The True Church

Pope Benedict’s recent summary and clarification of Dominion Iesus,  a theological treatise about ecclesiology published by the Vatican in the year 2000 during the pontificate of John Paul II, is an interesting piece of work.  In his clarification document, Pope Benedict XVI asserted yesterday that the Roman Catholic Church is the “one church” that Christ “established here on Earth” and that other Christian denominations “cannot be called ‘churches’ in the proper sense…..” 

In the Baltimore Sun we find this quote: “It’s a clarification of the meaning of the word church,” said Lawrence S. Cunningham, who writes a column for the Catholic magazine Commonweal and is a theologian at the University of Notre Dame. “Behind this document is the worry that the language of ecumenism has become too flabby and too imprecise, and too Pollyannish about glossing over real doctrinal positions.”  Again from the International Herald Tribune,  ‘The document released Tuesday focused largely on the Vatican definition of what constitutes a church, which it defined as being traceable through its bishops to Christ’s original apostles. Thus, it said, the world’s Orthodox Christians make up a church because of shared history, if “separated” from the “proper” Catholic tradition; Protestants, who split from Catholicism during the Reformation, are considered only “Christian communities.”  The document repeated church teaching that the Roman Catholic Church alone is the mediator of salvation, though other beliefs can be its “instrument.”‘
Father Johnathan, writing for Fox News, says that this clarification was written for theologian and should not be taken as a press release.

As a person who believes strongly in the power of words and that clarity is important, I applaud the Pope’s desire to be clear, if not his interpretations and methods.   And this document does make the position of the Roman Catholic Church clear.  Perhaps it would have been better if it had been released only to theologians, because now it clearly has reached the world in “press release-ese”. 

The International Herald Tribune headline reads: “Pope restates ‘defects’ of other Christian faiths….”  The Baltimore Sun headline reads: “Pontiff  asserts Catholic primacy.”  The Chicago Sun-Tribune reads: “Catholicism is the only true church, Vatican declares.”  ABC and Reuters reads: “Vatican says other Christian churches ‘wounded.’”

As a person who has travelled an eclectic road with God, I don’t need the Pope to define for me what the True Church is.  AND if he sees it as part of his calling as the leader of the Roman Catholic Church to define it for them, then God bless him.   I feel sad that he, and judging by the press coverage, many in the rest of the world, seem to think that he might be the arbiter of this question for everyone else.  I believe that his words, regardless of the reasons for issuing them,  will not help bring unity and peace to this world.  It is my belief that going back to old language, old rituals, old thought patterns will not bring about evolved thinking, believing and doing.  

From the depths of my being, I affirm that together we will find new words, the new rituals, the new thought patterns that represent God, the Infinite Spirit, the Eternal One - and that these “new” ideas and concepts will show us how to recognize and apply the truths taught by all the great teachers in a unifying, inclusive, and nonviolent way.  

“The church of Christ covers every department of our existance and enters into every fiber of our being. 
We carry it with us day and night, seven days of the week.  We live in it as a fish lives in water; as we become conscious of its enveloping presence, we are transformed into a new creature.  Life becomes an ecstasy, and our cup is full to overflowing.”  from Talks on Truth, Charles Fillmore. 

Question of Fear

In Sojomail, the weekly email-zine sent out by Rev Jim Wallis, he listed 4 questions that he was not able to ask the three leading Democratic candidates during the Candidate Forum on Faith, Values, and Poverty held on June 4th.  The first was about our commitment to Africa; the second concerned the impact that the world view outlined in the beatitudes (peace, justice) would have on their leadership; the fourth dealt with the relationship between faith-based initiatives and the government.  All of these are relevant questions.  However it was the third one that really caught my attention –
“3.   The command “be not afraid” appears frequently in the Bible, and yet U.S. foreign policy seems to be driven by fear, primarily of terrorist attacks. Our leaders seek to justify the most important decisions in foreign policy with dire warnings of impending attacks. Have we let fear push out wisdom and prudence as the primary virtues of foreign policy? Should the biblical command “be not afraid” have a role in foreign policy decision-making?”

And actually, I would broaden the question - I would replace the word “foreign” with “domestic and foreign”.  We seem to have fear of terrorists, fear of immigrants, fear of recession, fear of inflation, fear of liberals, fear of conservatives, fear of homosexuals, fear of aging, fear of death, fear of criticism, fear of change - and on and on -  as conscious and unconscious influences in our societal and governmental decisions. The question has been asked, “Is the threat real or is this a manipulation tactic by decision makers to push through an agenda?”  And if the threat is real, do we, as individuals and as a government, really have a good understanding of the causes behind the threat?  And then, why fear, rather than optimism around solutions?  Why does it seem easier for us as a nation and as individuals to move to fear rather than hope?  

