Resurrection Story

[NORM]

Bishop Spong has begun a new weekly series on the resurrection story found in the New Testament. Here is how the series begins:

 

Now in this post-Easter time of the Christian year, I would like to subject the resurrection stories of the New Testament to the same sort of critical biblical analysis, recalling that St. Paul also said that Jesus was raised "in accordance with the scriptures." Perhaps in the process of this series, we will learn that in freeing theological truth from the biblical text, something does not have to be literal to be understood as true and that the experience of the resurrection has little to do with a body being resuscitated from death back into life. Indeed, the resurrection of Jesus means something far different and far more significant than that.

 

This has always been a major stumbling block for me during my time within the folds of the Christian Church, and ultimately led to my conversion to Judaism.

 

I am curious how others in this forum view the resurrection. Do you view it literally? Is it a metaphor? If so, how do you interpret this?

 

In my faith journey as a Christian, it was always expressed to me that it was CRUCIAL to believe that the resurrection was real; i.e., the physical body of Jesus was resuscitated. This was not a matter open to debate.

 

What say you?

 

NORM

[Harry]

Bishop Spong has begun a new weekly series on the resurrection story found in the New Testament. Here is how the series begins:

 

 

 

This has always been a major stumbling block for me during my time within the folds of the Christian Church, and ultimately led to my conversion to Judaism.

 

I am curious how others in this forum view the resurrection. Do you view it literally? Is it a metaphor? If so, how do you interpret this?

 

In my faith journey as a Christian, it was always expressed to me that it was CRUCIAL to believe that the resurrection was real; i.e., the physical body of Jesus was resuscitated. This was not a matter open to debate.

 

What say you?

 

NORM

 

I use the word "believe" very sparingly and then only conditionally. It is a word that I see sprinkled generously like salt throughout discussions of politics and religion. Belief is something that is expected of us as children. Saying we believe is a learned behavior. When we say we believe there is a sense of stubborn finality or childlike trust. When we say we think it suggests maturity and a willingness to change an opinion as new information becomes available. When the bible was being written it was sensible to think the world was flat but we now know that is not true. We also know that much of what is written in the bible is not true.

 

Sometimes people say they believe when they actually have doubts; this happens often in religion because of the need for acceptance within a group. They are afraid that if they expressed doubt they would be ostracized or shunned. Belief is a way of life for many of those immersed in religion.

 

We are expected to trust our parents and teachers as they guide us along in our learning process. I remember being told "believe me when I tell you this; you will understand why when you are older". But we won't understand if we don't try to; it's easier to believe and trust the source than it is to ask the question why.

 

As a child it never occurred to me that the source I trusted was one who also believed without understanding and that this had been the practice since the original belief was passed on the first time. Eventually many people believe something that makes no sense but no one questions it because the source was trusted. How can people go on believing things that defy reason and common sense? People don't rise from the dead and float up to heaven.

[Guest billmc]

What say you?

 

For me, Norm, I'm rather agnostic about the event, if we want to call it that. Yes, Paul does assert that without Jesus' resurrection, we are still in our sins. But, to me, Paul is quite ambiguous about just what *exactly* the resurrection is. In one place, he insists that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God and that resurrected bodies are *not* like what we would call physical bodies. In fact, he calls them "spiritual bodies" without going any further in defining what a spiritual body is and how it is similar or different from a physical body. Paul, IMO, seemed to be trying to find a category for something that just didn't quite fit into any of the categories that he had available to him.

 

But, nevertheless, I love the metaphor of the resurrection, the notion of new life from death. I agree with Paul that we are to live "resurrected" lives. He even goes so far as to say that we are now seating with Christ in heavenly places. Huh? But I certainly believe in and try to practice living as a "new creation."

 

So I'm agnostic about the "literalness" of the event of the resurrection. But I believe in the idea of living in a "new creation" that the resurrection points to, that, in Christ, a new heavens and a new earth has begun. It's just that I don't usually hear this particular spin put on the resurrection. I mostly hear of it as a guarantee of an afterlife or an assurance that God accepted Jesus' payment for sins. I'll let Christians argue those ideas if they like, but I'd rather focus on living as a new creation.

