JR55: Healing: The Easy Way and the Hard Way

A: Apart from the Kingdom sayings and the puzzling Son of Man sayings, you also left behind some curious sayings about protecting the master's house and making it strong against thievery or attack -- especially attack from within. Thomas 21b and Luke 12:37-48 and Mark 3:20-27 all use this theme. The passage in Luke is especially confusing. Luke 12:37-38 is a makarism: "Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves."

Now, I know you had nothing nice to say about the custom of slave-owning. So the passage in Luke (12:37-48) must be a parable, an analogy for something else, even though the Oxford NRSV calls these verses a collection of "sayings on watchfulness and faithfulness" rather than a parable.

“Therefore I say: If a householder knows a thief is coming, he will keep watch and not let him break into his house (of his kingdom) and steal his goods. You must keep watch against the world, preparing yourselves with power so that thieves will not find any way to come upon you” (Gospel of Thomas 21b and 21c, translated by Stevan Davies). Photo credit JAT 2013.

 
J (grinning): Oh, yes. It's a parable. One I wrote myself.

A: Ah. And I see that this parable references "the Son of Man" in verse 40: "You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour." Many commentators have assumed this verse is a reference to an apocalyptic prophecy you made. They assume "the Son of Man" is an actual person -- you -- who will be coming back on a future day to bring about the prophesied day of judgment. Is this what you meant? Because Matthew 24:36-51 certainly makes it sound as if this is what you meant.

J: Matthew, as we've discussed earlier, was no friend of mine and no friend to my teachings. Matthew was like a gardener who sees another's man field and hates the way the plants are arranged. So he sneaks in with a shovel at night and digs up the other man's plants and takes them to a new field and replants them in an entirely new garden composition and adds some new plants of his own, then steps back and loudly proclaims he's done great honour to the other man. Meanwhile, the other man's garden is a potholed ruin.

A: Always with the parables. You just don't quit!

J: It's who I am.

A: Okay. So what were you getting at? Why were you so fond of the image of the master's house that needs to be protected? Who was "the master"? Was it God?

J: Nope. The master in the parable of the responsible slave (Luke 12:37-48) is the soul of any human being who's walking around on Planet Earth. Any human being at all.

A: Say what?

J: Although today's commentators assume I was an idiot who spouted apocalyptic prophecy and hadn't a drop of common sense in me, I actually had a "method to my madness." The sayings I left behind all speak to a few internally consistent, common sense teachings about the soul. I said a small number of things a great many times. The things I said all relate to each other in a logical, coherent, heart-based way. If I spoke again and again about the psychological reality of the Kingdom (wholeness and maturity of the self), and the importance of respecting "boundaries of the self" and "boundaries of the other," and the potential of human beings -- all human beings -- to seek healing and redemption throught the power of forgiveness, then there's only one person this "master" can be. The master is the self. The master is the core self, the soul that each person is. The true self. This parable is a metaphor about the human brain. It's an attempt to explain in layman's terms what's going on instead a person's head, and why there's no such thing as demon possession. It's an attempt to explain why the path of redemption seems so harsh at times.

A: "Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay down his head and rest." (Thomas 86)

J: Yes. Foxes know who they are and where their "home" is. Birds know who they are and how to build a home for themselves and their children. Human beings, of all God's creatures on Planet Earth, are the least likely to know who they are and how to build a "home" for their highest potential. For a human being, this home is their brain -- their biological brain and central nervous system. This home has to be painstakingly built over many years. Nothing so simple as building a bird's nest, no sir! The "insides" of a person have to be carefully built to match the "outsides." This is the holistic path to maturity for all human beings.

A: This goes back to what you were saying a few days ago about Saying 22 in the Gospel of Thomas. (http://jesusredux.blogspot.com/2011/06/saying-22-in-gospel-of-thomas.html ) One thing I love about your teachings on wholeness -- on Whole Brain Thinking -- is the fairness of it. These teachings apply to all people in all places in all cultures. It's radically egalitarian. Everyone gets the same basic toolkit for building a garden of peace. But each person's garden will look different because each soul is different. I just love that part!

J: Yes, but before they can get to the point of being able to admire each other's gardens -- instead of envying and destroying each other's gardens -- they have to get through the healing stage. This is the stage where most people quit, where they run away from the difficulties and challenges of building an inner "home" -- a field full of good soil -- inside their own heads. This is the stage most people don't even know IS a stage.

A: The Church has done precious little to help us understand this -- even today, when we have so much knowledge about the human brain and its hard-wiring for empathy and change.

J: Two thousand years ago, I certainly had no knowledge of neuroanatomy or neurophysiology or neurotransmitters or the like. But I was a keen observer of human nature, and I was scientifically minded. More to the point, I was a mystic. I had unflinching faith in God's goodness because of my mystical practice, and I knew there had to be something better than "demon possession" to account for frightening behaviour. So I looked to a scientific model. It wasn't that hard, really. You work through empirical observation and rudimentary statistical analysis. That's how all science advanced for thousands of years until recently. You take careful notes, you try to stay objective, you look for patterns, you try to prove you didn't simply invent the patterns because you wanted to see them. Objectivity is crucial, of course. If you're determined to find an imaginary Cause X, you'll find it because you want to. However, this isn't science. This is narcissism.

