What happened to Jesus’s dash?

It’s been said that it’s not the dates of a person’s birth or death that are important; it’s the dash between the two:  What did they do while they were on the planet?

As I witness the annual frenzy surrounding Jesus’s birth—weeks of preparations, billions spent on decorations, office parties, gifts, wrapping paper and bows—I can’t help but wonder: What happened to his dash?

Christmas Tree

Let’s not kid ourselves. Jesus is not the reason for this season. Nowhere in the scriptures is it said that Jesus was born on December 25.

What we do know is that it’s the same birthday as mythological gods and saviors who were born of virgin mothers. They all healed the sick, raised the dead, were brutally murdered at a young age by those who took issue with their talents and teachings, and were resurrected in three days.

We also know that pagans celebrated the all-important winter solstice at this time of year, with decorated trees and other vestiges of modern celebrations. In fact, these grand festivities posed the greatest hurdle for those who were trying to convert pagans to Christianity. The Jews had Hanukkah in December. The pagans had Solstice. The Christians had, well, nothing.

Wait! We can still have a party! How about if we call it Christmas?

Even if we don’t care to bone up on our ancient history or mythology, those who actually read the Bible know that there are conflicting narratives of Jesus’s birth. The Book of Luke, written by a gentile physician who wanted to convert gentiles to Christianity, claims that Jesus was born in a Bethlehem barn.

As the story goes, Jesus’s very pregnant mother’s husband, Joseph, made her ride 80 miles from their home in Nazareth on a donkey so that he could pay his taxes in Bethlehem. Why Bethlehem? Because Joseph was of the lineage of David, and Hebrew scriptures had prophesied that the savior would emerge from that lineage and that village. But  Jesus’s father was Invisible Spirit, God; so what was Luke’s point, exactly?

The Book of  Matthew, written by a Jew who wanted to convert Jews to Christianity, totally disagrees with Luke’s barn birth narrative. Matthew says that Jesus was born in  Joseph and Mary’s Bethlehem home. It is to this home that the brilliant star guided three wise men.

Archeologists recently discovered homes in that region, built during that era. They looked more like little caves, and were very close to each other. That starlight was either laser-focused or the wise men knocked on several doors before finding the savior in Matthew’s story.

Nativity Creche
Creches tend to combine the conflicting birth stories

Either confusion or compromise has resulted in a plethora of manger scenes and school plays that include the wise men and the star. Heaven forbid that future generations would think that Jesus was born twice, in different parts of town.

Aside from agreeing that Jesus was crucified, the Bible’s death narratives are just as argumentative, which to this Christian lends credence to the claim that it’s really not the circumstances surrounding Jesus’s birth or death that matter, it’s his dash. Most Christians disagree, some more vehemently than others.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve been told that I’m not really Christian unless I believe Jesus’s birth narrative. Which one, exactly?

And, they say, I’m really not Christian unless I believe that only three years into Jesus’s “good news” ministry, God had him  murdered in a manner that can only be described as satanic. Let me get this straight: Our Father is going to brutalize me eternally unless I believe that He inhumanely subjected the innocent Jesus to sadistic torture instead of me.  Yes, they say, and if I was really a Christian, I’d be grateful.

I generally don’t celebrate when an innocent person is executed so that the guilty can go free. Instead, I celebrate a God that is bigger, better and less barbaric than portrayed by ancient scribes for whom live sacrifice was normal. I also celebrate Jesus’s dash, which overshadows the curious narratives about his birth and death.

During his dash, the religious rebel and rabbi Jesus taught us how to heal ourselves and our relationships. He taught us not to judge or condemn each other; he urged us to love our enemies and love ourselves. He taught us to forgive 70 times seven. He also taught that God is the unconditionally loving father of prodigal children who celebrates our return, even after an errant lifetime away from home. He taught that he is One with the Father, and we are One with him.

In our focus on Jesus’s beginning and end, we’ve given short shrift to the dash. In the dash, Jesus cautioned against putting new wine in old skins: Combining the ancients’ view of God as vengeful, punitive, angry, judgmental, distant, male, genocidal and hard-to-please with the “good news” that Our Father is spirit, is love, is forgiveness, is within. As a result , we’ve created a bi-polar God who loves us—but will satanically brutalize us if we don’t toe the line.

Many Christians I know believe that it’s not enough to live a life that emulates the lessons Jesus taught. Good people will be sent to hell and robbers, thieves and murders who confess with their mouths that they believe the birth and death narratives will be spared God’s horrific punishment.

Perpetrating beliefs such as that not only demonizes God; it dishonors the good news of Jesus’s wholly empowering dash.

If God cares…

If God cares…

Is it about the mistakes you make—or the lessons you learned?

Is it about how well you study a man-made book—or how committed you are to the Truth embedded in your spirit?

Is it about fulfilling the prayers from your mouth—or the wish list of your eternal soul?

Is it about whether your body is cloaked—or the love with which you cloak others?

Is it about the place you live—or the soul in which The Divine Spirit lives?

