What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
Romeo & Juliet, Act II, Scene 2.
Forty-five years ago, when I was a young US Army soldier stationed in what we then called West Germany, I met an Arab Christian couple from Lebanon who had a new baby. They graciously invited me to their apartment where we shared an evening of food and conversation. During our delightful time together, I noticed the mother and father frequently bending over their infant son and repeating the same word: “Allah, Allah, Allah.”
The father explained, “We want his first word to be the Name of God.”
They were Marionite Christians, teaching their baby the same Arabic word for God as the followers of Islam use in prayer: Allah.
Westerners sometimes translate the great creedal statement of the Islamic world with the words, “There is no God but Allah,” as if our Muslim friends were praying to some alien deity. But the Arabic expression really means, “There is no God but God.” The same Divine Power celebrated in Lebanese Christian liturgies is addressed five times a day by 1.5 billion Muslims around the world.
It started me thinking…how many more things do people of different faiths have in common? Certainly, there are differences among the world religions. Not surprisingly, civilizations separated by geographical, cultural and linguistic barriers have solved their spiritual equations differently. Diverse spiritual traditions have inspired rich cultural heritages—beliefs, practices, and theological nuances; characteristic music, dance, and art—which make each faith distinct from all others.
Yet, all the religions of humanity seem to offer a sense of wonder, reverence for life, ethical teaching, some form of the Golden Rule, and an abiding sense of life’s okay-ness because, despite all appearances to the contrary, God has everything under control. Beyond these rudimentary similarities, much healthy diversity is readily apparent.
As I reflected on my Lebanese Christian friends in Germany and their Muslim countrymen back home, it occurred to me that all parents want similar good for their children. Happiness, wholeness, a sense of purpose, and a faith which sets them free to be the best person they can possibly be. Whatever combination of phonemes we select to identify the mystical presence and power of the Divine outpicturing in our lives—even if we find it difficult to use God-language at all—one could argue that the goal of a prosperous, healthy, joyful existence is the baseline hope of all sentient beings and the common religion of humanity.
Last spring I visited Sri Lanka and traveled in the company of Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims. The intense compassion for humanity and desire to leave our children a better world was indistinguishable among the faith groups I met. Perhaps this speaks to an even deeper common ground than ideas or culture or ritual.
Perhaps the universal yearning for meaning and wholeness indicates we have a self-correcting program running within humanity, and tendencies toward violence and selfishness must give way as we learn more about our brothers and sisters across the street and across the world.
Join me and ponder these thoughts about the underlying oneness of humankind in the decade now begun...
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Thursday, December 24, 2009
December 24, 2009
Undelivered/ Snowed Out Christmas Eve Message 2009 Unity of the Lakes
Sermon: “Angels we have heard, kings we have seen…”
Texts: Luke 2:1-19, Matthew 2:1-12 (See below for full NRSV texts)
How many of you believe in angels? Oh, don’t worry, This isn’t Peter Pan. An angel won’t drop dead if you state your disbelief in them. So…seriously….how many people believe there are supernatural beings, which we call angels, who interact in some way with God and humanity? Let’s see a show of hands…
As many of you know, I have a show on Unity-FM, our internet radio network. It’s called “Let’s Talk About It.” I invite guest panelists from all sorts of religious backgrounds. I have had a Catholic nun and a Baha’i and a Sikh. Last week, I invited the angel people…. [ ]
Angels are everywhere this time of the year. Christmas carols echo with their choruses; cards and packages display their images; sacred scripture of Judaism, Christianity and Islam testify to their reality. But are there really, really such things as angels? No humbug intended, but have you ever seen one? Why is it that some otherwise rational people, who would never affirm the existence of demons, have no problem believing in angels? My distinguished panel took a close look at angelology to get a “New Angles on the Angels” on Let's Talk about It. The program was broadcast Friday the 18th of December, but it repeats several times this month, and you can find all my shows archived at the Unity-FM website.
Sooo…..what’s all this annual seasonal brouhaha about angels? In the Bible, God is often seen as distant, like a king on his throne. Not always. There are images of God as the loving father, too. But the king-on-the-throne business seems to get more play. A king doesn’t leave his palace to dabble in the daily affairs of ordinary men and women. He sends messengers to do that, and that is precisely what the word which is usually translated “angel” means in Hebrew. The word is mal’akh, and although the Old Testament book of Malachi is really the book of the messenger. The great Medieval Jewish theologian Moses Maimonides defined angels as “totally disembodied minds…which emanate from God and are the intermediaries between God and all the bodies [objects] here in this world.” Only two angels are given specific names in the Hebrew Bible—Michael and Gabriel—and only in book of Daniel.
Early Christians at first simply appropriated Jewish ideas about angels as messengers. Then the Christian view of angels changed from the angel as a messenger of God to a manifestation of God himself. As time went by, other names were assigned to individual angelic messengers like Raphael, Uriel and Sataniel. Actually, Sataniel—from whom we get the name Satan—started as a good guy, God’s inspector general in Hebrew thought. Check out the books of Job and Zechariah. Sataniel only became “the devil” after several Christian revisions of the storyline, borrowed heavily from Persian, Greek and Roman religion.
By the fifth century, angels had morphed into their traditional characteristics in theology and art—angelic wings and a softer, more feminine look; sometimes in Greek-style armor, more usually in gently flowing robes. A hierarchy of angels and archangels was also created by medieval theologians with too much free time.
