Repent, Christmas is near!

This again might fly into the realm of a strictly Christian topic, but I hope that it can be useful to other faiths as well.  I am also rehashing some of the things I wrote about two months ago, but it is a topic that has been at the forefront of my mind.

So often when we hear the term Repent we think of someone holding a sign that reads: "Repent!  The End is Near!"   We, as a culture, have been led to believe that to repent is to give something up, to turn away from Sin, to perfect ourselves.  In the Today's English Version translation of the bible, the translation present in the Good News Bible, the translator, in Luke 3:3, actually translates repentance as turning away from sin.  When we do this, we are missing so much of what repentance is and what John the Baptist is calling us to do.

I acknowledge that i am channeling Calvin here, (Book three, Chapter three of Calvin's Institutes of Christian Religion) but Repentance is less about turning away from Sin, and more about turning towards God.

Its easy to say, is there a difference, if we are turning towards God, aren't we turning away from sin?  Sort of, but there is a subtle distinction.

By turning towards God, we are allowing ourselves to be embraced by God's love, to walk in the paths of God, to remind ourselves that all good comes from God.  We focus on becoming the Hands and Feet of God in the world, spreading the love we feel.

When we focus instead on the idea of repentance as turning away from Sin, our focus becomes sin.  We try to deny ourselves, we strive for perfection, it becomes a personal quest.  When we strive for perfection, we deny our whole selves, we too easily slip into what modern psychology calls burying emotions.  When we bury our sins, they have a tendency to present themselves at inopportune times.  We become two people instead of just one, the one that we put out in the real world, the one that appears perfect, while our shadow self lurks in dark corners, engaging in the very activities we become ashamed of.

This is not to try and say there are not bad things that we can do.  Sin is real, we make mistakes, but at the same time we have to acknowledge that the Law, although perfect and good, is impossible to attain completely.   Even the clearest of commandments, thou shall not kill, we can all think of a myriad of instances were killing is clearly not wrong, like in moments of self defense, or even to go as far as to say killing an animal to survive, yet there is is clear as day, thou shall not kill.

We are going to sin whether we like it or not, we are going to make mistakes in this life, no matter how "together" or "healthy" we are.   That being said, i think its easy to agree that we would all like to sin less.

The good news is that when we repent, when we turn to God, when we commit to God, we do sin less.  The better we are at following the paths of God, in other words, the more we meditate, the more we listen, the more we allow ourselves to be led by the Holy Spirit, the less we sin, the more good we do in the world.


I believe this can be a universal message, don't focus so much on the sin half of the equation, trying to be perfect all the time, focus more on the listening half of the equation, striving to unite with God.


For those of us on the left handed path, away from the safety of the village, we have probably seen some real sin, maybe we have even allowed ourselves to be complacent or involved in real sin.  Within the safety of the village, sin does not present itself in the same way.   It can be easier to shield oneself from sin, or to pretend like it doesn't exist.   Think of the way drug addiction or alcoholism is approached in small towns or "gated communities", or maybe even worse, domestic violence.

For those of us on the left handed path, when we come in community with those on the right handed path, much like John the Baptist in the bible, we have the opportunity to remind people of this.  Much like John the Baptist's first response to the question of how do we repent; if you have two coats, give one away.

The tendency to focus on Sin, instead of God is all too common.  We on the left handed path have something to offer, we can help refocus those we meet on along the way on God.

a Role for Science within Religion

Those on the left handed path, on the outward journey as it were, have the ability to be prophetic to those on the right handed path, or those that remain in the village.

Religion and Science seem so often to be at odds.  Recently on an NPR program discussing the decline of church in american society they solicited possible reasons the church was declining.  One person simply stated that science was the primary reason, as if science could replace religion.

Science can not replace religion, it is a systatized approach to trying to find the physical nature of the universe.  It relys on repeatable experiements and data.  It does not deal partculiarly well with unique occurances, like legitimate miracles or even something like the big bang (i would be blown away if Science ever got all the way back to the actual beginning, even though they will probably get closer and closer and closer as they parse nanoseconds of time), or what happens to us when we die (although science might be able to figure out chunks of that at some point).  Science by itself does not have built into any sort of ethical or moral structure.  Curiosity is the primary driver.  Morality and ethics in Science are added on by society, but Science on its own does not do this.  We need Science though, it needs to be a part of our worldview, along with a spiritual worldview.  Religion asks questions that Science would have little interest in exploring, questions of our humanness and what it means to acutally exist in the world.  Religion likes to deal in Myth, which can speak as much truth if not more than Science for questions about our being and interacting with one another and the world around us.

