The Light in Every Thing
Deeper conversation on the mysteries of Christianity with Patrick Kennedy and Jonah Evans, directors of the Seminary of The Christian Community in North America.
In this podcast we engage the great questions of life and do this through a spiritual approach to Christianity made possible through contemplative inquiry and the science of the spirit known as Anthroposophy.
You can support our work and gain access to more unique content if you visit our Patreon: www.patreon.com/ccseminary
The Light in Every Thing
Re-Post: The Transformative Power of Shadow Work — Episode 3 in the Series, “Christian Shadow Work”
In this third installment from our “Christian Shadow Work” series, the conversation reveals a striking contradiction between Christian history—famous for its condemning practices—and Christ's actual relationship with human darkness. Rather than simply erasing or punishing sin, Christ demonstrates a radical integration of human brokenness into the transformative process. Like an alchemist turning lead into gold, Christ shows us how our darknesses can become the very substance of our spiritual maturation.
We explore why modern spiritual paths that simply affirm "you're perfect as you are" miss something crucial about human development. Without acknowledging our shadows, we remain stuck in a static self-image rather than participating in the dynamic process of becoming. Our darkness isn't merely tolerated by divine love—it serves a purpose in our becoming fully human.
The third episode of our series looks again at the nature of “shadow” or “sin” as that in the human being which hinders Divine Reality from being revealed. Humanity is still working to reveal the image of God in which we have been made. We can understand our shadows, then, as opportunities to grow and mature—parts of ourselves that need to be acknowledged, understood for what they are, and transformed over time.
How does Christ Jesus relate to the sin of humanity? He demonstrates for us the path of salvation by taking up the cross, suffering, dying and being raised again by the Father. We can take up our own sin with Him and walk the same path.
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.
Thanks to Elliott Chamberlin who composed our theme music, “Seeking Together,” and the legacy of our original show-notes and patreon producer, Camilla Lake.
Hello everyone. This is Patrick Kennedy from the Light in Everything. We're going to be heading into the summer up here in the Northern Hemisphere and, after a very big and full year of work and an incredible path through the letter of Ephesians, together and Jonah and I just want to send you a warm greeting and let you know that we are going to be reposting episodes from our five years of podcasts that we think will be enjoyed by you all over these weeks until we pick our work back up again in September or the end of August. In September or the end of August, if you'd like to find out more of what's happening at the Seminary of the Christian Community in North America, be sure to check out our website at christiancommunityseminaryca or go over to our Patreon site at patreoncom. Forward slash cc seminary to become a part of an incredible community of support of listeners who interact and engage with the podcast. Okay, enjoy. © transcript Emily Beynon.
Speaker 3:Good morning Patrick.
Speaker 1:Hi Jonah.
Speaker 3:So good to be back. Hi Patrick, hi Jonah, so good to be back. Another episode of the Light in Everything, where we, in conversation, try to deepen our Christian hearts. And we will begin, as we always do, with our word from the Gospel of John in chapter 8. Again, jesus spoke to them saying I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we you know much of our work, jonah, of course, in our prod podcast have been has been to look at things and discover the activity of light, the activity of the spirit in it, the activity of christ in it, to see the the good thing sometimes, often in things that maybe don't look so good from the outside. And this theme is interesting, this working with shadows that we've been working on now for a couple of conversations. I'm really really glad we're getting to this Me too.
Speaker 1:I've heard a lot of good uh feedback yeah me too yeah, and, and so there's something about as if, if you really are drawn towards the light, like when the sun comes out, that's when you see the shadows and it feels really essential.
Speaker 1:If you're, if you're going to be turning towards the mysteries of the one who says of himself I am the light of the world, it makes a lot of sense that one of the lawfulnesses spiritual lawfulnesses that would be involved is, as you come towards him, if you turn around, you might notice the shadow you cast, how you block his light.
Speaker 1:And this past um episode I thought we did amazing kind of really detailed work to try to get in there and describe experiences of conscience as a light experience and trying to really tease out the truthful things that light just simply shows us. And then the second question of well, what do, how do you react to what you see? What, in what light, do you make judgment about what you see? And yourself, and you, you brought this question last time, or I should say you know this one phrase, that that comes from the letter of saint pa Paul to the Romans that says In Christ there is no condemnation. But we actually didn't really get to that until the very end after really kind of working on Well, what do we mean by shadow?
Speaker 3:That was important.
Speaker 1:So I would love to get back to your question and make sure we give that some time, but maybe we could just try to re-say again some of the things, some of what we mean by shadow. Just not, we don't have to try to unpack it a long time can we remember a little bit what when we say shadow and working to see our shadow and working with our shadow in a Christ-centered way? What is the shadow part again, what is?
