Don’t Believe in God–BE God!

We take up the work of doing better by looking around. If this is the best God can do, God should be ashamed. And if this is not the best God can do, God should be ashamed. Or, letting the way things are work their magic on us, it could be that we have a twisted view of God. Maybe God isn’t who we have always heard it said that God is. You know, Omni-everything, Almighty, All Glorious, etc.

Think of God is that which is with us, within us, as The Will To Good—as that which needs our collaboration and cooperation in bringing The Good forth into physical existence. Think of God as that which needs physical help in actualizing The Good within the sphere of space and time—not from the standpoint of implementing commandments, and laws, and eternal standards of righteousness, but from the standpoint of having the freedom to do what needs to be done as it needs to be done in each situation as it arises.

Jacob Bronowski said, “If you want to know the truth, you have to live in certain ways.” He meant we have to live truthful lives. The same thing applies to knowing God: If we want to know God, we have to live in certain ways. Specifically, we have to live a godly life—a life that incarnates, expresses, exhibits and brings God forth in the world of normal, apparent, reality—in each situation as it arises, in ways appropriate to that situation.

In order to know God, we have to BE God. In order to be God, we have to be who we are, doing what is ours to do, when, where and how we need to do it.

As we live in this way—serving the good as it needs to be expressed in each situation as it arises, out of the gifts, art, genius that are ours to bring forth in our life, we are aligning ourselves, not only with The Will To Good, but also with our own secret life—the life that is hidden from even us until we actualize it by living it out in the world. As we bring God forth, we bring ourselves forth. As we bring ourselves forth, we bring God forth. In this comes true for all of us: “The Father and I are one,” and, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.”

It has long been held that we accumulate merit, and receive heaven as a reward for our diligence, by cultivating virtue. Integrity has no use of either merit or virtue. When we live to integrate ourselves with ourselves and with that which has always been thought of as God, we have no need of anything on earth or in heaven. When “The Father and I are one,” what else is there to have, or want, or need, or aspire to?

All of us, each of us, are born with an original nature unlike anyone else’s original nature, with innate virtues–the things we do best and enjoy doing most–which are not identical with anyone else’s innate virtues, with an inherent imagination which is unique to us, and with an intrinsic intuition which connects us with the intrinsic intuition of, not only of the species, but also with the intrinsic intuition of sentient life throughout the Cosmos (We are all one on the level of our intrinsic intuition–we all know what we know and those who know know what everyone–what life everywhere–knows and have always known.

Heinrich Zimmer said, “The best things can’t be said, and the second-best things cause arguments and confusion by trying to put into words what cannot be put into words, which leaves us with only the third-best things to talk about, news, weather, sports, politics, gossip and opinions” (Or words to that effect).

Ditching Theology and Doctrine, Part 2

Christian theology and doctrine are grounded upon the assertion that Jesus died for our sins, erasing the supposed debt we owed to God for the original sin of the original parents of us all.

None of which squares up in any way with what we know about the origin of the species. The Garden of Eden did not have latitude and longitude—was not an actual, physical, fact—simply did not exist. Adam and Eve were not the original parents of everybody on the planet. Christian theology from the start is empty of any substance and depth.

Even if we pretend this is not so, Christian theology disintegrates with its thesis of the substitutionary theory of the atonement. Jesus’ death is purported to square us with God, prove God’s love for us, and welcome us all into the glory of the Father. Well, not quite.

Christian theology and doctrine also proclaim that Jesus’ death just gives us another shot at the glory of the Father. In order for his death to change anything, we have to cooperate with our own transformation. We have to believe all that is said of Jesus: That he was sinless and that he died for our sins. We have to repent of our sinful, sordid ways, and live lives that are pure and unstained by the world—toeing the line, walking the straight and narrow, resisting temptation and remaining true to the ways and will of God, cultivating virtue, accumulating merit, and receiving our eternal reward when we die.

In other words, nothing has changed. We still have to keep God happy, or else. Before Jesus died for our sins on the cross, we had to keep God happy. After Jesus died for our sins on the cross, we have to keep God happy.

We are right back where we started. We have to earn our way into heaven by appeasing our Father Who Art In Heaven, Hallowed Be Thy Name, or it’s hell to pay for the lot of us, in spite of the death of God’s Only Son, Jesus Christ Our Lord.

There is no ground to Christian theology and doctrine. It is a house of cards with no foundation. But, the Christian Church of all denominations would have a hard time admitting it. The Christian Church cannot begin to justify its existence apart from its theology and doctrine. Could be a bit of conflict of interest at work here.

Which came first? The Church or doctrine and theology? Here’s a better one: Which came first? The Church or the Bible?

The Church invented all three. Doctrine. Theology. And the Bible. And it killed, tortured and persecuted those who protested and opposed its actions. That’s a fine way of securing unanimous agreement to the things you propose.

As we might expect, the Church has quite a bit riding on its Bible, its Doctrine and its Theology. And, if burnings at the stake were still legal, I wouldn’t be writing this, and you wouldn’t be reading it. But, I am writing it, and you are reading it because we can do a better job of finding our way to the heart of God and to the life with our name on it than has been done for us in the name of the Church.

Ditching Theology and Doctrine, Part 1

Christian theology and doctrine—orthodox, reformed, or evangelical—are put forward in different ways by all variations of the Christian church as the way things actually are, with no alternative views allowed.

The thing that makes us a Christian, according to Christians, is embracing Christian theology and doctrine—in a form expressed by a particular version of Christianity—believing what the authorities of that version tell us to believe, asking no questions of their doctrines that they can’t answer with their theology, and not thinking anything they don’t tell us to think.

This is not the way of being a proper disciple of one who was an iconoclast to the core—who was officially accused of heresy and blasphemy, and of being a son of Satan. But it is the only way for the church to continue being the church the way it has always been the church: Speaking for God to the people as the very Voice of the Almighty.

Never mind that the people are as capable of discerning the voice of God for themselves as anyone who has ever discerned the voice of God—and of deciding for themselves what is godly and what is not—and of living out of their own understanding of what it means to keep faith with themselves and with God. And the fact that they do not do that, and do not want to do that, says more about their laziness and disinterest than it says about their ability to sense the things that are of God, and put themselves in the service of those things.

The church does the people no favors when it lets them off the hook, and gives them the Hail Mary and the Our Father to say, or the Apostles’ Creed to recite, and the Westminster Shorter Catechism to memorize—as though that does anything to help the people in any practical way, or helps to enhance their ability to align themselves with the things that are of God, and serve those things with their life.

The people need the church to show the people how to live their life aligned with the things of God—not to tell them things about God, but to demonstrate God before them—by living the life of God in the midst of the people–which is all Jesus did. The spokespersons for the church must begin talking to the people about the things they have learned by living the life of God themselves, and not about things they have heard people say that they heard people say about people they heard knew God.

In order to be the church in the midst of the people, the church has to throw away its theology and doctrine, and live its way into godliness. The church has to stop talking about God and start living as God—to stop believing in God and start being God in the midst of the people.

A Short Reading List for the Spiritual Journey

A list of “suggested books,” when it is available, always comes at the end of the book. But. There is no beginning or end to this Handbook, because the spiritual journey itself has no beginning or end. The journey is a trip back “to the face that was yours before you were born.” Your physical existence had a beginning, and it will have an end, but the unconscious, invisible, spiritual side of you was around before you started, and will be around long after you are finished. Your journey is unending, which means it is always just beginning.

This Handbook is a series of observations and tips to help you make your journeying conscious. Consciousness is our only tool. Without consciousness, the journey becomes tedious and repetitive—a bad karma trip that lasts through eons of timeless rounds of reincarnated attempts at waking up. But, apart from consciousness, who is awake?

This Handbook is for those who are awake enough to know the importance of waking up, and are wondering how best to go about doing that. The Handbook itself is my offering to that end, but I would be inexcusably remiss if I didn’t point you to those people, and their books, who have been most helpful to me. If you start reading somewhere, and you wouldn’t be reading this if that process had not already begun, the synchronistic principle applies: “One book opens another,” and before you know it, you are spinning around on the wheel of fortune, seeking the next realization, and the one after that, and “where it stops, no one knows”!

The overarching rule governing the spiritual journey is simple, straightforward, always certain and dependable: Mindfulness leads the way. Your heart, soul, body, mind know all you need to know—all you need to do is know what you know. Then, you only need to do what needs to be done about it.

