Baptism as Transformation: the Celts, the Romans, the Upanishads

Posted on January 24, 2025 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

We have entered, in the ecclesiastical calendar, the beginning of Epiphany, the season of the manifestation and revealing of the ministry of Jesus. In all four traditional gospels this beginning is marked by the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist.

The practice of baptism likely grows out of the Jewish tradition of mikvah, a ritual immersion in water for repentance from sin, which opens the way for hope and realignment with God. This passing through the water for cleansing and change resonates with the work of John the Baptist, baptizing for the forgiveness of sins.

The baptism of Jesus, then, can be seen as his own identification with the human condition of separation and a symbolic act of washing it off, emerging, and revealing his true oneness with God. In the three synoptic gospels, Jesus sees heaven opening, the Spirit descending as a dove, and a voice saying, “This is my beloved Son.” In the gospel of John, the Baptist also sees this manifestation and affirms that Jesus is the Son of God who will baptize people with the Holy Spirit. Depending on the account, this beginning of ministry unfolds further in Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness, where he rejects all power, glory, and addiction to physical desire, in favor of faithful service. Only then does he call his disciples and initiate his ministry of preaching and healing.

For Christians in the early church, baptism became a ritual that marked the death of a broken humanity and the emergence of a new person as a follower of Christ. The practice now, two millennia later, means much the same, a symbolic gateway between an old self and a new being, a new way of life.

There are many ways that baptism is practiced. Immersion, partial immersion, pouring, sprinkling, infant, adult believer’s, is it a rite, is it a sacrament, is it simply symbolic – I guess it’s no surprise that the Christian church, over twenty centuries, has bickered and bantered, sometimes even to death, over the correct and authentic way to baptize.

Growing up in what was known as the Old Mennonite Church – as opposed to the General Conference Mennonite Church, where I suspect people smiled and laughed more – baptism was done by pouring. Rooted in the adult believer’s baptism tradition, for us baptism happened only when we reached the “age of accountability,” meaning we were old enough to understand and be convicted of our sin, seek to repent, be baptized, and thereby enter the body of Christ. Most commonly that “only when” turned out to be twelve years of age.

Accordingly, at some point in seventh grade Sunday School, my classmates and I were each presented with a card asking whether we were ready to repent, be baptized, and become a member of the church. You can imagine that it was hard to say no, especially for me, growing up thinking I was the little engine that should.

Confession for me generally involved wrenching acknowledgment to my parents of some truly petty misdeed. And so I felt compelled to confess to my mother my decision about baptism – a misdeed only in that I did not completely trust that it was real. She, of course, became uncomfortably emotional about it, exacerbating my underlying guilt with the uncertainty.

Pouring – representing the pouring out of the Spirit on believers – involved an elder in the congregation pouring water out of a pitcher into the cupped hands of the pastor, who then released the water onto the head of the supplicant, kneeling beside all the other twelve-year-olds in front of the congregation. I was so nervous and uncomfortable that the sound of the water running off my head, big droplets hitting the carpet, startled me into laughter. You can imagine what that did to a hyperactive conscience.

Suffice it to say that, in the heavily suppressed and private way of a blooming adolescent, I suffered mightily thinking that I was a fraud and not truly saved. I did not feel different. Being a pretty good kid, I did not act especially differently. I did not feel forgiven, I could not tell if Jesus had really come into my heart, I felt like I was supposed to be telling the world around me daily that I had been saved and that they should be, too. I did not want to do that. And I felt pretty guilty about all of it.

There is so much I remember with great affection about my church, a true community of faith. I wish that the invitation had been a little more real and less mechanized. But truly I know now that what I brought to the table simply came back to me in that experience. While I wish it had been different, I trust that it has been useful in my faith journey.

Somewhere around 1990, this and other quandaries nudged me into an exploration across global religious traditions. In my lifelong quest to know, to connect with, and to serve God, I could not let go of the notion that our Creator and Sustainer surely spoke in all places at all times.

For more than thirty years, I have read Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, and other scriptures, as well as Sufi poetry, and writings of the Christian mystics. All have led me to a richer and more satisfying understanding of my faith. I have not abandoned biblical scriptures or my core commitment to following the way of Jesus. But I have come to view everything about the life of faith as a journey of transformation. Baptism, for me, clarifies in that light.

A passage from the Katha Upanishad, written by a Hindu sage over 5,000 years ago, captures for me the essence of transformation:

In the secret cave of the heart, two are

Seated by life’s fountain. The separate ego

Drinks of the sweet and bitter stuff,

Liking the sweet, disliking the bitter,

While the supreme Self drinks sweet and bitter

Neither liking this nor disliking that.

The ego gropes in darkness, while the Self

Lives in light.

Discovering the disconnect of the small self, individual and isolated ego, from true Self, the person created and already inhabited by God, has led me away from trembling uncertainty about salvation and toward a joyful and fulfilling engagement of transformation.

What does this mean, day-to-day? It means that I practice being somehow more than my body, able to watch the way my separated, hungry, and fearful ego behaves and interacts with the world. It means I can watch and release my ego bound urges to defense and anger. I can see, with compassion, the driver who cuts me off as someone overtaken by their own anger or attachment to power, or just someone who made a mistake, the kind I make on a regular basis. It means, I hope, that I can do things for the satisfaction of doing what I am called to do, neither shying away from nor seeking recognition, letting go of insistence on specific outcomes. It means I can see when my passion gets in the way of relationship, learning to recognize the circumstances where I might run off the rails. It means I can sometimes set aside my selfish filters and soak in the whole true beauty of the person in front of me. It means, perhaps most importantly, that I can forgive myself and others with compassion, knowing that I am loved by something so much bigger. And I can share that love in service with others.

Interestingly, and refreshingly for me, this journey of transformation also corresponds harmoniously with Celtic Christian spirituality. From early times, the Celtic Christians believed in original goodness as opposed to the still dominant Augustinian belief in original sin. Pelagius, a Celtic contemporary of Augustine in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, argued that humans, made in the image of God, were free to choose whether or not to sin. There was no denial that we were prone to fall off the path. But there was trust that the image, the goodness of God, was our true center and we could return to it. Augustine argued that the sin of Adam and Eve tainted all humanity for all time and that humans were helpless in their sin. The pope at the time initially sided with Pelagius. But Augustine appealed to the government of Rome, which banned Pelagius, and the pope eventually fell in line. Pelagius was branded a heretic. Such are the ways of Christendom.

But the debate continued in the northern British Isles and this Celtic Christian tradition still thrives there and beyond. John Philip Newell, a theologian, prolific author, and sometime leader in both the Church of Scotland and the Anglican Church, is a leading contemporary proponent of creation spirituality.

I find it interesting that Celtic Christian spirituality traces its parentage to St. John, and the more reflective gospel attributed to him, while Roman spirituality has maintained the hierarchical line of Peter as the first pope, with Matthew its gospel standard. The Celts hold as a central image John leaning on Jesus’s breast at the last supper. They say that John, the presumptive but never actually named disciple whom Jesus loved, listened to the heartbeat of God – such a beautiful image for a life of faith.

So what does all this have to do with baptism? In the dominant Augustinian lineage, the one of age old Christendom, the one in which most of us were raised, baptism signifies salvation from a desperate and unshakeable state of eternal damnation. The only solution to this terrible state is through faith in the atoning act of the crucifixion, meaning – let’s be honest – the required bloodletting and tortuous murder of God’s supposedly only child. Baptism in this lineage is a drowning, a putting to death of the evil self, resurrected as a new and perfected being only because of the atoning sacrifice of Christ.

In the Celtic Christian tradition baptism is more like a welcome home to the true and eternal family of creation, a celebration of the image of God at the heart of every living thing. A believer emerges from the water cleaned up and shining, having recognized and washed away the effects of a fearful and falsely disconnected ego.

While it may seem odd, I understand the heresy of this for both church and state. These “powers that be” simply cannot deal with a cohort of its minions experiencing that much freedom and joy, especially without their permission and mediation.

“The ego gropes in darkness, while the Self lives in light.” Such amazing wisdom. Freedom and true joy are found in the choice to be free of the ceaseless judgments and grasping of ego, resting instead in the capital S Self. From the Celtic perspective, we could say that the small s ego self is not a different being. It’s just not awake to its true connection to God. I believe, with the Celts, that the difference between small s self and supreme Self is a choice we can make. The journey of Jesus through baptism, the various temptations in the wilderness, followed by his ministry is a beautiful example of this transformative journey. And it is a journey each of us can choose.

