01

The Presbyterian Women of the Presbyterian Church (USA)
participated in a Re-Imagining Conference 
in Minneapolis, November 4 - 7, 1993.
The Conference called for addressing 
injustices to women world-wide
and promoting equal leadership with men
throughout all phases of religious experience and expression.
It emphasized the fundamental need
of Re-Imagining God and Christian theology
to get past male-centered language, imagery and authority,
and referenced Sophia as the Old Testament personification of wisdom.

It was bold and beautiful,
and swiftly laid aside 
by the General Assembly of the PCUSA meeting in June, 1994,
saying the Conference 
"went beyond the boundaries" of Reformed theology.

With that judgment,
the chances for a new vision for the church
were formally laid to rest. 

Formerly laid to rest.
They are presently stirring to life.

The Status Quo is crumbling beneath our very feet.
We always grow up against our will,
or not--
and are now faced with re-imagining God
or being forever arrested in our development
and never knowing what might have been
if we had only been more courageous and imaginative.

Re-imagining God is re-imagining the Church
is re-imagining the People
is re-imagining ourselves,
is reinventing ourselves,
is making all things new.

By "turning the light around."

"Turning the light around,"
is an Old Taoist phrase
that became an Old Zen phrase
(Zen is what happened
when Taoism met Buddhism),
that continues to be the crux of the matter
in every awakening/re-imagining/reinventing experience.
We do not wake up
without turning the light around.

When we turn the light around,
we look within.
We examine ourselves.
We explore ourselves.
We seek ourselves.

The Old Taoists/Zenists would ask us,
"What is the face that was yours
before your parents (or grandparents)
were born?"

They would be asking,
"What is your Original Nature?"

It all starts with,
and flows from,
our aligning ourselves with--
living in accord with--
as servants of--
our Original Nature.

Who we were born to be.

It is the Story of Adam and Eve
in the Garden of Eden.
Which is also the Story of Jesus of Nazareth
in the Garden of Gethsemane.

It is our story.

It is the story of who we are,
and who we were born to be,
and how do we--
here and now--
at this point in our life--
re-imagine ourselves
to be more like we were born to be
and less like we have become.

By turning the light around.

All it takes is, at once,
the hardest possible thing,
and the simplest imaginable thing.
We are never more than one slight
perspective shift
from the Kingdom of Heaven.

The distance of the Hero's Journey
(Which is also called "The Spiritual Journey,"
which is also called "Growing Up")
is the distance from the left side of our brain
to the right side of our brain.
Or, it is the distance from our head to our heart.

We don't have to go on some long pilgrimage.
We don't have to cross the oceans,
or crawl forever on our knees across burning deserts.
We only have to change our mind
about what's important.

(Sin is only being wrong about what is important.
Salvation/realization/enlightenment/redemption
is being right about what is important.
Changing our mind is how we get there--
by re-imagining what is important.
By turning the light around.)

It is hell.
The distance between the Garden of Eden
and the Garden of Gethsemane
is hell.
What would you go to hell for?
It is like dying.
What would you die for?

Would you go to hell
before you would dare to re-imagine God?

If so, you do not have what it takes
to turn the light around.

If re-imagining God
would be worse for you
than going to hell,
you do not have what it takes
to do the work of re-imagining God--
of re-imagining yourself--
of being different than you are.

Forget the face that was yours
before you were born.
You have become who you are,
and that is all you will ever be.
Dead, Jesus called it.
"Leave the dead to bury the dead,"
he said.
He raised the dead,
but he couldn't do anything 
with those who refused to change their minds.
They were deader than dead.
Nothing can be done for people like that.

How free are we to re-imagine God,
the Church,
ourselves?
How different can we allow God to be?

Do we have what it takes for the journey
from the left side of our brain
to the right side?
Do we have what it takes to 
turn the light around?

We are all with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Will we die to our old way of life 
(Of thinking)
and take a chance on being resurrected on the third day?
Will we change our mind about what is important?
Will we live or will we die?
What kind of life will we live?
What kind of death will we die?

