That the Students May Become like the Teacher: A Brief Praise for Suffering.

Experience is the key of knowledge. Some of Christ’s teachings only make sense to those who have carried them out. Only silence can reveal the content of Christ’s silences. Only stillness of mind can reveal the true nature of the mind of Christ. Only prayer can reveal the content of Christ’s prayer. And, to put a point on the purpose of this particular writing: one can know nothing of the suffering servant except through suffering itself. [bxA]

If the meaning and purpose of suffering is revealed only in the ever-increasing willingness to endure it, those of us who would learn that lesson have work ahead of us. Patient endurance will take time to form, and it will cause short-term emotional upheaval–so as people formed at the foot of the Cross, followers of the Teacher should start with a few basic commitments. Because we, Christ’s students, want to absorb pain’s lessons: we make a decision to let our suffering cause personal brokenheartedness instead of retaliation. We commit to the reduction of suffering, knowing how much fun our anguish is not. Under no circumstances should conflicts be artificially multiplied so that lessons can be taught–that would be a sign of spiritualized ego–but when suffering happens, it can be skillfully employed to draw us closer to the one, within, who is capable of quietly bearing it. These commitments set boundaries on a learning process that, regrettably, is often spicier than anyone on earth has a taste for.

Suffering can come from loss, it can come from chronic illness or trauma stored in the body. Or, we can simply find ourselves in a time where, though personally aware of the cost of our own manipulations, we are surrounded by people who unquestioningly manipulate to get their needs met–perhaps even gaining by it while we continue to live with loss. To function on a daily basis, we maintain egoic distance from suffering by judging and analyzing it. But learning with the suffering Christ asks that we be quiet, commit to actually feeling the physical and emotional pains in the body, minus the noise of examination. At the end of it, there will be an opportunity to speak compassionately to the body and let go. We will be able to sing the hymn “ But the pains which he endured Alleluia, our salvation have procured Alleluia.” Those who raise their voices will no longer doubt where their redeemer is.

Suffering initiates a grieving process that renders the things we’re attached to less appealing. This is long, slow and depressing, but also the vehicle of the various dark nights. The things we once desired lose their lustre. Emotional skill is necessary here: it is a positive thing to see the sadness and depression creating non-attachment in real time. Each attachment we face is one less time we need to return as someone else’s “Christ in stranger’s guise”--hastening the day when “the Christ within” will ascend to the Father, forever dissolving into cosmic consciousness. But until then, a carefully tuned ear will begin to hear echoes of the gospel story about the pharisee and the publican: and it is right to be wary. 

As a way of connecting with the benefits of ongoing sadness and depression, practitioners may hear themselves saying “thank God I don’t need what others need.” One who has undergone the dark night of the senses simply finds himself collecting less stuff.  But listen: the temptation is real– to wax cynical out of secret jealousy, to judge those still capable of enjoying what we no longer can. It’s our job to focus the mind on where our enjoyment actually is–in the renewal of our spirits–and actively root for those who take enjoyment where they can. Snacks are tasty, toys are groovy, human connection is freaking amazing. Cynically judging these things in others--well, this is ego, attempting to retrench.

If we’re careful: eventually, the emotional character of suffering shifts. Honest grief begins to take the place of “comparative desire.” Incarnation shows itself to be a Cross, on which all who live are suspended: between uncomfortable vulnerabilities, on one side, and, on the other, the humiliating hustle to get survival needs met. No one on earth is capable of that–and when we see our incapacity plainly, we pray “I am sorry for what I numbed myself with when I couldn’t be poor and vulnerable.” We sit in our suffering as the publican sat in the temple, saying “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.” To our surprise, such shifts in perspective can even change how physical or emotional pain feels in the body.  The sensations are just as intense, but the intensity is less painful.  The cross feels different when you stop wiggling against the nails, and condemnation feels different when you find the voice that says “Father forgive us–none of us knows how to do this!” After that, snacks are tasty, toys are groovy, human connection is amazing–and we may perhaps rediscover our fascination for them.

Sex, breath and physical sensation, to say nothing of concentration itself–these are, all of them, intense teachers. On a worldwide religious stage, tantric teachers suggest that physical sensations themselves can free us from ego. (And in fact Jesus’ genius may be precisely found in challenging how attached we are to “selflessness being blissful” making nonself accessible to the vulnerable and suffering.)  Famous teachers like Ram Dass said “there isn’t a lot of room for ego when you’re just breathing in and out.” Buddhists who work with the levels of concentration called the jhanas report that thought of self is suspended as our capacity grows to let go of pleasure and willingly embrace pain. In summary, to paraphrase the Trappist monk Thomas Keating: “there is a level on which pain is pleasure and pleasure is pain, because we are grounded in divine love.” Despite how the lesson challenges attachments, the prospect of robust acceptance is real: so it qualifies as a “lesson that’s part of the curriculum regardless of how miserably difficult it is.”

You have heard it said “play stupid games, win stupid prizes.” Amen I say to you, suffering is one such game, and humility is one such prize. Even the most diligent practitioners will hang their heads, in the end, and say “I’m sorry for the desires I hid behind because I was having trouble being vulnerable and feeling sensations and emotions.” The psalmist said “Have mercy on me God have mercy, for in you, my soul has taken refuge” This points us in the direction of “the Christ within” who can physically bear the intense feelings we cannot. And indeed, though both the sensations of the body (and the emotions they cause) whether blissful or painful, are intense–full acceptance is a source of protection for those willing to feel them. The psalm continues “In the shadow of your wings. I take refuge, till the storms of destruction pass by.” Even if suffering stinks, it is possible to appreciate it for the breaks it affords selfishly oriented thinking. Without forming a morbid attachment to suffering because of it, we may find ourselves praying that “things that orient us away from ourselves” increase.

And listen, listen: we do NOT need to content ourselves with being in physical or emotional pain because of its lesson value. Half of the curriculum of suffering is “what do you do with difficult emotions and sensations once you’ve felt them fully?” It is the function of emotional and physical suffering to free us from ego. After it’s done so, though, if we’re to avoid retrenchment in resentments, ego energy needs to find expression in prayer for others. Jesus didn’t stop at “if this cup cannot pass unless I drink it, thy will be done.” On the other side of taking one on the chin, he prayed “father forgive them.”

Even on a level of sensation, we need not content ourselves with discomfort. Those who are so chronically ill that the drugs stop working go to psychologists trained in pain management– they’re taught to encounter their pain deeply and release it, growing in speed with the internal skills. One of the lessons of mantra practice is “the feeling of sound is more effective than coping mechanisms to relieve stress and release pain.” Let’s unpack this for a minute.

We know pain and trauma causes hyperfocus on the body. Psalm 22 says “I can feel all my bones.” This is incredibly negative as we are first becoming aware of the volume of trauma we carry around. But it doesn’t stay that way. After a while that hypervigilance–once we’re safe enough to allow it to rest from perpetual engagement– becomes energy for highly focused intent and attention. We can kick in as needed, even when we’re averse to the work at hand, concentrate despite things that would once have distracted us. Transforming pain uses all of these skills. A great deal of pain’s discomfort isn’t due to the physical sensation, it’s due to our desire to avoid it, the suffering we’re creating by our judgment of it. Looking our own pain in the face is kind of like emerging from under the covers when there’s a ghost in the room. But on the turbulent sea of Galilee, when the disciples thought they were seeing a ghost, they heard “take heart, it is I, do not be afraid.” Looking our own pain in the face is gross, the way it would be to look at someone we love being beaten horribly and crucified. But the disciples eventually did so, and recalled Zechariah’s words, saying “you shall look upon him whom you have pierced, and mourn him as one mourns an only son.” Again, when Moses nailed a serpent to a pole–strikingly paralleling Christ’s elevation on the cross, Exodus says “all who look at it will live.”

It is the same with physical and emotional pain, the same with the darker parts of our psychology, the same with the annoyingly persistent sinful and suffering world. The Spirit’s energy is subtle and small by design: we can’t both be present to suffering, while also trying to examine or control it. But Christ returned as a stranger so that we would see all suffering as his. Here’s a list of everything we’re told to see as Christ, so extensive it’s exhausting: bread, wine, sheep gates, shepherds, light, clear paths, vines, and life itself. Christ is literally present in the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the homeless, the sick, the imprisoned, the naked. The Spirit says “you can spend your energy doing intellectual work, trying to figure out if what you’re looking at is Christ and what your obligations are. Or you can just stop judging, proclaim everything to be Christ, and commence to all the bits that involve rejoicing.” As we realize that all suffering is Christ’s and grow in our willingness to host that pain in our own bodies: we understand why the epistles exhort us to “always carrying in the body the death of Christ so that the life of Christ may be made known in our mortal bodies also.” If the Spirit’s energy were too insufficient, in fact, to simultaneously “be who we think we are” and also show devotion to Christ, we should throw off self like the tight garment it has always been.  Everything left, in us and in the world, would be Christ, risen indeed.

