LSP48: Parable of the Rift-Sawn Wood

Parable of the Rift-Sawn Wood
 

The ticket window of King Station as seen from the ticket master's side (King City, Ontario). According to the historical plaque, King Station, first built in about 1852, is the oldest surviving train station in Canada. It's built entirely of wood, though some sections have been repaired, as seen here. Photo credit JAT 2016.

 
Once upon a time, there was a judge who lived in a small community. Although the judge had no particular claim to either humble kingship or wise judgeship (his training having been in other disciplines altogether), no error of word or grammar or logic or math could escape his perfect eye. Flaws in the words of others shone forth as brightly to him as the sun in the noonday sky, and so, over time, he became a protector of sorts, demonstrating to his little flock the dangers of ill-proved words. He took pride in his calling as upholder of the One True Truth.

One day, during a harsh drought, he decided to build a wooden courthouse at the top of the hill so his humility, stability, and permanence could be draw others into the fold of the One True Truth. This, he was certain, would help them cope during their travails.

“I will build a courthouse to rival the halls of Solomon,” he said with unwavering dedication. “Those who enter will find only justice. But,” he continued, “the courthouse must mirror to everyone the perfection and permanence of my judgments, so every piece of wood you bring to me must be sawn so the blade runs perpendicular to the rings of springwood and summerwood. These planks are the purest and strongest. No others will do for our courthouse. Discard all the rest.”

Each piece of wood was brought to the judge for his inspection. He turned each plank this way and that, peering at the rings from all directions, seeking only those boards that mirrored the timeless alternating pattern of springwood and summerwood, springwood and summerwood. He chose each piece with exceeding care.

As the floor and pillars of the courthouse slowly grew, so too did the piles of discards at the base of the hill. In one pile lay the boards that showed small knots, for the judge found evidence of branching deeply troubling and not at all reflective of humility. In a second pile lay the boards and burls that showed curved lines or cupped profiles or uneven grains, for the judge found irregular patterns toxic to his quest for stability. In a third pile, which was by far the largest, lay heaps of tangled roots and rugged, timeworn chunks of bark, for the judge found these ugly and unusable in a courthouse constructed to honour the teachings of the One True Truth.

At last all the trees in a wide radius had been cut down and the courthouse was complete. The judge nodded in satisfaction at his unobstructed view. The building was perfect, right down to the bold name Justice chiselled throughout. But it needed one final touch. This he accomplished himself. In the very centre of the structure, he placed a raised swivel chair upon which he could turn in every direction to see approaching newcomers. Each word they spoke, each point of logic they raised, came easily to his eyes, and made him shake his head in sadness when he saw the knots and burls and roots they carried. According to his duty, he took all newcomers on a tour of his courthouse, patiently showed them the perfection of his planks, and, though it pained him to do so, eventually sent each one away in tears to seek unblemished pieces of the One True Truth.                               

One autumn day, after a particularly cold, wet spring, and an even colder, wetter summer that had ended the drought, one of the judge’s followers came rushing in. “Sire,” said the follower (for his followers admired him and thought his mastery over words and logic made him wiser than Solomon), “sire, the rains have caused a terrible mudslide. The rain has poured down the hill and taken all the soil with it. A dangerous river, filled with rampaging branches and roots, has suddenly materialized. The town has been swept away. The roads are destroyed. The fall crops are gone. There is nothing to eat. You and I are the last survivors.”

The judge nodded sadly but wisely. “It was meant to be, my faithful friend. There’s nothing we could have done to prevent this tragedy.”

“What will we do?” said the follower. “How will we survive?”

The judge thought long and hard for several minutes. The answer came to him in a flash of brilliant light, the same flash he always saw when he studied the impoverished words of others. “We’ll take the wood from the courthouse and build ourselves a raft. We’ll travel. We’ll teach. We’ll save. You and I have been blessed with survival because we alone understand the meaning of the One True Truth, which is pure permanence from pure impermanence, pure freedom from pure determinism, pure justice from pure logic.”

The follower happily obeyed, and soon pillars and lintels had been torn down and refashioned into a raft. In many places, the word Justice peered up at them from the perfectly sawn planks.

“What shall we call our raft now that it’s finished?” said the follower. “Shall we call it Justice?”

“I think not,” said the judge. “You and I have transcended the simple justice of this courthouse. From this moment on, we will name our craft after the greatest law of universal determinism. We will call it . . . Mercy.”

LSP47: Affirming Ministries and the Curious Case from Mark

Here in Canada, many church congregations are asking themselves whether they want to become an Affirming Ministry, which, in the words of the United Church of Canada, means "ministries [that] declare, in words and actions, that God loves and accepts people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender." This is an important step on the journey of transforming the church from its roots in righteousness to its blossoming in God's love. But, as with any long journey where a lot of people are asked to walk together in the same direction, more or less, there are major disagreements and a whole host of new questions. Are we sure Affirmation is the right path? If God wants us to do this, why hasn't God left us a map? Why can't it be simple? Why can't it be clear cut?  What about Jesus?  Did he say anything about Affirmation?  Would he say anything about Affirmation?
 
