Can We Talk? We've Got a Problem Here ...!

The soul is the perceiver and the revealer of truth.

We know truth when we see it, let skeptic and scoffer say what they choose. Foolish people ask you, when you have spoken what they do not wish to hear, "How do you know it is truth, and not an error of your own?" We kow truth when we see it, from opinion, as we know when we are awake that we are awake.

We distinguish the announcements of the soul, its manifestations of its own nature, by the term Revelation. These are always attended by the emotion of the sublime. for this communication is an influx of the Divine mind into our mind. It is an ebb of the individual rivulet before the flowing surges of the sea of life.

(Ralph Waldo Emerson, from his essays)


So, can we talk? Have you noticed that we've got a problem here? I'm talking a global, worldwide, humanity-planet problem. Hunger, wars, recession, earthquakes, famines, abuse, widespread psychological struggles, diseases, rage, suppression, misogyny, scape-goatting ... I mean, surely you're noticed.

Now, I'm not making a case for despair here -- despair is what got us *into* this mess, y'know. I'm no longer a pessimist (I was for about 4 decades, and it's just no longer working for me anymore) ... I enjoy life to the fullest I can, and I expect it to continue to get better and gooder (I enjoy making up my own words, too!).

Nope, I'm not advocating for despair -- but for being aware, and for repair.

We need to face where we are, and how we got here ... we need to look squarely in the eyes of whatever has caused us so much despair that we would seek to destroy ourselves.

Obviously, we humans have tried long and hard to fix what's wrong ... and we've tried to solve our problems at *every* level except the level at which the problem(s) exist(s): Our Beliefs.

Our notions about spirituality are destroying us.

We humans have sub-divided along lines of group-think, and we have doctrinalized, dogmatized, and divinized our beliefs, and we have demonized those who dare to believe differently.

This is spiritual arrogance. And it's caused more pain and suffering than any other aspect of life. We've suffered personally over what we believe, and we've caused others to suffer, due to what we believe. Our ideas about God have caused suffering...! We've twisted the Source of our greatest joy into a tool of our greatest pain!

It seems that we humans will give up everything for our beliefs ... we will give up love, peace, health, harmony, happiness, safety security and sanity...

But the one thing we seem to not be able to give up is this: Being RIGHT.

We've proven that we will sacrifice everything we've achieved, everything we've desired, everything we've created, in order to be "RIGHT".

In fact, we'll even give up life itself ... in order to be "right".

And we're terrified of being wrong.

What if it's not about right or wrong..? What if it's about what works, and what doesn't work?

And what if, while we need to question our beliefs, we don't need to *destroy* them? What if, instead of destroying them, we need to transcend them. Transcending means "larger than" more than "other than". The new usually contains some of the old ... it's even sometimes built on the old. We needn't reject all that we've believed ... but we certainly need to see it from a new, higher, deeper perspective, in order to find out what's really true -- experientially, revelationally.

(And no -- contrary to ecclesiastical opinion, those are not multi-syllable curse words.)

The really cool thing, is that we don't have to declare (to ourselves, or to others) that we were *wrong* at all... we just didn't have a complete understanding before (& really, completion/perfection comes incrementally). We needed more information, more experience, more revelation. I mean, a wise 6 year old doesn't think he was *wrong* to have been 5. The point is growth ... and to not resist the inevitable change that comes with growth.

Next - I want to look at some of the goofy things our beliefs have told us ...

Shalom, Dena

Revelation: God's Way of Knowing

This was passed on by my dear friend Annie, and as you read it you'll realize why I couldn't NOT share it:

Revelation: God's Way of Knowing
Dan Stone

The Holy Spirit teaches both by revelation and experience. The revelation can be instant and direct, without being transmitted by any formal ''teaching.'' We say, ''Oh, I see.'' The Spirit then uses seen and temporal experiences to work that revelation into us. The revelation gets established in us through personal experience.

Some people have a hard time relating to that, because they associate the word teacher with a schoolroom, where we just impart knowledge. But the Holy Spirit's teaching is experiential teaching. Of course, we do learn facts, but I'm talking about the process whereby we become one with what we are taught. We become one with the truth through experiential teaching.

This experiential knowing is indicated in the biblical words for know. Both the Greek and Hebrew words for know that I am referring to indicate experiential understanding of and oneness with. When ''Adam knew his wife...'', it wasn't an intellectual thing. Adam experienced oneness with his wife. That's exactly what knowing is. There is no anxiety about those things that you know, because you become mixed with them. You and what you know are one.

