The Open Soul - Part 7

Christ Crucified is an invitation into meaninglessness

Can human beings make meaning in the world if they have let go of ideas of good and evil, light and darkness, even God to such a degree?

The apostle Paul spoke of this when he said that Jews were looking for signs and Greeks for wisdom, but he preached only Christ crucified. (1 Corinthians 1:22-25). To Jews, signs were a way of interpreting God’s favor and making meaning through power,[1] and to Greeks knowledge and understanding satisfied the human impulse to make meaning through making sense of things. 

Christ crucified is the breakdown of the use of power to move to a more ideal situation and a breakdown of what makes sense. “It is the absence of divine confirmation of human values.” [2] In this way it not a way to make meaning, but is an invitation into meaninglessness, or as Meister Eckhart might say, into nothingness.

[1] Paul Hessert. Christ and the End of Meaning: The Theology of Passion. (Rockport MA: Element Inc., 1993. Out of Print), 19.

[2] Hessert, 26.

The spot you are headed to

Release your responses and return to a place of rest.

“ It was evening and had grown quite dark and Jesus had not yet returned. His disciples went down to the sea, got in the boat, and headed back across the water to Capernaum. A huge wind blew up, churning the sea. They were maybe three or four miles out when they saw Jesus walking on the sea, quite near the boat. They were scared senseless, but he reassured them, “It’s me. It’s all right. Don’t be afraid.” So they took him on board and immediately they reached land—the exact spot they were headed to” John 6:16-21

This was the passage that was read to me in a guided meditation called “Lectio Divina” recently. If you’ve never heard of Lectio Divina, it is the practice of a contemplative interaction with a text - usually a sacred or religious text of some kind. Everyone does it just a little different, but my favorite method is:

1) Rest. Take a moment to become still and present to the moment. Breathe, close your eyes and become relaxed. Express your willingness to open to the voice of spirit.

2) Read. Choose a short passage - read it slowly. Listen for a word or phrase that is addressed to you. What jumps our at you? What “shimmers”? Allow for a few moments of silent repetition of the word or phrase. Savor it. Ponder it. Listen to it without judging or analyzing.

3) Reflect. Read the passage again. Slowly. Listen for how this passage connects with your life. What do you need to hear.

4) Respond. Read the passage a third time. Slowly. This time, imagine yourself in the story. Who are you in the scene? What do you hear, see, smell, feel? How is this connected to your life? What is your response? Allow your response to flow spontaneously from your heart as fully and as truly as you can. At this point you are entering into a personal dialogue with spirit “sharing the feelings the text has aroused in you, feelings such as love, joy, sorrow, anger, remorse, desire, need, conviction, consecration. “ Observe your response without judging.

5) Rest. Release your responses and return to a place of rest. This is a posture of yieldedness and abandon.

6) Record. Journal about the experience.

So, in my interaction with the story from John 6, it occurred to me that as soon as the disciples saw Jesus in the situation and took him in, they were at their destination. Is this some miracle where Jesus got them to shore immediately? Or is it that when we take the Christ consciousness into our boat, we are immediately present and thus at the spot we need to be at. It’s so easy to miss the sacred in a difficult situation. It’s so natural to fight, resist and shut down out of fear. We don’t see the spirit in the storms, we just strive to find peace or to come ashore. But as soon as we are able to hear the voice of the sacred that says “I’m here - don’t be afraid” and we take the sacred into our boat, we are already at our destination. There is nowhere further to get to. We are home.

I am doing some work in counseling these days. By work in counseling, I mean work on myself, in myself. Pulling up some stuff that I’ve shoved down. Dealing with it and more importantly feeling it. I have a tremendous capacity for compartmentalization. I can set things aside so that I am not slowed down by them. I can tell you about my feelings, but actually feeling them in my body is much harder. It makes me tired. I don’t like to be tired. It slows me down and keeps me from doing all the things.

I’m trying to see the sacred in the tired. Welcome it into my boat. Sleep. Let it take me to the exact spot I am headed to - this moment.

