But now I’m reading his memoir, Broken Music. How that happened is this: I was looking up version of “People Get Ready”, and I found one that Sting sung with Jeff Beck on guitar. it was a weird performance… I wondered if Sting was upset or drunk or something. But one thing really stood out. Where all the other singers I’d heard said (regarding the “train to Jordan”, something to this affect,

There ain’t no room for the hopeless sinner
who would hurt all mankind, just to save his own…
Have pity on those
whose chances grow thinner…

… Sting sang instead,

There’s even room for the hopeless sinner
who would hurt all mankind, just to save his own.
Have pity on me…

I searched (and searched, and searched) and haven’t yet found any other version sung that way.

I’ve always had a soft spot for Sting, since I heard him interviewed on NPR way back when Dream of the Blue Turtles came out. Terri Gross, I think, asked about “Every Breath You Take,” and he said folks write to say how the love it, and they play it at their weddings. He said he thought the song was creepy, and, of folks who played it at their wedding, he laughed and said, “Good luck with that.” I loved him a little bit right then.

Anyway, so this led me to his memoir. I was curious. I’m about 80% through it, and, though I’m enjoying the whole thing, there was one part right in the beginning that really got me.

It’s where he talks about his first (only?) mystical experience. His happened under the influence of an “ancient medicine,” in a jungle in Brazil, but it’s clearly recognizable as the sort of mystical experience that other folks report. And it’s remarkably similar to experiences I’ve had, albeit without the help of any ancient medicines.

I love the way he wrote about it.

Yet when we walk outside into the cool of the evening, the jungle is vibrantly alive, in fact disarmingly alive, and I have never felt so consciously connected before. I may be out of my gourd, but I seem to be perceiving the world on a molecular level, where the normal barriers that separate “me” from everything else have been removed, as if every leaf, every blade of grass, every nodding flower is reaching out, every insect calling to me, every star in the clear sky sending a direct beam of light to the top of my head.

This sensation of connectedness is overwhelming. It’s like floating in a bouyant limitless ocean of feeling that I can’t really begin to describe unless I invoke the word love.

Heh. If you know me at all, I’m sure you know how giddy I was at that point.

Before this experience I would have used the word to separate what I love from everything I don’t love—us not them, heroes from villians, friend from foe, everything in life separated and distinct like walled cities or hilltop fortresses jealously guarding their hoard of separateness. Now all is swamped in this tidal wave of energy which grounds the skies to the earth so that every particle of matter in and around me is vibrant with significance. Everything around me seems in a state of grace and eternal. And strangest of all is that such grandiose philosophizing seems perfectly appropriate in this context, as if the spectacular visions have opened a doorway to another world of frankly cosmic possibilities.

Wow. Isn’t that lovely? I was rivited. And then he talked about the implications he sees in that, and that last sentence, the very last one, really, really threw me.

I have to sit down on the steps of the church in dumbstruck awe at the beauty of the jungle and the stars above my head, but it is almost too much to bear. I lower my eyes to see a small gap in the stone steps, and there in the darkness, six inches down, at the bottom of the narrow crevice formed by the rough slabs of granite, grows an exquisite purple flower. It is like a forget-me-not, five petals of magenta radiating from the central mandala of a five-pointed yellow star, reaching bravely toward the light with an extraordinary life force and I am the sole witness to the courage of its struggle. In this moment I am led to an understanding that not only must such tiny, beautiful, and delicate living things be charged with love, but also the inanimate stones that surround them, everything giving and receiving, reflecting and absorbing, resisting and yielding, and I realize perhaps for the first time that love is never wasted. Love can be denied or ignored, or even perverted, but it does not disappear, it merely takes another form, until we are consciously ready to accept its mystery and its power. This may take a moment or an eternity, and there can be no insignificancies in eternity. And if this is true, then I must continue to remember my story and attempt to make some sense of it, to try to remake the drab prose of my life into some kind of transcendent poetry.

I have always had a sort of existential angst that I don’t know how to explain. Whenever I’ve thought there might be “no purpose” to life, or that the universe is a bunch of rocks that happened to spark life, but will just go back to nothing… well, that route it suicide for me. Literally, kinda. I have diagnoses to prove it.

And I had been thinking about this more lately (again). Trying to remember what I hold on to in order not to lose hope. And then I read this. It was one of several messages I got over as many days, but definitely one of the juicier ones.

And if this is true, then I must continue to remember my story and attempt to make some sense of it, to try to remake the drab prose of my life into some kind of transcendent poetry.

And, by the way, I’m still looking for anybody else who sings the love-grace-version of “People Get Ready.”

