The Super Bowl, Election 2016 and God in America

Posted on February 13, 2016 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

It was a whizz-bang week – the final presidential candidate debates before the New Hampshire primary capped off by the 50^th Super Bowl. God bless America, Lady Gaga, Coldplay, Beyoncé and certainly Peyton Manning. And fighter jets. And the pyrotechnics. And Wilson. And Hyundai. And CBS. And the pill that remedies various colon related issues that prevent us from success in our daily conquest.

The Western Christian narrative of God and humanity has been one of separation and not connection, a fierce, frantic and fearful individualism. A whole host of problems arise with this. First, there is the underlying sense of alienation and isolation, resulting in chronic anxiety and uncertainty. We are never quite sure, short of less than satisfying dogmatic formulas, whether we are safe or not. Am I forgiven – enough? Am I saved? Is it really possible that God hears me when I pray? How can I get that right and be sure? Is there even God?

The flip side of the uncertainty is vain over-confidence. I am all-powerful. I can do anything. The world is my playground. You just don’t get it. Get out of my way. Stupid you if you don’t have enough.

Oscillating between these two poles, we exhaust ourselves. The existential angst is never relieved, the material satiation is never enough, the domination is never complete. We are a sometimes weary people in need of greater and greater assurance, no matter how shallow or hollow the language, no matter how sensational the show.

There are those that would say this separation, this individualism, is exactly the triumph of the West – that our belief in the power of the individual and the application of that belief in the material realm have created all that is good in the world. We have imposed order on chaos, driven out superstition with real medicine, turned raw materials into comfort and pleasure and, through accumulation of wealth transformed into overwhelming force, assured the safety of humanity.

Certainly much that is good has been accomplished.

But back on the panic side of our void, our concept of prayer remains characterized alternately by begging or claiming – as if we are constantly but inadequately grasping at something that is not quite ours. We need demonstrable proof, sure results. The tornado lifted when it came to my house. Or it didn’t because I didn’t pray hard enough. Superstorms and terrorist threats are God’s judgment on “the gay lifestyle.” We dash about and shout our certain proclamations. And we allocate more money to put a material or military patch on the mess to keep it all from falling apart.

Presidential politics in 2016 reflects the fever pitch of our bifurcated anxiety. It’s as if the deep underlying infection of isolation and desperation is finally forming a boil, a small and intense festering that burns under the thinnest layer of decaying skin, ready to burst.

The infection is spiritual. It is not religious. It is not political. It is not tied to one economic system or another. One candidate epitomizes the bluster and desperation. And only one comes close to naming the underlying spiritual vacuum and disconnect that rules our discontent – the fire that drives our fever toward the threshold between morbidity and mortality. When Senator Sanders pulls back the curtain masking unfettered greed, he touches, without fully naming, our great hunger and despair.

I am not suggesting at all a vote of any sort. No party, candidate or election can salve the infection of our soul. Nor am I recommending that we shut off the Super Bowl. But I am inviting us to see, to understand, to absorb and to embrace the nature of the illness. And I am suggesting we can cure it with a change of orientation.

It is our isolation that fuels our insatiable hunger. And it is our underlying narrative of separation that walls us off from the deep satisfaction and power of existence. Believing conquest and satiation to be the elixirs of at least happiness, if not eternal life, we drive pedal to the metal toward the brink of extinction.

There is a different way, a different orientation, a different direction in which to look. The forest sages of ancient India captured it so clearly in the Upanishads. Through the practice of stilling the mind and quiet observation, these sages document a Self, immanent and transcendent, that is the loving essence of each one and every thing. It is as if the flashing stream of still pictures that create the illusion of motion has been stilled, and the space between revealed to be something entirely other, a space without fear, a limitless expanse of satisfaction and creative bliss, a place beyond need or desperate grasping.

No matter what or how much it consumes, the separate ego is never satisfied. And our belief that we are disconnected beings in a world we increasingly understand as only material, accelerates us exponentially toward exhaustion and annihilation on the wings of glittering despair.

Mastery of our lust comes from understanding and turning away from isolation and toward connection, away from insatiability and toward satisfaction. It comes from abandoning fear in favor of trust, and willful grasping in favor of willing service.

And, ultimately, it comes from embracing our true Self, the Creator/Spirit/Mind/Source that is the light, the eternal energy and limitless love we begin to glimpse between the moving frames of our desperation. We are not separate and fallen. We only blind ourselves with the fear born of our limited consciousness and chosen view. We are Spirit, experiencing the material. Touch without owning, look without lusting, enjoy without hording. There is enough. Our greatness already is and has no vital connection to anything at all in the halftime show or ads or victor yet to come in Super Bowl 51, no critical dependence on the outcome of election 2016.

Embrace it under the Tree of Life.

Jerry Kennell provides spiritual direction in person and by Skype at Two Trees Center for Spiritual Development. Contact jerry@2treegarden.com or by phone or text to (970) 217-6078. Click FOLLOW in the upper left menu bar to be notified of future posts.

Where is God?

Posted on November 22, 2015 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

Nothing cuts to the chase quicker than evil and suffering when it comes to the question of where or what is God. Or for that matter, “Is God?”

Inevitably, the Holocaust comes up in the discussion. Are you Frankl or Wiesel? And terrorist attacks, with responses that range from “We will not be afraid. Our love will conquer all,” to the Donald Trump trample. And the potpourri of painful ways that life comes to an end.

The answers seem glib. We point to various interpretations of the Book of Job. We give up the concept of omnipotence, because a loving God cannot possibly be an all-powerful God and let this stuff happen. We say that God is standing by – or with us – in the thick of it – or that God is judging and blessing in turn, based on our behavior.

Buddhism has the slickest answers in nonjudgment and the nature of life being suffering. But those seem too easy. They ring hollow in the face of our yearning for meaning.

Inevitably our answers, whether hardline zingers or thoughtful stories, fall short. They are too empty or too full. One answer undermines another. And still, the suffering continues.

God, ultimately, is the thoughts we project on Big Mystery. And Big Mystery is really big – or small, depending on our frame of reference and where we look. For all we know there are an infinite number of universes in every Higgs Boson.

We throw our concepts and stories at it to see what sticks. It all falls short. We fall short. Our consciousness is just not yet that well developed, if our consciousness is even anything at all.

We are left with speculation and choices. Do we choose faith? If so, faith in what? Go ahead and try to answer – you, me, Job, the kid next door. We slam our books on the table with condemnations to hell and a gunshot to send us there.

To what end? We don’t know. We just seek meaning and relevance. Some little path forward. Who can blame us for that?

As for me, I choose to believe that there is, indeed, a balm in Gilead. I just want to. Isn’t that enough?

I believe that when my wife and I dream the very same dream in a given night, that when we show up at the same time at a favorite haunt, from different points of origin and not a word spoken in advance, that there is more – that it is good, that there is healing, that the ultimate word written on our hearts is love.

And from there, all our choices unfold, and they all matter. Not because there is anything certain that can be pinned down under them, but because something completely ineffable has spoken in our mitochondria – deeper, even, in the empty spaces between whatever particles form us, if those things are particles at all. And that ineffable something has found its ways through our synapses and into our muscles, our visions and the words we speak to each other, the touch we share and the kindnesses exchanged.

Somehow it is better that way. And so I believe. I believe that we are the awakening of consciousness in its steady progression into the void, that we ride the very curl of the wave of creation. I believe we shape that wave in all our intentions and connections, just like we shape our images of God. And I choose together and not alone. Where is the separation? Can you find it? Can you see any reality in it at all?

Somehow that awakening contains the full spectrum, insofar as we know it, of pain and beauty, of suffering and healing, of bloom and demise. Our choice is to embrace or reject. We cannot change it.

Let’s join in the embrace. Please! Come with me, will you? Let’s sit together, under the Tree of Life.

It’s Not Always Clear

Posted on March 29, 2015 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

It’s not always clear, the path forward. Our vision is limited. There are far too many factors to weigh. Feelings are a roller coaster ride from day-to-day, and then there is the vast unknown. If I go left, will I be right? If I go right, am I wrong and left behind? Could‘a, would‘a, should‘a are crying from the back seat and the whole trip begins to seem like a sham.

“Home, James, and don’t spare the horses!” (Fred Hillebrand, 1932) We walk by faith, not by sight (Paul, 2 Corinthians 5: 7). Fear and misgivings are the roadblock, the isolated ego cowering in the corner.

In the three worlds,
there is nothing I must do,
nothing unattained to be attained,
yet I engage in action.

What if I did not engage
relentlessly in action?
[Humans] retrace my path
at every turn, Arjuna.

As the ignorant act with attachment
to actions, Arjuna,
so wise [folk] should act with detachment
to preserve the world.

