I've done a lot of talking about what I think Christianity isn't, but I haven't said a whole lot on the subject of what it actually looks like in practice. I go back and look at the spiritual masters of the Church, but most of them were monks, either living in communities or solitary, and, as my wife points out, most of them were men which makes it tough for women to relate to what they're saying. My wife and I talk a lot about this, but the discussion never seems to end with any finality. Most of the discussion centers around this passage found in 1 John 2:15-17:
"Don’t love the world, neither the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the Father’s love isn’t in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, isn’t the Father’s, but is the world’s. The world is passing away with its lusts, but he who does God’s will remains forever." (WEB)
A lot of what the earlier saints wrote about was freeing yourself from any and all attachments and distractions which would impede your relationship with God. Those monks out in the desert literally gave away everything they had, ate only what the body needed to live, broke off most if not all of their family relationships, and spent large amounts of time in prayer and meditation when they weren't busying themselves with working just enough to be able to feed themselves or give their wages away.
For one's spiritual health these are probably the ideal conditions of living because they discipline the body, and encourage the person to devote their attention solely to God. Today, often churches will hold retreats which often resemble miniature weekend monasteries which involve few possessions brought of one's own, personal prayer times, and intense communal sessions devoted to prayer and worship. The outside world is shut out so that one can focus on the Lord free of distractions. But then what happens when one must return to "the real world"?
"The Real World" is full of possessions, movies, music, television programs, books, and relationships with people. In the real world you are constantly bombarded with things which demand your attention and take it away from God so that the most important relationship professed in your life only gets five to ten minutes a day at best. In "the real world" you have to own several sets of clothing. In "the real world" you have to bring in at least a few thousand a month just to be able to eat, have shelter, and be "normal". And in order to reach out to other people in "the real world", you have to be able to relate to them somehow.
Yes, it is possible to pitch the dvds, books, tv, etc. Yes, it is possible to give away all but the most basic of clothing. Yes, it is theoretically possible to live in this day and age completely isolated from the rest of the world. Some people do. But what about those obligations like spouses, and children, and people you care about and who depend on you, and what about our obligation to "disciple the nations"? How do we do this in isolation?
I have thrown away my books before (believe it or not). It seems I always acquire new ones. I have given away all of my clothes except for my clerics before. I seem to acquire more of those too. We got rid of most of our furniture and belongings in order to follow where the Lord leads, and both times we received more "stuff" again. What do you do when it doesn't seem like you can even get rid of the "stuff"?
I don't have all the answers, I wish I did. I have a funny feeling that this may look similar yet different for everybody as God works with everyone a little differently, personalizing His treatment plan for each of us, so to speak.
There are a few things however which I think we can learn from those monks out in the desert and apply to our lives having to live in the middle of the world. The first follows from the passage I quoted above, and they centered in on these three things: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. These are labeled in the writings of those spiritual fathers as gluttony, avarice or greed, and self-esteem.
In short, they write that these three demons (as they call them) are the forward assault for all other demons to come in and wreak havoc with us. They fasted and ate only what the body needed in order to keep the body under control and thus keep gluttony at bay. They gave away everything they had and refused to acquire anything more as their own property in order to control their desire to own anything. Self-Esteem was the hardest one to keep at bay because it could creep up even, and some times especially, when a person was fasting and praying, and could only be combated with tears and the remembrance of our own sins, and the certainty of death.
To allow any of these free reign opens the door to a downward spiritual spiral. Gluttony, for example, may seem rather benign, but by allowing our body's appetite for food control us, instead of us controlling it, we then set the precedent for ourselves to obey what the body wants to satisfy it, and this in turn opens the door for other things like misplaced sexual desires, for example. Simply wanting, for example, a new dress or a nice pair of shoes seems pretty benign if it doesn't hurt anyone and you can afford it. But it can again open the door to justifying having still more. Self-Esteem is often preached from the roof-tops and from the pulpits, but the truth is that Jesus taught that we are to crucify ourselves for His sake, and it doesn't take much before we start believing that we "deserve better".