The time is at hand.
What will we do?

01

Jesus needed redemption as much as any of us.
The theology that contradicts this
was invented by the Church of the Holy Roman Empire
to pave its way through the ages
(With the Council of Nicaea in 325), 
and the way of all the spin-off churches
who saw what a deal the Roman Catholic Church
had going for it
and decided to get in on the action themselves
(With the Reformation in 1715).

The Church of the Holy Roman Empire
wrote/compiled the New Testament
to shore up its case
for holding the keys to the kingdom. 
That is like unto having lobbyists write the Constitution.
And here we are.
With them saying "God said!"
And me saying, "You say 'God said'!"

My side of it is to say Jesus is one of us. 
And needed redemption just like all of us.
Redemption is getting back on track,
on the beam,
on The Way,
with our life.
It has nothing to do with believing,
or having faith, in Jesus.
It strictly has to do with being who Jesus was, though,
in the sense of living out of his own feel
for what needed to be done
in each situation as it arose. 

Jesus didn't do anything like it was supposed to be done.
He did everything the way it needed to be done.
He listened to the situation as it unfolded before him,
tuning into what was being called for,
situation-by-situation,
and he responded to that,
never-minding what anybody thought or said.

That's the kind of living that redeems us
by getting us back on course with our life
in listening to our life and the circumstances of our living,
and doing what is called for moment-by-moment,
with no contriving,
positioning,
scheming,
conniving,
arranging what we think is our best possible future
serving our best possible advantage forever.

Jesus didn't care about his future.
He cared about each moment and what that moment needed.
He lived to do what needed to be done
in the time and place it needed doing.

This is redemptive.
This will put us back in our life together
with That Which Has Always Been Called God.
Nothing else will.

When Jesus said,
"I am the way,
the truth
and the life,
and no one comes to the Father 
but by me,"
The Church tells us we have to believe in Jesus,
have faith in Jesus.
 
Jesus meant we have to believe in us,
have faith in ourselves,
and live our life in response to what is being called for
in each situation that comes along.

He was saying, "You have to do it the way I am doing it!"

Jesus also said,
"Why don't you judge for yourselves what is right?"
He decided for himself
what was being called for,
and he called us to decide for ourselves
what is being called for.
Time will tell if we are right about it,
and we will get better at telling what time it is,
or what it is time for,
in situations as they come along.
It only takes practice in reading the moment
to know what it is time for,
to know what is being asked for.
When we do it,
it is redemptive.

But, you see what the problem is.
Where does the Church fit into this scenario? 
Who needs the Church to tell us what to do?
Jesus was a radical kind of fellow
with his anti-church talk,
and the church of his day--
the Temple and the priesthood--
had him crucified.

But there is a place for the church 
in any age.
A different kind of church,
teaching people to think about God
in a different kind of way--
in ways that have nothing to do with theology,
but with living aligned with the life
that needs us to live it,
here and now.

This kind of church would tell us
that we live our way into knowing God, 
we don't believe our way there.
And it would teach us how to listen to our lives
and recognize the path that is opening before us
moment-to-moment.

We are living our way toward that kind of church
right now,
and The Church of What's Happening Now
is an example of what it looks like.

There were churches like this on every corner
in the world before the Council of Nicaea in 325.
It has taken all these years to get back 
to where things were then,
but the time has come around again.
And here we are!

The Sermon on the Mount,
the Parable of the Prodigal Son,
the Parable of the Good Samaritan, 
and the bit about
"Inasmuchas you have done it (or not done it)
to the least of my brothers and sisters,
you have done it (or not done it) unto me,"
are all you need to know about Jesus.

They are all you need to know
about how to live your life 
in relationship with other people.

They are all the Bible you need.

They are all the religion you need.

They are Jesus without the theology
(doctrine, dogma, creeds, beliefs).
All of which were inventions of the church
to keep the church going--
and it has kept going very well--
which began with the Council of Nicaea in 325
consolidating the Church of the Holy Roman Empire,
initiating the persecutions
and the burnings at the stake
that created Christian Theology,
the Virgin Birth, Sin, Redemption, Heaven and Hell
and all the rest.

