Jesus...

In the end, when all is said and done, when we have wrestled and laughed and prayed and struggled, when we've been through all the theology we can stand, when we've wandered into the superficiality of the New Age view of Jesus because we are tired of dogma, when we've tried the 'mystical' or 'cosmic' or 'esoteric' or any other Jesus, when we've been through the literalist and innerantist positions of reading the Bible, when we've rationalized, spiritualized or otherwise analyzed Jesus to the point of exhaustion, we find he is still there. Waiting. Patiently. Wherever we are. And his arms are open wide.

No matter what we say, do or think, he doesn't change. We do.

Arrogance and fear...

Arrogance and fear, two sides of the same coin. I suffer with both. Just got involved in a road rage game today, something I haven’t done since high school. Car turning left at a red light, I swerved into the right lane so as not to have to wait for him when the light turned green, pulling in front of a pickup truck with what I thought was clear enough distance. Apparently not. When the light changed, the guy zoomed to cut me off in the left lane I needed to be in and then slowed down to the same speed as the car in front of me in the right lane. He drove that way for about a half a mile.

I sped up to try and go past and in front of him and he sped up to match me, swerving slightly into my lane to send a message. I swerved to the left to counter him, he swerved back into this lane and slammed on his brakes. I drove right up to his bumper. I know the game all too well, the adrenaline starting to flow.

I needed to turn left up ahead so decided to wait until he passed the street and then swerve quickly behind him from the right lane into the left lane to turn so he had no chance of turning behind me. He was going the same way. I waited until he was in the turning lane and waved at him as I went by him on the right. Not surprisingly, he opted not to go left and was now headed up behind me.

I stepped on the gas and drove up the road at about sixty in a thirty-five zone, swerved left and bounced over a curb into a gas station, my suspension already in tatters, and watched him go straight, stopping at a red light. A State Highway Patrol car was at the intersection and I figured I was safe, that he wouldn't do anything because the Trooper was there. I even let a car in the parking lot go in front of me to turn. Bad move. As it was lunch time, there were cars backed up at the light and the car I waved in front of me was going left out of the parking lot. I was stuck. Couldn't go right, couldn't go left, couldn't get into the street.

I looked in my rear view mirror and, panicking, saw the truck coming over the curb toward me. In an instant, looking for an out, I opted to shoot through the drive-thru lane to get away. Bound by a curb on one side, a fence on the other and a car in front of me stopped at the drive-thru window, I was trapped.

The truck had stopped and a rather large man with long hair, pony tail, Harley shirt, dark sunglasses, beard, boot cut jeans, and cowboy boots was coming at me. I wouldn't have stood a chance.

I slammed into reverse and maneuvered back through the drive-thru lane and out onto the main street, causing at least one car to slam on its brakes in order not to hit me. Horns honking, verbal threats of bodily harm from him as he ran toward the street and I gunned it to get out of there, making a quick right at the light, just missing another car coming my way, accelerating to top speed (which, on my car, is about sixty miles an hour on its three cylinders of four that work).

I drove with a constant eye on the rearview mirror. He wasn't behind me. After turning down the street, through another light, I pulled into the parking lot at work just in time for the lunchtime buzzer and had a moment to sit and think. The adrenaline gone, I was forced to reckon with me.

Here I am, supposedly some spiritual dude, playing childish and dangerous road games. I could have caused serious damage to a lot of people, myself not included. What the hell was I thinking? Arrogant. Stupid. Why did I do that? Fortunately, there was no rush, no way I could have justified it, no charge like back in the day. There was simply a pang of regret.

I could have, should have, gotten my ass kicked. It would have been justified. I should have just slowed down, let the guy keep going and be done with it but no, I had to tease just a little, just enough to piss him off but lacking the guts to back it up. My ego is fragile, weak and cowardly. Big man behind the wheel of a car.

Strength would have been to let him go. True strength would have been to find a way to own up to it and apologize to him. That would have been the truly ‘spiritual’ thing to do. I thus exposed something deep inside of me I need to look at, something dark that I need to face, something that needs brought to light.

Bad - took about 100 steps backwards. Good - needed to retrace and repair those steps.

I have lots of work that needs done, the first being humility. There's not much room inside for growth with pride in the way. It's time to work on surrender.

Talem eum vidi qualem capere potui...

I saw him in such a form as I was able to take in.

And when the ninth hour was fully come, they rose up to make prayer. And behold certain widows, of the aged, unknown to Peter, which sat there, being blind and not believing, cried out, saying unto Peter: We sit together here, O Peter, hoping and believing in Christ Jesus: as therefore thou hast made one of us to see, we entreat thee, lord Peter, grant unto us also his mercy and pity.

But Peter said to them: If there be in you the faith that is in Christ, if it be firm in you, then perceive in your mind that which ye see not with your eyes, and though your ears are closed, yet let them be open in your mind within you. These eyes shall again be shut, seeing nought but men and oxen and dumb beasts and stones and sticks; but not every eye seeth Jesus Christ. Yet now, Lord, let thy sweet and holy name succour these persons; do thou touch their eyes; for thou art able -that these may see with their eyes.

And when all had prayed, the hall wherein they were shone as when it lighteneth, even with such a light as cometh in the clouds, yet not such a light as that of the daytime, but unspeakable, invisible, such as no man can describe, even such that we were beside ourselves with bewilderment, calling on the Lord and saying: Have mercy, Lord, upon us thy servants: what we are able to bear, that, Lord, give thou us, for this we can neither see nor endure.

And as we lay there, only those widows stood up which were blind; and the bright light which appeared unto us entered into their eyes and made them to see. Unto whom Peter said: Tell us what ye saw.

And they said: We saw an old man of such comeliness as we are not able to declare to thee; but others said: We saw a young man; and others: We saw a boy touching our eyes delicately, and so were our eyes opened.

Peter therefore magnified the Lord, saying: Thou only art the Lord God, and of what lips have we need to give thee due praise? and how can we give thee thanks according to thy mercy? Therefore, brethren, as I told you but a little while since, God that is constant is greater than our thoughts, even as we have learned of these aged widows, how that they beheld the Lord in divers forms. (Acts of Peter, XXI)

Talem eum vidi qualem capere potui.

