Musings

God Is Awe: an excerpt from SOULJOURN

an excerpt from SOULJOURN - my novel - which is now IN PRINT!  (and also still an e-book) - Order here

(This passage owes a nod to Prof. Paul Laughlin of the religion department at Otterbein College in Ohio, who came up with the idea that God's name is "awe" or "ahh",  since so many divine names end in that syllable....)

 

 The allure of being up in the woods with a bunch of girls from Phoenix stayed with me that week.  Besides, this was a religion I hadn't tried yet.  So I asked Dad if I could go.

"Why do you want to do this?" Dad asked as he stirred an iron skillet full of chile verde, my favorite dinner.

 

"You know, I'm into religion."

 

"Do you know anything at all about Seventh Day Adventists?" he asked.

 

"Not much.  Do you?"   

 

"Not much.  But I do know that they are some kind of fundamentalists.  They believe that all the nonsense in the Bible is literally true," said Dad.

 

"So?"

 

"You're fifteen years old, and I think it's time we talked about this religion business."

 

"Okay.  We're talking."

 

"I'm just concerned that you are getting into it over your head," he said, putting the lid back on the skillet.

 

"You're still afraid I'm going to turn out like Mom, aren't you?"

 

He frowned.  "That is not what I said, and not what I mean.  You don't have that problem.  But still, people get carried away with religion.  It's easy for people, particularly young folks, to get sucked up into cults, get brainwashed, lose their perspective and their priorities.  I guess I worry about you because you aren't doing as well in school as you could be doing.  You’re a really smart kid, but here you are, bringing home C's and sometimes D's.  You’re reading Kierkegaard but pulling a C in English.  What sense does that make?  Ninety-nine point nine-nine percent of the kids at Portales High School have never even heard of Kierkegaard, and here you are, reading the kind of thing you read in a senior seminar in philosophy at the university.  I'm all for intellectual curiosity, mind you.  All for it.  But we need to keep our priorities straight.  Let's get a decent grade in English before we study existentialism and theology, okay?"

 

"You're saying this because you're an atheist," I complained.  "You don't like religion."

 

"Well, it is true that I have no use whatsoever for organized religion, or much use for disorganized religion, for that matter.  It isn't just because I'm a hard-headed scientist, either.  It's because religion has a way of dividing people from each other, turning them against each other in the name of God.  And it is true that I don't believe in God, because I see no evidence of an intelligent creator of the universe.  God is a useful hypothesis neither in science nor in my personal life."

 

"That all depends on what you mean by 'creator'," I said.  "Maybe God isn't sitting off in a throne on the other side of the universe, telling everything when and how to happen.  Maybe God is the process of creation itself." I was pleased with my newly acquired ideas, and eager to nail my dad to the Wittenberg door with them.

 

"Well if that is all God is, why bother talking about God at all?  Why not just talk about the process?  Which is what we do in geology.  The universe is awesome enough, without having to bring God into it," answered Dad.

 

"Maybe God is awe," I suggested.  "Awe is God’s name.  Budd-awe, Krishn-awe, Y-awe-weh, All-awe….”

 

And so on we bantered until the chile verde was cold.

 

JIM BURKLO
Website: JIMBURKLO.COM     Weblog: MUSINGS    Follow me on twitter: @jtburklo
See a video interview about my new novel, SOULJOURN
See the GUIDE to my articles and books
Associate Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California

Clean Up After Your God

Religions, like puppy owners, often don't do a good job of scooping up the messes they leave behind.  But that's not a compelling enough reason to give up on either your God or your dog.

 

This is my conclusion after participating in some fascinating conversations in the past week.

 

Last Friday, our Office of Religious Life hosted a talk by Dr. Richard Dawkins here at the University of Southern California.  A famous British evolutionary biologist, he's one of the world's most well-known "public atheists".  He packed the house at our big Bovard Auditorium with an overwhelmingly friendly crowd of students, professors, and people from the community.  In person, he's much more congenial and charming than in print.  But he was steadfast in his categorical rejection of religion, repeatedly reminding the audience of its sins and omissions.  He referred to the Episcopal Church of his boarding school upbringing as having "the mildest form of the affliction", which suggested that we progressive Christians don't get off his hook.  I felt the urge to ask him this question:  "I preach that God IS evolution - God is the process of creativity in the universe.  I preach that the biblical miracle stories are mythological, to be read for deep meanings and metaphors, just as you do with the poetry you value so much.  I've been a faith-based activist for social justice and peace for my entire career as a pastor.  So doctor, what's wrong with me?"   Uncharacteristically, I held back, wanting to know what students might ask when the Q and A time came up.  All the questions suggested that the questioners were atheists.  

