The Paschal Lamb

There is a tradition in Spain of family teams building towers with their members, called “castles”, and the youngest climb to the very top.  Families are different – and the same – all around the world, and I loved this tradition of building a tower with the family members themselves.  In Islamic Art and Spirituality, Dr. Nasr says something echoed in every religious tradition around the planet – the sacred sites of mosque, temple, synagogue, chapel, and cathedral truly are holy, but the most sacred site for every family is the home.

As we enter Passover, I was thinking about this.  To sacrifice means to make sacred, and the homes saved during the final plague in Egypt were those marked by the sacrifice of the Paschal Lamb.  Families were saved because the Destroyer saw their sacrifice and passed them by.

Now, I am not so naive to believe that terrible things never happen to good people; humans can be astonishingly nasty to each other.  However, numerous studies show an odd truth:  as Dr. Bernie Siegel said, “The optimist will live longer with a better life than the pessimist in any given situation, even if the pessimist’s view of the world is more accurate.”  As the family keeps their identity as a loving unit, they whether events that seem impossible for other social units to survive.  Good and bad things happen everywhere and to everyone, just like the rain, but the loving family – wherever and whatever that is – is stronger and better equipped to weather any storm.

The sacrifice to mark our homes is the daily act of making sacred those things which strengthen our family ties – playing with our children, helping with homework, listening to a loved one, lending a shoulder to another – these acts of simple humanity, when done in a field of caring and love, become sacred things.

And a home – made of grass, brick, under a bridge, or in a shelter – marked with these acts of love is protected with all that truly matters.

Angels Beyond Angels

Six Sufi Masters
Image from Wikimedia Commons

On November 15th and 16th, the Jung Society of Utah hosted Dr. Tom Cheetham, Fellow of the Temenos Academy, for a discussion and workshop on Mystical Islam as seen through the eyes of Dr. Henri Corbin, a prolific scholar and intellectual bridge between the mysticism of the East (Sufism) with the ethical philosophies of the West.  My friends Machiel Klerk and Cheryl Forester invited me to come and bring some sculptures from the 99 Names Project.  I brought Holy, Victorious, Maker of Order, Shaper of Beauty, Knower, and Constrictor, hoping they would be appropriate to the setting.  I was very excited to meet Dr. Cheetham because of his work and connection with Temenos Academy (one of the first organizations to offer words of advice and encouragement as I began the 99 Names Project) and I prayed all day that I would not embarrass myself, him, or my friends with the Jung Society.  There was no need to worry – Dr. Cheetham is super cool in person and great fun to visit with.

Dr. Cheetham is a biologist who found the ideas of mysticism and the work of Dr. Henri Corbin so compelling, he’s devoted himself to sharing what he finds with others, and has written several books about Corbin and Islamic Mysticism for Western audiences.  The discussion Friday, and going more in-depth in the workshop Saturday, revolved around the adjustments in world-view that allow us to first, open the door to understanding and appreciating Islamic mysticism, and second, learn the tools to open our own world of experience.  He spoke about the Zoroastrian  conception of angelic beings, how they represent intelligences that become bridges between things and whatever is closer to the experience of Divinity, and that every thing perceptible in our world of experience has these things, angels, or bridges.  One question was asked by a documentary film-maker, “If everything has these ‘angels’ to act as bridges in the direction of the Divine, may we as humans also serve that function to beings further away from the Source than ourselves?”  That was a great question, and Dr. Cheetham had a lot of fun thinking about it.

These angels are not creatures of the order we think of as angelic beings from Abrahamic traditions – super-human ministrants with wings and paranormal powers; this concept is more a device through which to view the world.  Every thing we come in contact with as human beings we, on some level and to wildly varying degrees, give personality to and respond as if the thing has its own identity.  Many people, for example, name their cars, and all of us can identify with computers or machines we feel respond to us as if they have minds of their own.  We understand these things may not actually have free will as we appreciate it, but we still personify them, or give “person-hood” to them.  When we apply Plato‘s world of the Ideals to this, we recognize that the things are real as things themselves, but also exist as signs or bridges of sorts to the Ideals ‘behind’ them.  Then, we can imagine the Source ‘behind’ that world of the Ideals – this allows us to see these ‘things’ as the sort of ‘angel’ being described; the bridge between us and something infinite.

