“On this arid summit, where the winds blow hard, where no root takes hold, where distance seems infinite and heaven close, the spirit is tested and replenished, for the pilgrim had reached a thin place, where one steps into the highest dimension of one’s existence.” — Michael Mullen, “Croagh Patrick, A Perspective”
There are places where I sometimes find myself that seem sacred or, at the very least, charged with the mystery and wonder of life. I have heard these types of places called Thin Places, those places where the veil between the physical world and the eternal world is thin, where the Spirit of all creation is felt, and where God and man seem more closely connected.
Thin places emit a sense of awesomeness. In thin places we experience our smallness, yet we gain connection and become part of something larger than we can fathom. Thin places allow us to see ourselves, our deepest longing and desires, our hopes and fears, the beauty of Life in its entirety.
Thin places are repositories of wisdom, truth, and healing. They give us comfort, safety and strength to face ourselves . Thin places connect us to what is Eternal–to those that have gone before, to those that are living, and to those whose physical lives have yet to begin. Thin places connect us to God.
Thought Is A Quiet ThingUntitled (Sunrise) Savannah, GA 2011Reunion
“ ‘Change’ is when something old dies and something new begins. But mere change might or might not be accompanied by authentic inner transformation. If change does not include personal transformation, we do not actually grow, we just grudgingly adjust.
The ego fights, avoids, and denies the necessity or advantage of any real transformation, which is why true spiritual growth is so rare and the Gospel is so hard to hear. The ego prefers the status quo—even when it is killing us.” Richard Rohr
The Ego prefers the status quo- even when it is killing us! Those are powerful words that make one stand up and take notice. To maintain the status quo is to keep things the way they presently are. That sounds great to me, especially if I am thinking of my job, my family, my friends, the ability to maintain the house I live in etc… But that is not what Rohr is addressing. According to Andrew Cohen, Ego is experienced as an emotional quagmire of fear and attachment. It is the part of you that is afraid, feels victimized, avoids that which contradicts its own understanding of self, and is invested in its own personal fears and desires. It is attached to the past and is terrified of change.
So you see, when the Ego maintains that there is no need to be transformed into something more than what we have already become, piece by piece our inner selves begin the dying process. We become stuck, looking for some means of salvation whether that be our own notion of self sufficiency or whether that be in the form of other “distractions” like work, relationships, addictive behaviors and the alike. I have felt this many times in my life… the feeling that something in me is not right, that something in me is dying. Time after time, I come back to the need for transformation.
Often, I have found myself becoming impatient with the process thinking that transformation is a one time step- by -step program, and at the end I will be whole. That is not the case, however. transformation is a process that takes us to the next level of our spiritual awareness. That’s the way I like to think of it, and today I am ready to embark on the journey forward.
Sitting on a screened in porch overlooking the Atlantic Ocean day after day after day can certainly put some aspects of one’s life into perspective! Nature, untamed and living its self out…and human kind in the midst of it all! How miraculous is that?
We know so little about our oceans and yet we rely on them heavily and take them for granted in ways that we should not. Makes me stop and wonder how much I take for granted and truly how little I know about anything… a humbling experience for sure.
Seems to me that the most important things in life are those that bring us back to the mystery of Life Itself. I am thinking of time and space, relationships and love, and the ability to create that which is has not ever been. All are mysteries, all are precious, all are life-giving.
How to live with the knowledge of this in such a fast paced world where much is easily overlooked or forgotten and where much is designed to replace that which truly brings our souls to center… that becomes the true challenge, at least for me.
To experience Simen Johan’s most recent work, Until Kingdom Comes, is to immerse oneself into a realm where fantasy and reality collide and where the mystical is born out through biblical mythology.
Johan’s images are crafted using traditional photographic techniques combined with Photoshop manipulations. Live or taxidermied animals (fig. 1 and fig. 2) are placed into both natural and man-made environments reflecting a troubled connection between man and species and blurring boundaries between the real and unreal, beauty and brutality. The title of the work implies that these conditions will continue until the biblical prophesy of the end of the world comes to fruition. Then and only then will life come to a blissful resolution.
