Conscious Love as Sacrament

The Rev. William C. Redfield
Trinity Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, NY
Lent IV—Year B—March 18, 2012

John 3:14-21
    And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

In a little less than three weeks from now a relatively small group of us will gather here in church to mark Holy Saturday. Marking the entombment of Jesus, this day has become—if anything at all—a non-event.  Traditionally, we just use the time to clear the deck and prepare the church for the next day’s grand and festive Easter celebration.

Perched between the final agony of Good Friday and the unexpected mystery of Easter, Holy Saturday is that empty space that marks the boundary and threshold from the nothingness of despair and dead-ends to an unexpected grace.  What is so striking is that this miracle comes through the very midst of life’s worst possible pain.

            Our attention on that day will rest on Mary Magdalene.  In fact, using the gospel attributed to her name—one of the recently recovered gospels widely known to the early church but then neglected, lost, and all but forgotten—we will follow the suggestive outline of Jesus’ powerful relationship with Mary Magdalene.

            Without getting sidetracked into any kind of titillating or scandalous take on their relationship, we will see the essential truth that Jesus and Mary Magdalene drink from the common cup of love.  That is, they are deeply committed to each other’s spiritual growth and care so deeply about each other’s well being that each is willing to lay aside his or her own life for the other.  And this is precisely what Jesus does—he does this for Mary Magdalene, his partner in ministry, and he does this for us all as well.  But so united are Jesus and Mary Magdalene in this sea of love that death cannot separate them.

In the Apostles Creed we say that, after his death, Jesus descends into hell.  As Jesus enters the underworld to redeem all of life and to change the very foundations of existence, he continues to be tethered by the exquisite expression of Mary Magdalene’s love through her profound grief.

In the empty space beside that tomb there is nothing for her to hold on to—no hope, no promise, and no future—only the love she shares with him.  And maybe it is the sheer dead-end of her grief and desperation that amplifies her love or that presses it into a new manifestation.  But whatever it is, although Jesus is gone, the love remains.

What unfolds in the resurrection is so much more than the continued existence of the one life of Jesus.  Resurrection marks the deep truth that we are all swimming in this great sea of love right now and that neither death nor diminishment can limit or compromise that reality.  That’s what we will celebrate come Easter.  And just as Mary Magdalene’s love accompanies Jesus and tracks him from above when he descends into the earth, so too does Jesus’ love continue to track us from a realm that is both higher and deeper.

*

In his life on earth Jesus often declared his love for and union with God the Father.  Yet the fullest expression of this came in his relationships with those around him. For Jesus, love of God and love of neighbor are inseparably woven together.  And he shows us that by loving those whom wefind in our lives—our family members, our friends, our spouses, and even those whom we find so difficult and different, we are being led into the fullness of God’s love and God’s kingdom.

*

            Now—before I get any further—you might be wondering, first, why I am talking now about Holy Saturday’s entombment and the resurrection that ensues and, second, where I got the audacity to use such a non-canonical writing as the Gospel of Mary Magdalene to draw insight and wisdom from the Pascal event.  Let me tell you.

            First, the Gospel for this Fourth Sunday of Lent is that famous phrase from John’s Gospel, “For God so loved the world...”  Rather than take that passage as the litmus test for orthodox belief as many do, I would like to get to the diamond truth that lies beneath this phrase, “for God so loved the world.”

Second, I am operating on the deep wisdom that I have gained from you over the past 18 years.  For over this time I have been privy to the sharing of private events about which I have kept silent—until now.  On more occasions than I could ever recount, a surviving spouse—especially a surviving spouse of a marriage that had been deep or long or both—has told me of a felt presence of his or her beloved after death that has been experienced as both very real and very physical.  Sometimes this has come in the generalized sense of continuing to be immersed in the love that was shared in life.  But sometimes the beloved has appeared to the surviving spouse in a form that was much like a physical form—only lighter and maybe more subtle.  And by the way, I have also heard very similar accounts from those who have lost beloved family members and friends.

