US PRESIDENCY AT POINT OF MORAL COLLAPSE..November 20, 2020..

I don't make this statement with any wish or joy that our sitting President's character has not been morally up to the task of being President of the United States of America. I so wish he had been able, like others, to grow into it. So much horrendous loss, now and to come, would have been averted.

Sadly. This symbolic cartoon image is not much of an exaggeration, in my best judgment,  of what is happening  in very high positions of our country,  especially  the presidency.  

This is hard for me to admit.  These are high positions in  which before most of us have been able to respect the moral decency and truth telling of the office holder. 

But never has it been more like this abandon to  self gorging power image in my lifetime. Thankfully  we can still  see some individuals in office, if not  already fired for doing right, who sustain, by their manner of operating,  our respect and confidence. 

And for the health and well being of the nation this state of federal government  needs to be personally and sadly  acknowledged by as many citizens who see it this way in their most honest hearts, even many of those who have before put their hopes in Mr. Trump.  

It has not gone well  or honorably by any definition.  I see no rational way out of our most serious problems other than this sad open recognition by most individual  American citizens. This may be now impossible? 

Perhaps some national spiritual awakening, beyond our rational capacities,  is another possible way for such a recognition of our morally deteriorated state of affairs to  dawn on such a necessary majority..

And , make no mistake, every day until that confidence can be something genuine and practiced in the Presidency our country is not in good, safe or honest hands. This is truthfully how it is now in my opinion.

OUR GASLIGHTING PRESIDENT MAY AWAKEN US... October 11, 2020

This is another example of our President being  intentionally untruthful and misleading to the nation. The majority of Americans have learned this and do not any longer count on him as having our best and honest interest at heart. 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-trump-fauci/fauci-says-his-remarks-were-taken-out-of-context-in-trump-ad-idUSKBN26W0XM?fbclid=IwAR0hpucipdnlzyQW5PLyiAWAv8hgyz8iSdXVpppFiodAB44RxGWIwXrGEOM

Don't forget our gaslighting, it has all the characteristics of this kind of psychological abuse of its victims, president has taught his devotees to not listen to ordinary responsible,  even if imperfect, news sources. So they only hear what he wants them to hear and as relayed by his own one TV network, such as Fox's Hannity, and talk radio like Limbaugh. So persons  who listen with only one ear, maybe a third of us, never hear the corrections and truth calling out of his false claims and misleading efforts. 

Our nation is in peril as an experiment in democracy where the will of the people is sincerely sought and guides us collectively and where each citizen has a protected voice. 

But It's not enough now to want to return to how we were. Our awful chaotic situation now should teach us that we must expect and help build something better: more ethical, more compassionate, more transparent than what we had before most of us ever heard about Mr Trump. 

To stir us to this new awareness in the end can mean that the Trumpism psychological phenomenon has been evolutionarily just what we needed, to wake us up and to own our opportunity and responsibility to become a better, more just and honest country than we have ever yet been.

GOOD AND EVIL, SO FAR, REMAIN EQUALLY FOUNDATIONAL IN OUR KNOWN UNIVERSE...September 23, 2020

 

I wish this were not the case but it is and in the extreme. Truly opposites in quality of character. Yet no one can in honesty say why two humans can be so different. It may not be to either's personal striving and willing but unconscious factors far deeper.  

I've come  to believe that, at this stage of human evolution, both kinds of character need to be present and seen ever more clearly by the discriminating human consciousness. We must urgently need to see these presently necessary differences as they are and how they clash and generate very different human attitudes and goals. Such a time of collective consciousness development involves much psychological human stretching and suffering which is now being experienced.

One opposing attitude is grounded in seeing humanity as a divided whole that needs to be drawn together, united, for human survival. The other sees humanity as necessarily permanently split and that one side needs to win and irradicate the other.(These opposing attitudes can openly or secretly exist in any individual, political party or religion)

My present most realistic hope is that a 'new' transformed humanity, where the nature of evil is not irradicated but in unanticipated and necessary ways is channeled to contribute creatively to the whole, is being forged through suffering. Creative suffering  in hope sadly acknowledges the necessary place of good and evil in the present state of the world's unfolding. 

My hope is that good will now be strengthened yet, because it is good, will not strive to irradicate the evil by force. But instead it is a good which restrains itself while humanity further evolves to the authentically, not coerced, higher good. Such evolved good would be a natural state of active love and valuing of all creation and its incalculable interdependent participating parts, each aspect humanly embraced as essential .

We seem to be at the epicenter of such epochal possibilities and changes. There is no guarantee which way this will go.  We can be yet another dead end in evolution's, as the imperfect mind of God, determined suffering trudge to some new optimum state of Divine/Human consciousness. 

Truly it seems to depend on the level of consciousness humans, in significant enough numbers, can by strong effort and much grace achieve. 

Individual humans, from a clearing eyed grasp of the situation, can intentionally yearn as their primary purpose in a brief life, to make their very unique contribution to this now urgent cosmic plea for increased consciousness.

DREAM: BE KIND, TENDER HEARTED AND FORGIVING ...Sept 17, 2020

I do not carelessly share dreams.  For I think they reveal our most inimate personal selves and often need to be protected.  They are, imo, primarily for personal learning. However they sometimes touch on what is going in our collective life as a community, even as a nation. This one seems to have both of these elements. 

That is why I reluctantly post it here as an example of how a dream can significantly change how one is presently viewing an important life situation or problem. Since one's truthful dream is not created by one's personal thinking consciousness it need not be offensive to one's self and hopefully not to others. It is simply there as a psychological or spiritually subjective fact.  It arrives not through one's will. It really should not be attacked like one's conscious arguments might. So I'll not defend my or any other person's dreams. They are simply objectively what they are.  And they are generally a surprise, like this one, to the dreamer.

What a dream means is a matter of interpretative opinion. I'll share my initial thoughts about this one. That should help expand the dream. After all the dream came from or through me. So it's right I try to learn from it more than anyone else initially would. I have that responsibility to it.

 DREAM: My former white Counseling mentor, Dick D., invited me to preach at an all black church. I arrived and was warmly greeted by enthusiastic worshipers. But I had no words prepared. They gathered round me giving me songs and smiles of encouragment. I was being built up by them to a moment of hopefully having an important message. I was sweating, hoping for words to come. But nothing significant came to my mind or from my lips. I was talking  between breaks in the singing but was only thanking and praising them for their goodness toward me. This went on and on. They had unlimited patience.  They did not rush me. 

I was even given a folded bundle of bills in thanks for coming. These looked like foreign money but I was not sure. They were a bright glistening green color.

Finally these words came clear, simple  and repeatedly from me and nothing more: "Be ye kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving each other." End of dream. 

THOUGHTS: I think dreams nearly always seek to balance and make more healthy and true one's present conscious and always somewhat blind attitudes and beliefs regarding highly emotional matters.

My conscious reaction was to think this is what white people need to be told, not blacks...to be kind to people of color for their suffering mistreatment from our deeply ingrained systemic racism. But that is not the dream's message to me. It was to black persons not whites. It is significantly counter nuanced from what I'd expect.

IMPORTANT. It needs remembered that when a human family or group has been systematically  abused and traumatized they most likely at first trun much of their sorrow, hurt and anger toward each other rather than to their abuser. For one reason it is much safer. But that use of energy  may only make them less fortified at transcending the abuse and somehow most helping to stop it. And of disarming the actual nature of the enemy, in this case the harsh victimizing  racism built into our American social and legal systems.

So the sermon is shown being primarily for persons of color. Black teachers and leaders I believe have said for decades that our minority people of color are wise to come together and galvanize themselves with acceptance of each other and with creative consciousness of their mutual wounds. Then, the dream seems to say, no outer injustice like racism or bigotry will be able to keep standing against the strong and righteous appeals for American equal justice under the law. 

