Where is God in Natural Disasters?

As yet another Earthquake rocks the world with hundreds dead and thousands injured in China, it’s natural to wonder. Where is God? Did God cause this tragedy, or allow it to happen in some sense? Is there any meaning to be found in tragedy? With Earth Day fast approaching, what do natural disasters teach us about nature?

Luke records the famous story of Jesus calming a storm. Maybe there is something in this story that could calm the storms of our minds in the midst of natural disasters. Of course it all depends on how you read the story. If you read it literally, you might imagine that Jesus (God!) had supernatural authority over nature. He could cause a storm, and he could end a storm. This literal reading presents a dilemma. If God can cause and prevent a storm, why would God choose to murder so many innocent people?

Some fundamentalist Christian leaders suggest that storms are sent by God to teach sinners a lesson in morality. Several religious groups claimed that Katrina was sent by God as a result of a gay pride event due to begin two days after the storm. Pat Robertson predicted on his “700 Club” show that disasters, including hurricanes, would descend on Orlando, Fla., because of gay pride events there. He was quoted as saying, “It’ll bring about terrorist bombs, it’ll bring earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor.”

Janis Walworth pointed out in 1998 that the evidence doesn’t always support this interpretation. She conducted some studies to test the notion that God may employ natural disasters or even terrorists to destroy areas that would dare to offer gay people the same civil liberties as other citizens. In fact evidence suggested that states with higher gay populations are less likely to be hit by a tornado. She also illustrated that states with higher numbers of Protestants are more likely than states with higher numbers of Catholics to be hit by a tornado. Within the protestant denominations, Baptists seem to be most in danger. Janis then re- directed the question. She wondered if it could be that Baptists and other Protestants purposely flock to states that have lots of tornadoes. That then led to her as yet unpublished study on the correlation between IQ and religious affiliation.

Jokes aside, what sort of a God would kill people because of a sexual orientation they didn’t choose and don’t use to harm others? What sort of a God would play Russian Roulette with people’s lives and with the ecology just to prove a point?
Liberal religion has taken a different approach to miracle texts such as the calming of the storm. It reads the text as text, and not necessarily as history. For example, it might interpret storms as metaphoric, representing the miserable social status of a fisherman in that culture. A story about a leader calming a storm would represent the inspiration of Jesus to live boldly and unselfconsciously and do what you can to calm the storms of oppression.

Bishop Spong suggests that the stories of Jesus walking on water and calming the storm were ways of connecting early Christians with the belief that the presence of God or Ground of Being was somehow manifest in the person of Jesus. First century Christians would liturgically reenact and retell Hebrew stories such as Joshua crossing the Jordan, and in time these turned into miracle stories such as walking on water and calming storms.

How might a liberal reading of the Bible make meaning out of natural disaster? It would most likely reject the idea that God sent the storm. It might connect the social and political context of the disaster, looking at issues of race, poverty, ecology and government intervention as the lessons of the storm rather than suspecting that an external God was sending the storm for any particular reason.
So where is God in the storms of life? Listen to the first words of the Hebrew Bible-
“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.”

What a powerful image. God is actively present, within and between, every aspect of nature, like wind over water. God is present with those who suffer. God is not only experienced in the picnics by waterfalls, God is manifest even in deadly storms. God is all and in all, not as cause but as presence.

God didn’t send the storm. God is the storm. God is present in the tension between natural evolution and human progress. God is the interconnectedness of all the causes and contexts of storms and ecology.

Or else maybe a natural disaster is an ecological act of self correction. Global warming, over population, the poor planning of a city and so many other factors conspire in an act of self correction. It’s a sad fact of our world that the wealthier and more powerful people live at higher elevations and so often avoid tragedies such as floods. Human consumption and abuse, mandated according to a literal reading of the Bible, may have forced nature to self correct.

The universe is living and expanding, and not as a closed system that was created once and then only altered when a supernatural and external deity invades it. The earth is naturally evolving; dying and being reborn constantly. As Meister Eckart said, “God is creating the entire universe fully and totally in this present now. Everything God creates, God creates now all at once.”

Mindless consumption makes no sense in a living universe.

