December 2007 - Break on Through . . .

December 3, 2007

5:30 am. I've been reading Barbara Kingsolver, and then Tom Robbins books in the mornings and evenings, and together with a return to saying my mantra and occasional meditation (tho not a firm habit again yet), its all helping me get my priorities back in order and my perspective back straight.

I just finished Skinny Legs and All [by Tom Robbins] and want to record the message of the seven veils, the illusions destroyed by each one, so that I can more easily keep them in mind. They are things I've known a long time; Heck! I first read the book in 1991 or 1992! But we forget. The illusions are so powerful; they creep back in without our realizing it. Another reason daily meditation is necessary – eternal vigilance against maya.

Veil One –
Life is a sexual dance. Sex requires male and female as equal partners. Even molecules bond. There is even molecular rejection. And as we know now, the female has more control than we ever gave her credit for (eggs choosing the sperm) and more than the male in many cases. It's hard not to read patriarchy as a massive attempt to compensate for insecurity about inadequacy. Any religion that doesn't acknowledge, openly, the female aspects of the Divine is a religion based on fear.

I am becoming even more of a feminist because I've about had enough of the double-talk, the hidden and commonly accepted sexism.

Veil Two – Humans do not have dominion over plants, animals and minerals. "Humanity was a function of nature. It could not, therefore, live separately from nature except in a self-defeating masquearade. It could not live in opposition to nature except in a schizophrenic crime. And it could not blind itself to the wonders of nature without mutating into something too monstrous to love" p.404.

Veil Three – This is one it is really hard to remember. "It is futile to work for political solutions to humanity's problems because humanity's problem's were not political" p.405. They are [the problems], of course, philosophical. Trying to solve philosophical problems politically means solving them over and over and over. I realized this a good year ago. Stopped reading the paper, stopped getting so excited about the news. But when I stopped doing my own spiritual work, I got caught up again, and began all over to try to solve the problems in a wrong-headed way.

Veil Four – Religion is the improper response to the Divine. Religion tries to pin down something forever in flux. "To say that the Divine was Creation divided by Destruction was as close as one could get to definition. But the puny of soul, the dull of wit, weren't content with that" p.407. "The Divine is expansive, Religion reductive." "Since religion bore false witness to the Divine, religion was blasphemy" p.408.

Veil Five – Money is an illusion. 'Nuf said.

Veil Six – Time – past and future don't exist. All is present. Time isn't linear, etc. No "after" life, no after. No judgment day. All days are judgment days.

Veil Seven – Everyone has to figure it out for themselves. Apparently many times!!!! How I wish I could keep my insights fresh every day! Live them as easily as think them!

December 9

I'm reading Robertson Davies' Deptford Trilogy, and in The Manticore David's analyst, a Jungian, says "The unconscious chooses its symbolism with breath-taking artistic virtuousity" p.179.

I was getting sleepy, so shortly after I read that, I closed the book and my eyes and I asked my unconscious to tell me something about myself in a richly symbolic dream. I asked specifically for a metaphor – I wanted a show of this artistic virtuousity. How it delivered! And in a 10-minute nap!

[There follows a long description of a detailed and vibrant dream – full of symbols (about barbecuing, of all things) – which I realize is about a personal relationship]

What really, really pleases me is how receptive and friendly and downright accomodating my unconscious was! Can we build on this? I am certainly going to try. I don't know why I never thought of just asking myself for what I want!

December 16

Still reading Robertson Davies. What's Bred in the Bone right now. Tell's the story of Francis Cornish through the eyes of the Recording Angel and his personal Daimon. And in addition to some of the other things I've been thinking, and other things I now believe, it's shed new light on my own biography.

If we look at our lives as things planned, to a certain degree, by our larger Selves, to teach us particular things . . . or to put it less pedantically . . . If our souls, our Selves, have at least a moment of knowing the greater picture, the full spread and direction of our many lives between one life and another, and if they (we) can then choose, to a certain or full extent the circumstances of our next life, such that it will provide the opportunities to grow in the directions we most need `or will satisfy a hunger or thirst we most feel, or however it actually works – then very little of our lives in the early parts at least can be said to be due to chance.

We've chosen them for reasons. And might that extend through much of our life? Might not we have laid out a pattern that would unfold? And if so, how different would that really feel from having a personal daimon, or a guardian angel (two very different kinds of beings) guiding, interfering and making things happen?

In the book, the daimon talks about how he purposely provides Francis with some very unpleasant experiences, a generally unhappy childhood, an extended illness later (age 10-11) to allow him an escape from the small minds at school and give him time for reflection and creativity.

Why? The Recording Angel asks if he has no pity, if he/it isn't cruel, etc. The daimon replies that those are human attributions, that what he's creating is something special, and that greatness isn't born from happy childhoods, free of reflection, etc. Humans do not come to know themselves or to know charity, art, compassion, truth, or wisdom from easy lives.

Something in me felt a joyous leap of recognition and freedom as I read these words. What a wonderful way to approach the past. I am not a victim. The troubles I had as a child – the molestation, etc., were things I was giving myself – gifts, to help me become more fully human. Hell, I even gave myself a sickness of long duration so that I could write a novel at 12! Forget the petty, drivelling, conventional morality that for so long made me feel guilty about that! About lying to my parents and doctors about being sick and celebrate the guts of a child who dared to grab what she needed from a world that was too routinized and institutionalized to give it to her!

And the same applies to R [the abusive boyfriend] and the drug use and the selling of sex and all the other experiences I've had – probably – well of course not probably!!! Dummy! The shingles and the PHN! All the pain and every other single thing.

The pattern isn't clear at all to me right now. I think that it's related to myth. I haven't a clue what kind of a myth I am. But it's about time to start finding out. I know this is big, because I had been allowing myself to start feeling like a victim again. I've been struggling so hard and feeling so embattled and dragged down.

I refuse! I reject it! I refute it! I am the Self of my own life! Nothing happens but by my own will – conscious or un. If there is pain and unpleasantness, I must need to feel it for some good reason. But I'm not going to blame it on fate, or God, or anyone else. And I'm not going to wallow in self pity, either. Look what beauty all the childhood pain brought into my life! What in the world is there to be pitied about?! Would I rather be one of those self-righteous, self-ignorant morons walking around? Brahman forbid! I'll take the pain and mess any day.

I don't imagine I'll be able to let go of the complaining and sniping immediately, but I'm sure going to try, because I am heartily sick of being unhappy. Goodbye to the stinky pity-pot.

December 19

Gave my last finals yesterday.

I've been thinking a lot about my own spiritual/psychological life. What is the next step? It is to find my myth, the myth that is living me; the mythic, or allegoric, or metaphoric pattern that shapes/informs my life. How does one go about doing that? There are so many myths, so many mythic traditions. Why should I believe a Swiss psychiatrist identified all the relevant ones? Still, I do think that Jung is a frutiful place to begin, but I'm not looking to adopt his whole system. I don't want any one else's system. I think I have finally truly understood what it means that these ultimate answers must be worked out individually by each of us.

Wish that I had more time to devote to these things during the semester. It isn't just Jung; I need an education in allegory and the allegorical symbols used in art, especially in the middle ages and Rennaissance. I want SO much to be able to read those paintings, to understand them for the stories they told to the people of the time. I wonder if I could sit in on a few art history classes? The problem is, the professors here probably don't even know how to read the allegories unless it is their own little niche of expertise. They teach history and technique and composition and color and light and other important things I am not focused on right now.

See, if I could learn to think allegorically, even kind of medievally, I might be able to see a pattern in my life that would be meaningful to me. Like Cornish, my mind is not necessarily the most comfortable in the idiom of today. Maybe none of our minds are. And maybe, by stumbling around in the religion of our history, I can find something that works on multiple levels.

Be careful how you interpret that.

1. By "religion" I do not mean anything organized, but more the patterns – maybe the psychological or spiritual or (isn't there a better word?) _________ patterns that underlie the European search for meaning which has expressed itself in the mythologies of many cultures, along with their superstitions and folk tales, their local saints (who are often just their indigenous religious figures dressed up in Christian clothes), the ways in which they interpreted Greek and Roman myths in their art in later periods, their astrology and cosmology, etc.
   
2. The pattern I'm searching for is above all the one for my own life. It is ultimately only my own life I am in charge of, responsible for, and have any hope of being able to understand.
   
3. Having said that, if I found a useful methodology – well, I am a social scientist trying very hard to understand human development, especially the development of identity. If I found something that worked for me personally, I'd want to see how far it could be stretched professionally, or at least communally. Write a book, maybe.
   

So for now it seems my routes are to learn the languages of symbolism and allegory and to become familiar with the myths. That is so that I can take the next step, which is to begin thinking about my own life in those terms.

For example, if my life were a fairy tale, who would the characters be? Or if it were an allegorical painting in the Pre-Raphaelite style, who would be in it and how would I represent them? Would it have a biblical theme, given my childhood? Or a pagan/classical theme given my later sensibilities? A King Arthur/Grail Quest theme given a long-standing obsession? Who would be the heroes and who the monsters? Who the hidden beauties? The betrayers/false-faces? These are the kinds of questions I want to be asking myself, and thinking about, and struggling (?) with.

Struggle. Do I even like that word any more? Why do I need to struggle? I am doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing, when I'm supposed to be doing it, and I'm excited about it and looking forward. What does "struggle" have to do with anything?

Here's a quote out of context. Its about a real horoscope, which would be fun to have done, by someone who knows what they are doing and speaks this ancient language of symbols: "Your Saturn has the same relationship to your Moon that Mars has to your Sun, but it's a giver of spiritual power, and takes you deep into the underworld, the dream world, what Goethe called the realm of the Mothers. There's a fad now for calling them the Archetypes, because it sounds so learned and scientific. But Mothers is truer to what they really are. The Mothers are the creators, the matrixes of all human experience" p.308, Davies, What's Bred in the Bone.

That's essentially what I want to do. I want to journey to the Mothers, and humbly ask them if they will let me know anything. I am sick nigh unto death of the fathers.

Now I'm reading my old book on myth by Leonard Biallas. What a wise person! Many of the things I highlighted at age 20 or 21 I still find important today. He really seems to understand this process I'm going through – have been going through for at least 2 decades now, of trying to discover who I am. To discard what is "not essential to me," but to embrace both the light and the dark that are truly parts of myself. I don't want a religion that is aimed only at making people good. I want one that aims at making people whole. Making them "real" "honest" with themselves and with others. I guess I'm looking for the word 'authentic.' As in Hinduism – a dialogism, a dialectics that transcends dualities.

