Cain and Abel and the Stages of Spirituality

So, I’m a student of the Psychology of Religion.

Scholars have done studies on the developmental stages of faith—meaning there ARE stages of faith from less mature to more mature. Early stages rely on an external authority. They are very rules-based and about doing things “right” according to the authority and the rules. There is usually an innocence or naïveté because folks don’t know better, they can’t be more progressive yet, and they absolutely want to be “saved".

The hardest shift is between level 3 and level 4 spirituality (according to James Fowler) when a person shifts from an external authority to an internal authority, and from a head-based religion to a heart-based religion. (Richard Rohr simplifies it as early life—stages 1, 2, 3—and later life—stages 4 and up.) The people around them who are still in a rules- and authority-based religion are particularly threatened by their shift and do not understand it. I liken it to learning to swim. People who have not learned to swim cling to the side of the pool and call out in fear at their loved ones who are starting to let go and swim in the water.

(Does this information help in understanding the ways people do religion that can be so different?)

If you are raised by people who are in stage 4 or higher level of spiritual development, you still have to go through your own stages, but everything about the way they live encourages you to move into a thoughtful, heart-based approach to life. But if you are raised by people who are “clinging to the side of the pool” in an authoritative “you will only be safe if you stick with us” religion, it is much much harder to take the next developmental step into heart-wisdom, because most of the people around you are screaming that you are going to “die”. They don't want you to notice all the people that you’re finding who are living from their hearts and yet are not "dead".

This theory has helped me a lot in understanding why people do religion the way they do. Levels five and higher in spiritual development don’t even look like “religion”, because they are so respectful of the individual spiritual journey. They tend to be empowering, not controlling.

How is this connected to Cain and Abel? (Genesis 4)

My childhood tradition's teachings say that Cain represents “the need to be right” and Abel represents “being loving from deep wisdom.” They are brothers because they are ways of doing religion. Cain is born first (early spirituality) and Abel second (later life spirituality). Cain resents and does not understand why God favors Abel (the more mature and genuine spirituality). Cain is threatened by Abel and wants God's favor too, not understanding the shifts he still has to make in his motivations and perspective. And threatened, Cain “kills” Abel thinking that that is the way to win God's attention and favor (someone clearly isn't reading the manual). Cain-energy in life will always kill Abel-energy. Judgy, controlling, need-to-be-perfect-and-right ways of doing religion (or politics) will always attack and criticize and invalidate loving, inclusive, service-focused ways of doing religion (and politics). It’s just the way people are. There's a foundational shift that needs to happen from "I've got mine, screw you" to "We are all in this together; if you are suffering, we are all suffering".

We all have a tendency to be drawn into the need to be right and "win" arguments. We value a sense of cognitive security and don't like perspectives that threaten our foundational narrative of how life (God, "salvation") works. Arguing with someone about how they are wrong is rarely effective because they are so emotionally invested in "staying alive" (maintaining the reality they have known and trusted until this point).

If you don't know how to swim, moving into deep water means death.

Questioning religious dogma is moving into deep water. It is essential that we learn to swim so as to be much freer and to realize how life-giving swimming can be. But everything in Cain-level development screams "death!" unless you are surrounded by loving swimmers encouraging you to try swimming.

The same way you can't teach a child to read until they have reached reading readiness, you can't force a lower level spiritual seeker to be ready to think for themselves until they are ready AND feel safe enough to try. Some birds are pushed from the nest, some fly with sufficient encouragement, but some have parents telling them that flying equals death.

So just love everybody to bits.

Try not to judge because people are (possibly stuck) where they are for good reason.

Learn to draw firm boundaries with those who want to push their beliefs on you (spiritual violation) even as you stop trying to push your beliefs onto others (still a spiritual violation, no matter how "right" you are).

This is my distillation of theology and psychology. It is not to be used as a club to force others to agree. Just a balm and guide for those who need a helpful perspective.

For more scholarship on the stages of faith you might start here:

https://www.institute4learning.com/2020/06/12/the-stages-of-faith-according-to-james-w-fowler/

For counseling and empowerment on your spiritual journey, you may contact me here:

https://pastoralison.com/

I do talk therapy as well as weddings.

Healthy Boundaries Series 4: Thoughts and Feelings

This is a series about maintaining healthy boundaries within relationships.

