One of the joys of being retired or at least semi-retired is
that I have more time to do some of the thing I would not have had time to do
previously (or at least would not have made time for). One of the joys this summer has been to catch
up on past episodes of Tapestry, the wonderful CBC radio program on things
spiritual and religious hosted by Mary Hines.
Mary does a beautiful job of delving into the different subjects and
people being interviewed to get at the heart of the subject. The show is often interspersed with humor
which I think is wonderful as she delves into the “laughter at the heart of
things” (a phrase I must credit to Helen Luke).
I would encourage you to listen in to the program which is on CBC Radio
1 on Sunday afternoons or explore past episodes on-line at your leisure.
Another program I have discovered which touches more
directly on what I want to discuss today is Faith and Witness, a podcast which
explores ecumenism in the church today.
It is an undertaking of the Canadian Council of Churches. Faith and Witness explores a number of big theological
issues such as salvation from the perspective of different denominations in
Canada. The goal is understand where
different denominations are on major issues and to explore the common ground
among those denominations.
The programs are interesting and ecumenism is a worthwhile
undertaking. However, when I was
listening to a couple of the episodes I couldn’t help thinking that the
discussion would be completely foreign and completely uninteresting to 99.9% of
Canadians. I believe what is truly
needed most today is a discussion of a common basis/understanding between
people of religious faith and the religious none’s as they are classified on
the census. A large part of that is, I
believe, a lack of common language which will help define what we are talking
about. This hopefully might be used to
discuss things religious and spiritual from a common starting point. We can also begin to address the assumptions
(often wrong) that we have about the different perspectives that people bring
to the discussion. This is what the
ecumenical movement tries to do with different denominations within
Christianity.
This was brought into focus for me by an article in the
Globe and Mail this past week. The
August 5th edition had an article entitled “Magic in the machine”
which explored the phenomenon of consciousness from the current understanding
in psychology and neuroscience.
Consciousness is a topic which is of great interest to me particularly
in the area of dreams and Jungian psychology.
There seems to be a great divide between those studying the brain from a
scientific basis and those who approach it from the spiritual/metaphysical perspective. There is, I believe a consensus that human
being are conscious but consciousness cannot be put under the microscope and
examined as a physical entity therefore as quoted in the article, “ The scientific and philosophical consensus is
that there is no non-physical soul or ego, or at least no evidence for
that.” The implication is that unless
scientists can find hard evidence for it, it is not worth discussing.
He article did a good job of exploring the subject given the
limits of a short newspaper piece.
However, one statement stood out for me and independently for Lorna as
well. The article stated, “We no longer
believe in a numinous life force, an élan vital. So what’s the big deal about consciousness?” My question is, who is we and what is the
statement based on? If there is no
numinous life force then this life on earth is all we get. There is no continuation of the life force or
soul or spirit beyond the material life we now live. Here we have assumptions and perspectives
that are not universal and need to be explored.
This is where Tapestry excels in exploring how different aspect of the
experience of the Divine play out in our lives.
Richard Rohr does a wonderful job of exploring the False
Self or Ego and the True Self which is the person God intends you to be. The ego, despite the lack of evidence for its
existence, is a force which often keeps us from God—the ultimate being. It is exactly this ultimate question, which
science will never find what it considers satisfactory evidence for the
existence of, is one of these issues that keep us in (at least) two
solitudes. I will close today with a
quote from Richard Rohr which explores the True Self. I may explore this use further if the spirit
inspires me to:
Your True
Self is that part of you that sees truthfully and will live forever. It is
divine breath passing through you. Your false self is that part of you that is
constantly changing and will eventually die anyway. It is in the world of
passing forms and yet it sees itself as a central reference point—which
is never really true. The false self is passing, tentative, or as the Hindus
and Buddhists might say, “empty.” Richard Rohr Daily Meditation August 8, 2016
I don’t not have a sermon to share
with you today as I had Sunday off from official duties only providing the
music for St. Alban’s in Souris. Blessings
on your journey.
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