Introduction: A New Pentecost Awaits

The Holy Spirit has within her presence and potentials, a restless, powerful, and urgent expectation of continually giving birth to a new reality. This new Spirit-infused reality is both inclusive and paradoxical; Its effects are both individual and social, personal and cultural. The impulses and directives once they are actively acknowledged and released can be experienced as either gracious or tense. These urgings can be genuinely inspiring, and once they are felt, are life changing and undeniable.

At times, the release or re-birthing of these energies and principles can appear dramatic and challenging in its chaotic, alchemical, and transformative demands. As Spirit, the omnipresent energies and gracious expressions of God can be universally experienced. Succinctly, She can best be experienced and understood as the source of vitality, wisdom, and compassion. However, while available to all, most often it is the willing and the receptive who acknowledge this truth most readily. They are the more open and vulnerable to sensing and to experiencing God’s omnipresence as being a sustaining and loving reality that lives within and among us.

The new Millennia has dawned, but it has not yet become a conscious and widely acknowledged part of our dominant culture. The activity of The Spirit has not been perceived widely in our prevailing religious church practices. She has not been given serious regard in our current theological and liturgical understandings. It is also true that tracking carefully the turns of time and calendars does not guarantee the Spirit’s appearance as a growth in awareness or an advance in consciousness. While it remains true that the greater manifestations of the Spirit are continually available, yet most often they will lie latently within time or go ignored and unused in our lives.

Despite the intense and unsettling struggle we can easily witness all around us, we need not give up hope. When we consider the continual wrestling we encounter with the imposing ethically dark forces of human whim and will, the entrenchment within resistant and powerful patriarchal systems and as condoned by cultural inertia, we are tempted by feelings of resignation. However, by looking deeper, and searching heartfully, we can find that we are continually supported by those glimpses of increasing awareness. Our sense of hope can be restored by acknowledging the increase in spiritual investigations, and by our willingness to actively question and to reverently wonder. In that searching, and by that willingness, we promote a more constant access to supernal qualities of light, hope, and truth.

The evidence for establishing a new consciousness is becoming more available and more widely recognized in contemporary culture. If it is true that a new awareness is dawning, then as more people consciously attune their lives and actions to its insights and demands, it will certainly become progressively better known. Across the wide spectrum of human thought and spiritual practice, we can be assured that this new manifestation of Spirit will be revealed and Spirit will invite and extend Her influences into every home, and into every heart.

The Spirit is brooding over the world (Deuteronomy 32), and She is ready to hatch her offspring— the women and men of God who will fully recognize her, will see the Spirit as a tripartite source: First, as a world creating, Spirit acts as our indwelling vital and dynamic presence; Second, as a sustaining source for a shared relational wisdom and social experience; Third or lastly, as an ethical imperative for meaningful social reform and for ecological repair/transformation.

When individuals invite these energies and heed the influences of the Spirit, they open themselves to those life- transformative explorations and move consciously towards a greater commitment to pneumatic living or participating in a Spirit centered life.

To the degree that this Spirit’s invitation is welcomed, affirmed, and embodied, there will be an increase in compassionate awareness. This inbreaking spiritual energy will broaden and deepen our social conscience as well as enliven our spiritual imagination. From our receptivity, we can reinforce our insights personally and then work together to courageously transform them into necessary and ethical actions. The result will be an alchemical and gracious reordering of spiritual perceptions and baseline ethical realities. This realignment to Spirit will work collectively to foster a large scale cultural re-birthing- bringing forth a broader, and deeper comprehension of the Spiritual dimensions of our daily human existence.

How this Spirit centered effects are to manifest themselves, or how they will become more widely known and then more easily assimilated is not yet fully clear. What we can witness and affirm is that the cracks in our world’s icy indifference, in our rampant Western egotism, and all the deep veined fissures of cultural isolation that previously divided humanity from itself, are cracking open more readily than the polar ice caps! The indifference and isolation are giving way to the need for developing more cultural interdependence. Such compassionate cooperation will be a hallmark of this new age or coming consciousness. Because of the increasing cultural disillusionment that we can see running blatantly throughout our society, a tipping point or a crisis point is rapidly becoming necessary. Perhaps we can say, as a supernal counterbalance or as a gracious response to them, Spirit and all her ameliorative effects will be brought closer and become more available to our daily social awareness.

