Go and do evil

The father knew it was not going to end well, and the father funded it.

We have five children. Some of them are just natural rebels. If they are reading this, I’ll let them decide of whom I speak. Oh, to be sure, all of our children have had their moments, and I wouldn’t want it any other way, but a couple of our kids, during their teenage years, just had that terrifying, terrific quality that automatically pushed against just about everything.   There’s a part of me that loves and respects a rebel. I admire the originality of a rebel, the spirit, the fire. I am a closeted rebel. Pushing against most of the conventional ideas, but too afraid to put it out there and risk getting in trouble or displeasing someone. So I admire someone who just puts it out there and doesn’t give a fuck.

One of our rebels spent months in high school grounded.  Car keys taken away, cell phone taken away.  I tried everything I could think of to try to curb her enthusiasm for risk taking, but I was wholly unsuccessful during those years. 

When this beautiful rebel turned eighteen, halfway through her senior year in high school, she announced she was going to move out.  I tried everything I could to talk her out of it.  I told her if she did, she was “on her own” with no help from me.   She didn’t care.  She was determined to do it and pointed out to me that she would do it with or without my help. 

At the time, she was finishing up high school at a small private school.  She told me she really wanted to finish, and she hoped that I would support her in continuing to pay for the things I was currently paying for:  school, books, her cell phone, an allowance that covered gas and miscellaneous items.   Everything else she was prepared to pay for herself: her rent, utilities, food. 

I struggled.

I wondered if, by continuing to pay for the things I was paying for now, I would be enabling this choice that I disapproved of.   And, let’s be honest, I was terrified for her to try to finish school while working and living on her own.   What if she didn’t finish? 

Then, for some reason, I thought of the the story of the prodigal son.   And something I hadn’t noticed before jumped out at me.  The father gave his son all the resources necessary to go out into the world.   I’m pretty certain that the father knew his son and knew that he wasn’t going to go out and live the straight and narrow.  By the time our kids are young adults we know them pretty well.  We know which ones are the rule followers and which ones aren’t.  We know which ones are cautious and which ones aren’t, which ones learn through observation and which ones learn through the hard knocks of experience. 

And the father gave the kid money to go out and fail.

I had never thought about it that way before.  I had thought about the part of the story where the father is merciful and welcomes the son back with open arms, but I just hadn’t considered that the father GAVE the kid the resources to go sin it up.  

This paints a different picture of the divine doesn’t it? 

I mean, I was raised to believe that god is all about keeping us from sin.  “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil” 

Right?

And yet, in the prodigal story, the father basically says “yes, here you go.  I know you will be doing evil with this and here it is anyway.”  

If you’ve read many of my posts, you know I have a dubious attitude toward evil. I’m not sure that much of the stuff we’ve thrown into the evil category is evil at all.

But that aside, it’s still interesting to think that in this story, the father allowed the son to go, and knew at a minimum he would get himself in a pickle and at maximum he could harm himself. The father knew it was not going to end well, and the father funded it.

I don’t throw this story out there as a lesson in parenting, but as a thought to ponder about god. Jesus is telling us in this story what god is like.

A different perspective.

On god.

And on evil.

To comment, click on the header “go and do evil”

Blog - Chasing the Red Dot RSS

Scorpion or Egg?

maybe, just maybe…….

there are no scorpions.

“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

Which of you fathers, if your son asks for f a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

I’ve had a strained relationship with this passage for awhile.   When I was young, it seemed simple.  Ask god boldly for what you want and god will give it to you.  At least that’s what they said in church.  But it just didn’t pan out that way in life.  I asked.  I didn’t get it.    I asked for my first marriage to be healed.  A noble request I thought.  Surely an “egg” in the example above.  I got an ugly and messy divorce.  Surely a scorpion.   What was the deal?  Maybe my faith?  Or maybe god?  Maybe the scorpion came from the devil?

Who knew?

Eventually, I just didn’t care.

I spent the next ten years learning how to let go.  Learning to live a life of surrender to whatever god had for me. 

