Kiddie Hawk

Joey Maynard was gone on Monday. We looked everywhere for him, but he was not to be found. He had vanished. I was only seven years old at the time, and that was a long time ago, but I’ll never forget Joey’s disappearance and the impact it had on us all.

We had played Rope-and-Brand-’Um the day before, and Joey had been the one who suggested that we burn Ethel Mae at the stake. “That’s what the Indians always did with white women,” he’d said. I don’t know where he got his information (probably from one of the Saturday matinees I somehow missed), but he spoke with a tone of authority. Not that knowing what he was talking about was important. Burning Ethel Mae at the stake would have been a good idea whether the Indians did things like that or not.

I expect that each of us had thought of burning Ethel Mae at the stake at one time or another. We’d never come right out and said it because Ethel Mae might have gotten wind of it and struck first. The only thing that enabled Joey to voice his idea was that we had Ethel Mae roped, tied, and on the ground—a state to which she had peacefully submitted, as part of the requirements of the game we were playing. He could take a chance with her in that condition.

You may think it was harsh and unkind of us to consider burning Ethel Mae at the stake. Actually, it was rather light treatment compared to some of the things she had done to us over the years. And if we had managed to carry out the plan, she would have gotten off easier than she deserved. But the way she treated us was not Ethel Mae’s greatest sin.

I suppose we could have forgiven her for the mean tricks she pulled on us; for stealing our baseball bats; and hiding our roller skates; and covering our football with grape jelly. However, the thing that got us; the thing that grated upon our nerves and trampled upon our pride; the thing for which we could not forgive Ethel Mae ever, was that she was better at being a boy than we were.

She could throw a baseball harder than we could and hit one farther. She could shoot a BB gun straighter and load one faster. She could dig more worms and catch more fish. She could run faster, and climb trees faster, and eat supper faster. She could eat more ice cream, and tell better lies. It was a shameful thing to be a boy with Ethel Mae around. And we spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out how to make her not-around. Burning her at the stake seemed to be the perfect solution.

We didn’t have a stake, but we decided that one of Joey’s clothesline poles would do. When Ethel Mae saw what we had in mind, she stopped cooperating, and we had a time of it getting her hauled over and tied to the clothesline pole in what we thought would be a proper position to be burned.

The rope ran out before we got to her feet, and she kept kicking away the sticks we gathered and tried to stack around her. She also kicked Marty Freeman in the mouth, putting him out of commission, and leaving us somewhat short-handed and demoralized. We may have stopped the procedure right there, except for the fact that Ethel Mae was describing graphically and in great detail all of the things that were going to happen when she got un-tied and at us. Having come this far, we knew we had to complete the task or suffer the burden of our failure to do so.

And we might have completed it if Joey’s mother hadn’t come out of the back door to call him inside. She saw what we were doing and told us to “stop-it-right-now-this-instant-I-said-stopit!” We knew we were in for it, and dashed to our respective homes. I looked over my shoulder and saw Mrs. Maynard and Joey untying Ethel Mae. It was the last time I ever saw him. The next morning he was gone for good.

At first we blamed it on Ethel Mae, but she seemed to be as genuinely troubled by his disappearance as any of us were. No one had any answers. And the adults weren’t talking. His mother would only say, “Joey’s gone”; or “Joey doesn’t live here any more.”

Our mothers were even less helpful. They would just shrug and change the subject. Or say they “didn’t know,” in a tone of voice that said, “I’m not saying a word, and the less you say, the better.”

What happened to Joey Maynard? The question burned in the souls of us all. And, no one would answer it for us. Later in life, I found that Joey’s folks had divorced, and he had left that Sunday night to go live with his father in Memphis, Tennessee. But in Itta Bena, Mississippi, in 1952, the big people didn’t talk to the little people about divorce (or about where babies come from; or about what Uncle Buck kept in the brown bag under his bed). In Itta Bena, Mississippi, in 1952, they didn’t tell little kids the truth straight out.

I’m sure they thought they were doing us a favor; protecting us from life; saving us from a lot of pain and worry. What they didn’t realize is that in the absence of truth, imagination reigns. And imagined pain and worry is infinitely worse than the real thing. We had to know what happened to Joey Maynard. If they wouldn’t tell us, we would figure it out for ourselves.

It was David Gillespie who led us to the light. He had been reading a comic book in the same room where his parents were talking in low tones (so as not to wake the baby) about the Wright brothers having invented the airplane at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. They were planning their family vacation, and North Carolina was one of the places they were considering.

David didn’t hear anything about vacations; or about the Wright brothers; or about airplanes. All he heard was Kiddie Hawk, and the fact that they lived in North Carolina. It was a revelation to us all.

Everything fell into place as he recounted his parents’ conversation. We were terrified and undone. And we finally understood what happened to Joey Maynard. Of course, we had never seen a Kiddie Hawk—but we had seen a chicken hawk.