God Having Sex - June 29, 2007

June 29, 2007

I guess I have a little more to say about Krishna's life. It's really funny to me how intellectually I find it quite reasonable for God incarnate to have sex, and I have always said it wouldn't make a bit of difference to me if Jesus had been with – especially if he had married – Mary Magdalene. And it makes a lot more sense in a culture where young men are expected to get experience and in which people do not equate sex with sin.

And yet . . . I confess to feeling a little disappointed in Krishna, like he's lost stature or become tarnished by his carnal exploits. Part of it is my culture which reserves sex for marriage. Well, wait a minute. That isn't true at all. My culture doesn't in practice – but it preaches that, still. Part of it is the idea that God should be above mundane sexual seduction. Which is silly. Of course he's above sex. He's above eating and shitting and being a cowherd, too. Isn't that the point about being incarnate? To be human is to become human. And if so, why would one limit oneself to some human things and keep off others? Particularly when you haven't designated any human function as evil? I think it may be that it seems like a weakness to me. And/or like someone using his power to exploit. But that's me not really getting it. Krishna remains celibate even after having sex with an entire village, because the sex was NOT for him, did not grow out of HIS desire, and did no harm that would incur karma.

With the villagers, it was a way to lead the women to total devotion, submitting their egos, their selves into Him. And they became the example of perfect bhakti devotion – so much so that Krishna later sends Uddhava to learn from them. And later, when Krishna returns to his rightful place in the palace, he goes to a courtesan who helped him "in the form with which she approached him." Being a courtesan sex is all she knows, so he comes to her as a sexual partner. In the same way, the scriptures say, that because Kamsa approached Him as an enemy, He came to him as his slayer. Okay . . . but I've become cynical and I see how easily someone could say this, could use it to fulfill their own desires. And if that's true, then Krishna becomes like any conquering hero, and that bugs me.

Especially when we are given to see the pain the gopilas suffer when he leaves them. They moon about, unable to do their daily tasks because everywhere there are reminders of him, and they have utterly lost all sense of themselves as separate without him.

I realize the scriptures are trying to show the truth that we ARE incomplete without Him, that he is our very Selves, and that the goal of human life is to shed our attachment to this ego and merge with Him. But in my culture, that kind of submission to a lover is bad news, a sign of pathology and exploitation. Of course, that's men we are talking about, male lovers – not God Itself, which changes things. I guess I'd feel better if Krishna inspired and expected the same devotion from men.

And I guess he does. Else why send his servant and colleague Uddhava to learn from them? But it seems a different quality. The men get made more themselves, while the women become nothing. They aren't even mentioned by name (except one), even though Krishna promises their names will be remembered forever. Maybe that's my author, though, not the scriptures.

I'm just going to have to keep working on it in my heart. I mean, isn't my goal to get to the place where I can let go of my ego, my self, and merge with Absolute Supreme Reality? That is what I want, what I'm working for in meditation, so why begrudge it to these ancient cow girls? Actually, isn't this what an encounter with the Infinite ought to do? Shatter your social conceptions, your limited, confining views? Just strip them off, one by one?

Maybe this is how Mom feels about all the things Jesus does that don't seem to make sense, that it is God saying "Don't pigeon-hole me! Don't even begin to think you can bind Me with your silly social conventions, your extremely limited view of morality." And maybe one day I'll be able to see Jesus' actions that way, too. Right now I'll stick with Krishna. Obviously I recognized His words as Truth in the two Gitas. I will just have to reconcile my feelings. That's my problem, not God's. Brahman is.

Its back to that mind-blowing idea that Krishna is All, Brahman is All, God is All. God is not an old man, a priest, a celibate, a dead thing on a cross; is not limited in any way. Even the Christian god is limited, required to be "good." Brahman is not so bound, as It is good and evil, is everything. I have to stop using mainstream, American Protestant ethics and morality in my subconcious view of god.

See, I've already learned a ton from Krishna's sexual episode. I believe I've gotten my heart and mind into the right place to learn again from Krishna's dialogue with Uddhava at the end of his earthly life.

Oh – I know now who Uddhava is/was. He was a sage – a jnana yogi – who was part of the court of the Yudavas when Krishna got rid of the evil king, Kamsa, and restored his clan to power. I believe Udhava will play important roles later in the story.

In Dialogue 14, Krishna provides a lot of information and answers a long list of Uddhava's questions. Big chunks would be good for memorization and meditation, as he repeats and puts into a few words much of what has already been said. One could call it repetitious, but it is very consistent – every text that refers to Krishna's teachings says the same things. There are no contradictions. In fact, what I've read of Patanjali, the Upanishads, and the references to the Mahabarata are all consistent as well. Odd, as it is on the whole not a religion that claims to value consistency. It's fine with everyone that gods have thousand names and a hundred forms; that at one moment Indra is supreme; then Vishnu, or Brahma, or Krishna. None of that matters and in those ways, of course, one would NOT find consistency if one searched for it. But for the core messages, the texts, written over a span of more than a thousand years and by people whose native spoken languages were widely divergent – scattered over an increasingly diverse land mass. One is led from the Western scholars of Hinduism to expect multiple schools of thought and much disagreement. But the reality is that Krishna's message is very simple. It is only the humans, Arjuna, Uddhava, me – that make things more complicated with our questions, because we don't really get it. Much like it seems to me it was with Jesus and his followers. All Jesus really said was "Love." The imperative. "Love yourself. Love your neighbor. Love your enemy. Love the Lord your God." That's it. That's the whole of the law and the whole of life.

Krishna says, "Recognize that all is god. Even you. Even your enemy. Even your neighbor." But we humans want complicated, detailed instructions. How do I love my enemy? How do I come to see that I am brahman? So in Dialogue 14, Krishna again provides some answers.

He makes clear right off the bat that just philosophizing – the part I'm good at – is not enough. He begins:

The sannyasin who has learned

All that is required

To know the Self

And for whom such knowledge

Is not mere theory but direct experience,

And who knows the phenomenal world

To be an illusion,

Such a one,

Known as a vidvat-sannyasin,

Should surrender all that knowledge

And all that experience,

To Me, the Eternal v.1

Only those who have been purified

Through both knowledge and experience

Know my true and supreme nature.

Truly it is these souls that are my support

And are much loved by me v.3.

Verse 10 contains a prayer for me:

O Great One, lift me up `

For I have fallen into the pit

Of unremitting pain.

Further down Krishna summarizes again the constituent parts of creation. The earliest quantum physics? He says that these parts permeate all of creation, from Brahma "to the smallest ameoba," and that one Supreme pervades them all.

How do you know when you are there, when you really get it? Krishna says – and note this is experiential, not theoretical – that knowledge becomes a realization "When one no longer sees multiplicities pervaded by the One, but experiences the One as the only reality" v.13.

Wow. Can you imagine even truly doing the first – seeing all things and people as pervaded by the One? I especially am going to require grace to see George W. Bush and Karl Rove, Bill Krystol, etc. as part of the same One as Indy, butterflies, puppies, brand new babies, and warm spring breezes. However, reading these stories of evil kings and demons, and Krishna's appreciation for and absorption of them is very helpful on that score. It is very good to have a model for how that kind of love works; especially from a position of strength.

I remember a short story I once read in which there was a machine, or an object of food or something, that allowed a human who used it to perceive the forest around him as one organism (Michael Crichton?). We know that is true, scientifically/ecologically, and biologists now speak of forests and even the planet as one organism. But this guy in the story gets to experience it that way for a moment. Actually 2 guys do, and one goes crazy, catatonic. The other can just barely stand it, but not for long. The complexity and grandeur, the awe of all the bugs (the number and diversity of the insect life alone is enough to send the one over the edge), the dirt, the bark and the sap in the trees, the living branches in every single tree, the leaves, the grass, the shrubs and other plants, the rotting wood, the birds, reptiles and mammals, the fungi, the wind, the dew, the sunlight – all of it not just working together but ONE THING!!! Now imagine not just a little patch of forest but the entire planet, and not just that but the entire universe, and not just that but ALL of the universes (if there are more than one, however many there might be). It does seem too much for the meagre human mind to grasp. This is a good reason for making it difficult to attain. We need time and practice to literally expand our minds enough to hold such an image.

To continue, and begin to wrap up, Krishna says that there are things before us/with us, that can corrobrorate the notion that all is One, before we can fully grasp it. The four most authoritative are: The Vedas which teach it (the Upanishads), direct experience, tradition, and inference.

In none of these can experience

Of multiplicities find support v.17.

Then he gives a long list of activities we can do in pursuit of this Oneness. Finally, a brilliant quote at the end.

What are the definitions of good and evil?

Judging another to be good or bad is evil.

To cease making judgements between good and bad,

That is true goodness v.45.

And yes, I get the irony and hypocrisy of me being gleeful at finding that to pass on to all those I deem judgmental! : ) I am a work in progress.

More Taoist lessons in Feb '07

February 7
15
The ancient Masters were profound and subtle.
Their wisdom was unfathomable.
There is no way to describe it;
All we can describe is their appearance.

They were careful
As someone crossing an iced-over stream.
Alert as a warrior in enemy territory.
Courteous as a guest.
Fluid as melting ice.
Shapeable as a block of wood.
Receptive as a valley.
Clear as a glass of water.

Why are we (humans) always looking to the past as the perfect example? It doesn’t really matter, expect it makes me feel as if there is no one to turn to as a teacher today. Makes it seem less possible to achieve. Like it is all mythical, not a real objective. Anyway, all of these descriptions seem right to me except “shapeable as a block of wood.”

I can see – like in Christianity – being at the Universe’ disposal; saying, here, make of me what you will. So I guess I do get this. At first it seemed to contradict the lesson of trusting one’s own inner vision. But this isn’t saying to allow other people’s agendas to mold you, but to let Life shape you into the forms the Universe and Tao needs or wants, or , I guess, more like what would fit the pattern. Goes on:

Do you have the patience to wait
‘til your mind settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
‘til the right action arises by itself?

Oh! This is so what I want and need. I don’t have the patience. I’ve got to learn it. And I can only see one way to do it – practice. I have to find time – make the commitment and meditate, so I can learn this.

The Master does not seek fulfillment.
Not seeking, not expecting,
She is present, and can welcome all things.

Boy, this turned out to be a really good one. To sit quietly, both literally and figuratively, and make or let one’s mind become empty, and let one’s heart let go of its hopes and desires and passions. Until one has zero expectations. Then let the right action arise by itself, and one can welcome whatever it is. I need this on my wall as a reminder of what to do.

February 8
16
Empty your mind of all thoughts.
Let your heart be at peace.
Watch the turmoil of beings,
But contemplate their return.

