Parousia…What Mountain?

I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.
– Jesus, Matthew 17:20

Truly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ it will happen.
– Jesus, Matthew 21:21

You may have seen the television commercial for the Toyota Rav4. An SUV travels through the countryside, into an urban environment, and returns to the great outdoors. In the background, the Scottish songwriter Donovan sings his 1967 hit, “First there is a mountain then there is no mountain. First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is.”

I think about this song as I gaze out my window and see the front range of the Rocky Mountains staring back at me. The ancient ridges and crags ascend 14,115 feet to the summit of what the Ute tribe called Sun Mountain and what is popularly known as Pikes Peak. The span and scale of the mountains overwhelms my senses. No one can absorb it all with a single glance. It’s simply too massive. Too overpowering. Contemplating it swells my heart and subsumes me under a wave of sheer awe.

So when I hear Jesus telling his listeners to remove mountains by merely talking to them, I implicitly understand that he’s speaking figuratively and spiritually. He’s not instructing people how to transport geological formations. Jesus has something more significant in mind. The Nazarene encourages his followers to cultivate the smallest kernel of faith so that it will bring about monumental results.

Today faith has become a cliché and a byword suggesting something akin to stupidity. Being a person of faith has come to connote an individual who holds to his opinions regardless of the evidence. Somehow, I don’t believe this is what Jesus had in mind.

Jesus’ teaching springs up as an outgrowth of his message concerning the imminent fulfillment of God’s promises on his generation. “The kingdom of God is at hand.” What does that have to do with mountain-moving faith? Jesus called people along the Galilean hillside to believe the gospel — the kingdom announcement. He invited them as the firstfruits of Israel to participate with him in the messianic work of transformation. Through their faith in God’s word, they would move the largest mountain they could imagine — Sinai. In its place, Mount Zion would materialize.

In his famous allegory of Hagar and Sarah, the apostle Paul understood Sinai to signify Israel — and hence humanity — under the burden of law. With the arrival of the New Jerusalem, Israel and humanity would be delivered into ultimate liberty. For Paul, these “things are symbolic. For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar — for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children — but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all” (Galatians 4:23-26).

The New Testament book of Hebrews contrasts the two mountains. “You have not come to a mountain that can be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them. . . But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Hebrews 12:18-24).

First there is a mountain. Then there is no mountain. Then there is.

Zion, the mountain of the Lord’s house as envisioned by Isaiah, has been established as the highest of mountains. The mountain has filled the whole earth, as Daniel foresaw. It is a mountain that cannot be shaken, a mountain that will not be moved, a mountain upon which God has destroyed the shroud that enfolds all people (Isaiah 25:7). So what does that mean for us?

Donovan’s song might give us a clue. The lyrics emerged from the observations of a Chinese teacher who lived more than a thousand years ago. Qingyuan Weixin reflected on his life’s journey, “I thought that mountains were mountains and waters were waters. Later when I studied personally with my master, I entered realization and understood that mountains are not mountains, waters are not waters. Now that I abide in the way of no-seeking, I see as before that mountains are just mountains, waters are just waters (The Art of Pilgrimage by Phil Cousineau).

Looking at your life with the eye of the flesh or the eye of the mind, you may see unscalable mountains. How can anyone get over chronic pain, depression, loneliness, alienation, or fear? Surveying our world with the same vision, we might see ourselves standing at the foot of a towering mountain. War, poverty, terrorism, and pollution threaten our very existence. We believe these mountains are impossible to climb. The air is too thin, the slope too severe, the perils too dangerous.

Whether it is for us personally or for society generally, our constant desire-for-more places mountains before us. “I want this but can’t have it because a mountain stands in my may.” In our cravings we’ve become blind to our greatest possession — a gift than cannot be surpassed. “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered him over for us all, how will He not also with him freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32)

When we look higher with the eye of the spirit and see Mount Zion, the deceptive mountains dissolve because we become empowered to hike one step at a time. Rather than seeing ourselves as people struggling to reach a summit, we’re walking with God at this point in this moment. “What are you, O mighty mountain?” (Zechariah 4:7). This awareness helps us appreciate God’s divine immanence thereby allowing us to approach and accept every mountain in its own right. Zion is Zion, therefore the mountain that is not a mountain is just a mountain.

