Meditate is a monthly column in which Chelsea shares insights she has gained from meditating on the Word. You can too! Contact us if you'd like to write a submission for this column -Editor.
“Our entire sense of self resides in our will. The first time we are born, the self is evil. The second time we are born, the self becomes good. The first time, we are born of our parents; the second time, we are born of the Lord” (True Christianity 658).
“Because we have the capacity to choose in freedom, we are able either to will something or else not to will it…
All the evils that we have a tendency toward from the day we are born are a lasting part of the will of our earthly self. When we allow ourselves to be influenced by these evils they flow into our thinking. Good things along with truths flow down into our thinking from above, from the Lord… If we choose evil things, they are received by our old will and become part of it. If we choose good things along with truths, a new will and a new intellect are formed by the Lord above our old will and our old intellect. Gradually over time, the Lord uses the truths that are in our new intellect to implant new forms of good on that higher level. Through these truths he also gains control over the evils that are below, moves them out of the way, and sets everything in order.
This also makes it clear that our thought process purifies and excretes, so to speak, the evils that are resident in us from our parents” (True Christianity 659).
The freedom and ability we have to will something or not to will it is a really important truth for me to remember.
So often I feel hopeless about my will. My will is my will—how can I change the fact that I will/desire/enjoy evil things and evil behavior? Like the passage just said, the “evils that we have a tendency toward from the day we are born are a lasting part of the will of our earthly self.” So I have no choice in the matter… do I? For a while I have felt powerless about it. I’ve felt perplexed about how to bring about true spiritual change—how does it happen? My meditation last month and the passages above have given me welcome mental clarity on the subject. They are empowering. What I hear in the passages above is that even though I can’t control what I will in one sense—that is, evil will arise in my emotions and thoughts without my sense of having invited it—I can control what I will via my thinking. Choosing something is a mental, thought-based action. I think in the past I’ve had the misunderstanding that our will makes the choices and our thought must serve that choice. This can be true, but as this passage says, we actually have the freedom, if we care to use it, to choose what we will. Willing something is a matter of choice! Who knew?
My process recently was feeling stuck and controlled by a recurring evil in my life. From witnessing it manifesting in my life over and over again I could sense that I was simultaneously embarrassed about it and yet righteous about the feelings that would come along with it. The weight of the pain of it on my conscience was enough though to get me to talk it out to my husband and apologize for the actions I’d taken associated with it. The last part of True Christianity 659, that “our thought process purifies and excretes” the evils we have hereditarily, is an affirmation of what I marveled at and felt going on during our conversation: that simply the process of talking it out, thinking out loud about it with my husband’s supportive feedback, crying, and just giving voice to everything I had associated with it in my mind was itself a literally purifying experience! Since this conversation, I’ve been better able to keep this particular evil in check when it comes up—which it does nearly every day. It wasn’t instant salvation, but it was a beginning, an opening of the way for the Lord to start his work in me on this, his work of gaining control of the evil, moving it out of the way, and setting everything in order.
Our will seems like such a powerful thing, but really we have power over it via our thinking. We choose good via truth. Truth is a critical player in rising above the old will and intellect. If you’ll notice in the passage above, the battle between good and evil, so to speak, happens in the arena of our thinking. The evil flows into our thinking; the good along with truths flow into our thinking. What’s one lesson I take away from this? Pay attention to the good thoughts in the tough moments. They are actually there! I’ve been noticing how even just one truth I acquire really does present itself in my mind at the same time as I find myself in the negative state I needed it for in the first place. Holding on to the truth in my mind, by repeating it mentally for instance (which means I’m choosing it), has a way of dissolving the strength of the evil’s influence in that moment. I realize now that this truth’s simple mental presence is actually a sign of the Lord’s presence in me, and my choice of it is the beginning of the Lord forming in me a new will.
So how do I choose not to will something? One way is to give my focus to the good and true thoughts that are flowing in at the same moment as the evil is flowing in. I can’t battle my old will outright—it’s not going anywhere. But the Lord with his truth has the power to free me from its grip and lift me above it to the level of the new will and new intellect that he is forming in me.
Chelsea is wife to a PhD candidate. In addition to mothering her two young children round the clock, she is an assistant editor for New Church Connection and an editor and writer for New Church Perspective.
In part two, Coleman addresses what the Writings tell us about themselves. For reasons laid forth below, he takes them at their word. Find the first part here. -Editor.
2.) What do the Writings say about themselves?
Up to this point I’ve been focusing on what the Writings say about reading the Old and New Testaments, since that’s where they have the most to say about how to read revelation from God. But in coming to my current understanding, I also paid a lot of attention to what the Writings say about themselves – the ways they’re similar to the Old and New Testaments, but also the way they’re different.
First of all, as I mentioned, I reached a point in my life where I was convinced that the Writings were true, and I’d take Swedenborg’s word for it when he described what they were. And over and over again, I saw them claiming that they were directly from God. The most well-known passage on this is probably True Christian Religion 779:
“From the first day of that call I have not received anything whatever pertaining to the doctrines of that church from any angel, but from the Lord alone while I have read the Word.”
Now, some have said that this is referring to the doctrinal teachings, rather than what is said about marriage or heaven and hell, for example. But in other places, Swedenborg wrote that even in his conversations with angels and spirits, and even evil spirits, he was given a perception of what was from the Lord:
"The things which I have learned from symbolic displays, visions, and conversations with spirits and angels, are only from the Lord. Whenever there was a symbolic display, vision and conversation, I was kept reflecting upon them inwardly and more inwardly to see what useful and good purpose [they could serve], thus what I was learning from them. Those who were presenting the displays and visions, and those who were speaking, were not paying much attention to my reflection, and in fact, they were sometimes indignant when they realized that I was reflecting. So consequently, I was taught by no spirit, neither by any angel, but by the Lord Alone, from Whom is all truth and goodness.” (Spiritual Experiences 1647; see also SE 4034 on what Swedenborg heard from evil spirits).
And the beginning of Heaven and Hell says that this revelation of the other world, too, is meant by the “glory in the clouds,” the Lord’s second coming in the internal sense of the Word:
“It has been granted me to associate with angels and to talk with them as man with man, also to see what is in the heavens and what is in the hells, and this for thirteen years; so now from what I have seen and heard it has been granted me to describe these, in the hope that ignorance may thus be enlightened and unbelief dissipated. Such immediate revelation is granted at this day because this is what is meant by the Coming of the Lord.” (Heaven and Hell1)
And that glory in the clouds seems to be a different kind of revelation than the letter of the Old and New Testament, which are described as being the clouds themselves: “’The glory which is in the cloud’ denotes Divine truth which is not so accommodated to the perception, because it is above the fallacies and appearances of the senses” (Arcana Coelestia 8443). In this same passage, the literal sense of the Word is described as being the “sixth degree” of Divine truth, whereas the “glory in the clouds” is described as a level above this: “But truth Divine in the fifth degree is such as is in the ultimate or first heaven; this can be perceived in some small measure by man provided he is enlightened; but still it is such that a great part of it cannot be expressed by human words.”
My understanding is that the Writings are on the level of the fifth degree; if a great part of it cannot be expressed by human words, that implies some part of it can be. In other places, the Writings are called “the natural sense from the spiritual,” rather than the natural sense itself. Apocalypse Explained 1061 describes the difference: when an angel in the book of Revelation explains the meanings of John’s vision of a beast with seven heads, he says the seven heads represent seven mountains. That explanation is still in “a sense merely natural.” But when Apocalypse Explained says that the seven mountains “signify the goods of the Word” – that is “the natural sense from the spiritual sense, which is called the internal sense, also the spiritual-natural sense.” It is a level above the literal sense of the Word. The Writings express things in rational, spiritual terms, rather than merely natural terms – they are free from fallacies in a way that the Old and New Testament are not.
This does not mean that I hold the Writings to be superior in any sense to the Old and New Testaments, or that I put them above the Old and New Testaments. All of them contain the same truth; but what changes is how I think I will see that truth. I expect the truth in the Writings to be spoken more plainly, as Jesus Himself predicted: "These things I have spoken to you in figurative language; but the time is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figurative language, but I will tell you plainly about the Father" (John 16:25).
