10/08/06, Sermon

There is a Zen observation that says, “An archer’s ability to hit the bull’s-eye varies in indirect proportion to the size of the prize for hitting the bull’s-eye.” There you are. The more we have at stake in the outcome of our doing, the less we are able to simply be in the moment of our doing. The more about us the path becomes, the less we are able to find the path.

When my focus shifts over to me and what I’m getting out of it, and what I stand to gain from it, and how I can use it to my advantage, it’s all over. I can then forget being present in the moment, available to the moment, able to offer to the moment what I have to give. The moment is not ours. We are not here to possess the moment, to squeeze the good out of the moment, to make happen what we want to happen in the moment. We live in the moment for the sake of the moment, not for our sake. We belong to the moment. The moment does not belong to us.

We are not here for what we can get out of it. Enlightenment is not about what we get from being enlightened. We get to be enlightened is what we get, and that doesn’t do anything for us. And, if we ask, “Well, then, what’s the point?”, it may be a while before we get it.

What do we do for no reason beyond doing it? What do we do for its sake alone? What are the “simple pleasures” that we do for the joy of doing them? How much time do we “waste” in a day doing things we enjoy for themselves alone? Do we allow ourselves the privilege of “doing nothing” but enjoying what we are doing? If so, are we aware of “losing the moment” when we begin to wonder how we might turn it somehow to our advantage? When our advantage enters the moment, the moment shifts from enjoyment to strategic planning. We begin to scheme, and fret, and finagle—thinking, perhaps, that we will get back to enjoying life once we have it made. The joy is there right now. Why do we put it aside, to get back to it later, if ever?

Enlightenment gives us the moment. There is nothing beyond the moment to get, to own, to have, to be. If we think there is something beyond the moment, something more important than the moment, we lose the moment. THIS is the moment of our living. How fully can we live it? How fully can we be aware of it? How fully can we be alive in it? What is there beyond being fully alive to get, to own, to have, to be?

Snoopy, in one of the Charles Schultz Peanuts comic strips, reflected on his life as a pup at the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm. “We all dreamed of escape and freedom,” he said, “but, once we got over the fence, we were still in the world.” That’s the way it is with the life of our dreams. At some point, we have to live here, now, with what is with us in the moment of our living.

The dream is always “out there,” ahead of us, waiting to be realized, but the realization only creates the need for a more elaborate dream. In this way, dreaming is a buffer we place between ourselves and the moment of our living, a pleasurable escape from the world of the here-and-now. We lose ourselves in the dream, cut ourselves off from the moment, and go through the motions of life, living only in and for the dream. The question is, and it may be the essential spiritual question, is whether we will do the things that close us off from the moment or open us to the moment—of whether we will live or only dream of being alive.

Spirituality is about being awake and alive in the moment of our living. What do we want spirituality to do for us? What do we hope to get from spiritual growth? How do we want our lives to be different with, say, an advanced degree in spiritual development? A deeply formed spiritual orientation and perspective is only going to give us the moment of our living, is only going to enable us to be alive there.

The irony is that living as those who are alive in the moment of our living transforms the moment. No moment will be unchanged by those who are awake in it. Every moment will be something more than what it was or would have been without those who are awake in them. Being awake and alive in the moment of our living radically and fundamentally alters every moment flowing from it, following it. But, we cannot think there will be anything in any of that for us. We cannot think it will be to our advantage to be awake and alive in the moment of our living. We cannot think enlightenment, or spirituality, is a strategy to get what we want if we want something more than being awake and alive in the moment of our living. And so, the saying: “After enlightenment, the laundry.”

The Way is the way of being who we are, where we are, how we are, when we are. It is the way of being alive in the moment of our living. Being awake, and aware, and mindful, and open, and present to what is present to us. It is the way of seeing, and hearing, and understanding. It’s the way of being true to ourselves within the context and circumstances of our lives. It is the way of living aligned with what is deepest, best, and truest about us. It is the way of being transparently engaged with, invested in, the moment of our living—that is to say, engaged with, and invested in the moment, with nothing personally riding on the moment, with nothing to gain and nothing to lose, with no agenda beyond being aligned with the best we can imagine for the moment.

The spiritual task is to break the spell cast by the culture, by civilization, really. The spell is the perspective that restricts perspective and allows us to see things only from the standpoint of our own advantage and personal interest. Enlightenment breaks the spell, enabling us to see, and hear, and understand—enabling us to know how things are and how things also are, and what is being asked of us for the good of all. The spiritual task is to wake up, to be awake. Waking up is the hardest thing to do. Being awake is the hardest thing to be.

The business of the church—our business—is doing the hardest thing, is waking up, is living with our eyes open, is having eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts that understand. Everything flows from that. Right seeing. Right hearing. Right thinking. Right doing. Right being. Everything changes, everything is transformed, when we see into the heart of things, and know what’s what, and understand how things are and how things also are.

If you are going to give me anything, give me a perspective that is always being enlarged, that is always taking something more into account, that is always seeing past what has been seen into what is to be seen. Seeing is the tool of the soul in the work of the soul. Seeing shapes the world. We cannot see and live as though we do not see, as though we have not seen. Seeing changes us and transforms the world. If you are going to give me anything, give me eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart that understands. With that gift, we change the world.

We don’t have to be somewhere else to effect the kind of change that transforms the world. Wherever we are is the place of power. All we have to do is open our eyes. Eyes that see, ears that hear, and a heart that understands are the tools of transformation. If we want to change the world, we only have to see what is before us, hear what is being said and done, understand what is and what also is. The world will be transformed.

We live to transform the world by the way we live in the world. Perspective is the means, the mechanism, for the transformation of the world. We will transform the world by being awake and alive in the moment of our living, but we probably will not have anything to show for it. Jesus and the apostles are no better off for all of the kind things said about them after they died.

It is not about accruing the advantages and having it made. It is about living aligned with the best we can imagine and letting the outcome be the outcome. This doesn’t mean allowing ourselves to be taken advantage of or shooting ourselves in the foot. If we aren’t here for our own advantage, we aren’t here for anyone else’s advantage either. It isn’t about anyone’s advantage. It’s about serving a good beyond our own personal good—beyond all our own personal good—trusting that that will prove to be good enough for all of us.

What is stirring within us, among us? What is trying to be born in us, through us? As you listen to your life, to the time of your living, to the moment of being, what do you hear? What is the Virgin being asked to deliver? We have to listen if we hope to hear. We have to look if we hope to see. We have to be open if we hope to receive the vision that changes the world.

The heart of spiritual practice is sanctuary, retreat, sacred space. We have to create an open space in which to listen and look and wait to hear and see. We have to step back in order to step forward. We have to live with the demeanor of a monk, with the quiet sense of presence afforded by the perspective of a monastery, within the din and press of our daily lives. We have to carry into each moment a quiet place within, a sanctuary of the heart, and live out of that place in bringing the way of God—in bringing life—to life in the world. To do that, it helps to have an actual sanctuary, a place of retreat, were we can go “just sit,” and be present with whatever is present with us. Our work is that of maintaining a proper perspective through our days upon the earth. To do that we have to find a space that enables us to be alive to the time and place of our living. From there, The Transformation!

10/07/06, Clowns

Yesterday, I bought a pair of red Crocks. Not because they are Crocks, but because they are red. Then I created a business card, with the typical Presbyterian Church of the Covenant stuff on one side, and this on the other side: "We are all being treated as clowns in a circus run by a ring master with a flare for the absurd. Everyone of us should wear red clown shoes, or a red clown nose, or an orange Bozo the Clown wig as a way of acknowledging and protesting the way things are, for as long as they are this way." I'll hand the business card to anyone who comments on the red shoes. I'll wear the red shoes everyday, for as long as the ringmaster of the absurd runs the show. And, yes, I'm talking about George W. Bush. I invite you to join me in the acknowledgement and the protest.

10/04/06

Look for what resonates and don’t ask any questions. Except to understand that it isn’t about sex. It’s easy to think it’s about sex. When we are dealing with the kind of resonation that is sexual attraction, it’s easy to think it’s about sex. What’s sex about? Well, it can be an avenue to the ecstatic, to the wonder of merging with, and being lost in, another. It can be a miracle of presence, absorbing and being absorbed by another. It can be an enraptured experience with attentive, loving, knowing. The two become one. Thou art That.

Except, of course, Thou really aren’t That. That picks its nose, lets the dog have the run of the house, and leaves its socks in the hallway and the sports section on the back of the toilet. How could Thou ever have been so blind to the obnoxious, disgusting, wholly un-Thou-like side of That? How could Thou even think of having sex with That? Waking up to the un-Thou-ness of the That is the beginning of the end. Or, the beginning of the beginning. Depending on Thou’s depth of perception.

Here’s how it works: Sex has a spiritual side. We cannot be intimate if we will not be vulnerable. Intimacy and vulnerability are spiritual pathways. The physical and the spiritual become inseparable in the sensual. It is a spiritual hunger that we try to appease, a spiritual longing that we try to satisfy, with sex. And, it’s all glorious and magnificent while it lasts, but then we wake up to the That-ness of the That, and it’s all over. Or, just beginning. Depending on our level of acumen.

To ask more of sex than human warmth and comfort and the joyful, life-giving nature of physical pleasure is to stretch it to the breaking point. Sex is not a substitute for spiritual engagement, and spiritual engagement is not a prelude to sex. The two are easily confused and can feel like the same thing because they awaken us to our hunger and longing, and open us to our need for union and communion, attachment and connection, but they are not the same thing. Sex eventuality comes to grief upon the That-ness of the That. Spirituality carries us past the That-ness of the That into That’s Thou-ness, something sex aspires to, but cannot begin to do.

Sex is sex, and, at its best, is a suggestion of the union we seek with more than we can say. But, sex is sex, and cannot sustain the illusion of oneness with another over time. What is the hunger we try to satisfy with sex? It is more than we can say.