When God gives you a flash of insight, that's it. ''Oh, I see!'' Everything else, from then on, is just an elaboration on that flash. When you know, you are forever changed in that area. You'd have to make a conscious effort to go back on what the Holy Spirit showed you. That's why it's hard to sin in an area when the Holy Spirit truly shows you something. It's hard to go back on truth. Truth liberates.

I've always liked the word awareness more than the word growth. Because what really happens in each of us? Our awareness simply expands. We become more aware of Who already was. ''Oh, I see more and more of Him.'' We're not seeing more and more about Him. We're seeing more and more of Him. He is the peace. He is the joy. He is the life. He is the love.

Until we see that, we are always saying to God, ''Give me something. Gimme. Gimme. Gimme.'' But when that insight comes (and I'm not saying it has to be sudden, although it was with me), we say, ''Oh, I see. I already have life. I already have Him.''

When God gives your spirit a revelation, often your soul responds with, ''That can't be. That can't be.'' But your spirit is saying, ''It is. It is.'' Revelation doesn't take place in your brain. God reveals Himself in our spirit. He says, ''Yes, the absolutes are true. When you begin to live in My reality, you'll begin to say, 'I am.' Until you live in My reality, you'll say, 'I am becoming' or 'I want to be' or 'I hope I am.'''

How many times have I said, ''I'd like to be. I wish I were. Maybe someday.'' And God was on His throne saying, ''You are! You are!'' When you truly see that Christ is your life, time ceases to be a decisive factor in your life. Everything is just now. You live in the present tense of God. He is not becoming. He is. You are not becoming. You are. You operate from ''I am,'' not ''I will become.''

Every revelation is according to God's good pleasure and His own timing. Timing is so important. You might get the itch before God wants to scratch. You think that you're ready to stop the itch, but God may say, ''You're not itching enough yet. If I were to meet you right now, it would be like harvesting something before its time. You wouldn't grow to full maturity.'' In His own way, in His own time, God reveals.

What is it that the Holy Spirit primarily reveals to us? Jesus told us:

[The Holy Spirit] will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me; for He will take of Mine, and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you. (John 16:13-15)

The work of the Holy Spirit is declaring to us the Father and the Son within us. The Spirit makes no declaration about Himself. He attempts no glorification of Himself. He doesn't point to the fruit or the gifts. The Holy Spirit does not single Himself out because nothing originates with Him. The Spirit is the means by which the life of the Father and the Son comes forth. He wants us to know that we manifest the life of the Father and the Son. That is His revelation.

From: Stone, Dan, The Rest of the Gospel: When the partial Gospel has worn you out. Dallas: One Press. 2000. pgs. 126-129.

(I intend to get back to money ... unless I'm inspired otherwise, LOL!)

Shalom, Dena

Information is not Necessarily Transformation - Part II

Picking up where we left off yesterday...

- Biblical revelation says that we are essentially related to something Infinite. It says that, in fact, we cannot know the full meaning of our life until we see we are a little strand in a much larger tapestry. today astro-physicians and social biologists are saying the same thing: Truth is converging like never before.

(I adore this ... truth is defying our own definitions of reality, our own doctrines, our own comprehension of all that is, and is showing us that universal truth is all-pervasive ... whether we're talking about individual spiritual experiences of "what is," or discovering what's being realized within quantum physics -- God is EVERYwhere, and in EVERYthing (funny, scriptures always said so, but we didn't see it, somehow...! See Romans 11, the last verse in that chapter.)

- God always and forever comes as one who is totally hidden and yet perfectly revealed in the same moment or event. It is never forced on you, and you do not have to see it if you don't want to. What I will call "non-dual thinking" has the greatest chance of seeing the epiphany.

(I see this in scripture too ... "as a man thinks in his heart, so is he" ... and we see throughout scripture that those who *think* they already possess the right view, have the right perspective, adhere to the right beliefs/morality, are those who miss God. Jesus makes this clear over and over again (I may blog about this tomorrow). Dual thinking says, "everything falls into categories of 'right' or 'wrong'; 'good' or 'evil'", and stems from our addiction the the tree of the knowledge of good and evil -- which we are STILL to stay away from!)

- Most of religion, historically, expected we would come to God by finding spiritual locations, precise rituals, or the right words. Our correct behavior or morality would bring us to God or God to us. Actually almost everybody starts there -- looking for the right maps, hoping to pass some kind of cosmic SAT test. The assumption being that if you get the right answers, God will like you. God's love was always highly contingent, and the clever were assumed to be the winners.

(Yes ... this is my experience of Christianity, at it's heart, regardless of it's particular "flavor.")

