You Don't Take The Bible Literally

I know many people say that they take the Bible literally, but I say that is not possible.

Let's start with the folks who hang their hat on being anti-gay. It says in the Old Testament that a man shall not lie down with a man. In the same section it also says a disobedient child should be stoned to death, meat has to be drained of blood and no pork ever, you cannot work on Saturday, you cannot wear clothes made of more than one fiber, etc etc etc. Do you do that and more? If you say you take the Bible literally, why not? Like someone said, imagine an anti-gay person, eating a pulled pork sandwich on a Saturday,  wearing a cotton and polyester shirt, while taking a lunch break from work. He just broke at least 4 laws of the Old Testament.

There is a lot of poetry and metaphor, do you take that literally? Jesus told parables to teach principles. Do you take them literally? The people of the area were story tellers, not literal people.

The Bible was written over many centuries by unknown men (except the 7 authenticated letters of Paul). They wrote in Bronze age and Iron age and in Roman Empire days wisdom of the day.  In this time, less than 1% were literate enough to read and write elegantly,  only the very rich could afford to be educated, so only the top people could have written anything like the various parts of the Bible.They hint at universal truths as they struggle to understand the meaning of life and the spiritual domain. Mostly, they didn't think they were writing scriptures. Often they wrote down the stories and thoughts shared around the campfires generation upon generation. They wrote to share their understanding, to set the record straight (as the author of Luke who wrote to Theophilus both in the Gospel of Luke and Acts).

In the Bible there is confusion and also opposite views. What happened at the empty tomb, who found it, did Jesus meet them in Jerusalem or Galilee, etc. When did he realize he had a profound mission on earth? At his baptism, at birth, at conception, at his resurrection, from the beginning of the cosomos? All of these are presented, not all can be accurate.

There has been great value in the Bible for countless people over thousands of years, including for me. Smugly saying it is literal, while ignoring the impossiblilty of that, misses the deep wisdom that can be found there. 

Let's Consider Love

 First, charity is disinterested, seeking no reward, nor allowing itself to be diminished by any return of evil for its good. God is to be loved for Himself, not for his gifts, and persons and things are to be loved for God’s sake, because they are temples of the Holy Ghost. since charity is disinterested, it must of necessity be universal. Love seeks no cause beyond itself and no fruit; it is its own fruit, its own enjoyment. I love because I love; I love in order that I may love…. --- St. Bernard

 He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. I John: 4

That is the agape, unconditional Love of the scriptures. I have often said that to love because that is who you are, and no one or no circumstance can make you not love is a spiritual goal. It is what we aim to be as spiritual beings having a human experience, as Teilhard de Chardon described our life here. 

If we love conditionally, we are merely manipulating. I think that is one of the reasons people deflect Love, for they have been given and give phony love, love that seeks an ego's purpose. As St. Bernard said,  Love seeks no cause beyond itself and no fruit; it is its own fruit, its own enjoyment.

Let us strive to live and love fully and without conditions.

The Value if the Negative

But when the hope is to know God inclusively—to realize the divine Ground in the world as well as in the soul, temptations and distractions must not be avoided, but submitted to and used as opportunities for advance; there must be no suppression of outward-turning activities, but a transformation of them so that they become sacramental.... there is need of unsleeping awareness.

    --- Perennial Philosophy, Aldous Huxley

Every so often I re-read this wonderful book. Almost every page speaks volumes to me, and each time something else grabs my attention. This week, the above quote grabbed me. I have been pondering it. This morning, as I lay in bed praying, a profound joy and gratitude for my many and varied life experiences swept through me, and I was tearful.

I was joyfully thankful for all of them! They wove themselves together to form the present me. Each light and shadow held a precious place in my unfolding awakening. Each was sacred, a Divine Gift.

Jesus showed us humanness and Divinity interwoven. He bled, he cried. He was also imbued with complete connection to God. His ground of being was rooted in God here with us, and God transcendent.  Our bodies too are of this earth. We bleed and cry. Our souls are of Spirit. We came to this earthly plane to learn, develop, cherish, live, love and spiritually awaken.

Instead of fighting with the shadows, it seems to me, we would do well to use them for our advancement. My old days of Aikido come to mind. We would say to our partner, "Thank you for testing me." I endeavor to say this to the twists and turns of my life.  In Aikido, we would help the attacker go in the direction they were headed, using their energy coming at us to lead them into a fall. Imagine doing this with the shadows seemingly attacking us. Take a moment and visualize it. 

Everything becomes an opportunity for spiritual growth. Thank You, God, for every moment of my life, every single moment. Thank you for showing me, as You did Joseph - they meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. I praiseYou, God. Amen!

Beyond History

 There are many biographies of men and women in many times in the life of humanity on this planet. There are also great myths and stories that hint at more than the encapsulated soul waking in a body on the face of earth.

A favorite study of mine is the New Testament. The synoptic Gospels, Mark, Matthew and Luke, focus on life stories about Jesus and share some of his teachings, a bit about the eternal Christ. Then we shift to John, Paul, Hebrews that tell a different story, a story about a universal Christ. In "Perrenial Philosophy," Huxley says:

Each in his own way wrote about the eternal "not-I" of Christ rather than the historical "I"; each in his own way stressed an element in the life of Jesus, in which, because it is more-than-personal, all persons can participate. 

