Flowers and Birds are the Smart Ones

We are here to create connection by helping each other to listen to our deepest selves, open to life’s gifts, and serve needs greater than our own. In our deepest self, we know that we, too, like the flowers, shine with a beauty that we do not have to earn, do not work for. It comes not from what we do but from just what we are.

“Consider the lilies, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin.”

In the Gospel according to Monty Python, chapter “Life of Brian”, Brian addresses a crowd that seems to have difficulty getting his point.

Brian: Consider the lilies...in the field.
Woman 1: Consider the lilies?
Brian: Well, the birds then.
Man: What birds?
Brian: Any birds.
Man: Why?
Brian: Well, have they got jobs?
Woman 1: Who?
Brian: The birds!
2nd Woman: What's the matter with them?
Man: He says the birds are scrounging.
Brian: Oh, the point is, the birds, they do all right, don't they?
2nd Woman: Well, good luck to them!
Man: Yea, they're very pretty.
Brian: Okay! And you're much more important than they are, right? So what are you worrying about? There you are, see?
Woman: I'm worried about what you got against birds!
Brian: I've not got anything against the birds. Agh! Consider the lilies...
Man: He's havin' a go at the flowers now!
2nd Woman: Give the flowers a chance!

Brian’s audience can’t get clear on whether Brian is criticizing flowers and birds because of their slothful scrounging or whether he’s lifting them up and praising them. Jesus’ audience – and that’s us – faces the same ambiguity. On the one hand he seems to be commending the birds and flowers to us, urging us to be like them. Stop our worrisome working and trust in the grace of the world to provide. So the flowers and the birds, they’re the smart ones, the enlightened ones. They’re the model for us to emulate.

“Even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.”

Then on the other hand he turns around and says, no, it is we humans who are much more valuable.

“Of how much more value are you than the birds! . . . how much more will God clothe you.”

I guess the message is that we’re the ones that are important, but it’s the birds and flowers that are getting it right. But if they’re the ones getting it right, what makes us more important?

What seems to distinguish us is that we work and toil and worry. Is that what gives us so much more value? Then why is the wise teacher Jesus telling us to stop the working, laboring, and worrying?

Sloth presents us with the same conundrum. With all of the seven deadly sins, I will want to say that the point is not to squelch, repress, exorcise the sin, but to understand why it’s there and to recognize its positive function. For instance, in gluttony there’s something admirable about great gusto for the tastes of life. Sloth, along with pride, is one of the two easiest ones in which to see the positive. We all need to chill out, take a break, de-stress sometimes. There’s a lot to like about sloth.

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This is part 7 of "The Seven Deadlies" (part 2 on Sloth)
Next: Part 8: "Student Assistants to Life"
Previous: Part 6: "Consider the Lilies"
Beginning: Part 1: "Seven and Sin"

Consider the Lilies

Lake Chalice resumes our review of the seven deadly sins. Having looked at gluttony, we turn now to sloth (naturally).

Sloth is a sin with which I personally resonate. There is a system of personality categories called the Enneagram. In this system there are nine different personality types – none of them is better or worse than the other. Rather, there are spiritually healthy and spiritually unhealthy versions of each type, depending on how they relate to their core sin. The nine personality types are based on nine core sins: the standard seven deadly sins, plus two more: truth-disguising or deceit, and generalized fearfulness toward life.

On the Enneagram, I am a type nine, which means that sloth is my core sin. Under stress, I don’t tend to respond with anger, like a type 1, or with arrogance, like a type 2. I don’t retreat into envy or avarice like a type 4 or 5. I am not even tempted, for the most part. The temptation I do wrestle with under stress is just to disconnect, withdraw into sloth.

According to the Enneagram, the gift of a type 9 is peacefulness, and the ability to be peacemakers in conflict situations. Nines at their best and healthiest become

“self-possessed, autonomous and fulfilled, have great equanimity and contentment, are independent, at one with self, and thus able to form profound relationships, are alive, awake, alert to self and others, truly accepting while profoundly involved with life."

At their worst, they indulge their inherent temptation toward sloth and avoid dealing with problems, dissociate from conflict, are passive and disengaged. My spiritual path will always be toward that vision of the healthiest type 9, not repressing my temptation, but able to befriend it and not indulge it either.

"Consider the lilies." As a type 9, I love considering lilies. The word in the Gospel of Luke translated as "lilies" refers generally to wild flowers, flowers of the field. So consider the flowers. Here in Florida, with the arrival of spring, we have many flowers bursting forth. What do flowers and sloth have to do with each other?

“Consider the lilies, how they grow. They toil not, they spin not.”

Those flowers sound pretty slothful. Indeed, it sounds like Jesus was an advocate of sloth. Here's the full passage:

"He said to his disciples, 'Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear, for life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest. Consider the lilies, how they grow: They neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you – you of little faith! And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.'" (Luke 12: 22-31)

We are surrounded by beauty. The springtime flowers shine forth the beauty of creation. They don’t get it by working. They are beautiful just by being what they are.