Mindfulness is the way of tuning into heart, soul, body, mind—within the context of the time and place (The Here/Now) of your living. It is the way of knowing what you know, and what to do about it, in a way that is fitting to the occasion in each situation as it arises.

Mindfulness implies no judgment, no will and no opinion, just awareness, just seeing, just hearing, just knowing: “This, too. This, too.” When you catch yourself responding to your situation with judgment, willfulness and opinion, simply be aware of that emptying yourself of agenda, ambition, judgment, opinion, emotional reactivity, and all the filters and blinders that prevent you from just seeing, just knowing, here/now. We have to know what we know without judgment, will or opinion. Mindfulness practice does that for us—it helps us see what we are looking at, to know what we are doing—without a prejudicial bias that would blind—or bind—us to any aspect of the situation.

We live with direction and preference, but we cannot will a particular outcome—or will to avoid one—without losing sight of some aspect of the situation. We cannot lose sight of any aspect of the situation, and respond to it in ways that are fitting and appropriate to that situation.

Our place is to be what the situation needs us to be, and let nature take its course–and trust nature to take its course! We are to offer our art, genius, gift, perspective, values, personal qualities and character in the service of the needs of life in each situation as it arises, in a “Thy will, not mine, be done,” kind of way–without imposing our way on the situation. To do that, we have to get ourselves with our preferences, desires, interests, fear, anxieties and concerns out of the way in order to just see, just hear, just understand, just know what is happening, and what needs to be done about it, and just be who we are in dealing with the situation, and doing what needs to be done about it.

Every good thing starts with mindful awareness, and requires courage. Get those two things going for you and you are off on your adventure. One of the 10,000 Spiritual Laws is: “When you take everything into account, what to do about it is automatic.” The short version says, “Seeing Is Doing.”

Mindfulness is being transparent to ourselves, and aware of the situation unfolding before us, without judgment, agenda, will or opinion. We live knowing, and thus, know what to do. Then it is only a matter of having the courage to do it.

What do we pay attention to when we pay attention? Every. Single. Thing. We are to be mindful of everything it is possible to be mindful of in every situation as it arises. When we take everything into account, we become aware of all the ways our Self is attempting to communicate with us. As we open ourselves to the validity and reality of the our unconscious (because we are unconscious of it) Self, everything shifts.

To live mindfully is to start paying attention to what we are ignoring, discounting, dismissing, discarding, overlooking, missing each day. Too many people of all ages fail to live mindfully, fail to be aware without judgment, agenda, will or opinion of what is happening and how they are responding to it. We cannot wait until we are 70 to start practicing being mindfully aware of our life without judgment, agenda, will or opinion. We do that over time. Being mindfully aware of things inner and outer, without judgment, agenda, will or opinion, is a life skill practiced, and developed, over the course of our life.

Start being aware of your breathing. Breathe in and breathe out normally, being aware of the act of breathing. Pause for a count of five between the out breath and the in breath, and attend the silence and the emptiness of that space between breaths. That is the emptiness you seek for periods of openness to the moment in your life–without expectations, agenda, plans, will, or opinion.

Continue being aware of your breathing and expand your awareness to include the moment of your living—and your reactions to the moment of your living. Take everything into account. Practice seeing everything just as it is without embellishing it with judgment, will or opinion. Just see. Just hear. Just know what is happening and what you are doing in response.

The experience of our direct, personal, experience, both inner and outer, is knowing on the deepest possible level. That is mindfulness. We cannot experience our experience if we are making judgments, living willfully with some end in mind, and/or forming opinions about what we are experiencing.

Just see. Just hear. Just feel. Just sense. Become curious about your experience, about where our attention goes, focuses, remains, rests. What is directing your attention? Watch your attention as it wanders, looking for an attractor—become intently curious about what your attention is seeking, and why.

Consciousness is the transforming, transcending, integrating agent in living in accord with life. Being mindfully aware—conscious—of all facets of our life brings up the conflicts and contradictions that have to be reconciled, and integrated. It is the mindful work to reconcile and integrate our conflicts and contradictions that grows us up, and makes us whole. If you have a problem, become mindful of it. Get to the bottom of it. Allow it to bring up your conflicts. Ponder them. Examine them. Let your imagination play with them. Listen to them! Be mindful of them. See where it goes.

Everything is improved with conscious, mindful awareness. This is the essential orientation. It all flows from there. Thus, developing and practicing mindful awareness is the most important thing, and Jon Kabat-Zinn leads the way on my list of recommended reading.

Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of the Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain and Illness is the manual of Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness Based Stress-Reduction program, and is an excellent guide and resource for those seeking to deepen their awareness of what is happening and how they are reacting to it.

Kabat-Zinn’s other books include:

Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life

Mindfulness for Beginners: Reclaiming the Present Moment—And Your Life

Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness

Learning to attend and decipher the signals from our body is a crucial step in living attuned to “the inner guide.” We sense, feel, intuit, “Yes!” and “No!” before we think them—and our thinking may be directly opposed to our body’s reaction. We come at “Yes!” and “No!” through head, heart, and body, and the idea is to have all three aligned, in agreement and acting as one. Consciousness, or mindful awareness, oversees and coordinates the inner communion, and implements the will of the whole. A method for achieving this is explored through Focusing.

Ann Weiser Cornell has expanded the application of Eugene T. Gendlin’s work on Focusing (The title of Gendlin’s book), with her books,

The Power of Focusing: A Practical Guide to Emotional Self-Healing,

The Radical Acceptance of Everything: Living a Focusing Life

Power of Focusing

Robert A. Johnson explores additional approaches to integrating inner with outer in his book

Inner Work

Parker Palmer offers his take on the matter in his book

A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life

Joseph Campbell has written a number of volumes dealing with the mythological connection between visible and invisible—physical and spiritual—modes of existence. I recommend starting with his and Bill Moyer’s book

The Power of Myth

I also recommend:

A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living compiled by Diane K. Osbon

Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation

Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphors

The Flight of the Wild Gander

Carl Jung’s work explores the matter of integrating our inner self with our outer life, and his influence is reflected in books by Marie-Louise von Franz, James Hollis and Anthony Stevens. Checking their titles and letting your interest guide you is the operative procedure here.

Thomas Cleary has translated a number of ancient texts on Taoism, Zen and Buddhism.

Ray Grigg’s book The Tao of Zen is a valuable text and wonderful guide for entering the worlds of Taoism and Zen.

Martin Palmer has translated and written books on Taoism.

The one that stands out for me is The Jesus Sutras: Rediscovering the Lost Scrolls of Taoist Christianity. This may be out of print by now, but should be available through used bookstores, and is well worth the effort it takes to find, purchase and read.

Once you start reading, all you have to do is follow your interests along the way that a calls your name to the next book, and the next book after that all the way to the end of the line that never ends! Happy reading and adventuresome trailblazing!

The Moral, the Good, and the Bible

What is good? How do we know? Those are the foundational questions of existence. They are right up there with “Who are we? What are we about?” You answer those four questions correctly, and there is nothing but a long easy glide for you through the rest of time. You will, on the spiritual level at least, have it made.

What is good? How do we know? Where do we go for answers? Ah, The Bible! The Bible lays it all out, right? The Bible tells us so! There are those who would have us believe morality is grounded in the Bible, and that we cannot hope to be moral apart from the Bible, and that we have to do it the way the Bible says do it, because if we don’t, there will be hell to pay. So, no stem cell research, no abortions, no gay marriage, no gay rights, no teaching evolution, for a few examples, because the Bible says so. The Bible is the basis of our morality, and if it isn’t the basis of our morality, then our morality is tainted, and we are un-Christian, and out of favor with God, and we are going to hell when we die.

Not so fast. What right do the people who flaunt this point of view have to tell us that their view of the Bible and morality is the Right View? To tell us that their reading of the Bible is the Right Way to read the Bible? How many of the people who say these things are divorced, for instance, and why do they highlight in pink highlighter those passages in the Bible that decry homosexuality, yet neatly leave unmarked those that condemn divorce? If you are going to throw the Bible at me, throw the whole thing at me! But, that’s not my real problem with viewing the Bible as the source of morality.