Close your eyes for a moment. Imagine yourself as a young child in the Garden of Eden. You are sitting by life’s fountain. If you look up with the innocent eyes of an ego that does not know its connection to creation, you might see what you believe is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. You might become afraid, knowing suddenly that you will die. You might fear that there is not enough to eat, and you will starve. You might believe that no one else cares.

In our fear, friend, we fled the Garden, grasping what we thought was power to protect ourselves. We exercised it in violence, greed, and the oppression of others – a failed attempt to save our isolated selves from what we believed to be our certain end.

Close your eyes again and imagine your Creator calling to you. “Dear child, I have created and placed you in the garden of beauty and goodness. Look, you are beside the fountain and under the Tree of Life. Everything you need to enjoy life and love is here. Don’t be afraid. You are not alone. We and everything and everyone around you are one. Here, let’s pick up this little frightened ego of yours. I love it as my own. There is no need to kill or destroy it, or anything else. Let’s just carry it back where it belongs, here with your family and your people. We’ll be right here under this tree with everything you need, beside the fountain that flows with the water of life. Look, here’s a blanket. Let’s have a picnic.”

And baptism? Well, as we say here in New Mexico, water is life. So many ways to know and love it:

Healing water
Peace like a river
Fountain of life
The shore
The acequia
Parting of the waters
Crossing over
The Living water

I don’t believe at all that the water of baptism is for the drowning death of anyone made in the image of our Creator. No, no, never.

O let all who thirst, let them come to the water. Let them come.

Salvation Is Not What You Were Told

Posted on December 6, 2024 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

Jesus saves. Boomers grew up hearing it and seeing it on signs by Baptist churches and on the marquees of city missions. The subtext was this: You were born a “sinner.” You “committed” things that were called “sins” because your nature was “fallen.” Jesus was nailed to a cross, suffering and bleeding as a sacrifice so that God would forgive your “sins.” God needed that blood, in fact the blood of his only son, or He (God, who remains He in the more oppressive parts of the cult) was not going to save your soul and would send you to hell, burning in eternal fire.

Other Protestant denominations presented maybe a softer version, but the intent was still the same. Jesus died for your sins. God be praised, because if this plan for salvation hadn’t come along, there would have been no hope for anyone for the past two millennia. At least before that there was provisional animal sacrifice that counted as kind of a beta test of the system until it was perfected.

Sacrifice appears in cultures all around the world, going back ten thousand years, and who knows how many more, before there were drawings on cave walls and, eventually, written language. The gods and spirits had to be pleased and appeased to assure good crops, success in hunting and warfare, and fertility. And generally there had to be a priest or other officiant who was called out by the gods and the community as an acceptable intercessor between sinful or simply vulnerable humans and the deity. And to this day, there are those who find solace in some form of the practice.

For centuries, Christian scholars and theologians have argued and refined the meaning of Jesus’s sacrifice, but the central concept has held on tight in the consciousness of the Christian tradition. The idea that his death was sacrifice for atonement has remained central.

That’s a funny thing, and probably the biggest reason that Western Christianity is sliding with increasing speed into the landfill of forgotten culture. This is truly a shame, because this whole blood sacrifice thing is not what Jesus spoke about or intended for his followers. His real message has been largely ignored. This also is a shame, as this message has huge relevance for our times.

Jesus addressed an oppressed citizenry during an era of powerful foreign military occupation and, as now, an increasingly irrelevant religious cult. And his message was this:

He announced his campaign with Isaiah’s language about release for the captive, recovery of sight for the blind, and declaration of the year of Jubilee, a season of economic rest and readjustment to make sure no one suffered at the bottom of a disparate social order. No wonder Rome had few qualms about killing him.
He spent his ministry healing people, often saying people’s sins were forgiven. This is grossly misinterpreted to mean that “sins” were the cause of illness and disability. He was quite specific that this was not the case. His intention was to buck a religious cult that used this system of never good enough to keep the populace obligated. No wonder the cult leadership had few qualms about killing him.
What he was really saying is, your “sins” have always been forgiven. You have not been accused; you have been called. The important thing is to learn from errors and grow up.
Healing, kindness, sharing with those in need, and absolute nonviolence were the entirety of his message. Love each other. And when you do that, you, just like me (Jesus speaking here), are a child of the Spirit, a true child of your Creator.
To make this concrete, he continually invited followers to join him as a citizen of the kingdom – let’s say country – of heaven. This was not imaginary or symbolic. It was a complete change of life – one that should seemingly have been acceptable in any religious or political context because it was so non-offensive. The powers, however, would have none of it because it put people in control of themselves, outside the system of sanctions and rewards, outside the winner takes all economy used by political and religious institutions alike to keep people subjugated.
This turning, this move of primary citizenship out of a state of oppression and into a state of freedom, characterized by compassionate community, was the whole call to and meaning of salvation. Zaccheus was saved, for instance, when he made the turn from a life founded on the economic oppression of others through manipulation of tax gathering, to one of sharing. He was relieved, saved, from the burden of his oppressive way of life, finding true satisfaction in joining a community of fairness and love.

Our times, like many, share much with the times of Jesus. The religious cult – in the current western situation, all variants of Christianity – has become irrelevant, grasping at straws to keep its numbers strong and its economic resources flowing. And we can see government collapsing around us as it jockeys for position in the world and has lost touch with all but an elite that is shrinking in numbers as it increases in wealth.

The genuine religious invitation, the invitation to conversion, is the invitation to step out of the institutional rat race of wealth and power and step into true humanity. Government and institutional religion might choose to follow. More likely, they will close ranks and resort to violence to regain what they perceive as lost control.

The thing about the choice of true conversion is the deep sense of satisfaction and peace found by those who choose to turn. Somehow our Creator hardwired us for connection, kindness, and mutual support, not for an attachment to power and gain which can never be fully satiated. What a joy, to consider and make the turn away from grasping and oppression and toward nonviolent and compassionate connection. You and I are invited to make that turn and live that life.

The biblical narrative tells of two trees in the Garden of Eden. But I believe there was only one, the Tree of Life, with its fruit in every season and its leaves for the healing of the nations. We turned it into the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil when we let fear take control, turning us away from sharing community and toward grasping individuality. The call has always been to remove the false mask of isolation and fear, and to come back to trust in a community of kindness and connection.

© Jerry S Kennell

Ending Polarization Through Kindness

Posted on October 30, 2024 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

What country do you live in? These days in the United States it might seem hard to tell. Or maybe it is easy because everyone knows what country everyone else lives in. They’re a fascist or they’re a radical leftist. Either way, my existence is mortally imperiled by their existence. And the only path forward is to make sure my side has more electoral votes or the guns to blow away the cheaters if the count does not go my way.

We are angrier and angrier, jumping up and down, yelling, making threats, certain that the end is near if our side does not win. We spin and twirl like whirling dervishes to the tune of unseen social media influencers with who knows what motivations. If their goals are chaos and self-destruction, hats off to them. They are truly amazing and bound to win.

Everyone wants to save America. Here’s a suggestion. Let’s try kindness. You say, “I will if the other side does, too.” I say, “No. Let’s try kindness.” It takes two sides to start and have a fight. It takes one side to end it, not by blowing the other side to oblivion, but by – heavens to Murgatroyd – just not fighting. But, Holy Captain America, we can’t do that! That makes us losers!

Peace in the Middle East will never come from continued acts of terrorism followed by scorched earth retaliation. Progress will never happen in Congress with turf fights at all costs. And when was the last time you or I successfully engaged another driver in a round of road rage? And even if we did not physically engage, how useful was that shot of adrenaline and cortisol? Did we enjoy that moment? Was the burn healthy and healing? Are we happy and satisfied with the percentage of our lifetime spent feeling that way?

No? Then for our own sake, why not take a deep breath and let it go? Our antagonist is only our antagonist if we let them be. They cannot make us feel or act one way or another. Only you and I can do that. What amazing power we have! And the coolest part is, this silly little truth has equal validity from the playground to the battleground, and all points in between.

There were two special trees in the Garden of Eden – the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life. One has roots of fear and fruits of greed, defense, and violence. The other has roots of trust and fruits of kindness, compassion, and community. But look again. They are the same tree! It’s just my chosen point of view. What amazing power I’ve been granted!

Woman, Wisdom and The Word: Reflections on the Divine Feminine

Posted on February 4, 2024 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

For reference, with text included after the blog:

Proverbs 8:22-31; The words of Sophia, the Wisdom of God
John 1:1-5; 9-14; In the beginning was the Word
Gospel of the Beloved Companion 1:1; 2:1-3; The words of Mary Magdelene, the Beloved Companion
From the Book of Wisdom, Chapter 7; More from Sophia
Suzanne; Song by Leonard Cohen

Scripture is such a mess. Or maybe it’s that we are such a mess when we come to it. We can’t decide what is literal and what is metaphorical. We can’t decide what it means to be the inspired Word. Does that mean that God just grabbed somebody and put exactly the right words in their mouth, in their pen? And did it all stay perfect despite coming through a human mind, conditioned by the culture and times? Did God really appoint a council of male patriarchs to decide what was true and accurate about Jesus, three hundred years after his life? Did inspiration die with the closing of the canon? And is the Holy Bible the only true scripture?

