On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 9:05 PM, Myo-O wrote this email. Myo-O Habermas Sher, Interfaith Chaplain, Hennepin County Hospitals.

Dear study buddies of the highest order,

I experienced disturbance when, the Monday after Easter, at staff meeting, having been asked to lead a guided imagery exercise, one of my colleagues chose to do a reflective exercise with the Catholic reading for the day-see below.

Lines 12,13 and 15 seem to me redolent with anti-Semitism and further, contain the roots of that strain of hatred and distortion that continued to be developed in Europe for hundreds of years.

This particular chaplain began her offering with an off-hand apology to the non-Christians in the room-all two of us.

I have no problem and great interest in most of this reading, but I need help with lines 12,13 and 15.

Are you able to say anything about this?

Thank you much.

Myo-O

Ps. May I mention that Passover was not noted during the staff meeting except when I talked about the great matzoh ball soup I’d made for a wonderful seder of 40 people on Friday.

Gospel, Matthew 28:8-15

8 Filled with awe and great joy the women came quickly away from the tomb and ran to tell his disciples.

9 And suddenly, coming to meet them, was Jesus. ‘Greetings,’ he said. And the women came up to him and, clasping his feet, they did him homage.

10 Then Jesus said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers that they must leave for Galilee; there they will see me.’

11 Now while they were on their way, some of the guards went off into the city to tell the chief priests all that had happened.

12 These held a meeting with the elders and, after some discussion, handed a considerable sum of money to the soldiers

13 with these instructions, ‘This is what you must say, “His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.”

14 And should the governor come to hear of this, we undertake to put things right with him ourselves and to see that you do not get into trouble.’

15 So they took the money and carried out their instructions, and to this day that is the story among the Jews.

Dear Myo-O,

I have several reactions to this, so let me enumerate them:

1) Can my family come to your Seder next year? Sounds fabulous!

2) What on earth was your colleague NOT thinking? An apology to the non-Christians in the room? And then a passage that derides “the Jews to this day?” Did she not have CPE?

3) But the big question is what about anti-Judaism in the Gospels? The difficult thing is that we cannot, nor should we, read these parts without the force of the historical anti-Judaism that developed with the aid of these very passages. The worst in Matthew, as I think you know, is 27.25 where “the people as a whole answered, “His blood be upon us and our children!” Perhaps the most unfortunate words ever to be written and regarded as scripture. All I can say is what I do with it. In the context of the writing of the Gospels, it is an intra-Jewish fight, a battle over interpretation of the same tradition. Matthew writes as a Jew against the (apparently) majority of Jews that reject the accounts of resurrection, and writes a good 60 or more years after the alleged events. I think what we witness in his writing is but the beginning of of the separation and disidentification that will eventually become violently hostile as the movement transitions from Jewish to Gentile historically. Yet at this point in history, I suspect the writer feels himself to be fully Jewish, writing against the majority of his kin as, say, Amos does in his condemnation of all the festivals and sacrifices etc. It is instructive to me to see how these passages in Amos, as well as ones in Jeremiah (about a new covenant written on hearts) have all taken on in Christian theological and liturgical contexts the flavor of anti-Judaism. There is nothing at all anti-Jewish about Jews writing critically of their own, rightly or wrongly.

But that is all a weak seltzer in light of the history of interpretation once Christianity developed as a not-Jewish tradition. Now the blood of millions is part of the inter-text. Christians need to wake up to the actualized terror of these texts. I feel that to read them in isolation from those, such as you who feel their daggers, perpetuates ignorance and imagined innocence. We need to feel what I felt when you told me that the name “Luther” or a German accent brings on annihilation anxiety. Christians need to feel how these passages are received by Jews today.

At the very least, we need to wake up to who else the f is in the room…

But it’s late. Ira and I co-taught an adult class at a church in St. Paul tonight. We are feeling our way to figure out how to teach in a Christian-Jewish dialogical way. But I am impressed how badly it is needed.

Thanks for voicing this,
John

On 4/12/12 8:05 AM, Jan P wrote:

Hello, all and to Myo-O especially,

Your question and reaction calls to me.  Two thoughts come to me:

1) I concur wholeheartedly with John’s response,

and 2) I am sickened by the power of misinterpretation in religious discourse – hiding, as I see it, as historical understanding.

I learned from my teacher Gavin Langmuir some fifty years ago that historical work is charged with correcting itself, with the quiet hope that eventually John’s viewpoint become a majority viewpoint.

