Going Deep

Unless we go deep we cannot understand another’s context, emotions or even perspective because we will always be trying to make personal sense out of it first. Going deep requires accepting that “everything belongs,” just as it is, and everything holds within it the power to teach. But understanding this requires first surrendering control; something ego will resist with all his might. And if you can get over that hurdle, you can actually begin to accept that “everything belongs;” that even evil and darkness are part of the whole of the universe. Without that acceptance, however, ego will try to selectively accept some things (the good and useful stuff) and reject other parts as negative and useless.

But because all of creation is one, the so-called (or at least perceived as) negative stuff must be included within “everything belongs” or you risk not fully being open to learning. You have already begun evaluating before opening to what must be learned. And by extrapolation, you are only open to what you have already judged as acceptable within your limited scope. Only after going deep within yourself, and transforming the crushing blows of grief into compassion for your broken and defeated egoic self, can you accept all else in nature as part of the whole, as belonging, and as a perfect reflection of all else - including yourself. Until then you do not have the capacity for compassion. As the Buddha said, you must find compassion for yourself before you can have compassion for others.

It is the same with religious beliefs. One cannot fully comprehend another’s belief, spirituality, or spiritual crisis, until and unless one has first gone to deep places in which one’s own spirituality does not make sense - at least it does not make sense at the utilitarian, ego-driven logic level. You must allow your own beliefs to be challenged and to push you to deeper meaning making. Comfort with doubt and darkness must be accepted elements of your own beingness before you are able to look with compassion at another's struggles, another's torment, or another’s radical clinging to some fundamental structure. Compassion does not condone the values of the Taliban or ISIS, but rather can see through the hate and anger to the core of doubt and fear that must exist in order to demand such rigid adherence to those beliefs.

Then and only then can you ask, “What must I learn in order to love in such a way that the hurt, fear, and pain from which ‘the other’ must be operating is soothed and mitigated? How do I channel that type of healing love?” In fact, until your innermost self has been opened and transformed, most of us would probably ask, “Why even bother?” But once one has been opened, MLK’s assertion that “hate cannot drive out hate only love can do that,” takes on a new and deeper meaning. And Jesus’ demand to “love your enemies” is no longer spiritual ideal, but a possible reality.

Greetings from Inside the Chrysalis

The really remarkable thing about my brother's photography (See my previous post on "You Thought It Was Easy?") is the process he used called "Focus Stacking" which provides an image so rich in detail that it can be blown up a hundred fold and still not pixelate. As the caterpillar turned to just worm-guts and then hardened its outer surface in the creation of the chrysalis, it was clear that there was no element of butterfly inside that package. And yet over the next few day's pictures, as the outer layer of that jade cocoon thinned you could see something happening. New lines and dark shapes could ever-so-faintly be seen through the surface. Change - real transformative change - was happening.

This creature just did what it was programmed in its DNA to do. But we humans, and this one in particular, far too often are wed to the past understanding of who we think we are.  Our memories of past successes and failures are blended and baked into a story that becomes our map for moving forward.  Constructivism (a field of psychology) says that we can only perceive new events within the context and framework for which we have a vocabulary and a basis of antecedent experiences with which to make sense of them. Actual "new: learning or behaviors are difficult to produce because we simply do not have the tools to produce them and we are too attached to the story already and always running in our mind. But what if that story (and that is what it is, the story we made up about what some event meant - not at all the actual event itself) is fictional? Mark Twain once quipped, "the older I get, the more vividly I can remember things that never happened!"

But inside the chrysalis, nothing of caterpillar, except for some of the worm guts, remain. Caterpillar is lost - not just forgotten - but totally gone forever. And that is what is called for in transformation: I must lose the story. All of it. I must lose the one about how I can do it by myself. Lose the story of how I am alone in this quest. Lose the story of "if you want something done right, do it yourself (thanks dad and Abe Lincoln for that one)." Lose the story that I am somehow better or stronger or more creative on my own than with any others as a pair, trio or group (Yes I know how arrogant that sounds - and inside here, that arrogance must die as well).

I am baffled as I peer through the enlarged picture of the cocoon and see what look like lines of a patterned wing are beginning to form. How is that possible? How can a black, yellow and white striped multi-legged worm lose all its defining characteristics and, as we will see in a few days, emerge as a skinny, six-legged insect with vibrantly colored orange and black wings. Transformation makes no logical sense.

