A good few years ago now I sat at the feet of the Dalai Lama in the Town Hall during what I think must have been his first visit to Dunedin. Like most of the other people who virtually filled the hall, I don't think I followed His Holiness' line of thought as closely as I perhaps should have done, but one thing was as clear as a bell. According to the Dharma, all sentient beings would eventual reach eternal bliss.
I couldn't help contrasting this with the Gospel (as commonly received) according to which only human sentient beings would be putting in an appearance beyond the grave, and most of them would immediately find themselves in a place of unbearable and unending torment for reasons of which they were entirely unaware before their arrival. It made me wonder just which is the Good News, the Dharma or the Gospel? According to the latter only cats and dogs, it seems, can face the future with confidence. At least their sufferings will be ending rather than just beginning.
Ah yes, but what about freewill? Surely God is just respecting our freedom. Well, I'm not so sure. Were any of us asked whether we wanted to come into existence in the first place, and thus run the appalling risk of eternal damnation? Speaking personally, I don't remember receiving a questionnaire on the subject myself. And nor do I expect to have any say as to whether I survive my death or not. I'm just going to have to carry on whether I like it or not, in whatever state I find myself, and that state might be rather on the hot side for my eternal comfort.
I would have thought that if God has already made the fundamental choices about my existence for me, then he should be responsible for seeing me right in the end as well. I certainly hope so.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Thursday, March 04, 2010
The Remnant
I have just been listening to the wonderful New Zealand pianist Richard Farrell playing the music of Chopin and Brahms on CDs recently remastered from old Pye records. Farrell was killed on the roads of Sussex in 1958 at the age of 31. I don't remember hearing of his death (I was only eleven at the time, and anyway I thought the pipe organ the only instrument worth listening to) but I certainly feel a sense of loss now. And I can imagine the cries of anguish and despair when the news reached his native land.
And no doubt there would have been the inevitable question, "Why?" Farrell came from a good Catholic family and was educated in good Catholic schools. Given his affiliations (not to mention his talents) why was God careless to the point of criminal negligence? Why didn't he give Farrell a reasonable, indeed normal, span of life like everyone else?
These are very understandable questions, of course, but do they really accord with the evidence of our experience? What exactly is a normal life-span? I take normal here to mean usual. And in this matter usual can mean vanishingly short. Consider all those miscarriages, abortions, and infant deaths since recorded history began, then add all the young lives cut short by disease, famine, war and violence of every kind. I wouldn't be surprised if only a minority survived to celebrate their first quarter-century - if that.
So what are we to make of it all? I rather imagine that our more fundamentalist brethren would explain matters by blaming the devil. And of course, the Letter to the Hebrews describes the latter as the one having the power of death. But in Christ, God has defeated death - so what sense can we make of the continuing mayhem? How can God's purposes still be achieved despite the death and destruction which always surrounds us in this world?
Well, I have A Little Theory. So sorry. But here we go. When I was about fifteen I had a remarkable experience. All I remember of it is the way it ended: the Light (note the capital letter) which filled the room moved away through the ceiling and the ceiling itself, together with the walls, the floor and the contents of the room reappeared to view. And I was filled with the most absolute feelings of love, joy, peace and all the other good things for the next half-hour or so, after which matters slowly returned to normal.
This was during the summer holidays and I was working in the Otago University Library when it was still in the Tower Block. I remember a day or two later standing beside a stack of books (including, if I remember rightly) that all-time best-seller, 'Homing Tendencies in Migrating Turtles') and surprising myself by thinking that if Christ and this Light were one and the same, well and good. If not, I would stick with the Light.
Somewhat unusually for me, I told no one of my experience. It needed no confirmation. It didn't even need an explanation. Whatever the Light was, it was the final reality, and the final authority. It was totally self-authenticating. It had no face, it said nothing, and it gave itself no name - none of which mattered in the slightest. I had (and have) no doubt that this Light was what life was for, including all life of whatever kind. It was obvious to me that we came into existence by the will and power of the Light and that it was the purpose of our existence to return the Light. And I knew that death was an essential part of that process, and therefore not to be feared.