So we pray.

Shalom,
Jan

Dear John, Jan and all,

Thank you so much John for your thoughtful and empathic response to my query.  Big exhale. And also thank you for the contextual unfolding that helps place the words..

Thank you Jan for your commentary.  All of this helps me as I find myself in this potentially prophetic hot spot.

May I speak with skill and wisdom and cunning, if I may say so.

Peace, Myo-O

On 4/14/12 2:45 PM, Ira G wrote:

Fellow Hermeneuts …

Myo-O: You started something interesting.

Permit me to offer a somewhat different take on the troubling passages in the Gospel.

As it happens, I wasn’t present in Jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion. I can’t vouch for the reliability of the accounts in the Gospels, most especially in this case — Matthew. However … it makes all kinds of sense to me that Caiaphas, and his colleagues would shop Jesus in much the way Rav Matthew would have it.

After all … look at what the Jewish elders (the Parnasim) did with Baruch Spinoza in Amsterdam some 16 centuries later. There too, the young Spinoza was spouting inconvenient truths, truths that were viewed by the good Jewish burghers of Amsterdam as threatening the protection they tentatively enjoyed from the Calvinists of the Netherlands who had offered them sanctuary when their kin were being wiped out by the God fearing Catholics of Portugal and Spain.

Bottom line: they put the philosopher in Cherem, which meant any Jew communicating with him however minimally would be instantly excommunicated from k’hilat Yisrael.

What Myo-O’s colleague and her fellow Christians need to do is NOT disavow the likely fact that the Jews of First Century Jerusalem contributed to Jesus’s demise. What they need to do is acknowledge that (A) Judas and all his “fellow betrayers” were doing the Lord’s work being direct agents of the Divine plan and (B) that, being very fallible human beings in urgent need of innocent victims on whom they could project all  the unowned chaos within themselves, Christians for two millennia have acquired a great deal of Jewish blood on their hands.

In short, attempting to decontaminate Christian anti-semitism by trying to argue that Jesus’s contemporaries have been given a bum historical wrap is allowing two thousand years of Christian paranoia and schizoid theologizing to be “handled” w-a-y too easily.

Hopefully, if/when Christians summon the “menschlicheit” to honestly confront their scapegoating ways — historical facts notwithstanding — they will be released from the compulsion to “attone” by supporting the modern state of Israel even when the current government in Jerusalem emulates centuries of Christian hate mongering by pursuing policies vis-a-vis their Muslim/Arab sisters and brothers that are paranoid and schizoid.

So there.
Ira

Then Myo-O had this reply to Ira:

Dear Ira,

Thank you so much for this fresh and wise perspective. I hope all of this will help me find a voice for this stuff at work. At the very least, it is surely helping me.  I am sharing this with an empathetic colleague who is urging me to bring this material to my boss for further examination.

So grateful to you all,
Myo-O

Well…..Myo-O, my friend and reading buddy…

Here’s my little addition to the group response…each one a essential voice in the dialogue. Your dismay and pain should remind all ‘hearers of the word’, that what is spoken can strike the heart like a beam of white light, a cool refreshing cup of water and even like a gutting knife. This cannot be wash away, or skipped over or set aside as a simple distraction. And yet, like so much speech in our world, this one line,  “And this story is till told among the Jews to this day”…is such a hideous distraction from the artful telling of the story. It is useless to the narrative-it adds nothing but judgment-and represents a gross authorial intrusion into the flow of the story.

It has a similar literary voice that echo’s throughout the biblical landscape. For example: after the great wrestling match  between Jacob and the stranger–Esau/himself/God and/or all three–  the narrator intrudes with the remark upon the now  limping Jacob—”Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the thigh muscle that is on the him socket, because he struck Jacob on the him socket at the thigh muscle.”  Genesis 32:32  It is a statement from a later time that points to the origin of a tradition… imagined or otherwise. It is an etiological  device.

I don’t know who pronounces this awful phrase in the Matthew’s text…but it is terribly wrong and misplaced. It intrudes on two stories which Matthew has set side by side in order to create contrast. This use of juxtaposition is his particular style-though he is not the only biblical writer to employ it. By placing two scenes side by side, the author like any good playwrite, is able to keep the plot moving, without comment, and yet add considerable dimension to the drama.  Earlier in Matthew, chapter 14, there is the scene of the beheading of John the Baptist and the serving of his head on a platter at a feast called by Herod. It is a party, the kind the rich and powerful adore, want to be part of. It is also sick and laden with fear and death. Immediately after, when Jesus hears about the news of the death of his old colleague and fellow radical- there is the story of the feeding of the 5000. In this scene, the hungry are fed, scarcity is turned into abundance and life flows among the crowd.

