Pastor Dave's space

July 4th is a time when many Americans reflect a little (perhaps too little) on the birth of our country.  It was intended to be a time of remembrance, celebration, and freedom.  It marks the day the forbearers, meeting together, signed a Declaration of Independence from England.  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal….”  Perhaps the biggest idea was the idea of freedom, to be free to be who we are and what we want to be, free to be at peace, free to worship how we please, free to believe what we choose, and free to give everyone an equal chance, right?  After all, the dictionary itself says that liberty, freedom, is the right of individuals to choose their own lives. 

Did every receive this right two hundred thirty-three years ago?  Hardly.  For Native Americans, it was a tragic loss of freedom as their lands, lived freely on for centuries, were taken and parceled out in little plots and acreages for sale.  It wasn’t liberty for African Americans either, who continued to exist as slaves for nearly another century, owned by 13 of the first 14 Presidents, who built the White House, and whose slave labor set the country on a stable financial foundation.  Nor was freedom given to Jewish folks, or to Roman Catholics, or even to women!  Who was freedom for, then?  As historians have pointed out, primarily our country’s original liberty was mostly for white European male Protestants.  Compared to what exists now, our original freedom was quite limited.

In the early Christian writings, written in the common Greek language, the word for liberty or freedom is "elutheros” which literally means, “no longer a slave.”  In the Gospel of John, written in the last decade of the first century, it portrays Jesus saying to his Jewish followers, “If you continue in the truth, you will be my disciples, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”  (John 8:32)  The response of the Jewish folks was, “We have never been slaves to anyone.”  Notwithstanding their sojourn centuries ago in Egypt, they had not been slaves and had been fighting against foreign domination now for nearly four centuries.  Being free was the reason why they keep their revolt alive.  What kind of slavery was Jesus then speaking about according to John?

Jesus wasn’t talking about political or economic slavery but a slavery of the mind.  He was speaking of slavery to guilt, fear, anger, sickness, of being liked or hated.  It was a slavery to pain and pleasure.  It was a slavery not able to let go bitterness and anger, a slavery to the ego/body mind rather than that of Eternal Spirit.  Of course, we all live with these same characteristics in our own lives.  Hardly a day goes by when most of us don’t feel a tinge or two of guilt, the fear of sickness or dying, of deep anger toward another.  Yet, Jesus taught a way in which we could escape being a slave to this kind of continual thinking, attitude, and action.  The way was forgiveness.

How can this happen, however?  How can I forgive myself and others for causing my anger, disappointment, fear and hatred?  It goes back to the essence of the very message Jesus taught, that the Kingdom presented in his teachings was a spiritual one, within each of us as Spirit, beyond the body and all its temporal limitations.  Jesus taught that in our essence, we are one, one with Him, with God the Father, and with all our brothers and sisters on earth.  John portrays him strongly teaching this in chapter 17.  Freedom from slavery of the mind is then a matter of how we see ourselves; as bodies or as One in Spirit with Jesus and God the Father.  Freedom then comes to minds that don’t need to do anything but become aware of this Presence.  To the ones able to remain mindful of this teaching, and live by it, they grow in a freedom experience never known by acquiring more things and thrills of in the world.  We become free from needing such things.  No, we don’t kill ourselves to leave this transitory world and its disappointing experiences, we just don’t take it so seriously.  As I have said before, we return to whatever we are doing but do it with a smile!  “Before enlightenment I chopped wood and carried water; after enlightenment I chopped wood and carried water!”  I just don’t become attached to it.  Or as the early Apostle Paul had written, “…I have learned to be content with whatever I have.  I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty.  In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and going hungry, of having plenty and being in need.  I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”  (Phil. 4:11-13)

This awareness is simply experienced by accepting it and forgiving ourselves from chasing illusions of change and acquisition. The signs of gaining in this awareness, so that a quiet celebration can at least be felt in the soul, are a deeper sense of joy and peace.  Some of the signs are:

I have less guilt in my life about what I have done and left undone.  At least, I can let go the experience of carrying the weight of guilt.  I can forgive myself for forgetting.  We can catch and observe anger more quickly, and then let it go.  We learn to more quickly forgive ourselves. 

To live in a body is itself to live with guilt, right?  Notice how much we attend to the body to fix it up, make it smell pretty, look nice, and keep from aging with all those embarrassing lines, sags, and losses!  To identify with the body, is to never be satisfied with it.  How could we?  It’s a dying entity.  To identify with it as our selves is to feel guilt.

I have read that the reason we have so much guilt and shame with sexuality is because it’s our attempt to create something all by ourselves!  It can be a wonderful, exhilarating feeling to “make a child.”   We try to give God the credit for the creation, but underneath, we parents tend to still believe it is “ours!”

If we can’t live and forgive ourselves for the prevailing guilt, we then project it out onto others.  How we feel toward others unlike us is always a good test of our inner guilt of mind.  Psychologists point out that what we hate and dislike in others is but the projection of our own self-hate.  What we dislike about others can become a mirror of the guilt we carry.  We think others are the reason we have stress, anger and guilt, but actually, it’s our own lack of awareness of who we are.  Partners, parents, those once in love and joy, begin to feel frustrated and incomplete with the other.  With many, it grows to outright hate and despisement.  Is it really the other person?  Normally, they are just the key or trigger to a golden opportunity to take another look at our self-identification.  Are we still hanging on to the disappointments and hurts of the past?  Awareness of our Eternal Nature helps us to let go of this.  We learn to let go the illusions of Reality.

That’s why true freedom in Spirit will give us a sense of connection with all other people and races.  In the Old English idea, the word for freedom was freo, which mean “dear one,” or “beloved.”  True freedom sees all as our brothers and sisters.  No race is seen as inferior or as our slave, or any sex or sexual orientation.  We are One in Spirit, in God.  There are no special people, places, races, cities, lands, countries, or anything!  As Paul also wrote, “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.”  (1 Cor. 12:13)  All our our “dear ones, our beloved.”

The results of such an awareness will move us and our society toward a more peaceful and free world.  The inward sense of peace will cause the effect of peace around us.  It is the most lasting way to establish a kind of peace on earth.  For many years I fought for bringing peace and justice to earth by using anger and guilt to motivate people to change, to work for “justice.”  It became a great way to righteously project out my own inward guilt and shame.  Years ago, when I discovered that my True Self is Peace, it changed the way I worked to “save the world.”  A man who knew me some 20 years ago saw me a few weeks ago and remembered my saying, “I no longer am looking for a righteous cause to ventilate my angers!”   I think so much “social justice work” is simply done as a “legitimate way” to ventilate and project our anger and guilt.  Such actions can give us a sense of innocence and righteousness by seeing others as perpetrators of greed and anger.

Freedom and peace, then, does begin with each of us.  One with this awareness can join with Spirit around the world with a new felt oneness.  For years our country’s freedom has been focused mostly on one race, one gender, one ethnic background, excluding others and forcing many to become our slaves.  Thankfully, we are slowly evolving in seeing Asian, African, Native Peoples, regardless of the eternal looks and forms, as One with us as God’s People. 

On this Fourth of July, the 233rd birthday of our country, with all its flaws and shortcomings, let us claim anew our right of Freedom within, and continue to move our country steps further down the road to freedom.  May those seeds of “equality for all” truly be expanded to include all, by our recognizing the brother and sisterhood of all people, not in forms and bodies, but as fellow Spirit with Eternal Oneness.  So be it!

Many people feel honest puzzlement over the healing miracles Jesus was described to have done in Christian scriptures.  The idea of his raising a child and man from the dead, and granting healing to people with sicknesses, seems truly miraculous, and many of us were taught these were literally the truth.

