Blind Spot

Everyday, I must ask myself,

What is my Source? From what inner place am I living my life?

(Source of the River Cuervo, Cuenca Province, Spain)

”The best in art and life comes from a center – something urgent and powerful, an idea or emotion that insists on its being. From that insistence, a shape emerges and creates its structure out of passion. If you begin with a structure, you have to make up the passion, and that’s very hard to do.” (Roger Rosenblatt)

“The success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervener.”

Two people can act or interact or react in the same way in similar situations BUT the results are never the same. Because what really matters is the interior condition, the motivation, the intention, the Source from which each person is acting. One person can say something to someone and they become outraged. Another person can say something very similar and they are comforted. It is not so much what we say or do or even how we say it or do it. What matters is why we say and do the things that we do. 

What is the Source of my attention and of my intention?

My most basic intention of writing is to shine a spotlight of awareness on my blind spot; the place from which my attention and intention originates and emanates; my interior condition, my source. I need to remember this each and every day; because through lack of consciousness, lack of awareness, by default this is the human blind spot.

What we do and how we do what we do are small matters compared to our state of being, our presence, our mindfulness, that engulfs the why of what we do and how we do what we do. This is our Source.

Oh love that fires the sun, keep me burning.

If Only . . .

If Only I Could …

I spent most of my life strutting around, touting the answers, thinking I know. 

Then life flattened me, uprooting everything, including all those so-called answers.

Learning to live the questions completely changed the trajectory of my life in such an aggravating and life-giving way.

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers. . . . Live the questions now.” (Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet)

If only I could …

Think like everyone thinks.
Believe what everyone believes.
Be like everyone else.

… but that’s not the shape of my heart

If only I could …

Not think, not care about what is real and true.

Be oblivious to the cognitive dissonance screaming in my head and heart.

Ignore the dissonance of the difference between what is real and the lifetime of fictions in my head.

Live in a box, a container of conditioning full of that which I’ve been told all of my life.

Live in a cocoon, all snug and warm, comfortable and secure, and so nicely certain.

Believe what I was told to believe, that system of beliefs that is delivered to your door predetermined primarily by zip codes, comfort zones, and religious and social bubbles.

Download the myths and mores of culture and automatically accept them and believe, conforming to this world.

Shrink the dimensions of my mind back to what it was before it expanded to see, feel, and understand a whole new paradigm and a whole new world.

Unsee the depth and breadth and richness that I have been shown once I let go of dogma.

… but that’s not the shape of my heart

Contentment or Satisfaction

There is a big difference between

satisfaction and contentment. 

Being satisfied is when you

get/achieve what you want! 

Being content is being happy

even if you don't get/achieve

what you want!

Satisfaction is conditional and hence transitory and fleeting.
Satisfaction is dependent on accumulation of what we want.
This desire requires a state of frenzied pursuit.
This pursuit is based on scarcity and discontent,
the belief that we never have enough,
that we are needy, in dire straights, and always need more.

Contentment is based on peace, an unconditional state of being.
Contentment is permanent and perpetual since it is not based on circumstance.
When peace is at the center of being, it is lasting, everlasting.
Being at the center, it can be returned to perpetually.
This peace is always here and available,
Always here and now,
A perpetual fountain of life tapped into our infinite Source

I have often wondered why it is so popular or even imperative that people go on vacations. Why not create a place to live where we feel at home, where we belong, so that there is no need for more and more and more? The only way to do that is to live more simply and learn to be content, knowing that we are exactly where we are meant to be.

Through Alien Eyes

“Thus it may be that, for a few moments, or hours, or even days, we can enter into the heart and head and body of another culture. We will always return to our own world, for that is where our roots lie. Nevertheless, on our reentry we may be changed in some subtle yet important way. And, sometimes when we spend time living within that other culture, we are able to look back upon our own world and see it through alien eyes, appreciate its limitations as well as its beauty and attraction.” (F. David Peate, Blackfoot Physics)

Since childhood, I’ve practiced this exercise. Stepping out of myself and looking back on this world as if I’d never seen it before. As a child, I thought it was just part of being rather “different” or weird in my outlook on life. Often I would lay on the ground, looking into the sky while placing myself in the shoes of some alien looking down, and imagine what is being seen from such a perspective. Now I see it as a gift . . . although not a “nice” or “easy” gift. Actually, sometimes this gift can feel like a curse.

Stepping outside and looking back in is something I’ve been compelled to do, not something I’ve chosen to do. It would be easier to settle into my culture, my environment, and only see what is right there in my face. It would be easier to not see things from a different perspective, and just accept “what is”. Stepping outside and looking back in brings forth the ugliness that is “normally” overlooked. AND it can also show forth the beauty that is often taken for granted.

Through alien eyes, what do I see?

I see a human race reduced to a rat race.

I see the human race as a destructive race; developing and using it’s best technology to kill its own.

I see the meaninglessness of our striving after the wind.

I see endless, thoughtless routine filling our lives with busyness.

I see the vanity of fashion and beauty.

