A "Lesser-Known" St. Francis Prayer...!

No time today for what I'd *love* to do, and delve into what I'm learning about the Creation Story, but that shall have to wait ... up to my eyebrows in needing to paint!

Yesterday, a reporter and photographer from our local paper, the Itemizer-Observer, came to my home to do a story on me, and my art ... just in time for the art-show! I had shamelessly self-promoted my story - suggesting to the editor that it would make for a story with true "local color" <snort!>...! So, they did it! I blathered on for about an hour, before they even asked any questions, LOL! I have NO idea what the story will say -- but I'll share a link, likely next Wednesday, when it comes out in the paper. Both of the newspaper folks were young, art-focused, and spiritually subversive -- we had a wonderful conversation...! We joked about creating a secret art-gang, and painting this town paisley while the good folks are sleeping!

And, today, the local antiques dealer, with a small "mall" downtown (3 blocks from my house), said that she's way-eager for me to sell my items there...! It'll be on a consignment basis, which is fine for me ... as it is, I've so fallen in love with what I've painted, that I'm reluctant to sell any of it...! This is like adopting out my babies!

But, back to St. Francis, and then on to painting ...

I just heard this prayer of his, which so resonates with me -- may it likewise inspire your heart:

"May God bless us with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships

~ so that we may live deep within our hearts.

May God Bless us with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people

~ so that we may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless us with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war

~ so that we may reach out our hands to comfort them and share their joy.

And may God bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we can make a difference in the world

~ so that we can continue to do what others claim cannot be done".

Shalom, Dena

Narratives of the Bible - The Priestly Story

And now, to wrap up these three major narratives of the Bible (at least as framed by my not-yet-met friend Marcus Borg - I mean the man is in Oregon - we are destined to meet!), here's the Priestly Story. Hang on -- it's not nearly as droll as the title may lead you to believe...!

- Within this story, the priest is the one who makes us right with God by offering sacrifice on or behalf. This is not a story primarily of bondage, exile and journey, but a story of sin, guilt, sacrifice and forgiveness. In this story, we are sinners who have broken God's laws, and who therefor stand guilty before God, the lawgiver and judge.

(This is the story that most of modern-traditional Christianity recognizes as *the* story of redemption ... that we fell from grace, that we are separated from God, that our relationship with Him has been severed, and that there is a blood-price to be paid ... that someone must die to appease the wrath of God. But it was neither the earliest story, nor the only story ...)

- All three of these stories [the 3 narratives of Borg's which I've been sharing here] shape the message of Jesus, the New Testament, and subsequent Christian theology. Jesus' own message speaks of the bondage and exile caused by the world of conventional wisdom, and of the sense of sinfulness and impurity generated by the purity system.

(I notice that the sense of sinfulness and impurity is generated *by* the purity system ... apart from the Law there is no sin ... and are we now not apart from the Law...? Are we perhaps not connecting the dots...?)

(In order to better understand how we traditionally see Jesus and the Atonement, it would be helpful to break down and describe 3 "main" understanding of the death and resurrection of Jesus in the history of Christian theology.)

- The oldest of these atonement theories is called "Christus Victor," a Latin phrase that means "Christ victorious." It is an image that understands the central work of Christ to be a triumphing over "the powers" that hold humans in bondage, including sin, death and the devil. In relating this to the three narratives we're exploring here, this understanding can be likened to "the powers" holding us in bondage as Pharaoh and Egypt, on a cosmic scale - or, the bondage/exodus narrative.

- The second major understanding of the Atonement is called the "substitutionary" or "objective" image. This image pictures the death of Jesus as a sacrifice for sin that makes God's forgiveness possible. Though sacrificial language is used to speak of the death of Jesus in the NT itself, this understanding of Jesus' death did not become dominant in the church until the early Middle Ages. This image clearly sees the death of Jesus through the priestly narrative.

(I recall hearing the startling fact that stories/art/focus of the Crucifixion as being central in Christianity did not occur until 1000 years after the death of Christ...! The early church largely focused on the resurrection - new life - as the primary message to share.)

- A third understanding of the Atonement can, with some modification, be correlated to the exile story. This understanding portrays Jesus neither as the one who triumphs over the powers nor as a sacrifice for sin, but as "revelator" or "disclosure." The emphasis is not upon Jesus accomplishing something that objectively changes the relationship between God and us, but upon Jesus revealing something that is true. [Selah. Pause and think on that.] What is revealed is more than one thing. Sometimes the emphasis is upon Jesus revealing what God is like (for example, love or compassion). Sometimes the emphasis is upon Jesus as "the light" who beckons us home from the darkness and exile. Sometimes the emphasis is upon Jesus' death and resurrection as the embodiment of the way of return, a disclosure of the internal spiritual process that brings us into an experiential relationship with the Spirit of God. Within this way of seeing Jesus, he is the incarnation of the path of return from exile.

(This feels huge to me. I've been seeing this, and sharing this, for some time now. That we were never separated from God, except *in our own minds* -- and that we were stuck there until Jesus came to *show* us the nature of God, and that we are IN relationship with God ... though we left Him in our own minds (like the prodigal), He never left us...! The joy that floods me as I ponder that is almost overwhelming...!)

- Though all of these stories were important for Jesus, the early movement, and subsequent Christian theology, one of them - the priestly story - has dominated the popular understanding of Jesus and the Christian life to the present day. It is, of course, the core element in the popular image of Jesus as the dying savior whose death is a sacrifice for our sins, thereby making our forgiveness by God possible. To say, "Jesus died for our sins" is to interpret his significance within the framework of the priestly story.

(I'm very aware at how alarming it can be to many people, that I, or anyone, would even dare to question whether this story is an absolute-foundational truth. I could not have looked at this, much less questioned it, just a few short years ago. And yet I dare to believe that it is the Spirit who is leading me to question this now ...)