For many congregations, the question of Affirming Ministries is a difficult and confusing issue.  Individuals must wrestle with complex questions about who we are as unique human beings, who we are as members of families,communities, churches, and who we are as children of God. Sometimes, in these discussions, our deepest beliefs emerge, and we can find ourselves alternately pleased and dismayed at our own inner reactions. All on the same day!

At a time such as this, I think it can be helpful to consider what Jesus said to us about a different but equally important matter.  It's sort of a "peripheral vision" technique.  When we stare and stare right at the middle of the Affirming Ministry question, sometimes all we can see is the main black and white issue.  But if we let ourselves see with our peripheral vision, too, where things are kind of blurry, but also much wider in scope, then sometimes we can see the bigger picture a bit more clearly.  I think this is something Jesus did, something he tried to teach others to do.  He tried to help others see God not only in the central issues but also in everything around us.

Nowhere is this clearer than in Mark's portrayal of Jesus as a physician scholar who was way ahead of his time in his understanding of what causes illness.

We forget, sitting in our comfortable, modern homes with access to a full range of modern diagnostic tools and medical interventions, that once upon a time -- during the time when Jesus lived, in fact -- the prevailing model for understanding neurological and psychiatric conditions was demonology.  Demons were thought to cause medical disorders such as epilepsy.

Not everyone believed this, of course.  Certain schools of philosophy and science had long been working on the idea of healing as a form of science.  But, for the most part, diseases were blamed on divine causes.  People went to priests, magicians, oracles, and holy men to find out which god or demi-god had been offended and what steps had to be taken to settle the debt and make things right again with the divine.  This was big business, and a lot of money was made by those who claimed to be gatekeepers for healing and exorcism.

The Gospel of Mark includes several fascinating stories that mention demons and spirits.  Even today, people tend to interpret these passages in Mark as proof that Jesus followed the lead of others in believing that demons were the cause of neurological disorders.

I won't go into all the background reasons for why I think this interpretation of Mark cuts out some of the very best and most helpful insights into Jesus' teachings, but I'd like to draw your attention to the curious passage in Mark 9:14-29 about the healing of the epileptic child.

It's quite a strange story to include in the middle of a religious narrative.  It's also a bit of muddle to us today.  If you read it carefully, it seems as if the author isn't sure how to describe what happens when a distraught parent brings his epileptic son to Jesus for healing.  The descriptions seem part medical science -- "whenever it seizes him, it dashes him down; and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid", which is medically accurate -- and part religious invocation -- "he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, 'you spirit that keeps this boy from speaking and hearing, I command you, come out of him, and never enter him again.'"

To our ears, it sounds as if Jesus believes there's a demon inside the boy that can be exorcised.  But when you read the passage in its original Greek, you see some shades of meaning that aren't obvious to our English-speaking ears.  For starters, the usual Greek words for "demon" aren't used in the story of the epileptic boy.  Each time the spirit is described, the Greek word is a cognate of pneuma.  And pneuma is one of those tricky words in Greek that can mean a lot of different things, including breath, wind, spirit, disposition (as in personal characteristics) -- and sometimes a spirit with evil tendencies, though not always.  I think it's quite possible that Mark was using the word pneuma to describe a "force" that's real and tangible inside the head, even if we can't see it with our physical eyes -- the way breath and wind are strong forces that can't be seen directly with our eyes but are very real and measurable nonetheless.

It's Jesus' understanding of this real but unseen force inside the head (what we know today are abnormal cortical events causing seizures) that leads him to treat the boy and his family in ways that would have been unthinkable for most religious scholars of the time, whether Jewish or Hellenistic or Mithraic.  It's Jesus' understanding of the boy's condition as a scientific matter that leads him to ask the same kinds of questions a doctor would ask today: "What are his symptoms? When did they first start? How can we treat this right here and right now?"

Detail of "Christ Washing His Disciples' Feet" by Jacopo Tintoretto, about 1545-1555, on display at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Photo credit JAT 2018.

 We tend not to notice what Jesus doesn't say to the boy and his family.  Jesus never judges them.  He never says to them, "What did you do to deserve this?  How did you offend God?  How did your parents and your parents' parents offend God?  What sacrifices have you offered at the Temple to remedy your offenses?  What have you done to restore your purity?"

Jesus asks none of these questions.  He says only that it's a matter of faith and prayer.  And after he treats the boy as a person, and asks the right medical questions, and performs some sort of healing treatment (though we're not sure what), and stays with the boy as he convulses to the point of appearing dead to everyone in the crowd, Jesus does the most remarkable thing of all.