So, the dream implies black persons are strengthening themselves at the very core by "being generously kind to each other, tender hearted and forgiving each other."

The dream is saying that as discriminated against minorities keep making this spiritually courageous movement within themselves, which I trust is happening more strongly than ever before in our present moment, a growing mountain of white persons of good and honest will will finally 'see' and join them in their insistence for justice. And in the goal of finally overcoming the strong forces of bigoted racism that have plagued our nation. And have hurt the souls of us all from the very start. And which sadly are now being even more overtly  expressed in highest places of national power. 

This I think this is the social/spiritual message of the dream to me.

This perhaps is more than a personal dream for my own learning but one that could speak to the collective consciousness of both American whites and of color. This dream image, as I see it, potentially  attempts to break into the one sided opposing polarities which divide us. This points toward a 'union of opposites' instead of the historical stalemate of cruel harsh divisions.

AMAZING GRACE.. September 9 2020

I suspect there can be extreme unplanned stress situations in human life that set things up for uncommon experiences of grace.  Such grace, like any transforming personal experience, is never a rational one eventually reached by reason, thought or study. It comes after those efforts of the ego will have been tried and found wanting.

A God comes when the human has exhausted every mindful resource, has done so honestly with oneself and has reserved no social or material backup plan. That coming of a God( I say  'a God' for our human 'idea' of God necessarily is a feeble, incomplete, uncertain and inaccurate one.) whether by dream, vision or what seems at first to be an external unnatural  'miracle' carries an authority like one has not imagined or experienced. It simply transforms ones point of view about self, others and the world. That change teaches in one way or another that 'all that is or can be is one' and so nothing inner or outer is to be rejected as having no value or purpose. 

Everything, including as in the pictured quote, the most serious 'error and sins' is to be considered retrospectively as not only important but necessary for the unfolding of grace in the world.  

This transforming of the human, and likely of the Sacred, is not a matter of rational reason. So it is profoundly a matter of the heart or soul, of inner awakening. This is the ineffable nature of grace and the 'insatiable love of all that is or can be' which surely must be its foundation.

I suspect that the nation and the world can now only be set on course for a good and loving/compassionate future, or any future at all, by such grace experiences.

A latest Cosmology of Physics (https://www.npr.org/2020/09/03/909423906/how-everything-will-end-according-to-a-cosmologist) points to the rational necessity of an eventual end of the universe. That, I suspect, would be only if grace is not able to find it's way to humanity so that what can be called God and Human are in union such as has not yet generally ever happened before.

So because of the Human's and God's yearning and need, whether primarily conscious or unconscious, for grace; such transformed humans now, wherever they live across the globe, rightly live in excruciating honesty with themselves. And in a Sacred respect for the role of all others and an intense caring for the Earth.

TRUMPISM, A SIGN OF A BETTER WORLD COMING? ...August 19, 2020

Destructive Trumpism, may be a sign of a much better more loving world being birthed. The seeds of a new epoch in human spiritual evolution are sprouting in a least expected  uncomfortable way. It could likely come no other way but the seeming demise of what has been the best in us. That best isn't any longer good enough for the high demands of Evolution, even of God. A better improved culture is now a necessity to meet the challenges and demands of a new epoch of human life. 

This need for an improved view of our human potential and responsibility is not to blame our forebears. I've no doubt I'd have then done what they did and mostly in good conscience. It is rather about a new understanding of our evolution as a complicated culture. Much good has been done since the Mayflower landed and especially much material progress. 

But what we can now see clearly is that often the good done for some was at the expense and evil done to others and to our home- Earth. We have lagged behind in our spiritual/psychological/ethical development. But that is why there is evolution, so we can do better. That is why we are now being pushed to  clearly see our mix of good and bad as a nation. And why in this sense we must do better...if the nation is to have a healthy and even a surviving future. 

And because the USA has won great respect in the world over the past century how we respond to present crises will affect much of the world, 'As goes America so goes much the world.' We seem to be at a pivoting point of magnitude that occurs maybe about every two thousand years.

Others' concerns about the destructiveness of this presidency are mine precisely. This  destructive Trump phenomenon is far beyond what we have been accustomed to explaining by rational or reasoned means. Perhaps something beyond the rational on the positive side is also alive and seeking its redeeming ways as well. I'm driven to such a hope.  And others have long pointed to such a way.

This would mean that an answer, a solution, a direction does not lie in our typical means of rational change.  That is our traditional politics, religions,  economics and education as we have known them. These  will not alone be the weight needed to turn this dark tide that is far more than person Trump. 

What I imagine would be an evolutionary energy that both lies, as yet mostly unconscious, at the foundation of these evolved rational institutions and structures. These 'dependables' appear to be caving in as we helplessly watch. And these active mostly unconscious energies, while building on them, will also transcend these long dependable structures and disciplines. This process will develope structures meeting the needs of a new epoch. This would be a process of collaboration between the best of developed human consciousness with the factors and energies of the Collective  Unconscious.

What I'm describing is a deeper and higher meaning, as God must be to really be God, of the word religion. We are in a strong religious climate now in the sense of needing the unknown hand, guide and creator of all which has been or can be. This would not be primarily  a revival of our institutional religions with their competition and limited rational views of 'God' but a going beyond them. We'd need to be open to 'God' being more and different than the religions presently define God. God itself will be understood as evolving as all things in the universe are. These God powers or factors would build upon yet also transcend and go beyond our rational religious notions. 'Are we willing to trust what we don't fully know or imagine?' becomes an urgent question.

Some greatest minds of theology, philosophy, depth psychology, and Quantum science have explored these hopeful though frightening, because they are beyond the rational, efforts to hold a world together. These energies, very naturally arise at times of great collective stress, are spiritual/psychological not primarily  material phenomena. 

And God gifted geniuses from different disciplines along the path of human history give us pointers to this new epoch we seem to have deeply entered. 

Some ancients would likely explain it by our now leaving the 2000 year old Sign of the the Fishes, to enter that of Aquarius. Aquarius is an extraordinarily positive symbol. Christianity in its many forms has been the effective Western religious dominant world view of the Fishes Age, Pisces(the gospels have much fish symbolism).  But in an evolving universe nothing remains static if it's to be effective for it's original purpose.

Theologian Paul Tillich spoke of and described phenomena of a 'religion above religion', a 'morality above morality', a 'God above God', a 'Reason beyond rationality.'  

So the nation and world may have now been ushered into such a transition which practically forces us to take on a new 'religious' attitude toward trusting in the unknown in ways that can be very good but far beyond our reasoning ego consciousness. Trusting such unseen powers for good Tillich called trusting our 'Ultimate  Concern'. 

Humanity finds ourself being pioneers again but at a level far grander and mysterious than that image has ever yet been in human history. It potentially can bring out of us a good that has not yet been seen or imagined. A humanity that is able to love itself and the Earth at levels never  yet possible. 

Psychiatrist Carl Jung said, "We now know our inner world is just as vast and deep as the outer world." We have no way of knowing the limits to the growth of human consciousness. That is my hope.

'TOUGH GUY' ISN'T THE IMAGE THE PUBLIC OR POLICE NEED OF POLICING TODAY...June 6, 2020

I'd like to expand on the theme of this news article. I suspect that in general American males have for many decades taken being, or subtly threatening to be, ' a tough guy' as the preferred and most effective way to be manly and  emotionally and physically  safe.

So male  police have overtly and exaggeratedly presented themselves that way to the public,  especially to the  part of the public -people of color-  they perceive as a threat to their authority.