Science does uncover truths though, undeniably.  Evolution is one that comes to my mind quickly.  As theologians it is our resposibility to place the truths that we learn from scripture in context of the truths we learn from Science. 

Science can act, in many ways, like those on the left handed path.  It can offer refreshing new realities to help keep the prespective of the village fresh.  The reason the village needs folks to go out and journey is that when they come back, or when they visit, it can break up homostasis in the family system or the village dynamic.  The village needs new challenges to remain relevant. 

As a church, to remain relevant, to meet the needs of those in the world, we need Science to challenge us, we need Science to break up our homostasis.  Our systems are in decline, what we offer does not meet the needs of the population at large.  For the village, and the church, to remain relevant, to offer insite in our existance, we need to welcome the world of science with open arms and let it challege us.

There are truths in Scripture, we need to remain rooted in those truths, but to pass those truths along we need relevant language, we need to speak in a way that those truths can be reached.  Claiming that Science can be that language is short sighted, but learning how to speak in myth within the world of Science is key.  

Those of in the church, even if we are sometimes on the left handed path, have to acknowledge that by staying with the church we are also on the right handed path, and that Science can act as our "hero".

Repentance

repentance is very much a christian idea, but it is present, in various ways, in many other religions as well.    To start with a definition of sorts, the greek word for repentance has very much the sense of turning, of aligning yourself with god, to give up the "old ways" and embrace the way of God.  Buddhists have this notion, a renouncement of worldly things, Muslims define their religion by submission to God, Islam means just that, to submit (or one who submits, i can't remember exactly.

I was speaking with someone about repentance the other days and she spoke about how much she loved how Billy Graham made it easy to understand the gospels, and that she believed he was saying to turn away from your own self, that thats what repentance meant.  And i have pointed out turning is key to the idea of repentance, and it might seem like a play on grammar to say whether we turn away from ourselves or turn towards God, is there really that much difference.

When we understand repentance as turning away from ourselves, it implies that there is something inherently wrong with ourselves.  That we are so sinful we have to leave our old life behind and become something new.

It is true that in christ we become a new creation, but it does not mean that we turn away completely from ourselves.

I may be taking a minor issue to an extreme, but the reality is when we really start to believe that we need to turn away from ourselves, we cease to see the blessing that we are.  We are loved by God, we are a divine creation of God.  We are transformed in God, but God does not erase the blessings we have already received, our inherit divinity, even though we are flawed, even though we are sinners.

Unfortunately we are always going to be sinners, but turning towards God prevents us from letting those sins control us.  As Calvin so gracefully pointed out, repenting and turning towards God is being loved into freedom and away from the sins that can control our entire existence.

When we repent, we can't turn away from our old selves,  as Paul pointed out the Romans so many years ago, we give ourselves sacrificially to God and we are accepted and holy.  We each receive gifts that we can in turn use.  If we turn completely away from ourselves, then we ignore the gifts that have already been bestowed upon us.

Repentance has to be a turn towards God, to accepting the guidance and leadership of God.  God does not ask us to give up ourselves, but rather to offer ourselves as holy and meaningful sacrifices.

Let us be loved into freedom.

The problem with "-isms" and the right handed path

I speak from the christian perspective, but i think the critiques I present are universal.

Christianity in the United States is dying, the elements that maintain, for the most part, are those of the fundamentalist bend, that grow because they attract a particular personality type and have gotten good at attracting those personalities.  This element of religion will always have a small element of growth.  We would mostly likely overlook this aspect of church growth if the whole of the church was healthy.

Yet the whole of the church is not healthy, we see shrinking numbers in the mainline churches and to a certain degree in Roman Catholicism.   So many today are turning away from Christian churches because they are perceived as judgmental or like a social club or full of hypocrites.   People just don't see reasons to go to church.  Those that attend church can't figure out why no one new is coming through the doors and more and more people are exiting.  

