It’s been quite awhile since we’ve had a Q&A episode here at The Light in Every Thing! But after fourteen packed episodes all relating to the Letter to the Ephesians, it was clearly time. We are always grateful and inspired by the deep listening of our audience. This was evident again in the thoughtful and vulnerable questions posed within our Patreon community. Jonah and Patrick took extra time in this episode to delve into three questions, and touch on a couple of others.
We would love for you to consider joining our Patreon community, where there is the opportunity to comment on each episode, participate in “live” Zoom conversations with Patrick and Jonah, monthly facilitated conversations with other listeners, and much, much more. Since Easter, 2020 our patrons have grown to over 400 contributing members, almost half of whom joined at the $3/month tier. This steady stream of support is both deeply meaningful and vitally important to allowing Jonah and Patrick’s work in the world to spread and flourish. Through these conversations, some listeners have heard the call to priesthood and understood what seminary study might be like. Other listeners find these conversations essential to deepening their direct relationship with Christ Jesus and a significant part of their discipleship path.
https://www.christiancommunityseminary.ca/podcast
https://www.patreon.com/ccseminary/membership
As is so often the case in these conversations, The Light in Every Thing shines throughout. Dear listeners, thank you for all the ways you participate in bringing this work of love into your lives and into the world!
Many thanks to Camilla Lake for show notes and Podcast/Patreon production and communications. Thanks also to Elliott Chamberlin who composed our theme music, “Seeking Together.”
The Light in Every Thing is a podcast of The Seminary of The Christian Community in North America. Learn more about the Seminary and its offerings at our website. This podcast is supported by our growing Patreon community. To learn more, go to www.patreon.com/ccseminary.
It’s been quite awhile since we’ve had a Q&A episode here at The Light in Every Thing! But after fourteen packed episodes all relating to the Letter to the Ephesians, it was clearly time. We are always grateful and inspired by the deep listening of our audience. This was evident again in the thoughtful and vulnerable questions posed within our Patreon community. Jonah and Patrick took extra time in this episode to delve into three questions, and touch on a couple of others.
We would love for you to consider joining our Patreon community, where there is the opportunity to comment on each episode, participate in “live” Zoom conversations with Patrick and Jonah, monthly facilitated conversations with other listeners, and much, much more. Since Easter, 2020 our patrons have grown to over 400 contributing members, almost half of whom joined at the $3/month tier. This steady stream of support is both deeply meaningful and vitally important to allowing Jonah and Patrick’s work in the world to spread and flourish. Through these conversations, some listeners have heard the call to priesthood and understood what seminary study might be like. Other listeners find these conversations essential to deepening their direct relationship with Christ Jesus and a significant part of their discipleship path.
https://www.christiancommunityseminary.ca/podcast
https://www.patreon.com/ccseminary/membership
As is so often the case in these conversations, The Light in Every Thing shines throughout. Dear listeners, thank you for all the ways you participate in bringing this work of love into your lives and into the world!
Many thanks to Camilla Lake for show notes and Podcast/Patreon production and communications. Thanks also to Elliott Chamberlin who composed our theme music, “Seeking Together.”
The Light in Every Thing is a podcast of The Seminary of The Christian Community in North America. Learn more about the Seminary and its offerings at our website. This podcast is supported by our growing Patreon community. To learn more, go to www.patreon.com/ccseminary.
Thank you.
Speaker 2:Good morning Patrick.
Speaker 3:Morning, jonah, let's not do a weather update. No weather update. Nobody needs to know what the weather's like in Toronto today. I've got a better update, oh nice.
Speaker 2:Today happens to be my 20th anniversary with my dear wife.
Speaker 3:Today. Today, april 17th, I can share is a deep joy and honor to be in your lives, so please stay together Another 20 years. You are a blessing. Keep going through it. Keep hanging in there. Thank you, brother.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so happy for you. Yeah, no, it's a, it's a real joy, and I feel better than ever in my marriage with my wife. I love you. I'm so grateful. Praise God, yeah, praise God. Right, and we have another unique episode today.
Speaker 3:In the light, in everything.
Speaker 2:Where we discuss the nature of Christianity together. But today is special because we have a question and answer episode, or sometimes called question and response.
Speaker 3:Question and response, or just listening to your questions. Maybe we have no answer, no response. What a joy, thank you. What a joy, thank you. Yeah, these these were gathered on our patreon site, a place where our listeners can also interact with us and each other in response, also join in in the at the table once a month live zoom conversation led by two dear people in the circle around the podcast, anna Silber and Lori Widmer. Yeah, our patreoncom forward slash, ccseminary. Check it out. That's where these questions are coming from today. But first we have the reading from the Gospel of John as an opening, as always for us, and then we will dive in Again. Jesus spoke to them saying I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wonderful Patrick. Yeah, wonderful patrick. Well, before we dive into the questions, um, it would probably be wise just to read one more time, but let's sound out one more time, the passage that we've been working with for the past number of weeks. It's from Ephesians, the letter to the Ephesians in chapter six.
Speaker 2:Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.
Speaker 2:Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but we wrestle against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Speaker 2:Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and, having done on the breastplate of righteousness and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flames and darts of the evil one, all the flaming darts of the evil one. Then take up the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints and also for me, that words may be given me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak yeah, I can't, I guess I I can't.
Speaker 3:Did we start in january? It's april and anyway it's been a while. It's like 14 episodes. I think it's like over on that passage. Yeah, and even hearing it again, I just can feel oh my gosh, um, we could go back for another four days.
Speaker 3:It was cool because last night you know, on Tuesday nights for our listeners they may not know we have a distance learning program here at the seminary that are different ways to participate in, and one of our students, who's also a podcast listener, shout out Jared in Norman Oklahoma. He, he, he. Kinda. It was nice. I was, I was getting a good bit of teasing from the fellows last night, which was good, and uh, he kind of pushed in and said I hear you say the word mystery a lot. What do you mean by that? Actually, I want to make sure actually I understand what you mean. And hearing that text again, it brought that up for me because it's like something stands before you. That's it.
