::seeward:clay::
Spirituality
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I have been reading a book lately that has been stirring up some thoughts. I realized that although I have given my life to learning about, exploring and teaching about Spirituality, I don't have a working definition for the word. Some would argue that a single definition is not possible and the word is a symbol or catch-all category for a wide range of ideas and experiences. I tend to agree with this assessment but I also thought I would reflect on what, in my own journey, the word has been used to catch. Here is my attempt at a working definition of the word Spirituality:
Spirituality is our capacity to consciously experience and respond appropriately to the Divine Presence in our daily lives.
I am sure that I read a similar definition along the way in my studies but I can't say for sure where. To follow from this definition, anything that helps bring the Divine presence into consciousness and helps us respond well is, in my book, considered spiritual. In all my searching and learning, I have yet to find anything as helpful as Jesus in discovering the Divine Presence and a model for how to respond to it in the midst of our daily living.
May your spirituality grow each day to sense the Divine Presence in all things and in all people.
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posted on:2008.04.02 12:44
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The Transpersonal Self
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Since Freud, possibly with a little help from cocaine, gave us a well formed view of the Self as a static construction, there have been other models of psychology and the Self that are gaining traction in our increasingly fluid modern world. One view that makes a lot of sense to me it is the Trans-personal view of the Self. Psychologists tend to see the Self as a static identity(or Ego) that is strengthened or weakened based on whatever particular neurosis we might adopt to distract us from the terrifying reality that we are going to die. Trans-personal psychology conceives of a much more fluid model of the self that really resonates with my own personal experience of reality. I will attempt to explain my understanding of this model and how it relates to spiritual experience.
Lets not think of the Self as a static thing but a process that brings the illusion of stability to our experience of the chaos of reality. Rather than our static self reacting too and bouncing off of external reality that is outside of ourselves and concrete, imagine the self as an organizing mechanism that takes in all experiences and does the heavy lifting of interpreting those bits of experience based on our current stable map of reality. One way of looking at it would be that our minds form a map of reality that acts as a slightly pliable container not unlike a water balloon. We take the diverse and disconnected contents of reality (in this case the water) and it fills in our map and gives it shape and density. We experience this filled balloon as ourselves. The surface of the balloon is constantly being molded and slightly reshaped by our experiences. No matter how large our balloon of self may be, it will eventually bump into parts of reality that do not fit within the stretched membrane that has become our map of reality. These new bits of experience could be new information, they could be painful experiences or they could be anything that challenges the way we think the world works. When we are confronted with these new bits of reality that challenge us we only have two options:
1. We can tighten up the balloon and harden the edges and refuse to accept the new information. In this process we also lose touch with reality over time and use up a great deal of energy avoiding or denying the truth. This course of action is what makes religious fundamentalists who waste immense amounts of energy defending a rigid and incomplete view of reality (or scripture).
2. We allow the balloon to break and begin the process of creating a new deeper and more flexible map of reality. This process feels like death to our inner selves because we often mistake our interpretation and map of reality as reality itself. When we become overwhelmed by reality as it truly is, this can cause a great deal of trauma within ourselves. For a period we are forced to observe the world with fresh eyes and are required to revisit and reinterpret things in new ways. It can feel like becoming a child again. This makes intuitive sense and we even have a cliche ready made for the occasion when we help people see a bigger view of reality : "I don't want to burst your bubble but..."
What we call the self is really a complex process of trying to bring order and meaning to the chaos of living. This order has been shown to move through a few predictable phases as we develop and grow:
Phase One - Self Identification : We see the membrane of our balloon only stretching over the parts of ourselves that we accept and identify with. The other parts of ourselves that we can't accept get projected onto others and we interpret others through the cracked lenses of our own divided self. For instance we might have deep insecurity issues and therefore we are disgusted when we see someone else who appears insecure. We are really interpreting ourselves but we haven't learned to allow those parts of ourselves into our balloon.
Phase Two - Shadow Identification : The balloon breaks and we accept that we are not perfect and that all of the things that we hate in others are also found within ourselves. The chaos of this realization begins to find stability in a new map that interprets reality more accurately because there is less projecting our inner issues onto reality. We then begin to interpret others more accurately.
Phase Three - Familial Identification : Our balloon expands to include the parts of the world that we really love and enjoy but rejects the parts (and people) that we do not like or agree with. A similar process that happened within us at the previous phase is now happening in our larger interpretations of reality. We are less self focused but we are still interpreting reality from a very self obsessed place. All value and meaning is based on our personal perspective and desires.
