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By John T. Crestwell, Jr.
May 22, 2005
Western civilization has been
established under the belief that life is dualistic. Good & evil, up
& down, black & white, left & right, just & unjust,
thesis/antithesis…
We cannot argue with this. It is true life is full of opposites… It
is quite natural then that in the religious realm, we would also
find this separation—spirit/flesh, sacred/profane,
religious/secular.
In religion, these titles signify a movement of consciousness—a
movement of awareness which differentiates between the realm that is
“of the world” or secular over against another world that is sacred
or consecrated—belonging to the world of the gods or to God. The
Catholics do a good job of showing this separation. When you walk
off the street and into the cathedral, you are immediately aware of
your shift in consciousness. You go from the “hussle and bussle” to
the calm, meditative worship service. You see the portraits, the
stain-glass windows and you read catechisms, you pray. You are
participating in things that are different from everyday life. You
know you are in another place, particularly when you leave and go
back to the “rat race” of life… This is done purposely by the
Catholics to show their members that they have gone from earth to
heaven, from the fleshly world to the spiritual world.
In the religious realm, the dualism of flesh and spirit is obvious.
Traditionally, theology teaches that ungodly or bad things are flesh
inspired, while good deeds are done with our spiritual godly
instincts. Better stated, the spirit, the good we do, is God
inspired --breathed into us by God, but human nature in this
framework is bad and “other-than-God”, sinful and even God forsaken.
In the religious world, good and evil are diametrically opposed
forces.
I think Plato did a marvelous job in helping us separate our
humanity into two distinct parts. In fact, this line of thinking
helps us to find a scapegoat for many of our problems. I’m sure some
of you can remember the all too famous words: “The Devil made me do
it!” I remember a good sermon I heard from a Christian preacher when
I was a kid. He said, “You all want to blame everything on the Devil
and don’t want to take any responsibility for your own actions!” I
remember it so well. I was about 12 years old but remember thinking
to myself, “Man, I’ve gotta come up with something else.” I was one
of those kids who said it all the time: “The Devil made me do it.”
As I was saying, Plato did a marvelous job… What do or did we get
from Plato? We get the Western philosophy of Body and Soul. The soul
is perfect at birth and comes from the perfect universe where the
Immortal Soul, the Creator resides in perfect form. Our reality then
is a defective copy of this perfect form and our bodies are
defective copies of this perfection as well… Plato saw the Soul or
what some call the Spirit as something separate and apart from the
body. The perfect soul, at birth, comes and indwells in the body and
leaves it after the life ends. Plato felt that while the body lives,
the soul becomes weakened and corrupted by fleshly desires or human
senses. The soul then is reason and the body senses. It is unclear
to me why Plato felt this perfect soul would ever want to come to an
imperfect body. But his reason is basically it was a happening in
the Universe that created this sort of shadow existence… But what is
clear is that Plato had no knowledge scientifically of how the brain
functioned. He could see I bet within his own being, that in so many
situations his mind was willing but his flesh was weak. For me, he
created a justification for this greatness and weakness. He could
see that he had the capacity to think like a god and yet he felt the
yearnings of his other nature that made him see the other side of
himself the he perhaps did not like as much… AND THUS I HAVE COME TO
MY FIRST EPIPHANY I’d like to share: HUMANS SEPARATE THE TWO SIDES,
no because it is natural (and it is in some ways), rather BECAUSE WE
DO NOT WANT TO OWN UP TO WHO AND WHAT WE REALLY ARE! Somebody hear
me this morning!
We live our lives, as we say in my neighborhood, “fakin’”. We put on
false face in public but are something else in private. But you see
I KNOW as Dr King would say all the time: “There is enough in me to
make a gentleman and rouge.” I know, as Ovid, the Latin poet said
well: “I wish I were wiser, but a newly felt power carries me off in
spite of myself; love leads me one way, my understanding another.”
