Living in a Primary World

Vacationing gives one a different perspective on life. That is why we do it. We “vacate” our normal world and enter another. Visiting Florida is different from living in New Hampshire. For example there are the governors - DeSantis and Sununu. Both are Republican governors, but they could not be more different. But I won’t get into that. This post is not about politics. Nor is it about the upcoming Republican presidential primary in New Hampshire, which I am already getting robocalls about. It is about the primary world that lays behind this secondary one.

I have recently read three novels that picture another world behind the ordinary one. The most recent is Fairy Tale by Stephen King. The teenage protagonist discovers another world hidden behind the door of a shed in his neighbor’s backyard. Presently I am reading Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. It pictures another world beneath London, accessed through doors by a girl named Door. The Night Shift by Natalka Burian has a similar theme. It takes place in New York City, where there are doors that are shortcuts to other parts of the city. These shortcuts change your world.

In all these books the alternate universe is entered the same way that the Pevensie children entered Narnia in C. S. Lewis’ books. Through a door. To enter the realm of Aslan one walked through the door of the wardrobe in the spare room. These books awaken the ancient memory that there is more to life than what most people realize.

Jesus spoke of such an alternative realm. He called it the Kingdom of God. He called himself the Door. He spoke of seeing this Kingdom and entering it. I see it all the time no matter where I am. It is always here now. I remember glimpses of it from childhood when the world was magical and summer was endless. I see it here in the natural beauty of the Florida coast in springtime. God’s presence is seen in the sparkling of the ocean, the swaying of the palm trees, and the gentle presence of wildlife.

There is the physical world, and there is the spiritual world. Most people consider the physical world as real and the spiritual world as less substantial. I see it as just the opposite. The physical world is transient. It is without form and substance. Everything changes constantly. 

The deeper one looks scientifically at the subatomic level the more we discover there are no “things” at all. There is only change. Mountains rise and fall. Climates change. Bodies are born, age and die. Species come and go, including our short-lived human species. Planets are born and die. But the Kingdom of God is eternal.

The Eternal is the primary world. The physical world is secondary. Much like Plato’s allegory of the cave, this physical world is a world of shadows. The eternal world is one of sight and light. Yet the Eternal is glimpsed through the temporary. Every part of this world is translucent to the Spiritual. All creation shines with the glory of Heaven. Every living thing reflects Divine Life. “Earth's crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God.”

The Kingdom of God is my home. This physical world – and this temporary physical body - are just fleeting manifestations of my Eternal home. Some people yearn for heaven. I don’t. Why would I yearn for what I already have – or more accurately – what already has me? Heaven is all around me, shining through every inch of this world! The Kingdom of God is within me, just as Jesus said.  All one has to do is notice.

There is an old gospel song that says, “This world is not my home I'm just a-passing through. My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue.” That may be true for those who picture heaven as beyond the sky and who cannot see the shores of heaven from where they stand on earth. But for me heaven kisses earth. The Kingdom of Heaven is within arm’s reach. The Kingdom of God is “at hand,” just as Jesus said. I stand on the shores of the crystal sea now, and heaven’s treasures are all around me, as they always are.

No Room at the Beach

I tried to go the Easter Sunrise service today. I really did. I got up at 5:50 AM, took a shower and drove to the beach, arriving a half hour before the outdoor worship service was scheduled to begin. I thought that would be early enough. It wasn’t. Hundreds of other people had the same idea earlier than I did. By the time we arrived, there was no room at the beach. There was not a parking space to be found.

It felt like the “no room at the inn” Christmas story all over again. The main beach parking lot was full. So were the lots further away. So were every space along the streets. We drove up and down the narrow streets for another twenty minutes looking for any available parking spaces. Many other vehicles were doing the same thing. By then it was drizzling, and the wind was picking up (gusts up to 20 mph), so we headed back to our rented condo.

We walked out to our own completely deserted beach, and arrived at exactly the time of sunrise: 7:05. There was no sun to be seen because of the clouds (as you can tell from the photo.) The waves were crashing and the wind was blowing. Yet my wife and I sang Easter hymns, read the Easter story from the Gospel of John, and shouted to the winds, “Christ is risen!”