Speaker 3:the shadow part. Well, I mean, you know, for example, the closer I get to this being, as you described, this sun-like being who is with us, the shadow that I start to see in myself is gosh. I don't have a lot of love in my heart. I don't have the kind of love that I feel from him.
Speaker 1:And his love makes you aware of the quality of your own.
Speaker 3:It's kind of like in the material world if I go out into the sun I realize that's quite cold. I'm quite cold and now I'm getting warmed. Yeah, wow.
Speaker 1:The temperature differential yeah, wow, for example, right.
Speaker 3:For example.
Speaker 1:Right. So what about how noticing moral deficiency relative to a moral abundance, maybe yeah, could say that. Sure yeah, what else?
Speaker 3:did we cover I? Mean there's also, like something, what we would call, in the psychological world, denial. It's a shadow, my sometimes willing blindness to see certain mistakes or weaknesses or trespasses that I've caused.
Speaker 1:So those themselves have a kind of darkness in them. But then there's an additional darkness of willing blindness. I don't want to look at and own, take responsibility for things or character traits that I have. So the darkness that can be in my character and my behavior and my way of being and the darkness cast by my consciousness that doesn't want to look at it.
Speaker 3:Right and this is the complexity that I was also kind of bringing up last time my conscience may. I may have the experience that my conscience is saying to me that's not true, that trespass, or I'm not like that, or it's actually this person's problem. I may have the experience that that's a conscience experience, but in reality the light that I'm seeing with has to transform or derobe its false light Right, derobe its false light right.
Speaker 1:so the, the, the, the power of judgment inside me. Who's who's making judgments about what is seen itself cannot, could be completely, actually unhelpful and not full of love and truth, but actually full of something else, full of another force.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 1:The voice of a different judge.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and that's a complex theme.
Speaker 1:That's really complex, but essential it's important.
Speaker 3:So this idea, though, that the conscience in us is not just a given, that it's constantly our experience of it, it itself, so to speak, has to let go of, for example, the voices of our culture, the voices of our parents, the voices that would have us believe in a good that's not of Christ, and that's a very complicated process.
Speaker 1:Right and we tried to talk a little bit about that last time. We brought in this story of George Ritchie His after-death experience. I think was really helpful to see. He could feel the difference then between the way Christ, who was there with him standing before his whole life, how he was seeing, yeah, and then next to his own seeing, and how, how, george ritchie, his seeing was concerned with his personal glory, actually, actually, and therefore judging harshly.
Speaker 3:Right and he didn't even know. He thought it was just normal. He didn't realize it was concerned with his personal glory, until another light was in his midst Christ's light. I think that's a really good example that you brought.
Speaker 1:And then from the gospel text, we brought in this element from the Sermon on the Mount that says do not judge, for with the measuring stick you judge, you will be measured. So, this activity, what measuring stick are we using? That's gonna be what we are applying to ourselves also and that can be destructive, or which brings us back to this. Well, how, what kind of a judgment process can be fruitful and healthy for my becoming right? Well, why is there a fruitful way of working with shadow? Okay, there's a lot of course, so I feel like, maybe, in summary, like there are deeds done yeah, that that have a darkness in them.
Speaker 1:There are character traits I'm walking around with that are just kind of a part of me and operating and continuing to generate new deeds done that are maybe below my consciousness. Right, there are strategies of consciousness where I'm avoiding the light Denial, so we've moved through right. This is just naming all kinds of different things that are connected to it, and there's more Very much.
Speaker 3:Yeah, especially like the accusation quality. It's the opposite of denial. If I see something I don't like in myself, I start whipping myself Right. That's the opposite of denial. If I see something that I don't like in myself, I start whipping myself, right.
Speaker 1:That's like a new darkness.
Speaker 3:A new darkness Additional, additional.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so the way of judging itself can be a darkness, a shadow casting event, mm-hmm, and that all of this can find its rightfulness or health in relationship to this being. We love Again and again coming to get to know his gaze, the way he sees, the way he looks, the way he holds, the way he judges In his presence, these things get clarified and rectified, righted. So those are, I feel like, some of the territory we've covered so far. So last time, then, you wanted to look at that gaze, it seems to me. What does it mean that when I stand in his presence, in which there is so much light that as much becomes visible, and he is seeing everything, and yet there is no condemnation? How do you understand that? And why is that important or not important, important? What kind of effect do you see that playing also in in the people's lives that, of course, you work with, who are wrestling with their shadow? I think?
Speaker 1:in your your pastoral work and priestly work and your own life as well. Why is that what's important in that thought for you? How do you? Yeah, wow, what?