Is it whether you pass an exam, win a game or get a job—or that you fulfill the purpose for which your soul came to Earth?

Is it about your physical attraction to someone of the same or opposite sex—or your intimacy with the divine part of you?

Is it about your religion—the rules, regulations, readings, rituals, restrictions and ramifications that reflect what humans believe about God—or your direct, unfiltered, interactive relationship with The Divine?

Is it about punishing your enemies—or forgiving your desire to punish them?

Is it about whether you have physical companionship—or that you are fully aware that you are, were and never will be alone?

If God cares, is it about the same things you care about?

The Beginning of the End of Levitical Ignorance?

Here in the Balcony of Life, where we can see over the heads, behind the backs and beyond the wings of the daily drama that seems so real to the players, we often talk about Soul and Ego: Soul being that eternal part of us within which God resides, Ego being the mortal part, the personality and physical costume that are visible on planet Earth.

We also frequently discuss purpose: Why are our souls here, in this place, at this time? What unique thing did we come to do to facilitate the evolution of the planet and its consciousness—and how do our egos try to interfere with the fulfillment of the Soul’s desires?

Bishop Eddie Long

It’s with those questions in mind that we direct our attention to the stage on which the sexual abuse drama at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta is unfolding. If you entered the theater late, no problem, it’s very early in the first act.

You’ve only missed the part in which an anti-gay activist minister who counseled gay men and women in his 25,000-member congregation to “go straight,” became the defendant in two lawsuits claiming that he sexually abused teen boys. Within a couple of days, the number of lawsuits had doubled, and none of the plaintiffs withheld his name, choosing to be publicly scorned and permanently damaged personally and professionally, if they have filed false charges.

This is delectable fodder for the gawkers and gossips on the main floor of Earth’s theater. Up here in the balcony, where we can see the larger picture, the plot appears much deeper than that: Consider the possibility that the soul we physically recognize as Bishop Eddie Long has come here to jettison human consciousness above the level of Levitical ignorance.

The scribe of Leviticus had a particular hatred for those with same sex orientation. When the clergy at the Council of Nicea included the book of Leviticus’s hate-filled words in the anthology that they declared to be the Word of God, thy implanted the belief that homosexuality was a choice, that God considered it “an abomination,” and that those who engaged in same-sex relations “should be put to death.” We’ll love them anyway. That was 2,000 years ago; they didn’t know then what we know now.

In the centuries that followed, scientists discovered same sex orientation in the animal kingdom as well as in plant life. Choice? In addition to biological and botanical findings, genetics, meteorology, physics, geography, history, archeology, cartography, astronomy, other fields of study, and plain old common sense have proved that what the ancient scribes believed to be true simply isn’t. Claims that their works were inspired or dictated by God, who permeates every living thing, portrays God as ignorant rather than omniscient, and evolving rather than absolute.

We all have relatives, neighbors, dear friends, co-workers, bosses, students, teachers and other loved ones who are gay. If we’ve known them since childhood, we were aware that they were gay long before they knew what sex was. They taught us that gender preference is not a choice made on the physical level.

It amazes many learned Bible scholars, theologians and Thinkers that in the 21st century, millions still believe that everything in the Bible is true—and will vehemently defend the book, rather than defending its sometimes disparaging portrayals of God. As retired Episcopalian bishop, best-selling author and Bible scholar John Shelby Spong concluded: Anyone who thinks that everything in the Bible is true simply hasn’t read it.

One of Bishop Spong’s bestsellers, Sins of Scripture: Exposing the Bible’s Texts of Hate to Reveal the Love of God, concluded something with even deeper relevance to our Atlanta-based drama: Paul of Tarsus, the man most responsible for the spread of Christianity, was gay. Bishop Spong was challenged on his theory by a very defensive fundamentalist host of a TV show. I thought the host was going to pop a blood vessel, he was so incensed by the thought that Paul could be gay.

Like Paul, there are those who presume that God “hates” certain aspects of “His” creation, and that if something or someone is different from the majority, they are unacceptable in “God’s sight” and should be chastised, ridiculed or even eliminated. For all we know, the writer of Leviticus might have been fighting his own demons, unwilling to accept himself and his natural attraction to those of the same sex. Or maybe it was run-of-the-mill bigotry, the unruly child of pure ignorance.

If Bishop Spong’s theory is correct, perhaps, like Paul, others have assuaged their own discomfort or hatred of themselves for being different. They controlled their natural attraction to the same sex by convincing themselves and others that God hated that behavior and would violently punish it. Perhaps they forgot that God is Love; Love does not hate, judge, punish or respond violently.

Perhaps 21 centuries is long enough. Maybe it’s time for this unloving behavior to end, time for us to evolve to a higher level, to align ourselves with divine consciousness, the Love Consciousness that is the real God. Maybe it’s time to put down the picket signs, stop condemning or trying to change those who are different, and accept each of us for who we are.

Maybe that’s the mighty job that Bishop Eddie Long’s soul bravely agreed to do on a very public stage. Time will tell, and we’ll all be blessed.

