Running Under a New Myth

I used to think a myth was a story that was not true. Myths might be amusing or illuminating, but only children believed them. Three-degreed scientists, such as myself, did not “believe.” We relied on empirical data for our explanations. Yet I now realize all people on earth live by deeply held myths - because “myth” has an older meaning than “fictional story.”

Myths are those central concepts people use to organize perception – the sieves we see through. Many are part of a larger culture; others belong to individuals or families. Our personal myths are tweaked through life experience. And sometimes, they are radically changed. This happened to me; it is what brought me to believe in myths.

I was born, raised and lived most of my adult life in a university. My highly educated parents were open-minded agnostics. Our family motto was, "Other people go to church. We go camping." And did we ever go camping! Not just in Wisconsin, Arizona or Quebec, but in Kenya, Chad, and Malawi.

As a teen, I was fascinated by the mystery of existence. I lay in the grass watching the stars, pondering the simplest of questions, “Why IS all this?”

My family’s academic culture answered that the universe simply was – without explanation. In contrast, traditional religion said it was as it was because of a deity - just like a human, but bigger, immortal and in control. “Why not” or “Because” - neither answer was satisfying.

But upbringing tells. Without quite choosing, I lived by the agnostic, academic-culture myth. It had a lot going for it. Maybe I couldn’t know, "why” but with science, I could spend a fascinating lifetime exploring “what” and “how.” My eventual career choice of evolutionary biology took that exploration to the limits.

Herbert Spencer once said, “Those who have not studied science know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded.” What poetry I found!

The diversity of life rose and sank like a bog-moss carpet under the steps of a primordial giant. Interbreeding species embraced the Arctic in waves of passing genes, and fungi ate a tree alive while residing in its flesh. The matter in the universe was squeezed into threads and blebs on bubbles of empty space, while dark fluid from earth’s gut was pressed into jagged, Alaskan cliffs. On which I could stand, a little fly in boots and down vest, tapping with a steel hammer.

Yet slowly it dawned that however horrible or thrilling, if this whole universe merely existed as the accidental side effect of endlessly recycling, mindless energy - then it was, finally, futile. Cold. Dead. And humans were also already cold and dead. Which is why at my core, I lived in terror.

Yet I had an un-agnostic secret that did not let me to accept death as the meaning of the universe.

My secret? I saw a continuous flow of living light that moved within and among all things. Leaves on a tree, a weathered-gray fence, cracks in the sidewalk with weeds poking through: all reverberated with inner light, burgeoning meaning, joy. I called this “seeing with the backs of my eyes.”

So I swam in an ocean of throbbing presence while outwardly believing the myth of a dead universe, even in the stories I told myself.

Well, eventually the conflict grew too great. Something had to give. What gave was my fundamental myth. Not all at once and definitely not by choice. I was enticed, cajoled and finally had to have my grasping fingers pried off, one by one. Which really hurt. But now I live in another universe, perceived through an entirely different myth.

This universe is awake, aware, organized, and meaningful. It is a Being - albeit one beyond human comprehension. Yet we can feel this Being, because we are part of it - parts of a part of a great Whole – like a protein molecule in a cell in your liver in you, while you are in an ecosystem that is in the earth. Each of us breathes with the All, moves with the All, lives with the All, as the All breaths, moves and lives with us. It IS. And we ARE: the living light molecules in a living light Being - that feels like limitless joy – that feels like endless love.

How different everything looks. The scruffy guy swearing loudly on the street glows with living light, as does the tired mother struggling her two-year-old onto the elevator, and the woman who just slammed the phone in my ear when I dialed a wrong number.

Now I can’t despair no matter how bad things become. I need only be present to the suffering in front of me, practice - just practice - feeling love towards those I’d far rather despise, and try to release fear, death and the need to hurt. There is no possibility of defeat. My body can die, even in terrible pain, but I can’t die. NONE of us can die. Because in this light, the myth of God is real, and death is ever only temporary.

