Wow - It has been a while since I posted here, though admittedly most of these are more like my talking out loud than postings with the intent of generating tons of responses!
This semester I am in a class called Systematic Theology - subtitled perhaps "how does all of this stuff hang out together in your head or heart?" I have to admit it is kicking my butt mostly because it is forcing me to put in writing that which I have gotten away with not having cleanly defined for most of my adult life. Topics like: What is the nature of humanity? If you believe in a god, what is it that you actually believe? And the big one for me is if I call myself a Christian (on the days that I do call myself that) then what is it that defines my Christianity?
It requires first and foremost a starting point: would that be god or humanity? Since I cannot ever comprehend fully god as the fullness and source of all is-ness everywhere, I have to start with humanity. It led me on a path of recognizing that we only can know anything in our own language and limited through our own experience. So certainly whatever I may claim to understand is most certainly NOT god. It is only my experience of god, and at that, it is still limited to the antecedent referent list of tools, experience, vocabulary and imagery that my history, ethnicity, gender, society, economics (etc, etc) has afforded me.
All I can come to then is that this (all of this world, this universe, this life) is but a mere reflection of god - not god nor even full evidence of godliness - just "reflections as in a mirror" as Paul wrote. And to be certain the point of view from which I see that reflection is not the one from which you (any of you) see your version. But theology courses want you to come down with a theory or a theology (literally some god words or god logic) that you could espouse.
Hey, I am working on it!
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Monday, July 5, 2010
Finding Hope
It is my considered opinion that most of us do not know what true hope is but rather that we move with what might be considered a false hope. We hope in what we have and what we know or can imagine. We hope in some prepackaged design of "something better." We hope in a heaven - and we hope there is no hell. We hope to win the lottery, and for happily ever after marriages.
But what is hope itself? The dictionary says hope is the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best. I think that is wishful thinking.
So for right now I am trying on a new type of hope. I am working with a hope that does not know what things "should" be or have an idea of what turning out for the best might look like. Maybe it borders more in the realm of trust. I trust that god (or infinite wisdom or universe or whatever you may wish to call it) is infinitely smarter and more powerful than I and that how things are working out is more likely according to some process far larger than I can comprehend. And I place my hope in its care.
To say I have hope is - for now - to say I trust that whatever happens, occurs for a reason and is my invitation to come along with it. Hope should not resist what is in deference to something one's ego has decided would be better. Hope is a state of being found in living in gratitude for everything just as it is - and loving every bit of it as the rich stuff of life. At least I hope so!
But what is hope itself? The dictionary says hope is the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best. I think that is wishful thinking.
So for right now I am trying on a new type of hope. I am working with a hope that does not know what things "should" be or have an idea of what turning out for the best might look like. Maybe it borders more in the realm of trust. I trust that god (or infinite wisdom or universe or whatever you may wish to call it) is infinitely smarter and more powerful than I and that how things are working out is more likely according to some process far larger than I can comprehend. And I place my hope in its care.
To say I have hope is - for now - to say I trust that whatever happens, occurs for a reason and is my invitation to come along with it. Hope should not resist what is in deference to something one's ego has decided would be better. Hope is a state of being found in living in gratitude for everything just as it is - and loving every bit of it as the rich stuff of life. At least I hope so!
Monday, June 14, 2010
Gaping Chest Wound
I note with great interest our reaction to the Gulf of Mexico oil crisis. How we see the "problem" and how we address it are very telling. We tend as a people to see big problems as what Douglas Adams called SEPs (Sombody Else's Problem) and with that comes a convenient blame that we can affix to the culprit, BP.
But more than that, we seem to be seeing the problem as a separate and distinct entity apart from ourselves. Like so many of our human ailments: cancer, depression, AIDS - you name it - we naievely believe that: a) it is not integrally interwoven into how we live our lives, and b) that there is or can be created a pill (a solution) that can make it go away, without any other effort on our part than simply swallowing it.
How foolish can we be? First of all, how foolish it is to think that poking holes in our body will not have some disasterous results at some point; that it somehow will not result in our bleeding to death. More importantly, how foolish it is to view the earth and a separate entity, an object here for our taking, and not the core and source of our very being as a spicies. In our dualisic logic, we have come to believe that what is not "this" must be "that," that what is not me is other and therefore could possibly be mine or at least used by me without any cost to me. We have failed the first great cosmic rule: that all is one and inseparable from itself. This truth, taught by every great sage that has grown out of this life form and moved about within its veins, is undeniable. We have forgotten that we are merely some six billion hairs growing on the surface of our collective body.
