Have you heard enough yet about COVID-19? I know I have. But chances are it’s not going away overnight. It'll be the top news story for weeks to come.
By now we’re probably all hoping for something positive to emerge from this pandemic and its disruptive effects. In a comment on a Facebook post I recently wrote that if there was to be a positive outcome it would be that we’d give our bodies the care they’ve always deserved. That’s still a fit object for hope, but I think we can do better.
Amidst our isolation we see signs of hope for more connection. One sign is technology being used in more and better ways–or even just used more–to connect us, even in our respective physical seclusions. Technology makes a lot of things easier when it works. But its best use is to bring together people who might not come together or stay in touch otherwise. If you’re reading this you already knew that, so there’s no need to belabor it.
An even more positive outcome will be to foster and strengthen compassion among us, for those within our communities and everywhere in the world. We usually hear of disasters hundreds or thousands of miles away, affecting people we’ve never met and will probably never meet–disasters most of us will probably never experience. Now, within our own communities, we hear of working people bereft of incomes, people thrown together in isolated clusters (families/households) who may or may not be able to stand it, people who risk their own health and lives to provide care and services for others, and perhaps people who get this disease and may die from it. Here, like never before in our lifetime, is an opportunity for isolated people to connect through compassion.
When people are able to gather again, quite likely there’ll be an increased desire to do so. Perhaps people will connect in person, as well as virtually, like never before in our lifetime. Perhaps decades of increasing social isolation can be reversed.
We are all one species, all One Being. If this pandemic and its temporary physical isolation help us to realize that unity, that will be its greatest positive outcome.
Sunday, March 22, 2020
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Divinity rising
We tell ourselves some amazing stories. These stories end up being what we think we are. They’re stories about what we think, believe, feel, want, or fear, or about what we should do or shouldn’t do, should have done or shouldn’t have done.
Every year at Christmas and Easter I tell myself that I ought to find a church to attend, if only for that day. Every year the day comes and goes and I don’t go to church and nothing is lost thereby. But every year I tell myself that story.
The story begins in a devout, though theologically innocent, Congregationalist family, and continues in a fervent fundamentalist Baptist adolescence. So what does that mean? It means nothing, except that it’s a story.
Part of that story is the theme that God became man (Christmas) to redeem human beings from their sins, and effected that redemption by dying on a cross and rising to life again (Easter).
The amazing thing is that I don’t believe this story anymore, but I keep telling it to myself. So I must really believe it on some level, right? I must "know" it to be "true," even though I "deny" it, right?
Wrong. I "really believe" exactly the opposite, but find the story too captivating to let it go. We hold on to lots of stories just because we like them, or used to like them, or feel we ought to like them.
Easter is about Divinity rising. In recent years I’ve read that the Resurrection isn’t about the person Jesus physically rising from death–whether he did or not–but about the end of the experience of separate self. It’s hard to express. Its exponents agree that it’s hard to express. It involves something that can’t be contained in words or ideas. Essentially it means that we stop experiencing ourselves as separate beings and instead realize the existence of all that is as One divine Being.
This realization isn’t just telling ourselves another story, that God is all and all is God. Realization means "making real". It means living the reality that all is God and God is all. The transition to this reality from the story of separation is often called "awakening" because it’s like waking from a dream. We stop believing the story that we’re separate beings and start living the fact that all is One.
Well, guess what? If all is One there is no sin. God is manifesting exactly what God will have occur at every moment and nothing else can happen. Divinity cannot be offended, because It would be giving Itself offense by doing Its own will. Divinity can and does, however, manifest "us" thinking that we give and receive offense–manifests "us" telling ourselves a story.
Why would Divinity do that? Only God knows, and God isn’t telling. But this case is like every case. God chooses to manifest us not knowing. Get used to it.
Easter is about Divinity rising, but God didn’t become man; God is man, and everything else, and infinitely more. We have no sins from which to be redeemed, unless by sin we mean belief in sin–the belief that Divinity could offend Itself, or that anything could happen other than what Divinity wants.
To this "story" there are countless objections, but every one is about us telling ourselves it can’t be that way. There is no need to belabor them. Everything we believe about our world and ourselves is a story we tell ourselves–nothing more.
Easter commemorates a supposed historical event: the man (God) Jesus rising from the dead. Whether he did or not, the story has been an enormous blessing to humankind. The Christian faith, inspired by the resurrection story, has changed human nature for the better in the Western world. Christianity draws its ethics from Judaism, but it was the resurrection story that captured the Western imagination and created that change in human nature.
Divinity didn’t just rise at Easter, though. It rises constantly, as It manifests Itself knowing Itself for what It is–all that is.
When I was little and my mother thought I had lied to her, she would ask, "Are you telling me a story?" In the nature of things there’s One story that’s true. Everything else is just a story. The good news is that all our stories are contained within that One.
Every year at Christmas and Easter I tell myself that I ought to find a church to attend, if only for that day. Every year the day comes and goes and I don’t go to church and nothing is lost thereby. But every year I tell myself that story.
The story begins in a devout, though theologically innocent, Congregationalist family, and continues in a fervent fundamentalist Baptist adolescence. So what does that mean? It means nothing, except that it’s a story.
Part of that story is the theme that God became man (Christmas) to redeem human beings from their sins, and effected that redemption by dying on a cross and rising to life again (Easter).
The amazing thing is that I don’t believe this story anymore, but I keep telling it to myself. So I must really believe it on some level, right? I must "know" it to be "true," even though I "deny" it, right?