Phase Four - Non-Dual Identification : We begin to accept all people and things as part of reality without defending ourselves or rejecting anything. This is a state of being that allows us to truly see the world as it is and interpret it accurately without the imposition of our own defensive attempts at dealing with chaos and uncertainty.
This is just my best understanding at this point about what I am processing and is in no way a full and complete explanation. It is just my attempt at understanding what is happening within me : and all of us. Jesus put it like this:
"Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved." - Matthew 9:17
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posted on:2008.03.20 08:47
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Let Go of Your Life...
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"Anyone who saves their life, will lose it: Anyone who loses their life will save it" - Jesus
People have been willing to die for many things. Some have put their lives on the line for the environment, while others have risked their lives for political ideologies and lost. But what did Jesus feel was worth sacrificing it all for? He asked His earliest disciples to give up all earthly possessions, turn away from Father and Mother, and even to carry their own crosses as they drank from the martyrs cup: but why?
The idea of suffering for doing the 'right' thing or for obeying God was deeply imbedded within the Jewish world view and Jesus even referenced it during the Sermon on the Mount when He declared those who suffer, like the Prophets of History, for the coming of God's Kingdom will be blessed. One a emotional level it makes sense that anyone who lives with a fear of death has already died, since every action is taken in a cloud of fear and caution. A life that is worthwhile and genuine can only begin when on is willing to die. What could motivate that type of radical change of heart that allows someone to step outside of the natural structures of hesitancy and fear?
I believe Jesus' answer is: People are the only thing worth dying for. It is the heart obligation of love and compassion that you would do anything required to remove the suffering of those that you love, even if it meant that you began to suffer. It is the threshold of suffering, and death, that keeps us from the freedom of real love for one another. It is our fear of death that is barring the open door to God's Kingdom. It is love and compassion that leads us through the door and lightens our burdens of fear and caution that have kept us in darkness. Only when we lose ourselves enough to the sacrifice of love, do we get a glimpse of God: for God is love. It is in these small, but profoundly challenging ways, that God's spirit moves out advancing the Kingdom. Sometimes it causes me great pain to realize that we (the Church) have avoided wrestling with these core issues by creating a theology around personal holiness and the management of sinful behaviors. he didn't spend a great deal of time trying to teach people how to avoid temptations. He spent His time trying to build our faith in a new kind of life in God's Kingdom. A life where we are willing to lose our lives for the sake of others so that we may be reborn as Children of a Loving God.
"The Son of Man did not come into this world to be served but to serve and offer His life as a ransom for many" - Mk 10:45
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posted on:2008.03.11 08:58
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Salvation and Expanding Consciousness:Pt 2
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"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the
inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents...
some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge
will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our
frightful position therein." - HP Lovecraft
I no longer think of enlightenment as the ascending of some mystical ladder into the heavenly realms. Rather than a "raising of the levels", it seems better to think of expanding consciousness as a process of widening rather than climbing. Like a fractal that extends outward in all directions and leaves an ever increasing complex web of beauty behind, the expanding of human consciousness seems to be about knitting together a fuller map of experiences and information. Lovecraft made a great point in the above quote and I think he touched on a major tension of our times. With new vantage points that we have been provided by new technologies, the view of reality that has emerged can be "terrifying". It is at these new points of intersection that we are forced to either invent new ways of connecting reality together or to expend massive amounts of energy to try and hold the center that is rapidly dissolving under our feet. If we can risk jumping into the tensions and not avoiding them, we may be able to knit together new world-views that will, for awhile, give us back our illusions of certainty and comfort.
This widening process is also thrust upon every individual person as they journey in life. More experiences and more information have a way of forcing us to accept new connections that we might not normally see. I think of the moment when someone first considers that the person who they felt threatened by or even opposed, was, in many profound ways, very similar to themselves. What do you choose to do with this new information? Do you allow it to challenge your deep seated convictions and then reform a model of relationship that offers compassion and love to even your enemies? When you risk this new way of loving, I believe that your consciousness has expanded to include (rather than oppose) more of reality. The main problem is that in order to allow this expansion we must allow the painful death of letting go of our older ways of connecting the dots together.