Each separate being in the universe
Returns to the common source.
Returning to the source is serenity.

The first couple of lines were an important reminder. My mind is full of turmoil as I think about all I need to do. And it is one of life’s biggest challenges, to watch the mess and pain of beings in this world and yet be at peace. Lao-tzu is saying that the way to do that is to remember that eventually all will find peace. As in Hinduism, it is comforting, and useful in daily interaction, to think that people are simply in different stages of their development, and that each soul that is a pauper today will in some life be a king. That what we’re seeing is that soul’s lesson. And ultimately, all will return to Oneness. As it says here, that return will mean serenity.

If you don’t realize the source,
You stumble in confusion and sorrow.
When you realize where you come from,
You naturally become tolerant,
Disinterested, amused,
Kindhearted as a grandmother,
Dignified as a king.

Immersed in the wonder of the Tao,
You can deal with whatever life brings you,
And when death comes, you are ready.

So true! When I forget the Source, as its called here – when I forget that we all come from it and will all return, I become overwhelmed with the sorrow of this world. The pain and terror are too great. It is a mass of confusion; it confuses the hell out of me, why such horrible things happen, why people are so cruel to one another, why everything in our own country is so broken. But all we have to do is step back, remember this is a journey we are all on together. That we need to be learning, not crying or beating our fists in rage. And if you can do that, then it makes sense that the rest of the stanza would apply.

I’m developing an idea of the One, the Source of all in this life. There is always the why question. Why did the Source spawn the universe? I think to learn. A super-intelligent, self-conscious being that is trying to understand what it is. So it can grow and improve. I don’t think I believe in an already perfect being. If God was perfect, what would It need us for?

February 9
We had a long talk about how we are actually better off than 90% of the world’s population in terms of income. I prompted that discussion, but it doesn’t take away my desire to be able to eat out, buy yarn, etc. And I worry about summer . . . As Jim pointed out, every time we are about to crash, something happens to save us. That is what we should focus on. And I am grateful for that. But I guess I‘m greedy, because I keep wondering why it is that we can only just barely make it. Why would it be so terrible for us to have just a little tiny cushion? I don’t buy the punishment idea. Lots of evil people are rich, and we aren’t bad people, even if we aren’t perfect.
I guess there is always more to learn about being hungry and poor, but I’d say Jim and I know more about it than most middle class people. And they have extra. I just don’t get it. I know life isn’t fair. But I’m asking for a pretty small thing in the scheme of things. Not to be rich, but just for Jim to have a job that pays above the poverty line. Above minimum wage, actually, but not by much.
Well, this is terrible. I didn’t wake up this way, but now I am full of bitterness about money. I need to cleanse myself of that. And I need to get busy.

18
When the great Tao is forgotten,
Goodness and piety appear.
When the body’s intelligence declines,
Cleverness and knowledge step forth.
When there is no peace in the family,
Filial piety begins.
When the country falls into chaos,
Patriotism is born.

Huh? I don’t get it. Maybe he’s saying – yes, I think so – that goodness and piety, cleverness and knowledge, filial piety and patriotism are not good things. Not good because they are pale substitutes for what really is good, or for what truly should be.

Goodness and piety – they seem like beneficial things on the surface. But they aren’t, because they mask the Truth, which is beyond the dualism of good vs. bad. Piety is unnecessary when you live fully immersed in the Tao. Similarly, cleverness and knowledge are poor substitutes for the wisdom of the body, that knows its limits, that is in tune with the seasons and the sun and moon and the earth. Filial piety is only there, only needed, when true love of one’s family, and harmony with them, is lacking. And patriotism – need I say more?

Okay, I get it. This is quite wise and makes so much sense. Especially when coupled with the next one, which I’m going to do, since I have a little more time this morning. On the next page Lao-tzu fleshes out this idea:

19
Throw away holiness and wisdom
And the people will be a hundred times happier
Throw away morality and justice,
And people will do the right thing.
Throw away industry and profit,
And there won’t be any thieves.

If these three aren’t enough,
Just stay at the center of the circle
And let all things take their course.

All of the institutions humans create, in an attempt to regulate and control the world, and the behavior and feelings/beliefs of people are misguided. You can’t legislate goodness. He’s right – and Jim and I were just talking about this – that people living in simpler societies, less economically or politically complex, do seem to have happier, more harmonious lives. And he lived at a time so much less complex than we do, so he’s really looking at foragers.

Well, we can’t go back to that. Not unless 7/10 of the world’s population was to die. There are too many people to feed to have anything but industrialized agriculture as the basis of our society. But might we not bend our technology toward truly making our lives simpler? Like in one of Card’s books, he has people who are far more advanced than us, but have returned to living in grass huts because it is easier on the environment, and they have designed electronics to be able to get wet, and to use less energy, etc. I mean, if that is what we valued, that’s the direction we’d be going.

If we were in tune with the Tao, we’d know how badly we were hurting the earth, the only earth we’ve got, and we’d care instinctively about every person in Africa the same way we care about ourselves.

You don’t need courts or preachers screaming about hell fire if people are living in the Tao, aware of their connections to the earth and other people. Now, if we threw out justice without throwing out industry and profit, people would not do the right thing and there would still be thieves. It all has to be done together, and then I think he might be right.

The problem is that these things – these requirements for following his suggestion, are not going to happen any time soon. I think we can try to work toward them, but in many ways our only choice is to do as he says at the end – stand in the center and let things take their course.

There is that fundamental contradiction again that I struggle so much with. Are we supposed to work toward a better future or sit back and let things take their course, be what they are, without even labeling them good or bad? My resolution of the conundrum for now is this:

We can work on ourselves. I can try inside myself to live in the Tao and not be pious, to not be taken in by cleverness, knowledge, or patriotism. Plus all the other things previously identified. And doing those things may/will be actions (non-actions) that might result in small changes around me. For instance, if I recycle, and agree to pay taxes for environmental causes, and vote in green ways then those actions, taken with others’ actions, might change some stuff. But I think overall Lao-tzu is saying, “don’t worry about the larger affects. Do what is right. That’s it.

Do what is right – which is a task hard enough to occupy all of one’s self for a lifetime. Do what is right and let the rest take care of itself.” Oh, and I forgot to say, do what is right and leave it. Don’t expect anything for it, don’t hope for things to come of it, don’t fear no one will notice it or worry that it won’t be enough. Just do it, and walk away, physically, emotionally, and mentally. And then let the world take care of itself. Let things take their course. Maybe enough other people will do the right thing. Maybe they won’t. but the great river, or Ocean of Tao will turn it all to something. Something beyond what I can imagine or see or articulate. Something beyond what we think of as good or bad. For me, the image that works is that of a being who learns something amazing from having had this experience, and then goes on to do the next right thing for it.

As I was saying yesterday, I am able to believe in that much more than in a god – an all-powerful God that yet is locked in battle with a creature he created, and whom he lets torture his more vulnerable creations. How does that make sense? Mom’s answer is always faith; that we don’t have to, and in fact cannot understand. And I agree, to a point. I can’t really understand what Brahman is, or the Tao, or the World-Soul. They are too big for my little human brain to grasp. But at least the idea of them makes sense to me. I can’t devote my life to an idea that not only doesn’t make sense, but seems wrong and repellent to me.

And sometimes people argue that in fact, if you look past this or that about the Judeo-Christian God, he really is very much like the World-Soul, or Brahman, or like Nirvana. Well, if that’s true, then why not just go with one of the others? No one has ever been able to explain satisfactorily to me why Yahweh created the universe and humans. The other religions don’t always clearly spell it out, either, but at least their versions are not incompatible with reason, logic, and their own tenets that there is no good or bad. It’s all about learning, for us, so why can’t or wouldn’t it be all about learning for It, for God, or the Absolute? I at least can wrap my head around that.

About meditation – I need to keep trying to carve time into my days for it. I only can think of going to bed earlier and getting up earlier, and then I’ll need to be sure I’m not spending too much time writing here. . .

While I was writing all that I thought of two things I want to write out. One was the reflection that I’m in the early summer of my life. It could be a useful meditation. I’m past that first pretty bloom, but that doesn’t mean the growing season is over – not by a long shot! The nutritious, valuable stuff is just now being planted. I may have 20-30 years of growing the corn, the beans, the wheat, the stuff of life, a long time before the harvest and the start of winter. It is a wonderful time of life – let me rejoice in it.

January 26-31, 2007

I've just realized that we are rapidly approaching the end of what I had already typed up. So it will take quite a bit more effor to get these old bits out to you, and I imagine I'll be a lot more selective : ) Only the truly interesting bits will get in. But for now, here is the end of January 2007 and a little more processing of the Tao te Ching.

January 26
Five more days till payday, which is also meaningless, since it is all gone, always. Things are what they are. They would be easier to accept if Jim had something [workwise]. . . I am not blaming Jim for my lack of spiritual progress, toward accepting things as they are. At least, I hope I’m not. I am suggesting that I’m having more difficulty in this context, the context of someone close to me in pain. Am I really supposed to tell him his problems are what they are so leave it alone? Or am I supposed to feel that inside me? Maybe it is that my focus should be tighter in; no matter that my husband is unhappy, as that is one of the conditions of life I need to accept. Ugh. Can Lao-tzu really mean we shouldn’t care if people are in pain? Shouldn’t want to relieve that suffering?

6
The Tao is called the Great Mother;
Empty yet inexhaustible
It gives birth to multiple worlds.

It is always present within you.
You can use it any way you want.

Wow. When I opened the book and began reading those words, I felt an immediate calm. Why not allow myself to be comforted by a Great Mother? At times the Tao seems indifferent; like God, how can anything that vast have personal feelings for me? But I’ve already concluded that is possible, believable to me, I mean. So, if it helps, I ought to let myself think of the Tao as She-who-gave-birth-to-me. Of course she must be there for me to lean on, to bathe in, and be comforted by. One’s mother is always present inside one.

And lastly, a reminder that this isn’t about rules. It is not a matter of performing prescribed actins and avoiding those off limits. The Tao is a great river that runs inside of me – it can fill me up, and I can have it be a crashing flood that destroys all in its path (which could be good sometimes) or a gently meandering stream. The choice is mine. And here’s the amazing part: It really doesn’t matter which I choose, because in the end, the Great Mother, the River, will turn things into what she desires – or no. Will make all things good as they turn into herself.

The Tao is – and we are all part of it, along with the whole universe, and all of it is one great design. If there were no bad guys, there’d be no heroes, so in that way, it doesn’t matter. To switch metaphors, all strands will have their place in the great Tapestry. So I find that freeing. If I make mistakes, it will be okay. I am so used to being afraid. Afraid of doing the wrong thing, not doing the right one, of being judged. So I feel better, I feel lighter, and freer, and more powerful, just thinking it is okay to make mistakes. That even my mistakes will eventually add to the beauty of the whole. That is a far different think even than the Christian notion of forgiveness.


