Epiphanies

Epiphanies spontaneously rearrange ideas, they do not change reality. Epiphanies are the collapse of old ways of seeing. Epiphanies can be common, real, life changing, terrifying or beautiful.

Spiritual epiphanies are gifts to you from Divinity, not commodities to be sold, traded, or proscribed by old men with strange garb and tattered books. Contrary to popular dogma Divine epiphanies are not rare. They are so common that William James cataloged them extensively in 1902.

Enormous religions sprout from epiphanies in a cave, on a road, or under a tree. They are much ado about nothing new. How well the religion works depends upon how well it communicates the great epiphany of the founder. But often the essence is lost and only aggressive marketing remains.

This epiphany will be mundane.

I saw it thousands of times and I never saw it at all. I looked, my eyes worked, my brain processed the message, and I missed it. You just missed it too. Just like me, your habits of seeing have prevented you from seeing old things anew.

Usually we need a clue to break us out of our habits of thought. Sometimes we need a disaster. Even a kiss will do, or a comment from a child.

Here is a tiny demonstration of an epiphany that a child showed to me. As you have walked around malls, stores, shops, or as you looked at magazines and newspapers, you have seen the same thing, repeatedly. You saw it on billboards, you saw it on television, you just saw it again.

Did you see the watches in the ads were almost always set to the same time? It's been that way for almost 100 years across a million publications all around the world.

Now look around again. Where do you think you are? Who do you think you are?

Perhaps a child will pinch your ear and remind you.

The instant, dancing

There was a dream about being on some minor adventure with my brother. His dreamself mentioned that deja vu is the mind replaying an instant.

"You have it reversed," I suggested. "It is the instant dancing to the mind."

"Like this."

Everything is easy for God

Some friends and family call with legal problems. For example, Jim called worried about some competition moving in next to his store. He had a complex legal theory about how he could force his landlord to keep the competition out.

I listened to Jim's legal theories and strategies for a few minutes. Some of his ideas were pretty good, some were not too practical. After hearing him out I suggested something else.

"Take a chair and go into those woods behind your house. Sit there for an hour and turn this over to God." I also suggested, "Ask for a solution that is in the best interest of everybody involved."

Jim immediately complained "Dave, this is a real problem, I need a solution by Tuesday, that's when they sign the lease." So, I replied, "That's easy, tell God you need an answer by Tuesday." We went back and forth for about 30 minutes, Jim insisted that kind of approach would not work. He needed a legal solution and he needed it now. Eventually, he gave in and headed towards the woods with a chair.

On Saturday Jim called and explained that the problem was resolved. The new business did not get its financing. Jim had his answer before Tuesday, it cost nothing and it involved no conflict. There were no hurt feelings, no oppositional reactions, and no sharp words. No attorney or judge could have given a better solution faster.

I have used this approach several other times. It has never failed. Similarly, never has anybody done it without arguing with me first that they had a "real problem" and they needed an "immediate solution."

They seem to think that some things are hard for God or that Divinity can't move fast. I wonder where those strange ideas came from? Everything is easy for God.

Have you seen the Beloved?

A gracious Sufi went to Mecca to meet the Beloved. He told me he sat and looked at God's house for a very long time and found it empty for him. Thus, he was working hard for the rest of his life to find God.

Had I seen the Beloved?

I knew a lovely devout woman who went to Mass every day to receive communion. On her deathbed she confided she feared the Void. What would she find? Was there anything there? Should she be afraid? She had not found the Beloved.

Did I know something of Him?

I visited a man in a mental facility who wanted to know God's name. It was a matter of some urgency for him. He had been told the path to recovery required he find God. He supposed it was a fool's errand.


Quick, tell them. Point to your heart and tell us all. Where are you hiding our Friend?

"Which version of Jesus?"

A new friend asked me what I thought of Jesus, especially in the context of my prior writings here and my fondness for Emerson's Divinity School Address.

"Which version of Jesus?" I generally replied. Was it an understanding of Jesus that was common before Augustine piled-on layers of guilt out of thin air? Did she mean the view of the Eastern Orthodox church, which split from the West before the development of Anselm's legalistic and noxious spin on a doctrine of atonement? Did she mean the modern American evangelical version?

