What thrilling words: "... listen to God, and to share with God, without in any way asking God to be other than this person, this situation, this moment."
This opens up another important lesson in Course in Miracles...the language used must be able to be understood by those listening...Living in Mexico as I do, I have learned to be more open and flexible with what I hear, it may easily be a second or third language, just as English is my second language, so the meaning sometimes might not be so clear. Translations do not necessarily get down to a specific meaning, and may even be incorrect. I do remember Eckart Tolle saying that "don't get mixed up or confused with words, they are only approximations of a meaning which is universal." Thanks Sean, I always love the conversations that stem from your pieces.
Thanks for sharing, Josef . . . yes, the language has to work . . . there's a delicate balancing act with using the language while remaining cognizant of that to which it points, so we are always focused on communication and connection, on seeking clarity rather than confusion. Thanks for being here - I'm very grateful 🙏🙏
The Manual for Teachers is probably my favorite. It saved me from a river of misery a couple of years back. It taught me to trust. I learned that "It takes great learning to understand that all things, events, encounters and circumstances are helpful." (M-4.I-A.4:5). This ties in perfectly with your invitation to listen to God, and to share with God, without in any way asking God to be other than this person, this situation, this moment. DoI have great learning? No - not judging, interfering or twisting life is still a mantra I need to repeat daily. Thank you, Sean, for continuing to point the way for me.
Thanks for being here, Susan. Yes, it's a practice and that's where I'm at as well. I'm practicing. I don't know what else to do :) One of my reading/writing goals is to spend more time with the Manual this year. We'll see what happens. I make a LOT of plans 🙏🙏
In the beginning was the Word . . . Of all the Bible verses I learned growing up, that phrase has always been one the most fascinating and mystifying to me, almost like a koan that I can still sit and wonder about even to this day.
yeah, I like that too. . . and John's Gospel generally. Abhi, the monk I reference in this essay, cities to it often in his little book "Prayer." It was always the gospel that allowed me to be most deconstructive. Though these days the pragmatism of Mark is calling me more deeply. Thanks for being here, Dan. I appreciate it very much 🙏
Sean this is such a thoughtfully provocative response to my question. Thank you for taking the time share your take on this. I attend a weekly AA meeting with my partner partly as a show of support but also because I just get so much out the experience myself. Last night’s topic was that often quoted 12 Step slogan “Keep it simple” which has become a bit of a mantra lately as I find myself continually engaging in a process of attempting to deconstruct or break down much of the complexity that I’ve heaped on to my own seeking and how I relate to the Divine. I love me some complexity and am masterful at making almost anything more complicated than it really is or needs to be. But lately there’s a different pull I’m noticing to consider that Truth could actually be quite simple. That Love is actually quite simple. That dwelling in the Presence of God is far simpler than I’ve let myself believe. But man is there a lot of crap to break down between my experience or thinking and that simplicity. If I’m not mistaken John’s gospel is often called the Gospel of Love. In the beginning was the Word. Such a simple statement and yet I’ve been scratching my head over it for decades. I’m not exactly sure where I’m going with this except to say that it seems to me that the only way to the simplicity I suspect waits for me is through the breaking down and deconstructing of all the complexities I’ve talked myself into believing I need to muddle through. That’s certainly how I tend to experience the Course. In the beginning was the Word and Word was God. Is God. Sounds so simple. Seems so hard. So complex. Thanks for all the ways you invite me to draw nearer to Truth.
Yeah, there does seem to be an underlying simplicity that we can tap into and adopt (be adopted by?). I hear you. Pulls in that direction - away from density and tangles - feels like healing. Connecting to a gospel - feeling it call, responding to the call - matters to me. It feels like Jesus though and more like a community of Jesus followers - like I am hearing their articulation of HOW to follow, HOW to hear, HOW to enact and considering it against my own experience. It remains fascinating to me how many "Jesuses" appeared in the decades following the crucifixion. Truly as if the man had embodied not a personality but a practice, one that still - millenia later - speaks into our hearts and calls us into a community of healed and healing folk.