I got way more into “Not my will but thy will be done.”

and “I am the Lord’s servant, may it be unto me as you have said”

I decided that if god was good (and I was bargaining that whatever god was - it was good), this god knew better than I what agenda should play out in my life. I stopped doing much “asking boldly.”

This was a shift that was full of freedom.  I no longer felt rage toward the god who seemed to be handing me scorpions. I no longer felt that I was in some kind of a war game with some sadistic devil. I no longer felt guilt and pressure to be more faithful and more bold in my requests.  I was released from blame and had released god and the devil from blame as well. 

But then, what to do with this story that Jesus hands me about asking and seeking and knocking? 

Maybe – the story had just been presented all wrong.  Maybe it’s not about whether or not this bad thing that happens in my life is god’s fault, or my fault, or some devil’s fault. 

Maybe the story is putting forth that the thing that seems like a scorpion is really an egg. 

If god is everything and everything is god. If god is in all, and through all and over all. Then maybe, just maybe…….

there are no scorpions.

Back to my marriage example.  I prayed for my marriage to survive.  It didn’t.  At the time it felt like a scorpion.  Guess what?  It was an egg.  I ended up with a man who was loving, and fun, and nourishing to my soul.   Just the kind of “egg” I needed. 

Maybe this verse is about trusting that whatever we are handed in life, no matter how poisonous or toxic or deadly it may appear to be is actually going to nourish and feed us in the long run.  That takes a lot of trust, because many, many times the scorpion is really, really huge. And many, many times we don’t see the egg for a really, really long time.

But….

Whether we can see it or not, maybe that “scorpion” is the holy spirit, the divine energy that is moving to make us grow. 

To comment click on the title of this post, “Scorpion or Egg”

Blog - Chasing the Red Dot RSS

The Levee

Better to let the soul flow freely

Rivers flood their banks from time to time.  It’s destructive, but it’s the kind of destruction that brings important fertility to the surrounding land.  

People build levees in attempts to keep the river from overflowing its banks and wreaking havoc on the surrounding area, but unfortunately, building walls to try to contain the river, only causes the waters to run faster and more furiously.   The Mississippi river has overflowed its levees over and over again.  The government has supposed that the solution is to simply build bigger and bigger levees.   We tell ourselves that this is a worthwhile endeavor.  Money and time well spent. 

It creates land and spaces where people can live and grow crops and be productive.   We pat ourselves on the back for holding back the destructive flooding of the river and making spaces that are safe and productive. 

Aren’t we advanced and civilized?  Aren’t we powerful?  We can contain the mighty river.

We ignore the fact that the walls themselves give the river even more power.  Now when the river breaks its boundaries, rather than simply flooding unoccupied fields and enriching the soil; there are homes, and cities there.  And what was meant to create order and productivity leads to even greater amounts of destruction.

We are unable to accept what the river is.  The river, by nature will flood its banks.   That’s what rivers do.   To try to contain the river and tame it is to deny what is. 

To deny reality. 

To push our agenda for that space off on the river and off on nature itself.  

We might call this taming nature, but nature cannot be tamed.  Pushing it back will simply create an illusion of control that will break forth with a vengeance, causing even more destruction in the long run.  

The soul is the same. 

When we try to build walls around it, we may deceive ourselves in to thinking we have created space  where we can grow and be productive, but, the soul cannot be contained.  It will eventually overflow the walls we have built.  We might think the solution is to build bigger walls, but there is no end to the endeavor.   There is no wall high enough to contain reality, the reality of who we are.  The reality of our longings and desires.  And if they’ve been held back in such a way, they will burst forth and break down the walls we have built with the greatest of fury.  This kind of overflow won’t bring fertility, it will create more destruction.  Better to let the soul flow freely.  Sure – it will overflow its banks once in awhile. 

It will be messy. 

It will bring all kinds of fertility and new life your way. 

To comment click on the title of this post, “The Levee”

Blog - Chasing the Red Dot RSS

I know that my redeemer lives - it's not what you think it is.