Forgiveness means you made an ugly spot and God is erasing it. Taoism is saying there is no such thing as ugly. Nothing will be erased, as every action makes part of the beauty of what is.



I want to try to hold on to this feeling of wholeness, of being full of a river – a powerful river that can rage or meander, as I choose. Of a Great Mother, who gave birth to me and let me flow, who is the Source and to whom I will return. The pain that was spiking earlier has calmed back down. Probably what I should do, before I go to the shower, is meditate on this image for 10-15 minutes. See if I can. Combine it with the “Inner smile” the doc gave me.

January 28

7
The Tao is infinite, eternal.
Why is it eternal?
It was never born;
Thus it can never die.
Why is it infinite?
It has no desire for itself;
Thus it is present in all things.

Is he saying the same thing as the Buddha? That individual desire, self-centered desire, the desire to think of oneself as separate and individual, is the source not only of unhappiness and suffering, but also death? I guess, in a purely logical way, that is true. If I think of myself as individual, I will surely die. If I think of myself as part of all things, I will never die.
“It has no desire for itself; thus it is present in all things.” This seems remarkably like what Buddha said. The goal is to recognize, deep – that we are all the same thing. If I am you, how can I feel sad when you win the lottery? The rest of the “chapter” supports this interpretation:

The Master stays behind;
That is why she is ahead.
She is detached from all things,
That is why she is one with them.
Because she has let go of herself,
She is perfectly fulfilled.

These are the same, seemingly paradoxical statements the Buddha made. And I get it, at one level. It makes intellectual sense to me. But how do I come to feel it? To really get that my students and I, for example, even the problematic ones – are the same. Are One? That what Jim needs is what I need, etc. Sometimes it feels easy, but it can be close to impossible, too, when students are sneering, or whatever.


Jim and I just had a long discussion about the meditation Dr. Kasper gave me, and how it won’t work for every day [because it was too long and involved - about 4 hours]. In the middle, Jim came up with a good suggestion about how I could do a chakra meditation focused on getting energy moving smoothly and freely up and down my spine [where I am most damaged] . . . I am a rank novice when it comes to meditation. I’ve never been good at it, and I’ve never devoted the time to getting better at it.

January 29

8
The supreme good is like water,
Which nourishes all things without trying to.
It is content with the low places people disdain.
Thus it is like the Tao.

In dwelling, live close to the ground.
In thinking, keep to the simple.
In conflict, be fair and generous.
In governing, don’t try to control.
In work, do what you enjoy.
In family life, be completely present.

Let’s stop there. So much good advice, I need to process and think about how to apply it to my life. First, that the supreme good is like water makes more sense to me than a person-like god who is trying to do good things. Good is like water in that it isn’t trying to do anything. It is “indifferent” in that way. It just is, and things are nourished by its presence. Like my analogy of the sun – flowers grown and turn their faces toward the sun, whether the sun cares about them individually or not. And good is like water in the sense I was feeling last week, as the Great Mother river flowed through me and at the same time carried me with it.

The next line reminds us that it is not something way out above us, but it is content in the low places others disdain. As I was writing yesterday, it needs to be okay with me to be behind.

The next section – simple, clear directions. Stay grounded. Keep your feet on the earth. Literally and figuratively. I do try to keep my theory grounded in my work, and I also try to keep it simple for students. Not in a dumbing-down way, which I don’t think Lao-tzu means, but in a way that shows theory isn’t pie-in-the-sky stuff for geniuses only, but we can all get it.

But how about in my personal life? Maybe I need to work less hard on coming up with theories to explain my own or Jim’s or even M’s [a student] behavior. In taking care of Jim, it would be more helpful if I kept it simple. Provide a backrub, in other words, instead of a dissertation on how much [school that didn't hire him] sucks, or theorizing with him about why he wasn’t hired.

The next two seem straightforward. And I can learn to be more generous to Jim in conflict. I’m learning how to govern my students without trying to control them. And with them, the key seems to be engagement. So with others, the same basic idea should apply: When governing, find out what is of interest to the governed and enlist their aid in understanding and dealing with it. It should work.

I am fortunate to do work I enjoy. That last one, though, I really need to work on. Be fully present in my family life. I only seem to be able to manage that for short bits of time. I come home really tired, and can be present for an hour or so, as we talk about our days. But then I often at least half-way disappear into the computer. And I think that has to be a little bit okay. At least, I’m pretty sure Lao-tzu isn’t suggesting we have to have heart-to-heart talks 24-7 with our families.

What I need to do is work harder, well, that’s a bad expression. I need to open myself further, be more flexible and attentive and appreciative in the times I am talking to Jim or any other member of my family. As I was saying yesterday, I need to listen more deeply to him. Just absorb what he is saying and be fully present. That means don’t be thinking about work, or how I’d like to be working or doing something else. And don’t be thinking about how to fix any one's problems. Just listen, and be there. And this shouldn’t be work. I need to get away from the Protestant way of thinking about things. It should be more like a blooming, a flower opening its petals to receive light. Is that work? No. So, okay, open my petals, be more fully present. It ends:

When you are content to be simply yourself
And don’t compare or compete
Everybody will respect you.

Common sense. I am content to be myself with Jim, but my best self? Am I that self I was as a child, utterly open, taking all people I met into my heart, loving them – seeing their warts not even as warts. It was all good to me. How can I be that self with Jim, and with everyone? I think the answer may be what Lao-tzu is saying – “content to be simply yourself.” Be yourself, but don’t think about yourself. You are there, but your vision is so full of others that you don’t appear, even on the periphery of your vision. It was only with puberty that I began to be self-conscious, and that so easily turns into self-centeredness. That is the process I need to reverse.

January 30
9
Fill your bowl to the brim
And it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
And it will blunt
Chase after money and security
And your heart will never unclench.
Care about people’s approval
And you will be their prisoner.

Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity.

Maybe related to my thought yesterday that I need to not think of things as work so much. I don’t believe I am or have been chasing after money, though I might be more guilty of seeking security.

Caring about others’ approval has always been a problem for me. I can’t stand it when people don’t like me. And its hard to completely let go of that, because it does matter. I have to get good student evaluations. My colleagues have to approve of me to give me tenure.
But I guess there is a difference. Focus on the work, on doing it well, and then step back and see what happens. That is different from, for example, handing out easy As or going around copying or flattering my colleagues. So I think I’m okay with this stuff.

I could stand to care less what students think – not take it so hard when they don’t like me. But I am not ruled by that. I do what I believe is right, in the classroom and out. I still hope for approval, but it is not going to change how I teach or conduct myself.

January 31
Long one today.
10
Can you coax your mind from its wandering
And keep it to the original oneness?

That’s easy to answer – No! My mind is very undisciplined. I’ve been having a hard time keeping it on the sentence I’m writing. I could use a lot of practice and must find or make the time to do this.

Can you let your body become
Supple as a newborn child?
Can you cleanse your inner vision
Until you see nothing but light?

No, no, and no. my body is more tense than ever as it fights the pain. It is hard to even make my neck let my head rest on the pillow at night. These two are also things I do not do well and should be, would like to be, working on.

Can you love people and lead them
Without imposing your will?

I used to think so, but I’ve grown in my understanding of my own desire, my own will for people. I am better with everyone but Jim. I love him, but I still want to impose my will on him. I want him not to be so cynical. I want him to be happy and fulfilled. I want him to be filled with energy and excitement and a new wind about something in the future that he has planned for himself. How can I let that go? And just love him as he is today with no desire to change him?

Can you deal with the most vital matters
By letting events take their course?

Ugh. These are really tough questions! No, I can’t! I worry things to death. I’m better than I used to be, but I always have to fight the urge to micro-manage. I so wish I could take control of Jim’s situation and make a job for him. I’m better at the little stuff, which I guess is a good place to start. And I’m trying to let go, to let things happen as they will. And you know, I handled the drug thing yesterday better than I would have 6 months ago. I was in terrible pain, but I did some deep breathing and reminded myself I wasn’t going to die no matter how much it felt like I would. And I reminded myself it was out of my hands, beyond my control and I’d just have to wait. So, its progress. I’ll just keep trying to let go and allow events to take their course.

Can you step back from your own mind
And thus understand all things?

Obviously, no. I’m so far from achieving this I can’t even know what it means. For me, I guess it means I’ve got to spend more time in meditation so I can get a glimmer of what this might be like.

Giving birth and nourishing
Having without possessing
Acting without expectations
Leading and not trying to control
This is the supreme virtue.

Okay. Will just try to take that all in.

2006 - Nature of Evil

With the end of August in 2006 came the end of free time for a loooooooooong time. It was my first semester in my first academic job, and I could not believe how busy I was. I had thought graduate school kept me busy! Yet I found time (usually in those few minutes before sleep, to help my mind wind down) to read a few pages of fiction or something non-work related. And finally, in November, I had something of relevance to this blog to say.

November 12
What is on my mind today? Mostly my book (A Fine Balance, by Rohinton Mistry), and India in general. Here’s the puzzle – how can the most ancient, most enlightened, most cosmic and yet most sensible religion the world has ever produced, spawn such evil? There are times when I wonder if there isn’t something inherently wrong with Christianity, since it so regularly leads to exclusion, discrimination, intolerance, hatred and injustice. But one only has to look at India to see the same things, and for Buddhism look at Cambodia and Sri Lanka and China. For Islam there is Egypt and Sudan and Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Jews also have bloody history and the current state of Israel could hardly be more evil. You know what they did this week? After the Palestinians had managed to hold to a cease fire for 7 months – a remarkable feat considering the heterogeneity of political/military groups in their midst – the damned Israeli army sent a succession – 6, not 1 – missiles to destroy a civilian apartment building in Gaza. 14 children were killed, 6 or 7 all from the same family. And what do the Israelis say? “We’re sorry, it was an accident.” Animals!
It is easy to see why some would come to the conclusion that religion is the root of all evil. I don’t believe that, but I do wonder why religion is so weak. Pundits talk about the power of religion to motivate people, etc., but really isn’t it that religion is powerless in the face of human greed and hatred? It certainly seems to me, looking back at all of history, that it is much more often the case that evil people turn religion into a tool, than that religion transforms and uses evil men.
I presented this to Jim just now over a cigarette and it spurred an hour long debate/discussion that began philosophically but ended with application. He first tried to make it about creating a stronger religion, one that could stand up to human evil, but we didn’t get far with that. It did lead me to say that I think humans are so fallen, so evil, that we can’t base a religion on human nature. He said I sounded like I was talking about Original Sin. I said not necessarily, the original “sin” could simply be a factor of how we evolved. Competition, he said, is the root of all evil. We are hard-wired to compete. Yes, and we discussed that awhile.
But, as I’ve said before, we are also hard-wired to cooperate. Our species would have died out had we not cooperated with one another. Jim made/used a clever metaphor of the Strong and Weak forces in physics – it looks like the strong force is stronger, it is when measured immediately. But it is the weak force that holds the universe together. So we both agree that what needs to happen is an increase in our awareness and practice of cooperation, rather than competition. We argued awhile about how to do that, and the extent to which it is already occurring.