This is an awesome piece by Michael lightweaver called “Tsunamis- A Channeling From Big Mama.”
“You know something, I'm fed up with you guys. You take everything SO PERSONALLY. It doesn't occur to most of you that I am ALIVE. Yes, I'm a living being just like you. I'm continually evolving, growing, changing, etc., and you are a part of my growth as you are a part of your own process. When I stretch, yawn, hiccup, or sneeze you think it's some kind of collective punishment for your “sins.” Did it ever occur to you that that is a bit arrogant? You worry about “Earth Changes” -- no such thing except for the fact that I am continually changing. It's not an event. It's an ongoing process that you don't understand because of your fruit fly mentality.

Last week some guy found fossilized footprints of a dinosaur which roamed the suburbs of Washington, DC. 100 million years ago. That was long before you were even a suggestive sparkle in the Creator’s eyes. Did you know that the total life span of a fruit fly is seven days? Seven days! OK, so let’s say this guy John-the-fruit-fly is born one Monday morning in late October. On Thursday, the first freeze of the season hits. John tragically freezes to death. Now one could take a fruit fly perspective and claim that this was some kind of punishment for John’s many fruit fly misdeeds or -taking a somewhat larger view of the matter - one could see that John had the unfortunate bad luck - or chose at some level - to be born four days before the first killing frost. Do you have any idea how old I AM? Your life span isn't much more than a fruit fly and your whole sojourn here as a species isn't much more than a blink of the eye to me.

When Mama moves, she shakes things up. It's just that you don't have an “eonic” sense of time, so you tend to take it personally. Get Over It! One hundred years from now, you and probably everyone you know will be dead.... and on to greater adventures. I will still be here, yawning, hiccupping & sneezing long after your species ceases to even be a memory around this place. Put your daily petty dramas into THAT perspective. Why does it ALWAYS HAVE TO BE ABOUT YOU? Did it ever occur to you how much of your energy and money is focused on killing other species on this planet - and I'm not just talking about bug spray and chicken farms. You are spending over $175 million dollars a day to destroy Iraq while 14,000 children starve to death every day. That means that more children have starved to death so far since 12/26/04 - just from neglect - than all of those who died in the big wave. And then you applaud yourself for sending two days worth of war costs for relief. NOW THAT IS SOMETHING YOU SHOULD TAKE PERSONALLY! YES, I'M PISSED - BIG TIME. But God and I haven't conspired to punish you. You seem to do a fairly good job of that yourself. I'm just fed up with taking the blame - along with GOD - for just being who I am and doing what I have been doing for the last several millions of years; long before you came on to the scene. And though I may not sound very compassionate at the moment, I do feel the pain of EVERY ONE OF MY CREATURES who suffers. Did you know that I sent a warning to let everyone know that I was about to sneeze? Did you see the news? The only ones who heard me were the wild animals in India and some “primitive” tribal people on a remote island. They all went to higher ground just before the wave hit and none of them died. Why didn't the rest of you hear me??? So, I let you know I'm about to sneeze, you don't hear me because you aren't listening, and it wreaks havoc. And then you have the audacity to blame GOD! Give me a break. Maybe you should just start listening..... Or even better, maybe you should ask yourself what you are doing that is so important that you aren't listening....”

My opinion is that there is no divinely ordained purpose to a disaster that kills so many people. It is just part of an ever-changing universe. However, it’s also my sense that there are some important lessons we can choose to take out of storms. The main one is to stay alert; pay attention.

That is the half truth of all religions, to watch for the signs or cycles of life. The falsity of all religions is their attempt to paint a single portrait of life’s meaning which is divinely ordained and immutable. The common thread of all religions is compassion. Compassion grows out of our understanding that we are not separate from those who suffer and we are not separate from nature.

You experience God in the storms of life when you realize the interrelated causes and consequences of natural disasters, when you feel the pain of victims as if they are your own family, and when you step out in compassion to help those who suffer.

Seed of Wisdom

The universe is on its own journey of growth and change. The question for humans is whether we will collaborate in this change or whether we will be forced to adapt in response to overwhelming crisis. May we have the foresight to choose the path of collaboration. Take responsibility for your part in the future of the earth. Live mindfully today.

Say to yourself: My choices to live mindfully make a huge difference to the whole planet.