And how foolish can we be to think that this ailment we now face can be healed by placng a bandaid on the hole? We have a gaping chest wound that has punctured our lungs and heart and, with the blood gushing out at a million barrels a minute, we will think to stuff some gauze in it. We hope - in vain I fear - that there is a cure. Where is the Prozac to make this better? Isn't there some antibiotic to make it go away so we can get back to feeding our egos and consuming ourselves?
I am so sorry to be negative. I am so embarrassed to be part of that collective mind that believes this. I want to kick and punch my way out but I can't. I am a part of the whole. I, too, am bleeding to death. I will - like each of you - climb into my oil consuming automobile later this morning and drive off to work, and somehow pretend not to know that I/we are dying.
There is no pill.
There is no individual fault.
And there is no individual way for one person, one company or one country to make it better.
Our only hope is we and us, and to see that this blood spilling out is related to Darfur, Afghanistan, Israel/Palestine and all of the other 90 some wars and blood-letting ceremonies in which we are now engaged, as well as to the deforestation of the Amazon, the melting ice caps.
Oh people, join hands, wake up, help out. This is serious.
But more than that, we seem to be seeing the problem as a separate and distinct entity apart from ourselves. Like so many of our human ailments: cancer, depression, AIDS - you name it - we naievely believe that: a) it is not integrally interwoven into how we live our lives, and b) that there is or can be created a pill (a solution) that can make it go away, without any other effort on our part than simply swallowing it.
How foolish can we be? First of all, how foolish it is to think that poking holes in our body will not have some disasterous results at some point; that it somehow will not result in our bleeding to death. More importantly, how foolish it is to view the earth and a separate entity, an object here for our taking, and not the core and source of our very being as a spicies. In our dualisic logic, we have come to believe that what is not "this" must be "that," that what is not me is other and therefore could possibly be mine or at least used by me without any cost to me. We have failed the first great cosmic rule: that all is one and inseparable from itself. This truth, taught by every great sage that has grown out of this life form and moved about within its veins, is undeniable. We have forgotten that we are merely some six billion hairs growing on the surface of our collective body.
And how foolish can we be to think that this ailment we now face can be healed by placng a bandaid on the hole? We have a gaping chest wound that has punctured our lungs and heart and, with the blood gushing out at a million barrels a minute, we will think to stuff some gauze in it. We hope - in vain I fear - that there is a cure. Where is the Prozac to make this better? Isn't there some antibiotic to make it go away so we can get back to feeding our egos and consuming ourselves?
I am so sorry to be negative. I am so embarrassed to be part of that collective mind that believes this. I want to kick and punch my way out but I can't. I am a part of the whole. I, too, am bleeding to death. I will - like each of you - climb into my oil consuming automobile later this morning and drive off to work, and somehow pretend not to know that I/we are dying.
There is no pill.
There is no individual fault.
And there is no individual way for one person, one company or one country to make it better.
Our only hope is we and us, and to see that this blood spilling out is related to Darfur, Afghanistan, Israel/Palestine and all of the other 90 some wars and blood-letting ceremonies in which we are now engaged, as well as to the deforestation of the Amazon, the melting ice caps.
Oh people, join hands, wake up, help out. This is serious.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Separate Truths
Commentary on Professor Prothero’s “Separate Truths” (with apologies for the length.
First of all, I cannot step over the need to express appreciation for Professor Prothero’s daring and well-informed essay in the Globe Ideas section (Sunday, April 25, 2010) – daring in its venture in to the un-vogue territory of recognizing and embracing differences (and in particular religious differences) and obviously well informed from the Professor’s years of study. Furthermore, I admit to not having read the full text from which his comments are taken. But unfortunately, from my personal perspective as a novice student of theology, the article fails on both the front end assumptions and on the concluding end of resolution.
The Professor points in great detail to the many differences between the world’s religions as the foundation of his argument and produces from that foundation the obviously related concept of their mutually exclusive goals, using as example the differing goals of various sports. Obviously earth’s many peoples and cultures have a plethora of differences. Why for example do roofs on Norwegian houses have a different pitch than those in the Sonoran desert? Why is the attire of the Inuit inappropriate in the Congo basin? Or allowing for the sport analogy, why must one relinquish the ball when tackled in rugby but cling tightly to it in American football, its second cousin?