Sean I’m curious—can you say a little more about how John’s gospel has facilitated your being more deconstructive? I’ve encountered that term a few times recently but not applied to the gospels so I’m intrigued. I also ask because I seem to be engaged in a very dynamic and evolving intimacy with my experience of Jesus and this feels relevant to that somehow.
Thank you, Dan, for a thoughtful question, and thank you for your patience in awaiting a reply.
John's Gospel is the most abstract and philosophical; it is the gospel that most realizes Jesus as fundamentally symbolic - that is, as a representative human being signifying a possibility inherent in ALL human beings.
A major theme of that gospel is that God is life - not being, not a special person, nor even a special form - but life itself. Spiritual life and material, or physical, life are constantly woven together. Jesus becomes a way of life - not necessarily an ethical proposition nor even a religious one but rather the realization of God's Presence NOW.
This expands on Exodus 3:14 where God - when probed by Moses for a name - answers "I am who I am." There are multiple "I am" statements in John's Gospel. They aren't examples of the historical Jesus asserting specialness but rather Jesus emphasizing that God is not OTHER than life.
So, for me, John's Gospel invites a very intimate but also abstract (or essential but in the sense of "essence" not "importance") relationship with God through the SYMBOL of Jesus, a relationship that will eventually dissolve whatever differences and distinctions allow for two rather than one.
So that's a kind of permission structure - Jesus is a symbol of life which is God. But "life" and "God" are both vast words - they are like territories or oceans. What do they mean? Who decides? On what basis? The answers to those questions have to evolve in my own experience - my reading, my reflecting, my praying, my relating, my eating, my playing, my resting. I want to go deeply into the experience of life - which is not other to me - and discover in it a joy and peace that surpass understanding.
I might reconsider "deconstruct" as the verb there but on the other hand I think that IS the invitation - to take apart the various structure (personal and collective) that construct our living in order to find the essential living, the fundament or ground, that is not itself subject to deconstruction but merely IS. I am that, as they say in another religious tradition, and deconstruction (in love, not bitterness or anger - deconstruction as radical acceptance not rejection) is a helpful means to that lovely end.
A long ramble! But hopefully not too far off point. Thanks again for prompting me, Dan, I appreciate it. I hope all is well.
I can get lost in… Do I think in language? Do I think in English? Does it matter? What if I were raised isolated and never leaned a language? Could my life be as full? Would it make it easier? Do my thoughts, feelings, images, and sensations need language in order to manifest? Does it behoove me to learn more language rather than less? I know the word is not the thing, but can there be a thing if I lack the words? I’m getting a headache. 😊
My heart opened with yours words "Awareness of God's unconditional presence to us now means we no longer need to judge or interfere with life in any way. Our calling clarifies; we are here to remember God and for that we need do nothing." ♥️
Thank you, Glenda . . . I'm really leaning on Abhishiktananda there but yeah, it is a beautiful and helpful way of being in our lives . . . Thanks again for being here.
As a poet, I adore language. I have witnessed the healing power of poetry many times, but I believe this occurs only because the lines were divinely inspired. To receive that kind of inspiration takes a lot of listening and awareness. More than anything, you have to let go of any egoic aspirations of being "a great poet" and simply be of service. You are the instrument, but God/dess is the source.
Thank you Jen - this is very clear and I hear all of it. Creativity is intimately connected to "listening and awareness" and we are the means, not the source 🙏🙏
Thank you for being here and sharing - I'm very grateful.
I hear this . . . you can swim and sink and float in threads like this for lifetimes . . . but they are also fun and interesting questions, any one of which - held to and followed to its source - can really open us up . . . thanks for being here, Carl . . . I appreciate you very much 🙏🙏
What thrilling words: "... listen to God, and to share with God, without in any way asking God to be other than this person, this situation, this moment."