The Church is the Church of Oppression.
It is the Church of the Oppressors.
It is the polar extreme of who Jesus was
and what Jesus was about--
"breaking down the dividing walls
and making us all one."

Oneness is what we are to be about.

Ours is the middle way
between the way on the right
and the way on the left.
Between Yin and Yang.
Between the dualities of consciousness
and lived reality.

We are to integrate the opposites,
dance with the contradictions,
embrace the dichotomies,
and bear the pain of it all
in bringing it together,
incarnating/expressing/exhibiting
"Thou Art That"
in our way with ourselves,
each other,
and all things,
and living our way into the Mystery
of the Union
at the Heart of Life and Being,
by living "This, too! This, Too!"
in each situation as it arises
all our life long.

Starting right here
right now.

01

There is being aligned with our life,
in accord with our life,
and there is being at odds with our life,
at war with our life.

If we are in accord with the Tao,
we are aligned with our life,
and things are fine.
Which may not be ideal,
but it is as good as things
can be expected to be
under the circumstances.
This is called optimal.
Optimal puts us at the fulcrum,
the pivot point between
past and future,
between how things are
and how things need to be.

That is to say
at the still point between worlds.
The middle way between opposing,
contradictory,
mutually exclusive
possibilities.

To be conflict ridden
and storm tossed
is to be out of accord with the Tao
and too much embroiled in
attached to,
involved with
our life and what is happening,
or not happening,
there.

To be at one with our life
is to be at the proper distance from our life.
"Working distance," I call it.
We can allow things to be 
what they need to be
in order to do what needs to be done.

When we have to have things
the way we want them to be--
regardless of how they need to be--
we disrupt the flow of time and place,
create disturbance and turbulence,
and nurture all of the symptoms
commensurate with the struggle 
to force our way upon our life.

At that point,
we have to take stock,
step back,
stand aside,
sit quietly,
enter the silence,
and wait for the muddy water to settle,
allowing our perspective to shift
in ways that take everything into account,
and allow the action that is called for 
to come into focus
and spontaneously move us
to do what needs to be done
in the service of the good
of the situation as a whole--
in spite of what it may mean
for us personally.

Following this mode of seeing/doing
into the next moment,
into the situation that arises from this one,
situation-by-situation
for the rest of our life,
puts us in the current of the Tao
as it courses through our days,
as a blessing and a grace
upon all that comes our way.

–0–

02

Two of our fundamental experiences
are with Grace and Karma
(Grace is also called Tao,
Dharma
and Synchronicity).

We don't have to believe in Grace and/or Karma--
anymore than we have to believe in
yoga or acupuncture. 

Or wonder and awe.

Or justice and love.

These things,
and all the rest,
are part of the background,
the environment,
the umwelt,
of our life.

They are "just there."
They "just happen."
Of themselves.

And are not to be conjured up
by belief or devotion,
sacrifice or superstition.

They are evidence
of "more than meets the eye,"
and serve to remind us
that the visible world
rests upon the invisible world,
and that living knowingly
between both worlds
enhances the quality 
of our life immeasurably.

What would you do 
“without hope, 
without witness, 
without reward” 
(Steven Moffat)? 

Without recognition, 
without acknowledgement, 
without gain? 

What would it be? 

Find it! 

Do it! 

Over and over! 

There is life hiding in that. 
You come alive there. 
Do not stop doing it!

01

I suggest that you 
build coalitions of 3-5 people
to explore who each of you is,
and what you think/feel
is at the heart/center/ground/source/foundation/bedrock
of each of you.

How do you decide what to do?

What directs your boat
on its path through the sea?

How do you think of what is good?

Where do your ideas of the good originate?

Who are your guides?

How do you maintain your balance and harmony?

What is your work?
(Not what you do for a living,
but what you live to do.)

What would you go to hell for?

What do you know about
what has always been called God,
that you did not get from some other source,
including the Bible?

Where do you go--
what do you do--
to be with what has always been called God?

