Prayer

I believe.  It is good to pray.  Prayer connects me somehow with the depth. “I am the bubble make the me sea.” is a Sanskrit chant taught by Yoganda.  Dr. Carl Jung described the ‘collective unconscious’.  I’m remembering St. Theresa’s Inner Castle.  This is life is the “Dark Night of the Soul’.  As Dr. Scott Peck said, “I am in God’s kindergarten’.  Now older I realize I’m more and more in the waiting room of heaven.

“I believe in an afterlife, “ she said. “I’m just concerned about heaven and hell”.  We were talking about of loved parents who had gone before us.  I told her about “Proof of Heaven” by the Neurosurgeon, Dr. Eben Alexander. Later I described the work of Dr. Moody with people who had had Near Death Experiences.  So many people saw a light or a being of light and met with people who were family or friends who had gone before them.  I like Rainbow Bridge myself. That’s the field where our pets are waiting for us to cross over with us into the real promised land.  

I am travelling from Old Jerusalem to New Jerusalem.

There can be no death as I know only life and rebirth.  If one day the world changed and I did not wake from sleep how much wiser would I be.  The moment of death is just another passing.  I know no true permanence except in consciousness.

In prayer i ask that God be forever with me. I am impermanent but God is permanent. I am changing but God is both changing and unchanging. There are the centre of the centre of the centre is this.  I love the psalm “Be still and know that I am God”.  It’s every word and phrase has the deepest meaning. 

Be still and know that I am God

Be still and know that I am

Be still and know that I

Be still and know that

Be still and know 

Be still and 

Be still

Be

Be still

Be still and

Be still and know

Be still and know that

Be still and know that I 

Be still and know that I am

Be still and know that I am God.

Jesus taught “Do not be afraid.”  My friend, Willi says, “That wasn’t a suggestion, that was a command."

Late night in a meeting of doctors who had learned spirituality the hard way, going to hell and coming back, an old internist in his 80’s who’d started out to be a priest but loved women too much, sat with his daughter, a young woman and mother herself, and shared, “Anxiety is a measure of your distance from God and equally a measure of your humanity”.

 

I’ve dabbled in politics of late.  There’s so much squabble and struggle.  As the Buffalo Springfield of old said, “People carrying signs, mostly say Hoorah for Our Side!”  Of course it’s all rigged and George Carlin is right to be negative.  Even Leonard Cohen wrote, "Everyone knows that the dice are loaded”.

Yet we do the next right thing. Hitchhiking in the 60’s we said to each other, silly thinking of hikers and free loaders saying this but we did, “Keep on Trucking”.  

Life is a journey is a metaphor.  I must learn to love the walking and the process rather than be addicted to destination.  

God is in the now.  As a wonderful grand military man with shoulders the size of two men and arms like thighs said to me so often when he heard me talking, “Bill, you’ve got one foot in the future and one foot in the past, you’re pissing and shitting on your day. Get your head in the same room as your ass is!"

Be here now, the Babba Ram Dass book.

Be still.

Pray.  Dr. James Houston’s book on Prayer is so helpful.

Jesus was the servant God.  He was God incarnate.  The baby God. The inside God.  Not the top down God of Neitze’s Superman.  Not the great Zeus or the Egyptian God’s or Today’s Gaia and all those glorious grand others of greatness and power but rather this meek man who said,  the Kingdom of God is other.  

In prayer I seek the Kingdom of God as Jesus taught.  He said don’t be loud and proud but rather be humble.  Even he went away from his disciples to pray.  Alone. But not alone.

In prayer Jesus Christ taught, pray like this,

“Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done , on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day, our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen”.

I pray when I wake in the morning and before I go to sleep at night. I pray many times a day , some days more.  Martin Luther King would say, It’s going to be a hard day so I must spend more time on my knees. St. Paul taught us to pray unceasingly.  

Prayer is comforting.  It’s like a warm blanket in a storm. It’s like a cool drink in a desert.  We are not alone.  Martin Buber said there is I and Thou, that the sense is of I and it but the greatest journey is from I and it to I and Thou. Somewhere we leave off I and I to make the leap of faith to I and Thou.  

I am that is who I am was God’s response to the question of who he was at the burning bush.  YHVH.  Jehovah.  Adonai.  Elohim. All names of God.  The many facetted jewel.  

In the east they tell the story of the blind folded wise men introduced to an object and each of them touching this creature from different positions.  They argue later , some saying it was a wall, others a pillar, others still a snake and then the blindfolds are removed and they see the elephant as it is.

St. Paul said, “Now we see through a glass darkly.”  I am aware of Plato’s story of the cave and the shadows and the neoplatonism that runs through religion. There’s this idea of perfection and imperction.  There is this sense of substance and depth.  Einstein’s formula E=MC2 really ties energy and mass together, saying mass is but slow energy. There was once the Atomic theory. I liked that the At-OM was such a word and chanted “OM’ liking that this ‘AMEN” sound reminded me of comfort words like “MOM” and “HOME”.  Then the physicists dug deeper and deeper into more and more parts like the day I first looked at pond water in my microscope, the gift of my parents because they saw my fascination with things tiny.  Like God as the Baby Jesus. I later lay with my brother and my father and looked at the stars with my father high powered binoculars.  That divided the pins of light to multiply the already vast galaxy.  Now there is every more outward and inward.