I also knew immediately that the Old Gentleman on top of Mt Sinai with a long beard and a short fuse simply didn't exist - and never had. No wrath, no rage, no thunderbolts, no plagues, nothing but love, mercy and forgiveness. And truth, of course. I'm not suggesting that the Light is filtered through rose-tinted lenses, but I am saying that Master Calvin of Geneva should have read Mother Julian of Norwich before rushing into print.
It wasn't until I was ordained and in my first parish that I came across 'Life after Life' by Dr Raymond Moody, with its accounts of many Near Death Experiences, and recognised their extraordinary similarity to my own experience. And it wasn't until many years after that that I encountered the Eastern Orthodox teaching generally known as Palamism, according to which God can be (and often is) seen as light, as by St Paul on the Damascus Road. Since then I have come across many people (some of them here in Dunedin) who have had the same experience as I did, likewise without being anywhere near death. And just as it permanently transformed my life, and my understanding of the meaning and purpose of life, so it did the same for them.
Now, one of the distinguishing characteristics of this kind of thing is the way in which people find, firstly, that while it is happening, their consciousness is somehow expanded and enlarged, and secondly, they appear to enter into a kind of telepathic communication between themselves and others, based not so much on words and language but on simple shared awareness.
Thus we come (at long last!) to My Little Theory, which works like this. It seems likely to me that beyond the grave we shall all participate in a kind of shared consciousness to which we shall each contribute our own individual awareness, our memories and our experiences. This would mean that those who died before they could acquire such memories and experiences would not be deprived of their reality, and it would also mean that what appears now to us to be the pointless and useless suffering of (say) the inmates of Auschwitz might well be a most profound gift to the rest of us, after the model of the passion of Christ when it is seen from the Garden of the Resurrection. But it all depends on the reality of human destiny. And on a remnant (very biblical, you will note) which has undergone the experience of life in this world long enough to be able to take it into the world to come.
So that's it - at least for the moment. Outraged responses on a postcard, please. Or not.
And no doubt there would have been the inevitable question, "Why?" Farrell came from a good Catholic family and was educated in good Catholic schools. Given his affiliations (not to mention his talents) why was God careless to the point of criminal negligence? Why didn't he give Farrell a reasonable, indeed normal, span of life like everyone else?
These are very understandable questions, of course, but do they really accord with the evidence of our experience? What exactly is a normal life-span? I take normal here to mean usual. And in this matter usual can mean vanishingly short. Consider all those miscarriages, abortions, and infant deaths since recorded history began, then add all the young lives cut short by disease, famine, war and violence of every kind. I wouldn't be surprised if only a minority survived to celebrate their first quarter-century - if that.
So what are we to make of it all? I rather imagine that our more fundamentalist brethren would explain matters by blaming the devil. And of course, the Letter to the Hebrews describes the latter as the one having the power of death. But in Christ, God has defeated death - so what sense can we make of the continuing mayhem? How can God's purposes still be achieved despite the death and destruction which always surrounds us in this world?
Well, I have A Little Theory. So sorry. But here we go. When I was about fifteen I had a remarkable experience. All I remember of it is the way it ended: the Light (note the capital letter) which filled the room moved away through the ceiling and the ceiling itself, together with the walls, the floor and the contents of the room reappeared to view. And I was filled with the most absolute feelings of love, joy, peace and all the other good things for the next half-hour or so, after which matters slowly returned to normal.
This was during the summer holidays and I was working in the Otago University Library when it was still in the Tower Block. I remember a day or two later standing beside a stack of books (including, if I remember rightly) that all-time best-seller, 'Homing Tendencies in Migrating Turtles') and surprising myself by thinking that if Christ and this Light were one and the same, well and good. If not, I would stick with the Light.