The current work references several animals endowed with Biblical symbolism. Johan presents us with the Lamb of God, entangled serpents, and a tree of doves all of which point to life and to death. The lamb (fig. 3) sits majestically under the canopy of a tree. A slight smile drawn across its face, similar to that of the Mona Lisa, suggests that the lamb knows something we do not.
Fig. 3
A nest of snakes (fig. 4) is seen against the background of what appears to be a quarry.
Fig. 4
They feast on an endless supply of rats, doves and flamingos that descend from the world above, a world of light and flight down to a world of shadow and death. The doves, (fig. 5) white as snow, are marked impure by the red of the berries they seek.
For every photograph of graceful creatures and pristine landscapes, there are portrayals of animals showing pain, fear or exhaustion in landscapes that are more desolate than beautiful (fig 6 and fig.7).
I awoke this morning to the sound of an email being delivered to my account. Yes, I sleep next to my computer! Any way, the email is a daily meditation that I get. Today’s message really resonated with me. It was written in such a way that I can actually wrap my head around the fuller meaning of what Christ did for humanity, the example that He became to the world. His life is both beautiful and tragic, admired and yet feared. In the words of Richard Rohr, “hebecame what we are all afraid of and what we all deny: nakedness, exposure, vulnerability and failure.”
Here is the meditation in its entirety.
On this Palm Sunday, picture yourself before the crucified Jesus and recognize that hebecame what we are all afraid of and what we all deny: nakedness, exposure, vulnerability and failure. He became “sin” (Romans 8:3) to free us from repeating that sin (ignorant killing of anything— thinking it will solve our problem), Jesus became the cosmic Scapegoat who reveals our very worst and our very best to those who will gaze on the Crucified long enough. Jesus became what humanity hates—to tell us to stop hating, to love that which we fear, and how wrong we can be about who is good and who is bad.
Jesus became the pleading image of what humans do to creation—so we could see it in stark outline, with the curtain of denial and illusion withdrawn. God in Jesus became the crucified so we would stop crucifying. He became the crucified, who refused to crucify back, and thus stopped the universal pattern of death. As Sebastian Moore said many years ago, “the crucified Jesus is no stranger,” he is no stranger to anyone who has lived and loved, no stranger to the universal experience of suffering, despair, and loneliness. In that, he saves us.
Most of you know that I have spent the better part of this past year enrolled in a class sponsored by Suwannee called EfM (Education For Ministry). Wow! It’s been an eye-opening experience for sure! I have been attending church all of my life, and yet, l NEVER knew so much illicit sex, violence, warfare, and the general slaughter of animals and people existed in the Bible! I joked with my classmates that I no longer needed my soap opera, (General Hospital) because I now have the Old Testament as a replacement!
What a rich source of literature for the mind and the imagination to romp free through. Not only did my questions become more abundant over the past year, but my imagination has been filled with what the events of Old Testament theology truly look like; that is to say, what these events look like to my imagination. The closest visual interpretations that I can identify whole heartedly with come from two unlikely sources, The Bible Illuminated : Robert Crumb‘s The Book of Genesis and Basil Wolverton‘s, The Bible Story.
Crumb’s book is the ultimate graphic novel. It consists of 224 pages of text and imagery that depict his interpretation of creation, Noah’s’ flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the life of Abraham , and the story of Joseph, his brothers, and Pharoah. Because Crumb professes that he does not believe the Bible is the word of God (“I take it all for myth from start to finish, with probably some faint relation to historical reality”) he is given more freedom to illustrate what is actually printed rather than falling prey to the idealization of what we are accustomed to seeing. The illustrations, like the ancient text, are graphic, sensual, emotional, violent, and devoid of “fluff”.