- The priestly story of sin, guilt, sacrifice, and forgiveness is most commonly the primary story shaping our sense of who we are, our image of Jesus and of what God requires, and the nature of the Christian life. Because I am about to be very critical of the priestly story, I want to first acknowledge its power and its positive meaning ... the image of Jesus as a sacrifice for our sins is a sign of God's great love for us - the story's meaning is simple, direct and radical: we are accepted, just as we are. It means that our own sense of sin, impurity, and guilt need not stand between us and God. It means that new beginnings are possible; we do not need to be held in bondage by the burden of our past. And some people - those for whom the central issue in their live is guilt or a radically negative sense of self-wroth - very much need to hear this message. But when the priestly story becomes the dominant story or the only story for imaging Jesus and the Christian life, it has serious limitations - it produces severe distortions in our understanding of the Christian life [and of God].

(Before he then lists six of these distortions, I wanted to comment. I have to wonder whether that very sense of guilt and negative self-worth is not *caused* by believing in this narrative...? What manner of God do we envision when we believe in a God who must kill God to appease God ...?!?)

- The priestly story leads to a static understanding of the Christian life, making it into a repeated cycle of sin, built and forgiveness -- it does not often generate the question, You are accepted - now what?

(While I've come to see the "Christian life" as an institutionalized concept, and a poor substitution of the Abundant Life that Jesus spoke of, his point is not lost on me...!)

- It creates a passive understanding - rather than seeing life as a process of spiritual transformation, it stresses believing that God has already done what needs to be done - it leads to a passivity toward culture as well.

(On one hand, I *do* see that God has done all that needs to be done ... but even deeper, that there was nothing to be *done* except in our own skewed perspective. There is nothing more to strive for ... there is nothing left, and never was anything, for us to accomplish where a relationship with God is concerned ... there is only "wake up and SEE what you've always HAD...!" I see that the endless cycle of "try harder, fail, repent, try harder, fail, repent.." does lead to utter exhaustion and defeat -- and causes many to either become passive, or else to discount God altogether -- who wants intimacy with a harsh task-master, much less one who says, "love me or else I will torture you!"...?)

- The priestly story tends also to lead to an understanding of Christianity as primarily a religion of the afterlife. The crucial issue becomes being right with God before we die: believe now for the sake of salvation later.

(Thus life today, here and now, is largely discounted -- it's all about "dying or waiting for Jesus to return" - as if life here on earth doesn't matter ... and, since Jesus is going to "burn up most of the planet and most of it's inhabitants", why bother with taking care of the earth? why bother interacting with "others" unless it's to give them a tract ... after all, this life doesn't matter, it's all about "getting to heaven when we die.." Sad that we don't recognize this life for the gift it is.)

- The priestly story images God primarily as lawgiver and judge. God's requirements must be met, and because we cannot meet them, God graciously provides the sacrifice that meets those requirements. Yet the sacrifice generates a *new* requirement: God will forgive those who believe that Jesus was the sacrifice, and will not forgive those who do not believe. God's forgiveness becomes contingent or conditional. Thus, though the priestly story speaks of God as gracious, it places the grace of God within a system of requirements. The overarching image for God's relationship to us is a legal metaphor, which pictures God as the giver and enforcer of a set of requirements. The priestly story most often turns the subversive wisdom of Jesus into Christian conventional wisdom.

(Whew! I had to read that passage over and over, several times, to let it sink in. The utter absurdity of calling that grace...! We just replaced the requirement to keep the law, with the requirement to believe the right thing! It's still back on US! It's still about us performing a "work" to *earn* God's favor...! HOW is that grace?!? How does that line up with God, who was in Christ, reconciling the world - from before the foundation of the world - to Himself...? How did we sink from a living relationship to a static legal situation..?)

- Moreover, this story is very hard to believe. This notion that God's only son came to this planet to offer his life as a sacrifice for the sins of the world, and that God could not forgive us without this having happened, and that we are saved by believing this story is simply incredible. Taken metaphorically, this story can be very powerful. But taken literally, it is a profound obstacle to accepting the Christian message. To many people, it simply makes no sense, and I think we need to be straightforward about that.

(I almost didn't include that passage, as I can envision what my family and friends would say to that ... "the wisdom of God is foolishness to man". Yes, but the good news should be something that even a child can comprehend - and if it's truly good news for ALL mankind, as the angels stated, then why have we made it into conditionally good news for a very few, and horrible news for the vast majority?!? Sorry - I'm going with the angels on this one.)

- Finally there is one more problem with the priestly story: some people do not feel much guilt. Perhaps some people should feel guilt who do not. But some honestly do not, guilt is not the central issue in their lives. Yet they may have strong feelings of bondage, or strong feelings of alienation or estrangement. For these people, the priestly story has nothing to say.

(Borg then shares an interesting what-if: what if Moses had gone to Egypt and said to the Hebrew slaves, "My children, your sins are forgiven." They would've said, "What? What does that have to do with us? Our problem isn't that we're sinners, you idiot, our problem is that we're slaves!" For folks who are in bondage in one way or another in their lives, the sin/forgiveness message isn't what they need to hear -- they need to hear that God does not desire that they be in bondage to anything - including a false perspective. And for those feeling alienation and estrangement, the message they need to hear is, "it's not God's will that you remain in exile here.")

- Yet when the priestly story is understood as one of the three ways of imaging the Christian life, rather than the primary way, the problems with it largely disappear. We can see this by identifying four elements that the macro-stories of Scripture share. First, all of them are stories of suffering and of being at an experiential distance from God. Second, all of them make powerful affirmations, not just about the human condition, but also about God. They are stories about God, not just about us, and they portray God as intimately involved with human life. There is a power that wills our liberation, a light shining in the darkness that invites us home from exile, a compassionate presence that accepts us just as we are, though we may not yet know that.

