Grace and Justice

I completely agree that one of the most common ways for people to misunderstand God or Jesus's teachings is to take an anthropological perspective and yet we really have no other choice because we have to understand things through our own perspective which comes from experience while realizing that is limited.

I disagree with the way we normally error when taking this unavoidable anthropological approach. One of the major underlying themes of all Jesus's teachings was that God doesn't punish and is not interested in or even condone retribution. The father wants to heal and redeem only and we continually misunderstand this because we try to use God for our own ends.

Now people might say that God only wants to heal and redeem but he can't make us turn to him to do that. that seems to be true in ways for this earthly life (although if totally true would be inconsistent with saying it is all Grace.) If ECT is true though God either is not the God Jesus taught who only wants to heal and redeem or He is not very powerful, letting that get set up and not being able to change it.

Crazy as it seems I'm certain He has overwhelming mercy for all aka Grace. It makes no sense to say it is all Grace and then say some should be punished for not having received that Grace. And those who have received that Grace and are not doing everything they can to share it with others (especially since if you have received It you will know it is mostly transmitted by those who have received it acting graciously) are the most guilty of something, including me who lives a very spoiled life.

It would seem that I am discounting the value or importance of justice and I guess In a way I am, as an end in itself. Justice is extremely important, but this is because without a common struggling for justice among people here on earth doing God's work will mostly lead to being exploited rather than successfully sharing God's Grace. The parables of the prodigal son and the vineyard owner demonstrate that justice for its own sake is not important. They basically say all God is interested in is bestowing Grace and placing justice on the same level often blocks us from that Grace rather than help us embrace It or share It.

Brief FB Comment

We actually ought to be at least a little different version of ourselves in each area of our lives because in each area we have to try to figure out how to fit into that area in a way that is true to our core, but also useful or productive to that area when taking the long view of things. If that’s true it takes a lot of reflection/contemplation/prayer and patience (spending time with our core) considering where those 2 objectives meet, and then a lot of courage/faith to actually live the answer we receive while constantly reassessing if our initial answer actually still seems correct. Sharing the answers we think we are receiving with trusted others makes those answers much more likely to be fruitful and also helps a bunch with the courage/faith.

Separate or Connected

I do not know about at the sub-atomic level much, but the cause of the separation at the more visible levels is trying to avoid our own inescapable vulnerability from being hopelessly connected to everything else. We have no reality separate from our surroundings. Our reality is only in how we fit into and relate to our surroundings, the things we interact with, whether that be alone in nature, with one other person, with groups, or with the universe as a whole. We are in some ways also separate and unique and that is part of our reality, but that can only ever be part of our reality. We have no reality that does not include how we relate and fit into things beyond ourselves.

Being hopelessly connected to everything else means we are dependent upon everything else, but for my purposes here I want to focus mainly on our immediate surroundings, and the fact that it means we are vulnerable to our surroundings, including people. This vulnerability is what we have been trying to cheat, deny, suppress, and otherwise avoid since we developed consciousness (the awareness of being somewhat separate). Trying to avoid that inherent inescapable vulnerability is original sin or the fall. This includes our own natural inclination to deny and avoid it as well as all the worldly systems we have created and live under that are built upon its denial and suppression.

As such, vulnerability is the stone the builder refused, which becomes the cornerstone. This is of course a near perfect analogy since a cornerstone is the foundation stone or first stone from which everything else is built up from, and vulnerability is the inescapable fact that binds everything together for good or ill depending upon if we acknowledge it and maybe even celebrate it or deny and suppress it. I do not mean celebrate it as in trying to achieve or increase vulnerability for its own sake, but rather celebrate being united with everything else, which can only occur after we accept the inherent vulnerability of being part of something greater than ourself. In other words celebrate the key step or stumbling block of truly being in union because of where it leads.

I am not saying anything new here when I say that our troubles are caused by our attempts to avoid this inherent vulnerability, which we experience as pain/discomfort/suffering. However, we all seem to need to be constantly reminded, most of all me. The jumping off place for Buddhism are the noble truths regarding this suffering from our inescapable vulnerability. In Christianity, this jumping off place is the way of the cross or taking up our cross, which is essentially accepting the pain, discomfort, and vulnerability inherent in the LIFE Jesus came to share with us. And of course neither religion stops there and both say if we jump and follow where it leads we will find ourselves a new creation that is exactly what we have been looking for and beyond our wildest dreams all at the same time.

This happens because what we experience as pain/discomfort/suffering is actually from trying to avoid and deny this vulnerability and when we stop doing this we experience the LIFE Jesus was talking about, which is embracing the messy and unpredictable world as it is, as well as the messy and fragile (alone by ourself) person we are. When we do this we will be and feel embraced back and what we thought was pain and suffering that we had to avoid at all cost becomes wholeness internally and with everything else, the Entirety that I call God, but it does not matter what we call it, the process and results are the same.

When we avoid this process (which I most commonly still do) we are avoiding what actually is (LIFE) and thus the dead burying the dead. Part of being in this sense dead is being blinded to the possibility of any other way. Ever since we developed consciousness (the ability to see ourselves as separate and evaluate how we fit in or ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil if you like) we have been using that to try to hide our own inherent vulnerability from being part of everything else. Fortunately this makes us miserable and we search for better answers. Unfortunately, finding those better answers requires a lot of luck (grace), courage (action in spite of fear, aka faith), perseverance, and a lot more luck (grace).

As you mentioned each of our struggles are somewhat unique, although there are many similarities in the process. Generally some combination of suffering and love, mostly suffering for most, makes trying to continue to avoid our vulnerability impossible and we surrender to it at least a little, most commonly without knowing that might be fruitful. Then if we are lucky we find someone or a small group of people who seem to accept us even in what we probably view as a hopelessly defective state (and alone it is that). This could be a friend(s), therapist, clergy member, or in the beginning might even be an animal, like a dog. Sometimes it is also God alone, especially in nature, but there are no absolutes here.

From here we need more luck to recognize it is only when allowing ourselves to be vulnerable that we are capable of connection and still more luck to find people and places that allow us to practice that and find it fruitful. The still blind dead will try to kill it and we’ll need a lot of courage, perseverance, and luck to continue and find places where we can fruitfully practice it and grow strong in our faith individually and collectively. Part of this will be finding others to support in their own fledgling attempts to do likewise and push back against the institutions and practices that exploit any vulnerability they can find to continue their lonely pursuit of avoiding their own vulnerability.

Always going on way way too long I’ll stay true to form and start in from a little different angle. I do not personally like the term true self because all of me and everything else is true, the good, bad, and ugly. I used to prefer the deepest self and now prefer to refer to it as simply wholeness, but I think I mean basically the same thing by wholeness that others mean by true self. They are all about being unblocked and whole.

