» Peace Sequence The Spiral Path

14 Sep 2012

RS33: The Way of the Cross

“For he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him (Psalm 22:24). Pictured here is the garden at St. Michael’s Mount, Cornwall, which for some reason reminds me of the Garden of Gethsemane. Photo credit JAT 1997.

A: Tell me more about the practice you taught of “taking up the cross.”

J: We got a little side-tracked last time, didn’t we?

A: As usual. No straight lines around here. Always curves and meandering paths.

J: Funny how the clearest and truest path to the heart is never straight.

A: It took me a long time to figure this one out. But there’s so much freedom, so much peace, in understanding that love isn’t linear and isn’t supposed to be. It has its own strange rhythms. But in the end it’s stronger than anything I’ve ever known. It’s so . . . so . . . strong. It’s so complex. It’s not a pure strand of anything. It’s this amazing tapestry, as you’ve described it before. A tapestry with so many colours and so many songs and so many tears. All woven together into this picture, this portrait, of life. Life filled with passion and wonder and awe. Life where you’re constantly surprised. But also life where you don’t mind being surprised.

J (nodding): It’s very important, the idea of being surprised and not minding. It’s the “not minding” part that sets apart a person who’s listening to his/her soul and a person who’s not. The soul doesn’t mind surprises. The brain’s Darwinian Circuitry hates surprises. You can tell a great deal about a person’s brain health in the small moments when surprise strikes. The soul takes these unexpected events in stride. The Darwinian Circuitry seizes up and panics and can’t take swift, wise action. The soul continues to be able to act during a crisis. The Darwinian Circuitry comes to a grinding halt.

A puzzling thing happens when the Darwinian Circuitry panics. Inside the brain there’s a sudden “disconnect” between the decision-making centres and the movement centres. People literally freeze like a deer in the headlights. This is when they’re most vulnerable to lies — to words spoken aloud with authority by people who are in a position of trust. This is when mobs can be persuaded to riot. But it only works — and I want to emphasize this — it only works when people have already panicked. It only works when people have stopped listening to their own souls. You can’t force people who are listening to their own souls to join a mob. They won’t do it. They find no pleasure and no safety in the ridiculous idea that’s floating around of “homo duplex.” Mob mentalities — hive mentalities — are dangerous to the goals of healing, peace, and redemption. Mob mentalities lead to Crusades. Crusades are never a positive thing in the eyes of God or God’s angels.

A: It’s interesting how individuals stop taking personal responsibility for their own actions when they’ve agreed to hand over their own free will to a mob leader.

J: For those who can’t hear the inner wisdom of their own soul, it’s a relief to hand over their free will to somebody else.

A: It’s a difficult process, reclaiming your own free will. (Sighhhhh.)

J: Yes. There’s probably no greater challenge for a human being. Nonetheless, it’s the challenge that all human beings are called to. They must wrestle with what it means to have free will. They must question it, be confused by it, be angry at it, reject it, and finally come to terms with it.

A: What you just said reminds me of the stages of grief.

J: That’s exactly what the process is. It’s an experience of working through grief. And, by god, you need forgiveness to get you through it, because somewhere in the middle of the process you’re going to come face to face with the reality of all the times when you didn’t apply your free will in loving and trusting ways. You’re going to feel like a shit. This is where forgiveness sees you through. Forgiveness is the act of free will that allows you to keep going, to get up the next day and keep going even when you’ve stopped denying the harm you’ve created here on Planet Earth.

A: This is where you really need a mentor.

J: Yes. You need to know that somebody else has already forgiven you so you can find the courage to forgive yourself.

A: That mentor can be God.

J: Yes. If a person trusts that God the Mother and God the Father forgive her even when she’s been a shit, she can lean on their strength as she struggles to learn from her mistakes and forgive herself. It takes time to learn to forgive, but that’s okay. People have to believe that God doesn’t expect instant results. Indeed, instant results aren’t scientifically supportable or biologically possible. God only expects consistent effort. God will help you if you’re willing to make a consistent effort to be the best person you’re capable of being.

A: Warts and all.

J: God doesn’t mind warts. Human beings end up covered in warts and scars and cracked bones and broken hearts in their time on Planet Earth. God forgives you anyway. I can’t emphasize this enough. God sees past all the warts and scars and cracked bones and looks straight into your broken heart. You can’t hide a broken heart from God. Nor should you want to.

A: It’s so difficult for regular human beings to believe they’re worthy of God’s daily forgiveness. I really struggled with this in the beginning. But I’m glad you persisted!

J: It changes everything when you’re willing to accept God’s forgiveness. Everything. You find the freedom to move — really move. So instead of being nailed helplessly to the cross, immobile, desperate, unable to flow with the changes and surprises of each day, you begin to be able to move. Sure, at first you have to drag the damn cross with you, and it’s heavy, and it hurts. But at least you’re moving! And you’re starting to reclaim your sense of your own self, your own true potential. After a while the cross you’re dragging around starts to feel different to you. It starts to feel less like a heavy burden and more like . . . gravity. A place where you can feel the weight, the seriousness, the reality of honest truth and not be afraid of it. A place where honest truth is your ally, your very foundation. Your centre of gravity.

A person who has chosen to pursue status (“gaining the whole world” at the expense of honest truth) relates strongly to the image of the crucifix — Jesus nailed to the Cross — because this is the way he or she feels in relation to the world and to God. He feels trapped. Nailed down. Impoverished of health and happiness. Stuck in an endless circle of pain and self-sacrifice. So he thinks the image of the crucifix is right.

By contrast, a person who has chosen the path of knowing free will, love, forgiveness, healing, and redemption sees the cross in very different terms. He sees a symbol of freedom from the self-enslavement of status addiction, a symbol of the courage to be yourself and know yourself and trust yourself in a world that tells you this is impossible.

To be disenfranchised from Empire is not necessarily a bad thing.

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Posted in brain's Darwinian Circuitry, brain-soul connection, conscience & morality, courage, Divine Love, forgiveness, free will, honesty, Jesus' teachings, Peace Sequence, personal responsibility, Realspiritik, relationship with God, Son of Man and tagged brain-soul connection | Leave a Comment

13 Aug 2012

RS23: Spit-Wives and Dead Goats

A: I saw an interesting story on the BBC News site this week about a young Palestinian man named Ayman Safiah who is the only classically trained male ballet dancer to emerge from the Palestinian culture.* He grew up in the Galilee in a town where Arabs and Jews treat each other well, and where some of its artists and writers have achieved international recognition. Despite his success, he’s meeting with intense prejudice from his own community. He reminds me a lot of you. Knows who he is. Doesn’t let prejudice and hatred stop him from doing what his heart and soul tell him to do.

I like the quotes from him: “‘My desire to study classical ballet was simply beyond the understanding of my classmates,’ he explains. ‘They only knew that it was something women enjoyed. It was completely alien to them.'” He also says, “‘My parents knew that ballet was going to be a large part of my life from early on . . . Even my grandfather accepted my career choice even though he didn’t fully understand what it entailed.'”

Yup. He reminds me so much of you. So stubborn. So determined to break through cultural taboos that have nothing to do with God or soul or faith.

J: Well, yes, I was told more than once I was more stubborn than a Hebron camel. It was a saying from my time.

A: Ayman Safiah faces huge opposition from the Palestinian community because men aren’t “supposed” to be passionate about dance. Even the fact that he’s worked extremely hard for many years and has graduated from the Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance in Richmond, England, has not earned him any respect from his Arab compatriots. Some insist that performing ballet is against Islam. Two thousand years ago, you faced the same kind of rejection and prejudice for daring to practise medicine in the Galilee. Tell me more about that.

J: It’s interesting that Safiah makes the link between ballet and women. In my time, the same kind of link existed between healing and women. Healing was something that women did, and only women were interested in learning more about it. No respectable man in the Judeo-Hellenistic culture I grew up in would have stooped to the level of the local village spit-wives. But I was passionate about healing.

A: Spit-wives?

J: A derogatory term for the women who carried on the ancient traditions of herbal medicine. They used poultices and teas and medicines handmade from various plants and minerals. From time to time they were known to use spit in their remedies. Since bodily fluids, including spit, were considered unclean — religiously impure — in the Jewish religious tradition, these traditional remedies and their practitioners were looked upon with contempt. Women from the lower classes of society shared healing information among themselves and did their best to help each other, since nobody else was willing to help them.

A (eyes rolling): Oh come on, now. What about all those religious temples where people could make their sacrifices and prayers for divine healing? Who needs medical science when you can ask a priest to slaughter a female goat for you?

J (smiling): A sentiment I certainly agreed with and talked about. Often. And loudly.

A: Didn’t win you any popularity contests, did it?

J: People of prejudice don’t like to have their prejudices challenged. And prejudices about illness and healing were extreme in my time. There’s a ridiculous idea floating around in liberal religious circles today that people should tolerate and excuse these ancient prejudices because “it’s just the way things were” and “they didn’t know any better.” This is crap. The Greek culture had a long tradition, dating back hundreds of years before my time as Jesus, of treating illness and healing as a field of science. They’d written many treatises about the workings of the body. Some of their scientific remedies were quite effective — not all of them, of course, but there was an ongoing interest in studying illness and healing from a scientific perspective. This was a perspective I sympathized with, much to the horror of my pious Jewish relatives.

A: Were the spit-wives trying to be scientific, too?

J: Women who are desperate to care for their families and relieve the suffering of their children can become shrewd and careful observers of scientific principles. They don’t have the time or skills or status to consult with learned scholars of religious scrolls, so they fly by the seat of their pants. They pay attention to what works. They remember what works. They tell their friends what works. They base their decisions on intuition and careful observation, not piety. They catch on fast when you show them how to wash and dress a wound so it won’t go “green.” They might have to do their healing work in secret, where the men won’t catch them engaging in apostasy, but they’ll do it if it means saving the life of a beloved child.

A: In this model, it’s okay for individuals to take personal responsibility for the problems created by illness. It’s okay for individuals to go ahead and try to fix it instead of wringing their hands and claiming that only God and the priests can fix it.

J: Exactly. It’s an integral part of the Peace Sequence we’ve been talking about on and off. You’ve got a snowball’s chance in hell of bringing Peace to the wider community if you ignore the imperatives of illness and healing. For most human beings, illness and healing are the number one issues. If you don’t have mentors who can teach others about the realities of illness and healing, there’s no way for individuals to move on to the subsequent step of the Peace Sequence, which is personal responsibility. In the world human beings actually live in — as opposed to the world of false myths created by the likes of the apostle Paul — people have to accept that they themselves have a huge stake in this whole “illness and healing” thing. They can’t hand over their power and responsibility for healing to any religious group, no matter how big or successful the group.

All people are part of God’s world of science and faith, and all people are considered equal by God, so all people are called upon to uphold the steps of the Peace Sequence. A big part of this process, as I’ve just mentioned, is to apply the steps of education, mentorship, and personal responsibility to the questions of illness and healing. This is what I tried to do two thousand years ago. I tried to teach others that healing miracles are possible if you let go of prejudice and hatred and treat those who are ill with compassion not judgment.

Angels tread where fools fear to go.

*Please see “First Palestinian male ballet dancer battles prejudices” by Sylvia Smith, posted on BBC News on August 10, 2012, at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19202612

Addendum May 4, 2017: For those who are scornful of the idea that ancient healers were able to devise useful medical remedies by engaging in objective scientific observation preceded and followed by powerful intuition, I found this article today which is a follow-up to an preliminary story that appeared two years ago. In a story posted by Erin Connelly — “Exciting potential: Medieval medical books could hold the recipe for new antibiotics” — the author talks about Bald’s eyesalve, “a medieval recipe that contained wine, garlic, an Allium species (such as leek or onion) and oxgall . . . cured in a brass vessel for nine nights before use.” It sounds terrible to modern ears, but according to the researcher, it’s a highly effective antistaphylococcal agent.

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06 Jun 2012

TBM 42: The Only “Secret” You Really Need to Know

This post is the final essay in the Blonde Mystic series. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it.

