THE LION IN THE CAVE

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It’s been two months since I’ve entered the blogosphere; and I am so ready to be back. 

Do you know Ecclesiastes 3:3 in the Bible? It is in the Hebrew Bible; what I know as the Old Testament.  The book consists of maxims that reflect upon the meaning of life and the best way to live it.  It tells of the hard times that are a part of life and the need to take your time moving through them.  Actually the whole of chapter 3 is about the rhythm of life.  Life’s timing, the wisdom of knowing and accepting fully how long each “time” takes.  The specific verse 3 says, “There is a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build up.” 

I am broken, but not dead.  Just healing and building up.   I needed to go into my “cave” and like the mighty lion after a bloody fight, lick my wounds. It hurts and it’s itchy and it’s generally not something we humans go out and look for.  

Yet like all crises, all catastrophes, there is God’s gifts of the silver lining.  We are grateful for small things.  A friend’s call, the morning cup of hot coffee (not to be underestimated), and the sense of connection with others who are currently suffering “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” all register.  They are not disregarded; as they often times are when the world seems our oyster. 

Suffering is, of course, universal, and cuts us down to size, whether we feel we need it or not.  But when it happens often enough, or poignantly enough, we begin to let go any romantic attachment to drama.  Drama as an addiction, as a predilection, becomes not only a luxury we can ill afford.  It takes off its clothes and it exposes itself for what it really is: a childish, immature, and unimaginative way to engage with the moments given to you.    

There are lyrics to a song that has been mantra; it has made so much sense to me, it has given me strength, it’s almost like I wrote it.  I guess you could say that I wish I wrote it.  It’s by the Dixie Chicks.  I know the Dixie Chicks and Ecclesiastes, huh?  I warned you once or twice of my heretical leanings, so if you are still reading, here you go. The name of the song is Truth No. 2:  

You don’t like the sound of the truth, coming from my mouth.   You say that I lack the proof. Well, maybe that might be so.  I might get to the end of my life, find out everyone is lying.  I don’t think that I’m afraid anymore.  You see I’d rather die trying.

This time when he swung the bat and I found myself laying flat, I wondered.  What a way to spend a dime, what a way to use the time.  I looked at my reflection in the window walking past and I saw a stranger.  Just so scared all the time make me one more reason why the world’s dangerous.

Tell my what’s wrong with having a little faith in what you’re feeling in your heart.  Why must we be so afraid and always  so far apart. 

The refrain is: “Sing my something brave from your mouth.”

That’s what I’m looking for right now.  In everyone I meet, encounter, and I’m finding it.  Bravery, to speak the truth and then live it.  Go on.   

By the way, don’t get me wrong, the irony is not lost on me.  My words ring a bit melodramatic, even to me.  But I have been thinking about them, even nuance of thoughts and events.  And you know what?  In this particular instance, they are not. 

I’m not trying to be mysterious, just judicious. 

Got lots of blog ideas in the queue.

Wishing you peace and love and good health.

THOUGHTS ON THE TRINITY BY A UNITARIAN CHRISTIAN (what and huh?)

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Note: Please hold this quote from Walt Whitman while reading today’s blog: “Do I contradict myself?  Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.”

Ever since my days with the nuns (the real ones, who by the way I drove crazy with my incessant questioning during Catholic catechism classes), I have struggled in vain with the dogma of the Trinity. Try as I might, my rational mind has always found it to be too much philosophy and too little of the practical.  It has been only recently that I have begun to admire its poetry, for me personally, its’ saving grace. 

The construct of the Trinity originated with a handful of  Church Fathers, around or about 345 CE.  Before that, Christians had their own local “covenant groups”as it were, which met in people’s homes or shops. Ideas about who and what Jesus was flowed freely and unencumbered.

First, let me try to explain what the meaning of the Trinity is.  It means one God in three persons. They are all coeternal with one another (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). They all have their own substances, but at the same time are consubstantial.  And oh yes, they are all one essence (and other stuff called hypostasis, which means the substance, essence, or underlying reality).

What is an essence?  You must look to the tomes of Greek philosophy for this.  Words such as substance, consubstanital, essence, all have their roots in the Greek philosophers’ discussions of ontology (the study of what it means to be, to exist).  Thank you, Aristotle… NOT! 

