Mystery of Darkness or Bright Mystery of Light

Copyright 2009

Don Ray

“The mystery” Ben eloquently called it on Sunday, this life, the Source of that life, and our relationship with it all.  Ultimately, when we finally lie exhausted from our intellectual, philosophical, and theological exercises, it all does indeed come back to mystery.

It is not given us to fully solve or understand the mystery. But I believe we are empowered by virtue of our freewill consciousness to choose whether to see the mystery as dark and impenetrable, or bright and welcoming.  Is it mystery because it is hidden, or is it mystery because there is no bound to its dimensions, and each step of discovery leads to ever brightening light?  Is it mystery because it is inexplicable, or because none can explain it to us, leaving us each invited to discover it for ourselves as individuals?

Is the mystery cause for despair or celebration?  We are fully free to choose our answers to those questions, that freedom itself being part of the Mystery.  We may freely choose whether to let our heart and soul experience that which our mind cannot grasp.  Perhaps the great imprisonment wrought by modern science has been the decree that if we cannot analyze and measure something, it does not exist; this capricious and arbitrary decree leaves us in spiritual solitary confinement, all interaction, experience, and awareness limited to what can be slipped in through the bars of our physical senses and intellect.  Yet even with senses satiated with experience and intellect saturated with knowledge, we still hunger.  The mystery has returned.

With invocation of mathematical symbols, rigorous logic, evolutionary pragmatism, and scientific inquisitions we seek to dispel the mystery.  We need but faster processing speeds and greater bandwidth, and of course expanded budgets, to conquer this impudent “mystery”.

Indeed, we are free to do so, to turn our back on mystery.

Or, with the same invocation of math, science, logic, and evolution, we can turn toward the mystery, not conquering, but exploring, children at play in bright woods and meadows without bound.

Such a subtle difference in attitude toward mystery would at first glance seem inconsequential.  But in our acknowledgement of mystery we open ourselves to experiencing that which we cannot understand or explain or categorize or quantify. (Three seagulls fly over as I write!  Here?!   Now that is a mystery!)

The Mystery inexorably returns, however steadfastly we deny it.  Dark and impenetrable, it lurks behind our conscious awareness.  Or bright and promising, it welcomes us when we turn toward it and walk into the warm embrace of relationship with the incomprehensible.

Copyright 2009

Don Ray      S.D.G.

Economic madness

Copyright 2008

Don Ray

An economic system based on utterly contrived and artificial fabrications?!…..subject to the whims of mob psychology and panicked stampedes of wild eyed herds?!

What madness is this?!  Doesn’t it make you long for the security of the gold standard, or at least the silver standard, or at least a cash-based economy?

….those secure and dependable economic systems worked for thousands of years, based on something tangible and real, like humanity’s infatuation with shiny baubles. 

Of course relative poverty or riches of a nation depended on whether this spring’s galleon sank in a storm.  Isn’t that a remarkable thing?  The fate of a nation, would its people be able to obtain food and buy a new ox cart, depended on pillaging and shipping shiny minerals from a far off land. 

When this spring’s shipments of gold got captured by pirates, surely the people of Spain or Venice or Egypt wondered why suddenly their labors and lives and families were seemingly worth less, and their nation’s prospects suddenly insecure…..because some yellow blocks of metal wound up in that other country’s temple instead of our temple?

Might it be that madness is intrinsic in all economic systems that place a contrived, arbitrary, psychologically based value on objects, materials, or stocks?

When the gold shipment did not arrive at the port, were your ancestor’s worth, labor, and time, really of less value?

When the stock market plummets this morning, is your worth, is your labor, is your time, actually of less value than it was yesterday?

On the day after the bullion sank or the market plummeted, do we need less or want less? 

Our economic systems historically turn from riches to rags based on a monarch’s tantrum or the investor herd stampeding over a cliff. 

I certainly offer no brilliant insight into how to construct an economic system not fundamentally based on unstable psychology, irrational whims, and consumer madness.  But perhaps if the royalty and the business owners, the conquistadors and the investors, and the peasants and the consumers realized the capricious, arbitrary, psychological nature of our economic systems, whether based on gold or hedge-fund derivatives, we would take those economic systems a little less seriously.  And because of the arbitrary, adrift-in-the-psychological-winds nature of our economies, taking economies less seriously would itself render them more stable, and our lives more secure.

 Copyright 2008

Don Ray

key terms: economy; collapse; economic foundation; financial system; monetary system

Judge, Jury, and Prosecution in the Trial of God

Don Ray

Copyright 2009

What about that fact that the fundamental, God-created nature of our being seems pretty much opposed to the high spiritual state to which we are supposedly called?

Protection of the self, optimizing survival, avoiding pain, maximizing comfort and security……there we have the basic, universal components of the human being.

That is our starting point from which to try to attain spiritual purity?!

My gosh, high spiritual calling is a calling to the antithesis of our very God-created nature!  Striving for spiritual purity is no small undertaking!

To grow in courage, in selflessness, in generosity, in self-sacrifice, in peace, this is almost like telling God S/He blew it and we’re going to strive to become the opposite of what S/He created!

I thought of this as I watched ‘Tasha kitty hunt bugs and lizards earlier today.  She is being exactly as cats were created to be, utterly devoid of mercy, compassion, and any empathy for that baby lizard scurrying through the grass between the rocks, the lizard trying to dodge little black paws pouncing on and around it.

Are we different from the programmed 'Tasha kitty?  In trying to become Christ-like, or Buddha-like, or Mohammed-like, we are not even starting from ground zero, we’re starting from way below zero, a handicap start so profound as to make you question whether to bother running the race.

It is awfully natural to bear a grudge, to want revenge, to feed yourself before the other guy, and to feed your comfortable vehicle with gasoline made from corn when one tank full of that gasoline (or the corn that produced it) could have fed a starving village for a month.

We fill out our application for admission to Heaven while every cell of our human nature seems programmed to invest all our energy in protecting ourselves and optimizing our enjoyment.

Kind of seems like a goofy system to produce residents for some eternal Heaven, don’t you think?  “Let’s program ‘em with all kinds of self-oriented survival instincts, limit their intellect, wire pain and fear and lust signals directly to the central control circuits of their brain, then make them overcome all those natural tendencies for surviving a few years on earth if they want their soul to survive for eternity.”

This hardly seems sporting! 

So what witnesses can the weary defense attorney’s for God call to the stand to counter this incriminating testimony and try to salvage that image of a loving, compassionate Supreme Being that the institutional PR agencies have worked so hard to polish for the past thousand years?….(while ignoring the previous few millennia when the institutional religions painted God(s) as vengeful, wrathful, arbitrary, jealous, and demanding, a much easier PR assignment by the way).

Maybe this spiritual court-case drama will be resolved by a surprise ending, concluding in a shocking twist of events as a former witness for the prosecution breaks down under cross-examination, revealing what really happened in that infamous Garden. 

Or maybe the witnesses for the prosecution, those witnesses in our own hearts, will begin to question what they saw.  Maybe some new evidence, some new evidence of the heart, will reveal that along with the innate ability to hunt and kill and survive and market and profit, we also feel other behavioral influences, influences not always cultivated and encouraged, but still undeniable; tuggings of compassion and empathy, awareness of tenderness and cuteness, an ability to recognize beauty and the sublime and right and wrong.

For all our insistence that we are as programmed as my cat, naturally seeking to kill critters smaller than us, determined to define and defend our territory, and consistently choosing the softest chair to sleep in, under cross-examination we cannot quite deny that we do sense and feel and discern other levels of awareness, awareness that gives us conscience, and truth be known, awareness that gives us free Choice.

That saintly behavior we are told to follow, so directly in contradiction to our God- created nature, is perhaps not as impossible as we would like it to be. 

And then there is that other extenuating circumstance.  For all our condemning testimony that God demands we behave in ways directly counter to the instinctive nature we were supposedly given by that God, in fact, transcripts contradict our testimony.  It seems the record shows that quite consistently God has said we do not have to attain saintly behavior in contrast to our worldly nature.  Rebellious tribes still enter promised lands, zealous persecutors of the faithful still get a second chance at serving that faith, thieves and prostitutes gain entry along with, and maybe in front of, the well dressed and properly behaved.