Of the books I’ve written so far, I think this one has been the most challenging. It’s not an easy matter to write an introductory text that approaches old topics in new ways. I opted in the end to write essays that speak to both your heart and mind and don’t ask you to rely on blind faith. Genuine faith, as opposed to blind religious faith, is only possible when you’re willing to open up your own inner senses and really learn how to learn. So my goal in this book has been to point out some new ways of learning you may not have thought of before.

Everything in this book has been focussed on helping you expand your toolkit rather than shrink it. So I’ve purposely written this material in a such a way that it can’t be used to sustain a “closed system” of Law. You’ll find very few rules you have to follow. But you’ll find many suggestions for how to challenge existing beliefs in thoughtful, reasonable, appropriate ways. This is a trick I learned from Jesus, who was always much more interested in “teaching people how to fish” than giving them daily hand-outs.

Several years ago, Jesus introduced me to his model of the Peace Sequence, his crystallized version of the correct sequence we need to follow if we want to create Peace for ourselves, our communities, and the world as a whole. Here is the Peace Sequence in a nutshell:

First, Education.

Second, Mentorship.

Third, Personal Responsibility.

Fourth, Peace.

In other words, we can’t create lasting peace until individuals are willing to take personal responsibility for their own thoughts, feelings, choices, and actions. Yet the honest truth is these individuals can’t grasp what it means to take personal responsibility until they’ve received mature, appropriate mentorship from family, teachers, coaches, ministers, Big Brothers & Sisters, volunteer advocates, health care professionals, researchers, and the like. Furthermore, these individuals aren’t able at a biological level to “see, hear, and remember” the wisdom and guidance of their dedicated mentors unless they’ve first received mature, appropriate education.

So it all starts with education. It all starts with teaching the brain how to think in courageous, holistic, balanced ways. It all starts with teaching the brain how to “fill itself up” rather than “empty itself.”

The Spiral Path of building your intuition and finding wonder, awe, mystery, love, and faith along the way begins when you decide you’re willing to take the risk of knowing who you really are, of knowing who God the Mother and God the Father really are. When you’re ready to make this choice, your guardian angels will step in to help you. They’ll help you move forward on the Spiral Path. They’ll help you rediscover who you are as a soul, who you are as a child of God. But first, right here today, you need to understand that God and your angels can’t teach you faster than your biological brain can go. They can’t give you courage, trust, gratitude, devotion, and forgiveness, because these emotions can’t be given in the way a basket of bread and fish can be given. All your angels can do — all your angels want to do — is teach you how to reclaim these attributes within your own core self.

In other words, your angels are happy to mentor you so you can learn how to embrace your own sense of personal responsibility in the world. But before they can successfully mentor you, you have to be willing to learn. To retrain your brain. To better understand how your brain works in conjunction with your own core self (i.e. your soul). To let go of old ideas that aren’t working and be willing to change, grow, remember, and understand.

I said in the second essay of this book — “The Spiritual Kitchen” — that I wanted to talk to you about the beginning of the spiritual journey. The beginning for everyone must be the first phase of the Peace Sequence: Education. There’s no other way, at a biological and scientific and practical level, for you to build your intuition or your ongoing relationship with your angels and God. This is the only “Secret” you really need to know.

As you gradually expand the number of tools you can access in your brain’s 4D/3D toolkit, mysteries of Divine Love will begin to come to you. You won’t have to go out looking for them. You’ll discover them on your own doorstep. The Spiral Path will begin to look less and less like a place “out there” and more and more like the kitchen of your very own home. The universe will speak to you in the smallest of shy voices, and at the same time it will boom out in songs that only the heart can understand.

Don’t worry. You’ll know it when you hear it.

Good luck to you, and many blessings!

Love Jen

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Addendum posted April 30, 2017: A recent blog post on Scientific American’s website by psychology professor Rachel Wu describes some of her observations on how learning really works. I hope you find her “six secrets” interesting!

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Posted in building your intuition, Peace Sequence, The Blonde Mystic, Whole Brain Thinking and tagged building your intuition | Leave a Comment

13 Feb 2012

TBM21: Humbleness: Excellence Without Status

Last time, I said that “humility” and “humbleness” aren’t the same thing. So here’s my definition of humbleness:

Humbleness is your ongoing choice to feel grateful for the soul talents your neighbour has.

Cosmos (c) JAT 2014

Hmmmm . . . so . . . to unpack this a bit more, humbleness is an expression of gratitude . . . but it’s not gratitude for your own talents . . . and it’s an expression of relationship with your neighbour (because you actually have to pay attention to what your neighbour’s talents are if you’re going to feel gratitude for his/her talents) . . . and it’s kinda the opposite of envy (because it’s pretty much impossible to be truly grateful if you’re gnashing your teeth in envy) . . . and it’s kinda the opposite of worship (because as soon as you put somebody on a pedestal of worship you’re providing fuel for status addiction) and it’s kinda the same as empathy (because you can put yourself in your neighbour’s shoes and imagine how happy he/she is to have a talent to share with others) . . . and it’s kinda the same as seeing yourself as a complete and worthy person even if you don’t have the same talents as your neighbour.

So, in the end, it IS a form of gratitude for your own talents, but it’s a radically egalitarian feeling that refuses to apply adjectives like “better” or “smarter” or “more worthy of God’s love” to anyone.

It’s a form of gratitude that’s built on honesty and truth-telling. And on strong interpersonal boundaries.

Humbleness means you know exactly who you are. You know where your own boundaries start and end. You know what your talents are. You know what your talents aren’t. You use everything you are to the best of your own ability. You don’t try to “be” your neighbour because you know you aren’t your neighbour. And this is okay with you. Ideally, it’s also okay with your neighbour.

What’s really interesting about the experience of humbleness is the lack of fear you feel about going about your daily life and doing a damned good job at what you do. You lose the fear that your neighbours will envy you and try to take you down a notch or two because they believe you’re trying to “show them up.” (They may, indeed, decide to take action against you, but if this happens you understand it’s not your fault if they take offense — it’s their own fault — and you then forgive them).

Christian teachings on humility create a constant climate of judgment and tit-for-tat comparison among neighbours. The Christian bar of humility is set low — very low — and anyone who tries to exceed this “oneness of mediocrity” will be harshly accused of pride, hubris, and a lack of surrender to God’s will.

What they really mean when they say “you don’t know your place” is that you’re being a pain in the ass, and you’re showing through your own hard work and courageous conduct that the bar is set too low.

Humility breeds obedient, unquestioning doormats who believe religious propaganda about their own unworthiness. Humbleness, on the other hand, leaves no room for excuses or blaming other people for your own mistakes or sitting around on your butt while other people are doing the hard work of healing individuals, families, and communities.

Humbleness assumes you ARE worthy. Humbleness assumes that your own Soul Purpose is just as important as your neighbour’s.

Humbleness assumes that you ARE a soul — a child of God with a unique soul blueprint and a unique way of contributing to the lives of your brothers and sisters in divine love.

If you’re like most people on Planet Earth, the greatest obstacle for you on the Spiral Path will be the many myths and the many lies generated by status addiction. Status addiction and humbleness are mutually contradictory paradigms. And right now, status addiction has a much greater grip on your life than you probably realize. Please don’t judge yourself for this. We’re all in this together. We all created this problem together, so no one can fix it alone. We have to work together in teams and groups and communities to heal this massively painful issue. We need lots of teachers and mentors and healers to carry this work forward.

It’s my great hope that individuals will begin to form small groups to heal this issue using the established Twelve Step method.

Hey, look at that! The Twelve Step program is already using the humbleness paradigm!

Thank goodness for that.

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Posted in boundary issues, gratitude, humbleness, humility, Kingdom teachings, Peace Sequence, Soul, soul blueprint, soul purpose, status addiction, The Blonde Mystic and tagged Kingdom teachings | Leave a Comment

04 Sep 2011

TBM15: The Necessity of Forgiveness on the Spiral Path

So far, you may be feeling that I haven’t said anything new or different. This would be very disappointing, since it would mean there’s nothing new here for you to learn.

Aren’t you tired of that feeling — the feeling that no one is giving you straight answers to hard questions? It’s easy to find “easy answers” — 10 minutes to a perfect life! Just send 5 easy payments of $99 to the phone number on your screen! — but it’s not so easy to find straight answers.

The one straight answer you almost never hear about is Forgiveness. If you want to travel more than a few feet along the Spiral Path of healing, you’re going to have to be willing to work on Forgiveness.

Forgiveness can be described in a number of different ways. One way is to think of forgiveness is the dishcloth you use to clean up your mistakes. Another way to think of forgiveness is like learning to ride a bicycle under marathon conditions. At first, it's really hard. After a while, though, it becomes second nature to you and you can do it for the rest of your life without really thinking about it -- just like learning to ride bike.

Forgiveness can be described in a number of different ways. One way to think of forgiveness is like the dishcloth you use to clean up your mistakes. Another way to think of forgiveness is like learning to ride a bicycle for a marathon. At first, it’s really hard. After a while, though, it becomes second nature to you and you can do it for the rest of your life without really thinking too much about it. It becomes a natural part of your skill set — just like learning to ride a bike.

The mystery of Forgiveness is where the rubber meets the road. It’s where your soul straps on your walking shoes. Where the parts of your biological brain that are wired into your soul’s energy start to take charge again (as they were supposed to be doing all along). Where you begin to recognize your core identity, your core purpose, as a soul.

In the analogy of the spiritual kitchen, forgiveness is the dishcloth that allows you to clean up your mistakes as you go along.

Yup, the dishcloth.

Forgiveness isn’t the lightbulb that brings illumination to the kitchen. Forgiveness isn’t the secret family recipe for the Colonel’s special chicken or Grandma’s Christmas shortbread. And forgiveness isn’t a magical clock that turns time forward so you don’t have to look at or think about yesterday’s fallen souffle.

Forgiveness is the mundane dishcloth you pick up with your own hands and use to wipe the spilled cocoa from the counter. It’s the tool you use to clean up a mistake once you’ve admitted that you’ve made a mistake. (Or once you’ve admitted that somebody else has made a mistake.)

It’s not very mystical-sounding, is it?

No. Which is why you so rarely hear about it in religious or New Age teachings. Forgiveness is not magical and it’s not secret and it’s not reserved for just a few select, chosen, special students. So it doesn’t have much mystical razzle dazzle. It can’t be bought or sold, so it has no commercial value. It can’t be patented or put in pill form, so it has no pharmaceutical value. Instead, it’s an inner state. Both a choice and a gift. Once it’s yours, it’s yours, and it can’t be taken away from you. Ever.*

So right away you can see why it’s of no interest to Big Religion or Big Business.

One of the reasons the practice of forgiveness isn’t taught by mainstream religion is the embarrassment factor. The embarrassment of mistakes. The average person doesn’t want to admit his own mistakes, let alone the mistakes of his family and clan and revered religious tradition. In fact, there are few things in the human experience that cause more suffering than the refusal to admit one’s own mistakes.

The strange part about this stubborn refusal to be honest about mistakes is that it’s NOT intrinsic to your soul’s true nature. You weren’t born this stubborn. In fact, when you were a young child, you were constantly making mistakes, but it never slowed you down in your learning process because each time you made a mistake, you forgave yourself, learned from the mistake, and moved on.

Most people don’t remember this part of their lives. They think they’ve always been stubborn and unforgiving and quite willing to lie through their teeth in order to avoid the embarrassment of admitting a mistake.

My boss at work is quite willing to lie without blinking an eye whenever somebody close to her points out a mistake she’s made. She can’t deal with honest truth when the honest truth is directed at herself. She’s quick to point out other people’s mistakes, but she’s not good at taking responsibility for her own mistakes. She has a reflex action of trying to shift the blame to somebody else if she can. I don’t think she even realizes what she’s doing. It’s a learned biological response, a trained reflex, not a natural part of her true soul self. But she’s been doing it for so long she doesn’t question it anymore. For her, it’s normal. Nonetheless, it’s hurtful. Hurtful to herself and hurtful to those she tries to blame for her own mistakes.

