April 2022 Archives


Dear Cousin

Dear Cousin

Dear Cousin,

Right after I noted down the beginnings of the below, your Pastor Karen, who you have spoken of so well, popped into my mind, including your mention that she sometimes quotes Richard Rohr…

I wonder if you might pass this on to her, in case she might be interested in exploring what I’m attempting to say…? Realizing I’m probably being overly presumptuous, I’d really be interested in hearing Karen speak to where my words are trying to point to, perhaps even in one of her sermons…? If she were to do so, and I had some prior knowledge, I’d attempt to listen live, or for sure to a recording later…?

I’m more than a little curious how she might understand any of this, and, assuming she finds value, also how she might render some of these pointings to her congregation, who are almost certainly much more culturally mainstream and “Christian” than the sorts of people I generally hang out with in these ways…

It’s sorta synchronistic that while I was in the midst of editing this I watched “Chocolat”, which you told me Karen recently used as a teaching context, and that my sense of the movie kind of correlates with some of what is being suggested here…

Starting with Richard Rohr’s; “God loves us by becoming us…”

As beautiful as these words are in their most obvious meaning, I believe they also include some deeper dimensions of understanding that many people are not yet able (or prepared) to hear…?

I believe they are also saying that God, and therefore the actuality and power of God’s Love, which is not separate from or other than God, is all about becoming conscious of Herself through, and as, humans…

And because all of this ever extending, unfolding, multidimensional existence is circular as well as directional (think of an ever widening extending spiral that is not just of time and space but of larger dimensions as well), these words, that “God loves us by becoming us,” are also all about us, through God, becoming conscious participants in this very incredible and rather amazing play of life that we are all of us a part of, beginning right here on our very own planet we call Earth, revolving around a star we call the Sun, in a galaxy we call the Milky Way…

And that, by the very nature of what is an infinitely and eternally interconnected and interdependent manifest existence, all of life on Earth is actually also becoming conscious, with, as, and through us…. That this gift of God to us humans is actually God’s gift to all of life here on Earth…

Buddha said it this way; “I and ALL sentient existence has awakened…”

In other words, through each one of us, through all of us, and through all these infinitely unfolding ways that life on Earth is coming into and out of form, we are called to share, dance, play, sing, and in so many other myriad ways, collectively share the experience of what is actually a limitless, multidimensional journey of awakening into and as Love…

Not merely share it with each other, but also share it in consciousness with all living beings, all sentient existence, all form, all meaning, all expression, on every level and in every degree and detail, transforming all our made-up beliefs in separation into creation, love, relationship…

And even in the face of ALL the insanity we see all around us and in the world these days, THIS love or gift of God remains true……

Every individual, every relationship, and every collective expression of Goddess being unique in these ways, and yet it is always the same One God, loving Herself into a more and more inclusive awareness of the infinite diversity of what is all also the same One that we also are…

The biblical and Christian ideas of God having become human through Jesus and therefore the arisen Christ, that aspect of humanity that has never not been of Goddess, are all actually pointing to, in some form or another, exactly what is trying to be said here…

Though it seems very few of us here in this made-up world of separation really gets it…

And the great gift of God is that it is always our Choice, our very own Freedom, as extensions of God, Goddess, to allow it to happen, or not… Allow God to become us, become this that we always and already are, and have only forgotten…

God becomes our own becoming, in other words, in Goddess’s own time and ways… Each becoming, as I am calling it here, unique, yet we are always this same One becoming… Similarities, reflections and parallels overflowing, soooo many ways of recognizing each other, here in the midst of this journey of the many as One and the One as many…

My love of Goddess is God’s love of me…

THIS is really what Jesus meant when he told us to give it all away and follow him… Allow God to love us by becoming us…

Let go of everything we believe, be still, and wait forever, for this that we actually always and already are…

Reality is prior to all time and space… As in Jesus’s words, “I am before Abraham was…”

This became a lot more than what I shared with you over the phone… Hopefully not too much for your pastor maybe… No knowing…

Love, Of Course

Love, Of Course

For the longest time a house just down the block and around the corner had a “Let’s Go Brandon” banner hanging from the eaves of their porch roof—it has since been removed. A couple of other houses in the neighborhood have equally offensive pennants draped near the entrances of their homes.