A: So your lack of narcissism -- or I suppose I should say your eventual lack of narcissism -- made you more open to honest fact-finding about the human condition.

J: I was open to the idea that there could be scars on the inside of a person's body as well as on the outside.

A: In James 1:8, you use the unusual Greek word "dipsychos," which is usually translated in English as "double-minded." What were you getting at here?

J: If you read the parts of the Letter of James that I wrote -- James 1:2-27; 2:1-8a; and 3:1-18 -- you can see me struggling to put into words the problem of understanding the human brain and all its competing "intents." I used several different metaphors there to try to explain what a lack of inner wholeness results in. Which is tragedy. Pain, suffering, and tragedy.

A: You also express the idea in James 1:8 that "the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord." This is a pretty tough statement, don't you think?

J: Many will think so. They'll assume I'm talking about divine judgment and divine retribution. But I'm not. I'm talking about the scientific reality of the soul-body nexus. I'm talking about the built-in set of checks and balances that exists within the human self to promote mature, loving choices.

I'm going to come at your question from a different direction. If there really is a God, and there really are good souls, and there really are souls who choose to incarnate in a temporary 3D body where they have to struggle to balance the needs of their souls and the needs of their biological bodies . . . would it make sense to you in this context that God would refuse to provide built-in roadmaps and compasses and warning signals and obvious feedback so you could safely navigate all the confusion? Does that make sense to you?

A: No.

J: It didn't make sense to me, either. So in the parable of the responsible slave, the "house" of the master is -- to use you as an example (sorry, hope you don't mind) -- is your entire head, including your skull. The "master" is your soul, and in particular the non-plastic parts of your brain that are controlled by the thoughts and feelings and actions of your soul. The "slaves" are the semi-autonomous regions of your brain that are supposed to be in charge of your physiological needs, but which all too often end up running the show -- and doing a very poor job of it, I might add. If you were to let the "slaves" manage your choices, abuses would occur. Abuses of your self and abuses of others. Naturally, your core self -- your soul -- wouldn't like this very much, and your core self would have something to say about it. This isn't punishment "from above." This is you standing up for your own core integrity! This is you trying to get yourself back in balance!

A: By first recognizing that there's a problem. With your own choices.

J: Healing begins with insight. Before you can heal, you have to admit there's a problem. Unfortunately, people can get their heads caught up in some pretty unhealthy thinking patterns. They can become so dysfunctional that they confuse the "slaves" with the "master." They can't hear their own inner voice, even though the inner voice never stops talking.

There's always the easy way and the hard way. You can listen to your own inner voice, and begin to heal, in which case the journey won't be as difficult.

A: You'll get a "light beating" (Luke 12:48).

J: The majority of human beings, then and now, however, end up by default on the hard way.

A: So their bodies get a "severe beating" (Luke 12:47) from their own souls.

J: Well, it looks that way from the outside in the beginning.

A: People will say you're blaming the victims of illness.

J: It's not that simple. People get ill for a variety of reasons. But ONE of the reasons people get sick is because they opt to make certain very poor choices. This is simply a statement of fact. It's not a judgment to say that a person who chooses to eat 5,000 calories per day and is morbidly obese (with all the attendant health problems of extreme obesity) bears SOME of the responsibility for his or her state of health.

A: When you put it that way, it seems pretty fair and reasonable. There are lots of intentional human choices that can lead to serious illness and disability. We often don't want to change the choices we make until we really, really understand the consequences that are involved.

J: Observable consequences are part of each person's built-in roadmap for living a life of wholeness in accordance with the wishes and needs of the soul. If your biological body is way out of balance, you need to listen to what your soul is saying. It's only common sense.

JR54: The Meaning of "the Son of Man"

A: We've been talking a lot about the Kingdom and gardens and finding peace through personal responsibility. How does the phrase "the Son of Man" fit into all this? If ever there was a phrase in the New Testament that people don't understand, it's the "Son of Man" phrase -- ho hyios tou anthropou in Koine Greek, bar nasa in Aramaic, and ben adam in Hebrew. Somehow I suspect the translation of the Greek phrase into English doesn't do justice to the original meaning. 

J: It's very easy to forget that the Hebrew word adam wasn't used primarily as a name in Second Temple Judaism. Adam can also be translated as "ground/soil" or as "humankind." Similarly, the Greek word anthropos meant "humankind," not just "human beings of the male sex." These nuances are lost in the traditional English translation "Son of Man." A much better translation in English would be "essence of humanity" or "highest potential of humankind." I used the phrase ho hyios tou anthropou to express a concept -- a concept for which no vocabulary existed at the time.  