We had watched one make off with one of Mr. Ed Randal’s prize pullets about three weeks before. The poor hen had no chance in the clutches of the hungry hawk; and we could imagine the helpless horror Joey (and all the other kids) must have felt, dangling from the talons of a Kiddie Hawk.

“I wonder if he took him all the way back to North Carolina before he ate him,” said Ethel Mae. We all grimaced at the very thought, and our lives changed dramatically.

Suddenly we understood why our parents warned us about going out after dark, and why they told us to be careful whenever we went outside to play. Now we knew why they didn’t want us climbing the tall oak tree down on the lake bank or playing on the railroad trestle over Roebuck Lake—high up in the branches, or out there on the rails, we would have been perfect targets for a soaring Kiddie Hawk. We left the tree and the trestle alone, and were very careful whenever we were outside.

We went everywhere huddled together in packs of three or more. One of us would always watch the sky, trusting the others to be careful guides, and hoping that we would never see what we watched for with rapt concentration. Of course, we all promised that if a Kiddie Hawk attacked one of us, the rest of us would be quick to the rescue. We knew it was a lie, but it made us feel better to have the pact, and we reminded each other of it often.

One afternoon we were at baseball practice when a crop duster cruised over with the engine off. As the plane’s shadow glided easily over the ball field, we shrieked, and scattered, and headed for cover.

Coach Stanley couldn’t imagine what we were doing inside and under his car and it took a lot of prodding to get it out of us. When we explained what was going on, he walked around bent over, laughing for a long time. Between wheezes and gasps, he pointed out the airplane to us and said there were no such things as Kiddie Hawks. By the next day, everyone in town was laughing and saying the same thing.

But, that was Itta Bena, Mississippi in 1952, and they didn’t tell little kids the truth, straight out. They said there were no such things as Kiddie Hawks, but they didn’t tell us there were things as bad as, or worse than, Kiddie Hawks in our future, and what we might do to deal with them.

Ethel Mae developed leukemia and died in her teens. David Gillespie’s twin sons wandered into a farm pond and drowned when they were four. Marty Freeman was killed in an airplane crash in his twenties. There are things waiting in the lives of all of us that we cannot bear alone.

We all need a place—the right kind of place with the right kind of people—where we can find what we need to face what lies tucked away in our lives—where we can go to process the day, and say who we are and how it is with us. Where we can talk about the impact of living, and how we are dealing with it, and what we might do to deal better with it.

We need the presence of the right kind of company. We need to spend time with those who can listen to us without preaching to us; without trying to fix us, or correct us, or convert us, or straighten us out, or advise us, or change us.

We need those with us who can offer the right kind of help in the right way—who can be, in the words of Shel Silvertstein, “the kind of help that help is all about.” Itta Bena, Mississippi didn’t have nearly enough of those people in 1952. There were plenty of people who laughed at the idea of Kiddie Hawks but did nothing to help us handle a truth they couldn’t handle themselves—and that is no laughing matter!

Story Time

The nine stories in this collection originated as sermons in Amory, Mississippi. There were seventeen in all, before the congregation had enough and asked me not to do that anymore, but to return to the old comfortable way of telling them what they had already heard, and fully expected to always hear, as a confirmation of all they hoped to be so.

The fact that Jesus told stories and never said anything about doctrine, theology, creeds or catechisms did not deter them in their quest for these things. And so it was that I was led to other ways of shaking up the Just So world of my congregations in Amory and Batesville in Mississippi, and at the Presbyterian Church of the Covenant in Greensboro, North Carolina, and introducing them as I was able to a world waiting for them to live the life that they alone were capable of living, in redeeming, atoning for and transforming their world as those “thus come” to be “the way, the truth and the life” in their time and place as Jesus was in his.

My success rate in achieving that outcome was probably the same as Jesus’ was.

However that may be, here are nine stories for your consideration.

Madonna with Child

She walked past the plate glass window

next to the booth where I sat with my friend Bill

in the worst hamburger joint on the eastern seaboard,

eating a dripping grease burger

oozing with melted Velveeta cheese of all things

with fries fresh from a year in the freezer.

She was twelve months pregnant, maybe thirteen.

Sashaying her first pregnancy

down the walk and through the door,

showing everybody who she was

and what she was carrying,

beneath her red spandex top,

and navy blue spandex tights,

stopping traffic and conversation,

as all onlookers

(And who could look away?)

paused in what they were doing

to honor, marvel at, rejoice in, worship, relish, adore, and remember

the wonder of a vision

equal in every way

to the one that stunned the angels

who announced the Messiah’s birth

with their hallelujahs, backflips, somersaults and high fives—

and as redemptive!

She redeemed the day, the week, the year, our lives, all of life,

forever, throughout all eternity.

And I carry her memory in my heart

to revere and esteem:

Mary, the mother of God,

ordering a grease burger with fries

and sanctifying the moment, and all gathered there

by the wonder of her grace bestowed upon us,

utterly transforming the ordinariness of our lives.