For years I have not viewed these healing miracles, or all the miracles described in the first century Christian writings, or the whole Bible for that matter, as literal.  I’ve felt they had “metaphysical” or spiritual messages, but these were often missed in the insistence they literally happened.  The purpose of these described miracles was to help convince Jewish followers that Jesus was worthy of their devotion and following.  The miracles described in the gospels were written forty to seventy years after Jesus even walked on earth.   They were written to help stem the tide of departure by most Jews from the movement, following the devastating destruction of the temple along with Jerusalem in 70 A.D.  As John Spong has written and taught, these writings must be seen from ancient Hebrew eyes, connecting Jesus to the stories of miraculous events occurring in the lives of ancient Elijah and Elisha.  Both of these former prophets had stories accompanying them about having powers over nature and the ability to raise up the dead.  The writings did not work in the intended goal of keeping Jews in the early church, but they did work to draw in and keep many of the non-Jews, who indeed made the late first century church into a so-called “gentile” movement.

How then does this relate to our prayers, our desires to effect miracles of healing in our lives and in the lives of others?  Don’t our prayers have power to change people, change history, and heal people of serious diseases?  Isn’t that why we practice anointing here at Wayside each week?  Can’t we expect “miracles of healing?”

To begin with, the most common idea or the word “prayer,” as used in Hebrew/Christian scriptures, is “self observation, self-judgment.”  The deepest form of prayer is listening, observing our minds and attitudes.  They are exercises to observe and discern if we are feeling and sensing our Oneness with God, with Spirit, and the same Spirit in all creation within our brothers and sisters.  If we observe ourselves as helpless, unhappy, fearful, guilty, or angry, we have lost our connection.  Lightning has stricken our power lines, and the communication has been lost.  And so we choose again to go back, to return to the affirmation and idea that we are connected with our Source, complete, whole and free.

Thus I propose that the best use of prayer is for mind healing, the kind of mind healing that affirms whatever happens, I remain in my Oneness with God the Creator, and in whatever happens, I will be okay.  In this attitude and belief, I can release the guilt, anger and fear, and through forgiveness, leave negativity behind.  This is the central theme of the often misunderstood book called “A Course in Miracles.”  The “miracle” in the book is a change of thinking from not having to having, from guilt to freedom, from turmoil and confusion to peace.  Healing, in this writing, is close to the idea of “self-observation,” watching to keep our minds from slipping back into our accustomed identification with body and material matter. 

The mind is a very powerful entity in our lives.  The power of thinking can accumulate untold success of wealth and worldly power.  The recent phenomenal explosion of Rhonda Byrne’s book, “The Secret” attests to the power of the mind to accumulate cars, houses, wealth, and spouses!  The power of the mind helps people finish college and enter satisfying careers.  The power of the mind helps people overcome sickness from serious diseases. 

Currently, we are learning more about what is called the body/mind through auras, chakras, and energy flow blockages.  Lives have been extended untold years by the application of such techniques.  But the one thing such mind use cannot do is satisfy the ultimate question of what it’s all for, who really am I, and is there a eternal life anywhere.   As John Harris, the popular author of the best selling book, “I’m Okay, You’re Okay” used to say, when we use our mental, positive attitude to acquire things and great travel adventures in life, there is always the nagging question of “what is it all for?” 

The deepest level of prayer, in my observation, is not to get things or even the illusion of perfect health, but the sense of Oneness with the Eternal.  That to me is the deepest idea of spirituality; not to end the aging process, not to live as comfortable as the mind can be made to acquire resources, but to simply live with awareness that things don’t satisfy.  Bodies are mortal also, and although we exercise, eat right, get new does and paint and tattoo ourselves into a deeper beauty, it all just goes. 

I believe prayer in most religious expressions is the idea of raising the dead, healing diseased bodies, and getting ourselves material security.  If blessed, we may finally come to realize that ultimate satisfaction is peace, the idea that we live even now on a level of Eternity.  As Daniel Nahmod has written in one of his songs, “How do I live if my life is eternity?  How do I live if I’m no longer afraid to die?  It’s a mystery, no one’s (in most religions) prepared me to answer.”

Thus healing is not primary for things and bodies, but the mind.  This deep peace of mind obviously brings a healing to the temporary body, but mostly, it brings awareness into minds of that which is beyond both time and space, which more and more scientists are now seeing as but an illusion of reality anyway.

“Prayer,” then, “is the medium of miracles.  It is a means of the created with the Creator.  Through prayer love is received, and through miracles love is expressed.  Miracles are thoughts.  Thoughts can represents the lower bodily level of experience, or the higher or spiritual level of experience.  One makes the physical, and the other creates the spiritual.”  (A Course in Miracles, chapter one.)

Meanwhile, don’t beat up on yourself for using prayer primarily to help your body and material wants and needs.   Most all of us began there.  As we age, we normally are struck more deeply with the realization that our bodies are not immortal; they are the aging, wearing tents that St. Paul wrote about to the Corinthians. 

Prayer, and living, are like climbing a ladder.  We begin to grow deeper in our honesty and awareness, and so we climb up another rung.  We cross the rungs of seeing the body as somehow immortal to the awareness of our Oneness with that which is beyond all space and time boundaries.  We finally reach the top rung, and there the Spirit welcomes us back home, having never left to begin with except in our illusions.  We have then completed the journey, the journey which in reality, was over long ago, a journey which really had no distance except in our thinking.   

Pentecost is a word from centuries of “church jargon” which point to the day on which the Holy Spirit was given to God’s followers.  Actually, the Holy Spirit has been “given” from time immemorial but people didn’t recognize It.  In early church history, Pentecost was a story made up some 50 years after Jesus walked on earth, along with the idea of a physical resurrection of the body.  In Luke’s account called “The Acts of the Apostles,” written around 90 A.D., he portrays Jesus ascending up into heaven forty days after the resurrection and then ten days later, on Pentecost (dating from the resurrection), the Spirit arrived.

What counts is the realization of Spirit in our lives.  We all need a “Pentecost” experience when we realize we are not alone, but connected with Spirit which is connected to the essence of all peoples.  Presbyterians have not been thought of too much as “Pentecostal” since we generally have seen ourselves as pretty special by God’s standards, chosen to be the elect.  As such, we don’t have many outbursts of deep joy at the realization we are connected with Everything! 

One story that floats around is how a man is sitting in a Presbyterian Church one service raising his hands and saying “Praise God, Thank You Jesus” etc. during the singing and even the speaking.  An usher finally comes to him and asks with sternness in the voice, “What are you doing?”   The man says, “Praising God!” to which the usher said, “Not in this church!  Do any more of that nonsense and you’ll have to leave!”

Or the one about the local EMTs receiving a call that a person had died during the service of a nearby Presbyterian Church.  They were asked to come and removed the poor soul so the service could continue without the interruption.  Well, when the EMTs arrived, they carried out the first two rows of people before finding the one really dead!

Anyway, a true Spirit realization or awareness gives people the sense of oneness with all.  That’s the point of Luke’s account of the day in Acts chapter two when people from around the known world understood each other in their own language.  The point is that Spirit gives us the sense of oneness with all.  The foundation of such an awareness is that we all are God’s Sons and Daughters, endowed with the Eternal Spirit which is much deeper and longer lasting than bodies or shared ideas and values.

Surprisingly, most organized religious groups pride themselves on their specialness, or favoritism in the eyes of the Creator.  We go so far to damn others not of our name or likeness and if the people happen to be more of the native “earth people” of the land, we have shown very little respect or mercy.  People of other color have been despised and enslaved, reduced to the idea of being just animals.  Not very good for people who yearly have observed and celebrated “Pentecost Sunday.”

In modern day Presbyterianism, people who work for “justice” often cry out against the evil doers of the day and often come close to this polarization.  In the name of Jesus, we divide up the good and the bad, the chosen and the “Pharisees.”  In the years of the Viet Nam War and its protests, we often called returning soldiers “baby killers,” forgetting our own complicity and Oneness as God’s Eternal Children.  We do alright if people look like us, think like us, and follow our values.  But God have mercy if the “lines” are crossed.

Years ago, Mother Teresa was asked to attend a “Anti-War” rally and she refused saying as soon as they put together a “Pro-Peace” rally she’d be there!  It is so easy to become overwhelmed by all the cruelty and senselessness of the world that we quickly try to side with the good guys against the bad guys.   Spirit will give us a sense of connection and love with both.