* * *
This is part 6 of "The Seven Deadlies" (part 1 on Sloth)
Next: Part 7: "Flowers and Birds are the Smart Ones"
Previous: Part 5: "Desire Isn't the Enemy"
Beginning: Part 1: "Seven and Sin"

A Way of Life

Our great need, our overriding need, is for connection. That's particularly true in these modern (and postmodern) times. Every age of human history has had its problems: there has never been a utopia. But life is now so fast-paced, frantic, and hectic, so awash in visual and auditory stimulation, so distracted, so demanding of us to to play multiple roles, wear many hats, juggle complex and competing demands, that it is harder today than in past generations to feel connected or to be connected. We are pulled in so many different directions within such short spans of time, that our age generates fragmented lives in greater proportion than past ages.

We don’t connect well with the needs of our neighbors. We don’t connect well with the life we find around us, the beauty we are surrounded by. We don’t connect well with ourselves. But there’s hope. There’s hope and there’s help. It's at your nearest Unitarian Universalist congregation, for our congregations exist to heal that wound of disconnection. Our congregations bring people together to help each other connect to themselves, listen to their deepest selves – the abiding presence amidst the cacophony of inner voices. Our congregations bring people together to help each other connect to life, open to the abundant gifts freely given – the grace that we cannot earn, and from which we cannot be dispossessed. Our congregations bring people together to help each other connect to the world’s injustice and suffering, serve needs greater than our own – for we cannot come into our own healing and wholeness without connecting also to the world’s pain and those left behind.

A religion is a way of life. I know it is common these days to think of religion as merely the performance of certain rituals or mental assent to certain creedal statements, neither of which have much connection to the rest of one’s life. Or, as The Cynical Dictionary defines religion: “Mythology collected to establish the social discipline of your neighbor.” It’s tempting to think of religion this way when we look at other people’s religions. Actually, anything worthy of the name religion is a way of life. By removing the creedal statements, Unitarian Universalism becomes more conscious of itself as a way of life, in community.

To choose the Unitarian Universalist way of life is to choose a path of healing the disconnection, of being more intentional about strengthening the connections to ourselves, to others, and to life itself. Where we have become disconnected from ourselves, our path is to learn again how to hear and heed the inner wisdom of the true self so often muffled in the pursuit of achievements and material acquisition. Where we have become disconnected from the world’s beauty, our path is to learn again how to bask in the grace of gifts which we have not earned and do not deserve. Where we have become disconnected from the world’s needs, our path is to serve the needs of other people, of other beings, and of the planet itself.

Our great and overriding need is to create connection.

The Unitarian Universalist way of doing that, in short, is by listening to our deepest selves, by opening to life’s gifts, and by serving needs greater than our own. It begins with listening to ourselves, connecting to the true self. That’s easier said than done. It is an ongoing life project. You might say we’re addicted to letting certain of our inner voices work harder and longer shout louder than they really need to, and, as with any addiction, we can be recovering, but are never recovered.

We gather to help each other – and learn how to help each other – on that path. There's a lot to learn about how to do that -- a lot of detail beyond the scope of this blog. But I’ll tell you this much. As the fish and game warden and the woman said to each other, "You have all the equipment. You could start at any moment."

* * *
This is part 4 of 4 of "Would You Listen to Yourself"
Previous: Part 3: "Manager Firefighter Exile"
Beginning: Part 1: "Self-Disconnection"

Manager Firefighter Exile

How do we connect with the part of ourselves that is quietly watching and that holds our best wisdom? There are many voices inside each of us clamoring, and sending conflicting messages, many inner personae vying to be heard.

For example, on psychologist Richard Schwartz’s model, the primary inner personae are The Manager, The Firefighter, and any number of Exiles. The Manager’s job is keep you functional and safe. It does this by controlling as much of your inner and outer world as it can.

The Manager criticizes a lot. My Manager criticizes my appearance because it wants me to look good. It criticizes my performance because it wants me to do better. It wants to make things come out in a way that is in my best interest. My inner Manager’s concept of my "best interest" is about the same as what my outer lawyer’s concept of my best interest would be – which is to say, limited to material well-being.

Unruly emotions are a threat to the manager’s aim of order and protection. The manager tries to keep my vulnerable, needy parts locked in inner closets. Anything that disrupts the manager’s need for control is exiled. When an exile breaks out, bringing feelings of fear or anger, humiliation or shame, then The Firefighter rushes in to put out the fire.

The Manager has failed to keep the exiles repressed, so The Firefighter’s tactic is very different from the manager’s buttoned-down rational control. The Firefighter’s job is to pull you out of that fire, not to think about the repercussions of what it might be pulling you into. The Firefighter will do anything to pull you away from those raging feelings, whether it’s bingeing on drugs, alcohol, food, sex, or work – whatever it takes to bury that fire. The Manager wrestles with what it wants to exile, and when the exile wins a round, The Firefighter comes in.

