1. The spiritual life is characterized by centeredness, groundedness, connectedness and awakeness (by which I mean being fully open, aware, of heightened consciousness).

2. There are forces and resources for health and wholeness. We can choose to pay attention to them; we can choose access to them; we can ignore them at our peril.

3. The life and teachings of Jesus guide us in the use of these resources. The keys are unconditional love, forgiveness, self-acceptance, inclusiveness, victory and new life from defeat and death, the Golden Rule, reconciliation . . .

4. Jesus was fully human; he was the epitome of humanness. He was "child of God," i.e., divine, in the same sense that you and I can be. He had no divine resources that you and I are denied (except by our lack of openness). Therefore, his life and teachings are fully relevant for us.

5. This is also to say that when we are most fully actualized as humans, we are closest to divinity.

6. Jesus, though clearly a product of his own culture, brought a new paradigm. So did Buddha, Lao Tzu, Mohammed, Confucius, Aristotle, Galileo, Darwin, Newton, Einstein, et al.

7. Reality transcends what we can apprehend through the senses and comprehend through rationality. Reality beyond sense and thought is accessible through intuition, dreams, appreciation of beauty, meditation, prayer, right brain activity, feelings, letting go of attempts to control, myth, ritual, symbol....

8. Lacking vocabulary and frames of logical reference for spiritual experience, we describe those experiences anthropomorphically. We use poetry, allegory, parable, analogy, metaphor. We create a mythology that ascribes meaning to our experience.

9. God is the centerpiece of our Judeo-Christian myth, a personification of ideal love and justice, but not (in my view) an entity who acts in history or who overrides natural forces and systems in response to human entreaties.

10. The Eastern concept of Yin/Yang -- opposites holistically combined in a single reality -- better represents my view of reality than does the dualistic pattern of Western thought. I believe Jesus' approach to be holistic and inclusive (both/and rather than either/or) but it is so embedded in Western thought as to be difficult to separate. Good/evil, right/wrong, objective/subjective, male/female, superior/inferior, dominant/subordinate, white/black, included/excluded, saved/unsaved.... I affirm a unitary view of reality but find it difficult to think in other than dualistic frames of reference.

11. These affirmations are hypotheses, subject to correction or revision when warranted by new data, insights, or concepts.

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I have been trying since the beginning of this exercise to formulate for myself a concept of God that is in tune with what we know scientifically about the way the universe works, that is consistent with what my Methodist tradition affirms, and that is personally satisfying. There will be disagreement about whether those goals have been reached or whether the process I am following can be successful.

I have been assuming that it is, first and foremost, essential to identify the basic nature of reality, both physical and spiritual, before going on to discover my place within or in relation to that which is supremely significant and ultimately real. Now, having come to see that God is defined by human faith rather than the reverse and that physical reality, to the extent that we have discovered it, is analogous to Jungian concepts of human development, I propose to begin with the human side of the equation. Each approach, starting with God and starting with humankind, will lead to the other if reality is a unity.

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Let us assume that Health and Wholeness are what life's quest is all about. The conditions for health and wholeness are to be identified, nurtured, preserved, utilized....

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Let us assume, on pretty good authority, that "The Sabbath (church, religion) was made for (hu)man(kind), not (hu)man(kind) for the Sabbath."



Individuals, communities, and the planet are so connected that the health and wholeness of each affects/determines the health of the whole.

There are many paths to health and wholeness. Each of them features some combination of symbol/ritual/myth, often a personification of health and wholeness and each has some description and/or prescription for the journey. Each, as far as I know, seeks to foster supportive communities. The pioneers in each tradition teach us how to access the resources for health and wholeness.

The upside (the gift) of these approaches, which include religions, 12 step programs, therapies, archetypal identifications, dream analysis, etc., is the offering of unconditional love in supportive communities, the teaching of concepts and techniques for health and wholeness, the focusing of attention and devotion on symbols and myths of health and wholeness, and the offering of opportunities for service to bring health and wholeness to others and to improve the environment for health and wholeness.

The downside (the shadow) is the tendency to exclusivity, to expect or require belief in a particular cosmic structure, to place organizations or edifices or theologies above persons... to forget that the "Sabbath was made for (hu)man(kind), not (hu)man(kind) for the Sabbath."

