ToMAYto Or ToMAHto?

Sin just keeps popping up. Not so much in action as simply in conversation. It gets mentioned at church and in religious writings, but you have to expect that. It pops up in other places too. Just for one example, take the day my supervisor said in a humorous context: “…is God-given managerial talent, and it’s a sin to waste it.” Because of the various contexts in which the concept appears, and the ways people express their ideas about what it actually refers to, we demonstrate much disagreement about sin. It’s the “toMAYato, tomMAHto” thing all over again. And when push comes to shove, I can’t do anything but add my own opinions to the confusion.

Besides being a word that functions as noun and verb…what the heck is sin, anyway? Or…what is it not?

My first answer is this – I don’t think sin is just breaking rules. The people who “can’t drink” or “can’t dance” ” or “can’t play cards” because that would be a sin are barking up the wrong tree. Those kinds of rules attempt to address genuine issues, but wind up simply with someone controlling someone else.

I don’t believe it is a sin to make an honest mistake. No one can know all the consequences of their choices. You do the best you can with the information and wisdom you have, and sometimes you are wrong even though your intention was to do the right thing. No wrong was intended. And our motivations matter.

Nor do I think life is all about salvation that basically gets you out of “paying the price” for your sins. Among my objections to that: 1) It teaches us to be afraid of God and 2) It teaches us to despise ourselves. (Without wanting to open another can of worms, I have the feeling that those teachings are more about our fear of death than about the way we live our lives.)

I think life is about relationships. With God who is the Source of our lives. With ourselves. With our families, friends, employees, employers, fellow workers, neighbors, friends, enemies. With the natural world. With our houses, cars, trucks, boats, computers, books, pianos, guitars, lawnmowers. With the place or places where we worship. With our volunteering, use of our free time, our commitments, our recreation. With our sexuality, our bodies. We have relationships with all these things.

Furthermore, I think Jesus was talking about relationships. Relationships with God, with wealth, with those in need, with family and friends. Seek ye first…Do unto others…Give unto Caesar…The Sabbath is for man, not man for the Sabbath…Forgive seventy times seven…Turn the other cheek…

Does that mean I do not think sin exists? Or that it is not an important issue? Not at all. If life is about relationships, it would be sinful to do things that harm or hinder strong and positive relationships. Especially when the choices we make are deliberate and conscious, when we choose actions that we know will be harmful, destructive to others and even ourselves…and we choose them anyway.

People who are contemplatives or mystics realize that we actually are all connected. God is in each of us, and that makes all of us part of that vast Being that we call God. The belief that we are separate, rather than connected, is probably the root of most of our sins. It is our condition, not evil in itself, just how things are. But if we could grasp the truth that we are connected, it would help us correct our issues. No, it isn’t just “New Age claptrap”. Mystics from all traditions tell us the same things. Including those from the Christian tradition. That makes me want to take this concept seriously.

So let me name a few things that when we do them – or don’t do them – I think we are sinning. Missing the mark. Screwing up. It isn’t a comprehensive list, just enough to give the flavor of what I’m talking about.

Anything that promotes the illusion of separation from God or others would be sinful, for that strikes at the very basis of our relationships.

Anything that can divide us, such as discrimination or bigotry (especially in the name of the God of love) is sinful.

Failure or downright refusal to open oneself to spiritual growth is sinful, for we must grow, life is about growth, and this growth nourishes and enhances our relationships. (Is life about growth? Well, how many dead things do you know that are growing?)

Failure or downright refusal to trust our Creator is sinful. How can you have a relationship with someone you don’t trust? Take fear, for instance. Fear is a natural instinct, and it warns us of dangers, but neurotic and unfounded fears are different from the natural instinct. What does fear destroy? Physical and emotional health, our relationship with our Source, and many things that we want to do but are afraid to try.

Anything that can cause harm to another is a sin. This includes all use of sex as a weapon against other people. It includes pornography, which is deeply degrading. It includes child abuse. It includes use of “power over” someone else in an abusive and destructive way. Murder, greed, theft, adultery are all things that can cause harm to others and/or relationships. Addiction to anything, substance (cocaine) or activity (gambling) interferes with both human and spiritual relationships. The things themselves may be safe in moderate amounts; it is the addiction that hurts us.

Failure or refusal to help someone in need is a sin. If God is in each of us, then when we help another person we serve God. And, if you want to link these things with self-interest, helping another also helps you or me.

(I have not included our failure to take care of our soil, air, water, etc. Some think that is a sin; others think it is our right. For my purposes here, the entire issue deserves its own post.)

So there is my take on sin. Not the following of rules, but the harming of relationships. It’s at least as long as a list of rules, isn’t it? And just as challenging. But, I trust, more conducive to growth.