Humankind has spent millennia debating these things. Wars have been fought, are being fought every day still, over whose truth is true, whose land and people it is tied to, and what ought to be done about that. Scripture has been used to weaponize power, maybe as often as it has been used to sooth and heal a broken soul.

In the Christian tradition, patriarchy, for example, has asserted and abused power consistently, perhaps as early as the listing of who was a disciple (only males in the authorized writing), and certainly since the church, the intended bride of Christ, eloped with the empire of Rome in the fourth century CE.

As a man of unmerited privilege, I am among the least qualified to speak of the feminine aspect of God’s relationship to creation. But I can at least recall, in my own upbringing, that well into the 1950’s and early 60’s, women in my rural Mennonite church wore little white net caps called coverings because the Apostle Paul, over twenty-centuries ago said that a woman should cover her head during worship. And the same church, as recently as twenty years ago, split over questions of whether women could serve even as ushers, let alone ministers. I saw one of the pastors at that time slam his Bible to the floor and declare that we might as well just stomp on it, stomp on the Word of the Lord, if we are going to allow such things. I am pleased to say that the remnant that remained at Roanoke Mennonite Church, the families nearest and dearest to my own, in more recent years have a pastoral team of three, two of whom are women.

The first scripture referenced above is from the book of Proverbs. For whatever reason, as part of the set of scriptures labeled wisdom, Proverbs received little to no attention in my upbringing. Maybe some small consternation and debate over “spare the rod and spoil the child.” But it was certainly never said to me that wisdom, the purported author and narrator of the book, was Sophia, the lovely feminine breath of God, waiting to touch and nurture me.

In the summer of 1972, nineteen years-of-age going on twenty, I spent eight weeks studying in England. In that same year, I felt compelled to read the Holy Bible from cover to cover. You know, it’s really not that long. It’s just that we spend so much time, like I’m doing here, trying to make so much of every little word.

I digress. In July of that summer, during a course on Shakespeare in Stratford upon Avon, I arrived at the book of Proverbs. She took me in, although I was still blind to the femininity of her voice. I was blown away by her words, and hopelessly drawn by a desire to be filled with wisdom. That filling became my earnest and constant prayer. Even today I enjoy looking back at my tattered Revised Standard Version and seeing the many highlights and note I wrote during that encounter.

And so we have these lovely voices of delight and wisdom today. The wonder and thrill of Sophia co-creating everything, every little thing, with the Creator. The beautiful image of the Word made flesh in John. And Mary Magdelene reveling in her connection to the great I Am. “I am with him in the beginning, and I am with him in the end, and I know that his testimony is true.”

So who are these characters, these expressions of the Creator presented to us? These scriptures tell us that there is this woman named wisdom, or Sophia in Greek. She was, is, in the beginning and now with God, part of God, loving and creating. Her title is Wisdom. She delights, with God, in people. Her name is also Spirit. She is the breath of God, the breath that carries and makes it possible for the Word of God to be heard, the breath that gives life to human flesh and all that lives.

If we believe her story, Sophia has co-existed forever with the Word. And we might also see that, in fact, she has a brother named Jesus. There’s a surprise, but maybe not if you are a real trinitarian. Jesus, too, was, is, in the beginning with God, part of God, loving and creating. He delights, with God, in the little ones and heals all that is broken. His title is Word. Together they are light and life, gifting with joy to all of creation.

In both John and the Beloved Companion, The Word, through the breath of spirit, became flesh, and all who received him learned that they are children of God. They are not like children of God, not kind-of children of God. With Wisdom and the Word, they – you, we – are fully children of God. As children, they/we see and delight in all of creation and in the human race. We can do that every day, delight in each other, and in the entire human race.

But many would not/will not own being children. They would not/will not trust in being part of the light and the life. They could not/cannot accept and rest in just being part, and not the whole. They wanted it all for themselves, and so they created their own tools of darkness. They created fear, the fear of death and of hunger and of pain. And they directed that fear into domination, and anger, and greed, into hatred and violence. And they turned that hatred against the flesh of the Word, and they killed that flesh because it was everything they were not, and they could not stand it. And they continue to kill it to this very day.

But they could not/cannot kill the Word. It lives on in every cup of cold water, every act of forgiveness, every blessing of a child, every bite of food for the hungry, every touch of compassion, every urge toward community. The Word lives on in all who became, who become children because they understand and delight that the Word is Love. And in each one, the Word again becomes flesh, walking with light and kindness beside and through the darkness that continues to hate, to claim false power, to name everything, living and material, as its own, only its own.

It was different with Sophia, and yet the same. She, too, became flesh, the flesh of woman, the flesh of birth, the urge to beauty, to the ecstasy that births new life, to the joy of creating and the tenderness of nurturing. As the breath of God, she carried the Word in her arms, fed it of her body, taught it and raised it to learn and to know her Wise ways. Sometimes the whole is just too much for us to see. So She mirrored, she holds the mirror to the Word, bringing it into focus for every creature so that they can see and know the truth of Love, the truth of their nature as authentic children. We begin to see, with awe and wonder, Leonard Cohen’s heroes in the seaweed, the children in the morning.

But many turned on Sophia, too. They blamed her, from earliest days, for trying to share God’s gift of the Tree of Life, planted in the center of the Garden of Eden. They wanted all the fruit for themselves, wanted not to be part of creation, but to be the very creator and controller. They took the fruit of the Tree of Life and renamed the tree as the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, claiming for themselves the power to judge, to dominate, to consume, and to exploit. Their accomplishment has been the defoliation, decimation and desecration of the Garden itself, and the legacy of resentment, fear, and abuse of women.

Because Sophia/Woman represented the combination of giving and vulnerability, they hated her as much as they hated the Word, maybe even more. Over the eons she was often ravished and despised. Evil men feared the power of her attraction, her giving, her kindness. They insisted that she was only pure and acceptable as a virgin. They filled her with demons before admitting her to the company of Jesus. They tried to stone her in the presence of the Word. They could not stand the power or her life-giving presence.

But she was the one to whose home the Word went for refuge during his ministry. She was the one who was there at his trial and did not deny him and run away. She was the one that stayed with him at the foot of the cross. And she was the one that came, that had the power to recognize him, the first one whose name he spoke in loving tenderness when he emerged from the tomb, uncovering the lie of the false powers of darkness and death.

And so we praise you, Sophia/Wise Woman/Magdalene/Spirit Breath that for all time has carried the Word. We praise you, co-creator that participates in, delights in and marvels at creation. We praise you, Spirit, that enlivens us, gifting wisdom and sound counsel, filling us with the very presence of God. We praise the wholeness of a Creator, that despite the efforts of evil over the ages, presents over and over as the most complete of beings, embodying the amazing entirety of full humanity, created in the image, created in the image. We praise you, both Breath and Word that come to us in all times and places, filling us with wisdom, animating us with love.

Hail Mary, all the Marys, all the Eves, all the Lydias and Suzannes and Sophias, full of grace. Blessed art thou among women. And blessed is the fruit of thy womb.

Proverbs 8:22-31, New Revised Standard Version

The words of Sophia, the Wisdom of God

The Lord created me at the beginning of his work,

the first of his acts of long ago.

Ages ago I was set up,

at the first, before the beginning of the earth.

When there were no depths I was brought forth,

when there were no springs abounding with water.

Before the mountains had been shaped,

before the hills, I was brought forth—

when he had not yet made earth and fields,

or the world’s first bits of soil.

When he established the heavens, I was there,

when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,

when he made firm the skies above,

when he established the fountains of the deep,

when he assigned to the sea its limit,

so that the waters might not transgress his command,

when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker;

and I was daily his delight,

rejoicing before him always,

rejoicing in his inhabited world

and delighting in the human race.

John 1:1-5; 9-14, New Revised Standard Version

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.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to

become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

The Gospel of the Beloved Companion 1:1; 2:1-3

The words of Mary, the Beloved Companion

This is the testimony of the son of humanity once known as Yeshua. All that I say here is true; of his words, his deeds, his life and his death. You will know my words are true because others have testified of the same, and their words are the same, and where two testify together the law says that it is true. I am with him in the beginning, and I am with him in the end, and I know that his testimony is true.

