When I was growing up I must have memorized thousands of songs. I don’t have a memory of ever saying to myself, “I’m going to memorize every song that comes on the radio.”  It seemed to be an unconscious passion. I remember walking with Gary Last to hockey practice in the middle of a Winnipeg winter, with our duffle bags full of equipment slung over our shoulders, and we’d be working on songs. It could be any kind of music. I had an old turntable beside my bed that stacked LPs one on top of the other. I went to sleep listening to five or six albums. My tastes were eclectic to say the least. I memorized an entire Mills Brothers album: Paper Doll, Once More Round the Block, And All the World Will Be Mine. But I could also sing, word for word, most of the songs on Elton John’s Yellow Brick Road album. Man, I still love that album.

When I started playing guitar, I had this uncanny ability again to memorize quickly. I can go to a party and literally play all night, once I get started. Mercifully, I learned some time ago now, that hearing me play all night is not an unqualified pleasure for a great many people! My unconscious uses this storehouse of songs to alert myself (and everybody else) to what I’m actually feeling. Out pops a song, and it’s a fairly trustworthy reflection of my interior state. Or sometimes it’s just the feeling that a melody provokes.

I can get pretty heavy in these posts. Thought you folks would like to know that I actually have a life, so here are a few selections of music that occupy a place in my heart.

1. My current favourite video and it’s not because it features my beautiful and talented daughter, Sarah Carter. This is SanguinDrake, My Reflection. I’m just a little bit proud. David and Sarah’s new album is launched!

2. Current favorite workout song: Adele is doing it for me these days. I hear the opening line, “there’s a fire starting in my heart”, and I’m set for all 12 reps. The thumping bass drum gives me that all important shot of adrenalin on my final set of curls.

3.  Favorite Big Story song, for those days when my soul needs a good stretch; My Soul by Peter Mayer.

4. Favorite song when I feel like indulging sadness. I’m pretty sure that one day it’s going to break my heart wide open once and for all. A guy can hope. Just never get tired of it. Sarah Mclachlin’s cover of Joni Mitchell’s River.

5. For comic relief, my favorite song to dance to when I was 21 (in Bruce Wasylik’s basement because he had the best Marantz amp and these wicked wall speakers). We’d drink rum and coke, and get down. Wild Cherry, Play That Funky Music. Also happened to have the sexiest album cover ever. My hair was a little bit like the drummer’s.

6. Last, but not least, my favorite song-that-I’d-like-to-listen-to-with-Richard Dawkins by my hero, and Canadian treasure, Bruce Cockburn going solo on Mystery. The guitar is so exquisitely simple and elegant (but not easy). His songwriting is always profound.

What is your instinctive response to this image of the church? If you lived in Vancouver, chances are that it wouldn’t be positive. Which makes what happened this past Sunday quite remarkable. Eight wonderful souls decided to join our congregation. Five were by reaffirmation of baptismal vows, three were by adult baptism, and one was by transfer of faith. I mention this because there was a time, not so long ago, when virtually all new members would be by transfer. Adult baptisms would come along once in a blue moon.  I sense a shift in the land, a sign, and a welcome one, signifying that the culture of Christendom has been defeated by modernist secularism. It’s a relief to know that those who are joining the church are doing so consciously and after very careful consideration.

When I say “joined the church”, I need to be a bit careful. Of the eight, only two were doing so because of any kind of denominational loyalty or affiliation. This, too, is new. In fact, most who attend membership classes these days are surprised to hear that they are joining the larger church. They are not interested in “The United Church of Canada.”  Period. They are joining this congregation. I suspect that this is a trend that is already well established. Denominationalism is over. These people want to know what this particular group of people is up to and if they like it, they’ll jump in. Central funds like The Mission and Service Fund of the United Church of Canada are going to be in serious trouble if they expect these new people to pony up. As these central funds dwindle, we can expect ever more desperate efforts from national bodies to promote them. But the writing is on the wall, for good or ill.

Which is to say, institutional loyalty is pretty much gone on the west coast of Canada. There’s no point fighting it. “Church” and “Christian” are dirty words in Vancouver. I should qualify. For anybody functioning from a modernist and post-modernist worldview, they are dirty words. It’s just too difficult to get beyond associations with fundamentalism, biblical literalism, and how in an era of colonialism, the church too often carried out the imperial agenda. I’m serious about starting a group in the fall called
“Hurt By Church?” Every time I run a membership class, the conversation quickly turns to negative experiences of church. Two of the three women who were baptized took literally years to make their decision to join. The interesting thing is that increasingly people are showing up at Canadian Memorial who have transcended the post-modernist suspicion of “religion” and “the Bible”, and are able to articulate their need to go deep within a religious tradition. This is a small, but growing, demographic. In fact, I suspect that this will increasingly be the niche we serve.

An increasingly common question that comes up in these classes is “If I join the church, does it mean that I necessarily have to call myself a Christian?” This label sticks in the craw. We have atheists, Buddhists, secular humanists, actively participating in our congregation, (and contributing financially) and who want to be voting members, but currently there is no way to attain this status without a confession of faith. How are we going to deal with this as a church?

