Embodying Divine Sensuality

A chicken and an egg are lying in bed. The chicken is smoking a cigarette with a satisfied smile on its face and the egg is frowning and looking defeated. The egg mutters, to no-one in particular, “Well, I guess we answered THAT question!”

I guess they did. I want to begin by asking the question, “What comes first?” I mean, before I talk about sex, what comes first?

What framework or context can I put sex and intimacy into so that you see its enormous significance? It’s nothing less than your engagement with God; within, between and beyond. After centuries of religion taking God out of sex, I want to put your relationships back into a sacred threesome with God. I want to remind you that you are in a divine love triangle; you, your lover or friend and the holy. As Jack Cornfield said, “Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.” Spiritual growth is learning intimacy with more and new things all the time.

I’m not speaking just about sex. I’m speaking about intimacy more generally. If you are like me, you have a circle of people you are intimate with, and you may have one person that you share a unique intimacy with. When you are young you imagine that sex is the goal of intimacy. As you grow older, you realize that sex is only the beginning. So what is intimacy?

My favorite description of spiritual intimacy comes from 14th century Sufi poet, Hafiz-

Because the Beautiful One I love lives inside of you,
I lean as close to your body with my words as I can-
And I think of you all the time, because the One I love goes with you
Wherever you go, Hafiz will always be near.
If you sat before me, wayfarer, with your aura bright from your many charms,
My lips could resist rushing to you and needing to befriend your blushed cheek,
But my eyes can no longer hide the wondrous fact of who you really are.
The Beautiful One whom I adore has pitched Her royal tent inside of you,
So I will always lean my heart as close to your soul as I can.

Intimacy is when you let your defenses down and feel authentic, open and highly trusting. It begins with yourself, being willing to embrace all your beautiful, crazy, exquisite humanity. It extends to a close circle of family and friends, being willing to strip your pretence away and stand in the fire of vulnerability together. It may find unique expression with one person, the one with whom you let your guard down most easily. It then finds its ultimate expression, divine presence ravishing body and soul, finally sending you out to be a lover of life.

Putting Sex and Intimacy Back in Church

A minister decided to do something a little different one Sunday morning. He said “Today, in church, I am going to say a single word and you are going to help me preach. Whatever single word I say, I want you to sing whatever hymn comes to your mind.

The pastor shouted out “CROSS.” Immediately the congregation started singing in unison, “Lift high the cross.”

The pastor hollered out “GRACE”. The congregation began to sing “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound.”

The pastor said “GREAT”. The congregation sang “How great thou art”

The pastor then said “SEX”. The congregation fell into total silence. Everyone was in shock. They all nervously began to look around at each other afraid to say anything. Then all of a sudden, way from in the back of the church, a little old 87 year old grandmother stood up and began to sing, “Memories…”

I’m not pointing any fingers here, but we all have our dry spells.

Unfortunately, sex and intimacy are distant memories in the church, even for 87 year olds. Soon after the time of Jesus, the heavy Greek influence on Christianity meant that sex was relegated to the margins of spirituality. Aristotle argued that only men were sexual. Women were just the carriers of men’s seed. The only purpose for sex was procreation and the only purpose in intimacy was to please men.

Well, Mardi Gras and Valentines Day have collided this year, the perfect storm of sensual celebrations. They remind us of the Jesus who let a woman massage his feet with her hair and some cannabis oil.(Luke 7;36-50) Yes, you heard me. Long flowing hair and a little Aunt Mary. There’s no hint of anything romantic in the story; just deep sensual intimacy. She massaged her own tears into his feet and they became one. Nothing else mattered in the moment. It was just the two of them, unselfconscious and open. The judgment of those who stood around glaring went unnoticed. They were lost in each other’s intimate embrace. The incredible thing about Jesus was not his healing power. It was his willingness to touch another person at their most vulnerable point with absolute acceptance. Maybe there is healing power in intimacy.

The most transformative lesson in the story is about forgiveness. Have you made mistakes in the past? Have you let others down and been betrayed yourself? Are you jaded for intimacy? Are you protecting yourself from being hurt and in the process missing opportunities for the beauty of intimacy? Here is the good news- because of your deep hurt, you have amazing capacity for love and forgiveness. Let your guard down with someone close this week. For Christ’s sake, take a risk and get intimate. It will be worth the risk.

God and Bodies

Last week I spoke about experiencing God as the whole which is greater than its parts, and yet the whole is also present as potential in each of the parts. Another analogy is that of waves in the ocean. The waves are never separate from the ocean. They have their own unique shape and force, but they never leave the ocean. It’s not so much that waves move. It’s more that waves are the way that the ocean moves and flows. Now here is the bridge. Think of the world as God’s body; all of it, every bit of it, is God’s body. Each of the parts carries the potential of the whole. Each carries the potential of wholeness. Intimacy is one part of life. Intimacy carries the potential for wholeness.

Let this thought sink deeply into your psyche. Your body is part of God, even the parts you wish were firmer or more toned- all part of God. The muffin tops and spare tires- God. The bingo wings and awning over the toy store- all part of God. You are the way that God moves in the world. You are divine rhythm. When you experience intimacy, you sway with holy sensuality. Your love making is the way that God experiences orgasmic pleasure. You are the way that God massages the world with kindness.

Now let this thought sink in. Your emotions are also part of God. You are the way that God feels and desires and expresses sensuality. The Sufi Hafiz said, “Every desire of your body is holy; Every desire of your body is Holy.”

Stop pretending your desires are not there. Your desires are holy. Not every one of them needs to be acted on, but every one of your desires needs to be taken seriously and reflected on.


Before the ancient Greeks separated bodies from souls and Christianity institutionalized this separation, it was common for religions to see human intimacy as a symbol of God dwelling in human life. Maybe Hinduism offered the clearest expression of divine ecstasy. But Hebrew culture also had a beautiful expression of this in the Song of Solomon. The songs are a love poem between a man and a woman, but with the symbolism of divine union running through it. It says in Song of Solomon 8;6, “Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for intimacy is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame.”

It’s a beautiful description of intimacy. In Hebrew culture, they avoided saying the holy name. So instead they used expressive adjectives like “raging” and “fierce passion”. Intimacy has many faces. It can be soft and yielding, gentle and receptive, like water and it can also be fierce and passionate like fire. Each of us has both extremes within us, and we often partner with people to complement those qualities in each other and create a whole.

Jerry Seinfeld had a nice description of fire and the difference between men and women. “Seems to me the basic conflict between men and women, sexually, is that men are like firemen. To men, sex is an emergency, and no matter what we’re doing we can be ready in two minutes. Women, on the other hand, are like fire. They’re very exciting, but the conditions have to be exactly right for it to occur.”

People are different. That’s what keeps things interesting. Just don’t imagine that difference equals separateness. We are each waves in the ocean of our shared intimacy, each wave unique and different but rocking and swaying to the rhythm of one ocean.

Gender and Intimacy

A recent survey showed that during their lives, an average man has sex with 7.3 different women, while an average woman has sex with 2.9 different men.

Maybe Billy Crystal had the harsh truth when he said, “Women need a reason to have sex. Men just need a place.” Is that fair? Maybe Darwin had it right and men have an evolutionary drive to spread their genes, while women have an evolutionary instinct to take care of the brood. Or maybe not. But hang on. Something doesn’t add up with the numbers. The numbers for men and women should be the same. Is there another explanation? People lie! Men exaggerate their exploits and women understate their intimate activity. Both are covering up the shadows of repressed sexuality.

How do you experience intimacy and difference? I’ve got a theory. It’s a generalization and likely to get me in trouble. But here goes anyway. What’s the worst thing that can happen?

My theory is that men need intimacy to empty ourselves of desire, and women need intimacy to fill yourselves up with new connections. That’s why generally speaking, men fall asleep after sex and women like to talk. Speaking personally, I can’t string two words together. Meg is ready to have a deep and meaningful conversation. She can talk all night, and I look like I’ve had a stroke.

Gender matters. We are equal, but we aren’t the same. Men generally fall in love with our eyes. Women generally fall in your love with your ears. Men and women are different. Understand differences. Avoid judgments. Make difference a strength. Work out what aspects of gender you want to stretch beyond and what aspects you want to accept.
You are a whole person, with nothing lacking. Just don’t confuse wholeness with perfection. Get intimate with your own imperfection and then you will be ready for intimacy with others. Practice intimacy with others and you will be doing your part in healing the world.