There came a man out of the land of Yehuda, sent from the Spirit, whose name was Yeshua, son of Yosef in the tribe of Yudah. In him was life and that life was the light of humanity, the light that shines against the darkness, and never has the darkness overcome it.

Yeshua lived and walked among us. We saw his glory, such glory as of a true son of humanity, full of grace and truth. He was in the world, and through him the world would be born anew, but the world did not recognize him.

He came to his own, and those who were his own did not receive him. But as many as did receive him, to them he gave the power to become the children of the Living Spirit, for those who believed in his teachings were born into life not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of the Spirit.

From the Book of Wisdom, Chapter 7, Jerusalem Bible

All that is hidden, all that is plain, I have come to know, instructed by Wisdom.… Within her is a spirit intelligent, holy, unique, manifold, subtle, active, incisive, unsullied, lucid, invulnerable, benevolent, … dependable, unperturbed, almighty, all-surveying…. She pervades and permeates all things. She is the untarnished mirror of God’s active power.… She makes all things new. In each generation she passes into holy souls.

From Leonard Cohen, Suzanne

Now, Suzanne takes your hand and she leads you to the river
She’s wearing rags and feathers from Salvation Army counters
And the sun pours down like honey on our lady of the harbor
And she shows you where to look among the garbage and the flowers
There are heroes in the seaweed, there are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love and they will lean that way forever
While Suzanne holds the mirror

And you want to travel with her, and you want to travel blind

And you think maybe you’ll trust her

For she’s touched your perfect body with her mind

ISIS, Paris and the Fight for Dominance

Posted on November 15, 2015 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

ISIS this week brought its bloody bully show to the world media stage in the City of Light. We are saddened and disgusted by the loss of innocent lives in Paris, guilty only of being different. We grieve with the bereft and hurt with the wounded. We are twisted with angst that people disparage their own lives for the sole purpose of doing violence to others. How can this happen in the modern world? Will it happen to me? How can we stop it? What can it possibly be about?

Ultimately, all fights are about dominance. We perceive someone or something to be a threat to our wellbeing. Something about them makes us afraid that our particular way of life, our daily existence, is at risk. We respond with force.

A toddler wants control of a toy. Another toddler takes possession. A sense of violation takes over. Words or blows are exchanged, followed by tears and rage employed to elicit the intervention of a higher power to enforce justice.

Really, that is all there is:

A fundamentalist wants their god to dominate all others.
A mining company wants a peasant’s land.
A racist wants safety from and control over people of different skin pigmentation.
A man wants to dominate a woman.
A consumer wants the latest gadget for a life of no bother.

Violence ensues, whether in person or by proxy.

Good teachers and parents show children the value of sharing and cooperation. But the world around us teaches other lessons. At the end of the day, people are wounded and die. Some are beheaded or torn to bits in a suicide bombers’ blast. Most, truly, are the innocent casualties of another’s war. Iraq Body Count estimates somewhere between 146,000 and 166,000 violent civilian deaths since the 2003 United States invasion. When combatants are added in, the toll rises to 224,000. When secondarily related deaths are counted (a person in need of medical services or other life necessities they cannot access because of the war), the toll rises to over one-half million (see Huffington Post). And that is just one of today’s many wars.

Whether we are a toddler, a religion, an economic system or a nation, we see dominance as the antidote for our fears. And we set all good teaching and rationality aside, spending any resource to preserve our wounded ego and supposed safety through the use of force.

It does not work. Hitler rose to power by channeling collective fear into violent domination. The whack-a-mole response of World War II put an end to that only to yield the greater horror of nuclear annihilation and the super-power struggles of the Cold War. And no military or terrorist action by anyone in any place since then has achieved a lasting peace as a net result of the violence applied. Humanity ultimately seems cowed only by the insanity of mutually assured destruction.

Is that what we want? Whether Muslim, Christian, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist or Atheist; whether American, Iraqi, Malaysian or Saudi; whether capitalist, socialist, communist or military dictator; whether retiree, school teacher, cashier or toddler on the playground, we make our choices. We make them in each breath.

Will we make the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil choice, the one that says there is not enough and that every other being is a competitor and a threat to our existence? Will we strike out in violence, large or small, overt or subtle, to secure what is never more than a temporary chimera of control? This happens each day at every level, from the battle to dominate our little vehicular turf on the highway to the unfathomable resources thrown into the assertion of military force.

Or will we learn the Tree of Life lesson of all our good teachers – everyone from the Buddha to Jesus to Mohammed to Mr. Rogers? Life works when we listen to others and share. Life works when we give up dominance, altogether, in favor of mutually assured satisfaction.

Life works, in fact, when we are willing to suffer the blow delivered by another and return only compassion and kindness. There is never a victory through violence. There is never ultimate security in threat. We win only when we give up the fight altogether and show another way. And so we teach our children. But we refuse to believe it and live it in every breath and aspect of our adult lives.

Love your enemy. Turn the other cheek. Walk the second mile. There is nothing passive about these things. All are active assertions of a better way. The Tree of Life grows surely at the end of that road.

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.

Syria, Guatemala, the Twin Towers and the Tree of Life

Posted on September 6, 2015 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

Syrian and African refugees are flooding Europe. Foreign ministers of the EU huddle in angst to find a solution to the crisis. A little boy lapped by the waves on the beach captures our heart, a heart that we believe helpless to solve either the hostilities of the terrorist threat or the plight of the poor. Meanwhile thousands upon thousands of Central Americans flee gang and narco-violence only to be housed in detention centers for children in Texas. We, with Hungary, dream of a better wall.

In 1954 the US Central Intelligence Agency, in league with United Fruit Company, Congress, President Eisenhower and the US Department of State, overthrew the democratically elected government of Guatemala. The New York Times, Time Magazine and the rest of the major media of the day swallowed the manufactured anti-communist rhetoric, reporting persistently and with favor what in reality was a thin charade of a military coup against a very democratic regime. The agricultural land and labor of the indigenous people of Guatemala were the true prize.

Alas, it didn’t work out so well and ultimately required millions of dollars of arms, annually, to support successive regimes of oppression in the slaughter or disappearance of an estimated 250,000 Guatemalans, mostly indigenous, in the years between then and the early 1990’s. Today, US and Canadian mining and agricultural interests quietly pursue the same business, in league with governments to engineer trade pacts that pave the way for the interests of wealth at the expense of the powerless. We are blind and complicit in our convenient comfort.

The Guatemalan people, once again last week, spoke up, peacefully and successfully, to unseat the latest propped up corrupt president – a seeming victory. But let’s read the history. Anyone elected who intends to act in the best interests of all the citizens of Guatemala faces North American defamation and, as likely, murder for their efforts. The best interests of all the citizens of Guatemala do not align with the insatiable hunger of the powers that be.

Greed fuels the engine of power abused. Violence and despair are its polluted exhaust. And there is no limit to the sophistication and depravity of lies and destruction that, unchecked, may be served up to keep that turbine whirling.

Fourteen years ago this week, these same powers co-opted the destruction of the World Trade Center towers as the demon of terrorism to mask yet another generation of violence in the Middle East. The bitter fruit of that story is no different than that of Guatemala. Hundreds of thousands, mostly civilian, lie dead (only thousands of our own, a cynically acceptable return on investment) in an ecological, social and political waste land that cranks out profits beyond the pale for military and oil contractors. And the embedded press, as always, missed the story entirely, serving up the dulling Kool-Aid® of terrorist threat to a complacent and willing public.

Time will tell whether the demise of those buildings and lives served only as serendipitously convenient cover or whether, just like in 1954, this was an orchestrated sleight of hand to camouflage greed beyond imagination. No matter at this point. Violence and greed breed poverty and oppression, paving the way for trafficking and profiteering of all kinds. Terrorists, drug lords, pimps and gang leaders are no more than a distracting by-product. The immigrant crisis in Europe and the United States is not the problem of those that are fleeing. Nor is it the result of the immediate violence that pushes these poor people, at last, to embrace the risk and humiliation of their plight. Rather, it is the fruit of the soil tilled by the heart of greed.

There is no political or military solution, friends. There is no magical system or policy. And our Band-Aid® social and relief programs address only symptoms, not the disease. There is only our willful refusal to connect the dots all the way back to the root and make the choice for which we are responsible.

When we are stuck in the fear of death under the metaphorical Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, we respond with greed, violence and the abuse of power. We do this as individuals. And the heart we choose as individuals becomes the collective heart of our institutions of commerce, religion and government. These work together seamlessly to mask our bottomless fear, hunger and despair.