One author, Donald Gelpi,² puts it in these words:

“A contemporary pneumatology faces then a formidable task. In order to counteract those forces that stifle Spirit awareness, it must prophetically challenge individuals and communities to rend their hearts and open themselves to the illumination of the Spirit.”

It is our crisis and our opportunity, our social demands and our soulful urgings that will move us into confronting this formidable task. One of the intentions of this book is to contribute to the background information and to the greater understanding of these powerful and dynamic forces. It is my goal to begin to outline how the Spirit works, and to clearly acknowledge the cultural changes that would be necessary to usher in a genuine Age of the Spirit.

Increasingly over the recent decades, our contemporary culture has written about the dramatic and idealistic possibilities of cultural change. Accordingly to current forecasts, these changes are thought to commence or to correspond to the date and time that is outlined in the Meso-American Mayan calendar. The time when such culturally predictive signs and expected wonders will seemingly occur will be on December 21, 2012. Now it is important to state that this wish for change or cultural transformation is not new! Similar to the recent, vain imaginations and hopes for a new spiritually inspired the social order linked to the Harmonic Convergence in 1987. (And even without appealing the wildly speculative and obtuse claims of the latest group of Nostradamus interpreters) We can easily see this American cultural and religious tendency dating as far back in Protestantism in North America and most notably with the Millerites³ in 1834. They were the religious sect who assembled on a New York Mountain-top; It seemed as if there was an expectation of calamity or collapse, of some impending doom, accompanied by celestial catastrophes, and at the end of such tribulation, there would be some arcane but nonetheless some Scripturally predicted and religiously assured form of divine deliverance! Each century, or so it seems, arrives with its own version of a Second Coming! These largely erroneous predictions abound in Western Millennial literature, and are wrapped up in the personal revelations of religious leaders who are “enraptured” ⁴ with their own world-view! Somehow, they are able to cajole and convince their followers into believing in its imminent appearing! Modern media has often been a willing, uncritical, and enthusiastic ally to these controversial and often unfounded assertions.

Without going into an extensive Biblical exegesis, or a rigorous religious examination of comparative texts, let me state clearly that there are no dangerous religious books per se, only dangerous interpretations. Those who lack a historical, and most importantly, an imaginative and metaphorical understanding of Scripture, are primarily to blame for being the source of such fear and apprehension! Those who would take a literal or fundamentalist approach to any text are the same ones who are most prone to insult and alarm. These same panicked individuals or the same fear fueled groups, are the ones who are the most likely to proclaim their distress to others. There is an uncanny and unfathomable desire to sound the alarm- particularly when the warnings are based on their own version of all the disastrous effects that are to come!

As for the current dire warning about 2012, even the Mayans themselves are at odds with the current rash of books and predictions that offer dramatic warnings and portents of doom. As the long, extended article ⁵ cited in the end notes of this paper names it, our Western Christian understandings of the religious life, its examples and archetypes have been “exhausted.” This observation is one of my key concerns. Our Western religious language has been stripped of its power to proclaim dynamic and transformative messages. Because of this accepted infirmity, and the inability for conventional approaches to Western spirituality to inspire our culture, as I see it, the time is ready, even overripe, for a “New Pentecost” among us….

It is my contention that these changes are not literally connected to a specific time or place; they are not limited to a specific date in calendar or hour of clock time. When we are dealing with all the dire and scary predictions that we have been popularly given, first we have to make objective and scientific allowances for those uncontrollable events such as shifts in the tectonic plates that cause earthquakes, etc. That should quell some of more fantastic fears based on some supernatural punishment or fear. Next, comes the humble and honest admission that there are some events and changes that remain well beyond our human control. This humility and honesty can encourage the responsible and ethical imperative to learn how to cooperate, and to learn how best to prepare ourselves to respond to these cataclysmic events as effectively and as compassionately as we can.

