Tag: God

DEMYTHOLOGIZING: KILLING GOD SOFTLY

“Matter is just a minor pollutant in a universe

made of light” – Ilya Prigogine

 

“For the rest of my life, I want to reflect

on what light is” – Albert Einstein

 

but artists/philosophers/scientists say

their best ideas emerged spontaneously

out of their unconscious

out of archetypes

residing deeply in the collective unconscious

in the dark –

it is the dark which paradoxically gives light

 

the drug-user/druggie/droog

swims in the same water

as the mystic –

the water of universal archetypes –

of mythology –

arch-types are the same all over the world

in their essential form

though interpreted differently

in different cultures

 

biblical scholars kowtowing to our scientific age

tried to demythologize the Holy Bible

and get to the facts

but anthropologists hrecognize

beginning and ending stories in all cultures

that is, myths

and myths are far more important to a culture

and convey far deeper truths

than mere facts –

facts are superficial –

deeper universal truth can only be found

thru myths

 

demythologizing kills God and religion

because myths are more important –

meaning is more important

to peoples’ hearts –

than science

and facts.

FLOWING WITH THE DIVINE

The cure for fear is to keep your eyes on God:

when Peter looked at Jesus

and trusted

he walked on water

when he looked at the storm/wind/waves

he feared

and sank

 

with the help of Spirit and prayer

we can face reality

and the symbolic crosses of life

squarely

 

the difference between a shaman and a schizophrenic:

the shaman on his/her visionary journey

meets symbols that match reality

their inner and outer worlds jive –

with the schizophrenic there is a break

between the inner world and outer world

they struggle

with wild/psychic/symbolic forces

that do not match reality

 

people who try to control everything

set up resistance:

one foot on the gas

one foot on the brake

like those who burn out

do not overwork, their heart is divided

going forward and resisting going forward

at the same time

 

much easier to keep your eyes on God

surrender control

and go with Divine Flow –

you can achieve much more

without tiring or sinking

 

worry about money creates resistance to Spirit –

let go of money

don’t resist the River –

let God’s Spirit Current

carry you away!

 

THE EVOLUTION OF BROTHER LAWRENCE

Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection

decided at eighteen years old

to make God’s love the goal

of all his actions

but he suffered for ten years

due to his preoccupation/anxiety over his sins

despite God showering him

with graces

 

if he was seeking God with his whole/undivided heart

he would have found God

and God’s Love

in all things:

positive and seemingly negative –

in warm sun

and in winter days

when he was healthy

and when he was cold and sick

in bread he ate

and in being hungry

in the song of birds

and in the noise of cities

in his virtue

and in his sin –

“For God hath made Christ, who knew no sin, to be sin for us

that we might be made the righteousness of God in him”

(2 Corinthians 5:21)

 

Brother Lawrence eventually learned

that it is acceptable in God’s sight

to be imperfect

and that we are all subject to

a Higher Law

hidden in every human heart:

that life is all about growth

and we can all evolve

out of chaos and darkness and sin

into Order and Light and Love.

 

THE TRUTH ABOUT HUMANS

To be responsible human beings

we need to make responsible choices

and to do that we need to seek and face the truth

and reality is the first principle of truth

and to be fully human is to be fully connected to reality

particularly our humanness/vulnerability –

we need to ask “what is real here- what is really going on?”

“what am I capable/not capable of?”

and “what are the dangers?”

to be real as a human being 

means to abandon the loneliness 

of being caught 

in illusions/dreams/ideologies

frightened of reality

part of our human reality

is the tendency to be distracted 

from the truth 

in the first mansion of Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle

it is dark and dangerous 

because those who inhabit it dwell

in the first stage of the spiritual journey

and are still so preoccupied 

with worldly riches and pleasures

they are distracted 

from moving into the second mansion – 

the only way out of the first mansion

is to beseech Mary 

and all the saints

to rescue you 

thru the power 

of prayer/meditation/contemplation

so you discover the truth 

that our vulnerability

is grounded

in the reality of God.

 

 

SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY

Art/morals/religion could not stand up to the steam engine

of science

only God could –

but God and spirituality had been repressed

and so the differentiation of art/morals/religion/ (1600-1800)

was followed by their dissociation (1800-1900)

and western intellectuals knew this would be a cultural catastrophe

but could not fix it

 

now, secular media sees only two types of religious people:

fundamentalist nutcases

who believe in myth

and New Age nutcases

who believe in magic

but both are “pre-rational”

and any “trans-rational” people

who have seen the limits of reason

and include reason while transcending it

are lumped in with the nutcases

 

the challenge of institutional religion

is to lead everyone to the supreme wisdom

of being one in God

this is the task of everyone in the church/synagogue/mosque

not just the priest/rabbi/imam

 

in any case, spiritual authority now resides

less in religious organizations/ordained clergy/traditional creeds

than in direct experience and friendship with God –

the source of all religious organizations in the first place

 

answers and authority come now from the Voice of God/

from voices of others (if we form a spiritual community)/

from our own voice

 

the current appeal of Meister Eckhart –

the truly mystical element in his writing –

is that he helps people cut thru

the distractions of life

so they can find

their essential grounding in God.