Speaker 3:a question Wonderful, yeah. Well, I mean, first and foremost, what comes up into my heart is this prayer that I'm constantly praying in light of that Because, like you just described, it has so much to do with trying to learn how he's looking, trying to unite with his gaze, which is when I learned that it's at the root of how not to condemn and why not to condemn. But I find myself just kind of baseline in general, constantly praying no matter who I'm talking with or if I'm looking at myself or working with another. Lord, oh, christ, help me, help me to see with your gaze. That's a prayer I pray often and I find it very helpful. That's a prayer I pray often.
Speaker 3:And I find it very helpful so you're in a situation with another person Consultation, a difficult conversation with someone Just a difficult experience that I've had Trying to help someone that calls me and you're noticing something's happening to your own gaze at that point, yeah, yeah, I'm acknowledging that merely my own personal kind of Jonah gaze is not quite enough because I haven't learned fully Christ's way and I need his light, so to speak.
Speaker 3:It's like acknowledging I need to uncover my conscience to the core of his being so that I can see with that and it's a prayer that it's also an intentionality that helps me, kind of baseline recommendation. But it's interesting I've been thinking about this quite a lot why Paul says this in Romans 8, that in Christ there's no condemnation. And of course we know that it's such a weird statement to imagine in a Christian institutional religion that is famous for condemnation yeah, I mean world famous beyond anything else World famous for judging others in a condemning way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, it's barely bearable for me to look at our Christian history and to own that and say, oh, it's so painful. The Christian church, who has a letter from Paul that says in Christ there is the most famous letter letter to the Romans we had an inquisition. Yeah, that was torturing people and burning them at the stake because they were supposed heretics and forcing Jews to be baptized.
Speaker 3:Oh, horrific, horrific, condemning All.
Speaker 1:Horrific, horrific, condemning.
Speaker 3:All the way up to today. Just you know, if you're homosexual you're going to hell or whatever.
Speaker 1:Oh, the very famous Westboro Baptist Church. I mean a tiny little church, but of course they make the news because they show up at people's funerals, oh, at soldiers' funerals. The reason this happened is because we accept homosexuals in the military. I mean super and like signs that say God hates homosexuals, right, like we need to say these things need to own. For me, this is part of like also the shadow work. Shadow work as in christianity, like yeah, how do you, how do you possibly unite that with? In christ there is no condemnation, right?
Speaker 3:So I mean, it is just interesting to stand before that profound contradiction, profound ironic reality, right that so much of a movement that has been primarily inspired by Paul, the apostle Paul in his own words and it's a whole teaching that takes up three chapters of the most famous letter says in Christ there is no condemnation, and even in that same section of the letter, describes himself as a wretched sinner but doesn't condemn himself. So I think that already that's first of all a very difficult distinction. How can I be a sinner and not condemned? Right, when I say wretched, right, it just immediately calls up ooh, that's a condemnational statement. But this is the interesting thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just had a conversation with someone exactly trying to get in these distinctions. Jonah, how do you distinguish?
Speaker 3:And it's interesting to just also notice if you study any saint, any biography of the saint, they will also describe themselves as a deep sinner. One of the most famous prayers in Christian tradition is Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.
Speaker 1:Right, but this is another thing exactly this tradition that people feel disgusted by and reject because they hear in that combination, like you're just trying to increase bad feelings about yourself, like what are you doing? How are you going to thrive? By? By by doing a mantra that you're bad, mantra that you're bad.
Speaker 3:Right, Right, and, and, and of course the mercy part gets the whitewashed, but I I would. I would say this is the challenge of trying to understand, because Paul is not saying in Christ there's nothing wrong.
Speaker 1:There's nothing bad. The California version. In Christ, it's all good, it's nothing bad.
Speaker 3:The California version. Yeah, in Christ it's all good. It's all good In a certain way you could say that because later he'll say for those who love God, all things work for the good, work Work for the good For the good. But that has to do with the whole reality of why there's no condemnation in Christ, because it has to do with how Christ himself relates to sin. Yeah, it has to do with how Christ himself relates to the nature of sin. He does not he himself, he does not see humanity's sin and cast everyone who's a sinner out.
Speaker 1:Right, can we take a sin loop? Can we do a little sin loop? Sure, so we've talked about shadow, but we've not been using the term sin too much. Okay, yeah, it's a loaded term, be interesting to even talk about. You could say the sins of the church in relationship to the word sin, the way we've used sure, that's a whole right, it's like. And so people are trying to reject the word, thinking they're going to get around the problem. But the problem was how it's been used. Right, we have to do all this recovery work, okay.
Speaker 3:So maybe for now we can just say sin is shadow.
Speaker 1:Let's not get here. I take that as you do not like to accept the invitation.
Speaker 3:Okay, no, no, no, no. If you want to. What was your thought there? Well, just the invitation. Okay, no, no, no. If you want, what was your thought there?
Speaker 1:well, just one of the most common spiritual things I meet and have met throughout my whole life through people, from people I really love and care about, is the way to deal with the presence of condemnation, which is destructive to human souls, or the presence of feeling bad about yourself, is to erase the concept that there is anything to feel bad about. Amen, yeah.
