Red Barn Rockland

FROM 07/01/07 TO 09/30/07

A Model for Spiritual Progress

For some time now I have felt that religious liberals generally have played with their spirituality just as some of them once experimented with drugs, to see what would happen. The results, albeit profound in some instances, have been generally miscellaneous and unsatisfactory for both individuals and groups. Participants have tended to compartmentalize spirituality consigning it to a portion of their lives rather than for transforming the whole. There has been no systematic way to evaluate the whole of their existence or to measure their progress. It is for this reason that I turned to psychological type as an instrument for orienting oneself among the multitudes of resources available in the phenomenology of religion. And in discovery of the Archetype of the Spirit I put forward a model for guiding one’s progress toward “spiritual poise,” a goal for living.

09/20/07

Hillary’s Health Care

Even though she is the last to float a plan, candidate Hillary has fallen short. She keeps intact and expands the rule of insurance companies. This is the chief reason our health care system is the most expensive in the world and inferior to many. We need change not capitulation.

09/18/07

Dimming the Sun

The phenomenon of global warming is apparently more extensive and more urgent than previously understood. We also have “global dimming.” Scientists came at this ‘double whammy’ from two directions, a slowing rate of pan evaporation at weather stations and an examination of vapor trails left by jet aircraft. As described in Tuesday’s NOVA program (PBS) particulate matter in clouds attracts more moisture resulting in a mirror effect reflecting out into space a larger percentage of the sun’s rays. We do still have a growing greenhouse effect which would be even worse were this reflecting not happening. We have a double whammy that may spell our doom if not reversed. We may only have only 10 years to reverse present trends. Already rainfall patterns are shifting, accelerating desertification in the sub Sahara for example. Wait until dying plants in the warming seas release vast quantities of Methane gas!

09/12/07

Bombing Iran

The internet is filled with warnings now that the Bush Administration has set its sights on bombing Iran. Apparently the targets are now listed. Our President shows no signs of having pulled back his projections onto “the axis of evil.” Ethically Mr. Bush seems to believe an action is right (righteous) if one can get away with it. Therefore he will bully Iran with bombs unless politically stopped. I don’t yet see Democrats with enough spine to stop him. It appears if Bush doesn’t do it Israel will. Shortly after the announcement of a massive U.S. military aid package of 30 billion dollars the Israeli ambassador, Sallai Meridon, was interviewed at the Nixon Center. He was asked if Israel was considering bombing in Iran as they did in 1981 in Iraq (“Operation Babylon”). He replied “we are running out of time.” If we assault Iran we will have 70 million angry Iranians, not simply people our leaders don’t like. The liberal opposition in Iran will suffer. Today, with their economic woes and resentment over oppression it is likely that Iranians themselves will vote Ahmadenejad out of office. American or Israeli bombs could be an answer to his political prayers. (see also 06/10/07, 02/19/07, 02/04/07)

09/04/07

Framing Use of Type

There are times when the use of type may be suspect. Do practitioners ask for every application: What is type for? Who will benefit” Are there times when the revealing of an individual’s type may thwart the well-being of a person in favor of an employer, or government or an organization? It is too easy today to “preempt” or “channel” a person’s uniqueness. It is critical to frame use of type in the service of a person’s own need to develop spiritually and to enlarge their self-understanding. Jung’s work in describing the functions of consciousness and the nature of the self came from his helping of people in counseling. He employed a rigorous science and an intuitive genius in this frame. The emergence of a full human consciousness is a process vulnerable to miss turns and difficulties. Many who surround us in society are walking wounded (psychologically). Isabel Briggs Myers’ motivation too is clear in her Gifts Differing: “Whatever the circumstances of your life, whatever your personal ties, work, and responsibilities, the understanding of type can make your perceptions clearer, your judgments sounder, and your life closer to your heart’s desire.” (p. 211)

08/29/07

Why I Write

Whether spoken or written our ideals and insights into life are eventually absorbed into the human posterity. Nothing unique or personal at last remains. There is a collective memory, more fuzzy and reworked with time. All writing in a sense is biased through one’s own subjective experience even in the disciplines of objectivity. All instruments effect the measurements of science. All history is revisionist. Thus I write out of a sense of stewardship for memory and care for whatever insights in my life I have gleaned for the wellbeing of our human emergence on the planet. Of more than a thousand sermons perhaps 50 survive in printed form. Books last awhile longer, to be discovered or rediscovered of benefit in the fullness of time. If I mow my lawn or paint my barn it benefits my neighborhood and city. If I write a blog or book it benefits to an unknown extent and duration. When I die I hope the balance of take and give from my living will be a plus.

