The Christian Meaning of Enlightenment

[Applause] thank you Thank You Colleen well it is a delight we've had a good week here already where I got to teach in the evenings on the mind of the mystic so in some ways I hope whatever I can try to say this morning will be a continuation of that and a deepening of that I was very excited by the title they gave me because I think if we can in any way in this hour clarify it open it up it can bear invaluable fruits not just in our own lives but I think for the future of of Western Christianity we've got to get this notion straight because I don't think it's much of an exaggeration to say we haven't had a real clear in fact the very term enlightenment I bet if I asked most of you in the room would identify it with Eastern religions it's it's like it's not even our word and maybe I pray that I can make it somewhat clear that it should be our word but maybe an understanding of how we lost it and how we can regain it so let's start with the prologue to John's Gospel John 1:9 where he says the word is the true light that enlightens all people so there's already this God as light and yet the light passes over to two people so it's something we receive we participate in John the eighth chapter says in this passage ER certainly familiar with I am the light of the world anyone who follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of Life lights as you know is normally connected with seeing with our capacity to see truthfully beyond shadow and disguise then in Matthew five through Sermon on the Mount again he makes very clear Jesus that we participate in this light you are the light of the world yourselves and your light must shine before people now Jesus also uses the term in a very similar way to Eastern religions as a shift in one's scene not that we see special things not so much what we see but how we see and that's what teachers of contemplation are trying to make clear that contemplation is not simply being pious or churchy or even prayerful it's an alternative consciousness it's it's a different pair of glasses by which you see the moment and by which you see the world and unless that lens changes there really is no enlightenment because we keep looking for the correct information but we don't have the eyes with which to see that even correct information so we usually distort it so it's more than anything else in the long term our capacity to see differently this is made clear later on in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says the lamp of the body is the eye if your eye is sound the whole body will be filled with light but if your eye is diseased your whole body will be filled with darkness in fact if your inner lamp is in fact darkness in others you think you see but you really don't what darkness that will be because if you don't get your seeing right you'll distort the most sublime piece of theology or Dogma or doctrine or sacrament or Bible or priesthood or whatever it is you'll you'll misuse it you'll use it frankly for purposes of ego and superiority and separateness not for for the union that all religion is rightly leading us toward perhaps there's no story that illustrates this better than that marvelous chapter John 9 the man born blind that we read a couple weeks before Easter each year it's almost a theater piece in which the blind man becomes and of course this is common in all ancient mythology where the one who sees is blind to show us that it's not what we think it is so the man born blind becomes the symbol of one who can in fact see and if you remember the text he's presented in contour distinction to the religious leaders who claim to be enlightened but cannot see at all so making it very clear that enlightenment is not the same as religious office our religious title or what we would call ordination it is for judgment that I came into the world so that those without sight the little ones as we might say as Jesus often says are those who see and those who think they do see will be shown to be blind what a judgment on organized religion to the Pharisees who want him to assure them you're not talking about us are you he doesn't miss a beat he says blind if you really were you would not be guilty what we call culpable are not culpable blindness but precisely because you say we see your guilt remains precisely when you're so sure that you know it all that you have the truth John 9 seems to be saying that's almost the certain sign that you won't have it we speak in our men's rights of passage of of beginner's mind and the assurance that someone will keep growing all their life is to forever have this humble beginner's mind that life is always out in front of you with a sense of awe and Wonder and allurement drawing you forward to the next level of the mystery because as we know if God is mystery which God certainly is and always will be then this mystery is infinitely understandable I love to quote st. Augustine in the 4th century who said see comprehend eros known as Dios if you comprehend it it is not God it it could not be God you wouldn't respect to God you could comprehend but after our food fights since the Enlightenment we've tried to prove that we have certain truth and have pretended that we actually could understand mystery it would seem that that's the great descent of historic theology when we we dare to undo the central concept that keeps us humble so this turning around because you say we see your guilt remains is what some call turning the tables theology or the great reversal Jesus sums it up so often the last being first and the first being last then for a moment let's look at Paul in the letters of Paul or at least sometimes letters attributed to Paul he often uses the word often light and darkness but in various ways and to be perfectly honest some of them are quite similar to Carl Jung in the 20th century with his notion of shadow be children of the light things which are held in darkness we know the shadow self is not necessarily the evil but that which we're not willing to see we don't want to see we don't know how to incorporate it's too humiliating to recognize that it may be I'm