When the individuals at the helm of obscene wealth and its political, covert and military minions come to terms with the empty depravity of their abusive choices; when we as citizens of privilege are willing to face our complicity in blind addiction to comfort, we may find and embrace the solution to both the misery of the oppressed and the wake of violence that flows in to fill the void of our desecration.

We are neither helpless nor irreparably fallen. We have a choice. There is enough. We are each and all responsible. When we turn to live under the Tree of Life, we choose to embrace rather than oppress the powerless. We refuse to create an enemy that masks and justifies the violence of our greed. And we harvest the fruit of goodness instead of the bitter and rotten fruit we feed to the refugees of our depravity.

Conversion and salvation are not the easy mouthing of the name of Jesus. They are, rather, the conscious and practiced choice of maturity, of becoming the true Self of compassion and kindness we are intended and able to be. Come Lord Jesus. Come Mohammed, Buddha, Krishna and Aunt Susie. Come you and me, with nothing but the desire to heal our hearts, in rest and sharing under the Tree of Life. It is there, for our choosing, at the center of the City of Our Source, with its fruit in every season and its leaves for the healing of the nations. (Revelation 22: 2)

Dylann Roof and the Invitation to Transformation

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

On June 19, 2015, in a courtroom in Charleston, South Carolina, members of the families of the shooting victims of Dylann Roof, one by one, addressed Mr. Roof with words, not of reconciliation, but of forgiveness and the invitation to his own transformation.

In the words of Wanda Simmons, granddaughter of the murdered Daniel Simmons: “Although my grandfather and the other victims died at the hands of hate, this is proof, everyone’s plea for your soul, is proof that they lived in love and their legacies will live in love. So hate won’t win.”

These were words of deep maturity, of great strength and power of spirit. These were the words of people who have made the arduous journey of transformation from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to the Tree of Life. They speak volumes to each of us and to our society, a society that more naturally turns to the language of vengeance than to the invitation to transformation.

Transformation is the movement from the lie to the truth. It involves abandoning the lie of violent protection of the defended self and moves to open and compassionate engagement. It is an assertive and passionate stance that postures itself in fearless non-defense as it presents its invitation to compassionate connection.

Transformation is all encompassing. True transformation addresses every corner, every action and interaction of life. The big transformation reflected in these people’s beautiful statements does not happen without continual loving attention to the mundane. I want to drive the same streets as these people. I want to meet them when the clerk cannot solve my problem at the checkout counter, when my computer crashes and the washing machine breaks down. I want to be them when my neighbor hates cats or believes something not true about me.

Transformation denies nothing. Rather, it feels all fully, expresses all truly and then makes the choice of non-defensive invitation. I cannot say this more clearly than to use the words of Nadine Carter, daughter of the slain Ethel Lance: “I forgive you. You took something very precious away from me. I will never get to talk to her ever again. I will never be able to hold her again, but I forgive you, and have mercy on your soul. … You hurt me. You hurt a lot of people. If God forgives you, I forgive you.”

Transformation is not distracted. Rather, it is present and engaged. This is no small thing in contemporary culture, a culture of the numbing distraction of the material packaged in the seductive pill of perpetual media. The transformed life is practiced and lived in active presence, not in passive distraction.

Transformation addresses the heart, not the periphery of the matter. Change happens by planting and nurturing the right seeds, not by trying to stick new leaves on old trees. The courts will perform the duty of public safety by placing necessary physical constraints on Dylann Roof. And to the extent of the law, they may go beyond that, in expression of the tree of our broader culture, by acting out violent retribution. Aside from limited safety, nothing changes in this model. But these profound people, instead, have offered Mr. Roof the seeds of true transformation in the gift of forgiveness, the invitation to repentance (change of heart and mind) and the call to engagement of new life through the path of transformation.

Transformation is for people and affects systems. It is true that we need systems that reflect transformation. But systems only reflect the condition of the collective soul. Our collective soul reflects, increasingly, massive greed masked by perpetual distraction and enforced, ultimately, by violence. Johnny Appleseed grew apple trees by planting apple seeds. True transformation of systems happens through the constant invitation to and nurture of individual change. Dylann Roof, dear friends, has been invited.

Transformation is a choice. In fact it involves one choice after another, with practice. Like musicians who have mastered their instrument through years of focused practice, these fine people have achieved mastery of their lives through abandonment of defended ego in favor of compassionate connection and engagement.

Ultimately, transformation is the singular journey of our life. It is the journey home, the journey from isolated small “s” self to connected capital “S” Self. It is the journey that transcends suffering and death, that recognizes and clings to the eternal and relinquishes the temporal.

May we each have the courage to engage transformation and practice it with the persistence demonstrated by these amazing people. May we abandon isolated and defended ego in the embrace of fearless connection. May we invite others – even those who would kill us in hatred with the hands and feet of fear – may we invite them to join us under the Tree of Life.

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

The Spirit of Willingness on the Wave of Creation

Posted on June 7, 2015 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

Last year I lived in a completely secular cooperatively owned housing complex. Each person was there for their own reason, with the common denominator being affordability. Each brought, consciously or otherwise, their own set of enacted values which, as a whole, shaped the character and life of the community. I learned in spades the difference that each individual choice and action made in the quality of life and relationships. Careful attention to full awareness of the other and to actions that strengthened relationships and built community yielded palpable and tangible changes in the nature and spirit of daily life. Attitudes of selfishness and defense contributed equally powerful results in another direction.

There is a sweet spot of rest and action for our spirit. It rides the crest of the wave of creation – the push of energy into the void, the place where sound and light – the Word of Creation and the Spirit that carries and speaks it – manifest as something new, another beauty, in the world as we know it, the world as it becomes.

I can perceive myself as alone on that crest, as an isolated individual, a singular atom or particle that must fight for protection, the avoidance of destruction in what seems like a violent rush forward into the unknown. My action response is willfulness. Willfulness pushes out to force into being what I hope will be a safe and protective space. Willfulness grabs for resources that I think will sustain me against the rush. In willfulness, I believe I am using my own power to protect and preserve myself and my little space against a scary and unpredictable world.

But the truth is, I have no singular power. I possess nothing that is uniquely mine. And my only achievement when I believe and act otherwise is to create an insubstantial lie, an illusion of security that will crash, burn and drift to nothingness, certainly at the time of my physical demise if not before.

There is a paradox of singularity and oneness on that glorious wave crest. I am, indeed, a spot and spark of awareness, a phosphorescence – something perhaps analogous to the bioluminescent organisms in the bay at Vieques, off Puerto Rico. My actions and intentions matter. They matter because I am, whether or not I like it or believe it, connected to the whole.

When I act alone with willfulness, I create a small scar, something that does not fit and flow in the creative surge. I hinder the curve and curl in my brief moment. And I may destroy the hope and creative activity of those around me, all those with whom I am in direct or indirect relationship.

But when I recognize and rest in my connection to broader spirit and act from a posture of willingness, I flow forward with confidence. And I am aware of the others flowing forward around me. I see their spark, I understand our connection in the wave. I realize that beauty and community depend on and respond to both my restful connection and my acts of intention. I contribute to the luminous glow, the shape and texture of the curl as creation advances.

We are not, as we falsely tell ourselves, alone under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. We are one under the Tree of Life. Willfulness blinds us to this truth, throwing up barriers of fear that cause pain and brokenness in our immediate and extended relationships.

Willingness opens to the whole, with an understanding that our creative power is one, a point of lovely and loving energetic awareness on the leading edge of the complete breath of God/Creator/Spirit/Mind/Source as it pushes forward in its surge to beauty and being on the edge of the void. Rest in the flow. Open your light with willingness, yielding up its luminescence to join with others, as far as your relaxed awareness will take you on this ride to all that will be.

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

Forgiveness II: Our Emotions Are Our Teachers and Not Our Rulers

Posted on April 18, 2015 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

“Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.” (Jesus to Peter, Matthew 18: 22, NRSV on the question of how often to forgive) Stuff just doesn’t go away that easily. It’s not so much that someone has wronged us seventy-seven times. It’s more that we keep working on the wrongs that really nail us over and over and over. The encouragement, I believe, is not to be a fool and allow the same person to harm us seventy-seven times – the delightful wallow of co-dependence – but rather to keep working it out, keep working it out.

Whatever the cause of a deep pain, our overwhelming response is anger, the desire for revenge and even hatred of another. These are natural emotional efforts to protect ourselves. It hurts. I’ve been wounded. I have lost things that cannot be recovered. There are scars. The wounds may be physical, psychic or both.

