Results tagged “God” from Marilyn Sewell

On Oct. 8, a self-styled spiritual leader named James Arthur Ray led participants through a two-hour sweat-lodge ceremony in Sedona, CA, a ceremony which was supposed to be a rebirthing exercise.  Many began vomiting or passing out during the ordeal, and by the end of the ceremony, twenty-one people had to be taken to hospitals by emergency crews, and three died. (NY Times, 10/22/09, pp. 1 and A4)

The sweat-lodge ceremony was part of a five-day "Spiritual Warrior" event. Participants were required to spend 36 hours in the desert without food or water, on a "vision quest," followed by a light breakfast and then the sweat-lodge ceremony.  According to one participant, Ted Schmidt, some people left and others wanted to leave, but Ray "was very intimidating" and discouraged people from leaving.  Ray told participants, "Play full on, you have to go through this barrier." 

Who is James Arthur Ray, anyway?  Based in Carlsbad, CA, Ray is a new-age guru with a company called James Ray International, which made $9.4 million in 2008 from various seminars, videos, and books.  Ray drew a lot of attention from his appearance in the popular film "The Secret," which focused on reaching goals, both personal and financial.  The Spiritual Warrior event cost participants $9,695.

Seemingly undaunted by the deaths in Sedona, Ray continued to provide spiritual leadership at events.  At a seminar in Denver this past Tuesday, he was interrupted by two men who shouted, "Tell them the truth!" and "You control poeple!  You stood in front of the door and refused to let people leave!"  Ray responded by saying, "I, too, want answers and am cooperating with authorities."  He then asked for a moment of silent prayer for those who had died.

That such an tragedy should have happened is reprehensible.  Ray is responsible for these deaths, and I feel certain that he will be charged with some variation or other of homicide.  But the larger question that remains with me is, why did so many people ever allow this travesty to occur?  To answer this question, we must explore the present state of the human psyche, and try to understand why so many people are rendered so vulnerable so much of the time. 

There is not space in this weekly reflection to go into the depth needed to properly explore the answer to my question, of course, but given such a restriction, I want to suggest some ways of thinking about this phenomenon that has occurred:

(1) People in contemporary time have lost their god, and they suffer from the fear and emptiness of that loss.  They have substituted bread and circuses, but have found these lacking, ultimately.

(2) Many people are desperately looking for answers to their emptiness and the lack of meaning in their lives, and they will follow almost anyone who promises to give them answers.  They fail to look for something as simple as credentials.

(3) People are social creatures who will "follow the crowd" in spite of the evidence of their own flesh to the contrary. (Contrary to Ray, vomiting and fainting are not signs of spiritual healing.)  And they will follow the authority figure.

(4) Many people believe that if you pay a lot of money for something, it will be worth a lot, failing to evaluate an experience for its intrinsic worth.  One of the first signs of corruption in a spiritual leader is the high price (money and sometimes sex, always strict obedience) they  require from their followers. 

(5) It is easier for people to project wisdom and goodness upon a leader than to find it within themselves. 

(6) It is easy for any spiritual leader who gains a following to begin to believe his own PR--and that is a spiritual dead-end.  It's fine to seek help from a spiritual leader, but try to recognize one when you see one.  They should manifest the qualities of humility, peace, compassion, and justice-seeking instead of self-seeking.  They should be reality-based, living on this good, green earth and not in some imagined realm someplace else.

This incident makes me so sad for all of us, for our longing to be whole, for our wish to give ourselves to something greater than ourselves, for our genuine need for rebirth.  Makes me feel like the Catcher in the Rye.

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In institutional affairs, as well as in affairs of the heart, we do well to "speak the truth, in love."  This promise was part of the covenant which ministers typically make when they are installed in a church.  It is not an easy covenant to keep.  Leaders of all kinds of institutions tend to think that fudging the truth from time to time will keep the institution stable and whole; they tend to believe that transparency is just threatening.  Well, truth-telling is messy, yes, but necessary--necessary for the integrity of an institution, and necessary for its long-term viability and strength. And it must be done in love.  That's the clincher. 

Romantic partners also tend to shy away from truth-telling.  We will hold back our true feelings, even deny these feelings altogether, in the name of holding onto the "togetherness"--or at least the peace of the household.  But this denial of our own emotional reality never works.  As one friend once reminded me, "The unconscious always wins."  So we push those hurt feelings under, over and over again, and then all of a sudden we lash out--or worse than that, we just decide we don't want to be with this person any longer.  We may not even know why.  For some reason, we just don't like ourselves when we are with this partner. 