Two parties set side by side. No comment by the author upon one or the other, except by setting them side by side, leaving us to answer the implicit question:  Which party do you want to be part of?  Some speak about Matthew’s literary use of juxtaposition as one way to speak of the kingdom of the world and the kingdom of God—both present at the same time-both with different aims and different uses of power. Look, Matthew seems to say- which is which? Where do */_you_/* wish to dwell?

Now at the end of his gospel…we have a colorful/noisy/amazing telling of the rising of Jesus….along side…a pedantic and  colorless telling of the same event by those who cannot imagine otherwise. Power does not like surprise-especially when the surprise seems to bear witness to a deeper magic that alludes the consequences of the world’s might and violence.  Again, these are not literal. But like all story and myth, these are meant to stimulate the imagination or deaden it. Which is the story we prefer?

Now, that statement about the Jews is even more outrageous, because it not only vilifies a people and has been used to justify untold centuries of injustice and violence- but because it destroys/shuts down the very imagination the resurrection is intended to open-the reason all stories that intend life and hope are spoken-one generation to the next. IT DOESN’T F***ING BELONG IN THE TEXT! Some guy with a tea party twist and a grudge on his shoulder stepped between the words on the scroll and forced his way in.

The manner in which this was heard in Matthew’s day and how it has been carried along in time are part of passionate and insightful responses of John, Ira and Jan. Like all judgment, I find, in addition, that this little phrase is also an enormous distraction that has been used to keep the listener/reader from the mind blown wide open, and  the fullness of life that is offered by the One who is Present.

look forward to our gathering

david

Yet I instinctively resist at one point. Your argument makes too much sense. I’m sure that your literary-critical analysis is right. I am suspicious, however, of the dismissal of the text that seems not to belong. I’m reminded here of Buber’s way of regarding the “r” of the redactor as the “r” of a rabbi.

Having said that, the phrase still seems to suck (to use a literary-critical term). For that reason, it draws my attention and disturbs me. It strikes me that it is just the sort of thing I would write. I mean to say the bitterness in it is familiar to me.

Years ago I lived in an order, a brotherhood of men bound together by zeal for God, obedience to leadership, poverty, and the renunciation of ordinary family. I don’t now make a big deal of this. But it was a big deal. I took vows. For 12 years in the flower of my youth, I forsook family, outside friendships, ambitions and experiences for this. I gave and I believed. And my star rose quickly within the organization. I was on several leadership teams (the network was quite large. 1000s of people), and was being considered to become a small group of “elders” that ruled the order. But I was beginning to see something was wrong about the use of power and authority over people’s lives, and I spoke out.

When I did, I soon found myself dismissed and shunned. A few of my “brothers” made an attempt to contact me and to understand where I was and what I was doing. But most, including my own mentor/teacher, never spoke to me again. I write this in tears. I’m surprised because I haven’t cried about this for a long time. But there was a time I could not stop crying. I felt used and disregarded as a person. Fortunately I fell into a rectory of gracious Catholic priests, one of whom who had also left the order and so understood. Fortunately also, I fell into the arms of Andrea. But for this latter thing, I became a scandal among the people among whom I formerly lived. The story became that I got involved with a woman while still formally committed to the order.

“And the story circulates among them to this day.”

Now, I now have enough distance to know this is not true. They hardly think of me at all. And when they do, I know some good things are said. But, there was a time when I imagined that I was being vilified throughout the organization. That was also a time when I spewed bitter words concerning the order as a whole. I was bitter. Still am, but not as completely.

That’s how this (to my mind) bitter little phrase in Mt. resonates with me. It’s familiar, though not pretty. I detect quite a lot of bitterness and resentment in the latter part of (the final redaction of) Matthew.

Yours,
John

On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 9:16 PM, David Hawkinson  wrote:
John,

You blow me away!  You read these texts as if they are in your sinews…the word made flesh! You are right- in one sense. My wanting to excise the verse makes too much sense. And I had not thought of how many times I have spoken it myself, with spittle dripping from my lips. Our stories are not that dissimilar. Your experience brought the still vivid memory and taste in my mouth. You have opened my recall and my mouth to speak the words once more-from the places I have cried out.