She and I don’t get along very well some days because I have a bad habit of being honest with her when she makes a mistake, and then forgiving her right on the spot. I’m also honest with her about my own mistakes. I try to communicate clearly and honestly about mistakes without holding grudges (since holding grudges is the very antithesis of forgiveness). I try to learn from mistakes — my own and others’.

Surprising as this may seem, my boss doesn’t like being treated this way. She doesn’t understand me because I don’t play by the grudgefest rules. She’s used to living in a world where people hold grudges. She knows how to respond to this sort of behaviour and she enjoys playing cat-and-mouse games of revenge (where she’s the cat and her staff members are the mouse). A few of us at work are refusing to play mouse. She finds this quite stressful at times. But, you know, that’s her problem.

When I say I forgive her, I don’t mean I choose to ignore the harm she’s created. I don’t mean I make excuses for her behaviour or pretend that bygones are bygones. I remember what she’s done. I remember her behaviour as clearly and objectively as I can. But I don’t “hang onto” the past. Instead, I allow the past to guide me and teach me so I can deal more effectively with the present. I understand that she’s responsible for her own choices, and I understand that she could be making different choices if she wanted to. It doesn’t do either of us any good to pretend otherwise. Pretending otherwise is just another form of lying. Forgiveness requires honesty.

I choose to love the person and reject the behaviour, rather than rejecting the person. This takes a lot of will power, especially on difficult days when somebody is REALLY not being his/her best self. There have been a few times for me in recent years when I don’t know how I would have got through the day without the decision to forgive, forgive, forgive. Forgiveness keeps your feet planted solidly on the Spiral Path. Forgiveness combined with courage helps you take a deep breath and keep on going, even when the terrain all around you is hostile and cruel (as it sometimes is). Forgiveness is the choice that allows you to move from the glass-half-empty-with-sour-lemon-juice to the glass-half-filled-with-sweet-lemonade.

Of course, you’re the one who has to supply the sugar.

* You can read more about what forgiveness feels like at Forgiveness: The Divine String of Pearls or Forgiveness as a Present Reality or Summing Up: Finding the Kingdom of God.

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Posted in building your intuition, forgiveness, free will, honesty, Peace Sequence, spiritual practices, The Blonde Mystic, theodicy and tagged spiritual practice in the 3rd millennium | Leave a Comment

08 Jul 2011

JR56: Forgiveness As a Present Reality

A: Tell me more about forgiveness. The other day you said, “Divine forgiveness is not settlement of a debt. Debt doesn’t enter into the equation. Education, mentorship, and personal responsibility enter into the equation, but not debt” (The Meaning of “the Son of Man”). You and I have talked a lot about forgiveness, but you’ve never linked it to the Peace Sequence before. Can you explain in more detail what you meant?

J: I’m going to introduce a comparison between forgiveness and catalysts (as catalysts are understood by a chemist). At a quantum level, forgiveness acts as an important “biochemical” catalyst for learning.

A: Okay, you’re gonna have to back up the divine truck on this one.

J: In everyday speech, people use the word “catalyst” to mean a person, thing, or event that prompts sudden change. In Western culture it’s often an unexpected tragedy that serves as a catalyst for change. For instance, if a child is killed because a newly designed toy isn’t safe, the people around the child are shocked into action. Chances are good that an inquiry will be held, and healthy and safety regulations will be amended to remove this particular threat. The catalyst for change was a tragic event that jarred people out of their complacency and forced them to be more honest about a quantifiable, measurable threat to children’s safety.

The factual reality of the toy’s dangerous design existed before the tragic death. The threat itself wasn’t new. What was new was the realization of the threat, the objective recognition of the threat, the memory of the threat. In other words, human beings had to learn about the threat. They had to identify the problem, remember the problem, understand the problem, then fix the problem. These are the stages of learning. As it happens, these are also the stages of emotional healing and spiritual transformation. They’re all hopelessly intertwined with each other.

A: Identify, remember, understand, and fix. That’s a pretty logical sequence. What happens if a person tries to skip one of those steps? I’m thinking in particular of the “remember” stage. I’ve met quite a few people who seem to have really bad memories. Important information goes right in one ear and out the other. And these are fairly young people I’m talking about, not elderly people with dementia!

J: Those who can’t remember their own history are doomed to repeat it.

A: I remember a fellow we were corresponding with a few years ago about the spiritual journey. He was quite incensed because you and I had suggested that an understanding of science was important to spiritual growth and transformation. He wrote somewhat angrily, “Do I have to have a degree in physics?” And your reply was, “No, you have to have a degree in history.” He probably thought you were being facetious.

“Jesus said, ‘ I shall give you what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, what no hand has touched, what has not arisen in the human heart’” (Gospel of Thomas 17). The mysterious gift Jesus is talking about here is Divine Forgiveness, a gift freely given by God to all people at all times without any restrictions or covenants placed upon the gift. Shown here is an example of an inuksuk, which reminds me of what forgiveness is actually like (simple, memorable, beautiful, accessible by all, able to be built by all). Inuksuit have long served to aid full remembrance in Canada’s Far North. They’re now found widely throughout Canada. This one sits among flowers and metal artwork at an Ontario public school. Photo credit JAT 2015.

J: I wasn’t. I was speaking the honest truth. Memory — history — is crucial to the core self. Memory is a huge part of learning. By that I don’t mean simple rote memory, such as your multiplication tables. I mean soul memory, which is a combination of several different forms of memory. It’s emotional memory plus factual memory plus habit memory plus talent memory.

A: That’s a lot to keep track of at one time. Sounds like too much work.

J: Soul memory evolves quite naturally when a child is raised in a mature, responsible, loving home. It becomes a natural way of remembering things. You don’t consciously think about the different aspects of your memory. You just . . . live. You live with empathy and laughter and confidence. It’s your soul memory that helps you do that.

A: So you’re linking empathy with memory.

J: Yes. It’s your memory skills that allow you to remember the names of your neighbour’s children so you can ask how the family is doing.

A: Ooooooh. I suddenly can think of a gajillion different ways that memory can help with empathy and relationships. Things like remembering your friend’s favourite music or your mother’s favourite flower. Or the anniversary of a loved one’s death. Or remembering to pick up a carton of milk on the way home, as promised. Or remembering to say “I love you.” And on and on and on.

J: What’s interesting about people with severe narcissism and psychopathy is the way they use memory. They use memory and history in bizarre, abusive ways. They often have excellent memories when it comes to the mistakes that other people have made (though they rarely admit to their own). They remember all the “crimes” that have been committed against them, and they keep detailed lists of rightful punishments that still need to be meted out.

A: They hold grudges.

J: With a capital “G.” They live for the “high” of revenge. Inside their own heads, they’ll return to the scene of another person’s “crime” and relive the unfairness and unjustness of it all. Then they’ll imagine the scene of their revenge. They’ll gloat about it. They’ll gloat about the glory of their future — and rightful — vengeance. There’s no concern at all about collateral damage — about the people and places that will be damaged when vengeance is pursued. The only thing that’s important to a psychopath is the chance to “even the scales.”

A: Sounds like a Mel Gibson movie.

J: Forgiveness, on the other hand, is not about buying back one’s status or paying a debt or “balancing the scales of time” so the past can be forgotten. Forgiveness absolutely requires a memory of the harm that’s being forgiven.

A: You said above that forgiveness is a catalyst. How does this idea relate to what we’ve been discussing about memory and learning and empathy?

J: In chemistry, a catalyst is a substance that’s an essential ingredient in a chemical reaction without itself being changed and without itself being part of the final product or products.

A: Inorganic chemists use elements such as palladium and rhodium as catalysts so they can synthesize complex molecules out of simpler ones.

J: In chemistry, a catalyst works the way a crane works on a large building site. The crane is essential for transporting loads of basic materials to their proper location on the much larger building that’s being constructed. But once the building is completed, the crane is removed from the site. It’s no longer needed. It can be “recycled” — used on another building site because it isn’t part of the final product. Its role is essential but temporary. This is what forgiveness is like.

A: Still not following you. Especially because you’ve said in the past that forgiveness is a permanent choice — a permanent choice to wrap harmful choices within a layer of love.

J: Forgiveness, like the construction crane, is a permanent “substance,” if you will. But like a crane, it moves around. It isn’t glued to one site or one event or one person. It goes in, does its transformative thing, then lets go. Forgiveness allows you to identify, remember, understand, and fix the past without actually having to live in the past. It frees you from the tyranny of rumination on the past. It doesn’t ask you to forget. It asks you to transform. It asks you to take the pain and turn it into something new. Forgiveness isn’t the final product of the transformative process, despite what some theologians have claimed. Forgiveness is the tool — the catalyst — that’s needed so you can take painful experiences and painful choices and turn them into something brand new.

A: The way orthodox Western Christian theologians often describe forgiveness makes it sound like the end goal, the final result of being saved by God.

J: God the Mother and God the Father are always moving the crane of forgiveness. They’re always actively and consciously choosing to forgive their human children for the suffering people create. Forgiveness is a present act — always a present act, not a future one. Just as the Kingdom of the Heavens is supposed to be a present condition, not a future one.

A: I’ve read so many books where teachers of spirituality insist that we “live in the moment.” Is this what you’re getting at? Letting go of the past and the future and focussing only on the present moment?

J: No. Most definitely not. The phrase “living in the moment” all too often means “living in a state of dissociation.” Living in a state of psychological dissociation from one’s emotions, memories, and personal responsibilities. Obviously this doesn’t help individuals or families or communities create peace. To create peace, you have to be willing to learn from the past. You have to be willing to identify the problems of the past, and then marshal all your courage and will power and love to get to the point where you can remember the pain without being overwhelmed and numbed by the pain. In other words, you have to learn from your mistakes.

A: Learning from your own mistakes is very hard. Self forgiveness is very hard.

J: In the ancient Greek myth of Sisyphus, the man Sisyphus is condemned by the gods to spend all eternity rolling a large stone to the top of a hill, only to watch it roll back down again each day. This aptly describes what it feels like to live without forgiveness. Each day feels like an eternity of repetitive struggle, an endless cycle of guilt and pain you can’t seem to escape from. Forgiveness, on the other hand, is the crane you bring in to build a series of small level shelves or steps on the side of the hill so you can gradually get the stone to the top of the hill and keep it there, where it will no longer torture you. With the boulder of the past safely stowed at the top of the hill, you can get on with the business of planting a nice garden at the base of the hill and inviting all your friends over to share in the beauty. The stone at the top is there to remind you of the mistakes you once made so you ‘re less likely to make them again. The stone isn’t gone. But it’s in a safer place.

A: So in the Kingdom of the Heavens, the past isn’t gone, but it’s in a safer place. This allows you to bring more of your daily energy to the task of living as fully as possible today.

J: You’d be amazed how much energy many people use each day by dwelling in the past, ruminating on past injuries, focussing on revenge, and not paying attention (literally) to the tasks and relationships of today. When I say “energy,” I don’t mean that metaphorically. I mean that people quite literally expend precious biological resources every day when they choose to focus on the past. They use up proteins and fats and carbs in their bodies. They force their brain cells to hang on to cell-to-cell connections that aren’t productive. They refuse to let their brains empty the “recycle bin,” and as a result, dangerous levels of old proteins and other biological materials can build up inside the brain. Causing medical syndromes such as various forms of dementia.

A: So forgiveness isn’t just a metaphysical aspiration: it’s also a biological reality.

J: As you’d expect it to be in the good Creation of a loving God.

