Richard Rohr is a Franciscan Priest and an Author. In this excellent talk he presents the similarities, the differences, and the complementarities between the Eastern and Western understandings of transformation. Some have called the goal enlightenment, some salvation, some ecstasy, nirvana, or heaven. What is the goal of the spiritual journey according to the main line Christian tradition? What Christian spirituality has called the unitive way has often described as non-dual consciousness by Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism. Are we often seeking the same thing? How can we honor and respect each of these spiritual traditions?

FINDING CONNECTION THROUGH SOLITUDE

2011-12-14T17:19:00.000-08:00

A couple of years ago, I read Thomas Merton's New Seeds of Contemplation. Merton (seeing as how he was a monk) was big on solitude, and said that it's only by spending time in solitude that we can truly come to love others. At that time, I couldn't understand how solitude could contribute to a greater love for our fellow beings...

But when it comes right down to it, isn't unity with the Divine and with fellow beings what we're all looking for? Isn't that the essence of the spiritual path? Michael Brown, author of the Presence Process, said "It was not enlightenment I was looking for at all; it was intimacy. I was desperately seeking intimacy with myself, with God, with nature, with my family, with all humans I encountered, with my cats, with my writing, with plants, with the falling rain, with my pain, with my dreams and visions, and with all the minute aspects of this experience we call 'living our life,' like washing dishes and doing laundry.” It is not enlightenment we all crave, it's intimacy. But to achieve intimacy, we've got to overcome what separates us. That's why we have to "go inside" and get to know all the aspects of ourselves, become self-aware. Humility develops as we face those inner demons common to all of us. Only in becoming conscious of the forces that drive us we can conceive of the forces that may drive others. In so doing, we come to see that we're all deeply the same, each of us capable of the greatest good and the greatest evil. As we develop compassion for our own failings, compassion for others grows. From this perspective, we become capable of genuine forgiveness; the barriers come down and we can end the separation!

Solitude is a tough discipline that takes great courage. Most of us would rather do anything than spend time alone in self-reflection in order to face ourselves! It's one reason we tend to keep our minds so busy with activities; keeping our minds busy prevents us from seeing ourselves as we really are (warts and all). It is only in solitude and stillness that we can connect with what's really going on inside of us. And connection to other beings is not possible unless that self-connection is first established. Spending time A-Lone leads to the understanding that we are All-One...this heart-felt knowledge enables us to relate to one another with Love and Intimacy. And, isn't that what we're all really longing for?

HOW TO CREATE A WORLD THAT WORKS FOR ALL

2011-11-22T03:49:00.000-08:00

I'm still thinking about the message of Occupy Wall Street; still yearning for a way forward that will lead to a more peaceful, equitable, and environmentally sustainable world that will benefit and meet the needs of all. I read several thought-provoking posts on this subject at Commonway Praxis, a blog written by Dr. Sharif Abdullah. The following quote is from Dr. Abdullah's book, Creating A World That Works For All:

"We live in a world that works for only a few. The problem is exclusivity: the fundamental belief that we are separate from one another. All beings, all things, are One. Our lives are inextricably linked one to another. Because of this, we cannot wage war against anything or anyone without waging war against ourselves. Therefore, we are obliged to treat all beings the way we want to be treated. There are no 'enemies' - all beings are expressions of the Sacred and must be treated as such. Some being cause pain to others; this does not meant that they are enemies. Some beings are food for others; this is all the more reason to treat them as sacred. Once we understand that we are interconnected, we have the responsibility to create a world that works for all."

"With this as our goal, the next question is obvious: how do we achieve it? How do we avoid sinking into despair or cynicism? And how do we avoid dabbling in utopian fantasies or engaging in 'pie-in-the-sky' religiosity? In fact, we can change this world right now by shifting our consciousness and our values from a foundation of exclusivity to one of inclusivity. This shift in consciousness is the core of the world's major religions. The essence of the moral code they urge upon us is inclusivity:

         What is hateful to you, do not do to others.  ~RABBI HILLEL

         Do not hurt others with that which hurts yourself.    ~ BUDDHA

         Do unto others whatever you would have them do unto you. ~ JESUS

None of you is a believer until you love for your neighbor what you love for

yourself. ~ MUHAMMAD

"Considering the clarity, simplicity, and consistency of these statements, one has to wonder what it is about the message of inclusivity that makes it nearly impossible for people to either comprehend or implement. Why are there Jews, Buddhists Christians, Muslims, and many others around the world who are killing their fellow men and women when their traditions call for peace, nonviolence, and inclusivity?"

For me, the HOW is the missing piece that I've been searching for. How do we implement the spiritual truths found in all the world's religions? How do we put our spiritual teachings into concrete practice in our daily lives? How do we embody the Divine and bring the Kingdom of Heaven down to this Earth that we all live on?

Well, I'm very excited about a tool I recently learned about that's really answering the big HOW question for me. Non Violent Communication, developed by Dr. Marshall Rosenberg, is much more than a communication method but a practical way to connect with "others" and live with Love toward all - beginning with our interpersonal relationships and expanding to peace at the global level. It is a way to practice the connections that make violence both inappropriate and impossible. Below is the first in a series of Youtube videos filmed during a one-day introductory workshop in which Marshall Rosenberg teaches the basics of Non Violent Communication. Altogether, more than three hours of this workshop can be viewed free of charge!

Dr. Rosenberg's book is Non Violent Communication: A Language of Life. Many additional resources can also be found online at the Center for Non Violent Communication and the NVC Academy.

By the way, PuddleDancer Press, the premier publisher of Nonviolent Communication related books, has recently donated hundreds of books on Non Violent Communication to various Occupy Wall Street libraries.

BUILDING A CARING ECONOMY: CARING PAYS!

2011-10-30T04:53:00.000-07:00

Occupy Wall Street and the current economic condition of our country leave me wondering: Is there a way BEYOND left vs. right, Republican vs. Democrat, capitalist vs. socialist? Is there a way FORWARD that will lead to a more peaceful, equitable, and environmentally sustainable world that will benefit and meet the needs of all?

Well, I was delighted to discover Riane Eisler, who has devised a very sensible economic plan - a plan which demonstrates how caring for humans and the planet can actually be profitable. Dr. Eisler (who is a social scientist, attorney, and internationally known author who is included in the award-winning book Great Peacemakers as one of 20 leaders for world peace, along with Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and Martin Luther King) talks about her book The Real Wealth of the Nations and the need for an economics of caring in the following video:

Dr. Eisler's "Full Spectrum Job Creation Proposal: The Roadmap to a New Caring Economy," was submitted to President Obama in 2009 and can be read in it's entirety here. Visit Dr. Eisler's websites here, here, and here for a wealth of additional material and to discover ways you can become involved.

WHAT IS THE BODY OF CHRIST?

2011-10-18T07:20:00.000-07:00

Spiritual Insight from the David Ord's book Your Forgotten Self:

The body of Christ isn’t synonymous with Christianity. It isn’t correlated with the churches. What it may be hard for many Christians to accept is that the body of Christ can be found among people of all faiths: Christians, Jews, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Jain, Sikh, and so on. The body of Christ is far more encompassing and includes the entirety of humanity.

“Christ” is a term, not a surname for Jesus of Nazareth. It’s the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew term messiah, meaning the anointed one. It used to be the term used for Israel’s kings, who were anointed with oil to signify their choice by God for the throne.

The messiah—the savior of the world—isn’t an individual, but is the whole of humanity empowered to at last be true to themselves as the image and likeness of God.

Jesus is definitive of what the Christ reality looks like, and in that sense he’s the “head” of the body. But a head is useless without the rest of the body. The body of Christ—that which will save humanity from its broken state—is comprised of all who begin to move out of the normal unconsciousness of human beings and into the enlightenment of consciousness. They become aware of the divine presence at the heart of their being, the heart of all being.

The term “Adam” doesn’t refer to a real person but is a symbol of humanity in our unconscious state. So too the Christ isn’t a single individual but is a symbol of humanity as we become conscious. This collective reality is made up of all who have become conscious of their oneness with God. When this awareness takes over our lives, we become a more evolved human, as was Jesus. He represents the next leap in our development as a species and is definitive of the new humanity emerging on the planet.

When we read that there's "no other name given by which we must be saved," it's not about saying a name, but about becoming what Jesus was: a conscious person. "In Jesus' name" isn't a statement to be tacked onto the end of prayers like a magical charm. His name represents the divine nature. When we awaken to the divine nature in ourselves, the image and likeness of God that we have always been but lost sight of, we become as Jesus was. It's in this sense there's "no other name." You have to become conscious in the way he was.

As awareness of our oneness with God increases, the impact isn’t just personal. It changes how we relate to each other. Recognition of our oneness with God leads to oneness among us. All barriers between the world’s peoples are broken down. The future of the human race involves the gathering together of all races and creeds to form one new human being. This collective “one new human being” is the Christ. You can read about this new humanity in Ephesians 2:15-22, where it’s likened to a house in which God dwells.

The divine dwells in us. As we recognize this in ourselves, we become the Christ that will save the world from its turmoil and usher in what Eckhart Tolle calls A New Earth—or in more ancient language, the kingdom of God.

This entire article can be accessed at The Body of Christ Means Conscious Individuals.

WAR OF THE WORLDVIEWS - Deepak Chopra and Leonard Mlodinow

2011-10-07T14:03:00.000-07:00

In this video hosted by Huffington Post, Deepak Chopra and Leonard Mlodinow discuss their newly released book "War of the Worldviews: Science Vs. Spirituality." The book promotion on Deepak Chopra's website says, "These two great thinkers battle over the cosmos, evolution and life, the human brain, and God, probing the fundamental questions that define the human experience." These topics greatly interest me, and I found their video discussion quite informative. It's refreshing that although they do disagree, they are able to engage in an open and non-antagonistic dialogue and seem willing to learn from each other. I think we need more discussions like this, not only between science and spirituality, but between religious denominations, faith groups, belief systems, politicians, special interest groups, cultures, and people groups throughout the world.

WATCH FREE MINDFULNESS CONFERENCE ONLINE

2011-10-04T15:33:00.000-07:00

Sounds True is one of the sponsors of the Creating a Mindful Society event, held in conjunction with the Omega INstitute in New York City. Conference headliners include Jon Kabat-Zinn, psychologist Richard Davidson, Buddhist teacher and author Barry Boyce, and U.S. Congressman Tim Ryan, among others. Sounds True is offering live free on-demand viewing through January 31, 2012.

Mindfulness is a simple yet profound practice that changes lives. If you’re committed to mindful living, eager to learn more about its growing influence across all facets of society, or only beginning to discover the transformative power of mindfulness, watch this historic conference on Creating a Mindful Society.

This pioneering event in New York City will feature keynote presentations by four outstanding leaders in the mindfulness field plus a rich program of dialogue and practice sessions. Together, we will explore all the proven, practical ways that mindfulness can transform our lives from the inside out—and help reshape society, from health, work, and family to education, leadership, and policy. Details here and at http://live.soundstrue.com/event.

I would have loved to have been there, but it was pretty awesome to be able to watch it!

WHAT COLOR IS YOUR JESUS?

2011-09-08T14:50:00.000-07:00

I recently listened to an interview with Bruce Sanguin and Rev. Kelly Isola in which Sanguin talked about how he’s applying the Spiral Dynamics model of human development to explain why Jesus means so many different things to so many different people.

I have been a fan of Spiral Dynamics for quite some time. Spiral Dynamics is a theory of human development introduced in the 1996 book by Don Beck and Chris Cowan which was based on the work of professor Clare W. Graves. This theory explores the process of human emergence and how living systems evolve, grow and change. Each new level transcends and includes all previous levels.

The following diagram illustrates the different levels of development and their associated characteristics:

vMEMEs	COLOR	THEME	FOCUS	VALUE SYSTEMS
LEVEL 1 (A-N)	BEIGE	SurvivalSense	"ME"	Group bands together to stay alive
LEVEL 2 (B-O)	PURPLE	KinSpirits	"WE"	The sense of family-tribe with time honored
LEVEL 3 (C-P)	RED	PowerGods	"ME"	Power-action driven, egocentric
LEVEL 4 (D-Q)	BLUE	TruthForce	"WE"	Purposeful, absolutist, "one right way"
LEVEL 5 (E-R)	ORANGE	StriveDrive	"ME"	Entrepreneurial,materialistic, success-driven
LEVEL 6 (F-S)	GREEN	HumanBond	"WE"	Community,harmony, equality,relativistic
LEVEL 7 (G-T)	YELLOW	FlexFlow	"ME"	Natural processes, mutual realities; live for mutuality
LEVEL 8 (H-U)	TURQUOISE	GlobalView	"WE"	Harmony, holism, spirituality

In his book The Emerging Church, Sanguin applies these stages to how Christians see Christ. Each stage's view has a positive and a negative aspect:

Purple--Christ is the Tribal Christ. "He makes the world go 'round when proper ritual is performed....He answers the prayers of those who are obedient." (p. 94).
The negative can be superstition: praying for football victories, parking spots, and miracle cures.