What are your essential virtues?
The ones that form your essence.
The ones that came with you from the womb.

What is your essential nature?

How do you like to spend your time?

What are the stories that form your bedrock?
Not necessarily things that have happened to you,
but stories that connect you to the truth
of who you are and how it is.

What grounds you so solidly
that nothing can knock you off your foundation?

How do you know what is being called for
in a situation?

You might also commit to viewing all of the
Jon Kabat-Zinn YouTube Videos
(The shortest ones first)
and giving some money
to benevolent causes
throughout the year.

If someone suggests that the group
elect officers,
tell them that is cause for life-time disbarment
and don't invite them to future meetings.

–0–

02

Your personal coalitions,
and you should have as many
as you can manage,
of 3 - 5 people
will see you through,
and enable you to meet
whatever comes up
with the resolve,
creativity,
resiliency,
spirit
and enthusiasm
that has gotten us
through all that we have faced
as a species
from the beginning
to now.

Our coalitions enable "truth,
the whole truth
and nothing but the truth,"
and, more importantly--
more important because the truth
cannot happen without it--
they enable us to bear the pain
of the full realization of the "truth,
the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth."

The truth about truth
is that we rarely ever
get all the way to the bottom
of truth.

There is always more than meets the eye.
So, we have to keep looking.
No matter how things are,
there is always how things also are.

This is where sitting in the silence
in the presence of the Source
(However you imagine that to be)
and waiting for whatever arises/emerges
out of the silence,
as realization,
or as urge,
or as urgent call to action,
or as memory,
or as whatever comes up
in the silence to guide/direct
you to action,
comes into play.

Always the need to return to the silence,
to return to the Source,
and wait for whatever revelation
we need to meet whatever we face.

The silence/Source is with us always,
and those who know,
know we all draw water from the same well,
and are connected at the level of the heart
as One throughout all time and space--
and it is our ideas of how things ought to be
that separate us into factions
and divisions
and war parties,
and once we put contriving
and conniving
out of the picture
there is only all of us together
seeking together
what is in the best interest
of all of us together.

And the base unit
of all of us together
is a coalition of 3 - 5 people
speaking straight from the heart
about matters
that are important
to us all.

–0–

03

Two foundational assumptions for membership
in the Church of What's Happening Now
are your good faith
and your ability to bear the pain of your life.

Everybody wants to feel better.

Nobody wants to do what it takes
to get better.

What it takes to get better
is bearing the pain of the way things are.

The culture we have created
is a giant excursion
into the unending possibilities
of pain avoidance and relief.

Diversion,
distraction,
escape
and denial
come in myriad shapes and sizes.
There is something,
somewhere,
for everyone.

If you are in pain
in this place,
someone will hand you
a pill,
or a drink,
or an injection,
or an experience
that will take you far away
from your anguish
and transport you
to a "land of gentle breezes
where the peaceful waters flow"
(Anne Murry, Snowbird).

Always, always,
at the bottom of our pain
lies a contradiction
that cannot be borne,
which we have to bear.

We want what we do not have,
or have what we do not want.

"That" rules out the possibility of "this."

What we want runs afoul
of something else we want.
And, what we don't want is everywhere.

The song has endless verses
saying the same thing:
We have to grow up against our will!
Therefore, we choose not growing up.
And here we are.

Sometimes we can walk
two paths at the same time.

Sometimes we have to make
a choice between mutually exclusive options.

Sometimes we have to adjust
ourselves to having lost
our truest love.

Bug always, we have to come to terms
with the pain of our life being as it is.

"This is the way things are,
and this is what we can do about it,
and that's that.
And That is how things are."

Growing up means coming to terms
with how things are.
Means bearing the pain of how things are.

Doing that (growing up) will not be good
for the economy.
But.
It will be the best thing we can do
for ourselves and those we love--
though it may take a while
for all of us to realize that.

The foundation 
of The Church of What's Happening Now
is the right kind of silence.

The right kind of silence is the source of everything.

The wrong kind of silence
leads to the right kind of silence
over time.

