SERMON: 'TOO DIFFICULT TO HEAR'...Reflections on Trinity.. May 22, 1916

                                                    John 16: 12-15, Prov. 8: 1-4, 27-31

I don't preach often and it seems  like a dream now that I preached most Sundays, usually twice, for 40 years. Preaching is a sober assignment for me yet also I try to not take it  too seriously. I know how long most sermons are remembered.*  I owe so  much to the United Church Of Christ for its encouragement of my formal ministry. I ask that you hear my sermon as 'thinking out loud' with you. This is Trinity Sunday. Aren't I lucky for this assignment? So I will reflect on that and attempt some application of today's two texts. There are exceptions but for most the idea of Trinity is hardly something at the center of faith though we sing every Sunday 'Praise Father, son and Holy Ghost.' (I hope you are not bored already. ) I'm thinking Trinity may be one of those teachings that once was felt strongly but has lapsed pretty much into irrelevance ? The idea of God being 'three in one' was not official in the church until the third century, after the Roman emperor made the previously persecuted Christians the Empire's religion. He needed the church to be a uniting factor in the Roman Empire so persuaded Church authorities to make clear that Christianity had one God , not many like the other religions. Some heard the Christians speak of three Gods- Father, Son and Holy Ghost. So the Emperor pushed strongly for the Trinity and got it. But there were I suspect also barely conscious spiritual and psychological factors present in people then that were behind the Trinity idea becoming a growing need for the Christian religion and Roman Empire.

Trinity  Mandala  Symbol

Humans then as now had a fear of disorder in human affairs. Like today whether church, government, or even athletic teams we know that order is preferred to chaos. But we also are uncomfortable with imposed rigidity for it stifles creativity and the human need for  freedom. So we are forever looking for balance between Chaos and tyranny.    And the idea that there may be chaos within the depths of the very foundations of reality, within God, is not comforting. If there are several gods there will be competition, instability and potential chaos in the outer world also. But if the primary factors that make up God are defined and experienced being united as One, not three competing ones, this would help calm the collective soul. So the idea of three aspects of God in one arose to clear consciousness in both Church and Empire. This, for good or ill, became the foundation of our Western Civilization. As a result we say we are Trinitarian this morning. I don't know how many persons still experience the Trinity as a genuine symbol of security today? To the extent a person does the Trinity is still a living symbol and not simply a stale relic.

Alchemy Trinity  Symbol

The Trinity symbol not being strongly experienced today is likely because it no longer carries any strong emotion. Symbols to live and support life must evoke emotion. Most of us Americans still have a wave of emotion when the American flag is presented. Well the Trinity symbol once surely must have generated a powerful emotion of harmony and well being in the soul. Trinity came to be understood not only as a religious symbol but as something that under-girded many natural situations. For example the German philosophy of Hegel in the 18^th century was trinitarian. He explained history as a serious tension of opposite competing pairs, he called thesis and anti thesis , which through much suffering struggle, eventually unite in a third called the synthesis. So the trinity idea is used to explain many things. Anytime we experience personally or collectively colliding opposite attitudes we experience anxiety and discomfort and a need for a third thing to help harmonize the warring two. The Christian example of this is the Father Son relationship which has forever in human experience been a highly charged relationship. It's not always smooth and sometimes filled with strong unpleasant tensions. This relationship by nature is competitive for it is not at first mutual at all. Father is superior. The Father- Son relationship is the very definition of patriarchy which, though apparently necessary for social evolution, has led males to disregard the value of both children and women for millennia. Famous Biblical fathers and sons are shown often in conflict. No relationship is genuinely harmonious as long as there is not some equal sharing of power and voice... whether it be the opposites of Father - Son or husband -wife or corporation-union. In recent decades we have seen an unprecedented revolution in the potential of man and woman, Husband and Wife finally moving in human history toward being a mutual relationship … but most all couples will confess 'we are still working on it.' The creative tension of it sometimes sadly becomes too much.

So if the factors within the Godhead are competing uncontrollably then all creation is not grounded in peace and harmony and we are threatened with chaos. The human question becomes, is there order in the very depths of reality?   Before the Trinity doctrine,  the Godhead was envisioned as a hot and fiery place of discord and strife. The  creator Yahweh god of the Old Testament is often angry, unpredictable and volatile. Where as Son is a symbol of obedience and reason. Yet both exist as parts of God. The God and Son relationship needed to be brought into harmony or union. So the Christian Trinity is a symbol of how a third factor , the Holy Spirit, works to calm and transcend the destructive potential in the Father -Son relationship. So you can see how for many persons in the third century the Trinity was experienced as a powerful healing symbol that brought order to an otherwise chaotic Godhead.

I'll try to illustrate the general kind of living emotion originally involved in the Trinity idea. I had an experience of the clash within a natural trinity situation last month. The trinity consisted of me, a large garter snake, and the natural environment of the pond in my yard. All was going well in this trinity until one part of that trinity decided to over use its power. That was me. I surprised the unsuspecting snake, usurping its role by holding it to the ground in an attempt to capture it. At that moment there was a chaotic hell so to speak. I had my stick on the snake . It was thrashing and trying to bite me sensing I wanted to kill it. There must have been gallons of adrenaline flowing in that little trinity. Chaos reigned. I'm sure I was just as scared as the snake and nature just waited to pick up the pieces and bring calm again. I managed to capture the snake , take it a quarter mile to the river and relocate it in another natural setting. Then all was calm again. Order restored. Those strong emotional dynamics which the participants, and any bystanders, experienced was a small but troubling chaos. Such a dynamic among god factors would represent cosmic chaos.

In our day of being so painfully aware of the powerful and threatening tensions in life and the world we may again sense a need for the Trinity symbol to calm ourselves. Maybe as you now hear John's gospel speaking of the Son and Father being one you are less likely to hear it as just the nice, sweet, sentimental way things are with God, but as speaking of the highest levels of creative tensions seeking reconciliation so that chaos does not take over the world. This is the psychological dynamic of the Trinity symbol. There are surely many real outer parallels to this in private, church , community life and in national/world politics. The Holy Spirit was once felt and trusted as creating a dance of harmony between the opposite dispositions of Father and Son, thus bringing quality life and order out of potential chaos.