So we move from the amazing teacher and healer, walking around Galilee, to Paul's Christ in you the hope of glory.  We move to the Cosmic Christ, to the Christ Eckhart called us to birth in our souls, to the Divine Energy with which we can relate and participate, to Hebrews' High Priest and High Christology.

It is a shift that may be quite a jump for some people. We can see it in the writings, when we look deeply and with new eyes, as Jesus said, Except you become like a little child, you shall not enter the kingdom.  Read through the New Testament and see the shift, allow an internal shift. Allow yourself to participate in the Christ energy, the Divine that calls us each and every moment of our lives, stirring something within us until we at last listen and turn.

Humans With and Without God

 History shows us a sad story of humankind, peppered with golden moments of humans rising above the lower tendencies to glorious moments- so we know we can rise, it is possible. So much of our history, however, exhibits violence, hatred, prejudice, jealousy, meanness, herd mentality, wars, and other horrible things.

So what can we do? Do we have the desire and will to rise above the lower behaviors? Do we realize how dangerous it is, with all the modern technology, to play with the dark side?

My vision shows me the way up and out is to align ourselves with the Divine, with the Higher Power, with God. There are pitfalls there too, because historically and currently there is violence in religion; there is ego; there is theology made by violent and power-hungry men. The story of Christianity is not just the man from Galilee and his teaching, but it is the long history of fighting over fine points of theology, even unto death. Early on there was the fear that if they got theology wrong, God would be angry and punish them with violent weather and earthquakes. There were wars over things like whether Mary was the mother of God or the mother of Jesus, over whether Jesus had one or two natures, over when he became God's son, etc. There was intrigue. 

Even today there is a huge variation of what is the "true" Christian theology, arguments over who is right and who is wrong. Families are split over disagreements over whose church is right. Nations try to destroy churches and imprison advocates of "other" points of view. 

I am most familiar with the Christian story, and  I know there is some of this in other religions too.

All of this, I consider to be life without God. The ugliness glimpsed above is not what any great teacher taught, it surely is not what Jesus taught.

Life with God is a whole other thing. It is Peace that passes understanding. It is Guidance from the Highest Source. It is Love. It is Joy. It is Kindness. It is Compassion. It is Oneness.

If we want life with God, let us heal our brokenness in prayer, introspection, forgiveness, and release. Let us open ourselves to the Highest Light, the Highest Teachers, the Noblest Way, and then walk it the best we can. Let us strive to be all we can be, forgive ourselves when we falter, and pick ourselves up and continue. 

We can change the human trajectory one person at a time, lifting and leading, waking up, and walking with The Divine Presence that is with us always.

P.S. Go back and read my "Turning" article earlier this year on June 6th.

Tethered - But to What?

I've been seeing a vision of tethering. That is to say, being attached with a stretchable cord to something that is hooked into a person on one end and the thing on the other. This is, of course, not visible to the eye, but nonetheless a very real connection that influences the person.

For example, you keep thinking about a negative experience from your past. Each thought makes your tether to it stronger, your feelings stronger, and as it strengthens, it controls you more and more. It is as if this past event is going on, over and over again. It skews how you view the present and the people in your present. It keeps you imprisoned to old shadows.

Of course, to get free, florgiveness is important. Also, diengaging the tether with visualization is important. And then, tethering to the Spiritual, rather than the shadows of the past, is the ultimate freedom.

Tethering to the Divine, opening to Unconditional Love, rooting yourself in that, is the blissful experience of Freedom, of all being well with your soul. 

As Meister Eckhart told his listeners centuries ago, Mary birthing the Christ Child means little to me unless I too can birth the Christ in my life and soul. Let the spiritual birth happen in you. Make ready by untethering from all shadows of the past and tether to the Eternal Holy Presence that calls to you. As we take a step toward God, open arms of Divine Love greet us and welcome us home.

Where Is Our Connection to God?

 Origen, that great authority, suggests a parallel: that God’s Son, God’s image, is in the ground of the soul like a living spring. If earth is thrown on it, earthly desire that is, it smothers it, covers it over, and it vanishes from our ken. But in itself it remains alive, and on removing the soil that was thrown on from without, we see it again.                              --- Meister Eckhart

There is so much to consider here. First, I find it interesting that he is quoting Origen. He was the great thinker of early Christianity, 185-253 C.E. Later Origen was called a heretic for several odd reasons. Here is one of the greatest mystics quoting him 1260-1328 C.E.  So apparently, he saw genius in Origen, as have I.

Anyway, I appreciate the visual of a living God-spring bubbling inside of us in our souls. But then we throw dirt upon it and cover it up. It is unharmed, but we are cut off from It. We are walled off, helled off, from God.

As we remove our negativity, fears, anger, resentments, false ideas, etc, the dirt is removed. We put it there, we take it away.

As Meister Elkhart says later in the sermon:

When the artist makes a statue of wood or stone, he does not put the image in the wood; he chips away the wood which hides the form. He gives the wood nothing, he takes it away: carves it out where too thick, pares off overlay, and then there appears what was hidden.

We find God never left us, was always there, right where we left Him/Her, under our own pile of dirt, in the center of our soul.