reflecting on Men's Bible Study - Nicodemus, curiosity & vigilence (not doxa), and spiritual growth

Plowing through the rich field of John's gospel, as usual, we read only a few lines of the 3rd chapter before all sorts of wonderings led us down multiple tangents that tie into larger matters of personal life, decisions and priorities, local church particulars and world events. Among these by-ways were ideas for reflection like these (google image search for 'jesus and nicodemus' provides the illustration posted here).

1. Charles Dickens, among others, assigned special meaning to many of his characters (Ebenezer, as in Scrooge, has its Biblical significance, for instance). Perhaps the name 'Nicodemus' tells us more than his ethnic foundation (Greek-culture/language Jew trained up with other Pharisees; maybe something like Saul/Paul in that sense). The Internet gives the roots of this name, "a personal name of Greek origin, composed of the elements nike 'victory' + demos 'people'." According to the actions and words attributed to Nicodemus in gospel, truly his name's roots are borne out.
2. Rather than a command and control, top-down style of instructing new Christians and new believers, the upshot of this morning's conversation seems to be that the most effective way to develop deep and sustaining roots is to cultivate curiosity and vigilance so that followers of the Way may step into the unknown in faith with the attitude of seeking and venturing, though unable to see clearly into the distance, at least one step at a time is illuminated so that the person can proceed. Doubts, wondering, questions all are to be encouraged over rote and recitation. Habits and engaging tasks trump perfect memory and quotation; process over content, strategies instead of static fragments of a glorious whole.
3. Extended discussion went back and forth around the idea of the Holy Spirit entering one's thoughts and actions; somehow this presence could be interpreted to mean that such persons who are (semi) aware and respond to the comforting Spirit are growing spiritually more mature. And yet the imagery of "jars of clay that hold great treasure" also comes to mind - no matter how prestigious or impressive the vessel, it is the contents that are greatest in value, and these contents we mortals only temporarily touch; it is not ours. We are simply stewards who incidentally benefit by holding that treasure. And no matter how hard you strive toward some image of righteousness or emulating the heart and life experience of Jesus, any spiritual growth is so tiny by comparison to the infinity of God's glory. That does not mean it is pointless to strive to advance one's wisdom, discernment, scope of experience among man and God, but that enhanced self-consciousness or depth of humanity does not result in moral superiority or extreme humility to out-shine one's earlier self or exceed one's peer (reference) group. Put into the language of sin (veering from the path, missing the target), you can say that is well and good to strive to keep on track (righteousness in the midst of temptation, preoccupation, distraction), and doing so will carry you further down the path, but the destination will always be over the next hill; it is enough to strive and any glory that comes of such a life of striving is not one's own credit or ownership, but belongs to the Creator. In capsule summary: do strive for righteousness and extending one's spiritual maturity, but any perceived gains belong to God, not a trophy of one's own.

Making straight the way of the LORD –heart to see, eyes to hear, ears to taste with

True Heart or Sacred Heart are images used to describe Jesus and by extension the Holy Spirit and indeed the Creator of all. But what does this special attention to maturing and growing one's heart really mean? The full answer probably would require a book or more to explore. But here are a few intersections when speaking of 'heart'.

One meaning is to see past the surfaces that fill up our waking experience; things like categories or labels or brands – of denominations, ethnicity, genre or even the roles we play during the day ('worker', spouse, sibling, friend, stranger) and over the course of the year and indeed life cycle. Seeing past this first impressions we catch hints and glimpses of what lies under the surface; the person inside what looks like an old person, a mentally distressed person, an 'enemy' or perpetrator of crimes convicted of harming others, a foreign language speaker, or even across species – to see beyond the category of 'pet' or 'livestock' or 'shellfish' and consider that creation and consciousness also inhabit these non-human forms of life.

At the dentist office the other day, just for a moment, I caught myself imagining the supporting staff and professionals in more 3-dimensional view (not just communicating in the fixed dialog of office business or dental topics) to include their outside responsibilities, hobbies or pursuits, and so on. The same is true when I have bumped into a person familiar in one setting now in another context; for example, meeting church friend at movie theater by chance, or seeing one's coach or teacher in the grocery story, or seeing a childhood friend at the airport among a sea of strangers. In each case we are invited, or maybe forced, to see past the surfaces and routine vision. Putting a person or experience that fits into one setting suddenly into a new frame or context somehow opens up the meaning; what once seemed unchanging and something of certainty, at least for a moment, is open for negotiation, exploration, and reinterpretation. It becomes alive and is again in motion.

