Stories:

The Problem of Theologians
From Sam Keen’s Hymns To An Unknown God, p. 115

    During one of Paul Tillich’s very abstract lectures at Harvard on the nature of God, a woman rose to ask a question:  “Dr. Tillich,” she said, “it is well known that psychoanalysts have an exceedingly difficult time with patients who know psychoanalytic theory.  Do you think God has the same problems with theologians?”  Momentarily, the audience was stunned by the question, until Tillich replied: “I am sure He does.”  He began to laugh in a way that set off a tidal wave that swept away the overserious mood of Systematic Theology 101.



Reaching Heaven
From Sam Keen’s Hymns To An Unknown God, p. 93

“A Soul met an angel and asked of Him:  ‘By which path shall I reach heaven quickest – the path of knowledge or the path of love?  The angel looked at him wonderingly and said:  ‘Are not both paths one?”             Olive Schreiner



The Power of Thou
From Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth, pp. 78- 79

Joseph Campbell:  “The Indians addressed all of life as a ‘thou’ – the trees, the stones, everything.  You can address anything as a ‘thou,’ and if you do it, you can feel the change in your own psychology.  The ego that sees a ‘thou’ is not the same ego that sees an ‘it’.  And when you go to war with people, the problem of the newspapers is to turn those people into ‘its.’ “
Bill Moyers:   “This happens in marriage, too, doesn’t it?  And happens with children, too.”
Joseph Campbell:  “Sometimes the ‘thou’ turns into an ‘it’, and you don’t know what the relationship is.  The Indian relationship to animals is in contrast to our relationship to animals, where we see animals as a lower form of life.  In the Bible we are told that we are the masters.  For hunting people, as I said, the animal is in many ways superior.  A Pawnee Indian said:  ‘In the beginning of all things, wisdom and knowledge were with the animal.  For Tirawa, the One Above, did not speak directly to man.  He sent certain animals to tell mankind that he showed himself through the beast.  And that from them, and from the stars and the sun and the moon, man should learn.”





The Religious Experience
From Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth, p. 209-210

MOYERS:  How does one have a profound religious experience?
CAMPBELL:  By having a profound sense of mystery.
…  You have to break past your image of God to get through to the connoted illumination.  The psychologist Jung has a relevant saying:  “Religion is a defense against the experience of God.” 
    The mystery has been reduced to a set of concepts and ideas, and emphasizing these concepts and ideas can short-circuit the transcendent, connoted experience.  An intense experience of mystery is what one has to regard as the ultimate religious experience.
MOYERS:  There are many Christians who believe that, to find out who Jesus is, you have to go past the Christian faith, past the Christian doctrine, past the Christian Church –
CAMPBELL:  You have to go past the imagined image of Jesus.  Such an image of one’s god becomes a final obstruction, one’s ultimate barrier.  You hold on to your own ideology, your own little manner of thinking, and when a larger experience of God approaches, an experience greater than you are prepared to receive, you take flight from it by clinging to the image in your mind.  This is known as preserving your faith.
    You know the idea of the ascent of the spirit through the different centers or archetypal stages of experience.  One begins with the elementary animal experiences of hunger and greed, and then of sexual zeal, and on to physical mastery of one kind or another.  …  But then, when the center of the heart is touched, and a sense of compassion awakened with another person or creature, and you realize that you and that other are in some sense creatures of the one life in being, a whole new stage of life in the spirit opens out.  This opening of the heart to the world is what is symbolized mythologically as the virgin birth.  It signifies the birth of a spiritual life in what was formerly an elementary human animal living for the merely physical aims of health, progeny, power and a little fun.
    But now we come to something else.  For to experience this sense of compassion, accord, or even identity with another, or with some ego-transcending principle that has become lodged in your mind as a good to be revered and served, is the beginning, once and for all, of the properly religious way of life and experience; and this may then lead to a life-consuming quest for a full experience of that one Being of beings of which all temporal forms are the reflections.”




