"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer." ~ Rainer Maria Rilke
Good stuff there.
If I had one wish, unfortunately I’d probably use it on something selfish, but a top contender would be that those struggling with mental health issues (including substance abuse problems) would realize that the root of their issue is that they have intuitively sensed answers they could not live for various reasons. Probably the two main reasons being they did not have a framework to put the answers into and whatever their community and surroundings were are not ready for that answer. And it definitely turns into a balancing act, finding a framework to put the answers into in order to live them without being paralyzed unless or until we find that framework or unfairly demanding we get to live what we think is our (or the) answer in a way that prevents others from equally being on the same type of journey.
Another facet of this is that labeling anyone discontent with the status quo enough that they are having a hard time fitting themselves into it as mentally ill is a brilliant way to silence or at least marginalize our modern day prophets before they can get a head of steam and be dangerous to those in power benefiting from the status quo.
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Saturday, September 16, 2017
Mental Illness
Thursday, September 14, 2017
Sovereignty
The Father is the Entirety (including eternity in both directions). Jesus is The Way to the Father or being one with the Entirety. The Holy (whol-ing) Spirit is our innate guide to The Way to be one with the Father, which includes eternal life since we are joining the eternal Father.
Viewed in this way it is accurate or legitimate to say God is sovereign over all because He is All. However, people (and their theologies) intuitively realize that becoming a part of it all means we are vulnerable to that which we are a part, which is of course completely overwhelming. As such, our theologies (personal and institutional) try to give God an intervening sovereignty that is not accurate or defensible when soberly examined.
In other words in exchange for trying to meet God in our weakness/vulnerability/neediness (the only place He can be found), we try to give Him the attributes required to make that seem possibly safe or wise. In reality when doing this we are limiting our experience of Him, which is the only way to actually know any of Him. This can normally be easily seen by how we subtly or overtly want favor/perks or a preferred status from surrendering/accepting/embracing God. The only perk possible from knowing God is becoming one with Everything (Him). This is indescribably wonderful, but does not include any intervening or alterations to our material world. However, it does change how we feel, think and then act and how those we interact with feel, think and then act, which has the potential to change everything.
Viewed in this way it is accurate or legitimate to say God is sovereign over all because He is All. However, people (and their theologies) intuitively realize that becoming a part of it all means we are vulnerable to that which we are a part, which is of course completely overwhelming. As such, our theologies (personal and institutional) try to give God an intervening sovereignty that is not accurate or defensible when soberly examined.
In other words in exchange for trying to meet God in our weakness/vulnerability/neediness (the only place He can be found), we try to give Him the attributes required to make that seem possibly safe or wise. In reality when doing this we are limiting our experience of Him, which is the only way to actually know any of Him. This can normally be easily seen by how we subtly or overtly want favor/perks or a preferred status from surrendering/accepting/embracing God. The only perk possible from knowing God is becoming one with Everything (Him). This is indescribably wonderful, but does not include any intervening or alterations to our material world. However, it does change how we feel, think and then act and how those we interact with feel, think and then act, which has the potential to change everything.
And it is all Grace because all we are offering or can ever offer to receive this union and eternal life is our surrender to our individual weakness/neediness/vulnerability and thus need for it. Now to the extent we actually do this and join the Father and his ways, we will truly be a part of something all powerful and all good and we will know this and feel this. Unfortunately, we will still probably confuse how that came about and try to sustain in or re-discover it without the personal weakness/neediness/vulnerability.
Is Morality Relative?
I think you may be incorrect, maybe because you are assuming we are each (as individuals or groups) separate from everything else. Even if morality is completely relative, if we realize we are all part of the same thing and hopelessly connected to everything else I think we would want the morality of Jesus or the core of any great religion.