For example, one inner voice may be telling you you’re hopeless. “You have no chance of success.” This voice is trying to protect you from the shame of failure – “so don’t even try,” it says. The Manager wants to push you to achieve things. The Manager gets mad at the hopelessness, wants to exile it. The pattern that may emerge is one of anger of one part of you against another, followed sometimes by partial, temporary success at exiling the hopelessness and shame, and followed other times by failure to exile the shame, in which case the Firefighter comes in with its choice of dousing substance: alcohol, perhaps, or maybe four straight hours of Gilligan’s Island reruns. Ugh.

There is a self underneath these inner voices. The self is an active healing presence that is able to appreciate all the voices for the important and needed work they do. By connecting with the voices and by appreciating them, the self gives the various parts the space to relax and recognize when their work isn’t needed.

Like, right now, I’m not needing the work that my immune system is determined to do. You see, this year, for what I think is the first time, I have joined the ranks of allergy sufferers. For the last 5 or 6 weeks, the Gainesville air has been pollen drenched, and it’s a problem for me this time as it never was before. My immune system, which has for years regarded that pollen as harmless, has decided this year that pollen is the enemy and it must be attacked. So I am suffering, not from the pollen, which, in itself, is as benign as it ever was, but from my immune system’s reactivity. I would like to have a word with my immune system. A kindly word, to be sure. I would like to tell it how much I appreciate how hard it works to fight off diseases and keep me healthy. “Thank you, thank you, immune system,” I would like to say. And when I was sure my immune system was feeling the gratitude and appreciation, I would say, “Now with this pollen stuff, I’m going to ask you to step down. I definitely need you, but not in my sinuses right now. OK? Would you be willing to just relax about the pollen?”

Unfortunately, I can’t get through verbally to my immune system – I have to send in pseudoephedrine, which probably isn’t nearly as appreciative as I would want to be. With my inner voices, though, I can talk. I can reassure a given inner persona that it is appreciated, that I don’t want to kill it, that I’m grateful for the work it does, but just for right now I’d like it to stand down. With the standing down of the voices that shout, I can connect with the self, quiet, wise, caring and compassionate.

* * *
This is part 3 of 4 of "Would You Listen to Yourself"
Next: Part 4: "A Way of Life"
Previous: Part 2: "Inner Voice"
Beginning: Part 1: "Self-Disconnection"

Inner Voice

Disconnection from ourselves is a common condition. For example. As of the first quarter of 2012:

“The average American over the age of 2 spends more than 34 hours a week watching live television, says a new Nielsen report — plus another three to six hours watching taped programs.” (NYDailyNews, 2012 Sep 19)

Nielsen is apparently no longer showing a constant rise in TV viewing. Analysts think that’s because more people are spending more time playing video games and watching internet video instead. Visiting with friends, attending or hosting social events, averages about five hours a week. Reading for interest – reading that isn’t part of working – is averaging about two hours a week. To recap:

Average Hours Per Week
Watching TV: 34
Visiting with Friends: 5
Reading for Interest: 2

Is this bad? Many of us think so. In surveys that ask people to list what they did the day before, and to rate it as time well spent or as wasted time, most people rate the time they spent reading as time well spent. Most people rate the time they spent hanging out with friends as time well spent. Most people rate the time they spent watching television as wasted time. From the vantage of just one day later, we see ourselves as having not made the choice we wish – a day later – that we had.

It’s no easy thing in this postindustrial, information age world to connect with ourselves – to recognize in the moment what our deeper wish is, the wish that a day later we are able to recognize if asked. In the moment, it’s just so easy and inviting to flop back on the sofa and reach for the remote. And sometimes that is time well spent. It’s just that more often it isn’t. What we really wanted to be doing was something else, but we weren’t connected to ourselves enough to hear our truer wish.

We always have a part of ourselves that is quietly watching and is providing us with guidance. Often, we are not as in touch with that part as we could be.

We do talk to ourselves. Pretty much everybody has inner dialogs. We give ourselves instructions that are really helpful and important. Keep running, stop eating, get out of bed.

Here's an experiment that illustrated the functioning of one inner voice. In a simple test of impulse control, participants sit at a computer, and if a certain symbol appears on the screen, they are to press a button. If any other symbol appears, don’t press it. The computer is programmed to flash the “press” symbol most of the time, so that becomes the impulsive response, and we have to take care not to press when the other symbols flash. When I say “take care not to press,” what that actually means is listening to an inner voice that says, “no, not that one.” We know this because scientists found a way to block the inner voice. They told participants to repeat one word over and over as they took the test. This prevented them from talking to themselves while doing the test. The result was that impulsivity took over – there was no inner voice to hold it back.

