So many ulterior motives for war in the Middle East

 There is a paradox to the notion, as with each and every notion, that, too much of it transforms into a sabotage. If faith in God can and does ennoble courage, confidence and risk taking beyond one’s limited character, it can and does also impel and tragically motivate one to undertake more than one is capable of managing, enduring and curtailing.

The mutually shared desire, if not commitment, of both Iran and Israel to eliminate the other from the planet, (Israel merely diagnoses Iran as an existential threat while Iran declares it committed to the eradication of the state of Israel) has multiple layers of soil and roots from which it has been incubated, nurtured, grown and once again exploded.

With 99% of its population committed to the Twelver Ja’afari Shia branch of Islam, the official state religion, and Israel a declared Zionist Jewish state, the religious differences are deep and profound. Following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran shifted to viewing Israel as an open enemy viewing it as an artificial, illegitimate state having been established by Western (read American) imperialism, Previously, Iran had been a cold war ally of the United States. However, Iranians have held, for a long time a deep-seated resentment of British imperialism through both the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Considered the ‘wily old fox in Iran, Britain too is deeply distrusted for having aided in the 1953 coup to overthrow the democratically elected  Prime Minister Mohammed Massaddegh after he nationalized the oil industry.

From The Times of Israel, in a piece entitled, Why Does Iran Hate Israel? November 7, 2024, by Michael Laitman (A Kabbalist), we read:

Iran is a superpower that wants to rule, if not the world, then at least the Middle East. Israel, even though it is no superpower, stands in its way. It is no religious matter, but Iran views Israel’s powerful presence in the Middle East as a major problem. Iran also has a lot of internal problems, so on the one hand, it seems unclear why they constantly deal with Israel instead of solving their own problems. On the other hand, focusing on their own problems requires a major overhaul, which is of no interest to Itan’s rulers. They thus find it much easier, and see it as a much better option, to focus their attention on Israel…….I do not think that Iran is truly a Muslim country. As much as I know Iranians personally, I can say that they are well educated and well mannered, and that free Iranians and free Jews hold several similarities in their character. While their regime disallows such expressions, the many Iranians I know personally, whom I have good recollections of, are quite sympathetic to Israel.

ICAN is the International Campaign to stigmatise, prohibit and eliminate (Against) Nuclear Weapons. Its website lists the countries which have nuclear weapons. On the list which includes Russia, United States, China, Fance, United Kingdom, Pakistan, India North Korea, is the name of Israel.

From the website of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, nti.org, we read:

Faced with accusations of  nuclear weapons pursuits in violation of its Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) commitments, Iran concluded a 2015 agreement, (the JCPOA), to restrict its nuclear program. However the 2018 U.S wthdrawal from the deal and subsequent Iranian violations cast doubt on the deal’s future. In June 2025, Israel conducted extensive air attacks against Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities. The United States also conducted air and missile strikes on the Iranian nuclear  facilities at Natanz, Isfahan, and Fordow. Iran retaliated y firing approximately 530 ballistic missiles and more than 1,000 drones against Israel, and also firing 14  missiles against the U.s Al Udeid airbase in Qatar….

In February 2024, Iran announced the start of construction of four new nuclear power plants with a total capacity of 5,000 megawatts. Iran plans to produce 20,000 megawatts of nuclear energy by 2041.

Iran argues vehemently that its program of nuclear energy production is for peaceful purposes, for generating power. However, the IAEA says (it) cannot assure Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively peaceful. On February 27, 2026, in piece bearing the above title, we read:

The UN nuclear watchdog warned it will not be in a position to provide assurance that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively peaceful unless Tehran restores access to key facilities, according to confidential reports seen by Bloomberg and the Associated Press. International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi said the agency has been unable to verify the  status and location of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium since military strikes by the United States and Israel hit several nuclear sites in June.

From Current Affairs, (currentaffairs.org), in a piece entitled, Wait, Why Is Israel Allowed to Have Nukes? By Alex Skopic, we read:

But there is a sword of Damocles hanging over this whole situation, one nobody wants to acknowledge. If the possibility that Iran might get a nuclear weapon is so scary, why do none of our leaders seem to be worried about Israel, which already has a secretive nuclear arsenal of its own, and is acting more violently unstable by the day?....According to estimates by the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, published recently in the New York Times, Israe has ‘at least 90 (nuclear) warheads and enough fissile material to produce up to  hundreds more….The Israelis warheads can be delivered in a variety of ways, including by U.S. made fighter jets, by German made ‘Dolphin’ submarines, and by a variety of missiles-including the Jericho 3, an intercontinental missile (ICBM) that came online in 2011. ….Israel has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, (NPT) despite United Nations resolutions that it should do so…..And most importantly, it leaders refuse to allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to access Dimonia,* so we have no way of knowing what’s going on there.

*Dimonia is the location of a secret refining of plutonium facility.

From  2025, following the June attack by the U.S. and Israel on Iran’s nuclear facilities, again from the ICAN website, in a piece entitled, ‘The U:nsustainable Reason Behind Who can Have Nuclear Weapons and Who Can’t, June 16, 2025, by Alex Gallagher, SBS News, we read:

Iran has consistently denied it is developing nuclear weapons, saying its uranium enrichment program is exclusively for peaceful purposes such as energy, and international assessments have found no evidence that Iran, over the past 20 years, has had an active nuclear weaponization program. Iran is also one of the signatories to the United Nations-backed Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Weapons (NPT). Israel is not, despite international pressure and remains the only country in the Middle East widely believed to possess nuclear weapons.

Today, the U.S. and Israel started bombing Iran showering missiles, bombs, drones and who knows what else on their land, facilities and people. Declaring an overt desire to create the conditions necessary for ‘regime change’ without being able either to predict or to respond to whatever responses Iran may be considering, (already military action has been reported in several Middle East countries, especially where the United States has military bases. From a position of length and insightful observation and reflection on the state of the world, from the perspective of a Russian ex-pat, enemy of Putin, Garry Kasmarov has a highly insightful observation today reported on RDI, Renewing Democracy International. In a piece entitled, What to Make of Events in Iran, Garry Kasparov writes:

As with Venezuela, an attempt to end the brutal terrorist regime in Iran is a worthy endeavor. But also with Venezuela, Trump may be looking for personal advantages that leave Iranians unable to seize the opportunity to live in freedom that all people deserve. But I hope you also expressed outrage overt eh tens of thousands of Iranians slaughtered recently by the Islamic Republic for protesting their basic human rights. No dictatorship is legitimate. It will be quite something if Trump succeed in ousting the dictatorships of Venezuela, Iran and Cuba, all the while taking the side of their patron and partner, Putin’s Russia. Perhaps he wants to be Putin’s only friend.

The inter-connection of world events, seen through the eyes of a Putin-enemy and prosecutor cannot be ignored or under-valued. And the hidden, so far, hand of men like Putin and Xi and perhaps even Kim, in this most recent military action also cannot be dismissed.

The world, sitting on ‘pins and needles’ as expected while these flurries of weaponry and the whims of their political manipulators continue to ‘swirl’ around us, will have to be content to attempt to live with whatever ramifications erupt, over which no one has either antidote or calming thoughts and plans, especially those deeply and inexplicably enmeshed in their war games.

Searching for God # 88

 What is, if any, the relationship between the ‘church’ and what I will call provincialism, parochialism, and what the church loves to call community?

There is  a Hallmark Card iteration of community in an urban/rural tension that is illustrated by a young professional returning to his/her home-town, after graduation and working in one or other of the big cities. Predictably, there is a former girl/boy friend either waiting and regretting a previous ‘lost relationship’ or somehow connected by family, providing the love interest. Plus, there are the also predictable ‘values’ of family, tradition, dietary memories, some business/estate needing recovery or bequeathing and a generally ‘warm-fuzzy-heart-and-hearth’ ethos and feeling of reconnecting and re-appreciation of the previously departed and returning young adult. Mis-communication, fragile emotions and/or some minor ‘glitch’ offers a turning point of minor tension just prior to the resolved and amicable love-interest-consummation at the end of the film.

Nostalgia, revived recollections of former happy days, and some usually pleasant shared events, meals, menus and festivities form the activity-menu of the plot. Many middle and upper-middle class young people have some identification with the template. What is not often included in these vignette-pieces is that many also have some early church affiliation, with the Bible stories, hymns, religious festivals and liturgies that fill out the theological, ecclesial and ‘community’ template of a religious background.