The police are in a very unenviable impossible role because the white public has expected them to protect and shield them from people of color,  especially  black males, who they  historically imagine as a dark threat if not contained. 

Another shameful part of that false fear narrative has been that white women should fear black men. But police would protect them from assault. Little were the police expected to protect black men under ongoing physical and economic assault in America.

Much of these attitudes and motivations are barely conscious to us white folks and that makes them doubly resistant to change and to reshape.

But after 400 years of this slave master 'tough guy ' effort, especially presented in the image of police, by whites the psychological atmosphere of George Floyd's murder appears to be helping white folks to 'see' that this trusted effort to intimidate black people has not only always back fired it is simply not needed.  Instead whites can more safely dwell in an appropriate, more respectful and mutual way with dark skinned persons.

This article is about how the 'tough guy image' has become much less popular and attractive  , including among many police departments, by white Americans.

Recent days of the protest environment are  showing that dropping the 'tough guy' image is a smart and effective way to make the streets , and maybe life in general, safer and more pleasant for everyone. (Incidentally this is in strong contrast to the President's efforts. His 'law and order' rhetoric is a dog whistle to his Always Trump fans that the government will keep its thumb on people of color, poor whites and those pushing for their equal human rights.)

The ' tough guy' image has shown itself being  outgrown before our very eyes. This could become the new more mature and responsible way of white folks conceptualizing and relating  in mutual respect to blacks. And give law enforcement persons a more human way to enforce the law for everyone's benefit and safety.

I hope these observations are significantly more than wishful thinking on my part. If so we might see a ray of hopeful light in what has always been America's  most serious spiritual and ethical problem.

https://abc7ny.com/why-tough-guy-policing-fails/6235054/

TIME FOR AMERICA TO STOP EXCUSING OUR RACISM...June1, 2020

Im going to honestly vent here. I wrote this three days ago. I'm sick of our American excuse-filled  racist cycle.

If these protest crowds could just live by totally  non violence discipline as MLK did. Actual human progress is much messier. I'm confident most protestors are committed to non violence. Some who are sincere just reach that  understandable ' I can't stand it anymore' moment and lose self control.   They are young. Giving into rioting is commonly human but also a serious mistake.   I think  there are strong dark  forces, here and foreign, that want to see a divided  America so they intentionally agitate  violence to happen.

BUT when whites get single mindedly upset when looting and burning occurs we ought not then begin verbally blaming and warning protestors in general. This is where we always get to.  The blame eventually comes down on the protestors as if they are to solve this American problem they did not create. They mostly can only protest. That's their only legal significant power.  They don't have the power to make the needed changes. Only the powerful majority and its institutions can sincerely decide to do that.  We only started that with the 1960 Civil Rights Legislation. We seldom follow through after national incidents of police brutality and murder.

Why aren't national forces ever being called not to handle the 'problem of protestors' violence  but to seriously stop the  everyday systemic  violence against minorities?

We just can't ever quite turn it round and hold the true empowered crimimals and white collar officials accountable and  get publicly angry about that, the actual  problem.  The killers and abusers usually walk free with the same job whether officials or police. That is our repeating cycle.

I think I saw this pattern begin again this time with the lowest possible charge  given at the start. 3rd degree murder /manslaughter.  The crowd and now the nation saw and heard  something more serious by the alleged killer and three other professional policeman watch and do nothing . Nothing.

If this were reversed color wise I'm confident it would be very different and a charge that matches the crimes witnessed would  have come swiftly. And It's not just once , its our continuing  repetition and we all in open God's Presence see it.  And  then always expect the victims, with such limited power, to straighten it out, make it right.  The victims are regularly expected to be the example of maturity, integrity, calm and even the primary agent of change.

The whole cycle shows how irrational  and truly blind  inbred racism is in our land. It is our original sin and we've yet to consistently look it in the eye and take responsibility.

And sadly, present national leadership is less capable of facing this than we've had in modern times. I can't imagine it being weaker. That's why protestors and those they represent are so discouraged and nearly hopeless.

I suspect with our excuses we are nearly out of time to correct it. There is little light. I think of  the imperfect mind of Evolution searching for the right thing to come forth. And evolution cares nothing about where it comes from. Evolution cares not about the demise of a nation whose citizens do not rise to their necessary ethical consciousness. Evolution, even God,  will surely look elsewhere.

CAN THIS INCIDENT SHOW US WHAT HAS ALWAYS BEEN WRONG? ..May 29, 2020

The Minnesota governor  appears to honestly speak now.  And  strive to acknowledge  the seriousness of George Floyd's death. And to teach, not threaten  or preach, that if civil order is not found now  there will be no justice for anyone.

Can America actually take this moment to face our long history  of injustice to people of color? Do we have yet, so civil disobedience can end in Minneapolis, confidence  in ourselves and courage  to act strongly and clearly  enough to this to bring equal  justice for all?.

This question is before us, no matter how uncomfortable: I don't see how there can be any honest person who does not ask her/himself, " If the nation had seen a white person treated as George Floyd  was would someone have already been arrested while careful investigation proceeds? "  The world will watch again  now for that to happen or not.

It appears , to many persons, from   video evidence that an unarmed bound American citizen, George Floyd,  has been murdered by a policeman, while other policemen  watch his death. That is grounds for arrests to follow quickly. Then time can be had for establishing guilt or not in court. Right hearted  professional  law officers would be as determined in this outcome  as any citizen.

Are Americans agreed that arrest should come as swiftly for any color of person in America?  Hopefully we will see that  our determination for equal justice is alive. Each American needs to Express themselves as well as they can to each other as this unfolds.

If the answer to the  question regarding arrest  is yes, then we can clearly understand, more of us can  really get it,  why Minneapolis is burning. We must face ourselves and our history of  thousands of times across our land when justice has come slow and often never to protect persons of dark skin compared to fair skin.

If we dont face this  simple  historical American reality than our  incapacity to learn what our own personal and collective  lives teach us can naturally destroy us.

FEW WHITE PERSONS CAN YET HONESTLY SAY WE ARE AGAINST RACISM..May 30, 2020

Unarmed, bound, black man George Floyd was murdered  wide openly while other policemen watched. Sadly there is much racism , treating people of color different under the law, in our world. The law has not given dark skin persons the same protections as the fair skinned.

 I think there is little question  that these things  are far more likely to happen to persons with dark skin. There is still embedded in white America that black persons do not deserve equal treatment by the law. Somehow they are not equally valued when the rubber meets the road.

White persons have long often vented their own frustrations on to dark skinned people. It's as if we think they should not be here.  They are in our way,  not fellow equal  contributing citizens. We call in troops when rioters threaten violence . When will we call in highest  public forces to stop  routine violence  and injustice against people of color? Our weak responses are quite irrational and usually come from the  strong   emotional dark core of our political/social/legal systems.

 I too Cindy  wish it weren't so. I know Black parents have to teach their children to not expect equal treatment. They have to live daily knowing that and being more careful than a white person has to ever  consider.

I think we'd all do better to  not say , " I'm not racist" . I know as a child of the  segregated South that I'm far less racist than I once was. But it is unusual  to be white in America and not carry some racism that can surface any moment in us. Our strong insistance we are not often shows that we do not face it.

We'd make more  progress if we could consider ourselves  somewhere on a scale of racism. At one end actual hating,  abusing  and hurting others and the other where we are unwilling to acknowledge the problem and to go on record with others  as standing against it when it happens. And failing to always sadly hope we can help end it.

Its our American original sin that has yet to be set aside in how  the law on the street works. Sad. :(

SOMETHING BETTER THAN THE PAST IS POSSIBLE...May 21, 2020

Jung's reflections of nearly  a hundred years ago may have more to give when the conflicts, high  death rates and uncertainties of human life are more evident to more of us.