Lets Talk About Sex

There was a guy who named his dog “Sex”. Most people go for rover or spot. This guy went for Sex. He went to the City Hall to renew his dog license, told the clerk that he would like a license for Sex. The clerk said, “I’d like to have one too.” Then he said, “You don’t understand. I’ve had Sex since I was nine years old.” The clerk said, “You must have been quite a kid!”

When he got married and went on his honeymoon, he took the dog with him. He told the concierge that he wanted one room for he and his wife and a separate room for Sex. The concierge said, “Every room in the place is for sex.” He said, “You don’t understand. Sex keeps me awake at night.” The concierge said, “Me too.”

When he separated from his wife, they went to court to fight for custody of the dog. He said, “Your Honor, I had Sex before I was married.” The judge said, “Me too.” Then he told the judge that after he was married, Sex left him. The judge said, “Me too.”

Sex ran away. He spent hours looking around town for him. A cop came over and asked, “What are you doing in the alley at 4 o’clock in the morning?” He said, “I’m looking for Sex.”

His case comes up Friday.

When he decided to remarry, he told the minister that he would like to have Sex at the wedding. The minister told him to wait until after the wedding was over. He said, “But Sex has played a big part in my life and my whole world revolves around Sex.” The minister said he didn’t want to hear about his personal life and would not marry them in his church. The guy told him everyone would enjoy having Sex at the wedding. Their family is barred from the church.

Sex is not barred at this church, at least talking about sex is not barred. On the contrary, it is encouraged. Lets break down some inhibitions to talk about one of the most important and soulful parts of life.

If it’s true that women on average think about sex several times a month, and men, well…….every 52 seconds, then lets talk about what’s on our minds.


I end with the beautiful image from the story of Jesus and his sensual, massaging Rapunzel. Let your hair down in some new way this week. Do something romantic. Trust yourself. Open up to a friend. Let down your hair and climb the golden stairs to intimacy. Deepen your connection to those you love, forgive all that is imperfect, and let your experiences which are many lead you to love greatly. Namaste.

For Further Reflection -

How do you define intimacy?

What does it mean to you to be intimate with all things?


How do you explain the differences between genders?
What other issues related to intimacy would you like to see discussed?

The Evolution of God

With Darwin’s birthday coming up, we again honor his groundbreaking work with our own celebration of Evolution Sunday. Surprisingly, the world is still divided on the question of whether the Genesis creation story is a literal account or a piece of cultural mythology.

One of my favorite comedians, Ricky Gervais, does a very funny satire on reading Genesis literally, and in particular the creation of light.

“God created the heaven and the earth in the dark. How good is that? I would have created a little bit of light, then taken a look and said, “Right, I need some planets.”

He went, “Zap. That’s everything. Let’s have a look. Brilliant! Then He made man out of dust…. just because he could.”

All I can say is thank goodness God created light before creating humans. Imagine the mess. We could have ended up looking like Mr and Mrs Potato Head. Ah, you’ve got to laugh or else you might cry. Especially when I tell you that a 2006 Gallup Poll found that 46% of Americans believe in some form of young earth creationism. 13% believe in straight evolution and 35% believe in evolution under God’s guidance.

Why is there so much fear of evolution? What is the threat? Maybe some people feel that their God is under threat if evolution is accepted. Some people seem to think that evolution is a slippery slope to atheism and lawlessness and general anarchy.

So my first question is, do you have to choose? Does it have to be a choice between God and evolution?

One day a group of scientists got together and decided that humanity had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one scientist to go and tell God that they were done with Him. The scientist walked up to God and said, “God, we’ve decided that we no longer need you. We’re to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don’t you just go on and mind your own business?” God listened very patiently and kindly to the man. After the
scientist was done talking, God said, “Very well, how about this? Let’s say we have a man-making contest.” To which the scientist replied, “Okay, we can handle that!” “But,” God added, “we’re going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam.” The scientist said, “Sure, no problem” and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt. God looked at him and said, “No, no, no. You go get your own dirt.”


So the case could be made that God created the raw materials, and that evolution took over from there. As Carl Sagan said in Cosmos, “To really make an apple pie from scratch, you must begin by inventing the universe.”

It’s possible to believe in both God and evolution, even if you believe that God is the creator. A God that created the universe (in the dark) could create the world any way he or she wanted, including by evolution. The more important question is “what’s at stake?” Why does it matter if God created the world or not, and if it happened by evolution or not?

This is good news for some- you can have your cake and eat it too. You can have a thoroughly scientific approach without giving up a God that is utterly real, completely impartial, totally reliable, all-inclusive, immensely intelligent, completely loving and maybe even personal. This God is not only consistent with evolution, but is integral to the evolutionary process itself. The best part of all is that with this view of God and evolution, you are a co-creator of the future which is open and unplanned. Life is an adventure and the bricolage of seamless entities that fills your life with meaning are what compels you to live with joy, gratitude and purpose. Your God can keep growing and evolving just as you keep growing and evolving through the maze that is life. The most amazing truth is that once you have replaced a young earth, and a literal, static creation with a vision of dynamic and open processes stretching across vast eons of time, then you will fall to your knees in awe of the immense evolutionary symphony that you are an intimate part of.

Process Theology

You may have heard the phrase, “Process Theology”. It’s an attempt to describe God’s role in evolutionary process. Maybe its best understood with a fun story about a casino.

This guy is working in his store when he hears a booming voice from above: “Saul, sell your business.” He ignores it. It goes on for days. “Saul, sell your business for $3 million.”
After weeks of this, he relents, and sells his store. The voice says “Saul, go to Las Vegas.” He asks why. “Saul, take the $3 million to Las Vegas.”
He obeys, and goes to a casino. The voice says, “Saul, go to the blackjack table and put it down all on one hand.” He hesitates but knows he must. He’s dealt an 18. The dealer has a six showing.
“Saul, take a card.” What? The dealer has –
“Take a card!” He tells the dealer to hit him. Saul gets an ace. Nineteen. He breathes easy.
“Saul, take another card.” What? “TAKE ANOTHER CARD!” He asks for another card.
It’s another ace. He has twenty. “Saul, take another card,” the voice commands.
“I have twenty!” Saul shouts. “TAKE ANOTHER CARD!!” booms the voice.
“Hit me,” Saul says. He gets another ace. Twenty one.
The booming voice says: “Well blow me down! That’s unbelievable!”

Does that make process theology crystal clear??!!!!!! According to process theology, God is involved in creation in a persuasive but not coercive way. God doesn’t know the future, but lures you towards ever more loving and conscious decisions. There is a big difference between persuasion and coercion. It’s a little like the difference between removing a tantrumming child from a store (that’s coercion) and persuading a friend to leave an abusive relationship. The first may be appropriate, but it’s an adult/child relationship. When adults relate to each other, or to God as children, it often ends up being co-dependent. Adult/ adult relationships involve free will and people thinking and deciding for themselves.

Process Theology says that life is a series of experiences, and each one builds upon the ones that came before it. The interrelationship of all factors in each experience creates the future. God is always becoming with each evolving experience. You are always becoming with each evolving experience. It’s not so much that there is a right and wrong in each moment. It’s a different kind of knowing. You feel your way forward, with the vision unfolding as you take each step. The end game is not clear, but it doesn’t need to be clear. It makes sense as you go. You are at one with the situation.

At your best moments, you feel like life’s dance partner. The ballroom floor is the spinning earth you share. You flow around the room like a Latin dance goddess. You are at one with the seamless movement. You can’t even tell if you are dancing or being danced, leading or being led. Either way it feels good and right. You move with grace and style and improvise when the situation demands it. Of course some of you have seen me dance, and know that it’s not always pretty or stylish.

Process Theology and Synchronicity

The type of flow I am speaking of sounds a little like synchronicity. You create your own luck. Meaning and direction fall into your lap when you are open and receptive. I heard a nice story, apparently a true story, about synchronicity.

Baptist preacher, Tony Campolo, tells of a time when he went to a small college to speak. Before the service, several of the faculty members took him inside a room and prayed over him before he went out to talk to the student body. Tony said,

“These men prayed long, and the longer they prayed the more they leaned on my head. They prayed on and on and on and leaned harder and harder. One of the faculty members prayed at length about a particular man named Charlie Stoltzfus. That kind of ticked me off, and I thought to myself, ‘If you’re going to lean on my head, the least you can do is pray for me.’ He prayed on and on for this guy who was about to abandon his wife and three children.”