Just be still
sit quietly
and wait
to see and hear
what needs to be
heard and seen.

As thoughts appear,
moods arise,
feelings stir...
add them to your awareness
without engaging any of it,
in a "This too, this too," kind of way,
and return to the stillness,
sitting quietly,
waiting,
watching,
seeing,
hearing...

The things that occur to you in the silence
will organize themselves into categories.
They will sort themselves out
grouped according to their urgency
and the quality of their  power
to attract/distract.

Is it attraction or distraction?
What is the nature 
of their urge to action?
What is the nature
of the action they urge?

The questions raise the matter
of the source and the end
of our thoughts,
moods,
feelings...

Seek the source in the silence.
Get to the bottom of you.

Joseph Campbell said,
"It is the nature of reflection
to lead to new realizations"
(Or words to that effect).

Curiosity and inquisitiveness lead the way.
 Ask the questions that beg to be asked.
Say the things that cry out to be said.
Investigate your own
thoughts,
feelings,
moods...
to see where the come from,
where they are leading,
and what they have to tell you about you.

01
All religion is based on the premise
that if we make God happy,
God will make us happy.

This has been condensed to the principle:
Give To Get,
and explained by saying,
"If we give to God we will get back blessings
by the boat load,
pouring over,
spilling out."
Never mind that God's very own son
"was crucified, dead and buried."
Or that Baruch  (Jeremiah 45) was chastised 
for looking for favors.
Or that Habakkuk (3:17) grounded his faith on,
"Though the fig tree does not bloom,
and no grapes appear on the vine..."
we are told if we do everything just right
we will accumulate great merit
and be rewarded handsomely in the end.

All we have to do is keep the 11 Commandments.
That's for Christians.
Other religions have different stipulations.
The 11 Commandments for Christians
are the usual and customary 10
plus "believing in the Lord Jesus Christ
as the literal Son of God
and our own personal Savior."

Now, some would tell you that #11 
voids the other 10
because it earns you forgiveness
for all of your violations of every one of them.
But.
When you get to the fine print,
you see that not only do you 
have to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,
but you also have to 
"Live a Godly, Righteous and Sober life,"
go to church every time the doors are open,
where you will hear that you will die and go to hell
if you don't come back whenever the doors are open
and hear that you are going to die and go to hell
if you don't come back...

It gets to be tedious, 
toeing the line all the time,
which is what we had to do before
we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ,
and we still have to do it
in addition to believing in the Lord Jesus Christ,
so what does believing do for us actually?
We can't ask the question.
We have to bow our heads
and take it on faith 
that the Ones Who Know Everything
And Must Be Pleased Or Else
know what they are talking about.

It turns out that not only do we have to 
make God happy,
but we have to make God's spokespersons happy as well.
But.
We are assured that heaven is worth every sacrifice
in the end.
In the meantime, well...
Keep your head down and do what you are told.

And the closer we examine religion,
the less healthy it appears to be.

And that is where The Church of What's Happening Now
comes in.
No Doctrine.
No Dogma.
No Theology.
No Creeds.
No Hymns (Books of Doctrine Put To Music).
And Worship takes whatever form
your joy, thanksgiving, gratitude, wonder, awe, marvel, amazement, etc.
in response to the experience of being alive
are best expressed in and through and by.

The focus of our living in The Church of What's Happening Now
is on our life,
on our lived experience,
right here,
right now,
moment-by-moment-by-moment,
day-by-day,
in each situation as it arises.

There is only the present moment,
the right-here-the-right-now, 
which transforms,
transitions,
morphs
and becomes
the right-here-right-now
on and on forever.
The Eternal Now.
The Eternal Present.

With each moment/situation/here-and-now calling for something.
Asking for something.
Needing something.
For each of us to serve and bring forth
with the gifts/genius/daemon/virtues
that come with us from our mother's womb.

We step into the moment,
look and listen,
see and hear,
perceive what's what
and what needs to be done about it,
in response to it,
and do it as best we can
with what we have to offer,
and that leads us directly into 
the next moment,
in which we do the same things...
All our life long.

