Why Liberal Churches Are Stupid

The title is a bit unfair, of course; one shouldn’t diss such a broad category of churches with the same brush. What I should really say is, (A) “liberal churches who put politics before the gospel are stupid” or the equally true (B) “liberal churches who become social clubs and forget the gospel are stupid”.

Am I being too harsh? Perhaps; it feels like years of disappointment have crashed into me all at once, and I’ve finally snapped. It may well be that I’m being unfairly critical. But I am trying to follow the definition laid out in the gospels of “fool”: who is the fool? The one who forgets God.

Let’s take (A) first. “Come now,” you may say, “don’t you realize that the gospel has political implications? If you take the Bible seriously, then liberal or progressive values logically follow.”

True enough. But I didn’t say that having liberal political values was stupid; the stupidity I’m complaining about lies in thinking that such values exhaust the gospel. Jesus summed it up: it all boils down to love God with all your heart and power, with everything you have (heart, soul, strength, mind), and love your neighbor as you love yourself. Progressive politics fulfills the latter half of this commandment but ignores the first half. That’s what some liberal churches are missing, it seems to me.

“But that’s not true!” you may protest indignantly, “how can we love God, without loving his children? Don’t you remember Jesus saying that what we do to the least of these, we do to him? So by working for an end to war and for social and economic justice we are loving God.”

Fair enough, but once again the error here lies in thinking that this is all that loving God means. Yes, when we love God we as a natural consequence will see God in our fellow humans, and seek to love him by serving our brothers and sisters, and this will include living with and by progressive values. But notice: other people aren’t God. In order for us to see God in others, we first have to know who God is through direct relationship with him, a relationship that we can continue cultivating and going deeper with forever. The liberal mistake I’m condemning is the skipping of (or the de-emphasis of) this intermediate step: “let’s just get right to the politics, that’ll automatically take care of all that loving God means, including all that vague, messy, awkward and potentially embarassing ‘relationship with God’ stuff” is in essence what some liberal churches say. And I’m saying that is stupid.

One kind way to look at the issue is that this type of church culture tries to jump to a communal or collective way of being without dealing with the fundamental spiritual wounds the individuals of the community have. For us in the United States (and probably most of the western world), one of our central wounds is the illusion of our separateness. We’re told a story early on that we are separate, individual beings, and usually that we’re deeply flawed or unacceptable in some way. This is a lonely story, and as we get older we try to deal with this by finding another story that at least mitigates the pain of it.

Some adopt the conservative story of pursuit of individual excellence, others find a story of belonging to a group: whether it’s a family, a company, the Marines, and so on. Jesus has for us a different story, one that helps us heal our deepest wounds by showing us that we are deeply connected not only to each other but to the divine itself. In this larger story, we can know and feel the experience of God living through us, loving us and loving the world through us, while being aware of the deep interconnections between us all. Once we know – not just believe intellectually, but know, through deeply felt experience, that we are loved, valued, and that our lives have meaning – then we are finally really free to love our neighbors as ourselves, even when the neighbor is not behaving lovingly towards us.

And there’s the rub: it is easy to be progressive (even self-righteously progressive) in a safe environment where everyone thinks the same as you. But what about when people abuse you (and even beat or pepper spray you!)? Jesus said to love your enemy; can you do so when they’re beating you over the head, spraying burning chemicals into your eyes, or dragging you through the street by your hair? If you’re having trouble with that, what do you do then? Listen to a political speech? No, what you need, it seems to me, is divine healing and divine transformation that can only come about when we do the spiritual work of turning our attention to God in prayer in all its various forms. This mystical element is not some esoteric philosophy meant for the most rarefied situations, but is what is most vitally needed for the most concrete, practical situations that we face in our lives. IMHO, one of the centrally important roles of the church is to help tell and facilitate the experience of this larger story of the divine in human history and in our own lives. When it fails to do this, it’s a tragedy of heartbreaking proportions – and stupid.

Basically the same thing can be said with regard to (B). You may object that “look, things like potlucks, coffee hour, playing volleyball, etc. are just ways for people to get to know each other, have fellowship, and become comfortable with each other, what’s wrong with that?” Nothing, of course. What I object to is when this social club aspect becomes the central focus of the church, and when the spiritual work of enabling church members to worship and grow deeper in their walk with God is given secondary importance, given short shrift, or even ignored completely. When pancake breakfasts and volleyball come before prayer vigils, Taize services, prayer meetings, contemplative prayer practices, and so on, IMO the church has gone off the rails and is being stupid.