The questions that might be asked are not how are these sports different in goals and rules, or why do houses and clothing differ, but rather why do humans play sports and games and why do they seek shelter from the elements? Do we as humans share a need to believe in something, and if so how do those beliefs evolve into group think, cultural mores, out-grouping and hate crimes or perhaps in a shared need to find commonality? While the professor sweeps aside Karen Armstrong’s earlier work, A History of God, he might do well in reviewing her more recent deep dive in The Great Transformation.
In this more recent work, Ms. Armstrong ties together not so much the tenets of some major world religions, but rather the socio-political and economic precedents to them. Evolving out of some common threads in world history and founded in what appears to be a universal human need to understand one’s existence, Armstrong makes a more compelling argument for the commonality of the human spiritual quest. The great sages that developed those religions she traces did so in an effort to make sense out of human suffering and tragedy. Our pains, large or small, personal or societal, are differently named (as our sports are) and so, in the dualism that follows defining one thing from another, the courses of action and thought processes that ensue are even more radically differing.
Humans appear to have a shared need to understand their existence, how they got here and to what end they are moving. Even atheists have an explanation to the why and what of existence (personally I love reading Douglas Adams’ brilliantly articulation of the atheistic point of view). The problem comes not from the religions, theisms and a-theisms, but rather from the very human act of meaning making wherein we all differ radically. Our brains have evolved to make sense out of the myriad stimuli bombarding us at each instant and to relegate some to meaning and others to irrelevance. The bulk of that happens through what psychologists call associative learning – “this is like that.” Since no two people (not even identical twins) share exactly the same perspective, our meaning-making begins to differ from the time we are born (and some would contend even before that). Thus when these somewhat to wildly differing meaning structures encounter human difficulty and the ensuing need to make sense of it, it is a wonder that there are not 6 billion religions on our planet.
But we talk to each other, and something as important and central to life as why we are here and where we are going frequently comes up, eventually rolling up to some commonly held themes as “our beliefs” – and the rest, as they say, is history. Additionally, along with the evolution of these beliefs and themes, our moral/ ethical processes also develop (some more than others). The Professor would no doubt be aware of the work of James Fowler, who outlines the stages of spiritual development from the undefined to universalized (an understanding level few ever get to). Parallel to the work of Kohlberg and Perry, Fowler found that development may stall out at some level, and as Perry found, under duress or challenge, people often regress to a lower level of understanding such as fundamentalism. There, life is simple once again – there is a right and a wrong and everything fits neatly into the package. To the fundamentalist, right comes from god and anything diverging from that is false, and therefore comes from the devil. Combining these aspects of human psychology with the evolutionary history of religions produces a vast array of religions and belief structures not only about morals, ethics and their source, but about who is or is not included and excluded from the defined principles and goals.
And to what point should this argument take us? Professor Prothero correctly points out that denying the differences is both ignorant and insulting. Whether fundamentalist or enlightened universalist, spiritual beliefs are closely held and sacred to the holder. Disavowing those individual beliefs, whether by exclusionary practices or pseudo-intellectual feints toward inclusiveness, is not just ignorant, it is morally wrong. Trying to make things fit neatly into our pretty little ethnocentric packages has virtually destroyed the environment, raped the land, justified wars and genocide – you name it. History should have provided enough evidence that such beliefs and practices don’t work.
But there is a pluralism that embraces diversity that may be a step beyond Dr. Prothero’s end point (which may perhaps be included in his book). Diversity requires our embracing differences as other component parts of the human condition. Not including the perspective of some Aboriginal villager in a world economic forum is as blind as not accessing the creativity of a person living with a mobility handicap when discussing a corporate strategic plan. Religious diversity is not adopting the “New Jerusalem” ideal that Stackhouse espouses, but rather making room at the table for every perspective in discussing our plight.