Somewhat unusually for me, I told no one of my experience. It needed no confirmation. It didn't even need an explanation. Whatever the Light was, it was the final reality, and the final authority. It was totally self-authenticating. It had no face, it said nothing, and it gave itself no name - none of which mattered in the slightest. I had (and have) no doubt that this Light was what life was for, including all life of whatever kind. It was obvious to me that we came into existence by the will and power of the Light and that it was the purpose of our existence to return the Light. And I knew that death was an essential part of that process, and therefore not to be feared.
I also knew immediately that the Old Gentleman on top of Mt Sinai with a long beard and a short fuse simply didn't exist - and never had. No wrath, no rage, no thunderbolts, no plagues, nothing but love, mercy and forgiveness. And truth, of course. I'm not suggesting that the Light is filtered through rose-tinted lenses, but I am saying that Master Calvin of Geneva should have read Mother Julian of Norwich before rushing into print.
It wasn't until I was ordained and in my first parish that I came across 'Life after Life' by Dr Raymond Moody, with its accounts of many Near Death Experiences, and recognised their extraordinary similarity to my own experience. And it wasn't until many years after that that I encountered the Eastern Orthodox teaching generally known as Palamism, according to which God can be (and often is) seen as light, as by St Paul on the Damascus Road. Since then I have come across many people (some of them here in Dunedin) who have had the same experience as I did, likewise without being anywhere near death. And just as it permanently transformed my life, and my understanding of the meaning and purpose of life, so it did the same for them.
Now, one of the distinguishing characteristics of this kind of thing is the way in which people find, firstly, that while it is happening, their consciousness is somehow expanded and enlarged, and secondly, they appear to enter into a kind of telepathic communication between themselves and others, based not so much on words and language but on simple shared awareness.
Thus we come (at long last!) to My Little Theory, which works like this. It seems likely to me that beyond the grave we shall all participate in a kind of shared consciousness to which we shall each contribute our own individual awareness, our memories and our experiences. This would mean that those who died before they could acquire such memories and experiences would not be deprived of their reality, and it would also mean that what appears now to us to be the pointless and useless suffering of (say) the inmates of Auschwitz might well be a most profound gift to the rest of us, after the model of the passion of Christ when it is seen from the Garden of the Resurrection. But it all depends on the reality of human destiny. And on a remnant (very biblical, you will note) which has undergone the experience of life in this world long enough to be able to take it into the world to come.
So that's it - at least for the moment. Outraged responses on a postcard, please. Or not.
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Culture Wars
Last Saturday Kelvin Wright was ordained and installed (i.e. consecrated and enthroned) as the ninth Bishop of Dunedin of the Anglican Persuasion. It was a wonderful occasion if only because it achieved the right result, and because the new bishop's splendid new gear (made by his sister who should do this kind of thing for a living) didn't make him look like the Imperial Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
But I wish I could say the same for his fellow bishops. They were all clad in something called a chole. Yes, a chole. And what do you suppose that is? Why, it's a combination chasuble cum stole of course. Except that it isn't. It's actually a sandwich-board designed to encourage racial harmony and cultural diversity (and to help us rather insecure New Zealanders feel a bit more confident about our identity). You can tell that by the fact that it has flax crosses prominently displayed front and back.
You don't have to be a member of the Anglican Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia for long to realise that the significance of the flax cross is cultural rather than Christian. Thus we seem to have made the good the enemy of the best, and I'm not sure that that would appeal to the One whose kingdom is not of this world.
But I wish I could say the same for his fellow bishops. They were all clad in something called a chole. Yes, a chole. And what do you suppose that is? Why, it's a combination chasuble cum stole of course. Except that it isn't. It's actually a sandwich-board designed to encourage racial harmony and cultural diversity (and to help us rather insecure New Zealanders feel a bit more confident about our identity). You can tell that by the fact that it has flax crosses prominently displayed front and back.
You don't have to be a member of the Anglican Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia for long to realise that the significance of the flax cross is cultural rather than Christian. Thus we seem to have made the good the enemy of the best, and I'm not sure that that would appeal to the One whose kingdom is not of this world.
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