A friend placed a book into my hands that perfectly accompanies my paranormal posts. I use “paranormal” not only in reference to events that defy the laws of physics but also in reference to events that happen just when we need them or can use them. They are synchronistic. They startle us with their strange, inexplicable fittingness. And they signal inner, deeper, hidden, secret meaning.
Synchronistic is this book coming to me: The Secret Language of Waking Dreams by Michael Avery. His “waking dreams” are my “paranormal” events: the cup falling into my hands, pelicans flying in unusual formation, Julia Bergman’s helicopter stopping right where Mortenson had built his first school (See Synchronistic & paranormal ).
The incidents in my posts stand out in their novelty, but not all nudges from the inner world come through uncommon events. Avery shows us how to read everyday happenings for daily guidance, because each individual has to find her or his own significance in them.
The rationalist will say, “It’s all in your head.” Yes, it is. If my head says I must obey the bishop, I’ll live according to the bishop’s word. If my head says I never get inner promptings, I won’t get them. If I’m open to discerning subtle direction coming from inside, I’ll find such prompts to guide me. Looking for inner direction requires harder work than obeying outer commands, but it leads to serene confidence—the surety of knowing I’m doing what’s right for me—because the feeling of having been touched by “God” is unmistakable.
An incident in my life many years ago illustrates. I was somewhat frantically looking for a direction in life, doubting myself, down on myself for not having a plan when others seemed to know just what they should do. I opened the Bible for solace and guidance. Out from the pages jumped the verse in John 15: 16: “It was not you who chose me, it was I who chose you.” It assured me, affirmed me as a person, and dispelled my fretfulness. It told me that my unconventional path is not random and that Something guides me.
This or any Bible verse, or any words anywhere, will not have the same meaning and effect on everyone. The nudges, the waking dreams, the awakenings can be—usually ARE—subtle and individual. We have to be alert and receptive.
Stay awake to keep the nudges coming!
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Monday, July 6, 2009
Prairie Home in Avon
To listen to the rebroadcast, click Garrison Keillor , then click "Listen to the full broadcast." Know that it's two hours long, so plan on doing other things while you listen.
And plan on a diversion from my usual earnestness. It was fun! and too short.
And plan on a diversion from my usual earnestness. It was fun! and too short.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Paranormal & Garrison
I wrote a while ago that some of my own encounters with the other side are too personal to share, and that’s what I find to be true for others. Not surprising. I don’t think it’s only wariness of skeptics; it’s the sacredness of the incidents. When the holy mystery touches us, we must not sully this precious encounter by splatting it to the world. On the other hand, visiting about it with someone who doesn’t scoff brings satisfaction and deeper appreciation of the holy touch.
Recently I got a story so startling that I’d love to tell the whole story for the sake of the skeptics. But I don’t have permission. I can only mention an unusual swooping and gliding dance of pelicans flying in bands of three and four. These numbers accurately represent a certain group of deceased persons. Remarkable. As usual when these things happen, the witnesses to this phenomenon arrived at its significance with some hesitation and then a sense of wonder.
The word “paranormal” means beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanation. Such phenomena manifest pattern and meaning emanating from the inner world—it knows things before we see them happening in the external world. This explains precognition, extraordinary animal behavior before natural catastrophes, and encounters with the other side at death. They lack scientific explanation—YET. I expect science in the future to find some answers.
I believe they come from what we call God, but not the theistic/deistic idol that atheists rightly reject. I maintain that this spiritual reality is normal, not abnormal or extra-natural. God is not an individual separate from nature; it’s not a humanlike being or set of humanlike personalities. It’s embedded in and part of nature, surrounding us always yet always transcendent of nature. One of the terms I like to substitute for the word “God” is “the More.”
Paranormal happenings give evidence of this More—more than common sense can explain. But I don’t accept the view that it violates science. So far science has not figured it out yet, but I believe it’s getting closer, and quantum physics is the avenue opening up new understandings, as I state in my section on “Miracles” in God Is Not Three Guys in the Sky. Still, we will never figure it out completely because there is always more, more, MORE.
Different subject:
This evening I’ll be on Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion 4th of July show in Avon. It’s in connection with my Avon centennial history book, Nestled between Lakes and Wooded Hills.
