Anything good is forever: Remen excerpt #2

Dr. Remen writes of dying: Tim, a cardiologist, looked around the room at the group of doctors mesmerized by this story. “Because he died unexpectedly at home, the law required that we have an autopsy,” he told us quietly. “My father’s brain was almost entirely destroyed by this disease. For many years, I have asked myself, ‘Who spoke?’ I have never found even the slightest help from any medical textbook. I am no close to knowing this now than I was then but carrying this question with me reminds me of something important, something I do not want to forget. Much of life can never be explained but only witnessed.”

Sometimes the particulars of the way in which someone dies, the time, place, even the circumstances, may cause those left behind to wonder whether the event marks the healing of hidden patterns and personal issues, and answers for that person certain lifelong questions. Death has been referred to as the great teacher. It may be the great healer as well. Educare, the root word of ‘education,’ means to lead forth the innate wholeness in a person. So, in the deepest sense, that which truly educates us also heals us.

The theory of karma suggests that life itself is in its essential nature both educational and healing, that the innate wholeness underlying the personality of each of us is being evoked, clarified, and strengthened through the challenges and experiences of our lifetime. All life paths may be a movement toward the soul, In which case our death may be the final and most integrating of our life’s experiences.

Anything that is real has no beginning and no end. The stories in your life and in mine do not stop here.

Perhaps wisdom is simply a matter of waiting, and healing a question of time. And anything good you’ve ever been given is yours forever.

Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal (Riverhead books, 1996), pages 300-301, 325, 331, 333.

Being a human is never over: Remen excerpt #1

Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., is Professor of Family Medicine at Wright State Boonshoft School of Medicine and Clinical Professor of Family and Community Medicine at UCSF School of Medicine. She is the founder of the Remen Institute for the Study of Health and Illness (RISHI), which was at Commonweal for decades and is currently at Pure Healthcare in Dayton, Ohio. As a medical educator, therapist, and teacher, she has enabled many thousands of physicians to find individual meaning and purpose in the practice medicine, and thousands of patients to remember their power to heal. Dr. Remen has had Crohn’s disease for more than 65 years and her work is a unique blend of the wisdom, strength, and viewpoints of both doctor and patient.

Dr Remen writes: Listening creates a holy silence. When you listen generously to people, they can hear truth in themselves, often for the first time. And in the silence of listening, you can know yourself in everyone. Eventually you may be able to hear, in everyone and beyond everyone, the unseen singing softly to itself and to you.

Perhaps the unique process which is a human being is never over. Even at death. (Italics added.)

Perhaps the world is one big healing community and we are all healers of each other. Perhaps we are all angels. And we do not know.

I think that prayer may be less about asking for the things we are attached to than it is about relinquishing our attachments in some way. It can take us beyond fear, which is an attachment, and beyond hope, which is another form of attachment. It can help us remember the nature of the world and the nature of life, not on an intellectual level but in a deep and experiential way. When we pray, we don’t change the world, we change ourselves. We change our consciousness. We move from an individual, isolated making-things-happen kind of consciousness to a connection on the deepest level with the largest possible reality. When we pray, we stop trying to control life and remember that we belong to life. It is an opportunity to experience humility and recognize grace.

Mystery seems to have the power to comfort, to offer hope, and to lend meaning in times of loss and pain. In surprising ways, it is the mysterious that strengthens us at such times. I used to try to offer people certainty in times which were not at all certain and could not be made certain. I now just offer my companionship and share my sense of mystery, of the possible, of wonder.

I accept that I may never know where truth lies in such matters. The most important questions don’t seem to have ready answers. But the questions themselves have a healing power when they are shared. An answer is an invitation to stop thinking about something, to stop wondering. Life has no such stopping places; life is a process whose every event is connected to the moment that just went by. And unanswered question is a fine traveling companion. It sharpens your eye for the road.

Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal (Riverhead books, 1996),pages 220, 224, 270, and 293.

Amazing grace: Pagels excerpt #7

Historian of religion Elaine Pagels begins her book Why Religion? with this personal affirmation: When I began to read the Gospel of Thomas, a list of a hundred and fourteen sayings that claims to reveal "the secret words of the living Jesus,” what I found stopped me in my tracks. According to saying 70, Jesus said, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” Struck by these words, I thought, We’re not asked to believe this; it just happens to be true. Whether Jesus actually said this, we can’t know for sure, but to me that didn’t matter. What did matter was the challenge.

She ends her book with a reflection on her experience of being recognized for her achievements at a Harvard University graduation ceremony: the invisible bonds connecting everyone there, and connecting all of us with countless others and with our world and whatever is beyond it, felt stronger than ever, echoing the words of an ancient Jewish prayer: "Blessed art Thou, Lord God of the Universe, that you have brought us alive to see this day." However it happens, sometimes hearts do heal, thorough what I can only call grace.