08/16/07

Pros and Cons of Pluralism

Pluralism is a major achievement for individuals and communities who agree not only to live alongside each other peacefully but to seek to understand each other, beyond “live and let live” or tolerance. There is an ongoing attempt for friendship and through dialogue a commitment to affirm each other, even to defend each other in adverse circumstances. A world of peace and mutual affirmation with a modicum of understanding would surely be far ahead of where we are now.

Interfaith dialogue however tends to be arms length. Participants return to their default orientations at the end of the day, a mutual intention built into the process. More often differences are simply conflated and a theosophically flavored, “we are all basically the same” beneath it all, carries the day. Particularly in suburban America it can be terribly nice. If the “terrorists” of the world have done nothing else that is positive, they have reminded us that differences are real and humans are capable of atrocities. The Christian fundamentalists know this and the super patriots. So the work of pluralism is a much needed if not a complete model for interfaith relationships or personal spiritual development.

08/02/07

Character of God

It is not sufficient to summarize: “Universalists believe in Universal Salvation.” Today of course Universalists have evolved to a global perspective, well beyond their Protestant Christian origin. But even in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Universalists believed the Bible revealed God as loving. If God created human nature and “saw that it was good,” then that same God would not condemn that same nature to “everlasting punishment” in Hell, a permanent punishment for a finite “sin.” Universalist church bells rang “No Hell, No Hell,” and proclaimed a Gospel of Love. “God is Love.” The idea of “Hell” and of salvation only for an “Elect” few reflected negatively on the character of God. Calvinists of the time believed even infants were condemned to Hell. What kind of a God would require a “ransom” (the crucifixion) for salvation? Universalists regarded Jesus as an exemplar of the religious life, not a primitive blood sacrifice. In large measure the Universalist Gospel has infected Protestant Christianity today. The negative aspects of Protestant creeds are seldom talked about. Seldom does one hear at their funerals the possibility that the deceased may land in Hell. The presumption heard is the old Universalist “Death and Glory.”

07/27/07

Origins of Psychological Type

Carl Jung discovered the four processes of psychological type in his patients, in western and eastern philosophers, saw them in collective human society and in the stories, myths, symbols of the various branches of human culture. His base was clinical, scientific and historical. He rightly discerned these four processes to be archetypal, the functions of human consciousness everywhere and for everyone. The four functions are Sensing (S), intuition (N), thinking (T), and Feeling (F), each of the four in either extraverted (E) or introverted (I) attitudes. What Jung did not grasp was the origin of these processes in human spirituality. These eight function-attitudes differentiated into the human collective millennia before the invention of the alphabet as a model for human development towards wholeness. It is one thing to live these functions in varying measure of differentiation. It is another to intentionally develop them for a life fulfilled and enlightened. Psychological type first emerged in the Archetype of the Spirit, humanity’s most ancient model for spiritual development and deep within us all today.

(see Books, Archetype of the Spirit)

07/14/07

How many cells?

Apparently I grossly underestimated the number of cells in the human body by a factor of 40 to 1 (see 05/07/07). The latest estimate I heard is in the neighborhood of 4 trillion cells, more or less (How could we know exactly?). The 100 billion number estimates how many neurons there may be in the human brain, more or less. We are walking universes! And as we are social animals, universes within universes, all of course within Universe.

07/10/07

Complimentary Nature of Types

The most important reality for me in working with psychological type (the MBTI) is the kinship it establishes between each of us and all other individuals. We are all unique, representatives of one of 16 underlying personality type processes. I am an introverted feeling type with extraverted intuition (INFP). This is how I am energized in my perceiving and judging processes. There are 15 other possible configurations of sensing, intuiting, thinking and feeling, the four cognitive functions of human consciousness, with their attitudes of extraverting and introverting. These four components and the directions of their energizing are within us all. As we mature we learn to appreciate them as they function in ourselves and in those around us. Psychological type is a powerful resource for our mutual understanding, the basis for our sympathy and compassion, the proof of our kinship. We are able to respond to each other for we share a common nature, and being kinsfolk we may be capable of relating fully in each other’s presence.

07/07/07

July Fourth

The most poignant story I know of Independence Day is that of John Adams on his death bed, July 4, 1826. Quincy was alive with the sounds of fire crackers, muskets and cannons firing. His last words were “Jefferson still survives.” In Virginia Jefferson too had died two hours before on this day. Adams and his son, “J.Q,” now reside in tombs beneath the portico of Quincy’s First Parish Unitarian. Jefferson, having been “a Unitarian alone,” is buried alone on his estate. I wonder how many of us can capture intimations of what this day was for the founders as we barbeque our beef, and watch fireworks flaring from the breakwater. On balance today should we rejoice or regret the mark we are now making after 231 years?

07/04/07

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