pacifist sermons from Indistinct Union by cjsmith
I’m not advocating violence mind you. But an evolutionary picture for one, would tell a different story. War has been the greater force to bring together beings beyond tribal identities. Only after fighting each other for so long did they cease and move into trans-tribal alliances.
The very moment to moment existence of the universe is steeped in violence, in chaos, in destruction. Death in every moment.
A Christianity that can not accept this is one where we have to thrown down from our conception of heaven, violence, destruction. Where God becomes a God of peace-only. Where the great nondual Protestant realizer Jakob Boheme’s vision of God Janus-faced, one loving, the other terrifying and frightening is never realized.
I have said before, only half-jokingly, that Christianity suffers from a lack of a destructive force within the Trinity. I’ve said we should have a devotion to a black-winged bat Holy Spirit, prayers to the Mother of Destruction. A la Kali. A recognition of the profound energy of destruction in this world. (Often called Dark Feminine energy, Black Madonna).
Minus that our salvation, our freedom is held up waiting for a conditional change. For the end of violence in the world. i.e. Waiting forever and beyond. A smug (unintentionally so) satisfaction of ourselves as the peacemakers in this world.
Why not instead burn our flesh black like Kali in the “kiln” of moment to moment existence?
Plenty of places on earth, plenty of people need peace. Others perhaps need to align with the simultaneous Creation/Destruction that is every moment.
A Christianity that can not accept this is one where we have to thrown down from our conception of heaven, violence, destruction. Where God becomes a God of peace-only. Where the great nondual Protestant realizer Jakob Boheme’s vision of God Janus-faced, one loving, the other terrifying and frightening is never realized.
I have said before, only half-jokingly, that Christianity suffers from a lack of a destructive force within the Trinity. I’ve said we should have a devotion to a black-winged bat Holy Spirit, prayers to the Mother of Destruction. A la Kali. A recognition of the profound energy of destruction in this world. (Often called Dark Feminine energy, Black Madonna).
Minus that our salvation, our freedom is held up waiting for a conditional change. For the end of violence in the world. i.e. Waiting forever and beyond. A smug (unintentionally so) satisfaction of ourselves as the peacemakers in this world.
Why not instead burn our flesh black like Kali in the “kiln” of moment to moment existence?
Plenty of places on earth, plenty of people need peace. Others perhaps need to align with the simultaneous Creation/Destruction that is every moment.
In Tantra everything that arises is self-liberated and therefore contains a seed of enlightened wisdom that can be transmuted, released from its seemingly negative outer shell. The seed of violence is Passion, Vitality, actually being in the moment. On the edge, heightened sensitivity, as soldiers often describe how hard it is to come back to mundane existence because when they faced death in every moment they were alive dammit.
Again I’m not glorifying violence, war or romanticizing it all. War is hell. It’s worse than hell. Bodies and minds are flung about like leaves in the wind, detached from the branches. Snuffed out like a mosquito on your wrist.
I don’t want to pick too much on this particular reflection. There is a time and place for much of what was said in it. But it locks realization and liberation into a set of conditions. Conditions that predicate our happiness and therefore subtly enslave. Conditions that will arise, come to pass (eventually? ever in this case?), and then pass? What if Origen was right and the universe is counted in world cycles (eons)? Each round counted from the time all beings fall and return to God, only to have the chance to fall again. What then of pacifism?
This notion of 100% non-violence is a green meme construct. The theologians cited in this sermon were all of this ilk. Not wrong, it’s a space in the Kosmic fabric. I used to resonate with it years ago. Not any longer however.
Violence sadly sometimes is necessary to prevent worse violence.
Again I’m not glorifying violence, war or romanticizing it all. War is hell. It’s worse than hell. Bodies and minds are flung about like leaves in the wind, detached from the branches. Snuffed out like a mosquito on your wrist.
I don’t want to pick too much on this particular reflection. There is a time and place for much of what was said in it. But it locks realization and liberation into a set of conditions. Conditions that predicate our happiness and therefore subtly enslave. Conditions that will arise, come to pass (eventually? ever in this case?), and then pass? What if Origen was right and the universe is counted in world cycles (eons)? Each round counted from the time all beings fall and return to God, only to have the chance to fall again. What then of pacifism?
This notion of 100% non-violence is a green meme construct. The theologians cited in this sermon were all of this ilk. Not wrong, it’s a space in the Kosmic fabric. I used to resonate with it years ago. Not any longer however.
Violence sadly sometimes is necessary to prevent worse violence.
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