Fresh Green Blessings

Genesis 37: 23-28, 31-34 (KJV): And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stript Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colours that was on him; And they took him, and cast him into a pit: and the pit was empty, there was no water in it. And they sat down to eat bread: and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a company of Ishmeelites came from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt. And Judah said unto his brethren, “What profit is it if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood? Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmeelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother and our flesh.” And his brethren were content. Then there passed by Midianites merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmeelites for twenty pieces of silver: and they brought Joseph into Egypt...And [the brothers] took Joseph's coat, and killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the coat in the blood; And they sent the coat of many colours, and they brought it to their father; and said, “This have we found: know now whether it be thy son's coat or no.” And he knew it, and said, “It is my son's coat; an evil beast hath devoured him; Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces.” And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days.

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Previously, in Genesis 27, Jacob, with assistance from his mother Rebekah, tricked his father Isaac into giving Jacob the blessing that had been intended for his elder brother Esau. Esau was a hairy man so Jacob tricked his blind, dying father into thinking that he was really Esau by wearing goat-skin gloves.

It is a generation later in Genesis Chapter 37, Jacob is now the elder. The trickster son has become the tricked father. Jacob’s sons, after thinking about killing their favored brother Joseph, instead toss him into a pit and later sell him as a slave to the despised Ishmaelites. Returning home without Joseph, the brothers have doused Joseph’s multi-colored robe (made famous in modern times by Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Joseph and the Technicolor DreamCoat) in goat’s blood. They return the besmeared coat to their father saying they found this and presume their brother was killed.

The father is tricked with a sacrificed goat by the deceit of one or more sons because of their harsh sibling conflict.

For Jacob, we might think of the karma of his own deception returning - biting him back for his own goat-infested lies to his father. More generally, we will see that motifs come around again and again as we delve ever more deeply into Biblical tales and teachings. There is a circling, swirling helix of themes and problems and words and symbols. There are even additional layers of the coil in this particular story: the Ishmaelites who buy Joseph as a slave are the descendants of Ishmael. This adds  another layer to the circle of ancestral sibling tension because Ishmael was Abraham’s excluded son, the elder half-brother of Isaac. The Bible stories swirl and whirl in circling convolutions of repetition and complexity.

Ecotheology invites a non-linear approach to the Divine. The cosmos shows us that the Sacred has created a world of revolving orbs and orbiting spheres. Spinning and circling round again and again seem inherent to the natural order. Our spiritual and religious growth mirrors the seasons. Spring comes around again. There are blossoms on the cherry tree again.  This year there is a fine crop. A late frost killed the blossoms last year. Things are the same. They are not the same. Such is the nature of ritual and tradition and seasons and the helix of Biblical stories.

To impose a linear theology on the Bible is to deny the helix. There are reasons that slaves in North America could recognize and be inspired by Moses and the Israelites freedom from bondage centuries before. There are reasons why stor

Matthew 27:50-51 (KJV): Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent.

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“My master [Jamyang Khyentse] passed away in ‘the sleeping lion’s posture’...“ says Sogyal Rinpoche, “Crowds of people were there, filing around the temple, to show their respect. Then something extraordinary happened. An incandescent, milky light, looking like a thin and luminous fog, began to appear and gradually spread everywhere. The palace temple had four large electric lights outside; normally, at that time of the evening they shone brightly...Yet they were dimmed by this mysterious light. Apa Pant...was the first to ring and inquire what on earth it could be. Then many others started to call; this strange, unearthly light was seen by hundreds of people. One of the other masters then told us that such manifestations of light are said in the Tantras to be a sign of someone attaining Buddhahood” - Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, p. 275.

