IQ, EQ, & SQ.

 This morning I awoke with the idea of SQ. We know of I.Q., short for Intelligence Quotient. Those with high I.Q. are very smart and can understand very complex tnings. Those with low I.Q. are often called "slow." We've somewhat recently heard of E.Q. that is Emtional Quotient. Those with high E.Q. are good with people, are empathetic and understand. Those with low E.Q. just don't get it. (These are very abbreviated explanations, but you can look them up if you want detail.)

This morning, as I lay in bed half awake, S.Q. came to me, or Spiritual Quotient. Those with high S.Q. include the great Avatars, the mystics, those who walk with God, who have moments in their lives when they awaken to all tnings spiritual. Those who have low S.Q. don't have a relationship with God that they are aware of, or are filled with superstiionand fantastical beliefs. They often "believe" in mutually exclusive ideas and are not aware that they cannot both be true.

It became so clear to me, and it made me want to find a way to awaken people to the possiblity, even the need, to raise their S.Q.  I felt a certain sadness for people slumbering, unaware of what life could be like with a higher S.Q. Then I was led to ponder, what would be ways to motivate people to want to do the things that would in fact raise their S.Q.?

Spiritual life these days takes a back seat to the media, to Smart Phones, to sports, to the internet, etc. Minds are colonized by excitement, by flashy pictures, by fast moving news, by politics, by celebrities, etc. 

I don'thave the answer yet. Spirit gave me the idea of S.Q. and a picture of the current state of life here on earth. So, I think ideas of how to motivate will be forthcoming.

Let's think on these things.

Underpinning of Modern Western Civilization

 The thinking of Spinoza from the 1600's has influenced great thinkers from his time onward. 

Einstein, when asked if he believed in God, answered that he believed in Spinoza's God. Basically, Spinoza equated God with nature. God is the energy that organizes and participates in the orderly expression of nature. There are inconvertible laws, such as gravity and even not yet known laws, that operate throughout creation.

One of the ideas he presented was that people flourish when they can question and think and discuss in freedom.  These ideas influenced the Enlightenment as well as our own Thomas Jefferson.

Currently, the freedom of speech that he declared as fundamental to our ability to flourish, is now under attack. Somehow we got polarized so that people are not free to discuss without fear of being cancelled, fired from jobs, and ridiculed. A small segment of society seems to have decided they know the truth, and they alone know. It is settled so that any discussion to the contrary is folly and even criminal.

We need to grab back our free speech, free thinking, free and abundant life of questing for understanding. I agree with Spinoza, we cannot flourish without it.

Have the courage to not allow others to stop the discussions of free people. Have the courage to hold a point of view that seems reasonable to you, and at the same time the courage to look at all sides and all points of view. We might learn something. There is more than meets the eye of any point we might see. There is always another way to look at anything. We cannot know all that is possible to know, but we can grow to consider as much as we can. Life is not either or. Sometimes it's both and.

The Brain and Beyond

 The psychical, that is to say spirit, seems immensely to outrun its organ and to use brain as a musician uses an instrument. The psychological studies of Henri Bergson in France and of Dr. William McDougall at Oxford make a very strong argument for the view that the higher forms of consciousness cannot be explained in terms of brain action and that there is no well-defined physical correlate to the highest and most central psychical processes. --- Rufus Jones

 The line -- spirit, seems immensely to outrun its organ and to use the brain as a musician uses an instrument, grabbed my attention this morning. I have seen and experienced this various times in my life. I have seen and experienced spirit inspiring me or others with new thoughts and ideas that had not been in our brains, but rather wafted in from a higher place. Spirit/Holy Spirit brings the dawn of new ideas, of guidance, of inspiration. It comes into and then through us, but it comes from More than us.

To get in position for more and more of this to happen, we need to make ourselves fertile soil. We need to clean out our consciousness of all negativity, fears, anger, resentment, unforgiveness, etc. We need to spend time with God in prayer, in reading, in contemplation. We need to do good works. We need to develop our spiritual muscle so to speak.

God, help us to be good gardeners of our inner soil. Lead us to be ever closer to You, to be Light and Love, to be who You had in mind when You created us. Help us wash away all in us that is unlike You. Help us release lesser things to fully embrace You. We ask this in the name of Christ and seal it with the ancient seal of faith and integrity, Amen, Amen, and Amen

The Christ Shift

 I have been thinking a lot lately about the shift in perspective in the New Testament, what it means to our own journey. I wrote some about this on October 14th of this year. 