Wrong. I "really believe" exactly the opposite, but find the story too captivating to let it go. We hold on to lots of stories just because we like them, or used to like them, or feel we ought to like them.
Easter is about Divinity rising. In recent years I’ve read that the Resurrection isn’t about the person Jesus physically rising from death–whether he did or not–but about the end of the experience of separate self. It’s hard to express. Its exponents agree that it’s hard to express. It involves something that can’t be contained in words or ideas. Essentially it means that we stop experiencing ourselves as separate beings and instead realize the existence of all that is as One divine Being.
This realization isn’t just telling ourselves another story, that God is all and all is God. Realization means "making real". It means living the reality that all is God and God is all. The transition to this reality from the story of separation is often called "awakening" because it’s like waking from a dream. We stop believing the story that we’re separate beings and start living the fact that all is One.
Well, guess what? If all is One there is no sin. God is manifesting exactly what God will have occur at every moment and nothing else can happen. Divinity cannot be offended, because It would be giving Itself offense by doing Its own will. Divinity can and does, however, manifest "us" thinking that we give and receive offense–manifests "us" telling ourselves a story.
Why would Divinity do that? Only God knows, and God isn’t telling. But this case is like every case. God chooses to manifest us not knowing. Get used to it.
Easter is about Divinity rising, but God didn’t become man; God is man, and everything else, and infinitely more. We have no sins from which to be redeemed, unless by sin we mean belief in sin–the belief that Divinity could offend Itself, or that anything could happen other than what Divinity wants.
To this "story" there are countless objections, but every one is about us telling ourselves it can’t be that way. There is no need to belabor them. Everything we believe about our world and ourselves is a story we tell ourselves–nothing more.
Easter commemorates a supposed historical event: the man (God) Jesus rising from the dead. Whether he did or not, the story has been an enormous blessing to humankind. The Christian faith, inspired by the resurrection story, has changed human nature for the better in the Western world. Christianity draws its ethics from Judaism, but it was the resurrection story that captured the Western imagination and created that change in human nature.
Divinity didn’t just rise at Easter, though. It rises constantly, as It manifests Itself knowing Itself for what It is–all that is.
When I was little and my mother thought I had lied to her, she would ask, "Are you telling me a story?" In the nature of things there’s One story that’s true. Everything else is just a story. The good news is that all our stories are contained within that One.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
"Occupy Christmas"
One of my favorite Christmas carols, for sheer aesthetic beauty, is "O Holy Night". According to Wikipedia, the popular English version was published in 1855 by a Unitarian minister named John Sullivan Dwight. You can find the words (of four distinct versions) at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Holy_Night. The Reverend Mr. Dwight wrote that as Jesus is born "the weary world rejoices,/For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn."
According to most contemporary scholars, that moment occurred around 4 B.C (it seems the ancient scholars who calculated the break between "before Christ" and "the year of our Lord" got it slightly wrong). Today we find ourselves in "the year of our Lord" 2011 wondering when the sun will come up.
Of late there’s been a lot of chatter about the end of the world, as we know it, happening in 2012. Apparently it isn’t just that the Mayans got tired of calendar-making, but a variety of folks have found scientific and mythical clues that make them believe next year is the year. Though pessimists may believe everything will end next year, optimists tend to believe that’s when "breaks [the] new and glorious morn." I don’t know about you, but I can hardly wait. There’s only one problem: I’m not sure I believe it.
One of the most titillating developments of 2011 has been the "Occupy" movement. Occupy Wall Street. Occupy Boston. Occupy San Diego. Occupy Everywhere. A lot can be said about the Occupiers on all sides. I haven’t spent much time following or researching them, but I’m struck by the timeliness of their initiative. Before we can have a "new and glorious morn" for our world, we have to stop what we’ve been doing. That seems undeniable. Wouldn’t it be nice if 2012 were the year we finally figured it out?
When I was young I was a grumpy little kid who soured early at arguments at holiday gatherings and presents I didn’t want. For a few years I was a fundamentalist Baptist and tried to make Christmas mean something by recourse to what I thought was its real meaning–celebrating "the night of our dear Saviour’s birth." That episode ended 32 years ago. About the intervening years, the less said the better. But as the song says, I do find a "thrill of hope" anticipating that coming dawn.
Except among fundamentalists, there is a growing consensus that Jesus saw his mission as announcing the kingdom of God–and perhaps helping to inaugurate it in his lifetime. (Scholars seem unable to agree on what role he expected to play in the new kingdom, but they think it was a prominent one.) There’s an impressive resonance between the things Jesus is supposed to have taught and the type of world the Occupiers seem to want. Consider:
Then someone came to him and said, "Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life? . . . Jesus said to him, "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come follow me." When the young man heard this word, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions. Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. . . . it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 19: 16, 21-24, New Revised Standard Version)
"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Matthew 6: 19-21)
"Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you." (Matthew 5: 42)
Many of Jesus’ ethical teachings are even more radical than these. They reflect the way he thought people should live in order to bring about the era of peace, justice, and abundance that was to be the kingdom of God. They reflect the selflessness that was to be the essence of that kingdom. They assume that there is enough for everyone–if no one insists on accumulating and keeping it for himself.
I am not so naive as to think the Occupiers are as unselfish as they ask others to be. No doubt most of them want what they think others are keeping from them. In that respect they’re no "better" then those they seek to influence. Neither, however, are they any "worse".