Here’s the thing. We need our emotions to be our teachers and not our rulers. We need our emotions to be our teachers and not our rulers. The first seventy-five times we work at forgiving someone in our head we are probably just learning that lesson. The problem is that we feel bad about the emotions – the fact that we are still angry about having to give our perpetrator a Get Out of Jail (or Get Out of Hell, as the case may be) Free Card.

Emotions jump up and tell us that we have been hurt, that we have been violated, that we are suffering and in need of repair because of the actions of another. Pay attention. These are messengers. We need compassion. We need care. We need healing.

Our Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil response is to let these emotions become our rulers. OK, anger, take charge. This feels good. Let’s get violent, whether in thought, word or deed. Whether in aggression that is active or cloaked in passivity. Let’s break some china. Let’s destroy some things, deliver the pain that will bring this sum back to zero. Let’s take it a step further to teach a lesson and win the game. Be done with this sucker.

All of this is compounded by the deep wounds of childhood, wounds that happened before we had any clue of how to deal with them. Wounds when we were innocent and did not even know that the world should not be, or might not be like the world we were experiencing. Seventy times seventy times seventy, the iteration and years of learning and coming to terms with these wounds.

Under the Tree of Life, our emotions are our teachers and not our rulers. They tell us that our little manifestation of Creator/Spirit/Mind/Source has been wounded. We need protection and shelter. If we are wise, we will give true heed to the inclinations for fight or flight, and we will make, for us, the best choice about the immediate and longer term path out of danger.

Ultimately, perhaps around cycle seventy-six of our desire for revenge, we may begin to understand the edict that we love our neighbor as our self. We begin to love our self. We hear our own pain and respond with compassion. We see our wounds and apply the dressings, or find the person who can help us apply them. We sit with our self. Our capital S eternal Self beyond all harm sits, and holds, and cries, and rocks and soothes our small s manifested and wounded self. We gift our self the Breath of Life that cools, the Healing Water that cleanses, the Leaves of the Tree that create the balm of protection and restoration.

And when seventy-seven rolls around, we might just be ready to turn to our neighbor, our father, our mother, our colleague, the perpetrator of our hurt. We turn and we offer, from our Self to their self, the seat of welcome and restoration. Come sit beside me, here, beneath the Tree of Life, with its fruit in every season and its leaves for the healing of the nations.

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

The Choice of Devotion

Posted on February 7, 2015 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

Sri Ramakrishna, the 19^th century Indian saint, embodied above all things the practice of devotion. He eschewed study and strict adherence to Hindu ritual in favor of childlike adoration of Kali, the feminine aspect of Creator/Spirit/Mind/Source. Sometimes petulant, sometimes playful, often appearing mad and completely out of control with devotion, he yearned to become one. He whimpered, pestered and cried to experience absolute unity with the Godhead through ceaseless pursuit of Kali’s attention and affection.

And by all reports he was rewarded, after a time but then regularly, with the state of Samadhi, the expansive experience of complete absorption, joy and oneness with C/S/M/S. In the midst of teaching his disciples, he would break into songs of adoration and then effortlessly enter and return from extended states of unitive bliss. He brought back tales of love and beauty beyond measure. Even dying of throat cancer, he seemed oblivious to his physical condition because of his laser focused devotion to the divine, the profound reality of his journeys.

Rumi, Teresa of Avila, Paramahansa Yogananda, Hildegard von Bingen; the great mystics of all traditions have been explorers of the outer edges and inner depths of human spirituality. Their times and cultures somehow made space for them, accommodated their extravagance, supported or at least tolerated their journeys. For all time, we welcome and stand in awe of the news they bring back.

Most of us live in the world of more mundane dimensions. We are the householders, the engineers and teachers, the burger flippers and shopkeepers of day-to-day existence. We raise kids and deal with plumbing problems and domestic struggles. We worry about our finances and the decisions of our governments.

But here’s the thing. Is there really any less wonder in the day-to-day? Is the amazing expression of Creator/Spirit/Mind/Source any less as I turn right onto Montgomery Boulevard and walk or drive to the grocery store? I don’t think so. I don’t believe for a minute that C/S/M/S is any less present or less available for connection in the ordinary moments of daily existence.

In a single block, I see, I am part of the homeless person holding a sign for support at the intersection, the turquoise sky of the Southwest, the courtesy and service of the store clerk as I check out my oranges and baking powder. I am granted in every instant, at every turn, the opportunity for choice and participation. Will I engage consciously, with all my thought, all my intention, all my heart? Will I play my part, giving and receiving with wonder and gratitude? Will I practice love, joy, peace, patience, kindness and self-control – the beautiful and deeply satisfying fruits of the Tree of Life?

Or will I stay asleep at the wheel, angry at the young person who cut impulsively in front of me in the parking lot? Will I numb myself, choosing to be lost in the tedium, bother and annoyance of a world that just doesn’t get what I want, what I need, what I deserve?

Whatever my talent, whatever piece of the extravagance of God I am gifted to touch and unfold for the world around me, I have the choice of devotion or neglect. I can touch a relationship for healing, or I can stay lost in my hurt ego. I can polish my little part with the devotion of joy, or I can miss the moment, the now, entirely.

Truly, we each choose our devotion and practice it persistently throughout our life. Under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, our primary devotion is to preservation of self. We think we protect an isolated and threatened ego with fear, anger, defense, power, greed and violence.

Under the Tree of Life, we choose a different practice. We practice connection of Self; not an abandoned ego, but a connected Ego. We offer, we recognize and realize with willingness, our connection to Creator/Spirit/Mind/Self, the entire created universe. And we start and end by focusing that connection on the immediate. We are clear, we are conscious. Where there is anger we see hurt. Where there is the inability to function productively on a daily basis, for whatever reason, we feel cold and hunger. Wherever, whatever, we experience the deep beauty, the struggle of the birthing universe. And we become the midwife of creation.

Let’s choose that devotion, our home in all that is. Let’s find ourselves beneath the Tree of Life, with its leaves for the healing of everything.

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

O Holy Night

Posted on December 25, 2014 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

Something extraordinary happened in the birth of Jesus. No one bothers to write tales of wonder about the birth of most of us: confounding tales of deep simplicity and wild extravagance; no room at the inn and choirs of angels; the politicos already attuned to the threat to power.

We come looking for a savior and king. Something in us yearns for the perfect leader, the one who will make it all right, with enough for everyone, the end of death and sorrow and pain.

But the prince of peace would not be king. He said to serve each other the way we have been served. The supposed savior said it is, in fact, your own faith that makes you whole. The one who shines a light on the path to the Tree of Life said that you – you and me – you are the light of the world.

And the one slaughtered on a cross did not call us to receive salvation kneeling at the foot of that tree. The way of Jesus calls us all the way to the terrible end hanging from the top, nailed to the gnarly limbs of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: a death by submission to connection, by willingness to release the isolation of ego; death to fear; death to selfishness and the violence it engenders; the overwhelming death of embracing the pain, fear and sorrow of life without turning away, without running to hide, with no father or regiment of angels to take us down from that hanging before the last ounce is wrung out.

There is a barrier, a chimera, a lonesome valley and dark night of the soul that stands in the road between the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life. We must ultimately walk it by ourselves. No one is born again without the lonely death on that tree. No one finds the other end of that path by staying stuck on their knees at the foot of the cross of Jesus.

O Holy Night. Be born again: born through every step of pain and suffering; born to the last wretched and lonely breath, stolen by the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Be born to your true light, the light of your life. Walk as a companion and not a king.

Blessed Christmas.

For Christmas this Year, Let’s Let Jesus Off the Bloody Hook

Posted on December 13, 2014 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

For Christmas this year, let’s give Jesus a gift. Let’s let him off the bloody hook. Somewhere between the Sermon on the Mount and Paul’s letters, “Follow me” turned into “I did it all with blood sacrifice.” Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 – 1109, sealed the deal with his writing on the satisfaction theory of atonement.

And ever since, we’ve been killing him (Jesus) softly but surely by piling on the sins of the world, Sunday after Sunday. Data tells us he’s almost half dead now, under the load. Barna Group relentlessly counts the beans of evangelical angst, documenting the slippage of the “churched” through the door to become the “unchurched”, searching for just the right moves to get’em “churched” again. Their latest book, Churchless: Understanding Today’s Unchurched and How to Connect with Them, documents that the “unchurched” segment of the US population has grown not just steadily, but at an ever increasing rate from 30% in the 1990’s to 43% in 2014. For Barna and company (A better book title might have been Clueless.), it seems a daunting task to stem that tide, given what they see as the relentless bashing of Christianity by godless unchurched culture. A small first step might be to get rid of those repelling and out of touch churched and unchurched labels.