It was one of the nicest sunrise services ever. We realized that if we had been sitting in our lawn chairs a few miles down the beach, huddled in our sweatshirts against the wind, with sand blowing in our faces, surrounded by hundreds of people, amps blaring, singing religious pop songs we did not know, unable to hear what was being said, we would have been miserable.

Yet at our own beach we were worshipping the risen Christ with joy.  It was an Alleluia moment. If I had thought of it, I would have read the gospel story of the risen Christ having breakfast at the beach with a few of his disciples. That is what it felt like. Spiritual food for Easter-loving souls. Following our service we went to the only restaurant nearby that was open and had a pancake breakfast. Plus we were there early enough to beat the Easter crowd!

It just goes to show that things always turn out the way they should, even though it doesn’t seem so at the time. It is all a matter of whether we can see it. That is what the story of Easter is about. Friday was a disaster for the early followers of Jesus. Saturday was depressing. Sunday dawned with tears and fears. But as Sunday progressed a greater truth was revealed. It was simply a matter of whether his followers had eyes to see and ears to hear. It is the same this Easter. Christ is risen indeed.

Holy Weekness

It is Holy Week, and I find myself in Florida once again. For that reason I have not been able to attend worship with my church back home in New Hampshire during most of this Lenten season. We have tried attending churches here in Florida, but so far we have not found one that is both theologically and physically welcoming. By that I mean both open-minded and scent-free.

I am senstive to many manmade chemicals and artificial fragrances. Unfortunately I passed that trait on to my daughter, who gets severe migraines when exposed to chemical odors. She can’t step foot inside a church in western Pennsylvania. I can tolerate low levels. But my, how these Floridians love their colognes and perfumes! I can barely see the preacher through the haze.

One time we tried a scented church in Florida; it was shoulder-to-shoulder crowded and smelly. We sat in the balcony because there were less people. It was like sitting in a “non-smoking section” (remember those?) back when people pretended secondhand smoke would stay in its assigned part of the room. At another church we walked out during the worship service, explaining the reason for our departure to the ushers on the way out.

The last time we tried an in-person service here we ended up sitting behind a glass wall in the entryway with the ushers. They set up special chairs for us. I appreciated the effort, but it felt like we were sitting at the back of the bus. 

Last Sunday I really wanted to attend a Palm Sunday service in person. I searched online for the possibilities and decided on a nearby Methodist church that looked sparsely attended. I even noticed that some people were wearing masks, which was a good sign. But we changed our mind at the last minute. For this reason we have been worshiping online or privately for most of Lent.

Nevertheless we have been observing Lent. I find symbols of Lent in nature. Palm trees fill the grounds of the condo complex where we are staying. The trees waved their palm branches on Palm Sunday, as I joined in singing Hosanna. As I walk the beach each day I imagine the Via Dolorosa that Jesus traveled on his way to the cross. He suffers today with all those who suffer in the world. “As you have not done it to the least of these, you have not done it to me.”

I will not be attending Maundy Thursday Service or Good Friday Service in a church building this week, but I will be observing Holy Week nonetheless. Holy Week is a state of mind. It is an identification with the life, death and resurrection of the Crucified and Risen One. When we realize our identity in Christ, we join with him in the suffering of the cross and the joy of resurrection.

On Easter Sunday we plan to attend an outdoor sunrise service on the beach. People can wear all the scent they want. (And they do!) But it is manageable. The salt breeze blows most of it away. We attended this service last year, so we know it is conducted by an evangelical ministry in a style I call Pop Christianity. That type of theology and music are not my first choice, but I am attending nonetheless. For the Risen Lord will be there on the beach, just as he was two thousand years ago.   

Lenten Loophole

Although a staunch atheist, early 20^th century comedian W. C. Fields was known to collect and study books on theology. On one occasion fellow actor Thomas Mitchell came to visit him and caught him reading a Bible. When asked why he was reading it, Fields replied, “Looking for loopholes.” This Lenten season I am thanking God for a loophole in the Lenten custom of “giving up something for Lent.”

Lent is a time when Christians traditionally fast from some food or activity for forty days in remembrance of Jesus’ forty day fast in the wilderness. This Lent I decided to give up desserts. It seemed like a good idea at the time. My wife gave up potato chips. Salty things are her weakness. Mine is sweets. I tell people I am sweet, and she is salty. (Actually it is the other way around!)

