CC49: Summing Up -- Finding the Kingdom of God

In wrapping up this blog, I'd like to talk about the 20th century spiritual teacher I most admire, a man whose writings greatly influenced my journey toward becoming a Concinnate Christian. That man is Dr. Viktor Frankl.

"One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, 'Which commandment is the first of all?' Jesus answered, 'The first is, "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength." The second is this, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." There is no other commandment greater than these.' Then the scribe said to him, 'You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that "he is one, and besides him there is no other"; and "to love love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength," and "to love one's neighbor as oneself," -- this is much more important than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.' When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, 'You are not far from the kingdom of God.' After that no one dared to ask him any question" (Mark 12: 28-34). Shown here is a stained glass window from Exeter Cathedral, England. Photo credit JAT 1997.

Many people on a spiritual path wouldn't include Viktor Frankl among the great 20th century religious and spiritual leaders. Dr. Frankl, after all, was a psychiatrist, not a monk or a religious sage. He wrote books about Logotherapy and Existential Analysis, not lofty theological commentaries on the Bible. Yet this brilliant Austrian Jewish physician scholar, who endured the horrors of WWII Nazi concentration camps and went on to rebuild a life of integrity and compassion after the war, has more in common with the man who lived as Jesus of Nazareth than anyone else I've read.

Dr. Frankl's well-known book Man's Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy* is only 189 pages long, including the bibliography. Yet within the pages of this slim book he manages to evoke all the deepest aspects of the human experience. He asks the hardest questions possible about human suffering, and arrives at the astonishing conclusion that even in the midst of unutterable deprivation and torment, in the face of terrible hunger and cold and illness and fear, human beings can still choose to love and forgive. Nothing can take this choice away from them. Nothing.

Dr. Frankl describes his redemption in this way: "A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth -- that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved [spouse]. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way -- an honorable way -- in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, 'The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.'" (page 48)

Further, despite his own deeply personal turmoil, Dr. Frankl retained his ability to objectively study and assess the psychological reactions of his fellow inmates in the camps:

"We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

"And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become a plaything of circumstances, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate.

"Seen from this point of view, the mental reactions of the inmates of a concentration camp must seem more to us than the mere expression of certain physical and sociological conditions. Even through conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone. Fundamentally, therefore, any can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him -- mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp." (page 75)

Dr. Frankl's fellow inmates taught him about courage -- the courage "to say yes to life" in spite of pain, guilt, and death (page 139). He didn't deny the reality of pain, guilt, and death, didn't try to escape it (page 86). Instead he chose a different path -- the path of helping others find purpose in their lives, of helping others find a way to turn suffering and guilt into accomplishment, change, and responsible action. He became a mentor to those who were searching for meaning, to those who needed help in reclaiming their free will to choose love. He also understood that each person's journey is unique, that no two people will find meaning and insight in exactly the same way. Unlike so many others, he found faith in the true potential of God's children.

I see so much in common between the teachings and methods of Viktor Frankl and those of Jesus son of Joseph! If you really want to understand who Jesus was and what he taught, please read Man's Search for Meaning. Then read it again. And read it again. There is no clearer modern version of Jesus' "Kingdom of God" teachings than Dr. Frankl's book.

Thank you to the readers who have struggled along with me as I tried to put these thoughts on paper. Your support and encouragement have meant more to me than you realize.

I wish you many blessings on your own journey of love, healing, and redemption!

* Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy. 3rd Ed. Translated by Ilse Lasch. New York: Simon & Schuster/Touchstone, 1984.

CC39: Confessions of a Blonde Mystic

When I was growing up, I had no inkling that one day I'd become a mystic.

When I was 10, I wanted to become an archaeologist. By the time I was 12, I was sure I was going to be a writer. By age 18, I wanted more than anything to fall madly in love and focus my whole being on the love of my life (whoever the heck that was!). By age 22, I was married and enrolled in graduate studies in art conservation. By age 25, I had settled down as a stay-at-home mom.

Nothing very mystical about that.

Where there hints about my mysticism-to-be? Did I have unexplained episodes of "transcendence" as a child? Did I "see" things that weren't there? Or "hear" things that weren't there?

Nope. I was a normal, if geeky, kid. I was a bookworm, and I wasn't good at sports, and I was way too mouthy for my own good. (Still am.) But I didn't have any unusual "episodes" when I was growing up; nor would I have received any encouragement for such from my family. There was no enthusiasm for religiosity. My family were nominal Christians, which meant we went to United Church services at Christmas and Easter. Sometimes my sister and I were sent to Sunday School, but these church experiences left little impression on me. The word "spirituality" was never mentioned.

Both my parents were eminently practical (having grown up during the Great Depression). They were also quite liberal and inclusive in terms of their values. So there was no talk around the dinner table about God's true nature, or salvation, or apocalypticism. Acceptable topics of discussion included business and politics and law-abiding citizenship. I was a teenager in the early 1970's, so, of course, there were numerous lectures about staying away from drugs, lectures that I took very seriously. To this day, I've never used street drugs, and I'm one of the few people I know who's never tried pot. Not even once.

