St. Julian of Norwich

I don't know a lot about this mystical lady from Norwich England. From what I've read on Wikipedia I find her fascinating. Her writings such as Revelations of Divine Love illuminate an aspect of divinity that is in stark contrast to the standard image popular among Christianity today and her time as well.

This very well known quote is one of hers: "All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well."

This to me speaks to the 'Okay-ness' of things in spite of troubles, frets, difficulties and even suffering. The last thing needed in relating to the divine is fearful constant trembling at a god that is secretly believed to be out to get us. A god that we somehow privately understand has rigged the game all along is one that is difficult to relate to or even want to relate to and take seriously.

I think Julian not only presents us with a corrective to this wrathful god-image, but an alternative that can be counted on - at least until we come to our own understanding or gnosis.

There are so many mind made hindrances that prevent us from trekking the spiritual path. To my mind, St. Julian dispels many of these and her work is the healing salve that allows our seeking nature to be at home and have a place to work from.

Be a Passer By

I was reading today C.S. Thompson's Book "Prayers for Nothing" and read a passage that I thought to be a very beautiful way of relating to life. It reminded me of saying 42 from the Gospel of Thomas:

Jesus said "Be a Passerby".

This short saying can be quite puzzling and I continue to reflect on it often. At first one may think it's saying something like "Be apathetic". But a passerby is simply one who moves on unattached to each place. He is not necessarily unavailable to the places he visits, but he moves on like a river that may feed the crops or flood a valley and yet still continue on it's way back to it's source.

Gnostics are often accused of being world denying and perhaps many were and are. 'World denying' in this sense is synonymous with 'life denying'. But many of the Gnostics I know today are not this way at all and I believe Thompson's views reflect a more life embracing view while also recognizing the importance of unmasking the fraudulent and unjust.

Here is the excerpt, both the poem and commentary:

I knelt here once and asked with outstretched hands, For things that don’t mean anything at all. So I will kneel and ask for nothing now. The things we want are worthless, and the worldDenies them to us to expose the fraud. I’ll praise the mercy of this savage God, Who forced me to approach Him as I am-A man with open eyes and empty hands.

No matter what we create it won’t last forever. The so-called immortality of great art is just a slightly longer moment in a vast span of time, which will disappear as if it never existed just as we do. But beauty is its own end; it requires no prop. No one asks the Cathedral of Chartres if it ought to have been built; its magnificence is its justification. We shouldn't cultivate the spirit merely in order to chase the chimera of happiness, and we shouldn't be so naive as to think that we can be free of pain. We should cultivate our spirits for no other reason than to make them beautiful, to create in our own selves the harmonious balance of which we’re capable. This beauty includes every aspect of a life well-lived- from struggle and ambition to love and service, treating others with respect and equality while not being afraid to fight for what’s right, accepting the hard facts of a hard world while retaining the capacity for joy and ecstatic awe. If we find happiness along the way, then so be it, and if we find suffering instead then so be it. Either way, we’ll become something more than we were, whatever our talents or lack of them. We’ll be able to say we actually lived. In a world where so many people only pass the time, marking the minutes in Thoreau’s “quiet desperation” until it is time to die, that is reason enough.

A Prayer to the Archangel Saint Michael

O glorious prince of the heavenly army, Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in the eternal combat, which we sustain against the powers of darkness, malice and ignorance, which afflict us on this aeonial battlefield of our earthly life! Come, invincible leader of the host of heaven, guardian of the paradise of the world and wielder of the double-edged, flaming sword! Aid and sustain us in our defense against the adversary; and come to lead us finally into the presence of the Most High, into the abode of the blissful. Enlighten and purify us, O Thou great and mighty Archangel Michael, grant us to abandon the works of darkness and to love the Gnosis of the Light; so that whilst all things of this world pass away we may ever hold fast those things which abide for evermore.


from the meditations at the Ecclesia Gnostica
http://gnosis.org/ecclesia/lect155.htm

Jesus said, "If they say to you, 'Where did you come from?', say to them, 'We came from the light, the place where the light came into being on its own accord and established itself and became manifest through their image.' If they say to you, 'Is it you?', say, 'We are its children, we are the elect of the living father.' If they ask you, 'What is the sign of your father in you?', say to them, 'It is a movement and a rest.'"

~Gospel of Thomas: saying 50

Holy Apostle Matthias

Today is the feast day of Holy Apostle Matthias. I've never heard of him before today and in line with my endeavour to read about the saints as their feast days approach, I tried to find more about him on the web.

There seems to be very little written about him. He was born in Bethlehem and is of the tribe of Judah. He was a student of Simeon. He replaced Judas Iscariot as the twelfth apostle.

I did not find much more other than he may have authored some Gnostic Gospels (or more likely had a Gospel named after him). The Gospel of Matthias no longer exists but has shown up referenced in the writings of several prominent early Christians from Origen to Jerome.

Like many of the saints from this time period, he was also a martyr according to some accounts.

Gospel of Truth

Lately, I've been looking for which of the many many gospels resonate for me. I was fortunate the other night when I happened on the Gospel of Truth believed to have been written by Valentinus.