I think the trial of God for allegedly creating our human natures to fail Heavenly entrance requirements will end in a hung jury……as it always does……ample evidence and arguments supporting the premise of both sides.  The jurors, each of us when we are not in the witness box for the prosecution, are each left to search their own hearts and ask themselves the verdict they want.  

Just keep in mind how many court dramas end with the star witness for the prosecution instead finding him/herself on trial. 

Copyright 2009

Don Ray

key terms: Heaven; getting into Heaven;

 

 

 

 

The Invention of Religions

Copyright 2008

Don Ray

 

This morning I have some sense of things unfolding within the Purpose.  Perhaps I have that sense this morning because everything seems so totally hosed up in my life, and I desperately need that sense of “it will be OK, it’s all for a reason”.

There is always that question, how much of our faith and belief arises out of simple desperation, for without faith and belief we could not go on.

I don’t subscribe to such a theory though, at least not usually.

Sure, we may convolute our beliefs to conveniently ease our pain and make ourselves the ultimate winners over the bad guys and guarantee that we go to Heaven.  The fine details of our beliefs, at which altar we burn candles and to which saint we pray, certainly appear to outsiders as purely self-contrived hokum.

But I believe that overall, “believing” in the first place does not arise from simply a desperate mental gymnastic providing escape from our wretched worldly condition.  For you see, it would be far easier to simply not care about our condition.  A huge portion of our misery arises from grief and loss and emptiness and loneliness.  If we are going to look for a way out of our misery via mental gymnastics, then it would be far easier to simply cease to care enough to grieve and sorrow, instead of contriving elaborate models of gods and heavens, models that by their nature must fly in the face of worldly common sense.  Of course many people do resort to this former recourse, turning off their feelings, compassion, and connection as a way to avoid the otherwise inevitable, overwhelming grief and sorrow.

But of course there is still that inconvenient little matter of our own death, and our programmed fear of that death.  That fear of our own annihilation is not so readily turned off by whim and wish.  So that fear of oblivion certainly provides ample motive to create elaborate models of afterlives and heavens. 

So is that the source of all our religions?  We’re simply too scared to face the unavoidable reality of our pending demise so, like frightened children, we concoct elaborate tales and models and faiths to ease our blind date with death?

That premise is actually hard to argue against.  Without question, uncountable masses have for millennia engaged in ritual, sacrifice, and general towing of the social line out of fear of eternal oblivion or hell.  As one of the few inhibiting influences on our enthusiastic propensity for interpersonal larceny and violence, belief in a hereafter has played a pivotal role in fostering at least the occasional fleeting blossoming of civilizations, such as they are.  But “blossoming civilizations” digresses to a different topic for another time.

Returning to the premise that simple cowardice about the prospect of the eternal demise of our own personal consciousness underlies the foundation of mythologies and religions, we need to look more closely at the nature of true faith.

I have long argued that a significant number of the people in church, synagogue, temple, or mosque on any given morning are not even remotely committed to the beliefs represented by that institution.  Their participation simply provides an insurance policy, their alms paying the premiums, to ensure entry into paradise.

That promise of eternal life is the greatest marketing pitch of all time, putting to shame even the promise of boundless sex that comes with every soda, soap, and sports car sold today.  You better believe, that heaven and eternal life sales pitch has, does, and will pack the house on Sabbath morning.

But if we look closer at those people on their knees on Sunday, Saturday, or Friday morning, we see some, in fact, more than a few, for whom the ritual and liturgy and rules and regulations are not actually the most important thing.  We see people that don’t just follow the rules about “don’t do this and don’t think that”, but proactively do actions, actions of senseless compassion and irrational generosity.

We see devotees for whom their religion is not belief and guidelines, but a way of living, a way of bringing their God into the world.  We see people not assaulting others’ lives in the name of religion, but giving their own lives in the name of a spirit of compassion.

We see people not seeking to please their God by robes, rites, and ritual, but joyfully seeking to invite their God into their hearts, lives, and activities.

In how such lives are led we see a compassionate faith that goes far beyond superficial religion.

This we cannot explain by reference to a fear of death that motivated myths of Heaven.

In the cold, analytical evaluation of beliefs, religions, and institutions, humanity’s almost universal fear of personal end can certainly be invoked as a pretty darned significant motivator for tales of gods eternal and paradise never ending.

But such evaluation of history of religion cannot experience, cannot feel, that core of faith that goes far beyond mere self-preservation.  Inarguably, fear of death makes for one heck of a marketing opportunity for any religion peddling eternal life.  But in the eyes, hearts, souls, giving, compassion, warmth, tolerance and ready forgiveness of some of the faithful, we experience factors that do not lend themselves to ready analysis based on logic of worldly needs.

We find something more, something deeper, a deeply personal, selfless willingness to sacrifice that arises not from mere recitation of credos.

In that which is intangible and immeasurable, in a gentle touch, in an unconditional welcome, we find the essence that testifies to the foundations that underlie spiritual awareness.  From that foundation, into the world and distorted by the world, grow our various religious institutions with their structures and systems that must accommodate our fears and human nature. 

That foundation of nascent spiritual awareness speaks of Truth, and Spirit, and Source, and the nature of our relationship to that Truth, Spirit, and Source.  That foundation, though often well hidden and disguised, underlies much of what we call “religion”.

Much of the history of church and religion can indeed be analyzed by, and in its superficial forms explained by, the sciences of sociology, psychology, and anthropology. 

But at the intensely personal level, that level of individual Choice of how to respond to your world, your life, and the person standing before you, we come face to face with those foundational issues of spirit.  In the many moments of each day when we choose whether to strive for deep awareness of that living, breathing, feeling person before us; when we choose whether to look up at the heavens or down at our own feet; when we choose whether to open to whatever might lie beyond us or to remain closed in our own needs and fears, then we share a moment that every human has, does, and will experience.

Those are the moments of personal awareness of Spirit, even if dim and initially unrecognized, that through human history have given birth to faiths borne not of fear, but of courage. 

Key terms: "development of religions"; "fear of death"; "eternal life"; "invention of religions"; "reason for religions"; "purpose of religions"; "sociology of religion"; "evolution of religions"; "psychology of religion"

 

Copyright 2008

Don Ray

S.D.G.

 

 

 

Seeking a God upgrade

Copyright 2008

Don Ray

The fact is, the unremitting harshness, unrelenting suffering, and inevitable death that comprise this temporal world stand as almost insurmountable barriers to many seekers trying to discern a loving, compassionate creator.

From even my relatively gentle exposure to human suffering I can understand why Gnostics and others would indict this world and its creator as evil, or at least not particularly adept at love and compassion.

Yet we can find love in the world, in fact we can create love in the world.  That fact seems all the more outrageous considering the brutal ambient in which that love must be instantiated.

Indeed, sometimes it seems this is hardly a loving world….other than the beauty we choose to see and the love we choose to create.

We can look at this world and summarily declare it harsh and brutal, along with its creator.  Like the Gnostics, the aesthetics, the mystics, we can then invest our life in seeking some other higher world, in search of a more desirable creator.

Or we can surrender to the world’s nature, immersing in it, seeking to saturate our senses with at least whatever temporary, carnal pleasures we can briefly salvage.

Or, in our freedom, we can choose to do something about the nature of this world, not running from it, not immersing in it, but declaring our intent to claim our individual potential as one created in the image of God.

Nothing in this harsh world, not an evil demigod creator, not some malevolent underworld spirits, not any institutional perversion of religion, not Satan and his numberless minions, keep us from choosing to love.

Escape into pleasant meditation or immersion into exhausting debauchery, exotic spheres of spiritual transcendence or reductionist nihilism….these responses to the harsh and loveless cruelty of this world do not excuse us from loving, in whatever little sphere of influence we find ourselves, with whatever meager abilities we possess.