(YES! That's the God I know and experience! It's real and true and just *is* -- whether we YET know it or not...!)

- Third, all of them are stories of hope. All of them speak about new beginings brought about by God. Fourth and finally, all are stories of a journey. Each images the spiritual life not as a static cycle of sin, guilt and forgiveness, but as a journey. It is a journeying toward God that is also with God. In the context of a journey story, the priestly story means that God accepts us just as we are, wherever we are on our journey. Moreover, the internalization of the new identity conferred by the priestly story - that I am accepted by God, beloved by God - is a process that can take years. That process is itself a journey.

(What a beautiful way of stating this! With God and toward God ... and I affirm, at least for myself, that this journey did indeed take years ... that it's still unfolding ... that I expect it to take all of my life, if not way into eternity, or whatEVER comes next!)

- For some, the need is liberation; for others, the need is home-coming; and for still others, the need is acceptance. But beneath their differences the stories all image the spiritual life as a journey whose central quality is a deepening and transforming relationship with God.

(Yes! For me, I had to shed the former stories, the former doctrines ... in order for that which is experientially true to be free to BE free within me. and through me. I like that - feel free to feel free!

- The conventional wisdom that Jesus subverted had characteristics of both bondage and exile. Conventional wisdom is life under the lordship of culture, which is both oppressive and alienating, and his message is filled with the theme of liberation and return - HE came to "set the captives free."

(And what enslaves us MORE than false thoughts and beliefs about God, about ourselves..? How and why would God leave us in damagine delusions, and then punish us for believing those lies...? Is His hand too short for Him to deliver us from ALL that ensalves us...? Is there anything that can separate us from the love of God? Do we not *believe* what we read and experience...? Why do we listen and heed the voices of the traditions of man, which indeed do nullify the words of God...?)

- Jesus even subverts the priestly story itself -- his subversion of the purity system undercuts the priestly story's image of the human condition as "stained" or impure. He forgives sins apart from the institution of temple, priest, and sacrifice, thereby negating their necessity. The subversion of the priestly story continues in Hebrews, wherein the system of priesthood and sacrifice has now been abolished ... strikingly, within the traditions of the early Christian movement, the priestly story was used to negate the priestly story!

(And YET, we highlight and hyper-focus on the priestly story ...!)

- As those who journey with Jesus, we are on the road with him ... undertaking the journey from the life of conventional wisdom, from the life in our Egypt, and life in our Babylon, to the alternative wisdom of life in the Spirit. It means listening to his teachings - sometimes understanding it, sometimes not quite getting it. It can involve denying him, even betraying him ... that journey is in his company, in his presence. It means eating at his table, and experiencing his banquet - an inclusive banquet. Being nourished by him, and fed by him. Journeying with Jesus also means to be in a community, to become part of the alternative community of Jesus [as opposed to the conventional community of tradition]. It is the road less traveled ... becoming compassionate. A journey of transformation ... leading from the life under the lordship of culture [whether secular or religious] into the life of companionship with God. It is an image of not primarily believing or being good, but as a relationship with God.

(As an interesting aside ... the word "believe" did not originally mean believing a set of doctrines or teachings - in both Greek and Latin its roots mean "to give one's heart to". Further, "believe" comes from the German "belieben" ... which means "be love.")

- Believing in Jesus in the sense of giving one's heart to him is the movement from second hand relation to firsthand relationship; from having heard about Jesus with the hearing of the ear to being in relationship with [and hearing the Voice of] the Spirit of Christ. Ultimately, Jesus is not simply a figure of the past, but a figure of the present. Meting that Jesus - the living Jesus who comes to us even now - will be like meeting Jesus again for the first time.

(Can I hear an amen, LOL! I have been, and continue to be, experiencing this meeting-Jesus-again for the first time ... even though it often feels like more of a "remembering" that which I'd lost, when I was caught in the swamp of conventional wisdom and tradition).

Thank You, God..!

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

Narratives of the Bible: From Bondage to FREEDOM...!

My goal of daily blogging has been temporarily derailed by my creative pursuits in another direction ... I'm gearing up for my first art-show in 5 years - my "west-coast-debut", which launches in 9 (yikes!) days...! I've been painting like a mad-woman, have thoroughly taken over the house with various stages of productivity (priming in the front parlour - plastic sheeting all over the floor; painting in the kitchen - the poor children haven't seen a *real* meal in two weeks; final products have hijacked the back parlour ... and my son's work-out space, aka the garage/carriage-house, has been turned into a varnishing-station. I am SO in need of a real studio! And who needs sleep, really...? (no wonder Van Gogh cut off his ear -- he was sleep-deprived!)

And yet, during my spare moments of reading, my heart and mind are being captured by the words of so many brilliant and insightful sharers-of-concepts-and-experiences (otherwise known as "authors") - albeit folks I was seriously warned to "STAY AWAY FROM" in my "previous life." Nowadays I tend to listen more to the Voice within, than to the cacophony of voices without. And yes, I have discerned that many of them are indeed, without.

So, of course, I must share. I cannot keep this wealth of insight, this challenge-of-perspective, this beauty of transformation all to myself - eGADS! And, quite simply, though I initially internalize what I learn, and allow it to percolate and marinate, I must also bounce it off of others, "outloud", whether verbally or in writing (or both!), in order to better process what I'm receiving. As my friend Kevin Beck says, "we are smarter together than any of us alone." (I'm paraphrasing him - Kevin, if you're reading this, and I've misquoted you, please feel free to tweak what you *actually* say..!)

With no further ado (and I could ado all the day long!), I shall share from yet-another chapter of Marcus Borg's provocative book, "Meeting Jesus AGAIN For the First Time." This was one of those "OMG - Thank You God" chapters ... now heavily underlined, asterisked, bracketed and highlighted -- with pertinent "headers" written on each relevant page! A good book is a much-desecrated book! :)

(Again, his comments will be shared first, with my own comments/reflections to follow in parentheses.)