In affairs of state, the same principle holds: speak the truth, with respect and compassion.  President Obama beautifully illustrated how this might be done in his speech in Cairo, on June 4.  In a world in which posing and posturing are the order of the day, resulting in seemingly endless hostilities and shameful human loss, Obama simply said: "So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, and who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity.  This cycle of suspicion and discord must end. I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world . . . ."

Obama doesn't skirt the specifics: the Arab world heard about extremism, about nuclear arms programs, about a poor record in human rights.  On the other hand, Obama spoke with equal passion about the suffering of the Palestinians due to the Israeli occupation, about the injustice of Israeli settlements in the occupied territory.  He quoted from the Holy Koran (a holy scripture rarely heard by U.S. citizens): "Be conscious of God and speak always the truth."  He went on to say that he will try "to speak the truth as best I can, humbled by the task before us . . . ."

Obama is showing the world--and most especially his own country--what leadership is all about.  He may not be able to heal the ages-old rift between Palestinians and Jews--which after all, goes back all the way to Jacob and Esau--but the truth of his words moved people all over the world, ordinary people who understand on a very viseral level that violence multiplies upon itself and that peace makes possible lives of hope and prosperity, for us and for our children and for our children's children.

Courage is required to speak the truth, whether it's in regard to institutions, or intimate relationships, or foreign affairs.  There are always those who are ready to condemn, or to take advantage of any weakness shown.  But the fact is that there is health in the truth, and people are drawn to health when it is given as an alternative.  Honesty has a way of opening up possibility, because a clean field emerges where previously obfuscation made everything blurry and confusing. 

Yes, truth-telling takes courage, but when it's done for the right reason and when it's done in love, it leads to new life.  Ways open that have been shut.  Dreams that never could be imagined suddenly appear. Nothing seems impossible.

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This morning David Kellerman, 41, Acting CFO of mortgage giant Freddie Mac, was found dead, an apparent suicide.  Freddie Mac has been harshly criticized for financing risky loans that are now defaulting.  The company was also under fire for planning to pay more than $210,000,000 in bonuses to their executives, to give them incentives to stay.  Kellerman, who had taken over when the former CEO had been relieved of his duties, was responsible for 500 employees and was working on the current financial report at the time of his death.  He leaves behind a wife and a five-year-old daughter, Grace.

Why did Kellerman kill himself?  Was it the many points of pressure?  Was in shame, for being involved in what he knew were slight-of-hand loan deals?  Was it some illegal act that is yet to be uncovered?  There will be an investigation.  There will be follow-up articles.  But we may never know the truth.  He himself may not have fully understood the demons which pushed him to take his life.

But the question before us is: what's worth dying for?  Making a mistake--even a big one--is not worth dying for.  Doing something that you are ashamed of--that's not worth dying for, either.  Trying to live up to others' expectations and failing--that's not worth dying for, either.

What is worth dying for?  To save the life of another, perhaps.  To make justice.  To go against the powers that be, when the powers are corrupt and evil.  These are things worth dying for.  We remember those who have done so: the firemen of 9/11; soldiers who lay down their lives for their comrades or for their country; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Archbishop Romero; journalists who are murdered for writing the truth about crooked political leaders.

But suicide?  No.  It is always, always, always possible to start over when you make a mistake, or when you do wrong.  Forgiveness is always an option.  If it were not, which one of us could keep going, with our more or less constantly besmirched lives?  We all "fall short of the glory of God," as my saintly grandmother used to say.  We can say, "I was wrong.  I'm sorry."  And we can start over.  Every day, in fact.

The one who commits suicide just "wants out," because the pain is so great, and that person cannot see an end to the suffering.  Many of us feel that intensity of pain at one time or another.  But depression can be cured, pain will end, and life turns round.  Dear reader, if you're ever considering suicide, remember that. 

It is sad beyond words when a little five-year-old is left without a father--and answerless questions that will last a lifetime.  Suicide colors so many lives, and for so long: a wife left alone; fellow workers asking, "Why?"; friends blaming themselves and saying, "I should have called . . . ." 

 Sometimes it takes courage just to keep going, just to get up every morning and face the day.  But there is no honorable alternative, for it's not just your own life--you belong to all of us.  We are all diminished when any one person takes his life.