(Krishna to the wilting Arjuna in The Bhagavad-Gita: Krishna’s Counsel in Time of War, The Third Teaching: Discipline of Action; 22-24, translated by Barbara Stoler Miller, Bantam Classic Edition, 1986)

Creation is the path forward. Something from nothing. Or something new, something that has never been, as the next step from all that is. Beautiful, joyful. There is no wrong path in faith, there is only the next step of creation on the road ahead.

Faith, by nature, is blind. It is not ignorant. Faith is based on the experience of goodness and beauty that result when we act while resting in the Spirit of all that is. Even God, I think, has no idea what is going to happen next. Let’s take a step and see!

What matters is not where we are walking to, but where we are walking from. If we are walking from a place of fear and defense, our steps will falter and creation suffers. If our steps are from a place of joy, kindness and compassion, the beauty of the universe unfolds with us, just far enough ahead to meet our foot as it greets the path of creation.

When we are attached to what we think is/will be the outcome of our action, we falter. We have no idea of any outcomes. Or if we do have that idea, we fool ourselves. We can never know all the implications before we act, or the outcome of a different course.

Home, James, and don’t spare the horses! Home to the Tree of Life. Create with joy. Create with kindness. Create with compassion. Put the paintbrush to the canvas, in faith, and see.

Jerry Kennell now provides spiritual direction by Skype. Contact jerry@2treegarden.com.

New Worship

Posted on November 23, 2014 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

Alas, for many who are no longer comfortable within the confines of a single religion, or who can no longer accept core doctrines of their root tradition, worship has become both a problem and a loss. There is a desire to touch, to engage. And there is an aversion and disappointment in what is found in that touch. Beautiful hymns in four part harmony lift the spirit in ecstasy, only to crash suddenly to earth in a glorification of blood sacrifice.

Our existing traditions and the accoutrements of worship that support them have been built over centuries, with great care. Meticulously orchestrated and standardized rituals mediate the sacred, serving as metaphorical doors that open for a moment beyond the limits of physical pain, daily toil and bodily death. They deliver a prescribed, and for many still effective formula of immanent experience and transcendent connection with Creator/Spirit/Mind/Source.

But for those with one or both feet outside the doctrinal door, satisfaction is limited or seemingly unavailable. In varying degrees, there is a sense of alienation, of fraud. We can choose to stay, crossing fingers or going silent when songs and liturgies lead us into language outside our defined circle of spiritual integrity. For many, that is a useful transitional compromise, preserving aspects of community and offering some level of the expression of ecstasy. But this route offers only a partial, incomplete and less than fully satisfying solution.

A richer alternative may be to extend the circle beyond judgment of the mediated. Recall in our discussion of the sacred and profane that these are not two categories of phenomena. Rather, sacred and profane are the lenses we choose between when we view and engage all that is. Do we choose a sacred life of connection and reverence, or do we engage phenomena as though they are outside ourselves, materialistic products for consumption in a zero sum game of winning or losing, wealth or poverty? This view, this choice, has profound implications for our concept and experience of worship.

Living only within the confines of mediated worship, or fighting its limitations are both positions of judgment, positions that leave us with the dissatisfied sorting of sacred and profane. Either way, we decide that something – whether our traditional worship or our disdain of it – is sacred while the other position is profane. We limit ourselves to external sorting and judgment rather than to holistic seamless engagement of the immanent and transcendent nature of all that is.

When we live life with the eyes of the sacred, we remove the barrier of judgment. We expand with ease outside the limited mediated experience of organized religion without a need to judge or reject it. It’s just that religion and worship are no longer compartmentalized experiences packaged and delivered by institutions. They are not activities like a sport or a class that we choose to take. They are not the prescribed clothing, food, prayers or practices of a given day of the week. Religion and worship become, instead, the very fullness of life itself.

Worship in this sense becomes attention and connection. We become aware of the people on the bus, the driver in the next car, the car and the road themselves. We hear each sound, see each sight, feel each touch, glorious and mundane. We engage with appreciation and reverence, without judgment, experiencing no boundary between institutionalized religious experience, if we choose it, and the fullness of life itself.

We hear the prophetic voice in a rock song, the hope and longing of a ballad. A flower, a fly, a fleeting smile. All things and all acts, ours and those around us, become part of the song of creation, the perpetual praise of becoming – the joy that we are, in the same moment and for all time, ourselves, the spark of being, at one, integral in the fabric of everything.

From this perspective we are free to engage even what we may feel that we have left behind. There is no aspect of loss or limitation, only expansive, extravagant and compassionate welcome of every expression and exploration, each tentative test and step forward into the unknown, the unfoldment of the yet to be created.

There is no loss. There is only more, something whole and complete, worship as the fullness of life and all that is, glorious expectation and engagement of all to come.

I am in Latin America right now. In Spanish one might affirm, “Así es!” This is how it is! Así es! Así es, under the Tree of Life.

Jerry Kennell now provides spiritual direction by Skype. Contact jerry@2treegarden.com.

Suchness and Form

Posted on October 19, 2014 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

Creator/Spirit/Mind/Source, the infinite mystery of the universe, is described in many ways: word, breath, spirit, formless, suchness, energy, nameless with a thousand names. We turn to look and do not see. We listen, but the sound escapes us. But somewhere in our being, everywhere in and beyond our being we know, we revel, we delight.

This Teacher of mine, this Teacher of mine – he passes judgment on the ten thousand things but he doesn’t think himself severe; his bounty extends to ten thousand generations but he doesn’t think himself benevolent. He is older than the highest antiquity but he doesn’t think himself long-lived; he covers heaven, bears up the earth, carves and fashions countless forms, but he doesn’t think himself skilled. It is with him alone I wander. Taosim. Chuang Tzu 6*

The sages have sifted and filtered the light for us and with us, spoken pieces of the word, cast metaphor on the formless, seen spirit in the manifest:

Just as light is diffused from a fire which is confined to one spot, so is this whole universe the diffused energy of the supreme Brahman. And as light shows a difference, greater or less, according to its nearness or distance from the fire, so is there variation in the energy of the impersonal Brahman.

Vishnu is the highest and most immediate of all the energies of Brahman, the embodied Brahman, formed of the whole of Brahman. On him is the entire universe woven and interwoven: from him is the world, and the world is in him; and he is the whole universe. Vishnu, the Lord, consisting of what is perishable as well as what is imperishable, sustains everything, both Spirit and Matter, in the form of his ornaments and weapons. Hinduism. Vishnu Prana 1.22*

C/S/M/S is the essential energy and spirit. We are not separate. We and everything are embodied temporal expression of that spiritual reality. We fool ourselves into fear when we hide alone in seeming separate ego. But we hide only from the falsehood of fear. There is no true hiding from our essential being, the Self that breathed us and is us – the Self that is every rock and tree and is at the same time the no-thing, the mystery we can only sense, only trust, but not fully grasp.

When appearances and names are put away and all discrimination ceases, that which remains is the true and essential nature of things and, as nothing can be predicated as to the nature of essence, it is called the “Suchness” of Reality. This universal, undifferentiated, inscrutable Suchness is the only Reality, but it is variously characterized as Truth, Mind-essence, Transcendental Intelligence, Perfection of Wisdom, etc. This Dharma of the imagelessness of the Essence-nature of Ultimate Reality is the Dharma which has been proclaimed by all the Buddhas, and when all things are understood in full agreement with it, one is in possession of Perfect Knowledge. Buddhism. Lankavatara Sutra 83*

We move, we feel, we see, hear, judge and act. We must never forget who We are as we do these things. The talent is not to be buried, but to be used to its fullest in the creation of beauty, wonder, compassion, the newness and suchness of each breath.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. Christianity. John 1:1-4 NRSV

We are the Word, spoke into being by I AM. Thinking ourselves alone we hide in fear under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Awake, we breathe, we create. Growing, becoming, we heal. We are, suchness and form, in the image, under the Tree of Life.

Jerry Kennell now provides spiritual direction by Skype. Contact jerry@2treegarden.com.

The Authoritative Word

Posted on September 21, 2014 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

Authoritative is a word often used in reference to scripture. It implies a superior truth. Paul claimed that his vision of Jesus, his gospel, was superior to and superseded the Torah of Moses, which he viewed as a temporary or even flawed fix of the human condition and our relationship to the divine. Muslims claim that the book – the Koran – received by the prophet Mohammed is a more perfect revelation of the word of Allah. Latter Day Saints claim that the books revealed to Joseph Smith are a more current gospel.

The natural result of any claim to exclusive authority is division and strife. All are required to make clear cut, dualistic, judging statements of acceptance or rejection. The response and action of those who decide in favor of a given authoritative word ranges from benign tolerance, to active proselytization, to violent vengeance and retribution.

Christians in the United States busy themselves with bloodying each other and the society around them with special authoritative words for or against select issues of morality. Islamic fundamentalists feel righteous zeal and justification, based on their authoritative word, in delivering death to the infidel. The West responds with “justified” violence. Latter Day Saints take their authoritative word, two-by-two, from door to door. Jehovah’s Witnesses seem to get by with just one carrier.