What is the flame to the moth? What is the power of the attraction? What is the moth trying to “get”? The moth cannot say. What is our “flame”? Our “strange attractor”? Toward what are we being pulled? We cannot say. But the gift that seems to center us, calm us, and bring us peace is the gift of self. Not the self of the other, but our own. The “pearl of great price” seems to be the discovery of our own voice, the uncovering of the path with our name on it, the unveiling of who we are and what we are about. If you are going to give me anything, give me, me.

Of course, it is not just any “me” that I am after—not just the “me” that has “my” best interest at heart. The “me” that wants one, no two, of everything. That wants all the advantages. That is not the “me” I will be satisfied with. I am after a much bigger “me” than that. I am after the “me” that is, well, you. And you. And you.

Here is an interesting aspect of the mystery. When I am singing my song, and you are singing your song, we are in, what might be called, perfect harmony. We are one. When I live with you in ways that enable you to be you, and you live with me in ways that enable me to be me, we make a space for each other, for one another, in which the That-ness of the That is actually created, and encouraged, and cultivated, and born, and brought forth, and nurtured, and guarded, and protected, and defended, and enlarged, and deepened, and expanded, and you become more than you could ever be without me, and I become more than I could ever be without you, and we make the joyful, shocking, foundational discovery that Thou ART That, in ways Thou could have never imagined before Thou became truly Thou and That became truly That. In becoming me, I become you, in becoming you, you become me, and we connect at the level of the heart, and know ourselves, and each other, as though for the first time.

So. True love is about me doing everything imaginable to help you be you, and you doing everything imaginable to help me be me. Within that matrix, the Thou-ness of the Thou, and the That-ness of the That are mutually respected, and self-limitations apply, so That’s dog doesn’t have the run of the house, and That’s socks aren’t left in the hallway. We don’t walk “all over” each other, we walk with each other, in Thou-ness and That-ness. The trick is that both Thou and That have to be waking up to do it. We cannot experience True Love if even one of us is asleep at the wheel.

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Because we die, we feel like we have to get it done now. We are running out of time. We will run out of time. And so, we must bear the pain. We will die with things undone, with books yet to be written, with photos yet to be taken, with relationships yet to be developed and enjoyed, with sights unseen. We are always having to adjust ourselves to something. We have to adjust ourselves to death. That’s just the way it is.

In bearing the pain, and coming to terms with the fact that we will not have enough time, we give ourselves more time, in that we don’t lose any time worrying about not having enough time. We don’t have enough time. And, we have this moment right now. Don’t throw this moment away bemoaning the fact that you don’t have enough moments! Live this moment now! And the next moment then! Do what is to be done now, and let that be enough, because it is all that it can be.

I am likely to die with another photo trip in mind. I don’t care how many times I go to the Canadian Rockies, I am going to want to go back one more time. And, to Yellowstone, and to the Grand Tetons, and to Death Valley… No matter how much time I spend with the children and the grandchildren, it won’t be enough. No matter how much time I spend talking with people whose presence I treasure, it won’t be enough. I have an insatiable appetite for life, and living, and being alive. And, I am appalled at the very idea of dying. I have better things to do. But, I can spend what time I do have being appalled, and depressed, and woebegone, or I can spend what time I have living, doing right by the moment, loving what is to be loved, enjoying what is to be enjoyed, making wherever I am a good place to be, and waiting until I die to be dead.

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There is that which, by its nature, brings me fully into the moment with it, and creates a space in which being there with that is enough. A cup of morning coffee does that. Loving presence does that. Sunrise at a scenic vista does that. “Aesthetic arrest,” I think it is called. We are stopped by a wonder, and brought to life by it, in the moment with it. Surprising gifts of life come out of nowhere to wake us up and make us alive.

Certain paths within Buddhism make use of a bell to wake participants up to the moment of their living, to call them out of the press of life and enable them to step into the now with consciousness, mindfulness, awareness as those who are alive and fully present. Tibetan singing bowls (do a Google search) ring us into the here and now, call us to remember our breathing, and to be present with what is present with us. The Buddhist have the advantage of someone with the responsibility to strike the bowl, to ring the bell. We are left to our own devices. Where is that woman with the bowl? We need her always at our side. Bringing us back to the now, inviting us to be alive.

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What needs doing? What needs to be done? What needs us to do it? There are cars all over the world which need to have an oil change. Not one of those cars needs ME to do it. I am not the person to change oil. Just because something needs to be done, does not mean that I am the one to do it. What needs ME to do it? Where are MY gifts, inclinations, aptitudes, talents, interests, and abilities being called for? What is being asked of ME? We have to have a sense of our own “me-ness” and of the world’s need in order to find ways we might be of help to those about us. What are we suited for? Where do we fit in? How can WE be of service to the world? What can WE do to make where we are a good place to be?

Ram Dass once asked Joseph Campbell, “Joe, what form does your yoga take?” To which Campbell replied, “I underline passages.” There you are. Underlining passages might well be our gift to the world. Let those who build Habitat houses, build Habitat houses. Let those who ladle soup, ladle soup. Let those who sit in prayer and meditation, sit in prayer and meditation. Let those who underline passages, underline passages. And, don’t disparage anyone for the way they choose to bring their gift to life in the world, or think that everyone must serve, must be of help, in the same ways.

10/01/06, Sermon

The struggle to be spiritual is the struggle to be authentic, to be genuine, to be transparently real in every moment. Of course, by this definition, any two year old is the most spiritual person we know. Maturity adds compassion and awareness to the mix, and the decentralization of the ego, and the corresponding reduction in the power of the raging sea of desire to a quiet pool of preferences. The overriding spiritual quest is not to be authentic at the expense of other people, but to be authentic in relationship with other people, to be a self connecting with, relating to, self and other selves. To be a self in relation to other selves. A two-year-old can have an authentic melt-down at the candy counter. A spiritual master, on the other hand, can take no for an answer all day long, really for an entire life time, as the Dali Lama has done in regard to the Chinese occupation of Tibet.

We think being authentic has to do with saying what is on our minds, but it has to do with the connection between ourselves and our circumstances, being who we are in a way that meshes with what the situation calls for. It does not have as much to do with what we say, or even with how we say it, as it does with what needs to be said, or left unsaid, in the particular context of our living. There is a difference between stuffing our feelings and choosing not to say something, or waiting until it can be said.

We stuff our feelings because we are afraid of speaking, because we are afraid of putting truth on the table. When we do it that way, we pay a price, emotionally and physically, over time. But, there are times when it is not in anyone’s best interest for us to say who we are, where we are, why we are, when we are, what we are, how we are. You have never heard the Dali Lama say anything disparaging about the Chinese. He has not vented. He has not ranted, raved, threatened, remonstrated, demonstrated, demanded retribution, restitution, and apology. You might say he has not put truth on the table. You might say he has been stuffing his feelings. You might say he has not been honest, authentic, genuine, transparently real. But, if you said that, you would be not understanding the situation.

When the Pope spoke a couple of weeks ago, indirectly, about his ideas regarding Muslim propensity for violence by quoting from a centuries old manuscript to that effect, he enraged a good portion of the Muslim world. You might say he was being honest, authentic, genuine, transparently real. You might say he was putting truth, however veiled, on the table. You might say he was only telling it as it is and the response proves his point. You might say at least he wasn’t stuffing anything or pretending things are different than they are. You might say at least he had the courage to sort of say what needed to be said. Even if he sort of took it back. But, if you said that, you would be not understanding the situation.

When I trip back to the Mississippi Delta, or to the Mississippi Hill Country, to visit the cousins and the aunts and the uncles and the assortment of parishioners from the past, I don’t wear my Gay Pride tee shirt, or carry my anti-war banner, or take the suitcase with the pro-choice and the gun control now bumper stickers on it, and I don’t say much about politics, and religion, and race relations. You might say I’m being dishonest, and two-faced, and a fraud. You might say I’m stuffing how I really feel, and hiding my true feelings, and failing to be authentic, genuine, and transparently real. But, if you said that, you would be not understanding the situation.

In my defense, I’ll say I didn’t hide much of anything in the 20 years I spent talking to folks in Mississippi about my take on the gospel. And, I replaced the Dukakis For President yard sign almost as often as it disappeared. But, there is a point at which what you have to say cannot be heard. Beyond that point, if you keep talking, you suffer as much psychological and emotional (Where DOES that line lie?) damage as you would if you swallowed it all and stuffed everything. You become the weird relative in the backroom, about whom everyone says, “You know how he is.” Being excused in this fashion is not much different from being beaten, and speaking out is not much different from holding it in. What is the strategy for being heard in a world that cannot hear?

The Dali Lama does not talk about the Chinese, or about the Occupation of Tibet. He does not talk to those who cannot hear. He isn’t stuffing anything. He isn’t pretending anything. He isn’t denying anything. Jesus recommends that his disciples leave those who cannot hear them and go to those who can. It isn’t stuffing to recognize what can be heard and what cannot be, and to consciously choose to accommodate yourself to your audience, even as you search for those who can listen with acceptance and understanding to what you have to say. Authenticity, genuineness, and transparent realness do not require tantrums, venting, protests, or rage. They do require the realization and awareness of what we have to say and what those around us are capable of hearing, and where we have to go to find eye-to-eye-ness and commensality. The spiritual quest is as much for those who can hear what we have to say as it is for knowing what to say, or for hearing what needs to be heard. We cannot grow much beyond the capacity of our audience to hear what we have to say. When we find ourselves talking to blank expressions and empty eyes, we have to seek out other people to talk to.