Following the chapel service, Tony got in his car and headed home. As he was getting on the Pennsylvania turnpike he noticed a young man hitchhiking. He picked him up. Tony said, “I know you’re not supposed to, but I’m a Baptist preacher and whenever I can get someone trapped in a space where I can preach to him, I do it!” As they pulled back onto the highway, Tony introduced himself and asked the man what his name was. The man replied, “My name’s Charlie Stoltzfus…!”

Tony immediately turned the car around and headed back the other direction. Charlie said, “Where are you going!” “I’m taking you home,” Tony replied. “Home?” “Yes, home. Because you left your wife and three children.” When they got to the house Tony went inside and talked with the man and his wife. The couple worked through their problems and Charlie ended up becoming a pastor.

Not all situations turn out as neatly as this, but so often in life meaning falls in your lap. So the next question is, even if life has a way of organizing itself so that meaningful coincidences take place, do we need to include God in the equation?

A guy was driving to an important meeting and couldn’t find a parking place. Looking up toward heaven, he said “God, take pity on me. If you find me a parking place I will go to church every Sunday for the rest of my life and maybe even give up tequila.” Miraculously, a parking place appeared right in front of him. He looked up again and said, “Never mind. I found one myself.”

God and Evolution

All of the beauty and mystery of life can be fully experienced without any reference to God, and many people live happily without any need for God. If you are in that category, I’m neither trying to persuade nor coerce you to change your mind. And no, I don’t find you to be a lawless and anarchistic bunch. Some of the most moral people I know are atheists. I mix with a number of people who call themselves spiritual atheists. Being an atheist who appreciates the mysterious interconnectedness of life, and lives a life of love and compassion, is a perfectly reasonable position to hold.

However, at a time when belief in God is under a certain amount of intellectual attack, I want to outline some ways that it is just as reasonable to hold your belief in God alongside a belief in evolution. Maybe I will go a step further than that and talk about how belief in God can broaden and deepen the experience of life as it leaves open the possibility of a divine force underneath and within experience. Who am I, and what do I know, but here goes anyway!

1. Let go and let God

Surrender the life you have planned to step into the life that is waiting for you. There come certain moments in life when you let go and let God, maybe nervously opening yourself to the emerging and even surprising future. By leaving yourself open to an unknown future, you so often discover new and wondrous connections. Maybe it’s meaningful for you to use God as a name for the depth of knowing beyond rational pro and con lists. Maybe God gives a sense of the growing consciousness that not only knows what to do, but knows why certain actions are important and how they will serve the world.

As Margaret Wheatley says, “Our plans are nothing compared to what the world so willingly gives us.” Let go and let God co-create a life beyond your wildest dreams.

2. The Whole is Greater than the Parts

You have heard phrases like “touch a star, disturb a star” and “heaven in a grain of sand”. What they are describing poetically may be true at a quantum level. The whole is greater than the parts, and at the same time each part contains the potential and imprint of the whole. A visual way to think of this is that each wave is part of the ocean, and inseparable from the ocean, but the ocean is greater than its combined waves.

This has profound implications for the way you live. You are more than a machine, and so much more than the sum of your parts. You are a whole and wondrous person. Each of your parts; your personality, your experience and skills, contains the imprint of the whole, and is loaded with healing potential. When you put it all together you are nothing less than God becoming more divine in each moment. You are whole, unbroken and unbreakable. God is a perfectly reasonable name for the whole and the potential for wholeness in each part. No matter how lonely it may feel at times, the wave is never separate from the ocean and you are never separate from the whole.

3. You are part of Something Enormous

To say that your life and choices are part of God becoming more divine fills your life with incredible significance. You are connected to a larger, deeper, richer whole that puts your present limited situation into a new perspective. Maybe God is a name for the sense of ’something beyond’, of ’something more’ that gives meaning and value to where you are now. That ’something more’ may be a cause that moves you to action or an ever increasing circle of compassion, it may be a sense of awe at truth or beauty or it may be a sense that your actions are part of the evolutionary process. The consciousness that grows from this sense of “something more” not only guides you to know what to do, but also to deeply appreciate why certain things are worth doing.

When Jesus said that those who follow him would do greater works than his, I sense that he understood a profound evolutionary truth. (John 14;12) The greater works would not necessarily be miracles in the sense of defying nature. They would be works of a deeper consciousness; a greater understanding of the interconnectedness of life and the responsibility of each to co-create the future. I believe that the recording of these words in John’s gospel was a sign that the early Johannine communities around Ephesus from whom the gospel arose, were developing a profound mystical belief in God as the source of life and inner consciousness that connects all. It’s no accident that these words about “greater works” are sandwiched by Jesus washing his disciples feet in chapter 13 and the metaphor of the vine and the branches in chapter 15. An awareness of God within manifests as love and service for all.

4. There’s Always More

When you feel like your life has come to dead halt, paralyzed by fear, God as process may help you to see that there’s always more.

Albert Einstein is said to have performed the following thought experiment when he was contemplating relativity. He asked himself a question: If you were literally riding on the edge of a light beam and you held a mirror in front of you, could you see yourself? And the answer is no. If nothing travels faster than light, light can’t get to the mirror to reflect your reflection, so you would see nothing.

That’s a great image for the emerging edge of evolution. There’s nothing in the future to see. We’re creating it as we go out there.

It can be scary to look in the mirror and not see anything, but it can also be empowering. You get to help create what you want to see in the future. As Emerson said, “You lie in the lap of immense intelligence.” God is a name for evolution from complexity to greater complexity. Your life purpose is to awaken to this evolving process of God becoming more divine.

Why do you need to include the name God in this process? Maybe just to remind you that you don’t have it all figured out, that life is mystery and that names and labels point us to the mystery of what lies beneath. Just don’t get hung up on the names and labels. Allow yourself to go where they are pointing you.

The Divine Lottery Called Life

Just in case this is all getting a little neat and orderly, let me remind you of the incredible miracle that is your life. Do you ever wonder in quiet moments how you came to be alive? I don’t mean how it happened, but why you and why now? Of all the improbable circumstances, one egg fertilized at just the right time, generation after generation along the line, it IS a miracle that you are here. Then add in the multiple risks and uncertainties of life, from disease to accident, generation after generation along the line, and it just becomes outrageous for you to be here. While your death is a mathematical certainty, the odds of you existing in the first place are ludicrously improbable.

So start living like the miracle that you are. Make the absolute most of each precious gift of a moment that is your miracle of a life, and make the miracle count for something profound. Live your life so that years later, when future generations are contemplating the miracle of their existence, your legacy lives on in ways known and unknown.

Give thanks for the miracle of evolution. Live the miracle of evolution. Namaste.

For Further Reflection -

Why do you think some people are so afraid of evolutionary theory?

Do you think it’s reasonable to believe in both God and evolution?

What do you find inspiring and empowering about evolutionary theory?

Waking Up to a New Earth

There is a billboard on an Interstate Highway that says, “Does your wife have too many shoes?” Apart from the sexist overtones of addressing the man of the house, you might hope it was advertising a Goodwill store or maybe a local therapist. But no, it was advertising self storage.

Why solve a problem if you can just put it in storage and forget about it?

Stevie Wright once said, “You can’t have everything. Where would you put it?” He obviously hadn’t heard of self storage. At the end of 2008, self-storage facilities occupied 2.35 billion square feet of space in the United States, making it physically possible that if you put all the self storage units together, you could fit every American in there and have a horder’s picnic.

You might think that self storage usage decreases during a recession. On the contrary, when recession hits we respond by downsizing. Therefore we need somewhere to store furniture now that we are in a smaller apartment. God forbid that we should actually get rid of any stuff.

Do you know who willingly gives away their stuff? Many of those who return from near death experiences report a desire to give away their possessions. The prospect of death changes your priorities. You might say that the nearness of death leads to a shift in consciousness. Suddenly, hording stuff doesn’t seem so meaningful, and using stuff to help others makes all the sense in the world.

It’s all about how you see yourself. Which views of your self do you store in your inner self storage unit? Maybe you store some ancient self limiting beliefs from way back in the past, like a message you were given as a child. You try to feed this illusion of who you are with lots of stuff. Maybe you store some views of your self from the media that tells you that you are what you own. Take some time to purge some false selves from your inner self storage unit; get rid of the ones that aren’t serving you, and aren’t serving the world. Nothing you own can add an ounce of worth to who you are. If you see yourself as lacking on the inside, then you will have an insatiable desire for stuff to try and fill the gap. But of course it won’t work.

