A respondent who hasn't yet been quoted offered interesting comments on Fowler's Stages of Faith. He had read all of my previous Musings and observed that I seem to have gone "from critical questioning to searching to a peaceful acceptance of being: being in a state of critical questioning and discovery." He also noted that I seemed to be struggling less and less, "being more content to 'live' the journey rather than to 'travel' the journey." Having his affirmation helps me to feel that he may be on target.

More substantively, he observes that "Gandhi, Mother Teresa, MLKjr, Buber, etc. all reached a level of peace ('Shanti,' 'Shalom,' 'Ultimate Peace,' etc.) with their own Self, but each was DRIVEN with a realization that others were not yet there; each sought to bring about that Peace for others." These exemplars, he notes, "all attained level six without attempting to; that is, their developmental efforts were directed outside themselves toward the issues they fought for, rather than their own inward journey for self-actualization. Perhaps when we transcend the desire for self-actualization we are there!"

"I also discovered that despite our fame or attainment on Fowler's stages, there are always those personality quirks that we retain which can remind others that at one time we were also at stage one." He continues, then, to tell of an instance which portrays Mother Teresa as an incredible autocrat. (Having been born and brought up in India, and being in fact a relative of Gandhi on his mother's side of the family, he has rather direct knowledge of how she sometimes dealt with her own people.) The point he makes is that those who reach a very high level of spiritual attainment are not perfect, and they are the first, perhaps, to acknowledgement their imperfection.

On we go.

* * * * *
1. We seek happiness, peace with ourselves, harmony with our environment. These are feelings, states of being. They are internal, part of what we are.

2. Yet we look outside ourselves for sources of happiness, peace, and harmony. "If only I had (money, a nicer car, a real profession, a better tennis racquet, more understanding parents, an effective diet plan..." Looking for the external answer is reinforced by society, the media, advertising, etc. They promise external sources for happiness.

It is like the Sufi legend of the man who had lost his key in the house but was looking for it outside because there was more light there. Inside it was dark.

3. In Greek and Roman, and even earlier, mythologies the Gods had emotions, desires, and failings, even as we humans do. They struggled as we do; they were archetypal, and in their struggles we recognize our own. We identify with them.

4. Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism and Taoism have each taught that we should look within for spirituality. Jesus was not the first to do so, though his references to "The kingdom of God is within you," "I and God (the Father) are one," etc. are most familiar to me. Modern physics shows the microcosm as mirror of the macrocosm. Is that an apt analogy?

But we resist looking within -- "It is dark in there." And we insist on a God which (who) is other, out there, transcendent, acting independently of human consciousness, judging, avenging, loving. We perceive God as one more external source of happiness, peace, and harmony.

5. Paul/Saul knew this, and with his New Testament-writing colleagues, bolstered the young Christian Church by affirming God as other and by transforming Jesus from what one writer calls an "itinerant Jewish Socrates" to the mythologized New Testament Christ. With the assistance of early creed makers, Jesus was distanced from his humanity -- and from us. He became another God, only a little less distant than the Father, and that distance was further widened by the concept of sinful humanity in need of redemption.

6. Other religions have also made their leaders more than human. The possibility of seeing them as humans like us, even as examples of humanity at its best, is blurred. The vision of them as the great teachers and examples that they actually were is lost when they become gods who are somehow exempt from our human failings. They become irrelevant to our lives except as we subscribe to a creed and "belong" to a faith. This reliance on an external deity led Sheldon Kopp to entitle one of his books, IF YOU MEET THE BUDDHA ON THE ROAD, KILL HIM.
7. As a human becomes healthy and whole, whether through a recovery process or some other developmental pattern, he/she recovers a divine birthright, becomes more spiritual, realizes and expresses the "Inner Light," the "Buddha nature," the "Christ within." As we recognize our oneness with humankind, which is part of what it means to be healthy and whole, we become spiritual teachers and examples for others. Jesus did that, and in accepting his oneness with all he expressed his divinity in the same way that you and I can. As he became most wholly and completely the person he had the potential to be, so I, following his example, can become the real authentic me. I can look at the divine spark in another and say, "Thou art God," and I can experience the divine spark in me, and say, "I am God." (I am uncomfortable with that statement, having been brought up in conventional Methodism, but so be it. Maybe I am trying it on for size, at the risk of being struck down for my hubris.)

8. We do not arrive at spirituality by focussing on our own recovery. Perhaps we need to begin there and stay centered in the self for a while, but eventually we know that to be whole is not to be isolated but to be one with all, in which the ethical component, i.e., the way we express that oneness, is to be of service to those with whom we are one. This is not self-denial, because the self is worthy of my care; it is rather to care for the Self, in which I am not only centered and grounded (internal), but connected (external) as well. To be one with all is to extend my caring and its expression to all, not in the abstract, but in specific acts. The process is to be trusted: wholeness is not attained in isolation; it is realized in loving and being loved, in serving and being served. Sharing is a discovery of oneness, to be celebrated with more sharing, in which there is awareness of even more wholeness, the more to be shared, and on and on. (Serving is not an obligation, but an expression that grows from an overflow of love and grace.)