He would later write the famous words, “I see and approve better
things, I follow the worse.” The Apostle Paul said it well too: “For
what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want
to do—this I keep on doing.” Dr. King sums it up: “In the worst of
us there is some good and in the best of us there is some evil!” And
so, Yes, I am virtuous---and I am vicious. I am humble—I am
arrogant. I am democratic—I can be tyrannical. I want to be better—I
don’t care to change. I share my bounty—I hoard resources. I am a
saint—I am a sinner. I can be good—I can be bad…
For me, there is no separation of spirit and flesh, body and soul…
There is just the human being. I am proud to be a human being. I’m
not afraid of being human. I don’t want to scapegoat my frailties.
“I am what I am!” I want to own up to the imperfection. I accept it.
I want to be better but I accept where I am. I don’t want to say
that the Devil made me do it. I don’t want to accept the belief that
it is the imperfect form that creates the chaos within me—and in our
world. You see, I know I don’t know everything and I don’t want to
know everything because the beauty of discovery would be lost. Nor
do I do everything the right way. I know I can screw up. Like when I
left the church unlocked this week for a few minutes because I
wanted to run and get a few egg rolls before the World Religions
class. I was gone no more than 15-minutes and in that span of time,
Race came in, saw the church unlocked. He saw the log and saw that
Bonnie Gill was the last person to log out. She said, “John was
here”. Then Jill proceeded to call my wife who called me just after
Jill reached me on my cell. I had a mouth full of food and said,
“I’m on my way back now I’m just around the corner at the Chinese
restaurant.” This was all in the span of 15 minute. I guess our
system certainly works pretty well!!! Amen!
So you see, I know I can screw up. But thank the Universe, there are
others who can chip in or do what I cannot do or do what I forget to
do. Thank the Creative Sustaining Force that I can get up and start
all over again if I have another day, and I can work on doing better
even though I may do worse… This is life. Plato, my friend it’s okay
to be human. The faster we recognize the humanity and inhumanity in
that mirror, the faster we can go about intelligently examining the
issues we face as human beings. But when we see the other as unlike
us or even as some other thing as if we are better, then we are in
trouble as human beings. And looking at our world, if we don’t
change our outlook, we are in trouble as human beings!
In Hinduism, there’s a thought that the fully alive individual
operates at the heart level. The idea is that most live at either
the groin level—the reproductive level, or they operate at the
stomach level where eating and drink are the main concerns… But the
highest level is at the heart level, where we live to give… The goal
in Hinduism is to move toward this perfection—move toward Nirvana.
In truth though, the heart is an organ in the body. It pumps blood.
This concept then is not to be taken literal as if the groin and
stomach will cease antagonizing us if we attain enlightenment. The
truth is, with the enlightenment comes the knowledge that the
senses, the stuff in me, the stuff in all of us is what makes us who
we are!
Abraham Maslow coined the term “self-actualization” which he
considered the peak of human achievement. Listen to this:
“A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must
write, if he is to be at peace with himself. What a man can be, he
must be. This is the need we may call self-actualization ... It
refers to man's desire for fulfillment, namely to the tendency for
him to become actually in what he is potentially: to become
everything that one is capable of becoming ..."
These are wonderful words but what this says for me is that we have
to be true to ourselves… We cannot lie to ourselves. It will always
haunt us. When we don’t accept responsibility for our lives we are
the worst for it… What Maslow’s theory goes on to say is that a
self-acutalized person accepts the good with the bad, as a part of
reality. They do not hide from who or what they are... In fact, if
there is good that comes to us in life, the self-actualized
individual accepts the fact that bad comes as well. The words of Job
come to mind: “The Lord giveth and taketh away.” Indeed, life gives
and takes but it is how we deal with the in-between that really
matters… The understanding for us lies in acceptance. It is beyond
the dichotomy! As Ovid said, “No one possesses unalloyed (or pure)
pleasure; there is some anxiety mingled with the joy. And so the
self-actualized person sees spirit and flesh, body and soul, as one
and the same..
On September 10th the day before the 9/11 horror, I was on my way
back from Texas. The airline left my luggage so I had to go back on
September 11th. As I was on my way, early in the morning, to Reagan
National Airport, turned on the radio and heard what was happening
in New York. Of course I was in disbelief. I got my luggage but no
sooner than I’d left, I saw smoke coming from the Pentagon. I turned
the radio back on and heard a plane hit the Pentagon. I rushed home
in shock and some fear wondering what was going to happen next… Some
days later I called my father-in-law who is one of my mentors. I
asked him his thoughts on the terrorism and he said, “I expected
it.” I was astounded. I said, “What do you mean ‘you expected it’?”