It is strange to think that the death of a Buddhist master could be connected to a milky, luminous fog. It feels like mythic hyperbole to consider Jesus’ death accompanied by an earthquake and the splitting of rocks. Wendell Berry asks a question, “Why do the health of the body and the health of the earth decline together?” He asks, “Why does modern society exist under constant threat of the same suffering, deprivation, spite, contempt, and obliteration that it has imposed on other people and other creatures?” Forty years ago, another Buddhist teacher pointed out that, despite our resistance to “superstitious views” linking harmony in nature with harmony in human affairs, we are beginning to acknowledge “the connections between the social [or societal problems] and the natural, or environmental, problems that we are facing.” We destroy our environment as we destroy one another.

Berry again, “The willingness to abuse other bodies is the willingness to abuse one’s own. To damage the earth is to damage your children. To despise the ground is to despise its fruit; to despise the fruit is to despise its eaters. The wholeness of health is broken by despite.” Teachers like Jamyang Khyentse and Jesus recognize this deep inter-being nature of reality. Jesus notes that there is no distance between caring for him and caring for the hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, imprisoned, or stranger (Matthew 25). Jesus points out that if his followers stop singing out their praise songs, the stones themselves will start to sing (Luke 19:40). The soil, the fruit, the children, the teachers, the sick, the imprisoned, the stones themselves - why do the health of the body and the health of the earth decline together?

There are rare beings who embrace the deep ecology of our mutual belonging, who live in near-constant awareness of our inter-being natures, and who, through their lives and teachings, work to give the rest of us some little glimpses of this Heaven on Earth. Upon the death of such a rare teacher, the sky itself just might respond with a mysterious incandescence that dims electric lights, causing people to phone each other in wonder. With the dying of such a precious teacher, rocks may begin to rent themselves in two, the earth may suddenly shake and quake in homage. Why do such reactions make sense? Because there is no distance - no distance between these teachers and the sky and the rocks and the earth and the rest of us.

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Time alone in nature can be a beautiful practice as we contemplate the death of Jesus or one of our other teachers, as we reflect on the death or dying of a loved one, as we contemplate our own mortality. The water flowing in the creek, the pebbles, the grains of sand, the wind wandering over the grass, a single bird’s song, a solitary insect, the roughness of the tree’s bark - what feelings, thoughts, moods, words, silence

Luke 9:23: Then [Jesus] said to them all, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”

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“Tonglen for Others: Imagine...someone who is suffering and in pain. As you breathe in, imagine you take in all their suffering and pain with compassion, and as you breathe out, send your warmth, healing, love, joy, and happiness streaming out to them.” - The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, p. 208. Over the centuries, Christians have often understood Jesus’ suffering and dying on the cross as the work of Jesus taking on the suffering of others, even taking on the suffering of all of humanity.

The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying continues, “Practicing Tonglen on one friend in pain helps you to begin the process of gradually widening the circle of compassion to take on the suffering and purify the karma of all beings, and to give them all your happiness, well-being, joy, and peace of mind. This is the wonderful goal of Tonglen practice, and in a large sense, of the whole path of compassion” (p. 209). Luke’s Jesus proclaims, “If any want to be my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (9:23). In all three synoptic gospels, Jesus declares that his followers must “take up their cross” (Matthew 10:38, 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23; 14:27). The Lukan text in chapter 9, however, includes the word “daily,” clearly pointing to something beyond literal martyrdom. The task of “taking up the cross” is an event repeated day after day after day.

If Jesus is our teacher, our model, and our exemplar, then our work as his followers is to try our best to follow his lead. It may seem frightening or overwhelming to visualize taking on the suffering of others, but the Tibetan Buddhist tradition offers us the visualization practices of Tonglen whereby we are invited to imagine the suffering of someone else as a dark cloud within them. We are invited to breathe in this dark cloud and use it to crack open the fortress of ego that so often keeps our heart from truly feeling the pain of the other. We are invited to use that darkness to split open our hearts so that the bright rays of love within us can flow out to others who are suffering and in need.

