Making Bread

We made bread a few days ago. When I write “we,” I mean Betty Crocker’s cookbook and me. When I write “made,” I mean bread with flour, yeast, kneading and waiting for the dough to rise. I made bread, not just baked, although we also baked the loaves. When the two loaves came out of the oven, we put the butter on the hot bread and ate several slices. When I write “we,” I mean Judy and myself. Bread is a wholesome task which gives wonderful rewards. The reward of hot homemade, yeasty, bread and butter. The reward of an effort with tasty and observable results. The reward of exercise comes from stirring and kneading. The reward of remembering my grandmothers and their bread. Making bread is a wonderful and delicious spiritual discipline.

Respecting Other Faiths

I am learning to value and respect other faiths, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Judaism, etc. They have much value and a great deal from which I can learn. I am, however, a Christian by birth, language, culture, training, etc. By Christian I mean more than Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, etc. By Christian I mean a Jesus follower especially Jesus’ “Sermon of the Mount” and specifically the Beatitudes. I also mean Jesus’ sense of judgement as revealed in Matthew 25’s judgement of the sheep and goats. A Jesus follower is dying to self or ego which I interpret to mean becoming unattached or clinging to self or ego. Being a Baptist, Methodist or Catholic does not make one a Christian and claiming the label of Christian does not make one a Jesus follower. I have friends of other faiths who seem more like a Jesus follower than some of the Baptists, Methodist or Catholics, etc. whom I know. It is easy as well as culturally appropriate to remake Jesus into the image or person I want him to be, so I end up following my image of Jesus. In other words, I remake Jesus to be like me and reflect my values. This is not following the Jesus of the Scriptures. Jesus said to sell everything, give it to the poor and then, follow Him. Yeah, I’m not quite ready to do that either. I think it is best to leave any sense of judging who is right or who is wrong up to God, or the I Am. I have sufficient worry and work about myself, let alone any others.

Clarifying Language

Clarifying language is important, especially among religious folks. These are a few of my working definitions—at least currently. Faith is my lived experience in relationship with/by God/Divinity or the “I Am.” I prefer to use “I Am” as a name of God/Divinity since the I Am gave us this name (Exodus 3:13-14, 15b). In that 15b verse we find “This is my name forever and this is my title for all generations.” I prefer calling God/Divinity the name or title the I Am told us to use. Jesus often used this name/title even though we usually think he used it to refers only to himself. I suspect he also meant it to refer to the I Am or God/Divinity. I like to use the gerund of faith or faithing as it is a process. Faithing is a life-long journey. Faithing is never complete; it is evolving, growing, maturing, etc. I often use the phrase “The journey (faithing) is our destination.” Beliefs are my concepts or thoughts of my lived experience with the I Am. Beliefs may be changing as I learn new insights and/or receive new revelations. Therefore, my beliefs are evolving, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.” (I Corinthians 13: 12, NRSV). I am uncomfortable around individuals who have their beliefs all work out and there is little chance of their beliefs changing. By religion I mean the generational accumulation of doctrines, dogmas, beliefs, institutions, etc. that are purposed to assist individuals in the worship (faithing) of I Am. By spirituality I mean the “desire to please” (“Thanks,” Merton). Pleasing I Am as I choose to adapt and adjust to the experience and the following of I Am. I think of salvation or redemption as transformation. Transformation is something that I cannot do for myself; it is formation from a divine source, hence the prefix of “trans.” I also believe that transformation is an individual process rather than a one-method-fits-all for everyone. The I Am deals with us individually. I hear many folks talk about judgement, but I think of judgement in terms of Matthew 25, especially the sheep and goats (verse 31-46). This judgement does not have much to do with doctrine, church, denomination, religion, beliefs, etc. I suspect we judge ourselves by our lives or behaviors and actions. Judgement, or judging others, is not my business anyway. “Thanks,” I Am, judging others is one less thing I need to be concerned about.

Numb to Violence

I was born in 1941, so I have lived my life with the threat of nuclear war and the destruction of earth. I can recall the exercises we had in school during which a siren would go off and we would hide under our desks to save ourselves from a nuclear blast and fallout. Oh, how innocent we were! Today, children are hiding under desks to save themselves from gun violence, even though the threat of nuclear weapons is still a reality. I wonder if our accommodating to military style weapons in the hands of citizens, who do not seem to be interested in joining the military or the police, is not a foretaste of violence gone amuck. Have you read the Second Amendment? “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” “A well-regulated militia” sounds to me like the military and/or police. If someone wants military type guns then, join the Army, Police or National Guard. If we are accommodating to the violence of military style weapons, why do we think that someone, somewhere, sometime will not launch nuclear weapons? I fear that we are getting numb to violence. Let us stop this madness while we still have the option!

Guns and an Evil Spirit

A young person purchased military style weapons in Nashville. This person shoots her way into a Christian school and proceed to kill 3 adults and 3 children before being killed by the police. The response of politicians seems to be that they can do nothing. Wasn’t it the politicians who made it possible for this person as well as many others to purchase these weapons? I am reminded of the 3rd century hermit monk, Evagrius, who taught about the eight passions. Those passions will be later interpreted as sins or the work of the Evil Spirit. Evagrius wrote that the first task of these evil passions is to blind the person(s) to their presence so that they will not be able to see the evil spirit that has inhabited them. Isn’t it ironic that the Evil Spirit is also named the Prince of Darkness in John Milton’s Paradise Lost. It seems to me that the Evil Spirit(s) are alive and very efficient today and our sense of “paradise” has surely been lost. There have been too many public evidences of the Evil Spirit(s) work although too many of our leaders seem to be blind to its presence.

Religion is to "bind back"

The word “religion” (from the Latin “ligare”) which means “to bind back” or to become whole. Religion is the means whereby we are being bound back to our original intent which is to love God, others, and ourselves, i.e., Jesus’ Great Commandment. At least this Great Commandment was what the early desert monks believed to be the definition of a mature faith or being perfect. Unfortunately, when we think of religion today what comes to mind for many of us is: buildings, Churches, denominations, clergy, money, doctrine/dogma, Sundays, songs, etc. There is some truth to that as religion frequently involves those activities and things. However, religion is about love and not merely the feeling or sentiment of love, but the commitment to genuinely care about God, others, and self. I fear many churches and denominations have also become lost with a preoccupation with buildings, programs, doctrines, dogmas, rules, ethics, etc. It seems that all of us, individuals as well as institutionalized religion, need to be bound back to our Divine purpose in creation. “Lord, bind us back to Your desires for us.”

Religions are Like Languages

I believe that all religions have a common source which is the Divine. Recently I read the following quote from Rabi Shapiro and immediately thought “YES! This is it.” My ‘mother tongue’ is Christianity, especially protestant evangelical, Baptist, white, and middle-class Christianity. I honor and respect my background and am grateful for the foundation which it has provided me. Nevertheless, my desire, which I attribute to God, is to grow beyond my Christian birth inheritance. I am grateful that God has given me the blessing or gift of an insatiable and wide curiosity. Our languages and concepts are but words pointing to the Divine, they are not the Divine. I share his quote with gratitude to Rabi Shapiro. “To me, religions are like languages: no language is true or false; all languages are of human origin; each language reflects and shapes the civilization that speaks it; there are things you can say in one language that you cannot say or say as well in another; and the more languages you learn, the more nuanced your understanding of life becomes. Judaism is my mother tongue, yet in matters of the spirit I strive to be multi-lingual. In the end, however, the deepest language of the soul is silence.” Rabi Rami M. Shapiro