The second thing is how we approach our relationships with other people. Jesus taught that if we loved anyone, and I mean anyone, more than Him, we were not worthy of the Kingdom of God. Does this mean that we don't care about anyone else? Far from it, but what it does mean is that we have to be aware of our own attachments to other people. Do I depend on my relationship with this person to be happy? Does my self worth depend on how this person sees me? Do I have an attachment to this person which will interfere with my relationship with God? Am I spending more time being aware of my relationship with this person (positively or negatively) than I am being aware of my relationship with God? If the answer is yes to any of these questions, we need to reevaluate that relationship. All of our relationships with other people must be viewed through our relationship with God, and not vice versa. For example, I love my wife and children dearly. But I also know that there will come a time when we will all have to say our good byes and those relationships will end in this life, one way or the other. The loss of those relationships should never be able to damage my relationship with Him. My relationship with God will continue permanently. Just as I must place my relationship with my family as more important than my relationships with co-workers, so must I also place my relationship with God as more important that those with the members of my family.
The third thing I want to address is simply spending time with God and focusing on Him. No relationship can develop unless the two or more parties spend time with each other and get to know each other. The more time spent, the better the two know each other. The less time spent, the less of a chance the relationship has. Be aware of your choices on how you spend your time in this matter.
Finally, we must simply be aware of the choices we make and the consequences thereof. We must always keep in mind that we were born naked, and we will die with less than that. And when we die, we will have only our relationship with God, or lack thereof. Everything else in this life is either a hindrance to that relationship, or a help depending on how it's used. If you can live in this world with possessions, family, friends, etc. and be free from distractions and attachments which impede your relationship with God, more power to you. If you need to give everything away and live as a hermit in the desert in order to draw closer to Him, then do it. Most of us will probably fall somewhere in between, but we need to be aware of when we believe we can't do without something of this world, or if it seems more important than Him. That's the time to give it up completely.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Sunday, October 10, 2010
A Ramble About Change and Perception
It is a stated fact that God Himself doesn't change. Some theologians or would be theologians would probably debate this, but He doesn't. He says as much within Sacred Scripture "I am the Lord, I do not change, therefore you are not consumed O sons of Jacob."
Think about what this means for a minute. God Himself is static. He doesn't move. Change happens around Him, within Him, and through Him. But He Himself remains motionless, still, and we and the flow of time move and change along His quiet surface like the ripples over a pond. God doesn't move through time. Time moves through God. God doesn't move through space, space moves through Him. This is the virtue and consequence of true omnipresence. All places, all times, all dimensions, everywhere there is a where when and how simultaneously.
He doesn't present one version of Himself to one group of people, and another version to a different group of people. But the funny thing about people, is that while God Himself doesn't change, they do. People are constantly in flux, never the exact same person from one minute to the next. With every new experience, change occurs. With every new thought, new idea, new choice the person dies and is reborn remembering everything, or much of everything, which happened before but with a new, or at least altered, understanding of how to interpret it, no matter how small the change may be.
So, God Himself doesn't change, but people do; and different people interpret their experiences of life, other people, and even God differently depending on their perception. Some people perceive God as harsh and judgmental; others perceive Him as gentle and loving. God Himself remains motionless.
God Himself remains motionless, but we project motion onto Him. We perceive motion in Him because we ourselves are moving. Just as we perceive motion in the Sun when it rises and sets, but in reality it is the earth which is, and consequently ourselves who are, in motion around the Sun which, relative to us, remains stationery.
So, God remains stationary, but we perceive Him in motion. We project our own expectations, good or bad, fair or unfair, onto Him. We project our figures of authority, figures of abuse, father figures, mother figures, friendly and enemy figures onto Him depending on what is in the forefront of our minds, or buried deep in our subconscious. We get angry when He doesn't act on what we want, but then ignore Him when He permits events to give us what we need and more often than we want to admit, we curse Him for it.
In our life we often project our idea of what He is supposed to be onto Him, and rarely bother to slow down enough to know Him as He is. Often, as with other people, we don't really care about who He is and what He is like, we only care about what we think about Him and what our perception of Him is. We do this often without thinking just because it is how we interact with everybody. Often our perception of a person is formed by who they appeared to be in the past, and has little to do with who they actually are right now, which is always going to be at least slightly different from who they were five minutes ago.
Our biggest problem when knowing God is that He doesn't change, but we do. Our perceptions of Him change and so we perceive that He is changing when in fact it is we who are changing through the motion and experience of life. So one day we may perceive Him as judgmental and harsh, and another we perceive Him as loving and kind. He has not changed, but our understanding and perception of Him has.
The first rule of getting to know someone is to not form any preconceptions, or to lose one's preconceptions, and then to go and spend time with them and learn from them who they are. This applies also to God. We move through time, and as we move through time we encounter Him through every point in time in His stillness which we perceive as motion because we are in motion. Therefore in order to truly know Him as He is we ourselves must slow down as be still as He is still. As we move through Him He reveals Himself if only we will pay attention.