"Without being able to verbalize messages to themselves, they were not able to exercise the same amount of self control as when they could talk themselves through the process." (Michael Inzlicht)

We rely on an inner voice to guide us through our day. Ah, but which one? If all you need from the inner voice is to keep saying, “don’t press the button if it isn’t the right symbol,” there’s usually not much problem. The thing is, we spend our days negotiating situations much more complex than following one simple criterion for when to press and not press a button.

Which raises the question:

How do we connect with the part of ourselves that is quietly watching and that holds our best wisdom?

* * *
This is part 2 of 4 of "Would You Listen to Yourself?"
Next: Part 3: "Manager Firefighter Exile"
Previous: Part 1: "Self-Disconnection"

Self-Disconnection

A married couple is spending a weekend at their lakeside cottage. One afternoon, while the husband is taking a nap, the wife decides to take their little fishing boat out. She motors out a ways, anchors, puts her feet up, and begins to read her book. The peace and solitude are magnificent. Along comes a Fish and Game Warden in his boat. He pulls up alongside, sees all the fishing tackle in her boat, and says, "You're in a Restricted Fishing Area."
"I'm sorry, officer, but I'm not fishing. I'm reading."
"Yes, but I see you have all the equipment. For all I know, you could start at any moment. I'll have to take you in and write you up."
"If you do that, I'll have to charge you with sexual assault," says the woman.
"But I haven't even touched you," says the Game Warden.
"That's true, but you have all the equipment. For all I know, you could start at any moment."

In a very different way, you, too, gentle reader, have all the equipment you need. You could start at any moment on a project all too often neglected: re-connecting with self.

Now a different story – not a joke. Another married couple. A young man and a young woman, measuring the length of their marriage in months rather than years, one day find themselves arguing. Harsh words are spoken. Blame is leveled. Voices go up, in volume and in pitch. This will be a two-day spat – which is to say, it will be two days before they see what they are fighting about is nothing. At the time, it feels like a very real something.

He says something hurtful. She is stunned – can’t believe he said that. Is this the man she married? “Would you listen to yourself?” she says, hoping this will prompt him to see the unreasonableness of what he said. But of course this just spurs him to attack her unreasonableness.
“What, now I can’t . . . “
“That’s not what I said.”
“That’s exactly what you said.”

Who knows what they said? The couple isn’t connecting, much as connection is what they yearn for. Much of the blame they hurl at each other is a projection of their self-blame. Like a movie sequel (similar to and flowing from the original), the disappointment they have in each other reflects and flows from the disappointment they have in themselves. They’re having trouble connecting with each other because they’re having trouble connecting with themselves.

Each believes the other isn’t listening. Maybe they hear each other’s words. That in itself doesn’t always happen, but in this case let’s say each is paying attention to the other’s words. The words alone, though, won’t do the work each seems to expect words to do.

Words fail to make someone else into the answer to one's problems – no matter how loudly one says them.

“Would you listen to yourself?!” comes out as a plea: “Straighten up and start meeting my needs.” At the same time, deeper down, there is a part of her that recognizes that self-listening really is the beginning of the peace and caring they both long for. The path to peace for this couple – the path to the love they somewhat fuzzily had in mind when they got married – is a path that goes inward to the feelings and the universal desires they find at work in themselves, and then outward in recognition of the others’ feelings and universal desires. It’s a path of coming to recognize their own inner voices and learning to reassure those voices so they won’t scream demands. Then the couple will be equipped to reassure each other so they won't scream demands. The root issue is self-disconnection.

Disconnection from ourselves is a common condition. Lake Chalice, this week, will be addressing that condition.

* * *
This is part 1 of 4 of "Would You Listen to Yourself?"
Next: Part 2: "Inner Voice"

The Cosmos Own Language

Lake Chalice has been considering the thesis that "god" may be a verb. The verb we have been imagining "god" to be has, so far, been an intransitive verb. Now let’s try supposing god is a transitive verb – the abiding transit between subject and direct object, doer and done-unto. If reality gods, what does it god? To be worthy of being termed god, this activity must take in everything.

The universe gods you, and it gods me. Reality gods the mud and the flowers alike; it gods the Republicans and the Democrats alike. It godded Abu Ghraib, and it godded the government of Burma at the very moment it was murdering its monks and denying aid to its people. There is, in other words, an activity of relationship between all things, an active connection of each thing with all things.