Imaginary Journal Entry

This morning was wonderful. Cold. Not just crisp, but cold, bone-chilling, nose-running cold. Scraping frost off the windows of my car in a brisk wind. Wearing the warmest clothing I possess. You really need to do that when you sit in a warehouse at work.

But it started with last night.

During the Christmas weekend, I was visited by insomnia two nights out of four. Every other night was wakeful. It seemed to be the peak of a trend that has grown more and more obnoxious over the best part of a year.

Last night as bedtime approached I was thrumming with unwanted energy, tired but nowhere near ready to go to bed. I did centering prayer. I went to bed with Taize chants in my head. I was still having trouble getting to sleep and I dreaded the boredom of another sleepless night along with the resulting energy issues at work the next day. (When you have to drive 50-plus miles to get home, you don’t need energy issues at work.) Finally, trying to center, I felt compelled to talk with my Source…and was tongue-tied. No words wanted to come out. After a few moments I resorted to my prayer language, and for several minutes words spewed out of my mouth.

Finally I got to sleep. Slept heavily all night. Slow start this morning.

But I felt wonderful. Some inner work must have been going on in the night because there I was, out on the road on such a cold morning as the sun came up, and I felt so blessed I could hardly stand it. I really do not like being up so early. I love dawn, it is gorgeous and I love to watch the quality of light, but in my opinion it should all be happening at 10:00 am.

This morning it was downright splendid. All that frost on the trees, tall grasses, power lines, gleaming in the pre-dawn light. The golden pre-dawn glow reflected off sheds. The rising sun made the frost on the tops of the trees glow pink. It was a fine morning to be up so early. Somehow, the extra cold just made it more spectacular.

And I mused about lessons regarding surrender. I didn’t cause that to happen with the Christmas Eve duet, but in letting go of it I may have allowed it to happen, somehow. Maybe I’m starting to figure this principle out. Is that why I felt so good this morning? Released? As though something healed in the night, as I slept, after I said those things in my prayer language?

Yes, I know that this job is provision. I truly appreciate the provision. And this morning I realized that I’ve had a number of experiences that I can only call mystical, experiences I’ve never had before. I’ve had a few, yes, but since I began this job I have had several within a comparatively brief period of time. Something about this job, the work, the commuting time – two hours a day for thinking on some level beyond the conscious – something has opened me up to these experiences. Gratitude flooded me as I realized that my job has created this openness in me.

After the layoff last summer, I have continually struggled to accept going back to a job I had left behind in my heart and thoughts. Here is an excellent place to work on surrender. Detaching. Letting go. There is a belief that your thoughts create your reality. I think there’s some truth to that, although I’m not yet convinced that it “explains everything.” I believe the spoken word also plays its part.

But my Source has taught me that as long as I cling to something, especially with any kind of negative thoughts or feelings, I’m holding the thing in place. I have to let go of it, entirely, before it will have any chance to change. Now, with this incident about the duet, I have seen the principle working and providing such prompt results that I can’t possibly miss the connection. The only thing I will desire to hold onto about this job is the openness it has created within me. The rest I can let go of.

So this is grand. I can begin 2010 by applying something I have learned. Often, for me, the learning is the easy part. Applying it is the place where I fall flat on my, well, you know. It’s a lesson I truly feel grateful for. And it gives me a strong, positive way to begin this brand new year.

And what the heck. I have two hours every day, five days a week, of “inner work time.” That ought to help me make some progress.

This looks like an interesting year!

A Scary God or a Loving God? - Part Three

My objections to the conventional teachings begin with the conviction that in the requirement to believe something, someone (I presume the church itself) has imposed a man-made condition on a love which God offers without conditions. So if you encounter a Love that is absolute, unconditional, and extravagant to the point of being ridiculous, and you respond with your own love, there should be an entirely different result. Whatever you believe about God now will be based on love, His for you and yours for Him, and fear will fly out the window never to return. It is impossible to be afraid of that Love.

My objections continue with the conviction that we are not isolated from God; in fact, we are intimately connected to God and each of us is invited to enjoy intimacy with God. Yes, you can enjoy God. The Source of that Love is now the most important thing in your life, and you will gladly give up any habit or “sin” that keeps you from being close to Him.

And my objections also include the realization that God, the Creator, the Universe, whatever name we wish to use for this Being Who loves us so, is humongous. He is vast enough to make all this, a universe so enormous that we can’t even travel from one side of the Milky Way to the other in a few hundred years (and that’s just one galaxy). The universe is vast and complex, full of galaxies and stars and planets, probably including many other planets that have life, and even intelligent life. We are just one rock in this place, one grain of sand on a beach. We cannot possibly grasp the vastness of the universe or the fullness of this Being Who created it. Our religions and theologies have expressed our attempts to understand God, but none can fully explain Him. They are our theories; they are not facts. No one has the right to say that “I am right and you are wrong.” (Yes, that includes me!) No one can truly say that he has the only route to God.

