From The Belly Of The Whale
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The Journal of a Soul.

Friday, June 23, 2006
DENIAL OF DEATH AND AGING
by jonah


As I age I’m finding that, while my faith, my confident trust in God, seems to be deepening, I’m feeling much less certain about life after death. Every morning I face the east and pray: “I thank you Lord for the breath of life; I thank you for the length of days.” So I’m grateful for the many gifts I’ve received, especially for the gift of life. These many gifts are really more than I deserve. I have done nothing to earn them. So I’m grateful. Furthermore, I no longer need the fear of hell or the promise of heaven to prod me on. My experience tells me, that even if there were no life after death, a virtuous life is a good life. Even in the midst of suffering a truly virtuous person finds peace. Virtue is its own reward.

However, I find it difficult to imagine what it will be like to be dead. When I was young, death was only a remote possibility . Now death is becoming ever more immanent. An old priest once told me: “The young may die but the old must die”. Now I understand.

With death, my body will disintegrate. I will be blind and deaf. I will no longer be able to feel physical pleasure or pain. I will no longer have a brain in which to store memories and experiences. And what will happen to all my memories and experiences? Moreover, I’m not sure that my soul is really something apart from my body, although accounts of near death experiences seem to indicate that the souls can become disengaged from the bodies. However that may be, I still ask myself the question: “When I have no body will I be nobody?”

Recently I wrote the following poem:
DEATH AND AGING

When I was a little child
My mother held me securely in her arms
While shadows,
From a hanging street lamp
That was swinging in the wind,
Danced about the dark room.
My mother was You.

Now I’m old
And You came to me last night
I was alone and could not sleep.
Why did I tremble?
Are you not me mother
Still?

I suspect that when persons say they’re not afraid of dying, they’re really in denial. I learned this from Denial of Death by Earnest Becker. When the great founder of modern psychiatry was confronted by his mortality, he fainted away. Some don’t even like to talk about dying. When speaking about the death of a friend or relative, they use such euphemisms as “they have passed” In astronomy black-holes are places in space where gravity is so strong that nothing , not even light, can escape and all the laws of nature, as we know them, disappear. Death is our personal, subjective black hole. Death is a frightening unknown.

Before Vatican II, parish missions and retreats would traditionally conclude with a conference on the four last things, namely, “Death, Judgment, Heaven or Hell.” The terrors of eternal damnation would generally eclipse the promise of eternal bliss. It would seem that walking up and down a golden street playing a harp would in time get monotonous and boring but eternal hellfire really singed the soul. At the Mass for the dead, the dreaded refrains of the “Dies irae, dies illa” (Day of wrath, that dreadful day…) echo the harsh word in Matthew’s great judgment scene: “Depart from me, accursed ones, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels.” (Matt. 25: 41)

When facing up to my mortality, faith with its promise of “life everlasting” and “ the resurrection of the body” has been a real comfort. Is this kind of faith simply another form of denial? However the threat of eternal damnation, restores the elements of uncertainty and dread. I once said that I would prefer eternal damnation to annihilation. How very strong is our instinct for survival!

Fear of death is not a lack of faith. Fear of death is human--is natural. Even the man Jesus sweated blood in the garden when he saw his death approaching. And he was not pretending. He was truly human. As such, he could experience the uncertainty and the dread of dying. In the Office of Readings (Matins) for Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Lent, Augustine writes: “…we gaze on the divinity of the Son of God, something supremely great and surpassing all the greatness of his creatures. Yet in other parts of Scripture we hear him as one sighing, (weeping), praying , giving praise and thanks. We hesitate to attribute these words to him because our minds are slow to come down to his humble level when we have just been contemplating him in his divinity.” Further on he writes: “We must realize that the one whom we were contemplating a short time before in his nature as God took to himself the nature of a servant; he was made in the likeness of men and found to be a man (a human being) like others; he humbled himself by being obedient even to accepting death; as he hung on the cross he made the psalmist’s words his own: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And he was not pretending.

Denial of death is a lack of faith. Faith is more than assent of the mind. Faith is more than saying: “Lord, Lord”. Faith is trust--trusting confidence. Facing the uncertainty of death with confident trust is the proof of faith. When we die, the temple veil is parted and we enter the Holy of Holies. Death is our final kenosis--our final letting go of our old self and becoming our true Self. The man Jesus could say “I do always the will of Him who sent me” but it wasn’t until he said “Father, into Your hands I commend my spirit” that he could finally say: “It is finished!”

posted by Jonah 12:51 PM
. . .
Thursday, March 10, 2005
THE ROOT OF SPIRITUALITY
by jonah



To acknowledge that I am a sinner
Is to acknowledge
That I am small;
That I am weak;
That I am insignificant;
That I am not the reason for my existence;
That everything I am and have
Are gifts
Which I am allowed to enjoy
For a time.

What human experience is at the root of spirituality? Spirituality, I believe, is rooted in our human experience of vulnerability. We experience ourselves as small, weak and insignificant creatures. We acknowledge that we are dependent upon others—ultimately dependent upon a Higher Power.

Driving northeast from Las Cruces, New Mexico, on Highway 70 past the White Sands National Monument to Alamogordo and then north on Highway 54, one arrives at Three Rivers National Park over a narrow, windy road that is hardly a road. This is a place where you must want to go. A sacred place. Here on top of a high outcropping of rocks are pre-Columbian petroglyphs. Petroglyphs are images carved in rocks by a mysterious race of Native Americans who disappeared hundreds of years ago. These images are believed to be over a thousand years old. They are pre-literate writings by a people who were beginning to develop a written language. Scholars have been unable to decipher these ancient writings but seem to agree that many of them have spiritual and sacred significance. So these, like the Jewish and Christian Bible, were sacred writings.