November 13
Oh my. This book I’m reading . . . It is just one heartbreaking tragedy after another. Nearly unbearable to read. I keep looking at the table of contents, scanning the chapter titles for some sign of brightness, some hint of a happy ending. It doesn’t provide much optimism. How can people be so terrible to one another? Modern psychology, with its almost complete lack of attention to issues of power, provides no help in understanding it.
I, from my relatively safe, secure, loving childhood and privileged white middle class status, have no capacity for understanding what makes people hate so globally. I get being angry at someone you know, hating individuals for hurting or thwarting you. But how does that translate, or mutate, into a rage and hatred so general that one can be cruel to perfect strangers? And the contempt! How is it that people can sort others into categories and the despise and reject their humanity based on that category and their membership in it?
I have certainly felt contempt for individuals, and have bordered on hatred because of it. And I admit I’m more prepared to despise people who fall into certain categories – Neo-con Republicans, Bible thumping bigots, bigots in general. But I at least give individuals a chance. Its only when they open their mouths and utter opinions I find despicable that I feel contempt. And I don’t believe I have the capacity to deny food, water, or shelter to even those I despise the most, like Bush. I don’t believe I’m capable of beating or raping or setting their houses on fire, either. Or even shipping them off to be beaten and exploited and worked into the ground.
So how do so many humans find it so easy, so casual, to do all of the above and worse, to people they don’t even know? Just because they are poor, or black, or Mexican, or Buddhist, or Jewish or French, or female or working class or a stranger? I don’t even know how to begin to understand it. And it is so common! Much more common than simple kindness.
We talk about Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot as if they were rare aberrations. But really, aren’t their feelings and theories and callousness closer to the norm? There have been so many evil, despotic rulers, but for each one of them there are millions of soldiers, prison guards, gang members, lawyers, business men, shopkeepers, farmers and even religious leaders (high and low), who feel and behave in exactly the same ways. They just don’t have the power to do it on a grand scale. Although the inhuman decisions of CEOs and bankers destroy lives in vast, uncounted numbers.
How can one not despair? Why do we have it so good in the U.S.? Because we wrote laws and voted on them in an attempt to curb the worst abuses, to try to protect ourselves from the monstrous people in our midst. But now people, in their fear of unpredictable and largely fabricated threats of terrorists, are ready – no, eager – to suspend all those laws that protect us, just to have the illusion of security. Please tell me how removing all of our civil rights and liberties will prevent the spread of anthrax, or stop a nuclear missile, or prevent explosives from exploding? It’s a myth, but frightened people eat it up.
Maybe what they really need is a reminder of what happens in places without these protections. And someone to connect the dots for them, so they see why we must have freedom of speech, law of habeas corpus, and the right to face one’s accuser. Maybe they are so uneducated, taught all the wrong things in all the wrong ways, so that they don’t know.

December 21
Jim shared some of his struggle for meaning. By the end of that conversation I was convinced more than ever that he would benefit from Taoism. So I brought him down the Tao te Ching before I went to bed.

2006 - August 1- 4th Reading the Gospels

The next few weeks entries are sooooo long that I have done some cutting and I will still break them into smaller pieces. I feel compelled to remind everyone that these are my thoughts of nearly two years ago, and things have changed in those two years. But I had to go through this part in order to get where I am today, which is why I'm posting this all up here. Once these old entries are here, there will probably be many fewer posts, and much shorter : ) Anyone who reads them, though, will know where I am coming from in a way they could not have, without this history.


August 1
I’m feeling a little bad about how I’m treating Matthew. Not approaching it with an open heart. There are a lot of wonderful passages in it, but the truth is that I don’t trust its accuracy. It just feels like it is trying too hard to sway me to a particular interpretation. I wonder how people who become Christians as adults respond to it. I can see taking great comfort in the beatitudes, for example, but there are so many other places where Jesus seems angry and judgmental, divisive. Not the compassionate healer predominantly, though there is some of that, of course.


To me Matthew feels like someone who has been hurt and is angry. He’s preoccupied with wanting justice. He wants the Messiah to punish the wrongdoers who have hurt him. It reads to me as the author really focused on and made central everything Jesus said that could be construed that way. And certainly he seems to have been hurt by the Jewish establishment, and thus directs his ire their way.


Reminds me – yesterday Jim told me that Mel Gibson had been arrested for driving under the influence, and while being arrested ranted about how the Jews have started every war since time began, how they are in control of the world, and are running it, and accused the police of being Jews. Totally off the deep-end, which is no surprise considering his Passion portrays Jews in a very negative light, and all the hype about it eventually put his father on the air. Whoa! He’s a little Nazi. My point is that people like that have been using Matthew to justify their hatred and racism for a long time, and now I can see why.


When Jesus walked on water and stilled the storm, it certainly made them wonder. In Mark, it just says they were astonished. 6:52 “for they had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves, but their heart was hardened.” In Matthew, it says (14:33) “And those who were in the boat worshipped Him, saying ‘You are certainly God’s Son.’”


15:24 he refuses to help a Syropheonician woman because “I was sent only to the sheep of the house of Israel.” As in Mark, he calls her a dog to her face – you don’t take the children’s bread and feed it to dogs. But she convinces him and he relents and heals her daughter. Seems pretty clear that his message was, at least initially, meant only for Jews. Need to look for when he changes his mind, if he does.


Matthew’s version of Jesus asking the disciples who they think he is doesn’t seem as much as in Mark that he doesn’t know, himself. He seems instead to tell Peter he’s right that he is the Son of God, 16:13-20. But he again tells them not to tell anyone.


In 17:12-13 it is clear that Jesus meant John the Baptist was Elijah, whom the scriptures say must come again before the Messiah. And he did come, and was killed. So also will the Son of Man. And when the disciples are unable to cast out the demon, Mark has Jesus say, “This kind only comes with prayer and fasting., or at least, that is in some mss. In Matthew, some of the mss have that verse, but all have Jesus saying it is their own fault – they didn’t have enough faith. 17:20.


Divorce 19:9. He also seems to say that celibacy is best, but not everyone can do it. An acknowledgment of the power of the sex drive. In 19:16, with the young ruler, the way Matthew reads is different. He does not have Jesus say he isn’t God, as does Mark. And in 19:23, Jesus promises the disciples thrones of their own in heaven.

August 2
Here are my latest thoughts about Matthew.
Regarding the triumphal entry, Matt also has Jesus orchestrate it by telling the disciples to steal a colt. But he does so in order that a prophecy be fulfilled – 21:4. Jesus was certainly familiar with the scriptures, so was a human trying to fulfill the prophecies, trying to convince people? Sort of like those people trying to breed a red goat, or whatever, on a particular mountain in Israel in order to initiate Armageddon?


Then again with the poor fig tree, 21:18-22. It is in the parable of the landowner, 21:33-44, that Jesus first says clearly that his message, intended for Jews but rejected by them, will now be for others, who will be given “the fruit of it.”


His words about whether or not there is a resurrection of the body, or whose wife the woman married to 7 brothers will be, in 22:23-33. God is the God of the living, not the dead, he says, and the people were astonished. But what does it mean?



Then Matthew has the Pharisees ask him what the greatest commandments are, and has them be amazed when he says love God, and love your neighbor, 22:34-40. But why would they be amazed? That is their own teaching! Hillel and Gamaliel, anyway, were teaching that before and during Jesus’ life.


Then the passage about the Christ being the Son of David has a different meaning than in Mark. In Matt 22:41-45, Jesus seems to be saying the Christ is not the son of David, since David calls him Lord, and everyone is stumped. In chapter 23, Jesus gives a diatribe against the Pharisees, saying they are hypocrites. “woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,” he says, SEVEN times.



It’s like Matthew gathered together all the times that Jesus dressed people down, and attributed them all to the Pharisees. But it seems very likely that Jesus had been trained as one, as Paul was too. So maybe he was fed up with some of the things he saw and didn’t like, but this incredible anger just doesn’t feel right. “You serpents, you brood of vipers, how shall you escape the sentence of hell?” he asks, in 23:33, and prophesizes that he will send them more prophets, whom they will kill and persecute, and he makes all scribes and Pharisees accountable for every sin, really, of humanity thru time. Pretty broad strokes.

August 3
There is some pretty scary stuff in chap. 24 about the end times, and v. 37-51 suggest the Rapture. He does make it all sound imminent, like he expects the end very soon.


The statement about those having more will be given more makes more sense here, because it follows a parable of “the Talents,” in which a man gives his slaves 10, 5, and 1 talent; the first 2 invest and double their money for him, while the last one buries his to keep it safe, and makes no investment. He’s cast into the “outer darkness” for that. The moral seems to be that we shouldn’t be lazy or fearful, but should take risks in attempts to increase God’s wealth. It is still kind of inconsistent, because what would have happened to the slave if he had invested and lost the money? Wouldn’t he have been punished?


If God is the landowner – this one is pretty greedy. He is a man who is “hard, reaping where he doesn’t sow and gathering where he spread no seed.” V.24. How is that even possible for a creator god, since all seed is his seed? But the larger point – cast into outer darkness for doing what one was asked to do? I guess we are supposed to read God's mind.


25:31-46 is a beautiful passage about the Judgment, in which we are taught to feed the hungry, visit prisoners, clothe the naked, take in the stranger, etc., just as if each human is Jesus himself. Makes me want to e-mail it to all the self-righteous jerks who deny immigrants water in the desert because they are “breaking the law.” And these are the very same people who feel they are better than the Pharisees, (whom they equate with all Jews), and thus more deserving of God’s love.


Also the story of the night in Gethsemane is very moving. We see Jesus fearful, grieved, praying that he not have to be crucified. But willing, if that is what God wants. Like all Jewish heroes, he is utterly human. Again, though, it is “a great multitude . . . from the chief priests and elders of the people.” 26:47 who come to arrest Jesus. Jesus himself says hey, you saw me in the temple, so why didn’t you arrest me there? V.55. So why do they need Judas to identify him? Jesus answers in v.56 that it is only to fulfill the scriptures. So I read that as support for the Judas gospel.