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Posted in brain-soul connection, dissociation, Divine Love, empathy, forgiveness, Jesus Redux, narcissism, Peace Sequence, psychopathy, sense of time & timing, Soul, soul blueprint, soul purpose, spiritual practices, theodicy and tagged Kingdom teachings | Leave a Comment

02 Jul 2011

JR54: The Meaning of "the Son of Man"

A: We’ve been talking a lot about the Kingdom and gardens and finding peace through personal responsibility. How does the phrase “the Son of Man” fit into all this? If ever there was a phrase in the New Testament that people don’t understand, it’s the “Son of Man” phrase — ho hyios tou anthropou in Koine Greek, bar nasa in Aramaic, and ben adam in Hebrew. Somehow I suspect the translation of the Greek phrase into English doesn’t do justice to the original meaning.

J: It’s very easy to forget that the Hebrew word adam wasn’t used primarily as a name in Second Temple Judaism. Adam can also be translated as “ground/soil” or as “humankind.” Similarly, the Greek word anthropos meant “humankind,” not just “human beings of the male sex.” These nuances are lost in the traditional English translation “Son of Man.” A much better translation in English would be “essence of humanity” or “highest potential of humankind.” I used the phrase ho hyios tou anthropou to express a concept — a concept for which no vocabulary existed at the time.

“Jesus said: Adam came into being from enormous power and wealth, but he was never worthy of you, for had he been worthy of you he would not have died” (Gospel of Thomas 85). This saying doesn’t make much sense unless you stop to consider what Genesis 2-3 says about the allegorical relationship between humankind (Adam) and God. In the Garden of Eden, there are two trees that embody the deepest and most mystical elements of God, Creation, and faith: (1) the tree of life and (2) the tree of knowledge of good and evil. These two trees are supposed to be in balance, and while they are, Adam and Eve live a life of trusting relationship with God. At some point, however, Eve, followed quickly by Adam, decide they’re more interested in having knowledge than in having a trusting relationship with God. So they eat of the metaphorical fruit from the tree of knowledge and find themselves aligned with the many ancient philosopher kings who also chose knowledge over relationship with God. In Jesus’ teachings, choosing a life that places knowledge far above trust, love, and relationship with God is really no life at all. For Jesus, the mind is important, but not more important than the heart. So the metaphorical example of Adam and Eve — who lost the balance between mind and heart and as a result struggled for the rest of their lives with “death” instead of “life” — is not the example we should be following. Seek instead the path of peace that’s based on relationship with God. This ivory depicting The Fall of Man (by Balthasar Griessmann, c. 1670-1690) is part of the Thomson Collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Photo credit JAT 2018.

A: What concept were you trying to teach about? Enlightenment?

J: No. Forgiveness.

A: Sayings 85 and 86 in the Gospel of Thomas refer to “Adam” and to “the son of man.” Saying 85 says, “Jesus said: Adam came into being from enormous power and wealth, but he was never worthy of you, for had he been worthy of you he would not have died.” Saying 86 goes on to say, “Jesus said: Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the son of man has no place to lay down his head and rest.” Thomas 86 also appears almost word for word in Luke 9:58. How do these verses relate to the concept of forgiveness?

J (sighing): I’ve always been fond of word plays, puns, alliterations, rhymes, and poetry. “Foxes have holes and birds of heaven have nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head” sounded catchier in Greek than it does in English.

A: But I guess the important thing to keep in mind is the fact that you weren’t talking about a particular man in this saying. You weren’t talking about yourself. You were trying to explain a concept that was unfamiliar to your students.

J (nodding): The people around me had been raised on a steady diet of values that had no place in humanity’s relationship with God the Mother and God the Father. No matter where you turned, you heard tales of might, tales of glory, tales of revenge. Everyone thought they had the “correct” God — or gods — on their side. Everyone thought they were truly pious, truly deserving of divine reward. Everyone had their own version of the “God will avenge me” myth. The avenging God had as many “faces” as a circus performer has costumes.

If you were a person with a black sense of humour — as I came to be — you could go to bed in the evening and count all the ways you’d offended this god and that god in umpteen hidden ways on that day alone. You could count all the ways you’d be punished. You could count all the ways your masters would take revenge against you for your “heinous crimes” against God. Of course, it was your earthly masters — not the unseen gods of heaven — who were the ones who had the rod in their hands to beat you. It was your earthly masters who would use any “divine” excuse possible to beat you into submission and humility.

But they’d often go easy on you if you offered a payment. Some sort of compensation — an eye for an eye. Some sort of bribe. Contract laws dictated what terms of compensation were acceptable. These contract laws weren’t civil laws in the way you’d understand a Western nation’s legal codes today. These contract laws had political and economic purposes, of course, but they were primarily religious laws and traditions. Nomos in Greek. Nomos provided a list of crimes and a list of acceptable “payments” to balance the scales if you committed a crime. Often these “payments” were sacrifices. Temple sacrifices. In most Greco-Roman religions of the time — not just Judaism — you could bring a sacrifice (a payment, really) to the local temple so you could literally “buy back” God’s favour. This is what “redemption” used to mean. It meant trading something you had — money or goods or livestock or agricultural produce — to get something you needed: divine favour. It had nothing to do with divine love or divine forgiveness as you and I have defined these concepts on this site.

A: And then there was slavery. The actual buying and selling of human beings based on contract laws. A slave could, under certain circumstances, “buy back” his rights. Or a slave could be manumitted — legally freed by his or her “owner.” But contract law gave people the excuse they needed to treat others cruelly. Contract law justified their cruelty.

J: They gave themselves permission to violate the soul’s own understanding of free will, justice, integrity, and respect. They were listening to their own selfishness and not to God’s voice. And I said so. Out loud. Frequently.

A: So your friends and students were conditioned to understand their relationship with God in terms of contract law. In terms of payments to a master or sovereign lord. In terms of monetary debts or “obligatory service contracts” (i.e. slavery).

J: Slavery was — and is — a terrible violation of the soul, of what it means to be a soul, a child of God. Slavery is an artificially created human condition in which a slave’s personal boundaries are invaded in every way imaginable. A slave is forced to give up all rights to physical and sexual safety. All rights to choose where and with whom to be in relationship. All rights to follow his or her own soul’s calling. Even a slave who has property — and there were many wealthy slaves in the Roman Empire — even such a slave is taught to believe he doesn’t actually own the skin he’s in. It’s not his. It belongs to somebody else. His own skin is “dead” to him. His mind and his heart may be free, but his skin — his body — is dead. He can’t view himself as whole — as a “whole bean” — because in his own mind and in the mind of his society he isn’t whole. He’s a sort of ghoulish inhabitant of a body that belongs to somebody else. If, in addition to being a slave, he’s also sexually violated — a fate that was brutally common for young boys and girls in the first century Empire — chances are extremely high that he’ll grow up to be seriously mentally ill. Why? Because children who are beaten and sexually abused and psychologically tortured bear the scars of that treatment in their biological brains, bodies, and psyches until they are healed. It’s a simple statement of fact.

A: You can see how this kind of treatment would lead to dissociative disorders. A person who’s disconnected from emotions. Disconnected from a strong sense of boundaries and personal space.

J: I was trying to get at the point that even lowly foxes and humble birds are given their own personal space, their own “home,” their own sanctuary by God. Foxes and birds will defend their own homes with all their might, as they have a right to do. They don’t have the right to steal another creature’s home, but they do have the right to protect the one they have. God gives no less a right to all human beings. No human contract law “written in stone” anywhere at any time can supersede the obvious truth that each human being owns his own skin and is the sovereign of his own domain, his own personal kingdom. When he knows this and feels this and lives this, he feels alive. He feels whole. He feels at peace.

A: This is the state of “living” that you refer to so often in the Gospel of Thomas.

J: Yes. It’s a psychological state of balance and health. There’s nothing occult about it. It’s the natural outcome of making choices that lead to emotional maturity. It’s the natural outcome of choosing to live according to the highest potential of humankind. It’s the truest essence of humanity.

A: People being their best selves. On purpose.

J: Yes. On purpose. It’s so very much about the purpose. About the purposefulness of “living.” Which is where forgiveness comes in.

A: How so?

J: Christians are usually taught to think of forgiveness as an act of grace on God’s part, as a somewhat sudden and fickle choice on God’s part, as something that human beings can participate in but can’t initiate. Paul tries very hard to give this impression to his readers. But forgiveness is the opposite of suddenness and fickleness and “divine transcendence.” Forgiveness is purposefulness. Purposefulness of a particular kind. Forgiveness is what you get when you choose to combine your free will and your courage and your love. There’s nothing accidental or preordained about it. It’s a choice. An ongoing choice that calls upon the greatest resources of the eternal soul — each and every soul. It’s the choice to love someone wholly in the absence of payment or retribution or just compensation. Divine forgiveness is not settlement of a debt. Debt doesn’t enter into the equation. Education, mentorship, and personal responsibility enter into the equation, but not debt.

A: This is soooooooo not what they taught me in theological school.

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Posted in Book of Genesis, boundary issues, forgiveness, free will, gender and sexuality, Jesus Redux, Kingdom teachings, Law (Nomos), life and death, Peace Sequence, relationship with God, religion and mental Illness, slavery, Son of Man and tagged Kingdom teachings, The Peace Sequence | Leave a Comment

22 Jun 2011

JR52: Pelagius and Personal Responsibility

A: In our discussions lately, you’ve been emphasizing the role of personal responsibility in the journey of healing and faith, and I’ve been waiting for somebody to jump up and accuse you of being a Pelagian. How do you feel about the Pelagian philosophy of free will?

For the record, Pelagius was born sometime in the late 300’s CE, and died around 418 CE. He and his followers drew vicious attacks from Augustine of Hippo and Jerome, and Pelagianism was condemned as a heresy in 431 CE.

J: Without getting too much into the details of the debate between Augustine and Pelagius on the nature of free will, I’d have to say that both of them were wrong.

A: How so?

J: Neither of them had a balanced view of what it means to be a human being. Augustine had no faith at all in the ability of human beings to consciously change their lives and their communities through human initiative. He thought people would be happier if they just accepted their miserable lot in life. Acceptance of Original Sin and concupiscence was the best they could hope for, in his view. His views on human nature have created no end of suffering for devout Christians over the centuries.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum, Pelagius preached the opposite extreme. He taught the path of spiritual ascent — anagogic mysticism — which says that people can achieve a state of holiness and perfection if they just try hard enough. He placed the entire burden on the individual. This is no less damaging to people’s lives than Augustine’s idea. Neither man understood — nor wanted to understand — that the path of healing and relationship with God is a path of balance. There must be a balance between personal responsibilities and group responsibilities, a balance between personal responsibilities and divine responsibilities. In particular, there must be a willingness on the part of individuals AND on the part of groups to be honest about their own limits. This honesty is the foundation of great strength for souls-in-human-form. Unfortunately, both Augustine and Pelagius hacked away at this foundation with all their might. They both snatched away a source of deep courage and strength for Christians, and insisted on despair and self-blame in its place. It was a cruel thing to do.

A: So your understanding of personal responsibility isn’t the same as what Pelagius taught.

J: It’s important to note that in the Peace Sequence we’ve been discussing, I’ve placed personal responsibility as the third “gear” in the sequence, not the first gear. Pelagius and others have tried to place personal responsibility in the first position on the Peace Sequence, not the third position. They’ve tried to equate free will with personal responsibility, as if they’re synonymous, as if they’re exactly the same thing. But they’re not.

A: Can you elaborate on that?

J: Personal responsibility is perhaps the most complex, most advanced skill set that human beings can learn during their lifetime here on Planet Earth. It’s not a single skill or a single choice. It’s what we referred to earlier as a “meta-choice” — a pasting together of several smaller choices into something bigger. A meta-choice is so well integrated, so cohesive, so holistic that it often seems like a single choice. But actually it’s a blend of several other choices. It’s a blend of the choice to be courageous, the choice to be empathetic, the choice to be humble, the choice to be intuitive, the choice to be well organized, and the choice to be self disciplined. It’s all those things together.

A: You mean . . . maturity. Emotional, psychological, and physical maturity.

J: Yes. It’s maturity. It’s individuation. It’s compassion. It’s Whole Brain Thinking.

A: Using the whole toolkit of the human brain instead of isolated parts of it.