The Way of Soul Is the Way of Life

As conscious egos, we are full partners with our unconscious (so-called because we are not conscious of her/him) Self in effecting a growing union of conscious with unconscious, incarnating it in our life, and creating a life worth living.

The Psyche (Soul) needs us to be its hero, championing the unconscious with compassionate, mindful, awareness, and assisting its emergence into light by bringing it forth into our life.

Our questions to answer are: How might we assist the unconscious and its urge to conscious realization? How might we enable Psyche to know itself? How might we live out the truth of unconscious reality in our life?

“Know Thy Self,” one of the inscriptions in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi in ancient Greece, is a message from Psyche to Psyche by way of human consciousness. The Oracle speaks for all to all, hoping for ears to hear.

In our dreams, we perceive dark messages from Psyche, bring the light of consciousness to bear on them, and return each night for more, seeing deeper, knowing more fully, what waits to be known, understood, and acted upon—incorporated into our life—transforming all of life.

The heroic task is to ascend from darkness into light, and descend into darkness with light, and back from darkness into light, on and on… We seek what is unknown, unconscious to us, in order that it might be known, become conscious to us, and through us, to all people.

Ours is a mission of the ages, from the ages: To see with understanding, and to live and act with knowledge—knowing, even as we do, that as the darkness deepens, it also widens, and we plumb the unknown forever: “If you went in search of it, you would not find the boundaries of the soul, though you traveled every road, so deep is its measure”—Heraclitus

In order to fulfill our mission, we have to accept, and assume, the role that is ours to play in the unfolding of the Great Way—the Way of Tao—upon the earth. That Way is the joint way of consciousness with unconscious (Yin and Yang)—conscious dipping into unconscious, transforming experience into metaphor, symbol, poem, realization and ritual—making connections which transform the way life is lived, and going back to draw more from the unconscious source as a wellspring of living water, bringing life to life.

The problem is that we, as conscious egos, can supplant—and have supplanted—the Great Way (the Tao) with our own, personal, way, Xing-out the unconscious as a factor to be taken seriously in our life. Our plans and agendas interfere with our living in allegiance to the unconscious, and working its “will and purpose” into our life. We treat the unconscious as an irrelevant remnant from the distant dawn of the species, a storage room of sorts where we might keep old memories, with nothing helpful to offer in assisting us on our way.

The story of Adam and Eve is the story of the species cutting itself off from the unconscious ground of existence, and going its own way. Our place now is, as it has always been, that of finding our way back to Eden, and living out of our relationship with Psyche/Soul forever.

We take up the work of doing this by realizing that every night our dreams call us to an honest assessment of how things are with us, of how things are in our life.

We cannot kid ourselves in our dreams. But, we can deny what they reveal to us about us, and interpret them to suit ourselves.

Our dreams mean one thing, and we take them to mean another. This is always the downfall of those who consult the Delphic Oracle.

The Delphic Oracle continues to speak to us through our dreams, and we continue to misinterpret what we find there, because we serve our own agenda.

We know what we want, and don’t care what we need, or what needs us. “If we aren’t winning (that is, getting what we want), we are losing!” is the mantra of those who serve their agenda at the expense of every other consideration.

“Mindfulness leads the way.” We have to catch ourselves in the act of turning away from our task of collaborating with the unconscious in undertaking the Hero’s Journey by mothering ourselves, birthing ourselves, overseeing ourselves, into becoming who we are.

We are what we need to do the work that is ours to do, but we have to be mindful to know it.

When we say what we have to say, we hear what we need to hear, and know what we need to know in order to do what needs to be done.

It takes being free of agendas, will, fear, desire, judgment and opinion to say what we have to say, to know what we know. We have to stand apart from our investment in our life, from our stake in having things go our way, in order to live the life that waits to be lived in collaboration with our Soul/Self within.

It helps to have a group, a community, of like-minded people who can remind us of what’s what, and what needs to be done about it. The importance of the group, of the community, is to declare to us, over and over: “I Ain’t ‘cha Momma!” And: “You are your own responsibility!” And: “You have to be doing your own work!”

The importance of the group, of the community, is to declare to us, again and again: “The Messiah is not the Messiah! You save yourself by listening to yourself!”

The importance of the group, of the community, is to tell us, again and again: “Get out of the way, and stop jamming the signals!” The signals are always coming up from our deep Self/Psyche/Soul, hoping we will be listening today.

We jam the signals by thinking constantly about what we want, and don’t want, and how to get it, or escape/avoid it.

All we know is what we like and don’t like, want and don’t want. That isn’t nearly enough. We have to know what our deep Self/Psyche/Soul knows—and incorporate it into our life.

Knowing is the ground of being. The source of doing. “Be still and know”—what’s what, and how things are, and what needs to be done about it. That is where it all begins

Knowing knows what it knows, and what it does not know. That’s knowing!

Seeing with “the third eye” sees what it sees, and what it does not see. That’s seeing!

The kind of knowing that knows, the kind of seeing that sees, stems from being present with what is present with us in its fullness, its allness.