- The genius of the biblical revelation is that we will come to God through what I'm going to call "the actual" the here and now, or quite simply what is. The Bible moves us from sacred place (why the temple had to go) or sacred action (why the Law had to be relativized) or mental belief systems (why Jesus has no prerequisites in this regard).

(Sooo... why does Christianity insist on clinging to buildings, rules and statements of belief...? Do we not trust the Spirit? Have we entirely missed the point?)

- As Eckhart Tolle points out in The Power of Now, you don't have to be in a certain place or even be a perfect person to experience the fullness of God. God is always given, incarnate in every moment, and present to those who know how to be present themselves (this pattern is quite clear in the Bible). God is manifest in the ordinary, in the actual, in the daily, in the now, in the concrete incarnations of life... it is our experiences that transform us if we are willing to experience our experiences all the way through.

(BTW, I do highly recommend Eckhart Tolle's books ... including "A New Earth" - the best expose I've yet read on the pervasiveness of the carnal nature - which he calls the "ego" - both within us, and within our human cultures -- perhaps THE problem in life!)

- God comes to me disguised as my life. But for most "religious" people this is actually a disappointment. They seemingly would rather have church services.

(it does seem to me that we prefer rituals about God, far more than encounters with God..!)

- God's revelations are not a Platonic world of ideas and theories about which you can be right or wrong. Revelation is not something you measure, but something, or Someone you meet!

(& yet, Christianity teaches us to be myopically fixated on right and wrong!)

- It's not about becoming spiritual beings nearly so much as about becoming human beings. The biblical revelation is saying that we are already spiritual beings, we just don't know it yet.

(if we believe that we're fallen human beings, separated from God, unable to connect with God, guess what our experiential reality will be? Change perspective and change experience!)

- We have created a terrible kind of dualism between the spiritual and the so-called non-spiritual. This dualism precisely is what Jesus came to reveal as a lie. The principle of Incarnation proclaims that matter and spirit have never been separate.

(Amen! This has become SO very clear and true to me! Our traditions have skewed our perspective and experience of this divine reality! God is all in all.)

- We need to develop the maturity and capacity for self-critical thinking. It is the first step beyond the dualistic mind and teaches us patience with ambiguity and mystery.

(& yet we are taught, within Christianity, to not think ... to accept what we're told "by faith" ... to not question, which leads to doubt and rebellion ... to fall in line with the "safety" of group-think.)

- Our temptation now and always is not to trust in God but to trust in our faith traditions of trusting in God. They are not the same thing! Often our faith is in our tradition which we can talk about all of our past saints and theologians who have trusted in God. That's a very clever way to avoid the experience itself, to avoid scary encounters with the living God, to avoid the ongoing Incarnation. We tend to trust the past for it's own sake, as if God came to earth to protect human tradition, or that past time is somehow holier than present time. Jesus specifically says that it is not true (see Matthew 15:3).

(I see a wholesale avoidance of experience ... living vicariously through the encounters of those in the past ... waiting forever for the "soon" (?!?) return of Jesus, to blow away the planet and most of its occupants ... and therefore not living in the NOW, the only moment we *have*, at all.)

- It is amazing how religion has turned the biblical idea of faith around to mean its exact opposite: into a tradition of certain knowing, presumed predictability and complete assurance about whom God likes and whom God does not like. I guess we think we have God in our pocket.

(we've turned God into a mere mascot ... a talisman, a magic symbol ...)

- The problem with group-think is that such groups are highly malleable and very subject to fear and violence from supposed threats to their group. This leads to becoming idealogues, which means that one replaces real experience with predetermined conclusions. They have their answers before listening to and learning from the information.

(I've experienced this, both within institutional Christianity, and in that which calls itself "simple church". Paranoia reigns. Perceived threats are attacked with the first knee-jerk reaction. The message is, "I already know what to think, so don't confuse me with any other perspective - I'm right and you're different, wrong and dangerous." And those with a differing perspective are deemed to be the "enemy" ... and Christianity has shown, historically, that it knows what to do with the enemy. Warfare verbiage is prolific throughout the culture of Christianity, and leads to a justification of attacking and even killing -- after all, "our mascot-god is on our side." "There will come a day when they will kill you and imagine that they're doing God a favor.")

- The genius of the biblical revelation is that, instead of simply giving us "seven habits for highly effective people," it gives us permission and even direction to take conscious ownership of our own story, at every level, every part of our life and experience. God will use all of the material, even the negative parts, to bring us to life and love. Now that's really good news! Suddenly we can take our own lives seriously, the good and the bad parts, because God has done it first!