Jesus, a Jew, doesn't step away from the body, the body from whom the spirit or pneuma appears to have departed.  Jesus doesn't step away from the corpse to protect his own ritual purity (which would have been considered religiously appropriate at that time and in that place).  Instead, he moves even closer to the boy, taking him by the hand, lifting him up till he's able to stand, and (we infer) returning him to his father's care.

For Jesus, no one was unworthy of God's love and healing, despite what those around him said.  In first century Palestine, with its blend of Hellenistic and Jewish cultural norms, an epileptic child would have been considered a blemish, a punishment, a valid reason to revoke some or all of the family's "honour and status" and treat them as unworthy, little better than the dogs who eat the crumbs from under the table.  Today, we'd never dream of doing this.  But in Jesus' time, it was the norm to marginalize whole families simply because one member was sick and needed proper treatment.

It's interesting to note that although Jesus goes around the Galilee and the Decapolis to assess and treat many kinds of illnesses and neurological disorders, he's never once shown by Mark as trying to heal or "fix" somebody's sexual orientation.  It's pretty clear Jesus is keen on monogamy.  It's also pretty clear Jesus is keen on people not committing adultery.  But monogamy and adultery are altogether different issues from sexual orientation, and if we rejected everyone from the church who's ever broken faith with Jesus' teachings on adultery, I dare say the church would have snuffed itself out like a dying candle long, long ago.

Jesus does give us a hint about how the epileptic child is healed.  He says to his apostles in Mark 9:23 that "all things can be done for the one who believes" and then, in Mark 10:27, he adds some more information, saying, "'For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible."  Jesus was a man of science, but he also believed in miracles.

It isn't up to us, as Christians, to reject the very children whom God loves.  Jesus' healing of the epileptic child tells us that even when we don't understand, as human beings, the unique challenges and talents given to each child and adult around us, God understands.  God loves what we don't see.  God accepts what we try not to see, what we try not to speak of or hear.  When we're ready, though, God shows us how to speak of and hear Divine Love, as the epileptic child began to speak and hear once he and his family accepted they were worthy of God's love and healing.  God stands by, ever ready to help, when we find the courage to take the same steps on the path of understanding and inclusion that Jesus once had to take.

God loves us all, each and every one.

God bless.

LSP46: Don't Know God from Adam

Adam: So God, I was thinking.  I've decided I should become a more spiritual person, so I thought maybe you could give me some tips.  Nothing biblical, of course.  I'm thinking of something more modern.  I'm thinking . . . oh . . . maybe something with a bit of a Jesus feel to it.  Jesus seems to fly well with just about everybody. You know, all that love and forgiveness stuff.  How about it?  Any suggestions for how I can be more like Jesus?  I'd really love everybody to love me.  The way they love Jesus.

God:  Hmmm.  Interesting choice, son.

Adam, shrugging:  Hey, it's, like, just a little something I dreamed up.

God:  Well . . . it's certainly doable, son.  How would you like to start?

Adam:  I'm very big on the idea of respect, so we should start with that.

God:  Oh.  You'd like to know how to respect me?

Photo JAT 2015

Adam, chuckling:  Of course not.  You have such a sense of humour, God.  No, I was thinking it's important for me to state what I need.  That way, the boundaries will be clear, and there'll be no misunderstandings between us.

God:  I see.  That's not the way Jesus started his conversation with me, but go on.  Let's see where this takes us.

Adam:  Great.  Just so we're clear . . . you and I are equal partners in this, okay?  I mean, I don't even have to be doing this.  I could just carry on with the life I've been living.  I'm pretty impressed with the choices I've been making so far, and other people have told me how great I'm doing, so this spiritual stuff -- it's an add-on.  If I don't like something, I'm gonna say so and I'm gonna stop right then and there.  That's my bottom line.

God:  You have free will, son.  I give that to everybody.

Adam:  Another thing.  You're going to guarantee me the results I want, right?  You're going to make sure I'm even more popular and successful, right?

God:  You know Jesus was hated by the people he loved, don't you, son?  You know he pushed all their buttons?

Adam:  Yeah, yeah, the crucifixion thing.  But that was before we got smarter and more accepting of others in our culture.  That wouldn't happen today.  We wouldn't let it.  Today we know the difference between love and hate.

God:  You know the difference between status and lack of status.  I'm not sure it's the same thing, son.

Adam:  So back to the Jesus plan.  How do I start being more like Jesus?

God:  Well, I need a lot of help getting practical things from the people who have them to the people who need them.  Do you think you might be able to help with that?

Adam:  You mean I should write a cheque to a charity?  I might be able to squeeze out a few bucks for you.

