Easter Week 2014

He looked to be a man--
cruelly treated, he forgave
He died, yet resurrected
       How can it be?
     
I was once a child . . . a baby
now an adult, no earlier cell remains,
completely changed yet the same 'me'
       How can it be?
     
We put seeds into the ground
cover them over and wait . . .
flowers and food to sustain us
       How can it be?

I step into a mammoth machine
it rises above the earth
carrying me through the clouds
       How can it be?

We look at a picture
of a tiny blue ball in space
taken from the moon
       How can it be?

I think of this self that I am,
myriads of happenstances necessary
to have called me into being
       How can it be?

Billions of people inhabit the earth
each individual unique
yet sharing a relentless sameness
       How can it be?


Wonder upon wonder upon wonder
if we but remember to look . . .

       How can it be?
       Yet it is so!

Psalm 29 revised

       Although our great country was founded upon trust in God, in my lifetime I have witnesses the relentless elimination of God from public commerce.

       In the past decade I have seen unprecedented natural disasters:  droughts, earthquakes, fires, floods, hurricanes, mud slides, tornados, tsunamis, and winter storms of mammoth proportions!

       With these facts in mind I turned to Psalm 29;  this is my version.

                          _ _ _

We have not kept your precepts, Lord!
We have not shepherded the earth by your formulation;
we have plundered for private gain
      and trampled the lowly to amass profits.


Ascribe to the Lord, O mighty ones
      ascribe to the Lord glory and strength
Ascribe to the Lord the reverence due his name
      and take heed of the splendor of his holiness!


The voice of the Lord is over the waters
      the God of glory thunders
The Lord gives warning as we despoil the earth
      the voice of the Lord breaks the cedar
      and howls the winds
The voice of the Lord shakes the mountains
      and strikes with flashes of lightening
The voice of the Lord twists the oaks
      and strips forests bare

Look, listen and know!


The Lord sits enthroned over the waters and land
      The Lord reigns King forever
The Lord gives warning to his people:
      heed his precepts and principles
      lest man's choices bring destruction
      to this wondrous earth and all its inhabitants!
     

A New Story

       There is a new consciousness evolving . . . it will take centuries to fully emerge, but signs of it can be seen if we look for it . . . the new consciousness is the realization that all of life is interdependent.

Once our awareness was limited to what our senses could perceive so our 'knowledge' of the world was that earth (WE) were central and the sun, moon and stars revolved around US.  Those who first pointed out our collective misunderstanding (that we weren't the center of all that is) were hated and condemned, tried and imprisoned . . . (we humans don't take kindly to a requirement to change our way of thinking).

       We now know our world is but a tiny speck in a minor galaxy in a vast universe of billions of galaxies balanced and ordered in breathtaking harmony and we gaze upon what the Hubble telescope has revealed with awe and wonder!

There are more collective misunderstandings yet to be addressed;  just as we once saw our earth as the center of everything with 'other' (sun, moon, stars) merely revolving around US, in the same manner (1) we have seen our self-interest as central, OUR wants and needs the only consideration.  Accompanying  this attitude was the assumption (2) that resources were unlimited . . . (there seemed to be a lot of world out there) and we could (3) take what we wanted--all we had to do was lay claim and (4) fight off others who wanted what WE wanted (i.e. invade, plunder, subdue, conquer, hire clever lawyers, etc.)
                                             -- or (5) war if need be!


       It's taken a long time to gather the knowledge and skills to realize the need to dramatically readjust how we see the world and ourselves.
        There's a new consciousness evolving that clearly sees we are not isolated autonomous monads needing to 'do what it takes to get what we want',  but rather we are part of an interacting wholeness that is intrinsically relational (*a complicated way of saying "We're in this together, and together we succeed or we fail")

       This consciousness tells a new story of life and being.

An Intriguing Pattern

Following a conversation about the many denominations within Christianity, a friend loaned me a wall chart of 'Denominations Comparison'.  Studying this gave rise to many thoughts about religion and I turned to a Bible time-line; I noted a most intriguing pattern.  Major events that have changed the direction of, first the Jewish then the Christian religious development, have occurred roughly in 500 year intervals.

Here is the pattern, beginning 2000BC (allowing that these are centuries and the dates are approximate)
       2000 BC:  Abraham called by God to become father of a great nation
       1500 BC:  Moses is called to lead God's people to the Promised Land
       1000 BC:  Solomon's Temple built in Jerusalem (home for Torah)
         500 BC:  Temple destroyed, Jews exiled then returned
             0 AD:  (New calendar dating) Jesus the Christ enters history; followers persecuted
         500 AD:  Christian doctrines unified and solidified (Age of Faith)
       1000 AD:  Great Schism = Catholic/Orthodox
       1500 AD:  Protestant Reformation (unity splintered to thousands of denominations)
If there is a pattern ???  --we are in the 2000 ???