My real problem is this: What made slavery wrong? It wasn’t the Bible. The Bible was used (by the Religious Right of the day) to justify slavery, support slavery, excuse slavery–and to condemn those who didn’t! The Christian churches of the Confederate States of America preached the Bible as surely as any church anywhere has ever preached the Bible, and they found the Bible saying, “Slaves, obey your masters!”

Slavery was an institution throughout biblical times. Jesus never once condemned slavery. It was assumed to be a natural-even-though-brutal part of how things were. Conquering armies made slaves of vanquished nations. That’s how the world worked. The Bible is a product of the world and the way the world works. It reflects who the people were who wrote the Bible, and what they thought was good–and nothing more. But that’s a radical, heretical, blasphemous, obscene, sacrilegious thought that desecrates all that we hold dear!

I’m just getting warmed up.

The Bible never says that slavery is wrong. The Bible simply assumes slavery is the way of life, and does not even hint at an incompatibility between believing in Jesus and holding slaves. “Let everyone remain in the state in which he (sic) was called!” is the sage advice of the Bible. Nothing about turning upside-down the cultural trends of the day. “Let everyone be subject to governing authorities!” says the Bible. Nothing about opposing the Emperor, and holding abolition rallies. So, how did slavery get to be wrong, with the Bible, that bastion of morality, so supportive of the practice?

Thinking people found nauseating discrepancies in the, yes, Bible. And could not bear the weight of the contradictions. And said, “Hey! Wait a minute! This can’t be so if that is! And they went with their innate, felt, sense of what was right in light of all they knew about the situation before them, and said, “Slavery has to go!”

People began to have problems with loving their neighbor as themselves, and treating their neighbor as a slave—as less than human. People began to use the Bible against the Bible to change the way the Bible was interpreted and understood. “Scripture interprets Scripture,” is an old Reformed position, but it is rarely brought forward today. It means that if you insist on squaring new statements of faith, or modern ways of thinking, as pertaining to homosexuality for example, up with what the Bible says, by the same logic, you have to square the Bible up with what the Bible says. How many new statements of faith were issued throughout the scriptures? How many new ways of thinking about God, and what God would have us do, are reflected there, where a new view of God was at work in opposing and supplanting a previous view of God?

Jesus is a perfect example of an idea of God being opposed and supplanted by a new idea of God. Abraham’s refusal to sacrifice Isaac is another example of an idea about God being replaced by a new, never-before-imagined way of thinking about God. Square the Bible up with the Bible. See where that gets you. Square the book of Revelation up with Jesus’ command to love your enemies, and do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Or, stop worrying about squaring anything with the Bible, and tell the Bible to wake up to the fact that slavery is wrong, and homosexuality, for example, is right.

Let’s say, for the sake of the argument, that the Bible condemns homosexuality outright, across the board. The question is: Should it? Is it right for the Bible to condemn homosexuals and homosexual practice? Same exact question as: Is it right for the Bible to condone and support slavery? And same exact answer: No indeed! The Bible simply doesn’t know what it’s talking about with either slavery or homosexuality—or divorce, for that matter. Is the Bible right in its position on divorce? No indeed! We’ve said, “No, indeed!” in our treatment of divorce and divorced people, refusing to be bound to the practices of a 2,000 year old culture, and rightly so, because the context of that culture has practically nothing in common with the context of this culture.

The church was before the Bible, remember. The church wrote the Bible, and the church can—and if the church refuses, we can—rewrite the Bible to say what it should have said all along! For instance, we cannot very well expect that Jesus would say, “The last will be first,” and then say, “But that doesn’t apply to gay people. They are last, and will always be last, and will never be first ever, so help me God.” Nope. The saying, “The last will be first,” means “Those least likely to be counted among the favorites of God will be the favorites of God—including gays, lesbians and transgender individuals.”

Jesus communicates the same thing when he says, “In as much as you have done it to the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you have done it unto me.” Jesus sees an established connection between God and those whom the world cites as having no value, as being in last place, as being at the bottom of the pile, as being the very least and inconsequential of all human beings—even gays, lesbians, and transgender individuals. And immigrants, people of color, Muslims, etc.

Each age has its list of least likely ones. Gay people head the list in our age. If the Bible is to be trusted to show us anything about the ways and heart of God, we have to know that gay people are God’s favorites, and we have to start treating them as though they are. And, if that means we have to re-interpret, re-understand, and even rewrite, certain portions of the Bible, that is no different from what we had to do with regard to slaves and divorced men and women. And it’s high time we took up the project.

What was it that made witch hunts wrong? Here’s a hint for you: it wasn’t the Bible. The Bible was used to make witch hunts possible and popular. What was it that made denying women the right to vote wrong? Here’s a hint for you: it wasn’t the Bible. Suffrage suffered mightily at the hands of those who wielded the Bible to keep women in their place. What was it that made Jim Crow laws wrong? Here’s a hint for you (I’ll bet you know what’s coming): It wasn’t the Bible! What made relegating the handicapped and special needs population to the backrooms, and to the status of second-class citizens of society wrong? Here’s a hint for you: It wasn’t the Bible!

The Bible, that wonderful source of morality, goodness, and truth, without which the world would fall into degradation and ruin, has been invoked to oppose every social advance—one might say every good new thing—throughout the ages. Don’t take my word for it. Do your own research. Conduct your own interviews. Draw your own conclusions. But don’t let the Religious Right catch you doing it. Drawing your own conclusions is strictly forbidden by those who flaunt the Bible. If you are caught thinking for yourself, it’s all over for you. You’ll be consigned to the depths of the fiery pits of hell forever, starting right now. Never mind that Jesus asked, in the Bible, “Who do you say that I am?”(Luke 9:20), and “Why don’t you decide for yourselves what is right?” (Luke 12:57).

Until you take your life in your hands and do your own research, you’ll have to take my word for it that the Bible is not the ground of morality, not the source of all that is good, that we have been told it is. But if we take the Bible out of the picture, what is left? What is good then? How do we know?

Let’s cut to the chase. We don’t know. We all take our chances in living in light of the best we an imagine.

Jesus said, “Wisdom is justified/vindicated/made known by her children” (or words to that effect). In other words, time will tell. What is good will be validated as good in time by the majority of those who weigh in on the matter. It will be recognized as good by practically all people everywhere. Of course, slavery is evil. Of course, women are human beings. Of course, homosexuals are to be granted all the rights and privileges heterosexuals enjoy. But in the moment of decision, in the situation as it arises, all we have to go on is instinct, intuition and the best guess we are capable of making at the time.

When it comes to knowing what is good, we alone decide, but we aren’t just making blind stabs in the dark. When it comes to how do we know, we have no problem knowing. I know immediately when you treat me in ways that are good, and when you treat me in ways that are not good. I only have to have reached the level of emotional development that allows me to empathetically identify with others—to put myself imaginatively in their place—in order to know what is good for them.

What does “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” mean to you?

This is what it means to me: Once I reach the point of being able to take myself entirely out of consideration, so that I am not impacted by concerns that what is good for others might be bad for me, I am able to see clearly what is good for them. Then, I can, along with them, work out the implications that their good has for my bad, and come to some kind of compromise solution so that our over-all good is served.

This, however, is the kink in all moral systems. I can serve your good only to the extent that it doesn’t raise—too much for me to tolerate—the level of my bad. If there is only one waterhole, and if there is only enough water in the hole for me and mine, and, if it is my waterhole, then you and yours are going to have to win the fight to get the water. I may have no problem seeing that it would be good to share the water with you, but if there isn’t enough water for me to comfortably share, you aren’t going to get any water at all.

If my survival, and the survival of my family, and my tribe, is the highest good, I will serve your good as long as mine is not jeopardized by that service. Yet, the spiritual journey is getting to the place of seeing there is a higher good than mine alone–that “mine” and “yours” is one good, Our Good. The spiritual journey is expanding what is “mine” to include what is “yours,” not in the sense that “you belong to me,” but in the sense of “Thou art that.” In the sense that you and I are One, and we serve the good of the other to the exact same extent that we serve the good of the self, and so comes to pass the directive, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”

Until we reach that place in our spiritual development, we will only be so good. Until then, the good that we know to be good will be the good we know to be good for us. The more generous we can be in making that good available to all others, the better, the more moral, and the more spiritual we will be. The more narrow and restrictive we are in offering good to anyone but us and “our kind,” the worse, the more immoral, and less spiritual we will be.