 

The most current Pew Research Religious Landscape survey of the US population shows that "among Americans ages 18-29, one-in-four say they are not currently affiliated with any particular religion."  The enthusiasm of the young people who gave up their Friday night to hear Dawkins is one manifestation of this statistical trend away from religious identity.

 

It's a shift not nearly so evident at the Air Force Academy, where I spent this past Monday at the annual national meeting of college religious affairs staffers.  On a stunning, clear fall day, with fresh snow gleaming on Pike's Peak, we drove from Colorado Springs up to the spectacular campus of the Academy, in a forest at the base of the mountains.  We got there in time to watch 4,000 cadets (mostly white people, moreso than the other military services) in blue uniforms form up into squadrons to march - with the band playing a rousing martial tune - to lunch.  Several years ago, the Academy came under public scrutiny because cadets were subjected to pressure to profess and practice evangelical Christianity on campus.  Teachers and officers had become insensitive to the effects of untrammeled evangelizing.  Some cadets worried that their career mobility might be in jeopardy if they didn't "accept Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior".  The Pentagon ordered an investigation, and this led to a concerted effort to make the campus more friendly to diversity of belief or unbelief.  The chaplain corps adopted a "religious respect" training program for faculty and staff.  A new "earth-based" outdoor rock circle was created to allow Pagan, Wiccan, and Native American cadets to conduct ceremonies.  We toured the Muslim prayer space and Buddhist meditation room that had been added in the basement of the famous Air Force Academy Chapel.  The top floor is the big Protestant chapel, and the basement already included a sizable Catholic chapel and an unusually beautiful Jewish space.

 

Our group of college chaplains engaged in a fascinating discussion about the US Constitution as it applies to the exercise of religion in the military.  Much of the conversation applied to public university campuses, as well.  And it also informed religious life on private university campuses, which find it just as necessary as public ones to avoid showing preference to any particular religion.  Otherwise, things get messy - just as they did at the Air Force Academy.  And perhaps more importantly, the blessing of the state (or the university) on a particular religion is often a kiss of death.  Dawkins mused, in his talk at USC, that the reason religion is lively in the US and not nearly as much in Europe is that the US separated the state from the church, allowing for a flourishing free market for faith.  He suggested also that in northern Europe, religion has a weak hold on people because they are economically secure: they are supported by much more substantial "safety nets" than exist in the United States.  He said that people hold onto religion for emotional support in the absence of adequate material support.

 

Dawkins' prescription for cleaning up the very real messes left by religion is to reject it altogether.  The chaplains at the Air Force Academy say they are beleaguered by activists of this persuasion who mount legal challenges against religious practice on the campus at what the chaplains consider the slightest provocation.  (This is a trumped-up claim, according to a recent article highlighted by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.)  Getting rid of religion, especially in the fertile cultural soil of America, is very hard to imagine.  Even as fewer and fewer young Americans identify with any particular faith, there's still intense interest in matters spiritual and even religious.  Old faith institutions may wither, but new ones will take form.  Hopefully, the old ones will do a better job of cleaning up after themselves - ridding their religions of homophobia, misogyny, and anti-scientific doctrines.  And hopefully, the new ones will avoid making these messes altogether.   

 

The US military has a long way to go in creating a climate that is truly friendly to religious and non-religious diversity.  Even if it cleans up its policies in conformance to the Constitution, a climate of pressure on soldiers to subscribe to evangelical Christian dogma may continue at least for a while.  The real threat to the practice of religion in the military - and everywhere else - is not militant atheism.  Rather, it's high-pressure evangelism - with or without the blessing of the state.  

 

I've been involved in campus ministry or religious life on university campuses for most of my career, in one way or another.  There is no way for any student at any university to avoid getting the pitch to become an evangelical Christian.  What's been the net effect of this well-financed, extraordinarily organized, long-term campaign?  More students have been de-evangelized by evangelists than have been evangelized.  Certainly among American-born young people, there is an increasingly widespread perception that due to its messiness, religion isn't worth any good it might deliver.  

 

Getting rid of religion isn't the answer.  Getting rid of atheists isn't the answer, either.  The answer is for religion to clean up its act and become a force for spiritual enlightenment and progressive social change.