I trust you to kill me…

Today, I meditated on a passage of writing by Madeleine L’Engle. The passage talked about suffering and concluded with an affirmation of “I know my redeemer lives”. 

I closed my eyes and let the phrase “I know my redeemer lives” resonate in me….. 

I envisioned that I was led down a staircase and was told I would meet my living redeemer when I got to the bottom.

At the bottom of the staircase, I looked up and saw the grim reaper.   I was surprised and he said, “you knew it would be me.”  And I did.  I thought about the leaves that fall to the ground and rot, become soil and new life.  I thought of the dead animal in the field that decays and becomes soil and new life.  I thought of all the deaths of hopes and dreams and agendas in my life and how even though they were the end of something, they were the birth of something else.   How death is redemptive.  How new life only comes when something old dies. 

Unless a seed falls to the ground and dies, it remains a single seed. 

I took the grim reaper’s hand.  It was warm and friendly.  Not scary at all.   This was my redeemer after all.   I asked him, “where are you going to take me?” and he said he wasn’t going to take me anywhere, I was already where I needed to be. 

We just stood there and I thought about how death and suffering are the redeemer.  I thought about how alive death and suffering are all the time.   How my redeemer lives.  

I thought about how that is the story of the crucifixion.  

As the meditation drew to a close, he moved away from me and became large.  He raised his hands and in a loud voice said,  “Behold I make all things new.”  

And he was gone. 

We are told in the Bible that the final enemy to be destroyed is death.   I always thought that this meant that death would be destroyed – as in – death would no longer exist and we would live forever.  But maybe I missed something with this way of seeing it.

After all, we are told that our spiritual lives are supposed to consist of death.   We are to be dying daily, losing our life in order to find it, picking up a cross daily, giving up everything.   How can we live in death mode if the goal is to get rid of death altogether? 

Maybe the passage about destroying the final enemy (death) is talking about the destruction of the enmity – not the destruction of death itself.  We are told that Christ destroyed enmity and reconciled all things.  If this is true, then death is no longer an enemy, but a friend.   Maybe we can see it as a redeemer, just as we see it in the crucifixion.   The sting is taken out.  Death and suffering whether figurative or even literal,  are now simply means to new life, resurrections and the making and growing of new things. 

I know that my redeemer lives.   

From "checkmate" by Rumi

The soul is a newly skinned hide, bloody and gross.
Work on it with manual discipline,
and the bitter tanning acid of grief,
and you’ll become lovely, and very strong.

If you can’t do this work yourself, don’t worry.
You don’t even have to make a decision,
one way or another. The Friend, who knows
a lot more than you do, will bring difficulties,
and grief, and sickness,
as medicine, as happiness,
as the essence of the moment when you’re beaten,
when you hear Checkmate, and can finally say

'I trust you to kill me.'

I know that my redeemer lives

To comment click on the header of this post “I know that my redeemer lives - it’s not what you think it is”

Blog - Chasing the Red Dot RSS

Be Safe

I just wonder if all this talk about safe has any meaning.

A couple of weeks ago, I was at a conference and in every hallway was a hand sanitizer dispenser with the tagline “clean hands are safe hands!”  

It got me thinking about the word “safe”.

I was listening to an Instagram story where the woman was leading her viewers in an embodiment exercise.  In the talk, she invited the viewers to feel a certain thing in their bodies, then added, “if that feels safe for you.”  

It got me thinking about the word “safe.”

The word safe is everywhere. 

There are safe words, safe spaces, safe people, safe rooms, safe sex, radio stations that are “safe for the whole family.”

I grew up in Canada in the seventies.   When I was a kid, I just don’t remember the word safe being everywhere.  I mean, we talked about safety first, but that was in terms of hand signals when we rode our bikes all over town and looking both ways before you crossed the street.  It was nice that we didn’t talk about being safe – we just felt safe. 

Don’t get me wrong, I know that this feeling of safety we had, was just that – a feeling.   Kids were still abducted, women were assaulted, crimes were committed.  In fact, there was probably less actual safety than there is now.  More bullying, more violence enacted upon LGBTQ+ groups, more hateful speech that went unaddressed and even unnoticed.  For that matter, we didn’t even wear seatbelts! 