Even if we were never hurt by our experience of the world we would want to and try to hide our vulnerability. It is simply part of what makes us human. However, we are often hurt deeply by our experience of the world and this makes us develop barriers or blocks to protect our self and our vulnerability from actually experiencing the world. And as discussed above to the extent we are avoiding experiencing the world/our reality we are in an emotional/spiritual sense dead. Our own collection of barriers/blocks is what some refer to as our false self, another term I do not like because if they are my blocks they are a true part of me.

Anyway, these blocks are both what keeps us from wholeness and also our path to wholeness with ourself and everything else. The different methods and specifics of them are beyond my scope here (thankfully something is, right?) However, to generalize it is always by processing the hurt in some way that led to needing the block that the block is removed, and even more importantly we learn from the vulnerable part of us that was hurt and is involved in the processing how to interact differently with the world as to prevent re-injury much of the time and know even when someone hurts us going forward it is that person rejecting their own vulnerable self and not really about us at all. So we may be wise to avoid that person but it does not actually have to hurt or threaten our own wholeness/core/true self/etc.

As we get unblocked we experience our observing and integrating mind, which is very different than our thinking mind. For most of us our thinking mind mainly tries to justify and support our blocks, but when trained can learn to become a powerful tool for translating and articulating the insights from our observing and integrating mind.

Our observing and integrating mind is what actually experiences our reality though, moment to moment, to the extent we are unblocked. It is the part of us that automatically knows we are part of everything else and experiences that connection and union through its very being and its origin, from the big bang and evolution for example, as well as through our senses and awareness itself of our surroundings and hence our connection to those surroundings.

Addictions (as the word is commonly understood) are one of countless ways of masking, denying or otherwise avoiding our inherent vulnerability, all of which turn into something like addictions themselves.

Life's Messy

Most of our avoidable problems are related to people not being willing to be with the messy muddled middle ground of real life, whether internally/individually, between people or between groups, and thus try to pick an ideal (fantasy) to champion and fight for. This is true at all levels of life and relationships (marriages, families, friends, charitable organizations, churches, workplaces, politics, etc), and we never really arrive at the truth from both (or more) sides of an issue because of this. Democracy is dependant upon finding and implementing these truths from all sides of an issue that are not completely at odds with each other, as people initially assume, but we only find this out when we are willing to somewhat open mindedly experience the mess and discomfort of real life rather than retreating to our fantasies of how it ought to be or is supposed to be.

Brief FB Comment

Everyone I’ve met that has a faith that is attractive and contagious seems to have had that faith primarily formed struggling through overwhelming emotions, most commonly some variety of pain. So carry on and I'm sure your faith will become even more attractive and contagious.

Violence

I’ll start by asking why we resort to violence and it seems like the answer is almost always because we are scared or hurt (probably for very good reasons). This is easy to see in most of the typical scenarios that seem to pop into our heads with strangers threatening us or strangers or past relationships or life in general hurting us. It is a little harder to see in our close current relationships, which it seems you are trying to focus on without much luck.

While hidden better the same basic dynamics are at play in these close current relationships, basically fear that we will be hurt and exploited if we do not keep our guard up and ready to fight if needed and actually fight when the threat gets to a certain point. This of course is exacerbated by the fact that we have all been hurt and exploited a lot by various things that have happened in our lives. So basically it is our current real vulnerabilities magnified by our past unresolved pain that causes our current fear (of that vulnerability).

Before moving on lets look at where our very real vulnerabilities at any given time come from. They come from the fact that we are hopelessly an inseparable part of everything else, the alpha and omega - aka God, if you wish, but it is an undeniable fact whether we believe in God or not or whatever God we believe in. And the absolute core of Jesus’ message was that trying to hide or eradicate this vulnerability is what leads to death/hell/evil, and conversely that since God is the alpha and omega (Entirety including Eternity in both directions) embracing these vulnerabilities – the things keeping us separated from/broken off from/lost from God (the Entirety) is the path to the Father/Alpha and Omega/LIFE.

Unfortunately, the church lost this message when if became powerful and did not think it needed to be or embrace vulnerability anymore at the individual, collective, or institutional levels, and has been greatly focused on trying to come up with fancy and complex doctrines and dogmas to rationalize this path in the opposite direction of Jesus ever since. That theology would say that it does embrace vulnerability between individuals and God, but this is a complete lie if it does not embrace vulnerability in and with their immediate surroundings.

I am getting off track though. So let me get back to how this denial of vulnerability at all levels is what leads to violence at all levels. Let’s start with individual close relationships since I think that is what you wanted to focus on and where it all starts. Trying to hide, mask, deny, etc our vulnerabilities is the very thing that makes us guarded/defensive/etc and then leads us to withdrawal or lash out when these vulnerabilities feel threatened. We of course do this for very good reasons, we humans are master manipulators and the best (and maybe only) way to manipulate others is to in various ways (mostly subtle and unknown to all parties involved including the manipulator) prey upon their vulnerabilities.

So the answer is not to simply expose our vulnerabilities in personal relationships or publicly and hope for the best. The answer is to expose the vulnerability and to the extent needed highlight in the most visible and outlandish ways possible if others try to take advantage of that vulnerability. This is what those 200 methods of non-violence have in common and of course what Jesus, MLK, Mandela, and Gandhi were masters at. What really set those 4 apart (and probably others) though was that they did not view the people they were in conflict with as an enemy to be overcome, but rather as a valuable part of the same Entirety to be won over and embraced.

Non-violent methods can be very effective even without the last part, but then are often mitigated by the fact that when they work the person or people who were successful still view the other side as an adversary. And the only answer to this is that they must heal from their past injuries of being hurt and exploited. Until they heal they cannot embrace the other side and inevitably will act from it and try to subjugate the other side (maybe with less violent methods) keeping the conflict simmering for a future eruption.

So how does a person and group heal. It is almost always some flavor of confessing sins (things done to mask, deny, suppress, protect their own vulnerabilities) and trying to make amends or make up for those things done, as well as graciously allowing the other side to do the same thing when it seems they are sincere.

I mostly fail at doing the above things, but do actually try to follow that path in my relationships at home, with friends and at work – allowing myself to be vulnerable, pointing out when people are taking advantage of my or others’ vulnerabilities, confessing when I am taking advantage of them and trying to make amends, as well as trying to graciously allow others to do the same. And I regularly reflect on how I am doing and how I might be able to do better.

Expanding a bit in reply to a comment

I do not think we disagree at all that the powerful that are corrupt and oppress should be fought against.