Wrestling the Angel

For the past two years I have been researching and writing about the dark night of the soul, that place which on the outside looks like some spiritual desert, but inwardly is where the ego is stripped of its death hold on what it thinks it knows of the spiritual realm. On this journey I have met real life mystics and everyday people having mystical experiences.  I have had the blessing of friendships that are transforming and I have lost a few very dear ones as well. In many of these instances, had I not been studying the dark night, these special moments may have zipped right past me or thrown me into an unexpected downward spiral. But somehow I was graced by each of those occurrences and have come out just a tad more aware as a result.

Over the next few months or so, I will post bits and pieces from my thesis as I rework sections for publication.  I hope that which I have captured in this research can provide guidance or sustenance to fellow travelers who wrestle with their own angels or demons (do we ever know which it is that has grabbed us from behind?)

I think Rev. Renita Weems captured it best in the opening of her book, Listening For God: "No one is ever prepared to endure the long silence that follows intimacy. No one is prepared to face it when it comes after lovemaking. No one is prepared to face it when it comes after a season of intimacy with God. It is the hardest thing to talk about, and it is the hardest thing in the spiritual journey to prepare for. The long silence between intimacies, the interminable pause between words, the immeasurable seconds between pulses, the quiet between epiphanies, the hush after ecstasy, the listening for God – this is the spiritual journey, learning how to live in the meantime, between the last time you heard from God and the next you hear from God.

I would be honored if you'd let me know what you think.

Substitutionary Atonement!

In seminary we learn a whole lot of fun terminology that only theologians use! One of my personal favorites is “substitutionary atonement.” It basically boils down to the concept that because Jesus died for our sins we have been saved that horrible punishment – that we are rescued. But on this resurrection day, I would like to push back on that concept a bit.

It is not so much that I am contending that Jesus did not die for us, but rather the belief that it saved us from death or was the source of our forgiveness. Now before you brand me a heretic, let me explain. We are already and have always been forgiven.  God – who is love – has caused that from the beginning.  It was one of Jesus’ main messages; he was continually saying that we are forgiven. In healing an illness or human error, no matter how egregious, his proclamation was, “you are forgiven; go and sin no more.” That is the given condition with God – you are forgiven; you are loved and accepted, just the way you are.  It did not take the crucifixion to get that grace. Furthermore, since we have come from God and will return to God in our passing, we have that as a given from the very beginning of time – we are already, always God’s creation and inextricably bound up in the Divine from the beginning until the end of all time. We may not know what it looks like, but it is a given. It didn’t take the crucifixion to gain that.

So I don’t celebrate Jesus life and death because of substitutionary atonement.  In fact, I don’t really call it a celebration, personally, because it scares me to no end.  You see, the other message Jesus was always preaching (along with love and forgiveness) was that we were to “follow” him. What? To the cross?

Yes. All the way there and beyond. The crucifixion of Jesus is a total game-changer. In all my studies (I am a life-long student still in college in my 60’s) I have found that there are only two things that have to power to transform human beings: unconditional love and extreme suffering.  Loving unconditionally (that is, because you choose to love not because of the other person’s “worthiness” of love) we are turned inside-out. It is perhaps the hardest thing in life to do – to BE love.  And that other thing – the suffering thing – well we all know that it changes everything; if and when we survive it!  And in one fell swoop, Jesus, this man who said “follow me,” did both of those things: He loved (not just us, or his friends and family, but even those who were in the process of killing him) completely and unconditionally, so much so that he was willing to suffer the ultimate suffering to make that point. 

But he did not do that so that we did not have to.  He did it as he did everything, so that we would know the path to transformation.  And this new way of being – on the other side of the death of substitutionary atonement – is what we might call true Christianity; loving in a way that heals the hurts, in a way that bridges the gaps, and in a way that pulls everyone into the fold, irrespective of their human condition, skin color, religion, sexuality or politic.  It is why I cry every Good Friday – not because Jesus died, but because I am called to go down that same path, and there is no escape clause!

Baptismal Inheritance

Last Sunday, my pastor asked “what did we inherit through baptism?” I think it is far more than we suspect, however.  For many of us, we think that the great inheritance of our faith is that we have the promise of God; the promise of heaven and salvation.  But I think that misses the mark.  And to understand what that is, we need to look at Jesus.  Jesus is our model. Jesus was not something other than we are, or separate from us.  Yes, Jesus was the incarnation – the word and spirit in human form – but he was here to show us that we are all the incarnation of God’s word.  His message was consistently that what he had and how he was connected to God is what we have as well.  Just as Jesus and the Father were one, so are we and the Father one.

So here is the big “aha” about baptism, as revealed though the actions of Jesus, our model.  What Jesus inherited (and by extension what have inherited) in baptism was not a promise but rather permission. Through baptism we are given permission to be audacious and call ourselves children of God.  Through baptism we have permission to live larger than life. Through baptism we have been given permission to heal the sick, and to mend the broken hearted – literally to work miracles.

