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When I was in high school back in Dallas our PBS station began to air episodes of the British comedy group Monty Python, and a local radio station began featuring lectures by Allan Watts.

Both the strange humor of Monty Python and the eclectic thought of Alan Watts were liberating for me. My brothers and I would religiously watch Monty Python at night and I make a point to listen to Watt’s lectures on eastern thought whenever I could.

Since those days I’ve realized Alan Watts could sometimes present a simplistic westernized understanding of some eastern religions, but his gift to me was in demonstrating there were vastly larger spiritual options than what I had learned about in Sunday School.

The religion I had learned as a child was kindly but it focused on words. We would listen to sermons, read the Bible, or pray to God; but there was never a time where we just sat and absorbed the silence. There was never a time when our minds got silent. The prayers I was taught as a child were focused on my personal wants and fears. I had learned a religion of belief, but not wisdom; of ritual, but not art; of service, but not love.

Reading Eastern texts taught me there was a space between my thoughts that contained the key out of my little self-centered prison of desires and fears. When I stopped dividing life into nouns and verbs I began to sense an oceanic unity that was deeper, broader and more immediate than I could have possibly imagined when all I knew were words.

I began to suspect that Jesus was concerned much more with that deep sense of unity than he was about creeds, rules and rituals. Before long, I would discover the writings of Trappist monk Thomas Merton who taught of a version of Christianity that allowed for contemplation and inner silence.

Thomas Merton said:

“The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness. But it does not matter much because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there.”

Last week, someone posted something dismissive of Atheists on my Facebook page. I don’t think the person was trying to be rude, but I would like to respond because I want this to be a place where people of differing worldviews can come and find the same respect.

Jesus once summarized his path as being a good neighbor. It’s far past time for Christians to take those words seriously. There is nothing less neighborly than trying to convert everyone to Christianity. Just because the Grand Inquisitors believed in hell did not justify their bullying and torturing non-Christians to “save” them.

We sometimes hear the line, “There are no Atheists in foxholes.” The point of the cliché seems to be that in a crisis everyone will turn to a higher power. The saying can just as easily be understood to say that people free of religious brainwashing are less likely to find themselves in foxholes.

As some Atheists themselves have said, “That there are no Atheists in foxholes” is not an argument against Atheism but against foxholes.”

As a Christian minister, I love the church as an intimate spiritual community but I hate the church as a dogmatic institutional juggernaut. As I read the Sermon on the Mount it seems to me that Jesus would be much happier with empty churches than with foxholes filled with Christians willing to fight for Jesus but unwilling to trust in the power of love.

Today I would like for us to think about what specifically goes wrong when we try to take a text like the Bible that was written in another language literally in our own.

If we only speak one language we can imagine that the world breaks down nicely into the nouns and verbs we were taught in elementary school, and that thereafter we can reason our way to truth using those unexamined initial categories as a foundation.

The problem is, literalism confuses the tool we are using to understand the world with reality itself. For example, the Hebrew words for God were usually male and so patriarchal literalists often insist on using exclusively masculine imagery for God. But the gender assignments in Hebrew were much more random than someone who only speaks English can possibly realize. In Hebrew, a chair has a masculine gender but even the stoutest literalist does not insist on calling the chair “he.”

The word for “Spirit” in Hebrew is feminine but patriarchal literalists tend to be just fine with dropping that gender assignment. Why? Because the definitions of language tend to codify the prejudices of a culture and to assume they are features of reality when, in fact, they are the tainted vocabulary of oppressive cultural hierarchies. For centuries, the same Greek word was translated as “minister” for men and “deaconess” for women.

We see the disastrous results of literalism all around us. One humorous example can be seen in European statuary. The term for “rays of light” in Hebrew was “horns” of light. If one travels around southern Europe one can still see statues of Moses with literal horns. That’s what happens when you take the nouns of another language literally in your own.

Because we all begin as children, we must initially learn complex subjects in a simplified form. Growing up means deconstructing our earlier understandings and going deeper and wider into reality. Einstein was incredibly skillful at crafting word pictures that hinted at the profound principles he was actually trying to share, but if people thought they had fully captured what Einstein was saying with their initial superficial understanding, they would not even know to look for the deeper truths he was actually trying to share.

