The Last One

I don’t know what to do with The Last Sunday. So, I’m going to do what I’ve been doing on all the previous Sundays and trust you to take what you want and leave the rest behind.

Nothing is more important than finding and serving your own destiny. Destiny? Did somebody say Destiny? That’s too restrictive! Too limiting! We want to be free to do what we want when we want for as long as we want and then do something else we want. Destiny locks us too much into a life not of our own choosing. But that’s how it is with destiny. We do not choose our destiny, our destiny chooses us like the wand chooses the wizard. It is a radical, subversive, thing to seek and serve our destiny.

Destiny? Oh well, whatever. How 'bout those Packers? Those Steelers? Let's go bowling, Dude. Destiny doesn’t have a chance with us. Our eyes are on other things.

The right of the people to seek and serve their own destiny shall not be infringed! Where has that ever been decreed? We can’t have people serving their own destiny. It would wreck the economy. Tell them to go shopping. Forget their destiny. They should buy whatever makes them happy.

What does happy have to do with it? In returning the ring to the fires of Mount Doom, Frodo is not happy. In serving the Force and resisting the powers of the Dark Side, Luke is not happy. In sitting beneath the Bodhi Tree and refusing the pleasures of the world, the Buddha is not happy. In taking the path with his name on it to Gethsemane and Golgotha, Jesus is not happy. What makes us happy is not the guide to life. Life asks hard things of us.

What sacrifices are we willing to make for the sake of The Beam, the path, the way with our name on it, the life that is our life to live? Sacrifices? Did someone say Sacrifices? We are not interested in sacrifices. We just want to know how to get things to go our way.

Our life is trying, dying, to get our attention. We walk on, unseeing, seeking ends that are pleasing to us. What do we know? Only what we like and don’t like, want and don’t want. That’s no help when it comes to living the life that is ours to live. Who would want to do that? But we are not exactly left in the lurch. There is That Which Knows what is life for us and what is not, That Which Keeps Calling Our Name: Over here! This way! But we walk on. We create our own lonely lurch by walking on.

We aren't here to get things to go our way. What do we know? We are here to go the way that is The Way, the path, the beam, for us. The good news is that it is never too late to start living the life that calls our name, that is our life to live. It is never too late to embrace our destiny. The most important question at any point in our life is "Now what?" What needs to be done here and now? What calls our name here, now?

Our destiny is not some grand conclusion, some glorious achievement. Our destiny is bringing forth who we are in the mundane moments of our lives. Our destiny expresses itself, comes forth, in our response to each situation as it arises, in who we show ourselves to be in each moment. We become who we are in listening to what calls our name in each situation, each moment, as it unfolds before us, and offering our gifts there as needed. Each moment, each situation, offers us another opportunity to align ourselves with our destiny and become who we are, then and there, here and now.

Do you have it in you to be who you are, where you are, when you are, how you are? Not who you would like to be. Not who you wish you were. Who you are. Become who you are! Can you? Can you do it? Can you hand yourself over to yourself? Can you trust yourself to your own sense of direction no matter where the trail goes? Alexis Carrel says we cannot remake ourselves without suffering, for we are both the marble and the sculptor. We are entirely up to us, but every moment calls us forth anew.

Is it a white rabbit, or a red herring, or a wild goose? It takes going to know. We will learn a lot no matter what we follow. We don't know where we are going, what we are doing. Fooling ourselves is what we do best. Are we going or not? Anyone can stay home, safe in the comfortable routines and familiar patterns of life. It's a fool who leaves home searching for home. Are you coming or not? Our life wants to know. Is dying to know.

It is all up to us and those who help us

Well, let’s see… I’ll leave you with what? Hmm… I think, each other. Can’t beat that. I’ll leave you with all of you. That’s all you need. Whoever, okay, whomever, pinned the piece in the handout about the candles this morning did a wonderful job condensing these monologues in to one short statement. You are up to you, and you, and you… Each of you brings forth who you are in the company of those who receive you well and, in so doing, encourage you and sustain you in the work—and in the joy—of being you.

You bring yourself forth in the service of that which is truly important to you. This company encourages you in that work, in the work of knowing and doing what is truly important to you. One thing leads to another, you know, and as you do this important thing, you find yourself led into the next important thing, and before long, you have built—created—a life of true value by doing the things that are important to you. Our work is to craft a life of worth and value by the way we live—by living in the service of things that are important to us—by living on The Beam, the path, the way with our name on it.

We do not find what is important to us, what we truly care about, by thinking about it. We “take up” a lot of things along the lines of “I think I’ll take up oil painting, or golf, or bird watching,” but it’s an idle pastime that we are taking up. Our heart isn’t in it. We are just hanging out with oil painting, or golf, or bird watching, in the absence of something worth our time. I “took up” the alto saxophone once. That lasted until I encountered sharps and flats. I didn’t care that much about alto saxophones.

However, the camera, writing, and walking in the woods have been essentially important to me over time. I care about these things, and go to a good bit of trouble and expense to serve them, and have crafted a life of worth and value (to me) around them. This doesn’t mean that my life is valuable and worthy in an absolute sense, only in a relative sense, as it relates to me. But if I am—if my life is—to have a chance of being worthy and valuable to you, my life and I have to be worthy and valuable to me. I owe it to me to live a life that I hold to be worthy and valuable. If I try to live a life that you, or Those Who Know Best, would hold to be worthy and valuable, I might hate myself and my life even if you, or they, loved it.

And so, the question: What is important to you that no one told you ought to be important? If the only things that are important to you are the things other people have told you ought to be important, then what is important to you is listening to, and pleasing, other people.

Here we come upon the importance of the right kind of company in helping us determine what is worthy and valuable, and live our lives in light of what is truly important to us. Those Who Know Best and Those Who Must Be Pleased are not the right kind of company. The right kind of company is a community of innocence with nothing at stake in our choice of what is important, other than it not be harmful to us or others.

“What are you doing that is truly valuable to you?” A community of innocence asks questions like that. “What are you doing that your soul loves?” These are the questions that put us on the right track, on the beam, on the path, the way, with our name on it. A community of innocence is good for helping us find the way to The Way by asking the right questions and being interested in our replies.

We don't know where value comes from—or values, for that matter—why some things are important to us and not other things. But we cannot deny that we ascribe value to things. What are the things of high value to us? How often do we do the things of high value? Why don't we spend more time doing those things? Why do we spend so much time doing things we don't like, things of low value to us, and so little time doing things we do like, things of high value? Here's what you can do for me, call it a going away present: Do more of the things with high value for you and less of the things with low, or no, value.