Empathy and compassion are the rock solid foundations of moral/spiritual development. We will be moral and spiritual to the extent that we can be empathetic and compassionate—to the extent that we can connect ourselves with all those who share the world with us, put ourselves in their place, imagine what it is like to be treated as they are treated, and adjust our treatment of them to reflect how we would like to be treated ourselves.

In wondering what is good and how do we know, we can do no better than the Golden Rule. If you are going to throw anything at me, let it be that. If you need to wonder how moral you are, ask yourself who is safe in your presence, and who is not, and how unsafe are they? The more people you can tuck under the banner of your safe, protective, compassionate presence, the more moral you are, and the better the world will be.

It’s a Mess Out There–Or Is It?

It’s a mess out there, AND patterns are everywhere. Is it order or is it chaos? It depends how we see what we look at. Life is an optical illusion. Look, and it’s a mess. Look again, and patterns are everywhere. We see chaos until we look closer, and then we see order, meaning and purpose.

Perspective is everything. Perception is the heart of meaning. Interpretation makes sense (or nonsense) of anything. We frame reality to suit ourselves. Apart from the frame, from what we say something is when we look at it, from how we frame it to talk about it, there is nothing we can say about what is there. Reality takes shape around what we say it is. Nothing means anything until we decide—until we say—what it means. Reality is what we perceive it, how we interpret it, understand it, to be.

Well, not really. The world does operate independently of our perception of the world. The ice caps are melting, regardless of what we think, believe, perceive. But the meaning we ascribe to the melting of the ice caps and the action we take in response to it does depend exclusively on our perception of the event—upon what we tell ourselves about it.

The response we have made to the transportation problem is to build more roads. More roads aren’t the solution to the problem that is generated when people pack together in suburban condominiums at night and try to drive to work in the morning. We can fill up any road in about fifteen minutes. The more roads they build, the more cars they make. You can see without looking that it isn’t going to work. The ice caps are melting and you can’t drive to work at 7:45 in the morning, or home from work after 4:00 in the afternoon. More roads? Not the answer. Yet, our perception of both the transportation problem and the ice caps melting problem determines the meaning we ascribe to it and the response we make. How we see determines how we live.

How we see is the critical element in everything that follows, and everything follows, so, everything hinges on how we see. We have to see our seeing. The rest hangs on it. We cannot assume that the way we see anything is the way the thing is. We have to consider that our seeing might be skewed by ten thousand things, most of which have to do with how we have seen things up to this point. And, what stake we have in things being as we say they are.

Perhaps there are different ways to see. We owe it to ourselves to find out. We owe it to ourselves, and to all that is yet to be, to see what we see from as many angles and distances as possible, so that our response is as informed and as wise as possible. But, if we are the fossil fuel industry, you can understand why we would look the other way and say the carbon imprint has nothing to do with the polar meltdown.

Information enlightens action. And, intention skews information. We don’t know what to do until we know what’s what. Ah, but, here is the kink in the chain: The most objective fact has to be interpreted subjectively. Information does not exist in pure form anywhere. We filter everything through our experience, interests, dreams, desires, fears and anxieties—until, before we know it, our interpretation of the fact, our impression of the fact, the implications we think the fact has for us, cannot be separated from the fact itself. We are always filling in “the rest of the picture” with our prejudices, inferences, and presumptions.

It is difficult for us to detach ourselves from our experience of life in order to view it as disinterested observers. Information is instantly interpreted and linked to meaning–and what something means is always what it means to/for us. What something is exists in relationship with what the thing means for us personally. Information has implication. We get to the information through the implication—which is to say that the information we receive is restricted or enlarged by the questions we allow ourselves to ask, and is limited or expanded by our ability to deal with the implications the information has for us. We will hide from ( deny, discount, ignore) anything we cannot handle. We have to practice handling things we don’t want to deal with. You can guess how popular that idea will prove to be.

The work of Thomas Kuhn suggests that not even science is immune to the rule that we get to information through implication–the implications the information has for us and our life and the way we want things to be because it is in our best interest for them to be that way.

Kuhn holds that science is not a smooth and steady progression based on the accumulation of knowledge. There are scientific presumptions that limit the kinds of questions scientists ask. Innovation comes about when scientists begin to wonder about things that lie outside the bounds of their specialty. We can truly experiment only when we are free to question the foundational assumptions regarding which questions are proper to ask. We generally have to get beyond our specialty—outside of our commonly held views—in order to see things freely—in order to not know what inquiries we are not supposed to make.

If science is that way theology/religion is doubly so. My work in the church was to champion ways lay people wanted to “do” church over against the denominational standards of how church is supposed to be “done” (For instance, why cannot church members be members of more than one church at the same time?). The hierarchy can only see how things are supposed to be from the point of view of the hierarchy—how members are to be received, for instance—and it cannot see any value in doing things differently from the way they have always been done. In order to create a future that is different from our past, we have to see the value in doing things differently than they have been done—and do them differently. And when doing comes to thinking and believing, the church begins to look for the exit or the eject button in order to get away from this conversation NOW!!!

We are not going to create a future that is different from our past until that is forced on us by a present that allows no alternative. Those of us who see that present coming, can prepare the way of transformation by taking up the practice of seeing ourselves seeing.

Nothing has the creative potential of a perspective that takes itself into account. We develop this kind of perspective by saying what we see and wondering what else there might be to see—by asking ourselves what we are not seeing and how our seeing impacts what’s there. We can enhance our chances of developing this kind of perspective by being quiet on a regular basis. There is nothing like silence—solitude—to enable us to see. We assist the revelation potential of silence by emptying ourselves of everything we carry with us into the silence—fear/desire/duty are the big three, but the first thing we notice when we sit in quiet stillness is how noisy it is. We bring noise with us into the silence and have to empty ourselves of all that creates the heaving waves and clashing rocks within us. The practice of being quiet is the practice of being empty in order to be quiet!

One of the things we might see when we are quiet is that the universe is not entirely separate from us. We interact with the universe at the level of perception. Internal and external engage one another and are connected to one another by invisible bands of perspective. There is a sense in which the “in here” and the “out there” are one experience, one thing.

The resurrection appearances of Jesus are a beautiful illustration of the way the “in here” merges inseparably with the “out there.” I have no doubt that the resurrection appearances were real. The disciples, and others, including Paul, actually perceived the resurrected Jesus as “out there,” as “other than” themselves. C. S. Lewis is reported to have appeared to William Barclay after his—Lewis’—death (Or, was it the other way around?). It happens frequently enough for us to have complete confidence that after death encounters with those who have died are real. And they are created with the power of perception.

There is a (perhaps apocryphal) story about a group of scientists going to India to study paranormal phenomena. They heard of a rope-climbing guru and went to interview him. They set up their movie camera and asked him to demonstrate his ability. He took a rope out of a basket, coiled it on the ground and began to play a flute. The rope uncoiled straight into the air. He put down the flute, climbed up the rope, down the rope, coiled it up and put it in the basket. The scientists were astonished, and couldn’t wait to watch the film. When they ran it through the projector, they watched as the swami got the rope out of the basket, coiled it on the ground, played the flute, put the flute down, paused a moment, picked up the rope and put it in the basket. What they saw wasn’t what the camera recorded. The “out there” and the “in here” dance together all the way to the grave, and perhaps, beyond.

We have to be aware of the dance. We have to be aware of the role perception and perspective play in the world in which we live and to which we respond. We do not have to react the way we do to the way life is. The way we react influences and transforms the way life is. Perspective is the power of creation at work in the world and in our lives. We wield the power to impact the dance for better or worse. Everything hangs on our realizing the power that is ours and learning to use it wisely. This is where community—the company we keep—comes into play.

As we talk with one another about what’s going on in our lives, how it impacts us, how we respond to it, and how we wish things were instead, we bring our perspective into focus. We become aware of our perceptions by talking with one another about the way we see things and what they mean to us, for us. We enlarge our perception, our perspective, by being aware of it. We deepen it, develop it and become, thereby, responsible and trustworthy agents of creation within the turmoil and chaos of life.

All of this hinges on the quality of the company we keep. It takes the right kind of company to form the right kind of community. Communities of innocence have a straight-forward agenda: To be what is needed in the lives of those who are in need of what the community has to offer. Communities of innocence exist to receive us well and do right by us. They listen to us at a level that enables us to hear, see, and understand ourselves—to know who we are and also are—and imagine ways to bring ourselves forth within the context and circumstances of our lives. They provide us with order in chaos, peace in turmoil, and direction in the trackless wasteland. All we ever need for the low, low price of being innocently present for good in the lives of one another.