- We learned about Jesus in the context of the Bible, and our sense of what the Bible is about will affect our sense of what Jesus was about. Scripture shapes our understanding of Jesus.

(This seems self-evident -- though, of course, many folks report having an experience of God, of Jesus, even before knowing much, if anything, about the Bible. It would seem that for most of us, the exposure to the Bible came first. HOW we view the Bible, then, will shape how we view Jesus ... Borg goes into this in more detail in his related book, "Reading the Bible AGAIN for the First Time" - a book I'm now reading, and will likely share on in future blog-posts. I find it fascinating that Borg, who comes from an Evangelical background, and Rohr, who comes from a Roman Catholic background, have come to nearly identical conclusions, via their own experiences and explorations - I am becoming very fond of both of these men, and feel quite indebted to their courage in sharing what they do - which has drawn heavy criticism, and even charges of "heresy" from their mainline, traditional brethren.)

- In the last two decades, a movement known as story theology has called attention to the naratival character of the Bible, or to say the same thing, the centrality of "story" in Jewish and Christian scriptures.

(But of course! How did we previously miss this? Both the old and new testaments were oral stories LONG before anything was written down. We humans are a story-telling species. In fact, much of what we take for "factual truth", biblically speaking, comes more out of the collective story that we believe -- and the current "traditional" story isn't the *only* story that reflects deeper truth!)

- Religious laws speak of how to behave; theology and doctrine speak of how to understand and what to believe; but stories appeal to the imagination, to that place within us where our images of reality, life, and ourselves reside.

(& yet our tradition has emphasized law, theology and doctrine, at the expense of imagination ...)

- My [Borg's] central claim is that there are three "macro-stories" at the heart of Scripture that shape the Bible as a whole, and that each of these stories images the religious life in a particular way. Two of these stories are grounded in the history of ancient Israel: the story of the Exodus from Egypt, and the story of the exile and return from Babylon. The third, the priestly story, is grounded not in the history of ancient Israel, but in an institution - namely the temple, priesthood and sacrifice... reduced to what they have in common ... they claim that something is wrong with our lives as we typically live them; that is, they contain a description of the human condition or the human predicament. Second, they speak of a solution to that problem. To use a medical metaphor, the various religious traditions provide a diagnosis of the human condition, and a prescription for a cure.

(I found what he unpacks here to be amazing! Stay with it, and see what unfolds in your own thinking -- see how it lines up with your own experience.)

- For the people of ancient Israel, the story of the exodus from Egypt was their "primal narrative." It shaped their identity, and their sense of God. Around this story, the Pentateuch (first five books of the Bible, also known as Torah, or Law) came to be. This story was remembered and celebrated again and again, preeminently in the annual festival of Passover. What is the story about? Most basically, it is a story of bondage, liberation, a journey and a destination. The destination of the journey is the promised land, which symbolically is the place of God's presence. As a story about God and us, what is it saying? Our problem, according to this story, is that we live in Egypt, the land of bondage. It provocatively images the human condition as bondage, an image with both cultural-political and psychological-spiritual dimensions of meaning. It invites us to ask: "To what am I in bondage, and to what are we in bondage?"

(Borg then suggests that we're in bondage to many things: to cultural messages about what we *should* be like, and what we *should* pursue, messages about success, attractiveness, gender roles, the "good life". We are in bondage to voices from out of our past, and to addictions of various kinds. The Pharaoh who holds us in bondage is inside of us as well as outside of us -- who is this Pharaoh? How are we enslaved - what means of fear and oppression are being used as tools to hold us in bondage? Who or what is trying to remain in control of us? Take a moment and consider the ways in which you have been, or still are, in bondage...)

- If the problem is bondage, the solution, of course, is liberation. In the Exodus story, the liberation begins at night, in the darkness before dawn. It involves leaving that to which we are familiar - leaving the kingdom and dominion of Pharaoh, passing through the sea to the other side, a passage from one kind of life to another.

(I've experienced, and have heard others state, that this leaving the old and familiar safety of bondage can feel like a death ...! It's terribly unsettling and frightening to leave the familiar and known, even if that which is familiar was leaching the life out of us. The unfamiliar, the unknown is frightening to us. It speaks of a lack of control, it allows our fears to rise to the surface ... it can, and often does, cause us to run headlong back into the security we used to know ... willing even to pay the price of bondage, in order to feel "safe." How have you sacrificed freedom, in order to feel "safe"?)

- But liberation is not the end of the story. Rather, "the way out" leads to a journey through the wilderness. As the place beyond the domestication of culture, the wilderness is a place of freedom, where God is encountered and known. Yet it can also be a place of fear and anxiety, where we erect one golden calf after another, and where we sometimes find ourselves longing for the security of Egypt. But the wilderness is also a place where we are nourished by God. The journey lasts a long time - it's destination is life in the presence of God. Yet God is not simply the destination, but the one who is known on the journey. It is a journeying toward God that is also with God.

(I love this! For quite a while now, I've been saying, "God is both our Guide and our Goal" - what a delight to find the same sentiment expressed by someone else! What a wonderful confirmation of my own experience! I find that very many folks want to rush the wilderness-phase of the experience -- we humans, or perhaps human sin the modern mindset, seem to prefer the destination, and thus discount the journey. But it takes what it takes - nothing is wasted, noting is trivial, nothing is to be regretted or despised. I see the sp ritual life about the journey ... living in the moment of *now* - the only moment we actually have. When we hyper-focus on the past, whether by regretting it, or by glorifying/romanticizing it; or when we hyper-focus on the future, whether in fearing supposed apocalyptic events, or by longing for a utopian fulfillment, we utterly miss the moment-at-hand. God, the great I Am, is in the now ... He's not the "I Was" nor the "I Will Be". Of course we are to learn from the past, and we are to plan for the future ... but we cannot forfeit the now-moment, the only moment in which we can engage the Spirit of God, His very Presence - He is HERE, NOW. If we are in the wilderness, let's really BE in the wilderness. It's not a God-forsaken place, but the place in which He leads our transformation. The very symbolism of 40 years is about transformation -- all of the "40's" in scripture speak of moving out of one "place" (or mindset) into another. It speaks of a cleansing, a stripping-away of the old, in order to ready for the new. It's about transition, about letting go, about dying, rising from the ashes of the old.