(nothing wasted ... nothing eliminated ... nothing regretted ... nothing despised.... nothing, and no ONE, excluded)

- Pain teaches us a most counterintuitive thing -- that we must go down before we even know what up is. In terms of the ego, most religions teach in some way that all must "die before they die." Suffering of some sort seems to be the only thing strong enough to destabilize our arrogance and our ignorance. I would define suffering very simply as "whenever you are not in control."

(as a recovering anal-queen-control-freak, I can attest to THIS!!!)

- Spiritual experience teaches us what to do with the absurd, the tragic, the nonsensical, the unjust. If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it! If we cannot find a way to make our wounds into sacred wounds, we invariably become negative or bitter. If there isn't some way to find some deeper meaning to our suffering, t find that God is somehow in it, and can even use it for good, w will normally close up and close down. The natural movement of the ego is to protect itself so as to not be hurt again. Biblical revelation is about transforming history and individuals so that we don't just keep handing the pain onto the next generation.

(Yes indeedy! For transforming pain, I highly endorse Theophostic prayer (www.theophostic.com), The Work of Byron Katie (www.thework.com) and Emotional Freedom Technique (www.emofree.com) -- various tools work variously for each person ... my own healing has come largely through Theophostic - my own healing-story is on that site.)

- The biblical narrative is saying that there is coherence inside of the seeming incoherence of history. Our smaller stories have a Bigger Story holding them together. We are free to read the Bible with a healthy head and a happy heart at the same time, both critically and spiritually. We are left in that in-between space, connected to both heart and head, where we are not too much in control -- so that God can be.

(I love the Bigger Story that is more and more emerging for me, becoming clearer ... AS I let go of what I thought was the story (the group-think version of the story). The God I experience in the here and now enables me to better interpret what was being said in the scriptures ... which seems to be the very message *of* the scriptures...!)

Shalom, Dena

Information is not Necessarily Transformation

Reading is fundamental to me -- always has been. I've devoured books for as long as I can remember, since the age of four, when I broke the code with one of my Dr. Seuss books (bless that man!). I'm led to various books, and often have 2-3 that I'm reading at a time ... there's my early-morning time-with-God (He doesn't seem to mind that I'm sitting on the loo at the time ... my reward for an in-depth spiritual encounter is often "ring around the buns" ... a badge of honor I can share with a very select few...!). Then there's my sitting-in-the-car-waiting-for-someone-to-get-out-of-some-activity reading ... and my I-need-to-take-a-break-and-read-something-light reading ... and my time-to-unwind-in-blessed-late-night-solitude-and-read-something-inspiring reading. Oh, and the rather all-consuming reading of a plethora of articles on the Internet.

I've recently finished reading Richard Rohr's "Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality". If y'all could indulge me, I'd like to share highlights from my reading-experience (I don't merely read books ... I wallow in the experience of them!). I find it paradoxically true that as I give away what I learn, I better retain it. Sooooo ... I shall share what jumped out at me, and perhaps comment along the way.

- We need transformed people today, and not just people with answers.

(this seems almost self-evident -- we have more information than ever before, but really, how much transformation is coming from "correct" information...?)

- The world fears a new experience more than anything, because a new experience replaces so many old experiences. Ideas are not a problem - they can be discounted. But a true inner experience is something else, again. It changes us, and human beings do not like to change.

(again, duh. change is threatening to status quo ... status quo makes us feel "safe" and "right." As if Jesus ever said, "though shalt be right.")

- The trouble is, we have made the Bible into a bunch of ideas -- about which we can be right or wrong -- rather than an invitation to a new set of eyes. Even worse, many of those ideas are the same, old tired ones, mirroring the reward and punishment system of the dominant culture.

(how often have I run into the concept that "there is only one right way to view the Bible" -- says each of the 20,000+ denominations!)

- If we ask the open questions, and have a "poverty of spirit" (that is if we are not over-entitled, smug or complacent - these types are largely unteachable), we can experience truth. We all need, forever, what Jesus described as "the beginner's mind" of a curious child. Otherwise, we will read the scriptures on "cruise control" ... missing what's being said, without any genuine astonishment that rearranges everything.

(perhaps this is what Jesus meant about coming to God as a little child -- openly and receptively, without any egoic assumptions that we already have "all truth")

- People have largely been afraid of God, and afraid of themselves, as a result. Even today, after centuries of "grace teachings" most humans feel that God's love and attention must be earned. This pattern of expectations and fear is so in the hardwiring that in the two thousand years since the incarnation of God in Christ, not much has really changed -- except in a rather small critical mass of humanity. Most people in my experience are still into fearing God and controlling God instead of loving God. The only way that can be changed is for God, from God's side, to change the power equation and invite us into a world of mutuality and vulnerability. And that is precisely what Jesus did (& still does).