But, I still wonder if, even though we are perhaps more safe now than then, the more we talk about being safe, the less safe we feel.  

I mean, I didn’t think about the germs on my hands until the dispenser reminded me that my unsanitized hands were unsafe.  I like to think I’m not a germaphobe and I don’t care about the safety of my hands, but the truth is, I stuck them under the spout and de-germed them just about every time I passed one of those dispensers.  

I thought about the Instagram lady and wondered about her choice of words “if that feels safe for you”.   It struck me as odd.   I was expecting, “if that feels comfortable for you.” ---- but not safe. 

If a feeling in my own body is unsafe, what does that mean for me?   That I am unsafe and a danger to myself?  That my emotional and physical responses are unsafe?   This seems like a set up for me to be living with a perpetrator of sorts every moment of every day – me. 

I just wonder if all this talk about safe has any meaning. 

Are we really safe?

Were my hands safe after the sanitizer?  Could I still touch something and pick up a nasty virus?

Are safe spaces safe? 

And what is a safe person?   Obviously, persons who assault us, rape us, abuse us or otherwise harm us are unsafe.  But is a person who says something we don’t want to hear unsafe?  Is a person who hurts our feelings unsafe?  Is a person who leaves us unsafe?  

I mean, is there such a thing as a safe person?  A person who won’t ever hurt us?

Are safe people actually safe? 

See, the thing about safe is ….  it just doesn’t exist - no matter how we might try to protect ourselves from the dangers out there, the people who might hurt us, the germs, the words, the feelings, the drunk drivers, the deranged criminals, the list goes on and on.

So sure, we should work to make the world a better place.  A place where there is less assault, less crime, less harm.  

But, maybe the word “safe” to describe this world just creates a false expectation.

Because….

We’re just not safe. 

And it seems to me the more we talk about safe, the less safe we feel.  

To comment on this post click on the header “Be Safe”

Blog - Chasing the Red Dot RSS

Prophecy?

The earth lies polluted
under its inhabitants

The earth dries up and withers,
    the world languishes and withers;
    the heavens languish together with the earth.
The earth lies polluted
    under its inhabitants;
for they have transgressed laws,
    violated the statutes,
    broken the everlasting covenant.
Therefore a curse devours the earth,

    and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt;
therefore the inhabitants of the earth dwindled,
    and few people are left. 

Isaiah 24:4-6

To comment click on the header “Prophecy?”

Blog - Chasing the Red Dot RSS

The Image of the Invisible God (part 2)

God is what is.

Where is God?

God is everywhere. 

God is “over all and through all and in all.”

God is everything. 

The ancient Genesis poem uses the imagery of god speaking a word and that word becoming the creation.  The word made “flesh”, so to speak. 

An incarnation.

And that incarnation tells us the truth about the divine, the sacred…..god if you will.   

For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God. (Romans 1:20)

“But ask the beasts, and they will teach you;
    the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you;
or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you;
    and the fish of the sea will declare to you……In god is the life of every living thing
    and the breath of all mankind.” (Job 12)  

 We limited the “word became flesh” to the man Jesus, but it was there all along in creation.  

Where is god?

Everywhere.

God is what is. 

To comment, click on the header “The Image of the Invisible God (part 2)

Blog - Chasing the Red Dot RSS

The Image of the Invisible God

Does all mean all?

My tears have been my food day and night, While they say to me all day long, "Where is your God?" (Psalm 42)

Where is god? 

Is god here? 

“The Lord your God is in your midst,”  Zephaniah 3:17

 In heaven?

“Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him; they will see His face.” Revelation 22

 On Earth?

“She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means 'God is with us')." (Isaiah 7)

 In you and me? 

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? “ (I Cor 3:16)

Is god in life?

 “I am the resurrection and the life.” (John 11)

In love?  

“Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4)

In light?

“This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light” (1John 1:5)

Is there anywhere god is not?  