I still believe that Jesus has many powerful tools to offer a person who wishes to go through the process of "death to life" but I also think that Jesus was primarily connecting dots that are now becoming self evident. We must go off the charts towards the mysterious and unexpected movements of The Spirit in order to navigate into the new world that is being birthed before our eyes.
Many of these thoughts are still conceptual but I intend to circle around thee themes for awhile as I work out articulating what I am discovering. I would welcome any thoughts.
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posted on:2008.01.03 11:08
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Salvation and Expanding Consciousness : Part One
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"I pray that they may be One" - Jesus in John 17
I once believed that salvation was only about the forgiveness of sins. I was taught that the whole of God's message to human beings involved a spiritual/legal transaction that removed the punishment of sins and the burden of guilt from those that had the wisdom to choose salvation by repenting and asking for forgiveness. While I still do hold onto the metaphysical framework that underpins these concepts of sinfulness, salvation and repentance, I no longer feel that salvation is only about the forgiveness of sins. I tend to think of this framework of sin/repentance as the ground floor in a much larger building that is being constructed through the lives of the Followers of Jesus. In order to understand the purpose of the entire building we must look closely at the foundation and see what purpose it serves in holding up the subsequent floors.
At the early stages of our development as human beings we become aware of ourselves and we don't always like what we see. We are confronted with parts of ourselves and parts of our pasts that we would rather not have to face. Some people are very accomplished at blocking out those unwanted and undesirable aspects of themselves but that is a subject for another day. Lets focus primarily on the type of person who has had the courage to see themselves as they really are. What do we do with the unwanted parts? How do we reconcile the fact that often we would like to be loving and kind but find ourselves, instead, being hurtful and petty? How do we move forward when it seems that, somewhere deep within, we are broken and incomplete? This is where the message of sin and repentance enters into our lives in positive and life giving ways. We are taught a whole framework for looking at the world that not only acknowledges our brokenness and unwanted parts but also offers us a way of accepting them. If we believe that these unwanted and broken parts can be forgiven by the ultimate authority : GOD, then it can help us in the process of accepting them as part of ourselves. "To be saved" in the traditional sense is a way of learning tools that help us to accept and integrate our shadow side rather than spending wasteful time on guilt and shame. For people who are struggling with accepting themselves this can be a powerful message of freedom and healing. This is a message of personal inner salvation.
The problem I struggle with is that Jesus talked about a whole lot more than just the forgiveness of personal sins (a strong case could be made that he rarely talked about sin in personal terms but rather mostly in terms of a communal or cultural sin) For Jesus the struggle he most seemed to addressing was not so much the inner struggle with guilt and sin but the society's struggle with integrating the unwanted or unlovable aspects back into the whole. One of the main ways that people became 'shadow' (or rejected and shameful) people in Jesus' world was by their inability to perform up to the standards of God's law. The same dynamic of integrating the broken and unwanted parts of ourselves is recast within the drama of the Gospels as Jesus' life and teachings seem to be knitting back together the shadow sides of society in the same way that the forgiveness of personal sins help knit the individual back into an integrated whole. Jesus' mission seemed to enact the integration of all people back into God's whole.
Is the message of 'Oneness" any less a message of salvation than the 'forgiveness of sins"? In my view, it is an even wider and expansive salvation that points toward the greater reality of the connectedness of all people (and all things).
Stay tuned for part two about the consciousness part of the title.
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posted on:2007.12.18 11:29
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An Unethical God
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"I've had a vision
and
you know I'm strong and holy,
I must do what I've been told." - Story of Isaac - Leonard Cohen
The story of Abraham and Isaac has never sat very well within my heart. It has raised, within me, countless questions about the nature of God and the real purposes behind this biblical God's interactions with His people. On one level, the idea that God would ask for a father to kill his only son reaps of violence and only makes sense once you come to the final act and see that God rescued Abraham from committing the sacrifice of his beloved. I can wrap my head around the story, as long as it remains, on the surface, a story about obedience. Where things go south for me is when I begin to enter into the story, not as a complete package but as an unfolding narative experience. When I ask the questions about Abraham's inner turmoil during this little episode, then new questions enter into my mind. If this is a story about obedience, then we are forced to ask, "What is Abraham being asked to obey?" Either way you look at it, Abraham is locked into a paradox of emotional pain. On one hand if he obeys God and kills his only son then his heart is broken. If he refuses to obey God, and spares Isaac, then he may suffer a crueler fate than heartbrokeness. Is God simply testing Abraham or is He teaching him something about the fluid and situational nature of what it means to obey God?