Speaker 3:They have the feeling the depths behind this thing I can't measure them, yeah, and yet something called it's's like. I don't have the, I don't know exactly what it is, but I'm called to enter it and I know if I enter it and seek what's hidden within it, it has treasure of the deepest and most significant, uh, things to offer. So, hearing it again, it's like this, it's, it has a beauty. I, I get it at a certain degree. We've been working on it for 14. You know. It's like I under and I stand in wonder and and and wondering, yeah, what all is actually in there.
Speaker 3:So, anyway, it's been a joy for me, jonah beautiful to dive into this, yeah yeah, was there something that just kind of came up again, just hearing it again, I love it because, sometimes I also get that kind of question like well, what do you mean about them, the mysteries, or you know?
Speaker 2:are you ever gonna like have an answer? But I think that's such a good description it's it To me it's like a mystery is something where the more answers you get, the more questions arise and wonder arises. And the more questions that arise, the more that leads to living answers that give more questions, the more that leads to living answers that give more questions, and so it has this feeling of a never-ending fountain of revelation. If my soul is in the wonder state. Beautiful, yeah.
Speaker 3:So we've been wondering, together with our listeners, about that passage from the letter to the Ephesians we're hoping to get. Well, I don't want to make any promises, no, no, no, no. We have set the intention to actually go through the entire letter to the Ephesians, but by this rate it might take us three years. We'll see, we'll see. Take us three years, we'll see, we'll see anyway. So today we're going to take a pause and step back and take up some of the questions that were offered to us, and they feel very related to what you just said. We're not going to pretend to provide definitive answers to these questions. I think some of them are very deep, but we're just happy to hear them, receive them and move them a little bit. And thank you, our listeners. Yeah, so I guess, since I've got them in my hand, I get to decide.
Speaker 2:You get to decide.
Speaker 3:Unless you know you've, unless you had the feeling. I really want to start with a particular one.
Speaker 2:No, I don't. I think the ones we talked about sound good.
Speaker 3:just just choose one from there well, I thought maybe a nice place to start would be from jacqueline. Hello, jacqueline, thank you for your question. You've been a long time devoted supporter of the seminary and listener and, yeah, just your honesty and presence is always so appreciated. We we received a question and some of them have had longer stories involved, but this one I feel like the story kind of is helpful for the question. So I'm going to go ahead and read it.
Speaker 3:She mentions how we need the armor to deal with the quote well-armed or well-aimed attacks of the adversary end quote. And she writes During the bright light of day I can turn to the comforter more readily when needed. I can turn to the comforter more readily when needed. But the 3 am fears, regrets, weaknesses are experienced as more threatening and demoralizing.
Speaker 3:What is the mind of Christ in these debilitating assaults? My thought is that I need to befriend the negativity and learn something from it. But some fears are existential. Is the helmet of salvation, protection and avoidance just a turning away from the consciousness that is opening? I was a fearful child and in part through talk of I was. I was a fearful child in part through talk of the quote devil and my negotiation with those fears was to pray. That seems dishonest to me as a much older adult, because it isn't freely done but rather a kind of cowering. I admit that St Paul's warning about the nature of this human condition, that we must stand and prepare, is reviving some latent, unmet fears from long ago. Thanks for any insight and guidance. Wow, so, so, yeah, wonderful, thank you.
Speaker 2:Jacqueline for having the courage to also guidance. Wow, so, so yeah, wonderful.
Speaker 3:Thank you, jacqueline, for having the courage to also share, yeah, and thank you to all these participants that sent in questions.
Speaker 2:Thank you, it's really beautiful to see so much activity.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so what, what?
Speaker 2:But what yeah this question?
Speaker 2:What came up in you as you, as you heard her well sharing from the the midnight yeah, the midnight place, I mean, yeah, we all know that place where you're you're, you're more vulnerable, you're, you're, you're, your sense of self and what you usually stand upon is kind of less present and you're kind of more in the dream world of floating between feeling and thought and picture, and it's simply less secure very often. But this, this, this question, has the gesture and the mood to me which it feels like. There are many questions that are similar to this what do?
Speaker 2:I do when, um, what do I do when I'm not able to meet what's coming up in my soul? What do I do with essentially, with my brokenness, or did I understand that Are?
Speaker 3:you talking about the question from David? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Or well, just this, this question of from Jacqueline how do I meet the presence of the darkness?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, it seems, I mean she's put forward also a solution which has been coming up in her. Like I have the feeling I need to not like for her prayer was a kind of avoiding something. Got it, yeah Was a way to escape the fear. Yeah. Get through, get around it, which has a true right, you could say. I think the child picture is really interesting to me. Yeah, the job of parents would be to protect a child from a too intense fear as much as they can.
Speaker 2:Right, you pray, so you don't have to have the fear.
Speaker 3:Right, so there's a version of protection which is just keeping some stuff away. Exactly that, for a certain time in our life, is very rightful.
Speaker 2:Right is very rightful Right. You keep your child in a kind of protected cocoon where everything is, you know, warm and helpful and wholesome, and that has a certain function for the growing child.
Speaker 3:And then if you think of we being the child of the hierarchies in God, like the list of things we are currently being protected from, that we don't have to look at and see and experience. Right, this very moment is so long, it's huge. Because we couldn't handle it. No, I would instantly like I would exit my body. It would be too much. Yeah, if I suddenly had the veils all lifted and I had to see all that was actually happening right now in this room.
Speaker 2:Right or like in the world. We all know how much we can actually look at the horrors that are happening in the world. Maybe you know five minutes and it's too much, even the little kind of filtered view of the news. Yeah, so there are real realities to the fact that we are being protected in the normal sense of the word. Yeah, and so we're now at this stage, and this is so important, I feel like in working with the armor picture, which is the armor doesn't keep us from consciousness of the evil one, it brings us into a real recognition. We're in a battle, we're in the darkness, things are broken, I'm broken, and we're to walk in a certain way with that where it's not the shield of faith. Doesn't take away the darts, the flaming darts. Yeah, they're just, it's a way to metabolize them. You could say it's a way to have a right relationship with those flaming darts, so that I'm not, that I'm still connected to Christ in my heart while I'm conscious of these attacks, so that that's a different picture of safety and protection.
