In my reflections, if a bona fide member of the academy comments that my reflection contains either an original thought or argument, I will note it in that reflection. Also, if it is brought to my attention that what I have said is also mentioned in another source, I will also note it. My intention in these reflections is to stimulate inquiry, imagination, and broadening of horizons.- JP

Note: The most recent reflection is at the top and my first is at the bottom. You can either start at the bottom of the well and swim up or start at the top and dive in, your choice. – JP

13 Hours           

Santa Claus Rant      12/07/14

Last Christmas reflection, I wrote different lyrics for Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town. I did not receive a lot of feed back on my attempt at a ‘not in your face’ approach to counter the coal and carrot Santa we are deluged with in the Holiday Season. So this year, same subject, different approach.

As I was working on this reflection, it came to me that it would work best if delivered by Lewis Black on The Daily Show. I know that I am not Lewis Black and I wasn’t channeling him either, so this is done meaning no offense to him or his style of comedy and delivery. So here goes —-

‘I am always moved at this time of the year to let you know about a situation that really gets my goat, not the one in my yard, the one in my psyche. It moves me so much that I feel I should run down the middle of Main Street with nothing on but a red speedo with bells on it to let people know how much this means to me. It’s Santa Claus, not the person, but the way he is represented.

Oh you better not cry, you better not pout and I’m tellin’ you why, Santa Claus is comin’ to town. Really? You mean I’m supposed to look forward to this even though you started off by telling me that I am emotionally defective and am not happy?

He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows if you’ve been bad or good, and he works for NSA. That being joyful about this guy is getting to be a real high bar. And it gets better.

You told me not to talk to people I don’t know, and not be lured by old men who offer me candy and now you want me to stand in line when I could be playing and then sit on this guy’s lap, ARE YOU NUTS!

And better than that, now that you’ve scared me into nightmares, you tell me locking the door to my bedroom won’t work because this guy can fit down a chimney. Haven’t you seen the news reports of how many people get stuck in chimneys because they were drunk trying to play this guy or were breaking and entering and had to get rescued by the police? If he can make it down the chimney, THE LOCKED DOOR IS USLESS!

And this naughty or nice thing — I see an ad of this guy sending out sports cars as Christmas presents. White ones for the “nice” and red ones for the “naughty”. WAIT A MINUTE! I thought a bag of coal went to the naughty ones. Does this mean that a red sports car to a naughty one means there will be more than milk and cookies next to the tree when he comes down the chimney?

I can only conclude from the way Santa is presented in this season, is that he is a fickle, conflicted, dirty old man!

However, I’m pretty sure I can safely say the real Santa is nothing like what we are assaulted with from before Halloween!!! Yes Virginia, there is a Santa and he is a real person.

Nicholas of Myra, in what is now Turkey, was a Bishop in the Christian Church. He saved three daughters of a shopkeeper from a life of destitution by secretly putting three bags of gold through their window for their dowries. He put gold coins in the shoes of children when the shoes were left outside the door. He befriended sailors, students and merchants. He was traditionally pictured in his bishop’s garb, a red cloak over a red, full length tunic. The fur came from the fur coat worn during cold weather. So how did we get to the Coca-Cola, judgmental, multi personality magic man? We are there because you can’t make any money or control people with the image of a selfless person who gives of himself without judgment expecting nothing in return.

Face it folks, if we think the image of Santa we see on TV is real, then all of us should only expect bags of coal and bundles of switches on our door step at Christmas. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. Somehow, warm socks, ties, vacations, scholarships, and stuff for your boat show up under the tree. Why is that?

It happens because, despite our rag-a-muffin religiosity, goodness and love shine through. The spirit of Saint Nicholas is real and can affect even the most jaded person. Charles Dickens got it, why don’t you, Madison Avenue?

So (pause), despite my frustration with the status quo, I’m going to kick back, have an eggnog, love my family and my neighbors and listen to some great Christmas music. Back to you Jon. Now where’s my speedo?