The high outcropping of rocks, where these petroglyphs are found, looks out over a vast desert plain. The vista stretches for acre after acre and mile after mile of nothing but gravel and dust, with a scattering of small dry bushes. Then at the edge of the vista, huge mountains with sharp snowy peaks suddenly rise up from the floor of the desert. Here, many centuries ago, members of this mysterious race sat and contemplated this panoramic experience of reality. In this setting it is not difficult to image that one is at the center of the world. It is easy to become lost in the view—to feel awe and wonder, small and insignificant.

A few years ago, when my late mother-in-law was already in her late eighties or early nineties, my wife and I took her up to the top of Mount Mitchell in western North Carolina. This is the highest mountain in the eastern United States. On top of the mountain is an observation tower. I was standing next to Grandma and heard her whisper to herself: “How great Thou art”. She was expressing the same sense of wonder and awe that the ancient settlers of Three Rivers in New Mexico experienced on top of that small, rocky outcropping. These are very natural human experiences that are at the core of all spirituality.

In 1988, I gave voice to this natural human experience of wonder and awe in the poem
“The Prairie”:
On a cloudless night I see the stars
Of countless galaxies
That reach across a prairie sky
And touch eternities.

At dawn across the prairie grass
As far as eye can see,
I gaze upon an endless plain
That’s void of bush and tree.

I find embedded in prairie rocks
The bones of creatures past,
Whose silent presence profoundly speak
Of life that does not last.

Then suddenly I am transformed
To rocks and grass and sky.
I am the creatures of the past
Whose relics beneath me lie.

For all these things I think and speak
And ask Eternity:
“What have we been? What are we now?
What shall we come to be?”



The Bible says: “Blessed are the poor, for they shall see God.” Who are these “poor”? The poor are those who have eyes to see. To experience is to see. We first experience reality, then we reflect upon that experience, and finally we act upon that experience by our deeds and our words. So spirituality is rooted in our human experience of reality. Religion is the manifestation of that experience in actions (ritual) and words (doctrine). So what is that experience?

Our initial experience is mixed. We become aware of our self as a distinct person but at the same time we experience our dependency upon others—generally our parents. They are important because we depend upon them. Our parents or caregivers are our first experience of god, that is, of a greater reality upon which we are very much dependent.

As we mature, we more and more experience the distinct-self as independent. We become aware of the limitations of our caregiver(s). The process of individualization is one whereby the distinct-self wants to assert its self reliance. We want to provide for ourselves and assert our independence—our individualism. But the unavoidable reality is that we are weak and small; we are insignificant as individuals. This experience of independence is an illusion. It is a form of denial because deep within we know that we are not the reason for our existence and that in reality we are indeed weak, small, insignificant and vulnerable.

The process of individualization, however, must not end in a kind of individualism that imagines that the self is the center of the universe. That all things revolve around the self is an illusion because it simply is not true. This kind of individualism is egotistic, self-centered, and narcissistic and so forth. Such persons use other people and things to advance themselves and to promote their own self-interest.

All spirituality, and therefore all true religion that is not mere religiosity, is rooted in the experience that a person is not something apart from the universe but rather something apart of the universe. The ego-self realizes that it alone is indeed small, weak and insignificant. In spirituality, persons discovers that they belongs to—are a part of—a Higher Reality. That Higher Reality is the person’s true self. The true-self finds meaning and strength not in its self as an individual but in relationship to other persons and to the Greater Reality of which it is a part.

The true-self represents a further next step in human development. The individual is transcended. The ego-self realizes that being, existence, the universe is not about it. We have no idea of what happens to our ego-self when we die. When we have no body, no arms or legs, no heart or lung or stomach or liver, no eyes or ears or nose or mouth, no brain, what will remain of the ego-self? We will be transformed and all that will remain is our true self, that is, all that will remain is the Higher Reality of which we are a part.

Spirituality, and all true religion, is rooted in our experience of our relationship to Higher Reality. That Higher Reality we call God. We belong to God. Apart from God we are nothing.

posted by Jonah 3:18 PM
. . .
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
IN MEMORIUM: A Prayer:
by jonah

Oh God, my God
How often I forget
Who you are and
Who I am.

You are.
You are what is.
There is no other.
I am your creature,
Weak and small.
I am your child.
You are my strength.
In you, I have being.
Without you, I am nothing.

I see your splendor in lightning.
I hear your voice in thunder.
Your power and your might
Terrify me.

You shake the earth
And mountains explode,
Forests are flattened,
All living things are destroyed.

You shake the earth
And the oceans panic.
The waters flee for shelter on the land.
In their flight
The waters sweep
All living things before them.
Only death and destruction remain.

You are what is,
Mighty and all powerful.
In December of 2004
The lives of as many as one hundred and fifty thousand
Men, women and children
Were washed away in a brief moment of terror.
In an instant they were raised up
In rapture to join you.
They are martyrs—witnesses to your might and your power.


II.
Oh God, my God,
You, who are almighty and all powerful,
Are my father and
You are my mother.
You share your being with me.
You chose to call me forth from my eternal sleep.
You have given me breath.
You have given me length of days.
For this I am grateful.
Every beat of my heart, my every breath
Is your gift.
For these I am grateful.

Within myself I find no reason for my existence.
I am
Because you chose me.
I am
Because you love me.

You did not awaken me only to abandon me.
You shelter me.
You sustain my life.
You sustain my very being.
Your sun warms my world.
Your rain waters my garden.
You give me my
daily bread.
I sow your seeds.
I harvest your crops.
You it is who provides for all my needs.
For these many gifts
I am grateful.

I fear your might and your power.
But I find shelter in your love.
Your might and your power
are my strength.
Your gentle care,
my hope.
Into your hands
I place all that I am and have.
And when the time comes for me to leave this world
I leave with gratitude.

posted by Jonah 3:58 PM
. . .
Thursday, November 04, 2004
FEAR AND SIN
by jonah


Is there any relationship between fear and sin? John seems to suggest there is such when he writes: “In love there is no room for fear, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear implies punishment and no one who is afraid has come to perfection in love” (1 John 4: 18).