We have allowed our church to be co-opted, not by the fundamentalist factions, but by the exact opposite.  We have allowed Christianity to become a brand name, devoid of meaning.  It has become more of a social marker than anything else.  We witness corrupt politicians mention Jesus and watch their numbers go up.  We see business leaders mention their commitment to biblical laws and lines running out their doors.  We no longer actually look for christ like behavior, we listen for the code word, the code to a particular lifestyle, something that these days is akin to middle-class middle america.  Going to church has become a social event instead of a spiritual event, and those that are looking for real spiritual food are not getting it within the walls of so many of our churches.  There is no mystery, everything has become concrete, being a christian is defined as a set of political viewpoints instead of the saving grace it is in heaven.    In our current climate it feels more important to point out that you are a Christian than it does to actually walk the walk.  Think of someone who follows the teachings of christ, living in poverty and humility, spreading love.   But what if that person never said the word Jesus?  What if when that person prayed, they simply acknowledged a greater being, remaining neutral on the specifics of what that being should be called.   There some in our country who would consider that person a "non-christian" and an outsider, no matter how much love they were to spread.  

That is not to say that all churches and that all Christians have lost there way, but far too many have.

A classic understanding of theology is faith seeking understanding.  Our faith is no longer even involved, it is so often more about being seen, and if not about being seen, spending time with a particular group of friends.  

There is nothing particularly wrong about wanting to spend time with friends or being seen in certain social circles, but it is not church, and as long as we parade it as such, churches will continue to die, some slower than others, but they will die.

For those that find ourselves on the left handed path, we can remind churches of their true meaning.  We can spend time, telling our stories of personal spiritual journey and ask where the spiritual health of a particular church is.  One of the reasons so many churches go down the road of becoming more institution than spiritual center is that it is easy to do from the inside.  The more insulated a church becomes, the easier it is to propagate this sort of false religion that leads to ultimate death.

In our journeys we have the joy of encountering engaging communities of faith that will deepen our own spiritual health.  In our journeys we have the opportunity to strengthen other faith communities, pulling them from the road of becoming nothing more than an "-ism".  In other places, the wisest path may be to start new communities of faith, for the old one may just be too far gone.

We have to inspire folks to place more importance on doing than just saying.  We need to find the places where this is already happening and lift them up.  While on the left handed path, we have responsibilities.

Our Inconsistencies

There is a notion in our society that Science and Religion are at odds with one another, constantly fighting for the soul of the people.  Science and Religion simply are reflections of differing ways of interpreting reality.  We want to put Science and Religion at odds with one another because it is easier for us if our lives make sense, if everything is consistent, so much work has been put into trying to make whole and complete worldviews that are entirely consistent in every regard.

Yet we are not consistent, in fact, we as humans are entirely inconsistent.  Think of miracles. If we were to go out onto the street and ask 1000 random people if they believed in miracles, i would have to guess that majority of them would believe in Miracles.    Now lets go out and do that again, this time asking if most people believe there is value in Science.  My guess would be that most people also believe in the value of Science.  Science and miracles do not play well together, they are seemingly incompatible, yet most believe or value both.   Our whole beings are no different, souls are a mis-mash of viewpoints and understandings of the universe that are not always cohesive.

Miracles offer us a way into ourselves, into our own inconsistencies.  Religion also offers us a path to explore our own inconsistencies and place them in the light of day.   Think of the miracles of Christ, raising the dead, walking on water, healing the sick, turning water into wine, his own resurrection.  But isn't one of his greatest miracles the fact that he accepts us and loves us through all our inconsistencies?  In religion we can come together completely aware of our own internal mysteries, in fact we encounter in God the biggest mysteries of all.  In church, in community we can explore the Holy Mysteries of God and Christ and the Word and the Spirit, but we can also explore the Holy Mysteries of ourselves.

Impermanence

The nature of the universe is change.  Nothing in nature, in the physical world, lasts forever.    

Yet in God we are promised eternal life, we are told in the Gospel of John that Christ existed before the world with God.  In the face of constant change it appears the only constant is God. 

When we engage in community we have to remember that it is in our human nature to try and hold onto things, to disregard the nature of the universe, to ignore the inevitability of change.    Although traditions and a link to the past are important, holding on to the past to tightly can be dangerous and even destructive.  We witness it in many mainline churches today, shrinking numbers, empty pews, yet there is still a resistance to change.  