How dare we blame God for this loveless world! Let us not deny its harshness,  but let us not deny our complicity in that harshness.

Fine, see God as heartless or non-existent, but know that in your response to that god’s, or non-god’s, world, you define yourself.

 Fine, the world is merciless, God’s Creation is unremittingly cruel, but what has that to do with how you choose to shape your Youniverse?

Those that cannot believe in a loving God because they see so little love and compassion in this harsh world are simply being reasonable, rational, and observant. 

But I know that even in the face of all the horrors, grief, and loneliness that fill this world, any individual who freely and defiantly chooses to compassionately love anyway will find their light illumines a dark corner; there in that dim but warming glow, they will see theirs is not the only love;  and in the faces newly revealed by that individual’s waxing light will be seen the face of God, present here, in Love, when invited by our freely chosen acts of selfless compassion.

Copyright 2008

Don Ray

S.D.G.

key words: Gnostic Creator God mystic compassion merciless cruel purpose

 

Little, Known World versus Little Known Worlds

Don Ray

Copyright 2008

 

‘Tasha kitty took me for a long walk in the woods, her longest and furthest ever, by far.  All the way to the ridge she went, coming over the lip to get her first shocking view of just how big the universe is, as she peered down to the road below, and for the first time beheld the summits in the far distance.

Her little kitty brain immediately overflowed with this revelation, and she promptly retreated back down, at least for the time being, to the much more constrained views of a reality bounded by nearby trees and rocks.

True, obscuring bushes and forest may hinder movement and hide the unseen predator.  But perhaps even the most terrible hidden and imagined threats are preferable to that higher view into distances unimaginable, potentials incomprehensible.

Little fuzzy minds are not alone in this response to first sight of a distressingly bigger universe.

It is not mere vastness of physical distances that sends us in hasty retreat back over the edge and into our familiar comfort zone.

For us it is the concept of something profoundly greater, more powerful, unfathomable.

If in scaling the hillside of fact or faith we peer over its summit and catch glimpse of something unfamiliar and challenging to our comfortable little mental universe, our tails bush up in defensive antagonism and we turn our backs on the unwelcome grandeur, retreating to our long cherished beliefs and ignorance.

Indeed, ours may be a world of insecurities and hidden threats, but at least our associated fears and prejudices are familiar and unchallenging.  Better to live in continuous readiness to counterattack whatever enemy lurks behind bush close at hand, than to grapple with concepts, revelations, and God majestic beyond our comprehension.  Better to fight and claw in the trenches of our little personal universe, than to have to learn, change, grow, accept, and surrender to a greater, more majestic, awe inspiring Reality.

Hence we turn and flee from God and our own potential.

But ‘Tasha kitty’s morning was still young.  Her bright-eyed spirit was not ready to long hide from the majestic expanse revealed above.

Kitty courage gradually, cautiously, overcame trepidation.  She explored a different path to ridge’s edge.

At her own pace, she regained the ridge and all its views.

With cautious bravery she investigated its features, and with time gained the summit of comfort.

Eventually, there she sat, seemingly as secure as kitties ever get, soaking up warming sunshine not present in the thick bushes below.

It’s natural that upon glimpsing ideas that stretch our conceptions, when first brushing against the magnitude of Life and its Source, we run back to our little worldly cares, concrete worries and specific fears filling our mind so as to erase views of unbounded grandeur.  We are merely doing as Adam and Eve, hiding from their God as S/He walked though the Garden calling for them.

But we mustn’t stay hiddk *le: …..oops….perhaps because this essay is in part about her, ‘Tasha hops into my lap, adding her editorial changes, arguably as valid as most editorial changes.  Anyway, as I was saying before the fuzzy interruption, we must not stay hidden.  The higher ridge and its enlightening, and challenging views of majestic grandeur await our Choice to climb.  There, out of the shadowy thickets of our own construct, shines warming sun.

Like ‘Tasha, we mustn’t fear the views of revelations majestic, or the Source they reveal, a Source too large to fit in our little imaginations.

Copyright 2008

Don Ray

S.D.G.

 

 

Cults, Countries, Sects, and Societies....Something for Everyone

Don Ray

Copyright 2008

 

Key search terms: cult sect Texas polygamists compound Warren Jeffs abuse indoctrinated FLDS

We hear about the cult, the kids, those strange people, the inexplicable behaviors, and we carefully avoid the realization that we are all members of cults.  Some cults and their belief systems are just big enough to be called the norm.  From where do these cults, including our own societal, national, majority, “normal” cult arise?

What of the wrenching changes in the lives of the cult members removed from their isolated compounds, forced to see the world in the light our society casts on it?  And are the rest of us, in the “majority cult” of mainstream society, immune from such shocks?

How we all long for something stable, reliable, unchanging, and true!….something that absolves us of the responsibility to question, something that obviates the necessity for us to decide.

How eagerly we flock to cults and fraternal orders, how hungrily we ingest rules and ritual and recitation.

Inerrant Bibles, holy texts, prophecies, and scriptures, at least if in our language of choice; or colored pieces of cloth raised on poles; or prophets, preachers, and presidents; these command our unquestioning allegiance. 

The leader we follow gets his instructions directly from God, and such surcease and comfort is to be found in following orders and donning the uniform, whether issued by military or marketers, patriarch or popular trend. 

How irritatingly inconvenient are the nagging facts that counter holy text, slanderous fictions besmirching our leader, untidy revelations toppling beloved institution.

Usually our religious faith, patriotic fervor, and zealous loyalty can trump intellect, twisting and bending our perceptions of reality in a mental contortionist circus-act that sustains our predilection for blind following and dodges the insistent demand that we pose, and worse, have to answer, questions, with their implicit association of personal accountability.

But if any consistency is to be found through the course of history, it is that revelations bring not confirmation but contradiction.

Over and over and over, our various temples do get toppled, our armies do get routed, our leaders do get caught, and text and teacher leave us with questions instead of answers.

We cannot long rest complacent in our faiths and loyalties.

The God in which we would or would not believe allows us but brief times to blindly obey and believe, before wrenching revolutions of heart or circumstance place in our path the bridges we must cross and the forks at which we must choose.  Our temples of certain faith and blind loyalty come tumbling down, to reveal the selves we will create by our response to the glaring light of uncertainty that brings the gift of freedom to we children created in the image of God.

Copyright 2008

Don Ray

 

Does modern Christian worship often miss a key point of Yeshu’s (Jesus’) life?

In contrast to popular Greek, Roman, and Jewish religions of the time, and temples, churches, and mosques today, what we know of Yeshu did not emphasize worship, ritual, mysticism, liturgy, or meditation.

His stories used real world parables, with real world people, with field workers and little old ladies.

The descriptions of Yeshu depict a man healing individuals, and relating to individuals.

His lessons taught how to interact with and react to and treat people.

We have little or no mention of Yeshu (Jesus) telling people how to worship, pray, and meditate, other than an admonition to not make a show of it.

Even the Lord’s Prayer He finally gave only when specifically asked “how should we pray?”  Even then He kept it short and simple, not some elaborate, ritualistic, transcendental, mystical epic, but prayer rooted right here in this place and time….”thy will be done on earth”,….”our daily bread”,…..”as we forgive others”.

"As we forgive others"…..considering the brevity of the Lord’s Prayer, that “as we forgive others” fills no small portion of it.  In the Lord’s prayer only this statement specifically tells us to do something.

Here was the Incarnation, which I finally realize means far more than simply a flesh and blood, physical body for the first Born Son of God.

Incarnation, in the world, interacting in the thick of this world, …..not ommming away to blissful, ethereal states, not emanating calm and serenity, but kicking over tables, fleeing the authorities, weeping in public, and touching dirt and scab encrusted lepers.

Incarnation, in the world, in our world, touching lepers, touching us.

Are we not called to do likewise?

Look at the conversations Yeshu had.  We tend to emphasize the sermons, from mounts and from boats near shore. Those sermons, Yeshu in a white robe, standing before an enthralled crowd, isn’t that a familiar image?