He went on and said that he fixes his mind on expecting the worst
and when something happens it’s not a shock. He said: “We
(Americans) are the supposed purveyors of democracy in the world.
Yet we flaunt our wealth and power. There is fallout to be expected
from this stance…” The point is that Al expected it. He had lived
and seen enough to know that life gives and life takes away. He
knows that life is a dance…
The ancient African worldview, which is very close to the Taoist
concept of “The Way of harmony,” is distinctly different from the
Western Platonic philosophical construct. Hear these words from Dona
Marimba Richards’ book, Let The Circle BeUnbroken. She says: “To the
African….the universe is made up of complementary pairs. These
‘pairs’ are forces, or principles of reality that are interdependent
and necessary to each other, in a unified system. The determining
mode of the African world-view is harmony. The goal is that of
discovering the point of harmonious interaction, so that
interferences become neutralized, allowing constructive energy to
flow and to be received. In Africa the human is divine as the
universe is, and so the sacred and the profane are close and can be
experienced as unity… Life itself becomes a sacred and a most
precious gift to be cherished, preserved, passed on and revitalized.
It is to be lived to its fullest!” (Thank you Paula Cole Jones for
this book).
We can learn something here… We can learn not to reject our humanity
and not to reject the dualism, but to embrace it as one. Yes, we
have to begin to see our two natures as one so that we can release
the harmonious constructive energies in the universe that will build
up humanity instead of tear it down!
This is the point in the Gospel of Thomas when Jesus says, “When the
two become one then you will say mountain move and it will move.” Or
another verse that reads: "If two make peace with each other in a
single house, they will say to the mountain, 'Move from here!' and
it will move." This is speaking metaphorically of the two natures
inside of us. They are not separate, they are one. Body and soul,
spirit and flesh, sacred and profane—they are one. They are
complimentary pairs… There is no day without night. There is no
sunshine without the rain; there is no thrill of victory without the
agony of defeat… When you see this, you see that all that you are
and all that you can be is in making the two things one in
substance. There is an internal civil war going on in all of us! It
is that mountain within you. It is that mountain that makes us hate;
that mountain that makes us classify and label and condemn. It is
that mountain that tells us we are better than they are; that
mountain that keeps the world separate and unequal. It is within
us!! And if we want it to move, we have to change our awareness, our
consciousness, our thinking and then we are self-actualized and we
know that this tension at the heart of the universe is the tension
within all, and we are one with all humanity in this light.
Unfortunately, when we compartmentalize our natures and we fake as
if we are the most righteous person on the planet, as if we have all
the answers, as if our spirit is righteous and another’s
unrighteous; as if our way of life is the only way, then we are in
danger of destroying each other! So, for me, owning up to what and
who we are is vital so that we can allow everyone the opportunity to
live the dance.
When we see the two as one, we can begin to see that we cannot hate
so easily unless we hate ourselves. We cannot hoard resources less
we starve ourselves. We begin to see the mutual struggle in the
human condition. We begin to see that Dr. King was right: “We are
tied inextricably in a single garment of destiny” as human beings.
Yes, Gibran was right, I need my Reason and Passion. I need my
rudder and my sail, I need my cool shade and scorching heat, and I
need the thunder and lightening. I need both sides because they
remind me that I am human. And when I see my brothers and sisters of
all races, nationalities and creeds, I see myself, because I know
that we are all “one united breath in God’s sphere.”
And so, “Let it be a dance we do. May I have this dance with you?
Through the good times and the bad times too, let it be a dance.
Without the dark there is no light. If nothing’s wrong then
nothing’s right--- let it be a dance. Let it be a dance. Let the
sun—shine, let it rain; share the laughter, bear the pain, and round
and round we go again. Let it be a dance… A child is born, the old
must die; a time for joy, a time to cry, But take it as it passes
by. Let it be a dance! Let it be a dance.”
“When the two become one, then you will say ‘mountain move’ and it
will move!”
Thank you for your time this morning. Let it be so!
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