It’s been almost 2,000 years since Jesus died and supposedly rose again. In those 2,000 years the faith he inspired has changed human nature in the Western world for the better through teachings like those quoted above. But a world of universal peace, justice, and abundance has not been forthcoming. Enough has been written elsewhere about how Christmas has been hijacked by materialism. None of it matters. But Jesus did matter, and he still does, as and when people take his intentions to heart. His life and work are worth celebrating for that reason.
The "new and glorious morn" may not break for the world today or tomorrow, or next year. But perhaps it can break for each of us, and those whose lives we touch, when we choose to let it.
According to most contemporary scholars, that moment occurred around 4 B.C (it seems the ancient scholars who calculated the break between "before Christ" and "the year of our Lord" got it slightly wrong). Today we find ourselves in "the year of our Lord" 2011 wondering when the sun will come up.
Of late there’s been a lot of chatter about the end of the world, as we know it, happening in 2012. Apparently it isn’t just that the Mayans got tired of calendar-making, but a variety of folks have found scientific and mythical clues that make them believe next year is the year. Though pessimists may believe everything will end next year, optimists tend to believe that’s when "breaks [the] new and glorious morn." I don’t know about you, but I can hardly wait. There’s only one problem: I’m not sure I believe it.
One of the most titillating developments of 2011 has been the "Occupy" movement. Occupy Wall Street. Occupy Boston. Occupy San Diego. Occupy Everywhere. A lot can be said about the Occupiers on all sides. I haven’t spent much time following or researching them, but I’m struck by the timeliness of their initiative. Before we can have a "new and glorious morn" for our world, we have to stop what we’ve been doing. That seems undeniable. Wouldn’t it be nice if 2012 were the year we finally figured it out?
When I was young I was a grumpy little kid who soured early at arguments at holiday gatherings and presents I didn’t want. For a few years I was a fundamentalist Baptist and tried to make Christmas mean something by recourse to what I thought was its real meaning–celebrating "the night of our dear Saviour’s birth." That episode ended 32 years ago. About the intervening years, the less said the better. But as the song says, I do find a "thrill of hope" anticipating that coming dawn.
Except among fundamentalists, there is a growing consensus that Jesus saw his mission as announcing the kingdom of God–and perhaps helping to inaugurate it in his lifetime. (Scholars seem unable to agree on what role he expected to play in the new kingdom, but they think it was a prominent one.) There’s an impressive resonance between the things Jesus is supposed to have taught and the type of world the Occupiers seem to want. Consider:
Then someone came to him and said, "Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life? . . . Jesus said to him, "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come follow me." When the young man heard this word, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions. Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. . . . it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 19: 16, 21-24, New Revised Standard Version)
"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Matthew 6: 19-21)
"Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you." (Matthew 5: 42)
Many of Jesus’ ethical teachings are even more radical than these. They reflect the way he thought people should live in order to bring about the era of peace, justice, and abundance that was to be the kingdom of God. They reflect the selflessness that was to be the essence of that kingdom. They assume that there is enough for everyone–if no one insists on accumulating and keeping it for himself.
I am not so naive as to think the Occupiers are as unselfish as they ask others to be. No doubt most of them want what they think others are keeping from them. In that respect they’re no "better" then those they seek to influence. Neither, however, are they any "worse".
It’s been almost 2,000 years since Jesus died and supposedly rose again. In those 2,000 years the faith he inspired has changed human nature in the Western world for the better through teachings like those quoted above. But a world of universal peace, justice, and abundance has not been forthcoming. Enough has been written elsewhere about how Christmas has been hijacked by materialism. None of it matters. But Jesus did matter, and he still does, as and when people take his intentions to heart. His life and work are worth celebrating for that reason.
The "new and glorious morn" may not break for the world today or tomorrow, or next year. But perhaps it can break for each of us, and those whose lives we touch, when we choose to let it.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
"In every thing give thanks," part 2
I have never been a "dog person". Notwithstanding my newish belief that "all things are One," and with all due apologies to dog lovers everywhere, I have always found dogs generally unpleasant, and continue to do so. There are exceptions, of course, but they tend to be smaller dogs closer in size and temperament to cats. Why do I like cats better? They’re quieter and they usually stay the heck out of my way.
Dogs make noise, and I generally don’t like noise. I like quiet. It doesn’t have to be perfect silence, but a lack of obtrusive noise is always welcome.
In my new neighborhood in San Diego there is a dog–probably a small one, to be sure–that is left outside, fenced in or tied up, at all hours of the day and night. He seems to "bark" at the slightest stimulus. I put "bark" in quotes because his bark is closer to a yelp. As annoying as continual barking can be, continual yelping gets on my nerves even more.
I am an early riser, with or without barking dogs. I mean very early. I’m usually up by 2:00 AM. I just like the early morning hours better than any other, the same way others prefer other times of the day. Well, this morning (Sunday, July 3, 2011) I decided I would find this yelping dog and undertake whatever had to be done–without harming the dog, of course–to abate its level of noise pollution. I heard him yelp about 3:00 AM and went out to look for him. And then he became quiet.
Given the volume and angle of the sound of his yelp as heard from my apartment, I inferred that if I didn’t find him, or at least hear him, within my immediate block, I wasn’t going to find him then. So I took a tour about the block and came home. And as I sat down for a moment in my living room, the question came to me:
Has it ever occurred to you to stop complaining about hearing this dog and be grateful you can hear at all?
Well, no, actually, it hadn’t–until then. I’m grateful to be able to see at all, because my eyesight has never been good. I’m grateful that my vision doesn’t seem to have gotten any worse with age, as it might well have done. But apart from that–and like most people, I suspect–I tend to be grateful for some sensory stimuli and ungrateful for others. I tend to be grateful for graceful classical music, sweet floral fragrances, soft, gentle breezes, and so on. But I tend to be ungrateful for yelping dogs, foul odors, and cold, raw winds.
