Human Suffering & God

RELIGION often puts the cart before the horse, GRACE puts the horse back in front. – Richard Rohr, on Radical Grace     

It was unfortunate that Origen was declared anathema in 553 CE since it was he who was among the first to recognize our Divine Indwelling when he said “Who among those who have read the Gospels does not know that Christ makes human suffering his own?” Had Origen’s understanding of God’s divine indwelling been accepted from the beginning others might have viewed this world in a completely different context or light. No doubt this would have allowed all of us, to quote Richard Rohr, “to connect the dots better when considering human suffering.”

    

God’s Divine Indwelling clearly implies that “this life is not about us but about God experiencing Himself or Herself through all of us individually and indeed within and throughout all of Creation”.  That profoundly illustrates that any pain, suffering, or joy we experience – God also experiences that with us.  The knowledge that God is within the soul of each human being should provide us with the comfort of knowing that we are not alone; and journeys with us every part of the way from the Alpha to the Omega.  Accepting that God is present within and throughout all of Creation may be the first step necessary for understanding the significance of our True and False (ego) self.  Only God’s unconditional love incorporates and accepts both positive and negative aspects of our human nature.  To try and understand this radical definition of God’s unconditional love is almost maddening.  But Julian of Norwich expressed this best as follows: 

  

“Humans see some deeds as good and others as evil, but our Lord doesn’t see things like this; for everything is given its nature by God and so all that is done is done by God.  It is easy to understand that the best of deeds is well done, but the least of deeds is as well done as the best, for all things happen in the way and order that our Lord has ordained for them from beginningless time; for there is no doer but Him.”

This same radical understanding of God’s unconditional Love was recently wonderfully expressed by Mirabai Starr[1] in these words:

 “When we make mistakes and create suffering, we humble ourselves and God loves us all the more.  For those of us non-Christian and post-modern types, try substituting the word sin for shame, or blame, or even karma.  In other words, we screw up, but that only opens the tender heart of the cosmos where we can find refuge and come back into wholeness.”    

Now our suffering, such as from addictions, can be approached in terms of God’s desire to bring us to wholeness through his healing love.  This unconditional love not only brings us forgiveness and the awareness of the ability to forgive, but also allows us to transform the addiction into a blessing to freely love God, others and myself.  Rohr reminds me such a transformation can only be truly achieved by turning verbal orthodoxy into orthopraxy.

It has taken me at least ten years or more to understand the full significance behind the True Self/False Self as it was first explained by Fr. Rohr at a two day conference in Cleveland, OH. sometime around 2004?  What a blessing his insights that help us Breathe Under Water- Spirituality and the Twelve Steps (2011) have proven to be for all those burdened with addictions and other trials. 

In the face of so much continuing pain and suffering in the world and because we still ask “why does God not do something about it?”  We only need to accept that God does do something about it every day – he created you and me.  We only need to activate the God within -  the True self, or higher self if you prefer.  Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) understood this perfectly well; almost 500 years ago when she said:      

Christ has no body but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours. 

Finally below you will find Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation, coincidentally for today, which may help to explain why the False self with a dualistic mind is unable to process such things as human suffering, etc.,  

Dualistic Thinking – The Egoic Operating System

Dualistic thinking, or the egoic operating system, as Cynthia Bourgeault calls it, is our way of reading reality from the position of my private ego. “What’s in it for me?” “How will I look if I do this?” This is our preferred way of seeing reality. It has become the “hardware” of almost all Western people, even those who think of themselves as Christians, because the language of institutional religion is largely dualistic itself. It is a way of teaching that has totally taken over in the last five hundred years. It has confused information with enlightenment, mind with soul, and thinking with experiencing. But they are two very different paths.

The dualistic mind is essentially binary. It is either/or thinking. It knows by comparison, by opposition, by differentiation. It uses descriptive words like good/evil, pretty/ugly, intelligent/stupid, not realizing there may be 55 or 155 degrees between the two ends of each spectrum. It works well for the sake of simplification and conversation, but not for the sake of truth or even honest experience.

Actually, you need your dualistic mind to function in everyday life: to do your job as a teacher, a doctor, or an engineer. It is great stuff as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go far enough. The dualistic mind cannot process things like infinity, mystery, God, grace, suffering, death, or love. When it comes to unconditional love, the dualistic mind can’t even begin to understand it. It pulls everything down into some kind of tit-for-tat system of worthiness and achievement, which is largely what “fast food religion” teaches, usually without even knowing it.

