THE NATURE AND CHALLENGE OF JESUS' TEACHINGS.... July 26, 2015

"And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you."
-- Jesus

 Here are some thoughts on hearing Jesus. I don't believe any genuine spiritual teaching can be approached literally as something the human ego is addressed by God 'to do.' Instead they are not intended as rational statements but are always paradoxical. I hear the sayings of Jesus intentionally creating an impossible bind for any human who aspires to live an ethical life(Which I assume to be most ordinary folks) for it points to what we well know we have not and cannot consistently or even usually practice in a literal external way. It pushes one to acknowledge their distance from any claimed moral or loving perfection. And to become aware that when any unconditional or sacrificial or effective love comes from us, it is not our ego's doing but a spirit or The Christ or The Self acknowledged within that makes such moments possible. Such moments would be ones experienced by the ego consciousness as 'grace'(where did that come from? we might ask ourselves with gratitude) and not of our own egocentric doing. That is why Jesus would would say such is not to be announced or paraded for that honors the ego which is not where such love behaviors originate, and the practitioners of this fully know that.

This would imply that behaving by the love ethic is not one to be 'worked on' as much as always 'prayed for' as in 'thy kingdom come.' Ironically this is the very prayer I was taught growing up  we do not pray, for the 'kingdom' has supposedly already come....it is the institutional church. Surely this is a tragic misunderstanding of Jesus.

I would add that I find it important to think of Jesus as not always experiencing such perfect love and sharing as a human being either. (I ask for the Christian reader's patience to not rush to the conclusion that this paragraph diminishes the value or adoration I have for Jesus. It is quite the opposite I assure you.) I imagine Jesus lived with a sense of 'grace' like I am describing above.  He  experienced being aided from beyond his ego consciousness and enabled to be what love demanded when it was most needed, often just barely enough and in the nick of time- not some continuous morally perfect life without any flaw. That is how I have come to understand what it is to be a human living in harmony with the Spirit. This would be what the actual 'incarnation and union of divine and human' would look like and how it would be experienced by the human in our day.  The idea of Jesus the man being lovingly and morally perfect(except potentially as he also implied other humans are)  makes it impossible for me to either relate to or genuinely appreciate him as a model for living.. .. I'd have to say I am somewhat repelled by that interpretation of his life for it is totally distant to what is actually me and what I observe in the best of  others. It does not help or empower me toward a more loving life. Instead it  implies Jesus was not a real and whole human being, which is the only goal I can rationally aspire to, to experience my being's center as not my ego consciousness but something much larger, something which I am not the manager of and which creates those moments of grace whenever love and full generosity  should emerge in my behaviors. This would also imply our imperfections and character flaws, rather than being despised and rejected outright,  become consciously a necessary and essential part of our true and 'whole' character or personality.

ADDENDUM: 
Jesus also says, 'All things are possible with God'... Applying that to the individual or group would mean just that. We do not ever 'know' by reasoned knowledge what The Self or indwelling spirit or The Christ can work to bring forth from humans. The important point I think is that morality and ethics in Jesus' teaching is not primarily a matter of the thinking, willing, planning ego consciousness. It is created by the 'other' undetectable by physical senses .... religious function. Depth psychology stresses, this 'other' function is as much a reality of the natural human being as are  the capacities to think and feel. Becoming more aware of this and Trusting 'It' is there and functioning creates a transformed 'state of mind' that can bring about development of the 'whole' person and  potentially  a genuinely transcending  and  realized ethic. ... where one potentially experiences 'so loving the world'. I think we can see how hope in any kind of PERFORMANCE UNDER LAW or human reason alone , runs contrary to this paradoxical emphasis of Jesus' teaching.

OBAMA 'CONSCIOUSNESS RAISING' EFFECT......A SYNCHRONICITY .....July 17, 2015

This may be my recurring kind of thought process and observation of public/private life that 'helps thou my unbelief.' and creates hope.  I do not credit Obama personally that he, in my opinion, is being a significant 'consciousness raiser' for the American collective. I hope he is an example of a person being an instrument of nature, evolution, God, or however one describes it, for the common good. This is not something that anyone can plan or scheme into reality. It is larger than any me or us.  But is an example of 'what one is for whatever reasons' being, at just the right time, in a 'just so' perfect harmony with   barely conscious  needs of the collective consciousness. To have such an un-conspired effect is like hitting  the  bulls eye of a rapidly moving target at an incredible long distance with a bow and arrow while riding horse back.

Psychologically, and maybe theologically, this can be called a 'synchronicity'(A highly attention getting meaningful coincidence that is not rationally caused.) I interpret the recent sudden successive Supreme Court's decisions, 'making more conscious'  the  meaning of the Confederate flag, the Iran Deal and the first presidential visit to a prison as aspects of this Obama-Nation synchronicity.(This is all when a President is considered a lame duck) All these are likely very important 'consciousness raising' happenings for the country. I am also very sensitively aware that all these can be individually  painful  experiences, which is the nature of 'consciousness raising.'

This latest example included his speech inside a prison which may become quite  significant  in their  historical  ethical social effects...He said, " Many of these are young men who made a mistake, not unlike the mistakes that I made and that many of you made. The difference is they did not have the support structure, the resources (socially/legally/psychologically/educationally) to  SURVIVE their mistake like you and I did." This statement  strikes me as a mixture of personal confession and gratitude of his own life along with a solid 'as yourselves' application to the lives and hearts of others; the inmates and all the rest of us who have developed or allowed unjust public  policies.

GROWING PAINS: IS AMERICA EXPERIENCING AN EXPANSION OF ITS COLLECTIVE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS ?... July 10, 2015

The Collective Consciousness of America seems to be rapidly expanding on various fronts.  Are Americans waking up to some changing moral  values including the value  and support placed  on  the love and  marriage commitments between  gay persons?  This has breathtakingly  surged from polls taken  even ten years ago. Such rapid change or waking up to a new value is always accompanied by growing pains from whichever point of view one has carried rather habitually. We can hope that changes are not coming so fast that people do not have time to assimilate or rush to think that 'some conspiracy' is forcing it on us.  Maybe what eventually takes shape in the culture will be experienced  by most  as an activity of 'something larger' at work than just politics or activists.  This can be a new sense of the religious function at work in the culture and  give some  people a renewed  sense that the Sacred is involved.

This being said it is my hope that we are all having some of our religious or moral  traditional beliefs challenged.  I know mine have been continually for several decades. I've found   the way I had concluded that homosexuality is always immoral, and not another expression of human/Sacred love, can only be reached, as best I can tell, when the Bible is read as if it were written directly to us by a modern author. And even then by ignoring strong contradictions to such a conclusion with  far more central teachings of Jesus and other Bible themes. The Bible's truthful overall nature has to be, however sincerely, intentionally disregarded to reach that negative conclusion about this part of our citizenry.  I  fully understand this is how many sincere people  read and follow parts of the Bible. This short video briefly demonstrates at least that there is another way to read the Bible... A way of approaching the Bible that results in different applications today of the few selected verses of the Bible used to devalue and not support, as we do for straight couples, the love between same sex committed partners. This other view of the Bible has led many to value and support sexual love between same sex couples believing it can be just as needed in the world and a fulfillment of God's will as that between any straight couples. This other view of the Bible's nature helps explain why many Americans have awakened to a new value and  now support the Equality of Marriage for gay and lesbian persons as something genuinely good and loving. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDKL-f9Iwds