Lenten Reflections, First Tuesday of Lent, Forgiveness

Day Seven, First Tuesday of Lent

Forgiveness

Matthew 6: 14-15
14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; 15 but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Forgiveness is a big deal. Many teachers of spirituality teach it is the main deal.

In Christianity, Jesus teaches that we cannot be forgiven if we do not forgive others and some might turn it around and say that one cannot forgive others until one, him/herself, feels forgiven.

One of the ideas about forgiveness from A Course In Miracles is that forgiveness is the willingness to give up making other people responsible for your unhappiness.

Forgiveness is the work of the Atonement where the illusion of separation is replaced by the miracle of awareness of Oneness. This miracle is the vehicle of healing.

In Unitarian Universalism some preachers have taught that the path to salvation is gratitude and recognizing our radical dependence on others and an experience of gratitude for how our lives our sustained by the assistance of others is key to enlightenment is a profound idea and insight. But human nature being what it is we don’t feel gratitude until we exercise the choice of forgiveness for all the people and things that have disappointed us, neglected us, abandoned us, rejected us, and abused us.

Human beings are wired to play the victim when we have been harmed or neglected by others on whom we are dependent for need fulfillment. The resulting fear, anger, resentment, grievance can, at times, seem all encompassing and overwhelming. Jesus says as He is being crucified, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” And they didn’t and we are still talking about it 2000 years later.

If Jesus can forgive his torturers and executioners and, perhaps, laugh at the absurdity of the situation, what about us and our grievances? Can you rise above them a little bit and have the presence of mind to see the torment and injustice and make the decision that the harm being perpetrated will not define you and influence your interior peace and joy?

Forgiveness, not making other people responsible for our unhappiness, is an attitude and competence difficult to develop and sustain, but it can be done and we have countless examples around us if we are looking for them.

When we find ourselves angry, resentful, upset, we are encountering a “forgiveness opportunity.” Will we seize the opportunity or play the victim?

Virtue Development - Humility - Suspending judgment

Chapter Six - Humility

Suspending judgment.

Humility is one of the least understood virtues. Humility is not meakness, not submissiveness, not passivity, not allowing oneself to be oppressed and subjugated. Humility follows from faith, and honesty, and a nonjudgmental attitude, and kindness, and gratitude.

Humility comes from taking a “not knowing” position and an attitude of curiosity. Humility is giving up the need to be right and the admission of not knowing everything. In A Course of Miracles humility is called “defenselessness.” It is written in ACIM, “God’s teachers have learned how to be simple. They have no dreams that need defense against the truth.” ACIM.MT.4.VI:1-2

When a person understands who they really are, a part of God, they have no need to strut, to pretend, to hide behind a facade, to defend themselves from vulnerability. A humble person understands that they are invulnerable because of their essence, the Ground of their Being.

It is important to know what one doesn’t know. To cultivate an attitude of curiosity and a desire to love what one does not know is an important skill. Humility takes practice.

In our insecurity, we insist that our view of the world is the only correct way to perceive and understand things. Being willing to suspend judgment, to suspend certainty, to suspend righteousness in the service of giving everyone, even oneself the benefit of the doubt is the hallmark of the virtue of humility.

Religious literacy - What is it?

Chapter Thirteen

What is religious literacy

In this sense religious literacy refers to the ability to understand and use in one’s day-to-day life the basic building blocks of religious traditions—their key terms, symbols, doctrines, practices, sayings, characters, metaphors, and narratives.

Prothero, Stephen. Religious Literacy (pp. 11-12). HarperOne. Kindle Edition.

Religious literacy is knowing the vocabulary, understanding the key practices, understanding the underlying values, understanding the influence that religious belief has on culture, and understanding the key religious narratives which answer fundamental existential questions which all human beings have.

Without this understanding of religious beliefs and worldview we have great difficulty understanding ourselves, others, and the dynamics of the social and political world we live in.

The three basic existential questions are: Why was I born? What is the purpose of my life? What happens when I die? Religion attempts to provide explanations for these questions. If we are to be empathic, compassionate, and just global neighbors we need to understand how ourselves, and other people’s from different faith traditions understand and answer these questions. This understanding is what is meant by religious literacy.

Lenten Reflections, Day Six, First Monday of Lent, Turning back to the teachings of Jesus

Day Six First Monday of Lent

Turning back to the teachings of Jesus

Matthew 25:40-45 New International Version (NIV)
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

Jesus isn’t messing around. He puts it right out there.”Whatever you did not do for the least of these, you did not do for me.” We have all these cultural Christians mostly in the Republican party in the United States who want to kick people off their health care, take away their food stamps, separate their children from them at the border, criminalize women’s health care, and cut “entitlement programs” so bigger tax cuts can go to the rich. The United States is certainly not a Christian nation, if by Christian we mean following the teachings of Jesus.

The time of Lent is a time of repentance, a time for getting back to basics, and turning away from the beliefs and practices which have led us astray from the teachings of Jesus. Jesus is telling us to give up our stingy ways and to share what we have for what we do for others we do for ourselves and for God. Nothing could be clearer, but in our politics and voting for our representatives we don’t listen and follow Jesus’ teachings.