Men and brethren, ye have suffered nothing strange or incredible as concerning your perception...inasmuch as we also, whom he chose for himself to be apostles, were tried in many ways: I, indeed, am neither able to set forth unto you nor to write the things which I both saw and heard: and now is it needful that I should fit them for your hearing; and according as each of you is able to contain it I will impart unto you those things whereof ye are able to become hearers, that ye may see the glory that is about him, which was and is, both now and for ever.

And so when we had brought the ship to land, we saw him also helping along with us to settle the ship: and when we departed from that place, being minded to follow him, again he was seen of me as having rather bald, but the beard thick and flowing, but of James as a youth whose beard was newly come. We were therefore perplexed, both of us, as to what that which we had seen should mean.

And after that, as we followed him, both of us were by little and little perplexed as we considered the matter. Yet unto me there then appeared this yet more wonderful thing: for I would try to see him privily, and I never at any time saw his eyes closing (winking), but only open. And oft-times he would appear to me as a small man and uncomely, and then againt as one reaching unto heaven. Also there was in him another marvel: when I sat at meat he would take me upon his own breast; and sometimes his breast was felt of me to be smooth and tender, and sometimes hard like unto stones, so that I was perplexed in myself and said: Wherefore is this so unto me? And as I considered this, he . .

And at another time he taketh with him me and James and Peter unto the mountain where he was wont to pray, and we saw in him a light such as it is not possible for a man that useth corruptible (mortal) speech to describe what it was like. Again in like manner he bringeth us three up into the mountain, saying: Come ye with me. And we went again: and we saw him at a distance praying. I, therefore, because he loved me, drew nigh unto him softly, as though he could not see me, and stood looking upon his hinder parts: and I saw that he was not in any wise clad with garments, but was seen of us naked, and not in any wise as a man, and that his feet were whiter than any snow, so that the earth there was lighted up by his feet, and that his head touched the heaven: so that I was afraid and cried out, and he, turning about, appeared as a man of small stature, and caught hold on my beard and pulled it and said to me: John, be not faithless but believing, and not curious.

And I said unto him: But what have I done, Lord? And I say unto you, brethren, I suffered so great pain in that place where he took hold on my beard for thirty days, that I said to him: Lord, if thy twitch when thou wast in sport hath given me so great pain, what were it if thou hadst given me a buffet? And he said unto me: Let it be thine henceforth not to tempt him that cannot be tempted. (Acts of John 88-90)

And he gave me his hand and raised me up; and when I arose I saw him again in such a form as I was able to take in. (Acts of Peter, XX)

Talem eum vidi qualem capere potui.

Alvine discharges...

As for Jesus being in the shit, it may seem pretty irreverent.

"And He said to them, "Are you so lacking in understanding also? Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him,

because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and is eliminated?" (Thus He declared all foods clean.)" (Mark 7:18-19, NASB)

The word translated here as 'eliminated' is from the Greek aphedron which is, according to Thayer's (Unitarian that he was), "the place into which alvine discharges are voided." Or, from Strong's, "a place where the human waste discharges are dumped." It's a polite way of saying latrine or, in modern parlance, the crapper. Jesus wasn't afraid to go there to make his point.

Metaphorically, if you wish, Jesus went among those who were, in the eyes of 'higher' society, including those of the Pharisaical elite, basically living in the latrine. He went among society's waste products. Jesus went into the world's shit. So there ya' go.

Jesus is in the shit...

Without divulging into the personal issues that led to the statement in the title, I can give you the basics. It would seem that in the culture at large (and perhaps it has always been this way through all cultures in all times) there is a tendency to project the perfect life as one free from stress, with a perfect view of some exotic locale, a nice fat bank account, in perfect health with not a care in the world. In other words, the perfect life is viewed as an escape from the 'real 'world. Perhaps this is my own observation, a projection of the sheltered and often superficial world in which I was raised, both nationally in the United States and more locally in the Midwest.

But this is a dangerous way to live as such a worldview is, by and large, unattainable if it in fact attainable at all. It is something akin to retirement, working our entire lives in order that we can enjoy life when we are in our 60s. By and large, most people do not live to see such a retirement.

The religion of Christianity (and, arguably, other religions as well) seems to project this future oriented, pie-in-the-sky worldview that a better day is coming to there is no need to pay much attention to this one. It's somewhat nihilistic. If our sole focus is the future it leaves us no energy for the present. Christians long to see Jesus, to be with him, to live in eternal bliss free from pain and suffering. A noble goal, certainly. But what of this world? Is our sacrifice a life of fifty or more years of misery until that time? Is this why so many Christians fill their lives with the stuff of the world? Is this the disconnect?

In other words, since the future is not yet and is intangible, do Christians in fact give religious justification for the use of 'stuff' to fill the void left by the 'not yet' and thus give a religious stamp to materialism? We long for escape, for distraction. But what about the real stuff? What about finding the joy in the middle of it? What about finding ourselves content in any situation?

In my personal life at the moment there is a lot of stuff going on. It's 'real' world stuff, stuff where places exist in order for us not to have to deal with it (provided, of course, you have sufficient income), where we can shoo off these problems to some systemic solution. We tend to do this don't we? We send alcholics to rehab, the homeless to shelters, the aged to nursing homes, the mentally ill to psych wards, troubled teens to juvenile detention centers. In other words, we have the intermediary of a 'system' to handle problems we ourselves do not have the time, the money or the inclination to handle.

And we expect these systems to solve the problems, as if these systems are real people. But they are made up of people for whom their work is just a job. You may find the occasional individual who adds the personal element to their work but this is rare. In the end, these things just lead to more systems and less solutions. Prisons are not places of rehabilitation; homeless shelters don't solve the problem of homelessness; nursing homes provide a dumping ground for a society for whom a youthful, abundant and vivacious life is the ideal. Anything outside of this ideal tends to be marginalized and systematized.

I am aware that I am generalizing to a great degree. But these are observations from many years doing social work, including working with the homeless, with substance abusers, those living with a mental illness, those living with HIV/AIDS, the elderly and a combination of all of the above. It was in this work that I really learned about Jesus, more than I could ever learn in church or in school.

'The system' always fails. Yet to remove 'the system' would do more damage as it is embedded into the very fabric of our culture. To remove it would be foolish. But 'the system' will never save anyone.