Here’s what I have come to conclude.  True love, deep and abiding love, provides the alchemy that opens our eyes to the reality that we are swimming in this sea of love.  We begin to realize that we remain connected to our loved ones because the love remains and because we are inseparable from that love.  That is why this connection of love remains unbroken—even beyond the divide of death.

Now let me take this just one more step.

Traditionally, we acknowledge the power of the sacraments in our lives of faith.  We think of the Eucharist and Baptism as those outer forms of ritual that deliver to us an inner grace and power.  But beyond this more conventional understanding, I have in the past shared an understanding of Jesus’ life as sacrament.  This means something more than the fact that God was speaking through Jesus’ words and actions.  Even beyond that, Jesus’ life as sacrament also means that it contains within itself a power, a blessing, and an energy that is not confined and contained in Jesus’ life alone.  As sacrament, his life is present to us—if we can but recognize it and open to it.  As sacrament, his life enables us to follow his example so that we too can walk the path that he walked.  So more than just believing in him, we might indeed, walk with him.

But I now want to press this a little farther.  I am going to suggest that the gift of conscious love—the love I talked about a minute ago—the committed love I have seen from the members of this parish in the expressions of dedicated marriages and deep friendships—is a sacred sacrament as well.  Its external form opens us to a powerful internal grace.  Marking the exact path that Jesus took, the path of conscious, committed love delivers us to the threshold into the kingdom.

Here’s how this seems to work.  We seem to have been relegated to a far distant ray of creation where we experience our existence in these dense and heavy forms of these human bodies of ours.  Life in this dimension is often very painful, difficult, and frustrating.  Besides all the challenges and difficult choices that confront and confound us, we are given bodies that get sick and, with advancing age, break down in diminishment.  We are bounded by finitude and death.  And ultimately, through the loss and suffering inherent in our lives, our hearts get broken wide open.

But all of this has nothing to do with either sin or punishment.  They are simply the specific givens of this existence within which this sacrament can fully flower.  And so it is right here in the very fragility, finitude, and brokenness of these lives of ours where love can be expressed most eloquently.  Not despite this fragility, finitude, and brokenness—but right through them.

If life were easier and less challenging, this love would not be so precious.  So to love without holding back—to love without counting the costs—even while we are broken, heartsick, and sinking inexorably toward our own demise—this is the very purpose of life, and this is what life in Christ looks like.  And what it requires is only the hardest thing there is—that, although our hearts are battered and broken, we love anyway.  Linked to the sacrament of Jesus’ life, our lives too become sacraments of loving even though we are broken—no, because we are broken.

Jesus’ life makes it perfectly clear that this kind of loving is costly.  This is what Lent is about.  But because it is costly, and yet poured out anyway, it becomes precious.   It is in this sacrament that we are joined to Jesus.  The purpose of life for us on this planet is to live our lives of suffering and eventual death while daring to love through it all.

            Over these many years, I have witnessed how you have committed yourselves to your loved ones through thick and thin and how you have endured through tragedy, heartache, and profound loss.  You have shown me the path of life and you have manifested Christ’s love in your devoted caring.  Consequently, your lives have become a sacrament for me.  While on the outside they may only appear to be the struggle to put one foot in front of the other, the revealed grace in the sacrament of your lives is that you have loved through it all and you continue to do so.


This is the deep well of love from which Mary Magdalene and Jesus drank.  And this is the diamond truth that lies beneath that vast phrase, “that God so loved the world.”  It is the sacrament of conscious and committed love.  And its miracle is that it can blossom from even the darkest of places.

 

Thanks, Wikipedia!

Radical Incarnation: Thoughts on Nondual Spirituality

Matthew Wright is a senior at Virginia Theological Seminary in Virginia, and a budding interfaith theologian.  Here is his latest piece posted on FaceBook:

Radical Incarnation: Thoughts on Nondual Spirituality

by Matthew Wright on Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at 8:13pm

Dear friends,

Some thoughts from head and heart today on nondual spirituality, the shape of the path, and the importance of practice...

