Today...

Sunday. Another 32 hour shift over the course of 56 hours. Yes, that is correct. But it's work that enables me to think, write, listen to music, blog, and watch movies. Cushy, eh? Doesn't pay a living wage and is a job that supplements my "real" job so it isn't so great. I'd rather have the free time but am grateful that in terms of having to supplement my income it's a good gig.

I happened to stumble across articles on two controversial figures in the Christian world, Juanita Bynum and Paula White. I run in circles where they are quite popular; in fact, Ms. Bynum was featured at a recent conference at our former church.

The troubling thing is that the "Jesus" she represents seems to have taken a back seat to her claims of being a prophetess, actress and motivational speaker.  Ditto Paula White.  I've heard Ms. Bynum speak at conferences.  The woman is a powerhouse.  But...
 
I obviously can't speak for their personal lives (and from what I can tell their lives, like all of our lives, have faced turmoil, moreso being in the public eye) but I can tell you that folks in the "outside" world, if they pay any attention at all, would not be able to distinguish them too much from other motivational speakers with a religious, even Christianized, slant.

It used to really bother me. Now I really don't care so much.

I feel this way about a lot of things that used to trouble me. Doctrine. Biblical criticism. Celebrity preachers. Prosperity preachers. Creation scientists. Christian enclaves. Megachurches. Christian-y entertainment that is just imitation of the "world" with a Christian stamp.

I'm not better than any of that. Not at all. But I've reached a place where it just isn't my focus. Perhaps it has to do with the responsibilities of life and the realization that all of these things come with the luxury of time. In other words, all of the above manifest in societies of privilege.

I suppose that many significant changes start from the "top" down so this isn't to say these are bad things. It's just important to keep them in perspective. It's a luxury to be able to sit here - at work - and write down thoughts that most people will never see.

From where I sit, listening to John Tavener's "The Protecting Veil" on a pair of Bose Quietcomfort 15 headphones while at work, contemplating, googling, researching, I am one of those privileged souls. I don't want to be ungrateful. I just need help in keeping it in perspective because sometimes it can be difficult to see outside the cocoon in which we live.

All that really matters is seeking the presence, the very realy presence, of Jesus in and through me. If the above can help me in this regard they are beneficial. But if these things become idols to which I bow, they need to go.

I am terrestrial, tasting of the things of the world, enjoying them, longing to find the divine through them. Absent are those days of soaring lyrical words, of soaring intellectual revelations, of soaring spiritual highs. However, this is not a dark night of the soul either. This is the middle ground: this is life, no future, no past, just right now.

Breakfast

Red Bull is all hype.



More caffeine than a Starbucks venti coffee.

Pray for me.

Before and after events...

We all have those moments where we measure time as before and after an event. Some are more significant than others. I'm not really talking about such things as having children, losing your virginity or even getting your driver's license.

No, I'm talking about things like dropping acid for the first time, the first time you heard music that ripped your soul out or various religious or spiritual experiences, perhaps being baptized or taking the shahada, those moments that changed the way you viewed the world.

I was fortunate enough to have one of those moments today, this one of a religious nature. Often they come in the strangest of ways and places. I haven't been doing anything overly "spiritual" as of late though I do believe in the Zen-like idea of being present as a form of spirituality, something I've always struggled with actually doing.

I have, however, been intensely focused on several daily facts of life: budgeting, doing the dishes and work, primarily the latter, the other two primarily focusing or grounding rituals. I currently work in a labor job, not exactly where I thought I'd be at 40 years old. However, the diversity of experience of my career path and, especially, the diversity of duties at my current occupation in a stamping and tool and die facility keeps it from being truly monotonous. And I'm grateful to be employed.

After a 25% wage cut several months ago, being taken from salary to hourly, the pendulum has swung and I've been reaping the benefits of an hourly wage as we've been working 10-hour days, five and six days a week for the past few weeks. Add to that an extra 16 to 24 hours at job two on the weekend, my weekly log has been ranging from 56 to 80 hours at work per week.

Between working, sleeping and eating there isn't time for too much else. It would seem that the most "spiritual" thing I do all week is an hour and a half at church once a week. However, as with most things, it is our attitude that determines what comes of a situation.