Speaker 3:Very, very common.
Speaker 1:If we say no, there's no sin. You're absolutely beautiful and wonderful just as you are. It's all simply about coming to accept yourself and love yourself as you are. This is the most common spirituality. I meet everywhere.
Speaker 3:It's in every sign at the mall that I see.
Speaker 1:It's all the makeup stores, it's products, everything. Accept and love yourself as you are as the healing, but meaning ridding there is no sin is also part of it. There is nothing bad and that's the thing. Just accept and love as you are, don't change Right, don't change, don't transform.
Speaker 3:And it has a theology. Probably the most sophisticated form of theology comes out of a book called the Course of Miracles and it's super popular also in our circles, and it says there's no such thing as sin. I mean, I'm making a. It's a big book.
Speaker 1:Simplifying a big book.
Speaker 3:And it claims that it's the true form of Christianity, and it says there's no such thing as evil. Evil is just an absence of good. Yeah, so this is for sure, like you said, the most popular form of spirituality. So it's where all the secrets come from, and the manifesting and everything right so there's just.
Speaker 1:The only issue is actually shedding thoughts like sin, that's right. Oh yeah, hindering you from flourishing is all this talk about gets. That's why I feel like it's really key we I'm with you, we yeah we're gonna use that term. I feel like we gotta. We gotta deal with this thing here too. So when let's say, if you couldn't use the word sin or shadow, let's just try for a little experiment. Yeah, what do we mean by it?
Speaker 3:All so you could say the way that Christ relates to all, that is not of our truest human reality, truest human nature. All of you could even call it sickness or unhelpful ways of being that block our true nature, which is to be an image and likeness of God.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so anything in me that is hindering the divine reality from being revealed through me? Yeah.
Speaker 3:You could call that sin. It's also a sickness. It's also that sin, it's also a sickness. It's also very helpful that we call that a sickness.
Speaker 1:There's a sickness of sin, meaning like where there's a constant presence of a malady in the human constitution that is bringing this about.
Speaker 3:Something is unbalanced dis-eed in us that we need medicine for. Yeah, just like I mean. This is one of the most common things in life. You, you get sick. You need medicine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so our, our disjointed, not yet whole, not yet revealing the divine nature in its reality of truth and beauty and goodness, that I walk and act and think and speak in the world in such a way that those things aren't always revealed. And that's just facts, right?
Speaker 3:that's just I mean if, if one can't see that that's, that's hard, that you you're not going to get anywhere, right, so you?
Speaker 1:right. But it's like if every, if every natural inclination that comes up in me, every desire that may arise, every thought I may have, every feeling I ever have, if we bless all of that which we're doing today and there's a bit for there is zero morality at all yeah, it's just everything that arises in your soul is blessed as good. Yeah, and so, just speaking about myself, I would really recommend we don't bless everything that comes up in me amen me neither, I'm not gonna talk about anyone else.
Speaker 1:I'm just gonna say please, let's not just accept and bless everything that erupts and comes from me, unconsciously, consciously, whatever yeah because I see destructive energies in me.
Speaker 1:I can look back at a day and see, oh, I was just going along, all good intentioned, yeah, and then go, whoa, why, how did I just? Whoa, I just knocked a bunch of stuff over, hurt people. I love. I don't want to do that. I'd like to see love coming out of me and not that and that, that, that desire to for truth, for beauty, for goodness, and to see that, despite my best efforts, denial, deceitfulness and lie and error happens in me. A kind of ugliness is generated through my living and actually even evil things have happened in connection with me, very hard to accept and see and say. But this honest self-assessment that leads to the vision that there are things operating in me that I don't want to be operating in me, this is all that leads to his right. This is Romans right. He does that in front of them. He's like I love truth.
Speaker 1:I think goodness is like the way, and then I go and do this other stuff and I'm untruthful and I don't do good things. What's going on in me? Help? Why do I have these things happening, even when my spirit can acknowledge all those things?
Speaker 3:That's right, so he calls it even a law that when I want to do the good, I find it's not a theology, he's talking about an experience when I want to do the good, I find evil or sin or shadow or things that are blocking my best self.
Speaker 3:That which is working against the divine Is right there at my side, right there at the door, right there at my heels. So he then goes on to describe how can that be helped? How can that condition, that experience that I find myself in, that I would submit, if we're honest, we all find ourselves in, actually, what can help that? What can help that? And I think there's two things. So if we start from the human, just our human level, I've experienced so many times and I've experienced in others their experience of having the challenge of confronting that particular weakness or difficulty or illness and going let me just put it simply going through its process, working with it. If I work with it in a particular way, it can become something that helps me become more of the human that I want to be.