God is love in everything He is and does, but we will only experience this if we drop our own perceptions, be still, and get to know Him. He is not harsh and judgmental one minute and kind and loving the next, we are. He does not wish some saved and some damned, we do. He does not send some to heaven and some to hell. We ourselves dwell in either place right now by our own choices, and only through our motion through Him responding to His Grace do we move from hell to heaven here and now, and later on.
Jesus said that "the one who saves his psyche will destroy it, the one who destroys his psyche for My sake will save it," (literally what the Greek says). In order to know God, which is our salvation here and now, we must put aside our own projections, perceptions, thoughts, and ideas and just spend time with Him on His terms. Otherwise we attempt to worship only those same ideas, thoughts, and perceptions of what He is like, and not He Himself. This is little different from the idolatry which was so condemned by Him in the Old Testament. He doesn't want us to speculate about Him, he wants us to know Him. He doesn't want us bowing down to a concept we have of Him, He wants us to spend time with Him as He truly is. Idols don't have to be made of wood or stone, they are far more often made of feelings, images, and memories amalgamated together into something that we call God and either love or fear, revere or mock. But such idols are still not Him, and like the Israelites in the Old Testament, He commands that they be torn down and we know Him as He is.
God remains stationary as we move through Him. Are we paying attention to where we are along the way?
Think about what this means for a minute. God Himself is static. He doesn't move. Change happens around Him, within Him, and through Him. But He Himself remains motionless, still, and we and the flow of time move and change along His quiet surface like the ripples over a pond. God doesn't move through time. Time moves through God. God doesn't move through space, space moves through Him. This is the virtue and consequence of true omnipresence. All places, all times, all dimensions, everywhere there is a where when and how simultaneously.
He doesn't present one version of Himself to one group of people, and another version to a different group of people. But the funny thing about people, is that while God Himself doesn't change, they do. People are constantly in flux, never the exact same person from one minute to the next. With every new experience, change occurs. With every new thought, new idea, new choice the person dies and is reborn remembering everything, or much of everything, which happened before but with a new, or at least altered, understanding of how to interpret it, no matter how small the change may be.
So, God Himself doesn't change, but people do; and different people interpret their experiences of life, other people, and even God differently depending on their perception. Some people perceive God as harsh and judgmental; others perceive Him as gentle and loving. God Himself remains motionless.
God Himself remains motionless, but we project motion onto Him. We perceive motion in Him because we ourselves are moving. Just as we perceive motion in the Sun when it rises and sets, but in reality it is the earth which is, and consequently ourselves who are, in motion around the Sun which, relative to us, remains stationery.
So, God remains stationary, but we perceive Him in motion. We project our own expectations, good or bad, fair or unfair, onto Him. We project our figures of authority, figures of abuse, father figures, mother figures, friendly and enemy figures onto Him depending on what is in the forefront of our minds, or buried deep in our subconscious. We get angry when He doesn't act on what we want, but then ignore Him when He permits events to give us what we need and more often than we want to admit, we curse Him for it.
In our life we often project our idea of what He is supposed to be onto Him, and rarely bother to slow down enough to know Him as He is. Often, as with other people, we don't really care about who He is and what He is like, we only care about what we think about Him and what our perception of Him is. We do this often without thinking just because it is how we interact with everybody. Often our perception of a person is formed by who they appeared to be in the past, and has little to do with who they actually are right now, which is always going to be at least slightly different from who they were five minutes ago.
Our biggest problem when knowing God is that He doesn't change, but we do. Our perceptions of Him change and so we perceive that He is changing when in fact it is we who are changing through the motion and experience of life. So one day we may perceive Him as judgmental and harsh, and another we perceive Him as loving and kind. He has not changed, but our understanding and perception of Him has.
The first rule of getting to know someone is to not form any preconceptions, or to lose one's preconceptions, and then to go and spend time with them and learn from them who they are. This applies also to God. We move through time, and as we move through time we encounter Him through every point in time in His stillness which we perceive as motion because we are in motion. Therefore in order to truly know Him as He is we ourselves must slow down as be still as He is still. As we move through Him He reveals Himself if only we will pay attention.
God is love in everything He is and does, but we will only experience this if we drop our own perceptions, be still, and get to know Him. He is not harsh and judgmental one minute and kind and loving the next, we are. He does not wish some saved and some damned, we do. He does not send some to heaven and some to hell. We ourselves dwell in either place right now by our own choices, and only through our motion through Him responding to His Grace do we move from hell to heaven here and now, and later on.