But our ways of reaching for freedom have diverged. Near as I can tell, he’s liking the Libertarian approach, whereas I look more like an anarchist of sorts. (The sort that doesn’t think anarchy will fix anything.)

All that is a preface, to tell you that Gene posted a quote on facebook that intrigued me.

“So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another—their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.” Ayn Rand

I read this and remembered how it felt to think that those were the only choices. It’s a feeling that has the comfort of familiarity. But I’m glad to be rid of it.

Another world is possible.

As a Jew, I heard something in Synagogue that blew me away. (I was lucky, in that I hadn’t grown up with it and become numbed to the message. An argument for not subjecting kids to religious education. But I digress.) Here is the message that electrified me:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

Because it’s about noticing what’s real and sacred, and sticking with it. It made so much sense to me.

And then I read about loving your neighbor as yourself. This idea isn’t original with Jesus. Plenty of Rabbis around the time he lived talked about this idea, and it’s found in the Hebrew Bible. (In Leviticus, of all places!)

But just when I thought got the whole message, here comes this part:

But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.

And somehow I knew, “Yes, that. Imma do that.”

But does love work?

I used to hear “Love will fix everything,” and I used to think it was naive. Then I thought maybe it was true. But what Jesus teaches me is that even if it isn’t true, I want to do it anyway. Even if it isn’t effective or the answer, I still want to choose love. And yet…

Love wins.

When I don’t see it as effective, it means I’m measuring by a yardstick that values other things over love, over beauty, over truth. I’m living out — embodying — values of money, security, stuff that’s subject to rust and decay and being taken away when I’m not looking.

That’s not really me. That’s not what I want to embody. I want the yardstick of peace. Or — no — I want to throw away the yardstick, and live in the world where Love wins. The world my teacher calls the Kingdom of Heaven.

Sorry, Ayn. Neither guns nor money open the door to that kingdom.

we add a thread
to the tapestry of reality

what if all those threads of love and grace
become the substance
that makes up
the universe?

What if they become
god?

What if we
are creating
god?

And what if time isn’t linear?
What if we created god
by the choices we made
tomorrow?

What if the god
of our creation
is empowered
by our love
to be more than we can imagine?

What if that
(non-linear)
god
can swoop back around
and scoop us up
and hold us
and teach us
love
and grace?

I have never been into “taking things on faith” — I’m a critical thinker, an explorer, a critical rationalist. I question my ideas. Yet I have an idea I can barely stand to question.

God = Love

I am dependent on a gridwork that is love, is grace, is good-enough, is peace, is exactly right & good. That’s where my faith is.

There are folks who are ok with a world that just is, and I’ve tried to be one, but that’s where I have not been able to be ok. If the universe is cold, and made of rocks, some of which happened to catch fire — if I see it that way — so far the result has been that I’m scared, miserable, sometimes suicidal. The bottom layer has to be good. That’s the limit I’ve come up against.

I don’t think I believe a single proposition “on faith”, except maybe that one.

My god-shaped hole is right on a major artery.

But maybe it’s not on faith.

Actually, I don’t think I believe this “on faith”, or just because I choose to. In fact, I’m pretty sure I don’t, because I’ve never been able to believe anything just because I choose to. When I was an atheist, I didn’t want to be. I wanted to believe in something more.

I think, instead of believing “on faith”, that I subject these ideas to criticism as best I can.

I can’t really subject the Cold Universe Theory or the God is Love Theory to scientific testing, so I have to look at other things. I think I take my gut-wrenched reaction as pushing against the Cold Universe Theory. And when I see the incredible things that happen when love is at work in the world, that theory just looks weaker and weaker.

Redemption is real, grace is real, and for now, I’m going to live in faith that the Love-Universe is real, too.

(By the way, my Brother and teacher tells me that that Love-Universe is the Kingdom of God, and that I live there! Hallelujah! How cool is that?)

I’m putting this p.s. at the top… it’s something I forgot to mention when I posted this.

Someone told me recently that he was not doing well, that he was addicted and actively using. He said to me that he wished he were surrounded by the kind of radical acceptance (love) that Tracy & I offer, and that if he were, he knew things would be different. This is one of the things that pushed us toward what you see here.

This is a post about how we are definitely not starting a community church. We are definitely not. More below…

Tracy & I have been away from church for a long time. We have a beautiful little group of friends, a cohort, that meets every week and goes a long way toward keeping us sane. This group is as close to a real church community as Tracy and I have gotten, and we’re grateful. But something’s been nagging at us. We’re finding ourselves pulled toward creating a space — what Anthony Smith has called “kingdom space” — where followers of Christ can…

… encourage each other
… share food with each other
… celebrate the kingdom together, share joy, peace & gratitude
… listen to each other with love
… support each other & share sorrows as well

In other words, to dwell in the kingdom together.