I see lives lived with no thought of tomorrow, of others, of suffering, or of injustice.

I see lives lived only thinking of and caring for self.

Perspectives on Seeing

Seeing as Perspective

There is seeing with the eyes.
Then there is Seeing with our whole being.
I spent much of my life without Seeing,
Trapped in blindness unaware...

Seeing requires that I 

silence the familiar and

welcome the strange.

“(‘Seeing’) requires that I go beyond the idiosyncratic and egocentric perception of immediate experience. Mature awareness is possible only when I have digested and compensated for the biases and prejudices that are the residue of my personal history. 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. If I am to appreciate the uniqueness of any datum, I must be sufficiently aware of my preconceived ideas and characteristic emotional distortions to bracket them long enough to welcome strangeness and novelty into my perceptual world. This discipline of bracketing, compensating, or silencing requires sophisticated self-knowledge and courageous honesty. Yet, without this discipline each present moment is only the repetition of something already seen or experienced. In order for genuine novelty to emerge, for the unique presence of things, persons, or events to take root in me, I must undergo a decentralization of the ego.” (Sam Keen, To a Dancing God)

“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 the Wind)

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 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 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

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, The God Delusion)

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

Being Political

WE THE PEOPLE

Living from the Inside Out

Every word I speak,

every step I take,

every name I call,

every judgment I make...

Politics encompasses everything we do and say, everything we don't do and say, and its impact on others. It's impossible to be a-political. Our lives are a statement of our politics. And actions speak louder than words. Even if I were to become a hermit, which is tempting, that would be just as powerful a statement of my politics as running for office, or feeding the hungry.

Normally, politics is defined very narrowly in a modern sense of governance. Here, I’m looking at politics much more broadly and deeply; encompassing its roots and the myriad of environments in which politics plays.

There is some sort of politics going on all of the time in all of these settings: the home, the neighborhood, the community, the city, the country, etc. it is all of these combined collectively that are used to make up the politics of the macrocosm. In these settings, politics refers to the power structures and governance (from home to country), problem solving, conflict resolution, decision making, strategic planning (informally in small groups and formally in large organizations). Politics has to do with how we welcome or discriminate, include or exclude, listen or stereotype, accept or judge, and our openness or closedness to ourselves and to others, to difference and sameness. In every setting from home to country, we can sense the culture and feel the politics; whether it be nurturing or destructive, healthy or toxic.

I see the politics of the macrocosm as an expression and reflection of the politics of the microcosm. Macrocosm politics does not define microcosm politics. But microcosm politics DOES define macrocosm politics. For example, Donald Trump being president is not the cause of so much ugliness in America today, but is rather a reflection of who we already are and have become. It has been brought out in the open by this election. Now we can better see and know the powers and influences that are in the roots of we, the people… or at least some of the people. The bible refers to it as the principalities and powers that control and define this world.


The collective is a reflection of the individual.

The political is a reflection of the personal.

The integrity of an individual and a community

comes from this alignment.

That which we see outside of ourselves

is a reflection of that which is within.

Hope and Freedom

What is hope?

Is hope real?

Is hope possible?

Does hope bring to light what is possible?

Does freedom demand the loss of all hope?

Can freedom be free if it has any influences like longing, desire, hope, belief, or any other attachments?

All of my life, I’ve been taught that hope is something that I just grit my teeth and believe in, sort of like faith. Faith is based on what I cannot see, hear, or prove. Is hope? Is hope based on my willingness and ability to believe hard enough, on my sheer stubbornness and perseverance in the face of all adversity? Does hope exist in service of my own wants and desires?

I’ve been scratching my head for about 50 years, trying to understand biblical definitions of faith and hope:

Hebrews 11:1-6 King James Version (KJV)

1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
2 For by it the elders obtained a good report.
3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
4 By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.
5 By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.
6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

I used to blame this head scratching on the King James Version’s outdated English translation that was based on the Latin Vulgate which was translated from Hebrew and Greek manuscripts that were not even original. Well here is a tease for you. Here it is in modern English. The first version is regular and the other is the “readers” version…?
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+11%3A1-6&version=NIV
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+11%3A1-6&version=NIRV


I digress and am still just as confused. But at least now I admit I have no idea what this sort of hope is or what it is based on or if it is real or even possible. As I tried to figure out hope, for most of my life, I believed that my only source should be the Bible.

But from what I could see, that use of hope is in the future, which we cannot know and is not guaranteed. So it becomes hope in a future that if I believe hard enough it may or may not come true. Even the dictionary definition supports this: “a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.”

Or it means hope in God and his attributes. But I now see that by far the greatest attributes of this God is his silence and his invisibility. So where does that leave me? Having hope and faith that there is something, anything beyond this deafening silence and blind invisibility? I don’t know. But it seems to me we need hope if we want to survive. But is it the hope I found in the Bible?

Here’s an interesting one: “But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's breasts.” (Psalm 22:9) Well, at least this hope is based on what is very tangible and not invisible or silent. At least it is anchored in the present and not the future, or the silence, or the invisibility.