Spirit realization will also bring to us a deep sense of peace about the present and the future.  “When the Spirit comes,” Jesus says according to John, “He will guide you into all truth.”  What is the truth?  That whatever happens, we are never disconnected from our Source.  Even in prison the Apostle Paul could write, “I have learned that in whatever state I am in, therewith to be content.”  (Phil. 4:11)  This exemplifies the experience of Oneness and total satisfaction on the deepest level.  Earlier he wrote how in prison, facing death, he was content and had such a deep experience of his Eternal Oneness that it was hard for him to decide whether to live or die.  How does one come to such a place?  By remembering daily, each minute, that our Essence, our Soul, is never separated from God. 

People often wonder how they might be at death, or facing the eminent passing from this time/space world of existence.  Well, “abiding in Spirit” daily is the answer.  It involves being quiet, sitting in meditation, the deep use of reason that can only convince you that whatever is mortal around us, including our bodies and thinking minds, is short-lived and mortal.

In Buddhism, this idea of living in freedom, connected to Spirit, the All, is called “detachment.”  Sorrow, worry, fear, are all associated with attachment to mortality.  In Christianity, I think of John’s words, “Love not the world nor the things that are in the world.  For the love of the Father is not in those who love the world; for all that is in the world-the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches—comes not from the Father but from the world.  And the world and its desires are passing away, but those who do the will of God live forever.” (1 John 2:15-16)

A couple weeks I ago played a round of golf at the nearby South Shore course.  I was feeling tired but very relaxed when finished, feeling peace as I walked toward my car.  Just as I arrived I heard someone running up behind me asking, “Is that your red Camry?”  “Oh no,” I thought, “it’s parked right next to the first fairway and I bet someone hit it!”  But then the man said, “That car is in such great shape!  How old it is it, and how long have you had it?”  Well, I laughed, relieved that a ball had not dinged my paint, and told him I’ve had it for 10 years.

We get so protective and possessive of our things.  We forget that most of them we prized will just be carried to the curb when we pass on!  I hear that all the time.   Yet we become easily to attached, to hooked by things including our bodies.

In the Spirit, we learn to live a life of “holy detachment.”  It can be so simple, actually.  We choose to go one way, and if it works, fine.  If we choose to go another direction and it doesn’t, well so what?  We do well and we make mistakes.  It’s the way of this life.  God is not angry or disappointed; we are, our egos are bruised.  We go to the doctor and get a nice health report.  We go and get a not so nice report.  We know we will be okay, that all this life is but a dream, an illusion compared to eternity of which we have always been a part, and always will.

Of course, this realization can’t be rushed, or even demanded.  It has to be nurtured, pondered, studied and contemplation.  The early story has Jesus telling his disciples to go to Jerusalem and wait for 10 days in that room.  It was a ten day retreat, away from the other necessities of the day, until the realization of the God-Presence descended upon them like a dove!

Spirit, Life realization is like going to sleep.  We can’t force it or demand it!  Oh, we might be able to take some drugs, but then we’ll have side effects we don’t want.  We can stop drinking and eating stimulants, we can play quiet music, get a softer bed, shut the blinds, but in the end, it just has to happen.

Becoming aware and experiencing a wonderful, rapturous way of the Presence of Spirit comes from a life of cultivating our Spirit garden.  We seek to live in the moment, without expectations and attachments to outcomes.  We learn to practice forgiveness of ourselves and others.  And then in time, the fruit ripens, the leaves and petals open, and the sense of Oneness, of being with Everything, becomes overwhelming, and like Jacob of old, who wrestled with God all night, we walk away in the morning with perhaps a new gait, but knowing we have been blessed.  We have had our “Pentecost” for the moment, for eternity. 

Last Thursday, in the more historic, liturgical Christian traditions, Ascension Day was observed.  Most Presbyterians probably didn’t even know that since in our country, the “liturgical calendar” didn’t become too well known until after Vatican II in the early 1960’s.  It is a day to commemorate Jesus taking his disciples to a hillside, saying a few words of instruction and comfort, and then “ascending up into the sky” as they stood looking.  And just before he shot up like a rocket, he promised he would come back. 

This account from the book of Acts depicts the event occurring 40 days after the resurrection, but Luke’s earlier Gospel work, written just a few years previously around 85 A.D., depicts it all occurring on Easter, the Day of Resurrection.  Since the 4th Century, the church decided to commemorate it on the 40th day.  No doubt there were enough festivities on Easter itself so the decision was made to postpone it 40 days.  (Truly I oversimplify!) 

The reason for Luke’s two accounts seems to be a need to bring back added credibility to Jesus himself.  Since the early followers of the way were mostly Jewish, the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. was a terrific blow on any idea of Jesus’ return to remove Roman oppressors and bring the the nation back to the good old days of King David.  People simply turned away.  So writers like Luke and the other Gospel writers came on the scene to help stem the flow.  One of their techniques was to depict Jesus even more as one of the great Prophets and leaders of old.  Jesus was portrayed as Moses, Elijah and other of the greats of the past.  And as Elijah, he too ascending into the sky in front of people watching.  And of course, the 40 day period was so common in ancient Hebrew lore.

Of course, in these days, the universe was thought to exist on a three tier level; heaven and God above, the abode of punishment and hell below, and our physical existence here on the surface.  Of course, this idea has been completely demolished by science, but not with considerable church opposition!  Last week the Space Shuttle crew repaired the Hubble Telescope which now can look back to nearly the beginning of the “Big Bang” which created the universe!  We will be able to go back to just 500 million years before the beginning around 14 billion years ago.  The three tier idea has long gone!

So what might the Ascension mean for us today?  Well, the idea of “ascending” has been applied over the centuries to teachers and people who grew in their awareness of themselves as Spirit rather than mortal matter.  The more one grew in this awareness, and was able to live and communicate it, so was he or she considered an “ascending master.”  Ascension is actually, then, the deepening of the movement toward detachment from that which is mortal and passing.  It is a movement away from the disappointments and loneliness attached to things and forms to the freedom of Spirit.  Some of us learn this in our own life times; some don’t and perhaps return thousands of times until it “finally comes out right” as the song goes.

Now it perhaps is no surprise this idea has not been promoted, taught, or understood very deeply in many organized religions.  Once a religious expression is codified into beliefs and forms, these take over the idea of detachment and formlessness.  So not many teachers in the Christian Traditions were consider “ascended Masters.”  They were more likely known for their power and control over others.  Studies have shown that as the church grew over the centuries in conquering people “for Jesus,” the radiance of power and love radically decreased.  It’s hard to feel free when your faith has been demanded of you at the cost of your very life!

Ascended Masters today might be found outside of much of the organized Christian religion.  Teachers like Wayne Dyer, spurned and ridiculed by many Christians, operate outside of the church and yet teach a way of freedom and peace unheard of in many churches and seminaries.  Jack Kornfield, Ram Dass, Carolyn Myss, Ken Wapnick, Eckhart Tolle, the Dalai Lama have created large followings as people discover in their teachings the way of peace.  Hundreds make yearly travels to the east to visit various teachers in small, inexpensive ashrams and discover the principles of freedom and detachment.  Most Christian gatherings are geared toward business, keeping things in order, and controlling those out of line.

How then might we begin to experience the freedom of Spirit, the joy of detachment from mortal things and life around us?  Well, you can read the Scriptures quietly and discover even within them seeds of this liberation.  Especially important are those “lost books” such as the Gospel of Thomas the Mary Magdalene.  Jesus himself taught the Presence was within us, accessible merely by choice, by changing our thinking from seeking “outside” to “inside”.  Of course, taken literally, our present scriptures can lead one to conclude that God is very angry with our mistakes and sins, and will punish severely those who turn away or are ignorant of the blood shed for our atonement.  However, the enlightened discover that we merely can change our mind, opening the heart, surrender to Spirit which surrounds and guides us!

I wrote my good friend Chas Griffin a few days ago and asked what he might recommend for one seeking to “ascend” the ladder of spirit awareness.  He offered such simple but effective reminders as daily meditation, quiet times, and journaling to help us grow and “ascend.”  We can also do daily acts of kindness and compassion toward others, especially those whom we might exercise the attribute of forgiveness. 

