The creativity of the
human spirit lies within.
When labeled “scripture”
by organized, formal and primarily cultural groups, spiritual writing suffers at the hands of unimaginative believers. What
starts out as “scripture” deteriorate into DOGMA – form without the spiritual substance that created it.
Over my lifetime
I've come to understand how epiphany, illumination and flashes of inspiration lead to a greater sense of being prompted -
not in the manner of a human puppet who only moves because God pulls the strings - but in a manner of responding to the creative
impulse. One's muse resides in an inner place that seems literally and personally holy.
Might not we call
that place - as did Jesus - The Kingdom of God within. There dwells the soul in a fully illuminated awareness. Constant opportunity
to know one's self more completely exists in that holy place. Constant opportunity for enhanced personal insight and wisdom
exists there as well.
One can sense the
on-going reality of eternity in an interior manner quite personal and unique
Such is the kingdom
of God described by Jesus. It is the home within each of us where we can see clearly through the window pane if - as Alan
Watts expressed it - we are not too busy painting pictures on the clear crystal of what we have bought into from our own speculation
or what other mortals have told us.
Perceptually our
existence seems governed by the perceptions of five physical senses. In interaction with those physical senses we've learned
that our brains function from both a left and right side.
Our left-brain is
primarily an interpreter of facts – an encyclopedia of personally acquired knowledge and experience.
The right brain, the creative
and imaginative side, is the source of our music, poetry and inventions.
Through our senses facts and
experience are admitted into our thinking. They are ordered and collated on the left side of our brain and then conceptualized
and understood on the right side.
Balance and harmony of perception
are the natural path of our spiritual and physical evolution to wisdom and a higher spiritual plane. Real balance and harmony
require perceptual willingness to trust what arises within that inner garden.
We are equipped to see in three
dimensions: height, width and depth. Without three-dimensional vision, we see only a square instead of a box and a circle
instead of a sphere.
Logic suggests that a prompting
moves more naturally through the mind via the creative and imaginative side -- the right brain side.
Left-brain thinking turns on
the spirit receiver by its ability to read words, remember definitions, remember stories and remember personal life incidents.
Right brain thinking activates
the more spiritually creative aspect of thinking that senses the will and influence of ideas both higher and deeper in the
mind.
To live entirely with an emphasis
on left-brain thinking makes us no more human than a computer, which amasses knowledge and acts only according to facts in
the database.
To live entirely with an emphasis
on right brain thinking causes us to live in a world of fantasy, wishful thinking, and imaginary states where the practical
application toward bringing wishes to reality is missing.
Right brain conceives the wish,
but left-brain has the resources to realize the wish.
It is sensible then that the
infinite would not speak to humans solely through right side thinking where ideas would remain only in a conceptual state
without the will and knowledge to action. Creativity then springs into action in a mind balanced with knowledge AND imagination.
Spiritually speaking, we are
better served by reading formal scripture with a sense of creative imagination rather than with rigid left-brain literal thinking.
One primary weakness of contemporary
Christianity is that while Jesus did all that He did using the Law as reference material to teach and point toward God, Christianity
uses scripture as Law only and points not at God but at Jesus.
Do we lazily rely on left-brain-dominated
blindness by acting only as the words are literally written?
Do we think then that we have
no need that they be placed in a context of spiritual internal feeling and understanding?
Or do we lazily reside in a fantasy
world with a right-brain-dominated weakness of wishful trusting that if we "believe" in Jesus we are fulfilling God's intent
in giving us life and opportunity?
Do we restrict ourselves to merely
looking and pointing at Jesus instead of looking where He looked and pointing where He pointed?
"Lazy" is appropriate here. Are
we mostly interested in learning only that which we are commanded to "do", that which we need to "obey" and that which we
"shouldn't do"?
Are we afraid to be truly prompted
by turning loose our right-brained creativity and trusting when comes to our outer consciousness seeking expression from within?
I have at times in my life been
a piano teacher. Worrying about literal Bible jots and tittles to excess is like being able to play music only by reading
notes.
It is like counting the rhythm
loudly inside our heads as we try to hit the notes as dictated by our loud inner counting.
We have no true feeling for the
music itself, the phrasing and the flow. We are worried more about the form of the music rather than its substance.
It is very unlikely - playing
music in that manner - that we will be captured by the fullness of the musical piece. We are not likely to find ourselves
carried to a higher plane as the music actually communicates its mood and feeling.
Such sterile and empty playing
is primarily pretending to music; it is action dominated by left-brain thinking.
Although mechanically a player
can become very skilled, not only does the music remain mechanical in sound - as if played by a computer - but it is unlikely
such a player will ever successfully understand or interpret what he plays; let alone create his own music.