not a loving person R I'm have over control needs or whatever our thing might be things which are held in darkness are things that people are ashamed to speak of but a beautiful line anything exposed to the light will itself be illuminated and anything illuminated itself becomes light we would call this in modern psychology the whole phenomenon of mirroring and that you it's it's the situation where we we really don't know who we are until someone mirrors us to ourselves and this light that God is when we allow it to to reveal to us we're afraid it's going to reveal just the dark things in fact it dismisses the darkness and shows very often that what looks like darkness is often our very light where you where you stumble and fall Carl Jung said there you find pure gold in second Corinthians he says I use this at the in the frontispiece of the book on the anagram Satan disguises himself as an angel of light in other words or as Thomas Aquinas put it one can only get away with doing evil any of us if for some reason we explain it to ourselves virtue everybody who does wrong thinks in their own distorted perception that somehow they're saving the world or helping others or are making the world safe for democracy or whatever we've always got a rationale to justify our violent spirit or hateful spirits are cold spirit that's the nature of the ego it will never admit to itself which is why it's hard for us to apologize that we're doing a bad thing we've all got our justifications Satan himself disguises himself as an angel of light and I'm sure you've been told the very word Lucifer means the Light Bearer it looks like light it looks like the answer and if you don't have true light and go to the deeper level you end up doing evil in the name of good this is almost almost brothers and sisters the story of history so it seems to be saying that there there is such a thing as false enlightenment again the repetition of the John 9 theme most strongly in John's first letter second chapter he says the real light is shining and anyone who claims to be in this light but still hates his brother or sister is in the darkness still so if you're in the light quite simply the test becomes love I an enlightened person is a loving person if you can't love you're not in the light it really is that simple if the flow isn't happening then the light isn't shining if the light is shining and you are holding the light then the flow will not be stopped of this eternal love you know brothers and sisters what's helping us like never before to reclaim this image of light is quantum physics for centuries of course we thought that for some terrible reason science was our enemy our competitor and now of course in the last 20 years like never before scientists seem to be again and again our best friends now we know for example that light is the one constant in the entire universe it literally is omnipresent and even even those things that appear to be dark which is apparently 95% of the universe dark matter or black holes are dark light as it's sometimes called in fact we can now prove scientifically that what looks like darkness to the human eye is in fact filled with photons of light and what the early mystics and even the medieval mystics said everything is light is in fact now proven to be scientifically true and what's in might be described at as is is our unwillingness to draw upon that to trust that to allow that to be that which of course to be that which we already are now despite these scriptural beginnings and these later scientific affirmations another word of an Enlightenment or light largely dominated the Christian West and this word which we're all familiar with but don't necessarily understand is of course the word salvation the word came from the word for healing our health solace and we see in the New Testament there's the healing of sin healing from sicknesses which is just all about Jesus that's what he does all the time the healing of relationships healing through the cross the healing power of forgive I used to work back in the 70s with the wonderful dominican francis McNutt who wrote that first book some of you remember in the mid-70s called healing and he told me at several conferences he said Richard you wouldn't believe the hate letters I get for for writing a book on healing and he said one of them recently said to me healing what are you talking about healing we Catholics don't heal he said they didn't realize what they were saying he said the latter said this is something Protestants do an attempt and of course they were half right even though unkind healing brothers and sisters hollows which is just about all that Jesus did was really not a part of our vocabulary in fact you older Catholics will remember we've pretty much pushed it off in literature I when the priest appears in the novel you know it's the end of the line it's not it's not good news and the word the word that we use gives away our bias extreme unction extreme unction there was little interest in what Jesus did touching people transforming people wherever the pain was and I point out to you what you'll see is obvious when you go to the New Testament Jesus has no prerequisites for who he touches he doesn't check out what religion they are what denomination whether their marriage is annulled whether they're gay or straight or black or white or Catholic or just Jesus son of God have mercy on me and he touches them you cannot find a single story where Jesus has a prerequisite and it's amazing that we made it a series of Hoops to jump before Jesus could possibly touch so what happens of course and this was the loss it seems to me of a live transformative religion in general the way most of you if you were raised Catholic grew up understanding the word salvation is that it came to be the coverall word for the final definitive healing that was experienced after death that made you right with God so once that happens you you simply can't experience it at at any transformative level and very quickly I'd like to point out how in the New Testament there are three different kinds of passages some which point out that salvation has already