The Fruit of His Heart

The Walk

2008-08-19T00:01:00.013-04:00

You took my hand in yours and we walked on.
This surprised me, the feel of your soft, warm palm
Against mine on that beautiful night.
Our arms swung gently, naturally - and something deep was calm
We spoke of many things not spoken of,
But they fell out of our mouths like wine drunk too fast

And we walked, and we talked, and sometimes
hearing nothing I just look into your eyes,
Transfixed by the beauty of this moment,
and the warm touch of your hand in mine
Who are you to have stepped out of nowhere?
What dizziness afflicts my mind?
Does the enchantment of this late night walk mean
Anything more than the warm satisfaction
Of ice cream and hot apple pie?

I want answers to none of these questions,
I only crave the sweet taste of your words.

The Assumption

2008-03-12T23:48:00.009-04:00

You said she came in through the bedroom window
She made no sound
But it was you I did not hear

I had gone to visit my grandfather
   a year or two after his wife
   my Nana, had died
and he was telling me secrets
   secrets you might tell your best friend
   except that he didn't have one.

Then his voice changed,
   he grew quiet and he leaned in closer
   “Do you believe,”
   he asked,
   “in the Virgin Mother?”

Now I was young, and puffed full of that arrogance
   that when I was young I called knowledge

“I believe in Nana,” I said firmly.
   “I believe she lives on in our hearts.”

And he, my grandfather, he fixed me with a stare like I'd never seen
   surprise and anger and two parts disappointment
   like he had been about to offer a diamond to a pig

He sighed deeply, but went on

“I am not speaking about your grandmother,” he said
   just as firmly
   “I am talking about the Mother of God.”

Never, before that moment had I ever heard him speak
   of religion once - unless
   you count the stories
   about sneaking ‘spirits’
   into the church for his brother, Father Ray

“Did you know my brother, Auley...” he asked,
   “Did you know he died young?”

“Yes,” I said. And I did.

“Well, I was alone with Auley,” he said,
   “the night he died
Alone at his bedside as my brother lay there so calmly
I was just a boy, we both were
   and it was just the two of us....

“Auley was a good brother to me
Everyone liked him
We didn't have much money,

but his funeral was the biggest I had ever seen
Wasn't one person in town that didn't come
Everyone'd said that he'd be a priest.
Everyone knew how much he loved God,

   how much he prayed,
   especially to the Virgin
I couldn't see how much good it had done him
   I mean, he wouldn't even make it to 18 years old.”

“And then,” he said,
   “I saw Her,
   a strange and beautiful woman
She came in through the bedroom window
She made no sound
But went straight to Auley's bedside and took his hand
Took his hand like it was the most normal thing in the world

“I was confused and afraid,” he said
“I ran to get my older sisters but
   I didn't tell what I saw
They just had to come
   ....now
But when we got back to his room
   both Auley and the Lady were gone.”

“Gone?” I asked.

“His body was there,” he said, “but Auley was gone.”

Then he fixed me with his stare again,

“Do you believe me?” he asked.

“I don't know,” I said, not so firmly at all.

A year later,
my cousin, Sister Joan drove me down to see grandpa in the hospital.
People get confused when I say that
She's my Dad's cousin and she's a nun.
The Catholic kind. She works with the poor
   in Guyana.
Everyone else calls her Joanie,
I call her Sister Joan.

I was not prepared for what I found in the hospital that day

My grandfather's face was an image
from the wall of some old European church
   filled with terror and torment
   surrounded here not with flames
but the cold white blue of the hospital room

His unseeing eyes locked on mine
   with such terror and desperation
   from the moment I crossed the threshold
   that I thought
like Marley's ghost
he might scream out
“There is still time for you,
   time for you to save yourself from my fate.”
His lips moved with great effort, but there was no sound at all.
He grasped frantically for my hands
But his fingers passed right through mine as though I were the ghost.

I am sure there were other relatives in the room
But I only remember Sister Joan.
Joanna, named after Grandpa's mother, Johanna
How she went straight to his bedside
As if nothing were unusual
She took his hand
   his hand
   which had passed through mine
   like so much morning fog
she took it

   and held it
   and stroked it
   as if soothing a fevered child.
She whispered soothing sounds to him that I could not hear.
She reached for a tiny sponge and
used it to wet his tongue and wipe away
   the foam that collected in the corners of his mouth.

Horrified,

I just stood at the foot of his bed

   staring into his unseeing eyes
He stared back at me.
I know you hurt a lot of people, I thought.
You think you are going to hell - and I don't believe in Hell
But it looks like you might already be there.

I did not see my grandfather alive again

Years later, Joanie and I spoke on the phone about that afternoon
And I told her about his vision
And she asked what seemed to me
   a trivial question
“Do you know,” she asked,
   “when Auley died?”

I calmly pulled out my notes
   and read this:
“Joseph Aurelius, nickname: Auley
Died August 15, 1929 of Tuberculosis, he was almost 18

“My grandfather would have been 12.”

Joanie made no sound
and then she said
   just this:
   “August 15 is the feast of the Assumption
the day we celebrate the Virgin taken bodily into heaven.”

You said she came in through the bedroom window
She made no sound.
But it was you that I did not hear

Grandpa, did Auley hear Her?
Did Auley see the Virgin

   when She came in through his bedroom window?
When She took his hand? Did you see before you ran?
Is that
   what you wanted
   to tell me?

Did you see the virgin come to your bedside?
   When she held your hand and soothed your thirst?

   Did you hear the words she whispered so softly?

Grandpa
   I saw Her.

Two Lives Crossing

2008-02-12T00:35:00.002-05:00

I spent last night with my love from another life
A string of beautiful moments from what might have been
Not really stolen, for they were freely given
Something I needed, but didn't know it.
An opportunity missed, long ago mourned

But unlike the saying, it did knock again.... kind of
Not really the same. This time it was just a night, not a lifetime.
'Just' a night! No, that word won't do.

You walked past me and language was lost and forgotten.
My lips could find no words,
but this time they found your mouth instead.
And finding your mouth I lost everything else -
as I found the rest of you.

We laughed and played.
Talked and touched.
Made love as if this one night were a whole life time.
As though things had unfolded as they were supposed to do
As though this time were not the first
and the last.

'Are you happy?' I asked. You shrugged.

'Is this wrong?' you asked and your eyes lost focus.

I didn't answer, I just held you.
Like it was the most natural thing to do.
It felt right to me.

By some strange karmic tie
After you left, and before I made my way home, I saw your husband.

Well, I think I did. I only met him twice when he was with you.
And mostly, I only remember seeing you.

You had told me that he was with someone else as we lay together.
His eyes told me he hadn't been but that he was still looking
- even before he opened his mouth.
I bristled and looked away.
But like a cat ignored he approached.

'Don't we know each other?' he asked.
'Or is it just from seeing you around somewhere?'

'Probably,' I nodded and shrugged and moved to excuse myself.

But he held out his hand,
And gave me his name
And asked for mine.

In stunned silence, I cursed my inability to lie before
I coughed up my own name like poison
as I shook his hand smiling,
turned,
and walked away.

I tightened my coat and
walked into the bitter February cold,
alone.

I do not know if he found what he was looking for
But he, I presume,
eventually made his way home to his own bed -
already warm from your nakedness.

A Tale of Two Prophecies

2008-01-08T00:41:00.000-05:00

And it came to pass the same year, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fourth year, and in the fifth month, that Hananiah the son of Azur the prophet, which was of Gibeon, spake unto me in the house of the Lord, in the presence of the priests and of all the people, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, saying, I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon. Within two full years will I bring again into this place all the vessels of the Lord's house, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away from this place, and carried them to Babylon: And I will bring again to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, with all the captives of Judah, that went into Babylon, saith the Lord: for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon. (Jeremiah 28:1-4)

Just a few days ago, a friend noted with wonder that there seemed to be a church on every second corner of my neighbourhood. And it is true, they are everywhere. The historical role of the Churches in the lives of North Americans, and Europeans, is evident if only in the vast number of buildings large and small. And you can see the immeasurable wealth once wielded by these churches - if not in gold and silver, than their very sizes and locations play testament to the central roles they once played in families, cities, nations - in how to govern, how to live and what it meant to be human.

But, as in the time of Jeremiah, the thieves have reached the Temple and the King has been taken from His throne. The riches of the churches have been taken away and God no longer finds a home there. The church has lost it's relevance to the common people - who have moved on to other pursuits. There is a great hunger for spirituality, but the people do not turn to the churches to satisfy that hunger. These august buildings lie close to empty, playing host once a week to tiny, aging congregations barely able to heat the building and pay the taxes - much less feed the hungry or clothe the poor. In fact, with the swelling property values under them, the buildings are being sold, or abandoned - transformed into luxury condominiums with security guards paid to eject the poor and the hungry that they were theoretically built to serve.

For the faithful, what can this mean? For the prophet Hananiah, a contemporary of Jeremiah, it was just a temporary setback. He told the people what they wanted to hear: God would never allow this embarrassment to continue. Within two years, he promised, the treasures of the Temple and the very King of Judah - stolen by the Babylonians - would be returned and order restored.

Jeremiah prayed that this might be true. But to him, these events were a sign that the nation had has lost it's way - that the people had become consumed with the work of their own hands and had forgotten the poor and the sick amongst them. God himself has been forgotten, abandoned, become irrelevant to everyday life - and his protection had been withdrawn from His People.