So how does this look in the lives of the people who respond to God by loving Him back?

The belief of being exclusive: People who have a love-based relationship with God will realize that no one really “deserves” being loved like that. The truth of it is that we don’t have to deserve it. The Love is available for everyone. God loves the other guy too, just as He loves you. Nobody is exclusive. Nobody has the “only way” to God. God welcomes all whom He loves. And He loves all of us.

The belief that you are separated from God: You discover that God, the Source of All, is in you and you are in the Source. God was always there. You have just found Him. That’s all. You and God are organic parts of each other, and you cannot be separated. Neither are you separated from other persons, for God is in them as He is in you, and that connects you. It connects us all. It should help us to build bridges to each other, instead of walls against each other.

The belief that you are separated from nature: If God is in all that He has created, then He must be in all living things. It makes supporting environmental cleanup and responsibility another way to love and serve God our Creator. If you weren’t sensitive to these issues before you learned to love God, you will probably become so.

The belief that all your passions (meaning sex) lead to the greatest sins of all: Sex is a physical expression of love, a part of nature. As a part of nature it is not dirty or sinful in itself. We may use it against one another in destructive ways but we are the problem, not sex itself. Our job is to work to eliminate whatever ways we use sex, gender, gender roles, etc. in ways that control or use others. Once we understand that sex is natural and good, and that we ourselves are the problem with it, we can stop being afraid of our bodies and start healing our sexual dysfunctions.

The belief that God punishes you in horrendous ways for your sins: Look, life isn’t easy. It is true that “old age isn’t for sissies.” All the old people we know are tough as nails. But there is no need to whine: “What did I do to deserve this?” We are free to make our mistakes, and we experience the consequences they bring us. But God’s intention is not to punish. Jesus taught, healed, and restored us. If Jesus is truly the revelation of God, then surely God teaches, heals, and restores. Could the Being Who loves you absolutely and unconditionally and extravagantly do anything else? When we ignore His guidance we suffer the natural consequences of our decisions and actions, but God will also help us get through it. It’s better to take the responsibility for your choices and work to make better ones.

One more thing. If we are connected to one another, we should start making greater efforts to get along better. If God is so huge that we can’t grasp anything except one or two very basic things about Him, there is no point in arguing with each other over our theologies or doing anything else that lets our religions get between us. It is time to start serious interfaith dialogue and get busy understanding each other.

I think I can probably summarize all that by saying that I believe entering a love-based relationship with God will not only turn your life inside out, it will turn you inside out. (I know it sounds scary, but believe me, it is worth it.) You will begin to see life and the world more clearly. You will see the kinds of things I have been describing in this post. And that is the first step in working to heal our world. And, not incidentally, ourselves as well.

A Scary God or a Loving God? – Part Two

At the risk of repeating myself:

The traditional/conventional teachings of Christianity are based on fear of God. These teachings are based on an ancient story that is really a myth. Today, however, we interpret the story as the account of an actual happening. In this story, the first human couple disobeyed God out of willfulness and He punished them for it. In fact, the doctrine of “original sin” tells us that He punishes all of us because we inherit Adam and Eve’s sins and punishment. We are literally born into sin, then, and there isn’t anything we can do to help ourselves. That is what the church tells us. (It makes me feel that I’ve been declared out before I even go into the batter’s box.)

This is where Jesus comes into it. We are taught that he came to earthly life in order to heal this breach in the God/human relationship. This he accomplished by going through a horrendous death and then being physically resurrected from the grave. In spite of all that, we must still be under some punishment; we have not been returned to the paradise from which Adam and Eve were evicted, and we are still allowed to suffer. We are no longer under the threat of eternal damnation. We still screw up, we still commit sin, but we are forgiven anyway.

In spite of this forgiveness, we still put our efforts into pleasing God. If He is not pleased, He inflicts sufferings on us. He can do it to punish, or to discipline, or because somehow it is good for us to hurt. We are constantly on the lookout for ways we offend Him, so that we might avoid doing anything to bring the holy wrath down on us. Instead of being grateful for that forgiveness, we continue to fear the angry and vindictive dictator.

How does this kind of faith work its way out in the lives of those who cling to it?

The belief of being exclusive: Only you, as a Christian, have access to God and Heaven, because Jesus as the only Son of God (or as the Incarnation of God, if you choose that belief) is the only way to find God. There are people who believe that a baby will go to hell if it dies before it can be baptized. There are people who believe that only members of their faith or their denomination will go to heaven. And many Christians believe anyone who doesn’t accept Jesus as Lord and Savior will go to hell, no matter how good they might be.

The belief that you are separated from God: God lives “up there” in Heaven, and He is far away from us. Every time you say something about God “looking down at us” you’re echoing this belief. The idea that God can’t stand us although He loves us would be impossible without the belief that we are separated from Him.