Advent Perspective    11/09/14

The season of Advent in the Christian church calendar is the four Sundays before Christmas. Without the long history, Advent became a time of reflection about God becoming incarnate as a person. Jesus had not returned in a manner that many expected. The Emperor Constantine had facilitated Christianity becoming the state religion and the Christian church had supplanted many pagan rituals, the principal among them Saturnalia, which became Christmas. But just saying, “OK, it’s Christmas”, without any preparation for the day, did not feel right. A time for preparation seemed appropriate, and although that time period has been and is characterized by different colors and rituals, there is one central question being contemplated, the mysterious, ineffable, intangible, becoming tangible in our midst.

From the first time that I can remember being in a Christmas pageant at church, it always felt detached, and as I progressed through the pageant years, it did not become any more clear as to what was going on. To add to the fog, I was confronted with an explanation of a woman having a child without a husband, but how women with husbands have children was never explained. And who were the three guys on the camels and why didn’t they just ride in Santa’s sleigh? OK, fast forward 60 years.

I am sure that all the questioning that started at an early age is still continuing, but has a much different character. I, as everyone else, still wonder about the mechanics of this incarnation event. The one thing I have learned, however, is that when we worship the mechanics instead of engaging the mystery, we are left with a hollow space in our spiritual being. From the first moment we ask, “Why”, we are on the quest of filling that spiritual place.

The “Why” question is the start because it is not limited to the recognition that the hand you are sticking in your mouth is detached from the hands that are holding you. The concept of separation is the first basic element of the “Why” question. The next element is “why am I here”? And, oh yeah, how did I get here?

No matter when you heard it or the setting, or if you are encountering this for the first time, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin posited that “we are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience”. If you accept that as your faith position, this Advent thing takes on a character that definitely does not fit many Christmas pageants. Please consider that de Chardin’s perspective “is what it is” (apologies to Jerry Seinfeld).

So if I am a spiritual being participating in a human experience, I have some questions. What is the origin of my spiritual being? Why am I now human and not a spirit floating about without physical constraints? Where does consciousness fit into the picture? And for cryin’ out loud, who thought up mosquitos?

In Destiny of Souls (Michael Newton), a participant relates the vision of seeing our souls manifested as spiritual beings, as bright light, almost in the form of a baby, being gently extruded from an even brighter light that is dimensionless. That bright light being is not detached from its source, but stays connected in a way that is not material. I know this sounds fantastic and is a real stretch, but consider for a moment that the connection is consciousness, a connection of knowing. In that “knowing” are the reasons for creation.

Why did Source, God, create? At the moment, I am not in a position to answer the ultimate question, but it is becoming more clear to me that the question God is asking is what happens when I think separation is possible? I am a manifestation of Source, manifested for the purpose of examining the possibility of separation and the question Source is asking of us, which is, “How’s that working out for you”? I would answer, “Not very well”. And this is where Advent comes in.

In the span of human existence, I am sure that imagination was our way of creating symbols and telling stories that attempted to answer the “Why” question. I am also convinced there were moments when the questioner heard an answer in a voice that they did not feel was their own, a voice distinct from their own. In the book of Genesis in the Hebrew Scripture, the relating of what that voice said gives us the first glimpse of Source telling of its plan to effect a reconciliation of our separation quest.

To effect a reconciliation, the reconciler can not be other, but must be of the same character and circumstance of that which is to be reconciled. Herein lies the key for me as to the importance of Advent. I need more than a day to contemplate Source, God, making the decision to incarnate as flesh and blood in the same state of being I find myself. This means that God Incarnate was as vulnerable as any newborn and dependent on all those around who had any influence on the situation. God also had to experience the same limitations of time, space, dimension and insight as does everyone else incarnate on this earth. Then, to be reconciled means that not only God Incarnate, but all of us, experience the capacity to lift the veil, access the knowing of creation, and not be physically limited in our quest to overcome the illusion of separation.

As a reconciled, spiritual being having a human experience, knowing that there is only one illusion (thinking I am separate from Source), Advent is a time to also contemplate and experience the reality of this creation, the sights, the sounds, the eggnog, the weather, the shopping, the guy in the sleigh, who I still don’t understand being placed in the Nativity scenes, and most of all the Nativity scene itself. And let’s stop there for now. To go any further gets us into the life of God Incarnate, the sayings, miracles, and resurrection which all draw us away from what I consider the most majestic and awesome facet of Advent.