Celtic Quaternity

Now turning to the passage in John. This was the last gospel written, some sixty years or three generations after Jesus' tragic death. This is long before the movement   became  the state religion but about the time that this new interpretation of the Hebrew religion had run into harsh conflict with the Jewish Father religion. For a few decades the Jewish community was able to accommodate these Jesus Jews, but after Rome destroyed their city and Temple  and sent many of them into captivity the Jews were in no attitude to argue about Jesus being the Messiah. So they threw the Jesus Jews(Christians) out of the worship places and an unrivaled hate was now blooming between the Father religion and in the totally off the track Jesus(Son) movement. John no longer refers to the religious leaders that supported the death of Jesus as accountable but he assigns this same treachery to 'the Jews' in general. So we are right back to more real life threats of chaos that , if the parties involved do not find tolerance,  all hell could  break loose. So here also we see an urgent anxious need for  healing of the Father-Son relationship being experienced among Christians and Jews, a need for a Third uniting factor , thus a Trinity.

If we read this gospel as mere history, which we are so inclined to do, we can get involved in someone else's story(Jesus and his friends) . The same as if we were reading about Alexander the Great. But if we believe these stories and symbols contain not just some possible historical reference but timeless patterns of human reality we can ask, ' what are the things in our family, schools, church or nation that are being 'hard' but that we must now try to hear?' When we do this we use the gospel not as history to read but as a tool to ponder our actual present situation. Then we potentially use the Sacred text to enter real paths of spiritual improvement? For example, it may be a hard truth that churches like ours can no longer expect persons out there to come here and do what we do. That what we say and do may seem irrelevant to them or they find other ways to meet their spiritual/psychological needs.  Perhaps our reason for being at present is not to attract others directly but to focus more on how we ourselves are being transformed as we take in those things that are hard to hear? That is hard to hear and leaves us wondering, but we trust that chaos will not overtake us. It may be that what scientists are telling us in growing detail about our earth's changing climate which we can and should take corrective action is very hard for us to hear. It could be hard to hear that having a President of color has shown us just how much our nation is not yet healed of the wounds from our forefathers institutionalizing slavery for very selfish interests. Yet we trust chaos will not overtake us. And so the list goes. All such things threaten us with  chaos winning over order and so remind us of the importance of Trinity. John's images taken as symbol imply there are still truths we, not just those first Christians, need to know and will be led to know by the Holy Spirit. Some important things we do not yet know because they are still unknowable or because we lose trust and decide we know enough and no longer need to be open minded  learners.

The Proverbs reading speaks clearly about something which many find very difficult to hear for it still runs counter to our traditional God images. So it tends to stir the fear of social Chaos in our present times. When people fear the threat of chaos they will fight violently against it. We witness this in daily news stories. Proverbs, contrary to our religious and social traditions, tells us of the eternal feminine aspect of God. The orthodox Trinity- Father , Son and Holy Spirit has left us with an outdated very masculine image of God, but is not the feminine principle just as necessary and needed , especially in our times? This ancient writing about God's nature involves a feminine principle at its center. Proverbs 8 speaks symbolically of a fully female component of God and she is given the ancient Greek name Sophia meaning wisdom. We are told that she was with God at creation, nothing was made without her, that she is God's daily delight and that she has the ear of the male principle of God in all things. This still surprising, and somewhat threatening at first, Goddess image of true wisdom found its way into the Hebrew Bible. Parallels to Sophia in secular cultures are seen in statues of Lady Justice, the official image of Justice Departments in Washington D.C., many states and foreign countries. Hopefully we find this an exciting spiritual awakening, whose time to be fully heard has come, and we can be grateful to integrate it into our view of God. This feminine image of deity is already molding our male- female relationships into genuinely more mutual and cooperative experiences. This bodes well for greater peace and harmony in the world. A close parallel of this in the New Testament is Mary the mother of Jesus. Our Catholic friends have for centuries felt there is something most special about the Mary symbol , even to the point that they mention her in prayers. It is quite astonishing that in 1957 the Catholic church pronounced that Mary be considered as assumed to heaven much like the NT pictures happening with Jesus. This seems to imply nothing less than a fourth person in the Godhead, like the Proverbs imagery says of Sophia.

Quaternity Mandala

So I'll end this reflection on the Trinity with the idea that we may have already entered an age when we are hearing things which before have been difficult and unimaginable, and are learning things we never expected to learn --- that a new symbol of God, far more able to guide and harmonize a new millennium against threatening chaos, is evolving. This symbol appears to be : Father, Son, Holy Spirit and Mother or simply woman. Three is becoming   four, the Trinity is transforming naturally into a Quaternity. Could such a single symbolic change in the collective God image be the natural path to increased peace and love in the world? We can hope so. And we can see that such a possibility is supported, even initiated,  right here in the Bible.

*This blog post edition  is a third longer
than the sermon actually given for the church service.

ON FINDING BETTER PATHS FOR EXPLORING UNIVERSAL TRUTH.... May 1, 2016

An article by Neil Degrasse Tyson, who has helped many find renewed practical interest in the physical sciences has spurred me to better articulate where my own interest in finding what is more true has led.  His work is important for  somehow our culture in recent decades has become  more scientifically  illiterate than when I was growing up. Then both secular and religious institutions, for the greater part, welcomed and valued  science and its proven capacity to discover more truth. Now even a large part of our  congress pays little attention to what science is able to inform us about  and seems quite ignorant even of how the scientific method works in exploring life and the  universe. This  anti- science attitude can be leading us to very avoidable planetary catastrophes.  I will post Tyson's essay URL and then follow it with some of  my own thoughts about  Science and belief in God.

http://bigthink.com/brandon-weber/constantly-claimed-by-atheists-neil-degrasse-tyson-responds-to-that-whole-concept-wonderfully


Neil Degrasse Tyson, speaking of whether he is atheist,  states that  his interest is in the 'natural world'. I would add that an interest in God can and should also  be based in our exploration of the 'natural world', both outer/material phenomena and also inner/psychological/spiritual phenomena. If the word 'God' has a meaning it surely must have to do with what are potentially natural experiences of humans which they would try , if asked, to describe. It would be primarily inner compared to outer, outer/physical being what most popular science focuses on. An idea of 'God' would surely need ,if  relevant, to be more than an arbitrary intellectual proposition but flow from shared actual inner psychological experience. It would create a discussion around something that is a natural phenomenon. Depth psychology(initiated for modern times by Freud and much more richly expanded by Carl Jung) makes that kind of conversation possible and can be seen as not in conflict with the science of the outer/material world.