This surely  can have an awakening effect on sensitive persons. Like this moment of the Earth's humans facing the Coronavirus.

Of course many will be untouched and insist that our American type materialistic and competitive  values and handed down  notions of  an anthropomorphic God  are all we need.

Humans are capable of questioning these  values and we should. Something better than our past may be very needed and possible.

AN EVOLVING AND RELEVANT RELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVE...May 20, 2020

Here is a great and nearly still unnoticed paradox of human evolution in our 'Christian' world. Jung , like few, saw a century ago that the Christ Story lost its central benefit and wisdom  to humankind with the necessary coming of modern science beginning 400 years ago.

The original impact of the Christian teaching  promised and quite well provided a moral transforming power in the ancient Mediterranian world. A lifting up of the human spirit and culture.

C.G. Jung said,  "As at the beginning of the Christian Era, so again today we are faced with the problem of the moral backwardness which has failed to keep pace with our scientific, technical and social developments.

So much is at stake and so much depends on the psychological constitution of modern man.

Is he capable of resisting the temptation to use his power for the purpose of staging a world conflagration?

Is he conscious of the path he is treading, and what the conclusions are that must be drawn from the present world situation and his own psychic situation?

Does he know that he is on the point of losing the life-preserving myth of the inner man which Christianity has treasured up for him?

Does he realize what lies in store should this catastrophe ever befall him?

Is he even capable at all of realizing that this would be a catastrophe?

And finally, does the individual know that he is the makeweight that tips the scales? "~Carl Jung; The Undiscovered Self; Page 78.


So the Christ story was both the nurse maid of modern science but also lost most of its  relevance to morally transform persons and cultures with the growth of that science. In this psychological sense science is an 'Anti Christ' and has already been this long with us.  It had to be this way. We now are psychologically and spiritually the result of this paradoxical mutual gain and loss. This is a central evolving process for us right now.

We gained materially by leaps from science's basic hypothesis that the only reality is the material world.  With that came the grand rush of knowledge of all things material and external, and the ever streaming technology. World-wide humans were  rightly dazzled by it. Some benefitted from this far more than others. Science alone lacks any moral or ethical foundation or judgment as a branch of human learning. It generates physical facts and correlating principles and is coldly amoral.

Some Christian well wishers may have wanted to give  God the credit for science.  But actually it was accomplished by purposely removing  the anthropromorphic  traditional God from the hypothesis of science. That is how science does it wonders. Adding an interfering  God being  factor would destroy its objectivity. Paradoxes never cease in this world. And these science wonders are limited precisely to half of human experience, the material.

But many also now deeply sense in recent decades that humanity has lost its inner self, it's own soul. At the heart of the Christ Story is that there is a non material factor which is where the Human and Divine actually connect. It is this irrational half of human life that science disconnected us from. The part of life that in ancient times was the world of the living spirits and Gods. It is what gave and still gives life its  spiritual zest and exhilaration.

This other half of human reality reality is  also heard in Paul's teaching about the 'inner man', the truer fuller man who is both material and spiritual.  It is heard in Jesus' reference to a 'kingdom not of this world' that is 'within the human'  and the paradoxical  irrational nature of a 'new birth.'

Science, which is so much in all of us now, necessarily abhors including such a non material factor for it threatens the high ground of the materialistic hypothesis of science that has so rightly captured our confidence.

The hypothesis of Paul and Jesus adds to the kind of knowledge science achieves by reminding humans that we are also a spiritual  phenomenon. And that the Christ story has always promised it is natural for our inner person, as adults, to potentially be ' transformed' and to usher in a far more loving, responsible  and caring world. A world that places a far higher value on cooperation among humans  than 'science /technology only' whose primary motivator becomes  greed and competition for the Earth's  finite resources.

And so the several hundred years of war and tension between science and religion, Christ and its opposite 'Anti Christ' goes incompleted and won by neither side alone. For  the reality must be there is both the physical outward reality and the inner non physical spiritual one. And these still contending opposites now seek an evolutionized hope based harmony with each other.  A grand union of opposites to a transcendent 'third ' reality. This describes a 'new world' coming into view perhaps in some of our youths' life times.

None of this means anything has ultimately gone wrong. It is a grand example of how the paradoxical mind of evolution has done its work in bringing humans to the present state of consciousness. A state where we might see how centrally important this new consciousness of ours is to be in helping shape the evolution of the world's future.

Again, the Christ Story after remarkably transforming the ancient Western world to a higher plane of consciousness and culture,  paradoxically gave birth to its opposite: Science which strengthened the human capacity to explore and take much control of the physical world.  And now  materialistic science, absent the Spirit that birthed it, has brought us to a sterile technological world with very little sustaining joy, harmony, deep fascination  or  soul.

What's next? Humans  need to keep what science has taught us and somehow reclaim what was lost from ourselves, our soul life, to make that monumental achievement possible. Now required by evolution is a return to a trust in the reality of the 'inner person' which as the Christ Story claimed can be transformed to a fuller expression of the meaning of being human. This  requires the courage to return to a place in the collective mind that most of us have never been, but that our ancient forebears, before science , experienced in their own way.

Such confidence in the inner spiritual reality along with affirmation of our physicality makes possible a ' new kind of  person' , a fuller more complete human.  Or as Jung suggests here a more *four dimensional human. The human who is not only of this world via science  but is also in fuller union with the cosmos and with the Divine.

The new discovery now waiting as a 'pearl of great price' is that humans now need a broader more inclusive hypothesis of reality. That humans are both a physical and spiriual phenomenon, both mind and living soul.  We are only half if either is ignored by our own bias.

This I think is the kind of hope that can still be resurrected to humanity from the Christ Story with no attack or invalidation, but inclusion of and cooperation with, the other major world religions.

*Note by Jung on human transformation. "Rebirth, you receive the immortal soul you at first did not possess, you are a twice-born. Like Jesus you are now no longer a simple personality, but a non-personality or symbolic personality, you now belong to the entire world, which is somewhat more important than the role of being the son of Joseph and Marie!

Manipura is the center of identification with God, where one is part of the divine substance. You are now already part of timelessness, no longer merely 3-dimensional, but now belonging to a fourth-dimensional order of things where space does not exist and time is not – but only eternity exists. We see a new image of ourselves." Carl Jung

MANY AMERICANS ARE SHOWING DISCIPLINED COOPERATION..May 19, 2020

It's good to be reminded many persons and groups are still maturely doing what is right. Keep it up. This is not over at all. We may find some healthy habits we will want to keep even.

A NEW EPOCH DAWNING FROM OUR CHAOS...May 15 2020

I think this well describes, as daunting as it sounds,  the  long time developing present psychological /spiritual state of at least Western humanity.

But Jung also anticipated a change in this isolated condition could be at hand. Tildehard de Chardin called it an enfolding of humanity onto itself. A state of great chaos and animosity which though could awaken us to our higher values, a higher consciousness and reconnect us to nature and to our actual place in the universe.  Humans will  cease to see themselves as competitors with each other but as cooperators with that which is much larger.

What has long sunk into unconsciousness may be quite a ways along to coming back into consciousness now ... first to a person here and to one there throughout the world.

Until there is truly a new epoch to appear, ones that last generally for about 2000 years before becoming irrelavant for the new needs of humanity. Christian symbolism and the  physical/natural science it inspired have been the dominant living symbols in the West for that long. What the new ones arriving from our collective unconacious via natural evolutionary paths no one can know. But it will to very many seem new and much better to us than anything has been before.