The problems of today’s world are more complex than ever and some might contend, are foretelling our demise. Unless we recognize that the solution is the unwieldy and awkward coming together of human perspectives, we may not be able to do anything about it. Adam Kahane outlined the process of creating resolutions to the complex and difficult problems presented at the Mont Fleur (South Africa) and in the Vision Guatemala discussions – both of which sought to include representatives of all elements in the discussions. Because religions play such a central role in the actions of peoples around the planet, they may (some would say should) have a role in working toward both a global peace and environmental survival. We as a people are suffering, and suffering, as Armstrong points out in her concluding paragraph of The Great Transformation, “shatters neat, rationalistic theology.” We need to let the pain of genocide in the Middle East, attacks like 9/11 (resulting in our retaliatory warring), and the suffering from natural disasters sink in and shatter the self-righteousness of exclusionary belief systems. We need compassion; a compassion that accepts others’ individual differences and that has room for differing beliefs. We need to follow the lead of Tony Blair and others who are attempting to call the religions of the world together in inclusive mutual respect (for our many differences) and, placing all the guns and knives on the table, begin the process of open and healing dialogue – trusting that somewhere in their respective practices love and compassion have a voice.
First of all, I cannot step over the need to express appreciation for Professor Prothero’s daring and well-informed essay in the Globe Ideas section (Sunday, April 25, 2010) – daring in its venture in to the un-vogue territory of recognizing and embracing differences (and in particular religious differences) and obviously well informed from the Professor’s years of study. Furthermore, I admit to not having read the full text from which his comments are taken. But unfortunately, from my personal perspective as a novice student of theology, the article fails on both the front end assumptions and on the concluding end of resolution.
The Professor points in great detail to the many differences between the world’s religions as the foundation of his argument and produces from that foundation the obviously related concept of their mutually exclusive goals, using as example the differing goals of various sports. Obviously earth’s many peoples and cultures have a plethora of differences. Why for example do roofs on Norwegian houses have a different pitch than those in the Sonoran desert? Why is the attire of the Inuit inappropriate in the Congo basin? Or allowing for the sport analogy, why must one relinquish the ball when tackled in rugby but cling tightly to it in American football, its second cousin?
The questions that might be asked are not how are these sports different in goals and rules, or why do houses and clothing differ, but rather why do humans play sports and games and why do they seek shelter from the elements? Do we as humans share a need to believe in something, and if so how do those beliefs evolve into group think, cultural mores, out-grouping and hate crimes or perhaps in a shared need to find commonality? While the professor sweeps aside Karen Armstrong’s earlier work, A History of God, he might do well in reviewing her more recent deep dive in The Great Transformation.
In this more recent work, Ms. Armstrong ties together not so much the tenets of some major world religions, but rather the socio-political and economic precedents to them. Evolving out of some common threads in world history and founded in what appears to be a universal human need to understand one’s existence, Armstrong makes a more compelling argument for the commonality of the human spiritual quest. The great sages that developed those religions she traces did so in an effort to make sense out of human suffering and tragedy. Our pains, large or small, personal or societal, are differently named (as our sports are) and so, in the dualism that follows defining one thing from another, the courses of action and thought processes that ensue are even more radically differing.
Humans appear to have a shared need to understand their existence, how they got here and to what end they are moving. Even atheists have an explanation to the why and what of existence (personally I love reading Douglas Adams’ brilliantly articulation of the atheistic point of view). The problem comes not from the religions, theisms and a-theisms, but rather from the very human act of meaning making wherein we all differ radically. Our brains have evolved to make sense out of the myriad stimuli bombarding us at each instant and to relegate some to meaning and others to irrelevance. The bulk of that happens through what psychologists call associative learning – “this is like that.” Since no two people (not even identical twins) share exactly the same perspective, our meaning-making begins to differ from the time we are born (and some would contend even before that). Thus when these somewhat to wildly differing meaning structures encounter human difficulty and the ensuing need to make sense of it, it is a wonder that there are not 6 billion religions on our planet.
But we talk to each other, and something as important and central to life as why we are here and where we are going frequently comes up, eventually rolling up to some commonly held themes as “our beliefs” – and the rest, as they say, is history. Additionally, along with the evolution of these beliefs and themes, our moral/ ethical processes also develop (some more than others). The Professor would no doubt be aware of the work of James Fowler, who outlines the stages of spiritual development from the undefined to universalized (an understanding level few ever get to). Parallel to the work of Kohlberg and Perry, Fowler found that development may stall out at some level, and as Perry found, under duress or challenge, people often regress to a lower level of understanding such as fundamentalism. There, life is simple once again – there is a right and a wrong and everything fits neatly into the package. To the fundamentalist, right comes from god and anything diverging from that is false, and therefore comes from the devil. Combining these aspects of human psychology with the evolutionary history of religions produces a vast array of religions and belief structures not only about morals, ethics and their source, but about who is or is not included and excluded from the defined principles and goals.
