What Is Sacred

A Zen teacher recently stated that, “The whole world is sacred.  So everything that is in it is sacred.  How do we designate things as sacred?  Sacred is simply the act of declaring it so in our hearts.  Ideally to all things.”

Many of us might have difficulty accepting that all things are in fact sacred.  We are used to being far more discerning and selective about what we consider to be sacred.  Sacred is to give an object an added meaning and value well beyond its intrinsic function.  It can be applied to secular as well as religious objects.  Designating an object as sacred can cause us to focus and draw out our thoughts, energies and feelings in a responsive manner not otherwise possible.

So the religious person sees the Ark of the Covenant or the Holy Grail as objects which embody the whole of that particular religious Founder himself.  A house of worship is defamed when attacked by warriors or vandals because one believes that is where God and humans come together.  The burning of a book of religious teachings instigates rioting by true believers in the words of the sacred Koran.

Secularly we designate as sacred those lands and buildings where great tragedies or suffering occurred, seeking through such a designation a way to somehow make sense, if not mentally reverse, what happened there.  So “Ground Zero” in New York City and the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City are memorialized as sacred places to try to compensate for the incomprehensible acts that happened there.  Similarly, the battlefields of Gettysburg, Normandy and countless other such sites, and the killing ovens at Auschwitz and numerous other places of slaughter, are given high sacredness in direct counterbalance to the lowliness of humans’ descent into inexplicable inhumanity.

Nationally, our patriotism gives an almost mystical cloak around one of the few remaining copies of our Declaration of Independence, or a tattered 200-year-old American flag flown at Fort McHenry.  Patriotic pilgrimages are made to the places of great events – Valley Forge, Appomattox, the USS Arizona – just as religious pilgrimages are made to the holiest of spiritual places the world over.  In each and every profession or art form, those objects that constitute the ultimate iconic achievements of those endeavors are treated as if godly themselves.

Meanwhile, on our Native-American reservations and in Buddhist meditation halls, sacredness is not subdivided into a selection of particular objects peculiar to the individual person.  All things are from the Great Spirit Creator, fulfilled through Nature’s Life Force, made universal in application by all forms of earthly life.  All life appreciates all other forms of life, and respects the inherent value and purpose in each.  Thereby, all that we see, touch and know is made sacred.  Even when we are called upon to interfere in an object’s natural course of being – as when we must terminate a life or mar the face of God’s earth – one does so with care and empathy.  Because the sacredness in us honors the sacredness in all other things.

So what is sacred to you?  And if it is not “everything,” what are you leaving out?

A Simple Blade Of Grass

Consider a simple blade of grass.  Consider how much humanity there is in that simple blade of grass.  And how much it can resemble, if not exceed, those of us with “higher intelligence.”

A simple blade of grass can be stubbornly determined enough to break through almost any obstacle in its way, including rock and concrete, seemingly defying physical impossibility.  It thrives when given a rich and nourishing environment and room to grow, but it will nevertheless develop to its best possible capacity regardless of the limiting conditions of its environment.  It requires little in order to survive, but will become unruly and die if over-fed or over-tended.  It grows best when it is periodically trimmed and sent back near to its roots; shorn of its excesses, it can begin a new cycle of growth having been reminded of and re-grounded in its original purpose.  There are endless varieties of grasses, but they can coexist together even if it means one opts to take a diminished role in order to accommodate the needs of a more dominant or needy one.  It knows that there is strength in numbers, requiring many other individual blades of grass in order to collectively create a lawn, a forest bed, or a great plain of waving grasses.

That blade of grass is virtually indestructible, so that even when it appears to have died it is merely lying dormant, ready to near-magically come back again if given proper attention.  It is clear in its original purpose for being, and so willingly gives of itself back to the ground or to other larger life forms so as to provide nourishment to others.  It does so knowing that it thereby contributes to the development and betterment of the whole of Life, causing a ripple of extended consequences beyond what it can see or know within a continuing cycle of sharing.  It can be shaped and regulated for a time by the whims and conventions of Man, fueling the illusion that man can “control” his/her environment.  But in reality it does just fine (if not better) following the higher conventions of Nature and drawing from the sustenance provided by God.  In the winter, it is wise enough to take time to pause and renew itself so that it is ready to take advantage of the next season for personal growth when that time presents itself.

Lacking the higher intelligence of human beings, that simple blade of grass has never declared war on anything.  It has never killed another life form simply to enjoy the act of killing or to prove anything to its peer grasses.  It has never needed to vote on a set of rules in order to control its capacity for evil conduct.  It never takes more than it needs nor steals what does not belong to it; it is content with what it has.  It cannot comprehend the idea that it “owns” the soil in which it resides, versus sharing it with others during its time.

We should think of that simple blade of grass often, for the many lessons it can teach us.  In its soul may be more humanity and intelligence than to be found in the entire human race.  It encourages us to pause and ask, what is the possibility that we could all grow up to be as wise as a simple blade of grass?

The Importance of Life

Your life is very, very important.
      So do not take it so seriously.

Your time is very short and limited.
      So relax.