Still….the presence of _*/this/*_ phrase tastes like the gall of a pronouncement-not made from pain and suffering-but from cool calculation-a judgment meant to undo and not from hurt-not from injury-but from calculation and disregard. I accept its presence and its challenge to address the voice behind the words and to say…”You speak only for your self—and not not  the redactor. You elbowed your way into art with an artless devise to have your own way-like the rape of Tamar”.  And yet, it is here. This hideous word. This trace of semen on the page.

And yet…even further… how many times have I also said, having just finished reading the resurrection story—-”I don’t buy it!”  I don’t think it happened this way.  My mind closed off and rational-built up from years of hearing preaching speaking about the literal accuracy of the story….itself denying  the impossible-reduced to a one dimensional kingdom that shuts off the radiance of imagination and encourages the mighty to hold the scepter and  rule a kingdom of banality.

And yet, for all this, the presence of this phrase in Matthew is a horrific. It’s presence reminds me in a slightly different way, the absence or silence  in other texts-when we want the redactor to muscle his/her way in…to intrude on the action.  For example, as Samuel listens to YHWH’s order to slaughter Agag- do we not want someone to say-what Buber finally says….”Samuel you are hearing this wrong!”  And, when Jeptha followed through with sacrificing his daughter because of his outrageous oath- do we not wait for someone to shout out from the stage…”don’t do it!!!!   You have it wrong. Read the text! YHWH does not want us to sacrifice our children for our silly promises”!  In these texts, I think I know why the author-Moses Rebinneu-Redactor- does not intrude. He is waiting for /*US*/ to shout…and cry..for all the children sacrificed because of priests and rabbi’s and  mullahs who send children to their death because of what they imagine to be their sacred duty. Our silence is our own condemnation. He/she won’t tell us what to think. He/she holds us in the scene, until, like the others in the story, we turn away and let it happen.

But in this pericope.  With this intrusion. I agree that it is there. I have spoken it myself. And I know the pain of having a false story told about me—-Kyrie Elyison!

Maybe it needs to be there so that we would be outraged. Maybe it needs to be there to give our pain voice. But the way it dips the brush in black paint and then slashes it against the Divinvi canvas of the narrative is an act vandalism that I cannot accept. This feels more like thuggery.

In the end. From the very strangeness of the text…perhaps we can find some healing for ourselves. This is by definition-the grace of ‘otherness’

I travel to Mayo tomorrow. Ira may be right. The ringing in my ears my indicate a transcendental state. But I’m for turning the volume down. The 60 mgs of predinose burst I’m on…has me racing…

shalom

david

On 4/19/12 11:36 AM, John Marboe wrote:
David,
Healing and balance to you! May the wizards at Mayo find the volume knob.
Hmmm, a cool and calculated intrusion. Perhaps like the decision of the U.S. Government to wage peace-treaties upon the first inhabitants of this land. That, according to George Tinker, was the alternative taken by Congress after calculating it would cost the government $2 billion to exterminate all Native people. Thus lies became doctrine and any resistance to the U.S. peace policy of breaking treaty after treaty and forceful removal of Indians became justification for massacre.

Yes, it could be that the intrusion speaks to something far darker in the human heart than what I spoke before.

I greatly appreciate the point that other texts do NOT include the kind of intrusion demanded by basic human respect. Yes, yes. Or how about the flood, the original genocidal solution? Indeed, God does repent. But we continue to paint the ark in bright colors on Sunday School room walls, as a happy story for children, never showing the bloated bodies the boat is bumping into.

Outrage and resistance are required since the text is full of mistakes, just like Jesus made mistakes, since both are fully human. Infallibility is a demonic idea.

Thanks so much for your poetic, passionate and smart response!
John

Wow guys!  I am watching this amazing, brilliant, heartfelt, raw tennis match with eyes wide open.  I want you there when we discuss this at work-if we ever actually do that. ( I will be talking with my boss soon about it for sure.)

Thank  you.

David, may your ears be at ease.

In awe and wonder,

Myo-O

Those of us seriously committed to conflict resolution, it seems to me, have our own Charybdis and Scylla. On one side, we have our very human urge to return slight with slight, allowing ourselves to become polarized, less compassionate, less intelligent, and less in command of where we’re going. On the other side of our various straits of potential embattlement, we enjoy the equally human urge to be BIG even if, in the process, we split off from our seemingly less noble impulses and fall out of alignment with ourselves.