Because I have found the statements ascribed to Jesus, and the images I carry within of him, to help better explain my, and others who have shared personally with me, natural life, especially the inner aspects of it; it seems appropriate that I do not shy calling myself Christian. But that is the 'way' that I am Christian and thus do not carry some of the traditional baggage that many persons do regarding 'being Christian.' To me the part I carry is natural , not 'super' natural. I find the natural world  quite mysterious and transformative  enough and not demanding a layer of 'super' to be imposed  over it.

Also I have found the work of C.G. Jung to be a resource that , more than  any one contemporary explorer for truth , also helps me  better understand the experiences of natural life; including my revised understanding of the nature of the Christ story and of the Bible. I agree with Tyson that any name to describe a person's point of view , including 'Christian or Jungian' fails in its effort to embrace what one actually is and becomes a source of interfering in clearer communications. I am more comfortable being called Christian than Jungian for that influence has been of a collective archetypal kind and was what first set me on a committed journey to follow, the best I can, what is 'true'. And I have never regretted being drawn to that inner religious mindset. It has not disappointed me, lied to me or deceived me as I now understand it. And it remains relevant to me. My experience of Jung, on a different level, has not been of an archetypal(religious like) nature simply because we can know much of the specific inner and outer human life of Carl Jung, and no one has access to such historical information about Jesus of Nazareth. This is not what the gospels even attempt to give. So Jesus of necessity remains mostly(and this in no way diminishes his importance and influence) either a projection of our personal and collective  unconscious or simply our  trusting of collective hearsay. My experience of the Christ archetype is a  very different kind of experience than my learning from Jung and depth psychology.

Jesus is imaged as saying ' the truth shall set you free.' That to me does not mean that 'the truth' or 'all truth' was known by anyone when Jesus would have said that, including himself. But that ' truth' is forever being discovered and perhaps created (and has taken giant steps into human consciousness in the past century, not comparable to any time in history.) This results in an increase in truth , both outer/physical truth (what Tyson's science effort is mostly about) and inner ( what today 's depth psychology; as an empirical science of psychological facts, is about.) Jesus, like other authentic spiritual teachers, pointed beyond himself, understanding that the universe is not static but changing, moving, evolving to new states of being. This also the clear  finding of  science.

The continual search for truth, in these two potentially non-contradictory arenas(outer material phenomena and inner psychological phenomena), is I suspect the most likely path of increased human freedom, responsibility and consciousness. One without the other of these arena's of exploration I think does not offer the best explanation of the fullness of human experience nor the best tool with which to find solutions to today's most urgent problems. And I agree with Tyson that one word descriptions or isms of such truth seeking are never adequate and should be avoided. That results in building straw men and in unnecessary dualistic rather than a unifying use of our human capacities to find and embrace truth.

A WAY OF IMAGINING THE ORIGINS OF THE GOSPELS AND ITS IMPLICATIOINS.... April 11, 2016

I've just attended a lecture by the aging John Shelby Spong yesterday. Though always a controversial figure in his activism I find him to be an intricate  scholar and genuine lover of the Bible. I consider him a strong voice in seeking to respect the actual nature of the Bible  rather than forcing the Bible  to be what one may want it to be. He is much up to his lecture circuit and  kept 300 of us in a high state of attention. He has an uplifting sense of humor. The experience  got me to thinking  again about those amazing gospels. I'll share here a train of thought that has come to me regarding 'miracles' in the gospels and a way of thinking of the gospels'  origins.

If persons present with Jesus had seen literal physical 'super (more than) natural ' miracles surely some of them, with the ability and skills for it, would have gone home and written down what they saw. The gospel says for example that five thousand men saw him feed everyone with a few fish and loaves. That would be something to write about, right then, not forty years later. It would be the human reaction to describe and report  such events right then. Such physical materialistic miracles would have stirred up a fire storm of amazement and have been just as astonishing  then as it would be for us today... not to mention 'seeing' persons coming out of their graves and walk around.  Surely this would have been described on the spot.... not forty to ninety  years later, as with  the gospel's?

Caravaggio's  'Inspired Matthew' writing his gospel... 1602

But there are no such early eye witnesses of  nature defying happenings and I strongly suspect never were. Even though what was internally experienced  by such persons deserves the name 'miracle' for it was dazzling, numinous and  defied usual life happenings. Truly an 'experience of light and resurrection'  in the midst of their very dark world of oppression and fear. Something  truly life and consciousness changing was happening to them in those real undocumented historical moments.   But those who were there  were not consciously struck by it  enough in the moment to  try to document it.  If it had been an obvious defiance of natural law they would have.  What person  now even  tries to write out their experience the night after they fell in love?  The inner meaning of such experience seems to require  time to ferment. It is at the moment of happening  beyond words. One just lives it.  Fortunately the same kind of  consciousness raising 'miracle' can still naturally  happen in the world  and perhaps greatly needs to happen in our times.


These gospel stories were not creatively written out for three to five generations after the time of Jesus. That is why, I believe, they were then purposely written in the genre of imaginative symbolic story, not historical fact(even though most of us Westerners still hear them as literal physical facts). When we do we are as misguided as taking the Western fairy tells, which so richly  stir our inner lives, as if they were recorded materialistic eye witnessed history. We would be missing the richer psychological meaning and fail to really benefit from such treasures of mythical type literature.


I think the gospel origins was somewhat like is shown in every TV  episode of the 'Lone Ranger.' People are seen caught up in a life event and drama that is very out of the ordinary and involves danger and threats to well being. Involved also is  a person who seems to know more and have a deeper wisdom, (or we'd say today of a higher consciousness) and seems in the end to effect everything about the amazing outcome for good. Yet this most unusual real life drama still  remains solidly anchored as a part of the  real natural, not supernatural, world of those involved.

Who was that masked man ? 

BUT then, only 'after it is all over' do any involved stop to reflect and ask themselves, " Who was that masked man.... what really happened back there?" So the gospel writers , long after the fact of the experience including Resurrection, sit down and try to put down a narrative, using their Hebrew scriptures, to weave a story of how their forbears, some 40-90 years before,  surely must have experienced the long awaited Hebrew messiah. They were not writing history in any sense, but creatively seeking to makes sense of , to explain what materialistically seemed inexplicable regarding  events that had had a grand effect on many people and  was still enduring in their own hearts. This 'lone ranger' metaphor I think is quite applicable as to the origins of the gospels that could help us put them in proper perspective. ... get us out of reading them as history and the non relevance which that increasingly places on them in the scientific postmodern world.

