Suffering

Alright, all you Bible thumpers, settle down!

You aren't going to like what I have to say today. Be that as it may, I press on (with only a small amount of irony). Cosmic eye roll.

I was sitting quietly opening to this full moon morning and, of a sudden, I knew I was going to talk about suffering. The first intent was to deliver a sweet little sermon on "Suffer the children to come unto me" which you would have dearly enjoyed, with no suffering on your part at all.

Then this nailed me right between the eyes and deep into my heart:

“He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.”- Isaiah 53:3-4

Uh oh. This doesn't sound too happy. Yet there is something really good buried in there. Perhaps not what you might think at first.

I don't want to get too theological on you here, but this passage from Isaiah, generally thought to have been written about 700 B.C., is considered to be a prophecy about Jesus. It certainly seems to fit.

There are two very different mindsets in that passage. One is of judgment and condemnation. The other is of compassion and lovingkindness. And you don't need me to preach a sermon on those differences. If you don't understand that by now, you need a brain surgeon. Or a heart transplant.

Now I'm not one to wallow around in the suffering of Jesus. Comprehend it as best you can, yes. Dwell in and on it, no.
You have your own suffering to attend to.

And finally I have arrived at my point.
Follow the example of Jesus.
Embody fully as a human with no evasion.

Take up your infirmities. Carry your sorrows. Notice that those are both positive actions, requiring you to stand on your feet and move.

Take up those places where you are not firm. Ask for a doggie bag, for a carry out. You may not get rid of them but they are not to stop you.

Carry your sorrows in your arms with great compassion.
And move on.

That reminds me, both Jesus and Buddha are associated with a tree and each dealt with suffering. But that's some gold ore for mining in the future.

It's such a beautiful day!
And Mrs. Stewart has invited us over to her house for lunch!
Please stand and let us sing a few verses of "Heavenly Sunshine."

the state of whoa

Okay, I'm going to try to get us out of here early today. I know some of you want to drive up to Atlanta to hear the Jubilee Singers Of The Dancing Holy Spirit. That reminds me, I want to preach some Sunday soon on King David dancing in the streets. Now there's a story!

Turn in your Bibles to Isaiah 6:5. Will someone stand up and read that?

"Woe is me! for I am undone."

Thank you, Brother Endelrod.

Have you ever had everything put together nicely, running along so smoothly, everything just humming, and then, blam!, it all falls or flies apart, blown into smithereens, and you are left sitting in the ashes of the aftermath, wondering what the hell and why in heaven's name? Congratulations, you have just become undone.

"The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley," said Mister Burns, in his To A Mouse. He captures the undone feeling well in his opening lines: "Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie, O, what a panic's in thy breastie."

Being undone is a state we hate. And even though we don't want to hear it, it is a state to be valued.

"Yeah, yeah," you might say, "you preachers are always putting a positive spin on things. If you stepped in dog poop, you'd praise God for reminding you to watch your step! We Americans worship progress, no offense intended, preacher. And having things fall apart, being undone as you say, is not progress."

Well, I beg to differ. Life goes on in a certain rhythm. For things to fall together, they have to fall apart.

Sometimes we need some woe, some whoa! We start galloping away in enthusiastic disregard for anything but our own singular vision of What Should Be. As a result, as someone has said, we should all over ourselves. A woeful state, any way you look at it.

When we get that way, the universe in its wonderfulness allows us to become undone. A fresh start opens.

We may sit for a while in our ashes and scrape our wounds with pot shards (like Job), but if we have any grit at all, we eventually get up and go on, totally undone.

Some of my Zen friends say that emptiness is a highly creative place to be. The ancient Chinese referred to this zone of emptiness out of which all arises as wu or wu chi. The Japanese call it ku. Combining the two, I call it wu chi ku. When we are in the undone place, we can dance the wu chi ku.

Wups! Looks like I am headed toward the King David sermon!

Please stand up and we will sing the song of the undone: Just As I Am, Without One Plea. Just the first and last verse and then you are outta here!

You Are The Light Of The World

Thank you for inviting me back.

Open your Bibles to Matthew 5:14. What does it say?

The first sentence says "Ye are the light of the world." What does that mean? It certainly does not mean that we can run around all prancey-dancey acting as if we are somebody. As soon as we start doing that, we immediately fall into darkness. This is one way all us Bible-thumpers get a bad name. And rightly so.

If you start getting the big head over this, you have lost it. The "ye" (I like that Shakespearean King James English) refers to everyone, not just to some select group. These words, "ye are the light of the world," are attributed to Jesus who is talking to "the multitudes."

We are each and all the light of the world. Yep, even that bozo you have grown to love to hate.

We are all material (matter-real) manifestations of Light. I capitalize Light because, in the cosmic scheme of things, we live in a dim sub-luminary world which is lit only by the continuous grace and Light of our Source.

Our sun itself, that radiant orb of light and heat, is but one of billions of light spheres called into being by the Big Outbreathing which called all this into existence. Some of our physicists who evidently had an adolescent male state of mind called the out breathing a Big Bang, but we all know that banging and love-making are not the same. Wups, I see some of the deacons getting uncomfortable, so let's move on.

My point is that love is light, that love and light are the same. The light of awareness comes only through love. We have to love something to really see it. You know how that goes. You say, I don't see what he sees in her, or she in him. That's because you are not in a loving place with him or her. Love is not blind. Infatuation is, but love is not.

We see by the light of love. If we are not embodyings of love, we are not embodyings of light.

Joanna Macy has written some good books. One of them is World as Lover, World as Self. The title alone reminds me that before we can love others (see them in good light), we must love ourselves, let the light shine through our whole being. Then and only then are we the light of the world.

Zen Baptist Bible Reader

Since I am in what is sometimes called the advancing years and sometimes the declining (no wonder we Geezers get confused), I am looking to give back to the community what I can before I kick the bucket, throw in the towel, buy the farm, fall into grave disorder. The "what I can" part is my take on various realms. I'm already giving my comments on the application of martial art principles to daily life, on the Gospel of Thomas, and on the Bhagavad Gita, so why not dive in and start a blog on the Bible? After all, I cut my eye teeth on it, having grown up as a Baptist in the deep South. (The Zen part, of course, came later.)

So despite and even because of the heaps of excrement thrown these days at folk who follow the teachings of holy books, here I go!

Okay you Baptists (and all you individuals who make up the nearly 7 billion religions -- one for each person -- in the world), turn in your Bibles to Micah 6:8.

This is a verse that brought me much comfort during my existential angst back-of-hand-to-brow years. I had pretty much soured on all churches, but still derived some understandings and some heart glow from this verse in Micah. The latter part of that verse: "what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" rang my chimes.

I read that and thought, okay, I can do this or at least keep at it as a spiritual practice. All that is required is to do justly (heck, I learned that in the scouts -- Scout Law: A scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.), to love mercy (that's a deep one, I'm still understanding what that means), and to walk humbly with thy God.

That latter one snags a lot of people who think of God as some kind of floaty creature out there who doesn't have the sense of a billy goat in heat and has screwed up the world something terrible. It didn't take me long to realize that what that ("God") means is my source, our Source (whether you capitalize It or not). The Great Mystery, The Big Hoohah, The Eternal Mother, Father. The One Who Breathes Us, The Original Kin.

And it doesn't say I have to walk humbly with people. I am only required to walk humbly with God. The rest takes care of itself.

So close your Bibles, all you Baptists. Time to go to all day singing and dinner on the grounds!