Peace and love,

Matthew

The 9th century Hindu philosopher Shankaracharya is famous for his pithy three statement summation of the teachings of Advaita Vedanta: The world is illusion.  Brahman alone is real.  Brahman is the world.  We might compare the traditional three movements of the Christian mystical path: purgation, illumination, and union.  Likewise, the Islamic shahada, or affirmation of faith (La ilaha illallah Muhammadan rasulullah), as understood by the mystics of Islam, moves through three similar stages:  La ilaha (“There is no god”), the negation of the world; illallah (“only God”), the affirmation that Divine Reality alone is;Muhammadan rasulullah (“Muhammad is the messenger of God”), the affirmation that the world is not other than Divine Reality.[1]  This final insight is not different in essence from the Zen Buddhist realization that “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.”  It could also be seen as the deepest meaning of the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation (in St. Athanasius’ words, that “God became humanity that humanity might become God”) or the koan of a Christ who is simultaneously fully God and fully human.

[1] Muhammad is understood here not only as the Arabian prophet, but as the Nur Muhammad, the Light of Prophecy that shines through all prophets, both the essential name of the whole creation and the fullness of perfected humanity (as ahadith qudsi says: “If not for you, O Muhammad, I would not have created the worlds.”).

Some nondual teachers, however, seem to stop short of Shankara’s final affirmation:Brahman is the world.  Especially in Hindu tradition, the message can seem to be simply the world is illusion, with the ultimate goal of moksha, or escape (this is not only the fault of the tradition, but is due, to some extent, to the lack of nuance—and simple misrepresentation—on the part of Western scholars).  This insight, however, is a significant and necessary one, bringing disillusionment with the world around us and an awakening to the impulses and drives that we have been in unconscious obedience to.  We begin to see the web of attachments that has made us selfish and self-centered, separating us from God and from others.  We see that practically all of our relationships and actions are tainted with subtle (or not so subtle) traces of egoism.  At this stage, we may begin to experience the world and its forms with a sense of disdain or even disgust, seen as so many traps and entanglements.  Dissatisfied, we turn to God.

Now begins the work of seeing and cutting through the attachments that veil us from naked Reality.  Classically, the Advaita Vedanta tradition has formulated this work in terms of “discrimination” (viveka), expressed through the phrase “neti, neti”, “not this, not this”—discerning and negating everything that is not God (that is, everything separating or egoic, temporal or finite).  God is the all-embracing and eternal Reality; anything that is not That, is not God.  This begins the awakening to Brahman alone is real, our encounter with the “oneness” just beneath the surface of ordinary experience.  We touch the unchanging peace, stillness, and love that is our essence.  Thrilled to have made the discovery of “what’s real”, we reject the surface and affirm the depth.  We retreat to the Eternal.

For a truly nondual spiritual vision, however, we must make Shankara’s final leap, and affirm what Christian language might call radical Incarnation: Brahman is the world.  But before arriving there, I want to look at some possible pitfalls along the way.  As stated above, one serious error (we might even say spiritual pathology), is ending the spiritual journey at Shankara’s first or second statements, which at their worst can produce the kind of world-denying, dualistic Gnosticism that plagued the 2nd and 3rd century Christian church (or simply a disengaged quietism).  But another, and perhaps more dangerous error in the context of contemporary culture, is attempting to start at the third statement (“Brahman is the world”).  It is tempting to jump to this final insight from the get-go, but then it is held only as an intellectual concept, not a realization.  As a realization, we begin to actually live from this truth, acting differently (that is, less egoically) in the world around us; as an intellectual concept, it is merely words, however lofty and seemingly beautiful.  However uncomfortable, we are first required to pass through the necessary stage of negation (in Jesus' words, "the eye of the needle" and "the narrow way").