First there is a mountain. Then there is no mountain. Then there is.

Because God is all-in-all, even the mountains have their place. They have become integrated into the vast cosmic network of being. Don’t try to go around the mountains. That only makes your expedition longer and more arduous. Climb the mountains by not climbing them. Just walk knowing that God is walking with you. When you do, you will discover an elevated perspective of life, yourself, and God.
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Originally published on August 25, 2008. (c) Presence International. Parousia is a free Transmillennial publication of Presence. To receive Parousia in your inbox each week 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.

Parousia…Crazy

Besides football, my favorite television program is Law and Order: Criminal Intent. The plots are ripped from the headlines, but the sharp writers develop a depth to the characters that newspaper blurbs rarely mention. In Proustian fashion, something as small as a watch, a photograph, or a child’s toy opens vistas into worlds that we would normally stroll by casually.

The show invites viewers to appreciate the erratic machinations of the human mind. Our emotions, ideas, environment, background, obsessions, and choices combine in infinite degrees to create the unpredictable events of our lives.

I’m especially drawn to the lead character, Detective Bobby Goren, compellingly embodied by Vincent D’Onofrio. His eccentricities, observational skills, and deductive prowess might make you wonder what he (and the show’s writers) would notice about you. Trained in psychology, Goren deals with his mother who was plagued by emotional disease before her demise, and he constantly wrestles with his own demons.

Goren’s subtly alluring charm stems from his desire to accomplish more than catch the culprits. He’s interested in understanding why people do what they do — quite possibly in an attempt to better understand himself. And in his pursuit of self-comprehension we might discover a beginning point for our own journey of self-discovery.

In the engrossing episode Gone, Goren tracks a paranoid chess master, David Blake, suspected of murdering a young woman who arrived in New York in order to visit her fiancé’s family. As a boy, Blake blossomed with a prodigious gift for chess. He became a grand master and, subsequently, a pawn in US-USSR chess diplomacy during the 1970s. At one point, Blake broke the US embargo on Cuba by visiting the island to play in a tournament in which he ultimately won a million dollar prize.

By violating the embargo, Blake became subject to seizure of his assets and criminal prosecution. Being a genius, he invented ways to hide for over two decades. Meanwhile, he was unable to do the one thing he loved most — play chess at the highest levels. Any public appearance would have resulted in his immediate arrest. His inability to find an outlet matching his creative impulse drove Blake mad.

At the story’s climax, Goren places Blake in check causing the grandmaster to contemplate his next move while in police custody. In the dénouement, the ever-insightful Goren quips to his partner Alexandra Eams, “When you keep people from doing what they do best, it makes them insane.”

You may not know a rook from a bishop, but you might feel the stifling inability of fully expressing yourself. Many people live emotionally fused lives, believing that their will is what’s best for others. A son loves painting, but father wants him to be a doctor. A daughter has a passion for math, but her parents push her into business administration. A couple believes that God loves all people, but their religious authorities instruct them to keep their faith quiet.

Your heart cries out for a particular form of articulation but society, relationships, and institutions continually suppress your unique creativity. Without having what Virginia Woolf called “a room of one’s own,” frustration grows into irritation, anxiety, and despondency.

Perhaps this partially explains the intense disquiet felt in various religious communities. The common theme announced weekly affirms that our highest purpose is to glorify God, and we achieve that end primarily through the vehicle of the church, performing its rites and liturgies, and affirming the traditions of the particular fellowship. We’re left to tacitly infer that what we do best is maintaining the inner functions, financial health, and public appearance of the institution. We serve best, supposedly, when become human batteries energizing the matrix.

But what happens when what we do best comes into variance with the official policy? The hierarchy says that a twelve year old girl was born to become the wife of a fifty year old man. Or you can’t play the guitar because God approves of acapella music only. Or you can’t speak in public gatherings because you don’t have a Y chromosome. Or you must abandon the one night you have a week to spend with you family so that you can attend a group meeting. Must we persistently sacrifice our individuality for a supposedly greater good? When does the greater good include us?

