Questions That Lead Us Home

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek; and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asks receives; and he that seeks finds; and to him that knocks it shall be opened. Matthew 7:7-8

Down through the ages and across the variety of spiritual traditions, perennial questions have called out from the heart and soul of every deep and sincere spiritual seeker. While we tend to believe that true answers will lead us along the path of wisdom, we often overlook the fact that profound answers are consequence of evocative inquiry. As Francis Bacon asserted, a prudent question is one half of wisdom.

For the next six Sundays, we will focus on questions that evoke our deepest truths about ourselves, our purpose in this life, and the choices that make up our days. Our inquiry will bypass the surface mind, with its expedient explanations that serve only to manage the surface conditions of life. Our questioning will take us into the deeper reaches of our hearts and souls and evoke our deepest understanding of what constitutes meaningful, conscious, faithful living.

We will welcome and seek to amplify the sacred whispering in our hearts that offers its infinite wisdom and love. We will explore these questions to find ways of experiencing greater clarity, peace, and spiritual understanding in our daily lives. We will take this journey so that our lives are as much an expression of our true selves and as on-course as possible in the crosswinds of our human dramas.

Perhaps the most important question of our spiritual quest is Who Am I, for it is our sense of self that most profoundly impacts our connections and experiences in this life. On the surface we see ourselves as flesh and bone men or women with identities defined by race, culture, family, education, careers and material possessions. As many of us have experienced, when we identify ourselves with these external facets of ourselves, our identities and self esteem are highly vulnerable when great change strips these definitions from our lives. Yet such losses can actually be a boon on our spiritual quest because we are then forced to seek and encounter our deeper essence, the you and I that is not altered by the winds of change.

Mother Earth: Ground of Being

To see a world in a grain of sand,

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour.- William Blake

My earliest experiences of spiritual insight occurred in the sanctuary of the natural world. Long before I found the divine in worship and meditative practice, I encountered the sacred in the harmonious and peaceful milieu of a quiet creek that ran beyond my childhood home. This special place offered the promise of stillness during those times as a child when I retreated from the family drama in the house. In this natural environment I could see, touch and appreciate the harmonious interaction of many living things. In contrast to a volatile home environment, life in the creek followed predictable, comforting patterns. The scent of trees, the songs of birds and frogs, and insects were soothing balm to a young heart stung by angry and frightened human voices. The gentle current of water beckoned me to follow its path and I did. In this flow I was buoyed, carried and led along a path of tranquility. Perhaps unknowingly I was drawn by the promise of something untouched, unexplored, a life and life force beyond the confines of life as I knew it at home.

Encountering the sacred in nature predates the earliest written scriptures. The ancient indigenous people did not need a special day to honor the Earth. It was a daily practice rooted in an ongoing realization. At some point, for reasons not clear, God was sent to reside exclusively in the heavenly realm and became an absentee landlord who reigned above and apart from the earth. As part of this relocation process, mankind was awarded dominion over the earth and its creatures for its benefit. What has followed is not surprising, since once anything is seen as Godless, all manner of insensitive, loveless behavior in relationship to it is easily justified.

But there is a new consciousness emerging that is restoring the sacred view of the earth. It is even born out by the latest quantum scientific observations, and reversing the old science that viewed the universe as a great, meaningless machine. More and more of us are sensing the invisible web that connects all of life, restoring our sacred vision to all of nature, that now bridges the wisdom of the earliest people to the awakened heart and informed mind of today's conscious earth dwellers. Akin to all spiritual practice, it involves a shift in perception, having eyes to see beyond appearances, and availing ourselves of an intuitive knowing of the presence of the divine in every place and every thing. Once we experience this omnipresence of spirit, God comes off the cloud of unknowing and becomes a local, present-moment reality and all the earth becomes holy ground.

We're all susceptible to this vision. In a moment, a sunset, or an expanse of wildflowers, or any beautiful expression of nature can break us open to seeing anew. Like Jacob in the Jewish Torah, we suddenly recognize that "the Lord is in this place - and I did not know it," and we can understand Jesus profound utterance that "the kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it."

If we give sway to the intuitive awareness that recognizes the sacred all around us, we are doing perhaps the most we can possibly do to heal our relationship with mother earth. And with a renewed sense of love and appreciation, we will find all the right ways to bless and serve this hallowed land, our earth home.