The Wise Man and The Scorpion
(our old priest, Fr. Julian, told this story as his sermon one Sunday. Like any good story, I never forgot it.)
Once upon a time an old, wise teacher was meditating by a pond when he noticed that a large scorpion was struggling in the water of the pond.  The scorpion was tangled in some weeds, and it was slowly drowning as it struggled futilely against the weeds.  The old teacher reached down with his hand to help the scorpion, but the frightened scorpion immediately jabbed its large stinger into the old man’s hand.  Reaching again into the water to help the scorpion, the old man was stung again and again, until finally he could only lay beside the pond in agony, his arm swollen to twice its normal size.
    One of the old teacher’s pupils noticed him lying there, and he rushed up to help his master.  Seeing the teacher’s condition, the student was amazed when the teacher once again began to reach into the pond to help the dying scorpion.
    “Oh, master, no!” exclaimed the student.  “The scorpion’s sting has almost killed you, and still you reach down to help him.  Why must you do this?”
    The old wise man looked directly at his pupil, and with a voice weak from pain said:  “Because it is the scorpion’s nature to sting does not change my nature, which is to love.” 



The Mandorla   from Robert A. Johnson, Owning Your Own Shadow
It is good to remember that the old symbol for Christ – the two lines indicating a stylized fish – is a mandorla.  By definition, Christ himself is the intersection of the divine and the human.  He is the prototype for the reconciliation of opposites and our guide out of the realm of conflict and duality.  Early Christians would make themselves known to one another in this way:  upon meeting, one would scratch a small circle in the dust.  The other would make a second circle that was slightly overlapping – thus completing a mandorla.  This way of greeting … also has meaning for us today.  If one has a statement to make, it is good to invite another statement – generally one coming from the shadow – and thus make a mandorla that is greater than either point of view alone.


Stoop Low Sweet Chariot
from Contentment, by Robert A. Johnson & Jerry M. Ruhl

“We are familiar with the word humus, which means rich soil that you add to your garden to make it grow.  This is related to the words humble, humiliate, and humility—all of which involve bringing ourselves back to the earth.  Contentment does not require more reasoning and willpower; if that were all that was needed, humanity would surely be content by now.  No, instead we must learn to humble our pride and admit that the “I” inside does not know everything and sometimes has a hard time figuring out what is best for us. 
    Contentment requires that we “soil” the arrogance of modern consciousness by bringing it back down to earth and establishing an ongoing relationship with the collective unconscious.
    Most psychology today—90 percent or more—ministers to a person’s relationship to the outer world.  Perhaps you can’t get a date or your marriage isn’t working or you are socially clumsy or some such thing. These are important issues, and they often require repair work.  However, to find contentment, we must attend to the equally wonderful and challenging world within us.   
    There is a story of a spiritual seeker who one day came to his master and asked, “In the olden days it is said that there were people who walked and talked with God.  Why doesn’t this happen anymore?”  The master replied, “Because nowadays no one will stoop so low.”




The Cup of Life Story
    A group of working adults got together to visit their University lecturer.  The Lecturer was happy to see them. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.
    The Lecturer just smiled and went to the kitchen to get an assortment of cups -- some porcelain, some in plastic, some in glass, some plain looking and some looked rather expensive and exquisite.
    The Lecturer offered his former students the cups to get drinks for themselves. When all the students had a cup in hand with water, the Lecturer spoke:
    "If you noticed, all the nice looking, expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal that you only want the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. What all you wanted was water, not the cup, but we unconsciously went for the better cups.
    "Just like in life, if Life is Water, then the jobs, money and position in society are the cups.  They are just tools to hold/maintain Life, but the quality of Life doesn't change.  If we only concentrate on the cup, we won't have time to enjoy the water in it."





The Most Important Word
[Three characters in Steinbeck’s East of Eden are discussing this text --  Adam, the lead character, Samuel, his wise old neighbor and friend, and Lee, his Chinese housekeeper, ]

“And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.  And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord.  And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof.  And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering.  But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect.  And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.  And the Lord said unto Cain, “Why art thou wroth?  And why is they countenance fallen?  If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?  And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.  And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.”