I am saying that shinning as large of a light as possible on that oppression and corruption that exploits the vulnerable is the best answer – taking the emperor’s cloths to expose what everyone will recognize as vile. To be in solidarity with the vulnerable, as the people we most revere have been. This is the type of fighting that the powerful truly fear and that creates change if there is enough solidarity from the masses.

The problem with fighting with violence is that it does not highlight and expose the oppression, corruption, and exploitation because most people accurately view it as simply two sides fighting for dominance and to impose their will on as much as they can. And when the masses get restless the powerful always try to bait them into this violent fight for this exact reason.

And unfortunately unless someone has embraced their own vulnerability as their own path to solidarity with everything else, they inevitably are blinded to most of the above and think if only they had sufficient power they would rule magnanimously. And yet they will not rule magnanimously unless they have embraced their own vulnerability as the only path to connection and union with the Entirety, aka God.

Brief FB Comment

Much of the problem is that we are bombarded from all angles for almost all of our lives with the idea that doing what we want and what we ought to do are at odds when in fact a lot of overlap exists. The overlap is actually the good news, which is hidden by bombardment from all angles, often foremost from religions. Even when you know to shoot for the overlap though, trying to live there is scary and hard. Looking anywhere other than the overlap though makes the good news impossible.

I do not mean to imply there is a big conspiracy and most of the people with power realize they are doing what I am suggesting. Rather I am saying that we are taught all along to resist our desires and focus instead on what those with authority think we should be doing (which is generally how those in authority got to where they are, which seems to be a desirable position and thus they think they are giving generous advice.) 

 The result is having to exert a great amount of energy both on suppressing our desires and on pushing ourselves to act in ways that will please/satisfy others, which then leads us to also need various escapes from all that effort fighting ourselves. Just as importantly we never learn to find the overlap (which takes a lot of practice, discipline, and reflection) where we are fulfilled by acting benevolent, which is the transformation people seek. 

 The only way to be transformed is to be acting on our own deepest desires in ways that benefit others without demanding things from them. In this way we get what we most want by being benevolent and without regard to what anyone else does, which is the gospel. It seems to have mostly been replaced by trying to valiantly fight our desires and make sacrifices for others that feel like sacrifices rather than fulfilling/rewarding, which explains why many churches/religious organizations have lost the power to attract and transform.

Brief FB Comment

Yes, in order to thrive in the realm of the Spirit we seem to need a secure home (circle/trusted friends) and foundation (beliefs we actually practice), as well as to regularly question/challenge both in various ways.

Re Asking God for help with our petty problems.

While true, where this leads is uncomfortable and challenging to our very core. If God cares more about our petty conveniences and comforts than about the estimated 100,000 children in the US trapped by human trafficking, most of which are regularly raped by adults, or all the other atrocities here and abroad, that God is nothing short of callous and cruel. So the theology is not just shallow it is at least one aspect of a good definition of evil and where evil comes from.

Even more uncomfortable and challenging is that if I am using most of my energies and resources for my own comfort and enjoyment (which is most often true of me) rather than using them to try to help alleviate those atrocities we humans inflict upon one another, I am acting in a scared, dumb, callous, and cruel manner (probably in that order).

The Gospel is nothing less than facing this (the cross) and allowing the mustard seed of faith to grow into something strong enough to more and more overcome my fear, stupidity and selfishness as I learn to act from it to bring healing and wholeness to those I encounter and in turn myself. Understanding that sometimes helps, but not much. Mostly it just explains why we all try so hard to create an alternative gospel that is not so demanding, until life (if we are lucky) makes us surrender to the only True Reality.

However, if as I believe Christ within is a wholeness with our core (God’s image) that knows we are hopelessly an inseparable part of everything else (the alpha and omega, aka God) then the path to God is through our vulnerabilities - needs and fears from being this hopelessly inseparable part of everything else. So opening up our needs and fears to Our Creator is the path to growing our faith, which could also be described as our ability to be united with things beyond ourselves. Encouraging others in this same process, especially when they have been hurt/traumatized by trying to be a part of things beyond themselves, as we all have, is what a faith community is all about, along with demanding that vulnerabilities are not exploited by those with power.

Putting those two seemingly opposed concepts together we might arrive at the idea that we should open up our petty and deeper needs to God and find they are the connecting thread to Him through His creation, but not ask for them to be satisfied so we do not actually need Him.  It is only to the extent we come to understand that we are hopelessly inadequate (and miserable) alone and decide to join His creation, moment to moment, that we become one/united with Him.  

Brief FB Comment

It is ridiculous that a religion that is supposed to be about Jesus and his way to the Father acts much more like the few he railed against rather than embracing people where they, are as he did and STILL DOES.  

Disagreements

Email to a friend regarding disagreements.  

Your last paragraph has had me wondering if my expressing my own views and what might be considered theology, is offending to your own.  A little of this might be inevitable in any relationship that does a lot of sharing of beliefs/theology, which can probably be beneficial or detrimental depending upon various things, including the open-mindedness of each person, and probably above all the faith in the other person's path even if it seems to conflict or is expressed in different words and ways. 

I personally have great faith in what I know of and intuit regarding your path, and would love to hear more about the underpinnings (beliefs/theology) whenever you care to share them.  It is one of the things that has made our relationship so valuable to me.  When you express your beliefs it often expands my own because since I believe in you and your path I also believe in the things underlying it, and this makes me expand my own underlying beliefs/foundation to incorporate yours in some way, which allows me to be whole/unified with a new segment of people and things, which to me is what it is all about. 

I am happily finding that as far as you are concerned I naturally operate on what Fr Rohr would conceptualize as “both, and” rather than “either, or.”  This essentially means that even though our views (beliefs/theology) often are very different my natural assumption (which I also think is correct) is that both of our views are mostly correct and generally what seems like conflicts or contradictions are just a lack of full understanding (we all only know a little/the more we know the more we know we don’t know/etc), which might be due to not having it be revealed yet or sometimes due to it being beyond human comprehension. 

As far as God being the Greek logos or Word that was made flesh with Jesus, I would also borrow concepts from Fr Rohr and say that the Word may have become flesh with Jesus, but that accurately implies it was around before Jesus and operating the same before Jesus.  Jesus may have been it and demonstrated it perfectly for the rest of us to follow, but he did not create it or change what had always been and always will be the Truth and the Path, and I think he says as much a few times when he talks about the Father doing the work and his claim is that he and the Father are one.  He is simultaneously the Word (aka Father/Holy Spirit) and expressing and demonstrating it. 

