Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Friday, November 4, 2011
Possibilities and Miracles
Part of my comfort with Christianity as I got older came from new prophets who assured me that it's OK not to believe in the miracles of Jesus. Such belief was not necessary to get the message of Jesus, and to begin the long journey of unity and rejection of dualism.
Still, there is something appealing about miracles. We don't want to dis-believe. When I was a boy I used to have a recurring dream where I looked into a window well (mid-westerners know what I mean) and saw elves making candy in a colorful, fun-filled 'factory'. To this day I have trouble shaking the felt-sense that such a place really exists.
So when I read and reflected today on this story:
Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20 And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. 21 And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
I resisted rejection of the miracle as a metaphor or a method of conveying truth. I wanted to find a way to find the miracle true(not just truth, but true).
A few days ago I was watching a documentary with physicist (I was a physics undergrad at University of Colorado) Amit Goswami, who stated, quite simply in his talk about quantum physics, that at any moment there are infinite possibilities for what will happen, and our consciousness converts possibility into an actual 'event'. If in that moment, we encounter the possibilities not as our own consciousness (as ego or false-self), but as part of a larger consciousness, a cosmic or Christ-consciousness, so that we engage that moment of possibilities in a non-isolated way, miracles are possible.
Put another way, we encounter the Holy Spirit.
Lately I've been trying to get a handle on a definition of the Holy Spirit, but it seems that the only way to define it is to relay peoples experiences with it. It usually involves the 'miracle' of a totally unexpected moment, when something happens, or is communicated, that the person strongly states did not come from their effort, their intentional act. Often the term 'out of the blue' is invoked.
Thus, there is something to be said about that thin place where we surrender our own self, enter a consciousness of unity with all of creation, and believe that any of the possibilities that are in that moment can be actualized, even miracles, even feeding five thousand people with a few loaves of bread.
So the food for miracles seems to be a recipe of surrender, non-dualistic thinking, and perhaps, the Holy Spirit. I'm just sayin....
Still, there is something appealing about miracles. We don't want to dis-believe. When I was a boy I used to have a recurring dream where I looked into a window well (mid-westerners know what I mean) and saw elves making candy in a colorful, fun-filled 'factory'. To this day I have trouble shaking the felt-sense that such a place really exists.
So when I read and reflected today on this story:
Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20 And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. 21 And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
I resisted rejection of the miracle as a metaphor or a method of conveying truth. I wanted to find a way to find the miracle true(not just truth, but true).
A few days ago I was watching a documentary with physicist (I was a physics undergrad at University of Colorado) Amit Goswami, who stated, quite simply in his talk about quantum physics, that at any moment there are infinite possibilities for what will happen, and our consciousness converts possibility into an actual 'event'. If in that moment, we encounter the possibilities not as our own consciousness (as ego or false-self), but as part of a larger consciousness, a cosmic or Christ-consciousness, so that we engage that moment of possibilities in a non-isolated way, miracles are possible.
Put another way, we encounter the Holy Spirit.
Lately I've been trying to get a handle on a definition of the Holy Spirit, but it seems that the only way to define it is to relay peoples experiences with it. It usually involves the 'miracle' of a totally unexpected moment, when something happens, or is communicated, that the person strongly states did not come from their effort, their intentional act. Often the term 'out of the blue' is invoked.
Thus, there is something to be said about that thin place where we surrender our own self, enter a consciousness of unity with all of creation, and believe that any of the possibilities that are in that moment can be actualized, even miracles, even feeding five thousand people with a few loaves of bread.
So the food for miracles seems to be a recipe of surrender, non-dualistic thinking, and perhaps, the Holy Spirit. I'm just sayin....
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