The deceiving power of perception

E-mail Trash FolderAs I opened my email inbox several days ago, I realized that I was holding my breath. (You know you’re stressed when your breathing is shallow or you’re barely breathing at all.) When I saw that there were only 1,162 messages in there, I was actually relieved. That’s just sick.

Despite reading, deleting, and spam purging hundreds of messages from my inbox I couldn’t seem to whittle them down. I decided to spend all that day, if necessary, deleting everything superfluous, starting with the top six messages in my reading pane.

One click and they were gone—but wait! I had mistakenly clicked the “Select All” box!

That triggered a miracle: Within less than two hours, I had only 93 keepers in my inbox—and I had learned a huge lesson about the deceptive power of perception.

For months, I had held onto emails unless I had a good reason to delete them. But suddenly those same emails were looking at me from my trash can, forcing me to have a good reason to retrieve them.  That shift in perception made a huge difference in my mailbox and my stress level.

This lesson can be applied in more evolutionary ways. For example, many of us are holding onto beliefs in our mental inboxes and haven’t taken time to closely examine or purge them. Someone “sent” us their beliefs, and without discerning them, we simply let them take up space. Our space.

Perhaps it’s easier to maintain a daunting pile of conflicting beliefs that we don’t understand and can’t explain than to pore through them, study or verify it. One thing for sure, we can’t truly believe something we don’t understand. At best, we can only believe that we believe it. That’s fulfilling.

I was lucky enough to have been encouraged from an early age to be a lifelong learner: to explore, to question and to grow. As a result, it’s become important and evolutionary for me to understand what I believe, and be conscious of the implications of what I believe.

Years ago, I discovered that many of the beliefs that had poured into my mental inbox were in serious conflict with each other. While I believed that God was Love, I also believed that He did things that were vengeful, judgmental, genocidal, violent, sadistic, inconsistent, mysterious and unforgiving. I came to understand that believing that God would do anything that Love would not do had serious implications: My beliefs actually denigrated God.

As a baptized Christian, I didn’t dare question what I’d been told to believe; in fact, I was discouraged from doing so—told that asking rational questions meant that I didn’t have faith. But as a human with God-given intellect, I couldn’t rationalize my failure to use my intelligence to inquire, explore, understand and thus build a closer relationship with my God. Building my relationship with God was more important than pleasing the humans who were judging me. I concluded:

When we think that it dishonors God when we question our beliefs—and that we will be punished for doing so—what we really believe is that God is controlling and dangerous.

Let’s be serious, who wants to be in a relationship with someone who is controlling and dangerous? Do we please God by ascribing to Him behaviors that are associated with sociopaths, dictators and mass murderers? Is torture or genocide wrong when a human does it, but divine when God does it? Does a father accused of dropping his kids off in an unknown part of town without telling them how to get home any different from accusations that God has created only path home but only told his Christian or Jewish or Muslim or Buddhist, etc. kids how to find it? Is that what we believe about God, or is it just another reflection of humans’ propensity for discriminating against or one-upping each other?

What will be our breaking point—that one thing that will make us resolve to clean out the confusion in our mental inboxes? Is our desire to build a close relationship with God resolute enough for us to click the “Select All” button and start from scratch? Are we ready to pore through the contents of our trash folder, carefully examine each belief message and retrieve only those that match—whether they portray God as totally heinous or totally loving. Are we willing to give ourselves permission to use our God-given intellect to examine, understand and embrace our beliefs so that we are not dismissing God as an inexplicable mystery? How can we have a loving relationship with an inexplicable mystery?

Our beliefs shouldn’t overwhelm or confuse us; they also shouldn’t be unmanageable. How can we experience the peace of mind, body and spirit that comes from being in the loving care of a Higher Power if we’re juggling wildly disparate beliefs, often contorting ourselves to keep all the balls in the air?

Every moment is pregnant with opportunities and possibilities. The opportunity that is available to us in this moment is either to choose peace—or hold our breaths and feel our hearts pound every time someone asks us to explain what we believe and why in heaven’s name do we believe it.

Declaring Freedom, Choosing Oppression

At this time every year, Americans celebrate our freedom from tyranny and oppression. What irony. We decry others’ extremist behaviors; but we can’t see how, in our individual interactions, we are also tyrants and oppressors.

We wonder how those whom we’ve labeled “terrorists” can claim that their actions honor God. But aren’t we doing the same? At every opportunity—at least once weekly, sometimes daily on Facebook or Twitter—we oppress and terrorize others, typically in forceful, angry and condescending tones. We are “saved” from God’s wrath, and they are not. They must do, say and believe what we want them to believe. Or else.

Terrorism, tyranny and religion thrive on threats of extreme punishment (satanic torture that lasts for an eternity) and extreme reward (eternal bliss with vestal virgins). Both rely on the premise that God solves problems through punishments that exceed any human crime: He sadistically hurts or destroys all or part of His creation through genocidal floods, filicide (feel free to consult an online dictionary), torture, natural disasters, plagues and curses. Fascinating stuff. It gives new definition to the word “divine.”