Of the free-time you have left for living, how much of it will you spend doing what you like and how much doing what you don't like? Our life's value to us is the degree to which we spend our time doing the things that are important to us, that have value for us. It comes down to clarity and courage. Being clear about what is important to us and being courageous enough to live in its service.

There is a price to be paid for doing what is important to us, and a price to be paid for not doing what is important to us. Which price to pay? What price are we willing to pay to do what is important to us? Our call to make is what price we are going to pay to live, to be alive, in the time left for living. These folks here with you will help you make that call by caring about you in the right kind of way and listening you to the truth of what matters most to you and encouraging you to do it. I leave you all in good company.

One

What we see is the surface of the unseen.

What we see are metaphors for the mystery. In pointing out the facts, discovering the operating principles, and giving names to all we know, we congratulate ourselves for our knowledge but are splashing in tidal pools oblivious to the great sea of mystery that remains unexplored and waiting for us to swim in its waves.

The truth is always more than can be told. We can pursue truth but we cannot pen truth in and say, “Here it is! This is it!” After we’ve understood all that can be understood, there is still more to understand.

We have to be deliberate in the use of metaphors as a way of saying what cannot be said. Words are an indirect medium in the work to express truth. Music is more direct, and art, and nature.

Start with the Day Job

The first step is to find something you CAN do to support yourself financially, on, or close to, a level at which you are comfortable, that will cause you the least amount of personal turmoil, stress, anguish and pain.

Keep in mind that, while it would be ideal if the work you get paid to do also “feeds your soul,” it may be a better choice for you to find work that feeds your body and provides you with the wherewithal to do what it takes to feed your soul after hours and on weekends.

Of course, there are many voices that will tell you that you should “do what you love” and trust that it will provide you with enough money to live on. My take on this is to say that UNTIL YOU KNOW WHAT YOU LOVE enough to make every sacrifice to serve, you would be wise to “find something you CAN do…”

At all times, you have to keep remembering that we have to look for those things which nurture our souls, which “feed” us, “enthuse” us, and fill us with “spirit,” with a passion, and a zeal, and a zest for living. These are the things which attract us, which interest us, which have the power to energize us and provide “life” for us, which motivate us, mobilize us, bring us to life and make us glad we are alive. We don’t often know what they are by thinking about them, but if we are awake, we recognize them when they come along, like white rabbits, nodding to us, winking at us, calling our name.

Fundamentals

It comes down to eyes that see, ears that hear and a heart that understands, which we develop over time by looking, listening, inquiring—by seeing that we don’t see, perceiving that we haven’t heard, understanding that we don’t have a clue.

The six aspects of life and the process for the unfolding of the way are right seeing, right hearing, right understanding, right knowing, right doing, right being.

Hope is not what we have, it is what we do. Of course, the situation is hopeless. Situations always are. Hope does not live “out there” but “in here.” and we cannot find hope we can only exhibit hope, by being those who are not afraid to live in the situation as it arises, offering there what we have to give, and seeing where it goes.

The one who understands must understand that most people do not care to understand. The understanding one must also understand that her, that his, role is to be a doorstop that keeps open the possibility of understanding for those who are sure they know all they need to know.

The Path to the Path

Well. Two thousand down and three to go. Sundays, that is. But it doesn’t mean that because we are down to the final three they are going to be special, like I’ve been saving the best for last. I haven’t been holding out on you. I’ve given you what I’ve had all along. Those of you who have been here all along could say it as well as I can. Here it comes again!

There is you and there is the beam, the path with your name on it, the way that is The Way for you. Everything depends upon you getting on the beam and staying there. We are all here to help you find the beam, the path, The Way and stay on it. We help connect you with the life that is uniquely, individually, your life to live, and then get out of your way. That’s it. That’s all there is to it. So, what’s the problem?

The problem is that you don’t help us help you. You have ideas about the life you want to live, about the life you wish were yours. It’s the Garden of Eden all over again, where there is our life and the life we wish were our life. The solution to the Garden of Eden is the Garden of Gethsemane: “Thy will, not mine, be done,” where the “Thy” is the life that is our life to live, the work that is our work to do. Moving from the Garden of Eden to the Garden of Gethsemane is the spiritual journey. It’s also growing up. Squaring ourselves up to how things are, reconciling ourselves with what is true and what is also true, and taking up the work that is ours to do in living the life that is ours to live, never mind how we wish things were. And we are here to help one another do that work, live that life.

We do that by being a community of innocence. The work of being us, of being who we are, is solitary work. No one can do it for us. The kind of community we need is composed of individuals being themselves. We are here to remind one another that we find the way by getting out of our own way, by opening ourselves to possibilities we would never consider, and following the white rabbit to places we would never go on our own.

The crucial realization is that our life as we are living it isn't working. This could result in suicide, addiction or depression. Or in our waking up to the work that is ours to do. We go one way or the other bases upon our recognition that we aren’t here to have what we want, but to serve what wants us. That is not clear to all of us or to any of us at all times. It is all quite iffy and hangs by a thread. There are no guarantees that we will take up the work that is ours to do and serve the soul that is waiting to come forth into the world.

It is all up to us, but. We are upheld, encouraged and sustained for our work by the communities of innocence which nurture us, knowingly, along the way. Communities of innocence help us with the work of seeing and saying how things are, bearing the impact and imagining fitting responses. The life we live is always a compromise with the facts of life. How alive can we be within the context and circumstances of our lives? It is up to us to work it out, to be as alive as we can be within the context and circumstances of our lives. This is the work of being human. There is nothing more to being human than living aligned with ourselves in light of all that is true in responding appropriately to the time and place of our living.

Helping us to engage reality and respond appropriately in light of all that is true about us is the work of communities of innocence. Communities of innocence help us take into account all that can be taken into account in deciding what to do about how things are. Being conscious of everything pulls the contradictions, the conflicts, the discrepancies, the discordances, into view for us to integrate. On one hand, this. On the other hand, that. Ambivalence and contraries are the matrix of life, the sea in which we all swim.

Consciousness, awareness, is the healing balm that takes all opposites into account and undertakes the work of reconciliation, integration, oneness. To be conscious is to do, to be engaged in, the work of reconciliation, integration. The work of squaring ourselves up to how things are and how they also are.

Consciousness is awareness of all that is true in any moment, and of what needs to be done about it, with it, for the good of all concerned. Consciousness is not a spiritual trick for getting what we want. What we want is the first thing that has to go in the work of consciousness. Nothing blocks awareness like having an agenda. Wanting something keeps us from seeing everything. Being afraid of something keeps us from seeing everything. Nothing blocks awareness like being afraid of what might happen. To be afraid is to have an agenda. Something at stake. Something to gain, something to lose. We have to live as those with nothing at stake, nothing to gain, nothing to lose, in serving the true good of the whole with the life that is ours to live. Ah, but what’s in it for us? We get to be fully alive in the service of our life!

