Soul Matters: Book 4, Monocracy Managerie

It was time to see Sandy. Phil set up appointments in his book so his secretary thought he would be on home visits with clients, but in fact, the next evening, Phil brought the requisite half-rack of beer to Sandy’s house.

Sandy was busy in the kitchen, cutting up fish someone gave him this morning. He was a tall Viking-looking man Phil went to high school with. Sandy’s gravelly voice called out, “Phil. Slipped your chain, I see. What’s happening?”

Phil laughed nervously and put the beer on the kitchen table and broke open the box. Handing a fresh one to Sandy, he said, “It’s beginning again. I need to figure out the difference between logos and mythos. And I need to understand the ontological argument for God’s existence.”

“There’s a mouthful.”

Phil pushed on, “I found out from Manuel that ‘blessing’ is the key to understanding the difference between logos and mythos.”

Sandy slurped down about half his beer and said, “The easy one is logos-- practical, technological, earth-based gifts are implied. The sun, rain, food, animals, progeny, and so on are in this category. The skills of the craftsmen; the astuteness of the leaders; the courage of the fighters; the piety of the priests -- these, too, are a function of logos, since these folks took care of the future and provided safety and wealth for the people.”

Phil nodded and sipped away at his own beer and helped stack the fish for wrapping.

“Mythos is a different story. God’s blessings here reek with ambiguity. Job’s situation was probably the most renown of God’s mythic blessings. Jesus’ crucifixion was another example. If you think about it, the most loved by God were the ones who also suffered the most. Some blessing, huh, Phil?”

Phil could see the point, but did realize his troubles were less than theirs.

“Here’s the weird piece, Phil, the blessing that mythos carried came to those, and only those, who were ready to be astonished.”

Phil frowned at Sandy who caught the frown and laughed. He finished his beer and signaled for another, which Phil retrieved.

“Mythos offers a future of wonder and awe because it’s grounded in mystery. And therein lies the trouble. Mythos demands the Unknowable; yet, man is addicted to the need to know.”

Once again, Phil realized, it was a question of balance so sensitively put in an Islamic axiom: Trust in God, but tie up your camel.

Phil summarized, “Practical and mysterious, both were required. Violate either and there was disaster.”

Sandy grunted agreement and added, “Trust in the Lord never worked when dealing with things not of the Lord; similarly, trust in Reason never worked with the Lord’s things. Hence Jesus’ saying about giving to Caesar his due and God his due.”

“That makes sense, but there’s something deeper,” Phil frowned. He’d been thinking about this and decided to see what Sandy had to say. “I think it’s got something to do with what was taught in the Mystery schools.”

“That’s a whole different can of worms,” Sandy chuckled. “You have to start at the beginning and see Creation from a different point-of-view. It hinges on the proposition that if you started out as an idea coming from God’s mind, you would have a contradictory life. On the one hand, you would be in daily communion with God. On the other hand, the world around you would be indistinct, like moving through a dream. However, as you matured, the world would become distinct, and God receded to the shadows.”

Phil thought about this for a moment before saying, “The Laws of Evolution and Involution are not linear movements of Spirit in the way people usually understand it. If I’m following you, as Spirit descends into matter, Man’s consciousness evolves. At the bottom, when the Law of Involution is spent, Spirit is fully trapped in matter, dormant and inert. Man’s consciousness, though, had evolved to the point where he could discover sleeping Spirit and attempt to awaken it. As Spirit comes alive in a conscious mind, the real Evolution begins.”

Sandy nodded, “That’s the gist of it. For ancient man, then, he lost touch with the Divine in direct proportion to his cognitive growth. The Mystery schools tried to preserve the connections from the prior ages. They developed the technologies to regain communion with God even as the material world hardened and the ego severed the final links to Spirit.”

The next morning Phil was awake early, lying next to a softly snoring Betty, and pondering these issues. Once he made it past his resentment for all ‘they’ had done to him, and engaged himself in true contemplation of the themes, he rapidly put many of the pieces together.

If the resolution for his current adventure in Spirit was another encounter with Jehovah, all these topics must be resolved. Jehovah set Phil on a Grail quest to return this artifact to him. Jehovah, he knew, would like nothing better than to zap him out of existence for failing the quest. As a mask of God, he apparently held such power. Furthermore, if Phil slipped into arrogance, his guaranteed spiritual defenses stopped working. Arrogance and ego were synonymous terms, he discovered, because arrogance was one of the properties of individuality taken too far.

