2014.01.31 See This Film!!

SEE THIS FILM!!

I Am,  filmed by Tom Shadyak, shows and tells, through the wisdom of many voices and the actions of many human bodies, what is wrong with out world and what we can do together to make it better. Shadyak, in the midst of paralyzing post-concussion syndrome, faced the fact of his death and recovered to make this witness.

He dedicates the film to his father who spent his whole near-100-year life working tirelesslessly for the health and well-being of children at a St Jude’s Hospital. His dad is Tom’s mentor. On the film son interviews father, who says, something like: I go to a church and I cry. All this love for  an hour and a half. Then I leave, and I get no more turn-on for a week. When I go out onto the streets it all vanishes— until the next week.

What IS wrong with our world and how can we make it better? Tried and true questions explored in graphic and revelatory ways— not about the will of God but about the soul of God. God is never mentioned, nor is religion. 

Teasers:
Darwin in his book, The Descent of Man, mentioned survival just two times. He mentioned love 95 times! Humanity is wired for empathy; making war and excessive competitiveness breaks the natural law of being.

It's actually NOT the economy, stupid.

Deer, fish and birds vote on the next move of the group.

Modern Science agrees with all the spiritual traditions of the world. It turns out love really is all you need.

2013.07.14 Ask the Beasts: Spirituality and the Evolving Earth

“Ask the beasts and they will teach you;
    the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
ask the plants of the earth an they will teach you;
           and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
Who among those does not know
    that the hand of the Lord has done this?
In his hand is the life of every living thing,
    and the breath of every human being.”  (Job 12:7-10) 

Yesterday at Boston College I heard a brilliant talk by Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ, professor of theology at Fordham. She used as her biblical text the above passage from the biblical book of Job.

Poor old Job, impatient for a change in traditional theological thought and having to suffer further because of righteous friends who kept insisting that his sufferings and loss must be divine retribution. Just search your soul, confess, repent and be right with God, they said. 

NO, NO, NO said Job, you’re full of claptrap. I did NOT cause my misfortunes. I am innocent. Just ask the beasts—and every living thing. (This means plants, animals and people—all)

So how do all these living things answer? 
    Their science story: We all evolved over 3.5 billion years. We are all connected in a grand molecular/biological schema on a tree of life and continue to modify, branch and diversify in order to grow and multiply. The more diversified we become the more success each species will have in life.  One beast has evolved with no diversification—the horseshoe crab. One plant the same—the jingo tree. Some of us, of course, will die out.
    Their theology story: We all owe our origins in existence to God. God will transform us into a new creation, a future of life with God who never abandons. Most importantly, God sustains us moment to moment—creatio continua. This is the Tree of Life, home of every living thing.

Johnson's core point was that all living things evolve, thrive in the same intricately connected ecological web, and are in the hand of God/the Lord—now and forever.  Divine creativity is active all the time or there would be no world! AND, "pay attention to biology!"

In ancient times science and religion agreed on these convergences. Darwin was a faithful scientist, a beholder of every living thing. Unlike some righteous religionists (like Job's friends) Darwin shined praises on the minutiae of biological life in a way that brought about his theory of evolution.

He wrote "...from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved." He marveled that the bone structure of the human hand (for grasping), the mole’s paw (for digging), the fish’s fin (for paddling), and the bird’s wing (for flying) are all exactly the same skeletally. 

So what happened?  The history is too much for me to go into here, but you might say the same hubris that motivated the putative apple caper in Eden caused humanity to forget that it was only ONE species among every living thing that God held in hand.  We placed ourselves at the top of an ascendancy scale. We're still doing it! Recently the Occupy Movement made witness to such hubris.  Johnson's case, however, was that we humans have left every living thing except ourselves behind, discounted, outside of our concern and God's as well. 

How will we heal this rending?  Ironically, by not paying so much attention to sin and the spiritual state of our own narcissistic souls and looking out the window at the whole order of which we are one part. "LOOK OUT THE WINDOW!!" Johnson said. "We need a robust pneumtology."

It is She, the Holy Spirit who in our Christian Nicene Creed is called "the giver of life." The Latin words mean vivifier.  I can't resist commenting here that I would so love it if we could at least stop referring to the Holy Spirit as HE in the creed. Please! Three men on top—too much. 