Now for us, all that happened in those few years of Jesus' ministry and death can be well described as how a person with a more developed consciousness, at the right time and place in real history, can have had such a great impact on shaping culture. An impact that had the spiritual or psychological energy to create a whole new, far more conscious than before, civilization of Humanity. Which is what Christianity(as a historical whole, for good and ill ) has in fact done.

A burning question for us now is: Has that great wave  generated 2000 years ago, and captured for posterity by the gospels, of raised consciousness pretty much run its course, lost most of its effective life transforming energy? And is the world now  in groaning need for some kind of higher consciousness leap again? An urgent need for our religious and secular cultures to be pushed again to higher planes of consciousness, capable of meeting our human/planet  survival challenges? Challenges that the present consciousness of Christianity and other religions, in any of their present interpretations, are prepared to meet?

I suspect we are in such a time, Biblically a Karios,  and that such a change will not come again by a collective projection onto a single hero person such as Jesus, the  Buddha or Mohammad(though these will forever be honored)  but will come instead through many persons being similarly  and naturally affected by a kind of Collective Unconscious or 'mind of Deity.' Sincere and honest persons of all faiths and backgrounds throughout the world coming to a similar unexpected transcending collective consciousness which will spread naturally to the masses. I am hoping something like this is what is happening.

THE CENTRALITY OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE UNIVERSE........ April 5, 2016

A most amazing observation  is that without human consciousness nature and God necessarily remain unknown in the universe. It is the same as if they did not exist. In a sense it is human consciousness alone that brings all else into actual existence. This does not lessen the essentiality of an initial urge and need in divine creativity with a  dream of what might be,  but surely suggests that such an  initiation of creation could not be fully conscious of itself until the long awaited emergence of the  evolved apex of  human consciousness billions of years later. The first conscious observer of creation had finally  arrived. And like it or not that is our human place of glory and highest  responsibility.

As one reads the quote below it can be kept in mind that the scientific theories of relativity have proven that space, time and mass  are simply not  the absolutes that our Western materialistic mind set has  thought are the  fully tied down foundations of reality. They are more  like temporary estimates of reality that have evolved with  our specific body bound  situation. So our higher consciousness is  now  being challenged to realize that our 'common sense' notion  of reality is in fact quite temporal.

This adds to the amazing place that humans occupy for good or ill in the universe. It means the universe, even God, does not just love humans but greatly needs us, our delicately and so labor intensive evolved Collective Consciousness and to wherever it is now helping guide the processes of  evolution. Divinity and incarnating  Humanity are now finally co-creators of what lies ahead. No longer is any past moment in Sacred or Secular  history(always to be gratefully remembered) the highest point of creativity but now, each new moment, is that.

And it seems we humans need this level of grand mystery, a still hazy humbling awareness of what we simply do not know, to bring out the best in us for the challenge at hand. So much is lost when we humans allow our view of reality to degenerate to some mundane supposed fully known idea of reasoned 'common sense', such as a final certainty of the shape of time, space and matter we sometimes  blithely call  reality.


 And  wonderfully and  paradoxically just as  important,  Humans  also have the capacity to be to each other the most grounded, down to earth and practical thing in all of nature.


In Christianity Jesus and the Christ symbol evolving from   him is an image of just such a human,  compelled to  transcend the common  consciousness of his epoch changing  times. None of this is inconsistent with our Christ story when we approach the gospels as the most creative symbolic revelation from Unconscious sources  in our Western Civilization. The Christ symbol and story  is one of  anticipated  collective psychological wholeness and the union  of Divine and Human. This in a fully natural but nouminous and consciously unexpected  process of transcendence.








‎
“Where Space and time do not exist there is only oneness (monotes).
There is no differentiation; there is only pleroma.
Pleroma is always with us, under our feet and above our heads.
Man is the point that has become visible, stepping out from the pleroma, knowing what he is doing, and able to name the things about him.
Although the earth existed before there were any human beings, it could not be seen or known by anyone”. ~Carl Jung, ETH Lectures, Page 22.
[Image Courtesy of Craig Nelson]

ACTIVE IMAGINATION: AN IMAGE OF GOD FROM UNCONSCIOUS SOURCES.... March 10, 2016

INTRODUCTION: I had started to take a walk but realized it was drizzling.  Experiencing  an inertia of energy,  I suddenly felt a reluctant urge to enter into an 'active imagination' state of mind. After the experience, like most dreams, I felt it was foolishness and could barely make myself start putting it to words. But I urged myself to write it out as best I could remember.  (I insert images that have been inspired by previous dreams and seem relevant here.)

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As customary I went into and below the pond and immediately was in the domed area with its 12 side openings. The light was dim but a dark green. Suddenly brightest light filled the whole area. The ground space of this dome structure was circular with a hundred yard diameter. The top of the dome is maybe forty yards high. Now everything was gold with maroon trim, floor and boarders. The rest  looked as if  pure gold. In the center was a rough gold cube about 20 feet in all dimensions. I seemed all alone in this large brightly lit dazzling space. I asked aloud , “ Will I see God here?”


Suddenly all this disappears and the scene is a modest American home of the late fifties. I am invited in by a Caucasian couple welcoming me. The inside is modest with fifties decor including a TV in the living room. There is nothing extraordinary about the home or the couple. They sit together on a love seat and I am invited to sit on a couch facing them. We have refreshments and chat. The couple seem very pleased with each other and exhibit a relaxed harmony in their relationship. They are extremely welcoming to me. Nothing out of the ordinary is said. This scene suddenly ends and I'm back at the underground golden dome.

It is bright and golden as before. The gold cube has decreased in height to about two feet. I walk toward it across some thirty yards. When I get there a very strange figure is sitting in the center of the cube. There are two ten feet high gold candle holders with unlit candles on either side of the image. The figure has a human like body, and is dressed in a flowing purple robe. The head is very different. It has extended long silvery hair giving the shape of a triangle to its overall head.. Most disconcerting it has a single eye. I would guess it is twelve feet tall with  proportions of  an average human. I am standing on the ground at the edge of the cube looking straight at it. The eye never blinks. It is very still. I am mesmerized and struck with discomfort. I speak to it.