Of course, changing our ways of thinking to experience love, liberation and freedom, can seem very threatening and uncomfortable.  One can feel as though he or she might lose all their security if they “give up attachments” and see things differently.  Guilt has such a deep hold on our in our bodies.  A few weeks ago I began again taking some golf lessons.  Now I have been playing the game for 15 years and one would think I would have gotten it by now.  That’s not how it works in golf!  (Even Tiger takes lessons.) So I began some lessons.  In a few minutes the “master instructor” pointed out a serious fault in my swing!  Well, I’ve been working weeks now to correct it, watching my handicap shoot up 8 or 9 strokes!  It’s embarrassing, leaving me feeling often awkward, off-center, and silly.  Yet I know in time with patience, my game will improve.  The same holds with changing our thinking from looking outward to finding Allness within.  So simple, so inexpensive, but oh so scary!

In the past century, the American psychologist G. M. Stratton had a pair of eye glasses made that turned everything upside down!  It took him a couple weeks but he then adjusted to living with everything upside down in his life!  After a few months, he took the glasses away and again, found it took around two weeks to readjust his life to seeing things “the right way.”  So with our thinking and lives; if we have become so adjusted to seeing life “upside down” from Spirit’s viewpoint, it’s going to take some patience and humor to “change the swing”.  If we have lived comfortably with guilt, unhappiness, anger and depression, change will upset the cart and make us feel very uncomfortable in our freedom.  We will feel like idiots at times, off balance, and even a bit weird.

Trust me, however, freedom and peace will be worth it!  Your smiles and joy will slowly increase.  You will be able to adapt to almost anything around you with less anger, frustration, and a need to control others to your idea of truth.  You can just let it be, to “not worry but be happy” as the confirmation song went last week.  You won’t even need to change your looks.  You won’t need to buy new clothes, new “clubs” or bags; people will simply see the new results and with forgiveness of your own mistakes, and others, life will be a much richer and deeper joy to live.  And together, we just might ascent a bit higher!

I was surprised yet pleased that the confirmands, or at least one of them, choose Psalm 23 for Sunday’s confirmation reading.  I thought such a Psalm a bit mild or too sleepy for high schoolers.  I don’t know I expected but it wasn’t this.   The 23rd Psalm is the staple of funerals, at least most Protestant ones; one side of the card has the name of the deceased with dates of birth and death, the other side the 23rd Psalm.

My first deeper awareness of this Psalm came on an airplane ride to India in 1987.  I had been with a group of people for some gathering and a woman, whose name I forgot but whose husband taught at UB, whose name I also forgot, gave me a little book on the 23rd Psalm.  I think I loaned the book out because I don’t even remember the name, but the Psalm stayed in my mind, at least the comments on it.  Indeed, it was such a nice preparation for my experiences in India, and what I have tried to inculcate into my life since.  Let me share a few of these ideas.

“I shall not want.”  The phrase became so repetitious in the weeks ahead, and then the ensuing years.  In the East it’s called “detachment from things and idols.”  We all get caught up in “wantitus” from the time we are born.  We tend to  believe we just can’t be happy and fulfilled unless we get this or that.  We become prisoners to the search for happiness outside.  Health can be destroyed, as well as careers and relationships because of the insatiable appetite for wanting more.  James, the little book in the early Christian writings, says wars are caused by wanting.  “You want and cannot have, so you go to war!” 

In my years since India, a deeper awareness in my life has been trying to stay aware and a bit more controlling of wants.  It’s been a tough attempt at times.  Often I’ve failed.  It’s easy to shake always wanting. 

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”  Or we might say, “God is my Source, my center, I shall not want.”  Yet isn’t wanting basic to survival on this plane?  If the body didn’t want food and more of it, wouldn’t it die?  If the body didn’t want relationships and things, wouldn’t society end?  The root of “want” is “wanton” or lacking something.  The body/mind is a very wanting entity, always searching, learning, getting, growing, evolving, expanding.  It’s the nature of the “beast” as they say.”

My Source, however, my Center, is complete.  It’s my Essence, my Higher Self, my True Self.  It has no needs; it just is.  It is the part of us that calls us to slow down, to be content, to let it go, telling us we have enough.  As people, wanting is part of survival on this earth.  Yet we can change it’s direction and goal.  We can learn to know when to say enough is enough.  We can learn to use our wanting as a desire to share oneness and love with others. 

In Buddhism, one of the Noble Truths is that all are miserable and unhappy but another Noble Truth is that through detachment and letting go, we can find contentment and peace.  We can find the Inner Well and then learn to live our days on earth walking the “middle way” without falling into the extremes of never having enough or needing to be an ascetic to earn it.

Thus the “Good Shepherd makes me lie down in green pastures.”  We recognize we have enough, that more is always there but for now, we must quit eating.  I grew up with cows and when a cow got full of green grass, especially in this time of year, it would lie down and chew the cud.  With sheep, they are more apt to just keep eating.  They go eating endless on green hillsides of fresh grass.  Their stomachs will literally expand and kill them if they don’t quit.  So the Shepherd makes them lie down for their own comfort and health.

We often just don’t know when to quit with our wants.  We tend to go on “eating” until we get sick or literally kill ourselves.  Never satisfied, never content, never full, we shun quiet sitting and quiet meditations for never ending accumulations.  It not only and destroy ourselves but our families.  It can also destroy countries.  Isn’t the economic stress we now find ourselves within as a nation the result of unchecked greed?  Ah, we just can’t help ourselves.

When our ancestors came to this rich country in the colonial period, saw the lush resources of timber, minerals and precious metals, they just couldn’t stop themselves either.  God-be-damned when it comes to loading up on gold, silver, and precious stones!  What was offered to them as tokens of peace became objects of must have, and so millions of native peoples were destroyed to satisfy wants and lusts for more.  And we weren’t any happier.

So lie down daily in satisfaction.  Chew your cuds of meditation and contemplation.  Sit and be still; you will feel and know God.  Learn how much you don’t need, how you and I can adapt to a much greater simplicity.  It will be enough, it will be plenty, and you will find deeper peace and appreciation for all.

Now we come to some problems with the Psalm, “our enemies!”  “He prepares a table for me in the presence of my enemies.”  Why should we have enemies?  Enemies are simply a way to keep ourselves different and special, aren’t they?  When we love our enemies, we learn that we really aren’t that different or special.  We learn we all have the same needs and desires for peace and satisfaction.  We learn we all want to know abundance. 

If our ancestors would have seen Native Peoples as like us, only with different lifestyles with some different marriage patterns, we could have learned so much from them.  But no, we had to see them as “enemies, pagans” who threatened our existence.  Now, thanks be to God, we are seeing a much deeper appreciation of their values and ideas.  We are learning to respect the air, earth, sky and sea with a bit more reverence.  There is enough for all!

So rather than eating in front of your enemies, gloating over their defeat, spend more time eating with them sharing our common stories of belonging and seeking for meaning.  I think that might be what the writer had in mind, but I’m not sure.  There are too many stories of murderous purges of other tribes and peoples in the Bible to believe they simply got to know their new acquaintances, and learned from them.  Today we are trying to know more about other people different from us, in race, religion, in ideas, in customs.  At least some are, and may it continue to deepen.

Which brings up the last point, praying for a universal connection with all others in Spirit.  Experiencing abundance, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life” is really a monitoring of our attitudes and desires.  It means getting up each day and counting our blessings, taking time to listen and feel, to observe our joy and love or lack thereof.  Prayer, as I shared with the Confirmands on their February retreat at Duffield, is mostly about judging ourselves.  Pallel, the most commonly used word in scripture for prayer, means simply to “judge or observe oneself.”  It is not judging others but ourselves as to our sense of abundance and peace and forgiveness.  I say to myself, “Ah today, this moment I am good, I am free, I am so content.”  Or it says, “O, I have again lost my peace and I am feeling anger and frustration and scarcity in my life.”  If the later, I can help nurture my return to peace by simply saying to myself, “I have become attached again to my wants and desires!  I don’t want to lie down and be content.  I have lost contact with my Spirit, my Eternal Self!”  And then you can begin to move back once again toward peace, love, joy, and a sense of being One with All.  You could take a walk, or sit down and breath slowly, thankfully.