Some people may fear that “breathing in the suffering of others” will bring harm to themselves. The Tibetan Book states, “Know for certain...that the only thing Tonglen could harm is the one thing that has been harming you the most: your own ego, your self-grasping, self-cherishing mind, which is the root of suffering” (p. 212). The practice of Tonglen gives us a fresh meaning to Jesus on the cross and invites us each to “take up our cross” as often as possible, perhaps eventually following the full dictate of Luke 9:23 and practicing Tonglen daily.

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It is recommended that you begin Tonglen practice on yourself, allowing the caring, compassionate part of your self to purify and heal the angry, fearful, sick, embittered, and/or hurt parts of yourself. Breathe in the dark clouds of your pain and suffering, give to yourself the healing bright joy of your loving kindness. Begin with yourself, expand to friends and loved ones, then practice Tonglen for those you feel neutral toward, and later offer healing to people you dislike or those who have caused you pain. Offer ever-widening circles of healing. Be a follower of Jesus, our teacher on healing. Take up the cross again and again through your Tonglen practice.

(Music: Courtesy of Adrian Von Ziegler, "Circle of Life." )

Genesis 27:1-27 (abridged 1,2,4-6,8-27): When Isaac was old and his eyes were dim so that he could not see, he called his elder son Esau and said to him, “My son”; and he answered, “Here I am.” He said, “See, I am old; I do not know the day of my death...prepare for me savory food, such as I like, and bring it to me to eat, so that I may bless you before I die.”

Now Rebekah was listening when Isaac spoke to his son Esau. So when Esau went to the field to hunt for game and bring it, Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “I heard your father [speaking] to your brother Esau...Now therefore, my son, obey my word as I command you...you shall take [savory food] to your father to eat, so that he may bless you before he dies.” But Jacob said to his mother Rebekah, “Look, my brother Esau is a hairy man, and I am a man of smooth skin. Perhaps my father will feel me, and I shall seem to be mocking him, and bring a curse on myself and not a blessing.” His mother said to him, “Let your curse be on me, my son; only obey my word”...and his mother prepared savory food, such as his father loved. Then Rebekah took the best garments of her elder son Esau, which were with her in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob; and she put the skins of the kids on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck. Then she handed the savory food, and the bread that she had prepared, to her son Jacob.

So he went in to his father, and said, “My father”; and he said, “Here I am; who are you, my son?” Jacob said to his father, “I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me; now sit up and eat of my game, so that you may bless me.” But Isaac said to his son, “How is it that you have found it so quickly, my son?” He answered, “Because the Lord your God granted me success.” Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Come near, that I may feel you, my son, to know whether you are really my son Esau or not.” So Jacob went up to his father Isaac, who felt him and said, “The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.” He did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau’s hands; so he blessed him. He said, “Are you really my son Esau?” He answered, “I am.” Then he said, “Bring it to me, that I may eat of my son’s game and bless you.” So he brought it to him, and he ate; and he brought him wine, and he drank. Then his father Isaac said to him, “Come near and kiss me, my son.” So he came near and kissed him; and he smelled the smell of his garments, and blessed him, and said, “Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field that the Lord has blessed...

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Jacob, following the commands of his mother Rebekah, tricks his blind father Isaac and steals his elder brother Esau’s blessing. Isaac is not fooled by Jacob’s voice, but Isaac’s senses of touch and smell betray him. Feeling Jacob’s hands covered in goat-fur gloves, Isaac thinks he is touching Esau’s hairy hands. When Jacob kisses his blind, dying father after lying repeatedly to him, the father Isaac smells Esau’s clothes and is fully convinced that he is giving his blessing to Esau. Isaac is deceived on his deathbed and the Abrahamic religion continues from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob.