Change and Letting Go

I feel drawn to revisiting some of the more obscure Bible sayings. The phrase on my mind today is “Let the dead bury their own dead.” As someone who has taken the role of burial rites very seriously, I’m troubled by this verse. Even when I have been the only person present at a burial (one of the most heart breaking experiences of my life), or once when I was the only person present with a single woman, burying her sister and last remaining relative, these are tender moments of healing and reflection.

At first reading the dismissive saying “Let the dead bury their own dead” seems callous, insensitive, and lacking in compassion. It was even part of family responsibility in Hebrew culture to ensure that loved ones had appropriate burials. Scholars have tried to explain it in various ways.

In Hebrew and Aramaic language, written without vowels, it looks like this “Lt th dd bry thr wn dd”
Having some fun with the dd, which is an ambiguous Aramaic word, you come up with a number of possibilities. It could be dead, deed, dad, dude, dodo, dud or doodah. So it might actually be any of the following-
“Let the dude bury the deed” or “Let the dad bury the dodo ,” or
“Let the dud bury the dude,” or “Let the dad bury the dead,” or
“Let the dude bury the doodad.”

Serious scholars have variously translated it as let the dying bury the dead, let the grave diggers bury the dead, or let the next of kin bury the dead.

I prefer to interpret it metaphorically as an urgent call to keep evolving. Expect death in so many ways- death to previous beliefs, death to previous stages of life and development, death to relationships, death to dreams, death to worldviews. Expect and greet death when it come as a challenging invitation to enter into a new and emerging consciousness.

Hegel was a German philosopher who explained change in terms of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. Hegel argued that the world was in a constant process of transformation from lower to higher orders of existence. Each new order, he said, emerged as an idea, or "thesis" and each thesis carried within itself the seeds of its own destruction or "antithesis." This might also be called its shadow. But out of the inevitable clash between thesis and antithesis, a new and more perfect order was destined to emerge- the synthesis. In its turn, then, this synthesis would now function as a new thesis, sparking another antithesis until finally history fought its way forward to the ultimate synthesis - the total realization of the world spirit. This was Hegel’s dialectic. As an aside, can you imagine Hegel breaking up with his girlfriend? “It’s not you; it’s the realization of world spirit dude!”

For Marx it was the economic movement from feudalism to an industrialized bourgeoisie as its antithesis, which led to capitalism as the synthesis. He then predicted that a class conscious and oppressed working class would rise up to create socialism as a new synthesis. This, for Marx, would be the total realization of world spirit. Imagine trying to split the bill with Karl on a date!

Teilhard de Chardin approached the issue of spiritual evolution from the same perspective. For him, evolution evolves through complexity and chaos, drawn towards the great Omega point or divine consciousness. I’ve experienced a few Omega points in my time, but they were usually followed by sleep and not divine consciousness.

For this dude, the process doesn’t need to have an end point. The process continues indefinitely. There is no end. There are just countless new beginnings.

You could say that Christianity arose out of the dialectic doodah between Greek and Hebrew thought. Christianity keeps evolving from thesis to synthesis and we shouldn’t be surprised that change is hard. The antitheses (such as transcending a personal God or disputing the inerrancy of the Bible) don’t proceed without great heartache.

The key point is that the synthesis will both preserve and also negate some aspects of the thesis. Hegel said that "to supersede (or you might also say transform) is at once to preserve and negate."

As we deal with inevitable change in our lives, in our families, in our churches, in our worldviews, in our religions, transformation will come as we both preserve and negate what has come before and even that which has created us. So, we don’t need to lose our loyalty to our family or to our religion or our country. What we lose is the sense that our whole identity grows out of our loyalty to family, religion or country. What we give up, or have die within us, is an exclusive attachment to family, religion, country or even self.

Let exclusive attachments to old worldviews die. Let exclusive attachments to tribalism die. Let exclusive attachments to nationalism die. All those things which by their nature exclude must be negated to evolve in consciousness or to mature. The energy of each stage remains. Love flows as a constant energy throughout.
This is always a balancing act. It is not an easy process; in fact, deaths are by definition full of grief.