A middle-aged woman has a heart attack and is taken to the hospital. While on the operating table she has a near death experience. During the experience she sees God and asks if this is it. God says no and explains that she has another 30 years to live. Upon her recovery she decides to just stay in the hospital and make the most of the opportunity to have some work done; a face lift, liposuction, breast augmentation, tummy tuck, etc. She even has someone come in and change her hair color. She figures since she’s got another 30 years she might as well make the most of it. She walks out of the hospital after the last operation and is killed by an ambulance speeding by. She arrives in front of God and complains, “I thought you said I had another 30 years.” God replies, “I didn’t recognize you.”

More importantly, do you recognize yourself? In the quiet moments away from people and pretense, do you recognize yourself? Who is the one you recognize? Do you ever stand before the mirror and wonder, “Who is that anyway? Who is that being in the mirror masquerading as me? Is that me in the mirror the same me with this address, this phone number, this human identity? Or is there a deeper mystery to who I am? Is there someone or something within you, a deeper self, a mysterious consciousness, prodding you with essential questions: “What is the meaning of it all?”, pushing you to know more than you know and be all that you can be. The Poet W.B. Yates put it this way,
From Mirror after Mirror-

No vanity’s displayed
I’m looking for the face I had
Before the world was made

Is this one any other than the pure radiant light of being, the one with no beginning and no end; God herself, One Consciousness, Universal Energy? A verse in the Koran says, “God is nearer to you than your jugular vein.” Your consciousness is your awareness that you are so much more than your roles and personas. Your awareness is that which knows that you know.

A woman in a coma was dying. She suddenly had a feeling that she was taken up to heaven and stood before the Judgment Seat.

“Who are you?” a Voice said to her.
“I’m the wife of the mayor,” she replied.
“I did not ask whose wife you are but who you are.”
“I’m the mother of four children.”
“I did not ask whose mother you are, but who you are.”
“I’m a schoolteacher.”
“I did not ask what your profession is but who you are.”
And so it went. No matter what she replied, she did not seem to give a satisfactory answer to the question, “Who are you?”
“I’m a Christian.”
“I did not ask what your religion is but who you are.”
“I’m the one who regularly volunteered to help the poor and needy.”
“I did not ask what you did but who you are.”

She evidently failed the examination, for she was sent back to life. When she recovered from her illness, she was determined to find out who she was. And that made all the difference. (a story from Anthony de Mello, Taking Flight, p. 140)

Take some time to purge the unnecessary and self limiting aspects of your self and you will gain a closer view of your true self. You will lose your fear of death and you will live every moment with purpose and passion.

Conscious Capitalism

At a time of such enormous social change and anxiety, this consciousness can make such a positive difference in the world. There is a phrase that has become popular over the last few years, “conscious capitalism”.

It’s a holistic movement, attempting to instill the best of human consciousness into the economic system. Conscious business has a higher purpose than profit. Profit is only one consideration. It addresses the real needs of society in sustainable ways. It recognizes the interrelationship of all stakeholders, including the crucial role of the earth as a major stake holder. It balances the many diverse interests of all stake holders. It believes that actions today that benefits future generations are all important. In this sense it brings the future into the present.

Conscious capitalism believes that doing the right things ultimately brings good results. Do you remember the 2002 movie Changing Lanes? A junior partner discovers that two senior partners are paying themselves 3 million dollars a year to manage a charity. He asks the senior partners if they really think this is right. One of the senior partners responds, “I can sleep at night knowing at the end of the day, I did more good then evil”.

That’s a cop out. You should sleep well at night because you are conscious that everything is related, and that your actions now will last forever. You will have to deal with the consequences or else they will continue to repeat negative patterns for you and others. How will you look back at the end of your life and assess the quality of your life?

Jesus said to a wealthy first century man- “You have lived a good life. You have kept the commandments and more. But you lack one thing, consciousness, a realization that your actions affect others. So sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor.” The man was crushed. He didn’t have the consciousness to believe that he would be more if he had less. Jesus said, “it’s harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a person who lacks consciousness to enter heaven.” He then turned to his disciples and said, “If you wake up to this new consciousness that you are part of all others and the earth, then you will already have entered heaven.”

Doing Good While You Have Time

There was a letter that was reportedly sent by the Indiana Department of Social Services to a person who had been receiving assistance through their organization. The letter read as follows: “Your food stamps will be stopped in March because we received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if there is a change in your circumstances.” Apparently this is a true story. Now that’s a government department that believes in life after death.

Then there’s the boss who asks his employee: “Do you believe in life after death?”

“I certainly do,” the employee replies.

“That’s a good thing,” says the boss. “Yesterday, while you were at your grandmother’s funeral, she stopped by to visit you!”

You can’t fool death! You can’t fool your deepest consciousness! The certainty of death leads you to ask the most challenging questions about how tied you are to your various roles and personas in the world.

Once you know who you are, you contribute so much more to those around you. You begin to create life after death by living with an interrelated consciousness that what you do today will benefit generations to come. You can bolster the collective consciousness, the center of gravity of the planet with your thoughts, words and actions.

I end with a nice image from Erma Bombeck who once wrote:

“I always had a dream that when I am asked to give an accounting of my life to a higher court, it will be like this: So, empty your pockets. What have you got left of your life? Any dreams that were unfulfilled? Any unused talent that we gave you when you were born that you have left?

Any unsaid compliments or bits of love that you haven’t spread around? And, I will answer: I’ve nothing to return. I spent everything I was given.”

Are you hording your time, talent and treasure? Give it freely while you have time. You were given it as a gift by those who went before you, and now it is your turn to make sure that you leave the world a better place because you were in it. Give freely while you have time, and you will create heaven on earth.

Namaste.

For Further Reflection -

Why do you think our society has such an obsession with hording?
Which limiting and critical views of self are you storing, and why?
What do you think consciousness is, and how do you experience consciousness?

Knocking On Heaven’s Door

We have some visitors here this morning, particularly with the newcomer brunch. Maybe some of you are wondering what this place is all about? How do you know if you are going to fit in? Here’s a fun test.

If you don’t agree with half the things that I say, then you’ll fit right in.
If you think that Maria Montessori was the name of Jesus mother, then you’ll fit right in.

If you think the three sacraments are doubt, questioning and voting, then you will fit right in.
If you think “whatever” is a valid theological argument, then you will fit right in.
If you approach every belief with an open mind, and every discussion with an open mouth, you will fit right in.

I’m asking questions about life after death. What do you call a dead progressive? All dressed up with no place to go. Many progressives have given up believing in any afterlife whatsoever and taken the radical perspective that there is no afterlife.

However as I said last week, radical thinking is valid and encouraged but it’s only the first step. What next? What’s the point of being radical? Let me show you an example.

During the last hours of his life, Henry David Thoreau was questioned about his beliefs by a concerned neighbor, who asked, “Aren’t you concerned about the afterlife?”
To this Thoreau answered, “One world at a time.”

What a great answer. The purpose of being radical is to live more fully and freely in this life. One world at a time. One day at a time. One moment at a time. One opportunity to love and serve the world at a time.

Question Everything

Questioning has been a hallmark of liberal and progressive religion; from modern day progressives and Unitarians back to the enlightenment theologians who emphasized freedom to think for yourself and craft your own direct, spiritual experience.

In an episode of The Simpsons, Homer angers the KKK who burn a cross on the family’s yard. Later, in an effort to get the KKK off his back, Homer angers the local Unitarians who burn a huge question-mark into Homer’s grass.

As comedian Lenny Bruce said, “I know my humor is outrageous when it makes the Unitarians so mad they burn a question mark on my front lawn.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19th century Transcendentalist was once giving a sermon in a famous church in Lexington. He was in full flight, in the middle of his sermon, when he paused, and said, “I no longer believe the previous statement.” Wouldn’t it be fun to present for that sermon?

I intend to take this freedom a step further. The statement I am about to make, I already disagree with. Questions make you humble. They keep you honest and open. They push you to new possibilities and increasing curiosity and wonder.

Euripides, the 4th Century BC Greek Playwright said, “Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing.” I can only guess that Jesus was influenced by this Greek approach. If you go right through all the gospels, you discover that Jesus asked over 300 questions. He was the original radical, the interrogator, the one who asked hard questions and rarely accepted the status quo. More importantly, he was asked over 180 questions and get this- he only answered 3 of them. Instead of answering questions, he responded with another question or a story or even silence. Jesus seemed to use the Socratic Method of probing the questioner because they had the answers within them. It was more effective to find the answers themselves than be told what to think.