Let’s assume that glorifying God might be what we do best. It’s a simple category error to conflate the glorification of God with the perpetuation of institutionalized religion. Jesus noted that the Sabbath had been made for humanity and not the other way around. Ideological enforcement of Sabbath regulations drove people to the point of madness so that they couldn’t celebrate the healing of a blind man or the feeding of hungry humans. Today, ideological enforcement of our religious traditions elicits similar lunacy.

How can we stop the insanity? The book of Revelation ends with a buoyant vision. A river of life proceeds from the divine throne. The river irrigates the Tree of Life whose fruit and leaves provide and promote healing. Here is God’s therapeutic word. Healing of heart, mind, and soul. We can begin to experience this healing by recognizing that God takes no pleasure in burdening you to the brink of psychosis. God’s concern is about your freedom, not your bondage. Your liberation, not your repression. Your flourishing, not your shrinking. Once we see this, we will stop confusing creedal dogmatism with God’s will.

If glorifying God is what we do best, what does that really mean? Once again, we look to Jesus who describes glory as loving God with all that we are and loving others likewise. This recognition reframes entirely our normal thought patterns concerning the substitution of stale religion for vibrant living. Importantly, it’s open to an infinite variety of expressions. Your incarnation of love creates new life as you breathe fresh air into our world.

You may already be aware of what you do best. If not, spend time with your heart and discover it. Live awake so that you can know what you do best, and then do it. Don’t remain unconscious to your highest and deepest life passions. God takes as much pleasure in gardening as singing on the praise team. Meanwhile, grant that same life-giving freedom to others. Don’t imprison them, thereby driving them round the bend. Listen to their hearts so that you can help them encounter God’s inner divine healing.

Finally, we might ask what God does best. Jesus provides an intriguing answer in his prayer. “And the glory which you gave me I have given them, that they may be one just as we are one” (John 17:22). God glorifies us. Because no one prevented God from doing what he does best, he lives in perfect success of his good work through Christ, and we all share in that blessing no matter how crazy it seems (1Corinthians 1:25).
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Originally published on June 30, 2008. (c) Presence International. Parousia is a free Transmillennial publication of Presence. To receive Parousia in your inbox each week click 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.

Parousia…Authoring Your Life

There’s a difference between an author and an editor. The author creates ex nihilo. She looks at the blank page — computer screen, canvas, chunk of marble, or sketchpad — and fills it. Ideas take form in words, images, and pictures. Often crude, rough, and unrefined, they spill from the heart and mind of the author. It’s the real and untouched overflow springing from within. The author’s first draft stands like Adam and Eve — naked and unashamed.

Then comes the editor. The editor looks at the text with a critical eye, examining it for flaws, mistakes, and errors. His job is to find defects and to recommend corrections. The editor wants to refine the initial product like an instructor from a finishing school.

Rarely, if ever, does the audience see the original manuscript. It’s messy, filled with incomplete ideas and roughly worded phrases. The earliest document is a spontaneous declaration, but the edited version has been pored over, worked on, and chiseled away. In the world of publishing, the best books often result from the best editing. Life is different, however. In life we excel from authentic authoring rather than extensive editing.

Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg is an illuminating book designed to help people hone the craft of writing. In it, she reveals startling truths about living by helping people discover themselves. In her chapter “Trouble with the Editor,” she observes, “It is important to separate the editor from the creator or internal censor when you practice writing, so that the creator has free space to breathe, explore, and express.”

As we author our lives, we may hear the voice of our internal editor telling us that we’re not good, bright, or worthy. The editor looks disapprovingly at all we feel, believe, do, and hold dear. It tells us that we not as qualified as others to have opinions. That we’ll probably make a fool out of ourselves. That we’ll look, sound, and even smell horrible. The editor tells us that we’re less than perfect.

After a while, we tend to believe the editor. We take the editor’s suggestions and try to incorporate changes. We get a mentor, look to a guru, find someone to model our lives after. Hoping to please the editor — or just to shut him up — we search for someone who agrees with the editor. Yet, no matter how hard we try the editor continually marks our lives with red ink and track changes.