And to what point should this argument take us? Professor Prothero correctly points out that denying the differences is both ignorant and insulting. Whether fundamentalist or enlightened universalist, spiritual beliefs are closely held and sacred to the holder. Disavowing those individual beliefs, whether by exclusionary practices or pseudo-intellectual feints toward inclusiveness, is not just ignorant, it is morally wrong. Trying to make things fit neatly into our pretty little ethnocentric packages has virtually destroyed the environment, raped the land, justified wars and genocide – you name it. History should have provided enough evidence that such beliefs and practices don’t work.
But there is a pluralism that embraces diversity that may be a step beyond Dr. Prothero’s end point (which may perhaps be included in his book). Diversity requires our embracing differences as other component parts of the human condition. Not including the perspective of some Aboriginal villager in a world economic forum is as blind as not accessing the creativity of a person living with a mobility handicap when discussing a corporate strategic plan. Religious diversity is not adopting the “New Jerusalem” ideal that Stackhouse espouses, but rather making room at the table for every perspective in discussing our plight.
The problems of today’s world are more complex than ever and some might contend, are foretelling our demise. Unless we recognize that the solution is the unwieldy and awkward coming together of human perspectives, we may not be able to do anything about it. Adam Kahane outlined the process of creating resolutions to the complex and difficult problems presented at the Mont Fleur (South Africa) and in the Vision Guatemala discussions – both of which sought to include representatives of all elements in the discussions. Because religions play such a central role in the actions of peoples around the planet, they may (some would say should) have a role in working toward both a global peace and environmental survival. We as a people are suffering, and suffering, as Armstrong points out in her concluding paragraph of The Great Transformation, “shatters neat, rationalistic theology.” We need to let the pain of genocide in the Middle East, attacks like 9/11 (resulting in our retaliatory warring), and the suffering from natural disasters sink in and shatter the self-righteousness of exclusionary belief systems. We need compassion; a compassion that accepts others’ individual differences and that has room for differing beliefs. We need to follow the lead of Tony Blair and others who are attempting to call the religions of the world together in inclusive mutual respect (for our many differences) and, placing all the guns and knives on the table, begin the process of open and healing dialogue – trusting that somewhere in their respective practices love and compassion have a voice.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Rethinking Church
I love my daughter! It's not just that she is a brilliant scholar and theologian; it's that she is an explorer - or maybe she is a guide to my own exploring. Whatever! In any case she recently noted that she was rethinking church (and truthfully, I really don't know what she was referring specifically to). But it got me thinking. Yea, church - the whole concept and set of practices we hold about church - needs a radical make over.
I am thinking that we need to turn it literally inside out. Let's just look at three simple aspects of church. First of all, what if we stopped thinking about going to church all together - I mean stopped thinking that it is some place we go. Because when we go inside the church building, we have entered into an exclusion of others - we have walls around us that hold us inside all safe and sound (not even noticing that in doing so we are walling others out). So what if we start letting church to come into us in a way that turns us outward, that tears down the walls and propels us outward toward others? What if?
And what if we stopped thinking of prayer as something that we do or even chose to do but rather that we got prayed. Richard Rohr says "prayer happened and we were there!" For years I have been thinking more like life lives us and that we are in service to the greater life force that flows through us. Well prayer is just like that. Prayer is our attempt to get out of the way and let the spirit of the divine flow through us and out into the world. What if we started getting prayed?
Then what if we stopped thinking that god was out there - as in anywhere other than everywhere, including every cell of you and me and everything everywhere? How might we act if there was no heaven apart from earth, no place to get to if we got it right? How would we act if we only had right now and recognized that we are inseparable from one another but were actually all entwined as one great living whole?
I want to be that church - that re-thought church!
I am thinking that we need to turn it literally inside out. Let's just look at three simple aspects of church. First of all, what if we stopped thinking about going to church all together - I mean stopped thinking that it is some place we go. Because when we go inside the church building, we have entered into an exclusion of others - we have walls around us that hold us inside all safe and sound (not even noticing that in doing so we are walling others out). So what if we start letting church to come into us in a way that turns us outward, that tears down the walls and propels us outward toward others? What if?