happened some that point out how salvation is in the process of happening which is where it gets its dynamism from and there is a finality in and future tense to it let me just give you several past tense God has been pleased to reconcile all things to himself whether on earth or in heaven Colossians by grace you have already been saved Ephesians the grace of God has appeared and has already brought salvation to all Titus Romans perhaps the most beautiful this love has been poured into your hearts by the pure gift of the Holy Spirit now without that without that well to draw upon that what Paul calls in other places this pledge there's guarantee this inner source this promise we'd call it the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit brothers and sisters it comes with the manufacturer all right it's clear in the very first chat not chapter verse of the Bible the Spirit is hovering over the chaos waiting to descend and and yet I don't know what the clerical bias is is it the eternal carrot on the stick but we can say without any doubt that all the texts that emphasize the gift of salvation has already objectively been given have been the least taught in Western Christianity it was always holding it out in front of you I cynically say sometimes I think for us clergy it has to do with job security you know it keeps you coming back you know we just keep holding it out no you don't have it yeah there's no objective presence to call upon to draw upon which takes away the whole dynamism of the experience and and frankly makes what happened the gospel into a worthiness contest at which nobody wins you have to split you have to pretend because who of us ever ever feels worthy and so it became to use Brian MacLaren's wonderful phrase salvation or enlightenment largely became an evacuation plan for the next world right it's it's nothing that that changes people now that they enjoy and draw upon now it's all something that if I jump the hoops right I might get it later huh this has done the gospel no favor this has done grace no favor which is always free always unearned and always pour it into our hearts gratuitously but there are the present tense passages John one the true light which enlightens everyone is coming into the world our first Corinthians those of us who are being saved are experiencing the power of God it's still a dynamic process our fully Philippians work out your own cell Vasia with fear and trembling this this keeps us on the journey keeps us with that eternal sense of mystery and becoming and there certainly are the passages of future tense first corinthians has all died in Adam so all will be made alive in Christ and I when I am lifted up from the earth will draw all people to myself John 12 this is a plan for the fullness of time to gather up all things in Christ things in heaven and things on earth first chapter of Ephesians the notion of the Cosmic Christ that began at the great Big Bang as we now call it you know I love to tell people this this was of course very Franciscan theology or John Duns Scotus would have said that the Incarnation did not begin with Christ Jesus that was the human incarnation the incarnation of Christ in fact began with the Big Bang the moment God decided to materialize we have the eternal Christ the coherence of matter and spirit which has existed since the beginning if you think we're making that up try the prologue to John's Gospel the human Colossians the hymn and Ephesians the first chapter in in John they all say the Christ existed from all eternity and in a moment of time this eternal Christ's mystery so we could fall in love with it and and see eye to eye became a person that you and I believe is Jesus again we did not do the gospel in history by our any favor in history by simply making Jesus the whole mystery of the Incarnation because what happened is we didn't take ourselves seriously we didn't take the planet seriously we didn't take nature seriously we didn't take animals seriously nothing was real in this great sweep of salvation accept us and then what happened when a we whittled it down the great chain of being got whittled down to human beings alone we're being saved then we ended up having a 2,000 year food fight deciding who of the humans even got it and hardly any of the humans ended up being worthy enough for belonging to the right denomination or having the water port at the right time with the right words and by the rightly ordained priests so we argued about things like this instead of the foundational enlightenment experience itself where it's observable where it's seeable brothers and sisters it doesn't take a lot of genius to see an enlightened person it's sort of Christian common sense you there people who they flow they glow they change they they change others just by being who they are every one of you in this room can tell a transformed enlightened person it's not some secret hidden away and of course Jesus says that that you can't claim this as a trophy you can only live it and your light will shine forth for all to see it's observable they will see your good works it will bear visible good fruit in the world you will be a a generative person to use Erik Erikson's term you look for opportunities to serve to care to make a difference you don't just keep checking your your salvation list of sacraments received and and masses attended which sometimes as a priest of 40 years it seems to me is than an actual obstacle because you make that the goal when it isn't the goal all religious Institute's Bible sacraments priesthood vestments candles holy water pick picked the one you like or don't like they're all just fingers pointing to the moon but they're not the moon and as I told my class this week we've spent too many centuries arguing over who's got the best finger who's got the one holy catholic apostolic finger that's all ego I've got the right finger you've got the right finger if it's pointing you to the moon and getting you to the moon and you can experience the moon and unless that experience transforms you I'm afraid the Institute's of religion become again and again and again more a part of the