Chronicle of a Silence Endured. Guido da Verona
Thomas Aquinas
We do not know God because we cannot think like Him.
People hurt each other immeasurably (as they always have and will) in making a permanent home out of that boat in their tiny little hearts and minds – what they don’t know better. There is no justification for fear, lack of faith, pride, and the inability to believe without seeing. Ego. I say without seeing because once you do see through the eyes of spirituality, detachment, you do not need to measure or compare yourself to anyone or anything. You are you, and they are they, and competition becomes contribution. And that is the real measure that is needed to tell if someone has truly arrived to the other side of the lake; when they finally break free of the conditioning that dictates for them who and what God is, or who and what they are in life.
…the belief in God is frequently exploited to justify self serving causes, and religion is often the vehicle used to defend and rationalize otherwise indefensible behavior. In most cases it is not the religion that is to blame, it is its interpretation …spirituality…serves as a prerequisite for all values that are measurable.
-Nicholas R. Lessa
An imperfect, creaking, leaking, dysfunctional boat; if anyone challenges or questions it, it’s off to war. Do we really think that we are reinventing the proverbial wheel by comparing, then despairing, and then killing? Man has been reinventing the religious wheel for thousands of years all to no avail at all. A quick glance at the state of the majority of religious institutions today will affirm how much progress, or lack thereof, has been made.
Question: Is there such a thing as a justifiable war?
How about a winnable war?
Given all the good that religious institutions do, the more that people identify with them, the more attached to them they grow. And, as the attachment closes more and more mental and spiritual doors, which is the nature of attachment, the more arrogant, the more belligerent, the more insecure grows the mindset, and the more punishment, betrayal, secrecy and even war become viable solutions to the world’s problems. Religion then becomes radicalized. It’s a magnificent phenomenon actually. I challenge you to look at the state of the world today and then claim that religious institutions have not failed in making mankind more spiritual, more detached from all the material.
This mysterious element is not naturally born out of religion or religious institutions by themselves, but rather rises like a storm within the heart of anyone who turns their religious practices and doctrines into a twisted thing.
Anthony De Mello brilliantly explains:
You are a sleeping scientist. You mean you understand what Jesus Christ is and you don’t know who you are? How do you know that you have understood Jesus Christ? Who is the person doing the understanding? Find that out first…It’s because we haven’t understood this that we’ve got all these stupid religious people involved in all these stupid religious wars – Muslims fighting against Jews, Protestants fighting Catholics, and all the rest of that rubbish. They don’t know who they are, because if they did, there wouldn’t be wars.
The questions man needs to ask himself are these:
“Is God in my heart?”
“Is my Church divisive and exclusive, or is it inclusive?”
Be careful, because saying that your doors are open to all is not the same as inviting or being inviting to all. You can say to a friend, “Feel free to come by any time, my doors are always open.” Or you can say something that rings of a true invitation, “Why don’t you come over tomorrow, I will prepare a meal for you.”
“Am I over-preoccupied with the sins and personal histories of others? Do I believe that human beings are only worth the sum total of their sins? Am I racist? Am I homophobic? Am I misogynistic? Am I bitter and narrow-minded? Do I have a loud, ignorant, and cursing tongue?
The only reason people curse (and everyone is guilty of this) is because they lack the vocabulary to say what they mean at that moment, and it is also a sign for a lack of prayer. Yet, if we were so well versed in our holier-than-thou religion, we should have a rather extended vocabulary with which to express ourselves, should we not?
Do I make sure all my good acts in and out of church are performed in public for all to see?”
And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.
-Matthew 6:5 NIV
Spirituality, similarly, possesses its own mysterious element; the element of detachment which, by contrast, transforms itself into humble service – and so it gets involved with people in the street who are begging for money, who have lost their faith, who are plagued with the cancer of loneliness, who have been outcast by their families, who are homeless, who are substance addicted, who suffer mental and physical anguish in the remote corners of streets, bus stations and hospitals with no one to hold their hand. Spirituality races towards those who have not yet forgiven and who have bitterness in their hearts, yet seek acceptance, love, forgiveness, and knowledge. Spirituality is impervious to racism, classism, favoritism, separatism, sexual orientation, religious background, and the like.
Spirituality is too busy doing right with right-mindedness to be counting the numbers of, and measuring the gravities of a neighbor’s sins. It is only concerned with the good, the health, the justice, and healing of the world. Spirituality is the archaeologist who digs down deep to find meaning and purpose for all who seek it, whether they may deserve it or not. Spirituality is the absence of judgment and self-righteousness. Spirituality is the carrying on of the example of Jesus.
So, where organized religion may seek to add, to divert, to make complex, spirituality seeks to subtract, to focus, and to simplify, in order to gain ground in understanding and compassion. It discovers more by removing than it ever could by adding. And where religion is a practice, spirituality is a personality trait; it is a way of being in the world.
Anthony De Mello continues:
An openness to the truth, no matter what the consequences, no matter where it leads you and when you don’t even know where it’s going to lead you. That’s faith. Not belief, but faith. Your beliefs give you a lot of security, but faith is insecurity…and mind you, being open does not mean being gullible…you’ve got to challenge everything…but challenge it from an attitude of openness.
Spirituality understands all too well that since we cannot know God, the words contained in the bible are a mere hint. They are an array of magnificent colors used to describe in very limited fashion what God is. They are not meant to be clung to for dear life, for salvation, and declare wars over, or for you to get on its shoulders and call yourself tall above your brothers and sisters.
The words in the bible are not a concrete thing, and there inlies the real danger and problem.
Religion, by definition, takes God and places Him inside a book, or a cathedral, where He can be observed, monitored, read. The process now simply becomes one of behavioral conditioning, where the religious control and respond to their environment, reinforcing the wanted behaviors so that they may be repeated and passed on as tradition and ritual, and punishing the unwanted behaviors accordingly, so that they may be discontinued. Free thinking souls are viewed as a menace, and therefore do not belong to the ‘faith’, or what is worse, are accused of being against God Himself.
Think about that for a minute.
How stupid to concretize words, biblical or not.
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.
-Romans 10, 9-10 NIV
Words have always been and always will be an area of danger for humankind, especially these days where it seems anything said