But, being authentic is more than just saying what you are thinking to those who can hear what you are saying. It is saying what is needed, what is necessary, what is helpful. It is offering to the moment what the moment requires. It is bringing to life in a situation the very thing that is most useful to the situation. To do that, of course, we have to get out of the way. We have to disappear. Offering what the situation needs is not the same thing as offering what we think it needs, or giving it what we want it to have. So there is a sense in which being authentic, genuine, and transparently real doesn’t have anything to do with us at all.

Being authentic isn’t about saying what we are thinking so much as it is about knowing what needs to be said and saying it, knowing what needs to be done and doing it. It is about reading the situation, seeing into the heart of the moment, understanding what is being asked for, and offering what is needed. Authenticity is about the connection between who we are and what is being asked of us. We don’t make that connection by thinking about it.

Authenticity is not a function of cognition, of thought, of reason. It is not a left-brain function. The left-brain plays a part, of course, but it does not take the lead. We do not know what ought to happen in a situation apart from participation in the situation. We live our way to the truth. We do not think our way there. We cannot apply recipes and formulas, design structures, impose forms, provide answers from outside the situation. We have to live in it to know what to do about it, to know how to respond to it. We have to listen to it to have a sense of what needs to happen in it. And, sometimes, the answer is “nothing.”

Sometimes, nothing needs to happen, that is, the situation needs nothing to happen. Sometimes, there is nothing to be done. Carl Jung said, “There are no answers to the big questions, no solutions to the critical problems. They just have to be out-grown” (Or words to that effect). Doing nothing is doing something, and it is always an option. We wait to see what can be done, what needs to happen. We wait for clarity, for insight, for enlightenment, for wisdom, for revelation. But, we have to be intentionally waiting for those things. We can’t just be putting action off because we are lazy, or afraid.

Two things keep us from waking up and living authentic lives—lives connected at the core to ourselves and what needs to happen in the moment of our living. The two things, of course, are fear and desire, and, since fear is really desire in disguise, there is only one thing keeping us from waking up, although desire is not quite the word for it. What is the word for wanting what we have no business having? What is the word for trying to calm our fear and anxiety by giving ourselves an endless array of toys and bright, shiny distractions? What is the word for taking our minds off the situation, for disconnecting ourselves from the situation, and compelling the situation to be what we want it to be, to be what we think it ought to be (“Democracy for everyone!”, for example)? We cannot be authentic and afraid or anxious. We cannot be authentic and want what we have no business having. Sometimes, we have to “calm the troubled beast within” in order to bring ourselves to the situation as those who are awake, watching, and waiting to see what needs to happen, what needs to be done. And, that’s a tall order.

How do you calm yourself, soothe yourself? How do you find peace? How do you distance yourself from yourself and the situation in order to see, and hear, and understand? We have to see what is happening, and what needs to happen, in order to respond appropriately and authentically, in order to bring who we truly are to bear on what truly needs to happen. How do you achieve that sort of “working distance,” the kind of perspective that sees into the heart of things, and knows what to do? However you do it, that is a spiritual practice for you. Keep it up.
We cannot live appropriately and authentically—we cannot be awake, aware, and alive—without enough distance between ourselves and ourselves, and our circumstances to see, and hear, and understand. The creation of the right amount of “working distance” is the product of spiritual discipline and practice.

We are not “naturally” predisposed to live appropriately and authentically connected to ourselves and the circumstances of our lives. Our “natural” predisposition is to get our way or die. We “naturally” think of what we need, not of what needs us. We “naturally” respond with anger and hatred to that which blocks our way and frustrates our desires. It is the easiest thing in the world to melt down at the candy counter.

Spiritual discipline and practice calms “the beast within,” and enables us to consider our circumstances from a perspective other than our egocentric, self-centered, interest in getting what we have no business having—in having what cannot possibly satisfy or sustain us. We cannot live authentically connected with who we are and what our situation requires without the discipline of spiritual practice. Or, without participation in a community of like-minded people, who have no particular agenda beyond seeing, and hearing, and understanding, and responding appropriately and authentically to what is seen, heard, and understood.

Of course, we are working to create that kind of community here. And, we hope that you will be a part of the work with us. It will help to not have to know what you are doing, or by when you have to have it done. There is no recipe and there is no time frame for living appropriately and authentically in the world. But, the time to begin is always now.

09/17/06, Sermon

Here’s how it works: We cooperate. We harmonize. We align. We adjust. We negotiate. We take the raw materials of our lives, such as they are, and make what we can make of them. We take the givens and do what we can with them. We wake up, see into the heart of things, and live toward what is truly important in every moment, no matter how little difference that seems to make, no matter what.

We don’t quit because it’s hopeless. Hope is not optimistic. Hope doesn’t care what it’s chances are. Hope does what it has to do “anyway, nevertheless, even so.” Hope believes in the value of what it’s doing no matter what. Hope does what is good, and goes on doing what is good, whether it does any good or not. Hope lives as life is supposed to be lived, even though life may never be lived that way on a broad scale. Hope burns brightly because hope burns brightly, and not because it hopes to get rid of the darkness. Hope doesn’t hope for anything. Hope just is. Like life itself.

Hope is life refusing to succumb to “the facts of life.” Hope is life living on, in spite of the odds, regardless of the consequences, whatever the circumstances. Hope is life doing what it does. Where there is hope, there is life; not just 98.6 and breathing life, but life in the fullest, deepest, most vibrant and vital sense of the term. Where there is life, like that, there is hope. The two cannot be separated. The two are one. We live to be alive, in the fullest, deepest, most vibrant, and vital, sense of the term. We live, faithfully, hopefully, lovingly, no matter what.

Here’s how it works: Love loves knowing exactly what it is doing, exactly what the deal is. Love loves with its eyes wide open, taking in everything, missing nothing, and loving “anyway, nevertheless, even so.” Love is beautiful that way. It’s the best thing about us. The next best things about us are faith and hope. Hope lives hopefully, lovingly, faithfully, no matter what. Hope does what it does whether it stands a chance or not, because that’s the way hope is. Same for faith. We do the faithful thing, even when we don’t stand a chance. We are true to ourselves, true to the best we can imagine, true to that which is deepest, truest and best about us, no matter what. All three of these babies are reflected in the life and death of Jesus, who went straight to the cross exhibiting the best of faith, hope, and love. Not hesitating. Not missing a beat. And, knowing exactly what the deal was. Not fooling himself a minute about the possibility of “roses, rainbows and white picket fences.”

The life we have is the life we have. The spiritual task is to live the life we have to live and not some other, bigger, finer, more fun life which we wish we had. “Here’s your life,” says the Life Giver, “See what you can do with it.” We can waste a lot of time trying to do more than can be done with it, trying to do what we wish we could do with it.

We have our aspirations and our desires. We have our dreams and our ambitions. We have our ideas of how our life ought to be. We want to be a writer, for instance, but we don’t spend any time actually writing. We’ve never written anything. We don’t even like to write. Or read, for that matter. But, we have the idea that being a writer would be quite the thing, and maybe, if we could just move to New York, where all the real writers live, we could be a writer like them. At least, we could hang out with them, and that would be almost as good as being one of them. And, we hate all the things about our lives that keep us from moving to New York, and having it made.

We miss the point. The point is the difference between a tool and a prop. The difference between striking a pose and living a life. The difference between a snappy façade and depth of soul. The point is who we show ourselves to be through the process of living our lives.
We want to be thought well of. Writers are thought well of. We want to be a writer. People in the National Honor Society are thought well of. We want to be in the National Honor Society. And we will cheat on exams to make the grades necessary to be invited to join. We hate these old lives, because these old lives cannot possibly bring us the respect and honor we so desperately seek. We live looking for props and do not understand the importance of tools.

Here’s how it works: What do we think enlightenment does for us? Do we think it will line up the stars and planets in our behalf and deliver unto us the everlasting favor of God? Or, to use the language of the church of our experience, what do we think doing God’s will does for us? Do we think it will position us for prosperity and success in this life and eternal rewards in the world to come? Rick Warren, of The Purpose Driven Life fame, thinks the purpose of our lives here and now is to prepare us for eternity by stocking up points and getting us to heaven when we die. Here’s what I think: It isn’t about getting anything. Not even heaven. Enlightenment doesn’t get us anything. Doing God’s will doesn’t get us anything. We aren’t in it for what we can get out of it. For what we have to show for it.

Here’s how it works: Laurie O’Neal loves digging in the ground, planting things, growing gardens. Clara Kelly loves weaving garments and shawls and things to wear. Melanie Bassett loves painting and drawing and teaching children and adults to paint and draw. Jim Ritchey loves writing songs and teaching others to write songs. I love to walk through scenes taking photographs. What do any of us have to show for it? Next to nothing, the culture would say. Why are you wasting your time, the culture would ask. Why don’t you move to New York, the culture would wonder, and become a writer.

You see the problem. We live in a land that strips us of ourselves, that robs us of our soul, that takes our heart away from us, and gives us an image to polish and maintain. We live in a land that makes it clear from the start that we are not good enough as we are—that tells us from the beginning who, and how, we ought to be, and what we ought to do, in order to have it made. We live in a land that hands us its idea of success and shames us for not measuring up, for coming up short, for not trying hard enough, for not making something of ourselves.

Here’s how it works: Each of us has to find for herself, for himself, the balance point between making a living and having a life. We cannot be seduced by the cultural proposition that success and happiness are only the next major purchase, only the next acquisition, only the next achievement, only the next accomplishment, away. We have to understand what enlightenment does for us—it gives us ourselves. It reconnects us with ourselves. It introduces us to ourselves. It invites, and enables, us to be who we are—to be true to ourselves—within the context and circumstances and conditions of our lives.

