The Tree, The Fruit, and The Ladder

Here's a thought that came to me a few days ago and I've pondered it since then.

Imagine for a moment that we can represent true spirituality and even the purpose of our existence in this world as a tall tree. High up in the tree is the fruit that we're here to pick and enjoy. It's life changing. It's meant for us and is the true nourishment we need. But it's beyond our normal reach. So we find or build long, tall ladders we can climb to get to the fruit.

Imagine a positive religion as a ladder, or a life philosophy as one. Any enterprise, any structured activity or array of human activities could be conceptualized as a ladder propped up against that high tree. Some of the ladders may be rickety and dangerous or too short, but some are great and even truly inspired. Perhaps, many are. And you may properly believe that you're on the best one of all, a great ladder that's been explicitly designed for reaching the highest fruit of all. You've been taught how to climb the ladder. And suppose you've learned well. So you climb high. And you've not just mastered the techniques of ascent, you've learned lots of other things along the way because of what you've experienced and seen as you've climbed.

But here's the problem. Many people who climb in search of the ultimate fruit tend to cling tightly to their ladder with both hands. And they won't let go. Ladder climbing has been turned from a means into an end. And that's a problem. When people keep a firm grip on their ladder, some fearfully and with white knuckles, they can't actually reach out for the fruit that awaits them and take it and eat it, and share it with others.

Only those who are willing to let go of the ladder can reach for the fruit. They can still keep their feet firmly planted on its rungs, but they have to reach out beyond its structure with an open hand to get the real treasure they've sought.

And the tragedy, it seems to me, is that many people who have good ladders just become ladder experts, ladder specialists and aficionados. They work on their ladders a lot, and paint them, and polish them, and keep them in good repair. They may even gild them with gold and show them proudly to others. But when they climb, they simply cling and don't reach out for what's really the purpose of the climb.

The moral of this little metaphor is, of course, simple. Find a great ladder and climb high. But then learn to let go enough to reach for the fruit that's the real point of the climb. Life, after all, isn't about the ladder, but ultimately the fruit.

How to Argue Well

With kindness, care, and a smile when possible, knowing the world will still turn if you persuade no one at all.

Listen first. Then listen more. Hear beyond what’s said. Empathize. Then make your case with understanding.

Focus on truth, not ego. Let the light shine through your words to illumine and not blind others.

Tell a story that says it all. Reason works best with imagination's help.

Invite others to see things as you already can. Then accept their invitation to perhaps see more.

Raise your voice only when you're in front of a very large group and are without a microphone.

Suggest. Don't insist.

Respect people, regardless of what you think of their positions.

It should never be about winning, just discovering and sharing.

Seek Truth, Beauty, Goodness and, ultimately, Unity.

Use logic and love in equal measure.

A Sunday Reflection on Religion and Faith

I've been away from blogging for a couple of months. I first took a break in honor of the holidays. And then I got busy editing my new series of novels for a quicker than normal schedule of publication. I hope you've already seen the prologue to the series, the book The Oasis Within. It's been out for a few months. And just this week, the first numbered volume in the series Walid and the Mysteries of Phi, The Golden Palace, appeared on Amazon. In two or three months, I hope to have volume two out as well, The Stone of Giza. 

I'm almost done in my editing of the eight books I've already written for the series. And today, Sunday, I want to share a passage I just edited. Even though the books are set mainly in Egypt, certain things happen in faraway places, like Tunisia, or Berlin, or New York City. This passage comes from a story line in numbered Book Seven, The Ancient Scroll. The setting is New York City in 1935 at a Methodist Church. The minister, Bob Archdale, is working on a sermon. We get a chance to see into his head and heart as he makes notes. I hope you enjoy this passage.

Bob at the moment was in his office preparing his sermon for the next morning. He was planning to talk on the nature of faith and how it’s more about perception and values and commitment than just belief. He had decided to use as his biblical text the famous meeting at night between Jesus and the Jewish Rabbinical leader Nicodemus, as reported in the Gospel of John, chapter three. At a time when most of the religious establishment either disliked or feared Jesus, this prominent teacher had gone to see him at night, when, presumably his visit would not be public knowledge. He approached the controversial figure and actually said, “Teacher, some of us know that you were sent by God, because no one could do the things you do without divine support.” And then Jesus, rather than acknowledging the scholar’s rare open-minded reasoning and remarkable belief, says something instead that can be very puzzling on more than one level. His words in response were: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus is of course perplexed and says, “How can anyone return to the womb and be born a second time?” And then Jesus answers in such a way as to indicate that his entire ministry and mission aren’t primarily about reasoning and belief, but personal transformation into what’s really a new life, with new perceptions, values, and commitments.

Bob knew that, at almost any time, many of the people in his church were showing up, week-to-week, to make a deal with God. They would believe whatever they needed to believe, and do whatever they needed to do, in order to gain divine favor and everlasting life. Some were likely just hedging their bets and maybe living out the famous Agnostic’s Prayer: “Oh God, if there is a God, please save my soul, if there is a soul.” They were there in an effort to perhaps improve their lot and maybe defeat death. But God wanted them there to defeat spiritual blindness and deafness and idolatry and selfishness. He wanted to see them born anew, raised from the death of alienation and separation and selfishness to a new life of union with him and each other. He wanted an eternal life for them now, which was more about quality than it was about quantity. 

He really wanted to get this point across to everyone who showed up for the service. The faith they were being called to embrace is about new life, new values, and new commitments lived all day, every day. He wanted them to understand that when the insistent felt needs of the untutored ego can be released, its real needs can be met. And then, we can experience the genuine power of humility, compassion, and deep faith. The reverend was hoping to get all this across in a persuasive and illuminating way, so that at least many of the members of his congregation could perhaps see the issues of faith in a new and richer light.

When people approach religion for what they can get out of it, they ironically make it nearly impossible to get the most out of it. It becomes a tool—an instrument the ego is merely using to enhance its own interests, whether those interests are healthy or not. That’s why we’ve had so much war and violence and oppression in the name of religion throughout history. These things have nothing to do with true spirituality, but are perversions or deformations of what faith and the quest of the spirit are supposed to be all about. We often come across people pursuing their own greed, with their own ambitions, and superstitiously seeking to assuage their worst fears under a false patina of religious language, ritual, and sentiment. And this wasn’t just a danger for other times and places, Archdale knew, but it’s a temptation for any of us unless we can come to a true understanding of spiritual things.