So, what about the angels we have heard on high? Messengers, of course, directly drawn from Hebrew mythology. They appear to announce the birth of…well, listen to their own words, faithfully recorded by Luke, who was not an eyewitness:
In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them,
“Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.”
“Do not be afraid…”
Right. Just ignore this army of supernatural beings floating here in the sky overhead and the heavenly light radiating from us to the illuminate the countryside…I wonder how you and I would respond to that? If we were out under the winter sky somewhere in the country and a great light shined upon you and a loud voice spoke from above—well, I’d assume it was a UFO and I’d run for cover. Unless they seemed nice, then I’d come out of hiding to ask for a ride on their starship.
There is a deep significance in this scene. Look at the audience the angels chose to address. The birth of the messiah is announced as “news of great joy for all the people” and the listeners are ordinary working folks, not the wealthy, the educated elite, or the politically or spiritually powerful. This is a significant statement from the pen of Luke. Jesus was not born for the privileged few; he came for “all the people.” Even the angels are jazzed about the possibilities:
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”
But there is another first Christmas story in the Bible that shows the message of Jesus is not just a way to comfort for the powerless. If Luke’s nativity scene shows the importance of Jesus to the common people, Matthew’s story of the first Noel reaches into the center of earthly power.
Wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.”
When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born.
Notice how the scene shifts? No longer are we looking at peasants on the hillsides, shivering in the cold night. No longer is the messiah announced as “good news and great joy for all the people…” of the world. Now we stand in the court of the king, listening to wealthy, powerful men of a distant land who have come looking for a messiah who is the newborn King of the Jews. King Herod calls his “chief priests and scribes” together in the war room of the palace; the governmental and religious leadership meets in emergency session to determine how to respond to the crisis.
The visitors were not really described by as kings in Matthew’s gospel. The word used is magi, which corresponds with Zoroastrian priest. Zoroaster (also, Zarathustra) was a Persian prophet who lived in the 6th century B.C.E. His followers today, who live mostly in India, are called Parsis because of their Persian connection. Zoroaster taught monotheism to his followers and gave the world the concept of a power of evil, an adversary to God who struggled against the good. He also spoke of heavenly signs that would accompany the beginning of a new spiritual era to come. It makes sense that the wise men would come from the East, seeking an earthly manifestation of these prophecies when the signs were right in the heavens. None of this has any known historical basis, but it makes a great story.
What we have in the magi and their visit to Herod is the confrontation of worldly power by the incarnation of Jesus in Bethlehem. If Jesus is the promised one, what does that say to rulers and politicians? If Jesus brings a message of peace and hope, where does the power reside—in God, or wise men, or inspired utterance? Does the authority to declare what is truth and falsehood necessarily come from established power, a fact taken for granted in times of absolute rulers?
Jesus born for the poor people; Jesus born for the wealthy, the powerful, and the highly educated. Does this not suggest that God speaks to all levels of human society in a manner commensurate with the listener’s ability to comprehend? Does this not further suggest that all social and political and economic strata need the message of hope and love which the birth of the Christ child conveys?
This Christmas when looking to the sky, or listening to the news media, remember…remember…remember…Jesus was born for the poor shepherds on a cold winter’s night that was so deep…and also for King of Orient, and Occident, and the democratically elected regimes of today. His birth proclaims hope: there are higher standards than expedience. His birth proclaims Divine Order: despite appearances to the contrary, God is working in through and as the people of every nation and race and religion, to bring world peace and good will. This Christmas is a good time to allow yourself the luxury of optimism, to believe all is well, to expect the best, to believe with your whole heart that humanity is destined to solve its petty squabbles and move forward as one united species to explore the Cosmos.
Look to the heavens…listen for the angels….watch for the star…
_________________________________________________________________
Matthew's Nativity
1 In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, 2 asking, "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage." 3 When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; 4 and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet: 6 "And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.' " 7 Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. 8 Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage." 9 When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. 11 On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.
Luke's Nativity
1 In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 All went to their own towns to be registered. 4 Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. 5 He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. 8 In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11 to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger." 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, 14 "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!" 15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us." 16 So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. 17 When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.
Undelivered/ Snowed Out Christmas Eve Message 2009 Unity of the Lakes
Sermon: “Angels we have heard, kings we have seen…”
Texts: Luke 2:1-19, Matthew 2:1-12 (See below for full NRSV texts)
How many of you believe in angels? Oh, don’t worry, This isn’t Peter Pan. An angel won’t drop dead if you state your disbelief in them. So…seriously….how many people believe there are supernatural beings, which we call angels, who interact in some way with God and humanity? Let’s see a show of hands…
As many of you know, I have a show on Unity-FM, our internet radio network. It’s called “Let’s Talk About It.” I invite guest panelists from all sorts of religious backgrounds. I have had a Catholic nun and a Baha’i and a Sikh. Last week, I invited the angel people…. [ ]
Angels are everywhere this time of the year. Christmas carols echo with their choruses; cards and packages display their images; sacred scripture of Judaism, Christianity and Islam testify to their reality. But are there really, really such things as angels? No humbug intended, but have you ever seen one? Why is it that some otherwise rational people, who would never affirm the existence of demons, have no problem believing in angels? My distinguished panel took a close look at angelology to get a “New Angles on the Angels” on Let's Talk about It. The program was broadcast Friday the 18th of December, but it repeats several times this month, and you can find all my shows archived at the Unity-FM website.
