Jim Palmer - Living with Your Heart Flung Wide Open

This is a nice quote from Jim Palmer's new book, Notes from (Over) the Edge: Unmasking the Truth to End Your Suffering.

Living with your heart flung wide open

December 19, 2013

“Jesus came to awaken our heart. Religion too often makes God about rules and rituals, duties and doctrines. It defines our holiness by our allegiance and compliance to the organization, tradition, and system. Over and against religion, Jesus showed up and calls for an awakening of the heart. Jesus invited all people to allow themselves to be loved by God – to open our hearts and know that we are lovable… ever last single one of us. Jesus said look at me and see what God is like, and then he knelt in the dirt to rescue a woman who had been written off by religion. Jesus taught us that love is not an idea. It’s something you feel in your heart, and then you bring expression to it through your humanity. The truth is not a sterile and indifferent philosophy, or a theological creed. Jesus said, “I am the truth,” and then he lived a life of love. He flung his heart wide open to God and the world.”

- Jim Palmer, Notes from (Over) the Edge: Unmasking the Truth to End Your Suffering

Jim Palmer - Jesus Was Not a Christian

"Jesus was not a Christian. He is not the founder of Christianity. Christianity is a religion created in the name of Jesus, and is much different from the actual truth that Jesus taught. Were Jesus alive today, I don’t think Jesus would be a Christian. Jesus is still one of best-kept secrets because his truth has been grossly distorted by those who claim to speak for him. There is a religion-free Jesus who belongs to all of humankind. Christianity does not own or have first rights to Jesus. His truth has universal significance. It’s often the case that you have to disentangle Jesus from institutional Christianity in order to uncover his truth." 

- Jim Palmer, Notes from (Over) the Edge - (a new book-in-progress)

Jim Palmer describes himself as a "Religion-Free Jesus Follower."  Here is a recent blog post the offers some insight into his spiritual journey.

Common objections to shedding religion

October 25, 2013

I began sharing my faith journey as an author in 2005, publishing Divine Nobodies: Shedding Religion to Find God (and the unlikely people who help you) (2006). The book struck a nerve, and my Inbox was flooded with emails from others who were trying to untangle their lives and faith from religion. Ordinary people, mainly from a Christian background, they had come to the end of their rope with faith and God, but felt understood and validated through my story, and inspired by the possibility that it could be different.

Seeing that people often got stuck in their disenchantment with religion, my follow-up book, Wide Open Spaces: Beyond Paint-by-Number Christianity (2007), gave a glimpse into what it might look like to live a religion-free relationship with God. I also noticed that many of these people in the throes of spiritual crisis chose to abandon God and Jesus altogether. My third book, Being Jesus in Nashville: Finding the Courage to Live Your Life (whoever and wherever you are) (2012), spoke to this issue as I shared my story of discovering a religion-free Jesus who finally set me free from my religious pathologies and led me forward in my spiritual pilgrimage.

People often take issue with and object to people who are “shedding religion” to know God. I decided to identify and address some of the most common objections I hear.

You don’t go to church anymore

If a person’s involvement in a church feeds and reinforces a message and perspective that hinders their knowing God, then it makes complete sense not to involve yourself there anymore. Many Christians receive their understanding about God through the institution of Church and when they discover this understanding is deeply flawed and they see how this flawed understanding has damaged their lives, they remove themselves from their church. The reason most people object to this is because these confuse leaving one’s church with leaving one’s faith. Research shows that “church leavers” grow stronger in their faith, as opposed to digressing in their faith. The issue is also controversial because people wrongly equate “church” with their specific form of church. There are an endless number of forms of church ranging from highly organized to practically no organization at all. Many people who leave organized church eventually connect in smaller, more informal types of community, which may not comply with the letter of the law when it comes to institutional church but fulfills the true spirit of “church.”