We are irrevocably connected, the one with the other.  Stay with us, brother.  Hang in there, sister.  Together, we can find a way through anything. 

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A new study by the American Religious Identification Survey has shown a sharp decrease in the number of people who claim to be religious.

--the number of people who call themselves Christian is at 76%, down from 86% in 1990

--30% of couples who marry do not bother to have a religious ceremony

--when asked to speciify their religion, 8.2% said "none" in 1990; in this study, 15% said "none"

So what's the deal?  Have people given up on God?

I think people have given up on the kind of religion that they see in the media.  Almost every story about contemporary religion is about fundamentalist religion, and almost every story has to do with some scandal or some abuse of the cloth or some terrible lie or some hypocrisy--or just some nonsense that people who have gone beyond the fifth grade find difficult to respect--like God made the earth in 7 days. 

I have been to the Hall of Justice in the State of Alabama and seen in the rotunda the huge boulder inscribed with the Ten Commandments, plus quotations from our alleged "Christian" founding fathers (it has, thankfully, removed).  I have talked with the creationist who explained that her mentor has 2 large stones on which are pictured dinosaurs and humans, proving therefore that dinosaurs and humans roamed the earth at the same time.  I have seen on TV the woman who says that God brought her dead chicken back to life, through prayer and mouth-to-beak resuscitation.  I have been confounded by the Ph.D. theology professor who told me that Gandhi was in hell because "he did not accept Jesus as his Lord and Savior."

Worse than this, I have seen my gay and lesbian church members fear for their safety because they have been told they are sinners and less than whole by fundamentalist Christians.  I have known Catholic "good old boy" church bureaucrats that have sent priest sex offenders from parish to parish, to molest other children.  I have known people crippled with guilt, running from God, because they had been told they were bad and were going to hell.  And now the latest: the Pope has denounced the use of condoms in Africa to prevent AIDS.  He added that he was bringing  "the Christian message of hope." 

The way I read the New Testament, Jesus is all about love and tolerance, compassion and forgiveness.  How did so many Christians go so wrong?  Are they reading the same Bible I am?

Of course, there are liberal religious people--like Unitarian Universalists and many liberal Christians.  If we got a little more press, perhaps religion wouldn't have such a bad name.  At least I would like to think so.  God is obviously a liberal--who could be more bounteous, generous, beneficent, caring, more lavish, prodigal, profuse, and charitable? 

Why are people giving up on church?  Because church has given up on them.  Churches of whatever name or theological persuasion had better get back to the core message.  It's the shortest verse in the Bible, and it's pretty simple: "God is love."

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Apparently the Catholic hierarchy--Pope Benedict, in particular--is bringing back indulgences (NY Times 2/10).  This is big news, because they have been out of favor since the Mother Church was selling them to some profit back in the 16th century, setting off the wrath of reformer Martin Luther and fostering the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.

Just what are indulgences, anyway?  The name gives us some hint.  It works this way: Catholics can commit sins, go to confession, but still have to do time in that unpleasant in-between-place, Purgatory, which is sort of a way-station to heaven, after you've paid your dues with enough suffering for said sins.  To avoid this stop, you can say certain prayers, make certain devotions, or go on certain pilgrimages--such will keep you safe until you commit another sin, which is almost certain to happen, knowing ourselves as we do. You can also reduce purgatorial time for dead people--but as one baffled Catholic complained, "What does it mean to get time off in Purgatory?  What is five years in terms of eternity?"  Good point.

Why are indulgences coming back into favor now?  Well, sin is out of favor these days.  People just "make mistakes."  Or have "dysfunctional families."  If only every child were given milk and cookies at bedtime, there would be no such thing as evil, many secularists believe.  Instead of going to a priest, we go to a psychiatrist--or if money is short in the current economic downturn, we check out a self-help book from the library.  Without sin, of course, there can be no repentence.  (And no real need for confession or indulgences, of course.)

I see the point.  I'm for sin, myself--that is, I believe we all commit them.  And repentence is a good thing.  But personal sins, which seem to be the focus of confession and indulgences, pale in the face of systemic sins, like war, hunger, and the lack of health care (for starters).  Just think about the systemic sins of the bankers and investment firms!  How many prayers or piltrimages would it take to wipe out these sins?  It boggles the mind.  Of course, the Church allows "charitable contributions" to count toward indulgences as well (presumably, to the Church, among other worthy organizations), so perhaps some of the TARP money could go for that.