Recently I got a story so startling that I’d love to tell the whole story for the sake of the skeptics. But I don’t have permission. I can only mention an unusual swooping and gliding dance of pelicans flying in bands of three and four. These numbers accurately represent a certain group of deceased persons. Remarkable. As usual when these things happen, the witnesses to this phenomenon arrived at its significance with some hesitation and then a sense of wonder.
The word “paranormal” means beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanation. Such phenomena manifest pattern and meaning emanating from the inner world—it knows things before we see them happening in the external world. This explains precognition, extraordinary animal behavior before natural catastrophes, and encounters with the other side at death. They lack scientific explanation—YET. I expect science in the future to find some answers.
I believe they come from what we call God, but not the theistic/deistic idol that atheists rightly reject. I maintain that this spiritual reality is normal, not abnormal or extra-natural. God is not an individual separate from nature; it’s not a humanlike being or set of humanlike personalities. It’s embedded in and part of nature, surrounding us always yet always transcendent of nature. One of the terms I like to substitute for the word “God” is “the More.”
Paranormal happenings give evidence of this More—more than common sense can explain. But I don’t accept the view that it violates science. So far science has not figured it out yet, but I believe it’s getting closer, and quantum physics is the avenue opening up new understandings, as I state in my section on “Miracles” in God Is Not Three Guys in the Sky. Still, we will never figure it out completely because there is always more, more, MORE.
Different subject:
This evening I’ll be on Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion 4th of July show in Avon. It’s in connection with my Avon centennial history book, Nestled between Lakes and Wooded Hills.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Many Trinities
A divine trinity is not unique to Christianity. Buddhism has Three Jewels; Hinduism has the gods Shiva, Vishnu, and Shakti. Gnostic Christians included the feminine in their Trinity—Father, Mother, and Son. Female-centered religions honored maiden, mother, and crone as together making up the triune Goddess they worshipped.
Anthropologist Robert Briffault reports that the Arabian Goddess was triune and known as three Holy Virgins. Ishtar, the Babylonian and Assyrian Goddess known as “Queen of Heaven,” was triune. The Celtic Goddess Brigit was triune, represented either as sisters or daughters. She ruled the British Isles, France, and Spain.
Augustine of Hippo taunted "his pagan countrymen with the absurdity of the notion that the goddess could be one person and at the same time three persons." As Briffault noted, this was a bit of "scathing irony," because Augustine's contribution to Christian trinitarian theology is well-known.
More startling examples of trinities in pre-Christian religions come from Briffault:
“Countless triads of Greek goddesses, such as the three Charities, the three Horai, the three Syrens, the three Hesperides, the three Gorgons, the three Erinyes, are primitively scarcely distinguishable from one another.... The Muses were originally also three in number, and were deities of the night heavens, governing the stars. . . . triads of Hellenic goddesses were regarded at will as one or three. They were triune, or three in one. Like them, the great goddess of the Semites was worshipped at Mecca in threefold form as three sacred trees, and was spoken of as the Three Virgins. In Phoenicia and Carthage, as in Krete and ancient Greece, the great goddess was represented by three pillars. . . Threefold deities are prominent among the races of Northern Europe and among the Celts. Thus Brigit, the Norns, the Walkyries had the threefold character. . . . Similarly the ancient Mexicans worshipped their gods as a trinity denoted by three crosses. The heathen Slavs similarly represented their deity with three heads. The Nordic gods were worshipped at Upsala as a trinity."
Christians liked to blame the devil when they encountered facts that challenged their beliefs.
Faced with a ritual in the mysteries of Mithra similar to the Christian Eucharist, Justin Martyr in the second century blamed demons, saying they knew of Jesus’ coming and set up copies ahead of time. He had to make the claim this way because the Christian rite developed after the pagan rite. In like fashion, later Christian missionaries faced with non-Christian trinities blamed the devil. These are the words of one incensed because his charges already worshipped a trinity:
“ . . . the Indians did worship an idoll called Tangatanga, which they saide was one in three, and three in one. . . . I saide that the Divell by his infernall and obstinate pride (whereby he alwayes pretendes to make himself God) did steale all that he could from the trueth to imploy it in his lyings and deceits.”