All eight new members were women. This is another trend. I don’t know what’s happening to men in our culture. It’s true that we have deeply spiritual and committed men, but increasingly church is a culture of women. Men function, in fact, to draw our best, single, women away from the church. Occasionally it works the other way, where they will drag their men to church, but the norm is that our brightest and best quietly disappear. These days, my first assumption when this happens is that they’ve found a man—a man who is not the least bit interested in “church”.

Finally, I learned that these people are interested in theology. Of course, theology goes hand in hand with community, spiritual practice, compassionate service, etc. But each of these people are particularly interested in a coherent and relevant theology that helps them to make sense of their lives and the world. It is rather unique for a congregation to have theology and practice as their core mission. Canadian Memorial’s core purpose is to “teach and practice evolutionary Christian spirituality”. While this is just one theology among many, it does have the advantage of regarding science as public, evidence-based, revelation. I think that we’ve soft-pedaled theology for the last few decades, but that there is a real appetite for it among those who are showing up, not because it’s the thing to do, but rather in spite of the fact that it’s most decidedly not the thing to do.

I’m looking forward this fall to launching the curriculum for our Learning Institute for Evolutionary Christianity (tentative name). I’ll be letting you know more about this in future blogs.

Dr. Daniel Siegel assures us that there is no such animal as immaculate perception. But there are evidenced-based practices that can move us in the right direction. While away in Tofino, B.C. for a few days of beach walking, Ann and I have been working our way through his book, The Mindful Therapist. Dr. Siegel is an MD, (pediatrician and psychiatrist), who has spent a lot of time doing brain research. Here’s a two minute video where he offers a simple model of how the brain works.

One of the things I respect about him is that he’s not afraid, as a scientist, to distinguish between the mind and the brain. (He points out that in his research, 85% of teachers and clinicians of various therapeutic modalities don’t even bother to define “mind”—in fact, the majority simply reduce the mind to the brain.

For the record, here is his definition: “The mind is an embodied and relational process that regulates the flow of energy and information…an important function of the mind is the regulatory process, with two essential aspects: monitoring and modifying”. A critical implication of this definition that when it comes to the mind and the brain, we’re dealing with two-way traffic. It’s an important corrective to the position of Cordelia Fine in her entertaining book, A Mind of Its Own, which I wrote about in an earlier post. Siegel’s research highlights the importance of doing all that we can to strengthen the mind so that it can be in the driver’s seat, and put the marvelous instrument that is our brain to work for us.

The mind monitors the massive flow of energy and information that is the sea we swim in. This field of energy/information shows up in/as and through relationships (with people and with nature) and our own bodies. The includes our five senses, and also what he calls the sixth sense—what he calls “interoception”—our gut feelings (or intuition) about something. Importantly, we are able to choose how we interpret these signals and what we want our brains to do with them. This constitutes the modifying aspect of his definition. If we don’t consciously strengthen our minds, however, it’s more likely that our brains will in fact swing us around by the tail.

He presents a worldview that is comprised of three fundamental realms: the field of infinite possibility; the plane of probability; and the peak of activation. If we are not dipping into the field of infinite possibility (which he calls “presence” or mindfulness), we are limited by probability templates that we formed in the past, so that what eventually manifests in thought, feeling, attitude, or behavior (peak of activation) will be old beans warmed up at best.

(For all of you theologians, I found myself thinking about these three realms in Trinitarian language: the Father/Mother as the field of infinite possibility; the Spirit as the plane of probability; and the Son/Christ as the peak of activation or incarnation.) Siegel is not predisposed to such metaphysical meanderings, but I would say that he does have deeply spiritual instincts.

The practices involve learning to rest regularly in the field of infinite possibility. We do this by practicing the skill and competency of mindfulness (or “Mindsight”). I’ll write more about this in a future blog, but for now I’ll just say how grateful I am to find somebody who grounds his research and take on the world in hard science using the language of correlation between brain and mind, rather than reducing mind to the brain. Even if we’ll never achieve immaculate perception, his research and rigorous practice techniques, can help at least to apply some vinegar and water to the windows through which we see our worlds.

Here Siegel talks about the relationship between “triangle of well-being: the mind, brain, and relationships.

I was once asked to write a piece describing evolutionary theology in six hundred words or less. I know, it’s ridiculous. But I gave it a shot anyway. Actually, I’ve expanded it a bit because it’s my blog.

In the song Lord of the Starfields Bruce Cockburn’s praises his God: “O Love that fires the sun, keep me burning”.

After 13.7 billion years, the love that fired the universe into being is still firing through an evolutionary process infused by the radiance of the divine. It’s all an incarnation of love, everything, you, me, a tadpole, the crow building her nest in my magnolia this morning. It’s love in the process of realization. Christians have tended to associated Jesus with “the” incarnation, but I’ve come to think of the story of his life, death, and resurrection most radiant occasion of a universal incarnational dynamic in the human realm. He is the divine promise of where all creation is headed. In Teilhard de Chardin’s words, the universe is in the process of being christified, just like Jesus.