But what actually do the Gospels record more often?  One on one interactions, undoubtedly intense, penetrating, personal, and life changing one on one interactions.

What image comes to mind when we think of those?  For many of us it is a Yeshu again in white robe (which is probably outlandishly impractical on dung covered village streets) Yeshu standing, one hand raised, palm out, in pontifical blessing, the other hand lightly resting on the sick child or kneeling leper or worshipful cripple.  And Yeshu appears kind of….kind of distant, looking down in serene, Heavenly pity on some poor wretch of this world.

I think this image misses the point, a big point, a critical point, a point relevant to how we should live our lives.

Interaction I say, look at the interactions, the intensely personal nature of those interactions between God incarnate and…..us.

Beatific serenity my foot…..this man-God Incarnation was in the thick of this world.  With a woman by a well, or with a church leader in his dining room, this Son of Man would not have looked serenely distant, but intensely, searingly, passionately present.

This was the most intensely, in your face, focused and personally present person with whom anyone has ever spoken.

Incarnation….present…..fully and wholly present….right here, in this world….not relegated to temple….not constrained to sanctuary…..not incarcerated in a cathedral.

Yeshu did not teach meditative escape from this word and benign distance from its people.

Yeshu taught prayer in order to receive the power to heal this world.  Yeshu demonstrated recuperative retreat from the world in order to most effectively again lovingly immerse into the thick of it.

And the example this holy Incarnation gave us was over and over of intensely one on one interaction.  With a woman that touched the hem of His robe, with a woman named Mary, and with sorrow when a young man chose to not follow…..these were personal interactions.

I think it is there we give too little emphasis to an example repeatedly set by Yeshu.  We emphasize worship, which Yeshu emphasized little.  But worship is easy and makes us feel good, which makes worship an easy sale.

We emphasize morals, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t kill, etc., because after all, that’s universal, every society throughout history pretty much ascribing to the same social code, though of course we Christians want to give all the credit for social morals to the Bible.

Many Christians emphasize good deeds, money to the poor, volunteer time, helping the person with a flat tire.

All this is of course good, very good.

But it all misses a central element of the example provided by Yeshu’s life as described in the Gospels.  It is a point far more challenging than worship, morals, and good deeds.

How do we interact with that individual human being before us?  There, right in front of us, is a child of God.  How intensely present will we be?  Will we ask about them and their lives?  Do we care enough to ask, as did Yeshu,  “What are you arguing about?”  “How long has he been like this?”  “What do you want me to do for you?”  “Who do you say I am?”  “What is it you want?” 

And do we care enough to listen?  Look at Matthew 15:25-28!  Yeshu loved enough to listen, to listen to someone he was not expected to listen to, and in listening to change the course of all expected outcomes.  His ministry, once focused on the Jews, was now open to all after He listened to the woman in this story.

Yeshu listened to the individual before Him…..to two tormented Gadarene’s (Matthew 8:28), to a desperate father (Matthew 9:18), to a grieving Mary that brought Yeshu to tears (John 11:33-36).

The individual, intensely personal interactions in Yeshu’s life….there we see the Incarnation, the full presence of Holiness in this world.  There we see one of our greatest challenges in following Yeshu.

Professions of faith?…even atheists fervently profess their faith.

Proclaiming social guidelines for moral behavior?  That’s a foundational precept of the Communist party. 

Worship?…Aztecs, Incas, and every animist and polytheist all worship.

This is the easy stuff.  Shuffle around the various names of god(s), titles of holy scriptures, and ritual liturgy, and most institutional religions would quickly lose their identifying distinctions.

But in that most difficult and intensely personal challenge, the interaction with that human being next to us, there we can look to the unique and seldom emphasized example of the living Incarnation, the Christos.

Will we ask?  Will we listen?  Will we really hear the grief and joy of that child of God sharing our room or car or office?  Will we turn from our busy path and day’s agenda when someone tugs on our robe or calls from beside the road?

“Blessed are the merciful”….but isn’t mercy usually delivered in person, to a single recipient?

“…as we forgive others”….isn’t forgiveness intensely personal and usually individual?….and often as not delivered in real time, when you tolerate, accept, and show patience, delivered while on the phone to that telemarketer just trying to make a living, delivered real time to that employee that dropped the ball, delivered by openly listening to that committee member that disagrees with us.

Sure, let’s keep going to church, and volunteering, and not stealing.

But what do we do the rest of the week?

Are we not supposed to go through our week as Yeshu went through His, exquisitely present with the clerk, the waitress, the pizza delivery person, the colleague, our family members, intensely aware, listening, and focused in each opportunity to briefly interact with a child of God, always ready to employ patience, tolerance, and forgiveness, as Yeshu had to do in every single interaction with one of us.

“The greatest of these (commands) is love”. I don’t think Yeshu meant love of worship, cathedrals, institutions, liturgy, projects, or pledge drives. 

“Love” is individual. 

Love listens.

<span class="technoratitag">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://www.technorati.com/tags/spiritual" rel="tag">spiritual</a></span>

 

Copyright 2008

Don Ray

key terms: "meaning of Jesus' life", "Jesus' example", "meaning of Jesus' example".

 

 

Key words:  Meaning_of_life; nature_of_life; purpose_of_life; river_of_life

Meaning of the river of life

Don Ray

Copyright 2007

Humanity, as a whole and individually, is simply carried along in great tides and currents of interaction, reacting to the inputs and relationships and circumstances of the moment.  Even the seemingly independent and innovative actions that seem to redirect the great currents can in fact be found to be rooted in compiled experience and personal history of those involved.

It is only in the aggregate that tiny unpredictable actions of individual freewill choice become manifest in discernable influence.

And in this great, dynamic, unstoppable cascade of events, relentlessly and irrevocably moving per the dictates of time, does the individual droplet of humanity possess any importance whatsoever?  Is it only the great flow of events that carries us along in which we find meaning?  Or conversely, is the torrent and cascade actually at the service of the individuals?  Is the destiny of the river to reach that next sea, or is it actually to carry the individuals, and all Purpose and meaning is found not in the great course and flow, but in each individual, each focal point of connections, relationships, and interactions that in their sum define the very essence of the river?

We are carried by events, but carried not just to a river’s mouth, but to our own self, our essence, created in the course of the rapids and falls that shape and sculpt, or more accurately said, give us the opportunity to shape and sculpt, our souls.

Don Ray S.D.G.

Copyright 2007

 

Is There an Exorcist in the House?

Don Ray

Copyright 2007

I sit in the rocking chair so as to not disturb queen ‘Tash kitty from her regal repose in “her” chair by the glass patio door.  But no sooner do I sit down than here she comes, hopping into my lap, purring and purring and purring, to help me write on this morning when most people would say I should invest time in lesson planning for this morning’s class.  Such pure joy she expresses, head raised, turning this way and that, eyes squeezed closed in bliss, as I pet and scruff her, her motor running, her black hair glistening like Christmas tinsel in the morning sun.

Outside, a stereo percussion concert of woodpeckers fills the neighborhood.  A half dozen or so feathered Buddy Rich’s (a 1960’s big band drummer that sometimes appeared on the Tonight Show.) welcomed me down from my sunrise prayer walk.

I am working hard to see the beauty this morning.  I need to see the beauty, beauty easy to miss if we let the temporal world possess our conscious thoughts.

I think incidents of possession are alive and well in modern times, more often than not possession by possessions (Symbolically, ‘Tasha is now mesmerized by the bright spot on the wall moving up and down as my watch face reflects the morning sun.)

To be possessed of course is simply to have your conscious thoughts and behavior controlled by something external to your freewill.  Epileptic seizures, the standard issue Biblical demon, and today’s marketers all pretty much fall into the same category: destructive influences that take control of your brain without regard for your welfare.