We will lose our strong nostalgia or longing  for 'good old days'. We will be most glad for the 'new creation'

AMERICA BEFORE HAS TRUSTED IN COMPETENCE AND HONESTY..May 15, 2020

It's pretty clear Presidents Trump and Xi, to varying degrees with Trump being more, did what a very common human weakness does when faced with bad damaging news: They did not face the reality, danger and consequences of the Coronavirus and held truth from the people dependent on them for that.

That weakness in a person then turns automatically to their only way out, to blame others for their own lack of facing truth and acting on it with their governing power for the benefit and protection of the people. This is the path that President Trump is taking and President Xi to a lesser degree.

For small people this is expected but for ones who formally vowed to protect their countries as the top officer it is nothing short of a betraying cowardice. It is a leader not facing the truth  at their crucially appointed time as a nation's leader.

America, more deeply and obstinately than China, was deserted by its top official when his courage was most needed. Nothing can change this in history now. The more the facts are combed through the more glaring this lack of rising to the occasion with truth and courage  will become.

In spite of this governing  leadership  blundering at the federal level the American people with a scattered leadership style( a real leader here and there) will find it's way through this.  And I'm counting on will have relearned that Qualified, Competent, Honest leadership in the central government is how America has always thrived the best.

This principle is at the core of America's best past and it's best destiny as a nation of descent reliable persons in the world. If enough people learn to vote for this principle at every election  the Coronavirus will be understood as a harsh  but perfect gift for our awakening. There never is any real awakening  of the human heart without a preceding most unwelcome harshness. It is how human nations learn their biggest  lessons or they become the refuse of social evolution.

WHEN THE PERSONAL SITUATION SEEMS HOPELESS...May15, 2020

Wouldn't it be good to be able to live by such  ancient, and I think timeless, wisdom and with such confidence in the personal psyche  being so connected to the  World Psyche?  To  sometimes choose to wait, not in fear but confidence,  and do the work at hand.  And grow into what is to be. One would simply never be hopeless.

C.G. Jung said, "Often we are led to a wall, it is too high, we cannot get over it and we stand there and stare at it.

Rationalism says, “There is no getting over it, just go away.”

Yet natural development has led the patient up to an almost impossible situation to show him that this is the end of his rational solutions.

It is meant that he should get there, and perhaps stay there, make roots and grow like a tree; in time overcome the obstacle, grow over the wall.

There are things in our psychology that cannot be answered today.

You may be up against a stone wall but you should stay there and grow, and in six weeks or a year you have grown over it.
The I Ching expresses that beautifully.

A similar situation which looks quite hopeless is depicted thus: “a goat butts against a hedge and gets its horns entangled.”
But in the next line: “The hedge opens; there is no entanglement/ Power depends upon the axle of a big cart.”

So if you could stop butting against the fence you would not get your horns entangles, and presently you would have the power of a cart with four wheels.

There is another way in nature, the way of a tree…The tree stands still and grows and makes roots and eventually overcomes the obstacle." C.G. Jung. The Seminars. Volume One, Dream Analysis: Notes of the seminar given in 1928-30. p.249

Jung believed that Western women find hope in themselves and their situation far more readily than men. Men generally  have the deeply ingrained notion that their ego will is all there is to open up a new way.  You might call that the John Wayne complex.

SENIORS AND CORONOVIRUS....May 12, 2020

Since seniors are very  literally threatened by   this virus it is good to reflect on the meaning and lessons of being old and growing more so.

 It should be clear to us that we have made a god of youth in America despite it being only a near unconscious beginning of a long path.

Carl Jung, at 85 yrs.,reflecting on the aging process:

“Old age is only half as funny as one is inclined to think.

It is at all events the gradual breaking down of the bodily machine, with which foolishness identifies as ourselves.

It is indeed a major effort– the magnum opus in fact– to escape in time from the narrowness of its embrace and to liberate our mind to the vision of the immensity of the world, of which we form an infinitesimal part.

In spite of the enormity of our scientific cognition we are yet hardly at the bottom of the ladder, but we are at least so far that we are able to recognize the smallness of our knowledge.

The older I grow the more impressed I am by the frailty and uncertainty of our understanding, and all the more I take recourse to the simplicity of immediate experience so as not to lose contact with the essentials, namely the dominants which rule human existence throughout the millenniums.“ (C.G.Jung Letters 2. 1951-1961. p.580)

It is a  sad sign of human ignorance where a senior races to not look old. If we are given to reach old age it surely , besides finally giving us a way to experience  genuine humility, must be a wondrous opportunity for a reach at wisdom which is simply not present till well after midlife.  I wish I could say that most seniors reach for these things  but many stopped the climb at middle life, giving up on the possibility that the truly best was yet to come.

Here an elderly Jung reflects on late life's unparalleled opportunities. These are not easy for any senior to Express to youth. It would not be heard anyway.

THE PRESIDENT AGAINST THE PEOPLE?..May 15, 2020

The President's and his strongly supportive VP's  less than enthusiastic attitude toward doing the things known to help slow the  virus should be troubling to all Americans .

But human nature being what it is the persons who really believe, from most sound information, they could  easily die a very suffering death  if they were contracted  by Coronavirus are most concerned.

Such persons are extremely offended by how the president , and his staff, on whom he presses his behaviors, blatantly refuses, as if it were a  weakness, to social distance from each other and  from other  public contacts. Many lame excuses he gives.The same is true of his childish defiance to wear a mask in public or in his offices. This while half heartedly, wink-wink,   saying common folks should.

Just as  offensive is how the President has  from the start dampened the importance of testing. He gradually has seen the importance of testing for himself , now daily, while downplaying any urgency of getting testing for the public, you and me.

Science is united that adequate testing, whether to benefit the president or common folks,  is the essential ingredient in any intellectually serious defense of the virus. The rest is social media  non expert opinion. Make no mistake about this. To reject that is to be an anti -science person in 2020, no less than persons who refused small pox  or polio vaccinations once discovered by science.

This article is a wake up to seniors, most of whom by the way   do not wish  either to die  suffering a preventable cause, should be clear eyed that their lives are being consided expendable by the President and a wide swath of political leaders..

Mr Trump is  well  into  senior  status and  seems to now realize  that he  needs these scientifically proven measures to protect him.( two in his circle now have the Coronavirus). I doubt he's asking himself if  other seniors should rightly expect a similar medical based care, not his spontaneous absurd  anti-science hunches.

Nature is proving again she is no respector of persons and only real substantiated science  does she respect in biological matters.. My God how any 6th grade graduate should possess and practice this common knowledge.

Mr President and others who are becoming  progressively more nonchalant  about this threat, to some more than others including seniors, wake up!

Do for others as you are doing for yourself. This is the  fundamental conservative nature of basic communal character for any President and any citizen.

WHY EVEN SMART PEOPLE SOMETIMES BELIEVE CONSPIRACY THEORIES. .May 8, 2020

In times of radical change and chaos,  some of it created purposely  by powerful persons as a smoke screen for mishieveousness, the cultural atmosphere is ripe for  provocative untrue conspiracy theories.   They often appeal to specific political persuasions.

No one can protect us  from such  serious   breaks with reality but our own diligence. We cant just always trust what weve always trusted. We are experiencing a high level unknown  and  change presently.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200406-why-smart-people-believe-coronavirus-myths?ocid=ww.social.link.facebook&fbclid=IwAR1sK5BNTjQxQfxbCS8Naf4TGB04EsqZwPTNu2s2xt7Gy7AibICkNnupig4

 It's not just a matter of  normal intelligence that  can assure us we are on a soundly informed  social path.  Smart   people also get misguided.