 

JIM BURKLO
Website: JIMBURKLO.COM     Weblog: MUSINGS    Follow me on twitter: @jtburklo
See a video interview about my new novel, SOULJOURN
See the GUIDE to my articles and books
Associate Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California

Ten Ways to Meet God

1.  Watch your thoughts and feelings and urges.  Close your eyes, stay quiet for 20 minutes, and observe what is going on in your mind and your body.  What claims your attention?  What emotions and bodily sensations do you feel?  What ideas and plans and memories bubble up?  Simply be present for your experiences, like a trusted, caring friend, without trying to judge or change what you observe.  God is the one within you who observes all with loving attentiveness and acceptance.

2.  Look at an everyday, unremarkable thing - anything at all - for several minutes, until you notice something beautiful about it that you never saw before.  That out-of-ego moment of wonder is God.

3.  Look at another everyday, unremarkable thing for several minutes, very closely and intently.  Then release your attention to it, and notice what you experience.  That moment of expanded awareness is an experience of God.

4.  Find somebody you don't like, and listen to them for at least half an hour.  As you listen, observe and then let go of any attachment you have to your opinions of this person.  Notice and then release of any judgment you have about how they are talking or what they are doing.  Act as if you love this person, until the moment comes when you begin to feel like you actually do.  That love is God.

5.  Choose one public policy issue that has an important direct or indirect effect on vulnerable people - the young, the elderly, prisoners, the sick, immigrants, people with low incomes.  You probably don't have time to go deeply into every issue, so just pick one.  Seek information about that policy issue from the most reputable, objective, in-depth sources you can find.  Stay on top of current debates or events that relate to this issue.  Inform your friends and family about it when the right occasions arise.  Communicate with your elected officials and other policy-makers about your views on this issue, on a regular basis.  Every so often, show up at public events that may have a strategic effect on making things better for people affected by this policy.  The deep concern you feel for those people, expressed through your learning and your activism, is God.

6.  Immerse yourself in nature.  Take a walk in the wilderness.  One word per stride, ask yourself:  "Am ... I... here?"- over and over, until you begin to feel present in the moment, noticing and appreciating the beauty around you, instant by instant.  The moment you can say "I... am... here" as you walk, you have arrived at God.

7.  Watch a small child play.  Observe the child trying to do something he/she cannot yet accomplish.  Observe your urge to help the child do the task, and let go of that urge.  Let the child know you are there, paying attention, but don't intervene in his/her play until, and if, you sense a clear invitation to do so.  Imagine what the child is thinking and sensing, and begin to play with the child in the way that the child is playing.  The moment you give up your adult perspective and take on the child's perspective in play, you are playing with God.

8.  Draw a picture.  Then look at the picture.  Observe what's there, but also observe your reactions to your picture.  Do you judge it somehow?  Do you have opinions about it?  Do you wish it were different?  Notice these experiences as you look at the picture.  Then draw another picture slowly, and do the same thing as you are drawing it - noticing your feelings and opinions about it as you go.  Look at the finished picture and again observe your reactions to it.  Do it again and again until you feel liberated from your opinions about it, and simply enjoy the process of drawing it and looking at it.  When that happens, you have drawn a picture of God.

9.  Go to a house of worship - of any faith - and sit and listen to the liturgy or prayers.  Instead of focusing on the words being said or sung, or on their meaning, focus intently on the silences between the words and the sounds.  Notice and savor as many moments of quiet - some extremely short, others longer - as you can.  Let the silences be the focus of your worship.  Let the silences become the source of meaning for the sounds in the worship service.  When you feel enthralled by the sound of sheer silence, you are hearing God.

10.  Take a walk in a familiar environment - one you see every day.  Look at everything around you and name it.  "Tree" - "house" - "car" - "dog".  Then start to do it another way:  "My idea of tree" - "my idea of house" - "my idea of car" - "my idea of dog".  Then, in the same way, start naming your emotions and feelings and thoughts alongside naming the things and events in your environment: "My opinion of dislike for that car" - "my feeling of pain in my foot" - "my thought of trimming that tree".  Do this until you are awakened to the fact that so much of your inner and outer experience is based on your ideas of things, rather than the real essence of them.  When you are awake to the possibility that the world around you has an essence that is beyond your ideas and opinions, you have awakened to God.