No. It is we who must bring about the saving. It is through us, not some system, that God moves. He moves through His people. This is His story. He works through men. And so we have Jesus. Jesus came and brought a system to its knees. Jesus brought the personal to an impersonal system, a system that bound men rather than save them.

He came to the lost, to the sinners, the drunkards, the beat down and broken, the poor and the sick. He came to the lowest of the low. He got down in the shit. This is where salvation comes. This is where life is. This, my friends, is the real world. And it is finding joy and peace and contentment in it that is what the walk of faith is about.

Faith is not a provision for us to escape from the shit. Faith is the calling to walk in it.

Objective evidence...

While I respect, appreciate and admire the genius of the New Testament writers in their recontextualization of the Hebrew Bible, I cannot take it literally. I believe the events happened. I don't believe we have a literal take on the details of events. I believe we have a basic story of the person of Jesus which is presented in a basic retelling of the Hebrew stories. In other words, rather than the words told in the form of a book they are told in the person of Jesus.

The entire Hebrew Bible speaks of the perfecting of man. Its entire purpose is to perfect man. Every sentence, every page radiates this attempt, to restore man to his former glory.

What we have in Jesus is this person that the entire Hebrew Bible has in mind. Seen from this point of view, it makes sense that all the stories point to him as it is he who lives what the Hebrew Bible only hints at as all the men in the book fall short. If it was not for the falling short, there would be no tales of the heights. For Christians, then, Jesus is this man. It is the original creation begun anew, not in a physical sense but in a spiritual sense yet this occurs only through the orignial physical creation.

Because of this I have no problem not taking it literally. The literalist position is a backlash against the views of science and is, in fact, using the very same tools to view the Bible which will always put such a person at a disadvantage because they are using someone else's tools rather than an interally developed set of tools (which, of course, is what the scientific community tends to mock).

There is a certain irony in this. Argues Tom Cheetham in his The World Turned Inside Out:

Science in the West may well have developed partly as a response to the dogmatic closure of official Christianity in an attempt to recover something of the angelic function of beings and to re-establish the means for the individual to attain knowledge.

Quoting Jacob Bronowski, he notes:

It is said that science will dehumanize people and turn them into numbers. That is false, tragically false...[Auschwitz] was done by arrogance. It was done by dogma. It was done by ignorance. When people believe they have the absolute knowledge...this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods...We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge.

Of course, scientists also fall prey to dogmatism. The letter kills. Dogma, more specifically the men wielding that dogma from a position of power, have killed the spirit and, quite literally, men. Scientists, religious people, serial killers, all coming from the position of power, the desire to be gods.

Science, in part, can be seen as a backlash to the closure of thinking, of individualization, of freedom. Men have taken this freedom of inquiry, turning it once again to, in this case, the Bible and, though thinking they are safeguarding it are, once again, killing through the letter. The inerrantist belief is thus a backlash against the inquiry of science, though using its tools, to once again return to dogmatism. We thus have the bursting forth of a growing movement of atheists, those who are not open to the innerantist Bible believers (and quite condescending to those who are 'liberal' in their views of the Bible, atheists of this sort as dogmatic as the innerantists, that it is an either/or proposition) and seek to silence them.

So is the New Testament, and the Bible in general, telling a literal, scientifically verifiable story? I don't think so. I think to bury the text in such historicity is to kill its spiritual import. It is to toss it right back into legalism.

Yet this does not mean it is myth, that it is fairy tale and legend with no verifiable history. In other words, it is not a lie (which is insinuated in such accusations). Yet the words of the Bible do come alive in those who believe it to be true and we begin to see the truth when we live our lives and we recognize how certain passages resonate and become relevant, meaningful and even freeing in our daily lives. This is the power of the living word.

And this word cannot be bound by dogma. We cannot toss out dogma as it safeguards from a relativism that is nothing more than Man as the measure of all things. But we must avoid the arrogation of the spirit of that dogma and become those very same people Jesus scolds in Matthew 23. While he may have been talking to the Pharisees in that passage, he speaks to all of us who claim to follow him today. We too can be Pharisees.

Still wrestling...

The more in-depth I read Henry Corbin, the more clearly I see the dogma of the Church. This isn't a judgment (yet, anyhow). It's simply a fact. I seek to 'believe' the dogma of the Trinity, of the God-man idea, of the Incarnation rather than just 'get' them as one can 'get' these things and yet not believe them.

Just when I think I'm about to go there, I find something else that verifies or corroborates what I believe. The latest of these finds has to do with Isaiah 9:6, a proof-text often used to go beyond just that of proving Jesus to be Messiah but proving that Jesus and, historically speaking, the Messiah, will be divine, nay, will be God. But I know far too well the role of translation so this has never been a big deal to me.

It is often quoted as a proof-text and as I am no Hebrew scholar, I merely let it roll. Well today I dug a bit deeper. I have been reading Michael S. Kogan's brilliant book Opening the Covenant. It threw me right back into the Jewishness of Jesus once again bringing forth my belief that once Christianity left the environs of Jerusalem and went abroad there was no turning back. Once it went beyond the apostles and Paul and entered into a non-Jewish and thoroughly Gentile/pagan educated clergy it was over. It has become a predominantly Greek religion thus uprooting the true Jewishness of the faith. But when these roots are removed it becomes a malleable faith, one that latches itself onto the dominant culture.

In this day and age and for the past several hundred years that dominant culture has been Protestant, European and, most recently, American. This culture has attached itself to the faith of Christianity and has thus been associated, perhaps unjustly, with colonialism. This is changing, however, as the largest growth is coming from South America and Africa and these cultures are changing the Christian landscape. It will be interesting to see the theological impact as well.

Anyhow, as for this book, it is a profound and honest attempt at Jewish-Christian interfaith dialogue, really scrutinizing, to a refreshing degree, Christianity in its roots through a Jewish lens. Chapter 2 of the book tackles 'The Qusetion of the Messiah.' In essence, he takes apart the idea that there is a 'messianic pattern', some normative idea of a Messiah that all Jews of Jesus' day held. Anyone who knows a bit about Jewish history of this period knows that there were a multitude of ideas about the Messiah. There were, in his words, messianisms. To think otherwise is to deny history.

He hits on the major verses used in Christian proof-texting. In my example here I am looking at Isaiah 9:6. The traditional translation is this:

"...his name will be called

Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

I wish to look at the 'Mighty God' claim.