Huston Smith put it this way: “Many things in traditional worldviews deserve to be retired, for example, their views of the physical universe, which has been permanently superseded by science, and their social platforms of slavery, caste, gender relationships, and so on. In those cases, let the dead bury their dead.”

Change is inevitable. The cycles of life are in constant ebb and flow. The arrival of change, even in the toughest of life situations is a reminder to let go, even just a little. Let the past remain buried, with lessons learned and integrated, with memories in place. Let the past be buried. We change what we can in the present. We accept without judgment that which we cannot change right now. We seek the wisdom to always know the difference.

"If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you aren't afraid of dying, there is nothing you can't achieve." (Tao Te Ching)

You don’t need to go looking for death. It will find you. You don’t need to glibly enjoy death, licking your lips for the emerging transformation. Let it be a burial, and allow yourself a period of mourning. Just don’t resist it when it comes.

In the words of Kafka, “You do not need to leave the room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.” (Kafka: The Great Wall of China: Stories and Reflections)

Seed of Inquiry
You are safe to question old beliefs and stop believing them if they no longer make sense to you. You are free to rid yourself of assumptions and prejudices that are stale reminders of another time.
You are free to grow and change and make mistakes. Learn and heal and do it in your own time.

Say to yourself: I am courageous and free. I am on a journey of open inquiry.

The Best Laid Plans

Just call me Steve Martin, aka Neale Page in Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Last Saturday a standard 2 hour direct flight from Newark to Grand Rapids turned into a hilarious 17 hour adventure. I was traveling with my ten year old son, after taking him to see his Aunt in the city. A journey that should have been plane sailing turned into plane flailing, as we ricocheted around the country, improvising as we bounced. The flight was delayed and diverted, first to Cleveland and then to Chicago. At Chicago, I was told that we were all out of options. The next available air tickets were on Tuesday. Rental cars were as scarce as hen’s teeth. It was 10pm on Saturday and the last remaining airline representative washed her hands of us.

We assessed our options for the 200 mile hike to Grand Rapids Airport where our car lay in wait. A cabbie quoted us $400. I filed the information in my mind as a last resort. Instead we climbed on a bus that was bound for Michigan City, about 60 miles from O’Hare. We claimed the last remaining seats and soon discovered they were like the last kids chosen for a soccer team. They sucked. The seat in front was in permanent recline, which was awesome for the guy sitting in it, but meant we were nursing him in our lap. We slept in his intimate embrace for an hour or so, before being woken with the announcement that we were in Michigan City.

I’m sure that Michigan City, Indiana is a lovely place. However at midnight it held little attraction so we decided to push on. We found a group of Notre Dame footballers in a huddle, plotting their return to campus in South Bend, Indiana. We agreed to split a cab to South Bend. Split a cab seems an apt description for a car that was groaning under the weight of a driver who resembled John Candy in more ways than one, the two of us and 3 linebackers. My son was submerged somewhere in the line of scrimmage, buried under his own luggage. We laughed and laughed about this surreal scene as we crept along the 40 mile trip to Notre Dame. The driver was so excited to have some football heroes held captive in his car that he clean forgot to notice the fuel gauge plummeting along with the cab’s suspension. We sputtered into a gas station just in the nick of time. Oh and by the way, at a certain point on this drive the time jumped from 1am to 3am, a combination of daylight savings and Eastern Standard Time changes.

At 3am, we received a darkened tour of one of the most beautiful campuses in the world, as assorted college kids staggered around the grounds. The cabbie asked where he could drop us, explaining that he couldn’t drive across Michigan state lines without risking going to jail. I decided not to ask any more about that matter. He dropped us at a sleepy South Bend Airport. We joined a handful of vagabonds and security staff, none of whom had any clues about travel to Grand Rapids. The greyhound bus was not due until late in the day and the rental cars would not be available until 8am. We could wait three hours to pay $120 to drive ourselves the remaining two hours, or we could pay $200 for a cab to drive us. Tiredness won the day. We took the cab, snored liked babies in the back seat, and arrived at Grand Rapids Airport at 8am, 17 hours after we had left New York City. As I paid the Airport parking ticket, I realized that we had spent over $300 to crawl from Chicago to Grand Rapids. $400 for a direct cab ride didn’t look so absurd any more.