It can be healthy to hear a person who is not Americam describe what they see happening to us and our judgment about our changing situation.  He is an experienced well trained journalust and author. So I post this.

HUMANS MAY LEARN LIFE IS NOW ABOUT COOPERATION-NOT COMPETION...May 9, 2020

Teilhard de Chardin, life-long Catholic priest often in exile by his church for his scientific rigor,  and world renown paleontologist has left  us a most positive informed explanation of  the days we are in.

He speaks of humanity, after first spreading across the whole Earth,  is now enfolding in on itself.

This at first causes  chaos and  strong resentments as we are pushed by nature to "know each other' more than we wish. We are in each others backyard, in each others face.. This process  can never be reversed no matter how  many in  fearful panic  and violence would try.  These are our difficult,  but for de Chardin, times of hopeful  transition

Eventually  though humans  will learn by life experience  the truth that we are all one, truly ' in this together.'  Over time humanity will become a far more  heart- felt unity without losing authentic uniqueness.

Humans will have  learned in natural ways of evolution to  hold each other in high respect, embracing  social, religious and political lifestyles of cooperation, not competition, for resources.. This  instead of our  long history of competition  constantly pitting humans against each other.

Few  wide minded  humble thinkers have presented such a hopeful view of the future of humankind as de Chardin. 1881-1955..We would be wise to listen to such modern prophet-like geniuses among us.

WE ARE MORE THAN EGO BUT EGO STRENGTH IS IMPORTANT...May 8, 2020

Basically Jung is here saying that during the  most bewildering times life brings that the human ego, that which we call "me'  is being challenged to forge itself into what is its intended destiny.

https://carljungdepthpsychologysite.blog/2020/05/08/carl-jung-it-is-important-to-affirm-ones-own-destiny-for-the-ego-to-endure/?fbclid=IwAR3iNwfFT28r1l7KnfWc3p9A30wSbVB1md9QJGceSCIiMFmkNTvOa

To walk this natural very 'down to Earth' path we are asked to not reject anything that is going on inside or outside of us. Here I wish to emphasize the inner life for that is the one we most often ignore.

Only by objectively noticing and allowing our most disconcertingly unpleasant and unexpected inner thoughts and dreams, images, questions,  even our judgments can the ego forge an enduring, truthful, indestructible by outer worldly forces, objective reality.

Its not a matter of  'if' these inner factors are ultimately true in outer reality but that they are  presently real and they are you, the most real and true unique you.

They are there to affect( create strong concrete honest emotion)  and form you into the truest most effective  'you' in the end. This is what nature or fate wants from and for each of us.

To not notice them, or treat them as nothing, to eschew them, to not value them  is to miss the greatest human opportunity.

But instead, no matter how at first unwelcome or fantastic, we can  choose to be 'dealing ' and deal making with them, with the inner world.(Recall the story of Jacob ' wrestling with the God'? ) To not  wrestle with our own inner world,  but giving most all of our energy to outer things, is how we turn away from our own one and only  personal destiny and our part of humanity's intended destiny.  It means missing the opportunity to become the authentic person  we are here to be.  This is a human's greatest possible fulfillment.

That opportunity is easily and even understandably, for it is so difficult,  missed entirely or is embraced at all different possible  levels of completeness.  It could never be completely won.

This is one of my efforts, using Jung, to describe the natural,  not supernatural though it can seem that way, process of closest becoming our destined unique life... to the extent which fate invites and allows.

We should strongly wish each other the very best in this personal endeavor for the more anyone achieves this the more we all do.  It is an 'all win or all lose' evolutionary process. This is very  far from the misguided American notion of  'mind or character competition with each other', often correctly called idividualism,  but instead individuation is a competition with one's self.

As it's said often these days, (and this is the greatest  gift, insight and lesson of the Coronavirus.) " We are ALL in this together." Oh if we could only know and live not only for our most complete self but also  intentionally for the good and well being of ALL.

Jung, and a few scattered others, in his work and rediscoveries of the inner world, and its relation to the outer one, was attempting to show how to go about this endeavor. And how such a wisdom and 'pearl of great price' is always trying to get our attention in each long and brief  day of our lives..

https://carljungdepthpsychologysite.blog/2020/05/08/carl-jung-it-is-important-to-affirm-ones-own-destiny-for-the-ego-to-endure/#.XrUw-69Ol-E

EVOLUTION NOW INSISTS ON COOPERATION, NOT COMPETITION.. May 3, 2020

The  imperfect mind of evolution , with the expansion of human consciousness in recent centuries, has changed its emphasis and its demand on us humans.

Successful evolution and nature itself now requires humans to intentionally and compassionately participate in the goal that evolution has in mind for the world.

It is no longer successful competition between humans and with nature that is required ( these are now our obstacles) but a surviving, intelligent and redeeming  cooperation. We are now called to be strongly 'for' humanity and the Earth.

BEST KNOWKEDGE- CORONAVIRUS IS NATURAL NOT FROM A LAB...March 4, 2020

It is important for world powers to  intelligently not start  finger pointing and blaming each other for this natural tragedy. No one has handled it perfectly.

Serious national  leaders  should be using such a horrific event  on the earth to communicate,  collaborate  and stand against the true problem, the pandemic.

HOW UNNECESSARILY TREACHEROUS AND TRAGIC FOR OUR NATION.......May 7, 2020

I'm not easily alarmed about the foundations crumbling. I still carry a rather strong hope for the world and even this nation. But this strikes me as more than typical bad news.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-nw-coronavirus-trump-cdc-guidelines-on-reopening-20200507-6esn7tktrva6lamj7gyzvxzaqi-story.html

I think it is safe to say we are without morally courageous or fundamentally honest leadership at many top places of the federal government.. I'm concerned we are at great risk because that  failing leadership is being endorsed by many others  for self serving interests and lack of basic ethical character. 

C.G. Jung said (paraphrasing) his anima kept repeating, "Truth is strong and in the end will prevail." It seems in America the collective
inspiring  World Anima had best come through soon or  I'll  think something has even gone wrong with her. (In my cosmic view that would truly be an insurmountable crumbling of the very foundations. I don't think that will happen , at least not  at this point in cosmic evolution....thus my hope.)

 It seems we are spinning out of collective control. We seem like a seriously deranged person. We seem to be giving  the Coronavirus a very wide path to do us greater harm than otherwise  she could or should. I'm very alarmed, more than ever before for our  nation and the world.

The core of our young nation seems about to melt. Her structures have absorbed about all the dishonest and ignorant abuse she can withstand.. Similar to nature she is not without limits in cleansing herself. 

Everyone has become an expert via the social media world so the truly trained experts are no longer respected or listened to. That expertise is a hard won critical democratic resource from and  for our culture. It's a highest of egotistic behavior for citizens to reject it for quickly spun, spontaneous, non-expert opinion and conspiracy theories.

 If ever there were a time for, "Just the facts mam"...and the wisdom to apply them, this is it.

OPENING UP FOR BUSINESS....PATIENCE IS NOT STRONG IN AMERICA...April 24, 2020

Impatient, undisciplined, unthinking , anti science, 'me now' Americans. And the President is leading this rush by sending very mixed, yet often quite direct, messages of his support.

This I so hate to say but let's be true. Some of this rush to open up against best advice is supported by the recently confirmed news that the those most threatened by the virus are the minority groups that are part of us: not just the elderly but black, Hispanic and other ethnic minorities. There I said it. This is beginning to reveal our socially/politically embedded racism. Which we have thought we had outgrown. I fear not.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/states-rushing-to-reopen-are-likely-making-a-deadly-error-coronavirus-models-and-experts-warn/ar-BB133x6V?ocid=sf

How we handle the virus going forward will show so much about what we are and how we value lives of those like health care low wage workers and grocery workers and waitresses. And how we value' all kinds' of American lives. We will know the answers as we move forward on this strange journey that most of us never expected. It has come on the tail end of my life that has been one of exuberant, lavish middle class privilege. I've been a part of it. Maybe it's a truth telling journey. I wonder what good or bad changes are coming. I'm hopeful we will learn some things very important.