Eventually we might even attempt to imitate Jesus. If we can just force ourselves to be more like him, maybe the editor will be satisfied once and for all. But before long, we discover something shocking. We can’t live like Jesus because we’re not Jesus.

That’s not something to bemoan or regret. It’s just the reality. Jesus was Jesus, and you are you. And besides, neither Jesus nor God ever expected you to be Jesus. You’ve been called to be you, and that’s enough. Why would you settle for being less than you? If you feel compelled to follow Jesus, follow his example of living genuinely and fully before God, himself, and others. Jesus lived out of an authentic sense of being himself, and he didn’t model his life after anyone-not the prophets, not Elijah, not John the Baptist. He would be himself, regardless of any voices of judgment. When the soldiers came to arrest him under the cover of darkness, he reminded them “Every day I was with you, teaching in the temple courts.” Jesus lived openly. He would author his life, not edit it.

But you might wonder: What happens if I mess up? If I spell the words of my life incorrectly? If people read me and laugh? If it’s a horror story rather than an inspirational novel?

In that case, you might be tempted to turn to God as an editor. To correct all your mistakes. To cut this word and paste that one. To take something nonsensical and straighten it all out. Sadly this approach leads to greater disappointment and a more heightened impulse of self-editing. It turns God into a cosmic critic whose primary concern is finding fault. It squelches spontaneity, sincerity, authenticity by assuming that life as it has been lived is less than as it should be.

God is not an editor because God does not believe we need one. The voices attempting to edit our lives deny our legitimacy and even our humanity. They want us to be something other than who we are. Perhaps it may help to realize that anyone trying to edit you is actually longing to edit themselves.

God is quite different because God wants you to be no one besides yourself. The true you. God’s not interested in precise grammar or fastidious margins. God knows that a frank life sometimes misses a comma or spills past the borders. That’s cool with God because God is at peace with himself, and that allows God to be at peace with you.

So author your life. Boldly. Blatantly. Fearlessly. Don’t cut out the parts that may seem less than flattering. Michel de Montaigne wrote, “Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being.” Don’t despise your being. Don’t hate you. Embrace the fullness of your divine inner self, and when you do you will find yourself fully present with God and all of life.
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Originally published on May 26, 2008. (c) Presence International. Parousia is a free Transmillennial publication of Presence. To receive Parousia in your inbox each week click here.

Parousia…Amazingly Graceful

Sometimes I wonder how God feels. Maybe there’s a danger in potentially conflating my feelings with God’s, and I suppose we’ve all done that to some degree. I feel that the world is unjust, so God must. I feel upset when I look at the state of world affairs, so God must be less than thrilled also. It bothers me that people read the Biblical story in ways that differ from my own; therefore, God is surely troubled, too.

It’s very easy to equate God with our individual ego. Meanwhile, plenty of voices remind us that the two are not identical.

Consider the oracle found in Isaiah 55:8-9. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.” Perhaps Isaiah is informing us that we can’t possibly know God. Even so, I tend to see this as an affirmation that God performs acts of amazingly gracefulness. After all, this saying comes in a context where the prophet extols a merciful God “who is generous in forgiving” (Isaiah 55:7).

Then, of course, Paul makes a statement similar to Isaiah’s. “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!” (Romans 11:33). Like Isaiah, Paul connects God’s unfathomable judgment to His comprehensive grace. “For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all” (Romans 11:32).

No wonder we have trouble understanding a God who shows mercy on all, whose grace is so abundant that our cups overflow. It doesn’t seem natural for anyone to be so graceful, so generous. How do we wrap out heads around that?

Granted, I’m assuming God has feelings. I live with the working assumption that God is passionate, emotional, and even sensitive. I believe that God’s expressions of emotion are authentic. After all, for God to be love, how could it be otherwise? Love is emotional and not simply a function of detached logic.

Maybe that’s the issue. We’ve been trying to make intellectual sense of God and grace instead of simply feeling its welcoming embrace. We try to makes sense of the irrational. Who can explain love?

Yet, I still wonder . . . how does God feel about our penchant for treating grace as primarily something to be received? How does God feel about our tendency of making grace a commodity you acquire in order to cover your sins so you can enjoy a pleasant afterlife? How does God feel about our proclivity for making God’s grace about us and what we get? How does God feel about our long term response to grace?