Maybe the same was true for Paul. In 2 Corinthians 12 he records what some consider to be a near death experience, but he says that while having his mystical experience he heard things that are not to be told: The teachings in Greek mystery cults were not to be revealed to the uninitiated. Sometimes mysteries and profound experiences are like that. You can’t describe them in words. You just embody their transformative wisdom in your life and give people freedom and safety to do the same.
Beyond freedom to think for yourself, what is the power of questions?

Questions open up new worlds of possibility

Imagine there is a town that is surrounded by giant walls. All the people of the town stay within the walls, apart from the occasional adventurer who climbs over the wall, never to be seen again. The town elders teach each successive generation that they don’t need to worry about what’s outside of the walls. Everything they need is inside the walls. In any case, the danger of venturing outside of the walls is too great. Eventually, the curiosity of the town elders gets the better of them. They decide to discover what is so attractive that no one ever comes back. They tie a rope around a volunteer, who climbs over the wall. After a time, they haul him back. They surround him and can’t wait to hear from him. They are bursting with questions, but the man is so overwhelmed by what he experienced that he is unable to speak; all he can do is smile.

Churches usually want to keep you inside the walls of their own ideas. It’s easier to control you that way. Historically, anyone who ventured outside the walls of orthodoxy was censured or in many cases executed. Galileo was censured, and imprisoned for daring to promote Copernicus’s challenge to the commonly held view of the day that the earth is the center of the universe and has a wall around its boundaries; somewhere on the other side of the wall is heaven.

Questions are often uncomfortable, but we’re here to question the answers of yesterday and ask new questions of today. What is the point of community? Ask questions in good company.

Consider the phenomena of near death experiences as an invitation to ask new questions.

Near Death Experience

Near Death Experiences are relatively common.

A 1992 Gallup Poll suggested that over 8 million Americans claim to have had a NDE. There are by some reports 800 every day in the US. NDE’s tend to include a feeling of being outside your own body, seeing a tunnel with a bright light at the end of it, and sometimes seeing loved ones who have passed away previously. More often than not, they are beautiful and peaceful experiences.




Elizabeth Kubler Ross tells the story of a man who was being picked up by his entire family for a Memorial Day weekend. Before arriving to collect him, the van was in an accident and the whole family was killed. The guy was completely devastated and ended up living on the street addicted to heroine. This lasted two years until one night when he was lying on a dirt road, stoned and waiting to die. He watched as a truck ran him over. He watched himself critically injured, as if from above his body. It was at this moment that his family appeared in front of him, in a glow of light with an incredible sense of love. They had peaceful smiles on their faces and they stayed with him in silence. He felt unconditional love. He made a vow not to join them, but to re-enter his physical body so that he could share with the world what he had experienced. It was like a Bodhisattva vow to keep coming back to life until all were liberated. It was after this vow that he watched the truck driver carry his totally injured body into the car. He saw an ambulance speeding to the scene of the accident, he was taken to the hospital’s emergency room and he finally re-entered his physical body, tore off the straps that were tied around him and literally walked out of the emergency room. He never had any aftereffects from the heavy abuse of drugs and alcohol. He felt healed and whole, and made a commitment that he would not die until he had the opportunity of sharing the mystery of life after death with as many people as would be willing to listen.

A common argument in favor of NDEs is that the incredible, peaceful experiences take place while no brain activity registers. This raises the possibility that consciousness resides beyond the brain. It also raises the possibility that there are other dimensions beyond our rational senses or the possibility of transcending time and space as we know it.

The counter argument is that a NDE is a dream like state that does take place within the brain. The light relates to the rapid eye movement, and the tunnel effect is lack of blood flow to the eye.

My interest is not to prove or disprove NDEs. You will have your own opinion about that. My interest is the effect of the experience. What positive effects do NDEs have on people once they come back to their bodies?

Often there is a loss of fear about death. The person has come so close to something eternal and is now open that there may be more to experience than this dimension. People often come to appreciate the impermanent nature of life and want to share their fearless appreciation of life with others.

Paul’s NDE

It seems that St Paul may have had his own out of body, mystical experience. Maybe it was even a NDE. What I like about the description of his experience is that it was no cause for boasting. He didn’t use the experience as a reason for pride or self righteousness. He used it as a motivation for service. The experience knocked some sense into him. He stopped living with hatred and instead became a force for love and unity between Jew and Gentile.

A man died and went to The Judgment. St. Peter met him at the Gates of Heaven and said, “Before you meet with God, I thought I should tell you — we’ve looked at your life, and you really didn’t do anything particularly good or bad. We’re not at all sure what to do with you. Can you tell us anything you did that can help us make a decision?” The newly arrived soul thought for a moment and replied, “Yeah, once I was driving along and came upon a woman who was being harassed by a group of bikers. So I pulled over, got out my tire iron, and went up to the leader of the bikers. He was a big, muscular, hairy guy with tattoos all over his body and a ring pierced through his nose. Well, I tore the nose ring out of his nose, and told him he and his gang had better stop bothering the woman or they would have to deal with me!”
”I’m impressed,” St. Peter responded, “When did this happen?” 
”About two minutes ago,” came the reply.

There was no resurrection for this guy, but I like his spunk.

Whether you have had a NDE or not, you have had your own brush with mortality. You have had your moments of honest reflection that you aint getting any younger and this aint no dry run. These are your experiences that knocked some sense into you. What questions do they raise for you? What do they motivate you to do with your life?

Does it expand the walls of your worldview, and lure you to dip your toes in the ocean on the other side? Does it leave you more open and gentle about different perspectives and experiences?

Perhaps this is the best clue I can give you about spiritual community. It’s not about the answers. They aren’t the answers for long anyway. Answers are often just lazy days in the sun for your mind; drifting off to sleep while new possibilities pass you by. The best clue I can offer about this community is that it’s not about having the answers, but asking the questions in good company.

I honor the quester in you. The one who seeks, and questions and wonders in me greets the same spirit in you. Namaste

Here are two helpful articles:

1. An argument that NDEs are real experiences?

2. An argument that is skeptical about NDEs.

For Further Reflection-

Do you think this life is all there is, or do you allow for the possibility of consciousness beyond your 5 senses and beyond your rational awareness?
What is the power of questions in your life? What wisdom have questions led you to?
In what ways have you felt limited by the church’s walls of orthodoxy?
How have you liberated yourself from other people’s or institution’s walls?

Reincarnation- A Call to Action in Haiti

There is a website called Reincarnation Station where you fill in a survey and it tells you what you will reincarnate as in your next life. The site tells you that if you live a virtuous life you will reincarnate as a highly respected animal. Otherwise you can expect to come back as a lower creature. So I took the test. The results came back and it turns out my next life will be spent as a Rhinoceros in Africa. I was quite pleased with that result.

The Rhino is a very handsome and distinguished animal with few predators. I mean it could have been worse. I could have reincarnated as a tapeworm. But then the survey told me that almost 27% of people will be reincarnated as a higher form of life than me. This was the summary statement, “You’re not perfect, but you’ve lead a better life than most. With a few changes now, your next life could be even better.” Well that’s encouraging. Basically, better luck next time.

What do you think about reincarnation? Do you think you get to live again and take care of unfinished business? Are you a believer or a skeptic? Americans are split 50/50 on this issue.

During World War 2, a 21-year-old fighter pilot was shot down by Japanese artillery. The Leiningers believe their 10 year old son James is a reincarnation of the pilot. It all started just after his second birthday, when he began having nightmares about planes. Then he started telling his parents details about a plane going down; the type of plane, the location of the bombing. They researched and discovered that the details matched very closely the demise of fighter pilot James Houston. He seemed to know details that a two year old should not know, as if they were actually memories. His parents were skeptical at first but eventually became firmly convinced that their son was indeed the reincarnation of James Houston. The fighter pilot’s sister is also convinced.

Of course there are skeptics. There is the argument that his parents took him to a World War 2 museum when he was a baby and fed him all the details, and that it’s all a hoax. I have to say that I saw the parents interviewed and they seem to genuinely believe that their son had had a past life. What impressed me the most was that the Leiningers were orthodox Christians who up to this point had believed in an orthodox afterlife with heaven and hell. They were asked if it had changed their worldview. They said it had enhanced it. They were even more firmly convinced that there is some sort of life beyond death, but they now find themselves more open to the mystery that no one can know for sure what happens after death.