Is my church guilty of these things? I’ll leave that for others more experienced and wiser than I to judge. However, what I will say is that after years of trying to find a home at Trinity, it’s becoming clear to me that my needs to worship and know God at a deeper level and do the spiritual work that I’m called to do are not going to be met there. Only a very small proportion of the church appears interested in prayer or in knowing God more deeply; I hope to continue to meet with those people on occasion, but as for the rest of the church I think trying to get them interested in prayer is just beating a dead horse at this point. My goal is to find a church where people want to pray, and where I can learn from the community about prayer and how to love God more.

Lest this message be misunderstood, I don’t mean to cast blame or bring shame to any person, committee or group; I love dearly everyone I’ve met at my church. “Doesn’t sound like it, you’re calling the whole church stupid,” you may respond. I don’t mean to be. First I freely admit that I’m as or more stupid than anyone else; secondly, my purpose in using this harsh language is not to call any person stupid, but to condemn *a certain church culture* (or philosophy) and its concomitant practices in a provocative way so that my thoughts and feelings on the subject are clear and might possibly provoke some thought or discussion; and finally, it’s not for me to judge what Trinity’s culture really is, that’s for others who know it better than I. All I can honestly and accurately say is that I don’t feel that Trinity is or will support me or others in going deeper spiritually, and so I think I need to look elsewhere.

On the Natural and the Supernatural, Part III

OK, so I have the following challenge for my dear brothers and sisters who have doubts about miracles. It seems to me that you’re doubting one of two possible things: (1) God’s willingness to perform miracles, or (2) God’s ability to do miracles.

I’ll concentrate on (2): for some reason, you doubt God’s power to perform miracles. Let’s take the virgin birth, for example. Some people doubt the virgin birth because they don’t see how such a thing could be possible – implying also that they don’t believe God has the ability to cause a woman to become pregnant without the contribution of a human male’s sperm.

Now as miracles go, a virgin birth isn’t actually that implausible from a scientific perspective. Why? Because virgin births do happen in nature: it’s called parthenogenesis. In amphibians, lizards, fish, and sharks for instance, a female can give birth without ever being impregnated by a male; the fetus develops from an unfertilized egg alone. Obviously the child is always female in such cases.

To be fully accurate then, the idea of the virgin birth of Jesus is scientifically implausible for two reasons: (1) while observed in other species, whether parthenogenesis has ever been observed in humans is controversial, and (2) it is a case where the child is male, not female.

So a human virgin birth of this type, while undoubtedly unusual, isn’t as inexplicable as something like parting the Red Sea or Lazarus rising from the dead, or the Resurrection of Jesus. You can imagine a mutation or something like a genetic engineering experiment causing the virgin birth of a male child today. So if you doubt the virgin birth of Jesus for “scientific” reasons, what you’re saying is that you doubt God’s power to do what a genetic mutation can.

That’s a strange position to take, isn’t it? Why do you think that? What’s your evidence? And if God lacks the power to cause a virgin birth, how can God possibly have the power to raise Jesus from the dead? Or cure cancer? Or do anything else in the world, for that matter? If one believes in such a powerless God, at that point is one still even a Christian? Was Jesus God divine, or just a nice guy and a charismatic political leader, like MLK, jr.?

That’s why I think the question of miracles is important. Indeed, what is at stake in this debate is the very nature of who God is, as well as our own ability to act as God’s children in the world.

As Christians we’re on (or at least supposed to be on) a walk of getting to know and love God more and more. Is such a purpose served by having limiting beliefs about who God is and what God can do? Imagine if you told someone you’re on a date with, “I want to get to know you better, but I know for a fact that you can’t dance or cook, I don’t care what stories other people tell about you.” That might put a bit of a damper on the relationship, don’t you think? Even if your date forgives your rudeness, you’ll lose the opportunity to experience those things with your date if you dismiss them as possibilities from the outset. Wouldn’t a better attitude be to approach the relationship with a spirit of open-mindedness, humility, and perhaps a joyful expectation of the surprises in store for you as you get to know the other person better?