Seeing into the heart of things is the foundation for action appropriate to the occasion. We act from seeing/knowing.

Action that flows from will, desire, fear, judgment, opinion cares not for what is needed, and serves only what is wanted.

Being present with what is present to us in its fullness, its allness, is being present without emotional attachment, without will, desire or fear—or judgment, or opinion!

To live without will, desire, fear, judgment or opinion is to be open to what is happening in a way that sees into the heart of things, knows what’s what, and what needs to be done about it—and what can be done about it—does what can be done, and lets that be that.

Our role is to understand how easily we drift away from the path, turn aside from the way, and wander into wastelands of illusion and deception.

We have to focus on our destiny, our calling, to be stewards of soul, and know that everything depends upon our being loyal, dedicated, and unwavering in our allegiance, faithfulness and fidelity to soul, guarding its interests and tending its concerns.

We have to devote ourselves to learning the language of soul, and coming to know soul.

For example, soul doesn’t care a thing about computer passwords. Passwords belong to a world Soul inhabits, but does not belong to. We may struggle to remember passwords, install software, and backup our computer, but these are not things of soul.

Soul cares about beauty, mystery, poetry, music and dancing.

Soul cares about symbol and metaphor, pathos and love.

Money and due dates are not soulful things. Soul cares more about sandlot football than Super Bowl games. And drama? Oh, please!

Soul is into beach walks and meditation, and yoga that doesn’t go off on what pants you wear.

Soul is all over babies, and anything that has life about it.

What’s trending and fashionable isn’t soulful.

Slow is soulful. Fast is not.

Thunder is soulful. Loud and noisy is not.

Horses are soulful when they are not wearing roses.

Houses are soulful when they are homes and not showcases.

Natural is soulful. Pretentious is not.

Profit, exploitation, wealth and privilege are their own rewards, but they are not soulful.

The list goes on. Pay attention! Make your own list of things that are soulful and things that are not.

We have to make a covenant with one another to move from soulless living to soulful living, and to do so consciously, mindfully, relentlessly, daily.

We are changing the thrust and direction of our life—living with a new purpose and a new orientation—living consciously in light of what is important, essential, to us, because we say so, because we know so.

As we do this, we will be living counter-culturally, and we will not be good for the economy. But, the culture and the economy are killing soul. This is evident by the symptomatic nature of life in the world around us—and it is up to us to get things moving back toward the unconscious source of life and being.

To do so, we have to consciously redefine the sacred for ourselves.

Sacred is soulful. We have to live lives that honor what we hold to be sacred.

Plastic is not sacred. Sports are not sacred. Fast and loud are not sacred. Are not soulful. We have to do less of these things.

Each of us has to make our own list of things that are soulful/sacred, and devote ourselves to the service of the things on our list.

Our lists don’t have to agree. We will transform the world if we live out of our own list of sacred, soulful things—consciously, mindfully, dependably, religiously!

We don’t have to compare lists, defend our list, explain our list, justify our list, ask if our list is sacred/soulful enough. We only have to make a list—and live in ways which reflect its central place in our life.

Make a list of sacred, soulful things, and live from it. Honor it. Devote yourself to it. Live with the list in mind. Live in its service.

We have to make the sacred real in our life, but it has to be what we say is sacred to us, not what someone else tells us is supposed to be sacred. We say so!

We have to live to identify the sacred, and make it holy unto us in ways that are apparent by the way we live our life.

We live to make what is holy, sacred, soulful to us apparent in our life.

Buy into this. Talk your friends into buying into it. You aren’t selling them what you say is sacred, you are selling them on what they say is sacred.

Books are on my sacred/soulful list. I read every day. Music is on my list. I listen to music every day.

Make your list! Tend your list!

Don’t hang out with people who can’t tell you what is sacred to them, or who are not serving it in their life.

If someone tells you something that is sacred to them, ask them how they serve it in their life, and how often they work it into their life.

Work what is sacred to you into your life often. Daily is not too often. See how many things are sacred to you, and how often you can serve them.

The world is dying for people who live in ways that serve and honor soul. They are seeds in the earth, yeast in the dough, lights in the darkness, the hope of the world.

The Stone of Life

Find a stone that attracts you. Claim it as a sacred (to you, anyway) object of meditation. You are the stone carrier, the stonemason, the stone. You activate the power of the stone through reflection and realization. Spend time with the stone on a regular basis, cultivating a ritual of recognition and reorientation, with the stone without connecting you with the stone within.

One stone to contain them all.

The Foundation Stone—What is important/meaningful to you? What did you do today that was meaningful? What did you do last week that was meaningful? Where are the meaningful places for you in each week? What do you do to incorporate meaningful times/experiences into each week? You have to live out of your connection with what is important to you, meaningful to you. Establish that connection, nurture it, nourish it, tend it with time and attention. You cannot live your life accidentally, mindlessly. You live your life in relation to what is meaningful to you. You have to intentionally, mindfully, place yourself in the service of what is meaningful to you throughout your life. Your foundation stone is the heart of what is most meaningful in your life—live grounded in it, mindful of it, every day!