Now, in 26:64, when Jesus is before Caraphas, not answering the charges, Caraphas asks him, “I adjure you by the living God, that you tell us whether you are the Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus answers, “You have said it yourself.” And Caraphas finds that such blasphemy that he sentences Jesus to death. There are a lot of issues here. Why does Matthew have C. equate “Christ” with “Son of God”? Unless I am very much mistaken, Jews did not equate the two at all. They expected a human Messiah, not a divine one. There was no concept of God having an actual son, just the notion that we are all his children and that those with whom God is pleased may be given that honorary title.


So is this a later interpretation creeping in? Or is C. outraged because Jesus has been preaching that God has a son, like the nasty Greek and Roman gods? But we don’t see any evidence of that previously in Matthew. Or is C. just mad because Jesus is saying he is the chosen one? That doesn’t fly – people don’t get accused of blasphemy for that – just ignored, usually.


Obviously, Jesus really made people angry. He keeps telling them they are wrong, and does it so well that they can’t answer back. He points out all the ways they aren’t following the scriptures. If Matt is to be believed, he’s also calling them names and insulting them regularly. He violates their code, breaks their laws. He’s stirring people up. None of that seems worthy of a death sentence, does it? But somehow it is. Will see what Armstrong says about it. Matthew wants us to believe it is because Jesus has claimed divinity, but I’m just not sure he actually did that.


In 7:1-10 we learn that Judas returned the silver to the high priests and hanged himself, and that the priests used the money to buy the “Potter’s Field” as a burial place for strangers. From all accounts it seems clear that Jesus accepted the title “King of the Jews,” if he didn’t propose it himself. Or is that just more of his patience with their lack of understanding what he really meant?


Barrabas is a “notorious person” 27:16 – not a crime suspect.


At the crucifixion, Matt has the people saying Jesus claimed to be the Son of God (27:43), and challenged him to save himself. He reports the women there as Mary M., Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of (James and John), the sons of Zebedee 27:56.

28:1, Mary M. and “the other Mary” went to the tomb first. Just realized that in neither Mark nor Matthew has Mary Magdalene’s presence been explained, except I think Mark says “she who had been exorcised of demons,” or something like that. No, now I can’t find that. But Jesus did not save a woman from being stoned in either of these gospels.


In Mark, there was a “man” in the tomb, who said Jesus was gone. Here, 28:2-8, an angel descends from heaven before the women, shows them the empty tomb, and sends them to report it. Then Jesus himself meets them and they touch his feet and worship him, 28:9.


In 28:11-15, Matt has the chief priests pay the soldiers to spread the story that the disciples stole the body themselves. No story of Thomas or 2 men on the road. Instead, the disciples do as Mary M said Jesus asked and go to Galilee, where Jesus met them on a mountain top, “but some were doubtful.” He commissions them to go out and baptize all nations and make them disciples, and promises to be with them to the end of the age. And that’s it.


Charles Freeman says that the original Mark ended with the empty tomb, and the passages about Jesus’ later appearances weren’t added until the 2nd century, 100+ years later, p.103.
I think I’ve done enough with Matthew for now. It’s pretty clear how I feel about this gospel. I just find so much of what it says suspect, because it so clearly has an agenda beyond familiarizing others with the life and teachings of Jesus.

Luke thinks more like we do. He wants to set things out in an orderly, chronological fashion. He even begins with an introduction. Then he begins his story with the parents of John the Baptists, and John’s birth is as miraculous, nearly, as Jesus. Gabriel appears to his priestly father and clearly says John will be the “spirit and power of Elijah.” 1:17


Then Gabriel appears to Mary, a virgin engaged and gives her the news, which troubles her. It is a compassionate view of Mary, makes her a real person. Mary and Elizabeth are related, and Mary visits her, and John, in the womb, recognizes her with a leap, which causes Elizabeth to prophesy. Then Mary is given a beautiful speech. The mythology has really grown by this time, hasn’t it? Luke feels like a good author, who (maybe) gives words to his characters to make them more real.


Chapter 2 tells of Jesus’ birth and childhood, with all the Christmas stories – of a census that seems unlikely – see Freeman. Not that they didn’t do censuses, but they didn’t ask people to go to their birthplace. Angels appear to the shepherds, and tell them the Messiah is born. Then Simeon, at the temple at Jesus’ circumcision, recognizes him, and that he’ll be “a light to the Gentiles.” Anna the Prophetess agrees.


There is nothing at all about Wise Men, or Herod killing children, or the family fleeing to Egypt. They do, though, go home to Nazareth where the child grows with “the grace of God upon him.” 2:40. They travel to Jerusalem for the Passover every year, and at age 12 Jesus hangs out in the temple amazing everyone, and rebukes his parents, calling the temple his “father’s house.” 2:49.


I wonder where Luke got all this stuff, since it isn’t in the earlier texts. Q? Another lost text? Or is it oral tradition by then? The prophecy of Isaiah that they all cite, about John being the voice in the wilderness; also says “every mountain and hill shall be made low, and every ravine filled up.” Isaiah 40:3-4. It doesn’t really seem like a prophecy. It’s a hymn, more like, praising God. It adds to my feeling that the gospel writers keep taking scripture out of context, and applying it where ever the verse makes sense, regardless of whether the surrounding verses do. A mistake – will cause one to stumble?


Luke includes a lot more the teachings of John the Baptist, which are quite similar to Jesus: In 3;23-38, Luke gives a different genealogy of Jesus, again through Joseph, who shouldn’t matter.
In the temptations, Luke has the devil (or Satan) say, “If you are truly the Son of God.” 4:9. After, he goes directly to Nazareth, unlike the other two gospels, and Luke gives us the content of his sermon. He read from Isaiah, a passage about being anointed to preach the gospel to the poor, release the captives, etc., and says, “Today the scripture has been fulfilled.” 4:18-21. Interesting, the people are pleased with that, they have no problem with until he creates one by saying prophets aren’t honored in their hometowns, and Elijah had to go to Sidon, not Jerusalem, for succor. Then they get pissed, and run him out of town. They almost threw him off a cliff, but he miraculously escaped.


In 6:20-26, Luke gives the beatitudes, and follows with the woes that Matthew had him saying only to the scribes and Pharisees. And previously Jesus is having civil discussions with them, none of which begins with name-calling. Luke’s Sermon on the Mount is altogether more generous, compassionate and kind. Stresses mercy, not judgment.


Matthew’s verse reads as if Jesus were saying no one is wiser than he (can’t find it now) but Luke’s says, “A pupil is not above his teacher; but everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher” 6:40. Gives more the idea that we all can be like him.


I love the story of the woman, a sinner, who washes Jesus’ feet. He allows it, but one sees great compassion in him, and love, and forgiveness. Plus he teaches a good lesson to the Pharisee 7:40-49. By the way, he is eating and visiting with the Pharisee, not spitting insults at him.


8:1-3 Luke describes the women, “Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom 7 demons had gone out, and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who were contributing to their support out of their private means.”


Again, calming the storm, it seems like to Jesus, it is so obvious that humans can do such things if they have faith. But the disciples keep missing that point, thinking Jesus must be something special. Wasn’t it for this reason the Buddha refused to do miracles?


In 8:26-39, it isn’t any more clear why Jesus lets the demons go into the swine. What about the owners of those pigs? Was he(they) in need of punishment? Were the pigs diseased? Why not tell us?



It is in Luke 9:18-22 that Jesus asks the disciples who they and the people say that he is. John: Elijah, a prophet from old. Peter: “The Christ of God”. Not the Son – there is no implication of divinity. Jesus answers, “The Son of Man must suffer many things,” and predicts his death and resurrection. But he also predicts that some of those there will see the Kingdom of God before they taste death. V. 27. What did he mean? Was he wrong? What was his definition of Kingdom?


Luke says that during the transformation, Moses and Elijah were talking to him about what was going to happen to him in Jerusalem 9:31. Sorry – what he was going to accomplish. He is the agent, not the victim.


I guess all three gospels are trying to imply that Peter, in offering to make 3 tabernacles, has offended God by placing Jesus on the same level with Moses and Elijah. That’s why God speaks, calling Jesus his “Beloved Son.” 9:35. No, Luke says, “this is my Son, my Chosen One.” That does not imply divinity, necessarily.


Jesus does lose his patience a little, with the disciples when they can’t cast out the one demon (which sounds a lot like epilepsy, btw). “How long shall I have to put up with you?” he says 9:41. Again, its because they don’t believe they can do it. He tells them to remember what he has said, for he is going to be delivered up to the “hands of men”. “But they do not understand this statement, and it was concealed from them so that they might not perceive it.” 9:45.
Here it is again, this peculiar way of saying we aren’t totally responsible, for it will be “given” to us to understand, or “concealed” from us so we can’t.



I guess I don’t get what the purpose is of saying things to someone and then making it impossible for them to understand what you said. Maybe it is just the way people think in a culture in which prophecy is normal and an accepted part of daily life. People say things for posterity, not to be understood now, but later. Maybe its sort of like preventing paradoxes in time travel. If people understood, then they might change the future and thus nullify your prediction. But you, as the soothsayer, can point back and say, "See? Remember when I said such and such?"


Luke, like Mark, has it that “He who is not against you is for you.” 9:50. Only Matthew is vindictive. Go figure.


Whoa – totally new story. As the Passover was approaching, they begin heading for Jerusalem. And in a Samaritan village, the people won’t serve them, because they are Jews headed to the city. The disciples ask if they should rain down fire on the villages! So I guess they’d figured out their power! And Jesus says a moving thing, “You do not know what kind of spirit you are of; for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.” 9:35. Those are really interesting words. What kind of spirit you are of. Is he saying his essence is spirit, not flesh? Is he saying his spirit is physically in them; that they are in some way now a part of him? Is he suggesting that through their discipleship they have managed to find that Oneness? I highlighted that verse in my last attempt at Christianity, but I don’t remember it at all.


In the next bit, about exacting discipleship, Jesus’ words are pretty harsh. But maybe he said it in a compassionate tone, so that “You aren’t fit for the Kingdom of heaven” came across as “You are not ready to make the sacrifice of discipleship.”


One has to wonder about tone, about slight differences in nuance, in translation. Maybe some of what he said that sounds so brutal really wasn’t. Because if Matthew or the hardest bits of the others are accurate, it is hard to see how/why his followers would have spoken of him as loving and compassionate. I was going to say gentle, but I haven’t actually noticed anyone using that word to describe Jesus. I don’t get the feel of a gentle man. At times, yes, but not generally.