Centering Prayer

I am re-reading 'The Cloud of Unknowing', a mystical classic from the 14th century, I find it resonates with today's mystics exploring evolutionary theology which speaks of consciousness, wholeness and a God of love beyond knowing.

                                         
                                            God isn't what we've made HIM
                                            there's another reality
                                                          of which we're but a tiny part

                           Centering Prayer

I sit before a lighted candle
struggling to clear away my thoughts;
the task seems impossible

I've asked to enter Truth,
reaching for humility and reverence
. . . I must quiet my racing thoughts.

A lifetime of memories rise up.
Tears roll down my cheeks . . .
Twenty minutes?  An hour?
            _______

Embrace the silence
beyond language and thought
            _______

We each journey thru life alone
there is sharing--but never fully;
we long for wholeness.

We are part of a Oneness
my consciousness arises from Consciousness.
I cannot grasp that--yet I believe it.

I sit before a lighted candle
   "surrender, let go, let God."
    so hard, so very hard!

           . . . one day it will be easy.






   

Hewing Crosses

A line from my previous post 'The Cross Unseen' states: "countless unknown, crucified with questions hang upon crosses of meaninglessness and alienation".  The theme of alienation is prominent in my writing for I regard it as contemporary society's greatest challenge.  Although the cross is a Christian symbol, it represents human suffering--and often the suffering it represents is not acknowledged by those not directly effected buy it.

As we advanced from horse and buggy villages to the jet-powered intercontinental world, we  unwittingly left God behind; so busy were we with out 'advancing'.  Historically different cultures have given what each considers to be God, different names--be it Yahweh, Christ, Allah, The Tao, The Great Spirit, The Buddha, Benevolent Universe . . . but by whatever name, the 'god concept' embodies purpose and the way people are to live.

In our society's progress we have championed individualism, competition and technology.  Each of these have played a legitimate role in the nation's development but they have been overstressed; without balancing elements that include a moral code and common goals they have led to a kind of tyranny--emphasis on individualism makes us forget that although we are individuals we are also a part of a society whose proper functioning requires respect and compromise.  The emphasis upon competition blinds us to all else but 'winning' while craving trophies that display our success.  The advancement of technology has relentlessly taken us away from the human element; we've become narcissistic, myopically intent upon taking care of #1, remote and removed from heartfelt human interaction.

With these developments we have allowed God's prominence to fade from guiding our thoughts and actions so, as our knowledge advances and our horizons expand, we find ourselves alone in an ever more confounding universe without map or compass. . . . thus are we surrounded by a sea of lost and alienated individuals who have heard of, and come to believe in, life's meaninglessness.  Without an anchor in moral principles or any meaningful purpose beyond their small selves, life seems absurd . . . so we are plagued with a spectrum of irrational behaviors from senseless mass shootings, to youthful suicides, to self-destructive life choices, to wild rave partying and event riots . . .
                                                 each age hews its crosses . . .

The Cross Unseen

In Roman times the cross was a common feature of the landscape, feared, but unremarkable--until history changed our perspective.
As science moved to the forefront of our thinking, God was gradually squeezed out . . . what we failed to notice was that, without God in whose image we are said to be created we lost our place of prominence in the order of things having meaning and direction; without God we are simply one of nature's products--without purpose or goal--expendable.

The Cross Unseen

Each age hews its crosses

Knowing not what it is doing.

The present does not judge itself.

That is the destiny of the future.

Only distance offers perspective

While involvement is ever shortsighted.

We invest our Pilates with power

And command them to rule us.

They pass judgments forced upon them

Then wash their hands.

Who then is responsible?

Where lies the greatest blame?

The web of existence is infinitely complex

And so great the number of weavers!

Each mistake undetected, is on all sides supported,

And multiplies itself a thousandfold.

Only the magnitude of deicide

Can expose the flaw.

How many be the nameless

Lost in oblivion

Until the Christ is sacrificed

Upon the cross of that flaw?

And when will He come?

And how will He be known?

Each time He is different--

Yet ever the same beneath the appearances.

And always He is unknown

(Save to a few)

Until the deed is done

And time gives sight to the involvement that was.

The slaughter of innocence,

The nameless unknown--

expended--to keep the flaw hidden

Within the tangled web,

For its detection means reordering

And the involvement demands continuous action.

As complexity progresses,

Do not the centers of order multiply?

Minor centers, radiating around The Center

Raising a need for many christs

The One, of the Whole,

Showing the pattern to the parts?

Each age hews its crosses

Knowing not what it is doing.

Now, the countless unknown, crucified with questions

Hang upon crosses of meaninglessness and alienation.

From whence will come the Christ

Whose sacrifice will illuminate the flaw?