For those that read my blog, the following is a talk (sermon) I gave recently, which includes the story I told about my sister in my last post.) I felt I needed to say that so you don't think I've totally gone blank in the head.
Last weekend Cathy and I were at Family Camp. This was a diocese-wide event led by the Canon for Children’s Ministries, Jana Sundin. The weekend was a beautiful experience in the Prescott pines at Chapel Rock, the diocese camp and retreat center.
The theme was “Unplug and Connect.” The idea was to unplug from the distractions of the world and connect with our family, our friends, and with God. Jana planned a wonderful weekend where all who attended had plenty of opportunities to unplug and connect.
Those who attended represented the lovely diversity of the Episcopal church; multi-generational families, kids of all ages, grandparents with their grandchildren, single moms, single dads, bi-racial families, just about everyone was represented.
I had so many fantastic experiences, but there isn’t time to share all of them. But there was one particular moment that especially captured my imagination. Saturday night, Jana planned what she called a “silly talent” show, meaning anyone, any age, could be silly or serious; tell silly jokes, put on a silly skit, or sing a serious song—and all of those things happened that night.
The final “act” was a single dad and his two-year-old daughter. The duo sang some heavenly spiritual songs from the Jewish tradition. As a finale, the young dad and his daughter danced. As he lifted her above his head, she laughed and giggled as he twirled her around.
In that moment, I saw myself twirling my own children above my head. And I saw my son twirling his sons above his head. And then I saw my dad twirling my sister above his head. And then I saw my granddad twirling my mother through the air. And then I could see my grandsons dancing with their children and twirling them above their heads. Then I began to see the relatives of the other people at the retreat dancing with their ancient/future ones. And then there were people of all the nations dancing with their children. In that moment I was caught up in the synchronicity of timelessness. In that moment I felt at one with the divine and all of God’s creation. In that moment, I felt love and hope.
Living in our world today, it can be difficult, at times, to feel like there is any love and hope to be found. Indiscriminate violence and hateful murders use to be something that happened in far away countries—now it happens in the streets of America on a daily basis. Hope seems hard to come by.
I think hope is the promise of Abraham’s vision. (Genesis 18:1-10) He was meditating under the oak where he had built an altar to God. In his meditation three men appeared to him. He insisted that they sit with him while he washed their feet and prepared a meal for them. Abraham sat with the three strangers and listened to them. In the synchronicity of the moment he heard that something new, something unimaginable was going to be born into this world—that something was hope.
We can experience hope when we entertain the visions of the impossible; when we think outside the boxes of accepted reality—it is then that hope becomes a possibility.
Hope becomes possible when we entertain the stranger, welcome them into our home, wash their feet, feed them, and listen to their story. At those moments the impossible becomes possible—in that moment, despair is transmuted into hope.
After the recent release of violence on our world, I was depressed and that drove me into the Black Sun of silence. I felt that all hope was gone. I knew then I had to go see my sister. I was sure she would know how to bring healing in to our broken world.
Dinah, at 61, is the oldest known living person in the Arizona who has Prader-Willi Syndrome. She is mentally and physically handicapped—she also suffered brain damage that resulted from a high fever when she was two weeks old. The temperature affected her ability to speak—over the years her vocabulary has increased to about 50 words.
When we sit at dinner, she is mostly silent. When I ask her questions I have to watch for answers that are found in a raised eyebrow, the tilt of her head, a smile or a frown, a gesture, and if I’m lucky, a word or two, some of which are impossible to understand.
That night the conversation turned to her friend, Brent. Jo, Dinah’s beloved care-giver, filled in the gaps of my sister’s story about this man who lives in another house for handicapped men. Brent has multiple-scoliosis—he’s paraplegic and can’t speak.
When they go to his house, Dinah sits with Brent, holds his hand, strokes his arm and says, “I luv ou.” She knows what Brent needs—human touch, a kind face, and the words of love that heal.
Dinah doesn’t see the color of your skin. She doesn’t care about your ethnicity. It doesn’t matter to her if your religious or not. She’s not concerned with how you identify your sexuality. I’ve watched Dinah interact with the diversity of humanity and she treats everyone the same way—a smile, a big hug, and pure love.
I’ve wondered a thousand times what it would be like to get inside Dinah’s head, to walk around in the world in her skin, to be Dinah. I’ve witnessed her frustration at not being able to tell her story. I imagine that’s why she connects so well with people who have been marginalized—people of color, people of various religions, people who are lesbians, people who are gay, people who are bi-sexual, people who are transgendered, people who are queer. They know what it’s like to not be able to freely, openly, safely tell their story. Dinah knows that feeling because she lives in the borderlands of unique difference. That night, listening to Dinah’s story, I was reminded once again that all for but a twist and turn of a tiny piece of Chromosome-15, Dinah and I would trade places. But, then again, I could say that about everybody I meet—we’re all just a breath of fate away from being in some other circumstance, living in someone else’s skin. That night I felt that Dinah was asking me if I could live my life like she lives hers.
That night Dinah taught me that if I really want to love someone, I have to touch them, dance with them, imagine myself being them, walk around in this world as if I am them. I have to let go of the idea that I am different than anyone else in the world, for by the very twist of a sliver of DNA, I could be that person. Maybe that’s what “love your neighbor as your self,” and “respect the dignity of every human being,” really means.
Dinah has changed Brent’s life with her love. Dinah has changed my life with her love. Indeed, Dinah’s kind of love could change our world. Dinah has taught me that by holding hands and loving indiscriminately, I can find hope. And I saw that hope last weekend in the vision of a single dad twirling his two-year-old daughter over his head. That vision brought me to the moment of parents of all colors, races, religions, and sexuality, loving and dancing with their kids. Love doesn’t see difference; love sees the presence of the divine in every human being. Love listen. And if we don’t listen to other people’s story; well that be the end of all our stories. It’s all so weird isn’t it? But it changes everything when we listen.
Monday, July 18, 2016
Friday, June 17, 2016
Want to Change the World? Love Like Dinah for a Day.
The evil violence that was unleashed on our LGBTQ sisters and brothers in Orlando drove me into the Black Sun of silence. I had to go see my sister. She would know how to bring healing in our broken world.
Dinah, at 61, is the oldest known living person in the Arizona who has Prader-Willi Syndrome. She is mentally and physically handicapped—she also suffered brain damage that resulted from a high fever when she was two weeks old. The temperature affected her ability to speak—over the years her vocabulary has increased to about 50 words.
When we sit at dinner, she is mostly silent. When I ask her questions I have to watch for answers that are found in a raised eyebrow, the tilt of her head, a smile or a frown, a gesture, and if I’m lucky, a word or two, some of which are impossible to understand.
Last night the conversation turned to her friend, Brent. Jo, Dinah’s beloved care-giver, filled in the gaps of my sister’s story about this man who lives in another house for handicapped men. Brent has multiple-scoliosis—he’s paraplegic and can’t speak. When they go to his house, Dinah sits with Brent, holds his hand, strokes his arm and says, “I luv ou.” She knows what Brent needs—human touch, a kind face, and the words of love that heal.
Dinah doesn’t see the color of your skin. She doesn’t care about your ethnicity. It doesn’t matter to her if your religious or not. She’s not concerned with how you identify your sexuality. I’ve watched Dinah interact with the diversity of humanity and she treats everyone the same way—a smile, a big hug, and pure love.
I’ve wondered a thousand times what it would be like to get inside Dinah’s head, to walk around in the world in her skin, to be Dinah. I’ve witnessed her frustration at not being able to tell her story. I imagine that’s why she connects so well with people who have been marginalized—people of color, people of various religions, people who are lesbians, people who are gay, people who are bi-sexual, people who are transgendered, people who are queer. They know what it’s like to not be able to freely, openly, safely tell their story. Dinah knows that feeling because she lives in the borderlands of unique difference. Last night I once again was reminded that all for but a twist and turn of a tiny piece of Chromosome-15, Dinah and I would trade places. But, then again, I could say that about everybody I meet—we’re all just a breath of fate away from being in some other circumstance, living in some else’s skin. Dinah was asking me if I could live my life like she lives hers.
Last night Dinah taught me that if I really want to love someone, I have to touched them, imagine myself being them, walk around in this world as if I am them. I have to let go of the idea that I am different than anyone else in the world, for by the very twist of sliver of DNA, I could be that person. Maybe that’s what “love your neighbor as your self,” and “respect the dignity of every human being,” really means.
Dinah has changed Brent’s life with her love. Dinah has changed my life with her love. Indeed, Dinah’s kind of love could change our world. You want to hold hands?
Dinah, at 61, is the oldest known living person in the Arizona who has Prader-Willi Syndrome. She is mentally and physically handicapped—she also suffered brain damage that resulted from a high fever when she was two weeks old. The temperature affected her ability to speak—over the years her vocabulary has increased to about 50 words.
When we sit at dinner, she is mostly silent. When I ask her questions I have to watch for answers that are found in a raised eyebrow, the tilt of her head, a smile or a frown, a gesture, and if I’m lucky, a word or two, some of which are impossible to understand.
Last night the conversation turned to her friend, Brent. Jo, Dinah’s beloved care-giver, filled in the gaps of my sister’s story about this man who lives in another house for handicapped men. Brent has multiple-scoliosis—he’s paraplegic and can’t speak. When they go to his house, Dinah sits with Brent, holds his hand, strokes his arm and says, “I luv ou.” She knows what Brent needs—human touch, a kind face, and the words of love that heal.
Dinah doesn’t see the color of your skin. She doesn’t care about your ethnicity. It doesn’t matter to her if your religious or not. She’s not concerned with how you identify your sexuality. I’ve watched Dinah interact with the diversity of humanity and she treats everyone the same way—a smile, a big hug, and pure love.
I’ve wondered a thousand times what it would be like to get inside Dinah’s head, to walk around in the world in her skin, to be Dinah. I’ve witnessed her frustration at not being able to tell her story. I imagine that’s why she connects so well with people who have been marginalized—people of color, people of various religions, people who are lesbians, people who are gay, people who are bi-sexual, people who are transgendered, people who are queer. They know what it’s like to not be able to freely, openly, safely tell their story. Dinah knows that feeling because she lives in the borderlands of unique difference. Last night I once again was reminded that all for but a twist and turn of a tiny piece of Chromosome-15, Dinah and I would trade places. But, then again, I could say that about everybody I meet—we’re all just a breath of fate away from being in some other circumstance, living in some else’s skin. Dinah was asking me if I could live my life like she lives hers.
Last night Dinah taught me that if I really want to love someone, I have to touched them, imagine myself being them, walk around in this world as if I am them. I have to let go of the idea that I am different than anyone else in the world, for by the very twist of sliver of DNA, I could be that person. Maybe that’s what “love your neighbor as your self,” and “respect the dignity of every human being,” really means.
Dinah has changed Brent’s life with her love. Dinah has changed my life with her love. Indeed, Dinah’s kind of love could change our world. You want to hold hands?
Monday, June 13, 2016
Guns or Rosaries
“Taste and see that God is good.” (Psalm 34:8)
I have two rosaries that I carry with me everywhere. One I’ve had over twenty years. The other I’ve had almost ten years.
The rosary I’ve had for ten years, Cathy gave to me as I prepared to walk across Ireland. The rosary has been bathed in holy wells all across Ireland. I held the rosary in my mom’s hand as she died. I dipped the rosary in the water as I baptized my two grandsons. I’ve prayed with dozens of people as they wept; they held one end of the rosary and I held the other. A month ago I prayed with Justino, a young friend of mine who at the time, was undocumented. He was preparing to walk across the border, back into Mexico for the first time in eleven years. He was given an immigration hearing and his hope was that he would be granted a Visa to become a permanent resident of the US. We held the rosary as we prayed. When we finished I told him to take the rosary with him as he walked across the border. I told him I wanted it back, but not until he could cross back into the US. Thankfully, he was granted a Visa and last week he gave me back the rosary.
The older rosary my daughter made for me with beads she had brought from Spain. I carried that rosary on every pilgrimage I’ve walked in Ireland. I’ve dipped it in the holy wells in Ireland and in the healing dirt of Chimayo, New Mexico. I’ve held the rosary in the hands of the dying and in the hands of women giving birth. Last week, I prayed with the young people of Saint Peter’s as they prepared to go to camp. We formed a circle around the altar, two of the young people completed the circle by holding the rosary between them. I asked them that would, over the course of the week, pass the rosary between them. I prayed that the rosary would be the very presence of God for them.
These two rosaries have taken on profound meaning for me—they, among other things, have become more than symbols—they have become the presence of God in my life. There have been times in my life when I wished I could have seen, heard, touched, smelled, or even tasted God. At those times I felt like I needed more than my imagination to connect with the Divine. And I don’t think I’m alone in my desire to have a physical experience with God. I think that’s been the desire of most spiritual people.
Historically, Christians have had a propensity for collecting relics that had been in the possession of a saint, an apostle, or even Jesus. (See Caroline Walker Bynum’s Christian Materiality) For centuries Christians have made pilgrimages to places like the Santiago de Compostela in order see the relics of Saint James of Zebedee. In other churches around the world there are relics from the wood of Jesus’s cross, Jesus’ sandals, the bones of saints, and the chains that bound Saint Peter. The point of having such relics is the belief that the relic has an inherent healing agency by the virtue of having been touched by the saint.
The theology behind the belief in the power of the relics comes from two scriptural references. 2 Kings 13:20-22 tells the story of a dead man who had been thrown into the tomb of Elisha. And when the dead man touched the bones of Elisha he came to life. And then in Acts 19:11-12 there is a story of people taking a cloth that had touched the skin of Saint Paul to the sick in order to heal the afflicted.
The basis of this kind of spiritual practice resides in the belief that God is present in all matter. We just have to be willing to open our eyes and see it at those thin places in life; like at birth, at healing, at baptism, at the Eucharist, or at the moment of death. What makes the spiritual practice of seeing God in all of creation so powerful is that you don’t need massive amounts faith to believe in the power of the material—you simply have to experience it. When the apostles asked Jesus to increase their faith, he told them that they already had enough faith; they simply needed to activate the faith they already had within them. (Luke 17:5) It’s what Richard Rohr means when he says we were born with the DNA of God within us.
In the letter to the Galatians (2:15-21) Saint Paul tells us that we already have the “faith of Jesus Christ,” emblazoned in our soul. For centuries we have been taught that we were responsible for having enough “faith in Jesus Christ” in order to have a complete and lasting experience with God. But now, scholars of Saint Paul are telling us that this text has been miss-translated. The text should not read that we need “faith in Jesus Christ.” But instead, “the faith of Jesus Christ” has already been implanted within us. In others words, our being made whole was done by the work of Jesus’s faith in God and not reliant on our faith or our belief in Jesus. (See Paul Among the Postliberals by Douglas Harink)
The faith of Jesus Christ was made evident by the life he lived—a human life that he lived to the fullest; he was born of women, he walked the dusty roads of life, he was hungry and thirsty, he suffered, and he died. He knew the full range of the human experience. And the experience of his life taught him that God is love and that love is everywhere, in everything, and in everybody. He lived that truth and he taught us that truth—God is love; a love found in birth, a love found in living life, a love found in dying. God’s love is the kind of love we can see, touch, feel, smell, and taste. God’s love is found in the bread we eat and the wine we drink. When we begin to allow ourselves to see God in everything around us, it will change the way we live, move, and have our being in this world.
We are all stunned by the mass murder committed in Orlando, Florida Sunday morning. We are appalled by the violence that is escalating in our country everyday. I wonder, do we trust more in God’s presence in our lives, or we do we trust more in our need to feel protected by guns?
I have to wonder why giving everyone in the US the right to own a military style automatic weapon is necessary? What if the sale of military style weapons were banned to the general public? If the killers in Orlando, San Bernardino, Newtown and countless number of almost daily incidents didn’t have automatic weapons, would the number of deaths be less? Or would the killers even have had the courage to carry out such tragic, senseless acts? I wonder what keeps us, as a people of faith, from crying out to our governmental leaders to stand up to the NRA and pass legislation banning the mass killer’s weapon of choice?
Personally, I don’t own a gun. I don’t want guns around me. True, it would be unthinkably tragic if a gunmen killed my family. But, in the end, no one can kill the presence of God within me. Truthfully, I’d rather carry a rosary than a gun.
“Taste and see that God is good.” (Psalm 34:8)
I have two rosaries that I carry with me everywhere. One I’ve had over twenty years. The other I’ve had almost ten years.
The rosary I’ve had for ten years, Cathy gave to me as I prepared to walk across Ireland. The rosary has been bathed in holy wells all across Ireland. I held the rosary in my mom’s hand as she died. I dipped the rosary in the water as I baptized my two grandsons. I’ve prayed with dozens of people as they wept; they held one end of the rosary and I held the other. A month ago I prayed with Justino, a young friend of mine who at the time, was undocumented. He was preparing to walk across the border, back into Mexico for the first time in eleven years. He was given an immigration hearing and his hope was that he would be granted a Visa to become a permanent resident of the US. We held the rosary as we prayed. When we finished I told him to take the rosary with him as he walked across the border. I told him I wanted it back, but not until he could cross back into the US. Thankfully, he was granted a Visa and last week he gave me back the rosary.
The older rosary my daughter made for me with beads she had brought from Spain. I carried that rosary on every pilgrimage I’ve walked in Ireland. I’ve dipped it in the holy wells in Ireland and in the healing dirt of Chimayo, New Mexico. I’ve held the rosary in the hands of the dying and in the hands of women giving birth. Last week, I prayed with the young people of Saint Peter’s as they prepared to go to camp. We formed a circle around the altar, two of the young people completed the circle by holding the rosary between them. I asked them that would, over the course of the week, pass the rosary between them. I prayed that the rosary would be the very presence of God for them.
These two rosaries have taken on profound meaning for me—they, among other things, have become more than symbols—they have become the presence of God in my life. There have been times in my life when I wished I could have seen, heard, touched, smelled, or even tasted God. At those times I felt like I needed more than my imagination to connect with the Divine. And I don’t think I’m alone in my desire to have a physical experience with God. I think that’s been the desire of most spiritual people.
Historically, Christians have had a propensity for collecting relics that had been in the possession of a saint, an apostle, or even Jesus. (See Caroline Walker Bynum’s Christian Materiality) For centuries Christians have made pilgrimages to places like the Santiago de Compostela in order see the relics of Saint James of Zebedee. In other churches around the world there are relics from the wood of Jesus’s cross, Jesus’ sandals, the bones of saints, and the chains that bound Saint Peter. The point of having such relics is the belief that the relic has an inherent healing agency by the virtue of having been touched by the saint.