We want a place where we experience the kingdom of God, where we participate in the incarnation of that kingdom. We want a place where we “catch hold of God.”

I want to “see and enter the kingdom of God. I want to be genetically predisposed to lovingkindness. I want to be a beacon of peace to my neighbors.” [Still quoting Anthony Smith. More starting at 40 minute in, in his video from TransForm.]

This started to get scary

So we have been talking and praying and talking and praying, and finally have acknowledged that this pull toward Kingdom Space is real, is a “calling”, and we are gonna have to deal with it. And then we get paniky.

“Where will we find people to help?” and “Where will we meet?” and “What about money?!” No way. Can’t deal with money…

But scary is usually, for me, a sign that I’m not doing the work. Not looking inside for the quiet place, not flowing with the Way of peace.

So Tracy and I talked about it, and we realized that if it’s about pressure, or fear, or even ambition or a desire for more, it’s not what we actually want. So nevermind…

We aren’t going to start a church

Take a mixed up glass jar of muddy water — when you shake it up, it’s swirly, murky, dark. Let it sit for a while, quiet, and it becomes clear. I feel like that jar a lot of times. Like I need to sit until things stop swirling.

So we did that… and guess what? We decided not to start a church.

Starting a church made it seem like our living room wasn’t enough — we’d need to find a space. Starting a church meant that even if we didn’t need music, we really wanted music, and where would we get it? Starting a church meant we needed more than just us, or we’d get burned out.

So we’ve decided not to start a church. Instead, we’re gonna start a church-starting group. Or maybe it’ll be called something else. Maybe a house church.

But whatever it is, our living room is enough. We are enough. And we’ll grow gently, without ambition or worry, as God leads and people show up to do the work.

Our kind of un-church

So here’s the deal. For now, we’re opening up our house for a weekly celebration & gathering. There will be free food and there will be radical love & acceptance and there will be exploration of the kingdom together.

And you are welcome to join us!

We haven’t picked a time yet, but are considering Saturday evenings around dinner time. If you want to come, tell us when the best times are for you.

You have probably heard by now that the Radical Love Project isn’t just about service. At the core, it’s about following love wherever it leads us. It’s about holding on for life, even when it’s whipping us around corners or dangling us above deep canyons. It’s about searching, relentlessly examining, to discover how love is possible in every moment, and to find out what it will take, what needs to change inside me for me to be able to choose love. It’s a spiritual practice based on our understanding of the gospel taught by Jesus Christ, and informed by Zen Buddhism and other spiritual discoveries.

We are in the beginning stages of planning a contemplative workshop retreat for September 17-19, 2010. We’ve found a beautiful lodge and nature center in Southern Ohio with room for a dozen participants, and it’s less than two hours’ drive from either Columbus or Cincinnati. Tentatively, we’re calling it “Discovering Love in Your Neighbor and Yourself.”

Talking about it, Tracy and I realized that it’s important to us that this experience be available to all, so we’ve decided to offer the retreat at no charge. We trust that we’ll raise enough money to pay for the space and the food, but there will be room at the table for all comers. (Up to 12, that is.)

Here’s the “paper napkin” description that we’ve come up with, so far, after some dinner discussions and long walks.

Discovering Love in Your Neighbor and Yourself

Is it really possible to love your neighbor as yourself? For that matter, what does it mean to love yourself? What does it mean, “the kingdom of God is within you”?

Using a mixture of meditation, communion, and some short teachings sprinkled in, we’ll explore and experience breathing, listening to ourselves and each other, and finding connections. It’s a weekend to take care of yourself and to be taken care of. To nourish yourself with grace & peace, making space for you to discover a love that’s as powerful as you’ve always dreamed love could be.

Ack! Does that sound like hype? It’s hard to know how talk about something I treasure as much as this, without sounding like I’m making it up.

As it comes together, we’ll create a website with details, our bios and experience, information about the practice of Compassionate Attention, and a page about what it means to offer the retreat at no cost, knowing that our needs will be met by donations freely given. Oh, and a donate button. Definitely. Heh.

I was sad reading his piece, and a little frustrated. He misses so much of what I hold dear about the emergent Christianity. Misses it entirely.

Emergence is how the world works

Here’s the opening sentence from Wikipedia’s article on Emergence:

In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions.

Emergence, when applied as an idea to the church (the whole of Christianity) is an acknowledgement that systems, including theological ideas, social expectations, language, and ways of doing community, evolve, develop, and change over time. This is in contrast to much of recent Christendom, which has been based on entrenched power, and the fantasy that we have everything all worked out, that the truth is obvious and written down, that there are no questions yet to be asked (except by those who just haven’t been given the answers yet).