We often think of obedience in terms of following some prescribed system of morality or ethics. "To obey" often means to do what is mandated in some external system such as God's Law or our community's established standards for behavior. But what do we do when the author of God's Law asks us to do something that is forbidden in the law? Doesn't this paradox beg us to consider that obedience is not simply an external, or measurable, matter but also a deeply personal matter of the inner workings of God's spirit within us.
In John 3 Jesus says, "The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the spirit." This idea that following the fluid movement of the spirit is a more difficult undertaking than simply following the rules, is beginning to unlock the meaning of the Abraham and Isaac story for me. In his wonderful and probing book, Fragments of the Spirit, Mark I. Wallace says, "God as Spirit is the wind who blows as she wills; and as such, God as spirit can be no more understood within the confines of an ethical or philosophical system than the wind can be explained by reference to a weathervane." I love this picture because I believe that, at the core, we often misunderstand the essential point is to know God and bring God's will to bear in our lives. God's will is not contained within a legal system of "do's and don'ts". It is this freedom beyond established ethics that got Jesus into so much trouble with His contemporaries.
The meaning of the Abraham and Isaac text seems to be centered around our dynamic faith and obedience in relation to God's radical freedom. Is it possible that Abraham was being taught the ways that he had misinterpreted God by God himself shattering all preconcieved notions of the Divine nature. God is a good God who also kills. The paralells between the story of Isaac and the story of Jesus are startling. In Jesus, God enacts the same sacrifice of a son that Abraham confronted and we are left with the brutal truth that God cannot be fully known through our ethical and moral systems, even the ones that are "God ordained"
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posted on:2007.12.12 08:24
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Where Do We Go From Here?
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Forgive me this is going to be an open exploration of an idea I have been considering lately, it may be long!
Picasso's cubist is said to be the first post-modern movement in the arts. By showing the viewer more than one vantage point at the same time, Picasso infused his paintings with the same multi-layed context that exists is post modern thought. In order to explore post-modernity we need to take a quick look at modernity. I have been thinking about the way we look at something like "The Gospel". For the last 4-500 years the modern world has offered its best rational explanations and biblical prooftexts to support the a definition of the Gospel as : Jesus died to forgive people's sins. I am not challenging that definition. This definition makes perfect sense when you look at the text with a rational and intellectual lense. I would even go as far as to say that this definition is the most universal. So the modern rational mind created systems and hiearchies to train people in this definition and personal application of the Gospel. Just like Picasso, the post modern world is willing to look at the same idea of the Gospel from different vantage points. When you look at the emerging church, with its obsessive levels of theological dialogue, you get the same feeling as looking at a cubist painting. No one perspective seems to hold you view for very long. It feels like the natural tethers like vanishing point and direction of light collapse and the painting becomes more meaningless. This is a bit of the same feeling that many people get looking into the ongoing theological dialogue. The normal tethers of biblical authority and tradition seem missing and the whole dialogue becomes meanless to them. I think this generates much fear in both the observer of a cubist painting and the participant in post modern theological study.
What all of this is beginning to mean for me is that I am less interested in dialogue for its own sake. I am interested in dialogue that honors the presence of God's spirit in our midst. Allowing the discussion to provide a context for meaning and relationship rather than a place to fight for the supremacy of my perspective. None of this might make any sense to anyone but me but I needed a space to scribble this out. Peace
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posted on:2006.04.18 15:01
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He is All of Us
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I have been reflecting on a few images created for this Easter season. Lots of great middle eastern looking Jesus' and such but this watercolor by a high school senior touched me the most. Click the small image to see a larger version and read the text. I have been reflecting for months on the need to integrate other persepctives into our sense of personal identity. How can I truely love someone (my neighbor or my enemy) without truely letting their perspective into my own. I have to radically identify with the other person's perspective in a way that I ultimately take it into my own. I am then left with a greater acceptance and capacity to show love and compassion. This image pushed into my heart the reality that Jesus took on all perspectives on the cross when He became our sin. What does it look like for followers of Jesus to see Him in the eyes of murderers and gluttons? Is the scandal of Jesus' redemptive work too much for our timid church to bear? If Jesus loved the very people that hated Him, then His work on the cross is made pointless when His followers decide to draw moral lines around behaviors that they find unacceptable and completely over look other offensive behaviors. I have never met a Christian who was so concerned about the sinfulness of homosexuality who was also hot and bothered by women no longer wearing hats to church. I know they are out there(stay away please!) but I tend to have more intellectual respect for them than Christians who pick and choose what they will tolerate. Jesus not only not only took on all of the things we might, in our limited perspectives, find offensive, He become those things for the sake of all of us. On the cross Jesus revealed a God that I am willing to worship.