Now, this doesn’t take away the need to see where the Writings are speaking according to appearances – for example, the passage I quoted earlier about one group being more beloved of the Lord than another. But that is not really a fallacy in the same way as a passage saying the Lord is angry, for example; it simply rests on having the correct understanding of what it means to be “more beloved” of the Lord.
What about all the errors in the Writings, though? Rev. Stephen Cole has pointed out that many of these supposed errors may not be errors at all; still, though, there are some things that certainly seem fallacious. I’m content to say, “I’m not sure if there are errors in the letter of the Writings, but I’ll always give the Writings the benefit of the doubt.” There have been enough times that I’ve thought, “That can’t be true because of x, y, or z,” only to later realize that I was wrong. For example, it seems impossible that there are people on the moon, as the Writings describe. I’m content to say, “I don’t understand how that could be possible – I trust it is somehow, I’m just not sure how at this point.” Maybe this attitude is what the Writings are describing when they talk about the way people in the faith of charity deal with things they don’t understand:
“Those who are in the faith of charity do not reason about the truths of faith, but say that the thing is so, and also as far as possible confirm it by things of sense and of memory, and by the analysis of reason; but as soon as anything obscure comes in their way the truth of which they do not perceive, they defer it, and never suffer such a thing to bring them into doubt, saying that there are but very few things they can apprehend, and therefore to think that anything is not true because they do not apprehend it, would be madness.” (Arcana Coelestia 1072)
And although I do hold out the possibility that there may be errors in natural things (although as I say, I’m not even sure of that), I trust that when they describe spiritual realities, they are completely true.
So, to sum up my perspective, as I've put it out in part one and part two: as much as possible, I tend to take the Writings at face value, expecting that they will declare the truth plainly. When I do come across something that seems to contradict a principle or a teaching from elsewhere in the Word, I try to see how the teachings can be reconciled, on the assumption that I'm not understanding fully. And if I come across a teaching that seems contradictory to my experience of the way life works, I try to reconcile that, as well - but in that case, I try to give the Word more weight than I do my own experience, from the belief that I can only see the appearance of things here, while the Word describes what's going on on a deeper level.
Now, I will admit that there are sometimes passages that give me pause. Sometimes it DOES seem like the Writings draw merely on reason and observation of the world to demonstrate a point; for example, Arcana Coelestia 8891 calls on common sense (rather than appealing to other passages in scripture) as evidence that the days of creation are not intended to be taken literally:
“But who that takes into consideration the particulars of the description cannot see that the creation of the universe is not there meant; for such things are there described as may be known from common sense not to have been so; as that there were days before the sun and the moon, as well as light and darkness, and that herbage and trees sprang up; and yet that the light was furnished by these luminaries, and a distinction was made between the light and the darkness, and thus days were made.”
I think, though, that passages like this are really drawing in rational, scientific truth to confirm something that can be seen by taking a “full view” of the Word. Still, as I say, passages like this do give me pause, and I’m not completely certain my way of approaching the Writings is exactly correct. And I think that’s the key – if I’m willing to be corrected, if I’m approaching revelation in humility, and above all if I’m trying to live in charity and love by the teachings of the Word – then hopefully I’ll be able to have my understanding straightened out over time in this world, and especially after death in the spiritual world. For now, this approach – of taking the Writings as much as possible at face value – seems to me to be the most faithful to their own advice on how to read them.
Coleman Glenn is a minister in the General Church of the New Jerusalem. Born and raised in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, he now lives in beautiful British Columbia, where he is the pastor of the Dawson Creek New Church. When he has time, he blogs at the comparative religion website patheos.com.
]]>November 4, 2011
“A Home for Love” by Ronald Schnarr.
Ronnie Schnarr takes the fourth slot in the series on Women as Ordained Priests (or Not). However, acknowledging his current lack of firm conclusion on the subject, Ronnie sidesteps debate and takes a different approach to the subject. He paints a picture which conveys the beautiful blessings we might pursue by rethinking our priorities as a society.
November 11, 2011
“1. Ramifications of an All-Male Priesthood” by Brian Smith and Kristin Coffin.
November 12, 2011
“2. Systemic sexism in the Church” by Brian Smith and Kristin Coffin.
November 13, 2011
“3. Burden of Proof and the Status Quo” by Brian Smith and Kristin Coffin.
November 18, 2011
“4. Doctrinal Arguments” by Brian Smith and Kristin Coffin.
November 19, 2011
“5. The Role and Purpose of the Clergy” by Brian Smith and Kristin Coffin.
Brian Smith and Kristin Coffin offer a dialogue-style collaborative piece on the subject of the ordination of women in the General Church. Brian presents arguments in support of an exclusively masculine clergy while Kristin argues for the inclusion of women. The dialogue ranges over the five subtopics above. This is the fourth (set of) essay(s) in the series: Women as Ordained Priests (or Not).
November 25, 2011
"A Taste For Sweetness" by Alanna Rose.
Alanna writes about the development of taste in infancy - sweet first, and only later salty, sour, bitter and savory - and how this progression mirrors spiritual growth.
December 2, 2011
“If the Second Coming happened why is there still so much pain and dysfunction in the world?” by Ronald Schnarr.
Ronnie is walking a fine line. Informed by the teachings of the New Church, he acknowledges the torment in the world, yet finds a place for this agony within a benevolent perspective.
December 9, 2011
“5 Things to Consider When Introducing the Church (or any belief/topic) to Strangers” by Greg Synnestvedt and Alexis Leonard
Greg and Alexis offer clear advice for how to introduce the church to the unacquainted. They emphasize personal integrity and the human relationship, rather than focusing on the mere transmission of fact and opinion.
December 16, 2011
“Using the Letter of the Word to Fight in Temptations, Part 1” by Malcolm Smith.
Malcolm is developing his capacity to use the Word skillfully to fight in temptations. Part one of this essay addresses the power in the letter of the Word, and provides some doctrinal context. Part two? Well you are just going to have to wait!
December 30, 2011
“The Death of the Fear of Death” by Erica Hyatt.
Erica vividly describes the path of her life. She shares a delicate awareness gained firsthand - the resolution to an abiding question - what is death, and must I fear it?
January 6, 2012
“A Common Heart” by Chelsea Rose Odhner.
Chelsea writes of how religion, while becoming more central to peoples lives generally, is also the justification for increasing aggression between people of differing faiths. She calls on humanity to recognize our common heart, and shows us how New Church doctrine is uniquely suited to inform the growing desire for interfaith respect and love.
January 13, 2012
“Other Revelations” by Stephen Muires.
Stephen brings our attention to how the Lord is revealing himself to us, and to others, in the present. He challenges the notion that the Bible and Swedenborg's writings are the exclusive and static emanations of a God who only wanted to speak twice. The water is still moving under the bridge.
Thanks for hanging with newchurchperspective.com into 2012! We've had some technical challenges, especially with our subscription services, but believe these are now resolved.
We're publishing all new content on our home page, and you now have two subscription options: New Content or New Content + Comments. In addition to signing up to receive content emails, we'd love to have you "like" our Facebook page as this will help us reach more readers.
If you missed any essays during the last couple months when our subscription service was down, you can look over the latest digest post to review the recent articles. We list all these digest posts at the top of the archive page which offers a great way to skim over past material if you're looking for a specific topic or discussion.
Otherwise, we look forward to a great 2012 with another year of original weekly content exploring the New Church in life!
- Editor ]]>In this essay, the first of two, Coleman shares principles for how one might approach the Writings most successfully. He advocates carrying an affirmative attitude toward what the Writings literally say, a watchful eye for weighing the larger messages in scripture against any apparently incongruent truths, and an openness to being found incorrect. -Editor.
In a lot of the discussions that happen on this website, a question arises: how should we read the Writings? I think it’s pretty clear from the discussions that the answer to this fundamental question affects everything else in the way we approach New Church teachings. This article is about my own understanding of the best way to read the Writings; I’m hoping it sparks discussion from lots of other points of view.