J: The human brain has long been treated as a single organ, though really it’s an interconnected series of semi-autonomous sectors, each with its own specialized ability to “choose” on behalf of the whole. When all the different choices work together towards a common goal, the human brain works smoothly. If “feels” like a single whole, a single choice. But really it’s a combination of choices. When a person has arrived at the stage in life when he or she “gets” the concept of personal responsibility, it means his/her biological brain is working in a balanced, holistic way. The fruits of this long process should — if all goes well — START to be visible in the actions of people 16 to 18 years of age. The process isn’t normally complete, however, until about age 21 or 22. If all goes well.

A: Last week, after Vancouver lost to Boston in the seventh game of the Stanley Cup finals, large crowds of young people — many of them now identified as coming from “good” families — rioted in downtown Vancouver. There was a lot of looting and vandalism. Something tells me these young people haven’t developed the Whole Brain Thinking approach to personal responsibility.

J: There were some people in the crowd who stepped forward and did the right thing to protect others who were being beaten. These Good Samaritans are the individuals who instinctively know “the right thing to do” in a crisis. Their sense of personal responsibility, of right and wrong, of courage and compassion doesn’t desert them in an emergency. In fact, it may only be during an unexpected emergency that they themselves realize for the first time that they “get it.” They act first and ask questions later — fortunately for those they can help.

“Do not give what is holy to dogs, or they might throw them upon the manure pile. Do not throw pearls [to] swine, or they might make [mud] of it” (Gospel of Thomas 93). Jesus taught several centuries before either Augustine or Pelagius, so of course we don’t expect to see any reference to these later theologians in the Gospel of Thomas. On the other hand, Jesus had unflattering things to say about both the Pharisees and the Herodians, whose teachings resembled those of Augustine and Pelagius respectively. It seems likely that in the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus was using the metaphor of “dogs” to refer to the Pharisees and the metaphor of “swine” to refer to the Herodians. It seems Jesus wasn’t impressed with either group’s approach to God’s holy things. Recently, I visited a Toronto Conservatory where several generations of cardinals have learned to enter and exit through the automated roof openings so they can build nests for their young in a warm, safe place. These birds not only provide basic food and shelter for their offspring, but also, in this case, are teaching their young an unusual and complex skill set that calls upon them to maximize their latent potential without exceeding their limits. In other words, the parent cardinals are mentoring their offspring. Photo credit JAT 2017.

A: You’re saying that maturity — personal responsibility — is the product of many years of education and mentorship of children. Is that right?

J: Yes. Education is the first “gear” in the process, but education alone isn’t enough to guide a child towards maturity and personal responsibility.

A: As the well-educated youths who rioted in Vancouver proved all too well.

J: Along with education there must also be appropriate, mature mentorship. It’s the older mentors who are supposed to guide children in their emotional growth with firm, consistent, boundary-respecting compassionate tough love. Parents, grandparents, teachers, sports coaches, medical professionals, and many others can all be mentors for children if they so choose.

A: What about ministers and priests? Can they be mentors?

J: Ideally, yes. However, realistically speaking, they rarely are.

A: Why not?

J: Because most of them have deeply embraced either Augustine’s idea about human nature or Pelagius’s idea. Neither approach helps a young person learn how to find the balance they so desperately need. In addition, those ministers who try to inject balance into their youth work are also the ones most likely to have rejected the idea of the soul and the spiritual life. It’s lose-lose for ordained clerics.

A: Unless they’re willing to accept new doctrines of faith.

J: For that to happen, they’d have to apply their own God-given free will. It’s a choice each cleric will have to make on the basis of his or her own conscience. That’s what divine courage is all about.

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Posted in anagogic mysticism, Church of today, conscience & morality, empathy, free will, honesty, Jesus Redux, meta-choice, Original Sin, Peace Sequence, personal responsibility, Whole Brain Thinking and tagged The Peace Sequence, Whole Brain Thinking | Leave a Comment

18 Jun 2011

JR51: Fifth Step: Keep Christmas, Toss Easter

Christmas tree. Photo credit JAT 2012.

A: So far we’ve talked about rescuing the soul, restoring the mystery of divine love, inviting our Mother to the table, and insisting on balance as four ways to help heal the church. What else do you have in that angelic bag of surprises you carry around?

J: The liturgical calendar of the Church must be changed.

A: You mean the calendar of religious events and themes and holy days that tells people what they’re supposed to be celebrating when.

J: Calendars are very important to the healthy functioning of the brain. So the Church still needs a calendar to help focus events for the year. I’m not recommending that the Church do away entirely with the idea of having a yearly cycle of events. Far from it. I’m suggesting that the Church revise the calendar and bring it into alignment with the needs of the soul.

A: What would that mean in practical terms?

J: It would mean you’d get to keep Christmas but you’d have to put Easter in the garbage bin.

A: Get rid of Easter? I can see the steam coming off the heads of conservative Christians already.

J: It would be kinder, in the eyes of many Christians, for me to suggest that Holy Week be “reformed” rather than axed altogether. But Holy Week is a celebration of Pauline Christianity at its worst. The overriding theme of Holy Week is salvation — escape — not healing or redemption. Every year it sends the wrong message to Christians. It sends the message that the focus of their relationship with God should be the Saviour — his death and resurrection and coming again. This was never the message I taught during my ministry as Jesus. Nor is the meaning of my time on the cross being properly taught and represented by the Church. There’s no way that Holy Week can be fixed. It would be the same as asking people to celebrate “the joy” of an S.S. death camp like Auschwitz. (I say this as facetiously as possible.) There is no joy to be found in the traditional teachings of Holy Week.

A: I’ve noticed a tendency among more liberal ministers to treat the “events” of Holy Week in a more symbolic way — to de-emphasize the crucifixion and instead emphasize the themes of renewal and rebirth and regrowth in the spring.

J: It’s very helpful and hopeful to talk about the themes of renewal and rebirth. I have no problem with that per se. I have a problem with a continuing effort among theologians to attach those themes to me. I am one man, one angel, one child of God. I’m not the Fisher King. I’m not Horus. I’m not the dead and rising Sol Invictus. I’m not the resurrected Christ. I’m just a stubborn s.o.b. who won’t shut up. I wasn’t even crucified in the springtime. I was crucified in the fall. The early church’s efforts to place the time of my crucifixion in the spring were largely centred on John’s writings. John had his own reasons for wanting to place the time of my crucifixion at Passover. But John wasn’t a man who cared about historicity or facts. He wrote what he wanted to write about me. It helped him sleep better at night.

A: A minute ago you mentioned joy as if it’s somehow significant or important to the healing of the church.

J: Joy is crucial to the experience of faith.

A: How do you define “joy”?

J: I use the word “joy” to express the gratitude and devotion and trust that all angels feel in their relationship with God the Mother and God the Father. I don’t use it as a synonym for worship or praise. I don’t use it as a synonym for the excitement of being part of a large crowd (which is more like hysteria). For me, joy is a word that conveys the happiness and deep contentment we feel as angels. It’s the feeling you get when you feel really, really grateful and really, really SAFE at the same time. It makes you smile from the inside out.

A: Christians have long believed that the purpose of angels is to offer praise and worship to God. Do angels worship God?

J: Noooooooo. You never see angels down on their knees with their heads bowed in humility. What you see is angels living their purpose of love in everything they do. As angels, we show our never-ending love and appreciation of our parents by choosing thoughts and words and actions that bring more love into Creation. We live in imitation of our parents’ courage. We’re not carbon copies of our divine mother and father — that is, we all have our own unique temperaments and personalities and talents and interests — but we’re all alike in that we all choose love. There are many different minds and many different bodies in Creation, but it can be said in all truthfulness that there’s only One Heart. It’s the feeling of joy that comes from our choice to share One Heart that makes us feel like a big family. We all belong to one family.

A: Where you feel safe, despite your differences in talent and temperament.

J: Yes. This is the underlying intent of divine love. It’s the choice to see another soul as, in fact, another soul — as someone who’s not you, who’s not a mere extension of you. It’s the choice to respect differences between individual souls, while at the same time choosing to help other souls be their best selves.

A: Can you explain what you mean by that last statement?

J: Here’s the thing. No one soul can “do” all things or “be” all things. Every soul has unique strengths. But every soul also has unique absences of strength. Angels are always giving and receiving help within the family. An angel with a particular strength will offer that strength to help brothers and sisters who need assistance with something they’re not very good at themselves. The same angel who offers a strength to another will in turn be very grateful to receive help from another soul in an area where he or she needs some help. There’s no sense of shame or guilt or inadequacy among angels when they have an absence of strength. They accept who they are. They don’t judge themselves or feel sorry for themselves or describe themselves as flawed or imperfect or unworthy. They gratefully and humbly ask for — and receive — help when there’s something they don’t understand or something they want to do but don’t have the skills for. It’s all about education, mentorship, and personal responsibility, even among God’s angels. As above, so below.

A: At the start of this conversation you said that Christians could keep the celebration of Christmas. Why? Why keep Christmas and not Easter?

J: December 25th is a day marked by all angels in Creation. It is the day when Divine Love was born.

A: I thought you said we have to get rid of all the invented myths about your ministry. Isn’t this one of them?

J: I wasn’t born on December 25th. I was born in the month of November. When I refer to the day when Divine Love was born, I’m talking about God the Mother and God the Father. I’m talking about the day when their Divine Love for each other first emerged in Creation. It was the day when everything — absolutely everything — changed. It was the day — the actual day in the far, far distant past (before the time of the “Big Bang”) — when they made the choice to live for each other. It’s the day when the Christ was born — NOT, I’d like to reiterate, the day when I, Jesus, was born, but the day when Mother-and-Father-Together-As-Christ were born. When their new reality was born. When their new relationship was born. None of us would be here today if they hadn’t made that choice.

A: So you’re saying that God the Mother and God the Father have an actual calendar of the kind we would recognize here on Planet Earth, and that the day of December 25th is marked on this calendar? This seems like too much of a coincidence.

J: God isn’t using a human calendar. Humans are using a divine calendar. God the Mother and God the Father are pretty good at math, you could say. It wasn’t difficult for them to set up indications of their calendar system all over the known baryonic universe. Planet Earth runs on the same calendar system that angels use. More or less. There are cycles that can’t be argued with, cycles that are fixed by astronomical and mathematical realities. Solar and lunar and galactic cycles dictate the calendar, not the other way around. Humans didn’t “invent” this calendar. They simply noted its existence.

A: Ah. The Preexistent Calendar. I’d love to see what the theologians will do with this theory!

J: The cycles are real and meaningful to all souls. The Church liturgical calendar needs to honour and respect these cycles. Obviously there can’t be too many “fixed liturgical days” because there has to be room for change in patterns depending on latitude and longitude. The time of regeneration, rebirth, and regrowth changes depending on where you live. The Church has to make allowances for these scientific realities.

A: Any other suggestions?

J: Yes. The Church should get rid of Holy Week entirely, including all the bells and whistles such as Lent. In its place, they should institute at a different time of year a brand new 3-day Festival of Redemption. Like Christmas, it would be a “fixed” celebration, celebrated by all Christians at the same time each year.

A: This is an entirely new idea. What would the purpose be?

J: The Festival of Redemption would be a time for Christians to stop their busy everyday lives and get together for workshops, seminars, and conferences on the theme of helping each other heal. Workshops could be held locally in the homes of individuals. Or they could be held in larger venues, such as university campuses. Not everyone would want to experience this festival in the same way — and this is as it should be because souls have different needs and different learning styles. In fact, there should NOT be one particular fixed geographical location or “pilgrimage” site for this Festival. Having “special sites” would undermine the purpose of the Festival. The idea that only some sites are “sacred” or “specially blessed by God” is a human idea. Every square inch of Creation is sacred and blessed by God as far as the angels are concerned.

A: Something tells me the Biblical idea of specific sites sanctified by God is another idea that’s going to be going into the garbage can along with the Easter eggs.