LotLot2Lot 3
The other unlikely source for biblical illustrations comes from “Mad” magazine illustrator, Basil Wolverton. Wolverton is said to have been a deeply religious man, and unlike Crumb, Wolverton did believe the Bible to be the inspired word of God. He was commissioned to write and illustrate a narrative of the Old Testament (including over 550 illustrations), some 20 apocalyptic illustrations inspired by the book of Revelation, and dozens of cartoons and humorous illustrations for various Worldwide Church publications.
Heat "The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the sun was given power to scorch people with fire. They were seared by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God, who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify him." Revelation 16:8-9Giant Tsunami "On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea." Luke 21:25
Both illustrators are refreshing from where I stand. I know that there has been a back lash from the Christian conservatives, especially regarding Robert Crumb’s book. The argument seems to be that Crumb took too much “artistic liscense” in his interpretation of the biblical readings. He is seen by many to be lacking in sensitivity regarding the faith of others. I simply do not understand the premise of the argument, especially given that the words are right there in plain text, sacred or not.
This is an interesting post from Patheos in which a number of bloggers from different faiths were asked to describe Who or What God is to them in 100 words or less. The similarities are striking!
I recently read an article in the Huffington Post by Phil Zuckerman and Dan Cady titled “Why Evangelicals Hate Jesus“. As you might suspect, the article contrasts the political and religious views of white evangelical Christians to that of the actual teachings of Christ.
I am not going to comment on the article here other than to say that towards the end I was struck by the following quote,
“In addition to such historical developments, there may very well simply be an underlying, all-too-human social-psychological process at root, one that probably plays itself out among all religious individuals: they see in their religion what they want to see, and deny or despise the rest. That is, religion is one big Rorschach test. People look at the content of their religious tradition — its teachings, its creeds, its prophet’s proclamations — and they basically pick and choose what suits their own secular outlook. They see in their faith what they want to see as they live their daily lives, and simultaneously ignore the rest.”
I know that I am certainly guilty of this, and I suspect most are to a lesser or greater degree. Seems to me that how we interpret our faith depends largely on our experience of life, our culture, and the particular community we associate with. When one or more of these factors change, our beliefs are transformed accordingly. While I acknowledge that the authors are probably referring to more immediate ways we “bend” the text or tradition to fit our needs, the word syncretism comes to mind. Syncretism is the reconciliation or fusion of differing systems of belief that usually results in a new teaching or belief system. I am reminded of the ancient Israelites en route from Egypt to the promised land and their constant battle to serve YHWH while also maintaining previous practices of worshipping pagan Assyrian Gods. Amos 5:25 asks the question “Did you present Me with sacrifices and grain offerings in the wilderness for forty years?” The answer from the Israelites is, “Yes”. The next verse states “you also carried along Sikkuth your king and Kiyyun, your images, the star of your gods which you made for yourselves.” These two sentences effectively show the Hebrews mixing two belief systems. II Kings 17:33 says, “They worshipped the Lord, but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought.”
In the New Testament, the early church found itself wrapped up in syncretism as well. Paul wrote the book of Galatians to sort out the confusion caused by the transition from the Law of Moses to the New Covenant. The book of Colossians and the first epistle of John were written for a similar purpose, this time having to do with a mixing of Gnosticism and the Bible. While it is evident throughout the Old and New Testaments that syncretism was continuously fought against, it is also obvious that many pagan concepts and beliefs remained firmly entrenched and now have become part of accepted tradition. So the questions become ” How do we not “pick and choose” what we believe, at least to some extent? It seems very human and maybe even necessary for survival and assimilation into culture and community. This is going to be heresy for many, but might syncretism be God’s revelation of God’s self through history? Might it very well be a means of God revealing God’s self in a way that makes sense and speaks to a particular culture or community in a particular time period in history? I am wondering if we took all of the religions of the world and sought out their commonalities, would we find something more universal and therefore more “truthful” in our experiences of God?
Picturing Life 