Life Unfolds According to Its Own Good Pleasure

I don’t know why we can’t just live appropriately in each moment, with respect for each other’s ways. I don’t know why we cannot draw appropriate lines, honor appropriate boundaries, and allow things to be what they need to be apart from our ideas, interests, wishes and wants. We have our ways, it seems. We think we can choreograph life without listening to the music. We know how we would like for things to be, but have no sense of how things need to be, and attempt to force our way upon the world regardless of its impact, in a “Damn the shoreline! Full speed ahead!” kind of way.

Life unfolds in its own time, according to its own pleasure. I learned to ride a bicycle when I was in the third grade, in spite of my father’s willful efforts to make me learn to ride it throughout the two previous years. He did not understand, then, or ever, the importance of asking: “What are you ready for? What are you trying to push before its time? What are you delaying well past its time?” We do not do not have a natural affinity for these questions. We do not have a curiosity about what time it is. One time is as good as another, with us. We declare what time it is. We do not inquire. “It’s time for you to learn to ride a bicycle!” we say, when it is actually two years early.

An egg that hatches before, or after, its time is not a good thing for the bird. Some things, like a stuck door, have to be forced. Most things, like eggs hatching, and tomatoes ripening, have to be allowed to happen in their own time. Our life is one of those things.

Kairos is the opportune time, the favorable moment. The fullness of time. The time to act. The time to refrain from acting. Chronos is clock time, calendar time. It was the time my father had in mind when I was in the first grade, and he declared that it was time I learned to ride a bike. That would be like my father looking at his watch and telling me it was time for me to go pee.

Our body, and our life, work on the basis of kairos, not chronos. Our body, and our life, know what time it is, and listening to them, we know whether it is time for a cup of coffee, or a glass of wine, and when it is time to learn how to ride a bicycle, and swim. We only have to know what we know.

We have to stop pushing: “How much L O N G E R R R???” “Is it time yet? Is it time yet? Can we go now? Can we be there now???” We have to relax into the arms of kairos, into the eternal flow of the Tao, And wait, watch, trusting that we will know when the time is at hand—that we will act without thinking, when the time is at hand, like the bird cracking the egg, or leaving the nest.

Boris Pasternak said, “When a moment knocks on the door of your life, it is often no louder than the beating of your heart, and it is very easy to miss it.” How do we develop the perception of heart and soul that sees, that knows, what time it is? How do we teach ourselves, and our children, to listen to—and with—our heart? How do we become attuned to the unfolding of life, within and about us? How do we learn to assist what is coming to be, what needs to happen, instead of imposing our ideas for the world upon the world?

Can we trust our life to have an organic quality about it? An inner character? An innate drift to the good? Can we trust our life to carry us where we need to be? Can we believe in the capacity of our life to know what it is doing? How long do we wait to see evidence of it? Waiting faithfully, believing in our life’s ability to unfold according to its own timetable, in its own direction, in spite of an abundance of evidence to the contrary, is the real work of soul.

What do we do while we are waiting, to hold body and soul together? Whatever is at hand. Whatever we do to hold body and soul together, on a deeper level we are listening, watching, waiting with intention and deliberation. On a deeper level, we are conscious of serving our life, of assisting our life, of helping our life in its own unfolding. This is called walking two paths at the same time.

We do that knowing, trusting, believing that our life emerges over time—that our life continues to emerge over time, taking different shapes, assuming different forms, following different paths, according to its own interests, and the opportunities available for them to be realized. There is never a moment in which our life has said all it has to say, in which it has done all it has to do. Our life always has something more in store for us, if we have eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to understand—and the willingness to align our will with our life’s will for us.

Too often, we give up on our life because it seems there is nothing to be done within these sorry circumstances, with these worthless possibilities, and we add our voice to the chorus of those who have whined through the ages, “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” Too often, we allow our experiences with life to separate us from ourselves, and cut us off from our heart—and live a plastic, cardboard, inauthentic, robotic existence throughout our days upon the earth. Too often, we have our own purposes to serve, our own desires to realize, and allow nothing to interfere with the realization of our dreams. We do not give our life a chance, because it would only get in our way if we did, and we don’t want anything untracking us from the glory that we have in mind for ourselves.

We have to trust ourselves to our life! We cannot be alive and loving it on some narrow little frequency range where everything is just right—exactly like we want it to be. We have to wade into the ocean! Embrace it all, and love every bit of it.

James Hollis quotes Homer, who has Odysseus say, “I will stay with it and endure through suffering hardship—and once the heaving sea has shaken my raft to pieces, then I will swim.” That’s the spirit! We commit ourselves to the journey, the path, the beam with our name on it, no matter what, and see where it goes. That’s it. There is nothing more to it than that.

We have to do the thing, the thing that is ours to do, the thing that we don’t know what is, but that we may have a hunch about—yet, we fool ourselves so often that we can’t be sure if this isn’t another one of those attractive missteps like our first marriage, and our second one, so what chance do we ever have of getting it right, of ever getting on the beam with our name on it, and seeing where it goes? And, all the while, that is the thing that is ours to do, and sitting here coming up with all these reasons for not doing it isn’t getting it done!

All of the catch phrases of Orthodox Christianity are inviting reinterpretation here. With just a bit of a shift in focus, we can see that “God’s will” is our life’s own built-in, organic, inner design. It is who we are, how we are built to be. “Sin” and “disobedience,” “alienation” and “bondage,” are our refusal to listen, to see, to wait, to serve our lives—to be servants of life. They are our rush, instead, to develop the life of our own choosing—or to give up on our life altogether as being too little, too paltry, too hopelessly disappointing to be worth having. “Deliverance,” “salvation,” “resurrection,” “restoration,” and “the return to the Promised Land” are terms for our waking up to the presence of the unobtrusive Messiah within each of us—which is the kernel of divinity, numinousity, integrity, truth, goodness, hope, purity, and beauty that is the inner shape and form of our own life: Our destiny, waiting to be recognized and served.

The Spiritual Path is the path back to where we started, back to who we have always been. The Spiritual Journey is the journey to our Inner Self, the inner Other, the two million-year-old person whom Jung said “We do not know.” The Spiritual Quest is the quest for who we also are—who we are built to be, and called to become. We seek reunion with the genius within, with the gift that is ours to share with the world, with the art that ours is to develop and present to all. The religion of our experience is geared to separate us from the very thing it should be helping us find.

In order to take the Spiritual Path back home to the self we are built to be, we are going to have to let go of certain things, and take up certain others. The hardest thing is to stand apart from the way we have always seen things in order to see things differently. This perspective shift is the experience of death and resurrection. It is a lot easier to remain dead than to be born again. In order to be born again, we have to make the transition from the literal to the metaphorical, from the external to the internal, from the inorganic to the organic. And, we have to be able to understand the power of an idea whose time has come as the very voice of God.

Think of God in two ways. There is the external God we created as protection against the forces of life and nature—death, disease, devastation; earthquake, wind, fire, flood, famine, etc.—which we could neither understand or control. We imagined a Omnipotent, Almighty God in control of the forces of life and nature, who could be appeased, who could be charmed, who could be cajoled into granting us immunity, and keeping us safe—with the right kind of faith, the right kind of service. We developed elaborate systems of religion to control the God, who would control life and nature in our behalf, and grant us peace, prosperity, and life everlasting.

Now, think of God as the Stream of Life flowing through all of life—the internal God of the “still, small voice.” The God of the Idea Whose Time Has Come. The God of right seeing, right hearing, right understanding, right knowing, right doing, right being. The God of the listening ear, the seeing eye, the understanding heart. The God who perceives, and knows, and acts at the right time to shift the world to the good. The God who unfolds, emerges, evolves, becomes. The God who is hidden within, tucked away in the unfurling of our lives and the opening of each moment, is also the Transcendent God, the Sacred Source of Life, Being and Value.

