A Work of Hope

Most businesses cater to either our realized needs, our desires, or our fantasies. And of course, these three categories are connected in various ways. Some businesses cater to our fears, and a few, to our hopes. Commentators have told me over the years that one reason my talks and books are successful is that they bring people hope. They display the wisdom we need to spark and ground our hopes for a better future. And today, I've realized for the first time that this may also be true of the new novels I've been writing.

I've enjoyed or benefited from various types of dystopian literature at times in my life - from Orwell's books to The Handmaid's Tale to The Hunger Games and the Divergent series. And in troubled times, people often turn to such books as needed cautionary tales, and as instructive explorations into the dark side of human nature. After the Arab Spring of 2010 and 2011 worked out so badly, at least in the short run, writers in North Africa began a sudden turn toward darkness in their own poems and fiction. I certainly understand that. But there's a big part of me sensing now that what we most need in turbulent times is a literature of hope, well grounded, thoughtful, responsible hope. And as I deepen in that realization, I come to see that this is exactly what I've been writing and editing for the past six years—an epic adventure series of books, set in Egypt in 1934 and 1935, that explores the best in our nature as it responds to the worst. Issues of courage, friendship, love, and the power of the mind weave through the books and cumulatively create the elements of a very powerful worldview, anchored in ancient thought and yet responsive to the best of modern science. Without realizing what I've been doing—other than writing as fast as I could to get onto the computer a vivid movie I was seeing in my head each day—I was bringing into the world precisely the sort of literature I think we now most need, in our nation and globally. And that gives me a new sense of excitement and personal adventure about continuing to bring these novels into print for their growing audience. After being told by my agents repeatedly that I'm a nonfiction writer, not a fiction guy, even without looking at the fiction, I decided to create my own imprint and a business to bring these new books into existence in our time. And a new publishing imprint unconnected from the major New York houses that I've worked through in the past gets no publicity, but then provides many distinctive gratifications. And, again, as I've said here before, I deeply appreciate those of you who are reading and writing me your impressions of these books. May we together launch something very new into our time. www.TheOasisWithin.com

Walt Whitman, Democracy, and My New Novels

There's a wonderful short essay today about Walt Whitman and his views on American democracy, at the always insightful website Brain Pickings.

Whitman believed that having an idealistic literature would be crucial to our survival and flourishing as a democracy. Reading him, I became aware anew of how the novels I'm now publishing exemplify eactly that in their tone. They even feature an enlightened Philosopher-King preparing his people for the demands and opportunities of democracy. There are criminals and power hungry men and revolutionaries, as well, but we see in the stories what it takes for the best people to stand up to the worst and prevail.

Whitman thought that a nation's literature ought to show the deepest resources of human nature by which we can deal with our toughest challenges. And that again brought me up short, with a realization that this is exactly what my new stories do. And so, as their readership grows, day to day, I hope they'll make a difference in our time that would make Walt proud. I didn't realize until this morning that they have been written over the past six years for exactly our time. We have plenty of dystopian tales in our bookstores and libraries. We need more inspiration and wisdom for the path we're on. For more on the new books, go to:

www.TheOasisWithin.com.

For more on Walt and his message:

https://www.brainpickings.org

Simple Can Lead Into Deep

When I was a professor, a reviewer of one of my academic books wrote of the "deceptive simplicity" of my writing style. That made me smile. I've always worked hard to get to the masterful sort of simplicity on the other side of complexity, fighting for the core essence of truth. And now, I'm glad to see early readers of my short novel The Oasis Within talking about the deceptive simplicity of it. 

One prominent author wrote me that his intellectually advanced and quite literary teenage son had started the book, read the first couple of pages, and put it aside, saying it was "too simple." I was sorry.

Then a man named Bruce, who was reportedly a longtime reader of deep spiritual books, bought The Oasis Within and began it. He emailed me and said that the opening pages couldn't command his attention and that it was probably too simple a book for him. I urged him to read on. Days later, he wrote back to say that it had become one of his favorite books of all time, and that now, he's given dozens of copies to friends, and has continued in his enthusiasm at the books of the series it begins, The Golden Palace and The Stone of Giza. 