Tears came to my eyes more than once as Johnson talked about the Spirit— the spiritual radiance of  plants and animals as well as human beings. 

LOOK OUT THE WINDOW. LISTEN TO THE VOICE OF NATURE. GET OVER YOURSELF.

A few irresistible wise tidbits that beg to be heard:
    -Creation is a cosmic event.
    -Deep Incarnation means that God in the flesh goes beyond Jesus' flesh, even beyond human flesh,  and into the flesh of the whole natural living world—every living thing again. Flesh ( Greek sarx)  means everything that is vulnerable, perishable, fragile and transitory. That's the whole enchilada.  
    -The Exultet Christians chant at the Easter Vigil begins with: Rejoice all earth...(not all humanity)
    -The extinction of a species means the end of birth (Darwin) 27,000 species are lost each year!  We are a species!
    -For Christians: Jesus is made of the same molecular dust as we all are. In Christ’s resurrection the earth itself arose. Resurrection redeems from DEATH, not just sin!
    - Birds have the power to fly; for the ancients birds went where humans couldn’t reach, so the bird, symbol of the Goddess of Love, became the symbol for the the divine Spirit in both testaments of the Bible.
    -There are two bibles: Nature and Scripture
   
If the Church is too tied into the resources of corporate wealth to divest from fossil fuel investments, then the Church is irrelevant and voiceless, as mostly it has been already.  (NB the United Church of Christ has just voted to divest, and so did the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts.)
 “If you push for such things, you may end up despised,” Johnson said with a compelling grin.

When I went home I rushed to Genesis and back to the Garden of Eden. I knew all about the good and evil morality tree whose fruit was death.  But wasn’t there another special tree?  

YES.... in Genesis 3:22: the tree of life. The story gives us a glimpse no more of an opportunity for humanity “to reach out his/her hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 

We can perpetuate the schema of the great Darwinian/ biblical Tree of All Life.  The beasts and all green life ask no less of us than to act now to save the earth, to help God’s creatio continua.

Is NOW the time to reach with all our might and wit and resources for that tree of life and save all earth—and ourselves with it?

IF NOT NOW, WHEN? 




   

2013.02.17 Why Heaven Now? A Modest Proposal

Reading Eben Alexander’s book Proof of Heaven, and finding it as engaging as his talk, but with much more detail, both personal and scientific, including some fascinating backstory, I sort of wish I’d nearly died and had such a glorious taste of the spiritual realm.

I wondered, why now? Why has this book come out just now?  I predict it will be a bestseller, and Eben Alexander will promote it with all he’s got, because he is earnest about the message of ultimate eternal love he calls God. 

When I was very young I had a similar experience, though not as grand. I called it God because I’d seen God in a book and figured God was the right name for feeling so utterly affirmed and accepted without question.  I have spent most of my life trying to preserve, protect, even simply remember and retrieve, this experience of pure being-loved. I have wanted to shield it from my own doubts. I also it hasn't magically made me a perfect person!

My sister remembers me under the table a lot, but I have no proof of my own small but ultimate experience. All I can do is trust it, and write about it, and try not to get preachy-insistent about it.

To me, the most resonant thing Alexander wrote about God was: “One of the biggest mistakes people make when they think about God is to imagine god as impersonal. Yes, God is behind numbers, the perfection of the universe that science measures and struggles to understand. But—again, paradoxically—Om (means One and is another name he uses for Divinity) is “human” as well—even more  human than you and I are. Om understands and sympathizes with our human situation more profoundly than we can imagine because Om knows what we have forgotten, and understands the terrible burden it is to live with amnesia of the Divine for even a moment.”

That’s like what I felt as a child and I can’t go abstract with it, no matter how much I think I should, and no matter how much I know God remains Mystery to be grasped occasionally by sheer grace. Believe me, however, I’m in no hurry to die.

Alexander  doesn’t refer to God as He. Okay with me. Might the Holy Eucharist be, for Christians,  a ritual of anamnesis, a state of no amnesia about Divinity?  Could the “human” God have many identities, like Jesus, Buddha, Moses, and how about Betty Friedan, or Anita Hill, or Gloria Steinem, Julian of Norwich, Pope John XXIII, or you, or me—and so many more. 