My early recollections are full of dreams and fantasies and fears. I lived in a land of make-believe and feared the unknown. Like comic book characters, I dreamed about conquering pain, suffering and evil in the world. During World War II, I fantasized about discovering a secret weapon that would bring an end to the war by overcoming the enemies of democracy. I dreamed of building safe and secure underground cities. I dreamed that someday I would build a house with glass walls that opened to an inner garden. My mother called me her “beautiful dreamer”. My father said I was too easy going and would never “amount to a damn.”

I hid my fears. One of my very earliest recollections was standing at the top of steps that led down into a dark basement and a voice warning me to back off lest I fall into the darkness below. I shared my older brother’s fear that there were monsters under our bed or hiding back in our dark closet. I remember the terror I experienced when my grandfather died and I realized my own mortality. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” I confessed. “I have doubts that Jesus is present in communion.” My doubt was not really that of the presence of Jesus. My doubt was that there really was a God in heaven and that life really was everlasting. My fear was of sinking back into nothingness. I feared the dark basement below. This was the monster under my bed or hiding in my closet—death.

When, after many, many years, I look back and reflect on these childhood fears, what do I discover? I really didn’t fear death so much as I feared annihilation. I had come to a realization that there was no reason why I had to exist as a self-aware individual. I had reached “the age of reason”.

The age of reason is when we are assumed to be responsible for our actions. This comes with self-awareness. Self-awareness is our human ability to reflect upon ourselves. Not only do we know, but we know that we know. In order for us to know that we know, it is necessary for us to create a mental image of ourselves that we can reflect upon as an object. We have to be able to experience ourselves as a distinct object in a world of objects. And so I was beginning to perceive myself as such a separate and distinct object—alone in the universe. I was becoming an individual. But like Adam and Eve after their expulsion from Garden of Eden, I was becoming aware that I was naked.

Intuitively I realized that I was not the reason for my own existence. Intuitively I realized that I came from the mysterious dark basement below and could just as easily be swallowed up by that darkness. Even though there were other objects in my universe, I was not any of them. I was a distinct individual. I was alone in a mysterious world of objects. And I was small and weak. I feared what I imaged to be under my bed or hidden in my dark closet.

Intuitively I realized that I was vulnerable and totally dependent upon things beyond my control. I was separate and distinct, but dependent. To begin with, I was dependent upon my parents. They were good parents, but would they always be there for me? My father was not as much a part of my early experience as my mother. However, I very much wanted his approval and enjoyed being with him and working by his side. So my mother and my father were the significant others in my early experience.

My mother was the one who explained to me that some day I would have to die. My response was that I wasn’t going to close my eyes. Later when I actually realized that I was mortal and would someday have to return to the mysterious dark basement, I experienced terror. I’ve since realized that this experience of mortality was at the basis of my religiosity. My terror was rooted intuitively in that experience of mortality and of dependence—my vulnerability.

Isn’t this a universal human experience? Do not all religions grow out of a universal need to please or in someway to manipulate mysterious forces beyond our control upon which we are completely and totally dependent? In The Book of Proverbs we read: “The fear of Yahweh [God] is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1: 7). Religion, then, was recognition of my vulnerability and of my complete and total dependence. Religion was the awakening of a sense of wonder, awe, reverence that often generated fear of sinking back into the great unknown?

My very first cry as an infant was a plea, a demand, a prayer that implicitly acknowledged my total dependence on others for the satisfaction of my most basic needs and desires. I felt a real need to either please or in someway control those upon whom I was dependent. Intuitively I learned that by smiling, for example, I could win approval. I didn’t want to “sin” against them—to displease them. And when I was scolded or punished by my elders, at first I never questioned their judgment. I felt I was at fault. Something about me, or something I did, or something I did not do, was displeasing to them. The problem was with me. I was a sinner. I, a sinner, had “sinned”. And whenever I “sinned”, I was punished. Moreover, whenever I was punished, it was because I was a sinner. In time I realized that, like me, my elders had limitations. But initially, their reprimands and criticisms, as well as their praise and encouragement, shaped my self-image and my behavior.
*****
The psalms are religious poems, some of which date back to King David in the Old Testament. They are human responses to human experiences of the human condition. Praying the psalms daily, I’ve learned that many of our religious ancestors had an understanding of sin not unlike my own childhood experiences. God for them was the significant other upon whom they were totally dependent. They had a need to please God, this significant other. When things went well for them, God was pleased; when things went poorly, it was because they had “sinned”. God was displeased with them. In parts of the Bible, sin was related to sickness, death, draught, famine, war and the like. Sickness, death, draught, famine, war and such represented God’s judgment on humankind. According to this view, all human suffering comes from God and is a sign and expression of God’s displeasure. It matters not whether there is knowledge and consent. Any time there is suffering, it is because God, who represents the mysterious forces that are beyond human control, has been offended.

In this view of reality, therefore, it is possible to unwittingly offend God. It is possible to unwittingly sin. No human is just before God. All humans are “sinners”. For example, when David was bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem on an ox cart, the cart tipped and the ark was in danger of falling off. One of the attendants reached out to secure the ark and was struck dead. He, an “unclean” human being, had presumed to offend God by touching that which was sacred to God. Even David was terrified by this event.

In this Biblical view of sin, even children can suffer because of God’s displeasure with their parents. David’s son died because God was displeased with David’s acts of adultery and murder. The Jews had a saying: The fathers have eaten unripe grapes; the children’s teeth are set on edge (Jer: 31:29). In the New Testament, the Disciples asked Jesus, who had sinned in the case of the man born blind? Was it the man’s parents or the man himself? Jesus corrected this view and said that it was neither because of sins of the parents nor of the man himself that he was born blind. The Disciples’ question confirms that this view of sin persisted even into the time of the New Testament.