If we can think of creation as the coming out, the coming forth, of God, as the becoming of God, as the self-expression of God, we can say that God is limited by a number of factors, perhaps an infinite number of factors. One of the things that the story of Jesus opens up for us is the “vulnerability of God.” In Jesus, some of the Biblical writers say, God was born in a manger and died on a cross. This view of God is in complete contradiction to the idea of an invincible, omnipotent all-powerful, almighty, Master and Commander of the Universe and Beyond God that we have been told is the right idea to have of God—but, it is completely compatible with the idea of the Stream of Life flowing through life.

Creation can be seen as a vulnerable act of a vulnerable God, who is at the mercy of possibility and opportunity, is restricted by chance, and just keeps trying until there is a breakthrough. God, from this point of view, is more of an urge toward itself, of Life toward life, toward expression, exhibition and realization, than the Architect and Constructor of Everything Out of Nothing. The “urge of Life toward life” is not independent of, and external to, creation, but is integral to creation as the very heart of the ongoing process of creation, and is, itself, the creative act. It is what creation is “all about.” There is nothing beyond “the realization of the life,” beyond being fully alive in the time and place of living, to have, acquire, possess.

We literally grow into God, as we expand our consciousness, deepen our awareness, and exercise our imagination. We join God in the act of bringing God into being as we consciously, with intention and purpose, awareness and imagination, live toward our own life, and bring life forth within the life we are living—offering ourselves, the genius, the art, the gift that is ours to give—in doing what needs to be done in each situation as it arises.

Whose good is served by the good we call good? The good that we serve has to be good for our enemies as well as for us; has to be good for those who are not like us as well as for us. When we love our enemies, there is God. When we love our neighbor as ourselves, there is God. When we do unto others as we would have them do unto us, there is God. As we do these things, we join God in the realization of the good, in the expression of life, and live in tune with the heart of creation, and swim exuberantly in the Stream of Life and Being.

The Mystery at the Heart of Life and Being

Something larger than we are flows within us, through us, around us. The connection is stronger, clearer, deeper, in some times and places than in others. In some times and places, there is a veritable YES! coursing through us in response to our life experience. It may be the birth of a child, or making love with your life’s true mate, or walking through a foggy morning in wet woods… An encounter with some form of goodness, beauty, and/or, truth will do it every time (and, the truth doesn’t have to be either good or beautiful—the awesome, destructive terror of an earthquake, or volcano, can work as well).

The shift from “here” to “there” can happen anywhere, any time, but not everywhere, all the time. While transcendent reality is never more than a perspective shift away, some life experiences compel/enable us to make that shift more easily than others. The sense of holy presence—the encounter with numinous reality—is occasioned by experiences that bring us fully into the present moment, and focus us intently on this time, this place. James Joyce referred to this experience as “aesthetic arrest,” and Joseph Campbell talked about the event occasioning the experience as being “transparent to transcendence.”

The transcendent is concealed in, and revealed by, the imminent. Whatever awakens us, and enables us to be fully, deeply, alive, opening us to the wonder of the moment of our present experience, connects us with the divine. If we want to “find God,” we can do no better than by exposing ourselves to the goodness, truth and beauty of our life experience—or, as some have said, by giving ourselves an experience of beauty through art, music and nature.

Another avenue into the presence of That Which Has Always Been Called God is the contemplation/exploration of symbols that are alive for us, connecting us with metaphors that suggest/imply more than can be told of what words cannot say. One way of working with symbols is to place a frame around anything. People use photography to frame various aspects of lived experience, and that is one approach to take: Take a picture!

Or just pretend to have taken a picture! Imagine setting a rock, or a tree, or a person apart for your own personal engagement, and open yourself to the full experience of what you have framed as “That Which Has Come (like the Buddha) Thus So.” Everything so considered connects us with everything. There is something and not nothing! The astounding nature of that realization opens the way to our own experience of “aesthetic arrest” before the mysterium tremendum–the awe-inspiring mystery beyond the grasp of logic and reason.

A second way of using symbols as the connective tissue with the divine is to explore which symbols have the ability to stir something within us–what is symbolic to us of more than words can say? Joseph Campbell suggested that when we have found a symbol that moves us, or calls to us, we should live with it seeking to realize “Of what is it the metaphor?” To what does the symbol refer? Campbell said, “You need to find what the reference of the symbol is. When that is found, you will have the elucidation.”

When we begin seeking the source of our own inner stirring, we will be setting ourselves on a path in which, using the words of the old Alchemists, “One book opens another.” We will think we are looking for a symbols reference, and we will be led into the Field of Wonder where everything is  doorway to something else, and we will discover the amazing truth that Heraclitus articulated centuries ago: “Traveling on every path, you will not find the boundaries of soul by going, so deep is its measure.” And the game is on!

A third approach to symbols is to simply sit quietly and see what arises in the silence. The silence is an ever-present contact point with amazement in that our Unconscious Mind (So called because we are not conscious of it) has access to us there because we are free from “the noise of the 10,000 things,” and can be open to the world seeking us just as we are seeking it.

Sit quietly, watching, waiting, for the things that come to us unbidden in the silence. They might come as images, impressions, urges, occurrences–inviting reflection/realization or serving as calls to action, perhaps with an urgency about it that cannot be denied or ignored–leading us into adventures we would never think up on our own.

Parker Palmer calls these places of encounter with more than words can say, “thin places,” where the invisible world shines through into the visible world of normal, apparent reality, and illumines those with eyes to see in a way they never forget. The knowledge of God, to the extent that the unknowable can be known, begins with the experience of God—and how can we live without experiencing God? That Which Has Always Been Called God is hiding in plain sight, on every side, all the time!

To experience God is to know God, but in a way that cannot be communicated. We cannot explain what we know, or say what we have experienced. Yet, the experience of God, of knowing God through direct, personal experience with transcendent reality, can lead to the alignment of our life with God, to living the life of God, so that, along with Jesus and Paul, we can say “The Father and I are one,” “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me”–with “Christ” understood, not as the literal, unique, one and only, “Son of God come to atone for the sins of the world,” but as the God-within-us-all.  The God we experience as being “out there,” can, with that shift in perspective, be understood as the source of life, and light, and peace, “in here” and, through the way we live, “out there,” coming to life by the way we live in the world, being incarnated in our lives as was the case in Jesus’ life.

We need to spend less time talking about theology, debating the doctrines and studying the Bible, and more time placing ourselves in the path of experiences of numinous reality through art, music and nature. That is the surest path to knowing God, and living as God in the world, because the knowledge of God is hardly an exact science. Theologians like to speak with the voice of absolute authority, but we all feel our way along here. We say more than we can possibly know. We engage the Mystery, and then proceed to explain it—or, more likely, we never engage the Mystery, someone explains it to us, and tells us to believe what they say.

Someone catches a glimpse of the transcendent source of life, being and value, and draws up a chart of the organizational structure of the universe in outline form, including a time line for handy reference, and hands it out to be memorized, and recited to all people as the way of saving the world. A 3.5 second experience of holiness is good for a lifetime of logical extrapolation and rational deduction. Never mind that God is quickly lost in our explanations of God. The two are one in the minds of those pushing their idea of God, and they will be glad to tell us that it is so.

The first thing we can say about the Mystery is that it is impossible to say anything of substance about the Mystery. The second thing we can say is that whatever we say has to respect and maintain the mysteriousness of the Mystery. We don’t know anything of it beyond our experience of it. How it is structured, whether it has preferences, if it has a plan, and what it does on its days off, we don’t know. Beyond the experience itself, we make it all up.

If we are going to make it all up, and it would be helpful to do so from as broad a base as possible. It would be helpful to acknowledge that we have no business making it all up on our own, alone, cut off from all the others who have made, and are making, it all up. No one has the last word. One person’s guess is as good as another’s. That being the case, lay all the words, and all the guesses, from all the traditions through the ages, out on the table, and get as large a picture as possible regarding who we all think, and have thought, God is. Listen to the traditions, and let each person be drawn to that which rings true to them.

Listening to the traditions led Aldos Huxley to formulate “the perennial philosophy,” a compilation, of sorts, of the common points of a wide number of views of God—but, there is nothing sacrosanct about Huxley’s list. Different writers emphasize different things. The important point is to have a view of God that takes into account other views of God, and sees that our view of God is not to be confused with, or taken for, God. Our idea of God is not God, and Meister Eckhart said, “The highest, greatest, and final leave-taking is leaving God for God”!

