His Eye Is On The Sparrow

I've been feeling decidedly NOT spiritual lately, chafing against too many irritations and inconveniences to mention, none of which should matter in the big scheme of things. The good news: I noticed that I was feeling decidedly not spiritual, and made a mental note to be more conscious and focused on the NOW. At one point last week I woke up with a seriously stressful issue on my mind in the early morning, and having previously made a mental note to be more conscious and focused on the NOW, and also having made note of the fact that I was feeling very not spiritual, I spontaneously entered into the Lord's Prayer as soon as I awoke with the stressful issue already at the forefront of my mind.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch....I've been reading a terrific book for about two years now, in roughly three minute increments on the John (my apologies to all of my friends and family who share the name of the seat of my private morning "meditations" ;-). I'm about halfway through it. It is not intended to be a devotional book (I don't think), but Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World has turned out to be just that. Michael Dowd's writing has been a great comfort and validation of my spiritual evolution from what he calls "flat earth religion" to a Christianity that is in tune with the current scientific information available on the workings of the Universe and the world. I highly recommend this book, and will likely write more about it in upcoming blogs. I digress....

Because of the validation I've experienced through Michael Dowd's book, as I began praying the Lord's Prayer (a verse of scripture I've known by heart since I was a pre-schooler), I felt perfectly comfortable interpreting the Lord's Prayer in my own mind in language that fits with my evolved understanding of Jesus' teachings: "Our Father who is in Heaven, hallowed be your name (great and mysterious Universal Whole, wondrous beyond my comprehension, I trust and revere your incomprehensible perfection). Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven (though you and your mysteries are incomprehensible to me, I trust your perfection and open myself to the possibility that all can be made right in the end, and my stressful situation will work out for my good, and the good of all others involved). Give us this day our daily bread (thank you for a Universe of plenty and abundance), and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors (thank you for being bigger than my mistakes and shortcomings, and give me the grace to overlook the shortcomings and mistakes of others). Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil (I thank you for not being the Cosmic Kill Joy, trust that you are interested in my success and well being, and am grateful for providing me with positive alternatives in every situation). For yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen. (I submit myself to the natural laws of the Universe and your infinite perfection, and acknowledge that I am but a small part of an infinitely greater whole.)"

That was the most peacefully and naturally I have prayed in...well....a long, long time. I not only felt at peace; I was at peace. The stressful situation left my mind (really), and I got on with my day. That was Saturday morning, about 6:00am.

Later, around 10:00am, my husband returned from walking the dog with a little sparrow cupped in his hands. He normally just takes the dog down to the place where he takes care of his "business" and comes straight back. But this morning he stopped by his truck to check on something. When he did, there was a little sparrow lying beside the truck, conscious but not moving. He picked him up and brought him inside to warm up and get himself together, assuming the poor thing had flown into the window of the truck and stunned itself.

I haven't had anything that might fall into the category of "supernatural" happen to me in a long, long time. In fact, I think this is one of the things that was causing me to feel not spiritual. This, of course, is merely a case of misunderstanding the relationship of cause and effect--feeling follows behavior, not the other way around. When I saw that little sparrow, helpless and stunned, I was forced in that moment to admit to myself that I had not been behaving in a very spiritual way, which is of course the reason that I had been feeling not spiritual.

What does the sparrow have to do with feeling spiritual (or not spiritual)? Despite the fact that I've been a spiritual deadbeat for months now, for whatever reason (probably the Michael Dowd book) I responded exactly as I should have when confronted with what I sometimes call "Morning Terror" (waking up early in the morning with the first thing on my conscious mind being some problem or difficulty causing great distress): I surrendered to my frail humanity and gave the problem over to the forces of the Universe, because the problem was too big for me, so big that it bludgeoned me before I even got my eyes all the way open. So I prayed, because I was truly overwhelmed by the scale of the problem I was facing.

The Universe is faithful. I responded immediately to a big problem by surrendering the problem to a higher power, admitting that it was too big for me, waving the white flag. I was immediately rewarded with peace. Four hours later I was further rewarded with a gift: the helpless little sparrow who depended on our charity for his life.