In this context sin, therefore, really represents our human inadequacy and not so much a moral decision. In this view, guilt is based not so much upon our responsibility as it is upon our human experience of being small, weak, and vulnerable. At the root of this guilt is existential fear. Existential fear comes out of our human experience that we are not the reason for our own existence but that we are small, weak and vulnerable; that we are at the mercy of forces beyond our control. Even today, many experience good fortune as a blessing—a reward for virtuous living—and misfortune as punishment for sinning. When things go badly, we try to fix the blame. Is it because of something I did or that I failed to do—because I sinned? Or is it because of something someone else did or failed to do—because they sinned? When we can’t fix the blame, we say that it is an “act of God.” We “blame” God who represents forces beyond human control.

Today many moderns don’t call their understanding of Ultimate Reality “God”, but they have a pessimistic view of Reality. They view Reality as an irrational and arbitrary accident. Even some Christians see Reality as harsh, demanding, arbitrary and unforgiving. Parts of the New Testament suggest such a view of Reality. “Depart from me you cursed into everlasting fire,” is indeed harsh. The Christ figure in The Book of Revelations is at times frightening. But Jesus himself seems to have had a more positive understanding of Ultimate Reality.

Jesus spoke of God as ABBA, a loving, provident, nurturing, compassionate, forgiving parent. He seems to have experienced the forces in the universe beyond our control as benign. In the garden, he prayed to be spared but ended his prayer: “Not my will but Thine be done.” This was an expression of absolute trust that ultimately Reality is good. On the cross he expressed his deep anguish of soul in the words of a Psalm: “My God, my God why have you forsaken me.” But his dying breath was an affirmation of his absolute trust: “Into Thy hands I commend my spirit.” He taught us to trust—not to worry about what we’re going to eat or what we’re going to wear. He points to the birds and how God feeds them. He points to the flowers and how God clothes them. He tells us that God is good—that God is ABBA, a loving parent. I share Jesus’ optimism.

God is. God is what is. This is a philosophical statement. Furthermore, I am. And that I am is proof that I am loved. I am not responsible for my own existence. My parents are not responsible for my existence. They had no idea of who they were bringing into this world. That this “I” that I call “me” came into this world at a certain time in a certain place was purely and simply “an act of God”. My conception and birth were not by luck or by chance. My conception and birth were by choice. I was chosen. This is true of me and it is equally true of each and every one of us. We all are chosen. Jesus said: “You have not chosen me but I have chosen you.” John wrote: “it is not we who loved God, but God loved us” (1 John 4: 10).

You and I are works in progress. We are still being created. We are not yet all that we are going to be. Perfection is inhuman because our human condition is such that we can always be better than we are. We both endure and afflict suffering and pain upon ourselves and upon others because we are not yet perfect—we have not reached our ultimate destiny. But someday we are destined to realize fully that we are more than human—that we are God’s children. We came from God and we are returning to God.

God didn’t make me—or you—in haste. The stuff that is in me was born in the intense heat of a star that died billions of years ago. The stuff that I am made of was flung out into the universe when that star violently exploded. But then this stuff was reassembled to form new stars and new planets. I have absolutely no idea of how often this happened. Through eons of change and development, some of that stuff took on the form of the building blocks of living substances. In time it formed living cells, probably in a toxic ocean. Then ages and ages later, in the heat of passion, from among billions of living cells, two of these living cells fused in the womb of a specific woman at a specific time in a specific place and I was conceived. The calculation of the odds of any one of us being conceived is beyond the capacity of our most powerful computers. And then after only a few months of growing and developing, I was violently ejected from the sanctuary of the womb. So here I am. What greater blessing can be imagined than the gift of life. What greater proof can there be that we are loved than our very existence? “You have not chosen me but I have chosen you.” And so, even though I am small and weak, even though I am a sinner, I am loved. And “in love there is no room for fear.”


posted by Jonah 1:29 PM
. . .
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
FAITH AND GRATITUDE
by jonah

At the very least, Christianity is a beautiful and inspiring story. But the story of Christianity is more. The story of Christianity is more than an account of historical events. The story of Christianity reveals and describes our inner most being. The story of Christianity is an expression of our hunger for something beyond the stars. The story of Christianity is our story—an expression of our desire to penetrate the deep, dark, emptiness of existence—to explore the Great Mystery of Being.

That we are, who we are, and why we are the way we are, is the Great Mystery of Being. This Great Mystery of Being is What-is. No theology, philosophy, history, psychology— or any science—offers us a complete and satisfying explanation. But here we are, all alone, lost in space. We are born, we live, and we die but do not know why. Our birth, our life, and our death all belong to this Great Mystery of Being.

A Philosopher once said: “I think, therefore I am.” But I am, even before I think—even before I am aware of my existence. Even while in deep slumber, I continue to be. So, how far back do I go before awareness? And what about death? Will I continue to be, even in death?

As far as I know, I began as a single cell floating in a cosmic ocean inside my mother. But of this, I have no personal recollection. I know it to be true because our observation is that this is how each and every one us began. Inside my mother, I grew very rapidly passing through many stages of development. Then, suddenly, my cosmic world came to an apocalyptic end—I was born. I was ejected into a cold world full of sounds and glaring lights without meaning. Now it was necessary for me to breathe for myself and to seek out nourishment for myself in a new, strange, bewildering world. Even in the cosmic world of the womb, I was beginning to develop some sort of awareness. So here, in this strange new outside world, there was awareness from the very moment of my first gasp, but still no meaning, just confusion. When I was cold, or hungry, or in anyway uncomfortable, I cried. When I was satisfied, I returned to the eternal slumber from which I was slowly emerging.

