Sheepish Banter

I just published a new article on the Presence site. It is based on Jesus’ story about the shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep in order to bring back the one who went astray. The premise is: What do you suppose the sheep talked about until the shepherd got back.

It’s essentially a fable. If you’re kind enough to read it, I’d love to hear your impressions. You’ll probably recognize the sheep.

The title is “Sheepish Banter.” And it starts like this:
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“Ninety-seven. Ninety-eight. Ninety-nine. Alright, we’re missing one.”

Adam had wandered off. The littlest lamb had gone astray. So the Shepherd tightened his sandals and grabbed his staff.

“Don’t worry,” he told the rest of the sheep. “Adam couldn’t have gotten far. I’m sure he’s just on the other side of that hill. I’ll climb it and bring him right back. The rest of you will be safe here in the pen. I’ll be back soon.”

Read more when you click here.

Parousia…Look Up!

“And I saw heaven opened”
– John, Revelation 19:11

Go outside. If you’re already there, that’s great. If you’re indoors, move away from your desk, couch, or zafu and head toward the nearest exit.

Once you’ve extricated yourself from whatever edifice you may be in, look up. Tilt your head back and lift your eyes toward the skies. What do you see?

In our postindustrial world, we spend long hours gawking at electronically generated images. Our computer screen, flat panel television, and Blackberry have become the primary items we focus on and through. While I’m grateful for these new virtual worlds, it’s important to understand that they are housed within a more ancient real world: the cosmos.

Traditional western thinking — religious and secular — often depicts the universe as harsh, depraved, and unruly. Popular theologies consider it to have fallen from a primordial pristine condition. Subsequently, the natural world is supposedly in conflict with the spiritual world and in desperate need of an extreme makeover. Modernism saw the planet as a machine to be harnessed in order to meet any and all human desires. The excesses of Modernism have led to the Postmodern critique portraying the world and humanity as being at war with each other — we’re trying to kill Gaia, and she is trying to protect herself by killing us.

There may be bits of truth in all of these viewpoints. The cosmos is an apparently chaotic place. It has vast resources that support human life, and we have habitually treated the planet as an infinite waste dump. Yet the prevailing narratives depicting humanity as separated from the broader universe ignore our mutual interconnection. Even Genesis has humanity arising from the dust of the earth. This suggests integration, not isolation.

In The Great Work, Thomas Berry points out the multiple layers of cosmic reality. Humanity lives on a planet situated within a solar system and “beyond the sun is our own galaxy and beyond that the universe of galactic systems.” Everything is nested within a complex structure of embedded reciprocity.

Because the outside world houses our inner world, we discover profound spiritual inspiration when we contemplate our exterior domain. Berry notes that our “psychic nourishment and support come from the natural environment.” We neglect our place and presence in the cosmos to our own impoverishment.

As a shepherd, David experienced a rich inner life through years of outdoor living. He recognized the changing of the seasons, the flora and fauna, and the soil. He could read the sky, the wind, and the flocks. No wonder when musing upon the glories of his surroundings, he exclaimed in wonder, “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him?” (Psalm 8:3-4). The first step stimulating David to reach this place of enraptured praise was his consideration of the heavens. He looked up.

Centuries earlier, God invited Abraham to lift his gaze. “Look up at the heavens and count the stars” (Genesis 15:5). In looking upward Abraham received the promise of an immeasurable blessing that became realized in John’s vision. When John looked up, he saw heaven opened. Mimicking the rip in the temple veil, the torn sky assured John of unfettered human access to God.

Without reflecting on our environment, we reduce the ways in which we can appreciate God and diminish the ways we can identify ourselves as partakes in the divine nature. So follow the example of the sweet Psalmist, Abraham, and John. Go out and look up. You will discover a deep mystical resonance in your heart as you peer into the limitless heavens.

In taking the physical step of going outside and looking up, you’ll discern a new sense of presence in your place. Our universe just is — a welcoming home for us to live, die, love, and thrive. Popular author Meredith Little reminds us, “The land is nonjudgmental enough to allow us to be our whole selves fully. Nature expresses its wholeness not through words but through its being, and that allows us to remember our own nature and step into that expression of ourselves.”

Maybe it’s been a while since you’ve gone outside to intentionally notice your world and your place in it. You may seem childlike as you stare upward in awe, but Jesus invites us to receive the kingdom of God like little children. Initially you may feel foolish when you go outside and look up, but where’s the folly in appreciating the glory of the physical creation?

Go outside, stretch out your arms, and look up. What do you see? Where do heaven, earth, and sea meet? What specific hue is the sky right now? Notice the clouds. Do you observe any stars, planets, comets? When you look up with the eye of the spirit, feel your heart expanding. Allow your inner self to soar. Let looking up be a living metaphor for hope, optimism, and sanguinity. See the heavens open and look directly into the eyes of God.
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Originally published on July 14, 2008. (c) Presence International. Parousia is a free Transmillennial publication of Presence. To receive Parousia in your inbox each week click here.

Mark 7 Remix

My most recent article on the Presence website is Mark 7 Remix. It takes the story of Jesus’ conversation with the zealous religious folks and translates it into a contemporary context. It starts like this:
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As soon as church let out, the believers headed to the cook out to see Him. Now when they saw some of His friends grilling burgers and drinking a beer, they found fault. For all of the faithful ones don’t drink, and they wait until after church to begin barbequing.

Perplexed and perturbed, the believers asked Him, “Why don’t these people go to church? And why do they think it’s ok to have an occasional drink? Shouldn’t they be worshiping God with the fellowship of the saints instead of just hanging out here?”

Read more here.