Bruce recently told me that he had given a copy to a lady he knows and that she had called to tell him what she thought of it. He wrote me this:

<<Effusive has to be the word.

Gail called. She is the lady who is renting my daughter’s house. I had given her a copy of Oasis suggesting she might like it. This afternoon she called and said she started to read it last Thursday night when her husband was watching Football. She explained that she just couldn’t get much out of it, but decided she would just push on. I figured to mention that there are some books that may just not appeal to everyone, but before I spoke, Gail continued.

Soon she found she could not put the book down and that it might well be one of the most meaningful books she had ever read. It captures all of the important values that could make our lives better, and yet it is not religious. She feels every youth should get and read this book early in their teen years. But more; they should be encouraged to reread it every year to engrain and refresh this wisdom as they mature. She says her grandchildren are too young for the book as yet but will get a copy for each one as they move into their teens.

I told her I will loan her a copy of The Golden Palace so she can see how a more story-based theme can carry the message in a new way to younger people.

For me, it is so encouraging that more people are seeing the inherent truth and worth within these writings not even knowing the underlying reality of how they have come about. Though the ultimate medium for the Walid materials seems almost certainly somewhere in the video sphere from which it emerged, the value must rest in the written form for now. We can be grateful it is now available to all. Many different movements will be necessary to make this a better world and this can be a true step in the healing direction.>>

I was deeply gratified. Then, I got a note from the reader herself, addressed to me and her friend:

<<Good evening Bruce and Mr. Morris,

I truly feel blessed to have read "The Oasis Within". I know that I will read it again. And perhaps again and again!!

Bruce, you very eloquently summed up both my reaction and my response to this book. The beauty of it is that it offers much in its simplicity. Yet, although it is simple, it is not at all simple. One must read it to know what I mean.

Thank you, Mr. Morris, for writing this in such a way that it makes me wish I had had this book to read and learn from many years ago. I hope many people, both young and old, hear about your book and read it. It is a guide book one can refer to throughout life. In my mind, it is a classic.

Sincerely,

Gail G>>

One CEO has told me that pages 5 and 6 of The Oasis Within changed his life. But he had to get through the "deceptive simplicity" of pages 1-4 to get there. Then he saw what was really going on. 

I had a similar experience. These books all came to me unexpectedly, as something like a movie playing in my head, or as what Mary Shelley once described as a “waking dream.” The opening scene was of a man and a boy sitting in the sand under a palm tree, talking. Their conversation was simple. And yet, it provided a doorway that, since I was willing to walk through it, brought me into an unanticipated land of deep wisdom. And that’s the way the best simplicity can work—as a doorway to depth. But it’s up to us to use it. 

If you haven’t yet had the experience of The Oasis Within, The Golden Palace, and The Stone of Giza, I hope you will soon. Then, The Viper and the Storm will be available this spring, as the latest installment in the series. One book reviewer said recently that it’s The Temple of Doom and Dan Brown, and The Hardy Boys Meet Aristotle, and that when reading, he felt like he was thirteen years old again. I felt that way when writing them. I had no idea how a simple story would bring me the greatest deep wisdom of my life.

The Peace of Mind From Living Deeply

Here’s a short conversation I want to share because of its relevance in our current political season. It’s a sneak preview from page 106 in my next book, The Stone of Giza, that’s due out soon, in November. The setting is 1934 in Cairo, Egypt. Thirteen year old Walid and his best friend, the younger but precocious Mafulla, are having breakfast together and talking. You may or may not yet know these characters from the previous books, The Oasis Within and The Golden Palace.

The boys have been talking about the Greek philosophers and their insights about life. The topic of superficiality has come up, and by contrast, what it’s like to live more deeply than just skimming the surface of life.

Walid is in mid-thought when he says:

“I had a talk with Uncle Ali once when he said that maybe life is toughest on the surface and much less difficult for those who live more deeply. It’s like what people say about the ocean.”

“What?”

“That there can be huge waves and churning on the surface, but deep down it’s calm.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. The storms happen on the surface, but not far down below.”