J. I have no idea how to behave or speak.

Now I hear and see  the figure  breathing very deeply and slowly, inhaling then exhaling. It does not speak.

J. I notice your breath. It is so slow, deep and loud. It reminds me of yoga.

The image just continues to breathe.

J. I am so uncomfortable with your strangeness. I feel it may be best if I leave.

Figure: It is best if you stay.

J. I am glad you speak in my language.

F. All languages and all things come through this breath.

J. I am at a total loss. This is just too strange for me to continue. I have no idea of what to expect     here.

( It always takes several breaths before it ever speaks, making all conversation extremely slow. This slowness and deep breathing was how the whole conversation went.)

F. You are very strange to me. (two more breaths) We are opposites that used to be one.

J. You seem so cold and abstract, nearly mechanical.

(The image always takes two breaths before any speech and between sentences. I found it very hard to be patient.)

F. You came from me and became yourself.

J. By 'you' you mean humanity?

F. I mean humanity.

(after four breaths)

F. I am objective about all that is and can be . You are emotional about everything. You become objective through me. I become emotional through you.

I notice its face seems extremely old, very wrinkled and somewhat greenish. It seems eternal.

J. May I ask? What is the significance of your single eye?

F. Mine is the eye of evolution. You see the many with two eyes. I see the one with the single eye. Together we may fully see.

J. Should I ask you questions that I and many humans carry?

F. yes

J. Should I ask personal questions regarding myself or about the larger picture?

F. They are the same I am hoping you know. What is most true is both personal and cosmic.

J. Will my species, will the planet survive the present crises?

F. We have the same question. My dream is yes. Yours?

J. Yes but I do not see how with our present level of awareness and the hostilities and splits carried at so many levels.

F. All is split asunder. It had to become this way. The greatest split is this one. You wanted to leave for my strangeness.

J. Yes, I did.

F. You are still strange to me.

J. If humans are strange to you and you represent from where we have come, how can we expect to ever have a sense that we are understood, that we, and our efforts at living,  are known for who we are?

F. I come to fully  know you by the same process you come to know the images of  your origins, such as your coming  to know me. All is moving toward a mutual intimacy where each part is known as it comes to  know its true  itself. This was the original  incomprehensible dream from which all that is or can be derives. All is now moving toward higher levels of consciousness. All is  inter-connected, both matter and spirit. There are no  ultimate dualities as it has appeared for so long to most humans.

    (This statement seemed to take forever with  deep breathing between each phrase.)

J. Do we have similar values?

F. My values are four: The planet, all its elements, the Cosmos, Union of all through human/sacred love. These are in you.

J. I think many humans have begun to have these values, at least abstractly and the numbers are growing. We at least have these ideas.

F. Thus this kind of encounter now. I and humans can have the same values.

J. What is the plan?

F. No one plan but essential mutually dependent cooperation within  me and humans.

J. There are at least three recent Western  voices  which seem to speak along these lines that I am aware of. They are Jung( Medical psychiatrist), de Chardin(Priest and paleontologist) and Tillich(Theologian). I'm sure there must be many more.

F. I'm counting on that.

The figure rose to its feet. It first walked gracefully to the candle on its left, looked at it and it lighted. There was something quite feminine and warmly Erotic it is movement. Then it went to the candle on its right and it lighted. It went back to the center and resumed a sitting position very yoga like. It looked at me with its single eye which blinked (or winked?) once.

J. Should I think of you as a God image?

F. Think of all this as a God image.

I surveyed the dazzling dome and the figure on the golden square. Then the grand gold dome vanished and only the figure and gold square remained. But now they were placed in a beautiful pristine nature scene containing mountains, streams, water falls, billowing clouds, a rhythmic sound of many animals, the sun and a night time starry sky with a crescent moon. The golden square darkened into green and then to natural earth colored rock. The figure of the being then changed into a timeless human male/female couple peacefully holding a serpent between them. I was still standing by the square beholding the couple image. What I noticed most was the glow of confident friendship in their expressions as they viewed each other past the serpent which seemed, though still very much a snake, quite contented to be harnessed and contained by the couple.

In a flash all this is gone. I am standing by the pond on a drizzly day and finally I am  again lying on my back in my bed.

NOTE: Reflecting on this I'm struck with the likelihood that no image of God we humans carry, and we have carried many, can effect any strong transformation in human consciousness if it has no element of 'horror' or disgust, of extreme otherness,  as part of it. Our Christian image of God in the Christ has come, after two millennia of  originally effective aliveness, to be viewed as without any such horror. Also, teachers and preachers speak  blandly of the Christian God image as if they are thoroughly familiar with only its total gentleness and light. It has little that is still a mystery or an extreme  'other'. There surely must have been a time when the Eucharist invitation, " Eat my flesh and drink my blood"  was the shock of God asking the believer to be a cannibal and a vampire. And that baptism was understood as a threat to life like that of terroristic water boarding. But now these have been sterilized and reduced to only beautiful non threatening  social event. Are they able to still be remembered as an encounter with God or simply social graces?  The 'god' image in this active imagination shows a god that you wonder if you will survive.  I'll not likely forget this 'eye and  deep breathing'. I may even remember some of what it said.  I'm not at all suggesting  this particular strange image of god  might forecast a  newly evolving , and so  much needed,  'new' collective image of the Sacred. But it seems to be saying that such an image will not be 'easy' or 'comfortable' or 'predictable' as it makes itself conscious to  humans. Once these darker  qualities of a god image are no  longer felt present one can likely begin to suspect that such a god is near death psychologically. This in itself  can produce a 'horror'  of fear in the hearts of previous 'believers'. For it  means humans are being invited to confront the true 'other' as well as what depth psychology would describe  as  a most living and central and transformative collective archetype. One seeking to become conscious in post modern human beings.

As a newly evolving image of God becomes collectively conscious we should expect some kind of continuity with any major God(s) of the recent past. In this active imagination it is significant to me that 'Human/Sacred love' is  the preservative of the planet and humanity is stated as one of the four values related to the newly forming god image. This can be seen as a carry over from the central tenet of the Christ story(and also consistent with other major world religions). And the symbol of the 'Adam and Eve' myth is retained from Judaism as well as the male/female union symbolism present in all of the ancient religions including Christianity and even Alchemy. The image also shows the clear feminine aspect of the newly evolving deity.