[Harry]

The way I see things is we will continue to be reincarnated until our spirit/soul is finally perfect enough to become one with the universal life force of love, truth and consciousness; one with God which has always been in us helping guide our development. When we experience our final "death" to the mortal body and become one with the life force that is resurrection. Jesus came back but not in the way we expected, his spirit reached perfection and mortality is no longer necessary for further development. He is with us all in the universal life force. I have made the argument many times that I think the universal life force is that which men call God. I think further, with that in mind, that Jesus understood and taught the same by example. The message that all religions are based on was his message, "love God above all things and love your neighbor as you would be loved yourself"

 

With that in mind I think this interpretation from John says it all very well. I have never been one to quote the bible but this time I will make an exception because the explanation is so clear to me.

 

 

 

John 14 (New International Version)

 

John 14 Jesus Comforts His Disciples

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father's house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? ³ And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going."

Jesus the Way to the Father

Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?"

 

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him."

 

Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us."

 

Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit

"If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them."

 

Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, "But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?"

 

Jesus replied, "Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

 

"All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

 

"You heard me say, 'I am going away and I am coming back to you.' If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe. I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold over me, but he comes so that the world may learn that I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded me. "Come now; let us leave.

 

 

All that we need to know about Christ and all we must do to be Christ like is live as he taught by example, loving the Father above all and loving all of humanity as we ourselves want to be loved. I think when we finally get that right we will be resurrected as he was, until then we will continue to come back for more chances to learn how. I think we all realize how difficult living selflessly can be and without grace we cannot achieve this on our own. I know how weak and selfish a human can be because I are one.

 

One final after thought I want to add is we all know or are aware of people who are far along on their path to ressurection, they are changing other people's lives as they live with a maturing selfless love and they teach us by example. They are Christ like people approaching their goal of resurrection.

 

these are my thoughts on resurrection

[JosephM]

Norm,

 

Personally, I was, to the best of my human knowledge and from that perspective, not around for any physical resurrection to say yes or no concerning the biblical account. Or for that matter neither do i know exactly what the writers had it mind when they wrote it. However, having experienced what i believe is the equivalent of being in Christ as described by some biblical writings, i can say that i have been resurrected from a life where it seemed i was spiritually dead to a new life where there seems to me to be no death except for the passing away of my physical body. From that perspective which is a subjective experience for me, whether i was really ever dead spiritually in the first place is a mute point since that experience has no death or separation from that which is eternal and unborn.

 

From a human perspective it seems everything that is born, dies or at least has a change in form. Perhaps being spiritually dead is more of a human conclusion from misidentification with the temporal created self rather than with ones source or essence that sustains it. In that case, spiritual death may be more of an illusion in the sense that it is temporal and a spiritual impossibility and a creation of the creation rather than truth. So the question, is there really a resurrection, i would say yes spiritually from one perspective and no from another if that makes any sense. Can the spiritual manifest in the physical form? I believe it is right now. Perhaps things are just not what they seem

 

Just my own take on this from my own personal experiences,

Joseph

[murmsk]

As a child it never occurred to me that the source I trusted was one who also believed without understanding and that this had been the practice since the original belief was passed on the first time. Eventually many people believe something that makes no sense but no one questions it because the source was trusted.

 

This is a very wise statement one of the best I have read! Thank you

 

steve

[Neon Genesis]