It starts with the synoptic Gospels primarily telling about Jesus, teaching and preaching and healing in Galilee. They tell us some of what he taught and did. Then John shifts to add the Greek philosophy element and some Cosmic Christ ideas. Then we come to Paul's 7 authenticated letters (even though they were written first, they come after John). Paul jumps totally to the Cosmic Christ. Paul shows no interest in the historical Jesus, he only mentions Jesus 4 times.

The shift to the Cosmic Christ is one from observation to participation. We are called to participate in the Christ life, to put on and fill with that spiritual energy as we too become alive with the Spirit.

The shift is also portrayed by the Gospels' account of the Pharisees vs Jesus. They represent the legal, the authority, the dogmatic, the outer way to be religious. Jesus represents the Spirit way, the inner way that leads to a different outer way.  As Auguste Sabatier wrote a long time ago - Religions of Authority contrasted with the Religions of the Spirit.

The most meaningful things seem to be invisible to our eyes. From the tether of gravity that holds us in orbit, to the atom and quark, to the microbes, etc, even science finds the invisible the most powerful.

Those who have gone before have set up dogma about the shining light from Galilee. Augustine's dogma of original sin still haunts the hallways of seminaries and churches. As Rufus Jones said, "We have had fifteen hundred years under the dogma of original sin and total depravity, now let us have a period of actually facing our own souls as they reveal themselves, not to the theologian, but the the expert in souls... We shall also find that they are strangely linked up with that unseen and yet absolutely real Heart of all things who we call God."

The aspirational Sermon on the Mount can help lead us out of the prison of dogma. It lifts our souls to a grand vision of who and what we are called to be. It gives us a vision to aspire to, but which can not be totally reached. It calls out the best in us to strive to take on the brilliant teaching and bathe ourselves in the Mission of Christ, to rise up, to shine, to be as Christlike as possible. Matthew 5, 6, & 7 can transform us, if we take it as our way as it was Jesus' Way. 

What Is Religion?

 Religion does not consist of inward thrills and private enjoyment of God; it does not terminate in beatific vision. It is rather the joyous business of carrying the Life of God into the lives of men — of being to the eternal God what a man's hand is to a man. --- Rufus Jones

The great Quaker mystic, Rufus Jones, wrote beautiful words of spiritual wisdom. This morning I felt an urging to open one of his books that I have on my Kindle. Immediately I was drawn to the words quoted above. 

It is reminiscent of words of Jesus, including By the fruits you will know them. It has long seemed to me that a person awake in God shows up in the world quietly doing godly things for others. 

The inner Light compels us to love and care for One another. We just do it without hidden agenda or ego. We don't require praise or recognition. We simply walk humbly with God, shining light wherever we are led.

It seems that we are called to be the hands and feet of the Divine Presence here on earth. We are called to be a spiritual magnet, drawing to us the weary to reignite in them the Divine Spark.

As we tend the flame of the Divine Spark in us, it grows into a flame that ignites others. Let your light so shine.

Love is a Verb Not a Noun

 Way back in elemenrary school I learned that a verb is an action word, and a noun is a person, place or thing. 

This came to mind again this week because of a painful conversation. You may remember some of my background angst. Our money was taken from us, and we've been fighting to get it back for a long time. My husband is recovering from a stroke, and now stage 4 cancer.

So someone very dear to me, a relative, called, she usually just texts. During these years of huge challenges, she has done nothing for us, as I said to her not so much as a plate of cookies. But she always says or texts "I Love You." So I said to her last week at the end of our conversation - love is a verb, all this time and no invitations for holidays or birthdays, no visits, not so much as a plate of cookies -with tears in my voice. 

She has her reasons. She has made up a fantasy about our situation and refuses to hear the actual truth. In her fantasy, she is vindicated, and of course doesn't need to take any action.

My point being, often people say I love you as a throw away line. There is no love because there is no action attached. They state it as if it were a noun, the word itself being love and being sufficient. They don't need to do anything other than say the word. And the person feels good about themselves. 

I wonder how helpful it might be in our relationships, if we were more accurate in our use of "love." If we stopped to think about what action could/should we take to be love, the world might be a better place.

If we used love the verb in our spiritual journey, we might get further along the path. "I love God. I love Jesus. I love..." What action do we take? Do we spend time every day in prayer and meditation, listening, communing with God?  Do we read spiritual books, watch spiritual YouTube videos, attend spiritual services, etc., and prepare ourselves to give service that comes from a deep spiritual connection? Do we put a priority on it? 

Let us honestly evaluate our love as a verb or our love as a noun that just sits there and doesn't lift or come with any meaning.

As Meister Eckhart said in one of his sermons:

The aim of man is not outward holiness by works, but life in God, yet this last expresses itself in works of love.