problem than they do in any kind of real solution so I've been drawing I've been drawing recent years upon the the work of a lesser known name a man called Owen Barfield I am actually in writing correspondence with his grandson on Barfield is called the the thinker who was behind the thought of junior Tolkien CS Lewis and TS Eliot I mean those English minds that just seemed to get the big picture and to be desirous of communicating it in a ni in an exciting way an own Barfield had a wonderful distinction that now is being rediscovered and what we're calling the the participatory revolution at least that's a word Bruno Barnhart views that religion is not an experience of observation of something over there and if you understand it and you agree with it and you affirm it then you're saved but we can't get by with that anymore because it isn't true just isn't true religion as attendance religions religion as a spectator sport watching the right theater pieces watching the right sacraments observed validly is somehow of itself going to transform me he says daringly for his time and I'm sure many people would still want to call it new-age or pagan but he believes because he believed that the Incarnation began with the Big Bang the original creation theology that God was clearly revealing God to all of God's creatures since the creation of the world which is stated by the way in Romans 1:20 if you want to check it out God was there for the eyes to see in everything that God has made since the beginning of time Romans 1:20 at any rate he called this early experience available to the Stone Age people to the people maybe we call barbarians or pagans as if they were all just throwaway people had you ever thought of that God created him that women children families who came into this world just like you and I but throw away throw away I'm just waiting for Roman Catholics to come along no don't care about them don't care about them don't need them don't need them millennia of useless people how it's incomprehensible anybody can accept that and think that God is great you know which God clearly is but anyway this this older period before about 500 BC what what Karl Jasper's calls the axial period he calls original participation that he believes maybe this is shocking to some of you that people through nature art music dance poetry sexuality already participated in the eternal mystery and in fact he was of the mind that probably they were often more psychologically healthy than we are today we can't prove that but they had that sense of everything belongs and I belong and I'm a part of this mystery I'm participating in it I'm not watching it or trying to earn it or trying to get it after I die it's flowing through me and in me right now yeah I am it and it is me that's the great moment of conversion when that becomes a living experience and he called that original participation then around 500 BC to to the birth of Jesus at the time of Jesus we call the axial period in which period most of the great world religions find their thought and foundation great philosophies emerge literature emerges we move into a higher level of consciousness it seems we can reflect upon the mystery and we learn to write it down in and minds like Plato and Aristotle and and the Greek tragedies and writers actually in India and China and all over the world and then he says that this comes to what he believed was a great fullness in our Jesus and he says Jesus came to live and to announce full and final participation and that the kingdom of heaven is already among you it's already happening this was already true but we were finally willing and able to believe it conceptualize it participate in it and enjoy it and he says although jesus promises full and final participation which is a step beyond perhaps original primal participation it seems to have always been a minor theme in most of Christianity because we kept the carrot on the stick out in front of everybody else the word we use for it or the the Mystics those who went mystic for me simply means experiencial religion don't make it a high and mighty word that's beyond any of you in this room the moment the veil parts and you have even a moment of of unitive experience where it's all connected where it's all really and it only needs to happen once once you've had unit of experience you have the foundations of an entire mystical life you know something experientially that you can't know in any other way now Barfield says and you can make a good argument for this in fact as a teacher of contemplation we see this is what we're up against he calls the last 500 years the desert of non-participation now that doesn't mean everybody was lost for the last 500 years but and this is not in any way to criticize the necessity of the Protestant Reformation but once Europe divided and got into oppositional adversarial thinking Germany divides between Lutheran's and Catholics and they have to waste the next 200 years proving that they're totally right and the other group is totally wrong you have the death of contemplation the alternative consciousness you can't see things in the broad field you can't go to the deep level because you're adversarial the adversarial mind cannot know God it's it always divides the field of the moment into either and or that's much of the import of my last book to try to reintroduce to the West what I think Jesus first offered us non-dual consciousness where you don't split things between what I already agree with and what I don't yet understand and I call that wrong it's the basis of all racism sexism war homophobia it's actually the tortured mind that most Western people live with and this is why on Barfield says we have lived we're in the desert of non-participation where where there was this inherent sense of being blah belonging to something are connecting let me tell you a personal story that brings this home I told it to my class this week if they don't mind hearing it again in 1985 I was invited by the abbot it gets M&E to give the eight-day retreat to the monks I lived in Cincinnati at that time so often drove down to Gethsemane to make my own