Let’s let Jesus off the bloody hook. Lots of folks have tried to redeem atonement by turning it into “at-one-ment.” Too little too late, I fear, but the sentiment is useful. I believe with all my heart that Jesus was “at-one” with Creator/Spirit/Mind/Source. And I believe “the way” to which he persistently called the people of his small corner of the world in his time is, indeed, the path forward – the very same foundational path forward whispered by the breath of life in all places and all times.

But we – you and I and Aunt Suzie – won’t find that path by continually “casting our burden upon the Lord.” (If you are sufficiently unchurched, that phrase of evangelical atonement might be unfamiliar, and I promise not to use it again.) We will find it, metaphorically, in our own journey from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to the Tree of Life. We will find it by changing the way we view ourselves and the world around us.

“Salvation,” another hopelessly abused and by now nearly dead word, is really just our choice to grow up and move along that path. A bloody choice? Well, let’s be honest. Turning from the fear and separation of the metaphorical Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is very threatening to power, at least to the misused power of twisted politics and those that wield religion to mediate your redemption and mine. Taking personal responsibility for growing up to compassion, confidence and responsible relationship – becoming the Adult of God (Creator/Spirit/Mind/Source – not an old man in some heaven) that we become under the Tree of Life – taking that personal responsibility and acting on it generally, at some point, puts us crosswise with the powers of fear. Witness Jesus as the Romans nailed him to a tree, or Dietrich Bonhoeffer and six millions Jews up in smoke in bloody Christian Germany.

I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and cereal offerings, I will not accept them, and the peace offerings of your fatted beasts I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen.

But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
(Amos 5: 21-24. God I love my old Revised Standard Version.)

Want to be saved? Stop going to war. Want to be saved? Take care of the planet. Want to be saved? Don’t even think about killing the food stamp program.

Want to be saved from “sin and death?” Stop nailing Jesus to the tree and crying salvation. Grow up and choose it. Forgiveness is not a gift that was given in the bloody slaughter of the Lamb of God. Forgiveness is a state of being. No one can give it to you. You must truly embrace it for yourself. And then move on.

Move on, move on down the road. And consider a gift to Jesus this Christmas. Take him off the bloody tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the tree of fear and hate and twisted power. Clean him up, like the Good Samaritan would. Clean him up and walk with him, even through the valley of the shadow of death. Walk with him, all the way to the Tree of Life.

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

Sacred and Profane

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

Sacred and profane are simply two ways of interacting with the same phenomena. We grew up thinking that these were inherent characteristics of things. Certain words, like “amen” for instance, were sacred. Certain words, I dare not write them here, were profane.

The sacred and profane cluster and clarify, especially, under things we label as taboo. Sex and money are the two most obvious taboo clusters in our society. Typically these clusters exhibit a bipolar frenzy. We parade them, we avoid them. We exploit them, especially sex and money, in our marketing fantasies. We avoid open talk about them at an interpersonal level, throwing a moral wet blanket over our silence.

This bipolar activity simply illustrates our frenetic discomfort, the tug of war of chase and avoidance, grasp and repulsion, fear and desire, loathing and lusting. We cycle around, we yo-yo back and forth between the poles, always missing the powerful untouchable center of the taboo.

We abandon or abuse power in this bipolarity. At one pole we are a victim, at another we are the conqueror. We hoard wealth, we gloat in the spoils of the sexual conquest. It’s a zero sum game with a loser for every winner. There is a lot of money to be made, a lot of power and position to be garnered for anyone who can master the art of keeping the yo-yo of the masses going around these things. The oil barons, the pimps, the hedge fund managers, the priests and imams of false religion sit atop these untouchable centers, taking their fees and building their empires on the wasted energy of the masses flying back and forth between the poles of desire and despair, having and not having, satiation and repulsion.

At the center of all this bipolar cycling stands the metaphorical Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Al the center of all this bipolar cycling stands the metaphorical Tree of Life. It is the same tree. All that matters is the lens we look through. Do we view it through the clouded and profane lens of scarcity and hoarding, of good and bad, of fear and violence? Or do we view it through the clear lens of sanctity, the lens of non-judgment, satisfaction and enough?

All that we desire, everything we want and need hangs freely as fruit on the tree. It tastes good. It feels good. It shelters and sustains us. We can approach in fear of scarcity. If we get there first, we can take more than our share and use the excess to harness the fears and desires of others. We can use that yo-yo to fuel the frenzy that feeds our stash of wealth and power.

Or we can choose, when we reach the tree, simply to take and enjoy together what we need, leaving enough for others, experiencing peace and satisfaction, giving and receiving with grace.

Our choice, friends. The tree is rooted firmly before us. As individuals, as societies, do we choose the lens of the sacred or the lens of the profane? Do we rest in the true power of enough, or do we exhaust ourselves in the bipolar frenzy of fear and grasping? Food, sex, clothing; shelter, health, the environment; borders, commerce and security – sacred or profane? Which tree will it be?

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.

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.

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American Christianity’s Elephant in the Room

Posted on August 22, 2014 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

Since the very beginning of the nation, Christianity has been the dominant cultural narrative of the United States. Or, more accurately, the narrative of American Christianity has been the dominant narrative, and it reads something like this:

Jesus, being conceived by the Holy Spirit, was different from you and me. He was truly God’s child, the first and last God incarnate. We are not.
Jesus loves you and wants to live in your heart.
Jesus looked pretty much like a white middle-American, except he wore a robe.
Jesus plays good cop to God’s bad cop. We sit in the chair of interrogation. In the end, if we don’t answer right, we’re going to get it.
Jesus said a lot of wonderful things and performed a bunch of miracles, but what really matters is that he died on the cross to save you from your sins. Jesus saves.
Everyone is welcome in heaven, so long as they believe Jesus died for their sins and they praise his name on a regular basis.
Jesus is coming again to get those who qualify under number 6 and to leave the rest behind, gnashing their teeth as the world goes down to hell. One of my favorite bumper stickers, in fact, reads, “Jesus is coming soon, and is he pissed!”

I would argue that this is not at all what Jesus was about. But that is for another day. Today, the message is that Christianity, at least in this cultural narrative, is dying in America. And for the most part, the Christian church does not begin to comprehend the reason why. Look around carefully, there is an elephant in the room.

Church attendance has indeed declined steadily for at least the past two generations. Catholics have been hit hardest, followed by mainline Protestant congregations. Large evangelical churches have been more likely to hold on, but even these are now seeing some decline. In every research result, the “nones” and their “spiritual but not religious” cohort (all unaffiliated with any church) are steadily rising, especially in the emerging dominant millennial generation, but even among boomers and the silent generation that preceded them.

The evangelical mega-churches which had their hay day in the last twenty-five years are not immune. Their marketing strategies and strategic plans implicitly acknowledge the consumer mentality of their, should we even use the label, parishioners. Entertainment is not true religion. Run the country out of fossil fuels or put on a better show down the street and watch what becomes of the theater seats, big screens and easy faith.

Some pollsters say the numbers lie, that what is happening is that people just go to church less often. Others say that people are expressing their faith in house churches and other nontraditional gatherings. There is no doubt a level of truth in both of these observations.

But no one is identifying or addressing the elephant in the room. The American Christian church is dying. It is dying not because of Jesus, but because American Christianity’s dominant story line, its basic value proposition, is bankrupt, with fewer and fewer willing to consider it credible enough to buy. Fewer and fewer give any credence to the narrative that we are at core defective, not made just the way Creator/Spirit/Mind/Source (C/S/M/S) intended, and that America’s Christian God requires blood sacrifice – specialized human/deity blood, at that – to keep from damning us to hell.

And nowhere in the church is that being acknowledged or addressed straight out. In my review of religious demographic surveys I could not find even one that asked Christians or anyone else whether they truly believed that God required the blood sacrifice of a human incarnation to redeem them from their fallen nature. Why is that?

I suspect at least three problems. First, American Christian leaders are scared to hell of the likely results, which is why they persist in speculations and surveys about every other possible reason for their steady and imminent demise. Further, it is possibly beyond the realm of imagination for these bearers of Christian angst to conceive of this issue at all. It is literally unthinkable. Finally, the elephant is both so large and so preposterous that people in general find it simply easier to dismiss it quietly and not to talk about it. Who wants to disturb a holy elephant, dead or alive? The result is that hot air is steadily cooling in this once dominant balloon. And the poor wizard, while nervous, convinces himself that the curtain still hides him and the illusion holds sway.

Spirituality in America needs a new value proposition. There were two special metaphorical trees in the Garden of Eden, both intended for us in the mind of C/S/M/S. We ate from the first, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We did not fall, we just thought we did. We simply woke to all the splendor and terror of human awareness. C/S/M/S never wanted us to kill anyone or anything to get free of that tree. That was our idea. The call in all times and places has been to grow up, to make good choices in the context of who we are and to move on to the tree of life.