[Lee]“Do you remember when you read us the sixteen verses of the fourth chapter of Genesis and we argued about them?”
    “I do indeed.  And that’s a long time ago.”
    “Ten years nearly,” said Lee.  “Well, the story bit deeply into me and I went into it word for word.  The more I thought about the story, the more profound it became to me.  Then I compared the translations we have—and they were fairly close.  There was only one place that bothered me.  The King James version says this—it is when Jehovah has asked Cain why he is angry.  Jehovah says, “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.’  It was the ‘thou shalt’ that struck me, because it was a promise that Cain would conquer sin.”
    Samuel nodded.  “And his children didn’t do it entirely,” he said.
    Lee sipped his coffee.  “Then I got a copy of the American Standard Bible.  It was very new then.  And it was different in this passage.  It says, ‘Do thou rule over him.’ Now this is very different.  This is not a promise, it is an order.  And I began to stew about it.  I wondered what the original word of the original writer had been that these very different translations could be made.” 
    Samuel put his palms down on the table and leaned forward and the old young light came into his eyes.  “Lee,” he said, “don’t tell me you studied Hebrew!”
    Lee said, “I’m going to tell you …
    “ … it seemed to me that the man who could conceive this great story would know exactly what he wanted to say and there would be no confusion in his statement.”
    “You say ‘the man.’  Do you then not think this is a divine book written by the inky finger of God?”
    “I think the mind that could think this story was a curiously divine mind.  We have had a few such minds in China, too.”
    “I just wanted to know,” said Samuel.  “You’re not a Presbyterian after all.”
    “I told you I was getting more Chinese.  Well, to go on, I went to San Francisco to the headquarters of our family association.  Do you know about them?  Our great families have centers where any member can get help or give it.  The Lee family is very large.  It takes care of its own.”
    “… I went there because in our family there are a number of ancient reverend gentlemen who are great scholars.  They are thinkers in exactness.  A man may spend many years pondering a sentence of the scholar you call Confucius.  I thought there might be experts in meaning who could advise me.
    “They are fine old men.  They smoke their two pipes of opium in the afternoon and it rests and sharpens them, and they sit through the night and their minds are wonderful.  I guess no other people have been able to use opium well.
    “I respectfully submitted my problem to one of these sages, read him the story, and told him what I understood from it.  The next night four of them met and called me in. We discussed the story all night long.”
    Lee laughed.  “I guess it’s funny,” he said.  “I know I wouldn’t dare tell it to many people.  Can you imagine four old gentlemen, the youngest is over ninety now, taking on the study of Hebrew?  They engaged a learned rabbi. They took to the study as though they were children.  Exercise books, grammar, vocabulary, simple sentences.  You should see Hebrew written in Chinese ink with a brush!  The right to left didn’t bother them as much as it would you, since we write up to down.  Oh, they were perfectionists!  They went to the root of the matter.”
    “And you?” said Samuel.
    “I went along with them, marveling at the beauty of their proud clean brains.  I began to love my race, and for the first time I wanted to be Chinese.  Every two weeks I went to a meeting with them, and in my room here I covered pages with writing.  I bought every known Hebrew dictionary.  But the old gentlemen were always ahead of me.  It wasn’t long before they were ahead of our rabbi; he brought a colleague in.  … You should have sat through some of those nights of argument and discussion.  The questions, the inspection, oh, the lovely thinking—the beautiful thinking. 
    “After two years we felt that we could approach your sixteen verses of the fourth chapter of Genesis.  My old gentlemen felt that these words were very important too—‘Thou shalt’ and ‘Do thou.’ And this was the gold from our mining:  ‘Thou mayest.’ ‘Thou mayest rule over sin.’  The old gentlemen smiled and nodded and felt the years were well spent.  It brought them out of their Chinese shells too, and right now they are studying Greek.”
    Samuel said, “It’s a fantastic story.  And I’ve tried to follow and maybe I’ve missed somewhere.  Why is this word so important?”
    Lee’s hand shook … “Don’t you see?” he cried.  “The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin, and you can call sin ignorance.  The King James translation makes a promise in ‘Thou shalt,’ meaning that men will surely triumph over sin.  But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’—that gives a choice.  It might be the most important word in the world.  That says the way is open.  That throws it right back on a man.  For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.’  Don’t you see?”
    “Yes, I see.  I do see.  But you do not believe this is divine law.  Why do you feel its importance?”
    “Ah!” said Lee.  “I’ve wanted to tell you this for a long time.  I even anticipated your questions and I am well prepared.  Any writing which has influenced the thinking and the lives of innumerable people is important.   Now, there are many millions in their sects and churches who feel the order, “Do thou,’ and throw their weight into obedience.  And there are millions more who feel predestination in ‘Thou shalt.’  Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be.  But ‘Thou mayest’!  Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice.  He can choose his course and fight it through and win.”  Lee’s voice was a chant of triumph.
    Adam said, “Do you believe that, Lee?”
    “Yes, I do.  Yes, I do.  It is easy out of laziness, out of weakness, to throw oneself into the lap of deity saying, ‘I couldn’t help it; the way was set.’ But think of the glory of the choice!  That makes a man a man.  A cat has no choice, a bee must make honey.  There’s no godliness there.  And do you know, those old gentlemen who were sliding gently down to death are too interested to die right now?”
    Adam said, “Do you mean these Chinese men believe the Old Testament?” 
    Lee said, “These old men believe a true story, and they know a true story when they hear it.  They are critics of truth.  They know that these sixteen verses are a history of humankind in any age or culture or race.  They do not believe a man writes fifteen and three-quarter verses of truth and tells a lie with one verb.  Confucius tells men how they should live to have good and successful lives.  But this—this is a ladder to climb to the stars.”  Lee’s eyes shone.   “You can never lose that.  It cuts the feet from under weakness and cowardliness and laziness.”
    Adam said, “I don’t see how you could cook and raise the boys and take care of me and still do all this.”
    “Neither do I,” said Lee.  “But I take my two pipes in the afternoon, no more and no less, like the elders.  And I feel that I am a man.  And I feel that a man is a very important thing—maybe more important than a star.  This is not theology.  I have no bent toward gods.  But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul.  It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe.  It is always attacked and never destroyed—because “Thou mayest.’”