At one point in time, I felt quite angry about these objectionable displays of ignorance and imagined a midnight mission of mangling said malevolent manifestations. Thankfully, I did not follow through.

Now?

Some anger, still, mixed with sorrow and a healthy dose of not knowing.

Not knowing what to say, not knowing what to do, simply not knowing.

On an early morning walk as I rounded the block with my congenial canine companion, Polly girl, a young man of early to mid 20’s was exiting the house where once the streamer hung. Dressed in fatigues, army or national guard—I know not, I greeted him with a cheerful ‘Good Morning’ which he returned in kind. Respectfully, I then said, “Thank you for your service.” He replied, “Thank you, I really appreciate it.”

Neither of us stopped, it was a brief interlude on the move, yet I could tell by the tone of his response that he was sincerely touched by my words of regard.

I know nothing about his household or the reason for the decision to hang the banner and its withdrawal. He knows nothing about me either. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time we ever had any kind of interaction.

That’s the thing, isn’t it?

We never know what is just around the corner.

Two things I read every morning are Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation and Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters From An American. I subscribe to both online and devour them on my iPad, sometimes before my feet even hit the floor, much to my Polly Ann’s chagrin.

Professor Heather Cox Richardson is an author and “political historian who uses facts and history to put the news in context.” She has a B.A. and PhD from Harvard and “teaches nineteenth-century American history at both the undergraduate and the graduate level” at Boston College.

Father Richard Rohr is “American Franciscan priest and writer on spirituality.”

Recently, in discussing the radicalization of the Republican party, Professor Richardson said:

“Democracy is a moral position. Defending the right of human beings to control their own lives is a moral position. Treating everyone equally before the law is a moral position. Insisting that everyone has a right to have a say in their government is a moral position.” HCR

On the same morning Father Rohr wrote this:

“Love is the lesson, and God’s love is so great that God will finally teach it to all of us. We’ll finally surrender, and God will win in the end. That will be God’s “justice,” which will swallow up our lesser versions. God—Love—does not lose!” RR

I have no idea in what direction HCR’s faith compass points, nor am I aware of RR’s political affiliations, yet these two profound statements seem to synchronize perfectly.

One idea both quotes highlight is the concept of free will or what Martin Luther called “free choice.”

Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded. Wikipedia

Back in the garden, when Eve and Adam ate the fruit from the tree of “knowledge of good and evil,” they exercised their free choice which had been given to them from their birth.

A Bible I was given as a child has an illustration of the scene where God “drives” them out of the Eden. In the picture, God looks REALLY angry!

There were times when I was raising my three sons that they did things which I felt angry about, but my true underlying feeling was disappointment. Because I loved them so much, I was disappointed that they would choose to do something that potentially could have been harmful to themselves or someone else; or chose to disobey because they did not trust me.

This is what is so glaringly obvious within our current culture. We seem to have taken extreme sides over free choice and how to control the way choices are made.

Wearing a mask takes away one’s freedom, but banning abortion does not? Social media sites have been abuzz with all sorts of memes and opinions comparing and contrasting these two issues.

What is THE determining factor when “defending the right of human beings to control their own lives?”

LOVE!

He said to him (a lawyer), “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Matthew 22:37-40

While neither political party is perfect, the truth of this Love and its awareness is what is most clearly coming through the current Democratic party into our culture and world at large. People are surrendering to the knowledge that “Love is the lesson, and God’s love is so great that God will finally teach it to all of us.”

NO, I am NOT saying God loves Democrats more than Republicans. NO, I am NOT saying God is a Democrat.

I am saying God is Love and God will use whatever means necessary to bring forth the awareness of Love.