This so-called “emergent church” is what has made it possible for atheists (I’ve known several) and others who once rejected Christianity outright to see the beauty in the good news.

The other kind of church allows questioning, as long as it can provide the answers. The other kind of church is all for trying out new kinds of music, as long as the doctrine stays clear and consistent. But the emergent church — the church that’s about people exploring, questioning, doubting, changing their minds when new ideas look more promising — that church is alive! That church is interesting!

Criticism

I want to say a little bit about criticism. I don’t mean criticism of people — “you’re a dummy!” or “you’re the anti-christ!” I mean criticism of ideas. Part of this new way of looking at church involves subjecting ideas to criticism. It means being free to say “But ___ doesn’t really make sense to me. How can __ be true if __?” And out of conversations like that, we get better ideas. That’s what criticism can give us.

In a world where questions are “encouraged” only as an opening for experts to give answers, and criticism is not allowed, or is only given lip service, ideas do not improve.

Christendom is dead

The rule of the elite, with experts creating doctrine and the populace swallowing it, is gone. The emergent church is about thinking, feeling, experiencing the kingdom of God, and being free to see where that leads us. It’s beautiful, creative, and alive. And I’m so damn grateful.

“I’m doing what you, I suppose, would call ‘gedo Zen.’”

“Very good! Very good! Many Christians do that. But what precisely do you mean by ‘gedo Zen’?”

“I mean that I am sitting silently in the presence of God without words or thoughts or images or ideas.”

“Your God is everywhere?”
“Yes”

“And you are wrapped around in God?”
“Yes”

“And you experience this?”
“Yes”

“Very good! Very good! Continue this way. Just keep on. And eventually you will find that God will disappear and only Johnston San will remain.”

This remark shocked me. It sounded like a denial of all that I considered sacred, of all that lay at the very center of my so-called Zen. One should not, I suppose, contradict the roshi, but nevertheless I did so. Recalling the teaching of The Cloud that there are mystical moments when self totally disappears and only God remains, I said with a smile, “God will not disappear. But Johnston might well disappear and only God be left.”

“Yes, yes,” he answered smilingly. “It’s the same thing. That is what I mean.”

I thought of this story when someone asked if you had to be atheist to be Zen Buddhist. Instead, I want to let go of theist/atheist, and instead be awake in this reality/world/field-of-love-energy.

This is not how Humanity is meant to live. How is it possible that we pass someone on the street who is hungry and asking for our help, and we do nothing? How can it be that mothers will kiss their children goodbye and send them off to a place where they have to ask to use the restroom, where they are bullied and told what to think, and where there’s a definite chance someone will start shooting and they won’t be able to defend themselves? And shouldn’t it be unthinkable that we continue to drive (and yes, I do it too) when we know that the earth we call home is struggling to support us?

What about the folks who make their living lying to other people? The soldiers who follow orders knowing that they’re wrong? The cops who beat somebody up just because they can? Shouldn’t this be unthinkable?

I have a beautiful vision of what humanity can be. We can be loving, kind, forgiving, compassionate, joyful, and so many other things. But something is holding us back. Bezillions of non-profits can’t bring this vision to life. Politicians can’t either.

See, it’s not a political problem. It’s not an economic problem or a military problem. It’s a spiritual problem. We need better ideas about god and our place in the universe.

What we need is a new myth — a new set of ideas about who we are and what life is all about. We need a myth that will shows us our own divine nature, and that we are all one.

~

Once upon no time at all, in the place called Everywhere That Is, there was All That Is. All That Is was very powerful, maybe even omnipotent, since All That Is includes all the power that is. All That Is was a field of energy, with limitless potential and limitless power.

But All That Is wanted to experience what it was like to be all of these wonderful things. All That Is wanted something to matter. Literally, All That Is wanted something to matter, to become material. All That Is wanted to experience mass and gravity, light and peace, learning, and love.

The problem was this: how could All That Is experience light, when there was no darkness? How could All That Is experience learning, when All That Is already was, and so knew, All That Is?

All That Is, in Infinite Wisdom, knew what to do.

All That Is began to individuate, creating illusions of separateness, absence, and emptiness. These bits, these sparks of the divine fire, could be, could experience, and could even create, the amazing beauty that is already All That Is.

Great stars formed, burning with a bright fire. Smaller bodies formed, warmed by the stars, and on those smaller bodies, life took form. Life!

You and I have a vision of what life can be. We are part of the illusion, and we are also All That Is. We are sparks of the divine fire.

We are expressions of divine love, embodiment of divine creativity. We are the soul of the universe.

And more than anything, we are one.