I believe – I know in my heart of hearts – that the Authoritative Word is, indeed, one. It’s just not this one or that one. The Authoritative Word is beyond the limitations of language. It is bigger than any single revelation. It is greater than any set of rules or code of ethics. It includes all scriptures. It is none of them. It is read on all pages, but seen only in blindness. It is heard by the ear, but known truly in silence.

In essence, the Authoritative Word is. It manifests in creation and evolution. It is glimpsed in beauty, felt in kindness, spoken in healing and known intimately in the depths of the heart. It does not judge and is not judged. It is not born and never dies. Found in book, in song, in story, it is none of and beyond all of those things.

All our scriptures exist within the limits of our bodily manifestation. They are temporary touches and glimpses of the eternal reality, as are the bodily manifestations inhabited by you and me.

When we claim any manifestation as completely and exclusively authoritative, we stay stuck under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. We judge and are judged. We participate in aggression and defense. We find ourselves threatened by the enemy or deluded by a false sense of security.

Be still. Be still and know. See all, hear all, experience all. Judge none. Encounter the Authoritative Word. Be the timeless, Authoritative Word that you are, through and beyond manifestation, under the Tree of Life.

Jerry Kennell provides spiritual direction in person and by Skype. Contact jerry@2treegarden.com.

Second Birth: The Upanishads, Jesus and the Journey to Self

Posted on September 6, 2014 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

Recall that the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is a metaphor for the first awakening of human awareness: the ability to perceive a discreet self; the ability and propensity to judge phenomena as good or bad, depending on how we think we are affected; the ability to contemplate life, death and the nature of the universe. It is, in short, the realization of ego. In its immature form, the ego only perceives separation and vulnerability, and the response is fear along with a desperate grasping for protection at any cost.

The metaphorical Tree of Life represents a maturation of awareness. It is achievement of a stage of realization that recognizes the interconnectedness and spiritual nature of life and all that is. We are no longer just isolated selves, dependent solely on our ability to protect our body and our fragile ego. We achieve a realization that we are part of something larger, something that transcends time, space and physical manifestation. We are, in fact, living sparks of the very mind of Creator/Spirit/Mind/Source, breathed full of the breath of life, the creative thrill of the universe.

The garden trees themselves are, in reality, only one. They simply represent the manifestation of all that is, the complete creative activity of C/S/M/S. They are the source and stuff of life, the universe and everything (appreciation and apologies to Douglas Adams). The two trees are not distinguished by their unique and independent natures. Rather, they are distinguished only by how we view them. Their names – Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil or Tree of Life – are just indicators of the level of our own spiritual maturity. Have we grown to a level of trust and comfort with our place in the universe, a place of willingness to give and to receive without fear or grasping? Do we trust that there is “that” of us that transcends birth and death, space and time? Or do we see only as much as we can through the blinders of separation and scarcity, good and bad, physical life and death?

The journey from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to the Tree of Life is, in reality, the journey from small “s” self to capital “S” Self. Nowhere is that journey presented with more clarity than in the Upanishads, wisdom teachings attached to the Hindu Vedas that grew out of the merger of the Indo-European speaking Aryan culture and the resident culture of the Indus Valley. This merger of cultures is believed to have happened about 4,000 years ago, placing the Vedas among, if not distinguishing them definitively as the earliest of what we would call scriptures.

The relevance for those of us in the West, particularly as we move away from a spirituality based on original sin and redemption through blood sacrifice, is tremendous. Here are writings, among the earliest on spiritual reflection and experience, that discover and declare the difference between these two different levels of spiritual maturity. There is no presentation or burden of guilt, just recognition that we are born into small “s” self and that our task in life is to grow, to mature to capital “S” Self, our connection with and existence in timeless being.

We are, in truest essence, born again when we make this move between the two trees, the journey from disconnected ego to connected essential being. We achieve this step, our second birth, through renunciation of attachment to the senses – the mindless drive to chase what we think is pleasure and safety and to run from what we perceive as danger and pain. Renunciation is not separation or disengagement from these life experiences. Rather, it is to live them fully without attachment, without being driven and governed by them, recognizing their passing existence as opposed to our eternal being.

From the Isha Upanishad^*:

⁶ Those who see all creatures in themselves
And themselves in all creatures know no fear.
⁷Those who see all creatures in themselves
And themselves in all creatures know no grief.
How can the multiplicity of life
Delude the one who sees its unity?

⁸The Self is everywhere. Bright is the Self,
Indivisible, untouched by sin, wise,
Immanent and transcendent. He it is
Who beholds the cosmos together.

From the Katha Upanishad^*:

Part I [3] ¹⁵The supreme Self is beyond name and form,
Beyond the senses, inexhaustible,
Without beginning, without end, beyond
Time, space, and causality, eternal,
Immutable. Those who realize the Self
Are forever free from the jaws of death.

Part II [1] ²The immature run after sense pleasures
And fall into the widespread net of death.
But the wise, knowing the Self as deathless,
Seek not the changeless in the world of change.
³That through which one enjoys form, taste, smell, sound,
Touch, and sexual union is the Self.
Can there be anything not known to That
Who is the One in all? Know One, know all.

Jesus said, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” (John 3: 3, NRSV). This is indeed second birth, to renounce the fear and slavery of small “s” self, and to engage our true Self, at peace, at one with all there is. Experience without fearing. Enjoy without grasping. Share without owning. Choose, practice, to be born to Self under the Tree of Life.

Jerry Kennell now provides spiritual direction by Skype. Contact jerry@2treegarden.com.

Who We Are

Posted on June 6, 2014 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

Tradition has it that Jesus was born to a virgin, conceived in an immaculate flash of union with the Holy Spirit. Tell me, how is that different from the way you or I were born? Creation is creation. Or perhaps becoming is becoming, if we think of things in an evolutionary frame.

We can explain the mechanics of conception and birth in great depth and detail. But it seems we will not touch the complete mystery of life and spirit anytime soon. Even Jesus looked around at the rocks in the field and said that Creator/Spirit/Mind/Source could make children of them.

We are who we are, no more nor less. We are a particular mix and match of Higg’s Bosons – the very same quarks and electrons that make rocks, stars and all that is – coming together under the right conditions. Where did the self-awareness step in, and how? Does it matter? Despite the insistence of some religions on our fallen nature, we are children of the universe, beings with the gift of self-awareness, being and becoming what we will become. Let’s relax with that.

Is there a creator God behind all of this, pushing around the Higg’s Bosons, mixing and matching the quarks? Perhaps. That is a question of faith, not science. I believe (the faith piece, the confidence in things not seen, but perceived) that there is, indeed, a vast and beautiful creative source and energy. I believe that we are somehow emanations and expressions, actual part and parcel of that immaculate energy. And the essence of that energy is creative expression, not manipulation. There is no offended judge ready to burn our bodies and spirits for eternity in hell because we didn’t say this, we didn’t do that or we broke somebody’s holy rule.

What are the grounds of my belief? Simple. The cells of my body literally rejoice when I contemplate and trust connection with the energetic whole. They are flowering and at peace in the sunshine and rain of all that is. And I know, as well, when they despair, hate, fear and retreat. This happens whenever I drift into belief that I am disconnected and alone, an isolated and completely vulnerable ego-self.

We cannot really separate ourselves from what we are. We can only imagine that separation in the awakening process of our self-awareness. And when we imagine that separation, we create our own little imaginary hell in which to live. It is a hell of worry and fear, expressed in grasping this and fending off that. It is a hell that is, most of all, scared to death of death, of perceived annihilation.

But my spirit soars, it thrills, at rest in a stream beyond the speed of light, basking in the unseen power and evanescence of being, of becoming. It is this perceived knowing that is the experience, essence and expression of faith. It is knowing beyond comprehension, seeing beyond observation, joining in union beyond touch. It is being and becoming.

We waken to life, conceived in that immaculate flash under what appears at first to be the tree of duality, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. We grasp at good, we ward off evil, we run, scared as hell, from death.

But when we stop, when we set down our grasping and defending, we find ourselves at peace, being and becoming under the Tree of Life. Come rest with me in that streaming stillness beyond the speed of light. Drink the refreshing tea of the leaves that heal the nations.

There were two special trees, planted as crown jewels in the metaphorical Garden of Eden. Yet they are one. It is our faith that makes us whole.

Scripture today from Cat Stevens, “Sitting:”

Oh I’m on my way, I know I am,

Somewhere not so far from here.

All I know is all I feel right now.

There’s a power growing in my hair.

The Village Green

Posted on February 2, 2014 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

In his book Grassroots Spirituality (2004, Imprint Academic), Robert Forman documents a huge sociological shift in the last generation away from strict barriers between religions and toward a shared spirituality. His metaphor (pp. 89, 98-100) is a village green:

It is as if the residents of the various religious houses have wandered into some huge village green to chat with each other. Then they’ve taken what they’ve learned from each other back to their respective houses, and have taught their followers (in their own respective languages) what they’ve learned. (Parenthetical insertion mine)

That’s a beautiful image, and I hope it is so.

