Manifest Destiny

Please join me in a thought experiment I began during my morning walk. What if we are alone in the universe? What if Earth is the only celestial body in the entire cosmos that has evolved life?

Wouldn’t we want to make the most of this gift? Wouldn’t we want to make this the best possible world and make the best possible neighborhoods and communities and countries and institutions? Wouldn’t we want to be motivated to preserve life and biodiversity, to share wealth and opportunity, to create harmony and beauty?

The truth is, of course, that we long thought we were the only game in town, so to speak, yet managed to steer our way toward conflict, greed, malice, and environmental destruction. But that was in what we thought was a world of limited resources, in which we believed sharing meant losing what belonged to us or our tribe or our nation.

What if we believed in a world of unlimited resources, if not of the material kind, in the kind of ingenuity and imagination and compassion that indeed have improved the world? All those ambitions listed earlier have arisen because we wanted to make this the best possible world.

What if we wanted not only to “people” the universe, but “creature” the universe, introducing our biodiversity onto other habitable planets? Could this be our “manifest destiny”? God knows the phrase has been used to inspire far lesser goals.

I’m not talking colonization, imposing our life forms on other habitable planets to the detriment of native expressions of life. But rather, as in biblical prophecy, helping the wilderness bloom.

Just as we bring the best possible flowers to grandmother’s house, or serve the best possible cuisine to dinner guests, or find the best possible natural settings to show our children, we could bring our best possible selves to our calling to ensure life continues to spread and evolve.

This is the world and calling Jesus lived and proclaimed. This is the world “ruled” by our better angels, our best selves, our highest powers, our most gracious love, our greatest calling. It begins in our hearts, in our own transformation, as we live “as if” this commonwealth already exists. It takes practice, spiritual practice, beginning with a thought experiment such as this, a vision that prompts us to be on our best and kindest and most compassionate behavior.

I know this sounds like science fiction, and you may think I’ve lost it, but teleologically speaking, isn’t this more positively motivating than the apocalyptic or dystopian scenarios we’ve been handed by doomsayers, religious or otherwise?

Presumably Jesus knew little of science, evolution, or the cosmos. But he did know how to inspire the human heart. And he knew to change the world, we need to change our hearts.

As I said, this is just a thought experiment. What do you make of it?

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Copyright © 2018 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved.  

Misplaced Devotion?

Our nearly sixteen-year-old dog, Hobbes, has been going through a rough patch of aging for the past two months. I know she will die, just as I will, but the process is fraught with stress and uncertainty, save the final outcome. She refuses her normal food, prompting Wade and me to improvise meals that are inviting yet bland enough not to upset her system. Her intestinal discomfort and its manifestations have led to disruption of our daytime schedules and our night’s sleep, as well as requiring energy in cleaning up everything from bedding to floors, so all three of us are very fatigued.

We have become practicing if not exactly believing Buddhists: Hobbes moves very slowly these days, mindfully taking each step, as in a walking meditation. Wade and I mindfully attend every morsel of food she either takes or rejects, as well as being mindful of her other bodily functions or lack thereof.

An ultrasound has revealed a mass on the liver, probably cancer, but she is too old to safely survive surgery (assuming we could afford it). The morning I write this, she steadfastly refuses even to taste her freshly cooked morning meal.

That’s the background of sitting down for our morning prayers (Hobbes likes to join me on the deck.) and reading more of Julian of Norwich’s contemplation of Jesus and God.  I will soon have a post finished that does Julian justice, but today I became the rebellious reformer. Today it felt like her devotion is misplaced: Jesus does not need us to contemplate him, nor does God or the Trinity. There are people and species and ecosystems in my New York Times who are the ones in real need of our devotion. Them and our poor dog, which I immediately feel guilty comparing.

So I pulled out my John Leith, Introduction to the Reformed Tradition. I know, he  wasn’t exactly a progressive in most people’s eyes, but he seems more progressive than most conservatives these days. I wanted to remind myself of the Reformers’ reservations about contemplation.

Thomas Aquinas asserted, “[A human being's] ultimate felicity consists only in the contemplation of God.”

But Calvinist theologian H. Richard Niebuhr wrote: 

To call the vision [a human being’s] greatest good is to make contemplation, however prepared for by activity and however issuing in action, the final end of life; to put the sovereignty of God in the first place is to make obedient activity superior to contemplation, however much of theoria is necessary to action. The principle of vision suggests that the perfection of the object seen is loved above all else; the principle of the kingdom indicates that the reality and power of the being commanding obedience are primarily regarded. 

In other words, “Faith without works is dead.” Or, more bluntly, do we contemplate our navels and do nothing to help the world?

Julian, however, might take issue with this view of contemplation. Her idea seems to be that we become what we contemplate, that we are “oned” with God, a transformation that leads us to compassionate action. Such action then is not mere obedience; rather, it comes as a heartfelt expression of who we are, oned with God. Talk about at-one-ment!

I can’t see how compassion comes from obedience; it must come from transformation in the presence of absolute, all-embracing love.

Hobbes and Wade and I are cases in point: we have tamed and transformed the beast in one another by our love, loyalty, and actions. That’s what spiritual community is all about.

“What the world needs now…” is contemplation of the God of love.

I’ll be in New York City this weekend, June 5-7 at Fort Washington Collegiate Church leading two Saturday workshops, “Sex & the Body of Christ,” and “Coming Out as Sacrament,” and preaching on “Your Will Be Done” from the Lord’s Prayer during the 10:45 Sunday morning worship. For details, click here.

Copyright © 2015 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved. 

Please support this blog ministry by clicking here or mailing to Metropolitan Community Churches, P.O. Box 50488, Sarasota FL 34232 USA, designating “Progressive Christian Reflections” in the memo area of your check or money order. Thank you!

From the Inside Out

Copyright © 2011 by Chris R. Glaser. All rights reserved.

Jesus offered the spiritual insight that content is more vital than form:

“Not what goes into a person is what defiles a person, but what comes out of a person’s heart.”

“Woe to you … Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth.”

“Do not pray on street corners so your piety can be seen by others, but go into your pantry to pray in secret.”

“I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” 

“Your faith has made you whole.”

“Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

Thus Jesus emphasizes a theme of his own Jewish tradition:

“Yahweh does not look on the outward appearance, Adonai looks on the heart.”

“I shall write my laws on their hearts.”

“Their hearts are far from me…” 

“Unless their hearts turn to me…”

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind…”

As the contemporary adage goes, "Spirituality is an inside job."

During a retreat I led at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, a ceramic artist explained the process of throwing a pot on a spinning wheel. You begin with a lump of clay and reach one hand to the inside as the other hand holds the clay in place. He said of the creative process, “How you shape the inside of the bowl determines the shape of the outside of the bowl.”

A week later, leading a similar retreat at Kirkridge, in the Poconos of Pennsylvania, a physical therapist explained the nature of physical healing. She said, “A wound heals from the inside out.”

Spirituality also moves from the inside out. That’s why Jesus insisted, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Said another way: “Transform yourself—your way of thinking, your way of doing—so you may welcome the commonwealth of God.”

Attending to our interior lives shapes our spirituality and heals our spiritual wounds. Praying “thy kingdom come” invites transformation of our souls and of our world.