In the fullest realization of God-as-transitive-verb, everything gods everything (else). This reminds us of Henry Nelson Wieman, the Unitarian theologian that Lake Chalice cited a few posts ago. Wieman’s position is that “qualitative meaning is intrinsically good.” (Wieman, The Source of Human Good. 1946. 19). Qualitative meaning is defined as

“any structure of interrelated events, together with their possibilities, when these events have appreciable qualities and when the structure as a whole can be represented by signs.” (Wieman 21)

The “universe becomes spiritual” as

“more events become signs, as these signs take on richer content of qualitative meanings, as these meanings form a network of interconnective events comprehending all that is happening in the world.” (Wieman 23)

It would seem, to carry Wieman to his logical conclusion, that the universe will have attained total, complete and perfect spirituality when everything signifies everything else -- or when, we might say, everything gods and is godded by everything else. Godding, then, would be the activity of building meaning by building interconnection and relationship.

The butterfly in Australia gods the weather in Chicago. You god the stars and the stars god you. Joy gods sadness and sadness gods joy. This use of “god” seems to mean something like “connects with” or “interdependently arises with.” But more. This way of thinking maybe helps us see through the illusion that there are any separate things. It’s not just that everything connects with or influences everything else. It’s that everything is everything else. There are no independent things – just an uncompromising oneness gently unfolding. That awareness is what spiritual awakening is all about, so it seems right to use god to talk about it.

Our grammar itself lures us into assuming that there are separate things, the referents of our nouns. Could we tell the story of life, of creation, in a language without subjects or objects, a language of only verbs, a language that perhaps the Cosmos itself speaks when it whispers to itself -- or in your ear?

Comes, goes.
Runs, jumps, twirls.
Births, grows.
Laughs.
Falls, breaks, cries, rages.
Abandons.
Returns, embraces, loves.
Wounds. Bleeds. Weeps.
Arises.
Works. Plays. Smiles.
Journeys.
Heals.
Dies.

Comes.

"Come, thou fount of every blessing, . . . fount of every vision, . . . fount of inspiration."

What is this fount? It is the founting process itself, which the world-oneness exhibits at every turn.

* * *
This is part 6 of 6 of "God the Verb"
Previous: Part 5: "A Process Reality"
Beginning: Part 1: "The Ambiguity of Ponytails and God"

A Process Reality

To god is to unfold, like an infinite flower opening its petals; to develop through a process of interaction with all the rest of the godding universe. To god is to become transparent to the creativity of the universe shining through you. To god is to fandango across the ballroom of oneness, to trip the light fantastic not “with” but “as” the mountains and rivers and great wide earth, the sun, and the moon, and the stars. To god is, in the words of Sufi poet Hafiz, to “laugh at the word two.” It is to swim, fully awake, in the sea of mystery. To god is to quaff from the cup of abundance. It is to lose all sense of yourself as a separate being in a creative project, or the creative encounter, in total freedom, with each moment. To god is to suffice. Whoever you are, whatever your imagined shortcomings, you are enough. To god is to do and be everything that you do and are.

Why would anyone want to call these activities "godding"? We might call them godding to help us remember, to help us wake up to, and attune ourselves to, the fact that everything we do and are is a part of the whole, a part of the dance, the mystery of creativity, the unpredictable unfolding of new things under the sun.

Remembering that “spiritual” comes from the word for “breath” (the "spir" in “spirit” is same "spir" that’s in “re-spir-ation”), we can see that to god is to breathe. To god is to participate, as we constantly must, in the continual flow of change of in-breath and out-breath.

For the medievals, to apprehend reality at its most ultimate meant to conceive of changeless eternity. Above this world of corruption and change, God was pure, immutable, outside of time. To think of God as an active verb is to emphasize the time during which the actions take place. It is to put God in time, rather than removed from time. It is to perceive the holy in change, rather than imagine it in changelessness. It calls attention to divinity as spread throughout all of nature, as manifested by the activities of nature.

Verb theology emerged in response to 20th-century advances in the sciences. Those advances took us beyond Isaac Newton’s physics, in which the material of the universe was “atoms and the void”: discrete particles bouncing off each other and attracted by gravity. For Newton, reality was dumb substance. The theological response to Newton was Deism: God was the agent that created matter, put it together, and set the whole vast watchworks to ticking. Today, however, physicists understand

“that reality at the most fundamental level is composed of shimmering waves of probability, fluctuating, intertwining matter and energy.” (Steven Phinney)

A process reality called for a process sense of the holy. Insights from the New Physics were reinforced by understandings in the biological sciences since Darwin. Instead of saying species just are, biologists now understand species as in flux – as media, we might say, for the playing out of unpredictable creativity. God the verb is a response to these developments in both physics and biology.

“God is a verb, not a noun”
by Wild Bill Balding, 1961.

God is a verb, not a noun:
'I am who I am,
I will be who I will be.'

dynamic, seething, active
web of love poured out,
given, received, exchanged,
one God in vibrant community

always on the move,
slipping through our fingers,
blowing through the nets we cast
to hold and name,
confine to nouns, to labels,
freezeframe stasis,
pinned like a butterfly,
solid, cold, controlled, lifeless.