Speaker 1:Okay, Wow, it's useful. There's a good connected to my bad. That's what I just heard you say Like this thing, if I engage with it and you said, if it goes its process, if I, if I really work through with it, work with it, be worked over by it, that would be the course, the thing to dive in on now that actually it plays its part in me becoming more the person I hope to become.
Speaker 3:Exactly so. The picture there is that sin, darkness, shadow is not just there to give me to be irritating. It's not just there to, like you know, keep me up at night there to, like you know, keep me up at night. It's actually there to teach, but not in an intellectual, merely theoretical way, but it's there to help me transform okay into something new.
Speaker 1:Wow, and I think that's a very different picture than very different. Why would then all of a sudden, why would you want it not to be there, right?
Speaker 3:Like you said in the beginning, if, um, I think you said like you, you intimated that shadow could help us learn something new. Otherwise, if I deny shadow, if I deny the reality of sin, I just imperfect the way I am. That's a very popular form of spiritualism.
Speaker 1:I've heard it again and again my whole life. Right, it's an answer. I think it's an attempt to provide a medicine.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure.
Speaker 1:It's like people are feeling really bad about themselves, yeah, and that is a true hindrance to them flourishing in this world. Right, no question, no question. They are afflicted with condemnation, yeah, they're afflicted with devaluation of their being. This is a value. It's like you are not valuable, you are not worthy of love, you are not a good person and we don't want you in this world.
Speaker 3:This is an energy and a thought persecuting human souls Everywhere, and it's totally infiltrated into the institution of Christianity, as we know. Yeah 100%.
Speaker 1:So that's an evil that's really, really crippling human hearts Absolutely. And so the medicine you can obviously understand easily reached for would be you're perfect, the way you are, like. I'm going to dispel yeah, this, this dark voice that is is seeking to bury you under stones, like in john 8, to condemn you. Yeah, I'm going to dispel that by saying I see no darknesses in you. I love you exactly like you are. Don't go changing. Yeah, so a kind of opposite energy comes in that wants to pretend as if there's no darkness there. Right, is there any other option? What's the you've just said? If I can find a healthy way to work with this darkness, it has the power to be a teacher in my life, in a teaching in the sense of chain. Transformative power lies inside it. That's right. To transform my character. That's right. Delete is through. Help. Help us, jonah, how do I work us through? Help us here, jonah, how do I work? Well, so this has many layers right.
Speaker 3:So one could see that, for example, in someone who's been through I mean, there's so many stories of people who've been through, for example, cancer that have come through or died and in their dying have come to a new sense of self that they're incredibly grateful for that. They know, without that difficulty, without that cancer, I wouldn't have become what I am today.
Speaker 3:Oh, died in the in the sense of the personality traits that they had that too, but also I'm thinking of I'm thinking of some people that actually went into actual death grateful for the cancer.
Speaker 1:Oh, I see, sorry Both. So at the threshold of their own dying, they could already say before dying. I now look at this affliction in my life that caused suffering as one of the most profound gifts. There were forces in here to transform who I am into a better person that I never could have done myself.
Speaker 3:That's right. And there, what you just said, then, is the essence how paul gets to this. No condemnation, basically, even though I'm I. The first step is to see my weakness, sin, darkness, shadow as useful for maturing, for growing duration, for growing into something new, and and what Paul recognizes is and I can't do it on my own. So there's two qualities here Sin is useful for helping me mature into more and more truly human, and it's useful to bring me to the limit of my own capacity of transformation and to experience the grace and blessing of a higher power, a power greater than myself, is working through this experience, into me, with me, molding me, with me molding me, shaping me.
Speaker 3:So those two things that sin becomes useful to help me become more truly human and experience. There's grace that's blessing me beyond my power, that I can be a recipient of.
Speaker 1:So grace has. So there is a force that has my best interest in mind, my thriving, my wellbeing, my becoming in mind, that has brought me, in connection with my weaknesses and my, my failings and my afflictions.
Speaker 3:Without those I could not. If I was just perfect the way I am just perfect, I would never have the experience of grace. I would just be perfect. I wouldn't need to receive something that I don't have, and that experience of the grace and love of God upon a human heart, as well as the process of becoming new through something difficult. That is why sin is useful and, therefore, that is why you don't condemn anyone because of sin, because it can be my maturing agent and my source of finding the cross, death and resurrection, the grace of God.
Speaker 1:So there's no condemnation, because you're not standing in final judgment. Instead, you're standing in the small judgment of determining. There's more becoming to do, and your sin has the precious power to play an incredibly powerful role in your becoming.
