Incidental Graces

Incidental Graces (2.0)

Oh love the fires the sun

Oh grace that sustains such power

Keep me burning!!!

What is Grace? And what is it not?

“It does not mean that we suddenly believe that God exists, or that Jesus is the Saviour, or that the Bible is the truth. To believe that something is, is almost contrary to the meaning of grace.

"Furthermore, grace does not mean simply that we are making progress in our moral self-control, in our fight against society. Moral progress may be a fruit of grace; but it is not grace itself and it can even prevent us from receiving grace...And certainly (grace) does not happen...so long as we think, in our self-complacency, that we have no need of it. Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and suffering, discontentment and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of an empty and meaningless life. It strikes when we feel our separation is deeper than usual, because we violated another life, with words, with actions. It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us. It strikes when, year after year, the longed for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice was saying: ‘You are accepted’, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now: perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now: perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek anything; perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept that you are accepted! If that happens to us, we experience grace. After such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before, but everything is transformed. In that moment, grace conquers sin, and reconciliation bridges the gulf of estrangement. And nothing is demanded of this experience, no religious or moral or intellectual presuppositions, nothing but acceptance.

“In the light of this grace we perceive the power of grace in our relation to others and to ourselves. We experience the grace of being able to look frankly into the eyes of another, the miraculous grace of reunion with life.

~~~~~~

Paul Tillich in “The New Being”

via Rajiv. Thank you my friend.

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• Rajiv:


I especially like that he gives it no religious twist nor intellectual analysis.

Grace is like an accident. You can't seek it, you can't force it, you can't even imagine what it is like to be struck by grace

With grace it's as if something emerged from nothing, a miracle that, in retrospect seems to assimilate itself into the natural order of things so perfectly as to seem utterly and obviously true and yet a moment ago, it never existed to you or perhaps in the world either. And yet here it is. You see the difference now, there is a shift in consciousness from the inside looking out but it's not a physical change. And more, it is not yours alone but yours as well as the world's at the same time. So there is no possessiveness or pride.

• Ron Irvine:


Life is full of incidental graces, whether we see them coming or not. Their arrival is accidental and yet somehow mysteriously intentional. And they are totally unconditional. I used to think that they are like gifts, manna from the sky, gifts from God to his people each morning. But now I see that those incidental graces broadside any and all people unexpectedly, not because it is deserved or earned by right thinking or right belief. Like the rain, it falls on believers and non-believers, theists and nontheists, the rich and the poor, those that think they deserve it and those that know they don't; something that falls from somewhere greater than us, not just humans but everything, living or not, just because. We are sustained in a world of mystery and absurdity for no more reason than that we are here. Anonymous, accidental, incidental, and unconditional, without demands and without any expectation.


• Rajiv:

• wow! Very insightful. As ever!


Yes, it has the appearance of being completely arbitrary, as if God was working according to his own plan, tweaking the balance a little here and then a little there. And though we know it happens, it happens in such subtle ways that it goes uncelebrated. Grace is the purest private event bringing a feeling of redemption where even decades of public prayers in a public place of worship could not or, for that matter, even decades of being a total atheist or realist could not

Honestly, I feel this phenomenon should be studied and understood more. It fascinates me

Ron Irvine:


I wonder if this is the power and creative energy that bursts from the emptiness of the "space between" that we now know is vibrant with intelligence and sustenance; the "space between" that is both empty and not empty. Could this be our ground of being?


• Rajiv:

• I like that!

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• Ron Irvine


And again, Rajiv, synchronous minds from both sides of the earth. Thanks for reposting.

Although world weary . . . the winds of grace intertwine with the resilience of the soul to carry the spent traveler forward without coercion, ever so gently, ever so compassionately, ever so imperceptibly. For me, it is only through silence and listening that this awareness comes to be.

Is this not resilience only, but also synchronicity, sustainability; the creative power of creation and innovation seen among all living creatures and throughout the universe?


Could this power, energy, and sheer intelligence be:

The hunger that drives the predator?
The photosynthesis that triggers a flower to grow?
The attraction of the sperm and egg that causes fertilization?
The forces of the universe that bring all things into alignment, orbits, and organized patterns?


Could incidental graces have as its
Source our ground of being,
Emitting a synchronicity of forces
from that which is greater than all?

Could it be the great beauty that fills all that is,

saturating, pervading, replenishing, 

and exuding from the space between; 

Enveloping and engulfing all that is?

Could this be why we have 

not yet self-destructed???

Could this be our essence, our source; 

neverending, universal, unconditional love?

I’ve been pondering the concept of incidental graces for 15 years. My understanding has deepened and yet become bigger and greater and more pervasive. I often reflect on my own thinking back then compared to now. Here is part of that blog post, from January 31, 2009, that stood out:


When we look at life, what do we see?

When we look at life, do we See???

Life is full of moments of sweetness, coincidental kindnesses, incidental graces. Sometimes it is a comment from a friend or coworker, sometimes it is timely assistance, sometimes it is the sunshine after the rain, a rainbow, the wind in my face, a sideways glance of a child, a smile . . . oh the smile. After going through several years of such darkness of the soul that one wonders if light can even exist there anymore, the kindness of friends and family; unexpected, unpredictable, seemingly random and unrelated . . . leaves me in wonder and tears.

Can we “See” or do we just “see”?

Seeing with the Heart

June 6, 2013

Living life with open hands is an outward expression of the inner work of opening the heart, mind, and will. This opening up requires open eyes and open ears that see and hear with the heart . . . a “Seeing” (and “Hearing”) that goes beneath the surface of actions, reactions, and interactions, habits and […]

Seeing

October 12, 2011

“As a blind man, I think that I see a lot better than I did when I was sighted because I don’t really think we see with our eyes. I think we live in darkness when we don’t look at what’s real about ourselves, about others, or about life. No operation can do that. When you see what’s real about yourself, you see a lot. And you don’t need eyes for that.” (At First Sight 1999 Val Kilmer)

seeing beauty

December 28, 2008

Grace sees beauty in everything . . . Grace sees goodness in everything . . . What once was hurt What once was friction What left a mark No longer stings Because grace makes beauty Out of ugly things Grace makes beauty out of ugly things. ~ Bono. Embedded in all of creation, interwoven through history, underlying all creative action, anchored in all human expression is beauty.

