Category: Spiritual

Much like many of my fellow United Methodist, I have been struggling with the current condition we have found ourselves in. Many times, I have begun and abruptly ended several blog entries detailing my frustrations with the decision of the Church to affirm the Traditional Plan. I remain a supporter of the One Church Plan, specifically as it presented the opportunity to hold the church together as one organization. Knowing there were firmly rooted camps on both sides of the discussion, I have wrestled to find words that might bring understanding to both. It was this Sunday that these words finally arrived. In Father Richard Rohr’s recent Daily Meditation (Sunday, May 24, 2019) he referenced a quote from Canadian songwriter Leonard Cohen (1934–2016, probably best known for his song Hallelujah).

“There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”

Leonard Cohen

These words stuck with me, popping up frequently throughout the following days since first reading them. I have learned, this is my que. There is something tied to this group of words that I must pursue. There is something here for me to know, and to share. 

As I proceed I would ask you to keep in mind that the One Church plan was not acceptable to many on the Progressive side either. It was inherently wrong to them that this plan still provided for their exclusion, just as the Conservative side saw it the opposite. So, to some degree the One Church Plan was a loss for many on both sides. 

As I see it, the One Church Plan created a vessel that contained us all. A vessel that we would continue to call the United Methodist Church. Were we united? Of course not! So, it was most certainly a heavily cracked vessel, so cracked in fact that it was on the verge of collapse. Yet, the plan forced us with all our anger, frustration, and sadness to sit in the same room together and continue to look at each other. We would be compelled to hold the tension, compelled to learn more about each other. As we spent time together we would challenge each other’s foundations. We would walk away, count to ten, and then come back to the table. Eventually, the holding of this tension would produce something greater, something “other”. Arising from the midst of this cracked vessel we would come to see the presence of God in our opposite, and they in us. Now, seeing God in our foe we would return to the scriptures, diving deeper below the surface, to find the truths that would affirm this “other”. Here, we would discover the truths that would allow us to see that there are no two sides to love, just as there are no two sides to God. We will then have taken a step toward true transformation.

When we go our separate ways and create a vessel where we sit with only those that agree with us, we lose a crack, and the light that makes us think hard about our beliefs disappears. With that light, that challenge to our way of thinking gone, we lose a chance at transformation. My hope is that somehow, we decide to sit in our cracked vessel, allowing the light to come in, embracing it and wrestling with it together. Yes, the crack is big, and it would stand to reason that a big crack lets in big light!

I made this statement on the blog a few months ago;

Oddly enough it is the peace of my being that has given me my strength…. not the other way around.

I must admit I felt really good about that statement when I first penned it. In that moment I was experiencing peace, and it did indeed provide a feeling of strength. I would further clarify that my use of the word “strength” should not be associated with our traditional view of the word as defined by words like power or conquer. My use of the word would more readily be associated with courage, undaunted, assurance, the resolve to do what is good and right while having no thought to do otherwise. This is where I was in my “being” at the time, and it was wonderful.

But…. What happens when you lose that peace? What happens when that “peace of my being” is like the Polar Express come off the rails, sliding across the frozen lake at break neck speed?  Well, I do have that answer, I lose my strength. The formula holds true for me. When I have peace I have strength, when that peace exits the scene it takes its good friend strength with it. So here I sit this morning on the other side of the coin, my peace has been scattered about, and my strength is in question, and I don’t like it one bit! I found these two quotes from Martin Luther King Jr: 

“Only in the darkness can you see the stars”

“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”

I know that there are stars to be seen, and I know that I must keep moving forward. I firmly believe that in every challenge there is an opportunity. As a very analytical person I can see that the question at hand is how do I regain my strength? When we simply plug that question into the formula it provides the answer. You must regain your peace. Well just how do you propose I regain my peace? 

I must return to that which brought me the peace to begin with. In other words, go with the one who brought you to the dance. So, I must go with God, our Source and loving Creator who also sent these words to me a while back

“The peace of God, with that small still voice, calmly says to me… 
It will be all right”

Today I will sit with those words and see how bright the stars become. I will trust in those words this morning and let the details fall where they may.

I have only in my heart

The knowing of what is not whole, and that it should be so

My angst is that I cannot speak it with clarity

I must find peace in that knowing

-B. Elliott

These words came to me as I was attempting to describe my struggle with the views and theologies of much of western Christianity today, and in truth, the view of western Christianity for hundreds of years now. It troubles me that we have not embraced the all loving grace of our Creator for his whole creation, and that because of this error our world remains unhealed. I see how we have actually created a God that is really a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” and I find it sad. I would ask you to ponder it from time to time. We present God to ourselves, our children, and the unchurched initially as an “all loving Father” figure. Yet, we also hold to the belief that if you don’t follow all the rules, which are of course different for every denomination, he will invoke his wrath and pass a judgement of eternal torment upon you. Friends, God is either all loving or he is not. There is no in between, there is not two sides to God, he is one. So be honest with yourself about that, and sit with it for a while. It troubles me even more that our religious institutions have been at the core of this distortion of what “God” is all about. We have turned the simple love of God into something only the human ego could make so complex.

“Complexity is not of God. How could it be, when all He knows is One? He knows one creation, one reality, one truth, and but one Son. Nothing conflicts with oneness. How, then, could there be complexity in Him? What is there to decide? For it is conflict that makes choice [complex]. The truth is simple- it is one, without opposite. And how could strife enter in its simple presence and bring complexity where oneness is? The truth makes no decisions, for there is nothing to decide between. And only if there were could choosing be a necessary step in the advance toward oneness. What is everything leaves room for nothing else.”