Speaker 3:Exactly If it can become not just a dark blob but a cross through which I become new and find the grace of God. Now, why do I say it has to do with how Christ relates to sin, because that's exactly how he relates to the sin of humanity. He takes it up to become a new human, christ Jesus. It's so important. Of course you know this, patrick, but Christ Jesus went through a transformation, became new. He is a new creation. At Easter, that's a profound archetypal picture of and he went through sin. He had no sin, but he took it up, took up humanity's sin as a way to have a new creation.
Speaker 1:As a way.
Speaker 3:As a way.
Speaker 1:A path. The taking on of darknesses and shadows actually became, through him, a path, a path Meaning a process whereby utter newness and transformation could come about. Jonah, this is so radical. It's so radical, I mean, it's obviously totally. It's the same story of Christianity ever since its very beginning, and yet this is how hard it is to get it that I would say this is radical. Right, but it's like for so long, christianity, very, very often its leaders proclaimed Christ takes away sin. Exactly Right, not takes on sin.
Speaker 3:And that's where this twisted darkness comes in that evolved into the Catholic practice of absolving you of sin, as if severing you from sin right.
Speaker 3:So in Christ we don't get severed from sin. That's actually what the adversaries want. In Christ we have a new relationship to sin, a new relationship to shadow that is like his, that A it's useful for maturing and becoming more and more truly human, and B it's the place where I can find a connection to the grace, a power greater than me, the grace of God's love and mercy, Just like Jesus. Jesus did not raise himself at Easter. The Father power raised him. He participated in it with his humanness, him, he participated in it with his humanness. But the Father, he also was experiencing a power greater than himself, which he proclaimed constantly, in the Gospel of John, for example.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean so useful feels like not even strong enough of a word. You know, I'm like I'm listening to this.
Speaker 1:I'm like essential, feels like not even strong enough of a word. You know, I'm like. I'm listening to this, I'm like it essential. Rudolf steiner says it's our most valuable possession. This is what he told the priest at the founding of the christian community. As we like, finished the ordination. What, okay, what? Listen up, the most precious thing you have Is our people's sin reality, their shadow. The most precious thing, and Christ's whole intention with his work in humanity, is to keep people connected to their shadows.
Speaker 3:So think about that. It's incredible, because the cross is the most precious thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because the, the, the route, the route to our spiritual maturation are, you could say the. The growing fruit of our humanness passes through the crucible mystery of sin, of shadow, of darkness, of, of not good, not true, not beautiful, the bearing, the way in which we have generate the opposite things of God, that's right. Bearing that, owning it, digesting it, going through it, letting it work upon us as we turn again and again to the one who does radiate God's nature as a human.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:We have to be able to look at a human.
Speaker 3:Yes, that's very important In whom the full divinity is shining. So important so that we have a picture of what full humanity looks like.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, and when we see, we're like it's not theoretical, it's not theoretical. We meet a person and go, oh yeah, that's the fullness, that's the goal. I feel it in my heart, I love it, it it's beautiful, it's good, it's true, that's it, this.
Speaker 3:So that element is also called the grace element and I just want to emphasize that so many Christians, even though the institution and the theology and the tradition has been corrupted in many, many, many, many profound, deep ways, in many, many, many, many profound, deep ways, so many Christians in their actual heartfelt experience. There's millions of them.
Speaker 1:Like a couple billion.
Speaker 3:Probably have in the depths of their own experience of their brokenness, of the worst sins that they would themselves condemn. That is exactly where they've found their relationship with Christ, at that broken bottom-ness, that grace that he is there, not still loving me even in the depravity of my experience, even in the brokenness of my experience. So that grace element that, no matter what I do, he is still there, not condemning me, but saying to me grow, learn, become. That is one of it's probably what unites most Christians in the world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, having that experience, yeah, Language fails, of course, but there's something shatteringly beautiful, yeah, of course, but there's something shatteringly beautiful, yeah, more, almost more than you can possibly bear. When you've generated, when you realize that you've generated darkness, which is just a horrifying experience, and to feel him, then with you, with you standing, looking at it, seeing it, you with you standing, looking at it, seeing it, and there's zero, zero, throwing you into the, the, the death heap of the universe, as of which you had the feeling you'd be worthy of. Yeah, I've just done this, I've just hurt these precious humans, I've just hurt the earth. I've just hurt the earth, I've just hurt anything. Get rid of me, I should be erased. And there's none of that energy in him and somehow feeling how he loves, simultaneously, wholly and completely, but also feels how important it is that you see this, patrick. Yes.
Speaker 1:It's so important that you get to witness the effectiveness and feel it and let it hurt Right, let it strike you. Then you will change and come out differently.
Speaker 3:Yeah, then you'll have a very good chance of there's, there's, there's much, yeah, right.
Speaker 1:Going around it, skipping it Right, moving away from it, pretending it's not there, but you'll miss what it has to give you.