The guidelines stated in this series may challenge a lot of long-standing habits. It is my experience that these old societal habits are unhealthy and that these new boundary markers point us to healthier ways to navigate our interpersonal dynamics and shared experience. I recommend that readers consider these guidelines and try them on before starting in with arguments. The suggested changes are nuanced and will possibly threaten our collective go-to behaviors for judging and attempting to manipulate other people's choices.

These boundaries outline what is ours to control and what is not ours to control. They keep us in our own business and out of other people's business. Poor boundaries encourage us to spend too much time trying to manage other people's lives and discourage us from the hard work of managing our own. It is a spiritual practice to move increasingly into managing our own business and to get out of everyone else's. The more we do this work, the clearer we will also become in identifying what is our shared business, and how to navigate that as well.  Without this work, we will do poorly in managing shared or public business.

Credit for identifying and articulating these boundaries goes to Mark R Carlson, MS, MDiv, Marriage and Family Therapist in Huntingdon Valley, PA. USA

Healthy Boundaries Series Article 4: Thoughts and Feelings

This article might be the most immediately applicable and needed in the world today, given how much of our communication online is fraught with tension and poor behavior. 

Do not speak with authority about anyone else's thoughts, feelings motives, intentions, or desires. 

As this boundary is crossed regularly and egregiously in much of our public discourse, it is no wonder we may believe it is acceptable.  If everybody does it, then maybe it is something that is okay to do.  Unfortunately, jumping to conclusions about other people's thoughts, feelings, and intentions is one of the first weapons of the weak.  Yet, it is modeled everywhere, so we all tend to do it.

This is where I point once again to the Golden Rule.  If you don't like it when someone does it to you, don't do it to them.

Do not speak with authority about anyone else's thoughts, feelings motives, intentions, or desires. 

If you want any discussion to devolve quickly into defense and attack rather than productive dialogue, go ahead and tell someone else what they are feeling, meaning, or intending. Even if you are sure you know what is going on inside someone else's head, announcing it as fact is a violation. It is deeply disrespectful. It will get you in trouble.

This is a very hard boundary to honor, particularly when we feel ill-used or deceived. "You are lying to me!" crosses the boundary. "I do not trust your words," keeps you firmly in what you can actually know.  Then, if they come back at you with, "Are you calling me a liar?" The answer is, "No. You might be lying to me. You might not. I can't know. Only you know if you are lying.  But I do know I don't trust your words."

Can you see the difference?  You will be keeping your conversational boundaries clean when you stay out of the other person's business (thoughts, feelings, intentions) and in what you can genuinely know, which are your own thoughts, feelings, and intentions.

It is not easy. It takes practice.  It can be especially frustrating when the other person is not abiding by the same rules.  But it will leave you in integrity.

I know what you are thinking. "This is crazy!  This is too hard!" (Actually, I can't possibly know what you are thinking.  I can guess. I might guess fairly accurately. But only you get to be the authority on what is going on in your own head and heart.)

Here are examples of the sorts of statements one might find on the internet or in life. Can you pick out which ones cross a boundary, and which ones stay respectful?

1. "Releasing that news item today was politically motivated. The other party only did it to ruin our chances."
2. "Wow. That is not at all what I got from reading that article."
3. "If you think you have a right to have a gun, you are selfish."
4. "If you believe in taxation, you believe in theft."
5. "I cannot understand why you voted for Trump. Do you want to try to explain your thinking?"
6. "You forgot my birthday. You must not love me."
7. "What you just said made me uncomfortable. I need some time alone."
8. "You voted for Obama, therefore you are a white-hating, man-hating baby killer."
9. "I don't actually feel safe answering you right now. I need time." 
10. "If you would just do a little research you would know I'm right."

I hope that was easy. If it was, I suspect you are on the road to learning better civil discourse and healthier communication skills.

(Or maybe you already were. I can't know. But it sure made a snappy ending!)

Following are the other entries in the series:
Money
Health
Family of Origin

What the Heart Knows

“What the Heart Knows”

Rev. Alison Longstaff, Dec 11^th, 2012

New Church Live Christmas Vespers

Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania

Arcana Caelestia 30; Luke 1:39-47

Luke 1:39-47 At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea,  where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth.  When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.  In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!  But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?  As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”

 And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord   and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior

Arcana Caelestia 30. When someone is being regenerated, their spirituality develops as follows: First they start to learn about spiritual things, which they have then in their memory. This is “fact-based” or “rules-based” spirituality. Then, after they have thought about things for awhile and have lived with the ideas for awhile they develop a deeper understanding, which is theory-based spirituality. Finally, a true spirituality comes from the heart, which is genuinely loving.

