Douglas John Hall

On Friday night, I went up to the lecture at St. Jerome's, which is a catholic college connected to the University of Waterloo. The lecture was free, and featured Douglas John Hall, who is perhaps the leading most respected theological scholar in Canada. He has won just about every honour there is, including the Order of Canada.
He is in his seventies, and I did not know if this opportunity would ever present itself in my lifetime again, so I dragged my exhausted self up there.

For a really good outline of what he had to say, go to: http://dancingwiththespirit.blogspot.com/ dated Friday, March 24, 2006. That's my good friend and heart-sister Sara's blog.

I was too tired to be as excited as I ought to have been, but I'm glad I went. He has a marvelous lecture style, very eloquent and elegant and yet accessible. Very classy.
His message was profoundly "Swedenborgian," if one can claim such a thing of someone who read Swedenborg "many years ago" and is . . . uh . . . United?
It is deeply exciting to find a message such as his being spoken to the broad Christian audience, and being heard and applauded. The Second Coming is happening like light growing at the dawn. The Lord is managing it, with or without various Swedenborgians' tiny and frequently misguided efforts.

I strongly recommend picking up a copy of D. J. Hall's "Why Christian?"
If you have read it, I'd love to hear from you! I'd love to discuss it.

The Book of Revelation

It gets REALLY lonely sometimes, and I forget that I AM surrounded by love and support, when I can't physically see it and feel it.
I am not alone.
But oh, to be able to have daily conversations with like-minded people at a similar level!
On Thursday night I gave my 1-1/2 hour presentation on the Book of Revelation to my New testament class.
Everything that could go wrong with the technology did, despite my careful prep and redundancies, but fortunately I knew the material well enough to stand and give it old-fashioned lecture style (donkey and cart) while my laptop (Cadillac) sat and sizzled uselessly.
Most of my notes were within the sizzling, inaccessible computer program, so I had to speak from heart and memory, and perhaps that was how it should be, but I'm still frustrated as heck about it!

I had found all sorts of amazing art on the internet, like the images included here, and they added so much, combined with the text, to make a wholistic, left-brain/right-brain experience.... I had spent DAYS on that presentation. And the whole file got deleted. ALL MY WORK gone without a trace, except for one old copy, missing a huge amount of work.
Yes ..."we can rebuild it, we have the technology,"
but I need to grieve and sulk and stomp around for a few days.
I was in such a rush to finish it, I didn't save a copy to a removable disk.
Shut up.
Believe me, I've learned my lesson.

Actually, the musical slide show worked well enough to get a round of enthusiastic applause when finished. Yay!

And it felt excellent to finally express at length what I love about the concepts of the inner sense of the Bible and the divisions in creation and the Word of everything into (more or less) a "Wisdom, Intellect, Linear, analytical, scientific, left-brain, Male, truth" category; and a "Love, Intuition, circular, wholistic, mystical, right-brain, Female, kindness" category.
Everyone was nodding and with me.
I talked about basic correspondences like horses and wine and rocks and blood and water and oil....
When I gave my low-tech talk, I resorted to "So, when it describes the Son of man as having 'eyes like a flame of fire,' what would that mean?" One person piped up, "Truth?" and another, "Love?"
Hee hee!
I nodded and answered, "He looks at us with Love, intense love. And since the eyes 'see' they are about the understanding, so he looks at us with Divine understanding, and intense love...."
As near as I could tell, the whole room was one with me at that moment.
It felt really, really wonderful.

One student said, if nothing else, he had only heard terrifying messages about the meaning of Revelation, and he had lain awake afraid for his loved ones, and that now he had a whole new way to see the book that was loving and hopeful. It balances the scary, "you'd better get your act together or you're toast" messages that others preach.

I got goose-bumps repeatedly while doing the research. I saw things I had never seen before and found all sorts of amazing connections.... It is so beautiful and compassionate and hopeful and incredible --- very Kara Tennis --- though hiding within some first-glance judgmental and divisive language. When I get past a fear-blame mindset and remember that everyone and every group has both dragon and harlot tendencies and the whole point is the promise PROMISE of our gradual and inevitable release and freedom from both tendencies (from intellectual religious arrogance, and the assumption of "rightness" so deep that we feel justified in trying to control everybody),
then it is no longer about "that group over there who is so wrong, aren't-we-lucky-we're-not-them." The judgment is a loving promise of release from these nasty inclinations inside each one of us, and the consequent relative heavenly life we have once free of those things....

I was also adamant about the language Swedenborg uses. I was up front about how he talks about "The Reformed" and also the Roman Catholics as the (apparent) bad guys , and firmly declared, as I believe, that that talk is all about my (and your) inner tendency to want out thinking to save us, apart from our life, and our list of accomplishments to save us, apart from the state of our heart. It is not about those groups, per se, at all.

Everyone was nodding. They know. They know that it is the heart and life that matter, not just right thinking, or many good deeds without a good heart and effort to live according to the commandments. Despite official institutional dogmas, the new perspectives and good-heartedness is already so clearly alive among the people of the world.
Baruch bashan!

What it Looks Like Today

I created this blog with the idea that it would be some sort of documentation or historic record. My recent long silence says more than any journal entry.
There is no time! My head is down, my back is straining, I am leaning into the traces....
And the appropriately expressive picture I wish to upload refuses to cooperate. I feel very Ghandi-esque, juggling latrine duty with lofty inspirational thoughts.
Housework is so OLD today.

