Saturday, December 15, 2018

The Gift

Last December I first published this Christmas story here.  I believe it is my favorite of all my short stories.  It was well received then, so I repeat it for Christmas 2018.


The Gift

            In the time before the star shone over Bethlehem, there lived a shepherd and his wife who had six sons.The husband was very proud to have such a family of sons, but the wife longed for a daughter.   After the fourth boy, she had expressed that wish to her husband.  He scolded her, saying it was sons, not daughters that every good Hebrew should pray for.   Although she dearly loved and cared for each son, she never stopped yearning for a daughter. After the birth of her sixth boy her heart became heavy, realizing she was passing out of her childbearing years and was not to realize her hope.  But to their surprise, she conceived again, and a year later, she gave birth to a girl! She immediately declared the child to be God’s blessing, and requested of her husband that the baby be named Johanna, Hebrew for ‘gift of God’.  They so named her.
            The baby was very beautiful, strong and healthy—except for a twisted foot.  Faithfully during the child’s infancy, her mother massaged and molded the foot, which improved from the care, but it was never to be fully cured.  Throughout her life, Johanna was to walk with a limp.  
            The husband—being a good Jew—went frequently to the temple.  As his fellow worshipers became aware of the child’s deformity, some would shake their heads and say this was punishment for his sins.  When he repeated this to his wife—who usually made no retort to his chidings—she scolded him: “Do not question God!  His ways are not our ways . . . this child is a gift; God has plans for her.”  The husband just shook his head and walked away.
            Johanna had a loving nature and sweet disposition, but she did not speak.  At first they thought nothing of it—with six lively and boisterous brothers, there was always commotion to which she was alert, so they simply thought her quiet.  One day a physician said her tongue cleaved to her jaw and she would never speak.  
              “—A curse of God for sure!” said the people.
            As she grew, the girl learned household tasks as befits a Hebrew woman, but she also had a great love of the sheep of her father’s flock and took delight in shepherding them in nearby fields that were not hard to walk to.  Later, as she matured, Johanna took on the task of bedding them at night when they were stabled . . . and she gently soothed the delivering ewes at lambing time.  Several times she saved both ewe and lamb in a difficult labor.  Always she was kind and gentle.  The knowledge of her skill spread through the village and at lambing time all welcomed her.
            As the years went on, each of the brothers in turn took wives . . . but no marriage could be arranged for Johanna.  Only the mean or stupid would accept so flawed a woman for wife, and her parents would not agree to such a match. 
            As her parents grew old, the daughter cared first for her father, then later her mother thru their aged infirmities, always with kindness and a loving disposition.  Her mother never ceased saying Johanna was God’s gift and blessing.
            After the deaths of her parents, Johanna went to live with and assist the elderly devout long-widowed Anna of the tribe of Asher, who spent much time in the temple praying. In addition to the duties of Anna’s house, Johanna continued to watch over the stables and tend the lambing of the village.
            One December evening, on her rounds of the stables, Johanna came upon a man sitting dejectedly with his head in his hands—at her approach the man leapt to his feet saying, “You are the answer to my prayers . . . Can you help me? I am Joseph; my wife Mary is about to give birth . . .” Johanna gave no response. “I am a carpenter and do not have knowledge of such things.  We came for the census.  I could find no lodgings or midwife for her, but we were given shelter in this stable . . . her time has come.  Now she is napping between her labor pains—and I feel so helpless.  I called upon the Lord God to send help . . . and here you are.  Will you help us?”
            Johanna nodded. Joseph soon realized she could not speak, but he did not question God.  He thanked God for sending this kind young woman as he handed her the supplies they had carried with them for this need.  She moved with self-assurance and, though not a midwife, all the years of tending the ewes gave her the needed inner confidence.  Her kindness, warmth and gentleness soothed both the travelers.
            At the moment of birth, gently she received the newborn into her hands, cleared the mucus, patted his back to encourage his first breaths of air, wiped him with the linens, and tucked him into Mary’s arms.
            With gratefulness, Mary received the baby and said, “He is to be called, Jesus.”  At that moment the infant’s tiny fingers curled around Johanna’s index finger—she opened her lips and whispered “Welcome, Jesus” . . . 


THE END

Thursday, December 13, 2018

Manifested Consciousness

Who is God and what is God? I can’t possibly know.  I believe religions help us to focus on the concept of God, which is needed by humanity in order to not self-destruct, but religions are man’s creation.  Humans are flawed so errors are made in religion’s attempts to reach for God.