We kid ourselves when we claim to love a God who not only lacks compassion, but is extremely brutal to others in our human family. How do we react to such a sadistic God? Actually, our options are limited. We can:

  1. Emulate this brutal behavior and call it “holy;”
  2. Spread panic by warning everyone within earshot that God is going to heinously brutalize them forever unless they believe that He has heinously brutalized others;

In the case of those who call themselves Christians, there are other options: We can realize that God is not bi-polar. Love is not vengeful or inhumane. If God is Love, God does not do things that Love does not do.

We also can carefully read the accounts of ancient scribes. Retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong says that anyone who believes that everything in the Bible is true, simply hasn’t read it. Most quote the text that proves their point and discard text that contradicts it:

  • God could be in only one place at a time—in or out of the Garden of Eden—meaning that God is not omnipresent;
  • God didn’t know where Adam and Eve were when He returned to the Garden—meaning that God is not omniscient;
  • God gave some of His power to Satan—meaning that God is not omnipotent;
  • The number of animals who entered the ark, the number of days it rained, and the length of the stay on the ark constantly changed, sometimes in the same verse;
  • Jesus was born in a barn and in his parents’ home;
  • God is everywhere, but there’s only one path to get there—and other inconsistencies.

Let’s declare our independence from oppression and oppressing. Let’s unshackle ourselves from beliefs that denigrate God as an angry, vengeful and sadistic tyrant. Let’s celebrate our freedom to relax in the embrace of a God who loves us unconditionally—no matter what we believe.

Father Everyday

The first Tweet I spotted in this morning’s time line was: “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” It was a Marcel Proust quote shared by @LouKavar. It made me think: In a world where an increasing number of us are declaring ourselves “spiritual, not religious,” aren’t we really describing the eyes through which we see the eternal God, our Father?

In a thought-provoking Huffington Post blog this week, columnist Jay Michaelson reflected on “A Better Way to Believe in God.” Among other things, he looked at religionists’ insistence upon believing scriptures that clearly reflect the limited knowledge of the ancient scribes, discarding empirical evidence proving these declarations inaccurate:

“Here in America, hundreds of millions of people believe in Intelligent Design, in life beginning at conception, and in a notion of a retributive God. Why? Not because of science, truthseeking, or logical inquiry. They “believe in” these things (notice the locution) because they think religion is at the core of their lives.”

By contrast, the “new eyes” of spirituality see a God that is more accessible, more responsive, more loving, compassionate and forgiving. Our Father is someone whom we invite and delight in having as a companion and active participant in our daily lives, decisions and actions.

“New eyes” can’t envision God as a male being who lives beyond the stars, visits Earth only to destroy every living thing, and hasn’t told all of His kids how to return home. No, “new eyes” have captured Jesus’s vision of God as a Father who provides His prodigal kids a safe, reliable and embracing place to turn when we need guidance, shelter, or have made mistakes. And there’s a feast and new clothes, to boot!

This is not the God we met in church: the God whose brutally torturous and deadly punishments consistently exceed all crimes—the “smack-down God,” as the Rev. Gaylon McDowell aptly characterizes Him—a Father whose behavior is frequently more human, and sadly, more inhumane than divine.

Perhaps we are increasingly seeing God with “new eyes” because while religion has encouraged us to build a personal relationship with threatening and fearsome God who uses deadly force, spirituality has helped us to build a stronger relationship that was, is, and always will be based on unconditional love. With unconditional love comes freedom—the freedom to choose how we see each other, how we see ourselves, and how we see our Father.

For those with “new eyes,” no one is outside of the Father’s Love. Every house is Father’s House. And every day is Father’s Day.

Love as real as an avatar

Part Three of a three-part series

I apologize for the extended pause. Now, back to our other-worldly love story…

I recently stumbled upon a really cool nail salon in Chicago’s South Loop—a yummy combination of great price ($35 mani-pedi) and elegant decor. And the pièce de résistance: “Sex and the City” DVDs play non-stop. Take your time with those nails, please!

Yesterday’s encore episode was about judgment—more accurately, about being judgmental. It reminded me that practically every human being on Earth judges others, and it’s always based on superficial stuff: looks, job, bank account, race, religion, sexual orientation, whatever we decide is important.

Judging others is one of our favorite sports, and Ego is our defensive coach. No chump, Ego is as resilient and relentless as its invincible cousin, the roach, and apparently as ubiquitous. Wherever it goes, judgment tags along. The pair has been spotted as far away as the fictitious planet Pandora, a gaseous moon inhabited by the Na’vi, a peculiar looking breed of humanoids. (But who’s judging?)

Even on Pandora, eyes can be deceiving. Ask Neytiri, a young Na’vi maiden from the Omaticaya tribe, who spotted someone in the lush forest. He appeared to be a kinsmen: Between 9′ and 12′ tall? Check. Blue-striped? Check. Jaundiced-eyed? Uh huh. From the Omaticaya tribe? Not so much.

Actually, he was an American named Jake Sully, an imposter, an avatar cloned to look like a tribesman. Instantly, Neytiri drew her bow and arrow, aimed, and prepared to shoot.