Communities of Innocence

As those of you know who have been here for a while, Rumi said, “If you are not here with us in good faith, you are doing terrible damage.” This means, in part, that you have to care about us, and if you can’t do that, you have to at least live with us in ways that are caring. You have to act like you care about us whether you do or not. And we have to do the same for you. It doesn’t mean that we will pay your car payment or your house note for you, or you for us. But it does mean that we all can count on being cared for here. That we can be seen, listened to, heard, understood and helped to live our lives. Caring is automatic here. That is a part of our commitment to each other—to be with the other in good faith.

Now, look around. Spot the people you do not care for automatically. Work to care for those people, to treat those people caringly. It is part of your covenant with them to be with them here in good faith. We cannot be casual or flip about, or disinterested in, caring for one another. We are upheld and sustained, encouraged and called forth into our lives by the presence of those who love us. We must not dismiss the power of our love in the lives of others, or dismiss the power of their love in our lives.

We have to live in ways that make the world as good a place as possible. Everything hinges on our ability to let things be what they are and do what can be done about it, with it. We are to live in ways that make the world better by the way we live in it. We do that as we care about one another here, in this place, and do what is right by one another.

We all know what is right as it pertains to us. We know when something is right for us and when it is wrong. We know when we are mistreated and when we are honored, respected, cared for. We have no problem nailing what is right and what is not right about the way we are treated. We have to become those who recognize what is right and not right as it pertains to others—and care about them in their situation as we would care about ourselves. And, we have to know when to do what is right by them even at our own expense. We have to know when to stand up for ourselves and when to stand down, when to stand aside, for the sake of others. This is an essential part of the work of growing up, knowing when to stand up for ourselves and when to stand aside for others. This is not something we can get from books or lectures, discussions, resolutions or keeping the rules. We have to trust our own judgment here, our own instinct and intuition and sense of what needs to be done, when, where and how.

But this is frightening, terrifying, painful. Trusting ourselves is not what we do best. Living with uncertainty, insecurity, not-knowing is not what we do best. Running, hiding, denying, pretending, faking it for the sake of safety and security is what we do best. But, if we are not here in good faith, we are doing terrible damage.

We want to run from the moment of uncertainty, of indecision—to hide in comfortable patterns and traditions, to not face what is to be faced, not do what needs to be done. When to do what??? That's what we want to know! We yearn for consistency, constancy, regularity, dependability, predictability. Laws! Rules! Same Old Same Old! The church of our experience! The Tea Party Doctrine! The most difficult truth of life is: Sometimes it's like this and sometimes it's like that. Sometimes we do it this way, sometimes that way. This is more truth than we can handle.

We want to numb the pain of being alive, of bringing ourselves forth, of birthing ourselves anew in each moment, situation, as it arises. Refusing to live, refusing to pay the price of being alive, saves us from the pain of life but we're just hanging out until we die. The pain we would avoid is the birth pangs of our own becoming, which we assist as we step forth into this mess to do what can be done here, now.

We help one another to do the work that is ours to do, squaring up to how things are, doing what we can about it, in each moment, situation. Our work in helping each other do the work that is ours to do is providing communities of innocence for the work that we all must do alone.

Communities of innocence are disinterested in the sense that they have no interest, nothing at stake, in us or the outcomes of our living. Communities of innocence are the source of grace, mercy, and peace in our lives in that they aren't trying to manipulate outcomes. Communities of innocence exist to help us see how things are and help us think our way through what is to be done about it, and do it. And communities of innocence stand at the opposite extreme from the inflammatory rhetoric that castigates and demonizes and puts itself forward as THE way of seeing, thinking, believing, doing, being which is polarizing the world into camps of Good and Evil and creating an atmosphere in which everyone is suspect who is out of line with the Party Line. That would be the Tea Party Line.

Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said this about the Tucson shootings: "When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And unfortunately, Arizona, I think, has become the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry."

We have to oppose inflammatory rhetoric at every point and become aware of the degree to which it impacts our lives. Here follows a prayer of confession that Salem Presbytery recommended to the congregations in the Presbytery on January 9, 2008 in approving the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Task Force Report. It becomes increasingly meaningful and appropriate day by day as a watchword for communities of innocence and the work of becoming true human beings:

We acknowledge and confess that we have failed to create an environment that is compassionate, just, and tolerant of the differences which exist among us. We have not learned to oppose what we consider to be evil without becoming evil in our opposition to evil. We too easily “become what we hate” in using violence to confront violence, in allowing our rhetoric to determine our actions, and in using all means necessary in the service of ends we declare to be good. We have closed our eyes to our responsibility to care for those who are belligerent, obnoxious, and inflammatory. We have allowed the anger in others to cultivate anger in ourselves. And, we have failed to create an environment in which our children might live peacefully with the children of those who see things differently than we do. In all of this, we are deeply ashamed, and commit ourselves to the construction of a future in which intolerance is unacceptable and “justice for all” is an abiding reality. We pledge ourselves to the work of making life together truly good on all levels for all people. Amen! May it be so!

My Credo, Part VII

Our primary obligation is to our soul. This is fundamental. We are here to serve our soul, not by imposing upon it the practices and standards of religion, but by listening to it and living in sync with its purposes. We serve our soul by exhibiting the values of soul in our lives, by consciously, intentionally, aligning ourselves with its interests and bringing soul to life within the here and now of our living.

Our soul is the interface, the point of contact, of connection, with the invisible world. It stands as a threshold between ourselves and what has always been thought of as God. Soul is the carrier of life that is life, the vitality and the values that form the heart, the core of life. Soul is the vehicle of life and guides us to life. In establishing and maintaining right relationship with soul, we come alive in the truest sense, and live the life that is ours to live.

We collaborate with soul in producing a life that serves the values of soul within the limits and possibilities of physical existence. But when we hit a hard place we think of quitting. We give up too easily, quit too soon. Soul has dealt with restrictions and hardships we cannot imagine, and waits to help us find ways of facing up to and dealing with all that comes our way—in ways that are commensurate with the values of soul.

Within any circumstance, we can serve the values of soul, we can bring to life there what can be brought to life there. In any situation, we can give soul a shot at coming forth, being alive. When it seems to be hopeless, futile, pointless to go on we have to realize it is only our ends that are blocked, our desires that are frustrated. Soul lives for different purposes and calls us to serve those purposes in every situation as it unfolds. Our place is to learn to see life from soul’s point of view.

Our task, our calling, is to bring soul to life within the terms and conditions of life. In each one of us there is a soul that is more or less alive. In some of us soul is mostly dead or completely gone. We have to live in ways that retrieve soul, revive soul, wake soul up, bring our soul to life!