Francis of Assissi, whose suffering was so great he physically manifested the wounds of Christ, famously stripped in front of his bishop and advocated “following the naked Christ nakedly.” This falls short of justification for showing up to dinner parties in our birthday suits–but it can and must do heavy lifting to inspire us to utilize our suffering in a particular way. Seized by Roman soldiers, an unnamed disciple wiggled out of his clothes and fled Gethsemani naked. Amen, I say to you: this moment is Gethsemani. What need have any of us for the garment of self? Let all who have ears listen, because our suffering’s whispering an answer. "None at all!" Can you hear it? None at all.

Christ, the healer of CPTSD Part II

Complex PTSD isn't just trending on instagram, it's trending in every single human's nervous system. And we'll hear ten second clickbait make efforts to spiritualize it--"the person in the family who finally feels generational trauma is the family priest"--but there's a need for something more robust. [bxA]  The fact is, John Cassian listed "trauma" as a legitimate impetus for conversion, but (owing to how unclean our baggage appears) the Church itself is sluggish in embracing this and still more incapable of forming and advising those whose faith arose in suffering. Incarnation, (meeting survival needs) is a trauma. Watching an innocent man be crucified is a trauma. Scripture says God will "punish children for the sins of the parents to the third and fourth generation." The degree to which God punishes may be up for debate, but the weight of unprocessed generational trauma is not.  Whether or not we agree with this intellectually, our nerve endings know the truth of it.

The world religions that claim "life is suffering" are absolutely right. The role of the Cross in communal grief has been under-examined. Christ was right to accept suffering over avoidance. Christianity is grief work, first of the death of Christ, then of our own deaths. Whether "one who finally feels communal trauma" is called a priest, a prophet, a suffering servant--the name isn't the important part. Most significant is the fact that Christ embodied all three, that we will do the same whether we like it or not. Trauma, finally felt, is either consecrated as a sacred offering, or it increases suffering immeasurably.

On a nervous system level, avoidance of suffering costs us dearly. We long for a security we don't have. Manipulating to suffice our survival needs is an option: that possibility manifests in the mind itself, as thoughts of gluttony, greed, sloth, sorrow, lust, wrath, vanity and pride. But the wage of manipulation is paranoia. We long for a degree of control that escapes us. Spiritualizing to avoid facing powerlessness is an option. Even if we gain a sense of the beauty of the "self," avoidance of lack of control manifests as self pity, blame, self righteousness, shame, rationalization, resentment, worry and entitlement. But the result of acting on these thoughts is anxiety. There's no harm in saying the self is beautiful. The harm comes when benefit or advantage is sought because of it. It's confirmed by disappointed expectations. When the Apostles asked Jesus what they'd receive for all they'd given up, all Jesus added was persecutions--then he left them with disappointed expectations. With suffering and struggle left in place post-redemption, the real miracle is "choosing to value small, impermanent joys" over and against something flashier, and despite hardship. This (and connection with those who do likewise) is the core of Christian transformation. 

Examination of Complex PTSD's specific symptoms--and how they are transformed into gifts--pays massive dividends.  People with CPTSD intellectualize as a survival mechanism: limitedly, the artifice of theology or wisdom can assist with this, so long as "the moment to let go of intellect and ground in the body" is intuited correctly. But tongues will cease, knowledge will pass away, and the only thing left will be love. And listen: love and presence are the same. It's a sweet spot that avoids denial on the one end, and running the show on the other.  But love cannot always be tidily conceptualized or verbalized.  And if we over-identify love with positive thought and sensations, suffering will function, with difficult kindness, as a corrective. 

People with CPTSD struggle to identify normalcy.  They have often been told their responses are odd, that they can't deal with "life as it is."  The truth is different: people with CPTSD have normal reactions to dysfunctional situations--which they're then gaslit into believing are normal.  One of the most important functions of scripture is this: emotional recognition.  Jesus flipped tables and wept.  He was troubled, but understood being troubled as "a task at hand" through which God could be glorified.  The psalms express a whole spectrum of desolation, feelings of dehumanization, wrath, vengeance, paranoia.  And when we who are traumatized read about them, we become safe enough to say "so that's what that sensation is called!"  Face time with the scriptures is important for emotional literacy.

People with CPTSD often have racing thoughts--in ways that mimic obsessive compulsive or bipolar thought patterns.  The difficulty is this--those thoughts aren't always negative.  Racing thoughts can be about, for instance, faith.  They can feel quite blissful, and can offer a real alternative to addictive behavior.  In that way, blissful racing thoughts are a mercy; and yet they may still be a trauma response.  This is why God was silent while Elijah told him, three times, that he'd been zealous for the Lord and they were seeking his life.  God knew the racing thoughts were a trauma response: the is why God was not in earthquake, wind or fire, but why he was absolutely present in the still small voice of silence. 

People with CPTSD have difficult relationships with mind, emotions and nervous system. The Trinity is, in the first place, a personification of how the mind works: in other words, fragmented minds choose deities with moving parts. The Father becomes the "divine persona" in relation to whom we straighten out the mind. The Son becomes the "divine persona" in relation to whom we work out our emotions. The Holy Spirit becomes the "divine persona" in relation to whom we learn to regulate our nervous system.  The arising of the trinity within--what the Greek Orthodox Church calls "theosis" or "deification--comes specifically out of trauma induced fragmentation of the psyche.  

People with CPTSD store trauma in the body. The prophets very often felt generational trauma viscerally. Elijah was so depressed he asked the Lord to take his life. Ezekiel saw a field of dry bones, most likely his own, and had to reframe pent up trauma by prophesying to the flesh.  He had to calm the nervous system by prophesying to the breath.  My body and yours may have been slapped around too much, and will then permanently brace.  We'll have pain we can't explain in the very spots that were struck, until we go to that spot, speak soothingly to the body consistently enough that it can finally relax.  It is a hard, necessary obligation.

People with CPTSD dissociate: when we come out of denial, dissociation feels negative. After a while it begins simply to feel numb, and after that, we realize dissociation is preferable to attachment. When we deal with the suffering of life increasingly head on, we are freed from attachment in real time. The task then becomes to fill that space with virtue and the various transformations of theosis--learning to bear up under stress and become the Christ you've received.

People with CPTSD are hypervigilant: when the ego becomes quiet, the energy behind this can become deep acceptance of reality as it is. Life can be full of alternating bliss and pain, full of alternating attraction and aversion, and the individual practitioner remains still. To craving and clinging, there is always a cost. Our help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.  Attempting to control or find security based on ego, craving or desire will always take a toll in anxiety.

People with CPTSD struggle with identity. The demoniac said "my name is Legion, for we are many."  Martha was worried and concerned about many things.  Mary was possessed by eight demons. Let us remember: ego is an umbrella concept that is driven by many different compulsive thoughts. But ego is a preoccupation that quickly shows its ineffectiveness--eventually, the demoniac was gashing himself with rocks. The "many preoccupations" yield as one becomes grounded in the body. The vehicle of this is the name of Jesus, repeated as mantra. Giving attention to the feeling of sound, we increasingly see the worth of giving ourselves something to feel that's neither a drug nor anxiety. The question "who am I" ceases to be as important as "how do I give meaningful attention to the sound of the name?" 

People with cptsd struggle to feel understood. No one understands the trauma, and no one understands the spiritual awakening. It is hard to figure out which spiritual thoughts are socially significant, and which are merely individually significant. The prophet Jeremiah said "When I said 'I will not mention him or speak anymore in his name' then within me there is something like a burning fire, shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot." Verbal impulsivity is a trauma response, often referred to as "trauma dumping." Legion, after being healed, went off and proclaimed Christ in the decapolis--but this is a charitable framing indeed.  Confrontation with the limits of people's energy for understanding is swift.  St. Francis knew the pitfalls of going through life longing to be understood: he prayed "grant that I may never seek so much to be understood as to understand."  Suffering doesn't end, nor ultimately does it cease to be solitary or burdensome: instead it gains us empathy for the struggles of others.

For what it's worth, a spiritual program that better suited people with CPTSD would consist of five things: shadow work, via negativa spirituality, theosis, somatic body work, and mantra.  Shadow work is a practice of "being safe enough to look at what you've repressed."  The cross of Christ may seem like retraumatization, but devotion to the suffering and death of Christ can become a safe method of gradually facing and processing your own.  The Scriptures can be helpful in this regard--it can allow us to face our unhealthiest selves and embrace something better.  For example, take the wide acceptance of the "tongues of fire" metaphor for the holy spirit--it comes from Isaiah 5.  The fact is, the same spot says "woe to you who are heroes at drinking wine."  We all know that drinking is a tempting way to avoid grief, and that the apostles were certainly grieving.  It isn't a stretch to think acceptance of the tongues of fire image points to a realization that assisted in concretizing sobriety for those who overused it.   

Via negativa spirituality--a spirituality that distrusts thoughts as divine messages-- is important because the transactionality of negotiating survival needs can often feel blissful and be clothed in spiritual language--but it is still transactionality; it still falls short of trust in providence.  Manipulating in God's name is a possibility, and since God's name is "I AM" it is easily confused with ego--we can fall into it simply by forgetting that God's ways and our ways differ.  The famous "cloud of unknowing"--the mystical method for quickly letting go of understandings we cling to--can be useful whether those understandings are negative or positive.  