I’d like to suggest the same thing is true with God, who is a person too. We will always be able to learn something knew and wonderful about God, forever, so why get in our own way with a priori commitments to limiting beliefs about God’s power? To state firmly and have strong faith that God cannot cause a virgin birth (or cause an earthquake, or whatever) is not a humble position to take, and should be viewed with suspicion for that reason alone.

A faith against miracles also causes problems for us in other ways. Witness:

“He couldn’t perform a miracle there except to lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. He was utterly amazed at their unbelief.” – Mark 6:5-6

“He did not perform many miracles there because of their unbelief.” – Matthew 13:58

These verses clearly show that a lack of belief on our part affects what God does, probably because God rarely if ever forces anything on us. You can’t force love, after all. So if we insist that we can only be healed by scientifically verified methods, or that a miraculous abundance of food can’t suddenly be produced, (or whatever our chosen limit of belief is) then most likely God will not force these things on us.

But the irony is that we’re having faith not in God and his mercy and power, but in physical limits that make it harder for us in every way. If we believe that God can somehow provide enough food for everyone so that there’ll be no starvation this year, then we can pray for that and try to do our part to help make that happen; if we believe that God can heal the hearts of those on Wall Street we can pray for that, and act compassionately even when we’re oppressed; if we believe that by practicing love in our daily lives God will bless and increase that love mystically so that the whole world is benefited, then we can pray and live in accordance with that belief. But if we don’t believe that God has the power to do these things then we’re not going to pray and live as if he does, obviously – and so our power to affect the world for Christ is compromised.

And God is, I am sure, amazed at our unbelief.

So what are your thoughts? Have I gone wrong somewhere? Am I being too harsh? Please leave a comment and let me know what you think!

On the Natural and the Supernatural, Part 2

So, due to the overwhelming response to my last post, I decided to focus only on the objection I mentioned in it First, the claim is that belief in the supernatural can be used to exploit people. Well, no doubt unscrupulous people exist who are apt to use all sorts of beliefs in exploitative ways – but that doesn’t mean the belief in question is false. For example, someone can use the belief “people ought to help their community (or country, family, workplace, etc.)” to lay a guilt trip on or otherwise take advantage of the vulnerable. Appeals for people to serve in the military to fight in unjust wars can happen like that. But the fact that some can misuse an appeal to the value of community doesn’t mean that being part of a community has no value. So the objection is misguided: really, it is an objection to misusing people via their belief in the supernatural, not an objection to the existence of the supernatural itself.

Secondly, the objection argued that if people believe in the supernatural that they’ll be too passive, and just sit around hoping and praying for a miraculous solution to their problems rather than doing something really useful to change their situation. Well, the first thing to note is that this argument is circular: it assumes that prayer and faith can’t work and are not useful. And again, it doesn’t give us any reasons for doubting the existence of the supernatural, only for doubting the value of not taking physical action to help oneself and others.

So, what reason do people have for thinking that there is no supernatural world and that supernatural events like miracles cannot occur? My guess is most people will say something like, “well, that stuff just isn’t scientific.” Is that right? Why do you doubt the supernatural (if you do)? I’d like to address these doubts in my next post, so please go ahead and share your comments!

On the Natural and the Supernatural, Part 1

So in our contemplative prayer group the other day the subject of angels and demons came up during our discussion. The context was that of trying to understand the nature of logismoi (see my entry on logismoi on my page Reflections on Christian Mysticism). According to the Orthodox, negative logismoi are thoughts of particularly strong power and intensity that come from an evil, spiritual source – demons. This to me was a freeing concept: because I am not responsible for these thoughts – they are coming from a source external to me – I do not need to feel guilty in any way for having them; I can just notice them and let them go without interacting with them any further. I don’t need to speculate or psychoanalyze endlessly why I have the thought or what I need to do about it, I can just let it go.

However some of my friends had a hard time with this, specifically with the idea of demons. How could there be malevolent spiritual entities that desire us harm, and have the power to insert thoughts into our minds? Perhaps this is just a primitive notion, and the actual source of logismoi is some unacknowledged part of our unconscious. Or, perhaps we can think of logismoi as originating from metaphorical “demons”, like advertising in the media or government propaganda.

For the context of understanding logismoi only, such concepts might be sufficient. But I’m interested in discussing the larger issue of the existence of the supernatural itself. It appears to be a major stumbling block for many Christians these days, and I can’t help wondering why. I can understand why an atheist or an agnostic might have problems with the supernatural, but a Christian has as central to their thinking a major supernatural event, namely the resurrection of Jesus; furthermore, they look forward to a time when they too will be resurrected, not just metaphorically but physically. Life after death sure sounds supernatural to me! So given that Christians are already committed to these supernatural concepts, why stop there? Why doubt things like the occurrence of miracles, or the existence of angels or demons?