The belief that you are separate from nature: Because we believe in this separation, we have tried to dominate the natural world as an “other” thing. I look at the condition our ecology is in today, with our overpopulation, pollution, and rumors of coming water shortages, and I think we are reaping the harvest of this belief.

The belief that all your passions (meaning sex) lead to the greatest sins of all: This refers back to nature, for sex is nature. The belief of being separate from nature, then, separates us from our very bodies and their natural sexual energies. We think of sex as being dirty. We use sex-related words as profanity. We are taught that it is through the very act of sex that we pass on that old “original sin.” It also affects perceptions of women and their role in sex and giving birth. Many of us resist birth control for teens because we don’t want them to “get away with having sex,” which makes pregnancy sound like a punishment. There are still people who think of rape as something a woman invites, rather than a violent crime done against her.

The belief that God punishes you in horrendous ways for your sins: Some people thought 9/11 was God’s punishment on our nation for our sinful ways, meaning women’s liberation and abortions and the gay rights movement. I also think of the nun who told my friend X, who is suffering from a brain tumor, that she (X) has this illness because of some terrible sin she has committed. (I’m sure the nun thought she was speaking in love, and meant that my friend could be healed if she would confess this sin and repent.)

All of that, in my estimation, derives from a faith that is based on fear of God as dictator, police officer, judge, and jury. If your ideas are based on fear, then you live in fear of God. Even if you love Jesus, you may still be afraid of that almighty judge. Do the people who show the types of attitudes and behavior I have described even realize that they are afraid of God? I suspect not.

But if you encounter and respond to a Love that is absolute, unconditional, and extravagant to the point of being ridiculous, there should be an entirely different result. If you return that Love with your own love…

I really am going somewhere with all this. Be patient. And stay tuned.

A Scary God or a Loving God? – Part One

I have decided to try to work out a huge subject in a sort-of series. If I want to begin to encourage others to base their relationships with God on love rather than on fear, and I believe people need to be encouraged to do so, then let me work out some basics about what all that involves. This is what I believe about God:

God exists. He is the Creator of this universe. He loves every bit of this vast creation, and that includes each of us. He lives within each of us (immanent). Yes, He is also outside of us (transcendent). But my point is that we are not separated from Him. He desires intimate personal relationships with each of us. He is morally better than we are. He is more knowledgeable and more powerful than we are. He lets us live out the consequences of our choices and actions. He is there to strengthen us through that if it becomes, well, unpleasant. He is in everything that comes to us, including the things we don’t like, but I honestly believe that life is just that way. In fact, we grow more profoundly in hard times than we do in easy ones.

Let me inject one disclaimer. In spite of my use of the masculine pronoun, I do not believe God is male. I believe that God carries all genders in His nature. However, I am comfortable with thinking of God as my “heavenly father.” And to say things like “God doesn’t impose Godself on…” is extremely awkward. I just stick with the masculine pronoun. Let me add that I frequently call God Mother, Creator, Source, and Universe also.

These are things that we are taught about God, by the church and/or by “conventional” faith.

God is a sort of “super human,” bigger than we are, smarter and more powerful than we are, as offendable and violent and vindictive as we are. He sits on His throne in the sky with zapper in hand, ready to let us have it if we make a misstep. He is a kind of benevolent dictator, loving and favoring us as long as we come up to His standards, ferocious and mean if we mess up. Even if we do our best to obey Him, He might still inflict terrible suffering on us “for our own good” if that is His will. And on top of all that we will be condemned to hell for eternity.

My own church teaches me that God is perfection itself, and we are horrendously imperfect. Perfection cannot live with imperfection. In other words, He loves us and can’t stand us all in the same moment. Theoretically, then, we are destined to spend eternity in hell, where we are far away from the perfection of God. But He still loves us, so He made a way out for us. Because Jesus died for our sins on the cross, we are saved. All we have to do is believe that Jesus did this, and we can go to heaven.

This all puts God outside of us, gives us a feeling of isolation from Him. And it leaves us with a tormenting question: He knows all, does all, and loves all, but we can’t explain how or why God allows such enormous suffering among His children.

I used to believe most of that stuff myself. I don’t any more. I am not trying to be arrogant; I just had an experience, almost 30 years ago, that taught me another way to look at God. It just happens to take me beyond the traditional faith that I was taught and into other paths. I came away from this experience knowing that I was loved greatly by this Being, that I wanted to get as close to this Being as I possibly could and stay there for the rest of my life, and that He is far above us and much vaster than we can grasp.

I know now that God loves me absolutely and unconditionally. There is a Mt. Everest somewhere, made of love that is all for me; when I use that love, it grows. There is no reason at all for God to single me out and give me such love (I totally fail to merit it), which tells me that I am not special and that He must love everyone the same way He loves me. He doesn’t favor any one of us over another, for He loves each of us. And everyone has his or her own Mt. Everest somewhere.