For starters: I assume the Writings are true. Why is that? Well, it’s a long story, which I shared in detail on an old blog. In summary, though, I got to the point where I said, “I see the truth in the these books, and it seems to be truer than any other truth I’ve seen before – so I will trust that what they say about themselves is true.” Part of that willingness to make the commitment came from teachings in the Writings themselves: that unless you commit to the truth and start living by it, you’ll never really see the truth in it. The more I live by the teachings of the Writings, especially about repentance, the more truth I see in them.
But saying, “The Writings are true” is a pretty big generalization, and there’s room for a lot more interpretation within that. So, there are two things I look at: 1.) What do the Writings say about how to read and interpret Scripture? And 2.) What do the Writings say about themselves (and in particular, in what ways are they different from the Old and New Testaments)?
1.) What do the Writings say about how to read and interpret Scripture?
I’ve heard people say that it makes no sense for there to be Swedenborgian fundamentalists, since the Writings are so opposed to literalism. They’re always encouraging us to look deeper within the literal sense, and point out the fallacies in the literal sense of the Word. If we treat the Old and New Testaments that way, shouldn’t we treat the Writings in the same way? Shouldn’t we try to look beyond the fallacies? I’ll get to that more in the second part of this article, but first it seems important to me to look at what the Writings actually DO say about how we should approach the literal sense of the Word.
There are a few principles the Writings make clear. First and foremost, they say, a person ought to be in the affirmative principle: that is, a principle that says, “This is true because the Lord says so in His Word.” If a person comes across something in the Word that is “obscure,” or difficult to understand, a person who is in faith from charity does not reject it or call his faith into doubt, but “defers” it, or puts it off to the side, with the acknowledgment that what he understands is NOTHING compared to what he doesn’t understand (see Arcana Coelestia 1072).
Is this any different from blind faith? That’s an interesting question. Arcana Coelestia 3394 says that it is harmful for a person not to analyze his faith, and question it, and subject it to rationality:
“[Some spiritual] people desire that the things of faith should be believed in simplicity, without any mental view of them on the part of the rational, not being aware that nothing of faith, not even its deepest secret, is comprehended by any person without some rational idea, and also a natural one.”
It’s important for a person to seek to understand faith rationally and even naturally. But there’s a caveat which is easy to miss – this is useful and necessary only after a person has made that initial acknowledgment that the Word is true because the Lord has spoken it. That passage continues:
“Hereby they may indeed protect themselves against those who reason about everything from what is negative as to whether it is so; but to those who are in the affirmative concerning the Word (namely, that it is to be believed) such a position [that faith should not be examined rationally] is hurtful, as they may thus take away from anyone his freedom of thought, and even bind the conscience to that which is in the highest degree heretical by in this way dominating both the internal and the external things of a person.”
It’s useful to examine everything in faith from a scientific and rational perspective – but only after you’ve adopted the “affirmative principle” that the Word is true. As I understand it, the teaching is that for a person to advance in understanding of revelation, he has to first acknowledge that it is true in some way. But obviously this still doesn’t call for a literal reading, since the Writings advocate looking beyond the literal sense of the Word.
So, what else is needed if a person wants to understand revelation? He has to read it for the sake of life, for the sake of living in charity toward the neighbor and love toward the Lord. When a person does that, he can be in enlightenment – even if he doesn’t actually see beyond the literal sense. Arcana Coelestia 3436 puts it this way:
He who reads the Word in order to be wise, that is, to do what is good and understand what is true, is instructed according to his end and affection; for unknown to him the Lord flows in and enlightens his mind, and where he is at a loss, gives understanding from other passages.
The most important thing is that a person approach the Word for the sake of love to the Lord and the neighbor. But notice that that passage says that enlightenment comes from "understanding from other passages." And the other thing a person needs to understand the Word, according to the Writings, is doctrine of genuine truth. This is where I think the key is. The Writings say a person can draw the doctrine of genuine truth, in its entirety, from the literal sense of the Word. It gives examples of the way doctrine is formed: for example, from looking at Luke 6:20, “Blessed are you poor,” a person might think that those who are literally poor are more blessed than the rich; but by comparing that to Matthew 5:3, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” it becomes clear that the lack of money itself isn’t the important thing, but that a person has an attitude of humility.
The important thing I notice here is that as far as I can tell, the Writings do not advocate saying, “This is not true because it doesn’t reflect the world as I see it.” Rather, they advocate saying, “I’m going to have to understand this differently because it seems to contradict other passages from the Word, and to contradict the fundamental teachings within the Word.” In fact, it’s harmful for a person to reject even fallacies from the literal sense before he has taken “a full view” of the teachings:
“For that which has been made of anyone's faith, even if it is not true, ought not to be rejected, except after taking a full view; if it is rejected sooner, the first beginning of the man's spiritual life is plucked up by the roots; and therefore the Lord never breaks such truth with a man, but as far as possible bends it” (Arcana Coelestia 9039).That passage gives the example of someone believing from the literal sense that the glory and joy of heaven consists in ruling, since the Lord’s disciples are promised that they would sit on thrones and judge the tribes of Israel (Luke 22:30), and since the “faithful servants” in the parable of the talents are told that each of them would be made a “ruler over many things” (Matthew 25:21, 23). This passage says that it would actually be harmful for a person simply to reject these literal teachings, even though they are not literally accurate; but if he sees from other places in the Word that there is a deeper meaning (e.g. "whosoever will be greatest must be the least," and "whosoever would be the first must be the servant of all" (Matt. 20:26-28; Mark 10:42-45; Luke 22:24-27), then and only then is it useful for him to look past the literal sense to see what is really being taught in a deeper sense.
So how does that affect my view of the Writings? It means that if I come across something that contradicts my experience, I try to see how it could be true, and question if maybe my experience of things is based only on appearances. But if something in the Writings seems to contradict a bigger principle within the Word itself, then I try to see how they can be reconciled, and see if maybe one of the places is only speaking in appearances. For example, Arcana Coelestia 289 says, “The Most Ancient Church, because it was the first church, and the only one that was celestial, [was] therefore beloved by the Lord more than any other.” Taken one way, this could seem to contradict a major principle about the Lord, that He loves everyone with the same amount of love, e.g. “It seems as if the Divine were not the same in one person as in another…But this is a fallacy arising from appearance; the person is different, but the Divine in him is not different. A person is a recipient, and the recipient or receptacle is what varies” (Divine Love and Wisdom 78). The first statement, then, about the Most Ancient Church being more beloved, must mean that they received more of the Lord’s love than any others, not that the Lord directed more toward them. It is still true – but you need other passages from the Writings to understand that “more beloved” says something about the way they receive love, not the way the Lord sends it.
And so, my approach to the Writings is to take what they say at face value, unless it seems to contradict a bigger principle from the Word. The reason I feel comfortable in this approach to the Writings is that the Writings actually say mostly good things about people who accept the literal sense of the Word in simplicity; for example, Arcana Coelestia 6775 says this:
“Those are said to be in simple good who are in the externals of the church, and in simplicity believe the Word as to its literal sense, each according to his apprehension, and who also live according to what they believe, thus in good such as are their truths. The internal of the church flows in with them through good…”If I have an attitude of genuinely seeking for what the Lord says for the sake of life, even if I get things completely wrong, those falsities can be used for good. The problem only arises if a person confirms himself in the fallacies of the senses – and especially when a person not only confirms himself in his understanding, but also uses them to confirm lusts in his life. How do I avoid this? I try to always be open to the fact that my understanding could be off. And I try to avoid confirming truths for selfish reasons. In that case, even if something is true, it’s as if it were evil. To use an example from a recent discussion here: I believe Conjugial Love 175 when it says that women cannot enter into the offices proper to men and men cannot enter into the offices proper to women, and that women cannot raise their minds into the same rational light as men (nor can men raise their minds into the same warmth as women, per CL 188). I believe it because the Lord says it, and it doesn’t seem to me to contradict any other teachings in the Word. And I try to see the truth of it in the world. But – I am open to the fact that I could be understanding it wrong. And even if it is true, if I use that to love my own intelligence, or to feed a love of dominion in myself, then even though it’s true in itself, it’s false with me.
