Agapé was the word chosen for “God’s Love” when the Greek manuscripts and letters of the New Testament were put out in the 1st Century. This developed when those followers of Jesus began writing for the Greek speakers who wanted to know about Jesus. They needed to find a new word to express God’s Love to the Greek culture. Paul convinced them to use an ancient word that was almost unknown in those days so it would seem like a new word.
So in the Greek version of the Gospel According to John, the Last Supper teaching from Jesus to his followers includes instructions about agapé. Then the 2 best known places where Paul expanded on the teaching are in Romans and 1st Corinthians. There are many of the postings in this blog that deal specifically with those passages.
Then over the centuries since then, the teachings about agapé gained greater importance as people learned how to let agapé work in their personal lives and relationships. As each culture translated the teachings from Jesus and Paul into various languages, the importance of agapé was kept alive. That is until English speakers in the 19th Century made the mistake of translating ‘agapé’ into ‘love.’ From then on the importance of agapé became lost to English speakers.
The vast devastation of the first half of the 20th Century was followed by a rediscovery of the meaning of agapé. So it is now up to all of us to find the importance of agapé-flow in our life.
As I began to do this in my own daily meditation exercises, living, and relationships, I began to find my life being changed as I let the agapic perspective on life develop for me. Now, I present this blog as my response to all of that.
Saturday, October 10, 2015
Saturday, August 15, 2015
Agapé and the other Aspects of Reality
Agapé is the solution to dealing with the aspects of reality I described in the following blog page (of course, it’s a page that I wrote and posted before this one). That is possible because we become much more aware of the spiritual aspects of life when we open up to the power of agapé-flow in our life.
So even though modern civilization makes it extremely difficult to accept the other 2 aspects of reality (death and pain) that I wrote about, we are more able to accept them and creatively deal with them because of the spiritual power of agapé. As we work more and more with agapé flowing thru us, opening us up spiritually, then flowing out to enhance our relationships, we learn the hard way to be completely honest about reality.
The way agapé-flow breaks us open to life and makes us more vulnerable, we slowly find our basic perspective on life is profoundly changed. That effects us in ways we never could have imagined. We are able to accept what happens in life — and with people — in ways that come to surprise us when we are able to look back after years of agapé working thru us. And because this only works fully when we practice meditation regularly and in a way that makes us profoundly more aware of the flow of agapé.
By regularly meditating with agapé-flow, we are more deeply able to experience agapé in all aspects of daily life. And such awareness changes our understanding of the pain that comes with life. This awareness helps us learn how to deal with pain, both physical and emotional. And so we gain a perspective that gives our true self the freedom to distinguish the ways in which the conditioning that happened to us early in life caused us to unnecessarily increase suffering. Thru such learning we gain the freedom to deal with pain without increasing our suffering.
And with regularly meditating with agapé, we are able to identify with eternal, creative Essence; and thus to free ourselves from identifying with the false self that became produced by the conditioning that happened to us early in life. The perspective that comes with identifying with eternal, creative Essence allows us to face death in new, more creative ways. And so we slowly find that we easily separate ourselves from the modern world’s obsession with denying death. There is no longer any need to deny death, because we see it from within the flow of agapé and from the perspective of eternal, creative Essence.
So even though modern civilization makes it extremely difficult to accept the other 2 aspects of reality (death and pain) that I wrote about, we are more able to accept them and creatively deal with them because of the spiritual power of agapé. As we work more and more with agapé flowing thru us, opening us up spiritually, then flowing out to enhance our relationships, we learn the hard way to be completely honest about reality.
The way agapé-flow breaks us open to life and makes us more vulnerable, we slowly find our basic perspective on life is profoundly changed. That effects us in ways we never could have imagined. We are able to accept what happens in life — and with people — in ways that come to surprise us when we are able to look back after years of agapé working thru us. And because this only works fully when we practice meditation regularly and in a way that makes us profoundly more aware of the flow of agapé.
By regularly meditating with agapé-flow, we are more deeply able to experience agapé in all aspects of daily life. And such awareness changes our understanding of the pain that comes with life. This awareness helps us learn how to deal with pain, both physical and emotional. And so we gain a perspective that gives our true self the freedom to distinguish the ways in which the conditioning that happened to us early in life caused us to unnecessarily increase suffering. Thru such learning we gain the freedom to deal with pain without increasing our suffering.
And with regularly meditating with agapé, we are able to identify with eternal, creative Essence; and thus to free ourselves from identifying with the false self that became produced by the conditioning that happened to us early in life. The perspective that comes with identifying with eternal, creative Essence allows us to face death in new, more creative ways. And so we slowly find that we easily separate ourselves from the modern world’s obsession with denying death. There is no longer any need to deny death, because we see it from within the flow of agapé and from the perspective of eternal, creative Essence.
Saturday, July 25, 2015
Agapé and 3 Aspects of Reality
There are 3 aspects of reality that must be accepted in order for life to flourish. And yet, sadly for our survival, most people in modern civilization try to do the opposite — they desperately try to deny that acceptance. Of course, that only causes more suffering.
These same people have been misled by the modern world to think that civilization will protect them from those 3 aspects of reality. Such desperate effort to avoid acceptance is what causes a great deal of mental suffering and anguish. All that effort only leads to the illusion that they won’t have to concern their little selves about accepting them.
But at least there have been English words for the first 2 aspects. And in the 14th Century, as England changed from using Latin as the main language for religion, Christian leaders tried to invent a new word for the 3rd aspect. But so strong was the effort to keep from accepting the 3rd aspect that the English word’s meaning became corrupted until now it doesn’t mean anything like what it was meant to convey spiritually.
Those original English words for 3 aspects of reality were death, pain, and charity.
Most people have been indoctrinated to think that civilization was developed in order to keep them from having to accept the reality of death, pain, and charity.
ASPECT #1 = DEATH. Even though modern civilization has been franticly extending life expectancy, the most that has been accomplished is to get a few people to live passed 100. But it has become very dangerous for people to long to live forever. Eventually, every single person must face the reality that death comes to all beings. So we might as well accept it.
ASPECT #2 = PAIN. Even though modern civilization has been indoctrinating people to think that the purpose of the vast medical industry is to eliminate pain, that also is impossible. So much mental suffering has been caused by not accepting the reality that all people will experience pain in life. More suffering has been caused by trying to avoid pain than actually comes from pain.