Science—because it can’t prove God exists—denies the possibility of God and credits randomness for creating the human species, our world, and the universe. Now that takes more ‘faith’ than I can muster.  As I study all that is ordered I see a requirement for consciousness to plan a process of selecting, sequencing and executing to achieve the desired result.

Slabs of metal, nuts and bolts, pieces of glass and rolls of leather will never randomly assemble themselves into a car no matter how much time is given; flour, sugar, eggs and chocolate pieces will never randomly assemble into cookies under any circumstances.

The human species, our world and the universe are the most carefully ordered sequences that can be imagined.

I have no faith that randomness yields complex order—it requires intentionality. 

I don’t know who or what God is, but I believe the order that brought us and all that is into existence has been the manifestation of a consciousness capable of bringing order. I’m content to call that God.

Friday, November 23, 2018

About Competition

For Christmas last year, my grandson gave me a unique gift.  It’s called Storyworth and each week for 52 weeks my computer is sent one question about my life or my thoughts that I am to answer that week.  Knowing a new question will appear the next week whether or not I answered the previous one has kept me on track and I’ve not missed any.  At the end of the year it will be compiled into a book.  I’m looking forward to the finished product in a few short weeks.  

Last week’s question was about competition and this was my response:

‘Over the years I have formed a negative opinion toward competition, mainly because it has been overemphasized in our society—in marketing, politics, education, sports . . . etc.

The usual place where kids are introduced to competition is in sports.  Fundamental to sport, teamwork and good sportsmanship were woven in so that life lessons could be gained - but it seems now that the competition itself has become the focus and winning is all-important—even in little league competition, fights break out (largely among parents).  Even the Olympic games—a tradition that has gone on for thousands of years—has been tainted by a ‘winning at all costs attitude’ that promoted the use of enhancing drugs by many athletes.  Winning was all-important, so if cheating was the way to win, that’s how it was done.

Competition and cooperation are opposite approaches as solutions to conflict.  Each has validity but requires mediation and rules of engagement. Sports are designed for competition, which is not inherently bad, but when ethics are separated from engagement and ‘winning’ becomes the only objective, the competition is corrupted. In our world today, so often winning takes precedence above all else.  When Trump was criticized for the unethical way he attacked his opponents he said with a grin, “But I won didn’t I?”

More and more we are becoming a polarized society with an attitude of ‘us’ and ‘them’.  The polarizations divide everything into ‘win’ and ‘lose’ camps; you must be for or against . . . it is called a zero sum game: one person’s gain is at the cost of the other’s loss.  We seem to be losing our ability to cooperate to seek solutions by compromise—the very way diplomacy keeps the peace.  When there are intense disagreements, compromise is necessary. Each side must be prepared to do some yielding, the unwillingness to yield results in some form of war—at which point everyone loses.

So from my position as an observer of competition, I say I’m not a fan: competition has been overemphasized in our world and there is a need to work harder on learning to cooperate.’

Monday, October 22, 2018

A Work in Progress

For a while I’ve been having a problem with writer’s block, yet I wanted to write here this month. Searching my journals for inspiration I found this from 1986:

What I know to be absolutely true:                                                     

            One cannot know who or what God is.

            But that which is known as ‘God’s Kingdom” is the ONLY thing that is worth living/dying for.

            The soulless institutions we build destroy meaning, and life without meaning cannot be endured by creatures whose central quality is reflective awareness.

            We must live out our existence with ‘human nature’, which is attracted to evil as well as good.  We aren’t going to be transformed into another kind of being.

            We can train ourselves to develop and utilize the capacity for reflective awareness, which has sat mostly idle within the species (actualized in only a few).

            And thus as mankind becomes a choice-making creature guided by the wisdom in our sacred scriptures . . . that is none other than a blueprint of how humankind can co-exist in life’s diversity and find joy.

            There are only two options left: either we finally build the Kingdom of God, or we destroy ourselves and this planet—there is no other option available.                     
                                                               _ _ _

I remembered that after having read Teilhard’s book ‘How I Believe’, it haunted me for some time. I liked that he had distilled the genius of his mind to make a simple statement of belief.

