Holiness undoes the stranglehold of identity. It shifts the locus of identity from the body to the collective, and from the collective to God, Whom Jesus knew as a Father.
For me – maybe for you, too – holiness is mostly an invitation to tell a different story and, in doing so, to realize who is telling the story. We are doing this to our own self (T-27.VIII.10:1) is a diagnosis containing within it the solution to self-imposed suffering. Become creative and in your creativity, remember liberation.
“First person singular,” as James Hillman noted (in, I believe, The Thought of the Heart but don’t hold me to it) is neither first, nor a person, nor singular. Dylan was fond of quoting Rimbaud: “I is another.” Did Sean meet the woman at the well? Or did I? And who will say?
A little after four a.m., wind billows through the neighbor’s chimes and a delicate melody floats into the house and through my heart. Winter came hard and fast this year, all at once, much the way J. left, and I find myself sad and a little alarmed, as if waiting for news that can’t help but be bad.
I think we have to be responsible about Jesus. Between the rigorous cross-disciplinary work of historians since about the sixties, and the eschatalogical nature of women like Mary Daly and Elisabeth Fiorenza, we have the clearest sense of the man since that first Easter. If you aren’t beginning with the history, then you are beginning with something other than the Holy Spirit, and that way lies dragons.
Jesus was not about personal fulfillment, not about mind-body dualism and not – he was not – interested in the metaphysics of identity. He knew who he was, and he knew who God was, and – for him anyway – that meant he knew who everyone else was. And nobody has to accept that he knew those things, or take his teaching seriously – by all means shake the dust of your shoes – but you shouldn’t try to turn him into something he wasn’t. You shouldn’t put concepts and ideas on his lips that were not, you know, actually ever on his lips. Jesus didn’t say squat that aligns with A Course in Miracles. Now what?
Well, it’s not possible for us to interact with a Jesus who isn’t a projection of some kind. But the suggestion is, that projection has to start with what we know. Anything else is just ego.
Holiness means acceptance. But holiness is never resigned. It’s creative. It’s a way of being present without insisting that anything conform to some pre-determined conditions we set. Being present means remembering what is true and, eventually, being remembered by what is true.
Last spring, God said clearly to me, you don’t know what you want and you want too much. I disappeared for most of the rest of the year, first to understand what he was saying, and then to figure out how to respond.
Part of what God was saying was, want happens. Desire is a part of the human condition. But also, you can be intentional about that experience. You can investigate the nature of want, of desire. You can study its nature and effects. You can see it clearly, and clear seeing is the fundament of all holy relationships, because clear seeing is what enables authentic response.
Have you seen desire clearly? Have you identified the spectrum of its effects? Is there – should there be – another way?
I get up to wander the dark house with what’s left of the coffee. The darkness and quiet are a sensory blessing. My heart settles and my mind opens, at range in hinterlands full of apostles and prophets. I’m happy, against long odds. I’m grateful more than I can say. Where would I be without you?
Identity is not a crisis nor even a problem. It’s an effect of certain beliefs about what bodies are, what the world is, and what’s the best way to navigate this big old experience. Most of us don’t go into all that – it doesn’t feel amenable to investigation, and it doesn’t feel amenable to change. Why bother? Most of our core beliefs, the ones that seem to cement identity and mandate suffering, hide behind some version of “it is what it is.”
Five or so years ago – in a bright office twenty stories up, in a city I have not visited since – somebody said that to me. “It is what it is.” I said in reply – really I was split open to allow reply – “I reject that profanity.”
I’ve been confused about that for a long time, even as the directive remained clear. I do reject the profanity of “it is what it is.”
This morning, the confusion cleared. The coffee went cold, as often happens when he’s near. I forget a lot. Don’t need a lot?
Morning passing, day beginning, again.
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Hello there. I’m not trying to start an argument. I am nothing. I am a zero, but the two statements,
‘holiness is mostly an invitation to tell a different story and, in doing so, to realize who is telling the story’.
and
‘Jesus didn’t say squat that aligns with a Course in Miracles’.
feels like a contradiction to me.
Why? Because Helen thought Jesus was dictating his ideas of unconditional love through her. It was her version of Christ Consciousness. Like you, (based on what I think I’ve read) she seemed to think she’d met the real Jesus who ‘invited’ her to write a book. Imo, a very holy book.