Red--The Warrior Christ. "Followers of the Red Christ go with him into battle on behalf of their tribe, nation, or belief system....In its most positive expression, following this Christ gives us the energy to "fight" for what we believe in--to take a stand."
But, "The Red Christ led the Christian armies in the crusades. He also led the U.S. army into Iraq." (p. 94)

Blue--The Traditional Christ, a Divine Scapegoat. "As part of the divine plan, God sends his only son to suffer and die on behalf of humanity, modelling sacrifice of self for a future reward....Christ's own sacrifice invites followers to led lives of self-sacrificial love, with the hope of eternal reward.
But...he can be used in a triumphalistic manner. He is the only truth, the only way, and the only life, and if you don't believe it you're going to hell." (p. 95 emphasis author's)

Orange--The Modern Demythologized Christ and Christ as CEO. "Christ is seen as the human one, a teacher of spiritual wisdom....In its positive expression, the Orange stage helps us transcend the literalism of previous levels....modernist values give us permission to think for ourselves.
But......In its negative expression, the Orange level leaves no room for Spirit." (p. 95)

Green--The Egalitarian-Postmodern Christ. "The postmodern Christ embraces multiple cultures and downplays the "Truth" of any particular religious system. The Green Christ draws the circle ever wider, so that it includes the outcasts, the left-behinds, and the marginalized.
But...In its negative expression, followers of the Green Christ are impatient and dismissive of all other value systems." (p. 96)

Yellow--The Integral/Ecological/Cosmic Christ. "The Yellow, integral Christ encompasses the universe and all cultures as an integrated ecology of systems....Followers of this Christ become fascinated by the world that the new sciences are discovering, and by how this world connects to the core metaphors and narratives of the Judeo-Christian tradition." (p. 96)
But...elitist thinking and impatience with those perceived to be 'below' this stage.

Turquoise-The Mystical Christ. "At this level, the world is experienced--not merely conceptualized--as one. A follower of this Christ does not merely perceive the universe an integrated whole. She knows herself to be a form of the integrated whole, the part in whom the whole is manifest. The great diversity of life is also an expression of the Holy One. All of life is sacred revelation, for those with eyes to see." (p. 97, emphasis author)
(Thanks to John Shuck at Shuck & Jive, for this summary).

I can see my own journey reflected in this spiral. Although it has not been a smooth journey (I'm more than sure that I've expressed both positive and negative traits at each stage!), I've traveled through magical thinking, dealt with anger problems and judgmentalism, escaped the bonds of fundamentalism, questioned everything I ever thought was true, and come to a place where I can embrace the Oneness and inclusiveness of the Divine.

I fully believe we need to have space for people to think for themselves and ask questions, but I've been puzzled lately by the attitudes of some (certainly not all!) skeptics that I've encountered on blogs and in comment threads. So what was really illuminating for me was Sanguin's perspective on the unhealthy aspect of the Orange meme's worldview. This seems to fit with what I'm encountering: a tendency to leave out spirit; a mindset that rejects the spiritual completely and reduces everything to the level of matter and empirical evidence. Throwing the baby (spirit) out with the bathwater (mythic literalism), so to speak

In his book, Sanguin describes healthy Orange: "The orange value system embraces scientific rationalism...Within this system, Christ is seen as the human one, a teacher of spiritual wisdom. The divinity of Christ is downplayed in favor of the flesh-and-blood human being...In the scientific era, we learned that Christ didn't actually walk on water, heal the blind, or raise from the dead. These are rich metaphors, but not to be taken literally...In its positive expression, the orange stage helps us to transcend the literalism of the previous levels" (p. 95).

According to Ken Wilber in his book Integral Spirituality, both modern science and religion have confused the premodern mythic level with spirituality itself. He went on to say that religion itself needs to make room for and sanction the orange, or modernistic, interpretations of its religious messages. Wilber recommended the works of John Shelby Spong, Marcus Borg, Stephen Carter, and F. Forrester Church as religious and spiritual writers who have emphasized the orange interpretation of Christianity without dispensing with spirituality (p. 178-179).

To disregard any level of development leads to rigidity and lack of growth. Let us allow room for one another to retain a connection with the Divine at whatever developmental level we find ourselves. May we encourage one another to grow and transcend each level in a healthy manner, and may each of us enter into the place where all of life is experienced as sacred.

PROPHECY AND THE GREAT FLOOD

2011-09-04T04:37:00.000-07:00

The following article blew me away! I found the perspective on Reality as viewed through the minds of primitive peoples to be fascinating. The application for today is even more fascinating. The article is taken from The Doctrine of Oneness website.

"A Great Flood is coming...
“Just as it was in the days of Noah, so too it will be in the days of the coming of the Son of Man.”

Noah received Revelation to build a great Ark. He shared the message of the coming Great Flood with his people but the community heckled and rejected him.

Our Earth is 4.6 billion years old, and global temperature fluctuations have caused many changes in our environment. Floods are commonplace.

At the height of the last Ice Age 18,000 years ago the sea level was 394 feet (120 meters) lower that it is today. Ancient humankind, just like today… typically built their society near the sea. All of these outposts at the dawn of humanity where flooded as the ice melted. As the Glaciers receded, the sea rose 394 feet and destroyed everything in its path.

Thanks to science, we have a new Revelation.

We live in a time of great crisis, confronted the challenge of the ecological consequences of our own doing. The consensus is overwhelming: human activity is triggering environmental breakdown on a planetary scale.

Climate change is happening at an exponential rate, and threatens to cause the rise of sea level this century of at least 1 meter (3 feet). Not only sea levels will rise but the balance of life as we know is changing. We can already see it now: extreme earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados, drought, flooding.

Koyaanisqatsi. Our Life is out of Balance.

Just like in the time of Noah, our naysayers heckle and reject the message. They are motivated by their own greed and self interests.

It is our collective responsibility to preserve humanity from this imminent disaster.

Future generations, and the other species that share the biosphere with us, have no voice to ask for our compassion, wisdom, and leadership. We must listen to their silence. We must be their voice, too, and act on their behalf.

Instead of an economy that emphasizes profit and requires perpetual growth to avoid collapse, we need to move together towards an economy that provides a satisfactory standard of living for everyone while allowing us to develop our full potential in harmony with the biosphere that sustains and nurtures all beings, including future generations."

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS?

A Letter From a 16 year old Oslo Survivor

2011-09-02T05:12:00.000-07:00

Dear Anders Behring Breivik,

A lot of the friends I met at Utoya are dead and you are the perpetrator. You are the man who, by coincidence, didn’t kill me. I was lucky.

You might think that you have won. You might think that you have ruined something for the Labour Party and for people around the world who stand for a multicultural society by killing my friends and fellow party members.

Know that you have failed.

You haven’t only made the world stand together, you have set our souls on fire and should know we’ve never stood together as we do now. You talk about yourself as a hero, a knight. You are no hero. But you have created heroes. On Utoya that warm day in July, you created some of the greatest heroes the world has seen, you unified people from all over the world. Black and white, man and woman, red and blue, Christians and Muslims.

You made your victims martyrs, immortals, and you have shown the world that when one person can show as much hatred as you have done, imagine how much love we can show when we stand together? People who I thought hated me have given me hugs on the street, people I haven’t been in contact with for years have written 300 to 400 words about how much it means to them that I survived. What can you say about that? Have you broken anything? You have united us.

You have killed my friends, but you haven’t killed our cause, our opinions, our right to express ourselves. Muslim women got hugs of sympathy from random Norwegian women on the street and your goal was to protect Europe from Islam? Your actions worked against its purpose.

You deserve no thanks; your plan failed. A lot of people are angry, you are the most hated person in Norway. I am not angry. I do not fear you. You can’t touch us, we are greater than you. We do not answer evil with evil, as you wanted it. We fight evil with good. And we win.

Ivar Benjamin Østebø, aged 16.

Thanks to Humanity's Team for this blog post.

HOW CAN WE KNOW WHAT'S TRUE?

2011-07-15T10:42:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since I posted. I've been busy thinking about how we can possibly know what is true and what is not. And I'm stumped. One scholar says this, another seemingly equally valid scholar disagrees. One scientific study may demonstrate one thing, but if a person does further reading, research can usually be found that contradicts the results of the first study...Which one is true? And how can I, a mere common person without formal scholarly or scientific training, hope to ascertain what is a reliable source among many which seem valid?

The same holds true in Christianity. There's been a search for the historical Jesus, and many respected scholars have widely differing viewpoints. Which is true? There is even a whole field of study (epistemology) that studies how we know what we know, and they don't even seem to know how we can know what we know...

People who study consciousness and the brain maintain that we don't actually perceive the world around us as it really is. They say, for example, that there is no actual color green, but that light (which has no color) is filtered by our eyes in a certain way that we perceive (with the limited tools at our disposal) as the color green.

Dr. David Eagleman "is a neuroscientist and a New York Times bestselling author. He directs the Laboratory for Perception and Action and the Initiative on Neuroscience and Law at Baylor College of Medicine. He is best known for his work on time perception, synesthesia, and neurolaw." I recently listened to a Brain Science Podcast interview with Dr. Eagleman which focused on his most recent book, Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain. (As much as I can ascertain, both Dr. Eagleman and Brain Science Podcast are reputable sources :-). Dr. Eagleman shared the following information:

"In the book I spend a lot of time just sort of deconstructing reality piece by piece, and showing that, as we want to go on this journey of exploring what the heck we’re made out of, the first thing to do is to recognize that what you’re seeing out there is not actually reality. You’re not sort of opening your eyes, and voila, there’s the world. Instead, your brain constructs the world. Your brain is trapped in darkness inside of your skull, and all it ever sees are electrical and chemical signals. So all the colors you see, and so on, that doesn’t really exist; that’s an interpretation by your brain.

"Just take as a quick example the fact that your eyes are always moving around in these rapid darting movements; and if you did that with a handheld video camera, it would look like a drunk person holding it, and the world would look very shaky. But our world doesn’t look very shaky, because all we’re actually doing is seeing an internal model of the world; we’re not seeing what’s out there, we’re seeing just our internal model of it. And that’s why, when you move your eyes around, all you’re doing is updating that model. And for that matter, when you blink your eyes and there are 80 milliseconds of blackness there, you don’t notice that, either. Because it’s not actually about what’s coming in the eyes; it’s about your internal construction….

"…[There’s also what’s called the ‘illusion of truth’ - where people think something’s true just because they have heard it before]. You give people statements to rate the truth value of, and then you bring them back a while later and you give them more statements to say whether they’re true or false, and so on. But it turns out that if you repeat some of the statements from the first time to the second time, just because the people have heard them before, whether or not it’s true and whether or not they even marked it as false last time, because they’re hearing it again—unconsciously they know they’ve heard it before—they’re more likely to rate it as true now.

Dr. Eagleman confirms some other authors I have read on our perceptions of reality. I have actually noticed this "illusion of truth" in myself - the tendency to think I know about a subject because I've done some reading about it previously. (I'm glad to know that's normal - I think!) But I guess the questions I'm really trying to answer are: What is the nature of Reality? How can I know what's true? How can I tell what's real? And the answer, as near as I can tell, is that we really don't know. Much of the time, things may not be as they appear to us with the limited tools of perception that we are equipped with. So how can I, an untrained person, know what's true, or even which source is reliable? Anybody out there have any advice?

I COULD BE WRONG

2011-05-04T08:20:00.000-07:00

Lately, I’ve been pondering the direction of the spiritual path. My own journey is taking me from the fundamental toward the liberal. And from what I read on the internet, many others seem to be on this same trajectory. But I’ve encountered a few who seem to be traveling in the opposite direction. In fact, “Religious fundamentalism has risen to worldwide prominence since the 1970s” (Annual Review), and "in March 2009, TIME magazine ranked the new Calvinist movement as one of the '10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now.'" What to make of these, and other, movements of the Spirit in apparently opposite directions?