(let that italicized statement soak into your heart ... selah)

- In most ancient religions, God was felt to be "controllable" through human sacrifice, found on all continents. Around the time of Abraham, the sacrificial instinct matures a bit and gets transferred to the poor goats, sheep and bullocks; animals had to be sacrificed to pleas this fearsome God. "Civilized cultures" have pretty much transmuted it into various forms of self-sacrifice and moral heroics -- because we all know that something has to be sacrificed tp bend this God toward us [do not miss the sarcasm here!]! We don't really believe that God could naturally know and love what God has created, or that we could actually love (or even like!) God back. This is a fracture at the core of everything and creates the overwhelmingly shame- and guilt-based church and culture we have today in the West. God is much different than we thought, and also much better than we feared!

(I notice that while it *appears* that God is meticulously and laboriously putting forth the required sacrificial system early in the OT, God later claims to have never wanted, nor required sacrifice ... He wanted mercy. So, did God change His mind? Or did our view of God change over time..? There is some evidence that the priests of the sacrificial system went back into the earlier text, and added the verbiage to them that justified and validated their *own* notions of how God was to be appeased, through sacrifice! The language doesn't even sound like God -- it sounds like the language of human accountants and attorneys - no offense intended to any accountants or attorneys who happen to be reading here - hi, Dad!)

- The God revealed through the *whole* of the OT, and especially in Jesus, is merciful, gracious, faithful, forgiving and steadfast in love. It has taken us a long time to even believe that this could be true, but the only people who really know it to be true for themselves are those who sincerely seek, pray, and often, suffer. Outside of your own inner experience of this kind of God, most religion will remain merely ritualistic, moralistic, doctrinaire and largely unhappy.

("experience" has become a dirty word in some Christian circles ... something to be denounced and discounted, even disdained - because it is feared. Experience cannot be defined nor controlled ... we are at the mercy of God in the experience ... and if we harbor thoughts of this God being harsh, unkind, wrathful, and focused on us being "correct", then we will not allow ourselves to experience Him -- we will prefer to hide behind doctrines and other "safe" constructs of the egoic mind.)

- Biblical text itself edges forward and often backwards, just as humans do. In other words, the Bible doesn't just give us the conclusions, but it does create a clear set of patterns and a tangent -- and our job is to connect the dots forward and backward. Only inner experience can do that job. Spiritually speaking, it does not help to give people quick conclusions before they have made any inner journeys.

(while it's oh-so-tempting to "help" people with the answers that have worked for us, we end up short-changing them when we do so ... we make them yet-still dependent upon the thoughts and experiences of others. God wants a personal and intimate engagement with each soul ... not a vicarious, second-hand once-removed mental-concept with each one! The best our offerings can do for others is to give an example of experiences ... and to invite others to taste and see for themselves.)

- The genius of the biblical revelation is that it doesn't just give us the conclusions, it gives us the process of getting there, and the inner and outer authority to trust that process. To repeat for the sake of emphasis: Life itself -- and scripture too -- is always three steps forward and two steps backward. It gets the point and then loses it or doubts it. In that, the biblical text mirrors our own human consciousness and journey. Our job is to see where the three steps forward texts are heading (invariably toward mercy, forgiveness, inclusion, nonviolence and trust), which gives us the ability to clearly recognize and understand the two steps backward texts (which are usually about vengeance, divine pettiness, law over grace, form over substance and technique over relationship). This is what you cannot discern if you have no inner experience of how God works in your own life! You will just substitute the text for the real inner spirit. Or, as Paul courageously says, "The written letters alone will bring death, but the Spirit gives life."

(this was revolutionary for my thinking! Rather than seeing the biblical text as a prescription, i.e., "if God ordered the killing of every man, woman and child of their enemies, then it must be OK for us, today," I see that it's a reflection of the egoic/dim thinking of the people at the time -- they *thought* God said so, based on their murky view of God - and on what they projected of themselves onto God, just as the terrorists *thought* God required them to plow into the Twin Towers on 9/11! The Bible shows how mankind moved from utter darkness about God, into an ever-emerging Light ... which was only clear with the revelation of Jesus - "if you've seen me, you've seen the Father." The biblical text reveals an emerging and evolving awakening about God, over time ... and is *not* a prescription for how to justify our own dark thinking about Him ... it invites us to move forward, and to see it ALL through the lens of the Person of Jesus, as revealed by the Spirit, rather than by the traditions of man.)