Our text tonight is from Mary’s Song of Praise, also known as “The Magnificat.”  We find it in the Gospel of Luke right after Elizabeth greets Mary.  The gospel of Luke is a gospel of contrasts, of rich and poor, of priests and peasants, of men and women, of the educated and the working class.  Tonight I wish to focus in particular on what Mary represents.  Mary, the young, poor, peasant woman, yet in whom the son of God is conceived and to whom God incarnate can be born.

            Mary represents the feminine, or heart side of our inner nature.  Mary is the side of life that is typically discounted, pushed aside, and silenced in our culture.  Mary is the quiet whisper of our heart, especially when it challenges the status quo. Mary represents the stuff we just know without being able to explain.   Mary is the mystical, the unscientific, the stuff that we are afraid to trust, yet the part of us that somehow knows what is going on well before it makes sense.           

Let’s look once more at the gospel story.  Again and again it is the unsophisticated, marginalized characters that accept the angels’ wonderful news and welcome the divine immediately, while the privileged and educated and powerful come around much more slowly.  Zacharias –as an old man and a priest--- represents our intellectual side.  He struggles to accept the news of John’s birth.  In fact, he asks the angel for proof.  He wants evidence.  His proof comes in his being rendered speechless until after the miracle is accomplished.  In contrast, young, uneducated Mary simply asks for reassurance from the angel. She then moves right into acceptance and ultimately sings the song of praise which contains tonight’s text.  

Then, when Jesus is born, it is the shepherds who first see the angels and hear the good news.  Shepherds at that time in Judean culture were the bottom of the pecking order: poor, uneducated, and the least respected among the working class. Yet the good news comes first to them!  Something about them makes them ready to receive it before any other group.  And they respond instantly and with full acceptance, rushing to see the newborn baby. In contrast, the Wise Men---representing our intellectual side---see a remote star, and have to figure out how to travel the tremendous distance required to find the newborn.  They even have to stop and ask for directions---it takes a Wise Man to have the humility to stop and ask for directions….  In any case, the Wise Men do finally arrive, bearing tremendous gifts, but not until LONG after the shepherds do.   And isn't it interesting that the shepherds brought only the gift of their presence, and it was enough?

Later, when Jesus rises, who comes first to the tomb?  It is the women of the story, with courage and tears.  The men---remember, that means the intellectual side of you and me, not men ---that side of us takes longer to figure out and accept what has happened.  Doubting Thomas represents the last hold-out in you and me against trusting anything not evidence-based.  He is not wrong.  He is still one of the disciples!  He is part of the story.  But yes, we are blessed when we can trust and see and follow more quickly than fearful, doubting Thomas.

Please remember, I am not saying that women are better or smarter than men.  Each gender has strengths and gifts, and each gender has weaknesses, the same way the two hemispheres of our brain have strengths and weaknesses, and the two sides of our human nature has strengths and weaknesses.   Besides, not all women fit the classic female stereotype, nor do all men fit the classic male stereotype.  Praise the Lord! We need these boundary-bending examples to keep us from getting too comfortable with easy categories. 

It is not our fault that we struggle to find balance between our thinking side and our feeling side.  And it certainly doesn't help if we make one side bad and the other side good, or one side better and the other side worse.  Both are good.  Both are gifts.  Both are beautiful and necessary for our regeneration.  Even the parts of our nature that won’t fit easily into head or heart categories are gifts too.  Never forget it.

I can easily find stories from my personal life when my heart rushed ahead and left my intellect struggling along behind, just like we see in so much of the Christmas narrative.  An example: When I go to my alternative health care provider---my naturopath or my energy worker---I leave my intellect in the car.   The scientific, logical side of my nature can’t make sense of the flakey, illogical “unscientific” stuff that happens in those offices.  “What do you mean, ‘energy work?’” my inner Spock wants to know.  The intuitive, experiential, or the “Mary” half of my nature knows that these forms of care make a difference---often a profound difference---to my health whether or not there are scientific explanations of “how” that satisfy my left brain.  So my intellect stays in the car, or it goes in a closet and puts on loud music.  My intellect just doesn't understand that flakey stuff and can't watch.  Do you have similar examples from your life?

