Spark Bark

I felt a nudge to engage the Letter to the Hebrews. I like a chance to tear apart Bible text – or any text. Most of my academic background was to that end and I don’t get to do it much these days. So with glad anticipation, I got out my big Annotated NRSV and prepared to dive in. 

It– the task to which I felt nudged—was not what I had expected. It seems that, rather than tearing into the Letter to the Hebrews, I was to pay attention to the direction it heads, its trajectory–and extrapolate. Where was the human relationship with the Divine, with Godde, before this? And where does it seem to be headed? 

For a while, our local UCC flew a large banner reading (something like) “Don’t put a period where God has put a comma.” Like that. The Divine, Godde, the CHRIST, the evolving thrusting dynamic of and through creation, did not cease with the “closing of the canon”- the determination of what was to be included in the sacred texts – nor did it begin with Abram. This dynamic is alive, ever-evolving, multi-dimensional, and is at work to awaken humanity (at least) to our right place and right size within its Dance. 

The Letter to the Hebrews, as I read it, sketches the trajectory of Godde’s revelation to humankind from Abram, up through the arc of the Judaeo-Christian tradition, to the time the Letter was composed, sometime in the early years of the Common Era. It was written to encourage folks not to slide back into earlier stages of the revelation, but to live into what they had learned of the further revelation through the story of Jesus. 

It continues, right? Godde will keep on revealing the truth to us of our true place and right size until we fully get it and accept it and are willing to live into it. We just need to open our eyes to see clearly and honestly. And encourage and support others in opening their eyes and seeing clearly and honestly. The whole trajectory. From each one’s unique perspective. If we do that, we can discover and begin to live into the life that Godde offers us, into what Godde is needing of us. 

A former rector at my church suggested that the church got into trouble when it quit following Jesus, and instead began to worship him. Good enough. But following Jesus is more than (although it surely includes) feeding the hungry, helping the outcasts and strangers, having mercy and doing justice, walking humbly with our Godde, and obeying the commandments. 

Following Jesus also means to be willing to act and live and preach and teach outside the gates, to stretch and be stretched in accordance with the ever-lasting purpose of Godde. The law that Jesus came to fulfill is alive, dynamic. It is fulfilled by living it, outside the gates if need be, beyond the comma. 

In the back of the Chapel at the Monastery of the Society of St. John the Evangelist, there is a small alabaster sculpture of Mary, the Holy Mother, balancing the child Jesus on her left hip. He is no longer an infant, perhaps a toddler. He reaches his left hand out in a gesture that now makes sense to me.

I’ve been visiting that Chapel for a while. It is what the Celts would call a “thin place:” things happen here. Here I have learned to hold my energy soft and open, with no expectations The Holy Mother has caught my attention, but Jesus on her hip hasn’t. 

My relationship with Jesus, well, it’s been humbling–and growing. Over forty years ago –in the era of Jesus Freaks–a friend confessed that she had been holding against Jesus the folks he hung out with –or who said they hung out with him. This got me to A Moment. I could let go of all the projections I had ever heard or read about Jesus. So I tossed out the challenge that if he is real, he can make himself known to me—as he truly is – if he exists. 

It’s been more than half my life since that challenge was tossed. The easiest metaphor is a snowball. One of the ones that roll itself, ever-growing, down a slope–when the conditions are right. Unnoticeable at first, with a few widely separate clues, then what could be the beginning of a movement. Recently things have been moving along with increasing weight and intensity. I’m grateful for those years of scant clues and subtle movement. I learned to pay attention and not jump to conclusions; to hang on and observe how things develop. Because of this lengthy apprenticeship, I now have the confidence to share my perceptions. 

Which returns me to the statue in the back of the Monastery Chapel. A while back I was there on retreat. It was night, my favorite time in the Chapel: everyone else has gone to bed, the lights are dim, and I have the place to myself—and whatever may happen. My attention was drawn to the child on Mary’s hip. The figure sort of lit up, and the gesture of the hand conveyed energy that felt, well, imperious. It wanted something. As I rested in its presence, it seemed that it wants to grow up. It is tired of being encased in the alabaster of conventional Christian understanding. It wants to claim life, its life, the fullness of the CHRIST life. This Child is more than Jesus. It is the fullness of Jesus’ purpose manifested two millennia ago: to awaken humanity to the CHRIST within all life and within themselves. Ourselves. 