Here is a passage that caught me as I read it:

It is a day in which it is not fitting that salvation be idle, so that you may speak of that heavenly day which has no night and of the sun which does not set because it is perfect.

Say then in your heart that you are this perfect day and that in you the light which does not fail dwells.

If I could keep what this does to me with me throughout the day, what would happen? How does this translate?

It goes on as if anticipating my questions:

Speak concerning the truth to those who seek it and of knowledge to those who, in their error, have committed sin.

Make sure-footed those who stumble and stretch forth your hands to the sick.

Nourish the hungry and set at ease those who are troubled.

Foster men who love.

Raise up and awaken those who sleep.

For you are this understanding which encourages. If the strong follow this course, they are even stronger.

And now after the do's, the do nots:

Turn your attention to yourselves.

Do not be concerned with other things, namely, that which you have cast forth from yourselves, that which you have dismissed.

Do not return to them to eat them.

Do not be moth-eaten.

Do not be worm-eaten, for you have already shaken it off. Do not be a place of the devil, for you have already destroyed him.

Do not strengthen your last obstacles, because that is reprehensible.

For the lawless one is nothing. He harms himself more than the law. For that one does his works because he is a lawless person. But this one, because he is a righteous person, does his works among others.

And finally:

Do the will of the Father, then, for you are from him.

These to me seem to come more out of a mode of being then merely being laws to observe. They're words of advice from a place of knowing.

Making a Place for the Light of Gnosis

The world needs my cooperation. I suppose it needs all of our cooperation too. In economics class we learn that human desire is practically endless and therefore scarcity exists. Like a PEZ candy dispenser, once one attraction or aversion is satiated, the next one is there waiting for our attention. Economic efficiency means 'more and faster'. This is the reality of the world. This is my reality, at least mostly.

I don't think desire is bad, not real desire. But often what passes for desire is merely lifeless diversions or things of a habitual nature - a reflection of things once full of life that have now become encrusted and locked into place.

I've also wondered at the question of 'justification' and what that means. What, in terms of the every day choices we make can be justified? Should everything be justified? To what degree does the need to justify favor this zombie encrustation process.

There is something in me that is eternally justifying, evaluating, calculating, protecting and holding on to. I suppose that's just the way things work but sometimes in seeing this, I recognize the sterility and pointlessness of it as well. The whole thing is a lifeless treadmill going nowhere fast.

I don't think there's anything wrong with making it in the world, but if all of my actions are 100% driven by this way of seeing things, where is there room for anything else?

Is there anything else? It seems so to me. In quite moments between the waking world and the world of dreams there is a something else. And I pursue this something else into my waking moments. I want to capture it in unsuspecting moments. I want to work with it in the way I do things too.

To me this 'something' turns the whole striving mess on it's head. Scarcity has nothing to do with it.

At this time of year as Gnostics, we celebrate the coming of the light into the world. During Advent, we waited in quiet anticipation for its arrival. During this time of Christmas we recognize its humble birth and incarnation into the world.

I imagine the world, if it could even perceive it, would see this new life as an alien intruder perhaps or even be threatened. Harod comes to mind.

What I've been slowly realizing again and again is that in my life and the decisions I make, there are no guarantees. I have to work to make space for this light. It doesn't happen by itself as far as I can tell. Like an infant, it must be protected and nurtured.

How to protect and nurture the child, I have no idea but I know making space in meditation and paying attention to dreams and fellow travelers is allowing a feedback process to happen. But I have to give it priority and make space. That's not easy.

The difficulty is that in terms that the world or system understands, all of this is unjustifiable. The infant remains unjustified because the child is non-rational. I suspect that all of us who to any degree are doing this are running against the grain of things and what do we have to say for ourselves?

As for me, I need to learn to drop the need to rationalize everything. That is likely my biggest bane and it's very tiresome. Some things just are and the best things are non-rational from poetry to jazz music to kissing to general silliness. I know this and yet...

Protecting this light against all odds is what matters most. Every time I falter I must get up and keep going. There is no other way that I'm aware of.

There is a passage in Jung's Memories, Dreams and Reflections which speaks to this I think. It was a time when he was just coming to an understanding of two sides to himself.

About this time I had a dream which both frightened and encouraged me. It was night in some unknown place, and I was making slow and painful headway against a mighty wind. Dense fog was flying along everywhere. I had my hands cupped around a tiny light which threatened to go out at any moment. Everything depended on my keeping this little light alive. Suddenly I had the feeling that something was coming up behind me. I looked back, and saw a gigantic black figure following me. But at the same moment I was conscious, in spite of my terror, that I must keep my little light going through night and wind, regardless of all dangers. When I awoke I realized at once that the figure was a "specter of the Brocken," my own shadow on the swirling mists, brought into being by the little light I was carrying. I knew, too, that this little light was my consciousness, the only light I have. My own understanding is the sole treasure I possess, and the greatest. Though infinitely small and fragile in comparison with the powers of darkness, it is still a light, my only light.