God:  Actually, I was thinking about a young man who lives in your community and could use a kind word, an encouraging smile, and a fair chance at getting a job.  You're going to cross paths with him on Monday at 5:00 p.m.  Think you can help me with that?

Adam, checking schedule on phone:  Uh, well, sorry, but Monday isn't good for me.  I have to be at the gym by then.  Another day would be better for me.  What's Friday like for you?  I can squeeze in some time at 7:30 p.m..

God:  Shouldn't you be home with your children at 7:30 p.m.?  I'm just wondering, since Jesus placed an extremely high priority on the emotional needs of children, and if you were to spend time in the evenings with your children, it would be a great first step.

Adam:  No problem.  I always give them a kiss when I get home, and during the day I sometimes text them.

God:  You know, Jesus was pretty keen on the idea of visiting people in person.  He did his teaching and healing in person, even though he could have written long sermons and sent them out by messenger the way other teachers did.  Think you could be more of a hands-on guy?

Adam:  Interesting thought, God.  Interesting thought.  I don't think it's really my style.  Thanks for the suggestion, though.

God:  Your children have free will, too, Adam.

Adam:  Hey, don't tell me how to raise my children, God. Next you'll be telling me I should say out loud I believe in God.  Nope.  I draw the line at saying -- or even thinking -- I believe in you.  It ain't gonna happen, God.  That's one of my ground rules.

God:  So . . . . to be clear . . . you want to be like Jesus, who believed in me with every shred of his being  . . . but you don't think you should have to believe in anything beyond yourself?

Adam:  You got that straight.  I know my rights.

God:  Okay, son.  Well, I think I'll be on my way now.

Adam:  Wait!  I'm not finished!  If this is going to work between us, I expect you to listen!  You're supposed to help me when I ask for help!

God:   . . . .(offstage whisper) Where's my copy of Horton Hears a Who?  Anyone see my copy?  Jesus, you borrow it again?  Never a copy around when I need one.  The kids love it  . . . (smiling) . . .

Adam:  See?  Just what I thought!  All talk, no commitment.  Where are you, God? What kind of God are you, anyway?

LSP45: Atheism: You Think You've Escaped the Perils of Religion . . . So Why Isn't Your Life Getting Better?

If the militant atheists are right, and the world's greatest ills can be blamed on religion, then I'm wondering why, at the close of 2015, when more people than ever are rejecting faith and religion and relationship with God for the simple logic of atheism, the world is looking less loving, not more loving?

Could it be that militant atheism, in its religiosity, pure ideology, anger, lack of empathy, and anthropocentric hubris, is simply a new manifestation of the same neurophysiological patterning that leads to fundamentalism of all stripes?

Could it be that militant atheism is a fundamentalist philosophy with characteristics no different, say, than the Middle East movement known as ISIL, which purports to be a religious movement, but is really just a haven for human beings who have damaged their brains and have turned themselves into the Four Horsemen of the Dark Psychological Tetrad (Psychopathy, Narcissism, Sadism, and Machiavellianism)?

Black Beauty T. Rex at Royal Tyrrell Museum, Drumheller, Alberta.  Photo JAT 2015.  Sure, it's unrealistic and unscientific for Creationists to deny the evidence of the fossil record and claim that Planet Earth is only a few thousand years old. No argument there. But it's also unrealistic and unscientific for militant atheists to deny the evidence of the quantum record, which speaks of weird phenomena such as non-locality, the conscious observer, bosons, fermions, and magnetism, not to mention all the dark matter and dark energy we know almost nothing about. From my perspective, the atheist belief that "dumb luck" led to the evolution of the universe requires a much higher degree of sanctimonious denial than the Creationist position could ever muster. Are we humans really so incredibly amazing that the entire universe evolved just so we could have consciousness with all the rights and privileges of the conscious observer effect? Really? We can't even manage our own bank accounts, let alone act as wise custodians of Planet Earth, so why would the universe evolve to give humankind the unique right to mess with the laws of physics?

The militant atheists I've known (and I've known quite a few) strut and preen in exactly the same harsh way as the spiritual and theological narcissists I've known. They're certain of their rightness, certain of their objective intellect, certain they have all the facts. They're quick to judge and even quicker to punish. They have no empathy (though they rush to claim they live by the laws of empathy's hobbled cousins "compassion" and "mercy"). They rely almost exclusively on the brain's System 2 thinking processes (linear thinking) and pour contempt on the brain's much older and more adaptive System 1 thinking processes (creative and intuitive thinking). They're slow to learn from their mistakes and even slower to admit they made any mistakes in the first place.

Here's something else I've noticed about militant atheists and other fundamentalist philosophers: they're really, really poor at constructing a whole and complete argument. In fact, most of them couldn't argue their way out of a wet paper bag. But don't say this to their face, because they'll go into a rage -- maybe even erupt in a narcissistic rage reaction -- and they'll make you pay BIG for pointing out they're not really as smart as they think they are.