I believe the universe is an evolution.
I believe that evolution proceeds toward spirit.
I believe that in man, spirit is fully realized in person.
I believe that the supremely personal is the Universal Christ.
                                                                                Teilhard de Chardin
                                         _ _ _

I wanted to do something similar and write a brief statement of belief.  It wasn’t brief and resulted in the above ‘What I Know’.   It took a surprising amount of time but I finally wrote what, after some 20 years, still reads as true.  I read and reread it and made a few changes.  It now reads:

            One cannot know who or what God is.

            But that which is known as ‘God’s kingdom’ is the only thing that is worth living and dying for.

            We must live out our existence with human nature that is attracted to evil as well as good; but with consciousness, we can learn to choose the good.

            We pray, “Thy kingdom come”.  What does that mean?  It will be our One peaceful global world with people choosing compassion, forgiveness and love.

            We, mankind, must evolve to become choice-making creatures with long-term vision guided by the Wisdom from all of our sacred scriptures.

            There are only two options: either we finally build the kingdom of God, or we destroy this planet and ourselves.
                                                               _ _ _


It is not yet concise enough; I will continue to search my soul and return to it another time.

Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Mystical Fiction

Since my last entry (5thAnniversary  8/19/18) I’ve been doing some looking back.  I know I’ve mentioned my book The Stations a few times, but I haven’t outlined the story. A year ago on August 25th2017 my entry was ‘of The Stations’ but that was more background on the influence of Teilhard de Chardin on my thinking.  It also mentions the book is ‘spiritual fiction’ but I have some misgivings about what is suggested by that.  The Stations isn’t an apology for any one religion, its setting is Catholicism but at its heart it is of the search for meaning.  It would more appropriately be called ‘mystical fiction’—but who would understand that?  

A mystical perspective differs from a religious one although they both focus on God.  Each religion seeks to establish an exclusive way to approach God using a restrictive set of rules and guidelines—either implied or overtly expressed.  Religion is advantageous and important for social order and it can provide security and comfort, but for the most part it is a closed system.  In the God search, religion is a good starting point but there is little room for growth or exploration because the rules are already established and innovation is seen as a threat.

Mysticism on the other hand is a deeper search for meaning—seeking the ‘why’ of the phenomenon of human existence. It begins by assuming the presence of a Supreme Being but doesn’t make absolute claims about the nature of that Being because there is a realization that it is mystery beyond the human capacity to grasp; yet the seeking can bring a bit more light of understanding. 


In my book the artist is a contemporary mystic, as was Teilhard, striving to help people ‘see’ more deeply into life’s mystery.  The Stations by B. Sabonis-Chafee is available on Amazon books.  This is its description.   

The Stations is a deep and probing story of the doubt-faith conflict of artist John Stanley Thomas’s search for meaning in our contemporary secular world.  It is both timely and universal.  In this story—as in the world at large—there are growing concerns about ‘moral bankruptcy’ with calls for a refocus upon universal values rather than those that are religion-specific.  The setting is Roman Catholic, but it is neither pro nor anti-Church—it is the spiritual struggle of an artist who plunges inward to discover the dimensions of his vision and then stay true to it in the face of institutional opposition.

The following is a five-point outline of the story:
-- A fortune is left in the hands of the Church for an artistic expression of the Stations of the Cross.
-- The initial protagonist, Archbishop Kaslandis, is deeply spiritual.  He engages in a seven-year search for the ‘right’ artist.  About a year after the artist is commissioned the Archbishop dies; his successor is an efficient bureaucrat. 
-- Once the sculpting begins the artist experiences a ‘dark night’; a creative block which, after months, gives way to a new vision to imbue the stations with contemporary socially relevant meaning which shocks the ultra-conservative clergy who see heresy and blasphemy. 
-- As he is threatened with the commission’s withdrawal, he seeks the wise counsel of a psychologist-nun, Mother Abara, with whom he has deep discussions.
-- Following the death of Mother Abara, perhaps out of loneliness, he becomes entangled in a miss-matched fiery relationship.
-- He loses the commission but continues to work on the stations as we watch his life unfold over a 20-year period. There is employment as a Community College art teacher, relationships, and the aloneness this struggle requires.  Woven throughout, the reader witnesses the artist’s creative process as he gives expression to each of the fourteen stations.

I would be most interested in any comments from readers of The Stations.  I can be reached by email:  bsabonis@me.com



Sunday, August 19, 2018

5th Anniversary

Five years ago today I began my blog 'ofseriousthoughts' with this poem.  I repeat it today on this anniversary.  It speaks to my main concerns.
I have maintained the goal of two entrys a month.  Because of other writing projects I will reduce that to once a month.  I have enjoyed and will continue to enjoy this project, just less frequently.  I only wish I had more comments from my readers.