Today, I will reach out to people struggling, oppressed, disenfranchised and share what I have with them. Today, I will take my responsibilities as a citizen in a democracy seriously and advocate for political representatives who actually follow the teachings of Jesus.

Virtue development - Part Two, Gratitude and Joy

Part two

Gratitude and joy come from reflection

The virtue of gratitude and the resulting joy takes practice. Every day we should end the day before sleep thinking of three good things which happened to us during that day that we are thankful for. It is the practice of “smelling the roses” and taking time and effort to reflect on that which gives our life joy, comfort, and peace.

Did meeting a person and having a moment of connection provide a blessed moment today? Did some act of kindness given or received make your day? Did you experience a moment of beauty, goodness, truth that strike you as having been a thing of grace and blessing?

We are so focused on the negative because our primal brain, based in our amygdala, is so attuned to threat that we biologically respond with the fight- flight- freeze response until the prefrontal cortex kicks in and we are able to get things in perspective and figure out how to purposely and deliberately respond.

Gratitude comes from the prefrontal cortex, the thinking mind, where executive functioning takes place, not from the amygdala where the instinctual fight-flight-freeze occurs. This is why gratitude is a skill which must be practiced and pursued, and the resulting peace and joy are well worth the effort.

Climate justice - Die or survive or thrive?

Chapter Twenty

Die or survive or thrive?

The moral responsibility of climate change is much murkier. Global warming isn’t something that might happen, should several people make some profoundly shortsighted calculations; it is something that is already happening, everywhere, and without anything like direct supervisors. Nuclear Armageddon, in theory, has a few dozen authors; climate catastrophe has billions of them, with responsibility distended over time and extended across much of the planet. This is not to say it is distributed evenly: though climate change will be given its ultimate dimensions by the course of industrialization in the developing world, at present the world’s wealthy possess the lion’s share of guilt—the richest 10 percent producing half of all emissions. This distribution tracks closely with global income inequality, which is one reason that many on the Left point to the all-encompassing system, saying that industrial capitalism is to blame. It is. But saying so does not name an antagonist; it names a toxic investment vehicle with most of the world as stakeholders, many of whom eagerly bought in. And who in fact quite enjoy their present way of life.

Wallace-Wells, David. The Uninhabitable Earth (pp. 148-149). Crown/Archetype. Kindle Edition.

What it comes to the apocalypse of climate change who is responsible, who can we blame? As the old Pogo comic strip memorably said, “We have seen the enemy and it is us.”

If you enjoy a twenty first century first world lifestyle you are guilty of emitting carbon emissions which has contributed to the warming of the planet. It is easy to blame the 1% who have marketed fossil fuels and gotten rich off of them but suppliers need customers, and corporations need stockholders, and the whole population benefits from carbon emissions by driving to the mall and enjoying the air conditioned comfort on a 95 degree day.

And so projecting guilt doesn’t work to ameliorate the problem. Instead, we need to get smart and analyze the systems that we participate in and how we can intervene to change these systems so that they are designed and operated to benefit the ecosystem which we inhabit and not destroy it. This intervention will involve a change in the economic and lifestyle incentives which will cause some conflict because change is not desired by everyone. Change disturbes the status quo. Change upsets the apple cart, it goes against the grain, it has a destabilizing impact on the system whose current beneficiaries have a vested interest in maintaining.

Changing the current system will take patience and persistence and a tolerance for blow back. Those with a vested interest will not accept the changes lightly and cooperatively because the rewards of the current system will no longer be forthcoming.

Will people embrace the necessary changes or avoid them or resist them or obstruct them? Probably a little of all four, but change is evitable while progress is optional. We will either continue to foul our nest and eliminate the lives of many species or we will embrace change and not only survive but thrive.

Unitarian Univeralists covenant together to affirm and promote respect for the interdependent web of existence, and justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.

Lenten Reflections, Day Five, The first Sunday of Lent, Will you follow the example of Jesus?

Day Five, First Sunday of Lent

Following the example of Jesus or accepting the counterfeit offerings of the ego?

Jesus Is Tested in the Wilderness, Matthew 4: 1-11
4 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted[a] by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’[b]”
5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands,  so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’[c]”
7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’[d]”
8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’[e]”
11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.

The three temptations of Jesus were material things (bread), arrogance and pride, and political power over others. Jesus is a smart guy and He sees through the illusory and empty promises of the ego. Jesus knows crap when it is offered to Him. Jesus is choosing the path of the spirit instead of the path of the ego.

The ego offers Jesus the things of the ego world and Jesus has the presence of mind to side step and rise above these offerings because He chooses something more important. Jesus chooses the Love of God over the things of the ego world. Jesus gives up the illusory pleasures of the ego in favor of something much more authentic, genuine, and fulfilling.

Jesus tells the ego that the ego’s offerings are not enough for there is something far more important to HIm which He has put His faith in. The purpose of Lent is not to inflict deprivation, but to remind us that we have the power of choice to choose a way of life which is much more fulfilling and honest than the ways of the world. Lent is about reminding us of our power to choose between the illusory things society has conditioned us to choose for what it considers worldly comfort and success or things of the Spirit which are genuine and eternal.

What are you choosing this Lent? Will you follow the example of Jesus and choose the things of the Spirit or will you choose to follow the suggestions of the ego?