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

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The World We Dream

Posted on August 10, 2014 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

In his book, Mending the Past and Healing the Future with Soul Retrieval, medical anthropologist Alberto Villoldo describes the shamanic/spiritual practices of the Laika, an indigenous community of the Peruvian Amazon:

The Laika believe that everything is imaginal. Whatever we perceive is a projection of our inner world, and the world perfectly mirrors the condition of our soul.

“The world perfectly mirrors the condition of our soul.” I believe that to be true, individually and collectively.

So what does that mean? Does that mean I can imagine great wealth and it will happen to me? Maybe. The prophets of positive thinking would say so, and Andrew Carnegie and Bill Gates certainly imagined something. I have actually heard people say that the entire universe is constructed, at root, to conspire for our greater good.

But there is something about this glib thinking that is potentially shallow and backwards. This thinking tempts us to focus on changing the reflected image – the world we create or manifest – rather than the underlying reality, the condition of our soul. We act out, we manifest, what we have allowed ourselves to become. And the work for a better world is done not by sitting around and imagining a better world, but by working on the condition of our souls.

If I focus chiefly on the universe conspiring for my greater good, I will get a world that looks like my soul – a manipulative and selfish world with relationships and outcomes to match. When I move my focus to outcomes, I lose track of who I am and I become, perhaps unintentionally, but truly, the picture of my neglected soul.

This is true collectively as well as individually. The United States has begun air strikes in Iraq to counter forcefully the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Our focus is on outcomes. But the real world, the world that is, reflects the condition of a collective soul that wanted wealth and oil at any cost. The condition of our soul manifested a world that supported oppressors like Saddam Hussein – or the Shah, or Somoza or any number of puppet regimes – in the oppression and pillage of people to yield the comfort we thought was our greater good. And the perpetual wars that result, whether the violence in the Middle East or the violence in Central America beneath the current child refugee crisis, truly mirror and are an accurate manifestation of the condition of our soul. When our soul, anyone’s soul, is sick with greed, we manifest a world of oppression and violence.

I remember bumper stickers that said “Visualize World Peace,” as though sitting still and picturing a peaceful world in our mind would make it happen. But that is magical thinking, no better or more effective than the satirical bumper sticker retort, “Visualize Whirled Peas.”

“The world perfectly mirrors the condition of our soul.” Mirrors can be useful. Any one of us can look in the mirror and learn something about reality. I might learn I am aging and wrinkling. I might learn that I am contorted with anxiety, or that I am satisfied and radiant. Certainly I can paste on a different face if I want to imagine something different than what I see. I have manipulated the outcome of an image. I have not changed the underlying reality.

There were two metaphorical trees planted at the center of the Garden of Eden: the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and, beside it, the Tree of Life. We ate from the first and were given the gift of conscious awareness. We could see the mirror image of all that we had manifested. It was frightening and disconcerting.

Our reaction was to try to manipulate outcomes, to make the picture we saw safe and comforting. Seeing only ourselves, we resorted to fear and greed. We created religions in an attempt to get the gods to conspire for us, to cooperate with us, or at least not to work against us.

But there were – and are – those who grew up, who awoke to a different truth. These prophets, saints and mystics realized that the world was just a reflection of something deeper, of the condition of our true spiritual selves.

Their call in all times has been to turn from the mirror, to embrace and nurture the reality. The reality is the quality of our soul. If we cultivate peace and harmony in our spirit, the mirror reflects it. It’s not that we changed the picture. It is that we changed our being. We made the choice to grow up. We nurtured the condition of our soul. And the picture around us – the manifested world of relationships – reflects our nurture.

The two metaphorical trees in the garden, as I have noted before, are really only one. When we focus on the mirror, we see only the image of the tree. That image is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and we bang into the mirror, over and over, trying to get what we want, what we think we need from that picture. And the picture only gets worse, because it reflects our frustration and unhappiness.

When we turn away from the mirror of our manifested world, and cultivate the quality of our soul, we find that we are living in true reality, under the Tree of Life. We manifest peace. We manifest kindness and compassion. We manifest abundance – the power of enough for all – because we have cultivated those things at the root of our being.

Turn inward. Cultivate your soul. Live in reality under the Tree of Life. You won’t need the mirror to know the outcome.

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

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Stand Clear of the Closing Dogma

Posted on July 25, 2014 by Jerry Kennell, Two Trees in the Garden

For five years in the 1980’s, I had the wonderful privilege of working for New York University, in the heart of Greenwich Village. I commuted by train, the first two years by subway and the last three by a combination of commuter railroad and the PATH tubes under the Hudson River.

Unlike the automated trains I took for years at Denver International Airport, these trains had human operators, accelerating, braking and using their own voices to announce station stops and safety messages. The standard warning on the NY Subway system before departure was, “Stand clear of the closing doors.” One memorable operator had a deep, slow, ominous and very serious voice, a real attention getter. “Stand Clear of the Closing Doors.” Never lost a passenger, that one.

And so, in my deepest, most serious and reverential voice, I implore you, “Stand clear of the closing dogma.” If you must believe any hard and fast set of words, believe the words silent, open and empty. I mean it. Take it all and take it all in. And then throw on that grain of salt.

Every message out there since the beginning of time has contained the whole truth. It’s just been wrapped up in limited human words and experience. The stories unfold and circle around, carrying the cloak of their own times and the long since desiccated husks of the messengers who told the tales.

We turn these words and tales into idols when we insist that they are carved in stone, unchanging, hard and fast rules for life and salvation. “Dogmattit! Do it this way or go to hell. Go directly to hell. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200!”

My poor Mennonite Church USA is going through the throws of dogmattit right now, with a herd of selective literalist thumpers holding up their marble idols, their rock hard billy-clubs insisting that, “Dogmattit, the divine billy-club says you can only have sex this way, under these circumstances, with one individual from the opposite sex and only for procreation, to boot. Dogmattit!”

“Dogmat mutual respect or right relationship. Dogmat the way you were created and the one you love. Dogmat you both. Dogmat all’a’y’all. Dogmat you straight to hell! And we love you. We just can’t abide that you don’t kiss our holy billy-club.”

“We stand firm at the holy doors, dogmat billy-club in hand. Stay out, you that were made to tickle in the wrong place. Stay out, the one who would give their life and lifetime to you. Stay out ‘r I’ll club you and all the other vermin that snuck in here when I wasn’t lookin’! And don’t forget I love ya.’ And God does, too, dogmattit! Just can’t abide your low down ways. And by the way, I’m a pacifist, just like Jesus. Don’t get me wrong.”

Ah, the painters, poets, songwriters and novelists get it right. We accept and appreciate the changing styles and times when it comes to art. If only all the religions of the world could do the same with their scriptures. Take a step back. See the line, the beauty, the color. Soak up the kindness and truth in the whole picture, the whole story. Let it fill your heart and feed your soul.

Make no mistake. We need to learn the rules and ropes. We need grammar and syntax. We need technique, tools and methods. It is good to teach our children. But as we master our trade, our art form, we grow when we see and paint something entirely new – something entirely new that will become old and tested in tireless time. And we need to give it to the world, the gift of picture and story that will be viewed and heard and felt, so long as its communally acclaimed quality speaks a growing, evolving, universal truth.

Scriptures are stories and pictures, dear friends, stories and pictures to show and tell under the Tree of Life. The ones who see and hear have hearts of flesh and not of stone, hearts that beat in relationship and compassion. Hearts that grow and evolve and create, radiating kindness and beauty and welcome. Dogmattit! Tell me a story. Sing me a song. Show me a picture. And please, put down that billy-club.

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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.

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Two Trees in the Garden

Thoughts on a New Spirituality

Tag Archives: Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil

Baptism as Transformation: the Celts, the Romans, the Upanishads

Salvation Is Not What You Were Told

Ending Polarization Through Kindness

Woman, Wisdom and The Word: Reflections on the Divine Feminine

ISIS, Paris and the Fight for Dominance

Syria, Guatemala, the Twin Towers and the Tree of Life

Dylann Roof and the Invitation to Transformation

The Spirit of Willingness on the Wave of Creation

Forgiveness II: Our Emotions Are Our Teachers and Not Our Rulers

The Choice of Devotion

O Holy Night

For Christmas this Year, Let’s Let Jesus Off the Bloody Hook

Sacred and Profane

Suchness and Form

The Authoritative Word

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

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American Christianity’s Elephant in the Room

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The World We Dream

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Stand Clear of the Closing Dogma

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Who We Are

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