Claude AnShin Thomas said, when he was with us a week or so ago, “Nothing is more important that participation in a community of like-minded open-minded people without a need to indoctrinate, or inculcate, or convert the world to their way of thinking.” That kind of community grants us the freedom to find our own way. What is enlightenment but finding our own way—finding the way that is truly our way? What is enlightenment but waking up to who we are? What is enlightenment but living as who we are, where we are, when we are, how we are, why we are, what we are? What does enlightenment do for us beyond connecting us with our own hearts, and selves, and souls, and psyches? What does enlightenment do for us beyond enabling us to live lives aligned with who we are? What is there beyond living as fully integrated selves in the world?

Here’s how it works: In the Star Wars epic, Yoda is a high advanced spiritual being who lives in a hole in the ground. What do you need to be who you are? What is the difference between a prop and a tool? Or, to come at it another way, writing makes a writer, not living in New York, not even being published. What keeps you from writing? What do you need in order to write?
Here’s how it works: “What I do is me,” says Gerard Manly Hopkins, “for that I came.” What is the context, what are the circumstances and conditions of our lives that prevent us from being who we are? That are toxic to ourselves, poisonous to our souls, destructive to our spirits, lethal to our hearts, death to our lives?

To integrate our lives, we have to slow down and be mindfully aware of the moment, of the pulls and conflicts, the inclinations and resistances at work upon us and within us in the moment. We have to bear the pain of the moment, seeing, hearing, and understanding what is going on in the moment. And decide what we will do in light of our best guess regarding what is truly important.

What will we do? How shall we live? What do we hope to achieve with our actions? Who, and how, are we? What do we need to be who, and how, we are? What assists us? Inhibits us? What keeps us from living a life aligned with our best guess regarding what is truly important?
If we are trying to see, hear, and understand, we will live differently than if we are trying to get something, or keep something from happening. Seeing and hearing and understanding is different from having, possessing, acquiring, owning, keeping, maintaining and amassing. What are the tools of perception? What do we need, to know? How must we live in order to see, hear, and understand? We change the nature of the game when what we want from playing is to see, hear, and understand—and to live as those who do.

09/10/06, Sermon

What are we about? Where do we start? I think we are about the creation of a fully integrated life. I think we start here, now. What’s the first step? How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice. What do we practice? Awareness, awareness, awareness. We practice being aware of how things are, and how things also are—of what is true about us and what is also true about us. We practice being aware of our dichotomies and contradictions. Our fears, hopes, dreams, and ambitions, and how those things conflict with each other to keep us frustrated and stymied. We practice being aware of our star side and our shadow. And we do that in the company of the right kind of people. We practice being the right kind of people. And we change the world.

Where are we going to go—what are we going to do—to have a greater impact than the one we make on this moment, right now? Today is the day of salvation, and this is the moment of redemption and transformation. The time is at hand. How we live here, now, is the pivotal event that shifts the future toward the good, or away from it. The present moment is where we act to influence everything that follows. We cannot think that nothing we do matters. Everything we do matters. The world—and our world—is what it is because of everything that has been done up to this point. “This” is the culmination of “that.” Change any of “that” and something of “this” changes. There are no throw-away moments. There is no time to waste—no time that can be wasted. We must use every moment.

The time required to change the world is the time required to change the world. How do you shorten the time it takes to see, to hear, to understand? How do you hurry the river? Hit it with a stick? Yell at it? Threaten it? How do you speed things up? How do you get it done by nightfall, or by the end of the week? What’s the deal with a time limit? Time is our most important ally. We cannot throw time away. We must use all the time it takes.

We think we are saving time when we figure a way to reduce the amount of time it takes to accomplish a task. If we can multitask and do more in the same amount of time, we are proud of ourselves. How to get more done in less time is the great American mission. Another view is that we waste time when we hurry things along. We lose the luxury of the moment. And, we never have any time, or know what time it is.

Wasting time, in this sense, means misusing time, failing to appreciate time, not knowing the time of our visitation, the time of our living, the moment in which we “live and move and have our being.” We think knowing what time it is means knowing where we are on the clock. Is it 2 pm or 4 pm? Knowing what time it is has nothing to do with the clock or the calendar. It has everything to do with the moment in which we are alive and what the moment is calling for—what it is time for right now. We waste time when we don’t know what time it is, when we don’t know what this moment is ripe for, when we don’t enjoy the luxury of the moment.

What is time for? Getting things done, right? What do we get done? Whatever the Plan calls for, right? Who does the Plan serve? Us, right? Whatever we want, desire, need for ourselves and/or others, right? The Plan reflects our purposes, our goals, our dreams, our wishes, our hopes, our sense of the good. And whose good is served by the good we serve? Whose ends are realized by the Plan we effect? What is time for? US, right?

What are WE for? Pretend that we are here to serve a good beyond our good. Pretend that we are here for time’s good pleasure. Pretend that time is not something we use to get our things done, but something that uses us to get its things done. Pretend that time has something in mind. Or, that something beyond time has something in mind and that time and we are the tools, the raw material, for effecting its good in the world. From this standpoint, time becomes something to explore, investigate, apprehend, listen to, wait for, see, hear, and understand.

What is struggling to come to life in the time that is upon us? What is being asked of us in the moment at hand? What is it time for now? How do we apportion a day? Divide up a day? How does that best serve the interest of the day? In what ways does that make us available to the day? Do we serve the day, or does the day serve us? How often during a day do we use the time that is ours to see, hear, and understand what is before us, what is being asked of us? Where, during the day, do we assess the day—not in terms of the extent to which it is “going our way,” but the extent to which we are in touch with the day, bringing to life in the day, birthing in the day, the day’s own desires for itself? What is being blocked, resisted? What is opening up before us? What are we being invited to do, to be aware of? What is permitted, allowed? Where is the flow of the day, of our life, taking us? How can we assist that flow and cooperate with it? We waste time when we fail to ask these kinds of questions, when we do not take the time to see, and hear, and understand.

There is more to life than meets the eye. There is more to life than living would lead us to believe. The time is at hand in which to wake up and be alive—to be awake and alive to the moment of our living—to see, and hear, and understand, and live aligned with what is being asked of us by the times in which we live. Even if it’s messy.

It’s going to be messy. You know how the church of our experience was anything but messy? In the Presbyterian system things are done “decently and in order.” Things are done in a similar fashion in every other denomination. Nothing can happen without passing in review before committees, and boards, and the pillars of the church. Everybody has to approve of everything or nothing is done, and the only things that are ever done are the things that have always been done. Well, this is not going to be anything like that.

We don’t have time, for one thing. If we are going to transform ourselves in our life time, we have to get to work. We can’t wait for a committee to meet in two weeks, if everyone is in town, and talk about what to do for three months before recommending something to the Session who will talk about it for two more months before referring it back to the committee for further review. Starving ourselves would be a faster way to die. If we are going to practice being aware of what is true and what is also true—if we are going to practice being the right kind of company—we have to get cracking. Some of us are into the end game. We can’t wait around on everybody else.

So, here’s the deal. We take Sundays and use them to do the work of fully integrating our lives, of being aware, of being the right kind of company. At 10:30, we break for fifteen or twenty minutes, and settle out into different groups, with no group needing to be large, and each group meeting as long as it needed to meet in order to do what it has to do. Julie Lapham might teach Meditation 101 in the parlor; Jean Daily might teach Organic Cooking 101 in the kitchen; Cacky Barefoot might lead a Yoga class in the library; Jane Walter or Joyce Mckenzie might lead a Circle of Trust in a classroom on the second floor; Bill Hamilton might lead a group in Lectio Divina using the Tao Te Ching in another classroom; Jim Ritchey might teach songwriting in another classroom… You get the idea. Maybe that happens one Sunday a month, maybe two. And, we let the 11:00 o’clock service become one of the alternatives. An “open-minded liturgical service.” No one knows how this “should” work. We feel our way into it.

And, maybe once a month, we take the show on the road. To, say, east Greensboro. Marilyn Brooks says people in east Greensboro always have to come into west Greensboro to do any work on race relations. Well, we can change that trend. Rent space. Use the Y. Or a room at A & T, or Bennett College. Advertise our presence. See who comes. Why not?

Well, of course, there are a million reasons why not. We would be disrupting the power structure, for one thing. Infringing on the territory of established religious groups. Of course, the established religious groups are only reaching who they are reaching, and we would be appealing to a different crowd, but we would likely be perceived as intruding, and that might be a problem.
And, then, there is that business about all of you getting lost trying to find A & T, or the Y, or Bennett College, and not knowing where to park, or how to get into the building, and your anxiety level would skyrocket, and you would choose to stay in bed that day, because if there is anything we can’t stand it’s getting out of our routine, it’s change, it’s a mess. Oh, please won’t you give us the church of our experience? With all that wonderful order? And structure? And nothing ever happening?

So. Do you want to be the church? Or strike a pose? Things are the way they are for a reason, you know. Actually, you know I think nothing happens for a reason. But, then some things actually DO happen for a reason. It is no accident that some things are the way they are. And, the reason they are the way they are is that it is easier and cheaper for them to be that way! The church of our experience is the way it is because things are safer that way. We may complain about the wearisome structure and the “Blah, blah, blah,” but, you have to admit, it doesn’t ask anything of us. We can worship in the church of our experience and never once have to worry about integrating our lives, or encountering discrepancies and dichotomies, or being the right kind of company. Perhaps, we should reconsider our relationship with it, let bygones be bygones, and stand and sit until we die. If we follow out the path of opposition, there could be trouble. You know what happened to Jesus.

Maybe we could just have our picture taken standing next to the cross. That would be better than actually bearing it, than actually paying the price to be who we say we are, than actually doing the work of living fully integrated lives, and being aware, and being the right kind of company. Maybe it would be smart to wait until we know what we are doing before we challenge the systems that structure our lives and keep us safe and protect us from all of the things that might happen if we do something that has never been done. Maybe we could form a committee. Have them conduct a study, and make a recommendation for someone else to consider, after those of us who have entered the End Game have been laid to rest and won’t have to worry about it.