Loosening The Bonds Of Church

Lately, I have listened to a number of people talk about the difficulties they are experiencing with their religious affiliation or specific church (or other religious group) connection.  Certainly it does seem that today most all organized religions seem to be in internal turmoil, and this institutional turmoil is leaving many people in personal turmoil over their personal faith.  This turmoil is often reflected in the continually diminishing number of occupants in the pews, the oft-stated worries about “the graying of the congregation” as young people turn away from church attendance, reduced financial support, and confusion about church mission and role.  Conversely we have the phenomena of the Evangelical mega-churches with their tens- and twenty-thousand members.  These numbers perhaps suggest a desire for “strength in numbers” as a defense again religious turmoil, rather than having to face the many challenges of direct human relationships that are encountered in smaller congregations.

Many people are struggling with what they have been given regarding their religious teachings and ritual, and the messages they hear inside their local church, versus what they see happening in the world and what their hearts and minds are saying to them.  Hypocrisy between spoken words and daily actions is all too frequent.  The religious teachings do not seem to fit today’s circumstances or reflect in personal conduct.

In sorting our way through this fog of spiritual doubt, it may be helpful to remember that God is all things spiritual, who thinks and acts on a plane far beyond our capability.  But religion is human, not God, and thereby inherently reflects all human limitations and shortcomings.  And our church is simply everyday people, no more nor less than the neighbors who live on our block, or the co-workers we meet each day at our job.  The church is its people, with all the people frailties that that entails.  So the church necessarily has limits on what it can accommodate and explain.  God has no such limits.

When we feel that we are in conflict with our religion or church, there is a basic question we need to reflect on: is our religion or church failing and needs us to remedy it?  Or is it we who have simply outgrown what it can offer to us?  A child must one day leave the teaching environment of its parents; we must similarly leave a job when it comes to limit, not nurture, our career.  So it is with our understanding of, and relationship with, God.  The difficult spiritual questions we ask are the tools that move us from being a spiritual child doing what we are told to do, versus becoming a spiritual adult.  An adult able to use God’s guidance and the lessons of the great Teachers to answer for ourselves our questions about how to live, how to be with others, and how to find fulfillment in this lifetime.  In the end, we are not the servant of the church; in all humility, the church is the servant to us.  Our focus and responsibility is, and should be, only to God.

Humans have a natural instinct and drive to want to “fix things” that are broken.  But sometimes what has been broken is simply the restrictive bonds that are tying us to that which is no longer supporting us.  In which case it is we that need to be fixed.  Fixed by leaving that known safety of our current religious house – be it our parents’ teachings, our church, our spiritual community.  Fixed by going out to make our own spiritual way through this abundantly rich yet often-frightening unknown vastness of Life.  If that time to grow comes upon us, we need to embrace it and go to that new place where we have been called.

Preachers and Pastors

We have many kinds of religious preachers in our midst today.  What they share in common is their emphasis, by training and inclination, to speak to matters of religious dogma, or to personal opinions of interpretation of a specific teaching, or to matters of the Church as an organizational entity and hierarchy.  It is all a great deal of time spent telling others how to think and how to live.  Some of that preaching is worth listening to.  Some is not.

On the fringe of this preaching are those who focus on division, hate and judgment, which appear to clearly fall outside of the core teachings of most all religions.  Recently in a small North Carolina town, a preacher spoke from his pulpit to his Sunday congregation that the solution to the homosexual “problem” was to build two high, electrified fences each several miles square.  All the lesbians would go inside one fence, the gays in the other, and then they would be left to starve to death.  Just prior to this, Franklin Graham was prominent on television ads advocating passage of an amendment to the North Carolina constitution to ban same-sex marriage and any other form of “domestic partnerships” except a marriage between male and female.  It was blatant political advocacy, with the ads paid for by the Billy Graham Evangelical Association.  (Inexplicably to me, their tax deductible status remains unchallenged by the IRS.)  Awhile back, there was the preacher of a tiny congregation in Florida advocating the burning of the Qur’an, an act more hostile than anything written in the Qur’an itself.  Then there is the preacher from Kansas who leads his family and adherents to military funerals around the country to chant that the decedent’s death is God’s punishment of our country’s evil ways.

When I hear the latest such outrageous words or actions making it into the headlines, I cannot help but wonder what the personal story is behind these people’s formation.  What was it in these preachers’ life experiences, or the shortcomings of their accomplishments, that would drive them to such beliefs and actions – beliefs that anger, hatred and punishment can be God’s real intention for human beings.  In these preachers’ seminary school, monastery or mosque, what teachers taught that violence (physical or mental) against others could somehow be expected to result in peace and fulfillment for either the perpetrator or victim, versus teaching that “violence begets violence” and “what you sow you reap?”

Somehow our desperate need for true pastors – in whatever title from religion to religion – has gotten lost in the incessant drumbeat of dogmatic preaching.  Pastors who are more concerned with comforting those who are ill, lost or troubled than with admonishing them.  Pastors able to give suggestions and guidance rather than marching orders.  Pastors able to help people think through and find their true spiritual beliefs instead of doing their thinking for them.  Pastors able to listen instead of talk, to be a spiritual friend rather than a judge and jury.