Huh, Luke has him send out another 70. And he’s like God here, cursing the cities that have not welcomed him. Hmm. In 10:18 he says, “I was watching Satan fall from heaven.” But the context is that of the 70 coming back exuberant because they have been casting out demons. So it doesn’t necessarily imply that it is literal, and definitely not that he was with God in the beginning, as I think I’ve seen it interpreted. He prays the same prayer, saying all things have been handed over to him, and that only the Father knows the Son, and the Son the Father.


In Luke’s version of “Ask, Seek, Knock” there is the implication that it might take persistence and repetition, because he precedes it with the story of a man waking a friend in the middle of the night, who first refuses him !!:



Satan, the devil, and Beelzabul are all equated by Luke’s time (11:18). Interesting, because I saw in 1 or 2 Kings references to the god Baal-zebul, the clear origin.



Now in 11:37-54, he gives a diatribe against the Pharisees. But he is eating with them in one of their houses, and he doesn’t keep calling them names. He lets the lawyers have it, too! None of them are too happy when he’s done.


He’s no clearer about what it means to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. 12:10. Slightly different context – in the middle of the sparrows and hairs speech. He gives a little more story to the “don’t lay up treasures on earth” speech, making it real for the people. The advice against worry is breathtaking in its simplicity and power. 12:22-34. What wonderful words: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom!” 12:32.


The “be in readiness” parables that follow are also great. It is most certainly not a message of fairness or equality he is preaching. More responsibility and justice. Though justice is not always “fair,” if that makes sense. For not only will more be given to those who already have, but “from everyone who has been given much, shall much be required, and to whom they have entrusted much, of him they will ask the more.” 12:48. Who are “they”?


Jesus is moved to anger at the hypocrisy of the Pharisees when they berate him for breaking the law by healing on the Sabbath, though they would move their oxen – un-tether them or a mule, but they won’t un-tether a poor woman who is bound by Satan 18 years? 12:10-17. he keeps reminding them not to put the law over compassion.


He says many will strive to enter but still not be able; God will close the door. Abraham and everyone else will be inside, but you will be cast out [if you aren’t careful] 13:22-29. Doesn’t this contradict the ask and you shall receive? If you strive to enter, why would you be unable?


Hey! In 13:31 some Pharisees come and warn him that Herod wants to kill him. They are trying to protect him. So much for Matthew’s belief that they are al the evil enemy of God! 14:1-6, he’s eating with the Pharisees and lawyers again, and having an amiable discussion about healing on the Sabbath.


Oops! I skipped a page when I moved outside - In the next section he tells people not to think they are better than some notorious cases where people got terrible punishments. “Are they greater sinners? No, but unless you repent, you will likewise perish!” But then he tells a parable about a fig tree that produced no fruit for 3 years. The landowner says to cut it down, but the steward says let me give it some fertilizer and care, and see if it produces next year. 13:6-9. Is he saying he is the steward, begging for one more chance before God strikes them all down? Then why does he himself curse the fig tree? Are the two things connected? Was he saying, “That’s it! I’m done with you!”?


It doesn’t look like Luke even includes that. Back to where I was. Jesus at dinner with the Pharisees and lawyers, and they have a lot of discussion. He says many wise things, and they appear to be receptive and learning from him. Later, he speaks to those following about the effort discipleship requires, and that they need to calculate if they are willing to pay the cost. Don’t start things you can’t finish, in other words 14:25-35.


There are so many instructions to be humble, to consider and declare yourself unworthy, that it is no mystery why I got the idea that it was a good thing to purge every good thought I had about myself. Because if you are outwardly humble, but inside you have even one thought of “I’m okay,” how are you any different from the hypocrites Jesus berates? See 18:9-14.
Luke also has Jesus say that “No one is good except God alone.” 18:18, differentiating himself from God.


In Luke, the story of the 10, 5, and 1 pieces of money is different. They are minas, not talents, and its about a king who puts the first two in charge of cities and berates the last who buried the coin. But its also about how the people didn’t want him to be king, and he put them all to death. I really don’t get what he’s trying to say. 19:11-27.


He does give more explication about the Sadducees’ question re. resurrection. Luke has him say clearly that there is a resurrection of the dead 20:37. It isn’t clear to me, though. He says, “but that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the burning bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is not the God of the dead, but of the living; for all live to Him” 20:37-38. Is that what Moses meant? That to God there is no time, and all live at once? I really doubt it. I think Luke is just trying to make sense of it, whereas the others didn’t try.


And Luke has him say, when they ask about the future, that there will be wars and rumors of wars, etc., but “the end does not follow immediately.” 21:9. My question – is he talking about 70 AD, when the Temple is destroyed and the Diaspora begins? Or a later date, which would be in my future, since there was no Israel in-between. Sure sounds like the Diaspora in 70. Course, all the geological and astronomical signs (21:25-28) didn’t occur then. Plus no Son of Man in a cloud. [that we know of]


Satan enters into Judas and causes him to betray him! 22:3.


Garden of Gethsemane was pretty bad for him. “He was in agony, his sweat became like drops of blood” 22:44. At the council he does say he is the Son of God 22:69. Luke is more specific about the charges the Council brings to Pilate (though he doesn’t mention Caraphas) “He was misleading our nation, forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar, and calling himself Christ, a King.” 23:2. Pilate asks, “Are you the King of the Jews?” “It is as you say,” he answers 23:3. This makes more sense – it is a political claim.


Oh – Luke has Pilate send Jesus to Herod, who was in Jerusalem for the holiday. But Jesus won’t answer Herod, so Herod’s soldiers dress him in purple, mock him, and Herod sends him back to Pilate. Pilate and Herod become friends through this 23:12.

Barrabas – insurrectionist and murderer 23:19.


First time Jesus says, “Forgive them” 23:33. Always bugged me – he tells the thief he’ll be with him today in Paradise – but he’s supposed to go to hell? When did that get added? Haven’t seen it yet.


What is my general impression of Luke? He’s a better writer. He too moves things around to make order and sense. He strikes me as having a real sense of both the wisdom and the compassion of Jesus. In Luke’s hands Jesus is a caring teacher. He doesn’t try to tie Jesus to old prophecy that much (except when using Mark?), but I do have a sense that he added his own words and interpretations when things weren’t clear. He feels truer to the spirit of what I imagine Jesus was like – would had to have been like to make such an impression. But he also has mythologized him and his story. In some ways the gospel feels far from the real man – but in others, in feel, he’s closer (I imagine – it is just my impression.)


He does make a case for Jesus as the Christ, and maybe as Divinity, but its gentle, not pushy. As a companion of Paul’s, his view of Jesus is Pauline. Currently scholars put the writing of this around 70, so 40 years had passed. That is enough time for things to begin to gel, various interpretations – and for things, words, to get lost.


The important test – if one followed Luke closely, based one’s life on its teachings, I don’t think one would go that wrong with God, either way, and one would have a peaceful, loving life that was of benefit to others. His gospel seems logical; it doesn’t contradict itself too much. I’ve benefited from reading it and would no doubt continue to grow if I read it more.



Well, I think I’m ready to leave the synoptic gospels and move on to John. Written last, maybe around 100-110 AD, it is quite different. Presents a theological argument, and argues definitively for the divinity of Jesus. I know this, and I know a lot more now about how that argument took shape, but like the others, I haven’t actually read John in ages. So let’s begin. For the record, it is now 7 pm and I’ve done nothing but this all day, and I’m in so much pain I can hardly stand it. Let John be a good distraction.

He begins with a bang – equating Jesus with the Logos. A philosophical argument - the true light, Logos, is like the breath, kind of, of God – giving life, or soul, or anima to man. Without it, man is not man. The true light came to its own – I.e. the humans it had caused to be, who were “like” it, and they did not receive it. But some did, and those he made his own.
1:14 The Word became flesh – Logos became man, God incarnated and dwelt among us. Boy, I wonder if this is clearer in the Greek. 1:16-18 “For the Law was given to Moses; grace and truth were realized thru Jesus Christ. No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God (some mss read Son), who is in the bosom of the Father. He has explained Him.”
Is he saying that God has 3 qualities, or has given 3 gifts to man? Law, grace, and truth? He is making a liar out of Abraham, Lot, and Isaac; not sure who else, but these all claimed to have seen God. Has explained Him – God explained Jesus through scripture? Jesus explained God through his life?


In the other gospels, Jesus implied John the Baptist was Elijah, but here John Baptist says he isn’t. Hmmm – no birth story here – as if John is stripping the myths back off. Freeman said that John used other, earlier texts than Mark and Q, now lost, and this may be the most historically accurate. However, John the Baptist is saying Jesus is the Son of God, and it really doesn’t seem likely that he said this, or at least, if he did he meant something different by it.


And there is no filling of boats with fish – Peter and Andrew were already disciples of John the Baptist, and switched when John told them Jesus was the Lamb of God 1:35-42. Oops, no. Andrew was John’s disciple, and as soon as he met Jesus he went and got his brother Simon, said, “We’ve found the Messiah!” and brought him. Jesus promptly renamed him Cephos. Do we have different apostles? Andrew, Simon Peter, Philip, Nathaniel . . .


Wedding day at Cana – unique to John 2:1-13. And his mother knows full well he’s a miracle worker – has him doing household chores, essentially. And she and his brothers travel with him. John’s gospel has Jesus kick the money-changers out of the temple right off the bat, and he’s says he can destroy and rebuild it in three days. The other gospels all have people accusing him of saying that, but never show him saying it. Later his disciples realize (or decide) he meant the temple of his body 2:13-22.
So far - though it would anger many to hear me say it - he is coming off like a braggart.


Then there is Nicodemus, and being born again – all totally absent in the other gospels 3:1-20.

August 4
[long discussion of all the work that needs to be done] But I have long wanted to give serious attention to the gospels, and I’m glad I’m doing that.


Reading John last night, I just can’t believe I never noticed how different it is. I almost can’t believe it made it into the canon, it is so different and so contradicts the other three. But it is the only one to establish Jesus’ divinity, and it includes the only passages that really spell out what Christian doctrine came to be, so I guess they had to include it. What they do, like in my Bible, is say it was written to “supplement the others” so doesn’t have to cover what the synoptic ones do. My Bible attributes it to John, the youngest apostle, which stretches credulity, as it wasn’t written until at least 100 AD. Even if John was a teenager when Jesus lived, he would have been 70-80 years old. It’s possible, just not that likely.


