Creating through separation

Every change is a separation from what was there previously.

I read recently this blog post.

https://Newedenministry.com/2020/06/14/creatio-ex-omnia/

The thoughts in this post arose from that blog post - read it. It’s good.

I’ve always been told that God created what is from nothing.  The fancy theological term is “creation ex nihilo”. I loved the way the blog post talked about another way of seeing creation.

Let’s set up the idea a little. 

First of all, most people who assent to some idea of a god, would agree that god (whatever god is) is infinite. 

And most would agree that infinite is that with no limits or end.  And for something to be truly infinite, in the absolute sense, it is infinite in all directions and in all dimensions. 

For something to be infinite, it cannot be contained by anything. 

So, if god is infinite, than rather than being contained by anything, god is the “thing” that contains all things.   (I use “thing” for lack of any word that can describe the infinite)

Thus we cannot think of god as being “in heaven” because in order for a god to be contained in a place called heaven, heaven would have to contain god and if god is infinite nothing can contain god.  This is one way we know that when the Bible talks about heaven, it is not being literal, but is being metaphorical, or rather – metaphysical. 

It is this kind of infiniteness that in fact defines god.  Due to god’s infiniteness, there is nothing which is not god.  God is the sum total of everything. 

The Bible speaks of this when it says that “god is over all and through all and in all. “

And not only is god in and through everything but is also in and through every possible non-thing you can imagine. And every possible thing and non-thing you CAN’T imagine.  And… every NON possible thing and non-thing.    It is all in god and god is in all of it.  There is no separation.   

Even nothingness is not a boundary that contains god.  If it were, god would not be infinite. 

So…  back to creation.  

The idea of creation being a process whereby something is brought into being from nothing suggests that the something and the nothing are separate entities.  Our logic tells us this must be so. However, if god is both the something and the nothing they are NOT separate entities, but in fact - one. So in order to even speak of “something” as a different thing from “nothing” a division must occur.

Therefore, creation is not so much a bringing something out of nothing process, but rather an act of separation.    

Creation and the incarnation of something new happens when the boundless infinite creates boundaries.  Separations between things that exist from things that do not exist, thus creating existence as a separate entity.  God was in all of it- or rather WAS all of it -  before god separated existence from non-existence. 

So, if god was both existence and non-existence and god separated them from each other in order to create, then god doesn’t just create a separation between two things, but actually creates a separation within god’s self in order to create. 

Think about this for a minute.  What does that mean about separation?  I was always taught that separation from god was a bad thing and should be avoided at all costs.  And yet, if god is infinite — god had to have created a separation within god’s self in order to create. 

So, how can separation be a bad thing?

If separation creates?

If it were not for separation, there would be no life, no diversity, no conflict certainly, but also no change and growth.  I myself have grown and changed tremendously through separations.  Separation from old ideas, old behavior patterns, old relationships and relationship patterns.  

Every change is a separation from what was there previously.

And we see this ultimately in the crucifixion event when god is again, separated from god’s self and cries out, “my god, my god, why have you forsaken me?”

And a new thing is created. 

Behold I make all things new. 

To comment click on the header “Creating through Separation”

I can't breathe

“..the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until the present time.”

When a thing is born, breathing is essential.

In the birth of a child, the midwife instructs the laboring woman when to breathe, how to breathe, pant, don’t forget to breathe

Immediately after the birth of a child, we hold our breath, waiting for that first breath, that first cry

In meditation, often, the focus is on the breath to learn presence and birth consciousness

Something is being birthed in the world right now and the whole world seems to be crying out. From George Floyd, to COVID-19 victims, to mask wearers, to the very creation itself as climate change destroys the environment, the cry is, “I can’t breathe!”

I can’t breathe

I can’t breathe

I can’t breathe

I can’t breathe

I can’t breathe

I can’t breathe

To comment, click on the header “I can’t breathe”

I'm Tired

Tired of the shit show

I’m tired. 

Aren’t you tired? 

Tired of the shit show in politics that we’ve been watching for god knows how long?

Aren’t you tired?

Tired of everything being a fight, a contest, an exercise in us vs. them?

Aren’t you tired?

Tired of Black people being killed?  And women being raped? And refugees being put in camps?  And innocent folks being locked up and killed by the justice system?

Aren’t you tired?

Tired of being used as a pawn in someone else’s quest for power and control?

Aren’t you tired?

Tired of being told who your enemy is, when in fact, you need not even have one?

Aren’t you tired?

Tired of worrying about whether or not you will have security in your retirement or healthcare tomorrow?  Tired of wondering if our financial system is about to collapse?

Aren’t you tired?

Tired of working, and working and working while the rich get richer and the poor get poorer?

Aren’t you just tired?

I am. 

Self improvement projects

self-aggression is way out of feeling vulnerable.

“Self-improvement projects are acts of self-aggression. “

I heard someone say this on a podcast this week – and I felt a strong “yes!”

Our culture is so obsessed with self-help and self-improvement.  My social media feeds are full of public figures who are releasing their daily thoughts on how I can be healthier, happier, more beautiful, more spiritual, more, more, more. 

I know full well that most of these social media gurus have the best of intentions.  Sure, there are some that are just trying to make a buck, but I choose to believe that most of them want to make the world a better place and help alleviate suffering. 

But, does it alleviate suffering?  I don’t know about you, but when I’m constantly presented with messages of how I need to change, it creates a low-level anxiety in me.  There is a background voice that says I’m not OK just as I am.  I need to be healthier, happier, more beautiful, more spiritual, and so on.  

I did a little reading on self-aggression.   Mental health professionals say that self-aggression is way out of feeling vulnerable. 

We know our vulnerabilities only too well, our health is fragile and can be taken from us at any time, our happiness is tenuous and comes and goes at a moment’s notice, our beauty is fleeting, our very lives are fleeting.   Sometimes, we just want a way out of that tension.   And for many the “way out” is self-help.   

When we engage in self-help, we finally have an emotional state that we are controlling.  “If I would just work harder, be smarter, lose weight, be happier, make more money, be how my parents want me to be,  etc… I wouldn’t feel this way.”  So we focus on making ourselves a self-improvement project and we crack the whip.  On ourselves.  In an act of self-aggression.

And then we wonder why we feel even worse.

Chasing the Red Dot

She will never catch it, because it isn’t even a thing

Years ago, my daughter said that to her, a human trying to figure out what god is, is a lot like her kitten chasing the laser pointer. The kitten has no idea what the red dot on the wall is, but she is compelled by it and can’t resist it and continues to chase it. She will never catch it, because it isn’t even a thing, but she keeps trying anyway.

That seems like pretty accurate theology to me.

Embodiment

Embodiment is a revelation.

em·bod·i·ment

/əmˈbädēmənt/

noun

noun: embodiment; plural noun: embodiments

1.     a tangible or visible form of an idea, quality, or feeling.

Similar:

personification

incarnation

incorporation

realization

manifestation

expression

representation

actualization

concretization

symbol

o    the representation or expression of something in a tangible or visible form.

Similar:

personification

incarnation

incorporation

realization

I can very easily be in my head, rather than in my feelings or my body.   During the COVID 19 pandemic, my body has been a visible form of a feeling.  It has an appetite that it ordinarily does not.  It has a drive to store fat in response to the feeling of an uncertain future.  The body knows. 

Our bodies reveal hidden truths to us. Even when we don't know that we have something we need to know, our bodies will tell us. They get sick, they are “accident prone”, they break down, they have panic attacks, they gain weight, they lose weight, the hair rises on the back of our necks and so on. All of these things are there to tell us something if we will listen.   Embodiment is a revelation.

Embodiment is the act of taking something intangible and making it tangible.  It is the act of incarnation of truth.  Sometimes that incarnation reveals truth that we do not want to see. 

The creation reveals the creator.

Separation

separation is not a thing to be avoided and gotten rid of, it is strangely to be embraced as the thing that draws us together.

In this time of social distancing due to COVID19, it occurs to me that the Bible narrative has an awful lot of content about separation and distancing. 

In the Genesis myth – there was this lie about separation.   Adam and Eve somehow felt separated from god and felt they needed to take action to close the gap.  To “become more like god” through knowledge.  So, they did what they thought was needed to end separation which actually led them both to a more profound separation as they hid and as they covered up their vulnerability and nakedness, and as they were expelled from Eden. 

Cain was distanced from his family after he killed his brother

Noah was quarantined with his family during the flood

Abram left his country and went to a distant land.

The Israelite nation are commanded to distance themselves from other nations.  To stay separate.  They have laws and more laws about what not to touch and what to distance themselves from in order to “stay clean" (and likely in those times, before refrigeration and germ theory – alive)

Mystics and prophets distanced themselves in the desert.  

Even the crucifixion story is about distancing, “My god, my god, why have you forsaken me? “

If you are familiar with your bible stories, many more will spring to mind.

What is it about separation and distance?

My religious upbringing spun all this separation in the biblical mythology as a warning about sin and purity.  Sin will separate us from god and from each other.   Purity will keep us from separation.   The goal is to get rid of sin and thus get rid of separation. 

This interpretation is very much like the ancient Jewish notion of purity.  It is about uncleanness, contamination and contagion.   In modern times, we haven’t dealt too much with issues of global, uncontrollable contagion, until the recent COVID-19 pandemic.  Suddenly, we find ourselves thrust into a world of “Don’t touch or you’ll be infected.  Wash your hands, wear a mask.   Unclean! Unclean!”