Un-named God

You are the un-named God
      the soul-giver

Who or what you are
      is a mystery requiring humble acceptance,
      not a problem demanding arrogant solutions.

You gifted man with consciousness--
      the invitation to participate in the mystery!

We responded with arrogance--
      imposing solutions upon a perceived problem.

We’ve misinterpreted what and who you are.
We’ve misconcluded who and what we are!

---

How wise the admonition 
      to not utter God’s name!

We ignored it to our peril--
      we named you and contained you;

We locked you within dogmas,
      confined you to denominations;

We borrowed your power to levy control,
      stole from you your glory to praise our creations;

We molded and made you into our image,
      chose and selected what pleased our design.

---

Foolishly, men of power became God-namers
      and for a time...

The God-namers ruled
      presuming to control both God and men

The God-namers ruled
      luxuriating in glamour and arrogance

The God-namers ruled
      dividing humanity into controllers and controlled

The God-namers ruled
      losing the quest for the Holy Grail.

---


And so history unfolded...

Till finally the controlled awakened,
      forever beyond blind obedience.
They looked and saw the illusion--
     God wasn’t as they’d been told!

They saw empty dogma and warring denominations,
They saw corrupted power and tainted glory,
They saw false idols and self-serving gestures.

Ordinary men turned, first on the God-namers,
                          --then on God!

Yet foolishly they accepted the divisions of 
                          controllers and controlled

And everyone raced to be in charge
          while denying responsibility for control.

The 20th Century ‘common man’
     accepted the proclamation 
               of God’s death
And in so doing, brought about
                ...his own

               Emptiness
               Soullessness
               Meaninglessness...

---

The structure of civilization
     has been built upon domination and control.

The hope for its continuation
     hangs upon humankind embracing true Wisdom

               The formula is there for us to discover
                     Beyond dogmas
                     Beyond controllers:

               “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life”
                     “Love one another”
                        “Go and sin no more”
                     “Forgive your enemies

---

Is it that God IS NOT?
     or
Is it that God is beyond our containing?
                     --our naming?

God is Unity, Totality, Infinity
God is Love, Justice, Truth
God is Benevolent Transcendent Power

---

Without God upon whom to center
                     my life,
My Life becomes the center of 
                     my universe.

     Alienation!
          Exit warmth and compassion
               honor and integrity:

          “Take care of #1”
          “If it feels good, do it
          “The one who dies with the most toys wins”

---


But we’re made to seek God
It’s programmed into our being
     so imitations fill the vacuum:
          sex replaces Love
          legalisms replace Justice
          data replaces Truth
     and the almighty dollar replaces Benevolent
                                         Transcendent
                                            Power

          Soul-less
     We’ve become the hollow men!

---

Louder, Faster!
Louder, Faster!!  Hide the hollowness!

But no matter how loud and how fast
          there are moments of 
          self alone with self
     and the hollow places echo
     the absence of the soul
                          ...another suicide
                             one more senseless killing.


Here and there, a tear is shed, a cry is heard
     another tear, another cry
          and another and another
     till the Louder and Faster 
          aren’t loud enough or fast enough
               and we finally realize...

There’s a cry echoing across the land

The cry of a hollow generation
          wailing for its lost soul!

---

With our own hand, we fashioned hell!
We refused to see we did it to ourselves--
We not only named God, but dictated the spelling!

---

But You are the unnamed God
     The soul-giver

I know you by your absence.

When we turn from You
     we dispossess our soul--
          soon to discover
               we are the hollow men.

Without You we cannot save ourselves
                       from ourselves.

Only in Your presence do we partake of the mystery--
Only in Your presence do we reach beyond ourselves--
Only in Your presence do we find fulfillment.


Wednesday, August 1, 2018

To Build A Better World

Series:  Long-Term Vision   #7   final 

I want to bring together the various themes of my writing.  This blog began 5 years ago with an all-encompassing poem; then I wrote about observations from the world of our times and humanity’s search for God. Throughout I’ve made references to Teilhard de Chardin, a scientist and theologian.  In 2015 herein I wrote a 7 part series outlining some of his concepts. Although he is well known among theologian, the revolutionary nature and complexity of his writing makes him little known to the average person so I strive to make his ideas more understandable because he is the key to the integration of science and religion—which are NOT incompatible but rather two sides of the coin of knowledge.  Science seeks the when, where and how of the world while religion seeks the who and why of existence.