The Greatness of Lincoln
    In 1908, in a wild and remote area of the North Caucasus, Leo Tolstoy, the greatest writer of the age, was the guest of a tribal chief “living far away from civilized life in the mountains.”  Gathering his family and neighbors, the chief asked Tolstoy to tell stories about the famous men of history.  Tolstoy told how he entertained the eager crowd for hours with tales of Alexander, Caesar, Frederick the Great, and Napoleon.  When he was winding to a close, the chief stood and said, “But you have not told us a syllable about the greatest general and ruler of the world.  We want to know something about him.  He was a hero.  He spoke with a voice of thunder; he laughed like the sunrise and his deeds were strong as the rock …. His name was Lincoln and the country in which he lived is called America, which is so far away that if a youth should journey to reach it he would be an old man when he arrived.  Tell us of that man.”
    “I looked at them,” Tolstoy recalled, “and saw their faces all aglow, while their eyes were burning.  I saw that those rude barbarians were really interested in a man whose name and deeds had already become a legend.”  He told them everything he knew about Lincoln’s “home life and youth … his habits, his influence upon the people and his physical strength.”  When he finished, they were so grateful for the story that they presented him with “a wonderful Arabian horse.”  The next morning, as Tolstoy prepared to leave, they asked if he could possibly acquire for them a picture of Lincoln.  Thinking that he might find one at a friend’s house in the neighboring town, Tolstoy asked one of the riders to accompany him.  “I was successful in getting a large photograph from my friend,” recalled Tolstoy.  As he handed it to the rider, he noted that the man’s hand trembled as he took it.  “He gazed for several minutes silently, like one in a reverent prayer, his eyes filled with tears.”
    Tolstoy went on to observe, “This little incident proves how largely the name of Lincoln is worshipped throughout the world and how legendary his personality has become.  Now, why was Lincoln so great that he overshadows all other national heroes?  He really was not a great general like Napoleon or Washington; he was not such a skilful statesman as Gladstone or Frederick the Great; but his supremacy expresses itself altogether in his peculiar moral power and in the greatness of his character.
    “Washington was a typical American.  Napoleon was a typical Frenchman.  But Lincoln was a humanitarian as broad as the world.  He was bigger than his country—bigger than all the presidents together.
    “We are still too near to his greatness,” Tolstoy concluded, “but after a few centuries more our posterity will find him considerably bigger than we do.  His genius is still too strong and too powerful for the common understanding, just as the sun is too hot when its light beams directly on us.”
        from A Team of Rivals, The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns             Goodwin, pp. 747-748



Love defined
This is not a story.  It is an essay.  But in those moments when I'm discussing Romance, this is an essay to which I have repeatedly referred.)