These are murky waters. Is His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, exacting a price from himself and perhaps even others when he refuses to regard those in charge in Bejing as his enemies?  And, for that matter, what was Barack Obama doing with the all but unavoidable impulse to spurn and impugn when subjected to John McCain’s bitter onslaughts in their recent debate?

We are, I submit, in uncharted waters here. It no longer suffices to say with Nietzsche that “turn the other cheek” is a suppressive ploy of the weak to undermine the strong. On the other hand, we are constantly bombarded with false pieties and facile “correctnesses” that make the Rush Limbaughs of the world possible. Perhaps, at the end of the day, the planet’s schizoid bouncing between “NO TRESPASSING” on the one hand and “GOD IS LOVE” on the other is a very sophisticated Koan. Perhaps it will be only when some of us who have dedicated our lives to peace making throw out our scripts and, with heartful vehemence, shout at the top of our lungs, “GO TO HELL” that God or whatever we choose to call the Cosmic Zen Master will strike us on our heads with the appropriate bamboo instrument and declare us truly purged.  AMEN

When I was a young adult, I joined a commune. Our philosophy was based on a mixture of imitating the lifestyle of the first century disciples of Jesus Christ and liberation from structures and institutions, a liberation that had been fostered by the counterculture of the 60’s. The practical reasons I joined were that I wanted to create a new family, a place where a Bohemian artist, spiritual seeker, and cultural rebel felt she belonged, a place where a single mom would find comfort and help in raising her child. Another reason the group attracted me was that there was a strong component of taking care of the less fortunate as stipulated in the Gospels: “Whatever you do to the least of these my brothers, you do to me.” We took in the homeless, street winos, Viet Nam vets with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), the mentally ill, travelers and seekers. We provided free meals, showers and laundry, a warm place to sleep, companionship and conversation, and music. Later we visited and corresponded with people who were incarcerated. We believed that when Jesus said Blessed are the poor, he meant those who live in poverty and when he said Give everything away and follow me, he was speaking to each of us personally.

The spiritual reason I joined was that I was completely confused about my spiritual practice.

Finally Discovering the Facade by Heather Muller

I had meditated by TM and zazen; [Editor’s Note: TM is an acronym that stands for Transcendental Meditation. Zazen, which literally means sitting meditation, is one of the central practices of Zen Buddhism.] read The New Testament, The Autobiography of a Yogi, The Golden Bough and Zen Mind, Beginners Mind; taken LSD and vows of silence; been celibate and promiscuous; gone on retreats at the Green Gulch Zen Center and the Lama Foundation and visited the Sikh ranch; had my astrology chart and my Tarot cards interpreted; was a vegetarian, a peacenik, and a disco queen.

I yearned to make a difference in the world. I believed in justice and harmony but had become disillusioned by every group I had ever been a part of–from my childhood church to my peers–by the shadow side of back-biting, gossip, adultery, greed, anger, power-mongering, and laziness, although I didn’t know then that those traits might be considered the shadow.

The commune provided a structure: share everything in common, raise the children collectively, work for God not mammon, “take last place” and be of service. It worked and we thrived. Miracles of loaves and fishes happened. In Oregon we took in and fed 200 people a night. In Missoula, we had a home for hobos who rode the rails, a cottage that was lovingly decorated and home cooked meals. In Seattle, we gave away hot chocolate and soup to run away teens, many of whom were prostitutes, and visited them in juvenile detention.

When one man began to have more and more control and power, it happened so naturally that it is only in hindsight that I can see how gradually he dominated us. He spoke and acted with confidence and authority. He was charming, brilliant, and more mature than most of us. He extended himself to make me feel special, greeting me with warm hugs and appreciation for my presence; then took charge of the frayed edges of my life by enlisting help with my difficult toddler, making sure I was not neglected but befriended and addressing the envy that had pushed me away so many times before. Little did I realize that it was a way of bringing me closer into the circle so he could dominate my life, tell me where to go, whom to sleep with, and even what to wear.