Family and church interwoven in a pastiche of ‘good times’ where basic morality, ethics, and religious ‘foundations’ were presented and integrated to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the young person’s individual preference. Parents, it was assumed, had already adopted the basic ‘terms’ of the template. In medieval times in Europe, churches were erected and formed the focal point of each and every little community almost as a mandated necessity for all inhabitants. Colonial times in North America saw a replication of the European, and especially Great Britain model, evolving into bifurcations of denominations. Indeed, early settlements in North America linked church, school and family, as ‘civilizing’ confluences, population development motivations and skill-development training.

Communities of ‘interest’ were also communities of survival; togetherness offered the needed protections from various forms of ‘enemy’ be they political, tribal, commercial, or even religious, in a narrow sense. And without in any way denigrating the principle that we all need ‘others’ for our early development as well as for our long-term survival needs, there are some aspects of the religious-tribal-menu that have less than admirable tentacles decades later.

For one, the perspective of ‘community’ is bounded by a geographic, cultural, ethnic, racial and religious moat. And, within that image of the moat, there are even mini-moats, segregating one religious group or sect from others. It is an extension of the Babel story, where multiple languages were divisive and also defining. The principle of ‘taking care of one’s own’ originates, with the best of intentions, given the urgency of need and the paucity of resources. Circumscribed, too were the communities through a gap in communication from ‘outside’ communities. Islands of opinion, convention, culture, religious belief, worship and pride, and the social hierarchies that built them and mutually sustained those hierarchies painted a picture of stability, security, normalcy and predictability. Weather, plagues, viruses, scarcity and/or plenty of food and growing families were the basic menu of the communities, irrespective of their racial, linguistic, social, ethnic and religious affiliations.

Of course, energetic explorers, of the geographic and scientific kind naturally began to search out ‘the limits’ of what the community ‘knew’ or perceived to be the range of perception, learning and understanding. Inevitable tensions, conflicts and the occasional consensus evolved and devolved from such excursions. And, invariably, within the community, there were the predictable tensions about the pro’s and the con’s of such ventures.

Whether for trade, or for military aggrandizement, or for accession to a human need to ‘stretch’ outside the boundaries of known experience, new invasions, wars, empires and cultural blendings left their heritage footprints among the ruins of temples, monasteries, battlements and the like. Similarly, in and through speeches, and writings eventually, ideas, theories, equations and even relationships with the gods and eventually one God, spread while all the time absorbing nuances and arguments for and against previously held concretized assumptions, beliefs and perceptions. A flat world eventually gave way to a 3-D globe with other universes ‘above’ and ‘below’ and the process of attempting to integrate the previously held religious beliefs, attitudes and perceptions with the new awareness comprised a process that continues into the 21^st century.

Churches generally enjoyed and relished in a dominant, if not actually supreme position within many communities and provided decades, if not centuries of control, influence and power over morality, ethics, and belief inside. So deep and profound was this degree of ‘superiority’ and exclusivity, that even the publishing of the Bible, and the concomitant dispersal of the text among the uneducated, illiterate in many cases laity shot the church’s anxiety meter through the roof. No longer would the ‘clergy’ have absolute control over what was meant by those ‘holy’ words. Indeed, history is strewn with stories of the lives of those who disagreed with church ‘doctrine’ ‘dogma’ and even church praxis. The ordination of women continues to divide and seriously impact the lives of those who support the full ordination of women from the church’s countenance, membership and access to the Mass. Similarly, the question of the admissibility, tolerance, and ordination of the LGBTQ+ community is today’s version of ‘another divide’ evoking memories of the church’s endorsement of slavery.

Tradition, shared participation in holy days, religious celebrations and rituals, think baptism, confirmation, marriage, and the funeral liturgy, in very personal moments of individual lives, along with the church calendar of events memorializing much of the life of Jesus, prior to and subsequent to the Crucifixion and Resurrection. The  ‘communities’ shared treasuring of these stories and their meaning, generally remained static, without evolving over time, in the public mind.

From the perspective of some in the church, however, there have been shifts both in emphasis and perception of both the narrative of Jesus’ life and the interpretation of His purpose and meaning subsequent to the Resurrection.

Leonardo Boff begins his Jesus Christ Liberator, A Critical Christology of our Time, with the question he says each of us must face: “Who do people say that I am?” He writes: Anyone who at some time has become interested in Christ cannot avoid similar questioning. Each generation must answer with the context of its own understanding of the world, of the human person and of God. (p.1)

Segmenting off various perceptions and interpretations, Boff begins with what he calls imperturbable faith: To imperturbable faith the answer is quite clear: Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, the only begotten and eternal Son of God, sent as man to liberate us from our sins; in him are fulfilled all the prophecies made to our fathers; he executed a pre-ordained plan; his sorrowful death on the cross was a part of his plan; he fulfilled, even unto death, the will of the Father; though dead he arose, thereby making it clear that his claim to be the Son of Man, the Son of God, and the Messiah was substantiated and genuine….This is the image of the dogmatic Christ.

Next Boff parses what he calls the ‘era of criticism’.

He writes:

The eighteenth century, however, saw the breakthrough of critical reason. People began to question the social and religious models of interpretation. Historical studies, based on serious research or original sources, unmasked dominant myths and ideologies. The questions did not stop when faced with the New Testament. People saw immediately that in the case of the Gospels we are not dealing with historical biographies about Jesus but with the witness of faith, the fruit of preaching, the pious and self-interested meditation of the primitive community. The Gospels are above all a theological interpretation of the events rather than an objective and disinterested description of the historical Jesus of Nazareth. This discovery operated like a fuse setting a fire that even today is not yet fully extinguished….The question imposes itself: Should we look for the historical Jesus which is at the base and root of the dogmatic Christ? (p.2)

After digressing into the question of whether or not Jesus actually existed, and concurring unequivocally that He did, Boff then asserts in a sub-head, these words: “There Is Not, Nor Can There Be,  a Single Biography of Jesus.” He concludes this section in these words:

(E)ach author (of the New Testament) seeks within his pastoral, theological, apologetic and vital preoccupations to respond in his own way to the question: ‘Who do men say that I am?’ Each sacred writer sees the same Jesus –but with his own eyes. With such material transmitted to us through the intermediary of the New Testament we cannot construct a biography of Jesus that would be historically and scientifically clear.(p.6-7)

Borrowing from Rudolf Bultmann, Boff writes:

From the fact that historical exegesis failed to reconstruct a precise historical Jesus of Nazareth, Rudolf Bultmann draws an ultimate consequence: We should definitely abandon such attempts and concentrate exclusively on the Christ of Faith. Yes, the methods of historical criticism have given us some secure information about the historical Jesus even though they do not allow us to reconstruct a biography. But such information is irrelevant to faith, because it presents Jesus as a Jewish prophet who preached a radical obedience, demanded conversion, and announced the pardon and proximity of the kingdom. Jesus is not a Christian but a Jew, and his history does not pertain to Christianity but to Judaism: ‘The message of Jesus is a presupposition of the theology of the New Testament rather than a part of that theology itself.’ …Bultmann insists on a distinction between the ‘so-called historical Jesus and the Christ of biblical history….He urges that we distinguish between plain historical (historisch) data and interpreted historical (geschichtlich) data, between Jesus and Christ. Jesus refers to the man of Nazareth, whose life critical historiography attempted in vain to reconstruct. ‘Christ is the Savior, the Son of God announced by his church through the Gospels. (p.6,7,8)

Quoting from R. Bultmann, Verhaltnis, p.6, W. Kunneth, Glauben en Jesus? Christologie und modern Existenz (Munich-Hamburg, 19690, pp.79-86, we read in Boff:

1.Instead of the historical person of Jesus, te mythical figure of the Son of God entered into the apostolic teachings (kerygma).

2. Instead of the eschatological preaching of Jesus concerning the kingdom of God there entered into the kerygma the proclamation of the Christ who died crucified for our sins and was marvelously resurrected by God for our salvation. Jesus preached the kingdom; the church preaches Christ. The preacher is now the preached.