- It is not that God had changed, or that the Hebrew God is a different God than the God of Jesus, it is that we are growing up as we move through the texts and deepen our experience. God does not change, but our readiness for such a God takes a long time to change. If you read the text searching for certain conclusions, to quickly reassure your "false self," as if each line in the Bible was a full dogmatic statement, all spiritual growth will not just stop, but you will become a rather toxic person for yourself and others.

("Jesus, save us from Your followers...!")

- Just as the Bible takes us through many stages of consciousness and salvation history, it takes us individually a long time to move beyond our need to be dualistic, judgmental, accusatory, fearful, blaming, egocentric and earning. The text in travail mirrors and charts our own human travail and will illustrate all those stages from within the Bible! It will offer both the mature and immature responses to almost everything, and you have to learn the difference.

(does anyone else find this astonishingly fresh, liberating and comforting, or is it just me..? We can take the scriptures seriously, without the mind-numbing requirement of taking it "literally"..! We can interact with the Spirit, rather than swallowing-whole what we read at face-value! What joy! What responsibility! We can, and must, use the brains that God gave us, actively trusting the Spirit who is IN us!)

- Isn't it a consolation to know that life is not a straight line? Many of us wish and have been told that it should be, but I haven't met a life yet that's on a straight line to God. It's always about getting the point, and missing the point. It's God entering our lives and then us fighting it, avoiding it, running from it. There is the moment of divine communion or intimacy, and then the pullback that says, "That's too good to be true. I must be making it up." Fortunately, God works with all of it, and that's called mercy or steadfast love.

(oh, I want to cry and sing!!! Being led into all truth is a *very* circuitous, loop-de-loop path...! Forward, backward, into one ditch or another, going in circles, it's ALL part of the journey, NONE of it to be despised, ALL of it necessary, ALL of it used! Wow!)

- There are two mediocre ways of viewing scripture. The first is about moralities and pieties of those who have never studied the historical and anthropological setting in which it was first set (the conservative temptation). It's all heart and little head. It's sweet and nice, but it's never going to transform history (or individuals). It's never going to affect anyone who's got a little education, to put it honestly, and it becomes a cover for an awful lot of pride and prejudice.

The second is the narrow historical, critical interpretation of those who have not had any real God experiences (the progressive temptation). It's the usually "enlightened" formula of those who have no inner experience to awaken the reality of the spiritual world. The do not really love God as much as talk about God. The only possible path is to substitute letter for Spirit, formula for inner authority, education for actual (intimate, experiential) knowing. It's all head and little heart. We find out what the Greek really meant and whether Jesus really said it, all of which often puts the mind back in control, but the heart does not know anything gracious or new.

But there is a healthy middle: a place between those. It includes some healthy cultural studies, psychology and historical awareness to the task, but always points toward an inner awareness of the Spirit that is guiding you right now. Then you will know for yourself, and not just because "the Bible says so."

(I've been in both extremes ... and I've been emerging into the healthy middle ... though it's very much a circuitous process, and I notice that the extremes can still beckon me in, for they are familiar and comfortable. Unknown territory is always a bit unnerving ... like stepping off of a cliff ... which can be done when you experience God as the One who will either catch you, or else teach you to fly...!)

There's much more to share, just from this chapter ... but for the sake of your eyes and brain, and not wanting to overly-strain either, I'll let it rest for now and pick it up tomorrow. Let it speak to you where you are ... digesting what appeals to you, and letting go of the rest. Let God meet you where you are - honor that. Trust the process.

Shalom, Dena




-

"What About Evil? What About Injustice?"

I'm having a similar conversation
elsewhere ... I was asked, "what about evil, what about injustice?"

Here's what I shared, for what it's worth:


(disclaimer: this is what I've come to believe, at this point in my own journey
... not claiming that this is "all truth", or that any of us can grasp "all truth" while in a limited form of humanity...)


I believe that God made all things, and sustains all things ... that God is IN all things (& all humans as well). I believe that in Him we live and move and have our being ... I believe that He is the only Source of life ... apart from Him there is no life at all... but nothing and no one is apart from Him ... indeed, everything and everyone is a part *of* Him.

Given that, all is GOOD. It's our perception that would tell us otherwise, because we eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and we think we can tell what's good, and what's "evil" by our own perception. But we discern and judge with a faulty, limited, temporal perspective ... we do not yet see how ALL things work together for good, as we're transformed into the likeness of Christ. We perceive from our ego, rather than from the Mind of Christ (the intersection of Spirit and spirit within us).