That facet, a human couple of no particular standing, of very, very distant royal lineage who would suffer both socially and economically if they answered the call from a spiritual dimension, and simply said yes, blows me away.

So when you see the red nose and the antlers on THE car, please know I am not intentionally demeaning the import of Advent. It’s just a better conversation starter than thumping people over the head with a leather bound book while they stand on a street corner. Happy four candles to you!

Sufferin’ Succotash    07/26/14

I tawt I taw a puddy tat! I did, I did! I taw a puddy tat!

OK, now that I have the attention of those of you over sixty and those who are aficionados of the Cartoon channel, let’s consider suffering.

I haven’t been away from the time of my last reflection, I have been spending a considerable amount of time working on how I can approach the reality of suffering without going on and on or writing a too succinct reflection which only leaves you with the conclusion that suffering exists. I am going to limit this reflection to the consideration of why I believe suffering exists. For an extended discussion as to the character of suffering, an undergraduate degree in Shakespeare is a good start.

How we approach the reason suffering exists will place us on a certain trajectory toward the answer. The fact that different approaches exist is, in and of itself, a cause of suffering to a lesser degree for those who hold fast to a position and see any other as unacceptable. The fact is, there are different approaches, all devoutly believed. I feel it would be both demeaning and condescending to say any of the possible approaches are incorrect. I also feel it is necessary to examine why different approaches exist. Is suffering placed upon us by a superior force either directly or through an agent? Is suffering just a pothole in the road of life that we drive into? Is suffering something we choose because of how we see ourselves and need the suffering to bring about a change, absolution or quickening of character? Is suffering an inescapable characteristic of existence that is neutral in any determination of who suffers? I have held each of these approaches as my belief and struggled with all of them.

Those struggles have brought me to the conclusion that suffering is neutral. As ‘the quality of mercy is not straint, but falls as the gentle rain from heaven …’ [I think that Shakespeare was on to something], so is suffering. I have come to see suffering as a mechanism of learning versus a ‘thing’ used to keep us in line. Of course that begs the question, ‘in line with what and whose line is it anyway?’ If it is neutral, why does it exist? The answer I have does stand starkly outside of logic and current conventional theology of many mainline religious denominations. I believe we are here to learn that the belief we are in any way separate from each other, creation or the consciousness of the creator, is the illusion we choose to see as reality.

When we choose to act on that illusion, suffering ensues to the degree we commit to the illusion as reality. We are also quite adept at defining consequences as suffering which leads us down many rabbit holes [no offense to rabbits]. I have become more adept at not going down the rabbit holes by orienting my life towards unity and away from duality.

Buggs and Elmer lived in duality 99% of the time, even in their Oscar winning cartoon, although it showed a moment of unity. And I am firmly convinced that when we live the unity of consciousness and creation, suffering, which always contains some degree of pain, is both instructive and motivating.

We walk hand in hand with suffering and it is our choice if we see it as friend or foe. I choose to see suffering as the doctor who responds when I say it hurts when I do that, “well, don’t do that”. Also know that if I am smiling and there is a yellow feather in the corner of my mouth, I have not overcome suffering, I am simply a large fur ball of immediate gratification that is living illusion as reality.

Holy Week    04/14/14

OK, I intended to start this reflection with a mind numbing, prodigious explanation of Holy Week in one easy sentence. However, I have spent the last twenty minutes with the Word Tutorial trying to find out how to remove the faint period from the beginning of the page. Turned out, all I had to do was take a piece of Kleenex and wipe the fly spec off the screen. This is going to be one of “those” reflections. I can tell.

You would think that after being the presider for 16 Holy Weeks in two parishes I would have it pretty much figured out. Nothing new to see here, same story, just a different wardrobe each year to keep up the interest. That, however, is not the case. An aha moment creeps into every week. Sometimes small, sometimes large, but always there. This Holy Week is no exception.