'I am who I am,
I will be who I will be' -
not pinned down by names, labels,
buildings, traditions,
or even by nails to wood:

I am: a verb, not a noun,
living, free, exuberant,
always on the move.

* * *
This is part 5 of 6 of "God the Verb"
Next: Part 6: "The Cosmos Own Language"
Previous: Part 4: "Godding"
Beginning: Part 1: "The Ambiguity of Ponytails and God"

Godding

Godding Michelangeloingly

In the last thrilling Lake Chalice (“God is a Verb”), we heard from people like Buckminster Fuller and Jean-Claude Koven on the subject of the divine being a verb rather than a noun. Some of the thinkers drawn toward saying God is a verb also emphasize love, drawing on “God is love” from the Gospel of John. UU minister Stephen Phinney writes,

“I believe that the holy is in the process of giving and taking of the love we have. In other words, the holy or God is the process of interchanging love.”

God is the act of loving, the ever-present possibility of intimacy and compassion.

You might find this perspective radical or exhilarating. You might also have noticed that the God-is-a-verb people are not actually using “God” as a verb. They say, for instance, that reality is more a matter of events than substances. “Events” conveys a more dynamic quality than “substances,” but if we’re talking about parts of speech (which, supposedly, we are), “event” is just as much a noun as “substance” is. They speak of God as “process” and as “creativity” – both nouns. The last Lake Chalice quoted Koven saying God was “unfoldment,” and “infinity,” and “everything,” and “dance” – nouns every one. “Love,” in the context of Phinney’s usage: a noun.

We might also point out that for all that, “verb” is a noun. We might even point out that to utter, “God is a verb” is to commit a sort of performative contradiction, on the order of saying, “I am presently dead.” (After all, what is the subject – and thus necessarily a noun – of the sentence, “God is a verb”?)

Lake Chalice likes these new nouns (well, except for “unfoldment”), and finds them more inspiring than the traditional nouns, creator, law-giver. So perhaps we need not be sticklers for literal meaning. The point is: there is in our life and our experience a cause for wonder, mystery, reverence. This is better thought of as a process, a dance, a creativity, a love than as a person or entity. Calling it a verb is just a way of alluding to its active doing.

But supposing we did want to be sticklers for actually meaning what we said. Suppose we were to take “God is a verb” literally. How would that go?

Dan Moonhawk illustrates, using diseases, what the switch from noun to verb can look like:

“Most of our diseases are nouns, which we most often HAVE: I have a headache, a stomach ache, acne, cancer, mumps, measles, etc., etc. Each of these can also be seen as a verb or process instead of a 'thing', but to talk about them in this way is weird at first: I'm headaching, stomach-aching, acneing, cancering, mumpsing, measlesing. But what a difference: now these are not things you have, but processes your body is going through, which you have more control over than if it's a 'thing' that has nothing intrinsically to do with you.”

That’s helpful. Now: if God is to be the verb, what would be the subjects of our sentences? We might suggest: the universe. Hence:

The universe gods.

There’s the vast cosmos, quietly, grandly godding along through the ages. Reality gods.

Actually, anything and everything is the subject. I god, you god, he she it gods, we god, you god, they god. All God’s children…god.

And what sort of activity is it “to god”? Following the lead of the process and the creativity theologians, to god is to unfold, like an infinite flower opening its petals; to develop through a process of interaction with all the rest of the godding universe. To god is to become transparent to the creativity of the universe shining through you. To god is to fandango across the ballroom of oneness, to trip the light fantastic not “with” but “as” the mountains and rivers and great wide earth, the sun, and the moon, and the stars. To god is, in the words of Sufi poet Hafiz, to “laugh at the word two.” It is to swim, fully awake, in the sea of mystery. To god is to quaff from the cup of abundance. It is to lose all sense of yourself as a separate being in a creative project, or the creative encounter, in total freedom, with each moment. To god is to suffice. Whoever you are, whatever your imagined shortcomings, you are enough. To god is to do and be everything that you do and are.

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This is part 4 of 6 of "God the Verb"
Next: Part 5: "A Process Reality"
Previous: Part 3: "God is a Verb"
Beginning: Part 1: "The Ambiguity of Ponytails and God"

God is a Verb

From “No More Secondhand God,” by Buckminster Fuller, 1940.

Here is God's purpose –
for God to me, it seems,
is a verb
not a noun,
proper or improper;
is the articulation
not the art, objective or subjective;
is loving,
not the abstraction "love" commanded or entreated;
is knowledge dynamic,
not legislative code,
not proclamation law,
not academic dogma, nor ecclesiastic canon.
Yes, God is a verb,
the most active,
connoting the vast harmonic
reordering of the universe
from unleashed chaos of energy.
And there is born unheralded
a great natural peace,
not out of exclusive
pseudo-static security
but out of including, refining, dynamic balancing.
Naught is lost.
Only the false and nonexistent are dispelled.