Apart from being exhausted, the adventure was enormous fun. I had awesome company, and we laughed about every twist and turn. It reminded me of the value in holding loosely to plans and expectations.

Steve Martin once said, “Chaos in the midst of chaos isn't funny, but chaos in the midst of order is.” It’s all about perspective. The road trip was funny because we had expected plane sailing. Chaos surprised us at every turn, and we had a choice; become frustrated or see it as an adventure. We chose to see the whole thing as a comedy of errors that we could laugh about for years to come.

We were reminded that the journey is full of surprises, and it’s all part of the process. A car gets you to the airport. A plane gets you to the city. A bus gets you to the cab that gets you back to the car that gets you to the destination. Each is an important step of an ever evolving journey. Life is wonderfully connected and there are few rules about right or wrong ways to travel.

One of the most famous scenes from Planes, Trains and Automobiles has John Candy driving on the wrong side of the highway. An approaching car screams to them. Steven Martin says, “He says we’re going the wrong way.” John Candy says, “Oh, he’s drunk. How would he know where we’re going?”

Arriving home was nice, but on the way we had some important bonding to do. People have made various suggestions about how we could have managed the trip differently. I think we did just fine. Who could say if we had gone the wrong way or not? What I know for sure is that I would walk over hot coals just to spend time with that kid. He teaches me so much about being alive to the adventure of being alive. If it takes stormy weather to create quality time with the people I love, I will do it again next week.

Seed of Serendipity

You have to smile when your best laid plans are rerouted by new developments. You are looking for one thing, find something else, and then realize that what you’ve found is what you needed in the first place. Eureka. Who would have thought it? Don’t let your plans get in the way of the life that is unfolding.

Say to yourself: My life is a fortunate accident. I celebrate each and every surprising moment.


Seed of Flexibility

Do your best in each moment. Change or stay the same. Either way, life will continue to move forward. If you need to miss a step, just pick up with the next beat. Get in tune with your past, but don’t be held captive to the past. Plan your future, but don’t be held prisoner by your plans.

Say to yourself: I am flexible. I flow with the movement of life.

Who Are You When the Music Stops?

I love my IPOD. It’s a pocket sized miracle. It carries a lot of music, and it also carries a lot of me in it. I have a workout play list; Foo Fighters, Smashing Pumpkins, Sick Puppies, Bush…it’s all there. The first time I worked out with my IPOD, I was lifting heavier weights, doing more reps and feeling stronger after the workout. The difference was amazing. I call this play list “Testosterian.”

Then there’s my meditation play list. It has Sheila Chandra, Gregorian Chants, and various other sounds on it. It takes me into a deep peace and I especially like to listen to this one while hanging upside down on my inversion table. I call this play list “Euphorian.”

I’ve also got a compassion play list. It has James Blunt and other tear jerking music on it. I listen to it when I feel weary or overwhelmed. I call this play list “Melancholian.”

Me, myself and IPOD. It was kind of Apple to include the “I” in IPOD for Ian. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, I discovered the shuffle command. Merging all these different play lists creates a smorgasbord of musical surprises.

So one day my various play lists had a battle of the selves. I was on an airplane and hit the shuffle key. First, one of my testosterian songs played. I didn’t know what to do with all the energy. I started edging my arm across the armrest. No one messes with testosterian. Then just as suddenly, that song ended and James Blunt began. My arms melted to my sides and I began quietly weeping in my seat. “Goodbye my lover!” Melancholian took over. Before I could wipe the tears from my face, Sheila Chandra started crooning in my ear and I could have sworn I had died and gone to bliss heaven. Euphorian took over.

This musical ego shuffle went on for some time before I even realized how insane I had become.
I had so identified with each persona that I had forgotten how fickle and changing they are. I felt like Tara battling with Buck and T in The United States of Tara television series about multiple personalities.(Awesome show!) Luckily no one was hurt on my little flight with Air Ian.

There is nothing wrong with play lists, personas are important and it’s even healthy to shuffle them up from time to time and keep things interesting. But the truth is that people do get hurt when we fixate mindlessly on personas and identities. The need to defend these separate selves becomes a life and death struggle, and is behind so much relationship conflict, world wars and religious rivalry. Maybe next time I should fly United.