Slowly I began to awaken. My first awareness was not unlike the awareness of the flower that turns to the warmth of the sun, and seeks out minerals and moisture in the soil. But I was on my way to becoming a creature who could say: “I am”. I was on my way to self-awareness.

As I was becoming aware of the strange new world around me, I started to take sights and sounds and tastes and smells and feelings, and store them in my brain as patterns of connections between nerve cells. In this way I was forming memories and images and fantasies that I experienced as pleasant or unpleasant. I developed the extraordinary ability to represent these images and fantasies with words—first spoken, and then written. I could reflect upon these images and fantasies, sometimes questioning, sometimes with wonder and awe, at other times, with fear and dread. I could anticipate pleasure and pain. But this was only the beginning.

In interaction with the people and things that surrounded me, I was also beginning to develop an image not only of this strange outer world but also of myself. How varied and how lasting are these early images! I learned to reflect upon them; I learned to test them; I learned to shape them; I learned to use them. I was becoming self-conscious and aware. I was becoming a person, an individual—an object to myself, an “I”, distinct from all the other objects and individuals in my world. I was becoming a human being with self awareness.

But when did I first begin to form and shape my image of a God? I really can’t remember. It was so long ago that I can hardly recall how my image of God grew and developed. And it took many, many years before I realized that my image of God was not really God. A finger pointing to the moon is not the moon. Images, ideas, words are like a finger pointing to things, but they themselves are not the things they point to. And so to what does my image of God point? Over the years, my image of God has changed many time.

My earliest recollections are shadows, like dreams from the distant past. They are not primarily of God but of religion. It’s dark and we’re on our way to church for evening devotions. The moon is full and my mother is explaining where the moon goes during the day and the sun at night. “The world is round like a big ball,” she says. “During the day the sun is on our side of the world where it is daylight. During the night the moon is on the our side of the world where it is dark. The daylight comes from the sun and the sun shines on the moon at night.” “What keeps us from falling off the world at night?” “Gravity” she says. I imagined gravity to be like big spikes coming out of the ground and holding me fast to the earth. I keep picking my feet up very high and very fast to see if I can catch gravity doing its business. “Where did all this come from?” I ask. “God made it,” is the simple reply. So my image of God points to a mysterious person who made the sun and moon, the day and night.

Back in that distant past there are also shadows of stained-glass windows depicting people dressed in strange clothes. There are stories about these people. There are the things that I do that are approved or disapproved. Things approved are good; things disapproved are bad. Light and darkness, pleasant and unpleasant, good and bad emerge slowly into my consciousness. All of this and much, much more is thrown into the blender of my experience of needs and wants and desires and fears. The light and darkness, the sun and moon, the good and bad, the pleasant and unpleasant, mother, father, brother, sister, aunts, uncles, cousins, priests, nuns, saints, devils, angels, the Eucharist, Communion, catechism all became part of the montage that made up my inner self. All became intertwined with my image of God.

My first crisis of faith came when I was eight or nine years old. In a geography book I read about the “Big Bang” theory of creation. This explanation never mentioned God. Things just happened and not because God said: “Let there be…” The fantasy, the image, I had of God was too small for that kind of a universe. My image of God had to grow and develop. And it did. During my seventy plus years this has happened several times. Several times I have found my image of God to be too small for my cosmology and it had to expand. Late in life I’ve discovered that this is the problem with our fantasies and images, with words and ideas. They point to things but are not themselves the things that they point to. So, then, to what does my image of God point now?

My image of God points to the reality of my experience of that which is beyond philosophy, beyond theology, beyond physics, beyond all sciences. My image of God points to the reality of the Great Unknown. My image of God points to the reality of Being—to the reality of existence.

In the Jewish religion, God has no name. This is very profound. God really has no name. God is what is. God is whatever ultimately is real. All religion, including Christianity, is a human attempt to express in words, in rituals, in stories, in rules etc. that which is beyond—the inexpressible, the Ultimate Source of Being, the Great Mystery.

Religion is born, sometimes out of fear, with awe and wonder. A Native American prayer is: “O! Great Spirit…whose voice I hear in the winds, and whose breath gives life to the whole world, hear me! I am small and weak; I need your strength and wisdom.” I am small and weak and alone in a universe that often appears hostile. Each breath I draw may be my last. With religion I acknowledge my vulnerability—my smallness, my weakness, my complete and total dependence on forces beyond my control. With religion I acknowledge the Great Mystery of Being and reverently bow down before It. I once wrote many years ago: “Something there is, there in the dark/ I know its there and I’m not afraid./ Why do I say I’m not afraid?/ Doesn’t that seem like a strange remark?” Strange, indeed! But it is a sincere act of confident trust—an act of faith.

The scripture scholar, Marcus Borg, in his book The Heart of Christianity, has a wonderful discussion of faith. For some faith is primarily—and even exclusively—a matter of the head. It is assent of the mind. They believe that their image of God is what God really is. And so for them faith is stubbornly clinging to what is unbelievable even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. To reject the image of God they had as a child is to lose their faith. But like crayfish, in order to grow, it is necessary to discard the rigid shell of childish impressions. For us as Christians, faith must be open-minded assent to God, to Christ, to the Bible, and to the community of believers living and dead. Because the assent is open-minded, our understanding, appreciation and devotion to God, to Christ, to the Bible and to the Church as a community of believers can grow and deepen.

Faith is assent but faith is more than assent. Faith is also confident trust. Confident trust is the proof of our assent. Jesus said that not everyone who says “Lord, lord” will enter God’s kingdom. The Apostle James said that faith without good works is dead. In the garden, Jesus prayed that he would be spared the terrible suffering that he foresaw coming his way. But he ended his prayer with confident trust: “Not my will but Thine be done.” On the cross his faith was sorely tested. He cried out in the words of the Psalmist: “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” And then with his last words he breathed out his utter trust in God: “Into Thy hands I commend my spirit.” That is faith—real faith. Without loving trust faith is empty—without loving trust faith is only an ideology.