A SOUND VOICE FROM A MULTI BILLIONAIRE AMONG US... April 18, 2020

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/bill-gates-says-trumps-decision-to-halt-who-funding-is-as-dangerous-as-it-sounds/ar-BB12EEqL?ocid=sf

I think  Bill Gates and his wife Melinda have proven themselves in recent decades to be an authentic billionaire voice of moral personal responsibility in the nation and the world. 

But even billionaires alone can't turn the tide against the decades of general materialistic greed and unethical wealth disparity in our land. It will take a grand change in ethical perspectives by millions of average folks and public leaders to turn this moral problem around. 

This article shows Gates' heart is in the right place, a concern for the world's most vulnerable people. The Gates seem  to realize that any major build up of personal wealth is as much a matter of happenstance as it has anything to do with extraordinary personal hard work or integrity.

A real test of character is what one does with his/her measure of wealth.

“JESUS PAID FOR MY SINS”.... Easter April 12, 2020

“JESUS PAID FOR MY SINS”

This phrase seems to capture what most forms of Christianity , especially in America, accentuate and that resonates most with believers as a motivation for life and well being. This is what many value most they have received from the Christian religion. And is what they consider central to the message and inspiration of the 'gospel.'

This essay to not to deride this expression. I do not want it to go away and I wish to also claim it as important and potentially transformative. However all statements that come from religion have to be interpreted and interpretations of the meaning can be quite different. I observe this phrase is generally, in most churches, taken quite literally and personally. And it triggers strong emotion which can help one experience a sense of gratitude and relief.

By interpreting it differently I am not questioning that the way it is generally taken does not inspire something sincere and good. Yet I am questioning if it, as usually taken, is as transformative and redemptive as the story of Jesus might still inspire in us for a better more loving humanity. 

I fear however  it subtly  works against that.  For it unintentionally  promotes, spotlights, glamorizes and divinely authorizes  the place of violence in human encounters. This is the last thing needed in today's  personal and social world situation. 

I surely once preached this message... that Jesus , totally innocent himself, died so that my personal sins can be forgiven and I can have real relationship with the Deity. Something that interpretation claims is otherwise impossible because God's holiness prevents God from accepting me without the 'price of my sins' being 'paid for' by some sinless person. That person , Jesus, was willing and God was willing for him to be violently murdered for the cost of my, and all others', sins to be paid. This is theologically usually called, ' Substitution Atonement.'

That transactional kind of   interpretation can generate a sense of great emotional appreciation and relief to the extent we are convinced of our serious guilt(this interpretation purposely stirs up that sense of personal guilt) and that God could not approach us with forgiveness and acceptance , even if we regretted our specific transgressions and are genuinely moved in heart to accept responsibility for wrong doing.

I know scriptures can be pieced together to give strong support of that way of looking at Jesus' death as human redemption and salvation. I find most scriptures used in this tranactional way are how it has been interpreted, even by some Bible authors, rather than being grounded in the more direct teaching, behaviors and sayings of Jesus the best we can determine them. I will not, in this essay, compile my scripture defense of a different point of view. 

I present an interpretation here which I think can be an improved way to grasp our benefit from the Jesus story and how it can today contribute to a genuinely better world for humanity or as Jesus emphasized be a 'greater love of the whole world.' For this is what is needed in our time like never before. The traditional interpretation, so much taken for granted as the best, has surely had hundreds of years to transform humanity into a more loving species. Is there evidence of that even in so called 'Christian nations?'

I'm contending here that ' God is love' is still the most excellent message. But not, what I now consider, the altered message that God is unable to love us  unless God approves the violent unjust death of our claimed very best human specimen. And that this in order to protect God's holiness from being stained by the common failures and imperfections of ones God created in “God's own image.”

I'm thinking the central error, which my view most breaks from the traditional view of God and Humans, is our insisting that God is perfect in every way, that God is all knowing, all powerful and morally perfect.  Most believers feel they would be giving up their whole notion of God to even consider that view. I don't think that's so or that our experience or the Biblical narrative supports that 'perfection' assumption about God in our day. 

 C.G. Jung once, somewhat humorously,  said that, ' if the ultimate God is omniscient He must have forgotten it for the behaviors of the God image in the Bible do not obscure how that God breaks his own law and forgets what he has formerly decreed.' The Bible does not hide at all the transgressions of the God image described there. 

I'll not make such a long list here. The thoughtful Bible student knows the Old Testament stories where often times a human has to remind the God figure of not complying to his own high standards. Or that Jesus describes himself as being 'forsaken by the Father God' and said to pray that God 'will not lead them into temptation or deliver them to evil.' That and far more imperfections  and shadow of the Sacred mind are  clearly embedded in the Sacred text. 

I'm suggesting that in all genuine love in the universe, even love for God were we to have it,  must involve accepting the imperfection in the one loved, not 'paying a way' out of that delimma. We understand that to accept and mutually respect another is not to condone his/her serious wrongs but to discern when those wrongs are not denied and taken responsibility for. Without accepting imperfections nothing or no one is lovable, even God.

So we can imagine that who or what we call God  may still be waiting for us to love God the way God loves us, ie.  accepting Gods  imperfections, omissions to do good, destructive behaviors and dispositions just as God accepts those in us. 

John Prine captures this serious loving union of God and Human in a light hearted way when he sings: “Father forgive us for what we must do, you forgive us and we'll forgive you. We'll forgive each other till be both turn blue, and we'll whistle and go fishin in heaven.” He explained these words came to him from watching too many Andy Griffith Mayberry shows, shows that so many of Americans find as expressions of down-to-earth practical care and love. 

I find the gospels saying that the goal of human living  and the central goal of God is never perfect performance of any collective moral code (however important such guidelines are.)

 So I'm convinced from the  Sacred story that God never has to have someone  'pay for our sins'. Sin needs to be owned , taken personal responsibility for but not paid for by more violence to someone else. This is not the way of Jesus. We could instead be knowing that  God's love is never unable to forgive without a quid quo pro (ie, You do this and I'll do that. Jesus will be murdered then I'll forgive humans.) This, it strongly seems to me, is not the emphasis of the teaching received from Jesus through the gospels. Forgiving without payment  is a key capacity of God at God's very best. It is transformative when received. 

Love does not depend on any payment for wrongs. Though loving another eventually carries a different kind of suffering cost, whether its Gods love or our love. That is the legitimate cost of love. Love does mysteriously require that we all suffer as bearers of it but not as payment for anything, including human personal moral failures. That is not how love makes humans  truly better persons, transforms them. 

What I've said above may sound very radical from the more traditional view of God's love as shown in Jesus' willingness to die at the hands of Roman soldiers. But to me it is more consistent with the overall story and emphasis of Jesus' teaching and his behaviors. I am surely by far not the only Christian who sees the Christ story in this way. These things remain dangerous to speak of  until one is old enough to not be fired from anything. I hope the situation is improving for younger believers.

I also wish to present two ways that the more traditional view of “Jesus Paid for my sins' could be less radically tweaked than I have and would  still give results that are likely more inspiring and transformative for humans and the world. 