I went nowhere during this experience; it was an internal epiphany. That tells me that God is within me. He always has been. So much for His inability to be close to my imperfections! (Since that night, I have had other experiences that confirmed this conclusion.)

Because God is so vast and incomprehensible, we might as well stop arguing among ourselves about His true nature, what He wants, how He should be worshiped, etc. We all misunderstand God. One person’s misunderstanding is no better or worse than another person’s misunderstanding. No set of rules is superior to any other set of rules. There are countless ways to get to God, just as there are many roads that lead to New York City or San Francisco.

Because He loves each of us absolutely and unconditionally, He doesn’t care if we are male or female, black or white, gay or straight, Democrat or Republican. Dare I say it? Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, or Assembly of God. Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, or Muslim.

So what has pushed me in this new direction? I’m not a theologian. I can’t quote the Bible chapter and verse. I’m just a laywoman who has been transformed. Now all my beliefs and ideas about things of God are filtered through that transformative experience. The faith I was taught as a child no longer makes sense to me in the light of what that experience taught me. That’s all there is to it.

The reason I have gone on at such length here is that I observe that many people are afraid of God. I am here to say that we are loved, and we have nothing to be afraid of. I met that Love. I know it. I am loved absolutely. And I trust that Love absolutely. So can anyone else.

Stay tuned.

Finding Gold In a Long Commute

Recently I was laid off from the job that I had held for 13 months. It took me some 18 months to find that job, not including a period of waiting after another job didn’t work out. I had felt financially stable, finally, and I was beginning to get some debts paid off. It was a good feeling.

Then the shoe dropped. Shoe, heck. Felt like Paul Bunyan’s heaviest boot!

I was surprised at how quickly I adjusted. Of course there was no job, no income, no certainty about the future. (They said I would be one of the first to be called back, but I can’t wait for six months and it will probably be that long.)

But also there was no getting up at 5:00 a.m., no 100-mile round trip every day on top of 8 hours spent typing, no more driving east at sunrise and west at sunset, no more reading minuscule print off product packaging, no more typing Spanish text…OK. There are things I can like about this. That’s good.

So let me think a little about that 100-mile round trip. I was literally adding 500 miles to my odometer every week. That’s 2,000 miles in one month. It was a lot of wear and tear on my car which, fortunately, was fairly new when I got this job.

Over those 13 months, I had time to watch each season in detail – the crops ripening in the summer heat, farmers harvesting during the autumn as the colors changed, the austere beauty of a winter sunset over a field full of snow, the challenge of driving in sleet and snow storms, and of course the new greening as the world came back to life, and the planting of the new crops.

There was time to think about the seasons, about the Creator of all things, about myself and the growth I felt going on within me. And I have to conclude that it was a remarkable year. Some really odd things happened to me during the year that I put 100 miles on my car every day.

There were several unitive moments – times when the world and life somehow seemed so beautiful that I couldn’t bear it. For instance there was the day last fall as I was driving home, enjoying the perfectly clear deep blue sky, bright sunshine, vivid colors, crops ripe in the fields and farmers working in clouds of dust to harvest them. It was, for several minutes, so beautiful that I wept briefly. There was another moment like that a few weeks ago as I waded through the crowds leaving the park after the Fourth of July band concert and fireworks display. There were others. These two were among the most vivid.

Then there was the boil-water order I found one day last summer when I got home from work. My job was close to a Wal-Mart, and I decided that instead of depending on boiling water I’d buy some bottled water the next day. (There wasn’t any left in town by the time I got home.) So the next day I went into the Wal-Mart, a store I had never been in before, and I had no idea where the beverages were. The usual greeter wasn’t around, and I wondered who could direct me. It was only a few seconds later that a man came steaming past me into the store, pushing a noisy shopping cart full of empty plastic jugs. Supposing that he intended to fill them with water, I followed him and he led me right to my destination. It was the timing of his appearance that made me see the incident as, well, not a coincidence.

And one day I was struggling with low blood sugar, at the end of the work day, and faced driving home at a time when I really wasn’t well. I prayed that somehow I would get home safely. Now I make a habit of driving 55 mph, which is the posted speed limit on the two-lane highways in my state. Everybody who comes up behind me passes me as soon as they get a chance. That day, however, there was a series of drivers who would come up behind me on each leg of my journey home. When one turned off, another would come along in a couple of miles. I was followed all the way into my home town. On a day when I had asked for help, not one of those drivers passed me. Again, I didn’t think that was a coincidence.