Can we help the Child crack open the alabaster? Can we help the CHRIST grow up, in us and through us? Can we choose to recognize its fullness stretching to be known in everyone we meet, everyone we think of? Can we support it in becoming what it was (is) created to be? Can we? Shall we? Will we?

During a guided meditation in our Spark sessions, we refer to an aquifer of living truth undergirding all that Is. As an agent of transformation (which is what we are when we practice the spark concepts, whether or not we acknowledge them) I sometimes feel depleted. My spark isn’t depleted, but I am! Whether or not we understand ourselves as doing spark ‘work,’ we need access to resources that will nourish, sustain, and stabilize us in our efforts toward wholeness and good.

The aquifer of living truth is one of those resources. It is when we are immersed in truth that our efforts toward wholeness and good bear healthy fruit. In the spark work we have found that, if we feel our ‘tap roots’ impeded as we press down toward the aquifer of living truth, there can be a change in the atmosphere. The change is like the freshness we feel near a large body of water. 

This greeting freshness supports our pressing down toward the living truth. We grow confident that eventually, any impediments will disintegrate, that we shall finally experience immersion in the living flow of truth, and our full capacity to draw from it. 

I believe that mist is wisdom. 

Okay. Shift gears. In late 2010 I became aware of something I call the pilgrimage of love. It is based on a project led by a group called the Mothers in Gaza and has spread. A prayer: All-living, ever-loving Godde, You who breathe in us the Spirit of Your presence and desire of us only Your wholeness: we bring before You the pilgrimage of love, a communion of prayer through the underside. Form and flow through it as it is Your will, bless all within its embrace, fostering them in wisdom, strength, stamina, and joy, that it may embody Your desire and renew us all for Your service…… I have prayed this daily. I have felt it grow and deepen to include us all. It’s a field of energy, like the mother in raw vinegar or a placenta. But I’ve not been able to feel it as “connecting” as the faithful intention I pour into it might warrant. Until recently.

What I now ‘see’ is that this greeting freshness of wisdom, rising off the aquifer of living truth, is permeating the pilgrimage. The wisdom of the pilgrimage, which now includes all sparks, embraces all sparks. Wisdom embraces, affirms, and connects with the spark within each one of us, strengthening our sparks. 

With our sparks strengthened, we may now see that our defenses are not necessary, and let them erode. We may recognize our bafflement and let it be clarified. We may become willing to allow our distortions to be released. 

Now, for me, the prayer has traction. You are welcome to join.

There is a symphony outside my window. I noticed it after my sister told me of attending a (live! in person!) concert of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. This ignited my craving for in-person classical music. The conflagration consumed the field of my feelings and tugged my attention out my window. The window faces a three-story tall rock out-cropping that supports seasonal birds, deciduous and coniferous trees, chipmunks and squirrels, both gray and red, and a warm-weather woodchuck. As I watched the chickadees bounce from twig to branch, and the branches sway with the weight of the playing squirrels, I could hear the symphony. Silently, I could hear it. 

A while back, still in the penumbra of the Weaving the Between post, a friend and I were musing over our experience of what we are calling the christ surge, the evolutionary surge in global consciousness that we and some others are sensing. We are calling it a christ surge because we feel a rightness about understanding the “christ” as a dynamic of the mystery of Being, a dynamic which evolves consciousness, and which was well-incarnated in the person of Jesus. How do we sense it? we asked ourselves and each other. How do we encourage and support it? How do we participate in it?

In the details, we theorized. In the care and respect with which we engage in every task, in each encounter. It hit us both at the same time. It is in the small, unremarkable actions done with attention and respect– presence–that the “between” is woven, filling in the gap between the high-flying perception of a cosmic “coming of christ” and our personal, homely sparks, our personal sparks of humanity, of christ.

With attention and respect–and presence. Heft. Let’s try it on. I see this most clearly where I lack it: in my relationship with time. Some folks, some families, wrestle with money, or food, or possessions, or Other People. Some of us wrestle with time. I suspect the dynamic is similar with each wrestling partner. An area of life where things seem to get away from us, where we are not grounded and congruent. A growth field.