Religions, like any institution, are nothing more than the collective expression of the individuals who comprise them. We project the level of our maturity and development onto these institutions and they become magnified by the power of the collective consciousness they embody. Governments, for instance, can be like the government of Costa Rica, which reflects the collective expression of a people who have decided that an investment in a standing army would compromise investment in things like education and health care. Whereas the people of North Korea have invested to the extreme, it seems, in paranoia and its protection. In the United States, we worship wealth so much that we are willing to give it to a very few, just to dream that someday it might be possible for the rest of us. In each case, collectively, we believe that this is the way things should be.

The unique thing about religions is that they reflect our collective approaches to mystery, to the unknown and to our longing for meaning. In the presence of mystery, many things are contrasted:

Trust and fear
Meaning and nihilism
Pattern and accident
Time and eternity
Obligation and freedom

These are scary issues. Under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, we address them with the gods we make and the religions we construct as their playpens. In essence, we create metaphors for an unnamable mystery. Trouble comes when we begin to believe our metaphors, to make them real and concrete rather than beautiful poetic expressions of our experience with mystery. And when enough of us agree strongly enough that our metaphor is the real deal, we cannot possibly admit that another may have relevance. That is, in fact, the true meaning of idolatry. Our levels of judgment, when we have solidified and latched onto our religious creation – our idol – will vary on a scale from a knowing toleration of the misguided to violent annihilation of the infidel.

Who knows, someday someone may even take this two trees metaphor and build a new religion with which to judge, measure and exclude others. There will be shrines to the trees and people will bring offerings to avoid damnation, the certain consequence of irreverence. And non-believers will be hung daily from the branches.

But true reverence in the face of mystery requires nothing more than silent awareness. There are those in every faith that have gone deep into that silence, who through practice have stripped themselves bare of all the trappings in order to experience whatever touches them. The deeper they go, the closer they approach oneness with the mystery.

Whatever tent they hale from, these beings move freely about the village green. They know that the ground that supports us and the air that enlivens us are the same for all, in all places and all times.

We stake out the shelter of our little communities of faith, fine and good for protection and a sense of family. But the ground and the air are never ours alone and our tent shelters no one if it is less than welcoming to all. Our true home is the earth and the air, the ground of all being and the breath of life. We need not fear it. Nor should we fear the tents that are not ours or their inhabitants.

Let’s enter and engage freely on the village green. Let’s share together the sustenance of the Tree of Life and the river that waters it.

Born in You this Day

Posted on December 21, 2013 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

“To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” Luke 2:11, NRSV.

There are so many ways to wreck a good story. In fact, we might as well call it Christmas Cancer for all that it has become in the last two millennia: grafted onto holiday trees from other traditions; the insanity of soldiers stopping to sing carols to the enemy across the front lines of WWI, resuming the fight in the morning; Santa Claus and Rudolph; enough lights to outshine a supernova; a worldwide binge and burp of the economy big enough to make us confident that Jesus has finally entered the temple and whipped, once and for all, the rogue dogs of evil empire.

What was born? Who was born? Lamb of God? For all our focus on blood sacrifice to grab salvation, Jesus might as well have been a 4-H calf, corn-fed and off to the fair, sold at auction to the highest bidder, the owner of the fanciest restaurant in the state.

What was born? Who was born? The birth narratives of Matthew and especially the iconic scene of the stable, manger, angels and star in Luke, are memorialized annually from the tiniest of crèche scenes reconstructed in the shell of a bird’s egg, to the bigger than life plywood or even living crèches that, despite our silly doublespeak laws about what religious freedom is or isn’t, stand in front of churches or town squares worldwide. God almighty, the things we fight about to avoid our own truth.

What was born? Who was born? Without doubt, a true Rose of Sharon, a balm in Gilead, a little Prince of Peace. And stories like these pasted onto the front of Matthew’s and Luke’s life narratives are effective “sit up and take notice” calls that here was a birth and a life of great importance.

Alas, we are so prone to losing ourselves in icons, drama and worship – anything to avoid personal responsibility.

The real birth of Jesus, good friends, took place in the silent stretch of nearly twenty years between Luke 2 and Luke 3, a gestation of learning and practice, of formation in the womb of wisdom and spirit. The real birth of Jesus was the birth of authentic Self, the hero’s/heroine’s journey to which we are all invited when we are silent in the presence and willing in spirit.

Luke tries to hammer this home with his genealogy, the long list of names at the end of the third chapter, almost entirely ignored by 2,000 years of Christianity, that ends, for both Adam (read “you and me”) and Jesus, with “Son (child) of God.” This genealogy marks the line of transition, the end of gestation. It is followed immediately by a baptism of grown-up spirit and the launch of Jesus into his brief public life of healing, bathed and swaddled in an honest and consistent call to peace, compassion, fairness and, most of all, the pleading invitation to each of us to join him in our own true birth.

What was born? Who was born? A human was born, like every human, who gained his life with the whisper of prana, the tickle and nudge of the breath of God, the life force of Creator/Spirit/Mind/Self. Born a human, you and me, under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

This one grew up. This one accepted that suffering (true love, while it may cast out fear, just as often draws fire) was the price of second birth, the true and human birth to capital “S” Self, the birth canal of silence, prayer and practice that bore him all the way to the Tree of Life.

How utterly astounding that for all the effort to tell us in symbol and story, for the repeated invitation of Jesus to each of us to grow up, to enter and to walk through the inevitable suffering of birth to true and mature life, we choose instead to worship the stories. We shield our eyes in the waving of palms and drown the voice in our din of praise. Truly, for the most part, we would rather kill the guide than hear the call, hear the invitation and embrace the path.

Born in you this day. Born in you this day, kind friend. The invitation to embrace the path, the invitation to second birth. Born in you this day. The call to accept, without judgment, the pain and suffering of growing up. The call to embrace and transform it with the practice of peace, of compassion for self and others. The call to be authentic sons and daughters of C/S/M/S, true birth under the Tree of Life.

Born in you this day. Let it be.

Suffering

Posted on September 29, 2013 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

My wife is a special educator. She tells me stories about kids who are and will be, no matter how hard they work, miles and miles short of successful functioning in our society. I hear about the amazing ways that she confronts them and engages them to draw out even the most basic responses to external stimuli – things like pointing to or grabbing a particular picture that indicates something they want or need, communication in its most elemental forms. My mind spins off into the future for these little lives and I ache. Something in me inclines toward discouragement.

According to Wikipedia, 230,000 people died, in 2004, in the Indian Ocean Tsunami (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake_and_tsunami), triggered by an undersea megathrust off the west coast of Sumatra. The millions that survived carry the soul etching memory of terror, and the loss of loved ones, places and ways of life that were wrenched irrevocably out of their being. Even from a distance, the collective soul of the earth feels and bears the rip, the wound and the scar.

The Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University (see http://costsofwar.org/article/afghan-civilians) estimated, in February 2013, that between 16,700 and 19,000 civilians have died in Afghanistan as direct or indirect casualties of Operation Enduring Freedom. iCasualties counts 3383 deaths of coalition troops since the war started in 2001 (http://icasualties.org/oef/), not to mention the traumatic head injuries, loss of limbs and suffering of families of the injured.

Life as we observe it and experience it is full of suffering, whether natural, psychological or of our own making. And it is so for the observer and survivor just as it is for the victim.

The Sanskrit term dukkha captures this completely. The Wikipedia article on dukkha (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dukkha) explains it in three categories:

The obvious physical and mental suffering associated with birth, growing old, illness and dying.
The anxiety or stress of trying to hold onto things that are constantly changing.
A basic unsatisfactoriness pervading all forms of existence, due to the fact that all forms of life are changing, impermanent and without any inner core or substance. On this level, the term indicates a lack of satisfaction, a sense that things never measure up to our expectations or standards.

When we choose to stay stuck under the metaphorical Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, life is indeed dukkha. We see everything through a lens of a battle to eliminate the pain of our current existence, even to the point of killing others and increasing pain because we think somehow our own security will be enhanced and our dukkha decreased. In reality, we just pile it higher and deeper.

I have a friend, Vern Rempel, who postscripts his emails with these words of his: “The code of the universe is written in beauty.” The Buddha said: “I have taught one thing and one thing only, dukkha and the cessation of dukkha.” Somehow I think these two assertions are headed in the same direction.

We cannot judge the pain of temporal existence any more than we can judge – as good, bad or indifferent – the unfolding of our universe and the emergence of life itself. It is. It is, it is, it is. To say “it is” is not indifference, but rather acceptance of and wonder at the mysterious whole and trajectory of creation.