I renounced all types of desserts – pies, cake, cookies, puddings, and even ice cream. That decision was made when I was snowbound in New Hampshire, where it is easy to avoid ice cream stands in the winter. They are all closed. Now deep into Lent I find myself in sunny Florida surrounded by open ice cream stands, and they are calling my name. Lucky for me I am a preacher, and I know a loophole. I knew about it when I made the vow.

Lent is the 40 day period that begins on Ash Wednesday and ends with Easter Sunday. But when you count the days on a calendar you will find there are actually 46 days between these holidays. Many Christians do not realize that Lent does not include Sundays. Sundays are considered “feast days” in the midst of the forty “fast days” of Lent. Sundays are oases in the wilderness of Lent. For that reason Sundays are said to be “in Lent” and not “of Lent.” In contrast, in December Sundays are marked “of Advent.”

In other words Sundays do not count when it comes to Lenten fasting. In the same spirit Muslims fast for a month during the holy season of Ramadan, but only during the daylight hours. Every evening they break the fast with the Iftar meal, eaten at sunset. Likewise I can break my fast with ice cream every Sunday while basking in the Florida sun! But only on Sundays. And today is Sunday! Alleluia! (Oh, sorry. That is another rule. You can’t say alleluia between Ash Wednesday and Easter – not even on Sunday.)

The reason I am writing about loopholes is to reveal how deceptive the heart is. There is a story in the Gospel of Mark where the Pharisees were self-righteously condemning Jesus’ disciples for not ritually washing their hands before they ate. Jesus called the Pharisees hypocrites for putting religious traditions above God’s commandments. He pointed to the example of a man who found a loophole in the commandment to honor your father and mother. The man learned that if he declared his resources “corban” (devoted to God) he did not have to use them to care for his parents. Jesus said, “Many such things you do.”

Religion is filled with rules and traditions! They are often used to avoid God. In this way Christianity has often fallen into legalism and hypocrisy. The self (or ego) naturally acts in a selfish manner. The self wants what the self wants, and it will find any excuse to get what it wants. There is no way to tame the egoic self, regardless of how many vows we take. Vows only serve to reveal how unruly the self is. The only permanent solution is the death of the self.

That is the meaning of the cross. The mystics say we are to “die before we die.” In this spirit Jesus taught us to deny the self, take up the cross and follow him. But until our physical death we have to put up with this “body of death,” as the apostle Paul calls it. We carry this selfish self around with us like an unruly pet. 

Buddhists call it the monkey mind. I affectionately call it my pet ape. (We are zoologically apes, after all.) Paul called it the flesh or the “old man.” We keep it on a leash, but sometimes it breaks free and runs like a puppy free of its lead. In my case it heads directly for the nearest homemade ice cream stand. “Chocolate chip cone, please!”

I know my pet ape well. I know its limits. It does not like fasts and fights against them. I have learned that I do best during Lent when I observe the feast days in the midst of the fast days. These Sundays “in Lent” are known in Christianity as “little Easters.” These mini-Easters make Lent doable, just like the big Easter makes life livable.  By celebrating “little Easters” I can celebrate Easter Sunday with the joy of knowing I kept my Lenten vow, rather than feel guilty for failing to keep it. In short, be gentle – yet firm – with your pet ape. After all, it is only human. 

The Salvation of Words

“Words save our lives, sometimes.” Neil Gaiman wrote those words in the Acknowledgements section of his book The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which is a wonderful book by the way. Let me give you his full quote: “In Sarasota, Florida, Stephen King reminded me of the joy of just writing every day. Words save our lives, sometimes.” That has been true in my life.

I have loved words ever since I got a poem published in my high school’s literary magazine. To see my words in print was magical, and the magic never ceased. I was the photography editor, proofreader, and occasional reporter for the school newspaper. I had the English grammar textbook memorized. Since then I have learned that it is as important to know when to break the rules, as when to follow them.

Looking back, I can see that this love of words was influential in becoming a preacher. Pastors’ stock-in-trade is words, whether they are words proclaimed from the pulpit or words spoken privately to a parishioner in time of need. Preachers know better than most what words can do ... and what they can’t.

Occasionally people ask me why I am still giving weekly talks on my YouTube channel and podcast during retirement. I respond that it was not a decision. It is just what I do naturally. The sun shines, the wind blows, and a preacher preaches. You can take the preacher out of the pulpit but you can’t take the pulpit out of the preacher.