Respectfully,
Sara
The woman who loves her dog Maggie.
Thanks for sharing, Sara. What the heck do any of us know 🙂
Helen projected Jesus, and that projection gave her a writing project, to which she was faithful. I’m very grateful. It is one of a handful of truly transformative texts in my life.
Helen’s Jesus rhymes perfectly with Advaita Vedanta. But that tradition makes ontological claims about reality (e.g., the world isn’t real) that Jesus never made. If we stay in a Christian context, then the course rhymes (less perfectly but still well) with gnosticism, a belief system that Jesus ignored entirely.
Helen’s Jesus relies heavily on mind / body dualism. It separates the two, judges them, and then sets them up in a hierarchy, with mind over body. Jesus never said anything about that, let alone endorsed that view. I think it’s pretty clear that dualism does not reflect reality (even if we’re not sure what does), and has been used historically to grotesque ends.
There is nothing wrong with practicing Advaita Vedanta today – there are really good teachers out there and it has a long and stable tradition. There is nothing wrong with being gnostic. And there is nothing wrong with practicing a Course in Miracles. It’s all good!
But none of that – none of it – is what Jesus taught or practiced.
It is not a crime against God or nature to choose a non-Christian tradition (Advaita Vedanta), or to choose a tradition that emphasizes different concepts and practices than Jesus did (gnosticism), or even to indulge a mostly-discarded philosophical system (mind / body dualism), just like it’s not a crime to study and practice a mash-up of all that (e.g., ACIM).
But I think integrity and honesty require us to recognize that Jesus was in fact quite clear about the way to know God and remember love and that way has nothing to do with separating body and mind, or taking a stance that there’s no world, or claiming that we’re not bodies but rather minds.
He advocated nonviolence, itinerancy, and service, all in the context of Judaism, which he loved with all his heart. That’s where I start.
It’s fair to say, okay Sean. But then why are you bothering at all with ACIM?
The answer is: long ago, in what now feels like another lifetime, the course spoke to me and I listened. I took the course – multiple times (I am either a slow learning or an obsessive one, take your pick). And eventually I got around to facing something in the material that was deeply painful and confusing for me: the Jesus in and of the course did not resemble AT ALL the Jesus I had known growing up and still, from time to time, engaged with.
When I tugged that string just the tiniest bit, the whole edifice of ACIM just . . . crumbled. It disappeared. And it was okay – hard but okay – because ONLY when I withdrew my gaze (my attention, my practice) from the course could I give it to Jesus. I did what Jesus says to do IN the course:
When I did that – really and truly did that, Sara – I lost the course but was found by Jesus.
So I am interested in the way ACIM both distracted me from Jesus AND enabled me to recognize that distraction and move to undo it. In a non-trivial way, the course facilitated its own demise. I find that fascinating!
I have written about the Jesus / Helen Schucman relationship here, and about the mind / body dualism here, if you want to read something a little more developed and thought-out than this.
I want to add three things (to this already too long comment):
First, nobody has to agree with me or agree that I know what I’m talking about when it comes to the course. I’m less interested in being right than in being helpful, and I understand that for most folks my read on ACIM isn’t a great fit. So no hard feelings – towards you or anybody else reading – that needs or wants to just shuffle on.
Second, meeting Jesus outside the domain of projection and denial, outside the domain of ego (I want Jesus to be this, I want him to be that) STILL points us to oneness and unconditional love but it does so in a very embodied, non-esoteric kind of way. Nonviolence, itinerancy and service are all things we do with bodies – they reflect embodied ways of being with others in the world. And they are incredibly difficult and in my experience you CAN’T do them without A) a real relationship with the risen Christ and B) folks who are also in that kind of relationship. But as I said, I am a slow learner 🙂
Third, it is possible to understand my position on the course as reflecting its sense that we have to learn – here in the world, here in these bodies – that there is no world and we are NOT bodies. You could say, “Sean is figuring that stage out and good for him!” And who knows, maybe that’s correct. I don’t see it that way myself, but I’ve been wrong before, sometimes egregiously.
Thank you, Sara, for reading and for asking such a helpful question. I appreciate the opportunity to reflect more deeply on all of this.
I hope you and Maggie and your other loves are well!
Love,
Sean
Sean, She was beating to the sound of her own drum. I think that’s what I’m trying to say. What the heck do I know?