God is beyond all views of God. Mystery is the ground of life, being and value. The source is essentially unknown and unknowable. And, yet, there is the ache, the urge, to draw close to God, to live aligned with the way of God, so that our heart beats in sync with the heart of Mystery, and our soul is at-one with the Soul of all that is, and has been, and will be, visible and invisible, worlds without end.

We live with the Mystery, and with the yearning for the Mystery, knowing that we do not know what we long to know, yet, living toward our best guess regarding who God is, and who God would have us be in each situation as it arises. In this, there can be no separation between knowing, doing and being.

As we live toward what we think we know of God, we incorporate God-like-ness into our way with life, and deepen our knowledge of God. We live into the Mystery of God—we do not think our way there. And, when we talk about what we know of the Mystery, our words sound like nonsense to those who don’t know what we are talking about, who have had no experience of the Mystery, and do not know whereof we speak. We can but speak in paradoxes and riddles, and are of no help to the unknowing ones.

“Take up your cross,” says Jesus, “and follow me.” That’s the directive. That’s the map. That’s the explanation. Dying to our idea of God even as we strive to follow God. As Martin Palmer would say, “The path that can be discerned as a path is not a reliable path! And, the God that can be discerned as God is not a reliable God. If we want to know God, we have to live in ways that are as God-like as we can manage, and the Mystery will unfold before us, one step at a time.

Of course, this is the hardest thing we will ever do, because we cannot be “born anew” without dying. Resurrection hinges upon our willingness to die. We die literally when we cease to breathe, and that happens only once. We die metaphorically when we move beyond one way of life into another–beyond one idea/realization to another. I expand Meister Eckhard’s insight quoted above to say, “The second highest, greatest, and next-to last leave-taking is leaving our life for our Life!

How we work that out tells the tale. But, we don’t get to the final chapter without passing through the next-to-last one, and the one before that.

Living Our Life

Jacob Bronowski said, “If you want to know the truth, you have to live in certain ways.” He meant you have to live truthfully. You can’t know the truth if you are kidding yourself about wanting to know the truth, if you aren’t willing to look the truth straight in the eye. If, in the words of Col. Nathan R. Jessup in the movie A Few Good Men, “You can’t handle the truth,” you’ll never know the truth.

We cannot say we are seeking the truth when we are seeking only to confirm our convictions, whether those convictions pertain to the superiority of the Caucasian race, or to the superiority of orthodox Christian dogma. If we live in the service of truth, we have to be open to what our explorations uncover, to what our experience shows us to be true, no matter what our preferences might be. We have to stand apart from our assumptions and prejudices—our prejudgments—in order to know the truth. We have to take the blinders off and live in ways that are truthful—in ways that do not deny or hide from any aspect of truth—if we want to know the truth.

The Bronowski principle applies to knowing God. If we want to know God, we have to live in certain ways. If we want to know God, we have to live a godly life, but. This does not mean what you think it means.

You think a godly life is morally pure. Not so. Jesus was called a glutton and a winebibber, and a son of Satan. Jesus was accused of blasphemy, heresy and sedition. Jesus was out of accord with every Book of Order of his day. Jesus was as far from the traditional understanding of moral purity as a person could be (“You have heard it said…But I say unto you”). The scribes and Pharisees, on the other hand, were morally pure to the core—“as to keeping the Law they were perfect”—and they knew nothing of God.

A godly life has nothing to do with moral purity. A godly life has everything to do with living so aligned with the life that is truly our life to live, with the life that needs us to live it, with the life that only we can live—so intent on doing what truly needs to be done in each situation as it arises—that God couldn’t live it any better than we are living it, couldn’t do it any better than we are doing it. When we live like that—living the life that is our life to live, and doing what truly needs to be done in the situation as it arises—we say along with Jesus, “The Father and I are one.” We are one with “the Father” when we are one with the life that is our life to live–when we are living life the way life needs to be lived in each situation as it arises.

When something helps you live the life that is your life to live, it helps you with your relationship with God. When it helps you with your relationship with God, it helps you with the life that is your life to live. Our life flows from our relationship with God, our relationship with God flows from our life. The two things are one. But, there is a problem.

The problem is that the life that is our life to live is not the life we have in mind for ourselves. This was Adam and Eve’s problem, and it is our problem. We suffer from a conflict of interests at the core. There is the life we are built for—the life that needs us to live it—and there is the life we want to live, the life we dream of living, the life we wish were our life to live. Which life will it be? Whose side are we on?

This is a tough one, this, whose side are we on question, If we get it right, it’s smooth sailing all the way (If we don’t take the Golgothas and the Calvaries seriously). But, it’s a hard one to get right, because we think we know what we are doing. We think we know best. We think we have our true interest at heart. All of this in complete denial of the evidence to the contrary, which establishes without the slightest doubt that fooling ourselves is what we do best, no, telling ourselves what we want to hear is what we do best, no, letting ourselves off the hook is what we do best, no, shooting ourselves in the foot is what we do best…

If anything is clear about us it is that we do not have our own best interest at heart, but we are sure that we do. It is hard for us to give that up, to hand that over, to say, along with Jesus, “Thy will, not mine, be done.” This is the hardest thing. We need help with it. And that’s exactly what we get, the help we need—if we have what it takes to take what is offered.

Carl Jung says, “In every one of us there is another whom we do not know.” I call this other within our “Invisible Twin.” Our Invisible Twin knows who we are, and who we are to be, what the life is that is our life to live, and what kind of help we need to live it—and is there to offer it, but. We want nothing to do with this invisible other. We want what we want and not what we ought to want. This is my definition of sin, by the way, wanting what we want and not what we ought to want. I have another definition of sin that means the same thing: Sin is being wrong about what’s important. We think the wrong things are important. It takes a lot of living to get all of this straight. We are stubborn to a fault, and are sure that what we want IS important, so it takes a while.

And all the while, our Invisible Twin knows what’s what—what we ought to want, what’s truly important, what we ought to be doing with our lives. But, we’ll have none of it. We know what we want and we will have it or else. This makes the transition from the life that we want to live to the life that is truly ours to live like dying. It is a terrible thing to get to the point of saying along with Jesus, “Thy will, not mine be done.” We have to be at the end of our rope, to say that, to hit bottom. We have to die, to say that—not literally, but metaphorically. It is a handing over of ourselves, of all that we have thought was important. It is a surrender, a recognition that we aren’t all that smart after all, and need help with our lives. It is at this point that our Invisible Twin provides us with exactly the help we need.

Who is this Invisible Twin? You could call him Jesus, the Son of God, the Christ within. Or you could call her Mary, the Mother of God. Or you could call this Twin the Holy Spirit that blows where it will. Or you could call our Twin, as Jesus did, “the Father.” Our Twin is as close to God as we can get, and is as much of God as we may be able to know. Our Invisible Twin stands ready to help us with all that we need to live the life that is our life to live, to do what needs to be done in serving what is truly important in each situation as it arises, all our life long. “In each of us there is another, whom we do not know.” And it is our responsibility to know her, to know him, to know what she knows, to know what he knows, and, with her help, with his help, to find the life that is truly our life to live, and live it.

Now, the life that is our life to live may have nothing to do with what we do to pay the bills—but, it is what we pay the bills to do. We may pay the bills with one life, and live the life that is truly our life to live with another life. We pay the bills with our day job, and do the work that is truly ours to do on the side, after hours, as we are able. We have to work it out, when to do what. Working it out involves integrating the opposites, reconciling the contradictions, managing our responsibilities, coming to terms with how things are, and how they also are, living in accord with the Tao by balancing/harmonizing Yin and Yang… This is not easy. This is the Hero’s Journey, the Spiritual Quest—not a soft stroll through the flowers of spring.

All of the epic hero stories are about this very thing. They are about us, the life that is our life to live, and the life we wish were ours to live. We stand between the lives, which do we choose? Whose side are we on? The struggle here is with ourselves. This is Jesus in the wilderness struggling with which life he is going to live, and again in Gethsemane, same struggle. Which life is it going to be?

Joseph Campbell said, “It took the Cyclops to bring out the hero in Ulysses.” The Cyclops has many manifestations. Deciding which life we are going to live in the moment of our living is one manifestation of the Cyclops in our life. Struggling to live the life that is our life to live within the terms and conditions of our life is another manifestation of the Cyclops. We have no reason to expect it to be easy. Luke Skywalker against the Dark Side, Harry Potter against Voldemort, Frodo against Sauron, and you against all that is not easy about your life. This is how things are. Do not let it get you down.