Theosis is simply the process of realizing that, as one greek orthodox catechumen said "I can do hard things."  Growth in virtue, in this case, is a manifestation of the indwelling of the Trinity.  Bearing uneven and unfair weight, being happy when reasons to be sad persist, and choosing fascination with beauty when horrific chaos persists--all of these are "God skills."  They show that the Father is arising within, of whom psalm 2 says "he who sits in the heavens laughs."  As we laugh along, our ears open to later lines in the same psalm, where the Father says to us "you are my son, it is I who have begotten you this day."  We need not wonder where the Father, Son, or, indeed, the Spirit are--they are the one within us whom we do not know. 

Somatic body work is a fancy modern term for "the body keeping the score."  The body will store what the mind fails to face and let go of.  When the patriarch Jacob "struggled with a divine being till daybreak" he was dealing with trauma stored in his hip.  He faced the tension and it blessed him but it left him with a permanent limp.  Such is the lot of those who "struggle with God and prevail.  The Desert Fathers are depicted as "struggling with demons"--and many of those struggles resolved as did the demoniac in Capernaum.  The man yelled "I know who you are, the holy one of God"--interestingly, excessive certainly clothed in faith is shown, here, to be demonic--and when the man became more able to sit with uncertainty the text says the spirit "came out of him, without having done him any harm."  

Mantra is important because "the feeling of sound" is, on a sensation level, a more pleasant feeling than anxiety.  Mantra's inner dimensions--slowly calling the mind to the name of Jesus (or whatever your mantra is)--this is easier to think about than the afflictive thoughts with which the mind attempts to secure survival needs.  Such prayers work their way slowly, making an echo chamber of the body by repeated practice.  First the sound becomes something that can be felt, then the vibrations assist in breaking up stored tension, then bodily sensations themselves come to represent prayer.  Finally, the sounds and people we're surrounded by begin, themselves, to pray the mantra.  This is what St. Paul talked about "in God we live and move and have our being."  It is also what St. Peter talked about when he said to the paralytic "in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise and walk."

The desert fathers have a term, the word "penthos." (Theologians would also use the term "compunction." Both mean "healthy sorrow for sins.")  In a broader sense, the grief we are called to includes mourning our impermanence, suffering and death, as well as all of the generational trauma we've inherited.  And it brings us back to what is perhaps a fuller definition of Christ's priestly ministry.  The prophet Joel says "let the priests, between the vestibule and the altar, weep."  In Christ, we don't bemoan attachments and sins on behalf of others--as if we're an unblemished sacrifice, they're in denial, and we're doing them a favor.  We are becoming more aware of a malady common to us all, as Saint Paul said "there is not a good man left, no not even one."  About the process of becoming emotionally sober, a recovering alcoholic once humorously noted "I don't know why I expected the process to be cleaner than this.  I mean, I'm made of dirt!"  It turns out that our serenity itself consists of this: to remember we are dust, and to dust we shall return.  Earth and heaven, the stuff we're made of, will echo with anxiety till we do.

In the Name of Jesus: Mantra, an Apostolic Practice.

In past posts, we've talked a bit about how, according to the epistles, "Christ replaces self."  Paul said "I live, but not I, Christ lives in me."  Intellectually, readers either grasped that, or didn't.  But investigating what lived-practice might have produced the intellectual belief may pay higher dividends than we anticipate.  As to what that "mystery practice" was, this text will hazard a single-worded suggestion: [bxA] mantra.  Such a guess assumes that, when acts 3:6 says "in the name of Jesus, rise and walk" it is pointing to a gradually deepening experience of "the feeling of sound."  When the body itself becomes the locus of Elijah's "cave experience," when our limbs themselves reverberate with "kol demamah dakkah" or "the sound of sheer silence," bets get placed on the accuracy of this intuition.  Indeed, "the feeling of sound" has the capacity to make us present to "things as they are" simply because the vibrations of sound are more appealing to feel than anxiety.  And here is a final guess, on which spiritual masters, any day of the week, might indeed wager honest money: in the epistles, one who remains with the feeling of sound is said to be "in the name of Jesus."

This is not a new experience.  The famous "Pilgrim" wandered about Russia praying "Jesus, mercy" constantly, feeling the intense desire for the prayer arise at various times.  Krishna Das said "my job is to pay attention to the sound of the Name, and to come back when I get distracted."  Fr. Chrysogonus of Gethsemani said "You do not take the word of God into your mouth.  Instead you enter into the Word, because the Word is bigger than you are." (He may have been paraphrasing Abraham Joshua Heschel, here, though memory is an unreliable servant.)  Ram Dass talks about that moment when "jappa" or mantra becomes "ajappa jappa"--the moment when "the mantra prays itself and I listen."  The dynamics of mantra practice are uniform across religious traditions.  This text concludes that the apostles had similar experience with the name of Jesus, and that the experience became a cornerstone of Christian humility. 

Here's how to do it.  Becoming as still as possible is advisable: by lying down, if you can manage to stay awake, by sitting in a chair: do whatever strikes a balance between minimizing discomfort and maximizing alertness.  Your ego will want to try to twist your body into a pretzel--it'll want to attempt full lotus or vajrassana because one "looks more spiritual" that way.  Do this if you must, but if you don't build up to those with years of practice, pulled muscles will convince you that stillness, not "the appearance of holiness" is the goal.

Take the word into your mouth.  Longer mantras will feed the intellect, such as "always carrying in the body the death of Christ, so that the life of Christ may be made known in our mortal bodies also."  Shorter mantras will focus you on sound itself such as "Jesus, mercy."  You'll notice the mantra is "one of many things you think about."  For a while, that's just fine.  There will come a time when the impulsion arises, to let go of things that aren't the mantra, and if you aren't operating heavy machinery when it does (if you can spare the attention safely,) follow that impulse.

Apply a bit of force with the lower abdomen, pushing the muscles inward and down.  This will decrease thoughts about things that aren't the mantra.  You may also begin to realize that you "feel sound more."  Where you feel the sound will shift, depending on where your body is carrying tension--the vibrations of sound will gradually break up stored tension.  Gently focus attention ("mind energy") and intention ("guts energy") on physical sensation, regardless of whether the sensation is pleasant or painful. Bliss will arise, let it go.  Pain will arise, stay with it till your desire to judge the sensation subsides.  As signs of intent and objects of attention, physical sensations themselves will come to stand in for words as the substance of prayer.  That shift is safe, natural, completely ok.

At some point, All physical sensations become the mantra.  All sounds become the mantra.  Your ego will say "this is so groovy" and "prayer is really happening." And if you can, minimize clinging and analysis by remaining with physical sensation.  Then, let go.  Demands of life will take over, marking a natural end of "practice time."   

And listen: this is a practice that leads to transformation.  Not a magical solution for ongoing problems.  Suffering will remain--the one enduring it will change.  The struggle for daily sustenance will remain--the one punching the time clock will change.  You will notice you need less control, fewer assurances of security to sustain practice.  This is a "God skill" to work and rejoice in life's nifty bits while stressors remain.  Glimmers of real growth will arise and subside--and those, while temporary, are significant indeed.

St. Paul was a cranky bloke, but his experience of prayer was certain.  Like the silliest goose in the gaggle, he boasted of his sufferings: he was shipwrecked, flogged, and occasionally homeless.  But he eventually looked at the "god unknown" and knew who it was.  He eventually said "in God we live, and move, and have our being."  He eventually could say "I have become all things to all people" even if it meant appearing a criminal, unjustly, to some.  Life is "everything, all at once" and some of it is hard.  Amidst impermanent joys and disappointed expectations, genuine contentment is a rare feeling, and an even rarer deliberate choice.  If our track record were half as good as mantra made the apostles, we would be fortunate indeed.

 

Christ, the healer of CPTSD

Christ, the healer of fragmented consciousness

Those living with CPTSD (or, who grow up in dysfunctional households,) can confirm this by lived experience: both pain and bliss fragment consciousness. [bxA]  To incarnate at all is to bear great risk--and to bear additional trauma worsens our suffering still more.  But listen: Martha was worried and concerned about many things, and there was need of only one thing.  The Adulterous woman committed many sins, but her judges dropped their rocks and she was left with Christ alone.  On the mount of the Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah appeared with Jesus: the building of multiple tents was suggested.  But after the fear and the cloud, the apostles, too, were left with Christ alone.  Legion's names were many, but, stilled by Christ's presence, he dropped the rocks he gashed himself with and sat, clothed and in his right mind.  Mind, emotions and nervous system long for stillness...failure to find it multiplies anxieties, makes life's inevitable sufferings infinitely worse.  We who know this commit to seeking diminishment of suffering for all sentient beings.  Messiahs and Buddhas have seen it together: for those living in a hell realm, kindness is the only sane response.  To live out of this realization is the beginning of awakening.

Indeed, the epistles teach that Christ replaces self.  The modern age is slightly incorrect when it says "if you were the last person on earth, Christ would have come just for you."  Note the slight and important nuance here: instead, the Christ of John's gospel says "because I live, you will live." We hear Holy Writ lay the groundwork: Christ is before all else that is, the firstborn of the dead.  Neither pain nor bliss are ours to build an ego story from.  Eventually, we become devoted to sensations we were once averse to--because we've come to know "the one within" who bears what we cannot.  Paul identifies him specifically, says "I live, but not I, Christ lives in me."