The Church of What's Happening Now.

Is built around what we need to do that.
Is here to help us find what we need and do that.
And that's that.

–0–

02

What are the compelling urges
that guide our boat
on its path through the sea.

Alcohol is a compelling urge.
And every other addiction.

Fear is compelling urge.
And every other emotional obsession.

Our life is "nothing but"
one compelling urge after another.
Things we must-do-have-to-do-or-else
drive us,
hound us,
chase us,
without ceasing,
and leave us with no time
to live at all,
existing as we do
to serve all that coerces,
oppresses
and owns us.

How to free ourselves
from all that owns us
in order to give ourselves
to that which has need of us--
and in whose service
we come alive,
at one with ourselves
and in tune
with the times and places
of our living,
is the question
that sets us free
and binds us to ourselves
in an eternal dance
of dying to all that is not-us,
and living to all that is-us,
in each situation as it arises,
world without end.

It is a choice, you see,
the only choice,
our only choice,
choosing the One
whom we serve--
in a "choose this day
whom you will serve"
kind of way.

Joseph Campbell said:

“The myths by which we live must support us through our personal crises in life. They have to sustain us and enable us to go forward with our lives. When we find what sustains us through those crises, we find our myth.

"We have to live out our story in light of a Greater Story that holds things together for us and enables us to make sense of things.

"What is it that supports us in the face of total disaster? To know that, is to know your myth.

"Our myth is what we tell ourselves about the way things are that enables us to live with the way things are.

"What is our mission? For what would we sacrifice ourselves? What is it that 'works' for us? To answer these questions is to find our myth.

"The problem is to find within ourselves the thing that moves us, that we are really pushed by.”

Abraham Maslow said that people live for five things: Survival, Security, Personal Relationships, Prestige, and Self Development.

And Campbell said

"These are precisely not the values that a mythically inspired person lives for.

"A person who is really gripped by a dedication, by a zeal, will sacrifice all these things for the sake of his or her own passion.

"These five values are the values people live for who have nothing to live for. Nothing has seized, caught, or driven these people “spiritually mad.”

"These people, aren’t worth talking to."

The people who are "worth talking to,"
are the people who are living their own life,
out of their personal affiliation with,
and commitment to,
living their own life
beyond every other consideration.

They are grounded upon the bedrock
of their own virtues and character,
they know who they are
and what is theirs to do,
and they live to do it
in each situation as it arises,
in season and out of season,
and in all weather conditions.

They have chosen to serve
what has chosen them.

And they are highly worth talking to.
Knowing.
Living with.
Being.

If you are going to be anything,
Be one of those people.

The ground of true religion is personal experience with the ineffable essence of existence in the form of grace, beauty, wonder–typically conveyed by an encounter with art, music, nature and/or the right kind of conversation with the right kind of people. This is religion without theology, doctrine, dogma, creeds, reason or logic, and is beyond being explained, defined, told, expressed, communicated…

This is conveyed by one my favorite Zen stories.

A Zen Master was crossing a bridge when a student accompanying him asked, “What is Zen?” Whereupon the Master picked him up and hurled him into the water, saying, “There! That is water! Drink it! Swim in it! Bathe in it! Or Drown! But do not talk about it! To talk about water is to not know water!”

So it is with religion and with the grounding experience of the ineffable.

For me, the Tao gets to the heart of religion because the Tao is remarkably devoid of theology, or explanation.

Tao is integrity.

Integrity is the alignment
of ourselves with ourselves
(our Original Nature)
and of ourselves with our circumstances.

When we live at odds with ourselves
for the sake of our circumstances,
we are out of alignment,
out of accord with the Tao.

When we live out of accord with our circumstances
for the sake of ourselves,
we are out of alignment,
out of accord with the Tao.

Integrity is the key
to being in position
to experience
grace/synchronicity/Tao/dharma
in the time and place
(the here and now)
of our living.