When we’re not sure that the ground under our feet is stable, we get anxious, fearful - When ‘who we are’ is no longer clear, we get anxious, fearful - When our purpose, our vision is no longer clear and well-defined, we get anxious, fearful.  When these conditions exist, we find fear and, to reach past fear,  we are called to do some re-defining.  In this country, we have had a number of these redefining moments in history.  After most of these “moments,” the pace of the world around us was such that we had breathing space to clarify, regroup, rethink, realign.   The impact of a decision made during these “realigning” times was not necessarily immediate - it took a bit more time for the news to get out, for all of the primary and secondary systems to be affected.  Issued created by the decision could be surfaced and tweaked before the whole world knew!  We as individuals had a bit more time to absorb the effects of the change.  We had time to integrate the “New” and become comfortable with the new terrain under our feet.  This “time” gave us the opportunity to move from fear to hope, to love, to stability. 

Our world today moves at a much more rapid pace; the level of real-time connection is amazing.  The amount of information each individual has access to tends to be overwhelming.  The rate of change is astounding.  The following quote from Ray Kurzweil, inventor and futurist, brings this into perspective:
“Centuries ago people didn’t think that the world was changing at all.  Their grandparents had the same lives that they did, and they expected their grandchildren would do the same, and that expectation was largely fulfilled….What’s not fully understood is that the pace of change is itself accelerating, and the last 20 years are not a good guide to the next 20 years.  We’re doubling the paradigm shift rate, the rate of progress, every decade.  This will actually match the amount of progress we made in the whole 20th century, because we’ve been accelerating up to this point.  The 20th century was like 25 years of change at today’s rate of change.  In the next 25 years, we’ll make four times the progress you saw in the 20th century.  And we’ll make 20,000 years of progress in the 21st century, which is almost a thousand times more technical change than we saw in the 20th century.”

When I ponder this quote, I think of my father - The year he was born, the Wright Brothers were still working to get us to accept airplanes as viable modes of transportation.  Before he passed away at 83, men had walked on the moon and there was an international space station.  Dad said on several occasions that her was having a difficult time keeping up!  And even if Mr. Kurzweil is overestimating the rate of change by 50%, this 21st century is going to be a really wild ride! Now, back to the original question - should the guidance of Jesus - “be not afraid” - play a part in our world - our governmental policy - our daily lives?  If fear comes from change and uncertainty, then in a time of such change and uncertainty, how can we ‘be not afraid’?   Can we find things of which we are certain - can we use these things to build a more stable foundation, a more peaceful world?   I don’t know about things of which we are all certain; however, I know there are ideas - concepts - that appear to be universal and perenniel.  For me, these provide a good starting point.  More on them next time!

What color is your God?

  In mid-March of this year, I attended the Field Licensing Intensive at Unity Village - a week of exploration and learning, bonding with classmates and making new connections.  One of the workshops presented by Rev. E. J. Niles was entitled Exploration into our Consciousness of God.  Using the concepts of Spiral Dynamics as her base, Rev. Niles illustrated and discussed the evolution of our understanding and awareness of “God” from the Instinctive-level God of the early Stone Age to the Integrative-level God that has begun to enter our awareness today.At each level of consciousness evolution, how we view and speak about God has shifted, changed, expanded, morphed.  To me today, it seems that we as a species are holding an amazing array of ‘views of God’ - more views at one time than at any other time in our past.  We find elements of your Egocentric Red God - Power god - warrior - concerned only with “his” own people - guiltless.   We have your Mythic Blue God - separate and apart from humans - ethnocentric - a god of law - patriarchal; then we have your Scientific Orange God - universal - humanist - giant within waiting to be empowered - requiring no dogma - embracing materialism and pragmatism; and then there’s your Sensitive Green God - both masculine and feminine - relativistic - god of the downtrodden - honors multiple mystical paths - against war unless for righteous cause; finally, we have your Integrative Yellow God - universal - god of systems, integration and paradox - manifests “godself” through evolutionary process - fosters the ‘magnificence of existence’ - god of all religions and peoples.  Whew!!!!  Are we sure that the statement—we’re all praying to the same God—is true?   And yet, when I talk with Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists and scientists about what God is, somewhere in their answer they each talk about  a knowing—an experience of something greater—that is able to transcend culture and language.   In her book, Lessons in Truth, Unity author Emilie Cady writes “…God is Spirit, or the creative energy that is the cause of all visible things.”   Rev. Niles ended her presentation with this statement from Robert Kegan: “God is the name we give to the ceaseless, restless, creative flow of energy in the universe.”Could it be that all the discord and confusion in our world today flows from our desire to normalize our understanding of that knowing, that experience?  If that is so, it would seem to me that our primary task as fellow travelers on this amazing planet is to find in our own God—whatever color that God may be— this creative, causative, ever-present energy, without adornments of culture and language and to allow that energy to flow. 