© R. Elena Tabachnick 2007 (An earlier version of this story was on Mind's Eye Radio in August, 2003)

Natural Theology: A Quote Quilt

If you would understand that “God’s Word is in all creation” (Hildegard of Bingen) “study nature not books;” (Louise Agassiz) “entreat the trees and rocks to preach the Dharma... ask rice fields and gardens for the truth.” (Eithei Dogen)

When you “steep yourself in the sea of matter, bathe in its fiery waters,” (Teilhard de Chardin) you will discover that “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.” (Isaiah 11:9) Then you can “listen to your broccoli, and your broccoli will tell you how to eat it.” (Mel Brooks)

“Peace comes to those aware of the voice and bearing of trees,” (Cedric Wright) so let yourself “feel how the birds fly and know the gesture with which the little flowers open in the morning.” (Rainer Maria Rilke) Then you, too, will say, “I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then, / In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass; / I find letters from God dropped in the street, and every one is signed by God’s name.” (Walt Whitman)

Understand that “people say, ‘that doesn’t interest me’ [when] they should say, ‘I have not interested myself in that.’” (Esther Dendel) For “wonder resides...in many ordinary things...in bubble and drop and clod.” (J. Robert Oppenheimer) Even “cities... aren’t unnatural, any more than beaver dams or anthills are unnatural.” (James Trefil) For “buildings are made out of matter, earth is part of their fabric,” (Mohsen Motafavi) and “everything that is in the heavens, on the earth, and under the earth is penetrated with connectedness.” (Hildegard of Bingen)

Yet “this looking business is risky” (Annie Dillard) because “what you see is what you get.” (Annie Dillard) And “the more I find out about things, the more mysterious they become” (Julie A. Dumoulin) because “the greater the circle of light, the greater the boundary of darkness by which it is surrounded.” (Humphry Davy) But since “even the poorest thing shines,” (Layman P’ang) with Frank O’Hara you may decide, “it is my job to be attentive. I am needed by things.”

We start “like a pitcher of clay floating in the water, water inside, water outside.” (Kabir) “What [we] are waiting for has already come, but [we] don’t recognize it.” (The Gospel of Thomas) For “this very place is the Lotus Land / this very body the Buddha,” (Hakuin) and “self is everywhere, shining forth out of all beings, vaster than vast… yet nearer than breath.” (Upanishads) So, practice the attentiveness from which naturally flows “the day of my spiritual awakening… the day I saw and knew I saw all things in God and God in all things.” (Mechtild of Magdeburg)

Once we discover that “divinity is in all things in such a way that all things are in divinity,” (Nicholas of Cusa), we absolutely know that “the kingdom of God is within us.” (alternate translation of Luke 17:21) Then, “suddenly... the pitcher is broken. Inside, outside, O friends, all one.” (Kabir)

© sewn by R. Elena Tabachnick 2007

Dog Park Epiphany: Anxiety Does Not Serve

Last Friday in the dog park it suddenly struck me: I don't have to work so hard finding people who want to form an interfaith, monastic community. My only job is to clear myself, coming to live more and more out of the joy-love-light that is my true, inner self. Anything else that is needed - including community - will follow. Naturally.

Whew! What a relief.

(Ok, so maybe to you that conclusion seems obvious, but I’m quite thrilled with myself that I finally got there.)

This is pretty much what I think Jesus meant in the quotes in Luke (12: 22-31) “Do not be anxious about your life, food, clothes… seek God and all these will be yours as well,” and Matthew (6:27) “Which of you by being anxious can add to your life.”

Add in the quotes (Mt 7: 1-5, Lk 6: 37) where Jesus cites the basic, creative/karma/energy law of the universe - “Judge not…condemn not… for the measure you give will be the measure you receive” - and don't I feel like a good Christian for relaxing and letting go of outcome!

Perhaps I had this insight because, for the last couple of months, I’ve been involved with an energy development group called Creating A Peaceful World, and I’m finally clearing enough to connect again to the joy-love-light at my center.