Kogan's translation is this:

"...his name will be called

'A wonderful counselor is the Mighty God,

The Everlasting Father.' [He will be a] peaceful prince."

Kogan notes that the name (and it is a name, not a statement of ontology) "does not imply divinity, but rather indicates that the appearance of this child-king is a sign that God has not and will not abandon the Davidic line no matter the failings of [Hezekiah] (and the abomination of his son Manassah)" (42). Placed in its context, there is no declaration of the Messiah being divine.

El is a component of many names, yet these names are not seen as statement of ontology. Here are a few examples:

Daniel – Judged by God or Judgement of God

Ezekiel – God will Strengthen

Ishmael, Ishamael – Heard by God, Named by God, or God Hearkens

Israel – Struggles with God

Joel – Jah is God

Samuel – Name/Heard of God

Not one of these figures was seen to be divine, let alone God. So when Jesus is called, for example, Emmanuel, it is a name not a statement of his nature. 'God with us' does not mean that it is Jesus that is God but that it is in Jesus that God is with us.

Let's break this down a bit further. 'Mighty God' translates the Hebrew gibbor el, el being 'God' and gibbor being 'mighty'.

El is the word most often translated as 'God' in the Hebrew Bible. But this is not the God specific to Israel. This is not YHWH. This is not the LORD. It is the root of the word elohim, the word most often associated with the word 'God', though the word elohim is used of men and of angels (see, for example, Psalm 82:6, which Jesus quotes in John 10:34).

The Hebrew for this passage is Pele-joez-el-gibbor-Abi-ad-sar-shalom. Yet in many passages in the Hebrew Bible, the word el (or elohim) means mighty or powerful and is not a stand alone address for God. For example in Psalm 50:1, mighty God is actually el elohim, el meaning mighty and elohim meaning God.

Pslam 82:1:

"God (elohim) standeth in the congregation of the mighty (el); he judgeth among the gods (elohim)."

Is this an acknowledgment of others gods? Is this a throwback to former times when YHWH was competing amongst a pantheon of gods? It's interesting to me that the word el here is translated as mighty and gives room to believe that other 'gods' might also be among the el in the sense of 'mighty'.

But in Ezekiel 31:11 it is Nebuchadnezzer who is called el, the mighty one. In Ezekiel 32:21 we see both el and gibbor in the same sentence:

"The strong (el) among the mighty (gibbor) shall speak to him out of the midst of hell with them that help him..." (KJV)

This speaks not of God but of men.

Gibbor el is frequently translated as 'Mighty God' in various other places in the Hebrew Bible (Isaiah 10:21, Jeremiah 32:18, etc.)

In essence, it comes down to more than tossing out one verse in a particular translation. It comes down to context, both of the passage and of the use of the terms in the greater context of the various places throughout the Hebrew Scriptures which, of course, also means keeping the books in the context of the times in which the passages were written or written about. In other words, there is no one 'messianic pattern' to these texts used as proof. If we study the development of the idea of an individual Messiah rather than a dynastic king back to its Zoroastrian roots up through the Second Temple period we find an amazing diversity in the concept and realize that there is simply no one understanding of the idea of the Messiah.

My point is simply this: proof-texting Isaiah 9:6 to claim that Jesus, or the Messiah, is God is not enough. In fact, standing alone, it doesn't prove anything. It's just a soundbyte. The passage as a whole may be seen as Messianic (or it may simply be referring to the historical person of Hezekiah) but this isn't the same as saying that the Messiah is God.

For if, in this verse, Jesus is God then he is also literally, not figuratively, the Father. And while this may align perfectly well with Oneness (i.e. modalist) theology it is certainly not compatible with Trinitarian theology. So as for Isaiah 9:6, it is at best Messianic. But proof that the Jews of Jesus' day held it to mean the individual in question would be divine, let alone God Himself? That's a tough sell.

But do I believe it?

That's the question isn't it?

I get it. And of all doctrines proclaimed, it is the most cohesive. But I am also not one to just accept something, toss out some proof-texts and be done with it. I want to internalize it. When I speak of it, I want it to come from the depths of my soul, not from the surface of my intellect. I want to live and breathe it not just be able to recite it.

In the end, I realize that there will always be questions. Pick a doctrine from any denomination that differs from traditional Christian doctrine (and even traditionally doctrinal churches show amazing diversity) and take it to its logical end. Any questions that are left usually end up, somewhere down the line, as another denomination, doctrine, cult or heresy. Just look at Christian history.
So I see its function. I've seen the visions and that is enough for me at this point. My focus is Jesus. It is in him that it all rests.

Would I call myself a Trinitarian? Probably not, simply because of what it stirs up. I'd probably try and avoid calling myself anything. I usually answer questions of this nature with more questions. Why? To avoid debate, to avoid a mini-Council, rehashing arguments that are entrenched in history books over thousands of years and billions of words written. One's doctrinal belief does not, in my estimation, prove anything. Paul preached Christ and him crucified. Death, burial, resurrection. The rest are details.

I can go there; I can debate. I can hold my own fairly well with the best of them. At the very least, I know the resources where I can turn for what I do not know. But I also recognize the limits of this approach. After all, mere "facts" can be inconvenient as the same facts can be used in different ways to prove different conclusions. The historical record verifies this. So mere "facts" aren't enough.

It is in the end result that the difference lies. Does it lead to love? Hate? Indifference? The end of result of our knowledge leads us where?

If you wish to see what I believe, look for it in what I do (what I say is also part of what I do...).

Six years ago...

Perhaps quite pertinent here is this journal entry:

11/8/01:

Jesus...(in the place of God Whom we cannot see) [is] being (that is) localized.

Six years I've been wrestling with this. Six years. Though I will say through this the struggle has sharpened my intellect, my focus and my faith walk which, in turn, is changing my heart. My heart has been hidden behind my intellect, my intellect a shield protecting what is really just a child's wounded heart.

It may sound strange but the deeper into the theology I plunge, the less important it becomes and the more I realize that, while it may provide a foundation, it is not the essence. But without the foundation, without that hedge, there is too much room to stray and it is easy to miss the essence.

12/2/01:

I keep having visions of the Throne Room of God...