The theology behind the belief in the power of the relics comes from two scriptural references. 2 Kings 13:20-22 tells the story of a dead man who had been thrown into the tomb of Elisha. And when the dead man touched the bones of Elisha he came to life. And then in Acts 19:11-12 there is a story of people taking a cloth that had touched the skin of Saint Paul to the sick in order to heal the afflicted.
The basis of this kind of spiritual practice resides in the belief that God is present in all matter. We just have to be willing to open our eyes and see it at those thin places in life; like at birth, at healing, at baptism, at the Eucharist, or at the moment of death. What makes the spiritual practice of seeing God in all of creation so powerful is that you don’t need massive amounts faith to believe in the power of the material—you simply have to experience it. When the apostles asked Jesus to increase their faith, he told them that they already had enough faith; they simply needed to activate the faith they already had within them. (Luke 17:5) It’s what Richard Rohr means when he says we were born with the DNA of God within us.
In the letter to the Galatians (2:15-21) Saint Paul tells us that we already have the “faith of Jesus Christ,” emblazoned in our soul. For centuries we have been taught that we were responsible for having enough “faith in Jesus Christ” in order to have a complete and lasting experience with God. But now, scholars of Saint Paul are telling us that this text has been miss-translated. The text should not read that we need “faith in Jesus Christ.” But instead, “the faith of Jesus Christ” has already been implanted within us. In others words, our being made whole was done by the work of Jesus’s faith in God and not reliant on our faith or our belief in Jesus. (See Paul Among the Postliberals by Douglas Harink)
The faith of Jesus Christ was made evident by the life he lived—a human life that he lived to the fullest; he was born of women, he walked the dusty roads of life, he was hungry and thirsty, he suffered, and he died. He knew the full range of the human experience. And the experience of his life taught him that God is love and that love is everywhere, in everything, and in everybody. He lived that truth and he taught us that truth—God is love; a love found in birth, a love found in living life, a love found in dying. God’s love is the kind of love we can see, touch, feel, smell, and taste. God’s love is found in the bread we eat and the wine we drink. When we begin to allow ourselves to see God in everything around us, it will change the way we live, move, and have our being in this world.
We are all stunned by the mass murder committed in Orlando, Florida Sunday morning. We are appalled by the violence that is escalating in our country everyday. I wonder, do we trust more in God’s presence in our lives, or we do we trust more in our need to feel protected by guns?
I have to wonder why giving everyone in the US the right to own a military style automatic weapon is necessary? What if the sale of military style weapons were banned to the general public? If the killers in Orlando, San Bernardino, Newtown and countless number of almost daily incidents didn’t have automatic weapons, would the number of deaths be less? Or would the killers even have had the courage to carry out such tragic, senseless acts? I wonder what keeps us, as a people of faith, from crying out to our governmental leaders to stand up to the NRA and pass legislation banning the mass killer’s weapon of choice?
Personally, I don’t own a gun. I don’t want guns around me. True, it would be unthinkably tragic if a gunmen killed my family. But, in the end, no one can kill the presence of God within me. Truthfully, I’d rather carry a rosary than a gun.
“Taste and see that God is good.” (Psalm 34:8)
Monday, May 23, 2016
Wisdom Completes the Trinity
“Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice?” (Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31)
I think it is most appropriate that one of the readings for Trinity is about Wisdom; for Eternal Wisdom is the feminine aspect of the Divine. She makes the Trinity complete.
Wisdom is found at the intersection of our existential experience with the mystery of the unseen. Such an experience rocks our world, yet defies explanation. Our mind and words fail miserably to translate what our heart aches to express. Wisdom is found by living an allegorical, metaphorical, mystical life filled with uncertainty and question.
Carl Jung said that wisdom is “a spirit of light…a living spirit that lives in all creatures as the spirit of wisdom.” (Mysterium)
I love hiking in Prescott, especially in the area above Lynx’s Lake. My dad built a small cabin in that area years ago. I’ve been roaming those mountains since I was nine-years-old. The last couple of years I’ve made friends with four ravens who have their rookery just across the ridge from our cabin.
A few years ago I was preparing for my walk across Ireland. So, I spent a lot of time hiking the hills around our cabin. Most mornings, just before sunrise, the ravens would be just outside our cabin, talking. Praak, praak, praak—begging me like children to come outside and play. With their encouragement, I was out the door before dawn. Most every morning the ravens would be at the bottom of the hill below our cabin, picking the ground for bugs. They would let me get just so close and then they would taunt me, hopping, joking, teasing and then they would fly low down the ridge. I knew they were headed to their little morning playground. I followed them down the road a few miles. One morning, the largest raven was sitting on a branch next to the road. For reason, I stopped and I told the raven that in all the years I had walked through the area they had never left me a feather. Of course, he mocked me. Praak, praak, praak. Who am I to ask for such a thing?
So, I kept on walking. I made my way down the road a ways before I reached the usual place I stop for a rest before heading back up the mountain. As I headed back to our cabin I didn’t expected to see the ravens anymore because it was getting later in the morning. But as I got close to their playground the big raven flew behind me and across to the more narrow side of the road. When I got to where he was perched in a tree by the road, there I found a feather lying on the ground. It was a long deep wing feather, with a band of fans missing. The feather was a gift from the leader of the rook.
I was awed and humbled. I bowed to the raven and thanked him for the gift. As I continued moving up the road I kept staring at the aged and beaten feather. Within a few dozen steps the raven passed in right in front of my path. Now he was ahead of me twenty yards in a tree on the wider side of the road. The giant bird was squawking at me. I stopped. He peeked out from behind the trunk of a giant pine. He beckoned again. I started to walk away. He screamed louder. The noise was so startling I stopped dead in my tracks. I made my away across the road. The raven was on the backside of the tree away from the road. As I stared up to see the bird I heard a truck barreling down the road. I turned to see the truck clip the rocks on the blind, narrow side of the road—exactly where I would have been walking. The driver would have struck me head on without ever having seen me.
My heart froze in my throat. My lungs had shut off. I felt like my soul would leave my body. I bent over with my hands on my knees. I wanted to vomit but my stomach was shriveled at the bottom of my bowels. My eyes quivered. I leaned into the tree knowing I was going to faint. Then I heard the raven drop down a few branches and cluck that guttural affection they can share with one another. I held onto the tree and looked up. The bird turned his head to the side to get better look at me. The great raven was making sure I was okay. Convinced I would soon breathe again, the giant bird dropped wing and swung down over me and then glided into the gulley below.
I know you expect me to give you some explanation of what happened. You would like for me to say, “Oh, the Great Creator moved his creature the raven to draw my attention and get me across the road.” Or maybe you would like me to say, “Wow, what an amazing moment of synchronicity.” Possibly you’re saying, “God saved your ass.” And you might be saying, “That’s weird.” Well, you may believe whatever you like—because I don’t know what happened. But I do keep reflecting on that experience. I feel like I heard the spirit of wisdom call me into the weird uncertainty of it all. Eternal Wisdom appears in the cross roads of death and life.
Carl Jung wrote in Mysterium that “Life wants not only the clear but the muddy, not only the bright but also the dark; (life) wants all days to be followed by nights, and wisdom herself to celebrate her carnival.”
Wisdom is born out of our relationships (Joanna Macy). The relationship begins with our with our own Self. Without a relationship with our Self how can we have a relationship with God or anyone else? Wisdom arises from the integration of our muddy relationships, found in the four directions of the four dimensions of our Self (Bill Plotkin). Wisdom calls when we are willing to listen to all our relationships, with our Self, the Divine, each other, and Mother Nature and all her creatures, animals, birds, trees, and the stones.
The sun rises in the east with our innocence. The sun swings south where we find our sensual Self. The sun moves west so that our visionary muse will emerge. And then the sun moves north into the region where our Self becomes a sage; the full integration of our Self brings us into a humble moment of being able to share our wisdom.
To share wisdom we must make our way through our pilgrimage of the four directions. Finally, up in the mountain of the north. There we draw a circle on the face of earth. We sit in that circle and wait for others who seek our wisdom. We wait for them to ask questions. Then, and only then, can we share our own stories—allegorical, metaphorical, mystical stories that are filled with uncertainty and question.
Wisdom is found at the intersection of our existential experience with the mystery of the unseen. Such an experience rocks our world, yet defies explanation. Our mind and words fail miserably to translate what our heart aches to express. Wisdom is found by living an allegorical, metaphorical, mystical life filled with uncertainty and question. Wisdom is found the completeness of the four; Eternal Wisdom completes the Trinity.
I think it is most appropriate that one of the readings for Trinity is about Wisdom; for Eternal Wisdom is the feminine aspect of the Divine. She makes the Trinity complete.
Wisdom is found at the intersection of our existential experience with the mystery of the unseen. Such an experience rocks our world, yet defies explanation. Our mind and words fail miserably to translate what our heart aches to express. Wisdom is found by living an allegorical, metaphorical, mystical life filled with uncertainty and question.
Carl Jung said that wisdom is “a spirit of light…a living spirit that lives in all creatures as the spirit of wisdom.” (Mysterium)
I love hiking in Prescott, especially in the area above Lynx’s Lake. My dad built a small cabin in that area years ago. I’ve been roaming those mountains since I was nine-years-old. The last couple of years I’ve made friends with four ravens who have their rookery just across the ridge from our cabin.
A few years ago I was preparing for my walk across Ireland. So, I spent a lot of time hiking the hills around our cabin. Most mornings, just before sunrise, the ravens would be just outside our cabin, talking. Praak, praak, praak—begging me like children to come outside and play. With their encouragement, I was out the door before dawn. Most every morning the ravens would be at the bottom of the hill below our cabin, picking the ground for bugs. They would let me get just so close and then they would taunt me, hopping, joking, teasing and then they would fly low down the ridge. I knew they were headed to their little morning playground. I followed them down the road a few miles. One morning, the largest raven was sitting on a branch next to the road. For reason, I stopped and I told the raven that in all the years I had walked through the area they had never left me a feather. Of course, he mocked me. Praak, praak, praak. Who am I to ask for such a thing?
So, I kept on walking. I made my way down the road a ways before I reached the usual place I stop for a rest before heading back up the mountain. As I headed back to our cabin I didn’t expected to see the ravens anymore because it was getting later in the morning. But as I got close to their playground the big raven flew behind me and across to the more narrow side of the road. When I got to where he was perched in a tree by the road, there I found a feather lying on the ground. It was a long deep wing feather, with a band of fans missing. The feather was a gift from the leader of the rook.
I was awed and humbled. I bowed to the raven and thanked him for the gift. As I continued moving up the road I kept staring at the aged and beaten feather. Within a few dozen steps the raven passed in right in front of my path. Now he was ahead of me twenty yards in a tree on the wider side of the road. The giant bird was squawking at me. I stopped. He peeked out from behind the trunk of a giant pine. He beckoned again. I started to walk away. He screamed louder. The noise was so startling I stopped dead in my tracks. I made my away across the road. The raven was on the backside of the tree away from the road. As I stared up to see the bird I heard a truck barreling down the road. I turned to see the truck clip the rocks on the blind, narrow side of the road—exactly where I would have been walking. The driver would have struck me head on without ever having seen me.
My heart froze in my throat. My lungs had shut off. I felt like my soul would leave my body. I bent over with my hands on my knees. I wanted to vomit but my stomach was shriveled at the bottom of my bowels. My eyes quivered. I leaned into the tree knowing I was going to faint. Then I heard the raven drop down a few branches and cluck that guttural affection they can share with one another. I held onto the tree and looked up. The bird turned his head to the side to get better look at me. The great raven was making sure I was okay. Convinced I would soon breathe again, the giant bird dropped wing and swung down over me and then glided into the gulley below.
I know you expect me to give you some explanation of what happened. You would like for me to say, “Oh, the Great Creator moved his creature the raven to draw my attention and get me across the road.” Or maybe you would like me to say, “Wow, what an amazing moment of synchronicity.” Possibly you’re saying, “God saved your ass.” And you might be saying, “That’s weird.” Well, you may believe whatever you like—because I don’t know what happened. But I do keep reflecting on that experience. I feel like I heard the spirit of wisdom call me into the weird uncertainty of it all. Eternal Wisdom appears in the cross roads of death and life.
Carl Jung wrote in Mysterium that “Life wants not only the clear but the muddy, not only the bright but also the dark; (life) wants all days to be followed by nights, and wisdom herself to celebrate her carnival.”
Wisdom is born out of our relationships (Joanna Macy). The relationship begins with our with our own Self. Without a relationship with our Self how can we have a relationship with God or anyone else? Wisdom arises from the integration of our muddy relationships, found in the four directions of the four dimensions of our Self (Bill Plotkin). Wisdom calls when we are willing to listen to all our relationships, with our Self, the Divine, each other, and Mother Nature and all her creatures, animals, birds, trees, and the stones.
The sun rises in the east with our innocence. The sun swings south where we find our sensual Self. The sun moves west so that our visionary muse will emerge. And then the sun moves north into the region where our Self becomes a sage; the full integration of our Self brings us into a humble moment of being able to share our wisdom.
To share wisdom we must make our way through our pilgrimage of the four directions. Finally, up in the mountain of the north. There we draw a circle on the face of earth. We sit in that circle and wait for others who seek our wisdom. We wait for them to ask questions. Then, and only then, can we share our own stories—allegorical, metaphorical, mystical stories that are filled with uncertainty and question.
Wisdom is found at the intersection of our existential experience with the mystery of the unseen. Such an experience rocks our world, yet defies explanation. Our mind and words fail miserably to translate what our heart aches to express. Wisdom is found by living an allegorical, metaphorical, mystical life filled with uncertainty and question. Wisdom is found the completeness of the four; Eternal Wisdom completes the Trinity.
Monday, May 16, 2016
Black Sun
I have heard the Spirit speak to me in her fire. The fire that refines is not to destroy us but instead to heal our wounds with spiritual gold. The Hebrew Bible has several references to the Spirit of God being the refiner’s fire—Malachi 3:2, Ezekiel 1:3, Zechariah 13:9, Jeremiah 9:7, and Daniel 12:10 which reads, “Many shall be purified, cleansed, refined…and the wise shall understand.”
The refiner’s fire burns hot. The heat can become so intense that the sun appears black—what Saint John of the Cross described as the Dark Night of the Soul. At those moments we are being prepared for our descent into the unconscious so that we might experience some of the most numinous imaginations of the psychic life. (Stanton Martin, The Black Sun) The Black Sun is a paradox; it is blacker than black while at the same time it shines with dark luminescence that opens the way for us to find a healing path.
In The Acts of the Apostles (2:1-21) we hear Saint Peter quote the Book of Joel (2:28-32); metaphorically, he is making a reference to the resurrection of Jesus as a path to our spiritual healing, our resurrection. For us to be able to see wisely and to understand our psychic resurrection, our salvation, we will have to experience our own metaphoric crucifixion, the Dark Night of the Soul, when the “sun shall be turned to darkness.” (Psalm 22:1)
Some of you may be familiar with the song “Black Sun” by Death Cab for Cutie. The lyrics of the song were inspired by the Japanese art of Kintsugi, which recognizes the beauty of broken things. The artist takes broken ceramics and repairs it with gold.
Front man for Death Cab, Ben Gibbard, describes the beauty of broken things, the beauty of suffering in the lyric of his song “Black Sun.”
There is an answer in a question
And there is hope within despair
And there is beauty in a failure
And there are depths beyond compare
There is a role of lifetime
And there’s a song yet to be sung
And there’s a dumpster in the driveway
Of all the plans that came undone
How could something so fair
Be so cruel
When the black sun revolved around you.
It would be nice if our only experience of the Holy Spirit were her gentle breeze that refreshes our soul. Or those times when she comforts us in our despair. Indeed, the Spirit does bring refreshment and comfort to us. But many us have experienced the Dark Night of the Soul when sun turned black. At those times, we can be oddly reassured, that even though we are suffering and feeling abandoned, forsaken, and our dreams may have been dashed on the pavement and thrown in a dumpster, we will be restored with the refiner’s gold of the Spirit, who heals our woundedness with spiritual fire.
The refiner’s fire burns hot. The heat can become so intense that the sun appears black—what Saint John of the Cross described as the Dark Night of the Soul. At those moments we are being prepared for our descent into the unconscious so that we might experience some of the most numinous imaginations of the psychic life. (Stanton Martin, The Black Sun) The Black Sun is a paradox; it is blacker than black while at the same time it shines with dark luminescence that opens the way for us to find a healing path.
In The Acts of the Apostles (2:1-21) we hear Saint Peter quote the Book of Joel (2:28-32); metaphorically, he is making a reference to the resurrection of Jesus as a path to our spiritual healing, our resurrection. For us to be able to see wisely and to understand our psychic resurrection, our salvation, we will have to experience our own metaphoric crucifixion, the Dark Night of the Soul, when the “sun shall be turned to darkness.” (Psalm 22:1)
Some of you may be familiar with the song “Black Sun” by Death Cab for Cutie. The lyrics of the song were inspired by the Japanese art of Kintsugi, which recognizes the beauty of broken things. The artist takes broken ceramics and repairs it with gold.
Front man for Death Cab, Ben Gibbard, describes the beauty of broken things, the beauty of suffering in the lyric of his song “Black Sun.”
There is an answer in a question
And there is hope within despair
And there is beauty in a failure
And there are depths beyond compare
There is a role of lifetime
And there’s a song yet to be sung
And there’s a dumpster in the driveway
Of all the plans that came undone
How could something so fair
Be so cruel
When the black sun revolved around you.
It would be nice if our only experience of the Holy Spirit were her gentle breeze that refreshes our soul. Or those times when she comforts us in our despair. Indeed, the Spirit does bring refreshment and comfort to us. But many us have experienced the Dark Night of the Soul when sun turned black. At those times, we can be oddly reassured, that even though we are suffering and feeling abandoned, forsaken, and our dreams may have been dashed on the pavement and thrown in a dumpster, we will be restored with the refiner’s gold of the Spirit, who heals our woundedness with spiritual fire.
Friday, April 22, 2016
What does it mean to be a healer?
One of the most difficult things that we endure in the human experience is watching our friends and loved ones suffer and die. As Christians, we often struggle with knowing how to pray for them. In the Acts of the Apostles (9:36-43) we read that one of the most important the functions of the church is to pray for the healing of sick and the souls of the dead. The church body takes on the role of a community of healers for the broken world.