Speaker 3:Which she kind of gets. That I feel like I just was so moved to hear you, jacqueline, sense that there's a certain maturation of your spirit, life that's being called forward Like, okay, that was what I did. Then it feels like the guidance I'm receiving from God is to step up and into this experience in a new way.
Speaker 2:Exactly, it's such a well-described it's coming into more of an adult prayer life.
Speaker 3:And that's not to be dismissive or demeaning, but we are on a path of maturity, yeah and evolving, yeah, and I and it's part of the maturity is also to say there are parts of me that are still yeah totally not ready to be mature, and that's it.
Speaker 3:It's a sign of maturity that I can accept that too, and that's okay. The key is, each one of us is at a different point with each one of these things. That's right and that's fine. It's growing into also a sensitivity like I'm not ready. I'm not ready. It's still knocking on the door, it's not going away. It sounds like the spirit is ready for me. It might have a perspective that I don't have. Right. My solutions aren't working anymore. Right, that's usually the sign. That's usually the sign.
Speaker 2:I've tried everything.
Speaker 3:I've been.
Speaker 2:I'm in a powerless place.
Speaker 3:Tried all the maneuvers I had in my bag Right and it keeps coming.
Speaker 2:Right, so there's a shift there then, practically in prayer which very often we can pray okay, I'm in a state of fear. Lord, take this fear away, give me peace. That's a. That's a you can pray that I mean it might work and it might not Right. So when it, when you say you've tried everything and you find that the fear is still there, or the difficulty of the darkness is still there, then the prayer has to take this new step, which is not take it away, but something like this Lord, as I walk in the presence of my fear, help me to receive your peace, you see. So I'm not asking to be taken, out of the darkness.
Speaker 2:I'm just asking for his light while I walk with the darkness, and that gesture of prayer is different than we're normally used to Like. If I pray, something is taken away.
Speaker 3:Right, I'm spared something yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think that's if there's a fundamental way of prayer that shift from saying Lord, take this away and give me light, to Lord, in the presence of this darkness, help me feel your light.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, beautiful. And she brought up the picture of the helmet of salvation and I feel like that as maybe a not helpful picture because, like, I'm putting something on again because physical armor gives us the impression of blocking something.
Speaker 3:And that's where we run into difficulty, where the imagery doesn't necessarily translate as you move to soul-spirit, moral reality. What is salvation? And how do you put it on your head? It's clearly not iron. And how do you put it on your head? It's clearly not iron. Instead, it's the story of Jesus' suffering, death and resurrection. That is salvation.
Speaker 3:So if I take that in, that's what I'm putting into my mind and I turn my inner attention to the agony of Christ, I'm led to the secrets of how a being passes through agony and is not spared agony but is victorious. On the other side, where the agony becomes birth pangs to the new kingdom, to the new human being, to the eternally hope-filled, life-giving, resurrected one, he transforms all of that into birth pangs. But it's birth pangs and like can't get around it, like if we're going to have this child at a certain point, you're like pregnant, pregnant, pregnant, but that's great, or something Full of this child, full of this child, yeah, but the agony's coming, the labor process can't, we can't. There's no around that. In a true path. It's a narrow gate and I think that putting on of his path through it into my mind orients me to the 3 am fears and I can, for example, read in the gospel these beautiful passages about the night.
Speaker 3:Does Jesus know fears in the night, the rise of the power of the enemy in the night. And it's a comfort, this strange comfort. The comfort is not protective, sparing me comfort. Oh, you went through this too and you can get through this, and this isn't going to be me forever and ever. I can come through this. Let me see how you did it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I love that it's such a key to see his part of the helmet of salvation. I love that it's such a key To see his part of the helmet of salvation is the way he relates to suffering, and that's an orientation, that's a mind shift. It's not your normal mind, it's a mind shift into his mind. And I think another thing that's just so important and I think it touches in on a lot of these questions is it's okay to be in the powerless, dark, vulnerable place it's meant to be also.
Speaker 3:Yeah, let's spend some time there.
Speaker 2:I think that's just so important because so often we have a productive, result-based consciousness that is like how do I solve this? How do I solve this? I mean, we all know that so well because we want to get to the place where it's good, but to start to shift also. For example, one of the words from Christ how long, Lord, must I bear, how long so this kind of knowing that bearing an unsolvable mystery, an unsolvable suffering, is part of the holy life.
Speaker 3:But why? Why is that a part of it? Let's, let's, let's, let's dig down into this. Is it just part of it? Because it is a part, you know, like is there what is? What is it that it? Why would it be? Why would it be allowed in the valley of the shadow of death, the forsaken experience, the abandoned darkness, fear.
Speaker 2:That's such a good question. It's such a root question and it touches in on the deepest mysteries of like passion, tide and this powerlessness place. You know, um, my god, my god, how you have forsaken me. Why is that necessary? Why is that? Is there some?
Speaker 3:kind of healing in it. Is there some kind of actual gift that you can't get through any other thing?
Speaker 2:Absolutely my friend and I know. You know that. And I would put it this way what if I could solve everything? Let's just go there, there you go, oh, that's awesome Jay. Isn't it Like what, if I could you know? And part of me, my lower part, my arrogant part, my impatient part, wants to be able to solve everything.
Speaker 3:Probably especially as a spiritual person.
Speaker 2:Oh, totally, because I want to be like you know, the one that knows it all and can control it all, and knows everything how to solve it at all, and knows everything how to solve it.
Speaker 3:So our personhood is seriously infected with something for which the only possible medicine is you don't know.
Speaker 2:There you go and you can't solve it.
Speaker 3:You can't figure this out. You don't know other way. You feel utterly alone. No one's helping you Like. You have to go into this thing because it will cleanse and heal you. Amen, because the person you become on the other side of this is the actual person you want to become.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and that's a person who knows that my true power, identity and reality is a gift of grace. There is no other way to embody that, receive that, know that, live that than if I come to a place where I cannot do it.
