Agape: not banking love for deposit or withdrawal

Writing in the Sand by Thomas Moore helps to fuel today's blog post about l-o-v-e, the kind that ancient Greeks called agape. Tom Rapsas writes "Greater than sex? The amazing power of 100 percent pure, unlimited agape" for Elephant Journal. He defines agape as "a love that’s distinctly different from erotic love or romantic love, as it exists on a higher, more spiritual plane. It’s the unselfish love you give to everyone and everything around you, while expecting nothing in return. It’s love simply for the sake of loving." Rapsas describes its divine source and unconditional nature.

Blogger quotes Moore about Jesus' sexuality

"Did Jesus have sex with Mary Magdalene?" asks Tom Rapsas in his post for Elephant.

Rapsas quotes Thomas Moore’s book, Writing in the Sand: Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels in his response.

He includes Moore’s observation, "What is shocking about the new view of Mary Magdalene and Jesus, of course, is the implication that Jesus was not celibate. People who see Jesus in an entirely spiritual light may have trouble considering the possibility that he was a sexual being as well. Yet ... if you’re going to acknowledge Jesus’ humanity, you have to include his sexuality."

Rapsas quotes Luke 7:43-46, translated in Moore's book, to convey Jesus' sensuality.

We are all called to be healers according to Moore

Today Wise Way Tribe offers reflections in "Jesus as Healer" by Elena who is rereading Thomas Moore's book, Writing in the Sand: Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels. She shares a passage in which Moore touches on the roles of the Buddha and the Christ that includes:

"Jesus does not teach how to be virtuous, how to be saved, or how to be a good church member. He says nothing about memorizing dogma or following a strict set of moral rules. Instead, he continually demonstrates how to be in this world as a healer."

Elena responds, "I find this perspective so inspiring. Moving away from judgment, rules and regulations, to focus on healing and becoming whole. Also, in my current reading of the Gospel of Mark, I’m realizing for the first time how concerned Jesus was about feeding people."

Elena also mentions learning about different religious traditions: "I think my study of Buddhism and Taoism has deeply informed my understanding of Jesus and what he was all about. I think for me the Good News makes much more sense when approached from these directions, rather than the hellfire preacher or rigidly structured, Pope-dictated way." This is an approach also advocated by Moore.

Unitarian Universalists consider Moore's gospels

For the Upper Delaware Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, service leader Laurie Stuart offers the program "Writing in the Sand" based on Thomas Moore's book by the same name. Stuart shares,

"As a sort of disclaimer, I want to let you know that, unlike Moore, I am not a scholar of the Gospels and I have little relationship to them. Growing up Unitarian Universalist, I hold no allegiance to any particular sacred text and get my connection to spiritual or divine essence through direct experience, both secular and mystical. And it was in that secular experience that I first became acquainted with the work of Thomas Moore. He was the keynote speaker of the UUMA Convocation that I attended in November of 2009 and, in a mystical sense, this book came unbidden in the mail in the spring of 2010. In a simple way, (everything in my mind is simple as well as complex) my experience, this combining of the ordinary with the extraordinary and the unexpected, is the fundamental point of the book. But because beginnings are often endings, and endings are beginnings, there’s a whole lot more meaning in the complexity that can be gleaned. So I began reading it and liked that it made the Gospels, those holy and sacred writings that I have no conscious connection with, speak to me."

Stuart says, "In his examination of the original Greek texts, Moore dismisses the cautionary voice of tradition and explores the deeper significance of language, stressing the origins of words and the many levels of meaning in stories and imagery. Through his study, Moore shows that the teachings of Jesus are challenging in a far different way than the moralism often associated with them. Based on being open to life, deepening your understanding, and giving up all defensiveness around your convictions, the Gospels can be the source of a new kind of certainty and stability that cannot be codified and enshrined in a list of rules."

Stuart includes his own musical contributions and photographs, stories from Moore's Writing the Sand: Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels, and video clips of Moore speaking.