Every now and again events take place that question the very bedrock of your beliefs. Maybe it’s an experience of wonder like the Leiningers that makes you more open to mystery. Maybe it’s the death of a child that makes you question the goodness of God or maybe it’s an earthquake destroying an already fragile country that makes you question the very justice of life. Some events have the power to turn a perspective into a passion, a worldview into a value, and a belief into a call to action.

This is true for all of us, not just those who question fundamental beliefs. As free spirits, many of us have enjoyed the freedom of abandoning a wrathful God, and questioning an inerrant Bible. I welcome and encourage this freedom. But what next? What happens to your worldview after Haiti? What happens now? What does the image of bodies piled in dumping grounds and survivors walking the streets moaning and lost do to your beliefs? Do they become a call to action?

From Belief to Action

There are three general stages in most new realizations; 1. Orthodox beliefs, 2 .Self Awareness and 3. A call to action.

Matthew’s gospel tells the story of Peter’s conversion, but it’s not a conversion to particular beliefs. It’s a movement from head to heart to hands. Jesus uses the Socratic method to help Peter come to this realization himself. He starts by asking a very general question- “who do people say that I am?” Peter gives the orthodox answer for his day. He says, “People say that you are the reincarnation of Elijah, John the Baptist or Jeremiah.” Then Jesus pushes Peter to self awareness, “Who do YOU say that I am?” Peter says, “You are the Messiah.” Finally Jesus pushes beyond words and beliefs to actions. He says to Peter, “Now be a Messiah yourself. Be a rock on which others can build their lives.”

Now relate these 3 stages to a belief in the afterlife. You may have certain ideas about the afterlife in your head. They could be heaven and hell, reincarnation or nothing at all. All are valid. But they are all speculative beliefs. When death comes close, your own or someone close to you, or global tragedy strikes, it suddenly becomes a matter of the heart, what you feel is true. This is usually a much softer, more permeable perspective, less dogmatic, more open. The final stage is to be so moved by death that you commit to creating heaven on earth and being the reincarnation of the highest humanity you can possibly muster.

The purpose of spiritual community is not to replace old beliefs with new speculative beliefs. This may happen in some cases but it’s not essential. The purpose is to help each other move from belief to value, via self awareness and a call to responsible and compassionate action in the world. How does this relate to reincarnation?

Reincarnation- You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere

Two dear old friends, Bill and Fred, had many conversations through their life about death and what they thought Heaven would be like. They made an agreement that whichever of them died first would make every effort to make contact with the one that was still living and tell them what Heaven was like.



Well, Fred was the first to pass away and about a year later, Bill was truly missing his dear friend. One day, when he was immersed in grief, the phone rang…and when he answered it, he heard a familiar voice on the line.



Bill said:



“Fred, is that you?”



“Yes it is my old friend, yes it is.”



Bill was overjoyed, and said:



“So, tell me dear friend, what is it like where you are?”



Fred said:

”Oh, it’s wonderful. You wouldn’t believe what I am experiencing now. The most plentiful food and lushest fields you have ever seen, I sleep in late, have a long luxurious breakfast, and then I go and make love.

If it’s a nice day I go out in the fields and make love some more. I come in and have a long lunch, then I go out into the fields again and make love all afternoon and retire early in the evening.” 



Bill responded:



“Heaven sounds so amazing!”



Fred immediately replied:



Heaven? Who said anything about heaven? I’m a rabbit in Minnesota!”

There is a case to be made that you aint goin nowhere when you die. Whether it’s through a specific reincarnation as a person or creature, loving deeds that create life that you aren’t even aware of, evolution, the passing down of genes, or whether it’s your body becoming worm food for the earth, a strong case can be made that you will be around for a long time to come.

The Sufi poet Rumi said:

“I died as mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was man.
Why should I fear?
When was I less by dying?”

-Mevlana Celaleddin-i Rumi (Persian Sufi)

Banda Aceh in Thailand was nearer to the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004 than any other place. One fifth of the population was destroyed. But if you visit today, you discover a prosperous province where poverty has decreased post Tsunami and there is new peace in the region. The whole province has been reincarnated, mostly because the global community heard the call to action. Will the same thing happen in Haiti?

We could sit around and talk about our various beliefs about reincarnation and the afterlife until the cows come home. It would be interesting, but might not make an iota of difference in your life or make the world a better place. In Haiti death has struck, and we are compelled to move beyond belief to action.

Haiti is Heaven on Earth

It was unfortunate that Pat Robertson made his comments about Haiti and the pact with the devil. He revealed more about himself and his own prejudices than anything else. Now is the time to rediscover the beauty of the place. Haiti has just become your heaven on earth, because this is where your actions will make the most lasting difference.

Begin by celebrating the depth of culture that has emerged from that place, and will again.

It was the first independent nation in Latin America. It was the first black independent republic of this hemisphere. It was the only nation who gained her freedom out of a successful slave rebellion. Forget about pacts with the devil. This is a nation that has trail blazed independence through hard work. Haiti has gifted the world musicians and artists, authors and activists.

It’s also the poorest nation in Latin America, and it’s overwhelming to reflect on how it will come back from this Earthquake. We must all stand alongside her to rebuild heaven on earth.

Let me end with a call to action. Right now, Haiti resembles the Gates of Hades. The place that Peter had his conversion was Caesarea Philippi. This was a multi cultural center full of diverse beliefs and practices. This was the home of the Greek God Pan’s cave known as the entry to the underworld. It was called the Gates of Hades, where Pan would disappear every winter and the people would hope for his reappearance every spring. This was a world where children died often and average life expectancy was around 40. The fear of death was ever present. The fear that death was final and ultimate was paralyzing, but it was also disproved every Spring when the days lengthened and the sun brightened and the land became green.

The incredible synergy is that Caesarea Philippi was most likely flattened by an earthquake in the 3rd century. Today it is not inhabited, but you can visit the excavated sites to soak in the history and culture.

I can only imagine that for most people in Haiti today, it feels like the Gates of Hades, surrounded by death and fear. Will death be the final word in Haiti or will there be a reincarnation of the spirit of independence and courage that has marked the country’s history?

The answer to that question lies with the survivors of Haiti and with you and me. With your most passionate and caring actions, Haiti can rise to see the spring of a new era and believe again in life beyond death. As you follow your call to action, and allow your life to be the rock on which other people can rebuild their lives, you will discover in the most profound way the meaning of life after death.

The infinite spirit in me that endures the most devastating circumstances and cannot be broken, greets the infinite spirit in you. Namaste.

For Further Reflection (questions that can be used individually or in groups)-

Do you believe in reincarnation? Why or why not?

How important is to you to be able to explain what happens after death?

How do you intend to create heaven on earth?

What are you doing to support the rebuilding of Haiti?

Soul Plane- Jet Lag of the Unconscious

I’m just back from 2 wonderful weeks in Sydney with family. The 32 hour commute is so fresh that my cankles haven’t yet subsided from their puffy, Mrs. Doubtfire-esque glory. Under the circumstances, it seemed best to tackle a straightforward topic. So I chose as my theme “the immortality of the soul”. If that doesn’t conquer jet lag, I don’t know what would.

By the way, my favorite quote about jetlag comes from Barbara Kingsolver in Animal Dreams. She says, “When you go on a trip, in your dreams you will still be home. Then after you’ve come home you’ll dream of where you were. It’s a kind of jet lag of the unconscious.”

That is so true in life, isn’t it? The grass is always greener. In the midst of life, you imagine some better time to be. Thinking about the afterlife feels a little like jet lag of the unconscious, crossing space and time zones in search of elusive perfection. The challenge to staying present is that life is often very difficult. It sometimes feels easier to imagine a future time without challenge, like a holiday or a heaven, somewhere to escape in your mind and visualize peace and perfection. The rewards to staying present are out of this world, and well worth the effort.

Soulful Uncertainty

The first question to ask yourself is whether you expect life to be full of certainties, or whether you can get comfortable with uncertainty. If there was ever a reminder that the road to heavenly holidays is paved with uncertainty, it must surely be air travel. We flew out of the US on the same day that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab strapped explosives to his underwear and attempted to blow up a plane over Detroit airport. As a result, we passed through the tightest air travel security regimen that the world has ever seen. Countless hours and dollars are poured into patting down 7 year old girls wheeling Dora the Explorer backpacks full of Christmas toys and crayons. I never did trust Dora with her evil side-kick Boots and that cunning talking map. That crew has “terrorist” written all over it.