“The Bible reflects, with an astonishing realism, the existence of man as a creature living in the realm of time and space...and this makes [the Bible] curiously relevant to human life, in its complexity, as we have to live it,” writes the Biblical scholar C. H. Dodd in 1947. In the 1970s, a Tibetan Buddhist teacher says, “The challenge of [spiritual] warriorship is to live fully in this world as it is...with all its paradoxes.” Much of what we tend to critique in the Bible is that which we rightly critique in the world: senseless murders, vengeance, arrogance, supremacist views, hate, even the rivalries, tensions, and deceptions within families or among siblings.

Oftentimes, we turn to sacred texts to give us refuge, inspiration, a perspective on humanity and the world that

Matthew 5:43-44 (KJV): Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.

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Thich Nhat Hanh writes, “When we hate someone, and are angry at her, it is because we do not understand her or the circumstances she comes from. By practicing deep looking, we realize that if we grew up like her, in her set of circumstances and in her environment, we would be just like her. That kind of understanding removes your anger, and suddenly that person is no longer your enemy. Then you can love her. As long as she remains an enemy, love is impossible.”

Have you ever prayed for a loved one with your heart wide open? Have you ever entered that space inside yourself where you so want your loved one’s pain and suffering to cease, or at least be diminished, that you are moved to tears? We, as humans, may be brought to tears as we enter into the anguish and suffering of another person. What a lovely thing it is to be a human being!

Most of us only enter into this space of deep and compassionate prayer rarely, but many of us have, at times, experienced this level of connection with a loved one, so that some element of their pain is our pain; we do not know “exactly how they feel,” but we can enter into some facet of their suffering. This is the work of the bodhisattva. This is the “practice of deep looking” that Thay speaks of. We may be angry with a friend, but when we open ourselves to their suffering, “that kind of understanding removes your anger.”

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A blessing and challenge of the Bible is that there are multiple translations. The King James Version (KJV) of Matt 5:44 reads, “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;” Compare this with the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the same verse: “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” The NRSV is a respected translation, typically used by Biblical scholars, and it is a base translation for us in Fresh Green Blessings, but we will also use and encourage familiarity with the KJV in this podcast series. Not only is the poetry of King James beautiful, there is sometimes much that is lost, as is seen in Matthew 5:44, if we limit ourselves to the more modern and terse New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). Pick a verse and compare the KJV and NRSV.

(Music: Courtesy of Adrian Von Ziegler, "Circle of Life." )

Jeremiah 14: 3-7, 20: ...Nobles send their servants for water; they come to the cisterns, they find no water, they return with their vessels empty...because the ground is cracked. Because there has been no rain on the land the farmers are dismayed...Even the doe in the field forsakes her newborn fawn because there is no grass. The wild asses stand on the bare heights, they pant for air like jakals; their eyes fail because there is no herbage...our iniquities testify against us...We acknowledge...the iniquity of our ancestors.

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Water has been referred to as “the new oil,” a precious liquid commodity that people will monetize and fight and kill over. At the time of this writing (2019), it is common to hear reference to “the drought” in California, but a California friend says such statements are misnomers. “Drought” implies a temporary circumstance; the dryness of California is “the new normal.”

Verse 7 of Jeremiah 14 admits that “our iniquities testify against us.” The word “iniquity” is not part of our common parlance. One definition of “iniquity” is “grossly unfair behavior.” They find no water...the ground is cracked...the farmers are dismayed...the doe forsakes her fawn [because] there is no grass... There is no herbage...therefore, the panting wild asses are going blind. Where does responsibility fall for this famine and draught? Our iniquities - our grossly unfair behavior - testifies against us, along with the grossly unfair behavior of our ancestors. Humans are responsible. We may say it is “an act of God,” we may even plead with God to save us (as the author of Jeremiah 14 does), but it comes back to our iniquity, our grossly unfair behavior.

The interdependence of humans with other creatures is painfully highlighted in this reading. The wild asses are panting like jackals and going blind. The mother deer has failed in the mothering of her newborn. Surely, the baby fawn will die. And who is to blame for this iniquity? Jeremiah answers, We are, and our ancestors are, as well.