I notice how the dream  gently supports me with common assurances before presenting the, at first very troubling, figure of the cyclops androgynous god figure. It took me first to an  'Ozzie and Harriet'  type American setting. That was the typical American dream of white Americans in the fifties following the horror of two World Wars.  How shocking and challenging  the contrast in those values, though there is some good there, compared to the all  inclusive cosmic values  the god figure describes.

SERMON: "THIS SON OF YOURS" Luke 15: 1-5, 11b-32 February 27, 2016

From an unquestioned fundamentalist Christian environment I was pretty much handed a Bible and told, 'Read this and you will know what God is like.' Then about forty years later , supposedly as a preacher of the Bible, I realized that the Bible shows many different images for God, not one. And most troubling they are indeed often contradictory. But much Christian teaching still tells folks that God in the Bible, which  often ordered the murder of innocents and genocide,  is the same as the one seen in Jesus' depiction of God here as an emotionally moved compassionate father. Luke pictures a father God extravagantly and unconditionally embracing his wayward son asking no questions. I could not continue to hold such a split notion of God in my head. I think this remains a problem for many today.

The author of the gospel of Luke attempts to describe what he had come to believe was the idea of God which Jesus carried in his mind and heart. As ones encouraged by what we see as the nature and character of Jesus, we can responsibly choose the nature of the ultimate God to include what is described here. We might be convinced that such a view of God just might help keep humans from destroying themselves and the planet in this post modern impersonal age, whereas other images of god only lead us toward destruction. This very reading helps me in sorting out  the nature and the will of what humans have immemorially  referred to as God.

Luke begins here presenting Jesus as someone who became focused on the suffering plight of the most powerless and marginalized and morally discredited people in the country villages where he traveled as a poor teaching rabbi. He recognized these people were being horribly treated and despised by both their religious leaders and the Roman civil authorities. The poor were unable to establish a livelihood for their families. Life was unlivable. Luke simply says such persons were naturally drawn to Jesus and came to him for his words of encouragement. Luke implies that the religious leaders were annoyed at Jesus and saw him as a threat to their power over these ordinary folks. Luke says they grumbled accusingly to each other, “ This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Luke describes Jesus giving two quick metaphors about the nature of God: God's nature is like that of a shepherd who risks leaving the whole flock in order to find and bring back the one sheep that got lost. And God's nature is also like a woman who lost one of ten valuable coins and eagerly went to work sweeping the floor until she finds the one coin that was lost. I've noticed , as one prone to losing things, that nearly always 'endurance' is the key to finding anything lost. First my mother then my wife were always willing to help find my keys, billfold etc I had lost but for more than ten years I've been on my own. I'm now very aware that if I did not do the careful work of searching for such lost items then they are never found. So I hear Luke telling me something about how intent the ultimate nature of God is about finding a way to recover his creatures and whole creation when they get lost or disconnected.

Finally in more detail, as if to emphasize it, Luke speaks of a wealthy Father's two sons. The more adventuresome one , somewhat unappreciatively, asked for his full inheritance and headed out to see what he could make of life. Like many a person he pretty much made a mess of it. But he had in his youth at least noticed that his father likely had his best interest at heart. So with life wrenching humiliation Luke describes him returning home to beg a job from his father. But he never even got to make his apology or do any begging. To his amazement his father asked no questions, but instead ran out to meet his ragged child, embraced him and invited the whole extended family and workers to join him in a great party explaining that ' this son  got lost from me but is now found.' And so they began to celebrate.

Ironically Luke's theme does not focus on the young brother's story of 'getting lost' through his misguided, but maybe necessary, path of finding out for himself what in life is most valuable to him. But the emphasis here is on the seemingly irrationally extravagant acceptance by the Father of his son, without any need of apology or questions of where he had been or what he had done. No doubt most were expecting the father to drill his son and demand apology etc. But this at odds with Luke's description. The father was simply carried away with the fact that his son safe and home. He experienced an emotional high that demanded expression. That was all this Father needed in relationship with his sons. The younger son's process of development seems to be presented as a rather natural course of a human life finding itself. Life simply is not a perfect path by any means but one of much trial and error, success and failure.

An equally central concern of the whole teaching here is to examine the destructive disposition that frequently overtakes a human life and leaves it in an animal like state of complete self seeking. I'm speaking of that 'grumbling' elitist disposition of the leaders at the top of Luke's presentation. For he now returns to it. (Does anyone remember this 'grumbling state of mind' as displayed in Mr. Bluster on the Howdy Doody show? Well that is just another version of what Luke is addressing.)Only this time it is sadly occurring in the older brother. The attuned father listens when the older son takes him aside and demandingly asks, “What is all this making over 'this son of yours'.” The older brother is unable to really see his own returned brother but only now sees him as this despicable 'son of his father.' He then lets the resentment pour out. “ I've always been a good boy, never breaking the rules, always doing exactly the right thing but 'this son of yours' totally screws up , embarrasses you ; yet for him you throw this big party. We never do that here. Maybe I should not even try to be so good?” Luke has the father try to explain that his love for both sons is of equal quality but when either one has become dangerously forever lost , Well, “ We just have to celebrate his return. Please join us”, the father asks. Note the father makes no apology to the older son but makes clear that all are invited to celebrate. That is how it ends. This beautiful teaching about God and humans. This grumbling disposition is a life destroying trap that humans in all places and circumstances remain most vulnerable to.

Luke leaves his readers to reflect on this. To come up not only with how the story might continue but also to explore the implications of what his teaching about the nature of God and humans are in their personal lives. So I will not insult you reflecting intelligence by offering my take on what this story can mean today, no doubt many things. I do find myself contemplating these images frequently. You can use Luke's teaching to contemplate your own present life situation, with its complications of family, friends, work , play and even perceived enemies. Or how it might apply regarding your attitude to various misjudged, maligned and marginalized persons and groups in our communities , nation and world. And as you bring your own complicated life into contact with these images of an ultimate nature of God, Luke's images can still have a profound and living impact on how you sort things out. Perhaps we can consider we each have these elements within our most inner life. We are at times the younger son with all his youthful exuberance that always comes crashing down. We may also be at times the extravagantly compassionate father capable of embracing all that life brings, both joys and sadness, without making exacting demands on others and life. And perhaps still alive in us is that older grumbling brother, unable to open up to the explainable nature of how life happens and thus at times unable to either weep or laugh, but only to judge and grumble. We are not likely just one of these but all of them in the complicated packages we refer to as 'you, me and us.'