We were up to chapter 3, which is a really beautiful passage about how God so loved the world, he sent his Son to save it. It has some mystical allusions to the nature of God – not flesh, but Spirit, which is like wind. We really get a different view of John the Baptist and his relationship with Jesus. In the other 3, its really a one-time thing, though Jesus continues to speak highly of John. Here, he spends time with him, takes some of his disciples, and in 3:22-25, preaches in the same area as John the Baptist. Rather than seeing him as a rival, John keeps saying, “That’s the guy I was talking about! He’s from God and baptizes in the Holy Spirit.”


Jesus had disciples baptizing more people than John – he himself wasn’t doing it 4:1-3. Then he heads into Samaria. In 4:7-38, we have the story of the Samaritan woman at the well (the one !Nai, the !Kung woman thinks is so scandalous), also unique to this gospel.

[This is a reference to an ethnographic film of a !Kung woman's life story. Part of it follows her to church, where the Afrikaans pastor preaches about this story. The !Kung are horrified by it. They listen to the scripture, shaking their heads throughout. When the minister tries to explain, he just makes it worse. The ethnographer later asks !Nai what she was thinking, and she says that first, a woman would never go to get water alone when there were strangers abou, and any man who approached a woman alone could not, by definition, be a good person. "He was just trying to have sex with her, that Jesus." That is the only sense they could make of the story at all. And it seemed especially terrible to them that someone would use water - the one thing all people must have and that San peoples NEVER deny to one another, even their enemies - as a tool to accomplish this seduction. Upon further questioning, !Nai says that the story helps to explain the white people's behavior - since even their gods behave so despicably.]


It isn’t really clear what he tells her. He says he has “living water,” which makes sense, has been interpreted as the Holy Spirit. He tells the woman her past, which impresses her. That part is all okay, but then she says, “you people,” meaning Jews, say only to worship in Jerusalem, and she says she worships on the mountain [a reference to Baal?]. He tells her a time is coming when people won’t worship the Father either on the mountain or in Jerusalem. Is he referring to the Diaspora and destruction of the Temple? He says she worships what she doesn’t know, he (Jews) worship what they do know “for salvation comes from the Jews” 4:22. But a time is coming, has come, when true worshippers shall worship the Father “in spirit and truth.” Have they not already been doing that? Is Judaism then not a true religion? “God is spirit,” he says, and people must worship in spirit. Maybe he’s alluding to the shift from temple worship with its material sacrifices, to the worship in small groups, filled with the Holy Spirit, leaving buildings and sacrifices behind.


The woman has heard of the Messiah, and seems to have heard that the Jewish Messiah will reach out to gentiles – she says, “He will speak to us.” And Jesus says, “I am he.” She tells her people and they all come, so John has Jesus teaching the Gentiles almost from the beginning of his career.


When the disciples bring him food, he says he doesn’t need it, that he subsists on a different substance. John is making him “otherworldly” right off the bat. Where is that very human Jesus of the first 3?

They accuse him of making himself equal with God, and he agrees. Reads very differently from the others. He makes himself distinct from the Father, but says they know all the same things, and that in fact the Father no longer sits in judgment – he’s give that all to the Son, plus the power of life and death, and says those who don’t honor the Son do not honor the Father who sent him 5;19-24. In 5:26, “Just as the Father has life in Himself (I.e. not given, nor able to be taken away), even so he gave to the Son also to have life in Himself.” He says the dead will soon hear his voice, and will be resurrected to either eternal life or to judgment. But he also says that he can do nothing on his own initiative – so not a completely free agent, as he has no choice but to do as God the Father wills 5:30.


From 5:33-47, he spells out the many witnesses he has that he is indeed God – the witness of John the Baptist, of the works he, Jesus has done and will do, of God Himself and of the scriptures. Whereas in the other gospels, the disciples don’t really get what he’s doing with the loaves and fishes, here 6:1-14, all the people recognize he’s a prophet. Huh. And in 6:15 it says that Jesus knew they were going to take him by force, to make him King, so he went to the mountain alone. Then Jesus walks on water, and there is nothing about Peter doing it.

. . .
The people follow Him and want more bread, and want to know what to do to please God (Believe in me, says Jesus 6:29), and then ask for a sign. Jesus gives a beautiful speech about him being the bread of heaven, and the water of life, and promises eternal life to all who follow him. 6:32-40. The Jews grumble and argue, but Jesus extends his analogy, saying no one has seen God but him. He is the living bread, and they must eat of him and drink of him to be saved. Recall, this is written after 60 years of reliving the Lord’s Supper. They are beautiful words, but did Jesus really say them? 6:54: He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I shall raise him up on the last day. The Jews have asked how they can eat him, and he really doesn’t say how, just that they must.

. . .
We have at least explanations of Judas’ betrayal now; he was possessed by Satan (Luke), or he never believed (John). Wow. In 6:66, it says, “As a result of this many of his disciples withdrew, and were not walking with him anymore.” Jesus sounds pretty depressed, asking his 12 if they want to go, too. Peter answers that he believes. People are leaving, the Jews want to kill him already, so he can’t go to Jerusalem for the Feast of Booths. He tells his brothers to go and preach for him 7:3-10. His brothers aren’t believing him, and tell him he needs to publicize himself if he wants to be known. Jesus does go, but in secret, and listens to what people are saying about him – some that he is a good man, some that he’s leading people astray.


He ends up speaking in the temple, saying he isn’t seeking his own glory, and defending his healing on the Sabbath. People figure out who he is, and accuse him, and he says he’ll only be with them a little while, then he’ll go where they cannot find him. 7:40 The people are really upset and divided over who and what he is. For the most part they reject his claims.
This all just is so different from the other gospels. Where is the humble servant, the compassionate healer and forgiver of sins, the wise story teller? We’ve had no parables, no advice, no real words of wisdom. Not a lot of healing, either. Mostly it is these strident claims of divinity, and threats, and “Why don’t you believe me?” His signs and miracles seem self-serving, rather than for the benefit of others.


Whereas the others stress Jesus’ humanity, here he is depicted as somewhat ethereal, speaking in esoteric riddles rather than down to earth examples. He can hardly be understood by the philosophers, let alone the masses. Yet he’s very human in negative ways. He seems kind of whiny and petulant. Superior and haughty, incredulous that people aren’t rushing to serve him. Surely this isn’t what John intended.


But I think his attempt to demonstrate Jesus’ divinity, and all the times he has Jesus claim it, produces almost the opposite effect from his intention. He sounds more like a fake Messiah, deluded, maybe, but in it for his own gratification. Whereas the humility and the insistence on his humanity in the first 3 makes you think to yourself, “this man is so good, maybe he really is God.” This one makes you want to say, as the people do say to him, “Prove it!”


Flipping through it again, I see that almost the only things Jesus says in this gospel are “Believe me, I really am God, and if you don’t believe me bad things are going to happen.” And he promises good things to those who do believe and follow. He does save the adulterous woman, again unique to John. 8:1-11. but that isn’t in the old mss.

. . .
Hey, a parable! That of the good shepherd 10:1-18. After first putting himself as shepherd, he says he is the “door of the sheep.” If any enter through him, they are saved. Then the good shepherd attain, who protects his sheep, knows them, lays down his life for them.
Before, I’ve always read the gospels by reading all of them at once, going chronologically through them, following guides that put it all together for you. Doing it that way one encounters these passages from John with the other gospels’ news of his good deeds, so they make sense and are beautiful. But you really need the context the other books provide. 10:16 says he has other sheep, to merge into the fold. Gentiles? He next says he has authority (from the Father) to lay down his life and pick it up again.


Some say he’s crazy or possessed again, others that demons don’t heal people. In 10:30 he says, “I and the Father are One,” and they pick up stones to kill him. But Jesus answers them and throws the whole thing into confusion by citing scripture that says, “I said, you are gods.’ If he called them gods, to whom the word came, do you say of him whom the father sanctified and sent into the world ‘You are blaspheming’ because I said I am the Son of God?” 10:33-36. So which is it? Is he a Son in a different way than we are, or what?

. . .
John gives a reason for Judas; the priests have posted a reward. Mary (sister of Martha) is the one who anoints him with costly oils and perfumes (12:3) and it is Judas who objects, because he’s a thief! He pilfers from the money box they carry for the poor (12:6). Poor Judas. John says the priests are thinking about executing Lazarus, too, for having been raised from the dead and thus drawing people toward Jesus.

. . .
Also, John always has Jesus “crying out” instead of just talking. However, he does have Jesus wash the disciples’ feet, which is lovely 13:5-20.


He gives the new commandment – to love one another – in 13:34. It is only in John that Jesus says clearly (over and over) that the only way to the Father is thru him 14:6. Goes over his oneness with the Father again 14:7-14: “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” But then he says that those who believe in him will do the works he does and greater, and promises to do whatever they ask in his name.



He prays one part saying he “manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou gavest me” 17:6. And since those men are His, he asks they be given His joy made fuller and guard them and keep them, safe from the evil one. Then about their future glory 17:22-26. Is this to justify the apostolic church? Legitimize it?


Judas does not kiss him, only shows the mob the meeting place. And it is Peter who cuts off a soldier’s ear – soldier named Malchus. Romans are there - not just the temple priests. The priests take him to Pilate because they have no the right to put him to death 18:31. And his discussion with Pilate is different, and Barabas is a “robber” 18:40. The women present are Jesus’ mother (not named) and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleopas and Mary Magdalene, 19:25. Jesus asks for wine, to fulfill the scriptures. Side piercing – the only gospel with it, in 19:34.


Mary Magdalene comes alone to the tomb, and it is empty. Ran to Peter and “the other disciple Jesus loved” (I’ve see that one before), they go look, see it is empty, and go home. Mary stays, weeping, and 2 angels are sitting there. Jesus appears behind her, but she doesn’t know it is him. She doesn’t until he says, “Mary.” “Rabboni!” she cries. And he says, “Stop clinging to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brethren . . . 20:17. So she goes.

. . .
21:1-11, Jesus does the miracle with the fish. Asks Peter if he loves him 3 times, tells him to tend his sheep. Then a curious thing. Jesus says, “Follow me.” Peter turns around and sees “the disciple whom Jesus loved” following and the one “who had also leaned back on his breast at the supper, and said ‘Lord, who is the one who betrays you?” Peter says, “Lord, what about this man?” Jesus says, “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me.” What????? Because it goes on “This saying therefore went out among the brethren, that that disciple would not die.” But the disciple isn’t Judas. Is it John? Is John taken up to heaven? Or what?


And the gospel ends with a note from the author – “This is the disciple who bears witness of these things, and wrote these things, and we know that his witness is true.” Has to be John. Imagine, tho, calling yourself, “the one whom Jesus loved.”