In all seriousness, I have no major problem with the tight security and it really wasn’t much of an inconvenience. With the deepest respect for those families who lost loved ones in the 9/11 attacks, the issue I have is the delusional human craving for security and the tendency to look for it in the wrong places.

Think of air travel in a larger perspective. In the past decade there have been three terrorist related incidents on US airplanes. Most of them failed or were foiled by other passengers. In the same period of time, according to the Bureau of Transport Statistics, there have been 99,320,309 commercial airline departures that either originated or landed within the United States. That means that there has been one terrorist incident for every 33 million departures. If you look at the total number of passengers on planes in the last decade, the odds of being on a flight with a terrorist incident is 1 in 10 million. By contrast, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are 1 in 500,000. You are more likely to die from falling out of bed than as the victim of a terrorist on a plane.

Do you feel safer on a plane, knowing that there is a rigorous security regimen? Maybe. But at what cost? Are you prepared to sacrifice liberty for security, even though liberty may be your greatest security? And while so much focus is on air travel, what other security threats are being ignored? Now relate the same issue to the belief in the afterlife. To the extent that a belief in the afterlife offers security, it may just as easily rob you of the liberty to live without guilt and pretense, fully in the present.

You see, I fear that the craving for security can so easily delude us in a world that offers few certainties. As Glenn Close’s character says to a group of acting students in her recent film Heights, “For Christ’s sake, take a risk sometime this weekend.”

I think the big guy would approve. As he himself said (in my paraphrase), what does it profit you to gain a whole world of security and lose your soul? What’s the point of security if you are so paralyzed by fear that you can’t truly live? Seek a new year’s revolution this year. Resolve to evolve fearlessly. Make it your intention to really live as if your life makes a difference in the world. For Christ’s sake, take a risk this year, if for no other reason than to remind yourself that you are alive and your life’s script is not yet written. You get to write the book. You get to plot at least the outline of each chapter if not all the details. Take a risk to remind yourself that the beauty of life is that it offers no certainties. It is open and dynamic.

For Christ’s sake, live heaven here and now, as if your actions will make a difference beyond your knowledge and beyond your life span. That seems to be the point of Matthew’s vision of the afterlife (Matthew 25) where your life’s work is measured by your kindness to those most in need of care.

What is a Soul?

It’s good to stop and reflect on how far you have come. While I was in Sydney I was reminded of my religious origins. After 15 years away, I visited my first parish. Memories flooded back to me. I saw the public housing project where I first visited shut-ins and buried overdose victims. I recalled the church group that gathered with me for our inaugural “mission”. Some of the more traditionally religious folk felt that we should be trying to save their souls. I suggested we just try and be nice to them. In their minds, there was no point being nice now if the shut-ins would end up in hell for eternity. In my mind, the shut-ins knew more about hell than we ever would, and the best thing we could do was love the hell out of them.

It made me think about souls. What are souls? Is a soul a thing, or is it a metaphor? A few years back, a Kiwi guy tried selling his soul on the internet. The bidding reached $189. He claimed it was in good nick, apart from a rough patch when he first reached the legal drinking age. I think he may have been confusing spirit with soul in that case.

The idea of selling your soul is not a new one. The German legend, Faust, sold his soul to the devil in exchange for ultimate knowledge. He had forgotten that true knowledge lies in recognizing what you don’t know, and the ultimate truth is the wonder of living with open eyed curiosity.

Speaking of Faust, did you hear about the Wall Street financier who woke up one night with Satan at the end of his bed?

Satan smiled and offered the financier untold wealth, limitless power and countless women. The financier said, “What’s the catch?” Satan replied, “In exchange for all of that, I will take your soul.” Without blinking the financier said, “Again, what’s the catch?”

Untold wealth, limitless power, ultimate knowledge and impenetrable security are all delusions that can easily serve to distract you from the work of your soul. So is the soul a real thing or a metaphor and what is its work?

The ancient Greeks thought the soul was a thing, something separate from the body. They deduced that the one thing a dead body can’t do is move and think (I could suggest several other things a dead body can’t do). Therefore, they said, something must leave the body when it dies. That must be the soul. The soul must be that which moves the body or gives the body thought and will.

There are many different theories of the soul, including the belief in frisbeetarianism, which is the belief that, when you die, your soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there. Unfortunately, much religious speculation about souls is about as scientific as frisbeetarianism. Many forms of Christianity suggest that souls are things that are separate from the body that get zapped into the body at birth and then leave the body at death.

The Hebrew notion of the soul is far more connected and wholistic than this. In Hebrew thought, the soul was the whole of a person, their life force. It wasn’t one thing isolated from the body, but the body itself in harmony with life. I imagine that’s where Jesus gathered many of his ideas about the soul. What does it profit you to gain the whole world, and yet lose your soul, the ground of your being, your life? It’s unfortunate that western Christianity has generally opted for the Greek dualism that pits soul against body rather than the Hebrew sense of soul as a connected whole.

The idea of a supernatural thing called a soul can be a dangerous notion. It can lead to a denial of this life and your humanity. On the plan ride home I took the opportunity to watch a quirky film called Cold Souls. It stars Paul Giamatti, who plays the nervous and awkward role of himself, Paul Giametti. Paul is an actor who gets lost in his own dark thoughts and thinks the problem is his soul. So he decides to remove his soul and put it in soul storage. He’s given the option of storing it on the premises where it is removed or if he wants to save on sales tax he can store it in New Jersey.

Paul is devastated to see that his soul is only the size of a macadamia nut and much smaller than other souls in storage. He feels hollow without it. The soul is implanted in a Russian woman in order to smuggle it overseas. Drama ensues as he chases his soul around the world. But that’s another story.

The point here is that without his soul Paul loses his zest for life. Confused and angst ridden as his life was, it was nevertheless his life. He becomes a terrible actor and can’t make love to his wife. He lost his groove, albeit a flimsy groove.

He discovered that the very thing that he thought was weighing him down, his questions and doubts, turned out to be the essence of what made him tick. It’s no accident that in most religions, dogmatic notions of an immortal soul and an afterlife emerge at a time of great suffering such as the Axial Age. People look for a neat way to make meaning out of suffering, a hell for their enemies (justice) and a heaven to put their feet up and watch their enemies suffer.

It’s easy to forget that the soul has no vengeance. It has no expectation of the future. It seeks to avoid nothing. It doesn’t need to be pandered to or protected. The work of the soul takes place in the midst of the present realities of life.

Living With Soul

Life is challenging. The soul understands that. Challenge to a soul is like cold water to burning metal; it strengthens, and intensifies but never destroys. The soul doesn’t need an escape from challenge. The soul takes an alternate perspective on challenge.

A soul turns an event into an experience, a circumstance into an opportunity for love and healing,
a group of words into poetry, a series of notes into music.

Maybe the problem is that you think the soul is made up of things you add to your life, when the soul may actually be the essence of life when you strip the unnecessary distractions away from your life.

A few years back, we had a funny moment while traveling as a family. At the end of a long and tiring flight, we were gathered at the baggage carousel. You know what its like; you watch every bag earnestly as if by staring hard enough it just might turn into your bag. The bags were going round and round until we saw a loose handle with baggage tags on it. We joined the whole group, laughing hysterically as the handle did 4 revolutions of the carousel, until everyone else had left and we realized it was all that was left of our bag. It didn’t seem so funny then. It had a tag on it that said, “Heavy”. It reminded me of a stand up comedy skit where a Welsh man described the same experience. He went to the baggage claim, held up his handle and the woman said, “What seems to be the problem?” Reading off a list of standard questions, she asked him if someone had tampered with his bag. “I think so”, he said.

Traveling through life lightly keeps you closer to soul. When you strip away all the baggage that deludes you into false security, you get a handle on what really matters and what lasts when all the people have left and all the bags are gone. Then you are close to soul. Hebrew culture understood this truth.

There is a story that captures the Jewish notion of the afterlife. A tourist stops at the home of the great Rabbi. Since the Rabbi has such a world renowned reputation the visitor expects to see a great home filled with valuable treasures. However, he is shocked when he sees a bare home with almost nothing in it. “Where are your possessions,” he asks in astonishment? The Rabbi responds, “Where are yours?” “What kind of question is that?” the tourist said. “I’m a visitor here.” “I am too,” the Rabbi replied.

