A Blog about Nothing

Those of us of a certain age will remember the long-running television sitcom Seinfeld, which was known as “a show about nothing.” That is exactly what a blog about spirituality is: a blog about nothing. Spirit is by definition beyond the world of things. Spirit is not of this world - not matter or energy - and therefore not verifiable by the scientific method.

Writing about spirituality is literally talking about “no thing,” not even an ultimate Spiritual Thing called God. God is not the Greatest of all things. God is not the Supreme Object, not a Divine Superman sitting on a celestial throne somewhere “up there.” The spiritual realm is not “up there,” as any astronomer can tell you.

Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first human launched into space, purportedly remarked that he had been into space and did not see any God. Of course not. God is not a divine Helicopter Parent orbiting our planet. God is not an entity in space, like Bertrand Russell’s rhetorical teapot. God is literally no-thing.

Likewise the Kingdom of Heaven is not a place, as Jesus repeatedly said. Jesus said to Pilate: “My Kingdom is not of this world.” When the Pharisees asked Jesus about it, he replied, “The kingdom of God will not come with observable signs. Nor will people say, ‘Look, here it is,’ or ‘There it is.’ For you see, the kingdom of God is within you.”

The Gospel of Thomas, which you won’t find in your Bibles but was written at the same time as the gospels in our Bible, has a very similar saying. When asked by his disciples about the coming of the Kingdom, Jesus said, “It will not come while people watch for it; they will not say: Look, here it is, or: Look, there it is; but the Kingdom of the Father is spread out over the earth, and men do not see it.”

God is No-thing that dwells No-where. (For some reason I find myself whistling the Beatles song, Nowhere Man.) Those born of the Spirit participate in this nowhereness. Jesus said, “The wind blows where it pleases, and you hear its sound, but you don't know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

An unknown 14th century Christian mystic called this the Cloud of Unknowing. Buddhists call it Void. Taoists call it Tao. Ancient Hebrews called it YHWH. Early Christians called it Logos. There are a dozen names for the Divine, all of which are merely placeholders for That Which Cannot Be Named. 

While doing my daily walk round the village recently, I was very aware of this ever-present Reality, which underlies and permeates all existence. This Presence is my constant Companion. (Jesus called this the Comforter or Counselor.) A life of Presence is living in the world but not being of the world. This Reality is so obvious and so simple - so omnipresent that it is routinely overlooked.

If we stop naming things, the Nameless is revealed. If we pause the internal dialogue in our minds for a moment, then the Unthinkable is present. If we step back from our “self” for a moment, then God steps to the forefront. If we just stop – stop all this selfness – then God is. This is the everyday truth that Jesus called the Kingdom of God. 

Theologian Paul Tillich called this the Ground of Being. It is the background and foundation of existence. We don’t have to be taught it. This is our present awareness. Everyone knows this intuitively, but not everyone recognizes this consciously. Everyone notices this Awareness at some level, but not everyone pays attention. This is the answer to every spiritual question and the end of every spiritual quest.

This is the Kingdom of God. It is spread over the earth, but people do not see it. It is behind every thought and beneath every emotion. Everything lives within it and cannot exist without it. The universe is born from this. It is within us and enfolds us. It is inseparable from who we are. It is us, and we are it.

In the Christian tradition this via negativa is symbolized by a Cross, which is the center of heaven and earth, where the human and divine meet. In some incomprehensible way the Cross is the death of a human and the death of God … or at least the death of our concepts of God and human. Most importantly, it is the prelude to resurrection and an embodied spiritual life.

The “wise ones” of this age – both secular and religious - call it foolishness, according to the apostle Paul. He calls it the wisdom of God and the power of God. He also calls it “good news” – the gospel. It is what every spiritual seeker is looking for. It is nothing, and it is everything. It is present … here … now … for those with eyes to see.

O Perfect Me

"Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." Jesus serves up a tall order in the Sermon on the Mount. I have preached this verse in clever and insightful ways. I have told my congregation that I knew what it really meant. I had read this in the original Greek. I went to seminary. I am the resident expert. That is why you hired me. Don't trust the words. And pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

The Greek word is teleios. It means complete, mature, the end result. I compared it to ripe fruit. We are not told to be perfect; we are obviously not supposed to be perfectionists. How perfectly ridiculous! That is a formula for failure, not to mention low self-esteem. We are to be mature. It sounded good. More importantly, it got us off the hook.

But in the back of my mind I always knew that perfect meant perfect, no matter how perfectly I tweaked the Greek. Our heavenly Father is not a ripe banana. He is perfect. We are not told to be sweet and tasty. We are told to be perfect as he is perfect.

After all, he just finished telling us to resist not evil, turn the other cheek, go the second mile, and love our enemies. These are tall orders that sound impossible and impractical. But Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King said they tried it, and it worked. But look how they died.

Besides, I know the Greek. I am an expert in explaining difficult passages. Christ may have turned water into wine, but I can turn the extraordinary into the ordinary! Don't worry, brothers and sisters. I will figure it out so we can safely go back to our ordinary lives.