That DAMN PILLAR OF SALT.... February 5, 2016

       

This is what can happen when I take a four mile walk. Things come to mind. This is a nearly 72 year old man, with barely a foot in the outside world, reflecting. Most people who search for truth  likely  have experienced in their past 'holding in their hand' what  they  trusted was the 'pearl of great price'. It may have been our church , or the Bible or a personal relationship. It seemed near perfect. But as we further experienced it that pearl showed its serious flaw. At some point we may have recognized it was even dangerous in some ways  to our well being. We may have become aware that we had projected onto that 'pearl' what we needed it to be rather than seeing it objectively for what it really was. In the case of the church we may have, with very solid reasons, left it trusting we would find something better. The more we had invested and trusted it as the true pearl the more we are tempted to 'look back', as if to assure our self we did not 'sell our inheritance for a mess of pottage.' We may question that if we were on the right track why more people did not do the same as we did, but most didn't. This is the scenario of Lot being warned to 'not look back' at his home town, but to only look forward. But Lot's wife did look back. So we may be tempted to use energy looking back to our broken pearl but the result can be to become a pillar of salt?

… But should that happen to us that is not our ending. There is much symbolic value in salt. Maybe this is the work of being the 'salt of the earth', that which keeps every one from going off on a totally separate way and leaving behind no form or structure for a culture or community to even exist. So we should not condemn the pillar of salt but still, if given a choice, it is not likely what we would choose for our self. We'd like to find a way to not be somewhat still mesmerized by what we once were so sure was our 'pearl of great price.' So our prayer and longing can intentionally become to keep 'following' the new path we have set out on and not be looking over our shoulder at what is happening in that place so formative and important in our past.

You can see how this same dynamic can happen with respect to a personal love relationship. What seems to be the perfect person in time shows his/her fuller humanity. One finally may see that again she has projected onto that person, whose hand they hold or with whom one has related at a much more personal level, one's inner dream that no mortal could live up to. One may then intentionally rearrange their expectations and allow this very much fantasized relationship become a real one where practical love becomes a trustworthy cement for the long haul of human partnership. The dissonance though  may be so great that one realizes it would not be wise to continue in this relationship for either person's long range well being. So one departs with  sadness but may ,like with the church, be tempted to look back, to second guess their previous decision and consider returning.

But there is even a more complicated situation the path of the searcher may lead to. This also is spoken of in sacred story, ancient myth, and contemporary novel and film. What if one actually did come to hold in their hand their 'pearl of great price'. That is the longer they lived with it the more true and bright and not disappointing it became. This person, as it were, held the pearl in their hand, touched it , smelled it, tasted it but before they could eat it , chew it up and internalize it the pearl was snatched away by nature, leaving one separated from what they intuit they can never find a replacement or equal. Now what does this person do? Do they intentionally not 'look back' to their momentary yet solid and full experience of the 'pearl of great price'? There are three aspects that I think that person would be most wise and true to consider: 1)They definitely should not repress that mountain top experience as if it never happened. It may be easier and less suffering to repress it, to convince themselves it did not have the value they had assigned to it. That it  like the first scenario,  was  'only' a projection and something more 'realistic' and fulfilling  will be  found by moving forward. So that is something such a  person should not do but which  will likely be their greatest temptation and the conventional advise, "Get over it."  2) This person must , while treasuring that past experience, which they intuit will never be  equaled or excelled, find the will to nevertheless move on to the future, step by step, following the flow of life. This, even if it seems only a surface path and does not have near the brightness that was experienced in the presence of the 'valued pearl' which  is only now kept alive by memory. 3) They can intentionally take this uneasy path forward 'hoping against hope' that in some different form or way  history might repeat itself , at least in this one incidence. But second time arounds can never be demanded by the mortal. There was only one transfiguration experience. This  situation has always been the province of the gods or of what Christians call providence, God's will or maybe fate.

I think there are many historical persons whose lives have left some record that they found themselves in the psychological/spiritual situation I have tried to describe just above. And it was only after experiencing their 'pearl of great price' and being separated from it that their creative work came out of them. It was only during the suffering of the separation from their treasure find  or their vision of the 'pearl' that whatever opus they actually brought to their peers or to humanity quite naturally 'came out of them'. It is a creativity like  that of  giving birth after a long hard labor.  It potentially  is the birth of a 'new creation.' Only out of their completely unplanned  grieving separation, after which they nevertheless kept moving forward with an irrational hope in tension with their treasured  'pearl' experience, did their naturally occurring sacrifice bring  an outward creative manifestation. I recall the phrase  regarding Jesus that , 'it was for the joy set before him' that he , with grace and meaning, 'endured the cross despising the shame.'   Jesus and others who, after finding their pearl of great price,  unwittingly found themselves sacrificing, in their mortal life,  their highest joy by living without it. This was not something which  developed directly  out of any conscious plan or  their will to do any great thing for humanity, but simply the natural living out consciously ones strongest longings for that which they had personally found  of greater value  than anything they would have ever imagined stumbling upon. It was , 'like a man plowing in a field, who came upon a treasure. He straightway went and purchased the whole field  so that he might secure the treasure for himself.'

I will offer one  more historical example of this that was made more clear to me in an 'active imagination' process. Active Imagination is a very natural kind of technique that Jung discovered partially  by reading the Christian mystics  and which he believed helped a person to , as it were, to make  intentional contact with the Collective Unconscious. Active Imagination is more direct and can gain faster results  than is experienced waiting for dreams to bring such information. In it one is encouraged to  speak directly to any characters that appear in the fantasy as if they are fully real.  And to accept the spontaneous responses that come in any conversation that develops. Obviously, from our Western perspective,  one can feel quite foolish in their first attempts at this.

Active Imagination Dante Alighieri March 30, 2014

My first time to sit by my pond this spring began with me taking the trip to the 'depths' through imagining dropping into the earth to the bottom of the pond. I arrived quickly at the familiar now  dimly lit vaulted cavern with eight doors equally spaced around the circumference. All of this is the same as many of my Active Imaginations. This time I went here specifically hoping for an encounter with Dante. I was not disappointed. Immediately he appeared in the center where I was seated on a green stone chair. He wore a black  hooded robe typical of the Medieval  poets. His thin tall torso and sharp facial features were like I have imagined and seen in paintings and sculpture. He spoke in deep tones from a face that was welcoming and serious. He greeted me:

Dante In Paradise

D: Hello Jim Hibbett. I have been aware that you have considered conversing with me for some time. I am glad. How did I get your attention?

