Excerpts From My Book, Seasons of The Soul

Unique Revelations From God

 The Buddha, Krishna, Christ– each is a unique revelation of God,

of the divine Mystery, and each has to be understood in its historical context in its own peculiar mode of thought. To say that God is a person is not to deny that [he] is impersonal…The Christian concept of God often becomes so personal that it needs to be corrected by the impersonalization of Buddhism… To insist too much on the moral character of God can narrow our conception and lose something of the spontaneous freedom, that ecstasy of joy, which is found in Krishna.

Bede Griffiths

Cited in The Christian Mystics

Matthew Fox reflects on Bede’s words and adds these observations:

Bede Griffiths celebrates Buddha and Krishna– as well as Christ– as a “unique

revelation of God.” The particular cultural and historical context of these revelations 

help to balance the different dimensions of these incarnations. Taken together, they

help us to conceptualize what has been called divine paradoxes: 

God is both personal and impersonal.

… Religions have so much to learn from one another… 

Do you experience God as personal and as impersonal? Does your spiritual journey

include both ethical choices and ecstatic celebrations?

In my experience both before ministry and after, is the all too human tendency to adopt a myopic view that is then reinforced by your particular pulpit and pew. In general, Protestants are far more comfortable with either a private theology or individual approach to God. More introverted and less demonstrative, they prefer a more intellectual and reflective style of worship service and are not all that open to a celebratory approach or a more enthusiastic and extended style that we can find in the historically black congregations. Again, in a general way, Protestants have a cramped view of God- often confined to the hymnal and the Scriptural text that is then interpreted for them by their clergy. 

One of the reasons I chose to follow a more liberal and inclusive approach (that was not without its bias or shortcomings) was the disconnect from nature or the wider application of their ethics to society and to move God out of the pew and put the deity on Main street for everyone to learn and see! 

As for my Catholic excursions that started as a mystically curious child, only to be almost railroaded out of me by dogma and church rules, I did, on the sly, begin to read about the saints! And yes, while many of the stories and biographies are glaringly biased and pious, I was enamored of their intimacy with God, nature, and the need to strive for a more holy, reverent, and compassionate life. When I returned to my Catholic roots- but not to the Roman church- it was through the writings of Fox, Merton, Nouwen, and Griffiths etc., where I found a sacramental approach to church that lived along the margins of the institution itself, and it was from that more inclusive, tolerant, and celebratory approach, that my sense of faith was reenlived or came back to me!

The Ongoing Spiritual Revelation

The greatest error of which historical Christianity is guilty is due to the circumscribing and deadening notion that revelation is finished;that there is no more to be expected, that the structures of the Church have been completely built and that the roof has been put on it.

Religious controversy is essentially concerned with the possibility of new revelation, and of a new spiritual era. All other questions are of a secondary importance… The revelation of The Spirit cannot be simply waited for, it depends on the creative activity of man; it cannot be understood simply as a new revelation of God to man; it is also a revelation of man to God. 

This means that it will be a divine-human revelation.

Nicholas Berdyaev

Cited in Christian Mystics

Matthew Fox extends and begins to explain further Berdyaev’s contention about the church

and revelation in these words:

“Berdaev insists that The Holy Spirit is not dead and all pooped out from writing the Scriptures two thousand years ago. Rather, revelation is ongoing, and all things are in evolution including church structures. Is there a new revelation? Is there “a new spiritual era?” Berdyaev insists there must be. 

God waits for humans to be creative enough to bring about new insights, new forms, and new directions. This echoes Bede Griffiths, Miester Eckhart, Teilhard deChardin, and others who insist that divine revelation must be directly experienced now, in this moment to be understood. Do you agree?… Are you waiting for God or searching for God or birthing God?”n 

One of the principal reasons why I choose a more liberal and inclusive approach to ministry, theology, and life was centered on this premise: That Spirit is a verb; that it is a constantly creative, dynamic, ever present gracious, yet transformative reality! While traditional religion and apologetic theology anchor and limit these appearances or manifestations to what had shown up in the Scriptures we call The Bible, Spirit never has ceased her activity! Her calls, her invitations to healing and wholeness in self and society are an ever present, even if latent, possibility!