3. Instead of radical obedience and total living out of love demanded by Jesus there now entered the doctrine about Christ, the church, the sacraments. What Jesus put in the first place now comes second; ethical parenesis (in place of a parent). (Boff. Op. Cit. p. 8-9)

And Boff then concludes:

What then is Christology? ‘Not a doctrine concerning the divine nature of Christ,, but an announcement, a call of faith inviting me to believe, to take up the cross of Christ, and thus justified, to participate in the resurrection….For example, what does it mean to believe in the cross of Christ? It does not mean to believe in some bygone fact that happened to Jesus. Rather is means ‘making the cross of Christ one’s own cross, that is, letting yourself be crucified with Christ. To believe in the Crucified is to wrench oneself away from oneself. Salvation is to be found in this. Christology is thus reduced to soteriology.  Christology is ‘the explanation of the Christian understanding of being,’ ‘an explanation of the understanding that faith has of new being, the remainder consists of mythological representations and cultic concepts from Hellenic syncretism. (Boff again borrowing from Bultman, on p.9-10)

To be continued……

Searching for God # 87

 First, we stop pretending that spiritual discipline is separate from public life.

This challenge from Reverend Alison Burns-Lagreca, from yesterday’s post here, is fraught with potential controversy. Spiritual discipline not being separate from public life is a challenge to the status quo in the church. Effectively it says that our public life is directly, intimately and inescapably connected to our spirituality and vice versa. And in Lent this year, it asks that we stop pretending that it is separate.

It is the pretension of separation of spiritual discipline from public life that my experience within the church (primarily Episcopalian and Anglican, originally Presbyterian) has bothered me for decades, and it is certainly not restricted to any one denomination. (From a distance, my experience with the United Church of Canada is qualitatively different, in that my of my UCC friends have been quite active in social justice, refugee assistance and food banks and other social services, as an integral component of their spirituality.) Anglicans and Episcopalians have honoured the Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund (PWRDF) has focused on maternal health, food security, and HIV/AIDS preventions in the developing world. In 2024, it took on a new name: Alongside Hope: Anglicans and partners working for change in Canada and around the world. Focusing on issues in the developing world is very different, politically and psychologically as well as spiritually, from political activism within the nations of North America specifically.

The public life we are both witnessing and experiencing directly and indirectly really leaves us no choice but to cease with the pretending there are not connected. During the nineties, one of the more prominent themes in the church was the escalating voice of women demanding ordination, and full acceptance within the church hierarchy. And while that voice has resulted in some political gains with many ordained female clergy, and several female bishops, in North America and in the UK, there is considerable consternation in Africa and among some already defected clergy in North America, Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, Wales, Kenya and South Sudan. The new Archbishop of Canterbury, Reverend Sarah Mulally was appointed on January 28, 2026.

GAFCON, (Global Anglican Future Conference, or Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans) is a conservative movement opposing what it terms ‘revisionist’ theology in the Anglican communion, specifically the acceptance of homosexuality, same-sex relationships, marriage and blessings. It opposes the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the consecration of female bishops advocating for a male-only clergy. This movement justifies its positions through what it considers the inerrancy of scripture.

Sexuality continues to divide the church, and there are some who argue that the Anglican/Episcopalian church may not survive. Clearly, unequivocally, and without either apology or shame, this scribe stands with the progressive, liberal, cohort of church clergy and laity. (In several places in this space, I have argued that the church needs to let go of its attempt, all attempts, to control and litigate, monitor and supervise human sexuality!)

Certainly, the question of sexuality is central to the public life of all nations in 2026, on so many different levels. Embracing all human beings with love, in following the model depicted by Boff, in the last post here, includes all gender identities along with several other categories of people most of whom would not qualify even for human recognition, except perhaps as a statistic in a demographic map for law enforcement and politicians. And in the spirit of Jesus incarnate and his disciples both Burns-Lagreca and Boff, the loving embrace of undocumented immigrants, refugees, homeless, and those suffering from addiction and/or mental illnesses is also mandated by the Christian faith, as considered from the liberal theological perspective. One’s active participation in these social, political, economic and ethical/moral issues is intimately connected to and related with one’s spiritual life and discipline.

With Boff and Burns-Lagreca this scribe is in solidarity. Clearly, with GAFCON, this scribe is in direct and unequivocal opposition. And even in that divide, in its recognition, exposure and reflective consideration, one participates in the public life of both the church and the state. Any argument that separates church and state, outside of the legal definitions and boundaries, is untenable, unsustainable and somewhat irresponsible especially in light of the current United States’ administration’s policies, attitudes, actions and contempt for their list of voiceless, dismissable, men, women and children whom they are arresting, incarerating, deporting and even killing.

Call the administration’s approach ‘ethnic cleansing’ rather than ‘removing all the worst among us’ is closer to the truth. Calling it fascistic, as opposed to enhanced law enforcement of immigration policy, also comes closer to its full venality. Both goals and methods of this administration are reprehensible, despicable, untenable, and, for the legal-beagles, unlawful. And opposing the gestalt of the programs’ multiple and continuing tragedies has become an act of spiritual discipline as well as public activism. The Episcopal Bishop of Rhode Island, Rt. Rev. Robert Herschfield urges clergy to meet the political moment, and ‘make sure they have their wills written. In a piece in nhpr.org (New Hampshire Public Radio), January 13, 2026, by Julia Furukawa and Michelle Liu, we read:

A call to action from one New Hampshire faith leader-urging clergy to  prepare for ‘a new era of martyrdom’ amid escalating aggression from federal immigration authorities-is drawing national attention….At the vigil, Herschfield invoked instances throughout history when clergy members put their lives at risk to protect the vulnerable—including New Hampshire seminary student Jonathan Daniels, who was killed by a sherriff’s deputy in Alabama during the civil rights movement. I have told the clergy of the Episcopal diocese of  New Hampshire that we may be entering into that same witness,’ Herschfield said. ‘And I’ve asked them to get their affairs in order, to make sure they have their wills written, because it may be that now is no longer the time for statements, but for us with our bodies, to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable.

The Bishop was speaking directly to the clergy of his diocese. Rev. Burns-Lagreca is writing to her parishioners and readers, beyond the members of the ordained clergy. Common to both ‘prayers’ is the astounding, incomprehensible, inexcusable and intolerable approach, both in policy and in action, that this administration is deploying as elected representatives of the American people.

For centuries, the church’s responsibility as moral compass, based not merely on ethical/moral philosophy, but on religious and spiritual apprehension, perception and belief and loyalty, has been to give a voice to the voiceless. Today, the numbers and layers of reasons/causes that result in the various classes of voiceless among us, have only grown to proportions and dimensions that are not only  unjustified but also intolerable. And the government’s deliberate, planned, organized and deeply funded abuse of these men women and children has only been infused with political, racial, and even religious hatred, bigotry and contempt.

Deliberate, organized, planned, executed and criminal cruelty by those in power evokes memories of other programs of ethnic cleansing, racial extinction and the Third Reich. While the West has not been able to avoid ‘never again’ with respect to military action following World War II, perhaps the clergy are determined to adopt a different, proactive, courageous, faith-driven, and creatively confrontative non-violent opposition to evil that is being enacted right before our eyes and our cameras and microphones. Mandela, Ghandi, Tolstoy, Boff, Gutierrez, Sobrino, Segundo, and we can humbly suggest  Archbishops Tutu, Scott, and Rowan Williams would likely support the Archbishop of New Hampshire as well as the blog of Reverend Burns-Lagreca of New Jersey, and the bishops of all American dioceses who have signed a letter of solidarity in support of the refugees, immigrants, and in opposition to the policies and tactics of Homeland Security and ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement).

The exponential growth of what amounts to a private, publicly funded law-enforcement agency, in addition to the national guard, as well as the full range of military forces and options, all of them under the ‘command of the occupant of the Oval Office, is a spectre with which the whole world is having to confront.

New national security alliances, for example between Canada and Germany, while appropriate and necessary, along with new trading partners among middle-powers especially, are only part of the legitimate, responsible and creative non-violent confrontations of the disturbing turbulence facing the world’s geopolitical leaders, and all of that turbulence, too, is coming from the depths of the same administration that is wreaking havoc domestically in the United States.

Are the clergy in other lands watching and reflecting on their ‘spiritual discipline’ as it potentially impacts public and civic duty, public policy and the abuse of power that they are witnessing in their respective jurisdictions? Clearly the Russian Orthodox hierarchy, in its support of the illegal, unjust and unjustified invasion of Ukraine by Putin has turned a blind eye to this horrendous merciless and inhumane tragedy. Are the clergy in western countries prepared to take a lead from their American peers, and begin to ‘put their bodies on the line’ escalating their non-violent and creative confrontation of evil by force against Putin, Netanyahu, Orban, and Kim and Xi, Hamas, Hezbollah and their Iranian bankers?