The Infinite has chosen to manifest a world full of all kinds of sensory inputs, and people to love and detest each and all of them. But as long as our bodies persist, which would we prefer: to hear some sounds we don’t like, or not to be able to hear at all? To see some sights we don’t like, or not to be able to see at all? Assuming we don’t detest every sound we hear or every sight we see, the answer seems obvious.
"In every thing give thanks," the New Testament exhorts us (I Thessalonians 5:18), and we might well take that advice the next time we see an unwelcome sight, hear an untimely and unwelcome noise, feel a chill wind, or what have you.
Dogs make noise, and I generally don’t like noise. I like quiet. It doesn’t have to be perfect silence, but a lack of obtrusive noise is always welcome.
In my new neighborhood in San Diego there is a dog–probably a small one, to be sure–that is left outside, fenced in or tied up, at all hours of the day and night. He seems to "bark" at the slightest stimulus. I put "bark" in quotes because his bark is closer to a yelp. As annoying as continual barking can be, continual yelping gets on my nerves even more.
I am an early riser, with or without barking dogs. I mean very early. I’m usually up by 2:00 AM. I just like the early morning hours better than any other, the same way others prefer other times of the day. Well, this morning (Sunday, July 3, 2011) I decided I would find this yelping dog and undertake whatever had to be done–without harming the dog, of course–to abate its level of noise pollution. I heard him yelp about 3:00 AM and went out to look for him. And then he became quiet.
Given the volume and angle of the sound of his yelp as heard from my apartment, I inferred that if I didn’t find him, or at least hear him, within my immediate block, I wasn’t going to find him then. So I took a tour about the block and came home. And as I sat down for a moment in my living room, the question came to me:
Has it ever occurred to you to stop complaining about hearing this dog and be grateful you can hear at all?
Well, no, actually, it hadn’t–until then. I’m grateful to be able to see at all, because my eyesight has never been good. I’m grateful that my vision doesn’t seem to have gotten any worse with age, as it might well have done. But apart from that–and like most people, I suspect–I tend to be grateful for some sensory stimuli and ungrateful for others. I tend to be grateful for graceful classical music, sweet floral fragrances, soft, gentle breezes, and so on. But I tend to be ungrateful for yelping dogs, foul odors, and cold, raw winds.
The Infinite has chosen to manifest a world full of all kinds of sensory inputs, and people to love and detest each and all of them. But as long as our bodies persist, which would we prefer: to hear some sounds we don’t like, or not to be able to hear at all? To see some sights we don’t like, or not to be able to see at all? Assuming we don’t detest every sound we hear or every sight we see, the answer seems obvious.
"In every thing give thanks," the New Testament exhorts us (I Thessalonians 5:18), and we might well take that advice the next time we see an unwelcome sight, hear an untimely and unwelcome noise, feel a chill wind, or what have you.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
I often wonder what to say
To me, social networking, in all its forms, is the greatest wonder of modern technology. Some forms are more wonderful than others, but the whole idea of being able to keep in touch with multiple people at once, with whom one might not otherwise be able to keep in touch at all, is utterly thrilling. When we think of social networking, we think of Facebook, Twitter, or perhaps MySpace, but blogs are also a form of social networking. For me, then, social networking also affords an occasional outlet for my long-neglected and usually frustrated dream of writing.
Strange as it seems, however, when I’m reading my Facebook friends’ statuses, I often feel as if I ought to comment, but I don’t. It isn’t because I’m not interested. It isn’t because I don’t care. I simply don’t know what to say. Occasionally I put the matter aside until I think of something to say, and then say it. More often I keep silence. I think it better to be a man of few words, fitly chosen, than a man of many words misused.
This seems especially true when my friends’ statuses are about suffering and misfortune, whether their own or someone else’s. Sometimes I might be the first to comment, but I don’t feel comfortable being first, so I wait and end up never commenting at all. On most occasions I’d be commentator #48 or 63, and I feel my comment would be superfluous. Of course I could message my distressed friend, but he or she probably already has 659 messages on the same topic. Yet it goes deeper than that.
No matter my number in the queue, no matter whether it’s a public comment or a private note, the question of what to say still vexes. I don’t want to say the very same thing 700 people have already said. In times of distress there is little room for originality. Only a small number of comments could possibly apply. It’s also possible that if I said what I really wanted to say, it wouldn’t be understood and thus wouldn’t be appreciated.
The last statement is not a comment on anyone’s intelligence. My beliefs are unusual in the Western world, and so are my inclinations about how best to address distress. The least superfluous comment I could make would be "I’m praying for you" (or for whomever), and that would be true, but it wouldn’t be the whole truth. Rarely do I pray for anyone individually, because I dare not presume that what I think best for them really is best, or that my friends’ (or my own) needs are more worthy of alleviation than someone else’s. Instead I pray every day for all God’s creatures everywhere who are in any need, want, or affliction, that their experience of need, want, and affliction be relieved.
Much is written about the power of prayer or positive intention, and it always involves intercession on behalf of specific individuals. Yet it usually also involves a distinct lack of specificity regarding the desired outcome. "Just be with them, Lord," is what we hear works best. According to the studies, it doesn’t seem to matter to whom or to what one prays, or what one believes or practices in one’s life, so long as one’s intention and faith are sincere. It also seems to help, as the words suggest, if one is not too attached to a particular outcome. Furthermore the number of people praying seems to be more important than their specific identities or relationships to the person or persons in need.