Speaker 3:I can know it because I read about it. Yeah, I can be oriented towards it. Yeah, orientated, maybe I've always been oriented towards it, but I can't be it Right, unless it's happened in me and to me.
Speaker 2:Right. So we see the representative of humanity, the true human being, the one who exemplifies as a prototype our true humanity, who holds our true being in himself, having to be in a place where he can't solve it, where he is abandoned alone, praying for help in the garden at night, not sure if he's going to make it.
Speaker 3:He doesn't know if he's going to make it Right. He doesn't know if he's going to make it.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:He can't do it. He actually has experience. I need help. So why is that good?
Speaker 2:Because it opens the doorway to have the experience as a human that my life is a gift Everything. Everything is a gift. Yeah, and that turns out to be that mode of the heart to open up to a conscious, free experience of that. My life is a gift and everything is a gift that turns out to be the fulfillment of the human heart. Right.
Speaker 3:And it's not that it's like, it's not that like the divine powers said, you know, hey, you know what? What would really gift people this feeling that life is a gift? Let's put them through hell, okay? No, a snake got involved in our story that gave us the idea that we were God's gift to the universe. We were infected with something that ended up blocking us, blinding us to the gift world.
Speaker 2:To the gift world, so that we I mean, there's also a purpose to that so that we could go through this possibly.
Speaker 3:There's a certain gain of personhood, a certain kind of personhood, but the true personhood, that is, the divine person, has this gift personhood experience and I think it's also worth mentioning that very important that it's not also the divine world saying oh, we'll let this happen to them over there.
Speaker 2:The divine world in its fullness incarnated into a person and experiences and leads the way through this process itself.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So it suffers what we suffer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's it. It's not like it's created something to just put these creatures through some weird you know, kind of pulling the strings. It's like, oh, this is the direction everything has gone in, it's reached a certain depth. I'm going to actually resolve this in the most extraordinary and unexpected way. I'm going to get inside it.
Speaker 2:I'm going to do it myself.
Speaker 3:And go through it. I'm going to do it myself and change the mysteries mysteries of agony, of night, of aloneness, of abandonment of betrayal all the things I'm going to transform through the way I go through it exactly and lead the way, and that's just that's the helmet. That's true protection. Is that actual mystery of how he goes through it?
Speaker 2:and so then, if I'm in a place of vulnerability, I'm in a place of insecurity and I'm feeling weak and I'm feeling unsure. Yeah, just the beginning trust that that's actually the place where holy life can be. Yeah, it's okay, it's meant to be. Yeah, that helps a lot.
Speaker 3:Again, when it's your hour, right, when it's your hour, you know, like when it is clear that is the time to go through. That is now, yeah. There's a passage then in John, chapter 9, verse 4. Then in John chapter 9, verse 4, we must work the works of him who sent me. While it is day, night is coming when no one can work. That's like it. Just just to say that the night is real, and it's real for god too. God goes through this kind of a night, a night of agony a dark night of the soul.
Speaker 3:Classic text yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So anyway, jacqueline, maybe we hope this is of some comfort.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it sounds to me like you're hearing the direction, actually the guidance, but that for us, the helmet definitely belongs to it. It isn't a false protection, it's true protection, true protection yeah. Should we try another one? Let's true protection, true protection Should we try another one. Let's do it. Yeah, gosh, there's a lot of good ones. Well, let's go ahead and go to a bit of another big one, and it feels just very related, so maybe there's not too much more to add.
Speaker 3:This is from one of our newer listeners, annie yeah annie yeah, I met annie in north carolina and her daughter izzy. Wonderful thank you for also your beautiful honesty and candor in your question where you shared your story, which included just an extremely beautiful tale of the living experience of Easter in you. It's a really beautiful description and she kind of begins to close that here at the end and then leads into her question. She writes it was absolutely wild.
Speaker 3:Each day of the Holy Week I was in humble awe at the things happening to me, echoing in the stories. Echoing the stories. What I learned is that Easter is a living all caps festival and that it lives in us and through us. So what we were just talking about With this armor we can see appearances move but be unmoved all caps by them. So things are coming at us, but we can stay centered. The armor kept my astral body calm. My soul life was able to stay calm and tamed so I could walk with Christ, and tamed so I could walk with Christ. It appears that an old loop of samskara was welling up in my karma and on Easter day I celebrated victory over it. So for those of us who are not as familiar with the Hindu terms, the Sanskrit terms I don't know, jonah, if you the chains of suffering, the karmic chains of suffering that bind us to our kind of old selves.
Speaker 3:It was also a victory in forgiving. It seems, that powerful awareness itself is an armor. So just a beautiful tale of Easter in a human. Thank you, annie. My question is if we have put the armor on and have actually won a victory, why does it feel like I'm standing on an open, victorious battlefield? Dot dot dot, an absolutely gorgeous, breathtaking meadow. Dot dot dot, all by myself? Christ is with me, so of course I'm never alone, but I fought this quite alone and there is a feeling that there are no fellow armed soldiers to celebrate with. So it's a beautiful kind of picking up of the imagery. Don't we go out to battle together as a troop? Why would this be so? Why would an experience of aloneness be at all connected to an Easter victory? I see the glorious sunrise of Christ she writes, and victory, with tears in my eyes. And yet I turn to the right and the left and just me in an empty field. Yeah, in an empty field.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, there's definitely some pictures that come up in my heart and mind, but I'm also curious what comes up in your heart?
Speaker 3:Oh, don't be shy, who goes first? Who goes first? Yeah, I guess you went first last time. I could start if you want.
Speaker 3:Sure, sure. Well, I mean, I just remember how hard this has been in my life, yeah, Like, just like brutal. That deep feeling of the call to face the dragons, the kind of clear picture that there is a certain spirit knighthood needed for our time, and the sense that we'll do probably a lot better if we could go out as a team and knowing a bunch of amazing people my in my age group, yeah, and being like, okay, let's go you're?