Yeshu (Jesus) empowered His disciples to cast out demons, but the disciples did not have to face the legions of marketers infesting dark towers in Chicago and New York.  The disciples only dealt with one demon possessed soul at a time, some poor, thrashing wretch whose mind and body were not under his control.  Let’s see the disciples stand in the doorway of a big retail store on Black Friday after Thanksgiving when legions of crazed shoppers do the bidding of their possessing masters.  Yes, possession is alive and well, and arguably never before so widespread.

Possession grips us en masse, possession of culture and society as well as individuals, and these consuming, possessing demons have even largely banished from our nations the faiths and beliefs that might open our eyes to once again see beauty and regain control of our selves.

So for now, the great paroxysms of consumption and sales remain in control of our daily lives.  It is not readily apparent what exorcising power may save us, and we certainly do not want to be saved.  But possessing demons inevitably destroy their hosts, which ironically gives cause for hope.  As oil runs out, crops wither before the heat, and resources deplete, our possessing demons will lose interest when we are too poor and hungry to follow their whim.  Finally free of fads and baubles, our sunken eyes may finally again open to see beauty, and each other.

Copyright 2007

Don Ray

Key words:  possession, marketing, marketers, possessions, Black Friday, Thanksgiving, exorcism, exorcist, materialism, economic collapse, global warming, consumption, consumerism, sales, holiday sales, spending. 

 

Walking on Water, and Why Step Out of a Perfectly Good Boat?

Copyright 2007

Don Ray

 

You know, for those of us afraid of water, that story of Peter stepping out of the boat does not exactly motivate us to step out of our own boats.  How do we know when we're supposed to take that big step?

The calling of the Spirit in our lives often whispers instead of shouts, in no small part so that we can define ourselves by our own free choices.

Sometimes we really have to make a blind stab at the right thing to do, whatever “right” means.  And God forgives our blindness. 

In following that whispering calling, sometimes we feel called to boldly follow Peter out of the boat, have faith in the Lord, take a few steps on the water, and trust in the face of worldly experience telling us we’re nuts. 

Then there are other times when we really feel called to stay in the boat.  God gave us the boat for a good reason.  God does not want us to throw away the blessings and opportunities we have received, blessings that we can use to get us toward that shore that will fulfill our life and its role in the unfolding Purpose.

Hopping out of the boat sometimes seems like testing God instead of humbly accepting our role, our limitations, and how God’s Creation works.

Sometimes we are called to just keep rowing through the storm. 

How do we know which is the path of faith, hopping out to dance on the water, or keepin’ on keepin’ on, rowing another league or two?

Well, often as not, we don’t know.  There is not a specific answer.

I feel a bit like these past few years of following the call to write while neglecting my professional career, I hopped out of the boat and found myself sinking.  Now as I sink in the icy debts (yes, debts, not depths), in panic I start applying for jobs instead of writing.  I am reaching out my hand in hopes of getting pulled back into the boat, where hopefully a dry towel awaits.

Do you ever wonder if Yeshu (Jesus) said to Peter “nice try!”.  “Great demonstration of commitment and faith!”  Or did Peter just get one of those shakes of the head and an “oh ye of little faith” comment.

I have to think Yeshu said “oh ye of little faith” with acceptance, compassion, and sympathy.  I don’t think he said it in a derogatory or condemning or critical fashion.

If you see a little kid trying to shoot baskets, and s/he can’t even get the ball as high as the net, you don’t criticize the little squirt for not being strong enough.  (Well, maybe Bobby Knight would, but he makes a living doing that.)  If you said to the kid “oh ye of little height”, or “oh ye of little strength”, you would not say it in the sense of “c’mon kid, what’s wrong with ya’?!  Get that ball up there, ya’ wimp!”  You would see the admirable effort, see the potential and enthusiasm that will allow the child to grow until someday making that first basket. 

As the kid must grow, so also our faith must grow.

You would hope that in the coming years the kid would not quit trying to shoot baskets just because today s/he was too small to make them.  With time and growth, the ball is bound to go through the hoop eventually.

But I wonder if good ol’ Peter ever stepped out of another boat?  As his faith grew, was he able to eventually walk on the water?  Or was it just not meant to be?  Did Peter have to accept those mortal limitations that the rest of us are saddled with? 

I certainly don’t know. 

I know that after some years of pursuing the calling of my writing project, and being met with deafening silence from the publishers and agents and the small numbers of people that may accidentally stumble across my website, I have to ask if it is time to reach up and accept some miraculous help to get back into the boat.

Fact is, my professional career is by now so far derailed that getting back into the world of salaries and insurance benefits would be about as shocking a miracle as getting published would be. 

I only know it seems pretty cold and wet and dark and rough out here, and I’m not seeing any lights anywhere on the horizon, and if in the Creator’s Purpose I’m not ready to become a published author, I accept that. 

Did Yeshu think less of Peter because he hopped out of the boat and sank like a stone?  I don’t think so.  I think Yeshu loved Peter all the more, and saw the effort as tremendous demonstration of commitment and trust.

Walking on the water was just not yet in the cards for Peter.  Maybe it was never in the cards.  Maybe to fulfill the Purpose that role was not intended for Peter.

If Peter ever walked on the water, it was when it fit the Creator’s Purpose, and when Peter was ready for it.

What would have become of Peter at that time had he walked on water?  Was his ego in control enough?  Was his humility and submission to the Purpose developed enough?

That “ye of little faith” comment refers to far, far more than just intellectual belief.  “Faith” is a way of being, incorporated into each breath, each choice, each action, each word.  Faith is a way of being in Unity with the Father/Mother.  Faith comes from the heart, not the mind.

Peter may have believed he could walk on the water.  His actions certainly imply that.  But in what other ways did Peter not have faith, or understanding, or strength, or purity?  Had Peter successfully walked on the water, what would have become of him, his role, his reputation, his ego, his power, his will?

It wasn’t yet time for Peter to make that shot and deal with all that would have followed such a momentous event.

Faith means a lot more than stepping out of the boat.

Perhaps with time and remarkable experiences to come, Peter’s faith grew so much that stepping out of the boat was no longer necessary.  Perhaps stepping on that water was child’s play compared to living a life committed to the impossible task of spreading the same message that got his Lord executed.

If Peter did again step out of a boat, it’s not surprising we never heard about it.  This movement, this Gospel, this Good News, this radical new religion, was spread with few claims to individual power, personal PR, flashy miracles, and general razmataz showmanship.

Walking on water would not heal anyone, and would serve to bring attention to Peter instead of his Lord.

If Peter ever stepped out of a boat again, it was probably while on his own.  But I doubt he even did that, because what good would it do the Purpose?

We each get opportunities to step out of the boat.  Sometimes we should take them.  Sometimes not. 

When we do take them, sometimes we’ll sink.

That’s OK.  It’s the attempt that counts.  It’s the commitment and action that strengthens our faith, even if we sink this time.

And as our faith grows, we may not even have to step out of the boat again, for we may have bigger challenges ahead of us.

Yea, that “stepping out of the boat” thing has a lot more lessons about faith than just simple intellectual, mental belief.

Maybe the really big test of faith is stepping out of the boat even when you don’t really know if you’ll sink or rise!  Now that is trust!  That is trust that says you trust the loving Sustainer, you commit to the Purpose, and you are not going to try to tell God what to do and how to end the story.  You are going to step out of the boat because it is the act you feel the Spirit calling you to, though you don’t know the outcome.

Peter stepped out and sank.  And to this day we benefit from the lessons.

Peter stepped out and took a step for the unfolding Purpose, a step no less important because he sank.

So as we face our life situations and wonder what better fits God’s will for our lives, stepping out or rowing further, there is no automatic answer of which course demonstrates the greater faith.

If we do step out, we may then face the question of how long do we wait before clamoring back in……when the water hits our ankles, or knees, or neck, or forehead? 

Are we turning out back on our faith and our commitment when we reach for that helping hand to get back in the boat?  Do we then become the person “of little faith”?

Well, don’t look to me for an answer.  I just applied for a job because I don’t see anyone paying me to write this stuff, and the savings account is getting bonier by the day.