And I do admit that I may err a little on the side of being one of those who “believes the literal sense in simplicity” – which, even though it is allowable, is not the ideal, at least not for the Old and New Testament (and again, these Scriptures themselves encourage a person to look deeper; especially in the Gospel of John, the Lord is always encouraging people to look beyond His literal words). That passage about those who believe the literal sense in simplicity does conclude describing their understanding as obscure:
“The internal of the church flows in with them through good, but as they are not in interior truths, the good that flows in becomes general, thus obscure; for spiritual light cannot there flow into the singulars, and thus clearly enlighten things.”So, at least for the Old and New Testaments, it is better to be able to look beyond the literal sense, even though believing it in simplicity can lead a person to heaven. But is the same thing true of the Writings? Or should we read the Writings differently than we read the Old and New Testaments? I'll address those questions in the second part of this article.
Coleman Glenn is a minister in the General Church of the New Jerusalem. Born and raised in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, he now lives in beautiful British Columbia, where he is the pastor of the Dawson Creek New Church. When he has time, he blogs at the comparative religion website patheos.com.
]]>Meditate is a monthly column in which Chelsea shares insights she has gained from meditating on the Word. You can too! Contact us if you'd like to write a submission for this column -Editor.
“Asking the Lord a question is done by consulting the Word. For the Word has the Lord present within it. He is present there because the Word consists of divine truth that comes from him” (Arcana Coelestia 10548).
“Surely everyone realizes that you cannot inject mercy into ruthlessness, or innocence into revenge, or love into hatred, or harmony into discord. Doing so would be mixing heaven and hell.
People who have not been reborn are, in spirit, like panthers and eagle-owls; they can be compared to brambles and stinging nettles. People who have been reborn are like sheep and doves, and they can be compared to olive trees and grapevines. Please consider, if you will, how panther-people could possibly be converted into sheep-people, or eagle-owls into doves, or brambles into olive trees, or stinging nettles into grapevines, through any assignment or attribution or application of divine justice. Would that process not sooner condemn them than justify them? In reality, in order for that conversion to take place the predatory nature of the panther and the eagle owl and the damaging nature of brambles and the stinging nettles must first be removed and something truly human and harmless implanted in their place. The Lord in fact teaches in John 15: 1-7 how this transformation occurs” (True Christianity 642).
Swedenborg just casually throws it out there that the answer to the weighty question, “How are we transformed?” is taught plainly in John 15: 1-7. Well, I had to explore.
John 15: 1-7: Jesus is the true vine and “My Father the vinedresser. Every branch that doesn’t bear fruit HE takes away; and every branch that bears fruit HE prunes, that it may bear more fruit” (1-2).
Going into reading this I had in mind what I’d just read in True Christianity, that the hurtful nature needs to be removed first and then “something truly human and harmless” can be implanted in its place. My first thought on reading this was that it is something I have to do. But John 15: 2 makes it entirely clear that the work is done by the Lord. HE takes away unfruitful branches (removes hurtful nature) and prunes the fruitful ones (implants heavenly nature). Okay, reading on.
“You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you” (3). So somehow knowing or internalizing the teaching of the verse before makes us clean. Wow. We’re already clean, but there’s still a transformation that needs to occur. Hmm.
“ABIDE in ME, and I in you…If anyone does NOT abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered…If you ABIDE in ME and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you” (4, 6, 7). So abiding in the Lord is key. Abiding in the Lord seems to be the requisite foundation for any of the other promises He’s making to be real—to have the unfruitful branches taken away, the fruitful ones pruned, and a core state of cleanness throughout.
These first seven verses I categorize as the ‘first part.’ Abiding in ‘Me’ results with the unique ability to ask for and get what you desire; “it shall be done for you.” Interesting that Swedenborg says that we are taught in just the first seven verses of this chapter how the transformation occurs. Going by this, I’d say the simple answer is: trust in the Lord, He’s making it happen. But chapter 15 doesn’t end there, so I decided to venture on, to see what else I’d learn.
Verse 9: “As the Father loved me, I also have loved you; abide in My LOVE.” This is a different command. We learned about abiding in the Lord; now we’re reading about abiding in the Lord’s love. What’s the difference? In verse 10 we learn how to abide in the Lord’s love: “if you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love.”
Verse 11: “These things I have spoken to you that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.” “These things” I think is specifically referring to abiding in the Lord’s love, in contrast to abiding in Him. Verses nine to eleven I categorize as the ‘second part.’ Abiding in ‘My love’ results with the Lord’s joy remaining in us and our joy being full.
Abide in Me → Ask and it will be granted to you.
Abide in My love → Have full and lasting joy.
So what’s the difference between abiding ‘in Me’ and abiding in ‘My love’? In a phrase, “Assurance, then action” or another one, “Trust and repent.” First we trust. We trust in the reliable responsiveness of our relationship with the Lord: ask and it shall be granted. We need that springboard. From that springboard, we do something; we live His truth, His Word, and the result is that we experience joy, full joy.
It sounds like a promise. It sounds like the Lord is wanting to make it clear that our process of repentance is going to happen, that it does happen, on a backdrop that is the LORD, His salvation. If we’re abiding in Him then no matter how threatening hell is, no matter how convinced we feel of our failure or our incapability to ever overcome, WE CAN and WILL by abiding in the Lord. Trusting this we can live by the Lord’s commandments and face the battles, the temptations that will surely arise.
In verse 15 we read, “No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.” In this I hear the Lord saying, “Pay attention! I’m telling you really important things right now!”
The Lord tells us the point of telling us all this in the first verse of chapter 16: “These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble.” It feels like a secret message that is made plain if we take what it says seriously. By truly acknowledging what we’re told in John 15, we won’t have cause to stumble. That’s quite a promise!
So in this chapter the Lord is saying how our transformation from a hurtful nature to a heavenly nature occurs. The first part is that we have to understand and acknowledge that all power is the Lord’s: He takes away unfruitful branches and prunes fruitful ones. But the second part is the ‘as of self’ part. We abide in His love and live His commandments (i.e. do the work of repentance in our lives) with an inner peace and confidence in His total care.
All power is the Lord’s. All real action or progress is the Lord’s. In 15: 5 the Lord tells us that, “without me you can do nothing.” So we need to acknowledge His power and how all true work is done by Him, but we still have to do our part: live ‘as of self.’ We need to live by His commandments and love one another. And we do this with the assurance that even in the face of tribulation the Lord will not let us fall. It is in this reciprocal relationship that our joy becomes full.
We’re given a sort of recap in verses 16-17: “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you [1st part]. These things I command you, that you love one another [2nd part].” So the idea of asking and being given is restated and the point about loving one another is restated.
The Lord ‘chose’ us, but we still need to abide in the Lord. So the Lord is trying to communicate to us something about the nature of our spirit. We are a branch of the Lord already, but a branch “cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine” (4). There’s a necessary reciprocation being underscored in all this.
I read John 14 and 16 to gain some context. The entire concept is stated succinctly in John 16: 24: “Until now you have asked nothing in My name [“abide in Me”]. Ask, and you will receive [1st part], that your joy may be full [2nd part].” Our joy will be full by living the Lord’s commandments (i.e. practicing repentance) within the context of His presence and protection, a context of complete trust.
Later in chapter 16, verse 33, He again begins His phrase with “these things.” This time I take “these things” to include everything He’s been saying for the past three chapters. “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world [in our lower self] you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” This verse refers back to 15: 2, that “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away.” We have to abide in the Lord, and when we do, we can trust that the Lord is doing work in us, He’s making the transformation happen—He’s already overcome the ‘world.’ This trust gives us peace.