Finally, faith is the mother of gratitude. The believing heart looks to God with loving trust. That I am here, that I was born, is a gratuitous event—a gift, a grace. That I am the way I am, that I’ve had the opportunities I have had, are to some extent determined by choices, but to an even greater extent, they are gratuitous events. We sometimes call it “luck”. We sometimes call it “chance”. But is it only luck? Is it only by chance that things are they way they are? Or are they due to choices?

To whoever, or whatever is responsible, I’m grateful. To be is better than not to be. I once read a story in which one of the characters faulted God for creating him without consulting him first. I’ve met young people with such a negative view of life and of this world that they never want to be parents. And then there are persons who feel that it is better for a child not to be born than to be born in poverty or to be born mentally or physically “defective”. I’ve also known people who enjoyed all the comforts and privileges this world has to offer but were unhappy and escaped in drugs and alcohol and ultimately even took their own lives. How sad! What greater gift is there than the gift of life? To be unappreciative of this gift, is gross ingratitude.

That I am is proof that I am loved? I was blessed with loving parents, but even if that were not true and I was an unwanted “accident”, I know I am love, because I am. I am not responsible for my own existence. My parents are responsible for bring children into this world but my parents are not responsible for my existence. They had no idea of who they were bringing into this world. I was not any of my brothers. Nor was I my sister. That I—this unique center of self-awareness I call me—came into this world at a certain time in a certain place is purely and simply “an act of God”—that it was by luck or chance, no; that is was by choice, yes. From the moment of conception, I was chosen. This is true of me and it is equally true of all of you—of each and every one of us.

Jesus said: “You have not chosen me but I have chosen you.” “Love consists in this:” John writes, “it is not we who loved God, but God loved us”(1 John 4: 10) Further on John continues: “In love there is no room for fear, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear implies punishment and no one who is afraid has come to perfection in love”. (1 John 4:18) “Something there is there in the dark/ I know Its there/ and I’m not afraid.” And so, even though I am small and weak—a sinner, I feel loved. And my heart swells with gratitude. “I thank you, Lord” I pray. “I thank you for the breath of life; I thank you for the length of days.”



posted by Jonah 3:56 PM
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Wednesday, August 11, 2004
GOD MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE
A homily on the feast of the Assumption
August 15, 2004

by jonah


Many Christians in both the West and the East celebrate today as the feast of the Assumption of Mary into heaven. Some modern scholars make a distinction between the Jesus of history and the Jesus of faith. The same distinction can be applied to Mary, Jesus’ mother. Of course, the Mary of history was no more divine than you or I. (However, I do profess and believe that we all are God’s children not only by adoption but even by nature. So in this sense we all, Mary included, are divine humans.) But in the popular devotion of many Christians, the Mary of faith has been elevated to the divine realm. This was recognized and endorsed by the Roman Catholic Church in the official proclamation of her “Assumption into heaven”.

As you know, the gospel stories are not intended to be historical accounts. They are the Christian response to events we all experience—birth, struggle, death and the Mystery of Being. The gospels were written not by historians but by passionate believers in the good-news of Jesus Christ. The authors of the gospels were enthusiastically proclaiming the meaning they found in the events that surrounded Jesus’ life, execution and final exaltation. This meaning transcended the historical events. Historians study the gospels and speculate as to the factual events behind these stories. But the gospels were never meant to be read as historical documents. They were meant to be expressions of divine realities. While many of the gospel stories have an historical foundation, the authors do not hesitate to alter and rewrite history. Nor do they hesitate to draw upon legends and myths to express meanings that transcended the historical events. And so, when we meditate on the gospels, we are in the realm of faith where we experience the real significance and true meanings of the Jesus-event.

Only in this context can we appreciated and experience the real significance and true meaning of Mary. The Mary of history was a Jewish woman who was born and raised in a small nation on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. What made her life significant was that she was the mother of Jesus. Jesus, her first child and eldest son, may have been conceived before she was married. She apparently married a carpenter named Joseph and probably had a large family. After Jesus’ execution, she, as his mother, was honored and revered by his devout followers.

This is a bare outline of what may be the historical facts concerning Mary. It does not begin to express Mary’s significance as the mother of Jesus. In early Christianity, Mary passes into the realm of faith. Like her son, Jesus, she becomes a mirror in which we can see a reflection of the Godly in ourselves. She becomes a symbol of higher realities that reside in the human psyche—a reflection of that which is Godly in women. In this realm Mary is really and truly the virgin mother of God because her son is the Word become flesh. These are indeed higher realities. These are truths that transcend mere historical facts.

In Mark, the earliest of the four Gospels, we find two references to Mary. The first reference does not name Mary but simply calls her the mother of Jesus. Mark writes: “Now his mother and his brothers arrived and, standing outside, sent in a message asking for him,” (Mark 3: 31-35). Jesus responds by saying that his family members are “anyone who does the will of God.” Mary is mentioned by name in Mark 6: 2-3. In Jesus’ home town the people asked: “Where did the man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been granted him, and these miracles that are worked through him? This is the carpenter, surely, the son of Mary, the brother of James and Joset and Jude and Simon? His sisters, too, are they not here with us?” So here we have the Mary of history. But this is only the beginning of Mary’s story .