- Thus, as an epiphany of the human condition and the solution, the story of the exodus images the spiritual life as a journey from the life of bondage to life in the presence of God. Though we find ourselves in bondage to Pharaoh, it proclaims, there is a way out. Through signs and wonders, through the great and mighty hand of God, God can liberate us, indeed wills our liberation and yearns for our liberation, from a life of bondage to culture & religion to a life as a journeying with God.

(What more could I add to that?!? It's become clear to me that the rest of this amazing chapter would best be broken down into two more blog-entries ... so as to not overwhelm, and to allow for digestion. If we bite off too much at once, we may choke!)

Next: Narratives of the Bible: The Story of Exile and Return

Shalom, Dena

Who is Jesus ... *Really* - Part II

As promised (though a day late!), I'm back at it:

- As a teacher of wisdom, Jesus undermined the world of conventional wisdom and spoke of an alternative. The two are intrinsically linked: the first must be deconstructed in order for the second to appear.

(This is what's spoken of as "dying to self" ... dying to our preconceived notions of *what is*, so that what *Really Is* can emerge out from under the veneer of the counterfeit/illusion. This dying process contains all the normal stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. For those who have embarked on a radical journey out of religion, and into the Spirit, does this sound/feel familiar...?)

- Jesus often used the language of paradox and reversal to shatter the conventional wisdom of his time.

(For instance: a despised/heretical/impure Samaritan is featured as a hero; a Pharisee - the very embodiment of righteousness and purity - is pronounced as unrighteous, while the outcast is included; riding a humble donkey is a symbol of a *new* sort of Kingdom.)

- So also Jesus frequently spoke of the Kingdom of God in the language of the impossible or unexpected combinations.

(Examples: The Kingdom is like a seed of a weed (mustard plant); The Kingdom is compared to an "impure" woman, and to an "impure" element (leaven); The Kingdom is for children/nobodies, those with "beginner's minds"; The Kingdom as a banquet for outcasts; many who expected to be in the Kingdom would not be, while those considered to be excluded, were included - and note, this has nothing to do with "where we go after we die".)

- Morever, the Kingdom is not somewhere *else* - rather it is among you, inside you, and outside you. Neither is it some time in the future, for it is here, spread out on the earth - people just do not see it.

(It astonishes me that the traditions of man have ignored what Jesus said about the Kingdom, and insist on it being a future-coming event that will be *observed* by the entire planet ... taking metaphorical verses literally, we've turned the story into a nonsense-myth, which not only undermines the revelations of Jesus, but turns many Christians into a passive lot who see the entire planet, and most of its inhabitants as soon to be destroyed...!)

- Jesus spoke of two ways, a wise way and a foolish way, a way of life and a way of death, a narrow way and a broad way. For most sages, the wise way was the way of conventional wisdom, and the foolish way was the path of disregarding conventional wisdom. Jesus reversed this: he spoke of the broad way that led to destruction not as gross wickedness or flagrant foolishness, but as the way of conventional wisdom. He directly attacked the central values of his social world's conventional wisdom: family, wealth, honor, purity and religiosity. All were sanctified by tradition, and their importance was part of the taken-for-granted world.

(Interesting ... Jesus attacked the very things that traditional Christianity hallmarks.)

- Those who were secure in the world of conventional wisdom found little worthwhile in his message, and much that was nonsensical, offensive and threatening.

(This continues to play out today - those who leave religion to follow Christ are viewed as being nonsensical, offensive and threatening.)

- Jesus invites his hearers to see God not as judge, not as the one who has requirements that must be met, not as the legitimator of conventional wisdom - but as gracious and compassionate.

(So often, when I speak of God as Love, God *being* love, I'm reminded by others that God is also judgment, wrath, and punisher. One friend recently reported that the following statement came out of an online conversation: "I cannot believe in a God who would not kill and punish.")

- Jesus invites us to see reality as characterized by a cosmic generosity and by an overflowing effulgence of life - even while acknowledging the transitoriness of life. He speaks of God as the one who "makes the sun to rise on the evil and the good," and as one who "sends the rain upon the just and unjust," without thought of reward and punishment. In the story of the vineyard owner who pays all of the workers the same amount regardless of how long or how hard they have worked, the hearers are invited to enter a world in which everybody receives what they need. The workers who complain are the voice of the old world, the world of conventional wisdom, and the vineyard owner's response to them is striking: "Do you begrudge my generosity?" The parable invites the hearers to consider that God is like this, and not like the god of requirements and reward.

(Are we, as humans, so very addicted to the concept of requirements and rewards, that we cannot SEE God as Jesus was revealing Him? Could it be that we're viewing the world through the eyes of our egos, which insist on earning and achieving? Could it be this very perspective, this egoic insistence upon accomplishment, that needs to die, so that our true selves, can arise & see God in the way we've always longed for ...?)

- The ending of the parable of the prodigal son is telling -- rather than ending with the celebration of the lost son returning (powerful in and of itself), the parable ends with a question hanging in the air: will the older son's sense of the way things *ought* to be keep him out of the banquet?

(Will our own insistence of how things *ought* to be, according to the traditions we've always known, keep us from seeing the Kingdom which is all around and in us, keep us from seeing ourselves as we really are, keep us from enjoying God as He really is?)