I am not necessarily saying that all morality is relative, but I am saying the problem is not viewing it as relative. The problem is not seeing our connection to everything else and being willing to set up our society accordingly and then act accordingly. Wouldn’t we then mostly set up our society and want to act based upon treating others as we would like to be treated because that is how we would like to be treated and the world we would like to live in. After requiring everyone (and everything) to be treated with dignity and value there would be some negotiated tradeoffs, such as, between freedom and security, between the rewards for hard/dangerous/undesirable work on other behalf of others and treating everyone equally, etc. Now if we did not realize we were each connected to everything else and we thought morality was relative and we were in a position to be able to do so we would likely act as you suggest.
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It is interesting isn’t it? Those who seemed to honestly believe that admitting morality is relative (or arbitrary) would lead to chaos and all sorts of repugnant things actually do so because (without knowing it) they demand this arbitrariness or relative standard of morality for themselves by defining their God and his morality, often including lots of favorable exceptions or reprieves for themselves, the in-crowd.
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Right, saying morality is not arbitrary, especially when emphasizing a personal relationship and guidance, is actually the way to have it be arbitrary for the individual. Very convenient.
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But I guess I think you are right in that formulating and refusing to compromise from some ideologically pure way (rhetoric against arbitrariness) is what has kept people from actually coming together to realize their commonality and find good (arbitrarily agreed upon) solutions, even if those solutions are not perfect because none are.
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Being a part of things greater than ourself including the incredibly large and complex universe does lead to wonder/awe, which leads to our benevolent thoughts, feelings, and actions. It also leads to realizing (or trying to deny) we are a vulnerable part of things beyond us, which leads to all of our objectionable thoughts, feelings, and actions.
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Fears, Resentments, and Conceptions
I’ve enjoyed pondering this since the only place to do that is in the awe and mystery, which is a great place to hang out.
Getting to that awe and mystery happens to the extent I allow myself to simply be a part of it all. Part of that is getting past my fears and resentments, which for legitimate and illegitimate reasons say it is not safe or wise to be a part of it all, starting with my immediate surroundings.
These fears and resentments are of course what Christianity tries to get us to let go of with its focus on faith and forgiveness, as well as among what Buddhism would label attachments and also pinpoint as barriers to knowing (from experiencing) union with everything else. Until I can get past the fears and resentments, at least for periods of time, I will be trying to figure out ways to be safe and not experience more of the hurts that led to the fears and resentments and uncertainty that leads to fear, which together generate the worldly power structures that cause unnecessary suffering and keep us focused on having an advantageous position in the power structure rather than focusing on being a benevolent part of our surroundings.
To get past our fears and resentments most of us need safe times, ideally with safe people, to discover and explore what they actually are, and then also the courage/faith to act benevolently in spite of them and often in direct contradiction of them.
Buddhism correctly adds all conceptions, such as what we are, the world and its parts are, and God is, as attachments that keep us from this awe and mystery. Christianity does the same by telling us not to judge. Avoiding these types of attachments is important because as long as we are attached to our conceptions of things we will forever be trying to fit our experience of the world into these conceptions with resulting judgments. The practical effect of this is we will miss out on actually experiencing our world (and the awe and mystery involved) while we try to fit it into our (normally adopted) conceptions of how it is supposed to be.
I am not advocating forever avoiding having conceptions/judgments of how things are or ought to be. I am suggesting we need to find ways to suspend them to allow a deeper reality to consistently mold these conceptions/judgments, which is what I think Aristotle meant when he said, “educating the mind without the heart is no education at all.”
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I worry I might have given the wrong impression when I said we need the courage/faith to act benevolently in spite of our fears and resentments and often in direct contradiction of them. Before we have found much of the awe we are generally acting blindly and part of this can wisely be guided by acting benevolently in the opposite direction of our resentments and fears. However, this is not a long term solution because it will leave us miserable, which we will eventually (even if inadvertently) share with others. The only long term solution is to prioritize finding, spending time with, and being guided by the awe.