The Cornerstone—“The stone the builders reject becomes the chief cornerstone.” What is rejected by the culture, and hence by the people of the culture is our personal, individual, connection with our Heart, Soul, Mind and Body. With the culture, it is all about the Head. In the culture, feeling is subservient to thinking. This is to reverse the proper order of things. In the natural world, thinking is subservient to feeling–and the invisible world is the foundation of the visible world. In the natural world, we feel, sense, what is right in a situation—what needs to be done there—and then think out how it is best to do it.  We feel, sense, where we want to go, and think of the best way to get there.  We have to work to establish, and maintain, right relationship with Heart, Soul, Mind and Body. We do that by thinking about our connection to these deeper, older, aspect of ourselves, and tending our relationship with them by opening ourselves to what we are feeling/sensing/intuiting, in the time and place of our living and reflecting on our experience with “more than words can say” (or thoughts can think). We have to practice regularly “getting a feel” for our situation, and sensing what needs to be done about it, and then thinking how best to do it.

The Boundary Stone—Your boundary stone is what makes you, you—what sets you apart, identifies you as unique, individual and irreplaceable. It marks where you start and everyone else stops. It establishes what is your business, your work, your perspective, your view point, your personality, your character, your standards, your values, your traits, your preferences, etc.–and not someone else’s. You are here to live your own life–to be who you are. Carl Jung said, “You are who you always have been, and who you will be.” Let the stone remind you of you, connect you with you, and call you to live out of who you are and what you have to offer in each situation as it unfolds before you.

The Grave Stone—We only have a certain amount of time in which to bring ourselves forth in meeting our life, and expressing the gift, art, genius that are ours to present to the world through the way we live in it. Because we die, the life we live in service to The Stone of Life, is essential and irreplaceable. The stone is a symbol of the sacred nature of our life—of ourselves.  Therefore, we must not die before our time. Our commitment is to The Stone of Life. We must not hurry the time of our dying, but live our life in full service to the stone that we hold, and to the stone that we are.

You are the stone carrier, the stonemason, the stone. Live in ways that honor this truth and make it so.

The Foundation of Good Religion

The foundation of all good religion,
world-wide
(Universal, should there prove
to be religions in other parts
of the universe)
is expressed in the four primary symbols
of Christianity–
devoid of the theology surrounding them:
Bread, Wine, Water, Cross.
The Water is the amniotic fluid of birth.
Every birth is birth by “water (and blood) and spirit,”
with the “spirit” being the spirit of life and being.
We are all united by the water of birth
and the spirit of life.
We are all alive,
but we have no idea what that means,
where life comes from
and where it goes.
We are awash in mystery from the first–
the foundational fact of good religion.
The Bread reminds us that the bread of affliction
is the bread of life.
The Wine declares that the cup of suffering
is the cup of salvation.
And the Cross does not represent
a vehicle of execution,
but the burden of growing up
and bearing the opposites,
the contradictions
and polarities of our life–
and it encompasses all of the initiation rites,
and rites of passage,
of the species,
as well as evidencing
the primary place
that trials and ordeals
hold in the life of all people,
serving everyone as the
impetus for growth and maturation,
and enabling us to discover
the hero who resides unknown within.
These symbols unite us all.
Everyone knows out of
our own experience
the validity of each one
and their place in our life.
They are the ground on which we stand,
the source from which we proceed
to form,
shape,
and define the life we are living.
And we need no theology
to tell us something we already know
by having lived it.

The New Religion

The new religion will connect you with the life that is yours to live, and help you live it.

The new religion has no interest in separating you from your money, or getting you to sing in its choirs, or teach its Sunday schools, or recruit people to the new religion.

The new religion is not going to tell you to smile because God loves you, or tell you that it loves you just as you are.

The new religion will tell you it needs you to join it in the work of transforming the culture and the world for the sake of both.

The new religion will tell you that we are here to make ourselves more like we ought to be than we are, and, in so doing, make the culture and the world more like they ought to be than they are.

The new religion will tell you that being more like we ought to be than we are means living in sync with ourselves, and in accord with our life—living at one with who, and where, we are.

The new religion understands that we need a culture that connects us with ourselves, and enables us to live in accord with our life—to be at one with who, and where, we are.

The new religion understands that it all has to work together: religion, culture, world, to produce individuals who can be true to themselves, and live the life that fits them.

The new religion will tell you that we all have a life that fits us the way our shoes fit us, or our dentures.

The new religion will help us find the life that fits us, and help us live it, in being, and becoming, who we are within the context and circumstances of our life.

The new religion will tell us we cannot have what we want without changing what we want. Our life goals have to be commensurate with our life.

The new religion will put itself between the life we are living, and the life that is ours to live, and help us live with a foot in each world—this is called walking two paths at the same time.

The new religion will help you find a new collection of symbols, metaphors and rituals to ground you in the sacred, and center you in your life—the life that is your life to live.