One of my all-time favorite hymns is "His Eye Is On The Sparrow," by Civilla D. Martin and Charles H. Gabriel. When my husband came into the house with a helpless little bird that was facing a problem that was too big for him, I was immediately reminded that I had exercised the same kind of blind faith in a power just as great and mysterious to me as we were to that little bird. The Universe is indeed perfection, and the lesson was not lost on me. Thanks, Universe. I get it. 

So, what happened to the little sparrow? He warmed up enough, after about an hour, that he became restless and behaved as if he was gearing up to start flying around the house. So I picked him up, took him out to the front porch, and opened my hands so he could fly away. He did so, and was immediately picked up by the wind and blown into the front bumper of my car. Bummer, dude. He hopped underneath my car, sat there for a minute, and then flew away. 

That was a good message for me, too: things don't always work out as perfectly as we would like, but that's OK. Things turn out the way they turn out, and we have to make due with the result. The little sparrow made due. And so will I. 

The Spiral Staircase: Where This Blog (and My Spiritual Path) Is Going

I've been on a "long and winding road" for the past....well, my entire life, really. But Until I was 33 years old (I could see that number as a cosmic coincidence, but I don't) I was not on any clearly established trajectory of my own making. I was just floating along, going where the wind blew me. (In another blog post sometime in the future, I might explain why I don't even believe that random trajectory was truly random. Maybe you'll figure it out yourself as you read more of my blog entries.) 

But in year 33 things changed. It was a personally and spiritually cataclysmic year for me. I had come to the end of myself in a variety of ways, which caused me to do some serious re-assessment of my life, my purpose, and my theretofore non-existent path. 

In my search for meaning and purpose, I explored Buddhism for a while. It didn't have all the answers I was looking for, so I never took the plunge which would have set me on that path alone. I rejected the idea of returning to the religious tradition of my culture and upbringing (Christianity), because I believed I'd "been there and done that," and hadn't found what I was looking for there either. 

Then I stumbled upon Joseph Campbell's audio series, "Transformations of Myth Through Time," which was a sort of historical survey of the major religious traditions of the world. My brain was set on fire. I listened to that series so many times I can't enumerate them. All that is important about that is this: Joseph Campbell set me back on a spiritual path which began with the religious tradition of my culture and upbringing.

What he said that caused this about-face in my spiritual life was something like this: No one can fully grasp any religious tradition outside of the one in which we have been culturally immersed since birth, because every religious tradition is made up of symbols unique to our own culture. While it is true that there are universal archetypal symbols that transcend all religious traditions, we can't really understand those until we truly understand our own cultural symbols. 

This made sense to me, and even felt like a life-ring thrown to a drowning person from a rescue boat. I grasped onto it and allowed myself to be drawn back to the religious tradition of my cultural upbringing: Christianity. (That is a long story, and one that may be revealed piecemeal throughout the course of these blog entries, so I'm not going to tell it all here and now--subscribe to my blog and become a "follower" if you want to get more installments in this story.)

So I went back to the Christian tradition, starting in the United Methodist Church (since that's where I left off), then going to a Foursquare church, and then a Calvary Chapel before finally returning to the United Methodist Church (UMC), where I am extremely content and satisfied. I am not stagnant there, however, because the church I am a member of and the pastor of that church are not stuck in a biblical reality that stopped growing 2000 years ago. In fact if the UMC that I am a member of was not so progressive, I would likely have moved on to the Unitarian Universalist (UU) church by now. 

(One of the reasons that I have not joined the UUs and am so content in the UMC I belong to is that it bears a striking similarity to the UU church, the only real difference being that Jesus is the way in which the Universe is experienced and revealed, rather than all of the great religious traditions. Having said that, the UMC I belong to is extremely tolerant of and un-threatened by the Universal truths revealed through all religious traditions. Though Jesus and the Bible are what is preached from the pulpit and and taught in Sunday School and Bible studies, it is not all that is explored, shared and discussed by its members, and we are not admonished for having curious minds. If a day ever arrives where that ceases to be the case, I'll join the UUs.)

The new spiritual path on which I embarked 13 years ago set me on a renewed journey through the Bible. For eight years I read the Bible faithfully every single day (two Old Testament books, one New Testament book, one Psalm, and one Proverb). This took me through the Old Testament eight times in eight years, the New Testament 16 times, the Psalms 32 times, and the Proverbs 96 times. I have a pretty good grasp of what's in the Bible and what it means. 