And what if we stopped thinking of prayer as something that we do or even chose to do but rather that we got prayed. Richard Rohr says "prayer happened and we were there!" For years I have been thinking more like life lives us and that we are in service to the greater life force that flows through us. Well prayer is just like that. Prayer is our attempt to get out of the way and let the spirit of the divine flow through us and out into the world. What if we started getting prayed?
Then what if we stopped thinking that god was out there - as in anywhere other than everywhere, including every cell of you and me and everything everywhere? How might we act if there was no heaven apart from earth, no place to get to if we got it right? How would we act if we only had right now and recognized that we are inseparable from one another but were actually all entwined as one great living whole?
I want to be that church - that re-thought church!
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Another One Bites the Dust
For years I have been trying to get it right (whatever "it" is). It was a journey to perfection that I thought would refine my being. If I could only get this right or that perfect, then... Then what? I would be perfect, or right, or whole? I don't think I really thought much about the "then what" part.
But lately I have begun seeing that perfection is a false idol. It is idolatrous to pursue getting it "right" in the first place. God never tells us we have to get it right or perfect - not ever. Oh from time to time in the Bible there are human references to living the pure and chaste life. But those are man-made rules, not god-rules. God's rules are simple: "If and when you screw up, you get another chance - I am the reset button, just come to me and I will reset you."
What the quest for perfection creates, in reality, is separation. It creates a state of better than and worse than - a caste system of being and doing, if you will. Seeking perfection is seeking to rise above the masses, to get better and better and to reach a level of god-like-ness. It is trying to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Perfection.
But there is an alternative path that has been coming into view. When I let go of the drive for perfection,I begin to seek union, oneness and joining of the shredded and torn-apart life we live. Unity is embracing the "bad" with the good. It is the making whole from all of those parts I want to divorce from myself and pretend don't belong to me. Unity is god's commandment - but not just out there, in here as well. Unity demands that I embrace all of me, and do away with the distinctions of good and bad altogether.
And overarching all of this, the search for perfection is a search for certainty - the quest to know completely that this is it, the best, the fullest! In such a place there can be no doubt, and without doubt, there is no need for faith. And then where would I be. When I arrived at that thought - the thought that I would have no faith if I continued my quest for perfection, the wall came crashing down. And then the wall of divisiveness, came down, and then the insistence on good and bad, and me and other, each in turn fell. And one after another, as Freddie said, "Another one bites the dust, and another one gone, and another one down - another one bites the dust." Oh happy holy day!
But lately I have begun seeing that perfection is a false idol. It is idolatrous to pursue getting it "right" in the first place. God never tells us we have to get it right or perfect - not ever. Oh from time to time in the Bible there are human references to living the pure and chaste life. But those are man-made rules, not god-rules. God's rules are simple: "If and when you screw up, you get another chance - I am the reset button, just come to me and I will reset you."
What the quest for perfection creates, in reality, is separation. It creates a state of better than and worse than - a caste system of being and doing, if you will. Seeking perfection is seeking to rise above the masses, to get better and better and to reach a level of god-like-ness. It is trying to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Perfection.
But there is an alternative path that has been coming into view. When I let go of the drive for perfection,I begin to seek union, oneness and joining of the shredded and torn-apart life we live. Unity is embracing the "bad" with the good. It is the making whole from all of those parts I want to divorce from myself and pretend don't belong to me. Unity is god's commandment - but not just out there, in here as well. Unity demands that I embrace all of me, and do away with the distinctions of good and bad altogether.
And overarching all of this, the search for perfection is a search for certainty - the quest to know completely that this is it, the best, the fullest! In such a place there can be no doubt, and without doubt, there is no need for faith. And then where would I be. When I arrived at that thought - the thought that I would have no faith if I continued my quest for perfection, the wall came crashing down. And then the wall of divisiveness, came down, and then the insistence on good and bad, and me and other, each in turn fell. And one after another, as Freddie said, "Another one bites the dust, and another one gone, and another one down - another one bites the dust." Oh happy holy day!
Friday, January 29, 2010
Non-Dual Living
Father Richard Rohr drives a great (albeit a phenomenally universal) concept of non-dual living. The basis of non-duality (oneness, in Eastern thought) is that there is no this-and-that, no right-and-wrong, no good-and-bad. We are called to live in completeness of embracing our whole selves and our whole being. It is the step after the AA Seventh Step Prayer where one says "I am now prepared to give you all of me - good and bad." It is that "all of me" thing that throws us humans.