Parousia…Good Work

Pulling out of my parking spot, I turned on the radio and caught the conclusion of a program that discusses writing. The loquacious announcer droned on about the show’s sponsors, and then bade us listeners farewell by advising us, “Do good work.” Who could argue with that? No one I know has ever set out to do bad work.

But what constitutes good work? Is it determined by the work’s perceived service to humanity and our world? We might agree that nurses do good work. But not all nurses provide the same level of pain relief. Can you say, “Nurse Ratched?”

We could measure good work by the quality of job performance. A professional carpenter can frame a house far better than I can. But the job performance criterion breaks down quickly when we consider professions like slave trader, terrorist, or arms dealer. “Wow, Vito is the best hit man ever!”

Does good work amount to optimizing your intellectual capacity or earnings potential? That may seem reasonable, but it leaves us making arbitrary judgments about people, status, and career choices. Let’s say Sarah gives up a promising medical career to become an elementary school teacher. Is teaching and inspiring children less good than performing rhinoplasty? Moreover, who’s to say a doctor is inherently smarter than a teacher? Besides, can we really put a price tag on goodness?

And what if you don’t do good work? Or what if your disability prevents you from working? Or what if you’ve been conscripted into forced labor? Are you less of a person because your work isn’t so good?

Differentiating between good and bad is a human obsession. Consider all the good/bad judgments we make. Carrots are good, but seal blubber is bad. Mom-and-pop stores are good; international chains are bad. Vivaldi is good, and Vanilla Ice is bad. Homeopathy is good while synthetic medication is bad. Religion is good, and no religion is bad. My religion is good; yours is bad. Of course, someone might reverse all or some of those statements. This just illustrates how capricious our judgments are.

Our affinity for labeling things good or bad may stem from our formative childhood experiences. Parents instruct their children to be good little boys and girls. They punish scold their children for being bad. The school system reinforces our awareness of good and bad. Good students receive gold stars and bad ones are sent to the principal’s office. Good kids make the team, play in the band, and study hard. Bad kids get tattoos, smoke pot, and skip class. When we enter the work force, we advance up the corporate ladder if our superiors see us doing good work.

When religion enters the equation, things become more complicated — not to mention contradictory. The good work of prayer, piety, and penance appear to be essential to developing and maintaining an upright life. But then we’re told that that no one’s work is good enough. What a precarious quandary.

How are we supposed to gauge what is good and bad? The only suitable tool is knowledge. Yet the chimera of knowledge provides a pseudo-standard of goodness. Parents supposedly know what is good and pass that information to their children. So do teachers, supervisors, and pastors. These people in their roles share a feature that reinforces the knowledge-based economy: authority. Parents exercise authority over their children, teachers over students, bosses over employees, and priests over parishioners. The cycle validates itself as we blindly assume that someone got into their position of authority by knowing the difference between good and bad. So in the blink of an eye we’ve conflated authority with knowledge and knowledge with goodness.

Yet knowledge and authority aren’t the same things. The wisest person in the world may have no authority whatsoever, and the most powerful person may not be especially bright — or virtuous for than matter. Nonetheless, if knowledge really was power it still wouldn’t address the arbitrary nature of what we call goodness.

While in prison on trumped-up charges, sixth century philosopher Boethius wrote an allegory called The Consolation of Philosophy. In it, he wrestled with the issues of good and bad. “Is human judgment so perfect that it can discern who is truly good and who is truly evil? If that were true, why do humans disagree so often, so that the same person is thought by one group to deserve the highest rewards and is thought by another group to deserve the most miserable punishments? Even if I were to grant that some people can somehow distinguish between good and evil people, would that person also be able to look inside the soul and, like a doctor examining a body, discern the inner condition of the person?”

It doesn’t take an anthropologist to recognize that the gauges of good and bad vary depending on the contexts of culture, gender, historical period, religion, and family. Often, the standard for judging goodness boils down to individual taste. “This is good because I like it. That’s bad because I don’t like it.” We mask our personal preferences in the guise of tradition, success, age, experience, utility, gender, wealth, popularity, education, or a decree from on high. Yet taste is in the mouth of the beholder.

Regardless of the particular issue, most of us have developed a taste for judging between good and bad. We take pleasure in making those determinations. The sweetness of power, authority, and intellect tastes good. While it feeds our addiction to judging, the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge (of good and evil) sickens those who eat from it.

However, the Tree of Knowledge isn’t the only arboreal fruit-bearing plant. The Tree of Life yields fruit that heals the hearts of those who have ingested the venom from the Tree of Knowledge. The leaves of the Tree of Life bind the wounds caused by the divisiveness of judging good and evil. Its sap is the balm from Gilead. The tree of life blooms year-round — in the eternal now — so there is never a bad time to detox and heal from the harmful effects of what is falsely called knowledge.

The Tree of Life is the Tree of Love, and love needs neither the fertilizer of knowledge or goodness to thrive. Jesus instructed his students to love their neighbors. One man wanted to know what criteria made a person his neighbor. Jesus demonstrated the transcendent nature of love by showing that love doesn’t make that type of calculation. You don’t need to know if a person is good or bad in order to love them. That’s why Jesus could say, “Love God,” “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and “Love your enemy” with equal conviction and weight.

So stop doing good work and start loving. When you do, you’ll experience inner healing. You can begin by abandoning self-judgment. Rather than seeing if you measure up — which is just another way of saying “get better” — just love. In this way, you’ll experience God’s perfect work and you’ll witness the Tree of Love blooming in your heart.
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Originally published on June 9, 2008. (c) Presence International. Parousia is a free Transmillennial publication of Presence. To receive Parousia in your inbox each week click here.