J: Hey. Don’t throw out the chocolate bunnies. They’re one of the only parts of Easter worth keeping. That and the big family dinners.

A: Amen to that.

-2

Posted in "4 S's", angels (i.e. persons-of-soul), Christ archetype, Church of today, Divine Love, historical Jesus, Jesus Redux, John the Baptist, Peace Sequence, relationship with God, Soul, worship and tagged Christ Archetype, Divine Heart, historical Jesus | Leave a Comment

15 Jun 2011

JR50: Fourth Step: Insist on Balance

A: In the past couple of weeks we’ve been talking about ways to help heal the church. What other suggestions do you have for Christians who want to live a life of faith without compromising their logic or their ethic of inclusiveness?

J: I’d definitely say the Church needs to teach holistic balance. They need to teach people on an ongoing basis how to balance the mind, body, heart, and soul.

A: This is a topic that could fill many, many books.

J: All the better. As I’ve said before, the path to peace begins with education, not with piety and not with covenant.* The Church needs to expand the source material it relies on to teach its new insights. The Bible by itself won’t cut it. Not even the parts of the Bible that teach the truth about God the Mother, God the Father, and me. You can only read from the Gospel of Mark so many times. You need some other source material to work with.

A: Can you give some examples?

Think of your life as a series of braids. You can see the individual strands of heart, mind, body, and soul, but you do your best to weave them together into braids that are much stronger together than individual strands alone.

“Jesus said: Blessed are those who have been persecuted within themselves. They have really come to know the Father” (Gospel of Thomas 69a). Think of your life as a series of braids. You can see the individual strands of heart, mind, body, and soul, but when you do your best to weave them together with self-honesty (“persecution within themselves”), you have a braid that’s many times stronger than the strands could be by themselves. Photo credit Image*After.

J: Actually, a lot of open-minded ministers are already including other source materials in their services. They’re using poetry, music, dance, art, drama, and spontaneous prayer to expand the scope of their services — to let the experience breathe. There still needs to be some structure to the service — it isn’t healthy, especially for younger children, if ministers do away entirely with a recognizable format — but these other “languages” are valid ways for people to connect with God’s voice. The important thing here is to be conscious of the content and — most importantly — the intent of the other source materials that are being chosen. The intent is what matters. There’s no point filling a service with new songs and new poems if the new material tells people the same thing they’ve been told for centuries — that they’re unworthy of God’s forgiveness and love and guidance. The new material must encourage people to think in positive ways about themselves and their relationship with God.

A: While not overdoing the whole self-esteem thing.

J: Yes. It’s not helpful for a service to slide in the direction of Prosperity Gospel teachings. Prosperity preachers are no more balanced than fire-and-brimstone preachers. Prosperity Gospel teaches various versions of the “God-As-the-Great-Gumball-Machine-in-the-Sky” doctrine — various versions of the “God has to give you whatever want if you ask in the right way” theory.** These teachings feed — and feed upon — people’s undiagnosed status addiction. It’s not a healthy way to be in relationship with God. A healthy relationship with God involves a balance between your own needs and other people’s needs, a balance between encouraging people to be their best selves and encouraging them to take responsibility for harmful choices they’ve made on purpose. The Church’s job is to help people recognize and maintain this balance.

A: So you don’t recommend that ministers get rid of the Prayer of Confession in their services?

J: The Prayer of Confession is a crucial part of helping people recognize the balance. Of course, the Prayer of Confession needs to be written with the utmost care. It needs to strike the proper balance between encouraging people to be honest about their intentional errors while at the same time leaving room for them to feel optimistic about their ability to learn from their mistakes and to feel God’s forgiveness.

A: I remember with excruciating clarity the penitential prayer (or “preface” prayer) from the 1962 Anglican Book of Common Prayer. The Communion Service prepared us for the sacrament of the Eucharist by having us all recite in unison, “We do not presume to come to this thy table, O Merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table [emphasis added]. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy: grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.” This prayer always made me feel like crap. The line about not being worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under the table stuck in my head, too, as I’m sure the authors of the prayer intended. In the Anglican Church’s newest prayer book for Canada — The Book of Alternative Services — this prayer has ostensibly been removed from the new Holy Communion service. But the intent is still there.

J: This is exactly the sort of prayer that’s harmful to people’s relationship with God rather than helpful.

A: I think many church leaders and church elders and even some Christian parents are afraid that if faithful Christians aren’t forced onto their knees in fear and obedience then mass chaos will erupt in our society, and civilization will fall apart.

J: Yes. Many church elders do believe this. They believe this because they’ve been told to believe this by authority figures in their lives — whether parents, ministers, theologians, saints, or scripture. They’re genuinely frightened. They believe they’re doing the right thing in promoting this kind of fear in people’s relationship with God.

A: What’s your suggestion for healing this problem in the Church?

J: Ministers and church elders must look to the second step of the Peace Sequence for guidance. The Peace Sequence I taught was education-then-mentorship-then-personal-responsibility-then-peace. Those called to the task of ministering to the spiritual aspect of humanity must first be educated. Then they must accept the mantle of mentorship. They must stop trying to “save souls” and instead start trying to “mentor brains.” A minister in the third millennium must be a bit of a jack-or-jill-of-all-trades — knowledgeable about the history of the church and the history of church doctrine, but also aware of trends in science, psychotherapy, the arts, and politics. An effective minister isn’t somebody who’s hiding his or her head in the sand like an ostrich. An effective minister isn’t somebody who preaches “escape from the sins and evils of the world.” Instead, an effective minister is someone who isn’t afraid to look at Creation in holistic ways, balanced ways, and wonder-filled ways. An effective minister is someone who teaches people how to live as a human being according to the needs and wishes of the soul.

A: The good soul.

J: Yes. The good soul that everyone is.

A: I suspect that most people in the world today wouldn’t even know how to begin to imagine what Church would look like if it operated in this way.

J: Well, for starters, the Church would be a place that’s integrated into the wider community. This idea isn’t really new. Many heart-based Christians have tried to take the church into the community and the community into the church. This is admirable. The great stumbling block to progress in this endeavour has always been the doctrines. It’s the doctrines themselves — and the intent behind those doctrines — that drive a wedge between the church and the community. You can’t go around preaching that you’re chosen by God to be saved and not have people notice how hypocritical your claims of love and forgiveness really are.

People these days have access to information — lots and lots of information. They find out pretty quickly when pastors and priests have been charged with crimes against their neighbours. It looks hypocritical. And, indeed, it is.

A: I spent two years in full-time studies with theology students, most of whom planned to go on for ordination. Even among United Church candidates, there’s a belief that ministers-in-training are there because they’ve been “called.” I have no problem in general with the idea of people feeling called to particular tasks in life. But this was different. These ministers-in-training seemed to believe that their call was somehow “more special” than other people’s calls. They didn’t see their job as just another job on a par with teaching or medical care or firefighting or environmental cleanup. They thought they were somehow “different.” I also noticed that a few of these ministers-in-training got a strange light in their eye when they talked about their special — and highly controlled — right to bless the bread and wine of the Eucharist. It was not a pretty sight. It was clear some of them wanted the status of being “specially chosen by God” to bless the Elements, and maybe even facilitate their Transubstantiation into something more elevated.

J: Well, as for that, there’s no transubstantiation — no transformation of the “inner reality” of the bread and wine. There’s mystery and wonder in every stick of bread that’s baked in the world, and the Church’s bread is no better. Unfortunately, there are too many priests and too many ministers who want the Church’s bread to be better so they themselves can claim to be a unique and indispensable part of bringing the bread of God to the people of God. This is not mentorship. This is exactly what it sounds like — narcissism.

A: So part of the journey of healing the church is to heal what it means to be a minister.

J: Yes. The minister himself or herself must first understand what it means to live a life of balance — a life in which the needs of mind, body, heart, and soul are recognized for what they are.

It should go without saying that a religious acolyte who intentionally chooses a life of imbalance — who intentionally chooses a life of asceticism and celibacy and seclusion and obsessive forms of daily worship — is not ever going to be “simpatico” with his own soul. And he’s never going to be equipped to guide others. He’s never going to have the personal tools necessary to become a spiritual mentor to others. He who preaches the importance of balance but doesn’t live according to the needs of balance is a hypocrite.

A: As I recall, this was one of your favourite themes 2,000 years ago.

J: Hypocrisy and narcissistic intent are incestuous bedmates in the history of orthodox Western Christianity. Where you find one, you always find the other.

* See The Peace Sequence.

-2

Posted in Bible, Church of today, forgiveness, intent, Jesus Redux, Peace Sequence, prayer, relationship with God, Soul, spiritual practices and tagged spiritual practice in the 3rd millennium, The Peace Sequence | Leave a Comment

10 May 2011

JR38: The Peace Sequence

The Peace Sequence: First Education, Second Mentorship, Third Personal Responsibility, and finally Peace. Like shovelling after a heavy snowfall, it’s hard work and you can only take it one shovelful at a time. But in the end, the pathway is cleared, and you can move forward. Photo credit JAT 2015.

A: Back in August 2005, before I’d set foot in graduate school, or even considered doing so, you wrote a piece about “the peace sequence.” At the time, you flagged what John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan Reed had written at the beginning of their book In Search of Paul: How Jesus’s Apostle Opposed Rome’s Empire with God’s Kingdom (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004). Crossan and Reed wrote this:

“Paul’s essential challenge is how to embody communally that radical vision of a new creation in a way far beyond even our present best hopes for freedom, democracy, and human rights. The Roman Empire was based on the common principle of peace through victory or, more fully, on a faith in the sequence of piety, war, victory, and peace. Paul was a Jewish visionary following in Jesus’ footsteps, and they both claimed that the Kingdom of God was already present and operative in this world. He opposed the mantras of Roman normalcy with a vision of peace through justice or, more fully, with a faith in the sequence of covenant, nonviolence, justice, and peace. A subtext of In Search of Paul is, therefore: To what extent can America be Christian? (page xi)”

I can still remember your reaction when I read this paragraph back in 2005. At the top of the page, I wrote down your response: “Jesus: peace through personal responsibility in the sequence of education, mentorship, personal responsibility, then peace.” It’s taken me years of research and ongoing discussion with you to more fully understand what you meant that day.

J: As I said then, I don’t disagree with Crossan and Reed’s formulation of Paul’s peace sequence. Paul did, in fact, teach his followers to reject the Roman ideal of peace through victory — the Pax Romana — and to choose peace through divine justice or justification. But this isn’t what I taught. So they’re wrong to state that Paul was following in my footsteps. Paul wasn’t following me or my teachings. If anything, he was going along with a straw broom trying to erase all evidence of my footsteps.

A: Last week on the Vision Channel, I watched an episode of The Naked Archaeologist where Simcha Jacobovcivi looked at the idea that Paul was actually an agent of the Romans. Biblical scholar Robert Eisenman has been saying this for years — and in fact Eisenman was interviewed by Simcha on last week’s episode. If Paul actually was an agent of the Romans, why would he have taught his followers to reject the Roman version of the peace sequence and accept his own Christ-based peace sequence? It doesn’t make any sense.

J: It doesn’t make sense if you view Paul as being an agent of the emperor in Rome. However, it makes a ton of sense of you view Paul as being an agent of other powerful Roman figures — members of the Roman elite who wanted to seize power for themselves. It would have been in their best interests to set up a religion to compete head-on with the Roman Emperor Cult.

A: Oh. Why haven’t I read that anywhere else?

J: Because it sounds like a low-down, dirty rotten, scandalous political ploy. A cold, calculating, ruthless attempt by one party to seize power from another party. With Paul as the chief spin doctor for the down-and-out party. Who wants to say that out loud?

A: Maybe the producers and writers of the Rome TV series? That series certainly pulled back the curtain on the behaviour of the Roman aristocracy — the things they did to try to get power.

J: The truth about Paul isn’t pretty. He was no saint. On the other hand, he believed in what he was doing. He believed he was doing the right thing. He felt totally justified in trying to convert the Diaspora Jews and the Gentile God-Fearers to “the cause.”