I find similar befuddlement yet today. Blaming the devil has come out of fashion, but I see strict Christian believers avoiding, disbelieving, explaining away disconcerting facts about other religions. As I stated in Trinity 1, the universe expresses a three-foldedness in its structures, and I’m thrilled that many religions reflect this holy mystery. Sharing the Mystery is something to cherish, not avoid. We Christians have gotta stop claiming to be Number 1.
Anthropologist Robert Briffault reports that the Arabian Goddess was triune and known as three Holy Virgins. Ishtar, the Babylonian and Assyrian Goddess known as “Queen of Heaven,” was triune. The Celtic Goddess Brigit was triune, represented either as sisters or daughters. She ruled the British Isles, France, and Spain.
Augustine of Hippo taunted "his pagan countrymen with the absurdity of the notion that the goddess could be one person and at the same time three persons." As Briffault noted, this was a bit of "scathing irony," because Augustine's contribution to Christian trinitarian theology is well-known.
More startling examples of trinities in pre-Christian religions come from Briffault:
“Countless triads of Greek goddesses, such as the three Charities, the three Horai, the three Syrens, the three Hesperides, the three Gorgons, the three Erinyes, are primitively scarcely distinguishable from one another.... The Muses were originally also three in number, and were deities of the night heavens, governing the stars. . . . triads of Hellenic goddesses were regarded at will as one or three. They were triune, or three in one. Like them, the great goddess of the Semites was worshipped at Mecca in threefold form as three sacred trees, and was spoken of as the Three Virgins. In Phoenicia and Carthage, as in Krete and ancient Greece, the great goddess was represented by three pillars. . . Threefold deities are prominent among the races of Northern Europe and among the Celts. Thus Brigit, the Norns, the Walkyries had the threefold character. . . . Similarly the ancient Mexicans worshipped their gods as a trinity denoted by three crosses. The heathen Slavs similarly represented their deity with three heads. The Nordic gods were worshipped at Upsala as a trinity."
Christians liked to blame the devil when they encountered facts that challenged their beliefs.
Faced with a ritual in the mysteries of Mithra similar to the Christian Eucharist, Justin Martyr in the second century blamed demons, saying they knew of Jesus’ coming and set up copies ahead of time. He had to make the claim this way because the Christian rite developed after the pagan rite. In like fashion, later Christian missionaries faced with non-Christian trinities blamed the devil. These are the words of one incensed because his charges already worshipped a trinity:
“ . . . the Indians did worship an idoll called Tangatanga, which they saide was one in three, and three in one. . . . I saide that the Divell by his infernall and obstinate pride (whereby he alwayes pretendes to make himself God) did steale all that he could from the trueth to imploy it in his lyings and deceits.”
I find similar befuddlement yet today. Blaming the devil has come out of fashion, but I see strict Christian believers avoiding, disbelieving, explaining away disconcerting facts about other religions. As I stated in Trinity 1, the universe expresses a three-foldedness in its structures, and I’m thrilled that many religions reflect this holy mystery. Sharing the Mystery is something to cherish, not avoid. We Christians have gotta stop claiming to be Number 1.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Inclusive Trinity
Comments coming in highlight the contrast between inclusive and exclusive, one accepting truth in all its rich, variegated forms, the other rejecting stories different from our own. But the narrow, constricting view limits Divinity, which reveals Itself in many forms—the very point of the Trinity.
I also get responses to my blog in personal emails, overwhelmingly affirmative. The religious sister who asked about Diekmann’s comment and wanted to hear more about the Trinity (June 14 post) wrote:
“I really appreciated your explanation of trinity to me. I especially like how you describe the resurrection and ascension, as well as the relationships we have. . . . Joseph Campbell says God is not a person.”
I appreciate her reference to Joseph Campbell because no one has done more to help cradle Christians out of narrow literalism while directing them toward a deeper spirituality. I’m sure Campbell meant that God is not a humanlike individual. Sister threw in a significant reminder:
“You probably know that Campbell was a consultant to the Star Wars movie writer.”
I wonder if Campbell is the one who supplied the word “Force” for the movie. I think terms like Life Force, Higher Power, and Energy should be used more and that the pronoun It should be used more often than either He or She. He and She tend to conjure up idols.