His tactic was one that is common with cults: approval, then disapproval, acceptance, then disdain, so that one never knew if you were in or out of favor. He would tell us we needed to change from being spoiled middle class brats to an awareness of others (and he was right), from being self-centered to being of service (he was right), from being lazy, shy, depressed and unimaginative to being creative and bold, salty and strong (he was right). It was just that we were told to live by his interpretations of the Gospels and his assessment of how we measured up to Jesus, and that was wrong. A mantra was, “If you can’t do it perfectly, don’t do it at all.” And how could anyone measure up to that? We were told we had to leave our personalities behind. It was more important to serve the right gravy than to compose a poem; it was more important to put the dishes in the sink correctly than to play with the children.

And, of course, the sexual shadow eventually ruined us and destroyed even good memories.

The anguish of betrayal and the pain of disillusionment were deepened by the knowledge that we had betrayed ourselves. As time went on, since we had not recognized our own shadows, they crept into our relationships. It almost seemed as though we had permission from the example set by our mentor. We, too, individually, power-tripped others, mistreated and judged people in the group and outsiders, benefited from tattling and from blind obedience, lied in order to get what we needed, sexually harassed the young women, mistreated and bullied the children, stole from others by opening their mail and using the checks we found for what we thought was important, coerced others to cooperate in situations that were uncomfortable. Also, most of all, we had given over our power to another instead of following our own inner guidance. We had neglected our souls in an effort to become spiritually perfect. We ignored our better judgment and endangered other people’s lives. We didn’t follow our heart’s calling when it was in contradiction to what we were told or what was different from the group’s expectations. We weren’t honest about our despair or our doubts, nor about our lack of experiencing Divine guidance, nor our addictions. Just as we also were unable to delight in our talents and our successes, always mindful not to be vain.

No Face, Following Orders by Heather Muller

It would be our own responsibility to deprogram ourselves and to heal, to forgive, to move on to a life that was authentic, and to mend our friendships, some damaged beyond repair.

It took years to unravel the lies I had believed, my conformity to group think, to discover what I truly believed and hoped for. I wandered the dark woods of despair, doubt, grief, and disillusionment in order to come back to myself and my spiritual quest. Fortunately I had never lost my faith in Divine benevolence. Some of us did.

But the experience also gave me a wonderful yard stick to measure what I encounter in comparison to what I know. The naiveté is gone. With years of deep contemplation, meditation, prayer, conversation, therapy, and the creative process, I finally understand I have to carry the shadow myself. I know it is there and I know that I cannot ignore it; I have stood in the darkness and I know what is light—and what does not bring me closer to the Divine within and without. Self-destructive behaviors, pessimism, and giving my power over to someone else have all been a part of my journey until I saw them clearly.

I believe the shadow of a spiritual community must be explored in order to find balance, truth, and authentic practice. The danger lies not in having a shadow—for me the question is not why do spiritual communities have one as I am certain they always will—but in ignoring it. If our commune had truly been traveling towards the Divine, we should have had a dialogue instead of a dictatorship. This is one of the most dangerous tenets of a cult: blind and absolute obedience. We must be able to question every aspect of our lives, including the Scriptures and even God Himself. We must explore a crisis of faith, not scoff at it; and even as we examine our personality flaws in order to leave them behind, we must rejoice in our soul’s beauty, the desire for creativity that explores things that are uncomfortable, the aspects that make us each unique, our quirks and our preferences. A spiritual community has to be able to face the tough questions: What if we are wrong and how do we change? Just as each individual has to ask himself or herself those questions. Most of all, there has to be the motivation to be transformed not by coercion but by self-awareness, self-discipline, the mirroring from others around us, the sieving and scouring and polishing done by the Divine when we step willingly on the spiritual path if we just allow it, the heartbreaking beauty, joy, and grief that life will bring our way and our growing spiritual maturity in responding.

When I first heard the above mentioned quote from the Dialogue of the Savior, it resonated for me but I didn’t really understand it. I believe I do now. I believe in turning over the tapestry of my life to see the knots and rough edges, the intricate work of dark spaces that emphasize the contours and shapes, I have a better understanding of the nature of the Divine. Loving the mess that is necessary to the perfection of the whole is my gift of going through the terrible grief of having my illusions shattered and my heart broken so I could begin again.