 

Pagels, Elaine. Why Religion? (p. 23, 210). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition

 

Her words remind me of the verse from the hymn, "Amazing Grace" . . .

 

Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come;
'Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far
And grace will lead me home. 

The lyrics to "Amazing Grace" were penned by the Englishman John Newton (1725-1807). Once the captain of a slave ship, Newton converted to Christianity after an encounter with God in a violent storm at sea.

The change in Newton's life was radical. Not only did he become an evangelical minister for the Church of England, but he also fought slavery as a social justice activist.

Newton inspired and encouraged William Wilberforce (1759-1833), a British member of Parliament who fought to abolish slave trading in England.

 

Knowledge of the heart: Pagels excerpt #6

Pagels writes in Why Religion? “The Gospel of Truth, then, is all about relationships—how, when we come to know ourselves, simultaneously we come to know God. Implicit in this relationship is the paradox of gnosis—not intellectual knowledge, but knowledge of the heart. What first we must come to know is that we cannot fully know God, since that Source far transcends our understanding. But what we can know is that we’re intimately connected with that divine Source, since ‘in him we live and move and have our being.’

 

“. . . this is myth as Plato told it: imagination revealing the deeper truths of human experience. So, the speak concludes, ‘If, indeed, these things have happened to each one of us,’ then we can see that this mythical story has real consequences.

 

“On the other hand, when we recognize how connected we are with one another and with ‘all beings,’ this author says, we may ‘say from the heart that you are the perfect day; in you dwells the light that does not fail.’ And recognizing this, in turn, impels us to act in ways that acknowledge those connections:

“Speak the truth with those who search for it . .  support those who have stumbled, and extend your hands to those who are ill. Feed those who are hungry; give rest to the weary . . . strengthen those who wish to rise; and awaken those who are asleep.

 

“Is this really Paul’s secret teaching? We can’t know for sure. As we’ve seen, some scholars agree that the renowned Egyptian teacher Valentinus wrote this gospel, since its language resonates with a famous poem that he wrote, and with the few fragments of his teaching that survive. Did the author receive Paul’s secret teaching orally, handed down in succession from a disciple named Theudas, who received it from Paul? Maybe so, since that’s what Valentinian tradition claims; alternatively, its author may have drawn on Paul’s letters to write it himself.

 

“I’ve come to love this poetic and moving story for the way it reframes the gospel narrative. Instead of seeing suffering as punishment, or somehow as ‘good for you,’ this author sees it rather as Buddhists do, as an essential element of human existence, yet one that may have the potential to break us open out of who we are. My own experience of the ‘nightmare’—the agony of feeling isolated, vulnerable, and terrified—has shown that only awareness of that sense of interconnection restores equanimity, even joy.”

 

Pagels, Elaine. Why Religion? (pp. 203). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

The mystery of Christ in you: Pagels excerpt #5

Pagels writes in Why Religion? “When the author of the Gospel of Truth sets out to reveal Paul’s secret teaching, he begins by asking, What happened before the beginning of time? In answer, he offers a primordial drama of creation, telling how, when ‘all beings’ began to search for the One from whom they came forth, they couldn’t find him. Feeling abandoned, not knowing where they came from, they suffered anguish and terror, like children wandering in the dark, searching in vain for their lost parents. As this gospel tells it, what separates all beings, including ourselves, from God is not sin. Instead, what frustrates our longing to know our source is its transcendence, and our own limited capacity for understanding. Yet when these beings—or when we—realize that we can’t find our way home, don’t know where we came from, or how we got here, we feel utterly lost. Overwhelmed by grief and fear, we may rush into paths that lead nowhere, more lost than ever, imagining that there’s nothing beyond the confusion we see in the world around us.

“At this point, the Gospel of Truth turns toward a drama of cosmic redemption. When the Father sees his children terrified and suffering, ensnared by negative energies, he sends his Son, ‘the hidden mystery, Jesus the Christ,’ to show them a path and bring them back ‘into the Father, into the Mother, Jesus of the infinite sweetness.’ And although, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians, ignorant and violent ‘rulers of this world’ tortured and crucified Jesus, the Father overturned their conspiracy, transforming even their hideous crime into a means of grace.

“To show this, the Gospel of Truth reframes the vision of the cross from an instrument of torture into a new tree of knowledge. Here Jesus’s battered body, ‘nailed to a tree,’ is seen as fruit on a tree of ‘knowing the Father,’ which unlike that tree in Paradise, doesn’t bring death, but life, to those who eat from it. Thus, the author suggests that those who participate in the Eucharist, eating the bread and drinking the wine that, symbolically speaking, are Jesus’s flesh and blood, ‘discover him in themselves’ while he ‘discovers themselves in him.’