I take issue with militant atheist philosophies on the following fronts:

• They use restricted data sets and then claim they're using a complete data set. One example is an extreme reliance on Materialist cause-and-effect "Law" without regard or deference to the non-Materialist laws that govern most of the universe. Why is it "wrong" for religious leaders to ignore the actual laws of physics but "right" for atheists to do it when it suits them?
• Another example, taken from the field of religious studies, is a tendency for atheists to conflate many different topics into a single "bugaboo" called religion. Sure, religious fundamentalists conflate stuff all the time -- but why is it okay for atheists to fall back on conflation, over-simplification, literalism, and myth-making of their own?  
• Atheists, in my experience, rely heavily on "revelation" to an extent that rivals the worst abuses of "religious revelation" from major world religions. Under the category of "revelation" you find "proofs" such as "Because I said so," "Because I'm smarter than you," "Because I cherry-picked one small fact from an entire body of knowledge and used it out of context to show how smart I am," and "I just know it's true."
• Atheism has its own set of gods, though it likes to pretend otherwise. Top on the list of atheism's idols are "The Perfect Human Mind," followed closely by scientism, algorithmic solutions, and variations on the "it's not my fault I'm a scumbag because my genes made me do it" argument (which is really no different than the ancient religious argument that says "it's not my fault I'm a scumbag because my demons made me do it").
• Atheism is marked by a petulant, narcissistic refusal to examine the enormous and interconnected questions of scale, time, peripheral vision, alternating current, bonding, probability wave currents, and other non-linear, non-Materialist questions related to God and consciousness and Creation. They use their own personal human limits as proof that God can't actually exist! (as if God has ever understood questions of scale, time, etc. in the way a human brain does!) 

How are these philosophical approaches any different, characterologically speaking, from those used by religious fundamentalists?

How can you expect to become a happier, healthier person who understands patience and love and forgiveness and calmness and flexibility and healing and scale and time and bonding and breadth of knowledge and self-directed morality when you've made the choice to turn yourself into an "iceberg thinker" who refuses to look at anything except the small percentage of data floating above the surface of your System 2 thinking?

And why do you think it's wrong for religious teachers to do this but okay for you to do exactly the same thing?

In my view, militant atheism is hypocrisy in as pure a form as one can get.

______________________________________


March 2, 2016 addendum: A recent piece by Brian Bethune in Macleans highlights some interesting research by social scientists Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog into the unusual percentage of Islamist terrorists who have engineering degrees: http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/why-do-so-many-jihadis-have-engineering-degrees/. Bethune says: "That takes Hertog and Gambetta to the thorny question of “mindsets for extremists.” Different types of people are attracted to different kinds of extremism—engineers mostly on one side, social scientists and humanities grads on the other—and the authors went in search of traits found in both secular and jihadi extremists as well as among engineers. Three stand out among conservatives in general in recent psychological research: disgust (or the felt need to keep one’s environment pure, which can underpin everything from homophobia to xenophobia); the “need for cognitive closure” (a preference for order and certainty that can support authoritarianism); a very high in-group/out-group distinction."

LSP44: Parable of the Prodigal Son

The Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15: 11-32) is one of a series of parables Jesus wrote to teach others about forgiveness.

The main point of divergence between Jesus' theology and the theology of other religious groups in first century Palestine was Jesus' understanding of the mystical power of forgiveness.  Jesus' understanding of forgiveness is the key that unlocks the meaning of the Kingdom teachings, including the parables.

The Prodigal Son (or . . . Redemption Doesn't Happen Overnight). Photo credit JAT 2015

Jesus' teachings on matters other than forgiveness don't sound a whole lot different than the teachings of other groups.  Jesus, like the Pharisees -- and, indeed, like most religious groups of the time -- believed in the importance of ethics, moral choices, and obedience to a code of moral conduct because, well, it's the right thing to do.  So Jesus certainly didn't invent the idea of moral codes.  But he did build on the radical teachings of the Jewish author we call Job to present a minority understanding of how to be in relationship with God.  The minority understanding of Jesus (and Job before him) presented a model for relationship with God that was built on forgiveness (not mercy, not atonement, and not contract law); on agape/love (not obedience, not fear, and not contract law); on a "thinking" faith (not blind faith, not prophecy, and not revelation); on humbleness (not religious humility, not religious salvation, and not on status addiction);on radical inclusiveness (not clan chosenness, not honour-shame cultural norms, and not sectarian segregation); on courage (not fate, not predestination, and not abdication); and finally on the totally crazy idea that God is not a lone male figure (YHWH) but two distinct and separate figures, one male and one female (YHWH and his Asherah?), who together are the One God and make all decisions together based on mutual forgiveness, agape, thinking faith, humbleness, radical inclusiveness, and courage.  As above, so below.