Frankly, because God is egoless and gracious (which may be synonymous terms) I don’t suspect God is too upset about not receiving acknowledgment. Besides if God bestowed grace only upon those who fully appreciated all of the nuances of grace, grace would cease being grace. Grace is about God-from alpha to omega. Grace is God’s indescribable gift.

Of course, receiving is an element of the grace experience. Certainly, grace covers a multitude of sins. Definitely, deep gratitude and exuberant worship are proper responses to an awareness of God’s grace. All the while, our ego may feel a little twinge when contemplating the reality that grace is not ultimately about taking us anyplace except beyond our individual identity.

But what about God’s feelings to our response to grace. Instead of gushing sentimental displays directed upward, I believe God would be happier with our graceful transformation directed outward.

Consider Jesus’ parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18:23-25. In an act of grace, the king forgives a debtor who owes a huge amount. Yet, the forgiven man acts dis-gracefully by throwing his debtor into prison. In seeing grace as a product for his own selfish benefit, the man failed to undergo graceful transformation. He was grateful to have his debt forgiven, but not graceful enough to forgive his friend.

John Newton’s classic hymn celebrates God’s amazing grace that saves wretches. Grace delivers us from the wretchedness of selfishness, egocentricity, exclusivity, and isolation. To the extent we grasp on to conceited narcissism we have not yet experienced the complete saving power of grace. Grace that does not call us out of ourselves is pseudo-grace; it promises freedom but brings only the bondage of self-absorption.

Grace becomes effective as our thinking changes from “I got mine” to “How can I pay it forward?” Grace becomes amazing as we transform from reservoirs of grace to living streams of grace. The greatest act of thanksgiving and the most profound worship occurs as we embrace and practice our divine likeness in becoming grace givers. What’s more, our infinite capacity for gracefulness enlarges and expands as we practice grace and perform generosity.

When we extend grace toward others, God’s thoughts and ways become ours. When we have mercy on all, we’ve fathomed the depths of God’s wisdom. When we live gracefully, we’ve searched out God’s ways and judgments. And this is what I believe God absolutely revels in.

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Originally published on April 28, 2008. (c) Presence International. Parousia is a free Transmillennial publication of Presence. To receive Parousia in your inbox each week click here.

Parousia…Pageantry, Polygamy, and Protests

Who said religion in the United States has been marginalized? The several recent well-publicized events have exemplified the prominent role religious expression plays in American public life.

First, (with a nod to B.B. King and U2) the Pope came to town. Media crews followed Benedict XVI from the time his plane landed. The national news networks broadcasted a speech George W. Bush described as “awesome.” At the United Nations, the pontiff addressed the issue of human rights. Millions of viewers watched ornate ceremonies — in baseball stadiums and in a New York City cathedral. The public witnessed Benedict entering a synagogue, participating in an interdenominational Christian dialogue, and praying at Ground Zero. Fascinatingly, all of this unfolded in the American northeast corridor — perhaps the most nonreligious (but media saturated) region of the country.

Second, polygamy as practiced by the FLDS (Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) made headlines as law enforcement authorities took hundreds of children into protective custody. The group has been accused of forcing underage girls into arranged polygamous marriages in the name of God and God’s supposed prophet, Warren Jeffs. Curiously, the women and children have been in front of the cameras while the men have remained (mostly) unseen. Although allegations of child abuse are the primary legal issue, the fascination with polygamy (which is practiced in several regions around the world) has made this a cause célèbre. Religion is the context of this entire episode.

Third, the Olympic torch relay has been protested throughout its trek. Several issues have sparked the incidents. The most immediate stems from China’s rule in Tibet, the raucous demonstrations in Lhasa, and Beijing’s relationship with the Dalai Lama (the leading figure of Tibetan Buddhism). Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama toured the United States — with less fanfare than the Pope — participating at the Seeds of Compassion Forum in Seattle and speaking on university campuses in Michigan and New York.

