Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, January 21, 2010

During times of universal deceit, telling
the truth becomes a revolutionary act.

George Orwell, author; he died on this
date, 1950


It’s been over four years and more that I have been writing these Reflections. I’ve learned many things. Most, I’ve learned that people say entirely contradictory things. Do they forget? Or do they change? Both, I suppose.

I think, “spiritually”, that Orwell is dead on. We might call this the “Theological Principle of the Emperor’s Clothes”. Or, more correctly, the Un-Clothes.

In my view, people who “tell the truth”, especially in “times of universal deceit”, are very often murdered. We’ve just, in the so-called “United” States of America (a falsehood if I ever heard one; “America” is anything but united), celebrated (at least in the Episcopal Church Calendar) one of our murdered “saints” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Christians can go right back to Jesus, who definitely falls into this category. Many other faiths and religions have “founders” who were killed for telling the Truth. Especially to “Power”. That’s when the rubber hits the road: people in power do not take kindly to hearing the truth if it calls into question their values – or their Greed. America has murdered many whom they felt challenged their right to live on top of the materialistic heap.

Our problem is, we now live in a World in a time of “Universal Deceit”. On a massive scale, people lie to themselves and to others. People deprive other human beings of Justice and Fairness and Equality and call it Love. The Inquisition did this. People profess to act out of their Gospel faith who basically have perverted the Gospel - like the man who is claiming that he could kill a doctor who performed abortions because God wanted him to prevent what he considered theologically acceptable. Does he not remember (he who is a Biblical “fundamentalist”) “Thou shalt not kill”? Many Americans (seemingly a majority) claim we are a “Christian Nation,” when they espouse completely un-Christian principles of intolerance and un-Love and “not considering themselves as better than others”, and “Love your neighbour as yourself”. On and on it goes.

Need I say anything about the recent vote in Massachusetts? Ponder this. What does it say about caring for the 6th of our citizens who have no health care? About 30% of our children hungry while we spend nearly half of our national budget on the machinery of war??

Be a Revolutionary. Tell the Truth.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Realism is a bad word. In a sense
everything is realistic. I see no line
between the imaginary and the real.

There is no end. There is no beginning.
There is only the passion of life.

Federico Fellini, film director, genius, born
on this date, 1920

This is why I say that Fellini is a “genius”. And wise.

As to the first quote: I have preached this for decades. Thinking that there IS a difference between the “real” and the “imaginary” has been the curse of religion for a very long time. The human imagination is, in my view, the Sacred Fountain of Divine Wisdom. It is God’s primary instrument of self-revelation – since God and We are indivisible.

The Imagination is a Holy Language, originating in the deepest wells from which human character rises. That there has developed a huge gap between the two is, to put it in apocalyptic imagery, the “work of the Devil”. America, in particular, has fallen for it hook line and sinker. We suffer deeply and live in deep anguish and unreality because of it.

“There is only the passion of life”. Truer word was never spoken. To deny this truth is to give ultimate power to the demon of Death. Most religion has led us to pay over-attention to either the “beginning” or to the “end”. We ask: Will we be punished for our sins? What must we do to get to Heaven.” These are both paths leading only to Death. Love demands that we live in the Present. And I believe that this is the core message of the Death and Resurrection of the Christ.

Christians call the events of the Christ’s crucifixion, death and resurrection His “Passion”. The word “passion” means “to suffer with”, to “be joined with another in their struggle”. Fellini is, I believe, correct. Life is experienced fully only in embracing our connection with others. Especially with those “not like us”. This is, I believe, why Jesus spent His life with “outcasts and sinners”. Life reveals itself for us when we share the struggle and joy of our fellow human beings.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, January 19, 2010

All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of
fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry.

Edgar Allan Poe, poet, was born on this date, 1809


Well, I would disagree – at last with half of what Poe says. That all religion is evolved out of poetry and imagination, I agree. That “all religion” is evolved “out of fraud, fear, greed”, I disagree. I would say that all false religion is evolved out of fraud, fear and greed. And I would add out of some others things – like guilt, powerlessness, ignorance, a failure to appreciate the sheer wonder of being Human and the glory of human intellectual and imaginative character.