The Eight Evil thoughts of the Lower and Higher Selves.

The Desert Fathers taught that a certain predictable set of compulsive thoughts would, in the emptiness of their solitude, pose itself as a solution to basic vulnerability.  Thousands of years later, they not only remain correct, they are widely recognized as the world's first psychologists.

Here is the kicker, though: there isn't just a single list of eight thoughts, there are two.  One pertains to the lower self, and the list of manipulative thoughts and behaviors with which we end run around our the struggle to get basic needs met.  The other pertains to the higher self, and to the challenges of those whose experiences of humility, contemplation, and the empty mind of Christ, though unquestionable, are also not yet permanent.

The "eight evil thoughts of the lower self" is a list of afflictions that come about as a response to initial solitude. Theologians will find it familiar.   The eight evil thoughts of the lower self are: gluttony (the compulsive thought about food),  greed (the compulsive thought about new possessions or status) sloth (the compulsive thought about life's pressures), sorrow (the compulsive thought about sadness), lust (the compulsive thought about others' bodies or attention), wrath (the compulsive thought about anger), vanity (the compulsive thought about our own excellence),  and pride (the compulsive thought about our own self sufficiency.)

There's a set of people, usually somewhere in the midst of various dark nights, who have begun to see the problems that redemption leaves in place in disappointing preference for changing their own heart.  The dark night of the senses is hard, but eventually they see that spiritual work is necessary for sanity.  There's group of practitioners who have begun the frustrating process of trying to find a church with the mechanisms to accommodate their unique vocation.  The dark night of the spirit is hard, but eventually practitioners realize that God's voice isn't as limited as the response rate of various churches.   

The divine image has perhaps begun to clarify itself in such people.  In "the eight evil thoughts of the higher self," there is an "I" anticipating a spiritual or temporal benefit, which is usually frustrated.  Self pity is simply an "I" that can't deal with insecurity.  Shame is simply an "I" that can't deal with past mistakes.  Blame is merely an "I" that can't take responsibility.  Remorse is just an "I" that can't let go of past mistakes. Rationalization is an "I" that can't face poor choices.  Resentment is simply an "I" that can't let go of emotion.  Worry is just an "I" that can't trust in providence.  Entitlement is merely an I that believes the universe owes it something.  If we walk around saying "that's who I am" instead of grounding in the body and letting the thoughts pass, anxiety proliferation goes into overdrive.

Here is what all 16 evil thoughts do.  They interpose themselves between us and our senses.  When you are angry at your coworker, you are more likely to crash your car.  When you are daydreaming about tasty leftovers in your fridge, you are mentally checked out from conversation with colleagues.  When you are unable to let go of sadness, you cease to be able to taste your food because you are too in your head.  A return to seeing, feeling, and hearing becomes necessary, but it escapes us, ongoingly and for years.

The Paradox of Theosis and Shadow work

The Trinity within is the highest form of consciousness, but even that must be surrendered into mystery in the end--as Christ said "into your hands I commend my spirit."  Christ emptied himself, and his saints say "en la montaña nada"--so dissociation must be faced as dissociation in the end.  But there is much to be learned in the interim.

The Father within is the observer: he alone can see our silly little ego drama from a perspective of "otherness."  The Father is happy and fascinated.  He creates, and, without needing control or security, he can still manage to be utterly jazzed about stuff.  The Father can allow chaos to be chaos, while still appreciating its genuinely neat and shiny bits.

The Son within is the compassionate one: he's the one who could judge, but doesn't, who could blame but instead says "father forgive them," who could avoid pain but instead says "thy will be done" and "It was for this hour that I have come into the world."  Every flaw whose energy is turned into a spiritual gift--when this happens, Christ is present.

The Spirit within teaches sensitivity to the subtler layers of embodied experience, and it is the energy which, like angels ascending and descending Jacob's ladder, ascends our spine to turn our evil thoughts into gifts of the spirit.  This clears blockages--and can be painful, unless our consciousness is modified by some sort of altered state of consciousness.  The Spirit rose in the apostles when a knock came at the door after the crucifixion.  They were afraid of arrest and execution, and held their breath--Hindus say subtle energy rises within when the breath is held--and the Spirit is no different.

Christ became all that is seen and unseen, and his disciples became all things to all people.  We see God in ourselves, and we will also bear a suffering that expresses not just individual evil, but systemic evil.  We fulfill the law, the prophets and the psalms and half of that is not fun in the least: because we become all that is sinful, wrongfully accused, condemned, debased.  We are nothing if not everything.

The Layers

Give up self and do not judge, and you will realize: action is motivated by thought.  Thought is motivated by emotion. Emotion is motivated by sensation.  Sensation is motivated by energy.  Energy is not to be judged--deciding to think about energy and sensation instead of feeling them and letting them go can cause immeasurable self-induced suffering.  Not everything we go through makes sense logically--and yet it's still incumbent on us to deal with it.  What we cannot deal with as intense thought or emotion, this we may yet be able to feel on the level of sensation.

We cling to what we're attracted to, we push away what we're averse to, and we've transferred that onto God.  So what's pleasant we call a blessing, what's unpleasant we call a curse.  This isn't just "not necessarily true."  Realize all attractions are temporary.  Enjoy them and let them go.  Our nervous systems are wired to do this, and skimping on "recognizing impermanence" can lead to lifetimes of game playing. Realize all pain contains a lesson.  Set your face like flint and learn it.  When the learning becomes preferable to avoidance, Christ will be present in your own body.  

Body Work in the Patriarchs and prophets.

Moses had abandonment issues and a murder rap. He spent his midlife experimenting with the primary drive systems of breath, sex and nervous system regulation. God's name is YHWH, which is merely a transliterated breath cycle. When compulsive thought goes quiet even for a moment, hearing your own breath is a theophany. Again, Moses' staff was a snake when he let go of it, and it stiffened when he reached out and grabbed it. Without judging at all: this is a metaphor for masturbation--relax, it's ok, neither trauma nor grief are clean--most likely, in the desert, the means for self-comfort were in short supply. Lastly, Moses saw the burning bush: This was most likely a creosote bush, which contains resins that make it flammable and an irrigation system that allows it to survive--but is very well could also have been "Moses experiencing his nervous system." Jacob struggled with a being till dawn, and it broke his hip--this was just a process of facing stored trauma. Ezekiel "prophesied to a field of dry bones." Those dry bones were his own. He was reframing trauma.  Jeremiah said "when I say 'I will not mention him or speak anymore in his name' then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones.  I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot."  In other words, he struggled with "verbal impulsivity"--and a confusion about whether his words were socially, or merely individually valuable.  Anyone with CPTSD is familiar with the phrase "trauma dumping"-- and this totally describes that.  One wonders whether the prophets were simply people who were highly sensitive to communal grief.



The Jewish God concept is a method of nervous system regulation: Breathe, Listen, Feel Mantra

Modern psychology would tell anyone suffering an anxiety attack "five, four three, two, one. Tell me five things you can feel, four things you can see, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, one thing you can taste."  This is a method of "grounding in the body."  But it is not new.  Mystics like Francisco de Osuna and Teresa of Avila have been talking about "recollection" for centuries.  Recollection means "the in-gathering of the senses around the presence of God."  But let us be honest: modern psychology and the Spanish mystics were really repackaging something much older--as old, in fact, as the Jewish God concept itself.

The Jewish God concept is a method of nervous system regulation, summed up in 4 parts: breathe, listen, feel, mantra.  Breathe: YHWH is a transliterated breath cycle. No matter what is TAUGHT, Moses experienced a head quiet enough that his ears heard his own breathing. Listen: “Shema Israel” is a statement of faith for a reason. Elijah had to give up his self concept “I have been zealous for the lord, and they are seeking my life” before he heard the still small voice.  Feel: Ezekiel “saw the dry bones”—which were probably his own—and had to “prophesy” to reframe the trauma. Mantra: Elijah heard "kol dammamah daqqah" (translated as "the sound of sheer silence," kol also means "everything.")  The feeling of sound in the body allows us something to concentrate on that isn't anxiety.  Chanting Christ's name constantly gives a new name to the identity that CPTSD fragmented. We who chant the name realize that the name is bigger than we are. This is nothing new: Paul says "In God we live and move and have our being."

The Teachings of Jesus

Instituted by Christ, the sacraments give grace. But grace resembles neither a costume nor a drug. In other words, sacramental grace enables us to live with increasingly profound levels of emptiness--not "maintain a piety performance amidst stresses." Accordingly there's this to say: basic needs make us feel vulnerable, and sacraments render us not just "unafraid of insecurity" but able to accept that very lack of control as sacred ground.