There was a time when I imagined myself over here looking out upon the universe outside of me. This objective relationship to the cosmos is emphasized by science. A beautiful thing. But the universe also enjoys an interior dimension, a subjectivity. That is you, dear reader. And me. And it is the “we” that arises in the sweet space between us, if we decide to fall in love with each other. You are, we are, iterations of this originating fire—the fire of love. Your big self is as big as this universe, inside and out, and you are eternally expanding. We are the presence of the universe doing the looking.

God is the womb of creativity, intelligence, and love that we emerge out of along with everything. This emergence is happening every moment. To know this is to awaken to our deep creativity, intelligence, and love, being made as we are in the image of God. Check out this video, if you want to see how these three qualities manifest in artistic expression. The artist illustrates beautifully this stepping into this stream of creativity. A more profound three minute theology I have not found.

Divine creativity is expressed primarily in, through, and as the evolutionary history of the universe, (able now to consciously enjoy the creative process in, through, and as us). The evolving cosmos, including life on our planet—both bodies and minds—is the incarnation of God’s deep creative desire for love to find its fullest expression. The story of evolution, then, is itself a sacred text, revealing God’s heart and intention. This implies a non-coercive bias in the evolutionary trajectory of the cosmos – toward an increase in love.

My core spiritual practice as a Christian is to remember this when I find myself contracting into a pathetically small self that generates all kinds of stories that have nothing to do with love. I remember, in prayer, worship, on walks with my wife and friends, writing sermons, etc. And lately I find that placing my hand over my heart helps my memory, which looks kind of strange when standing in a check-out line with a cart full of groceries. I remember that I am an expression of the love that fired the sun, and my silent prayer is to keep burning in me until I take my last breath.

To be a disciple of Christ is to undergo a fundamental identity shift, by awakening to the simple and obvious truth that we are occasions of the divine creativity and love coursing through the cosmos commissioned with the purpose of birthing the “new thing” God is doing. Anointed and called to be the new thing that is eternally springing forth from the heart of God, we proclaim and enact the Kin-dom of God.

“I said I’d be your lover

You laughed at what I said

I lost my job forever

I was counted with the dead”

(You Have Loved Enough—Leonard Cohen)

In most pursuits—sports, writing, preaching, cutting out sugar, keeping my body in decent condition—I can count on discipline to come through for me. I have a finally honed and heeled will. Once I put my mind to something, and truly make a decision, I usually “succeed” in accomplishing what I set out to do. That’s not an entirely bad thing. It has served me well.

But when it comes to love, willpower doesn’t seem to cut it. I can’t will my heart to open. I can’t will myself to not get triggered when my wife says something that bugs the hell out of me. I can’t will myself to love the taxi driver who seems oblivious that he shares the road with other human beings. I can’t control the adrenaline that kicks in when I see a fight break out in hockey. (And until recently I wasn’t able to muster the willpower just to stop watching these barbaric displays of male testosterone).

It wouldn’t be a problem, except for the fact that I feel this profound sense that love is actually what my life is for. It’s all I want. It’s what I showed up for.  And truthfully, I’ve always known this. Which is why I was sitting on the edge of my bed today feeling (yet once more) desperate. I CAN”T DO IT, I heard myself saying. And I realized that this is probably the whole point of the exercise.It’s my personal thorn-in-the-side. I’ve finally found the one thing that “I” actually can’t do, can’t make better, and can’t conquer. Sitting there with my face pathetically in my hands, I heard the words again, ” I can’t do it”. I’m meant to fail. It helps me understand what Fred Buechner meant by the title of one of his books—a reflection on the theology of the cross—The Magnificent Defeat.

I sat there, and looked around for a white flag. The best I could come up with was my sweaty underwear (post workout). I friggin’ give up, once and for all. No more strategies. No more books. No more anguished self-reflection. No more behaviour modification. No more believing that if only other people would change.  Been there. Done that. G_d, Holy Spirit, brother Jesus, heavenly hosts of angels, Whomsoever has this portfolio, I surrender.

I swept the marble chambers,
But you sent me down below
You kept me from believing
Until you let me know:

That I am not the one who loves
It’s love that seizes me
When hatred with his package comes,
You forbid delivery

And when the hunger for your touch
Rises from the hunger,
You whisper, “you have loved enough,
Now let me be the lover”

The longest journey (for a man at least) is to one’s knees.  The personality (ego) is a hodgepodge of biologically and culturally mediated impulses and concerns. The male personality is evolutionarily wired for battle, and after 200,000 years forged on the battlefields of life, my brain is wired to see the world  through the eyes and heart of Attila the Hun. Only a fool could imagine that this “I” could, by force of will, take on these impulses and win. I have tried enough to love and failed magnificently. I pray for the grace to step aside, and by the power of all that is not me, let the Lover take over.

