Over the years of writing these
messages, I have received many comments, criticisms and questions about Jesus,
the Bible and the role of Christian dogma as the root of a good spiritual path.
What does A Course in Miracles (ACIM), old-timers in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA),
as well as my own resurrection from the death of alcoholic poisoning have to
say about the formal Christian story? As we approach Palm Sunday, followed by
Good Friday/Easter, I think it is time to share some of my thoughts on these
topics – based on my experiential faith / knowledge.
I wrote my book, How the Bible became the Bible [Infinity
Publishing, 2006 ISBN: 978-0-7414-2993-3] before I knew anything about ACIM. I began
chapter 9, “The Difficulty in Finding the Right Words,” with: “Throughout the previous two chapters, the
issue of communicating deep spiritual realities has been raised. If we cannot
begin to see these biblical persons as we see ourselves, then they truly will
be different from us. They will be from another age, another era. For them, God
will be more a part of their lives than he will be a part of our lives today.
If that is the case, then the Bible truly will be of another age as well, to be
enjoyed or worshipped for its mystique and magic. But if the biblical writers
are as we, then we can begin seeing ourselves in them and seeing them in us. In
this way the spirit of God allows the many centuries and different cultural
trappings to dissolve, resulting in the spiritual realities, not biblical
literalsim, of biblical times becoming true for us today.
“In order to put a human face on the issue of communicating deep
spiritual realities, I want to tell you about my journey to sobriety …. [It]
was an exceptionally spiritual experience
to me. How do I discuss this spiritual experience without sounding “hokey”? How
do I find the words to verbalize things I “knew” but didn’t understand and
didn’t know how to verbalize? If I had been in one of these initial [first
century Christian] groups or associations
(either a Jesus Movement group or a Christ Congregation), would I have driven
people out of the group? Been driven out? The issues I talk about below are
very real to me and explain a “sense” of connection I feel to these early
pioneers ….
My Story
“Good Friday fell on April 17 in 1987, and I saw a doctor about my
sickness. I will never forget that day because it was the day my Self died. [It
was the last day I consumed alcohol.] Of
course my Self didn’t decide to die. It had been beaten to a pulp by my abuse
of alcohol and all the things that went with it: borderline malnutrition, every
kind of deficiency imaginable, and resolute abstinence of exercise.” [p.
175-6]
That’s how I began my story – My
self died…. Yet that is exactly what ACIM tells us has to happen to begin
waking up to our true reality: We are not humans who have, somewhere inside, an
eternal soul; we are already-loved eternal spirits that are currently having a
human experience. To experience the reality of Love is to return to the only
reality there is. All else we think of as “the real world” is just a creation
of our perception, based on what we have been taught.
If I change my perception, I
change my world. To change my perception, all I have to do is be willing to ask
the Holy Spirit to allow that to happen. To change my perception is not a
“goal” or “task” that I must diligently achieve. That’s what my ego (which I
call Felix) wants to believe. He wants to stay in charge. He gets very
frightened if I truly want to see things differently – to see things as the Holy
Spirit sees them. Felix has a right to be frightened. If I saw people, events,
and situations as the Holy Spirit saw them, Felix would vanish.
That’s exactly what Jesus did.
Christian dogma has taught us that Jesus is the Son of God who came to earth to
die for our sins. We receive salvation through having faith in Him and His
sacrificial death. However, we humans are, collectively, the Son of God, of
whom Jesus is the loving elder brother. Jesus was the first to completely live
and perceive as the Holy Spirit lives and sees. He said we could co this too.
That’s exactly what I
experienced in AA. For the first time in my life I experienced the power of
Love through the genuine acceptance of grizzled old men in church basements.
They told me in very explicit terms, “Let us love you until you have learned to
love yourself.” I had no idea what that meant. But – man-oh-man – did I ever
experience that love and acceptance! It transformed my life.
Jesus saw and responded to the
Christ in everyone He met, and these encounters transformed all who came to
know Him. It also scared the beejeezus
out of those Felixes who saw Him as a threat to their existence. In His life he
perfectly demonstrated the way “home,” which we have never left – except in our
misguided perceptions – by practicing true forgiveness. In His crucifixion he
taught that even in the most extreme attacks we cannot be hurt and so we can
teach only the power and reality of Love and Acceptance – the power of seeing
the Christ in all we meet.
People experienced that
acceptance and love and, like me, didn’t understand it. They felt transformed
by His actions and words, so they worshipped Him with “Hosannas” and palm fronds.
They worshipped the messenger rather than the liberating message. Eventually
they tweaked and massaged the message until it made egoic sense and their verbalization
of their transformation became literal dogma. The experience of the transformative
power of the Christ of Faith had been reduced to academic or cerebral
explanations – that had to be believed, literally, in order to be saved.
But the Christ of Faith and the
Holy Spirit (called The Voice For God in ACIM) are still alive and well and
will transform your life as soon as you willingly ask. This, however, is not a
once-and-done kind of thing. It’s a daily process of choosing to see events, people and situations differently and
asking the Holy Spirit to make it so.
Although these messages are
mostly for me, thanks for listening. As always – feel free to forward this
message to your friends, family, and those accompanying you on your spiritual
journey.
Don
#2 Mar 2016
Copyright 2016
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