The Holy Purpose of Relationships

When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter. As you see him, you will see yourself. As you treat him, you will treat yourself. As you think of him, you will think of yourself. Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself or lose yourself. - A Course In Miracles

As I've written before, I am fond of the paradox found in spiritual teachings. Paradox is like a self generating machine that produces the fuel it requires to function. Paradox in spiritual conundrums reveals the answer within the question, usually as a simple reversal of logic. We find that we receive in the act of giving. We find our search for happiness in the world eventually spins us around to find the treasure buried within ourselves. Perhaps the most difficult paradoxical teaching to accept and practice is in the area of relationships - for spiritual insight suggests that other people are the key to knowing and accepting ourselves.

Why is it that we cannot find our self in ourselves alone? The answer lies in who we truly are - not a small isolated self set apart from the billions of others selves on this planet. This is a purely egoist perspective, which is a dead end that will only deepen a sense of separation and keep me from knowing the greater I am that includes others. As spiritual teacher and author, Robert Perry writes, "Your true Self is a shared Self. It is something you share with everyone and everything. You cannot see that if you are looking only at yourself. You cannot see the ocean by examining a drop of water with a microscope."

Here is the sublime paradox of self knowledge: it arises with awareness beyond self, to the Self that includes everyone. Oneness becomes real to us when the distinction between I and thou, dissolves. Every encounter with another can become a "holy encounter" because it offers us an opportunity to see through the appearance of separateness and behold the essential Self that we both share. This is a foundational premise of Unity philosophy which declares that we are all children of God, individualized expressions of the Life and Intelligence that is our true parent. Just as a sunbeam cannot be separate from the sun nor a wave be apart from the ocean neither can we be apart from the One Life that is our source.

This way of seeing others is transformative knowledge that can rock our world, as it saves us from the deeper suffering of separation. It is a new way of seeing my brother or sister that removes the scales of judgment from my eyes so that in them I am able to behold their inherent goodness (true nature). It is such holy perception that allowed Jesus to exonerate the adulterous woman about to be stoned by the condemning crowd, exalt the prostitute who washed his feet with her hair, and finally to forgive those who betrayed, abandoned and killed him.

To know ourselves as we truly are, we must see others as they truly are. It is perhaps the most arduous and challenging of spiritual practice and yet, paradoxically, what it asks of us is precisely what it offers us. It is in seeing the inherent goodness in others that we help them find their way home in God, and then, in one of the most beautiful compensations of life, we discover that it is our way as well.

Life After Loss

We live in a time and culture where accumulation has become such a normative behavior that many of us struggle with doing with less. More than once we've heard the comment that the current financial crisis arose as a sort of cosmic lesson to help us separate our greed from our need.

However we interpret this economic predicament, there is a powerful spiritual opportunity seeded in any great loss. We are forced to face the question of who we are when something has been stripped away from our lives. We may discover that we have invested our identity in our economic status, or career stature, or in physical or mental prowess. Who am I without a level of economic security, or physical ability or worldly position takes us to the heart of the perennial spiritual question.

Is there life after loss? The promise of new life is what Easter is all about. Easter is a time when we celebrate new life. The new life of spring. The resurrected life of Jesus. The spiritual life that we each express on earth. The Christian Sabbath is on Sunday so that we can remember life after death. Not just life for Jesus after crucifixion. It's about the eternal life that we all experience, after a physical death (our ongoing spiritual journey) but it's also about the continuing life that we are granted after the crucifixions and the losses of our lives. Life, like energy, cannot be created or destroyed. Therefore, we can release all forms, no matter how precious to us, and believe that we can still have a life, even an abundant life, as Jesus promised and demonstrated. This is a belief worth clinging to, since it's undeniable. There's life after divorce. There's life after a major illness. There's life after job loss or bankruptcy. There's life after the death of a loved one.

Jesus as way shower is such a powerful teacher of how to live with boldness and passion. His example of being willing to put everything on the line, defend against nothing, and face the greatest fears humanly imaginable with equanimity, begs the question, what can't we live without. It may be that what we think we can't live without, is what keeps us from really living. People who have released addictions might agree.