It’s just like the five Universal Principles of Alignment in Anusara Yoga. The first is “Open to Grace;” the second, “Engage Muscle Energy.” The principles have this order on purpose. It is taught in this style of yoga that you can’t take any true and lasting action in your life without first making the heart acknowledgement of trust in the Divine. Your effort is in a sense barren without this initial expansion into a bigger perspective. You expand into a trust in Grace’s power, presence, and fullness in you, then engage muscle energy, an ‘as of self’ effort, and then you can face tribulation ‘in the world’—in the outermost, in your lower self—with an inner peace; like taking your seat in the eye of the storm.
By abiding in the Lord, we trust in Him. By abiding in His love—by living His commandments and practicing repentance—we reciprocate, we do our part to complete the circle, the covenant.
“Abide in Me” ↔ “Abide in My love” (John 15: 7, 9)
“You in Me” ↔ “I in you” (John 14: 20)
Trust, understand, acknowledge ↔ Live by commandments, as of self, repent
In thinking about all this I was left with the question, “What does this look like or how does it pan out when you’re really in the thick of tribulation?” My one thought is that it is a practice of remembrance. We work on remembering what the Lord teaches in this chapter and hold it as a higher truth than the input we’re receiving from our lower self and external senses. That’s what I got.
Chelsea writes the monthly column Meditate for New Church Perspective. In addition to mothering her two young children round the clock, she is an editor for New Church Connection and New Church Perspective.
Stephen brings our attention to how the Lord is revealing himself to us, and to others, in the present. He challenges the notion that the Bible and Swedenborg's writings are the exclusive and static emanations of a God who only wanted to speak twice. The water is still moving under the bridge. -Editor.
This is a New Church perspective on other revelations. Other revelations meaning: revelations from God through human beings other than those who wrote down the Bible and the Heavenly Doctrines.
The great thing about the New Church doctrines is that they allow for the validity of other religions and place all value in the embodiment of faith through action, good will, and love.
But what about revelations? Don’t we consider the Word, including the Writings of Swedenborg, as the Divine Truth? We do. And sometimes those words “Divine Truth” get to have overtones that make it sound like “Final Truth,” or even “the Only Truth.” But that would be ridiculous, don’t you agree? That would be similar to asserting that the Hindu, Muslim or Native American religions are invalid, and they are not.
A definition of “revelation” might be “a coming of the Lord.” For this paper’s purpose that is the working definition. We know about the First Coming, 2000 years ago. We know about the Second Coming, through Swedenborg’s books, 250 years ago. Yet those are only titles, labels to make it easier to refer to something. The Arcana Coelestia points out in what light we should see comings of the Lord:
The Lord had come as often as the Church had been brought to ruin. Not that any of these comings had been a coming in person. Rather, those comings had been made through appearances or manifestations of Himself, such as when He appeared in Mamre to Abraham, in the bush to Moses, on Mount Sinai to the Israelites, and to Joshua when he entered the land of Canaan. There were other comings of a less visible nature, such as those at times when inspiration was received and the Word was given by means of it, and later on through the Word itself. (Arcana Coelestia 4060)
Sorry for the long quote. Let me paraphrase it. Every time the Lord appears to someone, no matter what time in history, no matter in what country on earth, no matter what language is used, is a coming of the Lord, or a revelation.
Imagine you are a professional photographer. You are one of the best in the world, in fact. You make a trip to the Niagara Falls. You use your best equipment, your best lenses, your best tripod. You have all the time in the world. You wait for the best angle of sunlight, the best play of colors, the best shade of blue sky. You make a photo of the Niagara Falls. It turns out to be an unbelievable photo. Never before have those rushing waters been photographed with such accuracy, artistry, and sensitivity. The resolution of this photo breaks all records. This is the best picture EVER of the Niagara Falls, no doubt about it.
Now transpose this analogy of the photograph to the Writings of Swedenborg, the Heavenly Doctrines of the New Church, or the Second Coming of the Lord. Fantastic stuff. Such a depth and integrity and full-blown treatment of the inner meaning of the Bible have never existed on earth before. The revelation of revelations. The crown of all churches. You probably have heard the phrases.
And now... for the punch line.
After that epoch-making photo of the Niagara Falls, did the Niagara Falls stop flowing? Did the waters stop rushing down? Did the sun stop shining?
No, of course not.
Will the amateur photographer, who goes to the Falls next month to make his or her own pictures, fail miserably? Will their photos come out blank? Will their camera malfunction?
No, of course not.
After the Second Coming of the Lord, did the Lord stop speaking to the human race? Did the angels sit back and observe from a distance how the New Church would now save the world? Was it God’s best shot and now it’s up to the handful of people that happen to have read the Writings?
No, of course not.
Did the tourists stop coming? Did the Niagara lose some of its grandeur? Did the master photo prevent others from making their own photos or from experiencing the place that was photographed for themselves?
No, of course not.
And so there exist today a plethora of revelations, of instances, places, books, and people, all of which in their own way are a coming of the Lord. Instead of slowing down after Swedenborg, these revelations have spread out and speeded up.
To conclude this piece I could give a list of such revelations, in case you really are completely blank and have no idea what I am talking about. I could mention the Esther and Jerry Hicks books and workshops about coming into alignment with the source of life, the Eckhart Tolle teachings of presence, the reconnective healing work of Eric Pearl, the healing center of Saint John in South America, the explorations of Drunvalo Melchizedek, the angel stories of Lorna Byrne, and so on.
But more essentially this is about the revelation of God in my and your own life. The Word was given, and each coming of the Lord, as a “medium of conjunction” (Heaven and Hell 306) in New Church language. It’s a channel, a pipe, a method. The point is the conjunction, the connection, the receiving of God’s influence, guidance, and love. The point is not the medium. That’s just a temporary snapshot. The waters are still flowing and we are really invited to go and take a look at those Falls ourselves.
Chelsea writes of how religion, while becoming more central to peoples lives generally, is also the justification for increasing aggression between people of differing faiths. She calls on humanity to recognize our common heart, and shows us how New Church doctrine is uniquely suited to inform the growing desire for interfaith respect and love. -Editor.
Religious intolerance and extremism are current issues in American society and around the globe. The combination of increasing religiousness world-wide (see, for example, God is Back) and a vastly interconnected global society makes it nearly impossible for people of different religious identities not to cross paths. These current circumstances raise the question: is it possible under conditions of such close proximity for the world’s religious variety to coexist harmoniously?
A December 2009 study published by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life found that nearly three in four countries reported crimes, malicious acts or violence motivated by religious bias and that there was some degree of public tensions between religious groups in the vast majority (87 percent) of countries (Global Restrictions on Religion, p. 18-19). America is no exception. In fact, crimes involving religious hatred were reported from nearly every state (ibid).
A recent example of religious bigotry in America which incited national and international attention was the threat by an evangelical pastor from Gainesville, FL, the Rev. Terry Jones, to burn a copy of the Quran, the central religious text of Islam, on the 2010 anniversary of the September 11th bombings of the World Trade Centers. There were protests against his threat to burn the Quran in Afghanistan and Indonesia (Montopoli). Multiple members of the Obama administration, including Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, General David Petraeus, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and President Barack Obama himself made public statements condemning the act of burning the Quran, exhorting Pastor Jones not to follow through on his plan, and declaring the event contrary to what the American nation was founded on (Condon).
The threat to burn the Quran is a relatively local incident that highlights the chronic state of misunderstanding among religious groups and between non-religious and religious people. The threat not only offended American Muslims but, as cited, Muslim groups around the world were inflamed, thus endangering Christian groups around the world as well as U.S. troops abroad. What starts as a local act of interreligious bigotry quickly can become a cause for confrontation between religious groups globally. Although Rev. Jones didn't end up burning a copy of the Quran on the September 11th anniversary, he did burn one on March 20th of this past year. News of his burning the Quran incited riots in Afghanistan during which at least twelve people were killed (Nadafizada and Nordland).