retreats and they got to know me and I got to know them but you know in 85 I still had hair and I looked like a kid and I said Who am I to to give an eight-day retreat to these venerable old monks who are ten times holier than I so I thought what Catholics always think when you don't have a lot of inner authority yet what you do is you quote outer Authority you know the Pope said or the Bible said or Saint so-and-so said because you don't have enough inner experience to say I say the way Jesus talks so the first day of the retreat maybe the second lecture I raise my authoritative Franciscan finger and I say as Thomas Merton said surely thinking this would win the entire crowd to my favor I mean the whole world reads Thomas Merton I'm he's the man he's the most important Catholic of the 20th century in many people's judgement who has translated into all the major languages of the world but I noticed when I raised my authoritative finger that it isn't working at some of these venerable heads and some growl I didn't think monks would growl you know if they do and some found something very interesting out of the windows on the lab I always say this is the male form of passive-aggressive behavior when they don't want to hear you they look away they literally look away to show you they're not listening to you no but I didn't get it the first time so I tried it again the second day and they said it's Thomas Merton said again you know scowling and so forth so the third day I asked brother Bruno who was a friend of mine now deceased and I said Bruno am i doing myself any favor by quoting the great Thomas Merton in his own community because I was beginning to think this is a prophet not being honored in his own country are the typical male game of competition and jealousy and this is what he said now you'll get it this is a quote he said no we didn't like him originally and he said many still don't like him as you could tell and the reason we didn't like him now mind you these are men who've given their whole life to be contemplatively I can temper too he told us we were not contemplatives we were just introverts the fact that you laugh shows you understand I and all the religious in this room and laity too we've all suffered from this this making you think because you were introverted you love Jesus more huh and because you just like to be quiet actually you hated people it wasn't really good in some cases in some cases and and what Merton was pointing out as he almost single-handedly recovered the older contemplative tradition and pulled back the veil he says the West no longer teaches contemplation as an alternative consciousness in fact most religious themselves which is why a lot of us gave up on prayer we tried to pray with a dualistic mind that's not contemplation contemplation is you stop dividing the field at the moment you let it be what it is as it is without adjusting it correcting it judging it that takes practice for Western people especially if you're educated because education largely meaning means being better at dualistic thinking that's all here you make more clear distinctions while you're right and other people are wrong you know so you can see why own Barfield said we have been in the desert of non participation he perfectly paralleled Merton he says we no longer understand that the contemplative mind is a different mind that does not read the moment in terms of us and them right or wrong a black or white gay or straight Catholic or Protestant it just it is now you can see what what detachment from your own ego that necessitates to let each moment be what it is without pigeonholing it without putting it in some category up or down in or out with me or against me if we don't learn this brothers and sisters I I don't think our tix is gonna change people really think Democrat and Republican is a significant food fight you know when they all buy the same basic world view of capitalism there's no kingdom of God big picture understanding of things you've got to basically accept the rules of the game and live inside of that and even our church utterly divided between liberals and conservatives both convinced that the other has nothing to tell them which is never true and of course the contemplative is the only one who can know that because they do not divide the field of the moment so what are we saying what therefore is the meaning of Christian enlightenment I have to say at least on paper apart from the Western mystics the the church which best maintained it and taught it was Eastern Orthodoxy at least on paper it's not that they necessarily all got it all lived it either but you certainly find it in the Eastern Fathers of the Church and the word in English was translated the process of divinization right and this divinization theosis in greek was was with you from the beginning was a process of ongoing appropriation drawing upon this interior gift this indwelling presence that is objectively and equally given to all of creation all creatures and and then yes does come we believe to an even greater fulfillment so your Eastern mystics especially in the first four or five centuries just revel in this revel in the pure gift of God and if you read the Mystics of Eastern Orthodoxy it's always the language of light light light living in the light drawing upon the light enjoying the light being light and the nice thing about light theology or enlightenment understandings is it seems to me to have a better ability to incorporate the body that it isn't all in the head one like Simeon the new theologian one of the Easter knees I look at my poor finger and even my fingers are filled with light you you you begin to understand this Christ's mystery this being Christ is not something limited to the brain our least of all to the left brain but to the soul to the spirit and even to that least redeemed part in unfortunate Western theology the body itself once we don't understand enlightenment as a communication of real light at the cellular level at the emotional level at the bodily level at the sexual level we get into the terrible splint that we've suffered so much from today once we can