First dimension – the universe
Nassa’s James Webb telescope, in orbit around the sun, has recently sent the first images back to earth, images of great beauty showing galaxy clusters nearly 5 billion light years away in distance, and in time, as they were more than 13 billion years ago. Astronomers will analyse the images searching for evidence about the origins of the universe – how the cosmos came into being,
One of the things astronomers search for is the presence of water vapour elsewhere in the universe. Water vapour is an indication that life may exist or may have existed elsewhere. No evidence has yet been identified that might confirm the existence of life itself. We live with the possibility that life doesn’t exist elsewhere. Life may exist on planet earth alone and Homo sapiens may be the only life form in the universe conscious of our unique presence on a minor planet orbiting a minor star in one of many billions of galaxies in a universe measured in billions of time/space years and light years.
Our life context, the cosmos, is one element of the conceptual frame within which I live as a person of faith and think about the teachings of my Christian faith, my faith in God and God’s unique incarnation in Jesus Christ as God’s Son. The James Webb telescope’s images impact on my inheritance of faith, my Christian construct of cosmology.
The cosmic, universal element of my conceptual and spiritual world has been transformed in the course of my life by scientific exploration and discovery.
Second dimension - natural world
Let me move from this meta picture of my life of faith as a Christian at a cosmic scale to an earth-centred scale. Here I am, a human being, of the species homo sapiens, possibly the most highly evolved species there has ever been in the universe, though we evolved a mere 200,000 Karen Armstrong’s years ago.
In her recently published book Sacred Nature: How We Can Recover Our Bond With the Natural World, Karen Armstrong provides a second element of the conceptual and spiritual frame in which I live as a person of faith. Armstrong looks back to the Axial Age, (900-200 BCE) and explores what we in the twenty first century can learn from the spiritual traditions that evolved over two thousand years ago: Confucianism and Taoism in China, Buddhism and Hinduism in India. Armstrong suggests that from these traditions and teachings we may learn how to treat nature with greater reverence than that afforded by our western Christian-influenced scientific rationalism.
Armstrong is radical. She says we need a completely new world view. Hearts and minds need to change. We need to regain what she calls a ‘silent receptiveness’ to the natural world, an intense contemplation of nature such as found in the ‘quiet sitting’ practiced by Taoists. We need to free the self from ego and tune in to the sacred animating force flowing through all creation. Spending time each day quietly absorbing the sights and sounds of nature can help remind us that we are both an integral part of the world around us and that our lives depend on it. We need to rescue ourselves from the ‘analytical world view’ that emerged in the west that separates the material from the spiritual, turning nature into a commodity that we have exploited and continue to exploit.
In my daily spiritual practice I integrate both these dimensions, the universe and nature, conscious of the seemingly infinite dimensions of the cosmos in time and space and of our intimate relationship with nature and the sacred animating force flowing through creation. Neither of these dimensions seem to be essential elements of the Christian life of worship, prayer and teaching as practised in the majority of churches today.
Third dimension – evolving awareness and consciousness
Sebastian Moore OSB, a monk who was a member of the Downside Abbey community, wrote books in the 1970s and 80s that explored existential Christology. In The Body of Christ: The Shudder of Blissful Truth published in 2011 in his ninth decade, Moore traces a further evolution of his thought and awareness.
He says that after the Second Vatican Council (or for members of the Church of England, after the publication of Honest to God) there came into being two churches – the before, unchanged church (‘traditional, orthodox’) and the newly imagined church, changed and changing. There developed two ways of being church, mentally, conceptually, and theologically.
As a result of this divergence a state of anxiety and fear developed, a conflict between those convicted by the newly imagined church and those defending the tradition. This anxiety is difficult to write about. I feel anxious, as did Sebastian Moore, of writing and speaking about the radical transformation of our own awareness that was precipitated by Vatican 2 and Honest to God. Over the six decades since then, movements in secular society and to a lesser degree in the church have explored ways of opening ourselves to the energy of life, life more abundant, life in all its fullness.
‘I have come for people to have life, and have it more abundantly’ (John 10.10)
St John’s text underpinned Moore’s growing awareness of an awakening, an intensification of spiritual energy over the decades in which his thinking evolved. Like me, you may have experience of this evolution yourself, a consciousness of a more abundant, energy dimension in life. People such as us are more likely to be somewhat detached from the institutional church or may not have been so deeply inducted into traditional, orthodox Christian teaching in the first place.