Knowing the awe will be what is left when we let go of our attachments (fears, resentments, conceptions) and allow ourselves to be simply a part of it all, as it is and guided by this awe, that is the faith that heals and moves proverbial mountains.
Beyond the fact that being guided by acting against our fears and resentments will make/keep us miserable, which we will inevitably share with others, doing so will keep us enslaved to them - fighting them in ourselves and everyone else. This is actually a foundational pillar for our objectionable worldly ways and resulting power structures. As such those beholden to those power structures must keep us focused on and guided by our fears and resentments in order to maintain them. They also must try to crush those who would try to free/save themselves and others. It is precisely the opposite of the love Jesus describes or the ways of the Spirit Paul discusses, which is actually finding and being guided by the awe underneath and before the fears, resentments, and resulting conceptions/judgments.
Getting to that awe and mystery happens to the extent I allow myself to simply be a part of it all. Part of that is getting past my fears and resentments, which for legitimate and illegitimate reasons say it is not safe or wise to be a part of it all, starting with my immediate surroundings.
These fears and resentments are of course what Christianity tries to get us to let go of with its focus on faith and forgiveness, as well as among what Buddhism would label attachments and also pinpoint as barriers to knowing (from experiencing) union with everything else. Until I can get past the fears and resentments, at least for periods of time, I will be trying to figure out ways to be safe and not experience more of the hurts that led to the fears and resentments and uncertainty that leads to fear, which together generate the worldly power structures that cause unnecessary suffering and keep us focused on having an advantageous position in the power structure rather than focusing on being a benevolent part of our surroundings.
To get past our fears and resentments most of us need safe times, ideally with safe people, to discover and explore what they actually are, and then also the courage/faith to act benevolently in spite of them and often in direct contradiction of them.
Buddhism correctly adds all conceptions, such as what we are, the world and its parts are, and God is, as attachments that keep us from this awe and mystery. Christianity does the same by telling us not to judge. Avoiding these types of attachments is important because as long as we are attached to our conceptions of things we will forever be trying to fit our experience of the world into these conceptions with resulting judgments. The practical effect of this is we will miss out on actually experiencing our world (and the awe and mystery involved) while we try to fit it into our (normally adopted) conceptions of how it is supposed to be.
I am not advocating forever avoiding having conceptions/judgments of how things are or ought to be. I am suggesting we need to find ways to suspend them to allow a deeper reality to consistently mold these conceptions/judgments, which is what I think Aristotle meant when he said, “educating the mind without the heart is no education at all.”
...
I worry I might have given the wrong impression when I said we need the courage/faith to act benevolently in spite of our fears and resentments and often in direct contradiction of them. Before we have found much of the awe we are generally acting blindly and part of this can wisely be guided by acting benevolently in the opposite direction of our resentments and fears. However, this is not a long term solution because it will leave us miserable, which we will eventually (even if inadvertently) share with others. The only long term solution is to prioritize finding, spending time with, and being guided by the awe.
Knowing the awe will be what is left when we let go of our attachments (fears, resentments, conceptions) and allow ourselves to be simply a part of it all, as it is and guided by this awe, that is the faith that heals and moves proverbial mountains.
Beyond the fact that being guided by acting against our fears and resentments will make/keep us miserable, which we will inevitably share with others, doing so will keep us enslaved to them - fighting them in ourselves and everyone else. This is actually a foundational pillar for our objectionable worldly ways and resulting power structures. As such those beholden to those power structures must keep us focused on and guided by our fears and resentments in order to maintain them. They also must try to crush those who would try to free/save themselves and others. It is precisely the opposite of the love Jesus describes or the ways of the Spirit Paul discusses, which is actually finding and being guided by the awe underneath and before the fears, resentments, and resulting conceptions/judgments.