Some aspects of these findings seem a bit counterintuitive. Wouldn’t the prayer of someone close, someone who desperately desires the relief of the sufferer’s suffering, count for more than the incidental prayers of 100 total strangers? I’m as perplexed about that as the next person. I don’t know the answer. And because I don’t know the answer, I don’t presume to make judgments for the Infinite.
"Well," you ask, "if you’re praying for the relief of all suffering everywhere, how likely is that prayer to be answered?" I think it 100 percent guaranteed to be answered, but probably not today. Yet because we are One, I am obliged to pray for the highest, greatest benefit of all that is. But the Infinite knows that the specific people who I know need help are in my mind as I pray. The Infinite knows that my prayers are primarily for them.
I hope nothing more need be said.
Strange as it seems, however, when I’m reading my Facebook friends’ statuses, I often feel as if I ought to comment, but I don’t. It isn’t because I’m not interested. It isn’t because I don’t care. I simply don’t know what to say. Occasionally I put the matter aside until I think of something to say, and then say it. More often I keep silence. I think it better to be a man of few words, fitly chosen, than a man of many words misused.
This seems especially true when my friends’ statuses are about suffering and misfortune, whether their own or someone else’s. Sometimes I might be the first to comment, but I don’t feel comfortable being first, so I wait and end up never commenting at all. On most occasions I’d be commentator #48 or 63, and I feel my comment would be superfluous. Of course I could message my distressed friend, but he or she probably already has 659 messages on the same topic. Yet it goes deeper than that.
No matter my number in the queue, no matter whether it’s a public comment or a private note, the question of what to say still vexes. I don’t want to say the very same thing 700 people have already said. In times of distress there is little room for originality. Only a small number of comments could possibly apply. It’s also possible that if I said what I really wanted to say, it wouldn’t be understood and thus wouldn’t be appreciated.
The last statement is not a comment on anyone’s intelligence. My beliefs are unusual in the Western world, and so are my inclinations about how best to address distress. The least superfluous comment I could make would be "I’m praying for you" (or for whomever), and that would be true, but it wouldn’t be the whole truth. Rarely do I pray for anyone individually, because I dare not presume that what I think best for them really is best, or that my friends’ (or my own) needs are more worthy of alleviation than someone else’s. Instead I pray every day for all God’s creatures everywhere who are in any need, want, or affliction, that their experience of need, want, and affliction be relieved.
Much is written about the power of prayer or positive intention, and it always involves intercession on behalf of specific individuals. Yet it usually also involves a distinct lack of specificity regarding the desired outcome. "Just be with them, Lord," is what we hear works best. According to the studies, it doesn’t seem to matter to whom or to what one prays, or what one believes or practices in one’s life, so long as one’s intention and faith are sincere. It also seems to help, as the words suggest, if one is not too attached to a particular outcome. Furthermore the number of people praying seems to be more important than their specific identities or relationships to the person or persons in need.
Some aspects of these findings seem a bit counterintuitive. Wouldn’t the prayer of someone close, someone who desperately desires the relief of the sufferer’s suffering, count for more than the incidental prayers of 100 total strangers? I’m as perplexed about that as the next person. I don’t know the answer. And because I don’t know the answer, I don’t presume to make judgments for the Infinite.
"Well," you ask, "if you’re praying for the relief of all suffering everywhere, how likely is that prayer to be answered?" I think it 100 percent guaranteed to be answered, but probably not today. Yet because we are One, I am obliged to pray for the highest, greatest benefit of all that is. But the Infinite knows that the specific people who I know need help are in my mind as I pray. The Infinite knows that my prayers are primarily for them.
I hope nothing more need be said.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
"We saw his star"
The title for this blog entry comes from Matthew 2:1-2 in the New Testament:
"After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, 'Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.'" (New International Version)
Not much of what the gospels say about Jesus’ birth is universally believed anymore. Most scholars now claim that Jesus was born in Nazareth, not Bethlehem. Some say he might have been born in a place called Bethlehem, but in Galilee, not Judea. (The difference is significant for more than geographical reasons, but needn’t detain us here.) Gone are the inn and the manger, the shepherds and the angels, and the Magi mentioned here. Gone the census, gone the dreams and annunciations, gone the virgin birth. And of course the best scholars, even of conservative hue, have long claimed that Jesus was probably born in the spring, not in December. Yet a lot of people do still believe in the gospels’ so-called Infancy Narratives, for reasons best known only to themselves.
The Infancy Narratives and all the rest of the gospels are all about a long-awaited Redeemer. After Jesus’ death his followers composed stories that had him fulfilling Old Testament prophecies of one sent from God to turn the people of Israel from their sins and inaugurate a reign of peace and justice. Little matter that they reinterpreted those old prophecies and invented stories to fulfill them. Little matter that the Jesus of the gospels was nothing like the Jews’ expected savior. Not all Jews in Jesus’ day expected a Messiah; many did not. Most of those who did, expected someone to come and save them, not from their sins, but from their oppressors. But there was an element, an extreme element, within the Judaism of Jesus’ day that believed the people of Israel had to be turned from their sins back to God before God would save them from their oppressors. Jesus and his followers appealed to precisely this element.
I do not believe in sin. I believe that all that is, is the perfect expression of the Infinite One’s perfect, eternal will. The Infinite can hardly punish Its manifestations for being what It has made them–indeed, what It makes them from moment to moment. There can be no eternal retribution from which we must be saved, no guilt from which we must be redeemed.