“Jesus said: Adam came into being from enormous power and wealth, but he was never worthy of you, for had he been worthy of you he would not have died” (Gospel of Thomas 85). This saying doesn’t make much sense unless you stop to consider what Genesis 2-3 says about the allegorical relationship between humankind (Adam) and God. In the Garden of Eden, there are two trees that embody the deepest and most mystical elements of God, Creation, and faith: (1) the tree of life and (2) the tree of knowledge of good and evil. These two trees are supposed to be in balance, and while they are, Adam and Eve live a life of trusting relationship with God. At some point, however, Eve, followed quickly by Adam, decide they’re more interested in having knowledge than in having a trusting relationship with God. So they eat of the metaphorical fruit from the tree of knowledge and find themselves aligned with the many ancient philosopher kings who also chose knowledge over relationship with God. In Jesus’ teachings, choosing a life that places knowledge far above trust, love, and relationship with God is really no life at all. For Jesus, the mind is important, but not more important than the heart. So the metaphorical example of Adam and Eve — who lost the balance between mind and heart and as a result struggled for the rest of their lives with “death” instead of “life” — is not the example we should be following. Seek instead the path of peace that’s based on relationship with God. This ivory depicting The Fall of Man (by Balthasar Griessmann, c. 1670-1690) is part of the Thomson Collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Photo credit JAT 2018.

A: What concept were you trying to teach about? Enlightenment?  

J: No. Forgiveness.  

A: Sayings 85 and 86 in the Gospel of Thomas refer to "Adam" and to "the son of man." Saying 85 says, "Jesus said: Adam came into being from enormous power and wealth, but he was never worthy of you, for had he been worthy of you he would not have died." Saying 86 goes on to say, "Jesus said: Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the son of man has no place to lay down his head and rest." Thomas 86 also appears almost word for word in Luke 9:58. How do these verses relate to the concept of forgiveness?  

J (sighing): I've always been fond of word plays, puns, alliterations, rhymes, and poetry. "Foxes have holes and birds of heaven have nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head" sounded catchier in Greek than it does in English.  

A: But I guess the important thing to keep in mind is the fact that you weren't talking about a particular man in this saying. You weren't talking about yourself. You were trying to explain a concept that was unfamiliar to your students.  

J (nodding): The people around me had been raised on a steady diet of values that had no place in humanity's relationship with God the Mother and God the Father. No matter where you turned, you heard tales of might, tales of glory, tales of revenge. Everyone thought they had the "correct" God -- or gods -- on their side. Everyone thought they were truly pious, truly deserving of divine reward. Everyone had their own version of the "God will avenge me" myth. The avenging God had as many "faces" as a circus performer has costumes.  

If you were a person with a black sense of humour -- as I came to be -- you could go to bed in the evening and count all the ways you'd offended this god and that god in umpteen hidden ways on that day alone. You could count all the ways you'd be punished. You could count all the ways your masters would take revenge against you for your "heinous crimes" against God. Of course, it was your earthly masters -- not the unseen gods of heaven -- who were the ones who had the rod in their hands to beat you. It was your earthly masters who would use any "divine" excuse possible to beat you into submission and humility.  

But they'd often go easy on you if you offered a payment. Some sort of compensation -- an eye for an eye. Some sort of bribe. Contract laws dictated what terms of compensation were acceptable. These contract laws weren't civil laws in the way you'd understand a Western nation's legal codes today. These contract laws had political and economic purposes, of course, but they were primarily religious laws and traditions. Nomos in Greek. Nomos provided a list of crimes and a list of acceptable "payments" to balance the scales if you committed a crime. Often these "payments" were sacrifices. Temple sacrifices. In most Greco-Roman religions of the time -- not just Judaism -- you could bring a sacrifice (a payment, really) to the local temple so you could literally "buy back" God's favour. This is what "redemption" used to mean. It meant trading something you had -- money or goods or livestock or agricultural produce -- to get something you needed: divine favour. It had nothing to do with divine love or divine forgiveness as you and I have defined these concepts on this site.  

A: And then there was slavery. The actual buying and selling of human beings based on contract laws. A slave could, under certain circumstances, "buy back" his rights. Or a slave could be manumitted -- legally freed by his or her "owner." But contract law gave people the excuse they needed to treat others cruelly. Contract law justified their cruelty.  

J: They gave themselves permission to violate the soul's own understanding of free will, justice, integrity, and respect. They were listening to their own selfishness and not to God's voice. And I said so. Out loud. Frequently.  

A: So your friends and students were conditioned to understand their relationship with God in terms of contract law. In terms of payments to a master or sovereign lord. In terms of monetary debts or "obligatory service contracts" (i.e. slavery). 

J: Slavery was -- and is -- a terrible violation of the soul, of what it means to be a soul, a child of God. Slavery is an artificially created human condition in which a slave's personal boundaries are invaded in every way imaginable. A slave is forced to give up all rights to physical and sexual safety. All rights to choose where and with whom to be in relationship. All rights to follow his or her own soul's calling. Even a slave who has property -- and there were many wealthy slaves in the Roman Empire -- even such a slave is taught to believe he doesn't actually own the skin he's in. It's not his. It belongs to somebody else. His own skin is "dead" to him. His mind and his heart may be free, but his skin -- his body -- is dead. He can't view himself as whole -- as a "whole bean" -- because in his own mind and in the mind of his society he isn't whole. He's a sort of ghoulish inhabitant of a body that belongs to somebody else. If, in addition to being a slave, he's also sexually violated -- a fate that was brutally common for young boys and girls in the first century Empire -- chances are extremely high that he'll grow up to be seriously mentally ill. Why? Because children who are beaten and sexually abused and psychologically tortured bear the scars of that treatment in their biological brains, bodies, and psyches until they are healed. It's a simple statement of fact.  