All of this is to say that from my standpoint please never shy away from expressing your own beliefs/concepts/theology even, or maybe especially, when they seem to conflict or contradict my own.  I doubt I will believe that they actually do conflict or contradict my own and they will probably push me to expand my own and become more whole and unified with larger parts of The Entirety.  Diversity in all its forms somewhat paradoxically is one of the best paths to connection/unity/wholeness.

Now with all of that said, if the way I express things or the things I express seem to wholly conflict or contradict your own beliefs and perspective such that our relationship seems constricting or suppressing towards your indwelling spirit, I hope that you will let me know, thereby freeing your indwelling spirit from the constriction/suppression.  

Image of God and Forgiveness

The image of God imprinted within us desperately yearns to fulfill its destiny of being a generous, valuable and integrated part of our surroundings. However, throughout life (starting early) in at least most of our human relationships we find that trying to fulfill this destiny often leads to feeling exploited and other negative emotions.

We often respond to this by trying to adopt rules for relationships (sometimes with religious backing) that will make them safe enough that maybe our imprinted image can manifest itself. At the extreme end of this is the appeal of fundamentalism to common folks. However, we find that trying to control things with rules and then the rules themselves are not compatible with the image.

Sometimes we go to the other extreme and think freely giving all of ourselves to relationships irregardless of how we are treated must be the answer and that this offering of ourselves will be enough to transform the relationships into something where our deepest self (God’s image imprint) will be able to be the generous, valuable and integrated part that it knows it is. However, we normally find that we (including the image) are trampled.

Commonly we vacillate between the extremes, thinking the answer must be in balancing them.

If we are dedicated, lucky, and have good mentors/friends we find ways to let go of the scars from past relationships and in the process realize how our image imprint (and our spirit emanating from it) were ignored, disregarded, and trampled upon to produce those scars. This is the process of forgiveness, for as long as the scars are still present we will at least somewhat react from them. Whereas once we go through this process of forgiveness, we realize the process has also taught us how to have relationships that nurture the image and emanating spirit of all involved.

Unfortunately, most are not taught how to go through this process of forgiveness or are unwilling to do so and seem to think forgiveness is a simple decision and done. In actuality it is a decision to start and continue to go through the process of forgiveness but much more than a simple or quick decision in totality. Most tragically, they thus lose out on learning how to have different nurturing relationships and often repeat the same mistakes over and over.

If a genuine reconciliation might occur, the process for the offending party to ready themselves is very similar since any objectionable behavior is just as repulsive to the image imprint of the offending party. Until both are well into their own such processes it is almost always better for each to focus on their own scars and learning from them, rather than rush a premature reconciliation without each having the necessary foundation.  And longing for reconciliation is often the best and sometimes only sufficient motivation for either or both to continue on their own processes.

Sin

Another comment to a FB post

Sin is viewing ourselves as separate from everything else, especially our immediate surroundings, and thinking, feeling and then acting from that perspective, which puts us at odds with our surroundings and trying to maximize our own situation, often at the expense of those people and things around us. While in this mindset we try to make god into something that will justify the path we are on, and that ends up having to be a confrontational god that must be rule based with the assignment of winners and losers, with each getting their “just” rewards and punishments.

This is what we must be born again from or awakened to realizing we are a little bit separate and our own entity, but much more so slightly unique and valuable, hopelessly connected, parts of The Entirety, which is God.

When we think, feel, and act from the perspective of being separate and at odds with our surroundings we put barriers between us and our surroundings. That is why we must “repent” and go through the reconciliation process, which generally includes the things we most resist, like confessing our sins to one another and doing whatever we can to rectify and heal the hurt and harm we have caused while acting from a separateness perspective. However, to the extent we have been saved or born again or have awakened this reconciliation process is actually a joyful process.

Please do not misunderstand and think I am saying I have mastered or do any of this reconciliation process well (or often). And even when I do actually do it fairly well I generally start to do it grudgingly. At the same time at some point I sometimes surrender to it fairly fully for at least a short period of time, and in those fairly short periods of time I experience what all the Saints are trying to share with us, that we normally misconstrue.

Saying that seems to great lack an essential humility, which is one of the pillars of the whole experience, as the saints/transformed always emphasize, and the only way to explain that is by remembering that getting to the experience occurs by surrendering the self, as apart from everything else, and the Majesty belongs completely to The Father/Entirety and not to the slightly unique, valuable and connected part (each of us). This is because each of us is extremely feeble and of almost no significance until we claim our spot as part of greater wholes and ultimately The Greatest Whole or Entirety. Whereas to the extent we do claim our spot we become a part of Something infinitely wonderful and tap into the Power to move proverbial mountains.

Sin is ignoring, suppressing, avoiding our indwelling spirit/Christ within/deepest self/soul/heart (whatever you want to call it) in all the crazy and harmful ways we do that with the worst being when we harm another and make them more reluctant to live from and share their own.

Faith is following our indwelling spirit/Christ within/deepest self/soul/heart that knows what Jesus and all the great spiritual teachers taught is the Truth. As Jesus taught, this starts off like a mustard seed or yeast in size and significance, but if we prioritize it (spend time, effort, resources on it), share it with others and help each other find more of it and live from it, that is the Kingdom. And to the extent we have faith in that Truth and process and build the Kingdom, we have the proverbial Faith that moves mountains and we join God’s Benevolent Eternity, which collectively is The Good News.

I personally have a smidge of that Faith and unfortunately still spend most of my time ignoring, suppressing, and avoiding. Fortunately, even that smidge has been enough to change my life from being about 80% tough/miserable, 15% decent, and 5% good, to about 60% good, 20% tough/miserable, and 20% mountain top, for many years.

Sin, Free Will, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation

I am replying to a FB post about God being furious about free will. 

If God destroyed sin wouldn’t he also be destroying free will in the process, which would in turn make everything meaningless? If that is true (and I think it is) then having sin be something we can choose would be part of God’s plan and not something to destroy or get rid of. If that were true I don’t think God would be furious about it although I do think God would be sad since it separates Him from something He loves, us.

If God is “furious” why shouldn’t we also be furious? And anyone who is furious (probably including God) wants retribution, don’t they?

Any transgression (sin) puts distance between us and God because it blocks us from the part of ourselves that experiences God because that part of us knows everyone and everything deserves dignity and to the extent we act contrary to it we move away from being able to experience God. The path back to God then is to realize how we strayed and the pain this caused and then do whatever we might be able to do to correct our wrong and the pain caused.

All the work is ours and as soon as we have reconnected to our spirit by the above process God is always waiting with open arms, and actually He was calling, guiding and rooting for us through the whole process.