That, however, doesn’t mean we have no need of redemption. It doesn’t mean that the Infinite manifests us as we are with the intent that we never change and grow, for change and growth are the constants of Its manifestation.
Redemption is a far subtler thing than Christian doctrine advertises. "You are not your own," says the New Testament, "you were bought at a price" (see I Corinthians 6:19-20). Bought from the Evil One, bought from damnation, with the price of Christ’s blood, so we are told.
We are what God created and our Creator could never have lost us to another from whom we must be bought back. But in an operant sense, in the sense of living our daily lives, we often need redemption from the seeming errors into which we fall, we often need to be brought back from the self-defeating paths we travel. This is where some of Jesus’ teachings come in handy; this is why he is worth remembering and celebrating today.
We began with a quote from the gospel according to Matthew, and it happens that Matthew contains the best summary of the best parts of Jesus’ teachings–the Sermon on the Mount (chapters 5 through 7). "It’s all good," as the saying goes, but there are a few highlights that verily show us how to live, today as in his day, though our times and his be radically different.
"In everything do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 7:12). We call this the Golden Rule, but Christians may not realize that Jesus didn’t make it up. The great Rabbi Hillel said something very similar a century before Jesus: "That which is repugnant to you, do not to your neighbor. This is the whole Law; the rest is commentary." This is the cornerstone of common decency, the foundation of all fairness and justice, and without it we deceive ourselves if we think we live humanly. From it follows everything that follows here.
"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you too will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you" (7:1-2). None of us wants to be judged or condemned, but when we judge or condemn others we invite judgment and condemnation upon ourselves. What we give, is what we deserve back again.
"Blsssed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy" (5:8)–and we all need mercy from someone, somewhere, from time to time.
"Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you" (5:42). Most of us (including me) violate this every day, and quickly excuse ourselves with lots of good reasons. But who among us would want to be ignored or rebuffed in our need? And who among us would want someone else to define our need and desert for us?
In Jesus’ day, as in our own, survival was a challenge. Jesus’ teachings offered no one any help with the challenge of survival, except through mutual aid. The challenge he offered was to overcome our sense of personal need and our need for personal safety to give to others–though he also offered the hope of receiving our bounty back again. For he said:
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important then food, and the body more important than clothes? . . . But seek first [God’s] kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" (6:25,33).
In our practical world we think we do well not to believe such promises. But a world in which such promises are believed and practiced, will be a better world than the one we have.
Jesus’ ethical teachings are remembered because he accompanied them with seeming miracles and led his followers to believe a new kingdom was coming soon, to be introduced by him. Today our world is very different from his, and yet surprisingly the same. Like his contemporaries we fear for our lives and scratch and scramble to maintain them, as if that could be worth our while. In our day as in his, the life worth living is the life that maintains others. That was the light he offered then, and that is the light he offers now.
"We saw his star in the east, and have come to worship him." His teachings about serving others are that guiding star.
"After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, 'Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.'" (New International Version)
Not much of what the gospels say about Jesus’ birth is universally believed anymore. Most scholars now claim that Jesus was born in Nazareth, not Bethlehem. Some say he might have been born in a place called Bethlehem, but in Galilee, not Judea. (The difference is significant for more than geographical reasons, but needn’t detain us here.) Gone are the inn and the manger, the shepherds and the angels, and the Magi mentioned here. Gone the census, gone the dreams and annunciations, gone the virgin birth. And of course the best scholars, even of conservative hue, have long claimed that Jesus was probably born in the spring, not in December. Yet a lot of people do still believe in the gospels’ so-called Infancy Narratives, for reasons best known only to themselves.
The Infancy Narratives and all the rest of the gospels are all about a long-awaited Redeemer. After Jesus’ death his followers composed stories that had him fulfilling Old Testament prophecies of one sent from God to turn the people of Israel from their sins and inaugurate a reign of peace and justice. Little matter that they reinterpreted those old prophecies and invented stories to fulfill them. Little matter that the Jesus of the gospels was nothing like the Jews’ expected savior. Not all Jews in Jesus’ day expected a Messiah; many did not. Most of those who did, expected someone to come and save them, not from their sins, but from their oppressors. But there was an element, an extreme element, within the Judaism of Jesus’ day that believed the people of Israel had to be turned from their sins back to God before God would save them from their oppressors. Jesus and his followers appealed to precisely this element.
I do not believe in sin. I believe that all that is, is the perfect expression of the Infinite One’s perfect, eternal will. The Infinite can hardly punish Its manifestations for being what It has made them–indeed, what It makes them from moment to moment. There can be no eternal retribution from which we must be saved, no guilt from which we must be redeemed.
That, however, doesn’t mean we have no need of redemption. It doesn’t mean that the Infinite manifests us as we are with the intent that we never change and grow, for change and growth are the constants of Its manifestation.
Redemption is a far subtler thing than Christian doctrine advertises. "You are not your own," says the New Testament, "you were bought at a price" (see I Corinthians 6:19-20). Bought from the Evil One, bought from damnation, with the price of Christ’s blood, so we are told.
We are what God created and our Creator could never have lost us to another from whom we must be bought back. But in an operant sense, in the sense of living our daily lives, we often need redemption from the seeming errors into which we fall, we often need to be brought back from the self-defeating paths we travel. This is where some of Jesus’ teachings come in handy; this is why he is worth remembering and celebrating today.