“Oh, yeah. Ok. I see what you’re saying. Maybe people who live more deeply feel the troubles of life less and so have less need for trivial relaxations.”

“Yep. That’s what I’m thinking.”

“So it’s living superficially that wears people out because that’s where all the turbulence is.”

“Yeah.”

“And whenever the surface dwellers do confront anything hard or challenging and try to understand it, however little time they end up spending on that philosophical quest, they just don’t do it right—they don’t know how to because they’re out of their depth—and even a little bit of that sort of thought wears them out completely. And then they go running to something really trivial or superficial for rest.”

Walid pondered this for a moment. “I think you’re right. People who don’t ordinarily live life deeply can get all worked up about the least thing when they’re talking religion or politics or philosophy or life. They get all stressed and emotionally wear themselves out for no good reason. It’s like they think they have to protect themselves by either pushing away the issues or else really defending their opinions, whatever they might be. They get all resistant and hostile, and that’s always exhausting.”

Mafulla nodded and said, “It can get emotional pretty fast.”

Walid continued, “People who act that way just don’t realize that you sometimes have to relax into the search for truth, open your mind, and be ready to embrace a new sense of reality.”

“Good point.”

“There’s no reason to be afraid of new perspectives and new truth. Living in the truth is the best protection of all, the safest thing there is. And anyone who can help me do that, maybe by opening my eyes, or helping me change and correct wrong beliefs or attitudes—that person does me a great favor. And I can’t benefit from others in this way unless I relax a little and listen and really open my mind.”

Mafulla replied, “Yeah, it’s a bit like what Masoon says about judo and using energy in a fight.”

“What do you mean?”

“When someone comes at you, sometimes the best move is to relax and lie back and let the blow develop—don’t resist it, don’t meet it with more force, but let it play out, and then see what’s next. People often debate deep issues in religion and philosophy like they’re fighting for their lives and they’ve got to be tense and forceful, or they just get mad and walk away.”

“That’s true.”

“The strange thing is that it would often be best for them not to do any of that at all, but to be open and allow the new ideas to come, and let them develop and play out and then see what’s next.”

“Yeah. And there’s another thing about the Greeks and us.”

“What?”

“Lots of people, at least as adults, just seem to have no genuine curiosity about the world. The ancient Greeks were wide-open curious about everything.”

“You got that right, my very curious friend and fellow philosopher.”

“Thanks. If people would just let us, we could set them all straight real quick.” Walid looked serious and then grinned.

The Unconscious Mind: From The Golden Palace

In my new book, The Golden Palace, Chapter 16, there's a discussion of the unconscious mind that's been revolutionary for my own recent thinking and work. I'd like to share it here. The setting is a beautiful sitting room in the royal palace in Cairo, Egypt. The year is 1934. King Ali Shabeezar is speaking to his nephew, Walid, and Walid's best friend, Mafulla.

Ali leaned back on the sofa cushion. He said, “Something just occurred to me. Have you boys ever heard of the unconscious mind?”

“Not really,” Mafulla said, “I mean, I know my mind’s unconscious when I sleep, and sometimes in class.”

“Maybe I’ve heard the expression once,” Walid said, as he smiled at his friend.

“Well, there are many things stored in our minds, like information learned in the past, of which we’re not at this moment consciously aware. It’s in our minds for retrieval, but is not now conscious. There are also habits and dispositions that exist in the mind beyond our introspective self-awareness. You can consciously gaze within and not see them. And this is true of many other things that we take in about the world around us but that remain beneath the sweep of full awareness. We have huge resources in the unconscious mind that are not always quickly or easily available to consciousness.”

“I hadn’t thought about it like that, but this makes sense,” Walid said.

“What’s most important to realize is the perhaps initially surprising truth that the unconscious mind represents the vast majority of our mental possessions and abilities. Our conscious experience is like the very top few stones of the Great Pyramid. The rest of our mental ability is like the remainder of that huge structure, except that, in reality, the difference in the size and scope of those mental areas is much, much bigger.”

“I’d never really thought about that, Your Majesty,” Mafulla said. The king nodded and continued.