That is the problem with most preaching I have done and I have heard. We preachers think we can figure out what it means, as long as we have the right commentaries and sufficient time to study. That is why we miss its meaning. We play with words and do not see beyond the words.

Like the time that Jesus said, "You are gods!" (John 10:34) Wow, that's a tough one. It could open the door for all kinds of heresies. We better shut up that verse tight.  It took me a long time and much study of the Greek, but I explained that away too. In this case I had to go back to the Hebrew also, because Jesus is quoting Psalm 82 in the Old Testament. So I had to work doubly hard, but I finally found a loophole. It doesn't mean what it says! In fact it means the opposite! Whew! That was close.

I have an eight hundred page hardcover in my personal library entitled "Hard Sayings of the Bible" to help me find loopholes in any other "hard sayings" that I might run across in the future. I am safe. I do not need to be perfect as my heavenly Father is perfect. I no longer have to be godly. Now I can relax ... imperfectly.

Artwork is Imperfection by Rob Douglas, 2008 Painting acrylic and pigment

Taking Jesus Literally

Those who take the Bible "literally" are not well thought of among the American intelligentsia. The looks of disgust I have seen on intellectuals' faces when speaking of "fundamentalists" rival Dick Chaney's sneer when speaking of Democrats. Creationists are pictured as little more than unevolved apes. Those who believe in the virgin birth and physical resurrection of Jesus are viewed as pre-Copernican ignoramuses who must also believe the earth is flat. Those who adhere to a literal reading of the moral statutes of Scripture are labeled as homophobes and bigots.

Yet Jesus appears to be a literalist. Listen to him in the Sermon on the Mount:

 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven."

This is a dimension of Jesus we don't like to hear and do not understand. Mainstream Christian preachers go through gymnastic gyrations worthy of Olympic athletes to explain away passages like this. I know, because I have done it! We take the biblical Jesus, cleverly transform him into our own image, dress him in 21st century values and call ourselves followers of Christ. In truth we have just created another idol to worship.

A.J. Jacobs is a Jewish agnostic who tried to take the Bible literally. He attempted to follow all the laws and rules of the Bible - including the Old Testament dietary, clothing, and hair laws - for one year. He recounts his humorous journey through religious literalism in his book, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible.

During his yearlong experiment he is instructed in the Torah by observant Jews. But he also meets such biblical literalists as snake handlers in Appalachia, Amish in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, biblical creationists in Kentucky, and Samaritans in Israel. He even visits the liberals' dreaded nemesis, the Reverend Jerry Falwell.

At the end of his year of living literally, he is not converted to the biblical lifestyle nor the biblical God, but he does develop an appreciation for the faith and lifestyles of the literalists. In other words, he learned not judge people until you have walked a year in their sandals. He did. That is one Biblical rule the anti-literalists might consider taking literally: Judge not, lest ye be judged.

The photo progression shows Author A.J. Jacobs as he spent a year trying to live the Bible literally - and not shaving - for his book, The Year of Living Biblically.

Who is that Masked Man?

When I was a child I regularly attended the movies on Saturdays - that is, when there wasn't a game to play or watch. Like all boys my age, oaters were my favorites. These were classic Westerns that had archetypal good guys and bad guys. You could always tell the bad guys by the background music and the color of their clothes. The hero likewise could always be identified by his white horse and white hat.

So it is with the greatest oater of all time - the Book of Revelation. (Remember how it started with the four horsemen of the Apocalypse?) In the second half of chapter 19, the Lone Ranger finally arrives on the scene to save the day. A white horse appears, and on the horse is a Rider whose name is Faithful and True. Three guesses who this guy is! Right, this is the long awaited return of Christ. He enters on stage to save the day with his cavalry on their white horses right behind him.

The long awaited Battle of Armageddon is actually anti-climactic. In one sentence the battle is over, the villain and his minions are defeated, and the victory celebration begins. This is the highly anticipated hope of evangelical Christians.

Last Sunday we celebrated the Lord's Supper at our little Baptist church. The pastor closed the service with the traditional words of the apostle Paul, "For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till He comes." Then he added his own heartfelt addendum: "Lord Jesus, come quickly!" This is the true spirit of Revelation. The Bible ends with these words.

I am enough of an evangelical to have my heart stirred by such words. I feel uncomfortable in time. I yearn for eternity. This human role that I am playing in time and space is already old. I have had enough glimpses behind the curtain to know that this world is a stage and we are all players, as the Bard said.

I have read the script. I know how the story ends. I am impatient for the Director to wrap up the show, so I can set aside my persona and enjoy the cast party. Lord Jesus, please come quickly!

The God of Disasters

Pat Robertson said that the earthquake in Haiti was a curse from God for a supposed pact that Haitians made with the devil to free them from French occupation. (There was no such pact, but let's not let the facts get in the way of a convenient theodical argument.) Most Christians scoffed and looked down their noses at this televangelist who remains an embarrassment to their religion.

But what alternative explanation did they propose? Was the quake nothing more than a natural phenomenon outside of God's control? If that were true, it would make the Deity into a powerless demigod incapable of controlling what he created.