Jeremiah spoke in bitter irony of God Himself, wandering in the land, abandoned and forgotten by the people he loved. Bruised, betrayed, tortured by the punishment He was about to unleash. And His wrath was only beginning to be felt. A great and terrible suffering was coming and the only way to avoid it was to turn back to the justice, mercy and compassion He had demanded.

The nation of Judah chose to believe Hananiah. They chose to believe that their privileged status with God would protect them. It did not. Jerusalem fell and it was many years before order would be restored.

Which future will we see? Will the church remember it's purpose this time? Or will it be transfixed by a rose-coloured view of the world that blinds it to the suffering of the poor and worships the work of its hands.

God calls - gently, but urgently.

Letter to and from my saint

2007-11-14T12:06:00.001-05:00

This is from an exercise I was asked to do this week in a class I am taking. We were asked to identify someone we saw as a saint or spiritual role model in our lives, to ask them a question that we'd love to have answered and then to ask them how they stayed alive spiritually.

Then we were asked to write a response from our saint.

Here is my attempt:

Dear Molana Jalal-e-Din Muhammad Balkhi-Rumi, Konya, Turkey,

I have been much inspired by your work - even translated into English it is so beautiful and moving. It has helped me a great deal in my recent spiritual journey as I am sure it will for much of my life. I find as I grow and develop, I read your work again and am able to see more depth.

It would be a great honour to write one day with even a fraction of the beauty and insight you have shown in your work.
However, I write to you with two simple but more urgent requests.

First, although I have generally always suffered from some kind of depression - that has changed somewhat in the last two years since I have begun to study Zen and have begun a practice of regular meditation. While what I (and my doctors) have always called depression has lifted for more than a year now - something else seems to have replaced it. It manifests as a kind of ennui, inertia and feels almost like heartbreak. The most direct symptom of this state is a sharp decrease in my ability to be productive and support myself through work.

I know you suffered great loss during your life - and I know that at least one of those losses, that of your beloved Shams-e-Tabrīzī, seems to have haunted your work for the rest of your life. And yet if anything you became more prodigious and prolific in spite of this loss, perhaps even because of it.

How did you do it?

And secondly, what do you recommend I do in order to become more productive in this fleshly world and to shake off this affliction?

With great affection and respect,
Teofilo Maxim, Toronto, Canada

-------

Dearest Teofilo,

Thank you for your kind and gracious words.

You are not unlike me, although sometimes you might feel so. I know you know this to be true. I also know why you think you chose me as the recipient of your letter. However, even as your wrote your letter, I am convinced that you could see the deeper reason.

At what was for my time an old age, thirty-seven years old, I fell in love and my life was changed. I cannot tell you that my love for Shams was exactly like that you feel for men in your day. Our times are too different for such a simple equation.

However, both meeting and then later losing Shams shocked me out of a complacent comfort that I might not have left were I not to have met and lost that great friend. When he left the first time, my heart was truly broken. When he left forever, the future in which I had such faith was destroyed. I thought that I might die, and sometimes I wanted to do so. But Shams had brought more into my life than the physical and mental comforts of companionship. His burning presence had set my own heart ablaze with his love and understanding of Spirit.

And so it was that in this heartbreak, not so unlike that which you describe, that my writing truly began. I allowed that spark that Shams had awoken in me to settle into the ruin of my own broken heart. And there it grew into something beautiful.

You are correct to see, in my writing, a blurring of the desire to be united or reunited with a love, and the desire to be united with the divine. These longings are not dissimilar. What I learned first was that, in fact, we are never separated from God, that our longing to be reunited stems from a delusion which is an unfortunate, but curable, part of the natural human condition. Even after dispelling this delusion, as you have recently accomplished, you will still feel the longing, as you sometimes might feel a similar longing for a lover as he lay asleep in your arms - as though he were a million miles away. Our conviction of separateness is nothing if not persistent.

For a while I travelled in search of Shams, hoping to bring him home. And then, gradually, I learned this as well: we are never truly separated from the object of our love even if we are denied the physical gratifications of that relationship or the pleasure or indulgences of companionship with our love. And then I realized, Why should I seek? I am the same as He. His essence speaks through me. I had been looking for myself!

During Sham's third and permanent absence from my life, I eventually came to believe that he must be dead. But even death cannot separate two people. In fact, in a sense, it does the opposite. Separateness, remember, is a delusion of our present existence. You know this: there is only one soul. Shams and I, you and I, dear friend, are one in God. How many times can these words be spoken without being heard? Let those who have ears hear this!

And here is a harder lesson that you must learn too. Love, even when not returned, is never lost. Do remember to love yourself as well and that may affect the way you express an unrequited love, but all acts of love and kindness - when done selflessly - are done to the One. Jesus said, "Whatsoever you do to the least of these, you do to me." I hope you can hear what he was truly saying.

Now, let us quickly write a prayer for you together for you to say in the mornings which will help you remember who you truly are. We will base it on one of my poems that has touched you, add a little of your Saint Patrick (who borrowed it from the Irish before him) and a little of your own work.

I hope that it will serve you in your journey.

Go with God my child,
Molana Jalal-e-Din Muhammad Balkhi

Morning Prayer
I rise in God this day and cannot be defeated

I AM the glimmer of dawn, I AM the air of eventide,
I AM the rustling of the branch and the roar of the sea.

I AM the swiftness of wind,
The strength of the ocean and the firmness of the earth.
I AM the mast, rudder, helm and ship;
I AM the reef upon which the ship flounders.

I AM the breath of the flute; I AM the spirit of man and of woman
I AM the spark from the stone; I AM the sheen of metals

I AM the physician and sickness, poison and antidote;
Sweet and bitter, honey and gall.
I AM war and peace, battlefield and victory;
The town and its besiegers, the stormers and the wall.

I AM the plaster and the trowel, the builder and the plan,
Cornerstone and roof-tree, the building and it's ruin.

I AM hart and lion, lamb and wolf;
I AM the shepherd who gathers all into one fold.
I AM what is and what is not;
I AM the soul in the All.

I arise this day in God and cannot be defeated
For even if my enemies shall take my life from me
My true self cannot be harmed
I am One in Christ who is One in God
I rise in God this day.

Just what is "Holy"?

2007-10-16T17:54:00.001-04:00

I have been taking a course at my local Church that is centring on a relationship with the Sacred.

Our church, although Christian, is almost Unitarian Universalist in its approach to worship. Members, teachers, deacons, choir members come from many different traditions - and I don't just mean different kinds of Christians. We have Sikhs and Sufis, Buddhist and Ba'hai, Muslims and Methodists and many others.

And yet, like many Christian churches, teaching tends to centre around Jesus of Nazareth and his role in changing the world's view of God from jealous, punishing, cruel figure to a compassionate, unconditionally loving Father. I consider myself a follower of Jesus, so I have no problem with his central role in such things, but I do have a great deal of trouble with his presentation in this manner.

There are two parts to this premise, and since I have difficulty with both of them, I will address them one at a time:

1) That the God of the Old Testament (read Jewish Scriptures) is cold, judgemental and cruel.

2) That Jesus presents a NEW image of God, who he calles Abba or essentially "Daddy", as a loving, forgiving, understanding God.

First, I think the portrayal of the "Old Testament" God in such a hard way necessitates a limited and judgemental reading of the Jewish scriptures. Certainly there are some harsh moments in the Old Testament, the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden, the destruction of the world in the Flood, the just-a-bout slaughter of Isaac (or Ishmael) to name just a few. But this same God often presents a forgiving, merciful side that comforts, often surprises and sometimes even frustrates the human protaganists.

And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live. (Jonah 3:10-4:3)

And the Psalms continually extol the endless, relentless love and support of God: O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. (Psalm 118:29).

Secondly, Jesus does not come to repeal or soften the message of God at all - in fact Jesus uses his powers at times which seem elitist, rash and judgemental. He curses and withers a fig tree because it does not bear fruit out of season - apparently on a whim. He makes clear that his followers must keep the Law even better than the Pharisees (a point generally forgotten in Christian circles that now eat pork and shellfish with abandon). He takes existing laws and makes them tighter. First, he revokes the allowance for divorce and then tightens the law against murder and adultery.

"Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, "Fool", shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire." (Matthew 5:21,22)

"Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. "(Matthew 5:27,28).

Yes, Jesus would talk of forgiveness and reconciliation, but his Way was not an easy way.

I believe Jesus, in the tradition of the long line of prophets that preceded and succeeded him, has a specific message for the people he came to. I believe that, like each of those other prophets, the core of the message was that people seemed to believe that they were doing what was right, but they were getting wrong. Each of these prophets said, like John befor Jesus did, "Repent". Originally, I believe that word had less of a connotation of regret as it does today and more of a sense of "Turn around" or to make a radical turn in direction. After that, each prophet had a different specific message and a different specific personality and approach to delivering it.

Of all them, Jesus seemed to be the most purposely obscure: "And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand." (Luke 8:10)

Jesus' particular mission, in my humble opinion, was to subvert the very notion of Holy. In this, I believe that he was the most radical of the prophets that had come up until that time, and more radical than many of those that would follow. I do not believe this was why He was elevated to the Divine status he enjoys today, but I believe that maybe it should have been.