Sooo…..what’s all this annual seasonal brouhaha about angels? In the Bible, God is often seen as distant, like a king on his throne. Not always. There are images of God as the loving father, too. But the king-on-the-throne business seems to get more play. A king doesn’t leave his palace to dabble in the daily affairs of ordinary men and women. He sends messengers to do that, and that is precisely what the word which is usually translated “angel” means in Hebrew. The word is mal’akh, and although the Old Testament book of Malachi is really the book of the messenger. The great Medieval Jewish theologian Moses Maimonides defined angels as “totally disembodied minds…which emanate from God and are the intermediaries between God and all the bodies [objects] here in this world.” Only two angels are given specific names in the Hebrew Bible—Michael and Gabriel—and only in book of Daniel.
Early Christians at first simply appropriated Jewish ideas about angels as messengers. Then the Christian view of angels changed from the angel as a messenger of God to a manifestation of God himself. As time went by, other names were assigned to individual angelic messengers like Raphael, Uriel and Sataniel. Actually, Sataniel—from whom we get the name Satan—started as a good guy, God’s inspector general in Hebrew thought. Check out the books of Job and Zechariah. Sataniel only became “the devil” after several Christian revisions of the storyline, borrowed heavily from Persian, Greek and Roman religion.
By the fifth century, angels had morphed into their traditional characteristics in theology and art—angelic wings and a softer, more feminine look; sometimes in Greek-style armor, more usually in gently flowing robes. A hierarchy of angels and archangels was also created by medieval theologians with too much free time.
So, what about the angels we have heard on high? Messengers, of course, directly drawn from Hebrew mythology. They appear to announce the birth of…well, listen to their own words, faithfully recorded by Luke, who was not an eyewitness:
In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them,
“Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.”
“Do not be afraid…”
Right. Just ignore this army of supernatural beings floating here in the sky overhead and the heavenly light radiating from us to the illuminate the countryside…I wonder how you and I would respond to that? If we were out under the winter sky somewhere in the country and a great light shined upon you and a loud voice spoke from above—well, I’d assume it was a UFO and I’d run for cover. Unless they seemed nice, then I’d come out of hiding to ask for a ride on their starship.
There is a deep significance in this scene. Look at the audience the angels chose to address. The birth of the messiah is announced as “news of great joy for all the people” and the listeners are ordinary working folks, not the wealthy, the educated elite, or the politically or spiritually powerful. This is a significant statement from the pen of Luke. Jesus was not born for the privileged few; he came for “all the people.” Even the angels are jazzed about the possibilities:
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”
But there is another first Christmas story in the Bible that shows the message of Jesus is not just a way to comfort for the powerless. If Luke’s nativity scene shows the importance of Jesus to the common people, Matthew’s story of the first Noel reaches into the center of earthly power.
Wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.”
When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born.
Notice how the scene shifts? No longer are we looking at peasants on the hillsides, shivering in the cold night. No longer is the messiah announced as “good news and great joy for all the people…” of the world. Now we stand in the court of the king, listening to wealthy, powerful men of a distant land who have come looking for a messiah who is the newborn King of the Jews. King Herod calls his “chief priests and scribes” together in the war room of the palace; the governmental and religious leadership meets in emergency session to determine how to respond to the crisis.
The visitors were not really described by as kings in Matthew’s gospel. The word used is magi, which corresponds with Zoroastrian priest. Zoroaster (also, Zarathustra) was a Persian prophet who lived in the 6th century B.C.E. His followers today, who live mostly in India, are called Parsis because of their Persian connection. Zoroaster taught monotheism to his followers and gave the world the concept of a power of evil, an adversary to God who struggled against the good. He also spoke of heavenly signs that would accompany the beginning of a new spiritual era to come. It makes sense that the wise men would come from the East, seeking an earthly manifestation of these prophecies when the signs were right in the heavens. None of this has any known historical basis, but it makes a great story.
What we have in the magi and their visit to Herod is the confrontation of worldly power by the incarnation of Jesus in Bethlehem. If Jesus is the promised one, what does that say to rulers and politicians? If Jesus brings a message of peace and hope, where does the power reside—in God, or wise men, or inspired utterance? Does the authority to declare what is truth and falsehood necessarily come from established power, a fact taken for granted in times of absolute rulers?
Jesus born for the poor people; Jesus born for the wealthy, the powerful, and the highly educated. Does this not suggest that God speaks to all levels of human society in a manner commensurate with the listener’s ability to comprehend? Does this not further suggest that all social and political and economic strata need the message of hope and love which the birth of the Christ child conveys?
This Christmas when looking to the sky, or listening to the news media, remember…remember…remember…Jesus was born for the poor shepherds on a cold winter’s night that was so deep…and also for King of Orient, and Occident, and the democratically elected regimes of today. His birth proclaims hope: there are higher standards than expedience. His birth proclaims Divine Order: despite appearances to the contrary, God is working in through and as the people of every nation and race and religion, to bring world peace and good will. This Christmas is a good time to allow yourself the luxury of optimism, to believe all is well, to expect the best, to believe with your whole heart that humanity is destined to solve its petty squabbles and move forward as one united species to explore the Cosmos.