Speaker 3:yeah, I mean, I just remember you telling me about your classmates and how amazing everyone is yeah, and in many different times of my life just you know, to the left and the right I'm noticing some amazing people, and then I would start to go. And then I'd look and I'm like, no, no, they need to go over there. Why are you going over there? And then I would be upset that people were not where I was and I longed so badly to go in together.
Speaker 3:This is even before the battle starts. I'm like literally like try, just trying to get the armor on and go to battle and at a certain point I remember it was even just going to seminary at 24 years old. Yeah, it's like, well, I cannot wait for everyone to be ready to do what I feel called to do. I just knew my time is now. I have to find the courage to just go, as if no one else will ever come. That was like one of the first big steps like I've got it. And again and again it happened. I could tell so many stories where it was like you know, because I'm a team sport guy, totally like I, you know tennis is cool.
Speaker 3:Golf is team sport. Guy Like I, you know. Tennis is cool. Golf is cool, but not really compared to, like basketball, volleyball, like where you have to work together or you're in a band like a single musician, as opposed to a quartet or a band. Oh my gosh, it's just. It's like a single star versus a constellation. It's not really comparable. That's where it's at. It's not really comparable. That's where it's at. It's what we're called to and somehow the mystery of the shining of my star cannot happen through the activity of any other star in the final.
Speaker 3:There's certain moments like the light shines from the center of the star and then it can join a constellation. It might be the first one to appear in the night sky.
Speaker 2:Right and then maybe.
Speaker 3:But it's not my job, job. I can't make any other star come into its radiance. I can't. And I remember this happened also in my work. I remember coming into the senate of priests, like you know.
Speaker 3:You've got all your colleagues and you're inspired by a vision and you're like yo, let's go, let let's do this, and they all go. What are you talking about? We've already tried that and you have the experience. They're not on your page, yeah, and then you're left alone. Relative to the spirit, yeah, and I have to discern for myself. Is the spirit that's prompting me? True, even though no one else around me is seeing what I'm seeing? Going through what I'm going through? Yes, okay, let's do it, despite the fact that I'm getting zero reflection that this is what anyone else thinks is right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that deed, those deeds. When you pile those up, if I look back over my life, it's like, oh, my goodness, those were these essential events in my being that is making it possible for me to be in a constellation. The strange thing is is that now, at this point, I'm doing so much constellation work. There are brothers and sisters all around me in all kinds of ways, and again and again, I still get led back to new moments of utter alone events. This is you and God and the universe. When you come through this, it will start to become a community thing, but this next thing we're doing is you and God and the universe. So there's some, and it just has to do with the single star mystery. For me, it's like to be to to become who we are called to become. There is a, there is a part of that mystery that is utter. It's connected to utter aloneness. Yeah, I don't know how else to say it. Oh, it's beautiful, beaut aloneness.
Speaker 2:I don't know how else to say it. Oh, it's beautiful, beautifully said. Yeah, I love the picture of sometimes you just see one star initially and then gradually, it can come out.
Speaker 2:I mean my experience is very similar to yours in many ways, maybe slightly different in that, for whatever reason, for whatever kind of darknesses I also carried in my being, I felt initially in my spiritual journey going to the seminary. Initially, in my spiritual journey going to the seminary, going through a kind of Ronan, a kind of maverick, a kind of, it just seemed to me that the experiences that I was having and that I was working with were not the experiences of others. Very quickly, quickly, and I just felt alone with the call from Christ in my relationship with him, very early, no-transcript, a kind of um, yeah, a kind of just acceptance of this loneliness which which wasn't like any said total loneliness Cause I did feel I was with.
Speaker 2:Christ and walking with him and had to recheck, as you said so beautifully. Is this true or am I just being an arrogant person, right?
Speaker 3:Shouldn't I join where others are?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's clear to me now that there are certain things that, like you said so beautifully, you've got to go through alone and build your sense of shining in that yourself and then join. And for me the mysteries of rightful joining and the rightful working with community didn't open up to me really well until I had certain experiences at the altar, really until I had certain experiences at the altar really, where the sheltering power of those across the threshold, the community of Christians that are actually across the threshold sometimes called the cloud of witnesses, when I started to experience that community more and more and more under the kind of feeling all of us are in and under the Father.
Speaker 2:That wasn't an initial experience for me. That took a long time to ripen experience for me that took a long time to ripen. Then I started to experience for myself that Christ is himself a community, not just an individual one-to-one relationship. Right right Once that broke into me as a grace, it started to seed my heart with the immense value of community. And even though I didn't necessarily feel everyone was sharing my experiences, I started to open my heart in a new way to others and see and try to feel and actually strive. Okay, If Christ is community, well let me see if I can find Christ in this heart, over here and over here. And once I started doing that, all of a sudden I found myself not alone Hardly ever. Yeah, Like you said, there's still alone experiences. I found myself not alone hardly ever. Like you said, there's still alone experiences. Now, after many years of this training, I would put it going to a synod, for example.
Speaker 2:Of priests, the gathering Of priests like the last one. There's just so many experiences that I had where Christ is speaking to me through one of my brothers or sisters, and that experience of then a constellation of stars arises more and more, but I feel like I had to go through certain gates, certain doorways and be given certain things to start that. So that's a little bit of my story. But so the question for Annie would just be stay with it, stay with the alone experiences, because they're so important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that yeah, that yeah, and open with a hopeful expectation that there is a tremendous community. Yes, that is actually his body. Yeah, that can gradually become more and more a part of our experience thank you so beautiful.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think, um, two additional things come as I listened that the one is the wisdom that you, annie, broke through to, that easter is a living festival and that it is actually the dynamic of our story that that can, that alone experience of going through your Easter can become the seed for a loving gaze towards every human being you meet. You could say, you could look at every person you know and go where are you in your Easter story? Oh, oh, you're, uh, over there in that particular gospel passage, so to speak. Oh, you're in this particular challenge, or you're. And you start to see, everyone is actually walking through these mysteries.