Recently, I heard biologist, Elisabet Sahtouris, offer a great analogy that helps me to interpret the Easter story. Noting that physicists talk about sound vibrations at various frequencies as constitutive of the universe, she employs the image of a cosmic keyboard. Science deals with the low and mid-range frequencies, matter and electro-magnetic energy. Religion plays on the higher part of the keyboard in the realm of Spirit. Spiritual folk tend to make sense of the world by starting at the top end and working their way down, while scientists tend to start at the low-end and work their way up. But for decades science and religion got stuck, playing only one part of the keyboard and making the claim that only the music that came from their part of the keyboard was legitimate. To dance well and sing on key, we need to hear the music of the the whole keyboard.

But the “key” point is that there is only one cosmic keyboard. Nature is One. Reality is a single-story universe of infinite depth and height. The Easter story is not the story of a supernatural God, who intervened in Jerusalem 2000 years, suspending the laws of nature with a supernatural miracle.  Rather, it is a story that encapsulates and catalyzes the story of a resurrection impulse that is active at all levels of creation, cosmological, biological, social and spiritual. Science is particularly focused on the first three. The spiritual frequency is a dimension of Nature/Reality that eludes easy measurement. If you intend to hear it, you need to spend time training the ear of your heart.

G_d is the One, Encompassing, Enfolding, Inhabiting Heart, Mind, and Will out of whom this wild diversity of creation is born, and is in the process of Real-izing, that is making real. The miracle is not so much “the” resurrection, but rather this resurrection or Easter impulse that is irrepressibly rising up and transcending existing forms in an erotic yearning for this realization. Here’s my Prayer of Opening for our Easter service.

Easter God,

persuade us that Easter

is not a once-upon-a-time story,

but rather a moment by moment leaning into,

a deep trust,

that your name and nature

is Resurrection.

This rising up

from the dead,

of life from matter,

and mind from life,

and a promised future

where we see nothing

but dead-ends and a darkened tomb,

is your M.O.

This is the only miracle,

that you are always rising up

in willing hearts and souls,

unafraid to hope,

and to be hope,

for a world entranced

by despair.

Amen.

Did Jesus rise up from the dead? I just finished Autobiography of a Yogi, considered by many to be a spiritual classic. ParamahansaYogananda was a 20th century enlightened master. I was intrigued by how relatively common (in the vibrational frequency that he inhabits) is resurrection, of gurus, in the flesh, returning to their disciples in order to facilitate their liberation and help them in their mission. He loves Jesus, and considers him to be an enlightened master. In his worldview, the enlightened ones are able to materialize and dematerialize at will.

It’s an interesting story, as is the Easter story. Do I believe that an iPhone camera pointed at Jesus on Easter morning would have captured him rising up? I’ll answer it with a line from poet, Mary Oliver: “There are many stories more beautiful than answers”. With Thomas, until I actually experience such a thing for myself, I remain agnostic. But what I do know is that the story is beautiful, and that it both encapsulates and catalyzes an experience that I do know about. This Easter impulse is the most real, most natural, most miraculous dynamic that I have known, and that when I say “yes” to this sacred, irrepressible urge to fashion from my life a future that is a blessing to our one, Earth community, I know that Christ lives.

Principles of Evolutionary Culture[1]

 I’m struck by how little emphasis there has been in liberal Christian congregations on teaching people the core principles and practices for how to actually love each other as communities of faith. Many congregations have “core values”, but how are these to be enacted? In truth, congregations end up far too often being cultures of suffering, as our lack of skillful means for loving relationship all too often wreaks havoc in congregational life. Can you imagine congregations consciously agreeing to the following set of principles, and then being offered regular opportunities to learn about and practice these principles. I’m sure that each of us have our own principles that we could add. In fact, I’d love to hear from you what you think about these ones, and what you think I may have omitted.

1. Listening with Deep Curiosity

When we listen to each other, we bring a profound curiosity to understand how others are seeing and interpreting their world. We sincerely desire to see reality through the other’s eyes, and therefore risk the possibility of being changed by the perspective of the other.  This requires deep humility and willingness to be listening for the divine in others. Nicodemus, a religious authority, exemplifies this curiosity, when he comes to the peasant rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth, as a student and not a teacher.

2. Being Exemplars to Every One We Meet

We accept that we are always on stage in the eyes of the world. The way we conduct ourselves in this community and within the larger community is a profound witness to what life in Christ looks like. As humans committed to conscious spiritual evolution in Christ, we are accountable for upholding moral standards and exhibiting a quality of consciousness that is a light unto the world. The ancient Jews knew themselves to be a holy people, which means being set apart, for a sacred task. They were a “light unto the nations”. The author of 1 Peter picks up on this ancient identity, calling us to be a holy priesthood.

3. Transparency: Speaking our Deepest Truth

Our words can either hide or express our hearts. In our conversations we endeavor to be as transparent as we can at a particular point in our own self-awareness about our deepest truth. We never use this principle as a weapon to hurt others, but rather speak our truth in love, taking full responsibility to manage our feelings and impulses. In groups, we listen deeply for the emergence of fresh wisdom that arises specifically and congruently with each new context, rather than tell our old nuggets.