So how do we become a community of healers? First, we acknowledge our God-given natural state of being in full union with God. We have been imprinted with the DNA of God. We are the daughters and sons of God. Jesus said that he and God were one. He goes to tell us that just as he and God were in union, we too are in union with God. God abides in us. We abide in God. Then Jesus go even further to say that because we too are children of God, we will do even greater things than he did (John 14:12). That means we will be healers like Master Jesus.
So what is healing? Healing is creating a space for the integration of our mind, body, soul (psyche), and spirit (relationship with the divine)—in others words to heal is to bring about a state of non-duality—what we call holistic living. What this means is that what affects one aspect our self, affects every other aspect of our self. Therefore, if our mind is healed, so then too our body will feel the affects of that healing, likewise our soul, and our spirit will feel the affects.
As a community of healers we must trust the divine to know what aspect of the person we are praying for needs the most attention. While we might see the need for someone’s physical healing, the divine may sense a greater need for the healing of the soul. That means we must let go of what we desire for the person and give our trust over to the divine to do the best form of healing for the person.
The vast majority of us pray for the sick. We pray as a community. This is the work of the church. Several studies in holistic medicine have shown that a significant percentage of people that know they are being prayed for (especially by a large community of people) typically recover faster or bear the burden of their illness better. That latter part of the statement is often difficult for us hear. Regardless of the outcome, we pray as a community for the person’s holistic healing, trusting the divine to do her work. This is what our prayer book teaches us.
On page 458 of the Book of Common Prayer, there is a prayer that has been offered for the sick for over 500 years. Pray for people. Call their name. There’s no need for you to guide the divine in what you want done. You don’t need to know what’s wrong with the person. You don’t need to know who the person is. Simply pray. Let the prayer do its work in the ears of the Divine Spirit.
O Father of mercies and God of all comfort, our only help in time of need: We humbly beseech thee to behold, visit, and relieve thy sick servant N. for whom our prayers are desired. Look upon him with the eyes of thy mercy; comfort him with a sense of thy goodness; preserve him from the temptations of the enemy; and give him patience under his affliction. In thy good time, restore him to health, and enable him to lead the residue of his life in thy fear, and to thy glory; and grant that finally he may dwell with thee in life everlasting; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
While we all pray as a community, there are within the community, are a very few people whose vocation is to be a healer, like Saint Peter. Vocation is your purpose in life. Everyone has a purpose, a vocation. God has imprinted your purpose on your soul; it’s in the DNA of your soul. Your purpose is a gift that can always be used to serve other people. Your purpose in life might be, to be creative, artistic, to build, to inspire, to teach, to heal. But remember, your purpose doesn’t have anything to do with your job. It’s nice if your purpose and your job are in sync with one another—but that’s not absolutely necessary.
If your vocation, your purpose in life, is to be a healer—other people will recognize this in you. You do not have to point out your gifts to others. Most people I know that are healers never call themselves healers. Healers don’t rely fully on their gifts. They recognize that they are a conduit—a channel for the healing love of the Divine Spirit. Healers find a teacher and learn the art of healing, like Saint Peter who was trained by the Master Healer, Jesus. They are trained, in something like Reiki, Healing Touch, Message therapy, shamanism, or alchemy. Then they practice. In practicing they learn that they will, at times, fail, like Peter who failed on more than one occasion. Finally, the healer learns the lesson that healing has a cost. Master Jesus knew the cost. When the woman in the crowd touched the hem of Jesus’ garment, he knew that some of his energy, his love, had gone of his body.
Real sustainable healing comes from the mutual exchange of divine love. This was the teaching of the Inkling Charles Williams. To be a healer, one must know that the love of the divine spirit is the healing agent, the healer, however, the healer must also know that in the act of the exchange of healing love, the healer will be left with a residual from the exchange. In other words, the healer must prepare their self for the cost of transmutation to take place in their life.
That’s what happened to Saint Peter. After he healed Tabitha, he went to the house of Simon the tanner. There, Peter had been fasting and praying. He had a vision. In the vision he learned that he would have to sacrifice an important portion of his religious practice. What he had to give up would be the equivalent of us being told that instead of going to St. Peter’s Episcopal Church to worship, we now had to go to the mosque to pray every Friday. The cost of being a healer is always substantial. Sometimes even our own life.
A very close friend of mine, Scott Haasarud died this past Wednesday He was a healer. He was a friend, spiritual director, therapist, and mentor in all things Carl Jung. He was a big man in every way. He loved deeply and healed with love from his heart. He healed the broken hearts of so many people and finally his big heart could give no more. He was Master Jesus for me so many times.
We are followers of the Master Healer, Jesus. We have been left the task of healing broken hearts and lives. To be a healing community, we must live in the abiding love and union with the One Holy Living God. We must live integrated lives. We must pray for the sick and the souls of the dying. And we must trust the divine to do her work for the sake of the mind, body, soul, and spirit. We must be a healing community.
So how do we become a community of healers? First, we acknowledge our God-given natural state of being in full union with God. We have been imprinted with the DNA of God. We are the daughters and sons of God. Jesus said that he and God were one. He goes to tell us that just as he and God were in union, we too are in union with God. God abides in us. We abide in God. Then Jesus go even further to say that because we too are children of God, we will do even greater things than he did (John 14:12). That means we will be healers like Master Jesus.
So what is healing? Healing is creating a space for the integration of our mind, body, soul (psyche), and spirit (relationship with the divine)—in others words to heal is to bring about a state of non-duality—what we call holistic living. What this means is that what affects one aspect our self, affects every other aspect of our self. Therefore, if our mind is healed, so then too our body will feel the affects of that healing, likewise our soul, and our spirit will feel the affects.
As a community of healers we must trust the divine to know what aspect of the person we are praying for needs the most attention. While we might see the need for someone’s physical healing, the divine may sense a greater need for the healing of the soul. That means we must let go of what we desire for the person and give our trust over to the divine to do the best form of healing for the person.
The vast majority of us pray for the sick. We pray as a community. This is the work of the church. Several studies in holistic medicine have shown that a significant percentage of people that know they are being prayed for (especially by a large community of people) typically recover faster or bear the burden of their illness better. That latter part of the statement is often difficult for us hear. Regardless of the outcome, we pray as a community for the person’s holistic healing, trusting the divine to do her work. This is what our prayer book teaches us.
On page 458 of the Book of Common Prayer, there is a prayer that has been offered for the sick for over 500 years. Pray for people. Call their name. There’s no need for you to guide the divine in what you want done. You don’t need to know what’s wrong with the person. You don’t need to know who the person is. Simply pray. Let the prayer do its work in the ears of the Divine Spirit.
O Father of mercies and God of all comfort, our only help in time of need: We humbly beseech thee to behold, visit, and relieve thy sick servant N. for whom our prayers are desired. Look upon him with the eyes of thy mercy; comfort him with a sense of thy goodness; preserve him from the temptations of the enemy; and give him patience under his affliction. In thy good time, restore him to health, and enable him to lead the residue of his life in thy fear, and to thy glory; and grant that finally he may dwell with thee in life everlasting; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
While we all pray as a community, there are within the community, are a very few people whose vocation is to be a healer, like Saint Peter. Vocation is your purpose in life. Everyone has a purpose, a vocation. God has imprinted your purpose on your soul; it’s in the DNA of your soul. Your purpose is a gift that can always be used to serve other people. Your purpose in life might be, to be creative, artistic, to build, to inspire, to teach, to heal. But remember, your purpose doesn’t have anything to do with your job. It’s nice if your purpose and your job are in sync with one another—but that’s not absolutely necessary.
If your vocation, your purpose in life, is to be a healer—other people will recognize this in you. You do not have to point out your gifts to others. Most people I know that are healers never call themselves healers. Healers don’t rely fully on their gifts. They recognize that they are a conduit—a channel for the healing love of the Divine Spirit. Healers find a teacher and learn the art of healing, like Saint Peter who was trained by the Master Healer, Jesus. They are trained, in something like Reiki, Healing Touch, Message therapy, shamanism, or alchemy. Then they practice. In practicing they learn that they will, at times, fail, like Peter who failed on more than one occasion. Finally, the healer learns the lesson that healing has a cost. Master Jesus knew the cost. When the woman in the crowd touched the hem of Jesus’ garment, he knew that some of his energy, his love, had gone of his body.
Real sustainable healing comes from the mutual exchange of divine love. This was the teaching of the Inkling Charles Williams. To be a healer, one must know that the love of the divine spirit is the healing agent, the healer, however, the healer must also know that in the act of the exchange of healing love, the healer will be left with a residual from the exchange. In other words, the healer must prepare their self for the cost of transmutation to take place in their life.
That’s what happened to Saint Peter. After he healed Tabitha, he went to the house of Simon the tanner. There, Peter had been fasting and praying. He had a vision. In the vision he learned that he would have to sacrifice an important portion of his religious practice. What he had to give up would be the equivalent of us being told that instead of going to St. Peter’s Episcopal Church to worship, we now had to go to the mosque to pray every Friday. The cost of being a healer is always substantial. Sometimes even our own life.
A very close friend of mine, Scott Haasarud died this past Wednesday He was a healer. He was a friend, spiritual director, therapist, and mentor in all things Carl Jung. He was a big man in every way. He loved deeply and healed with love from his heart. He healed the broken hearts of so many people and finally his big heart could give no more. He was Master Jesus for me so many times.
We are followers of the Master Healer, Jesus. We have been left the task of healing broken hearts and lives. To be a healing community, we must live in the abiding love and union with the One Holy Living God. We must live integrated lives. We must pray for the sick and the souls of the dying. And we must trust the divine to do her work for the sake of the mind, body, soul, and spirit. We must be a healing community.
Saturday, April 16, 2016
Ode for Scott Haasarud
Ode for R. Scott Haasarud (1940-2016)
Scott Haasarud was a healer of the soul. He healed with golden love from the giant cauldron of his heart. I have been a recipient of the healing from Scott’s philosopher’s stone. Wednesday, April 13, 2016, he finally gave away the last red fragment.
I met Scott Haasarud on December 1, 1995. Scott was the energy behind bringing his friend Marcus Borg to Phoenix for a two-day presentation at Central Methodist Church. I had read and re-read Borg’s Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time. Borg’s wisdom and his gentle willingness to answer the many emailed questions of a stranger, kept me within the Christian world. When I saw the flyer I knew I had to meet Marcus Borg. But, little did I know I would meet the man who would later help me keep life together.
From that first handshake with Scott I felt there was something unique about him. At the time I couldn’t wrap my arms it, but from that point on, everything Scott invited me to, I went. We had this long, on going, never-ending, life-giving conversation. Scott invited me to attend an Enneagram seminar. I went. Scott invited me to a dream seminar. I went. Scott invited me to apply to the Kino Institute spiritual direction school, where he taught. I applied. Scott invited my son Neil and me to a father/son retreat at Spirit in the Desert. From that retreat Scott would have a major influence on Neil deciding to become a psychologist. Scott taught. I soaked it all in.
Then twelve years ago, my world was turned upside down. For months, I could barely leave my house, and never alone. One morning, before my wife left for work, she gave me a task. Make an appointment to see Scott. That was April of 2004. Ever since, I have met with Scott once a month. Wednesday, April the 13th there was a regularly scheduled appointment with Scott that would not happen. I met with Scott Haasarud for 144 sessions—12 x 12—(3x4) x (3x4)—pure and messy alchemy done on my soul.
A friend, who also saw Scott regularly, said that he filled a void in her life that was larger than Scott himself. He was a big man in every way. Wise and gentle. Subtle at times, yet straight-forward when needed. Scott was a complex man, paradoxical, yet not. At times, I was confident he was channeling the larger force of Carl Jung. Some people call themselves Jungian. But Scott breathed Carl Jung in and out, like tobacco from an ancient pipe. He had placed the tea bag of his life into Jung’s alchemical brew and then he ladled it out to rest of us, one sip at time. Scott sat in the midst of his endless library. He listened no matter how long I talked. Then he would tell a story. Sometimes he would quote Jung at just the right moment, reach for the appropriate book and hand it to me. He never gave instructions, only offerings. I could wisely take it, or foolishly leave it.
You could call Scott a Christian, though you’d have to clearly define what you meant by the idea of being a Christian. Scott understood Jesus through Jungian eyes. Such a notion is complexity exemplified. But if you thought of Jesus in other terms, Scott would suggest you might miss the message. To be a healer in the pathway of Jesus is to accept the cost. To live is to die. To die is to live. Jung said in The Red Book that, “Whoever possesses wisdom in not greedy for power. Only the man who has power declines to use it.” Scott Haasarud had, still has, power from the other world, but never wielded it. You just had to be in his presence to feel it, still feel it.
Jung told of a vision in The Red Book. He was hanging from the Tree of Life. He asked his anima, his soul, to cut him down. But she said she couldn’t reach that high. So the anima, became the serpent and crawled into the tree. Jung wrestled with the rational and irrational, his thinking and his feeling. The serpent, in an attempt to find a solution, became a white bird and flew high into heaven. She brought back a golden crown for Jung. The inscription on the crown read, “Love never ends.” Jung asked the bird, “What does the riddle of the golden crown mean?” “It means,” said the bird. “That the crown and the serpent are opposites, yet one. Did you not see the serpent that crowned the head of the crucified?”
Christ the Crucified was the serpent lifted high on the Tree like the serpent on Moses staff. The serpent was both poison and salvation. Jung understood the Christ Crucified as both serpent and healer to be the exemplar of each individual living in union with the Divine One, YHVH. We need not be like Jesus. Indeed not. Instead, we must do the unthinkable. We must become Jesus for the sake others. Scott Haasarud became Jesus, healing others. Scott did his own soul work. He modeled for us, with us, in us, around us, the way to become who we are all called to be: our own self, the Christ within us all, within every human being, within every creature, every stone of creation. We discover who we are when we can answer the question, “Who am I,” with the words, “I am.” We can boldly make this statement because truly Love Never Ends.
Scott Haasarud has left the world of the seen to reside in the realm of the unseen. He has been grafted into the Tree of Life. He has become the white bird. No longer encumbered by earthly limitations. He is now free to meet us in the collective unconscious. Scott’s life and work lives, infused into the essence of our mind, body, soul, and spirit. While we may not see Scott every day, or once a month, we will now encounter him in a better realm, in our dreams, in our creative imagination, and at the Eucharistic Table with all the communion of saints.
Scott Haasarud was a healer of the soul. He healed with golden love from the giant cauldron of his heart. I have been a recipient of the healing from Scott’s philosopher’s stone. Wednesday, April 13, 2016, he finally gave away the last red fragment.
I met Scott Haasarud on December 1, 1995. Scott was the energy behind bringing his friend Marcus Borg to Phoenix for a two-day presentation at Central Methodist Church. I had read and re-read Borg’s Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time. Borg’s wisdom and his gentle willingness to answer the many emailed questions of a stranger, kept me within the Christian world. When I saw the flyer I knew I had to meet Marcus Borg. But, little did I know I would meet the man who would later help me keep life together.
From that first handshake with Scott I felt there was something unique about him. At the time I couldn’t wrap my arms it, but from that point on, everything Scott invited me to, I went. We had this long, on going, never-ending, life-giving conversation. Scott invited me to attend an Enneagram seminar. I went. Scott invited me to a dream seminar. I went. Scott invited me to apply to the Kino Institute spiritual direction school, where he taught. I applied. Scott invited my son Neil and me to a father/son retreat at Spirit in the Desert. From that retreat Scott would have a major influence on Neil deciding to become a psychologist. Scott taught. I soaked it all in.
Then twelve years ago, my world was turned upside down. For months, I could barely leave my house, and never alone. One morning, before my wife left for work, she gave me a task. Make an appointment to see Scott. That was April of 2004. Ever since, I have met with Scott once a month. Wednesday, April the 13th there was a regularly scheduled appointment with Scott that would not happen. I met with Scott Haasarud for 144 sessions—12 x 12—(3x4) x (3x4)—pure and messy alchemy done on my soul.
A friend, who also saw Scott regularly, said that he filled a void in her life that was larger than Scott himself. He was a big man in every way. Wise and gentle. Subtle at times, yet straight-forward when needed. Scott was a complex man, paradoxical, yet not. At times, I was confident he was channeling the larger force of Carl Jung. Some people call themselves Jungian. But Scott breathed Carl Jung in and out, like tobacco from an ancient pipe. He had placed the tea bag of his life into Jung’s alchemical brew and then he ladled it out to rest of us, one sip at time. Scott sat in the midst of his endless library. He listened no matter how long I talked. Then he would tell a story. Sometimes he would quote Jung at just the right moment, reach for the appropriate book and hand it to me. He never gave instructions, only offerings. I could wisely take it, or foolishly leave it.
You could call Scott a Christian, though you’d have to clearly define what you meant by the idea of being a Christian. Scott understood Jesus through Jungian eyes. Such a notion is complexity exemplified. But if you thought of Jesus in other terms, Scott would suggest you might miss the message. To be a healer in the pathway of Jesus is to accept the cost. To live is to die. To die is to live. Jung said in The Red Book that, “Whoever possesses wisdom in not greedy for power. Only the man who has power declines to use it.” Scott Haasarud had, still has, power from the other world, but never wielded it. You just had to be in his presence to feel it, still feel it.
Jung told of a vision in The Red Book. He was hanging from the Tree of Life. He asked his anima, his soul, to cut him down. But she said she couldn’t reach that high. So the anima, became the serpent and crawled into the tree. Jung wrestled with the rational and irrational, his thinking and his feeling. The serpent, in an attempt to find a solution, became a white bird and flew high into heaven. She brought back a golden crown for Jung. The inscription on the crown read, “Love never ends.” Jung asked the bird, “What does the riddle of the golden crown mean?” “It means,” said the bird. “That the crown and the serpent are opposites, yet one. Did you not see the serpent that crowned the head of the crucified?”
Christ the Crucified was the serpent lifted high on the Tree like the serpent on Moses staff. The serpent was both poison and salvation. Jung understood the Christ Crucified as both serpent and healer to be the exemplar of each individual living in union with the Divine One, YHVH. We need not be like Jesus. Indeed not. Instead, we must do the unthinkable. We must become Jesus for the sake others. Scott Haasarud became Jesus, healing others. Scott did his own soul work. He modeled for us, with us, in us, around us, the way to become who we are all called to be: our own self, the Christ within us all, within every human being, within every creature, every stone of creation. We discover who we are when we can answer the question, “Who am I,” with the words, “I am.” We can boldly make this statement because truly Love Never Ends.