As a Gay man I more than familiar with specific passages of Mosaic Law - specifically a nasty passage in Leviticus:

"If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them." (Leviticus 20:13) This particular passage is part of a greater set of Laws, known sometimes as the Holiness Code (Leviticus 17-26).

Holiness means, literally, :"distinct and set apart" from others who were NOT holy. Israel was a Holy nation because it represented God's Chosen People and a central role of this Holiness Code was to mark the Israelites as separate from other surrounding cultures.

The Temple was Holy because it was the dwelling place of God, and each concentric chamber of the Temple was more Holy as you approached the Holy of Holies - where the Arc of the Covenant was housed. Only the most ritually pure and clean were permitted to enter the Temple and to approach or enter the Holy of Holies.

One could not enter the temple if one were ritually unclean (the reason the priests and pharisees could not help the fallen man the Samaritan would later help). One could not enter the Temple if you were ill, crippled, a leper or not one of the Chosen people. Women were segregated. Samaritans were forced to worship God on a nearby mountain being unable to enter the Temple themselves.

But Jesus said: "The hour will come, indeed it is already here, when you will worship the Father either on this mountain nor in Jerusalem....True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks." (John 4:21,23)

Until this moment, I have not believed that Jesus died for a purpose, but rather as a result of his dedication and integrity. But perhaps something else is afoot.

The Old Testament says very clearly: "...he who is hung upon a tree is under God's curse..." (from Deuteronomy 23:23)"

What if, at that moment, God was a man, and was hung upon a tree and was so God was under His own curse?

Maybe it's a crazy idea. But what if it did happen? What would it mean for God to be cursed? It would be a violent contradiction - a sacriligious absurdity. It would mean that something that we believe about the world, about the Holy and the unholy must not be correct or this could not be happening. For if God is cursed, what does holiness even mean?

Indeed, according to the Gospels, at Jesus' death, even the natural order began to change. The sky grew dark in the middle of the day and the veil separating the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Temple was ripped in half. "And, behold, the veil of the temple was ripped in two from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks broke apart; "(Matthew 27:51)

I have been told that the tearing of the veil symbolized that the intercessory of the priesthood was no longer necessary between God and man. There is probably truth in this. However, I wonder if the tearing was not more fundamentally radical. What if the tearing of the curtain symbolized the destruction of the very division between the Sacred and the profane? What if, consistent with His life, Jesus' death would rend forever the division between the Holy and the unholy, between the clean and the unclean, between the worthy and unworthy, the Elect and the condemned.

Is this what Paul meant when he wrote, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us".

Certainly Peter and Paul would perform great works to continue to destroy of the division between those who were chosen and those that were not.

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28)

When I was a child, I though it a perverse idea that God might set up some Divine system which required the brutal death of his own Son in order to allow human beings into Heaven. And certainly it would be. But perhaps it was never about the system of rules in Heaven after all. Perhaps it was about our own system of rules and the way we viewed them.

What if Jesus hoped that the shocking sight of his tortured and murdered body hanging there in front of us would demonstrate what He knew to be true: that there is no Holiness. What if he wanted us to see that our reflexive urge to judge was causing so much suffering in ourselves and in others.

According to the Bible we were first separated from God by eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
The snake promised that eating that fruit would make us like God. But has the Knowledge of Good and Evil made us like God, or has it only caused us to obsessively label things as good or bad? And how much suffering has come from this reflexive judgement of others, ourselves and our surroundings?

In the Gospel of Truth, Jesus crucificied is depicted as an antidote to that poisonous fruit - the fruit of the Tree of Life.

What if Jesus' real message was that the two categories of Good and Evil were meaningless? None are Holy. All are Holy. Both statements render the idea of "distinct and set apart" meaningless.

What if He came to tell us that creation is vast and beautiful - and not one single grain of sand could be separated from the love of God by the sharpest of swords?

Crossing into the bridal chamber

2007-10-11T22:45:00.000-04:00

St. Teresa saw her soul "as if it were a castle made of a single diamond or a clear crystal, in which there are many rooms, just as in Heaven there are many mansions." And the door of this castle is prayer. As one develops in one's prayer life one moves deeper into one's soul, toward the Principal Mansion where God alone dwells.

My Zen Master is named after Teresa of Avila and so I feel a particular affinity for her journey. What's more, as a gay man, I find her work with spirituality and gender - as many woman mystics in the Middle Ages - to be of utmost importance to reconciliation between accepting Christian communities and those who are more exclusive of those with alternative orientations or genders. John of the Cross and other male mystics would follow in Theresa's stead and would - by virtue of her logic - refer to their own soul as female in order to commune with what was seen as a male God. In fact, even today you will hear some Evangelical preachers talking about Jesus planting his Divine seed in the soul of the believer, impregnating the believer - whether that believer be male or female.

Here is a contemporary evangelical quoting from the Amplified Bible (John 3:9): "No one born (begotten) of God [deliberately, knowingly, and habitually] practices sin, for God’s nature abides in him [His principle of life, the divine sperm, remains permanently within him]; and he cannot practice sinning because he is born (begotten) of God."

This kind of fundamentalist gender play may sound bizarre - but I actually think it is a source of great hope. The tension comes from seeing the scripture through a heterosexist lens - which much of the evangelical movement still has firmly in place. But this gender turn can be traced back through the female mystics of the Middle Ages.

Although many would trace this idea of a female soul back even further, in Jewish and Christian traditions this can be traced at least as far back as the Song of Solomon which is referenced again in the New Testament and its contemporary, non-canonical Christian works.

Now Jesus said: "There are many standing at the door, but it is the solitary who will enter the bridal chamber." (Gospel of Thomas, saying 75)

The bridal chamber is - I believe - similar to Teresa's inner, Principal Mansion where God dwells. I have never been to this Principal Mansion in my own soul, although I have stood sufficiently close to feel God's presence as tangibly as the sun on my skin.

I do not know that it is possible to truly enter this Principal Mansion and live.

In the Quran, Moses asks God to show Himself to Moses. God refused, but showed Himself to a nearby mountain that was instantly vapourized by the experience.

Part of a Zen Koan says this: A Buddha made of wood cannot pass through fire. For if it does, it will surely burn." If it does, there will be nothing left but the burning, nothing but the fire. The Buddha will be obliterated.

I begin to suspect that this is true across traditions. The Principal Mansion, the bridal chamber, the fire is always receiving those who seek and find entry. But whatever beings that enter are entirely obliterated as individuals. Inside, there is only God.

I think it is no accident that this Principal Mansion is likened to a bridal chamber. Of marriage the Bible says this (Genesis 2:24): "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh". When one day I cross that threshold, I will not survive the crossing as an individual separated from God in any way. I will be united with the Ground and Source of All Being. I will vanish like salt in water.

In a sense it would be a death - not permanent, but certainly transformative. Such a death is nothing to fear (although I confess, I do fear it). It is in fact a promise to be embraced with great joy. "Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." (John 12:24)

In fact, I believe that this is the only way to truly know God. For I cannot hope to understand God as I might understand any other being. I cannot say with any meaning that "God is this" or "God is that". For God cannot be experienced as object - only as subject. I cannot experience God except as I AM.

The potential for a new beginning

2007-10-02T08:40:00.000-04:00

In the beginning there was nothing, but not in the sense we think of that word. There was a potential more powerful than anyone can yet imagine.

There were no things, no air, no eyes or ears.

There was no time. Nothing might have lasted a billion years, an hour and 42 minutes or no time at all. Any of these concepts are equally meaningless. For how can you count a day when there is no sun and no earth to turn. Time would come into being when being became something rather than nothing.

Most religions today, including science, believe this to be true - although they would all describe this instant differently.

In the beginning there was a void, a darkness. Science is largely silent on this because time, math and measure have no bearing there. Religions as a rule speak of God being all there was. The faithful tend to get itchy if we say God was nothing, or that he didn’t or worse doesn’t exist. But He is not a thing - not a paperclip or even a planet - so in a way, saying he existed before existence is just as foolish as saying he didn’t. Early religions spoke of murky gods that rose up from the depths of the void - they got more specific once the ooze had begun to take shape. The Buddha spoke very little about it what happened at the beginning at all - for there was nothing to be said. We used to say nothing happened in the small town I grew up in. In that small town this was a tedious half-truth, but saying nothing happened before the dawn of time is both meaningless and profound.

And then, for some uncertain reason, being began to be something. And at that meant that something had happened.
And here everyone disagrees.

First, with things, came time. So how long did things take? Billions of years? Seven days? Did things unfold into a grand plan of a sentient Being? Did matter just fling willy-nilly into the depths of this new thing called space. How, really, could you tell the difference?

At some point this particular rolling ball of molten rock, on which I now sit typing, cooled into a grand globe covered mostly with water and collected an atmosphere made of a certain magical blend of gasses. Here again disagreement on how and why things on this rock began to live and grow and reproduce. Disagreement seems to be integral to what was happening. It wasn’t long before these new living things began to eat each other.

Eventually, some of these living on this cooling ball of molten rock beings began to speak, picked up smaller rocks and killed others of their own kind.

Rocks were only the beginning. Eventually these warm, living things would start wars that would cover this new grand globe. In these wars, beings having the ability to speak to each other devised secret codes so that their enemies could not understand them. It would be harder to kill the others if they knew what thier enemies were talking about. Before those world wars ended, millions and millions were dead.