So, why now?  I think it is because most of the world has made science an idol. There is lots of evidence, biblical and beyond, that God finds a way to insert a “punctuation mark” into this universe to remind people that science, as necessary and wondrous as it is, is not God.

2013.02.19 Proof of Heaven?

Hearing Eben Alexander, author of the book Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey Into the Afterlife, speak was a moving experience for me—not because I needed proof of heaven or bolstering for my religious faith. In fact, I’d pretty much decided to wait till I was much older to worry and wonder about resurrection theology—and never have fretted about “getting in.”

Nor was I interested in hearing one more, albeit from a medical scientist, testimony about near-death experience. 

No, I was moved because Dr. Alexander was NOT charismatic. That is not meant as an insult. 

Alexander spoke almost casually and in a low-key way about the exhilarating, exotic, colorful, yes, heavenly according to age-old religio-spiritual imagery, experience he had while he was in a week-long coma induced by bacterial meningitis (inflammation of membranes that line the skull and enclose the brain and spinal cord).

“My neocortex was not running at all,” he told us. It was dead, or more graphically, a “neocortex soaked in pus.”  In such a condition, the physical organ we call brain, could not manufacture  consciousness such as Alexander experienced.

Does human consciousness exist outside the brain? It would seem so. The brain, in fact, actually limits consciousness, according to Dr. Alexander.  

Alexander came out of the coma and back into life, armed with a life-transforming experience, and a memory. His son, a physician studying neurosurgery himself, told him not to talk to anyone or read a thing before he wrote everything he remembered down. He wrote 20,000 words in six weeks. 

Medical doctors, who had all but pronounced the case hopeless, called his recovery a medical miracle. Alexander called it the result of being in heaven. The publisher chose the book's title to promote sales, but it's really about Divinity. He described his vision of divinity (his word) in great detail, including a perfect mystical melody, a beautiful woman, swirling colors, an infinitely knowing presence, and a powerful message of unconditional love. All the ingredients of a perfect first date, I’d say.  

No stranger to religion, in part because of a physician father with a strong faith, Alexander, nevertheless, looked to science to answer life’s questions. But after his spiritual awakening he testified: “I knew what happened to me was beyond science, and that if I said anything at all as a scientist ever again, I had to say this.”  

Science and theology are not at odds, as many in both camps have maintained.  They are soul mates driven by similar quests and using different methodologies.  Such an interface, to me, is not “brain” (or rocket)  science!  Still,  for such a conversation to succeed, both camps must be motivated by respect, accord the project the dignity it deserves, speak with mutual respectful, and have no attachment to agenda or outcome.  

I will not describe more of Alexander’s compelling details, save to add that he left us with a tantalizing  cliff-hanger, the final discovery that, for him, secured the truth of the heavenly realm as he experienced it.

Do I find this witness credible?  Yes. Why?
    -I didn’t feel the impulse to argue with him or critique, one of my favorite resistances.
    -He never used the word resurrection, or tried to pump a Christian agenda. 
    -He was humble, far from culture-bound celebrity, although he has achieved media fame.
    -He did not point to himself, but beyond himself. When asked if he thought God “arranged” all this with a higher purpose, Alexander said, “No. I was not chosen.”
    I was glad to hear that theological line of thinking dispelled. God doesn’t choose anyone, make anyone special, or manipulate human freedom, even for a godly agenda  (That’s our specialty.) We are all called, and chosen. 
    -The message of Love was clear, as was the message that Alexander would go back and be a messenger—the job of “angels.”
    -When he, against all odds, awoke, his first words were: Thank you.
    -His second words were: All is well.
    -All “near-death” accounts are consistently the same at the core, though there may be descriptive imagery from earthly culture or religion ie. seeing Jesus, Buddha, etc. Atheists would leave it abstract, Alexander noted, but made no fun of that approach. 
    -One does not have to almost die to have such experience.
    -If you have such an experience you will never forget it, although you may question it and try to understand it by many means.
    -Images sync with biblical and other ancient and modern mystical witnesses.
    -Extended consciousness is not a new topic.
    -All things are one in God.

I felt affirmed in my own spiritual experience and pleased that Alexander’s witness answered some of my questions:  Why, in spite of being exposed to lots of traditional negative God images, even in the Bible, have I never believed a single one? Why have I never believed that God created goodness, and therefore must also be the author of evil?  Why have I never thought God was judgmental or controlling, never? I was never afraid of God.