We began with a quote from the gospel according to Matthew, and it happens that Matthew contains the best summary of the best parts of Jesus’ teachings–the Sermon on the Mount (chapters 5 through 7). "It’s all good," as the saying goes, but there are a few highlights that verily show us how to live, today as in his day, though our times and his be radically different.
"In everything do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 7:12). We call this the Golden Rule, but Christians may not realize that Jesus didn’t make it up. The great Rabbi Hillel said something very similar a century before Jesus: "That which is repugnant to you, do not to your neighbor. This is the whole Law; the rest is commentary." This is the cornerstone of common decency, the foundation of all fairness and justice, and without it we deceive ourselves if we think we live humanly. From it follows everything that follows here.
"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you too will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you" (7:1-2). None of us wants to be judged or condemned, but when we judge or condemn others we invite judgment and condemnation upon ourselves. What we give, is what we deserve back again.
"Blsssed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy" (5:8)–and we all need mercy from someone, somewhere, from time to time.
"Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you" (5:42). Most of us (including me) violate this every day, and quickly excuse ourselves with lots of good reasons. But who among us would want to be ignored or rebuffed in our need? And who among us would want someone else to define our need and desert for us?
In Jesus’ day, as in our own, survival was a challenge. Jesus’ teachings offered no one any help with the challenge of survival, except through mutual aid. The challenge he offered was to overcome our sense of personal need and our need for personal safety to give to others–though he also offered the hope of receiving our bounty back again. For he said:
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important then food, and the body more important than clothes? . . . But seek first [God’s] kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" (6:25,33).
In our practical world we think we do well not to believe such promises. But a world in which such promises are believed and practiced, will be a better world than the one we have.
Jesus’ ethical teachings are remembered because he accompanied them with seeming miracles and led his followers to believe a new kingdom was coming soon, to be introduced by him. Today our world is very different from his, and yet surprisingly the same. Like his contemporaries we fear for our lives and scratch and scramble to maintain them, as if that could be worth our while. In our day as in his, the life worth living is the life that maintains others. That was the light he offered then, and that is the light he offers now.
"We saw his star in the east, and have come to worship him." His teachings about serving others are that guiding star.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
"In every thing give thanks"
I write this on Thanksgiving Day, 2010. At the office yesterday, as a meeting broke up, I bade my coworkers a happy Thanksgiving and added, "A day without [company] work. We can be thankful for that, if nothing else!" (Oops. The office of our division president was within ten feet of our conference room. The lights were on and the door was open.) Of course I meant to say something else, but I actually did mean what I said.
The title of this blog entry is taken from I Thessalonians 5:18 in the New Testament: "In every thing give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you" (King James Version).
"But wait!" you might say. "This is Thanksgiving. Who said anything about giving thanks? Thanksgiving is for indulgence, not for giving thanks. Giving thanks on Thanksgiving! That’s so seventeenth century! Oh, darn, OK, I’ll give thanks if I must. Thanks be to whomever for whatever. There, I’ve done it. Pass the turkey. Who’s playing this afternoon? What time is the game?"
I almost feel guilty now. What a killjoy. Imagine spoiling someone’s meal with the thought of giving thanks. I should be thankful that nobody will. But I’ve always believed that things should be what they’re called and be called what they are. And if we insist on calling this day Thanksgiving rather than National Gluttony Day, by heaven we’d better give thanks here!
But for what?
My opening anecdote might sound as if I weren’t thankful for my job. Let me be clear. I am grateful for the ability to buy food, clothing, and shelter without anyone’s help. Enough said. Every morning I give thanks for the ability to buy my own food, clothing, and shelter. Every morning I give thanks to the Infinite One for all Its blessings to all Its worlds of manifestation. And every morning the words nearly catch in my throat.
It has always seemed remarkably selfish to me to give thanks for something someone else has not got. Feels rather like the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable who found himself praying near a despised tax collector in the temple in Jerusalem and said, "I thank thee, O Lord, that I am not like this publican." I thank thee, O Lord, that I get to have good stuff even if those hapless wretches living in garbage dumps in Mexico City and Manila don’t. Correction: especially because they don’t.
In my lifetime I’ve had jobs that I thought were decent or even good, with organizations that had earned my respect or affection. I’ve had a job that I thought was awful with an organization that I thought was good. I’ve had jobs that I loathed with organizations I despised. It’s easier to give thanks for the first type than the last. I’ve also been close enough to going without food, clothing, or shelter to be thankful for such as I had. But none of us is more worthy of God’s bounty than anyone else. What we take for our worth is only God’s grace. So what of those who do go without?
Our Pilgrim forebears, who started Thanksgiving, were Protestant Christians. Thanksgiving is, in that sense, an extension of the Christian tradition. Our Pilgrim forebears had come through tough times and were thankful just to be alive. (They were not, thereby, despising their departed brethren, whom they must have regarded as even better off, being "absent from the body, but present with the Lord." Interesting paradox, that.) The most prosperous of these people hadn’t a tenth of what we have. But that’s beside the point. In his own time and place, our Pilgrim forebears’ Lord and Savior had told the wealthy to sell what they had, give the money to the poor, and follow him. Today, in the proud tradition of our Pilgrim forebears and their Lord and Savior, we gorge ourselves like imperial Romans.
Yet just as the Pilgrims’ day was different from ours, so was Jesus’. In his day, there were a few very wealthy men and women, a great many more (indeed, many times more) who subsisted at some level of poverty, and a number somewhere in between who lived–well, somewhere in between. They were not as many or as poor as the poor, nor as few or as rich as the rich. But the sociologists tell us they were not a middle class; they were "retainers" to the wealthy (as if today’s middle class were not). When Jesus told the wealthy to sell what they had and give the money to the poor, he was talking to men who had amassed great wealth without desert, telling them to help men and women who had nothing through no fault of their own, who had nothing because that’s how society was. He thought he would soon introduce a heavenly kingdom where no such inequalities would exist, and he proposed that the unprepared prepare.