Already in the gospels of Matthew, Luke and John, the Mary of history is beginning to pass into the Mary of faith. Luke, Matthew and John where all firmly convinced that Jesus was God’s anointed, the long awaited Messiah and, therefore, he was God’s beloved son. She was the mother of Jesus. Especially Luke, but also Matthew, drew heavily upon stories about Jesus’ birth and his childhood. These stories were spawned by souls devoted to Jesus and were circulated among his followers. They were stories, not historical facts. Jesus’ followers used these stories to express their faith in him. Mary, his mother, was a central figure in all of these stories. I repeat, these were not historical facts but expressions of devotion. They were the first Christians’ testimony to their faith in Jesus. But, then if Jesus is truly Christ, the Son of God, what must his mother be like. One so honored must possess every womanly virtue and grace found in our ideal of the feminine. In this manner, out of these stories, that were intended to be acclamations of faith in Jesus, a cult to Mary his mother began to evolve. Jesus followers were beginning to see in Mary a reflection of their own ideal of the feminine. This cult grew to the point where, in 431 A.D. at the Council of Ephesus, Mary was solemnly declared, by the then unified Christian community, to be the “Mother of God.”

The reason Mary was given this title was in order to safeguard the Christian belief that Jesus was/is both God and man, both divine and human. As Christians psychologically started to see the face of God in our humanity, Mary started to stimulate in their psyche the image of the feminine. A unique image of motherhood began to surface. This mother was unique because she conceived and gave birth to a person who represented the divine in our humanity. She gave birth to that which is Godly in us. She was experienced not as a humble Jewish maiden but as the Mother of God.

That Mary was declared to be the Mother of God in Ephesus is significant. Ephesus was the center of the worship of the Divine Feminine, Artemis Diana. In Ephesus there was the magnificent temple of the goddess, Artemis Diana who was called the “Queen of Heaven.” Some fifty years before Mary was proclaimed to be the Mother of God, in 380 A.D., the temple of Diana was rededicated to Mary, the mother of Jesus. Christianity had come and transformed Ephesus. But devotion to the Divine Feminine was deeply rooted in that culture and would not or could not be repressed.

Down through the centuries, a male dominated Church has struggled to keep Mary in her place. Protestant reformers rejected the cult of Mary. Was it not because they recognized this close association between popular devotion to Mary and the pagan worship of the Divine Feminine in Artemis Diana? Even to the present day, some Protestants accuse Catholics of worshiping Mary. Catholics insist that they do not worship Mary but only venerate her. In devotional practice, however, it is often difficult to recognize the difference between worship and veneration. Catholics would acknowledge that Mary is subordinate to Jesus and to God but they venerate her as the Mother of God, as the Queen of Heaven. In their prayers many of the titles once given to Artemis Diana are also given to Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Under Pope Pius XII, the Roman Catholic Church officially recognized Mary’s place in the divine realm by the formal proclamation of her Assumption into heaven.

So what is your ideal image of the feminine? Is there anyone living or dead who embodies your ideal image of the feminine? Our image of the feminine is multi-faceted—maiden, wife, mother and crone. To a great extent, these images have been re-shaped by men into playmates, wives who stand by their men, long suffer mothers, and loving grandmothers. But we do need a Godly image of the feminine. The Bible tells that we are created in God’s image and likeness and that that image is both male and female. “Male and female God created them.” (Gen. 1:27). Paul says that in Christ there is neither male nor female. Does this not imply that there is a feminine aspect to God? We know that our image of God at best is imperfect—that God is really neither male nor female; that God is both male and female but that God is ever so much more than gender.

Often we play roles. We pretend to be what we think others expect us to be. But many women today are letting the world know that they are more than playmates, wives, mothers and doting grandmothers--that they are persons. We look to these women to discover the feminine face of God. To do so is to discover the Divine Feminine within their selves. We all carry deep within our being an image of the Divine Feminine. We all are called to give birth to Christ in our lives and in our world.



posted by Jonah 4:09 PM
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Thursday, July 08, 2004
MYTHIC CHRISTIANITY
by jonah

There are many different ways of looking at our Christian Tradition. We can
examine our traditions with the tools of philosophy and try to express it in
very exact philosophical language. The philosopher asks: How can this be? At
times, however, this method leads to irreconcilable opposites—free will and
grace, God’s justice and mercy, three persons in one God, a divine and human
person, and so forth. Or we can apply the methods of historical research to the
study of our traditions. The historian asks: What really happened? This
methods looks at our traditions externally and fails to penetrate deep inner
realities. And at times it becomes extremely speculative. There is yet another
way—a third way. Christianity can also be explored as mythology.

Mythology is here used as a different way of finding and expressing truth. The
truth we find in myths is intuitive and need not always be logical. Philosophy
and historical research often challenge mythological truth. But these
disciplines are also challenged by mythology. Like poetry mythology often
transcends words. Mythology can point to reality that is beyond words; to a
reality that even appears contradictive. Because God and Divine Realities are
mysteries beyond our human comprehension, the expression of these realities in
mythological language is often superior to the language of philosophy and
history. Without asking how or what, mythology simply describes what is—the
incomprehensible. Mythology is an expression of our human experience of
mystery.

In a series of essays, let us explore mythic Christianity. Let us begin by
examining the Trinity as a mythic reality.

TRINITY
How do Christians think of God? How do Catholic Christians think of God?

Christians think of God as trinity. In the Christian psyche, God is
family—Father, Son (child), and Holy Spirit (breath). God is community; God is
relationship; God is singular diversity. Here we find a mysterious union of
opposites, singularity and diversity—one is three. The Father and Son are one;
the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one without any real distinction or
separation. Philosophically this makes no sense.

The Catholic psyche includes a Divine Feminine. Mary, Jesus’ mother, by the
definition of her assumption into heaven, has been elevated officially in
Catholic Christianity to the divine realm. This was an official response to
centuries of persistent devotion on the part of the faithful to Mary, the mother
of Jesus, the mother of God. The Catholic Church insists that Mary is not a
goddess. But in the Catholic psyche she approaches as close to the Divine as a

human being can. The Mary of history was a Jewish woman who was a wife and a
mother; the Mary of faith is a symbol of the feminine in the divine realm—a
Divine Feminine. Protestant Christianity has not yet accept this understanding
and so are still without a feminine symbol in close association with God. Carl
Jung lauded the definition of Mary’s assumption as psychologically a move in the
right direction.