Speaker 3:Every single human has a cross and everyone is usually trying to avoid Golgotha Totally. What we think is true protection, yeah, and being called to find the way to this armor which is to put on Golgotha. It's beautiful, I love it, which you know, maybe you're not ready to do until you've realized every other single garment you try doesn't work. Yeah, it's usually like we usually have all been like well, anything but that, please. And so we realized that's like the secret of the universe, but that secret wants to also happen and be individualized, yeah, Beautifully said.
Speaker 3:And this is for me the new like, so my gift this year of the many, but one of the big gifts from God for me this year is that cloud of witnesses that you mentioned, this community of Christians on this side and the other are those who have brought Christ to life within themselves. That's the phrasing in our act of consecration, our worship service, and what I never heard until this year really is the implication that he had died in us, brought Christ to life.
Speaker 2:Within himself. Yeah, christ is risen to you.
Speaker 3:It was just like it's beautiful.
Speaker 3:And I went and it was suddenly the sunday service for the children which, like, also played its role to unlock it. Like christ died, it says he became alive in the being of those who gave him a dwelling in their heart. Easter as an event in humans. And he's also the risen one is rising up in humans and he's hidden in the tomb of our being. Like yo, preach brother, preach Yo. So this becomes the new conversion experience for me is not I believe in Christ alone at all, but it's like Easter in me. So I think, andy, that's what I would also just trust in. I would just pass along as a brother whose household had some Easter experiences is just keep your eye out, start to look around, as Jonah said for Easter and your brothers and sisters. There might be a bunch of people who are not on the other side of the victory. That's okay. Well, this is also Right. That's key.
Speaker 2:Right, because the more of these Easter eyes, let's put it that way this. Easter mind, this Easter narrative, let's put it that way this Easter mind, this Easter narrative comes alive. It also becomes clear how much darkness and adversarial reality is working in us and working in the world.
Speaker 3:So it doesn't mean that just because I start to see death and resurrection.
Speaker 2:You have the adversaries even more clearly defined, and the wolves, and yeah.
Speaker 3:Night is coming.
Speaker 2:Night is coming and it's because look at the cross, I mean you've got the oppressors, you've got the adversaries right there. So it's not an either or, but the joy, the peace, the endurance, the strength is greater, if it's really Easter sight, than the darkness can withstand. Beautiful, I love it.
Speaker 3:Well, and just also keeping that gaze out for the presence of the spirit, friends, as you mentioned. For me that's very moving. There are just so many, so multitude, countless multitude, it says in the book of Revelation. It's just actually stunning. So just keep your eyes out for Martin Luther King Jr. Yeah, mother Teresa.
Speaker 2:Riddle Meyer, thich Nhat Hanh, amen Steiner Francis.
Speaker 3:Stephen Right, paul, we could go. We could go, we could just do names. We can just do a lot, we can just do an episode just names. It goes on and on. Those are just the ones we've met.
Speaker 2:Right and I think one key, one practical key for me too, was really the doorway of the Lord's prayer. When we really make real for ourselves the prayer, when we really make real for ourselves the hour, when we sense that Christ is praying with us, christ Jesus is praying with us, this prayer, and we together are saying hour and feeling the Father encompassing us, it will, of its own power, start to unfold all who are the hour, and the hour will start to include all of the brothers and sisters that are actually deep in their hearts, imprinted with this prayer. Yeah, it's an organ of perception itself, I would submit, beautiful.
Speaker 3:So that's another practical way to start to look yeah, and it can become then as it did then for me also, and continues to be a kind of guiding help. If I, if I feel, if I get the impression that there's no one else and I'm alone, I no longer trust it.
Speaker 2:Beautiful.
Speaker 3:So it's like this other side of the coin of there are some things I can only go through in my aloneness. When I end up in an experience where it feels like I'm the only one here and there's no one else, I no longer trust that experience. It's no one else. I no longer trust that experience. It's an experience, but I no longer. I'm like immediately, like yo pay attention, that's not true. So have I done something to isolate? This is a different thing than aloneness. Have I isolated myself? Has a divider entered me? And I'm not saying this is entertaining at all. This is a different thing than aloneness. Have I isolated myself? Has a divider entered me? And I'm not saying this is entertaining at all, I'm just saying in myself.
Speaker 2:This has become a thing. Now it's hygienic to do this, no matter what. Sometimes we're meant to go through alone experiences, but let's check our hearts that we haven't concluded that that is reality.
Speaker 3:I'm the only being. It's me and God, and that's it that exists.
Speaker 2:That's the only hope, and I've put a barrier somewhere to actually the cloud of witnesses that is always present. That's it Does it, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:so this word from John of they will know you are my disciples by your love for one another has been just this. It's like when I feel truly isolated, my love has died for my people, for the people, for God's people, for him in the people, and I know I got to, I get it. I'm in a hole. Actually, I'm in an isolation hole and I need to start the journey, this alone journey in myself of overcoming my isolation. Yeah, Anyway.
Speaker 3:So that's what I felt like. All those those, those themes are big and I think of just really another part of the unique character of this, because it's really interesting that he doesn't say put on the armor and stand with your companions and go out to battle. It's so striking, it is an alone picture, even in the description, and Right, they're both needed.
Speaker 2:It wouldn't have been right for my path. I can see without that alone experience because it's like.
Speaker 3:It's like, I think, especially this time. It's like the. The communal group experience of being together, inspired and ready to go out to battle is an old reality where a larger spirit was moving a horde, a crowd of soldiers. Inspired by this spirit, the new host of the Lord are individuals.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's just no, you can't get there except on that Right Individuals that have come together in free love. Yeah, yeah, so it's different, it's different. Well, do we have time for one more?
Speaker 3:We could. Yeah. Yeah, it's been about an hour. Let me just see if there's. There is a shorter one maybe. Well, no, I don't know if it's shorter.
Speaker 2:Shorter in text.
Speaker 3:Let's see, we got to kind of touch in with David's question, I think a little bit, and Jacqueline and Annie Nicole had a really good question about prayer, which I feel like we've kind of touched on a little bit. I'm kind of inspired to go to Claudia, one of the OGs, claudia, OG and just dear soul. Original podcast listener distance learner, student from the seminary Seminary student deep.
