Genesis 15: 9 [God] said to [Abram], "Bring me a heifer three
years old,
a
female goat three years old, a ram three years old,
a
turtledove, and a young pigeon."
10 He brought him all these and cut
them in two,
laying
each half over against the other;
but
he did not cut the birds in two.
11 And when birds of prey came down
on the carcasses,
Abram
drove them away.
12 As the sun was going down, a deep
sleep fell upon Abram,
and
a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him.
17 When the sun had gone down and it
was dark, a smoking fire pot
and
a flaming torch passed between these pieces.
Does this sound
a little weird to you?
Yes, they are
words directly from the Bible,
but
they sound foreign and alien to us.
We want to know
what’s going on.
This is not
how we do liturgy on a Sunday morning,
nor how we have
a conversation with God:
all
this slaughter and pouring out of the life blood of these creatures,
for
God who is the Source and giver of life to all living beings.
A deep sleep
fell upon Abram, deep sleep, the dreamless sleep –
in
India this is understood as the third state of consciousness.
The first state
of consciousness is waking consciousness;
this
is the lowest state of awareness.
The second state
is dreaming consciousness,
where
the limiting perception of waking consciousness is surpassed,
and
what we see in dreams includes images
suddenly
shifting to something entirely different,
and
sometimes we are even able to fly,
released
from the constraints of waking perceptions.
The third state
is dreamless sleep,
when
there is still consciousness of being
but
without the constrictions of the images
of
either waking or dreaming perception.
This is higher
yet, but not the ultimate.
Finally there is
what the Hindus call turiya,
the
fourth and highest state of consciousness, pure consciousness.
Actually it is
no state but the background
and
what underlies and transcends the other three states.
It is the
consciousness that is not qualified as an identifiable self.
It is pure
awareness, undifferentiated, no subject-object relationship,
the
“deep and terrifying darkness” of no self
into
which Abram sank.
Have I lost you
all yet?
Are you saying
to yourself, “My God! What
happened to Beverly in India?
What
is she babbling about? It’s as
weird as that passage from Genesis.”
Right.
There
is a lot out there that can sound strange
when
we are not familiar with it, and the first reaction to it is fear.
If an angel from
God were to show up right now,
it
probably wouldn’t look like something from a painting by Rafael,
and its first
words to us would have to be “fear not.”
I say all of
this as a preface to sharing with you about my sabbatical,
because
it was different from conventional sabbaticals
spent
in academic institutions.
The goal of a
good sabbatical is to be able to step outside our current reality
and
look at it from a new perspective
so
as to discover, quite possibly, obvious truths
veiled
by familiarity and dullness of awareness.
So I went
somewhere that would challenge the conventions
of
the way of life I was immersed in,
challenging
the sensibilities and moving outside the comfort zone.
Well, meditation
by itself will provide that sort of challenging environment,
let
alone going all the way to India, living in an ashram
and
being with a for real spiritual master.
But it is a rare
opportunity to be able to be with a living saint,
especially
one from the long, ancient and highly revered tradition
of
the guru, bodhisattva and avatar of India.
So, my own
experience – First of all, India is a challenge.
Even if you are
attracted to the culture,
there
is the climate and the distinctly different ways of doing things
and
over one billion people.
At the ashram
there were up to 10,000 people there at times.
The temperatures
were in the high 80’s and 90’s with humidity to match.
I
bathed three times a day
and
yet in each case I would be in a sticky sweat by the time I finished dressing.
The mosquitoes
thought I was quite tasty,
and
they could find the spots of skin that got missed
and
didn’t get covered by some of the repellant.
For living
quarters we were assigned rooms that were 12 feet by 12 feet,
three
of us each with a mat for sleeping on the floor,
and
only cold water for showers.
The food was
simple and repetitive.
Each of us was
assigned a seva, a job to do in the every day life of the ashram.
It
was only for two hours a day, however, but we all helped out.
My job was
sorting garbage at the ashram recycle center.