We discern on a conscious level, but truth is often found on a subconscious level ... which is why we can *know* a think is true "in our hearts," even while our minds are protesting.

So, yes, we humans do perceive things to be "evil" and we judge things to be "unjust" ... and certainly harm seems to be done. We can indeed harm relationships, but we cannot really harm another ... though we can perceive to harm, and to be harmed.

Once we realize that we are not our bodies, but that we *have* bodies ... that we're really our spirits (& we're having a human experience), and that what we see is not what *is* (& even quantum physics proves this to us), that there is no death (it's merely the horizon of our perspective, but life is, by it's very essence, eternal), then we can lose the perception of evil and fear.

God has often met us where we are, and given us the level of truth that we could/can handle ... Jesus told His disciples that He had MUCH more to show them, but they couldn't bear it then (and can we now bear it?).

God shows us in the OT that He is the One who created evil (calamity) ... for we cannot experience goodness without the context of evil. We cannot know hot without cold, light without darkness, joy without sorrow ... they're really just the same thing, on a continuum.

So, too, we cannot experience Oneness without the illusion of separation ... which is what I believe this human life is all about -- to experience "separation" from God (though He does not experience separation from us), so that we can experience returning to Him. All things come from Him, and all things return to Him, for He is all there is.

So, I see, in the absolute sense, that there is no real evil, just the temporal perception of it.

BUT - we are called to experience what is "not us" in this life, so that we can know who we really are. So, when we experience harm, and even harming another, we can know that it's not really who we are ... and we can choose to respond differently.

If I see that someone is experiencing what appears to be evil, or injustice, I can choose to do something to ease their suffering ... the first thing I would do would be to intervene in some way ... but I would ultimately want to invite them to go deeper, to come to know God in an authentic way, and to come to see who they really are as well, in Him, of Him.

I'm invited to do unto others as I would want them to do for me -- to love others as I do myself. I can meet them where they are, feel whatever they're feeling, be with them, and help them to start to see the illusion that's really causing the pain.

It's not what happens to us that hurts us, as much as what we *think* about what happens to us that hurts us...

Maybe if I share a story, it will help to illustrate what I'm talking about.

A woman was at a workshop, being confronted with these very notions ... that all is good, that even death is good, and that no one dies before they choose to (on some level ... though they can be consciously as surprised as anyone else when they die). She was enraged by this, due to what she'd experienced. When she married, many years previously, she could not conceive ... and so they adopted a little boy, Bobby. Shortly after the adoption, as is often the case, they conceived a baby, and raised these two boys together. Bobby was always told he was adopted, in ways he could comprehend. But when he started school, he was tormented by the other children, who said, "Bobby's so ugly his own mother gave him away -- Bobby's mother didn't want him!" He was hurt and furious, and his adopted mom couldn't console him ... his adopted mom told him that when he was 18, she would help him to find his birth mother. For years he reminded her of this ... and gave her agony, through acts of rebellion, acting out his pain-of-rejection in a myriad of ways. She loved him through it, and even took his lashing out, as he reminded her, over and over, that he would find his "real" mother when he was 18. On the day he turned 18, he took off on a motorcycle, and died in a tragic accident.

She looked at the workshop leader, and said, "Tell me, what sort of 'good' is that? What sort of God would allow my son to miss out on what he wanted most? How did my son choose his death?!?"

The workshop leader closed his eyes, and prayed, "I need help here God, give me the words for this woman..."

Out of him the words spilled ... "Your son Bobby got what he wanted that day ... he didn't know it consciously, but his birth mother had died, and so he went to meet her, to be with her, because his job here on earth was done. It was his time, and he got what he most wanted. He's worked to bring you to this workshop, so that you could know this, so that you could know he's happy, that he's so grateful to you for all you did in loving him through those tough years, preparing him for the reunion with his birth mother. He's waiting for you, and wants to introduce his two mothers to each other. He wants you to be able to live in peace and joy until then."

The woman's expression changed from rage and pain, to utter joy and peace, with tears streaming down.

Our perspective changes our experience.

If we change our thinking, we can change our world, and then invite others to do the same...

(and that's where I am right now, awaiting further revelation...)

Shalom, Dena

More Random Thoughts and Observations...

About thinking: "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he." Our thinking, about anything, is powerful ... even creative (for it will create our experienced reality).