All billmc points out, Paul never says the resurrection is a physical event and explicitly says it's impossible for a physical body to enter the afterlife. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul describes the appearance of Jesus to the apostles and the 500 eyewitnesses as being the same kind of appearance he experienced, which was the form of a vision and not a physical event. In the earliest manuscripts of Mark's gospel, which is the earliest of the canonical gospels, there is no resurrection account at all and the gospel ends with Mary and the women going into hiding. If you compare all the different gospel accounts of the resurrection, they all completely contradict each other on almost every detail. Like in one gospel, it says the women fled and didn't tell anybody about the risen Christ. In another, it says they told the apostles right away but the apostles didn't believe her. In another, it says the apostles ran to the tomb to see it for themselves. One gospel says Mary saw a man, in another she saw two men, and in another she saw angels. If the gospel accounts were put before trial today, I doubt they would pass our courts' requirements for reliable testimony and Judge Judy would probably heap scorn and ridicule on anyone who took it literally true. But as stated before, nowhere in Paul's epistles, which are the earliest Christian writings, does he ever say anything about the resurrection being literal and neither does the gospel of Thomas, which some scholars think contain sayings that date back to the historical Jesus, ever say anything about the resurrection being literal. There were also many Christian "heretics" like the Gnostics who in ancient times, rejected a literal belief in the resurrection.

 

I agree that the resurrection is not a historical footnote that happened centuries ago but the resurrection is what happens to us every day when we die to our sins and repent and accept the grace of Christ in our hearts. But I think this doesn't apply to just us as individuals but the church as a whole. Between the Catholic sex abuse scandals and the Uganda kill the gays bill, for many people in the world, the Christian church as a whole is dead in its sins. The non-religious is becoming the fastest growing religious identification in the U.S. and sociologists predict that religion will become extinct within the next decade. Many young people especially do not want anything to do with the church which they see as being hypocritical, judgmental, and homophobic and irrelevant, and perhaps rightly so. I think it's only when the Christian church as a whole acknowledges its sins against basic human rights and its unjust war against science and repents of its immorality that the church as the body of Christ will truly resurrect itself and I think this is what it means when it says that if we don't believe in the resurrection, then our faith is meaningless.

[NORM]

I use the word "believe" very sparingly and then only conditionally.

 

This is a wise attitude, my friend!

 

I've found throughout my lifetime that what I believe to be true today I more than likely will find to be ridiculous tomorrow.

 

NORM

[NORM]

But, nevertheless, I love the metaphor of the resurrection, the notion of new life from death. I agree with Paul that we are to live "resurrected" lives. He even goes so far as to say that we are now seating with Christ in heavenly places. Huh? But I certainly believe in and try to practice living as a "new creation."

 

So I'm agnostic about the "literalness" of the event of the resurrection. But I believe in the idea of living in a "new creation" that the resurrection points to, that, in Christ, a new heavens and a new earth has begun. It's just that I don't usually hear this particular spin put on the resurrection. I mostly hear of it as a guarantee of an afterlife or an assurance that God accepted Jesus' payment for sins. I'll let Christians argue those ideas if they like, but I'd rather focus on living as a new creation.

 

Before I left the church, I fancied the notion of interpreting the resurrection story in just such a metaphorical manner. Unfortunately, it became too much of a distraction when it would come up in group discussions. There are still a lot of folks who REALLY cling to the literal resurrection. It wasn't long before I ceased going in that direction amongst fellow Christians. Too bad I never wandered into a place like this forum in those days.

 

Like you I am undecided as to what was really meant by the resurrection story in the Bible.

 

I like the imagery you conjure here of resurrected lives.

 

In the Jewish tradition, we speak of living lives of mitzvah - a sort of resurrection, I guess.

 

NORM

[NORM]

One final after thought I want to add is we all know or are aware of people who are far along on their path to ressurection, they are changing other people's lives as they live with a maturing selfless love and they teach us by example. They are Christ like people approaching their goal of resurrection.

 

Well said.

 

NORM

[Guest billmc]

Oh, man, this thread is getting GOOD!

 

Harry, I'm chiming in along with the others and agreeing with you on your notions concerning "beliefs." In my own life, though it was a long and gradual process, I found that my "beliefs" were relatively powerless. Deep down in my heart, I longed for experience. Before I entered my "dark night of the soul," my beliefs were, simply put, an almost constant source of cognitive dissonance. For me, this was because 1) my beliefs didn't really line up with my experiences (like believing that God would torture people evermore in hell) and 2) my beliefs didn't line up with reality and reason as best as I perceive them. Where I am now, I don't really want to be known as a "believer" any more. It won't happen, but I wish that the synonym for Christians, rather than being "believers", is "practioners" or "doers" or some similar word that conveys, not a set of concepts that we hold to, but how we actually live. Christianity, like other religions, is usually defined by a set of beliefs. What would happen if we approached each other, not with the question of "What do you believe?", but with "How do you practice your faith?"

