Brian’s Reflection: Monday, November 30, 2009

Most sorts of diversion in men, children and
other animals, are in imitation of fighting.

- Jonathan Swift, author (“Gulliver’s Travels”),
Anglo-Irish Anglican priest, born on this date, 1667


This worries me. I have thought for a long time that the issue Swift raises is true. I am not intrinsically “against” sports. Except when – as I think is true in our American culture - they have stopped being “sports” and been absorbed into the “Do anything and take any drug you need to take to make a gazillion dollars” category. If we support “Sports” because it diverts human aggression from the battlefield, I guess I am in favor of it. Ritualized war is better than actual mass murder. After all, it seems a fact of Life that human beings have a destructive vicious aspect of their nature. It would seem good to deflect that.

Dare I say that it seems to me that “sport” (as the Brits say) is, in my opinion, a way of dealing with our inability to deal with the powerful driving dynamic of Sex and Aggression and Fear? Ponder this. Think about the supposition that one scientist postulates that even smiling is a way of disguising teeth-bared aggression.

I would have thought that humans would have gotten over this by now. Wouldn’t you, given our propensity for self-preservation? Especially given the fact that “religion” – even religions that are centered in Compassion and Forgiveness and Love – should have had more effect by now?

Here’s what I think. Let’s put it this way, metaphorically: “God” has been trying for a very long time to get us to “hear” the Message. Love One Another. Live together in Peace. Value Gentleness. Value self-giving. Etc. There is only ONE reason that this has not happened. Our human choice. No other reason. Period. We can’t blame this on anyone or anything else, most foolhardily on our claim to righteousness – though we constantly try to. What venial creatures we are! Or, if we want to shine a better light on it, What fools we are to continue to behave in ways which make us utterly miserable in mind, body and spirit? Only self-deluding fools would continue to inflict the kind of suffering on ourselves which we have done for millennia, in the face of the Mystery of Love, Grace, Compassion, Forgiveness and Unconditional Love. Only fools.

As a Christian, the season of Advent is upon me. Once again I am offered the opportunity to “repent” – to turn around. To change my life, my attitudes, my choices, my perceptions, my prejudices, my fears. To act upon the hopes and longings for Freedom and Peace that have been offered. Every authentic religion offers us this, over and over again.

I think, as so many great souls have said, that we humans tremble at assuming such responsibility for our behaviour. And yet, in the Bible, we are told unequivocally that we are heirs of the Christ, made in the “image of God”, equal in nature as a scion of the Great Deity.

Time for us to step up to the plate friends! “God” is waiting. The longer we hesitate, the more misery we choose, for ourselves and for all our fellow human brings.

We do not need another, a “Christ”, to do this for us.

We ARE Christ.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: The Weekend, Sat., Nov 29, 2009

And may the Lord make you increase
and abound in love for one another and
for all, just as we abound in love for you.

- 1 Thessalonians 3 (Epistle for Advent Sunday)

The awakened subject is not merely to perceive
transcendent life, but to participate therein; and
for this, a drastic and costly life-changing is required.”

-Evelyn Underhill, 1875-1941 Mysticism p.195


Don’t get seduced by “eschatological” (end-time), by “apocalyptic” (“hidden”) language, some of which is put in the mouth of Jesus in the Gospel reading for this Advent Sunday. It expresses itself in basic literal formulation. As with all “scripture”, the text points to more complex meaning.

My priest colleague Suzanne Guthrie expresses the “point” of the use of this language – as does Evelyn Underhill – beautifully and cogently: “The church year begins with the shock and disorientation of apocalypse, if only to help us topple down into living a transcendent life. Then, parallel to and integrated with the struggles of daily life, the soul begins the greatest adventure of the human person – the journey of the growth of consciousness, sanctity, compassion.”

This is what Jesus was ultimately concerned with: that we human beings should get on with the business of maturing in the journey of Life: “the growth of consciousness, sanctity, compassion”.

What a mess we have made of Jesus’ message – and the message of so many of the great spiritual leaders of human history. “We” (meaning essentially those who have appropriated to themselves to control the spiritual path by imposing a stultifying institution aimed basically at controlling human freedom and growth, either consciously or unconsciously) have laid a pall of death on the great life-giving proclamation.

But we must hear the Message that God desires we hear. We are called into “transcendent life” – by participating in it passionately. Yes, it will change our lives, as Underhill says. What our teachers must remind us is that this change is what will give us the Life which we most profoundly desire deep within!

Much more could be said, but this is all that needs to be said to set and keep us on the Path: “… abound in love for one another and for all”. Oh, I know that the web of love can be challenging and demanding. But its heart is simple, as Jesus said. “Love one another”.

Lets start there again, on this yet another Advent Sunday. As we always can.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Friday, Nov 27, 2009

If a bullet should enter my brain, let
that bullet destroy every closet door.

- Harvey Milk , the first openly Gay
San Francisco City Supervisor, was
assassinated on this date, 1978


My prayer? May every religion, prejudice, cultural bias, or any attitude which refuses to recognize the intrinsic worth of every human being, and which chooses to dehumanize or “bear false witness” against any other person, be eliminated from the human mind and heart.