When I first began to see from a different perspective, I thought I had been misled. I had believed lies, I thought, but was now seeing the truth. Those fundamental beliefs I had previously held were wrong, but now I was on the right track. Truthfully, the only thing that really happened was I moved into a new place of being judgmental! Yes, I admitted I’d been wrong. But, I reasoned, it wasn’t my fault – it was all those lies I’d been taught! NOW, though, I was following the Spirit, and I was RIGHT. Truth with a capital “T” once again! Meanwhile, of course, some of a more liberal bent across the country and throughout the world had been discovering new-found truth in conservative ideas…

Gradually (and thankfully!), I moved into an understanding of the stages of spiritual growth and that we’re not necessarily right or wrong, but at different places along the path. From that perspective, I’d like to present a possible explanation for these movements of the Spirit in seemingly opposite directions.

Growth cannot take place without change, and change is a prerequisite for spiritual growth as well. So, whatever camp we’ve been in, whatever our beliefs have been, there has to be a willingness to change our previous positions before we can progress! So (and this is a biggie!) we must admit that we’re wrong! I think this is the toughest thing ever to ask our egos to do - admit we've been wrong, leave that ground of certainty, and strike out into unknown territory.

After error is finally seen and admitted, the next response is usually (like I did) to stake out a new “right” stand, and the process must begin all over again. It’s very painful to admit error, and I believe that’s one among many of the reasons that the transition between stages can be a excruciating time on the spiritual journey – so much so that they’ve sometimes been termed “dark nights of the soul.” These are “dark nights” because they’re a period of leaving behind what we’ve known and been sure of to enter into uncertainty (or unknowing, as the author of the Cloud of Unknowing put it). Hopefully, we emerge from this process with a new humility, a fresh realization that we must hold our truths loosely, and a new-found ability to embrace mystery.

At this point it would seem to me that the greatest asset on the spiritual path is humility – the ability to realize I could be wrong. Then again…I COULD BE WRONG!

Have you ever discovered that you had been wrong? Did it lead to growth?

SCIENCE AND SPIRITUALITY

2011-05-03T07:38:00.000-07:00

I don't have a scientific background, but I am very much interested in the topics of science and spirituality. I recently watched a program on Global Spirit TV (lots of good programs there, by the way) in which Peter Russell was interviewed on the topic of exploring consciousness. Intrigued, I followed up by visiting his website (which can be found here) where I found a wealth of informative material. Today I'd like to share the following video from his website titled "Science and Spirituality." While I don't even begin to have a working knowledge of the topic, I do find it facisinating. And I believe that science and spirituality are not in opposition, but that both can give us glimpses of how to better relate to Reality.

Fast forward to minute 2:45 if you want to skip the intro.

Do science and spirituality oppose one another? What are your thoughts?

LOVE YOUR ENEMIES

2011-05-03T06:01:00.000-07:00

"How do you kill your enemy in a way that puts a stop to violence rather than escalates it?

"One of us is gone, one apparently horrific, terrible, vicious one of us...is gone...I'm regretful for the rest of us who are now left thinking that this is a cause for celebration. It is not. It is a cause for sorrow at our continued inablility to realize that there is no such thing as us and them; that whatever we do to cause harm to one will harm us all.

"When we hate, we cause hate. When we think we have won by vanquishing our enemy, we have lost. In killing Osama bin Laden, 'they' lose because one of their leaders is gone. But we lose too, because we have deepened the causes and conditions that lead to more hatred and its consequences."

"...when you do not produce another force of hatred, the opposing forece collapses." - Chogyam Trungpa

Excerpted from: "Osama bin Laden is Dead One Buddhist's Response" by Susan Piver. Read the entire post here.

RICHARD ROHR: SACRIFICE OF THE FALSE SELF

2011-04-21T10:48:00.000-07:00

"The sacrificial instinct is the deep recognition that something always has to die for something bigger to be born. We started with human sacrifice (Abraham and Isaac), we moved to animal sacrifice (the ritual killing of the Passover lamb described in Exodus 12), and we gradually get closer to what really has to be sacrificed—our own beloved ego—as protected and beloved as a little household lamb! We will all find endless disguises and excuses to avoid letting go of what really needs to die. And it is not other humans (firstborn sons of Egyptians), animals (lambs or goats), or even “meat on Friday” that God wants or needs. It is always our false self that has to be let go, which is going to die anyway.

"By becoming the symbolic Passover Lamb, plus the foot-washing servant in John’s Gospel, Jesus makes the movement to the human and the personal very clear and quite concrete. It is always “we,” in our youth, in our beauty, in our power and over-protectedness that must be handed over. Otherwise, we will never grow up, big enough to “eat” of the Mystery of God and Love. It really is about 'passing over' to the next level of faith and life. And that never happens without some kind of 'dying to the previous levels'" (Taken from "Wondrous Encounters for Lent" pp. 134-135 by Richard Rohr).

In my opinion, Richard Rohr has beautifully expressed in the above quotation the often-missed message that the cross of Jesus holds for us today. As long as the ego is running things, we are always looking for someone to die in our place. It's what happened to Jesus in those days, and it happens afresh inside of us when we trample underfoot and sacrifice the Christ consciousness by allowing the ego to rule our lives.

SCIENCE AND NON-DUALITY

2011-04-14T06:54:00.000-07:00

I have been pondering the subject of nonduality for quite some time now. It's something I know is true, but can't quite seem to wrap my mind around! The following, from the Science and Nonduality Website, has been very helpful:

"Nonduality is the philosophical, spiritual, and scientific understanding of non-separation and fundamental intrinsic oneness.

"For thousand of years, through deep inner inquiry, philosophers and sages have came to the realization that there is only one substance and we are therefore all part of it. This substance can be called Awareness, Consciousness, Spirit, Advaita, Brahman, Tao, Nirvana or even God. It is constant, ever present, unchangeable and is the essence of all existence.

"In the last century Western scientists are arriving at the same conclusion: The universe does indeed comprise of a single substance, presumably created during the Big Bang, and all sense of being - consciousness - subsequently arises from it. This realization has ontological implications for humanity: fundamentally we are individual expressions of a single entity, inextricably connected to one another, we are all drops of the same ocean.

"Science and Nonduality is a journey, an exploration of the nature of awareness, the essence of life from which all arises and subsides.

What is nonduality, anyway?
"There are many shades of meaning to the word nonduality. As an introduction, we might say that nonduality is the philosophical, spiritual, and scientific understanding of non-separation and fundamental oneness.

"Our starting point is the statement “we are all one,” and this is meant not in some abstract sense but at the deepest level of existence. Duality, or separation between the observer and the observed, is an illusion that the Eastern mystics have long recognized and Western science has more recently come to understand through quantum mechanics.

"Dualities are usually seen in terms of opposites: Mind/Matter, Self/Other, Conscious/Unconscious, Illusion/Reality, Quantum/Classical, Wave/Particle, Spiritual/Material, Beginning/End, Male/Female, Living/Dead and Good/Evil. Nonduality is the understanding that identification with common dualisms avoids recognition of a deeper reality.

So how can we better understand nonduality?

"There are two aspects to this question, and at first glance they appear to be mutually exclusive, although they may be considered two representations of a single underlying reality.

"The first aspect is our understanding of external reality, and for this we turn to science. The word science comes from the Latin scientia, which means knowledge. The beauty and usefulness of science is that it seeks to measure and describe reality without personal, religious, or cultural bias. For something to be considered scientifically proven, it has to pass exhaustive scrutiny, and even then is always subject to future revision. Inevitably human biases creep in, but the pursuit of science itself is intrinsically an evolving quest for truth. But then quantum mechanics turned much of this lauded objectivity on its head, as the role of the observer became inseparable from the observed quantum effect. It is as if consciousness itself plays a role in creating reality. Indeed, the two may be the same thing. As quantum pioneer Niels Bohr once put it: “A physicist is just an atom's way of looking at itself!”

"The second aspect is our inner, personal experience of consciousness, our “awareness of awareness.” We have our senses to perceive the world, but “behind” all perception, memory, identification and thought is simply pure awareness itself. Eastern mystics have described this undifferentiated consciousness for thousands of years as being the ultimate state of bliss, or nirvana. Seekers have attempted to experience it for themselves through countless rituals and practices, although the state itself can be quite simply described. As Indian advaita teacher Nisargadatta Maharaj said: “The trinity: mind, self and spirit, when looked into, becomes unity.”

"The central challenge to understanding nonduality may be that it exists beyond language, because once it has been named, by definition -- and paradoxically -- a duality has been created. Even the statement “all things are one” creates a distinction between “one” and “not-one”! Hardly any wonder that nonduality has been misunderstood, particularly in the West."

Humm, maybe that's why ancient orthodox Jews would never say the name of God, and

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

A FRESH LOOK AT DEATH AND ORIGINAL SIN

2011-03-21T03:49:00.000-07:00

In the beginning, there was One, and One was All that there was. Out of this One that was All, there began to manifest matter…and stars…and planets… On one planet that we know of, slowly soil…and water…and plants…and animals…began to appear…but still there was only One that was All. Simple at first, the One began to manifest in more and more complex forms. The One was becoming the many, but the many were still the One. And the One loved the many. The forms would appear for a time and then return to the All – we have called this birth and death. Some of the animal forms completely ceased to appear, returning back into the All (we have called this extinction) while ever new and growing forms emerged. Still the One that is All remained, unchanged yet always changing – for God is One. God saw that it was all good, and that nothing was ever really lost.

As one of the forms developed, it became aware of itself in distinction from the One – became “self-conscious.” These first humans realized they were different and separate from all that surrounded them – they became aware of themselves as individuals. They even gave all the other plants and animals names because they perceived everything as so different from themselves. Believing themselves to be “separate beings,” they had no sense of their connection with plants, animals, other humans, or with the One. The One was still very much in the many and the many in the One, but self-conscious humans were not able to discern this. This is the only thing that God said was NOT good – man's perception that he was alone!

One of the things newly self-conscious humans noticed was that something terrible happened to the other animals and humans around them: they ceased to be – they experienced Death. And humanity began to understand that this was the horrible fate that awaited each person. In metaphorical language, humanity ate of the tree of knowledge (awareness), and as a result realized they would surely die. Naturally, this caused great fear! With no knowledge of the One in which they lived and moved and had their being, humanity felt alienated and alone, naked, exposed, vulnerable and without protection in a large and terrifying world. So began the conscious struggle for survival - the need to fend for and preserve themselves. Aware for the first time of the always impending threat of death, humans began to perceive circumstances in terms of whether they were advantageous to physical survival…or not. Good…or evil.... Selfishness came into being. Hot on the heels of (and driven by) selfishness, sinful behavior began to proliferate.

Death and sin are intrinsically connected, but we do not die because we have sinned. Death, as far as can be ascertained scientifically, is natural and has always been a part of the cycle of life. Instead, awareness of our own mortality creates a great fear which compels us to do whatever is necessary to survive. Sin, then, is not the cause of death, but rather a result of the fear of death. We sin because we're afraid of dyin'...

More later...

BEYOND UNIVERSALISM...

2011-03-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

There seems to be an unspoken agreement in much of Christendom that certain topics are 'sacred cows' - not to be questioned. One such topic that is garnering a lively discussion lately (thanks to the upcoming release of Rob Bell's new book Love Wins) is hell. I, for one, believe an atmosphere in which questions and open discussions are repressed creates a recipe for stagnation, and so I am thankful that the book is providing an opportunity for questions and the discussion of new ideas and perspectives.

I had already been musing on the topic of what happens after death before the present fire-storm (pun intended) erupted. Universalism, while a step in the right direction, still seems to me to be bound to the traditional concepts of heaven or hell in an after-life rather than as present realities. I wrote about my current thoughts on death in a post titled Overcoming the Sting of Death. And Logan Geen, over at A Sect Unto Myself submitted an excellent post titled Universalist? in which the reader is invited to explore beyond Universalism as commonly thought of.

Even though this "Death & Spirituality" interview is from 1990, Bro. David Steindl-Rast provides a fresh and multi-faith perspective on what may happen after the death of the physical body that is applicable to contemporary dialogs. Food for thought...fuel for questions...and fodder for discussions...

What do you think?

MY TAKE ON EVERYBODY’S TAKE ON ROB BELL’S TAKE ON HELL

2011-03-08T06:08:00.000-08:00

OR…maybe not…maybe just my take on hell. I was taught all my life to believe in a literal hell and a literal devil, and I firmly believed it. I was angry when I read that people like Brian Mclaren had begun to question the doctrine of hell. I thought that he was a heretic who would…bad as I hated to think it…go there. I was outraged at the newer Bible translations that were “taking hell out of the Bible.” I was as far from accepting a universalist position as could possibly be imagined.

But then, somehow I found myself questioning this doctrine of hell. And, to even have these questions scared me to death! When I found myself wondering about it, I’d try my best to ignore those nagging thoughts. I’d shove ‘em to the back of my mind and try to not think about them. I was successful for some time, but finally I came to a place where there was just no other option – it was imperative that I examine my thoughts and questions surrounding hell.