Being Ordinary
Most suffering is only felt as suffering because we are trying to avoid being simply a part of it all, and experiencing the vulnerability of that. We demand more than that, which causes our separateness, brokenness (from everything else), incompleteness. When we really accept our place as a run of the mill part of everything else, we realize the things we once felt as suffering are actually the bonds to everything else and feel like connectedness, wholeness, oneness, and being saved even when objectively negative things occur.
In an odd sort of way the suffering from demanding our own way is our and God's friend because it is often the suffering that ends up making us surrender to just being an ordinary part of it all.
In an odd sort of way the suffering from demanding our own way is our and God's friend because it is often the suffering that ends up making us surrender to just being an ordinary part of it all.
Entirety
Could it be that God is a part of each part of it all and we are really supposed to honor it all, moment to moment? Wouldn’t that be what love actually looked like and as beautiful as any other conception, as well as consistent with all the different ways Jesus described his path to becoming one with the Father? Wouldn’t it actually be a lot more beautiful (like a God of Love) than a God that wanted us to seek him in ways that created divisions and strife?
Community
I’ll start off saying that it takes tremendous bravery/courage/faith (whatever term you prefer) to continue to seek authentic relationships after being hurt by manipulative ones, whether that is within a formal church setting or not. In other words it takes great faith to continue to pursue Jesus’ path to the Father (aka wholeness with oneself and everything else, which is the crux of the Sermon on the Mount) inside a church or outside. Our defensiveness and lashing out at others comes from the parts of ourselves we have not yet been successful reconciling to this path.
That being said, I am not sure everyone here that seems to think they are so at odds are actually in disagreement nearly as much as they think. There are many churches that (often seem way too diluted to many) are a great place to meet unpretentious fairly safe people who are genuinely caring and want a wholesome type of friendship/community. And many of those churches have leaders who are sufficiently humble or just like the comfort of sermonizing and not digging to deep into their flocks personal lives, that those wholesome friendships can and do develop that are fulfilling and life supporting.
Generally the problems arise when the leaders or flock (both are just as guilty) make some idealized conception of the church (and rules for how things ought to be done to bring about that idealized conception) the focus because invariably they are each trying to create a safe environment so they do not have to hide parts of themselves – become whole with themselves and everything else. Without realizing it they are trying to figure out a way to make actual faith unnecessary by joining or creating a group that is ultra safe, and tragically instead create a group that rejects most of themselves, each other, and life/reality.
So these fairly safe and unpretentious people we desperately need in order to help support us on our journey of becoming whole with all parts of ourselves and everything else (aka Jesus’s path to the Father) can be found within traditional churches and without, although they are fairly rare both places because they have to being doing the same thing and having some success at it or they will be stuck in wordly ways of rejecting the deeper vulnerable parts of themselves and everybody else.
That being said, I am not sure everyone here that seems to think they are so at odds are actually in disagreement nearly as much as they think. There are many churches that (often seem way too diluted to many) are a great place to meet unpretentious fairly safe people who are genuinely caring and want a wholesome type of friendship/community. And many of those churches have leaders who are sufficiently humble or just like the comfort of sermonizing and not digging to deep into their flocks personal lives, that those wholesome friendships can and do develop that are fulfilling and life supporting.
Generally the problems arise when the leaders or flock (both are just as guilty) make some idealized conception of the church (and rules for how things ought to be done to bring about that idealized conception) the focus because invariably they are each trying to create a safe environment so they do not have to hide parts of themselves – become whole with themselves and everything else. Without realizing it they are trying to figure out a way to make actual faith unnecessary by joining or creating a group that is ultra safe, and tragically instead create a group that rejects most of themselves, each other, and life/reality.
So these fairly safe and unpretentious people we desperately need in order to help support us on our journey of becoming whole with all parts of ourselves and everything else (aka Jesus’s path to the Father) can be found within traditional churches and without, although they are fairly rare both places because they have to being doing the same thing and having some success at it or they will be stuck in wordly ways of rejecting the deeper vulnerable parts of themselves and everybody else.
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