The parable of the prodigal son reflects Jesus' theology, Jesus' understanding of how we can be in full relationship with God during our lives as human beings.

Jesus' parables always ran counter to the Wisdom literature of his time -- what biblical scholar Michael Coogan once called "anti-Wisdom Wisdom" in his commentary on Job.  It was Wisdom literature (currents of which ran through most major world religions of the time) which taught that obedience to divinely revealed laws and cultural norms would guarantee "happiness" and eventual acceptance into the heavens (in whatever form "the heavens" were envisioned in a particular religion).  Those who willfully disobeyed God's laws (again, in whatever form they were envisioned) would surely be punished -- and rightly so.  Wisdom literature (which was already ancient by the time Jesus lived) insisted that Materialist laws of cause-and-effect governed all Creation (including God's own choices) so stability, order, safety, and happiness could be built into a society by observing Creation's laws in scientific ways and then applying reason, justice, and piety to the whole affair.

Of course, the world doesn't really work this way, and Jesus knew it.  He saw a completely different paradigm in operation in the world around him, a paradigm that blended both Materialist and non-Materialist laws of science in complex and intertwined ways.  His parables reflect the anti-Wisdom Wisdom paradigm he observed.  He didn't invent what he saw.  He simply allowed himself to see what was already there.  He allowed himself to hear what God was already saying. And then he tried to share with others the process of emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and physical change that would allow them to willingly and voluntarily enter "the kingdom of the heavens" as Jesus himself had done -- as any of us can do, according to Jesus (though it's a lot of hard work!).

The Kingdom parables are confusing, messy, non-linear, multi-layered, and filled with anti-Wisdom Wisdom because life is confusing, messy, non-linear, multi-layered, and filled with all sorts of irrational (but totally wonderful) emotions like love and gratitude and devotion and forgiveness and the courage to change.

Paul didn't agree with any of this, but that's another story.

LSP43: Discoveries: Learning to See With Your Ears

This morning I was excited to read an article in the current issue of Discover (July/August 2015) that gives a really good analogy for what I do as a cataphatic mystic and how I learned to do it.  The article is called "Sonic Vision" by Berit Brogaard and Kristian Marlow, and it's excerpted from an upcoming book called The Superhuman Mind: Free the Genius in Your Brain by these authors.  If you have a subscription to Discover, you can read the article online.  Or you can buy the current issue at the newsstand, as I did.

First, though, a quick story that sort of shows how I navigate in my life as a mystic and auditory channeller.  (Some of you may recall that I have a strong auditory connection to the soul who once lived as Jesus son of Joseph.  Again, I understand this is problematic for some readers and, again, I can't apologize for who I am and what I do.)

To find the Discover article about humans who are blind but have learned to navigate in their environment by using sophisticated echolocation skills, I could have kept checking on the Discover website until such an article appeared.  But that's not how I live my life.  There's only so much time and so much money and so much brain energy.  What I do instead of constantly checking websites or subscribing to print magazines is to patiently wait until I get a message from my angels.  (Again, I understand this is problematic for some readers, but this is a Christian site, and angels or messengers or persons-of-soul or whatever you want to call them have always been part of the Christian narrative.)

So here's how my discovery of the Discovery article went.  First, I realized I needed to go buy a birthday card for a friend.  Then it occurred to me I could walk to the plaza instead of driving (though often I drive).  And because I walked to the plaza, I passed by the window of a convenience store I hadn't visited for a long while.  And because I walked past the window, I saw their sign for inexpensive cards.  (I'm on a tight budget, so I'm always looking for good value).  And because I saw the sign, I went in.  And because I went in, I discovered the store has been turned into a good magazine shop with titles that don't normally show up in the local drugstore.  And because there was a good selection of science magazines, I was able to "feel" the quantum Post-It note that was attached to the Discover issue.

Don't laugh, but this is how I do all my shopping.  It's a process of navigation.  It's a process of following quantum threads until they lead me to the quantum Post-It attached to the thing I need.  Often the Post-It is attached to something I'd forgotten I needed, but while I'm standing there, with my hand reaching out unerringly toward the shelf, my mind (often the slowest part of me to catch on in these situations) suddenly says, "Oh, yeah, I actually need that!"

At which point I know I've been guided by my incredibly kind and incredibly thoughtful angels.