The new religion will tell you that you can’t be responsible for other people’s craziness. Or for their moods. Or for their behavior. You can only be responsible for yourself, and live in ways appropriate to the occasion in relationship with others, and let them do with it what they will.

The new religion will require you to decide for yourself what is important in each situation as it arises, and live there in ways that honor and reflect that.

The new religion will require you to recognize what is the central, highest/deepest, value in your life, and to live in ways which honor and reflect it.

One of the tenets of the new religion is: No Lip Service Allowed! We do not say something is true for us that is not true for us.

Another of the tenets of the new religion is: No Talk! Do! We do not talk religion in the new religion. We live it. Everything we say is so has to be validated in the way we live our life.

In the new religion, we can’t say, “We don’t hate gay people or black people,” when the gay people and black people can’t tell the difference. We live in ways that make plain how we feel, where we stand.

There is no Bible, as such, in the new religion, but people read the hallowed literature of all ages–prose and poetry, fiction and nonfiction–led to what resonates with them by what resonates with them, reflecting on their experience and the experience of others, in forming new realizations and growing in their understanding of themselves and all things.

In the new religion, we do not talk about what we believe. We talk about what we have experienced, and about what we are doing in response to what we have experienced, and about what we need to do in further response to it.

In the new religion, there is no theology, and no doctrine. We believe in our life, in our work, in our gifts, in what needs us to do it, and in doing it.

In the new religion, we believe in seeing, hearing, and understanding. We believe in silence. In inquiry and imagination. In play and laughter.

In the new religion, we believe in health and wholeness. In bearing the pain of our contradictions, and integrating our polarities.

In the new religion, we believe in reconciling our conflicts, and living on the boundary between yin and yang.

The new religion will demand that we honor our bodies, and listen to them, giving them things they need, and not giving them things they don’t need.

The new religion will not be concerned with abundant life for all eternity, but with abundant life for here and now.

Symbols of Transformation

Carl Jung wrote a hefty book entitled “Symbols of Transformation,” and I like the title so much, I’m using it here. I trust that Dr. Jung would be kind in his response to my pilfering his term.

Take all of the symbols of the Christian Church—the Bible, the Promised Land, the Manger, the Cross, the Empty Tomb, the Bread and Wine of Communion, the Water of Baptism, and all of the rest—and put them on, say, the Communion Table. Now, rake them all onto the floor. Our task is to put them back on the table reclaimed, reconsidered, reimagined, reinterpreted, reconstructed—and quite alive and well.

We could start anywhere, but to give you a sense of the nature of the work before us, let’s start with the Virgin Mary and the Manger on Christmas Morning. This isn’t going to go very well if you don’t play your part. You have to understand your role in the whole show if there is going to be a show—which there hasn’t been in over two thousand years, when the high priests and politicians of the early church took the people out of the show entirely, and told them that they could only come as far as the Communion Rail, and must never consider approaching the Host on the Altar or any of the Holy of Holies that were the divine prerogative of those charged with their oversight and supervision, and the salvation of the people.

And that, of course, was just fine with the people. They were off the hook, free to be penitent, forgiven and redeemed, with nothing asked of them but an occasional offering, a few Hail Mary’s and an Our Father here and there. Oh, they had to believe what they were told to believe, and take everything on faith with no questions asked, but that was no problem. Theirs was an easy glide to life everlasting. Never mind that religion devolved into the “empty bell,” the “clanging cymbal,” the Apostle Paul spoke of—and the “tale told by an idiot—full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,” of Shakespeare.

All of the symbols of the Church became, in a twinkling, nothing more than the presiding officials said they were. All were defined and explained by the doctrines and dogmas, and what wasn’t understood, or understandable, was “taken on faith.” And that was that. We had the catechisms to keep us warm.

Our hearts had nowhere to go and nothing to do. Religion was all in the head. The heart was an empty region. A wasteland of the soul. Meaning was nowhere around. We could go to church, but our hearts weren’t in it. Our soul was not to be found. We were the soulless ones, going to hear someone talk about saving our soul. How about just finding it for starters? But we didn’t—we don’t—know where to start looking. And the spokespersons for the Church couldn’t/can’t tell us because they were/are as soulless as we were/are.

A good place to start is with those old symbols of the Church. They contain all we will ever need. But. We have to reclaim them. Reconsider them. Re-imagine them. Reinterpret them. Reconstruct them. And here’s the worst part. We have to do the work ourselves. There are no priests to do it for us. They will be busy doing their own work. Saving themselves.

We all have to save ourselves. “Work out your own salvation,” says Paul to the Philippians (2:12-13), “with fear and trembling—for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”

Working out our own salvation comes down to working out our own life. It comes down to understanding that it is all up to us—and we can’t do it alone. But we make the first move. It is crucial that we understand that we have to make the first move.