Look to the heavens…listen for the angels….watch for the star…
_________________________________________________________________
Matthew's Nativity
1 In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, 2 asking, "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage." 3 When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; 4 and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet: 6 "And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.' " 7 Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. 8 Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage." 9 When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. 11 On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.
Luke's Nativity
1 In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 All went to their own towns to be registered. 4 Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. 5 He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. 8 In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11 to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger." 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, 14 "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!" 15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us." 16 So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. 17 When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Joining the Advent Conspiracy
"The story of (Jesus) Christ's birth is a story of promise, hope, and a revolutionary love. So, what happened? What was once a time to celebrate the birth of a savior has somehow turned into a season of stress, traffic jams, and shopping lists. And when it's all over, many of us are left with presents to return, looming debt that will take months to pay off, and this empty feeling of missed purpose. Is this what we really want out of Christmas? What if Christmas became a world-changing event again? Welcome to Advent Conspiracy."
(above excerpt from http://www.adventconspiracy.org )
Great Idea--"The Advent Conspiracy"
I have just learned about a new "movement" among Christian churches this holiday season. It's called "The Advent Conspiracy," and seems to cut across deominational and theological lines. Although it is worded in traditional language, I am convinced many Unity folks and other Metaphysical Christians will find its proposal intriguing.
There are four basic principles which motivate the revolution called for by the Advent Conspiracy (and they really aren't all that revolutionary or conspiratorial):
Worship Fully
Spend Less
Give More
Love All
1. This year, move forward to a renewed celebration of God-with-us, which is what the birth of the Christ is all about.
2. Dial back on the expensive presents. Of course, give nice gifts--make some, buy some, recycle some. But cut back on the compulsive need to outspend last year's trappings. (Even Jesus only got gold, myrrh and frankincense once.)
3. Give some of the savings to people and organizations who really need it. With 10% of the nation unemployed and charitable giving spiraling downward, it isn't hard to find somplace to circulate the good by giving from a center of generosity and love. Prosperity begins by letting go, which does not require maxing out the credit cards.
4. Love your family and friends by paying attention, the greatest gift of all. Send the people you love a personally written note telling them why they're special to you. It will take longer than a shopping spree at Wal-Mart if you actually write to everybody. They will treasure your note--or the memory of it--long after the sweater you were going to purchase is faded and threadbare.
So, there it is. Commercialism is not a bad thing, but every good thing can be abused by over-use. This Christmas, why not join the Advent Conspiracy and de-criminalize modest gift-giving, set up a revolutionary council of note-writers, and share the good with those who need a little more Christmas cheer. Individuals, charitable organizations, churches--you find the place you are called to support. This is NOT a tithe, but it is pure prosperity principle in practice.
Here's a thought: You can give a flock of ducks to a needy family across the globe for $20.00 through the Heifer Project. Here's the URL, below, or you can just go to www.heifer.org and paddle obver to the ducks page.
http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.2667667/?msource=kw205&gclid=CKrhr4nC2Z4CFRQhDQodew0qdw
And find a house of worship to celebrate the light of this holiday season with a community of faith. Join the Advent Conspiracy, and we can change the world.
Monday, November 30, 2009
How to Live Confidently Until You Die (Maybe Longer)
‘Tis but a day we sojourn here below,
And all the gain we get is grief and woe,
Then, leaving our life's riddles all unsolved,
And burdened with regrets, we have to go.
The Rubaiyat by Omak Khayyam (c. 1120 C.E.)
Darkness Approaches
How does an aging Boomer find a lifestyle which is both meaningful and enjoyable in the final phase of life? Both Omar Khayyam and the unknown preacher of Ecclesiastes complained about the futility of a life that ends too soon and accomplishes too little. The preacher called life vanity of vanities. “All things are wearisome; more than one can express.”[1]
Why did anyone go to the trouble of hand-copying and preserving such ancient downers? Perhaps cathartic negativity appeals to the human mind because our species has endured wars and rumors of wars throughout history. We Boomers are a fairly cynical generation, the people who snickered as Queen chanted, “Another one bites the dust!” Yet we never felt the lyrics applied to us personally, never suspected the dust-biting was coming our way.
Oh, certainly, everybody knew we were mortal, that nothing was certain but death and taxes. Then the Reagan revolution told us that taxes were optional, and science began to find ways to prolong life…so who knows? We jogged. We watched our weight and took multi-vitamins. We gained weight and fought smoking addiction, not to mention lingering drug relapses here and there. AIDS terrified everyone for a decade or so, then medicine removed the inexorable death sentence from HIV-related illness, and we relaxed into fantasies about immortality once more, even while people continued to die.
But death is coming. It took some people of our generation who should still be here. Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Ricky Nelson, Karen Carpenter, John Lennon, John Denver, Jim Henson, Steve Erwin, my half-brother, Darryl John Carter, the list goes on. Statisticians estimate we’ll all be gone by the 2060s.