Once my resistance was slightly lowered (very slightly, mind you), my first reaction was “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it wasn’t true? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if nobody went to hell?” Of course, I was still far from believing that, but still…what a joyful thought it was!

I began to tentatively read about the history of hell and the origin of the devil. I read articles from Tentmaker and articles on the meanings of the different words used for hell and for everlasting/eternal here and here. I skimmed (didn't read the whole book!) The Origin and History of the Doctrine of Endless Punishment by Thayer. I read the argument that Universalism was the prevailing doctrine of early Christianity here. I watched a documentary video from the History channel on the origins of hell and a video by MSNBC that told of Carlton Pearson's journey To Hell and Back when he renounced the doctrine of hell. But I remained far from convinced. Sometimes when I’d come across something particularly convincing, it would scare me and I'd run back to the safety of majority opinion. A person can't see something if they're not willing to see it, and at that time I was still not ready to be convinced!

I'm still far from figuring it all out, and I certainly don't claim to have all the answers. But one thing I can say is that, after much deliberation, I've come to a very different view of hell than I previously adhered to.

The first thing that changed dramatically was my understanding of judgment. I think there's Biblical room to see judgment as something that happens while we are in this life. Jesus taught that we will reap the consequences of our own actions, and Paul said that we will be rewarded in this very body for the deeds we have done - good or bad (2 Corin. 5:10)! I also believe that God's chastening is redemptive in nature. I like what Brian McLaren said here about the wrath and judgment of God:

"...wrath means God's displeasure that allows people to experience the consequences of their negative actions....So if we neglect the poor, there will be crime and revolutionary movements ... If we neglect our children, they'll feel alienated from us, hurting themselves and us. If we neglect the environment, we'll suffer erosion and global warming....And judgment in the conventional narrative means God sending people to hell. But what if this is based on a mistaken understanding? What if judgment means "setting things right," or "restoring justice?" So for God to come as judge to bring judgment would mean God coming to stop the oppressors from oppressing, the polluters from polluting, the violent from plundering, the greedy from hoarding, etc."

I also began to see at a new level that heaven and hell are indeed very real; very literal. But also that they are both here on this earth - present realities, ways of living we can enter into here and now, as Rob Bell said in Velvet Elvis (p. 147). Paul taught that the Kingdom of God IS peace and joy, and Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of Heaven is at hand - so close we can reach out and touch it! I think hell on earth is created when we are consumed by the flames of our own anger and hate, tortured by desires which are never satisfied, and tormented by never-ending fears (1 John 4:18). In this manner, hell is created, chosen, and lived in. In this hell of our own making, the smoke of our torment does ascend up forever and ever (continually!) and no rest can be found day or night. Moreover, we live in this condition in the very presence of the Lamb (Rev. 14: 9-11) oblivious to the rest and peace presently available to us in the Kingdom of Heaven!

Why do we cling so perniciously to the notion of eternal conscious torment? I think we live in that fear because deep down we believe God's goodness and love for all creation is simply too good to be true. We just find it too difficult to believe that God could be that good, that evil could actually be overcome with good, and that the worst of us could be won over with Love. Others have written much more eloquently than I ever could in favor of God's triumph and ultimate reconciliation of all things, so I won't say more on that front. The above mentioned resources are excellent, Richard Beck wrote beautifully on the subject here and here, and entire lists of articles and books can be found here and here.

But I do believe that Scripture teaches that hell will not prevail, that all enemies will be defeated, and that ultimately all things in heaven and in earth will be gathered together in the Christ. I believe "all" means "ALL," and I hope Rob Bell comes out in Love Wins with a strong elucidation that lives up to the book's title.

RICHARD ROHR ON EMERGING CHRISTIANITY

2011-03-07T15:58:00.000-08:00

This is a recently recorded talk on Emerging Christianity given by Richard Rohr. It's over an hour long, but well worth your time. The last half, in which he discusses non-duality as one of the pillars of Emerging Christianity, is especially good! (It may not seem as if it's working at first...give it a minute and it'll start.) Enjoy - I know I certainly did!

Emerging Christianity from Fuller Seminary on Vimeo.

MAKING ROOM FOR QUESTIONS

2011-03-03T08:52:00.000-08:00

Cartoon: Lost at Sea

Lately, I’ve been frequenting some blogs written by self-described Christians who are deep in the throes of doubt or ex-Christians who are now skeptics, agnostics, heretics, and/or atheists. While some are quite comfortable in their present position, many tell heart-wrenching stories of doubt, inner turmoil, fear. Why is this topic of interest to me? Because for the past ten years or so, I have been going through a period where I have questioned everything.

M. Scott Peck says that people entering Stage III in the spiritual journey begin to question the religious doctrines with which they were raised:

Stage III Skeptic, Individual, questioner, including atheists, agnostics and those scientifically minded who demand a measurable, well researched and logical explanation. Although frequently "nonbelievers," people in Stage III are generally more spiritually developed than many content to remain in Stage II. Although individualistic, they are not the least bit antisocial. To the contrary, they are often deeply involved in and committed to social causes. They make up their own minds about things and are no more likely to believe everything they read in the papers than to believe it is necessary for someone to acknowledge Jesus as Lord and Savior (as opposed to Buddha or Mao or Socrates) in order to be saved. They make loving, intensely dedicated parents. As skeptics they are often scientists, and as such they are again highly submitted to principle. Indeed, what we call the scientific method is a collection of conventions and procedures that have been designed to combat our extraordinary capacity to deceive ourselves in the interest of submission to something higher than our own immediate emotional or intellectual comfort--namely truth. Advanced Stage III men and women are active truth seekers. (The entire article can be read here.)

This doesn’t sound like such a bad experience on paper. But in the nuts and bolts and guts and gore of real life, the transition can be an earth-shattering experience that affects all aspects of our beings - emotional, physical, psychological, spiritual, and social. And to make matters worse, many who enter this stage don’t know what’s happening to them. I know I didn’t – for the first time since I became a Christian, I didn’t know where I was spiritually. I had always been a person of great faith, what was happening to me? I felt lost and alone in a great sea of questions. I ran from the questions that kept arising, and tried to fight the questions that I was unable to suppress. Adding to the difficulty, in my opinion, is that the majority of churches are at Stage II (Formal, Instutional, Fundamental, threatened by anyone who thinks differently from them), and so there is no place in these churches where people are allowed to ask questions. So not only do we have all these questions, but there's no safe place to ask them - we have have people all around us who think we're falling into heresy. In fact, I was actually "churched" as it's called here in the Bible belt. It makes a scary place even scarier!

In my lonely “dark night,” I grasped at anything that might shed light and help to give me understanding about what I was going through. I read Madame Guyon and Saint Teresa. I read the writings of George Fox and Watchman Nee. And while all these were helpful to some extent, they also seemed to be dark writings presented in antiquated language, difficult to understand from my 21^st century perspective. After that, I discovered the writings of contemporary mystics like Evelyn Underhill and Father Thomas Keating which explained a lot. And thank God for the internet – I did find other crazies there, and that was of some comfort.

I think one of the challenges is if we dare to question, if what we have previously known is NOT true, then what are we left with? Nothing? It sure feels that way… But there is a time for everything, even a time to tear down (Ecc. 3:3)…or, to use the contemporary term, deconstruct. We must be willing to subject our adolescent faith to questions in order to make the transition into a more mature level of faith. I don’t claim to have all the answers; I’m still very much in transition myself. But I did come to a place where I stopped resisting the questions. I can remember thinking, “I’m just gooooing…” And everything as I had known it did crumble. (I won’t go into specifics – you might think me a heretic!)

I have been very fortunate that I came into what I can only term “a new place” in which I’ve found a greater faith; a greater certainty. I like to think that at last I’m moving into Stage IV, into a more mature faith (I wrote about some of this here). But I realize, as well, that even that is only the beginning. And while I think I’ve been through the period of intense questioning that the skeptics describe on their blogs, I wonder. My doubts may be as nothing compared to theirs! In either case, I think Brian McLaren is correct in what he says in the trailer for his soon to be released book Naked Spirituality: A Life with God in 12 Simple Words: “After we complete the four stages once, we go through them again and again, each time at a higher or deeper level.”

Peck says "Knowledge of these stages is so important because it facilitates the acceptance of others even though they may be in different places spiritually." Doubt is natural; doubt can even be very good and necessary for growth. There is a great need to make room in our diverse faith communities for people on all levels of the spiritual journey, even the skeptical level! And I think that’s what the emergent church folk are doing – they don’t claim to have all the answers, but they ARE trying to make a place where people can feel free to ask some of their questions.

Update! This "late-breaking video" just in from Reflections blog. I just had to borrow it and add it to this post. I realize it's an extreme example, but it is a sad example of what happens when there is no room for questions..."Westboro Baptist Church Family Disowns Daughter"

THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS PART 3

2011-02-25T05:40:00.000-08:00

The following is the third and final part of an excerpt from The Christ Is Not A Person The Evolution of Consciousness And The Destiny of Man by J.C. Tefft:

The flowering of conscious awareness is the story of the evolution of Consciousness bearing fruit, ‘some an hundred, some sixty, some thirty fold. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear…. Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice.’ The death of the old allows for the birth of the new, which is a birth ‘not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of [the will of ] God.’ ‘Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’ ‘He that findeth his Life shall lose [his life in self ]: and he that loseth his life [in self ] for [the sake of Christ] shall find it.’ One day ‘ye shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with … but it shall [only] be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father,’ which is in Heaven. ‘Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’

As one awakens to the living Christ within, one is shown how to approach Life with Love in one’s heart. In this inner state of Awareness, one is no longer fooled by falsehoods created by thought. One’s mind is no longer closed to that which is in the moment, actual and real. Instead of darkness, there is Light. Instead of emotional fervor, there is harmony, Peace, and Joy. Instead of distractions in the parts, there is stillness in the Whole. Instead of hatred and prejudice, there is Compassion and Love.

Considering Creation as a Whole, each of us is a microscopic center of life in which the evolutionary cycle plays out from beginning to end, from formlessness to form, back to formlessness again. Like snowflakes whirling through the winds of time, each of us is a miniature, but unique expression of the Whole. No two of us are exactly alike. Thus each of us has our own unique cross to bear – whatever that may be. Wherever we are, or whatever circumstances we find ourselves in, we all face the same evolutionary test, and we must face it alone. No one else can live our life for us, just as no one else can die for us. We all face life and death alone. This being so, each of us is held personally accountable for awakening to the Spirit of Life and Love within us. No one else is held accountable to this task. We can either think our way through life, or we can live life in a manner that allows for God’s evolutionary work to be done, as in ‘Thy Will be done.’

For Love to come into the world, mankind must cease to hate. To hate is to shut down on the coming of Christ. When the urge to hate arises, rather than identifying with it and acting it out, observe it dispassionately. See it for what it is. In the very act of detached observation, Awareness arises in the Now, and in the Light of that Awareness, hate cannot take root. Rather, it withers and dies on the vine. Through detached observation we surrender the self, thus hate is overcome. In its stead, Pure Awareness comes forth. This is the process through which one evolves in Awareness from that of self to that of other than self. As Jesus pointed out, only the ‘pure in heart … shall see God,’ just as the impure in heart shall not. It is up to each of us to discover for ourselves what Jesus truly meant when he declared that we must ‘love others as I have loved you.'

The Evolution of Consciousness Part 1

The Evolution of Consciousness Part 2

"The Christ Is Not A Person The Evolution of Consciousness And The Destiny of Man" by J.C. Tefft can be purchased in ebook form for $6.00 here.

THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS PART 2

2011-02-24T05:30:00.000-08:00

The following is second in a three part series excerpted from The Christ Is Not A Person The Evolution of Consciousness And The Destiny of Man by J.C. Tefft:

The fact that the vast majority of ancient people lacked the same level of Awareness as the enlightened sages of their day made the teachings of enlightened beings seem all the more incomprehensible, mysterious, otherworldly, and unclear. To compound the problem, lesser lights, failing to understand the deeper meaning of enlightened teachings, tended to add their own spin to works they later wrote long after the enlightened ones were gone. Thus they corrupted the original, enlightened teachings all the more. Instead of finding Truth in themselves, as all enlightened beings have done, they established doctrines, rituals, and beliefs in an effort to inadequately comprehend what they did not understand. This, in turn, has entrapped others into believing that a system of belief will somehow ‘save’ them from the fires of ‘hell,’ when it does not.