When someone else is trying to correct their own wrong against us, we ought to try to follow this same paradigm, rooting for them to succeed and being ready to embrace them to the extent they are successful. Of course most people (including myself most of the time) are looking for a free pass for our past transgression that we call forgiveness but is really just enabling us to not reconcile with our own spirit and God. And we are correct to intuitively reject this because it is simply not how reconciliation and forgiveness occurs, whether that is between a person and God or between people or groups of people.

Generally, our own spirit can tell what the other intends and their sincerity and is quick to act correctly if we let it. At the same time wisdom (learning from our own and other peoples’ experience) cautions that we ought to be cautious and allow reconciliation to proceed slowly, even though we do not like the prolonged uncertainty and time spent where souls meet. If we try to rush it though we often short circuit this reconciliation and forgiveness process and set everyone up to fail.

Continuing

I figured we mostly agreed. And I definitely agree about Him being relentless and ultimately it being Grace. My point that I did not make well was that this Grace is always available with Its hand outstretched to us for the very instant we decide to go through the process of reconciliation. So when I said all the work is ours I meant the decision and process never fail and as soon as we get desperate enough to fully commit to it, we will know union with our Creator.

And even before I saw your reply I was thinking I needed to correct another error of mine. Our Creator’s forgiveness, as ours ideally ought to be, should always be present and require nothing because it is only due to any one of us being in some degree of hell (separated from our spirit that is the only part of us that can experience God) that we act in objectable ways and we are generally blind to this – “forgive them for they know not what they do.” And to the extent we are with our own spirit and communing with God, we know this.

At the same time what I previously said about forgiveness and reconciliation is true for reconciliation, and trying to give ourselves or another a free pass for our misdeeds turns out to be anything but generous because it blocks the very path to experiencing and thus knowing wholeness with our Creator (and fellows).

So we ought to forgive quickly and then be cautious and deliberate about reconciliation, not to punish, but because that is actually the generous/loving path. And we ought to be rooting for them (us) and yearning for them (us) to dig deep enough and be courageous enough to succeed on that path, while also having faith that they (we) can follow that path if they (we) choose.

Unity

A few FB comments added together

We need much less unity than most believe. Most disguise their efforts to protect themselves by tell others (whether that be friends, family, or others in society) how they ought to do things by claiming they are looking for this unity (for country, god, family, business or any number of reasons).

The only unity we need is a very basic common decency that is prioritized above everything else. When we think we need more or demand more unity we inevitably lose the basic common decency in the process.

To elaborate further, unity is an unmistakable fact, which we generally cannot see.  We are each hopelessly inseparable parts of the Greatest Whole and lots of smaller wholes (like marriages, families, friends, community groups including churches, workplaces, etc).

We have a part of us that knows of this unity that people variously call our true self, indwelling spirit, deepest self, soul, part of the Holy Spirit, Christ within, etc.

This unity and the fact we have a part of us that can experience it and thus know it, is the essence of what all great religions where founded. As such the religions teach how to find, experience and live from (collectively integrate) this part of us that can experience and thus know this Unity and a little of the Greatest Whole or Entirety.

However, over time religions end up getting contorted and used by those with power for their own purposes, most commonly without poor intent. This happens in religious groups and something very similar happens, sometimes with slightly different language and concepts in most other groups, whether that be families, workplaces, etc. As mentioned previously this is often done under the guise of unity, but it has the effect of suppressing the part of us that can experience and know actual Unity, which is the floor and basis of everything else.

The most unity that can be demanded without suppressing this part of ourselves is common decency, and ends up being enough if our goal really is what the great religions were founded upon, rather than our own safety and prosperity. Common decency demanded for everyone allows each to find this place within them that knows Unity and act from it, and surprisingly gives no other path.

Knowledge of Good and Evil

Another email to a friend

As far as consciousness, the knowledge of good and evil, original sin and becoming like a child again to enter the Kindgom:

My view is that there are individual and community aspects to the fall or original sin that are both separate and intertwined.  I believe the best basic definition of consciousness is simply awareness, which quickly leads to the ability to see ourselves as separate from everything else and then evaluate ourselves in relation to everything else.  From this we developed the ability to 

1 - be selfish and gain advantages for ourselves at the expense of others (evil), which leads everyone else to want or feel they need to do the same and endless conflict (worldliness).  Or 

2- to look out for the benefit of The Whole more than our own individual or separate interests (good), which of course turns out to be good for us also since we are part of The Whole and leads others to want to reciprocate, which becomes the Kingdom when embraced by a community. 

So the individual aspect of the fall or original sin is that we use our awareness of being separate and thinking to maximizing our own safety and interests.  This starts young, probably around the terrible twos when kids are testing their boundaries to see how advantageously to themselves they can arrange things.  Kids this age also like to be generous, but generally trend towards being spoiled selfish brats if not led in various ways towards looking out for others.  And of course we should not forget that life is full of unavoidable pain and suffering (starting with child birth from the child’s perspective), which everyone tries to avoid.  Basically all I am saying here is that we have an inherent tendency to be selfish to the extent we have not been taught by our community and life to be more concerned about a greater good than our own and we probably never get rid of it completely.*

When this inherent tendency towards selfishness (getting as much as we can and avoiding as much pain as we can) mixes with the same in others we get endless conflicts, including holding emotional currency over others (basically subtle emotional hostage taking and blackmail).  This is the corporate/community part and the trauma/pain/suffering that we as humans needlessly inflict upon one another, which teaches us that we must hide the part of us that wants to be a part of rather than separate because that is the part of us that can and often will be hurt as well as manipulated and exploited for others selfish ends if not hidden.  This is what we must unlearn or let go of and “turn and become like a child again” in order to enter the Kingdom.  I do not think that Jesus meant that is the only thing necessary (because we will still have our inherent selfishness), but that is one component necessary. 

And it is probably the first thing necessary, because it is only after we let go of this pain and the fear it creates, that we are capable of starting to live from our secret place where we know we are united with everything else.  As we start to live from that place (which of course is not supposed to stay hidden) and experience the joy of being found, whole, and connected (at least to an extent) this is the fuel that convinces us to relinquish our separate based motivations and prioritize how we might enrich things beyond us.  And as we do this we experience more joy and faith that further propels us. When we get off track by looking out for ourselves more than others (even if doing generous things for the wrong reasons or recognition) we will quickly know because we will experience the pain of being separated from the place within that connects to everything else and will thus go back to feeling lost, broken, and separate, which is often all the more excruciating after experiencing the opposite.

*There are beneficial functions of looking for advantages and competing with others. 

1 - It pushes people beyond what they would normally think they were capable of and thus would attempt to achieve without the competition, which ends up being good for the community as they achieve more than they otherwise would.   

