Bedside Thoughts

I can't post about recent events in my life because they are too personal for a public audience. But I want to tell you, friends, that I have just experienced a kind of Easter at the bedside of a loved one, someone with whom I've argued many times about God and life and justice and truth, and with whom no real understanding seemed possible.

It still seems impossible. But the spectre of death, and the beauty of life returning, was like a fire burning away my ego, habits of thought, and attachment to my truth. I found myself incapable of anything but compassion.

Love is enough. Love is all.

***

Leaving the hospital late one night, I noticed that the moon was full. Most of us do not ask on viewing a full moon, "is this the last one I will see?" But our full moons are numbered. How can we remain conscious of death in our day-to-day existence? (Should we even try?) How would our actions change if we thought they were the last things we would do in life? What would our words be?

Perhaps that consciousness is what it means to live out the depth and breadth of life, not just the length of it.

***
According to Tillich, people exhibiting pathological anxieties, arising from their many fears, construct their world and carefully and forcefully defend their positions because the purpose is to prevent having to come to face their existential anxiety. Their purpose therefore is not to further the discussion but to prevent it. "Neurosis is the way of avoiding nonbeing by avoiding being."

Those who dare to live beyond fear hunger for that spiritual experience where "Man realizes that no absolute and no final security is possible; he also realizes that life demands again and again the courage to surrender some or even all security for the sake of full self-affirmation."

***

I was greeted warmly this week by my OALC kin at the hospital and realized after a couple of days that no one invited me to go to church, although meetings are going on every day. Neither was there any exclusionary talk about "the Christians" and "worldlies."

Were my relatives also inspired by compassion to focus on commonalities instead of differences?

Or do they consider me a lost cause?!

***

May your Easter be suffused with the Divine. God's peace to all.

Gospel of Judas

National Geographic has released a translation of the Gospel of Judas (follow link above). You may want to watch the NGC special this Sunday (9 PM PST). Here's the blurb.

"Discovered by chance in the 1970s, a document that lay hidden for some 1,700 years, emerges today as The Gospel of Judas. Trace the story of what has happened to the document since it was found, explore the recent authentication process and analysis, and discover key insight gleaned from its laborious translation and interpretation. Dramatic recreations portray and clarify the complex story of intrigue and politics of the earliest days of Christianity, and reveal the contents of the Gospel itself."

I don't have cable, so if you watch the show, let me know what I missed. Personally, I hope the public discussion of these ancient documents increases lay appreciation for the gospels as literary, not literal. One can also hope that Christian anti-Semitism that found support in the story of Judas will diminish.

Patch Question

I saw this at pasty.com and am reposting it here in the hopes someone can assist Jimbob:

By Jim Bergren (Jimbob) on Saturday, March 25, 2006 - 10:27 pm:

Grace and peace and to you. I am hoping someone from the Old Apostolic Lutheran Church (or anyone that uses this device) might be able to answer my question or direct me in the right direction. The Lutheran church I attend in Brush Prairie, WA is wanting to expand our ministry to our elderly shut-ins who cannot come to worship services on Sundays. Members from the Old Apostolic Lutheran church in our area talk about something they have at their church called "The Patch". This allows members of their church to call a phone number on Sunday mornings and they are patched into the sound system so they can hear the service. Members of the Old Apostolic Church would love to share that they have this feature, but would love to not tell you exactly how it works, or who you could reach at their church to learn more about it. If anyone has knowledge on this Phone Patch and could let me know, I would be forever grateful....and so would our shut-ins who so badly want to be part of our worship services. Thank you and God bless. Jim Bergren, buydiscoverytoys@hotmail.com

Exploring Biblical Truth and the Exodus

"Both read the Bible day and night, but thou read black where I read white." William Blake

First, I want to encourage any of you interested in the future of our society to read "The Spirit of Disobedience" by Curtis White in this months' Harper's Magazine. He draws on the tradition of Thoreau in calling us to "live Christ." I found it a powerful and disturbing essay, and am challenged to rethink my life.

Second, under Tipping Points there rose an interesting thread regarding the credibility of the Exodus/Passover, in which God is described as killing firsborn Eygyptian sons. "M" disagrees with my skepticism. I'm no Bible expert, but I'd like to explore the topic further and invite you all to join in.

The story was written down nearly 300 years after the events were supposed to have happened. That means it was shared in oral tradition for 12-14 generations before being written down. Remember the "telephone game"? One person whispers a phrase to another who whispers it to another and so on. Even getting the same words through five people is difficult. So what really happened and what was recorded, after 300 years of deletions and embellishments, are certainly different (unless you believe, a priori, that God predetermined all that, but there is no point in talking after such a premise, as ANYthing can happen and be attributed to God.)
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There is no physical evidence that the Exodus happened and much to suggest that it couldn't have, at least as told (the Red Sea would not have been en route, for example). But the very fact that this minority sect survived its many trials is remarkable. Huston Smith suggests that the Jews told this story out of just the kind of gratitude and humility that "M" expresses in her post. That they had survived seemed miraculous, and only Divine intervention could account for it. The story then served as a "founding myth," subject to the same kind of exaggeration and symbolizing we find in the founding myths of our own nation. Like all good stories, it has great characters, tension, and resolution.

In exploring the details of the story, Shelby Spong finds the killing of not only the firstborns sons but also the firstborn of the flocks "strange behavior for an evil human being . . . how much more evil would that be for God to do it?" The blood of the Paschal Lamb on the doorposts (I seem to remember Laestadius being quite vivid in his exegesis, perhaps because it resonated with Lappish rituals!) now seems, in context of the day, cultish magic.

But to the prescientific mind, magic gave logic to mysteries: plagues, floods, locusts, tempests, earthquakes, etc. were sent by God as rewards or punishments. Other than a few holdouts (i.e., Pat Robertson on Katrina), we no longer view weather or disease that way.

Aside from Biblical scholarship and others' points of view, I have to ask myself, what does this story mean to me today, a postmodern person in the 21st century? My mind cannot accept it as literally true. My experiences do not accord with the vision of God as violent and vindictive. Yet in its arc I find human suffering and yearning, deep gratitude and humility before the Great Mystery. This I recognize. This resonates. Here I find its truth.

FinnFest and Delurk

Dear readers, I can't tell you how much I appreciate this conversation we're having. I would love to meet you in person if you can make it to Astoria, Oregon in July for FinnFest. Follow the link above to the official site. The dates are July 26-30. If you can't make it for the whole weekend, perhaps we can plan a picnic at a local park for Saturday afternoon. Let me know your thoughts.

And hey, all you lurkers who haven't posted before: please delurk just to say hi. Suggest a topic if you'd like. There is no guarantee we will stick to the subject, but that's the fun of it.