Chocolate is my Heart,: metaphor and meaning.

Dream Catchers of Lexington

noreply@blogger.com (Paschal Baute) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:52:00 +0000

The Dream Catchers of Lexington is a group of Lexington Spellbinder storytellers dedicated to using storytelling to promote awareness of the dire situation of unsafe kids in Kentucky. Kentucky leads the nation in our record of child abuse.

We are members of the Spellbinder chapter of Lexington, trained storytellers who mostly perform in public schools. We have existed since 2004 as an organized group. The Lexington chapter is the second largest such group in the nation. We desire to use our talent and love of story and storytelling beyond our public school performances. We tall fold fairy tales and stories of all types.

This year we have chosen the M.A.S.H. program for Unsafe kids to promote Awarenesses of their work. M.A.S.H. Services of the Bluegrass, Inc. is a non- profit organization located at 536 & 540 West Third Street. These two historic houses provide a safe, home-like environment for runaway and homeless youth and youth awaiting placement in foster care, as well as those who access Safe Place services. The professional, trained staff in our after-school, street outreach, and emergency shelter programs provide basic necessities such as food and clothing. Enhanced services include crisis counseling, case management, transportation and youth development. All services are provided free of charge and are made possible by funding through United Way of the Bluegrass; Lexington Fayette Urban County Government; Cabinet for Health & Family Services; Kentucky Colonels; Keeneland Foundation; and other grants and private donations.

Donations from the community are necessary to continue providing for the basic needs of our most vulnerable youth.

INVITATIONS SOUGHT

We are seeking invitations from community organizations to perform, such as fraternal groups, churches, interest groups,. and other organizations of all types.
Currently our group includes Charlie Hardy, Charlie Eyer, Paschal the Rascal, Art Herman, Linda Kendrick and Ben Woodward.

Contact person to schedule DREAM CATCHERS IS Paschal Baute cell (859) 293-5302. F0r more information about M.A.S.H. telephone (859) 254-2501.

The usual time for one of the Dream Catchers performance is one to two hours. We ask no fee in advance.. But only permission to pass out literature on M.A.s.H. programs. If the organization permits, a collection might be made to M.A.S.H.

Our Brain is Porgrammed by and for metaphor.

noreply@blogger.com (Paschal Baute) — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 19:52:00 +0000

I am now retired from 40 years of psych0therapy and family therapy. It took me many years to discover that my excellent clinical training and later continuing education in multiple interventions modalities did not work well for many clients. Only in the last fifteen years, beginning in the late 1980s, did I discover the power of story to help clients change.

I learned only slowly that some were so caught up into the drama they were living and self-creating, that no rational approach could work. Like the parables of Jesus, only when I caught or created a story that enabled them to visualize another, better way, better outcome, could they choose to change. What a wake up call for an ancient and wounded warrior of tens of thousands of hours of professional listening.

Now we are in the presence of a stunning discovery of how the mind works that few psychologist have paid much if any attention to. Furthermore, this understanding of the workings of the mind has not yet reached many other fields, education and speech language pathology to name simply two.

It is as if we have had a new Galileo discovering that the earth is not the center of the universe, or a anew Einstein discovering than the universe is not static but expanding. Only a few have paid attention. Most professional care-givers and those who deal with the science of the mind seem oblivious of this new discovery of how the mind actually works. We are so inside the box, the bubble of our world view, that we cannot escape our previous assumptions.

The stunning discovery is that our brain is hard-wired for metaphor and story. Language is not simply the software program we learn to use through socialization and education. Language is not simply software. The human mind actually understands itself through metaphor and story. I was gently teasing my granddaughter, just turned five, about how much she was enjoying the chocolate milk shake I just bought her. She said, “Poppy, chocolate is my heart.” Now since there are no ch0coholics in her family, certainly not her mother, that was her how creation.

George Lakoff has discovered that the way we frame things to ourselves is through metaphors. That metaphors are inherent, part of the structure of the brain, the way the brain actually works. Take the seven great plots of story universally found by Christopher booker in his life work compendium, found across all culture. This suggests, astonishingly, that the brain is hardwired for stories of Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, The Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy, Tragedy, and Rebirth and Transformation.

Lakoff’s work suggests that there are not simply stories found out there that fascinate us. Rather our brain is already wired for these plots and crave the narrative content to make them come to life. If we are hard-wired for stories there must be a deep human need, evolutionary speaking, for adaptation and survival for the power of story. Yet in our schools and colleges, the narrative tradition have gotten short shrift in favor of technology and hard science. Perhaps the moral chaos of our times, with the immense dark challenges our world faces is due, in part of the absence of value options we learn through literature.

If our brain, as it seems to be, has a folk tale set that insists there is only one remedy to a particular problem, then we can never even entertained another possibility. One singular “God-view” can be rightly imposed on all others.

It is not even sufficient to say that we are hard-wired for story. It is more accurate to say that the human mind best understands itself through metaphor and story. That is, this is simply the way the mind works. Think of any of my groups of K through 3,4, 5. When I ask them if they are ready for a scarey story, every single hand shoots up immediately. That, I propose, is not accidental. It is so immediate and pervasive, that it shows how the brain works. There is inherent program that needs narrative to help them....do what, fee; safe. conceive options, whatever, does not mater. The point is that the craving for story narrative to fit that inherent need to Overcome the Monster is there already. Waiting for the story that can deeply satisfy that need. And if it is not scary enough, one of them is sure to tell you. Or beg for more.

Does this change our view of Spellbinder storytelling? I suggest that it actually does. We are not engaged in something merely entertaining. What we are contributing is a very vital part of the emotional, cognitive, and social development of children, and one, I suggest, that we can hardly over-estimate.

It is a real change in our view of ourselves to recognize that our brains are pre-programmed not only to need story to explain ourselves to ourselves, but also is ready to find and use parables for the same purpose. Lakoff shows that language is not simply something external that we learn to use, but that the strictures are already present ready to work.

This understanding can change the way we view education and any form of human change. My review of the literature suggests that few are paying attention. Because our brain works by means of metaphor, therefore we need narratives, metaphors, stories and parables to grow, to learn, to make value decisions and solve problems. We not only love stories, we crave stories to understand ourselves, to cope with and manage ourselves and our relationships. Voila!

Bring on the Spellbinders!

Paschal Baute. Ed. D.
Spellbinder,
Lexington, Ky

References.
Metaphors We Live by, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson
The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories. Christopher Booker.
See my website blog for research that went into this article.

Alice Walker,.author of The Color Purple talks about her medittation practices, spirituality, and the feminine presence of God to be found everywhere.

noreply@blogger.com (Paschal Baute) — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 00:55:00 +0000

Alice Walker has always known God. But she prefers terms like "Godness" and "Mama" to describe the divine—for her, it is everywhere, from the Japanese maples outside her window to the slow yoga she practices. Though her seven novels, including 1982's Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Color Purple," and many essays and poems have myriad themes—from feminism to race to class to love—a palpable sense of Mama's richness runs throughout. As well as fiery resistance to any force that attempts to control or contain this juicy, abundant, and ever-present divine.

In her most recent book, a collection of political, spiritual, and personal talks, essays, and meditations, "We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For: Inner Light in a Time of Darkness," she calls "The Color Purple," a "Buddha book that's not Buddhism." Recently, the 63-year-old author talked to Beliefnet about meditation, activism, and how we can all bless ourselves anytime, anywhere.

In which sense did you intend the word “meditations” below your new book's subtitle?

It’s political meditations. Politically, the world is so confused right now—there’s so much suffering caused by various movements by various parties and people in power in government. And many people are truly overwhelmed even thinking about politics and the environment and world affairs, so I wanted to offer thoughts on these, but I also wanted to give meditations after each section, because some of the information is a little difficult. A meditation eases that a bit.

How can people stay compassionate while still being knowledgeable and active?

There’s a saying that I appreciate a lot, which is "Knowing without doing is not to know." That seems to be where most of us live. We say, “Oh, I know that.” But if we don’t do anything about it, do we know it? I don’t think so. And so, part of practice for all of us now should be understanding what exactly we know, and the way we tell what exactly we know is to notice what we do.

How do you know that you’re knowing?

The last essay [in the book] is about being arrested in front of the White House in 2003 with these other wonderful women against the war. It was one of the happiest days of my life because I knew that I knew, and I knew that I knew that I hated war.

What kind of meditation do you practice?

All kinds. At one point I learned transcendental meditation. This was 30-something years ago. It took me back to the way that I naturally was as a child growing up way in the country, rarely seeing people. I was in that state of oneness with creation and it was as if I didn’t exist except as a part of everything. And that is where meditation can help you understand yourself.

What’s your meditation ritual?

Over the years it shifts. I used to meditate all the time in bed. That was when I was raising my daughter and I’d get her up and off to school, and then I would go back to bed, and meditate. And then I would do the same in the evening, and that was very good for that period because I had so many things to juggle as a single mother. But now, I can meditate walking by the ocean. I can actually meditate driving. Not when I’m in traffic, you’ll be happy to know.

At least not with your eyes closed.

No. I’m just saying that there are certain activities that lend themselves to the meditative state, and it was quite astonishing that driving happened to be one of them. I sometimes take long drives from here to Mendocino, which is north of Berkeley and when there is no traffic, it’s just amazingly meditative. And so, the whole point is basically to be in yourself, to not resist whatever needs to be worked on in yourself, to let that rise, to let it come and to look at it as closely as you can, and then let it go. And I sometimes say that meditation is like flossing your mind… you get rid of a lot of stuff that you actually don’t need to continue carrying around with you.

Do you also practice yoga?