Only then will America and the World be truly great.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, Nov 26, 2009

[ American Thanksgiving Day ]

"If the only prayer you said in your whole
life was, "thank you," that would suffice."

- Meister Eckhart, Christian mystic

Eckhart says it all.

On this Thanksgiving Day, I wish you ultimately only one thing.

May saying “Thank You” as intensely as possible transform your whole Life. Thankfulness liberates. It catapults us out of our entrapments, those that stunt our growth.

Feast today on the bounty of the Earth. But more: feast on the honey that is the Compassion which defines Being.

You. Me. Us all.

May your day be flooded with Abundance.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, Nov 25, 2009

I resolved to stop accumulating and begin the infinitely
more serious and difficult task of wise distribution.

- Andrew Carnegie, industrialist (ruthess) & philanthropist,
born on this date, 1835

In many ways, Carnegie redeemed himself (as I see it). Either he had a change of heart, or he “bought” his salvation. All those libraries – they exude civil responsibility and perhaps ….. caring.

I think I learned the lesson about stopping accumulation and wisely distributing a long time ago. Oh, not that I stopped accumulating! I am fatally attracted by beautiful things (Limoges china, etc) and by fetishes (bags of all sorts). Sigh. What can I do?! However, what I learned, by “studying Life” in the monastic life, is that accumulated beautiful things bring more pleasure when they are given away than when hoarded. Either things possess you or you possess them. Many of my friends have some of my “stuff”. I have always felt personally more blessed when giving someone something of mine (especially if they have admired it) than keeping it for myself. Besides the object, there is the joy of connection and love.

One of the great “spiritual tasks” - i.e., of maturing as a person, is, I think, to make a short as possible the time between accumulating and giving. This I believe: there is nothing more freeing and blessing that a parent can do than to teach their child (a) to understand how gloriously they are blessed, and (b) to long to lavish that abundance on others.

If I ran a Sunday School, here is where I would focus: I would work to teach the blessing of Abundance as soon as possible, and then teach the child the wonder and thrill and pleasure, by experience, of “wise distribution”.

Spiritually speaking, this is the critical lesson to learn if one is in search of freedom and happiness. And Peace.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, November 24, 2009

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelli-
gent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.

- Charles Darwin. His “Origin of Species” was published on this date, 1859


Jesus is a good example – of a being open to change. Specifically, a human being who understood that greatness was in “service to others in love”. It is one of the chief reasons that I can relate to Jesus. Tyrannical control simply does not make for great human beings. Vulnerability, I was almost stunned to understand, is the Path to Greatness. The early Christians edited a lot out of the story of Jesus of Nazareth – I’m glad this thread persisted! It sounds of truth to the listening ears of the Intuition, of the Heart.

A smile often comes to my face when I think of “the church”. Why has the church not learned the “important lesson”? The truth is that spiritual maturity eschews “worldly” power and embraces Gospel vulnerability. Is it because we are not able, or not taught, to bear the suffering that will inevitably come our way as we oppose the World’s System? But friends, rejecting the World’s power is what all the great religious teachers have taught! Are we not able to hoist this truth in because of our Greed, our Insecurity? I think of all those things Jesus is reported to have said, about “winning the World and losing our Soul”.

The “church” (be it Christian or Jewish or Islam or other) finds it very difficult to change. Look at the situation between “Rome” and “Anglicanism”. Rome has not forgotten the stinging rejection of the Reformation, nor has it gotten over the collapse of the Roman empire, choosing to live as a ghostly shadow of that earthly Kingdom. And Anglicanism has never transcended its sense of inferiority. Rome is now “getting back”, and Anglicanism is slowly choosing further to embrace a deep inner sense of inferiority, rejecting it’s gift from the Spirit of Change.

The spiritual lesson is clear: Change! Change is a given of Life – and we can either be a part of it or resist it. Yes, of course, we have work to do. We have to think and pray and meditate. We must accept the responsibility of being human. And we must make the decisions we are challenged to make. We must commit to discerning to what we think is Truth. And then Act.

It is true in the material world that only those who change survive. It is even truer of the Heart.

Brian+

Brian’s Reflection: Monday, Nov 23, 2009

The monster was the best friend I ever had.

- Boris Karloff, actor, born on this date, 1887

Spiritually, this is true. Unfortunately, general modern “religion” has taught us to reject or marginalize the “monster”. Bad advice. Jung never did that. Early Christianity never did that – but their problem was that they over-emphasized it, to the point that our innate human beauty was obliterated, leaving many of us unable to rise to the call to grow in Love.

The “monster” is a part of each of us – the “dark side”. (Can you hear the Jedi Obi talking to Luke Skywalker?) Ignoring the Dark Side is a big mistake – always. The choice to ignore the Dark Side means we are refusing to learn from our choices for un-love in all its dimensions. And that only leads to “death” on many levels of the meaning of that Myth. We stop growing, stop transforming into our destiny as a part of the Divine.

I have learned. Being with my partner has encouraged me to let go of all sorts of behaviour that breaks down Love. If only “marriage” would focus on this “discipline”!!

Embrace your “monster”. Each of us will more quickly understand our complex nature, be freed to let go of things that stunt us, and blossom!

What a nice thought!