One thing that I felt was particularly wonderful about the presentations comes from Dr. Cheetham’s background.  His discussion was not central to any particular religious tradition, but he has found this can apply to the world view or cosmology of anyone.  We have a tendency to look at things through a tube, and see everything as being near or far, left or right, up or down, better or worse, when in actuality the universe is an ever-expanding, edgeless sphere exploding from us as the center.  We only see the up and down, and give little regard to the rest of the volume in this soup of infinite experience.  This recalled to my mind Dr. Bernie Siegel’s comments on optimism:  “The optimist will live longer with a better life than the pessimist in any given situation, even if the pessimist’s view of the world is more accurate.”  Regardless of whether or not we choose to believe in a personal God, angels, or anyone’s religious cosmology, the concepts Dr. Cheetham shared were invigorating, enlightening, and expanding – it’s healthy and hopeful to believe that everything is linked and can help lead us to something better, and that each of us is important enough to something for everything in existence to possess bridges drawing us closer to the Source of creation.

Friday after the presentation I stood by the sculptures answering questions and visiting with people.  One young lady and I shared views on Dr. Tariq Ramadan‘s book The Quest for Meaning, another couple and I visited about what happens when we choose to grow from our interactions with people far different from ourselves, I met a Muslim couple interested in learning about Christianity as a way of gaining greater appreciation for their own Muslim faith, and I got to meet a remarkable man – Dr. Rasoul Shams of the Rumi Poetry Club.  He is deeply spiritual and excited about everything that can draw people together as friends, and has more energy than some of my kids.  He grew up fluent in Farsi and has recently released what I hope will be the first of a series, his personal translations of the writings of Jalaluddin Rumi, Rumi:  The Art of Loving.

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It was a terrific opportunity for me to reconnect with my friends at the Jung Society of Utah, meet several truly remarkable people, and get my horizons stretched.  I told Dr. Cheetham afterwards that I was very grateful – he opened another door in my mind I had no idea existed, and the vista through the door way (as is often the case) is beautiful.  Everything in the universe is connected, and it’s wonderful to have our vocabulary for expressing these things expanded.

The Stonger Thing

Earth from Space
Image from Wikimedia Commons

In the movie Independence Day, Jeff Goldblum‘s character is depressed at not being able to see the answer to the alien menace rapidly destroying the planet.  Deep in a secret government bunker with hundreds of other survivors, his character has hidden himself in a room to get drunk and depressed.  His father comes and tells him he’s no good to anyone like this, and that he needs to clean up and remember his blessings.  “Like what?” his character bellows.  His father reflects on all the tragedy and destruction covering the surface of the planet, then says, “Well, you still have your health.”

Dr. Bernie Siegel found that, with all other aspects of treatment being similar, there was one thing that universally improved the chances for recovery, positive response to treatment, aided with pain management, and ushered into the patient’s life a better quality of life.  He is an expert on the effects non-medical therapies have on medical treatments, and he said that overwhelmingly, evidence shows a positive attitude always improves the situation, well-being, and response to treatment which a patient undergoes.  Positive thoughts like gratitude, love, and happiness.  What would a terminally ill patient have to do with those?  Humans are resilient and creative enough to always find something of a silver lining in every situation – Dr. Viktor Frankl, holocaust survivor and brilliant psychologist, is a perfect example of this.  And Jack Canfield, author of the dozens of “Chicken Soup for the Soul” books, says that even the mere fact of access to a computer or radio means you are more blessed materially than most of the world’s population.  I asked a homeless gentleman once why he was so pleasant, he said,  “I have the beautiful sky and sun, clothes to keep me warm, and kind people like you to give me hope.”

In the movie “The Cure Is…” three survivors of terminal illness are interviewed along with doctors like Bernie Siegel, to discover the common factors to such instances of spontaneous recovery.  The answers are remarkable and simple.  We, each of us, has the capacity to affect the reality around and within us, and many times reality is altered by a simple change of attitude.  “The optimist will live longer with a better life than the pessimist in any given situation,”  Dr. Siegel observes, “even if the pessimist’s view of the world is more accurate.”