For those on the left handed path, we are in a unique position to remind those on the right handed path of the nature of the universe, of the constant of change.  We should be careful not to destroy the faith of those on the right handed path, for this can be easy.  But we must be willing to hold their hand as they face change, remind them of the importance of their work.  

It can be like a dance, a dancer's art exists in specific moments, it exist in the movements, in the smells, in the viewers of the dance.  In reality all things are like this, everything only exists for a moment, but is it still beautiful no matter what, even if the dance only lasts a few moments, the beauty of it will remain in memory.   The church that existed will remain beautiful in the eyes of history, yet we must be willing to acknowledge its impermanence.  Change is scary, if nothing else we can offer comfort.

Abundance

Each of us has areas of abundance, each of us has areas of need.

This applies to nearly all things, whether it be financial, spiritual, physical, etc.  

To find balance with ourselves, we can give away some of the abundances we have.  In doing so we are more likely to find the things that will fulfill our needs.

This is not petty talk to get people to give money to charitable organizations, no this is a key part of long term spiritual health, of finding wholeness, or reaching holiness.

When we give our time to volunteering or serving, or our money to charitable organizations, or simply even lending our ear to someone who has something they need to be heard, we will recieve something back.

I can speak to my experiences working with homeless in New York City, or rebuilding home in the Greater New Orleans area after Katrina.  You get back when you put it.   Those that you are helping have something to give you.  Its not just a way of saying, well if i help these people know, someone else will help me when i am in bad shape, no, you are helped in that moment, you are brought to deeper spirituality, much as those that are being helped gain new perspectives on what is possible.

So go, offer your service, and open your heart to whatever it is you will recieve.  The more we can be aware of our own needs, the more we will be willing to give, the more we will be willing to accept, the deeper we will go in our faith journey.

Death

When Christ calls out to the daughter of Jarius to get up, everyone is convinced that the girl is dead.  Christ tells us clearly, "She is not Dead, only sleeping" (mark 5:39).   Death does not exist, at least not in the way we think it does.  This little girl was never dead, only perceived as dead.

What is death.

Fear of death can consume us.  If you have ever been around people as they are dying, there are typically two ways of reacting (massive generalization i know), but people in the throes of death, at least those that are in a position to have some awareness and physical/psychological ability to confront it, will either fight it with every ounce of their being, gripping on to life past their time, or they will face it with a kind of calm that eases the fears of all those around them.  Again there are many shades, but it illustrates a point.  Few can face death graciously, compounded by our society's treatment of death as a failure of "progress".

But I ask again, what is death?  An inevitability?  A failure?  An End?

Or is it a transition, marking the passing of one place to another.

Christ calls us past death, with the promise of eternal life.

Buddhism acknowledges our place in the cycle of samsara, and acknowledges enlightenment as escape from the vicious cycle of rebirth.

Death, in the way that it truly acts in our everyday lives, is nothing more than the fear of the unknown.  Fear is a creation of our minds.  It plays a role, but can lead to Sin.

When we come to terms with the fact that there is unknown things in the world around us, mysteries we may never understand, then we over come that fear, we escape death.

For those on the left handed path, death is ever present, with the risks that are taken leaving the comfort of village, death could be lonely, possibly building the fear that can grip us.    Many don't leave the village for the very fear of death.    Yet the village usually deals with death more than the individual on the left handed path.  The village witnesses the realities of passing, the suffering and pain that can be associated with it, the very real experience of holding a loved one in their final moments.

Yet those in the village do not always come to terms with their own mortality the way one on the left handed path tends to.

For both Death is present, and yet abstract.

Both need to confront the fears though, both need to overcome death, and at least within Christian Theology, the individual needs to be willing to die.  

If we are to appreciate death, if we are to overcome it, to recognize our understanding of it as false, that is a true journey in faith.

Mystery

Mystery is dangerous, particularly to those on the right handed path, in the village.  Those in the village want definition, those in the village seek out concrete answers.

Yet concrete answers can lead to more conflict and in turn tear the village apart.   

A role of the left handed path is to bring mystery to the village, to those on the right handed path.  There has to be balance, to much mystery, and things fall apart, too little mystery and things fall apart. 