But by gosh, I’m also still writing.  And Peter kept taking steps of faith, giant steps, steps that changed the world, even if none of them were again on water.

Perhaps more important than the big steps out of the boat are the daily steps, the daily choices, the attitudes, the intent, the motivation behind the prayer, the love behind the way we touch each person with whom we interact today.

There will be big moments for profound demonstration of that “walk on water” faith.  But they will come when the steps we take to get to the water’s edge are each taken in profound faith and deep Unity with the loving Source. 

 

 Copyright 2007

Don Ray, S.D.G.

Copyright 2007

Don Ray

 

As I watch the sunrise each morning, at least if the sky is not blanketed with thick clouds as it was this morning, I celebrate the colors, the rays, the growing brightness on the horizon, that first flash of brilliant orange diamond as a tiny fraction of the solar disk first penetrates some geographic slot on the distant horizon. 

But then I must look away. 

We cannot look directly at the sun.

As we consider the diverse spectrum of religions that have come and gone through the ages, as we consider the limitations of our intellect to grasp the concepts of even our religions already simplified down for digestion by the masses, I think we see something akin to the sunrise and its aftermath.

We are not yet ready to look directly at the Source.

Of course our religions and beliefs differ, just as each sunrise and sunset differs.

If we all could look directly at the sun without obscuring and distorting atmosphere, we would of course see the same thing.  But that is not possible.  So we can only look toward the sun, before sunrise and after sunset.  We see its light, but light refracted, reflected, and diffused, light reaching us indirectly.

Today I saw the sunrise as a slowly brightening but still dim blanket of gray.

Someone this morning saw their sunrise as a brilliant cascade of pink and orange across the entire sky.

So also in our different lives, cultures, histories, and experiences, we see different patterns of enlightenment and understanding when we look for the Source.

We, sharing 98.5% of our DNA with chimpanzees, are not ready to directly see the Source. 

The disparities among our experiences of the sunrise from different points on the globe, and our inability to look directly at the sun, in no way imply the sun does not exist.

The disparities in our perception of the Source in no way imply it does not exist.

Though we cannot yet look directly at the Source and Sustainer, let us at least look at the beauty of the refracted, reflected, diffused light of Source and Sustainer.  Let us recognize that our view of sunrise and our view of Creation/Creator will differ from that of the other person in different place and different life.  But let us acknowledge that we are all looking toward the Light, from our particular vantage points, through our particular distorting and cloudy atmosphere of circumstances.

And as we grow to begin to feel the first warming rays of Source directly revealed in our lives, let us do our imperfect best to pass on that Love, that someone else may through us experience sunrise Light, indirect and distorted, but still beautiful in its promise of coming day of vision clear. 

(key search terms:  Why different religions; Why religions differ, religious differences, Which religion is right, The right religion, One right religion )

Copyright 2007

Don Ray, S.D.G.

Healing Death

Don Ray

Copyright 2008

The meadow stream is running! …..right near the house!  I do not remember seeing that before!….at least not during these

many years of extended drought.

I am taking off my wrist splint for longer periods.  'Tasha’s hair has grown back.  Alice asked for a hug.

Such a miracle, healing in its many forms.

Of course sometimes we do not heal, or may only partially or imperfectly heal.  Yet always, as long as life endures, the body and heart try to heal, cell by cell, breath by breath.

It is as inexorable as the pull of gravity.  This drive to heal, this ongoing struggle, is surely a miracle, a constant, miraculous influence of stunning proportions.

Our lives depend on this ongoing, constant, unseen, seldom recognized, healing process.  No life form can long exist without the ceaseless repair, reconstruction, and maintenance of each cell and tissue.

We seldom think of the invisible healing continuously occurring at the cellular level.  And when we think of healing of our visible injuries, we mainly think of it as taking too long.  But I think we would feel stunned in amazement if we could watch a time lapse movie of our cut or scrape or contusion disappearing, filling in, covering over, right before our eyes.  It would appear as a special effects marvel, a trick of makeup and digital manipulation.

Real and miraculous it is, even if too slow and imperfect for our tastes.

Life wants to heal!

Living systems are driven to strive to heal, as long as life remains.

Of course equally universal is the ultimate surrender of all healing powers to inevitable mortality.

Healing..... miraculous, beautiful, and universal healing will always lose?!….surrendering in abject defeat?

What a grim and depressing end to the tale!

Or is that view too narrowly focused?  Is there not more to healing than repairing physical cuts and breaks? 

Hearts, souls, and spirits require healing as much as flesh, limbs, and organs.

But with healing of heart, soul, and spirit we again we face the inevitable question of ultimate outcome.

Just as cuts too deep and cancers too spread will leave our bodies scarred and disfigured, the harshest abuse and most wrenching grief will, with passing years, accrue burdens on our hearts that time cannot heal.

So is spiritual healing, like physical healing, universal but also universally doomed?

Does inevitable physical death make a cruel joke of the ceaseless healing struggle of heart and soul as well as healing processes of cell and protein?

After all, physical healing, for all its miraculous wonder that I celebrate this morning, is really only a rearguard holding action, a valiant defense of a hopelessly doomed bodily bastion

Why this prolonged defense in the face of inevitable demise?  Perhaps we find the answer in the nature of that physical defense.

All that healing and repairing and curing actually involves the sacrifice of countless multitudes of living cells, blood cells white and red, collagen and epidural tissues, bone and skin, all these cells filling a momentary role, only to die and be replaced.

Such is the nature of our physical body, not a constant structure, but a form resulting from process, dynamic and vital, each cell continually in the process of being replaced.

Physical death is our constant companion, active in every cell, each cell facing imminent demise and replacement in order to sustain the ongoing dynamism of our physical life.

Yet through this all, the soul persists intact, accruing its scars and distortions, yet present still as individual identity animating that dynamic body.

Here, in sustaining spirit and soul, we find the whole purpose of all that physical healing.

The physical healing, for fleeting temporal moments, buys time for the conscious soul.  The physical healing, for all its miraculous wonder, is not the purpose, but only an extension of a greater healing purpose.

It is the soul and spirit that healing ultimately serves.

But soul scarred, spirit crushed, and heart broken can only heal so far while still sustaining the assaults and insults of this worldly life.

Yet healing will not be denied the triumph due its tenacious effort.  And so our bodies finally die, that our souls may be healed of their emotional scars and spiritual infirmities.

As the white blood cells die to free us from the infection, our bodies die that our souls may be freed from the compounded griefs and spiritual fractures that dim their light.

Healing is universal, and ultimately triumphant.

Inexorably the healing Spirit calls to our soul, trying to heal as best it can while in this temporal veil, beseeching us to seek those ways that bring the soul health; all the while, assuring us that spiritual scars will fade, disabled hearts can heal, and this world’s grip will soon enough be loosed.

For now, we can choose those physical therapies and life style that best heal our bodies, delaying the inevitable end, as we should.

For now, we can also choose those ways of being and believing that will best heal our hearts and spirits, but in this case not buying time before inevitable ending, but preparing for promised new beginning.

Copyright 2008

Don Ray, S.D.G. 

 

Disease, Disasters, and dieties 

From notes at sunrise on the ridge, 11 May 2007

Those Gnostic belief systems about a “bad” god of the earth/creation and a ‘higher/good” god do have a certain logical appeal.

To condemn all physical existence as corrupt and enslaving does make a certain amount of sense. 

(As I write, the sunrise wind ripples grass, leaves, and my paper.  Only in recent years have I become aware of the consistency of that motion each morning at behest of sun’s first light.) 

To eschew all worldly involvement and flee to ascetic isolation as a means to liberate the soul from carnal enslavement does seem not totally unreasonable.  Little wonder that such beliefs appear in sects of Gnostic, Christian, Hindu, and most other religions.

Such dualistic models of gods good and gods bad, munificent and petty, seems a perfectly reasonable outgrowth of our mental and spiritual struggle to resolve the undeniable harshness of the world with our insistent longing for and instinctive belief in something beautiful, just, and eternal.