That changed. I believe in the power of prayer. I further believe that every single thought we have is a prayer. As I began to wonder "What's it all about, Alfie?" around my 33rd birthday, looking for some meaning and purpose in my life, I "stumbled" upon Joseph Campbell, who set my feet on the next phase of my journey. Some would call that an answered prayer (I would): I asked for direction and received direction. 

Then I got bold in my prayers. I asked for understanding. What's more, I wanted answers to the same questions countless millions have asked over the countless millenia of human existence: Why is there evil? How can a just and loving God allow bad things to happen to good people? Etcetera, and so on. But I didn't just ask for answers, I asked for understanding. 

I started to understand. Every trip back through the Bible revealed new things I had not noticed or grasped before. Example: when I began working on my Masters degree in Native American Studies (NAS), I began to notice similarities between the books of Genesis and Revelation. Native American cultures and spiritual understandings are rooted in a cyclical reality, which is ubiquitously represented by the "sacred circle." As I began a new trip through Genesis and Revelation after beginning my NAS coursework, I began to understand that the book of Revelation is not a story of ending, it is a story of completion. Genesis describes the beginning of one cycle of creation. Revelation describes the completion of one cycle of creation. 

At first I saw this cycle as a circle, and was disappointed: does that mean we're all on some cosmic merry-go-round? But on the next trip through the Bible I saw the cycle differently: a spiral. For whatever reason I made the connection on this second trip of understanding cycles back to John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." It occurred to me that a circle is the view of a spiral from either the top or the bottom--from that angle I cannot see the height or depth of it, only the one-dimension of either top or bottom. But if I change my perspective just a little bit, I can see the path I've been on (the spiral below) or the path I'm headed toward (the spiral above). 

This is still an extremely simplistic way of looking at the "spiral staircase," but my point is this: if I am always looking at things from the same perspective, never adjusting my perspective with new understanding, the view gets old.  I believe this is what Isaiah and Jesus meant when they said, "Learn, learn, but never understand; you see, but you do not perceive." 

Unfortunately, I didn't "understand" or "perceive" this difference when I stopped reading the Bible every day about 5 years ago. On trip #9 through the Bible, nothing was making sense anymore. Passages that had comforted me in the past no longer comforted me. Things I thought I understood no longer made sense. I did not lose my religion, but I did lose any sense that reading the Bible over and over again was doing me any good. My understanding of God (who I now refer to as the Universe, or the Creator) had evolved, but it seemed to me that I had gleaned all of the understanding the Bible had to offer me. 

I experienced a crisis. Not because I had stopped reading the Bible (although my still somewhat superstitious mind had to be continually reminded of this), but because not only did the Bible not seem to "speak" to me as it had in the past, but prayer and the spiritual practices of Christianity no longer seemed to "work" for me as they had previously. Nothing had really changed, except that my familiar and comfortable guideposts were no longer communicating anything meaningful to me anymore. I had no explanation for this. 

Fast forward...After a five year hiatus from the Bible I experienced another crisis. This time it was not spiritual, it was physical and came in the form of a major rift in a family relationship. There was one thing about this experience that was familiar, though: I found myself asking why, when I was doing all of the "right" things, was this happening to me? 

This turned out to be the right question, because I immediately started finding answers in the forms of every book I randomly selected from the public library, and every movie that I received through Netflix. I also would go through my book shelves looking for a book to read, only to find a book that I'd read before but forgotten about. I re-read "Women Who Run With the Wolves," "The Chronicles of Narnia," and "Harry Potter," all of which had pieces of answers to my questions. The books from the library and the movies I watched underscored these themes. Finally, all of the answers that I received led me back to the Bible ("how" is a much longer answer than I care to go into in this blog post, which is already too long).  

In short, I got all of the answers I wanted to the question I had asked. Believing that thoughts are prayers, I understood that this was not a coincidence: Jesus said to "ask and you shall receive." I asked. I received. 

Today, I re-embarked on journey #9 through the Bible. It was a profoundly enlightening and satisfying experience. The cycle was completed, and this morning I began the next spiral in the cycle. Today's reading included Genesis 1, Psalms 1, Proverbs 1, and Matthew 1. The understanding I gleaned from today's reading was extraordinary, and I couldn't have gotten it if I had not taken the 5 year hiatus and broadened my reading material and horizons to other traditions.  I'll tell you what I discovered in the next blog post, if you care to find out.