 

This brings me back to a couple more meandering thoughts about resurrection. I've listened to a number of debates between people like Spong, Crossan, Borg, Wright, Desousa (sp?), and Craig, and I have to say I wish the tone of the debates were more from the viewpoint of "believe what you will about the literalness of the event, how does the Bible's story of the resurrection affect your life today?"

 

As I've said, I'm agnostic about the event. I don't know what *really* happened back then. What I'm not agnostic about is that somehow, someway, the shy and fearful band that had followed Jesus for 3 years (or 1 according to John) and then dispersed, quickly changed into a group of "practioners" who brought together all their resources, not to form a new religion, but to help each other. Luke says, in the book of Acts, that due to their changed outlook and the result of their actions, there was no one needy among them. They were there for each other and shared with each other, doing, it seems to me, what Jesus had taught them.

 

What prompted this change? I have to be honest and say that I don't know. Yes, the Bible calls it Jesus' resurrection; they were convinced that he was still alive. And even when he ascended (another mystery to me), they stayed with their program of loving one another.

 

So this is why, for me, the important question is not "Do you think it really happened?" but "As a result of this story being passed down to us, how are you living in the resurrection today?" While I think the general thrust of the scriptures is that we will be resurrected to physically live on a physical earth, I have NO IDEA how or when or even if this will really happen. But I do try to live as part of the *new creation* today. And that, for me, is enough.

[Harry]

Osama bin Laden is said to have felt compelled to act out of a fear that God would punish him if he did not attack the Western world. There are those that think his one death will have little impact on the bigger process but does it put into question: "Whose side is the life force on?"

 

Events in the Middle East portend great changes. They seem to indicate streams of new life forces seeking to move around what could be likened to the immovable North and South going Zax , toe to toe, face to face on the prairie of Prax.

 

We must all change. Bin Laden stated that 90 percent of his work was in the media. What new powerful ideas of change would we like to promote in the world's media arena; A new "Global Spring" movement?

 

Mankind will someday realize that the suffering brought into the world by overzealous religious belief is at the heart of many global problems. The Dr. Seuss reference of the North and South going Zax, toe to toe, face to face on the prairie of Prax is a perfect metaphor for the many stand offs taking place in the world today. Unlike the highway bypass built around the Zax it will be necessary to tear down and pave over the old obstacles.

 

In order for the world to change there must be a new paradigm of social interaction accompanied by a new understanding of who we are as individuals and what part we must play as integral parts of the single human organism. We must recognize and understand our responsibility to protect planet earth and continue evolution. Borders separating nations must be opened for free access. Religions must be recognized for the divisive institutions they became in their quest for power and mind control and they must be abandoned by coming generations. This will take time but eventually it will take place.

 

The world must die to its past and be resurrected to a new life; A "global spring" it would be a wonderful next step in that direction.

[NORM]

I found that my "beliefs" were relatively powerless. Deep down in my heart, I longed for experience. Before I entered my "dark night of the soul," my beliefs were, simply put, an almost constant source of cognitive dissonance [emphasis mine] For me, this was because 1) my beliefs didn't really line up with my experiences (like believing that God would torture people evermore in hell) and 2) my beliefs didn't line up with reality and reason as best as I perceive them. Where I am now, I don't really want to be known as a "believer" any more. It won't happen, but I wish that the synonym for Christians, rather than being "believers", is "practioners" or "doers" or some similar word that conveys, not a set of concepts that we hold to, but how we actually live. Christianity, like other religions, is usually defined by a set of beliefs. What would happen if we approached each other, not with the question of "What do you believe?", but with "How do you practice your faith?"

 

 

 

I am with you on the cognitive dissonance thing. Over time, I gradually lost my religion, so to speak. Rather, I simply could not believe in all of the supernatural requirements. I (wrongly, it seems) felt that without the supernatural, there was no point to remaining in the church.