So for me, “weaving the between” can start with my paying attention to my relationship with time. Not letting my old habits suck me into anxiety and tension. I can try out a relationship with time that has heft. So I practise inhabiting the time I am in at the moment, with a full cargo of presence; not in my anxieties making up excuses that may never be needed. This can, I am finding out, get me where I need to be graciously “on time.” It’s all in my attitude, how I hold it, the respect for where I am and what I am doing, the care with which I engage. There is nothing unique or new about this. I have heard about this dynamic in other languages for decades. What is new is my recognition that by living in this relationship with time – and with all aspects of this mortal life – I am actively “weaving the between.” I am part of the amniotic fluid for the christ that is aborning. I am participating in the tidal wave, and its power is sweeping me along toward shore.

Mulling further, it seems that the support I experience in acting with this care and respect may be the truest indicator that the christ is indeed surging, that the christ is indeed currently “coming.” Because, of myself, I am not this caring and grounded and respectful. It is surely some blessed and blessing flow that is moving me to act and respond with this unaccustomed grace. It surely is.

In my early processing of the term “christ surge” – the term we are using in the Spark work for times of evolving consciousness–I took some comfort in the idea that it would be equally offensive to folks on either end of the spiritual/religious spectrum: those who were repulsed by anything hinting of Christian influence; and those for whom Jesus Christ is fully and forever encapsulated in the doctrine of the Christian Church.  I am familiar with both and want to open up a space between for fresh insights, thoughts, and language, free from constrictions.   

To back up a bit, evolution is not linear.  It surges.  Then pauses to see what works and moves on through that which does work. The dynamic of evolving consciousness that was recognizable in Jesus (and Moses, and Gautama Buddha, and Mohammad, blessed may he be, and others in other cultures and eras) has been surging since before time.  It will continue to surge.  We can participate in it or resist it.   Calling this surging of consciousness “christ” acknowledges its “anointment” for the evolving of Being. 

Opening up for fresh insights, thoughts, and language makes me think of Rolfing.

Rolfing is a form of bodywork.  It involves freeing the underlying tissue from the constricting grip of its fascia.  Once Rolfed, one moves more freely.  My first Rolfer counseled me that it could be intense.  And that I could choose to experience it as pain.  

It turns out that the physical constrictions of our fascia can develop because of our thought processes: fears, traumas, habits of response.  How we hold our bodies, our posture.  When we are willing to surrender to the “intensity” of the work, we can find ourselves not only moving more freely but thinking and responding to life more freely.   We are no longer bound by our old patterns. 

We can think of our old ideas, our established thought patterns, as a form of fascia. They may be holding us “together” but they may also be limiting our movement.  We may not be able to respond as freely as we’d like.  It turns out that we still hold together even when our old thought patterns are released, and we are freed to get closer to what is true. 

The term “christ surge” is an invitation to a greater freedom, to a more fluent movement among the possibilities and ideas that course through our experience in this time.  An invitation to a greater freedom.

My niece, a transportation advocate in San Francisco, remarked that there are great visionary plans for Bay Area transportation, along with nitty get-mired-in-the-details plans…and in between gaping absence. Hmm, I thought, sounds like the Spark project. 

Cosmic we have. The ever-evolving, multi-dimensional dance surging as the current coming of the christ on this precious planet; the surge raising awareness of our union with this place, and acceptance that it is in this union that the fulfillment we desire is available. Got it.

Weensy-nitty we have. Claiming our personal sparks of humanity, of christ. Supporting and encouraging others in claiming their personal sparks. Got it. 

But the between? Because there surely is a between. 

How do we live into it? How might we claim it? Perhaps spiders show a way.

I like to watch spiders. From a former prayer space, I could watch big spiders and little spiders and medium sized spiders sharing my two dormer windows with their big webs and little webs and medium-size webs, catching the insects attracted by the light of the lamp by my chair. Gathering what feeds them, sharing the space, their mutual purpose expressed in an intricate design. 

Maybe through our relationship (whatever it may be) with the spark project we each spin our own-sized web to gather what feeds us, creating our unique design in the space between the cosmic and the personal. If such is the case, may we find our integrity with ourselves and our community of fellow weavers as we spin and weave. May we share our thoughts, our stories, and our experiences with our fellows, encouraging each other as we create a new texture of space. May we catch what feeds us as we join in weaving our webs of resilience and strength. 