Those on the right handed path seek concreteness 

Those on the left handed path seek out mystery

For those on the left handed path, there is an internal drive, a desire to seek the unknown, to see what hasn't been seen.   Those on the left handed path recognize the role of mystery, of the unknown, of not understanding, of only being able to grasp at it.  Those on the left handed path revel in the Tao, for the Tao that can be known is not the eternal Tao.  

But on the left handed path, alone, mystery is not dangerous, it is curiosity, it drives us further and further away from home, where we can learn and we can engage.

The right handed path needs some mystery, which is why the Village must welcome the traveller, the village, those on the right handed path, must embrace the traveller and listen to their stories so that the Village knows there are other ways to exist, not that they have to cease doing things the way they are doing, but must realize that not all is set in stone, that creativity is important, that things should not and can not be done just because thats the way it was always done, some problems need new solutions, some old ways need to be reanalyzed.  

In our current religious context, we are losing the mystery, at least within the Christian context.  Western Christianity has ignored the mystery of the trinity, the mystery of resurrection, the mystery of the eucharist.  To often we give concrete answers to questions that do not actually have answers, we have forgotten how to dwell in the mystery of the events that occurred in the life of Jesus, in the way God works in the world.  

Those on the left handed path, continue to seek mystery, those on the right handed path, do not be afraid to listen to the stories of those on the road.  

Why Tradition?

Why work from within a particular tradition? This is a question that many ask today.  Why does one have to root their spiritual life in community?

Richard Rohr, a writer I am particularly fond of, points out that the goal of religion shouldn't be to take claim as the only access to the whole truth, but rather the teaching of religion should be who a particular religion offers access to universal truths (he uses how religion teaches universal wisdom).  I think this is right on.  

If this is correct, and no one faith tradition offers unique access to God and Truth, then why pick one?

In the end i think this is a question that must be answered by the individual that is asking it, but i offer a few way points for exploring the question.  

When we are in the village, on the right handed path, it is clear that the community as a whole reaches towards God, rituals are shared, spiritual questions are asked in the midst of conversations and dialogues.    Having a faith tradition grounding all this is key.  It is important to point out that each community makes its adjustments to the larger cannon of the faith (and by cannon i am speaking of the entirety of the faith system), but it needs boundaries and guidance from the history of the tradition, from the wisdom of its forefathers and foremothers.  There is no reason to recreate the wheel with every new generation.

I can speak for the christian tradition, it took about 200 years for Christianity to emerge as its own tradition, still grounded very much in the much older jewish traditions and also borrowing heavily from greek philosophical thought.  In a way Christianity wasn't a new tradition, it was just a kind of Hegelian Dialectic created from Greek thought and Jewish thought.  There is in many ways no new religions, each is based on something older. The Christian Old Testament (or the Tanakh) borrows heavily from older traditions, and in some places borrows books nearly word for word (see Old Testament Parallels).    Traditions continue to evolve and emerge, but they are always linked (at least the ones that stand the test of time) to older traditions.  As they adapt to the community that surrounds them, they speak to the needs and desires and wants and fears of that particular community.    It is important to acknowledge that faith traditions can easily get off track and lose sight of their purpose and hurt more than help.  Commitment to tradition, while being able to listen also to the community that surrounds that tradition, can help with this, if we learn to remove our ego, we listen better, and are less likely to allow the tradition to become distorted to greed and power.

For those of the left handed path, those out on the journey, it is harder to rationalize a need for a tradition, but grounded oneself in a tradition will get you farther along.  The major religions all have mystic traditions that serve those on the journey well.  If you have a tradition that you grew up with, you can use the grounding in tradition from an early age as a catapult to spiritual maturity, if you did not grow up with a tradition, find one that speaks well to the environments you know best.

Religion so often because a reason not to engage in spiritual discovery, and often times it can be a huge hurdle to discovery, particularly when it has been distorted by power structures.  Religion and tradition are key to greater success, they keep one grounded and rooted in tradition.  At some point in the journey you will be able to move past your tradition, but in doing so you will become more rooted in what you already know in your heart.  If you have no tradition to move past, you create for yourself a difficult mountain to surmount, one that you may never be able to summit.

Again, the answer for why a religious tradition is so important is really only understood later on, and by the person that is doing the asking, no answer i (or anyone really) can give will be entirely sufficient.