Yes, it is understandable that through the ages every belief system has spawned a subset of beliefs and sects espousing radical renunciation of this physical world created, from all appearances, by a god or gods with at least a little malicious intent.

Sure, we see the occasional sublime beauty in this world, but that can readily be explained away as seduction and delusion.

To honestly look at this world, its savage beasts, its ravaging pestilence, and its sadistic citizens, and still proclaim faith in a loving, compassionate Creator, requires either faith of monumental proportions or undiluted self-delusion.  To the casual, objective observer there appears little clinical difference between the deeply faithful and the abjectly delusional mind.

Believing in the unseen is one thing.  Believing in the face of unrelenting, contradictory evidence is another.

Yet believe we must, or at least some of us want to.  So to excuse the good-guy-god we so fervently hope to believe in, we resort to putting the blame for atrocities and disasters on a lesser god, a mere worldly god, a petulant and almost human god….or the devil, Satan, demons, etc…..a thorn by any other name, you know.

Through the ages we have meticulously constructed belief systems to exonerate our loving supreme being from any guilt for the horrific carnage that afflicts most days on this planet, and we have provided witness for the defense that God was nowhere near the scene of the crime(s).

In that role of witness for the defense we squirm uncomfortably, and adeptly dodge, the question of how a supreme, living God could have unleashed the demigod, or devil, or demons, or

Satan, who is responsible for all the bad in the world.

To this day we find it devilishly difficult to look at genocide, earthquakes, mass graves, and politics as usual, and not feel compelled to invoke demonic forces that for a little while escaped God’s control, but will soon enough lose out in a big battle of good and evil, good triumphing of course.  Then in that life to come, as we stroll streets of gold below the crystal throne, we will not even whisper the question, “why did He let us suffer through those millennia of plagues and predators, pestilence and politicians?”

Hey, I’m all for resolute faith, but I also believe real faith must have the resolve to ask the hard questions.  Where is God at the moment the blade comes down, the bullet penetrates, the earthquake crushes?  Where is God when the child screams in pain and the mother cries in anguish?  Where is God in the moments of terror, horror, and writhing agony?

Faith, real faith, must ask those questions, and any God worthy of our worship will not deny our asking.

That God may not have given us the power to see all the forces and futures that might clarify the ‘why”.  We may not have the intellect or insight to fully comprehend reasons infinite and eternal.  Ultimately, all we may have is our little Youniverse of personal experience, and what we choose to do with it.

Ultimately, in each of our personal Youniverses, we choose if we will contribute to or ease the suffering of the world.

Dare we demand of God(s) an explanation for Creation’s harshness until we have made our Choice of response to that harshness?

Can we feign understanding of the world and Creation and God or pantheons of Gods, until we exercise the one certainty in our existence, our profound freedom to choose whether to multiply or mitigate the suffering within our reach?

Yes, I passionately counsel asking God the hard questions.  But I fervently believe we must first ask them of ourselves.  That is our power and our inescapable obligation as freewill, conscious beings created in the image of God.

Somewhere in that process of exercising our free Choice between compassion and conflict, we will better, even if not completely, come to understand the Creator, and the sometimes harsh, sometimes beautiful Creation that miraculously enables that Choice.

 

 

Buddha, Elliminating Desire, and Desiring Tranquility

Don Ray

Copyright 2008

 

No sooner do I sit down outside than ‘Tasha Ängelchen kitty hops into my lap and begins to purr and purr and purr.

Finally, she gets a moment of satisfaction from her life of maunzing dissatisfaction.

We sit here together on this morning, ‘Tasha purring, squirrels, robins, and a host of others filling the surrounding trees, low angle light of still rising sun illuminating the thick display of lilacs that in turn fill the entire yard with a fragrance sublime and intoxicating.

The visual, aural, and aromatic blessings are so extreme, so glorious, so encompassing, that for a moment ‘Tasha kitty and I both experience satisfaction, blessed satisfaction.

For a moment, on this still, cool morning, I think not of money worries, the job opportunity I never heard back from, the group of soporific students I must teach in a few minutes, and the lesson I have not yet prepared.

‘Tasha does not think about the fact she remains on a line, she does not get to hunt for her food, and her lifelong companion PC kitty is gone.

I scruff her soft coat and she purrs.  We both feel momentary satisfaction.

As just elaborated, innumerable needs remain unmet, innumerable wants unfulfilled.  Yet the sensory inputs of this world, the contact that ‘Tasha receives, and the fulfillment for me of pursuing this writing, leave us momentarily satisfied.

I say momentarily because soon enough the world will provide ample reminders of all that we do miss and need, and obligations to that world will pull us from this blessed moment of morning perfection.

‘Tasha has taught me much about dissatisfaction, as she yowls about the house, even when fed and full and played with.

She knows what she is made for, to be outside stalking, hunting, and exploring.

She knows something critical is missing from her life.

And occasionally, for what would look like no reason to anyone not closely attuned to the needs of kitties, she inconsolably yowls about the house in tragic despair and perennial dissatisfaction, in spite of having just received all my best efforts to feed and play.

She will sit at the door to the file storage room.  She will look up at it yowling, as if thinking that perhaps behind that mysterious door resides that which will finally fulfill and satisfy her.

Occasionally I will open that door, allowing her to wander among the rubble of my filing system.  She gracefully navigates the openings between boxes and stacks of file drawers, puts her nose into the pile of climbing gear, and finally comes back out into the hallway, her yowling only momentarily abated.

As in recent months I have each day read a verse from Buddhist wisdom, I find the quotes often address the subject of satisfaction, and the need to divorce one’s self from the desires and passions and wants of our worldly existence.

Indeed, for the sake of inner peace and tranquility, eschewing desires and wants would in principle remove the very source of dissatisfaction.

But ‘Tasha kitty (still curled up against my right forearm, head turning so bright yellow eyes can see the source of that crunching sound in the grass) demonstrates how natural is dissatisfaction.  All my counseling to put away her desires and wants and instead seek the tranquility of inner satisfaction go unheeded.

‘Tasha is now satisfied because she is putting my right arm to sleep and because hosts of birds and squirrels provide her surround-sound, 3D sensory, interactive entertainment, while my lap keeps her warm.

Maybe ‘Tasha in her kitty wisdom declares that transcendental states of satisfaction are just not natural.  She is irritatingly honest in her prowling-yowlings about the house when I won’t let her outside, as she is delightfully honest in her purring and cuddling when lap-time suits her fancy.

(Boy, something in the woods sure has her attention!)

I have come to find that in almost everything in life “balance” is the watchword.  I say almost everything because surely there are some redeeming qualities: holiness, compassion, love, honesty, for which excess is a good thing.  But most of us are in little danger of even attaining balance of those attributes, much less excess.

But for everything else, I maintain balance is the optimum to be sought.  I suspect that is even true of satisfaction.

Surely an excess of satisfaction might risk lethargy and chronic ambivalence.  How can one passionately campaign for justice, or tirelessly work on cures, if one is satisfied?

More personally, how can one personally grow and progress and spiritually mature if one is satisfied?

I feel ‘Tasha has carried dissatisfaction a little too far.  Her focused and amplified misery makes me miserable as her mournful yowls fill the house.  Heaven knows I know many people that do the same thing, cruelly yowling through their days about each and every inconvenience to any poor victim within earshot. 

With a continuously alternating mix of success and failure I strive to relieve myself of the burdens of desires for material possessions and money and security and social relationship and title and honor.  Unloading those burdens of desire is what makes moments like this one so sublimely beautiful, and what allows me to savor the embrace of the infinite when I go to bed each night.

But as for satisfaction with my spiritual state, and my efforts to help and give and care, I pray I never entertain the thought of becoming satisfied.

Likewise, though painful in its experience, I hope I can continue to feel pain upon seeing a bulldozer destroying a forest, and I hope I continue to feel tears upon reading about another school shooting.

To remove desire, to bask in self-imposed satisfaction, seems terribly dishonest, or at least terribly selfish, albeit it pleasant and convenient.