One thing has changed. I now prefer the webcam to the pulpit. I seldom preach in a church anymore. Only at the church where I am a member. Not only do I reach more people via the internet, it is much more comfortable to wear a flannel shirt while sitting in front of my computer than to wear a suit while standing behind a pulpit.  Plus the hours are better.

Retirement gives me time to write. I write every day – just like Stephen King. Well, not just like Stephen King, but I write. If I am not writing podcasts, blogs, books and the occasional sermon, then I am replying to emails from people around the world, asking me about my podcast, blog or books. Words save me. I would not know what I am thinking if it were not for writing. Some people write down their thoughts. I write before I think … in a good way.

For example, I had no idea what this blog post would be about. I just finished Neil Gaiman’s book a couple of days ago and was inspired by the quote: “Words save our lives, sometimes.” I did not know where the quote would take me, but I started writing. 

As I write, words come gushing forth. It is like the kitchen pump in my grandparents’ old cottage on Bow Lake in New Hampshire when I was a boy. A cup of water was always sitting by the kitchen sink, used for priming the pump. A few words prime the imagination, and words gush forth like water.

In recent years I have learned that words are inadequate for what I most wish to communicate. Words barely touch the surface of life. They are only ripples on the surface of consciousness. The same is true of thoughts and beliefs. They do not touch the depths. Words and ideas are fabrications of the mind. Doctrines and theology can do no more than point to truth that is deeper than words.

Truth is inexpressible. For that reason theology cannot capture God. It is a substitute for God. Far below the surface is the wordless reservoir of Divine Reality which no preacher can speak of. We can only direct people to this Reality using “groans too deep for words” as the apostle says.

Lao Tzu says, “The Tao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Tao.” He also says in the Tao Te Ching, “Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.” Those who speak and actually believe what they say are doubly deceived. As Christian mystic Bernadette Roberts said, “Truth is unbelievable.”

It is fine to have beliefs. I have many beliefs, but I don’t take them too seriously. At best they are approximations of reality, mental constructions created by the mind to make sense of what is incomprehensible. They are words. They are beautiful words, but words nonetheless. But they point to what is beyond words. As such, words can save our lives … sometimes.

Revival and Presence

I have been following with fascination the spontaneous religious revival that has broken out at Asbury University near Lexington, Kentucky. It began at a regular chapel service on February 8, but when the service was over the students didn’t leave. They stayed to worship, day and night, for twelve days, until the college administration made a decision to gradually wind down the revival this week. It will be interesting to see if God – and the students - go along with the university president’s plan!

I know a little bit about Kentucky and revivals. I attended the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, in the 1970’s at a time when revivals were commonplace in Baptist life. While in seminary, my first position was as a part-time pastor in a small Baptist congregation in Kentucky. At my first fulltime church in Southern Illinois we used to conduct revivals. These multi-day events featured a visiting evangelist and “special music.”

One revival I hosted at my church was preached by a good friend who was the pastor of a Baptist church in a neighboring town. I later reciprocated by preaching a revival at his church. This friend is now the head of a large international ministry called Global Awakening that does revivals around the world, focusing on healing miracles.

The Asbury revival is different from many religious revivals that have swept across our country in past centuries. There are no special effects. No miracles, at least of the physical kind. There is very little preaching. This revival is neither sermon-centered nor music-centered. There is music, of course, but it is mostly an acoustic background for prayer, worship, and personal transformation.

This revival – from what I can discern from the testimonies of people interviewed - is centered on the presence of God. One participant made the insightful observation that it is not about emotion or religious experience; it is about the presence of God. Participants speak about sensing the glory of God and the “palpable” presence of God. If this is true, then I respond with a hearty “AMEN!”

Christianity needs to recover a sense of the presence of God. This country needs to know the presence of God. The Presence of God is the gospel that I preach. I may use different words and ideas to describe this Presence than the students at this Wesleyan-Holiness school. My stand on ethical and social issues may be different from those held by the majority of participants.

But that is alright. We agree that there is a need for the immediacy and power of God’s Presence. If the sense of Divine Presence at this revival is genuine, then doctrine and ethics will sort out themselves later. Speaking of ethics, past revivals have been influential in changing American society. I am waiting to see if such change results from this revival.