I do. I met this man who recently sent me a whole instruction book and tape and everything about Yin Yoga. This one is just right for this time in my life. You concentrate on the inner parts of your body, like your bones, your tendons, not so much your muscles. And it is wonderful. You stay in each pose for five minutes. It seems like a long time, but it is so good because we get really cramped in our daily world.

You wrote in this book that "The Color Purple" was your Buddha book without being Buddhism. Can you explain that?

Well, Buddha was Prince Siddhartha and he lived in a castle. And one day he discovered suffering and old age and death. And then he decided to try to find a better way to deal with this.

Godness in 'The Color Purple'

"The Color Purple" is about theology. Many people assume that it’s about just about incest, wife abuse, spouse-beating; all of that is in there, but you will notice that the journey that Celie is making is toward her self-realization as a part of the entire Godness. Speaking of God as everything there is, was, ever will be.

When you close your eyes and tune into God, what do you see?

I don’t close my eyes. Why would I close my eyes? It’s everywhere. I mean it just is. What is this if it’s not God?

When She Was 13-Years-Old

Do you feel like your whole life you’ve had a sense of God in this way?

Yes. I do. In fact, when I was 13, I stopped going to church because I felt like they had taken this huge, amazing, incredible Godness and whittled it down to this tiny little thing that they stuck in the church every Sunday when people were too tired really to listen, and fell asleep because they were exhausted from still being slaves, basically.

And I wanted, and I insisted, even at that age, on going out into nature and truly feeling what is there, what--you know, we’re not--you know, the reason we are not alone is that--because earth is with us. We are her beings. It’s not because there’s somebody in the sky who’s watching us, you know?

Do you have a preferred word for God?

I like “Mama.”

In the book you talk about a chant and mudra [yogic hand gesture] that Spirit gave you. Can you explain what that is?

It’s a way to bless yourself and to give yourself some sign that you are protected and loved. And as we go into this part of our journey as a planet that is quite frightful, actually, I realize that we also need something that is a gesture to bless ourselves.

'One Earth, One People, One Love'

So, the mudra is to hold your thumb and your two first fingers together, and then to circle your heart, or you can circle your whole body while you say or chant, “One earth, one people, one love.” And this is very good to say for seven times while making the mudra around your heart and your body just as a way of calming yourself, centering yourself in the reality of being this one place, earth, and this one people, the people of earth.

Do you have prayers that you say on a regular basis?

“Thank you” is the best prayer that anyone could say. I say that one a lot. Thank you expresses extreme gratitude, humility, understanding. People pray and pray--and that’s fine. But, for me, “Thank you” just basically says it all.

Who are some of your spiritual gurus?

Well, I have teachers. I like Pema Chodron, Jack Kornfield, Thich Nath Hanh. I like a lot of the spiritual teachers out of India. I learned from Jesus when I was a child. I was very taken with the stories of His life and very much taken with His struggle to bring a new way to His people. I’m very delighted to have the Gnostic gospels and the Nag Hammadi scrolls. And I’m just constantly delighted with the Dalai Lama and the ancient, incredibly wonderful teachings that have made their way to America from Tibet.

You talk about silence a lot--how has that also been a spiritual and creative teacher for you?

Everything does come out of silence. And once you get that, it’s wonderful to be able to go there and live in silence until you’re ready to leave it. I’ve written and published seven novels and many, many, many stories and essays. And each and every one came out of basically nothing—that’s how we think of silence, is not having anything. But I have experienced silence as being incredibly rich.

Do you ever have dry spells or writer’s block?

I don’t believe in them. I think that if there are periods when you’re not doing something that you’re used to doing, it means that you can spend that time doing something else. If I get up and I think I’m going to write something and it’s not there, rather than sitting there and trying to wait for it or try to give it a little nudge, I think, “Oh, I can do something else with this time.” And then, there’s so much else to do.

Do you have other creative outlets?

Oh, yeah. I paint. I garden. I dance. I cook. I farm. I have never felt that the one thing that I am “known for” is what I am.

How are you feeling about aging at this point in your life?

Well, I’m 62 and I feel wonderful. I have loved every decade. I had a little rough bump in my 30s. And the 20s were politically very rough. I think it’s a very good thing to be entering elderhood and to take that role in my family and society. I love life even more as I see and have seen so much of it.

Oprah played Sofia in the Color Purple movie and helped produce the Broadway show. Why do you think she's so popular right now?

'Oprah Is a Goddess'

Oh, I think that she is like a contemporary goddess, actually. Which is different from saint because saints have to be good and perfect, and she’s not interested in that. She’s interested in doing good things, but how she behaves and who she is is her business, and that’s very goddess-like. I think that she offers people a lot of help and a lot of aid and a lot of inspiration and a lot of joy.

In the book you quote Martin Luther King saying that the saddest words are “It’s too late.” Do you think it is?

Well, it depends on what you’re thinking it's too late for. It’s never too late to start trying to bring peace to yourself and take that into the world, which is what I try in my life to do, because I really do understand that, unless you have it in yourself, there’s no possibility of giving it. That’s why you can’t make war on people and think that you’re bringing peace. It’s just ridiculous.

And what’s your greatest hope for humanity?

Well, I hope we can wake up. If we can rise to the challenge that our global interconnectedness gives us. I sometimes talk about how the people who wrote the Bible didn’t know China existed. But now we really can connect with all the places. We can see cause and effect. We know about karma. We know karma is just that, that, if you do something mean to somebody, it’s very likely they’re either going to do it back to you or they’re going to pass it on to someone else.

How to Change the World

We have a splendid opportunity, for the first time ever on earth, to truly get to the root of things and to transform human society. It’s entirely possible, and it’s really up to us. And since I believe that, I don’t worry about it because I know that we will either do it or we won’t. If we do it, "Hallelujah." The world will just be so wonderful and joyful. If we don’t, we will lose such a beautiful gift. And I will have to say that while I was here, I did my very best and loved it as much as it loved me—the cosmos, the earth. I personally feel like I’ll be fairly content. You can only do what you can do. It’s just a fact that worrying is unhelpful, whereas trying to bring peace to your own spirit is work you can do, and it’s work that will actually bring many benefits to everybody that you ever encounter and to the whole world.

Copied from Beliefnet.com

Either a Personal God or the scientific method?

noreply@blogger.com (Paschal Baute) — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 19:14:00 +0000

Deepak Chokra

In the continuing debate between science and religion, Richard Dawkins makes another sweeping claim.

1. God is unnecessary. Science can explain Nature without any help from supernatural causes like God. There is no need for a Creator.

To many people this argument sounds convincing because they believe in science and find God hard to believe in.
But Dawkins has pulled the same trick that he resorts to over and over. This is the us-versus-them trick. Either you think there is a personal God, a superhuman Creator who made the world according to the Book of Genesis, or you are a rational believer in the scientific method.

This assumption is false on several grounds. The most basic one is that God isn't a person. In a certain strain of fundamentalist Christianity God looks and acts human, and creating the world in six days is taken literally (Dawkins refers to such believers as 'clowns,' not worth the bother except to ridicule them). But God isn't a person in any strain of Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Confucianism, the branch of Hinduism known as Vedanta, and many denominations of Christianity--he's not a person in the Gospel of John in the New Testament.

Therefore, reducing God to a Sunday school picture and claiming that the Book of Genesis--or creationism in general--competes with science isn't accurate. Fundamentalism hasn't played a role in scientific debate for generations. Einstein pointed out that he didn't believe in a personal God but was fascinated by how an orderly universe and its physical laws came about.

Nor is it fair to present God as a Creator standing somewhere outside the universe. Dawkins ridicules this notion by saying that such a God didn't need to create the cosmos through the Big Bang and billions of years of evolution. He could have created it whole and perfect to begin with. Thus if we observe evolution at work--as of course we do--then God is irrelevant and unnecessary.

This attempt to second-guess God again reduces him to a person who thinks like a human being and would carry out creation the way a smart scientist would--a Richard Dawkins, for example. God, if he exists, is universal, existing at all times and places, pervading creation both inside the envelope of space-time and outside it. To use a word like "He" has no validity, in fact; we are forced into it by how language works. A better word would be 'the All," which in Sanskrit is Brahman and Allah in Islam. Not every language is stuck with He or She.

So at bottom, the real question is this: Do we need an all-pervading intelligence to explain the universe? Forget the image of God sitting on a throne, forget Genesis, forget the straw man of a Creator who isn't as smart as a smart human being. The real debate is between two world views:

1. The universe is random. It operates entirely through physical laws. There is no evidence of innate intelligence.

2. The universe contains design. Physical laws generate new forms that display intention. Intelligence is all-pervasive.

The second worldview can be called religious, but it's a trap to say that only a Christian God explains intelligence in the universe. There is room for a new paradigm that preserves all the achievements of science--as upheld by the first worldview--while giving the universe meaning and significance. Dawkins shows no interest in uniting these two perspectives (he disdains the whole notion of a religious scientist), but many of is colleagues do.

Before talking about such a synthesis, let's see what responders think. Is God an all or nothing proposition as Dawkins claims? Must science absolutely exclude God in any form?

See his blog at
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deepak-chopra/the-god-delusion-part-2_b_34360.html

A Scientist examines Belief. . .Book Review, some notewothy quotes..

noreply@blogger.com (Paschal Baute) — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 19:43:00 +0000

THE GOD DELUSION By Richard Dawkins. 406 pp. Houghton Mifflin Company. $27

Book Review: Beyond Belief By JIM HOLT NY Times, Oct. 22, 2006

some quotes: Paschal: Of note of how a scientist attempts philosophy or rational understanding of God, and God-questions. (and fails)...