However, there is a larger, more harsh admission to be made: Most, if not all of the social crises and environmental dilemmas we now face are humanly authored, and they are culturally created. These systemic imbalances and the shifts in our planet’s ecological extremes are primarily perpetuated by our dominant myopic social priorities. It is a case where our ethics controls our climate, and that our weather imbalances are being directed by our secular and monetary values.

On the positive and transformative side, Spirit is manifest whenever the heart is warmed and whenever the will is informed. I believe that our lives can be activated to receive the spiritual impulses of grace and change, and then we can, as a result of that leavening, act to make those effects evident in our lives. From our individual transformations, we can come together and apply it as a social force within our culture.

The aim of this book is to be an updated, expanded consideration of the depth and dimensions of the Holy Spirit. It will offer new perspectives without losing sight of its original, linguistic definitions and will recount some of the wider understandings that are to be found within our Western Judeo-Christian heritage. This concern for keeping a consistent dialogue with theology, however, is not a defensive, turgid, or a brittle one. It will align itself with a progressive working definition from both theological research and the writings of depth psychology that holds to a more inclusive and universal understanding. As such, it freely goes beyond the traditional dogmatic definitions and any of the narrowly accepted orthodox scope of language and its conforming beliefs. Consequently, the ideas expressed will be along a line of thoughtful consideration that never loses touch with its foundational integrity. As an inclusive theological overview, this research affirms that the Spirit always has been and will remain an omnipresent correspondent with every archetype that affirms and honors her place, her possibilities, and her potentials.

Exam Question: Is Hell Exothermic or Endothermic?
 

The following is from Dr. Schambaugh’s Chemical Engineering Test given at the University of Oklahoma in 1997….
 
Concerning the rules for Heat and Mass transfer, the following question was posed:
 

Is Hell exothermic or is it Endothermic? Support your answer with the truth!

Most all of the professor’s students wrote their proofs using some variation of Boyle’s law. One student, however, wrote the following explanation:

He said: First we postulate that if souls exist, then they must have some mass. If they do, then a mole of souls can also have mass. So, at what rate are souls moving into Hell and at what rate are they leaving?

I think we can safely assume that once a soul goes to Hell, it stays there! Therefore, there are no souls that are leaving. As for souls entering Hell, let’s look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state confidently that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell! Since there are more than one of these religions, and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and all souls will go to Hell! With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect that the number of souls in Hell will increase exponentially.

Now, we look at the rate of change of volume in Hell. Boyle’s law states that in order for the temperature and the pressure to stay the same, the ratio of the mass of souls and the volume needs to stay constant.

Case 1: If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose!

Case 2: If Hell is expanding at a rate that is faster than the increase in souls in Hell, then the temperature and the pressure will drop until Hell freezes over!

Q: So which is it? If we accept the postulate given to me by my classmate Theresa Banyan who, during my freshman year told me that it will be a cold night in Hell before she would sleep with me, and if we take into account that now, as a senior, I still have not succeeded with her, then Case 2 cannot be true!  Thus Hell is exothermic!

The student, Tim Graham, got the only A in the course!

Story:     Sanity and Sanctity

How do we learn about our differences, and how one person’s talent or skill is not to be envied, just as another person’s spiritual beliefs are not to be shunned or put down? Here is a story form the famous Black theologian, Howard Thurman that offers us an answer:

“I dreamt that God took my soul to Hell. To my right, there among the trees, were men and women hard at work making a garden. And I said, looking at them, ” I should like to go and work with them. Hell must be a very industrious place, filled with lots of personal success and much individual accomplishment.”

Then God said,” Nothing grows in the garden they are making.” Together we look more carefully: And I saw those people working among the bushes, digging holes, but instead of planting anything, there was nothing to fill these holes. The workers covered the holes with sticks, straw, leaves, and earth, and I noticed that each man as they walked back behind the bushes, they watched their footsteps very carefully, then the men hid themselves and intently watched their holes…

I asked God, “What were they doing?” And God said, “Oh, they are making pitfalls for any man or woman to fall in.” I said to God,” Why do they do it?” And God said, “Because each person who lives in Hell thinks when his brother or her sister falls, then they will more easily rise or succeed.