J: In Florence, Italy January 4 I heard you mentioned often and was quite taken by the statue of you in front of the The Sacred Cross Church. Since then I have become aware that much of your work comes out of your interest in love and perhaps seeing that human love had not reached its potential in your day in a way that was a common experience of people. That remains a disposition I carry, so I was drawn to hearing more of your story and of your work that I might better grasp what it may mean today to help love become more conscious and more highly developed among us humans.

D: I hear you and am interested. Please go with me to a more comfortable place.

He then led me through one of the arched doorways. I noticed engraved around the stone arch four words for love-the Greek Agape, Eros, Phileo and Caritas a Latin word for love. We then entered a bright ornate room that looked much like an Italian church side area, but with nothing that marked it particularly Christian. It could as easily have been a Roman temple room. He invited me to sit down on a comfortable couch at one end and, taking off his hood, he sat at the other end only a few feet away.

J: Before we venture into this I'd like to say how profoundly I feel connected with the array of love words on your entrance door. Do you think many words are needed to reach a fuller understanding of the deepest nature of love? Also I feel a need to confess that I am a far more common person regarding intellectual and aesthetic capacities compared to you. Yet this question and theme of love I so strongly identify with.

D: Yes. Love, because it is of the most importance also has the deepest meaning of all ideas or experiences. You do not need to apologize for your place in the world. When a person becomes a well known intellect and contributor to the common interests like happened with me, they are seen as distant and different than ordinary. This keeps their work from seeming applicable in practical ways to the average person. So I am glad for you that all your life has been lived on the more common path for your life's setting.

J: Thank you for that reassurance.

D: Now, how do you wish to start our talk? If you go a direction that I do not think is time well spent I will tell you.

J: Then I will ask, did you find that love for woman, or a woman, was at the heart of your discovering whatever is most important about love and life?

D: You have begun at the right place I can see. I may say at the start my love experience of Beatrice Portinari was my life time obsession. Without that reality at my center I am very sure you would have never heard of me. My family decreed when I was twelve years old that I would marry Gemma Donati which I did when I was twenty years old. But, as much as I would wish it, married love was never the high and soul capturing experience that my love for Beatrice remained from the time I met her when I was ten years old and she was two years younger. I only saw her a few brief times in my life and knew she tragically died when she was twenty four years old.

J: In your day was it somewhat scandalous for a married Christian man to carry such a love for a woman who was married to another man? Was this a problem for you?

D: I was lost at finding a way to justify the reality in my heart. I knew profoundly that the caring love and appreciation I had for my wife and the inspirational , spiritual love that obsessed me regarding Beatrice were two different kinds and experiences of love. I considered pursuing, with its likely tragic consequences for everyone, Beatrice in an open way. But something deep within, I must say a voice of God, declared that my love for her was not to ever be a part of my outer life, but was to be the central inspiration of my life, my passion and my writing. And this is how it was?

J: This sounds like a very sad love story Mr. Alighieri?

D: I know. It is sad but I think also the kind of spiritual situation that results in a man reaching places of a spiritual nature deep within himself. And out of that to be able to offer back to God and to culture gifts that would have never been born without such suffering love. I know the 'Divine Comedy' would have never happened from me if it were not for the passionate love I unashamedly carried for Beatrice. She was the center of the inspiration from which all that I expressed poetically came. When I wrote I knew without question that it was 'she' who guided my words and who brought the strong emotions and images to my heart. I still cannot explain nor do I understand this horrible yet divine mystery of love. I thank you for this opportunity for a dead man to try to express these things to the living.

J: I am very honored. Did you keep a strong connection with your wife Gemma all your life?

D: She and my children were as important to me as wife and children were to any man I knew. When in exile for nearly twenty years my wife and children remained in Florence. I kept in written touch with her to the extent possible with the help of friends. I did the same with my children. She died there and my children eventually joined me in Ravena where they were near me and a great comfort the last years of my life. My daughter was named Beatrice at my request. This is all I can say. I am a strong supporter of marriage as a way for a very important kind of love to exist and in which for children to be raised. But, often to my dismay but to my surest knowledge, a typical married life was not to be mine as one who carried this kind of inspirational spiritual love for another woman. I can't say more about this that would make it more understandable, even to myself.

J: Did you live with a sense that you really knew Beatrice Portinari since your personal communications with here were so sparse?

D: At the time I was living I don't think I was conscious of what you are asking. Since then I have continued to try to understand this. Such occasional communications with the living like this have helped me. I think I would now have to say that the Beatrice figure that inspired me had to be a personality that was contained within me and not in actuality the human Beatrice whom I hardly knew. That is hard to my pride and sad for me to acknowledge but I can see that it must be more the truth. I can only assure you that the inner world love I experienced with her was all these engraved words and more. It was the faithfulness of Agape, the caring of Caritas, the warm friendship of Phileo and the incomparable ecstasy of Eros all alive at the same time and consistently over a life time. I question how often such a level of love has been yet so fully experienced in human life like it was in my heart of hearts. I ask continually of the dead here if they have had such an experience.

J: Mr Alighieri, I think that such spiritual dynamics of our inner lives are beginning to be more understood in present times than they could have ever been in your day. You seem to have learned so much about yourself in the kind of insight you have just stated. One last question: Can you imagine the day in human history when the kind of inner love life you experienced with Beatrice could become the outer love life experienced in marriage with a real life woman? That a man might see in the real woman in his life the 'goddess image'(and she the 'god' in him) you experienced with an inner woman? And that they still both relate mutually and equally attending to the details of a normal outer life together?

D: What a wonderful vision for humanity, leading to nothing less than the 'love of the world' which our Lord is said to have had. To love and be loved in that full way I can only say would create humans who had a compassion and appreciation for all other people and all things and would make it 'on earth as it must be in heaven.' I can envision nothing grander for humanity than that.

J: Thank you very much for this conversation Mr. Alighieri.

D: Thank you for coming Jim. I'm glad you feel you have interest in and something in common with what my life was all about.

Dante stood up and warmly said, “ Jim Hibbett. I wish you well in the mysteries of love and life. Buonasera” . With that it became pitch dark , he was gone and I was instantly again sitting by the pond.