Richard Dawkins, who holds the interesting title of "Charles Simonyi professor of the public understanding of science" at Oxford University, is a master of scientific exposition and synthesis. When it comes to his own specialty, evolutionary biology, there is none better. But the purpose of this book, his latest of many, is not to explain science. It is rather, as he tells us, "to raise consciousness," which is quite another thing.
. . . . . . .

. . .These, in a nutshell, are the Big Three arguments. To Dawkins, they are simply ridiculous. He dismisses the ontological argument as “infantile” and “dialectical prestidigitation” without quite identifying the defect in its logic, and he is baffled that a philosopher like Russell — "no fool" — could take it seriously. He seems unaware that this argument, though medieval in origin, comes in sophisticated modern versions that are not at all easy to refute. Shirking the intellectual hard work, Dawkins prefers to move on to parodic "proofs" that he has found on the Internet, like the “Argument From Emotional Blackmail: God loves you. How could you be so heartless as not to believe in him? Therefore God exists.” (For those who want to understand the weaknesses in the standard arguments for God’s existence, the best source I know remains the atheist philosopher J. L. Mackie’s 1982 book "The Miracle of Theism.")

. . .It is doubtful that many people come to believe in God because of logical arguments, as opposed to their upbringing or having “heard a call.” But such arguments, even when they fail to be conclusive, can at least give religious belief an aura of reasonableness, especially when combined with certain scientific findings. We now know that our universe burst into being some 13 billion years ago (the theory of the Big Bang, as it happens, was worked out by a Belgian priest), and that its initial conditions seem to have been "fine tuned" so that life would eventually arise. If you are not religiously inclined, you might take these as brute facts and be done with the matter. But if you think that there must be some ultimate explanation for the improbable leaping-into-existence of the harmonious, biofriendly cosmos we find ourselves in, then the God hypothesis is at least rational to adhere to, isn’t it?

. . .Short of such a miraculous occurrence, the only thing that might resolve the matter is an experience beyond the grave — what theologians used to call, rather pompously, "eschatological verification." If the after-death options are either a beatific vision (God) or oblivion (no God), then it is poignant to think that believers will never discover that they are wrong, whereas Dawkins and fellow atheists will never discover that they are right.

...Dawkins's gullible-child proposal is, as he concedes, just one of many Darwinian hypotheses that have been speculatively put forward to account for religion. (Another is that religion is a byproduct of our genetically programmed tendency to fall in love.) Perhaps one of these hypotheses is true. If so, what would that say about the truth of religious beliefs themselves? The story Dawkins tells about religion might also be told about science or ethics. All ideas can be viewed as memes that replicate by jumping from brain to brain. Some of these ideas, Dawkins observes, spread because they are good for us, in the sense that they raise the likelihood of our genes getting into the next generation; others — like, he claims, religion — spread because normally useful parts of our minds "misfire." Ethical values, he suggests, fall into the first category. Altruism, for example, benefits our selfish genes when it is lavished on close kin who share copies of those genes, or on non-kin who are in a position to return the favor. But what about pure “Good Samaritan” acts of kindness? These, Dawkins says, could be "misfirings," although, he hastens to add, misfirings of a “blessed, precious” sort, unlike the nasty religious ones.

...But the objectivity of ethics is undermined by Dawkins's logic just as surely as religion is. The evolutionary biologist E. O. Wilson, in a 1985 paper written with the philosopher Michael Ruse, put the point starkly: ethics "is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate," and “the way our biology enforces its ends is by making us think that there is an objective higher code to which we are all subject." In reducing ideas to "memes" that propagate by various kinds of "misfiring," Dawkins is, willy-nilly, courting what some have called Darwinian nihilism.

...He is also hasty in dismissing the practical benefits of religion. Surveys have shown that religious people live longer (probably because they have healthier lifestyles) and feel happier (perhaps owing to the social support they get from church). Judging from birthrate patterns in the United States and Europe, they also seem to be outbreeding secular types, a definite Darwinian advantage. On the other hand, Dawkins is probably right when he says that believers are no better than atheists when it comes to behaving ethically. One classic study showed that "Jesus people" were just as likely to cheat on tests as atheists and no more likely to do altruistic volunteer work. Oddly, Dawkins does not bother to cite such empirical evidence; instead, he relies, rather unscientifically, on his intuition. “I’m inclined to suspect,” he writes, "that there are very few atheists in prison." (Even fewer Unitarians, I’d wager.) It is, however, instructive when he observes that the biblical Yahweh is an "appalling role model," sanctioning gang-rape and genocide.

Discussion?

Story of the Universe: Big Bang and Asymptotic Freedom

noreply@blogger.com (Paschal Baute) — Fri, 14 Apr 2006 18:39:00 +0000

April 1, 2006

THE BIG BANG AND ASYMPTOTIC FREEDOM

The one constant of the universe is no longer light at 186,000 miles per second for even light particles ( photons ) are subject to Asymptotic freedom or the uniting force field of love .

By Allen L Roland

The one constant of the universe is no longer light at 186,000 miles per second for even light particles ( photons ) are subject to Asymptotic freedom or the uniting force field of love ~ this driving urge to unite which exists not only beyond time and space but also deepest within ourselves : Allen L Roland

Nasa released last week the first cosmic portrait of the birth of the Universe~ from a point the size of a marble.

One of the biggest surprises revealed in the data is that the first generation of stars to shine in the Universe first ignited only 200 million years after the Big Bang, much earlier than many scientists had expected.

In addition, the new portrait precisely pegs the age of the Universe at 13.7 billion years old, with a remarkably small one percent margin of error.

When we observe the redshift of galaxies outside our local group, every galaxy appears to be moving away from us. We are therefore led to the conclusion that our Universe is expanding. This is called hubble expansion, after Edwin Hubble, who discovered the phenomenon in 1929.

But as the Universe expands is it, in reality, feeling an increasing urge to unite ?

Yes, all those Galaxies in our expanding universe are awaiting their innate call to union ~ as the millions of people on our expanded crowded planet are also awaiting our innate call to union.

Then, what is the call ?

The call, quite simply, is love or the urge to unite.

Science will surely remain one-eyed and lacking in depth-perception until it acknowledges the equal validity of subjective, sensory and spiritual experience. And it will continue to record the letter of mere mechanics, and miss the true spirit that brings it all to life, until it comes to recognize the universal urge to unite ~ even within the molecule itself ~ as being the universal attractive force of love.

No one describes this scientific impasse more tellingly than Lincoln Barnett, author of The Universe and Dr. Einstein:

"A theoretical concept is emptied of content to the degree that it is divorced from sensory experience ~ for the only world man can truly know is the world created for him by his senses. Beyond that point he stares into the void ."

We are rapidly reaching the point in our evolution of consciousness where psychology, science and religion are all becoming aware of the growing need for a radical empiricism ~ or a deeper way of experiencing things.

Let me use the findings of the recent Nobel Prize winning researchers , Politzer, Gross and Wilczek, to prove my point. They won the 2004 Nobel prize in physics for their studies of the STRONG FORCE ~ the powerful and mysterious energy that holds the nuclei of atoms together.

They explained the mystifying qualities of the strong force, which holds together the fundamental building blocks of nature, called QUARKS, to form protons and neutrons ~ two of the basic components of atoms.

Now, this is when it gets really interesting.

Independently, they developed the theory and the mathematical equations to show that Quarks are held together by the strong force ~ which, unlike any other force in the universe, gets stronger as the quarks get farther apart ~ a concept now known as "Asymptotic Freedom".

The simplest analogy is to a rubber band encircling two objects. When the objects are close together, the rubber band fits loosely. But as they are drawn apart, the rubber band stretches, trying to pull them back together.

Now, here is my take on these findings as applied to my Unified Field of Love and Soul Consciousness.

The strong force in the atom is the urge to unite which is the principle property of my Unified Field. It is the same urge to unite that Bose and Einstein found when they discovered that photons (light particles) have a tendency to travel together versus act randomly ~ which eventually led to the discovery of the laser.

It is also the same urge to unite that Teilhard de Chardin speaks of when he wrote ~ If there were no real propensity to unite , even at a prodigiously rudimentary level, indeed, in the molecule itself ~ it would be physically impossible for love to appear higher up in the ' hominized ' or human form.

It is also the same urge to unite that loved ones feel when they are separated from each other ~ and the further apart the stronger the pull to be back together.

Since I'm a twin, I can really relate to this urge to unite when I was sometimes separated from my twin in early childhood.

This would also seemingly explain how the urge to unite would increase as the Universe continues to expand.

As such, it is a force that is stronger than Gravity!

Thus, the one constant of the universe would no longer be light at 186,000 miles per second for even light particles ( photons ) are subject to asymptotic freedom or the force field of love ~ this driving urge to unite which exists not only beyond time and space but also deepest within ourselves.

And this would also explain why mankind is in the process of uniting while we seemingly are dividing and pulling away from each other.

And we are increasingly feeling this urge to unite even as galaxies are seemingly moving away from us ~ for asymptotic freedom exists in both the realm of the atom and the realm of galaxies.

I predict that when this planet makes a shift from ego consciousness to soul consciousness ~ our galaxy will also begin a shift which will, in turn, effect other galaxies and the Universe will begin to contract ~ driven by the universal urge to unite and asymptotic freedom.

And finally, on an individual level , it would explain the power of love, altruism and social cooperation and how we can no longer resist our innate pull and urge to unite versus separate.

As such, Jesus was an evolutionary forerunner for a state of love and soul consciousness each of us will eventually surrender to ~ which is why we have never forgotten him.

Once love is acknowledged as the binding force of the Universe then nothing can keep us from surrendering to this innate urge to unite and complete ourselves ~ both individually and universally.