seeing

November 20, 2008

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” (Marcel Proust). “Little round planet In a big universe Sometimes it looks blessed Sometimes it looks cursed Depends on what you look at obviously But even more it depends on the way that you see” (Bruce Cockburn, Child of […]

seeing

April 23, 2007

“Awareness of what presents itself to me involves a double movement of attention: silencing the familiar and welcoming the strange. Each time I approach a strange object, person, or event, I have a tendency to let my present needs, past experience, or expectations for the future determine what I will see.”

What Works?

Are we getting the results we intend?

Is there incongruence between our thoughts and actions?

It seems to me that we, as Americans, are getting the results we never intended.

We are on a path of the destruction of democracy. No one intended that.

We are more divided than we ever have been. No one intended that.

We feel hatred and animosity from fellow Americans everyday. No one intended that.

Our enemies are increasing around the world and also within our borders. Fellow Americans are creating enemies and monsters right next door even though it may not be true.

If we keep on doing what we have been doing, we will never get a different result but we will continue to get the result we have been getting. That’s the way life works.

Who are we as human beings? Who are we as Americans?

Why are we so divided? Why do we have so much fear and hate?

What are we afraid of? Who and why do we hate?

This is not who we are. We have forgotten who we are.

But what can we do? It always begins with me.

In a world of such complexity and confusion, there is a defining principle, a clarifying question that may help us cut through all of the ideas and beliefs that we choose to follow.

We choose to follow certain principles because they are taking us where we want to go, to accomplish what we want to accomplish. We choose to follow, we follow, then we lose our way.

One way of sorting this out this is to remember that as human beings, we are defined by our actions, by our love, by our visible ‘fruits”, by the impact of the lives we live on others, in the same way that a tree is identified by its fruit. If we see an apple on a tree, we do not call it a peach tree. We know by what is seen that it is definitely an apple tree. 

My Mythic Guideposts

What is it that guides and drives my life?

What is the story at the core of my life?

What is my organizing narrative?

Do I know? If not, why?

My Mythic Learning Journey

How I got here.

"I asked myself, 'What is the myth you are living?' and found that I did not know. So... I took it upon myself to get to know my myth, and I regarded this as the task of tasks... I simply had to know what unconscious or preconscious myth was forming me." (Carl Jung)

"It’s hard being a human being. Not only is our external world often demanding, but inside we’re a confusing mix of conflicting emotions and competing desires.

"Complicated creatures, we are each a mix of light and dark. For those of us on a spiritual path, it is essential that we explore this inner territory, for what lies outside our awareness exerts a powerful control over it."
(Leia Marie Faith)

I’ve been contemplating this for the last 15 years. Who am I? Why do I do what I do? Why do I think what I think? Why do I want what I want? When will it be good enough? When will I reach what I’m reaching for? Or is this life just an endless striving after the wind with no purpose, no drives, no guides; a never ending floundering adrift in an endless sea? Wanting and waiting and groping and gripping and grasping… without even knowing that what we want and need is what we already have. We are creatures so restess and unsatisfied. If only . . .

Or is life driven by a balled up fury of intense emotions like fear and desire so that we can be forced by external motivation to do what we are told and go to some kind of heaven-ish place or do we follow our deepest impulses, rejecting all external authority and motivation and end up in some hell-ish place? What kind of god does that? Requires that? Forces us into that? Playing games with eternal consequences with billions of souls? I feel like I'm a pawn in an eternal chess game that never should have started. Throwing away its precious creations. Who does that? Sounds and feels like addiction to me. Addiction to attention, praise, worship, winning, manipulation, busy-ness. OR if it is not addiction, then it must be driven by boredom and a lack of imagination and creativity; a restless and unsatisfied god made in our image.

I’m not necessarily talking about creeds or dogma, doctrine or theology from ancient societies. Sometimes we fool ourselves into believing that right belief in right dogma and right gods is what drives us. But how can right belief hold the hope of all eternity when no one can agree on what is right belief and which of a thousand gods are right. Hell, we don't even know what we know. I’m sure this is why most religions have some sort of holy book, a way to control the narrative, keeping it stuck and unquestionable with ancient teachers and their narratives for that time. Control the narrative, control the people.

The holy book is often a stagnant pond of rehearsed, required, and regulated thinking that by its nature forbids any new inspiration or any fresh water from entering by labeling it heresy or apostasy; an idolized unchangeable venerable monument to conservativeness, fossilization, preservation, petrification, and hence putrification.

 But it is not head knowledge or intellectual thinking that shapes our lives, it is the knowledge or wisdom of the heart. I have no interest in being a second hand person, believing what I am told by other men or adopting a system of belief that is nothing more than another human construct. I can’t follow that. I need something that is alive and real, new and fresh. I hear it and feel it as Bruce Cockburn sings, “Oh love that fires the sun, keep me burning.” Clearly defined belief in books is not the answer but clearly refined passion is what “fires” my life. There is no other way. And when that passion is renewed over and over, forever progressing and expanding, it is like new wine being put into old wineskins. They will burst. In the same way, I must also redefine and realign my outer self with my inner self as I come alive, continually expanding within a context of new wineskins in an ever changing world... forever growing and progressing, evolving and expanding.

Looking at all of life and all of the universe, although sometimes it seems chaotic, as one digs deeper and understands more, there seems to be an order that emerges from chaos. Look at nature, volcanoes, earthquakes, or storms, for instance, when in the middle of it, it may seem chaotic and scary but through the eyes of a volcanologist, seismologist, or meteorologist there is a grand order guiding nature through cause and effect even though it is not immediately apparent or predictable from within. We must learn to see things through the eyes of nature, the natural way of all things. Human beings are not excluded from the natural way of all creation. Sometimes we forget. But with nature, all we need is stillness to remember what we already know. As far as I know, none of nature is sent to hell for falling short of the mark.