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posted on:2006.04.17 12:38
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Good Friday
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What kind of a God lets Himself be killed? What does it say about the nature of God that a day marked by such injustice and inhumane violence has been called "good". I understand that from a theological perspective, ultimately, the events of that dark Friday two thousand years ago were good, even great. But wouldn't "Dark Friday" be a better name? Are followers of Jesus not invited to take part in Jesus' suffering as well as His comfort? Is it not essential for us to live the suffering that led toward the cross in order to feel the joy of the resurrection?
The painting above is called Exodus by Marc Chagall. I love this piece because it puts the whole biblical narative together. The people of God wandering in Exile and the savior lifted up like Moses lifted up the serpent. In our world of modern technological exile (from the geography pf physical space and time, from the intimacy of real human contact, from the sense of the divine in the ordinary) I pray that the true image of the murdered God be raised up for all to see. I pray that our human exile begin to see the dove of peace bearing the hope for a renewed creation.
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posted on:2006.04.14 13:44
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Meister Eckhart
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Why are all the good theologians German? Is it something in the water over there?
I have been exploring a bit of Eckhart's thoughts recently and I am deeply sad that most of the Christian world has not even heard his name. At once a professor, preacher, writer, mystic, theologian, poet, philosopher, and heretic (according to the more fearful segments of the historical church) Eckhart voiced so many fresh and profoundly biblical insights into the ways in which a vibrant spiritual connection between man and God could be articulated. At the core of His thought was a challenge to the three fold path of spiritual awakening that has been adopted by the historical church since the days of Constantine.
I. Purgation - the soul's disconnection from God
II. Illumination - the light of truth entering the heart of man
III. Union - reconnection with God in intimacy and beauty
It is worth mentioning that this three-fold path owes much more to Plato than it does to the Bible. Eckhart put forth a much more biblical four fold path:
I. Via Positiva (creation) - the original blessing found in the creation that God called "very good" - creation and man truely bearing God's image and reflecting His glory
II. Via Negativa (letting go and letting be) - the discovery of the world as "things" or "objects" that can be used for selfish purposes and the path of learning to let go of "things" (possesions, relationships, etc) and our selfish manipulation and serve God's will
III. Via Creativa (birth of the self as child of God) - man experiences new birth after the process of learning to let go and discover reunion with God
IV. Via Transformativa (the new creation) - learning to employ our image-of-God creativity towards God's mission of personal and social transformation. The bringing of God's justice into our world
If this path is heretical, then Jesus was a heretic of the highest order! Not only did His teachings show a massive respect for the original blessing in creation(He often used nature and aspects fo creation to display the nature of God) but He also used children as an example of how one must return to an earlier way of being in order to be reborn. He was saying that at some earlier time all of us knew how to experience life as playful wonder but our own selfish attachments and power games have pulled us away from that state of being. It is not "Good News" to start the spiritual story by reminding people what they already know in their bones, they are clothed in sin and selfishness. If the biblical story is about human spiritual (and physical) exile and return, then we miss the heart of the story unless we begin with the wonder of God's creation. I think we have over-blown the fall as a way of keeping people fearful and under control. The story is not about how evil humans have become but how treasured they have alwasy been. Treasured enough for God to go to painful and sacrifical lengths to lead us out of our exile. What are we returning to? In our modern world, the church has gotten sidetracked by arguing impossible proofs for the creation account and we have failed to spend time reflecting on the implications of the original blessing of God. We might as well rip the first three chapters out of our bibles if we are going to tell God's story as simply a story about God solving the human problem of sin.
If you are interested (and fearless in your faith!) check out Matthew Fox one of our greatest modern heretics.
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posted on:2006.04.13 12:12
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Am I Becoming Gnostic?