Speaker 3:Christian Deacon in Ottawa, unofficial deacon, just a, yeah, a sister in Christ in the work and she, yeah, has been appreciating this series. She wrote what pierced my heart is that the battlefield of the war between spiritual entities is the human soul.
Speaker 3:The human soul, exclamation point all caps, yeah, yeah, that's a big one. That's a big one Since the human soul can find peace in Christ. Why is there such a resistance to his word in our time? Why did we hear and believe? Why do others have no access to it? It feels really related, I feel like, to what we just talked about. That's a good, good one to go it feels biblical.
Speaker 2:I mean totally this you know John 15. Why do some people receive the Holy Spirit and others don't?
Speaker 3:Romans 12. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah Gosh. What's Christ's answer to that? If you love me, We'll come I'll come, father, and I will come make our home. Make our home in your heart and abide with you if you love me yeah, so she the way she phrased.
Speaker 3:It's interesting. She said if cry, if the soul finds peace in christ, why isn't? Why aren't more people just being like, oh good?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's such a fundamental, another one of these root questions, right, but it has a similar character. It's interesting how all of these questions have such a similar character because we're still so imprinted by what I would call the old mysteries, which is holiness, peace, purity. Love is somewhere above and out, and not in any kind of darkness or difficulty. It's transcended, it's enlightened, it's in nirvana. Yeah, it's enlightened, it's in nirvana. And this, this translates very often into our kind of assumed spiritual cultures that we walk in and work in, where, if you're a spiritual person or a real advanced spiritual being, you don't have any more problems. You're not suffering.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're very healthy it reminds me of our trip to sacramento and that that weekend we did right and we had a bunch of you know, just like you know, our own teachers and elders were there being taught by us for a weekend. Right, it was so beautiful the way they also came and heard and were open to the young bucks of the next generation. And you told that story of your dear friend and elder who reached 70 years old and had to admit how come I haven't made it, had to admit how come I haven't like made it, how come I'm not like this enlightened above all problem suffering and difficulties, wise spirit, elder, and I'm just like you're telling this story and I'm looking at this you know large sea of seven-year-olds be like, yeah, you want to tell me too, because I'm not feeling like I've hit the victory lap yet yeah right because the the old pictures is holiness is outside of any darkness or beyond it all beyond it's.
Speaker 2:and that's because, because also, god was not yet incarnated in the mess, he didn't yet take on our sin, become broken himself. So holiness itself was outside of the Machenmeyer. But through Christ and through Golgotha, holiness, purity, peace, love changed its character. Now love is I'm washing my betrayer's feet, john 13. I'm actually going to be betrayed and I'm still bearing and helping you. So right, that's such a radical transition For me.
Speaker 3:One of the ways that I think I carried the old picture was the path that we go on is to get all the answers, to become the one who has all the answers. And here we are talking about our answers, but like it's like. Oh, when I've, when I'm really reaching maturity, I'm experiencing, I'm, I'm being initiated into the. I don't have the answer, I don't know how this goes, I can't, I don't know and I can't. That becomes the realm I get initiated into. I don't have the answer, I'm living something. And then we can meet our brothers and sisters who are still holding on to the answer mode and are thereby avoiding going through something. Right, if I'm going through it, it's like I don't have the answer. I have to just suffer something, go through something, let it in, let it do something with me. It actually becomes a Marian mystery for me.
Speaker 3:May it come to pass as you have said that I can tell no other person how to come to their answer and I myself don't know what. I need to go through something? Yeah, Because I'm trusting in a wisdom that's way, way, way bigger than me.
Speaker 2:Way bigger than me, and also in a, in a picture that shows the good path is peace with the broken world. That's our communion structure. Communion with God is not just peace, ie transcendent bliss, transcendent bliss. Our communion structure in our service describes what it's like to be holy, to be pure, to be loving, to be peace-filled. Peace with a broken world, whole soul in a sick dwelling, knowing Christ alongside the adversary. So that gesture, that whole structure. So then, when I come to a place where I don't know, I don't have the answer, it's not the end of the world or it doesn't show me that I just haven't made my spiritual mastery yet. It's actually congruent with the whole process that I'm actually holy when I work with that unknowing, in a particular way, like Christ.
Speaker 3:Right. And so we come back to Claudius. I think I hear also pain in it, and I know that pain too. Why doesn't everyone just come receive the peace that Christ can give? Yeah, and I think that's also right. It's like the picture of the way our world works is like oh, you're suffering from a sickness, this medicine works. If you were to announce that at the pharmacy, everybody'd be lined up yeah you'd be have a billion dollar company.
Speaker 3:This is the medicine that works, yeah, but if you say you're in suffering and sickness and you say that is god's medicine, yeah, well, that's it.
Speaker 2:Like yo, I want a different one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's it that's such right it's like, of course I mean that would mean right. That would mean also that if I have a brother who is currently drawn into drug use and I've tried and approached and said you do not want to go down, do you know how dark this is? And like there's this wonderful human I know, who's also divine, named Jesus, and you might like it a lot better than what the drugs are offering, and they still go down that road. There may be some wisdom at work that's greater than mine here. This might be a part of their dark night agony mysteries that their spirits are interested in.
Speaker 3:That I have no, that I didn't, that I am not in a position to judge. I may not be able to recognize all the threads that are going on in this story. I'm going to stay in it and I'm going to trust in the larger guiding hands of powers greater than myself, of wisdom greater than myself, and be ready to welcome and receive and heal and love that human when they want a direct encounter with the one I love. But I need help bearing that Amen, because it's really hard for me and this is where I feel like I connect deeply with this question from Claudia.
Speaker 3:It's really hard for me to bear all the pain that people are going through, not just my pain. My pain in some ways fine, my daughter's pain no, I don't like that. Your pain, I don't. I don't. I want anyone else to suffer, which is a, on the one hand, I want anyone else to suffer, right, which is it, on the one hand, beautiful and healthy feeling, yeah, and in this deeper level, it's like well, do you want to deny them Easter, right? You don't know how this might be a part of their own Easter mystery, their own Easter story.
