Purpose-Reality-Meaning-Life & catboxes: spirit and soul

God on Trial.....Again

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 22:55:44 GMT

Judge, Jury, and Prosecution in the Trial of God

Don Ray

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 and feel 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 2008

Don Ray

key terms: Heaven; getting into Heaven;

Seeking a better God

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 01:49:03 GMT

Seeking a God upgrade

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

Apeirophobia (Fear of Infinity)

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 22:10:12 GMT

Little, Known World versus Little Known Worlds

Don Ray

‘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.

Don Ray

S.D.G.

The point is not worship

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 17:27:43 GMT

Praise, Worship, and the Point Often Missed

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>

Don Ray

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

Did Peter Ever Step Out of Another Boat?

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 15:56:59 GMT

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

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.

Don Ray, S.D.G.

Which religion does God belong to?

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 22:31:17 GMT

Sunrise Blindness

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.

Anglicans_Episcopalians_gay clergy_and_New Guinea tribes

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 17:19:59 GMT

Tribal Anglicans

Don Ray

Last night I watched rules and laws, commandments and traditions, bring tribes to the edge of war and a church denomination to the verge of self-destruction, leaving me to ask just how destructive are rules, regulations, edicts, and commandments to ourselves and our institutions.

Rules and regulations…… I even make them up for myself. This ritual of morning writing unfolds according to a personal discipline. My daily routine follows rules. How else can we know what to do moment to moment?! The world is too unpredictable, too irrational! We are too easily tempted and distracted! Of course we need rules and laws and guidelines and regulations! I sit here writing at sunrise in the morning cold because of a personal discipline rule that I apply to myself. Otherwise I would get the heck down to the relatively warmer house and eat some warm breakfast right now.

But I made a rule for myself that I would first write in the morning, write while on the ridge at sunrise, weather permitting. And I credit to that discipline, ritualistic in its repetition, much of whatever I write that might have any value.

In last night’s documentary on the Travel Channel, two clans in Papua New Guinea were about to reluctantly go to war because traditional rules dictated that one owed the other cowry shells, but the one tribe had agreed to new rules with the government that all payments would be made using that new fangled invention “money”. Honor, commitments, tradition, and integrity were on the line.

The clans were related. The leaders anguished over the prospects of going to war. But rules had to be followed. Only when negotiators agreed to a compromise involving payment in both money and shells could both sides feel the rules had been satisfied, and war averted.

The Old Testament is in no small part a history of ever growing lists of rules, rules issued in many cases at the demand of the people.

The New Testament is in no small part a railing against the tyranny of rules, Yeshu (Jesus), Paul, and others facing death because they taught that a law of Love should take precedence over human contrived ritual and regulation.

In the news today the worldwide Anglican Church is at odds with its United States franchise, the Episcopal Church, over a rule about gay clergy. Agonizing debate over shapes of dots over “i’s” and length of crosses through “t’s” will determine if people who would like to remain as one organization will allow themselves to do so.

The parallels between the two clans in Papua New Guinea and the feuding conclaves of the Anglican Church are striking.

With such fervent commitment we allow words on paper to overrule the love hidden in our heart. Tribes, congregations, denominations, and nations will assault, destroy, and divide because of word on paper or a self-inflicted tradition. In the absence of awareness of that one dictate or rule, they would instead happily and generously invite each other to sit together and celebrate a meal shared in camaraderie.

Perhaps people in such situations of disagreement must ask the following: had no one ever told you about this rule, had script or oral tradition never informed you that this principle supercedes unity, brotherhood, compassion, and God’s love, how would you respond to that human being standing before you? Would you, in your heart, in the absence of the debt of shells or the ancient verse, instinctively know that you should revile, reject, or rebuke them?

Were it not for someone long past or demandingly present telling you God’s or gods’ will in this matter, as that other person stands before you how would God’s counseling Spirit directly call your heart to respond?

How often do rules and dogma incite acceptance and compassion? How often do rules and dogma incite conflict and crucifixion?

Of course we need rules, regulations, laws, precepts, and commandments, self-generated as disciplines for individual life and institutionalized as foundations for society. Obviously our choices of interpretations of rules will vary from person to person, church to church, and tribe to tribe. But it is in our response to those inevitable differences of interpretation that we will show the world the overarching law our heart has chosen to follow.