A: And what cause was that?

J: Deposing the evil, corrupt Julio-Claudian dynasty and restoring the One True Religion and the One True Emperor.

A: You’ve got to be kidding.

J: Nope. I’m not kidding. There was a huge group of disaffected Romans still living in Alexandria, Egypt, and they believed that their divine right to rule over all lands had been usurped from them by the upstart Julius Caesar and his family. They were convinced that Alexandria, not Rome, was meant to be the centre of the world, and that one of their own bloodline was destined to be Emperor. When Augustus manoeuvred to have Rome declared a Principate — until then it was officially a Republic — the Alexandrians went beserk. The situation was not improved by the institution of the Emperor Cult — meaning worship of the man who sat on the throne in Rome. The Alexandrians believed this was sacrilege. Furthermore, the Emperor Cult was undermining the Alexandrians’ ongoing efforts to gain popular support for a shift in power from the West to the East. They knew they needed a strong religious structure in place before they could gain that popular support.

A: So they needed a new religion — one tailored to their needs.

J: Some of the greatest religio-political thinkers that ever lived found their way to Alexandria.

A: Because the Great Library was there?

J: In part. But powerful mystery cults had their roots there, too. The importance of mystery cults in the history of ancient politics can’t be overstated. Official rulers couldn’t rule without the support of the local religious priests — a reality that still exists in many parts of the world today.

A: So Paul’s Christ-Saviour religion was invented as a way to secure a widespread religious power base for the Alexandrian group. By the way, did this group have a name?

J: Not one you’d recognize today. For the purposes of our discussion, we’ll call them Seekers of the Rock. There’s a reason for this name — a reason based on their occult beliefs.

A: Okay. Seekers of the Rock. Why did this group conscript Paul to do its work?

J: Paul was an angry man — a man looking for a way to undermine my teachings. You could say that Paul and the Seekers had many interests in common. Paul had no love of the Emperor Cult, and he had no love of me. The Seekers of the Rock offered him a deal he couldn’t refuse. Over a number of years he developed a religious formula he thought would work in the new religious climate of the Empire. Then he went on the road to preach it and gauge the response. He had to fine-tune it as he went along. This is why you see changes in his theological claims over the course of his “ministry.”

A: Well, whatever he did, it turned out to be spectacularly successful.

J: He didn’t do it by himself. The Seekers were powerful and wealthy, and they did everything they could to back him up. They footed the bill for his “Amazing Race” around the Eastern Mediterranean, kept him in hiding when the Romans were getting too close, arranged to have his scrolls copied and distributed. It was very much a team effort.

A: Sounds a lot like the federal election we just had here in Canada.

J: It’s a good analogy. Except they weren’t trying to win an election — they were trying to establish a theocracy with their own man as divinely-appointed emperor.

A: Who was “their man”? Was it Paul himself?

J: No. Paul’s job was to lay the theological groundwork for the coming “return of the king.” The original plan was to build on Jewish apocalyptic and prophetic texts so people would be expecting the imminent return of the Saviour. The Saviour was given a new and distinctive name — Jesus Christ, Jesus the Anointed One. Once enough people were “on board” with the idea of the return of the Saviour, and once the necessary political and military and economic measures were in place, the idea was to “reveal” the newly returned divine Saviour. They planned to secretly train a prince from their own bloodline and present him publicly as Jesus-Christ-returned-in-the-flesh when the time was right. They would claim he was the divine son of God and therefore the rightful claimant to the religious and political power of Rome. This is why they needed a religious power base in Rome. The Seekers believed that pious Christians would roll out the welcome mat for the man they claimed was the Messiah. All they needed was enough time, patience, and money to bring their plan to fruition.

A: Obviously it didn’t work out the way they planned. What happened?

J: God made sure that an obscure scholar in Judea got his hands on Paul’s key doctrinal statement: the letter now called First Corinthians.

A: Your great-nephew. The man we know as Mark.

J: Mark saw right away what they were doing. And he answered it word for word with his own non-covenantal, non-pious testament to the power of education, mentorship, and personal responsibility in achieving peace and relationship with God.

A: I love a good conspiracy theory!

Posted in Jesus Redux, Mark vs Paul, Messiah, occult themes, Paul vs Jesus, Paul's teachings, Peace Sequence, spiritual practices and tagged Jesus vs Paul, The Peace Sequence | Leave a Comment

08 May 2011

JR37: Mother’s Day

Landscape by Jamie MacDonald (c) 2015.When children are raised according to the four steps of the Peace Sequence – education, mentorship, personal responsibility, and finally peace – they’re able to tap into the unique soul talents wired into their DNA.

A: Today is Mother’s Day — a very special day, and a nice time to talk about motherhood.

J: Happy Mother’s Day to you.

A: Thanks. I celebrated yesterday with my son and my sister and niece. My son brought me a pot of white mums and a very funny card. He rolled into the driveway on his new-to-him 2008 Kawasaki bike, took off his backpack, and extracted the carefully wrapped mums, which didn’t look too happy (between you and me) about having been transported by motorcycle on a cool spring day, but I grinned and took them inside and put them on the warm windowsill, where they’re starting to perk up.

J: You’re always very mushy when you talk about your son.

A (sighing): Yes. Most of the time. There’s the odd day here and there where I have to do the Mom-being-stern thing, but I couldn’t be prouder of him. He’s being “who he is” in a good way, and that’s all I can ask. I love being a mom.

J: Tell me more about that.

A: When he was born (in 1984), I was terrified. I didn’t know anything about babies. I was a bookworm, an egghead, and I’d never even changed a diaper before he was born. But I was determined to be a good mom, a stay-at-home mom by choice. I had the most wonderful book that gave me answers to all my practical questions. I can’t remember the title, but the author was Penelope Leach. Best book ever on parenting, in my view.

J: What about your own mom. Did you ask her for advice?

A: Sometimes. But she lived 3 hours away in a different city, and she was focussed on establishing her new career as an artist. My mother-in-law lived very close by, and she was keen to be helpful without being interfering, so she tried hard not to say anything critical to my face. She was a big believer in the Dr. Spock method of raising children, and she thought I should be putting my son in a big perambulator on the front porch every morning to get fresh air and sunshine. That’s what she’d done with her two boys. When I refused to buy an old fashioned pram, she found a used one that she kept at her house for times when she was babysitting. She seemed okay with that as a compromise.

J: You had an unusual idea about child rearing. Tell me about that.

A: In her book, Penelope Leach emphasized the idea of teaching your baby about boundary issues and personal space. She said you should put baby in his own crib when it was time for napping and sleeping, and you should always be consistent about this. No sleeping in mom and dad’s bed, she said. On the other hand, cribs were to be used only for sleeping, she said. Once nap time or sleep time was over, baby should be fully included in all family activities — not parked in the crib to keep him out of mom’s way while she was busy with household chores. This idea made a lot of sense to me at an intuitive level. It felt right to me. From the very beginning, I got into the habit of carting my son everywhere in my left arm while I did chores with my right hand. My left arm got very strong.

J: Why did you do that?

A: He seemed to have terrible separation anxiety. Each time I tried to put him in a baby seat, his little face turned beet red and he howled in outrage. In retrospect, I can see that I was making him feel unimportant and un-included. And you know what? He was right. He was telling me I wasn’t trying hard enough to be in full relationship with him. On the other hand, he didn’t give me a hard time about going into his crib for naps and bedtime because he quickly associated his crib with being warm and cozy and sleepy. Both my mother and mother-in-law told me I would spoil him if I didn’t put him in a baby seat while I was doing chores, but they were both wrong. Until he learned to walk (at about 11 months), he needed to be “up” where I could talk to him “person-to-person,” where he could see what was going on, where he could learn by watching and “participating.” He’s always been a fearless learner.

J: You and he are very close.

A: We’re close in a respectful way. We give each other space, but when we talk on the phone or get together for coffee or whatever, we listen to each other in an honest way. We try to listen to what’s important to each other. Our relationship has evolved into a mature adult friendship.

J: Many young adults would have no idea what you mean by that.

A: I have several acquaintances my age who don’t seem to like their adult children let alone love them. The relationships are deeply strained, and there’s a lot of mistrust. There’s also a recent trend in journalism for women to come out of the closet and admit they don’t like being mothers and never have. It may be true that for many women motherhood has felt more like a curse than a blessing, but it’s not universally true. Some women, such as myself, can’t believe how lucky they are to have had the privilege of guiding and mentoring a soul on the journey towards maturity.

J: Without being overly enmeshed.

A: Yes. I think many women fall into the trap of enmeshment — of being too involved and too protective and too fearful of mistakes (their own and their children’s). You have to give a child some room to make mistakes. Then you have to help them learn how to handle their own mistakes. It’s what mature parents do.

J: Just like our own divine parents — God the Mother and God the Father.

A: I have no sympathy at all for the idea that we shouldn’t use “parenting” metaphors about God in church anymore because we might offend some of the church members who’ve had abusive human parents. I totally get the reality that many human beings have never known what true parental love is because their own caregivers were such jerks. But the fact that some parents (or foster parents) are abusive doesn’t mean that all parents are abusive. You can’t stop talking about meaningful parenting just because somebody out there might have a panic attack. The person having the panic attack needs to receive appropriate medical care, of course. Meanwhile, the discussion about parenting has to continue so mistakes can be uncovered and changes can be made for the benefit of the wider community — and for individual children.

J: You mentioned the Mother’s Day card your son got you. What was funny about it?

A: It’s a card that’s really honest. On the front it reads, “Mom, I thought about you today while playing with my food . . . after spoiling my appetite with cookies . . . before leaving my stuff on the floor . . . to go blindly follow my friends in whatever they were doing.” Then you open up the card and it says, “God, I love being a grown-up.” And this is hilarious, because my son is 27 years old and he does still pig out on cookies before dinner (if they’re homemade) and he does leave his stuff all over the floor of his apartment (unless he has guests coming over), and he’s been this way his whole life. This is who he is, and he’s never going to change, and you know what? That’s okay, because he understands how to love and respect other people, and he knows how to take responsibility for his own choices, and that’s more important than finding some cookie crumbs on the floor.

J: So he’s not perfect? He makes mistakes?

A: Yeah, he’s not perfect and he makes mistakes and I really like him anyway. He’s doing the best he can. That’s why I’m so happy to be a mom today and always. [Thanks, hon! Your Mom, 😉 ) ].

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Posted in boundary issues, Jesus Redux, Mother and Father God, My Spiral Path, Peace Sequence, personal responsibility, soul blueprint, Whole Brain Thinking and tagged The Peace Sequence | Leave a Comment

22 Feb 2011

JR14: Crimes of Religious Passion

A: I have a confession to make. I was looking back at some earlier posts, and I realize that both you and I were guilty of using the terms “light” and “dark” in a less precise way than we might have. So first I want to apologize if we confused anybody.

J: Language is fluid. Communication is fluid. Words like “light” and “dark” have a lot of different meanings, depending on the context. This is why I say the intent is more important than the words. The goal here is not to speak or write like a corporate lawyer, but to talk about feelings and ideas related to the spiritual journey. Writing “live” on a blog has some of the same problems as being interviewed live on TV. People will look for ways to trip you up. But that’s their choice. That’s their intent. If their intent is to be legalistic for their own benefit, that’s up to them. Small errors in speech are going to happen, and each individual has to decide how to react to those errors. It’s a choice like any other choice.

A: It’s a choice to look at the intent behind the words or actions.