The inner creates the outer. The outer reflects the inner. I think this is very true in the lives of human beings also. It is the essence of integrity.

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate.”(Carl Jung)

. 

What is beneath the surface as we take the plunge?

It is not just comfort, security, and certainty.
It is not just love, joy, peace.
It is not just happy, happy, happy.
Because it is more…
It is both light and dark.
It is both joy and sorrow.
It is both pleasure and pain.
It is both dancing and mourning.
It is both happiness and sadness.
The whole circle of life.

There is as much beauty in the darkness as in the light.

There is as much ugliness in the light as in the darkness. 

Beauty defines ugliness. Ugliness defines beauty.

Darkness defines light. Light defines darkness.

It all comes forth from the same place.

It is both easy and hard.
We need each opposite in order to live life fully and deeply and honestly.
It is in darkness that light shines brightest.

It is in paradox that we live the questions.
It is in mystery that we live in awe and wonder.

“To be conscious today is to be in a constant state of silent sorrow.”
“To be conscious today is to be in a constant state of confusion.”
“To be conscious today is to be in a constant state of rage.”
(Teju Cole)

And it is all good and necessary and essential; the natural way of things.

"We Indians live in a world of symbols and images where the spiritual and the commonplace are one. To us [symbols] are part of nature, part of ourselves, even little insects like ants and grasshoppers. We try to understand them not with the head but with the heart, and we need no more than a hint to give us meaning."
—John Fire Lame Deer, (died 1976) Miniconjou Lakota, Storyteller, rebel, medicine man 

“Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea,
never regains its original dimensions.”
(Oliver Wendell Holmes)

My Mythic Guideposts

What I do know... for now

As I drill down to see what it is that drives and guides me, I see some very clear patterns and symbols that emerge. These are analogies or myths, keeping in mind the true meaning of a myth*, that have meaning and deep impact on my life. These guideposts are truths that have shown themselves to be non-negotiable, an ancient wisdom that I must remember.

"We cannot live in a world that is interpreted for us by others. An interpreted world is not [one of] hope. Part of the terror is to take back our own listening. To use our own voice. To see our own light." (Hildegard of Bingen 1098-1179)

Most of life is remembering what we already know.

1. Living with Open Hands

• Living with open hands is the original metaphor that rang true in my life over and over. Its contrast with clenched fists makes it ring even more true for me.
• Open hands are an expression of an open mind, open heart, and an open will.
• Part of the process of opening up is “letting go”. Maybe that’s the first step. We can't really open up until we let go of what we are clinging to.
• The purpose and result of living “open” is going beyond and beneath the surface, the barriers, the boundaries, exploring the inner landscape individually and culturally. With new eyes and renewed sight, we see in brand new ways.

Go Deeper: The Open Hand

2. Facing Our Gods of Comfort, Security, and Certainty

“... for what we are worshiping we are becoming."

"That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and character."
(Ralph Waldo Emerson)

god of comfort
god of security
god of certainty
(An All American Trinity)

We all worship and serve someone or something. Where do YOU focus YOUR time and effort?

The theologian, Francis Schaeffer, described the things that we tend to strive after as Personal Peace and Affluence. For some it is power and success. If we do not identify our gods, then they will determine our lives.

Go deeper: Comfort, Security, Certainty

3. Freedom from the Known

• If I already know, I can no longer learn. This is also one of the first stops on my revolutionary mythic journey. Once this started to take hold within, it kept going deeper and showing up around every turn.
• All learning begins only when we come to the place of saying, “I don’t know.”
• All wisdom begins only when we come to the place of “letting go” of what we think we know.
• All of those things I think I know are mostly things that I have downloaded
  
  from culture or that I have been told are true by those that think they know and think they are right and spend their lives making others wrong.
• Everything must be evaluated, re-evaluated, and questioned through discernment; sorting through the trash and treasures that have been accumulated and hoarded within; our subconscious addictions. 
• Most of what we think we know is simply something we were told either by another person claiming some sort of authority over us or by our culture, including politics and religion; i.e. conditioning.
• Conditioning is mostly invisible and unconscious. It sustains itself through its own invisibility and undetectibility. Therefore, our life's task must be to make the unconscious conscious so that it can no longer dictate our lives for us.
• If I already know... I can no longer learn.
• Also, most of life is remembering what I already know but have so quickly forgotten.

Go Deeper: How Do We Know That We Know What We Know, Opinionation

4. Honor and Respect All People Without Judgement

• Being right means that I make others wrong. This is no way to live. I have no right to tell others what to think, how to believe, or how to live their lives.
• I am responsible only for my own values and beliefs, and actions, reactions, and interactions. No one else’s.
• A person’s values and beliefs are deeply personal. Do not mess with them because the person’s identity and integrity are bound up in them. Honor and respect is the only human response to others.
• Every time we encounter another person, we both walk away changed; for the better or for the worse.
• Anytime we violate the identity and integrity of another person, this is a form of violence.

Go Deeper: What is This Drive to Convince? … to be right., My Sacred Path of the Amoeba

5. The Fire of Inner Discernment

•  What is our source of truth? 1) inner discernment? or 2) external, second hand opinions?
• Inner discernment is a critical part of this process. We are stuffed so full of “truth” that we have no way of sorting through it all, no way of knowing what is really true or false, right or wrong. Only I can do that within.
• If I do not do the hard work of inner discernment, then I am nothing more than a second-hand person.
• We've been gaslit; told what to think, what to believe, and what is real.
• But Truth is in our bones or at least always resonates in our bones.
• Within each of us is an inner teacher, inner Light.
• Most of life is remembering what we already know.
• We do this by spending time within our sacred, silent center.
• It is from silence that all things come forth; wisdom and understanding, the sacred and the true ... reality.
• Stripping away and sorting out the treasures from the trash.