One might strengthen the traditional  literal interpretation  by emphasizing more that   God itself and Jesus are  willing to endure violence against themselves and keep on loving even those harming them. The traditional Trinity doctrine lets us say that 'Jesus and God are one' so when Jesus suffered being tortured and murdered God also experienced through him the very same thing to the same extent. So it is not that God put the suffering on Jesus while God stood away from the holiness of it but that God suffered exactly the same trauma and injustice that Jesus did and continued to love humanity in spite of that suffering. 

This at least gets us away from the idea that God OK's Jesus being murdered in order that God can be clean of it and  retain His perfection that otherwise would be tarnished by God's accepting imperfect humans into His  circle of friends; that God and Human become 'at one ment.' This view better leads to God's circle of friends being seen as all humans for God's love breaks down all barriers and separations of his love for his creatures. 

A second less ' radical' (than I described first) of viewing how God and Humans can be united, and which I think is in strong harmony with the gospels' depiction of Jesus' interactions with others; is if more attention is given to what any of us thinks about what our 'sin' actually is. What is so terrible about us that the traditional interpretation says Jesus had to be murdered in order for God to put God's loving arm around even the worst of us?

Most modern sermons I've heard do not help the listener identify his own horrible sin but just assumes we all are well acquainted with how we bring hurt, discouragement and suffering into the world ourselves.

So before we are so quick to accept that 'Jesus has paid for our sins' , don't we owe it to ourselves to know quite clearly what our sin is ? My guess the typical believer may begin to circle around their personal sin something like this. “Well , first I am most sinful by what I don't do. I fail to do all the good I could and should do.” That of course catches everyone of us, probably including the real man Jesus. Whoever is human could never boast, “ I always do the good I could do. I never miss an opportunity for doing the good and loving thing.” This makes us laugh to even think about such presumptuousness. This is not to make light for there are many very serious 'passing by' doing good that leave much hurt in our circle of life.

Next we would probably begin to list the ways we have broken the accepted collective rules of living. Ones developed over the ages as guidelines for civil human conduct. Examples are the 'ten commandments' the the 'beatitudes of Jesus'. Other major religions have very similar codes of conduct. Some of the most common violations are stealing, drunkenness, envy, adultery, fornication, gossiping, smoking, cursing, jealousy, physical violence, lying, unlawful divorce, conspiring against the innocent, coercing sexual compliance.... etc etc. Maybe these are always wrong and harmful? But most of us have observed that sometimes more than others these can cause horrible suffering for others and ourselves. Their actual objective damage is relative to the situation in which we did them. 

We also, to be honest, should keep in mind that most of us have concluded that sometimes, with just cause, we would not pass judgment on these things depending on the situation. In fact most of the greatest heroes in the Bible and in America' story are ones who did these very things but we think the victims of the hero's 'sin' had it coming. Right or wrong this, when not defending a doctrine,  is just how  humans generally and intuitively think about such things.

So it is not easily clear just what these personal sins that need to be 'paid for' are. We can do our best at an honest survey and find many sins in any human life including our own. Most of us find gray areas where we have to admit that some sins are much worse than others. And not a few of us end up thinking , 'my sins tend to be much less serious than many other person's sins that easily come to my mind.' 

I suspect most of us do not have an easy time accurately  and consciously defining our own personal sin or seeing that ours is really serious enough that Jesus had to be murdered in order for us to have a sense that God would  desire and be able to call us God's accepted friend. The popular  traditional interpretation may have forced us into a corner that does not match our real experience very well or the gospel's pictrue of Jesus.

I have come to think, that as seriously as I might understand how my sins have hurt others and myself, they are not what really causes the most suffering, despair, hopelessness and premature death in the world. No, these personal sins, violations of the collective moral code, we are guilty of usually have a very limited horrendous effect except on the people that are closest to us and who depend on us, especially children, elderly and the otherwise powerless. 

Do these personal sins deserve the attention that someone else should need to be unjustly tortured and murdered in order that God could forgive us without damaging some assumed Divine self image? Do we really think that? If  we still do could it reflect a degree of narcissism? We can possibly  make too much drama of our personal sin and neglect the kind of sin which I think is significantly more serious and harmful.


There is much scriptural example of another kind of sinning, a truly 'missing the mark of life' which causes far more physical and emotional pain and death  in the human family worldwide than the personal sins examined above. I'm referring to our collective sin or 'group sin'. In the not too distant past we humans began to organize ourselves, to lump our personal powers and strengths together to better protect ourselves against the threatening powers of nature or of other humans who were doing the same. This was the beginning of our 'systems' of organizing possessions and power. As a result the world is more organized by these systems now than ever before. They become the rules we are expected to live by to receive the collective  benefits promised from them.

Had these systems been able to be for the good and protection of all humans they would be wonderful examples of humans loving and caring for each other. But we know our systems to grant economic and social powers and protections and privileges to humans quickly became organized to benefit mostly those with more initial power and wealth than others. 

Carl Jung correctly observed that ordinary citizens, when grouped as one mind for a common goal, will commmit far more horrendous deeds than any one of them would have alone.. This of course is the phenomenon of the 'lynch mob.'

Our grand example of  economic collective system in the Western world  is called Capitalism and it has proven to have the horrible downside of creating protections against economic poverty for the most privileged and 'fortunate' ones and not for many others. The disparity in our economic system has grown progressively worse for more persons over time in the West and even more pronounced in recent decades in America. 

The same is true for our systems which seek to give assurances to citizens of adequate nutritious food, water, air, living space, education and in modern times our advanced medical care. These are the basic things in today's world that determine ones basic quality of life. They all come from the Earth and collective knowledge, not by individual human merit, so should be viewed the possession or right of any human as much as any other. These are proven proportional to ones emotional health, physical well being and longevity.

I wish to suggest that  believers might simply change what they hear as 'ours sins' that need to be 'paid for' being our supporting these systems as long as they work personally  for us, even when not others. And when we have done little to insist that they work for all citizens.  

We can consider it 'our sins' if we have benefited by being part of the 'privileged' and have helped the systems to create terrible suffering for so many others for whom the system does not work. It, for no fault of their own, in fact works harshly against them daily. 

Yes, I'm suggesting  the most redeeming and practical application of the Christian  love, death and resurrection story today is that humans become responsible for our 'collective systemic sins' committed against a large portion of our brothers and sisters.

 To see the Christian call as only a personal matter between us and God is to ignore that Jesus' whole approach to life was to culminate  in a 'love of the whole world' and all its  diverse people.

Jesus was unjustly murdered two thousand years ago and later persons experienced a miraculous 'resurrection' of the dignity and value of humanity as a whole. This was the spiritual meaning and effect  of the first Easter. This 'new awareness' was rooted the way Jesus had been seen to care for and love others before his death. And his love and caring for the 'rejected others'  was the reason he was tortured and  murdered by  the organized social/ religious  systems of his day. 

Such a  noble death does not 'pay for' our failure to try to change these organized systems that sin so mightily against the value and dignity of billions of humans worldwide every day. This is 'our most seriously damaging sin' which humans need to acknowledge and genuinely repent of. 

Yes the love we have seen in the image of God and Jesus handed down to us can, when properly interpreted for our day,  prompt us to organize and actualize that same love 'for the whole world' and for the uplifting of every part of humanity. 

This same  line of reasoning applies to our loving the Earth itself for it is our only human home and should be considered a sacred sanctuary to be conserved.

The interpretation I've tried to describe of 'the price that must to be paid for our sins' leads to a very different emphasis of  priorities  and activities than the more common view that our 'personal sins' are what we most need to be 'saved from'. 

 Rather in reality it is the 'collective sin' we daily commit with like minded associates toward others 'outside our chosen circle' that needs our urgent attention. We commit  this sin by upholding, supporting and not speaking up in any ways we can to challenge the unjust systems we were born into and of which we now have become conscious.