In essence, the call to unite has already been made and mankind is in the process of listening and responding to it.

Then we have Mike Purton, writing in the Guardian on 12/02/04 of the greatest religious discovery of the 20th century:

"Physicists call it entanglement, and it describes the state of two or more particles once they have interacted with one another. From then on, irrespective of time and space, a correlation will always exist between them. What happens to one will affect the other - even if they are now at opposite ends of the universe ...For if matter emerged from energy in the singularity of the big bang, it would seem to follow that all the particles of which it consists are in that state of correlation. They have not become entangled, but at the fundamental level they have never been - and can never be - separated."

In summary ~ the great dawning and, I would add, inevitable realization of psychology, science and religion is that our separateness is an illusion measured by the state of our consciousness and that our ultimate reality, once again measured by the state of our consciousness, is the realization that we are all united and part of a loving and indivisible whole ~ and we resist it at our peril.

As such, those who we love deeply become part of us forever. Starting with my twin and beloved grandfather ~ every person I have deeply loved still lives in my heart . A thread of love that exists beyond time and space.

Or, as Longfellow so eloquently writes, "The thread of all sustaining beauty that runs through all and doth all unite."

ONLY LOVE HEALS

Allen L Roland

Authors Website: www.allenroland.com

Authors Bio: Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on Conscious talk radio www.conscioustalk.net

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Eight reasons not to mess with children

noreply@blogger.com (Paschal Baute) — Wed, 09 Nov 2005 14:55:00 +0000

8 reasons not to mess with children.

A little girl was talking to her teacher about whales.

The teacher said it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human
because even though it was a very large mammal its throat was very small.

The little girl stated that Jonah was swallowed by a whale.

Irritated, the teacher reiterated that a whale could not swallow a human; it
was physically impossible.

The little girl said, "When I get to heaven I will ask Jonah".

The teacher asked, " What if Jonah went to hell?"

The little girl replied, "Then you ask him".

A Kindergarten teacher was observing her classroom of children while they
were drawing. She would occasionally walk around to see each child's work.

As she got to one little girl who was working diligently, she asked what the
drawing was.

The girl replied, "I'm drawing God."

The teacher paused and said, "But no one knows what God looks like."

Without missing a beat, or looking up from her drawing, the girl replied,
"They will in a minute."

A Sunday school teacher was discussing the Ten Commandments with her five and
six year olds.

After explaining the commandment to "honor" thy Father and thy Mother, she
asked, "Is there a commandment that teaches us how to treat our brothers and
sisters?"

Without missing a beat one little boy (the oldest of a family) answered,
"Thou shall not kill."

One day a little girl was sitting and watching her mother do the dishes at
the kitchen sink. She suddenly noticed that her mother had several strands of
white hair sticking out in contrast on her brunette head.

She looked at her mother and inquisitively asked, "Why are some of your hairs
white, Mom?"

Her mother replied, "Well, every time that you do something wrong and make me
cry or unhappy, one of my hairs turns white."

The little girl thought about this revelation for a while and then said,
"Momma, how come ALL of grandma's hairs are white?"

The children had all been photographed, and the teacher was trying to
persuade them each to buy a copy of the group picture.

"Just think how nice it will be to look at it when you are all grown up and
say, 'There's Jennifer, she's a lawyer,' or 'That's Michael, He's a doctor.'

A small voice at the back of the room rang out, "And there's the teacher,
She's dead. "

A teacher was giving a lesson on the circulation of the blood. Trying to make
the matter clearer, she said, "Now, class, if I stood on my head, the blood,
as you know, would run into it, and I would turn red in the face.."

"Yes," the class said.

"Then why is it that while I am standing upright in the ordinary position the
blood doesn't run into my feet?"

A little fellow shouted,

"Cause your feet ain't empty."

The children were lined up in the cafeteria of a Catholic elementary school
for lunch. At the head of the table was a large pile of apples. The nun made a
note, and posted on the apple tray:

"Take only ONE. God is watching."

Moving further along the lunch line, at the other end of the table was a
large pile of chocolate chip cookies, with a handwritten note.

A child had written a note, "God is watching the apples. Take all you want."

____
he kindergarten teacher was trying to teach that God was everywhere and having difficulty.

:God is not simply in heaven or to be found in
church or in prayer, but everywhere. Does anyone know where else we can find God?

No answer.

Teacher prompt, "Anyplace at home?"

One tyke in back said, "At our house, God is in the bathroom!"

"How do you know that?", replied the teacher.

"cause every time, Daddy goes to the bathroom door, he says "My God, are you STILL in the bathroom?"

A story of two faith communities: Which Commandment?

noreply@blogger.com (Paschal Baute) — Sun, 23 Oct 2005 13:07:00 +0000

Homily written by Father Jay Hugheswho is a Roman Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of St.Louis.
"WHICH COMMANDMENT ... IS THE GREATEST?"
30A. Exodus 22:20-26; Matthew 22:34-40.
AIM: To explain the command to love both God and neighbor.

"Which commandment of the law is the greatest?" Jesus is asked in today’s gospel. Many people wonder about that. Is it more important to love God, or to love other people? There are good people on both sides of this question, ready to defend their position with excellent arguments. And the debate can become quite heated, as we see in the following example.

The Pastor and parish council of an affluent suburban parish decided to embark on a half-million dollar renovation of their church, which over the years had become somewhat shabby, and which no longer conformed to the building code. Not many miles away, in the inner city, there was a Catholic Worker house where dedicated Catholics served the poor and homeless and advocated their cause. The Pastor of the suburban parish had encouraged his parishioners to help these poorer neighbors. They had done so generously for a number of years.

When the leaders of the Catholic Worker house learned of the costly renovation program which their benefactors were planning, they suggested that the figure be cut by twenty percent, and the money used to renovate an abandoned inner city tenement to shelter evicted families. This proposal aroused strong feelings on both sides. The suburban Pastor pointed out his parishioners’ long history of generosity to the urban poor, and disclosed that the parish had operated at a deficit for three of the last five years. Leaders of the Catholic Worker house criticized their benefactors for spending large sums to beautify their parish plant, while not far away people were suffering and homeless. Media coverage of the controversy raised the temperature of debate, and led to escalation of conflict. The suburban church was picketed on Sunday, while inside people stood during the Mass in silent protest.

The story I have just told you is fiction. But it is typical of much that we have experienced in recent decades. It is an excellent example of two sharply contrasting views of our Christian faith: the vertical view, and the horizontal view. Both have their passionate defenders.

Few say that our religion has to do with God, or with nothing at all. We come to Mass on Sunday, they argue, not to celebrate what wonderful people we are, to experience human fellowship, or to be uplifted by an interesting, inspirational homily. We come to worship: to be still and know that God is here; that we are his people who owe him everything.

Proponents of the vertical view claim support from Jesus himself. He showed that worship of God is our highest duty by worshiping regularly in the synagogue and in the temple at Jerusalem. He spent whole nights in prayer. When Martha of Bethany complained about her sister Mary sitting and listening to Jesus, leaving all the housework to Martha, Jesus told her that Mary had chosen "the better portion" (Lk 10:42).

So when the Church talks too much about social justice, proponents of the vertical view contend, it is in danger of defiling the sanctuary with worldly things, mixing up earth and heaven, and bringing politics into the pulpit. Don’t we hear enough about such subjects during the week, they ask? When we come to church on Sunday, we want to hear about spiritual things.

Proponents of the horizontal view, on the other hand, say that it is a scandal for the Church erect magnificent buildings when people nearby lack basic necessities. Those who hold the horizontal view also claim support from Jesus. They remind us that Jesus was the friend of the poor and downtrodden. He said, "Blest are you poor ... Woe to you rich" (Lk 6:20 & 24). Jesus attacked the Establishment of his day. If we wish to be faithful to him, they say, we must do the same. Jesus tells us in his great parable of the sheep and the goats, that in judgment we won’t be asked how many prayers we have said, but how much we have done for people in need. (Cf. Mt. 25:31-46)

Which of these two views is correct? Both are right in what they affirm, but wrong in what they deny. Authentic discipleship of Jesus Christ is not a compromise between the vertical and horizontal views. It is the pursuit of both, at whatever personal cost. We followers of Jesus Christ are people who live neither according to the vertical nor the horizontal view, but at the place where the vertical and horizontal intersect. Jesus tells us in today’s gospel that love of God is "the greatest and the first commandment." But the religion Jesus practiced also emphasized justice for the poor and downtrodden. It did more. Jesus’ religion said that mere justice was not enough. Our first reading shows that Jesus’ religion taught compassion. "If you take your neighbor’s cloak as a pledge," God tells his people in that reading, "you shall return it to him before sunset; for this cloak is the only covering he has for his body. What else has he to sleep in? If he cries to me, I will hear him; for I am compassionate." That goes beyond justice. God demands that, like him, we must show to others some of the compassion he shows to us.

Worship of God is primary. But if our worship has no consequences in daily life, it is hypocrisy which cries to heaven for vengeance. On the other hand, service of others which is not performed for love of God, but for the uplifting feeling of serving a noble cause, or some other human ideology, is not genuine service. Those "served" in this way experience not the warmth of compassion, but the cold impersonalism of bureaucracy, which undermines so many of the best intentioned efforts of the welfare state to help the poor and disadvantaged.

We followers of Jesus Christ are called to live at the intersection of the vertical and the horizontal. That is where Jesus lived. It is also where he died. The cross, which is itself the literal intersection of the vertical and the horizontal, tore Jesus apart and killed him. For us too the attempt to live where the vertical and horizontal intersect will mean pain, rending asunder, and ultimately death. But this is precisely that dying-in-order-to-live of which Jesus himself speaks several times over in the gospels. For behind the cross Christians have always seen, and we must always see, the open portals of the empty tomb. +++

Are each of us stories of this mystery some call "God"?

noreply@blogger.com (Paschal Baute) — Thu, 12 May 2005 00:40:00 +0000

Mystery, memo on mentoring, 4. How we see, spiritual context, Wayne Oates, and a proposed key for effective mentoring.