The depth of our interdependence can be painful, but it is also our source of worthy hope. Our human actions matter...and reverberate across the web of life.

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Our aspiration in Fresh Green Blessings is not to misappropriate Biblical texts, but to wisely re-appropriate them in beneficial ways. Just as it was helpful for the Exodus story of the Hebrew slaves to be re-appropriated and applied to the conditions of the African-American slaves, it is beneficial to open our hearts afresh to prophetic voices that cry out when the Earth and its creatures, including humanity, are suffering. “You shall say to them this word: Let my eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease” (Jeremiah 14:17a). Yes. Let us begin with tears. Let us begin by opening our hearts and spirits to the dead and suffering animals, recognizing our accountability and responsibility for their pain. Can we let our eyes run down with tears for even five minutes? Can we cry for just a few minutes? Dare we?

We must begin.

(Music: Courtesy of Adrian Von Ziegler, "Circle of Life." )

Isaiah 2:4 (NRSV): He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

Joel 3:10: Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weakling say, “I am a warrior.”

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Many people who regard the Bible as sacred focus on the overall meaning of the entire Bible. They want everything to fit a set of ethical or moral norms or to fit within a specific creed or a particular theology. Such is the work of a contortionist. If we are to fit every line of the Bible into a single theological framework, we must twist and bend the text. Like the effort of creating a tightly twisted coil, such work requires great force and endurance. The text is likely to spring back in defiance if the contortionist relaxes.

Those who mock the sacrality of the Bible claim victory every time the Biblical text recoils: Look at the inconsistencies! Do you claim that that misogynistic story of rape and violence is a spiritual teaching?! How can you call this book “sacred”?

Can every line fit a specific creedal view? Is every line sacred? Is any line sacred?

What is possible beyond binary thinking? Relational dialectics allows for the tensions of contradictions in interpersonal relationships. For example, a healthy couple may value both predictability and novelty in their relationship. We all dwell with contradictions and within contradictions. We may celebrate, enjoy, regret, or be confused by the contradictions we see in ourselves and our loved ones.

Within Buddhism, koans, such as the famous “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” embrace and value contradiction, as do Buddhist sacred texts, such as the Diamond Sutra. In Buddhist sutras and koans, such tensions are intentional and instructional. Within the Judeo-Christian Bible, with its many books and countless authors, the tension of contradictions may be far less intentional, but it is no less instructive.

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Beat your swords into plowshares. Beat your plowshares into swords. What do we do with diametrically opposed views that claim truth or sacrality? How do we handle contradictions within the Bible? Do these Biblical contradictions serve to teach us anything about greater contradictions in our present lives and current culture? How do we resolve the tensions when one line of the Bible touches our soul and nourishes our spirit while a line in the next paragraph revolts us? And, if we do not “resolve it,” how do we “sit with it”? Can we learn by listening to how others sit with the same text? What about the unheard voices that might respond to disturbing Biblical texts? Can we generate such voices? What value does that hold? What do you do when the text supports your theology and refutes a contrary theological view? And what do you do when the text confronts or opposes your own perspective? Is there “spiritual value” in this process of wrestling with the tensions of Biblical text and/or “sitting with” the tensions? What makes any text, Biblical or otherwise, sacred?

(Music: Courtesy of Adrian Von Ziegler, "Circle of Life." )

Psalm 4:4 (NRSV): When you are disturbed (or angry), do not sin; ponder it on your beds, and be silent.

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Thich Nhat Hanh writes in the Fourth of his Five Mindfulness Trainings: “When anger is manifesting in me, I am determined not to speak. I shall practice Mindful Breathing and Mindful Walking in order to Recognize my Anger and Look Deeply into My Anger. I know that the Roots of my Anger can be found in My Wrong Perceptions and in My Lack of Understanding of the Suffering in Myself and in the Other Person.”