- The story of the prodigal images the religious life very differently from how it is seen within the world of conventional wisdom: as a life of exile "in a far country" and a journey of return - not as a life of duty, requirements, and rewards. Between the two there is an enormous gap.

(Having lived within that conventional-wisdom-world of duty, requirements and rewards, and having begun the journey into the return (both with and to God), my heart *aches* for all those who yet-believe that they must adhere to duty/requirement, hoping for rewards, and who thus see God as a demanding task-master, or, more subtly, One whose love is conditioned upon our own level of belief.)

- If we take the graciousness of God seriously, it completely undermines the world of conventional wisdom [including Christian tradition], whether in religious or secular form. This emphasis on God's graciousness in the message of Jesus often leads to questions about whether there is any element of judgment at all. The notion that our life on earth is primarily about meeting God's requirements so that we may have a blessed after-life is foreign to Jesus. In the few texts where He does speak of a last judgment, it is to subvert widely accepted notions about that judgment. In short, it seems that the threat of being judged by God for one's sins at the last judgment was not central to Jesus, if it was in his message at all. Yet the historical judgment does play a role in Jesus' message, in much the same way as it does in the classical prophets of the Old Testament: blindness has it's consequences, both for a society and for the individual. On the level of society, because Jerusalem (the center of the ruling elites) did not know "the things that make for peace," historical conflict lay ahead [in the Roman siege and destruction in 70AD]. On the individual level (now as then), if one does not leave the world of conventional wisdom, one remains in it, living in "the land of the dead." THAT, (and not the threat of "hell") is the issue.

(Yes! I've come to see this through my own journey and studies. All of the judgment warnings, all of the exhortations to choose the narrow way or be destroyed, were historical warnings of the judgment and destruction that was to come upon Jerusalem in 70AD -- Read Jesus' warnings in what we all the "Olivet Discourse" - Mt. 24, Mk. 16, & Lk 21 - for yourself, and see if his words make more sense about the "end of the planet" or the "end of the Jewish age/covenant". For more exploration on this fascinating and life-changing understanding, see the articles at www.pantelism.com, and the discussion forums both there, and at www.presence.tv. There is no need for us to continue to live under the illusional fear about "hell" and the "last judgment", which were fabricated out of the misperceptions of the traditions of man.)

- What then is the way that leads to life? The narrow way, the way less traveled, is the alternative wisdom of Jesus. It has two closely related dimensions. First, it is an invitation to see God as gracious and womb like, rather than as the source and enforcer of the requirements, boundaries, and divisions of conventional wisdom (whether Jewish, Christian or secular). Second, it is an invitation to a path that leads away from the life of conventional wisdom to a life that is more and more centered in God. The alternative wisdom of Jesus sees the religious life as a deepening relationship with the Spirit of God, not as a life of requirements and reward.

(While I would replace his wording of "religious life" to "Spiritual life" or even "Abundant Life", I agree wholeheartedly with what Borg is saying here! We've had God all wrong - we've continued to focus and highlight and promote the fear-and shame-based concepts of God that were prevalent in the early stages of man's awareness of God, rather than seeing God through the revelation of God in the life and teachings of Jesus. We've let fear cast out perfect love, rather than allowing perfect love to cast out all fear...! We have nothing to fear but fear itself.)

- Jesus used the imagery of the heart to speak of the need for an internal transformation. The heart represents the self at its deepest level. When the heart is centered in the finite, it becomes closed and heartened rather than open and receptive [I would include doctrines and theological dogma as part of what's "finite"]. What is needed then, is a new heart - an internal transformation brought about by a deep centering in God. It is possible to be centered in sacred tradition and yet have one's heart far from God.

(I know well the delusions of a life centered in sacred tradition -- wherein my heart was indeed far from God, despite knowing a great many things man said *about* God.)

- The way less traveled, the narrow way, is life in the Spirit. The life that Jesus himself knew. The transformation of perception to which Jesus invited his hearers flowed out of his own spiritual experience. There is a sovereign voice in his wisdom, one that knows tradition but whose vantage point is not simply tradition.

(& yet Christianity insists upon upholding and defending tradition..!)

- Our secular culture insists that we uphold the "Three A's": Achievement, Affluence, and Appearance. Not only is the effort to measure up burdensome, but even when we are reasonably successful at doing so, we often find the rewards unsatisfying, We may have the experience of being satiated and yet still hungry... we are made in such a way that we have an appetite for the Infinite. The signs that people in modern culture often do yearn for something more are many and encouraging.

(I see all manner of evidence of that hunger, of an awakening, across the board ... this, I believe, is because all humans are spiritual, whether they yet know it or not ... all people are infused with God, whether they yet know it or not -- Paul affirms this in Athens when he tells the pagan hearers that they are all children of God. As promised, God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself ... Christ is drawing all men to himself, to God.)

- The way of Jesus also challenges many common forms of Christianity. In particular, it invites us to move from "secondhand religion" to "firsthand religion" [which I would say, "firsthand relationship"]. Secondhand religion is a way of being religious based on believing what one has heard from others. It consists of thinking that the Christian life is about believing what the Bible says or what the doctrines of the church say. Firsthand religion [relationship], on the other hand, consists of a relationship to that which the Bible and the teachings of the church point - namely that reality we call God or the Spirit of God.

(Read that section again, and let it sink in. Do you see? Are you experiencing a secondhand religion, or a firsthand relationship? Which do you want? To which are you being drawn? Do you trust the One who is drawing more than you trust that which you've always been taught?)

- The transformation from secondhand religion to firsthand religion [relationship], from living in accord with what one has heard to life centered in the Spirit, is central to the alternative wisdom of Jesus and also to the Jewish tradition in which he stood. As Job said, "I head heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye beholds thee."