From “Finding a Common Language: Spiritual Dynamics in Caregiving”conference of the Oates Insititute for health care personnel, chaplains, counselors and nurses, online Nov 1-16 2002

“Our purpose is to provide an awareness and beginning skills for those who seek to be spiritual nurturers in a pluralism of faiths and professional disciplines.”

I propose to continue the discussion on Mystery and make connections for the sake of suggesting a framework and some steps for Being a Spiritual Nurturer for our colloquium. First I want to offer some striking observations about human nature, how we learn (therefore how we heal..), connect this with my experience of Wayne Oates, what I think was his charisma, and then outline some beginning steps for interviewing.

I take it from Andre Girard that we always learn to see through the eyes of another. The desire of another actually directs our seeing and make available to us what is to be seen. We learn to see ourselves through our parents eyes. We desire according to the eyes of another, and learning to value what they value. That is to say, the eyes of another teach us who we are by teaching us what we want. I propose this is a simple anthropological fact of no great difficulty.

The critical point is who is the other though whose eyes we learn to see? When it is our society, the crowd, our culture, then what we see is what is given value by them. The persona or “self’ becomes the incarnation of what the valued others in our society desire, and so we end up jostling for reputation, security, success, goodness. Thomas Merton refers to this in a number of places as a kind of collective hypnosis. He is on to the same thing as Girard. We too easily value ourselves according to the values of our society and our culture. Therefore we value ourselves by what we do, perform, own, not by intrinsic worth. Since we have seldom, if ever, been valued for being, then we have little basis for valuing ourselves from inside out.

When we talk about seeing in a spiritual context, Christian or otherwise, then we are talking about a specific kind of seeing. We are talking about learning how to be given our desire through the eyes of another. When the other is, for example, Jesus, then we are being taught to look at what is through the eyes of the One believed to reveal this mystery we call G*d, that is, to be inside the mind and heart of this Mystery. We are taught to receive ourselves and all that is around us through this perspective. “We are taught to be loving lookers at what is, by the One who is calling into being and loving all that is. We are being taught to see and delight in what is by the One whose delighting is what gives it, and us, to be.” (James Allison). But we cannot do this unless we are taught to do it. So where do we begin in being spiritual nurturers?

An anecdote. One of the first things I did in the late 1960s when I began as pastoral psychologist in the Comprehensive Care Centers in Lexington and Central Kentucky was to go to Louisville to visit Dr. Wayne Oates. He was already a respected national figure in pastoral care and I wanted to meet him. I saw him once for about an hour. Years later, in a talk to either psychologists or marital therapists, he mentioned my name. He had apparently followed my career. Wayne genuinely liked people. In that gentle liking, they felt affirmed. I heard later that he used the term “trialogue,” to explain the presence of the Spirit in this caring. I suggest that one of Wayne’s gifts was that he not only liked others, but they felt affirmed in his presence.

Allison suggests the most staggering thing in the shadow of the violence we are experiencing, the most extraordinary fruit of a prayerful presence, is this: G*d likes us. All of us, just as we are, even in all our addictions, pretensions, and lying to ourselves. This has nothing to so with whether we are good or bad, in fact, he knows how he made us and takes all of that for granted. God likes me and I like being liked. In all the Wisdom traditions, we find similar truths. Inspiration teaches us to learn to desire through the eyes of another. This is the effect of prayer to put us in this frame. But it greatly helps when we are hurting if we can feel that another real person will listen and like us despite all the mess we find ourselves in. This affirming can hardly be over-stated.

Therefore, the key dynamic to being a spiritual nurturer is, first, to like the person you are with. Some are more a challenge than others. Over thirty years of being a psychotherapist, I met some that in the first several minutes there were obvious things to dislike. But the rule I had was that I had to find something to like, genuinely like, about that person, or I would not see them. Perhaps this seems banal, but the word “love” is so over-used, and its connotations are too powerful here. There seems something more gentle, more relaxed, less needful, more considerate, more of the I - Thou respect in liking. That Wayne was so able to do this, in his own humble way, was, I believe, the source of his calling what he did a trialogue: he recognized a Mysterious Presence in the respectful listening he did. Which others found affirming. It is, I suggest, the first summons in learning to be a spiritual nurturer.

A correlative to this is that we cannot begin to do this with others, unless we really like ourselves, not just as performers or doers, but intrinsically, for who we are. That means, for who we are as spiritual beings, already embraced, fully accepting the total dependence of ourselves on this Mystery, despite all our accomplishments. (Given the way we are, the more accomplished we are in the ways of the world, the harder will be this humility.) When we are living this way then we will be less fragile in our ability to relate to others with genuinely liking, as I - Thou. If not, no matter what we do, others will sense that there is some technique being employed, and they are being somehow objectified. The Wisdom of the Heart will not be present on the part of the caregiver, no matter how great is the technical excellence.

It helps that we are living in some grateful amazement of this Mystery in whom we live, and move and have our being.

Reference
Allison, James. “Contemplation in a world of violence: Girard, Merton, Tolle, by James Allison. A talk at Downside Abbey, Bath, 3.xi.01.

Girard, Andre. Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World. Stanford, CA: Stanford Press, 1987.

HOW DO I LOVE THEE?

noreply@blogger.com (Paschal Baute) — Sun, 01 May 2005 10:10:00 +0000

Besides Paul's Letter to the Corinthians on Love (1 Cor 13), I am now offering couples whose marriage I am invited to witness this following passage on love, which poetry some very much like as part of their wedding vows:

"How do I love thee?

"Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of every day's Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my oid griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints-I love thee with the breath, Srniles, tears of all my life!-and if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

BE STILL, MY HEART!

noreply@blogger.com (Paschal Baute) — Sun, 01 May 2005 10:03:00 +0000

“Take care lest the light in you
be darkness.” Luke 11:35

When
you use God
to have
power
over others
it blinds
and poisons
your heart.

Your sureness
is rooted in
your “sincere” Ego
but God does not
lend Himself
to such certainty
as you have for others.

Spiritual arrogance
is a deceit
and a fraud:
words used to
empower yourself
over others.

The more words
you need to claim your
certainty--
the more empty
and lonely
is your heart.

The heart in love
does not crave an audience
to prove its claim.
But is filled with
humility and
gratitude.

“Be Still my heart:
It is I, the Lord
who waits
your surrender.”

Paschal Baute, December, 2004

Your story: an incredible giftedness: YOU

noreply@blogger.com (Paschal Baute) — Sun, 20 Mar 2005 19:37:00 +0000

Once upon a time, a man loved a woman. She loved him too. They made love. Out of the joy of that moment, something wonderful happened, a miracle that we can scarcely even after five centuries of science hardly understand.

Your mother's tiny egg, no bigger than the head of a needle, was met and pierced by your fatherâs tiny, tiny sperm. Tha t tiny speck was one thousandth the size of your mommaâs waiting ye arning eager egg. Your father brought in that tiny tiny speck of maleness, his total DNA, amounting to 3 billion digits. That met your moth erâs DNA, also of a different 3 billion digits.

Out of that joining was the very first spark of your life. At that moment the fertilized egg was throbbing with new energy of a DNA never before imagined in the cosmos. At that moment, every single characteristic of who you are today was contained: the size of your nose, the color of your eyes, the length of your body, every part that you now have was there in your genes, so tiny that onl y a microscope could find it.

Consider that moment did not have to happen. But it did, and you are here today. The miracle of your conception you can never grasp fully enough. You did not have to happen. But th at spark did happen. There followed the next miracle as that tiny egg now throbbing with life attached itself to the uterine wall of your m other's body, after a little. But only after you had already multip lied many many times. The tiny egg that was you needed food and found a pla ce to get it inside your mother.

You grew and grew and grew for nine whole months, and every step of that was also a miracle. It did not have to happen, but it did. You did. After that long nesting, you --now weighing an incredible six pounds or so, were ready to emerge into the world. There was pain, great pain, blood and tearing, but suddenly, with a little help, there you were, a helpless rosy blood fluid - covered inf ant, crying at the coldness of the real world.

Another miracle. It did no t have to happen. Your lungs had to be cleared of fluid, you had to be inspected. But your tiny mouth was already eager for the nipple, an d you began to drink the milk of your mother's breast when you had no other awareness. For many months, all you did was eat, sleep, poop, and cry; eat, sleep and poop, eat sleep poop cry. And someone was there every hour for you, if not every minute for days and months and several years to make s ure you ate, and were kept clean of your poop.

The miracle that you were continued. You opened your eyes and looked and begin to see, and smell, and taste, and cry, and poop. See, smell, sleep, cry, poop. You are today a walking miracle who did not deserve to be here. Your life is an incredible gift.

The greatest question in life is Why Are You Here at All. You did not have to be, and Yet, here you are. Why? Out of the great mother mystery matrix of millions and billions of years, here on this planet is each of you. Here I am, conscious of my unique life and I cannot even tell you why or how I am aware. Every step or development of your life is a miracle. Undeserved.

What could any of you, any of us do to deserve the incredible gift of life that we have. And look what we have survived, hook or crook, again, often undeserv edly so. How many Guardian Angels have been protected this small child, thi s testing, climbing, reaching mischievous little boy that you were. This re bellious teen-ager. This boy child/man We are daily, each morni ng we awaken, faced once more with the Giftedness of Life. How shall we spe nd it? What shall I do with my life today. 1000 waking minutes per day? 7 000 waking minutes per week.

