|
I consider exhaustion one of the divine gifts bestowed
upon humanity by the merciful one. Let me admit,
up front, that I most often resist such a gift by
pushing on. I wring the last droplets of energy
from my abused body, stubbornly holding fast to
the illusion that I can create and direct my life
with my mind. At first, I appear to succeed. I wear
my well-developed mask of serenity. Disaster looms
around the corner. An insidious pride takes over
and deadens all my senses. I fall into the sinful
pit of dualism. I lose my connection to me body.
I no longer live in the grounded world of time,
space and energy. I become insane.
Enter the merciful gift of exhaustion. Enter the
mystery of the Triune God. Enter the blessings of
heresy. Enter the moment of choice. Enter betrayal.
Enter passion.
Hardly able to move, I breathe only at the rhythm
of my mournful sighs. I lay on my bed being divested
of my defense structures, my conscious cosmology
and theology, even my self-awareness. I am being
thought, felt and sensed more than thinking, feeling
and sensing. I could slip into death without resistance.
I actually stray into the allure of its potential
pleasure. Exhaustion steals the fleeting solace
and returns me to the world below the line of consciousness.
I may or may not be in a dream when the following
sweeps over me.
Who were they who thought up the mental construct
of the Triune God back then in the early Christian
era? What was the shared experience that could have
led them to such a theology? Did they know the power
of the dynamic (3) three? And what about the Judeo-Christian
belief that we humans are made in the likeness of
the divine: women and men equally in body and soul?
Did this play a role in the ultimate design of the
ultimate metaphor: the Mystery of the Holy Trinity?
They did not know of the triune brain. They lived
by its grace. They lived life then, as we do now,
in and through and by the marvelous triune brain:
a still mysterious holy trinity.
I awake startled by the dream person’s heretical
musings. The reptilian brain fathers the life-sustaining
unconscious functions of activation, arousal, and
homeostasis. The paleomammalian brain provides for
learning, memory and emotion. The neomammalian brain
fuels conscious thought and self-awareness. There
it is: Father, Son and Holy Ghost! We are made in
the likeness of God!
In the dream-like state, this feels so plausible.
Did Jesus have an inkling of this as a monotheistic
Hebrew of his day? He surely was versed in the wisdom
literature that portrayed his God as maternal. He
spoke of us as sons and daughters of God. If we
are like God, then God is like us. If our bodies
are the temples of the Holy Ghost, would not the
cerebral cortex and the corpus callosum, which allows
for a far-reaching conscious influence down to the
brain stem, be the transformer of energy for an
undefended life in the Spirit. God is pure energy
and so are we.
Thoughts tumble across the networks of my mind,
as do the weed boulders across the plains. I am
drawn to follow their path, touching down now and
again. I can only see some contact points.
The brain is dynamic, not static. It conserves
itself and modifies itself. Interpersonal relationships
sculpture the brain. We change because the brain
changes. God changes us. We change God. God metabolizes
God. All of this happens directly in unseen intimacy
in the body’s Holy of Holies.
Heretic! Betrayer!
Breathing tide-like now, I console myself. Am I
not in good company? Am I being invited into the
company of those who dare to be exhausted, depleted,
emptied to make place for the unexpected and the
new? I think ‘Unless and until I am willing
to betray others, I cannot be true to myself.’
This has to do with a radical preference: to prefer
self to any other, even those who present as the
keepers of the right and the good, as absolutely
of God and from God. Nothing is more sacred than
the absolute freedom of conscience to choose. Choice
is the antidote to tyranny, that maker of insanity.
The prophet from Nazareth chose. He chose to listen
to and to engage with the One who lived in his somatic
temple and to suffer the consequences at the hands
of his religious authorities.
Such is the passion for the truth. It draws and
quarters.
|