A Cottage on the Oregon Coast
By Wendy Brown-Báez
The rain slanted and the wind blew
so hard we had to bend in half in order
to forge ahead up-right.
The sea roared on those nights.
The apples plopped to the ground
and the figs into our hands with their moist
pink hearts like the seashells we scooped
off the sand. The daybreak glittered and
the clouds skittered back to the horizon
and there was a day to walk to the
beach. I knelt by the window
drunk with brandy and shame because
I didn’t love you, didn’t love being
there, didn’t know the pearl of
time had been gifted me. I knelt
by the window sill and threw up
into the blackberry bushes, threw up
passionate kisses by the hissing
green fire in the wood stove,
threw up the long murmur of words
in a reverent quiet. The kids took me
to the swings by the library the
next day, splashing through
puddles in boots one size too big,
bought second hand but in good
enough condition like my soul
open to the possibility
of awe. The waves danced as they
smashed against rocks
as stern and unyielding as my
inner voice. To lay aside my doubts
meant to be as free as my children
riding their trikes back
and forth, back and forth
over the graveled driveway.
Someday I would stand at the
turning point and let go, someday
I would know how to spin
straw into gold.

Wendy Brown-Báez is the creator of Writing Circles for Healing writing workshops. She received 2008 and 2009 McKnight grants to teach writing workshops for at risk youth. Wendy has performed her poetry from Chicago to Mexico, and her poetry and prose have been published in numerous literary journals.

She is the author of a poetry CD, Longing for Home, a full-length collection, Ceremonies of the Spirit (Plain View Press, 2009), and a chapbook, Transparencies of Light (Finishing Line Press, 2011). Her passions are creative collaborations and leading writing workshops for those who don’t think they can write but have a story to tell. Her memoir of ten years living communally called Flowers in the Wind awaits a publisher. Her website is: www.wendybrownbaez.com

At the same time I hear other messages. That: this is the last generation. Souls will no longer need human vehicles. Physicality is evil. Suffering is good. The more people there are to suffer the better. Basically; Trash the place we are on our way out. Or: We will leave in rapture and everyone else will be left to suffer a horrible end. Or: We are a malignant species killing our host planet therefore we deserve to die. Human species physical extinction? Spiritual evolutionary success or failure?

What a way to go! We are all connected. To the degree anyone suffers I suffer. The extinction of the human species could be really good for the planet but I doubt that doing it this way could be very helpful to our spiritual evolution. Evolution demonstrates increasing complexity and cooperation. The wisdom traditions point to inclusivity, community, kindness, forgiveness and love. Extinguishing our species through cruelty, neglect, abuse, and other manifestations of our inhumanity would seem to be a major setback to our spiritual evolution.

As I delve deeper into my spiritual evolution I am finding that somewhere in my early years I must have sworn to hate my father forever. Now as I care for this 93 year old, as I hear of the horrors of war, the unfairness of life, and as we both regress to our two year old selves, I find my two year old hates him. Like all my years of dysfunction come out of that oath. Intellectually I can rationalize that this vet had been traumatized, had a short fuse, and deserves to be forgiven for his violent rages. Emotionally, when he gets upset, I still can feel the explosion coming and want to run and hide. I still have the rage inside that kept me going when all I wanted was to die. When I agreed to care for him I knew I had healing work to do. I didn’t know it would be this hard. It feels like my spiritual life hangs in the balance.

I recently wrote that we are called to bless everyone and every situation. I would like to have no resentments, no regrets and no unfinished business (Michael Dowd). I would like to see the Universe as friendly (Einstein). I would like to be awake to the beauty of existence and drawn into intimacy and trust (Brian Swimme). To some degree I do feel I manage to be in a place of always learning (Duane Elgin). I hope I move the evolutionary action forward (Andrew Cohen). I hope I change the universe by the change I am (Cohen). I want to rise above my personal particulars to universal capacities, awakening to context (Jean Houston). All these wants and hopes feel like the long forgotten memory of the future (Houston). We know we can have a world that works for everyone. Everyone includes me, stepping into each new day, free of fear, free of rage, free of hate, full of gratitude, blessed and blessing everyone and everything. Ah! Forgiveness work!

In my spare time I am attempting to network sustainable communities. We need to learn to work together to survive peak oil and thrive in harmony with nature. We need to work together to develop a post-consumer economy. The following adaptation of the Declaration of Independence caught my eye and evoked more than a few tears.

http://transitionculture.org/2009/01/15/the-transition-declaration-of-independence/
See also: http://transitiontowns.org

Transition Declaration of Independence Adapted from the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America Thomas Jefferson, 1776
Adaptation by Dr. Susan Krumdieck, 2008

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the economic bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, Justice, the pursuit of Happiness, a Healthy Natural Environment and Sustainability for ourselves, the Third Generation and the Seventh Generation.