 

This discussion is reassuring to me. There are far more people than I imagined who want to abstract all of the good things about Christianity without encumbering it with the other stuff.

 

While it is probably too late for me to embrace once again the Christian faith, I have hope that the Church I left behind seems to be evolving into something like what I've found in the folds of Judaism.

 

NORM

[NORM]

Mankind will someday realize that the suffering brought into the world by overzealous religious belief is at the heart of many global problems. The Dr. Seuss reference of the North and South going Zax, toe to toe, face to face on the prairie of Prax is a perfect metaphor for the many stand offs taking place in the world today. Unlike the highway bypass built around the Zax it will be necessary to tear down and pave over the old obstacles.

 

 

The world must die to its past and be resurrected to a new life; A "global spring" it would be a wonderful next step in that direction.

 

 

As a teenager, I often found myself daydreaming during preach-a-fiction that there was more wisdom from the pages of Dr. Seuss, Shel Silverstein, or in the lyrics of a group like CSNY than in a hundred Sunday sermons.

 

Some good points there, Harry!

 

NORM

[Nick the Nevermet]

I've been almost posting in this thread for several days now.

Mainly, once again, the fact that I have a different biography than many here is coming to the foreground. I was not raised in a conservative Christian or fundamentalist home. If I had to put a label on it, my family was somewhere between apathetically agnostic and accidentally Christian due to inertia. It's only as I've been working my way through grad school I felt the call for something more.

 

Now, my experiences don't give me a radically different answer. If anything, I agree with the content of BillMC's post. However, and I don't know if I'm making sense, a lot of this thread has an undertone in my reading that involves asking how much one should/must pull away from a traditional/conservative/fundamentalist Christian perspective. Meanwhile, if anything, I'm coming with questions regarding what Christian traditions can offer me.

 

I know I'm babbling, and I'm sorry for that. As I said, in terms of actual content, I basically agree with bill's post.

[Guest billmc]

However, and I don't know if I'm making sense, a lot of this thread has an undertone in my reading that involves asking how much one should/must pull away from a traditional/conservative/fundamentalist Christian perspective. Meanwhile, if anything, I'm coming with questions regarding what Christian traditions can offer me.

 

I don't think you're babbling at all, Nick. In fact, I hope that PC is much more than a "12-Step Program" for recovering fundamentalists like me. There are a number of conversations and topics on this forum that I don't participate on because, frankly, I don't really know the lingo. And I never seem to outgrow my capacity for making a fool of myself within my own religious language and tradition. So while some of us are possibly trying to retain something of the faith that we grew up on by reinterpreting it or, as I am, being somewhat agnostic about some things while still believing in others, I can certainly see the value of trying to approach it from the aspect of considering what the many different traditions within Christianity have to offer. As you know, I speak only from my experiences. But I would certainly welcome hearing what meaning an atheist or an agnostic would find in the resurrection story apart from any prior "indoctrination" by the church or the creeds.

[minsocal]

For me, the resurrection story casts Jesus in the role of a dynamic transitional motivator, moving us from past to present to future and back again from our anticipations of the future to present needs and past wisdom.

[NORM]

... a lot of this thread has an undertone in my reading that involves asking how much one should/must pull away from a traditional/conservative/fundamentalist Christian perspective. Meanwhile, if anything, I'm coming with questions regarding what Christian traditions can offer me.

 

Nick,

 

I would say that non-conservatives as well as conservatives cling to the resurrection story as told in the Bible, should they come from a traditional Christian background. I would say that you have a distinct advantage coming in from the outside - you do not have to rinse the soap out of years of brainwashing.

 

 

 

I know I'm babbling, and I'm sorry for that. As I said, in terms of actual content, I basically agree with bill's post.

 

Nonsense! You are not babbling. I find your posts very illuminating and useful!