On account of the prominence and visibility of religion as it is involved with terrorism and other extremist action, people often are misled into focusing predominately on the negative use of religion by religious groups other than their own. More damage is done to the reputation of religious devotion when one takes into account how hateful acts of extremism and terrorism throughout the world are perpetrated more often than not in the name of justice. Without effort to develop genuine understanding and mutual respect between people of different religions, hostile interfaith relations are inevitable. Religious conviction needs to be bridged with living respect for others. Effort to learn about people of different religious affiliation than our own with an open mind is the first step to forging a bridge of understanding across the chasm of ignorance.
An awareness of the understanding needed in order to bridge religious differences is beginning to be acknowledged by a growing number of individuals. In addition to the international protests and the American government’s own urging of the cancelation of the planned Quran burning, the threat prompted Dr. Ingrid Mattson, President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), to organize an emergency interfaith summit where thirty-six leaders of the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian faiths met and composed an official statement denouncing “categorically the derision, misinformation, and outright bigotry being directed against America’s Muslim community,” recognizing the people of this nation’s “sacred responsibility to honor America’s varied faith traditions and to promote a culture of mutual respect and the assurance of religious freedom for all,” and announcing “a new era of interfaith cooperation” (Text of Statement).
The Emergency Interfaith Summit is an example of the rising awareness of the pressing need for understanding between and among people of different religions. As the statement by interfaith leaders at the Summit advocates, it is time for the people of the world to commit to building a future “in which religious differences no longer lead to hostility or division between communities” (Text of Statement). What allows for them to envision such a bright future is the identification of “a common understanding of the divine command to love one's neighbor,” in which they recognize “an intimate link between faithfulness to God and love of [the] neighbor” (ibid). They recognize that the path to such a future requires “faithfulness to our deepest spiritual commitments” (ibid). Living out these commitments includes promoting mutual learning among religions as well as between religious and non-religious people (ibid), as well as “working together for interfaith understanding across communities and generations; and... cooperating with each other in works of justice and mercy for the benefit of society” (ibid). The teachings of the New Church contain unique concepts that add rich texture to this vision of the feasibility of the harmonious coexistence of the world’s varied faith traditions. These concepts have the potential to deepen our understanding of the world’s religions and grow in awareness of the unity from love that could connect us all.
The Writings explain the phenomenon of different religions and their inner connectedness through the existence of what is called the Lord’s church. I see the term church here as used with very broad implication beyond strictly Christian adherence, suggesting a group of individuals united by something deeper than a particular professed belief system. “The Lord's church is spread throughout the whole world. It is universal, then, and consists of all individuals who have lived in the virtue of thoughtfulness according to the principles of their religions” (Heaven and Hell 328). Its universality is why it is also common to refer to it simply as the universal church.
We are able to look at all the various religions together through the lens of doctrine or through the lens of the life lived (Arcana Coelestia 8152). When only paying attention to the doctrines of various religions the appearance of many wholly distinct religious traditions is true; on the other hand, when a person’s attention is given to how people live then he can see that the Lord’s church “resides wherever people lead lives in keeping with the commandments of charity,” irrespective of differences in doctrine (ibid). Charity as well is used here with a broader definition than what is commonly understood. It is distinguished from “neighborly acts of kindness,” (Secrets of Heaven 454) but encompasses them as an aspect of charity. Namely, “genuine charity involves acting circumspectly and with the end in view that good may result,” rather than restricting the term solely to “giving to the poor, helping a person in need, and doing good to everyone” (Arcana Coelestia 8120). In other words, charity is not simply performing acts of kindness to other people but striving for genuine usefulness; charity results from a love of serving others in the most effective way. In order for this to be accomplished, a person’s desire needs to be tempered by thoughtfulness as to what action may support the best outcome in the long run. I believe that this idea of loving thoughtfulness is one that is contained within and directed toward by any of the world’s religions. It is this concept of charity and the kind of life it encourages that extends the Lord’s church beyond the boundaries of any one religious belief system.
One passage in the Writings holds that religion is a way of life, and elaborates on this idea by adding that the life of religion is to do what is good (Doctrine of Life 1). In one sense it could be said that there are as many religions as there are people in the world, according to the teaching that “anyone is a church in whom the Lord is present in the qualities of love and faith” (Heaven and Hell 57). It should be noted here that I use the terms ‘Lord’ and ‘God’ interchangeably to reference the one God of the universe. When speaking of ‘God’ or the ‘Lord’ I am referencing the same being, or as Swedenborg terms it, “the underlying divine reality” (True Christianity 18; see also 19-24). The concept that there is one divine being is foundational to the idea of one church. The existence of multiple religions conjures the appearance that there are multiple gods. But rather than each having its own god, it could be seen that each religion offers a unique vision of the same divine being. An analogy could be made in the image of a stained glass window with sections depicting a variety of colorful scenes. Each scene casts the light differently, yet each is illuminated by the same sun. And so, it is not a question of which god a person believes in as it is what concept of God a person has. A person’s religion is constituted primarily by her concept of God. The concept of God “is the very core of the thinking of anyone who has religion [and] all the elements of religion and of worship focus on God” (Divine Love and Wisdom 13). And so each person’s religion is unique to how she personally conceives of God and the life she lives as a result of her understanding. According to this line of logic, there are as many religions as there are people in the world in relationship with God, living according to their own personal understanding. And as long as a person has within her qualities of love and faith as a result of her understanding then that person is in the universal church. Furthermore, the phenomenon of multiple religions is held in the Writings to be an essential aspect of human existence written into the order of the universe by the Lord himself. Swedenborg maintains that “all unity is formed out of harmony among many” and that “no monolithic unity lasts, only the unity created by harmony,” and further that “the Lord alone makes this happen, and he does so through love” (Secrets of Heaven 457).
Love is the hub around which all of life revolves.1 Its expression is the critical element that could enable the harmonious coexistence of religions. One way to demonstrate this is through looking at certain aspects of the New Church concept of heaven. Similar to the idea that a person is himself a church or a religion on the smallest scale, a person who lives a heavenly life can be thought of as a heaven in its smallest form (Heaven and Hell 53, 57). This is due to the fact that “the activity of love and faith is what makes heaven” (Heaven and Hell 51). Swedenborg holds that heaven “exists wherever people have love and charity (or the Lord’s kingdom) inside them” (Secrets of Heaven 450). Or in other words, heaven is defined as “wishing better for others than for ourselves with all our heart and serving others for the sake of their own happiness, not for any selfish goal but for love” (Secrets of Heaven 452). In this way, heaven, like religion, can be called a way of life, not only a ‘place’ a person goes to after he dies. Anyone who lives a life in harmony with heaven has heaven within him and will live in heaven when his physical life in this world comes to an end. One can see that a heavenly life defined in this way is beyond the confines of any one religion and is available immediately to all who live a life in keeping with the good actions that love desires and the true ideas taught by one’s faith that serve this love.
To take it a step further, it is ultimately the divine nature that emanates from God that makes heaven. The divine nature that emanates from the Lord is “the good intrinsic to love and the truth intrinsic to faith” (Heaven and Hell 7). In other words, “the very essence of the Divine is love and wisdom” (Divine Love and Wisdom 30), and so of heaven. Swedenborg describes these two, love and wisdom, as “distinguishably one” (Divine Love and Wisdom 34). The divine nature is present within each of us; the Lord flows into each of us, no matter what our outward religious affiliation, “with all his divine love, all his divine wisdom, and all his divine life” (True Christianity 364), and it is this inflowing that gives us “our ability to be wise and our ability to love” (Divine Love and Wisdom 30). It is up to us, though, how much of the Lord’s nature we adopt into ourselves by how we choose to live—in keeping with love and charity for others or not (True Christianity 364). Of the two components of the divine nature, the Lord’s divine love is the essential element and divine truth is derived from it (Divine Love and Wisdom 30); the two united give life to everything (Heaven and Hell 13). Love is the vital element because it is love that creates spiritual union and is spiritual union (Heaven and Hell 14). “It unites angels to the Lord and unites them with each other” (ibid).