The cessation of dukkha is no more nor less than the choice to live under the Tree of Life. It is, I believe, a more complete nirvana, and the essence of the Greek term metanoia, translated in the Christian Bible as repentance. That word has become heavy laden with the trappings of a religion of judgment. More accurately, it simply means to change, or to turn away from.

When we turn away from our judging and fearful view of life under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, we find ourselves, simply, under the Tree of Life. We repent of dukkha. We let go of, we turn way from our limited and temporal view of suffering and we engage fully in the ongoing act, the revelation/evolution of creation.

We, in our evolutionary state, have been given at least the level of awareness that comes with observation. And we have been gifted as well with the ability to judge what we observe. We also have the ability to choose our response.

We can willfully try to manipulate life and the world around us, desperately seeking to avoid what we perceive as dukkha. When we do this, we only create more.

Or we can willingly accept and participate in the beautiful and staggeringly powerful onslaught of creation, sharing compassion, soaking in the beauty and mystery, acting in the creative initiative of God/Creator/Spirit/Mind/Source.

There is a tremendous ache, the ache of birth, in the act of creation. We are part of it. The birth, the code of that ache, is the handwriting of the universe. The child of it all, the child of us all when we participate in and do not fight the unfolding, is beauty beyond words and saying.

Come, turn, breathe, care, steward and create. Live under the Tree of Life.

Spiritual but not Religious

Posted on September 15, 2013 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

In the past few years I have heard people describe themselves, and have sometimes described myself, as spiritual but not religious. The label begs definition. I guess, on a very simple and literal level, it means having a sense of larger connection to something we might call spirit that envigorates, guides and, in truth, is us, but having checked out of, or never been part of, institutional religious expression of a particular faith.

I have admired that position, at least insofar as it represents a bravery about rejecting or not being actively concerned with blind dogma and positions that separate rather than unite humanity – demands that people say this or that and assurances that if you follow the particular company line, heaven is just around the corner.

But there is, at least for me, something significant lost in that position, as well. What is lost is the sense of belonging, of being part of a close-knit community of commitment.

Every fall, just after Labor Day, the community of Estes Park hosts the Long’s Peak Scottish Irish Festival. There are bands and dance competitions, jousting, and real cannon firing bowling balls to try to sink an inflatable plastic dragon in Lake Estes.

And there is a parade. It features, I think, just about the biggest collection of pipe and drum corps in the nation. And it features clan after clan marching in alphabetical order, families in their tartans and kilts, marching proudly and happily together behind their particular plaid. I have to admit there is something that grabs me at the root and brings tears to my eyes as I see them march by – little children, old men and women, their little Scottish terriers all decked out, heading to no war, setting aside their own squabbles and differences for a day of being part of something that reaches way back and commits to going forward, reveling in pure belonging. I can’t help it. Tears just run down my face.

I don’t know how long it has been true, but it is true now that something very special has happened in those ranks. Yes, there are tall lordly Scotsmen – some kind of purebred marked by a particular demeanor and full white moustache – and strong women capable of cutting down forests with only a few strokes of the axe. But there are also, in the clans, marching with all the same pride, people of Asian or African descent, fully Scottish just because they have married into the clan and everybody says so.

There is nothing inherently bad about religions. They are just the tools we make them. And there is value and meaning in belonging – in a commitment to community that says, come hell or high water (or, as we have in Estes this week, the hell of high water), and regardless of our petty differences, we are one. We will stick together and care for one another and we will take pride in and celebrate our values and commitments.

There is nothing inherently bad in this, so long as there is a significant grain of salt in all our sacraments. Strength comes in offering and welcoming, in serving and caring. The stories we tell and the lessons we teach are nothing if they don’t result in true humility and compassion. We may display our colors with pride, so long as the door is open and says come in if you like. And so long as we know our door is just one of many on the street.

At the end of the day, we may take off our clothing, grateful that it has protected us and provided a vehicle and context for our service. But that is all it is, a bit of pretty decoration for a body that is no different, or better or worse than the one inhabited by each of our global and religious – or not – neighbors.

And our religious families are wasted and nothing if they are not chiefly a magnification of service and welcome at the level of community, rather than just the individual.

Spiritual but not religious is, I believe, a wonderful position that sheds, appropriately, the strictures when community has lost its way, more concerned about the clothing than the body, wrapped up in pomp, power and appearances. It is a sign of prophetic rejection of all that is hollow and false.

But it is also lonely. Grant us community, a family that makes us part of something broader and stronger, that accomplishes so much more than we are able on our own. And gift us, Great Spirit, Breath of Life, the vision that whatever our community, we are always part of a larger family still, a family that flourishes on strong humility and confident sharing, founded on a bedrock of compassionate service.

Make us one, be us one, under the Tree of Life.

A Good Read Under the Tree of Life

Posted on September 9, 2013 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

Under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, we abuse scripture. We bind it up in leather, with gilt pages and we worship it. We thump it on the pulpit, we display it on the brass stand or podium, and when we do open it to read it, we shop for – and find – the bullets, knives and bombs we need to protect our separate selves and our separate religions. The tree always gives us the fruit for which we ask.

Scripture is the place where the stirrings of Creator/Spirit/Mind/Source (C/S/M/S) meet the mind of humanity for distillation into concepts and words. Bodies of scripture, combined with years of interpretation, become the normative structure and formative tradition for religions and even whole societies. That is, perhaps, a useful social function. But it also, when scripture is adopted as uniquely and exclusively authoritative, becomes the blinders of division that keep us from open interaction and rich cross-fertilization between traditions. At its worst, it becomes the justification for oppression, violence against individuals, sexes and classes, used most abusively to support terrorism and war.

Types of scripture lend themselves to particular forms of abuse. Historical narrative – the bulk of the Bible being the prime example – can, for instance, lead us to believe that the struggles and understandings of one culture are more than that. We allow them to become the defining history of C/S/M/S to the exclusion of all others. We miss the richness of interaction and learning when we idolize the characters and stories rather than seeing them as a useful record of human experience, much like our own. When we close the canon, we in essence deny and shut down our own direct and vital connection to C/S/M/S.

Revealed scripture – the Koran, the Book of Mormon and more recently, A Course in Miracles – lends itself most easily to manipulation. Followers may be tempted to grant it an air of particular exclusivity. Again, the learning of the content is ignored in the sacralization of the whole. We may find ourselves using it to define in-groups and out-groups, or to idolize the founder who received this intense spiritual download.

Myth – like we find in the Bhagavad Gita, the biblical creation narrative or the many stories of the Buddha – is sometimes written off as not being real. We think, “How can something that is not real be as authoritative as something that is real?” Or equally as risky, we make it authoritative, clinging to and slinging around a literal interpretation of a good teaching story.

I personally find most easily accessible the experiential writings – the Psalms, the Upanishads, the struggles of the prophets. Somehow it is easier to place myself side-by-side with another human who relates their experience of wrestling with or finding unity on their spiritual path. But the same risks apply. I might be tempted to grant sacred status to the experience of another while denying the reality of my own interaction and relationship with C/S/M/S. Or I might ignore the truth that is there because I grant higher status to another source.

We get all messed up with judgment under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good Evil. We make this sacred and that secular. We assign qualities and attributes to make things more or less than what they are. And we do the same to ourselves.

In general, we have adopted a low view of ourselves in relation to all that we choose to label sacred. We insist that we are stuck in our separation from C/S/M/S and that “believing in” this set of writings or the tenets of that religion will save us from our assumed natural state of doom.

I believe scripture. I don’t believe in it. What am I saying when I say that? Under the Tree of Life, everything – absolutely everything – is available to us for learning and for growth. The written experience of all cultures and interactors with C/S/M/S is useful. We have tools to use, not objects to worship.

We don’t need to grant authority to one book or another. C/S/M/S is our author, and we are the breath of that creation. We have the same dynamic relationship as the prophets and writers of any past. And we share the same temptations to isolation and to ego.

We have the opportunity to rest and to revel in the word, in all the words that we encounter in each day of our life. They are the expression of our human discovery of connection and unity with C/S/M/S.

When we sacralize and canonize scripture, we profane our own lives. The fruit is ours, to pick, to eat and to live. It was never intended to be worshipped or to be thrown as a weapon at someone else.

Here we are, under the Tree of Life. Let’s settle down with a good book.

Heading for the Information Wars

Posted on August 31, 2013 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

I get “push” messages on my iPhone – CNN and The New York Times duking it out in the information wars to see who can be the first with the latest to ring that little bell in my pocket. Sometimes it’s just AT&T about my data usage or the Estes Park App with the latest dinner deal. The information wars.

But this week it is chemical weapons in Syria and the build-up to whether the President of the United States will declare war on yet another country in the Middle East. Holy holy Jesus. Allah, Allah, the compassionate, the merciful. How did we get here? And where will we go next?

Somehow we have to kick it up another notch. We are all, every adult on the face of the planet, responsible for every action of every government. And death for so many innocents, by our collective hands, is the consequence of our lack of imagination and our inaction.