So I’ve decided to blame the early Christian clergy’s infatuation with Greek philosophy for introducing a tradition that I can’t find in the Old or the New Testament.  In fact, in John 20:17- Jesus refers to, “my Father and to your Father, and to my God, and to your God.”  How could Jesus say that and then add, but my Father is me and my God is me? I guess  maybe because he was in his human body and at that point had limits in his knowledge of actually being God himself?Also, Jesus was a pious, practicing Jew, which means that he was a strict monotheist.  “The Lord our God is one God.” (Deuteronomy 6:4)

A multitude of proponents point to the familiar refrain of the “unfathomable mystery” of the Trinity. I’m all for unfathomable mysteries, although life itself is already a mystery,  do we need to make it any more complex?” Yet, I quote humbly from the words of Simone Weil: “I am not a Catholic; but I consider the Christian idea, which has its roots in Greek thought and in the course of the centuries has nourished all of our European civilization, as something that one cannot renounce without being degraded.”

Nun Tuck may be a heretic, but at least one in good company.  In 1531, a scholar named Michael Servetus wrote a treatise called “De Trinitatis Errorbus” or “The Errors of the Trinity”.  He was promptly burned alive at the stake for it.  He spoke of the Oneness of God, the Unity of God.  Many Unitarians consider him to be the first Unitarian martyr. 

I wonder if it would have helped any if they had known about the popular slogan, “What would Jesus do?” before choosing to burn him alive.  It’s difficult to believe that the Jesus in the Bible would have been as intolerant. Instead, if someone disagreed with him, Jesus would have done as he advised his apostles in Luke,  “Shake the dust out of your sandals”…  forget about it (or them), and move on.

For me, being a Christian means that if I follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, I will live wholly and holy.  It’s hard work with limited success, but like those who follow Buddha or Muhammad to the best of their ability, life is more abundant.

I mentioned earlier that what moves me is the more metaphorical understanding of the Trinity; a phrase that resonates for me is “The Dance of the Trinity.” Modern poet Ruth Duck describes it beautifully:

“Holy Spirit, who moved at the beginning of creation, teach me your divine dance, that I may move with you./Through my hands, invite others to the circle of love, that we may move in rhythm together./Praise to you, Spirit, who breathes the pulse of life, through Jesus Christ, who danced among us, to the glory of God the Source, in whom we live and move and have our being.”

CAN YOU DIG A HOLE TO CHINA?

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As a kid, I can recall long summer days on the beach when my brother, sister, cousins, and sometimes just random kids would spend a better part of an afternoon helping to dig a hole to China. It was largely a group effort, the attempt being short lived if you were solo.  Invariably, however, we would be shoveling madly, with our plastic jelly bean colored diggers when we would hit water.  I suppose that’s what would happen in real life, if you tried to dig to China with big fancy high-tech equipment, your hole would eventually fill up with water.

Still the concept behind digging to China (besides keeping gainfully busy on the beach) was the idea that we could create a portal to take us to another place, a foreign world.  What would they think of us when we showed up in our bathing suits and pail and shovels?  Where there children in China at that very moment digging to Cape Cod?  What would we eat?  How far do you think we have to go; how far do you think we’ve gotten? We would discuss all sorts of thoughts like these while digging.   

It’s summer. Summer is a time for the imagination to run wild.  Good ole’ Will Shakespeare knew this only too well.  He let loose a host of fairy fantasties and sultry shenanigans in A Midsummer Night’s Dream:

“The cowslips tall her pensioners be/In their gold coats spots you see/Those be rubies, fairy favours/In those freckles live their savours/I must go seek some dewdrops here/And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.”  The fairy’s description of cowslips as gentlemen who wait upon the fairy queen. 

 Whether you are revisiting the surreal world of Alice in Wonderland this summer or are, like The Beach Boys dreaming of an Endless Summer;  I, for one, second that notion.  The pulse of life, the green on the trees, the warmth of the sun, the joys of being plant or animal, all revels in the present moment during this time of long days.  We’re not waiting for summer to be over.  We’re just happy it’s here.  Anything is possible, anything can happen. 

We can plant a garden, build a castle made of sand, sit on a beach all day and read a novel, bike, swim, sail, and row….or we can simply be.  The whole of it is just like one giant prayer.  Mystic and theologican Meister Eckhart once said that if in your whole life you only said one prayer, “Thank You” that would be enough.  I’ve heard this many times.  Right now I mean it, Thank you.