We are here to serve and protect our soul, which is the heart of life and guides us to life. We are best equipped to do that within what I think of as communities of innocence. Innocence is at once vulnerable and invincible. Communities of innocence don’t know any better than to do what is theirs to do in service to soul, and trust that the out come will be what it needs to be—and in that innocent trust there is power to transform, to save, the world.

Communities of innocence have no agenda, no strategy, no purpose beyond supporting the individual work of connecting with, and serving, soul. Communities of innocence help us find our way to our soul and then get out of our way. Communities of innocence have no stake in the outcomes of our lives beyond assisting us in living in sync, aligned, integrated with soul.

Communities of innocence are safe places in the surest sense of the word. Chance the Gardener, or "Chauncey Gardner," the Peter Sellers character in Being There, is an example of safety and security at the heart of innocence. Jesus, the Buddha and the Dali Lama are other examples of safety and security at the heart of innocence.

We build communities of innocence with those people who are safe places for us to be, who do not condemn, convert, advise, direct, exhort, rebuke, chide, ridicule, lecture, etc., but who do indeed challenge us, confront us, question our assumptions, and call us beyond ourselves to a depth and breadth of being we could not manage on our own. The best of the 12-step groups, and the church as it ought to be, rank for me as communities of innocence. Circles of Trust and the Clearness Committee are two places we work to create communities of innocence within this Gathering of Sojourners. It is a work that is worthy of the best effort we can put forth. Essential to that work is “good faith” on the part of each of us. Living together in good faith is the foundation of communities of innocence.

The heart of the kind of community that is necessary for the development of individuals who are serving their soul, living lives aligned with the Way, and bringing forth their gifts in ways that save the world is, what Rumi calls, “good faith.” He says, “If you are not here with us in good faith, you are doing terrible damage.” Good faith is the key to our life together. When we live together in good faith we create the communities of innocence that are necessary for the development of right relationship with our soul.

“Good faith” describes our commitment to, our covenant with, each other to do right by one another, to be with one another in ways that are good for the other, to offer the right kind of help in the right kind of way, and to help others help us by doing what is ours to do and not being too needy or too dependent ourselves. It also recognizes the old truism that “good fences make good neighbors,” and carefully observes the Old Testament commandment (One that did not make, but should have, the Top Ten): “Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor’s landmark!” We do not do violence to our neighbors’ boundaries by offering the wrong kind of help in the wrong kind of way, and we trust our neighbors to do right by us as much as they trust us to do right by them.

Let There Be Light!

My paraphrase of Deuteronomy 30:11-14 reads, Surely, what is asked of us is not too hard for us, nor is it too far away. The light is not in heaven, that we should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us, and get it for us so that we may see it and walk in it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that we should say, ‘Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us, and get it for us so that it might illumine our way?’ No, the light is very near to us; it is in our heart and soul that we might be the light we long for.

The hitch is that we don’t want to be the light we long for. We want to talk about the light as though we are 2,000 years away from it. When Moses came down from the mountain the people requested that he veil his face because he radiated the light of God and it was too much for them to look at. We want distance between us and the light. Yet, at the same time, we speak longingly of the light, and burn advent candles, and talk of epiphany as though we would like nothing better than to be visited by the light, but. We don’t want to have anything to do with the light.

The Gospel readings put us in our place. They start out comfortably enough, with the light being far off, “in the beginning,” when “the life was the light of all people,” as though we might see it from a distance and be comforted in the darkness, knowing we are not alone. We like it even better when John has Jesus say, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” But Matthew does us no favors. He quotes Jesus as slamming us against the wall with, “YOU are the light of the world,” and “Let YOUR light shine before others that they see (how you are living) and glorify (the Source of light by bringing forth their own light)!”

The light, remember, is the life that was in the beginning and lives in us waiting to come to life through us as we get out of the way and let our light shine, and live the life that is life, that is the life that waits to be lived. We are the light we seek but generate darkness by living lives that reflect our idea of how life ought to be, and we do not easily set our idea for our life aside in order to live the life that is truly our life to live. We are afraid that life will not be what we want it to be, even though it will be more than we can ask, or seek, or imagine. We are afraid.

Mary Oliver highlights our dilemma in her poem “Lightning.” (In the thunder storm) it was hard to tell fear from excitement; how sensual the lightning’s poured stroke! and still, what a fire and a risk! As always the body wants to hide, wants to flow toward it—strives to balance while fear shouts, excitement shouts, back and forth—each bolt a burning river tearing like escape through the dark field of the other.

The light that is the life of all people terrifies us and thrills us with its possibilities. We work out a compromise and talk about the light as though it lived in Jesus but not in us. We can be safe that way in the lives we construct for ourselves. We comfort ourselves with talk of 2,000 year old light and douse the flame that flickers faintly within us all, erecting mercury-vapor lamps to hold back the darkness we also fear—creating little islands of artificial light by living inauthentic lives in the service of plastic and superficiality, while life dies unlived within.

Rumi calls us out: “Darkness is your cradle…” “To thee light by darkness is made known…” The darkness that brings forth our light is not-knowing what to do and waiting there in that dark place, trusting the spark of realization, of awareness, of light—trusting the epiphany of perception and understanding—to guide us in the way of life that we might offer what is ours to give to the moment as it unfolds, to the situation as it arises. This is letting our light so shine before others that they see how we are living and glorify the Source of light by bringing forth their own light.

Of course, we are afraid, and seek to disappear our fear by making up rules to live by so that we don’t have to wonder what to do and run the risk of making mistakes, of being wrong. But “darkness is our cradle,” and we have to trust ourselves. We have to trust the light that lives within, the life that stirs within, and wait, listening, looking, for what needs to be said, for what needs to be done, in responding appropriately and offering what is called for out of the gifts we have to give to each moment of our living.

The moment is the adventure. We must not shrink back, afraid, resorting to the same old same old tried and true formulas for living that are the purview of the dead and dying. The light that is the life of all people is the creative source of ingenuity and genius that splits the darkness like a thunderbolt and shines like the sun bursting forth in the night to draw all people to the brightness of its rising to send them forth into their own lives to live there in bold new ways that light up the world. Amen! May it be so with us all!

My Credo, Part VI

The Doctrine of the Two Ways—the Right Way and the Wrong Way—has been the central religious view in the Near East and the West for thousands of years, and is a popular religious outlook today. Nay! It goes beyond being popular! It is the predominant religious outlook today. We are seeped in the Doctrine of the Two Ways. We believe deeply that the way we believe (and think and do) is the Right Way to believe (and think and do) and that all other ways of believing (and thinking and doing) are the Wrong Way to believe (and think and do).