Under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, greed and power are always poised to dash in for the kill in any moment of weakness – the greed and power of individuals, the greed and power of political factions, the greed and power of religions, the greed and power of nations. It is all the same, collectively or individually. It is our human choice.

We are President Assad. We are the religious factions looking to force their will and control into any chink in the wall of power. We are the soldier we train and equip and send in to the next bloody and endless conquest. And we are President Obama, doing what? None of us, when it comes to the festering pain of our world, seem capable in the final instance of thinking or acting effectively outside the sandbox of violence. The biggest gun may kill the most people, but it never ever wins the heart. Our heart, folks. Everyone’s heart.

And no amount of individual meditation or spiritual practice, uncoupled with creative action, will ever ever tip the scales. Jesus tipped the scales. Gandhi tipped the scales. Martin Luther King, Jr. tipped the scales. You and I can, too, with deep, deep spirituality hand-in-hand and at-one with crystal clear intentional action.

But what kind of action? If it is not action taken under the Tree of Life, it is doomed only for the cycle of violence and death. If it is not action that lifts up every voice, calms every fear, touches every heart – bar none – it is the action of judgment that puts us back on the merry-go-round of death and despair. If it is not action taken with the strength of full vulnerability and the absolute absence of fear, it will be ineffective.

What are the ideas, the dreams of your heart, that you are afraid are just too small, too irrelevant, too naïve to possibly be effective? What is the rock of your love, slung tight in the cords and pocket pouch of your heart, which might just slay the Philistine of our collective fear – the fear that numbs us to inaction?

Is it maybe a Peace Force? Damn our halls of fear and power! (Make no mistake, those halls are us. We have no fingers to point.) Is it ten thousand people willing, at a moment’s notice, to find their way from many countries, to walk together across any border in the face of any fire?

I will tell you that such a force could sing a song, a song that breaks through the fear that underlies the manic greed of President Assad. It could sing again the true song of Allah, the one who calls us to mercy, compassion, hospitality, the giving of alms and never to be the judge, jury and hangman of anyone – never never ever that. And it could sing a song that tells us we no longer need to carry around the supersized arrogant balloon image of ourselves, fabricated of the wealth and complacency that lull us into the belief that we will never die.

Can you share this a thousand times, and can we do something together, now, across the globe that celebrates the Tree of Life in the vacuous and lying face of death? What will it be?

How will we stand up together and sing that song under the Tree of Life?

Scripture today from Jackson Browne, “Information Wars” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoCfII2p8BA –

The Day of Non-Judgment

Posted on August 25, 2013 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

Check yourself when you wake up in the morning. What’s that first feeling inside? Is it angst about the things you have to do? It might be worry about meeting with certain people or concern about the pile of unfinished tasks that lies ahead. Or maybe it is relief that this is a day off, or excitement about an especially anticipated event – a birthday or the beginning of a long awaited journey.

Whatever the feeling, it is almost certainly one of prejudice – pre-judgment. We are pretty sure that things will be this way or that way. And we have pretty much decided that this way is good or that way is bad.

I am not an advocate of positive thinking, of trying to manipulate actions and outcomes by painting them bright yellow and giving them a spin to the left or to the right. Positive thinking is only what it is – a veneer we try to paste on our muddy core of judgment.

Nor am I an advocate of denial of feelings. Feelings are simply the natural reactions to reality as it is perceived and experienced by small “m” me, the me I discovered when I awoke to my surroundings under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The very name of the tree implies exactly what it is – the tree of judgment.

Waking up under that tree, we believe that our life task is to sort our pile of baby blocks just as quickly and effectively as we can. This block is good . . . It goes in this pile. This block is bad . . . It goes in that pile over there and I hope I can figure out a way to trash it so it never comes back. And, oh my goodness, worst of all, I can’t decide about this one. What will it become? How do I know? What should I do with it? What will it do to me?

I think I will bury the feelings, maybe over here under positive thinking, so I don’t have to feel this way anymore. Shit! That didn’t work either! And now I am late for my meeting!

Chill, baby “m”. Let “Me” (big “S” Self) hold you and tell you that we are here together. And we are not, as you believe, under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. We are under the Tree of Life.

We are not our feelings. We just experience them. And our true response comes from the source of everything we need – the fruit of the Tree of Life and the living water of the river by which it is planted – the gifts of Creator/Spirit/Mind/Source – our essence, breath and true being.

The essence of that water is love. It nourishes the sustaining fruits of the tree, which are peace, true joy, patience and compassion. Whether baby “we” know it or not, that is what we truly seek. And when we open the eyes of our Spirit, on any given morning, we know that we have exactly what we need. And we can offer it to our small “s” selves. We can live it in all of our actions, in the touch of all whom we encounter.

Let’s hold that little fearful self for a moment to calm its terror about the day. Let’s sit with it in joy and help it to let go of the angst that the things we have judged to be good might not work out. We can tell it that all is well, that we can choose to be and to act, in each moment of each day, without judgment. We can choose to be and to act as our true Self, the one that is fed and cared for – by and one with C/S/M/S – under the Tree of Life.

The practice of stillness, at one with the action of willingness, creates the doorway to non-judgment. It is the practice of being the center of the spinning wheel – completely at rest and fully in motion.

Our focus and activity, in each moment and without judgment, is to drink the living water, which makes it possible for us to be the very fruit of the Tree of Life. We offer this nourishing fruit, we offer Ourselves, in each moment and in each action. We offer it first to the little one, the little self, crying in our arms. We offer it to redeem and to transform the false vision of all who find themselves anxious and unhappy under the tree of judgment, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

A peach, for you and for me, together, under the Tree of Life.

Deep Wounds, Pure Hearts

Posted on August 17, 2013 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

About ten years ago I heard a bright young praise band at a church singing a love song imploring Creator/Spirit/Mind/Source (C/S/M/S) to “Break me, Lord.” I am sixty-one. I, and likely you, have been broken. At the time, I was pretty much shattered – not by the music, but by the events of my life. I actually felt anger as I listened to the song, and after the service I felt compelled, firmly, to address the unsuspecting singer. I looked the poor girl straight in the eye and said, “Don’t you ever ask God to break you. You will, indeed, be broken, whether you ask for it or not. And when that happens, you just pray your heart out that you live through it.”

Who knows, she had probably already been broken. She certainly did not deserve my hurt projection. I hope that she has forgiven me and, perhaps, that she even found, sometime or other, something useful in the experience.

We speak of a broken heart. But somehow I don’t think it is our hearts, really, that get broken. Our hearts are only found. And generally that takes some heavy duty cracking of shells and some serious excavation.

We get what we seek from our tree in the garden. Stuck in our perception of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, we get a calcified hardness. Wounded as children and watching so much of life and relationship in the world around us, we paint ourselves with layer after layer of lies. Year after year, layer after layer, we build up our defense.

Mostly we try to create an image, a projection of something. Like Alice, we may make our images bigger or smaller. We may give the appearance of hardness, of knowing, of being aloof. We may project power, weakness or defense. We may paint ourselves servile or happy or the color of pity. We bake our colors on with fear, anger or greed.

And after a while, we actually begin to believe in what we have created – to believe, in fact, that we are what we have created. Our belief becomes the motor and wheels that move our bigger than life image around under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

We meet and confront other images. We create alliances and do battle. We bully and jockey for position, seeking protection through both defense and offense, wheeling around in our armor, busy being the thing we have made of ourselves.

Sometime, some place, our illusion is shattered. The bigger we become, of course, the harder we fall. Hitler, Qaddafi, the various empires that have come and gone, Elvis – any one of us, or any communal collection of us, can only push this thing so far.

Let’s bring it home. Whether it is in a violent, surprising or dull demise, whatever it is we have created comes to its end, at some point, under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. We die, and while we may have done some damage, the illusion we have created is gone. The shells fall away and turn to dust.

Our shell is shattered in the relational, institutional and political pile ups we engineer on the autobahn we have built around the base of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. If we are fortunate enough to walk away from the wreckage with breath and years ahead of us, we have a choice. It’s the same choice, of course, we had before we painted on the layers. It is the choice between willingness and willfulness, the choice between experiencing the giving tree in our garden as the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil or the Tree of Life.

Our hearts are not broken. It is only our shells that shatter. Our hearts are pure and supple and everlasting. Gandhi, Jesus, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa all knew this. To the extent that they were able to set aside ego and fear, they expressed their true selves, their pure hearts. They chose the fruit of the Tree of Life.

None can avoid the end, or protect themselves from the hazards of mingling with all in this life. The little hard-shelled knights with their wheels and motors of fear and greed shot Gandhi and King to get them off the road. Jesus got nailed to a tree. Mother Teresa, well, I think she pretty much died every day she went to work.