How did Christianity arrive at this understanding of God?

The early Christians, before they were Christians, were Jews. As Jews they
experienced God as the Lord—superior to all other gods. In fact, the Lord alone
was seen as God. All other gods were viewed with contempt as mere idols crafted
by human hands. They had eyes but could not see; mouths but could not speak;
ears but could not hear, and so forth. Very early on these Jewish Christians
would speak of the Lord as “Abba”, a heavenly parent. No doubt this was how
Jesus himself experienced God, namely, as a provident, merciful, loving parent.
But after Jesus’ execution a change began to take place in the way his followers
experienced God.

The change that took place in Jesus’ followers way of experiencing God was not
philosophical or theological but intuitive. Philosophy and theology are
scientific disciplines. They represent ways we have to rationally understand
and explain what we experience. Jesus’ followers began to experience him as
the Christ. The man Jesus had indeed been executed and had died but then he was
“raised up”. He became, in their eyes, the Christ. He became Lord, which is a
name given to God. Why? Because God had raised him up. He “ascended into
heaven”, that is, into God’s realm. Now he, Jesus as the Christ, was elevated to
God’s right hand. In other words he was equal to God—a status that was his, as
the Word, from all eternity. So another dimension was added to the first
Christians’ experience of God. They were beginning to experience God in their
humanity. The Word had become flesh. Jesus, a humankind, was Lord. This is
all mythological language. These words all point toward meanings that are
beyond words.

There is yet a further development in the Christian psyche. Even though Jesus
was no longer physically present to them, his Spirit continued to be experienced
as a living presence. This living presence of Jesus as Christ is described as
God’s breath—an image that we find elsewhere in Scripture as, for example, in
Psalms where when God withdraws His breath we turn to dust and when God sends
His breath we are recreated. The word for breath is translated into English as
Spirit. In the Acts of the Apostles the living presence of Jesus’ Spirit is
described as fire and wind. For Paul it was a flash of light and a thundering
voice: “Saul, Saul why do you persecute ME?” The author of John’s Gospel calls
that presence “The Advocate.” The presence is thus experienced as an empowering
presence, an enlightening presence, a unifying presence, a presence that is


enlivening and recreating, a presence that is God’s breath—God’s Spirit, the
Very God.

So already by the end of the first century of the present era, the followers of
the Carpenter and their descendants had three distinct ways of experiencing
Deity—as the Creator and Source, as the Christ, the Word made flesh, and,
finally as a continuing, empowering, enlivening, enlightening, creative Divine
presence in their midst. The God creator was called Father, Christ, God’s Word
incarnate, was called the Son, and God’s presence in their midst was called the
Spirit—the Breath of God. And paradoxically, at the same time, they continued
to experience God as one not many.

These intuitive experiences were revelations. But for the first disciples and
their followers these revelations were not problematic. They were real. They
were accepted unquestioningly. But inevitably some began to ask: How can this
be? Some began to examine these experiences in the light of reason. They began
to theologize. How can God be both one and three? How can a person be both God
and human? Some challenged the meaning of these experiences. Others defended
the meaning of these experiences. Some tried to fix the meaning of these
experiences in carefully worded statements—in creeds and doctrinal
propositions. This process continued down through the centuries. This process
still continues.

Often the meaning of these experiences was hotly debated and these debates even,
at times, led to violence. Then, as we moved into the nineteenth century of the
present era, in the period of the “Enlightenment”, new challenges arose. Some
began to apply the methods of historical research to the study of the origins
and meaning of Christianity. They began to ask: What really happened. They
began to examine the sources of Christianity critically. New methods for
studying Scripture were applied. Modern scientific approaches such as
Archeology were used to verify or to challenge past assumptions. Ancient
writings were discovered that shed new light on early Christianity.

Many of the religious institutions became defensive and tried to repress the
findings of these modern methods of inquiry or tried to escape through various
forms of denial. As this struggle has intensified, there has developed an ever
widening gap between informed Christians and naïve Christians, between
innovators and traditionalist. The faith of many has grown cold and some have
even abandon Christianity.

Christian Mythology
With help of such scholars as Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell, a new but old way
of expressing our Christian tradition is beginning to emerge.

Carl Jung developed an understanding of innate psychological structures called
archetypes. He found these innate psychological structures in our human psyche
to be of a universal nature. Joseph Campbell in his study of comparative
mythology demonstrated how these archetypes find expression in varying cultures.
Scholars such as these have opened the way to a new way of interpreting our
religious experiences.

A mythological understanding of Christianity, however, is not really new. Many
early Christian writers interpreted our Christian tradition allegorically or
symbolically. They used scripture not in a literal way but as allegorical and
symbolic expressions of their deep spiritual experiences within the Christian
tradition. In so doing, these early Christian writers were anticipating
mythical Christianity.

Early in the twentieth century, the Roman Catholic Church officially rejected
attempts to “demythologize” our Christian tradition. This was wise because many
of our religious experiences as Christians can only be expressed mythologically.
The Jesuit theologian, the late Karl Rahner, said that God is the mystery in
human experience. The universe is a mystery, life is a mystery, death is a
mystery. Rahner also said that “the silence of God, the toughness of life and
the darkness of death can be graced events.” A “graced event” is an experience
that opens us to the Great Mystery of Being. In the gospel stories we find the
Christian response to the “silence of God, the toughness of life, and the
darkness of death.” These gospel stories are not intended to be historical
accounts. They are the Christian response to events we all experience—birth,
struggle, death and the Mystery of Being.


posted by Jonah 4:25 PM
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