If one is to optimize one’s impact in the world, and maximize personal growth; in other words, if one tries to love to the greatest degree possible, one must neither sink into bitter despair caused by dwelling on all that is wrong and missing, nor float away on a transcendental cloud by blinding one’s self to even compassionate desires.

At this point in the morning ‘Tasha hops off my lap, being true to her oft dissatisfied self, allowing my right forearm to begin to tingle with returning feeling, and telling me I need to bring this epistle to a close and get to work.

I pray that in the coming hour, self-satisfaction with my teaching will allow me  to not freeze up in insecurity as the students stare blankly at me.  And I pray that my self-satisfaction will be balanced by dissatisfaction driving me to further improve my efforts to impart some modicum of knowledge.  I don’t think the Buddha would disapprove. 

Copyright 2008

Don Ray

 

"O", the Oprah Magazine, and what's missing from all the advice about love, sex, exercise, diet, and meditation

Copyright 2007

Don Ray

While at the clinic this week I read “O”, The Oprah Magazine, for the first time.  (I know, I know, I’m woefully out of touch with modern society, a fact in which I take great pride). 

I see why “O” is so popular!  Article after article after article addresses the self, self-health, self-peace, self-fulfillment, self-health again, and again, about a half-dozen times.  Now, no one, not even a contrarian iconoclast like me, can argue against the beneficial influence and positive impact on individual lives of all those substantive, relevant, and applicable articles on eating fish, mindful meditation, regular mammograms, and sex as we age.  But oddly enough, I see this popular plethora of mental, emotional, and physical health information as symptomatic of the great, debilitating, spiritually enervating plague that besets modern society. The parade of daily breakthroughs in medical understanding has fixated our attention so resolutely on our own aches, pains, phobias, stresses, and aging that we have no awareness left for incorporating that other poor schmuck’s aches, pains, phobias, etc.  In the pages after pages after pages of meditation, stretching, diet, relaxation, and general self-generated well being, I did not see any boat-rocking author saying “Oh get over yourself, and for a change do something for some poor schlemiel that is worse off than you”.

Yea, I readily saw why Oprah magazine remains so popular.  No doubt its advice and information have helped people, and alleviated and prevented a host of ailments physical, mental, and emotional.  And by gosh, that contribution to the quality of individual lives deserves commendation.

But sadly, the source of no small portion of the ills that beset the modern man  and woman go un-addressed, in Oprah Magazine and any other popular media product today.  To a degree perhaps greater than any time in history, people are bombarded with admonitions to focus on themselves, while marketing principles have effectively eliminated from popular media any voice admonishing us to seek our role in some greater Purpose, and to decrease our own aches, pains, and worries by putting them aside to make room for concern about that other guy’s aches, pains, and worries.

Once upon a time, long ago and far away, in many lands, force of law and /or societal pressure made church attendance mandatory.  No, I don’t counsel a return to such enforced piety.  But maybe that weekly attendance at least ensured that people would get a needed, motivating kick in the spiritual backside, a kick people would never voluntarily subscribe to, a kick missing from modern life, and a kick no media marketing-executive would dare administer.

I suspect that if Oprah Magazine defocused very far from the ‘self” and incorporated a few too many articles about “quit whining and look at some of the real suffering in the world”, subscription rates and advertising revenue would plummet.  Within a year Oprah magazine would become as thin and emaciated as that newsletter I receive that describes medical mission projects around the world.

But sadly and ironically, many (though by no means all) of the readers’ ills and dissatisfactions that Oprah Magazine addresses would go into remission if people would wrest their attention from dwelling on the self, and instead turn their focused gaze to the person before them, the humanity around them, and the living Source within it all.

Copyright 2007

Don Ray

S.D.G. 

 

Harry Potter and the Use of Our Magic

Copyright 2007

Don Ray

Notes from April 2007

In flipping through TeleVision channels I see that the Harry Potter movie will show in a few minutes.  As one of the few people in the developed world that has not seen it, in order to maintain some rudimentary connection with the society in which I live I figure I should use this opportunity to watch it for free.

So, here goes. The following will record my more or less real time response to the unfolding spectacle of special effects.

Well, certainly the beginning of the movie is a testimony for evil.  No wonder this movie was so popular.  It promotes personal power, that currency we most covet. 

        So far in this movie the initial demonstrations of magical powers illustrate pursuit of personal wishes.  Of course pursuit of personal wishes is about as normal as human behavior can get.  It is also the basis of all suffering, cruelty, war, and injustice.

In that context, I have to ask if even wishing for magical powers is evil (Ooooo, such a strong condemnation for a wish so popular and common!).

But back to the movie:  so far it places little or no emphasis on consideration or self-sacrifice or giving a particularly large hoot about anyone else.

The writers are bound to introduce some redeeming traits sooner or later though, right?

I’m glad I’m finally getting to see such a social phenomenon.  Now all these young kids are marching into a school to learn to wield personal power. 

So far there is little promotion of inter-human connection or relationship.

I guess it’s akin to business school.

Ahh, how we would love magic.  A little fantasy can’t hurt, can it?

It’s no worse than most things we worship in our daily lives.  We wish, we wish, we want, and we seek power, usually financial, often political, sometimes personal.

Magic and our fantasies about magic surely represent a most accurate microcosm of what we seek in much of our daily life, that power, wielded through magic wand or credit card, to get us what we want.

There is little in our society that condones unity and acceptance.  With everyone so focused on wielding their own magic power, little wonder that disagreement, conflict, and divorce reign supreme.

Worldly powers and magical powers are such superficial things compared to powers over the self, yet seldom does our society even condone, much less promote, pursuit of that greater power.

I’m now perhaps half way through the movie. So far I have not been able to distinguish between the good and the bad guys.  Oh, the difference in their physical appearance is obvious enough.  But other than superficial differences of makeup and facial expressions, all the characters in the movie seek the ability to wield personal power at the expense of others.  In other words, so far the movie displays business as usual for the human condition.

Smiles versus grimaces distinguish the teams we are supposed to cheer for versus the teams deemed “bad”, but in considering the actions on both sides, the distinction seems as arbitrary as the Old Testament’s labeling of tribes as good versus bad, chosen versus cursed, though they each and all practiced rampant butchery.

The movie breaks for an ad.  The ad shows two guys trying to outdo each other in their home and yard improvements.  It’s pretty much the same theme as Harry’s magic, i.e., people craving power and superiority. 

A later ad shows a woman peddling hair control gel.  Consistent with the theme of personal power, the ad shows her pulling the bonds on a guy bound from head to foot, while she describes the complete control offered by the product.

I’ll guarantee that ad does more spiritual damage to young people than the Harry Potter movie.

Two thirds of the way through the movie, we finally see some motives that distinguish the good guys from the bad guys.  It is still all about personal power, but there is a subtle difference in the tactics the two sides are willing to invoke. 

Still, up to this point in the movie almost every invocation of magic involves doing something to someone, an inflicting of one person’s will against another.

Compared to most of the undiluted evil on TeleVision, especially reality TV and the quest for money, I guess this movie is relatively cute.

So, what’s the big deal about magic, other than its symbolic quest for personal power?  Is there anything else about it that is fundamentally evil?

Magic’s intent is to overcome the laws of nature.  In that regard, magic is a form of rebellion, born of unwillingness to submit and work within the laws of Nature, and more importantly, the Creator of those laws.

How seductive is the magic and power, the magic of Harry, the magic of hair coloring, the magic of the career.

How many people invoke their daily magical powers with the conscious intent of using them in Unity with a greater Purpose?

The very concept is so alien to our society that the preceding sentence would elicit a perplexed “huh?!” from almost every reader.

The magic, the money, the power of self over others; that is what we crave and have always craved.  That craving is and has always been the wellspring of conflict, combat, injustice and suffering.    Our magic wands that indulge this craving come in the form of hair colorings, ammunition clips, and investment scams.  Considering what we’ve managed to do to ourselves with those limited wands, thank God that we don’t have Harry’s wand at our disposal.

Copyright 2007

Don Ray

S.D.G.