Jesus was recognized for speaking with an inner authority rather than quoting other authorities (Mark 1:27).

 4. Leaving No Trace: A Life of Constant Resolution

We are committed to resolving conflict as soon as we become aware of it. We assume responsibility for taking the initiative to clear up misunderstandings and hurts. We refuse to triangulate[2] third parties as a way of releasing the tension that conflict causes. Rather we go to that person directly and if we cannot resolve the conflict we will seek agreement with the other to go to a mediator. We ask for the grace to neither shame the other, play the victim, or hide. The motivation for “leaving no trace” is that unresolved conflict saps life energy away from our commitment to evolve in love. Matthew’s gospel provides a model for dealing with conflict (Matthew 18:15-20). Once we resolve the conflict, we sincerely seek the grace to forgive—that is, we release any attachment we might have to the drama of conflict.

5. The Path of Vulnerability: Living at the Edge of Risk

We are taken most quickly to our evolutionary edge by knowing and embracing our vulnerability. When our earliest evolutionary instincts get triggered they compel us to defend ourselves against perceived threats. While this is healthy and natural, we also recognize that these instincts can over-function. We all carry within us sore spots from our developmental history—emotional and psychological wounds—that leave us hypersensitive and over-vigilant in some areas. In the absence of self-awareness, we build our identity around these defense systems. We are committed to “owning” our vulnerabilities, rather than defending them and using them as an excuse to attack others.

We are also taken to our evolutionary edge by taking on tasks, new behaviors, and thought patterns that stretch us beyond our perceived limits. Rather than play it safe, we look for opportunities that involves risk and challenge us to grow. We walk with Jesus the path of vulnerability. With him, we are willing to go the cross and die to all identities and identifications that keep us from growing in love, compassion, and service.

6. Nobody and Nothing Against Us[3]:

We assume, in Paul’s words, that if G_d is for us, who can be against us (Romans 8:31)? When this adventure of becoming was catalyzed by the Big Bang, it was G_d’s “yes” to creation. It was an explosion of G_d’s love, wisdom, and yearning. G_d sees it all and declare it to be good (Genesis 1: 14, 25). And the religious intuition that it is all made in God’s image, suggests a positive orientation to life, even in the midst of challenges, crisis, and tragedy. As people of faith, we do not make the assumption that the universe is aligned against us, or even neutral. Rather it is for us. The evolutionary process itself is the patient unfolding of the divine heart and mind, coming to fruition in willing, surrendered souls. Therefore we assume that within personal and collective challenges is the hidden presence of G_d, and that these challenges are evolutionary provocations. Jacob wrestled all night with a stranger. He is wounded for life by this encounter. But far from signifying the absence of G_d, this wrestling match represented divine engagement with Jacob. Even when life feels as though it is pitted against us, we look for the hidden presence of the divine.

7. A Life of Radical Responsibility

We assume radical responsibility for our lives and our life in community. This encompasses body, mind, soul, and our relationships with self, other, Earth, and the Divine. We understand that the quality and circumstances of our lives are representative of our spiritual evolution at this moment in time. While it is not absolutely true that we create our own reality, operating from this assumption lifts us from a position of victimhood, reduces shaming and blaming behaviors, and empowers us to make choices for a preferred future. To know deeply that nothing and nobody external to us is responsible for our lives, we are empowered to bring forth the future that needs us, personally and collectively to emerge. This future, present already in how we show up in life when we assume radical responsibility, is what Jesus called the Kin(g)dom of God.

8. Setting our Mind on Christ: A Life of Self-Abandonment

 Paul challenges disciples to “let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5). We are committed to transcending, but including our personal selves, as our core identity. Through prayer and service, we abandon this personal self’s primary concerns for safety, security, and status, and sex, aligned with our earliest (and healthy) evolutionary instincts. By surrendering moment by moment to the divine will, we are transformed by the mind of Christ, a higher self-in-process, concerned fundamentally, not for our own survival, but rather with alleviating the suffering of our planet, both human and other than human. Through this practice of self-abandonment (or surrender), we realize the sacramental nature of this and every moment, and that our lives are like a scripture that we need to learn to read with reverence. As we show up for each other and with each with the mind of Christ, we create the optimum culture for spiritual evolution (1 Corinthian 13:1-12).

Find a friend who is willing

to skinny-dip with you

in the waters of the Eternal Now.

Linger in the unspeakable beauty

of eyes that have lost their fear.

(Infancy may have been the last time you indulged

in such extravagant pleasure).

It’s time to remember the Promise.

When you’ve maxed out on ecstasy,

look behind the eyes,

below the personal,

and whoa,

you are floating in Infinity’s Ocean.

(Don’t worry, you’ll know when to come up for air—

the whale’s wisdom is bred in your blubber.)

A great and brooding Presence,

steady,

vast and eternal,

is looking through those eyes,

at you.