Go Deeper: My Path of the Amoeba: digesting and discerning truth, Dogma, A Shift of Authority

6. Here and Now is All There Is

"Every moment and every event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men. Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost, because men are not prepared to receive them: for such seeds as these cannot spring up anywhere except in the soil of freedom, spontaneity and love." (Thomas Merton 1915-1968)

• All we have is this present moment, and then it is gone into the past while at the same time the future slips into your present now and if we aren’t paying attention, it slips on by so quickly, never to be retrieved.
• We can do nothing about the past, it is gone.
• We can do nothing about the future, it is not here yet.
• All we have is the present moment.
• NOW is where life happens.
• NOW is the only thing we have control over.
• If we pay attention to our thoughts, we find that each thought is either caught up in the regrets of the past or the worries and fears of the future. Count them on each hand, left for past and right for future. Where are the thoughts that are focused on NOW, this present moment? There are none. It is only in silence and stillness, awareness and attention that we experience NOW.
• Proprioception of thought is the skill and practice of paying attention to our thoughts, observing them, and then letting them go so that we can go back to stillness HERE and NOW.

"We could say that practically all the problems of the human race are due to the fact that thought is not proprioceptive." (David Bohm)

Go Deeper: From Dissonance to Wholeness

7. The Sacred and the Profane

• As I delve further beneath the surface of life, the words sacred and profane broaden and deepen, giving more and more guidance for daily living.
• Every person is sacred as well as the connections we have between all people. Therefore we must mind our interactions with care because any time we do not honor and respect the other, this is a form of profanity. Anytime we violate the identity and integrity of another person, this is violence.
• I suggest this understanding.
• A Sacred Life = making the ordinary (in all of life’s present moments) sacred. (mindfulness, awareness, appreciation, wonder, awe)
• A Profane Life = making the sacred (in all of life’s present moments) ordinary. (thoughtlessness, apathy, mundane, familiar, taken for granted)

Go Deeper: The Sacred and the Profane

8. Creation of Meaning

“Am I living the life that wants to live in me???”
“Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it,
listen for what it intends to do with you.”
(Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak)

• Only by identifying and using our gifts with people and in places where they are accepted and appreciated can we create meaning in life. And then we find that for every gift there is a place or a person that needs that gift.
• More and more I can see the gifts that are born with and in me, lying innate within, often dormant, until I break out of my bubble of familiarity. It is through "silencing the familiar and welcoming the strange" that I begin to See. And through learning to See, I begin to perceive my gifts, so often through the eyes of the "other" like a mirror reflecting back to me who I am. As I use my gifts, a synchronicity often emerges bringing together people and events in very amazing ways. 
• Meaning in life comes from answering these three questions: 
• Who Am I? (my Identity)
• Why Am I here? (my Purpose)
• What Am I going to do about it? (my Mission)
• The truth for your life can only come from within.

Go Deeper: Truth, Wisdom, Meaning

9. Unconditional Love for all

• We need to create a world that works for all.
• Unconditional love requires that we love without condition; no strings attached, no judgment, no exclusion, no pre-conditions, no expectations, no hidden agendas.
• Learning to express, in word and deed, a language of peace, inclusion, tolerance, understanding, and acceptance versus a language of divisiveness, exclusion, and judgment.
• Honor and respect all people and their values and beliefs.
• Quakers have what they call testimonies that are visible manifestations of the Light within: Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality, and Stewardship.
• My religion is kindness and compassion, love and peace. This is what is at the true core of any religion rightly understood. Otherwise it is not worth its weight in dirt.
• Bottom line, at the ground level, I believe that we must create a world that works for ALL.

Go Deeper: From Dissonance to Wholeness, Being Human Together

10. Basic Goodness versus Total Depravity

Just like any self fulfilling prophecy, if we are constantly told that we are depraved or sinful or naturally evil, that is exactly how we will believe, become, and begin to act. In order for us to "need" a savior, we will need to feel like we need to be saved. It is sort of like marketing. People don't want things unless they think they need things. It is a self-deceptive story that first conjures up a nonexistent need, convinces us of our dire need, and then rides in on a horse to save the day. It is sort of like a superhero that rides in as a strong man or as a wonderful savior to save us. But instead of real danger or real evil, we get saved from something we didn't even know we needed to be saved from until we were convinced of how bad we are. We've seen this in politics also where a candidate bases their propaganda on the fears of the people, drums up the need to be saved by a strongman, dictator, or tyrant, then presents their great hero to meet a need they never had. Our core characteristic as humans is the same as with nature. It is good! There's a basic goodness that can be found within each person. If a person acts depraved or evil, it is only because he was nurtured to feel that way. As with any bad habits, we can learn to be better by embracing our basic goodness. By going back to our roots, our foundation, our source.

Another way I look at it is through the eyes and lives of children. We have all heard the idea that kids are not born as racists, we are taught to be racists. 
Not nature but nurture in a very bad way. 
Children have eyes of wonder and awe. 
Then they grow up to be skeptical and closed minded. 
Children naturally are caring and loving. 
Then they grow up to be hostile and hateful. 
Children are naturally accepting and inclusive of all people. 
Then they grow up to be judgemental and exclusive.

Children are born with basic goodness and therefore that is what they live out in the world. The poisonous and toxic self-fulfilling prophecy of total depravity transforms us into exactly what it predicts; creatures full of fighting, hostility, divisiveness, hatred, and fearfulness. Why??? To subvert the truth of basic goodness and force us to see that we need a savior. Not just a religious savior but also a political savior. We are not worthy to have inner authority and truth and light. We must get it from a religious authority, a political authority, a reality authority. Believe what you are told! Do what you are told! Because the powerful are afraid of We the People sharing their power and riches.

It is an awesome and powerful thing to see a child growing up seeing their own basic goodness being reflected back to them by the ones that love them most. Unconditional love is not just second nature, it is your true nature that exudes from deep within.

Our Micro-Narrative (Myth) Emerges from Our Story

"I believe that, far from being arrogant, prideful, or egotistic, the autobiographical path of seeking the sacred through the intimate experience of our own personal history is the essence of humility. All human beings have in common our uniqueness. Each of us can create an autobiography. It is our gift and task to explore our particular moment in history, the ground on which we dwell.