And then I asked, ” How will he or she rise?” God said,” They will not rise, but instead, they will fall into egotism and fail to truly succeed”

And I asked God,” Are these people sane?” God replied, ” They are not sane; there is no sane person in Hell.”

As I understand it, life requires us to accept with gratitude, the gifts and talents of others, and not seek to feel superior or inferior. Also, we are to honor all the different ways of understanding God, or what is good or what is considered to be Holy- We are not to sharply criticize the differences, but we are to compare, and to appreciate so that we can learn from them.

After all, if we are to trust the intent of World Scripture, we are given the view that God created humanity so that we can bless and care for one another, not so we could harm or judge each other- No one truly gets ahead when another person fails, and no one is made better by trickery or deceit, envy or revenge.

In fact, it could be said that only as we learn to tolerate and accept one another’s differences, and not try to create pitfalls, can we begin to find a genuine and lasting sense of inspiration within the diverse communities that we build, …

And only then, does even a glimpse of heaven become possible.

You and I are in the business of building kingdoms and queendoms together- to build the realms of wonder and sustain the structures of integrity and worth in which all of our sisters and brothers of the liberal and lively spirit work together and dwell….

This is ideal of community- It consists of the blessings and grace we can experience in caring for one another, and the that can be found in sharing our life’s journey with one another, thereby enriching and supporting each other all along life’s way….

Story:     What Heaven and Hell Are Really Like?
 

One day, a young monk brought a perplexing question to his Abbot, the head of the monastery. He said” I have been studying all the theology about heaven and hell, but its all so complex that I am confused… Is there any easy way I can know what the difference between Heaven and Hell is ?

The elder Abbot paused for a moment, and then told the monk this story: He said Heaven and Hell are, in some ways, similar, the difference is found in how we treat people…
Picture a large ornate dining hall, you know fine china, flowers, soft linen… And now see all the people surrounded by the most delicious foods you can imagine- tasty meats, sumptuous desserts… But the people gathered there were gaunt, tired, listless, severe, miserable…. You see the only silverware they had were long forks and spoons- so long that they could not load up and bend their arms to get the food into their mouths… So all the food was wasted, and the people remained painfully thin….
That is Hell…  Now Heaven is exactly the same… A beautiful dining hall, great food, but there the people were happy, well fed, laughing, and truly enjoying one another… You see, said the elder Abbot, the difference between Heaven and Hell is this: In heaven, the people learned to take the long forks and spoons, and instead trying to put themselves first, they learned to reach across and to feed one another…. Heaven is found in unselfish, loving service to others….”

On Blood, Soul, Spirit, and Life;

On the Grace of Giving Blood and Sharing Our Humanity

Last week, there was a blood drive at my local shopping mall..

The night before, as I was listening to the news, they announced the fact that only 50 % of all the people who are eligible to give blood ever do so-

So I glibly thought to myself: So giving blood is a lot like listening to PBS:

Many people benefit from it, but few truly support it!

Later that evening, the thought of giving blood became more important to me- maybe it was the crime show I was watching, and maybe it was the haunting announcement about the devastating winter weather back in the Northeast, where I cam from, that grabbed my conscience by the throat and said…. ” You know, its really been a long time since you gave, so what’s wrong with you? Its time!

Without belaboring the long and secure safety process, which I was grateful for, and the extended time it took for me to show up and find a vacancy (all wonderful delays!) It was a pensive and reflective experience.

I looked on the process of giving blood much the way you would give someone food to eat… ( no, there are no Twilight, or True Blood, or vampire references in this story!) What came to me is that the giving of one’s blood is an act of deep compassion and sincere humanity, for you are providing a life giving, and a life sustaining gift to some unknown person in a yet to be determined situation or health crisis. It was altruism at its best- as there is no reward for the act… other than a cookie or maybe a tee shirt… but the reward and the lasting value of giving is a rare soulful commitment to human good and survival when all around us, or so it seems, there is an incessant chatter of a culture of greed and self preoccupation, so such caring stands out as a noble and truly compassionate act.