The other night I watched PBS’s special on Bernard Madoff, the greatest “swindler” perhaps in modern times.  As an unlicensed broker, some 40 plus years ago as a “gofer” on the stock exchange floor, he began telling people he could invest their money into some “hot stocks” in which they could reap dividends in the double digits.  Over the years, he garnered in billions of dollars from trusting, unsuspecting patrons, including Swiss and French bankers!  Never once did he actually invest a dime except in his own desired things and for a few of his accomplices.  The good life ended with the recent crashes of our economy in the past year so when people asked for their money, there was none!

It is said that to keep a good Ponzi scheme going, one must keep the whole scheme secret and yet at the same time, have people keep buying into it, coming and giving you money to “invest”.  I find it amazing that people could be so gullible to continue for years in such a scheme.  I went to bed that night, after watching the special, wondering about our faith.  I wondered if I teach the truth as I see it or simply offer a spiritual Ponzi scheme!  Or if I myself might be following such a scheme. 

I wonder how so many of us can claim to believe in God and all God’s blessings but still be so unhappy and dissatisfied with our lives, and how we can get ourselves into such times of hatred and division.  I wonder how the church could batter and destroy so many native people over the centuries, carrying out pogroms in order to bring home more gold and silver while at the same time supporters would keep “buying into it.”  Why?  Didn’t anyone ever tell them that the Spirit is Universal, within everybody, attainable but for the awakening to it?

I wonder if the truth be told, we could simply tell people that they really need so little to be happy, that big churches, big houses, big budgets don’t make people happy, but contentment, satisfaction, the ability to sleep peacefully at nights without a stomach full of medicines.  Why have we in the church leadership kept the truth so secret, telling people that you don’t need churches, traditions, beliefs to be happy, but simply to open the heart and mind to a Greater Source who resides within?  Why do we make it so difficult and hard?

“The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.  He makes me to lie down in green pastures.  He restores my soul.”  As youth, middle aged and golden agers, abundance is as close as our breath.  We need do nothing but awaken to that which is eternal, beyond all time, space, and things.  And remembering, we can live in peace and with kindness and compassion, sharing such good news with all we encounter.

Today is Mother’s Day.  It’s fitting that we honor mothers.  Mother’s Day was officially set as a national holiday in 1914 after many previous attempts.  In 1872, Julia Ward Howe called for a Mother’s Day, inviting mothers of slain Civil War sons, on both sides, to come to Boston and begin planning for alternatives to war.  It didn’t go too far.  In 1877, Julie Blakeley called for a Mother’s Day in Albion, Michigan.  She was a leader in the temperance league to abolish alcoholic beverages from society.  One Saturday night a group of anti-temperance men took her son out to the local saloon and got him drunk.  Thus his mother established a Mother’s Day to call mothers together to band drinking from the country.  It didn’t work either.  Finally, Julia Ward Howe pulled it off in 1914 as a day to yearly just honor mothers without any other cause.  It seemed harmless but within six years, women won the right to vote with a constitutional amendment!  Of course, fathers began to catch a sense of being threatened and outdone, so in 1934, men were given a national Father’s Day as well.

Certainly we can say that parents are the most influential entity to their children’s lives, and mothers are usually the most so.  Parents are like gods to children, coming across at early ages as a mesmerizing guru and gifted charismatic leader!  No wonder parents like to have children, at least when they are young!  And mothers are the closest to their children in most cases, even in our day.  “The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world!” wrote William Ross Wallace in 1865.  So if parents are the most influential in children’s lives, and mothers the most so, then what might be tips to make our influences the most effective and oriented toward peaceful, productive lives?

I think the most effective mother or father in parenting might be the one most free of hatred and fear, especially of her and his self.  The most effective parent, as a most effective leader is one who is comfortable with herself.  She is at ease with her life and her world and remains confident and hopeful even amid losses and challenges.  How can this be and how can it be strengthened in mothers, and fathers?

I believe we are the most free and peaceful when we live with the awareness and remembrance that we are not our bodies, but primarily remember ourselves as Spirit.  This might seem quite impossible to most and even denied, but let us think for a few moments about what it means.  As Dr. Freud pointed out in the last century, guilt is universal among human beings.  To this most agree.  However, many believe Dr. Freud’s reasons were quite vague and even ridiculous.  He reasoned that women are guilty because they wish they were men.  He wrote of the Oedipus complex, the theory that children between 3 and 5 want to possess their father or mother alone so they go through an early phase of wanting to kill their father or mother in order to possess the parents alone.  If healthy, they resolve this.   If a boy, they spend the rest of their lives worrying about castration.  If a girl, they overcome their guilt by wishing the rest of their lives they had a penis.  Not very many psychologists believe this comes close!

So where does guilt originate?  Augustine and Calvinists say it’s because of our “original sin” or “total depravity” by nature.  We are born mean and selfish and if the guilt is to be removed, we must be “washed by the blood” of Jesus.  The trouble is, most people who say they have accepted this, are more guilty and spread more condemnation than ever before!  What might be another choice?

Spiritual mystics and many early Christians understood that removal of guilt was accomplished by becoming awakened to our true nature, which is Spirit, which is One with God.  We see ourselves as Daughters and Sons of God.  In so doing, we realize we are not our bodies but Spirit.  Guilt comes from the realization that we were One with God all the time, but felt angry, hopeless and depressed in thinking we were these mortal bodies.  We just “can’t get no satisfaction” with these bodies, the kind that last very long.  We know they are on a track to death and return to dust.  We know we each have a sentence on death row.  Regardless of what kind of insurance we purchase, it doesn’t work.  Life Insurance is really misnomer for “Death Assurance.”  And Health Insurance is really a misnomer for the phrase, “Sickness Insurance.”  Right?  So we tend to live a life of denial but the anger, the guilt and the self-hated is always there.  And if our parents never awoke to the Spirit, then we perhaps never saw it either, even if couched in religion and church busyness.  The likely result is that however hard we try and dearly love our children, we just can’t give then any assurance outside of someday, when the return to dust, they might rise again and go up to heaven, if they have been good enough or went to church regularly and give enough money for the building and church business.  Right?

The good news is that we have a memory within us that keeps calling us back home, and this is the Holy Spirit with us.  When we awaken to this, and accept our true Identities, then we can forgive ourselves for anger toward the mortality of life around us.  We can forgive the world for being what it is, just a passing phase in time while we are within Eternity, even now.  The good news is also that we can move past the sense of limitation and victimization that we all have in one way or another from our parents or life itself.  Whether our parents abused us, which many did in one degree or another, or we were raped, robbed, beaten, permanently injured, remembering we are spirit, we can make another choice toward freedom.  We can choose not to be our parents or society’s problems! 

At first such a choice seems frightening.  We tend to “enjoy” our victimization status.  It gives us a separate identity.  Nothing scares us more at times than that thought that in Reality, we are all One.  Why that means we lose our individuality, the very thing our Calvinist/Puritan tradition wants us have the most!  But if we can get beyond that limitation, and remember to stay awake to our Higher Self, we will soon begin to experience the deepest peace and joy ever known.  And our family including spouse, parents, children and friends, will become the beneficiaries.

In Acts 8, we read the story of the Ethiopian Eunuch who met Philip on the wilderness road to Gaza.  The Spirit sent Philip over to the eunuch’s chariot, just in time to hear the eunuch reading Isaiah 53.  It was a sad story about a person who in seeking to follow God, was abused and led to death and humiliation as a sheep.  The eunuch wants to know who the writer is talking about, himself or another.  The point was that the eunuch knew what it was like to be humiliated and abused.  At that point, the story tells how Philip told the man the good news about Jesus’ love, bringing acceptance and inclusion to all, especially the abused and outcast.  The hungry eunuch responded to the story and wanted to be baptized in Jesus’ name, so right there, along the road near a spring, without any session approval, Philip took the man and baptized him, giving him a ritual symbolic expression of his inclusion in the love of God.