There is a clear and undeniable link between those who are determined to abuse their political and their military power, deploying policies, practices, strategies and tactics which are intolerable, unjustifiable and heinous, and must be stopped. The unified, body-driven creative, non-violent confrontation of their commitment to evil by force, by clergy from all major world religions would go a long way to ameliorating, if not eliminating the nefarious, unsupportable and unjustified use of forces, lies, weapons and the immunity of their agents.

Religion, theology, spiritual discipline and the public square have never been more in direct, open, and unsustainable opposition.

Have we all written our wills, and have we all prepared to put our bodies on the line, instead of merely writing statements like those in this space?

We do not have to read the same holy books, nor worship in the same liturgical manner, nor use the same name for God in order to perceive, recognize and begin to mobilize in a non-violent, creative confrontation of evil by force. No faith community escapes the ravages of the evil that is being inflicted. And no faith can truly claim immunity from pretending that spiritual discipline is separate from public life. And this kind of spiritual discipline is easily and necessarily distinguishable from any hidden or overt desire to impose Sharia Law on new lands and peoples.

Giving voice to the voiceless, in a disciplined spiritually motivated non-violent manner is a positive, egalitarian, non-sectarian and non-violent supportive movement. There is no negative imposition of any religious or legal framework on anyone.

Searching for God # 86

 We are not entering Lent with neat spiritual goals. We are entering Lent with social dis-ease lodged in our chests. With rage we don’t know what to do with. With helplessness that threatens to harden into cynicism. With the terrible knowledge that people are suffering right now, and we are implicated in systems that enable it.

So how do we hold it all at once?

First, we stop pretending that spiritual discipline is separate from public life.

Lent is not about giving up chocolate while ignoring cruelty. It is about examining what has captured our loyalty. It is about asking what we have allowed to anesthetize our conscience. It is about noticing where comfort has made us quiet.

By: alisonburnslagreca@substack.com, blog entitled, Thoughts, Prayers and Art in a piece entitled Ashes in the Time of Disappearance: A Lenten Reckoning On Bearing Witness Without Burning Out by Rev. Allison Burns-LaGreca, Feb. 18, 2026. Reverend Alison Burns Lagreca is an Episcopal priest and spiritual director, St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Stone Harbor, New Jersey, stmarysstoneharbor.org.

The ritual of Ash Wednesday, today, has Old Testament roots, and contemporary replication among Christians reminding us of our mortality, (Genesis 3:19 For dust you are and to dust you shall return)and also recognizing the first day of Lent, that period of 40-days of wandering in the wilderness attributed to Jesus immediately prior to his Crucifixion. Traditionally signifying and the frailty of life, and often considered from a personal, private ‘relinquishment of a favourite activity’ as a form of sacrifice, however, Reverend, Burns-Lagreca casts the moment in a collective, shared, communal light, exhorting her readers to examine ‘what has captured our loyalty,’.…‘asking what we have allowed to anesthetize our conscience’.

Envisioning our shared misplaced loyalty, through an anesthetized conscience, the piece challenges us, not to merely give up chocolate, or our favourite food, but to examine what is and has happened to the ‘spiritual discipline that is separate us from public life.’

 Recalling the words from Leonardo Boff, in his Liberation Theology (pps. 283-284):

In his attitudes Jesus incarnates the kingdom and fleshes out the love of the Father. It is not simply a humanitarian spirit that draws his to those who no one else will approach: e.g. public sinners, drunkards, the impure, lepers, prostitutes and all those who are alienated socially and religiously. He draws near to them because he is fleshing out in history the loving attitude of the Father toward the lowly and the sinful. Their present situation is not the last word on their life; is it not their final structure. They are not lost for good. God can liberate them.

Jesus’ praxis is eminently social and public in character. It touches the structure of Essenes, nor an observance of the established order like that of the Pharisees. Instead Jesus presents himself as a prophetic liberator.

Jesus’ activity is inscribed in within the religious realm. But since the religious realm constituted one of the basic pillars of the political realm and its power, any intervention in the religious realm had political consequences.

Jesus praxis vis-à-vis religion,, sacred laws, and tradition is truly liberative rather than merely reformist. ‘You have heard…but I tell you.; He relativizes their alleged absolute value. Human beings are more important than the Sabbath and tradition (Mark 2:23-26); salvation is determined by one’s attitude toward other human beings (Matt. 25: 31-46). Jesus shifts the center of gravity insofar as the criteria for salvation are concerned. It is not orthodoxy (belief or doctrine) but orthopraxis (right practice or correct conduct) that counts. He subjects the Torah and the dogmatics of the Old Testament to the criterion of love, thus liberating human practice from necrophilic (dead) structures.

If ever there were a time when the Cross of Ashes on the forehead could and would call men and women to challenge the necrophilic structures that threaten to many realms, right in our collective faces, that time is now.

If ever there were a time when the incarnation of love for ‘those whom no one else will approach’ that time is now.

And, tokenism, including the tokenism of Ashes on Ash Wednesday can be and even must be called out for the dilettantism of the Essenes and the Pharisees.

Casting her lot with the prophetic voice of Jesus, not from a self-righteous, self-adoring or narcissistic perspective, but rather from the most humble and most challenging, socially risky and personally enlivening identifying with those no one will identify with.

This is no day for ‘out of sight out of mind’ of all those men, women and children whose lives have been taken over by a political regime that imprisons with immunity, that enslaves with impunity and that arrests, charges and kills with equanimity.

Profound thanks to Reverend Burns-Lagreca for her insightful, provocative and penetrating piece. We humbly suggest Leonardo Boff sings in the same choir.

Searching for God # 85

 Much of the ruminating that goes on before, during and after these pieces are scribbled, has to do with what some call ‘the opposition to dichotomous thinking’ that methodology underlying what appears to many as an obsessive-compulsive search for perfection. And then, to cloak this pursuit with a theological mantle, even a kind of halo, demonstrates multiple layers of blindness to our own defensiveness. Of course we are all inadequate, incomplete, and surprisingly paradoxical, while at the same time we are walking-talking-believing we are doing the right thing….whatever that might be in each and every situation.

Inserting God into whatever our purported ‘right’ thinking, perceiving, believing, as a way of ‘putting a halo’ on our own perceptions, attitudes and beliefs is, to put it bluntly, playing God…and the degree of unconsciousness of this inclination, leaning, preference and increasingly, certainty of being right forms a kind of crust of social, political, cognitive and even epistemological absolute truth to our thought and perception. Playing God, while busily denying that we are doing it, is, it seems to this scribe, a form of double-jeopardy.

We are all familiar with the single notion of ‘self-sabotage’ that comes from our many mis-steps, both conscious and unconscious, in which we have disappointed ourselves, embarrassed ourselves, and found the disdain of others pouring down on us like a drowning scowl. And the degree of the impact of such scowls depends on many factors including the relationship we had, or thought we had with the ‘scowler’ and our own relationship with previous self-sabotaging incidents.

Authority, its original sources, their trustworthiness, and our attempt to discern their integrity, authenticity and credibility plays a significant role in our attitude to our own self-sabotage. First, however, we have to recognize, acknowledge and both tolerate and even embrace our inescapable, inevitable, predictable and impactful collision with our own self-sabotage. Even the degree to which that tolerance is developed is a path toward releasing the iron-grip of psychic trauma that can and often does accompany moments of crisis in self-sabotage.

Our defensiveness perhaps can be scaled to our openness and consciousness of our inevitability that we will fall flat on our face many times. And, there might well be a positive correlation between our defensiveness and our acceptance and tolerance of our proclivity to screw-up. The greater our defensiveness, the more likely we are to screw-up. The more we are in denial that we are fearful, neurotic, timid, withdrawn or intimidated by our ‘anticipation of a situation’ (not its reality, as it has not as yet unfolded) the greater the likelihood that we will come crashing down on our own false pride.

And, in the midst of our obsession with binary, dichotomous thinking, perceiving and believing, we each continue to reinforce such a pattern on the universe we inhabit. Every day, we hear moans and cries to the effect, ‘We are so deeply divided!” The truth of that existential cry is undeniable. And the layers/causes/issues of the division are both growing in number and in depth. WE have become, in effect the polarities we deplore.