Regardless of these obstacles, as Consciousness has evolved, an evergrowing number of individuals have walked the Earth, and continue to walk the Earth, who have awakened in the Light. The earliest of these continue to be revered, even worshipped beyond the rest, as they were the forerunners of a new race who are even now being resurrected out of self into a new dimension of cosmic reality.

It is as true today as it was in ancient times that Man’s ultimate destiny is to evolve in Pure Awareness and thereby discover what Jesus called, ‘Eternal Life.’ Those who fail to respond to the call devolve into what the ancients called ‘hell’ on Earth, as they are ‘cast out into outer darkness’ where ‘there [is] weeping and gnashing of the teeth.’ They do not ‘hunger and thirst after righteousness,’ as they are called to do. As human beings, then and now, we can either support the evolution of Consciousness (which is ‘good’) and thereby awaken in the Light, or resist the evolution of Consciousness (which is ‘evil’) and thus be ‘cast into outer darkness,’ having failed to awaken in the Light.

When the wheat is removed from the chaff, one discovers that the teachings of enlightened sages, both ancient and new, point to the same fundamental reality, which is an evolutionary unfolding of greater conscious awareness that is presently emerging within Man. They point to the fact that Man’s responsibility is to ‘deny himself and take up his cross’ and thereby participate in his own evolutionary development by surrendering his attachments to old patterns of behavior that are centered in the self. Their teachings, overall, describe a way of living that supports the evolution of Consciousness. They encourage all of us to ‘love the Lord thy God with all thy heart … all thy soul, and … all thy mind’ and to ‘love thy neighbor as thyself ’ because in doing so, we are guided toward a ‘place’ within ourselves where Love and Peace lives.

The attainment of Pure Consciousness does not come about through any effort on the part of Man, but by the ongoing evolutionary work of the Holy Spirit, which is of God. Even so, Man is capable of favorably participating in the process and thereby aiding in its development. Yet, Man is also capable of resisting the evolutionary unfolding of greater conscious awareness by holding fast to the world he creates in the self. Because Man has been given a degree of free will in this regard, his hands, so-to-speak, have been placed on the lever of his own destiny. But this lever only moves in one of two ways. It either supports the evolution of Consciousness and thereby aids in its unfolding, or resists its coming and thereby shuts down on its development.

Jesus stated this evolutionary principle in the following way (I have attempted to elucidate his meaning by adding certain terminology parenthetically):

For unto every one that hath (Awareness) shall be given (even greater Awareness), and he shall have abundance (of same): but from him that hath not (supported the evolution of Awareness in himself) shall be taken away even that which he (originally) hath. (Mat. 25: 29)

In other words, when it comes to the evolution of Consciousness, there is no standing still. One either supports it and thereby moves in the direction of the intended goal, or resists it and is consequently cut off.

So the question remains in each of our own lives, which way do we choose? The way of self, or the way of the Tao? The way of sorrow, or the way to Nirvana? The way of Adam, or the way of Abraham? The way of Isaac and Esau, or the way of Rebekah and Jacob? The way of death, or the way of Eternal Life? The way of destruction, or the way of the living Christ? The responsibility to choose has been placed in our hands, so which choice do we make? God calls from the Garden, but do we hear His ‘voice’? He waits, but do we respond?

When Jesus was faced with the temptation to live in the self, he responded by denying self, therefore denying the hold that the self would otherwise have had on him. And as a result of this choice, he was baptized by the Holy Ghost and ‘the heavens were opened unto him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon him: and lo a voice from heaven, saying, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’ Jesus, with his hands on the lever of his destiny, passed the test of temptation to live in the self, thus God was ‘well pleased.’ One might say that God is ‘well pleased’ when any of His children pass this test.

To be continued...

The Evolution of Consciousness Part 1

The Evolution of Consciousness Part 3
"The Christ Is Not A Person The Evolution of Consciousness And The Destiny of Man" By J.C. Tefft can be purchased in ebook form for $6.00 here.

THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS PART 1

2011-02-23T06:52:00.000-08:00

The following is first in a three part series excerpted from "The Christ Is Not A Person The Evolution of Consciousness And The Destiny of Man" By J.C. Tefft:

Considering the evolution of Consciousness, as set forth in ancient scripture, the Biblical story reveals that the evolution of conscious awareness in Man is not about a chosen people who found their ‘Promised Land,’ but about the transformation of certain individuals in Hebrew society from lower to higher levels of conscious awareness in their lifetime, and in generations that followed. First one, then two, then four, then eight, and so on, as ever-greater numbers awakened in the Light. But someone was the first, and that someone, whoever he or she was, was the forerunner to a new race of Man. That someone had awakened to a higher calling, and following that awakening, most likely described it to others, as best he or she could, in conceptual, metaphorical terms in an attempt to communicate at least something of the experience, even though it was not the experience itself.

One problem that the earliest of enlightened beings continuously faced is that others in their societies were either thoroughly unenlightened, or at most, less enlightened than they. This meant that the others did not truly understand what the enlightened ones meant when they spoke of the ending of sorrow, or of denying self, or of realizing Nirvana, or of entering the Kingdom of Heaven, even though some may have sensed something of the Truth of it, albeit in more limited ways.

If we trace the history of conscious awakening in ancient, Biblical lore, we learn first of an individual named Adam (which interpreted means ‘Man’) who metaphorically represents early Man in whom the capacity to think emerged. This is indicated by his ability to ‘name,’ which is to say, to perceive and conceptualize outer things. Much later, another Man, metaphorically referred to as Noah, is said to have lived ‘five hundred years … and was perfect in his generations,’ for he ‘found grace in God’s eyes.’ This is to say, he awakened to a level of Awareness in himself that was above and beyond Adamic Man. After Noah there arose yet another Man, metaphorically referred to as Abraham, the ‘exalted father of many,’ of whom God said He would make ‘nations out of thee’ because Abraham was more consciously Aware than those who had come before.

And out of Abraham arose Jacob, later called ‘Israel,’ or ‘those who struggle with God.’ And out of ‘Israel’ arose Moses, the first acknowledged prophet of the Hebrew people. He was a prophet because he had awakened in conscious awareness to a degree that others in his society had not. Even so, it is highly unlikely he was the first prophet the world had ever known, for inspired ‘seers’ had arisen and were arising in ever-greater numbers in other cultures, as well. First one, then two, then four, and so on, all proclaiming a similar, if not identical message, using different languages and metaphors that pointed to a cosmic dimension of reality beyond that of self; another level of conscious awareness, which they could ‘see,’ if only dimly, was just over the horizon from where they stood, inwardly speaking, from their point of view.

After Moses, enlightened souls the likes of Saul, David, Isaiah, and Jeremiah arose over the years within Israelite society – the later ones proclaiming a new Kingdom yet to come, a Kingdom unlike any they had known before. And lo and behold, centuries later there arose out of this same, Israelite tradition a person by the name of Jesus, who at about age thirty experienced a complete transformation in Pure Conscious Awareness in which ‘the heavens opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove.’ The complete transformation of this one individual fulfilled ancient Jewish prophesy that foretold of a new Kingdom yet to come, even though they did not know quite when or how it would unfold. This new Kingdom, as proclaimed by Jesus, turned out to be a Kingdom in Heaven, rather than a kingdom here on Earth. It turned out to be a Kingdom that is within Man, which means it can only be attained by means of an inner awakening to that which it is.

But Jesus was not the first to fully awaken in the Light, nor would he be the last. Some five hundred years before there arose out of India another individual by the name of Siddhartha Gautama, who, like Jesus, awakened in the Light. Following his transformation, this enlightened sage (later known as the Buddha, the awakened one) proclaimed the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path that leads to enlightenment. Once enlightened, the Buddha taught that to attain Nirvana is to end the sorrow of the world. This state of inner Awareness that he called Nirvana is the same state of conscious awareness that Jesus proclaimed is the Kingdom of Heaven here on Earth, in which the sorrow of the world ends.

But again, they were not the only two in ancient times who were transformed in the Light, for other individuals in other lands, most notably Lao Tse in China, also awakened and was transformed in the Light. As with Buddha, Lao Tse, and Jesus, there were yet others who were likewise revered as enlightened sages within the societies in which they lived. Not long after Jesus was crucified, an individual named Saul, while on his way to Damascus, experienced a sudden awakening of his own. Later known as the Apostle Paul, he spread the word that a new dispensation, which he called the Christ, was not only coming, but is now here. Thus greater conscious awareness evolved from early Man (Adam) in whom conceptual awareness of self emerged, to and through the likes of the Buddha, Lao Tse, Jesus, Paul, and others in whom a conscious awareness that is other than self came forth, flowered, and bore fruit.

As conscious awareness evolved, so also an ever-greater number of allegorical stories and parables were told, all pointing to the same, fundamental reality – that a new level of conscious awareness was coming to life in Man, and that Man must now be about the business of tending to its development from within. Follow the Eightfold Path to enlightenment, declared the Buddha, and you will be transformed into a state of Nirvana wherein the sorrow of the world ends. Follow me, proclaimed Jesus in Christ. Love God with all your heart and Soul, obey the Commandments (as inwardly prescribed) and enter the Kingdom of Heaven where the sorrow of the world ends. Believe what I say, proclaimed Paul, ‘for now (prior to transformation) we see through a glass, darkly; but then (following transformation) [we see] face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.’ And why Love? Because Love transforms mankind.*

To be continued...

The Evolution of Consciousness Part 2

The Evolution of Consciousness Part 3

"The Christ Is Not A Person The Evolution of Consciousness And The Destiny of Man" By J.C. Tefft can be purchased in ebook form for $6.00 here.

*Emphasis mine

DO YOU BELIEVE IN THE DEVIL?

2011-02-21T08:48:00.000-08:00

Here is an alternative concept of satan: satan is not an impish being with a pitchfork, prodding people into a sinful life; rather, satan is the lower nature of all people. It is the self of us that can tempt us to do things that we know are not for our highest good. Satan is the selfish, human, cunning, devious ego of limitation that motivates the human personality to turn away from God.

It is the part of us that must decrease as our spiritual nature increases. How do we overrule this part of us? "I, when I am lifted up from this earth, will draw all men to myself". We must elevate our desires of human appetite, raise the standards of our moral passions, bear up our spiritual aspirations, and be receptive to the drawing power of Christ. This is to lift up and spiritualize the human self, thus defeating our "satanic" nature.

When this happens, the kingdom of Christlikeness will be established in our hearts, minds, and worlds. This is the objective of true Christianity. Rather than doing battle with an external force that doesn't exist, the overruling of the lower nature by the higher is the ultimate accomplishment.

Excerpted from the book Alternatives by William L. Fischer. More from this book can be read here.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN FIVE CHAPTERS

2011-02-21T08:29:00.000-08:00

How easily we allow our old habits and set patterns to dominate us! Even though…they bring us suffering, we accept them with almost fatalistic resignation, for we are so used to giving in to them. We may idealize freedom, but when it comes to our habits, we are completely enslaved.

Still, reflection can slowly bring us wisdom. We can come to see we are falling again and again into fixed repetitive patterns, and begin to long to get out of them. We may, of course, fall back into them, again and again, but slowly we can emerge from them and change. The following poem speaks to us all. It's called "Autobiography in Five Chapters."

1) I walk down the street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk

I fall in.

I am lost... I am hopeless.

It isn't my fault

It takes forever to find a way out

2) I walk down the same street

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I pretend I don't see it.

I fall in again.

I can't believe I'm in the same place.

But it isn't my fault.

It still takes a long time to get out

3) I walk down the same street

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk

I see it is there.

I still fall in ... it's a habit

My eyes are open

I know where I am

It is my fault.

I get out immediately.

4) I walk down the same street

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk

I walk around it.

5) I walk down another street.

Excerpted from "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying" which can be downloaded here for free.

GOD IS ONE

2011-02-17T08:28:00.000-08:00

The following is adapted from Twelve Lessons in Spirituality by Kevin J. Todeschi:

One of the great ironies of human nature is the fact that the very structure intended to enrich our relationship with God is the one thing which divides us most as a human family. For countless eons, more wars have been fought on religious principles than for any other reason. Even to this day, wars, bloodshed, political battles, and countless examples of our inhumanity to one another are commonplace as one group tries to instill (or enforce) its belief systems, its politics, or the supremacy of its God onto the lives of others.

These conflicts are not simply between various religions but are also within each denomination. There are sects within Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam-within every religion!-many convinced that they are just a little more right than anyone else. Even various churches, temples, and synagogues have found differences with other members of their own sect who have somehow fallen away from the "original" or the "true" faith.

In addition to separating people from one another, these conflicts have also caused individuals to become disillusioned with religion-some even becoming convinced that religion is a waste of time. Too often, the result has been that people have given up their faith in God because of their disappointment in humankind.