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I have posted a few times (V for Vendetta review for instance) on the interplay between good and evil in the world. I have expressed the idea that, even in the death of Jesus, it is impossible to say that the evil political and religious plot that ended His life, wasn't ultimately a good thing. I have referenced the Apostle Paul saying "all things work to the good of those that love the Lord". I realize that I am not charting any new territory with these ideas and that even at the beginnings of the Christian faith people have wrestled with the relationship between good and evil.
It seems that, with the release of the newly discovered Gospel of Judas, our modern culture is wrestling with these issues as well. A few nights ago the National Geographic Channel ran a two hour show focusing on the early church writings and Judas' gospel. One of the things I found interesting was the fact that the early gnostic followers of Jesus had already tried to integrate the possibility that eivl plays a role in bringing about good. Of course, they were using the discussion to further their convictions that the point of Jesus life, teachings, death and reserrection were to leanr how to transcend this earthly existence. I do not agree with this particular idea but I am willing to engage radical reflection on the relationship between good and evil. When I look at Jesus, I am struck by the very earthly focus of His teachings and the very earthly mission of redemption and restoration that He invited His followers to engage. This new reading of Judas' gospel, by many people, tends to support the idea that Jesus was trying to teach people to exit life for the sake of heaven. That understanding of His mission and vocation renders His very practical teachings about how to live in the world (love your neighbor, turn the other cheek, sell everything you own and give it to the poor) useless.
In Judas' gospel, it is proposed that Jesus asked Judas to betray Him so that His mission on the cross could be accomplished. I can see, in one sense, how the Judas' actions actually served God's purposes of Jesus dying on a cross as the prophets had taught but it does not automatically mean that the mission and vocation of all followers is to exit this life for heaven. If that was the case then why did He send His followers out to preach the "Good News". The idea that the best expression of the Good News is for your life to end seems to betray Jesus own words "your business is not death but life", "I have come to give fullness of life". So if I leave that gnostic strain out of my thinking, I am still left with an interesting question of how God uses evil to bring about good. When I look at the Old Testament (particularlly Exodus) I see God doing many things that seem evil. Moses even pleads with God at Mount Sinai to "not do the evil that he intends" by killing all of Israel and starting over with Moses (like He had done before with Noah and his family)
These are interesting questions to consider in light of the fact that the mainstream cultural dialogue in our world is wrestling with notions of good vs evil. I am going to write a deeper piece exploring my thoughts on these matters, but for now you can click the old manuscript above and learn more about the Gospel of Judas (the satanic disciple according to John)
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posted on:2006.04.13 11:26
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Perceiving is Seeing
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What do you see in the image above? I have been reflecting lately on the idea that so much of the information that we take from our external world has to pass through the layer of our perceptions. With all of the misunderstandings and ignorance that we carry around daily, this information cannot help but be corrupted by our perceptions. What do we really see? Do we only see what we want to see? Is seeing the true gift of God. Jesus makes a reference to these themes in Mark 4 after He tells the disciples that the story fo the sower is the most important parable. He follows this up by saying that without understanding this parable it is impossible to understand the Kingdom of God that He is proclaiming. The He makes a bold statement saying that the crowds will not understand the parable because their eyes have been darkened so they will "See but never perceive and hear but never understand".
This has got me thinking on a few levels about the utter dependance on God for wisdom and clarity of vision. We cannot hope to perceive reality correctly without the intervention of God's spirit. I am challenged to ask myself if I am willing to humbly admit that most of what I think I understand is really the darken perceptions of my selfish heart.
It has also got me thining about, with all the various things that I say and post on this site, why so many people only seem to notice my girlfriends flesh. Are we so frightened of the female body? When ever we see a female body are we only able to perceive all the indoctrinated negative temptations. I wish God would open our eyes and allow us to discover a healthy relationship to sex. One that isn't bogged down in Augustine's own personal tormet over his concubine that has filtered down through the ages and still clings to the bride of Christ like cheap leather chaps at a gay rodeo.
Back to the image, I see two ten year old boys dressed in little bow peep costumes miking a goat into a pair of white tennis shoes. Behind them is a maiden modestly dressed in 6inch heels and a feather nightie, but that's just the way my mind works.