🙏🙏
This opens up another important lesson in Course in Miracles...the language used must be able to be understood by those listening...Living in Mexico as I do, I have learned to be more open and flexible with what I hear, it may easily be a second or third language, just as English is my second language, so the meaning sometimes might not be so clear. Translations do not necessarily get down to a specific meaning, and may even be incorrect. I do remember Eckart Tolle saying that "don't get mixed up or confused with words, they are only approximations of a meaning which is universal." Thanks Sean, I always love the conversations that stem from your pieces.
Thanks for sharing, Josef . . . yes, the language has to work . . . there's a delicate balancing act with using the language while remaining cognizant of that to which it points, so we are always focused on communication and connection, on seeking clarity rather than confusion. Thanks for being here - I'm very grateful 🙏🙏
~ Sean
The Manual for Teachers is probably my favorite. It saved me from a river of misery a couple of years back. It taught me to trust. I learned that "It takes great learning to understand that all things, events, encounters and circumstances are helpful." (M-4.I-A.4:5). This ties in perfectly with your invitation to listen to God, and to share with God, without in any way asking God to be other than this person, this situation, this moment. DoI have great learning? No - not judging, interfering or twisting life is still a mantra I need to repeat daily. Thank you, Sean, for continuing to point the way for me.
Thanks for being here, Susan. Yes, it's a practice and that's where I'm at as well. I'm practicing. I don't know what else to do :) One of my reading/writing goals is to spend more time with the Manual this year. We'll see what happens. I make a LOT of plans 🙏🙏
~ Sean
In the beginning was the Word . . . Of all the Bible verses I learned growing up, that phrase has always been one the most fascinating and mystifying to me, almost like a koan that I can still sit and wonder about even to this day.
yeah, I like that too. . . and John's Gospel generally. Abhi, the monk I reference in this essay, cities to it often in his little book "Prayer." It was always the gospel that allowed me to be most deconstructive. Though these days the pragmatism of Mark is calling me more deeply. Thanks for being here, Dan. I appreciate it very much 🙏
~ Sean
Sean this is such a thoughtfully provocative response to my question. Thank you for taking the time share your take on this. I attend a weekly AA meeting with my partner partly as a show of support but also because I just get so much out the experience myself. Last night’s topic was that often quoted 12 Step slogan “Keep it simple” which has become a bit of a mantra lately as I find myself continually engaging in a process of attempting to deconstruct or break down much of the complexity that I’ve heaped on to my own seeking and how I relate to the Divine. I love me some complexity and am masterful at making almost anything more complicated than it really is or needs to be. But lately there’s a different pull I’m noticing to consider that Truth could actually be quite simple. That Love is actually quite simple. That dwelling in the Presence of God is far simpler than I’ve let myself believe. But man is there a lot of crap to break down between my experience or thinking and that simplicity. If I’m not mistaken John’s gospel is often called the Gospel of Love. In the beginning was the Word. Such a simple statement and yet I’ve been scratching my head over it for decades. I’m not exactly sure where I’m going with this except to say that it seems to me that the only way to the simplicity I suspect waits for me is through the breaking down and deconstructing of all the complexities I’ve talked myself into believing I need to muddle through. That’s certainly how I tend to experience the Course. In the beginning was the Word and Word was God. Is God. Sounds so simple. Seems so hard. So complex. Thanks for all the ways you invite me to draw nearer to Truth.
Yeah, there does seem to be an underlying simplicity that we can tap into and adopt (be adopted by?). I hear you. Pulls in that direction - away from density and tangles - feels like healing. Connecting to a gospel - feeling it call, responding to the call - matters to me. It feels like Jesus though and more like a community of Jesus followers - like I am hearing their articulation of HOW to follow, HOW to hear, HOW to enact and considering it against my own experience. It remains fascinating to me how many "Jesuses" appeared in the decades following the crucifixion. Truly as if the man had embodied not a personality but a practice, one that still - millenia later - speaks into our hearts and calls us into a community of healed and healing folk.