Now, I am far from someone who would be designated as being heroic, but I do hold fiercely to my beliefs about the necessity for personal growth, for dramatic and necessary lifestyle changes, and to heed the mounting imperative for social and economic transformation. While I could not foresee the how and when of this personal gift, it did feel like it was the least I could do to stem the almost inevitable course of human suffering- and particularly personal and poignant for me was hearing all those stories about winter’s deprivations and struggles… Only a few glimpses of the snow plows and the shivering, quickly brought back to me wearisome commutes to school and work, many years of shoveling all that snow, and being exhausted by winter’s demands.

Turning to our Western religious history, culture, and theology, the importance of blood began to occupy my thoughts… And I have to wonder if those ancient notions still held a modicum of truth and still can provide us with some valuable insights for our giving, for our sense of connection and compassion today.

For the ancient Hebrews, the blood was the conduit of life… Not just as blood cells, but as the storehouse or as the way one’s soul is kept alive and flowing… The Hebrew word, Nephesh, becomes a central teaching here. The Nephesh, or the soul, or the essence of one’s humanity was believed to be contained and carried through our blood. So along with the loss of blood that would signal the end of our physical human lives, there would be the loss of our soul, our identity, our vitality, our consciousness and our conscience, all that truly sustains and gives meaning to our lives. Additionally, For the ancient Hebrews, there was no other place the soul goes after death; There was no Heaven or Hell as eschatological concepts, as places where a soul would go after one’s physical death. Those more metaphysical, fanciful, and elaborate concepts brought in from Zoroastrian beliefs later in the Prophetic period and were introduced during the time known as the Babylonian Captivity. In the pre-scientific and in the primitive world of knowledge, all there was for the discarded body and the now useless inert soul was the “garbage heap, the dump, or Gehanna- the inert place that the lifeless soul goes to and spends its undetermined undefined time being there… When Alexander and Greek philosophy and metaphysics came along, there was the idea or the notion of an immortal or eternal soul, and later with Plato, and then again with Neo-Platonist theological reference points, there was more exploration and understanding developed and accepted as they postulated that the soul went somewhere, and with adaptations to Christianity and its theological ancestors, what was believed and then taught was that it was an eternal soul that was always connected to God… Unless, of course, it was sent to Hell!

Thanks to modern medicine and psychology, we understand that the flow of our blood does contain the crucial elements of physical life and that blood and lymph also contain the emotions, energies, and all the chemical aspects of our humanity that allow us to feel, react, cope, strive, and deal with the many aspects and experiences of our lives. The vitality and health of our blood responds to everything: From a personal feeling, to a systemic infection- blood keeps us alive and involved in the many processes and experiences that states that we can agree with our ancient Hebrew sisters and brothers- that the blood does define what it means to live, and to be alive. So, from that general view, the ancient Hebrews were very close to modern truths. As for carrying the soul, in this short essay, I cannot tackle that, but it is safe to say that since the blood carries our hormones and all the chemistry of our emotions, much of what gives purpose and meaning to our behavior and our lives does indeed flow and live in our blood!

So, when a person chooses to give blood to the unknown stranger, what can that mean? We are reasonably sure of what it means when we are asked to give blood to a family member, because that is linked to our affections and to our sense of family and fidelity… but what of the stranger?

Would it be such a far ethical stretch to say caring for the stranger is another fundamental religious and compassionate imperative? An act equal to treating our neighbor as ourselves (presuming in this detached and aloof world that we even know our neighbor’s name!) Could we call the love of the stranger through universal and unknown acts of human compassion to be the 3rd Great Commandment?

Charity which originally was a word synonymous with love, brings our the best in our humanity and fosters the greatest peace promoting caring connections in our world. If only our country’s political policies would export as much charity as it does weapons, maybe the world could become a more peaceful place? Whether you tithe, whether you give whatever you can, or whenever you volunteer through a church or some social service group, in those acts, the blood of the common life is shared, and the unselfish love of your neighbor in one’s life can be found, and we can bear witness to a profound grace as being seen in action…

So yes, give blood- Please! But know that as St. Francis reminds us, for our soul’s sake, however to care for the stranger, that it is more blessed to give than receive… And know that our whole lives, not just our temporary feelings of happiness, might well depend on it! So Be It!