Loving may not require self-understanding

Dave Brown, "a workplace chaplain to firefighters, ambulance staff and brewery workers" and a Church minister in Dunedin, New Zealand writes about the ordinariness and the mystery of the Kingdom of Heaven in his blog post, "Mustard seeds and statistics". He includes his enjoyment of the book, The New Believers: Re-imagining God (2003) by Rachael Kohn:

"In a chapter entitled "Re-souling Psychology" she is writing about Thomas Moore, a former Catholic monk turned psychotherapist. She writes: "Thomas Moore is urging his students and readers in a direction that is dynamic — he is saying there is a deep knowing in the doing, in  the loving and in the living. Self-understanding in a clinical sense is not a necessary condition for unconditional love — the chief expression of the soul — and may even stand in the way of it."  That is what I find. There is a deep knowing in the loving and living of the way of Jesus that is just so hard to communicate ... it is found in the doing."

Brown may want to read Moore's own Writing in the Sand: Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels (2009) in which he too stresses the ordinary and the mysterious in the Kingdom.

In his previous post, Sunday blog", Brown describes the way of Jesus and includes, "One man said once that many Christians 'Have just enough religion to make them miserable — not enough to make them happy.' Now it may sound judgmental, but often I suspect this is true, even for people who have been in Church for years. I think many are immune to the real Jesus, because they have a domesticated-easy-to-handle-church-focused Jesus. I think too that when we have not given ourselves to his servant lifestyle, Jesus is just a vague belief in a metaphysical saviour, and not a dynamic-life-changing-life-enhancing-mentor and 'presence'.  He comes alive for us when we risk all, and I would suggest most church goers have not risked much."

Jesus teachings for any community or tradition

Carol Buxton Hamon, Artist in Residence with University United Methodist Church in Chapel Hill, North Carolina  offers a review of Thomas Moore's Writing in the Sand: Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels. She quotes Moore's introduction in which he writes that the book "... reveals a Jesus whose teaching is for anyone in search of meaning, not just Christians. It shows a Gospel message that belongs to no church or community or tradition. It suggests that Jesus’ purpose was not to form a religion but to transform the world, not to exploit this life for a heavenly reward but to establish heaven on earth.” 

After listing the four key images that Moore's explores in the book, Hamon writes that "Moore poetically expresses this dynamic" as:

Change of heart
brings you into the kingdom
where you discover the power of love
to heal.

Live the Gospel message through daily activities

David Elliott writes the final post "Writing in the Sand – Conclusion" for his Florida group's journey through Thomas Moore's Writing in the Sand: Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels. Elliott shares, "These few pages contain line after line where the 'professor' Thomas Moore actually 'professes' who he is based on the Gospel message. The lines are based on living the Gospel spirit. The 4 basic statements are:

1. "Cultivate a deep respect for people who are not of your circle and whom society rejects."
2. "You do everything possible to deal effectively with the demonic urges in yourself and in society. You do something about aggression, paranoia, narcissism, greed, jealously and violence."
3. "You play the role of healer in every situation."
4. "You stay awake and don’t fall into the unconsciousness of the age." (p. 164)

Elliott writes, "Even though we understand so much about evolution and science and we are awed by it all, there still remains the need to emotionally relate to reality as something personally important to each of us. Life flows through me just as it flows through the plants, rocks and 7 billion other people on this earth as well as whatever there is in the rest of the universe." Thank you, David, for taking the time to compose these post summaries for your readers.

Wake up to breathe fresh air of the kingdom

"Come Out, Lazarus – An Invitation to Life" describes a book study group's reflections of Thomas Moore's Writing in the Sand: Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels. David Elliott summarizes this week's meeting about shamanism and the story of Lazarus:

"Thomas Moore’s knowledge of world cultures and the history of religions makes this chapter come alive. It was Joseph Campbell who, for me, first described the role of the shaman in cultures all around the world. From a modern view they were strange folk with rituals and habits far from the conventional. But they lived in 'two realities at once – the ordinary world we all know well and a deeper, higher reality, both transcendent and profoundly interior, where everything had a spiritual meaning… With his visionary ability to see the spiritual nature of an illness and perceive deep stories hidden within events, a shaman heals and advises his people.'" (p. 138)

Elliott writes about waking up to and in the river of life with Moore's description of Lazarus:

"'The teachings of Jesus tell how to come to life, how to be born in the spirit and how to resurrect. The word used for dead, nekron, doesn’t always refer to actual death but to a state of soul… Jesus’ teaching is all aimed at the resurrection of life in its fullness. Lazarus is the archetype of coming to life after being dead, and his story is about breathing the fresh air of the kingdom instead of the smelly atmosphere of deadly materialism.'" (p. 146)

Sensuality plays an active role in the spiritual life

David Elliott contributes to his book group summaries of Thomas Moore's Writing in the Sand: Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels in his post, "Mary Magdalen, Whom He Loved". He includes:

"Mark mentioned how he saw a growth and change in Thomas Moore’s insights between his older book The Soul of Sex and this latest chapter. The insights of the non-canonical gospels were not as tightly integrated into his thinking then as now. Moore is not as interested in historical comments about Jesus and Mary Magdalen as much as using their relationship to uncover the role of sensuality in the spirit life."