None of us is exclusively a liberal or a conservative. None of us is exclusively a success or a failure. None of us is exclusively a thinker or a feeler, an inventor or a legal expert. None of  us believes, privately and secretly and confidentially, that, whatever we ‘think’ to be the truth is either complete, absolute or unalloyed with our personal subjective interjections, whether or not we acknowledge those subjectivities. Indeed, no single piece of information is without both subjective and objective aspects….irrespective of our attempt to make that purity and perfection rule.

One of the underlying supports for this binary division of reality is our preference for pragmatism and action, as demonstration of our ‘worth’ our ‘value’ and even, in many cases our ‘identity’, Who we are, the question that pores like lava from the mountain of existential thought, has had many social and cultural, cognitive and skilled meanings and iterations over the centuries. Defined often by tasks, hunter-gatherers, warriors, mothers, fathers, teachers, craftsmen and women, traders, sailors, pilots, clergy, ……and the list goes on. These ‘role’ definitions serve, in a way as ‘flags’ to signal what we might expect if and when we encounter one a person in any specific role. Indeed, that might be all we ‘know’ about that person.

Similarly, reputations as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ students along the way have a way of clinging like a worn-out, unclean and somewhat smelly shirt, for those whose path has been strewn with mediocrity. And of course, the reverse is also true; how ‘surprising’ are the stories of those who left school and later turned out to be geniuses, inventors, creators, and leaders.

The degree of surprise, however, is enhanced by our cultural soil of our dependence and reliance and acceptance of the ‘binary’ in the first place. Ilia Malinin’s reputation as a ‘quad-god’ is, like thin ice on a late winter pond, shattered in a four-minute free skate that ‘no one saw coming.’ And the pressure that he acknowledged with grace, along with the grace he showed in congratulating the gold-medal winner from Kazakhstan not only comports with his ‘quad-god’ superiority, and reinforces that reputation going forward. No cry of discrepancy in the scoring here, as there is from the French judge in the dance pairs. Shock for many observers at the Malinin ‘fall from grace’ is cushioned both by the skater’s authentic and humble and graceful acceptance of his own reality…including the profound pressure of the Olympics, compounded inevitably by his previous three years of nearly perfect performances and the expectations that story line generated.

There is, however, a silent aspect to the superiority/inferiority dynamic that receives less attention than it might warrant. Something called reverse snobbery accompanies our binary approach to many perceptions and attitudes. First there is the stereotype of the rich condescending to the poor, similarly the educated condescending to the uneducated. And there is also, although less recognized and exchanged publicly, the inverse, in which the poor dismiss the rich as snobs, creating and enhancing the view that all rich people are snobs, when it is their inverse snobbery that is showing.

Sociological numbers play a significant role in our perceptions of our reality, given that numbers demonstrate patterns of predictability, a commodity revered by both politicians and corporate advertisers. Population groupings of higher numbers of a certain identity tend to generate an air of superiority among that group, based on nothing more than their numbers. In advertising, for example, the 25-45 grouping is the highest earning group, whereas those younger than that demographic and those older are less a focus of advertisements dollars and expectations. While that ‘makes eminent good sense’ for the business planning and marketing budget and decision making, and echoes a pragmatism based on expected and needed profits and returns, it nevertheless, underlines the ‘divisions’ not only of age groupings but also of social importance, political importance and social biases.

Racism, for example, from Caucasian to indigenous or from Caucasian to Black or Hispanic is both rife and clearly in evidence, especially among the law enforcement population. The inverse, prejudice of the minority against the majority is rarely noted, and yet cannot be ignored, given the weight of the oppression of the original biases. Historically, Jews have been the subjects and targets of deep and profound racism, and yet, none of us can deny that racism among Jews is also a reality. A question of whether Jews hate Arabs more than the inverse is one of those questions that brains much more creative and penetrating than this scribe’s are left to ponder. Likely an oscillation of hate between Jews and Arabs finds a preponderance of numbers and weight shifting depending on the moment and the latest war or invasion or bomb.

It is the devolving from the binary to the absolute, especially with respect to hatred, prejudice and contempt that seems most disconcerting and unnerving. American political prejudice and hate for immigrants, for brown and black persona, at the moment echoes the racial superiority and racial cleansing of the Third Reich. And that contempt, at the core of the American administration’s attitude and belief system toward the whole world, continues to ripple across the globe.

If you are not an ally of the current administration, you are assumed to be an enemy, and thereby potentially a target for punishment, incarceration, defunding (think universities) deportation, or ‘withdrawal’ (think Europe, Ukraine,) or colonization (think Greenland, Canada, Panama, and Venezuela? And Cuba?). There are no legitimate arguments for these ‘attitudes’ except the wanton, disabled and debilitating will of a single man. His embodiment of the binary, without anything close to a basis in thought, planning, future global governance in the public interest, seems to come down to a hollow, empty and pitiful and pitiable core self.

And his personification of each and every moment on X, that describes his every primal urge and instinct, gives encouragement to that very approach to everything about life everywhere. Bullying abounds, lies and deception along with a refusal to accept responsibility, strong-armed tactics embolden all of the insecure bullies that haunt the towns and cities, and what is in reality a grade-nine ad hominum spitball fight in the high school cafeteria passes as a Congressional hearing on the Epstein files, starring Pam Bondi.

Debasing the level of language, the level of debate the level of acknowledgement of reality, including official, public, and performative compulsion to ‘own’ and to generate the only truth that matters (to the administration) is a situation in which we have all participated in its seeding, and flowering. We have abandoned the paradox, the spectrum of reality and replaced them with a false and absolute certainty, which we all know is a lie of epic proportions.

But like the mascara and the wrinkle creams that are attempting to defy, and to deny the wrinkles of aging, we accept that lipstick can really cover up a pig….simply because we do not wish to acknowledge that we are as basic and as real and as unpretentious and as fledgling and stupid as that beloved creature.

Can we, or do we even want to, consider how and why we might like to abandon the individual and collective self-sabotage of arrogance, blindness, lies, and pretentions in whose web we are all ensnared?

Even first steps of such an imagining can be seen in the open-door welcome in deep and profound deference, reverence and silence of the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, Barbara Budde, of the Buddhist monks whose walk for peace of some 2300 miles in silence, and in all kinds and degrees of weather, silently shouted a sanity to which we might all bow in reverence. The paradox of their preferential mode of silence in a world going deaf apparently by choice and preference, demonstrates a model of re-thinking of our dependence and reliance, in complicity, on reductionism of ourselves, of our reality, and especially of God.

Searching for God # 84

 Throughout these pieces, the words “imagination” or “creative imagination” have been appearing as central to the search for God. The presence and prevalence of the word imagination comes out of a visceral, intuitive and experiential footing that the church has turned a blind eye to the theological/psychological/spiritual (dare I include political?) significance of the imagination, as perceived and conceived of as ‘subverter, critique, exposer and non-compliant with the ‘establishment’ both literally and metaphorically. Subsequently, I stumbled upon a kind of minor synchronicity, also coming from an intuitive, subjective, and ‘imaginative’ place: taken together that synchronicity embraces  the writing of James Hillman, William Blake, John Keats and Leo Tolstoy, Jay Alison in an obviously amateur, non-professional, non-academic, and non-born-again perspective. Transformative experiences are, undoubtedly the sine qua non of human existence. And, each ‘metanoia’ is considered or not, by each individual, as another episode in one’s faith and spiritual growth.

(Personal anecdote: I was certainly not aware, at sixteen, when I formally, publicly and somewhat brazenly characterized a homily as ‘”BS” because it unequivocally, and I might add self-righteously and hubristically, declared a list of those condemned to Hell including; Roman Catholics, wine-drinkers, movie-goers, dancers, make-up users, and Sunday meal-preparers that I was expressing more than critique of the church’s ‘establishment views as expressed by a Northern Irish protestant bigot. Today, I can acknowledge that there might have been some intuitive, naïve, and green-broke theological perspective that today I might consider “liberation.”)

