Tom Rapsas shares favourite passages in Matthew

For his Wake Up Call blog on Thursday, Tom Rapsas shares his nine favourite passages from Thomas Moore's GOSPEL The Book of Matthew: A New Translation with Commentary, Jesus Spirituality for Everyone: "Rewriting Jesus: A New Take on the Gospel of Matthew".

The introduction to his selection includes:

"Moore was more than up to the task. He has Masters degrees in both religion and philosophy. And while he may be best known for his beautiful series of books on the soul (and his recent classic on creating our own spiritual path [A Religion of One's Own]), for 13 years he served as a member of a Roman Catholic lay order, leaving just months before becoming an ordained priest.

Thomas Moore has a unique take on Jesus, who he sees as 'a spiritual poet' who uses narrative and imagery to get his ideas across. He sees him as more than just a teacher of wisdom but 'a social mystic, like a shaman who can heal, and lead people to appreciate multiple layers of reality'."

Click through Rapsas' top nine while contemplating the accompanying images.

Our nightmares connect to planetary destruction

In May this year Jungian psychotherapist Douglas Thomas writes "Eco-sadism: Why are we Torturing the Planet?" using Thomas Moore's book Dark Eros: The Imagination of Sadism (1990) to explore global destruction of our home.

"As I contemplate the relationship we humans have negotiated with the planet, this shadowy aspect of our collective sadism seems quite apparent. Certainly the images of strip mining, slashing the rain forests, dumping barges filled with garbage into the oceans all seem readily available for sadeian commentary.

Perhaps we are at our most sadistic when we are at our most unconscious, denying the perverse and repugnant cruelty of our collective actions against the planet. First denial, and then rationalization, two common defense mechanisms that regularly appear in the therapy room, also serve as the preferred mechanisms to permit and justify the torture and corruption of the planet. If we re-imagine the Earth as one of de Sade’s literary protagonists, the victimized damsel Justine for example, the libertine zeal of our collective insistence to strip, cut, penetrate, immobilize, neutralize, slash, burn, seize, corrupt and devastate quickly comes into focus."

Thomas concludes, "Once we become conscious of the psychological connection between the devastation of the planet and the torturous sadeian images of our own nightmares, an opportunity becomes available to engage the imagination in a contemplative exploration of how the root images of eco-sadism might transform through tending them as living images rather than literally enacting them."

Study the Gospel of Matthew at Old Ship Church

If you live near Hingham, Massachusetts, you have an opportunity to attend a course about Thomas Moore's translation of GOSPEL The Book of Matthew at Old Ship Church (First Parish) with the minister Kenneth Read-Brown. The congregation is Unitarian Universalist and is a Welcoming Congregation.


A New Look at the Gospel of Matthew – three sessions on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m.:
November 30, December 7, December 14
"These gatherings for conversation will be based on Thomas Moore’s fresh new translation of Matthew.  The class will follow the weekly 6:30 vespers services that are a December tradition at Old Ship. For more information, contact Ken."

Office telephone: 781-749-1679;
Office email: office@oldshipchurch.org
Fee: "We ask participants to contribute $35 for the first course they attend each year (sliding scale according to need). There is no fee for the drop-in ongoing groups, or if otherwise noted."