One objection I’ve heard is that a belief in the supernatural can be used to exploit people. If a man with crippling back pain that prevents him from working believes that he can be miraculously healed at a revival meeting, and in fact feels better for awhile after attending – but then relapses a few days later, has he really been helped? Shouldn’t he have gone to an appropriate health care practitioner to have his condition treated effectively instead? Perhaps the preacher just used him as a kind of propaganda tool, when what a real Christian should have done was collect funds to get him the necessary health care to resolve his problem. Doesn’t believing in miracles prevent people from doing the hard work needed to build a better and just society for themselves and others?

I plan to respond to this objection, and others, in my next post. Until then, what problems do you have with the supernatural? Do you doubt that miracles happen? How about that angels exist, or demons? If so, why? I’d love to know!

On Bin Laden and Self-Reflection

Although there is some politics in this post, my main concern is the spiritual implication of recent events.  For some good writing on the political implications, see Glenn Greenwald http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/05/06-8, and Ray McGovern http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/05/05-7, both of whom make a lot of sense.

But suppose everything the government has recently told us about the raid in Pakistan is true (whatever the latest version of events is, anyway, and given that there’s no corroborating evidence for any of it), and furthermore suppose that everything they accused Bin Laden of is also true (where’s the evidence he had any direct role in 9/11?). Even granting all that, is the kind of cheering and celebration we’ve seen recently justified?

I grew up in New York City and lost a brother-in-law to the 9/11 attacks, but my reaction on hearing Obama’s announcement of Bin Laden’s death was not adulation.  It was sadness, grief at the memory of all those who died in New York that day, and all those who have died by force of arms since in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere.  But perhaps that’s just me and my grim personality.  Surely I can’t begrudge those who are happy that Bin Laden is no longer around from expressing their joy?  Am I just being a curmudgeon?

It’s not that I want to condemn those who were cheering – I’m a fairly hard-hearted fellow myself, and I don’t think my own conduct is always especially laudable - but I want to question whether the actions of our government and the responses to it are compatible with the Way of Jesus.  What would Jesus say?  Well, Jesus preached quite strongly against hypocrites.  Why is that relevant?  Take the following example: suppose a team of Iraqi commandoes entered the US, shot George Bush in the head, and then dumped his body in the sea – after which many Iraqi citizens cheered, shouting “Iraq! Iraq!”  Would that be justifiable?  How would that look and feel to you, even if (like me) you’re not a fan of George Bush?

The truly sad thing is that you could replace Iraq in this example with say, Afghanistan… or Nicaragua… or El Salvador, or Colombia, or Guatemala, or Chile, or Indonesia, or Panama, or the Dominican Republic, or the Sudan, or many other countries where the United States has either directly or indirectly conducted terrorist operations that led to the death or displacement of hundreds of thousands to millions of civilians.  So, before engaging in a narcissistic orgy of self-adulation by chanting “USA! USA!”, we might want to look at our own behavior first.  An easy way to reduce terrorism in the world is for the U. S. to stop participating in it, to stop using torture in places like Guantanamo Bay or Bagram Air Force base, and to stop killing people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Libya.  As Jesus said, “First, take out the plank in your own eye; then you can assist your friend with the speck in his.”

The next spiritual point I haven’t even seen mentioned, anywhere.  Those wanting to follow the Way of Jesus often forget about what he said regarding how we should treat our enemies.  We ought not to hate them, but pray for them, even love them.  It is a grief to me that so many seem to have completely forgotten that we are called to this greater love.  It’s not something that comes easily or without pain and struggle, but at the very least it requires us to remember love, to have love as a goal.  Is this goal compatible with cheering at the death of another, even an enemy?

Right now we appear very far not only from the love that Jesus calls us to, but even from normal standards of national and international justice.  After World War 2, Nazi officers who were responsible for far worse crimes than Bin Laden is alleged to have participated in were not simply lined up and shot, they were put on trial first.  Today, my fellow citizens seem to be so carried away with fear - and an unexamined assumption of exceptionalism -  that even suggesting we abide by normal standards of justice seems crazy to them.  I fear that our country has lost its soul.