Interestingly enough, the Edgar Cayce material states that part of the problem is due to our ignorance of our oneness with one another.

Cayce's information presents a hopeful and inspiring approach to spirituality and religion that inextricably weaves all of humanity together. Rather than focusing upon the form of specific religions or dogmas, the readings instead focus upon the importance of every single soul attempting to manifest an awareness of the living Spirit in the earth.

From Cayce's perspective, our goal is not to simply wait for heaven or to escape the earth; instead, we are challenged to bring an awareness of the Creator into our lives and into our surroundings wherever we may be, right now.

There is a common bond we all share as a collective humanity: There is but one God, and we are all God's children. In order to reawaken that sense of connectedness we share with one another, the readings state that the start of any spiritual journey should begin with the knowledge that the Lord God is One. Regardless of the name we call God or the religion on earth that we feel drawn to, there is but one Creator, one Source, one Law. In fact, perhaps more than anything else, this concept of "oneness" is the underlying philosophy of the Edgar Cayce readings.

This notion of oneness in a world so filled with variety may, at first, seem a difficult concept to comprehend. After all, we are surrounded by a myriad of plants, trees, animals, experiences, and people. Rather than attempting to make all things the same, however, oneness suggests instead that we have the opportunity to view this rich diversity as an example of the multiple ways in which the One Spirit tries to find expression in our lives. Since there is only one God-the source of all that exists-ultimately, the universe must be composed of only one Force.

Oneness as a force implies that all things are interrelated. Every one of us has a connection to one another, the earth, the universe, and to God. This one force is a force for good which is attempting to bring the spirituality of the Creator into the earth. Unfortunately, because of our limited awareness of the power of free will, individuals are able to direct that force into selfish purposes and desires, creating "evil" in the process.

In terms of spirituality, the concept of oneness suggests that God is not limited to expressing through one religion alone. Instead, the Creator manifests in individuals' lives because of their faith and because of their relationship to the spiritual Source, not because of their specific religion. From Cayce's perspective, religion is the form in which individuals attempt to understand the manifestation of this Spirit. God can (and does!) work through every soul in the earth.

The good news is that, in spite of how things may appear in the world today, the readings assert that all of Creation will eventually be brought into an awareness of this oneness and of the Law of Love which it implies. One of our challenges as individuals is to make the world a better place because we have lived in it. Perhaps the best approach to this consciousness is reflected in the Bible when it states that we must love God with all our heart, mind, and soul, and our neighbor as ourselves.

The entire article can be read here.

OVERCOMING THE STING OF DEATH

2011-02-08T08:31:00.000-08:00

The Buddhist principle of impermanence teaches that individuals are like flowers that bloom for a brief time and then fade away. If I understand this principle correctly, all things are said to be in a constant state of change but also of interconnection and unity – a process of flux and flow from one form to another. For example, moisture in the form of clouds becomes dew, mist, fog, rain, snow, or ice and falls to the earth. There, it becomes ground water and flows along in streams and rivers, sustaining and cleansing all of life. The water becomes a part of all that is nourished by it – every plant, animal, or human. Finally, the moisture evaporates – becoming cleansed and renewed in the process – and is transformed into clouds to begin the process again. And so it is with all of life. While the duration of living things seems brief to us, nothing is ever really lost – all things are merely transformed.

This is in accordance with The First Law of Thermodynamics, which says that energy cannot be created or destroyed, simply transformed from one type to another. Digging deep into Christian teachings, agreement can be found there as well: men wither like the grass of the field and fade in the manner of a flower. Life is portrayed as a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes from our field of perception (James 4:14). But we also likewise find the good news that all things are restored, for “the thing that hath been, it is that which shall be…and there is no new thing under the sun” (Ecc. 1:9). And again, “That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been…” (Ecc. 3:15). Man goes back to dust, and the spirit goes back to God who gave it (Ecc. 12:7). Nothing is ever lost, and what was, will be again.

We, too, like all things, are being transformed, and it does not yet appear what we shall be (1 John 3:2). We cannot see deeply enough into the nature of reality to discover the transformation that takes place as our present forms fade away. But we can know that when Christ appears to us – when we come into a level of awareness that enables us to perceive the Christ within us, then we shall be like him. AND, when that happens, we’ll also be able to see God as he really is: as Love. With the understanding that God is truly Love, there is no longer any reason to be afraid of death. Death can be seen for what it is: not a punishment, but as part of the natural process of the renewal of all things. With this understanding, Rev. 21:4-5 becomes a current reality rather than a dim promise for the distant future: “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. Behold, I make ALL THINGS NEW…!” Once the veil that keeps people from seeing the nature of reality is removed, death will be swallowed up in victory, and the Lord will wipe all tears off ALL faces (Isa 25:7-8). It is only our limited perception that makes us cry…

All must indeed face death, for death is part of the natural process of renewal and happens to all. But death does lose its sting and brings us sorrow no longer. Instead, we can rejoice, for the reality is NOTHING IS EVER TRULY LOST - merely changed from one form to another. That's really good news!

THE MISSING CROSS

2011-02-02T17:51:00.000-08:00

The Penal Substitution theory of atonement is taught in fundamentalist and evangelical circles as 'thus saith the Lord,' and so that was the only atonement theory I was exposed to for much of my Christian life. Penal Substitution theory argues that Jesus was punished on the cross in the place of sinners. It is generally recognized that the Penal Substitution theory was not taught in the early church and was conceived by a man named Anselm in 1098. Both Luther and Calvin adhered to the Penal Substitution theory of atonement, however, and it became the dominate theory in Protestant churches. But it wasn't until I began having some questions that I discovered this widely popular theory is only one among many atonement theories. Two other major theories worth mentioning here are the Christus Victor theory and the Moral Example theory. A summary of the different atonement theories can be read here.

Despite the strong emphasis on the cross in the Penal Substitution theory, it seems to me that adherence to this theory has left us with a cross bereft of any life-changing power and resulted in a crossless Christianity. Oh, there is much talk about Jesus' death on the cross - but little personal application. Basically, Christianity as we know it today has largely become an escapist religion: Jesus died on the cross so I don't have to do the hard work of dying to my selfish nature (a.k.a. the ego, flesh, lower nature, carnal man, the anti-christ within us). Jesus paid it all, so I don't have to....Jesus did it all, so I don't have to...Jesus lived a holy life, so I don't have to. As a matter of fact, all I have to do is be sure to get him to cover up anything my selfish nature is guilty of - by gettin' it "under the blood." And, finally, when God comes back and wrath is poured out on the entire planet - Well, none of it'll touch me, because I'll be raptured out of this world before the bad stuff starts...

We have forgotten that Jesus called us to take up our cross daily and follow him. Much benefit can be gained from the wisdom of Thomas Merton on this subject:

        "...it is essential to remember that for a Christian "the word of the Cross" is nothing
         theoretical, but a stark and existential experience of union with Christ in His death in
        order to share in His resurrection. To fully "hear" and "receive" the word of the Cross
         means much more than simple assent to the dogmatic proposition that Christ died for
         our sins. It means to be "nailed to the Cross with Christ," so that the ego-self is no
         longer the principle of our deepest actions, which now proceed from Christ living in
         us. "I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me" (Gal, 2:19-20; see also Romans 8:5-17).
         To receive the word of the Cross means the acceptance of a complete self-emptying, a
         Kenosis, in union with the self-emptying Christ "obedient to death." (Phil. 2:5-11) It is
         essential to true Christianity that this experience of the Cross and of self-emptying be
         central in the life of the Christian so that he may fully receive the Holy Spirit and know
         (again by experience) all the riches of God in and through Christ" (John 14:16-17, 26;
         15:26-27; 16:7-15)" Zen and the Birds of Appetite (p.55).

In the Moral Example theory, the call is to follow Jesus rather than have Jesus do it all so we don't have to. Jesus was the pattern son, who set an example that we are to follow - he showed us the way, and we are to travel that same way. Christ suffered for us, leaving an example, that we should follow in his steps. As we do so, we become partakers in his death, burial, and resurrection. That our 'old man' is crucified with him (Rom. 6:6) is not mere hyperbole, but must take place in like manner. Although not physical, this death to our selfish nature is not only a very real experience, but a very painful one as well.

Don Rogers posted an article at his Reflections blog by Steve Jones on this subject which I heartily agree with. He said:

"Jesus’ death works a change in us so that we give up our sinful, self-absorbed life and walk in his steps. This is salvation, the life of cross-carrying discipleship….The message of the cross should always be coupled with the message of discipleship. We must take up our cross and follow Christ in a life of servanthood and love. It is common for the New Testament authors to speak of the cross, then to speak of our need to “die” to sin and self-centeredness. And that is the crucial point – the grand objective of the crucifixion. It is for our sanctification that Jesus gave his life. Paul’s declaration “I am crucified with Christ” should be ours.” You can read the entire post here.

RICHARD ROHR ON THE MYSTERY OF CHRIST

2011-02-01T12:45:00.000-08:00

Several years ago, I wrote an article called The Coming of Christ. In that article, I was barely beginning to question traditional dogma on the second coming of Christ, and my sense of awe and wonder at the historical Jesus who became the Christ has only increased since that time. So I get excited when I hear wisdom like the following, which was expressed by Richard Rohr during a panel discussion from Evolutionary Christianity on The Heavens and Earth Declare Gods Glory:

"I think the reason that it even comes up [the Jesus question, the Christ question] is that we haven’t distinguished between the two. Jesus is the man we love and believe in who was born two thousand years ago. As Colossians, Ephesians, the prologue to the gospel of John make clear, the Christ existed from all eternity. And that, that just has to be taught. It seems to me when I speak it in so many groups, it’s an utter surprise. And because we haven’t made that clear distinction – that Jesus is the human personification of the eternal Christ – we’ve come up with all of these problems that we can’t tie our religion to cosmology, to what’s happening in all of creation. So for me, the Christ mystery is precisely the unity, the inherent unity between matter and spirit. And as soon as God decided to manifest God’s self, we have the birth of the Christ. I mean, we call it the big bang. Now, that’s my Franciscan understanding of the Cosmic Christ. And once that’s made clear, which it’s very clear in Scripture, but we didn’t have the eyes to see it, and maybe we didn’t have the world eyes to see it. But it’s amazing how many of these problems are quietly resolved for us. And we find that our Christ is not in any way a competitive religion with what is happening in the universe. That in fact, He has named what is happening in the universe…

The other question is that famous line from John 14, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” You know, it’s asked in so many conferences I speak at, and I come at it different ways, but maybe this will help here. We have clearly, in the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus is constantly presented as inclusive. Here he is a Jew, but he’s always including the Gentiles, the outsiders, foreigners, prostitutes, drunkards, the tax collectors, the Roman centurion, the Syrophoenician woman. So it’s very hard to think that this Jesus, who in his human life, is so consistently inclusive, would then create a religion in his name that was exclusive, or exclusionary. That was never his pattern. And so it forces us to interpret that line, “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” in a different way than “My religion is better than your religion,” or “I have the only true religion.” Now, one way I think it could well mean that is, again, if we understand the Christ as this eternal mystery of the co-existence of matter and spirit – which we call the mystery of the incarnation – that’s Christianity’s trump card. That’s what differentiates us from the other religions of the world – the belief in incarnation. So Jesus is saying, as the Christ, which is usually the one speaking in John’s gospel, This way, the way of the Christ, it’s the way of the universe, it’s the truth of the universe, it’s the life of the universe. Then I think it’s brilliant. That’s what I would agree with, and I would ask that people from other religions, at a more mature level, could also agree with. My disappointment is a lot of Christians, nominal Christians, or civil-religion Christians, don’t seem to believe in that. So they took an inclusive Jesus and made an exclusionary religion out of it."

You can listen to the entire discussion here. Scroll down to the January 29 panel discussion.

FEAR...OR LOVE?

2011-01-29T06:26:00.000-08:00

“Sin” – all the evil done by humankind – is at its core a result of humans trying to provide for their own safety, security, well-being and happiness at the expense of others. Sin, or evil, springs from the root of fear – fear of not having enough. Enough money, food, shelter, clothing or resources to survive. Or enough power over others to be able to procure from them what seems necessary for personal survival. All this to preserve the separate physical body that we have identified with.

I love this quote from Eknath Easwaran over at Blue Mountain Center of Meditation:

To be truly secure, we must begin to find a source of security within ourselves. Even the bravest among us have many fears. Behind the attachment to money or possessions, for example, you will always find the fear of loss. Attachment to prestige brings the nagging fear of what others think of us. The thirst for power feeds the fear that others may be stronger. Every self-centered desire brings the fear that we may not get what we desire.
One could make a Sears catalog of these fears, but all stem from one fatal superstition: thinking of ourselves as merely physical creatures, separate from the rest of life. As our sense of oneness with the rest of life deepens, we step out of the world of fear to live in the world of love.