Jesus said that "the one who saves his psyche will destroy it, the one who destroys his psyche for My sake will save it," (literally what the Greek says). In order to know God, which is our salvation here and now, we must put aside our own projections, perceptions, thoughts, and ideas and just spend time with Him on His terms. Otherwise we attempt to worship only those same ideas, thoughts, and perceptions of what He is like, and not He Himself. This is little different from the idolatry which was so condemned by Him in the Old Testament. He doesn't want us to speculate about Him, he wants us to know Him. He doesn't want us bowing down to a concept we have of Him, He wants us to spend time with Him as He truly is. Idols don't have to be made of wood or stone, they are far more often made of feelings, images, and memories amalgamated together into something that we call God and either love or fear, revere or mock. But such idols are still not Him, and like the Israelites in the Old Testament, He commands that they be torn down and we know Him as He is.
God remains stationary as we move through Him. Are we paying attention to where we are along the way?
Monday, October 4, 2010
A Ramble About Buddha's Choice
Around twenty six hundred years ago there was a prince in India named Gautama Siddharta. His father gave him everything anyone could ever want, and was careful to keep anyone who appeared old or sick away from him, so as to keep the knowledge of sickness and death a secret from him. He was married, wealthy, and powerful. And then within a very short amount of time it all fell apart as he met someone old, someone sick, and finally saw a dead body. He then had to come to grips with the fundamental truth of humanity which his father had tried so hard to keep from him: suffering. Gautama then wrestled with the problem and felt compassion, not only for himself, but for everyone else who had to experience suffering. It drove him to the point where he could no longer stay in the palace, but because he wanted to find the solution so desperately for everyone, he left. He left his wealth, his power, his father, and his young wife and newborn son, the latter doing so in tears, but still he left because he knew they would experience suffering too.
There is another account in "The Gospel of Buddha" which talks about a choice which Gautama Siddharta made when he reached enlightenment and became the "Buddha". The tempter, Mara (for all intents Satan in Hindu theology), came to him and said, "thou hast attained the highest bliss and it is time for thee to enter the final Nirvana." After this, Brahma (for all intents the equivalent of God in Hindu theology), also spoke to him and implored him not to enter Nirvana yet, but to go and preach his dharma to as many as will listen to bring them enlightenment and salvation as well. Out of compassion for everyone else, Gautama spent the next fifty or sixty years preaching and living his dharma until he died in his eighties. The philosophy and the religion he founded survives to this day, some twenty-six hundred years later.
The Buddha's choice was to place other people above himself even at the risk of his own salvation and enlightenment. In both instances he could have chosen his own personal comfort and safety. He could have stayed safe and secure, or he could have gone on to the final Nirvana and have chosen to avoid the suffering which naturally comes with life and interaction with other people. He could have, but he didn't. He saw that other people were suffering in their ignorance and fear, sickness and sorrow, and knowing that he had an answer to raise them above it he chose to work for their best interests instead of his own.
The Buddha's choice is one which we are all faced with. Do we look out for our own interests, or do we sacrifice our own interests and even run the risk of sacrificing our own salvation and enlightenment so that others can be saved and enlightened?
Jesus Christ gave us, as those who profess to follow Him, the example to follow. There were so many times when He could have remained safe, and He chose not to. He didn't have to heal people on the sabbath, but compassion drove Him to do so. He didn't have to go to the cross, but compassion drove Him to do so. In everything He did He placed what was best for others above Himself, even if it wasn't what they thought was best for themselves. The people of Judea wanted to make Him a king by force one time, He got out of there in a hurry because it wasn't what was best.
Sacred Scripture teaches that we are to deny ourselves, dying to ourselves daily. That we are to love one another as Christ loved us. This means even to the point where we would give not only our physical lives for the other person, but if necessary our own hearts, minds, and souls because this is what Jesus Christ did for us just by incarnating into a human being and emptying Himself. He poured Himself out as a sacrifice long before He ever went to the cross physically.
There is a tendency among Christians which runs contrary to the teaching and practice of Jesus Christ. We tend to want to close ourselves off from those having problems, especially if those same problems are difficult or ongoing. We get to a point where we feel like we're doing ok spiritually and we don't want to be dragged down by someone else's suffering. So we distance ourselves from that person so that we don't have to suffer with them. We want to remain spiritually in tune and don't want someone else's negativity interrupting that.