Think of it this way. Initially, A baptized infant is completely vulnerable. That infant will develop an ego as a survival mechanism. Pride is, indeed, at the door, and will need to be mastered. But what serves in the short term will take a long term toll. Baptism is what's needed to transform the terror of vulnerability into fear of the Lord--baptism, and the prayer that looks at the fearfulness of existence and says "O God, come to my assistance!" Next, we all have a basic need for belonging. Sloth will pose itself as a solution to life's pressures generally--and we will vacillate between anxious overwork and underwork for years. Confirmation teaches us we belong to Christ, we come from and return to him, and it's Christ who both works and rests in us--that Spirit of knowledge will have a gradually calming effect. Finally, we all have a basic need for nourishment. And we can cling, use food to cope. But just as daily work is Christ himself, so is daily bread. It's a hard thing, asking food to provide neither emotional comfort nor security, but, whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, gathering more than what rest and work requires inevitably leads to spoilage. Fortitude forms as trust that the Father knows our needs: whether for food, or the Word, and a spirit of might begets remembrance that "hungering without fear" is itself nourishment.

On the one hand, we are at a disadvantage, learning to love: not even legitimate basic needs for affection and acceptance guarantee need fulfillment. However imperfect a marriage, not everyone goes home to spouse that's happy to see them. Not everyone pairs with someone able to be vulnerable and communicate clearly. Marriage comes with a "grace of state" which is nothing more than acknowledgment of how lucky we are. Whether in marriage or not, hardships in love should be, like any involuntary pain, revered. But the spirit of justice fills us with empathy, and it helps us to see others' suffering. On the other hand, we are at a disadvantage, learning to serve. Those with trauma to grieve often lack limits, and trade people pleasing for approval. This is not charity. Holy Orders is given to us so that we can balance self-care with helping those we can. At our inability to do enough, wrath is a real option. What can we say, except "Lord I believe, help my unbelief?" As faith forms, we entrust those we can't help to God, and, whether busy or at rest, abandon ourselves to his care.

Under the sun, none are righteous, and none exempt from struggle. Make no mistake, forgiveness is a basic human need, and an immense vulnerability: but the sacrament of reconciliation shows the need was holy the whole time. Our fear of judgement--justified or not--is massive. It can be paralyzing, and if it's not, our egos may be purchasing their functionality by sorrow. Sorrow isn't just "feeling sad and letting go," it's using sadness to manipulate. If we can sit with the sorrow till the energy shifts, we grow in Wisdom--and we have the necessary experience to fuel true hope. Grieving till the energy shifts by itself, enduring hard lessons, allowing the legitimate enjoyment of impermanent things--all of these things are part of the lawful unfolding of life on which our serenity hinges--we buck the lessons at the expense of our own calm. Make no mistake: denial of impermanence, (full, as it is of clingy little temptations to greed) costs us more dearly than we admit: and the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick sets us on the right path. Acceptance of aging, sickness and death, even biologically, is a basic human need--the lack of which leads to all sorts of insecurities. And if we can sit with all of that till the energy shifts, the Spirit of the Lord arises in us to say "It is finished. Into your hands I commend my spirit." But before that, after knowledge passes away and tongues cease, we learn by experience that love enables us to endure all things.

No teacher in Israel undercuts self-righteousness more purposefully than Jesus. To that end, despite how egos long to be excused from struggle, Jesus left what was taboo in place on purpose, for its usefulness in growing humility. Disappointed expectations are Christ's classroom space. That's otherworldly difficult, but his kingdom is not of this world. And neither is the one within us of whom it's written "morning by morning he wakens, wakens my ear to listen as one who is taught." For egos, otherness is an entrance exam, and following is a placeholder for recess.

Jesus modeled and mandated a vital relationship with silence. (Remember Elijah, in his cave, asked three times "why have you come here?" When he replied "I have been very zealous for the Lord of hosts," the Lord was entirely silent. We can see that Jesus absorbed the lesson--there was a point, standing before Pilate, where Jesus went entirely quiet. And we know the cosmos respected it, too--at the cross, for the space of half an hour, even the heavens were silent. For Jesus, isolation was a teaching tool. Jesus tells the Roman official "go, your son will live." He tells the demoniac Legion "Go home to your family and friends, and tell them all that the Lord, in his mercy, has done for you." Jesus taught using non-fulfillment. Remember Jesus talks about "Naaman the syrian"--who longed for the miraculous to be flashy, but for whom normal, unheroic things were the path to healing. Moses asked to see God's glory, but was only shown his back. Jesus taught using overwhelm. The disciples worked all night, and caught nothing. They had no leisure, even to eat. And when they said to Jesus "Rabbi, eat something, he said "My food is to do the will of God." For Christ, scandal had a lesson value: the law said "cursed is he who hangs upon a tree" and yet he also said "take up your cross and follow." Cannibalism, in the Torah, was a feature of desperate times. Christ was making it clear, when he said "unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you cannot have life" that redemption would not excuse his disciples from times of desperation. Jesus--who gave the commandments "give up self" and "do not judge"--freely used "condemnability" as a teaching tool. Egos judge--they should no more be blamed for it than a tree should, for growing toward the sun. And so Jesus said "if you call a brother a fool, you are liable to the council. Even the innocent are liable to judgement, when the scales of power tip that way. Jesus said to Pilate, "you would have no power over me if it weren't given to you by the Father." He said that his disciples will be hauled before governors and kings, that they're to use it as an opportunity to testify. Indeed, if you're willing to accept it, it's of the ego itself that Jesus said "If it is my will that he remain until I return, what is that to you? Come follow me." Lastly, Jesus taught using dissociation. At first dissociation feels negative. Given some time, it feels more numb than anything else. Finally, dissociation cleanses us of attachments, and "going through the motions" feels somewhat preferable to the anxieties of craving, attachment, manipulation. Indeed, dissociation is that thing Paul eventually renames in himself: "I live," he said," but not I. Christ lives in me."

The End Result. 

The very coping mechanisms that kept us safe--these now become our spiritual gifts.  We are digging around a fruitless tree, trying to get at the roots of our actions and actually experience a change of heart and mind.  As it is written "make friends for yourselves with the world's wealth, so that when it is gone, they might welcome you into the eternal homes."  And again "If you do not do well with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own?" Hypervigilance becomes deep presence.  The survival technique of "reading a room accurately" becomes a sure foundation for empathy.  Emotional impulsivity becomes spontaneous obedience to the needs of the moment.  We are learning, in trauma, the gifts we will eventually use in service to others.   

Following is a paradox, not a dichotomy.  Life and death, pain and pleasure, eternality within impermanence--they're not punishments or rewards, they're just items on an incarnational to do list.  If you can hear that, perhaps it'll feel safe to be aware, as well, that when our logical minds finally relax, everything is paradox.  When Abraham's servant asked Rebekkah's parents if they'd allow a marriage to Isaac, they replied "we cannot say one thing to you, bad or good, the thing comes from the Lord." In the book of Ezra, a mixed group of exiles attended the dedication of the second temple.  Those old enough to remember the first one wept loudly.  Those too young to remember rejoiced.  The text says "the weeping was indistinguishable from the rejoicing."  Jesus said "I am troubled now, but what should I say 'Father, save me from this hour?' It was for this hour that I came into the world."

Intuiting when to let go and when to steel our resolve is difficult work--but its yield is equanimity. Our egos are incapable of grasping this, but the Christ within--a whole persona built of unknowing and humility and intuition--this is the one within us for whom it is is possible.  Our aversions and attractions aren't ours.  They belong to the 'Christ within" and our serenity is contingent on surrendering everything, even our identities themselves, to the one who heals us.  It is written "always carrying in the body the death of Christ, so that the life of Christ may be made known in our mortal bodies also."  

For the traumatized specifically, Christ's appearance in the hungry, the homeless, the sick, the imprisoned--this expresses an awareness objective, not a social service objective.  Christ became literally present in marginalized groups so that we'd end up devoted to the poor and needy, having seen our own vulnerabilities in the mirror of theirs.  And so there'd be a safe place to work out people pleasing, codependent lack of limits, and an externally referenced sense of self.  This is why Thomas, when presented with Christ's wounds, given the opportunty to probe them, simply said "my Lord and my God!"

For followers of Jesus, equanimity is an underrated objective.  But if we can enjoy things and let go of them, learn hard lessons when they're on the day's curriculum,  we will begin to see our liabilities become our strengths in real time.  Hypervigilance will become deep presence.  Emotional impulsivity will become prudence.  As the big book says "we will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us"--if only we can get our egos out of the way. 

In real time, our sorrow will turn to joy: we will understand "blessed are those who weep" because we've broken into deep laughter.  Indeed, all who suffer to live for a standard will know what it means to be told "Blessed are you when people hate you and revile you on account of the Son of Man." Because it will be in their own flesh that the prophetic vocation is fulfilled "rejoice on that day and leap for joy."  To hunger without fear is itself a nourishment.  To the pure in heart, all things are pure--even suffering and pain--and those who see it are God's children.

Focusing attention and intention on sensation defends us from overstimulation, and such focus diminishes compulsive thought.  Ask a person to rate the noise in their head on a scale of one to ten, and most people, being possessed of chatty minds, will hover from the six to eight range.  But ask them to listen to the noises outside the room they're sitting in, and most people's "head noise rating" falls dramatically.  This is why psychologists tell nervous people to "ground in the senses" when they're anxious.  Focused senses diminish thought.  And the same can cancel out thoughts of self altogether.