Heaven exists as a whole unit because of the union love creates. “Love pervades the whole of heaven, for in the heavens no other life is found except the life that belongs to love” (Arcana Coelestia 32). The same is true for our lives in the physical world: “love is the essential reality of every individual life. It is therefore the source of the life of angels and the life of people here [in the physical world]” (Heaven and Hell 14). Love unites angels to such an extent that “in the Lord’s sight they are like a single being” (ibid). On account of the union created through love, it could be said that everyone there shares a common heart. It is this common heart of love that makes it so that people of all religions can go to heaven. Anyone who lives a life of love and service to others and God also shares the common heart. In other words, those who mindfully give expression to the love and goodwill that comes from the Lord are channeling the blood of the common heart. It is a life of thoughtful loving-kindness that enables a person to live in harmony with the sphere of heaven and so be a part of the universal church here and now no matter what his outward religious affiliation.
How would our perception be different if we saw people as having varied forms of love rather than discriminating between them on the basis of faith-beliefs? By directing our gaze to a deeper level of being we could see that people devoted to the living practice of their religions are all rooted in a common, nutritive soil of love.
It is a human tendency to use difference as an excuse for prejudice and hatred. This is clearly apparent in interfaith conflict. The differences between the varied faith traditions of the world are not going to disappear. A way must be found for them to coexist harmoniously. Dr. Gerald L. Durley, a Baptist pastor, when speaking during the press conference for the ISNA Emergency Interfaith Summit listed what he holds to be the three essential ingredients for genuine, healthy, and effective interreligious communication: understanding, respect, and trust (Full Video of Press Conference). These three could be listed also as necessary ingredients for harmonious coexistence. In order to understand others, a person needs to have some level of sympathy for the other; in order for there to be sympathy, there must be some awareness of a shared affinity, no matter how faint. Respect grows out of understanding once it is developed, and ultimately trust can be cultivated from these. Love is the medium through which a connection with others could be discovered. The diversity of religious cultures is not evidence of ultimate disparity. On the contrary, the very possibility of variegation among people and their faiths is due to the common essence of love from which we all have our life.
During the press conference about the ISNA Emergency Interfaith Summit, Dr. Ingrid Mattson, president of ISNA, said as words of comfort to the people of her religion to not worry about the threat of burning the Quran. She reminded Muslims that “the Quran will not disappear with the burning of a book. It wouldn’t disappear with the burning of all of the Qurans in the world, because millions of Muslims across the world have memorized the Quran; they have it in their heart; they live it every day; they refer to it as their source of ethics [and] compassion” (Full Video of Press Conference). The Quran is a body of truth. Its eternal existence is not on account of its own material substance. Rather, its eternal life is due to all the Muslims around the world who embody in their daily lives the love toward which its truth directs.
Mattson continued saying, “God’s word is eternal and it won’t be harmed by fire” (Full Video of Press Conference). God’s word cannot be harmed by fire because it is not solely about what is written—it is alive in the people of different religions who live according to the love-truths that are at its center: true ideas that lead to a way of life rooted in the common heart of love for others and God.
1I want to make it clear that while I emphasize the centrality of love, I in no way intend to minimize the importance of wisdom. While reading, it may be useful to keep in mind these passages as well:
The angel said, "From creation, all things that are in the whole of heaven and all things that are in the whole world are nothing but a marriage of goodness and truth, since each and every thing, whether it lives and moves or does not, was created both from a marriage of goodness and truth and for that marriage. Nothing was created for truth alone, and nothing was created for goodness alone. Neither truth nor goodness is anything on its own, but when they marry each other they become something, and the nature of that something depends on the quality of their marriage.
"In the Lord God the Creator, divine goodness and divine truth exist in their essential quality. The divine goodness is the underlying reality within that essential quality; the divine truth is that quality's capacity to become manifest. They also enjoy a complete union together, since in the Lord they become one in an infinite variety of ways. Since these two are one in God the Creator, they are also one in each and every thing that was created by him. As a result, there is also an eternal covenant, like a marriage, that joins the Creator to all that he created." (True Christianity 624)
God is not only the intrinsic underlying reality but is also an intrinsic capacity to become manifest. For unless the underlying reality is capable of manifesting, it is nothing. It is equally true that the capacity to become manifest is nothing without the underlying reality. Neither one can exist without the other. (True Christianity 21)
Chelsea is a wife to a PhD candidate. She lives in a multi-generational household in Huntingdon Valley, PA, with her husband, their two young children, and her parents-in-law. In addition to mothering round the clock, she is an editor for New Church Connection and New Church Perspective.
"]]>Erica vividly describes the path of her life. She shares a delicate awareness gained firsthand - the resolution to an abiding question - what is death, and must I fear it? -Editor.
As a child, while most little girls were learning how to tie their shoes and walk to school by themselves, I was busy working on a more distressing task: figuring out what happens when we die. I developed the awareness very early that I would not exist forever in my current form. I was young, healthy and growing, without ever knowing anyone who died, so this existential question was slightly unexpected. I cannot identify the exact moment I was hit by this painful and terrorizing realization (and it truly felt like a blow), but I can remember staying up countless nights, trying to determine the answer. What would happen after my body ceased to exist? When the sun blew out, how could I ever come back to life if there was no habitable planet for me? What did infinity and forever look like, and how was it possible that my whole life was just a small blip on the radar screen of eternity?
As I became more anxious, I looked to my family and friends for answers. I ended up in my parents’ bedroom late at night, begging them to stop time for me. I would ask repeatedly, “What happens when we die?” My parents, born into the Jewish faith and practicing more culturally than religiously, would try to comfort me as best they could. But hearing “Death is the Great Unknown. Nobody knows for sure” was of little comfort.
As I grew, I began to hide my existential anxiety from others. Nobody else in school seemed to be concerned that life was not forever. In high school I began writing mini-manifestos about death in the quiet hours of the early morning. One night I came upon the powerful realization that if humans are energy, and energy cannot be created or destroyed, something must happen when our earthly bodies shut down. I created an “Energy Ball” theory, that we are all just beings of light and energy, and we connect with those who have similar energy to ours. After we die, our energies reconnect, like yin and yang, and we experience a sense of purity and wholeness when united in the energetic form. This was an exciting discovery for a seventeen year-old that had never: a) seen anyone die b) read anything about near-death experiences (NDEs) and c) remained baffled by the Great Unknown. I was comforted by my new theory, but as time passed, my doubt and fear returned.
I made the decision in college that I needed to see death firsthand. The process of death did not frighten me, but the impermanence of my Self was terrifying. Therefore, it seemed that the only solution was to gain firsthand experience of what it looks like when others die.
My route to the Other World was through obtaining a dual master’s degree in social work and bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, where I flung myself into the most intense internships at both the Hospital of UPenn and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. However, as a supervised intern, those who were in charge of my education kept a close eye on me and I was mostly shielded from getting too close to witnessing an actual death.
This all changed when I graduated from school and began my career as a social worker. I began to work in a variety of settings: with adults diagnosed with brain cancer; children with terminal cancer; the traumatized families of combat veterans; the seriously mentally ill, addicted, and impoverished.
I recently recounted the following “Aha!” moment in a convocation speech at Bryn Athyn College. In the interests of patient privacy, I’m going to change the name of a little girl I worked with. We’ll call her Monique.
Monique was diagnosed with a very rare form of cancer when she was eight. From that moment, she lived in and out of the hospital, receiving chemotherapy, suffering massive infections, and struggling to survive. I met her toward the very end of her life, just after she had celebrated her final birthday on this earth. That birthday was the only time I saw the child smile, surrounded by her sisters; I vividly recall her pink slippers in the hallway as the girls chased each other and danced all over our ward.
Monique had been sick for so long that her illness had depleted what little funds her family had to take care of her. Her mother, who was unmarried, took on two jobs to make ends meet and as a result was rarely at her daughter’s bedside. I remember walking into Monique’s room, feeling the profound alone-ness of this child. I never knew quite what to say except to simply be present with her, whether she was feeling better or worse on any given day. I brought her music, tried to distract her through paint-by-numbers. She was in such incredible pain, and nothing I could do would take that away. So there I sat, taking the time to be with her so that she knew someone always would be. She deserved that.