Eventually, I arrived here this evening. A warm room, a cold glass of water, corn chips that everyone likes to eat but nobody wants to. Far from nothingness, matter has become something that likes to hang on to people’s hips.

I am typing on a small machine more powerful than computers that broke the unbreakable codes used by foreign powers in one of those great wars. That great war is already sinking into the forgetfulness of human history and becoming the stuff of legend. There is disagreement on what happened, on who died and who profited.

No wonder there is so much disagreement today about the very beginning. There are still people alive who were here for the Wars, although few. But who was here at the beginning? Well who can we all agree was here?

Nothing, in the most profound sense of the Word.

I don’t care what you call it. That Nothingness is still here under all this somethingness. And when we are all gone - even if the entire universe is consumed in a great rain of fire - it still will be.

And so will be the same infinite potential for anything to happen will be there in the end - as it was in the beginning and is now - the potential for a new beginning.

The Voice of the Turtle

2006-10-17T00:06:00.000-04:00

There was a time when I did not believe I had fallen in love until a song appeared to seal the union. This might have has something to do with the fact that I was largely dating women and was really falling in love with men. But that wasn't the surface story to be sure. But much of the role of "our song" typically came into fruition once the relationship came to a crashing close. Then a stray song on an am station could be guaranteed to stop me in my tracks and bring tears to my eyes at what had been lost - or in fact, never found. Ah youth, true love and melodrama.

But if for every woman there was a song, for some men there was one too. For whatever reason, however the women's songs represented my doomed connection with that woman - the song of men was always a song of distant admiration.

Sam - who I spoke about two weeks ago - chose his own song, and a fitting one it was. Smalltown Boy, by Bronski Beat about a young man who, picked on and beaten by the other boys for being different, defiantly claims his identity and is forced to leave town.

"You never cry to them, but to your soul..." and Sam might well have thought on those words on his final flight to New York. No one ever saw him in weakness.

I hadn't realized I had been in love with Sam until I wrote that piece two weeks ago - but where the songs of women mostly make me smile and sometimes chuckle when I hear them today, that one still stops me in my tracks.

There was a man, in the same years that I did believe I had to come to love. In hindsight I am not so sure, and the song that represents that time for me is telling. With Sean I got to do all the things my body wanted, but none of the things my heart desired. Everything remained cloaked in secrecy, to a degree even between us.

I want to walk in the open wind
I want to talk like lovers do
I want to dive into your ocean
Is it raining with you?
- from Here Comes the Rain Again (Lennox/Stewart 1983?)

It was a song of love almost but never quite becoming - and it never did. I wouldn't walk in the open air for another seven years.

Lately, don't laugh, scripture and some mystic poetry has filled the place where music once took in the depths of my heart. Have I been single too long?

My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land
Song of Solomon 2:10-12

I am so sorry, Sam

2006-10-03T00:49:00.000-04:00

I saw a guy on the street car a few weeks ago who could have been Sam. Well, if Sam was still the same age as he was the last time I saw him - which would have been about 27 or so. This guy might have been even younger - closer to the age Sam was when I met him: about 18.

Sam was startling beautiful. He had almond-shaped eyes and olive skin and a slow, deadly smile with canines that looked like they would cut skin very easily.

My mother asked my very nervously when whether I had ever had a relationship with Sam when I told her he had died in New York. She meant to ask if I had ever had sex with him. I pointed out that I had not, but that I would always wish that I had.

Sam was part-native and half-Italian, and at fourteen his mother had found a copy of Growing Up Straight in his bedside table and promptly put Sam out of the house. Intent on survival, he moved to Toronto and took to the beds of strangers to make ends meet. I got to know him through a series of accidents that might easily not have happened after Sam had moved back to our small town, rented himself an apartment and was putting himself through high school.

Although I didn't know it, all the young men I socialized with and all the women I dated were gay. But among the our group, Sam was perhaps the strongest and the most fragile - and he was, of all of us, the only one who was openly, actually gay. He was a figure for whom I had a tremendous, silent respect.

Being among a group of confused young gay men, our budding friendship triggered two sharp jealousies and a successful conspiracy to end the friendship - so our closeness was very short lived. I still very much wish I had been stronger, and that my friendship with Sam - even if that were all it was - had grown deeper.

Almost ten years later when I finally came out, Sam was living in Toronto again and, unlike me, had had a long time to get over the dramas of our youth. He was a year younger than me - but I still looked to him as a kind of elder. And someone to whom I owed a tremendous debt.

But the seeds of that teenage conspiracy and taken deep root - and Sam still seemed to believe on some level that I had betrayed him. And I had never really come clean with him about my own feelings for him. We were men now - and the past appeared childish and embarrassed me now more than it did when we were younger - although for very different reasons. All those years he paid the price for his openness - I had been safely in denial.

We lost touch again when Sam suddenly moved to New York. There was a big party for him just before he moved away and I was invited or a friend was, and I came with. I tried to connect with Sam in any way that night. But face-to-face I was speechless. I have no more words now for what I wanted than I did then. I wanted Sam to know how important he was, but it sounded so foolish so matter how said.

A year later I heard a rumour that Sam had died. He had been diagnosed with AIDS and had moved to New York so none of his friends would see him grow sick and die. I understand his ashes were spread in New York. Only one friend from Toronto went down to see him when he was ill, and he'd been Sam's friend since before I'd met either of them.

Sam's name is not on the AIDS memorial here in Toronto and I have a feeling that this is because Sam asked that it be so.

I still see him in crowds on streetcars. I see his sharp smile on beautiful faces and wish he were smiling at me in the gentle trusting way I had seen so briefly. I already missed him when he was still here. I still miss him now, and regret words unsaid - unsaid on so many lost opportunities.

Returning to the Well

2006-09-11T11:51:00.000-04:00

Today's reading in The Word Is Out was beautiful. It was exactly what I needed to hear this morning - not sure if it will touch you the same way. But I thought I would share it with you :-) I added the bold to mark the spot that really hit me.

"Many Samaritans from that city believed in Him because of the woman's testimony." (John 4:39)

Jesus "astonished" his disciples by speaking to a woman.

Equally astonishing was that he revealed his messianic identity to her, a woman from the hated people of Samaria. She had been drawing water from a well and ran to tell others of her city, becoming the first Christian evangelist.

In their conversation, Jesus had offered her "living water" that would "become in [her] a spring of water gushing up to eternal life" (John 4:14).

Many of us who experience or proclaim the Good News forget to return to the well. The Gospels provide us with living words from Jesus that quench our spiritual thirst. We may also use them to water the dry places in our lives, transforming the desert into a watered garden.

And we may bring our people back to the well to meet Jesus, as the Samaritan woman did.

Dear Jesus, you call us to serve you, but not without giving us water for the journey.

I read this while listening to one of the hymns I listen to every morning before my meditation. And of course, afterward I heard the hymn differently (in this part of the hymn it is God or Jesus speaking to the singer).

Look at me and hear me
Because I am here
Just for that

I am your moon and your moonlight too
I am your flower garden and your water too
I have come all this way, eager for you
Without shoes or shawl

I want you to laugh
To kill all your worries
To love you
To nourish you

Oh sweet bitterness
I will soothe you and heal you
I will bring you roses
I, too, have been covered with thorns

As The Wave Returns Home To The Shore

2006-08-19T07:53:00.000-04:00

[This is an email to my teacher.]

Thank you so much for your call. I have been difficult to get a hold of this week - and I cannot tell you how much it means to me that you have been calling. Thank you so much!

Such a strange coincidence of timing (if you believe in coincidences I suppose). I was on the phone with a friend when you called. I recognized your number, but could not remember to whom it belonged.

I was sharing with my friend some scripture I had read early yesterday that had touched me deeply. And at almost precisely the moment your call arrived, I had unexpectedly begun to weep.

Do not worry. I do not believe it was sadness. Although it did not ever feel like sadness the fact that I was weeping and especially that the "imagery" I was "seeing" seemed somewhat nihilistic I did not let myself go into the experience very far until much later in the evening.

I didn't put my friend on hold when you called because we were in the middle of that, although I didn't realize at that moment how significant the impact of what was beginning would be. I was just aware that the scripture was touching me more deeply as I spoke it out loud and shared it. I didn't sob or anything, and at that point, it was mostly just tears coming.

Not many minutes later, the call ended. I had some errands I wanted to run before the end of the day, and so I hurried out before checking messages.

I won't try to explain it here - or I will try not to try! I discussed it later last night with my friend and although I think I managed to communicate what I was feeling, and then actually did cry, I don't fully understand what was happening.

I walked through the ravine and down the stairs by Casa Loma to the store. And there I was a little surprised to find myself still weeping. The feelings I was walking through were joy, relief, release, love, praise. At least I think that is what I was feeling. My heart felt nothing like sadness or depression. My mind was afraid however, because I did not have an external reference point - I have recently gone into remission from depression, I was weeping and I was experiencing a fairly clear "image": that of being a great, powerful wave of water crashing and breaking against a greater, solid rock and then being gone. A sense of falling to my knees before God in surrender, prostration. Or perhaps an urge to do so.