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Happiness is a tyrant

Can’t we just be and feel whatever we feel without feeling as though we’ve failed at life, without feeling like someone else has failed us?

A friend and I were talking about marriage the other day. She’s been married a long time and I’ve been married twice, so we felt like between the two of us, we had some knowledge on the matter. We were talking the other day about the pressure that is put on newlyweds to be “happy” in their new marriages.

I mean of course! Why wouldn’t you be happy? Your marriage is new, it’s exciting, it’s romantic, you are young and haven’t settled down to child-raising yet. What could be better?   

But, let’s face it, the early years of marriage are tough.  It’s tough to live with another person.  Your habits are different, your wants and desires are different. 

No one tells us how hard it’s going to be to live with another person.  We grow up hearing fairy stories about happily ever after and we think being a newlywed is synonymous with happiness.

No matter how much we love the person we live with, we hate how they leave the peanut butter on the spoon in the sink, how they leave the ice cube tray empty, how they smell sometimes, or weird noises they make.  We keep score: I’m doing more housework than you, I’m making more money than you, I’m contributing more to this relationship than you. 

Newlyweds don’t want to admit to anyone and especially not to their new spouse that they might be unhappy.  But that very admission, might actually be the best possible thing. It doesn’t mean they’ve failed. It doesn’t mean I’ve failed. But it’s an important thing to admit.

None of us wants to admit if or when we are unhappy.  We think that if we are unhappy there is something terribly wrong with us or with our lives.   We are afraid of being unhappy. Afraid it might mean failure, afraid it might mean loss, afraid it might mean pain.

And certainly, there may be times when we decide that we are unhappy with something or someone and it’s time for a change. But the difference there is that the unhappiness is about an actual circumstance and not about who we ARE. It’s not about success or failure, it’s about whether or not this or that particular ongoing circumstance aligns with what I want out of life. And even then, let’s be clear, even when we get what we want out of life, we may not feel a feeling of happiness. Maybe we will feel a sense of satisfaction, or achievement, maybe we will have more peace and less stress. But happiness? It’s elusive.

We are constantly inundated with the message that we just should BE happy. Bookstores are full of books that tell us how to be happy. Social media feeds are full of quotes and quips about how to find happiness. Gurus are telling us how to manifest happiness.

And in the frantic pursuit of happiness…. Happiness becomes a tyrant.  

I don’t think that happiness should be the goal.

Why can’t it just be OK to be unhappy?  What would be wrong with that? 

Happiness comes and goes.  We are happy as we leave work and head home. Then, we are unhappy when we get home from work and do two hours of housework while our husbands and children sit and watch Netflix.  We are happy when we anticipate starting that new Netflix series we’ve been wanting to watch. We are unhappy if we come home from work and sit and watch Netflix with our husbands and children and wake up to a filthy house the next day.   We are happy when the people we live with offer to chip in and help out.  We are unhappy afterward because of the bad attitude they had throughout and the poor quality of help they contributed.

Happiness comes

Happiness goes.

Unhappiness is inevitable.

It seems to me that when we stop trying to BE happy, we are much happier.  I mean, really – who cares?  Do we HAVE To be happy?  It seems like a lot of pressure to me. 

Can’t we just be up sometimes and down sometimes without having to try to achieve happiness?

Why the constant wish to feel something else than what we actually feel?

Can’t we just be and feel whatever we feel without feeling as though we’ve failed at life, without feeling like someone else has failed us?

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The feast of death

There is no feast without death and destruction.

Behind every feast is a great deal of violence. Things are killed, pulled and plucked, sliced and smashed. Heat is applied.

If you were the potato as it sat in the oven, you would not celebrate the feast that is about to occur.

It’s a simplistic parallel, but life is the same. There is no feast without death and destruction. Sometimes we’re the soil, sometimes the potato and sometimes we are the feaster.

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The Wolf

"Shhh - it's the wolf!"