What would our world look like if we realized the truth of the interconnectedness and oneness Scripture pictures as “a many membered body” (1 Corin. 12:4-27), who are “members one of another” (Eph. 4:25)? “That there should be no division in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another” (1 Corin. 12:25). What would it look like if we actually lived the more excellent way of LOVE that Scripture goes on to describe in I Corin. 13?

Fear blinds to the truth that we are all connected and that what is done to one affects the whole. Fear prevents us from seeing that when I harm my neighbor, I am harming myself, for if “…one member suffer, all the members suffer with it…” (1 Corin. 12:26). Fear is what prevents us from living in love. What if we could set our fears aside and see the truth of the appeal to love our neighbors AS we love ourselves? What a wonderful world that would be…the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

SEEING THROUGH THE ILLUSION

2011-01-23T06:54:00.000-08:00

There is an ancient story that tells of a student monk who began to laugh during group meditation and prayer. The other students, horrified and embarrassed for the monk, hoped that he would stop laughing. But his laughter grew louder and louder, until the other monks could not help but wonder what the master would do in the face of such irreverence. But to the amazement of all the other monks, the master pronounced the laughing monk enlightened! At first, this story seems difficult to understand. But the monk laughed because he saw through the veil – he saw that everything is wonderful! Everything does work together for GOOD! It may seem cliché, but everything IS just the way it is for a reason and a purpose and God is working it all together for a higher good, even what seems bad to us from our limited perspective. We begin to see that suffering and sorrow, although very real, are only for a season, and that everything is perfect and as it should be. This is the peace that passes all understanding. This is freedom.

When the veil of illusion that obscures the truth is removed, we will see that there was never anything to fear. We will see that it was only our limited perspective that gave us sorrow and made us cry. We will see that even death has no sting, but really is swallowed up in victory! Once the illusion is seen through, we can emerge from bondage to the fear of death to live in glorious freedom!

Read the complete article here.

MANY NAMES, ONLY ONE GOD

2011-01-20T11:32:00.000-08:00

For quite some time I have been coming into the realization that "there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all" (Col. 3:11). One Scripture I had trouble integrating with this wonderful truth is Acts 4:12, which says there is only one name under heaven by which men may be saved. But I have come to understand that both God and the Christ are called by many different names in Scripture. As a matter of fact, depending on how they're counted and what is included, there are over 120 names and titles for God and over 700 titles and different names for Jesus in the Bible. Have we missed the proverbial forest for the trees? Could there be ONE God that humans, with our limited perception, have called by many different names down through the ages? I was delighted to read the following excerpt from "The Mystics, God -Realization Through the Ages" by Swami Abhayananda. He makes this point more eloquently than I ever could:

"Often, men take the names of God, which accumulate over the centuries to represent separate and distinct entities, and then pit them one against the other. This was true of the early poets and mythologizers... As soon as one tribe or civilization absorbed another, it established its own name for God as the superior, and relegated the subjugated people's name for God to an inferior position. In this way, a polytheistic mythology accumulated in no time, peopled with all manner of anthropomorphized gods. This, however, is the work of the priests and mythologizers, not of the seers. As one mystic put it: "With words, priests and poets make into many the hidden Reality, which is but One."

"...It is often seen that those who have only a cursory knowledge of mystical philosophy become confused by the many different terms used to connote the Absolute by peoples of differing languages, and fail to penetrate beyond linguistic differences to grasp the common significance of words like "Brahman," "Purusha," "Tao," "Godhead," etc. But, just as, in various languages, the words, pani, jal, agua, eau, and water, all signify one common reality, so do the above words of various linguistic origins connote one common invisible Principle. All of the mystics of whatever time or cultural tradition have experienced the same one, indivisible, Reality; yet, because language is infinitely variable, they have called this One by various appellations.

"The understanding of the one Reality expressed by the authors of the Upanishads and the Gita is expressed in a remarkably similar manner by Lao Tze and Chuang Tze. This should not be surprising, however, since everyone who is graced with the transcendent vision experiences the same eternal Unity. What Lao Tze and Chuang Tze saw and wrote about is precisely what all other mystics have seen and wrote about. Their language is different, but their meaning is the same.

"As the 15th century Islamic saint, Dadu, put it, "All the enlightened have left one message; it is only those in the midst of their journey who hold diverse opinions."'

The entire book can be read online here.

CHRIST IS THE WAY

2011-01-10T08:11:00.000-08:00

The following is a transcript from an interview in “ONE – The Movie” in which Wayne Teasdale beautifully addresses the spirit in which Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.

"It is not those who say Lord, Lord who will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of the Father. And what is that will? He illustrates it in Matthew 25:40 when he talks about the final judgment and how to be saved. He says that then the King will say, meaning God, Come ye blessed of my Father, and inherit the Kingdom that was prepared for you from the beginning. Because when I was hungry, you gave me something to eat, when I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink. When I was naked you clothed me, when I was a stranger, you welcomed me, when I was imprisoned you visited me, when I was sick you consoled me.

"When, Lord, when did we do this? When you did it to the least of my brethren. It doesn’t say anything about faith in himself, faith in Jesus. Now, the Scripture scholars tell us we only know six sentences Jesus actually spoke – maybe even less than that. And to say…they will always bring up this I am the way, the truth, and the life. Okay, let’s take a peek at that, and illustrate that in spirit rather than in the letter. If God is love itself, infinite love, and Jesus is the incarnation of that love, he is come to reveal the essence of that love through his actions more than his words. That by being loving in that way – that selfless way – that is leading to the mystery of the Father, who is infinite love itself. To the extent that he is teaching that, illustrating that, he is the truth of that reality. And to the extent that he embodies that – that is the way of life. If a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Jew, an animist, an atheist, achieves that level of love in their life, not only do they know God, they know Christ…because Christ and God are that love.

"So you see this kind of narrow kind of interpretation leads to a kind of ossification of understanding. And I like to say narrow is the way that leads to eternal life, but it’s not narrow-mindedness. It’s love in action – you, know, it’s much deeper than that. And they don’t talk about love too much…they talk about, you know, do you know Jesus Christ. Well, do you REALLY know Jesus Christ? In that deeper, Biblical sense of intimacy with the Divine – do you embody that? Do you incarnate that? Do you radiate that? I think that’s closer to what Christ was talking about – to what the gospel was talking about."

The entire movie is available to watch online for free here.

STAGES OF SPIRITUAL GROWTH

2011-01-09T09:45:00.000-08:00

by M. Scott Peck, M.D.

Just as there are discernible stages in human physical and psychological growth, so there are stages in human spiritual development. These stages will be discussed here in general, for individuals are unique and do not always fit neatly into psychological or spiritual pigeonholes.

STAGE I:

Chaotic, Antisocial. Frequently pretenders; they pretend they are loving and pious, covering up their lack of principles. Although they may pretend to be loving (and think of themselves that way), their relationships with their fellow human beings are all essentially manipulative and self-serving. They really don't give a hoot about anyone else. I call the stage chaotic because these people are basically unprincipled. Being unprincipled, there is nothing that governs them except their own will. And since the will from moment to moment can go this way or that, there is a lack of integrity to their being. They often end up, therefore in jails or find themselves in another form of social difficulty. Some, however, may be quite disciplined in the services of expediency and their own ambition and so may rise in positions of considerable prestige and power, even to become presidents or influential preachers.

STAGE II:

Formal, Institutional, Fundamental. Beginning the work of submitting themselves to principle-the law, but they do not yet understand the spirit of the law, consequently they are legalistic, parochial, and dogmatic. They are threatened by anyone who thinks differently from them, as they have the "truth," and so regard it as their responsibility to convert or save the other 90 or 99 percent of humanity who are not "true believers." They are religious for clear cut answers, with the security of a big daddy God and organization, to escape their fear of living in the mystery of life, the mystery of uncertainty in the ever moving and expanding unknown. Instead they choose the formulations, the stagnation of prescribed methods and doctrines that spell out life and attempt to escape fear. Yet these theological reasonings simply cover over fear, hide fear and do not transcend it in spite of with acceptance in expanding movement. All those outside of Stage II are perceived to be as Stage I, as they do not understand Stage III and Stage IV. Those who do fall, reverting from Stage II to Stage I are called "backsliders."

There is a Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Benny Hinn, Pat Robertson, mentality (one-sided thinking - ignorance that produces hostility) in every religion, the one-sidedness, in every ideology. Christianity cannot be condemned as responsible for the fundamentalists who claim to represent such. One just has to look at Mother Teresa or Martin Luther King, Jr. to see the opposite of such thinking. You can find the Falwell in Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Jainism, Mohammedism and of course Christianity. That is the narrow one-sided exclusiveness that limits insight to one set of rules and one objective truth, under the literal logic or rationialism, that fails to apprehend the unseen intuitive essence of existence and ignorantly labels outsiders as misled sinners, while surrounding themselves with interior neurotic and finite walls of security and certainty. All is safe in this illusion, but all is not just, nor fair, and does not transcend prejudice that surpasses tribal identity, an identity that must be scrapped in order to bring higher consciousness of planetary cultural peace and love based on principle with intuitive insight.

There is also a Bin Laden (evil intolerance) in every religious culture and teaching, in every social, political and cultural view. Islam cannot be condemned as responsible for the extreme fundamentalists who incorporate harm and war. One just has to look at the other side within Islam, to the Sufi of compassion and peace, that of Bawa Muhaiyaddeen or Hazrat Inayat Khan. Yet the evil of extreme fundamentalism resides in all facets of society, those who would kill and destroy, torture and humiliate, all in the name of their theological and ideological views. They are of course the extreme fundamentalists, yet all forms of fundamentalism, both moderate to extreme, Stage II mentality, fails integration with non-acceptance, that of one-dimensional perception. And yet, in each of these same cultures, although the minority, there exists communal and mystical persons, Stage IV persons, those transmitting inclusiveness and compassion, who transcend all divisiveness in oneness.

STAGE III:

Skeptic, Individual, questioner, including atheists, agnostics and those scientifically minded who demand a measurable, well researched and logical explanation. Although frequently "nonbelievers," people in Stage III are generally more spiritually developed than many content to remain in Stage II. Although individualistic, they are not the least bit antisocial. To the contrary, they are often deeply involved in and committed to social causes. They make up their own minds about things and are no more likely to believe everything they read in the papers than to believe it is necessary for someone to acknowledge Jesus as Lord and Savior (as opposed to Buddha or Mao or Socrates) in order to be saved. They make loving, intensely dedicated parents. As skeptics they are often scientists, and as such they are again highly submitted to principle. Indeed, what we call the scientific method is a collection of conventions and procedures that have been designed to combat our extraordinary capacity to deceive ourselves in the interest of submission to something higher than our own immediate emotional or intellectual comfort--namely truth. Advanced Stage III men and women are active truth seekers.

Despite being scientifically minded, in many cases even atheists, they are on a higher spiritual level than Stage II, being a required stage of growth to enter into Stage IV. The churches age old dilemma: how to bring people from Stage II to Stage IV, without allowing them to enter Stage III.

STAGE IV:

Mystic, communal. Out of love and commitment to the whole, using their ability to transcend their backgrounds, culture and limitations with all others, reaching toward the notion of world community and the possibility of either transcending culture or -- depending on which way you want to use the words -- belonging to a planetary culture. They are religious, not looking for clear cut, proto type answers, but desiring to enter into the mystery of uncertainty, living in the unknown. The Christian mystic, as with all other mystics, Sufi and Zen alike, through contemplation, meditation, reflection and prayer, see the Christ, Gods indwelling Spirit or the Buddha nature, in all people, including all the Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Jews and so forth, recognizing the connectedness of all humanity with God, never separating oneself from others with doctrine and scripture, recognizing that all scripture acts as fallible pointers of inspiration, unable to capture the essence of truth outside of both human perception and the linguistic straight jacket of language and articulation, that is, the words of fallible men who experienced the nature of God, that of their inner true self, and attempted to record their experience in human words, words constrained by the era of time they were written in that became compromised the moment they were penned and are further removed from objectivity when interpreted by us, fallible men and women who read them.

It is as if the words of each had two different translations. In the Christian example: "Jesus is my savior," Stage II often translates this into a Jesus who is a kind of fairy godmother who will rescue us whenever we get in trouble as long as we remember to call upon his name. At Stage IV, "Jesus is my savior" is translated as "Jesus, through his life and death, taught the way, not through virgin births, cosmic ascensions, walking on water and blood sacrifice of reconciliation - man with an external daddy Warbucks that lives in the sky - mythological stories interpreted as literal accounts, but rather as one loving the whole, the outcasts, overcoming prejudices, incorporating inclusiveness and unconditional love, this, with the courage to be as oneself - that is what I must follow for my salvation." Two totally different meanings.