Infinite Witness

is fixed on you.

Your fascination is fixing you.

Isness beholds you,

Then this dawns on you:

I exist. I arise in the We of it all.

Ha! Who knew,

who really knew

before this moment?

Silly Descarte,

doubting his way into existence.

The funny thing is,

(and it might make you laugh out loud)

that Isness is also looking out

through your eyes,

and beholding It/Her/Himself

in this other incarnation.

Hmmm…so I am That

And also This.

Absolutely That,

and relatively this,

on an adventure of becoming.

This, then, is the primal fall

the fall that really counts,

( that accounts for this).

Not into sin,

but from That into this—

the vertiginous drop,

from Self Existent Love

through the cosmic worm hole,

into this;

a descent, (I repeat),

not into sin,

but into the beauty of incarnation.

And O yes,

there is the other fall,

the apple-eating episode,

(a poet’s way of explaining how “I’m bad”

got indelibly etched in our brains.)

Then the strangeness sets in,

the  separation,

giving rise to shame

and it’s disfigured offspring,

the fear of pleasure.

Exiled amnesiacs,

we call this prison of separation and shame

life,

and play by its rules and conventions.

Until we lose interest in the game.

One morning drinking coffee at Starbucks,

you realize that your soul

took the first train out of town

that fateful moment,

when you unconsciously

left home

and joined the traveling circus of respectability.

Sink into the despair, friend,

do not caffeinate it away,

drink it away

drug it away

or meditate it away.

The ear of your soul

is attuned to your lament.

and just may rouse,

finding a long-lost hope

in your tears.

If you’re lucky,

a soul-yearning swells within you,

an erotic tide that carries you

to the one,

inseparable Ocean of Being

and these blessed waves of Becoming.

Expect a protest.

(The mind is a pantheon of gods,

a vigilant council calling emergency meetings,

all day long,

stationing sentries

at the gates of Unity

with flaming swords of fear

whenever a soul threatens to cross the border

into the Paradise of Now.)

The local you,

(that made itself a body,

not for shame but

the pleasure of love)

looks again into your dear friend’s eyes—

the unguarded gates

of this and every moment,

where the hidden treasure

awaits your claim.

Love, 

O blessed, blessed love!

You see only delight mirrored back

in these eye-pools of light,

wordlessly singing your name,

“My Delight Is In You”,

in you!

You are no sham,

no shame in being you,

and this is all you ever really wanted,

isn’t it?

Here,

within this finite frame,

the worst thing

that can happen

is that you fall in love

with Love itself,

luminous in these brave eyes

that have lost their fear

of soft edges,

of dissolving into

the holy oneness.

Lungs fill with love’s air.

You sound

back down into the silent realm

where you may rest in the perfection.

What a whale of a game!

Not a bad deal, huh?

No losers,

(for those who dare to lose themselves)

in a universe

that evolved eyes,

and a heart,

for just such a moment as this,

and this and ….

T.J. Dawes, over at www.beamsandstruts.com, referred to a book in a recent post, A Mind Of Its Own:How the Brain Distorts and Deceives, by Cordelia Fine. Intrigued, I downloaded it to my Kindle, and read it during a ridiculously wet holiday in Kauai. Despite her breezy and humorous style, Dr. Cordelia Fine, a cognitive psychologist, referred to experiment after experiment that collectively painted a rather unflattering portrait of the human condition. St. Augustine could well have used her research findings to substantiate his doctrine of original sin.

Please don’t let the following brief chapter summary dissuade you from reading this remarkable book, but I do want to convey this strange and unexpected agreement between conservative Christianity and cognitive psychology.

Chapter 1, The Vain Brain, in which we discover that we distort reality habitually to cast ourselves in the best possible light, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Chapter 2, The Emotional Brain, in which we discover that even though we’d like to imagine otherwise, it’s our emotions and not our thoughts that determine our actions. A thought is nothing but a state of arousal attached to an experience that our brain indiscriminately selects from its vast store of experience, typically resulting in a story that has nothing to do with the actual source of our thought.

Chapter 3, The Immoral Brain, in which we discover that our moral character is paper-thin. Theological students, who have just finished waxing eloquent on the parable of the Good Samaritan, have no problem breezing right past a stranger in obvious distress to stay on task. Afterward, they have no problem rationalizing their behavior.

Chapter 4, The Deluded Brain, in which we discover that the difference between psychotic delusion, and your average run-of-the-mill delusion that runs the lives of “normal” human beings is one of degree, and not kind.

Chapter 5, The Pigheaded Brain, in which we discover that once we make up our minds, we will hold fiercely and irrationally to our version of reality despite mountains of contrary evidence. Apparently, close to one-half of American citizens believe that Iraq is still concealing weapons of mass destruction.

Chapter 6. The Secretive Brain, in which we discover that the unconscious is in charge, and sees no good reason to let the conscious mind in on its secret motivations. Even the existence of what we call “free will” is dubious.