Recently, I've been running a laser cutter to make special parts for a project slated to start in the next few weeks. It takes upwards of three minutes per part to cut so after prepping I have roughly two minutes of dead time. I could sit and stare or watch the cutting or do nothing. As I learned a long time ago, always have reading material at your disposal. I often choose the longest line at the grocery store and pick up a magazine to read. Very Zen.

So I have on hand Henry Corbin's The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism. Seriously. I've been on a Henry Corbin kick lately; well, not lately, as I've immersed myself in his works more and more over the years. This isn't your mother's comparative religious studies. When you read his stuff you will really see how religious ideas are transmitted through history. His writing is dense and packs a whallop, ideas and concepts and terms coming at you at rapid speed, the kind of writing where one chapter can take you days to digest. The work is hard and requires effort but when that 'aha!' moment comes it borders on ecstasy.

Ecstasy. At work. So in between parts I'm reading this book and, having begun to make sense of his works after reading Cyclical Time and Ismaili Gnosis for about the fourth or fifth time, it is becoming more and more clear. I've tried to read Man of Light book before but it just didn't make sense. Suddenly, today, at work, running a laser machine, I began having one epiphany after another. Here, in this book, in words, is a clear exposition of where I've been but haven't been able to put into word. It was a moment, though certainly not in as glorious a setting, that paralleled another 'aha!' moment whereby everything changed.

To put it into words, of course, is a struggle. Over the past few years, as I've wrestled with the Jesus question, I've begun to have visions and ideas about who he is, one recurring them being that Jesus is who we are. He is a mirror into which we see ourselves and through which we see who God is. He is, in essence, our truest self. As we journey through life he is there, from the highest highs and the lowest lows, from heaven to hell, he is there, leading us on and up.

I can quote some Scripture that would seem to verify this view but for some reason the "sense" I get in the various churches we have attended is that worship of him is not this. The sense I get in church is that he is "other" than us, even though he lives in us through the Spirit, and our worship of him is because he is the Other. I get that and don't disagree. Yet I can't seem to shake the feeling that he is somehow who we truly are. He is that Figure we all seek.

He is to some degree the repository of all our hopes and dreams and ideas of perfection, of who and what truth is, the best of man accumulated into a corporate view of this Figure of Jesus. Yet he remains somehow objective and reflects back to us the truth of our attempts at projecting onto him our own views of truth.

And as a Figure he continues to grow in me. I can't help but think my trajectory is beginning to leave the traditional bounds of Christianity. This doesn't make me "mystical" (a tag that has become cliche and void of content) or somehow better or different than anyone. My biggest fear is to find myself immersed in the "all relgions are the same" stew of religious gobbledygook where Man is the measure of all things and I sound like I'm shlepping New Age Amway.

This is perhaps the reason why I'm drawn to those religious scholars where the fancy letters after their names, though they certainly have them, are not touted as somehow giving them clout. The intellectual rigor and 'spirit' that bursts forth from their words speaks for itself. Henry Corbin is one of those scholars. Read his works and then read many of modern apologetic or comparative religious works today and you will notice the difference. There really is no comparison.

Perhaps it is my addictive, obsessive self longing for unique, for attention, for "mine". But, truly, I want to know who he is. It is the fundamental question for a Christian. And many of the answers in today's Christian landscape lacks depth. This is perhaps why I have always been drawn to the study of other religious traditions.

I enjoy the church we attend. It's "earthy" and practical and simple. The core focus is love. This is not the wishy washy kind of love but the hard stuff, dying to self. However, while it helps balance out my overly analytical view of the world, it leaves my intellect longing. The simple "Jesus is the only way" approach doesn't mean much to me. If he is the only way, then, as Christians, the issue isn't about being right but displaying why. In the meantime, I still passionately study other faith traditions. It highlights what is unique (and not uniqe) to Christianity yet keeps my spiritual worldview broad. God's light shines in the strangest of places.

In reading Corbin today, it hit me hard. My leanings have become 'gnostic' in nature. My view is not uncommon and shares ground with the gnostics from all traditions through time. Corbin's Man of Light breaks down this Figure I've come to see in stunning detail. It came as a relief. The 'aha'!' moment was that in reading him he is explaining not only where I am but where I am going.