And so, out of respect (not quite fear) of depression, I chose to limit my indulgence in whatever this experience was, in case it was sadness or specifically depression in disguise. I put it down and went back to the moment and doing my errands.

Upon reaching the ravine on my way home, I was weeping again. Although it was silent, it was enough that I could feel that my eyes must be red and that my speech would be affected if I were to run into a neighbour. I did not wish to discuss this with a simple acquaintance or stranger and I did not want to lie about my tears. So I tried to shut it up somewhere until I could get into my apartment.

It must have been about 9pm, or getting close to it. I decided that I had best call someone. Not now out of fear - well not totally anyway. I wanted to let myself go into what was happening, but was feeling that "losing myself" feeling, and kinda wanted someone to know what was happening, just in case.

I was glad that I did. I told my friend (name omitted) immediately that I did not think I was depressed, but I was going through something "rough". I knew I would frighten him and I did at the beginning. As soon as I began to express what was happening the weeping burst through and I began to cry openly and it was very hard to speak. Triton, my dog, became agitated and jumped up on the bed (which he is still terrified of jumping up on) and began to lick at my face and then press his head into my neck to comfort me. But giving into the tears, the fear left. Giving into the tears I gave into something else.

Hehe, I said I wouldn't try to explain, and after a couple of pages, here is the part I won't try to explain - but only give you this. Which is right now most of what I have.

This image of the crashing wave is not new to me - although I do not know it's origin. It feels now like it might be a half-forgotten psalm or poem or song (are those all the same thing?) I have wept over this image before, many times during my life - but then it was a sadness, a longing, a desire for the poem to complete. A longing to crash upon the rock and rest.

This is the half-remembered part:

I break against your rocky shore and cease to be.
I know you do not weep for me.
The water that streams down your face is not me,
Is not your tears, but mine.
And they are not tears of sadness but tears of joy,
The joy of coming home at last.

This next is from a hymn you may remember (I paraphrase from This Little Light of Mine):

I long to put down my sword and shield and step into the river.

I think the hymn refers to the river Jordan, to Jesus' baptism. And of course it is the words of God at Jesus' baptism that I associated with my earlier experience this Spring (which I have come to think of as an Epiphany). See Be Still and Know That I Am God.

And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. (Mark 1:11)

And according to Christian tradition when you are immersed in the river Jordan in baptism, you die to yourself and cease to be. A new man or woman rises from the water - a new man or woman in Christ.

Paul says (Galatians 2:20):

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live;
yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

I will call you this morning in a short while and pray that I do not wake or disturb you. I think I am fine, although a little shaken. Do not worry if we cannot speak this weekend. I am OK.

Now here are some other sacred writings that are on my heart right now. You do not need to read them unless you feel like doing so. I read them and type them out now and tears flow freely. I have waited so long, aching to hear words that have been right here in front of me. Today I feel as though I read them for the first time. Now instead of being only beautiful words, they are keys to the chains that bind.

Light, love and gassho,
Teo

This from Rumi:

[For those who might not know, Rumi was the mystic Sufi teacher and poet who founded the order of Whirling Dervishes. His writings are honoured within the Sufi and many of the Islamic traditions. Sufism is considered to be a mystic branch of Islam, although of course there is controversy.]

The lover asked the beloved:
Do you love yourself more than you love me?
The lover replied: I have died to myself and I live for you.
I have disappeared to myself and my attributes;
I am present only for you.
I have forgotten all my learnings,
But from knowing you I have become a scholar.
I have lost all my strength
But, from your power, I am able.

I love myself. I love you.
I love you. I love myself.

I am your lover, come to my side.
I will open the gate to your love.
Come settle with me. Let us be neighbours to the stars.

You have been hiding so long, endlessly drifting in the sea of my love
Even so, you have always been connected to me - concealed, revealed, in the known, in the unmanifest.

I am life itself.
You have been a prisoner in a little pond.
I am the ocean and it's turbulent flood.
Come merge with me. Leave this world of yours.
Be with me. I will open the gate to your love.

I desire you more than food or drink.
My body,my senses, my mind hunger for your taste.
I can sense your presence with my heart,
Although you belong to all the world,
I wait in silent passion for one gesture, one glance --- from you.

And this from the Song of Solomon (rarely referenced in the Catholic tradition I think because of its open sexuality, but right there in the Catholic Bible toward the end of the Old Testament).

[In the preceding verses, King Solomon, passing one of the vineyards in his kingdom in procession, notices a young woman labouring in the fields. When the woman feels the king's eyes upon her she becomes ashamed. She is a labourer and not a "noble" and does not believe herself to be worthy of the king's attention. Sensing this, the King later returns to the vineyard, disguised as a shepherd in order to court his beloved, the woman who would become his first bride.]

Song of Solomon (sometimes Song of Songs) 2:10-15
My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.
For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;
The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell.
Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice;
for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely.

Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes.

Babies, Puppies and the Kingdom of God

2006-07-11T00:40:00.000-04:00

And they said unto Moses, Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt? Is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians? For it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness. (Exodus 14:11-12)

We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick: But now our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all, beside this pale, insubstantial manna, before our eyes. (Numbers 11:5-6)

Things are changing and the world is looking grim these days. Governments are more corrupt then ever before. There is violence in the city streets; crime fills the news like never before. The police need more power, bigger guns, fewer restrictions. Rights will need to be suspended, temporarily of course (like income tax - the last government might have been corrupt but this one will always keeps it's word)!

And anything that tastes good causes increased levels of bad cholesterol or cancer or something worse.

I don't know what this world is coming to.

Oh the good ol' days, when soda pop grew on Canadian trees, before these new alien species of Maple trees showed up and ruined the party. Ladybugs on your arm were good luck, they didn't bite like these new Japanese ones. I could wade into the lake barefoot and not come out bleeding half to death with gashes from zebra mussels. McDonald's really did care about kids having happy birthdays, and the Ponderosa and Mother's Pizza sent me a birthday card every year!

Life was simpler then. Sure it was hard, I walked 5 miles to school each day - back in the time before we even had kilometres.

I could fall and scrape my knee as a child and have all the world come tumbling down with me. But it was all forgotten at the sight of ice cream.

The worst violence I can remember when I was a kid was getting kicked in the pants by my next door neighbour in some facsimile of a fist fight. Somehow it was all forgotten by the next day. If it wasn't our parents would lock us in the basement together until we made up. We both swore we wouldn't but we always did.

Oh, the good ol' days, eh? What is it about the past that is so easily gilded? What is it about the present that causes us to gripe so?

Why can't we be content in the present? Why do people in NY presume that hailing a cab for a frail old lady means you are about to extract a fee for the service? Why do people stand under the awning when it's pouring rain frustrated that they cannot get where they are going, and waiting as they watch a woman struggle to get her grocery bags into a taxi as she and her produce get drenched and the taxi driver only flicks the trunk open from the driver's seat?

I think we are all getting old. Even the children seem to be old today. They have cell phones glues to their ears or their eyes or both as they walk down sunny streets, or sit beside their friends on the bus. Adults who accidentally make eye contact on that same bus prickle and look away - returning to empty apartments feeling alone muttering about the state of youth today.

But there is still hope in babies and puppies. They haven't learned to be miserable. They haven't learned to be wait for the future or grieve for a world now gone.

Watch the effect a child has on an uptight subway rider as they look at the pruned face in wonder. The adult may look away, but as the mother tries to distract the child from the stranger, the child won't look away. Transfixed by the determination to be unhappy the child just stares and pulls away from her mother's pleas - intent on the smile that isn't there.

And finally, reluctantly, the adult smiles at the child, who rattles her toy furiously and gurgles and finally looks at back at her Mom. She gurgles again as she looks back at the adult who smiles again and who's everything has changed - if only until the door opens for the next stop. The adult is forced to politely decline the gooey toy he is offered as the next station is announced.

For that child there is no past. And there is no future barrelling at her that will not be dealt with when it arrives. For the child there is only this moment. A man that looks strangely and inexplicably wrong. And then a smile, and all is right - even if Mom looks a little nervous as she wheels her child of the subway car before the doors close with a chime.

Living in the moment, the child reaches out to heal the wounded and shares the bounty of her secret knowledge reflexively. It is how we are made. Thank God.

The baby has yet to forget the secret we are each born with: Paradise is the desert and the Promised Land. The desert is Paradise. There is only one place, one moment: here, now. The Kingdom of God manifest and hidden in each grain of sand.

Forgiving Satan: Judgement and The Left Hand of God

2006-06-27T07:02:00.000-04:00

We are told that seated on the right hand of God is Christ. In one of the gospels (I think not a canonical one) the mothers of two of the disciples of Jesus insist that he place their sons with him on the left hand of God. Jesus dismisses them saying that they know not what they are asking.

Aside from the ambition and conceit of such request, Jesus seems to allude to something. What were they unknowingly asking of Jesus? Is there someone already on the left hand of God? I am beginning to think maybe there is.

Jesus said "I am the Way... no one comes to the father except through me." I do not think this was Judeo-Christian conceit - but rather that Christ's role in Christian theology is to restore man's relationship with God. Is there someone who strives to keep us from him?

I recently read something interesting: that in Jewish understanding, the right hand of God is his punishing, violent, jealous side. Since the writers of the books that became the New Testament would have been familiar with this concept, it seems that the placement of the Christ in this specific position was not just an honour for the carpenter from Nazareth. His position would indicate that he would restrain the punishing, judgmental side of God we see in the Old Testament.