The soul travels lightly and knows what lasts. So is there a soul? I don’t know. Is soul a metaphor? A beautiful metaphor. If I say to you, “so and so is an old soul” you know exactly what I mean. If I say that a piece of music is soulful, you know instantly what I mean. If I describe a person as a soul mate, you immediately understand. Now let me ask a more open question. Is a soul connection real? Absolutely. Is an experience of soulful music real? You bet your life it is.

Can you explain why you are soul mates with certain people and not others? Not fully. Can you locate this soul connection in your body? Not completely. Can you describe why you experience some music as more soulful than others? Not really. Soulfulness is both real and also shrouded in mystery and wonder.

Even if it isn’t a thing that can be located, soul is a metaphor for the self at one with itself and in union with the whole. Soul is at one with the moment, and needs no future perfection. Soul is God within offering treasures of inner peace and healing. Soul is your consciousness that you are part of a wondrous whole, and that your integrity and choices matter to that whole.

As Carl Jung said, “The soul is a personification of the unconscious, where lies the treasure.”

I end with a powerful poem written by a man on Death Row who claimed his innocence until his death. He knew a lot about uncertainty and yet writes soulful poetry.

We seek within this riot of notes
The gentle sounds that form a minor symphony
To heal our wounds
At first, perhaps, life is an opus
Of tragic wails
But then, if we attend to the theme,
A form prevails.
And from the mad cacophony
That wreck’d our soul
Emerges the sparse ecstatic song
That makes us whole.
- Charles Doss

Namaste. All that is soulful in me greets all that is soulful in you.

The Messiah in your Midst

My oldest son is currently learning to drive. This is a new experience for all of us. It’s an anxious time for a parent, a liberating time for a kid. It’s amazing how competent teenagers are, at least when it suits them.

I like the Ben Bergor quote, “It is amazing how quickly kids learn to drive a car, yet are unable to understand the lawnmower, snow-blower, or vacuum cleaner.”

There is a funny scene in the 90’s movie Clueless which stars Alicia Silverstone and Britney Murphy who died this past week. Cher, a precocious valley girl played by Silverstone, is taking a driving test. The whole time she is driving in between two lanes, she is thinking about her teen romance problems. She mindlessly runs bicyclists off the road, hits parked cars and causes general havoc on the streets.

The driving instructor demands that she pull over. She asks him, “So how did I do?”

“How did you do?” he says. “You can’t park, you can’t switch lanes, you can’t make right hand turns, you damaged private property and you almost killed someone. Offhand I’d say you failed.”

She protests, “Isn’t there someone else I can talk to? You can’t be the absolute and final word on driver’s licenses?”

Then the driving instructor gives one of the classic movie lines of all time. He says, “Girlie, as far as you’re concerned, I’m the Messiah of the DMV.”

And that brings us around to the true meaning of Christmas. Not the birth of Santa, as Bart Simpson said, but the birth of the Messiah in the most surprising form. Messiahs are like that. By definition, you wait for them and they surprise you. You can easily miss them if you aren’t paying attention.

You see, Cher was so lost in her own world, she didn’t realize the power of the one sitting next to her. Do you ever find yourself so distracted by the trappings of life and the holidays that you fail to see the Messiah who is sitting right next to you?

I hear you say, “Have you seen the person sitting next to me? More to the point, have you seen me? Because I’m sitting next to someone, that means I’m a Messiah for them. I mean I barely got my Christmas shopping done in time, I haven’t volunteered in years and I’m holding onto some deep grudges. I’m no Messiah.”

The Messiah is Ordinary

If the Christmas story is about the arrival of the Messiah, the Messiah arrives in the most human form. The gospel writers tell us that the blood line of this Messiah was a mixed bad of dubious pedigree. It included a prostitute, a product of incest, an adulteress and Ruth who got Boaz drunk then forced him to marry her. Mary and Joseph had an embarrassing situation of their own, and were being chased by a crazy tyrant. If this was the Messiah, he wasn’t exactly what you might have expected. Presumably as Jesus grew up he caused some mischief at times, like the time when he ran away from home to join the religious circus of his day. As a child I imagine Jesus would have said of himself, in the words of Monty Python, “I’m not the Messiah. I’m a very naughty boy.”

How do you expect the Messiah to look and act? Do you expect the Messiah to be otherworldly and perfect, or genuine and fallible?

Once there was a monastery with a long history of commerce and a thriving spiritual community. But as time wore on, fewer and fewer villagers visited the hallowed halls. Fewer people turned to the monastery for advice. Even the sale of their famous wines began to dwindle. The abbot began to despair for his community. “What should they do?” he wondered. They prayed daily for guidance, but the brothers only became more dispirited. The monastery itself reflected their mood, becoming shabby and untidy. At last the Abbot, hearing that a wise Jewish rabbi was visiting, swallowed his pride and went to visit the rabbi to ask his advice.

The abbot and the rabbi visited for a long time. They talked of their respective religions, and the fickleness of human nature. The abbot explained his problem to the rabbi and asked for advice, but the Jewish sage only shook his head and smiled. As the abbot sadly departed, the rabbi suddenly rose and shouted after him, “Ah, but take heart my friend for the Messiah lives amongst you!”

All the way home the abbot pondered the rabbi’s words, “The Messiah lives amongst you.” What could he mean? Did the Messiah live in the abbey?

The abbot knew all the brothers very well. Could one of them really be the Messiah? Surely he, the abbot, was not the Messiah… Was it possible?”

Upon reaching the monastery the abbot confided the rabbi’s words to another brother, who told another brother, who was overheard telling another brother. Soon the whole abbey had heard the news. “The Messiah lives amongst us!” “Who do you suppose he could be?”

As each brother speculated on who the Messiah could be, his view of his brothers began to change. Brother Louis no longer appeared simple, but rather innocent. Brother Jacques was no longer uncompromising, but rather striving for spiritual perfection. The brothers began to treat each other with greater respect and courtesy; after all, one never knew when he might be speaking to the Messiah. And, as each brother discovered that his own words were taken seriously, the thought that he might become the Messiah would cross his humble mind. He would square his shoulders and attend his work with greater care and start acting like a Messiah.

Soon the neighboring villages began to notice the change that had come over the monastery. The brothers seemed so happy. Villagers flocked to the monastery and were energized by the spirit of the Brothers. And so the spirit grew and the monastery flourished. As each new brother was welcomed, the question arose, “Could he be the Messiah?”
Apparently the monastery still prospers today and it is often whispered both within its walls and in the surrounding towns that the Messiah lives amongst them.

As you celebrate Christmas this year, remember that the Messiah lives among you.

If you are waiting for perfection, Christmas is going to be a lonely and frustrating time. If you are waiting for some future time, the wonders of this moment will pass you by. If you are expecting salvation outside yourself, you might miss your own wisdom. If you hold your loved ones to impossible standards you just might miss the Messiah who sits right next to you.

This idea that there is more than one Messiah is not a new idea. Many of the first century Rabbis believed that there is a messiah in every generation. The Talmud tells of a highly respected rabbi who found the Messiah at the gates of Rome, sitting among the poor, the sick and the lonely and asked him “When will you finally come?” He said, “Today.” The next day he returned, disappointed and puzzled, and asked, “You said messiah would come ‘today’ but he didn’t come! The Messiah replied, ‘Scripture says, “Today, if you will but hear His voice . . .”

Every person has a Messiah within them. The Messiah has already arrived. You have a Messiah within you, if you will just hear your inner voice telling you that everything you have ever been waiting for you already have. Salvation is at hand, if you stop chasing your impossible standards and accept what is. All the love and peace you ever wished for is yours this Christmas.

The Most Surprising Messiah

Messiahs turn up in the most surprising places, if you have eyes to see and ears to hear. Some say that the composer Handel was a manic depressive. He wrote the Messiah in under a month while in a manic state. Maybe he knew that the cracks are how the light gets in; accepting himself and allowing the raw edges of his humanity to create beauty in the world. Few would question the genius of the final product.

Your Christmas gift is the genius of your own life. Allow your inner Messiah to shine light and love on the world. Allow the raw edges of your humanity to create beauty in the world and this will create a happy Christmas.

The famous Jewish Rabbi Hillel once said, “I get up. I walk. I fall down. Meanwhile, I keep dancing.” The Messiah is arriving in you this Christmas as you walk, fall, get up and dance in life, accepting yourself and others and letting your path unfold.

The Messiah is within and in your midst. Keep your eyes and ears open. Christmas love to all.