Now, I do have
to say something about this,
because
it was a spiritually significant seva,
and I have talked
about it in the adult ed. class.
But back to the
main point
My experience at
the ashram and with Amma, the hugging saint of India,
was
not like the usual going on a retreat and being spiritual in that way.
It was a total
immersion of every moment of the day – and night –
in
the presence of a living spiritual master
which
approximates as close as possible
what
it would have been like to be around Jesus.
And it was not
as delightful and easy as one might suppose.
When you are
with someone who can see into you,
who
knows you deeply and personally instantly,
there is no
avoiding truth.
It’s best to
give up right away and pay attention to her,
because
it is for your own best good, no question.
Even if you
doubt it at first, you will find out soon enough that she is right.
In her presence
everything fits into spiritual practice
and
everyone around you that you have any interaction with
is
a part of the spiritual process
and
an encounter with Jesus in one form or another.
So
one might think that my experience with Amma in India could be terrifying,
but
no.
From the moment
I arrived and throughout the whole time there
I
was filled with profound joy,
a
joy that was undergirded by a deep sense of peace
because
I was most definitely in the presence of divine Love,
what
the New Testament calls agaph love.
The
heat, the humidity, the itchy mosquito bites, the garbage, the press of the
crowd
all were sheer joy
all were sheer joy
because
the same Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Resurrection Jesus,
was
very present, irrefutably present, and vibrantly alive in power.
When you get a
taste of this once in your life, you can’t forget it.
And this is no
different from what I had first experienced as a young person
when
faith first came alive in me.
In this
atmosphere one becomes fully engaged in the process of discipleship.
Now, I have been
in this discipleship process for a long time,
I
would say intentionally for a good fifty years of my life,
and
let me tell you, that process is not done.
The deeper I go,
the more subtle the work,
and
much of it is like being in a rock tumbler,
getting
the rough edges, all the tendencies and habit patterns,
worn
away, until the stone becomes smoother and smoother,
and
finally polished
until it shines.
This is my path,
what I have been called to.
I have been
infected with that bug
that
wants with all the heart to be as close to Jesus as possible,
and
to become like him
if
only in some small way
so
that what I do may be in measure more effective in serving you.
For you are the
very face of Jesus,
you are the
other rocks in the tumbler with me,
you are the
glorious expression of God’s creativity,
so
full of unrealized potential and power and beauty – unrealized –
for
healing a hurting world.
I report to you
about the spiritual impact of doing something crazy
like
going to India and being with a high powered guru
and
that’s my thing.
But I am
infected with a joy and peace and love
that
won’t let the status quo alone.
I’ve just finished up taking my malaria pills
to
ward off what those mosquitoes were sharing,
but I’m taking nothing, doing nothing to stop this
spiritual infection,
and
I hope it’s contagious.
I think about Jesus in today’s gospel reading,
his
poignant lament over Jerusalem, his nation’s religious center:
“Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets
and
stones those who are sent to it!
How often have I
desired to gather your children together
as
a hen gathers her brood under her wings,
and
you were not willing!”
How much he
loved those who were intent on shutting him down!
That’s not the
situation here, of course, we
hope not,
but
we might each ask ourselves
how
we shut down the movement of the Spirit within us,
how
we squelch his voice calling us out of our comfortableness,
how
we resist being gathered under his wings.
Why
does a hen seek to gather her brood under her wings?
Because
of impending danger.
The
mother bird offers protection to her babies
even
if she herself remains exposed to the disaster coming upon them.
Jesus
comes to Jerusalem
and
stretches wide his arms on the hard wood of the cross,
and
his arms embrace the whole world.
In
surrendering himself to death, the ultimate dissolution of self,
he
becomes the source of new life.
Lifted
from the earth on the cross,
he
draws all people to himself.
Quit
resisting our Lord’s invitation to come more closely within his embrace.
That
is the purpose and work and goal of Lent.
Quit
your resistance, give that up,
and
come get your hug.