"When I pay attention to the particulars of my life, I discover that there is no ready-made blueprint for the specific type of life that would be fulfilling for me. I need to discover how I have been wounded and blessed by my family and my culture, how I have been twisted and strengthened by the experiences I have endured. I need to learn about the gifts I have to offer." (Sam Keen)

“Only by exploring and sharing my autobiography can I witness my discoveries of the sacred. My story is not normative. I am under no illusions that I am a saint, a hero, or a model for anyone. I do not write in order to say: Here is the map for you to follow. I only share some of the twists and turns of my journey in order to encourage you to take your own story seriously. Examine the sacred text of your own experience, reconstruct the events and relationships that went into the creation of your being, re-collect memories, and form them into a narrative that makes your life a once-told tale.” (Sam Keen)

“Even the longest, most detailed, and most expressive obituaries always omit the essence of a life: the history of a person’s heart. How many of us wish we had asked more questions of someone we loved, not about what happened and when but about the inner experience of being that person? About hopes and fulfillments, failures and regrets? About moments of despair and moments of meaning?” (Parker Palmer, Healing the Heart of Democracy)

"Thought creates the world and then says, 'I didn't do it!'" (David Bohm)

Thought creates stories and myths to make sense of things that don't make sense to us.

We are storytelling, sense-making creatures. It is thought that we use to create an organizing drama.

Stories are foundational to culture and society.

Stories are foundational to countries and government.

Stories are foundational to business and the free market.

Stories are foundational to religion and spirituality.

And yet stories are always suspect...

There is reality.

Then there are fictions (stories).

We create and believe fictions to facilitate us working together for the common good.
We create and believe fictions to mitigate the fear of death.
We create and believe fictions to overcome our limitations as human beings.
We create and believe fictions to garnish power over others.
We create and believe fictions to dominate (preserve or destroy) the earth.
We create and believe fictions to give us our civil and human rights.
We create and believe fictions to find meaning and purpose.
We create and believe fictions to become, in our minds, eternal beings.

What is a fiction?
It is that which is not real.
It exists only in our heads.
It is a story we tell ourselves
About what we think is real.
Fiction is created by thought.
Thought creates our world.
… and we believe it.

If we wonder if something is fiction or real, simply ask, "can it suffer?"

A uniquely human phenomenon:
~ “How do you cause people to believe in an imagined order such as Christianity, democracy or capitalism? First, you never admit that the order is imagined.”

~ “You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven.”

~ “Ever since the Cognitive Revolution, Sapiens have thus been living in a dual reality. On the one hand, the objective reality of rivers, trees and lions; and on the other hand, the imagined reality of gods, nations and corporations. As time went by, the imagined reality became ever more powerful, so that today the very survival of rivers, trees and lions depends on the grace of imagined entities such as the United States and Google.”

~ “Voltaire said about God that ‘there is no God, but don’t tell that to my servant, lest he murder me at night’. Hammurabi would have said the same about his principle of hierarchy, and Thomas Jefferson about human rights. Homo sapiens have no natural rights, just as spiders, hyenas and chimpanzees have no natural rights. But don’t tell that to our servants, lest they murder us at night.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind*  

What Do I Mean by Myth

• “All religions have been true for their time. If you can recognize the enduring aspect of their truth and separate it from the temporal applications, you’ve got it… Myths grab you somewhere down inside. As a boy, you go at it one way, as I did reading my Indian stories. Later on, myths tell you more, and more, and still more. I think that anyone who has ever dealt seriously with religious or mythic ideas will tell you that we learn them as a child on one level, but then many different levels are revealed. Myths are infinite in their revelation.” (Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth)
• "I asked myself, 'What is the myth you are living?' and found that I did not know. So... I took it upon myself to get to know my myth, and I regarded this as the task of tasks... I simply had to know what unconscious or preconscious myth was forming me." (Carl Jung)
• A Myth is a story about a person, event, or our origins that has shown to have significant impact on the lives of people, both individually and collectively. The point of a myth is not whether it is true or not, but rather it is the significance of its impact. A myth is what drives us, whether individually (my micro-narrative) or collectively (our macro-narrative), whether conscious, preconscious, or unconscious, as Jung states above. 
• Whether we are aware of it or not, we all have some sort of myth(s) at our core telling us that we are invaluable or unvaluable, worthy or worthless, tough guy or weakling, hero, superhero, or antihero, gods or beggars, or that life has meaning or that it is meaningless. A self fulfilling prophecy is when someone like a child is told that he is worthless (or something) and they then begin to act worthless (or something). Those memes or seeds that were planted in the kid’s mind started to grow into his myth and shape who he is. This is how we as humans are built. The question is, what will we do about it? 
• Will we conform to the collective myth of society or will we forge forward to create and “know my myth… the task of (all) tasks” and then shape society's collective, macro-narrative into that which serves my micro-narrative?

More newly discovered and developing guideposts

Let BE... Let GO... Let COME...

Non-Judgment (Let BE)

Non-Attachment (Let GO)

Non-Resistance (Let COME)

“If good happens, good. If bad happens, good.” (Lao Tzu)

“Mastery of the world is achieved by letting things take their natural course. You cannot master the world by changing the natural way.” (Lao Tzu)

"Unfinished Poem: I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding." — John O'Donohue

“There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness. This mysterious Unity and Integrity is Wisdom, the Mother of all, Natura Naturans. There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fountain of action and of joy.” (Thomas Merton)

A Perspective of Brokenheartedness

I'm discovering that in order to Live with Open Hands; mind, heart, will,

I must open my eyes and look differently at this world.

Of course, this is the essence of all of the above Guideposts.

As my understanding deepens,

I'm seeing this one as being second in priority

only to the first Guidepost (Living with Open Hands):

Seeing with new eyes meaning seeing the world more and more in two ways.