Speaker 3:It also has to be and you're saying that but it combined with that love that you described, combined the pain combined with the love. I don't know anyone who changes just with pain Zero. It's the pain combined with that, I'm forgiven, I'm loved. The sun comes out as well. Then I can have the hope to step forward, and that is the grace that Paul is talking about. That without sin wouldn't be possible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I have the feeling that part of the dynamic here is we kind of touched on it a little bit last time but it is just the nature of being a self, of feeling like I am an I. I am a self and I have the impression, as being a self, that that in it, in its nature, is eternal and should be an entity that just exists and unfolds its being and is good or is bad, rather than an idea of a self that is a not yet, that is on the way, that is it in process yeah and this is where I keep coming back to this picture.
Speaker 1:it's like that is in process and this is where I keep coming back to this picture. It's like I think we really need the pictures of alchemy. Beautiful, like if there is a lead in me right, deeply heavy. This is interesting. Blocking light Isn't the task? To throw it off, to have it removed? And what I've been hearing this whole morning is no, no, through me, we're going to turn it into gold. That's our work. This is so interesting.
Speaker 3:It brings up into my heart and mind this when you mentioned this alchemy, I think this is actually quite profound Because of course the alchemical pictures have to do with exactly what you're talking about Real transformation, transforming ore gold that's full of impurities into pure gold, or the picture of a diamond starting out as a piece of coal and turning into a clear sun light reflective holding. But Carl Jung, this famous psychologist that I actually studied quite a bit in my psychology days, he makes a statement that alchemy actually starts with the advent of Christ coming to the earth, that the whole science of alchemy, the whole even impulse that something dark is worth being transmuted into something light-filled, comes because at the time of when Christ came to the earth and before that it wasn't even so strongly, maybe in the initiation circles, prophetically, but it wasn't in the popular imagination of transmuting something base into something precious.
Speaker 1:So much of the work was basically purification. You need to get rid of that which blocks the light in you.
Speaker 3:All of the purification processes were shed, shed, shed and I think I don't know what you think about this, Patrick, but I think the fact that there's these old condemnation processes infiltrating into Christianity is actually pre-Christian mysteries that are infiltrating into Christianity that we haven't yet been able to let go of. We have to remember Christianity is baby, it's still very young In the context of God. It's like just it's humanity. It hasn't even been a day yet. Two days, yeah, exactly, it's like humanity.
Speaker 1:It hasn't even been a day yet. Two days yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly. But I think that's probably because the old way was to get rid of the impure. Yeah, to cast out the scapegoat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and the rituals of the tabernacle. Put all the sin on the goat on the day of atonement and send that goat out into the desert, send him away, and then we'll have an offering goat that gives our best to God as well. We'll have two goats, and one of them is let's we're going to get, and Jesus united them. He united them on the cross and I am the scapegoat and I'm God. Y'all need to now deal with that, and I'm with you and I'm god, like y'all need to now deal with that, and I'm with you and I'm the picture of your true self with you, right, you? And? And oh, by the way, I'm gonna go spend all my time with all the people you've been casting out of your midst, right, the so exact same social processes. Hey, we want our community to be pure lepers.
Speaker 1:You go out there, adulteresses. You go out there, tax collectors. You go out there. And, adulteresses, you go out there, tax collectors. You go out there. And he goes okay, I'm going to go have a meal with them. What the heck are you doing eating with them? You're going to get infected by their impurities. Exactly, he said yep, that's my mission. That's what it means to embody yourself in this world, and the whole way of dealing with it, of casting out things. We're done with that New way. Right, really, truly new way.
Speaker 3:I mean. One more picture that's just coming into my mind is Rudolf Steiner in his work on trying to bring down a complementary story of Jesus' journey to the cross in gospel, picture that he calls the fifth gospel. Just before the baptism. Just before John. In the gospel, john sees him and says baptism. Just before John in the Gospel of John sees him and says Behold the Lamb of God who takes upon himself this sin of the world. Just before the baptism, he describes Judas. Sanhedrin describes two Essenes that encounter this Jesus being this true human being that has come into and to take up the sin, to take on as useful. They ask him where are you going? And he says I'm going to where human pain can reunite with the forgotten light can reunite with the forgotten light.
Speaker 1:Human pain can reunite with the forgotten light.
Speaker 3:I'm going to the cross, the place where our human condition, our illness, our darkness, our shadow can be reintegrated with the grace of God. I mean Christ's work is reintegrating and transmuting human pain, human separation, human sin, human darkness. Essentially, we could call it human pain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the more you take in that thought and every little detail of the whole story, of what we call the good news. The gospel includes that good news. The gospel includes that like write down for example, in my circle of students I'm going to be betraying me. Yeah, I'm going to include in my circle and I'm going to include his bead of betrayal in my salvific work. It's just I mean yeah, it goes on and on.