You are reading some really weird books

Many Christians in the “shedding religion” process will read books that: a) looks at their Christian faith with a critical eye, b) promotes spirituality over religion, c) offers a different and fresh view and perspective on faith and God. Shedders will be drawn to authors who offer something beyond institutional Christianity and offer the prospect of knowing God and following Jesus as a way of life as opposed to check-list Churchianity. many of these authors, including myself, get hammered by the Christian establishment. If you mess with city hall, you’re going to pay for it. People criticize such authors as having “bad theology.” In my opinion, many of the criticizers have “bad theology,” and so I’m not sure where that argument ends. People who are “shedding religion” are also drawn to books that promote and speak to spirituality over religion or books that focus on nurturing your inner world. You’d be surprised to know even how many church-going Christians secretly read Eckhart Tolle books but would never admit it. For some people, reading one chapter from The Power of Now was worth more than one year of sermons. This is also the reason why some Christians become interested in Buddhism and Eastern spirituality; these seem to speak more deeply to the root condition of humankind and one’s inner spiritual world as opposed to the focus of a lot of pop-Christian writings. At first, some people are not aware that there is a rich Christian tradition of contemplatives and mystics who lived a very robust Christ-centered spirituality. A few contemporary examples might be Thomas Merton, Ricahrd Rohr, Bede Griffiths, and Flora Wueller.

You are in danger of going off the deep end

Perhaps one of the most annoying things (to those who judge them) about people who are shedding religion is that they begin thinking for themselves. Some Christians have come from churches where the idea is fostered that congregants should only expose themselves to church-approved leaders, teachers, writers, musicians, politicians etc…because doing otherwise would be the equivalent of purchasing a one-way ticket to the flames of hell. Apparently, only a very select few people are capable of discerning truth on their own, the rest of us are ill-equipped for doing so and would be easily lured into all kinds of error if left to our own. I know this may be difficult for some to believe, but people are capable of being exposed to all kinds of differing views of God, and can discern for themselves what truth is present in these views, and what of these views seems inconsistent with truth. I have a Buddhist friend; i have detected truth is things he believes but i did not become a Buddhist. I have an Atheist friend, and I totally agree with this person’s views on all kinds of things, including some of their objections to God, but i did not become an Atheist. I have a N.Y. Yankees friend, i agree that the Yankees have some of the best baseball players but I did not become a Yankees fan. People are truly capable of doing this sort of thing.

When people begin thinking for themselves and base their opinions on firsthand personal experience, they realize that the world doesn’t fit so nicely into all the labels and boxes that religion is sometimes prone toward imposing on things. Religion and politics seems to share a difficulty in disagreeing with others without demonizing them, and wants to slice up the world into the “us” and “them” camp or the “right” and “wrong” camp. I’m not talking about turning a blind eye to evil in the world, or pretending that one’s beliefs doesn’t fuel such evil. All religions, including Christians, have justified evil in the name of God.

You can’t give a straight answer

Lots of questions aren’t so easy to answer anymore for Christians in the “shedding religion” process. For example, questions like: “Are you a Christian?” or “Do you believe in the Bible?” or “Do you go to church?” or “Do you believe in the gospel?” are no longer “yes” or “no” questions for a person who is “shedding religion.” He or she is immediately wondering what is your definition of a “Christian,” and what is your interpretation of the Bible, and how you delineate what “church” is, and how do you understand the “gospel?” By not answering “yes” or “no” it is not a sign that the person is “dodging the issue;” they legitimately cannot answer with a simple “yes” or “no.” It would be better to ask more open-ended questions like, How is Jesus Christ relevant to you?

[My disclaimer: Some people say I am “too hard” on the “Christian establishment.” Let me be the first to say that I know many people who identify themselves as “Christians” who are deeply spiritual, and not guilty of the things I described above. Some of these Christians have had a big influence on my own journey. I also know there are organized forms of church that promote true and authentic Christ-centered spirituality, as well as open, honest, and authentic relationships. I know many Christian churches that are wonderful expressions of love, compassion, and service in the communities where they exist. Since my personal experiences are in some cases related to churches (including my own) and Christians (including myself) that were guilty of the above judgments, I am prone to speak of it. Based on my experience the last several years as an author and spiritual director/coach, I have encountered countless numbers of people who have a similar experiences. I mainly wrote the above post in hopes of encouraging more understanding about many people who are in “shedding religion” mode.]