Was the earthquake simply not important enough for God to prevent? Really? One hundred thousand people die in a minute and it is not worth divine attention? The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami killed over two hundred thousand. How many people are important enough to get his attention?

The explanation I hear most often is that God "permitted" the earthquake but did not cause it. Does that really get the Lord off the hook? On January 28, a fifteen-year-old girl was severely beaten in a Seattle transit tunnel while three security guards watched and did nothing. They "permitted" the violence, and we are rightly shocked. Is this the type of God Christians believe in? I am as appalled by this type of evangelical deity as I am at Robertson's vengeful cursing god.

The other common solution is to lobotomize God, picturing the Divinity as less than a Person. The Cosmic It is not responsible. It doesn't think or feel. It is just a Force, an impersonal Power, the Energy of the universe. So let's all sing, "We are the World," give a few bucks and feel better. If there is one thing that is obvious to me, it is that God cannot be less personal, conscious or caring than humans are!

So what is the solution? Revelation 16 describes the God of Jesus Christ as "the God behind these disasters" (16:9), referring to the "bowls of wrath" that fill this chapter. In the end the buck stops with God.

I don't have any neat explanation for the age-old problem of suffering and evil. But I know the problem is in our thinking and not in God's nature. It is not that God is inattentive or impotent, callous or uncaring. It is certainly not that God lets the devil do his dirty work while he keeps his hands clean by only "permitting" bad things to happen.

It is that our mini-brains cannot comprehend the Big Picture. All the hand-wringing, name-calling and excuse-making will not change that truth. Somehow the solution centers in the Suffering God, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, (Rev. 13:8) the Crucified One who died on the Cross. The more we know Him, the more we understand the pain of the world.

(Artwork is "Haiti will reborn" by Haitian artist Frantz Zephiri)

Sitting By the Dock of the Bay

There is nothing quite like the early morning on a lake. All my life I have spent time each summer on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. I often wake up early - preferably at dawn - and go down to the dock and sit. Sometimes I take a canoe or rowboat into the middle of the bay and just sit and absorb the quiet. For me it is an elixir of peace that sinks deep into my soul. I am closest to the heart of God at such times.

The Book of Revelation pictures a sea of glass before the throne of God. (Revelation 4 & 15) The earlier passage pictures the denizens of heaven standing beside the sea, and the latter passage describes the people of God as standing on this sea of glass. For me this communicates "the peace that transcends understanding" (Philippians 4:7) that is ours in the presence of God.

On one occasion Jesus calmed a storm on the Sea of Galilee from the stern of a boat. It says simply, "and all was calm." The disciples, amazed at Christ's ability to bring peace to a raging lake, asked one another "Who is this?" (Luke 8:25)

There is peace in the presence of God. It is peace like a lake at dawn, as still as glass. In both scenes in Revelation, everyone present around or on the sea spontaneously breaks into a song of praise. I do the same. How can I not? A song to my Creator and Redeemer spontaneously rises in my soul, and my voice echoes across the lake of glass. And in response to the song, the doors of the heavenly temple open wide. (Rev. 15:5)

The Church & the Antichrist

The most popular sideshow in Christian circles is trying to figure out the identity of the Antichrist. The Roman Catholic Church has historically been the main bogeyman for Protestants, being identified as the Beast of Revelation by such leaders as Martin Luther, John Calvin, Roger Williams and John Wesley.

In modern history, Hitler and other Hitleresque characters have been common targets. Faddish variations on this theme in recent decades have been identifying Ronald Reagan or George Bush, Bill Clinton or Barak Obama as the Big Bad Guy, depending on which party of the congressional oligarchy you embrace.

I will not add my voice to this specious speculation. My guiding principle is this statement from Jesus: "For false christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect." (Matthew 24:24) That means that the False Christ (Revelation 13:1-10) and False Prophet (Revelation 13:11-18) will be very attractive to Christians. So beware whom you champion.

It is more helpful to see these two beasts of Revelation 13 in general terms. The John who wrote Revelation also wrote these words: "As you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come." (I John 2:18) Each age has its antichrists. There are many incarnations of the two beasts before the final ones. Who are they today?

I paint the two beasts of Revelation 13 in broad strokes as Government and Religion, especially big government and big religion. In a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887, Lord Acton wrote this famous line: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."

The greatest danger to believers - now and in the "last hour" - are those who hold worldly power - political, economic and religious power. Power corrupts. The best defense against the Antichrist is to rob him of his power. Small government and small religion are the best defense against this Great Offense.

But Revelation says that this advice will not be heeded in the future. People looking for some Great Leader to solve their worldly problems will embrace the Beast. Those who look to religion to save them from their sins will get what they desire - the Anti-Savior.

"Are you listening to this? They've made their bed; now they must lie in it. Anyone marked for prison goes straight to prison; anyone pulling a sword goes down by the sword. Meanwhile, God's holy people passionately and faithfully stand their ground." (Revelation 13:9-10)

(Painting is "The Double Cross" by Fritz Hirschberger)