I 'see' Jesus, taking me gently by the hand, leading me in to the Throne Room, smiling as if to say 'it is ok, this is for you, this is for every man, this is God's desire for all. Stop working so hard, allow the life that is in me to live in you. I've done the work for you, follow me. This is yours to share with me.'

I want to look upon God's glory but am afraid. I am so small, so unclean, so unworthy. My heart desires to see Him, to touch Him, to be with Him. Jesus smiles as if to say, "I know. Walk with me and you will. Come and see..."

And yet I will continue through many phases. Finalizing a degree in comparative religious studies. Islam. Jose Miranda's Marx and the Bible. Daoism. Zen. Islam. More Daoism. Interspersed throughout, of course, is my Christian walk. A Jewishness of Jesus phase, digesting Second Temple literature, immersing myself in the works of Geza Vermes, Shalom Spiegel and other Jewish scholars who provide their perspectives on Jesus.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. I can't escape him. I may struggle with the exoteric component of Christianity and the other faiths but always seem to long for the 'esoteric' as used in Henry Corbin's understanding, the inner essence of the 'exoteric' of any religion.

This is not the bogus, Oprahfied dichotomy of 'spiritual' vs. 'religious' as without a religion in which to find spirituality all you are left with is the self. 'Spirituality' of this sort is thus really nothing more than a religion of Me. No transformation there just validation of what is already believed.

So it is that no matter where I go sooner or later I encounter Jesus...laughing, smiling, correcting, always present.

If I didn't know any better, I might think I was mad.

And thus the strengthening of the visions, the concreteness of understanding of the Trinity and, slowly, ever so slowly, the surrender.

Journal entries...post P90X

4/8/07:

Began P90X program. A workout fiend in my mid to late 20s, I hadn't worked out in about seven years. I started a basic program of pull-ups, sit-ups and push-ups about two months prior to my wife getting P90X. I saw that the basics of it were what I had already been doing and decided to give it a whirl. An hour a day, six or seven days a week for 90 days. Bring it...

5/26/07:

Day 3849 of my attempt at the Christian faith. I just stared a woman driver down who had been tailgating me and flipped her the bird. And she returned the gesture. At least I wasn't lukewarm. I've been alive 14,179 days.

5/27/07:

I'm going through another Islam phase...

7/5/07:

Still sinking...

Much silence for a few months. New position at work, big promotion, no longer donating plasma, changes in the household, the holidays...

3/23/08:

Another 'vision'. Still struggling with the Trinity. In worship, my favorite song, How Great Is Our God, is playing (it always brings me to tears of surrender) and I'm focused though not necessarily "on" anything. Suddenly there is penetrating clarity. It is through Jesus we come to "see" God as Trinity. "Jesus" is the image, what we have to focus on. "But we see Jesus..." We can't see God. "But we see Jesus..." It is not "Jesus" that is the part of the Trinity as the name "Jesus" conjures up images but it is by focus on, or through, him that God is revealed to us.

So I "see" the Trinity not as "three" but one in which we understand it through three "ways" all rolled together, distinct yet not, depending on where we are. I "see" Jesus and all the images his names conjures up but sense, feel, know the Godhead that lies through, behind, beyond him.

About the visions...

From my journal:

10/10/06

Perhaps my lowest point yet...Jail time is a frequent topic of conversation [at my job]...Bills in collections, creditors calling, can't pay bills. Donating plasma twice a week for [gas] money. [I am living the life of] the silent majority.

10/18/06

Guess I'm not...humiliated enough. Back at [the plasma donation center along with] 40 people in the lobby waiting...

I am numb...

And then comes the vision:

10/19/06:

Paraphrased from my journal.

I have an image, a vision, of what I know to be a heavenly court. God, i.e. the Father, is on the throne. It's not a physical throne but I know it to be a throne. There is no figure, no being, no image. It is a knowing. And Jesus (i.e. me, us, our representative, true man, original Adam, the express image of God, etc. all these terms flying through my head aware that I am in his presence) is the light of the court. What of the Spirit? I seem to ask. I sense a smile. It is like the binding force of the whole affair, like the love that binds people together. All three are present and, though distinct, they are in fact One, made distinct in my mind.

10/30/06:

New position at work. No longer a press operator, I've been bumped up to inspector. From temp to inspector in about five months. Far out. Still doing the plasma thing...

12/10/06:

My faith is messy...

More quotes...

3/15/2008

The Trinity is not a 'thing' or a 'concretized' Idea or even a 'Being' and this is where we run into problems. As soon as we try and pin it down it eludes us.

It's kind of a Catch-22. If we deny the Trinity and allow the residue of all the other explanations to run their course it doesn't take long to discover that the end of each digression takes us into all of the various "heresies" available (and the list is looooooooooooooooong...).

This is why I always say the Trinity is a hedge, a boundary, a limit. It is something we come to but it is not the starting place and it certainly isn't the essence of the Christian faith (though on it the Church stands or falls).

Yet as soon as we limit it, seeking to pin it down or explain it we run into the difficulties like those I noted above. There are responses to each challenge but they ultimately end up sounding like sophistry. The more we try and explain it away the more we begin to sound either like a 'heretic' or a 'gnostic' or just plain evasive.

Because of this answers frequently end in 'it's a mystery.' By 'mystery' is not meant illogical or that there is no answer but that the Christian simply doesn't have the answer or lacks the language to go deeper. At some point, 'mystery' really means soemthing akin to experience.

'Experientially' there is an internal logic to it. It just doesn't seem logical.

3/11/2008

I mean it more in the sense of how we perceive or experience what is relayed in the NT documents. Sometimes we experience ‘God’ as Father, sometimes as Son and sometimes as Spirit. Father/Son/Spirit are not ‘things.’ They are Real but not material.

The “Son” can also be understood as Word, Wisdom, Lord, King and all the other names given. The ‘Son’ was manifest/incarnate as Jesus in time. The ‘Son’ points us to the Father; the ‘Spirit’ helps us to yield to the ‘Son.’

But the ‘Son’ is more than just Jesus although Jesus is the name which provides us with an immediate frame of reference (though it often keeps us bound to the earthbound figure).

Part of the problem is keeping in mind references to “Jesus” pre and post resurrection. We sometimes lump it all together. Paul is writing post-resurrection and thus some of the apparent discrepancies. The Gospels by and large provide stories of Jesus pre-resurrection.

And dammit if this all doesn’t start to sound like gobbledygook. If I keep going I’ll get all Gnostic on you.