Scott Haasarud has left the world of the seen to reside in the realm of the unseen. He has been grafted into the Tree of Life. He has become the white bird. No longer encumbered by earthly limitations. He is now free to meet us in the collective unconscious. Scott’s life and work lives, infused into the essence of our mind, body, soul, and spirit. While we may not see Scott every day, or once a month, we will now encounter him in a better realm, in our dreams, in our creative imagination, and at the Eucharistic Table with all the communion of saints.
Friday, March 25, 2016
His Cross Became My Cross
Good Friday Devotion
One dark moment in time changed my life forever. That day the desert sky over Jerusalem was filled with low, heavy, black clouds. I wasn’t expecting such a ominous day on my visit to the holy city of Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover.
My name is Simon. I’m from the city of Cyrene. I left my home three months ago in order to get to Jerusalem in time for the great feast—a pilgrimage of over 1,000 miles. I arrived just in time for the beginning of the festival.
That fateful morning, I went to the Temple to make my offering. As I was leaving the Temple, I was caught up in a mass of people who swept me down the street, like a tiny boat drug across the desert sands. The crowd was driving us towards the Pavement Stone, Gabbatha, the seat of the Pilate’s tribunal.
The name of Jesus, the Galilean, was being chanted in derision. I had heard him preach in the Temple the day before. He told stories about God’s love and forgiveness. He called Yahweh, Abba, Father, like the great rabbi’s of Judaism. He spoke about God in such intimate terms that his words touched my inner spirit. I wondered what Jesus could have done to make the crowd so angry.
The mass of humanity swelled, pushing us towards the Pavement Stone. The mob began to shout, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Not everyone was shouting the haunting words of death, but a strong chorus had overtaken the voice of the crowd. Then a loud cheer went out from the front of the crowd—as one we lunged forward. I knew what was going to happen next.
I turned my shoulders sideways and began to snake my way out of the crowd. When I got to the edge of the throng, I ran down a back alley to get ahead of the procession. I was sure I knew where they were taking Jesus—to Golgotha, the hill, the skull, the tomb of Adam, the place of the tree of death—so that’s where I went.
By the time I got to the base of the hill I could see the ocean of people rising in my direction like a threating storm. I found myself standing behind three women and a man. The two younger women and the man tried to console the third woman dressed in blue. The three spoke to her tenderly and called her mother Mary. I couldn’t see her face but I could hear her sobs.
Oddly, the crowd grew quieter as they approached where we were standing. I could see Jesus, in front, struggling under the weight of the cross he was carrying. The Roman soldiers whipped him as he stumbled up the hill. He winched at the strike of the whip. I heard him groan with every step. His body was raw flesh and blood. His head bent to the ground. His long hair, soaked dark, mingled with sweat and blood, covered his face.
And then, as if Jesus knew she was there, he turned his face to see Mary, his mother. He face was almost unrecognizable. Mary threw her anguished soul towards him. The man and the two women held her trembling body. Jesus fell to the ground, not from the weight of the cross, but from the burden of seeing his mother in such grief.
“Cyrene!” one of the Roman Soldiers yelled. “You! Black man.” The soldier was pointing his sword at me as he strode in my direction. I was paralyzed.
“Come here!” he shouted.
I wanted to run, but I couldn’t. Something held me in place. My eyes fell on Mother Mary. At that moment, she turned and looked into my soul.
“Help him. Please. Will you?”
Abba, Yahweh Father gave me the strength to let go of my fear and walk towards the soldier.
“Pick up his cross!” he yelled. “Or I’ll find one to nail you on.”
As I took a step towards Jesus, Mother Mary reached up and touched my hand. A wisp of her tear soaked hair blew across my arm. Her grief passed into my heart.
Jesus’ lifted his eyes from his mother to me. “Brother, would you carry my burden up the hill?” he whispered.
I knelt by his side. I slid my arm under the weight of his cross and lifted it off his broken shoulders. He collapsed. I struggled under the burden of man’s cruelty. I bent my back to rise to my feet. Jesus reached up his hand. I shifted the weight of the cross to one side of my back and reached under Jesus’ arm. His weight leaned into me as together we lifted him to his feet. He kissed my check and whispered into my ear, “Peace be with you.” He steadied himself. Looked up the hill. And started the final leg of journey towards his destiny. I followed this man of sorrows to his death. His cross now became my cross.
One dark moment in time changed my life forever. That day the desert sky over Jerusalem was filled with low, heavy, black clouds. I wasn’t expecting such a ominous day on my visit to the holy city of Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover.
My name is Simon. I’m from the city of Cyrene. I left my home three months ago in order to get to Jerusalem in time for the great feast—a pilgrimage of over 1,000 miles. I arrived just in time for the beginning of the festival.
That fateful morning, I went to the Temple to make my offering. As I was leaving the Temple, I was caught up in a mass of people who swept me down the street, like a tiny boat drug across the desert sands. The crowd was driving us towards the Pavement Stone, Gabbatha, the seat of the Pilate’s tribunal.
The name of Jesus, the Galilean, was being chanted in derision. I had heard him preach in the Temple the day before. He told stories about God’s love and forgiveness. He called Yahweh, Abba, Father, like the great rabbi’s of Judaism. He spoke about God in such intimate terms that his words touched my inner spirit. I wondered what Jesus could have done to make the crowd so angry.
The mass of humanity swelled, pushing us towards the Pavement Stone. The mob began to shout, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Not everyone was shouting the haunting words of death, but a strong chorus had overtaken the voice of the crowd. Then a loud cheer went out from the front of the crowd—as one we lunged forward. I knew what was going to happen next.
I turned my shoulders sideways and began to snake my way out of the crowd. When I got to the edge of the throng, I ran down a back alley to get ahead of the procession. I was sure I knew where they were taking Jesus—to Golgotha, the hill, the skull, the tomb of Adam, the place of the tree of death—so that’s where I went.
By the time I got to the base of the hill I could see the ocean of people rising in my direction like a threating storm. I found myself standing behind three women and a man. The two younger women and the man tried to console the third woman dressed in blue. The three spoke to her tenderly and called her mother Mary. I couldn’t see her face but I could hear her sobs.
Oddly, the crowd grew quieter as they approached where we were standing. I could see Jesus, in front, struggling under the weight of the cross he was carrying. The Roman soldiers whipped him as he stumbled up the hill. He winched at the strike of the whip. I heard him groan with every step. His body was raw flesh and blood. His head bent to the ground. His long hair, soaked dark, mingled with sweat and blood, covered his face.
And then, as if Jesus knew she was there, he turned his face to see Mary, his mother. He face was almost unrecognizable. Mary threw her anguished soul towards him. The man and the two women held her trembling body. Jesus fell to the ground, not from the weight of the cross, but from the burden of seeing his mother in such grief.
“Cyrene!” one of the Roman Soldiers yelled. “You! Black man.” The soldier was pointing his sword at me as he strode in my direction. I was paralyzed.
“Come here!” he shouted.
I wanted to run, but I couldn’t. Something held me in place. My eyes fell on Mother Mary. At that moment, she turned and looked into my soul.
“Help him. Please. Will you?”
Abba, Yahweh Father gave me the strength to let go of my fear and walk towards the soldier.
“Pick up his cross!” he yelled. “Or I’ll find one to nail you on.”
As I took a step towards Jesus, Mother Mary reached up and touched my hand. A wisp of her tear soaked hair blew across my arm. Her grief passed into my heart.
Jesus’ lifted his eyes from his mother to me. “Brother, would you carry my burden up the hill?” he whispered.
I knelt by his side. I slid my arm under the weight of his cross and lifted it off his broken shoulders. He collapsed. I struggled under the burden of man’s cruelty. I bent my back to rise to my feet. Jesus reached up his hand. I shifted the weight of the cross to one side of my back and reached under Jesus’ arm. His weight leaned into me as together we lifted him to his feet. He kissed my check and whispered into my ear, “Peace be with you.” He steadied himself. Looked up the hill. And started the final leg of journey towards his destiny. I followed this man of sorrows to his death. His cross now became my cross.
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
Jesus for President: Polls say Zero Chance
We’re living in a new age. Everything is changing so rapidly. All the rules are off the table.
This week our bishop sent us a letter that included a statement issued by the Episcopal Bishops. The brief document, entitled “A Word to the Church,” was written in response to the “violent political rhetoric we are facing in our country today, especially in the current Presidential campaign.”
On Good Friday the ruling political forces of the day tortured and executed an innocent man. They sacrificed the weak and the blameless to protect their own status and power. On the third day Jesus was raised from the dead, revealing not only their injustice but also unmasking the lie that might makes right.
In a country still living under the shadow of the lynching tree, we are troubled by the violent forces being released by this season’s political rhetoric. Americans are turning against their neighbors, particularly those on the margins of society. They seek to secure their own safety and security at the expense of others. There is a legitimate reason to fear where this rhetoric and the actions arising from it might take us.
In this moment, we resemble God’s children wandering in the wilderness. We, like they, are struggling to find our way. They turned from following God and worshiped a golden calf constructed from their own wealth. The current rhetoric is leading us to construct a modern false idol out of power and privilege. We reject the idolatrous notion that we can ensure the safety of some by sacrificing the hopes of others. No matter where we fall on the political spectrum, we must respect the dignity of every human being and we must seek the common good above all else.
We call for prayer for our country that a spirit of reconciliation will prevail and we will not betray our true selves.
Nothing should be lost on the synchronicity of the bishop’s letter being given to us to be read on Palm Sunday. I think what we are talking about here is what or who is our model of leadership.
I’m left with three questions. What kind of leader was Jesus? And how would Jesus fit into the 21st century American culture as that kind of leader? And how should Jesus’ model affect how we respond to our culture today?
We get a pretty good picture of Jesus’ leadership style on Palm Sunday. Jesus started his two-mile journey into Jerusalem from Bethphage, known as the village opposite. Bethphage is only mentioned in context of this specific story in the New Testament. What could that to mean about Jesus’ style of leadership? It means he was opposite of the norm. He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. The donkey was the symbol of the desert. The donkey was the symbol of Jesus’ new kind of leadership. Living in the desert, being the opposite of the accepted norm.
The palm leaves used were also opposite of the norm. Slaves used Palm leaves to fan the rich. Now the palm leaves were being thrown down onto the road for Jesus to ride over. The cactus of the desert and the palm leaf on the ground marked Jesus’ leadership. He brought the opposites together as symbols of how to lead.
Then, Jesus rode into Jerusalem and marched right into the temple. His first act was to drive out those who profited from the poor and the marginalized. That act made him so unpopular that the authorities began to look for ways to kill him.
For the rational mind, Jesus’ methods would make no sense. But, for the imaginative mind, Jesus’ style was filled with unlimited possibilities. To be the last was to be the first. To be poor was to be rich. To die was to live.
So I ask myself, could Jesus be a leader in 21st century America?
Could Jesus be elected as President of the United States? That’s laughable. A Jew has yet to be elected President. Jesus was Middle-eastern. He was a revolutionary. He preached peace, love, and equality. There was nothing about Jesus that would make him a popular figure in the American political scene. It seems so ironic though that Jesus’ name gets used like a badge of approval for almost every presidential candidate— actually except for one.
Would Jesus be elected a Bishop in the Episcopal Church or hired as the rector of parish? Well, No. He wasn’t an Episcopalian. Okay, well more importantly, Jesus wouldn’t fit into the expectations of being a CEO-type leader. The church most often wants an extravert, who is rational, strategic thinker, who can plan for every scenario imaginable. Ironically, most experts on the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator think Jesus was probably the opposite of that type. Jesus was most likely an introvert, who could envision a new future that could happen in the now of this very moment. In other words, Jesus was mystic not church builder. Think about it. He let Judas be the treasurer of his small band and he drove the money-changers out of the temple. Building a bigger budget was not top of his list.
So, would Jesus be a deacon in the church? Maybe. That sounds more like Jesus. But, I doubt he would jump through the hoops of the ordination process. Besides, I seriously doubt Jesus would wear a clerical collar.
So where would we find Jesus as a leader in America today? I imagine Jesus would be leading others to feed the hungry; gather clothes for the homeless; fill water stations at the border; help refugees; working in prison ministry; and I imagine Jesus would carry a Black Lives Matter sign at a protest; he would speak out against greed, violence, and injustice. Jesus would be doing the kinds of things that would get him crucified, not elected to any leadership position.
Few people have encouraged me to preach about politics in church. Someone suggested to me that given my sermons about Jesus and politics that I am probably left without a candidate to vote for in any type of election; much less President. But now is not the time to keep quiet.
There were those that wanted Jesus and his followers to stop preaching the message of God’s love in the Temple. Basically Jesus’ response was that he could not be silent. And neither can we. Jesus said that if we don’t speak up, surely the stones would cry out. What he meant was, that if his followers, those of us in the Jesus Movement—if we don’t have the courage to speak up, someone else will. In other words, if we don’t speak out against the violent forces being released by the political rhetoric, then our silence becomes our consent to the violence. Would Jesus be silent? No. He would not. So we, as followers of Jesus have to speak up against the violent rhetoric and we have to vote.
Being a follower of Jesus is all very weird and it changes everything. But, somehow, asking people to be civil doesn’t seem to all that weird. Evidently, though, following Jesus does change everything. Being in the Jesus Movement changes what we eat, what we buy, how we treat other people, and even how we vote. Amen.
This week our bishop sent us a letter that included a statement issued by the Episcopal Bishops. The brief document, entitled “A Word to the Church,” was written in response to the “violent political rhetoric we are facing in our country today, especially in the current Presidential campaign.”
On Good Friday the ruling political forces of the day tortured and executed an innocent man. They sacrificed the weak and the blameless to protect their own status and power. On the third day Jesus was raised from the dead, revealing not only their injustice but also unmasking the lie that might makes right.
In a country still living under the shadow of the lynching tree, we are troubled by the violent forces being released by this season’s political rhetoric. Americans are turning against their neighbors, particularly those on the margins of society. They seek to secure their own safety and security at the expense of others. There is a legitimate reason to fear where this rhetoric and the actions arising from it might take us.
In this moment, we resemble God’s children wandering in the wilderness. We, like they, are struggling to find our way. They turned from following God and worshiped a golden calf constructed from their own wealth. The current rhetoric is leading us to construct a modern false idol out of power and privilege. We reject the idolatrous notion that we can ensure the safety of some by sacrificing the hopes of others. No matter where we fall on the political spectrum, we must respect the dignity of every human being and we must seek the common good above all else.
We call for prayer for our country that a spirit of reconciliation will prevail and we will not betray our true selves.
Nothing should be lost on the synchronicity of the bishop’s letter being given to us to be read on Palm Sunday. I think what we are talking about here is what or who is our model of leadership.
I’m left with three questions. What kind of leader was Jesus? And how would Jesus fit into the 21st century American culture as that kind of leader? And how should Jesus’ model affect how we respond to our culture today?
We get a pretty good picture of Jesus’ leadership style on Palm Sunday. Jesus started his two-mile journey into Jerusalem from Bethphage, known as the village opposite. Bethphage is only mentioned in context of this specific story in the New Testament. What could that to mean about Jesus’ style of leadership? It means he was opposite of the norm. He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. The donkey was the symbol of the desert. The donkey was the symbol of Jesus’ new kind of leadership. Living in the desert, being the opposite of the accepted norm.
The palm leaves used were also opposite of the norm. Slaves used Palm leaves to fan the rich. Now the palm leaves were being thrown down onto the road for Jesus to ride over. The cactus of the desert and the palm leaf on the ground marked Jesus’ leadership. He brought the opposites together as symbols of how to lead.
Then, Jesus rode into Jerusalem and marched right into the temple. His first act was to drive out those who profited from the poor and the marginalized. That act made him so unpopular that the authorities began to look for ways to kill him.
For the rational mind, Jesus’ methods would make no sense. But, for the imaginative mind, Jesus’ style was filled with unlimited possibilities. To be the last was to be the first. To be poor was to be rich. To die was to live.
So I ask myself, could Jesus be a leader in 21st century America?
Could Jesus be elected as President of the United States? That’s laughable. A Jew has yet to be elected President. Jesus was Middle-eastern. He was a revolutionary. He preached peace, love, and equality. There was nothing about Jesus that would make him a popular figure in the American political scene. It seems so ironic though that Jesus’ name gets used like a badge of approval for almost every presidential candidate— actually except for one.
Would Jesus be elected a Bishop in the Episcopal Church or hired as the rector of parish? Well, No. He wasn’t an Episcopalian. Okay, well more importantly, Jesus wouldn’t fit into the expectations of being a CEO-type leader. The church most often wants an extravert, who is rational, strategic thinker, who can plan for every scenario imaginable. Ironically, most experts on the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator think Jesus was probably the opposite of that type. Jesus was most likely an introvert, who could envision a new future that could happen in the now of this very moment. In other words, Jesus was mystic not church builder. Think about it. He let Judas be the treasurer of his small band and he drove the money-changers out of the temple. Building a bigger budget was not top of his list.
So, would Jesus be a deacon in the church? Maybe. That sounds more like Jesus. But, I doubt he would jump through the hoops of the ordination process. Besides, I seriously doubt Jesus would wear a clerical collar.
So where would we find Jesus as a leader in America today? I imagine Jesus would be leading others to feed the hungry; gather clothes for the homeless; fill water stations at the border; help refugees; working in prison ministry; and I imagine Jesus would carry a Black Lives Matter sign at a protest; he would speak out against greed, violence, and injustice. Jesus would be doing the kinds of things that would get him crucified, not elected to any leadership position.
Few people have encouraged me to preach about politics in church. Someone suggested to me that given my sermons about Jesus and politics that I am probably left without a candidate to vote for in any type of election; much less President. But now is not the time to keep quiet.
There were those that wanted Jesus and his followers to stop preaching the message of God’s love in the Temple. Basically Jesus’ response was that he could not be silent. And neither can we. Jesus said that if we don’t speak up, surely the stones would cry out. What he meant was, that if his followers, those of us in the Jesus Movement—if we don’t have the courage to speak up, someone else will. In other words, if we don’t speak out against the violent forces being released by the political rhetoric, then our silence becomes our consent to the violence. Would Jesus be silent? No. He would not. So we, as followers of Jesus have to speak up against the violent rhetoric and we have to vote.
Being a follower of Jesus is all very weird and it changes everything. But, somehow, asking people to be civil doesn’t seem to all that weird. Evidently, though, following Jesus does change everything. Being in the Jesus Movement changes what we eat, what we buy, how we treat other people, and even how we vote. Amen.