“Faith” is to be distinguished from “religion”. “Faith” is a choice to believe in certain theological or philosophical principles which allow us to navigate Life with some strength and courage and wisdom. “Religion” is the multitude of things we do to support the Faith we have chosen, including worship, ritual, practices of all sorts.

My Faith and Religion are definitely a matter of my imagination and poetic understanding of Life and my needs. I have rejected all aspects of religion which are counter to thriving in Life. I think that Moses and Jesus did the same thing. They let go of prevailing ideas about “God” and rejected aspects of religious practice that were contrary to their understanding of God’s good purpose for Humanity. My Life has been a constant path of such winnowing out things which denigrate Life in all its beauty and holiness.

I would encourage you to examine your faith principles and your religious practice. If they don’t affirm the sacredness of your self as the ontological being you are, if they do not support the centrality of Love as the core of successful humanity, if they encourage the demeaning of other persons who are not “like you” or who follow different paths, let them go.

You will then be free to become the extraordinary being you were destined to be, and a healer of the World’s pain.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Monday, Jan 18, 2009

A people always ends by resembling its shadow.

Rudyard Kipling, British author; he died on
this date, 1936


I wonder. I wonder. There is a part of me which, after decades of Life, has to acknowledge that this is true. In America, our “shadow” has emerged with enormous power. And it is true of the whole World. We live in an age of the Shadow. If I were an 8th century Hebrew prophet, I would be raging to the people at the peril of my Life. Martin Luther King Jr., whose life is celebrated today in America, spoke to our Shadow – to our violent, racist culture. He died by assassination. Many prophets do.

Look at America today. I am appalled, as a human being and as a Christian, by what we seem to have become. I see the reality, but I am stunned by the viciousness, the mean-spiritedness, the vitriol, the hate, the murderousness, that has come to be so prominent in American society. To the point that I feel as if all reason has escaped us – as well as any rational concept of the spirit of the Constitution or any even vague sense of the heart of any Faith tradition, be it Christianity, Judaism or Islam. I put this down primarily to Fear, and to Covetousness, and to Arrogance – and to a profound loss of Identity as human beings.

Our Shadow – the negative side of our identity – is ascendant now. This is not because we, as Americans, espouse the separation of “church and state”. This position has been and remains a good thing. It has held back mainly Christians from imposing their position on the country – and alas a radically negative and essentially anti-Gospel view that seems endemic in American religious culture. But the Shadow is still among us – and we are being torn apart by it – deliberately, I believe by extremists on all sides.

We definitely, as America, resemble our Shadow at the moment. If we persist, we will destroy ourselves. I can only say that if the choice is to persist to live out of our negative Shadow dimension, destruction is our only hope for salvation. It has happened in many societies before us.

But there is a hope. We can choose to reject the Shadow. Religion, and non-religious thinkers, can reject capture by forces destructive to human community.

Kipling can be wrong. It is our job to prove him wrong!

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Friday, Jan 15, 2010

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military
defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward
the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless
exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.

Martin Luther King Jr., born on this date, 1929


I think that human experience and History proves that MLK is correct. Justice does not happen automatically. If it did, there would have been no reason for “God to send His only begotten son”. Or to send the prophets. Or for the reincarnation generation after generation of the Dalai Llama. Etc. The Christian Myth says that Jesus” gave himself for us”, that he “suffered for us”. That he “died for us”. The primary meaning of this is to remind us: WE must sacrifice, suffer, and struggle for Justice, for Life, for Love. This is the only way that Justice shall come among us.

The ratio of money spent on militarism as opposed to “programs of social uplift” is profoundly a sign of injustice in any society. Ponder then that the money spent on militarism in American society is almost half of our national budget. Is it any wonder that people die in American society because they cannot get health care? It is a symbol of our chosen values. But, perhaps of out misguided representatives? We must oppose them.