Indeed, we take in data with our senses all day long, but only with focused attention and intention are we able to let compulsive thoughts go.  One of the many blind men in the gospel required two touches from Jesus: after the first, he could see people, but they looked like trees.  After the second, the text says the blind man "looked intently" and saw things as they are.  Bartimaeus was blind until the messiah was standing right in front of him.  It was the Christ asking "what do you want me to do for you," and the Christ is the first thing he saw when he replied "Rabbi, I want to see."  What stands right in front of us asks "do you believe in the son of man?" We ask, "who is he, sir" and he says "the one speaking with you is he."  St. Paul talked to the Ephesians about "seeing with the eyes of the heart."  Benedict tells monks to "Listen with the ear of the heart."  

And if St. Paul is right, if "I live, but not I, Christ lives in me," then if I'm able to see what's in front of my face, to truly hear what's being said, to be rooted in the body and able to feel emotion and sensation--if that has happened, then it's Christ doing the seeing, the hearing and the feeling.  Theresa of Avila said "Christ has no body now but yours" and thank God: it is the only reason we can perceive accurately in the first place.  Our part is just to watch.

Lectio Divina with the Apostles

Predictably, every spiritual author has a chapter, somewhere, in which the method of Lectio Divina is described.  Typically, it goes something like this "over the course of three, slow readings, the practitioner is to answer three questions: first "what word or phrase jumps out at me?" second "Why is that word or phrase jumping out at me?" And finally "what do I believe this scripture to be calling me to?"

This method is fine and good, I suppose.  But it can lead to simple confirmation bias--we see what we want. And It leaves in place the very thing that humility seeks to reduce: ego. Luckily, the apostles had a different method.  [bxA] Be forewarned: it is not fun.  It demands a great deal of those who practice it.

In this method, tension gathers at the question words.  Initially, because we're looking for help outside ourselves, we become focused on "empty space" (as it is written "watch, therefore, for you know not when the master of the house is coming.") We have heroic work to do.  See, we're inclined to see it emptiness as negative--because silence surfaces the heart's negativity.  But this is only so that we can recognize our appointed conversion experience, "aha" that moment when the background becomes foreground and emotional options expand.  Only after he was nailed to the cross did Jesus find the means to forgive his persecutors.

Let me clarify what I mean when I say "tension gathers at the question words."  Faith isn't a matter of certainty or doubt.  It's keeping our attention and intention focused on time, distance and agency until the answer is given to you, by intuition instead of intellect, realization instead of reason, in the here and now.  In this process, the ego-cancelling tensions will outlast the self of the questioner. Nebuchadnezzar attempted to execute 3 youths in a fiery furnace, saying "who is the God who will deliver you out of my hands?"  Scripture says they were unharmed in the flames, and that a fourth appeared, looking like a God.  Psalm 121 says "I lift my eyes to the mountains, from where shall come my help?"  As if answering his own question, the psalmist says "My help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth."  St. Paul is meditating on the prophet Isaiah, which says "at an acceptable time I have heard you, in a day of salvation I have helped you."  Paul later reports "now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation."  So you see, three things have happened here. First, questions like "who, where, and when" have become unbearable--and they've surfaced fears of being wrong, being judged.  Second, the "self doing the asking" has been, at least, purified, if not cancelled out entirely.  Finally, the solution we expected to be remote has come close. 

There are further things to say: done in this way, lectio divina corrects misconceptions.  One misconception is causality.  The apostles ask "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus replies "this happened so that the works of God might be revealed in him."  In other words, our sense of cause and effect aren't always accurate. Another misconception is avoidance.  Of the cross, one thief said "if you are the messiah, save yourself and us."  Another thief said "remember me when you come into your kingdom."  But Jesus knew the kingdom wasn't later: and he had already said "if this cup could not pass unless I drink it, thy will be done." Christ's robust acceptance opened the moment to everything, and even suffering was transformed.  A third misconception is dualism.  When Abraham's servant asks Laban and Bethuel for their permission to wed Rebekkah to Isaac, they reply "we cannot speak to you bad or good, the thing comes from the Lord."  In the book of Ezra, a group of mixed returned-exiles attend the consecration of the second temple.  The old remembered the first temple, and mourned.  The young had no such memory, and rejoiced.  The text says "the weeping was indistinguishable from the laughter.

First we imitate Christ--we do what he did, simply because he did it.  Then we are intimate with Christ--we take him into our own experience, especially what is difficult.  Finally we internalize Christ--he disappears from our sight because it's our own eyes he sees out of, our own ears he hears out of.  And all of this transforms how we read the scripture--we recognize increasingly difficult emotions by seeing them on the page, and see our shadow side by the extensive list of rogues with whom we are brought to identify.  This is the kindness of the scripture: that we see who we are, gently, looking back through the mirror of the page.

Greeks desire order: indeed, the logos is pitched as "the order of creation."  But we proclaim Christ crucified, and that broadens the word's definition.  What we're talking about, here, is "word as paradox."  And this is a wake up call: we find that we cling to what we enjoy, push away what disgusts us.  This is why it's important that Christ suffered--so that we can be devoted to the very thing we have a tendency to push away.  This is why Christ chose what is low and despised in the world, to teach us to set our faces like flint, show devotion to the things that are not instead of running from them.  In the end, death and life are happening simultaneously--not to us, so that we can be filled with self pity, but to Christ, to God's glory. 

To sum up "Allow your questions to crucify who you think you are" said the apostles. "What is remote will draw close, and what's left is who you are." This is the truest way to do lectio divina. All that's needed is waiting, watching, prayer.

Christ the non-self part 2

In a way that, perhaps, struggled to find words, the last post said: after long disorientation, our fragmented identities seek non-self, stillness and quiet. Figures like St. Paul, in the letter to the Galatians, propose that the one in us who's capable of such motionlessness--who is us but not ego--this can only have one name: Christ.

Fair enough: but let's dig deeper. [bxA] If "the Christ of stillness" is the identity that's to be given its head. the rest of the identities must be still. In Matthew's gospel, two blind men go to Jesus and say "Son of David, have mercy on us!" Jesus says "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" If you're able to hear it, Jesus is implying a different question. "Do you you believe that I am able to do this" is also asking "have you given up doing it for yourselves?"

So, to tug at strains of thought contained in the last post: we can imagine Legion going home at Jesus' request, only to find "the gratitude he was called to" in short supply. Scripture is sympathetic--it says Legion "proclaimed Christ in the Decapolis" though it was most likely not evangelization, but rather what the modern age calls "trauma dumping:" Christ had unsettled his identity, and relating to Christ became a way of answering the "WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED" question. It probably overtaxed even those who loved him the most: busy lives can give only so much time to "verbally hashing out journeys of becoming." The psalmsist says "friends and family you have taken away, my one companion is darkness"--and how lonely it must have been to fulfill that bit of the scripture.

To Christ, the demoniac had said "my name is Legion, for we are many." Post-healing, we can imagine the flood of resentment, as his many, old identities reveal their fruitlessness. We can imagine the gradual discovery of "stores of trauma" which, since the man no longer gashed himself with rocks, he was now compelled to feel. And underneath the pain, we can imagine a store of nervous energy. And we can imagine the slow work of befriending that energy through to its gradual reframing: anxiety, see, is just the Spirit, being judged by ego instead of physically felt. The trouble is, burning alive from within is intense. Just as Elijah had a rough time getting to the point where he could bear hearing "the sound of everything"--he had to shed an identity in the doing of it--we can perhaps imagine that Legion had to do the same thing on the level of sensation. It's entirely plausible that "Feel everything, don't judge" became, with practice, possible for longer and longer stretches.

At the risk of redundancy, let's restate something quickly that--if we're making useful but baseless assumptions anyway--could also have possibly been true: the Jewish God concept is a method of nervous system regulation, and Jesus' "new spin on an old classic" was this: he used it to accept the divine lesson in painful emotions and sensations, instead of just in joy.

We've said two things, let's break them down. "The Jewish God concept is a method of nervous system regulation." Any psychologist will tell those suffering from anxiety attacks to breathe in and out. God's name is YHWH: some scholars think that is a breath cycle, transliterated. In other words, God revealed his name when Moses was still and quiet enough to hear his own breath. Any psychologist will tell those suffering from anxiety to name 5 things they can hear. Deuteronomy would codify "Hear O Israel" into a profession of faith. Any psychologist will tell those suffering from anxiety attacks to name 4 things they can feel. Ezekiel was "brought to a field of dry bones"--which, for our purposes, could well have been simply "an invitation to feel deeply the sensations of his own body." Psalm 22 says "I can feel all my bones" so we know that pain, in particular, can cause hyperawareness. Lastly, any psychologist will tell those suffering from anxiety to pick a word and lightly hum or say it in times of stress. Mantra fills the body with "the feeling of sound." When the apostles talk about being "in the name of Jesus" it may well have pointed to an apostolic practice of "repetitively praying Jesus' name"--and doing it, not only till nervousness subsides, but until the The Name showed itself to be bigger than the one pronouncing it. As was said to the Colossians, "[Jesus] is before all else that is, and in him all things hold together...he is the beginning, the firstborn of the dead." If scholars disagree, maybe argue that "Breathe, Listen, Feel, Mantra" isn't a "method for nervous system regulation" built into a god concept, it is perhaps time to listen, instead, to the body itself. We remember the scriptures that said "the spirit, the water and the blood, these three agree."