My own existential awareness of death looming distant occurred in one of the most youth-centered locales imaginable. I was teaching eighth grade at Spirit Creek Middle School in Hephzibah, Georgia, a few miles southwest of the azalea-splashed city of Augusta, known for the Masters’ golf tournament. Students had gone to Unified Arts and Physical Education, leaving our hallway empty and giving us teacher-time to prepare lessons or play catch-up on the ten million other tasks required in public schools. I remember thinking about the strange silence of that wing of the building. Suddenly, I flashed on the idea that, just as UA/PE happens every day with clockwork regularity, so will I follow my ancestors into the approaching shadows of death. It was an organic realization, not an abstract concept. It wasn’t about death as a subject to be considered; it was about death as an unavoidable event which I must one day experience. Not, “All people are mortal and will one day die,” but rather, “You are mortal; you are going to die. The big dirt nap approaches. Everything will go black, and that will be it. Lights out. Sayonara. Another one bites the dust. You. Die. Gone. Blackness.”
It scared the bejesus out of me. I rushed into the hallway, desperate to see someone alive, wishing my irascible middle schoolers would return from UA/PE, so that some of their immortality would rub off. Of course, it did. Activity spun me away from the brink, and the only panic attack of my life passed into legend. Telling you about it helps, too. Community is a healing experience.
These thoughts are not designed to bum you out, just to make it clear that we are all in this together. Life’s end approaches, and the only question facing us is how shall we live while approaching the still-distant but unavoidable dark wall of death? We may live beyond it. Most great religions insist we do. But we cannot avoid passing through its dark gate.
We’ll begin then with a short list of thoughts about living with confidence and joy until you enter the final darkness which leads to…more light? (More about that later. But relax. I told you this book doesn’t peddle a religious philosophy.) So, before we plunge into the ten paths to wisdom from East and West, here are ten starter ideas from a former middle school teacher.
Ten Starters for the Last Phase of (Mortal) Life
1. Get ready. Make eschatological preparations, then savor every day. You have promises to keep, even after you’re dead. Do the legal stuff, take care of your survivors as best you can, then forget it forever.
2. Get back to school. Go learn stuff, no matter how old you are. Nothing stimulates the brain like learning. Even if it’s online, or offered at your house of worship, or requires home tutoring.
3. Get romantic. I misspoke, above. Something does stimulate the brain like learning. Stay as sexually active as you and the pharmacist can achieve. Keep love alive.
4. Get complaint-free. Find solutions, not villains. Try to live complaint free. Practice positive affirmations. Don’t try to prove you’re right and they’re wrong. There are very few people on this planet who are able to stop in the middle of an argument and say, with sincerity, “You know, I get it now. I am wrong and you are right.” No matter how “right” you may be in some abstract sense, that ain’t gonna happen, dude. Don’t try to find out whose at fault. The blame game is like playing catch with a nuclear hand grenade. No matter where it lands, all players get zapped when it goes off. Give people enough emotional space to turn around, to cross over to your side. Appeal to their humanitarian tendencies. Most people will work with you if approached with a request for help. An old Army sergeant once said to me, “Ask, and ye shall receive. Demand, and you can go fuck yourself.”
5. Get political. Party organizations love people like us. We generally have more discretionary income, more free time to volunteer, and are better educated about the issues than the younger generations.
6. Get theological. Study the great thinkers of your religious tradition and compare them with writers from other faiths or denominations. Knowledge is connectional, and critical analysis of comparative ideas about God, life, and eternity is always appropriate. The objective here is to clarify and explore, not to prove who’s right. Earlier in life, our generation excelled at letting people “do their own thing,” but we lost some of that flexibility in the last decades of the twentieth century. Perhaps this is a good time to pick up Sartre and Heinlein and Jonathan Livingston Seagull once more.
7. Get spiritual. Spirituality is a belief system in action. Pray & meditate; return to church or find a new one. You’re looking at the doorway to eternity, so you might as well see what others have said about the journey. Do something from your religious tradition. (If you’ve never dabbled in spirituality, or haven’t recently, you might be surprised how cool some of them are today!) Try working my Eight Scenes in a Peaceful Life exercise, or do variation on the vision quest.
8. Get comfortable. Work as long as you want, but be prepared to phase down later. Do less as needed. You get to say when “later” occurs. You might never fully retire, and that would be okay, too, if you’re enjoying the work. Or you might hang it up at sixty-two. The choice is yours, based on personal preferences, economic considerations and health issues. Learn to relax without guilt. No matter whether you’re working full time, part-time, or fully retired, playing isn’t sinful, indolent, or unproductive—it’s a vital, brain-saving activity. Enjoy simpler pleasures. Go fish. And playing cards helps, too. Watch sporting events, live and on TV. See good movies, read good books. Cultivate a love for art, music, gardening—anything that takes you out of the humdrum to a higher place.
9. Get creative. Find meaningful creative activities. Write that book, or your memoirs. Get online, or expand your online life.
10. Get them together. It takes a community. Gather with your extended family for meals regularly. Celebrate everything possible, especially holidays. Also, learn to let others do for you. Especially your children.
“Give Peace a Chance…”
Our generation, which produced unsung military heroes and a grassroots anti-war movement, will leave behind a paradoxical legacy of service and rebellion, competence and corruption. Richard M. Nixon was far from an ideal leader, but his rush to infamy began with a rather thoughtful speech at the 1968 Republican Convention. As he accepted the nomination for president, Nixon reached across generations and told Americans to stop shouting and start listening to each other. Most of the television audience had no clue that Nixon would be listening via illegal wiretaps, but the point is well taken regardless of how poorly he followed his own advice.