 

EROS RISING

Creation and Incarnation must go together

if we are going to have an Infinite God

who can communicate in a Finite Way

so God took on a human body

with all its bodily desires

including sexual desires –

all this is part of the humanness of Jesus

so sex is not just “continuation of the species”

it is the “energy of love” by which the whole universe

is becoming more personalized/spiritualized/conscious

sexuality and its erotic creativity

long seen as a source of sin

emerges now as a key dimension

of authentic spirituality.

TWO TYPES OF CONTEMPLATION

In passive/infused contemplation

derived from Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross

God has taken over your spiritual life

your will is still

and you become the passive recipient of God’s graces

in active contemplation

derived from Ignatius of Loyola

you apply your imagination to scripture scenarios

  • – Jesus walking on the raging sea
  • – Zacchaeus hiding in the sycamore tree

to see the movements

of God’s grace in your own life

helping you make holy choices

for your future

in either case, contemplation

is the highest expression of the intellectual

and spiritual life

of human beings.

 

TWO GOLDEN PATHS

There are no historical/archaeological facts

about either Jesus’ burial or resurrection –

the only data we have is the stories/witness

of his small band of followers who went

from disillusionment/despair

to radical self-sacrifice/martyrdom

based on their reported experience

of resurrection

 

similarly, faith nowadays has undergone a resurrection –

since the 1960s we have gone

from externalized religion

to internalized experience –

in 1962 only 22% of believers reported a mystical experience –

in 2022 68% reported they were “spiritual and religious”

and turned to mysticism –

since the old-time institutional religion

barely/rarely moved them

to tears of sorrow or joy

 

and it is not the participation

of the old-time “Christian Right” (an oxymoron)

in politics which is a problem

for the “UnChristian Left,” –

but rather that progressive believers

cannot stand the style/language/goals

of so-called “Christians”

that violate civil discourse –

and violence is the central problem

in our pluralistic civilization

 

the violations/violence of the right

causes suffering for those “Left-Over Hippies”

who seek peace and love –

but then suffering and prayer

are two golden paths to God

and God prepares us for suffering –

“better is the little of the righteous

than the abundance of the wicked” (Psalm 37:16)

and God calls us to suffering

for justice – “blessed are those persecuted

for the sake of righteousness” (Matthew 5:10)

and God sustains us and renews us in suffering

“for those whom the Lord disciplines

God loves” (Hebrews 12:6) and resurrects.

THE DISASTER OF MODERNITY

The disaster of modernity:

since the Enlightenment, the intellectuals

in trying to grow beyond the mythic stage to the rational stage

killed the mythic God in the “death of God” movement

but in doing so they truncated their own spiritual growth

they did not go on to higher understandings of God

they repressed their own spiritual intelligence –

and the West has never recovered

 

modernism emphasized the intellectual and technological

and labeled our ancient/natural subjectivity as “superstition”

and this created a disconnect

between heartless individuals

and heartless institutions

 

and this created atheism – some atheists

have no religious awareness/strivings in them

have lauded/applauded humans so much they forgot God

have such a distorted view of God

they do not reject the God of the gospels

who they do not know

but rather they reject a caricature of God

who they have imagined

 

our western preoccupation with practicality

and means not ends

resulted in a total loss of values

and seeing life as a whole

so we became prisoners of urgency/

short-term consequences/

erratic/meaningless lives

 

non-dual thinking is the answer

non-dual thinking is both/and thinking

never either/or thinking –

it includes and honors all the previous stages

 

spirituality that ignores psychological dynamics

and psychology that ignores our spiritual nature

cannot be an adequate guide for people

who want to integrate

the quest for holiness

and the desire for wholeness.

RELIGION/SCIENCE/POST-TRUTH

A major mistake for atheism and science advocates

is the massive fallacy of freezing all religion

at the pre-rational/mythic level

and believing modern science and culture

are purely rational

which war and science-used-for-war disproves

to some scientists evolution is a meaningless process

controlled by blind chance

whereas to some Christians evolution can give new depth

and richness to our view of God –

God works thru chaos and does not impose design

but gives nature the chance

to participate in its own creation

the universe intended life from the beginning –

if the Big Bang had happened a trillionth of a second

slower or faster the universe would have imploded

or flung apart into nothingness

whereas North American and European theologians

address the non-believer –

how can you speak of God in a scientific age? –

Latin and African liberation theologians

address the non-person –

how can you speak of God to the poor/marginalized?

over the course of centuries the Church

has worked out a body of principles based on the Gospel

regarding communal justice and equality –

and Vatican Council II in the 1960s

wanted to reinforce/enlarge these principles

particularly regarding communal economic development

as our culture turns in the “post-truth” era

towards the authority of experience

rather than the authority of religion or reason

it is good to remember that religion and reason

are part of human experience

and to be spiritual and religious

is to stitch human experience and wisdom together

so experience renews reason

with awe.