Some people who hear the objection to God/He, immediately assume the only alternative is God/She. But the reason for introducing God/She is to mix the images. We need to use all genders—She/It/He—to jolt us into awareness that our familiar God-images vastly underrate Infinity. It’s Something much larger than our puny human reasoning can fathom.
Thank you to all who respond to my writings. In another post soon I will list some of the many religious trinities in human history.
I also get responses to my blog in personal emails, overwhelmingly affirmative. The religious sister who asked about Diekmann’s comment and wanted to hear more about the Trinity (June 14 post) wrote:
“I really appreciated your explanation of trinity to me. I especially like how you describe the resurrection and ascension, as well as the relationships we have. . . . Joseph Campbell says God is not a person.”
I appreciate her reference to Joseph Campbell because no one has done more to help cradle Christians out of narrow literalism while directing them toward a deeper spirituality. I’m sure Campbell meant that God is not a humanlike individual. Sister threw in a significant reminder:
“You probably know that Campbell was a consultant to the Star Wars movie writer.”
I wonder if Campbell is the one who supplied the word “Force” for the movie. I think terms like Life Force, Higher Power, and Energy should be used more and that the pronoun It should be used more often than either He or She. He and She tend to conjure up idols.
Some people who hear the objection to God/He, immediately assume the only alternative is God/She. But the reason for introducing God/She is to mix the images. We need to use all genders—She/It/He—to jolt us into awareness that our familiar God-images vastly underrate Infinity. It’s Something much larger than our puny human reasoning can fathom.
Thank you to all who respond to my writings. In another post soon I will list some of the many religious trinities in human history.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Eckhart's Trinity
The nexus of divinity and humanity lies not in one man but in the inner core of all creation . . . The only-through-Jesus stance violates the Nazarene’s message, but the image of Jesus Christ helps our human minds to recognize the divine-human connection.
God Is Not Three Guys in the Sky
Language about the Trinity confuses people because meanings of words change. “Hypostatic union” is indeed defined as two natures, divine and human, in one person—Florian was correct about that. And “Trinity” refers to three persons in one God.
The center of confusion is the word “person.” We moderns envision persons as individuals, but that’s not what the theologians who formulated the doctrine of the Trinity had in mind.
When the word "person" first entered the doctrinal debate, it meant a mask or role—what an actor on the Greek stage put on—and it did not mean a distinct personality or a separate "I" as it does today. Persona may be closer to the original meaning than “person.” Theologians use the words “aspects” or “modes” or “personalities” to stand for “persons” of the Trinity, but what most Christians have in mind is closer to “gods” than “aspects” or “modes.”
When we think of “three Persons in one God” we have in mind more individuality and less unity than the council formulators intended. They, for instance, declared that every divine action in the material world is done by all three Persons together. This would put the Father on the cross, as Trinitarian theologians have stated.
The three gods of popular imagination clash with theologizing on the Trinity. Augustine created an analogy using the psychology of human persons, saying each personal self performs three actions—memory, knowing, and loving. Richard of St. Victor saw the First Person as Lover, which needs a Second Person, the Beloved, as the object of its love. Their mutual love spills over and is shared by a Third Person. Another theologian saw the three as the I, Thou, and We of love. This idea has also been expressed as self, other, and community.
These appealing explanations lend energy to the symbol and reflect the dynamic, interrelating universe. They are closer to the Trinity described by the original formulators of the doctrine than to the trinity imagined by most Christians today.
As these examples show, the Trinity in its orthodox understanding refers, not to three male individuals, but to concepts and relationships. All Trinitarian theologies stress the folly of reading the symbol literally as three distinct human-like persons, but this is what the exclusively male language perpetuates. It stunts the Trinity's potential for meaning.
A writer in my Catholic Dictionary of Theology asserts that the influence of Greek theology on Christian theology "is undeniable." Many writers today acknowledge that the doctrine reflects a particular time and place, as Kathleen did in her comment here. Dualism in the fourth century imagined a vast gulf separating divinity from humanity so that the god-man Jesus became a GREAT BIG DEAL. Traditional Christians like to ask rhetorically, “How could a mere man be divine?” applying the mystery to one single man.