I had a choice when I encountered the young man the other morning. I could have judged him based on the banner that once hung on his house, or I could have acted in and through Love.

Thankfully, I chose the latter.

Who knows what the effects of that choice will be down the road and around the corner.

DEAD

DEAD

DEAD … is not dead!

“The First Law of Thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created or destroyed. Alternatively, some sum it up as “the conservation of energy.” Ultimately, the First Law of Thermodynamics is a statement that energy can be transferred between the system and the surroundings through the transfer of heat (q) or by the performance of mechanical work (w). ΔE = q + w

Energy doesn’t simply materialize or disappear. Any gain in energy by the system will correspond to a loss in energy by the surroundings, or any loss in energy by the system will correspond to a gain in energy by the surroundings.”

I took a chemistry class in high school and again in college and loved both. Whereas many of my fellow students, particularly in high school, thought the subject matter was boring, I marveled at its’ elegance. I especially enjoyed balancing chemical equations. I loved the beautiful symmetry of this exercise!

“Matter can change form through physical and chemical changes, but through any of these changes, matter is conserved. The same amount of matter exists before and after the change—none is created or destroyed. This concept is called the Law of Conservation of Mass.”

These two laws of science perfectly explain the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly! So obvious yet sophisticated and ultimately perfect!

And doesn’t “Energy doesn’t simply materialize or disappear” remind you of the following verse?

I am the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Revelation 22:13

God, energy, The Divine, The Universe—whichever you prefer–has been, is and always will be.

Dead … is not DEAD!

The last three months have been very challenging health-wise for me. I thought I was making progress adjusting to the synthetic form of the levothyroxine hormone my body needs to continue to function, since my thyroid was removed due to cancer. Little did I know a perfect storm was brewing that would cause severe diarrhea, a urinary tract infection and acute hyperthyroid symptoms all at the same time.

I felt like sh**!

Have you ever been sick to that point where you wondered if you were ever going to get well again?

My hope was fading fast.

One night when I finally managed to drift off to sleep, my mother came to me. She has been away from earthly form for almost six years. She was standing in a hugely immense tunnel—it was not dark, but it was not wholly light—it was kind of like being in a tunnel of gigantic clouds. I ran to her and we embraced. She held me tight as I wept in her arms. No words were spoken, just the knowing of love and hope shared when I most needed it. I woke up crying.

Some of you may find that hard to believe. You may think, “oh that was just a dream.”

My mother was as alive to me then, in that moment, as she was when she was here in form.

Dead … is NOT dead!

Sunday morning, I went for a walk as I always do with my four-legged cohort, precious Polly, and instead of reveling in the quiet of the dawn, I wanted to yell at the top of my lungs HAPPY EASTER! I did not shout out loud, but my heart and soul were fervently cheering, HAPPY EASTER, HAPPY EASTER, HAPPY EASTER! I did start humming and quietly singing one of my most favorite hymns …

Low in the grave He lay
Jesus my Savior!
Waiting the coming day
Jesus my Lord!
Up from the grave He arose
With a mighty triumph o’er His foes
He arose a Victor from the dark domain
And He lives forever with His saints to reign
He arose! (He arose)
He arose! (He arose)
Hallelujah! Christ arose!
Robert Lowry

Our response in grief to a person’s death, depending upon who the person was and our relationship with him or her, can sometimes leave one feeling angry and bitter.  This is not a good place to be because one can end up believing the illusion that dead is dead.

This earthly shell that I currently inhabit will fade, will dissolve, will die, but I will not because …

DEAD … is NOT … DEAD!

There is only transition and transformation.

I assure you that unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it can only be a single seed. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. John 12:24

Or perhaps this …

“I’m not afraid of death because I don’t believe in it. It’s just getting out of one car, and into another.” John Lennon

My Times

My Times

But I trust in you, O LORD; I say, “You are my God.” My times are in your hand … Psalm 20: 14-15a