Monday, March 14, 2016
Jesus visits Jung for some therapy
At some point in life most of us have asked our self the big question, “Who am I?” Am I this kind of person – or am I that kind of person? It’s like playing mental Ping Pong. We ask this question of our selves at almost every stage of human development. As children we are looking for an identity within our family. As teenager we’re looking for an identity separate from our family. As young adults we’re looking for a purpose. As adults we’re trying to live out our purpose. As older adults we’re trying to assess if we have fulfilled our purpose. These questions are extremely important in our growth as mature humans because our answers affect our relationship to other people. Simply put, you can’t truly know another human being, and you can’t truly know God—unless you know yourself. Christianity has taught this truth from its beginning.
In the Gospel of Thomas Jesus said, “Divine Reality exists inside and all around you. Only when you have come to know your true Self will you be fully known—realizing at last that you are a child of the Living One.”
But, how did Jesus come to realize this about himself? First—he was human. Therefore he had to ask all the human questions, including—Who am I? Yes, that’s right, Jesus had to go through the same self-discovery process we have to trudge through. He had to ask himself, who am I, so that he could discover that he was a child of the Living One. He modeled for us that we too are children of the Living One.
Today’s gospel reading (John 12:1-8) is a perfect example of Jesus’ search for his answer to the question, “Who am I.” To do this we have to read the Gospel of John metaphorically, not literally.
I’ve developed a diagram to help us get a picture of Jesus’ Self-discovery process found in today’s reading. I know there is too much information in this diagram to cram into a fifteen-minute sermon. So, I’m giving you a glimpse of a series I’ll be offering in late May, early June. The title of the program will be “Jesus: His Mind, Mystery, and Magic.” This sermon is the very beginning of my ideas about how Jesus thought.
A couple of quick notes about the title at the top of the chart: Jesus called himself the Son of Man, which followed in the tradition of Ezekiel. The word Anthropos is a reference to Carl Jung’s suggestion that Jesus is the archetypal man in search of his True Self. Therefore, Jesus, the Son of Man is the archetypal True Self, whose path we can follow for our own self-discovery.
The diagram is a circle—a mandala, a sacred circle. A cross divides the circle into four sections. Four is a complete number—as in the four points of the cross, the four directions and the four elements, air, earth, fire, and water. At the different points of the cross, you will see the four letters of the unspeakable name of God, YHVH. In the Kabbalah’s interpretation of the Torah, the four letters of the unspeakable name of God are—Yod (Father), He (Mother), Vau (Son), He (Daughter). There’s so much to say about this because it plays such an important part in understanding Jesus’ understanding of the Holy One. But that will have to wait until another time.
The two quadrants on the top, the darker blue, are the conscious, the bottom two, the lighter blue, are the unconscious. The four quadrants represent the holistic picture of Jesus personality—his complete personality. The upper left is Jesus’ ego. The upper right is Jesus’ emerging Self. The bottom left represents Jesus’ soul. And the bottom right is Jesus’ shadow. The characters in the story represent the four parts of Jesus’ personality. For our sake of discussion, the story is not about Mary, Martha, Lazarus, and Judas—the story is all about Jesus.
The upper left quadrant represents the Ego. You’ll see Jesus making four statements that are focused on his conscious awareness of who he is existentially. “Leave Mary alone. She bought the oil. She’s anointing me in preparation for my impending death. Don’t worry about the poor right now, you’ll always have them.” Jesus sensed that after he had overturned the tables in the Tabernacle and raised Lazarus from the tomb, the authorities would be looking to execute him. Jesus was focused on the situation of the moment—his situation. There’s nothing wrong or bad about that—that was just his reality at the moment.
The lower right quadrant represents Jesus’ shadow. The writer of the gospel puts the shadow’s words into Judas’ mouth. “We have a responsibility, we need the money to take care of the poor, to take care of us.” Jesus had to have been worried about what was going to happen to his poor disciples after he died? But, he didn’t want to think about responsibility at that moment, or maybe at all. So he avoided thinking about it and hid his thoughts in his shadow. Then there was the issue of betrayal. Jesus probably felt like he had betrayed his disciples—they gave up everything to follow him and now it was all going to end on the cross. And maybe Jesus was worried that he was a thief, that he was stealing his identity as a child of God? Maybe he was concerned that he wasn’t worthy? Or that he wasn’t ready?
The lower left quadrant represents the soul of Jesus. In Jungian psychology, the soul is always representative of the opposite gender that resides within us. Jesus being a male, would identify his soul as feminine. In the story we are reading today, Mary and Martha represent two sides of the same person—Mary the disciple, the esthetic, Martha the servant, the doer. This two-sided person actually represents the three Marys in Jesus’s life—the mother, the wife, the daughter. In mystical literature, the three Marys are the same person, playing out different roles in Jesus’ life. This is the role of the soul—to confront us with our aspects of spirituality. That’s what Mary is doing as she anoints Jesus’ feet with her hair. She acts in humility. She makes a sacrifice. She engages all her mind, body, soul, and spirit to be in union with the Living One. She is acting out for Jesus how his spirituality and his soul must evolve. Soon Jesus would wash the disciples feet.
And finally, let’s turn our attention to the upper right quadrant—the Self, represented by Lazarus. Here we see Lazarus, possibly the beloved disciple, who had died and then had been resurrected. Lazarus was in the house, while his sister was anointing the feet of Jesus. He was sitting at the table. Lazarus represented whom Jesus would have to become in order to find his True Self. Jesus would have to be willing to die so that someone else would resurrect him, in order that he might become the Holy Eucharist served at the table, the altar.
I know, this all very weird stuff for us to think about. But, the question is, why should be paying attention to the humanity of Jesus?
Typically, we’re presented a Jesus who is an enigmatic, two-dimensional figure—a mysterious figure that is so far away that we lose any personal connection. So then, we fill in the human gap. We turn Jesus into our imaginary childhood friend, or the best friend we never had, or the brother that was missing in our life, or the lover we need. And once we re-create Jesus, then we do the same thing to our self, creating our idealized fictional character of who we wish we were. And worse yet, we then project all of our stuff onto our family and friends. And what happens is, our recreated Jesus doesn’t live up to our expectations. Our family and friends don’t act like we want them to. And of course, we are not really the person we created. We need the real Jesus, so that we have a model to find our own authentic self.
As followers of Jesus, let me suggest we spend some time this week and during Holy Week with these questions:
What have you avoided in your life and stuffed in your shadow?
What is your soul trying to tell you about your spirituality?
What is your True Self calling you to become?
Like Jesus, the answer to these question are somewhere inside of you.
Let me end with a portion of the poem “Who am I?” written by the Christian theologian and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Who am I? This man or that other?
Am I then this man today and tomorrow another?
Am I both all at once?
Who am I? They mock me these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, you know me, O God. You know I am yours.
In the Gospel of Thomas Jesus said, “Divine Reality exists inside and all around you. Only when you have come to know your true Self will you be fully known—realizing at last that you are a child of the Living One.”
But, how did Jesus come to realize this about himself? First—he was human. Therefore he had to ask all the human questions, including—Who am I? Yes, that’s right, Jesus had to go through the same self-discovery process we have to trudge through. He had to ask himself, who am I, so that he could discover that he was a child of the Living One. He modeled for us that we too are children of the Living One.
Today’s gospel reading (John 12:1-8) is a perfect example of Jesus’ search for his answer to the question, “Who am I.” To do this we have to read the Gospel of John metaphorically, not literally.
I’ve developed a diagram to help us get a picture of Jesus’ Self-discovery process found in today’s reading. I know there is too much information in this diagram to cram into a fifteen-minute sermon. So, I’m giving you a glimpse of a series I’ll be offering in late May, early June. The title of the program will be “Jesus: His Mind, Mystery, and Magic.” This sermon is the very beginning of my ideas about how Jesus thought.
A couple of quick notes about the title at the top of the chart: Jesus called himself the Son of Man, which followed in the tradition of Ezekiel. The word Anthropos is a reference to Carl Jung’s suggestion that Jesus is the archetypal man in search of his True Self. Therefore, Jesus, the Son of Man is the archetypal True Self, whose path we can follow for our own self-discovery.
The diagram is a circle—a mandala, a sacred circle. A cross divides the circle into four sections. Four is a complete number—as in the four points of the cross, the four directions and the four elements, air, earth, fire, and water. At the different points of the cross, you will see the four letters of the unspeakable name of God, YHVH. In the Kabbalah’s interpretation of the Torah, the four letters of the unspeakable name of God are—Yod (Father), He (Mother), Vau (Son), He (Daughter). There’s so much to say about this because it plays such an important part in understanding Jesus’ understanding of the Holy One. But that will have to wait until another time.
The two quadrants on the top, the darker blue, are the conscious, the bottom two, the lighter blue, are the unconscious. The four quadrants represent the holistic picture of Jesus personality—his complete personality. The upper left is Jesus’ ego. The upper right is Jesus’ emerging Self. The bottom left represents Jesus’ soul. And the bottom right is Jesus’ shadow. The characters in the story represent the four parts of Jesus’ personality. For our sake of discussion, the story is not about Mary, Martha, Lazarus, and Judas—the story is all about Jesus.
The upper left quadrant represents the Ego. You’ll see Jesus making four statements that are focused on his conscious awareness of who he is existentially. “Leave Mary alone. She bought the oil. She’s anointing me in preparation for my impending death. Don’t worry about the poor right now, you’ll always have them.” Jesus sensed that after he had overturned the tables in the Tabernacle and raised Lazarus from the tomb, the authorities would be looking to execute him. Jesus was focused on the situation of the moment—his situation. There’s nothing wrong or bad about that—that was just his reality at the moment.
The lower right quadrant represents Jesus’ shadow. The writer of the gospel puts the shadow’s words into Judas’ mouth. “We have a responsibility, we need the money to take care of the poor, to take care of us.” Jesus had to have been worried about what was going to happen to his poor disciples after he died? But, he didn’t want to think about responsibility at that moment, or maybe at all. So he avoided thinking about it and hid his thoughts in his shadow. Then there was the issue of betrayal. Jesus probably felt like he had betrayed his disciples—they gave up everything to follow him and now it was all going to end on the cross. And maybe Jesus was worried that he was a thief, that he was stealing his identity as a child of God? Maybe he was concerned that he wasn’t worthy? Or that he wasn’t ready?
The lower left quadrant represents the soul of Jesus. In Jungian psychology, the soul is always representative of the opposite gender that resides within us. Jesus being a male, would identify his soul as feminine. In the story we are reading today, Mary and Martha represent two sides of the same person—Mary the disciple, the esthetic, Martha the servant, the doer. This two-sided person actually represents the three Marys in Jesus’s life—the mother, the wife, the daughter. In mystical literature, the three Marys are the same person, playing out different roles in Jesus’ life. This is the role of the soul—to confront us with our aspects of spirituality. That’s what Mary is doing as she anoints Jesus’ feet with her hair. She acts in humility. She makes a sacrifice. She engages all her mind, body, soul, and spirit to be in union with the Living One. She is acting out for Jesus how his spirituality and his soul must evolve. Soon Jesus would wash the disciples feet.
And finally, let’s turn our attention to the upper right quadrant—the Self, represented by Lazarus. Here we see Lazarus, possibly the beloved disciple, who had died and then had been resurrected. Lazarus was in the house, while his sister was anointing the feet of Jesus. He was sitting at the table. Lazarus represented whom Jesus would have to become in order to find his True Self. Jesus would have to be willing to die so that someone else would resurrect him, in order that he might become the Holy Eucharist served at the table, the altar.
I know, this all very weird stuff for us to think about. But, the question is, why should be paying attention to the humanity of Jesus?
Typically, we’re presented a Jesus who is an enigmatic, two-dimensional figure—a mysterious figure that is so far away that we lose any personal connection. So then, we fill in the human gap. We turn Jesus into our imaginary childhood friend, or the best friend we never had, or the brother that was missing in our life, or the lover we need. And once we re-create Jesus, then we do the same thing to our self, creating our idealized fictional character of who we wish we were. And worse yet, we then project all of our stuff onto our family and friends. And what happens is, our recreated Jesus doesn’t live up to our expectations. Our family and friends don’t act like we want them to. And of course, we are not really the person we created. We need the real Jesus, so that we have a model to find our own authentic self.
As followers of Jesus, let me suggest we spend some time this week and during Holy Week with these questions:
What have you avoided in your life and stuffed in your shadow?
What is your soul trying to tell you about your spirituality?
What is your True Self calling you to become?
Like Jesus, the answer to these question are somewhere inside of you.
Let me end with a portion of the poem “Who am I?” written by the Christian theologian and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Who am I? This man or that other?
Am I then this man today and tomorrow another?
Am I both all at once?
Who am I? They mock me these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, you know me, O God. You know I am yours.
Thursday, March 03, 2016
Upside Down Politics
Many of you have heard me tell stories about my sister, Dinah. She has what’s known as Prader-Willi Syndrome, it’s caused by the deformity of Chromosome-15. She’s mentally and physically handicapped. Dinah is the oldest known living person with PWS in the State of Arizona. She just celebrated her sixty-first birthday. Most people with PWS die in their late thirties due to issues related to PWS.
Despite Dinah’s limitations, I consider her to be a wise mystic. Talking to her is similar to having a conversation with God: you have to sit in silence, be patient, and listen carefully. Even then, you might not hear a word. And when you do, it’s not the word you were looking for.
Several years ago, a woman asked my mom that if she could wish for a miracle would she want Dinah to be normal. In a flash, my mom replied, “Actually, I think Dinah’s the normal one and we’re the ones who are handicapped.”
The woman replied, “Well, I think if you had enough faith and prayed hard enough, God would grant your wish.”
The woman asked a question, for which she already had an answer. She was acting like she was God because she had created God in her own image. This woman assumed God was judging my mother for her lack of faith.
All the while, my mom was trying to tell the woman that she needed to turn her thinking upside down; to think in a different way. That’s the point of this morning’s strange gospel reading. Jesus wants us to think differently about the nature of God.
In Luke’s gospel (13:1-9) the people were asking Jesus the age-old question: “Why do bad things happen to good people?” But those people already had an answer. They assumed that those who had died tragic deaths were being judged because they deserved to die. They thought God would be judgmental like they were. In other words—if they were God, that’s what they would do.
But, Jesus responded in his typical fashion. He never answered a direct question. That’s how my sister answers every question. You can ask her anything, from the mundane to the complex, and she always says, “I not not know.” As if she’s saying, I don’t know—But, if I did know, I wouldn’t tell you.”
What Jesus does tell them, though, is to repent. By repent, he means that they need to change their way of thinking. In other words, they need to turn their thinking upside down. The people thought that God should control everything that happens in the world. God should punish the evil and reward the righteous. They thought God should manipulate the world for their benefit.
But that’s not what Jesus taught. Jesus told them to stop thinking that way. Jesus said that the sun rises on the good and the evil. Jesus said that the rain falls on the just and unjust (Matthew 5:45). My sister has PWS because it randomly happens in one of every 10,000 births. In other words, life is random, shit happens. Fortunately, Jesus doesn’t leave us hanging with the old adage, “Life sucks and then you die.” He tells us a story that I imagine went like this.
You see that fig tree over there? My dad planted that tree years ago. Every year he would till the ground around the tree, gather manure and mulch it into the ground. Then he would carry buckets of water to pour around the tree. Year after year he took care of that tree. And still, the tree never produced any fruit. I asked my dad once why he didn’t just cut the tree down and simply plant another one. My dad said, “My son, I love that tree because it reminds me of God’s love for me. I make mistakes everyday. But God continues to nurture me. God feeds me. God waters me. God does all the work. And still day after day I can’t seem to bear any fruit. I’m so underserving. But God never abandons me.” When my dad died, I kept caring for that tree because it too reminds of my heavenly father. No matter what happens in this random world, he loves us. Our heavenly father is constantly down on his hands and knees, tilling the soil around us. He goes out into the pasture and gathers the stinky manure. Then with his hands, he mulches that manure into our soil. And then he fetches bucket after bucket of water to make sure we have enough to drink in hopes that, one day, we might bear fruit. But, no matter what happens, even if we never bear one fig of fruit—our heavenly father will never give up on us. He will never cut us down.
Jesus told this story because this is how he envisioned the never-ending love and forgiveness of God. Jesus is telling us that this is how he cares for us, giving us never-ending love and forgiveness. And Jesus is telling us this story because he wants us to turn our thinking upside down—he wants us to give our love and forgiveness to others unconditionally. But how do we do this?
Jesus told us to feed the hungry, give the thirsty a drink of water, visit the sick and those in person, and to welcome the stranger (Matthew 25:35). Jesus told us to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves. (Matthew 22:39) Jesus told us to love our enemies and pray for them (Matthew 5:44). Jesus spoke out against hate language that bullies other people. Jesus spoke out against the oppression of the poor. Jesus spoke out against the injustices in our world.
You’ve heard me say that the teachings of Jesus are weird—and that his teachings will turn our thinking upside down. Thinking like Jesus will affect what we eat, what we buy, how we treat other people and how we vote. I think that’s true and I’m not afraid to say it.
Being in the Jesus Movement means that Jesus’ teachings will affect every aspect of my life—including my politics. If a political candidate sounds like they would bully Jesus for his teachings on love and forgiveness, how could I support that person? If I can’t find Jesus’ teachings about love and forgiveness somewhere in the candidate’s political agenda, how could I vote for them? Being in the Jesus Movement is hard work because Jesus’ teachings are often hard to live out. But, I believe that is our calling.
Despite Dinah’s limitations, I consider her to be a wise mystic. Talking to her is similar to having a conversation with God: you have to sit in silence, be patient, and listen carefully. Even then, you might not hear a word. And when you do, it’s not the word you were looking for.
Several years ago, a woman asked my mom that if she could wish for a miracle would she want Dinah to be normal. In a flash, my mom replied, “Actually, I think Dinah’s the normal one and we’re the ones who are handicapped.”
The woman replied, “Well, I think if you had enough faith and prayed hard enough, God would grant your wish.”
The woman asked a question, for which she already had an answer. She was acting like she was God because she had created God in her own image. This woman assumed God was judging my mother for her lack of faith.
All the while, my mom was trying to tell the woman that she needed to turn her thinking upside down; to think in a different way. That’s the point of this morning’s strange gospel reading. Jesus wants us to think differently about the nature of God.
In Luke’s gospel (13:1-9) the people were asking Jesus the age-old question: “Why do bad things happen to good people?” But those people already had an answer. They assumed that those who had died tragic deaths were being judged because they deserved to die. They thought God would be judgmental like they were. In other words—if they were God, that’s what they would do.