My theology comes out of my own spiritual experience and often has made me feel out of step, although, thankfully, I didn’t have to get pregnant, exiled, crucified, or nearly die for it.

Oh, I’ve been hurt and lost connection with the God I early experienced, and I’ve doubted my self and my own memory, but I NEVER forgot what happened. And yes, I’ve felt angry at patriarchal images and language, plenty, but, from my beginning I knew it was NOT God—not simply, not MY God, but NOT God at all.    

I write about the talk I heard with some trepidation, because I may have heard some things wrong, and I haven’t read the book, only reviews and articles. But I will read the book, then keep on writing my own book. As Alexander said, it’s good timing for this message—and its source. 

2013.01.16 Epiphany Stories

Epiphany means revelation or insight. Or in words of James Joyce, the "revelation of the whatness of a thing . . .the moment when the soul of the commonest object...seems to be radiant." 

Twelfth Night, Epiphany Eve, is an English celebration, a time to try everything new you can think of—pranks, scandals, and role reversals.  This is my favorite season of the church year, because I just LOVE new ideas and insights that shed light on something in a different way. And I love the God of reversals. I watch for such surprises and usually applaud.

Epiphany takes us from Christmas to Lent and is based on the biblical story of the Magi arriving for a baby-viewing. They’ve heard that this kid may be special, sent from Godde—also dangerous, according to King Herod who feared a challenge to his own almighty rule/dictatorship. He sent the wisest men in his kingdom to check out the truth of the theological rumor.  

Imagine the scene: three august foreigners, Gentiles, astrologers from the east no less, arrived at the stable entrance bringing lavish gifts to the little Jewish baby cooing in a filthy crib around which huddled two exhausted parents, wondering if they would survive. Just imagine what Mary and Joseph felt at this appalling visitation. 

It's only a story (but never say only a story), for this kind of thing happens all the time to mess up what we all agree is true and real, and even what we are sure God’s plans are!   The story is biblical, therefore a bit grandiose on purpose, and rich in symbols and imagery of light and star, things these Magi know something about, and trust to guide them.

The story’s meaning is not just to emphasize God’s action in history to enlighten the people, but also to show that Jesus Christ is intended as Messiah, a liberator for ALL people. 

Stories have power to transform and inspire no matter how fantastical they seem. Even if they don’t turn out the way they predict we keep on telling them, because we need to hear them, over and over. 


I remember when a man who lived in the local shelter in Gloucester started to come to church at our parish of St. John’s. His name was David. He sat quietly in the back for weeks, and in time came up to join others for the Holy Communion meal. He said,  “something's going on here.”  He revealed nothing personal, except that he had a drinking problem.  No one asked for more.

One day the office staff heard someone talking out loud in the sanctuary (open for prayer when the parish office was open, or people were in the building), and peeked in to investigate. They saw David standing at the lectern reading aloud to an empty church the biblical readings for the Sunday just past. I don’t think the church was really empty. 

In time David vanished, as quickly as he had appeared. He left the place richer for his presence, and perhaps he received something himself.


I have a story I’m trying to write.  You have a story. Theology has a story. Even Science has a story. 

What might be the inside story the Wise Men would tell?  I wonder if those ancient astrologers and sages faced some of the same problems and insights modern astronomers and astro physicists encounter? They could read the stars, and they knew the sky pretty well, but they couldn’t quite come up with a really good insight about the origins of the universe.  For that they needed theology’s story.  Their astronomical GPS wasn’t enough.

Even today, scientific calculations come up against a brick wall in the search for truth. Sometimes, they need theology, or let’s say insights from the mystical/spiritual/religious faith traditions. They need the Mystery some call God to fill in the blanks about the cosmos and its quantum beginnings.

Like the ancients who followed a star that the prophets advertised as leading to Divinity, scientists today are in respectful conversation with theologians they once dismissed as too non-scientific to be useful.  A result a new discipline called astro-theology is evolving.  (The Journal of Cosmology, based on the science of astronomy and mathematics, has a theology issue.)

When two or three gather together to share their gifts, there is Epiphany and epiphanies.