2 – They look for better ways to do things in order to win, which leads to innovations that can serve humanity and beyond well if used for that purpose. 

3 – In being pushed to dig so deep and find strength beyond what they knew they had during the preparation or competition or after losing, they will often tap into the place we connect to things beyond ourselves, which is the part that connects to God.  In indigenous cultures that do not encourage competition, often various rites of passage serve this function to some extent.

Along these lines I love the saying, “Success is failure turned inside out” and the poem it comes from, which I think is trying to express what I am here with some of the benefits of competition and tough challenges.  In my own words that would be something like, the accumulation and then coalescing of tiny partial successes within what seems like failures is what leads to finding ourselves and success, all at the same time, if we persevere through what seems like failures, but is actually our necessary journey.  This is the process of chiseling away at the things that keep us separated to see glimpses of who we are in God, as we learn from great challenges that push us seemingly beyond ourselves to this source of greater power within us and beyond us.  

Spiritual Euphoria

An email to a friend

You asked me a great question last night. Which was, what is the benefit of the physical feeling of euphoria that I sometimes experience and think are spiritual experiences?

To some extent I have always felt guilty about the pleasure that is a part of the experience which is reinforced by part of the intuitive knowledge from the experience that I am a lucky bastard and a fuck up.  And I cannot emphasize either of those things enough, that I am lucky beyond belief and a fuck up beyond belief.  Which means the pleasure and really the whole experience is completely a gift from God, pure Grace.  Together those things are as important for me to know at my deepest levels as anything else in life and a big part of the benefit of the experience.

As I have contemplated it more last night and this morning and now gotten to a sustained strongly euphoric state for a couple hours I have explored with the experience what the benefits might be. 

The answer seems to be that the euphoria or ecstasy is a result of manifesting my destiny or realizing my destiny of being at one or in communion with God a.k.a. the Entirety. As such acting from this experience would look like Jesus or St. Francis of Assisi or Mother Teresa, etc. and letting the feelings of this experience over power and heal the scars of trying to live in community with those around me is the solution for my brokenness, separateness, being lost. The crux of the experience is that for that moment and however long it lasts I am not broken or separate or lost, I am one with everything and whole with my creator and found as well as greatly loved by my creator, while simultaneously knowing I am feeble and essentially nothing apart from. 

And all the above is completely reality. It is not a spiritual fantasy and I know that because it aligns with what Jesus and the great saints and mystics have all taught. So my task is to live that reality and much of my guide for that task is to follow that experience by following the feelings of the experience and letting them infuse those areas of my life where I am most broken and acting from that brokenness.  When those feelings infuse those areas and I am thus whole and free to follow them the ecstasy will be present but much much more importantly I will be joyously acting from wholeness with everything else or communion and I will want to be of maximal benefit to whatever I can be since everything else is also part of the same Whole. 

It doesn't have much benefit or maybe any benefit if it doesn't infuse the areas of my life where I am most broken. And when I do go back to the broken areas it is extremely painful to go from such wonderfulness to the intense pain of feeling separated again and broken. It can make it seem like the wholeness was never real to begin with and can lead to despair.  

It also often leads me to want to just enjoy the wholeness and avoid my brokenness but that quickly leads to the wholeness disappearing because it is a spiritual fantasy and if pushed far enough leads to despair (normally) blamed on others for not going along with my unfair unrealistic spiritual fantasy. 

I started writing this the day after my last email but did not get around to finishing it for a couple weeks. 

Before starting let me do a little more "wind-up" that is probably already understood and not necessary, but will make me feel better to have said.  I do not write to try to convince you or anyone of anything.  I am odd and like the intense internal stuff, I think it is because I spent so much of my life rejecting it, suppressing it, and avoiding it because it seemed to make others uncomfortable and thus me unacceptable, if I shared it.  And yet this deep internal stuff was also what I most identified with as being me and thus I was always rejecting, suppressing, and avoiding the deepest (and best) me, which I most identified with as being me.

The image that comes to mind is this deep internal me trying to peek its head out of a cellar and me continually stomping on the cellar door violently trying to just kill that part of me so that I do not have to feel like the thing that is most me is hopelessly defective. And I tried lots of ways to kill it.  Alcohol and drugs were my favorite, but I tried to use therapy and the 12 steps and exercise, and shaming it in myself and others, and starving it with will power and depriving it of things for long periods of time, etc.  And I still use eating and caffeine, mostly to take off the rough edges off life but sometimes for much more than that.

I might be the only one in the world to believe this, but I now believe that deepest part of myself that I was always violently trying to kill is actually who I am in God and God’s image in me all at the same time.  And the only thing that finally got me to try the absolutely desperate “hail mary” of surrendering to it, was a very dark despair on top of the low level despair I had my whole life when not suppressing it. 

As I write I realize that my ecstasy kind of makes sense in this context of switching from being so desperate for so long and trying to kill the most, if not only important part of me, thinking that was the answer, to surrendering to and then really embracing who I am in God, is probably the perfect recipe for spiritual ecstasy.  I’ve actually never been looking for euphoria/ecstasy in the spiritual realm, and I am still somewhat uncomfortable with it.  At the same time it seems like I am supposed to learn from it.   I think I am supposed to learn to let it infuse the areas of me that are the most separate/broken/lost/etc so that I do not have to act in a “worldy” ways, trying to accumulate and use emotional currency to protect myself, which separates me from everything else and is the belly of the beast where I spent most of my life.

That means that I have to live on the faith that what Jesus and all the great spiritual teachers have taught is actually the truth, here and now.  And that is extremely hard to do (have faith), even when I get these regular extremely powerful spiritual experiences that tell me that is true reality.  Then even if I do have that faith, learning to allow this sacred place in me to manifest itself in my daily life takes practice (like everything else in life) and even when I am trying hard and doing everything right in trying to live from it, I often screw up. 

Moving on I am very aware a lot of these things I say and do make me seem off the wall and I may be off the wall, and I am all for skepticism of me if in a inquisitive manner or even a respectful disagreeing and contradicting manner.  I’m not sure if you were being skeptical or inquisitive when asking me about the benefits of the physical feelings, but it is great because it pushes me further into them and at least in the vicinity of who I think I am in God to look for an answer.  So always feel free to go even further, and as such point out where I seem to be wrong or have holes or fallacies in my concepts.  It is fruitful and fulfilling trying to fill in those holes.

That turned into something completely different than I was intending to write about, which is that a part of my last long message made it sound like I thought I was only broken/separate/lost because of my scars from trying to live in community with those around me growing up or since and that is not true at all.  I probably went there first because it is what we had been talking about.  The main reason I am broken/separate/lost is because my first and main priority has always been to protect this deepest part of myself (which I used to think was hopelessly defective and now think is who I am in God).