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[1] Mirabai Starr, All Will be Well:  The Radical Optimism of Julian Norwich, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mirabai-starr/julian-of-norwich_b_4115736.html

God's Restorative Justice

Throughout this blog I have attempted to share my growing belief and experience about a God who does not punish, reward or hand out favours.  At the same time I continue to ask myself ‘how else can we come to understand a Being who loves all of his creation UNCONDITIONALLY?  Perhaps we can only ever seem to grasp small portions of this incredible healing and forgiving love.  Is seems simply too far beyond our daily experience!  For many God’s unconditional love  is too difficult to accept since they may never have received or experienced this kind of love from their parents, teachers and even members of their religious institution. And so we continue to demand punishment not just for ourselves but also for others and we continue to suffer. But God has a better plan – it is called restorative justice.

Fr. Richard Rohr,OFM one of my favourite spiritual teachers, suggests that for many God’s love or grace is still based on our false sense of justice which demands that sin must be punished and followed by a lengthy period of repentance and only after that we  might experience or be worthy of transformation.  Fr. Rohr calls this a religion based on meritocracy.  But Rohr provides the following beautiful illustration of God's intended grace pattern as follows:  

Sin - - -  >punishment - - ->repentance - - -> transformation

 The grace pattern is:

Sin - - ->unconditional love - - >transformation - ->repentance

  
 In other words Rohr reminds us that Yahweh’s fidelity is beyond a merit system where we will find the grace of God.  When we are ready and willing to expose our hidden sins under God’s unconditional love, transformation will out of necessity precede any form of real repentance.  And so, Rohr gently reminds us that God cannot heal what you not acknowledge!  Why have we misunderstood this healing message for so long?

A careful reading of Jesus’ parable of Prodigal Son might be of help.  Noted spiritual author and teacher, Henri Nouwen and his powerful reflection on the parable of the Prodigal Son in his book  book ‘The Return of the Prodigal Son’ (1992) so beautifully captures the mixed emotions we probably all experience in such a manner that I, for one, cannot possibly say it or improve on it in any other way.  The themes of homecoming, affirmation, and reconciliation set against our feelings of loneliness, dejection, jealousy, or anger are typically for me a daily struggle.  

Here follow just a few excerpts from Nouwen’s book:     

On the Prodigal Son

Receiving forgiveness requires a total willingness to let' God be God and do all the healing, restoring, and renewing. As long as I want to do even a part of that myself, I end up with partial solutions, such as becoming a hired servant. As a hired servant, I can still keep my distance, still revolt, reject, strike, run away, or complain about my pay. As the beloved son, I have to claim in full dignity and begin preparing myself to become the father.

On the True Elder Son

The return of the elder son is becoming as important to me as—if not more important than—the return of the younger son. How will the elder son look when he is free from his complaints, free from his anger; resentments, and jealousies? Because the parable tells us nothing about the response of the elder son, we are left with the choice of listening to the Father or of remaining imprisoned in our self-rejection.

I have to let go of all comparison; all rivalry and competition, and surrender to the Father's love. This requires a leap of faith because I have little experience of non-comparing love and do not know the healing power of such a love. As long as I stay outside in the darkness, I can only remain in the resentful complaint that results from my comparisons. Outside of the light, my younger brother seems to be more loved by the Father than I; in fact, outside of the light, I cannot even see him as my own brother.

On the Fatherhood of Compassion

Becoming like the heavenly Father is not just one important aspect of Jesus' teaching; it is the very heart of his message. The radical quality of Jesus' words and the seeming impossibility of his demands are quite obvious when heard as part of a general call to become and to be true sons and daughters of God.

Fr. Rohr reminds us that “The dominant culture is one based on an economy of merit and retributive justice. The economy of grace turns meritocracy on its head, aiming toward restorative justice, for “the revelation from the cross and the Twelve Steps, however, believes that sin and failure are, in fact, the setting and opportunity for the transformation and enlightenment of the offender—and then the future will take care of itself. The majority of human history has not been ready to see this revelation, but we are witnessing an evolution of consciousness drawing humanity forward.  Restorative justice emphasizes repairing the harm caused by crime.  When victims, offenders and community members meet to decide how to do that the results can be transformational.”