Elliott shares, "Mark brought in a book of images from Hindu temples that celebrated sex. "Tantric practitioners can also contemplate images of the male and female together in embrace. In Tantra, sex is in the service of spirituality... The intense passions aroused by a partner morph into the desire for union with God." (p.130) Can sexuality "hold the secret of the relationship between human and divine?" (p. 131).

This post also explores the interplay between physical touch and healing.

New Testament uses Agape more than 300 times

David Elliott blogs "Reinventing the Ego" in his continuation of the Florida book group's look at Thomas Moore's Writing in the Sand: Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels. Elliott shares, "Moore studies closely the prayers of Jesus that mention Father and understands the father aspect as a "quality of life, the element that makes of you a story and a personality. It is the procreative factor, a force that can be felt in ordinary situations as generating your existence." (p.112) In earlier books Thomas Moore speaks of the soul, that which is your participation in creation (evolution), that which is both in you and in everything."

Elliott descibes members' reactions to the readings and their personal stories. He concludes, "As we were leaving Jim (overjoyed at Mark’s story) quietly added "you mean reading these books is supposed to change you?"

Elliott also considers,

"When pushed about the meaning of the book title Writing in the Sand, one perspective is that moments when the healthy, self-possessed ego is both aware of deep emotions and consenting to live according to "the will of the Father" are exactly that, moments. Each moment in our lives is a call to new decision and it passes. Just as evolution says that each cell in our body is recycled every 7 years or so, our lives are not filled with essence that is stable and forever. Terms like mother, father, son, working, retired, student don’t describe us so well. More accurate are our walks in the garden, the people we honor and the healing we perform before the writing in the sand disappears.

Finally, reinventing the ego or living in the tension of spiritual vision and human emotions cannot be left as an individual experience. “The word agape appears over 300 times in the New Testament, such is its importance. In context, it connotes a communal feeling of connection, which Paul spells out as being selfless and which is the opposite of narcissism." (p. 120)

Elliott invites all blog readers to share their reactions and responses.

What happens when you live Jesus' message?

David Elliott's book group in Florida continues its study of Thomas Moore's Writing in the Sand: Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels this year. Elliott posts three blog entries since Barque's last write-up of his coverage:

11 January 2011 — Everyone a Healer
http://ddelliott.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/everyone-a-healer/

18 January 2011 — Face Your Demons
http://ddelliott.wordpress.com/2011/01/18/face-your-demons/

26 January 2011 — Transfiguration and Metamorphosis
http://ddelliott.wordpress.com/2011/01/26/transfiguration-and-metamorphosis/

In this latest entry, Elliott includes:

"The challenge of this chapter is in the everydayness of the reality. "When you finally 'get' the teaching of Jesus and begin to live by a new set of rules – love, forgiveness, conviviality, community, healing, and freedom from demonic preoccupations – your clothes don’t suddenly become ultra-white and your face blindingly luminous, but you will be, and appear as, transformed. Your presence will have an electric charge." (p.102)

At this point we became quiet and suspicious of the whole thing. Can this sort of reality actually be meant for us? Or is this just for stories from the Bible and church history."

He asks, "What if only 30,000 people in Tampa Bay truly lived the Jesus message? Isn’t that the goal of HOPE?"

Agape is an open-hearted position toward life

"Love in the Kingdom" is David Elliott’s title for Thomas Moore’s presentation of agape in Writing in the Sand: Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels. Today Elliott writes,

"Thomas Moore takes themes that we have all heard about for years and puts them into new and deeper contexts. Evolutionary Christianity is wide ranging and little discussed in church circles but agape has been with us since our earliest Sunday school days. What new is there to learn about this most basic of Christian concepts? It turns out to be quite a lot.