Seeking truths behind public, conventional, politically correct (and I deemed repressed) small talk, official talk, homiletic deployments and the convergence of minimalist emotions especially and guarded opinions about the ‘state of affairs in the public arena’, lest ‘we,’ the church deter many of the donors from our doors and investment accounts, I kept pressing for others who might have felt, thought, imagined, or even intuited something analogous to my own perceptions. As another tepid step in that journey, I would like to borrow, honour and quote from the writing of Leonardo Boff, specifically from his ‘Jesus Christ Liberator’ published in 1986:

It may seem strange to speak of the creative imagination of Jesus. The church and theologians are not accustomed to express themselves in this manner. Nevertheless, we ought to say that, as the New Testament itself shows us, there are many ways of speaking about Jesus. Is it not possible that for us this category ‘imagination’ may not reveal the originality and mystery of Christ? Many understand little about the imagination and think that it is synonymous with dreams, a daydreamer’s flight from reality, a passing illusion. In truth, however, imagination signifies something much more profound. Imagination is a form of liberty. It is born in confrontation with reality and established order; it emerges from nonconformity in the face of completed and established situations; it is the capacity to see human beings as greater and richer than the cultural and concrete environment than surrounds them; it is having the courage to think and say something new and to take hitherto untreaded paths that are full of meaning for human beings. We can say that imagination, understood in this manner, was one of the fundamental qualities of Jesus. Perhaps in the whole of human history there has not been a single person who had a richer imagination than Jesus…..

He walks among forbidden people and accepts doubtful persons in his company, such as two or three guerillas (Simon, the Canannite, Judas Iscariot, Peter bar Jonah); he gives a complete turnabout to the social and religious framework, saying that the last shall be first (Mark 10:31), the humble shall be masters Matt. 5:5), and tax officials and prostitutes will find it easier to enter the kingdom of heaven than the pious scribes and Pharisees (Matt. 21:33). He does not discriminate against anyone, neither heretics nor schismatic Samaritans (Luke 10:29-37; Jon 4:4-42), nor people of ill repute like the prostitute (Luke 7:36-40), nor the marginalized (sick, leprous, and poor), nor the rich whose houses he frequents even while saying to them, ‘Alas for you who are rich: you have your consolation now’(Luke 6:24). Nor does he refuse the invitation of his indefatigable opposition, the Pharisees, though seven times he takes the liberty of saying to them: ‘Alas for you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites and blind guides’ (Matt.23:13-39). (Boff, op. cit. pps. 91-92)

And then, Boff continues:

The great  difficulty encountered by Jesus in his disputes with theologians and masters of his time consisted precisely in this: We cannot resolve the question concerning what God wants form us by merely having recourse to the Scriptures. We must consult the signs of the times and the unforeseen in a situation (cf. Luke 12:54-57) This is a clear appeal to spontaneity, liberty, and the use of our creative imagination. Obedience is a question of having our eyes open to the situation; it consists of deciding for and risking ourselves in the adventure of responding to God who speaks here and now. The Sermon on the Mount, which is not a law, is addressed to everyone, inviting us to have extremely clear consciences and an unlimited capacity for understanding people, sympathizing with them, being tuned into them, and loving them with all their limitations and realizations.(Ibid, pps. 92-93)

Under a heading, Was Jesus a Liberal? Boff answers in this manner:

He was a ‘liberal’ because in the name of God and in the power of the Holy Spirit he interpreted and appraised Moses, the Scriptures, and dogmatics from the point of view of love, and thereby allowed devout people to remain human and even reasonable…..There is a sin that is radically mortal: the sin against the humanitarian spirit. According to the parable concerning anonymous Christians in Matt, 25:31-46 the eternal judge will not ask people about the canons of dogma, nor whether they made any explicit reference to the mystery of Christ while they lived. He will ask if we have done anything to help those in need. Here all is decided. “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty, a stranger or naked, sick or in prison, and did not come to your help? He will answer them: ‘I tell you solemnly, insofar as you neglected to do this to one of the least of these, you neglected to do it to me’ (Matt.25-44-45). The sacrament of brotherhood is absolutely necessary for salvation…Imagination postulates creativity, spontaneity, and liberty. It is precisely this that Christ demands when he proposes an ideal like the Sermon on the Mount. Here one can no longer speak of laws, but of love that surpasses all laws. (Boff, Ibid, 94-95)

We hear pronouncements out of Washington that the MAGA cult is determined to ‘bring about the kingdom of God on earth’ presumably, from their perspective, during the reign of their fascist king, Donald Trump. It is not only ironic and tragic that the very people they are ‘cleansing’ through arrest, incarceration, and deprivation of human rights are the very people for whom Christ’s message is intended to love and to help. The perspective here is that the precise abusive deployment of power currently at the core of the American governmental administration’s purpose and definition, in a completely, blatantly and unapologetic manner, with immunity and impunity, is targeting the very persons whose needs, concerns and aspirations lie at the heart of the injunctions of the Sermon on the Mount, whether from Boff’s or Tolstoy’s written perspective.

The time has come, in solidarity with various Christian clerics, Bishops and prophets, to put our bodies on the line in opposition, not merely of voices crying the frozen wilderness, nor in the heated confines of the nation’s courts, nor in the pages and screens of the national and local and regional media, but in the asphalt jungles of city streets, the tree-lined malls of city beautification projects, in the bars and pubs, the cafeterias and dining halls, and in the classrooms, the lecture halls, and the sanctuaries of cathedrals, synagogues, mosques and mission churches. This fight ‘to non-violently confront evil with force’ goes far beyond the political language and perspective of so many articulate essayists, television hosts, podcast hosts, editorialists and even scholars whose life-long research has focused on tyranny, tyrants, fascism and the purpose and goals of all things imitating the Third Reich.

The contest also exceeds the limits of what is currently a favourite benchmark in geopolitical circles, ‘an existential threat’….applicable to Ukraine, to Gaza and the Palestinians, and perhaps to places like Sudan, and the Central African Republic of Congo. It also exceeds the ‘existential threat’ of global warming and climate change, and the need to protect and preserve the bounties of the environment that make existence possible.

Boff’s faith supplemented by his imagination in service of his faith extends the potential deployment and recognition of its need and spirit far beyond those who declare themselves, Christian. In a subsection entitled, ‘The Presence of Christ in Anonymous Christians,’ Boff writes:

The resurrected Jesus is present and active in a special way in those who in the vast ambit of history and life carry forward his cause. This is independent of their ideological colorings or adhesion to some religion or Christian belief. Wherever people seek the good, justice, humanitarian love, solidarity, communion, and understanding between people, wherever they dedicate themselves to overcoming their own egoism, making this world more human and fraternal, and opening themselves to the normative Transcendent for their lives, there we can say, with all certainty, that the resurrected one is present because the cause for which he lived, suffered, was tried, and executed is being carried forward. (Boff, ibid, p. 219)

We need to shed the trappings, the vestments of ideology, identity, geography, ethnicity, religion (as defined by sect or denomination) and political affiliation in an aspirational movement in order to ‘confront, non-violently, evil with force’ following in the lens and spirit of Tolstoy, Boff, Gandhi, Mandela, King and many others in a historic and transparent movement in solidarity.

Searching for God # 83

Small confidential safe and secure circles dedicated to searching for God…..does that picture have to be utopian? Can it not be a reasonable, legitimate and attainable proposition among those who are really interested in such a pilgrimage?

The church year, calendar, festivals, Holy Days, and Lectionary can offer a beginning of some structure. And then, and then…..rather than ‘telling or showing’ what ordinary people might want to take away from the readings, the prayers and whatever music might be compatible with the interests, talents and degree of investment of individuals, what about starting with the proposition innate to ‘adult education’….that the learner makes choices about what s/he needs and wants to learn. And there are other starting propositions that might, at first, sound rebellious from a traditional, ecclesial perspective.

That trust between and among men, women and children who agree to participate is both essential as a working  value, and is also suspect as being one of the more elusive, rare, and ephemeral and ineffable and ‘sacred’ aspects of any attempt to search for, anticipate and expect God. And that the generating, sustaining and nurturing of trust, while each person commits to and remains open to his or her own growth as a whole person, offers a unique ‘setting’ for this pilgrimage. Never taken for granted, assumed or even pretended, trust, like love, has to be consistently, deliberately and authentically checked, reinforced and renewed., until, in the reverse of the boiling frog, it is no longer in question.

