Wayside Pulpit

A Declaration

My practice of Zen has finally turned how I hear the ancient writings of Christianity. Many years ago my traditional interpretations of scripture were dismantled, but I wasn’t able to reformulate them. Rather, they were a jumbled mess of, “I don’t believe.” However, now, without really trying to see the texts in a new way, the new ways are revealing themselves.

Theology is not stagnant, it is something that must remain in flux, or it is not theology. I expect to be amazed at the new ways that I see the text, the symbols and even the rituals of Christianity. If I stop being amazed, I have stopped being Christian. See, as I walked through traditional Christianity (or rather slogged through it), there was so little that touched me and allowed me to see the magic that existed within the act of living. Yet, with a theology in motion, the magic never ceases.

As I’ve turned my practice toward a tradition that is not my own, I see the world differently. Not only are the cities different, the cars, the trees, the people eating pretzels in the mall, but Christianity is different. I’m beginning to not only see through the suppositions, the certainties and the beliefs, but I’m able to let them go to be owned by someone else. As they’ve floated away, like a released red balloon, I have been gifted incredible space in which to create something new.

The echo that hits me each time I speak into this space is that, “Christianity is not what you think. It is something completely different.” Yet, the strange thing, for me, is that there is relatively no anxiety within this newly found place. I see not only potential, but the absolute necessity that the time has come for me to add my voice to the New Reformation.

Compassion

Years ago, for a wedding gift, I received a large framed copy of 1 Corinthians 13:4-13. This is the often quoted bible piece about love being patient and kind, not jealous, not boastful. I hung the gift in the bathroom for a number of years, right above the toilet. The colors matched the bathroom, and the bathroom, being a well visited place, was a good location in the house for a good message.

Paul’s writing to Corinth is about compassion; the kind of compassion that exists when awareness is brought to a situation. The love he speaks of is the compassion that is available when conditioning is not ruling the day. It is the compassion that exists when judgment (either good or bad) is not present. It is a tall order to experience this love or to show this love to ourselves, because we are socially conditioned to beat ourselves up, to try to change ourselves, to judge ourselves, to hate ourselves.

Compassion does not rejoice in wrong doing or even right doing, rather it rejoices in the truth. The truth is that compassion is the only thing that will not end, it is the only thing that passes on once our bodies have died. It is what observes the world without judgment. It is our true nature.

When we were children we knew this nature, we acted upon it, we rejoiced in it. Then social conditioning turned us into, “adults.” It helped us to become what society wanted us to become, not who we truly were. Therefore, we put an end to “childish ways,” and lost the magic of living.

Yet, even as adults, we still have within ourselves, burning brightly, the magic of who we truly are. But, like a dream that is hidden upon waking, you can’t quite catch its tail as it rounds a corner in your mind. You see it in a mirror dimly, but the reflection is fuzzy and it seems, well, almost unreal. Yet it is the most real thing that you have. It is the truth of who you are.

I may have prophetic powers. I may be brilliant and knowledgeable about intellectual things. I may lay claim to a faith that can move mountains. Yet, if I have given up my true nature, my compassion, my love, then I am nothing.

Endings

One of the many things I am drawn to in Zen is the focus on process rather than content. I can spend lots of time talking about content, about how this person drives me crazy or how my organic avocados always seem to be rotten inside. Yes, I can talk about these and many more pieces of content, instead of talking about the process of my irritation, or the process of my disappointment.

Yet, I wonder if process is as easy to make entertaining as content. How could the process of good and evil be as captivating as the content of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy? How can I tell you a story about a major event in my life without the content? Would you still be able to relate?

In early spring of last year I made a choice. I had many choices, but I choose one, because there was only one of me. The choice was for the next step, the next adventure, the next learning experience. The choice was hard. I cried about it. I prayed about it. I worried about it. However, I finally made it. It took fits and starts; choosing one thing and then choosing another. Finally the mental trappings of conditioning let me go enough to say, “Yes, this is what I choose.”

The choice led me down a path that, after four months, I realized was a path I did not want to travel. Yet, this realization did not come slowly, it came quickly, in the matter of just an hour.

See, I had been walking down a hall for months, watching the floor; my one foot in front of the other. Then it happened, my right shoe hit a wall, then the left. I looked up and all I could think was, “There shouldn’t be a wall here.” I stood there for almost a month, angry and confused about the wall. I railed against the surface that had stopped me. I asked experts about it. I cried about the wall. I prayed about the wall. I worried about the wall. Then one night, I realized that the wall didn’t matter. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t good. It was just a wall. The question then moved from the wall directly to me and my two feet pressed against it. Do I stay or do I go? I left.

Currently, the marketing arm of the United Church of Christ relies heavily on Gracie Allen’s phrase of, “Never place a period where God has placed a comma.” Yet, there are the times when God places a period and the sentence is finished.

To Be

Last night I came across an ad for, “Age of Empires III.” Empires III, at its most simplest, is a real time strategy game where players create battles with empires in order to win the world. It looks interesting.

I haven’t played either Age of Empires II or Age of Empires I, but I’m intrigued nonetheless. As I read the internet glossy of the game I remembered a time when I enjoyed playing computer games. Playing games was fun, it was interesting; something that captured my motivation. I would stay up hours into the night playing games that, compared to the technology available now, were quite unrealistic and rather simple.

Something has changed for me as I’ve gotten older. I’ve forgotten how to play and enjoy things for the sake of enjoyment. I don’t know how to just be, to just relish the moment. I am noticing that for my life to have meaning, for my existence to matter, I have to be producing something or being something. I do not know how to relax. I do not know how to simply live.

I don’t think that the inability to be without being is only my experience. It is a conditioned response, something that is learned in this middle America culture of mine. I watch myself “teaching” my daughter to be productive, to learn, to study, to make something of herself. The desire to strive, to become something “great” is not something I asked for, but it is something that I have been given. My choice now is what to do with it.

In terms of Zen, I simply watch, notice, then say, “Isn’t that interesting.” Here I am, this capable and talented woman and I only believe that I am living the life I have been given if I produce, or work or create. Then after I notice, I must laugh, because socialization is my own worse enemy. How humorous is it that I must do something different than just live to be worthy of my life?

In terms of Christianity I cannot help but think of Jesus’ idea that, “the kingdom of God is now.” It isn’t in getting water from the well, it is talking to the woman leaning against it about living water. It isn’t answering the call to throw oneself from the steeple, but to wait the desire out. Christianity teaches me that the space between the halves of broken bread is where life is found.

How to turn these theological musings into action? This is always the question isn’t it? For any of us that walk this road of spiritual exploration we must find out how to move the notions of our heads into our hearts and bodies. I think I am going to buy Age of Empires III and learn how to play again. I am going to waste time by all social standards and watch the kingdom of God unfold.