You see what I mean? Things that don’t normally happen to me were happening. Maybe it was partly a matter of me being more aware of what went on around me. But that doesn’t explain the afternoon at work when, for just a split second, it seemed that I was standing behind my chair and looking at the back of my head. It was over so quickly that it could have been just a figment of imagination. But I was flooded with emotions and sensations that clearly were not imaginary. It had been a true out-of-body experience. For a tiny fraction of a second I had been something more than I normally am, larger, more confident, stronger, more joyous. It was a true mystical experience. I can prove it…because to this day I can’t really describe those feelings; my description is only a guess. And probably the only truth we know about such experiences is that they are indescribable.

So all that driving was worth it, because it opened me up to new levels of perception and sensitivity. And that is what I need the most, after all. I’m working on this current unemployment situation from the inside out, and I’ll need all the perception and sensitivity I can muster.

Book Review: My Stroke of Insight

MY STROKE OF INSIGHT by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph. D.

It was an internet video by Jill Bolte Taylor, talking about her stroke and what she experienced, that interested me in this book.

Jill was working as a scientist, as part of a team trying to map neural circuits in the human brain. She actually thought it was cool when she woke up one morning, realized she was having a stroke, and decided to take advantage of the chance to study what her own brain was going through.

To try to summarize briefly what Jill tells us, I can say that we have two halves or hemispheres in our brains. The right hemisphere or right side of our brains is the emotional/spiritual side, where our instincts and sensitivity and things like that come from. The left side is the logic and language center, where we have our speech and language and ability to reason.

Jill’s stroke powerfully affected the left side of her brain. Her language capability was going in and out. Her ability to think logically enough to call for help was going in and out. At times the left half of her brain went completely off-line, to use a computer word.

What happened at those times was the part that interested me the most. When the right brain dominated Jill, she became aware that she was part of an enormous flow of energy, and in a state of peace. In her book she calls it Nirvana. A Christian mystic would say she was in a state of unity with God. (Yes, there are Christian mystics. Many of the early saints were mystics. We even have them today. Our beloved Mother Teresa was a mystic.)

Then the left brain would come back into operation, and Jill lost that state of peace but was able to keep trying to call for help. During the stroke, she kept going back and forth between the state of peace and the ability to try to get help. During it all, she remained conscious, and in no fear at all because of the peace that she was in.

It took her eight years to fully recover – physical strength, speech, ability to reason, ability to resume her work as a scientist and teacher.

She gives much information about strokes – what can cause them, what stroke patients need for recovery, how the medical profession should treat stroke patients. She works now to spread this information on behalf of stroke patients.

She also has things to say about the spiritual side of our nature. In most of us, the rational left side of the brain dominates. One of the things we do with the “left mind,” as Jill calls it, is to make judgments. She has a lot to say about how we can live in more happiness and peace by learning how to let our “right mind” be more active within us. She chooses now to be a different person than she had been before the stroke, quieter, less judgmental, less easily frustrated and angered, and more at peace with herself. And she shows us how to do that also.

Parts of the book are fairly technical, with descriptions of how the brain works, but she is a teacher and does a pretty good job of explaining it so that laypersons can understand. I found all of it interesting. The things she says about our spiritual nature, our connection to God, to that flow of energy and source of peace, were what fascinated me the most. If you want to learn about stroke or the needs of stroke patients, or if you want to find out what Jill experienced during her stroke, you will decide to read this book. I heartily recommend it.

Book Review: Come Be My Light

Ever since I heard about this collection of Mother Teresa's letters, I have been eager to read it. While she lived, I found her fascinating and more than a little intimidating. I admired her devotion to the poor of India even as I knew that I was nowhere near that level of living myself. We all admired her. We all saw the humor and strength and dedication in the woman. One way we can judge her impact on us is the many different places in which she is mentioned; I just finished a book on leadership which gave her as an example in a couple of places.

Now we know just how tough she really was.

The letters and other writings were edited and commented upon by Brian Kolodiejchuk, a Roman Catholic priest who is working to persuade the church to name Mother Teresa a saint. The book is published by Doubleday. Incidentally, I found the commentary extremely helpful because the letters refer to things a Catholic might know (or might not) but a Protestant would not, and these things were explained and clarified for the reader.

The letters are presented in a fairly consistent chronological order, which gives the reader a brief view of the events of Mother Teresa's life. The book begins as she left her home to become a nun, follows her to India, shows her life there as a nun, and then follows the events that took her out of her original order (Sisters of Loreto) to found the Missionaries of Charity. We read about the beginning of her work with India's poor, its growth, Mother Teresa's own growing fame, and eventually of the decline of her health.

But the treasure of this book, to me, is that we can also follow her spiritual development. She had a period of mystical contact with Jesus, and during this period she received the call to take Jesus and his love to the poor of India. After that period, she lived the rest of her life with no mystical contact whatsoever.