I give this point special emphasis, as there is a tendency in liberal Western Christianity (and Western spirituality in general), because of our history of negative attitudes towards sex and the body, to overcompensate with talk of “incarnational spirituality” and Ginsbergian shouts of “Everything is holy!”  As a corrective to a pervasive negativity, this has its place (and at its best can be an authentic insight into Christianity’s nondual core).  In the context of spiritual work, however, it is extremely important to recognize what level of realization we are speaking from when we make such claims.  The purified ego can truly recognize the inherent holiness of everything, but a person operating from a lower level of consciousness development will happily (and probably quite unconsciously) use such claims to justify any manner of behaviors, under the guise of “It’s all holy” (perhaps most clearly seen on the level of egoic sexual expression).

Advaita Vedanta, Sufism, and mystical traditions in general, put great emphasis on the place of detachment and renunciation in spiritual life—words that are not generally favored in our contemporary spiritual climate, as they are often heard as world- or life-denying.  What is being renounced or detached from, however, is egoism and clinging, which lead to a contracted and selfish life.  Renunciation, in its fullest sense, expands life.  “Incarnational spirituality”, on the other hand, is too often an excuse for spiritual laziness and a way of baptizing our impulses towards egoic experience (“God’s in everything, it’s all holy!”).

We see this attitude expressed in phrases such as “My life is my prayer.”  Indeed, to live a life of prayer is the end goal of all spiritual activity—that we would enter into St. Paul’s “prayer without ceasing.”  But this is the end goal, not the starting point.  Only the great saints can truly say “My life is my prayer”, because they are always in remembrance of God, seeing only that One Face.  Most of us are simply striving towards that state, and to claim it prematurely may actually serve to inhibit our spiritual progress.  A more honest statement would probably be: “Sometimes, when I'm lucky, my life is my prayer.”  To truly awaken into a greater and more constant state of prayer, disciplined practice is needed.  There is little instant gratification on the spiritual path (until we see that it’s all instant gratification), although the work can be joyful.  Certainly, in the end, life itself will bring us all of the lessons that we need, and practices and awakening will come as we’re ready.  But now is always the moment that we can begin the work of letting go.

With these dangers set aside, the final circling back (or rather, spiraling forward) toBrahman is the world (or Muhammadan rasulullah) is the full expression of the nondual vision of Reality.  We neither remain in the negation of the world, nor the simple affirmation of God.  Having negated all that is impermanent, and having experienced and affirmed the Eternal, we now come to see everything previously negated in new light.   All is the manifestation of Divine Reality.  Everything that had veiled us from God is now seen to be simply the expression of God.  There is only Kali dancing on Shiva, the Divine Attributes dancing in the Divine Essence, Shakti and Brahman, the Relative and the Absolute, a single Reality.  There is only Christ, incarnate, crucified, and ascended; judge, savior, and saved.  There is nowhere to go, nothing to escape, only God; perfect freedom, total service, One Face.

The world is illusion.  Brahman alone is real.  Brahman is the world. La ilaha illallah Muhammadan rasulullah.  God became humanity that humanity might become God. 

Holy Silence

Hagia Heyschia

Thank-you, Gail Wiggin, for the following contributions.  I pass these on here in the interest of widening the network of information available to seekers:

When one comes into contact with a teaching that comes from a particular psychological [spiritual] place, that has been reached by others who have laboured in the past, then if the teaching is valued and followed it leads to that place where, on the way, one begins to get help. Another reality and another meaning begin to show through what one has hitherto taken to be the only reality and meaning. Every form of inner teaching is a way to a place. For example, Christ calls himself a Way. Only when it is followed to the end can a person be transformed into a Christian. Yet people begin by imagining they are Christians. -- from the Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky by Maurice Nicoll, p. 997

The mind, which we call in religious language the Almighty, and in mystical terms the divine mind, is the depth of life, the depth of activity, with which all activity and every activity is connected. Therein lies the whole of religion. The mystic's prayer is to that beauty, and his work is to forget the self, to lose himself like a bubble in the water. The wave realizes, “I am the sea,” and by falling into the sea prostrates itself before its God. As it is said, “Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”-- Hazrat Inayat Khan