Here is a beautiful presentation of Jesus, may peace be upon him, from the Koran. Is this the image she had in mind? (You may wish to note that this portion of the Koran gently reminds that everything is easy for God.)



So Peace on him the day he was born, the day that he dies, and the day that he will be raised up to life (again)!

Relate in the Book (the story of) Mary, when she withdrew from her family to a place in the East. She placed a screen (to screen herself) from them; then We sent her Our angel, and he appeared before her as a man in all respects.

She said: "I seek refuge from thee to (Allah) Most Gracious: (come not near) if thou dost fear Allah." He said: "Nay, I am only a messenger from thy Lord, (to announce) to thee the gift of a pure son. She said: "How shall I have a son, seeing that no man has touched me, and I am not unchaste?" He said: "So (it will be): thy Lord saith, 'That is easy for Me: and (We wish) to appoint him as a Sign unto men and a Mercy from Us'. It is a matter (so) decreed."

So she conceived him, and she retired with him to a remote place. And the pains of childbirth drove her to the trunk of a palm-tree. She cried (in her anguish): "Ah! would that I had died before this! would that I had been a thing forgotten!" But (a voice) cried to her from beneath the (palm-tree): "Grieve not! for thy Lord hath provided a rivulet beneath thee; "And shake towards thyself the trunk of the palm-tree: It will let fall fresh ripe dates upon thee. "So eat and drink and cool (thine) eye. And if thou dost see any man, say, 'I have vowed a fast to (Allah) Most Gracious, and this day will I enter into no talk with any human being'"

At length she brought the (babe) to her people, carrying him (in her arms). They said: "O Mary! truly a strange thing has thou brought! "O sister of Aaron! Thy father was not a man of evil, nor thy mother a woman unchaste!" But she pointed to the babe.

They said: "How can we talk to one who is a child in the cradle?" He said: "I am indeed a servant of Allah. He hath given me revelation and made me a prophet; "And He hath made me blessed wheresoever I be, and hath enjoined on me Prayer and Charity as long as I live; "(He hath made me) kind to my mother, and not overbearing or unblest; "So peace is on me the day I was born, the day that I die, and the day that I shall be raised up to life (again)"!

Interpretation of the Holy Koran, Sura 19:15-33, Mariam, by Abdullah Yusuf Ali (paragraph spacing added)."


My friend replied she meant the Jesus she is head-over-heels in love with, the lap upon which she gleefully sits as a child. What a blessing for her and others that she learned to see and share such affection.

Perfect

A year or so ago Jim and I were chatting for a minute about a meeting we attended. I complemented that one of his ideas was "perfect." Jim disagreed, quickly stating "nothing is perfect."

I replied without hesitation. "The universe is absolutely perfect. Not a thing is broken, nothing is out of place, everything is exactly as it should be. It is all frictionless crystalline perfection." After pausing a bit, Jim agreed.

Perfection is the way things exist in eternity. Remembering that we are in eternity right now radically changes perspective in the direction of goodness.

Eternity

I also had a nice conversation with a neighbor whom I hired to build a barn ten years ago. Lee, being a good Christian, suggested that I prepare for the hereafter. He had an official-looking and well-used Bible at hand to provide authority for his points.

Lee was especially keen about the upcoming millennium and the then-popular portents of doom. He urged with legitimate sincerity that "it's the end of the world in 2000, don't be left behind, get ready." We discussed some of the problems with the millennium dating, given the shift of four years caused by the adoption of the Gregorian calendar. Was Lee late for the Rapture? Had the millennium arrived in 1996? Was he one of the unhappy souls left unraptured? Or, was he jumping the gun? Would the rapture be in 2004?

After haggling about dates for a while I suggested that he had a more important and fundamental misunderstanding in his reasoning that left it "insufficient."

"What do you mean?

I asked him where he thought he was. "Wisconsin, Town of Mukwonago" he replied.

"That's the problem" I said as I helped him lift a sheet of plywood. "You don't know where you are. You are in Eternity, right now, right here."

Postponing Eternity to a date certain (or in Lee's case a date not so certain) is slight of hand, an illusion, a bad dream.

Seeing Eternity in the present is a blessing.

You were never lost at all

Here is a handy thing to remember the next time you think you are lost.

If you cannot save your own soul at least you can help others.