The ego (our carnal nature) ... is indeed a huge factor. Most of us think from it, unknowingly, imagining ourselves to be spiritual. One of the best exposes of this is a non-Christian book (but all truth is His Truth) called "The New Earth" by Eckhart Tolle ... didn't let myself read it for a couple of years, due to it being labeled as "new age" and "subversive" by Christians ... 'course, Jesus was labeled subversive and blasphemous, too ... so I prefer to experience a thing for myself, and to test it with inner-discernment, rather than external-labels. When I did let myself read it, I was incredibly blessed.


About mistakes: Yes, I see that we're meant to learn from our mistakes ... but that requires seeing them, acknowledging them (rather than shaming ourselves (or others) for having done them), and choosing whether they declare who we really are, or not. Unfortunately, Christianity often teaches us to deny our mistakes, to shame folks (& ourselves) for having them, to repress them, to ignore them, and thus, by default, to perpetuate them. Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over, and expecting different results. Religion, it seems to me, often displays collective insanity.

About revelation: I see that we fear "greater revelation" (even though Jesus said the Spirit would lead us into all truth ... even though He said He had much more to share with those who were following Him, but that they "couldn't bear it").

I see that we fear experience, as if it were somehow evil ... despite how the Scriptures themselves are full of accounts of folks having experiential encounters with the Living God. Somehow, we seem to believe that God now wants us to have second-hand, by-proxy, faux-experiences through *their* experiences ... that God spoke then, but doesn't speak now, except through what was written at that point in history. He's still the Living God ... He's still communicating, He's still leading us into all truth (meaning: we ain't arrived yet), He's still wanting us to experience Him, for ourselves, and to, yes-indeedy, receive "greater revelation" from Him.

If we can bear it.

Which, of course, won't happen if we're not open to it. If we are imagining ourselves to already possess all truth, we're not open to more of the Truth He has for us ...

About correcting others: Why do we imagine that we have to *correct* others? Did Jesus not say to Peter (re. John), "What's that to you? You follow Me." Can we not love while en route to all truth? Can we not lead with the example of how we live our own lives? Can we not demonstrate, rather than correct? Is not love the most powerful force in the universe? Can Light not swallow up darkness? Can Love not absorb fear? Can truth not absorb deception? Is He not able to draw all men to Himself, and indeed, is that not the only way anyone comes to Him in the first place (by His doing)?

(& while we can certainly exclude folks from our "clubs," how do we "disfellowship" someone from their very identity...?)

I see that we've done the "correct everyone, and kill them if necessary" approach for the past 2,000 years. I see that the fruit of this approach is horrid. I propose that we try the "love everyone, and forgive them if necessary" approach for a couple of millennia ... just to see if we get better results, or just for the heck of it.

Maybe God knows what He's doing? Maybe we can join Him in that?

Shalom, Dena

Which God?

Once upon a time, before I learned that questioning is vital, back when I believed what I was told by others, I believed in a god-who-posed-as-God. God created man in His own image, and then we returned the favor -- thus, god was created in the image of man ... with all of man's insecurities and limitations projected onto him. And so this god, sounded a lot like a human. In fact, he sounded a lot like a(n insane) man, courting a woman, "Oh, you are the one that I want! I love you, and I desire you -- I want you to choose me! I want you to be with me forever and ever ... you have one month in which to choose me in return, and if you make the wrong choice, if you choose to not love me in return, then I have no choice but to hunt you down, and torture you forever. So, please love me back, for your own good."

What sort of "love" would that be? Sure, she could choose, out of her fear, to go through the motions, but fear makes a lousy substitute for love.



I received this message today (& indeed I *keep* receiving this message, in a myriad of ways):

Words may help you understand something, but experience allows you to know.

Never, ever trade your own experience for someone else's words about anything that is really important.

Like God, for instance. Or love. Or what is true about another.

This is a simple awareness, but it comes to you today at exactly the right time. If you think about why, you will know.

Some claim that the conditional-god, the judgmental-god, the god who has needs, who demands that we do things a precise way, who set it up so that we were bent to fail (and thus be punished endlessly, and separated eternally), that that god is real -- and must not only be appeased, but he must be feared.

And this God, the God who has unconditional love, who needs nothing, who meets us where we are, who draws us to Himself (& indeed cannot conceive of Him, or know Him unless He does so), who teaches us through all our choices (& the resulting consequences), who has set it up that we all return to Him (for we are of Him) ... that that God is false ...

... and that there's a special punishment for those who claim that God is "too
loving."

I tried the former god for most of my life ... but I couldn't experience Him, I
could only experience the fear of his followers (which I believe was then projected onto their image of god).

The latter God is the one who drew me from the illusions of the former god, and has been leading me since.

I've got to go with the God I'm experiencing, rather than the god others tell me about...

Shalom, Dena