But, Jesus responded in his typical fashion. He never answered a direct question. That’s how my sister answers every question. You can ask her anything, from the mundane to the complex, and she always says, “I not not know.” As if she’s saying, I don’t know—But, if I did know, I wouldn’t tell you.”
What Jesus does tell them, though, is to repent. By repent, he means that they need to change their way of thinking. In other words, they need to turn their thinking upside down. The people thought that God should control everything that happens in the world. God should punish the evil and reward the righteous. They thought God should manipulate the world for their benefit.
But that’s not what Jesus taught. Jesus told them to stop thinking that way. Jesus said that the sun rises on the good and the evil. Jesus said that the rain falls on the just and unjust (Matthew 5:45). My sister has PWS because it randomly happens in one of every 10,000 births. In other words, life is random, shit happens. Fortunately, Jesus doesn’t leave us hanging with the old adage, “Life sucks and then you die.” He tells us a story that I imagine went like this.
You see that fig tree over there? My dad planted that tree years ago. Every year he would till the ground around the tree, gather manure and mulch it into the ground. Then he would carry buckets of water to pour around the tree. Year after year he took care of that tree. And still, the tree never produced any fruit. I asked my dad once why he didn’t just cut the tree down and simply plant another one. My dad said, “My son, I love that tree because it reminds me of God’s love for me. I make mistakes everyday. But God continues to nurture me. God feeds me. God waters me. God does all the work. And still day after day I can’t seem to bear any fruit. I’m so underserving. But God never abandons me.” When my dad died, I kept caring for that tree because it too reminds of my heavenly father. No matter what happens in this random world, he loves us. Our heavenly father is constantly down on his hands and knees, tilling the soil around us. He goes out into the pasture and gathers the stinky manure. Then with his hands, he mulches that manure into our soil. And then he fetches bucket after bucket of water to make sure we have enough to drink in hopes that, one day, we might bear fruit. But, no matter what happens, even if we never bear one fig of fruit—our heavenly father will never give up on us. He will never cut us down.
Jesus told this story because this is how he envisioned the never-ending love and forgiveness of God. Jesus is telling us that this is how he cares for us, giving us never-ending love and forgiveness. And Jesus is telling us this story because he wants us to turn our thinking upside down—he wants us to give our love and forgiveness to others unconditionally. But how do we do this?
Jesus told us to feed the hungry, give the thirsty a drink of water, visit the sick and those in person, and to welcome the stranger (Matthew 25:35). Jesus told us to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves. (Matthew 22:39) Jesus told us to love our enemies and pray for them (Matthew 5:44). Jesus spoke out against hate language that bullies other people. Jesus spoke out against the oppression of the poor. Jesus spoke out against the injustices in our world.
You’ve heard me say that the teachings of Jesus are weird—and that his teachings will turn our thinking upside down. Thinking like Jesus will affect what we eat, what we buy, how we treat other people and how we vote. I think that’s true and I’m not afraid to say it.
Being in the Jesus Movement means that Jesus’ teachings will affect every aspect of my life—including my politics. If a political candidate sounds like they would bully Jesus for his teachings on love and forgiveness, how could I support that person? If I can’t find Jesus’ teachings about love and forgiveness somewhere in the candidate’s political agenda, how could I vote for them? Being in the Jesus Movement is hard work because Jesus’ teachings are often hard to live out. But, I believe that is our calling.
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Join, Follow, Go
Every once in awhile someone asks me what our church staff does on days other than Sunday—as if we just show up on Sunday to make everything happen. Well, here at St. Peter’s, we put in a full week of work. In fact we meet once a week for a staff meeting to ensure we can get everything done. At our last week’s staff meeting we were trying to think of a theme for Lent. We were brainstorming and an idea hit me.
I was so excited I put my hand up and said, “Pick me. Pick me.” I think I stunned Pastor Gae. She ignored me with a gentle smile—like she thought maybe I was losing it. But I wouldn’t give up. “Pick me! Pick me!” Finally, she had to give in.
“Okay, so what’s your idea,” she said skeptically.
I had this great idea. How about this? “Hey, come suffer with us!” I mean, I could come up with all kinds of dark morose sermons for Lent using that theme. No one took me seriously.
Truthfully, a better idea came from more creative minds. I know many of you saw the wonderful sign made for last week’s Annual Meeting. It said, “We are the Jesus Movement” I hope you noticed the “O” in Movement was replaced with this very cool circled arrow. We took that circled arrow and added three words: Join, Follow, and Go.
Those three words are going to be our guide through this year’s Lenten season.
• Join: Learn about the Jesus Movement
• Follow: Practice the Teachings of Jesus
• Go: Be Jesus in the World
How are we going to live into that theme? How are we going to Join, Follow, and Go in the Jesus Movement?
This morning’s gospel story is the perfect example of our theme for Lent. Jesus asks three of his followers up to join him on top of a mountain. There, he was going to teach them some very important things about being in the Jesus Movement. The most important lessons were how to pray and how to heal. Jesus wanted to teach that by praying for others to be healed, we are changed. Prayer changes the very essence of our being.
Jesus began teaching his followers by modeling how to pray. He was praying with such intensity that he had a mystical experience. Two of the great men of faith appeared to him. Moses came to teach Jesus about being a leader. Elijah came to teach Jesus about being a mystic. The three followers of Jesus witnessed this mystical experience. They were so overcome by it that they had their own mystical experience. A cloud rolled over them and they heard God speak to them. Amazing stuff. But, you know what? You can have these same kinds of experiences. That’s part of being in the Jesus Movement—it’s all about experiencing the mystery of God. But, to learn how to pray and heal we have to join Jesus at the top of the mountain.
There was a book that was popular twenty plus years ago entitled, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. The book was filled with lots of truths. Of course, we all know we need to go to more than just kindergarten to learn about everything we need in life. I want to know my doctor graduated with high marks from medical school. I trust the people working on the airplane I fly in are well educated and trained. We want, we need, we rely on the fact that people who support us in our life are well educated. You even count on the fact that your clergy are well educated—well beyond kindergarten. Well, if you want to be in the Jesus Movement you need to go to the top of the mountain and learn. A church kindergarten education is not good enough. You need to be grounded in the stories, the ideas, and the teachings of Jesus. And what you learned five years ago, ten years ago, twenty years ago, 30, 40, 50 years ago is as behind the times as if your doctor stopped learning about the latest techniques in medicine when he left med-school. Learning about the Jesus Movement is a lifelong endeavor.
Saint Peter’s Episcopal Church offers you so many opportunities to learn about the Jesus Movement. A good example is our House Churches, where we offer five different locations and three different books, all focused on learning about the mystery of Jesus and how to apply it to your life. But we have so many other opportunities as well to learn about the Jesus Movement; Pastor Gae leads a Monday morning Bible Study. The Men’s Group offers a Bible Study led by Deacon Michael on Saturdays. We have the Oasis program that is always offering classes. We have classes for children, for youth. We have a class for everyone to learn how to pray and heal.
After the lessons and the mystical experiences, Jesus asks those who were with him to follow him down the mountain. It was time for them to practice some of the things he taught them. He was hoping they had learned how to pray and how to be healers. But, like all things you try for the first time, you might not be very good at it. Jesus’ followers failed Healing 101. They had to take the class over again. Often times the teachings of Jesus are very hard. To learn how to be good at them we have practice—daily actually.
Here at Saint Peter’s we have lots of opportunities to practice the teachings of Jesus. The Daughter’s of the King will teach you how to pray and serve. The Community of Hope will teach you how to visit the sick, how to pray for their healing. Deacon Gay and the Prison Ministry team will teach you how to visit those who are in prison and to pray for their healing. You can get involved in the Family Promise program and learn how to pray for the healing of the homeless. You can get involved in Habitat for Humanity and learn how to pray for healing of those who need affordable housing. There are so many ministries in this church and you don’t have to do any of them alone. You’ll always be with experienced people who will teach you how to pray and heal in so many different ways.
To be in the Jesus Movement you have to practice following the ways of Jesus. Because at some point you’re going to have to “Go and Be Jesus in the World.” You might be saying to me, Gil don’t you mean to “Be Like Jesus in the World?” No. I mean God wants us to be Jesus in the World. Jesus sent his followers out in the world to be him; to pray and to heal. Jesus told his followers they would do greater things than he had done. The same goes for those of us today who are in the Jesus Movement. We are followers of Jesus going into the world to pray and heal.
I coached college baseball at Grand Canyon University for twenty years. I told my players that they would work harder than they had ever worked before. To play for Grand Canyon, to wear the Canyon uniform, they had learn how to play the Canyon way. The most successful guys weren’t always the most talented. The most successful guys were the one’s who learned how to play the Canyon way and worked the hardest.
A lot of people want to be on Jesus’s team. They want to be in the Jesus Movement. They want to wear the Jesus uniform. Which is great. But the question is, when someone notices you’re wearing Jesus’ uniform and they ask you to pray for their healing, will you be ready? Being in the Jesus Movement has nothing to do with the afterlife—it has everything to do with the “now life,” the life we’re living this very moment. It’s time to Join. It’s time to Follow. It’s time to Go.
I was so excited I put my hand up and said, “Pick me. Pick me.” I think I stunned Pastor Gae. She ignored me with a gentle smile—like she thought maybe I was losing it. But I wouldn’t give up. “Pick me! Pick me!” Finally, she had to give in.
“Okay, so what’s your idea,” she said skeptically.
I had this great idea. How about this? “Hey, come suffer with us!” I mean, I could come up with all kinds of dark morose sermons for Lent using that theme. No one took me seriously.
Truthfully, a better idea came from more creative minds. I know many of you saw the wonderful sign made for last week’s Annual Meeting. It said, “We are the Jesus Movement” I hope you noticed the “O” in Movement was replaced with this very cool circled arrow. We took that circled arrow and added three words: Join, Follow, and Go.
Those three words are going to be our guide through this year’s Lenten season.
• Join: Learn about the Jesus Movement
• Follow: Practice the Teachings of Jesus
• Go: Be Jesus in the World
How are we going to live into that theme? How are we going to Join, Follow, and Go in the Jesus Movement?
This morning’s gospel story is the perfect example of our theme for Lent. Jesus asks three of his followers up to join him on top of a mountain. There, he was going to teach them some very important things about being in the Jesus Movement. The most important lessons were how to pray and how to heal. Jesus wanted to teach that by praying for others to be healed, we are changed. Prayer changes the very essence of our being.
Jesus began teaching his followers by modeling how to pray. He was praying with such intensity that he had a mystical experience. Two of the great men of faith appeared to him. Moses came to teach Jesus about being a leader. Elijah came to teach Jesus about being a mystic. The three followers of Jesus witnessed this mystical experience. They were so overcome by it that they had their own mystical experience. A cloud rolled over them and they heard God speak to them. Amazing stuff. But, you know what? You can have these same kinds of experiences. That’s part of being in the Jesus Movement—it’s all about experiencing the mystery of God. But, to learn how to pray and heal we have to join Jesus at the top of the mountain.
There was a book that was popular twenty plus years ago entitled, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. The book was filled with lots of truths. Of course, we all know we need to go to more than just kindergarten to learn about everything we need in life. I want to know my doctor graduated with high marks from medical school. I trust the people working on the airplane I fly in are well educated and trained. We want, we need, we rely on the fact that people who support us in our life are well educated. You even count on the fact that your clergy are well educated—well beyond kindergarten. Well, if you want to be in the Jesus Movement you need to go to the top of the mountain and learn. A church kindergarten education is not good enough. You need to be grounded in the stories, the ideas, and the teachings of Jesus. And what you learned five years ago, ten years ago, twenty years ago, 30, 40, 50 years ago is as behind the times as if your doctor stopped learning about the latest techniques in medicine when he left med-school. Learning about the Jesus Movement is a lifelong endeavor.
Saint Peter’s Episcopal Church offers you so many opportunities to learn about the Jesus Movement. A good example is our House Churches, where we offer five different locations and three different books, all focused on learning about the mystery of Jesus and how to apply it to your life. But we have so many other opportunities as well to learn about the Jesus Movement; Pastor Gae leads a Monday morning Bible Study. The Men’s Group offers a Bible Study led by Deacon Michael on Saturdays. We have the Oasis program that is always offering classes. We have classes for children, for youth. We have a class for everyone to learn how to pray and heal.
After the lessons and the mystical experiences, Jesus asks those who were with him to follow him down the mountain. It was time for them to practice some of the things he taught them. He was hoping they had learned how to pray and how to be healers. But, like all things you try for the first time, you might not be very good at it. Jesus’ followers failed Healing 101. They had to take the class over again. Often times the teachings of Jesus are very hard. To learn how to be good at them we have practice—daily actually.
Here at Saint Peter’s we have lots of opportunities to practice the teachings of Jesus. The Daughter’s of the King will teach you how to pray and serve. The Community of Hope will teach you how to visit the sick, how to pray for their healing. Deacon Gay and the Prison Ministry team will teach you how to visit those who are in prison and to pray for their healing. You can get involved in the Family Promise program and learn how to pray for the healing of the homeless. You can get involved in Habitat for Humanity and learn how to pray for healing of those who need affordable housing. There are so many ministries in this church and you don’t have to do any of them alone. You’ll always be with experienced people who will teach you how to pray and heal in so many different ways.
To be in the Jesus Movement you have to practice following the ways of Jesus. Because at some point you’re going to have to “Go and Be Jesus in the World.” You might be saying to me, Gil don’t you mean to “Be Like Jesus in the World?” No. I mean God wants us to be Jesus in the World. Jesus sent his followers out in the world to be him; to pray and to heal. Jesus told his followers they would do greater things than he had done. The same goes for those of us today who are in the Jesus Movement. We are followers of Jesus going into the world to pray and heal.
I coached college baseball at Grand Canyon University for twenty years. I told my players that they would work harder than they had ever worked before. To play for Grand Canyon, to wear the Canyon uniform, they had learn how to play the Canyon way. The most successful guys weren’t always the most talented. The most successful guys were the one’s who learned how to play the Canyon way and worked the hardest.
A lot of people want to be on Jesus’s team. They want to be in the Jesus Movement. They want to wear the Jesus uniform. Which is great. But the question is, when someone notices you’re wearing Jesus’ uniform and they ask you to pray for their healing, will you be ready? Being in the Jesus Movement has nothing to do with the afterlife—it has everything to do with the “now life,” the life we’re living this very moment. It’s time to Join. It’s time to Follow. It’s time to Go.
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
The Inklings Influence On More Than Mere Christianity
The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings
By Philip and Carol Zaleski
Someone recently asked me why Philip and Carol Zaleski’s book, The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings would have any relevance to a theological conversation among clergy. Good question. We might want to consider that C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien probably have about as much influence on the people who sit in the pews of churches today than probably any two other writers in Christian history. In 2006, Christianity Today named Lewis’s book, Mere Christianity, the third most important book among Evangelicals since 1945. Carol Zaleski says that Lewis is “arguably the best selling Christian writer since John Bunyan.” As for Tolkien, the British bookseller Waterstone’s declared Lord of the Rings book of the century in 1997. Sales for Lord of the Rings are estimated between 150 – 200 million copies. The film trilogy that was based on Tolkien’s book was collectively the highest grossing films of all times. Why add Charles Williams and Owen Barfield to the theological conversation? The Zaleskis write that, “They make the perfect rose of faith: Tolkien the Catholic, Lewis the “mere” Christian, Williams the Anglican (and magus), Barfield the esotericist. Frankly, given the theological mix of clergy and laity these days, this quaternity might reflect the theology of the Episcopal Church better than any combination of writers in the modern era.
C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Owen Barfield, and Charles Williams were complex men, romantics, philosophers, theologians, fiction writers, and friends. These men were the heart of a male only group known as the Inklings. They gathered for most of twenty years, from the Great Depression through the 1950s, in an Oxford pub to drink, to smoke, to read their latest work, and to endure frank, sharp critique. The Inklings could exemplify the best and the worst of men only gatherings; unrestrained masculinity can lead to authentic conversations, however, without confrontation from the feminine shadow they can also lead to relationships that lack the integration of mind, body, soul, and spirit.
Carol and Philip Zaleski, authors and professors of religious studies, have tackled the complicated task of writing a biography of four unique personalities. The Zaleskis, rightfully, are unwilling to excuse the Inklings for their exclusion of women writers from their group. They are, however, not willing to go as far as to name the Inklings, what other critics have labeled as, “simply a club of Lewis’s friends.” The Zaleskis are fair in the assessment of the contribution of the four Inklings they chose to focus their time on throughout this lengthy work. Yet, to me, their book feels biased by their analysis of these men’s religious pursuits. They give the cradle born and faithful Catholic Tolkien, a pass. In their eyes, he seems to do little wrong. Lewis, on the other hand, an agnostic until his moment of “conversion” to Christianity, is subtly critiqued for not taking the step from Anglicanism to Catholicism. Williams, an Anglican, is questioned for his involvement in the secret Fellowship of the Rosy Cross, a group founded by A.E. Waite. The Fellowship has significant influence on Williams’ novels and his Theology of Romance. The Zaleskis would suffer none of Williams’ ideas of secret societies, the kabbalah, alchemy, Freemasonry, or the Tarot. Barfield faired even worse. He came under the influence of Rudolf Steiner and the Anthroposophical Society, which was “dedicated to expounding ‘Spiritual Sciences.’” A method of occult insight that offered, Steiner claimed, “reliable, verifiable, clairvoyant exploration of the spiritual realm.” Later they even passively dismissed Barfield’s eventual conversion to Christianity through the Anglican Church.
The Zalenski’s provide a detailed, well-researched, and interesting book. They offered unique insights about the Inklings’ relationships with each other. As well, the Zaleskis delve into the personal lives of each author, especially their relationships with women. Tolkien may have based the women in his books on the idolization of his mother, who died when he was a child. Lewis had, at the least, odd relationships with some of the women in their lives. Williams, who poetry and theology swing like a pendulum between the Song of Solomon and Dark Eros, can be troubling for those not willing to carefully analyze his work at a Jungian level. The Zaleskis advertise that their book delivers new information about Williams. Such is probably an overstatement on their part given the work of Gavin Ashesen’s Charles Williams: Alchemy and Integration and Grevel Lindop’s Charles Williams: The Third Inklings. Considering Barfield, other biographers find little of substance to question Barfield’s relationship with his wife. The Zaleski’s, however, write, “The two (Barfield and his wife) maintained a peaceful veneer by avoiding all discussion of religion or metaphysics and especially Anthroposophy, but this scarcely constitutes a prescription for marital bliss. Frustrated in his art, unhappy in his career, uninspired in his marriage, Barfield longed desperately for…well, he hardly knew what.”