How many of us can relate to that? Who hasn’t hurled verbal or visual arrows at perceived enemies, hoping to pierce their hearts, shatter their egos and knock them to their knees (ideally, at our feet)? When we’ve gone that far, it ain’t easy to back off. And something seemed to be telling Neytiri to do just that.

Woodsprite dances on Neytiri's bow
Neytiri aims

She struggled as we do when our intuition tells us that we’re making a big mistake, and our ego is screaming, “Destroy!” Neytiri aimed again.

Suddenly, a Woodsprite—a seed from the revered Tree of Souls—landed on her arrow, then another and another. Puzzled, Neytiri paused. The wispy jellyfish-like Woodsprites then floated onto her target, the American interloper. She eased her grip on the bow. What was going on? She wondered.

By dispatching the Woodsprites, the Omaticaya’s Divine Spirit, known as “Eywa,” was sending Neytiri not only a powerful signal, but clear direction: Inside the avatar beats a heart that is pure.

On Pandora, a pure heart is revered. The body in which is beats—even if it is flawed—is precious. Neytiri backed off.

Unlike the Omaticaya, we don’t always receive visible clues when the Divine communicates with us. We typically have to listen for a still small voice that’s deep inside. Complicating matters, our egos insist that we should dig in our heels rather than admit that we have misjudged.

In this case, Neytiri decided to accept direction from the Divine, a decision that not only altered her life, but all life on Pandora. It was no mistake that Jake had been sent to Pandora instead of his twin brother. The eternal soul within Jake’s manufactured avatar and physical body had a destiny: Save Pandora from the American invaders. It had been his soul’s purpose since The Beginning.

Forced to spend more time together, Neytiri’s judgment of Jake, and his of her, gradually transformed into “namaste,” a Sanskrit word that means, “The God in me sees the God in you.” When they proclaimed to each other, “I see you,” they weren’t referring to visual sight. Physical eyes judge and separate. Real sight is magical: it sees the heart, the divinity, the true beauty and perfection of another.

Only those who understand that they are spirit—made in the image of God and having a temporary physical experience—can see the beauty and divinity within themselves. These are the only souls who are fearless enough and feel worthy enough to give and receive unconditional love—and can graciously release those who can’t.

After all, anyone can say, “I love you.” Few can say, “I see you.”

Eywa: Someone you should know

Part Two of a three-part series
Sitting here in the balcony, playing with the “Real 3D” glasses I received when I entered the movie theater to see “Avatar,” I am reminded again that each of us looks at Life through different lenses. Some lenses help us see things more brilliantly; others completely block the light.

My first reminder came earlier this week, when I discussed the movie with two friends. What did they think about it? I wondered.

One purred that “Avatar” was a beautiful love story: a man was willing to live the rest of his life on a distant moon, light years away from Earth, wearing a tail and no clothes, so that he could be with the woman he loved. The other friend ranted that the movie glorified the Messiah complex: a brave white man heroically swooped in and saved the black people underneath those blue striped costumes. OMG, was he agitated!

Of course, everyone’s entitled to his or her opinion. The Loud Mouth is no exception: From where I sat, “Avatar” was all about me. OK, ok! It was about you, too—a story about how we treat each other, our planet, and every living thing on it. To me, “Avatar” was about our relationship with the Allness that is God, or as the Na’vi, the blue striped black folk on the distant moon Pandora called it: Eywa.

The Na’vi people were taught that they could tap directly into Eywa and into all life forms because there was only One Source of all life, and everything and everyone was connected—from the most beautiful flower to the most ferocious beast. Of course, the Na’vi had a distinct advantage over us: Eywa was unmistakably present. They could literally see the Divine Source of all Life.

But what if Eywa, their Divine Source, was not visible to the naked eye? What if It vibrated at such a high frequency that It appeared to be invisible, like the individual blades on a fan rotating at high speed? Would they be as reverent and as certain that Eywa existed and that It was a benevolent power that served all, equally?

If the Na’vi couldn’t see Eywa’s full glory, feel Its peace and love, smell Its fragrance, hear Its song, or taste Its nectar, they might easily be convinced that Eywa was, well, anything someone told them It was.

Spinning tall tales has always been a favorite pastime of intelligent beings. Millennia before the advent of the entertainment industry, folks amused themselves by creating and spreading tales. Among the most popular: fantastic stories about gods that no one could see. Typically, these gods lived on top of mountains or beyond the clouds.

These tales fanned wild speculation about what each god looked like and what each of them did. Some reputedly worked for good, others for evil. Feeding on the imaginations of the illiterate naïve masses, these stories took on a life of their own. To this day, many believe them to be true.

Think about it: What if, for generations, the Omaticaya clan of Na’vis had been told that Eywa was a gigantic man who lived on a distant planet called Earth, and knew their every thought and deed? According the legend, Eywa spent all of His time recording the good and bad deeds of each Na’vi humanoid, rewarding good behavior with stuff such as sports victories and wealth, and punishing bad behavior with stuff such natural disasters, poor health and poverty.