A good friend told me of a conversation he had with a person who had several vivid conversations with Jesus, not unlike those Julian of Norwich recounted in her “Showings”. In those conversations, Jesus told him that the nails did not hurt. I was surprised at my reaction which was not, ‘You Have to Be Kidding Me’, but rather, ‘that’s a new take, how could that be possible?’

Julian recounted that Jesus told her death did not hurt. The pain is present in the sickness prior, but the actual moment of death has no pain. So I can visualize that the crown of thorns and the lashes were felt as much as any of us would have felt them as would the trek to Golgotha. So if those were no pain nails, was there a gain, or was it just a spectacular show? Here is where I attempt the prodigious one sentence answer.

Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, Source Incarnate, experienced physical death, and in so doing placed squarely in front of us the ultimate confluence of our fear of death and Jesus’ pronouncement, “I will be with you always.”

What would normally follow is a theological treatise which could weigh in at around eighty pounds of paper. I do not have that treatise in me at this time. What I do have is a belief in our vastness and eternal nature. Jesus did not avoid the events of that week because then we would have been left with, “God can die and rise, we can’t”, rather than, “we have a living example of the truth that we should have no fear of death.”

I also believe Jesus does not do it to us or for us, but rather with us. That belief leads me to understand Holy Week not as something I should stand back and observe, but a time in which I am an active participant as much now as I would have been two thousand years ago. Holy Week and Easter are not separate, and neither are we.

Not Ordinary?   02/17/14

Shortly after I was ordained, I got to be a clergy counselor at a church summer camp. One of the sessions the campers have is called, “Stump the Priest”, a no holds barred question session where everything was fair game. As the most recently ordained priest, I was the session leader (Throw the new guy to the lions). The one question, of the many, that I remember most was asked by the teenage daughter of one of the diocese senior priests. “Why aren’t there any stories in the Bible about people going to the bathroom?”

The answer is really simple and most likely caught her off guard because I am sure her father primed her to expect hemming and hawing. “Sacred scripture tells us about things that are not ordinary and how we can see the extraordinary in what is normal. “The bathroom” was normal and when you are limited to the amount of papyrus or animal skin you have to write on, the limited number of writing supplies, ink, quills, stylus, not to mention time, the amount of times one stopped by the road or went into the bushes wasn’t going to get a lot of ink”. I have remembered that question many times and have given pretty much the same answer and never really thought much about it until recently.

After moving from parish ministry to active ministry without a specific parish, I have concentrated on engaging people and groups who are spiritual in their focus and not associated with any specific denomination. A large part of that engagement has been reading and attending a book club whose specific goal is to challenge and examine previously held belief systems. In my most recent reading (Mary Margret Moore – Reflections of An Elder Brother – the Bartholomew series) I found that the answer I gave to my colleague’s daughter could have been focused differently, leading to what I feel is a clearer understanding of what is normal and ordinary.

What is expressed in this reading is that “ordinary” does not mean “mundane” and that “normal” is anything but, when normal only means what the everyday person does. And yes, the answer is not simple. I think the best way to get to the answer is start at the top of the pyramid and work to the base.

Top of the pyramid: You, me, we, are pure conscious awareness. Pure conscious awareness is LOVE and we are not limited in how vast is our love. We are not separate from Consciousness and Love is THE characteristic of Consciousness. We are inextricably connected to all of creation and can access all that creation is. Moving mountains is not extra ordinary and being able to give unconditional love to everyone and everything is not extra ordinary. Jesus was very pointed in telling us that He is in God, God is in Him, He is in us, we are in Him, God is in us and we are in God and that we will do “things greater than these.” We are already eternal and do not cease to exist. We should “fear not.”

Base of the pyramid: Consciousness decided to bring creation into being. We are the product of the conscious thought of God. We cannot help but to seek the answer to the question that prompted Consciousness to decide to create. Being inextricably connected to and part of all that is, is ordinary. To be extra ordinary would be to not be part of creation.

So when you look at the night sky, realize that is you. When your dog paws on the bed in the morning to wake you up, that is you. When the cat sleeps on your face and purrs, that is you. When you are adjacent to another person, that is you. When you come face to face with the limitless, that is you. Ain’t it great to be ordinary!