I like my dreams often. The nightmares are less frequent these days.  Instead I dream of family and friends and this strange house and peninsula and water and boats and sometimes a tea party and old ladies and gatherings and dogs and cats.  It’s a Sunday picnic in the afterlife.  I wake feeling better as if I’ve had a visitation in my sleep. 

It’s all explainable in the language of arrogance but I like the sacred. I feel comforted in the arms of my creator. I feel in prayer I am talking to my mother and father and now my brother.  They’re dead but not forever.  I will go to meet them again one day. And that first friend of mine who died and I cried at his funeral aware of the loss. Today I will learn of more who have died. I’ve worked in the Valley of the Shadow of Death all my adult life.  

Always I have tried to comfort. I have to the best of my ability helped people in this world.  Like Victor Frankl I’ve tried to help them find meaning. I’ve found them wandering in disease and poverty and turned them around from the direction of death to life for a while longer, like the babies I helped turn in the womb so they’d find it easier to make their way out.

Now I’m just another on the journey.  I ask Jesus to be my Lord and leader. I am a follower of the child king, the servant king, the man who washed the feet of his students.  I am a lover of a man who died on the cross crucified by mistake or intent, betrayed, a God who came to earth and was killed because we can’t tolerate love. I am a killer of Jesus. I was there when they crucified my Lord. I am forever a part of that epic scene. I can be the potted plant on the stage. I can be any of the characters but when it comes to myth or theatre or story there is no greater story than this Good News. It says that Christ was born, Christ died and Christ will come again.  This is life, awakening, dying and awakening. No permanence except in God.  

And in prayer I seek the One.  

Be still and know that I am God.  

Be still

Be

Thank you Lord Jesus Christ for your love and life.  Thank you for your sacrifice.  Help me ever to remember and be with you.

Christ before me. Christ beside me. Christ above me, Christ in front of me. Christ behind me. Protect me and heal me and love me as I love thee.  

I would know your Grace because I know my love for such a limited selfish sense. I would love you as my dog loves me.  I would learn to love with faith and courage and strength.  I would be nearer to thee. I would be with you always.

Thank you Jesus.  In prayer and thanksgiving I come to you.  Thou anointed my head with oil. Thou prepares a table for me in the presence of my enemies. My cup overflowest.

Thank you.

 