In the same way, we cannot get to the profound principles of universal love Jesus taught if we take his words literally at the surface level of our initial understanding. Literalism assumes that Jesus looked and thought just like the reader does, whereas, Jesus taught in parables that point to larger truths than can possibly be captured in any one culture’s vocabulary.

The image of God as a white male sitting on a throne is a European image, not a Hebrew one. Literalism codifies our initial immature understandings. We cannot grow into universal love if the symbolic insights of scripture are mistaken for theological definitions and historical facts. Jesus said his teachings were like seeds. We usually don’t eat the seeds themselves. We put the seeds into the soil and let them grow into food and shelter. Jesus said:

“The Way of Heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which someone took, and sowed in a field; which indeed is smaller than all seeds but when it is grown, it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in its branches.” (Matthew 13:31–32)

Faith is not holding onto comfortable old beliefs in spite of new discovery. Faith is not a fear of outgrowing our initial understandings. Faith is trusting that radical authenticity will lead us to the newer and deeper understanding of the universal love the world desperately needs us to mature into.

“Beauty will save the world.” -Dostoevsky

We have entered a strange time in American history. We are swimming in a flood of propaganda and misinformation. On top of that, artificial intelligence will create a tsunami of more information, now generated without any human agent as its source. We are drowning in unfiltered information.

America has now fulfilled the pipe dream of many to be governed, not by the principles of a just and democratic republic, but by the principles of Capitalism and business. Truth is too expensive for capitalism, so our health will be monitored by a host of non-scientists whose medical understanding comes from scanning the internet for marginal scientists who will provide a convenient quote for their pseudo-scientific theories.

Justice is also too expensive for Capitalism, so our incoming president’s first nominee for the guardian of our nation’s ethical integrity has been accused by the House Ethics Committee of illegal activity including sex and drugs and of obstruction of justice. The nominee has stepped down, but the lack of an ethical compass remains.

Many are feeling adrift and fear that they are drowning in the current flood, but there are also ancient myths that remind us humanity has been here before and survived.

Religious myths are not about historical events. Myths are attempts to simply and poetically present the grand themes of human experience. The story of Noah and the flood appears to be a restatement of ancient Babylonian and Sumerian myths where a righteous human being is instructed by God, or the Gods, to build a boat that will endure the flood sent to end human evil and violence. Ancient myths do not give us answers, but they help us deepen and widen our questions.

To hold onto our humanity through this current flood will require an organizing principle for our information. We must learn to sift through truth claims, not by how they make us feel, but how they illumine our physical experience, how they call us to nurture the web of life, and by how they call us to serve our entire human family.

Myths remind us that the flood of evils raining on our one human family are the result of ancient evils. In my opinion, these are some of the evils we must renounce to be truly human:

-Laws based on the belief that might makes right and that personal possessions are of more value than the common good.

-Beliefs based on reported special revelation instead of the truths we find manifested in nature and in the experiences we hold in common with honest human beings all over the world.

-And, we must ALL renounce the belief that our group is more beloved of God and is, therefore, justified in mistreating the rest of us.

This is not the first time humankind has been adrift in a flood of lies and violence. Whereas many have lost their bearings in this voracious tide, the ancient myths remind us that we, as a species, have been here before and can endure such times.

Finding today’s “ark” means choosing ideas because they are true even if they are uncomfortable. Finding today’s ark means choosing our actions because they are just, even if that means a fairer distribution of the earth’s goods. This ark will require us to choose our values because they make us kind, not because they make us rich. And, finally, boarding this ark will mean choosing our art, not because it is entertaining, but because it makes nature’s beauty more manifest in the world.

To be perfectly honest, I do not really know if the Christmas story really happened the way it is described in most church Christmas pageants. In fact, the story doesn’t hold up too well to rational scrutiny.

The Wise Ones are supposedly following a star, but end up in Jerusalem, not Bethlehem. The name of the child is supposed to be “Immanuel,” but they call him “Jesus.” The child is the supposedly the miraculous offspring of God and a virgin, but Joseph is still evoked to tie Jesus to the line of David.

It seems to me that manger scenes are not to be understood as historical facts. They are wonderful cosmic poems using paradoxical imagery to drive us deeper into our own psyche.

I like the way D. H. Lawrence said it:

“Myth is an attempt to narrate a whole human experience, of which the purpose is too deep, going too deep in the blood and soul, for mental explanation or description.”