I believe this is the true meaning of original sin, that as humans our first priority is to protect this deepest place within us rather than live from it.  When we developed consciousness, aka the knowledge of good and evil, we mistakenly thought we had developed a way to keep this deep vulnerable part of us protected and still satisfied.  However, this led us to view ourselves as separate and try to gain advantages over our fellows in order to protect it and then satisfy it, which is the origin and still source of all sin. 

So if what I think is spiritual euphoria that I often experience is going to do me much good, likely it will be by being so delicious (as you said from Brother Lawrence) or in other ways irresistible (from the joy of living it and the pain of burying it) that I will make it a higher priority to live from it rather than protect it.  And over time I will learn through failure and success how to integrate (live and share) it in more and more facets of my daily life with people and things I come in contact with.  

And what you have done for me is genuinely seem inquisitive about all this stuff I try to express verbally or in writing, and again I thank you for that.  It is hard to be motivated to try to express it and share it when doing so mostly irritates most people, and while I am willing to be irritating to some extent to share what I think is of utmost importance, I have no desire to be irritating.  I want to nurturing of this most important path everyone most wants.  At the present time I have not figure out how to do that much though unless the other person is in dire straights. 

Terminology

Since it is probably confusing if I mean different things by different words, as most people would, I am including this post to provide clarification.

I mean the same thing or view the following as synonyms:

Deepest self, image of God imprinted deeply within us, our individual part of the Holy Spirit, Christ within, soul, source within, and sometimes heart or gut.  (If I talk about our indwelling spirit or simply spirit, I generally mean what radiates from any of those previously mentioned synonyms). 

The Entirety (sometimes with the additional of eternity in both ways), the Greatest Whole, the Father, the Source or the Source of All or the Source Beyond, the Body of Christ, or maybe most frequently as simply God.

When I talk of Jesus (as opposed to Christ) I am generally referring to Jesus as a human.  I generally only do this when agreeing with him that the path he taught to follow (not know or believe, but follow) is a path to all the above. 

Sometimes I chose which synonyms to use in order to go along with what I think is nearest to how most other people view things and sometimes I do the opposite to challenge people to think of things differently.  Please remember though that no human language can accurately or precisely describe most of these things.  The best we can hope to do is awaken a tiny sliver of our deep inherent image of God.  It is only by experiencing this image of God within and through it everything beyond us, that we know anything of the subject.  

Paradoxes

Another FB comment to a post about how the narrow way Jesus talks about does not mean being closed minded or not contemplating things broadly.  This comment rambles at times and I apologize for that.

AA also refers to the Path as the Broad Highway, and it is one of countless paradoxes that both are absolutely true, which can only be comprehended by what people variously refer to as Christ within, the indwelling Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the true self, the soul, etc, and I refer to mainly as our deepest self or more recently our own image of God within. This is the part of us that knows we are a small but real part of The Entirety, including Eternity in both directions (aka God). It is the part of us that knows we are all part of this same Entirety, which is God, and thus everything deserves respect and care. Our greatest desires all revolve around allowing this part of ourselves to live out its destiny of being a connected and valuable (even if extremely tiny) part of this Greatest Whole.

However, this part of us feels very vulnerable and like it must be protected at all costs because life is rough/traumatic/painful/scary and it has often been hurt and when it is hurt too badly and will not show its self at all we are permanently separated from Everything Else, which is accurately described as hell. Thus generally if we are trying to live a religious/spiritual/righteous life we spend most of our time trying to make things safe such that we might be able to live from this sacred part of us, but it can never be perfectly safe and thus even many of those really trying very hard to live religious/spiritual/righteous lives end up spending most of their life trying to make things safe to bring out this most important part and our truest identity, rather than actually living from it in this messy dangerous world. For the religiously inclined this most commonly takes the form of trying to convince others of theological theories of beliefs (name of religion/doctrine/dogma/creeds/etc) because if they got everyone else to agree on one it would be safe to live from this part of us.

Normally, the only thing that makes us actually find and maybe start living from this deepest part of ourselves is if we are in so much pain and have tried everything else we can think of as a solution. Then we might truly live a Hail Mary pass and as is attributed to Joseph Campbell, “find our treasure in the cave we have most feared to go.” This is why the least are first RIGHT NOW in the Kingdom if they enter that cave and have good mentors and fellowship with others who have found it necessary to also enter this cave and find the Treasure we are all most seeking. This is also why It is the narrow way because It is found in the last place we want to look and the place the world and even most religious people truly trying to be helpful most steer us away from. And if we do not find good mentors and fellowship with others who have decided (again normally from desperation) to enter that cave and live from the Treasure they find, it is normally impossible for us to do it even if we try courageously and desperately.

We also have to get a big enough taste of this Treasure along with having good mentors for a while and then becoming good mentors and friends with others trying to live from the Treasure, to make the very real suffering of this Entirety we find ourselves in sustainable and then eventually the glue that binds us with glory to the Entirety. When we know from living from this Treasure that any suffering we are willing to endure to be in solidarity with The Entirety turns to glory when we do it for this purpose and with this understanding. It is actually the obvious and natural result of truly living in communion, and of course the ultimate Glory of God is the ultimate symbol of this - Christ on the Cross.

We also have to get a big enough taste of this Treasure to make our own suffering and vulnerability of living from this deepest part of ourselves turn to glory as we start to understand that everyone’s truest identity is not as an individual but as a valuable, somewhat unique and tiny part of The Entirety, and the only reason they hurt us or anyone else is they are separated from this deepest part of themselves (in hell) and acting from the pain this separation causes, because they do not know to enter the cave through the pain, and thus have to do something else with the pain, which they invariably inflict on others. This does not mean we have to accept it or tolerate it, but it is the way to not take it personally. And if we do not take it personally it does not hurt us at our deepest levels and prevent us from living from this sacred place within us, which is all that really matters.

After we find our Treasure and fellowship where we can start to learn to live from It (which is the Kingdom of God right here and now on earth) we will start to learn how to live from It outside our fellowship and in this way attract new people interested in this Treasure, which is everyone’s greatest desire. We will actually learn that there are countless ways to live from this sacred place and encourage others to find their own and live from It, which is aptly referred to as the Broad Highway.

We just have to want to find and live from our own and be willing to experience what we think will be our own suffering and the suffering of being in solidarity or communion with Everything Else. Then if we actually do want this and decide to do it, we will learn that it is actually glory (rather than suffering) we experience to the extent we are all in for The Entirety. And if we even get there a little bit we will forever know That is what everything is about and if we continue to decide to pursue It by finding friends and mentors that have seen a little of It and want to help themselves find more by spending time exploring It with others we will succeed. If we cannot find the right types of friends and mentors or we are not willing to possibly suffer to benefit things beyond us our chances are not good.