(Jesus spoke of having "eyes to see" ... and that if our eye is dark [blinded by conventional wisdom/tradition] then the whole body is darkness ... we can question our thinking, our beliefs, our perspective, and try on a new perspective, to see how well it fits, to see if it resonates with the spirit-to-Spirit connection within us.)

- The gospel of Jesus -- the good news of Jesus' own message -- is that there is a way of being that moves beyond both secular and religious conventional wisdom. The path of transformation of which Jesus spoke leads from a life of requirements and measuring up (whether to culture or to God) to a life of relationship with God. It leads from a life of anxiety to a life of peace and trust. It leads from the bondage of self-preoccupation to the freedom of self-forgetfulness. It leads from life centered in culture [or tradition] to a life centered in God.

(This choice, between the broad way of conventional wisdom and the narrow way of alternative/radical wisdom, is about how we live *this life* -- it is a misconception to think that it speaks of an "afterlife" ... the Kingdom of Heaven/God is here and now, within us and all around us, unobservable and yet more real than anything tangible. We either self-enter, or self-exclude ourselves. This is about choices and consequences in this life, not about ever-lasting bliss or torment. Sadly, the traditional Christian message has confused the message of Jesus, enslaving us to a life of requirements and reward/punishment, causing us to fear, rather than enjoy, God ... keeping us from experiencing the reality of the here-and-now Kingdom. May He continue to open our eyes, and may we not resist the leading of the Spirit, as He continues to lead us into all truth...)

Shalom, Dena

Who is Jesus, *Really*...?

Have you ever wondered about Jesus? I mean, He's arguably the most influential person in all of history, and certainly our denotation of time is divided so as to reflect His life, but have you ever wondered whether you know Him, or just know *about* Him...?

I have.

I've certainly come to question what I've been told about Him by others ... sometimes the claims about Him, and the representations of Him, strike me as missing the point about Him. Certainly His teachings have been misunderstood ... I no longer see Him as primarily a teacher of morality (how to behave), but as a teacher of wisdom (how to know God).

I'm reading a fascinating book about Jesus - "Meeting Jesus AGAIN, for the First Time" by Marcus Borg. Yeah, that dude. The one I was warned about - the terrible and liberal (redundant words in my former culture!) "Jesus Seminar" participant. (You can read more about him here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Borg)

He's had an amazing spiritual journey, and is an outspoken critic of Christianity ... hence the indictment against him (if you point out a problem, you become the problem). While our paths are uniquely different, it would seem that he and I see eye to eye on a great many things (go figure!) ... including having a more panentheistic view of God (God being all in all).

It's certainly giving me much food for thought ... and in case anyone else would benefit from what I'm enjoying, I thought I'd share a bit. This is taken from Chapter 4 - "Jesus and Wisdom: Teacher of Alternative Wisdom."

- The subject matter of wisdom is broad. Basically, wisdom concerns how to live. It speaks of the nature of reality and how to live one's life in accord with reality.

(sure 'nuff makes sense to me!)

- There are two types of wisdom (& of sages): the most common type is conventional wisdom, or mainstream wisdom of a culture (what "everyone knows"). The second type is a subversive and alternative wisdom. This wisdom questions and undermines conventional wisdom and speaks of another way, another path.

(I certainly started out in the first, though I never "fit" well ... was forever in trouble with those touting status quo.)

- The wisdom of the subversive sages is the wisdom of "the road less traveled." And so it was with Jesus: his wisdom spoke of "the narrow way" which led to life, and subverted the "broad way" followed by the many, which led to destruction.

(What was your word-picture with the words "life" and "destruction"? If you thought they were synonymous with "heaven" and "hell", then may I suggest that your thoughts are rooted in conventional wisdom, and is missing what Jesus was really warning about..? More on that tomorrow.)

- Jesus largely taught using metaphor, in the form of parables and aphorisms (short memorable sayings, or "one liners"). These are invitational forms of speech. Jesus used them to invite his hearers to see something they might not otherwise see. As evocative forms of speech, they tease the imagination into activity, suggest more than they say, and invite a transformation in perception.

(Yeah! Woot! And to think I was told that the imagination was a dangerous commodity, and to denounce and deny it...! This is indeed how I still experience God's Spirit inviting me to explore the unquestioned beliefs behind my thoughts and understandings.)

- (Borg claims that though we read long strings of these one-liners in various "sermons" of Jesus ... in actuality, Jesus wouldn't have delivered them in that manner. What we have in the gospels is a condensation of parables and aphorisms given over time - he would likely repeat his stories in various locales, as an itinerant teacher.) As provocative sayings meant to lead the hearer to a new perception, they require time for digestion ... thus, we need to imagine them being spoken one at a time. What we have in the gospels is the memorable core (or gist) of sayings that were repeated many times - the resonant lines that hearers would remember as the heart o longer discourses or dialogues.


(That makes such obvious sense to me ... when I receive a rather insightful article or email from someone, I often call it a "keeper" ... if it's heavily laden with food for thought, I often need to save it, to re-read it later, or even to print it off and read it "devotionally" or contemplatively ... the better to take it in. So too, it seems, or even moreso, with the sayings/teachings of Jesus.)

- Jesus' appeal is not to the will - not "Do this" - but rather, "Consider seeing it this way." As invitational forms of speech, the parables do not invoke external authority. They do not appeal to divine authority, as do the speech forms of divine lawgivers ("Thus sayeth the Lord, you shall...") and inspired prophets "Hear the word of the Lord ..."). Rather, their authority rests in themselves -- that is, in their ability to involve and affect the imagination. Their voice is the invitational, rather than the imperative. The appeal is to the imagination, to that place within us in which reside our images of reality and our images of life itself; the invitation is to a different way of seeing. HOW one sees makes all the difference. How we see determines the path that we walk, the way that we live.