The more we start trying to break it down the more we begin to see all of the other theologies - Arianism, Modalism, Patripassianism - pop their heads out. Sometimes we figure out what the Trinity is by what it is not.

3/10/2008

Perhaps a better (if there is such a thing) term to use is "Trinitarian economy." It is not a Trinity as in a static being, a thing, but is a Trinity in terms of relationship.

The trouble most people have with the Trinity begins when it is viewed as a thing, as a static entity. "Trinity" is not a name; it is not a being; it is not a 'thing' at all.

It is not spelled out explicitly in Scripture but the functioning (i.e. the 'economy') is there and it is thus conceivable how it is derived from Scripture.

3/8/2008

No, not two beings. If you start thinking "beings" you are thinking polytheism.

"Persons" in the Greek is something akin to the masks that actors would wear in Greek theater. Of course the term "persons" is and has been argued over from the beginning and perhaps Xristo can better supply some detail.

The simple analogy is the sun. Are the rays of the sun something other than the sun? The rays "emanate" from the sun, something akin to the Word/Son emanating from the Father.

Neoplatonism has to do with Being/Becoming or Idea/Form. The Fathers who ultimately developed the Trinity were steeped in the Neoplatonic tradition and its residue is found in the development of the Trinity.

Sometimes when you are contemplating or "feeling" (for lack of a better word) or otherwise in the thralls of that which we label "God" you can only understand or comprehend or register that which you are experiencing as the framework provided by the idea of "Father". Sometimes it resonates as "the Son" and sometimes "the Spirit" is the way in which it resonates.

God is not a name for the being but is a generic address for the divine. So we have three frameworks (provided by the New Testament) through which to comprehend "God".

The only way you know you have been with God is when you are not with Him.

This one, I think, most succinctly expresses my views of the Trinity and the various reasons why Christians accept it:

3/5/2008

It's something of a mental framework through which to filter what we find in the Bible. It’s a hedge, something you come to not something you begin with. Ultimately, however, it is more experiential than anything else.

Perhaps they've never thought much about it. Perhaps it has been hammered into them from childhood and they’ve accepted it without questions.

Perhaps it is the most sensible explanation for the Biblical text.

Perhaps the Church Fathers who struggled for about 300 years or more to put into language what is deeper than words came up with the best explanation of a framework in which to provide a structure that would enable a Church to survive for 2,000 years.

So there you have it. Of course I think that my views are clear because I understand the framework through which I am writing. But, of course, when others read what I write there are bound to be differences, or indifferences. But, no matter what we may do, think or say in regards to this doctrine:

3/15/2008

Whatever you want to believe about Christianity there already exists (or existed) a denomination/sect that teaches it.

Monotheist = Ebionites (or, arguably, Oneness Pentecostals, Modalists or Arians among others).

Every little nuance, angle, divergency and variant within Christianity has been covered and labeled. Almost all modern 'heresies' have a parallel in Christian history.

Think I'm kidding?

http://www.religion-cults.com/heresies/

Visions...

I've had several "visions" all pertaining to the Trinity. This Trinity thing has troubled me for years. It is more annoying than anything. I realize that nothing anyone can ever say or do will change the standing dogma of the traditional Christian church. Jehovah's Witnesses, Oneness Pentecostals, Unitarians, Christadelphians or any other denomination whose standing is basically a reaction against this doctrine will never change a thing. It may provide an alternative but when one's essence is reactive rather than proactive, it is ultimately limited. Overshadowing the whole venture looms the Trinity. Like it or not...

So lately I've really been wresting with it. I've had visions over the past several years, several of which are "Trinitarian" in nature. It is perhaps because so much energy is concentrated into this struggle that such visions are my release. Are they "visions" from God in the Biblical sense? Are they heavenly visions? Divine communication? Psychological or semiconcious in nature? Beats me but they are clear and life altering.

However, I can't say that because of them I am now "Trinitarian" (though I do "get" the Trinity). But, in perspective, I don't deny it either as I appreciate it and understand how it is that it came to be accepted as dogma. Books and volumes of books have covered the subject. I have little to contribute in that regard. However, I have collected some points I have recently brought up on beliefnet, a few of which have received an 'Amen!' from a traditional, conservative, doctrinal Christian which makes me realize that I really do "get" it.

3/18/2008

I fought the Trinity for a long time until it slowly began to dawn on me that what I was arguing against was, by and large, me (funny thing, huh?).

The other thing I learned was that the problem wasn’t necessarily the Trinity itself but the superficial crap I had been reading, studying and being fed. There is such a lightweight, shallow understanding of the Trinity that is passed around these days as truth, as if just because some words are quoted from the Bible and some proof-texts from the Church Fathers or other apologists, that that should be enough to convince someone.

The reality is that one’s life should be a reflection of Christ, not one’s arguments. Don’t get me wrong, debate serves a purpose, but the way in which we debate often says more than the words we use in the debate. This isn’t a judgment but when you meet folks whose lives been changed by meeting the living Christ, by those who have a relationship with him, there is ‘something’ that is unmistakable.

So too often it’s just a bunch of books, articles and individuals running around tossing out proof-texts and spouting off regurgitated knowledge that frequently lacks depth in the person doing the spouting, as if this is the Gospel message.

On an aside, I’d be curious to hear an argument between some of the folks here and some of the earliest Church Fathers rather than arguing against modern day apologists. I can’t tell you how often I realize that we get their words wrong also.

The essence of Corbin's work...

This, to me, is really the essence of his work:

"...when it comes to understanding the humanity (nasut) of the Iman, that is, to translating Imamology into anthropological terms as an event lived by the soul, the data of the problem will not partake of the physiology that imposes itself on sense perception and ordinary consciousness. It is an archetypal Image which will function as an organ of perception, replacing the faculties of sense perception and making perceptible an object...

and yet the humanity of the Imam is not reduced to what our "realist" exigencies would qualify as a "hallucination" and does not fit in with the idea of a hypostatic union.

The problem is, then: how can a humanity which is mazhar of the godhead be constituted, to what order of reality must it belong, that is to say, what transfiguration of it is presupposed in order that the epiphany (zuhur> mizhar) of this epiphanic Figure (mazhar) may be produced not to the eyes of the body but to the soul's "eyes of light"?

pp. 108-109

As it relates to Christianity, in place of Imam think of a Gnostic, Docetic (though Corbin qualifies what this term means) Christ. This is not the Christ of orthodoxy; this is not God incarnate. This is the Christ of those labeled "Gnostics" as found in the Acts of John and other apocryphal gospels.