1. Seeing this world through the eyes of the brokenhearted.
2. Seeing this world through our own eyes of brokenheartedness.

Check out the blog post where I more fully develop the depth and the necessity of this latest Guidepost.

The Underpinnings of Faith

When the Foundation Crumbles

The thing that was most destabilizing and devastating for my faith of 50 years was when I realized that the foundational dogma did not hold weight, in neither the real world nor in my mind.

Only as dogma was cleared away could I begin to have conversations of depth without limitations. Dogma blocks understanding because... if I or you already know, I or you can no longer learn.

I long, only, to be a man of great character and integrity, love and hope, but not great faith in dogma.

As Abigail Adams said about George Washington at his death:

‘Simple truth is his best, his greatest eulogy.’”

“Washington’s biography is the story of a man constructing himself.’” (W.W. Abbot, an editor of Washington’s papers)

Underpinning #1: We can be certain of our origins, our identity and purpose, and our destiny and future.

Unfortunately, the first thing I realized is that nothing is certain, nothing is permanent; everything is temporary and thus uncertain. That is the design of the universe. Nothing happened in the way that we were told it did. And the future is nothing like what we think it will be. And life never goes like we plan. For me, it is wonderful to know that we don't know. I became weary of "thinking I know." It is so freeing to know I don't.

In other words, life never goes as we plan. Isn't that wonderful?

Underpinning #2: We can know the truth and the truth can set us free. And we can know this for sure. 

One of the first revelations when I started going deeper and really questioning life is this, which has been my mantra for 13 years. “If I already know, I can no longer learn.” Certainty is an illusion. The only thing that never changes is that everything is constantly changing.

Underpinning #3: God’s Word is inerrant and inspired by God. It is the perfect word of God which contains everything we need for life and Godliness. 

Words are nothing more than signs and symbols that can only point toward reality (or truth) but they are never the reality (or truth) itself. Our understanding of words is unique to ourselves. They are images in our minds, stories in our heads that differ in each and every human being and in each and every context. And since words cannot contain truth or God, neither can books or even our own minds. Because both books and our minds are limited. We are continually creating things in our own image because books are written in words and we think in words. In other words, we create meaning in our heads for each situation and then project them outward toward others and toward reality. Or more accurately, we create images in our heads and think that our perceptions, concepts, and images ARE reality. But they are not. They exist only in our heads.

See also, How Holy is the Holy Book? Holy Bible Inspiration or Idolatry? 

Lost in Translation
The Nature of Language, Words, and Thought

• So first, in all of life, we lose meaning between reality and our image of reality.
• When writing the bible, or any book, the author can only describe the images in their heads and then project them onto the page in their words with their meanings in their contexts. Then when we read them, we perceive those words in our minds and create our own meaning in our context. Our minds struggle to make meaning out of those words and more image-making happens in our heads which can never be the same reality that the author intends to project. Similar, hopefully. Successive approximations at best. This reality is always different from what ends up on the page. It is the nature of language. And for any religion that believes in a creator, this is what we ended up with. This is how we were created or evolved or whatever we think happened. This is the design of our universe.
• Then we lose meaning through language when we try to describe our reality (actually images in our heads) to others.
• When a preacher preaches what she/he thinks truth is in the bible or in his head, that is always his own image, interpretation, understanding, etc, that will always be different than what anyone else can understand. That is the nature of language on earth. That is what we have been given. Language is sort of a miracle in and of itself. It is amazing that we can communicate at all.
• Words are never reality. All they can do is point to the reality that we have created in our thoughts. Language is nothing more than projecting those stories in our heads to others as nothing more than images, projections, creations, perceptions.
• Is the Bible accurate? This is critical since accuracy presupposes inerrancy and inspired by God.   https://www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined/2020/07/a-simple-thought-experiment-defeats-claim-that-bible-is-accurate-2/ 

Underpinning #4: Total Depravity versus Basic Goodness.
Why do we believe that we are flawed, dirt, depraved; a worm such as I? Is that possibly holy propaganda for fostering the belief that we NEED religion and God? See below in the last section for more on this.

Underpinning #5: Love is all. All of the “law and prophets hang on these two commandments: Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.” And we are to love God because he first loved us. And his love for us is unconditional.

If we are to follow these precepts, then the God that commands this must demonstrate this for us. In the Bible, it is repeatedly said, “be an example to others.”

The main characteristics required of all relationships are to be present, approachable, and visible and to communicate directly, honestly, and regularly. And yet the two most conspicuous characteristics of our image of God are his silence and his invisibility. In other words, the primary unchanging attributes of God are silence and invisibility.

Also, unconditional love is very different from the love that the God of the Bible proclaims and demonstrates. It is very conditional and punitive from mostly an angry and jealous God. How cruel is that? Or it is very conditional and exclusive based on obedience and compliance. How controlling and petty is that? And when people, created in the image of God that he says he loves, do not comply, they are eternally punished; not so they can learn and repent but so they can suffer forever with no chance of repentance... ever! That sounds malevolent and not benevolent. So the third attribute of god is conditional love. Exactly the opposite of what is expected of Christians.

Taking it one step further, check out God's commandments for all time here, The 10 Commandments: the best morality of all history?

And going a step further: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” (Richard Dawkins)

This happens not just for noncompliance but also for not believing and not only that but also for imperfect theology; that is, for not thinking like we are told to think. That contradicts the very essence of what it is to be diversely and uniquely human. It is a violation of creation itself.

It seems to me that maybe Christians ARE created in the image of the god they themselves have created; full of judgment and conditional love that is mostly angry and vindictive. Be good or else. Believe right or else. Any time we learn and change based on external criteria, rarely is that change sustainable. Learning from a role model is one of the most effective ways to internalize growth and change. But that teacher, that role model, that god must have integrity, which means that the primary and most consistent attributes emulate the kind of person that one wants to be; kind, generous, loving, patient, non-judgemental, etc. I used to have so many arguments with myself about this but when I stopped arguing and just looked carefully and clearly, all of the arguments faded away since it really didn't make sense to me anymore. 