As I cross the line into senior citizenry status, the last thing I want in the last third of my life is to go around nursing grudges or feeling superiority. I don’t have to agree with people or approve of the choice they make in order to treat everyone with dignity and compassion. Confident living begins with a commitment to center oneself in a life of compassion, because all people are worthy of respect. It is joyful way to live in the last phase of life.
So, if you are ready after sampling some preliminary ideas, let’s get busy learning how to relax, let go, and keep active in the golden years to come. The long autumn of life stretches ahead of us like a color-splashed forest path, extending as far as the mind’s eye can see. Take the hand of someone you love, and let’s all go there together.
______________________________________________________
[1] Ecclesiastes 1:2, 8. If you ever want to get seriously depressed, read the first chapter carefully. Had the author been a member of my generation, somebody would have taken him aside and said, “You’re bumming me out, man…”
And all the gain we get is grief and woe,
Then, leaving our life's riddles all unsolved,
And burdened with regrets, we have to go.
The Rubaiyat by Omak Khayyam (c. 1120 C.E.)
Darkness Approaches
How does an aging Boomer find a lifestyle which is both meaningful and enjoyable in the final phase of life? Both Omar Khayyam and the unknown preacher of Ecclesiastes complained about the futility of a life that ends too soon and accomplishes too little. The preacher called life vanity of vanities. “All things are wearisome; more than one can express.”[1]
Why did anyone go to the trouble of hand-copying and preserving such ancient downers? Perhaps cathartic negativity appeals to the human mind because our species has endured wars and rumors of wars throughout history. We Boomers are a fairly cynical generation, the people who snickered as Queen chanted, “Another one bites the dust!” Yet we never felt the lyrics applied to us personally, never suspected the dust-biting was coming our way.
Oh, certainly, everybody knew we were mortal, that nothing was certain but death and taxes. Then the Reagan revolution told us that taxes were optional, and science began to find ways to prolong life…so who knows? We jogged. We watched our weight and took multi-vitamins. We gained weight and fought smoking addiction, not to mention lingering drug relapses here and there. AIDS terrified everyone for a decade or so, then medicine removed the inexorable death sentence from HIV-related illness, and we relaxed into fantasies about immortality once more, even while people continued to die.
But death is coming. It took some people of our generation who should still be here. Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Ricky Nelson, Karen Carpenter, John Lennon, John Denver, Jim Henson, Steve Erwin, my half-brother, Darryl John Carter, the list goes on. Statisticians estimate we’ll all be gone by the 2060s.
My own existential awareness of death looming distant occurred in one of the most youth-centered locales imaginable. I was teaching eighth grade at Spirit Creek Middle School in Hephzibah, Georgia, a few miles southwest of the azalea-splashed city of Augusta, known for the Masters’ golf tournament. Students had gone to Unified Arts and Physical Education, leaving our hallway empty and giving us teacher-time to prepare lessons or play catch-up on the ten million other tasks required in public schools. I remember thinking about the strange silence of that wing of the building. Suddenly, I flashed on the idea that, just as UA/PE happens every day with clockwork regularity, so will I follow my ancestors into the approaching shadows of death. It was an organic realization, not an abstract concept. It wasn’t about death as a subject to be considered; it was about death as an unavoidable event which I must one day experience. Not, “All people are mortal and will one day die,” but rather, “You are mortal; you are going to die. The big dirt nap approaches. Everything will go black, and that will be it. Lights out. Sayonara. Another one bites the dust. You. Die. Gone. Blackness.”
It scared the bejesus out of me. I rushed into the hallway, desperate to see someone alive, wishing my irascible middle schoolers would return from UA/PE, so that some of their immortality would rub off. Of course, it did. Activity spun me away from the brink, and the only panic attack of my life passed into legend. Telling you about it helps, too. Community is a healing experience.
These thoughts are not designed to bum you out, just to make it clear that we are all in this together. Life’s end approaches, and the only question facing us is how shall we live while approaching the still-distant but unavoidable dark wall of death? We may live beyond it. Most great religions insist we do. But we cannot avoid passing through its dark gate.
We’ll begin then with a short list of thoughts about living with confidence and joy until you enter the final darkness which leads to…more light? (More about that later. But relax. I told you this book doesn’t peddle a religious philosophy.) So, before we plunge into the ten paths to wisdom from East and West, here are ten starter ideas from a former middle school teacher.
Ten Starters for the Last Phase of (Mortal) Life
1. Get ready. Make eschatological preparations, then savor every day. You have promises to keep, even after you’re dead. Do the legal stuff, take care of your survivors as best you can, then forget it forever.
2. Get back to school. Go learn stuff, no matter how old you are. Nothing stimulates the brain like learning. Even if it’s online, or offered at your house of worship, or requires home tutoring.
3. Get romantic. I misspoke, above. Something does stimulate the brain like learning. Stay as sexually active as you and the pharmacist can achieve. Keep love alive.
4. Get complaint-free. Find solutions, not villains. Try to live complaint free. Practice positive affirmations. Don’t try to prove you’re right and they’re wrong. There are very few people on this planet who are able to stop in the middle of an argument and say, with sincerity, “You know, I get it now. I am wrong and you are right.” No matter how “right” you may be in some abstract sense, that ain’t gonna happen, dude. Don’t try to find out whose at fault. The blame game is like playing catch with a nuclear hand grenade. No matter where it lands, all players get zapped when it goes off. Give people enough emotional space to turn around, to cross over to your side. Appeal to their humanitarian tendencies. Most people will work with you if approached with a request for help. An old Army sergeant once said to me, “Ask, and ye shall receive. Demand, and you can go fuck yourself.”