Another meaning of Christianity as a religion to grow one's heart is the modern concept of "emotional intelligence," not knowing something purely by rational logic or verbal engagement using powerful analytical tools, but knowing something in personal terms, in relational sense, through indirect and imperfect perception or intuited meaning. Stated in terms of person to person, sustained interactions this 'heart' means to see the other person with empathy (the person's own terms and perspective, not your own). It further means to see the other person non-verbally, relying instead on the direct perception (not exactly mind-reading or telepathy) of 'feeling' or 'sensing' the other person's wellness, righteousness, struggles and strengths. Maturing followers of The Way (Jesus as the embodiment of The Way, "follow me") will trust more and more their heart to lead them in small and large decisions with others and for oneself.

A third meaning of developing one's heart is being able to see past the details that can preoccupy, distract, or delay one's engagement in larger meanings and higher value matters such as one's search for God's face and presence, one's intent to build a righteous heart, one's vision of those who constitute "one's neighbors" (the ones we are to love, even as much as we love ourselves; indeed, equal to our love of God). In other words, compared to one's less spiritually self, today you have increased capacity to tolerate lack of structure, absence of rules, conditions that once would have seem disordered, and indeed, alternate ways of worshiping God through prayer, sacrifice, and service to others. What once was narrow, now is wider; much like the visual image of the animated story of the Grinch who Stole Christmas, his heart once was 3 sizes too small, but after the revelation of the meaning of Christmas, his heart is shown to grown even bigger than full-size. His heart becomes very big, indeed. In a similar way, the zealous seeker of The Way will experience an ever bigger capacity to love others, including a wider range of others different to one's self and one's familiar world.

Surely there are many other ways in which 'heart' serves as the central idea of Christianity; perhaps synonymous with 'love' (the many distinct words for love in the New Testament Greek: philos, eros, agape/karitas). But the above meanings stand out most to me these days: seeing past the surfaces of the person (what you see on the outside upon first impressions), something wider than emotional intelligence alone, and seeing past the details to glimpse the bigger pictures; not to "sweat the small stuff" in one's day or lifetime.

Time's swift passing - quickly fly the years

The past many months a couple of phrases or concepts have lingered in my mind as I look around me and wonder at the beauty and ugliness of the positions we occupy on the planet. One is the Hindu idea of "darshan" in which you pay respect to a sacred place - a peak, a river, a tree, perhaps. When I see a sunrise or sunset, or stop to admire a tree in bloom, that is some kind of darshan, I think. Another phrase is "just passing through" to sum up the attitude of impermanence; of accepting that one can't own or hold or control something indefinitely and so it makes sense to keep a loose grip on the material parts of your life and to "store up your treasures in heaven" rather than among Earthly things. A third idea that comes to the front of my mind from time to time is "helder" a Dutch or Germanic word for bright shining, silvery luminousness that sometimes comes around the time of rising or setting sun when the rays are reflecting off the many surfaces high and low, surrounding you is lightness. By extending that feeling to lightness of emotion, free of burden or obligations there is a brightness in one's heart or outlook that results. The fourth term that wells up in me sometimes stems from the quote attributed to John Lennon, that "Life is what happens while you are busy doing something else." In other words, we may believe that the point in life or the purpose one is striving to achieve is one thing, but only later on in retrospect, or when someone reframes the events in a new light do we recognize what is most of value in the flow of time; consumerism gives us a "head fake" that makes us lean to the right, while the true direction to pay attention to might be just the opposite to what we are in the habit of assuming or accepting.

All four of these together add up to a hyperawareness of time's  passing ("...merrily, merrily, merrily - life is but a dream," as the nursery song puts it) and the importance of seeking and conserving was matters most and then sharing that with others on the road of life.

The Gift (not Marcel Mauss' classic)... more blessed to?