Studies have shown that Eunuchs in those days were popularly known as homosexuals.  Jesus as much is shown saying this in Matthew 19:12; “Some are eunuchs by birth, some are eunuch made by men, and some are by their own choice, but they all do so for the kingdom of God.”  It’s a way of saying that abused, ostracized minorities are still One with God in Spirit.   When they hear this message, they can move past their minority, discriminatory status, past the abuse from the hands of angry people, and find freedom.  Yes, they will always be eunuchs, but just the same, they will be free, forgiving, and loving to all as well.

Let us each as mother, father, straight, gay, or however we might have been damaged and abused by whomever, come to the place to find our true Identities as God’s Children, and the peace we experience will in time be given to all those around us.  Let us practice forgiveness for our misperceptions of who we thought we were, what the world was, and who others were around us.  Amen.

Recently I read that church affiliation with Americans took another major drop, down to the mid-70's in percentage, as opposed to nearly 90% a few years ago.  Yet, the belief in a God, a Supreme Being, amazingly stays in the 90+ percentile.  What is happening?  Why are people leaving Christian Churches these days?  Could it be about a sense of hypocrisy over words and deeds, faith statements and actions? 

Surely we can safely say that living love is much harder than believing in it.  To practice forgiveness of ourselves and others is extremely difficult for most.  What about ourselves do we even need to forgive that bothers us so much?  Often people tell me about experiences of needing to attend a confession but had nothing to confess, yet realizing they lived with guilt?  Over what?

If it is true that God created us as extensions of His Spirit, and that we are all One in Spirit, breaking down barriers of sex, race, social class and nationalities, then the bodies we live within create some obvious and serious problems.  We are indeed separate and different.  Indeed, we enjoy and relish our differences. 

Last century, the brilliant Viennese, Sigmund Freud, wrote of the need human beings have of projecting inward guilt outward onto others.  We do this by picking people whom we hate, or consider different and inferior to ourselves.  It is a basic law of the ego nature to find our innocence by declaring others as guilty.  One of the most common ways humanity lives this "projection of guilt" is by creating religious systems and rituals.  In Christianity, we were taught to project our sins and guilt upon Jesus by crucifying him on a cross.  We thus have his innocence and assurance, by stories of his resurrection, that we will live with him in heaven if we accepted his forgiveness for our sins.  Meanwhile, our anger and guilt remains toward those who don't believe or accept this story.  It's a great idea of the ego to protect our separateness, guilt, and anger!

The little book of James in early Christian letters, says that to believe in a God really means nothing if our actions don't include caring for others, especially the least vulnerable.  If our belief in a God doesn't include actions toward the poor and weak, then the belief is worthless.  Literally, he writes, "Even the demons believe in a God, yet tremble!"

In the contemporary book called "A Course in Miracles," it says that a belief in God is not necessary, nor having any particular religion.  In fact, such beliefs can actually hinder a oneness that see all as One. 

To be a teacher of God, it is not necessary to be religious or even to believe in God to any recognizable extent. It is necessary, however, to teach forgiveness rather than condemnation. Even in this, complete consistency is not required, for one who had achieved that point could teach salvation completely, within an instant and without a word...No one who learns to forgive can fail to remember God.  (P-2.II.1)

The trouble with religions and God beliefs, then, is that they very easily cause us to become more separated from others rather than seeing ourselves as one.  Rituals are made to make people feel special and superior to others, the idea of being in the "right and truthful" religion.  It merely becomes another tool of the ego to keep itself separate and intact.

Think of how religions have promoted shame, guilt, and hatred rather than forgiveness, oneness, and love.  We have left behind a dreadful legacy in so many ways, still resonating in the minds of many.  People thus want to believe in a God, but how can they do it if it means being separated even more deeply from others?

Forgiveness can bring us, however, the realization of a God Spirit that indeed connects us with all peoples.  It creates in our inner minds the experience of oneness with all, as so many people have experienced when the divisive boundaries are dropped in meditation and kindness toward others.  Such is the meaning of Baptism; not the forgiveness of original sins, but the idea that our guilt is meaningless, an illusion of separateness from our Creator.  We are as God created us, Spirit and One with All forever!

Currently in our country there are discussions about inappropriate torture tactics used in the past administrations against people suspected of being our enemies.  It could be a very emotional and divisive period on our history.  What if people in high places are convicted of such crimes?  In the last century, they were executed for such crimes.  Such would tear our country apart, I'm sure.  But what if such charges were proven to be true in a court of law?  What would I do?

If people are convicted of heinous crimes, I would create what I would call an "Adult Time Out" place.  The Quakers had this in mind in the early years of our country.  Prisons were not to be places of punishment with more guilt and shame heaped on the convicted, but were called "Penitentiaries," places where people went to seek relief and healing from their horrible mistakes.  The idea was that when they were healed, they could be restored to their communities.

On the Big Island of Hawaii, there are caves that in centuries past, the original Hawaiians used for places of healing.  People convicted of crimes were sent there to stay for months or years, until finally the priest could authenticate their sincere brokenness and sense of being forgiven by the gods.  People can still visit these caves today, sensing some of the anguish, crying, and yet healing that took place.

We can practice such with ourselves, for our faulty judgments and labels placed on other people.  We can practice it in our places of prayer and quiet, on retreats where the sense of total acceptance falls over us anew.  We can learn to practice forgiveness with our families, letting go the defensiveness that only brings on more attack and shame.  We can note those "black sheep" of our families and communizes, those people whom we foolishly project our guilt upon so that we can rob their innocence to prove our own. 

This past week a person sent to me a very angry email castigating our new President and his administration.  It was one of the most vicious I have seen.  In the letter, a call was made to have a national riot and revolution to "throw out our nigger communist president."  It felt frightening to me.  I wrote back to the sender, asking him to rethink his own values as a professing Christian and deacon in a church.  I pray he will find a place to sit and see his own self-hatred and guilt, so blatantly projected onto our President. 

Another email came telling me of the story of a young man who had been a Freshman in High School when he met a despised "nerd" who had transferred from a private school.  One day, the young man named Kyle, was leaving school on a Friday carrying all the books from his locker.  He was knocked down by some bullies, calling him a stupid nerd and do gooder.  The man writing the email, went to his side, helped him pick up the books, find his glasses, and accompany him to his home.  Throughout the next four years, they became good friends.  The friend of Kyle saw his own grades improve and in his senior year, was accepted into Duke University.  Kyle, the class valedictorian, planned to attend Georgetown University.  At the commencement address, Kyle's friend saw Kyle walk to the podium for his speech, one his friend was so glad not be giving!  Yet Kyle's friend and family were shocked to hear Kyle say that if not for his friend four years ago, he would not be here.  One Friday, discouraged and troubled having been transferred to this public school, he collected all his books and papers from his locker.  He was going to throw them away when he got home and then do the "unspeakable" to himself.  The showing of friendship was what saved his life.

Practicing forgiveness not only gains us new friends, but we become much more fulfilled and blessed ourselves, in love, in joy, and in the eternal Oneness of all Creation.  May we practice forgiveness to ourselves and to others, with deep acceptance, and experience then the awesome God of Creation.

Do you realize that what you believe about yourself is how you will see the world around you?  If you see the world as an evil place, threatening to yourself, then it relates to what you believe about yourself.  If it is a scary world, full of misery and pain and uncertainty, then it also relates to how you see yourself. 

If we attend a theater to watch a movie, and the movie upsets and frightens us, we either can simply leave, or if watching it at home, we can change it to another projection onto the screen.  We realize that what we are seeing on the screen is not real, it's just a projection.  In the Course in Miracles, Jesus tells us that projection makes perception come true.  Or, our ideas about ourselves are projected out onto what we see in the world and how we see it.  We we believe is what we see.

The other day I was returning home from Buffalo and shortly before entering the skyway, I noticed a bumper sticker on a van which said, "Forget about world peace and visualize turning on your signal light!"  I chuckled as I confess when driving a vehicle, our minds must be trained to remember such things as turning signals.  Yet, the same principle relates to world peace as well.  If we want to see peace in the world, we must see ourselves as peace and secure.