   “…Love is an action, an activity. … Love is not a feeling.  Many, many people possessing a feeling of love and even acting in response to that feeling act in all manner of unloving and destructive ways.  On the other hand, a genuinely loving individual will often take loving and constructive action toward a person he or she consciously dislikes, actually feeling no love toward the person at the time and perhaps even finding the person repugnant in some way.
    The feeling of love is the emotion that accompanies the experience of cathecting.  Cathecting …is the process by which an object becomes important to us.  Once cathected, the object, commonly referred to as a ‘love object,’ is invested with our energy as if it were a part of ourselves, and this relationship between us and the invested object is called a cathexis.  Since we may have many such relationships going on at the same time, we speak of our cathexes.  The process of withdrawing our energy from a love object so that it loses its sense of importance for us is known as decathecting.  The misconception that love is a feeling exists because we confuse cathecting with loving.  This confusion is understandable since they are similar processes, but there are also striking differences.  First of all, … we may cathect any object, animate or inanimate, with or without a spirit.
Thus a person may cathect the stock market or a piece of jewelry and may feel love for these things.  Second, the fact that we have cathected another human being does not mean that we care a whit for that person’s spiritual development.  The dependent person, in fact, usually fears the spiritual development of a cathected spouse.  …. Third, the intensity of our cathexes frequently has nothing to do with wisdom or commitment.  Two strangers may meet in a bar and cathect each other in such a way that nothing – no previously scheduled appointments, promises made, or family stability – is more important for the moment than their sexual consummation.  Finally, our cathexes may be fleeting and momentary.  Immediately following their sexual consummation the just-mentioned couple may find each other unattractive and undesirable.  We may decathect something almost as soon as we have cathected it. 
    Genuine love, on the other hand, implies commitment and the exercise of wisdom.   When we are concerned for someone’s spiritual growth, we know that a lack of commitment is likely to be harmful and that commitment to that person is probably necessary for us to manifest our concern effectively.  It is for this reason that commitment is the cornerstone of the psychotherapeutic relationship.  … Commitment means that the therapist listens to the patient, like it or not.  It is no different in a marriage.  In a constructive marriage, just as in constructive therapy, the partners must regularly, routinely and predictably, attend to each other and their relationship no matter how they feel.”
        From Scott Peck’s The Road Less Traveled


The Water Bearer & The Cracked Pot
    A water bearer in India had two large pots, each hung on either end of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, and while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water at the end of the long walk from the stream to the master’s house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.  For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water to his master’s house.  The poor cracked pot was ashamed of its imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do.  The water bearer felt sorry for the old cracked pot, and in his compassion he said, “As we return from the master’s house, I want you to notice the beautiful flowers along the path.  Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side?  That’s because I have always known about your flaw, and I took advantage of it.  I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back from the stream, you’ve watered them.  For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate my master’s table.  Without you being just the way you are, he would not have this beauty to grace his house.”


A Mouse Story
A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package.  "What food might this contain?" the mouse wondered.  He was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap.

Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning:  "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!"

The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, "Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern for you but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it."

The mouse turned to the pig and told him, "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!"

The pig sympathized, but said, "I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers.”

The mouse turned to the cow and said, "There is a mousetrap in the house.  There is a mouse trap in the house.”  The cow said, “Wow, Mr. Mouse. I'm sorry for you, but it's no skin off my nose."

So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer’s mousetrap alone.

That very night a sound was heard throughout the house -- like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey.

The farmer's wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake bit the farmer's wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital and she returned home with a fever. Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup's main ingredient.

But his wife's sickness continued, so friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.

The farmer's wife did not get well; she died. So many people came for her funeral, the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them.

The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness.

So, the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and think it doesn’t concern you, remember -- when one of us is threatened, we are all at risk. We are all involved in this journey called life. We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to encourage one another.