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posted on:2006.04.08 22:45
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The Day I Died
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On an strange and hot day in mid-june 1994, I was released from the King County Jail. After spending the previous 48 hours sweating and puking from herion withdrawls, the only thing on my mind was how to get more herion into my rapidly failing system. In a fit of super human strength, I struggled through the sweats and exhustion to walk 47 city blocks to the area of town where my connection lived. having no money in my pocket, I stopped on the way at the same pawn shop that I had, weeks before, pawned my first guitar and amplifier. I knew that the five dollars I recieved for pawning my wristwatch would not get me high, since my habit was well beyond $100 a day at this point but it was the only thing that I knew how to do at this point. Even the dealer laughed when I asked for a mere five dollar piece and took pity on me for just getting out of jail by adding another $5 portion to the five I had. With the tiny ten dollar piece in my left front pocket and a clean needle and spoon in my right, I headed to the bathroom of a Chevron gas station. My blood boiled as I sat waiting for the flood of security and calm that I had fallen in complete love with. It never came.
In one motion, I slumped off of the toilet seat and onto the floor in tears. The full weight of my addictions hit me all at once and all I wanted was to die. I begged for my life to be over. Through the tears, I wished that I had a $500 piece and that I could end my miserable life once and for all. From a distant but firm place within my memory, I heard the faint trace of a voice. Every forgotten childhood fairytale about God and Jesus and hopeless sinners came rushing into my desperate mind. I was overcome.
Suddenly there was a knock on the bathroom door. A voice called out, "Do you some help in there?". YES, YES, YES I needed some help in there. In that instant, the words of an anonymous gas station attendant became the words of God. His words gave me the saftey to die. I let go. I asked for help. I accepted the hard truth that, left to my own desires, I will destroy my own life. I had destroyed my own life. I didn't trust myself any longer. In the manner of a broken child, I wept for my life and begged for the opportunity to see it turn around. I begged, broken and foul, among the piss and shit of a gas station bathroom for resurrection. I wasn't even sure if I believed in resurrection but I knew that I had no other hope left.
Christian McCabe walked into that bathroom stall but someone else entirely walked out. The story didn't suddenly get rosey and bright. I still had to deal with so much unlearning and struggle but I have never doubted that in that Chevron gas station I died so that God could live in me.
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posted on:2006.03.23 15:22
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Are Myths Relevant Anymore?
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Good question! until recently I haven't given the idea of myths much thought. The flurry of energy surrounding this Christmas' release of The Chronicles of Narnia peaked my interest. I heard from so many people that the mythic qualities of the story had connected with them on a very deep inner level. I didn't have the same reaction to the story but I became curious about why we chose certian grand stories (the bible, the story of the natural sciences, or star wars) to interpret the deeper qualities of our own personal experiences.
It seems to me that the chart above is a good visual of how we all go about this myth/meaning making in our lives. We start looking for identity within our own personal pathology or worldview. Soon enough we go out into the society around us and it either reinforces our pathology with an ideology or shapes our pathology into a more mainstream worldview. These ideologies come from either political, economic, cultural, or religious structures that we meet and identify with in our society. That usually also tells us a grand story or mythological history but this mythology is heavily shaped to support and defend the ideology that we have identified with.
That is the usual path (described in more detail by several writers - see Richard Rohr) but while this journey is going on in each of our lives the true story of history is unfolding. A more multidimensional and complex history that could never be reduced to anyone mythology from a single human perspective.
I have been thinking about the Christian myth which I believe is also the revealed truth of history. God actually goes the other way on the chart and touches our personal pathological story and reinterprets it in light of a greater (and also real) mythology. When that truely happens, not just intellectually but is actually experienced, our personal story begins to take on greater meaning and fullness. I believe that on one level Jesus was saying this when he said "If you are willing to lose your life you will find it" If we are willing to let go of our small limited story and see our being as part of the larger historical journey then we will live differently in the world.
You can click the chart to read an interesting interview with Joseph Cambell talking about the power of myths in our lives. Here is an interesting quote from the interview:
"People say that what we?re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don?t think that?s what we?re really seeking. I think that what we?re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances without our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive."
