Pastor Jeff has been talking for the last couple of weeks about the False Self and finding your True Self. Rather coincidentally, Richard Rohr's meditation this morning was about the very same topic.
Richard Rohr is a Franciscan Friar, ordained into the priesthood of the Catholic Church in 1970. He is internationally known as an inspirational speaker and has written several books. He provides a daily meditation each morning, which can be received by email.
Today's meditation was called "Divine DNA"
"The True Self is characterized by communion and contentment.
It’s okay. It’s all right here, right now. The True Self is the self that is
connected with Being itself. It is the realigned self. Christianity would use
the word “saved” to describe this state, and Jesus would speak of the grain of
wheat which has died to its small boundaries to become the large self, the God
Self, the Christ Self, the Enlightened Self. It has to do with participating and
resting in the Universal Being (“God”) that is bigger than your own small being
and yet includes it. You are inherently a part of it. Your life is not about
you. You are about life.
"The True Self needs only to uncover or discover itself. It’s
already there. We are all tabernacles of God, as Paul says in several places.
We’ve each been given the gift. And there are no degrees of givenness; the gift
is equally given to all, but we must admit that it is received in
varying degrees. The only difference is the degree of conscious realization, the
degree that you now draw your life from that Source. You are the dwelling place
of God. Your deepest DNA is divine. God is not out there. Your deepest you is
God, is good, is okay. The True Self cannot be hurt; it’s invulnerable, it’s
indestructible. It’s the Great I Am continued in you.
"The True Self is inherently satisfied and overflowing. It lives
an abundant life. “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full”
(John 10:10). Spiritual gifts increase by use. If you love, you become more
loving. As you learn to call upon the True Self, you draw life from that which
is the Big Self, instead of the small ego. That’s probably why Jesus commanded
us to love one another. Love is something we have to do to be who we are, to
reconnect, to be realigned, to be in communion."
Adapted from True Self/False Self, Disc 1 (CD)
Churches and church people have long been heavily preoccupied with seeking truth; searching the Bible for truth, making claims of truth based on the written word in the Bible, and, well, you get the picture.
There is one niggly little problem with this: how we define truth. For the last few hundred years, since about Isaac Newton, we figured truth, logic and scientific evidence tied together. So if we say the Bible is "true", then according to this kind of thinking, what the Bible says is to be taken as scientifically factual and with the same authority as a legal constitution.
That kind of an approach ends up with glaring inconsistencies between common understanding and things written in the sacred text of the Bible: people have there battles arguing whether the Bible is wrong or science is wrong. Neither are "wrong", the problem is that the yardstick we use to measure truth is a very narrow one, not appropriate for the sacred texts, and certainly far too restricting in the view of the ancient Jewish society for whom these texts were originally written.
Richard Rohr, Franciscan Friar, has a great meditation today, which really helps open up this whole dilemma:
"I think we learned the Sic et Non ["Yes And"] approach in the early Christian period
from our Jewish ancestors. They called it midrash. Midrash was
a different way of coming to truth. It was simply where you get together and
look at Scripture in an open—but faith-filled—way: It could mean this; it could
mean that. It might challenge you in this direction; it might invite you in that
direction.
"Jewish midrash extrapolated from the mere story to find its actual spiritual message. We all do the same when we read anyway, but Jesus and his Jewish people were much more honest and up front about this. Fundamentalists pretend they are giving the text total and literal authority, but then it always ends up looking like what people in that culture would want to believe anyway. (Remember, good Bible Christians in the U.S. Confederacy and in South Africa were quite sure the Scriptures justified oppression and enslavement of black people.)
"To take the Scriptures seriously is not to take them literally. Literalism is invariably the lowest and least level of meaning. Serious reading of Scripture will allow you to find an ever-new spiritual meaning for the liberation of history, the liberation of the soul, and the liberation of God in every generation. Then the text is true on many levels, instead of trying to prove it is true on just the one simple, factual level. Sacred texts always maximize your possibilities for life and love, which is why we call them sacred. I am afraid we have for too long used the Bible merely to prove various church positions, which largely narrows their range and depth. Instead of transforming people, the Biblical texts became utilitarian and handy ammunition."
Let's chew on the statement "sacred texts always maximize your possibilities for life and love, which is why we call them sacred." Think about that a minute.
Literal truth, instead of being the ultimate truth, is the lowest level of meaning; what really makes texts sacred and valuable are the hidden and deeper meanings that maximize possibilities for life and love, deeper truths that transform lives.
A yardstick for 2014? That which maximizes your possibilities for life and love.