ASPECT #3 = AGAPé. I use the Greek word in its ancient meaning because there no longer is any English word that conveys the original, spiritual meaning. When European scholars first translated the Latin version of the Bible, they discovered a problem: there was no word in French, German, or English to translate the Latin word pronounced ‘chár-itis.’ They should have gone to the original Greek version to try understanding why that Latin word was a very rough translation of the Greek ‘agapé.’ The English scholars took a cue from French scholars and invented the English word ‘charity.’ The main point is that the Latin did not use their word for ‘love,’ just as the Greek version did not use any of the normally used Greek words for ‘love.’ But the efforts had grown so strong in the 19th Century to avoid the spiritual meaning of the word, that all English translations changed ‘charity’ to ‘love.’ At least by going back to the Greek word, ‘agapé,’ the chances might be better to try getting modern people’s attention to see the spiritual meaning. Such effort is the purpose of this blog.
These same people have been misled by the modern world to think that civilization will protect them from those 3 aspects of reality. Such desperate effort to avoid acceptance is what causes a great deal of mental suffering and anguish. All that effort only leads to the illusion that they won’t have to concern their little selves about accepting them.
But at least there have been English words for the first 2 aspects. And in the 14th Century, as England changed from using Latin as the main language for religion, Christian leaders tried to invent a new word for the 3rd aspect. But so strong was the effort to keep from accepting the 3rd aspect that the English word’s meaning became corrupted until now it doesn’t mean anything like what it was meant to convey spiritually.
Those original English words for 3 aspects of reality were death, pain, and charity.
Most people have been indoctrinated to think that civilization was developed in order to keep them from having to accept the reality of death, pain, and charity.
ASPECT #1 = DEATH. Even though modern civilization has been franticly extending life expectancy, the most that has been accomplished is to get a few people to live passed 100. But it has become very dangerous for people to long to live forever. Eventually, every single person must face the reality that death comes to all beings. So we might as well accept it.
ASPECT #2 = PAIN. Even though modern civilization has been indoctrinating people to think that the purpose of the vast medical industry is to eliminate pain, that also is impossible. So much mental suffering has been caused by not accepting the reality that all people will experience pain in life. More suffering has been caused by trying to avoid pain than actually comes from pain.
ASPECT #3 = AGAPé. I use the Greek word in its ancient meaning because there no longer is any English word that conveys the original, spiritual meaning. When European scholars first translated the Latin version of the Bible, they discovered a problem: there was no word in French, German, or English to translate the Latin word pronounced ‘chár-itis.’ They should have gone to the original Greek version to try understanding why that Latin word was a very rough translation of the Greek ‘agapé.’ The English scholars took a cue from French scholars and invented the English word ‘charity.’ The main point is that the Latin did not use their word for ‘love,’ just as the Greek version did not use any of the normally used Greek words for ‘love.’ But the efforts had grown so strong in the 19th Century to avoid the spiritual meaning of the word, that all English translations changed ‘charity’ to ‘love.’ At least by going back to the Greek word, ‘agapé,’ the chances might be better to try getting modern people’s attention to see the spiritual meaning. Such effort is the purpose of this blog.
Monday, July 6, 2015
Pray for Agapé to be felt by others
Recently a friend loaned me Anne Lamott’s book about prayer, Help, Thanks, Wow. I was very inspired by her words. But I want to do something different with a few quotes from her book. I do this because there were places where she seemed to be referring to what the original New Testament called ‘agapé’ — like when she talked about Love with a capital L. Even though she didn’t ever use the Greek word, I decided to see how her words could take on increased meaning by changing ‘love’ to ‘agapé.’
When Anne Lamott talked about how she prayed for people, she described that as asking for health and happiness for them, and for their children; and for them to have help to have a sense of peace; and for them to feel the agapé of God. I consider that the basis for holding others in prayer.
And the way she described spiritual power, I could see she was meaning the animating energy of agapé. Also I think she was referring to the light of agapé when she talked about the energy and motion that have called us to prayer, allowing us to perceive at least bits of deeper reality.
She talked about the mystery of people surviving unsurvivable losses and finally coming to happiness again. And I interpret her as marveling that the only way that was at all possible had to do with agapé coming to them through their closest people and through a community of support, helping them and surrounding them with agapé.
Then when she described the wonder of our hearts dealing with the extreme tragedies of any historical moment, she gave an inspiring statement of how we keep from being crushed by overwhelming international news reports, which I interpret as: agapé falls to earth, rises from the ground, pools around the afflicted. As she does whatever she can to help people survive, she claims that agapé pulls people back to their feet — so bodies and souls are fed — bones and lives heal — new blades of grass grow from charred soil. The sun rises.
And so, even though she never uses the Greek word, we can find a deeper spiritual awareness to her inspiration when we can read her insightful wisdom without getting bogged down in thinking about common love the way it usually comes across in modern society. When our reading is shocked a little by coming across the unusual word, ‘agapé, we are sent into a different perspective and so are able to see the spiritual meaning of Lamott’s insight.
When Anne Lamott talked about how she prayed for people, she described that as asking for health and happiness for them, and for their children; and for them to have help to have a sense of peace; and for them to feel the agapé of God. I consider that the basis for holding others in prayer.
And the way she described spiritual power, I could see she was meaning the animating energy of agapé. Also I think she was referring to the light of agapé when she talked about the energy and motion that have called us to prayer, allowing us to perceive at least bits of deeper reality.
She talked about the mystery of people surviving unsurvivable losses and finally coming to happiness again. And I interpret her as marveling that the only way that was at all possible had to do with agapé coming to them through their closest people and through a community of support, helping them and surrounding them with agapé.
Then when she described the wonder of our hearts dealing with the extreme tragedies of any historical moment, she gave an inspiring statement of how we keep from being crushed by overwhelming international news reports, which I interpret as: agapé falls to earth, rises from the ground, pools around the afflicted. As she does whatever she can to help people survive, she claims that agapé pulls people back to their feet — so bodies and souls are fed — bones and lives heal — new blades of grass grow from charred soil. The sun rises.
And so, even though she never uses the Greek word, we can find a deeper spiritual awareness to her inspiration when we can read her insightful wisdom without getting bogged down in thinking about common love the way it usually comes across in modern society. When our reading is shocked a little by coming across the unusual word, ‘agapé, we are sent into a different perspective and so are able to see the spiritual meaning of Lamott’s insight.
Thursday, July 2, 2015
The Meaning of Agapé
More than 5 years ago this blog started when I was led to naming a spiritual power with the ancient Greek word ‘agapé.’ This happened as I began to open to that spiritual awareness during my morning meditation time.
I traced all this to my new understanding of Romans 5:5 as I left ‘agapé’ in the Greek instead of making the common mistake of translating it as ‘love’: “the agapé of God has been poured into the center of our being.” So that new perspective has led me to spend morning meditation time focusing on accepting the spiritual flowing of agapé by “sensing” agapé as “access” to more profound spiritual experience. I let that bring me access to spiritual “manifestation” of divine Presence.
One day early in this new practice, after morning meditation, I became aware that I was being led to a book in my collection that I hadn’t read in 4 years. That book was Love, Power, and Justice by the theologian, Paul Tillich; I opened the book and on pg. 33 found this: “… agape enters from another dimension into the whole of life and into all qualities of love. One could call agape the depth of love or love in relation to the ground of life. One could say that in agape ultimate reality manifests itself and transforms life and love.” That confirmed what I was experiencing.
Reading the word “manifests” had a powerful impact on me! When I saw the way he connected agapé with divine manifestation -- used in the same way that it had come to me in meditation -- I was convinced that a breakthrough had come to me. In the weeks that followed, this became increasingly more important in my morning meditation. Finally as Jan. began, I decided to start this blog dedicated to exploring agapé as a spiritual power that is our access to the manifested divine Presence.
That last sentence has become for me a verbal ‘touchstone.’ Because I consider universally ever-present spiritual Source to be so far beyond the awareness of humans (no matter how much of a spiritual genius a particular human could be), we need a way of access. That is, without some type of manifestation to us, we have no ultimate spiritual awareness. So then we need some way to access that spiritual manifestation. And that way has been given us -- "poured into the center of our being."
During these 5 years I have been opened to the awareness of agapé as that access power to whatever divine manifestation that is available to humans. I continue to become more deeply aware when I pray for agapé to draw me into the intimacy of divine Presence. As I describe in my book, The Seven Steps of Agapé Prayer, I pray first that agapé power flows in the life of a person who is spiritually important to my development, then in the lives of specific friends and family members, then in the lives of strangers I see on my walk to where I meditate every morning, then in the lives of people whom I have found to be difficult, and then in the lives of people in groups such as churches. During this meditation time, as I have my awareness opened to the vastness of divine Presence, I follow the vastness to pray both for agapé in the lives of all sentient beings, and finally for agapé to flow for all of Creation.
I traced all this to my new understanding of Romans 5:5 as I left ‘agapé’ in the Greek instead of making the common mistake of translating it as ‘love’: “the agapé of God has been poured into the center of our being.” So that new perspective has led me to spend morning meditation time focusing on accepting the spiritual flowing of agapé by “sensing” agapé as “access” to more profound spiritual experience. I let that bring me access to spiritual “manifestation” of divine Presence.
One day early in this new practice, after morning meditation, I became aware that I was being led to a book in my collection that I hadn’t read in 4 years. That book was Love, Power, and Justice by the theologian, Paul Tillich; I opened the book and on pg. 33 found this: “… agape enters from another dimension into the whole of life and into all qualities of love. One could call agape the depth of love or love in relation to the ground of life. One could say that in agape ultimate reality manifests itself and transforms life and love.” That confirmed what I was experiencing.
Reading the word “manifests” had a powerful impact on me! When I saw the way he connected agapé with divine manifestation -- used in the same way that it had come to me in meditation -- I was convinced that a breakthrough had come to me. In the weeks that followed, this became increasingly more important in my morning meditation. Finally as Jan. began, I decided to start this blog dedicated to exploring agapé as a spiritual power that is our access to the manifested divine Presence.
That last sentence has become for me a verbal ‘touchstone.’ Because I consider universally ever-present spiritual Source to be so far beyond the awareness of humans (no matter how much of a spiritual genius a particular human could be), we need a way of access. That is, without some type of manifestation to us, we have no ultimate spiritual awareness. So then we need some way to access that spiritual manifestation. And that way has been given us -- "poured into the center of our being."
During these 5 years I have been opened to the awareness of agapé as that access power to whatever divine manifestation that is available to humans. I continue to become more deeply aware when I pray for agapé to draw me into the intimacy of divine Presence. As I describe in my book, The Seven Steps of Agapé Prayer, I pray first that agapé power flows in the life of a person who is spiritually important to my development, then in the lives of specific friends and family members, then in the lives of strangers I see on my walk to where I meditate every morning, then in the lives of people whom I have found to be difficult, and then in the lives of people in groups such as churches. During this meditation time, as I have my awareness opened to the vastness of divine Presence, I follow the vastness to pray both for agapé in the lives of all sentient beings, and finally for agapé to flow for all of Creation.
Thursday, June 25, 2015
Exploring Agapé Connection
When I read Marianne Williamson’s A Return to Love for the 2nd time, I began to realize that most of the time she was talking about love in a spiritual way. In a follow-up careful study, I saw that she was meaning agapé.
So I decided to go thru her book one more time and change ‘love’ to ‘agapé’ whenever the context gave that meaning. Doing that gave enough of a profound lesson in agapé understanding that I will now list those re-written sentences.
Agapé is what we were born with. Fear is what we have learned here. Agapé is the essential existential fact. It is the ultimate reality and our purpose on earth. To be consciously aware of it, to experience agapé in ourselves and others, is the meaning of life. We came here to co-create with God by extending agapé. We’re on earth to share agapé. The only love that completes us is God’s agapé, and God’s agapé is to be shared with everyone.
Agapé is within us. It cannot be destroyed, but can only be hidden. Agapé merely becomes clouded over, or surrounded by mental mists.
God is the agapé within us. When we choose to share agapé, or to allow our minds to be one with God, then life is peaceful. When we turn away from agapé, the pain sets in. Once we get to the point where we realize that God is agapé, we understand that following God simply means following the dictates of agapé. By affirming that agapé is our priority in a situation, we actualize the power of God.
Agapé is energy. The return to agapé is the great cosmic drama, the personal journey from pretense to self, from pain to inner peace. The perfect you is the agapé within you. Your job in life is to allow the Holy Spirit to remove the fearful thinking that surrounds your perfect self, just as excess marble surrounding Michelangelo's perfect statue is removed.
The agapé in one of us is the agapé in all of us. There’s actually no place where God stops and you start, and no place where you stop and I start. Agapé is an infinite continuum. We are all one, we are agapé itself. Anything other than agapé is an illusion. The only thing lacking in any situation is agapé. The experience of agapé is a choice we make, a mental decision to see agapé as the only real purpose and value in any situation.
Until we make that choice, we keep striving for results that we think would make us happy. When we relax and sense agapé active within the core of our being and keep to that as our focus in every situation — that’s the meaning of working with agapé in charge of life.
God, as agapé, is constantly expanding, flourishing and creating new patterns for the expression and attainment of joy. When our minds, thru focus on agapé, are allowed to be open vessels thru which God expresses, our lives become the canvasses for the expression of that joy.
So I decided to go thru her book one more time and change ‘love’ to ‘agapé’ whenever the context gave that meaning. Doing that gave enough of a profound lesson in agapé understanding that I will now list those re-written sentences.
Agapé is what we were born with. Fear is what we have learned here. Agapé is the essential existential fact. It is the ultimate reality and our purpose on earth. To be consciously aware of it, to experience agapé in ourselves and others, is the meaning of life. We came here to co-create with God by extending agapé. We’re on earth to share agapé. The only love that completes us is God’s agapé, and God’s agapé is to be shared with everyone.
Agapé is within us. It cannot be destroyed, but can only be hidden. Agapé merely becomes clouded over, or surrounded by mental mists.
God is the agapé within us. When we choose to share agapé, or to allow our minds to be one with God, then life is peaceful. When we turn away from agapé, the pain sets in. Once we get to the point where we realize that God is agapé, we understand that following God simply means following the dictates of agapé. By affirming that agapé is our priority in a situation, we actualize the power of God.
Agapé is energy. The return to agapé is the great cosmic drama, the personal journey from pretense to self, from pain to inner peace. The perfect you is the agapé within you. Your job in life is to allow the Holy Spirit to remove the fearful thinking that surrounds your perfect self, just as excess marble surrounding Michelangelo's perfect statue is removed.
The agapé in one of us is the agapé in all of us. There’s actually no place where God stops and you start, and no place where you stop and I start. Agapé is an infinite continuum. We are all one, we are agapé itself. Anything other than agapé is an illusion. The only thing lacking in any situation is agapé. The experience of agapé is a choice we make, a mental decision to see agapé as the only real purpose and value in any situation.
Until we make that choice, we keep striving for results that we think would make us happy. When we relax and sense agapé active within the core of our being and keep to that as our focus in every situation — that’s the meaning of working with agapé in charge of life.
God, as agapé, is constantly expanding, flourishing and creating new patterns for the expression and attainment of joy. When our minds, thru focus on agapé, are allowed to be open vessels thru which God expresses, our lives become the canvasses for the expression of that joy.
Sunday, June 21, 2015
Maybe Agapé is a verb, like “agapic flow”
A few decades ago an exciting change happened in theology: the “God is a verb” movement. Those were creative days for exploring what had been going wrong in Western Civilization for hundreds of years. Unfortunately, most people didn’t want to start thinking with the model of verbs because our modern world had organized a worldview based on noun thinking.
Okay, so why do figures of speech make good analogies for how to think about the world and spiritual matters? It’s because we communicate with language, whether we like it or not. So nouns become representatives of the whole material existence. Then verbs represent every aspect that is not material. But… does that leave anything for verbs to represent?
If those people, who are stuck in a 18th Century scientific viewpoint, still have a general approach to existence where everything has to be material (expressed by nouns), then what’s left? To them verbs are no more than nouns in action. They even think of electrons as tiny bullets whizzing along. That reduces electricity to something solid — because All is thought of only as solid.
Of course, the advanced 21st Century scientists don’t think that way at all. They like to think using verbs. And they are trying to get everyone to start thinking using verbs — before humans destroy the ability of the surface of this planet to sustain human existence. Such destructive results come from too many centuries of materialistic thinking.
But to use verbs as the basis for putting together a general worldview, that leaves open the way for spiritual thinking. No wonder there is so much doubting going on today about spiritual matters; because, if the major organizing worldview is based on materialistic thinking, where people get reduced to loveless objects of consumerism, then life gets reduced to nothing more than mere material existence.
That brings me back to the reaction when I refer to agapé as a spiritual power, and the question I get is “what is spiritual power?” — followed by a blank stare. I’m beginning to wonder if the problem stems from not being able to think of agapé as a verb. First, that thinking is important because agapé is not some sort ‘thing’ that can be found inside of our body. Of course, it’s inside — but from spiritual understanding, there is no ‘inside.’ So flowing agapic power is as much ‘outside’ as ‘inside’ (and the Source of agapé is not merely ‘inside’ of human beings).
Secondly, being fully aware of the flowing agapic power permeating our present situation is an action awareness — so of course we need to understand this by using verb as the analogy. That’s what I mean by agapé being a verb, not a noun. As I said in my book, “agapé is the spirituality of action.”
So then what happens when we begin to think of all spiritual concerns in terms of verbs — with no aspects as some sort of material forms. Then spirituality becomes fluid — and motivational. It’s action that spurs us into more action. Ultimately, we are able to organize a general viewpoint of life that considers the Source of our true spiritual identity in terms of verbs. Then we can have our awareness opened up by agapic power drawing us into intimate relationship with the Source, and we can understand being sent out to spread the power of agapé wherever we go.
Okay, so why do figures of speech make good analogies for how to think about the world and spiritual matters? It’s because we communicate with language, whether we like it or not. So nouns become representatives of the whole material existence. Then verbs represent every aspect that is not material. But… does that leave anything for verbs to represent?
If those people, who are stuck in a 18th Century scientific viewpoint, still have a general approach to existence where everything has to be material (expressed by nouns), then what’s left? To them verbs are no more than nouns in action. They even think of electrons as tiny bullets whizzing along. That reduces electricity to something solid — because All is thought of only as solid.
Of course, the advanced 21st Century scientists don’t think that way at all. They like to think using verbs. And they are trying to get everyone to start thinking using verbs — before humans destroy the ability of the surface of this planet to sustain human existence. Such destructive results come from too many centuries of materialistic thinking.
But to use verbs as the basis for putting together a general worldview, that leaves open the way for spiritual thinking. No wonder there is so much doubting going on today about spiritual matters; because, if the major organizing worldview is based on materialistic thinking, where people get reduced to loveless objects of consumerism, then life gets reduced to nothing more than mere material existence.
That brings me back to the reaction when I refer to agapé as a spiritual power, and the question I get is “what is spiritual power?” — followed by a blank stare. I’m beginning to wonder if the problem stems from not being able to think of agapé as a verb. First, that thinking is important because agapé is not some sort ‘thing’ that can be found inside of our body. Of course, it’s inside — but from spiritual understanding, there is no ‘inside.’ So flowing agapic power is as much ‘outside’ as ‘inside’ (and the Source of agapé is not merely ‘inside’ of human beings).
Secondly, being fully aware of the flowing agapic power permeating our present situation is an action awareness — so of course we need to understand this by using verb as the analogy. That’s what I mean by agapé being a verb, not a noun. As I said in my book, “agapé is the spirituality of action.”
So then what happens when we begin to think of all spiritual concerns in terms of verbs — with no aspects as some sort of material forms. Then spirituality becomes fluid — and motivational. It’s action that spurs us into more action. Ultimately, we are able to organize a general viewpoint of life that considers the Source of our true spiritual identity in terms of verbs. Then we can have our awareness opened up by agapic power drawing us into intimate relationship with the Source, and we can understand being sent out to spread the power of agapé wherever we go.
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
The Gospel of Agapé
I’ve based this whole blog on my belief that the Greek word “agapé” was very important for the beginning of Christianity. But then something went wrong. Finally, after being mistakenly downplayed for several centuries, its importance was rediscovered in the late 19th Century.
The spiritual power represented by that word was crucial to both St. Paul and the Gospel According to John. Even though when those parts of the New Testament were first translated into English and became the origin of the new word ‘charity,’ for almost 2 centuries subsequent English versions mistranslated ‘agapé’ as ‘love.’ When this mistake began to be recognized in the 20th Century, its true spiritual power began to be realized. Finally, the breakthrough came when ‘agape’ was left untranslated in English versions — then the meaning of John’s Gospel gained greater power.
When I look back into the Gospel According to John, I’m struck by the way it’s organized by circles of themes. It becomes possible to open to any place in the gospel and find that the theme being presented there will eventually circle through other themes and come back.
So I began to wonder if there was one of those many themes that served as a center about which all the other themes circled. Over the decades that I’ve looked into that gospel, I’ve begun to think that all the themes were built from key Greek words (remembering, of course, that the Gospel of John was originally written in Greek).
So it’s not surprising that I think the central theme for that gospel is agapé. That theme then stands out as so important that I think it is the central organizing theme about which all the other themes circle. The central presentation of that theme came in the Last Supper scene in chapters 13-17. Those chapters contain the final teachings that Jesus was giving his disciples. I can’t help but think he was telling them to listen to his summing up of his whole ministry. So, of course, the theme there is the importance of agapé to all that he had been doing the whole time they were with him.
Ch. 13 starts with a demonstration of a change that agapé brings to society’s view of relationships. That demonstration was washing his disciples’ feet. It shocked the disciples! He was showing how society’s view of relationships needed to be turned upside down. And the power of agapé would do just that. And Jesus tells them they are to do for each other what he has done for them both in that demonstration and throughout his whole ministry.
Then the chapter moves to Judas going out to betray his master. After Jesus reflects on what that betrayal means to his great work, Jesus says, “Now I will give you a new commandment.” By leaving ‘agapé’ untranslated into English, so as not to diminish its spiritual meaning with the word ‘love,’ we have the new commandment in these words, “Share agapé with each other as I have shared agapé with you. So you must share agapé with each other. This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples, when you show agapé with each other.”
He was telling them — that’s what it’s all about! That’s the central theme of everything Jesus did. So agapé is the basis of their identity as his disciples. (Then in Ch. 14 there is a statement that doesn’t translate very well into English, and so people have not understand the full spiritual impact of it.) Vs. 15 expresses the way the spiritual power of agapé actually helps human beings live by that new commandment.
Many years earlier in my life, before I understood that the English word ‘love’ was not the right translation of ‘agapé,’ I couldn’t understand what Jesus meant by calling that a NEW commandment. What was new about it? Wasn’t it just the ancient commandment from the Book of Leviticus that got translated into English as “Love your neighbor as yourself”? But of course, the “new” aspect only becomes clear when we use the Greek word ‘agapé.’ And that gains its full meaning when we understand agapé as a spiritual power. That’s why Paul could say that its divine power had been poured into our heart by the Holy Spirit.
And so the very next verse (Jn. 14:16) talks about God sending more spiritual power as the disciples continue to live by agapé. (A few verses later he concludes with another statement that is a little clumsy when we try to translate it into English.) Vs. 21 could be a little clearer when agapé is left untranslated: “Whoever continues in my agapé will receive agapé from my Father, and I will continue showing agapé to them and reveal myself to them.” I think he meant increased agapé from the Father — the more agapé is shared, the more it’s increased in people’s living, the more its divine power is received.
Another awkward phrasing is in 15:9-12: “As the Father has shared agapé with me, so I have shared agapé with you. Remain on in my agapé. And you will remain in my agapé if you keep my commandments, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in His agapé. I have said this to you that my joy may be yours and your joy may be fulfilled. This is my commandment: share agapé with one another as I have shared agapé with you.”
Those verses also show the connection between true joy and agapé. For it is the spiritual power of agapé that brings a person into deep joy as a person lives by the power of agapé.
The spiritual power represented by that word was crucial to both St. Paul and the Gospel According to John. Even though when those parts of the New Testament were first translated into English and became the origin of the new word ‘charity,’ for almost 2 centuries subsequent English versions mistranslated ‘agapé’ as ‘love.’ When this mistake began to be recognized in the 20th Century, its true spiritual power began to be realized. Finally, the breakthrough came when ‘agape’ was left untranslated in English versions — then the meaning of John’s Gospel gained greater power.
When I look back into the Gospel According to John, I’m struck by the way it’s organized by circles of themes. It becomes possible to open to any place in the gospel and find that the theme being presented there will eventually circle through other themes and come back.
So I began to wonder if there was one of those many themes that served as a center about which all the other themes circled. Over the decades that I’ve looked into that gospel, I’ve begun to think that all the themes were built from key Greek words (remembering, of course, that the Gospel of John was originally written in Greek).
So it’s not surprising that I think the central theme for that gospel is agapé. That theme then stands out as so important that I think it is the central organizing theme about which all the other themes circle. The central presentation of that theme came in the Last Supper scene in chapters 13-17. Those chapters contain the final teachings that Jesus was giving his disciples. I can’t help but think he was telling them to listen to his summing up of his whole ministry. So, of course, the theme there is the importance of agapé to all that he had been doing the whole time they were with him.
Ch. 13 starts with a demonstration of a change that agapé brings to society’s view of relationships. That demonstration was washing his disciples’ feet. It shocked the disciples! He was showing how society’s view of relationships needed to be turned upside down. And the power of agapé would do just that. And Jesus tells them they are to do for each other what he has done for them both in that demonstration and throughout his whole ministry.
Then the chapter moves to Judas going out to betray his master. After Jesus reflects on what that betrayal means to his great work, Jesus says, “Now I will give you a new commandment.” By leaving ‘agapé’ untranslated into English, so as not to diminish its spiritual meaning with the word ‘love,’ we have the new commandment in these words, “Share agapé with each other as I have shared agapé with you. So you must share agapé with each other. This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples, when you show agapé with each other.”
He was telling them — that’s what it’s all about! That’s the central theme of everything Jesus did. So agapé is the basis of their identity as his disciples. (Then in Ch. 14 there is a statement that doesn’t translate very well into English, and so people have not understand the full spiritual impact of it.) Vs. 15 expresses the way the spiritual power of agapé actually helps human beings live by that new commandment.
Many years earlier in my life, before I understood that the English word ‘love’ was not the right translation of ‘agapé,’ I couldn’t understand what Jesus meant by calling that a NEW commandment. What was new about it? Wasn’t it just the ancient commandment from the Book of Leviticus that got translated into English as “Love your neighbor as yourself”? But of course, the “new” aspect only becomes clear when we use the Greek word ‘agapé.’ And that gains its full meaning when we understand agapé as a spiritual power. That’s why Paul could say that its divine power had been poured into our heart by the Holy Spirit.
And so the very next verse (Jn. 14:16) talks about God sending more spiritual power as the disciples continue to live by agapé. (A few verses later he concludes with another statement that is a little clumsy when we try to translate it into English.) Vs. 21 could be a little clearer when agapé is left untranslated: “Whoever continues in my agapé will receive agapé from my Father, and I will continue showing agapé to them and reveal myself to them.” I think he meant increased agapé from the Father — the more agapé is shared, the more it’s increased in people’s living, the more its divine power is received.
Another awkward phrasing is in 15:9-12: “As the Father has shared agapé with me, so I have shared agapé with you. Remain on in my agapé. And you will remain in my agapé if you keep my commandments, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in His agapé. I have said this to you that my joy may be yours and your joy may be fulfilled. This is my commandment: share agapé with one another as I have shared agapé with you.”
Those verses also show the connection between true joy and agapé. For it is the spiritual power of agapé that brings a person into deep joy as a person lives by the power of agapé.
Monday, May 18, 2015
Agapé and Logos
After I realized that the central theme for the Gospel According to John is agapé, because in the account of the Last Supper so much importance is given to agapé as the summary of all that Jesus had been doing for his whole ministry, I searched through the other themes. That took me back to the opening of the Gospel.
I still remember a time when I was studying for the ministry when we were learning about the Greek word ‘logos.’ One day when I was contemplating what ‘logos’ meant, I had the realization that it was the power of love. But not just any kind of love. To convey the full meaning of the way ‘logos’ appears in the opening of John, there had to be a focus on divine love and its creative power. Then later on in the class we learned that ‘agape’ pointed to that divine love. So not only was there spiritual meaning to the way ‘logos’ was used to open John’s gospel, but also there was spiritual meaning to the way Jesus used ‘agape’ in his teachings at the Last Supper. After all these decades I’ve come to see that just as the simple English attempt to translate ‘logos’ as ‘word’ was way off in giving the meaning of ‘logos,’ so I’ve come to realize that ‘love’ is way off in giving the meaning of ‘agapé.’
So what do we have in those opening verses? When we look for their meaning from the theme of agapé, we are able to show how the opening verses circle back to the teaching about agapé during the Last Supper. In the first 4 verses of John we find a description of logos as the spiritual power of divine creativity. It brought life to all that is — and infused all of life with deeply spiritual meaning. So John was showing that the eternal creative Essence came to flesh. Then he identified that eternal creative Essence with Jesus. And he then implied that Jesus identified with the eternal creative Essence.
And that seems to be the basis for the summary of his ministry as waking up people to the awareness of the agapé that had been poured into our hearts from the beginning of our creation. The spiritual meaning of agapé is divine creativity underlying human relationships — and of life itself. The ministry of Jesus opened people’s awareness of the power of agapé in their hearts; among other actions, it helped people see their identity with the eternal creative Essence.
So the opening of the Gospel According to John can be understood to mean:
In the beginning was the creative power. The creative power was in God’s presence, and the creative power was divine. He was present with divine power in the beginning. Through him all things came into being, and apart from him not a thing came to be. That which had come to be in him was life, and this life was the light of humanity. The light shines on in the darkness, for the darkness did not overcome it. … To those who did accept him he empowered to become God’s children.
The proof of those verses comes in both action and teaching. We look to what Jesus did among people and to what he taught. When Jesus is portrayed as identifying with the logos (as eternal creative Essence), and when he is quoted as saying “I am …” in a spiritual sense, those words were meant to realize that he identified more with eternal creative Essence than with the ego-identity people saw as ‘Jesus.’ And he was calling people to change their own way of viewing their own identity in the way he did.
