The Trouble with Transformation - Part I

Y'know, transformation ain't all sweetness and light...! Those of you who have experienced transformation know *exactly* what I'm talking about..! Status quo resists change, and religion is all about defending status quo. And life is about change ... there's no way to be transformed by the renewal of our minds without change. It's a given -- the only constant is that we all change.

But there's a teaching in some circles ... that since God is the same yesterday, today and forever, since God doesn't change, then we shouldn't either. The teaching seems to imply that if we've found the Truth, then we have ALL truth, and we mustn't change, and we must defend our version of the truth from anything/anyone deemed to be a threat.

And so, when we change, and if we dare to share that change, if we share the things we're learning, the things we're discovering, we can expect to be attacked.

Those who attack us, who come against us, who even dismiss and shun us, because of what we believe, are likely doing what they believe they must, based on the theology they believe. I used to believe the same way, and I sure scorned, warned and shunned my fair share of those I deemed to be "deceived and deceptive." I now deeply regret & abhor the damage caused ... both to the one being maligned, and the one doing the maligning.

They're doing the best they can - we all are. Hence Jesus' last prayer for us all ... "forgive them - for they know not what they are doing."

They mean well ... for them, it seems, the end justify the means.

I believe they're doing what they believe God is calling them to do ... what they must therefore do. They may see those they theologically disagree with as deceived, dangerous -- and that others (the "sheep") must be protected from what is being shared. There comes a time when people will kill others (or kill their reputation/character), thinking they are doing God a favor ...

They (& the rest of us) come by this honestly ... Christianity teaches us that it all boils down to "having the right beliefs" ... which is not far removed from "doing the right things." Meritology is meritology, no matter how we spin it.

Like the ancient Israelites, we believe that we *must* kill off those around us who believe/behave differently than the "pure" way we're taught to believe/behave -- and, like them, we mistakenly attribute this genocide to the will and command of God (God made us in His image, and we've been returning the favor ever since ...). Of course, we kill-off much more subtly these days, in our civilized sophistication ... not wanting to get our hands dirty. But what if Jesus really meant what He said about harboring hatred in our hearts...? I know I need to really be open to what He has to show me about that. Hating others is all too easy, and all too easy to religiously justify.

Grace has always been a radical and scandalous assault to our minds ... it strikes us as licentious & irresponsible slippery-slopedness. Not trusting in the absolute power of God's Love, we resort instead to fear (the second-most powerful force in the universe). We settle for it because of the benefits of control - we feel secure and "safe" when we feel in control, which requires controlling others, in the name of "correctional Christian love" of course. I mean, if we aren't allowed to get away with anything, we'll be darned if we let anyone else get away with anything. Reminds me of the quote I've heard, (paraphrased) - "the self-righteous lie awake at night, unable to sleep, thinking that someone, somewhere is getting away with something..."

Our human nature is such that we want so desperately to earn God's favor ... whether by good works, or by right beliefs, it matters not -- it's the same compulsion, the same misunderstanding of the nature of God's heart. A free gift is a huge insult to our natures. The "need" to earn, to see ourselves as "good enough" or even "better than" requires that we have those who are "less than" to compare ourselves to. It's a subtle thing that we're very good at denying.

In order to be God's "chosen ones" in our own minds, we must see ourselves as separate from "others" and we must attack and malign those who are different from us. We don't understand connection, we feel separated from God, and in that state of "fallenness" we feel we need to compete for God ... as if there's not enough of Him to go around. As if He's not really Omnipresent, as well as Omniscient and Omnipotent. As if He's limited, exclusional, conditional, powerless, and stuck with our ignorant choices ... as if He's been relegated to "Plan B" by our choices ... as if He's got nothing going for Him, and has to resort to people being threatened and scared into "relationship" with Him ... poor God...!

I've come to know a different God than the one others told me about. He's bigger and better than anything I was told. He's too good to *not* be true. He's amazing ... beyond anything I had dared to believe.

Yeah, LOL, I know some folks think I believe in satan, disguised as "god"...! 'Tis ok - they said that about Jesus, too.

I rejoice that He came to set the captives free ... & that's all of us, who are variously enslaved to the many lies we believe (some of those lies are called "doctrines", so they're particularly pernicious). He loves us all enough to not leave us where we are, but will lead us all into all truth.

One day, we'll all have a great laugh about the things we thought we knew ... and we will most likely even cry a bit about how we unknowingly harmed one another in our ignorance. But He'll be right there, smiling, wiping those tears from our eyes...

Shalom, Dena

Narratives of the Bible: The Story of Exile and Return

Exile ... like the exodus-from-bondage story, the exile story is one rooted in our individual and collective consciousness. Whether it be as "simple" as being sent into the exile of a disciplinary "time-out", or whether it be the all-too-common trauma of being cast out of the "popular crowd in school, or whether it be as insidious as being out-cast from a spiritual fellowship ... exile is part of the human experience.

Let's hear what Marcus Borg unpacks - my comments will follow:

- Like the exodus story, the story of exile and return is grounded in a historical experience. The exile began in 587 BC, when, after Jerusalem and its temple were conquered and destroyed by Babylon, some of the Jewish survivors were marched into exile in Babylon some eight hundred miles away. There they lived as refugees, separated from their homeland and under conditions of oppression. Next to the exodus, this experience of exile and return was the most important historical event shaping the life and religious imagination of the Jewish people. It seared itself into their consciousness and became for them a metaphor for their relationship with God.