begin to live in this true self as Merton would have called it who we are in God who God is in us then we become to use that wonderful phrase from second Peter first chapter shares in the divine nature sharers this is the participatory revolution that we are shares in the divine nature it I think probably it was simply too good to be true and so we had to push it off into the future and and you see here's the problem that when we tried to understand Jesus who I believe was the first clear non-dual teacher in the West with largely dualistic theology in most most of the centuries and the non mystical theologians we're always it seems to me reveling in dualism there's several important things you cannot do with the dualistic mind in fact they're there most of the important things you know all of our great doctrines and dogmas are the overcoming of a paradox Jesus is totally human and totally divine at the same time right that's the Christ's mystery that's the principle of incarnation that's what makes our religion unique that Ron role hyzer when he was here in earlier years said what he often says and he doesn't mean it unkindly I certainly agree with him he says most Christians are not Christians they're theists they believe in a Supreme Being who made all things they answer the the theological question they push Jesus into the role even though he doesn't fit in many ways Christians are not people who believe there's a Supreme Being who made all things the unique trump card that we have the unique message of Christianity is that matter and spirit coexist always have and always will this this is what makes a Christian absolutely unique but when you read the gospel with a non mystical non contemplative dualistic mind you don't have the software to process that you can and here's what happened for all practical purposes and be honest most Christians believe Jesus is only divine were actually monophysites you know he pretended to be human but we don't know how to put it together because the dualistic mind can't put it together it does it's a paradox it's a contradiction and the price we pay it ourselves for all practical purposes you are only human we couldn't put it together in Jesus and so no surprise we can't put it together in ourselves brothers and sisters this is our big message without this religion has little Christian religion has little transformative power it's simply an evacuation plan for the next world right where you can be racist just get it right in the last 10 minutes of your life that's all you can be hateful you can be greedy you can be militaristic you can buy the entire system and this is why Christians in many ways have not changed the world Christian nations have not been known for being unwarlike please okay can you find any examples that ungraded can you find many examples we usually lead the pack and it's not that it's our fault we didn't know we didn't know how to how to do it we gave people Commandments that in great car part they could not understand much less obey you try try to love your enemies with a dualistic mind try it you can't do it have Christian people or Christian nations been known for loving their enemies I don't think so Jesus seems to be loving the poor every other story as Christianity been known yes our Saints for loving the lower class the outsider the immigrant the excluded one no we've been the excluders more often than not that's pretty well documented but I want to say as strongly as I can it's not that our people were bad people we just lost our own pearl of great price our own gift our own alternative consciousness our own experience of enlightenment that we have an inherent identity in God st. Catherine of Genoa used to run through the streets of Genoa I'm told crazily shouting deepest me as God my deepest me is God my deepest me is God that's that's the moment of conversion until you know that nothing's really gonna change God stays out there and you remain unenlightened this eternal an infinite source that we can draw upon may be we called it the soul may be we called it the Holy Spirit creates in us a new pair of glasses a new way of reading not just ourselves but everything else and that that set of eyes can can deal with exceptions contradictions it can forgive it can understand it can be compassionate it doesn't search for perfect order please don't take my word for it go to the Gospels where was Jesus Annan sister upon perfect order he deals with disorder he has no trouble with disorder he doesn't care if there Cyril finition or Roman centurions are lepers or prostitutes all the people outside his system he goes right toward him quite simply Jesus goes to wherever the pain is not where the where the theoretical truth is where the pain is that's a very very different gospel and thank God it includes all of us it under Li levels the playing field because brothers and sisters we all have pain if we're honest now there is no superiority system to enlightenment there's no worthiness contest there's no climbing the ladder of moral achievement hoping one day we'll get there when no one really does we let God come to us the way Jesus came into the world into the place of the wounds and the place of the pain I'd like to end with one poem maybe two because I've learned after so many years of trying to preach and teach that pros always well pros is almost by necessity dualistic and so it just sets people up to I agree with him on that I don't like that you know it's all the judging mind takes over like that I think he's a radical there you know it's just you get nowhere now whereas poetry doesn't allow you to do that you know because we know we only have understand it if we're honest and so the soul and grace are able to fill in the gaps and we're a little more patient we're not so judgmental we don't push the river quite as much we left the river include us in the flow and the two poems I'm going to use are from probably a lesser-known poet to many of you a man named William Stafford the first poem is called the way it is and it's from his book of poetry called the way it is there's a thread you follow it goes among the things that change