But before we believe that this scenario is the only legitimate one, I can tell stories of my intellect being super clear on something while my heart is still struggling along behind.  An example might be how I feel terrified of spiders despite knowing with my whole head that they are much tinier than me and not even poisonous in this area of the world.  They are completely benign!  But my emotions when I encounter a spider remain fairly primitive.  Because it isn't about what I believe.  Pre-rational emotion just takes over. It is all kind of funny --- once I’m done shrieking and can come down off the chair.

The point is that this imbalance between our intellect and feeling-side is normal.  It is how we are made.  It is not our fault.  It really is rather funny, one we get over stressing about it.  And it is God’s promise to us that one day these two very different sides of our natures will be united.  One day we will become so integrated in our loving and our thinking that we scarcely notice the negotiations between the two sides, let alone find the discrepancies so comically wide.

For tonight, it might just help us to remember that when God comes to us be born anew, there will probably be a big part of us that has no idea what is going on and wouldn't believe it if it knew.  The same way our science-loving culture tends to discount or invalidate the mystical and intuitive, the seemingly impossible and miraculous occurrences in our lives, you and I individually may easily doubt and question any evidence that God is indeed being born into your individual heart and life.   Yes; into yours.  Into mine.

But shifts do happen in our spirits as we grow closer to God.  The same as in the Christmas story, our spiritual growth is lead first by intuition and innocence.  “Why did you decide to stop in at that particular church, or pick up that particular book?”  But our intellect quickly takes the lead as facts and information accumulate.  Unfortunately, the intellect can be kind of clueless when it comes to feelings and intuition.  Sadly, once in charge, the intellect often invalidates feelings and intuition because it isn’t well designed to understand them and can feel a little threatened by them.  It happens all the time, and isn’t very helpful.  Intuition guides the intellect to what it needs, and then the intellect acts like it was in charge all the time and intuition is dumb.  Oh well.

In any case, for much of our spiritual journey we are more likely to be lead by ideas and concepts than by gut feelings and instinct.  That is okay.  That is how God designed the process of learning to happen for most of us.  This shows up in the Bible as Jacob taking pre-eminence over Esau, and as the stone temple replacing the soft, tent-like tabernacle.

But the same way Jacob wasn’t supposed to have contempt for or fear of Esau, we need to do our best to remember the strengths and gifts that our intuitive side brings to our life.  Our intellect can have a tendency to want to hoard and hold on to power, and to fear and invalidate the mystical, fluid, hard-to-box-up-and-measure qualities of our emotional side.  In the end, Esau will take his rightful place, but in the bulk of the Bible, Jacob’s story gets the limelight.

Our culture here in the West still remains pretty uncomfortable with feelings.  We have been told there are good feelings and bad feelings, excessive feelings, and inappropriate feelings.  But in the realm of psychology and therapy it has been known for a long time that there are no wrong feelings.  There can be hurtful behaviors, but all feelings are appropriate and make sense when we understand what drives them.  Our feelings can be amazingly wise teachers when we listen to them.  They point directly to the wounded parts and invite healing.  But for tonight just remember: feelings are never wrong.  They simply are.  Even if that concept drives the intellect crazy.  Accepting emotions and working with them works much better than judging and controlling them.

Your heart knows what it knows.  It is incredibly wise.  It doesn’t have to explain.  What it knows may not be easy to understand, rather like a virgin birth; but without our hearts, Jesus cannot be born.  By means of Mary, into a simple, mucky stable, full of humble, smelly animals, our God rushes with new life and light.  Birth is messy and perfect. Let us sing for joy.  Amen

Guided meditation 

Welcome to this holy and sacred and safe space.  I ask you to be still for these next few moments.  To pull up a stool and to sit by the manger, and to gaze into the eyes of the newborn God of the whole universe. This, our God, has come down right here, right now, into our tender and insecure lives.

Like the stable animals, all feelings are welcome here.  No one said, “the donkey isn't good enough or clean enough to be here,” no one said, “The camel is too noisy and grumpy to be here.”  God comes to us exactly as we are, how we are, and doesn't reject any parts of us as too unworthy to be present right where he is born. 