But a new wind blows today and it comes from the insights of mystics, helped by Buddhist and Hindu spirituality. Today we stress the divinity within all human beings and in all of creation. In that light we see that the hypostatic union refers to us all. The great mystic and Dominican preacher Meister Eckhart preceded us by 700 years when he said boldly, “God and I we are one” and “The just person is the Son himself.”
Here is food for meditation.
God Is Not Three Guys in the Sky
Language about the Trinity confuses people because meanings of words change. “Hypostatic union” is indeed defined as two natures, divine and human, in one person—Florian was correct about that. And “Trinity” refers to three persons in one God.
The center of confusion is the word “person.” We moderns envision persons as individuals, but that’s not what the theologians who formulated the doctrine of the Trinity had in mind.
When the word "person" first entered the doctrinal debate, it meant a mask or role—what an actor on the Greek stage put on—and it did not mean a distinct personality or a separate "I" as it does today. Persona may be closer to the original meaning than “person.” Theologians use the words “aspects” or “modes” or “personalities” to stand for “persons” of the Trinity, but what most Christians have in mind is closer to “gods” than “aspects” or “modes.”
When we think of “three Persons in one God” we have in mind more individuality and less unity than the council formulators intended. They, for instance, declared that every divine action in the material world is done by all three Persons together. This would put the Father on the cross, as Trinitarian theologians have stated.
The three gods of popular imagination clash with theologizing on the Trinity. Augustine created an analogy using the psychology of human persons, saying each personal self performs three actions—memory, knowing, and loving. Richard of St. Victor saw the First Person as Lover, which needs a Second Person, the Beloved, as the object of its love. Their mutual love spills over and is shared by a Third Person. Another theologian saw the three as the I, Thou, and We of love. This idea has also been expressed as self, other, and community.
These appealing explanations lend energy to the symbol and reflect the dynamic, interrelating universe. They are closer to the Trinity described by the original formulators of the doctrine than to the trinity imagined by most Christians today.
As these examples show, the Trinity in its orthodox understanding refers, not to three male individuals, but to concepts and relationships. All Trinitarian theologies stress the folly of reading the symbol literally as three distinct human-like persons, but this is what the exclusively male language perpetuates. It stunts the Trinity's potential for meaning.
A writer in my Catholic Dictionary of Theology asserts that the influence of Greek theology on Christian theology "is undeniable." Many writers today acknowledge that the doctrine reflects a particular time and place, as Kathleen did in her comment here. Dualism in the fourth century imagined a vast gulf separating divinity from humanity so that the god-man Jesus became a GREAT BIG DEAL. Traditional Christians like to ask rhetorically, “How could a mere man be divine?” applying the mystery to one single man.
But a new wind blows today and it comes from the insights of mystics, helped by Buddhist and Hindu spirituality. Today we stress the divinity within all human beings and in all of creation. In that light we see that the hypostatic union refers to us all. The great mystic and Dominican preacher Meister Eckhart preceded us by 700 years when he said boldly, “God and I we are one” and “The just person is the Son himself.”
Here is food for meditation.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Christian idolatry
I believe Christianity has made an idol of Jesus Christ. When most Christians pray, they do not distinguish between Jesus and the highest value of the universe, what we call God. Idolatry substitutes an image of God for God, and this describes the worship and belief of most Christians. Serious theology does not teach that God is the same as Jesus or that God is just a great, great, great man, but can anybody tell the difference when most Christians are praying?
We can relate to God in a personal way—I do it regularly—but we must know that God is not a mere humanlike individual. I like what New Testament scholar S. Sandra Schneiders says, “God is our father and God is not our father; God is our mother and God is not our mother. If we forget the “is not,” then we create an idol—that is, we make God into the image of a creature.” This idolatry is what Christianity allows in its prayers.
It's not what Jesus of Nazareth wanted.
We can relate to God in a personal way—I do it regularly—but we must know that God is not a mere humanlike individual. I like what New Testament scholar S. Sandra Schneiders says, “God is our father and God is not our father; God is our mother and God is not our mother. If we forget the “is not,” then we create an idol—that is, we make God into the image of a creature.” This idolatry is what Christianity allows in its prayers.
It's not what Jesus of Nazareth wanted.
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