The reason I am personally still looking into myth making is research for the writing of a book telling my spiritual journey. I feel led to write my story for three reasons:
1. I feel that it will give me a greater sense of what has shaped my thinking and living - both postively and negatively
2. I feel that someone who reads my story will gain insight into their own journey since that which is most personal is also most universal
3. It would make a kick-ass myspace page!
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posted on:2006.03.21 17:43
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The Gospel According to C S Lewis
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I have to confess at the onset that I have never read the Chronicles of Narnia. I have heard all of the hype about the story being a mythic retelling of the gospel story so I was intrigued. I tried hard to put myself in the mind of a child as I watched the film with about 50 other people from NPCC. We have been doing a three week series leading up to the viewing of the film. I have to say that I got much mroe out of the services reflecting on the film than the actual film. I can clearly see the symbolic aspects fo the story. I know I am going to sound like the grinch who stole Naria but I wasn't impressed with the overall story line. It, like most of Christianity was focused down on the atonement. Not that I am down playing the atonement in any way but that is not the whole of the gospel. The most striking issue for me was that after the Savior Aslan was killed as an atonement for the sins of Edmund, no other character was called to embody that same spirit of sacrificial love. In fact they were suited up with very real weapons and rushed off to a very violent battle. It wasn't the violence in a kids movie that disturbed me, it was the conflict between the spirit of war and the spirit of selfless love that overcomes all war. It seemed to play into the very human thought that as long as you can tell who are the good guys and who are the bad guys, then it is ok to use any means to overcome evil. This is not the gospel of Jesus or of Paul who encourages us to imitate Christ and lay down our lives in love to overcome evil. It is never as black and white as an army of good lined up against an army of evil, not even in own own hearts. The final twenty minute battle scene left me cold and completely overshadowed the spirit of Aslan's sacrifice. I have to keep reminding myself that this is meant for children so i can't be too critical but I am not so certian that C S Lewis' theology takes into account the life of Jesus as well as his death. If we are called to enter the battle of good versus evil, and I believe we are, then it would have been great to see more symbolic reflection on the only weapon we have in the fight: sacrificial love.
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posted on:2006.03.21 16:37
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Disciple or Student?
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Jesus is looking for disciples not students. Students want to know what the teacher knows. Socrates and Plato had students. Disciples want to be like their master is. The sad fact is that I run into so many students of Jesus who think following him is all about having the right information about God or interpretation of the Bible. Far too often these same students live in a way that is an offense to the core of who Jesus actually was. Jesus was Love! There is no way to get aroudn the fact that Jesus lived a life of selfless love that allowed the whole world to misunderstand and abuse him. He loved people too much to over power them or even to judge them. He reserved his judgments for the people who thought they already knew all that they needed to about God. But these same arrogant people were living lives of judgment and pride that allowed them to feel morally and spiritually superior to other people. Jesus had Very harsh words for these kinds of people. I am always heart broken when I encounter people who, in the name of Jesus, go about judging others(on moral or spiritual grounds) In order to pass judgment on another person(especially a person who declares the name of christ) you have to violate Jesus' own life and the core of his message. Jesus gave only one new commandment to his disciples "Love one another as you have been loved by God the father". The only conclusion that I can come to is that all of these judgmental and hypocritical people who go around judging have not experienced much love from God. That is sad because his love is freely offered. But in order to experience his love you have to go through the painful process of dying to yourself. Most people would rather feel superior to another person than risk being completely wretched in the eyes of God. The Apostle Paul took the risk and called himself the Chief of Sinners. That kind of self awareness and humility are the marks of a disciple not the air of superiority and judgment.
Did I mention that I am a humble and wretched disciple of the living Jesus!
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posted on:2006.03.21 16:36
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Why I Love Jesus
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He had a bad reputation (Luke 5:30). The legalistic religious people thought he was evil (Mark 3:22) and plotted against him in private (Mark 3:22-30). These are all evidences of how small minds react to God's great wonders. But for me the most powerful picture of why I love Jesus is that He stood silent, when his life was on the line, he did not defend himself (Matthew 26:63). And on the cross he prayed the most merciful and loving prayer ever uttered "forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34).
God give us the faith to live that kind of life, where it doesn't matter what they say about us, and it doesn't matter what they do to us, they will NEVER kill the truth within our hearts (John 3:16)!
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posted on:2006.03.21 16:35
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I am no Longer a Christian!
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I have had enough! I pray that God will forgive all of the Christians in the world for their arrogance and judgment. I can no longer call my self a Christian. I am more in love than ever with the Jesus that they claim to follow but I feel very sad that they don't take his words seriously. How can they truely know Him and His love for them and still be so insensitve and cruel? How can so many people be so misguided and naive? Why do people carry around so much fear and then dump it out onto people? Who is my neighbor?
Forgive me Lord of the sin in the center of my very heart and protect me from those that would further wound the world in Your name. I guess to truely love is to become aware of the magnitude of unlove in the world.
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posted on:2006.03.21 16:22
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