 The revolutionary concept of our time is the realization of the interconnectedness of all life.  We are moving toward unifying our world, not into sameness but with respect for our diversities.  Peaceful co-existence is the goal.  That understanding begins with evolution and consciousness—both new concepts to the 20thand 21stcenturies.  Evolution is the underlying principle of all that is.  Consciousness is the unique human quality that allows for our freedom and the ability to shape our world.  Darwin gave us the mechanistic understanding that life evolved from simple forms to more complex ones (complexity).  Teilhard gave us the understanding of the non-material dimension of life (consciousness) whereby, over long spans of time, rudimentary awareness in lower creatures increased to become reflective awareness in humans. He identified ‘the law of complexity-consciousness’.  Our human consciousness continues to expand to ever see greater order and 'rightness'.

All that exists follows an ordered pattern of development.  The coming-to-be of materiality resulted not from random happenings (though randomness is involved) but in a discernable order.  We can see a relentless directionality from lower to higher order.  Telescopes show us the order of the universe, we have discovered the order in our solar system, science tell us of the order and delicate balance of the elements that make up our world, we know of the order to new life coming into existence, and we have all lived through the ordered pattern of growth and development from childhood to adulthood.  We will collectively come to see a higher order in recognizing the interdependence of all of life and act accordingly; harm to any part affects the whole. 

A dictionary definition of order: 1) a condition of logical or comprehensible arrangement among separate elements of a group; 2) prescribed arrangements among component parts such that proper functioning or appearance is achieved. Note the words logical, comprehensible, prescribed, and functional.  Order is a product of conscious intent.The overwhelming presence of order in life and the universe points to ‘something’ consciously guiding the process, because order follows intent.  

I choose to call the ‘something’ Mystery God.  Others can choose other names or no name—but what I see is an ordered universe and beings with consciousness capable of long-term vision, people that can formulate and reach for goals.  And I see in those beings of every race and culture a shared desire for a sustainable world at Peace.  Not all, and not soon, surely not in my lifetime or my children or grandchildren’s, but it is enough to join the flow of life striving for unity that will one day realize all life’s interconnectedness.

Some would consider that ‘seeking God’ (source of love, truth, goodness, hope . . .).   Or others may prefer to consider it as seeking ‘indestructible rightness’, by whatever the name; our goal is to build a better world.

Thursday, July 12, 2018

Embrace Mystery

Series:  Long-Term Vision  #6  (this series began April 30—Seeking Rightness)

In this series I argue against our society’s loss of long-term vision and for the importance of remaining open to new understanding, a key element for long-term vision.  New understanding does not deny what came before; it expands upon it as greater awareness develops.

The scientific knowledge of our world has moved ahead by leaps and bounds over the last 100 years and that clearly is a good thing.  In keeping with that, our education system has become geared to specific absolute answers (multiple choice and true/false testing) and thus we’ve been conditioned to want immediate concrete yes or no answers to all questions.  In addition, computers have totally altered the availability and flow of information (we don’t need to search and wait).  That has increased our expectation of and desire for immediacy.  We’ve become the NOW generation, but without yesterday and tomorrow our vision has been narrowed.  It satisfies the ‘without’ but the ‘within’ is starving.  The ‘within’ is what contains the qualities of love, truth, justice, compassion, mercy, hope . . . the non-material elements that make life worth living.  That’s where God is found.

God is beyond our knowing; we cannot answer the question ‘Is God?’ with an absolute yes or no answer. Neither can we know or understand who or what God is—but since the human first appeared on earth that has been a burning question among all peoples.  Reflective awareness seeks to know and our knowledge is constantly refining our understanding.  There have been a myriad of answers for who and what God is—all with anthropomorphic leanings and all fail to satisfy.  We design our gods to fit what we know . . . but to accept that God is beyond our knowing is to ask us to embrace Mystery and not to abandon the search.

That is what Teilhard do Chardin and many contemporary theologians are asking us to do, to return to Mystery God.  It is not new with them, it goes all the way back to John’s Gospel that begins: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God . . . “, and later Paul in 1Corinthians 15:28 “ . . . that God be all in all.” . . . but that is mystery and human weakness has been unable to grasp it.  Even earlier, to Moses in Exodus 3:14 God self-identified with the words: I AM who I Am” then God added “tell the Israelites ‘I AM sent me to you’”.  