 

NORM

[JenellYB]

I don't think any of us can ever fully grasp the meanings within the ressurection concept, but one experience for me in recent years that I feel took me a quantum leap on my own comprehending of the ressurection concept was a cross-over Psychology/Rel Studies depts course, " Religion and Personality", at UH...the primary required text for that course is an essential part of my own library that I reread quite often, and would highly reccommend to others..."Ego and Archetype" by Edinger. From this text, if one finds it of value, there are plenty of good references for further investigation in this direction.

 

Jenell

[Nick the Nevermet]

Jenell,

 

You'll find that I and several people here love book & author recommendations.

 

What about that book really hit home for you?

[JenellYB]

Jenell,

 

You'll find that I and several people here love book & author recommendations.

 

What about that book really hit home for you?

 

The process of individuation as another way of expressing the concepts of the "salvation" experience, as a process rather than just some magical singular incident...

Important distinction, the term and process of "individuated Self" is NOT to be confused with the (selfish, egocentric) individualism of ego.

The infant born as pure, undifferentiated "Self"...from which emerges "Ego", the sense of separate identity....but which is neccesarily then progressively cut off from conscious awareness of Self (Self as possibly the seed for the birth and development of an individualted "soul?')

It is neccesary for Ego to emerge from undifferentiated Self, that particular piece of the cosmic whole (God?) without conscious awareness of Self, so as to become a functioning part of this world, this human experience.

 

For some of us, ego will develop to a point of becoming able to begin to reflect back upon Self, and in that arises the possibility of a re-connection between the conscious Ego and Self. This stage is often a dramatic event, in these terms, called the emergence of the Self-Ego axis. Descriptions and personal experiences of this 'event' in many ways seem to coinicide the the dramatic imagery and psychological effects of what is written of in scripture as the "new birth", the "spiritual birth", the recieving of the Holy spirit...Depending on the personality and psychological development and beliefs system of the individual, it can seem an event that is joyful, awesome, fearsome, or any combintion...it can be an event such as struck down Saul on the road to Damascus, so life-changing as to literally transform one into a different person...which is the symbolic suggestion to the name change from Saul to Paul.

 

But it is also not a single, one time and it's done experience...it is rather a turning? A change of course? Repentance? It marks the beginning of a new way of life, of growth, a path of ongoing cycles of emergence, growth, maturity, death, and re-birth.

 

In this process, for the religious, there is often very difficult stages, in which once deeply meaningful symbols, that carry something very precious for us, are stripped of their illusions and mystery, and as C.S. Lewis observed, become but broken and empty vessels, whatever it was we once cherished and loved gone, no longer there, sending us off again on the quest to find them, regain them..ie we becoime driven by the spirit, or archetype, of the Seeker...

 

This is just the briefest over view of what is really a very complex topic...I will tell you, this book is "meat", not a light read...but if you are ready for it, it will not onlt be a satisfying chew, you will find it will continue to chew on you long after you've read it. I've felt compelled to go back and reread it several times now the past few years, and each time, I've developed a little further and ready to find in it things i missed, for not yet being ready for, the last time.

 

There are no words for so much of these things we experience at such deep levels, that is why we can only speak of the in terms of symbols and myth and analogy....as Paul said of that heard by the man that visited the third heaven, things unlawful to speak...unlawful as literally cannot be expressed in commnon human language...like a natural law, a spiritual law cannot simply be broken even for willingness to pay the priice of a consequence. So we can only use words, images, symbolic impressions, that we in our human experience CAN comprehend and communicate, to try to convey what cannot, by human mind and reason, be understood and communicated.

 

For me, it definitely resonated....the effect for me was profound, like, wow, finally, something thhat seems to make sense of things about myself and my life I had despaired of ever understanding. It helps to have at least something of a tendency toward mystical symbolism to begin with, I don't think someone strongly literal, concretistic or reductionist, in their thinking processes, is going to find it makes much sense.

 

btw, way, my wonderful instructor for that course is both a now retired ordained Episcopalian priest and a now active Jungian Analyst, affiliated with the Jung Center in Houston. A great place to visit, btw, if you are convenient to the Houston area...you can locate them on the web.

 

Jenell

[Nick the Nevermet]

Thanks, Jenell.

That was a great read.