When we move toward our life, our life moves toward us. When we start walking, the path opens before us. When we stop waiting for someone else to tell us what to do to be saved, to be alive (which is the same thing)—and see for ourselves what is happening, and what is called for, and what needs to be done about it, and do it, there you are. Doors open where, as Joseph Campbell would say, we didn’t know there would be doors, and the angels minister unto us, and the Inner Guides show us the way—where only a moment before, there was no way.

I’m going to begin with the symbols of the Christian Church—but it could be with the symbols of any church, of any religion. All religion starts out as good religion, as the touchstone between human beings and numinous reality that can be felt, sensed, intuited, known, but not understood, explained, defined, said or told. But then religion slips over into bad religion, and starts explaining, defining, saying and telling. Doctrine and theology become stand-ins, surrogates, for that to which they refer, and it all goes to hell rather quickly.

Our place is to turn that tide by reclaiming, reconsidering, re-imagining, reinterpreting and reconstructing the symbols that connect us, even yet, with the divine. Come, then, let us play together with them, and in playing, call back our soul from its self-imposed exile in the hinterlands, which it reckoned was better than dying a slow death at our hands, ignored and cast off as it was from our life. At-one with soul, playfully and compassionately, we take up the transformation of the world!

But, first things first: The Virgin Mary, the Manger, and the Bebe Jesus. You know the story, the old-old story. It’s time for a re-write.

Look closely at your life. Where is the Manger there? Where is your life telling you there is no room in it for your life? You just said, “Huh?” didn’t you? But, you also know exactly what I mean, don’t you?

You have a life that you aren’t living, and you know it. You may not think about it, but, when you do think about it, you know there is more to you than meets the eye—more to you than you know, more than anyone knows. And you wonder, don’t you, who you might have been, what you might have done with your life, if… If what? If your life hadn’t interfered? If you hadn’t gotten married? Had children? Lost the baby? Gotten the divorce? Been run over by the 10,000 things?

Look at it like this: There is the life you are living, and there is the life that is yours to live—even yet.

And there is the Christ. The Anointed One. Anointed for what? Anointed by God to live the life that was his to live. “For it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”

Break! Break! We have to take a break here and talk about God. “God,” the word, the term, is another symbol that goes on the Communion Table, and onto the floor. When Carl Jung hung the phrase from the Delphic Oracle on the lentil of his house, “Invoked, or not invoked, the God is present,” that word “God” did not mean, or imply, “The God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob, and of Jesus Christ His Only Son Our Lord.” And we have to do the work of cleansing the word “God” from its accumulated inferences, assumptions and references that have built up over the past two thousand years and counting.

“God” is a symbol for the Numen, the ineffable, the un-say-able ground and essence of awe and wonder at the heart of experiences that transcend normal, apparent, reality and transport us into the realm of mystery and grace. People still go there, but we all used to live there–in the ever-present presence of more than words can say.

The symbol, the name “God,” meant something in those days. “God” conjured up actual experiences with the divine holiness at the heart of life and being. Nowadays, “God” means “The Man Upstairs.” That’s ridiculous. There is no man. There are no stairs. And everybody knows it, and no one knows God-As-The-Mystery-The-Wonder-Guiding-Directing-Infusing-Our-Life-And-Our-World-With-Meaning-Purpose-And-Vitality-Beyond-Imagining-And-Certainly-Beyond-Saying.

That’s a problem. The problem. The problem of existence. We live, but we do not know why we live. We do not know for what we live. We spend our life looking for something to live for–for some reason to be here, now. That was not a problem with the Ancient Ones. God as Mystery and Wonder was a steady presence, a constant companion, ordering their world and their life. That is the God who is God!

Any God who can be defined (“God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, unchangeable,  in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth”) is not God, but an idea, a concept, a definition.

The Numen cannot be defined, said, told, explained, comprehended, understood… The Ineffable is beyond words. “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.” And so, I will use the term “Numen” in place of the word “God,” because “God” has been co-opted, shanghaied and transformed into a definition–and no symbol can be defined, because its meaning is always more than words can say, and you have to know what a symbol means before you can understand what I’m talking about when I use the word that stands for the symbol.

And you can only know what the Numen is by having a numinous experience, an encounter with sacred wonder, mystery and awe.

Break’s over. Back to the matter at hand.

Jesus was the Christ, anointed by the Numen to live the life that was his to live. You are the Christ, anointed by the Numen to live the life that is yours, even now, to live. “For it is the Numen who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for its good pleasure.”

Just as “The Numen was at work in Christ, reconciling the world to itself,” so the Numen is at work in you to redeem, reconcile, make whole and make well. If you are going to take all that other stuff on faith, why not take this on faith—and live as though it is so?

Your place is to say “Yes!”—both to the life you are living and to the life that is yours to live–the life you were cut out to live before you were born–the life that no one but you can live–that life that is waiting on you to live it within the life you are living.

This is called walking two paths at the same time. How do you do that? You have to work it out. “You have to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” No one can do it for you. It’s all up to you. Well, not all of it. Just the first step. You have to take the first step toward, well, toward YOU!

Toward your life—both of them: The one you are living and the one that is yours to live. You have to get them together, and live both of them.