08/27/06, Sermon

If we were to redefine the church for our times, as Martin Luther and John Calvin and the other reformers redefined the church for their times, we would have to find a center, a core around which the church could coalesce. We would have to form a new identity, reform our understanding of what we are about. Of course, I have a suggestion.

I recommend that we be about what Jesus was always about: Waking up. Paying attention. Being fully present in the moment of our living. I recommend that our chief concern be, not getting to heaven when we die, but developing eyes that see, ears that hear, and hearts that understand in the here and now.

I recommend that we take up Jesus’ cause in the service of radical equality, around the table and across the board. Of non-violence. Of compassion and justice even for the least of those on the margins of society. I recommend that we take up Jesus’ practice of putting truth on the table and keeping it there, no matter what. And, his practice of integrity, as in living aligned with what is deepest, truest, and best about us, and being who we say we are. And, his practice of being true to oneself within the context and circumstances of one’s life and letting the outcome be the outcome. Doing unto others as we would have them do unto us. Loving God, and neighbor and self. Being as concerned for the interests of others as we are for our own. Doing the work we came to do, then stepping back and letting nature take its course. All this follows from waking up.

Think of waking up as being synonymous with growing up. People wake up all the time. People grow up all the time. No one ever wakes anyone up. No one ever grows anyone up. People wake up in the presence of people who are awake. People grow up in the company of people who are grown up. If the most grown up people we know are adolescent in their thinking and living, there isn’t much hope for us. If we want to be more awake than we are, we have to associate with different people. We have to run with a different crowd.

Part of the work of waking up, of growing up, is hanging out with the right people—hanging out with the people who are who we need to be. To do that, of course, we have to have an idea of who we need to be. To be awake, we have to be awake enough to know we are not awake, and know we need to wake up. We have to be awake enough to know we aren’t who we need to be. There has to be something missing, and we have to know that it is missing. We cannot think that things are just fine exactly as they are and wake up. We have to know that things are out of place, not right somehow, out of kilter, off center.

We have to be at the place of asking, seeking, and knocking. We have to be looking in order to see. Of course, some people see without looking, but the Buddha sat for a long time under the Bodhi tree, and Jesus spent 40 days in the desert, adjusting his eyes to the light. Seeing doesn’t come automatically. There are no rules to follow, no recipes to cook up, in order to see. Seeing is like being born from above.

Here’s how it works: Sometimes, we look and see; sometimes, we look and don’t see. Sometimes, we don’t look and see; sometimes, we don’t look and don’t see. See? Sometimes, it takes being shown; sometimes, we see without being shown; sometimes, we can’t see even though we are shown. See?

Or, here’s how it works: If you sit in a chair in a room where the grandchildren are playing, sometimes they will get in your lap. Or, here’s how it works: If you read enough books on photography, and take enough photographs, you will eventually take some photos that you really like and that others like as well. Or, here’s how it works: If you want to be a cowboy, you have to do more than buy a big hat.

Right seeing (and hearing), right thinking, right doing, right being—how do you arrange to have those babies in your life? Not all conversation is the right kind of conversation. How do you arrange that? How do you call people together to say what needs to be said the way it needs to be said? I think you will have to admit, upon reflection, that the important things have a magical air about them. Right seeing happens, for instance, but we do not make it happen. We are not in control of its happening. It comes to us as amazing grace.

There are people who are good company, who are the right kind of people, but they don’t strive to be that way. They don’t work at it. They don’t carry a checklist for right relationship and refer to it during the day. They have a sense for what is right. But they don’t dance by stepping in the black foot prints to make sure they are doing what’s right correctly. They just seem to have a knack for it, for doing what’s right, for being the right kind of people. The people who are most awake just seem to have a knack for it, for being awake. How do we become like they are? That’s the question, isn’t it? Jesus had a knack for being Jesus. How do we become who Jesus was?

The one thing Jesus didn’t do was follow the rules. Jesus did not think about being someone else. Jesus lived a life of transparent engagement with the moment of his living, a life of transparent investment in the moment of his living. Jesus was alive to whatever was before him in the moment. Being awake and being alive are the same thing. We cannot be alive and see the same old things in the same old ways. We cannot be awake and be dead to the moment of our living. Whatever wakes us up enlivens us, whatever enlivens us wakes us up.

What do we need to be truly alive? What is the difference between a prop and a tool? What is the difference between striking a pose, or fostering an image, and living a life? One life does not fit all. As we wake up, we decide of what our life shall consist, and that becomes our life. There are no requirements, no standards, no rules depicting how one must dress and act and believe. There is no Rule of St. Benedict to follow. There is only a loose confederation of people intent on listening one another into ever deepening realizations of what it means to truly live. There is nothing like the power of listening to wake us up. As we wake up, what it means to truly live will be different with each of us, yet, there will be striking similarities among all of us. For one thing we will speak from the heart about things that matter, and be heard.

Being awake is a function of listening, and being listened to. When we speak, what do we not say? What is the nature of the conversations we never have? We can lull ourselves to sleep by saying the same things to the same people. We will never see anything new if we only say what we have always said. To see things we have never seen before, we have to say things we have never said before. To do that, we may have to talk to people we have never talked to. To see different things, we have to see things differently. To see things differently, we have to say things differently.

“Jesus died to save us from our sins so we can go to heaven when we die,” she said, repeating the line that had been instilled in her by her teacher at her church-sponsored kindergarten. “Why do you want to go to heaven when you die?”, I asked. “To be with God,” was her quick reply. “Isn’t God everywhere?”, I asked. “Can’t you be with God right now.” That was a wrinkle she wasn’t prepared for. Now she had to think. She paused, then replied, “Yes, but in heaven God won’t be invisible.” “Well,” I said. “I prefer for God to be invisible.” “Why?”, she said. “Because I don’t want to see God’s hairy back,” “God doesn’t have a hairy back,” she said. “How do you know?”, I said. She frowned, looking for what to say. “Besides,” I said, “I don’t want to take the chance. So, I’m not going to heaven when I die.” “You have to,” she said, back in the swing of things. “Everybody goes to heaven.” “Not me,” I said. “I’m going to the mountains. Maybe the Canadian Rockies. I’ll visit the Smokies and the Blue Ridge on vacation. And walk through the Sierra Nevada’s for an occasional change of scenery.” “You can’t,” she said. “You HAVE to go to heaven.” “Not me,” I said. “I’m not getting on the bus.” “There is no bus,” she said. “Then how do you get there?”, I said. “You just are there,” she said. “Not me,” I said. “I’m going to the Canadian Rockies.” “Mama!”, she said, calling in the reinforcements. “Pops says he’s not going to heaven when he dies! He says he’s going to the Canadian Rockies!” That pretty much ended the conversation, and I don’t know if it shifted anything substantial in the budding world-view of the five-year-old grandchild, but I do know no one wakes up in an atmosphere in which everyone says the same things about the same things.

We cannot just repeat the old formulas and wake up, and be alive. Having eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts that understand means seeing what we are not supposed to look at, hearing what we are not supposed to be told, understanding what we aren’t supposed to know anything about. Now, this is in direct opposition to the story of the Garden of Eden. Don’t see, don’t hear, don’t understand is the moral of that story. Don’t eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil! Don’t have your eyes opened! Don’t know right from wrong, yes from no, good from evil! That’s what the Garden of Eden is about. Yet, Jesus comes along saying, “Wake up! Pay attention! Be aware! Have eyes that see, ears that hear, and hearts that understand!” And, no one ever talks to us about that fundamental conflict. Jesus saves us by telling us to do the very thing that got us in such trouble to begin with.

You see how it works, seeing? We say things that have never been said, that are not supposed to be said. “I’m not getting on the bus!” “I’m not going to heaven!” “I’m going to the Canadian Rockies!” “The moral of the story of the Garden of Eden is ‘Don’t ask, don’t see!’, but Jesus says ‘Ask, and seek and knock!’, and tells us to ‘Wake up!’ and to ‘Have eyes that see, and ears that hear, and hearts that understand’! How can what’s wrong for Adam be right for Jesus?” We have to look if we are going to see. And say things we aren’t supposed to say. And listen like we have never listened before. And wait for the miracle, the magic, the grace of enlightenment, awakening, awareness, and understanding.

08/20/06, The Six Theses

There are six statements which, if affirmed, will transform Christianity as we know it. They are:

1. Our idea of God is not God. Now, this is as self-evidently obvious as any statement you will ever hear. I don’t know of anyone who would dispute it. It flows from the Bible. “My thoughts are not your thoughts,” says the Lord in Isaiah 55:8 & 9, “Nor are your ways my ways. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so far are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” And, let’s don’t leave Paul out of the conversation. Here’s his take: “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord?” (Romans 11:33-34A). And yet, and yet…

The church is always speaking as though it is the spokesperson for God, as though its ideas of God are God. The church condemns homosexuality in the name of God. The church proclaims the value of creationism in the name of God. The church declares this, and denounces that, and tells all comers that if they don’t do it the way the church tells them to do it they are going to hell, all in the name of God. It is as though the church IS God. Certainly, it is as though the church’s idea of God is God. But no. Our idea of God is not God.

It get stranger. The church can agree that God is beyond all concepts of God, that our idea of God is not God. But, the church will not allow any new ideas about God. There hasn’t been a fresh idea about God allowed into the church since the Protestant Reformation. There have been a number of fresh ideas—Process Theology, Liberation Theology, Feminist Theology, to mention three—but, they haven’t found what you might call “denominational sanction.” If you are going to think, and talk, about God in the church, you are going to have to stick with the concepts of the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Apostles’ Creed. Nothing more recent that is permitted. Our idea of God may not be God, but it’s the only idea you’ll hear anything about in the church. Actually living out of the realization that our idea of God is not God would change a number of things, over night.