9. It is the experience of oneness, through sharing, which produces happiness, peace, and harmony. One doesn't do it alone, because one cannot be centered and grounded within oneself without being connected with others. To take it another step, in a true experience of oneness there is no duality of internal and external, but a Yin/Yang inclusion of both in the whole. It is not that one focusses on the internal rather than the external. It is rather that in the acceptance of unity, nothing is "other." All is one. I am we. We are co-creators.

* * * * *
A footnote about Jesus: As the Dead Sea Scrolls finally become open to scholars, books are now appearing (I know of at least four) that indicate that Jesus was perhaps, or even probably

-- not born in Bethlehem or in a stable
-- not a resident of Nazareth (which didn't exist then)
-- high-born, in a direct line for the throne of Israel
-- the illegitimate son of Mary, perhaps fathered by Jacob, the brother of Joseph of Arimethea (would the experience of growing up as an illegitimate child explain his emphasis on God as Loving Father and his seeming unkindness to his mother and brothers?)
-- married (every Jewish man had an obligation to be married by the age of 18 so that the tribe might increase), probably to Mary Magdalene, and perhaps later married a second time
-- father of three children
-- survivor of the crucifixion (his followers are said to have arranged for his time on the cross to be limited by the coming of the Sabbath; he was drugged on the cross; the examination to determine death was cursory and carried out by a soldier [perhaps another follower] who was not trained for that task; he was carried to his uncle Joseph's tomb and revived there by healers who wore white robes; Joseph of Arimethea was sufficiently highly-placed to have accomplished this plot.)
-- alive until the age of 80 when he died in the Roman conquest of Masada
-- a member of the sect known as Zealots, who were militantly opposed to Roman rule and to the governing of the Temple by the Chief Priests (This would explain the cleansing of the Temple and the statement "I came to bring not peace but a sword.")
-- well-educated, having (perhaps) been trained as a Pharisee and having access to the extensive library at Qumran where he may have lived as a member of the Essene Community as a young man.

Certainly it is difficult to ascertain facts about the life of one, even a prominent one, who lived two thousand years ago and about whom so much mythology has been created. There are now sources, only recently opened to scholarship, that are contemporaneous with Jesus' life, and these are yielding new information about the political and social climate of the first century and about some of its important personages. Jesus is one of these, but some of the scrolls are fragmentary (others are quite complete), and scholars will spend many more years before clear pictures emerge -- if they ever do.

If all of the foregoing statements about Jesus are true, what difference does it make? Does the message of the Gospels depend on their historical accuracy? There was good reason to doubt the historicity of much in the Gospels long before the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. Jesus' message of unconditional love, of grace, of service, of empowerment for the downtrodden and the disenfranchised -- these remain as needed and as potent as ever. They are not dimmed by learning that the New Testament is much more mythology than history. * * * * *
A footnote on Saul of Tarsus/St. Paul:

PAUL OF TARSUS

Stepping from the clear air of the gospel
into your mind,
I found myself hemmed in, darkened,
struggling for my natural breath.
Yes, Brother, I know
what you glimpsed on the road to Damascus:
the sense of boundless freedom
that shot, electric, through every
nerve in your body, and all
the strictures of Thou Shalt Not
gave way, the dead weight of authority
lifted, and your only duty
was to the law
written in your inmost heart.
You were born again. But with
the bloody remains of your former
self smeared over you; ardent
and headstrong as usual, you leapt
from the delivery room table
straight out into the world
to teach the Gentiles your truth.
You left no time for yourself
to remain a child, to grow
inside the kingdom of heaven
slowly and naturally
as a tree grows by the water streams,
then ripens and bears fruit
in its own season: no time
for your dogmatism and intolerance and resentment
to fall away by themselves,
letting you shed your guilt
as your old enemy the serpent
sheds his skin.   And so
you remained with a past, a future,
and a now caught between them, in which
God-the-Judge kept watching you
through a one-way mirror, darkly.

I would like to arrange a meeting
between you and the true messiah
(you can call him Jesus if you like).
I would have you sit in my back yard
on a perfect day like today,
with a continuo of birdsong
and a mild breeze stirring the fig tree,
a fresh-baked sourdough
baguette on the picnic table,
three glasses, and a bottle
of nice California port.
He might not say a word
of the Good News according to summer.
Perhaps it would be enough
to see him, face to face,
as he sips the wine and hands you a piece of the bread: take,
eat; this is your body.

                     -- Stephen Mitchell, Parables and Portraits, Pp. 56-57