It gets worse. We believe that if we believe Right Beliefs we will go to heaven when we die, and that if we believe Wrong Beliefs we will go “as straight to hell as a Martin to its gourd” (You have to have lived in the rural south for a while to understand the metaphor and know that the Martin in question is a Purple Martin and its gourd is a dried gourd that has had a hole cut in it and is hanging with a dozen or so other gourds for nesting places for Purple Martins). The idea of heaven as a reward for Right Belief and hell as a punishment for Wrong Belief is the fundamental religious curse that people carry with them for life and with which they infect all who come their way.

Because we cannot risk being wrong and going to hell, we cannot question what we have received as Right Belief, and have to believe what has been believed unquestioned through the ages. In so doing, we create a hell on earth populated by the walking dead, empty-eyed and soulless, talking of Eternal Life as compensation for the life they are not living and never have lived, thanks to the Doctrine of the Two Ways.

Darkness and Light, Good and Evil, Right and Wrong, Truth and Error, the Way of Life and the Way of Death, etc. are set out before us, and the wise among us choose well and the foolish, or evil, among us choose poorly. Believers are urged to pray, therefore, that they will choose well in order to be ushered into the Kingdom of Goodness and Light with the accolade: “Well done, good and faithful servant!”

There is, of course, a different way of looking at things—if you dare!

Good, at some point, goes over into evil. Evil, at some point, goes over into good. Not only that, but from some point of view, good IS evil and evil IS good (Floods, for example, that destroy homes and lives and livelihoods also fertilize the land to produce the crops that feed the people. Are floods good or evil? Both!). And, as the old saying goes, “There is so much good in the worst of us and so much bad in the best of us, it doesn’t behoove any of us to talk about the rest of us.” Absolute Good and Absolute Evil are theoretical concepts without precedent in the lived experience of human beings. Given the truth of the relative nature of the options comprising the Two Ways, we can’t long avoid the realization that it is not as simple as we have been led to believe.

Think not of living a morally pure and upright life and deserving heaven when we die. Think instead of living aligned with the Way and living the life that is our destiny, our life to live—of being properly engaged with inner and outer reality and offering what is needed out of what is ours to give to each situation as it unfolds. It is not a matter of matching our behavior up to some ancient standard or code but of responding appropriately to the moment in each moment of our lives, doing what is needed there never mind what our parents or preachers declare ought to be done.

And if we are wrong about what needs to be done? Shake it off! Get up! Get ready! Get back in the game! The next moment is on the way! The beauty of The Doctrine of More Than Two Ways is that getting it wrong is just a step on the way to getting it right. The meandering of the river is no threat to the sea. The roots of tomorrow’s Right are grounded in yesterday’s Wrong. Learn from your mistakes. Learn from your successes. Learn from everything. Living is the lesson and life is the teacher. We have a lifetime in which to learn what being alive is all about. Wake up! Pay attention! Be alert! Take a chance and another one after that! There is life to be lived! We are not dead yet and we must not live as though we are! Do not die before you are dead! Live with all that is within you for as long as life is possible no mater what! Amen! May it be so!

My Credo, Part V

Here is the formula: “There is the way things are. And there is the way things also are. And that’s the way things are.” This is symbolized neatly in the yin/yang of Taoism (Or Zen—Buddhism mingled with Taoism to become Zen, and I don’t know the historical moment yin/yang came into being). Yin is the way things are. Yang is the way things also are. And the circle containing them is the way things are. Reality, you might say, is one in its duality, in its polarity.

William Blake puts it beautifully: “Without Contraries, is no progression” (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell). This means our work is “working it out.” We are always and forever “working it out.” We are always and forever needing to counter-balance, to compensate, to counteract our excesses and deficiencies. We go too far in one direction and have to be reeled in, called back, by the forces contained in the opposite direction. This is “finding the center” or “walking the straight and narrow.” We live on the boundary between yin and yang. We have to be “rounded out” by the opposition in order to “square ourselves with” that which is true and that which is also true. We find our way forward in a conversation with “the Contraries” within and without. We must be careful to not allow the opposites to cancel each other out, but to open each other, and ourselves, up to worlds, to possibilities, we could not imagine or enter on our own.

This opening is enabled by conversation with the opposites, among the opposites, between the opposites. Conversation enlarges, deepens, transforms, unites. Conversation is the way to the Way, individually and collectively. The kind of community that is required for living properly aligned with Inner and Outer Reality, centered, in synch, and on the Path, is a community of opposites, of polarities, where all persons take each other seriously, treat each other with the deepest respect, honor each other’s perspective, and allow conversation with one another to expand, deepen, and enlarge one’s own sense of how things are and what needs to be done in response. In this kind of community there is no one way of seeing, thinking, believing and doing. There is no sense of “our way” being the Right Way and “their way” being the Wrong Way. The right kind of community is not “one big happy family” in firm agreement about what to think, feel, believe and do. It is one that values contrary views and finds the way to the Way by taking all pertinent perspectives into account and allowing them to inform and guide the development of each participant in the community, but in the end, each participant is responsible for determining and doing what she, what he, thinks needs to be done in each situation as it arises.

DVD Announcement

This DVD is a collection of 265 photos with music from two Greensboro musicians, Betsy Bevan (piano) and Will Ridenour (Kora, or African Harp), and audio reflections from me on photography and life. Sells for $25 through PayPal at my web site: www.jimdollarphotography.com under "Numinous Landscape DVD" in the menu.

My Credo, Part IV

Mind? Self? Soul/Psyche? These terms represent the interface between the Spiritual Realm and the material universe. They are our pathway for tuning into spiritual reality and translating that reality into physical existence. Self, with a capital “S,” is synonymous with Christ to my way of thinking. In saying “Jesus was the Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One),” we are saying Jesus was “a chip off the old block,” so to speak, that he was the visible expression of Divine grace, mercy, peace—evidence of the purposeful Mystery of existence—within the confines of tangible reality, and that he exhibited the right way of doing things in the physical universe. We do the same things when we become the Self we are called to be. The Self is the Christ, spiritual reality becoming apparent through us within the time and place of our living. Spiritual reality, you might say, is “born” through us into the world of physical existence. We all are the Mother of God.

When we live aligned with the Self we are called to be, we are “on the beam,” “on track,” “on course,” “on the Path,” in synch with “the purposeful Mystery of existence.” Then, we are one with the Way, and exhibit the truth at the heart of things within the context and circumstances of our life. Of course, this is not easy. It is very tricky because we not only have to be aligned with the Way, but we also have to take into account How Things Are And Also Are on every level of existence.