In the early church Gospel of John, chapter 20, Jesus is portrayed as appearing to the disciples as they were hidden behind locked doors.  They were startled with wonder at the apparition.  Later when they mentioned the experience to Thomas the disciple, he stated that unless he could see him in person and touching and seeing scars on his body, he would not believe.  So a few days later, again locked behind doors including Thomas, Jesus again appeared and asked Thomas to touch and see him in person, to which Thomas feel down and shouted, "My Lord and my God!"  Jesus then replied; blessed are those who believe without seeing first.  "Have you have believed because you have seen me?  Blessed are those who have not seen yet have come to believe." (v. 29)

Thomas has emerged as an amazing figure in the past century since his early gospel was discovered.  Thomas is one of the most "spiritual" writers in the early century, wrote his gospel long before the others around 45 A.D.  He has none of the miracle stories, no virgin birth, no resurrection of the body, and strongly teaches that God, Spirit, the Kingdom has already come! 

Jesus said, "If those who lead you say, 'See, the Kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living Father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty." (v.3)

Thomas' gospel and writings are included in what historically have been called the "Gnostic Gospels," or meaning writings that seek to change our thinking and understanding as the way to peace and healing.  We have learned in recent times how Thomas left early, moving to India in 52 A.D. where he began teaching about Jesus and established there a very eclectic church, one which adopted many of the teachings and styles of Hindu teachings.  This church flourished until the 16th Century when under the Pope's orders, Vasco De Gama invaded the southern India Province of Kerala and "recaptured" the ancient Thomas church for Rome.  Hundreds of Thomas' followers were executed and the church was no longer able to operate as an inclusive part of the India landscape.  Today the church exists as a mix of Roman Catholic and Evangelical Protestantism.

Were the later writings of John, around 100 A.D. an attempt to portray Thomas as the doubter of physical realities?  It's an interesting question when the earlier Thomas records, which were hidden for centuries to escape Roman censure and destruction, depict Thomas as a deep believer in the reality of our Spiritual Essence.

Yet, along with the verses of Jesus' own teachings within our present Bible, the earlier Thomas radically taught the Presence of the True Kingdom as within us.  We are in essence Spirit, not physical.  If you believe it, you will begin to see and experience its reality.  It will change your whole understanding of the nature of life and living.  It will move you from the misery and stress of physical/body identification to that which is joy and peace from spirit identification.

Thus we ask ourselves, "Has anything outside our essence in the material world ever brought lasting peace?"  Isn't such peace and happiness always short-lived?  With this teaching of Spirit as our essence, it can become a choice between joy or misery, eternal or time/space bound.

This is why for many, sitting in solitude before a wall with perhaps a candle is the most fulfilling, satisfying experience of all!  They expereince the "All" without distraction!  It is why people commit themselves to lives of poverty within simply surroundings and can yete experience deep peace.

Will such instant world fame, certain to bring the fairly poor Scottish woman Susan Boyle many riches, destroy her peace of life?  Since singing a song from the famous musical, "Les Miserables" for a British Talent Show last Tuesday, she's been catapulted into world fame, people demanding an album produced with an invitation to Oprah's!  Will she resist the great temptation to seek happiness in abundance of things alone?  Will she be another one of those who win huge lotteries only to be lonely and broke within a year?

Yes, what we believe about ourselves translates into how we see the world around us.  Do we see it as real and lasting?  If so, anxiety and stress are certain!  If we see ourselves a needy body, unworthy and limited, thus we see the world around us as needy, separated and outside.  We will see loss, misery, death, guilt and constant conflict, and thus seeing ourselves.  If we believe ourselves to be in essence spirit, then what we see outside will be forgiven as temporary, short-lived, and unworthy of attachment for security.

The test of our beliefs comes in our treatment of the world outside; if we are constantly condemning, blaming, comparing, hating or loving with specialness, we probably have missed the belief in our spirit Self as the essence.  Politicians are always a nice test of our deepest beliefs of who we are.  We love or hate them depicting the love and hate relationship we have within.  People hated or loved the last President for being too separate and aloof from the world, trying to put American first, torturing those deemed a threat to our peace.  People love and hate the present one for being too inclusive, too friendly, too "communist."  Our beliefs show us our vision, our ability or inability to either forgive and adapt or hate and seek destruction.

Believing ourselves to be as one with God, with Spirit, as God's Sons and Daughters, doesn't mean we don't live in this world and take part in it.  We can study, learn of the world, marry and have families, find a religious structure we are comfortable with, but we learn to not take it so seriously.  We exist within the world but not of it.  We see the Christ in others and all around us, just as we believe it to be within.  Our projectors of the movie show us peace and love for all.

Within the past couple weeks, both Naomi and I have purchased new glasses for our aging eyes.  Unfortunately, they don't look too much different in form.  Last Friday morning I left for work with her glasses on my face.  I thought, "Wow!  My eyes seemed to have improved over night!  I don't need such strong glasses any more.  I must return these for an adjustment or replacement already!"  A few hours later, noticing my mistake, I phoned Naomi and asked her how her glasses were doing.  She said, "I think I must return them for an adjustment since I don't seem to be able to focus correctly with them as I did last evening."  And then I asked her to look closely and see if they were hers; they were not!  So we met and exchanged our out-of-focus and skewed eye ware.

When we see and believe ourselves less that Spirit in essence, less than an eternal soul, what we see outside is blurred by distortion of unreality.  We become angry, more judgmental of others, more miserable and cynical about life, more grasping at things that just might last longer in satisfaction.  When we see and believe ourselves to be connected with God as One, we see peace, beauty, the temporal around us with compassion and love, understanding what it is in reality; short-living, ephemeral, and our temporary journey toward completion.  And whether will live or die, we live and die in peace.  "Blessed are those who have not seen yet have come to believe."  

In my last year's Easter talk, I said the resurrection of Jesus to me meant an awakening to a new way of thinking.  It was not a resurrection of the body but an awakening to the understanding of ourselves as spirit.  We are not primarily bodies who acquire a spirit as we go along in life, but we are basically spirit who acquired a body for this journey. 

After the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70 A.D., the hopes of Jewish people for a return to the nation as under ancient David were dashed.  What had begun as basically a Jewish sect now was threatened.  Some feared adherents would vanished and end the movement.  One response was the writing of gospels which we have in the present Biblical Canon.  These stories of Jesus were ways to present Jesus as the true savior and messiah.  They encouraged people to think again before abandoning the movement.

Thus these gospels included miracles to astound followers in Jesus' credibility.  They included stories of his miraculous birth, of even raising a few people from the dead.  And the ultimate story was his own resurrection from the dead!  Such stories were not uncommon to Hebrew history.  Great teachers and prophets from the past had such astounding and surrounding legends of miraculous events.  Elijah the great prophet had been described as ascending to heaven amid fiery chariots.  Jesus was no less a great teacher and prophet.  He was presented as the ultimate messiah, the anointed deliverer of the people.

Not many Jewish folks believed and remained, however.  In a few years, it became mostly a non-Jewish movement.  Disgust and even hatred toward unbelieving Jews increased.  The later writings had harsh anti-Semitic words, which still echo around the world.  So what did happen after Jesus' death?  What might it even mean?

A growing awareness in recent times teaches the hidden meaning in the resurrection stories is the awakening to the presence of Spirit, of our eternal oneness with all that is real and everlasting.  It is a teaching similar to the Bhagvad-Gita, composed also about the same time in the area known as the Hindus Valley, that writes of this Spirit; "It is not born, it does not die; having been it will never not be; unborn, enduring, constant, and primordial, it is not killed when the body is killed.  ....It is unmanifest, inconceivable, and immutable; since you know that to be so, you should not grieve!"

In other words, our bodies and the physical world are not the real thing; they are part of the mortality of time and span.  Time and space are relative, over in a blink.  As Einstein said, "seeing is but the optical illusion of reality."  Our true selves, our true identities, are spirit.