The Second Great Awakening in the early 19^th century fueled the abolitionist movement and helped end slavery in America. It also empowered the temperance movement. This Asbury revival could possibly do something similar in our day by combatting racism and addictions. Only time will tell if this revival bears such fruit.

Undoubtedly people will try to coopt this revival for their own religious, political or social agendas. Personally my only agenda is that people recognize and embrace the Presence of God. I don’t care what spiritual tradition this Presence is expressed through. Different religions express Divine Presence in different ways. The Wesleyan-Holiness tradition expresses it through revivals, as evidenced in the history of revivals at this college. Other Christian traditions and non-Christian traditions express Presence differently.

God knows no religious barriers. Truth is not the possession of any one religion. I pray this revival might transcend religious tribalism. That would be truly miraculous! I hope this revival transforms American Christianity in a way that those in Kentucky cannot imagine. I hope it transforms America in a way I cannot imagine! However this Asbury revival plays out, I am just grateful that people are focusing on the Presence of God.

Jesus’ Vision for the Church

It seems like every other month I am reading about the demise of the Christian Church in the United States. The most recent article was in The Guardian, entitled Losing Their Religion: Why US Churches Are on the Decline.  They all say pretty much the same thing: the Christian Church is losing members rapidly, and the pandemic accelerated this trend.

Some Christian leaders are asking tough questions about what Christians can do to stanch the flow of members and church closures. My longtime friend, Dwight Moody, has been asking such questions regularly for the past couple of years. He has a podcast and YouTube channel called The Meetinghouse, subtitled Conversations on Religion and American Life.

He is very concerned about the influence of extremist forms of Christianity. He is searching for an authentic form of Christianity that will counteract this trend and revive the Church. In a recent email to me he phrased it this way: “What version of Christian faith and practice will present to the modern world (or even to the Christian community) a coherent and compelling vision for human life?”

Jesus has such a vision for the Church. My recognition of this vision came after my departure from evangelicalism and subsequently going beyond progressive Christianity into a mystical spirituality rooted in the teachings of Jesus. It is the ancient and eternal gospel. It is a gospel of union with God.

Christianity is declining because it is old and sick. It is deathly ill. It has a terminal illness. The stench of death is evident in the Church’s never-ending scandals, noxious rhetoric, and the cancerous growth of Christian Nationalism. The death knell of the church rings in the anti-intellectual dogma and culture-war mentality of Pentecostals and Evangelicals.

That is why younger generations are abandoning the Church at an increasing rate. Americans – young and old - are spiritually hungry, but they are not finding spiritual nourishment in the church. When they step inside a church they find either tired traditionalism or mind-numbing fundamentalism, so they turn elsewhere. 

They look to other spiritual traditions or to nonreligious philosophies. They look to meditation, mindfulness, Buddhism, and yoga. They look to humanism or atheism. Meanwhile the Church conducts business as usual as if it were the twentieth century, doubling down on outmoded forms of evangelism or gimmicky outreach programs.

There is a way back from this bleak picture of Christian stagnation. There can be a resurrection of the Church, but only if it is willing to die to be reborn. What is needed is a fresh look at the spiritual core of Jesus’ message without the later centuries of tradition. A “red-letter” Christianity, a gospel based on the words – and spiritual experience - of Jesus rather than endless words and doctrines about Jesus.

This fresh approach to Christianity is centered on direct spiritual awareness of the Divine that is willing to offend traditional religious sensibilities, just like Jesus did. It is willing to pay the price, just like Jesus did.

Spiritual experience was the original attraction of the charismatic and Pentecostal movements. That is why they were successful. But that was before they sold their souls to emotionalism and anti-intellectualism. Likewise Evangelicalism was originally founded on a personal encounter with the living Christ. Now it has devolved into a dogmatic religion with a secondhand belief in an imaginary friend.

Christianity only has a future if it lives in the present - in the presence of God that Jesus called the Kingdom of God.  Jesus’ message was a call to the transformation of the human being through union with the Father. We see his vision for his Church voiced in his prayer offered on the night before he died. He prayed:

“that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me. “

That “oneness” with God and each another is Jesus’ hope for the church. It is firsthand communion with God and Christ that manifests in tangible Christian unity. This can only happen when the Church proclaims an authentic message that originates from genuine spiritual awareness.

Then God will pour out the Spirit on “all people.” “Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams.” That is Jesus’ vision for his Church.