I am is first person singular for the verb to be.  Break that down; ‘I AM’ is ‘to be’ . . . God is Being itself—and that is beyond our understanding.  To accept that, is to embrace Mystery.

As I look back with long-term vision I see evidence of the law of complexity-consciousness.  Life, beginning with simple single cells, continually grows more complex over millions of years to finally bring forth the beautifully complex human form; and I see simple consciousness (a worm bumps into a rock and turns itself to go around it) expands, to eventually develop thought and understanding in the human mind.  In this, a pattern can be seen.  It is more than mere random chance. 

I see the primitive caveman giving meaning to sounds that become words and making marks on cave walls to tell the story of the hunt . . . and I see eons of time with the human consciousness expanding and shaping his environment and culture, bringing forth both beauty and horror.  Then, in our time, breaking free of earth’s gravity to see earth’s place in the vast universe as one whole interacting balanced unit supporting fragile life.  That is the new understanding we are called upon to realize, our global world maintains itself thru balancing all the elements . . . and the human species is one of those elements, the only ‘element’ with the power to alter and control that balance.  

As I turn my long-term vision forward to the future I see two possibilities: either we learn to live by love—or we self-destruct.  That is beyond finding the answer to the mystery ‘is God?’ that is the reality of what love (God?) is about . . . all humanity together building a sustainable future.  Only with love can we change the world. 

- - -
I repeat my two favorite Teilhard quotes:

The day of Nations is past.  The task before us now, if we would not
perish, is to build the earth.

Someday, after mastering the wind, the waves, the tides and gravity,
we shall harness for God the energies of love and then for the second
        time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.






Thursday, June 28, 2018

Belonging to the Flow of Life

Series:  Long-Term Vision  #5

This series is titled long-term vision, but below the vision is thinking.  I want to consider long-term and short-term thinking. Short-term thinking serves the immediate, but only in long-term thinking is there room for vision and hope for the future. 

Let us take a closer look at thinking.  It is usually not something that is conscious (unless we choose to make it so) it is an operative principle below the surface guiding thought and action.  Long-term thinking (ltt) and short-term thinking (stt) are on the opposite ends of the spectrum of how we face life.  We need both and alternate between them—If we have an appointment on a given day we employ stt to fit the activities of the day around it. If we are buying a house it’s important to employ ltt to evaluate size in relation to family needs, consider location and proximity to what we find important, do an analysis of cost as it compares to income . . . and not react impulsively ‘because this one is cute’.  It is an individual choice to rely more on one side than the other but it seems like our fast paced society encourages stt more than ltt, the latter takes too long! 

How to explain stt and ltt? They are pretty much self-explanatory but to elaborate for better understanding let’s say: short-term thinking seeks quick, efficient solutions to immediate problems/demands/situations whereas long-term thinking looks ahead and back to take into account possible effects of our choice and remains open to possibilities not yet considered—which opens the door to vision. 

The ancient civilizations were imbued with long-term vision; their lives were shorter than people of today yet they were aware of a sense of belonging to history.  They built structures to last: Roman roads, aqueducts and the Colosseum are still there for us to see; Egyptians gave evidence to it with the pyramids; China’s great wall and the Terracotta soldiers were meant to last forever, they defy our understanding.

That awareness of belonging to the flow of life gives meaning to existence.  It has been lost in the modern era.  We became the NOW generation, members of a throw away society, ‘If it feels good do it’.  With too much short-term thinking and too little long-term thinking we’ve embraced meaninglessness.  Without a meaning or purpose it’s easy to choose violence or suicide.  

Step out of now for a minute and look back with long-term vision.  The human came into existence as an unfinished species with the inherent need to self-complete (its called evolution).     Going all the way back, Teilhard de Chardin defined the law of complexity-consciousness.  Briefly, it recognizes the path of evolution as a systematic progression.  The ‘without’ of life forms began with simple one-cell forms and over eons, constantly complexifying, till homosapien (human) appeared. Additionally, in the ‘within’, there was a steady progression of consciousness until thought was born in the human.  Eons are needed for the light of consciousness to fully realize our destiny and recognize our interdependence. If we go back far enough, we can see progress in mankind’s evolving consciousness; part of which is the search for ‘rightness’, exemplified by relinquishing what was once seen as the ‘norm’ but with new eyes seen as unacceptable—slavery being the most obvious example.