This is the Christ encountered in Islam. Yet its continued development in Shi'a and Ismaili thought is not causally connected to some renegade sects of Christianity. In other words, these ideas are not borrowed or hijacked as such. As Corbin notes: "This is a problem which in any case cannot be elucidated by the current methods of purely static and analytical exegesis, by a historicism limited to an essentially causal type of explanation which reads causality into things." (p. 31n7)

These ideas are inherent within the human soul, a longing for a connection to the divine, a longing for a mediator, a savior figure, one in whom we can see our image and have reflected back to us the Divine. It is in this sense that what is commonly deemed "borrowing" occurs.

This figure is found in most, if not every, religious tradition. This is why, as Corbin points out, it can be seen as Archetypal. Christian orthodoxy is obviously against this and thus holds Christ up as the one true, real, bodily revelation of God. It is this claim that ultimately separates "orthodoxy" from every other claim about Christ.

From an orthodox point of view it validates the truth of the claim; for those who follow a more "gnostic" tendency this rends Christ from his true place and forever places him, traps him even, in the mess of humanity (which, of course, is basically what orthodoxy claims is the truth of the matter and therefore the reason he can thus save us).

But is this necessarily true?

Gnosticism...

As soon as we start philosophizing about what any religion means we have begun the process of Gnosis. "Gnosis" is the Greek word translated roughly as "knowledge" or "knowing" in various ways in the New Testament. It isn't the opposite of faith, as such, but as soon as we start thinking and questioning, dialoguing and debating, philosophizing and trying to explain, we have are on the way to becoming "Gnostics."

Continuing on about Corbin's book from the last post, I have realized that I have Gnostic tendencies in this regard. I often try and explain and understand what it means, seeking logical explanations and deeper meanings in Scripture and in many ways have ended up at places that I recognize in Corbin's work. His work is strongly "gnostic" and tackles areas that are most definitely unorthodox from both a Christian and Islamic point of view. Yet this is where I find myself.

I am not opposed to orthodoxy in either faith but I have a tendency to walk away from it. Lack of faith? Anti-authoritarian? When everyone knows good as good this is not good?

Perhaps it is the intellectual stimulation, the buzz, the tendency to isolate, to be alone with my thoughts.

I don't know but it's where my journey has been taking me as of late...

Henry Corbin and Hakim Bey

Seems that traditional religion isn't cutting it. Not knocking traditional religion but I am bored by it. Sure you get out of it what you put into it. Fine. But the muttness approach to religion has led me to this middle ground, the interstitial, that place where they all merge yet are all very much different, both the same and not the same. It was here where I stumbled across Henry Corbin's works via Peter Lamborn Wilson's Sacred Drift. I found this book in a second hand bookstore (now closed thanks to B&N moving in...) and picked it up because it had "Essays on the Margins of Islam" as the secondary title. It has since become one of my favorite books, with pages dog eared, passage after passage underlined, so much so that most passages are underlined. I began seeing religion in a different light.

Wilson references Corbin's works in regards Ismailism, y'know, the Assassins (which, he notes, does not come from the same word as 'hashish' but from...). Corbin's Cyclical Time and Ismaili Gnosis, placing three very dense articles into one book, is a mind blower. It is so dense that I continue to revisit it and my brain is still turned to mush trying to tackle it. It's usually only after I quit thinking that it begins to sink in.

But Corbin's work takes those interstitial regions where I find myself and he breaks them open, like the physicist in search of the Higgs boson (the so-called 'God' particle) zipping particles around a particle accelerator, bursting them apart into smaller and smaller bits, deeper and deeper into areas that border on the fringe of non-existence, ethereal, almost mystical in nature.

I'm not talking about the Dancing Wu Li Masters hippy-dippy stuff. I'm talking about that place where it is elusive yet you can almost feel it but the senses fail, the intellect fails and some other form of 'knowing' takes over. It is perhaps intuitive in the sense that years and years of deep seeking have provided a heightened sensitivity to answers that the ordinary mind will miss.

You can't just intuit such things (though you may get temporary glimpses unrecognizable to the unprepared mind/soul). No there is much training, much disicpline, much to build up and, at the same time, lay aside in order to make the mind/soul fertile for such experience when it comes. And it will come.

Corbin's work and, to a lesser degree, Wilson's work (his is much more fun as he embraces those acts of faith deemed hertical with reckless abandon), provides fertile soil to help prepare one's mind/soul for these experiences, even within traditional religious practice but, in general, at that place where mere religion fails to satisfy, when one must journey on alone, beyond the bounds of those things that have traditionally kept us both safe and bound.

Ecclesiastes = a backslidden Solomon?

WTF? I heard that today in church. That seems to be standard fare in evangelical circles. It seems to me that comes from the vantage point of a happy place, as if Solomon, assuming, for the sake of argument, the claims of his authorship, is depressed. If you ask me, he isn't depressed at all. He is simply aware of what many an invidiual who has searched deep into life's mysteries has realized - it is all for naught. And this is far from a negative thing to those who have discovered this. It is liberation.

Perhaps it is due to the influence of the Dao in my life but I see Ecclesiastes as the Biblical version of the DDJ. It isn't depressing; it is accurate. Solomon need not have been backslidden. It would seem to me that the liberation I find in the book comes from my backslidden state. That would make me "backslidden" because I share the very same philosohpy expressed in that book. And I don't believe Solomon wrote it. I believe, like most of the Bible, it is a repository of a community's cumulative spiritual knowledge.

Ok, so it's not the live-in-denial happinesss of the gated communities of suburbia kind. It isn't the hyperemotionalism of the charismatic folks. It isn't the superspiritual favorite of the mystic. It isn't the hyperrevelation of the prophets. In fact, from the point of view of the extremes it is rather bland. There is nothing extreme about it. Perhaps that's why it is viewed as such by those in evangelical circles who, by and large, seek extremes.

That's probably why I like it. It's really a book about the need to get out of self and so much of church today is all about self.

Numb to Christmas this year...