“Many things go on in our minds that we never consciously realize. There are patterns and indications picked up by deep processes of recognition within us that may or may not enter our explicit thoughts. But we can train ourselves to be more open to this deeper part of our mental activity. We can get to a point where we allow those otherwise hidden thoughts and hints to flow upward. That way, we become aware of much more than most people ever realize. Inventors do this. So do all great explorers and artists and scholars, and athletes. The most innovative scientists are very good at it. The best warriors like Masoon rely on it. Creativity in any walk of life requires it.”

Walid spoke up. “That’s connected to what we were talking about so much in the desert—the power of our minds.”

“Correct. And, Mafulla, in case you and Walid haven’t spoken of this, he and I talked much about the mind on our trip across the desert. Most people live in a terribly constricted and reduced circle of being. They’re in self-imposed exile from the best that life has for them. They can’t make the right decisions or even see the true possibilities that our world offers unless they access this deeper level of the mind. Exiles from their own greatness, they choose unhealthy relationships, pursue the wrong paths, and generally end up living in various levels of either misery, or emotional deadness. They exist on the most basic level as human beings, but they’re not fully alive.”

The king went on, as he looked over at Walid. “I’ve talked with you a great deal about the power of the mind. But it’s not just that our normal conscious awareness can be powerful. In fact, if it’s cut off from the deeper sources of thought and feeling, it will not be powerful at all. Only when we allow the deep parts of our minds and hearts to percolate upward into consciousness, and also directly touch our actions, can we tap into our true power. And only when conscious thought resonates with these deeper resources will it have its proper impact.”

He sat for a moment in silence, then said, “We have to get beyond the superficial chatter of our normal consciousness. We need to access all that’s available to us beneath the clutter, beyond the chattering voices and distractions of normal thought.” The king smiled. “We need to experience what I like to call the thought beyond thought. That’s where the deep power is.”

“How can we do this?” Walid asked.

“We calm our conscious minds. We relax our bodies and release whatever ordinary thoughts or feelings might be impinging on us. We then become open to allow deeper insights to appear. And they’re always near us, available to us, if we’ll just notice them and take them in. We’ll talk more about this in days to come, but for now, learn to listen carefully to any small thoughts that might seem to play about beneath the surface of your normal consciousness. When one appears, invite it to linger and develop in your mind.”

“This is what you do, Your Majesty?” Mafulla asked.

“Yes, it is. All the time. I want you boys to do this as well, to be sensitive to your inklings and feelings about the situations that develop around us. Never just dismiss these hints that sometimes fleetingly appear from the realm of the unconscious mind. Pay attention to them. They’re worthy of your notice. And then tell each other and me. That way, we can work together powerfully to resist and restrain those who have given in to the downward pull of evil. And that way, we can also make some very good and creative things happen.”

“Ok,” Walid said. “This sounds really important.”

“It is.”

“We’ll try to do exactly as you say.”

“Sure thing, Your Majesty,” Mafulla answered.

“As you seek to tap into your deeper potential, you’ll progressively grow in your ability to do so. It’s like any skilled behavior.”

“I’m sure you’re a master at it, Your Majesty,” Mafulla said.

“It’s very natural for me, and has been for many years. Just remember this. What we can know goes far beyond what most people suppose. And what we can do is just as vast.”

The Golden Palace, Ideas, and You

I keep getting emails from friends and clients asking me whether The Golden Palace is available yet in print and as an e-book. The answer is YES!

People are having to ask because we've only done a "soft launch" of The Oasis Within and The Golden Palace in the past nine months. That means I haven't been on any national book tour for signings at retail bookstores everywhere, and haven't yet done any national print, radio, or television publicity for the books. My speaking schedule this year just wouldn't allow that, and yet I wanted to get these books in print and available to my circle of philosophy friends and enthusiastic audience members as soon as they were ready. Thus, the soft launch.

These are my favorite books I've ever written. And the early feedback on both books has been amazing! Thank you so much if you've emailed me about these books or posted a comment on Amazon or any other online book site! I've never had such positive feedback for books! It's deeply gratifying. These two books launch a series of at least eight books, now all written and being edited, that are about a 13 year old boy in Egypt in 1934 who is learning some deep life lessons as he accompanies his uncle on a path of action, adventure, mystery, intrigue, and profound and practical philosophical ideas.