All the worlds come together in us. We have to be reconciled with, we have to “square up to,” the requirements of life in the world AND the requirements of life at the heart of things. We have to come to terms with the terms and conditions of life in the world of physical reality AND we have to come to terms with our own emotional and psychological reality AND we have to be aligned with, live in sync with, what has always been called “the Way of God,” which is also the Way that is uniquely our Way, the Way with our name on it—our destiny. We have to accommodate ourselves to both Inner and Outer Reality—to physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual reality. This is where things get interesting and become meaningful. This is what we live for, whether we know it or not.

There are no formulas, or recipe, or rules, or laws governing how we are to strike the necessary balance, how we are to integrate all of the contradictory forces at work within and without. So, we have to pay attention, be alert, awake, and aware. We engage and express the purposeful Mystery of existence in each moment as we work to do what is needed in the situation as it arises. We cannot plan this out beforehand. We live into the Mystery. We live the Mystery, as we assist in the coming forth, in the emergence, of what is called for in each moment. The work to do this brings us to life and is LIFE in the deepest, richest, sense of the word. May we all live so fully and so well!

My Credo, Part III

Did someone say “destiny”? No? Thank goodness! That would have been too much of a coincidence. I was just thinking about destiny. Destiny is not the same as fate. Our fate consists of the givens present in our life situation—the time and place of our living, our genetic make-up, who our parents were, what is available for us to work with, “how things are with us.” Our fate is also what becomes of us, what happens to us—what we are left with—if we reject, deny, or ignore our destiny. We either embrace and serve our destiny, or we succumb to our fate. There is no third option.

Our destiny is what/who we are called to become within the time and place, the context and circumstances, of our living. Destiny is what we do with our fate, what we construct with the materials that are available for us to work with, who we show ourselves to be through the process of living our life. We are called to a particular destiny in exhibiting the gifts that are, the genius that is, uniquely ours within the circumstances of life, which are generally the same for a large number of our contemporaries, though our destinies are quite different.

You can think of destiny as “God’s will for our lives,” or “the way of God for us.” When we live aligned with “the Way of God,” we are also aligned with “the Way” that exists for us individually, personally, and live to bring ourselves forth as we bring what has always been thought of as God forth into the world of normal, concrete, apparent reality.

Here’s the problem: Our heart's true desire is to be one with its destiny but. We have eyes for other things. The work of maturity is connecting with our heart. This is dying to our idea of what is important and aligning ourselves with heart’s idea, with soul’s idea, of what is important. “Thy will, not mine, be done!” “Those who would be my disciple must pick up their cross daily and follow me.” Our cross is the difference between our soul’s idea of what is important and our idea of what is important.

The heart knows its true joy/love, its destiny, and it is our place to align ourselves with the drift of heart/soul toward its sense of where it belongs and what it needs to be about. This is going with the flow in the deepest, truest sense of the term. And in that undertaking, Jesus is the "first born of all creation," leading the way with his “come follow me!”

The work of that which has always been called salvation, that is being aligned with that which is our true destiny, our true life, is the work of maturity, of growing up, of connecting with our heart and living, at last, aligned with our calling, and living the life that is truly our life to live. Our life's work is awakening to our heart's true joy--its love for and affiliation with its true destiny--and letting that become our life. We are here to help you do the work that is yours to do, on living the life that is yours to live. Everything here is predicated on your doing the work that is yours to do, on living the life that is yours to live. If you aren't doing that, or if you aren’t interested in doing that, you won’t likely find much here that you can relate to.

My Credo, Part II

God? God is the purposeful Mystery of existence. Any attempt to state what the purpose is, or what the Mystery is, is to say what cannot be said. We cannot talk knowledgeably about more than we can know, and we cannot know what we cannot see, hear, smell, taste, touch, weigh, measure, count, quantify, compute, calculate, etc. We can sense the Mystery, intuit it, perceive it, but we cannot define or explain it. But, we can trust it. We can believe in it.

We can believe in the purposeful Mystery of existence and trust ourselves to it, and see what comes of it. We only have to open ourselves to the experience of our lives to see the drift, the movement, that has brought us to this moment. Our lives are moving us along. Life is movement toward something, toward some good. Our lives are moving us toward something. We cannot deny the movement of our life, the drift that our life has taken, often without our awareness, sometimes against our will, usually without our knowing assistance.

God is the purposeful Mystery at work in the movement of life toward some good. God is the highest possible good, the highest order of good, the best there is. Our values find their essence in God. God is inseparable from “the Will of God” or “the Way of God,” which is also “the Way of Life,” or simply, “the Way.” This is also called “Tao.” I believe “the Way (or Will) of God” for us is particular, individual, unique for each of us and it is generally the same for all of us. Generally, we can use such words as “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, generosity, goodness, grace, mercy, peace, etc.” to describe the demeanor of someone who is in, or on, “the Way.” Particularly, the person who exhibited those general values would also be aligned with her or his own personal destiny, or way of being in the world, and would live out of a “Thy will, not mine, be done” orientation.

Four Poems

Madonna and Child

She walked past the plate glass window

next to where I sat with my friend Bill

in a booth in the worst hamburger joint on the eastern seaboard,

eating a dripping grease burger

covered with melted Velveeta cheese of all things

with fries fresh from a year in the freezer.

She was twelve months pregnant, going on thirteen.

It had to have been her first pregnancy

as young as she was

and as jauntily as she carried herself

down the walk and through the door,

wearing a red spandex top

and navy blue spandex tights,

bringing forth who and how she was

for all to see,

honor, marvel at, rejoice in, worship.

The wonder of the vision

was equal in every way

to the one that stunned the angels

who announced the Messiah’s birth.

And as redemptive.

She redeemed the day, the week, the year, my life,

all of life, forever, throughout all eternity.

And I carry her memory in my heart

to relish and adore

Mary, the mother of God,

ordering a grease burger and

making all things remarkably good

by her presence with us

in the ordinariness of our lives.

What’s It Going To Take?

Once we figure it out,

what are we going to do with it?

What’s Enlightenment going to do for us,

that’s what I’m asking.

The test is not in the knowing,

but in the doing,

in the living.

We have to look at our lives

and live them.

What’s it going to take

to enable us to do that?

What do we need

to step into our lives

every morning,

and live them

all the way back to bed at night?

Live them

the way they ought to be lived,

I’m talking.

Live them

like we mean it, I mean.

What’s it going to take

to live like we mean it?

Good Families

Good families don’t pretend to be good families

Don’t strive to do it like it’s supposed to be done,

Don’t have anything to hide,

Or don’t hide what they have to hide,

But live with everything in full view,

Available to be seen and said,

Laughed at, or yelled at, and talked about,

Brought up for review and revision,

Capable of being modified, altered, improved, changed.

Good families can be changed.

They are honest and vulnerable that way.

Bad families are fragile, brittle,

Incapable of self-assessment or self-correction,

They remain stuck, unchanging, forever.