Skeptical onlookers may have perceived all of this as little more than a three ring circus. However, the allure of these incidents illustrates the powerful pull of religious sentiment. America is an extraordinarily religious nation where religious expression of every form thrives. Nevertheless, one meta-religion surpasses them all. Celebrity. We’re drawn to the Pope, the polygamists, and the protesters for the some of the reasons we watch Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, and Paris Hilton. The recent events have captured the imagination of a people obsessed with scandal and stardom of all varieties.

Thanks, in part, to stars like Bill Murray and Richard Gere, the Dalai Lama has obtained pop idol status. One day he may be offered a star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame — even if most folks have little idea of who he is or what he stands for.

The FLDS debacle combines sexual intrigue, religious fervor, exploitation of children, and law enforcement. These ingredients are staples of American pop culture. And besides, the episode resounds with reverberations of Waco and the Branch Davidian affair.

The Papal pageantry captures the quintessence of what we normally associate with religion. Special clothing, mysterious observances, esoteric rituals. These elements partner with crowds that are normally reserved for rock stars and the ongoing fall out from the sexual child abuse tragedies to create a week-long mini-series.

This intense week of public religion reminded me of the Apostle Paul’s visit to Athens. After perusing their religious displays, he spoke to the crowds on Mars’ Hill about their zeal. Translating Acts 17 into today’s context, I imagine him saying something like this.

Ladies and gentlemen, I perceive that in all things you are very religious. As I passed through your cities and surfed the internet, I considered the objects of your worship. I sense that in all of your actions you are bowing at the altar of unknown God.

This one whom you worship and seek without knowing is the one I’d like to talk with you about. Look, God doesn’t need you to build monuments or to regularly pay homage at a special building on a prescribed day of the week. God isn’t commanding you to administer grace through officially sanctioned formal procedures.

Nor does God want you to escape to the desert so you can live in an undisturbed community of religious elites. God certainly doesn’t command you to force anyone into relationships-especially marriage, and certainly not with young children.

And God isn’t interested in you employing violence or threats to make the point that you are in favor of peace.

You don’t have to show up on tv or YouTube to be known by God. God loves people who have never been chased by the paparazzi. Aspire to live a quiet and peaceful life. Pray in your closet. Give in anonymity. Understand that pure religion is visiting and delivering widows and orphans.

God knows that you are seeking, and God is near-very near-each one of us. We find God in every offering of kindness, gift of food to the hungry, and act of compassion to our fellow human beings. We find God in the faces of all people when we look deeply into their eyes, knowing that God has transformed us from glory to glory. We discover God when we hold still and peer into our own hearts. We see God when we look with the eyes of love.

In God we live and move and have our very being. As the poets have said, “We are also his offspring.” Since we are the offspring of God, you are a unique demonstration of God as much as everyone else.

Since we are the offspring of God, we shouldn’t think that the Divine Nature is accessed by saying long prayers, belonging to a privileged group, following the dictates of a self-proclaimed prophet, or journeying to a special place.

The word is near, even in your mouth and heart. The special group of God’s people consists of the two or three gathered with you right where you are. The special place is the here and now. The true pilgrimage sends you deep into your soul, allowing you to empty yourself so you can find yourself.

Listen to the one who showed you that equality with God was not something to be coveted. Instead, he made himself in the form of a servant, and went to the cross.

God has overlooked all of our ignorance, and is now calling us to turn from our fruitless thinking because God has delivered the world by keeping the promise to make us all in the divine likeness. God has blessed all families of the earth, whether or not they have their own reality show.

Changing the way we see God and God’s presence with us will raise us up to experience real life and undergo a living transformation we have not yet begun to imagine. Love is the ultimate expression of godliness. Where there is fame, it will fail. Where there is celebrity, it will pass away. Where there is religion, it will vanish. So, if you want something eternal, love; because love never fails.
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Originally published on April 21, 2008. (c) Presence International. Parousia is a free Transmillennial publication of Presence. To receive Parousia in your inbox each week click here.

Parousia…Rereading The Story

The Wizard of Oz is one of the most beloved stories of the past hundred years. As much as I enjoy the classic movie, I must that the same flying monkeys that scared me when I was a child still make me feel a little nervous.