'Agape is an alternative to hatred, suspicion, judgement, and paranoia. It is less an emotion and more an orientation towards life. You face the world with an open heart rather than with a suspicious or punitive one . . . But the agape of the Gospels is not just a feeling; it's a stance, a position, an evaluation that generates respect.'(p. 45-46) This seems appropriate for our time. Thomas Moore uses the parable of the prodigal son to exemplify this stance but we were able to come up with powerful stories of our own that even after years still have deep meaning for us."

Elliott lists some of his group members' own reflections about agape. He concludes, "What we didn’t get to discuss much was how on the last pages of the chapter Moore mentions that this notion of agape is not just for personal or family situations but points us in the direction of global community. "'The point is to create a world community that transcends religious allegiance and nationalism.'(p. 56)." The group continues in the new year with the book's presentation of healing.

Gospel teachings celebrate pleasure and vitality

What does the Gospel story about the wedding at Cana have to do with metanoia?

This question is answered in David Elliott’s 14 December post, "Water to Wine", that describes his adult study group’s reflections on Thomas Moore’s Writing in the Sand: "Several have mentioned that they never read about so many layers of interpretation and meaning in this simple story. Thomas Moore’s personal journey from the monk’s retreat to the university to the psychotherapist’s office to the den of a famous writer and the richness of married life has not been chronicled in detail in his other books that I have read. This chapter was like a blog entry or a diary."

Elliott includes Moore’s view, "The Dionysian and the Epicurian approaches to life — affirming, subtle, and positive about pleasure and vitality — are essential aspects of Jesus’ teaching" (p. 37). Elliott then contrasts this approach with a traditional focus on hard work and virtue.

Readers choose Moore's Writing in the Sand

Two recent blog posts recommend Thomas Moore’s Writing in the Sand: Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels. For Advent Book Blog, Heather Cardin writes, "Moore broadly re-reads the Christian Gospels, yet this is not a book solely for Christians; whatever your religious background, it’s for a spiritually-inclined, well-read person who desires deep engagement with ideas of principled and loving transformation." Cardin is a poet and author living in Saskatchewan.

Jamie Broadhurst, vice president of marketing at Raincoast Books in Vancouver B.C., chooses Writing in the Sand as one of his favourite books for 2010. Scroll down the page to read his description. Broadhurst concludes, "It's hard to read Thomas Moore and not have your own ideological or theological preconceptions blown away like, as he says, writing in the sand."

Group talks of metanoia and baptism symbols

Thomas Moore’s book, Writing in the Sand: Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels, guides discussion of David Elliott’s adult seminar in his 6 December post, "A Radical Shift of Vision – Part 2". In his description of the meeting, Elliott writes,

"Mary Jane picked up on Nancy’s theme and talked about how so much of education particularly of young children stifles creativity. Many modern toys that blink and make sounds don’t allow for kids to build their own universe of meaning. Bill followed a similar pattern of life to Thomas Moore and took us on a journey that I wouldn’t try to duplicate. Can you remember what you said Bill that caused Jim to respond quietly "That’s profound!"

We then spent a few moments reflecting on the symbols of baptism that go along with metanoia, water and fire. Bill discussed the significance of water in a culture where water was special and a daily shower was unheard of and being washed with the soul of life caused you to see things afresh and the fire of the sun. Both are necessary for life."

Near the end of his post, Elliott includes, "We didn’t get to talk much about the "fruit" of spiritual revisioning." Perhaps this topic will be included next week. For earlier Barque coverage of the group's reflections about Moore's Writing in the Sand, see:

"Gospels: intelligent, grounded, mystical healing"
2 December 2010

"The Kingdom is empty but far from worthless"
25 November 2010

Group studies Moore's Writing in the Sand
17 November 2010

"Consider earthly concerns and spiritual vision"
6 October 2010

Gospels: intelligent, grounded, mystical healing

David Elliott posts his seminar group’s investigation of Thomas Moore’s Writing in the Sand: Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels in his blog entry "A Radical Shift of Vision" on 30 November 2010. Elliott suggests the "entire book is summarized on page 26":

"Change of heart (metanoia)

brings you into the kingdom (basilea)

where you discover the power of love (agape)

to heal. (therapeia)"

Elliott continues, "This is deceptively simple but goes beyond where most authors take us. Moore discusses the baptism by water and fire as the process: "your egotism has to be burned away. Your neurotic agenda, so long in the way, must vanish so you can be a conduit of healing." ... Could the Gospels be a source of "intelligent, grounded, yet mystical healing?" (p. 28) His challenge is that we have more than a more helpful understanding of Jesus or the right attitude of service as we live our lives but that "Then we would see clearly that metanoia is a change in being, not just mind and behavior. When you undergo this transformation, radically and profoundly, you become a healing presence." (p. 28) The group keeps its focus on metanoia for its next session.