We think that goodness is somehow apart from badness and that we can strive for being just all good.
But that is not the message of the masters. Yin and yang are inextricable from each other. Good and bad are part of the same beingness. What that means is that in striving to walk the straight and narrow, in striving to do the bidding of god, I need to recognize my dark side. Any less, and I am deceiving myself (because certainly I am not deceiving the all-knowing eye!). Then that being the case, the question becomes how do I actually embrace my less-than-sacred self, my profane self?
And that is where we actually discover compassion. Not in the feeling sorry for the less fortunates of the world. No. Compassion is what is found when we actually look inwardly at our own wanting, and lust, and selfishness, and willfulness and, seeing them all for the beautifully human characteristics that they are, we gently reach out and embrace them - and hold them, and comfort them and tell them that they are okay and forgiven.
In truth, we cannot know compassion without knowing our own fallibility. Compassion levels the playing field. In non-dual living, we come at last to full acceptance - of others and, finally, of ourselves!
We think that goodness is somehow apart from badness and that we can strive for being just all good.
But that is not the message of the masters. Yin and yang are inextricable from each other. Good and bad are part of the same beingness. What that means is that in striving to walk the straight and narrow, in striving to do the bidding of god, I need to recognize my dark side. Any less, and I am deceiving myself (because certainly I am not deceiving the all-knowing eye!). Then that being the case, the question becomes how do I actually embrace my less-than-sacred self, my profane self?
And that is where we actually discover compassion. Not in the feeling sorry for the less fortunates of the world. No. Compassion is what is found when we actually look inwardly at our own wanting, and lust, and selfishness, and willfulness and, seeing them all for the beautifully human characteristics that they are, we gently reach out and embrace them - and hold them, and comfort them and tell them that they are okay and forgiven.
In truth, we cannot know compassion without knowing our own fallibility. Compassion levels the playing field. In non-dual living, we come at last to full acceptance - of others and, finally, of ourselves!
Thursday, January 28, 2010
When the Convergence Hits the Fan
A friend of mine, Doug, is a transformational coach and lives at the very edge of his being. He is always pushing his own limits of growth and development. It is both exhilarating and something that will wake you up at 2AM in a cold sweat. Doug knows the developmental truth that you cannot get to the next level without passing through the eye of the needle – which is not fun and in essence means that you must experience the breakdown of your current way of being before you can break through to the next.
It is the age-old truth of the universe and of nature herself: the death/rebirth cycle. It is everywhere in nature. Winter is the grandest death with the rebirth of spring causing us all to jump up and cheer everything back to life. But you cannot get there in a straight line - it comes at you in bursts and in random fashion. And it’s what Doug lives on a daily basis.
Nature and life don’t handle things in tidy little packages, all lined up, one after the other. Sometimes they cascade over us, one and then another and then ten at once. Doug calls it “breakdown stacking!” It is a great concept. Especially if we become intentional about our growth and development. Breakdown stacking is that “bring it on” attitude that looks concurrent breakdowns squarely in the face and shouts, “yippee, another breakdown! I must be doing something right to have this much crap bubbling out!” What if we actually looked for our breakdowns – recognizing them as the equal and opposite reactions to our intention to live life at an even higher level? Now that would be stacking. Bring ‘em on!
It is the age-old truth of the universe and of nature herself: the death/rebirth cycle. It is everywhere in nature. Winter is the grandest death with the rebirth of spring causing us all to jump up and cheer everything back to life. But you cannot get there in a straight line - it comes at you in bursts and in random fashion. And it’s what Doug lives on a daily basis.
Nature and life don’t handle things in tidy little packages, all lined up, one after the other. Sometimes they cascade over us, one and then another and then ten at once. Doug calls it “breakdown stacking!” It is a great concept. Especially if we become intentional about our growth and development. Breakdown stacking is that “bring it on” attitude that looks concurrent breakdowns squarely in the face and shouts, “yippee, another breakdown! I must be doing something right to have this much crap bubbling out!” What if we actually looked for our breakdowns – recognizing them as the equal and opposite reactions to our intention to live life at an even higher level? Now that would be stacking. Bring ‘em on!
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