These are notes for EFM about Luther and the protestant reformation.
"In saying that he hated God, Luther felt himself guilty of the unforgivable sin of blasphemy, but he also found it difficult to reconcile himself to a seemingly capricious God...... Staupitz gave Luther two insights drawn from his realist and mystical background during the time of his struggle in the monastery, and Luther never forgot them. First, he taught Luther in mystical fashion that even temptation and trial can be a sign of grace. "If Christ, who was so close to God , was forsaken on the cross," Luther wrote on a later occasion, "we who are truly alienated from God must suffer a hurt, but the hurt is for our healing."
....A vivid metaphor echoes the experience that impelled him to take the cowl: "When lightning strikes tree or a man, it does two things: it rends the tree and swiftly slays the man, but it turns the face of the man and the branches of the tree to heaven. Christ was of all the saints the most damned and forsaken.".....Luther gradually came to see, that his feeling of alienation from God did not necessarily mean that God had forsaken him. Indeed, the very worst temptation, he said, would be to have no temptation at all.
Luther would be tossed from one side to the other with doubt, Staupitz argued, as long as he agonized over whether he was numbered among the saved or the lost: "If you keep on arguing about it, you will lose Christ, the scriptures, the sacraments, and everything."
and then: "How was the wrath of God to be reconciled with grace? How could anger be harmonized with mercy? Luther came to see that the heart of his problem was the relationship between God's righteousness and mercy.....What the gospel reveals, Luther came to see, is not the punitive righteousness of God but the forgiving righteousness. The God disclosed to us in Christ is a God whose constant purpose for us is to be merciful. The good news of the gospel is that the righteous God does not punish us but makes us righteous. God justifies us by grace....."If you have a true faith....then at once you have a gracious God , for faith leads you in and opens up God's heart...Those who see God as angry do not see him rightly, but look only on a curtain as if a dark cloud had been drawn over his face."..."So much more God has been able to accomplish through me, though I did no more than pray and preach. The word did it all..." Luther came to the view that the church in its essential nature is invisible, the "communion of saints," the fellowship of those who are united to one another under a common head. The visible church is only the means or organ of the invisible, and what is of account is not the succession of bishops but the succession of believers, who are known only to God.....All should remain in the natural calling to which divine Providence has appointed them. This calling of theirs is the place in which they can and should serve God and their neighbor. Any who neglect the duties of their calling will not be helped at all by fasting, making pilgrimages, telling beads, endowing masses and such other "good works"as there may be.
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To me, this is talking about the need to change the mind itself --- the dualistic mind that is constantly wanting to know everything, and to put God and faith in material terms. The mind that becomes spiritual materialism, that cannot see past the symbol to what the symbol points to. That projects upon God the things symbols and feelings that haunt the individual. That expects God to be rational and predictable. Mercy, and love , and forgiveness are not deserved, rational , or expected. They are usually always very surprising.
March 14, 2004 //
After church today, a lady (in context of another conversation) said, that her husband never liked it when people had fun at church. That it was supposed to be serious.
Well --- they need to have fun, especially if it is serious. Or because it is serious. Or especially because.....I thought of the Yoga aphorism about Yoga being practice. I think that that is the main thing that I have learned from Yoga. That practice is necessary. Our desired goals do not simply occur. That changes we yearn for do not (mostly) mysteriously happen. That practice is necessary. So that , if we wish to becomes creatures to whom love is second nature, it is necessary that we practice loving other people.
This may be the real reason to go to church in the first place. Not out of duty, or any of the surface reasons. But that to fulfill the gospels, it is necessary to explore and practice what is being talked about as the highest good, in the scriptures of all religions. We can only practice in concert with other human beings. And , they shouldn't all be just like us , either. They should be people most like to irritate and annoy us. In this way, we learn, we practice. This is the liturgy.
Meanwhile, Yoga itself, says to start with your own vessel, start at the beginnning, at the place where you find yourself today. Start from where you are, not from where you want to be or wish you were. Don't start from wishful thinking. It is necessary to arrive in the present, and then to practice staying there, paying attention, gathering energy, holding quiet. In this way, God and the universe can work on us, without the constant interference of our anxiety.