According to the article in the Times, Portland, Oregon, is one of the locations where the Church has enthusiastically offered indulgences this year.  For those looking for an alternative, I would like to counter with the Universalist view of "universal salvation," in which we posit a God who is too good to send anyone to a burning lake of fire for eternity--or even for a few thousand years to Purgatory.  We believe that hell is what we make for ourselves right here on this earth, when we separate ourselves from God and from one another. 

Like the Catholics, we also take contributions.  But we don't guarantee heaven.  Our God doesn't do deals.  Sorry. 

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On the front page of the NY Times today is a picture of three S.U.V's--great white behemoths--sitting on the altar of Greater Grace Temple, a Pentecostal church in Detroit. Worshipers--including hundreds who work in the automobile industry--are surrounding the vehicles, some with upraised hands in supplication, asking for the miracle that it would take to save their companies.  Officials from the United Automobile Workers union were invited to speak at the service, followed by a sermon by Bishop Charles H. Ellis III, entitled "A Hybrid Hope."  (The S.U.V.'s were all gas-electric hybrids on loan from various dealerships.)

Well, I guess that's the way we usually run our lives--we screw up, and then we beg God to DO SOMETHING and bail us out.  Really, God, I'll never hit my little brother again, I promise!  When do we grow up and begin to take some responsibility for the consequences of our actions? 

Let's talk about General Motors, the biggest baddest auto company.  G.M.'s chief executive, Rick Wagoner, earlier chastened and turned away by Congress, upon his return testified   that "G.M. has made mistakes in the past."  Wagoner named three of those mistakes: agreeing to expensive union contracts, not investing in smaller cars, and failing to convert plants so the company could build more than one kind of vehicle.

But G.M.'s biggest failing, according to some analysts, is the company's refusal to invest in innovation and to support those inside the company who were pushing the company to innovate.  Instead, they allowed the finance executives to carry the day, the guys in the company who were more interested in short-term returns on investment than in making products appropriate for the 21st century.  Their excuse?  "We were giving the public what they wanted."  Well, yes, by pushing hugely expensive ads and lobbying Congress to set fuel standards criminally low.  And the result of taking this direction?  Inflated stock values for investors and fat checks for executives.  Oh, and yes, now bankruptcy.

Let's talk about leadership, shall we?  When a person leads a business or an institution of any kind, that individual should consider his position as a sacred trust.  People will be depending upon that leader for their livelihood, and the company itself must remain not only viable but trustworthy, in the eyes of the public.  It is a public trust of sorts.  Of course a company must make a good profit in order to flourish, but the core mission of the company should never be solely to make a profit.  The core mission should include creating the best possible product for the most number of people at the lowest cost to them and to the environment, while ensuring that the line workers are respected and compensated apporopriately. 

The problem with G.M is a values problem, not a business mistake. Their executives went after the money, disregarding environmental issues and the quality of their product.  A business mistake can be rectified--but a values problem?  That will be more difficult to deal with.  I would suggest that a good beginning might be for Congress to insist that the current executives be relieved of their positions.  These are the leaders who made the decisions that fattened their own wallets and ran the company into the ground.  The leopard has shown its spots.  Should we now trust them with billions more?

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In 1630, before even the ship landed for the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Gov. John Winthrop spoke to his people, setting forth a noble mission for the brave little group.  He said, in part: ". . . for wee must Consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill, the eies of all people are uppon us: soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our god in this worke wee have undertaken and soe cause him to withdrawe his present help from us, wee shall shame the faces of many of gods worthy servants, and cause theire prayers to be turned into Cursses upon us till wee be consumed out of the good land whither wee are going . . . .  But if our heartes shall turne away soe that wee will not obey, but shall be seduced and worship . . . other Gods, our pleasures, and proffitts, and serve them . . . wee shall surely perishe out of the good Land whither wee passe over this vast Sea to possess it.  Therefore lett us choose life . . ."

Our founders, imperfect as they were, saw themselves in a holy covenant with God.  They were to set an example, in this new country, a country that would become a shining light to all nations.  They would not work for their own welfare and enrichment, but for the good of the all.  They would not live chiefly for earthly profits, but would seek spiritual wholeness in this Promised Land.