Speaker 2:I love it. Thank you. It ties right into these threads. The only way to experience for yourself that my true fulfillment comes through a gift, that my true fulfillment comes through a gift, an Easter opening is to come to my end, and very often a darkness like an addiction has to find its end before I can authentically open up to something greater than myself.
Speaker 3:It's for this reason that in the true church of Christ, there is no set of behaviors that are right and wrong.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's radical.
Speaker 3:This is the reason. It's not because some things aren't damaging and some things are blessing. That's facts. It's facts.
Speaker 2:but the whole, like it's prodigal son shape is, as opposed to you, you behave some.
Speaker 3:Yeah, christians are people who are a set of behaviors or whatever, and if you, you know, and when you have that kind of tyranny in a church, it's horrible. But the other side of like well, okay, so we don't want that. So, like, whatever you want to do is good, no, it's yo. We are all in the easter mystery and we are here for it, and the church is here for it with you, for you, right, walking next to you like he does in truth and grace.
Speaker 2:Yeah, beautifully said. And that bearing becomes kind of like the father in the prodigal son story His son goes out and he knows it and he's it's painful.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's so hard.
Speaker 2:And yet you're always hoping that this Easter moment occurs. Yeah.
Speaker 3:That happens for him in utter aloneness, Dude this is amazing In the pigsty. He's at the bottom, bottom, yeah, and in his aloneness he remembers the Father.
Speaker 2:He comes into himself and remembers his origin Right, and then makes a turn all by himself, remembers his origin Right, and then makes a turn all by himself, all by himself, and then goes and joins the community of the kingdom.
Speaker 3:Humbled, feeling his own dignity is worth nothing other than being a slave at his farm, and the father exalts him. It's just like, come on that story. Yeah, it's all there. It's all there and we just the time. Everybody's timing is their timing and I can't. I have to. So this is for me, maybe, Jonah, maybe I feel like a one more confession today. Anyway. So I shared with you my longing, my hope and longing to be able to go into the battle with a group, my longing to be together all of us shared mind, shared goal, shared orientation. My Lord has been showing me how that's not love, Because I thought it was. I was like, oh, I'm for everybody, but actually that version of my love just led to anger. I was just pissed and disappointed and angry. And how come they're not in this? And like I, just it didn't. It didn't give birth to love in me. Wow, no. So over and over again, he's been showing me by you, you need to let them go, dude. That's how, when he speaks.
Speaker 3:California in 1990s california you know he uses whatever language is available in my soul. You need to let him go, dude. You need to let him go. Yeah, you need to go your way. If you love them, you're gonna let them go. Yeah, you need to go your way. If you love them, you're going to let them go and you're going to let them choose maybe never choose the way. And I see him loving like that and I'm like, damn it, I don't want to go alone. I don't want to go alone, I don't want to be alone. So to have to then see that I don't want to be alone is not love. Wow. And his radical, like the level of his love yeah.
Speaker 3:So yeah, and I have to get that one a lot, you know. Still, it's like you need to also let people not understand you. You need to let people not be the same opinion. You need to let people maybe not want to do the same project as you.
Speaker 2:You know, it's just I gotta right and then, and then Right and then. Does this bearing quality then become? How do you letting them go?
Speaker 3:The magic is I become free. Yeah, the gift is so beautiful. I'm freed up. I see how he's doing this and I see how he stays with everyone. Okay, good, I mean he lets them go in any kind of demand, expectation, longing and stays bonded, interested, connected, attending, following, walking with Like it's so he's with everyone, he's not alone and he's alone. How does he do that?
Speaker 2:So it feels to me and you say if I'm wrong, but it feels to me that it also opens up, Like when I stop trying to make everyone do the thing, yeah and I let go dude that it also becomes a doorway to a deeper faith that he is caring and guiding and holding and it comes back to also what you shared at the beginning.
Speaker 3:Then I experience community, not as a demand but as a gift, even community. Then I just have to be myself with God, be true to myself and be oriented towards him and others, and then, as I do, that, if any other human goes, draws near in him in Christ, it's like celebration. Like the prodigal son, it's only celebration. It's just like oh, you mean you, likeal son, it's only celebration. It's just like, oh, you mean you like. For me, that we have podcast listeners blows my mind Like I would do this conversation anyway.
Speaker 2:Right, me too.
Speaker 3:When we started. It's like whatever, like we have to do this and if it's fruitful that's up to God. But we have to have honest, deep conversation, because that's what the Spirit spoke into our hearts, and we let God do that other part with them in freedom.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, I'm just astounded that so often we're coming back to this mystery of passion tied into Easter, coming back to this mystery of passion tied into Easter that in order to get to a place where everything is grace, I can't have any shoulds. I've got to dissolve any shoulds and stand in that with an open, prayerful heart, and that is just yeah, and it's hard. I just want to say so.
Speaker 3:Claudia. I think this is hard. That means I have to live with two things at the same time. I have to let people choose the abyss, choose hell, choose the enemy. I have to allow them their sovereignty and do everything I can to speak the gifts I've been given into the world, so at least it's known and heard. Yeah, out of love and care, do everything I can, isn't that? It's like those two things seem incompatible, and they're true for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, beautifully said, beautifully said. Well, I feel moved and blessed again by our conversation today. Thank you, patrick.
Speaker 3:Thank you, brother, thank you friends, for your incredible questions. Maybe we should say we keep forgetting to mention in a few weeks' time, on May 5th through the 10th, we will be having an open course here at the seminary. If you've ever wanted to come to seminary and participate actually in an experience, our distance learners are coming, our friends are coming, some listeners are coming live in person in toronto. Check out our website and our calendar. I think you can find information. You can write our administrator or we'll also have an online version, so we'll be looking at these easter mysteries in a beautiful way. Yeah, yeah, thank you all ¶¶. © transcript Emily Beynon.