So anyway  . . . back to the article about echolocation in Discovery.  If you have a chance to read it, you'll discover an amazing story about a man named Daniel Kish who lost his sight to retinoblastomas at the age of 13 months and then figured out on his own how to use echolocation to "see with his ears."  What's really fascinating (apart from Kish's skill, dedication, and willingness to teach others how to see with their ears!) is that he and others with this skill use the visual processing area in the brain's occipital lobes to generate spatial imagery in their minds.  They suss out echoes that most of us can't hear (because we haven't practised hard enough) and these echoes are processed not in the auditory centres of the brain, but in the visual cortex (which does process some sounds).  Using comparative informative (between the sounds going out from their clicking tongues and the reflected sounds coming back from nearby objects), the brains of these individuals can construct highly detailed images of what's nearby.  It takes proper training and lots of practice and commitment, but it can be done.  Sighted people can learn how to echolocate, too, although the phenomenological experience may be different.

The process described in this article is very similar to what I do and how I do it.  I don't click with my tongue, of course, but I seem to be able to "click" with an as-yet-to-be-determined type of brainwave.  I get "quantum echoes" coming back from nearby persons-of-soul, and these are the echoes my brain processes and turns into words and imagery.

I've known since December 2004, when I had my brain scanned on three different days at the Amen Clinic in California, that the visual cortex of my brain lights up like a Christmas tree when I'm talking to Jesus, but my auditory cortex isn't really involved in the channelling process.  I've also learned after 15 years of daily experience as a cataphatic mystic that when I'm awake and channelling, I don't really "see," yet I get black-and-white visual imagery with words that come in from persons-of-soul, including Jesus.  The words always come in clear as a bell -- the same as having a conversation with somebody whom my physical eyes can see.

SPECT scan of my brain when I'm talking with Jesus (December 2004).  White areas show which brain regions are working hardest (highest oxygen uptake), red areas show the next highest oxygen uptake, and blue areas show average regions that are working but not doing the "heaviest lifting" for the task that's being captured on the scan.  SPECT scans capture the brain's function during specific tasks rather than showing simple anatomy.  On my channeling scan, some of the high-activity areas are in the cerebellum (which is normal for most people), but the rest of the high-activity areas (white and red) are in the visual cortex at the back of my head.

This is a voluntary and learned process -- just as echolocation is a voluntary and learned process.  It's a scientific process.  And I had to be trained how to do it properly, just as Kish's students have to be trained.  In a few people (such as Kish) it develops instinctively.  But most people have to be trained.

Being a cataphatic mystic is a bit different from being a non-sighted person who's learning to echolocate.  The process is more complex, and not many people are born to be full-fledged cataphatic mystics (which is as it should be -- the world only needs a few full-fledged mystics at any given time!)

But everybody is born with the brain-talent for intuition (a talent which, on rare occasions, such as during an intense emotional crisis, gets pushed more towards the mystical end of the spectrum, with actual sensory impressions coming through briefly from Spirit).  And everybody can learn how to use their intuitive circuitry better than most people do.  Some adults have so badly fried their intuitive circuitry that they can longer hear a damn thing from God/Spirit/Source/angels, though the potential is there -- just as the potential to echolocate is there for both sighted and non-sighted people.  This potential can be developed with proper training, practice, and commitment.  With the proper development of the brain's intuitive circuitry, anyone can strengthen their relationship with God (who's talking to us all the time, whether or not we consciously realize it.)

Here's a great quote from the article:

"Kish's training curriculum differs from tradition by taking an immersive approach intended to activate environmental awareness.  It's a tough-love approach with very little hand-holding.  He encourages children to explore their home environment for themselves and discourages family members from interfering unless the child otherwise could be harmed."

OMG -- welcome to my life!  I almost fell off my chair laughing when I read this quote.  Tough-love is definitely the key.

All the best,
Jen

Addendum Nov. 5, 2017: Two other unusual but very real "frontiers" of neuroscience -- blindsight and tetrachromacy -- also relate to how I use my biological brain to communicate on a quantum level with God/Spirit/Source/angels. You can read more about blindsight and tetrachromacy here:

 BBC - Future - Blindsight: the strangest form of consciousness

 Human Eye Sometimes Sees the Unseeable - Scientific American

 BBC - Future - The women with superhuman vision
 

LSP42: Gordian Knots in the Faith/Science/Religion Debate

On March 1, 2015, Scientific American blogger John Horgan posted a written reply he'd received from John Lennox on the question of whether religion and science can coexist.  John Horgan (whose views are agnostic) had debated the question with John Lennox (whose views are Christian) at the Stevens Institute of Technology.  Horgan posted Lennox's follow-up letter, and readers of the blog were then free to comment.

Here is my response, posted in the comment section on April 27, 2015 (with typos now fixed):

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Questions about the intersection of science, religion, and faith are deeply important to human beings and pop up everywhere on the planet. Illustration credit Hemera Technologies 2001 - 2003.

In my experience, the real question is not whether religion and science can coexist, but whether religion and faith can coexist.

@4 Paul Topping wrote, "In my mind, the main “proof” that convinces me of the atheist point of view is that people have so many different religions with such different explanations. . . . The only reasonable conclusion is that they are all wrong and that belief in religion is just something that some people have like blue eyes."