Besides the fanciful and loveable characters, it seems to me that the appeal of The Wizard of Oz comes from the most famous line in the story. You know the magic words. So click your heels and say, “There’s no place like home.” The sentiment of “home” conveys belonging, welcome, and warmth. Feeling “at home” carries an ethos of safety, security, and sanctuary. Home offers you a sense of place. At least, that’s the archetype of “home.” Even if our actual homes are less than idyllic, the mental image of the model home resonates deep within our hearts.

Of course, The Wizard of Oz has other evocative themes. The ability to be at home whenever and wherever you are. The possession of what you desire most. The hero’s journey. The tendency to look outside ourselves for what we possess all along.

As adored and familiar as The Wizard of Oz is, it may be difficult to revise the way we tell the story. But can you flex your imagination and envision an alternative reading of the story? Keeping the entire narrative exactly as it is, a retelling of The Wizard of Oz will thoroughly alter our perception of Dorothy, Oz, and the message of the story.

Dorothy was an impetuous child. She disrespected her elders, visited a strange man in a wagon, and trained her ferocious dog to attack an old lady.

As a result, God sent a tornado to punish her. He swept her away to a bizarre world where she killed two of the residents and celebrated their deaths with freakish elves and demonic soldiers. In this peculiar realm, Dorothy cavorted with witchcraft, weird talking beasts, and evil flying monkeys.

After stealing a pair of priceless ruby slippers, Dorothy sought a way to return to Kansas. She seduced a human-like scarecrow, a metallic lumberjack, and beastly lion into accompanying her to a bejeweled city in order to rendezvous with a wizard who could send her home. She finagled her way into this city that was held under the despotic sway of the deceptive warlock. After berating her, he made her an offer she couldn’t refuse. He would send her home if she would perform an act of thievery. If she would steal a magic broom, he would help her return home. Dorothy consented.

In the course of the robbery, Dorothy killed the rightful owner. Upon returning to the city, she double crossed the wizard, and banished him when she discovered that he was from Kansas, too. (He has not been heard from until this day.) The wizard’s absence freed Dorothy to install her minions as puppet rulers of the city. Discovering from her spirit guide that she wielded magical powers herself, Dorothy returned home to Kansas where she waited to exact revenge on her unsuspecting family and neighbors.

That way of telling the story sounds more like a horror show than a cherished family tale. These are the exact same facts but told with a different tone, an unusual emphasis, and some suggestive wording. One way warms the heart. The other makes you want to take a hot shower and sleep with the lights on.

We have the God-given power to tell the story. Any story, including the Biblical story. For centuries, people have told the Biblical story in terms of humanity’s rebellion and God’s intense yearning to make us pay. That way of telling the story portrays an irate God who resolves to whack all humanity in a genocidal act of revenge because the first couple took a piece of fruit. He decided to give us a second chance by taking out his frustrations on Jesus. People who believe these facts in the right way will escape never-ending torture. Moreover, these believers need to think the right thoughts about the metaphysical make-up of the ineffable God, agree to a certain cosmology regardless of what the visible evidence suggests, and behave properly; otherwise, they’re going to regret it for a long, long time.

Those lucky enough to believe, think, and act in harmony with God’s revealed and hidden purposes call their good fortune “grace.” To them, God in his infinite mercy (we’re told) is waiting patiently for all people to come to their senses. Yet, the vast majority of them won’t. One day God’s patience will run out and he’ll get so fed up that he’ll send Jesus back to earth in order to end it all.

That, we’re told, is the “good news.”

No wonder there is so much anxiety around religion. This way of telling the story portrays God as a petty, neurotic, and secretive tyrant. It puts humanity in the position of seeking to appease this God by the performance of enigmatic rituals and adherence to arbitrary moral standards. It gives us all one chance to get it right. Our fate is sealed by death, and even God is bound by death’s decision.

I simply must believe that there’s a better way of telling the story. One that pictures God as something kinder and gentler than the godfather. One that honors God for walking with us through the hurts, sorrows, and wounds of life. One that depicts God as love incarnate. One that reads Christ on the cross as the ultimate expression of divinity with humanity. One that blesses all families of the earth. One that finds God to be infinitely immanent rather than completely separate. One that sees humanity’s comprehensive connection in the ultimate all-in-all. One in which God decrees, “There’s no place like home,” and so he makes his home with us — not as an abusive despot, but as a tender and understanding presence (Revelation 21:3).