The Wolf is my daughter’s spirit animal and I don't really mean a tongue-in-cheek spirit animal.  That may sound a little "woo-woo", I mean who actually has a spirit animal?   But for real, when she was less than two years old, she used to “see” an unseen wolf around our house.   It was completely real to her.  When the wolf visited, she would freeze in her tracks and shush everyone in the room, quietly pointing to the unseen wolf.  She would quietly whisper her warning to us all, “SHHHH, it’s the wolf!!!”  

I’m not gonna lie, it was a little creepy – and a lot funny.  We had to work hard to be quiet around the wolf.  We wanted to giggle, or tell her there was no wolf.   But instead, we played along, frozen in our tracks and silent until the wolf went on his way. (I guess it was a he, I never really asked).

She’s 29 years old now and still has a thing about wolves.  She feels some kind of interesting and special kindred connection with them.  Whenever wolf stuff pops up in her life (I’m not totally sure how this happens), she takes it as a sign that there is something she’s supposed to stop, be quiet and listen to.   And you know what?  It works. 

She sent me an article the other day about the wolves that were re-introduced into Yellowstone National Park.  It’s a story many people are familiar with, and it’s a good one.  You probably know the story: when the wolves were re-introduced, as you’d imagine, they began to prey upon deer.  The deer moved to different areas and as a result entire new habitats began to grow, since the deer were not grazing in those areas.  Both plants and animals began to reappear in these habitats.  One of the most unexpected aspects to the entire ecosystem shift was that because trees began to grow in new areas, the rivers were re-routed.  Here’s a great little film on the whole phenomenon. 

https://stemjobs.com/wolves-change-rivers/

The article got me thinking about good and evil.   If I were a deer, I would pretty much think those wolves were evil.  They brought me nothing but fear, predation and death.  And from where the deer sit, that’s true.  But from the trees, and the mice, and the rabbits, and the bird’s perspective, the wolves were a good thing, a life-bringing thing.  And from the river’s perspective, the wolves were neither good nor bad, but the entire course of the river’s life was changed in ways the river had no awareness of

--because of the wolf. 

That’s kind of how it is in life.  There is no way to stand far enough away from a thing to know for sure if it is entirely good or entirely evil, or a little of both.  There is no way for sure to know if it is changing the entire course of your life. 

All you can do is participate in the unfolding drama.  Go along for the ride.  And maybe sometimes get really quiet and see if you can see the wolf. 

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May it be unto me as you have said

We are the third incarnation of the Christ.

My life has been filled with chaos of various kinds.  This is a great irony to me, since all I ever wanted was peace.   As a child, I just liked to be left alone so I could stay in my room and read a book.  As a teen, I played it safe.  I made choices that were calculated to avoid regret.  As an adult, I’ve taken few risks.  I like things quiet, calm, predictable.  But instead, chaos has surrounded me – over and over. 

Many times I have raged against this.  I’ve asked the proverbial “WHY?!?”  Over the years, I have spent countless moments screaming in my head (and sometimes out loud) to whomever would listen, “I’ve made choices in my life that were supposed to result in peace, WHY, WHY, WHY so much chaos!!!!?????”  I have found it hard to just accept what comes my way.   I don’t surrender well. 

I fight.  I fix.  I push through.  I don’t surrender. 

And so, my life has been visited and re-visited with chaos…..so I can learn surrender. 

Sometimes when I’m stuck in a pattern of behavior or thinking, I adopt a mantra - just something I recite to myself to re-direct my thought pattern.  Several years ago, I was particularly stuck in anger over the chaos.  Life just wasn’t going according to my agenda and I couldn’t find peace and acceptance.   So, I chose a mantra.  I chose the words that Mary the mother of Jesus said when the angel told her she was going to be impregnated by God, “I am the Lord’s servant, may it be unto me as you have said.” 

I mean, think about it.  You’re this 13 or 14 year old just minding your own business waiting to marry your betrothed Joseph and an angel appears to you and tells you, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.  So the holy one to be born will be called, the Son of God.”  

What?? 

This is going to put a serious kink in your plans.  People will gossip about you.  Joseph might not even marry you if he finds out your pregnant.  You didn’t ask for this kind of chaos, and your response is, “OK, do whatever you want, I’m your servant” ?     This seemed like a pretty extreme story about surrender, so I adopted the mantra.  That year, every time I felt rage, or bitterness rising up, I would simply say, “I am the Lord’s servant, may it be unto me as you have said.”  It was a powerful move in the journey of accepting what occurs in life and just taking it in without judgement or anger. 

It calmed me. 

Today, I was thinking back on the story that Mantra came from and it came to me in a whole different way. 

Mary was being asked to open up her body and allow the Christ to be incarnated in her, and she surrendered to it.  I reflected on how my life story is about me being penetrated by life circumstances and being opened up so that the Christ can be incarnated in me as well. 

Incarnating the Christ spirit inside my own body. 

So that my body becomes the very body of the Christ spirit in this world. 

The Bible tells us three ways the Christ spirit was incarnated (isn't it fun that it's three?):

First: in creation “Through him all things were made ……In him was life.”   Think about it, the creation is the first expression of the Christ.  The Christ spirit is in every part of creation.  If that doesn’t make you an environmentalist, nothing will.    

Second: through the life of Jesus.  This is the one we are taught about in church.  We are taught the story like the birth and life of Jesus was the only incarnation of the Christ.  But it wasn’t. 

Third: through us.  We are the third incarnation of the Christ.  His body here on earth.  And in order to actually be that, we have to surrender and open ourselves up to be penetrated by the spirit of love and to become the container, the womb and the birther of the same creative, loving, healing force that we see in the first incarnation, and the second….

“I am the Lord’s servant, may it be unto me as you have said.”

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Soils

“For me, the word “God” means “reality”.  Reality is God, because it rules.”

It’s spring and I’ve just spent the weekend composting my garden and planting.  So it seems the right time to post about soils. 

“A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.”

This parable is from the book of Matthew in the Bible.  It is explained later by Jesus and he says that the seed that falls on the different soils is the word of God.  I was always taught to hear “the word” as the “scriptures” or the “bible”.  But the “word” in the original text is “logos” – logic.

The word

The logos

The logic of God

God’s logic is not what we would expect.  Down is up and up is down.  We love our enemies.  The meek inherit the earth.  Those things we think are bad are actually good – or vice versa. 

If God brings a reality into my life that I don’t like – I may use my logic to judge it as a “bad” reality.  I may reject this and fight, struggle, and rage to change this reality for a different one.  Believe me, I've spent hours, days, weeks, years doing just that.  But God has given me the very reality I am struggling to change.  Or maybe God IS the very reality I'm struggling against.  His logic has said, “this is the story I am giving you right now.  This is my logic about how your life will go.”  If I reject this logic, this word – I am the path (the hard soil). If I accept his logic, but let the cares of my life (my busy-ness, my worries and concerns) distract me from really taking it IN and experiencing it and learning from it, I am the rocky soil or the thorny soil.  In all cases, whether path, rocky or thorny, what little fruit might have sprung from reality, will be unrealized. 

In her book, “Loving what is” Byron Katie states:

“For me, the word “God” means “reality”.  Reality is God, because it rules.”

She does a beautiful job describing the good soil:

“I am a lover of what is, not because I’m a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality. We can know that reality is good just as it is, because when we argue with it, we experience tension and frustration. We don’t feel natural or balanced. When we stop opposing reality, action becomes simple, fluid, kind, and fearless.” 
 

When I planted my garden this weekend, I turned compost into the soil.  I want the soil to be moist and full of organic matter so it will hold water and nurture the seeds I plant.

In my life, when I take in reality – the word – the logos - and let it sit there – like a seed in good soil, when I hold it inside, and tend to it ….

Something will grow.  

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