What if the Na’vi believed that a wrath-filled Eywa would come to Pandora one day, guns blazing, accompanied by an army of fire-spitting angels? In an instant, He’d annihilate everyone who wasn’t perfect, totally obedient, or hadn’t professed aloud that Eywa was a barbaric bad-ass that should be feared.

You can imagine what would have happened when the gigantic metallic aircraft, bulging with guerilla warriors, noisily descended on the Omaticaya clan of Na’vis that fateful day. Most would have believed that it was Eywa, arriving in fulfillment of the legend. Petrified by His promise of destruction, mesmerized by the sheer size of the space ship, the robot-like “AMP” suits, and armed mercenaries, the Omaticayas would have fled their sacred land and the demonic missionaries from the American military-industrial complex would have carted off all Pandora’s rare and priceless unobtanium minerals.

What saved Pandora from that preemptive attack? Was it really the white guy, Jake Sully, as my friend insists? I don’t think so. Maybe it was Eywa, you say?

Actually, an insightful scene disputes that possibility. More important, it exposed humans’ naïveté about what the Divine is—and what it does. To me, that scene delivered one of the most life altering messages I’ve ever heard. It totally reframed the Divine—and definitively explained why prayers don’t seem to be answered 100% of the time for 100% of the people.

Remember the scene? Jake physically plugged directly into Eywa—into the Divine Itself—and asked for two things: 1) Save the life of Dr. Grace Augustine, who treasured the Omaticaya clan and had been seriously injured by gunfire, and 2) help in defeating the money-grubbing emissaries from the American military-industrial complex were intent upon forcing the Omaticaya clan off of Pandora’s sacred land.

Surely this intercessory prayer would be answered. Jake was asking Eywa to help the good people. The Na’vi had lived harmoniously with each other and with nature for centuries, and Grace Augustine had fought tenaciously to keep the Americans from disturbing that harmony, destroying the balance of nature on Pandora. Besides, Eywa had a vested interest in the preservation of this most sacred land, right? This should have been a slam dunk prayer.

Only humans who believe in God could relate to this scene—humans who, like Jake, believe that the Divine is a being (complete with gender) who can be convinced to do what we want. We act as if God is a wish-granting genie: If we ask “Him” a certain way, perform certain rituals, pay a certain amount of money, and believe with all our hearts that our prayers will be answered affirmatively, we will be blessed. God will grant our wishes.

It doesn’t work that way—on Earth or on Pandora. In this case, Grace the good, died. On Earth, despite our prayers, our loved ones die. We die. Millions of good people die. With every disappointment, we discover that God is not a genie and prayer is not a magic bullet; but we continue to do the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. And we encourage others to do the same.

Is there something we should know about God and about prayer that will help us understand them better? Perhaps, in that same scene, Jake’s beloved Neytiri revealed it, as she tried to manage his expectations of the outcome of his request: “Eywa does not take sides,” she explained. “Eywa only balances.”

On this side of the Universe, balance is called reaping and sowing. One rabbi phrased it, “Judge not, lest ye be judged, condemn not, lest ye be condemned…” In Loud Mouth vernacular: “Whatever you do will be done to you”—no more, no less. Balance.

Part one of Jake’s prayer request was not granted. What about the other half? The Na’vi did win the battle. Does that mean that Eywa blessed him or them? No, but it might look that way to those who think that God is a wish granting genie.

I think the Na’vi’s salvation was their awareness and belief that they were connected to every living thing. I think it was their respect for the role that every living thing plays in their eco-system and their ability to literally “hook up” with all the other life forms.

Understanding that they were one, everything—plants, trees, animals, Na’vi humanoids, flying beasts, you name it—worked collectively to ward off the enemy and restore peace, harmony and balance to their corner of the Universe. After their victory, did you notice that the Na’vi didn’t establish prison camps? They didn’t torture the invaders or turn them into prisoners of war.

The Na’vi understood harmony. They understood balance. They understood that the only way to avoid punishment and condemnation is not to punish and condemn. Most important, they understood Eywa—what It is and what It does.

That’s something we all should understand if we are to maintain peace and balance in our own lives. When we ask, in prayer, for everything to be resolved and balanced for the Highest Good of All concerned, we will get precisely what we asked for–EVERY time.

Eywa: Someone you should know

Part Two of a three-part series

Sitting here in the balcony, playing with the “Real 3D” glasses I received when I entered the movie theater to see “Avatar,” I am reminded again that each of us looks at Life through different lenses. Some lenses help us see things more brilliantly; others completely block the light.

My first reminder came earlier this week, when I discussed the movie with two friends. What did they think about it? I wondered.

One purred that “Avatar” was a beautiful love story: a man was willing to live the rest of his life on a distant moon, light years away from Earth, wearing a tail and no clothes, so that he could be with the woman he loved. The other friend ranted that the movie glorified the Messiah complex: a brave white man heroically swooped in and saved the black people underneath those blue striped costumes. OMG, was he agitated!