(SO true! When I be lived that Jesus was primarily a teacher of morality - right and wrong - I lived within that black and white duality of judgment ... everything, and everyone, I saw was judged as being "good" or "evil", "right" or "wrong". This set up all manner of walls between me and "them". Now, I'm seeing Jesus as primarily inviting me to view from the higher/deeper perspective ... to actually "tell myself another story" of what *is* ... this narrative is all-inclusive; no more "us vs. them" - it builds bridges rather than walls -- though in experiential reality, some folks have taken those extended bridges, turned them sideways, and used them as walls ...)

- Jesus was not primarily a teacher of information (what we believe) or morals (how to behave), but a teacher of a way or a path of transformation. A way of transformation from what to what? From a life in the world of conventional wisdom to a life centered in God.

(I just love this! How freeing! Not about what to *do*, but about how to *be* ... doing always flows best out of beingness.)

- Conventional wisdom is the dominant consciousness of any culture. It's a culture's most taken-for-granted understandings about the way things are (its worldview, or image of reality) and about the way to live (its ethos, or way of life). It is "what everybody knows" - the world that everybody is socialized into through the process of growing up. It is enculturated consciousness.

(IOW, group-think.)

- Conventional wisdom is intrinsically based upon the dynamic of rewards and punishment. You reap what you sow; follow this way and all will go well; you get what you deserve; the righteous will prosper - these are the constant messages of conventional wisdom. The dynamic is the basis of popular Western notions of a last judgment in which we are rewarded or condemned according to our behavior and/or belief, as well as the basis of popular Eastern notions of karma. It is also found in secular form: work hard and you will succeed. It carries with it a hard-edged corollary, of course: if you don't succeed, or are not blessed, or do not prosper, it is because YOU have not followed the right path. Life becomes a matter of requirement and reward, failure and punishment.

(This makes me want to weep...! Ah, the exhaustion, and the shame, that come from such a system! This seems hard-wired into our culture, including the Christian culture! We observe this tendency within ourselves, and we project it onto God ... despite what God, and Jesus, have tried to tell us about God.)

- Psychologically, conventional wisdom becomes the basis for identity and self-esteem. The superego (whether we choose to cal it that or not) is the internalized voice of culture - the storehouse of "oughts" in our heads. It functions as a generally critical internal voice - the internal cop and the internal judge. I am who I am according t the standards of conventional wisdom, and I will think well or poorly of myself depending upon how well I measure up to its standards. Conventional wisdom is thus life under the superego.

(Anyone else ever stand accused by the internal judge, who works on behalf of collective-conventional wisdom? Guess what?!? That ain't God! I've come to equate the "accuser of the brethren" with that very self-same egoic voice within, as well as with the Law in general.)

- Life in this world can be and often is grim. It is a life of bondage to the dominant culture ... a life of limited vision and blindness. It is a world of judgment. I judge myself and others by how well I and they measure up. It is a world of comparison. It is a life of anxious striving, and of a "performance principle."

(This, for me, in my own variant-range of experiences, is an apt description of Christianity - in contrast to the Abundant Life of following Christ into knowing God.)

- There is an image of God that goes with the world of conventional wisdom. When conventional wisdom appears in religious form, God is imaged primarily as lawgiver and judge. God becomes the one whom we must satisfy, the one whose requirements must be met. When this happens in the Christian tradition, it leads to an image of the Christian life as a life of requirements. Indeed, this happens so frequently that it is the most common form of Christianity.

(This also impacts how we view the Atonement of Jesus ... we see it as an angry God demanding payment, in blood -- someone must die! And so Jesus becomes the fall-guy, taking on the wrath of God Who must be appeased. When we boil down this view of the Atonement, which is called the Penal Substitionary Theory, we're really saying this: "God killed God to appease God." Tilt...!)

- The Protestant Reformation emphasized salvation by grace and not by "works of the law." Indeed "justification by grace" was the battle cry ... Luther's own personal and theological struggle had been against "salvation by works." As Protestants, we knew that we weren't saved by "works". Rather, we were saved by "grace through faith." Yet, the emphasis was placed upon faith rather than grace, and faith insidiously became the new requirement. Faith (most often understood as belief) is what God required, and by a lack of faith/belief, one risked the peril of eternal punishment. The requirement of faith brought with it all of the anxiety and self-preoccupation that marked life in the world of conventional wisdom. Was one's faith/belief real enough, strong enough? Thus for many of us Christians, the system of conventional wisdom remained. Only the content of the requirement had changed - from good works to faith.

(I hesitate to even comment here ... this is utterly profound. Let it sink in ... selah.)

- There is another consequence of Christian conventional wisdom. The requirement of faith divides the world up into those who have faith and those who don't, with the implication that God is kindly disposed toward the first group and not so kindly disposed toward the second. This understanding is reflected in a bumper sticker that reads: "Christians aren't' perfect - they're just forgiven." It implies that other people aren't forgiven, and that Christians have done something (become Christian? believed?) that merits forgiveness. There is a smugness and divisiveness in the statement that comes out of the marriage between conventional wisdom and Christitanity.

(Again, deeply profound ... hugely indicting. To be honest, I see no distinction between conventional wisdom and Christianity ... as I see Christianity as a manmade construction based entirely ON conventional wisdom ... ignoring that Jesus subverted and upended the very things that Christianity insists upon...!)

- Most people report having heard the Christian message as a message of requirements (whether of belief or of behavior, or, most often, of both) and of rewards, typically in "the next world," and sometimes in this world as well. Thus Jesus' subversion of conventional wisdom is a subversion not only of the central convictions of his social world, but of many common forms of Christianity as well.

(This has become so very, very clear and true to me ... most of Christitanity has been playing a game of "The Emperor's New Clothes" ... admiring a projection of egoic collective thinking, of conventional wisdom, and using Jesus as a mere mascot to promote and enforce the reward/punishment system of man.)

Tomorrow, I'll finish out this most-excellent chapter ... looking into the *what* of Jesus' subversive and alternative wisdom...!

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