But when we are open, when we are open and willing, we stop painting on the layers, and the layers get stripped away, and away, and away. They crinkle, break and roll off. They peel and are rinsed until all that is left is our heart, the one we were given from the start. All that is left is the undefended. All that is left is kindness, regard and compassion. All that is left is true creativity, a creativity that gives and receives, rather than forces and grasps.

All that is left is what always is, the heart and breath of C/S/M/S that we truly are, under the Tree of Life.

Scientism and The Tree of Life

Posted on August 11, 2013 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

My son John called a few months back to tell me that he had spoken with my father. That’s a sweet and common thing, right, for a child to speak with a grandparent? And it was especially nice that he bothered to tell me. The thing is, Dad died suddenly more than 27 years ago. We adopted John, then just under three years of age, 26 years ago. John never met Dad on this plane. He just gets these kinds of visits.

There was no life-changing message in the conversation, at least yet revealed. Mostly it contained well-wishes for all of Dad’s descendants, with a heartfelt sentiment about how much he loved them and was proud of each of them. John received a distinct sense of each, including far-flung infant first cousins once removed that he truly did not even know.

There were other uniquely identifying memories in the exchange, a particular car, for instance, that Dad talked about. John described it to me in detail, a car I had no photos of and would never have had reason to mention to my son. I knew immediately which car it was and found a photo of one just like it on the Internet and sent it to John. He recognized it with certainty as the car Dad was talking about.

And my Grandma Schertz was pushing some kind of greeting through in the background, too. She would have done that, while she was busy busy minding her plants.

I am probably thinking about this today because my good friend Ki Johnson sent me Eben Alexander’s wonderful book, Proof of Heaven, last week. If you are not familiar with it, Alexander is a neurosurgeon who experienced an extended and particularly deep NDE (near death experience) in 2008, an experience that has changed the course of his life and expanded his view of science and spirituality.

We have become, over the past four hundred years, so enamored with science that we have created a new religion, scientism. Perhaps nothing in the world has greater allure and power to hold us under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and to blind us from the fullness of the Tree of Life. Scientism would certainly dismiss or rationalize in some material way my son’s experience.

There is, of course, so much to be grateful for in the scientific method and its fruits. In addition to the amazing advances in medicine, transportation, communications, daily comforts and understandings of the physical universe, there has been the very valuable checkmate of the abuses of religious dogma and the crushing power of the super-institutionalized church.

But scientism is no different than its religionist adversary. Scientism turns an essentially useful tool into an abusive force when it claims ultimate and exclusive truth. Scientism says that if science has not seen it, touched it or named it, it does not exist. Scientism becomes especially queasy, if not downright dogmatic and fundamentalist, when spirituality enters the room.

Science, itself, in an interesting turn of events, may be approaching spirituality. Or at least a perhaps necessary but over-exuberant burst of human pride at the discoveries and advances of the scientific method may be coming to a more balanced and humble correction. We have been presented with the observations of astronauts as they view the earth from space, the photos of galaxies from the Hubble telescope, and, in another direction entirely, the almost infinite tininess of the Higgs boson. And we learn that rocks and trees and skies and seas are all made of the same stuff – the tiniest of particles whirling and attaching in relationship with mostly space in between – just like the universe – just like us, the most sentient of beings on our speck of a planet.

And, of course, Hinduism, perhaps the oldest of the major religions, can point back to its roots and say “I told you so.” Its philosophical underpinnings and observations of its sages reflect the kind of unitive creative force and energy to which physics now also points.

So as we consider our own spiritual path, what are the implications?

We begin to experience our old concept of God more as Creator/Spirit/Mind/Source than as an image of us, a human form, who lives and rules from somewhere in a direction that we have arbitrarily chosen to label up.
C/S/M/S is no less real or personal. In fact, just the opposite. C/S/M/S is in and through all of that creative space and energy, the stuff that you and I and everything are made of.
The immanence and transcendence of C/S/M/S begin to seem more like the realities of the physical universe and less like theories for discussion. In fact the distinctions between physical and spiritual, immanence and transcendence, begin to blur, if not disappear altogether.
Our role clarifies. Somehow, because we have been granted the gift of consciousness (insofar as we can say what that is and that we possess it in some unique and special way), we have both the power and the responsibility of co-creation, of participating in our own way in the ongoing act of creation and its care. That is perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of being in the image of C/S/M/S.

Scientism and religionism duke it out in a futile and unending struggle of ego under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Science, the observation of what is, and spirituality, the willingness to be, rest and act comfortably in each other’s presence, without judgment, under the Tree of Life. Let’s be there.

I Believe

Posted on August 4, 2013 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

Two Trees in the Garden grows out of more than sixty years of experience in Christian community, with a steadily growing awareness and restlessness about the boundaries and limitations of that experience and particular discomfort with the dominant narrative of creation, fall and atoning sacrifice. Twenty-some years of study and reflection across the scriptures and religious traditions of the world, carried out in the context of a constant, simple breath prayer (“Thy will be done.”), have led me to the following working statement of faith, the themes of which are expressed in the weekly blog:

I believe in Creator/Spirit/Mind/Source (C/S/M/S) – immanent, transcendent, omnipotent, omnipresent, love, essence, ground of our being and so much more, beyond all language, in whom/which we live and move and have our being. I grew up with the name God, but choose in general not to use it in this writing because it seems especially important in these times to break out of the cultural trappings surrounding that name. Names of any sort speak only to the limitations of our gift of language and intellect and fall inconceivably short of the reality. Most succinctly: C/S/M/S is; C/S/M/S is love; love is.

I believe we are expressions of prana, the Sanskrit term for life essence breathed by C/S/M/S. We are created in the image, like Jesus, like the Buddha, like Aunt Susie and every other Child of C/S/M/S who has walked the Earth. We are enlivened by the breath of life.

I believe in basic free will choice. When prana enlivens a body, we gain awareness, including awareness of our temporal limitations. This body needs resources to live. This body is born and dies. We can choose the isolation and limitation of our bodies (the choice of ego), which results in fear and its countless expressions in efforts to possess and to control, coupled with its rage when those efforts are thwarted, as they ultimately are. We can also choose our higher Self, the fruit of which is confidence and rest in the eternal and enlivening C/S/M/S essence which both pervades and transcends all things temporal. Our life is the journey of that choice, with consistent results, individually and as societies. We grow to the extent that we learn from our choices, moving toward Self and away from ego.

I believe that revealed scripture –whether Judeo-Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Mormon, Islamic or other – is inspired. It is full of Truth. This Truth is filtered and interpreted over and over: by the person to whom it was revealed; by the scribe; by the translator; by the reader; by the listener; and by the responder who turns it into human action. When the human interactor is aligned and free in Spirit, the truth of scripture is revealed and results in acts of creative beauty, kindness, healing and compassion. When the human interactor is aligned with ego and fear, scripture is twisted and misused.

I believe there are no closed canons of scripture. My friends Jeff Gundy and JD Martin write scripture – the expressions of their C/S/M/S essence – in poetry and song. Georgia O’Keefe painted it and a million voices sing it in every instant. Scripture is the very essence of our created hearts, yours and mine. Time and historic comings and goings do not begin or end the Word, nor do the sacred and secular labels that we apply to justify our egotistical judgments. An open and willing heart is an open canon.

I believe that historic scripture is a useful record of the human experience with C/S/M/S, subject to the limitations of vision and experience for the writer, requiring and welcoming constant conversation, evaluation and fresh revelation in the context of the present experience and expression of C/S/M/S in our hearts and being.

I believe that religions of any label — Pagan, Christian, Buddhist, Jain, Hindu, Islamic and hundreds more, past, present and future – are neither more nor less than our corporate (communal) expression of the maturity of our understanding and expression of C/S/M/S. A powerful social tool, religion holds the potential for the communal expression of an open and willing heart, with hands, feet and voices of compassion, healing, welcome and stewardship. It holds the same potential for chasing useless sacrifice, empowering hierarchical mediators of the sacred and profane, instituting rules of obligation and shame, and justifying hatred and violence of all kinds. Either way, we choose, engaging and using the tool under our own gifted power.

I believe that worship means to be engaged, individually and corporately, in the creative activity of C/S/M/S. It is to be engaged in joy, beauty, healing, compassion, curiosity and creation. It has nothing to do with noises of adoration separated from these acts of creation, especially when these sounds and acts are engaged primarily for self-indulgence or a hope of gaining points for access to an eternity to which we already belong and of which we already partake. As with so many of our religious terms, we do well to let go of the baggage laden worship label and engage in being the true article, our essence, that for which we are created.

I believe in life everlasting – that prana, as the metaphorical out breath and in breath of C/S/M/S, never changes as it enters and leaves any particular body or temporal expression. We – our spirits – are part of that breath, enlivening and departing the bodies we inhabit. While some report direct awareness of lives before and beyond the one we experience in any given present, I have yet to possess, and do not strive for, that particular gift or awareness. Yet I trust that, to the extent we are open and willing, we are always (before, in and beyond time) growing, learning in grace and love, with deeper and deeper Self-awareness, which is to say, experience of our C/S/M/S essence.