Chapter 7, The Weak-Willed Brain, in which we discover that will power is like a muscle. The good news is that we can take it to boot camp and strengthen it. The bad news is that once we exhaust it, say by eating a single Pringle, when the full cylinder remains open taunting us to indulge our appetite, the will is useless for other tasks—like being polite to your mother-in-law.

Chapter 8, The Bigoted Brain, in which we discover that we are hopelessly bigoted because of something brain researchers call schemas. This just means that everything that we’ve ever known about a subject gets clustered in the same neuronal bed. When a theme like “a black man” is mentioned, the whole neuronal bed is awakened, including every stereotype we’ve ever internalized. New York police officers, and black men alike, are more likely to mistake a black man holding a cell phone for a gun and fire their experimental weapon, than they are for a white man holding the same cell phone.

9. And finally, the epilogue The Vulnerable Brain, offers faint hope. The brain itself is vulnerable to our management. This is a short chapter, which I have to say, felt a bit like a half-hearted effort that the author’s publisher forced her to add. “You cannot leave the reader this depressed!”

The author of Ephesians comes to basically the same conclusion about the human condition, without the benefit of very clever experiments. By nature we are “children of wrath” having given in to the desires of the flesh and the senses (Ephesian 2:1-10). Dr. Fine counsels us to “rise loftily above ourselves”, but how? Our deceitful, weak-willed brains? Can a kingdom divided against itself stand? On the other hand, the author of Ephesians believes that G_d makes us whole and lifts us up to be seated with Christ in high places (2:9-10). Or in the words that the author of John’s gospel, there is an intelligence and love at work in the universe with which we may align ourselves with/surrender to and be born again, from above.

 The biblical writer did not have the benefit of evolutionary science, but what Dr. Fine is saying is  that our brains are pre-programmed by three billions years of animal life, and 200,000 years of  human life, for survival. Essentially, we are that unconscious urge to survival wearing a human  body. But evolutionary spirituality  (and Christianity) makes the claim that another sacred  impulse, born of a sacred Heart and  Mind, is hidden with these early instincts for sex, security,    status, and sustenance. We have a  small “d” desire, and an capital “D” desire, that latter a  yearning to become unified with the  Heart and Mind out of which a universe is born and is  evolving. This Desire is an impulse to  transcend (yet include) our instinctual nature. This  doesn’t exempt Christians from the desires of  the flesh, nor does it mean that these desires are  bad. But they can wreak havoc if we’re unconscious of them.

But it is critical at this juncture is human history that we begin to create a future on the  foundations of something other than our survival instincts. All of our existing systems, (money,  food, energy, and psychological) are based in fear and insecurity. We urgently need to update our  operating system. That’s right, our brains do not really have an executive function. They are programmed, and it’s up to us now to consciously program them according to the operating system of Love.

This requires disciplined spiritual practice, as a response to divine grace, so that we may be lifted up “where we belong” in the words of the Joe Cocker song. This is truly our divine inheritance. The future of our planet depends on this ascension.

 Abandonment to Divine Providence is considered a spiritual classic. Thomas Merton was asked about the  book’s author, Jesuit priest, Jean-Pierre de Caussade (1675-1751). His reply was short, but telling. “He’s a  spiritual genius”.  Chalk my ignorance up to a Protestant vacuum when it comes to teaching about spiritual  geniuses. His writing grew out of the Roman Catholic counter-reformation, concerned to correct the extremes  of Quietism (spiritual passivity) and a more severe Asceticism (strict, prescribed practices as though the  Kingdom of G_d will come only through our diligence.)

Funny how these polarities reappear in different forms throughout the centuries isn’t it? I’m more tempted  toward the ascetic resolution myself, and I confess that sometimes my brand of evolutionary spirituality makes a person feel like she is responsible for the future in an absolute fashion. That’s why I think I found this book such a breath of fresh air. My soul let down into Caussade’s middle way. If you want a brief and brilliant introduction, check out my friend’s post, Anglican priest, Chris Dierkes. While you’re on the site, read anything by him—speaking of emerging spiritual geniuses. (Chris rightly suggests that Caussade may have actually paved the way for evolutionary spirituality).

The book has another title, which hints at a spiritual resolution: The Sacrament of the Present Moment.  (Maybe he paved the way as well for Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now?) Briefly, here are the main tenets of the practice, all of them intricately connected:

1. God is fully present, hidden in the ordinary details of a life, any life. When the angel overshadowed Mary, even the angel was merely a shadow hiding the ever-present One. Occupy any given moment of the ordinary circumstances of our life with a heart abandoned to divine will, and God will weave a tapestry of beauty out of this holy commitment to the present moment. As Chris wrote in a response to an email I sent him: “each and every moment is pristine and potential exists for all relationship, from the smallest to the biggest, to have their influence over everything else”. Mary’s yes (“Let it be to me according to your will”) is the prototypical example of self-abandonment