The first example we can point to in John is when Jesus looked at the temple in Jerusalem, he said, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” Obviously, he wasn’t meaning that he, in the form of Jesus, would build the temple. He was using “I” to mean the eternal creative Essence would be recognized as the true human identity and so there would no longer be any need for a structural temple. And when he said, “The water that I give will become in those who drink it a spring of water that bubbles up into eternal life,” he was referring to the “I” of eternal creative Essence, and when people become deeply aware of it within themselves, they will recognize their true identification with eternal life. So when he said, “I am not from this world,” he was saying that he wasn’t identifying with the ego-identity they saw as ‘Jesus’ but was identifying with eternal creative Essence. Then when he said, “I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved,” he was saying that salvation is found in identifying with eternal creative Essence and not with anything else.
I still remember a time when I was studying for the ministry when we were learning about the Greek word ‘logos.’ One day when I was contemplating what ‘logos’ meant, I had the realization that it was the power of love. But not just any kind of love. To convey the full meaning of the way ‘logos’ appears in the opening of John, there had to be a focus on divine love and its creative power. Then later on in the class we learned that ‘agape’ pointed to that divine love. So not only was there spiritual meaning to the way ‘logos’ was used to open John’s gospel, but also there was spiritual meaning to the way Jesus used ‘agape’ in his teachings at the Last Supper. After all these decades I’ve come to see that just as the simple English attempt to translate ‘logos’ as ‘word’ was way off in giving the meaning of ‘logos,’ so I’ve come to realize that ‘love’ is way off in giving the meaning of ‘agapé.’
So what do we have in those opening verses? When we look for their meaning from the theme of agapé, we are able to show how the opening verses circle back to the teaching about agapé during the Last Supper. In the first 4 verses of John we find a description of logos as the spiritual power of divine creativity. It brought life to all that is — and infused all of life with deeply spiritual meaning. So John was showing that the eternal creative Essence came to flesh. Then he identified that eternal creative Essence with Jesus. And he then implied that Jesus identified with the eternal creative Essence.
And that seems to be the basis for the summary of his ministry as waking up people to the awareness of the agapé that had been poured into our hearts from the beginning of our creation. The spiritual meaning of agapé is divine creativity underlying human relationships — and of life itself. The ministry of Jesus opened people’s awareness of the power of agapé in their hearts; among other actions, it helped people see their identity with the eternal creative Essence.
So the opening of the Gospel According to John can be understood to mean:
In the beginning was the creative power. The creative power was in God’s presence, and the creative power was divine. He was present with divine power in the beginning. Through him all things came into being, and apart from him not a thing came to be. That which had come to be in him was life, and this life was the light of humanity. The light shines on in the darkness, for the darkness did not overcome it. … To those who did accept him he empowered to become God’s children.
The proof of those verses comes in both action and teaching. We look to what Jesus did among people and to what he taught. When Jesus is portrayed as identifying with the logos (as eternal creative Essence), and when he is quoted as saying “I am …” in a spiritual sense, those words were meant to realize that he identified more with eternal creative Essence than with the ego-identity people saw as ‘Jesus.’ And he was calling people to change their own way of viewing their own identity in the way he did.
The first example we can point to in John is when Jesus looked at the temple in Jerusalem, he said, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” Obviously, he wasn’t meaning that he, in the form of Jesus, would build the temple. He was using “I” to mean the eternal creative Essence would be recognized as the true human identity and so there would no longer be any need for a structural temple. And when he said, “The water that I give will become in those who drink it a spring of water that bubbles up into eternal life,” he was referring to the “I” of eternal creative Essence, and when people become deeply aware of it within themselves, they will recognize their true identification with eternal life. So when he said, “I am not from this world,” he was saying that he wasn’t identifying with the ego-identity they saw as ‘Jesus’ but was identifying with eternal creative Essence. Then when he said, “I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved,” he was saying that salvation is found in identifying with eternal creative Essence and not with anything else.
Saturday, April 18, 2015
Prayer box
Recently I’ve been reading a book about prayer by Anne Lamott, in which she summarizes all prayer types into 3 main categories. She names them simply, as in the title of her book, as Help, Thanks, Wow. On page 36 she described a material tool she uses to assist her with the toughest prayers of “help.” She said that tool is a box.
She uses that box to help let go of something that troubles her. Into the box she puts a written page onto which she describes whatever kind of internal struggle she is having. That’s a way to give a physical action for the process of psychological or spiritual letting go. The point is a material tool can help with the big struggles that mess up her well-being.
Such a tool helps because it becomes a way to see and feel the letting go process. She remembered a time of extreme stress when someone said to her, “Just let go and let God,” and the feeling that came over her was to hit that person. In that moment her thought was, “If it were that simple, I’d had done it.”
So how the box process works is first to actually write down a description (in as much detail as possible) of what you need divine help with — and why you can’t do it yourself. Merely admitting on paper the need for help brings about the beginning of a more effective way of letting go. The next step is to hold the paper next to your heart for several seconds. Next comes the prayer or time for meditation that begins by reading slowly what is written; followed by closing your eyes and meditating on those written words. Finally, slowly place the paper in the box. Take a deep breath as you close the lid then sigh the breath away as you pray the message to be ‘sent.’
Ms. Lamott then explained that an agreement needed to be made with yourself to not open the box until you sense that something happens to make you think the prayer has been answered. Of course, she admits that time is often a problem for us because there may be a long time before we sense that answer.
She said this box helps in cases of being worried, obsessed, angry, or distressed so much you feel like nothing can be done to stop your anguish. Also, she has used it to help with a relationship that upsets her so much she can’t see a way for reconciliation — that’s when she writes down a description of what the relationship problem is, then puts that in the box.
To all of this I would add the power of agapé. The prayer I could see as helpful for letting go would be something like, “I pray for the power of agapé to work on this.” And here again is where we need to remember (as that ancient religious leader, Paul, said) agape is patient. We need to be patient with agape because the answer we sense may take longer to fulfill than we wish it would.