As a general proposition, with each meeting session a creative balance and blend of both ‘thought and action’ in and around the basic ideas, themes, actions, poetry, and film (if available) from  the lectionary, the Holy Days, the Seasons and the Gospels is envisaged. We can see, for starters, a casual and light-touch deference acknowledged and paid honourably and generously and without restraint, already to two approaches to theology, the Jewish midrash and the Jesuit, action-reflection model of process. Similar deference, respect, application and probing of indigenous spirituality, both in content as well as praxis, of the profound spiritual gifts of all of the world faiths, especially where there are synchronous intersections in language, liturgy and perceptions and attitudes.

These words in this space now are all hypothetical, imaginative and tentative, and not intended to eliminate or even to reduce the active participation of all, to the degree that each finds ‘acceptable’ and ‘comfortable.’ These gestational thoughts are intended as invitations, not to form a ‘church’ organization or institution, at this time, but rather as reflections that might be considered cogent for any shared reflection of like-minded persons, similarly-spirited, and intellectually and emotionally interested in having their own discussions in this ‘light’ and darkness.

In any proposed ‘project’ one of the first tasks of anyone/group offering such a proposal, is to set forth clearly the aims, objectives, goals and aspirations of the group. In this case, there is really only one articulated here:

To live into, to wrestle with, and to steep oneself in a deep and personal and provocative and profound relationship with God, as sketched in and through scripture, tradition and personal insight, imagination and aspiration. And such a search at both personal and group levels needs to remain open to and receptive of and engaged with hope and new life, as it constantly emerges from our dark corners, our imagination, our fears and our deepest anxieties. This seems, at first, to be a tangent from the manner in which ‘evil’ and darkness is perceived, by traditional Christian churches and their worship, as well as an invitation to begin from an openness to all of our shared hopes and dreams, on the one hand, as well as, and dependent on and contiguous with, our crippling and in some cases life-threatening darknesses. In supportive moving toward our unique form and face and voice of discipleship, keeping in mind that while God is and always will be  beyond the specific definition, scope and imagination of each of us, the disciple’s relation to wrong, and evil, and abuse, at the personal as well as at the macro, institutional, and even societal level, (structural evil) is more discernible, recognizable and amenable to ‘non-violence confrontation with force (Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God is Within You). It is as a force for such confrontation with evil that serves as a magnet, not an idol, to which we can be focused and determined to incarnate as an essential component of our personal as well as the world’s ‘salvation’.

 Keeping personal journals, or diaries would be highly recommended. Partnering and mentoring, too, would be highly desirable. None of our personal journeys is considered ‘superior to or inferior to another’s. The ‘rubbing’ up against another, metaphorically, with another who has committed to the shared and interdependent process envisioned, is an integral and essential aspect of each of our pilgrimages. Group expectations regarding aspects like pastoral care within the group and within the wider community, meeting preparation and delivery, child and adolescent mentorship and integration into the group, fiscal minima, discourse and relational guidelines, conflict resolution, between and among participants,…..these all require  consensus agreement, with opportunities for amendment, appeal and reconciliation.

Questions of previous, especially negative experiences within Christian or other ecclesial groups, and how they are to be ‘framed’ in this context, warrant a specific detailed discussion, as mirrors and guidelines to both replicate and reject going forward.

Essentially, a pedagogical, interactive, participatory structure, method, and atmosphere of engaged and committed men, women and children is envisioned as a primary model of organizational self-regeneration, rather than a sanctuary-top-down, hierarchical, and ultimately secret, private and silent foundation. There is always a place in a pilgrimage in search of God for silence, even concentrated silence, guided retreats, private reflections both in writing and in shared private conversation. The changes incurred and experienced by each, (spiritual, cognitive, emotional, relational, on a human level as well as with God) when shared, first with a mentor always without pressure or persuasion, and only and always under full consent, shared with the larger group, offer the pulse and rhythm of the ‘flow’ of both ideas and experiences that serve as guides for both new implementations and the excising of obsolete, or sabotaging aspects of our shared journey.

Metaphorically, ‘we’ can write a shared manuscript of our journey, freely and with full participation and consent, in parallel to our personal, private and introspective journeys.

The traditional modus operandi of the church, top-down, can be reversed, without abandoning the shared search. I had the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of early pilgrims who, when the tides are ‘out’ walk the  3-mile, 90-120-minute  Pilgrim’s Way across the floor of the North Sea to the Island of Lindisfarne, where skeletons of monasteries of St. Anselm and  St. Cuthbert still remain. While participants in our hypothetical ‘circle’ may not be able to make such a physical walk, they/we can explore the influence of men like St Anselm and St. Cuthbert and their profession of faith. As a model of mentorship across-the-centuries, (and there are a plethora of other examples) proximity through study, reflection and dialogue such pilgrims can be brought into a renewed focus, with diligent and creative preparation in which clergy, if available, and laity can all participate.

And while these words are all hypothetical, imaginative and tentative, and not intended to eliminate or even to reduce active participation of all, to the degree that each finds ‘acceptable’ and ‘comfortable.’

In an essay entitled, From radical engraver to canonical poet: how did William Blake’s reputation change?, written by Clemency Fleming, December 4, 2014, found on www.ox.ac.uk, we read:

Blake’s political and religious views were radical, in some respects even by 21^st century standards, and these may have  barred him from mainstream popularity, particularly at a time when Britain and France were still at war. Blake has a sense of a poet as visionary or prophetic figure, said professor Halmi. Someone who had insight into society from the outside, and insight into the spiritual nature of man. He was strongly opposed to slavery and mental tyranny-which for him included organized religion. He considered himself a Christian, and Christian themes are apparent in his works, but he hated what he referred to as the ‘mind-forged manacles’ of the Church. He believed that they were not grounded in truth, and in fact kept people from perceiving the truth as he understood it, whereby a spark of divinity was present in all of humanity…..Northrop Frye, a Canadian critic who tried to demystify Blake, believed that the work can be read as a coherent whole, with the engraved works at its centre. His study, Fearful Symmetry, published in `947, was largely responsible for bringing Blake into the canon. He said quite explicitly that we should think not of Blake as mad, but of the times we live in as mad. For Frye, Blake could offer some sanity to the post-war world.’

 

  

Searching for God # 82

 In the last post, a montage of scenarios, from real life, scratched the surface displaying some of the resistances to ‘politics’ and social diagnoses that breached political politeness within the church ethos. And while most parishioners are not comfortable with acknowledging and identifying their ‘faith’ with their ‘politics’ and also while the church itself proclaims it is ‘above’ politics, in the specific and narrow sense of being non-partisan and non-ideological, nevertheless, whatever messages the church attempts to embody and to deliver have, if we are being totally honest, a political import.

Even the platinum concept of ‘agape’ the word from the New Testament to describe God’s love (John 3:16) and the love Christians are exhorted to emulate, approximates the concept of altruism, unconditional, sacrificial, brotherly and universal love. Political rhetoric, on the other hand, is saturated with policies that are designed, crafted and implemented to ‘protect, serve and preserve’ the people. And public service is depicted as a sacrificial act, along with military service, again to ‘protect, serve and preserve’ the people.

The political side of this dichotomy is envisioned, however, as ‘people as a collective’ a society, and population, and in recent times, a gestalt of demographics. The religious, ecclesial side of the dichotomy, on the other hand, is envisioned from the perspective of ‘people’ as individual man, woman and child. Individual epiphanies or conversions to the Christian faith, along with letters from individuals (think Paul) to congregations, along with the several biographies of Jesus, including his Death and Resurrection, comprise the bulk of scripture in support of the Christian faith and theology. And salvation of individuals from their personal ‘sin’ (the state in which they are born) predominates over the salvation of the whole world.

If, as we have been considering, the Christian faith can, or will, give consideration to both personal/individual salvation and ‘whole world’ salvation, (clearly they are not and ought not to be considered mutually exclusive), then and only then can or will anything resembling Liberation Theology be permitted into the vision. And given that the political vernacular, especially the obsession with ‘ideology’ and ‘identity’ two concepts that both serve as reductions of each person, Liberation Theology (used here as a starting point, not as an ‘end goal or result) has to contend with the amelioration of the influence of both, ideology and identity, as determinants of a person’s psyche and/or soul.

It is from the outside, outside each and every individual, that these terms are deployed, and never from the perspective of the individual human. Similarly, it is from the outside that even religious terms like ‘saved’ or ‘unsaved’ are deployed, primarily by those seeking either to justify their own salvation or demean the ‘incomplete’ state of their colleagues or both. Similarly, terms that describe one’s preference for a kind of liturgy, ‘high church’ or ‘low church’ or ‘red book’ or ‘green book’ or even Protestant or Roman Catholic, Pentecostal or Baptist, while depicting a group, are titles to creeds and attitudes, perception and even beliefs that can never encompass or deliver on the inner nature of one’s psyche or soul.

