God Is Not 3 Guys

When thoughts spin out of control, there's relief in turning to the inner observer, the Self inside that's removed from the outer world and quiets us down if only we allow it room in our lives. This Self is easily available in the middle of the night when I wake up, as I often do, but only if I've established the habit of going to it during the day. I hope every reader establishes a schedule of spending quiet time with this wiser Self. How and when you spend the time is up to you. A mantra doesn't work for me. I've tried dozens of formulas for quieting my thoughts and always come back to realizing that I have my own way of doing it. For me it's usually reading—not just anything for escape but inspirational words—and I continue to read until something leaps out, grabs me and tugs me into the quiet zone. Every individual has to find her own way—some in exercise, some in church, some in music, some in transcendental meditation, some in traditional prayer—but fi...

I’m speaking to a high school class this afternoon, and fortuitously—I’ll say it was synchronistic ( Click on paranormal posts to read about synchronicity )—someone sent me this wonderfully comic debate on the marquees of two churches facing each other on a busy street in Colorado. It’s a perfect illustration of religious literalism. I’ll see if the high school students get it. All dogs go to heaven Only humans go to heaven Read the Bible God loves all his creation Dogs included Dogs don’t have souls This is not open for debate Catholic dogs go to heaven Presbyterian dogs can talk to their pastor Converting to Catholicism does not magically grant your dog a soul Free dog souls with conversion Dogs are animals There aren’t any rocks in heaven either All rocks go to heaven Dogs & literalism I was happy to see that the Catholic one showed a whimsical appreciation of literalism and had fun with it—dogs and rocks go to heaven. One email responder, a fully alive Catholic, wrote...

“ Although the symbol of Christ is withering in power, it is still the most evocative myth of Western culture .” God Is Not Three Guys in the Sky There’s no doubt that Jesus Christ still serves as the dominant sacred symbol for Americans. Mohammed and the Buddha lag far behind. Before technological progress brought foreign cultures to us, the only mental frame conceivable—the Spirit world “everybody” imagined—had a Garden of Eden, Jesus, Mary, & Joseph, the cross, heaven and hell, Resurrection, Trinity, and an end of the world with Second Coming. These filled the Western mind and satisfied most people spiritually for many centuries. With the coming of pluralism comes the realization that one exclusive image for the holy mystery beyond human comprehension amounts to idolatry. The only way to avoid it is to mix the images. To that end, I provoke you with alternatives here. • The god Attis died on March 22 and rose on March 25. Observance of his dying and rising, like Christian rites,...

Since the emergence of agrarian societies—the shift from hoe to plow—we have seen “the single, great, enduring, and nightmarish task of subsequent civilization: the taming of testosterone. Fuck it or kill it . . .” Ken Wilber One of my volunteer activities is helping to plan an annual Gather The Women program. This event is local, but GTW is international, with members working at the UN and in other countries to enlarge awareness of what are called women’s issues and are essentially human rights issues. In the words of Marilyn Nyborg, whom I call the mother of GTW, We gather women together for the opportunity to connect and support one another, to inspire and be inspired. . . We invite women to bond in sisterhood, to end competition and mistrust. We invite women to create a new model of feminine leadership that will bring our gifts to the world in full partnership with men and not hiding behind a man’s way of doing business. Our St. Cloud area event takes place at St. Ben’s. The prio...

Dr. Thomas yelled, “Stand back!” as the patient’s chest jumped from a charge to jolt the heart muscle to its regular pace. This is a scene in Beyond Knowing by Janis Amatuzio, a forensic pathologist who challenges the assumption that modern science proves the non-existence of spiritual reality. As part of the staff anxiously watching the patient’s body filled with tubes and monitors, Amatuzio had no medical explanation for her next observation. Something happened that I still cannot explain. I saw, or more accurately felt, a shimmer of light in the corner of the room above the foot of the angiography table. I quickly looked to see if the pump team was using a lighting device that perhaps reflected off the wall, but they were not. I looked again, somewhat puzzled, and suddenly had the profound sense of a deep, overwhelming, calm presence, in stark contrast to the frantic activity in the room. It was unmistakable! I was amazed. Staring intensely at the ceiling, she wondered why no one e...

When fundamentalists claimed they voted for George W. Bush because he offered “moral clarity,” the rest of us were thrown into amazed thoughtfulness. A situation in Brazil shows what that kind of “moral clarity” gets us. A 9-year-old girl weighing about 66 pounds, who had been repeatedly raped by her stepfather since she was 6 years old, was pregnant with twins. In Brazil abortion is illegal except in cases of rape or danger to the life of the mother. For protecting the life of the girl by choosing abortion, the mother and her doctors were publicly excommunicated by the Catholic archbishop, who declared abortion is "a crime in the eyes of the church" and that human laws cannot override the laws of God. This conflating and confusing of God with Church rules was common in Christendom during the Middle Ages, and it lingers in ultra conservative circles, even among educated and intelligent Catholics in the U.S. The situation in Brazil illustrates in an extreme way how a spiritu...

The yawning gap between the highest and lowest incomes in our country signaled a serious problem well before the credit freeze and stock market gyrations. No unjust society can long endure. On Minnesota Public Radio I heard a speaker lament that his life will not be better than those of his parents, it will be worse. A speaker with an Asian accent after him spoke wisdom in the face of that fear. He said essentially, “So what if I drive a smaller car, live in a smaller house, and consume less stuff? It’s not so bad.” I think it’s better. This financial crisis may save the planet from destruction by our culture of consumerism, which is quickly spreading to the rest of the globe. Now that people are holding off on purchases, maybe they can take a breath and identify the important values in life. I feel for those who live frugally and still lack the basics, but many Americans have been living beyond their means. Columnist George Will cited “a blizzard of credit cards” for separating “the p...