When we look at the human condition objectively it is possible to see ourselves as cosmic accidents. From a nihilistic perspective we seem to be born of random forces and die into nothingness.

But something deep within us tells a different story. Our heart swears that we are not just isolated individuals but members of one human family. The animal within us testifies that we are cells in one ecological being. The heavy metals in our body seem to bear witness that our story really began in exploding stars in distant galaxies.

When we look at manger scenes, or Buddhist mandalas, or dancing Shiva statues we are seeing symbolic maps of our deeper and wider lives. In a manger scene there are animals and stars, family and strangers, rulers and peasants. Is this not similar to the mosaic within our own souls?

Religious symbols sometimes evoke that same strange and familiar sensation we get when looking into a campfire, or listening to a running stream, hearing the wind blow through trees or touching a rich soil. Why do Earth, Wind and Fire give us such a sense of a primordial home from which we come and to which we return?

Symbols remind us that what sometimes seems like an indifferent materialist universe has risen to consciousness in us. The symbols of the solstice remind us that, in very real sense, we are lights shining out of the darkness and that we hold the universe within our deeper and wider selves.

I come to Christianity from the context of world religions and so I believe there are larger patterns to be found the individual sects of human religions. I have always loved the zen-like paradoxes of Christmas.

THE SILENT WORD

The creative pattern behind human thought cannot itself be spoken because it is what enables thought in the first place. When we tune our hearts to that creative pattern it becomes the unspoken logic behind our words, the aspiration for justice behind our relationships and invisible beauty behind our art. We do not need an angelic choir to hear the music of the cosmos playing inaudibly in our silences.

VIRGIN MOTHER

The symbol of a virgin mother is incredibly rich. The symbol of a virgin mother can be a reminder that none of us is too old, too young, or too sullied to give birth to the sacred. Sometimes the people that help give birth to our souls are not the same persons who gave birth to our biological bodies. In this sense, a teacher who lives alone and never marries may have more children than biological parents.

LIGHT SHINING IN THE DARKNESS

Rather than seeing darkness as empty, Christmas celebrates the fact that our psychological darkness can be the candle out of which the light of joy can shine. Again, the source of light is not itself visible. The source of sound is not itself audible. When new light comes Into our lives it may very well look like darkness.

O COME IMMANUEL

The word “Immanuel” means “God is with us.” So when we sing “O Come Immanuel” at Christmas we are asking for a gift we already have. Sometimes we have to go on a pilgrimage to find the treasure already buried within us.

THE THREE “WISE” MEN

After finding the Christ Child, the 3 “wise” men go straight to Herod to tell him of a new king that has been born. Wisdom can come from any quarter, but human wisdom easily becomes cluelessness when placed in a different setting.

RULER BORN IN A CATTLE FEEDER

Love cannot enter our world without dismantling the oppressive hierarchies that bring so much suffering to our human family. Mary sang that her son would bring the mighty low and lift up the lowly. She said he would fill the poor with good things and send the rich away empty. Jesus is not a good bully replacing the bad bullies. The symbol of an infant leader sleeping in a cattle feeder means that the power of love has replace the whole notion of power as domination and violence.

In this year’s Christmas play, the role of Herod will once again be played by every political leader who bashes immigrants, mocks the poor or hounds women having difficult pregnancies.

In this year’s Christmas play, the shepherds will be played by workers without unions or sick leave, and by construction workers who labor in dangerous conditions. The hotel owner will be played by those willing to stop making money long enough to help someone in need. Joseph will be played by all those who don’t need to personally benefit in order to help others. The 3 Wise Ones will be played by those willing to leave old religious and political certainties and follow wherever truth might lead.

This year, as every year, the Christ Child will be played by children born into dangerous struggle between powerful religious and political forces. These tender souls will be born shivering in the dark- invisible to the world. Every precious infant born in harm’s way will be of infinite value, worth more than all the treasures of the world.

The role of Mary will be played by all those radical lovers of humankind who keep the torch of hope for universal justice burning. Like Mary, they will sing of a day when those who dominate others will be brought down and the oppressed will be lifted up in a revolution of loving justice.

The role of the angels, as always, will be played by those who can hover above religious sects, national boundaries and hierarchies of vested wealth and power to sing a song of peace on earth and good will to ALL.