I've never really been into Christmas that much. As a young child I was. I remember leaving my uncle's house hearing sleigh bells in the sky as Santa's sleigh was near. I'd watch Rudolph and all the cartoon specials with a sparkle in my eyes affixed to the television. Something happened, though, and as I got older, I became less interested in Christmas. For the past few years it's been more of an aggravation than anything. However, I would get pissed off, going the opposite of the joy I felt as a kid.

This year it's different. I'm pretty much near indifferent. It could be because, by and large, the television remains off and I rarely listen to the radio. It's a lot easier to tune out Internet advertising with pop-up blockers and whatnot. I canceled my newspaper subscription because I didn't feel like dealing with twenty pounds of ads. I'm relatively insulated from the barrage of advertising. Perhaps the only real reminder is all the crap in the stores and the traffic. I went out for Saturday morning coffee the day after Black Friday and turned around and came home before even getting into the parking lot.

I'm not a Scrooge. No, that requires too much emotional import. I've become more of a hermit. I can't say I'm sagelike as there is no "spiritual" meaning behind what I'm doing. I'm not anti-Christmas, anti-consumer, anti-commercialism. That takes too much work. I'm just doing my best to ignore it all.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the family time and there is a certain amount of peace and nostalgia that surrounds the season. There is joy to be found.

But even church can be annoying in this regard, hocking their wares, calling it Jesus' birthday rather than Christmas, the obligatory manger scenes plastered all over town in their various degrees of plasticity (we have one nursing home that actually brings in a live camel) and those well meaning Christians who fight every year to keep the 'Christ' in Christmas.

Jesus wouldn't care. He was Jewish.

Been a while...

Amazing how quickly a month can pass.

Part of the reason is that I have become disinterested in spiritual debate. Too much Zen perhaps? It simply doesn't interest me right now. I'm currently "translating" the Dao De Jing, something I've dabbled in for well over ten years now. I put together a spiral bound version that contains six or seven of the more popular translations per each of the 81 chapter headings. It's a couple hundred pages thick. It's a nice instant reference but it isn't as good as taking the time to try and understand the Chinese original.

I can't speak Chinese. I know enough about Chinese to find characters in a dictionary and some of the more common characters I can recognize and sometimes recall some definitions. So I have a functional knowledge of the language. I understand radicals and how characters combine to make other characters. As I continue "translating" based on working with the Chinese my knowledge gets a little deeper and I see how the other translations came to be.

So lately my focus has been on the Dao De Jing. As I continue to work on it, I continue to see its truths operating around me. It isn't a mystical book at all, something escapist, revealing some esoteric truths. It's quite earthy. Anything "esoteric" truths are only so in their obviousness. As the DDJ notes, people prefer the byways. Yet what is obvious is right in front of us and can seem quite awe inspiring because it has been there all along.

So those who tend to romanticize or exoticize "eastern" religions do so in an escapist fashion. In other words, doing this is an act of self not necessarily something inherent in the religious tradition. Even the Biblical faith works this way. The deeper into it one goes, the more one should realize that it is quite practical, quite earthy and, thus, deep. It is not some "out there" religious mysticism. No, mysticism, its mystery, is in its application in the real world, not in being deep or some guru-like being.

So where am I today? Quite here and now. Drinking my ridiculously large Boo Koo energy drink, typing away on a blog that no one reads, listening to some really interesting music through my iPod Shuffle connected to some Bose Triport headphones while at work at 5:15 a.m. How is this a spiritual act? Maybe it's the caffeine but it seems that lately all of life has been infused with a spirituality I've not noticed before. It isn't anything soul shaking or mind bending. It just kind of is. It is this is-ness that is the essence of spirituality, reality as it is. Stand back and look at it. See it for what it is. Don't label it, don't try to read into it, don't try to bend it to your own sense of understanding. Just bask in it.

Abandoned buildings...

Labor Day weekend. Rode my bike down to the river. This is not the park, mind you. Too busy. Too many people. No privacy. No, this is down into the former steel mill properties, where remnants of the former industrial heyday still remain, mostly buried, mostly hidden. Across the bridge, down the small industrial road, following the tracks left by off-road vehicles. These are not hidden spots, just not frequented by masses of people. Locals know of these spots but even then they are not regular hang-outs. There are always remains of visitors, usually beer or soda cans, sometimes remnants of a fire pit, often clothing or shoes (though these sometimes wash downriver and end up on shore), but always some indication that this is not virgin territory.

As I've never been there, the thrill of discovery spurs me on, my bike providing much more freedom than an auto which attracts way too much attention. I bike is more innocuous and is easier to hide, thus providing the freedom of not having to return to a car. A bicycle cannot be easily traced. So the paths lead me down to an abandoned, rusting, hulk of a railroad bridge, covered in vines, trees cloaking much of its frame, a black colored rust its primary color. Further on down I find nature in full splendor, a gurgling river, geese and butterflies, plenty of rocks aligning the shore, allowing me to sit and take it in, the sun beating down warmly on my body.

It's a spiritual catharsis as I know I won't be bothered. No one will be coming down here so the thought doesn't enter my mind. I can let go. The difficulty comes in attempting to be still. I don't have a camera so the tendency to move and snap lots of pictures isn't present. It is thus easier to remain still. And it takes a while. It takes time. I still feel the need to go, to move, to explore, to avoid sitting still. There's a part of me that feels this whole activity is forced, that it's all a ploy, that I really want to take photos and be given attention for my "discovery" of the beauty in the ruins, that somehow I still need validation for these activities.

Yet there is a part of me that thrives in the isolation, that longs to be there and stay, away from people, away from the daily grind, away from responsibility, away from the havoc that men bring upon the earth (a havoc, I myself would inevitably do were I to stay). I bask in the silence.

But the catharsis comes. I feel it. And it comes in this most unusual spot. It isn't church, it isn't a designated park, a space where we are confined to remain within the trails. It's a bit more raw, less restricted and, I suppose, there is a trace of rebellion (though that isn't really my motive). I don't even fear being caught trespassing. I revel in the freedom the bike brings, the freedom in the power to move my bicycle, the freedom of the wind in my face, the freedom of the space, the freedom of nature, the freedom of being hidden from the rest of the world, no eyes watching, no signs posted, no rules to be enforced. It opens the door to the 'emptiness' that enables a spiritual encounter.