But what then of the left hand of God? The story says that it is the left hand that is compassion, love, nurturing, forgiveness. Are we to believe that this arm is unfettered?

In the book of Job, there is a councillor who pressures God into inflicting suffering on Job. Job was a good and faithful man, but the councillor suggested that this was only because his life was too easy. This being was then dispatched by God to deliver Job's suffering himself. This councillor's name is Satan.

Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them. And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. (Job 1:6.7)

In the Garden of Eden there are two special trees - the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life. The fruit of the Tree of Life is not prohibited (until the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil has been eaten). The action happens at the forbidden tree. The snake appears in the tree, almost part of it. And the snake is now routinely identified as the Devil.

Eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil gets man and womankind banished from the Garden and causes them to become estranged from God. The rest of the Old and New Testament is about God and man trying to repair that relationship.

And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. (Genesis 3:22-24)

In the Gospel of Truth, one of the apocryphal gospels, the author describes the death of Christ not like Mel Gibson's recent snuff film does. Rather, he uses the image of Jesus as the fruit of God's heart, the fruit of the Tree of Life. The cross instead of an instrument of torture becomes a living source of life. Notice that Jesus is now hanging in this tree and the devilish snake in the other.

Is it crazy to think then that Jesus might not have been the ONLY begotten son of God? Rather that he had a divine twin, called the Satan or the Adversary by the Jews , Muslims and Christians, Mara by the Buddhists? And while Jesus restrains God's wrath, Satan tempers his compassion.

The current fundamentalist Christian projection of Satan as the enemy of God is senseless. How could a creation, no matter how powerful make even a nuisance for the Uncreated? If God saw the Devil as an undesirable part of Creation - the Devil wouldn't have lasted long at all. In the book of Job (that suffering but faithful man mentioned previously) the text is quite clear. God created all that there is, and he put all Good AND Evil that exists into His Creation, because this is what he wanted to do.

In the Buddhist tradition, wisdom and compassion are both virtues (or roughly the equivalent of virtues). They are also seen as counter-balancing opposites. Wisdom without compassion is cold, aloof, uncaring and selfish. Compassion without wisdom is random, quickly exhausted with out doing much Good.

Does the Tree of Life and Jesus represent compassion? Does the Tree of Knowledge and the Devil represent Wisdom and Independence? Remember that one name for the Devil is Lucifer - literally the bearer of light! And of course, among other things, light creates shadows.

Has Creation been designed with Good and Evil, Compassion and Wisdom in careful counterbalance?

Who is it that sits at and tempers the left hand of God, that gentle compassionate hand?

And if Christ is, among other things, the bearer of the fruit of the Tree of Life - is it possible that his great gift of reconciliation with God requires that we renounce the fruit we ate from the other Tree? And what could the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil be but judgement?

Judge not, that ye be not judged. (Matthew 7:1)

For all the blame we have seen fit to heap on the the Snake, Adam and Eve for their roles in the "Fall of Humankind", why are we so slow to cough up the apple of judgement we swallowed ourselves? If not for the taste of that fruit, what would we know of Good and Evil?

God looked on His Creation and saw that it was Good. The Snake was part of that Creation. The Fall was part of that Creation.

God did not eat the apple. We did. What can be Evil in His eyes?

Is The Water Cold?

2006-04-04T21:27:00.000-04:00

When I was sixteen, I went on my first date with a girl. Or I thought it was a date. When my hand made that fateful creep up the arm rest and on to her hand, she turned to me shocked and said: You didn't think this was a date, did you?

I would end up dating this girl a year or two later, but before that I had developed a number of rules to make sure I was in control of events, and wouldn't be caught off-guard again.

By the time I was twenty-five, I was much smoother. For the Men's Residence Formal in one of my last years in University, I had a bouquet sent to my date's home early in the day accompanied by a card with romantic poetry. I thought it would be rude to present her with something she would have to lug around all night. I bought a tasteful corsage that wouldn't distort her dress when she pinned it on, but made sure it was related to the larger bouquet at home.

I sent a car to pick her up, and when she arrived I was gracious, but wondered what might have possessed her to style her hair the way she had, or select metallic knit leotards to go with her elegant dress. She was a beautiful girl, but her choices were not flattering. I was excited at the formalities, but my heart was elsewhere entirely.

I was the perfect date, I made sure she met everyone, danced with her often and was very courteous. I gave her a polite and suggestive kiss at the beginning of the evening and after an appropriately pregnant moment with our faces close together, a passionate but respectful kiss at the end of the night. Of note, I made no attempt to take advantage of her at all. Gentlemanly perhaps, but she seemed more confused than grateful.

Once the girl was delivered safely home, I checked off the last item on my mental checklist.

She received twelve calalillies the next day with another romantic card, thanking her for the honour of her company. I had ordered this second bouquet at the same time as I ordered the corsage and the first bouquet and had given the florist specific instructions for delivery and timing. I think my date called me the next evening to thank me for the flowers, but that was the end of it.

Love was something I dreamed of but did not understand. I had learned to paint the picture, learned how to make someone swoon - but hadn't figured out why I wasn't ever swooning myself.

Three years later, I did - although it was brief. I can remember the moment it happened down to a few minutes. The very first man I dated was having a house party that summer and he and I sat on his staircase in shorts saying good-bye to guests as they departed. He seemed to be absent-mindedly drawing patterns on my leg with his fingertip as we spoke to people. And then I realized that those patterns were letters. Four specifically: S-T-A-Y.

Robert and I didn't last very long at all. Probably a few weeks - although I would prefer to remember it as a couple of months.

Rumi, a 13th century mystic from Afghanistan wrote:

You have been imprisoned in a small pond. I am the Ocean with its turbulent flood. Come merge with me, leave this world of ignorance. Come be with me, I will open the Gate to your love.

When I read that a few months ago, I thought it was beautiful. I marvelled at the water imagery and wondered if more recent artistic references to the sea, the ocean and love had referred to this poem.

Now it gives me goose-bumps from head to toe.

Freud referred to the process of falling in love as "cathexion". In this process the ego boundaries of an individual are dropped, and then are extended around the beloved. I have always understood it as a biological process, only sequentially associated with actual love and often referred to as "love at first sight".

Now I know not what it is. I only know that I tremble sometimes - like i am nervous, although I am not sure that is what it is at all. My vacant moments are filled suddenly with a smile that spreads across my vision like milk poured out. My own smile appears on my face whenever my mind wanders. I am crazy for this man - and I don't even understand what that means.

Waiting For Sex

2006-03-20T23:50:00.000-05:00

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

I have been having a series of extended conversations about sexuality and scripture from both a Christian and Buddhist perspective. When you add in the fact that I am a gay man - this can be dangerous territory.

Most of my gay friends wonder why I bother, and at least one of my more fundamentalist (straight) friends does too. Why don't I just say things that you're liable to read in the Bible ain't necessarily so?

First of all, I am not looking to understand those pieces of scripture typically used to condemn homosexuality. I refer to Jesus himself, "Moses suffered [this law] because of the hardness of men's hearts: but from the beginning it was not so."

But secondly, I don't think I want to throw out whole texts because of things that are politically incorrect or inconvenient for myself. Some of these texts are quite magnificent without their offending curlicues. And so I have been listening to as many liberal and conservative commentators as I can, as well as studying the texts myself.

Up until this past week I wasn't entirely sure that the Bible actually prohibited sex outside of marriage, although it that it prohibited adultery. Enter Paul. It becomes clear to me that St. Paul was a very human male with a both a peculiar view of sexuality to start with. He also seems, unlike Jesus, very comfortable saying who will go to heaven and who will burn. He is also quite clear that those that are just like him and abstain from sex altogether are best of all.

The third Wonderful Precept of Buddhism prohibits sex outside of a committed, loving relationship. If you take out Paul's condemnations of adulterers, prostitutes and whoremongers he seems to be saying somewhat the same thing.

The idea, looking into both traditions, seems to be that the human body, as part of the One, is too important to subject to casual sex. Judgement aside, the Buddhists say that sex outside a committed loving relationship is more likely to be emotionally or otherwise painful to one or the other party. Both traditions are speaking explicitly about heterosexual bonds.

But waiting until you are actually married? I do know people who waited until they were married and I can respect that. I also know people who rushed into marriage because they had to wait until they were married - and that seems natural, but not quite right. I am not sure I am going to wait until I get married (I should note that I haven't been waiting all my life, just a year or so).

Free love was fun when I was younger, but now seems empty. Is there anything in either of these traditions to shed light on this issue?

Hiding the Saviour - A New Openness Or A New Closet?

2006-02-28T21:59:00.000-05:00

Joshua 24:15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

At the church I attend, the name Jesus has been banned from Holy Communion (now just called communion) and from anointing (a healing sacrament we have at our church).

As a Christian, I believe that Communion represents my own involvement in the body of Christ. And as such, that I take part in God's work of making the world a better place.

Now, as an apparent act of generosity toward the non-Christian visitors to the church, the magnificent concept of Holy Communion had been transformed into a sharing of wafers.