2. The church was before the Bible. Of course, the church was before the Bible. Abraham was before the Bible. Moses was before the Bible. The prophets were before the Bible. Jesus was before the Bible. The Apostles were before the Bible. The early Christian Church was before the Bible. The Bible is a product of the church. The books that are not in the Bible are not in the Bible because the church decided that they should not be in the Bible. The books that are in the Bible are in the Bible because the church decided that they should be in the Bible. The Bible is what it is because the church decided that’s what it should be. The church created the Bible. The Bible did not create the church.

The Bible reflects the theology of the church at the time the canon was closed. The Bible says what the church of that day thought the Bible should say. The church calls the Bible “the Word of God,” but the Bible is the word the church thinks God should say. The church filtered the Bible, and only the agreeable words passed muster. When you read the Bible, you read what the church wants you to read. What the church doesn’t want you to read is called heretical. Which is interesting, in light of statement number three below.

Understanding that the church was before the Bible changes the foundation of authority. Now, when the church says, “The Bible says,” we can understand that to mean, “The church says that the Bible says.” Of course, the church will say that God was using the church to select what was to be in the Bible, just as Paul can say that God gives us the government so we shouldn’t complain about the way we are ruled. Neither argument bears scrutiny. Crooked politicians aren’t given to us by God, and the church served its own interests in composing the Bible. So, now, when we hear, “The Bible says,” we can ask in all seriousness, “But what SHOULD the Bible say? What would the Bible say if it were being written today?” Because the church put the Bible together, the church is uniquely positioned to reevaluate the Bible and choose, much like the fishermen in the parable of the net of fishes, what is to be kept and carried forward, and what is to be tossed aside and left behind. Of course, to talk like this is to sound like the worst sort of heretic, which gets us rather nicely to the aforementioned statement number three.

3. Every step forward is a step into heresy. Every doctrine that we embrace with such fervor, and recommend with such rhetoric, and believe with such conviction and certitude was, at one point in the history of religion, rank heresy. Jesus was called a blasphemer and a heretic by the religious authorities of his day. The Apostles and followers of Jesus were persecuted by the Jews in Jerusalem for continuing, and deepening, the heresy of Jesus. Rome considered early Christianity to be heretical and dangerous. The Roman Catholic Church saw the Protestant Reformation as blasphemous and heretical. Heresy is our heritage, and our hope.

We cannot think a new thought about God without thinking an heretical thought about God. We cannot deepen our understanding of God, expand our vision of God, grow in our knowledge of God without changing how we see God—without seeing God differently. Seeing God differently is heresy. Spiritual formation and faith development are possible only for those who can be heretical. Who can stand apart from the way God has been seen and see something more. Perhaps something that calls into question everything that has been seen. As in a God who would have us love our enemies and the least of those who live at the margins of society.

4. The Garden of Eden did not have latitude and longitude. The Garden of Eden was not an historic, literal, actual fact. There was no time of “perfect obedience,” of “perfect innocence,” of “moral perfection.” There was no “before and after.” There was no primordial Paradise from which we were expelled for disobeying God, and hence no Original Sin which requires the atoning death of God’s only Son to patch things up with God and get us back in God’s good graces if we confess, repent, and believe. There was no “fall.” There was nothing to “fall from.” It’s been a mess from the start.

Even as a metaphor, the story of the Garden of Eden overstates its case. The implication in the story is that Adam and Eve are representative of men and women everywhere, and that everyone would do as Adam and Eve did, and sin by disobeying God and eating the forbidden fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. I have two objections to this presentation. In the first place, I don’t think everyone would make that choice. Elijah wouldn’t have done it. Jesus wouldn’t have done it. The Buddha wouldn’t have done it. Gandhi wouldn’t have done it. The Dali Lama wouldn’t have done it. My mother wouldn’t have done it, and my Aunt Lois most certainly would not have done it. I think a large number of us would not have done it.

In the second place, the metaphor declares that it is evil to know the difference between good and evil. That it is evil to be in position to make up our own minds; to decide for ourselves, what is good and what is evil, what is right and what is wrong. That it is better just to take God’s word for it. Better, how? Whose idea of The Good is mindless innocence, unthinkingly following instructions and taking somebody else’s word for what should be done and left undone? Eternal childhood, with no cares, no responsibilities beyond being obedient, no questions, no conflicts. Always being cared for and taken care of, without having to choose our own course, make up our own minds, decide for ourselves, and suffer the consequences. Who says that is Good? It sounds to me as though the story was crafted by someone who wanted to be taken care of , or by someone who wanted to be obeyed, as if to say, “If you people would only listen to me and do what I tell you, things would be fine!”

Once we remove Original Sin from the picture, we remove the necessity of the atoning death of God’s only Son, and have to rethink who Jesus was and what the meaning is for us of his death and resurrection appearances. Everything changes when our idea of Original Sin changes.

5. We are the ones who say so. We decide. We choose. We say. We believe what we believe because we believe what we believe is worth believing. How do we know? We “take it on faith.” Why do we take what we take on faith and not something else instead? We just do. We decide. We choose. We say.

We say “The Bible is the Word of God and the absolute authority in faith and practice.” Who says so? We do. We say so. We are the authorities who declare the Bible to be authoritative. How do we know? We take it on faith. Why do we take that on faith and not something else instead? We just do. We decide. We choose. We say. We believe what we believe because we believe what we believe is worth believing. That being the case, you would think that we would believe things that would help, not hinder, us along the way. You would think that we would believe things that would create community, deepen connections, foster compassion and justice, understanding and peace, and make for a better world. We certainly have that option. We would be wise to choose it.

6. Ants find the picnic, flowers turn to the light. Yet, we think that without some external standard of moral rectitude we would be lost in a morass of decadence and depravity and abomination—that without being made to be good we would be evil. Never minding the fact that Christianity launched the Crusades, justified slavery, burned the heretics at the stake, and drowned witches, we believe without hell it all goes to hell. We believe we cannot do what is good without being threatened into doing it.

Yet, we are perfectly capable of doing what ought to be done because it ought to be done. We only have to see the need to meet the need. Perceiving the evil we produce the good. Perceiving the good, we serve the good. The awareness of how things truly are is the foundation of transformation. Seeing into the heart of things, we act out of our heart for the good of all. Eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts that understand are not the result of indoctrination, and do not follow from keeping the rules. Seeing, hearing, and understanding lead to lives that are well-lived in the fullest sense of the term. The task is not to blithely obey, but to see, and hear, and understand, and live lives aligned with the deepest, truest, and best that we can perceive and imagine.

That’s it. You cannot embrace these six principles without transforming the church of your experience into the church as it ought to be. The ninety-five theses need be only six.

08/20/06, Sermon

We can make things better by the quality of our living in relation to them. We can change the way the world relates to us by changing the way we relate to the world. We can change the way other people relate to us by changing the way we relate to them. We are the fulcrum, the pivot point, the place of leverage, which transforms civilization. But, we can’t do it alone. In the absence of the right kind of company, we can only do what can be done to escape the toxic environment of poisonous personalities, and search out “the promised land,” where the right kind of people offer the right kind of help in the right kind of way, Sometimes, all we can do is hold on and wait it out.

The man in the ditch was holding on and waiting it out when the Good Samaritan came along. “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.” “When the flower opens, the bees appear.” But, waiting can seem like forever. And, we can “miss the time of (our) visitation.” We can miss the Messiah by looking for the wrong thing.

“You never know what the tide will bring in,” goes the line from the movie Cast Away. And, you never know what you can use in the work of transformation. So, we have to hold on, and wait it out, and be awake. We have to be alert to the possibilities. We have to be aware that the Messiah comes in many disguises, and is not easily recognized. How many Jews would have guessed that the Messiah would be a Samaritan? Yet, who pulled the Jew out of the ditch and cared for him? The future hinges on such simple things. On such easily overlooked things. On such apparently disposable, throw-away, things. We can miss the thresholds to the future thinking that this is only breakfast.

Every moment holds the key to all the moments that will follow. How we live in this moment, what we do in this moment, colors all other moments. How can we see the moment? Be aware of the moment? Do right by the moment? The moment is the place of transition, of transformation, and WE are the Messiah! WE are the Samaritan! We wait for what is coming to life in us, and through us. The hope of the world resides in us, rides on us, and how we respond to the moment of our living.

There are no tactics to bring into play here. There is no strategy. Here is our life. Live it. That’s the plan. Do what we can with it. That’s the ticket. We’re always quitting because we think nothing can be done with this old life. We think we have to have some other, bigger, better, finer life, with fewer headaches and a lot more possibilities. We think we need prospects. We’re always trying to ditch this life and hook up with another. We’re always hoping for a life in which we can “really live,” and blusing because this life isn’t it. We’re always praying to God to give us a life, and waiting for the Messiah to come.

The Messiah is going to change things, you know. The Messiah is going to change everything. It’s all going to be different when the Messiah comes. The Messiah is going to give us a life we can do something with. The Messiah is going to give us a chance.

We don’t have a chance now. Anybody can see that. Ain’t nothing can be done with these old lives. Why a turtle wouldn’t wear these lives. A cockroach couldn’t survive in these lives. These lives ain’t fit for nothing but waiting out the Messiah.

When the Messiah comes it will all be different. We’ll have a reason to get up in the morning when the Messiah comes. Things will go our way when the Messiah comes. Then we can plant and expect to harvest, harvest and expect to sell. Then we envision an outcome and work to achieve it, and nothing will happen to untrack us or derail us. The children will say, “Yes, Mamma,” and “Yes, Poppa,” to everything we suggest. The bear will eat straw like the ox. The lion will lie down with the lamb. And, it will be just like we always dreamed it would be. When the Messiah comes.

Until then, there is only this old life in this old world. And, anyone can plainly see that nothing can be done on this hard scrabble land until the Messiah comes. The Messiah will make it all worthwhile. Until then, there is nothing much to do but sit. And wait. For the Messiah. Who is coming.