God is a symbol for wholeness. God is the big picture -- the biggest picture. In order for me to find meaning and purpose for my life, I need to see this life of mine in a larger context. My life is too limited, too constrained, to be the source of its own significance. I am never insignificant, but I cannot create my own significance. That comes from my connectedness, my groundedness, my centeredness -- that is, from my context. It is the contribution of my chosen path to health and wholeness to illuminate and enlarge my context.

While that larger context is often depicted in literature, art and music, it is most completely experienced in relationships of love, in community. The love of even one person may enlarge the other's context, may provide a glimpse of the wholeness which is symbolized by God.

Metaphor is the language of meaning. Literalism and rationality are appropriate for facts and empirical knowledge, but not for significance (except statistically). And logical inconsistencies are to be avoided by careful thought, except that what appears to be inconsistent in the short run, the immediate picture, may be consistent from a larger perspective. Thought is very useful, but very limited where meaning is to be ascertained.

So human and divine appear to the short-sighted to be opposites, but in a God's eye view (speaking metaphorically) one (Jesus) partakes of both. In a Grey's eye view, so may I. I am moved closer to health and wholeness when I see myself as containing a spark of divinity -- when my divine worth is affirmed.

Similarly, my journey to health and wholeness is fostered when I have heroes with whom I can identify, when Jesus can be seen as having human traits that trip him up, when Thomas can doubt and have that doubt accepted, when Peter can express denial and go on to lead the young Christian church. There is a Laughing Buddha; I could wish for joyous expression to play a larger part in my Christian experience. Even the joy tends to be somber.

For my health and wholeness, I need the positive affirmation of Original Blessing to replace original sin. I do not need any kind of putdown, anything that contributes to shame and guilt. Perhaps there is as much scripture to support one as the other, but thousands of years of tradition, and its influence on scripture, are hard to overcome.

God loves me. OK, that's a lovely poetic affirmation, a metaphor in the best sense, but unless people love me unconditionally I don't experience God's love. Fortunately, I am loved.

The conjunction of Godly and human love contribute another apparent dichotomy that comes together from a larger view. The physical and the spiritual are not two separate realms of experience, but a set of human experiences to which we ascribe meaning. From a narrow point of view, we see some aspects as physical, some as spiritual -- sometimes a useful distinction -- but from a larger perspective, the gift, the learning, the growth toward health and wholeness can be found in the commonest of everyday experiences. When my own view is enlarged, the physical and the spiritual merge.

Health-and-wholeness is an ecological issue as well as a personal issue. Preserving and maintaining the health and wholeness of the planet is, perhaps, the central social issue of our time. Scripture has been misused to assert human domination over all plant and animal life and other natural resources, just as scripture has been seen to support male domination of women, a patriarchal church, slavery, intolerance of homosexuality, the continuation of poverty, etc. There are sufficient areas of service to engage the energy of all who are moved by love and concern to make the world a better place.

I continue to stumble over the following issue, even when I am on the metaphoric and big picture wave-length: when something that we perceive as good happens, we give God the credit as though without God's intervention, that good would not have come about. When something that we perceive as bad happens, we may ascribe it to bad luck or human frailty or even forces of evil, but not to God. I think we need a better paradigm than that.

In my view, life happens through an incredibly complex set of interacting forces. In the big picture, what appears disastrous turns out to have been a necessary adjustment of tectonic plates; death is as natural as birth and not to be mourned except locally and immediately; growth is as likely to come from suffering as from prosperity; and the history of the Christian church for which we are mostly thankful left in its wake dreadful consequences of Crusades, Holy Wars and Inquisitions. When is God to be thanked? I don't know; it is beyond me. It is the Process that is infinitely complex, eternal, transcendent, superhuman, and, from the larger perspective, to be trusted.

By its fruits, Yes, but from a God's eye view. And one of the functions of the church, one of its contributions to health and wholeness, is to help us develop, to the extent our human limitations will allow, the ability to see everything, including ourselves, from a larger perspective.

This needs more work, doesn't it? My journey requires this cogitation, so on I go. With thanks to you for caring enough to read it and, perhaps, to respond.