but it doesn't change people wonder about what you are pursuing and you have to explain about the thread but it is hard for others to see especially if they haven't grasped the thread themselves it is hard for others to see but I tell you this while you hold it you can't get lost tragedies will happen people will get hurt or die and you yourself will suffer and get old nothing you do can stop times unfolding just don't ever let go of the thread so this talk of enlightenment and salvation is telling us that there is a thread it's already in you and flowing through you're already connected you're already inherently connected by by what bead Griffiths would call the golden string and your only job is is don't let go of it don't doubt it really and and everything militates against believing that there is a thread because we all get caught up in the externals and successes and in games of the moment and so we have to find some spiritual practice silence and solitude are still the best some under stimulation so you keep being conscious of the thread that's already there you don't create the thread as he says it's already there but you have to explain to other people about the thread people wonder what you are pursuing there is the thread you follow it goes among the things that change but it doesn't change salvation is telling you that there is a golden string and you are already strung up inside of it let me give you one more and we'll end on this also from William Stafford he says you reading this be ready that's the name of the poem you reading this be ready starting here right now salvation is always now if you don't get it now you know what you're not gonna get it when you go to Mass tomorrow do you know that you're not because you're gonna bring the same mind to Mass tomorrow that you brought you have right now so you might as well get it now you know starting here what do you want to remember how sunlight creeps along or shining floor the scent of old wood how it hovers a softened sound from outside that fills the air will you ever bring a better gift for the world then the breathing respect that you carry wherever you go right now the breathing respect and I'm gonna stop in the middle of the poem to give what I try to give to every group in the last five years it's the second chapter of the naked now book but if you might not get that let me tell you about it I was at a conference on science and religion and consciousness a few years ago there was a Jewish rabbi teaching was also a scientist he said you know you Christians you never understood the commandment do not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain you thought for some strange reason it meant you're not supposed to say god damn you he said you shouldn't say god damn you that's not a very nice thing to say but that's not the meaning of the commandments the meaning of the commandment is don't use the name of God at all we don't know how many centuries he says we observed it but we knew that the sacred name Yahweh was never to be pronounced with our lips what you melody at the beginning of religion what Jewish genius don't talk about it because then you'll think you understand what you're talking about when you use the word God so don't use it and during that period we developed the words out on I and Allah ween for for the name of God it was only the Jerusalem Bible many of you remember in the 1960s that started daringly using the word Yahweh in Catholics in the 60s used to say who's this Yahweh no I knew this much as he went on to teach that when you write Hebrew you only write the consonants and what it means to be an educated person is your mind automatically fills in the appropriate vowels he said do you know that when you correctly pronounce the consonants used in the sacred name it in fact does not allow you to close your lips or to use your tongue in fact if you perfectly pronounce the word Yahweh it will imitate the sound of inhalation and exhalation oh my god this could change your life I hope it does it changes your prayer life because this means you've been praying maybe not consciously uh since the moment you came out of your mother's body and there will be a final stating of the name of God before you die then you're only the second crowd I've told this to because I just learned it last month in Chicago I had a in a class a Sufi actually Sufi Muslim and he said do you know our sacred name Allah do you know what it means I said well it's your word for God he said all Al is the same as the Spanish word for el or the when you put a second el behind it it means the very and then behind that you put an apostrophe and the H he said literally the sacred name for God is listen closely the very that's the meaning of Allah the very now let's go back to the poem we didn't know God was this accessible did we we didn't know that God was as available as the breath and to remind you there's not a Catholic or a Protestant way of breathing did you know that there's nothing there's not a Catholic or there's not a Chinese or an American Way of breathing there's not a gay in a straight way of breathing there's not a black and a white way of breathing it's available and given like grace itself and it's you could almost say we were afraid to be human we were afraid to breathe will you ever bring a better gift for the world than the breathing respect that you carry wherever you go right now are you waiting for time to show you some better thoughts and we all are it's always out in front of us when you turn around starting here lift this new glimpse that you have found carry it into the evening all that you want from this day this interval these few moments we've now had together this interval that you spent reading are listening to me keep it now for life what can anyone give you that is greater than this right now starting here right in this room when you turn around thank you [Applause]

Channel: BC Clough School of Theology and Ministry Cont. Ed

Views: 263,385

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Id: fc2VfwrGr8g

Length: 60min 37sec (3637 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 08 2018