“Jesus said: What you will hear in your ear, in the inner ear proclaim from your rooftops. For no one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, nor does one put it in a hidden place. Rather, one puts it on a stand so that all who come and go will see its light” (Gospel of Thomas 33 a-b). In this saying, the act of lighting a lamp shows both your intent and the consequences of that intent. No matter how hard you try, and no matter how many excuses you invent, you can’t hide your actual intent from either your inner self (your inner ear) or from God. Your actual intent shines as brightly as a lamp to those who have the emotional maturity to see it. So it’s best to be honest about your intent and start trying to fix your mistakes in a responsible way (instead of blaming other people or blaming God or Satan for what you yourself chose to do). The photo above is a graphic reminder for me about the steps involved in taking personality responsibility. In the “oops, I made a mistake” department, I forgot to check the old back shed before the start of winter and failed to notice the hole chewed by a family of rodents so they could bring in a pantry-full of seed-filled cones. Cleaning up after the mistake I made wasn’t fun, but one of the important spiritual practices is learning how to be honest with yourself about your own mistakes and then figuring out how best to clean up after yourself. God is always happy to help you with this spiritual task. Photo credit JAT 2016.

J: Yes. People make mistakes. It’s part of the human condition. Everybody makes mistakes. But not all mistakes are made with intent. Many mistakes are nothing more than accidents — pure accidents, with no intent to harm. Sometimes the results of purely accidental mistakes can be tragic. More often than not, though, the greatest harm is caused by people who have harmful intent towards others. Among adolescents and adults, the majority of mistakes carry with them a harmful intent. A young child who drops a glass of milk because his motor skills aren’t fully developed has no harmful intent. An adult who gets behind the wheel of a car after drinking may not be planning to crash into another car — so from this point of view a crash is an “accident” — but his intent is clearly harmful from the moment he gets behind the wheel. He intends — he chooses — to drive regardless of the consequences to himself or anyone else. That’s what I mean by a mistake with harmful intent.

A: He made a choice and hoped he wouldn’t get caught.

J: The body of law known as common law understands this principle. You treat a crime done “on purpose” differently than you treat an accidental harm. You look at the intent of the people involved, and ask yourself if anybody had motive. Did anybody stand to gain?

A: Can acquisition of status can be considered a motive, an incentive, a measurable and desirable gain in the eyes of some individuals?

J: Acquisition of status lies behind many a crime.

A: Including religious crimes against humanity — the ones committed by status-seeking religious leaders?

J: Especially the crimes of religious passion. Especially those.

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Posted in conscience & morality, honesty, intent, Jesus Redux, Law (Nomos), Peace Sequence, personal responsibility, psychopathy, status addiction and tagged The Peace Sequence | Leave a Comment

18 Jan 2011

TBM6: Why This Is NOT Gnosticism (Gnostics Need Not Apply)

I was raised in a household where respect for the law was paramount. We were expected to obey a whole host of rules and guidelines for civil living. My paternal grandmother, who lived in close promixity to us, was exceedingly formal. I have no memories of sitting on her lap and reading a cozy children’s book, but I have many memories of her correcting my grammar and my table manners.

Grandma believed in education and she believed in hard work. She also believed firmly in the advancement of women’s rights. (Not bad for a woman born in 1899). She read the politics and business sections of the newspaper each day. She kept a tight rein on immediate family members.

All her life, my grandmother was a devout Anglican. The form and function of the Anglican church in Canada shaped many of her attitudes. One of these attitudes was her attitude towards God. She was raised to believe she was a lowly human being unworthy of close relationship with God. She would have been shocked — shaken to her core — to hear me speak of having a close and kind and loving relationship with God. To her, this would have been blasphemy. Hubris. An outrageous and presumptuous claim. To her way of thinking, the only possible — the only correct — way for a person to be in right relationship with God was to uphold the values of law: duty, honour, and obedience. She was a true Victorian matriarch in a post-Victorian age.

Grandma had a “top down” understanding of God, faith, and the soul (which is what the Anglican church had taught her), and she viewed duty, honour, and obedience as the only viable defences against the breakdown of civil society. She trusted reason, and greatly distrusted sentimentality, since the latter could only lead to weakness and impoverished will. Rigorous application of reason and respect for the law would in turn breed the required self discipline and personal responsibility so necessary to a person’s adult life.

Or so she thought.

She was right about the need for self discipline and personal responsibility. Unfortunately, she was completely and utterly wrong about the method for guiding the development of self discipline and personal responsibility in a growing child.

Spiritual teachers of great renown, regardless of their faith tradition, usually agree on one universal feature of the spiritual path: the need for self discipline. Many traditional spiritual practices that have evolved over the centuries have one main goal — the goal of teaching self discipline among disciples and adherents. Meditation and fasting are frequently cited as key methods for building and enhancing self discipline in religious seekers. If this works for you, then by all means stick with it. But you probably won’t find this site helpful to you.

This is because I recommend an altogether different way for people on the Spiral Path to gradually restore the sense of self discipline and personal responsibility they were born with.

I recommend a path of healing the damaged parts of the biological brain that are interfering with your ability to live a life filled with purpose, gratitude, and meaningful relationships.

I recommend this approach — in contrast to the traditional approaches of rigid spiritual practice — because it’s my contention that if you work to achieve balance and healing in your life, if you choose emotional integration and ongoing learning in your daily life, one of the by-products of this pursuit will be a growing inner core of trust in your own self discipline and your own commitment to personal responsibility. You’ll discover, like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, that you’ve been walking along the Road without realizing you’ve been wearing the “the truth” the whole time. You just have to get to the point where you can recognize that truth for yourself.

What am I saying? I’m saying (contrary to the teachings of most spiritual teachers) that you won’t succeed in staying on the Spiral Path if you try to impose self discipline on yourself from the outside by engaging in strict, mechanistic, often obsessive religious rituals or practices. I’m saying you have to start from the inside. You have to start with your very own soul.

This part of what I’m teaching is non-negotiable. Everything I’ve learned from my angels and from the soul who once lived as Jesus is based on a doctrine of the soul that’s positive, that’s uplifting, that’s holistic, AND THAT’S
NOT GNOSTIC.

(I hope my inclusion of some very large letters will persuade you that I mean it when I say the doctrine of the soul I’m teaching is NOT Gnostic in any way, shape, or form.)

If you prefer a spiritual path where (1) you’re not asked to believe at all in the existence of the soul, or (2) where you can let yourself off the hook by believing in Gnostic teachings about the soul, then I invite you to look elsewhere. I have nothing to teach you if you choose to believe you’re a lost widget in a vast, uncaring universe, or (even worse) if you choose to believe you’re a “spark of the Divine” trapped in an evil body as part of a great cosmological battle between good and evil (i.e. Gnosticism).

How Gnostics see the world. Photo (c) JAT 2014

How a Gnostic sees the world. Photo (c) JAT 2014

There’s no point looking for God’s love in your life if you’re determined at every turn to reject your identity as a loving child of God. You may as well go out and join a secular charity devoted to good causes. It’s useful and worthwhile and important to society.

But it ain’t no spiritual path.

You’re either on the Spiral Path with all your heart and all your mind and all your courage and all your soul, or you’re not on it at all. You may be somewhere, but it’s not the Spiral Path.

Fish or cut bait, as my son’s Maritime relatives would say.

Either throw yourself into the idea that you have a soul and that it’s a good soul, or take up a new hobby that demands less courage.

It’s all I’m asking of you — that you believe in a loving God and that you believe you’re a loving child of God (aka “a soul”).

How a cataphatic nature mystic sees the world. Photo (c) JAT 2014

Yes, I know it’s a lot to ask of you. I’m not asking anything of you that wasn’t asked of me. We’re all in this together, and we need each other’s insights.

In other words, it’s pretty much a Twelve Step Programme for the human brain.

That’s why I think the Serenity Prayer is so terrific.

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Posted in building your intuition, cataphatic mysticism, Gnosticism, gratitude, healing, humbleness, Law (Nomos), My Spiral Path, Peace Sequence, personal responsibility, relationship with God, Soul, The Blonde Mystic, trust and tagged building your intuition, spiritual practice in the 3rd millennium | Leave a Comment

09 Jun 2010

CC19: The Life of a Mystic: Welcome to Groundhog Day!

In 1993, Columbia Pictures released a modest film billed as a “romantic comedy fantasy” that stars Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. “Groundhog Day” continues to be a favourite for many people. It’s a feel-good movie, a tale of redemption. Bill Murray is in top form as TV weatherman Phil Connors, a man who starts out arrogant, nasty, judgmental, angry, impatient, and not especially talented or competent (although he thinks he’s quite brilliant). In short, he’s a typical middle-aged North American. By the end of the movie, he’s kind, empathetic, polite, patient, and very talented. At the beginning, he has no heart. At the end, he finds his true heart. Only then does the universe consent to release him from the time warp he’s caught in.

The film Groundhog Day is set in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania on Groundhog Day (February 2). Photo credit: “Marmota monax UL 04” by Cephas – Own work, Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

This film is about the the universe’s refusal to accept Phil Connor’s excuses for his nasty behaviour. As Phil gradually comes to understand he’s part of a bizarre karmic “catch and release” program, it’s apparent the universe also refuses to accept his initial handling of the situation. The universe steadfastly ignores his denial stage, his angry stage, and his depressed stage. Only when Phil decides he wants to be a kind, empathetic, polite, patient, talented person, and only when he decides that he likes being such a person, does time start to move forward again. The message is clear: Phil can’t control the environment the universe has chosen for him — the time warp reality of Groundhog Day — but he can control his own thoughts and feelings about the situation.

This film is the best representation I’ve seen of what it feels like to have a mystical connection with God.

That’s why I put it at the top of my list of “best spiritual films.” By way of contrast, I don’t have a spot for Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” on my list of helpful spiritual films. To my way of thinking, “The Passion of the Christ” is a propaganda film, not a spiritual film.

“Groundhog Day” makes a number of powerful claims:

The universe (God) pulls out all the stops for everyone, not just for specially chosen Messiahs or the specially chosen sons of kings, presidents, and CEO’s. Phil Connors is a regular guy with a regular job, not a person at the top of the fame chart.
The universe (God) knows Phil isn’t choosing to be the best person he’s capable of being. The universe has an opinion on this.
The universe (God) never gives up on Phil. Despite Phil’s initial resistance, and despite the length of time it takes for Phil to decide he wants to be his best self, the universe is consistent and steadfast towards him. (This can be called God’s Tough Love.)
The universe (God) sets up the painful learning environment. God is in charge of this part, and no human can control it.
The universe (God) gives each person free will.
People can change.
People won’t change unless they want to (free will).
People are capable of amazing transformation once they decide they want to change.
It takes lots of time for changes to unfold. Redemption isn’t an instant process!
It takes lots of sincerity for changes to become permanent. You can fake out your neighbours, but you can’t fake out the universe. The universe (G0d) always knows your true intent, so you have to mean it when you say you want to change.
It takes hard work and consistent effort on the part of a person who wants to find redemption.
People need help from others as they struggle to change! They can’t do it on their own. They need help from people who care about them.
People make mistakes on the journey of change and redemption. That’s okay!
Engaging in active learning helps the process of change. (In the film, Phil starts to take courses — piano lessons and medical training, for example.)
Engaging in active service in the community helps the process of change. (Phil develops a Good Samaritan routine in the timeloop community where he’s living.)
The more Phil learns and the more genuinely empathetic he becomes, the more humble he becomes.
The more Phil learns and the more genuinely empathetic he becomes, the more dedicated he becomes to serving his community . . . and bonus — the help he offers is actually needed!
Phil finds his heart when he finds himself.
Once he’s found his heart, he’s still a regular guy. But now he’s able to trust himself. And he’s finally able to like himself. He feels inner peace at last.

This is the process I had to go through, so I can really relate to it. My “Groundhog Day” initiation into the journey of redemption lasted for years. I had no idea at first what I was trying to do, and I made the same mistakes over and over again, but — thank goodness for me and my family — my angelic guide refused to give up on me.

And the 19 point summary I’ve posted here is the work I had to complete BEFORE I could begin to call myself a practising mystic!

I tell ya’ — those angelic guides are tough sons of bitches. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

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Posted in cataphatic mysticism, Concinnate Christianity, free will, healing, humbleness, My Spiral Path, mystic, Peace Sequence, redemption, trust and tagged cataphatic mysticism | Leave a Comment

The Spiral Path

Wonder, Science, and Faith

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