You have the power to tell the story. This is not only your God-given gift; it is your inescapable blessing. No one has a monopoly on the story. You don’t have to accept anyone’s interpretation of it. So, begin telling the story in a way that makes it worthy of being the Greatest Story Ever Told. And when you do, you’ll discover a personal transformation and contribute to a new cultural awareness that will make all things new and reveal a New Heaven and New Earth.

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Originally published, April 7, 2008. (c) Presence International. Parousia is a free Transmillennial publication of Presence. To receive Parousia in your inbox each week click here.

Parousia…Inspired by Awe

“I will give thanks to You, for I am awe-inspiringly and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well.”
–Psalm 139:14

Sigmund Freud may receive credit for introducing the principles of modern psychology, but people have been trying to figure out who and what we are from the very beginning. Since we first developed self-consciousness, we’ve been seeking to understand what it means to be human.

For instance, the Genesis creation narrative asks more questions about the mysterious enigma of humanity than it provides dogma about the formation of the material universe. God speaks humanity into the divine likeness. God breathes the spirit of life — the divine wind — into humanity’s nostrils. In response, humanity rises from the ground, receives a holy wound, and obtains a commission to be fruitful and multiply.

Perplexing open-ended questions permeate the story. Is humanity a handful of dirt or a God-breathed creative partner? Are we in dialogue with spirit or slaves to unalterable universal laws? Is the essence of life found in naming and dominating others, or does intimacy require opening ourselves to the potential of sacred scars?

Intuitively and empirically, we understand our extraordinary complexity — individually and collectively. We experience life, self, and relationships on multiple levels: biologically, emotionally, interpersonally, culturally, psychologically, ecologically, and cosmically just to name a few.

Contemplating the spiraling tiers of our humanity is certain to make your head spin (not literally, of course). We possess an outer life and an inner one. Our make-up consists of the interplay between our sense of self, family, friendships, community, society, culture, and ubermind. The complete source, stuff, and goal of it all is God.

The perpetual divine-human emergence contains personal and transpersonal elements. Psalm 139 offers comfort in knowing that God understands you individually. God calls you by name, counts the hairs (or lack thereof) on your head, and knows your coming in and going out. At the same time, God transcends our egoic confinement and recognizes the comprehensive picture of all-inclusive interconnectedness. As Paul noted, all things are of, through, and to God.

Physicist, mathematician, and futurist Freeman Dyson describes the “unbounded potentialities of the universe as it becomes aware of itself through the action of life and intelligence” as the infinite in all directions. The prophet Daniel depicts this as the kingdom of God with an eternally expanding domain. Meister Eckhart calls God a sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference is nowhere. Awakening to just an inkling of the infinite in all directions fills your cup to overflowing with awe and wonder at how marvelously made you truly are — and continue to be. Your soul already knows it very well, and this blesses you to courageously go where no one has gone before-but where God already is. In Paradise Mislaid, Jeffrey Burton Russell muses, “Whatever we humans are, we are part of the cosmos, and we wonder about it, and that means that the cosmos wonders about itself …That the cosmos wonders about itself is deeply moving.”

We’re creatures with strata of deep structures composing the essence of our personal and transpersonal identity, and the layers continue to form. What it meant to be human 10,000 years ago is not what it means today, and today’s humanity is a launching pad for tomorrow’s. Perhaps we’ll never fully grasp what it is to be human, and maybe that’s the paradoxical point. Humanity, like Christ showed about divinity, is not something to be grasped. Continually asking the questions plunges us into the illimitable mystery. More than surprising us with hope or joy, it inspires us with awe. With our immersed into the unfathomable, we discover the divine blessing of finding our humanity as something to be lived rather than a problem to be solved. Behold! The wonder!

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Orignially published, March 31, 2008. (c) Presence International. Parousia is a free Transmillennial publication of Presence. To receive Parousia in your inbox each week click here.