Moore was strongly affected by James Alison’s teachings inspired by Rene Girard insights into scapegoating. From this Alison developed a concept of ministry that is currently non-existent in any recognizable form in the church. He says, in effect, you need to re-think your faith afresh from the roots up, your belief in God and his son Jesus crucified, risen and Spirit-given. Contemporary cross-centred salvation theology reduces faith to a transactional event in which God and Jesus are the major players and we the beneficiaries of a sacrificial payment for our sins.
The understanding achieved by Girard, Alison and Moore breaks down the dualistic model we inhabit in the Church: God over there, beyond us with Jesus his Saviour Son, and we down here, earthbound recipients, awaiting death and resurrection. We are separated by an ontological divide, needing a saviour who justifies us before God. We are not worthy to share in the here and now transformative resurrection life energy experience of the disciples and Paul. Our desperate need today is for a new consciousness and awareness. We need to discover in our selves the qualities of physical presence, energy, consciousness and self-consciousness, integral to the process of evolution, integral to life in the universe. We need to see humankind as having significance in creation because of our apparently unique development of reflective consciousness.
Fourth dimension – life energy
When we do allow the life energy that is integral to the universe and our own bodies to flow within us, enriching and nourishing us, we grow, our life quickens. This life energy isn’t a religious thing, a Holy Spirit exclusive, owned by Christianity or any other religion. It’s a universal, cosmic essence, seamless, present in creation, immersed in us and within which we are immersed.
Most of us have little conscious awareness of our energy self, our inner and outer self. We learn to be afraid of our energy, to contain and suppress it so that we end up living and partly living. There are very few people I know today who have stumbled or tumbled into this new awareness of self. Moore says the new consciousness waits on you in an ordinary way in your extraordinary self. Moore had reached a greater understanding of his potential as a human being to be more fully alive with the life energy that is integral to the universe. In achieving this, he had to question and deconstruct and reconstruct basic elements of Christian understanding.
Fifth dimension – core energy
Thanks to the wisdom of the psychotherapy school where I trained, I was introduced to practices that I gradually incorporated into my daily pattern of meditation and contemplation. I learnt how to breathe slowly and deeply into my belly, nourishing and enriching my body energy. I learnt how to map my feelings, pleasurable and painful, within my body. I learnt over time how to focus on my belly, diaphragm, heart, throat, mind and crown in turn, comparable with a chakra meditation. I learnt to welcome the streaming sensations, energy flows that are released in response to my focus within my body.
We, homo sapiens, matter. We, us, me, our souls and bodies, feelings and energy, our consciousness and self consciousness, our self-awareness and our breathing, the well-being and health of our body systems equally with our environment, all this matters, and contemporary culture encourages addictions rather than awareness of just how much we matter.
We can do more, so much more than simply conceptualise the abundant life energy that flows within us. We can actively cultivate and nourish the life energy within. Few people seem to be aware of this possibility, let alone incorporate it as part of their spiritual practice or teach it in a Christian context, integrated into the life of the congregation.
This may not make any sense to you, though if you’ve read this far, that’s probably because it does make sense because you have already processed your ideas and experience. You may have become aware that the “traditional”, “orthodox” Christian theological story, teaching and practice normative in today’s church is now seen in sharper contrast to your experience, intuition and wisdom. Your wisdom is making more sense, better sense, more congruent-to-life sense of the world in which you live.
This is a long blog. I have woven together a number of the dimensions that are integral to my Christian life and practice. I would like to be a teacher. I would like to share what I have learnt with others – with you. I’m not sure how to do this. It’s experiential, not easy to teach through the written word. Please do message me if you would like to explore further.
Bibliography
Armstrong, K. Sacred Nature: How We Can Recover Our Bond With the Natural World.
Moore, S. 1977. The Crucified is No Stranger.
1980. The Fire and the Rose Are One.
1985. Let This Mind Be In You: The Quest for Identity through Oedipus to Christ.
2007. The Contagion of Jesus: Doing Theology As If It Mattered.
2011. The Body of Christ: The Shudder of Blissful Truth.
Tolle, E 1981. The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment.