For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler
and from the deadly pestilence.
-Psalm 91:3
As these days thicken with fear, like old, heavy curtains closing at the end of a theatre production, a kind of spiritual cacophony remains. The audience, once held in silence or applause as one, now breaks into the discordant sound of a hundred different conversations, sporadic laughter, coughing. Then, the exodus, up the aisles, into the lobby, until, pouring like a sudden rainstorm into the parking lot, their noisy presence follows them, until finally the last car leaves the parking lot. Silence.
There is nothing from the former age that will sustain us in this newly emerging one. All the world's religions contain, at their core, in their essence, the stargate that will safely carry our human soul into the new age, but with all the heavy gridwork of those religion's legalism, we may not be able to make out the core through the barbed wire of the old. Jesus said you couldn't put new wine in old wine skins. Even Christianity today, seems to feel like an old wine skin, even if the wine within it remains fresh. The wine skin itself taints that ever pure wine of the spirit.
We, as it is often written, are spiritual beings having a human experience. We are eaglets, learning to fly under the wings of the great Eagle. We must now take flight. The essence of our spiritual lives is a beckoning to leave the nest, lift off from the tired old limb of the tree of those religions which only now harbor us and yet, like an over protective mother, stunt our growth, keep us in the nest too long and delay our overdue flight.
It is time to fly. I don't know if we've ever really learned to fly before. Anthropologists and archaeologists have uncovered evidence and remnants of a civilization that existed on earth, long before our present one, which extends back about - approximately - 50,000 years - more or less. At the risk of polarizing our time here, it seems, the human experience has moved from a predominantly female-dominated, goddess-centered, nature-based, peaceful civilization to the control-centered, male god dominated warrior-based, structured, and legalistic civilization that is today poised to start another act of it's conflict, violence-ridden, egoic, fear-based production that threatens life itself on our beautiful earth.
Truly, it seems to me, that these are extremely perilous times. They are not the "end times," but hopefully they are the end of that production and the opening of something more balanced than either that has gone before. These days are challenging for those who hope for a better life, a more prosperous experience, richer - not with material consumption - but more alive, more vibrant spiritually. In this new age, we will seek a direct and authentic experience of God, of the divine as we enter into higher dimensions of reality.
On some level, we know this. It was hinted at in our ancient scriptures in both dark warnings and in light-infused deep mystical wisdom. It was always there but as we became intoxicated with our pursuit of power and what little satisfaction we received from it, just enough to keep us seeking more and more, in our primitive human lust, we fell further and further away from our beautiful origins. There have always been wise men and women who have called us back from the brink. We honored them, we listened and yet then we were sucked back into the old ways, century after century.
Today, we're all set to start the cycle all over again. Religious fundamentalism is only feeding that great "spoiler," the "fowler," that which would lure us into opposing camps, as we seek an external identity which is only another mask for our split mindedness. We need to have the courage to leave behind us all the world's religions and step out onto the mountain top, as the old Hebrew midrash goes.
The safety net, the sense of security, of home, of all that was once so familiar and comfortable, no longer can protect us, can sustain us. It is time to fly. If we look deeply into the common spiritual essence of all the world religions, we will find the stargate which allowed the earliest prophets and messengers to travel back and forth between worlds, from what is real to our current - then and now - theater production, the stage, as Shakespeare once called our world.
We can trust ourselves this time. We can, as a world, despite our religions, cultures, nationalities, realize that he who is within me, is also within you, and that "he" is the "great being" whose selfhood fills the universe with his substance, intelligence, power, will and love. We may not understand this because this is written in the heart of humankind, rather than the intellect. I think the major stumbling block of all the religions is the mark of rationalism. The intellect cannot find God, cannot find love, rather only the heart has the stargate. Theology is only a cacophanous intellectual pursuit that is spiritually dead-ended because it lacks the authentic experience of the divine, of ultimate reality, Even this writing, now, is that very thing, but it is a signpost, pointing to where we need to go.
We all know this on varying levels of awareness. For some it is still vague and for others it is as clear as the morning sunlight. For me, it comes and goes. I see this so clearly one day and the next I admittedly get caught up in the major production unfolding on the daily news. It's liquid substance abuse. That's all i can say about it. The news has an incidious way of luring us in and capturing our attention and even convincing us of its importance, its relevance to the big picture.
It is a kind of religion on its own. Intellectuals worship the news, posing behind the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times, or if you're self defining as a liberal progressive, try the LA Times. The fowler is that which will hold you back, catch the hem of your skirt as you fly past, holding you down, stopping you. It is the very definition of "religio" the corral into which the substance of spirituality was poured, but once the spirituality was all drained out, all that remained was the vessel, the empty chalice, and we found we were sipping nothing but the taste of the vessel. Some have come to worship the container, rather than the spirit. The great warning at the end of the Book of Revelation is just that. Beware of false idols, empty vessels, of which many of the world's religions have become.
There is still One God, or rather, more accurately, the singularity or total only-ness of God. Clearly, we, in our small separated state cannot fathom this, nor will we ever, I suspect, but by letting go of all that we seek to define ourselves by, and entering through faith and mostly through love, into deeper relationships with each other, we will find the great encounter. We have to find the courage to love those who most frighten us and yet not be tempted by anyone's fear-based attempt to control or limit our flight. That is the snare and fear is the fowler.
We can trust ourselves this time. We can, as a world, despite our religions, cultures, nationalities, realize that he who is within me, is also within you, and that "he" is the "great being" whose selfhood fills the universe with his substance, intelligence, power, will and love. We may not understand this because this is written in the heart of humankind, rather than the intellect. I think the major stumbling block of all the religions is the mark of rationalism. The intellect cannot find God, cannot find love, rather only the heart has the stargate. Theology is only a cacophanous intellectual pursuit that is spiritually dead-ended because it lacks the authentic experience of the divine, of ultimate reality, Even this writing, now, is that very thing, but it is a signpost, pointing to where we need to go.
We all know this on varying levels of awareness. For some it is still vague and for others it is as clear as the morning sunlight. For me, it comes and goes. I see this so clearly one day and the next I admittedly get caught up in the major production unfolding on the daily news. It's liquid substance abuse. That's all i can say about it. The news has an incidious way of luring us in and capturing our attention and even convincing us of its importance, its relevance to the big picture.
It is a kind of religion on its own. Intellectuals worship the news, posing behind the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times, or if you're self defining as a liberal progressive, try the LA Times. The fowler is that which will hold you back, catch the hem of your skirt as you fly past, holding you down, stopping you. It is the very definition of "religio" the corral into which the substance of spirituality was poured, but once the spirituality was all drained out, all that remained was the vessel, the empty chalice, and we found we were sipping nothing but the taste of the vessel. Some have come to worship the container, rather than the spirit. The great warning at the end of the Book of Revelation is just that. Beware of false idols, empty vessels, of which many of the world's religions have become.
There is still One God, or rather, more accurately, the singularity or total only-ness of God. Clearly, we, in our small separated state cannot fathom this, nor will we ever, I suspect, but by letting go of all that we seek to define ourselves by, and entering through faith and mostly through love, into deeper relationships with each other, we will find the great encounter. We have to find the courage to love those who most frighten us and yet not be tempted by anyone's fear-based attempt to control or limit our flight. That is the snare and fear is the fowler.
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