And while there is a degree of ‘affiliation’ and ‘belonging’ to those who choose to remain loyal to their respective ‘grouping’ there is and always will be a dividing line between any ‘group expectation’ and ‘belief’ and a person’s inner life, psyche and soul. The incompatibility of the inner, unconscious life, with any attempt to ‘group’ a religious experience is neither a flaw in the individual nor in the group ‘identification.’ Indeed, the attempt to fence in the inner, unconscious life, into any corral of a faith denomination, or sect is fraught with indeterminacy.

Thank God!

And the beginning of the focus on the inner, unconscious, hidden psyche/soul, which could and might be the focus of any attempt to mount a learning curve that actually listened to, drew from the unconscious into the conscious, respected and acknowledged that radioactive ‘gold’ of the unconscious as intimately significant and essential to the full religious and faith experience, has a potential of unlocking so many layers of potential insight, and ‘full liberation’ of men, women and children.

And this form of liberation is and can never be connected to, related to or measured by any GNP, GDP, ideology, or sexual or ethnic identity, or also any membership card or history of loyalty to a faith community. Church attendance, dollars collected, size of building, magnitude of pipe organ, number and range of artistic stained-glass windows, and the cognitive and intellectual might of any clergy, while interesting and even profound in some instances, can and never will capture the unconscious even of those clergy attempting to share their inner life.

We have to listen to the specific narratives of each and every individual, not from the perspective of attempting to pigeon-hole their ‘personality’ or their expectations into a menu or a template for the purposes of the institution’s glory and success. We must not categorize individuals, either, by their ‘talents’ or ‘gifts’ (from God that then can be deployed as gifts to God in the liturgy), again for the purpose of the institutional artistic, performance reputation and magnetizing new recruits. No one can be the means to another’s end! reminds Kant, not that we do not ‘use’ individuals for purposes that are not their’s but that such an approach is not exclusive. Given the preponderance of ‘function’ utility’ and ‘task’ in our culture, primarily for profit, either directly or indirectly, returning to Kant’s moral imperative will necessitate a deep and profound shift in our personal and collegial expectations. Indeed, one’s identity is also often reduced to one’s career, vocation, profession or enterprise.

Essentially attempting to eliminate, to the degree possible, the various forms of objectification of each other, and especially of ourselves, will do much to aid in the refocusing of our psyche/soul on matters that, themselves, are not reducible to the literal, the empirical, the scientific. Just as God is non-compliant to being a being reduced to a means to our end, as envisioned in the prayers of barter that humans continue to offer, and as we are also more than another’s means, so too are we not reducible to any one or even a collection of epithets, externally applied ‘nouns, adjectives or diagnoses.

These meanderings bring into focus the question of what is humanism and what is humanity?

Britsnnica.com says this about humanism:

A system of education and mode of inquiry that originated in northern Italy during the 13^th and 14^th centuries and later spread through continental Europe and England. The term is alternatively applied to a variety of Western beliefs, methods and philosophies that place central emphasis on the human realm.

Britannica.com says this about humanity:

The quality or state of being human; the quality or state of being kind to other people or to animals. The plural, humanities: areas of study (such as history, language, and literature) that relate to human life and ideas.

Everything we inject into these spaces is obviously ‘about’ humans;  however, it is not intended as a system of education. We are not engaged in the process of reducing the individual psyche/soul to being addressed or even accessed in and through a process of humanism.

And here is a distilled statement in the definition of theology, from Britannica.com:

In spite of all the contradictions and nuances that were to emerge in the  understanding of this concept in various Christian confessions and schools of thought, a formal criterion remains constant: theology is the attempt of adherents of a faith to represent their statements of belief consistently, to explicate them out of the basis (or fundamentals) of their faith, and to assign to such statements their  specific place within the context of all other worldly relations (e.g., nature and history) and spiritual processes (e.g. reason and logic)….to which we might legitimately insert, ‘the imagination.’

How can one conceive of the interjection, purpose, impact and envisioned goal of the human imagination into the process of searching for God?

Without have the benefit of the past half-century, in a Lenten study session, to which I was invited to propose an answer to the question, ‘Is the Christian faith relevant?’ I attempted to make the case that the faith remained relevant, although the process, the delivery, the liturgy needed to change. My proferred suggestion: shift from a lecture modality to a seminar modality. That naïve and green-broke utterance came from one who had experienced abuse of God, theology and even scripture from the pulpit of a mainline Presbyterian church…without the opportunity to challenge such bigotry, and hypocrisy.

Nearly 60 years on, after actually attending, and also preparing and delivering hundreds of homilies, based on the specific Biblical readings for the Sunday in question (the lectionary), I can say that I have learned more about God from those in the pews than they ever did from my side of the pulpit. Moments of clarity, insight, mask-removal, acknowledgements of hurting others, quiet whispers of ‘how I can do better,’ visions of how things might be ‘better’ and more hopeful….these are all inherent to conversations everywhere, among those with degrees and equally among those without formal training. And these ‘aha’ moments were not restricted to, and certainly not exclusive to therapy.

Moments of being seen and known, between individuals who have established trust, confidence and safety and security between and among them, irrespective of the colour of skin, the ethnic heritage, the language differences, the faith tradition, or even the age or gender or vocation or education…..indeed such ‘labels’ were and will continue to remain inconspicuous, irrelevant and non-starters among such places between the I of one and the Thou of another.

Of course, in order for such a ‘place’ (space, mood, ethos, reverence, and trust) to be created, considered psychically, and mutually shared in full and voluntary commitment, recognition of the dependence we all share on the objective characterizations of God, each other, our family members and ourselves. After recognition, the shift to getting down to narrative detailing of personal, significant, memorable moments in each person’s life, without any judgements, might be feasible.

The opportunity to share such moments, in a safe circle, is a first step in levelling the playing field between and among the circle members. (This is not intended as a replica of an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, although the confidentiality of those meetings is a presumed and agreed and committed requisite.) Parallels, from other personal stories, including the pains and the dreams and the demons we have all encountered, offer a context of mutuality, equality and deep and profound respect and dignity to each person. If and when such respect and dignity is broken, the opportunity for the circle to reckon with how such a breach occurred, and the options of beginning the healing are immediate, including the resort to prayer, to access the words of reconciliation from any number of sources, and the opportunity for everyone present to begin to ‘see things’ including themselves and others in a new and supportive even challenging light.

Rather than deconstructing public institutions, political ideologies, national hubris, or geopolitical competitions, for the benefit of the powerful, such base communities as these words are beginning to envision, (literally beginning….and seeking any input from readers who wish to contribute) the purpose of personal, safe and trusting encounters under God, in a safe circle is, different from the purpose of sobriety among AA members. The purpose is to come closer to the truth, the unconditional love, and the forgiveness of respected others, and through such a process to glimpse first, the previous blindness we have all been operating under.

And then to begin to dream, envision, and to stretch to reach out to that Blakean vision, ‘to see the universe in a grain of sand’ in the metaphorically sustained manner of the poet.

Blake’s  adopted Christian mantle is not that of the evangelist but the prophet. His is a prophetic universe where apocalypse always beckons, precisely because the conventional world—what Blake spat out as the Ratio—works very hard to convince us that our present state of civilization is axiomatically preferable to our natural state…..Blake saw a close relation between the words ‘revelation’ and ‘revolution.’ To be serious about Christianity meant for Blake that you were suspicious of any and all authority. Those authorities not incidentally included the Church, or what Blake termed, with decided disparagement, ‘religion’…..Blake wanted to stir things up because he thought the Christian revelation was meant to stir things up. Thie first step in doing so (after reading Blake from stem to stern) was to liberate Imagination from the shackles of Reason.                                   (from divinity.uchicage.edu, from a piece by  Richard A Rosengarten, entitled,  The Christian Who Was a Church of One, February 17, 2022)

The paradox of Blake’s ‘church of one’ invoked in a piece endeavoring to advocate for circles of faith is not incidental to this piece. It is the deeply embedded paradoxical that seems to be inherent to the story of the Christian faith, historically, scripturally and prophetically….just another of the paths away from the literal, the empirical and the scientific and towards an application of Blake’s imagination in our shared search for God.