This leads to my critique of the Zaleski’s book. It feels as if they wrote their book as a Sunday school morality lesson for Carol Zaleski’s young women students at Smith College. She praises Tolkien’s Catholic morality. (She never discloses that she was a mid-life convert to Catholicism.) Then proclaims that after Lewis converted to Christianity he “brimmed with happiness; everything falling into place. Since becoming a Christian, his teaching, reading, writing, and scholarship had all acquired zest and purpose.” Of course, Lewis used his newly found Christianity to cut off any religious discussion with Barfield and Bede Griffiths, for which the Zaleskis appear to exonerate Lewis. Of course Zaleski’s students, by reading this book, would now be fully warned about men like Williams (occultist and sadist). And bored with men like Barfield (esoteric).
In the end, though, the Zaleskis offer this positive conclusion to their 512 page work on the life of the Inklings; “Tolkien, Lewis, Barfield, and Williams, and their associates, by returning to the fundamentals of story and exploring its relationship to faith, virtue, self-transcendence, and hope have renewed a current that runs through the heart of Western literature.”
The Fellowship was very much worth the time invested. And I do think their book could be the seed for an extremely important discussion about the current state of theology in the Episcopal Church, especially considering the influx of those from other traditions, Roman Catholics (Tolkien), Evangelicals (Lewis), mystics (Williams), and philosophical intellectuals (Barfield).
he
By Philip and Carol Zaleski
Someone recently asked me why Philip and Carol Zaleski’s book, The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings would have any relevance to a theological conversation among clergy. Good question. We might want to consider that C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien probably have about as much influence on the people who sit in the pews of churches today than probably any two other writers in Christian history. In 2006, Christianity Today named Lewis’s book, Mere Christianity, the third most important book among Evangelicals since 1945. Carol Zaleski says that Lewis is “arguably the best selling Christian writer since John Bunyan.” As for Tolkien, the British bookseller Waterstone’s declared Lord of the Rings book of the century in 1997. Sales for Lord of the Rings are estimated between 150 – 200 million copies. The film trilogy that was based on Tolkien’s book was collectively the highest grossing films of all times. Why add Charles Williams and Owen Barfield to the theological conversation? The Zaleskis write that, “They make the perfect rose of faith: Tolkien the Catholic, Lewis the “mere” Christian, Williams the Anglican (and magus), Barfield the esotericist. Frankly, given the theological mix of clergy and laity these days, this quaternity might reflect the theology of the Episcopal Church better than any combination of writers in the modern era.
C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Owen Barfield, and Charles Williams were complex men, romantics, philosophers, theologians, fiction writers, and friends. These men were the heart of a male only group known as the Inklings. They gathered for most of twenty years, from the Great Depression through the 1950s, in an Oxford pub to drink, to smoke, to read their latest work, and to endure frank, sharp critique. The Inklings could exemplify the best and the worst of men only gatherings; unrestrained masculinity can lead to authentic conversations, however, without confrontation from the feminine shadow they can also lead to relationships that lack the integration of mind, body, soul, and spirit.
Carol and Philip Zaleski, authors and professors of religious studies, have tackled the complicated task of writing a biography of four unique personalities. The Zaleskis, rightfully, are unwilling to excuse the Inklings for their exclusion of women writers from their group. They are, however, not willing to go as far as to name the Inklings, what other critics have labeled as, “simply a club of Lewis’s friends.” The Zaleskis are fair in the assessment of the contribution of the four Inklings they chose to focus their time on throughout this lengthy work. Yet, to me, their book feels biased by their analysis of these men’s religious pursuits. They give the cradle born and faithful Catholic Tolkien, a pass. In their eyes, he seems to do little wrong. Lewis, on the other hand, an agnostic until his moment of “conversion” to Christianity, is subtly critiqued for not taking the step from Anglicanism to Catholicism. Williams, an Anglican, is questioned for his involvement in the secret Fellowship of the Rosy Cross, a group founded by A.E. Waite. The Fellowship has significant influence on Williams’ novels and his Theology of Romance. The Zaleskis would suffer none of Williams’ ideas of secret societies, the kabbalah, alchemy, Freemasonry, or the Tarot. Barfield faired even worse. He came under the influence of Rudolf Steiner and the Anthroposophical Society, which was “dedicated to expounding ‘Spiritual Sciences.’” A method of occult insight that offered, Steiner claimed, “reliable, verifiable, clairvoyant exploration of the spiritual realm.” Later they even passively dismissed Barfield’s eventual conversion to Christianity through the Anglican Church.
The Zalenski’s provide a detailed, well-researched, and interesting book. They offered unique insights about the Inklings’ relationships with each other. As well, the Zaleskis delve into the personal lives of each author, especially their relationships with women. Tolkien may have based the women in his books on the idolization of his mother, who died when he was a child. Lewis had, at the least, odd relationships with some of the women in their lives. Williams, who poetry and theology swing like a pendulum between the Song of Solomon and Dark Eros, can be troubling for those not willing to carefully analyze his work at a Jungian level. The Zaleskis advertise that their book delivers new information about Williams. Such is probably an overstatement on their part given the work of Gavin Ashesen’s Charles Williams: Alchemy and Integration and Grevel Lindop’s Charles Williams: The Third Inklings. Considering Barfield, other biographers find little of substance to question Barfield’s relationship with his wife. The Zaleski’s, however, write, “The two (Barfield and his wife) maintained a peaceful veneer by avoiding all discussion of religion or metaphysics and especially Anthroposophy, but this scarcely constitutes a prescription for marital bliss. Frustrated in his art, unhappy in his career, uninspired in his marriage, Barfield longed desperately for…well, he hardly knew what.”
This leads to my critique of the Zaleski’s book. It feels as if they wrote their book as a Sunday school morality lesson for Carol Zaleski’s young women students at Smith College. She praises Tolkien’s Catholic morality. (She never discloses that she was a mid-life convert to Catholicism.) Then proclaims that after Lewis converted to Christianity he “brimmed with happiness; everything falling into place. Since becoming a Christian, his teaching, reading, writing, and scholarship had all acquired zest and purpose.” Of course, Lewis used his newly found Christianity to cut off any religious discussion with Barfield and Bede Griffiths, for which the Zaleskis appear to exonerate Lewis. Of course Zaleski’s students, by reading this book, would now be fully warned about men like Williams (occultist and sadist). And bored with men like Barfield (esoteric).
In the end, though, the Zaleskis offer this positive conclusion to their 512 page work on the life of the Inklings; “Tolkien, Lewis, Barfield, and Williams, and their associates, by returning to the fundamentals of story and exploring its relationship to faith, virtue, self-transcendence, and hope have renewed a current that runs through the heart of Western literature.”
The Fellowship was very much worth the time invested. And I do think their book could be the seed for an extremely important discussion about the current state of theology in the Episcopal Church, especially considering the influx of those from other traditions, Roman Catholics (Tolkien), Evangelicals (Lewis), mystics (Williams), and philosophical intellectuals (Barfield).
he
Thursday, January 14, 2016
Water: The Spherical Cycle of Birth and Death
We’re celebrating the Feast of Jesus’ Baptism. The liturgical color for baptism is white. My sister made the stole I’m wearing as a gift for my ordination. Dinah is the oldest known person in Arizona with Prader-Willi Syndrome. She’s mentally and physically handicapped. At the time I was ordained, Dinah was a part of the Art Works project in Tucson. The director of the program was a Roman Catholic nun. She helped Dinah make this very special stole.
The stole also reminds me of the day my sister was baptized. We grew up in a Southern Baptist home. In the Southern Baptist church someone is baptized only after they have accepted Jesus as their personal savior. By the time a child is somewhere around six to eight years old they’ve reached the “age of reason.” What that means as a Southern Baptist is that you’re old enough to know that you’re a sinner. And if you die without Jesus as your personal savior you will go to hell. In the Baptist church baptism is your first act of being a follower of Jesus.
Southern Baptist’s, however, would not expect someone like Dinah to fully understand the concepts Jesus, God, sin, heaven, and hell. In a sense, she would never reach the age of reason or accountability. The idea of Dinah being baptized never came up in our church.
However, it would be a mistake to think Dinah doesn’t understand something simply because she can’t talk very well. Fifteen years ago, when Dinah was forty-five, she started telling my mom she wanted to baptized. My mom asked me what I thought and said if Dinah wants to be baptized, why not? I asked Dinah why she wanted to be baptized. She said, “Jesus my heart.” On Easter Sunday, 2001, I baptized Dinah.
The best way to describe Dinah’s connection to God is that she’s a mystic. A mystic’s experience with the divine is usually beyond description. What the mystic sees, smells, hears, tastes, and feels leaves the intellect scrambling for words that don’t exist. The mystic is left with only symbols and metaphors to describe their experience. Like Dinah saying she feels Jesus in her heart. She’s using a mystical metaphor to explain her experience.
You might be wandering about what the Episcopal Church believes about baptism. Baptism is a visible symbol of what God is doing in our interior life. God’s work in our life is eternal. God always has been, is, and will be working in our life. God knows us in the womb, in our life, in our death, and for all of eternity. God’s knowing of us is not bound by human time—God is pure timelessness, which we are a part of. For Episcopalians, what happens at baptism is a mystery, beyond human words, beyond the intellect. We baptize babies as the mystical symbol of God’s work in the child’s life—in God’s timelessness. We baptize adults not because they understand what’s happening; indeed we baptize because they admit they don’t understand and never will. They’re willing to live into the eternal mystery.
The eternal symbol of the mystery is water. The symbol of water is our connection to the timelessness of God’s creation. By the symbol of water we are mystically connected to the very beginnings of Mother Earth. In the beginning the earth was covered with the chaos of water. Out of that primordial water humanity was born. And out of the water of the womb, we are born. We are sustained in life by water. And in death we will return to God’s eternal sea. The symbol of water is the spherical cycle of birth and death. Water is our mystical connection to eternal timelessness, where the past is the present and now is the future.
The symbol of water is such an important part of our life as Episcopalians. We call upon the Spirit to bless the water at baptism as the mystical symbol of our timeless experience with the Divine in our birth. At every celebration of the Holy Eucharist, we pour water into the wine as a mystical symbol of the timeless experience of the Divine in our life. Every time we walk into the church we dip our fingers in blessed water and cross ourselves as a symbol that we one with the Divine. And at our death, we will be sprinkled with water as a mystical symbol that we have gone into God’s sea of timelessness.
Our tradition for the celebration of today’s feast is to bless the people with the water of baptism—a symbol of Jesus’ baptism and our baptism. I’m using a palm branch, a symbol of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection—a symbol our life, death, and resurrection.
Meditate on these symbols that speak beyond words. Live into these symbols that speak beyond words. Be these symbols that speak beyond words. I know it’s weird. But these symbols will keep changing everything in your life—what you eat, what you buy, how you treat people, how you vote. More importantly, what you think about your experiences of God will change how you follow Jesus.
The stole also reminds me of the day my sister was baptized. We grew up in a Southern Baptist home. In the Southern Baptist church someone is baptized only after they have accepted Jesus as their personal savior. By the time a child is somewhere around six to eight years old they’ve reached the “age of reason.” What that means as a Southern Baptist is that you’re old enough to know that you’re a sinner. And if you die without Jesus as your personal savior you will go to hell. In the Baptist church baptism is your first act of being a follower of Jesus.
Southern Baptist’s, however, would not expect someone like Dinah to fully understand the concepts Jesus, God, sin, heaven, and hell. In a sense, she would never reach the age of reason or accountability. The idea of Dinah being baptized never came up in our church.
However, it would be a mistake to think Dinah doesn’t understand something simply because she can’t talk very well. Fifteen years ago, when Dinah was forty-five, she started telling my mom she wanted to baptized. My mom asked me what I thought and said if Dinah wants to be baptized, why not? I asked Dinah why she wanted to be baptized. She said, “Jesus my heart.” On Easter Sunday, 2001, I baptized Dinah.
The best way to describe Dinah’s connection to God is that she’s a mystic. A mystic’s experience with the divine is usually beyond description. What the mystic sees, smells, hears, tastes, and feels leaves the intellect scrambling for words that don’t exist. The mystic is left with only symbols and metaphors to describe their experience. Like Dinah saying she feels Jesus in her heart. She’s using a mystical metaphor to explain her experience.
You might be wandering about what the Episcopal Church believes about baptism. Baptism is a visible symbol of what God is doing in our interior life. God’s work in our life is eternal. God always has been, is, and will be working in our life. God knows us in the womb, in our life, in our death, and for all of eternity. God’s knowing of us is not bound by human time—God is pure timelessness, which we are a part of. For Episcopalians, what happens at baptism is a mystery, beyond human words, beyond the intellect. We baptize babies as the mystical symbol of God’s work in the child’s life—in God’s timelessness. We baptize adults not because they understand what’s happening; indeed we baptize because they admit they don’t understand and never will. They’re willing to live into the eternal mystery.
The eternal symbol of the mystery is water. The symbol of water is our connection to the timelessness of God’s creation. By the symbol of water we are mystically connected to the very beginnings of Mother Earth. In the beginning the earth was covered with the chaos of water. Out of that primordial water humanity was born. And out of the water of the womb, we are born. We are sustained in life by water. And in death we will return to God’s eternal sea. The symbol of water is the spherical cycle of birth and death. Water is our mystical connection to eternal timelessness, where the past is the present and now is the future.
The symbol of water is such an important part of our life as Episcopalians. We call upon the Spirit to bless the water at baptism as the mystical symbol of our timeless experience with the Divine in our birth. At every celebration of the Holy Eucharist, we pour water into the wine as a mystical symbol of the timeless experience of the Divine in our life. Every time we walk into the church we dip our fingers in blessed water and cross ourselves as a symbol that we one with the Divine. And at our death, we will be sprinkled with water as a mystical symbol that we have gone into God’s sea of timelessness.
Our tradition for the celebration of today’s feast is to bless the people with the water of baptism—a symbol of Jesus’ baptism and our baptism. I’m using a palm branch, a symbol of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection—a symbol our life, death, and resurrection.
Meditate on these symbols that speak beyond words. Live into these symbols that speak beyond words. Be these symbols that speak beyond words. I know it’s weird. But these symbols will keep changing everything in your life—what you eat, what you buy, how you treat people, how you vote. More importantly, what you think about your experiences of God will change how you follow Jesus.
Monday, December 28, 2015
Timelessness
There is a sense of timelessness about Christmas. Our daughter lives in Seattle and one her goals in life appears to be, spoiling her two nephews, especially on Christmas Day. She loves them dearly. Cole, our oldest grandson will be four in February and Zane just turned one. Last week, a few days before Christmas, Cole told Cathy that he saw gifts under the tree. She told him that on Christmas Day there would be presents under the tree for him. With innocence and wonderment he said, “Gifts for me?”
For not being four-years-old, Cole knows everything about construction equipment. He knows all the about frontend loaders, backhoes, excavators, and cranes. He knows the brand name of the equipment by color. He knows the difference between a John Deere, a Caterpillar, and a Mack. So, for Christmas, our daughter bought him his own riding frontend loader with a backhoe attachment. She had it shipped to our house. When it arrived, looking at the picture on the box, I realized it had to be put together. I didn’t want our grandson to have to wait on Christmas Day for his dad and I to put it together. And for our daughter, I wanted to take a video of Cole when he saw this amazing gift she had bought him. So, I dumped out the nearly 100 pieces and four sets on instructions on the garage floor.
Honestly, I’m not very good at this kind of thing. But, being a grandpa, I started in. Truthfully, I lost track of time. After awhile, I was taken back in time to when I put gifts together for our children. And then, I began thinking about the Christmas when I was nine and my dad bought a basketball goal for our driveway. The day after Christmas being outside with him while he put it on the house. And then I found myself thinking about the Christmas’ I had spent time with my granddad, riding in his truck and listening to his stories. And that took me back to when I was Cole’s age, being with my great grandfather at Christmas. He was an enigma, a mysterious man.
While I was putting Cole’s little tractor together, I was caught up in a thin space of timelessness. I felt a connection with everything past. At that moment, everything past felt like it was present to me in that space. My great grandfather, my grandfather, my dad surrounded me while I was working on Cole’s gift. There was a deep sense of being fully present to the moment. There was no longer any past or any future. Everything was now. It was as if I was meant for that moment in time—that present moment was my purpose. Upon reflection, I realized that day in our garage was a very contemplative experience for me.
Today’s reading is from the opening of the Gospel of John; such beautiful, mystical poetry. I think John is sharing with us one of those holy present contemplative moments in his life when he was with Jesus Christ. John’s vision appears to be one those moments when he was caught up in the timelessness of his experience.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” (John 1:1-5)
I can imagine John’s words were inspired by his contemplation on the scripture. The words from John sound like Proverbs, the Wisdom book of the Hebrew Bible.
“The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first acts of long ago. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth…When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep…I was beside him, like a master worker; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.” (Proverbs 8:22-31)
And the words from Proverbs sound a like the opening of Genesis, words I am sure he had memorized.
“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness Night.” (Genesis 1:1-5)
I think John was sharing his contemplation of the scripture with us. John was seeing the Wisdom of Jesus in the Word of the Hebrew Scripture. John had learned from Jesus how to be caught up in timeless moment of the now…the moment when we are connected to the Divine.
In the moments of being caught up in the timelessness of God, there is no past and there is no future. There is only the present moment. We lose track of time. What happened in the past—is now—and now is the future—because we are here—now in this moment and time. In God’s time, “in the beginning” is now.
This means we can let go of the expectations and anxiety we have about tomorrow. This is the season of Christmas, the twelve days of Christmas. We are suspended in God’s season of timelessness. The season of “now.” We are not waiting any longer. We don’t have to fret about tomorrow. Twelve days of Divine completeness. “Twelve” is used 187 times in the Bible as a symbol of completeness; the 12 tribes Israel, the 12 disciples, the first recorded words of Jesus was when he was 12, the 12 gates of New Jerusalem are guarded by 12 angels—the Trinitarian number times the number of completeness. We are in the season of God’s complete act—we are in a season of timelessness—where there is no past and there is no tomorrow—there is only now. Jesus came to teach us to live in the authentic, raw, naked now of every moment of life.