Enough! Life is too short for petty rivalries, whether internal or external. Sit back, enjoy the music, and relish the peace of knowing at your essence that you are intimately related to all others.

Here are two affirmations to remind yourself who you are, and the peace that transcends all play lists.

www.soulseedz.com

Seed of Essence

Who are you? I didn’t ask you what you do for a living, or whether you are a parent, or even whether you consider yourself a good person. Who are you beyond all of the time bound roles and personas? Who are you when the lights of society’s expectations are dimmed and you can be authentic and natural in your own skin? Take time today to leave it all behind and be still with your Self.

Say to yourself:
I am becoming more of who I essentially am.
I am becoming more of who I am.
I am becoming.
I am.

Seed of Peace

Don't depend on a particular persona for security. Your "self" is a moving target. The self who stopped traffic with youthful good looks is fading. The self who beguiled the world with middle aged charm may soon be gone. The self who dazzles the world with senior wisdom is a fleeting visitor. These versions of the self, important as they are, change constantly and are not a reliable measure of who you are. Your essence is a peace-full heart.

Say to yourself: I am what I am for now. My peace comes from within, even while all else changes around me

Ten Aussie Words I Miss

Diversity as a Path to Fuller Life

As an Aussie living in America, it’s a lot of fun learning about different cultures, even the minor differences between American and Australian culture. Diversity is beautiful, but I still miss Australia. Here are ten Aussie words that I miss hearing regularly.

1. Yabber- as in to talk (a lot). In good Aussie style most group of friends will include one person with the nickname “Yabbers”.
2. Wobbly- as in to chuck a wobbly or get very excited or agitated.
3. Not the full quid- as in, not the sharpest knife in the drawer, or a few kangaroos loose in the top paddock.
4. Give a gobfull- as in to tell someone what you really think. The person getting a gobfull might be gobsmacked, as in surprised.
5. Ankle biter- as in a small child not a deadly snake.
6. Cactus- as in dead or not working. As in what happens if a deadly snake bites your ankle.
7. Daks- as in pants. If there is a way to shorten a word, Aussies will find it.
8. In the nuddy- as in your birthday suit.
9. Spit the dummy- as in give up.
10. Ear bashing- an alternative to a gobfull.

Diversity is beautiful. Every country has its own language and phrases, and many parts of each country have completely different accents and phrases. When I first moved to America, I was mistaken for a Floridian, Bostonian and even a Middle Easterner. Then of course there were people who thought Australia and Austria were the same place, but that’s another article that involves questions like “Do you have electricity in Australia?”

Every person, place and culture has its own unique experience. Our senses deepen our experience of life, and we barely even touch the depth of our senses. Each of us has a unique blend of sensory experience. One in every thousand people even experiences a phenomenon called “synaesthesia” which is the pairing of senses. They automatically link one sensory experience with a different sense; for example they smell sounds, see smells or hear colors. The most incredible thing is that many of these people don’t even know they have synaesthesia. The way they perceive the world is normal to them.

The way you perceive the world is a unique part of your divine expression. Hebrew religion says that all of life is made in the image of God, therefore everything is an expression of divine diversity. All the diverse parts of yourself are beautiful. You have your own accent on life. You have a spiritual dialect that is your unique gift in the world.

Life is so much fuller when diversity is celebrated rather than feared.Affirm diversity, your own and others. There is nothing to be feared and so much to be gained. Spread the seed of love and healing by celebrating diversity.

www.soulseedz.com

Seed of Diversity

Celebrate your contradictions. Be an extroverted introvert or a task oriented romantic. Be an at-home Mom who likes pole dancing or a meditator who likes heavy metal music. Don’t resign yourself to your quirks. Don’t even tolerate your idiosyncrasies. Celebrate your contradictions today and build them into your own unique style

Say to yourself: I am one of a kind. I am large and have space to hold diversity.

Seed of Sensation

Your senses are alive and connected. Do you see colors when you think of certain people or places? You may have moments when you smell sounds, see smells or hear colors. Certain words or music may evoke flavors or colors. Maybe you see music. Allow your senses to tease your imagination, and enjoy a sensual smorgasbord.

Say to yourself: My senses are finely tuned. My life is sensational.