It is not easy for the religiously trained to move from preaching to pastoring.  But it is possible.  Pope John Paul II seemed to retain his sense of being a parish priest in spite of the huge size of his enlarged parish and the demands of managing his church structure.  H. H. the Dalai Lama speaks often of being “just a simple monk,” reflecting his humility as much as his role.  Reverend Desmond Tutu’s infectious enthusiasm for his fellow man despite his hurtful experiences from South African apartheid are inspirational.

We never lack for preachers.  But what we really need are the pastors.  By any formal title or none.  From whatever classroom of training, including the classroom of the experience of life.  Less talking and debating, more holding of another’s hand after a good hug.

Keeping The Silence

I was recently corresponding with a friend who had just returned from a week-long silent meditation retreat.  Such periodic experiences are a special opportunity to put aside the noise of our normal daily routine and spend a weekend, or particularly a week, in a quiet environment focused on reconnecting with ourselves and with the greater Universe.  Regardless of the specific emphasis of such retreats, we cannot help but experience some change in how we think, feel and act from this time well spent.  Such was the experience for this friend.  But her other observation was that, “I have wanted to continue this silence after coming home, but it has been difficult.”  It is a common lament and frustration – after the creative bliss of a dedicated spiritual time, how do we keep that experience going after we are back in “the real world”?

One way is by focusing on the fact of the quiet, of the silence.  If we really seek to pursue this continued state of quiet, we will find that we actually have more control over our noise than we may like to admit.  All audio and video equipment has an “off” switch that we can use; it is our choice whether to switch it to “on.”  Do we really have to check our email, Facebook and Twitter pages every few minutes of the day?  Do we really need our cell phones on 24 x 7 and have to answer it the moment it rings at someone else’s convenient time?  (We managed to miss calls for over one hundred years quite successfully; the inventor of the telephone refused to even have one in his house!)  Do we really need to watch television shows that educate or entertain us very little, but simply instead serve to occupy or distract our thinking?  At work, do we really need to work through lunch, versus go out for a few minutes for a quiet walk by ourselves?  (The work will always be there no matter how many hours we put in.)  When we drive our car, do we listen to the radio or listen to our thoughts?  Like anything else in our external environment, we can be the victim of our circumstances or the determiner.  We may not have complete control over our time and schedule, but we have more than we like to admit.  It is all about our choices and commitments.

But there is another kind of quiet that we experience at our spiritual retreats.  It is not the fact of the quiet that surrounds us there.  It is the spirit of the quiet that comes to reside in our heart and mind.  The quiet of the retreat allows us to infuse our thinking with an unfamiliar pause.  A pause to reflect about our thinking, a pause to consider our actions.  A moment to re-identify what we are truly about, what God wishes for us, and what we wish to be with God.  It is a quiet of mind and spirit that enables us to act from a thoughtful decision rather than making a reflexive action.

That is the quiet we truly seek at our retreats.  The external quiet nurtures us, but it is not really why we are there.  It only helps us practice for the spiritual quiet that we truly seek; the quiet of spiritually listening to often unheard voices.  We can do much towards turning the outside noise switch to “off” and getting some measure of emulated quiet.  But when we take a moment to stop and hear and consider before we act, seeking to act in God’s way, that is when we truly “keep the silence” of the retreatant.

The Easter Message

Today is Easter Sunday, the holiest day in Christian practice.  The day Christians believe Christ rose from his earthly death, transcended his crucifixion, and affirmed his divinity with God.

Whether one is a believing and practicing Christian or believes in Jesus’ resurrection or not, there are powerful lessons and inspiration in the Easter message.  A message of steadfastness in the face of threats and accusations from one’s enemies, silently holding fast to the spiritual purpose of our life.  A message of commitment to one’s faith, commitment that would go so far as to choose death rather than yield to the constant pressure to deny that faith.  A message of forgiveness towards those who knowingly or unknowingly cause us harm and pain, for “they know not what they do.”  A message of compassion for our human frailty and doubts in times when we question whether God has forsaken us in our faith.  A message of knowing when it is time to leave God’s work to others as we move on to a new existence unknown but undeniable.  A message of recognizing when we have done what God has asked of us, and “it is finished.”

These messages can be found in some form in the lessons from all of the Great Teachers we have been blessed to have guide us, reflecting the same exhortations and challenges toward our committing to faith.  These Teachers taught not by rules, not by the laws of the state, not by force or domination.  They taught from the heart of goodness, directed to the hearts of others.  They taught to the eye by showing themselves to be true living examples of that heart.  They taught to the mind by illustrating in understandable stories the irrationality of our limited human thinking, and the higher thinking that can be available to us.

We approach Jesus as one of those Great Teachers.  We approach him not on the basis of labels, ritual, church structure, and theological argument.  We approach him simply on his words, on his teachings, on his proofs by his actions.  As we do with all of God’s Great Teachers.  It is the body of Jesus’ teachings that we honor and celebrate on Easter, teachings that require neither an interpreter nor an intermediary.  They are lessons for all of us; lessons for each of us; lessons in harmony with God and all of God’s Great Teachers.  And the lessons start with Good Will Towards All Men And Women.