In that documentary last night, the anguished expressions and words of the tribal leaders revealed the highest law to which they ascribed. Within that law written on their hearts, in spite of the calls for blood and vengeance by tribal members, the leaders found a way to satisfy without bloodshed the rules and traditions and laws of shells and money.

Will we invoke rules, laws, and commandments, or our interpretations thereof, to sow discord, conflict, and division? Or while remaining true to our disapproval, will we use our disagreements to demonstrate forgiveness, tolerance, and compassion?

Will we use the rules to which we so zealously ascribe to show the world how hard we can harden our heart in their defense? ….or to fulfill that commandment, and the one “like unto it”, that Yeshu deemed the greatest?

Don Ray S.D.G.

Helpless and Free in the River of Life

Fri, 21 Sep 2007 17:09:33 GMT

Helpless and Free in Life's River

Morning on the ridge. Fall makes known its pending arrival. Bells ring from the towers below.

It’s an opportune time to consider another approaching autumn, that of my life, a season that has shaped up as most…..“interesting”.

I think of the lack of response to my many job applications of late. I think of an earlier job that brought unanticipated success. I think of a job opportunity out of the blue that kept me in Europe for an extra year, thereby putting my life on a radically different path, eventually taking me to lands I never dreamed of seeing, and all that leading to this ridge on this morning, and a presentation this Sunday for which I have done nothing to prepare.

So much that determines the course of our lives unfolds unseen and unrecognized. “So much”?…better said “virtually all”. Where we are born and to whom, who we meet, the job opportunity, our genetically programmed health, sickness, abilities, and disabilities, all represent only the thinnest visible veneer on the mechanisms of the universe that determine the outcomes of our lives. The skills and strengths that forge our accomplishments were actually inherited by chance. The strategies, plans, goals, choices, and decisions in which we take such arrogant pride unfold for the most part as just responses and reactions to our preprogrammed desires, fears, wishes, insecurities, lusts, and instincts.

Yet somewhere within that inexorable flow of fate through the whitewater rapids of circumstance bobs the individual, conscious, aware, and still somehow oddly responsible for something, though the currents, waves, undertows, boulders, sinkholes, and waterfalls remain utterly out of our control.

We cannot even see past the next bend or boulder, and our response to the whirlpool in which we find ourselves at the moment is pretty much an automatic, thrashing, flailing, desperate, programmed attempt at survival. Even our meditations are a desperate reaction, analogous to trying to gulp some air during a brief eddy of calm before our head again gets held under the icy deluge of daily circumstance.

What role can freewill possibly play as life’s events volley us between the Scylla and Charybdis of our wants and fears and we frantically paddle in unthinking response?

The answer comes only when we finally become aware of something else in this scene. We share the currents, crashing rapids, and icy abyss with other souls, the course of their lives momentarily intersecting ours. And it is there, in that moment of crossing journeys, that we experience our freedom, all that makes us human, that essence of our being that is created in the image of God.

We can only react to the location at which we got thrown into life’s river, the ensuing currents, the immoveable rock……..but that soul next to us, in our freely chosen response to them, we shape who and what we will be. Will we clamber on top of them in our frantic reaching for air and money? Or will we use what strength we have to pull them up? Will we swim alone or combine our efforts? Will our words encourage or drain remaining hope?

The river carries us all, each in our own currents, some calm, some violent, the next bend or rapid usually unseen.

We must each swim our own course as best we can.

But along the inexorable way we will freely choose whether to reach out, whether to support or whether to hinder each soul in the waters around us.

Each of us, after a lifetime of thrashing and paddling and swimming and drifting and floating, will arrive at the mouth of the river. As we enter that waiting, shimmering, warm, calm sea, all that will remain of our mighty plans and goals and strategies and efforts will be ourselves, our essence, that which we defined as over and over we made that one freewill choice the river offers, as its currents fulfill the River’s Purpose, bringing us within reach of each other.

God and a child's terror

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 21:09:17 GMT

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.

Loving Creator, Cruel Creation?

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 19:29:26 GMT

All Meaning, All Purpose

Don Ray

All arises from the One Consciousness.

All would exist in perfect fit and

harmony, if the One Consciousness

had remained One.

The One Consciousness chose to give

free life and consciousness

to individual souls within the existence,

an existence that expressed and

expresses the will of its Source.

All conflict and suffering arise because

the Creation allows

the individual conscious beings

to pursue their own will,

disconnected from the rest of

existence.

