Eschatological or Scatological

Oh - I know I am going to hell for this one!

I heard in a lecture the other night (see Rock Concert, November 20) that the only way one could serve in a priest or prophet role - that is, to coach leaders in spiritual discernment, is to start with a clear eschatological frame of reference. In other words - to what end am I or are you coaching your client? Max makes his case that for example globalization is a god-inspired process moving toward the New Jerusalem. This is the coming kingdom where all live in harmony and the trees grow again and produce clean ripe fruit, and the lion and lamb play Scrabble without thoughts of blood or lusty feasts, and yada yada yada. But that anyway we must have that vision in order to know where we are taking our client.

Oh Scat!

Literally and figuratively! With all apologies to Dear John’s vision, I do not buy it. But not because it is silly or pure fantasy or, as some suggest, drug induced. I don't buy that we - any of us - can know what god has in mind nor do we have the capacity to understand it were we to have access to it. It is our ego-driven need to pretend that we can discern the "will of god" or the end of time and it has been a quest of human's kind since the beginning of thought - "Where is this all going to?" But that takes us down the wrong path. We have to make up a lot of scat to even get in the ballpark. And in my book that is wasted time.

Rather we need to let go of that ego-bound self importance and let god become manifest in and through us without our help or interference. What if we are to let god flow through us in to the spaces between us and the others? What would happen if we entered the discussion not presupposing but letting god manifest a future before us that none of us could ever imagine? Now that sounds like the way god works!

Look it is all well and good to have myths about creation and the end of time but Jesus and every prophet of every major religion has always entreated us to live now – the Kingdom is here now… if only we let it happen in god’s way and on god’s terms. Everything else is scatological.