Here is a verse from the Bible that has been propelling me forward and yet yanking me back like a leash around my neck much of my life.

“Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.” (1 Peter 3:15)

Most of my life, I interpreted this to be referring to my Christian obligation to evangelize and save the lost as part of my Righteous Savior Syndrome.

On the other hand, I don’t think this verse refers to being ready to share your latest Christmas list of the things you hope to get or the girls / boys you hope to date / marry. The future is outside of our scope. Both the past and future are our greatest distractions from living life here and now. They are our greatest distractions from being FREE! No matter how hard we try, we have no control over the past or the future. All we have is right here, right now. Freedom can only be experienced right here, right now. If hope is some future thing, then it becomes a distraction to true freedom as we slip away into dreamland.

“Freedom implies that there is no authority in inquiry. You are the teacher and the disciple in yourself. You are inquiring and learning. Therefore freedom implies the absolute cessation of every kind of authority.” (Krishnamurti, Public Talk 1 in San Francisco, California, 20 March 1975)

I’m beginning to understand what is meant by authority here. It refers to any external influence or even any internal influence that has not been vetted through deep discernment. So often we have voices and stories in our heads that are arguing and distracting us; pulling us this way and that, battering us like the storms that they are. Storms in our head driving us every which way. This is not freedom! Sometimes hope can be a part of those storms when it is caught up in the future. Hope anchored in the future is nothing more than desire, longing, or even lust; depending on how strong it is. Hope that distracts and destroys our freedom is nothing more than a participant with voices and stories in our head that have been downloaded from culture and accepted for no other reason than because someone said it was so, and thus it was.

In order for hope to exist as something more than a distraction from that which is essential in life, then, by definition, it would have to enrich and enhance our experience of this present moment. If this sort of hope is real, then maybe you can be “prepared to give an answer… for the hope that you have.” ...right now.

Now I can more clearly read these ideas about false hope and true hope if I learn to distinguish between hope that is anchored in the future and hope that is anchored deeply in each present moment.

"Hope is passion for what is possible." ~ Søren Kierkegaard 

"Hope, hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope! In the end, that is God's greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation. A belief in things not seen. A belief that there are better days ahead."
~ Barack Obama

"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."
~ 1 Corinthians 13:13

Can we stay alive, can we “keep on” without hope?

Is hope necessary for life?

Does freedom require that we let go of all hope?

Losing all hope is freedom

“‘Losing all hope was freedom.’ I came across this particular phrase a couple of years ago in a movie called the Fight Club. When I first heard it, it seemed nonsensical and downright depressing. I mean, if a person loses all hope, then they have no reason to live right?. However, over the next 24 months, I learned that not only was I wrong, but this counter-intuitive approach to life brought me a certain freedom and peace for which I yearned for years.”

“Until one day, I realized that the only way I could be truly happy is if I let go of the need to be liked by others. Then something amazing happened, I really let go- just like that. I made a conscious decision to live life on my own terms, to put myself first before everything else and focused my attention inward.

“So yes, lose all expectations that society and people have for you and see for yourself what you truly want. Because at the end of the day, when you are on your deathbed you will be much more fulfilled having lived a life on your own terms than living a life pleasing others.”
https://medium.com/@shivakumar_99719/why-losing-all-hope-is-indeed-freedom-2a9346954944


Longing, desire, and hope anchored in the future are all ways of grasping and clinging on to what is nothing. If it is in the future then it is nothing because the future is not here. If we think it will give us fulfillment, then it is nothing because fulfillment comes from within. Desire and longing are both ways of being discontent with who we are, who we aren't, what we do not have, and what we do have, here and now.

Hope anchored in each present moment that we have been granted can be what keeps us going. We must learn to BE HERE NOW. BE NOW HERE.

And as St.Paul put so brilliantly: "Hope that is seen is not hope. For what a man seeth, yet what doth he hope for?"
Hope is a virtue only when the future is uncertain. (Rajiv Pande)



I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth.

–T.S. Eliot, excerpt from “East Coker”, Four Quartets

Hope is:

Hope is seeing
Hope is light
in darkness

Hope is possibility
where I dwell
in each moment

Hope is freedom.
Freedom to choose
without fear.

Hope exists forever
in each and every
present moment.

The Gates of Hope—A Poem by Victoria Safford
Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of Hope—
Not the prudent gates of Optimism,
Which are somewhat narrower.
Not the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense;
Nor the strident gates of Self-Righteousness,
Which creak on shrill and angry hinges
(People cannot hear us there; they cannot pass through)
Nor the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of “Everything is gonna’ be all right.”
But a different, sometimes lonely place,
The place of truth-telling,
About your own soul first of all and its condition.
The place of resistance and defiance,
The piece of ground from which you see the world
Both as it is and as it could be
As it will be;
The place from which you glimpse not only struggle,
But the joy of the struggle.
And we stand there, beckoning and calling,
Telling people what we are seeing
Asking people what they see.