As I was saying, in the last century a large number of scholars have written a great number of books and papers laying out meanings of 'God' very different from traditional theism. I'm thinking particularly of process theologians and naturalist theologians. They have produced such an extensive body of work that I think we have to say they’ve shifted the English language: the meaning of the word "God" is not limited to the traditional theist conception. These theologians have developed a notion of God not as a noun – not as a person, place, or thing – at least not some specific object thing, some entity. They have made it possible to think of God as a verb – as the active, creative principle in the universe.

A tenet of process theology is that “reality is not made up of material substances that endure through time, but serially-ordered events.” Rather, God is an unfolding process. Theologians such as the Unitarian, Henry Nelson Wieman and Mennonite Gordon Kaufman work out in detail a conception of god as creativity – serendipitous creativity says Kaufman, to emphasize the unplanned, unpredictable nature of creativity. The traditional notion of God as creator wasn’t entirely off-base, they say. There really is a connection between the function of creating and the deep mystery, awe, wonder and sense of reverence that goes with the notion “God.” God the creator wasn’t entirely off-base – but God isn’t a person-like creator. Instead, God is creativity itself.

“God is indeed a verb. He is not the creator. He is the ongoing unfoldment of creation itself. There is nothing that is not a part of this unfolding. Thus there can be nothing separate from God. God is infinite and infinity is One. . . . When we perceive God as a noun, we envision him as the creator, the architect of, and therefore separate from, his creation. Identifying ourselves as part of that creation, we see ourselves not only separate from our source but separate from each other and all other manifest things as well. . . . Once I viewed God as a verb instead of a noun, my perception of life shifted. Everything around me, manifest or no, became God. There was only God. When someone spoke to me, it was with God's voice; when I listened, it was with God's heart. As you begin to view God not as the creator but as the constantly changing dance of creation itself, you'll discover God in everything you see – including yourself.” (Jean-Claude Koven, 2005)

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This is part 3 of 6 of "God the Verb"
Next: Part 4: "Godding"
Previous: Part 2: "Communication Enough"
Beginning: Part 1: "The Ambiguity of Ponytails and God"

Communication Enough

Have you felt awe? Have you ever felt a fulsome beauty that stopped you dead in your tracks? Have you felt grandeur in the world, the planet, or the space in which it floats – and have you felt a deep humility in the face of that grandeur? Have you ever felt a oneness with another being – perhaps watching a hawk soaring across the sky felt that you, too, were soaring there – that the boundaries of your self expanded, or dropped away entirely? Have you ever felt mystery and wonder?

Certainly there are tragedies and atrocities: the holocaust, genocide in Darfur, needless starvation and malnutrition. Have you ever felt that the entirety, the whole enchilada, the full catastrophe – the stuff we judge good and the stuff we judge bad – all of it together -- the laughter, the tears, and heartache, all added up -- all fit together somehow into a whole that, even with its tragedy and pain, is good and beautiful and true?

If your answer to all those questions is “no,” then if you want to identify yourself as an atheist, I don't think anyone will quibble. If your answer to even one of those questions is “yes,” then if you still want to self-identify as an atheist, a quibble or two may be in order. To wit:

Why not call that feeling a feeling of God?

You might rejoin:

“Why not? Because that’s not what the word means. If I say ‘God,’ people will assume that I mean a superhuman person up in the sky with a big beard who gets angry and punishes us for our evil ways by sending the AIDS epidemic.”

Whoah. We don’t have to let those who do believe in that define the word for the rest of us.

“No, but we want to communicate when we use words. If I say ‘mayonnaise’ I need to mean that white stuff that goes on sandwiches and in dressings because that’s what people will think I mean. If I don’t mean that, then I’m misleading people by saying that.”

But look. We all have different associations with words. No two people have exactly the same sets of associations with the word “cat.” No two people will finish reading this blog entry and get quite the same message from it. The question is: is the shared meaning enough to make the word worth invoking?

Maybe one person defines God as simply the universe – the universe with nothing in it except what scientists describe. Meanwhile another person defines God as a superpowered person with desires and feelings. Two such people can have a conversation about God. For all their differences, they’re both invoking what is of ultimate concern, what is awe-inspiring, what is the source of life – that toward which an attitude of reverence is appropriate.

Isn’t that enough overlap of understanding so that communication occurs?

Sure, if what you meant was “universe,” you could just say “universe.” But if you want to convey your own feeling of standing in relationship to that all-encompassing reality with a sense of awe, humility, abundance, mystery, or of affirmation even in the face of tragedy, then “universe” doesn’t quite cut it. “God” comes closer.

Moreover, in the last century a large number of scholars have written a great number of books and papers laying out meanings of 'God' very different from traditional theism.