EVENTS OF INTEREST

Wisdom School with Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault and Father Richard Rohr, Ghost Ranch, Albuquerque, New Mexico
May 1-5, 2011
There are still a few openings so don’t
miss this opportunity! Apply now: http://www.cacradicalgrace.org/conferences/2011/wisdom/reg.php

If Christianity is to emerge as the path of mystical illumination and compassionate action that it truly can be, it will be through the courageous commitment of those willing to follow the call to the next level of conscious evolution. This Wisdom School brings together Cynthia Bourgeault and Richard Rohr (who will join us for the first 2 two days), both gifted teachers in the ancient wisdom ways of contemplative prayer, particularly as it supports the emergence of non-dualistic thinking and action. We will work with the core Christian practices of contemplative prayer and lectio divina, but add to them the specific wisdom methods of self-observation, conscious work, and sacred gesture, in order to facilitate the opening of what is classically known as “the third eye,” or non-dual perception. The goal is not only to deepen our personal spiritual lives, but to raise human consciousness, leading to the ultimate transformation of society.




Rabbi Rami Shapiro on Wisdom in the World’s Religions, Wisdom House, Litchfield, CT 

March 11-13, 2011 Lady Wisdom has taken on many faces in many cultures throughout history. In this exploration of wisdom spiritualities, we will meet many of Her forms and study many of her teachings. Rooted in the texts and teachings of many faiths, this workshop will challenge you to step beyond religious ideologies to hear the words of Lady Wisdom in your way for your own life.Cost: $190 shared room, $230 private room    For more information: http://www.wisdomhouse.org/program/calendar.html
register here:  http://www.wisdomhouse.org/forms/formRS3-1113.html

Francis and Clare: The Eye of the Heart

The Omega Point is Love


Returning home renewed and restored in Love.
The greatest gift I received from a pilgrimage to Assisi is this:

To absorb the greatest teaching of St. Francis and St. Clare--
the teaching of the path of conscious love.

To hold precious and yet not to cling.

To restrain the lower self for the sake of allowing
the higher self to blossom forth and radiate this love.

To render oneself obedient to this love
and let nothing and no one
distract nor derail love.

To give freely and completely of oneself
and to hold nothing back.

To entrust oneself to a higher vision
engendered by this love.

To remain poor in spirit
and make space for this love
to infill, make whole, and make holy.

To seek union in the new intensity.

To plant in the cosmos
and reap in the Aeon.

~~~

Meditation on Assisi by Gail Wiggin

I thought Gail's observations were so profound that I wanted to share her short essay with you:

There’s a great deal to share about our trip but a highlight was the visit in Italy to Monte Subasio -- a few miles outside the walls of Assisi— where Francis (1181-1226) and his followers established their first home in caves on its slopes. Throughout his life, Francis apparently returned often to those graceful heights on foot (despite his many illnesses) to pray and contemplate (if so inclined, you can get a sense of the place here:  http://www.sacred-destinations.com/italy/assisi-eremo-delle-carceri). A few of us chose to walk back down the mountain to our retreat house, Oasi Sacro Cuore. Now THAT is a walk that every person on the planet should experience. How does one describe the profound pleasure of being dwarfed by a landscape? The Umbrian valley spreads out as far as the eye can see, in beauty and abundance as melodic counterpoint to this rock, this foot, this olive tree, this specificity.

As Christians, we are taught that a similar sacred vastness lies within each of us — however difficult to comprehend-- in the form of our capacity to love. It seemed quite clear that the perspective and fecundity of this landscape, their home turf, deeply informed Francis and Clare in their ministries. At every bend in the road down that mountain, one could almost taste afresh the certainty with which they abandoned themselves to God. Although a photograph can’t begin to capture the nature of the experience, it’s impossible not to give you just a hint of it.



Blessings to you this day,
Gail

Assisi, Italy 2010