A Sacrifice for the Sins of Humankind??? 7 Reasons Why Jesus was not Sacrificed for Your Sins.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/keithgiles/2020/08/7-reasons-why-jesus-was-not-sacrificed-for-your-sins/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Best+of+Patheos&utm_content=57

The Problem of Evil

"The problem of evil is the question of how to reconcile the existence of evil and suffering with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God  (see theism).^[1][2]  Or as the first known presentation by the Greek philosopher Epicurus puts it: "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then from whence comes evil?"^[3]
(Wikipedia: The Problem of Evil)

The Problem of Eternal Torture

Heaven and Hell and other such stories
 An odyssey of the gods
The Create & Fix cycle of the gods

If God is all-loving, omnibenevolent, he would not torture anyone eternally.

If God is omnipotent, all-powerful, then he could create a way for all people to want to choose him instead of hell

If God is omniscient, all-knowing, then he would know exactly what each person would need to understand in order to choose God instead of hell.

If God is omnipresent, then we would be with all people at all times and know them so well that he would show them the way and not choose hell.

This also describes the Problem of Informed Choice being the forgotten prerequisite for free will.

Imagine there was a heaven, a hell, and a God. 

Who the hell would ever choose hell??? Unless maybe they don't understand all that is needed for it to make sense even to a skeptic. For this supposed God of the omni's, it would be a no-brainer, unless for some reason he did not have the will to do so. But then what does that say about the big guy in the sky?

The Nature and Character of God

A God Problem

Perfect. All-powerful. All-knowing. The idea of the deity most Westerners accept is actually not coherent.
If you look up “God” in a dictionary, the first entry you will find will be something along the lines of “a being believed to be the infinitely perfect, wise and powerful creator and ruler of the universe.” Certainly, if applied to non-Western contexts, the definition would be puzzling, but in a Western context this is how philosophers have traditionally understood “God.” In fact, this conception of God is sometimes known as the “God of the Philosophers.” 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/opinion/-philosophy-god-omniscience.html

Regarding Omnipresent: 5 years after I wrote this, while I was reviewing and remembering the things that I learned and wrote about, the image came to mind. Imagine a married couple living together but because of a disagreement, they refused to talk to each other or even look at each other. One of them decided to sleep on the couch until this was resolved. But neither of them were willing to talk or be around the other. OK. Then take that same image and imagine God or Jesus with their new bride, the church, acting like this. Well as I see it. this is what has been happening for well over 2000 years. The deity demands a loving relation but refuses to do anything about it. Everyday, there is nothing but silence and invisibility with each other. What hope does this relationship have? Even more obvious and even glaring is the fact that according to their teachings, Jesus promised to return to earth. This was understood so clearly that Jesus' followers began to sell all of their possessions and quit their jobs in anticipation this promise within their lifetime. That was sometime in the first century, prior to Jesus death at the age of 30. What years is it now? Another death blow to any marriage. 

Regarding Omnipotence: "You’ve probably heard the paradox of the stone before: Can God create a stone that cannot be lifted? If God can create such a stone, then He is not all powerful, since He Himself cannot lift it. On the other hand, if He cannot create a stone that cannot be lifted, then He is not all powerful, since He cannot create the unliftable stone. Either way, God is not all powerful."

Regarding Omniscience: "What about God’s infinite knowledge — His omniscience? Philosophically, this presents us with no less of a conundrum. Leaving aside the highly implausible idea that God knows all the facts in the universe, no matter how trivial or useless (Saint Jerome thought it was beneath the dignity of God to concern Himself with such base questions as how many fleas are born or die every moment), if God knows all there is to know, then He knows at least as much as we know. But if He knows what we know, then this would appear to detract from His perfection. Why?

"There are some things that we know that, if they were also known to God, would automatically make Him a sinner, which of course is in contradiction with the concept of God. As the late American philosopher Michael Martin has already pointed out, if God knows all that is knowable, then God must know things that we do, like lust and envy. But one cannot know lust and envy unless one has experienced them. But to have had feelings of lust and envy is to have sinned, in which case God cannot be morally perfect." This is the problem of thought crimes.

This article above goes on to present many contradictions in the basic nature of God, which I believe presents us with two ways we can go to reconcile this dilemma.

• Either God was created by man in the image of man and hence flawed in definition by man's thinking and man's anthropomorphic images and concepts.
• Or God is indescribable by man which means that if there is something greater than I, it would be futile to put that greatness into words or into a book or into a theology because all of these modes of expression are nothing more than human constructs.

Or is there a way to integrate multiple perspectives and hold each of them up for examination alongside other perspectives, refusing to conclude anything for sure, similar to what is done in this book?   https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brainstorm/201208/the-god-problem-interview-howard-bloom


Building a House on Sand and Uncertainty

Jesus used the parable that tells us to build our “house” (our life) on solid rock so that it will stand the test of time and withstand the storms that will come. And yet, our very faith has been built on the sand and its foundations are crumbling. This was a very hard lesson for me to learn. It took many years. Wisdom comes through pain and suffering and is purified like gold in the fire to burn away the dross. Inner discernment is the fire that tests for truth and burns away all that is false.

And yet there is no rock upon which to build. This is myth that we want to be true. I would love to know and know for sure that I am building on a solid foundation that will not crumble. But that would require some form of certainty and permanence, which we do not have. The only constant is change. That's the only thing we can be sure of.

So where does that leave us? Or probably the better question is, where does that leave me? ...since these are questions we all must face individually.

So if there is not a rock upon which to build my life,
If there is no solid foundation upon which to build,
How can I weather the storms
and withstand the fierceness of life?

I must be rooted in reality and grounded in my ground of being, a groundlessness with fearlessness. See Grounded in Groundlessness.

So Why Do We So Desperately Need Religion and God?

I wonder if it is because we so desperately need certainty.

I wonder if it is because we so desperately need to know and to know for sure about everything, even though we are finite creatures.

I wonder if it is because we so desperately need to be told what to do and to think and to act and how to treat each other.

I wonder why we can't not know?