Still, his mind kept returning to Donna. It seemed she would need to walk the line between mythos and logos to keep her soul. He could help with the practical aspects: making her aware of the dangers; how to connect to protective energies; introductions to spirit helpers; and other strategies. He could do nothing about her depth of faith.

Of the patriarchs of the Old Testament, Phil didn’t know how they fit in at this point, but they were the ones that carried God’s blessing. His reading would have to expand to include the five books of Moses, not just the J version of Genesis.

Checking the clock, which told him it was 5am, Phil settled into a meditative state and went to see Manuel.

The angel wasn’t in the patio when Phil arrived but popped in moments later.

“What’s up?” Manuel asked as he moved to the marble bench.

“I’m missing something,” Phil said and sat next to the angel.

“Perspective. It’s the common problem with humans.”

Ignoring the comment, Phil elaborated, “Logos prompts us to take; mythos asks us to receive.”

“Good,” Manuel seemed to be pleasantly surprised. “And now you can grasp another layer to Adam and Eve’s story. The ‘sin’ described there was about taking rather than receiving.”

Phil started to protest but stopped himself. This interpretation didn’t erase the other facts of the story. Rather, a new depth was revealed.

“Like I said,” Manuel added. “Gevurah was a good story-teller. There are meanings on top of meanings. As in, all the sexual references in the story of the Fall equate Eve’s taking of the apple to rape -- actually it was a pomegranate, fruit sacred to Aphrodite. When you confuse mythos and logos, you rape God.”

“Arrogance, again,” Phil muttered as he struggled to incorporate Manuel’s disturbing symbolism.

Manuel nodded; then he asked, “How’s Donna doing?”

“So far, so good,” Phil managed a weak smile.

“Teach her the path and the stairs and the Medicine Area,” Manuel suggested. “She’s got an engineer-brain. She needs solid constructs to ground her spiritually.”

Phil took this in but said, “She’s become a part of my psychotic fantasy. Hasn’t she?”

Manuel laughed, “Your psychotic fantasy is believing you can continue as an insurance salesman who will go to church and pretend to be Christian, then screw your fellow man on Monday... Although, your new pastor has some promise. Listen to his sermon on Sunday. If he doesn’t lose his nerve, he might tell you something useful -- you and Donna.”

With nothing more to discuss, Phil exited the patio and breathed himself back into his body. It was after 6am by this time, and he got out of bed.

Phil forgot Manuel’s prediction about the new pastor’s sermon. On Sunday he sat with his family in the mostly filled church and attempted to feel God’s presence through the usual three songs, a sermon, and three more songs.

Pastor Mike, as he preferred to be called, stood before the congregation, “There is a story,” he began. “A little fish went to his mother and asked, ‘I keep hearing about something called water. What is it?’ His mother laughed and answered, ‘Swim up onto the beach and you’ll know’.”

The people in the pews chuckled at the story, and Pastor Mike went on, “Christ Jesus told us he would be with us always, but just as the fish, we cannot feel his presence because we have no point of contrast. For this reason, we must work to maintain our sense of wonder. As Mark says, ‘He was too much for them. Like a woman who loves too much. Like ointment that costs too much and is spilled too often. Like a seventy times seven God who forgives too much. Like a seed that grows too much and yields 30, 60, a hundred-fold.’ Mark tells us Jesus overwhelmed the crowds he spoke to, and his message to them was simply this: Do not attempt to capture God in your mind, nor even in your imagination. Instead, live in wonder and awe. Quit trying to make God meet human expectations. Rather, live from faith. Do not presume to think you know who God’s enemies are. Rather, through your faith and purity of heart, let God bring you to righteousness.”

Pastor Mike was not a young man, Phil noticed. In fact, he had the look of someone who battled alcohol in the past. He was lanky, but hovered in a round-shouldered stoop, as if he was protecting his heart from the next assault. His hair was thin and mousey brown. He was also sweating, even though the air conditioning kept the room at a tolerable temperature.

The church was spacious. A high ceiling, lots of windows, hardwood floor for the pews, and a carpeted platform for the altar. Pastor Mike didn’t dominate the space, as Pastor Jones had, but Pastor Mike created an intimacy with his calm and compassionate voice.

The pastor paused in his exhortation; then seemed to gather strength for the next, “There is a way we can create for ourselves the contrast so we may more fully sense the presence of God. Silence. Silence is for us as the beach is for our curious fish. When we sit long enough in silence, we will proclaim along with Job, ‘I am the man who has obscured your designs with my empty-headed words.... I had better lay my finger to my lips.’ For in the silence of contemplation, we step into the holy fear of God, which brings us safely to humility.”