Thanks again for reading and sharing, Dan 🙏🙏
~ Sean
Sean I’m curious—can you say a little more about how John’s gospel has facilitated your being more deconstructive? I’ve encountered that term a few times recently but not applied to the gospels so I’m intrigued. I also ask because I seem to be engaged in a very dynamic and evolving intimacy with my experience of Jesus and this feels relevant to that somehow.
Thank you, Dan, for a thoughtful question, and thank you for your patience in awaiting a reply.
John's Gospel is the most abstract and philosophical; it is the gospel that most realizes Jesus as fundamentally symbolic - that is, as a representative human being signifying a possibility inherent in ALL human beings.
A major theme of that gospel is that God is life - not being, not a special person, nor even a special form - but life itself. Spiritual life and material, or physical, life are constantly woven together. Jesus becomes a way of life - not necessarily an ethical proposition nor even a religious one but rather the realization of God's Presence NOW.
This expands on Exodus 3:14 where God - when probed by Moses for a name - answers "I am who I am." There are multiple "I am" statements in John's Gospel. They aren't examples of the historical Jesus asserting specialness but rather Jesus emphasizing that God is not OTHER than life.
So, for me, John's Gospel invites a very intimate but also abstract (or essential but in the sense of "essence" not "importance") relationship with God through the SYMBOL of Jesus, a relationship that will eventually dissolve whatever differences and distinctions allow for two rather than one.
So that's a kind of permission structure - Jesus is a symbol of life which is God. But "life" and "God" are both vast words - they are like territories or oceans. What do they mean? Who decides? On what basis? The answers to those questions have to evolve in my own experience - my reading, my reflecting, my praying, my relating, my eating, my playing, my resting. I want to go deeply into the experience of life - which is not other to me - and discover in it a joy and peace that surpass understanding.
I might reconsider "deconstruct" as the verb there but on the other hand I think that IS the invitation - to take apart the various structure (personal and collective) that construct our living in order to find the essential living, the fundament or ground, that is not itself subject to deconstruction but merely IS. I am that, as they say in another religious tradition, and deconstruction (in love, not bitterness or anger - deconstruction as radical acceptance not rejection) is a helpful means to that lovely end.
A long ramble! But hopefully not too far off point. Thanks again for prompting me, Dan, I appreciate it. I hope all is well.
~ Sean
I can get lost in… Do I think in language? Do I think in English? Does it matter? What if I were raised isolated and never leaned a language? Could my life be as full? Would it make it easier? Do my thoughts, feelings, images, and sensations need language in order to manifest? Does it behoove me to learn more language rather than less? I know the word is not the thing, but can there be a thing if I lack the words? I’m getting a headache. 😊
Absolutely beautiful 🙏
My heart opened with yours words "Awareness of God's unconditional presence to us now means we no longer need to judge or interfere with life in any way. Our calling clarifies; we are here to remember God and for that we need do nothing." ♥️
Thank you, Glenda . . . I'm really leaning on Abhishiktananda there but yeah, it is a beautiful and helpful way of being in our lives . . . Thanks again for being here.
~ Sean
As a poet, I adore language. I have witnessed the healing power of poetry many times, but I believe this occurs only because the lines were divinely inspired. To receive that kind of inspiration takes a lot of listening and awareness. More than anything, you have to let go of any egoic aspirations of being "a great poet" and simply be of service. You are the instrument, but God/dess is the source.
Thank you Jen - this is very clear and I hear all of it. Creativity is intimately connected to "listening and awareness" and we are the means, not the source 🙏🙏
Thank you for being here and sharing - I'm very grateful.
~ Sean
I hear you brother☀️
Thank you Annie . . . I knew that you would 🙏
~ Sean
I hear this . . . you can swim and sink and float in threads like this for lifetimes . . . but they are also fun and interesting questions, any one of which - held to and followed to its source - can really open us up . . . thanks for being here, Carl . . . I appreciate you very much 🙏🙏
~ Sean