Another thought, if we are willing. Maybe we are being woven, brought to our true fulfillment and greatest usefulness through the wisdom of the dance-weaving Great Spider, even as we experience ourselves as weaving. 

Perhaps, at my best, I am an instinct of the Great Spider, a simple instinct through which a bit of web is spun. That can be enough.

May it be resilient and strong and catch good food.

 

Once I realized that I was in need of a spiritual community I wanted to be a Quaker or a Buddhist. Something cool and non-violent. Instead, I am a high church Anglo-Catholic Episcopalian. Which can be cool, and even non-violent – when we are being honest about our true roots.  

One cool thing for me is the antiphons of Eastertide, the six weeks between Easter and the expansion of Jesus from our three or four dimensions to the greater dimensionality traditionally called the Ascension. This year I have been struck by the story of the three women going to the tomb on Easter morning to anoint the body of their beloved leader and friend. The body wasn’t there. They were told that Jesus wasn’t dead and had gone back to his workaday home region. They would find him there.  

As I have been chanting the antiphons of this season, based on this story of the three women, the antiphons have melded into the three intuitions that have emerged through the Spark work: 

1. We are in the early stages of a new phase of global consciousness.
2. In the Spark lingo we are calling this a christ surge—a movement of the dynamic that evolves human consciousness.  
3. Jesus is pressing into this—what we are calling a christ surge– as further fulfillment of his mission.

Here is the riff. Jesus, that life-offering way-show-er, has been as good as dead, entombed in our assumptions, our convenient resistances, our aversion to responsibility.   When we come to offer his remains the social rituals which express the respect we feel is due him, he ain’t there.  

He is alive.  

He is going before us into a new phase of human consciousness, grounded in the familiarity of our home places, yet new. And real.  

We can find him there. 

As we are willing to move into this new consciousness, to explore its possibilities, we will find him there, in the grounding of our workaday world. Showing us the way.  Offering life. Regardless of whether we recognize him, regardless of whether we like him, regardless of whether we align with the faith tradition nominally associated with him. He is in a new phase, the emerging consciousness, the current coming of the christ.  Ready to help us, to accompany us, to show us how we each uniquely can contribute to this new way of being. To bring us toward our greater and true fulfillment. 

Happy Easter indeed.

I was explaining to a friend why we use metaphors in the spark work when, without thought, I said that they could help draw people into the christfield. Later I found myself wondering what I meant by the christfield. What is the christfield? 

Maybe we can see it as an energy field, the “gravitational” field, that draws us more fully into the process of becoming, into the ‘christ’. The word ‘christ’ is most familiar capitalized, in reference to one who lived into this potential so completely as to be fully identified with it. The christ, uncapitalized, may be understood as the press toward fulfillment, the force that grows us—and all creation. It’s the pressing of life as it evolves, urging us (including our consciousness) toward what we are to become. 

The christfield, then, is the dynamic, living field that draws us toward and into our personal, unique (ever-evolving) place in the dance of all being. It’s the dimension that serves to draw us, through the relative buoyancy of our claimed sparks, deeper into the christ process. It builds our willing participation in the process of becoming as it evolves our awareness. 

 If you are not comfortable with christfield as a word, maybe among us we can come up with another. Something that we can think of as the dynamic of multi-dimensional evolving that surges through human history, and, if we like, through all creation. 

Whatever we call it, it is relevant to the spark work. Here is how: when we claim our sparks by affirming and connecting with the spark in others, their spark is strengthened. And so, also, is ours. As our spark becomes strengthened our defenses erode, our bafflement becomes clarified, our distortions are released. Our sparks become more buoyant. This makes us more available to the dance, more accessible to the tug of the christfield. We are less bound up by our old ideas and more susceptible to being moved toward our optimal engagement and thus comfort. 

I want to assure anyone who is as resistant as I once was that we can allow ourselves to be drawn into the christfield, deeper into the christ field (since we are all in it– the issue is how resistant we are to its tug) without fear of ending up in the institutional Christian church or any other “organized” religion. We may, or we may not. The christfield, as I have been experiencing it, has no preference in that direction. 

The christfield knows where we best belong. It will get us where the dance wants us, where it needs us. It will get us to our true comfort. 

 How does that sound?