Good Luck

There are people

who want to argue with me

about the possibility of luck.

No kidding.

“There is no such thing as luck!” they say,

when I wish them, “Good Luck!”

“It’s strictly a matter of Providence.”

When I say, “Aren’t we lucky

that God is so Providential?”

they say, “It has nothing to do with luck!”

Clearly, one of us

is missing something,

somewhere.

My Credo, Part I

Primal peoples believed the visible world was grounded upon the invisible world. So do I. I believe the spiritual world is more real than the material world, and that the spiritual realm (You could call it the Kingdom of God, but you wouldn’t know any more about it than if you called it the Spiritual Realm) exists alongside (over, under, around and through) the physical universe, and has autonomous, independent existence, as the fourth, or fifth, or however many there might be, dimension of reality. As the primal peoples would say, “It always is.” The Spiritual Realm is eternal, unending, constantly present. I can’t say much more about the Spiritual Realm, other than that it is the source of life, not in the biological sense (We can be living biologically, upright, intact, able to take nourishment with vital signs working normally without being alive at all), but in the every-other-way sense, in the deepest, fullest, richest sense. When we are connected with the Spiritual Realm, we are alive in the fullest sense of the term, and when we are connected with the things that bring us to life, we are connected with the Spiritual Realm.

A Poem About Cats

Say what you will about cats, they know what their business is. A cat is never uncertain or confused about its business. A cat knows what its business is and is always, I mean always, going about its business. I watched a cat lying under the front bumper of a car parked at the curb in Stonington, Maine. After some time had passed, it moved under the rear bumper of the car in front of the one it had been lying under. Changed scenery. The cat knew its business and was not to be deterred. Cats are like that.

Maybe it’s napping, and maybe it’s stalking a bird or a grasshopper, or waiting on dinner to come from the can to the bowl. Whatever it is, the cat knows what it is and stays centered in it, focused on it. “Big deal,” you say. “What’s a cat’s business? A cat’s business has no impact on the way the world turns!” That kind of comment works on human beings. You can shame us out of doing our business. “Photography? What does photography have to do with anything? Photography doesn’t feed the hungry, serve the poor, or establish world peace! Jesus didn’t own a camera! What do you mean taking pictures when there is real work to be done?” That would keep me from carrying a camera, but not a cat. A cat wouldn’t give you the satisfaction of acknowledging the validity of your assertions. A cat would steadfastly maintain its concentration on the business at hand.

Now hold that thought while I relate a dream reported by a member of a 12-Step program. “I dreamed I was cranking a mimeograph machine,” she said. “Turning out page after page of the same thing. I woke up enlightened. It isn’t that my judgment is bad. It’s that I’m using the wrong machine!” The irony, of course, is that using the wrong machine is bad judgment. If we exercise good judgment in the wrong way, it’s the same thing as bad judgment! It isn’t enough to have good judgment, we have to execute it in the right way, which means we have to believe in it, trust it, listen to it and let it direct our lives—even when it doesn’t appear to be working.

That’s asking too much. We aren’t cats. We have too much at stake in our lives to allow ourselves to follow a course that doesn’t work. But, here the cat comes back into the picture. What does it mean for something to work? A cat is centered and focused on what is important to the cat. A cat would call that working. A cat is at peace with itself, at one with itself. It has no pretentions, puts on no airs, assumes no postures. A cat never tries to be a dog, or even another cat. It lives in perfect harmony with itself, with perfect integrity of being. A cat would call that working.

But we have different ideas of success. Success is money, in our book, money in the bank. Plenty of it. We don’t get paid to be who we are. We get paid to be who we are not. We do not get paid to do what we like to do. We get paid to do what we don’t like to do. The most successful people we know are the people who haven’t done anything they wanted to do all their lives long. The most successful people we know don’t have a clue about what their business is. They have been disconnected for so long from the business that is truly theirs that they think their business is what they do for a living, what they get paid to do, what no one would do if they didn’t get paid to do it. You couldn’t pay a cat to do anything that wasn’t it’s business.

No one tries to take a cat’s business away from the cat and give the cat some other business. Everyone tries to do that with us. Everybody tries to tell us what our business ought to be. We have so many people telling us what our business ought to be, or paying us to do things that aren’t our business, that we have no idea what our business is, and no idea of how to know.

A cat knows its business. We don’t know ours, or, we don’t trust ourselves to know ours. This gets us to the crux, as they say, of the matter. This is our first order of business, sorting out what our business is. What are we chasing? What are we after? What are we about with our lives? Whatever it is, is it our idea or something someone else has handed to us? We have to sit with the questions and see where they lead. No one can tell you what your business is, but if you don’t trust yourself to know what it is, you are at the mercy of everyone with a guilt trip to give away or a sales pitch to make. Who knows better than a cat what its business is? Who knows better than you what your business is? But, we don’t know. We don’t trust ourselves to know. What do we need, to know?

The work that saves the world is becoming who you are.

It is the work of the individual to save the world. We do that, we save the world, by being individuals, by being who we are, and also are, in the world. We pull this off by being true to ourselves, squared up with who we are and who we also are, squared up with our life, with the way things are, with how it is both inside and outside. The work of squaring ourselves up to how it is with us, internally and externally, is the work that brings us forth as individuals and saves the world. This is not easy.

The work of reconciliation, integration, assimilation, individuation, alignment, becoming who we are, doing what is ours to do in each situation as it arises is trumped by many things, and fear and desire are high on the list. The story of the Garden of Eden is the story of turning aside from The Way that is good for the sake of what is also good. Genesis 3:6 reads, “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.” What is good cancels out what is good.

The good is the enemy of the good. What is the good of the good we call good, of the good we serve? Takes meditative distance to know. To live "from the center" is to live with "meditative distance." It requires focus and concentration to be centered in this here, this now. The farther from the center we live, the greater the attraction to, and influence of, "glass beads and silver mirrors," and other things that catch our eye.

Joseph Campbell was on his college track team and later in life could not attend a track meet without becoming "uncomfortably involved" in the action. We lose the center, the meditative distance, when snared by things we care about. AA doesn't meet in bars, or across the street from bars, or around the corner from bars. There is no immunity. We are not off limits to the "pull of the forbidden fruit." Our work is always at the point of being forgotten and forsaken in favor of all that is “good and pleasing.”

And not only are we distracted by what is attractive and pleasing, but we also have more than we can handle just dealing with the day-to-day ebbs and flows of our life. We build a home in the country long before the subdivision is an idea in some developer's mind, or before the freeway appears on some Department of Transportation design table. No one saw it coming. This is how life is. Life comes out of nowhere to stun and demolish and leave us wondering how in the world we will gather ourselves and respond to THIS.