These teachings can still be found in the early Christian writings.  Jesus taught that the true Kingdom was within, it was spiritual.  It would not be found in special nations, lands, or peoples.  It was part of everyone.  Later the writer Paul said that whatever we see is temporal, but that which we can't see is eternal and real.  Our bodies, yes the worlds and universe, are temporal tents that in time wear out, returning to "black holes."

If this indeed is who we truly are, and we awaken to it and remember, such thinking can make a profound effect on our lives.  Our anger and the quickening to defend ourselves lessens.  Our attachments to things of this sphere lessens and peace deepens.  Wars between nations and individuals lessen and can even end.  A sense of heaven on earth can experienced in these our short earth walks.

Such an awakening and awareness would save countless relationships in marriage and community.  And if people did feel it best to separate, the jealousies with anger, guilt, and hatred would lessen.  Children could be raised seeing an alternative to fighting, strained silences, and debates about who is right and who is wrong.  It all begins, however, with our identities.  And such a shift will be the biggest challenge of this life for many to accept.

Such an awakening would lessen religious fights and wars, the major cause of violence over the ages.  From so-called divinely appointed kings and emperors to organized religions which have conquered whole countries, conducting crusades and pogroms for centuries.  People are growing so aware of these religious wars they continue to drop out in huge numbers similar to the early church after 70 A.D.  I mentioned a few weeks ago about the sign Richard Hawkins had purchased and placed on London buses: "There is no God!  You can relax now, enjoy life and finally live in peace!"  What an indictment on religions!

How can this realization and awakening occur?  Practice!  Lots of it.  And life all around you will give plenty of opportunities, from spouses to brothers and sisters, to neighbors, to your work and religious communities.  But try it, and you many really like it.  Try to forgive the next persons who attacks you in any way.  Realize that what they are attacking is your form, your body, which actually is a projection of their own disgust and anger with their mortalness.  If you can resist fighting back, you will experience a deep rush of peace in your life.  You will in time slowly be able to take "whatever" comes your way.

Azim Khamisa, a very successful business man from San Diego discovered this in the 1990's when in 1995 his 20 year son was senselessly shot to death by a 14 year old gang member.  Since that awful day, a day all his success and brains could not prevent, Azim has devoted his life to reaching out to gang members and helping to show them another way.  He has reached out to the family of his son's killer, and together they now give seminars and workshops to areas where gang violence reigns, meeting in schools and halls before thousands of young minds.  And all Azim's money and drive for success has been replaced with a deep peace and sense of connection with that which is eternal.

If you practice and remember each day, you too will find an ability you never thought possible to live a little better in peace.  You will realize that much of your frantic race in life is over.  You will connect with that memory, that aspect of you which is always home.   And in time you will be able to sing with Daniel Nahmod one of my favorite songs he wrote and sang last October here at Wayside:

What do I do if I'm not chasing anything...

What do I do if I've got everything that I need

It's a question that no-one's prepared me to answer

Where do I go if I'm right where I'm s'posed to be

Where do I go if wherever I am, I am home

It's a question I'm presently wanting to answer

If the usual way doesn't work for me now

That's a void I know nothing about....

What if the race is over, and we all automatically win

What if the game has ended long before it even begins

What if the test has been taken and we're all passing again and again

If the race is over...what then?

         2006 Nahmod Music Company, www.danielnahmod.com

 

  

In the ancient, early Christian writings, Paul the apostle, writing from a prison cell, penned Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.  (Philippians 2:5)

Think or be of the same mind as Jesus, as God?  Really.  If true, then as believers in God and Jesus, it ought to be our aim.  What does it mean, though, to think like Jesus or God?

To begin with, having the “mind of Jesus” would mean we think of ourselves as one with God the Creator.  “….he did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself…..” Jesus taught he and his Father were one and we are one with him and thus God.  We are all one together.  Do you think you are one with God, having this “equality with God?”

Well, we might possibly defer such a condition to our favorite minister or priest, or to the Pope, or to the Dalai Lama, or a great Guru, or an Ayatollah, but not myself!  Little kids occasionally have mistaken me for God, but it doesn’t last too long.  They talk with my wife!  Or they just get over it!

Doesn’t believing we are one equal with God make us feel arrogant, or proud, or conceited?  “He thinks he’s God” or “God’s gift to humanity!”  Not something most would consider a compliment, yet this seemed to be the thinking of the mind of Jesus.  Yet it says that Jesus considered his equality with God not something to be exploited.

Wouldn’t arrogance or egocentric thinking tend to make one think he or she alone could be master of one’s own fate, or we could solve all our own problems of life and death?  Seems so, but what might be the results of one who thinks he or she is one with God that would make any difference?

Thinking we are one with God in our minds would consider our center self or our higher self as Spirit, not body or matter.  How could our True Selves be our bodies which change every seven years and then disappear after 70 or so years?  How could body minds be our Deepest Selves, since we are evolving and changing our minds almost hourly!

To see ourselves as primarily Spirit with God means we don’t take our bodies or our thinking so seriously.  Whether we win or lose, it’s all just passing.  Today we have palms thrown at our feet as winners; tomorrow we face crosses of death and defeat.  Today we win but tomorrow we lose.  If Spirit, what difference does it make in the long run?

Life here is like soap bubbles.  Remember making soap bubbles, watching them float so beautifully through the air for a few seconds, then “poof!” they are gone.  Isn’t  this like the material bodies we exist in?  To be hooked into them as our reality, or that of our loved ones, could leave us pretty lonely and negative about trying, if we thought about it.

Contacts with matter make us feel heat and cold, pain and pleasure.  …you must learn to endure fleeting things—they come and go! (Bhagavad-Gita) 

Thinking of ourselves as essentially Spirit leads us to another conclusion; nothing we study and learn here on this plane is complete.  All thinking, growing, giving, fixing on this earth walk is incomplete.  It’s all a work in progress.  President Obama said that his first priority as President is to solve and fix the global financial crisis.  Fix it, really?  He can perhaps lead others to help fix or repair it, but it’s only to be temporary.  How many leaders in past years, centuries, have “fixed” markets and economic matters, only to have them break down?  Life here is a matter of remembering understanding as incomplete.  Whether ideas about God or matter, they are never complete but floating, changing ideas.

Thinking like Jesus isn’t a matter of being smarter than everyone else, with highest IQ or greatest GPA average.  Such are temporary; they come and go.  It isn’t about having riches in banks or biggest house or the most things.  Thinking about Jesus sees things of matter and time and space as temporal and fleeting.  They come and they go.

So what is our body if it isn’t who were truly are?  What is it for?  Thinking like Jesus means that it’s a temporal form or manifestation of the love of God.  “Being in the form of God” means the “manifestation of God.”  The body can radiate and manifest God’s love.  It can manifest happiness, joy, peace, love and deep forgiveness.  Isn’t that what most religions are about?  Afraid not!  Organized religions are laden with images of guilt, shame, specialness, and lack of tolerance for others!  They are filled with crusades, pogroms, massacres of people considered pagan and evil. 

It’s easy to use nice words like Jesus and God yet turn such symbols into hate and judgment rather than love and forgiveness.  It’s easy to bring our illusions and separation ideas to God and use God to bless them, right?  It’s harder to bring truth to our illusions and let them be transformed rather than God.  The “history of God” as Karen Armstrong has written, has been the evolution of a God consciousness to fit the ideas of men and women.

Mark Twain is once said, “God made man in his own image, and man, being a gentleman, returned the favor!”  And so it is.  We make God into a warrior, a murderer of nations and people, damning untold millions to eternal hell.  A priest once told me the church has damned more people to eternal hell that Hitler himself killed in genocides. 

Jesus’ mind?  In us?  Yes, and as this ancient writer understood it, such thinking can bring peace to conflict, hope to one in prison, love to hate, and tolerance to intolerance.  As we begin the week of Palms-turned-to-death, let us remember how quickly wins and loses past away.  Yet we can stake our claim into that which has sustained millions over the age, into the Eternal, Unknowable God, the Power, or whatever you call it, that is far beyond all the mind and eye can see, feel, think or touch!

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.