“After years of contending with familiar Jewish and Christian sources, I found here a vision that goes beyond what Paul calls ‘the message of the cross.’ Instead of seeing suffering as punishment, this gospel suggests that, seen through the eyes of wisdom, suffering can show how we’re connected with each other, and with God; what Paul’s letter to the Colossians calls ‘the mystery of Christ in you, the hope of glory. No wonder, then, that Christians called their sacred meal a mystery (mysterion), a Greek term later translated as ‘sacrament’ (from Latin sacramentum).”

“The author of the Gospel of Truth rejects images of God as a harsh, divine judge who sent Jesus into the world ‘to die for our sins.’ Instead, he suggests, the loving and compassionate Rather sent Jesus to find those who were lost, and to bring them back home. So rather than see the writing on the cross as any death sentence—whether Pilate’s or God’s—this author suggests instead that Jesus published there ‘the living book of the living,’ a book ‘written in our heart’ that teaches us who we really are, since it includes the names of everyone who belongs to God’s family.”

 

Pagels, Elaine. Why Religion? (pp. 200-201). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Primordial, life-giving energy: Pagels excerpt #4

Pagels writes in Why Religion? “Whoever wrote the poem called Thunder, Complete Mind apparently drew on that opening line of Genesis, as well as on the poem in Proverbs, as did another anonymous writer whose poem was found at Nag Hammadi, who also gave a feminine voice to the primordial, life-giving energy that brings forth all things:

I am the thought that lives in the light.

I live in everyone, and I delve into them all . . .

I move in every creature. . . .

I am the invisible one in all beings . . .

I am a voice speaking softly . . .

I am the real voice . . . the voice from the invisible thought . . .

It is a mystery . . . I cry out in everyone . . .

I hid myself in everyone, and revealed myself within them, and every mind seeking me longs for me . . .

I am she who gradually brought forth everything . . .

I am the image of the invisible spirit . . .

The mother, the light . . . the virgin . . . the womb, and the voice . . .

I put breath within all beings.

 

Pagels, Elaine. Why Religion? (p. 199). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Secret teachings: Pagels excerpt #3

Pagels notes that Bishop Irenaeus, engaged in missionary work in Gaul in 160-180, “insists  that Jesus and Paul never offered secret teachings.” Yet, she writes, “Mark’s gospel says that Jesus, like other rabbis of his time, spoke a simple message in public, but explained its meaning only to his closest disciples when he was alone with them, saying, ‘the secret of the kingdom of God is given to you—but to those outside, everything is in parables,” so that “they may listen, but not understand’—although Mark tells nearly nothing of what he taught in private.

 

Furthermore, while researching the Gospel of Truth found at Nag Hammadi, Pagels “discovered a different Paul—and a different message. Its anonymous author, most likely Valentinus, the Egyptian poet and visionary, who admires Paul, sees the apostle as teacher of secret wisdom whose vision of grace includes everyone.

And writing to the church in Corinth, Paul adds that while teaching the simple gospel, he also shares with some a secret wisdom: “We do teach wisdom among people who are mature—not the wisdom of this world, nor of the rulers of this age. Rather, we speak the wisdom of God hidden in mystery, which God foreordained before the ages for our glory—which none of the rulers of this age knew—for, had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” Pagels asserts: “I was intrigued to see that here, in his own words, Paul hints at a different version of the gospel—not that God ‘sent his own son to die’ as a human sacrifice, but that ignorant and violent people, or the spiritual powers that energized them, had killed Jesus.”

“Fascinated,” Pagels continues, “I realized that the anonymous author of the Gospel of Truth writes to answer that question, and to reveal that secret wisdom—or, at least, his version of it. He begins with the words ‘The true gospel is joy, to those who receive from the Father the grace of knowing him!’ Plunging into that mystery, he says that the true gospel, unlike the simple message, doesn’t begin in human history. Instead, it begins before this world was created.

“What happened, then, not just ‘in the beginning,’ but before the beginning, in primordial time—and how would we know? To answer this question, the Gospel of Truth offers a poetic myth. For around the time this author was writing, some devout Jews, and some non-Jews as well, loved to speculate on questions about what God was doing before he created the world. Often they looked for hidden meaning in poetic passages of the Hebrew Bible, like that opening line from Genesis, which tells how ‘a wind (or spirit, ruah) from God moved over chaotic deep waters.’

“What was there, then? Others claimed to find hints of what happened in a famous poem in the biblical Book of Proverbs, in which divine wisdom (hohkmah), identified with God’s spirit (ruah), tells how she worked with God to create the world. Since both ‘spirit’ and ‘wisdom’ are feminine terms in Hebrew, she speaks as the Lord’s feminine companion, or perhaps as his beloved daughter, who participated with him in creating the world, when first she swept over the deep ocean waters:

“When he marked out the foundations of the earth, I was there beside him, like a little child, delighting him daily, always rejoicing before him, and rejoicing in his world full of people, delighting in the human race.”

 

Pagels, Elaine. Why Religion? (p. 197-198). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.