2. All the events and circumstances of our life is a word of God, no less than scripture. They are spoken especially for us and but once from all eternity. Therefore, learn to read each moment of your life as a word of God.  There is no secret method or technique. Stop looking for it. Yes, learn meditation and contemplation. Read spiritual classics. Do sacred chant. Go on spiritual retreats. Find a spiritual director. But your life in each mundane detail, in the present moment, contains the hidden life of Christ. Caussade is suspicious of too much reading and of too much dependence on spiritual directors. He wants us to have firsthand knowledge, direct experience of the divine working through the sacrament of the present moment. When the moment is passed it is well and truly passed. No looking back. The moment that just passed, no matter how spiritually intoxicating, is “yesterday’s will of God”. (Walter Wink)

 3. Learn to discern the divine impulse as it arises in your life, and have  enough fluidity and openness of heart and routine, to be able to follow this  impulse wherever it leads. If the impulse tells you to meditate, then meditate. If  it tells you to stop meditating and go throw a Frisbee with your dog, follow it.  If it tells you make love, make love. (Of course, this is a constant impulse with  our divine Lover).

4. Abandonment doesn’t mean irresponsibility. It means learning the  difference between your ego (early, evolutionary self, hell-bent on survival,  sex, status, and sustenance, and your soul (that is here for love and the bliss  of the divine life on Earth). Learn the difference between your chattering mind  that keeps self-love and self-obsession in place, and divine wisdom—which  comes to a quiet and contented mind.  Abandon yourself (surrender) to the  soul’s impulse to enact the divine will. Engage the station of your life with as  much integrity, and yes, duty, as possible. God works through responsible engagement with what is given you to do. (In a postmodern world this cannot mean submitting to an oppressive system. For example, women in abusive relationships do not have a “duty” to the marriage). Following an impulse for justice is a 21st century duty of every Christian.

5. Caussade identifies a helpful distinction between “the soul living in G_d” and “G_d living in the soul. Living in G_d describes the practices of purification: meditation, contemplation, lectio divina, Sabbath keeping, orderly life, etc. These are necessary in order to prepare the heart for divine self-abandonment, whereby one’s whole life, lived fully, in the present moment, and aligned with the divine impulse, is one’s practice. Caussade is clear that spiritual evolution involves the shift from momentary states of self-abandonment to stabilizing at a permanent stage of self-abandonment—a continuous abiding of our will in the divine will, and of our hearts in the divine heart. This stage of spiritual development is the space from which Paul wrote, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me”. (Galatians 2:19-20).

6. Providence never sleeps. Faith is a matter of radical trust that G_d is working through all the circumstances of your life, whether“good” or “bad” by our judgment. Acceptance of that which you cannot change is one’s cross to bear. Bear it with equanimity and faith. Remember, our response to suffering is rolled into the providential arrangement. Through self-abandoned souls, committed to loving G_d and loving the world, divine providence weaves a tapestry of beauty that is beyond any of us to conceive. It can only emerge. It’s like needlepoint art, says Caussade. The back of the needlepoint frame looks like a chaotic mess. The artist’s role is to simply and faithfully tend to the next thread. The pattern that emerges on the other side is the divine pattern. We should not be attached to the outcome, the final image.

7. The way of abandonment is for everyone, not just the elite few.  Caussade was way out in front when it came to the ministry of the laity. Every person is able to cooperate with G_d, according to his or her capacities, on a day-to-day basis. And every person’s contribution is important, no matter, how humble. For many people, being dutiful to their station in life is their contribution to divine Providence.

“We must not follow any inspiration, which we believe we have received from G0d, before making certain that this inspiration is not diverting us from the duties of our state. These duties are the surest manifestation of God’s plan, and nothing must be preferred to them. The moments employed in fulfilling these duties are the most precious and salutary for us by the very fact that they give us the undoubting assurance that we are accomplishing God’s good pleasure.” (See point 5 above for the same caveat that this cannot mean passive acquiescence to an oppressive status quo).

Caussade’s language and outlook is traditional, reflecting his respect for authority, and his certainty about providential guidance. Yet there is indeed a genius in his orientation that my soul longs for. This providential outlook can seem anachronistic to modern ears. Modernism obliterated deep purpose, even as it elevated the dignity of human freedom. The problem is that we were asked to exercise that freedom by taking action in a world void of ontological purpose. Yet this intuition of a higher or deeper guiding intelligence was never completely lost. Think of Gregory Bateson’s “pattern that connects”, or physicist David Bohm’s “implicate order” or chemist Ilya Prigogine’s research around “self-organization”. They are describing, perhaps, the same deep mystery for modern ears.

The way to awaken this Mystery is to occupy the sacrament of the present moment, surrendering the regressive habits of the body/mind and rituals that keep us re-enacting yesterday’s will of God, in order to discern the sacred impulse that is coming through now and now and now… “Do not consider the former things. I am doing a new thing. It is springing forth now. Do you not perceive it?” (Isaiah 43:18). As we learn to read the events of our lives as unrepeated words of G_d a divine future spontaneously emerges that brings us one step closer to the glory that is to be revealed to us (Romans 8:18).