The season of Christmas lasts until January 6. Until then, just for these few days, focus on the now, the very presence of being present to every moment. Live for this moment of time of being One with the Holy Living God
For not being four-years-old, Cole knows everything about construction equipment. He knows all the about frontend loaders, backhoes, excavators, and cranes. He knows the brand name of the equipment by color. He knows the difference between a John Deere, a Caterpillar, and a Mack. So, for Christmas, our daughter bought him his own riding frontend loader with a backhoe attachment. She had it shipped to our house. When it arrived, looking at the picture on the box, I realized it had to be put together. I didn’t want our grandson to have to wait on Christmas Day for his dad and I to put it together. And for our daughter, I wanted to take a video of Cole when he saw this amazing gift she had bought him. So, I dumped out the nearly 100 pieces and four sets on instructions on the garage floor.
Honestly, I’m not very good at this kind of thing. But, being a grandpa, I started in. Truthfully, I lost track of time. After awhile, I was taken back in time to when I put gifts together for our children. And then, I began thinking about the Christmas when I was nine and my dad bought a basketball goal for our driveway. The day after Christmas being outside with him while he put it on the house. And then I found myself thinking about the Christmas’ I had spent time with my granddad, riding in his truck and listening to his stories. And that took me back to when I was Cole’s age, being with my great grandfather at Christmas. He was an enigma, a mysterious man.
While I was putting Cole’s little tractor together, I was caught up in a thin space of timelessness. I felt a connection with everything past. At that moment, everything past felt like it was present to me in that space. My great grandfather, my grandfather, my dad surrounded me while I was working on Cole’s gift. There was a deep sense of being fully present to the moment. There was no longer any past or any future. Everything was now. It was as if I was meant for that moment in time—that present moment was my purpose. Upon reflection, I realized that day in our garage was a very contemplative experience for me.
Today’s reading is from the opening of the Gospel of John; such beautiful, mystical poetry. I think John is sharing with us one of those holy present contemplative moments in his life when he was with Jesus Christ. John’s vision appears to be one those moments when he was caught up in the timelessness of his experience.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” (John 1:1-5)
I can imagine John’s words were inspired by his contemplation on the scripture. The words from John sound like Proverbs, the Wisdom book of the Hebrew Bible.
“The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first acts of long ago. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth…When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep…I was beside him, like a master worker; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.” (Proverbs 8:22-31)
And the words from Proverbs sound a like the opening of Genesis, words I am sure he had memorized.
“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness Night.” (Genesis 1:1-5)
I think John was sharing his contemplation of the scripture with us. John was seeing the Wisdom of Jesus in the Word of the Hebrew Scripture. John had learned from Jesus how to be caught up in timeless moment of the now…the moment when we are connected to the Divine.
In the moments of being caught up in the timelessness of God, there is no past and there is no future. There is only the present moment. We lose track of time. What happened in the past—is now—and now is the future—because we are here—now in this moment and time. In God’s time, “in the beginning” is now.
This means we can let go of the expectations and anxiety we have about tomorrow. This is the season of Christmas, the twelve days of Christmas. We are suspended in God’s season of timelessness. The season of “now.” We are not waiting any longer. We don’t have to fret about tomorrow. Twelve days of Divine completeness. “Twelve” is used 187 times in the Bible as a symbol of completeness; the 12 tribes Israel, the 12 disciples, the first recorded words of Jesus was when he was 12, the 12 gates of New Jerusalem are guarded by 12 angels—the Trinitarian number times the number of completeness. We are in the season of God’s complete act—we are in a season of timelessness—where there is no past and there is no tomorrow—there is only now. Jesus came to teach us to live in the authentic, raw, naked now of every moment of life.
The season of Christmas lasts until January 6. Until then, just for these few days, focus on the now, the very presence of being present to every moment. Live for this moment of time of being One with the Holy Living God
Saturday, December 26, 2015
Adventures in Soulmaking, a book review
Adventures in Soulmaking, a book by Troy Caldwell
Review by Gil Stafford
Troy Caldwell has presented an excellent entre into the world of spiritual direction from a Jungian perspective for his intended audience. He makes it very clear on the first page that he is writing his book for orthodox evangelicals who are mental health care providers, spiritual directors, and pastors.
Caldwell is a psychiatrist and spiritual director. His book contains countless interesting anecdotes about his life and those of his clients. Chapter 5 “From Fragmentation to Higher Things,” is the story of Caldwell’s psychiatric treatment of Andrea, a woman with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). I found the story fascinating. But, the story would be out of place for anyone who is not a mental health care provider. Caldwell does not make this point clear in his book. Instead, Caldwell uses the story to “illustrate the fragmentation that can occur as we grow up in a fallen world.”
What drew me to Caldwell’s book was my curiosity as to whether someone could bring together Jungian depth psychology with orthodox evangelical theology. For example, his view of a fallen world and original sin are clearly orthodox. Then, Caldwell quotes liberally from Carl Jung, Evelyn Underhill, and Charles Williams. He includes information about archetypes, dreams, and the Tarot. I found his presentation intriguing. Caldwell says, “I am convinced from scripture, convinced from empirical observation of patients, and convinced from personal experience that the opening to the ‘spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of (Jesus Christ)’ involves activating the symbolic mind.”
I applaud Caldwell’s valiant attempt to convince orthodox evangelicals that Jung, Underhill, Williams, and the many others he quotes have something valuable to offer them. However, as someone who reads those authors and is not an orthodox evangelical, I take issue with some of Caldwell’s interpretation of Jung as a way of supporting the author’s orthodox theology. For example, Caldwell equates the “shadow” with “sin.” On this issue, Mary Ann Matton in her book Jungian Psychology in Perspective writes that Jung’s view is that, “although ‘sin’ and ‘shadow’ are identical to some people, the designation of ‘shadow’ implies the possibility of embracing the dark side for the sake of wholeness while ‘sin’ suggest rejection of the dark side in pursuit of perfection.” In this regard, Caldwell falls short of Jung’s goal of the non-duality of individuation, in other words, the union of opposites. Instead, he chooses to maintain the orthodox view of Christian dualism. At this point, and some others, in my opinion, I think Caldwell misinterprets Jung and maybe Jesus as well.
One last point, in reviewing books I have chosen to read several self-published authors. I think self-publishing has an important place in our world of independent authors. My humble opinion is that self-published books fall into two categories: authors who invest in an excellent editor and those who don’t. Unfortunately, Caldwell must have done the later. Caldwell’s writing is, at times folksy, clumsy, and rambling. A good editor could have challenged him to move beyond those possible stopping points for his reader.
I would, though, still recommend Caldwell’s book for his intended audience. Adventures in Soulmaking has much to offer. For those outside the realm of Christian evangelical orthodoxy, just know Caldwell has not written this book with you in mind.
Review by Gil Stafford
Troy Caldwell has presented an excellent entre into the world of spiritual direction from a Jungian perspective for his intended audience. He makes it very clear on the first page that he is writing his book for orthodox evangelicals who are mental health care providers, spiritual directors, and pastors.
Caldwell is a psychiatrist and spiritual director. His book contains countless interesting anecdotes about his life and those of his clients. Chapter 5 “From Fragmentation to Higher Things,” is the story of Caldwell’s psychiatric treatment of Andrea, a woman with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). I found the story fascinating. But, the story would be out of place for anyone who is not a mental health care provider. Caldwell does not make this point clear in his book. Instead, Caldwell uses the story to “illustrate the fragmentation that can occur as we grow up in a fallen world.”
What drew me to Caldwell’s book was my curiosity as to whether someone could bring together Jungian depth psychology with orthodox evangelical theology. For example, his view of a fallen world and original sin are clearly orthodox. Then, Caldwell quotes liberally from Carl Jung, Evelyn Underhill, and Charles Williams. He includes information about archetypes, dreams, and the Tarot. I found his presentation intriguing. Caldwell says, “I am convinced from scripture, convinced from empirical observation of patients, and convinced from personal experience that the opening to the ‘spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of (Jesus Christ)’ involves activating the symbolic mind.”
I applaud Caldwell’s valiant attempt to convince orthodox evangelicals that Jung, Underhill, Williams, and the many others he quotes have something valuable to offer them. However, as someone who reads those authors and is not an orthodox evangelical, I take issue with some of Caldwell’s interpretation of Jung as a way of supporting the author’s orthodox theology. For example, Caldwell equates the “shadow” with “sin.” On this issue, Mary Ann Matton in her book Jungian Psychology in Perspective writes that Jung’s view is that, “although ‘sin’ and ‘shadow’ are identical to some people, the designation of ‘shadow’ implies the possibility of embracing the dark side for the sake of wholeness while ‘sin’ suggest rejection of the dark side in pursuit of perfection.” In this regard, Caldwell falls short of Jung’s goal of the non-duality of individuation, in other words, the union of opposites. Instead, he chooses to maintain the orthodox view of Christian dualism. At this point, and some others, in my opinion, I think Caldwell misinterprets Jung and maybe Jesus as well.
One last point, in reviewing books I have chosen to read several self-published authors. I think self-publishing has an important place in our world of independent authors. My humble opinion is that self-published books fall into two categories: authors who invest in an excellent editor and those who don’t. Unfortunately, Caldwell must have done the later. Caldwell’s writing is, at times folksy, clumsy, and rambling. A good editor could have challenged him to move beyond those possible stopping points for his reader.
I would, though, still recommend Caldwell’s book for his intended audience. Adventures in Soulmaking has much to offer. For those outside the realm of Christian evangelical orthodoxy, just know Caldwell has not written this book with you in mind.
Monday, December 21, 2015
The Longest Night
Winter Solstice 2015
“Hello, from the other side.” Adele’s haunting lyrics are dripping with possibility. She grants me permission to include my story in the next line; like pure alchemical poetry.
On the longest night of darkness,
I wait in the charcoal hues
for the full moon of Mother’s morning.
Hello, from the other side not yet light;
for there is no bright Morning Star
without the dark of the Brother’s Night.
No bridegroom Sol without bride Luna.
There is pleasure
still in the pit of the cold
of starlit shadow.
Oddly, I can find rest in night’s bosom of love.
Plenty of light shines out
from Sister Moon’s near full crescent.
The leafless tree casts her shadow
across my pilgrim soul’s journal.
Writing in the dark is no metaphor. And
neither is the owl
that flies like my shadow across weary brow.
A voice…
from the other side of my reality;
Ancient bards and
Poets Romantic past,
still present in eternal timelessness.
Words with souls tumbling
through the Solstice
Winter night.
Listening to the rhythm,
the rhymelessness,
the pace,
the gravel in the heart.
Adieu. Tears to—night.
“Hello, from the other side.” Adele’s haunting lyrics are dripping with possibility. She grants me permission to include my story in the next line; like pure alchemical poetry.
On the longest night of darkness,
I wait in the charcoal hues
for the full moon of Mother’s morning.
Hello, from the other side not yet light;
for there is no bright Morning Star
without the dark of the Brother’s Night.
No bridegroom Sol without bride Luna.
There is pleasure
still in the pit of the cold
of starlit shadow.
Oddly, I can find rest in night’s bosom of love.
Plenty of light shines out
from Sister Moon’s near full crescent.
The leafless tree casts her shadow
across my pilgrim soul’s journal.
Writing in the dark is no metaphor. And
neither is the owl
that flies like my shadow across weary brow.
A voice…
from the other side of my reality;
Ancient bards and
Poets Romantic past,
still present in eternal timelessness.
Words with souls tumbling
through the Solstice
Winter night.
Listening to the rhythm,
the rhymelessness,
the pace,
the gravel in the heart.
Adieu. Tears to—night.
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
Only Forgiveness Will Heal the Fear of Terror
John the Baptist would never get ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church. I mean, just imagine John the Baptist as your pastor. He had a gnarly untrimmed beard and he hadn’t had a haircut in years. He would refuse to wear vestments. His clothes were dirty and torn. He didn’t wear shoes. He looked more like a homeless person than he did a priest. I’m very confident that by today’s standards, John the Baptist couldn’t get a job as pastor at any church, Episcopal of otherwise. He wasn’t interested in church growth. It’s pretty obvious he didn’t care if people gave money to the church or not. And he was critical of most everyone around him, the government, religious leaders, and even those who wanted to be his followers.
When people showed up at the Jordan River, did he put out his hand and say, “Welcome to the Jordan River Episcopal Church?” No. He yelled at them. “You snakes! Why did you come out here?”
When John the Baptist preached, his message was often hard to understand. “The ax is at the root of the tree.” What could that mean? He was saying that we need to change our way of thinking. The tree John is talking about is the Tree of Life referred to in Genesis. In biblical mythology, the Tree of Life had two components; the first, the tree you could see above ground, which was mirrored by the second, the tree you couldn’t see because it was below ground. John was saying this Tree of Life you now see, our current way of thinking, is going to be cut down. What will then grow in its place is the tree below ground, which will be the new Tree of Life. And this new Tree of Life will be a cross.
On this cross will be a man, a unique man, a new Adam. This new Adam will be the Messiah. He will tell us that we will see him when he is raised up on this new Tree of Life, the cross, just like when Moses raised up the serpent on his staff. This Messiah will be the image of both innocence and evil. This new Adam will look like the old Adam. But, the new Adam will tell us that we need to take up our own cross. And that no matter how innocent we think are—we must crucify the serpent that lives within each of us on our own cross. How do we do that? Pray like the Messiah prayed. Like Jesus, the Messiah, the new Adam, taught us to pray. Jesus prayed, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” Then Jesus taught us to pray, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” This type of prayer brings God graced humility into our life.
When I heard about the shooting in San Bernardino, I was stunned. Then when I heard that it happened at a center for people with development disabilities, I got angry. All I could think of was what if that happened at the center that supports my sister. What if her beloved caregivers had been shot? Now, when I look at the faces of the fourteen people who were killed, all I can see is the faces of the two women who take care of my sister on a daily basis. My anger came right to the surface. At that moment, I realized I could kill.
What do I do with this anger? I own it. I say—that’s me. I could kill. By owning the fact that I could be just as violent as the two people who killed fourteen people in San Bernardino, I see myself for who I am. I put my sin of anger on the cross and I crucify it. And then I can pray, “Father forgive the terrorists for they know not what they do. Father, forgive me of my willingness to kill, as I forgive those who sin against me.
When any kind of injustice, any act that does not show love to another human being, is done—I must search in myself to find that sin in my own life. Then place that sin in my life on the cross and crucify it.
John the Baptist was teaching the people that came out to the Jordan River to be baptized into a new way of thinking. That way of thinking would be to think like the man Jesus, who was raised up on the new Tree of Life.
We must think like Jesus. As Saint Paul said, we must put on the mind of Christ, humble ourselves, empty ourselves, and be willing to crucify the things in our life that prevent us from being the love of Christ into this world.
What stops us from crucifying our own sins? We’re afraid. We’re afraid of terror—the terror created within us when we recognize we are no different than the two people that killed fourteen other people in San Bernardino. Fear and terror bring death—physical death a death of the soul. Only forgiveness will heal the fear of death and terror.
The ax is at the root of the Tree of Life. Are we ready for a new way of thinking? Can we pray, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Can we pray “Father, forgive me my sins, as I forgive those who sin against me.” Only forgive can bring healing.
I know this all sounds weird. But if we seriously pray for forgiveness, for others and for our selves, it will change everything. It will change what we eat, what we buy, how we think, how we treat people, and how we vote.
When people showed up at the Jordan River, did he put out his hand and say, “Welcome to the Jordan River Episcopal Church?” No. He yelled at them. “You snakes! Why did you come out here?”
When John the Baptist preached, his message was often hard to understand. “The ax is at the root of the tree.” What could that mean? He was saying that we need to change our way of thinking. The tree John is talking about is the Tree of Life referred to in Genesis. In biblical mythology, the Tree of Life had two components; the first, the tree you could see above ground, which was mirrored by the second, the tree you couldn’t see because it was below ground. John was saying this Tree of Life you now see, our current way of thinking, is going to be cut down. What will then grow in its place is the tree below ground, which will be the new Tree of Life. And this new Tree of Life will be a cross.
On this cross will be a man, a unique man, a new Adam. This new Adam will be the Messiah. He will tell us that we will see him when he is raised up on this new Tree of Life, the cross, just like when Moses raised up the serpent on his staff. This Messiah will be the image of both innocence and evil. This new Adam will look like the old Adam. But, the new Adam will tell us that we need to take up our own cross. And that no matter how innocent we think are—we must crucify the serpent that lives within each of us on our own cross. How do we do that? Pray like the Messiah prayed. Like Jesus, the Messiah, the new Adam, taught us to pray. Jesus prayed, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” Then Jesus taught us to pray, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” This type of prayer brings God graced humility into our life.
When I heard about the shooting in San Bernardino, I was stunned. Then when I heard that it happened at a center for people with development disabilities, I got angry. All I could think of was what if that happened at the center that supports my sister. What if her beloved caregivers had been shot? Now, when I look at the faces of the fourteen people who were killed, all I can see is the faces of the two women who take care of my sister on a daily basis. My anger came right to the surface. At that moment, I realized I could kill.
What do I do with this anger? I own it. I say—that’s me. I could kill. By owning the fact that I could be just as violent as the two people who killed fourteen people in San Bernardino, I see myself for who I am. I put my sin of anger on the cross and I crucify it. And then I can pray, “Father forgive the terrorists for they know not what they do. Father, forgive me of my willingness to kill, as I forgive those who sin against me.
When any kind of injustice, any act that does not show love to another human being, is done—I must search in myself to find that sin in my own life. Then place that sin in my life on the cross and crucify it.
John the Baptist was teaching the people that came out to the Jordan River to be baptized into a new way of thinking. That way of thinking would be to think like the man Jesus, who was raised up on the new Tree of Life.
We must think like Jesus. As Saint Paul said, we must put on the mind of Christ, humble ourselves, empty ourselves, and be willing to crucify the things in our life that prevent us from being the love of Christ into this world.
What stops us from crucifying our own sins? We’re afraid. We’re afraid of terror—the terror created within us when we recognize we are no different than the two people that killed fourteen other people in San Bernardino. Fear and terror bring death—physical death a death of the soul. Only forgiveness will heal the fear of death and terror.
The ax is at the root of the Tree of Life. Are we ready for a new way of thinking? Can we pray, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Can we pray “Father, forgive me my sins, as I forgive those who sin against me.” Only forgive can bring healing.
I know this all sounds weird. But if we seriously pray for forgiveness, for others and for our selves, it will change everything. It will change what we eat, what we buy, how we think, how we treat people, and how we vote.
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