Early humans gathered in clusters that came to be known as tribes.  Then, in some unknown long ago, some brave individuals began to move beyond their tribe to walk the Silk Road in order to trade for exotic things found or created by other tribes . . . centuries passed, then ships sailed out defying the ‘known’ truth of a flat world wherein if they sailed too far, they’d drop off the edge.  They didn’t drop off, they discovered unknown places and the world got larger.  As exploring expanded a new generation followed rivers into the unknown, surveying and mapping; slashing through jungles and recording what was found and seen to bring new versions of the world we occupy. Over time technology grew to bring new ways to travel, the invention of cars to move us over land and planes to fly us thru the air—till finally, rockets broke free of earth’s gravity and floated out in space, allowing the astronauts to actually see planet earth for the first time, there it was!  A tiny speck in the vast universe enveloped in a layer of clouds embracing the life within. 

This world is one whole interacting unit supporting the rarity of life.  Once again our world had been rediscovered.  It is a global world.  And we, the reflective species that is programmed to see and appreciate the wonder, must rejoin the flow of life to find the way to assure its continuation  

Saturday, June 16, 2018

Refining Understanding

Series:  Long-Term Vision  #4

Although I have more yet to say about long-term vision, I deviate slightly from my series today to address a Bible reference.  I have always felt uneasy with the phrase in the Lord’s prayer (the Our Father) which in the English translation is rendered as ‘lead us not into temptation’ and I must remind myself that any time phrases and sentences are translated there are alternate ways to word them.  The final line of Christianity’s most central prayer is, “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”  It seems to suggest that it is God who controls life’s temptations, sends them to us then frees us from them . . . that would deny our freedom.  

I turn to the Letter of James 1:13 (Jerusalem translation), “Never when you have been tempted, say ‘God sent the temptation’; God cannot be tempted to do anything wrong, and he does not tempt anybody.  Everyone who is tempted is attracted and seduced by his own wrong desires.”

Why do I mention this? Because I believe it is important to realize that we humans are fallible and all that we know and understand has come through human interpretations.  That is the reality of how we progress, by continually refining the knowledge that is present to us.  It’s important to understand that faulty interpretations do not disqualify the essence—as in this prayer.  Another way to state that phrase might be: ‘guard us from temptation and protect us from evil.’  The essence of the prayer is more than a word or a phrase. 

Some people would be unset by the suggestion there is a better way to express that line from the Our Father . . . as if that is absolute and a sacrilege to suggest a change for it . . . yet we progress by refining what is known thus bringing better understanding.  Newton defined the force of gravity but Einstein’s genius changed how we understand it. –Newton wasn’t wrong; his understanding was just less complete. 

An important aspect of long-term thinking is to remain open to new understanding. 

Thursday, May 31, 2018

The Royal Wedding

series:  Long-Term Vision  #3

If you watched the royal wedding on TV last week you heard Bishop Curry’s wonderful sermon on love. He made several references to Martin Luther King but he also quoted the contemporary theologian and mystic Teilhard de Chardin whose works are still unknown to the majority of people.  It is Teilhard’s writings that are the underpinnings of all that I write about—they are the fruit of long-term vision.  He was a paleontologist looking back at the earth’s beginning and ahead to its future trajectory of love’s realization by humanity. 

Bishop Curry ended his sermon with a paraphrase of the famous Teilhard quote: “Someday, after mastering the wind, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love and then for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”

Look carefully at what those words are saying—for humans to have discovered how to capture and control the energy of fire provided us with the possibility of all the great inventions to follow.  Fire was not invented by man, but he discovered how to utilize it to his advantage . . . we cannot imagine our world without that discovery.

Teilhard and Bishop Curry are saying we have yet to discover the essence and energy of love.  The Bishop’s talk is titled ‘The Power of Love’ (go to Google or YouTube to find it).  We’ve romanticized and sentimentalized love, we have given its name to what isn’t love and we have failed to recognize its great power to change the world.

Love isn’t a human invention any more than fire is; love is of God and from God—but too often we treat it lightly, not recognizing its powerful potential.  At it core love is unselfish, sacrificial and redemptive. To choose to accept it and live it requires courage, selfless sacrifice, and long-term vision.

God awaits humanity collectively to live by love and that will take eons of time, as one by one we individually awakens to the true nature of it, live it and by our example pass it on.  As Teilhard said . . . if we harness for God the energy of love, for the second time we would have discovered fire . . . only with love can we change the world. 