Universalism the Christian Way

There’s a lot of controversy going on currently about Rob Bell’s new book and whether it means he’s a universalist. This author has done a good job addressing the issue in this article on the Hope Beyond Hell site. I’d love to know your thoughts on the issue!

The Libyan Strikes: A Just War?

Sorry folks, looks like I’ve got to get a bit political on this one. Many people are trying to use Just War theory to justify the US air strikes on targets in Libya, and I feel I need to point out why that doesn’t fly. Pun intended

Why the US Military intervention in Libya is Wrong and Unjust

First, it is illegal under US law. As Rep. Kucinich points out, Obama himself said in 2007 that “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.” This is clearly indicated by Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. Obama, who taught Constitutional law, must know this as his own words show, and yet he went ahead and ordered military strikes without even trying to get congressional approval. Seen in the context of Obama’s other actions, such as continuing military tribunals with Guantanamo detainees, arguing that he has the power to kill anyone (including any American citizen) anywhere at any time, continuing to use signing statements to ignore the intent of congress, and so on, it looks like another attempt by Obama to exercise imperial or near-dictatorial power. Shouldn’t good citizens of the US oppose these strikes, as a simple matter of preserving the Constitution?

Secondly, is it right for any force, American or not, to attack Libya at this time? Well, to show that these air strikes are a just action you must demonstrate that (A) the purpose or goal of the strikes is just (such as self-defense or to protect the lives of innocents), and (B) that the strikes are likely to achieve this goal, and (C) that no less violent or less destructive course of action can achieve this goal.

Let’s take (C) first. A brief look at the actual facts clearly shows that alternative, less violent actions were (and are) available. First, the Libyan government had declared a ceasefire in response to the UN resolution authorizing the no-fly zone (UNSC Resolution 1973), so there was no urgent need to use military strikes. Secondly, a less violent tactic that comes to mind is to use UN peacekeeping troops. The insertion of such troops would not immediately involve any killing, and would also help to protect civilians from their greatest threat, which is not Gaddafi’s air power but the ground forces loyal to him. Third, as former representative Alan Grayson notes, an alternative, less violent strategy is to use “Economic sanctions, including extending the de facto oil embargo and asset freeze that already are in effect… Whatever the result in the streets, as soon as Gaddafi runs out of money, he’s gone.” Fourth, the US used depleted uranium munitions in their air strikes. When these DU rounds explode they disperse uranium, which poisons the ground and all those near the area, including the civilians who the strikes were supposed to protect. Does anyone really think that no less destructive strategy than using DU rounds in air strikes existed?

Those reasons are already sufficient to show that the US air strikes are unjust, as they fail criterion (C). However, the problems are even more significant, as the strikes fail criteria (B) and (A) also.

Let’s take (B) next. Are the air strikes likely to achieve the stated goal of protecting Libyan civilians? Alan Grayson presents good reason to think the answer is “no”: “The Libyan Air Force hasn’t received a major delivery of new aircraft in 22 years. Roughly three-quarters of its ‘air’craft can’t fly. It is true that the Libyan Air Force, such as it is, has been deployed. But the serious threat to civilians in Libya is not from the Libyan Air Force. It’s from the government security forces on the ground. A no-fly zone does not take away their guns, or their artillery.” Grayson points out that the alternative – and less destructive – option of targeted sanctions differs: “And it’s likely that an oil embargo/asset freeze will work. Oil is 95% of Libya’s exports, and 25% of GNP. Libya has about four years of oil revenue in the bank, but with an asset freeze and economic sanctions, that becomes meaningless.” Faced with the prospect of becoming penniless, Gaddafi or at least the forces loyal to him would likely quickly come to heel. Similarly, the option of using peacekeeping troops would also be more likely to be effective in protecting civilians, as noted above.

Finally, (A): surely no one could argue that the stated goal of protecting civilians from a merciless slaughter is a just one. Well, certainly the *stated* goal is a just one, but based on our knowledge of US history, is it likely that the stated goal is the *actual* goal of the US national security state?