Fr. Richard Rohr - Jesus Is Not Loyal to One Religion

 

Fr. Richard Rohr is a Franciscan priest of the New Mexico Province and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation (www.cac.org) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Fr. Richard's teaching is grounded in the Franciscan alternative orthodoxy--practices of contemplation and lived kenosis (self-emptying), expressing itself in radical compassion, particularly for the socially marginalized. As a teacher, he bears witness to the universal awakening within Christian mysticism and the Perennial Tradition.

Among Fr. Rohr's many books are Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self (2013),
Yes, and...: Daily Meditations (2013), The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See (2009), and From Wild Man to Wise Man: Reflections on Male Spirituality (2005).

A Central Point!

Meditation 38 of 51 - Seven Themes of an Alternative Orthodoxy
Sixth Theme: The path of descent is the path of transformation. Darkness, failure, relapse, death, and woundedness are our primary teachers, rather than ideas or doctrines (Process).

Why does the Bible, and why does Jesus, tell us to care for the poor and the outsider? It is because we all need to stand in that position for our own conversion. We each need to stand under the mercy of God, the forgiveness of God, and the grace of God—to understand the very nature of reality. When we are too smug and content, then grace and mercy have no meaning—and God has no meaning. Forgiveness is not even desired. When we have pulled ourselves up by our own bootstraps, religion is always corrupted because it doesn’t understand the mystery of how divine life is transferred, how people change, and how life flows. It has been said by others that religion is largely filled with people who are afraid of hell, and spirituality is for people who have gone through hell.

Jesus is always on the side of the crucified ones. He is not loyal to one religion, or this or that group, or the “worthy” ones—Jesus is loyal to suffering itself, wherever it is. He is just as loyal to the suffering of Iraqis or Afghanis as he is to the suffering of Americans. He is just as loyal to an oppressed gay man as he is to an oppressed married woman. We do not like that! He grabs all of our self-created boundaries away from us, and suddenly all we have is a free fall into the arms of God, who is our only and solid security. This seems to be God’s very surprising agenda, if I am to believe the Bible.

Adapted from A Lever and a Place to Stand: The Contemplative Stance, the Active Prayer (CD)

The Daily Meditations for 2013 are now available in Fr. Richard’s new book Yes, And . . .

Fr. Richard Rohr - Jesus Is Smaller than Christ

I post a lot of Buddhist material here, so when possible, I want to try to balance that with wisdom teachings from other traditions. Today, I offer this "daily meditation" from Father Richard Rohr, one of the next generation of teachers in the mystical tradition of Christianity (following Father Thomas Keating and Brother David Steindl-Rast).

Fr. Rohr is the author of Adam's Return: The Five Promises of Male Initiation (2004), From Wild Man to Wise Man: Reflections on Male Spirituality (2005), The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See (2009), and Unitive Consciousness: Beyond Gender (2013, An Essay, Kindle only).

Jesus Is Smaller Than Christ 

Fr. Richard Rohr
Meditation 21 of 53

To understand Jesus in a whole new way, you must first know that Christ is not his last name, but the pre-existent Christ Consciousness that existed from all eternity (Colossians 1:15-20) and his omnipresent identity after the Resurrection—which now includes humanity and all of creation along with it (Ephesians 1:9-11). Jesus became the Christ (Acts 2:36) by his own process of transformation, and now wonderfully includes us in this sweeping, historical, and victorious identity!

That’s why Paul will then create a shocking new term: “the body of Christ,” which clearly now includes all of us (1 Corinthians 12:12-30) and all of creation, too (Romans 8:18-21). What hope this offers everything!

So think of the good Jesus, who has to die to what seems like him—so that he can rise as the larger Christ. It is not a “bad” man who must die on the cross, but a good man (false self)—so that he can be a much larger man (True Self), or Christ. Jesus dies, Christ rises. The false self is not a bad self; it is just not the true self. It is inadequate and small, symbolized by Jesus’ human body, which he readily lets go of.

~ Adapted from Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, p. 191

The Daily Meditations for 2013 are now available in Fr. Richard’s new book Yes, and...: Daily Meditations