Let’s back up. Where is the life you are living being inhospitable to the life that is yours to live? Where is the life you are living telling you there is no room in the inn? That there is no place for you to birth the Christ (Yourself) into the life you are living—no room for you to begin living the life that is your life to live, the life you are called to live, the life you were born to live, the life no one but you can live in the life you are living? It’s impossible! It’s out of the question! Forget it! You cannot do it—because there is no place, no time, no money, no room?

Where are you being tempted to forget your other life (Your real life) again? To tell your soul to find its way back to the hinterlands because you don’t have room in your life for the life that is your life to live? That’s where the Manger is to be found in your life, right here, right now, today. “Away in the manger, no crib for his bed…” That’s you the song is about. And you, and you, and you… and me.

We have been singing our song all these years thinking it is about Jesus. And now, we hear that Jesus is about us—about you and about me. Jesus is us. We are Jesus. Bringing forth the Christ within us. We are the Virgin Mary and we are the Bebe Jesus in the manger. Our Virgin Mary side is in labor striving to birth our Christ side into our life which wants nothing to do with either side.

Where is your life striving to come forth, and finding nothing in the way of encouragement and cooperation? Where are you blocking the birth of your own Christ? Where is your King Herod side coming after your Bebe Jesus side? Whose side are you on?

This is the approach to take with all of the stories of the Bible, and all of the symbols of the Church. Another example: The Conquest of the Promised Land.

Joseph Campbell said, talking about the stories in Deuteronomy regarding the Conquest: “Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife—except abroad. Then you should put all males to the sword, and the women you shall take as booty to yourself.” (The Power of Myth (p. 215). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition). He goes on to say, “The Hebrews were absolutely ruthless with respect to their neighbors.”

You can read about the Conquest of Canaan in Deuteronomy, chapter 7 and following, but there is a succinct summation in verse 16: “And you shall destroy all the peoples whom the Lord your God delivers over to you; your eye shall have no pity on them.” What do we do with this? As with the Manger, so with the Land of Promise.

Your Canaanite side stands before your Joshua side—and Joshua can have no pity.

Toward the end of my career, I preached an object lesson sermon each Easter Sunday. The object was a pottery egg, about seven inches high and four inches in diameter. But, not your typical Easter Egg. The potter had opened up a portion of the egg, from which protruded a curled, scaly dragon tail, which was joined by a clawed rear foot breaking out of the egg.

My point was this: “You think in terms of Happy Easter with it’s brightly colored hard-boiled eggs, and baby chicks, and soft, white, bunnies. That’s a happy fantasy. Here’s a real Easter Egg for you—and if you are smart, you will have nothing to do with it. When this baby hatches, it will eat you alive!”

I continued, “All this talk about New Birth doesn’t mention the Death Of All That Is Old. Well. Nothing comes without something going. Your New Life In Christ will eat your old life alive. That is what Easter is all about. Jesus died on the cross, and now it is your turn. Do you have what it takes to pick this egg up off the fresh cut grass of spring and carry it home with you? Whether you do or not, don’t kid yourself about ‘Happy Easter’! Jesus comes out of the Empty Tomb like Joshua entering the land of Canaan. He’s going to sack, pillage and destroy everything you knew and loved. Or, do you think Paul was only joking when he said, ‘I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me!’ (Galatians 2:20)?”

And do not think here in terms of Christ and you—think in terms of YOU and you. You are the Christ, remember? You are the Bebe Jesus being born in you and through you into this present moment in time, which is inhospitable and un-receptive—and your Bebe Jesus side has to face up to your Herod side, and, like Joshua entering Canaan, show Herod a thing or two.

This is the struggle that follows you throughout your life. Every Hero’s Journey follows this exact path, the middle way between mutually exclusive contradictions: Jesus and Herod, Joshua and Canaan, you and YOU.

And you, like all of the heroes before you, have to work it out. You have to come to terms with how things are and how things also are. You have to make your peace with being torn asunder—and take up the work of reconciliation and integration, healing and restoring, breaking down the dividing wall and making peace—in an “I believe, help my unbelief!” kind of way.

And so it goes with every other sacred symbol of every religion that has ever been. But you have to do the work of making it so.

The Bread and Wine of Communion? Stop thinking about the body and blood of Jesus.

The Bread of Affliction is the Bread of Life. The Cup of Salvation is the Cup of Suffering. Understand how this is so—how this fundamental spiritual truth that is true across the ages, in every time and place throughout time—plays itself out, over and over, in your life.

And so on with all of the symbols that are still capable of being living symbols to eyes that see, ears that hear and hearts that understand.

The Fight for Life

We fight to free ourselves

from the presumptions, assumptions, inferences, conjectures, speculations, suppositions, deductions, judgments, opinions and conclusions

that form our perspective,

force us to live in a world we generate from within,

and prevent us from seeing things as they are.

Compassionate, mindful, awareness

transforms everything it perceives.

May we all live to be so free!