Reflections on pride

So, my second class back after San Francisco, the professor hands me a paper back and says I need to rewrite it or get a failing mark.
!
Ouch.
I felt nothing, and expressed gratitude for the opportunity to rewrite it.
It was in the car on the way home when the universe caved in. I felt embarrassed and ashamed and frightened. The old tape of "I'm not actually smart, I can just bull-shit really well and nobody has figured it out yet," started playing loud and clear. "They are finally seeing through you. You don't have a good mind at all. You can't possibly earn a masters. A PhD? Hah! Just go home and do the dishes and laundry and be grateful somebody even married you...."

Hmmm. A case of "all or nothing" thinking?
So I had a good cry, and Phil said all the right things and was very wonderful.

The truth is, I don't know why I get A's in school. Yes, I work hard, but mostly it seems as if my brain just knows what to write and teachers like it. I just live in the same body and watch the show. I'm certainly not the brightest and best, but I do okay. So, if my brain ever stopped performing, I'd be sunk.

The experience made me realize how much of my worth I place in my academic ability. It was an eye-opener to see how quickly I felt completely worthless because of one academic "try again." Perhaps I haven't experienced enough "failure" in school to develop more of a resiliency and pluck.

And it made me reflect on pride. I haven't encountered much discussion of pride in my Swedenborgian context, though we do have buzz-words like "selfishness" and "proprium" which are basically the same thing. But it seems to me that I struggle with pride a lot. Pride is a brittle thing. It doesn't take much to shatter it, and it shatters. All or nothing. I think it is connected to my craving for perfection. I feel anxious if I don't do every little thing possibly expected of me, and then a little extra credit. It has been a spiritual exercise NOT to seek perfection, but just aim to be "good enough." It brings up so much fear, and I feel like achievement is meaningless, if it isn't "my best."

So my pride took a real hit when this loved and respected professor told me I did the worst in the class. How appalling that he should see me being glaringly inadequate! It doesn't matter that this wouldn't be a basis upon which I would stop liking or respecting someone, I leapt instantly into the fear that he could never respect me again.

But it was more than that, it was a fear that attached my human worth to my academic performance. Somewhere inside, I felt a fear on a scale appropriate to a life or death situation. Maybe it traces back to my cave-man, or rather cave-woman genes, when belonging in a group ensured survival far better than isolation from the group.
Who knows.
It was a bad moment.

Anyway, since this blog is meant to be a historic record of what theological school can look like for a General Church raised woman, it seemed apropos to announce my failures as well as my successes. I wouldn't want any subsequent seekers to have a warped view of what this process can look like.

(Though it is debatable whether anything I could write wouldn't be a little warped....)

The Bushman and Lent

Somebody told us there would be no palm trees in San Francisco. They were mistaken. There are plenty of other kinds of trees, but there is also a variety of palms. Some seriously tall ones lined Ridge Road, along the direct route to our favourite coffee and fruit smoothie haunt---the Brewed Awakening. Here are two shots looking down Ridge Road toward Euclid, and they simply don't do justice to the dramatic down and up of the place. If you look carefully, you might be able to see the road climbing again, but the houses on the hillside don't show at all. That is a BIG hill, with several houses perched on its slopes.

This green, green picture is the view from the Rose's kitchen window. Those steps, which Frank has counted and knows by heart, climb up to the main office building for the Pacific School of Religion, in which is housed the Swedenborg House of Studies and Frank's office. What a hard life!
Anyway, I took that picture shortly before we left to tour with Louise, and I wanted to say a bit more about that. For our final sight to see, we went down to Fisherman's wharf and Pier 39. We were pretty tired by then, so we got something to eat and went to stare out over the water at Alcatraz. After we had caught our wind a bit, we walked down to Pier 39 simply to see it, as it had come so highly recommended. It is something to see. We then caught a bicycle cab back to Fisherman's wharf, and the cabbie pointed out a famous San Francisco sight: the Bushman!
He is a man who crouches at the side of a walkway hiding behind a branch. When somebody walks near him, he shakes his branch and growls, just to make people jump. It's very funny! Apparently he makes a good living at this, and has been there a long time.
I loved the playful, relaxed, artistic atmosphere in San Francisco. I love the fact that somebody can make a living in such a creative, silly way.

So anyway, today is the second day of lent, and I'm fighting the flu.
I looked up Lent on the internet, because I've never paid much attention to it. This year, I feel like observing it somehow, but didn't even know why it is and what it is, really.
The idea seems to be to practice a spiritual discipline, in rememberance of Christ's forty days in the wilderness. So, for my spiritual discipline I am giving up the computer game, the SIMS, for the whole forty days, which is huge. I am also surrendering chocolate, yes, even organic dark chocolate. I am surrendering all sugar AND artificial sweeteners, except Splenda. That's gonna be big. Oh yeah, and all caffeine except tea, which I don't like very much.
What the heck am I going to do? Feel feelings? Live life? Horrors!

Knowing I was going to do this, I enjoyed many yummy things the last days of our vacation. I am consequently foggy and exhausted and slightly depressed, which it makes it that much harder. Funny me. What was I thinking?
I've already blown-it. I was dropping off books and audiobooks at the "Silver Spoon" chocolatier, and the woman "Sue" who works there, offered me a free sample. It was in my mouth before I thought.
It was really, knee-bendingly yummy. Dark chocolate truffle.
So I blew it.
I decided that it makes me human, and that I need to get right back on the horse. Soon, this discipline will be habit if I just stick with it.
But, Oh! With fighting sickness, I am SO tired! I want nothing but caffeine from morning to night, and when I feel overwhelmed, which is all the time when I'm sick and have tons I should be doing, I want to escape into the SIMS..... It's my favourite way to pass the time when I'm sick.
Whose bright idea was this lent thing, anyway?