She uses that box to help let go of something that troubles her. Into the box she puts a written page onto which she describes whatever kind of internal struggle she is having. That’s a way to give a physical action for the process of psychological or spiritual letting go. The point is a material tool can help with the big struggles that mess up her well-being.
Such a tool helps because it becomes a way to see and feel the letting go process. She remembered a time of extreme stress when someone said to her, “Just let go and let God,” and the feeling that came over her was to hit that person. In that moment her thought was, “If it were that simple, I’d had done it.”
So how the box process works is first to actually write down a description (in as much detail as possible) of what you need divine help with — and why you can’t do it yourself. Merely admitting on paper the need for help brings about the beginning of a more effective way of letting go. The next step is to hold the paper next to your heart for several seconds. Next comes the prayer or time for meditation that begins by reading slowly what is written; followed by closing your eyes and meditating on those written words. Finally, slowly place the paper in the box. Take a deep breath as you close the lid then sigh the breath away as you pray the message to be ‘sent.’
Ms. Lamott then explained that an agreement needed to be made with yourself to not open the box until you sense that something happens to make you think the prayer has been answered. Of course, she admits that time is often a problem for us because there may be a long time before we sense that answer.
She said this box helps in cases of being worried, obsessed, angry, or distressed so much you feel like nothing can be done to stop your anguish. Also, she has used it to help with a relationship that upsets her so much she can’t see a way for reconciliation — that’s when she writes down a description of what the relationship problem is, then puts that in the box.
To all of this I would add the power of agapé. The prayer I could see as helpful for letting go would be something like, “I pray for the power of agapé to work on this.” And here again is where we need to remember (as that ancient religious leader, Paul, said) agape is patient. We need to be patient with agape because the answer we sense may take longer to fulfill than we wish it would.
Thursday, April 16, 2015
Agapic Self —having agapé for oneself
Each of us is created in such a way that we have a special spiritual power deep in the center of our being. This blog is based on the 2,000-year old Greek tradition of designating that power with the term “agapé.” I call it a spiritual power because it is capable of opening us up spiritually.
When we fully, honestly accept the transforming process that agape [for convenience I decided to drop the accented é], can do for us, we usually experience that process as having agape for oneself. Sometimes a person’s early childhood experiences and training and indoctrination causes a life-long search to be able to have agape for oneself.
The first awareness of that search is expressed as “loving oneself.” Such a search is advanced tremendously when we can deeply believe that we can have agape for ourselves as God has agape for us. But eventually, as we are able to let agape work within us, we experience agape opening us up spiritually. Then we are able to gain the realization that agape is transforming our ‘sense of self’ so that we find out that what we thought of ‘our self’ is not our true self.
I call this the beginning of agapic transformation. (“Agapic” is a new word that came to me the other day. I’m not familiar enough with Greek to know if there actually is a word to express what I was wanting to describe, so I’ll just stick with that word and use it for the expression “Agapic Self.”) In agapic transformation we learn that our true self is spiritual, and thus we are able to get beyond any false identification with the defense mechanisms that developed within us from early childhood experiences and became very confused during and shortly after puberty.
What I’m trying to describe is the original core of the being each of us was created to be. We were created with agape “poured into our heart-center” (as the ancient religious leader, Paul, would say). So that at base of our being we are agape. We can describe that self, which is meant to develop from that new beginning — our true self -- as our “agapic self.” When I capitalized it in the previous paragraph, I was expressing my belief that it is divine: we are a small part of the one, flowing, vast Agapic Self.
But of course, something must have gone wrong in most of us because we grew to think we could ignore the spiritual power of agape in our heart-center. Such ignoring happened as our defense mechanisms grew stronger. Many spiritual traditions give such a process of false identifying the name “ego-identity” (or abbreviated, “ego”). At an important point in your adulthood, you find a deep-seated need to make a choice: either continue trying to function with the dangerous ego-identity or fully accept a new identity with agapic self.
If you have the strength and courage to choose to get beyond any ego-identity, at first you will experience an internal struggling. We are told in Western Civilization that we have to fear the loss of identity. The internal struggling comes from such fear. So first we have to face then overcome that fear. What helps is the realization that such a fear is unfounded.
When we fully, honestly accept the transforming process that agape [for convenience I decided to drop the accented é], can do for us, we usually experience that process as having agape for oneself. Sometimes a person’s early childhood experiences and training and indoctrination causes a life-long search to be able to have agape for oneself.
The first awareness of that search is expressed as “loving oneself.” Such a search is advanced tremendously when we can deeply believe that we can have agape for ourselves as God has agape for us. But eventually, as we are able to let agape work within us, we experience agape opening us up spiritually. Then we are able to gain the realization that agape is transforming our ‘sense of self’ so that we find out that what we thought of ‘our self’ is not our true self.
I call this the beginning of agapic transformation. (“Agapic” is a new word that came to me the other day. I’m not familiar enough with Greek to know if there actually is a word to express what I was wanting to describe, so I’ll just stick with that word and use it for the expression “Agapic Self.”) In agapic transformation we learn that our true self is spiritual, and thus we are able to get beyond any false identification with the defense mechanisms that developed within us from early childhood experiences and became very confused during and shortly after puberty.
What I’m trying to describe is the original core of the being each of us was created to be. We were created with agape “poured into our heart-center” (as the ancient religious leader, Paul, would say). So that at base of our being we are agape. We can describe that self, which is meant to develop from that new beginning — our true self -- as our “agapic self.” When I capitalized it in the previous paragraph, I was expressing my belief that it is divine: we are a small part of the one, flowing, vast Agapic Self.
But of course, something must have gone wrong in most of us because we grew to think we could ignore the spiritual power of agape in our heart-center. Such ignoring happened as our defense mechanisms grew stronger. Many spiritual traditions give such a process of false identifying the name “ego-identity” (or abbreviated, “ego”). At an important point in your adulthood, you find a deep-seated need to make a choice: either continue trying to function with the dangerous ego-identity or fully accept a new identity with agapic self.
If you have the strength and courage to choose to get beyond any ego-identity, at first you will experience an internal struggling. We are told in Western Civilization that we have to fear the loss of identity. The internal struggling comes from such fear. So first we have to face then overcome that fear. What helps is the realization that such a fear is unfounded.
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