Of course, everyone’s entitled to his or her opinion. The Loud Mouth is no exception: From where I sat, “Avatar” was all about me. OK, ok! It was about you, too—a story about how we treat each other, our planet, and every living thing on it. To me, “Avatar” was about our relationship with the Allness that is God, or as the Na’vi, the blue striped black folk on the distant moon Pandora called it: Eywa.

The Na’vi people were taught that they could tap directly into Eywa and into all life forms because there was only One Source of all life, and everything and everyone was connected—from the most beautiful flower to the most ferocious beast. Of course, the Na’vi had a distinct advantage over us: Eywa was unmistakably present. They could literally see the Divine Source of all Life.

But what if Eywa, their Divine Source, was not visible to the naked eye? What if It vibrated at such a high frequency that It appeared to be invisible, like the individual blades on a fan rotating at high speed? Would they be as reverent and as certain that Eywa existed and that It was a benevolent power that served all, equally?

If the Na’vi couldn’t see Eywa’s full glory, feel Its peace and love, smell Its fragrance, hear Its song, or taste Its nectar, they might easily be convinced that Eywa was, well, anything someone told them It was.

Spinning tall tales has always been a favorite pastime of intelligent beings. Millennia before the advent of the entertainment industry, folks amused themselves by creating and spreading tales. Among the most popular: fantastic stories about gods that no one could see. Typically, these gods lived on top of mountains or beyond the clouds.

These tales fanned wild speculation about what each god looked like and what each of them did. Some reputedly worked for good, others for evil. Feeding on the imaginations of the illiterate naïve masses, these stories took on a life of their own. To this day, many believe them to be true.

Think about it: What if, for generations, the Omaticaya clan of Na’vis had been told that Eywa was a gigantic man who lived on a distant planet called Earth, and knew their every thought and deed? According the legend, Eywa spent all of His time recording the good and bad deeds of each Na’vi humanoid, rewarding good behavior with stuff such as sports victories and wealth, and punishing bad behavior with stuff such natural disasters, poor health and poverty.

What if the Na’vi believed that a wrath-filled Eywa would come to Pandora one day, guns blazing, accompanied by an army of fire-spitting angels? In an instant, He’d annihilate everyone who wasn’t perfect, totally obedient, or hadn’t professed aloud that Eywa was a barbaric bad-ass that should be feared.

You can imagine what would have happened when the gigantic metallic aircraft, bulging with guerilla warriors, noisily descended on the Omaticaya clan of Na’vis that fateful day. Most would have believed that it was Eywa, arriving in fulfillment of the legend. Petrified by His promise of destruction, mesmerized by the sheer size of the space ship, the robot-like “AMP” suits, and armed mercenaries, the Omaticayas would have fled their sacred land and the demonic missionaries from the American military-industrial complex would have carted off all Pandora’s rare and priceless unobtanium minerals.

What saved Pandora from that preemptive attack? Was it really the white guy, Jake Sully, as my friend insists? I don’t think so. Maybe it was Eywa, you say?

Actually, an insightful scene disputes that possibility. More important, it exposed humans’ naïveté about what the Divine is—and what it does. To me, that scene delivered one of the most life altering messages I’ve ever heard. It totally reframed the Divine—and definitively explained why prayers don’t seem to be answered 100% of the time for 100% of the people.

Remember the scene? Jake physically plugged directly into Eywa—into the Divine Itself—and asked for two things: 1) Save the life of Dr. Grace Augustine, who treasured the Omaticaya clan and had been seriously injured by gunfire, and 2) help in defeating the money-grubbing emissaries from the American military-industrial complex were intent upon forcing the Omaticaya clan off of Pandora’s sacred land.

Surely this intercessory prayer would be answered. Jake was asking Eywa to help the good people. The Na’vi had lived harmoniously with each other and with nature for centuries, and Grace Augustine had fought tenaciously to keep the Americans from disturbing that harmony, destroying the balance of nature on Pandora. Besides, Eywa had a vested interest in the preservation of this most sacred land, right? This should have been a slam dunk prayer.

Only humans who believe in God could relate to this scene—humans who, like Jake, believe that the Divine is a being (complete with gender) who can be convinced to do what we want. We act as if God is a wish-granting genie: If we ask “Him” a certain way, perform certain rituals, pay a certain amount of money, and believe with all our hearts that our prayers will be answered affirmatively, we will be blessed. God will grant our wishes.

It doesn’t work that way—on Earth or on Pandora. In this case, Grace the good, died. On Earth, despite our prayers, our loved ones die. We die. Millions of good people die. With every disappointment, we discover that God is not a genie and prayer is not a magic bullet; but we continue to do the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. And we encourage others to do the same.

Is there something we should know about God and about prayer that will help us understand them better? Perhaps, in that same scene, Jake’s beloved Neytiri revealed it, as she tried to manage his expectations of the outcome of his request: “Eywa does not take sides,” she explained. “Eywa only balances.”