It is kind of another paradox that we only really suffer when we are trying to avoid our own suffering, but we are human, which means we are almost always a mixed bag and have multiple motives and expectations for things like reciprocity. It is hard to sort through these things and get better at following our deepest sacred place towards true giving without personal motives or attached expectations, and it is almost impossible without friends and mentors aiming for similar things.

And what you are suggesting, as far as questioning our theological (and I would say other) assumptions, that is a great way in my experience to find this deepest place within us because it turns out that all of our thinking and feelings originate from that place. It is not only our deepest place, it is our most ancient place and thus evolutionarily where thoughts and feelings developed from and still where they come from or originate. Tracing the thoughts and feelings back to it in meditation and with supportive friends and mentors is how transformation actually occurs. In fact it seems to be only at this place where thinking and feelings both originate and thus can mingle, that all insights and thus transformations occurs.

Anyone willing to contemplate all that would almost certainly be following your advice to go outside their own theological box. However, believe it or not I would not suggest contemplating all of it to most people. I would suggest just contemplating anything that might resonate deep within them and see where that leads.

A week later after I had met with my friend.  As I was saying on the boat, part of this comment above has been bugging me since a day or so after I posted it. So I am going to try to rectify that now.

Basically the part that has been bugging me is the language of the last (or least) will be first, and the problem primarily stems from the fact that language is always insufficient to accurately express spiritual truths. However, short of being in another’s presence where we can subtlety convey more, we are stuck with language as our method of conveying.

The part that bugs me I’ll try to explain using my wife and I as examples even though we are not perfect examples of the concept. I am a pharmacist and twice got caught taking drugs from the pharmacy I worked at to fuel my drug addiction, the first time a lot drugs and the second not very many because my wife found out quickly and honorably turned me in.

My wife then continued to support and love me through all of it, including me often being unbearable as I desperately searched for a solution other than alcohol and drugs to help me not feel internally tortured, as I had most of my life when not under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

After a decade of this desperate searching enough things came together or maybe one or two big things changed (it is hard to say) to allow me to experience peace and a sense of well-being much of the time, and this has been fairly consistent and sustainable for many years.

Now I still often overeat, I use caffeine to pick me up, and I am hot tub dependant, but I get along fairly well and fairly happily with increasing amounts of feeling extremely good, which always correlates in some way with how much I feel I am able to live in communion with everything else. Another way to say what it correlates with is how consistently I am walking with the Spirit or how well I am integrating the Spirit into my daily life. Or how well I am integrating or living from Christ within, if I define Christ within as the deepest part of myself that knows that everything Jesus taught is accurate. And I am not saying that is your definition of Christ within, but my interaction with you has led me to that definition and allowed me to warm up to Christianity in general a bit more. And since my goal is to warm to everything beyond myself and to live more in communion with everything else, that is a big gift and I thank you.

Now moving on to why I set my wife and I up as examples, I was internally tortured and in biblical terms probably possessed or something like the least or last, and I really should have ended up in jail and probably never made it anywhere good. However, through tons of Grace from all sorts of places I have at least for a while made it to a really nice place. And my journey or experience through all the darkness does really make me more useful now to some people than my wife, and while she might disagree I think made my connection to the Spirit/deepest self/Christ within forged through the darkness more expansive and maybe more intense.

However, to go beyond this and say that I am somehow ahead in the Kingdom is crazy and I do not believe it even a little. Maybe none of this was necessary though because anyone who really understands the Kingdom understands there is no first or last or anything like that There.

Meister Eckhart over 700 years ago wrote that “to get at the core of God at his greatest, one must first get into the core of himself at his least.”

Dr Carl Jung observed, “one of the main functions of formalized religion is to protect people against a direct experience of God.”

Fr Richard Rohr, dedicates a whole book (Falling Upward) to what he calls, A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, in which he discusses that we have to first have a religion with rules to follow for the first half of life, which I would term the faith of our fathers because it is our male ancestors that developed that religion. The spirituality for the second half of life is to mature to the point in Faith that we realize the rules or laws were never the point. The point is always living consistently with what out deepest and most benevolent self knows is true, which is always consistent with the core or essence of any of the great religions.

And Jesus and the Buddha agree completely on this. Jesus of course says it is not about the law or rules, but about what underlies our actions and the Buddha says that all his suggested practices and even beliefs are a path to enlightenment, but once enlightenment is attained they are not necessary.

How this ties in with my initial discussion of least and first is that we who think we have found some sort of new wholeness and freedom through the Spirit (2nd half) want everyone else to need and want this 2nd half spirituality like we have needed it and now want it. Those in the 1st half are often busy fighting about the rules/laws (doctrine/dogma/denominations/name of religion).

Some of this has just occurred to me today and I am not sure I am settled upon it as definitely being right, but I think those of us who think we have found some sort of new wholeness and freedom through the Spirit need to try to share that with those who are desperate enough to maybe be willing to go near where Meister Eckhart discussed, which is of course the path Jesus took when he hung out with and mainly taught the desperate.

Maybe we should just encourage those in the 1st half and fighting about the rules to try to follow their own rules and we should be TRULY VERY GRATEFUL for the lives they try to live and if they are living fairly benevolent lives we should leave them alone and just be and express gratitude towards them for those fairly benevolent lives. Then if or when their own rules might not be working well for them and they might think they need something more we will always be more than willing to share more of the wholeness and freedom of the 2nd half. Even here though we should try to share what they are looking for and the amount they are looking for. We should be honest about our own lives and experience, but not assume it has to be the same for them.

A Testament of Devotion by Thomas R Kelly

A FB comment re a book someone had recommended.  

A Testament of Devotion by Thomas R Kelly is a great book. Among the best examples of someone's articulation of what finding and following the Spirit looks like in contemporary society. More and more I am realizing just how fortunate I have been to have my main spiritual fellowship be 12 step groups. Extremely fortunate because there are a lot of desperate cases that require finding some life saving connection to the Spirit in order to survive and the desperation often leads to dramatic and lasting connections. Being extremely desperate myself and searching high and low and everywhere else, including listening to 100s of the most successful in various 12 step fellowships over the last 50 years tell their stories of finding and following the Spirit (mostly thru recorded audio), I have learned how almost anything can be a path to or away from this Spirit. No matter how often I see or hear it though hearing someone articulate in their own words their own experience of finding and following is one of the most powerful and encouraging things for my own finding and following and then hopefully helping others to do the same.