When I read a comment such as this (and there are many these days) I know the individual hasn't taken the time and trouble to use objective research tools to examine key questions about religion -- questions examined with tools such as historicity, source criticism, socio-rhetorical criticism, and cost-benefit analyses from political, economic, social, military, and legal perspectives in the contexts in which the doctrines arose. Most importantly, when superficial assessments of religion are offered, it's quickly clear that all questions about neurophysiology have been shelved.

Shelving questions about neurophysiology isn't reserved for those who claim to espouse the methodology of science. Shelving questions about how and why the human mind works in relationship with the rest of the universe is one of theology's least helpful contributions to humankind, in my opinion. I've read theological arguments so convoluted in their efforts to avoid the question of how and why the human mind works that they make a Gordian knot look like a simple twist tie.

Theology is increasingly understood today as some sort of withering branch of philosophical thought, a deservedly marginalized branch of human thought that has now been proudly replaced by the randomized, double-blind study method, etc.

Those who've studied the history of theological evolution, however, know that all early schools of theological thought (no matter what "religion" they're linked with today) arose from careful study of scientific principles followed by the application of scientific observations to questions of human character, morality, Law (nomos in Greek), justice, disease, healing, mental health, and the pursuit of happiness.

It's not possible from a scientific perspective to reasonably argue that human beings 5,000 years ago (when the roots of today's religions really took hold in the soil of technological advances) had DNA so vastly different from ours that they couldn't use their brains in ways virtually identical to the ways we do. It's not reasonable to argue that they couldn't see for themselves the destructive issues of psychopathy, narcissism, sadism, and machiavellianism without the benefit of today's research and today's DSM-V (which hasn't the courage to include psychopathy in its lauded pages).

Just as we continue to struggle today with these issues, our ancestors took steps to limit the destructive power of certain human choices that spring from Axis II issues. One of the tools each major culture developed was religious doctrine. But religious doctrine wasn't set apart from questions of politics, economics, healing, justice, legal codes, and scientific inquiry. To attack religion as if it has ever been a separate and unnecessary "entity" -- like a dead tree branch that can be lopped off -- is just plain sloppy and lazy from a methodological viewpoint.

Religious doctrines reflect the times and the cultural necessities from which they were born. This is why names and places change from religion to religion, but underlying concerns about destructive human choices don't. Such concerns are universal to the human condition because a psychopath by any other name is still a psychopath. (Members of the Greek pantheon, for instance, certainly seem to be archetypes for the human behaviours we find least desirable: narcissism, fickleness, lust, power-mongering, status addiction, and lack of empathy. Sound like any world leaders you know?)

Religious doctrines, however useful they may have been over the centuries from a political point of view, typically reflect a Materialist cause-and-effect understanding of science, which is quite useful and practical on a day-to-day basis. (Can't argue with classical physics when it comes to everyday usefulness.) The one thing major world religions don't do well, however, is to reflect the needs of FAITH -- a highly influential current of human experience (mostly expressed through System 1 thinking patterns in the brain. System 1 patterns have always paralleled -- and continue to parallel -- the more rigid, linear, Materialist thinking patterns of the human brain's newer System 2 processes).

The experience of faith is the experience of the presence of God in our daily lives. It may or may not be linked to membership in a formal religion.

For me, faith is a relationship with God that endures in the absence of sacred texts. It's an experience that can't be placed within the restrictive boxes of religious doctrinal traditions or texts -- or, for that matter, the restrictive boxes of Materialist cause-and-effect scientific traditions or theories. (Same thing, really.) It's an experience that, as far as I can tell, is rooted 100% in the most objective scientific principles the struggling human brain can master.

I won't bore you with my own experiences, but if you're interested in opening your heart and mind to what this faith experience might be, I'd recommend the awe-inspiring book Man's Search by Meaning by Dr. Viktor Frankl. Any scientific questions we have about the experience of faith, love, forgiveness, and the human search for meaning must take into account the data collected by Dr. Frankl under some of the most searing and horrendous conditions humankind has ever known: the European Holocaust.

Dr. Frankl, as both participant and scientific observer of the "best" and "worst" in human behaviour, introduced data into the faith/science/religion debate that must, at the very least, be considered from a falsifiability perspective.

It's not enough for any sort of "ism" promoter (whether scientism or religious fundamentalism -- same thing, really) to make lofty claims about the origins of evil and suffering. (Did you know, for instance, that Tertullian's late 2nd century CE doctrine of original sin -- a theory now called Traducianism -- tried to account for human evil on biological grounds?) Ideologues must also account for the data of innate goodness collected by less lofty and less voluble speakers such as the late Dr. Frankl.

Therein lies the really juicy stuff.