5. Get political. Party organizations love people like us. We generally have more discretionary income, more free time to volunteer, and are better educated about the issues than the younger generations.
6. Get theological. Study the great thinkers of your religious tradition and compare them with writers from other faiths or denominations. Knowledge is connectional, and critical analysis of comparative ideas about God, life, and eternity is always appropriate. The objective here is to clarify and explore, not to prove who’s right. Earlier in life, our generation excelled at letting people “do their own thing,” but we lost some of that flexibility in the last decades of the twentieth century. Perhaps this is a good time to pick up Sartre and Heinlein and Jonathan Livingston Seagull once more.
7. Get spiritual. Spirituality is a belief system in action. Pray & meditate; return to church or find a new one. You’re looking at the doorway to eternity, so you might as well see what others have said about the journey. Do something from your religious tradition. (If you’ve never dabbled in spirituality, or haven’t recently, you might be surprised how cool some of them are today!) Try working my Eight Scenes in a Peaceful Life exercise, or do variation on the vision quest.
8. Get comfortable. Work as long as you want, but be prepared to phase down later. Do less as needed. You get to say when “later” occurs. You might never fully retire, and that would be okay, too, if you’re enjoying the work. Or you might hang it up at sixty-two. The choice is yours, based on personal preferences, economic considerations and health issues. Learn to relax without guilt. No matter whether you’re working full time, part-time, or fully retired, playing isn’t sinful, indolent, or unproductive—it’s a vital, brain-saving activity. Enjoy simpler pleasures. Go fish. And playing cards helps, too. Watch sporting events, live and on TV. See good movies, read good books. Cultivate a love for art, music, gardening—anything that takes you out of the humdrum to a higher place.
9. Get creative. Find meaningful creative activities. Write that book, or your memoirs. Get online, or expand your online life.
10. Get them together. It takes a community. Gather with your extended family for meals regularly. Celebrate everything possible, especially holidays. Also, learn to let others do for you. Especially your children.
“Give Peace a Chance…”
Our generation, which produced unsung military heroes and a grassroots anti-war movement, will leave behind a paradoxical legacy of service and rebellion, competence and corruption. Richard M. Nixon was far from an ideal leader, but his rush to infamy began with a rather thoughtful speech at the 1968 Republican Convention. As he accepted the nomination for president, Nixon reached across generations and told Americans to stop shouting and start listening to each other. Most of the television audience had no clue that Nixon would be listening via illegal wiretaps, but the point is well taken regardless of how poorly he followed his own advice.
As I cross the line into senior citizenry status, the last thing I want in the last third of my life is to go around nursing grudges or feeling superiority. I don’t have to agree with people or approve of the choice they make in order to treat everyone with dignity and compassion. Confident living begins with a commitment to center oneself in a life of compassion, because all people are worthy of respect. It is joyful way to live in the last phase of life.
So, if you are ready after sampling some preliminary ideas, let’s get busy learning how to relax, let go, and keep active in the golden years to come. The long autumn of life stretches ahead of us like a color-splashed forest path, extending as far as the mind’s eye can see. Take the hand of someone you love, and let’s all go there together.
______________________________________________________
[1] Ecclesiastes 1:2, 8. If you ever want to get seriously depressed, read the first chapter carefully. Had the author been a member of my generation, somebody would have taken him aside and said, “You’re bumming me out, man…”
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Giving Thanks for Atheists and Conservatives
[The excerpt following comes from my input in an e-mail exchange among friends at Unity Village.]
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Atheism is a challenge that comes from a direction in which many Unity people are not facing. We tend to stare down Christian conservatism, but to be attacked from the left is a shocker.
Most atheists I've known are anti-YHWH, the god of the Hebrew Bible, and have never given serious consideration to rejecting Thor, Siva, or Allah. Ironically, even in their rejection of the primitive doctrine of God found in some parts of the biblical canon, atheists (and to some extent agnostics) pay indirect homage to the anthropomorphic model by setting it up as the norm. This is like saying, "I want to deny the existence of God--lead me to the Bible, and I'll take Him on!"
Nor have most atheists rejected the concept of value. There are ideas, practices, and relationships to which humans--even atheistic ones--assign value. If there is no divine thread weaving everything together at some supersensible level, what gives anything intrinsic value? Are not the drunk in the gutter and Mother Theresa equally pointless? In what case is love better than apathy, if there is no connectedness above my narrow needs? The fact is, some principles seem to be universals--love, order, imagination, faith, etc....One could mention all the 12 powers, plus a few unmentioned by Mr. Fillmore, like peace and steadfastness. (Aside: Ned Kelly tells me the power of Strength has this quality. He may be right, but I read Strength more as having the resources to do something, whereas Steadfastness speaks of tenacity.)
In any event, the fact that universal values seem to be discernible has sometimes been called the moral argument for the existence of God. Immanuel Kant took this position, among others.