Rohr invites us to witness a practical example and application of restorativejustice here. Be sure to see how it is being applied in your community as well in other countries.  

For more on this topic readers are invited to listen to Fr. Rohr’s excellent homily on Retribution versus Restoration.

           

God accepts us where we are.

Return of the Prodigal Son - Rembrandt

God accepts us where we are. God meets us where we are, not where others would have us be.  

It is said that God finds us.  We do not find God.  For most of us, we learn about God through our parents, teachers or religious institutions.  Depending into which culture we are born, we may learn about a God who is Christian or Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, Shinto, and so on.   Considering all the variations that exist within each individual religious group, the different and conflicting interpretations of God are inevitable and not unexpected.  Then there are those who are born into families or countries where atheism exists in varying degrees.  But knowing about God is not the same as experiencing the Divine. There are many teachers among us who would have us believe that to experience our Creator we must first adopt the basic fundamentals of their beliefs through a series of initiations such as baptism or specific religious teachings. 

This begs the question, "does our experience of God depend on our particular belief or non-belief?"  If God does not play favourites and is the Creator of the world and we are part of that creation, is there anyone God would not find? 
 But now, for an even bigger question - one aimed at the suggestion that we must first adopt specific religious teachings to experience God.   Considering what we have learned in less than one hundred years about our ever expanding universe and the number of habitable planets within the cosmos, are we going to insist that each one would have God re-enact the same story that we have been taught, or are we prepared to accept that God is perfectly able to reveal himself to every creation in a uniquely different way? Remember, when God calls on you, it will be in a manner that is completely congruent to your nature; not in a way that would cause you fear or angst.  If we can accept that this Creator is beyond all earthly understanding, we can perhaps slowly let go of our insistence that God demands our obedience to strict rules and regulations.  God, as creator of this incredible cosmos and everything in it suggest, that our understanding of his unconditional love has no boundaries; in fact, that understanding is continuously expanding.  If we can accept that which is almost incomprehensible, it means that there is no place in this universe that is untouched by God’s presence and unconditional love. 

Leaving ourselves open to this possibility also means that we can not only get to experience a God who reaches beyond space and time, doctrine and dogma but can be heard, knocking on the door of our heart.   It is said by many mystics and Christian scriptures that God knew us before Creation (Proverbs 8:22-31).  It is perhaps only due to our ego that we have yet to find our real purpose and potential for greatness.  When we finally answer God’s call, we will rediscover that our Deity rests within our indestructible and eternal soul and is as close as our next heart beat. The Self that God created needs nothing.  It is forever complete, safe, loved and loving. It seeks to share rather than to get; to extend rather than project.  It has no needs and wants to join with others out of their mutual awareness of abundance. (A Course in Miracles)

But trusting in God’s unconditional love is not easy. To begin with, it is always easily pushed aside by our ego.  It has more to do with not knowing than with knowledge about God.  God operates in the present - in the here and now - not in the past and not in the future. The past and the future are simple illusions and are easily distorted by learned experiences of shame, guilt, and fear.  Perhaps the easiest way to rediscover our trust in God is to realize that he never left us (Hebrews 13:5).  “I will not leave you orphaned”  (John 14:15-21).  Just how close is God? This close:   ‘the life you live is not about you! The life you live is Christ experiencing himself through you’.   When we first begin to absorb this reality we will become conscious of it being transmitted to us through another person, nature, life and death experiences, scripture, an inspirational story, the birth of a child, a brilliant starry night or simply, an act of kindness received from or extended to, another.  There are unlimited ways that God reveals himself to us that convey his great unconditional love to us.
 
 It saddens me however to note that there are times when we convey God’s  love in very conditional ways.  This has caused and continues to cause much pain and suffering in the world.  Unfortunately, we will also often find this in places of worship, be it a temple, synagogue or church.

 How this got to be that way may be a mystery to some but it may have something to do with the ego.  Survey after survey indicates that 90 % or more people in the world believe in a single God, regardless of the Name that they use for that Deity.

  Thusly, I believe a good starting point for any religious institution would be to admit that we don’t know everything there is to know about God.   Only through prayer and dialogue with God can we bring his revelation and promise of salvation alive.    With the birth of every child, the growth of a new flower, dialogue with a stranger, the ongoing expanse of the universe, we are immediately engaged in God’s revelation in a new way, every day, and every moment.   

God accepts us unconditionally where we are, not where others would have us be.