No longer harmoniously functioning

in Wholeness,

engendered of One Will,

the Creation

is shattered, individual conscious wills

clashing and in conflict.

The Wholeness remains possible, awaiting

those individuals who choose

Unity with the Source that gave them

birth, a Wholeness no longer

of a Single Will, but a Wholeness

grown to include the infinite dimensions

of innumerable wills, the wills of

free individuals that choose Unity

with all Creation and the Creator.

This world is the birth place and place of Choice,

where Creator and Creation suffer

the agony of birth

and grief of death,

the Wholeness torn and bleeding,

in order to bring forth conscious souls,

souls free and individual,

free to choose isolation

in their own willfulness,

free to choose personal

empowerment arising

from surrender to Purpose and Unity.

Merely a way station

this temporal world, from which

souls free and conscious

in the image of their Maker

in turn create themselves, and set their

course through eternal growth.

Don Ray

S.D.G.

The married Jesus, black Jesus, and Jesus and Mary

Wed, 20 Jun 2007 02:15:37 GMT

Jesus ambiguities

Don Ray

Was Jesus married, was Jesus black, did Jesus laugh, scowl, rebel, or revolt?

Copyright 2007

Don Ray

The ambiguities and uncertainty in our knowledge about Jesus allow us each to personally relate to Him. It is a miraculous blessing that we don’t know if He looked oriental, black, brown, or white. We can’t really be sure he wasn’t married. What was his relationship with Mary, whichever of several Mary’s you want to ask the question about. Laughing, scowling, revolutionary, passive, rebellious, expert in the law….we don’t know.

In a wonderful uncertainty unique among messiahs, prophets, and founders of other religions, we know remarkably little about this man whose handlers and PR firm obviously were not up to modern standards. As a result, we can all relate, all imagine someone relevant for us, and in our ignorance, focus on His message, example, and Purpose.

Copyright 2007

Don Ray

S.D.G.

Gods Failed Us

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 20:47:19 GMT

Horoscopes_Fortune Telling_Astrology_Omens, and what they really tell us.

Don Ray

Copyright 2007

I read of the skyrocketing numbers of United States citizens that believe in horoscopes, alien abductions, and astrology.

I read of the newly robust beliefs in Xinhua (China) in propitious signs, fortune telling, and omens.

Such tragedy!….how rapidly we sink into these spiritual dark ages! How quickly enlightenment fades!

…..and for good reason. Our new economic gods and scientific gods and technological gods have proven impotent and petulant as we seek their help in nourishing our souls and answering the age-old questions that long predated any investment tools or cellular communication.

For all our theories and equations and institutions, we still want, we still need, answers to those questions.

For all our phones and keyboards and PDA’s, we still don’t want to be alone.

For all our knowledge and Internet and security devices and government agencies, we still fear.

Above all, we fear being alone and facing an unseen future.

So we invite aliens and ancestor’s spirits into our personal paradigm, and we frantically look to stars and planets, shamans and fortunetellers, to cast at least some feeble light onto the deeply shadowed path lying beyond the appointments in our planning calendar.

Copyright 2007

Don Ray S.D.G.

Spiritual Leaders in the Way

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 23:22:58 GMT

Visions, Revelations, and Chats with Ethereal Beings

Don Ray

Copyright 2007

When spiritual “leaders” make grandiose claims of visions and revelations and chats with ethereal beings, one should be wary of arrogant implications that we should worship the spiritual “leader” as someone special.

Spiritual insights are intensely personal, and should be laid before others in humility as an offering for the listener to take or leave as best befits their own personal situation, needs, and understanding. The messenger blessed to deliver those insights should then get out of the way of that other person traveling their own spiritual path.

Copyright 2007

Don Ray

S.D.G.

Pointless or Powerful Enlightenment

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 00:34:44 GMT

Transcendence squandered or shared

Don Ray

To attain the awareness of Brahman or Buddha might seem a positive step in personal spiritual growth.

But like all tools, its final meaning and ultimate reality will be determined by the Choice of what one does with that awareness.

Having met Creator in the serene Heavens, will one be willing to intimately meet one’s fellow humanity in the chaos and conflict of this world?

Having greedily listened to wisdom of the Source, will one intently and compassionately listen to the crying of the children of that Source?

Will one return from the bliss of transcendent awareness to join the painful struggle of sharing tangible love with this world, or will one merely wallow in the drunken pleasure of indulgent meditation?

Cppyright 2007

Don Ray

S.D.G.