One day, after Monique was transferred to the Intensive Care Unit due to a whole-body infection, I received a call from her nurse. She told me to hurry because Monique was imminently dying and her mother was not there. I flew down the stairs separating our units and went to be with her. Monique wasn’t conscious, and I saw her heart rate dropping. I was grateful that she appeared not to be in pain and, although the machines told me that her heart was struggling and failing to keep going, she looked almost happy in that moment. A quiet face cleaned of all the disease that had weighed her down: a beautiful, beautiful little girl. I held her hand, thought about Monique’s existence, my own existence, how she was traveling through something I couldn’t possibly understand.
The process of her death—the sounds in the room, the sounds from her body, the machines—all of that is still very clear to me. And yet there was also a deeper experience in that room. Despite what the machines told me, I knew, on a very subtle level, that Monique’s soul had departed from her body. That which made Monique Monique flew away from her weary physical form.
How did I know? If I thought about it too much, I stopped knowing. But there was a transition from this earthly life to something else, something immeasurable. And being in that presence—the line so subtle between life and death that I would miss it if I focused too hard—there was something less, and yet, something more.
At that time I didn’t know about Emanuel Swedenborg, but my life was about to take a powerful turn. Meeting my husband, who brought me into this wonderful community, I learned about the man who visited the other side. As I was now completing my doctoral degree, I knew enough about psychology and mental illness to understand the truth and validity of Swedenborg’s experiences. Like me, he was a student of something far greater than just himself. And his story, the story of the New Church, flew in the face of all of my previous doubt, connected the dots between my presence at so many deaths and created a larger, more beautiful picture: that there is life after death.
Some time in the last couple of months I read a statement in the teachings of the New Church about spiritual combat and it’s stuck with me. I’ve been chewing on it since then—trying to think through the ramifications and possible applications of it.
Here’s the statement (preceded by a statement from a few numbers before that gives some context).
[T]here are both evil and good spirits with every man; the evil spirits are in his evils, and the good spirits in his goods. When the evil spirits approach they draw forth his evils, while the good spirits, on the contrary, draw forth his goods; whence arise collision and combat, from which the man has interior anxiety, which is temptation...
These combats are carried on by the truths of faith which are from the Word. From these man must combat against evils and falsities; for if he combats from any other principles, he cannot conquer, because in these alone the Lord is present. (New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine 188, 191; see also Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture 49, Secrets of Heaven 8962)
(This statement comes from the chapter on temptations in New Jerusalem and It’s Heavenly Doctrine, in the context of a whole lot of other ideas about the nature of spiritual life, temptations, and the Word. If you have ten minutes I would recommend reading it. Read a translation that keeps the chunky collections of other ideas about temptations at the end of the chapter.)
This is one of those statements that’s easy to read without taking in what it’s saying. So let me restate it: if you want to win in your spiritual struggles, you have to use truths from the Word; if you use anything else, you’ll never win. Never.
If your brain is like mine, your brow is starting to furrow a bit and you’re thinking, “But what about…?” And we’ll get into some of those in a bit. But, for now, I invite you to just go with this idea for a bit. Given that we have to use truths from the Word to fight in temptations, how can we do that?
First we need to know what’s meant by “truths of faith which are from the Word.” Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture helps us out with that. There’s a section in there with the heading, “Divine Truth in the Sense of the Letter of the Word is in its Fullness, in its Holiness, and in its Power.” In this section there are some remarkable statements about the power and importance of the sense of the letter or literal sense of the Word (for example, Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture 48), including one that’s very similar to the one we just read from New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine.
The power of Divine Truth is directed especially against falsities and evils, thus against the hells. These must be combated by means of truths from the sense of the Letter of the Word. Moreover, by means of the truths that are with a man, the Lord has the power of saving him; for by means of truths from the sense of the Letter of the Word, a man is reformed and regenerated. (Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture 49)
This passage specifies that the truths from the Word that we need to use in spiritual combats are from the literal sense of the Word. So we’re talking about quotations from the Old Testament and the New Testament. How do we use these in temptations?
The first place my brain goes when I think of using truths from the literal sense in temptations is the story of Jesus being tempted by the devil in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-13). For example, when Jesus was hungry the tempter said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” Jesus responded by quoting Deuteronomy 8:3—“But He answered and said, ‘It is written, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God”’” (Matthew 4:3-4).
The teachings of the New Church make it clear, however, that the true nature of the temptations the Lord experienced aren’t visible on the surface of this story.
In the Word of the Lord's life, in the Gospels, none but the last is mentioned, except His temptation in the wilderness. More were not disclosed to the disciples. The things that were disclosed appear in the sense of the letter so slight as to be scarcely anything; for to speak and to answer in this manner is no temptation, when yet His temptation was more grievous than can ever be comprehended and believed by any human mind. No one can know what temptation is except the one who has been in it. The temptation that is related in Matthew 4:1-11; Mark 1:12-13; Luke 4:1-13, contains all temptations in a summary; namely, that from love toward the whole human race, the Lord fought against the loves of self and of the world, with which the hells were filled. (Secrets of Heaven 1690:2)
This story is a symbolic representation of all the temptations that the Lord experienced when He was in the world, not a literal depiction of the true nature of temptations. Dealing with temptations isn’t simply a matter of learning the right magic words to use. And yet, the right words from the literal sense of the Word do have a power like nothing else, when they are an integrated part of an overall spiritual practice.
I’m no military strategist (I’m not even particularly good at games like Risk or Starcraft) but I’m going to make a declaration about the nature of war (and if it’s true, I probably unconsciously stole it from someone who knows what they’re talking about).
By the time the battle is joined, the fight is already won or lost in the preparations the armies have made or not made.
Or how about this:
He who is well-trained and well-prepared will always be victorious.
Ok, I don’t buy either of those myself, but the point I’m trying to get to is that to effectively use passages from the letter of the Word in temptations we need to have done preparatory work before the temptation. It’s the difference between the person who finds himself in a battle and only then looks around to try to find a weapon and figure out how to use it and the person who has spent hours training with various weapons, in anticipation of future battles, who, when he finds himself in a battle, calmly draws his sword (or M16, as the case may be). It’s the difference between David putting on Saul’s armor to go fight Goliath and David taking his shepherd’s staff, his sling, and five smooth stones to go fight Goliath (1 Samuel 17).
Here’s an example. I don’t know that it would count as a full blown temptation but hopefully it illustrates the point. Every so often I get overwhelmed by thinking about what might happen in the future. All these possible awful scenarios run through my head and I think about all the factors outside of my control that might lead to this awfulness, and there’s nothing I can do about it! In those times I’ve learned that it’s really helpful to me to think and say, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). For me that phrase from the Lord’s prayer encapsulates a whole bunch of ideas about how the Lord is in charge and He has given me everything that I need so far and that, even if I do go through hard things in the future, He will continue to give me what I need to get through it, so what I need to focus on right now is asking Him to give me the daily bread that I need today.
It’s like I’m driving on the highway and I see traffic ahead and I’ve learned that, if I get off at the Daily Bread exit, I can avoid sitting in frustrating traffic for hours. And the reason that I can do that is because I’ve learned alternate routes to take. There are other areas of my life where I haven’t figured out other ways of getting through things and so still get stuck in the stupid mental traffic. (And just to beat this metaphor to death) when I see traffic ahead in an unexplored area of my life, I can try getting off at whatever exit is there and find a way from there but that can sometimes be just as time consuming and frustrating as sitting in traffic.
So I've come up with a spiritual practice that I’ve been trying recently to use the literal sense of the Word more in temptations. I'll lay it out in Part 2 of this article. In the meantime you should come up with a better one.
Malcolm is just about done his first year of being Assistant to the Pastor of New Church Westville in South Africa. He feels pretty new at a lot of the things he's doing in his life—being a pastor, being a dad, being a husband—but he also feels pretty darn blessed in those areas of life too.
]]>