Yup. Still a geek, and proud of it.

The thing about genuine mysticism -- the Real McCoy, as opposed to verifiable states of psychiatric dysfunction -- is that genuine mysticism is not about random and unpredictable "transcendent episodes" sprinkled like chili peppers into an everyday bowl of bland and tasteless cream of potato soup. A genuine mystic (and frankly there aren't a whole lot of them out there) is somebody who's hardwired with a particular package of traits, learning styles, and talents. When these particular traits, learning styles, and talents are examined as a whole, a discernible pattern emerges, and if this pattern can be shown to be consistent over many years, then, and only then, can you say that a particular man or woman is a true mystic.

In other words, you can't call somebody a mystic because he or she reports one or two unusual "episodes" of seeing or hearing or feeling the presence of the Divine.

This is just common sense. You wouldn't call someone a professional artist on the basis of one or two beginner's paintings. You wouldn't call someone a professional mechanic on the basis of one flat tire correctly changed. Similarly, you shouldn't call someone a mystic on the basis of one or two self-reported "events." There should be a long track record of professional development and committed endeavour for practising mystics, as in any other field. This is the only way to prevent charlatans and fraud artists from ruining other people's lives with their "predictions" and "divine assurances."

What makes me a mystic (or a contemporary channeller, as I sometimes call myself), as opposed to a spiritual person or a person of deep faith?

Well, to turn it around a bit, is it possible for a spiritual person or a person of deep faith to also be a professional artist? Or a mechanic? Or a farmer? Or a teacher?

Of course! In fact, many people would suggest that if you hope to be a really gifted teacher (or mechanic or whatever), you need to bring all your faith and all your spirituality into your calling in a holistic way so you'll be able to teach (or fix engines) from the heart. This, too, is just common sense.

For me, it's the same thing. I'm a spiritual person and a person of deep faith, which makes me no different from the mechanic who starts and ends his day as a spiritual person and a person of deep faith. But where the mechanic delights in working on engines, and the teacher delights in guiding the minds of growing children, I delight in the work of a mystic, which is so philosophical and intellectual and esoteric that it would bore the living crap out of 99.9% of the people I know.

It's my passion to delve each and every day into the deepest mysteries of Creation -- questions about God, about the soul, about quantum biology, about who we are at both the quantum level and the emotional/creative level. My passion is to ask annoying questions, and my skill is to be able to hear the answers when they come down the quantum pipeline from God the Mother and God the Father. (And from Jesus, but that's another story.)

Make no mistake -- I both see and hear God. But it's not random, and it's not occasional. It's an everyday part of my life as a mystic. It's an everyday part of my life because I practised and practised and practised until I'd fully developed the talent I was born with. Through a combination of natural soul hardwiring plus committed human effort, I gradually "came into" my calling. It's an unusual calling, to be sure, but it's a genuine calling.

"When evening came, the boat was out on the sea, and he was alone on the land. When he saw that they were straining at the oars against an adverse wind, he came towards them early in the morning, walking on the sea. He intended to pass them by. But when they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and cried out; for they all saw him and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, 'Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.' Then he got into the boat with them and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened" (Mark 6: 47-52). This passage from the Gospel of Mark makes little sense to the modern mind, but if you think of it as something a 21st century science fiction author might write while trying to describe a true mystical connection to God, you'd be close. Painting "Solar Sailor" (c) Jamie MacDonald 2013. Used with permission of the artist.

Everyone is born with natural intuition. I'm NOT saying I'm one of the few people who has intuition. Just the opposite. I think everyone can more fully develop their intuitive faculties and incorporate that aspect of their being into their daily lives. But intuition isn't the same thing as mysticism. I want to be clear on that point. Like everybody else, I have normal intuition. But alongside that normal intuition I have another skill, a different skill, that not everyone is born with. I have what might be called, for lack of better terminology, an ability to accurately and consistently tap into the space-time continuum while in a fully conscious non-hypnotic non-drug-induced mystical state of connection to God.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Space-time continuum . . . it sounds like something you'd hear on Star Trek. The original Star Trek. And you'd be right. You're going to have to forgive me, though, because I can't think of any other way to describe it. And besides, where would the Blackberry be today if not for the inspiration of Captain Kirk's flip-phone communicator to urge inventors onward?

Did I mention I love the original Star Trek series? And TNG ain't half bad, either? (I may like designer clothes, but, as you can tell, I'm still a geek at heart.)

P.S. I'm not a medium or a psychic, and I don't believe in ghosts. So don't ask me if my life is like "Medium" or "Ghost Whisperer" or "The Listener" or "Rescue Mediums" on TV, because the answer is NO.

My life is way more exciting than that.