As we read her letters, we follow the agony of that separation and her eventual acceptance of it, a process that required many years. Through all of it, she was determined to serve with a smile, and to give Jesus whatever he required, and to give it happily and without reservation. While she felt empty and dark within her soul, she was a beacon of that love for the rest of us, and we had no idea of what she was feeling.

As a sort-of mystic myself, I can only imagine what it would be like to have that union for a few months - and then have it removed from me. I haven't had such an experience, but I am sure such a loss would be devastating. It probably compares with losing the color in your TV set and watching everything in black and white. It may compare with losing your sense of smell, so that when you eat your food is virtually tasteless.

And Mother Teresa not only endured it, she transcended it, and with a style that most of us could only aspire to.

When I began reading, I admired her. When I finished, admiration had changed to love.

Come Be My Light is a fascinating book. Anyone interested in saints, nuns, mystics of our time or any time, biography or published letters would surely find it as absorbing as I did.

Basic Spiritual Disciplines?

Recently we had a sermon in church about your work ethic. That didn't mean your work ethic at work. It meant your work ethic in the church. Whether you contribute time and effort to the work of the church. Whether you work at being an asset rather than a liability. Using your gifts for the good of the congregation. You express your Christianity by doing all that stuff.

Fine.

But then we hit a snag. Basic spiritual disciplines for the individual member were described as: attending worship weekly, Bible study daily, and tithing the full 10% of your income.

After the service I asked the pastor, "Where is prayer in that?" I know that he personally believes in prayer, but while he agreed that prayer is important, he didn't try to explain why he hadn't included it in his list of basic spiritual disciplines. Maybe the congregation has given him reason to think they don't care about it. I don't know.

Let me put it this way. I have begun to reread The God We Never Knew by Marcus Borg, and so far he has written about two basic ways we can look at God. Either God is a King (remote male authority figure who dominates us so that we have to obey) or God is a Spirit (right-here compassionate figure who desires to have a loving relationship with each of us). Borg and I both prefer the idea of God as Spirit, remembering of course that there is no actual word or concept that can begin to describe God with any accuracy.

Borg concludes one chapter with this summary: God is real, the Christian life is about entering into a relationship with God as we see God in Jesus, and this relationship can and will change your life. (This is page 51 in my copy.)

What I get out of it is this. The first statement is right on. The relationship is with God as shown by Jesus; it is not a relationship with Jesus himself. And I can testify about how it changes lives. So can many others.

How do we get this relationship? Again, here is Borg: "Prayer is attending to our relationship with God." (This is page 123.)

There are many types of prayer, and many books about prayer, enough to fill a library. In all of them we can open to a relationship with God. But nothing does it like contemplative or silent prayer. Centering prayer. Prayer of examen. Lectio divina done in combination with centering prayer. That last one is also an in-depth way to do some Bible study as well. Those are the applications of contemplative prayer that I am familiar with. I'm sure there are many others as well.

Worship, tithing, and Bible study are all good. I either do them now or have done them in the past. When I get my new life straightened out I may be doing all of them at once. Who knows? But they don't provide what prayer provides. The way to establish and nurture an intimate relationship with God is prayer. And to me anyway, that is the essential thing. There is no life worth living without such a relationship.

And so we need to pray.

That's all there is to it.

Where Have I Been?!

I hadn't realized it has been a whole three weeks since I wrote. A lot has happened. A lot of anger and emotion came roaring out of me a little over a week ago, and it has taken me this long to recuperate from the experience. I am not sure what all the excitement was about - I know for sure what kicked it into motion - but it is behind me now and I am getting over it.

Christian mystics would call it a dark night of the soul, I believe, and apparently I was having one of those, and the worst of it seems to be over now. That is good. It's a cleansing process that raises your consciousness, and the result is good while the process is uncomfortable.

This is how the cleansing process worked: I had been scheduled to present a workshop on the contemplative practice known as lectio divina. The people who had been asked if they were interested said that they were. However, at the appointed hour, the only person there was, you guessed it, yours truly. It came after a series of disappointments and frustrations in which everything I tried came up empty, and it was the straw that broke the camel's back.

I was furious with my Source. Royally PO'd. Depressed, fairly seriously, for several hours, but it was only for a few hours and I am thankful for that. It wasn't until the next day that I was able to go to my Source and tell Him that no matter what else is going on, I must have my relationship with Him.

Has that changed anything? Yes, my blood pressure is dramatically lower. And yes, I have had something cleaned out because there has been a hole somewhere inside me, empty and deep and numb, that has been gradually getting refilled with peace and new energy. There may be more changes yet to come, too.

I guess my point is this: Spiritual cleansing isn't always simple or fun, but it is essential for wholeness and growth, and it is worth whatever you go through.

So without trying to make any new plans or efforts just yet, I feel that the ball is not in my court any more, and the next move is up to my Source. I'm sure it will an interesting ride, whatever happens next. My Source is many things, but boring is not one of them!