Admittedly, it has been dormant in some centuries of human history and is now ready to emerge in this present era… And emerge She has… but in a pneumatic hodgepodge, or has shown herself in ways that have served to shift and transform life on earth at the exclusive margins. There has not been a wholesale shift or change that all of my idealistic hopes insist or declare that we are at the more widespread doorstep.

I have written about contemporary pneumatology in my book, Spirit, Time, and The Future. While parts are dated to challenge the 2012 calendar and its controversies, my definitions of spirit and soul, and my personal and theological observations and outlooks on living a more Spirit centered life are still holding up well…

My book’s concluding chapter includes these words of revelation and hope:

“An inclusive, creative, and Spirit filled approach towards the future centers us on this pneumatic and soulful truth: That we are prophetically called, and we are mystically invited into the fullness of life…. A new Pentecost awaits as both a cosmic event and as a personal experience. Just as there are photons in every atom, there is the light of God in every soul.

A New Pentecost invites us into a relationship which is a covenant of caring for the earth and for one another. Spirit will truly affect us to the degree we act on her invitation, and on how willing we are to accept her grace as the central and vital force in personal and cultural change.

Let us welcome her with an expectant heart!

Returning and Its Lessons

We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all exploration

Will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

T.S. Eliot

Cited in Mystical Hours

Wayne Teasdale adds these descriptive remarks:

“The English-American poet, in one of his more mythical utterances, speaks of all of our explorations of experience– be it of the inner life, nature, the cosmos, relationships, creativity, knowledge, poetry, music, or art.

In all, we are searching for Ultimate reality, the Divine Ground from which all of our lives derive. Eliot refers to both the perennial quest, and the return to the Godhead from whence we are derived, and to which we will return at the and of our lives. Returning to the Divine Ground after having been awakened by experience, we understand it for the first time with much greater clarity, depth, and joy.

To return from where we began… Just the thought of it can make some of us wince and shutter, while others would be filled with warm, caring memories… But what is being referred to here by Eliot appears to be the eternal quest; What Micea Eliade called the Myth of the Eternal Return.”

Recently, I have found myself in that introspective process of contemplating the places and the inner or more soulful experiences of my life. Where I was; where I have gone; where I have returned; and where I might remain! Where I have gone in my searching for self-defining answers; and now paying particular attention to where in my journey I have repeatedly come back to, and have needed to revisit; Where I fully expect that will return for solace or further instruction… 

I endeavor to do this from the place of awareness of where I might remain, or where my unanswered questions and dilemmas, my quandaries and emptiness have now placed me… 

It is not just the more intentional process of writing a book that has stirred up these reflective and introspective questions. I readily admit that the sheltering time of Covid with its restrictions did give me additional incentives to begin to put it down on paper.

Writing gave me a grounding; It is also assisted me in realizing that my lifetime of searching, pursuing, studying, and most importantly experiencing the multi-layered variety of inspirational messages I have received; then learning to how best to respect and honor that these energies and experiences are now seeking a ripening and a greater sense of completion. I have begun to create a more definitive homecoming process within me…

When we return to a place or a consciousness that we have known and maybe that we thought we had outgrown… There is both a humility, and a grateful comprehension that arrives, and while it is certainly imbued with familiar feelings, I can acknowledge and greet those familiar feelings and experiences with a new awareness. It is a quality of awareness that can more effectively diffuse any attachments or through any negative connections I had rehearsed.

With the perspectives of age, wisdom, and yes, and the reconciliation of some deep disillusionment, I am able to redeem or benefit from past experiences. I can do this with the knowledge that only wisdom born of suffering, releases me from memories, and with the grateful addition of new perspectives, I can claim a more soulful understanding of life cycles and its soulful lessons.