I choose love

Reflections on an article by Ken Wilber

I stumbled across an column written by Ken Wilber entitled - what else - An Integral Spiritualityon Beliefnet.  In it he sets out”…. seven general items [or currents] that regularly recur in humanity’s attempts to know God…”  He adds that “….these similarities would seem to suggest, among other things, that there are spiritual patterns at work in the universe, at least as far as we can tell, and these spiritual patterns announce themselves with impressive regularity wherever human hearts and minds attempt to attune themselves to the cosmos in all its radiant dimensions.”   If this is so, does that mean that we humans are “hardwired” for spirituality?  Wilber would suggest yes and that the variety of expression of that spirituality are based on a number of factors, including but not limited to perspectives, such as first-person, second-person and third-person perspectives, and levels of consciousness and development. 
The “integral” spirituality that Wilber articulates would be one that “…claims to leave nothing essential out.  It would be a spirituality that in principle could be recognized and even practiced by believers in all the world’s religions without abandoning their own essentials.  If would be inclusive and comprehensive….”
If this integral spirituality is possible, would it not also include, in addition to the accepted practices of prayer, meditation, yoga, contemplation, modern psychological and psychotherapeutic measures?  Would it not “….transcend and include science”? 
So what are these seven general currents or similarities that recur in almost all great wisdom traditions?  As Wilber states in his column, “this is not the last word on the topic, but the first word, a simple list of suggestions to get the conversation going.  Most of the great wisdom traditions agree that:
1.  Spirit, by whatever name, exists.
2.  Spirit, although existing “out there,” is found “in here,” or revealed within to the open heart and mind.
3.  Most of us don’t realize this Spirit within, however, because we are living in a world of sin, separation, or duality - that is, we are living in a fallen, illusory, or fragmented state.
4. There is a way out of this fallen state (of sin or illusion or disharmony); there is a Path to our liberation [or wholeness].
5.  If we follow this Path to its conclusion, the result is a Rebirth or Enlightenment, a direct experience of Spirit within and without, a Supreme Liberation, which
6.  marks the end of sin and suffering, and
7.  manifests in social action of mercy and compassion on behalf of all sentient beings.”

If these 7 patterns or currents make sense, we might just have a starting point for dialogue.  We could debate the details without calling into questions the foundation of our various “traditions.”  I believe he’s on to something!

More on this in later postings!

Lessons from the Maypole

Just as some instruction before actually dancing the maypole help us to create a beautiful pattern and a powerful experience.  When we actually dance the maypole, we discover key lessons that will move us through life with grace and ease.  Here are some of the lessons that the maypole dance has taught me - applying them to the broader experience that is my life is the fun part!!!!!

Lessons from the Maypole

* In order todance, I must have at my center, Source - God - Universe - Spirit (the pole) that connects my heaven and my earth* Only if all thoughts and ideas (ribbons) are connected to that Source can there be a maypole dance

* A individual cannot effectively dance the maypole alone* There are many patterns that can be created in the dance and we get to pick ours

* Diversity makes a more beautiful weave* Music and laughter always make the dance more fun! 

Tomorrow’s lesson

The title of tomorrow’s lesson is “Lessons from the Maypole.”  The subtitle might be “The Golden Rule.”  It’s interesting how those to concepts got hooked together in the “daily word.” 
The elements of a maypole would be the earth, the pole, the brightly colored ribbons, the flowers, the dancers, and the rebirthing time of year.  The Golden Rule can be found in almost every major religious tradition and directs us, teaches us, commands us to be aware of each other - of all things - as though they were us - honoring each individual as unique and of worth.  In dancing the maypole during the first days of spring, do we find a joyful, active, colorful way to represent that interaction, that connecting weave, that glorious sense of oneness, the powerful connection between earth and sky, the ability to hold unity and duality in the same space?  Maybe.  Let’s meditate on that and see what emerges tomorrow!

Are we listening?

A quote from Quantum Listening: From Practice to Theory To Practice by Pauline Oliveros:   “Listening is the key to performance. Hearing is the passive basis of listening. Hearing is involuntary. Hearing protects us from unseen dangers. We can hear without listening. (Unconsciousness) We choose to listen inwardly or outwardly to the past, present or future. (Consciousness) Listening actively directs one’s attention to what is heard, to the interaction of the relationships of sounds and modes of attention. We hear in order to listen. We listen in order to interpret our world and experience meaning. Our world is a complex matrix of vibrating energy, matter and air just as we are made of vibrations. Vibration connects us with all beings and connects us to all things interdependently. We open in order to listen to the world as a field of possibilities and we listen with narrowed attention for specific things of vital interest to us in the world. We interpret what we hear according to the way we listen. Through accessing many forms of listening we grow and change whether we listen to the sounds of our daily lives, the environment or music.” 
How often am I hearing, rather than listening - deep listening?  And when I’m really listening, how many layers - how many dimensions - can I recognize? 

Hello world!

Well, I have finally taken the leap - blogging - now we’ll see what comes forth to share!  The next day or two will be spent learning how to use this site and then watch out World!!!