On this side of the Universe, balance is called reaping and sowing. One rabbi phrased it, “Judge not, lest ye be judged, condemn not, lest ye be condemned…” In Loud Mouth vernacular: “Whatever you do will be done to you”—no more, no less. Balance.

Part one of Jake’s prayer request was not granted. What about the other half? The Na’vi did win the battle. Does that mean that Eywa blessed him or them? No, but it might look that way to those who think that God is a wish granting genie.

I think the Na’vi’s salvation was their awareness and belief that they were connected to every living thing. I think it was their respect for the role that every living thing plays in their eco-system and their ability to literally “hook up” with all the other life forms.

Understanding that they were one, everything—plants, trees, animals, Na’vi humanoids, flying beasts, you name it—worked collectively to ward off the enemy and restore peace, harmony and balance to their corner of the Universe. After their victory, did you notice that the Na’vi didn’t establish prison camps? They didn’t torture the invaders or turn them into prisoners of war.

The Na’vi understood harmony. They understood balance. They understood that the only way to avoid punishment and condemnation is not to punish and condemn. Most important, they understood Eywa—what It is and what It does.

That’s something we all should understand if we are to maintain peace and balance in our own lives. When we ask, in prayer, for everything to be resolved and balanced for the Highest Good of All concerned, we will get precisely what we asked for–EVERY time.

Are YOU an avatar?

By now, practically everyone has seen the blockbuster movie “Avatar.” The special effects, the lush rainforest foliage, the terrifying wildlife and the 3D experience were absolutely spectacular; if you saw the movie in an IMAX theater, even more awesome. But with all that visual stimulation, you might have overlooked the real beauty of this movie: You might not have recognized your own reality, cloaked as cinematic fantasy.

If you’re among those who believe that we are spirits having a physical experience, the symbolism in “Avatar” didn’t escape you. Just as the consciousness of characters Jake Sully and Dr. Grace Augustine shifted out of their human bodies into their avatars when their bodies slept, spiritual masters believe that our consciousness also leaves our physical bodies and enters other dimensions when we sleep. We perceive those other-worldly experiences as “dreams.”

Have you ever vividly remembered the sights and sounds of a dream experience, particularly a frightening, mysterious, exciting or joyful one? What if our dream experiences are just as “real” as our waking experiences?

What if we are avatars? By day, we “live” on planet Earth and by night, in a dimension where we can instantly transport ourselves through time and space by merely thinking? (You have noticed that you have that magical ability in your dreams, right?)

What if the only difference between us and the three avatar drivers on Pandora is that they were fully conscious of who they were, what they were doing and why they were doing it—and we are not? What if, like Jake Sully, our souls entered a tiny human avatar on this planet? Each soul had a specific and distinct mission—rarely as daunting as protecting a people and their way of life from ruthless invaders, but a mission that was significant to that soul’s evolutionary growth?

Unlike Sully, however, because we are not consciously aware of our true identity, we haven’t a clue why we’re here and what we came to accomplish in a finite period of time. That makes the Earth experience tremendously more challenging. Those who volunteer for its Avatar Program are nothing short of remarkable.

Heck, practically any trained warrior—even Jake Sully, who wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer—can use his ground combat training to outsmart bad guys and ferocious beasts. But what if Sully had no memory that he had been one of the few, the proud, the Marines?

Picture this: What if Sully’s genetically engineered avatar also came equipped with an ego and five senses that operated on a totally different frequency than his authentic Self, and it had free will to think and do anything it pleased? What if he didn’t have full control of his avatar’s thoughts or movements? With a scenario such as this, could he have survived that first night alone on Pandora?

If you aren’t seeing any parallels yet, let me ask you this: What if, instead of being open to the Na’vi people’s belief that every living thing is spiritually connected and supported, Sully adopted the beliefs and attitudes of his forceful ego and five senses? His ego insists that he is a separate and more superior life form—and that he has dominion over the other life forms. Could an ego-driven Jake Sully have saved Pandora’s indigenous Na’vi civilization and their sacred ground?

This isn’t a test. There is no right or wrong answer to these questions. The important thing is that you look behind the curtain of what we call real life, and examine all the possibilities and unborn potential in the props and characters lurking there.

Be creative! Tell your own story. Envision your physical body as a human avatar. Within it is an eternal life form that is part of and directly connected to the Source of all Life. It holds the answers to all your questions, is fully accessible to you 24/7, is infinitely patient, unconditionally loving, and totally forgiving.

Would your life be different if you initiated and nurtured a relationship with the all-knowing, eternal part of your being? What if you trusted it enough to surrender control of your avatar? Could you do that?

Close your eyes; take in the entire picture. Experience the vivid sights and sounds in “Real” 3D. What did your life look like when you relinquished control to the Source that we call God? How did your body feel? Were you breathing more deeply and feeling more peaceful because you trusted that God would always work out every situation in your best interest? Or were you tense and fearful? Was there a knot in your stomach because you (your ego-self ) was not in control of your body and your life?

Play with it. Have fun discovering more about yourself. I hope you’ll share your discoveries below. (If you want to remain anonymous, simply use initials—yours or someone else’s!)