Who knows where that may take us. I love our journey.

Learning Everlasting

Posted on July 20, 2013 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

Lifelong learning. It’s a great concept. Now that I work for a library, it helps to pay the bills. It keeps the minds of millions occupied, distracted. As a busy lifelong learner, I can avoid the contemplation of death and the possibility of the end of me as I know me – or perhaps not just as I know me, but just the end, indeed, altogether. Maybe all that is left is a whirling dispersion of atoms, quarks and Higgs Bosons, randomly traversing the universe and likely as not getting trapped for something close to eternity in a gas giant like Jupiter. There is some small comfort, in that case, in the present thought of having no awareness at that time.

“Well take another look, and tell me baby: Who’s zoomin’ who?” (Thank you, Aretha Franklin). Who is looking through these eyes at these words? And tell me, Mr. or Mrs. Higgs, how did you think up your boson? And why is there a race track, just for electrons, underneath a couple of countries in Europe, all for the joy of catching one of these little buggers? And why does my spruce tree smell so good in the afternoon sun, while the aspen leaves shimmy in the breeze, the hummingbird hovers inches away at the feeder and the most beautiful swallows in the world dart with abandon through all of it?

I don’t believe for a moment that this is just a chance material world. But then, neither do I believe in any hard and fast predestination, where we are pawns on a stage for the entertainment of some cynical cosmic audience.

The sages that dreamed the Upanishads called it prana – the life force or essence, the breath of Creator/Spirit/Mind/Source, exhaled and inhaled by all that is. Prana given and prana withdrawn is the life experience of the material. Prana is expressed in senses and awareness, but its presence or absence does not change it. It just passes through creative stages, one form, one life to another. Prana spins, organizes and reorganizes itself. And at our level, prana wakes to the awesome joy and fear of awareness – the ability of the created to be so fully awake that it can observe itself participating in the very act of creation. What an accomplishment and gift! You, I, we are part of that.

We can dance, we can play, we can create. We can care, we can tend, we can nurture. We can also bury our talent – our prana – in fear, invest it in greed and control, or try to obliterate it in self-destructive behavior. No matter, ultimately, I think, beyond whatever joy, sadness or learning we experience from the consequences of our behavior, individually or corporately.

I believe in learning everlasting. Paul talks about seven heavens in the New Testament and others speak of many planes of existence. We toy with questions of the edges of our universe. Is it expanding? Is it contracting? Are there others? What does all of that mean?

The Prashna Upanishad goes into great depth about prana, speculating that prana divides itself into five expressions when it enters bodily form. The Sanskrit term for the fifth of these is udana, the force that gathers our prana at the end of each lifetime and moves it forward to the next. Question III, verse 7 of the Prashna, says this of udana:

At the time of death, through the subtle track
That runs upward through the spinal channel,
Udana, the fifth force, leads the selfless
Up the long ladder of evolution,
And the selfish down. But those who are both
Selfless and selfish come back to this earth.

Could be. I find myself at home with this thought of learning everlasting, of an eminently patient and persistent Creator/Spirit/Mind/Source that breathes us full of prana, the very breath of life, and lets us choose, in perfect freedom, how we will use the gift, one lifetime after another. Can we spin ourselves off to an isolation of no return? I doubt it, despite our longest and worst efforts. Can we stay stuck at one level, torn between isolation and connection for a very long time? I suspect so. Is there always a loving call home? I believe it with all my heart and soul.

“Softy and tenderly, Jesus is calling. Calling to you and to me.” (Will L. Thompson, 1880) Born under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, whispered forever to the Tree of Life, let’s go home.

Scripture today, from my friends Jan Garrett & JD Martin:

Red Rock Canyon (We Go On)

Red rock canyon loves the light, juniper pinon sunrise
And the sweet earth is still damp from last night’s rain
The smell of the sage is a simple prayer
Rising up in the morning air
Saying welcome home again
And oh, what a wonder, I cannot begin to say
Such unspeakable beauty calling my name

We go on, like a beautiful song
We are carried on great winds across the sky
We go on, we go sailing free
We come shining through, we go on

There are secrets singing in the breeze at dawn
A fresh familiar song
And everywhere I look, the world is alive
The soul of the river is one and the same
As the holy blood running through my veins
Like a father’s smile in his newborn child
So, stand still, let me look at your face
Everything keeps changing, but this love remains

We go on, like a beautiful song
We are carried on great winds across the sky
We go on, we go sailing free
We come shining through, we go on

(Lyrics and Music, Jan Garrett & JD Martin)

Deteng, Baby, Deteng!

Posted on July 6, 2013 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

I keep talking here about letting go, relinquishing attachment. You might get the impression that I am advocating the life of a hermit or an ascetic. Not at all, not at all. In fact today let’s talk about engagement, true action, the kind of action that happens without grasping, without attachment to outcomes. Perhaps there is a good word in English for this. Since I have not found it, I have invented one – deteng, or short for detached engagement.

What we seek to relinquish is not action, but the grasping at hopes or the shrinking from fears about outcomes of our actions. These things, in fact, obstruct pure action in life and destroy the beauty and benefit of true living experience.

Take the moment I am in at present. I have committed, right now, to write this week’s blog entry. It is very tempting to worry about what the little readership graph on my blog administration site will look like tomorrow. Will there have been more viewers than last week? Any comments? What will you think of me after you have read this, if you have read this – if anything at all? This represents the attachment of desire.

And sometime soon I really should build up the email list to expand distribution of the blog. I could be distracted by that thought, which feels like work, a chore. I don’t want to be bothered, which is the attachment of aversion to action.

In either case, desire or aversion, I am distracted by my attachment to outcomes. I want to have, or to avoid, a certain result, and that becomes my obsession. And In either case, I compromise the fullness of current action, which is to sit in the recliner with my laptop, writing exactly what I am able to write, without concern that it will not be complete or enough, in the time that I have at present. Deteng. I am doing what is before me. I am relaxed in spirit. I am fully and completely doing what I am doing. I am at peace. Deteng.

I believe that the best result of my action, my writing in this case, always happens when I have “given up” on outcomes and have gifted and immersed myself and you, to the extent that I am able, in Spirit, before, during and after the process.

How do I do that? Very simply. Call it prayer, call it meditation, call it relinquishment. I engage in the act of bringing you to mind in the all-encompassing presence of Spirit before I write, and I pray the prayer I pray throughout every day – “Thy (Spirit’s) will be done.” I breathe Spirit into me – Thy will – Spirit’s will. I release Spirit to you – be done. This is for you. It is through me. It is of Spirit. It is interactive. It is one. It is just us together, at one, in the breath of Creator/Spirit/Mind/Source.

The more I am mindful of that before I write, the more fully I am engaged and at ease in the act of writing. And the more open and engaged you are with Spirit as you read, the more complete, blessed and useful the outcome is for all.

The same is true for us in every action. Life in Spirit is not about inaction. It is about moving in Spirit. I encourage you, if the language or some form of it works for you, to practice this before every action, before every interaction; to ground yourself in Creator/Spirit/Mind/Source by bringing the action and its intended recipient to mind. Hold them in heart and mind. Breathe in, “Thy will.” Breathe out, “be done.” Bless them, experience being blessed together.

And then act, in complete trust, with full engagement in your action – so much engagement that there is no room for worry about results or outcome. Trust that you are in Spirit, in the flow and beauty and power of the universe. So is your action. And if they choose to be, so is your recipient. Nothing could be better. Nothing carries more health, peace power or goodness. Nothing could possibly require less worry. Nothing will ever find us more at home under the Tree of life.

Deteng, baby. Deteng. Will will be done.

Scripture today is from the Fifth Teaching, Renunciation of Action, of The Bhagavad-Gita:

A person who relinquishes attachment
and dedicates actions to the infinite spirit
is not stained by evil,
like a lotus leaf unstained by water.

Relinquishing attachment,
people of discipline perform action
with body, mind, understanding, and senses
for the purification of the self.

Relinquishing the fruit of action,
the disciplined person attains perfect peace;
the undisciplined person is in bondage,
attached to the fruit of their desire.

Two Trees in the Garden

Thoughts on a New Spirituality

Tag Archives: Inter-religious Thought

The Super Bowl, Election 2016 and God in America

Where is God?

It’s Not Always Clear

New Worship

Suchness and Form

The Authoritative Word

Second Birth: The Upanishads, Jesus and the Journey to Self

Who We Are

The Village Green

Born in You this Day

Suffering

Spiritual but not Religious

A Good Read Under the Tree of Life

Heading for the Information Wars

The Day of Non-Judgment

Deep Wounds, Pure Hearts

Scientism and The Tree of Life

I Believe

Learning Everlasting

Deteng, Baby, Deteng!

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