As an analogy, suppose someone you think is your friend says they need a gun to defend themselves and you from a gang of thugs at the other end of town who are very well armed and planning to kill you both. You give him a gun. He goes and mows them down, including a lot of the surrounding neighborhood and their innocent family members, and takes over their homes and businesses. You then find out the thugs never had any weapons to speak of in the first place. This fellow then says, “oops, guess I was wrong, but look at that guy over there – the one with the lucrative business? He’s beating his wife and kids, and will surely come after us next. I need another gun – with some more ammo – to deal with him.” After this sort of thing happens again and again, you may start to suspect that your “friend” may not be entirely honest about what his real goals are, and that in actuality he may be nothing more than a mafia-type thug.

An unbiased view of the history of US military interventions (and covert operations) reveals something analogous. The publicly stated aims of US foreign policy rarely match their actual goals. The actual goals tend to be to repress democracy, labor rights, and environmental protections so as to provide the most profitable platform for US-based multinational corporations to extract available resources.

This pattern is completely consistent with what is happening in Libya. Gaddafi stated publicly last Tuesday that all Libyan oil contracts would now go to the Russians, Chinese, etc. instead of American firms, and a few days later the UN no-fly resolution was passed with US support. Libya is one of the most oil-rich African nations, and the US will not want to give up any control over this resource.

The alternative is to think that the US national security state – with US troops currently fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Colombia, while also supplying weapons and other material support for brutal dictators around the world, for years, including supporting genocidal campaigns against indigenous people (see for example the history of Guatemala, El Salvador, etc.) – has suddenly decided to act on purely humanitarian impulses. Possible? Maybe – but likely? Surely not.

Further, the fact that no attention is given to the human rights atrocities happening in Bahrain and Yemen – with US support – gives the lie to the stated humanitarian purposes in Libya.

So I conclude that the US military strikes in support of a US no-fly zone in Libya fail to meet criteria (A) – (C) of a just war, and are therefore unjust.

Shocked or incredulous about my statements about US foreign policy? You can check the facts out for yourself; I recommend checking out William Blum’s _Killing Hope_ and _Rogue State_, Michael Parenti’s _To Kill a Nation_, Chalmers Johnson’s _Nemesis_, and most of Noam Chomsky’s political books (_A New Generation Draws the Line: Kosovo, East Timor, and the Standards of the West_ is a nice short clearly written one) for more of the facts of what the US has actually done around the world, and why.

Loving All Things

Some more wisdom from the Orthodox mystical tradition about learning to love all things can be found in this article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-cairns/the-responsibility-of-eac_b_684745.html. Very cool.

I also want to mention that including all beings in the scope of the Jesus Prayer (I discussed this practice in the last post) is changing the associations I make with the word “me”. When I say “me” I automatically think of more than myself. I think this is helping me become less self-centered, and more content to be simply a servant.

We’re All in the “Me”: A Note on the Jesus Prayer

I’ve been increasingly aware recently about the extent of my self-centeredness in prayer (well, in life in general really), and whether I should change some of my prayers in light of this consciousness. In particular, in using the Jesus Prayer, “O my Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, Have Mercy on Me” I’ve been considering changing the ‘Me’ to ‘Us’. I was a little reluctant to do this: truly amazing Orthodox monks have used this prayer for centuries, and surely they loved their fellow man at least as much as I did, so who was I to think I knew better? But on the other hand, why should I pray only for myself when I could be praying for all of us?

Then I came across this passage from Wounded by Love, by Elder Porphyrios of the Holy Mountain:

“Pray for others more than for yourself,” says the Elder. “Say, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me,’ and you will always have others in your mind. We are all children of the same Father; we are all one. And so, when we pray for others, we say ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me,’ and not, ‘have mercy on them.’ In this way we make them one with ourselves.”

I found the passage in the article “The Prayer of the Heart” by Scott Cairns on the Huffington Post website, where the author’s journey closely matched my own.

I was truly reassured to see such mystical wisdom expressed by Elder Porphyrios (it also coincides with my interest in Chinese medicine, where as humans we are considered microcosms of the macrocosm). Mystically, we are all one body, a deeply interconnected body that includes us humans, the earth, our plant and animal siblings, and probably all of creation. So when I say the Jesus Prayer, I can say it with an awareness that the ‘me’ refers to this body, the body that includes all of us and more – not the little me who is so often unaware of his deep connection to his fellow creatures and the world around him.

Sounds good to me!

A Mystical Interpretation of the Seven Seals

I just added a page where I placed the last sermon I gave at Trinity United Methodist. Since it’s a mystical interpretation, it aims to bring the meaning of the scripture directly into your everyday life, rather than only some later end times. I welcome your comments!