A: You can see how this kind of treatment would lead to dissociative disorders. A person who's disconnected from emotions. Disconnected from a strong sense of boundaries and personal space. 

J: I was trying to get at the point that even lowly foxes and humble birds are given their own personal space, their own "home," their own sanctuary by God. Foxes and birds will defend their own homes with all their might, as they have a right to do. They don't have the right to steal another creature's home, but they do have the right to protect the one they have. God gives no less a right to all human beings. No human contract law "written in stone" anywhere at any time can supersede the obvious truth that each human being owns his own skin and is the sovereign of his own domain, his own personal kingdom. When he knows this and feels this and lives this, he feels alive. He feels whole. He feels at peace.  

A: This is the state of "living" that you refer to so often in the Gospel of Thomas.  

J: Yes. It's a psychological state of balance and health. There's nothing occult about it. It's the natural outcome of making choices that lead to emotional maturity. It's the natural outcome of choosing to live according to the highest potential of humankind. It's the truest essence of humanity.  

A: People being their best selves. On purpose.  

J: Yes. On purpose. It's so very much about the purpose. About the purposefulness of "living." Which is where forgiveness comes in. 

A: How so?  

J: Christians are usually taught to think of forgiveness as an act of grace on God's part, as a somewhat sudden and fickle choice on God's part, as something that human beings can participate in but can't initiate. Paul tries very hard to give this impression to his readers. But forgiveness is the opposite of suddenness and fickleness and "divine transcendence." Forgiveness is purposefulness. Purposefulness of a particular kind. Forgiveness is what you get when you choose to combine your free will and your courage and your love. There's nothing accidental or preordained about it. It's a choice. An ongoing choice that calls upon the greatest resources of the eternal soul -- each and every soul. It's the choice to love someone wholly in the absence of payment or retribution or just compensation. Divine forgiveness is not settlement of a debt. Debt doesn't enter into the equation. Education, mentorship, and personal responsibility enter into the equation, but not debt.  

A: This is soooooooo not what they taught me in theological school.

JR47: "Knowledge" Versus "Truth"

A: Tell me how you would explain the difference between "knowledge" and "truth." There seem to be a lot of different theories floating around. 

J: Here's one of the problems with relying too heavily on words. One person's "knowledge" is another person's "truth." One person's "knowledge" is another person's "wisdom." One person's "knowledge" is another person's "fact." Words can be very messy, very sloppy. It's important for individuals to be clear about their use of abstract words like these.  

A: Okay. How do you, as a soul-in-angel-form and speaker of the English language, use the word "knowledge"?  

J: I use the word "knowledge" to mean an accumulation of facts. Lots of raw facts. These facts may or may not be connected to each other. But there are lots of them. Lots of different facts that can be accessed from memory or from sources such as books or computers to answer specific questions of fact. 

A: Like the question and answer pairs on Jeopardy. 

J: Exactly. These question and answer pairs rely on logic and reason. But there's usually little emotional content. And there's no need for "insight" or "understanding" or "truth." The facts speak for themselves. Of course, as human Jeopardy contenders recently discovered, a honkin' big computer can access raw facts -- "knowledge" -- faster than most human brains can.

 

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear(respect) the Lord, and turn away from evil. It will be a healing for your flesh and a refreshment for your body" (Proverbs 3:5-8). If you really want to heal your relationship with God, try humbly accepting you probably have a lot of old beliefs that are messing up the way your brain works. Certain beliefs about God can "freeze up" your neural networks and prevent your brain from being able to process Divine guidance. Without easy access to your Divine guidance, you're limited to the ideas inside your own brain. And let's face it, some of those ideas are probably pretty stupid (like Young Earth Creationism). The Truth about you and God (a wonderful Truth!) is already deep within you, but first you have to melt the ice that's keeping you from feeling your Soul pathways. Photo credit JAT 2022.

J (Cont): Having said that, I want to make it clear that I'm not dissing the importance of "knowledge." It's important to be able to remember and access facts. Facts give information about things that are already known, already certain -- things that are "a done deal." Facts help ground the learning process. In fact, learning can't take place at all in the absence of facts. This is true even in fields such as philosophy and theology. The universe isn't reinventing itself every few seconds like some big relativistic, existential "symbol" in the sky (as some religious philosophers would have you believe). There are fixed facts, fixed historical realities that guide all choices made by God and God's angels. The universe has a history -- a factual history -- that can't be changed. The universe's past has a measurable effect on its present. The past matters. And the past is fact -- not fiction. The past can't be altered. Time is linear. Even for God.  

A: This will come as a great disappointment to fans of time travel stories. And to theologians who insist that All Time has been known to God since the very beginning. God's foreknowledge of all that will happen in the future is the basis of Christian "predestination" -- the doctrine that says God already knows ahead of time who will be saved in the End Times.  

J: Another example of old lies begetting new lies, as you put it. The first lie, of course, was the lie that souls desperately need to be saved from hell and judgment and damnation. But souls don't need to be saved. Why would God create billions of defective souls that need to be saved by . . . televangelists? Salvation-of-the-soul is a goofy idea from start to finish. 

A: But a very profitable one.