We used to be anointed with oil on our foreheads in the sign of the cross to be healed and to be a healer. Now the cross has come to be considered offensive and repressive to some within the church and instead we are anointed in the sign of a rather insipid and generic circle. I understand that the decision to remove all crosses from the building was just narrowly avoided.

For a long time we have had members of other religious traditions in our congregation. I think this is wonderful. If someone was not Christian, they had merely to cross their arms across their chest to indicate that they were not Christian and therefore to get a more generic, God-centred blessing (instead of one centred on Christ).

But now we all get the generic blessings, unless we make a point of stopping the communion or anointing, protesting and pointedly requesting a Christian blessing. Not for us a simple signal like crossed arms. We have to make a small scene.

There are fewer and fewer references to Jesus in the sermons. And we are actually about to start a sermon series on a book which is a spin-off of Chicken Soup For The Soul. I do not mind being challenged - but pabulum is disappointing. In fairness, I haven't started the book yet, but of course I will tell you what I think about it when I do!

Am I wrong that this whole shove-Jesus-in-the-closet thing makes me angry? Why, in order to make guests with other religions comfortable, must Christianity be turned into a dirty little secret? I suppose I have the choice of finding another spiritual community, but I am not ready to do that just yet. I am hoping that there are others going through similar reactions who will support me in protesting this recent demotion of Jesus as the centre of a Christian church.

If nothing else however, this development has made me much more willing to affirm and defend my faith. I just hadn't expected to have to defend it at church.

Written on the wall behind the alter is the line "Let my house be a house of prayer for all people." Did Jesus know that the house might get so full that he'd be asked to stand outside? We don't want your kind 'round here!

Be Still And Know That I Am God

2006-02-14T20:39:00.000-05:00

"Be still and know that I am God." from Psalm 46:10

"All the way to heaven is heaven itself, for Jesus said I am the way" Catherine of Sienna.

I knelt in silence that Monday morning. I have not been meditating long, and frankly I think I am still mostly kneeling quietly which is accomplishment enough. And that morning I was behind schedule (and that is nothing unusual). And I had committed myself to a fixed morning schedule, and to not trying to "catch up". The computer had started the "warm-up" music and I had slept through the relaxation exercise and the recording had started the meditation exercise before I was even reaching for my contacts.

But I was determined I would meditate for the remaining 15 minutes before my run.

I practically jumped into position on my cushion and mat. They say that after meditation one should spring from the cushion and out into the world to work for justice and peace. I remember laughing to myself about how prepared I was decked out in my running clothes and ready to go!

There was no time for the usual focussing - and the exercise had come and gone. I don't think I could do it again, but I silenced my mind sharply and almost immediately.

I was intensely silent. And then I felt something. First from me. So much had happened in the previous days for which I was so thankful. I really felt blessed, and although it was kinda outside the rules I let myself be filled with that feeling of gratitude and then - without moving - I cast the gratitude upward. I don't mean physically - I remained kneeling, my hands folded in my lap, my eyes staring unfocussed straight ahead at the wall a few inches from my face - nothing moved.

My mind felt so intense and powerful without the noise of everyday life and with the single feeling of gratitude flowing through me.

And then it happened. I felt something else. Not from me this time, and not directly from outside. Rather it was that I knew that the gratitude flowing through me had reached its destination. Like one of those childhood phone systems with two cups and a string - the string went taut. I wasn't just sending out gratitude, it was received and returned.

My gratitude became love. The intense, pure kind of love I have felt as a child when thought about how exactly I felt about my mother. I can't think of a human love as primary as a boy's love for his mother at this point in my life, but this one was bigger, older, even more primal. It felt like it came from deeper than me. By that I mean deeper than the 'I' that is writing this. Suddenly all those stories of angels who sing in praise of God all day and all night for all eternity all made sense. I sat perfectly still while my heart sang.

And it was clear that this was not a one-way flow of affection. I felt poured onto me more love, affection and pleasure than I could have previously imagined. I was transfixed in an exchange of love with my Creator. A Creator I could neither see nor hear, who did not speak but who I felt with utmost certainty and whose love I can never again doubt.

This lasted for about eight minutes - although thinking back it seems both longer and shorter. As if I were momentarily outside of time. Then the mediation music changed signalling time to begin preparing for my run.
When I talked to a Buddhist friend about this later he immediately asked me if it was like sex. Of course not, I said. But, thinking it a bizarre automatic question, I asked why.

He told me that this was why the Buddha had insisted on his monks being celibate. The Buddha had felt that a sexual relationship would become confused with direct experiences with the Oneness which are part of the goals of meditation. And although I hadn't thought about it as that kind of ecstasy, I could see how it could affect a relationship. But that is something that would take much more thought than I have given this topic yet. But I can say this: it was incredibly sustaining. It happened weeks ago and I am still so refreshed by eight minutes of communion!

Discussion Group: Sins of Scripture

2006-02-06T21:08:00.000-05:00

This weeks MCC Toronto started it's three week sermon/discussion series on Sins of Scripture by John Shelby Spong - a retired Episcopal Bishop.

To the right you will see a banner/link which will allow you to subscribe to the podcast which starts with the first sermon in the series - which deals primarily with the environment. Note that it also happened to tbe the first Sunday of Black History Month at the parish.

The Cast of Demons

2005-12-13T20:01:00.000-05:00

I saw demons last week - lots of them. I swatted them, I yelled at them, I stepped out of the way and finally gave up. And then they went away. They went away for a while - because they had won.

Now before you decide that I have lost my marbles (or I suppose yell out "Amen, brother!") let me make clear that I did not see the grey-green fluttering kind. I didn't actually see them, like you would see a kite, or a car, or a spider. But I felt them - or felt what they were doing. Well, I guess that still sounds crazy - or it would have sounded crazy to me a few weeks ago.

So let me explainI have been doing a lot of studying of Christian and Judaic scripture - and you cannot escape reading about devils and demons there.

And I have been listening to some of the more charismatic preachers and they talk about the devil all the time. And I have been trying to read all this with as open a mind as possible.

There is a very common expression among Christians today: "What would Jesus do?" I find this thoughtful, but ultimately frustrating. Jesus might have been a carpenter at one time, but during his years of ministry he did not have a formal job or salary. He did not have a rent or mortgage - he was homeless. We don't hear about much about his problems with his family (although it is clear that there were many). We don't see him dealing with either dating or marriage. So who knows what he would do?

So if I don't know what Jesus would want me to do in a specific situation, could I ask what the Devil most wants me NOT to do?

A few weeks ago, one of these preachers mentioned one specific demon that lived wrapped around her waist. It whispered to her that she was unattractive and undesirable whenever she passed the mirror. And this same demon would be heard when she passed a fast food restaurant on a diet. "If you don't eat something now - you will die!" it would say. It's objective was not to capture her immortal soul for the underworld, it was to steal specific joys from her life, to attack her self-confidence, her very self-image and it was relentless and powerful. Powerful enough, that she could not defeat it alone.

But let me tell you how I saw my first demon, or more appropriately identified my first demon. For I had met this particular one many times before.

I had a business conflict with another firm (I have mentioned this recently in another post) and specifically with another individual at that firm - let's call him Albert.

I got an email from a client requesting a copy all of the files we were keeping on her behalf. A couple of days later, I learned why. Albert had called her and told her that I was in dire financial straits and was going out of business so she had better make sure to get back-ups of anything I had. She was very worried - both about my firm and concerned about Albert's professionalism (she had contracted his firm to do some other work).

I was incensed. The man was insane. He was actually harming his own reputation in his bid to harm mine.
Now this guy had been sending me verbally abusive emails since I started screening his verbally abusive calls. I had then set up my computer to file all his nasty emails directly into a folder so that I would not even see them, and he would not continue to spoil my days. This had worked well - but clearly he was branching out.

And so I HAD to look in that folder and of course it was not empty. And I had to read them - and I was enraged. The demon laughed at this point, but I did not hear it.

And so I crafted a sharp email - outlining the stupidity and malevolence of his action. And the reply was almost instantaneous. And I was typing hard and angrily at the keys immediately. And hitting Send felt good in a really bad way.
This demon's name is Vengeance - and he had me wrapped around his finger. But I saw him. My reaction felt automatic - my instinct to strike back. But as my friend would later point out - this man was trying to upset me and he was winning.
But seeing the demon was not enough to defeat him. I KNEW the solution was to just drop it. Let it go. But easier said then done.

Like so many other things, the solution seemed to be admitting that I was powerless over it.

There is a story in the bible of a group of seven men who tried to cast out a demon on their own.

Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. One day the evil spirit answered them, "Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?" Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding. Acts 19:14-16

Demons according to the New Testament, unlike Hollywood, do not respond to amulets, or hexes or incantations, but to authority of a higher power. They are beaurocrats. And according to modern preachers, if a man or a woman tries to battle a demon on their own, they are doomed to failure.

Turning The Other Cheek

2005-11-01T20:33:00.000-05:00

PAULS LETTER TO THE ROMANS 12:17-21: Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. On the contrary: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

(Paul is quoting from Deut. 32:35 and Prov. 25:21,22)

In a recent post, I asked the question: is it ever wrong to turn the other cheek?

I came to this question after a run-in with a business associate a few weeks ago. I found no answer to the question, but I had determined that I would try to follow Paul's advice - who was repeating advice from Solomon and Moses who was in turn repeating a directive from God. Right or wrong I thought it sounded like a reasonable place to start. I would try to overcome hostility with kindness. The rougher it got, the thicker I would pour it on. And for a while it seemed to work.