By service to others you will become one of the happy souls who remembers there is only One.

Then will you will see you were never lost at all.

Courage and compassion

Since the past does not exist (only the present exists) I find that my regret and remorse have no place to be but in my mind. They are intangible, real, and at times powerful. But they are only my thoughts and for better or worse I own them.

I recently stumbled upon the emotion of compassion as the best response to these sorrowful and at times painful thoughts. I have tried other alternatives to dealing with grief in all of its forms, including denial, dishonesty, running, and varied degrees of the the opposite, which is wallowing. None of those work as well as compassion.

Compassion is an emotional response, aimed at the memory of the loss (whatever it might be) and tailored to embrace it. The memories of the events and feelings that accompany regrets and related sorrows do not disappear. Indeed, who would want to forget the death of a parent or an important but awful moment? Instead, careful contemplation of the sorrowful moment with the mindful embrace of compassion brings the event into a clearer and a loving light. Repeated visits to the site of the wound result in greater healing. In short order the regret joins its place among other memories, while not crying for special attention.

This is not an infinite regression. I know I have a finite number of negative experiences. They pop up, I embrace them, and they don't pop up again. If I live long enough, perhaps I will run out. That would be nice.

This idea grew over a long period of time. The culmination came this Fall when I was thinking about the teachings of Buddha. Distilled, they are: The Universe is suffering; there is a solution; the solution is compassion. I had never really accepted the first proposition, that the Universe is suffering. I ducked and weaved around the "problem of evil" and the problem of pain. Finally, however, it became inescapable, there is great suffering all around, even in the littlest things. That compassion is the correct response is axiomatic (at least to me.) From that flowed the aforementioned internal dialogs.

Seeing things easily

(I wrote this on July 12, 2008. I am so happy for President Elect Obama and his lovely family, so I am bumping it up her to celebrate. Cheers!)


Senator Obama is very smart, very well educated, and he does not have bipolar disorder. I like that.

Let me be clear that I am not writing today about that insidious bipolar disorder, which is painstakingly defined in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR.) That is a medical condition with immense suffering. That horrible mental disease is obviously outside the range of this comment.

This morning I'm thinking about a much more prevalent disorder of the soul and the intellect. It is the compulsion and habit of seeing a fractured world, a world of incompatible opposites. It is a way of seeing "this or that." It is is "my way or the highway." Bipolar disorder of this sort lives in the assertion, "you are either with us or against us."

What I like most about Senator Obama (and what I liked of the Senator McCain of 8 years ago) is his ability to see and act with with normal vision.

Senator Obama is able to see ranges of gray, shades and tints of colors. He moves freely within that beautiful world. Healthy marriage, Harvard Law School, loving children, best selling books, a seat in the Senate, all this seems naturally attainable when the world is in focus.

In contrast, those who suffer from bipolar vision are severely constrained. Due to fear and profound lack of perspective they limit their experiences and actions to a narrow range of black, white, and a few muted primary colors. They populate a flat dull world of inexplicable discoordination. It is a world that spins out of control. Opportunities are missed, goals are not met, wars are lost. They dwell in world of unwelcomed surprises. For them, things go bump in the night -- every night. Uncertain of their own path, amazingly, they sometimes try to lead others. Yet, they have no idea where they are going. They don't even know where they have been.

Indeed, that's the critical flaw of almost all ideologies and religions. Lack of vision and a compulsion to lead.

For those with vision ideologies are not needed to understand the world. For those happy spirits the world is self-evident. Those without this kind of bipolar disorder live in a full-color three and four dimensional world. They are comfortably poised to mount reasoned responses to this marvelously complex universe. They are not limited to responses -- they are easily able to initiate action to reach any goal.

On the other hand, bipolar disorder strips nuance from the minds of its victims. While healthy people move towards a more complete range of existence, the afflicted move into the shadows. These poor souls never guess why their world looks so bleak. They never understand why they fail repeatedly in every sort of endeavor.

This strange kind of bipolarism is not a disease of the left or right. It is a flaw in vision that is based upon fear and failure to forgive. That results in mind-numbing ignorance. For those who are limited to seeing back and white, this or that, up or down, liberal or conservative, war or peace, there is a cure, but it is not easy. It is not fun to die before you die.

It is not easy to love what you cannot see.