J: It's an interesting fact of neurophysiology that certain forms of serious psychological dysfunction in human beings are accompanied by damage to the parietal lobes of the brain -- parts of the brain which are crucial to a person's ability to relate to time and space. When the volume of the parietal lobes is reduced, and when the density of glial cells is diminished in the parietal-temporal regions, an individual will experience problems understanding boundaries (i.e. his or her location in space) and problems with empathy (i.e his or her location in both time and space -- also called boundary issues). These are the individuals who can't learn from their own mistakes, who can't empathize with other people's feelings, who constantly invade other people's "time and space."  

A: The narcissists. 

J: Yes. A narcissist is someone who's become inwardly focussed to the point of selfishness and self-absorption because he or she has no "brain health" in the areas of time and space -- no ability to accurately identify the factual boundaries that surround each soul. She literally can't see where she ends and another person begins. She can't see that she's a separate entity -- a separate consciousness -- from her neighbour. The boundaries between her and her neighbour exist and are real and are factual. But she can't see them. It's all blurry to her. The boundaries exist, but she behaves as if they don't exist. She behaves as if she and her neighbour "are all one," as if the neighbour is merely an extension of her own core consciousness. The neighbour, of course, is expected to "behave" -- to obey her needs and wishes without question and to reinforce her image of herself as a wonderful person. There's a perfect analogy for this mindset in the realm of science fiction: Star Trek's hive queen of the Borg.  

A: See, I knew there was good reason for me to be watching the Space Channel.  

J: The great thing about the way the Borg Queen character is written is her calm, serene, elevated disposition. She believes her own propaganda about making life better for all the individuals she incorporates into her collective. She goes around telling everyone "we're all one, we're all equal." But what she actually means is, "I'm the only one who really exists, and all you drones are merely inferior beings who were put here to serve me" . . . which brings us to the question of "truth." 

A: The way you've just described the Borg Queen reminds me -- none too pleasantly -- of the modern apocalyptic prophet I spent too much time with a few years ago: Grace. She was always speaking "the truth" that "we're all one, we're all equal." She had the same calm, serene detachment as the Borg Queen. It gave her such an air of believability -- even wisdom. She seemed to have let go of all her worries about the past. Very appealing to somebody like me who was dogged by feelings of guilt and shame.  

She seemed so believable -- until you challenged her. When you challenged Grace's superiority, her infallibility, it was like a switch went off in her brain. She switched instantly from calm, affable charm to vicious, vengeful violence. The smallest thing could set her off. I still remember the murderous look in her eye one day when I told her that she herself had caused an electrical short in a lighting fixture by twisting the fan/light combo while it was still attached on one side to the ceiling. I could see that she wanted to throw me down the stairs because I'd pointed out her obvious error. The mistake was entirely hers. But she didn't want to hear about it. She couldn't handle responsibility for her own mistakes.  

J: Good example -- though painful. Grace was a person with significant impairment of her biological brain function, as you know. She was able to process "knowledge" -- facts -- well enough to function in society. She could remember that gas needed to be put in the car, that food had to be bought and prepared. But as for "truth" . . . "truth" was beyond her capacity to grasp because of damage to her biological brain from early, unhealed, profound childhood abuse. Physical, emotional, sexual, and psychological abuse. As a result of the abuse, and the biological damage caused by it, Grace couldn't read "intent." She couldn't understand or be honest about her own inner intent. Her intent was to prove to other people that she was better than they were. That's the honest truth. The truth is that everything Grace did -- all her choices -- were shaped by her narcissistic intent. Her words about "oneness" and "equality" meant nothing because her actual intent said something different.  

A: So you're drawing a strong link between "intent" and "truth."  

J: Very much so. Facts by themselves are not "truth," though "truth" is not "truth" without a foundation of facts. Truth -- as I'm defining it -- is an observation or insight about the way in which seemingly random facts are linked together by underlying strands of intent. The intent is like the subfloor of the factual foundation. The facts lie on top of the intent. The truth builds on both the intent and the facts. For something to be "true" in a philosophical way, it must objectively assess both a collection of facts AND the underlying intent underneath those facts.

A: Are you saying that a person's "intent" and his/her "starting assumptions" are the same thing? 

J (shaking his head): No. A person's inner intent is more like his inner "purpose" or "goal." Your intent speaks to the principle of time -- where you were in the past, where you are now, and where you want to go. It's more like conscious motivation. It's the motivation that gets you out of bed in the morning and keeps you going, even when things aren't going well. 

A: So it's teleology? 

J: Again, no. Teleology implies there's a finite, definable end goal or a purpose shaped by the Law of Cause and Effect. "Intent" is not as simple as teleological purpose. "Intent" goes to the very heart of consciousness -- what it means to exist as a living consciousness who is separate from (though connected to) other living consciousnesses. Intent can be thought of as a cohesive set of interconnected choices -- a series of small choices that, when put together, create one big "meta-choice." That "meta-choice" is your intent. At a quantum level, "meta-choices" shape the way in which certain energies can and will flow.  

A: Can you give us an analogy for that?  

J: Sure. I'll use an analogy I've used before -- the sower of seeds. 

A: I think I see where this is headed . . .  