Do you care that our government spends our tax dollars supporting militarism to the vast extent we do? If you do, then we are “approaching spiritual doom”. No – we have arrived there.

Only we can change that.

Rebel. Say No. It is a way of “conforming to Christ”.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, Jan 14, 2010

Pale sunlight,
pale the wall.

Love moves away.
The light changes

I need more grace
than I thought.

Rumi (translated by Coleman Barks)


Ah Rumi. Such elegant poetic imagination. Such insight of the mind and spirit and imagination. But remember: we all could have this if we wanted to invite it into our lives.

“Grace” is a fascinating concept, isn’t it?! What is it? We think of it as “something” that comes from “out there”, from “God”. Like a vitamin supplement to our weakened human immune system.

I don’t think so, after all these decades of pondering. “Grace” is an integral aspect of being Human. It is the insight and energy that rises up for us when we are able voluntarily to let go of our earth-bound Ego and open our Being to who we actually Are. And what is that? A flame of the Universe manifest through the exquisite mystery of Flesh.

We human beings are – as the Biblical Pentecost story reveals – flames of God dancing in Time and Space.

Being Human, we consume the fuels of Life and come close to spluttering out. We are tempted to think – until we learn better - that replenishment will come from Without. No. It will come from Within, from where Jesus said the “Kingdom” lives. Walking our Path – usually a precisely defined one in terms of faithfulness – leads us to the Well of Fire.

“Grace” is like the nourishing sustenance that flows to us through the umbilical cord in the womb. Only now that “cord” connects the Universe to our hearts. We keep the channel open from our Center to our fingers, toes, genitals, skin, mind, senses. “Grace” bathes us in a liquid love. It illumines the pale wall, gives vibrancy to the Son-light. It revives Love.

We forget about so many things. It is the primary failure of being Human. Especially we forget about Grace.

Write that Word on your heart, on the inner retina. When “sleeping or awake”, seek it etched Within.

The Great Prayer is, “I need more Grace that I thought”.

Whisper it often.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, Jan 13, 2010

There is no heresy or no philosophy which is so
abhorrent to the church as a human being.

James Joyce, Irish author. He died on this date, 1941


Joyce was talking about the Roman Catholic Church. As an Irishman, he knew little else, as far as I know. But he might well have been speaking about much of Christianity these days.

The Christian Church in many places and manifestations despises the human body. Considers it and all its desires and needs as against God and Nature. The contempt that oozes out of Joyce’s words are deserved, in my opinion. Much of the Church’s opinions and theology of humanity is “agin it”.

Most of Christianity remains what is theologically called “dualistic”. Holding that humankind is split between “body” and “spirit” – with the “body” being intrinsically “bad”. In my estimation, this is not only utter nonsense, but contrary to the doctrine of the Incarnation and to the Bible. It has caused perhaps irreparable harm both to human self-comprehension and to any kind of true understanding of “God”.

Much of the Christian church has tried for two millennia to deny the true nature of being human. It has tried to twist, coerce, manipulate, threaten, condemn human beings into a concept of our human nature that is not, frankly, Godly. And to punish us for it, threatening us with Hell and Punishment. Needless to say, out of this the Church has gained wealth and power. But it is contrary to Jesus’ explanation of the nature of His Kingdom.

We must forcefully reject this false teaching. We must insist that the “church” embrace and affirm the reality of being human. Especially the beauty and importance of our bodily nature, with all its dimensions, especially including sexuality. At present, many Christian denominations are trying to make their followers deny their true humanity. This only results – as we scan History – in estrangement from both the Body of Christ and from God. And it destroys any possibility of human beings rising to our true glory and possibility.

We are who we are. Flesh and Blood and Spirit, Heart and Mind and radically Free.

Be yourself. Embrace all that you are as human. Bow to the call of Love. Only then can we become the beings God intended,

Brian+