Sigh and double sigh.

After I was first “called” to monastic community, I was in constant touch with a sense of divine light that fed through my being like a direct conduit from God. Sometimes this light was a thick column. Sometimes it was a slim, barely-discernable thread. But it was always there. Often when I was overwhelmed by tiredness, hurt or anger, that light would bubble up. Then suffused with love and joy, all I wanted to do was grin and hug people.

Recurrent visitations with Jesus seemed part of the same package.

In the weeks following my departure from the monastery, grief swamped all that out. I not only lost the monastic life that had suited me like no other, but I'd lost the sense of Jesus' close presence, and even contact with the divine Source in my own being.

I knew the second two were still there - if only I could clear the fog obscuring my perception, but touching the Source in myself had been so easy and constant while on the road to the monastery and in the community that I thought I needed that crutch.

Yet my chance at life in monastic community seemed irrevocably lost. I’d had a shot at an established Benedictine monastery. If that purportedly ecumenical community had no place for me, what community would? Besides, even there, fitting in had meant hiding my true beliefs through dissembling, omission, or translation into orthodox-acceptable language - something I was no longer willing, or able, to do.

When I finally exhausted my desire to moon about crying, I decided to find a few others like myself – drawn to monastic community, yet either lacking identity in a particular religion or wanting the breadth of an interfaith approach. We could form a monastic household and I'd (selfishly) get a semblance of that life back, and maybe recover my direct contact with God. I talked to anyone I met who’d expressed such a desire, and sent this blog out on the global e-waves.

After almost three years, the prospects for this agenda seem bleak.

So I was walking around the Middleton Dog Park - a big field on a hill of old landfill with long views of marsh, woods and farms, with sand-hill cranes flying over. While my little beagle mix hunted rodents in the grass, my mind wandered freely.

That's when I suddenly realized I could give up anxiety and trying to MAKE HAPPEN the results I think I want.

Not that I’ve given up on my dream of forming a monastic household with a few others…Yet I no longer feel such longing - or desperation - about it.

Baptism Vows

I thought people might like to see the vows I wrote for my baptism. I would still affirm them today, but I might use fewer capital letters and less orthodox sounding language. smile. Only the Eucharist one seems a bit odd now - although it made sense at the time. But I carefully said nothing about how often. For about a year, Christian members of my UU congregation created a lovely Eucharist once a month, but we ran out of steam last spring.

I did the introduction. Then my minister read each vow, followed by my affirmation. She gave the conclusion.

INTRODUCTION: Dear friends, in Water and Spirit I proclaim that I recognize Christ in the life and words of the man, Jesus. In Water and Spirit I ask for release of ego confusions. In Water and Spirit I commit to follow the Way of Jesus - with his help rising toward Life, and rising again each time I fall - today, tomorrow and the next day, for as long it takes.

VOWS:

Do you accept Jesus as Christ, in whom the fullness of God and humanity was revealed?
Do you accept Jesus as your personal teacher and spiritual guide, to follow where he led?

Do you dedicate yourself to prayer and to living by the Word of God as found in the scriptures of Book and Earth?
Do you dedicate yourself to working for the justice of God in the world, and for being a living sign of the compassion and reconciliation of Jesus?

Do you dedicate yourself to gathering for Eucharist, to reaffirm all life as One? For every name is the one name and every ritual the one ritual as all are gathered in the body of God.

Do you accept responsibility for building the body of Christ by developing the spirit in your own life and helping develop the spirit in your community? For you are the bread whose breaking can feed the spiritually hungry.

Do you seek to love all of creation with God’s own unconditional love?

CONCLUSION: Let God birth you into Life through the mystery and teaching of Jesus Christ. May you stay faithful, through the help of God, forever. Amen

An Interfaith, Pantheist UU Is Called By Jesus: Part I

This story is excerpted from a forthcoming book on my monastic journey. As it is long, I’ve broken it into serial posts.