What we are seeing now in the present financial crisis is the logical and inevitable result of the breaking of that covenant with the Holy.  We have seen individual profit--greed, if you will--taking precedence over the good of the community in our country's two most powerful arenas: government and business, which have worked so closely together as to be almost inseparable.  The system is rotten at the core.  It has been for some time.  Now all has been revealed.

So what is going to happen?  Unless the people rise up and demand reform, demand that this country change its nefarious ways of plunder and empire-building, we will go under economically, and we will likely drag the rest of the world with us.  Perhaps we need to enter our version of the "Great Depression" before the light bulb turns on, and we discover we have a serious, serious spiritual problem.  You see, spiritual problems always seem unimportant to the secular mind--until one understands that this is the relational ground we all come from, and when it cracks and shatters, we are lost.

God help us.  And I mean that, in the most literal sense.

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This past Sunday I did my Q&A Sunday service, entitled "What's It All About, Alfie?" for the 12th year.  Congregants wrote questions--way more than I could possibly answer--(1) on theological issues, (2) on Unitarian Universalism, (3) on thorny problems of living, and (3) on my personal/spiritual life.  At the time I introduced the program, I said that I would try to respond to the unanswered questions on my blog--but the sheer volume is going to prevent that.  So I have decided that I will respond to four of the most compelling questions from each group.  It will be difficult for me to choose only sixteen, because the questions were of such high quality, and virtually all interested me.  But alas, time is limited, and I could lose myself for weeks in all these questions--so here goes on a few of them.  I'll do the theological questions first.

THEOLOGICAL ISSUES

Question: "Who is God?  How do you reconcile defining something that can't really be defined?"

Answer: God is only the most common name for that which we cannot name.  Many other names are used, including Beloved, Holy One, the Sacred, the Great Mystery. Sometimes when I pray I begin, "One Whose Name I Cannot Know."  We should understand that all naming is merely metaphor, because we are dealing in mystery.  We cannot know or understand the Infinite with a mind that is finite, and so we make comparisons with what we do know.  I like Tillich's phrase "the ground of our being."  Buddhists, who are non-theistic, speak of reality itself. 

No one can prove or disprove the presence of God.  One chooses to believe or not--to take Kierkegaard's "leap of faith" or not.  I choose to believe.  I believe I am accountable to something greater than myself, though I cannot define or describe or label what that is.  Nevertheless, I have staked my life on it.

Question: "How can we understand the presence of evil in this world?"

Answer: This is the thorniest theological question of all time.  The closest answer I have found is in the Book of Job, when God answers Job's agonized questions with a series of questions of His own, beginning "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?"  In other words, you are not God, you cannot understand these mysteries, and since your cannot, you must simply live by faith."

Evil is horribly operative in our finite world, but I believe there is an infinite realm where it is not operative.  I speak of a spiritual dimension in which all is reconciled, a realm of perfection, or one might say, the mind of God.  Individuals sometimes have mystical moments in which we feel "all is as it should be" or "everything is perfect, just as it is."  I think in those moments we have dipped into that other world.  I think it is our true home.

Question: "What is the purpose of prayer?"

Answer: At one time in seminary I found myself in a spiritual fog, and my prayers seemed to go no higher than the ceiling.  I had heard of a wise Jesuit priest who sometimes counseled students, and so I went to see him and poured out my heart, and wept and wept.  He listened quietly.  And then he said, "Prayer is not about changing God.  Prayer is being with God."

I believe that prayer can take many different forms, but it is always the sincere outpouring of the heart.  Prayer is valuable because when you pray, any false note will become apparent, and so you will find your heart's own truth, a guide which will serve you well.  Prayer will help you focus on what is significant, will bring compassion as you pray for others.  Prayer will ground you as you go through your days, being pushed and pulled by so many competing forces. 

The scripture says, "Pray without ceasing."  In other words, we are admonished to go through our days with the understanding that we are essentially creatures of Spirit. 

Question: "How do we handle dark nights of the soul?"

Answer: We must understand that these times of disintegration and lostness come to all spiritual seekers, even the saints.  In fact, these low periods seem to be a natural and necessary part of the spiritual journey.  During these times, we cannot feel the comfort of our faith, and we seem to wonder whether there is any God or even any meaning to life itself.  It is from these times of radical doubting that the deepest faith is born.

How do we handle the times?  We accept them.  We descend into the dark and live there as long as we need to--while still carrying on our functioning in the world, though we may feel that we have become an empty shell.  We must allow the emptiness in order for the new growth to take place. 

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