If the Transfiguration was "Jesus mining bliss for divine lessons," we know that at some point, he began to intuit that pain contained teachings as well. Remember when Jesus said "I am troubled now, but what can I say 'Father, save me from this hour?' It is for this hour that I came into the world. 'Father, Glorify your name!'" We know that, at the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus wept. We remember that, in Gethsemani, Jesus said "my soul is sorrowful, even unto death."  Jesus predicted that the messiah would be rejected, suffer, die, then rise on the third day.  This made sense, because pain focused attention and intention just as effectively as bliss--it's simply judged and rejected by egos much more consistently.  And Jesus knew that it is incumebent on one fulfilling the law, prophets and psalms to do this bit of unpleasant work, along with all else.

But he also said "sit here while I pray" and it brings us back to a beginning of sorts. If, in the end, the Christ within is quiet and still, he is perceivable only by becoming quiet and still ourselves. The profound surprise is this: in perhaps blinding realization, we see that he has felt, within us, what we couldn't bear to feel ourselves. He's the one who traverses the via dolorosa of our own spine, to be crucified at "the place of the skull." (The skull in question simply happens, fortunately or unfortunately, to be our own.) And it simply makes the point eloquently: we can leave the tempting "case of the 'poor me's" alone. Pain isn't ours, it belongs to Christ. Bliss isn't ours, it belongs to Christ. (It is written "always carrying in the body the death of Christ, so that the life of Christ may be made known in our mortal bodies also.) We have become willing to feel everything, and it has heightened our tolerance. In the same place the scripture says "we are perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed." Whether or not we enjoy it, we know this to be true.

The psalm known by latin enthusiasts as the "Te Deum" says: "Not to us, Lord, but to your name give the glory." In our flesh, our nervous systems themselves, we see God. In accepting that pain and pleasure are not two, that life and death are one, the Christ whose name we've taken for a "walking around mantra" has given us something we simply had to stop attempting to secure for ourselves. And this is what Christ, who died for us while we were still sinners, reveals for our eyes to see, for our ears to hear: Acceptance--blessed acceptance of everything, from which our egos once turned their faces. Thanks be to God, who gave Christ alone the victory, while, in our own flesh, we found quiet stillness.

From Many, To one: Christ the non-self

Jesus said to Martha: you are worried about many things, there is need of only one thing.  The adulterous woman's sins were many, but when her judges departed, she was left with Christ alone.  On Mount Tabor, Jesus glowed white, and stood beside Moses and Elijah.  After the misguided suggestion to build tents, after the cloud and the fear: Peter, James and John were left, as well, with Christ alone.

In questions of "spiritual becoming," this journey from "many to one" eventually requires the sacrifice of identity itself. [bxA]  No greater representative of this shift exists than the demoniac Legion: when asked his name, he gave it, saying "for we are many."  Initially he lived among the tombs, gashed himself with rocks.  After meeting Jesus, he was found "sitting clothed and in his right mind."

In the epistles, "Christ" is the new name for oneness.  Oneness is our source and summit--it's a cosmic principle, but it specifically eclipses the many egoic roles we play.  The Scriptures say "[Christ] is before all things, and in him all things hold together."  In order to see the process of "students becoming like the teacher" through to its end, the relativization of identity is incumbent on all who would learn thoroughly.  

You have heard of the "confusion of material cravings:" this is the dark night of senses.  You have heard of the "confusion of spiritual ideals:" this is the dark night of spirit.  But perhaps you have yet to hear of the "dark night of the self," or the confusion of identity.   Once we're attuned to this confusion, in the writings of the early Christian community, the theme is impossible to ignore.  

When ambivalence resolves, this "persona built of unknowing" gets a label: Christ.  Expressing that uncertainty, St. Paul says "I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate...who will free me from this body of death?"  Later, we can see him inching toward integration: Paul's sufferings aren't his personal possession, (for that matter, neither is his bliss).  They aren't material with which he can justifiably build an ego story. He will healthily relabel his suffering and bliss, so that his second letter to the corinthians will acknowledge that they both belong to Christ alone.  Christians are "always carrying in the body the death of Christ" he says "so that the life of Christ may be made known in our mortal bodies also." All suffering is part of Christ's death, all bliss is part of his life.  At the height of integration, Paul will say "I live, but not I, Christ lives in me."   

Returning, for a moment, to Legion: it's worth wondering what the mechanism of "sitting, clothed and in his right mind" was.  Jesus often asked those he healed to contend with non-fulfillment. Legion, healed by Jesus, wanted to get in the boat, but the Lord himself refused and sent him away.  At first, this would have surfaced all manner of resentment.  But it also would have developed the muscles of emotional choice.  Reasons for resentment may endure, but deliberately choosing gratitude fosters health and sanity.

Suffice to say: both emotionally and in terms of identity, Legion had been shaken to his core.  Finding inner stillness entailed emotional choice and "rootedness in the name." I do not know how successful Legion was at "telling his family and friends what God, in his mercy, had done"--but whatever gratitude he felt, he'd have felt while reasons to be resentful remained.  I do not know who Legion eventually decided he was, or even whether such a decision remained an important one.  But I'm certain of this: mantra-like repetition of Jesus' name--as those who pray the "Jesus Prayer" know--acquaints a person with the way everything is sound.  If Legion was like Elijah, he would have "heard the sound of everything" and the vibration of the name would have called ego into question.  It would have specifically targeted and broken up both the stores of physical tension in the body and the afflictive thoughts such tension begets.  It would not surprise me if either identity or strong emotion became, to Legion, less important than returning to the sound of Jesus' name. Vibration can be physically felt, while identities and emotions are just thoughts. If Legion let go of either of them, it would have been to embrace what was more palpable and real.

There's a paradoxical spot where sound and feeling are one, and thoughts of self become less important than remaining with such intense physical feeling.  Elijah encountered it at Horeb, and covered his face.  Christ encountered it on the cross, and surrendered his spirit.  There's a paradoxical spot where weeping and mirth are one, and it calls all our labels into question. When a mixed group of exiles rebuilt the temple, some cried and some laughed, and holy writ says the sounds were indistinguishable from one another.  There's a paradoxical spot where the wound and the healing are one, and it helps us to see others' suffering.  Christ offered Thomas the opportunity to probe this with his hands, and, (perhaps while all his doubts remained unresolved) he exclaimed. 

By becoming nothing, Jesus became everything.  In the light of paradox, Legion would have seen that the self he was giving up never existed anyway.  Legion would have seen that suffering and bliss are just a set of emotions and sensations: sometimes intense, sometimes not, but never a source of identity.  If we listen, we can guess that Legion came viscerally to understand what the formerly rich man Job, that mouthpiece of biblical wisdom, himself understood.  Perhaps, wise words were even, with some frequency, in the demoniac's mouth: he giveth, and he taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord.  Indeed, blessed are those who hear the Word of God, and do it.

Christ's prayer: When oneness blinks first

In the gospels, we see Jesus going off to pray, then teaching the crowds. With due respect to divine mystery--too often used to explain gaps in understanding--better work could be done connecting the dots between Jesus' prayer times and the things he taught. Of course we risk isogesis, but for a moment, let's be brash enough to ask "why did Christ teach as he did" and let's be generous with acceptance when the lesson costs us our misconceptions.  What do we know about Jesus' prayer practice?  And more importantly, if we come to understand it from the inside out, can we allow (to exist in us) the same vulnerabilities that made Christ raise mind, heart and voice to the Father?  God willing, for those that keep reading, the heart will answer. [bxA]

We know that Jesus refused to use "this is my beloved son" as a pathway to control.  Psalm 2 says "ask and I will bequeath you the nations...with a rod of iron you will break them"--and Jesus most likely intuited that "if fulfillment involves being violent, you're being bamboozled by ego." In his refusal to bow down to Satan in exchange for the kingdoms of the earth, Jesus knew viscerally what God was saying to him in Psalm 2's last line, "I have said 'you are my son,' it is I who have begotten you this day."  Jesus would later say "The law, the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled,"--and if Christ let go of his divine sonship, we'd be forgiven for guessing that, for us as well, "self-emptying" is a core aspect of that fulfillment.  

We know that Jesus quotes psalm 22, which says "why have you forsaken me"--and that this psalm also says "I can count all my bones."  So pain and trauma--just as much as blissful altered states of consciousness--can fragment a psyche, make a person hypersensitive to physical feeling.  We know that, in order to let go of thought, Jesus used the tools for nervous system regulation that are built into Israel's God concept.  Jesus breathed (Moses taught that the name of God was the spelling of a breath cycle.)  Jesus listened (Elijah kept listening until fire, wind and earthquake--as well as his own pious self-story--went quiet.) Finally, Jesus felt the sensations of the body (Ezekiel's dry bones, where he prophesied to the flesh and the breath, this vision at least testified a need to troubleshoot our "self talk" which Jesus would have felt along with everyone else.)   