What we fail to see when this happens is that when we turn our back on each other, we are no longer spiritually in tune. We are following some other path and not the path of Jesus Christ. It is some other voice telling us, "don't worry about those other people, you've made it, you've done it, now it's time to rest and go on to your final Nirvana." This voice has nothing to do with God, who pleads with us in Jesus Christ to go out and preach the gospel (using words if necessary as St. Francis of Assisi said). He tells us to go and "disciple the nations", bring everyone the teaching of enlightenment in Jesus Christ, and when a brother is suffering to "bear and share one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ."
The practice and teaching of Jesus Christ is compassion, and where this is no longer present, neither is He.
Twenty six hundred years ago, a Hindu prince who had no understanding of the God of Israel made a choice to have compassion and give up his own immediate salvation for the sake of all those who were suffering. Six hundred years later the God of Israel walked the earth as man and gave up everything for the sake of all mankind who was suffering. Are we, who profess to follow the latter, going to then ignore the suffering of our brothers and sisters; or are we going to take the hard road, follow the path of Jesus Christ and make the Buddha's choice?
There is another account in "The Gospel of Buddha" which talks about a choice which Gautama Siddharta made when he reached enlightenment and became the "Buddha". The tempter, Mara (for all intents Satan in Hindu theology), came to him and said, "thou hast attained the highest bliss and it is time for thee to enter the final Nirvana." After this, Brahma (for all intents the equivalent of God in Hindu theology), also spoke to him and implored him not to enter Nirvana yet, but to go and preach his dharma to as many as will listen to bring them enlightenment and salvation as well. Out of compassion for everyone else, Gautama spent the next fifty or sixty years preaching and living his dharma until he died in his eighties. The philosophy and the religion he founded survives to this day, some twenty-six hundred years later.
The Buddha's choice was to place other people above himself even at the risk of his own salvation and enlightenment. In both instances he could have chosen his own personal comfort and safety. He could have stayed safe and secure, or he could have gone on to the final Nirvana and have chosen to avoid the suffering which naturally comes with life and interaction with other people. He could have, but he didn't. He saw that other people were suffering in their ignorance and fear, sickness and sorrow, and knowing that he had an answer to raise them above it he chose to work for their best interests instead of his own.
The Buddha's choice is one which we are all faced with. Do we look out for our own interests, or do we sacrifice our own interests and even run the risk of sacrificing our own salvation and enlightenment so that others can be saved and enlightened?
Jesus Christ gave us, as those who profess to follow Him, the example to follow. There were so many times when He could have remained safe, and He chose not to. He didn't have to heal people on the sabbath, but compassion drove Him to do so. He didn't have to go to the cross, but compassion drove Him to do so. In everything He did He placed what was best for others above Himself, even if it wasn't what they thought was best for themselves. The people of Judea wanted to make Him a king by force one time, He got out of there in a hurry because it wasn't what was best.
Sacred Scripture teaches that we are to deny ourselves, dying to ourselves daily. That we are to love one another as Christ loved us. This means even to the point where we would give not only our physical lives for the other person, but if necessary our own hearts, minds, and souls because this is what Jesus Christ did for us just by incarnating into a human being and emptying Himself. He poured Himself out as a sacrifice long before He ever went to the cross physically.
There is a tendency among Christians which runs contrary to the teaching and practice of Jesus Christ. We tend to want to close ourselves off from those having problems, especially if those same problems are difficult or ongoing. We get to a point where we feel like we're doing ok spiritually and we don't want to be dragged down by someone else's suffering. So we distance ourselves from that person so that we don't have to suffer with them. We want to remain spiritually in tune and don't want someone else's negativity interrupting that.
What we fail to see when this happens is that when we turn our back on each other, we are no longer spiritually in tune. We are following some other path and not the path of Jesus Christ. It is some other voice telling us, "don't worry about those other people, you've made it, you've done it, now it's time to rest and go on to your final Nirvana." This voice has nothing to do with God, who pleads with us in Jesus Christ to go out and preach the gospel (using words if necessary as St. Francis of Assisi said). He tells us to go and "disciple the nations", bring everyone the teaching of enlightenment in Jesus Christ, and when a brother is suffering to "bear and share one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ."
The practice and teaching of Jesus Christ is compassion, and where this is no longer present, neither is He.
Twenty six hundred years ago, a Hindu prince who had no understanding of the God of Israel made a choice to have compassion and give up his own immediate salvation for the sake of all those who were suffering. Six hundred years later the God of Israel walked the earth as man and gave up everything for the sake of all mankind who was suffering. Are we, who profess to follow the latter, going to then ignore the suffering of our brothers and sisters; or are we going to take the hard road, follow the path of Jesus Christ and make the Buddha's choice?
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