By John R. Guthrie

“Jesus merely raised one hand a few inches and . . . they tumbled in, howling

and screeching.”   From Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins best selling “Left Behind” series.

 For the uninitiated, “Rapture” might sound like another club drug, say Ecstasy with an extra side chain tacked on. But really, it’s about Jesus, a big, bad-ass Jesus who’s into serious, eternal, torture for those who either didn’t hear about him, didn’t care, or dissed him in some way. This version of Jesus is a creature who will roast you like a marshmallow if you get on the wrong side of him. He will do this on a sort of divine life support so that you have neither the benefit of opiates nor of a merciful death. And this includes everybody, young or old, good or bad, who has a different belief system: most Catholics, Methodists, all Hindus, unconverted Jews, including those who died at Auschwitz or Dachau, agnostics, secularists, atheists (perhaps the most clearheaded of us all), the Muslim and Hindu victims of the recent Tsunamis in Asia, all are resurrected and beamed down, landing in the bright and hungry flames of the everlasting fires of hell.

To read more on a complex of superstitions worthy of a Paleolithic hunter, naked, painted blue, and dancing around an open fire, Google “Rapture.” You’llfind more mind rot on the “premillenial dispensationalism” that forms the basis for the Rapture than you thought possible. Sometime quite soon, we are told, all those who believe in this particular brand of Christian loose-screwism, those who have “accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior,” the “born-again” will be beamed up. Of those taken up, all their worldly possessions will be left behind. This includes, apparently, dentures, artificial hip joints, big hair wigs, breast implants, toupees, body piercing jewelry, trusses for inguinal hernias, pessaries for prolapsed uteri and other such appurtenances.

… The scariest thing about this involves the fact that people, particularly fundamentalists, create God in their own image. A torture-minded God indicates a torture-minded person, as events at Guantanamo and elsewhere, events inspired by leadership at the highest levels indicate.  

Of course, Christian groups have been predicting the imminent end of the world since shortly after the time of Jesus. And of course, for the last 2,000 years, the prophets of imminent Armageddon are batting zero. Leon Festinger’s 1956 book, When Prophecy Fails, provides an interesting perspective on this:

“A man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point.

“We have all experienced the futility of trying to change a strong conviction,

especially if the convinced person has some investment in his belief. We are familiar with the variety of ingenious defenses with which people protect their convictions, managing to keep them unscathed through the most devastating attacks.” But man’s resourcefulness goes beyond simply protecting a belief. Suppose an individual believes something with his whole heart; suppose further that he has a commitment to this belief, that he has taken irrevocable actions because of it. Finally, suppose that he is presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence, that his belief is wrong. What will happen?

The individual will frequently emerge, not only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever before. Indeed, he may even show a new fervor about convincing and converting other people to his view.

 Believing in current Rapture theology might be considered simply a matter of personal choice, … except that the affairs of the Middle East are of great importance to these believers. … They assert, are coming into play in our time. Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson, for instance, believes that the Six-Day War of 1967 was the kick-off event for the Second Coming of Jesus. The return of all the Jews to Israel is important enough that one group of Christians, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, seeks to help the Second Coming along by raising millions to return them. The restoration of Jewish control of the Temple Mount and the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple on the Dome of the Rock is a precondition for the Rapture. The Dome of the Rock is also the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam; thus this concept provides another excuse for war. Premillennial Christians find themselves, despite the example of a loving savior, in the position of encouraging West Bank settlement by Jews and hoping thus to foment the war that will be the fulfillment of their understanding of biblical prophecy. And there is other political spin-off. To take one example, James Watt, former Secretary of the interior, noted that there was no need for environmental concern, because when the last tree is cut, “Christ will return.”

 A Gallup Poll indicated recently that some 44% of U. S. citizens believe in the Premillennial Rapture. This puts America, with this genre of religious belief, or superstition, more in keeping with that of Pakistan or Nigeria than other Western industrialized societies. To paraphrase one of my favorite theologians, Willie Nelson’s song, “Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?” What, my Rapture-obsessed friends, ever happened to “God is Love”?

(Reprinted, with permission, from The Chickasaw Plum – Volume II – Number 1 – January 2005.)