So I ask you this, if you had permission to be anything and do anything that you felt called to do, what would that be? If you had permission to walk into the White House, what would you say?  If you had permission to stop any economic or ecological runaway train, what would you do? If you had permission to love fully anyone you choose, who and how would you love?

Through your baptism you have been given permission to be God’s presence in this world, in this state, in this parish, in this family. You are God’s child in whom God is well pleased, and with that baptismal proclamation, you have been granted full permission to go and serve.  How will you use that?

A Light in the Darkness

I have a wonderful friend who is a magnificent stand for light and laughter in this world, but recently was compelled to write to her in the wake of the murders in Newtown, CT.

My Dear Sweet Friend

How I love you – and how I adore and embrace your message of light and laughter as a service to this world.  But I have been watching your posts over the last two days since the most recent horrific event in our world has unfolded. And there is something that just doesn’t sit right with me. In many of your posts you say that we ought to turn off the media and delete those stories in an effort to send our message to that same set of sources that they should stop the hype and backward glorification of these killers and perpetrators. And for me that is too passive.

To any act of violence there are three courses of action: retaliatory violence (attacking back in some form of revenge), passivity and non-violent resistance (taking away the power of their status seeking), and a third way that is active, positive action.  I am of the third way. I cannot simply turn it off least they (the media or some future on-looking perpetrator-to-be) think I don’t care or can’t be bothered. Well I am bothered – I am bothered beyond my ability to contain myself in non-action.

But let me say a bit about how I perceive your message of hope.  It is not wrong – not in the least.  In fact it is the only message we should preach.  It is the context of that hope with which I have issue.  Just as you cannot see in total darkness, you cannot see in total light.  If we look only for the positive in our world, accent only the good that exists, and turn our backs on the darkness, the hatred and the violence of our chaotic world, we run the risk of being blinded by the light.

Life is painful and chaotic, and that pain is exacerbated by hoping for or wishing that is would somehow be different than it is.  Suffering, says the Buddha, is caused by trying to deny the reality of the now and wishing for something better. We first have to accept that there are people in this world who are so alienated and lost that their only thought is to inflict that pain on others.  Whether we call that evil or the devil or mental illness does not matter. Whether that manifests in genocide or warring or the slaughter of innocent children (close to home or on the other side of the planet) is irrelevant.  It exists; and my first calling is to recognize that it does exist.

It is against that pain and suffering that you and I have been called to stand as a beacon. It is in those dark places that we have to shine even more brightly. But I must first acknowledge the pain and suffering and then with the greatest compassion light a candle of hope. And that hope that we bring is the hope for and in human connection. Our greatest darkness happens when we are alone and unconnected to others.  Our greatest lightness is when we are embraced in the loving arms of another. Murder, genocide and war are places where the human fabric has been torn apart, where lost and alone people can somehow ignore the brotherhood or sisterhood of the human on the other end of their weapon. Killing cannot happen any other way.

Love is the antidote, caring and compassion are its vehicles. Every sage who ever walked on this planet has instructed us to love our enemies, not just our friends. Anyone can love those who love. Anyone can shine brightly when surrounded by others of the light.  That is the easy part. But to stand up with tears of grief streaming down your cheeks and shine a ray of hope, is the really hard part of this work. To name the darkness and embrace another, to become a contagious infection of caring and compassion and spread love where there is none, that is the real work.

So I will not turn it off – not because I get some twisted horror-movie thrill out of human carnage – but because I am called to stand up to evil and darkness and not back down, and not dampen my light. The hope I peddle is that if and when we love each other, there can be no more of this pain. (And I just want to say that I am as crushed by the death reports coming from Afghanistan or the Gaza strip as I am from Newtown CT.  Every soldier was once a baby rocked by his or her mother; every one of us had a beautiful future in front of us and brought a sparkle to our parent’s eyes.) We need to spread the message that the best action to prevent violence is the bonds we forge between each of us when we love and embrace each other.  In a message to the parents of the children that attend our school, I said that now is the time to start talking to the other parents, get to know them, make them part of your family – love each other as your own.

Now is a time of action, and the battlefront is where the darkness is the deepest.  Your message is right on but my request is that we wage radical love in those darkest places of the human experience. I can love more powerfully than anyone can hate, and when you and I join together, that becomes exponentially greater. And that is how we will win, one at a time; one more at a time; every time we say “we” and we mean one more person that the last time we said it. And we will overcome the darkness.