Death Cafes

I heard on the radio of a new old idea. People are getting together for coffee to discuss death. It might sound macabre at first but it’s philosophically ancient and uplifting. In Medieval days there was even the notion of a 'good death'.  This was before 'physician assisted suicide'.  A 'good death' was about the completion of a 'good life' . This was before the age of amorality.  Relative truth was not a thing of the day and death was considered an absolute.
So many people live today ‘lives of quiet desperation’.  So much depends on our perspective.  The first path of the Noble Truth 8 fold path of Buddhism is 'right view.'  There is a certainty about the relativity of perspective. But there is also the perspective  of the future too.  No one knows.  The pseudoscientists and materialists ever loud as children would have you believe as they do.  But death has no simple answer and each view has it’s own unique reward and loss.
I believe in death as a time of transition.  There is ‘afterlife’ for me just as there is ‘morning after’ when I go to sleep. So far I’ve not ‘died in my sleep.’  Not that I know of.  Not that I would know either. This is 'belief'.  This is an 'idea'.  Even the great Houdini apparently didn't 'escape death' as he said he would.
The epistemology of knowing is itself frought with constant hazard.  Naturally knowing death, a purely private and subjective matter distinct from the public and objective event is too.  I’ve held the dying and felt the end of the body with relative certainty.  The works of Psychiatrist Dr. Moody about Near Death Phenomena and later works quoted by Neurosurgeon Dr. Eben Alexander in Proof of Heaven even challenge the notion of the ‘time’ of death.  As physicians we once used the idea of the death of the heart and loss of pulse and EKG reading, but with EEG advances Brain Death, where available,  has been used as ‘best time of death’ practice.
This is a long way from the days when one felt air around the nostrils and if it wasn’t moving declared a person dead.  Fakirs and yogis long ago developed methods of slowing breathing and heart to the point of ‘appearing’ dead with the subsequent apparent miracle of reanimation.  However even today there are those who have ‘revived’ after being declared ‘brain dead’ and that certainly challenges our ‘cutting edge’ perceptions of the simple ‘timing’ of death.  Science continues to expand our knowledge of the ‘event phenomena’.
What counts most is whether one believes death is a permanent or temporary end.  Is consciousness tied to the body and brain. Is there instead as Socrates believed a distinct body and soul separation, the joining of which occurs in this life whereas death releases the prisoner soul to rise or travel on.  Neuroscientist Dr. Mario de Beuregaard in his book Spiritual Brain does a superb job of debunking the prevailing myths of consumer society and the propaganda of "he who has the most toys wins".  He studied Carmelite Nuns meditating with PET Scans and showed the extreme ecstatic capacity inherent in the process which defies the reductionist egotism of the ultimately fearful.
Time is even a working principle but something which studied more in depth becomes the thing of Einstien and the perception of the "now'.
The Mathematician philosopher Pascal postulated a gamblers approach to belief in god which might well apply to belief in afterlife.  He said that if there was no god and one believed in God there was indeed no loss. However if there was a God and one believed in God there was a potential considerable win.  Not believing in an infinite possibility would by Pascals reasoning be an overwhelming loss.  "Pascal’s Wager" has gone down in history as one of the simplest approaches to positive thinking.
It’s challenged however by the Neitziean Superman complex who would do acts in life for which they’d not want potential consequence in afterlife. The very idea of a relationship between present life and after life is a posit itself.  The Superman who makes his own rules and lives without the restraint of the world might still be hampered by the ‘still small voice’ which somehow disturbs the sleep of the Caligula’s of the world.  Addicts and alcoholics who have done ‘monstrous’ things and tried to ‘numb’ themselves and overcome the ‘anxiety’ and ‘insomnia’ and ‘nightmares’ which accompany the obscene and offensive, don’t seem to find enough ‘sedation’ and seem haunted desperately desiring a subjective certain end to their own miserable existence. It’s not surprising that many world leaders even today involve themselves in philanthropy in later life not just for tax havens but rather to expiate guilt about earlier transgressions.  The Mob was notorious for it’s support of children’s hospitals.
Death being an end would appeal most to those most guilty whereas those most worthy might well have nothing to fear of an afterlife. Prevailing theories commonly might reflect the morality of an individual as much as unbiased observation.
Certainly world leaders and the elite might fear the afterlife and hoarding wealth this life seek immortality by any medical means.  The advances in stem cell research and body part transplants is not driven by the young as much as it is by the old and wealthy whose behaviour might in this life time be considered suspect.  They do not seem to wish to meet their maker quickly in the eyes of those who lack wealth or such choice.
Amazing Grace, the great testimony, written by a hardened slave dealer contains the memorable phrase, "I once was lost but now I”m found.'  The end of life 'conversion' is so common as to be a thing of movies and stories.
 The young have been given visions of glory and virgins with death to entice them to do the will of the old who cling to life fearing death.  Do they know more or by the way that they lived missed out on the life that sees some walk peacefully to their ends as if fulfilled. Thomas wrote the great poem for his father, "do not go gentle into that still night."  
How one lives superficially, fearfully or in depth, passionately, might well ‘fill’ one with respect to life that one is ‘ready’ for death whereas another might be ‘frantic’ and ‘lost’ at the prospect.  So many people live lives like ‘happy cabbages’ not ‘aware’ and seemingly distracted repeatedly say before death ‘if I’d only known”.
Jesus taught ‘be watchful’.  His parable of keeping the lamps lit speaks to the same message as the Buddha's which was to "be awake" .  Today's image of the 'zombie " is a contrast to the spiritual direction of the wisdom teachers.  Richard Rohr describes the wisdom fathers as generally teaching that this world is one of people asleep, sleep walker.   Dr. Scott Peck described it as a kindergarten for the soul.
What metaphor rules ones life, i.e. that life is a journey, a bowl of cherries, a place of suffering, a waiting for Godot, whatever,  defines the ultimate meaning one gives to death and may well create the nature of existence itself. The Secret and the Law of Attraction suggests that there comes a time where our very thoughts manifest our actual reality. This isn’t necessarily so or without discipline of mind but might well be an explanation for death.  Is one ever ‘ready’ for death.
Talking with a WWI vet who survived the trenches and countless opportunities for death, he told me once quite simply, " we all knew ’the bullet must have our name on it.'”  There’s the whole issue of ‘freewill versus fate’. The shallow 21st century opportunist speaks eloquently of genetics and ‘determinism’ but cranks out ‘selfies’ like the next one. The 'selfie' is the ultimate facile seeking of some form of timelessness or immortality.
The idea that ‘no praise, and no blame’ goes with fate is alien to this millennial culture which wants ‘all praise, and no blame’ no different from my OO7 culture which wanted a ‘license’ to kill because we all have ‘freedom’ to kill but don’t wish the ‘consequences’ that come with 'freedom'.  Death is a consequence.  Hence the success of the insurance agencies and all the silliness of individuals to sacrifice so many rights and freedoms for ‘safety’ as an ultimately illusory goal.
Life is temporal.
But is death different?  Again is it temporal or permanent?
I applaud the return of ‘death cafes’ . Can one truly celebrate life without discussion of death.  The whole cultural art forms of the zombie, vampire and the living dead suggest we cannot.  Might we not in kind embrace the angels if we shed some light on death rather than leave it to the nether regions.