Now there is a hole in our heart lo nging for Something Else. Love, Ecstasy, Passion, Some Great fulfillment. We may have deepened, enlarged that hole by drugs, so we have created a h uge craving for Something More. Now here is the basic choice of human life. We shall always have Something Missing. We can and have often focused on that or we can choose to focus instead on the Miracle we are par t of. Each of us choose. Daily, moment by moment.

Will you cheat the Gift? Do you choose to embrace the giftedness of life, the miracle th at you are, the longing of love you are called into. Or will you choose to stay incomplete with always a sense of Missing Something. One is Light, the other is Darkness. Resentment or Hope. Imagine! Choose! Ever y minute of your life you choose to focus, either on What's Missing, or on the Miracle that calls you out of yourselves into Giftedness, celebration, love, joy, hope and newness.

We chooose every minute either to focus on something missing or something given and present. Miracles are all around us, but we are too busy or unaware to notice. Missing or Giftedness.

Meditation by Paschal Baute for the Fierce Landscape program at the County Detention Center, 2/21/05 -

YOUR STORY IS A HERO'S JOURNEY

noreply@blogger.com (Paschal Baute) — Mon, 21 Feb 2005 02:13:00 +0000

“As we love ourselves, we move toward our own bliss, by which Joseph Campbell meant our highest enthusiasm. The word entheos means "god-filled." Moving towards that which fills us with the godhood, that place where time is not, is all we need to do to change the world around us. Then we, naturally and without effort, love others and allow them to move beyond their self-imposed limitations, and in their own ways. The goal is to evolve to that place where the energy that had been projected outward to correct the world is turned around to correct oneself - to get on our own track and to dance, in balance, between the worlds.

“Following your bliss, as Joseph meant it, is not self-indulgent but vital-life giving; your whole physical system knows that this is the way to be alive in this world and the that this is the way to give the world the very best that you have to offer. There is a track just waiting for each of us, and once on this track, doors will open that were not open before and would not open for anyone else. Everything does really start clicking along, and yes, even Mother Nature herself supports your own unique journey.

“I have found that you do have only to take that one step toward the gods and they will then take ten steps toward you. That step,'the heroic first step of the journey,' is out of, or over the edge of, beyond your boundaries. It often must be taken before you know that you will be supported. The hero's journey has been compared to a birth; it starts out warm and snug ina safe place; then comes a signal, growing more insistent, that it is time to leave. To stay beyond your time is to putrefy. Without the blood and tearing and pain, there is no new life.”

- From The Joseph Campbell Companion,
Reflections on the Art of Living,
by Diane K. Osbon, 1992.

Namaste' a Travelor's Story and Divine Hospitality

noreply@blogger.com (Paschal Baute) — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 15:15:00 +0000

By the way, what does ' Namaste ' mean & where does it come from?
(that greeting with which I usually end my postings)

Namaste (said with a slight accent on the last syllable, head bowed slightly toward the recipient, hands held together in front of face,) is an ancient Eastern Christian tradition, from India and the tradition of St. Thomas.....(*) meaning:

"The Splendor of the Light within me greets and welcomes the Splendor of the Light within you."

Thus it is a greeting that immediately recognizes the great mystery that is not only between us, but always within us, the mystery of Divine presence, the mystery of divine hospitality always waiting, expectantly, when two people meet in an authentic way, each being themselves.

Martin Buber once said:
If I am I because you are you
and you are you because I am I,
then I am not I and you are not you,
and we cannot communicate
(namely from and with our authenticities...)

But, if I am I because I am I
and You are you because you are you.
...then we can begin to communicate
between two authentic existences
and there is something new in the cosmos.

Anecdote: I was at an airport when an abbot in monastic traveling clothes sat down nearby, waiting for a plane. His companion soon left, after I heard them speaking some Eastern language. When I greeted him with "Rev. Father, Namaste," there was immediate warmth and fellowship for a fellow Christian travelor who had respect for his tradition, and we had a brief and lively conversation. Turned out he was also a psychologist, from the East, in an Eastern order, and like me, a Jungian.. That interaction is sorta typical for me when I travel.

I like to rely on the kindness of strangers in strange places as an experiment, in order to give an opportunity for the Divine Hospitality to express itself. (I know this is easier for me as a male..)

I am always pleasantly surprised and warmed by what happens, well--usually. Then when I say explicitly that I DO "rely on the kindness of strangers," usually after asking something about directions, the literate recognize and appreciate the reference to the famous Tenn Williams play, and the tragic character Blanche DuBois, and it is a small interaction that they and I, each time, will never forget, with smiles.

(with or without Dubois, such meetings, I suggest can be sacraments...) In that instant, something Divine, Holy and Sacred, the reminder of the Vulnerable Stranger (inner and outer) in our midst, has happened. (Blanche is...here, once more)

I mean I do not go around doing this at airports and conferences, :-)) really, but if and when the occasion presents itself, more often than not. As there are so many new directions to be found in strange places. Strangely, when it happens, I sometimes feel as if I were just for an instant, the Divine Host, offering a warm welcome and nourishment for a moment, in places where we are both, or rather all, strangers, meeting for the first time--even tho I am usually the one asking.... A connection, a mutual recognition of our inherent Relatedness, travelors on a journey, a faith journey, of the heart, more than the head.

"Namaste" supposedly comes from the East Indian tradition, that of St. Thomas. It may predate the Christians of South India who spoke a Dravidian language. Namaste is northern and has its roots in Sanskrit. The Indians use it as a common greeting. A namste has the added advantage of discouraging a handshake and this cuts down germ transfer through manual contact.

Those interested in the history of ritual or culture may know more. I use it also in my work of spiritual friendship and mentoring, to begin and end each session.
At times the sense of Mystery present flowing from that beginning greeting has been so strong that no words were necessary between us, for a long time. So it is clearly an act of great reverence for the other, and for the Other in the other. It is also a reminder to me that we are all co-disciples, no one more graced or valuable than another, that all true leadership is actually service, service to the Divine Guest among and within us.

P.S. If, as basic scientists (quantum physics, molecular biology, chaos theory, etc) tell us Relatedness is the most single basic fact of the cosmos, and everything in it, then is not the core of this Divine Mystery also Relatedness, creative relatedness that energizes the Universe, and then "singularity and individuality" is a myth, a human illusion? Then whenever we step into Relatedness, we are stepping into Divine Mystery Itself? Wow! How easy, How simple. How profound, How true.

Namaste' Paschal.

Therefore, what is common among all Sacred Wisdom traditions as a sign of the Divine Mystery is, actually our most common, universal faith challenge, that of the Hospitality of "Welcoming the Stranger." Then since we are all such a mixed bag, and do not understand ourselves (tho we pretend to and lie to ourselves) , the Jungian recognizes also the Stranger within, that part of us that our prideful and vainful ego often hides from. The paradox is that until we have really embraced the Stranger within in all its primitive reality, we cannot accept the Stranger Out There, because we will be too ready to judge by appearances, status, role in life, history, etc. We can have "good works" but not compassion.

Which Welcoming the Stranger where-ever and whenever, however, forces us out of, into new relatedness. Simple, and don't need a lot of concepts and creeds to practice. Like the poor, lost, lame, last, and least everywhere in the world. Who do recognize that every day and every thing, even a drink of water, is a gift, and therefore find it easier to share, actually open their homes and beds to strangers, as did thousands and thousands of Macedonians recently to Kosovo refugees, than do we in the rich First World who have so much...

P.S.#2. for Catholics: are not all our concepts on the Trinity and the Incarnation, formulated so long ago, and an Incarnational Theology that recognizes Spirit-led persons and people, for today, an attempt to recognize these truths of the Divine Presence? And, further, if these concepts be True, then they cannot be foreign to other Wisdom traditions, but must somehow be inherent, already contained there too somehow.......Ideas and words and history, and ego and pride, (my way must be better) get in the way. far too often....

A NEW CHURCH FOR A NEW WORLD

noreply@blogger.com (Paschal Baute) — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 23:50:00 +0000

Four holy persons came out of the desert: three men and a woman.
Copyright, Paschal Baute, 2005

The first holy man said: "I have found the Book of Holy Stories that has God’s answer to everything. We will follow it in everything we do." He soon had many disciples, and they distinguished themselves by following the Sacred Book to the letter. The Book was their guide to everything, a code-book of rules for life. They distinguished themselves by their love of this book and their ability to quote it for any occasion. The Book was revered and honored by many. Many became holy.

The second holy man said, "I have found wondrous feelings of Great Devotion in our worship. All our talk and songs will help promote and produce these Wondrous feelings." Many became his disciples, and they were well known by their ready feelings of Great Devotion and their magnificent enthusiastic worship. No one could sing and praise God the way they did. Their members were most likely to be transported into feelings of joy and even ecstacy. Many became holy.

The third holy man said, "We shall have Certain Authority of our Creeds and Traditions. We shall also distinguish ourselves by our officials having lines of authority directly descended from the original followers, and by officials required to be voluntary celibates. They will wear special clothes to distinguish their position, ranks and titles.” Now these holy men were greatly admired and had a large following. They were distinguished by the Rightness of their creeds, their many devotions, the singular history of their Traditions and their loyalty to their Supreme Leader. Many joined and many of these also became holy.