Just be here, no matter how you are feeling, or what you are thinking.  You are welcome here.  Perhaps this Christmas you are full of wonder and joy---the “right” feelings to be having this time of year.  But perhaps, like so many, you are feeling loss or deep sadness; you may be dealing with fresh and new grief, or perhaps old and aching losses from years past.  There is no wrong story to bring to the manger.  Whatever feelings press forward are the ones that most need the healing love that this infant brings.  Do not forbid them.  And no matter what feelings come, remember that you are not alone.  You are surrounded by love.  Tears are welcome here. 

As we sit and soak up the peace and the love and the complete acceptance that this new infant brings to our world, be accepting of every feeling.  Perhaps you are feeling anxious about time, or about money, or about choices that loved-ones are making.  You are normal, especially for this time of year, in this culture and economy.   I ask you just to be here.  Be here, and release self-judgment if you can.  Let’s all of us take a breath together. 

Sheep, goats, camels, chickens, angels….  Just for now, set your worries, judgments and distractions aside.  Put them down, in a box.  They will wait.  Just be here. Right here, right now, with people who love you, and want the best for you, and who are committed to walking beside you no matter what.  This community is where Jesus can be born.  Our Lord Jesus, Emanuel, God with us, is here, now.  Breathe this in. 

Glory to God in the highest, and deep peace to every human heart on earth.  Amen

In Pursuit Of Contentment

In Pursuit Of Contentment

Today I am reflecting on contentment.  

The more I pay attention to and observe myself, the more it seems that my state of happiness/unhappiness is directly connected to whatever story I am believing that day about "reality."  If I am feeling hopeless and helpless, I am probably believing something like, "The world is too corrupt for the little person (me), to have any hope of getting ahead. Why even try?" 

On other days, when I am feeling positive and hopeful, those negative stories can get very little traction within me. In fact, I blow right past the old negative stories like a train through so many cobwebs.  They have no weight at all.

So...

... maybe there is a chicken/egg relationship here.  If I am already feeling down (let's call the negative emotion an "egg"), I am more prone to negative sorts of thinking ("chickens").  While the more negative "stories" I believe, the more down I can feel.  The thoughts and feelings so feed on each other so intensely that it can be tough to tell which is the creator of the other.

"The more I pay attention to and observe myself, the more it seems that my state of happiness/unhappiness is directly connected to whatever story I am believing that day."

How does this relate to contentment?  I would say I am practicing an "attitude of gratitude," except that I was so frequently told that I should  "practice an attitude of gratitude" during really painful times, that  "practice an attitude of gratitude" now means "minimize and dismiss your pain."  Not helpful at all.  (It still carries a negative charge for me.  Ah well.)  

So instead, I am "widening my perspective in a way that helps me feel better."  I have been helped by an increasing awareness of how well-off I am compared to the vast percentage of people on the planet.  I have indoor plumbing, for heaven's sake!  Many, many humans on the planet do not have that.  I have safe drinking water coming out of my tap.  (Okay, "safe" is relative.  I simply can't get worked up over the incredibly low risk factors possible in most of North America compared to a huge percentage of the rest of the world).  I have a tap at all!  I have a BOUNTY of water available at the turn of a handle, unlike so many places!  I have a bounty of food, a warm, attractive place to live, and even a nice hair cut.  I have wonderful friends, none of whom have been tortured, or watched their family members be murdered, or had them mysteriously disappear.  (Honestly.  How can I think I have a hard life in comparison?)

I am serious.  Remembering what so many other human beings have to live with as normal conditions, truly helps me stop looking at what I don't have and helps me better appreciate what I do have.  I had to be ready to do this before I could.  But at last I am ready.  And it is helping.

"I DO know that the stories I am telling myself ... make a HUGE difference."

 

Do I have times when I look around me and wish things were better?  Of course!  I am guessing that this pursuit of contentment will be a life-long project.  But I DO know that the stories I am telling myself, such as, "I am blessed with so much good fortune," rather than, "I have so little, and what I have is broken and disappearing," make a HUGE difference.  I could make an argument for each of those statements.  But living from the first belief makes me a happier person, whereas living from the second drops me into a cycle of misery.  It all lies in the story I am telling myself.  

Maybe that's what Jesus meant when he said, "Your stories have made you well...."

More on stories tomorrow.

Thanks for listening!