Wednesday, May 16, 2018

What is Long-Term Vision?

series: Long-Term Vision #2

What is long-term vision? It is seeing beyond just now.  It is looking back with appreciation for the creative inventiveness that brought all we have into being—from the utensils we eat with to the automobiles that transport us.  And it is looking ahead to what can be—a world of peaceful unity where all people are respected.  To that end, it is asking ourselves ‘what can I do today to make this day a gift of love?’ It is an attitude toward what life is about . . . being a part of the human race which is moving toward some unseen unknown destiny with hopeful anticipation . . . it is awareness of belonging to something beyond self.

We are part of God’s great experiment to bring forth a species with reflective awareness having the freedom to make of this world whatever we choose for it to be.

My book The Stations*is of the spiritual journey of an artist; on page 204 he says to the nun who is his spiritual director:  “Regardless of whether on not there is ‘a God out there’, all that is good and desirable is contained in the idea of God.  The world’s wisdom literature tells of how we can be . . . must be in order to survive.  As intelligent beings we have reflective awareness and the freedom to choose to make life anything we collectively want it to be.  We have made it a hell through selfishness—failing to see beyond our immediate wants. 
“Peter once said ‘if God didn’t exist we’d have to invent him’.   For the most part, we live life using only short-term vision geared to what we personally want at a given time.  We can learn to develop long-term vision and see that everything in life is interconnected to everything else and there is no such thing as singular acts in isolation. What each does effects others and our accumulated acts of selfishness finally create a living hell.  If we hold to the idea of God—the goodness and love and totality that a God represents—we can create a better world and save ourselves from our selfishness.  Only the idea of a God is big enough to embrace it all. So even when I can’t affirm that a God exists out there somewhere, I keep knowing that only God—or the idea of a God—can transform this hell into a better world.  Maybe acting as though we believe in God—even if we don’t accept an ‘out there’ reality—will call God into being.”

Just as we have advanced technologically, intellectually, scientifically and medically, when we look carefully we can see progress in our ability to advance toward rightness.  To accomplish that requires long-term vision.

                                                                                                    *The Stations by B. Sabonis-Chafee
                                                                                                     available on Amazon books


Monday, April 30, 2018

Seeking Rightness

series:  Long-Term Vision #1

So many people have dismissed God as irrelevant, and the violence and immorality in our world increases almost daily. We’ve become complacent about greed and graft and developed an addiction to violence in our films, TV and video games . . . no God and a diet of violence . . . how is there not an awareness of a correlation? Psychology tells us that what we are exposed to regularly becomes a lived part of our consciousness and invades our unconscious, defining who and what we are.

In my youth there were not mass shootings or angry people driving vehicles into crowds of pedestrians—now it happens on a regular basis.  Graft and corruption in government was believed to be what happened in ‘uncivilized’ countries—now it is everywhere.

It used to be that awareness of God and goodness was regularly called to mind so God was in the forefront of our thinking, but it was mixed too much with rules and regulations of specific religious imperatives that emphasized sin and death.  We have so misunderstood and mis-explained God that many people came to dismiss all consideration of God.  It was our interpretation of God, not God that was wrong. The fact is we need a concept of goodness and rightness to define for us who and what we can be.

I cannot understand who or what is that life force which we call ‘God’ but I know God IS and wish to call the life-force something; I would call it ‘Thou’ because I know it has a presence but no material form.  It is not a ‘he’; it is in no way vengeful.  It is the source of all good and is somehow present in all creation; it is sometimes named as 'Love', 'Truth', ‘Consciousness’,  . . . qualities which Thou has shared with us; we posses consciousness, seek truth and are capable of love. 

In humanity there is a seeking for rightness, which can be countered because we also have free will. Morality is inherent in humans; it may be ignored and/or denied, may be distorted and even badly twisted, but our consciousness brings with it the desire for ‘rightness’ (Love, Truth, Mercy, Justice, Compassion) and that is the nature of God.  Unless the Will is distorted by that which is evil, we long for indestructible rightness.

I quote from The New Cosmic Story by John Haught: “Rightness . . . does not come cheaply and hence cannot be taken for granted.  It cannot be owned but only anticipated.  Its full reception requires not only patient waiting but also thankful appreciation . . . to an eternally generous and resourceful ‘Thou’.”

As a species we are not yet ‘finished’.  The patient waiting he refers to is our recognizing the long evolutionary struggle that ultimately brought forth our planet, then life, and then humanity.  The next evolutionary step is our struggle to bring forth the longed for indistructable rightness.