But underneath the story that is told out of paranoia of becoming unclean, another story is being told.   A story about oneness, longing and desire. 

Separation will keep you safe from contamination, but it will also make you aware that you are not separate at all.  You are a part of a global body.  A body you need to touch, feel and interact with.  A body that, no matter how its members separate from one another, continues to infect one another; not just with COVID-19, but emotionally as well. The more we are separated from others, the more we realize our need for them and our longing to be with them.  The more we try to not be affected by it all (whether physically or emotionally), the more we are aware that we are affected.

By it all.

And in contrast, when we are in too close a proximity, we have no opportunity for desire.  When you get rid of separation, what you start longing for is separation.  During this quarantine parents and kids have just had it with the togetherness, husbands and wives are on each other’s last nerve, even cat memes have become about how they can’t wait for their owners to get out of the house. 

So, separation is not a thing to be avoided and gotten rid of, it is strangely to be embraced as the thing that draws us together.  

 It’s a push-pull.  I want you close, but not TOO close.  Like a fire that needs breathing room to roar and when smothered snuffs out.  

So, maybe rather than all the separation stories in the Bible being about impurity and punishment, maybe these stories are better read like a book about the push and pull of desire. On the one hand, it reads like a romance novel about mankind’s longing to be united with the divine, and on the other hand it is a story about how their attempt to get rid of separation resulted in even more.     

And maybe the COVID-19 story is like that too.  It is a story that is being written in history about how in our separated, xenophobic, polarized world, try as we might to get rid of this separation through political means, along came quarantine to separate us and to remind us just how much we are all one global organism that cannot be separated from itself. Along came COVID-19 to teach us that we love one another and need one another and long for connection with one another. 

Like many good love stories. 

All things new

Behold, I make all things new

Behold I make all things new

Behold I make all things new

Behold I make all things new

Behold I make all things new

Behold I make all things new

Behold I make all things new

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h16Y9-RPA8k

Life from death.

I wanted to share it with you so you don’t feel alone.

Today is Easter.  We are all quarantined because of COVID19, and so we watched inspirational talks on social media, and shared pictures of what we baked, and zoomed with our families. 

At noon, I watched Andrea Bocelli live stream from Milan Italy.  I watched a man in a beautiful church, a man who couldn’t see anything of the beauty around him stand there and sing his heart out as his offering to the world.  There were camera shots of the empty streets in Italian cities.  As Bocelli poured out his gift for us all.  

It was breathtaking.

 It made me realize that one of the most moving things about this quarantine is to watch how people are just pouring themselves out to one another to say, “I’m here, I see you, I’m with you.”  Singers are singing to the world from their homes, from isolated places.  For free.    A trumpeter plays from a balcony in Italy.  In Missoula Montana, the entire town howls together at 7pm to show their support for the essential care workers.  In the town of Belper in the UK, residents lean out of their windows at 6:30 each evening a “moo” together.  Oprah invites us into her kitchen to cook.  Preachers and teachers continue to speak words of hope across the miles.  Miki808 holds a dance party for us every day on Instagram.  And most of this has no personal gain attached to it.  The moo-ers and the trumpeters and the howlers are not getting paid for it.   It’s just for love and solidarity and support. 

It’s so lovely.

We’re in the midst of an experience which brings us face to face with the reality that we have no real control over our lives  -- our loved ones could become sick and die, our jobs could disappear any minute, our homes, our retirements.  And yet, faced with this reality that we so often don’t have to acknowledge, our instinct is to throw whatever small gift (or large gift if you’re Andrea Bocelli) we have out into the universe for each other…

The collective body of humanity seems to be saying, “I can’t save your job, your bank account or even your life, but here’s my song, here’s the flower I saw on my walk today, here’s a joke, here’s the bread I baked today, here’s a dance I am dancing , here’s my howl or my moo…..  I wanted to share it with you so you don’t feel alone.”      

It brings me to tears.

Life from death.

Happy Easter. 

Meaningless, meaningless

Today, god affirms the meaninglessness of all evil…

“Today god affirms the meaninglessness of all evil and the shitty randomness of all that is shitty and random. Today is for the countless victims of the unfair trial, today is for the needlessly downtrodden, today is against the lynchings and pogroms carried out in the name of this crucified messiah. Today there is no deeper meaning to your depression, to your divorce or to the death of your child The death of the Christ affirms what you knew in your gut all along, that your trauma is utterly meaningless. Today there is no grand plan. Today, guilt lies firmly at the feet of the abusers and injustice remains wholly unjust. Everything that is random remains divinely…. random” Adam Dawkins

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0cefepgtGs&feature=youtu.be&app=desktop