- It is an experience of separation from all that is familiar and dear. It usually involves powerless and marginality, often oppression and victimization. As a life of being separated from that to which one belongs, exile is often marked by grief. This feeling of being separated from home and longing for home runs deeply within us.

(I can attest to the power of this experience ... while I was never marched for hundreds of miles, I experienced the pain of moving many times, as an "army brat" ... I moved 25 times in my life, most of them in my growing-up years ... 3 high schools ... numerous times of having to leave those I loved, back in the days when the hand-written letter was the only affordable means of communication. Even worse, however, is when a religious community moves from being a 'safe haven' to the ones who oppress and cast out a member ... shunning is alive and well within a great number of Christian churches and fellowships/ministries ... if one cannot sign a "statement of beliefs", or if one's perspective changes, or if one points out a problem, one *becomes* the problem ... the system, seeing the system as more important than those within it, will self-protect ... humans become disposable elements, so that the system can continue ... and yet, this very experience can be a blessing-in-disguise, as it shockingly reveals what is *not* "home" ... we cannot know and experience the truth, while enslaved to a counterfeit ... there are times when we turn to God while being shaken, only to discover that it is GOD who is doing the shaking! But ... I'm getting ahead of myself!)

- In our own lives, the experience of exile as estrangement or alienation can be felt as a flatness, a loss of connection with a center of vitality and meaning, when, one day become very much like another and nothing has much zest. We yearn for something that we perhaps only vaguely remember. Life in exile thus has a profound existential meaning. It is living away from Zion, the place where God is present. Indeed, exile is central in the symbolism of the Garden of Eden story in the book of Genesis. The garden - paradise - is the place of God's presence, but we live outside of the garden, east of Eden. If the problem is exile, what is the solution? The solution is, of course, a journey of return. Thus, like the exodus story, the story of exile and return is a journey story. It images the spiritual life as a journey to the place where God is present, a homecoming, a journey of return.

(So many things come to mind here ... I think of the prodigal's story ... his exile was self-imposed ... in chasing after what he *thought* would make him happy, he found himself in a place of ruination and exile. He was not led to the pig-sty by an external captor, but by an internal one ... his own ego told him how to find happiness, and he believed that small voice, rather than the Voice of truth. He had lived with the Voice of Truth - symbolized by his won father - for all of his life ... it had always been there for him. But he didn't recognize this truth until he had traveled far from it. This journey, then, this exile, was required -- he had to get far enough away, and to "lose" that which he'd not known he'd had, in order to wake up, come to his own senses, and finally *begin* to SEE what he'd always had. It took what it took - and the wise father let him go ... knowing the value of the experience was well-worth the monetary "loss" of his inheritance. It was worth forfeiting his fortune, in order to discover that which is priceless: his true identity as a Son. He returns from this self-imposed exile while still in the midst of confusion ... still rehearsing his speech, still very filled with mixed-motives. He is not yet clear, in his mind, of his identity ... he is willing to settle for less. However, his heart knows the way home, and so he goes ... even as his mind is yammering about how to justify this offense. I love how the father - who personifies God - brushes aside the rehearsed speech, and simply embraces and celebrates -- the son has returned! The father's heart has never left the son ... the Father never forgets who we really are, even while we are deluded ... the Father knows that there is no separation, that the separation is only in the mind of the one who has listened to his own fear- and shame-based egoic thinking. It is the *ego*, and only the *ego* that imagines, and thus experiences, the separation. The Father sees the Truth, from the Higher/Deeper perspective. The Father continues to watch and to love -- waiting for us to come to our senses, to awaken to His reality, to re-turn home to Him, and to who we really are. So too, does God deal with the "obedient" one who always held to the law, and never rebelled, and YET, never appreciated, nor experienced, what he always had ... whether we come to the end of ourselves through rebelling, or complying, the awakening, and the embrace of the Father is the same.

Re-turn implies that we were there to start with ... that we go back to where we began. So too with reconcile - to be reconciled is to imply a previous conciliation. I see our exile, in whatever form, is just as illusional and self-imposed as that of the prodigal -- indeed, I believe that that's one of the messages of the parable, if we only have eyes with which to see at that higher/deeper level.

So, too, with the narrative of the Garden ... I notice that when the humans chose to disobey, that though *they* hid, God came looking for them ... though our tradition tells us that they fell from grace, that relationship with God was severed, the text does not say so, nor does it imply so. God came to find them, to talk with them, to explain to them the consequences (not punishment!) for their choices, and then to provide for them. God knows, as a good Father, that His children had to strike out on their own, with their egoic-inheritance of shame and fear, to live it up and spend that inheritance, until they, too, would come to the end of all they had, wake up in whichever pig sty they'd find themselves in, come to their senses, remember who they really are, and return Home, to God.

It takes what it takes ... both individually and collectively. But people, and even cultures, do indeed awaken. It's happening, on both a micro and macro scale.

We, too, can realize that Home was always available, that God was always present, that we were always loved, always spoken to, always provided for. That only our own delusional/egoic perspective stood in the way of us *seeing* what there was to see.

We, too, can wake up, remember who we really are, and return Home.)

Tomorrow ~ Narratives of the Bible: The Priestly Story

Shalom, Dena