Things have turned out rather differently. Today if those who have were to sell all they have and gave the money to those who have not, soon everyone would be poor, because our money economy would collapse. And every one of us is too afraid of having nothing to give up what we have, be it a great lot or a very little.
To be honest, sometimes we give thanks just so as not to render curses. Life is hard enough without resentment. But for what, really, should we give thanks?
We should give thanks that we can give thanks. As the saying goes, "It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness."
We should give thanks for anything that makes any given moment worth living. And we should give thanks for every moment that is worth living, be they many or few.
Finally, but most importantly, we should give thanks for every opportunity to relieve or prevent someone else’s pain. The Infinite One does not share Its reasons for apportioning pleasure and pain as It does. Every theory about the Infinite is bound to be incoherent to the finite mind, so the likelihood that we will ever understand is virtually nil. But the life the Infinite gives us is most worth living when we make another’s better.
The title of this blog entry is taken from I Thessalonians 5:18 in the New Testament: "In every thing give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you" (King James Version).
"But wait!" you might say. "This is Thanksgiving. Who said anything about giving thanks? Thanksgiving is for indulgence, not for giving thanks. Giving thanks on Thanksgiving! That’s so seventeenth century! Oh, darn, OK, I’ll give thanks if I must. Thanks be to whomever for whatever. There, I’ve done it. Pass the turkey. Who’s playing this afternoon? What time is the game?"
I almost feel guilty now. What a killjoy. Imagine spoiling someone’s meal with the thought of giving thanks. I should be thankful that nobody will. But I’ve always believed that things should be what they’re called and be called what they are. And if we insist on calling this day Thanksgiving rather than National Gluttony Day, by heaven we’d better give thanks here!
But for what?
My opening anecdote might sound as if I weren’t thankful for my job. Let me be clear. I am grateful for the ability to buy food, clothing, and shelter without anyone’s help. Enough said. Every morning I give thanks for the ability to buy my own food, clothing, and shelter. Every morning I give thanks to the Infinite One for all Its blessings to all Its worlds of manifestation. And every morning the words nearly catch in my throat.
It has always seemed remarkably selfish to me to give thanks for something someone else has not got. Feels rather like the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable who found himself praying near a despised tax collector in the temple in Jerusalem and said, "I thank thee, O Lord, that I am not like this publican." I thank thee, O Lord, that I get to have good stuff even if those hapless wretches living in garbage dumps in Mexico City and Manila don’t. Correction: especially because they don’t.
In my lifetime I’ve had jobs that I thought were decent or even good, with organizations that had earned my respect or affection. I’ve had a job that I thought was awful with an organization that I thought was good. I’ve had jobs that I loathed with organizations I despised. It’s easier to give thanks for the first type than the last. I’ve also been close enough to going without food, clothing, or shelter to be thankful for such as I had. But none of us is more worthy of God’s bounty than anyone else. What we take for our worth is only God’s grace. So what of those who do go without?
Our Pilgrim forebears, who started Thanksgiving, were Protestant Christians. Thanksgiving is, in that sense, an extension of the Christian tradition. Our Pilgrim forebears had come through tough times and were thankful just to be alive. (They were not, thereby, despising their departed brethren, whom they must have regarded as even better off, being "absent from the body, but present with the Lord." Interesting paradox, that.) The most prosperous of these people hadn’t a tenth of what we have. But that’s beside the point. In his own time and place, our Pilgrim forebears’ Lord and Savior had told the wealthy to sell what they had, give the money to the poor, and follow him. Today, in the proud tradition of our Pilgrim forebears and their Lord and Savior, we gorge ourselves like imperial Romans.
Yet just as the Pilgrims’ day was different from ours, so was Jesus’. In his day, there were a few very wealthy men and women, a great many more (indeed, many times more) who subsisted at some level of poverty, and a number somewhere in between who lived–well, somewhere in between. They were not as many or as poor as the poor, nor as few or as rich as the rich. But the sociologists tell us they were not a middle class; they were "retainers" to the wealthy (as if today’s middle class were not). When Jesus told the wealthy to sell what they had and give the money to the poor, he was talking to men who had amassed great wealth without desert, telling them to help men and women who had nothing through no fault of their own, who had nothing because that’s how society was. He thought he would soon introduce a heavenly kingdom where no such inequalities would exist, and he proposed that the unprepared prepare.
Things have turned out rather differently. Today if those who have were to sell all they have and gave the money to those who have not, soon everyone would be poor, because our money economy would collapse. And every one of us is too afraid of having nothing to give up what we have, be it a great lot or a very little.
To be honest, sometimes we give thanks just so as not to render curses. Life is hard enough without resentment. But for what, really, should we give thanks?
We should give thanks that we can give thanks. As the saying goes, "It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness."
We should give thanks for anything that makes any given moment worth living. And we should give thanks for every moment that is worth living, be they many or few.
Finally, but most importantly, we should give thanks for every opportunity to relieve or prevent someone else’s pain. The Infinite One does not share Its reasons for apportioning pleasure and pain as It does. Every theory about the Infinite is bound to be incoherent to the finite mind, so the likelihood that we will ever understand is virtually nil. But the life the Infinite gives us is most worth living when we make another’s better.
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