When we lose our rhythm,
balance and harmony–
are off center,
out of tune,
living against the grain,
swimming across the current,
and our life isn’t ringing true–
we need to run an integrity check
to see where we are contriving,
scheming,
engineering,
orchestrating,
arranging
outcomes and ends
by being who we are not,
and work to get ourselves back
in conjunction with ourselves
and our circumstances.

In so doing, we maintain the connections,
and live truthfully at one
with ourselves and our circumstances
“at the still point
of the turning world”
(T.S. Eliot).

--0--

A life lived at-one with itself
has no trouble knowing
when to say Yes and when to say No--
What to say Yes to
and what to say No to.
And that is the only knowing that matters.

We know what we need to know
in each situation as it arises
when we are living 
at-one with our life,
without an eye out for what's in it for us.

At-one with our life,
 what we do is automatic, spontaneous,
improvisational and spot-on
every time.

We have trouble with when to say Yes
and when to say No,
when we are trying to figure our way
to increasingly better outcomes forever.
What is our best move?
Hmm that's a tricky one...
Maybe this, maybe that...
How do we know
How can we be sure?
What to say yes to,
when to say no?
So, we just take our chances
and say what seems best to us
at the time,
which creates a new situation
with what to say yes to
and when to say no,
and one follows another,
until we end up at the bottom of some wall,
wondering where we went wrong,
and how to plot our best moves for sure
next time.

But.

To know when to say Yes
and when to say No,
and be right about it,
we have to take ourselves
out of the game
of wrestling our best future
into existence,
and simply look and listen,
feel and sense,
what the situation is calling for,
what the situation needs,
and respond to that
out of the gifts, genius, virtues, etc.
that came with us from the womb,
and see where it goes.

Seeing where it goes
will lead us into another situation
where we follow the same process,
until it becomes clear that we are
on the beam,
on the path,
on the right track,
or off the beam,
away from the path,
in the trackless wasteland
of the wilderness.

At which time,
we have to stop forcing our way
and listen, look, sense, feel
deeper into the silence,
and wait for something to arise,
to occur to us,
to call our name--
and give ourselves to it service,
and see where it goes.

And so on,
like that.
Forever.
Always living here and now
in light of what is happening
and what needs to be done about it,
without worrying about
how to use this moment
to our best advantage,
but trusting ourselves to be just fine
by looking, listening, sensing, feeling
and following spontaneously
the compelling urges
that guide our boat
on its path through the sea.

Anything that takes the present moment
away from us
is evil.

Anything that brings the present moment
vibrantly alive to us
is good.

Anything can take the present moment
away from us.
Anything can bring the present moment
vibrantly alive to us.
Anything can be evil.
Anything can be good.

The present moment
is all there is.
What we do here and now
determines,
or strongly influences,
what happens next.

Good and evil depend on us
and how we live in each moment
that is present,
here and now,
throughout our life.

The quality of our relationship
with the present moment
is the only thing that matters.

Our relationship with this here, this now,
is the turning point,
the fulcrum,
the place of greatest leverage,
shifting us,
positioning us,
into the center of The Way--
carrying us into the current of the flow
of time and place--
opening us to what the situation
is calling for,
and enabling us to be the pivot
between what has been
and what will be.

Our mission is to integrate the opposites.
To assimilate the polarities.
To harmonize the world.

We are the Third Way
between mutually exclusive contradictions.
How well we serve our mission
depends upon the quality
of our relationship
with the present moment.

The more we have at stake
in the present moment,
the less responsive we can be
to what is called for in it,
and the more invested we will be
in serving a particular outcome--
the one which favors our interests--
at the expense of all others.

And that is where 
The Church of What's Happening Now
comes into play.
The Church of What's Happening Now
brings us to life in the life we are living
by focusing us on this moment right now,
and calling us,
enabling us,
to see what we look at,
hear what is being said,
know what's what
and what is being called for,
and how we might respond to that
with the gifts/genius/daemon/virtues
that come with us from the womb
in doing what needs to be done
no matter what
all our life long.

Spending the right kind of time
with the Church of What's Happening Now
will be time well spent.