Many people interpret Buddhist teachings, such as Thay’s, as being aligned with contemporary entreaties for each person to “speak their truth,” but neither Buddhism nor Christianity offers such an individualistic model. Thich Nhat Hanh holds that it is certainly ideal to speak one’s truth, but only - and this caveat is non-negotiable - only if one is not speaking out of anger or speaking in a way that is hurtful or harmful to others. Thay’s Buddhist teaching aligns sweetly with the Judeo-Christian teaching of Psalm 4:4, When you are disturbed or angry, do not sin; ponder it on your beds, and be silent.

Neither the Buddhist Mindfulness Training nor Psalm 4 are saying we should suppress our anger. Instead, they are calling for a response of silent awareness, contemplation, and mindfulness. Drawing from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the Bible, this pondering on one’s bed in silence fits well with Thich Nhat Hanh’s mindful breathing and mindful walking in order to look deeply into one’s anger. The wording in the King James Version (KJV) however, is even more befitting:  rather than Ponder it on your beds and be silent, King James reads, Commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still.

In other words, When anger is manifesting in me, I am determined not to speak. I shall be still and commune with my own heart.

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As a response to our own anger, the first thing that Psalm 4:4 and Thich Nhat Hanh’s Fourth Mindfulness Training call for is silence, but what then? The psalm suggests lying in bed. The monk suggests mindful walking or mindful breathing (perhaps while lying in bed?). Practice mindfulness. Get to stillness and presence. Then what? Commune with your heart - recognize that anger and look into it. At first, we may not even recognize that we are angry. Have you ever said, “I’m not mad!” in the midst of your raging storm? Most of us have made such false declarations. Once our anger is acknowledged, however, we can move toward observing it. There is a vast ocean between, “I am angry,” and “I can feel and sense the anger that is in me.” If we ponder in our beds or commune with our hearts at this level, then we can begin to explore the roots of the anger. Thay suggests three roots: 1) Our misperceptions; 2) the suffering within us; and 3) the suffering of the other that is spilling out and causing us to suffer. Any of these three elements or any combination of the three may have contributed to our anger. As we move toward mindful stillness within ourselves, we can consider each of these three root causes to anger with questions like: 1) Did I misunderstand or misperceive something here? 2) What deeper suffering in me was triggered because of this incident? 3) What suffering in him or her caused them to behave that way toward me?

(Music: Courtesy of Adrian Von Ziegler, "Circle of Life." )

Jeremiah 10:12-13,16b: It is he who made the earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the heavens. When he utters his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and he makes the mist rise from the ends of the earth. He makes lightnings for the rain, and he brings out the wind from his storehouses...for he is the one who formed all things.

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Jeremiah 10:1-16 is a polemic against the worship of carved wooden images painted with silver and gold by artisans. Jeremiah says that they are “like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak; they have to be carried, for they cannot walk” (v. 5).

For Jeremiah, the Great Sacredness is a living, breathing G-d who is deeply immersed in Earthly life, “He makes the mist rise from the ends of the earth. He makes lightnings for the rain, and he brings out the wind from his storehouses.”

One with even a rudimentary knowledge of Earth sciences or meteorology and weather patterns might smile condescendingly at Jeremiah’s primitive understanding, but please do not allow a rational, empirical mindset to negate your access to the poetry and epistemology behind Jeremiah’s words. To view the “quaking Earth” (v. 10) or the “rising mist” (v. 12) as G-d-powered (v. 12) may appear quaint and archaic, but to embrace Jeremiah’s way-of-knowing is to experience each flash of lightning and gust of wind (v. 12) as sacred; it is to embrace every element of the natural world as G-d-inspired; it is to celebrate every act of nature as imbued with the Sacred - and, dear Lord, what positive environmental change could be wrought if we would even begin to look at our Earth through such eyes?