The fourth holy person, a woman, said, "We will find this mystery we call God by serving others wherever and whenever we can, with all the riff-raff of the world, especially the poor and suffering, even if we break some of the rules of the Ancients and don't always have special feelings. Furthermore we make no distinctions among ourselves or others.” She said anyone can do this at any time, without being in any way special, and that all people everywhere could find this Mystery of Divine Hospitality in welcoming the strangers and outsiders. “Sacred Books, Holy Devotion, or Following Holy Creeds and Distinguished Persons are useful but not necessary.” There was nothing noteworthy in belonging to this group except their gentleness and service of others. Many came to observe and admire her work, but few followed her.

(A brief pause when this story is used with a group, i.e., some questions when used as a lesson / homily: To which human needs did the four persons appeal? Why were some more successful in gaining followers than the others? Which of the groups gave their members feelings of specialness? Why did the third holy man have a large following? Which mystified themselves and their Way? Which of the groups was more likely to have pride and self- righteousness? Which of the groups was more likely to look down upon those who did not belong to their way? Which offered the most protection against sin and fear, uncertainty and guilt? Following which holy person requires more risk and vulnerability? Which of the holy persons, in your opinion, is the closest to the mission Jesus announced in Luke 4:18; or closest to His actual life? Which of these paths would others say you are now following by your life? Which group was the “most inclusively catholic?”
Pause for group discussion. Afterwards: now walk with us back through the door of your imagination for the REST of the story.)

Suddenly, an extraordinary event happened on the planet. An Angel of the Lord appeared to each of the four, and said, “Come with me and board my Heavenly Spaceship. We are going to another planet to establish a New Church for a New World. Curious, they boarded the spaceship and it ascended. As they circled the globe, the Angel asked each to examine the earth beneath to assess whether their faith had been effective for the health and healing of the One Human Family.

After some silence, the Angel then announced. “Your ways, although good and holy in themselves, are, whether you recognize it or not, not sufficient. The New World needs more than you have offered. You have the next hour to see if you can agree on what shall be the sole ritual for the New Church. If you can agree we will proceed to the new planet. If you cannot agree, we are going directly to meet the Face of God and your time of earthly service is completed.” The Angel paused for this directive to sink in.

“Now,” said the Angel further, “We do not expect you to figure all this out by yourselves without consulting the Spirit and Muses of your own traditions, so we suggest you each and all begin with a time of silent meditation. Then we will give you two tips for when you are ready to converse.” Later the Angel said: “First, the elements necessary are five. Second, we do not expect you to get all five, so we will give you the first, which is “Gather the People.”

(When presented as a story, the story teller pauses to have the community in small groups discuss this challenge. Often many will suggest some, but not all of the following)

The answer for the church of the New World is

1. Gather the People
2. Tell the Stories
3. Break the Bread
4. Celebrate the Faith
5. Welcome the Stranger

(The community now discusses whether these activities are the necessary signs, in their own faith perspective, of the New Church emerging)

Then the People of God there will decide and Wisdom for the New World emerges.

End of story, end of lesson. All Rights reserved, copyright, Paschal Baute, 2005

The Reality of God as PROCESS and RELATION?

noreply@blogger.com (Paschal Baute) — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 00:52:00 +0000

Because our dominant understanding of the world today is through categories of interrelatedness, process and relativity, what God is for us must be expressed in relational terms. Process theology has been a rich approach, but often remained at a conceptual and philosophical level. Here a woman theologian presents a process view which uses image and feeling, but not at the expense of rigor of thought. Perhaps only metaphor and imagination can begin to express the reality of this mystery we call God. Listen to Marjorie Suchocki’s beautiful use of music to understand God as process:

"Imagine a symphony, in which each note is intensely alive. Each note in this symphony of fantasy would feel itself in relation to all the others, feeling its place in the whole and the whole as well. The life that sustained the lives of the notes would be the symphony as a whole. Posit a deeper locus of awareness than the aliveness of the notes in that life which is the whole, the symphony itself. A living symphony, sparkling with awareness of its own beauty both from the perspective of the whole and from the multiplied perspective of each part--the single beauty is intensified through the multiple awarenesses merged into the unified awareness of the whole.

"This is fantasy, obviously, and if it is hard to imagine what such a symphony would be like in its own nature, it is still harder to imagine how one outside that symphony could be attuned appreciatively to such a complex beauty. Imagine that every listener becomes a participant in the symphony, adding a new note, and that the symphony is everlasting, ever deepening, ever intensifying infinite, inexhaustible beauty.

"A fantasy, surely, for no symphony is like that. Yet if it could be, it would be something like the process notion of God. God infinitely relating to the entire universe, bringing that universe to resurrection life within the divine nature, unifying it within the divine experience-we fumble our way into the fantasy of a living symphony, but even that metaphor is not sufficient to describe the amazement of God. The fantasy is but a dim way to project what such a reality could be like. We, in our human experience of personality, are but the dimmest reflections of such an awesome reality. But the reality of God could be something like that.

"How, then, shall we name that infinitely complex, infinitely living reality? ‘One’ is accurate, for it is the single unity of God which accounts for that living symphony: God's is the beauty, God's is the adventure, God's is the joy. And God is one. But complex! The unity of God is of a complexity far transcending that which we can experience, pushing us to the edges of our imagination to fathom what it must be like. This awesome complexity of God is preserved for us through the notion of trinity, (WHICH SHE REDEFINES AS POWER, WISDOM AND PRESENCE) for otherwise we might fall into the arrogance of thinking that God is but humanity writ large upon some cosmic screen. The degree to which God surpasses our own experience creates a qualitative difference in kind, for the leap between God and ourselves in intensity of experience is vast. . .

–Marjorie H. Suchocki, God Christ Church (A Practical Guide to Process Theology)
Crossroad, 1986. P. 214-5. Note: this book is highly recommended in its power to integrate, but is somewhat philosophical in its argument and suppositions.

TRUE TEACHERS?

noreply@blogger.com (Paschal Baute) — Mon, 17 Jan 2005 18:19:00 +0000

A man once approached the Baal Shem Tov and asked him how he could tell true teachers from charlatans. The founder of Hasidism (not solely "a famous kabbalist") answered as follows. He said, ask the teacher if he knows how to banish machshavot ra’ot, or evil thoughts. If he says he has the secret, the Baal Shem Tov continued, he is a fraud.

HEALING POWER of Stories: Online Seminar

noreply@blogger.com (Paschal Baute) — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 19:51:00 +0000

Healing Power of Stories, online course
WAYNE OATES INSTITUTE
Part Two: February 7-25, 2005
Facilitator: Rev. Canon Marlin Whitmer12.0 contact hours

This is a two part online seminar led by the Rev. Canon Marlin Whitmer that will take the stories you hear as a basis for reflecting on metaphors and metaphorical patterns. Also through the metaphors and metaphorical patterns, connections will be identified between the Biblical stories and one's own stories. This learning experience will relate these fundamentals of language and Word to pastoral care and health care. Both are grounded on listening, language, and metaphor as health care moves out into the community with chronic illness overshadowing acute care.This seminar provides the opportunity to participate in an interdisciplinary collaborative learning experience. Using email, members of the seminar group explore the issues of common language by reflecting on presented material in light of their own experience and context. Through this process the group benefits by learning from one another as well as from the presentations.

Learning Objectives
AND MORE INFORMATION
http://oates.org/olc/0100/seminars/healing_stories.html

Note from Paschal: I have taken this course and recommend it. 4 1/2 stars. ****+

STORY TELLING Resurgence of interest among Business leaders

noreply@blogger.com (Paschal Baute) — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 10:53:00 +0000

Storytelling: Passport to Success in the 21st Century
Why is there a resurgence of interest among today's business and organizational leaders in the ancient art of storytelling at a time when electronic communications might seem to make it obsolete? Human beings have been communicating with each other through storytelling since we lived in caves and sat around campfires exchanging tales. What is new today about the art of telling stories is the purposeful use of narrative to achieve a practical outcome with an individual, a community, or an organization. Four of the world's leading thinkers on knowledge management explore how storytelling will become the key ingredient to managing communications, education, training, and innovation in the 21st century.
Continue at
http://www.creatingthe21stcentury.org/

see also there
The Story Teller as the Agent for Change (more)
Subject areas:
Springboard stories that enable individuals to make a leap in understanding how an organization, a community, or a complex system can change. How and why storytelling works, what sort of stories work, and what is involved in being a storyteller. Seminar coordinator Steve Denning, former program director, Knowledge Management, at the World Bank, author of The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations. Storytelling: The art of the springboard story. Springboard stories that enable individuals to make a leap in understanding how an organization, a community, or a complex system can change. How and why storytelling works, what sort of stories work, and what is involved in being a storyteller. Seminar coordinator Stephen Denning, program director, Knowledge Management, at the World Bank, author of
The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations.
So there is a whole set of materials on storytelling on my website at www.stevedenning.com which explains some of the background and points to other resources on storytelling
More see www.stevedenning.com

A THEOLOGY OF STORY. Dark Interval, by John Dominic Crossen, notes

noreply@blogger.com (Paschal Baute) — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 05:31:00 +0000

People are fond of discussing two types of religion, historical and mythical, and of asserting that Judaism and Christianity are in the former category because they link their claims to the objective reality of certain key events.

Maybe the time has come to retire this distinction as irrelevant and replace it with another.

The more useful distinction might be between mythical religion that gives the final word about "reality" and thereby excludes the authentic experience of mystery, and parabolic religion, a religion that continually and deliberately subverts final words about ‘reality’ and thereby introduces the possibility of transcendence.

From The Dark Interval. A Theology of Story, by John Dominic Crossen. p. 105.

Question: Which do we prefer, comfort or courage? It may be necessary to make a choice for our faith journey. Do we prefer certainty or adventure?