JIM BURKLO
Website: JIMBURKLO.COM     Weblog: MUSINGS    Follow me on twitter: @jtburklo
See a video interview about my new novel, SOULJOURN
See the GUIDE to my articles and books
Associate Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California

Occupy Spirituality

A Book Review by Jim Burklo:

Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation
By Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox (2013)

Young interspiritual guru and homelessness activist Adam Bucko and old radical theologian and rave-mass priest Matthew Fox engage in a rambling dialogue inspired by the soulful ideals of the Occupy movement in this book. Most fascinating to me, an old radical pastor, is the emerging global spiritual landscape described by Adam, whose “souljourn” has taken him around the world – from his native Polish Catholicism shaped by the Solidarity resistance to Communism, to busking in the subway stops of New York City, to ministering to the sick and addicted in India, to co-founding a spiritually-centered outreach to homeless youth in New York. In his short life he’s experienced spiritual practices and disciplines from the old traditions of Buddhism, Hinduism, different branches of Christianity, and Sufi Islam, as well as new “home-grown” ones emerging around the world today.

Adam Bucko and millions like him are fulfilling a prognostication of Walt Whitman quoted in the book. Long ago he said: “There will soon be no more priests…. The gangs of kosmos and prophets en masse shall take their place. A new order shall rise and they shall be the priests of man, and every man shall be his own priest.” Matthew Fox was defrocked as a Catholic priest for acting as if Whitman’s vision should come true. But Fox, now an Episcopal priest, has a much stronger personal and institutional bond to traditional Christianity than does Bucko. The consequences of this difference are evident in the book, which both celebrates religious tradition as well as liberation from its confining doctrines and structures. The book is at least as much about “occupying” religion in order to break it open as it is about “occupying” Wall Street in order to reveal alternatives to its assumptions.

The book stirred my blood. It inspired me to work harder to change history, not just lament current repetitions of old, bad patterns.

Times have changed, and traditional religious institutions are generally ten steps behind.  But the church to which I belong is breaking out of the old model of congregational life. We are doing “Occupy Spirituality” by de-occupying our old, creaky building that ate up too much of our time and money and energy.  We sold it!  Mt Hollywood Congregational UCC really is experiencing a new life – we all feel lighter, freer, and more focused on what really matters:  being a community of service, mutual support, and progressive spiritual awakening. We’ve gone from big pulpit to no pulpit. Our new minister, Anne Cohen, preaches in her bare feet. The theme of her preaching:  simplicity of spirit and lifestyle. We rent an intimate, beautifully-remodeled space in a church building that’s in the same neighborhood we’ve occupied for 100 years.

But we’re radicals. Most churches can’t bring themselves to restructure in such a dramatic fashion. Indeed, our church lost some members who could not make the transition.  We’re a bit smaller in size but a lot bigger in spirit!

Resistance to change in old institutions means that many of them will die. And then, over time, new faith institutions will emerge.  It’s happening now, and this book is a window into the process.

Adam Bucko de-occupied the Catholicism of his upbringing, in order to occupy a new “interspiritual” space where any one soul-centered community celebrates the others, and eagerly seeks to learn from them. This book vividly describes the emerging spiritual communities and movements he and Matt Fox have created or encountered.

My prediction is different than Whitman’s. I think he was prescient about demise of the religious institutional structures of his time, and the emergence of a spirituality of and from the people. But people being people, it is inevitable that they will create new religious or spiritual institutions upon - or away from - the ashes of the old ones. There’s no reason these new organizations can’t continue to embody the “Occupy” ethic of being “leaderful” and maintaining a culture of 100% participation. People are likely to have a more fluid relationship to these institutions, moving from one to another through their lifetimes of growth and change.

We are entering an era not of the collapse of religion altogether, but of the collapse of some big, old religious organizations and the emergence of amazing new ones. Matthew Fox will continue to be a wise elder advisor, urging on this process. (I aspire to the same role!)  Adam Bucko is a recovering anarchist. I predict he will move from an “Occupy” tent to a more enduring edifice of spiritual community. And the world will be better for it.

Visit the Patheos Book Club for more conversation on Occupy Spirituality, including a video interview with Matthew Fox.

JIM BURKLO 
Website: JIMBURKLO.COM     Weblog: MUSINGS    Follow me on twitter: @jtburklo
See a video interview (Preview) about my new novel, SOULJOURN
See the GUIDE to my articles and books
Associate Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California