J: In the parable of the sower [Thomas 9; Mark 4], the person -- the soul -- is the sower of seeds. The seeds represent the person's potential, the person's ability to learn, grow, change, and create. But the sower doesn't create out of thin air. He must plant the seeds -- the seeds of potential -- in the right place if he wants them to grow. His decision on where to sow the seeds is his intent -- his "meta-choice." The meta-choice is what determines which seeds can and will grow. The seeds don't grow equally well in all intents. Where seeds fall on a "ground" or "subfloor" of rock, they fail to root and they produce no harvest. Where seeds fall on patches of thorny weeds, they don't grow and they're eaten by grubs and caterpillars. There's nothing wrong with the seeds themselves. The problem lies in the choice of where to plant them. The problem lies with the intent. 

A: So a narcissist's true intent is like the choice to sow seeds on rocky ground or in thorny patches.  

J: Or in a bed of fire, as the church likes to recommend.

Seeds don’t grow easily on this rocky ground. “Jesus said: Look, there was a man who came out to sow seed. He filled his hand with seed and threw it about. Some fell onto the road, and birds ate it. Some fell onto rocks and could not root and produced no grain. Some fell into patches of thorny weeds that kept it from growing, and grubs ate it. Some seed fell upon good soil and grew and produced good grain. It was 60 units per measure and 120 units per measure (Gospel of Thomas 9).” Photo credit JAT 2023.

JR37: Mother's Day

A: Today is Mother's Day -- a very special day, and a nice time to talk about motherhood.

J: Happy Mother's Day to you.

A: Thanks. I celebrated yesterday with my son and my sister and niece. My son brought me a pot of white mums and a very funny card. He rolled into the driveway on his new-to-him 2008 Kawasaki bike, took off his backpack, and extracted the carefully wrapped mums, which didn't look too happy (between you and me) about having been transported by motorcycle on a cool spring day, but I grinned and took them inside and put them on the warm windowsill, where they're starting to perk up.

J: You're always very mushy when you talk about your son.

Landscape by Jamie MacDonald (c) 2015.When children are raised according to the four steps of the Peace Sequence – education, mentorship, personal responsibility, and finally peace – they’re able to tap into the unique soul talents wired into their DNA.

 
A (sighing): Yes. Most of the time. There's the odd day here and there where I have to do the Mom-being-stern thing, but I couldn't be prouder of him. He's being "who he is" in a good way, and that's all I can ask. I love being a mom.

J: Tell me more about that.

A: When he was born (in 1984), I was terrified. I didn't know anything about babies. I was a bookworm, an egghead, and I'd never even changed a diaper before he was born. But I was determined to be a good mom, a stay-at-home mom by choice. I had the most wonderful book that gave me answers to all my practical questions. I can't remember the title, but the author was Penelope Leach. Best book ever on parenting, in my view.

J: What about your own mom. Did you ask her for advice?

A: Sometimes. But she lived 3 hours away in a different city, and she was focussed on establishing her new career as an artist. My mother-in-law lived very close by, and she was keen to be helpful without being interfering, so she tried hard not to say anything critical to my face. She was a big believer in the Dr. Spock method of raising children, and she thought I should be putting my son in a big perambulator on the front porch every morning to get fresh air and sunshine. That's what she'd done with her two boys. When I refused to buy an old fashioned pram, she found a used one that she kept at her house for times when she was babysitting. She seemed okay with that as a compromise.

J: You had an unusual idea about child rearing. Tell me about that.

A: In her book, Penelope Leach emphasized the idea of teaching your baby about boundary issues and personal space. She said you should put baby in his own crib when it was time for napping and sleeping, and you should always be consistent about this. No sleeping in mom and dad's bed, she said. On the other hand, cribs were to be used only for sleeping, she said. Once nap time or sleep time was over, baby should be fully included in all family activities -- not parked in the crib to keep him out of mom's way while she was busy with household chores. This idea made a lot of sense to me at an intuitive level. It felt right to me. From the very beginning, I got into the habit of carting my son everywhere in my left arm while I did chores with my right hand. My left arm got very strong.

J: Why did you do that?

A: He seemed to have terrible separation anxiety. Each time I tried to put him in a baby seat, his little face turned beet red and he howled in outrage. In retrospect, I can see that I was making him feel unimportant and un-included. And you know what? He was right. He was telling me I wasn't trying hard enough to be in full relationship with him. On the other hand, he didn't give me a hard time about going into his crib for naps and bedtime because he quickly associated his crib with being warm and cozy and sleepy. Both my mother and mother-in-law told me I would spoil him if I didn't put in a baby seat while I was doing chores, but they were both wrong. Until he learned to walk (at about 11 months), he needed to be "up" where I could talk to him "person-to-person," where he could see what was going on, where he could learn by watching and "participating." He's always been a fearless learner.

J: You and he are very close.

A: We're close in a respectful way. We give each other space, but when we talk on the phone or get together for coffee or whatever, we listen to each other in an honest way. We try to listen to what's important to each other. Our relationship has evolved into a mature adult friendship.

J: Many young adults would have no idea what you mean by that.

A: I have several acquaintances my age who don't seem to like their adult children let alone love them. The relationships are deeply strained, and there's a lot of mistrust. There's also a recent trend in journalism for women to come out of the closet and admit they don't like being mothers and never have. It may be true that for many women motherhood has felt more like a curse than a blessing, but it's not universally true. Some women, such as myself, can't believe how lucky they are to have had the privilege of guiding and mentoring a soul on the journey towards maturity.