This is not an other-worldly theology focused on individual eternal prizes given to the selves with the greatest self-focus on their individual salvation. No, this is a theology of wholeness - a theological embrace of the entire Earth. This is a theology wherein G-d is alive in this present moment, voiced in “a tumult of water” (v. 13), wrathful in an earthquake (v. 10), breathing and being with us here on this planet, in this present, “the one who formed all things.”

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We tend to think of scientific or empirical thinking and spiritual or religious thinking like a single light switch: To turn on one is to turn off the other; to turn on religious thinking is to turn off empirical thinking OR to turn on scientific reasoning is to douse the light of a spiritual worldview. Need we be so naively dualistic? A room can be lit by an overhead light that allows us to delineate lines and contours and examine details with meticulousness. Alternatively, a candle or small lamp can be used for lighting, allowing for shadows and darkness, giving us a diffused melding of lines and contours while creating a “warm feel” in the room. Is one truth and the other a lie? Might a candle-lit room create an experience that is palpably different than that created by good, strong fluorescent lighting, but no less true? Can we access “various lighting” at different times? Can we even simultaneously combine different types of lighting - creating new experiences - giving us fresh insights, new perspectives, greater understanding, and fueling further curiosity about all that exists in the room?

(Music: Courtesy of Adrian Von Ziegler, "Circle of Life." )

Matthew 5:30 (KJV): And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

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D.T. Suzuki tells the story of Gutei who, when confronted by a nun to “say a word of Zen,” finds himself unable to say a proper word and feels pitiful. After the nun leaves, a Mountain God tells Gutei that he will be visited in the flesh by a Bodhisattva to enlighten him regarding Zen. Sure enough, the Bodhisattva Tenryu visits Gutei. Gutei tells Tenryu of his humiliation with the nun and of his “firm resolution to attain the secrets of Zen.” Tenryu says nothing, but just lifts one finger and, all at once, Gutei’s mind opens to “the ultimate meaning of Zen.” Thence, whenever anyone visited Gutei and asked him about Zen, he said or did nothing, but just held up his little finger.

A boy in the temple observed his master Gutei and imitated him. When the boy told Gutei about this imitative practice, lifting his own little finger, his master Gutei cut off the boy’s finger with a knife. “The boy ran away screaming in pain, when Gutei called him back. The boy turned back, the master (Gutei) lifted his own finger, and the boy instantly realized the meaning of the ‘one-finger Zen’ of Tenryu as well as Gutei.”

Neither Matthew 5:30 nor the D.T. Suzuki story are invitations to self-mutilation. They provide images intended to jar us out of complacency, without the need for actual bloodletting.

In this life, if we do not die suddenly, we may spend many hours, weeks, or months on our deathbeds. What will we do with such an opportunity to reflect on our lives? At that point, we might ask, Have I, like the boy in the Buddhist temple, maintained some “outer form” of ritual and tradition - perhaps even posing as pious? Have I maintained some “outer form” of “responsibility or success” though truly my words and actions were devoid of depth and meaning?

Drawing from Matthew 5:30, on our deathbeds, we might ask ourselves, What actions, speech, ideas, concepts did I hold onto as essential even though they wrought me in “hell” on this Earth? What so-called “necessities” might I have cut away? And, if I had, would I have escaped the hellish hungry ghost realm in this life? Would I have been more than a “living corpse,” “one of the dead burying the dead”?

What would it have taken to jar me out of my complacency?

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

We are all dying. Of course, in this moment, few of us are on our deathbeds. Death may be years - perhaps several decades - away, yet we may still begin to ask the above questions. You may, today, choose to copy down or compose one “deathbed question” and tape it to your bedroom wall as a daily reminder. You are invited to choose a question that invites you into the difficult, on-going praxis of cutting and casting away the ideas, words, projects, lifestyles, thoughts, things, and actions which place you in the hellish hungry-ghost realm. You are invited to do this so that  “thy whole body” may dwell in heaven on this Earth, for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

(Music: Courtesy of Adrian Von Ziegler, "Circle of Life." )