According to Dostoyevsky, "If there is no God, then everything is permissible." The fact that humans instinctively know that NOT everything is permissible, suggests that some transcendent Source of value exists. [1]
One might further argue, as a metaphysical aside, that the above is also a decent argument to see that transcendent Source as the true God. Isn't it possible to see God as the ongoing Process by which the Cosmos outpictures and from (and in) which we continue to emerge? Substance is God energy, said Mr. Fillmore. God energy arises from Principle, which outpictures as the creative force at work in and as the Cosmos. That is not far from a full-blown process theology.
Anyway, I think the real issue about atheism goes to the frustration that thinking/feeling people have experienced when confronted by conservative Christianity. Most atheists I have know are simply fed up with delusional theologies that try to make people think like we did before the scientific age. The Young Earth Theory; refusal of scientific evidence on everything from nuclear wastes to despoiling the environment to climate change; insistence that homosexuality is a choice rather than a biologically determined orientation; rejection of women's full equality; intellectual incompetence by refuting historical-critical studies of the Bible....the list goes on. No wonder, if the conservatives have defined their form of Christianity as THE CHRISTIAN FAITH, that thinking men and women are saying, "Forget it. I'm spiritual, not religious."
There have been days when I have heard radio preachers hammering away about what Jesus wants and how you can get saved by following Jesus (actually, their narrowly defined version of Jesus)--well, sometimes I have fantasized about chucking the Bible out the window and joining the Hindus. (After all, I like Vishnu and Ganesh and love curry with rice.)
But then, graciously, the historian arises within me, and I remember... Jesus had the same problems with the conservatives of his time. And Mohammed fled
The man of
“Jesus faced opposition. In every crowd, someone questioned his motives and sought to discredit him. If it happened to him, it will happen to you.” [2]
So, I take a deep breath and, from deep within my Pennsylvania Dutch/ German Reformed/ Unitarian-Universalist/ Eternally Unity soul, say to my conservative Christian brothers and sisters: "You do not have the authority to speak for Jesus Christ, and you certainly don't speak for me."
And to atheists and agnostics, "Keep stirring the kettle. It makes a better soup."
The atheists keep me honest; the fundamentalists keep me sharp. So, this holiday season, I give thanks to the Irreligious Left and Hyper-Religious Right. They seem to be part of that pesky thing called Divine Order in my life...
Friday, November 06, 2009
Unity and the Sacraments
[The following discussion continues comments made in e-mails at Unity Institute and opens the floor for comments and critical analysis.]
My definition of a sacrament is any event (or place) during which the presence of God becomes more readily discernible (Glimpses of Truth). This is a broadening of Martin Luther's basic idea that God's real presence can be discovered in the communion elements, even though there is no more "God" in the bread and cup than anyplace else. It's the conscious awareness of the omnipresent God which rendered some activity a "sacrament"--which by the way is a Latinized translation of the original Greek word mysterion, i.e., mystery, or sacred awareness beyond rational thought.
Since Bishop John Shelby Spong hails from a "high church" tradition (Anglicanism = Episcopalianism in the USA), the sacraments are much more important for him than they would be for, say, someone like Martin Luther King, Jr., whose background was the "low church" tradition of the American Baptist Church. Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Anglicans and others of the "high church" traditions consider the sacraments to be the central act of worship; without holy communion there is no worship in those churches. Unity represents a "low church" tradition in that we have never held the sacraments to be so central, except for one..."The Silence" might arguably be considered our central sacrament, as Ray Nelson remarked in class yesterday.
Anyway, we cannot simply dismiss our of hand the ideas about discerning the presence of God through prayer, ritual, and tradition, and since so many Unity people emerge from (or still participate in) "high church" traditions, it seems to be a good discussion to have. Manmade rituals are attempts to perceive the divine; the discussion might fruitfully consider what works, and what doesn't, for people in the 21st century.
Your thoughts?
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Book Launch!
GOOD QUESTIONS:
Answering Letters from the Edge of Doubt
by Rev Thomas Shepherd, D.Min.
I look too fat in the picture, but who cares? Hoo-ray! My new book is out...well, it's supposed to be out by Thursday, October 29. There's a link to a facebook page below that gives information about the book. On to the particulars...
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Book launch events will begin with an autography party and short readings, 4:30-6:00 pm, on Monday, November 2, at the Unity Village Bookstore, 1901 NW Blue Parkway, Unity Village, MO. Light refreshments will be served. .
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This is the first new non-fiction book for me in almost a decade. The work is based on 15 years of Q&A columns in Unity Magazine. Because it's a letter-by-letter format, Good Questions makes good bedtime reading. In fact, it's ideal for any time you have just a few minutes to read. (My wife predicts it will quickly become the #1 published work found in Unity & New Thought bathrooms across the English-speaking world. Some folks would say that's where it rightly belongs...but let's not go there.)
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Foreword by Rosemary Fillmore Rhea
I'm especially honored that Rosemary Fillmore Rhea, grandaughter to Unity co-founder Charles Fillmore, wrote an embarrassingly complimentary foreword to the book. Her grandfather was the first Unity columnist to write a Q&A column, followed by Dr. Marcus Bach and finally me. Rosemary knew all three of us, and she is gracious enough to speak kindly about my efforts in following the footsteps of those distinguished predecessors.
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Sunday, November 8 - Unity Village Chapel Services
I will be speaking at the Unity traditional service held at the Silent Unity Chapel, Sunday, November 8. My topic will be "Good Questions" (surprise!) and there will be a book signing immediately following the service.
Will I see you at the book launch events?
Here's the facebook link: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=189584842844
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