“…one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. “ (Ephesians 4)

If god is in all, and through all, is there anything that is separate from god?  Does “all” really mean “all”.   Or is there something he is not in? 

Is there anywhere god is not?  

“in him is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5)

So it’s darkness!! That’s where God is “not”

Right?

Is god in darkness? 

“Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?.....If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee. “ (Psalm 139)

Is god in death…. and in suffering? 

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me” (Psalm 23)

is god in hell?

“If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.” (Psalm 139)

If god is in all and through all, how can we separate where god is and isn’t?  

Does all mean all? 

Is there a place or a situation that god is not in and through and present ?

Jesus himself said in Luke 17:   “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”

Jesus knew there was a danger in trying to decide where god is and where he is not.  He spent a lot of time hanging out in places and with people where it was commonly thought god was “not”.

But we like trying to figure out just where god is. We want to capture god and place god in places that make sense to us and help us feel that there is order to things. The danger we are cautioned against in the first story in Genesis.  Eve wanted this knowledge. 

The knowledge of what is good and what is evil. 

Where god is and where god isn’t

Maybe the word “god” here is an obstacle to the concept. 

What if we changed it and said “the knowledge of what is sacred and what is profane” 

or

“the knowledge of what is divine and what is not”

You fill in the words that work for you.   The concept is the same. 

Perhaps  a radical embrace of god being in all and through all would help us to rid ourselves of much of our dualistic thinking.  Perhaps when we can embrace that god, or the sacred, or the divine or “good” is in all and through all, maybe then and only then we can truly embrace suffering, love our enemy, love our neighbor, love ourselves, take care of our planet.  

To comment click on the header “The Image of the Invisible God”

Blog - Chasing the Red Dot RSS

Grace

Grace makes beauty
out of ugly things

Grace
She takes the blameShe covers the shame
Removes the stain
It could be her name
Grace
It's the name for a girl
It's also a thought that
Changed the world
And when she walks on the street
You can hear the strings
Grace finds goodness
In everything
Grace
She's got the walk
Not on a ramp or on chalk
She's got the time to talk
She travels outside
Of karma, karma
She travels outside
Of karma
When she goes to work
You can hear her strings
Grace finds beauty
In everything
Grace
She carries a world on her hips
No champagne flute for her lips
No twirls or skips between her fingertips
She carries a pearl
In perfect condition
What once was hurt
What once was friction
What left a mark
No longer stings
Because Grace makes beauty
Out of ugly things
Grace finds beauty
In everything
Grace finds goodness in everything

U2

To Comment on this post, click on the Header “Grace”

Blog - Chasing the Red Dot RSS

Oneness

Oneness is when you can embrace it all and reject none of it.

A lot of people I talk to are exploring meditation and mindfulness. 

Many say they move away from dualistic thinking and into a sense of oneness as they practice some form of meditation.    

But sometimes, I also hear talk about this journey into oneness as a journey into a place where all is love, light and bliss. 

Let’s be clear.  As soon as we think this, we have moved back into dualism. 

All is NOT love, light and bliss.  There is darkness, pain and suffering.  

Oneness is when you can feel that it is all one.  Love and pain.  Light and darkness.  Bliss and suffering.

Oneness is when you can embrace it all and reject none of it.

Julian of Norwich is one of my favorite mystics. The quote pictured “the fullness of joy is to behold god in everything” is not as simple, nor as religious as it might seem. It’s one thing to behold “god” in a beautiful sunset, a flower, a puppy or a newborn baby. It’s simple to attribute the joy and beauty of life to a god. It’s quite another to behold god in death, suffering and decay.

I don’t pretend to know what god is or to even have a reasonable definition of god. But I can’t help but believe that god IS in everything. In fact , god IS everything. God is simply what IS. The “I-am-ness” of life.

And if that’s the case, then, in fact god is in everything. And we need resist nothing.

It is all one.  It all belongs.   

All is well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well – Julian of Norwich

All manner of thing. 

Oneness.

To comment on this post, click the header “Oneness”

Blog - Chasing the Red Dot RSS