J: Without being overly enmeshed.

A: Yes. I think many women fall into the trap of enmeshment -- of being too involved and too protective and too fearful of mistakes (their own and their children's). You have to give a child some room to make mistakes. Then you have to help them learn how to handle their own mistakes. It's what mature parents do.

J: Just like our own divine parents -- God the Mother and God the Father.

A: I have no sympathy at all for the idea that we shouldn't use "parenting" metaphors about God in church anymore because we might offend some of the church members who've had abusive human parents. I totally get the reality that many human beings have never known what true parental love is because their own caregivers were such jerks. But the fact that some parents (or foster parents) are abusive doesn't mean that all parents are abusive. You can't stop talking about meaningful parenting just because somebody out there might have a panic attack. The person having the panic attack needs to receive appropriate medical care, of course. Meanwhile, the discussion about parenting has to continue so mistakes can be uncovered and changes can be made for the benefit of the wider community -- and for individual children.

J: You mentioned the Mother's Day card your son got you. What was funny about it?

A: It's a card that's really honest. On the front it reads, "Mom, I thought about you today while playing with my food . . . after spoiling my appetite with cookies . . . before leaving my stuff on the floor . . . to go blindly follow my friends in whatever they were doing." Then you open up the card and it says, "God, I love being a grown-up." And this is hilarious, because my son is 27 years old and he does still pig out on cookies before dinner (if they're homemade) and he does leave his stuff all over the floor of his apartment (unless he has guests coming over), and he's been this way his whole life. This is who he is, and he's never going to change, and you know what? That's okay, because he understands how to love and respect other people, and he knows how to take responsibility for his own choices, and that's more important than finding some cookie crumbs on the floor.

J: So he's not perfect? He makes mistakes?

A: Yeah, he's not perfect and he makes mistakes and I really like him anyway. He's doing the best he can. That's why I'm so happy to be a mom today and always. [Thanks, hon! Your Mom, ;) ) ].

JR9: Jesus Explains "The Kingdom"

A: You told me several years ago that you wrote parts of the Letter of James yourself -- specifically James 1:2-27, James 2:1-8, and James 3:1-18 -- and that after your death your older brother James added the remaining verses to blunt the effect of your writings and make them more "pious." Yesterday I was checking something in the Letter of James, and I couldn't help smiling. What you wrote 2,000 years ago sounds an awful lot like what you said for the record last Wednesday. Do you mind if I put in a quote from James?

J: Knock yourself out. 

A: Okay. Here's the NRSV translation of James 2:1-8a, with a couple of changes in emphasis. Here goes:

• "My brothers, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in God? For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, 'Have a seat here, please,' while to the one who is poor you say, 'Stand there,' or 'Sit at my feet,' have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and becomes judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you? You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'"

J: You give them one little inviolable spiritual law to follow, and they argue with you until you're blue in the face and dead in the ground. It's 2,000 years since I said that, and a huge number of Christians still don't get it -- you can't love your neighbour and keep your status addiction, too. You have to make a choice. 

A: There are almost no Christians who believe you wrote these verses yourself. Few theologians pay attention to the Letter of James. It doesn't have any real "Christology" in it. To them, it's little more than a typical 1st century wisdom sermon. Martin Luther hated this letter because it seems to deny Paul's doctrine of "justification by faith." Luther called it "an epistle of straw," and would have had it removed from the Protestant canon if he could have. 

J: There you go. More proof for the theory that Paul and I had very different things to say about God.

"Jesus said: 'Why do you wash the outside of the cup? Do you not understand that the one who made the inside is also the one who made the outside?'" (Gospel of Thomas 89). "Jesus said: 'Come to me. My yoke is easy. My mastery is gentle, and you will find peace for yourselves'" (Gospel of Thomas 90). St. Brendan's Catholic Church, Rockport ON. Photo credit JAT 2020.

A: Tell me what you meant when you described the poor as "heirs of the kingdom."  

J: That goes to the heart of my teachings.  

A: I know.  

J (grinning): No point beating around the bush, eh?  

A: Exactly my thought.  

J: Well, I guess you could say that I was trying to be a good teacher. By that I mean I was doing my best to explain complex ideas in a useful, usable way. Good teaching often involves finding the right image, the right metaphor for the group you're teaching. The right metaphor can open up doors in a student's mind, help her find the connection between what she already knows and what she's learning. You can try to invent new terms, new words for a complex idea. Scholars often do this. Or you can try to work with existing vocabulary and use it in new ways. I opted for the latter. 

A: So you chose the word "kingdom" because of the symbolism attached to it at the time.  

J: Well, here's where it gets confusing. The word "kingdom" by itself was not the exact image I chose -- not that word by itself, anyway. But, like all people, I was sometimes guilty of shortening things for the sake of convenience. The actual phrase I chose was "basileia ton ouranon" -- Koine Greek for "kingdom of the heavens." Eventually, when I was speaking or writing for my own community, I called it "the kingdom" for short. But by then it was understood what I meant. 

A: Which was . . . ?  