But then it didn't.

A week ago this very night I made a routine call to this associate - who as it happens was doing work for me. Now I thought it would be a routine call. If I were a playwrite I would have filled this call with snappy dialogue and sharp sarcasm - but that isn't the way it went. Rather it was oddly repetitive.

Me: So just wanted to know when you will have this work done for my client...

Him: I can't tell you.

Me: Are you saying you cannot have it done this week?

Him: Yes, I cannot even look at it until Monday.

Me: Wow, the client will not be happy...(I'll abbreviate a bit) so I can tell him it will be done by Wednesday?

Him: No, I can't say that.

Friday?

I can't say that?

Next month? What am I supposed to tell the client?

Click. He hung up.

I was standing in front of the supermarket, I'd had a good day. A great day in fact - and this was not the way the call was supposed to go. He was supposed to give me a day he'd be done. I might have been happy or displeased and we might go back and forth, but he would give me a date in the near future. I would inform the client of that date. The work would be completed on that day. We would all get paid. Happy client. Happy supplier. Happy me.

But that wasn't going to happen!

One of the reasons I was happy was that I wasn't going to have to deal with this jerk anymore (I used a stronger word at the time). I would also have delivered on my commitments to the client. I would be proud of our work.

And now that was not going to happen.

I was dizzy. The rent was due - way past due - and it was almost the end of the next month already. These guys had already delayed the project by more than a month. But worse than that - he'd given me an answer that I could not take to the client. My options were few: lie and cover for this guy - risking my own hide in the process, inform the client and well and then what?

I decided I'd better get my shopping done. I entered the No Frills but kept stopping in each aisle to put my face in my hands. What was I going to do? I called a friend. What did you do to tick them off? she asked. Nothing. Maybe they figured out why God kept heaping burning coals on their heads! Well, you will have to go down and talk to them - you cannot handle something like this over the phone.

But what would we talk about? That conversation kinda said it all! It didn't explain anything but it laid out the few options that were left.

I kept running the scenarios of my client reacting to this news. They were expecting the project to be completed within a day or two. I had already ruled out lying. As a friend of mine said recently, I am certainly not going to burn in hell over a bag of dog-biscuits. (But that is another story ;-)

But all these ended terribly. Clients, like bosses HATE people who come to them with problems. They want solutions. But the only solution that was coming to me seemed far too drastic. But, dragging home my grocery cart I came to a complete halt a few doors from my apartment. I set down my bags and let the cart rest back on it's legs.

As much as I talk about God, I have never been able to talk to him very well. I always figured he had a lot on his mind. When I was a kid I was a Star Trek fan and a Catholic. I thought crossing yourself was like the Captain touching his chest and saying "Kirk to enterprise." Crossing yourself again was like "Kirk out". I went through months of anguish around the age of nine when it occurred to me that maybe I had forgotten to Kirk-out once. That would mean that everytime I meant to say "Kirk to enterprise" I was really closing the connection. But worse, when I finished the prayer, the second crossing was turning it back on. In other words God was listening to every thought until the next time I prayed - and when I prayed was the only time he didn't. The nuns weren't too sympathetic about that either!

But this time, I reacted more urgently and at a deeper level. I stood straight up and looked at the sky and thought "God, John (my best friend who died this summer), tomorrow I am going to have to call my client and advise them to fire these jerks before they commit anymore money to them. Things are about to get nasty. I know what I can do to make things right - but I cannot fix everything so I am giving the rest to you. I have no idea how this is going to go, but I can't worry about that. So that is where you come in.

Wow, that just happened like that. It was easy, and I felt better. I was still nervous - but my task just got tremendously smaller.

This isn't the whole answer of course, but here is why this question was easier for me. I'd be interested to hear what people think about this. These guys were continuing to be nasty with me - I'd been dealing with this for weeks and the "overcome evil with good" approach had been getting me through.

But this time, their actions were harming another (my client, and the poor project manager there who had her job review the following week). So the question was no longer, how do I repay bad treatment of me? It was how do I react to bad treatment of others. This answer came much easily - I have to do what is in my power to stop it.

But if I understand the reading correctly, and I THINK I do - then I must NOT react in anger, but with affection. That was going to be hard! And so I became resolved in what I had to do.

And I did it. What happened? That's a big story, and it isn't over - I will give you an update another day. Then I will look at - what if people don't like that you did the right thing - even if they were the ones that you did for. That entry will be brought to you by the words "denial" and "revenge".

Until then, listen to your heart speaking.

Are you ready to meet with God? Will you be ready to share the minutes?

2005-10-01T08:55:00.000-04:00

I was deeply touched this morning by an incredibly sincere posting from the Methodist pastor of Foundry UMC in Washington, DC.

What is the purpose of a life-time partner?

2005-09-30T22:38:00.001-04:00

I meant to avoid the terms 'husband', 'wife' and 'marriage'. But I guess the phrasing I chose begs another question: is a partner for life?

I am going to spend some time looking for ways to get this blog noticed, I would really like some dialogue on these questions.

I am not however looking for pat answers. Procreation as the sole, or even primary purpose of marriage is a load of hooey. Only the most extreme fundamentalists would even suggest barring a barren woman or sterile man from marriage. In fact there seems to be scriptural support that the commitment of a husband or wife to their partner supercedes their commitment to their children. Makes you think about staying together "for the children" doesn't it? (I for one don't think it helps kids to grow up in a household with parents who are not demonstrating how to love an intimate partner.)

Lovemaking is often stated as the "next" purpose of marriage. That makes a lot of sense if you think about all those kids who got married young because they couldn't wait any longer to have sex. What does that mean now that so many people are having sex before marriage? What if one partner is not able to participate fully in sexual intercourse - maybe a parapalegic?

And what about adultery? Hopefully, any readers of this blog are past the thought of stoning an adulterer / adulteress to death! Although the story about the adulteress in the Gospel is one of my favourites - historians have demonstrated that it was added to the bible sometime around the time of the Battle of Hastings (1066). That said, I think whoever thought up that beautiful story was onto something. (The fact that it did not happen makes me wonder all the more what Jesus was supposed to have been writing in the sand. I understand some people believe he was writing the names of each of the townspeople who had also commited adultery - and each person left as they saw their own name written in the sand.)

Let's face it - although I would like to think most partners do not cheat compulsively, slip-ups have got to be VERY common. It seems to be so at least anecdotally. So what is the responsibility of one partner if the other cheats? And how many strikes are there? One? Three? Twelve?

Is marriage a contract? What happens if one side fails to hold up his/her commitment? Is it over? If it is, is that divorce?

Personally, I beleive that when Jesus said that divorce was forbidden - "divorce" was not really his concern per se. The fact is that a divorced woman in first century Palestine would have been forced into begging, prostitution or crime in order to survive. Her chances of marriage would be nil - as every man would want a virgin. Custom at the time allowed a man to "put a woman aside" if it suited him. His own virginity not being an issue, he would be free to remarry. But the wife would be left outside like yesterday's trash.

I think the point Jesus was getting at was almost the same as God's position on the actions of Onan. I do not believe that Onan was guilty of maturbation (or that masturbation is wrong). Onan was being pressed to marry his brother's widow since she had not become pregnant before the brother died. According to custom, a woman did not officially enter the family until she bore a child to her husband. When Onan pulled out and "spilled his seed" refusing to impregnate the woman - he endangered her life, shirked his responsibility to his family and focused on his own needs.

Of course, I do not think the specific principal in each story can be applied today. The point in both these stories seems to be that if a woman is to submit to her husband in the extreme manner of the biblical era - then this placed tremendous responsibility on the men. In the case of both Onan, and the man that Jesus stopped from divorcing, these men had failed to satisfy their obligations. I think Jesus was an early feminist.

What do you think?

Sex is a gift, marriage institution in need of renovation

2005-09-29T14:09:00.000-04:00

I believe sexuality is a precious gift from God.

I do not believe that sex is only condoned by God in the confines of marriage. I do not believe that there is scriptural support for restricting marriage to "the union of one man and one woman" - meaning that I am a supporter of same-sex marriage.

That said, I do not believe that every expression of sexuality is appropriate or healthy. I believe that now that the definition of marriage has been expanded in Canada and in parts of the US, it is time to stop fighting over who is allowed to partake - and start joining forces to fix an institution that has been in decline for years. I believe that the majority of our culture has no idea of the relevance of marriage in our society whether they are straight, gay, lesbian or indifferent. And since that is the case, marriage is in danger of losing relevance - and it is not because two men or two women can marry today. How many times have you heard a straight couple (usually the man) say "we don't really see any reason to get married"?

If I have raised your defenses in these last few paragraphs (whether you think I am advocating licentiousness or that I am just sex-negative or old fashioned) I urge you to stay with me as this discussion begins.

This topic is rarely discussed in a way that acknowledges the wisdom and sincerity of opposing camps. I believe it is for this reason that the discussion tends to go nowhere and degrades into an arm-wrestle of political power.

I invite dissent, discussion and debate in this blog. I require that comments are respectful, and that contributors take the time to read and contemplate a posting or comment before posting a response.

So I hope you will join me in exploring the intersection of sex, intimacy and spirituality.