* * *
This is part 2 of 6 of "God the Verb"
Next: Part 3: "God is a Verb"
Beginning: Part 1: "The Ambiguity of Ponytails and God"

The Ambiguity of Ponytails and God

In one of our hymns, we urge:

“Come, thou fount of every blessing, . . . fount of every vision, . . . fount of inspiration.”

What is this fount? To whom are we singing with our request that our hearts “sing thy grace,” that our lives be turned to higher ways? Some of us would hesitate, and others of us would not hesitate, to say it is God whom that hymn addresses. The living tradition we share draws from many sources, one of which is:

“humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit.”

The humanist strand in our living tradition has often resisted using the word God.

It has occurred to me that God is kinda like a ponytail. For seven years I had a ponytail, and I was aware that a ponytail makes a certain statement, and a ponytail on a man makes a different statement than a ponytail on a woman makes. But what statement? What does a ponytail say? After I’d had it a while I was so used to it that I wasn’t consciously saying anything at all. And what meaning it had for other people must have widely varied. Forty years ago a ponytail meant “hippie.” Nowadays a man with a ponytail is more likely to be driving a pickup truck than a VW microbus with flowers painted on it. And if he’s holding something that’s smoking and is illegal, it’s more likely to be a gun than a drug. Times change. I don’t know what my ponytail was saying to people – different things to different people, I’m sure.

What does the word “God” say to people? It says something, though it’s not exactly clear what. Whatever it is, does it need to be said? If it does, can it be said as well, or better, without using “the G-word”?

A lot of Unitarian Universalists do identify themselves as atheists. I’m not sure how many. It’s a label I used to claim – and sometimes, though not as often, and rarely without prompting, still do. If I don’t know what “God” means, then I don’t know what “atheist” means either. Declaring you’re an atheist makes some kind of statement – I’m just not sure what.

Sometimes I want to reclaim the word “God.” It’s a powerful word, and Jerry Falwell (may he rest in peace), and Pat Robertson (may he just give it a rest), don’t get to define the word for the rest of us.

There’s a pretty stock move which I sometimes make when someone tells me she or he is an atheist. I say:

“well, tell me about this God you don’t believe in, because I probably don’t believe in that God either.”

If someone identifies themselves to me as a theist, I could say something very similar --

“tell me about this God you do believe in; I probably don’t”

– though that wouldn’t be so polite. Those who choose either the label “theist” or the label “atheist” seem to know – or think they know – what the name “God” names. The traditions of using and invoking that word, “God,” though, allow possibilities of meaning beyond what the usual self-defined “theist” or “atheist” typically has in mind.

* * *
This is part 1 of 6 of "God the Verb"
Next: Part 2: "Communication Enough"

Listen. Open. Serve.

Like other religions, Unitarian Universalism is a way of life. In particular, it's a way of life seeking to create connection by listening to our deepest selves, opening to life's gifts, and serving needs greater than our own.

A few months ago I stumbled upon a web site for something called “Unity Spiritual Center.” Large letters proclaimed that: “It’s not a religion . . . It’s a way of life.” I thought this was a very curious distinction, since I understand a religion to be a way of life.

I can only surmise that the idea that “religion” is separate from “way of life” comes from a notion that “religion” is something like:

performance of certain rituals, or mental assent to certain creedal statements, neither of which have much connection to the rest of one’s life.

No actual religion has ever conceived of itself this way. Though I understand that we may sometimes get the impression that certain other people’s religion is confined to empty ritual and dogma, the reality has always been that Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and all the world religions are both religions and ways of life.

So what distinguishes, for example, my Unitarian Universalist way of life from the way of life of other religions? My liberal religious tradition grew out of Christian history, so the contrast with more conservative forms of Christianity is sharpest. The most traditional forms of Christianity see the world through the lens of human sin. Such Christians read the morning paper and see in the news stories the playing out of a struggle against, or capitulation to, a fundamental corruption at our core.

On the other hand, when I look at my own life and lives around me, I see the primary spiritual struggle of our time quite differently. I see us struggling against a shallow and frantic culture; against forgetfulness about who we really are and who we want to be; against a feeling of being pulled apart and fragmented; against our desires for “more.” The busy-ness and consumerism of modern life creates a profound disconnection, which we feel as a brokenness and a wound.

To choose the liberal religious way of life is to choose a path of healing the disconnection, of being more intentional about strengthening the connections to ourselves, to others, and to life itself. Where we have become disconnected from ourselves, our path is to learn again how to hear and heed the inner wisdom of the true self so often muffled in the pursuit of achievements and material acquisition. Where we have become disconnected from the world’s beauty, our path is to learn again how to bask in the grace of gifts which we have not earned and do not deserve. Where we have become disconnected from the world’s needs, our path is to serve the needs of other people, of other beings, and of the planet itself.

Our great need is to create connection. Liberal religion's way of doing that, in short, is by listening to our deepest selves, by opening to life’s gifts, and by serving needs greater than our own. In shorter: listen, open, serve.