J: I was trying to express the idea that each individual person should think of themselves as a whole and complete entity, lacking nothing as far as God is concerned. A tiny kingdom of "selfhood" unto themselves. An inviolable kingdom. A worthy kingdom. A very small kingdom, to be sure, but one they have full rights over as its "sovereign." It's about boundary issues, really. Today's teachers and psychologists use the phrase "boundary issues." I used the phrase "kingdom of the heavens." But it's the same idea exactly. It's the idea that your body and your mind and your heart belong to nobody but you. Therefore, it's wrong to transgress those boundaries. It's wrong for you to invade somebody else's body, mind, and heart, just as it's wrong for them to invade yours. It's about human dignity, human worth. It's about seeing each individual as, well, as . . . 

A: As an individual?  

J: Yes. It's about seeing each individual as an individual, instead of seeing them as property or as a means to an end.  

A: Status addicts. Psychopaths. Narcissists. People suffering from these disorders can't see other people as they really are -- as other people. They tend to see them as objects to be used. 

J: That ideal -- if you can call it that -- was ingrained in the culture of my time. People were so used to hearing about "the chosen" and "the judged" in society that they weren't questioning the wrongness of it. They had little mental framework, little understanding of the idea that slavery was a violation of the soul. Most of the people I worked with in my ministry felt like the proverbial dog who's been kicked. The dog is at the bottom of a long list of people kicking each other according to rank. The dog has the least rank, so he gets kicked the hardest. That's the mentality I was facing in Galilee.  

A: You were facing an uphill battle trying to persuade your students that they were worthy of God's love and forgiveness -- just as worthy as the priests in Jerusalem. 

J: It's not easy to overcome the conditioning of a lifetime. They weren't inclined to believe me. These were people of faith. They didn't want to anger God. They wanted to show God their obedience and faith. They were suspicious of me for a long time.  

A: What turned the tide? 

J: In the end, it was about trust and compassion, I guess you could say. I stuck to my guns. I did what I said I would do. I wasn't a hypocrite -- that alone earned me a lot of trust. I treated people fairly and respectfully the way I thought God wanted me to. Stuff happened.  

A: Stuff happened? Like what stuff? What happened?  

J: Oh, you know. Healings. Changes. Stuff like that.  

A: You mean like healing miracles? That kind of stuff?  

J: Well, yes, if you want to get right down to it, I suppose you could describe it that way. 

A: Healing miracles began to take place, and the people around you -- the poor and disadvantaged of Galilee -- began to notice. 

J (nodding yes without speaking). 

A: Were you the source of the healing miracles? Did you yourself heal them?  

J: Healing miracles, when they take place, come from God. From God and God's healing angels. I was a facilitator, if you will -- an intermediary. A human being people could see and touch with their own senses. My job was to reassure them, comfort them, encourage them to trust. The actual healing was God's work. And I said so. Loudly. As often as I could. I never claimed to be a chosen prophet, and I yelled at anybody who tried to call me the Messiah. I clearly understood that my role -- my task as a human being who'd been given many advantages during my youth -- was to help people feel okay about receiving God's love and comfort and healing. If I was helpful in my role as a physician -- suggesting teas and salves and other sorts of medical treatments -- it was only because God was guiding me in my work. I listened carefully to what God's healing angels were saying (that's where it's handy to be a practising mystic), and I did what they suggested to me. I wasn't being "forced" to listen to my angels. I wanted to listen to my angels, and I wanted to trust their advice. That was my choice -- my own free will. They're damned smart, and they had some wonderful healing suggestions.

A: Can you give any examples of their advice?  

J: Gosh. They had tons of medical insights. Things like, "Tell that woman she has to eat orange vegetables." Of course, they knew -- although I didn't -- that orange vegetables contain Vitamin A, important for normal vision. Two thousand years ago, that was a miracle. They warned me, as well, about the dangers of lead. Lead was used in those days in many practical ways because of its low melting point and malleability. "Stay away from food vessels or utensils made of lead or pewter," they said. Good advice, that.  

A: And pewtersmiths have stopped making pewter with lead. 

“A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, ‘If you choose, you can make me clean.’ Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’ Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, saying to him, ‘See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’ But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed in the country; and people came to him from every quarter” (Mark 1:40–45). Photo credit JAT 2016.

J: The most important thing my angels taught me, however, was to ignore the standard Temple teachings about illness and healing. To be honest, my angels had nothing nice to say about traditional purity laws. They told me it was okay -- by that I mean medically safe -- to ignore the "do not touch" laws about skin diseases, bodily fluids, and dietary restrictions. My angels said to me, "Touch, touch!" So I touched. I looked in people's eyes when they were sick. I held their hands. I told them their angels were with them. I told them God was with them. Any physician worth his or her salt will know what this means to a frightened patient. The relationship between physician and patient is integral to the healing process.  

A: So you took the healing process away from the designated Jerusalem priests and put it into the hands of God. You made the healing process both more scientific and more compassionate. Which somehow led to more miracles.  

J (nodding yes): Um hum.  

A: I can just imagine how furious the priests would have been that people were getting better from eating carrots instead of from giving sacrifices at the Temple.  

J: The fact that I was descended from priests on my mother's side didn't help the situation any.   

A: They must have been very upset when they started to hear rumours about your healing ministry -- a son of priests performing unsanctioned healings outside the Temple precincts.  

J: That would be an understatement.