-A Course in Miracles

So what then does this “oneness” mean? From the outset it means that there is not two (or three, or four, etc.), in the Kingdom. It would then follow that because there is not two, then there can be no winner or loser, no either/or, and ultimately there is no separation in the eyes of Being. These are attributes of creation and God we have added, the results of which are easy to see in our world today.

“What God calls one will be forever one, not separate. His kingdom is united-thus it was created, and thus will it ever be”

-A Course in Miracles

In the beginning was only Being; One without a second. Out of himself he brought forth the cosmos and entered into everything in it. There is nothing that does not come from him. Of everything he is the inmost Self.

—Chandogya Upanishad, Chapter 6, 2:2-3

You see, when we embrace the fact that all of creation is one, we realize that things like attack on another is an attack on our ourselves, and ultimately an attack on our gracious loving Creator. We realize that as one we are all winners, all given the same gift from God, which was the gift of himself. I don’t believe you can find true peace and healing until you embrace the “oneness” of God. Until that time you will always find yourself in battle and conflict, unsettled with creation. Our purpose here is really quite simple in its essence. We are here to know we are all one with God and to share that same truth to all of our brothers and sisters. What follows is the Kingdom.  

“In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you”

John 14:20

Matthew 7:13-14 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

Recently I have seen people using this passage to serve as a type of justification to exclude others, and also infer that our God does the same. I will quickly go on record saying that any interpretation of scripture which arrives at the conclusion that God excludes any part of his creation in the Kingdom is faulty. We have only but to look at creation itself, which God designed, to know this is true. If we simply take a look we can see that no part of creation can survive in an exclusive format. You might choose to isolate yourself from other humans but you will not survive without some type of interaction with some part of creation. Creation is not inherently exclusive, and it is but a reflection of the nature of the one who created it. So where is the passage sending us? Without much doubt it is certainly indicating that there is a choice which lies before all of us, and one path is good and the other not so good. It also indicates that the majority of us will take the “not so good” route. While there are most assuredly different aspects to the “narrow gate”, I would like to focus on this idea that the passage reflects an exclusive nature of God, and therefore requires the same of us. 

Picture dear friends, that person who personifies evil or sinfulness to you. Soak in this image, experience those feelings of disgust and distaste and then know this, they are your brother and sister in Christ. If that wasn’t hard enough you must also know that God holds them “sinless”(always and forever loved), and that for you to be at peace, for you to bring the kingdom to this moment of now, for you to be a purveyor of miracles, for you to heal and be healed you must see them the same. Look closely, there my friends, standing right before you is the eye of needle, that narrow gate. 

You see, the narrow way is not hard because we have to exclude others, it’s hard because we have to include everyone, and we may have to change much about ourselves to do that. It is certainly a sad state of affairs when our culture, our governments, and yes even our churches find it acceptable and easy to exclude others. But if we are truly accepting of the message Jesus taught we would find it no sacrifice and we would find ourselves on the other side of that narrow gate amazed at the all-encompassing vast new landscape we now stand upon. Now, as we turn around and look at that “narrow” gate we just passed through a smile comes over our face, as we see just how “broad” it always was.

We are called to “love our neighbors as ourselves”.  I find even more life in these words when we say “love your neighbors as you love yourself”. This wording now forces us to ask the question “How do we love ourselves?” We must ask this question and answer it honestly because it’s important to realize that you are only able to love others in so much as you do the same for yourself, and in the same fashion.  So how do you love yourself? Do you love yourself because you look good, because you have means, because you have a lot of friends. Maybe you love yourself because you give to the church, or spend time helping others. These are all good things, and you should feel good about them. But, I would like to dig under the surface for a moment (In case you didn’t know all the good stuff is just under the surface,thinly veiled). I think most of us love ourselves as we find ourselves in the “winner” column, or on the “right” side of things. Unfortunately, if you are thinking with the mindset of western culture, then you have de facto created a loser out of someone. To be a little more specific, you have to have something to compare yourself against to know you are a winner. So consciously, or sub consciously, you are able to identify yourself as lovable against the picture of someone who is not. Maybe not a specific person per se, but you have identified the characteristics of each group, and you know them when you see them.  I don’t believe this was the direction these words were meant to point. 

I think a better trajectory for these words says to us, we should love ourselves within the knowing that God loves us with no criteria attached. This should also be the ground that those of us who don’t love ourselves very much stand strongly on. If we can then accept this for ourselves we must also accept the same for others. This is most certainly not easy for many of us initially. However,  when you do arrive at this point, something wonderful shows up at your doorstep. You can now see a win/win scenario for creation instead of a win/lose scenario. Now, as you view the totality of Gods creation you are able to accept that in the end he will bring it all back unto him. Every bit of it, all the earthly “good” people, and the earthly “bad” people. They will all find their resting place within the source from which they came. This should indeed be part of the good news! God doesn’t lose! How could the power that created all this majesty ever lose one part of it. Our earthly choices can only pale in comparison to that which is the Will of our Creator. Our Source is made perfect by the wholeness of his creation. If but one soul is lost then our creator is no longer whole, this can’t happen. 

So how does this thinking help us love our neighbors better? It levels the playing field so to speak. We now find ourselves on equal footing with everyone. We now know that we are all in the same column in the eyes of God. All winners! Granted, some of us don’t perform very well during our time here, and it can make things difficult, even tragic at times. But if I am able to look at the “worst” of us and know that in the eyes of our Creator we are the same, then I can only see compassion and love for that person, judgement goes right out the window. We are now able to be a conduit for the Holy Spirit to move into peoples lives, so that they may find the peace of God.