It takes meditative distance to gather ourselves and face what must be faced. To rise to the occasion. To square ourselves up with the way things are, and do what we can with what we have to work with in responding to THIS. It is not easy, but it is essential that we do the work of offering what is needed to the time and place of our living, day in and day out, for the rest of our lives.

What is being asked of us in each moment, in each situation as it arises? How are we being asked to rise to this occasion, here and now? Ah, but. The objection. The resistance. The very idea! We don't WANT to rise to this, or any, occasion! We want what we want the way we want it when we want it for as long as we want it! And what we want has nothing to do with rising to some occasion! Grr! Snarl! Stomp and Shout (and Pout)!

Our life is asking us to grow up, to square ourselves up with our life, with how it is with us within and without, and we don't want to do it. We don’t want to wake up, grow up, square up, stand up, and do what needs to be done. We want life to bend to our will, to do what we want. We want to be told how to have what we want. We do not want to be told to hand over what we want for the sake of some way that is not our way.

The world is a wasteland that waits for us to understand how things are and reconcile ourselves to it, square ourselves with it. The world is a wasteland waiting for us to hand over what we want for the sake of The Way that is not our idea of any way, much less The Way. Everyone—every thing—suffers in this standoff.

The hero's place, the hero’s role, is not to be the hero with ticker tape parades and fireworks and celebrations long into the night, but to get up each day and rise to the occasion, the occasion she, he, does not want to rise to. THAT is the heroic task. It is never more difficult than doing what is asked of us each day, living in each moment to bring forth the gifts that are ours to give, the genius that is ours to share, in ways that meet the needs of the moment in the way that only we can. But this isn’t the whole of it.

Here’s the rest of the story. The world does not want what we have to offer. That’s the way the world treats its heroes. Jesus is crucified by those he would have gathered under his wings as a hen gathers her chicks. Pay attention here. This is about you. The world does not want us to be who we are, offering what we have to give.

If we are going to become who we are (and who we also are) we have to stand apart from the collective wisdom telling us to not be who we are. But, to do that, to stand apart from the collective is to be seen as Narcissistic, self-indulgent, anti-social. Well. Will we be individuals or not? We will be accused of belonging to "the cult of individuality." Are we going to be individuals or not? The collective will pull all stops in trying to block our development as individuals. Yet, that development is the collective's only hope. Ironic. Paradoxical. And how it is. Square yourself up to it and get yourself going!

Truth as Polarity

Hermes is the messenger of the Gods in the Greek Pantheon, the master of eloquence, interpretation, translation, explanation, right seeing and saying. It is from the word “Hermes” that we get “hermeneutics,” the art of interpreting Biblical texts. I stand before you in the spirit of Hermes to interpret the texts and make plain the truth. It’s what you pay me to do. And, it’s worth noting that the Roman name of Hermes is Mercury, which is also known as Quicksilver, something that shifts, moves, changes quickly, such as the interpretation, understanding, of truth. Now it’s this, now it’s that. Look quickly if you want to see it. It is on the way to becoming something else, perhaps its opposite.

This is the nature of truth. It is not static, but dynamic, changing, shape-shifting, evolving, emerging, unfolding, becoming. And you, we, have to be as quick as it is if we would keep up and know in this moment what is trying to be known here, now. “You don’t keep new wine in old wineskins,” says Jesus, because new wine is still fermenting and will burst the old wineskins that have lost their elasticity and cannot expand to incorporate the new ways of understanding the world, life, ourselves. “It’s a new world, Golda,” says Tevya, and we have to be ready to receive well the world that is changing before our eyes. I don’t think Jesus would have said it in those words, but that’s what he said. This is his theme, the point that he makes over and over. “The way you have thought is not the way to think! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!”

The Sermon on the Mount, the text in chapters 5, 6 and 7 in the Gospel of Matthew, is Jesus’ vision of what is required to live in the physical, visible, world as envoys, representatives, of the invisible world. Note carefully that it is not warfare that Jesus envisions. The Sermon on the Mount is not the book of Revelation or the message of John the Baptist. It is diametrically opposed to both. It begins with the Beatitudes.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit…Blessed are those who mourn…Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…Blessed are the merciful…Blessed are the pure in heart…Blessed are the peacemakers…Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake…Blessed are you all, right now, exactly as you are!” These words from the man John the Baptist predicted would come “with his winnowing fork in his hand, and clear the threshing floor and gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” Jesus’ behavior is so not what John expected that John is reported by Luke (7:18ff) to have sent his disciples to Jesus to inquire, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” What John looked for was not to be delivered in that age, and will not be delivered in some future age. It will not be as we think it will be. This is the nature of truth, which is like quicksilver, turning, changing, becoming more than we ever imagined, something other than we would ever guess.

The nature of truth is reflected in the polarities that define existence: This is the way things are, and this is the way things also are. But which way IS it REALLY?, we ask. Both ways. At the same time. Here’s an example. You know the second greatest commandment, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus espouses the Golden Rule (which was not original with Jesus by a long stretch): “In everything, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” You think that’s clear don’t you? Well, square these two texts with the parable about the Wise and Foolish Bridesmaids (Matthew 25:1-13). Sometimes we love our neighbor as we love ourselves and sometimes we say, “Who made me your caretaker?” (cf. Luke 12:14). Sometimes, we do it this way, and sometimes, we do it that way. And, how do we know when to do what? We take our chances, don’t you know?

The polarities are evident throughout the Sermon on the Mount. After the Beatitudes, which stand in opposition to the apocalyptic expectations of Jesus’ day, Jesus says, “Don’t think I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets! I have not come to abolish, but to fulfill” (Matthew 5:17), then he spends the rest of the Sermon on the Mount setting aside the popular thinking about the Law and the Prophets. “You have heard it said,” he says time and again, “but I say unto you!” (For instance, “You have heard it said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,’ But I say unto you, ‘Do not resist an evildoer, but if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also, and if anyone wants to sue you to take your coat, give your cloak as well, and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.’”)

All of which is to say that the truth is expanded, enlarged, deepened by that which is also true, and that we who want things spelled out and made plain have to understand the nature of truth and the task of hermeneutics, interpretation, explanation. We are dealing with quicksilver here, as slippery a substance as there is in the entire collection of substances. Truth will not be nailed down, codified, defined, locked up, walled in, roped, tied and branded. Truth is this AND that. Sometimes it’s like this, and sometimes it’s like that. “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.” Which way IS it? Both ways at the same time. And we live within the polarities, between the opposites, laughing at the very idea of saying how it is really without saying how it also is really. And, if we strive for consistency and constancy and one way only-ness (the RIGHT way, of course), we only show that we don’t have a clue.