We know that, at times, Jesus was so busy LIVING that "self" fell away.  He kept looking, but didn't comprehend; he kept listening but didn't understand.  This was dissociative, and dissociation became material for self-emptying.  At times dissociation felt negative--Christ's disciples would describe him, quoting the psalm that said "I am a worm and not a man."  At times it felt numb--Jesus died abandoned by his disciples, and the same mouth that prayed "you have taken away my friends" also said "I have born your trials, I am numb."  But dissociation was never meant to remain negative--the suffering servant, perhaps more than others, would have appreciated the line "let me hear rejoicing and gladness, that the bones you have crushed may thrill."  The SELF that grasped for control or security by labelling or examining sensory phenomena--this is something Jesus became increasingly able to let go of.  Christ got to a point where he could invite Thomas to inflict pain on him by probing his wounds.  That shows Christ was grounded in the body whether or not it was pleasant.  And that letting go allowed him to handle his attractions and aversions with ever increasing ease, to accept the range of emotions involved in becoming everything.

Prayer was "watching and waiting" while focused on negative space.  (This is why St. John Vianney could later say, of adoring the Eucharist, "I look at him, he looks at me.") Waiting for a "figure ground reversal"--the perspective shift when the background becomes foreground--this reveals that "God's sentient mystery lives in the world as well as in us." All of the metaphors about the bridegroom coming when you least expect him, or the master coming at a late hour to virgins with untrimmed wicks--these are exhortations to maintain attention and intention in a state of basic readiness for the moment when the internal energy shifts on its own.  And not only that, the source of those energy shifts is "other, intelligent, transcendent."  This is why it was God's doing when, on the cross, instead of being judgmental, Jesus said "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Consciousness, before being surrendered, expands.  The teacher  saw himself in everything, and everything in himself.  He was in bread, wine, light, vines, shepherds sheep gates.  He was in the poor, the stranger, the hungry the homeless, the sick the imprisoned.  This palpable sense of "consciousness outside himself" enabled him to abandon himself completely to the unknown--especially when the suffering of the cross led Jesus to pray "into your hands I commend my spirit"---to a father who had just been asked "why have you forsaken me." Jesus' trust was only as real as God's apparent absence was palpable.

We know that he experienced both bliss and pain in his body, and that he increasingly bucked preference and allowed "what is" to exist.  Not only did he say both "I am troubled now, but what should I say?" and "it was for this hour that I came into the world."  He also said "Let this cup pass from me" but also "Thy will be done."  Preference and choice, being subject to judgment--these are all functions of an ego that we spend a lifetime becoming aware and letting go of.  To endure the effects of an ego you've ceased to identify with is a very loving gesture.  So Jesus taught "give up self, take up your cross, and follow" as well as "do not judge lest you be judged."  But that didn't excuse him from self, and it doesn't excuse us.  To us, regarding ego, Jesus said "If it is my will that he tarry till I return, what is that to you?"  It's also to us that he says "come follow me," so we'd better, for Godsakes, get on with it.

For Jesus, prayer was not intellectual or driven by reason.  It was intuitive, driven by realization at the prompting of the spirit.  The teacher said "the Spirit blows where it wills, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes."  Long before the famous mystic (known simply as "the cloud author") spoke of surrendering everything to the cloud of unknowing, Jesus' prayer life was unafraid of "not knowing."  Indeed, it goes deeper than that: believers felt safe saying things like, "I believe, help my unbelief" in part because Christ, within each individual and in the Christian community, took on the johanine moniker--he embodied the title of "one in your midst whom you do not know."  It's "the unknown humble one" who, within us and in community, is capable of being, doing, praying when our groans are too deep for words. When Jesus says "return to me" and "remain in me" he's asking us to get grounded in the body enough to accept that, within each of us, unknowing is a persona, and for each of us, humility is acquaintance with that persona.

Finally, the disciples understood that Jesus relativizes identity.  Paul said "I live, but not I, Christ lives in me."  Regarding the difficulties of "letting go of attractions and accepting aversions," Paul reminds us that "sensations don't belong to us."  Physical feelings belong to Christ, they aren't material for an ego story.  The epistles say each believer is "always carrying in the body the death of Christ, so that the life of Christ may be made known in our mortal bodies also."  When Theresa of Avila said "Christ has no hands but yours" the hearts of believers swelled with positive feeling.  The scandal is this: we default to assuming believers will play host, bodily, to the bliss of charity.  But believers' bodies are also the only place Christ can feel anger, anxiety, nervousness, and pain.  Christ's sacrifice is perpetuated, not just in the heavenly inner life of some circular dance of trinitarian functions, but in our nerve endings themselves.  The good news is contingent on acceptance: If we can allow the discomfort of it, we'll live, move and have our being in God.  If we can let go of the bliss, allow prophesies and tongues and knowledge to cease; when love is everything that's left, everything seen and unseen will be Christ-made-present. 

Egos masquerade behind many necessary roles.  Each believer can rightly say "my name is Legion, for we are many."  Martha was told "you are worried about many things."  The adulterous woman's sins were, at worse, as numerous as her judges.  Even when Peter, James and John wanted to make three tents at the Transfiguration, they did not know what they were saying.  Christ says "there is need of only one thing" and again "sit here while I pray." By and by, the cloud of concerns will dissipate, and its host of fears with it: Christ alone is the prayer.  Being, doing, knowing are completely one in him, and he can only be here, now, in all creation and in his people.

Oneness is Christ, and Christ is oneness.  He must increase, we must decrease.  It is worth the silencing of tongues, even when they're ours.

Paradox as Real Presence

The embodiment of paradox is the word becoming flesh.  In total acceptance of paradox, your body and every body becomes Christ.  Everything is Christ and Christ is everything--rooted in the body, the way to realize this is to become nothing and nobody. In Christ, the one who said "I AM" also said "give up self" and "do not judge."  We encounter Christ as really present when we empty ourselves as he did: we can work, think and be compassionate without being a self.  Accepting suffering and letting go of bliss, accepting that both pain and pleasure are temporary, we become a union of being and nonbeing, self and non self, word and silence, knowing and unknowing.  Now it only remains for our cranky minds, our impulsive emotions and our disregulated nervous systems to adjust.  This is why everything in the law, the prophets and the psalms--though everything that's written describes Christ--can be fulfilled only in the here and now, and in us.  [bxA]

The Teacher said "Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst." And this is important: you will never know what this means until the "me" (of whom you ask what this means) is your flesh, your breath, your thoughts and emotions, sensations and energies.  Only the paradox of "emptiness and fullness," kenosis and pleroma, will root you in incarnation so deeply as to heal your emotions, nervous system, attention and intention.  Only when there is no you will the paradox of "facing wounds to find healing" be totally safe.  Tradition says Thomas looked a great deal like Jesus--so that when Christ appeared with open wounds, Thomas would more easily see his own.  We are no different.  That's a consolation, but it also challenging the ego--which only wants lasting pleasure--with the truth that "all flesh is like the grass."

To hunger without fear is Christ, and nourishment.  Because he who said "I am the bread of Life" also said "Man cannot live on bread alone." When you are able to say both and also feel and let go of all the sensations of the body, Christ is present as your own non-self.  To thirst without insecurity is Christ, and "true drink."  The one who said "eat my flesh and drink my blood" also said "I thirst."  When you can look at unmet thirsts and be unafraid, Christ is present as your own non-self. To become comfortable with insecurity, embrace "knowing/not knowing." Become the one who said "I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified."  To gain comfort with lack of control, embrace "believing/unbelieving." Keep saying to Christ "I believe, help my unbelief" until unbelief totally loses its notes of cynicism.  Belief will cease to be an intellectual thing, and become a process of arriving at total acceptance.

The body is a gateless gate, though it appears to be a prison.  When we realize this, we live and move, have our being in God, and Christ is truly present.  We sit, like the apostles, singing hymns.  The feeling of sound is enough: if our attention is sustained enough, we'll witness the falling away even of the mental voice that refers to "I, Me, and My."  Then the doors will swing open on their own.

It's of the ego that Christ spoke paradoxically, when he said both "if it is my will that he remain until I return, what is that to you" and also "nothing is lost but the one destined to be lost."  This tension--which is not "you," though it claims to be--remains so we'll let go of self, surrendering even the separation between ourselves and Christ.  The ego is the prison guard, who awoke to find all the prison doors open, and drew his sword to kill himself.  The ego is the one to whom Peter said "do not harm yourself, for we are all still here."  Egos expect benefits to following Christ, only to hear him add "persecutions" to the benefits package of discipleship.  

If we are rooted in the body more than in the mind, we will be okay.  Christ has lost nothing of what the Father has given him, and when he uses our mouths to say "into your hands I commend my spirit," we sit clothed and in our right mind, and Christ has no body but ours to sit still in.  Neither pain nor bliss, nor calm nor stress--none of this is ours to build an ego story out of.  It all belongs to Christ.  He is the firstborn of the dead, and death isn't expected to be anything but painful, grumpy, uncomfortable.  There will be reasons to flip tables.  Neither the body nor the temple were ever meant to be a vessel of stored trauma that substitution sacrifice made them into.  Go ahead and lose your shit.  All shit belongs to Christ, anyway.  When you think, who do you think you are?  Wouldn't "not thinking" be more peaceful? If the answer is yes, then "breathe, listen and feel": the alpha and the omega is embodied and within you, and birth and death are one.  Our help is in the name of the Lord, and the name of the Lord is Silence.