Is "knowing" and certainty the idols that are buried beneath our image of a god we created in our image? ... out of our neediness for certainty?

Can we not be OK with who we are? Or does the grass always have to be greener on the other side? Do we forever have to want more and more and more without ever being content with what we have and who we are?

This sort of feeds into the need for the belief in total depravity. If we are so dependent and not able to think on our own because we are so flawed and depraved, then we are in dire need of god. Maybe this stems from the need to be dependent on authority outside of ourselves, whether the pulpit, the throne, or the gods above the clouds. That would probably work out best for the powerful. Keep us dependent and in line, thoughtless and compliant. Heaven forbid that we have an inner authority and discernment, an inner teacher or a still small voice, or an inner Light. If we did, we might wake up and rebel and maybe even take over our own lives and governance and spiritual journey.

But what if we took away "such a worm as I" and believed there is a basic goodness within each person as with nature and the universe as the Buddhists believe? What if there truly is "that of God" within each of us so that we can relate directly with any person because of that belief? 

What if we could believe in each other, in ourselves, knowing that there is this goodness within that we can trust?

What if we believed that there is this inner teacher or inner voice birthed by our inner goodness?

Maybe then we would no longer need to be told what to believe, what to think, and what to do. 

Maybe then we will grow up as a human race, transforming into all that we can be, our full potential. 

Maybe then we can find a solid foundation upon which to build our story; the basic goodness of each person, nature, and the universe.

The Chronology of My Crumbling Foundation

1. I earned a bachelor's degree in religion, bible, and greek at a well known Evangelical, bible, liberal arts college. There I was required to develop a Christian world and life view based on my indepth studies of the bible. But since then, there has been a deepening dissonance throughout my 30s and 40s. I could not quiet it with answers anymore. The answers were no longer alive, they were dying on the vine and I was becoming desperate. I began to understand and appreciate a good question; how it deepened me and opened me up. That's why on April Fool's Day, 2006, I began blogging. I didn't write because I knew anything, I wrote because I no longer knew anything. I wrote in order to understand and listen to life.

2. Then life upended me. It was like a whirlwind ripping and breaking, uprooting and upending everything in my life. The American Dream, gone. In the spring of 2008, I lost my marriage (divorced!), I lost my kids half time (joint custody!), I lost my house (forclosed!), I lost my job (downsized!), I lost my mental health (clinical depression!). Like my first divorce when I was 30, I turned to God and clung to what I was taught. I prayed harder than ever. I studied the bible. I went to church. And yet those deep wounds would not heal. I tried and tried and tried. And also, I kept writing. I didn't know why. I just knew that I had to. The compulsion to keep on writing was undeniable, incessant, and irrepressible. I had to write. It took a long time to begin to understand that it was the silence, the reflection, and the contemplation that began my healing. This I learned from a Buddhist Priest as I practiced shambhala meditation. I carried it on for a few more years in silent worship with the Quakers.

3. The questions along with the dissonance became a continuous and relentless roar throughout my 50s. It reminds me of the neverending tinnitus in my ears now in my 60s. At times it brings me to my knees.

4. First it hit me that "knowing" is a presumption that we have abused. We do not "know" and we cannot "know." And it also hit me that if I already know, I can no longer learn. (see Underpinning #1&2 above)

5. Then it hit me that along with knowing, certainty is nothing more than a story in my head. We are humans. We don't get to be certain about anything except that everything changes constantly. There is no permanence. Everything is temporal. And if I think that I know or that I am certain or that I am permanent, then I am playing God. (see Underpinning #1&2 above)

6. This then made me begin to question the foundational things of my faith: an inspired, inerrant word of god. Not long after I began to see that, then I realized that the concept of a word of god period is absurd. And when I was then forced to question why we would be told this, the dynamics of power and oppression became clearer and clearer. External authority is another story in our heads that we tell ourselves. Sometimes it is practical (like government and laws) but not when it comes to the things of life and death that no one can know.  (see Underpinning #3 above)

7. Once that foundation (#6) began to crumble, everything else began to unravel, and kept unraveling until there was nothing left. The nature of language and the identity of words furthered and deepened my understanding.

8. Then came the nature and function of thought, of reality and perception, of concepts and illusions, and of fictions and the stories we tell ourselves.

9. Then my eyes opened to the principalities and powers that were really running things. Then the structures of power and oppression, inner and outer authority, being controlled and compliant versus living out our full potential, 

10. A great eye opener is my understanding of myths per the teaching of Joseph Campbell along with the understanding and influence of conditioning according to Krishnamurti.

11. Once I turned 60, the scales fell off my eyes and I could see all of the wishful and magical thinking that I still clung to. At that point, I was finally ready to say "STOP" "enough!" It was at this point that I could fully let go of dogma. What I experienced profoundly and astonishingly is that I was finally free. No more shackles on my mind or on my conversations with others or in my acceptance and inclusion of others; unconditional love! I was finally free!

Who'd'a' thought that the total unraveling of my life would result in such incredible freedom?

“How thoughtful of God to arrange matters so that, wherever you happen to be born, the local religion always turns out to be the true one.” -Richard Dawkins

Grasping, Gripping, Groping, Griping

Sometimes I feel like most of my life has been nothing but

grasping...

gripping…

groping…

griping…


Grasping what is not mine.

Gripping what is temporal.

Groping for what is permanent.

Griping about what I don’t have.

Sort of like a dog chasing its tail,

I have lived my life in repeating circles.

After a heartbreaking experience

I spend myself with tears of loss.

Sometimes for many months,

sometimes for many years.

Then there is a shift and

I spend myself with tears of longing.

Sometimes for many months,

sometimes for many years.

Finally . . .

I begin to realize that

“Loss” is the past.

I cannot bring that back…

“Longing” is the future.

That is out of my hands…

What if life were to be spent on nothing but love

…of each moment

…of each person

…of life

…all of life?

Each experience?

Every encounter?

Fully present, fully aware, fully conscious, fully alive.

What if the only tears were tears of love? What if???