Speaker 3:He like includes, includes, includes not just to be like like you're saying that, and it's not just to be a nice guy, right.
Speaker 1:No, he's not inclusive. He's not inclusive.
Speaker 3:He's not like, let's all just get on Not in that sense it's useful. It's not only useful, it's necessary.
Speaker 1:Integration is a good word. I love that.
Speaker 3:Integrated. It's really important, because without Judas he can't be led to the cross, the very place of the grace of God, the very place of the revelation of God, and so he doesn't condemn Judas' deed.
Speaker 1:Let's go right to Judas. Right? This is the magic of his working is. He lets Judas' what's living inside his soul come to fruition. He lets the deed unfold, and that deed means his own death, yeah. And then judas looks upon the fruit of his deed and sees I've just killed my master again. Jesus not can, doesn't need to condemn. Why would he need to add anything to that, judas? It's so overwhelming he can't take it. He takes his own life. Yeah, and who does he? He dies before Jesus. He's in the spirit world. Jesus dies and Christ meets with Judas in the spirit world. What do you think that meeting was like it's? Now? We're really in the deep depths of this man. He now is going to be learning. Jesus is going to be saying without you, the great salvific deed could not have happened. My love to you is forever. I am wholly bound up with you and will never leave you. Nothing you do and has ever been done will separate my love from you, from you.
Speaker 3:Ever, even if you have to bear difficult consequences of the deed, and I'm going to walk with you and I'll be with you.
Speaker 1:I'll suffer those with you All of it the whole way.
Speaker 3:Right that picture that, even though, for example, you and I we're going to do things that are going to cause difficult consequences, even though we love Jesus, yeah, we're Christians, we're trying to be, yeah, all these things, we're going to do things that are going to have consequences and they're going to come back to us so that we can have the opportunity to mature, but Jesus is going to be with us in those. This is the key. God is not out there punishing and condemning devoid of the suffering and condemning devoid of the suffering. This is the Christian mystery that he's joined us. So every consequence. It's also the meaning of how he drunk the whole cup as the new Israel Took the whole sin upon himself. That's not just a one-time thing, that continues.
Speaker 1:Everything you do to the least of these, you do to me Exactly.
Speaker 3:He's in it, it, he's in it with us, and that's that's the continued like in the book of revelation, that's the continued picture that that we are.
Speaker 1:We are experiencing humanity, the consequence of humanity's mistakes, with Christ as a school, but also as a grace, because he's with us the precious gift to be able to taste the consequences of our sin, to feel the effects of the shadows I've cast. That's not condemnation, it's like a flavor and then to taste the flavor of his being, to the fragrance of the rose of humanity. And go the fragrance of the rose of humanity and go and just have that as an experience that inspires me towards my true goal that calls me. I want to take up the lead. I've generated, the slag I've generated, and be a part of the love work of utter transformation, just as I see him doing, and I want to love, and certainly I can no longer condemn anyone around me. But then in this picture, it makes utter and complete sense that his guidance to those who want to follow his path is take up your cross and follow me. It's the key to everything.
Speaker 3:It's the key to everything and this is why Paul says I only preach, I only talk about the cross, christ's cross and resurrection.
Speaker 1:So when you say there's no condemnation, it's like that's just the beginning of the mystery. It's like no condemnation and in it is contained the most precious things for the whole path.
Speaker 3:That's right, it's certainly not. I'm okay, you're okay. No, it's certainly not. I'm okay, you're okay, no, it's. Let's start to relate to shadow and sin as an integrative process, as a process of maturation, as a place where we can reconnect with the forgotten light, the pain that we're experiencing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so then it's suddenly a new prayer in the heart is there, Lord? Help me have the strength to be more truthful with myself, to see through your light the shadow I cast, and let me help me integrate and bear this. Carry this as the power which can transform me into the risen version of myself, through you.
Speaker 3:God, help me feel your grace-filled presence with me in it. Help me receive your strength and power and humility and sight to see it.
Speaker 1:And I'll keep my eyes on you as I fall. Then I might have a chance to bear this thing and make it fruitful. And then, of course, just as you said your prayer, let me look with your eyes and through your eyes, at all my brothers and sisters who are bearing their own, exactly, and I can't I just can't condemn anyone in this picture.
Speaker 1:It just, it just erases that just erases that that is a fruitlessness that has no place in his process. It's like you're erasing the cross. To do condemnation would be to be against the mystery of the cross.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're taking that away from someone. You're saying I'm taking this possibility of going through the cross to the grace of God away from you. So I just I love this in the sense that also it schools our conscience or I feel my conscience, letting go of certain pictures that maybe was attached to that a deeper light can shine through of what it means to be human and how to deal with shadow. Thank you, patrick, that's a blessing for me. Thank you too ¶¶. © transcript Emily Beynon.