Creativity does not proceed out
of minds dominated by left-brained thinking.
The Bible is first and foremost
a spiritual document which contains within its pages a wisdom that must be obtained spiritually and never literally.
It takes work to use scripture
in that way. It takes a recognition that God - as the strongest spiritual force in existence - is something very much a part
of reality in the here and now.
It takes a recognition that every
human individual not only has a "right" to on-going spiritual communion but a need and opportunity to enhance life on the
basis of individual effort.
Jesus spoke in the scriptural
terms of his time and made excellent use of the "father's house" consisting of many mansions. The image is not of a massive
fortress or cathedral with separate "mansion" wings and lobbies, but of an abode where all dwell.
How might we read scripture free
from rigidity, dogma and literal binding?
Read with me for a moment.
Jacob found himself in the presence
of the abode of God in Genesis immediately upon awakening from his dream.
"Surely
the Lord is in this place: and I knew it not. And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place: This is none other
than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven."
Jacob was awake, alive and breathing
earthly air and was suddenly struck with the realization later taught by Jesus: the abode of God as a kingdom is here, is
now, and we are already a part of it.
In Psalms David confirms Jacob's
understanding with the assurance that
"Surely
goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."
David was not comforted because
he believed he would suffer in guilt and regret all the days of his life or that he would be consoled in his future spiritual
incarceration by an abstraction. David was not looking at a post-mortal dwelling with God forever that included eventual forgiveness
- an end result is promised to all of us.
David expressed his own powerful
awareness of the presence of God in the here and now. David was first and foremost a mystic. He demonstrated repeatedly his
ability to write and sing about a relationship with God that was not singly his nor restricted only to him by a discriminating
Eternal Father.
David was one who had known God
on an extremely intimate basis over his mortal lifetime. He knew God as all mortals can actively know still today.
David had no need to be comforted
by biblical wordage that had yet to be written and interpreted by literalist evangelical Christians in the Middle Ages.
The Psalmist in # 84 makes the
affirmation that mortal life as a "doorkeeper in the house of my God" is preferable to a life of dwelling "in the tents of
wickedness" which certainly will not be present after death.
Again, the abode of God is here,
on earth and in the present moment.
Proverbs advises us on how to
build our homes in harmony with the abode of God in this earthly environment.
"Through
Wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established. And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all
precious and pleasant riches."
“Wisdom” in the above
quote is not mere wise knowledge. In Proverbs Wisdom is another name for the spirit of God.
When Isaiah was calling Israel
to repentance, he justified Jacob's understanding of what the house of God is. He justified Jacob's own life of living within
God's earthly abode.
In fact Isaiah preceded his approval
of Jacob with a statement about gnat-strainers and camel-swallowers. Precisely stated, Isaiah describes that sterile left-brain
world of scriptural literalists who play at being righteous.
"... the
scorner is consumed, and all that watch for iniquity are cut off: That make a man an offender for a word, and lay a snare
for him that reproveth in the gate, and turn aside the just for a thing of naught.
Therefore
thus saith the Lord, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob, Jacob shall not now be ashamed, neither shall his
face now wax pale."
Trying to protect their status
as spiritual overlords of a nation that had been taught it was God's chosen people, the Jewish priesthood accused Jesus of
being the Devil.
Jesus responding to those who
labeled him Beelzebub, understanding that what they were after was entrenchment in a false spiritual reality. He described
life for those who forgot that the here and now is God's abode.
"Every kingdom divided against
itself is brought to desolation; and every city of house divided against itself shall not stand...."
Jesus was teaching that for all
people the here and now is where God's abode is found. God does not have bouncers and ID-checkers to keep non-worthy folks
out.
The words Jesus puts into the
"lord's" mouth are strong and powerful - expressing God's passion and compassion for humanity.
Which brings us to the marvelous
"In my Father's house are many mansions" (which I have actually heard as a beautiful musical piece with lyrics following the
actual verses.)
Literalists limit the image of
the abode of God as a future abstract kingdom that includes punishment. Literalists envision unrelenting suffering that will
only be eventually ended by a scorekeeping God who knows when the uttermost farthing has been paid.
Such is all literalist biblical
Christianity has to offer spiritual seekers.
It's an insult to who and what
God's reality is. It denies the existence of any substantial spiritual nourishment at the banquet to which we are all invited.
It's an insult to humanity to
insist that amid all that abundance there is only a bowl of bitter gruel upon which has been divinely inscribed:
“The Inerrant and Absolute Word of God. This is all you may consume.”
A lie.
We ought not leave so much on
that table untouched.
I cordially invite you to experience
this writing and poetry as my own magic and in no way meant to instruct how you should find your own magic.
When your own creativity reveals
itself to you it will be unrestricted by anyone else's magic.