Meeting Jesus for the Very First Time

The girl was just ten, sitting on an overturned boat half buried in sand, kicking bare heels and sucking a stick of barley sugar. It was a worn, old boat with great gaps in its timbers. The girl called it her playhouse. It made a good perch to watch the men mend nets on the beach.

At ten the girl was old enough to help at home. And she did help, but then the salt sea wind would call and she couldn’t resist, slipping away between one task and the next. Part of a large family, she was easily overlooked as long as she stayed out from underfoot. So the wild girl and the tired, old boat were left to each other, forgotten by the women, invisible to the men.

The girl smiled at the sun and waves. Her toffee-brown legs swung free under a too-short dress that had once had bright stripes of red, blue and green, many wearers ago along the stair steps of older sisters. A breeze stirred the sea-thick air and tossed her dark, unkempt curls.

Something was happening. She squinted to watch a strange man talk to her brothers and cousins mending the nets. He left them and stood on the wet strand gazing out to sea. Little waves lapped his feet. Before she thought much about it, the girl hopped down and ran to him.

“What are you doing?” she asked, not considering the impertinence of a young girl speaking to a grown man.

The man didn’t consider it either. He turned, looked deep into her eyes, took her hand and smiled.

“Do you want to see my playhouse?” she asked, smiling back and swinging her new friend’s hand.

“No,” he said, “I want you to leave all that and be mine.”

Stopped still, her eyes grew big and round. She felt like she’d been poured full of something as thick and sweet as honey, yet as fiery as the mid-day sun. Then she frowned, looking back over her shoulder.

“What about my playhouse?” she asked.

Very simply and quietly he repeated, “Leave that and be mine.”

“Okay,” she replied.

They turned and walked hand in hand away from the water, blazing, honey-joy flowing between and all around them. The girl held her stick of candy out to him. Its pale, red-gold color glinted in the sun. He reached down and took it. Their eyes met and flashed with private laughter. She leaned against him and he put his arm around her. The fire-honey feeling flowed through her whole body: mouth, throat, fingers, stomach and between her legs.

* * * * *

I jerked back into myself. A man in a sexual exchange with a child? Whoa! That was no good. I peeked around the monastery room. Three of the sisters sat there. Eyes closed and breathing deeply, they were icons of serene meditation.

Bright, April sun slanted in through large, west-facing windows. The monastery's pond was just visible out the windows, beyond a field of native prairie. A delicious wind ruffled its surface into sparkling wavelets.

I shifted in the uncomfortable, monastery chair and shut my eyes again - with an admonishment to fix the sexual problem. To whom I spoke was not clear. It could have been my psyche, my soul or God.

Immediately, I was back on the beach, embraced by the man, Jesus. As radiant, sexual honey flowed between us, my little girl’s body flickered, shifted, then steadied into that of a young woman, age-mate to Jesus. We both had strong, young arms and legs, tight bellies, and clear, brown skin. We left the beach, walking with our arms about each other’s waists. I rested my head on his shoulder. We crossed a road drifted with sand and walked toward a crowd of people. He pulled away from me to call them. I felt peaceful but thought, “Oh. My time being his only is over. Now it’s their turn.”

At that Jesus’ head and shoulders filled my vision. Brilliant, laughing eyes gazed deep into mine as exclusive, intimate love flooded me. Yet all the time he loved each of the other people in the same intimate way. It was odd, like seeing double: two images filling one screen. He was in a monogamous relationship with me, yet also with a multitude of others. Visualizing it was like trying to see in more than three dimensions, many more than three dimensions. For a split second I could hold them all, but then they’d slip away.

Finally Jesus said, “Don’t you see? Through me, you are bonded to everyone else.” My struggle dissolved into expansive, encompassing joy.

* * * * *

The sister in charge of the meditation drew it to a close, recalling us back to our bodies and the room. Everyone looked centered and happy. I beamed at them, but at the back of my brain a small voice whispered, “Jesus. You just met Jesus. And. You. Were. Lovers.”

© 2007 R. Elena Tabachnick