The Stage IV - the mystic - views the conception of "back sliding" as the movement away from the collective consciousness and true inner nature, returning to the separate self - the ego, as opposed to the Stage II - the fundamentalist, whose conception of "back sliding," is the movement away from mapped out security to that of chaos. Two totally different views.

This progression of spiritual development holds true in all cultures and for all religions. Indeed, one of the things that seems to characterized all the great religions--Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism--is their capacity to speak to people in both Stage II and Stage IV. In fact, I suspect this is why they are great religions. It is as if the words of each had two different translations. Let us take a Christian example. "Jesus is my savior." At Stage II this is often translated into a Jesus who is a kind of fairy godmother who will rescue me whenever I get in trouble as long as I remember to call upon his name. And that's true. He will do just that. At Stage IV, "Jesus is my savior" is translated as "Jesus, through his life and death, taught me the way I must follow for my salvation." Which is also true. Two totally different meanings, but both of them true.

We tend to be born Stage I creatures. If the home into which we are born is stable and secure, by mid childhood we have become law-abiding, rule-following people. If the home at all supports and encourages our uniqueness and independence, in adolescence we routinely question the laws, the rules, and the myths as budding skeptics. And if the natural forces of growth that lead us to question are not excessively resisted by threats of damnation from church or parents, after a while, in adulthood we slowly begin to understand the meaning and spirit that underlie the letter of the myth and the letter of the law. They may, however, be destructive forces in the home environment which causes people to become "fixated" in one stage or another.

The development of the individual through these spiritual or religious stages is that process to which we most properly give the name conversion. Conversions from Stage I to Stage II are usually sudden and dramatic conversions from Stage III to Stage IV are generally gradual.

The conversion from Stage I to Stage II is essentially a leap of socialization or enculturation. It is that point at which we first adopt the values of our tribal, cultural religion and begin to make them our own. Just as Stage II people tend to be threatened, however, by any questioning of their religious dogmas, so they are also "culture-bound"--utterly convinced that the way things are done in their culture is the right and only way. And just as people entering Stage III begin to question the religious doctrines with which they were raised, so they also begin to question all the cultural values of the society into which they were born. Finally, as they begin to reach for Stage IV, they also begin to reach toward the notion of world community and the possibility of either transcending culture or -- depending on which way you want to use the words -- belonging to a planetary culture.

Although a small minority, mystics of all religions the world over have demonstrated an amazing commonality, unity. Unique though they might be in their individual personhood, they have largely escaped free from -- transcended -- those human differences that are cultural. (Read the entire article here.)

A PRAYER FOR THE NEW YEAR

2011-01-01T06:31:00.000-08:00

In a post from 2009, Neale Donald Walsh said, “As we look around the world we see potentially eruptive situations at every turn. All across the globe danger lurks. People misunderstand each other. People mistrust each other. People in some cases despise each other. People hold each other down, suppress each other, violate each other’s rights, bomb each other’s homes—and defend themselves against others doing the same. Why? Because they do not understand the most basic truth about life…and about themselves: We are all one. There is no separation. Of anything from anything. All things are part of a Single Reality. There is only One Thing, and all things are part of the One Thing There Is. Our failure to understand this is the greatest cause of the ongoing dysfunction of the human race.” (Emphasis mine. Read the rest of his post here.)

I pray, as Jesus did - that WE ALL MAY BE ONE...

Allegory in Matthew 24

2010-12-09T09:15:00.000-08:00

The American Heritage Dictionary defines allegory as “The representation of abstract ideas or principles by characters, figures, or events in narrative, dramatic, or pictorial form.” Pilgrim’s Progress is a classic example of allegory. And for some time now, I have found the allegorical or symbolic approach to Bible interpretation to be increasingly enlightening.

I find value in the way that Unity churches study the Bible as history and allegory and interpret it as a metaphysical representation of humankind's evolutionary journey toward spiritual awakening. The Bible is seen as a story about the spiritual life right now, and the characters in the Bible represent ideas in one’s own mind.

The following quote demonstrates the use of allegory in another faith tradition: "There is a classical example in Tao quoted by Metzner, Ralph, Opening to Inner Light (© 1986 Jeremy Tarcher, Inc.) called the 10 Ox Herding by Kaku-an, 12th century Zen illustrator. It is an analogy or metaphor of a man looking for an ox by following its tracks. He finds the animal, tames it, and brings it inside his barn. The animal symbolically represents human’s raw or beastly emotions, feelings and impulses. Riding the animal represents taming the human emotions, impulses, feelings, etc., or the beast within every human. Clearly, this is an inward journey to develop self-control." (The remainder of this article can be read here.)

So, from an allegorical perspective, I have come to view the Bible as the story of an inward journey of transformation in which the characters portrayed represent aspects of our own selves, some of which we have projected outwardly and personified. For example, principalities, nations, and kingdoms can be seen as facets of our personalities that hold sway over us and control us - sometimes against our (conscious) will. Scripture also terms these forces that we are unaware of but that actually govern many of our actions as “the hidden things of darkness,” and promises they will all be brought to light.

Matthew 24

With that in mind, I’d like to take an allegorical look into Matthew 24 and the “end of the world.” I’ve found in this wonderful passage a great pictorial view of the death to self (the beast inside) that must take place in all of us if we are to be transformed.

You shall hear of wars and rumors of wars. You will begin to experience turmoil and wars within yourselves as the different aspects of your natures begin to battle. Don’t be troubled! These things must come to pass - they are necessary for your growth. But the end is not yet. Instead, these wars inside are only the beginning of your sorrows (vs. 8), for nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom (vs. 7). The kingdoms of darkness inside of all of us – all those things that have dominion over you but that you’re not aware of – will war with the kingdom of light. This will create great turmoil within you, and there will be a great famine (vs.7) inside of you. As the powers that previously held sway over you are removed, you will feel a great hunger for them because you had learned to depend on them. There will also be earthquakes in diverse places (v. 7). Your whole world will be shaken, and you’ll experience this in many different aspects of your life – even to the very core of your being!

When this gospel of the kingdom is preached in all the world (v 14) – when this good news is heard in every aspect of our selves, all those nations, powers, principalities, and dominions in us – then the end will come! Then you’ll begin to see clearly the abomination that sits in the temple of God, the beast that lives inside all of us that has been sitting on the throne and ruling all of our lives! When you see this beast, oh, don’t stop for anything then! Press on and don’t look back (v 16-20)! For now you will face the greatest tribulation you have ever seen (vs.21)! As a matter of fact, it is so horrendous that no could survive it unless God shortens it and gives us the strength to go through it (v 22).

And after the tribulation of those days (v29)? The end comes when the Christ inside of us puts down all other rule, authority and power, and delivers our personal Kingdom to God (I Corin 15:24). When this process is complete and the carnal nature (a.k.a devil, anti-christ, ego) inside of us meets its end, the eagles will gather where the carcass is and all that was “flesh” in us will be eaten by the birds (v 28). We will see the Christ coming inside of us with power and great glory (v 30)! The tribes of the earth will mourn at this (v 30) – all the earthly things that formerly ruled over us will have cause to grieve, for their power is no more! The sun will be darkened and the moon won’t give her light (v 29) – the things we formerly depended on for illumination and understanding will seem dark in comparison to the rise of the Daystar in our hearts and the illumination that the presence of Christ brings into our lives. What a glorious picture of the end of the world as we have known it!

The Law of Relativity

2010-12-02T15:31:00.000-08:00

I really wish I was smarter! I've been trying to understand the Law of Relativity - it's really been gripping me. I've learned from experience that when I become gripped by something like this,  there is usually something I need to perceive spiritually. So I've researched many sites on the internet - including those intended for children! - in an attempt to understand the Law of Relativity and to hear what the Spirit would teach me about it.

I finally came across this video:

Suddenly it clicked and I understood! Not that I understand the Law of Relativity (it's over my head!). But I understood the message that the Law of Relativity holds for me. It's really pretty simple - the place in which a person is standing determines their view of the truth. It follows that each person has a unique perspective - no two people see things exactly alike! When this is not understood, it can create problems when relating to others - and especially those of different backgrounds, cultures, and faith structures.  Two people may observe the very same phenomena, but see it from a different perspective or describe it in a different way. Neither is necessarily wrong, just different.

Here's an example that illustrates only one of the many ways this can play out in real life.  At one of my former workplaces, two co-workers became engaged in a heated discussion over the order in which documents should be placed in client files. One maintained that the participant's application should be placed first in the file, the other worker claimed the best position for the application was inarguably last. I watched as they argued back and forth for a few minutes. Finally I said, "Girls! what are you arguing about? You're both saying the same thing - each is just calling it something different. You're both saying that the application should go on the bottom! "

Now, do different but valid perspectives mean there's no absolute truth? No, just that any single perspective on truth can very well be partial. As Scripture says, "we see through a glass darkly..." But I do think that our different perspectives, if combined, could provide all of us with a larger view of the truth. And repair many of the divisions among us.

We Are One

2010-11-28T07:59:00.000-08:00

A couple of years ago, I had a revelation – I saw that the reason Jesus said to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is because WE ARE ONE - we are all part of one another. We are a many-membered body, and a man does not want to hurt his own body! Right there alongside the Golden Rule is “what ye measure out, it shall be measured again unto you.” So if I try to hurt others, oppress others, gain from others, then I hurt myself, oppress myself, cause myself loss.

With my Baptist background, this was a totally new and very radical thought to me. But by this time I had grown used to the fact that God is a pretty radical God, so I began looking in Scripture for confirmation. And of course it is there in bountiful measure even though I had not been able to see it until my eyes were opened to it. First of all, “the Lord our God is ONE Lord” (Duet 6:4). One means “that which is united as one in contrast to separate parts” (Dictionary of Biblical Languages). And unity means “the quality or state of not being multiple” (Mer. Web. Online Dictionary).

The body of Christ is a many-membered body (1Corin. 12:4-27, Eph. 4:25). “We, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another” (Rom. 12:5) There should be no schism in the body, but the members should have the same care for one another (1 Corin. 12:25). And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it, or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it (vs. 26). Yes, there are diversities (1 Corin. 12: 4-5) but it is all the same Spirit that is given to every man (vs. 7). So, who is my fellow member of the body of Christ? When we ask that, it’s like asking, “Who is my neighbor?” and Jesus’ answer to that was a Samaritan, a person considered to be totally excluded from the Kingdom of God. WOW! - my neighbor (whoever he/she is!) is part of the same body of Christ that I am! We are to love our neighbor as ourselves because our neighbor IS a part of ourselves! And when I harm my neighbor, it is harming myself, for my neighbor is part of me. My neighbor may not understand this yet, and may harm me – not realizing that when he does so he injures himself. We are all united – all ONE.

This means that we are to love one another as we would love our self. No one hates his own flesh! And we suffer as long as we keep harming others, because what we are doing in actuality is harming our own selves. When we have hatred, bitterness, and resentment toward others, we will reap that in our own lives and be filled with sorrows until we learn that what we intend for others will come back to us. Until we learn this, we will suffer. And this is the lesson that suffering is intended to teach.

One more insight, for now:

“…seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all” (Col 3:9-11).

Previously, I looked at these verses as meaning that when “they” all come into Christ, there will be no more divisions. Now I have seen that it is when “I” shed the old man (a.k.a. carnal mind, ego) and come into renewed knowledge, this is a place where “I” see there ARE no divisions – only unity in diversity. Where I can look with renewed perspective and see there is no Barbarian, Scythian, Buddhist, Hindu, etc. but that Christ IS all and is IN ALL.

The ramifications of these insights are enormous and have led me many new places, which I hope to write more about if I can even find words to express the wonder of it. Although mine has been a journey into a greater knowledge of the Love of God, many will view it as a journey from orthodoxy into heresy. So be it. The journey is scary, but onward I must go. The Lord has torn down my reliance on many commonly-held views and continued to abolish so many traditional assumptions of truth in my life until I felt I stood all alone. Now, my circle of inclusiveness has been expanded into yet another new place. A large place that includes all and where I can love all because they are just on a different place on this journey; a place where I can let others be free to be where they are, yet not allow them to tie me in any one place, for I am free to follow. I must follow, or I will die – for to follow is Life itself.

O! Give us grace, Lord, to love one another…

“That they may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they may be one in us...I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one”
(John 17:21,23)