— That to secure these rights, Organisations are instituted among Communities, deriving their just powers from the consent of the Members,

— That whenever any Form of Economy becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Relationship, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Economic Relationships long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them and their environment to ruin, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Economic Constraints, and to provide new Guards for their future security and sustainability.

— Such has been the patient sufferance of this community; and such is now the necessity which constrains us to alter our former Systems of Business Growth for its own Sake and Environmental Exploitation. The history of the present Theory of Economics is a history of repeated disasters, injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over communities and the environment. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

The Growth Economy for its own Sake has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, felled our forests, polluted our water and fouled our air.

The Growth Economy for its own Sake has exploited our talents, put us into debt, degraded our culture and eroded our relationships with the members of our community.

The Growth Economy for its own Sake has exploited mineral resources which by right should belong to people in perpetuity in order to obscenely enrich a few in the short term.

The Growth Economy for its own Sake has paved our farms, sprawled our towns, and destroyed the quality of live of our people and their children and grandchildren.

The Growth Economy for its own Sake has convinced us, for more than a century, to ignore the voice of scientific knowledge and reason in order to continue the acidification of our air and oceans through Sulphur Dioxide, Nitrous Oxides and Carbon Dioxide emissions from combustion of fossil fuels.

The Growth Economy for its own Sake has exploited the labour of people and environments that have no protection from ill use, and has persecuted people who worked for economic justice and equality.

The Growth Economy for its own Sake has assaulted the morality of our youth and treated them as a target market rather than with the respect of future citizens and community members.

The Growth Economy for its own Sake has corrupted the purpose of our governance and civic institutions, it has usurped the purpose of our curiosity and research efforts, and it has shifted the motivation for the education of our young from development of their intellect and character to exploitation of their labours for further growth of the economy.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the Transition Committee of Oamaru, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of this community, solemnly publish and declare, That this Community is, and of Right ought to be Free, that we are Absolved from all unsustainable and perverse requirements of the Growth Economy for its own Sake, and that all connection between this Community and the Growth Economy, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as a Free and Sustainable Community, we have full Power to reduce fuel and electricity consumption, restore our environment, protect our culture, nurture our agricultural assets, set aside our resources, refrain from extracting minerals, stone or fossil fuels, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Local Commerce based on our own principles and theories, and to do all other Acts and Things which Sustainable Communities may of right do.

— And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

The models of leadership that we have perpetuated based on domination are obsolete. Models of servant leadership based on compassionate understanding remove some of the distance of the dominating models. Current research indicates the qualities that yield the best results in organizations are collective, connective and inclusive. (Alimo-Metcalfe. 2006) This British study indicates that groups who function the best and are most productive have higher scores in: honesty, concern, accessibility, trust, encouragement, teamwork, vision, and learning from change and mistakes. A separate American study (Balthazard. 2006) indicated that dysfunctional organizations demonstrate the opposite qualities.

Creativity, required to make the changes needed to survive, is supported by the qualities of collectivity, connectivity and inclusivity. The great teachers in all traditions have advocated for the qualities, the values, that facilitate creativity and community. Individual creativity is valuable but communal creativity will be needed to grow through the challenges humanity faces.

Creative leaders are individuals who together are willing to step into the unknown, access new possibilities, and nurture those possibilities in the face of the status quo. When together we slow down and utilize practices and exercises that activate unused inner resources (90% of our minds) we see connections and openings that were previously invisible. Inclusive, nurturing, community provides the support to do the research, find the fit, develop new all inclusive co-inquiries, and embody behaviors that are sustainable.

References

Alimo-Metcalfe, Beverly. (2006). More (good) leaders for the public sector. International Journal of Public Sector Management. 19(4). 293-315. Retrieved February 11, 2008 by Metro State University Library. http://ill.mnpals.net/exlibris/ill/il6_1/tmp/mtr2081746.html

Balthazard, Pierre A. (2006). Dysfunctional culture, dysfunctional organization: Capturing the behavioral norms that form organizational culture and drive performance. Journal of Managerial Psychology. 21(8). 709-732. Retrieved February 12, 2008. from Metro State University Library. http://ill.mnpals.net/exlibris/ill/il6_1/tmp/mtr2082102.html