You have all you need to do what needs to be done in each situation as it arises. You have an Invisible Twin who is quite able to help you in the work that is yours to do. You can rely upon her, upon him, entirely. Jesus said, “I came that you might have life and have it abundantly.” And he said, “I will not abandon you or leave you desolate.” Jesus came to connect us with the life that is our life to live by living out before us the life that was his life to live, trusting us to get the idea. True life, abundant life, is found in living the life that needs us to live it, the life that we are built to live, born to live—the life that only we can live. Our work, the Hero’s Journey and the Spiritual Quest—all these are the same thing—is to find our life and live it. No other life will do.

Jesus does not offer us abundant life so that we can go our merry way, doing the things that are important to us. Those who would be his disciples must pick up their cross daily and follow him—and their cross is the burden of living the life that is their life to live, not some other, better, brighter, shinier life. Our cross is bringing forth the life that needs us to live it within the terms and conditions of life as it is. The cross is a metaphor for how difficult it is to integrate the opposites, and reconcile the contradictions, and work it all out. The help that we get from the invisible world does not make things easy—it enables us to do what is hard.

Your parents divorce, or your job is outsourced to India, or the lab report confirms a malignancy. Makes you want to quit. Makes you want to take off your glove, and slam it into the dust and say, “If you don’t stop hitting me these hard ground balls, I’m done with this game!”

Look, this is heroic stuff that we are doing. Frodo felt the same way we feel. So did Harry Potter, and Luke Skywalker, and Jesus. But, when we put on the uniform, and pick up the glove, and step onto the field, we have to expect hard ground balls, and be ready for one right after another. When we get out of bed each morning and step into our lives, we have to expect it to not be easy. This is hero’s work we are doing. Of course, it will not be easy!

James Hollis said that his experience playing tackle on his high school football team taught him that no matter how badly he got run over by the opposing lineman on the last play, he had to get up and get ready for the next play. This is how our life is. This is the way things are. It isn’t fair, and it isn’t fun much of the time, but this is it—we have to live the life that needs us to live it within this context and these circumstances. And do it every day for the rest of our life. The good news is that we have all we need to do it if we will believe that we do, and trust it to be so, and act like it is.

Joseph Campbell said, “We know when we are on the beam and when we are off of it.” That’s all we need to know. When we are living the life that needs us to live it, we are on the beam. When we are doing what truly needs us to do it in each situation as it arises, we are on the beam. When we are on the beam, we find what we need to live the life that only we can live. We may not find more than we need, but we will find what we need. This is the lesson of the manna in the wilderness, and of Jesus’ promise, “I will not leave you desolate.” It does not apply to us when we live any old way we want, only when we step on the beam and say from the heart, “Thy will, not mine, be done,” and live to align ourselves with what our Invisible Twin knows is the path with our name on it.

If you are going to believe in anything, believe in the beam, in the life that needs you to live it, in the path with your name on it, and in the “invisible means of support” that is always with us to assist us along the way. Trust that you will have all you need as you work to find your life and live it—to stay on the beam. Your life may not be easy, but the world will be transformed by your work, and your life will be interesting and meaningful all the way—which would never have been the case if you had lolled poolside the whole time, drinking fruit smoothies.

The Heart of What Matters Most

The word “God,” is among the most useless of words because its meaning is lost on us. Whose God are we talking about when we talk about God? Whose idea of God is under consideration? Fundamentalist Christians have an idea about God. Fundamentalist Muslims have a different idea about God. Reformed Jews have a different idea about God. Who is right about who God is? Can you imagine a convention of all those who have deep-seated and heart-felt ideas about God coming together to decide the right way to think about God?

The word God means too much to mean anything. The word conjures up for some of us old memories, old wounds, bad experiences—and some of us want to run when we hear it. It reflects a world-view and a thousand theologies that are no longer sustainable, much less, helpful. We have lived beyond the way our ancestors thought about God, and, to use the word faithfully, we have to spend so much time saying what we don’t mean that no one can be sure of, or remember, what we do mean.

Doctrinal definitions are “noisy gongs and clanging cymbals.” To say who God is and who God isn’t just adds more ingredients to a stew we cannot stomach, adds more confusion to our lives, and keeps a harangue going that outlived its usefulness long ago. To replace an old doctrine with an updated doctrine merely perpetuates the practice of creating a swirl of words without referents. We debate the doctrines, and lose the center, and treat those who oppose us in ways that are not God-like regardless of how well we articulate our view of God.

We don’t need another Doctrine of God to add to the pile. We need to torch the pile. We need to learn to live aligned with the center of what matters most. We need help connecting with the heart of highest value, with the essence of what is essential, with the core of what is crucial, with the soul of life itself. With the bedrock, the rhizome, from which we all come.

If we lived out of that connection, it would be a different world. Because we cannot do that, because we cannot live aligned with the center of what matters most, we hate each other, and blow each other up, and live in ways that refuse to take the best interest of the other into account. A life lived out of the center of what matters most is the thing the world is starving for. The world does not need another idea of God. It needs people who are living God-like lives.

Who is the most Godly person you know? Why isn’t it you?

In light of what do we live? What makes us think that is worthy of us? What are we doing to see into the heart of highest value? In what ways are we endeavoring to experience, connect with, and express that which is truly important?

To begin to answer these questions is to live toward the heart of what matters most. It is to listen for what is being asked of us, to search for what is of highest value. It is to live organically, dynamically, creatively, in relationship with the moment of our living, unfolding there that which may never have been expressed anywhere ever. It is to live without a script in the service of the good. It is to live connected at the level of the heart with all other hearts, and with the heart of life itself, with the heart of the process that is the foundation of life and being.

The miracle, the wonder, of life is the process by which we come to life, and are alive. This process evolved the gene, and the gene evolved consciousness, and consciousness impacts both the gene and the process, in a feedback loop that creates turbulence, chaos and more possibilities than there were at the beginning, which, itself, is an amazing thing to consider.

Not only that, but consciousness also intuits, glimpses, hunches, suspects, feels, a world–or worlds–beyond consciousness, a world–or worlds–beyond the world of normal, apparent, tangible reality, a world which is—or worlds which are—also a part of the process. Or perhaps, how’s this for an idea, is responsible for the process. Consciousness apprehends a heart at the center of the process, or beyond it; consciousness apprehends love at the center, or beyond it, compassion at the core, or beyond it. Whether at the center, or beyond the center, matters not. Apprehending the heart, wherever it is, and living aligned with it is what matters most. This is also living in accord with the Tao of life and being, and fully aligned with God’s will for our life.

Through consciousness, through awareness, we are involved in a relationship with a process which deepens both us and the process—which brings both us and the process—into greater harmony with each other, and enables the recognition and expression of values that are at the heart of life and being. “Values at the heart of things—lived out in our lives.” Consider that, if you will. Ponder that. Imagine that. It’s a different way of thinking about God, and about Incarnation.

The process creates the means of its own evolution, of its own realization. The process evokes its own becoming. Through the long years of the process, of life living toward itself, toward the realization of itself, the values at the heart of the process are perceived, what is truly important is clarified, what matters most is envisioned, identified, and served.

We advance the process toward the realization of the good that is at the heart of the process. We become one with the process in the service of the good of all of life. In living without a script in the service of the good, in the service of life, we produce—we participate in the production of—a wonder we could not begin to imagine before experiencing it.

If this doesn’t do it for you, come up something that does! We have to represent our experience of reality to ourselves somehow. We have to say something about how we think things are, or might be, and where we think things are going, and what part we might be playing in The Whole Show. We have to make sense of things as well as we are able. That much is certainly part of the process, that much certainly cannot be denied, this sense-making, order-finding, pattern-seeing, structure-producing, relationship-creating, capacity that is our gift—the gift of conscious awareness—to creation.

And the development of consciousness past the point of simply passing the genes along—to the point of being able to set self aside in the service of that which is perceived to be greater than self, greater than survival, greater than life—this, too, cannot be denied. The process has carried us beyond where the process needed us to go if genes making more genes were all the process had in mind. Evolution continues. The movement is toward the world that is beyond the ordinary world of normal, apparent reality. The process is a thoroughly spiritual enterprise, carrying us into the realms of mystery, wonder and awe—into the heart of goodness, beauty and truth—and the Source of Life and Being.