The Kingdom is empty but far from worthless

David Elliott describes the continuing study of Thomas Moore’s Writing in the Sand with his post, "A New Way of Imagining Human Life" on 23 November 2010. Elliott admits:

"For a left brain person like myself, I was worried that the imagery of Thomas Moore would be difficult to approach and talk much about. Boy/Girl was I wrong. You picked up on the images from the parables as if the most natural and meaningful way to search for meaning in life. Our conversation about the parable of the woman who walked home as her jar of food was emptying was telling. The kingdom is empty but far from "worthless." The Kingdom is transparent to the mystery, "more an attitude toward life than a religious institution, more a quality of mind than a formal church" (p. 5).

Writing about the group’s response to their chosen book, Elliott includes:

"Some of us struggled with the concept of myth. We are like many still thinking that myth is fantasy or fairy tales, not to be relegated to any importance. Moore would like to use the word Kingdom as a new myth of human life ... "mythology is the story or narrative, sometimes unspoken, by which people find meaning and make sense of their world. When taken seriously myth speaks of the very heart of religious life." (p. 10) But if Kingdom is empty, transparent, translucent then how can it be our story? Moore talks about being in the Kingdom or not. Of course, this is throughout the Gospels but we often don’t listen carefully."

Elliott introduces Moore’s next topic, metanoia, as "the change of mind, necessary to enter the kingdom of heaven."

Group studies Moore's Writing in the Sand

Last month Barque reported that David Elliott’s adult seminar group plans to study Thomas Moore’s Writing in the Sand: Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels. Elliott shares the group’s initial discussion about Moore’s book in today’s post, "Writing in the Sand ― Introduction". After Elliott writes, "This first week of the study we basically wanted to get inside Thomas Moore’s head and let his words wash over us," he lists eight quotes from Moore’s introduction that resonate with the group; some with responses from group members. The last quote:

"Breaking free of reasonable, standard, but unconscious patterns of thought is what Jesus is about ... Jesus talks as a visitor unfamiliar with this reasoning and offers a way out of our stupidity. He assumes that we don’t have to live with wary paranoia, demonic violence and self-destructive narcissism ― three kinds of personal and cultural neuroses that threaten our existence." (p.xx).

Study Moore's book in Woodstock, Vermont

The North Universalist Chapel Society in Woodstock, Vermont offers the course in adult religious education, The Wisdom of Jesus that includes Thomas Moore’s book Writing in the Sand: Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels. The schedule is five Sunday evenings starting at 5:00 p.m.: January 16, 23, 30, Feb. 6, 13, 2011. The course description includes:

"This course is for those who struggle and would like to be at peace with their own or others’ Christian heritage and need to de-mythologize or re-mythologize a little of what has been passed down through the centuries as the Christian tradition. We will look at what "myth" is. The class will incorporate time for some of our own personal stories, experiences and mythos."

Rev. Daniel Jantos, minister of the North Universalist Chapel Society since 2000, facilitates this program. For more information, visit the Society’s website.

Consider earthly concerns and spiritual vision

David Elliott leads an adult seminar outside Tampa, Florida. Yesterday in a post called, "Evolving our most Intimate Relationships", he wrote, "I will be recommending Thomas Moore’s book Writing in the Sand for a lenten series for us to study. He studies the Gospels by reviewing the original Greek at some depth and pulls it together with the statement: "Two streams of life define you: earthly concerns and a spiritual vision. This change leads to a life based on love, a love rooted in radical and profound respect for the other. Eventually you realize that your chief role in life is to heal. That is how Jesus lived and that is what the Gospels teach." This vision can be related specifically to our church and its vision. It should be a fun extension of our journey."