My response is that this may not be a free choice. Those whose temperament prefers security and predictability want answers. They are un-nerved by ambiguity and non-finality. Those whose temperament prefer adventure and seeking are drawn and those willing to be wondrous in the presence of the Indeterminant, the Hidden, the Unspeakable. I have two articles on these types, relating them to 1) temperament differences that are inherent and stable and 2) to preferred images of God and psychological maturity. Both of these articles can be found at the Spiritual Growth Network of Kentucky website, under Articles by Paschal Baute. www.lexpages.com/sgn

Discussion: What kind of religion do you prefer? Which of the two kinds are from man and which from God?

The Prince and the Magician. . .

noreply@blogger.com (Paschal Baute) — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 01:34:00 +0000

Once upon a time there was a young prince who believed in all things but three. He did not believe in princesses, he did not believe in islands, he did not believe in God. His father, the king, told him that such things did not exist. As there were no princesses or islands in his father's domains, and no sign of God, the prince believed his father.

But then, one day, the prince ran away from his palace and came to the next land. There, to his astonishment, from every coast he saw islands, and on these islands, strange and troubling creatures whom he dared not name. As he was searching for a boat, a man in full evening dress approached him along the shore.

"Are those real islands?" asked the young prince.
"Of course they are real islands," said the man in evening dress.
"And those strange and troubling creatures?"
"They are all genuine and authentic princesses."
"Then God must also exist!" cried the prince.
"I am God," replied the man in evening dress, with a bow.
The young prince returned home as quickly as he could.
"So, you are back," said his father, the king.
"I have seen islands, I have seen princesses, I have seen God,"said the prince reproachfully.

The king was unmoved.
"Neither real islands, nor real princesses, nor a real God exist."
"I saw them!"
"Tell me how God was dressed."
"God was in full evening dress."
"Were the sleeves of his coat rolled back?"
The prince remembered that they had been. The king smiled.
"That is the uniform of a magician. You have been deceived."

At this, the prince returned to the next land and went to the same shore, where once again he came upon the man in full evening dress.

"My father, the king, has told me who you are,," said the prince indignantly. "You deceived me last time, but not again. Now I know that those are not real islands or real princesses, because you are a magician."

The man on the shore smiled.

"It is you who are deceived, my boy. In your father's kingdom, there are many islands and many princesses. But you are under your father's spell, so you cannot see them."
The prince pensively returned home. When he saw his father, he looked him in the eye.
"Father, is it true that you are not a real king, but only a magician?"
The king smiled and rolled back his sleeves.
"Yes, my son, I'm only a magician.
"Then the man on the other shore was God."
"The man on the other shore was another magician."
"I must know the truth, the truth beyond magic.

"There is no truth beyond magic," said the king.
The prince was full of sadness, He said, "I will kill myself,"
The king by magic caused death to appear.
Death stood in the door and beckoned to the prince. The prince shuddered, He remembered the beautiful but unreal islands and the unreal but beautiful princesses.

"Very well." he said, "I can bear it."'
"You see, my son" said the king, "you, too, now begin to be a magician."

From The Magus, by John Fowles,
Dell Publishing Co., Inc pp. 499-500.

Meditation: Pick only one of these questions, possibly the most challenging to you today:

1. What kind of trances are we still under from being raised the way we were? E.g. Denial about the nature of real relationship? (princesses, the divine poetry of the erotic, how love can create or destroy, the power of friendships and sharing, the importance of feelings, etc.)
Possibly some illusions about the real world (islands, our faith, country or church or
way of life being superior, when we hardly know how others live at all, and
nothing of their values), myths about the mystery we call God, (all those creeds
and truths we were expected to believe in order to be saved or simply "good"
Christians. . .which seldom relate to our real lives. . .?
2. Is there "magic" that blinds and the magic that enables vision? How shall we discover our own souls, our own "magic"? Instead of someone else’s magic for us?
3. Are both princes and princesses limited by the "previous" magic? Can we recognize more fully the "old magic" as magic, let go of it, and begin to create a new magic?

4. Have some "blinders" already come off your eyes? Any from your life
or work so far?

5. Take another long thoughtful walk today or tomorrow thinking about all the blinders we have all received, and how it would be to be free of these to discover a new and fuller life and self.

6. Is the possible that this mystery we call God invites us to break all molds and discover something very original about ourselves?

7. Have we yet decided to become our own magician, hopefully with the help of this mystery we call "God."

Namaste. Paschal Baute, 10/21/99

"Inquiry is fatal to certainty."
- Will Durant (1885-1981)

It is the Story that Counts

noreply@blogger.com (Paschal Baute) — Sun, 09 Jan 2005 11:20:00 +0000

One of our problems today is that our theology has become so focussed on words, that it has largely betrayed the power of the Word (in its original Aramaic, dabbar, meaning creative energy), as Matthew Fox noted.

In our attempts to reach a rational understanding of mystery, we have often lost sight of the story which sustains and nourishes theological discourse. We have neglected the story as story with the result that over centuries we have turned stories into ideological statements, giving literal meaning to something that was never meant to be taken literally. We have forgotten that story is the most dynamic and versatile tool available to us humans for the discovery of meaning and mystery.

Norman O. Brown once claimed that meaning is not in things but in between, It’s not in the events, nor in objects, nor even in proven discoveries that ultimate truth lies, but in the process of searching, seeking, experimenting, and discovering.

Over time, teachings taken from stories, parables and lives have assumed the ideological proportions of dogma and Right Teaching. Then stories that invited wonder and awe and insight, initially offering hope, new life and liberation became millstones, burdens that no longer inspire but instead stifle and stultify.

All the major religions today, --and theology in general -- suffer from narrative starvation and privation. Even when the original myths are still narrated, they are so couched in rationalistic, legalistic or devotional framings that inhibit and even prevent the story from being dynamically retold in today’s context.

The entire bible , as well as the sacred texts of other wisdom traditions, is primarily a story, and not a record of facts and events. In a faith context, what brings meaning and integration to experience, facts are secondary, always secondary. . "It is the story (and not the facts) tha grips the imagination, impregnates the heart, and animates the spirit from within, empowering. Jesus did not preach in any formal sense, nor did he theologize, nor attempt to establish anything like what we have today as church.

Jesus told stories, the best remembered of these being parables, some 39. These have an archetypal, primordial significance: They are not just ordinary stories. In fact, there is no such thing as an "ordinary" story, because none of us are ordinary. The parables belong to a vein of prophetic discourse aiming to disturb and challenge the hearers, and to motivate them to move into a very different way of envisioning the world and themselves.

Bausch (1984) delineates the marks of the New Testament parables. They uncover:

Our competitiveness and envy & invite us to brotherhood and sisterhood instead.
Our wrong centering and invite us to a right centering
Our need to hoard and exclude and invite us to share and include.
Our assumptions and challenge us to turn them around
Our timidity and invite us to risk all for the sake of God’s Reign
Our self-centered despair and distrust and invite us to hope.

What is the role of Church in all of this? Jesus showed little concern for church and no concern whatever for its organization, as "church" is mentioned only once in the four Gospels, in a single text whose historicity is doubtful. Church is meant, we suggest, to be the community that continues the stories, both the servant and the herald of the exciting news of the New Reign of God in the world now. The main function of church is create and nourish disciples who are empowered to renew the world. We do that by gathering the people and telling the stories that proclaim the Good News. All else is secondary. That includes ritual, tradition, orthodoxy, and canon law.

Most Christian churches today have betrayed the reason for their existence. The major crisis facing many churches is not the drop in numbers, failure to organize, insufficient programs, shortage of ordained clergy, or lack of financial support. The major problem is that they have lost touch with the Reign of God agenda, that is, they no longer tell the stories in a way that speaks to the modern heart and mind, in a way that can create disciples. Churches, I suggest, have lost their souls. They have forgotten that the Spirit calls each one from within, singularly, usually by a story or sharing often through some personal crisis. The institutional churches instead try to fit people into ideologies, rituals, programs, traditions, or literal interpretations with no understanding that context influences everything. Most churches today are inward looking, concerned with what is deemed necessary for their survival, and sometimes or too frequently what is necessary for the survival of the current power structures.

So far astray are most churches that any group that meets in order to tell the stories, even to tell their own stories, in a setting where personal faith is valued, is likely to be more engaged spiritually, more encouraged, more accepted, more deeply moved, more vulnerable, with more incentive to personal change than in an hour of preaching or Eucharistic celebration. For example, there is often more spirituality in a 12th step AA meeting than occurs in most religious services. (Note: This is what we have been doing in The Spiritual Growth Network of Kentucky for 15+ years, see web site www.lexpages.com/sgn.

Without vulnerability, personal change is unlikely. "Church" or the realization of the Reign of God already amongst us, happens whenever there is this kind of vulnerable sharing, this kind of listening to the uniqueness of Another’s journey. Whenever we respond to each other in a caring way, "ministry" happens, inadvertent ministry, the priestliness of us all is affirmed, and the Story of this mystery we call Emmanuel is implicitly recognized and welcomed. And we are continuing the stories...Note here that hospitality to the Stranger is one of the most common threads of all Wisdom traditions.

In order for people to authenticate their journey, they need a sacred and safe space in which to tell their stories, and to ask all sorts of questions concerning their journeys. We introduce you today to a method or technique that allows each to do this, at their own pace, with respect for the individual and in a manner that helps create community among the participants. Story, or parable, as Jesus used it, allows each person to respond from within. It is also a way of hiding the truth from those who are not ready for it.

Now I will tell you a story, perhaps even some stories . . .
Give you some questions about it,
and ask you to share in small groups.
You will learn this process,
and can lead it elsewhere
when you are ready.

"When the student is ready
the teacher will appear."
Zen saying.

Presentation to a church conference in 2000, by Paschal Baute