That book from around the time of WW I offers lots of insight into the social strings attached to giving and receiving in many cultures then and now. But this week's talk about 2 Corinthians, chapter 5 or 6, I seem to recall, brought up ideas of being a humble receiver of another's gift. And while the adage of "more blessed to give than to receive" is still true, there is something to be said for enabling a person to offer their gift; to make it possible and encouraged to give generously. In other words, it takes 2 to complete the blessing: the giver and the receiver. So what shapes one's heart and becomes a desirable habit and example to one's peers is Gratitude when receiving (attitude of thankfulness without any baggage of expectations or entitlements) and Generosity when giving of oneself: take a posture of gratitude when receiving, express generosity and open-hearted spirit when giving [not burdened by obligation or other social friction]. As Marcel Mauss documented, there is much, much more than an exchange of goods or sentiments at the moment of transferring and asset, idea, or cash-equivalent. Some of these imponderables become thinkable on the pages of Krista Tippet's latest book of highlights taken from radio/podcast interviews for her show, On Being.org. Book title, Becoming Wise - at some points shedding as much light as some of the lines found in Bibles!

consumer smarts are sort of a "head fake" mis-leading you to preoccupations far from God

If you are seeking after God, in some small way hoping to get to know the Creator just a fraction as well as the Creator knows you, then the modern age is flooded with distractions, fall roads, preoccupations and ordinary occupations that require so much waking attention that the quiet voice of eternity is hard to notice, even if you are listening and looking for it. Each life stage in one's trajectory comes with its own sources of anxiety, joy, and distractions. But on top of those biological and social sequences there are financial pitfalls and quicksands of detail that swallow up your time and attention. Way more substances are available for abuse and self-medication. Increasingly solitary lives thin out the once close-at-hand social connections and cross-references that held a person in place for firmly that before, both for good and for ill. Above all else the consumerism of the past 80 or 90 years that mass produced, mass distributed, and made possible mass consumption of material thing, as well as services also took up more an more of one's mind.

     In the days when a person had a room or two of Earthly possessions, upon death these were shared out simply. But now there are hoarders with barnfuls and storage units filled with ever more accumulation. Decision making becomes habituated to calculating the price per unit of brand A versus brand B; or for the less mathematically inclined a purchase decision may be shaped by the more recent encounter with a coupon or advertisement, if not in print or broadcast then personalized to one's Internet browser or mobile phone. But whatever explanation seems strongest, the people of today in the economically developed countries, at least, seem to have more obstacles that separate them from the Creator. So any pursuit of God's ways must involve overcoming the ordinary preoccupations with time schedule, car maintenance, coordinating to children's programmed lives, and so on. Much of what really matters in the Kingdom cannot be priced or valued in consumer terms. The concept of the "head fake" that is used to describe football, soccer, basketball, among others may shed some like on this problem of distraction and misguided effort.

     The move is crude but often effective against one's opponent or person who is in pursuit of the ball. The person who performs the head fake gives the false impression of turning in one direction by the normal signal of moving one's eyes and head to the place to go next. The pursuer sometimes believes that indeed is the direction to get ready to go. But then the double-thinking player who is in possession of the ball does something unexpected by moving in a different direction, contrary to the way the eyes or head were indicating. In much the same way most people rely on signals and signs to know what to expect next; what direction things will move to next; where to pay one's attention. And yet so much of modern conveniences and the mantras of advertisers that you should buy their product or service to save time, money, or maybe the biggest motivator of all, to reduce inconvenience and effort. By measuring one's life by those yardsticks it is possible to imagine some sort of increase or rising value. But all that is beside the point; those preoccupations are a sort-of "head fake" that we are tricked by. Years pass and then one day we awake and wonder where the time has gone and what was it all about, anyway? What to do.

     Like the folks in the 12-step self-help plans begin with, "the first step in solving a problem is to know that there is a problem." So this modern life 'head fake' can be tackled first be looking out for it, identifying it, being deliberate instead of "auto-pilot" in reaching for your money to scratch whatever itch you may feel (or be told by advertisers that you may be feeling right now). After becoming self-conscious about the cost of giving up one's own thinking and accepting what is advertised to be 'normal' and desirable, then at least there is some space available to look around for God in all this modern life and to stop long enough to listen or even to think. Moving aside the baggage of modern daily concern out of the way makes it possible to seek after God with less fetters. It is a good start and one that also brings you to a similar playing field that your ancestors may have walked up; a place less cluttered, although filled with its own sources of anxiety and distraction, no doubt.