Can you go back to the Bible after A Course in Miracles?

         Have you ever tried going back to a traditional church after immersion in A Course in Miracles? I tried that three years ago when I joined a Bible study group in my retirement community. Sounded like delving into the Old and New Testament might be fun. Well. . .the first year I tread lightly trying to find out what the classes would be like. The second year I shared more and more of my liberal perspectives and by the third year I realized some of the reasons I was there.

        Mostly I learned about allowing others to find peace and an open compassionate heart in whatever way worked for them. That sounds nice, doesn’t it? But, believe me I spent many a sleepless night struggling with the traditional viewpoints driving the classes and my desire to say, “Hey wait. That isn’t what Jesus really meant.” Or, “History and the ancient flow of geopolitics shows us a different picture of the middle east.” Or…..well you get the idea.

        What I discovered was a truly lovely group of ladies who had no problem accepting a mishmash of inconsistencies, some downright mistaken facts of history and a dismissal of science. What a really cool opportunity to see the holiness in each lady with the added bonus of letting go my need to be right – the challenging task the Holy Spirit had presented me. And yes, at times it really sucked!

         A satisfying outcome was my craving to actually find out about the real Jeshua ben Joseph (aka Jesus), and so I did. I researched and then blogged about it for a year. The result was then published as “ Snapshots of Jesus through the Lens of History” (see the left column).   

          So, as a preparation for Easter I thought you might enjoy reading some of the insights I discovered.

(excerpts from “Snapshots of Jesus through the Lens of History”)

  

“Aiming the lens back in time. . .

        Taking a look at Jesus in the present moment while trying to see him as he was two thousand years ago, creates an immediate conflict. Let’s use this phrase as an example: “taking its own sweet time”.  A city slicker like me might ask what does ‘sweet time’ have to do with the computer project I’m trying to complete in a timely manner? Yet, it wasn’t until I moved into a country home with an honest to goodness vegetable garden, that I heard myself saying, “those green tomatoes will just be ready in their own sweet time”, and the phrase actually meant what it said.  I remember having one of those “Duh!” moments. A farmer coined that phrase a long time ago for his maturing fruits and vegetables. The phrase made sense in that context. Though often repeated today it is really just gobble gook for a townie.

          Just think of modern slang, political scandals and complaints, ‘in’ jokes and the growing distance between well written English and ‘tweets’ like LOL. The mind boggles. Now, we begin to understand the gulf between understanding another culture, no less another time period. Understanding the 40s and 50s is hard enough—two thousand years is almost ridiculous. However, though surmounting this chasm is the first step in making sense of any ’snapshot’ of the life and times of Jesus and will demand a whole bunch of research, I am officially retired. I have to admit the prospect sounds like fun.

          And so I gather around me books, bibles, articles, DVD’s and set up an undemanding, yet consistent research schedule.

          Woa! Hold on! Two thousand years of cultural clutter, looking like a Hollywood reproduction of end world devastation clogs my lens view. Like a journalist/photographer in a war zone, I will have to wade carefully through the rebuilt and reconstructed, the hidden propaganda landmines of times past. Think of the overlays of New Age idealism, Victorian proprieties, bloody reformations and inquisitions, the burning of literature and sciences in the dark ages, the political imperatives and religious prejudices and superstitions all the way back to the bickering, backbiting and down right violent disagreements within the Jesus movement right from the get go in the first century. Whew!

          Breathless, but still undaunted I make the commitment to continue. I shall don my suit of personal “body armor”—an open mind, the willingness to learn, to be wrong, to be disappointed and yes, to even be amazed!

          And I add one more piece of armor, perhaps the most important — my willingness to listen to the guidance of the Holy Spirit each step of the way.

(Stay tuned. . .next week I will add another section from “Snapshots of Jesus through the Lens of History)