Pastor Mike signaled them to stand, and they sang the next hymn. Phil stumbled through it while marveling at the pastor’s words. He was condoning meditation. No, he was telling them the only clear path to God was meditation. He referred to it by its Christian name, contemplation, but few in this audience would know the difference.

When the service was over, Phil took his time leaving the pew. Betty hurried off to the church hall. Bobby and Donna went with her. Phil made sure he was the last person to speak to Pastor Mike, who was greeting folks at the church door.

Phil shook the pastor’s sweaty hand and said, “You’ve introduced the idea of a God-within. I like it.”

A quick frown crossed the pastor’s weathered face, “It would seem so. I’m surprised you made the connection.”

“I meditate,” Phil told him. “In the silence, you cannot help but feel a living Presence.”

“Ahh,” Pastor Mike smiled weakly and turned to walk towards the church hall. The bright sun made them both wince as their eyes adjusted. Pastor Mike went on, “You know, of course, many feel meditation opens a channel to the Devil.”

“It opens a channel alright. Our free will allows us to choose. But I think it would be the rare man who would choose evil once he’s felt Divine Presence.”

They walked in silence as children ran on the manicured lawn surrounding the hall. Parents were in hot pursuit. Most of the members of the congregation, gathered now into distinct cliques, were entering the hall. The heat of the sun bounced off the pavement in wispy waves, and cooling breezes from the ocean played with them.

“I won’t be here long, and I’ve been told of your problems,” Pastor Mike smiled weakly. Then he seemed to make his mind up about something and continued, “We are thrown into life, as Plato said, with a restlessness -- a divine restlessness. Madness comes from trying to solve this restlessness by making our mortal self immortal. As a Christian in our tradition, you avoid the vital lie through contemplation.”

“The vital lie,” Phil picked up on the phrase. “It’s a form of idolatry.”

“Quite so,” was the answer. Then Pastor Mike turned his attention to the mingling parishioners.

Phil found Donna serving punch to the children in the noisy hall. He took up a station beside her and aided the children in keeping the punch in their cups.

“Did you get anything on idolatry?” he asked her.

“Yes,” she said. “But I’m having trouble making sense of it. I think I need to take a logic class.”

“What have you got?”

“Well, it’s based on Rene Descartes’ line of reasoning,” she recited. “If you follow his logic you can get to the claim, ‘anything worthy of worship necessarily exists.’ What logicians do with this claim is to say, ‘for any x, if x is worthy of worship, then there necessarily exists a y identical with x. Then, since there is no y identical to x, then x does not deserve worship. Therefore, to worship such an x is to worship something not deserving of worship.’ Idolatry is that something.”

“Wow,” Phil muttered. “Why must there be a y identical to x?”

“I don’t know,” Donna answered. “It has to do with a Boolean interpretation of class logic. Or something.”

“I don’t see how this is going to be useful,” Phil sighed.

“I do. It’s as I said before. Reason can’t get out of the time-space continuum to comment on God. The ontological argument is flawed because it’s a priori, but logic can refute idolatry rather easily -- if, of course, you understand the logic, which I don’t yet. But I will.”

Phil paused to mop up some spilled punch; then he said, “Okay. Let’s leave idolatry for now. What about the Grail myth.”

“It’s a convoluted story,” she smiled at him. “Is it a cup, the bloodline of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, a spear, a plate, or something else? The legends give conflicting reports. What seems to make the most sense is the Grail is a metaphor for the longing to be filled up with God. It’s the empty cup of our own souls.”

“No wonder,” Phil remarked.

“No wonder, what?”

“No wonder it’s been lost to Christianity,” Phil elaborated. “It’s the acknowledgment of the Divine within.”

“And this is important, how?”

Phil focused on Donna and thought about her question. Then he looked around the room at the happy faces of the congregation. This was hardly the place to get into this topic.

“We need to do something first,” he equivocated. “It’s a meditation exercise.”

“Ought to be fun,” she chuckled. “How will we explain it to Mom?”

Phil smirked and answered, “We’ll have to get around it. Maybe we can say it’s contemplation. Like the pastor suggested.”

“Good call, Dad. Tonight?”

“The sooner the better,” he said with seriousness. “Have you had any other coincidental temptations?”

“Only one. A girl I know wanted me to come to a party. Again, she used the flattery I’m vulnerable to. Since I’m on the lookout for it, it doesn’t seem to have the power it used to. In fact, it’s a bit embarrassing I can be so shallow.”

The line of children dwindled as the punch bowl emptied. Phil turned to face his daughter and confided, “Get used to it. Adventures in Spirit are always at the expense of the ego.”