How Did All This Begin?

What happened to turn me from a staid, conventional Christian into a flaming contemplative semi-mystic, anyway?

I won't go into all the gory details here. (This doesn't need to be a novel, after all.) But 27 years ago this November, I was living in the city 800 miles away from home, and I went to the wrong surgeon for an appendectomy. Had he known what he was doing, the whole thing wouldn't have happened, but he messed it up big time, and I was in the hospital for three months trying to get over it.

No, not that hospital. My family came down from the Midwest, moved me to one of the large teaching hospitals, found me a better doctor, and the rest is history.

Well, anyway, there were several setbacks, and I fought my way through each as best I could. The moment came one night, as the nurses were settling me in for the night, and I knew that all the setbacks had been encountered. I don't know how I knew that; I just did. It was time to start healing now.

And I had run out of strength.

I didn't even care, for a few minutes, if I lived or died. It was just too doggoned hard to face going on.

I had been in a period of rebellion, to put it in orthodox Christian language. But that night I crawled back to God on my - no, not my knees, but my belly. I told God that I didn't care if I lived or died, I just wanted out of there ASAP, and how I got out - gurney or body bag - was up to Him. I knew exactly what I was saying, and for a moment I briefly hesitated, but I went ahead and finished it.

Then I went to sleep.

Something happened to me in the night. I have to admit that I have no actual memory of it, although I do have a couple of pictures of what it must have been like. But there was an Encounter in the night. There is no other explanation for the transformation that I discovered when I woke up the next morning, still alive and glad of it, joyful mind you, feeling all cleaned out and free of baggage. I was another person, and I hope it has been an improvement over the original version.

There were still several weeks to go in the hospital, although after that experience I soon graduated from Intensive Care. I had time to think and "process" what had happened.

By the time I went home to finish recuperating, I had two main concepts to chew on:

• God loved me unconditionally, absolutely, and abundantly.
• God was colossal, far grander than anything I or any other human could ever comprehend, and utterly beyond all our attempts to confine Him in our boxes.

I will expand upon them in the next post, because they sort of grew. For now, let me leave with a description of the picture I took home with me, the picture of the Encounter that is the closest thing I have to an actual memory of it:

I am standing on one side of a chasm about the size of the Grand Canyon. On the other side of the chasm is a vast mountain, wide, high, massive as Mt. Everest. It was made of love. And it was all for me.

And ever since then, I cringe for all the people who are afraid of God. We are loved! There is a mountain of love for you as well as for me. What are we so afraid of? How can we be afraid of such love? I love God, I revere God, and I speak candidly to God, but I have absolutely no fear of God. I can't be afraid of a mountain of love.

To be continued . . .

Maundering On

I don't have any single specific thing I want to say today, but there are two or three "short shorts" I would like to touch on. Here goes.

Today I received one of those emails which require you to read some inspirational or nationalistic verbiage and then forward it to X number of friends. The implication is that if you do not, you don't have time for God or you aren't patriotic. To be perfectly candid, I have come to resent that entire scenario. It is a chore to sift through my mailbox, looking for friends who I think might appreciate receiving this message from me, assuming that I think it is actually worth passing on. And I distinctly resent the implication that I am not patriotic enough, or "religious" enough, and that is proven because I deleted the email instead of forwarding it on. In fact, since I don't feel I need to earn people's approval that way, I downright enjoy deleting their emails!

In this case, the person who sent it to me is a friend in treatment for brain cancer, and I did reply to her, thanking her for the lovely prayer. It was lovely. I copied it into a file I keep for that purpose. But I made no pretense of forwarding it. I hope she understands, because I have no desire to hurt her. She has enough to go through as it is.

I have just finished reading (for the second time) Beyond Belief by Elaine Pagels. It has led me to a conclusion. For years I have felt more and more distanced from the Christian church because I had an experience which transformed me. As time went on, I felt less and less connected to what I heard in church, but more and more connected to the fallout of perceptions from that experience. I have finally come to realize, and admit to myself, that I lean toward mysticism. My beliefs, which stem from that transforming experience, are beliefs I share with mystics of all traditions. There has been conflict between orthodoxy and mysticism for centuries of Christian history. It is not a new argument.

All this time, I have felt . . . well . . . timid about it. Crouching behind half-truths that I uttered. Letting people think I believed what they do when that isn't so. But there is nothing wrong with what I believe or how I perceive our world. It is time for me to stop skulking furtively in the closet. It is time to come out into the daylight and challenge orthodoxy. It has its accomplishments and it does its good things. But it also teaches things that I believe should be challenged.

So today I am resolved to come out of my mystical closet and work to let people know that there is life and faith and growth beyond the orthodox. I explore that territory freely. Anyone who wants to join me in my journey is welcome to come along.