How many Christians realize that when Jesus told the parable of the shepherd leaving the ninety nine sheep to find the one that was lost he was saying we must sometimes leave the church to comfort those whom Christians have rejected?

Jesus said our love should be like the sun’s that rises upon the good and the evil, or like the rain that falls upon the just and unjust. The word “church” in Greek means “called out.” We are not defined by closed boundaries but by inclusive horizons. The church is not a gated community of insiders, it is a temple consisting of stones the builders have rejected. A church of purists and insiders is a contradiction in terms.

If the church rejects someone for the supposed crime of honest doubt, it is not the movement Jesus was talking about.

If a church shuns a member for loving their transgender child, it is not the movement Jesus was talking about.

If there were even one soul in hell, a true follower of Jesus would not enter the gates of heaven until that last missing member of the human family were included.

Love calls us not to sectarian religion, but to universal love.

As a child of the Christian faith I was taught that witches are bad. Life has not confirmed my inherited bias that people can be divided into good and evil camps. In fact, I have learned that some of the most evil acts in history were committed by those who saw themselves as purely good and their neighbors as purely evil.

Starhawk is a Wiccan, sometimes known as a witch. When I actually got around to listening to her many years ago, I was surprised to find, not evil and scheming, but kindness and wisdom.

In case you have never listened to a witch I am including a passage by Starhawk. Her approach is not against men, but it is against patriarchal domination. Her approach is not against God, but it does critique abstract theologies that do not find the sacred in nature.

Here is a beautiful passage from Starhawk that may widen and deepen your perceptual horizon. The words are hers, the spacing is mine:

“The earth is a living, conscious being.

“In company with cultures of many different times and places, we name these things as sacred: air, fire, water, and earth.

“Whether we see them as the breath, energy, blood, and body of the Mother, or as the blessed gifts of a Creator, or as symbols of the interconnected systems that sustain life, we know that nothing can live without them.

“To call these things sacred is to say that they have a value beyond their usefulness for human ends, that they themselves become the standards by which our acts, our economics, our laws, and our purposes must be judged.

“No one has the right to appropriate them or profit from them at the expense of others. Any government that fails to protect them forfeits its legitimacy.”

Starhawk says here that the earth is a living conscious being. I seriously doubt that minerals are conscious, but I am charmed by her perception of the elements as a kind of proto-intelligence. The periodic chart can be understood as a kind of unconscious intelligence beating in the heart of every element we dismiss as dead and thoughtless matter.

There is kind of “wisdom” that holds the universe together. While a focus on abstracted philosophy and theology tends to fragment humankind, I can’t think of anything more reverent and unifying than recognizing nature as our common body and as the most sacred of temples.

There are very important truths that cannot be translated from one language to another. When white male clergy imagine they are taking the Bible literally they are often attempting to reduce very rich ancient cultures down to their own European-American culture.

For example, the word “Lord” means all kinds of things in Hebrew and Aramaic; but, in English, the word usually conjures images of a white guy sitting on a throne. Therefore, when European and Americans Christians “take the Bible literally” in English, when they “worship the Lord,” they may be worshipping a European model of hierarchical power that says a lot more about their own western culture than the kind of world Jesus seemed to have in mind.

Many western analogies are derived from objective observation. Not all experience can be captured in visual mental images. The meaning of life is not something that can be understood at arm’s length. In addition to symbols derived from vision we need to learn from our hands, ears, skin etc.

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When a bee dances to let the hive know where they will find pollen it is using a vocabulary that nouns and verbs cannot capture. When Sufis and Wiccans dance they are feeling what cannot be said in human speech.

When Thoreau settled in at Walden he lived less and less in his thoughts and more and more in his unspeakable experiences. He began to hear nature through all of his body, not just his intellect.

He said:

“All perception of truth is the detection of analogy; we reason from our hands to our head.”

Each part of our body gives us wisdom in a different language. Each plant, animal and mineral speaks its own language that we must learn to decode without trying to imprison them in our web of language.

Religion should open us to all kinds of “decoding.” We vastly enrich our lived experience when we stop trying to capture nature in our culture’s web of nouns and verbs. We learn to hear the cosmic hymn when we realize that some truths have to be danced to be understood, others touched, others sung.

Sometimes our hands understand what our eyes cannot.