“Delta Dawn, what’s that flower you have on? Could it be a faded rose from days gone by? And did I hear you say, he was meeting you here today, to take you to his mansion in the sky?”

The church is Delta Dawn, waiting on the wrong Messiah. The thing from which we need to be delivered is not this old life, or this old world, but the attitude that thinks deliverance is an outside job effected by the Messiah who is coming on the clouds with legions of angels to set things right, and roll out the red carpet, and invite us to stroll with him into the City of God and its streets of gold. The Messiah comes to us from within us.

Here’s the deal: We are alchemists of the soul, rummaging around on the garbage dumps of life, turning base metal and scraps of old clothing and pieces of string and plastic into precious stone—turning this old life in this old world into a wonder that Very God of Very God could not improve. We are the Messiah. And the Philosopher’s Stone which turns mere mortals into the very essence of God is the magical source of life, and light, and peace (and all the other wonderful qualities and values that make us god-like), our perspective. We are never more than a perspective shift away from being the Messiah, the Anointed One, God Incarnate. God comes to life in us, through us, in the moment we are living, or not.

And, if we think we can throw this time, any time, away because it isn’t to our liking, because it doesn’t suit us, because there is nothing for us here, because it is only blocking us from what we want, and where we want to be, and how we want to spend your time, we have to wake up! We have to ask ourselves what is the time, the moment, of our living, asking of us? With what are we being asked to comply? Is that a Jew in the ditch over there? Do you think the Samaritan didn’t have better things to do? We must not miss the moment thinking there is nothing in this moment for us. What are we for in the moment? How might we live in this moment in ways which transform all future moments? We influence every moment by the way we live in each moment. There is always more to each moment than meets the eye. No moment is ever “only breakfast.”

We can swing the moment, each moment, toward, or away from, the good. Actually, that is a bit over-stated. Some moments come to us with such momentum that we are steamrolled and overwhelmed, and left wondering what happened before we know what hit us. We can only work in the aftermath of some moments to influence future moments for the good. But, we can apply the influence that changes the future in what appears to be the throw-away moments of our lives. The idea is to live in every moment as though it is our big chance to change the world—as though what we do here and now matters infinitely and eternally. If we are going to believe anything, we should believe in our capacity to bring the Messiah to life in the moment by the way we live in the moment.

Here are the questions: Whose permission do we need to do what needs to be done? Whose cooperation do we need to do what needs to be done? What needs to be done? What is stopping us from doing it? And: What can we do, here, now, with this situation, to enjoy what can be enjoyed, love what can be loved, redeem what can be redeemed, and serve the good? How can we live with this in ways that bring forth the best? What can we do, here, now, to make things as good as they can be?

Here’s the deal: Where do we go with what is carrying us along? Our lives have a certain direction and flow, a certain channel, which restricts our options and limits our choices. We cannot do anything we want to do. We are bound by forces that have no interest in our desires or well-being. What can we do with our lives within the restrictions and limitations of life—within the conditions and circumstances of life? We imagine a life worth living, and then live toward it within the givens and constraints of living Sometimes we meet with cooperation, sometimes with opposition; sometimes assistance, sometimes resistance. Who knows if it will work out, or how? We press on toward the best we can imagine, and see what happens. We live as intelligently as we can manage in the service of our dreams, and let the outcome be the outcome. But, we cannot allow the possibility of failure keep us from trying. We owe it to ourselves to see what our dreams can do with our limits.

08/13/06, Sermon

Take it as it comes and do what you can with it. That’s my best advice. Life will bust you a good one every now and then. Lie there as long as you have to, then pick yourself up and get yourself going. And, if you wonder why. If you wonder why try. If you wonder why should you even think about giving it your best when it treats you the way it treats you. If you wonder what are you getting out of all this. If you wonder what’s in it for you that you should get yourself up and get yourself going. If you wonder for what do you keep on. If you wonder what is the point of it all. I am here to suggest to you that it all comes down to life, and living, and being alive. We live to be alive. And, if life busts us a good one, then we live in the aftermath of that, as well as we can, to bring life to life and be alive, because being alive is what we are here for, and living as well as we can for as long as we can is what it’s all about.

We cannot do anything about most of the stuff that gets us down. What does that tell you? We can sit looking into the ugly face of the stuff that gets us down, or we can get up and get on with our lives doing the things we can do about the things we can do something about. What’s it going to be? Life is lived on different levels. There isn’t much I can do to impact life on the global level. I can’t do anything about Al Qaida or Iraq. I can’t even impact development in my own city or region. The things I cannot do would comprise a long list. But, I can impact the people whose lives intersect mine. I can bring good to life through the way I live my life. I can be a source of life and light in my world. So can you in yours.

There is a lot we cannot do, but there is no reason to let that prevent us from doing what we can with what we have to work with. We can be a caring, compassionate presence. We don’t have to succumb to despair, and we don’t have to live in denial. We can be very clear about how things are on all levels of life, and live lovingly on our level anyway, nevertheless, even so.

The investment is always in life, in the future. We do not sit staring into the Void. We give life a chance. We live as those who believe in life. At the darkest moment, we shine. We live as lights in the darkness, voices crying, “In the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord of Life!” Our lives are testimonies to Life!

And, if you think it hurts to much to be alive in this world where anvils fall out of the sky and life busts us a good one right on the chops, for no reason, with no warning, just because we happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and there is nothing right or fair about it, and you are going to quit in protest, because why keep going when you can lose everything in a blink, I am here to suggest to you that it is about living even amid the ruins. It is about being alive even through the loss of everything.

It is not easy to be alive through the loss of everything. It is much easier to be alive when the humidity is low and the temperature is in the seventies and there are puffy clouds scattered across the sky, and there is money in the bank, and food on the table, and people who love you are all around. Given a choice, we would all choose ideal living conditions. Given a choice, we would not have heart attacks, or cancer, or car wrecks. Nobody asks us. Life just makes its deliveries, and we have to deal with it. How shall we live with the complete loss of everything? Or, with the complete lost of the most important things? What does it mean to be alive then, there? It doesn’t mean what it once meant. Now, we have to be alive knowing. Now, we have to be alive with scars, and a limp, and a wound that won’t heal. Now, it’s a different deal.

But, it is the same challenge: To live even here, even now. To bring life to life, here, now. To be alive within the conditions and circumstances of our lives. “How do we live with this?” is always the question. “How do we live here, now?” is always the question. But, sometimes we have to wait until we are ready to ask the question. After life smacks us a good one, we have to lie there for a while. When life steamrolls us, we don’t pop right back up like a Bozo the Clown boxing dummy. We must suffer what must be suffered. We must mourn what must be mourned. We must grieve what must be grieved. In order to live, we must die. No death, no resurrection. If we want to craft the art of life—if we want to “have life and have it abundantly”—if we want to be alive, fully, completely, unreservedly, in all of the moments of our living, we are going to have to learn to die.

The church has taken dying away from us, and kept us from being alive. “There is a reason for everything,” says the church, implying, that we should dry our eyes and get back to normal. “Let go and let God,” says the church, implying that we should be ashamed to want what we cannot have. “Things always work out for the best,” says the church, implying that we should never think of anything as a loss, defeat, or failure. “God is in control,” says the church, implying that our devastation is invalid because God has a plan and this is just a bump on the way to something grand. “There is always someone who has it worse than we do,” says the church, implying that we should be thankful it isn’t worse. “We must not question God’s will,” says the church, implying that God is behind it all and we have no right to complain. In a thousand ways, the church says, “Stuff it!” to those who suffer. And “good Christians” are those who walk unfeeling through life, denying their pain, and saying they are fine, but their stiff, scripted, robotic ways suggest that they are going through the motions of living and don’t have what it takes to be alive.

“Those who seek to save their lives will lose them,” says Jesus, “but those who lose their lives for my sake and the gospel’s will save them.” “You cannot be my disciple,” says Jesus, “unless you pick up your cross daily and follow me.” I’m here to suggest to you that losing our lives for Jesus’ sake and picking up our cross daily means simply having the courage to step into life as it is and be alive there no matter what. The spiritual task is to be alive, but being alive is a lot like dying, because it requires us to live with our eyes open, in the space between denial and despair.
When life plants a big, juicy, wet one right on the kisser, we look right into the ugly red eye of the awful thing that demolished our lives, and live on. That’s what the resurrection is about, you know. Life can go on, somehow, some way. Jesus was raised from the dead. You have been, too. Don’t tell me you haven’t been. You don’t get to be as old as you are without dying and being raised from the dead. Some of you have died and been resurrected a number of times. I know you don’t want to think about it. But, you can’t deny it. Sometimes, somehow, some way, life goes on. That life goes on is as much a miracle as the fact that life is at all.

Resurrection is real even if it is “only” metaphorical. We think it doesn’t count if it is metaphorical. We think it doesn’t count that we have been raised from the dead, some of us more than once, because we didn’t “really” die. Of course, we did really die and we were really raised from the dead, but we discount it because we continued to breathe. We think psychological, emotional, spiritual death doesn’t count as much as physical death. We think waking up is easier than having a corpse come back to life. We have never actually awakened anyone, any more than we have called a corpse back to life, but we all would agree that we should have an easier time with the former than with the latter. I’m here to suggest to you that it is a wash. It is exactly the same degree of difficulty, waking up the living or bringing the physically deceased back to life. Resurrection on either plane is an absolute astounding miracle, and we should be more attuned to it, and in awe of it, than we are.

Sometimes, somehow, some way, life goes on. Our place is to assist and participate in that process, that miracle. We are here, not only to wake up and be alive, but also to serve life, to help others wake up and come to life. And this in spite of the fact that being alive is a lot like dying. It is like dying in that it requires us to see what we don’t want to see, hear what we don’t want to hear, and understand what we do not what to know. We cannot wake up, we cannot be alive, without putting the truth on the table, and keeping it there. And, that’s like dying.

When we put truth on the table and keep it there, we know what the deal is, and live anyway, nevertheless, even so. We say exactly everything that can be said, and allow nothing that is said to keep us from being alive in the moment of our living. We look into the ugly red eye of the awful thing and live on. In so doing, we live as witnesses to the power of life, to the possibility of life, to the reality of life—abundant life, pressed down, over-flowing, yes, unending, infinite and eternal, coming to life in us and through us into all the world. We are here to serve life, to bring life to life in ourselves and others. That means living on in the face of all that would destroy us. Not just breathing on, LIVING on—with zest, and passion, and enthusiasm—with our heart in what we are doing, exhibiting grace, and mercy, and peace, being good company, and loving one another in every moment.

Of course, we don’t do that automatically, naturally. We do have to lie there for a while. But, eventually, we are able to pick ourselves up and step back into life as those who are sources of life in the land of the living. It helps, while we are lying there, to have someone serve us as the source of life. This is the proper role of the church as the community of life. We resurrect the dead. We keep the spark of life alive. Primarily by being alive ourselves. Primarily by putting truth on the table and keeping it there. By saying everything that can be said. By seeing what is and what also is. And, by believing in the power of life over death.

Death does not cancel out life. Life trumps death. Life can go on, and on, and on. Life does not have to quit just because it’s hard. Dying is easy, living is hard. Yet, there is a resilient core to life that takes it all in stride. We only have to find the core. When living takes the life right out of us, can we believe that life exists beyond our ideas for life? On terms other than our own? Can we open ourselves to the life beyond what once was our life—beyond our idea of life? Can we touch the core of life, the heart of life, and be raised from the dead? And LIVE on?

08/06/06, Sermon

The first I have to say is about the importance of being alive. Joseph Campbell says the influence of a vital person vitalizes. If you are going to be anything, be alive. The life of a person who is alive brings to life those who are dead. Our primary obligation is to life. Our first responsibility is to be alive. We cannot do anything until we are alive.

Spirituality is about being alive in the fullest, deepest, truest, best sense of the word. Abundant life and spirituality are one thing. If you ask me “What does ‘spirituality’ mean to you?”, I’ll ask you, “What does ‘being alive’ mean to you?” Being alive is a spiritual experience. So is being dead, if it is experienced as being dead. Anything is a spiritual experience if it experienced to the core, to the heart. Being dead with no awareness is not a spiritual experience. It is being dead. We can be dead, or we can be spiritual. And, the more alive we are—the more conscious, aware, mindful we are of being alive—the more spiritual we are.

What are the things that bring us to life? Those are the things that make us spiritual. They are spiritual experiences. Spiritual practice is the practice of being alive. If you are looking for a spiritual practice, practice being alive. Spend time with the things that bring you to life. Incorporate them into your life on a regular basis. Do the things that infuse you with life. Go where the life is. Live to be alive.

Where are you most alive? Where have you been most alive? What are the things that assist you in being most alive? That prevent you from being most alive? Here is a spiritual test for you: Are you mostly alive or mostly dead? Where do you go to be most fully alive? Where would you go to be most completely dead? Where do you spend most of your time—in life-giving or life-depleting places? Who are the people who give life to you? Who are the people who take life from you? With which category of people do you spend the most time? How spiritual do you think you can be without moving away from death and moving toward life? Without doing the things that bring us to life?

Ah, but, here’s the thing. We can trick ourselves. Fooling ourselves is what we do best, you know. And, shooting ourselves in the foot. That’s also what we do best. We do some things which we think we are most fully alive doing, when, actually, they are just compensation for not being very much alive at all. We grab the gusto, and seek the thrills, and push the limits, in order to feel something because we are mostly dead. We confuse the rush of almost dying, literally, with being alive because we are practically dead, spiritually.

In doing the things that bring us to life, we must also do the things that bring others to life. There are two things in particular that enable life—full life, over-flowing life, abundant life—to be lived in ourselves and in others: Seeing and Hearing. Jesus, the man who was “the bread of life,” the man who came “that we might have life and have it abundantly,” lamented, one might think, throughout his career, “they have eyes, but do not see, ears, but do not hear, and hearts that do not understand.” The barrier standing between us (and others) and life is not-seeing, not-hearing, and not-understanding. Remove that, and life flows joyfully unimpeded through us all.

Of course, there is a nasty little catch to all of this. Removing the barriers that keep us from seeing and from being fully alive is like dying. Seeing means seeing things we don’t want to see. When you are mostly dead, anything can seem like life. We might think we are most alive eating chocolate, or drinking beer, when, in fact, we do those things just to take the edge off being dead. We cannot kid ourselves. To be spiritual, we have to be alive, and to be alive we have to be awake. This is the second thing I’m going to say. We have to wake up.

How are we going to wake up, see into the heart of things, realize what is truly important, and live so as to serve it, express it, on the earth? Answering that question is the full scope of the spiritual journey, quest, path, life. That is all there is to it. Spiritual development has to revolve around the process of waking up, not indoctrination. We wake up more and more. We are always more or less awake. No one is ever awake, completely, fully, absolutely. There is always more to see than has been seen, more to know than is known, more to realize than has been realized. You would think Buddhism would be fully aware by now, but it took the Women’s Liberation Movement to wake Buddhist monks up to the fact that, in their temples, the female monks cleaned up after the male monks, did the cooking and the “women’s’ work.” The more we think we see, the less we see that we don’t see.

Spiritual development is about seeing more. How do we see? How do we see more? How do we wake up? Jokes, plays on words, and stories of other people getting, and not getting, it—as in the parables of Jesus—are ways to “do” spiritual development. Wrestling with contradiction and paradox—as in the Zen conundrums, or koans—is a way to “do” spiritual development. Enhancing our creativity deepens their awareness. Conversation that raises more questions than it answers nurtures a spirit of inquiry and play. How do we wake up? How do we develop eyes that see, ears that hear, and hearts that understand?

There is no body of information the communication, the impartation, the learning of which constitutes spiritual development. There is no content. There is only process. It is not what we see or hear but how we see and hear that is at the heart of spiritual development. We cannot just tell people the truth and let that be that. We have to teach people to live truthfully, with their eyes open, catching their own inconsistencies and incompatibilities, and bringing themselves into an ever-increasing awareness of, and alignment with, what is truly important.

What are you going to tell people to wake them up? Are you going to shout, “Wake Up!”? If you shout really loud, do you think that will do it? Are you going to say, “You are so stupid!”? If you say that enough, do you think that will do it? Here’s the deal: We cannot wake others up without being awake ourselves.

How are we going to wake up? Where are we asleep at the wheel? How are we going to live as those who are awake? As those who are waking up? Being awake is a matter of living truthfully. And, that means putting the truth on the table. If we are going to take up the cause of truth, we have to take it up truthfully, and that means seeing what we don’t want to see, and hearing what we don’t want to hear, and, yes, living like we don’t want to live. Will we listen through the pain of hearing what we don’t want to be told? Will we see through the pain of seeing what we don’t want to be shown? Will we understand that hearing and seeing will require us to understand things we don’t want to know? And change the way we live? So that everyone might have life and have it abundantly?

Julie Lapham says we pay a price for putting truth on the table, and we pay a price for keeping truth off the table. There you are. What’s it going to be? What price are we willing to pay to have life and have it abundantly? How truthfully are we willing to live? That is the question which is at the heart of the spiritual journey. We cannot be more spiritual than we are truthful. And, that means putting truth on the table, keeping truth on the table, saying what is and what also is, and simply allowing things to flow from there.

Things happen when nothing is forced to happen, or kept from happening. Things happen when we see what needs to happen if the atmosphere allows them to unfold according to their own time. Create the right environment, and the right things will happen. Create the right attitude and spirit, and the Messiah will come. And, the Messiah will be one of us.

We keep the Messiah from coming when we try to compel the Messiah into being. When we try to force the issue. When we try to instigate “the end of days,” for instance, we keep the same song playing forever. When we have an agenda, a plan, an idea of how things should be, we interfere with the idea that things have for themselves, and create artificial worlds with plastic people living scripted lives on heavy medication and illegal drugs to hide from the fact that they live in a wasteland with an emptiness inside and an ache for something more that won’t leave them alone. What do we do? Nothing. Wait. Be still. Find the center. Look. Listen. Wait.

When nothing is forced or prevented, things begin to stir. Without an agenda, we are open to the possibilities. Free from having to act, we can wait for the time to act. Not knowing what to do, we can see what to do. Not having a way, we can be led along the way. Having no desires, our needs are met.

This, of course, is not the American Way. The culture requires an action plan. We have to micro-manage our lives. Take all contingencies into account. Be prepared for everything. Think Tank our way to happiness ever after. The war in Iraq came out of a Think Tank. So did the Edsel. In this culture, it is hard to get far enough away from the thinkers in order to see and hear. It is hard to know what to do as long as we think we know what we are doing. The way is not the American Way.

To find the way, we have to be un-American. We have to do the one thing no red-blooded American would consider doing: Nothing. We have to wait and watch, sit and listen. The first thing is to see. Everything flows from seeing. The way becomes obvious to those who dare to see. We cannot see what cannot be said. This is the third thing I have to say. When we cannot talk about the emperor being naked, we cannot see that the emperor is naked. What can’t we talk about? What cannot be said? What is it that we cannot comment on? If we hope to see, we have to say everything. We have to create an atmosphere in which everything can be said. We have to talk about it all. The heresy in that kind of environment is not saying something that can’t be said, but saying that something can’t be said. The more we say, the better we see, the better we see, the more alive we are. There you are. The path to abundant life. The spiritual journey. All wrapped up and laid in your lap.