In case you haven't yet seen The Golden Palace, let me show you just two recent comments. On Amazon, a prominent American philosopher wrote:

5 Stars! Let the Series Begin! An Amazon Customer.
What would you get if you locked Indiana Jones, Plato, and Obi-Wan Kenobi in a room and asked them to write a rousing tale of intrigue, adventure, wisdom, and suspense? Probably something a lot like this book! A lead-off home run to what promises to be the most exciting series of philosophical novels of our time.

An Australian reader just posted on Twitter these words:

The Golden Palace by @TomVMorris is Philosophy 101, Indiana Jones, and The Da Vinci Code all rolled into one.

It's very nice to be mentioned in such good company! Another philosopher has said,

The Golden Palace is a rich feast, baking the ancient wisdom of Plato and Aristotle into the timeless adventure of Lawrence of Arabia. Tom Morris serves up that wisdom in a coming of age story as contemporary as Harry potter, but with this intriguing twist: the true instrument of magic is not a wand, but the mind.

I wanted to blog about this today because I just finished editing what will be the next book in the series, The Stone of Giza, another tale of intrigue and wisdom, carrying on the adventures of the cast introduced in The Golden Palace. That book should be available in a few months. But the summer is a great time to start in on The Oasis Within if you haven't read that prologue to the series yet, or to get a copy of The Golden Palace, Volume One of the series, if you've already sampled the prologue and are eager to read more.

I'm also meeting with book groups on these books, for the first time ever, so don't hesitate to ask!

It's a Wonderful, Spooky Life

It’s a wonderful life, and good-spooky, sometimes.

If you’ve been reading my blog recently at TomVMorris.com, you know I’m super excited about the publication of the new books, The Oasis Within and The Golden Palace. Almost every day, I get some nice affirmation that I’ve spent the past five years well, in writing the big series on Egypt that these books together launch. If you're a regular reader, you’ll also know that all this came to me as an inner vision, a movie playing in my head—something that I had never experienced before. An older physician friend asked me the other day, “Did it ever feel scary?” 

I had to smile. I said, “No. It was sort of spooky in its radical difference from anything I'd ever experienced before, but it all came to me with a tonality of goodness and benevolence, and a sense of joy.” Sometimes I think that life has more strange and cool stuff waiting for us than we ever might imagine.

Today, a shiny new black sedan was waiting for me outside my hotel in Philadelphia. I had just spoken to a group of CEOs and CFOs in The Lincoln Financial Field, where the Eagles play football. The driver took my bags and I slid into the comfortable backseat. I asked him how his morning had been so far. And his accent was interesting, sounding a little like some friends who are from northern India. So I said, “Is your accent Indian?”

He said, “No. Egyptian.” I instantly had one of those little spooky moments where you sort of can’t believe what you just heard. 

I said, “I’ve spent the past five years of my life writing a series of novels about Egypt, set in 1934 and 1935.”

He said, “My father was born in 1932.” Ok then. I had hit the jackpot here. So I told him the whole story, the movie in my head, and the feeling that I shouldn’t do any research on Egypt but just write what came to me. But I explained that I had also Googled stuff after writing it, just to see if there was any connection between my mental movie and reality, and that I was amazed at how much stuff had checked out to be true, even though I knew that my stories were about a re-imagined Egypt. I then told him that my main character is a boy named Walid.

He said, “That’s my name.”

“What?” 

“My name is Walid.”

I said, “That’s amazing.” The man pulled out his wallet and handed me his beautiful business card. Walid Omar. I was curious. “Could you pronounce your name really clearly for me?”

“WaLEED,” he said.

“Wow. That’s great. That’s exactly the way the people in my mental movie say the name. And my wife has been dubious. She’s thought I’m surely mispronouncing it, because a lady I know from Morocco had said it differently, as ‘WA-Lid.”

“No. It’s WaLEED. It’s spelled W-a-l-i-d but pronounced WaLEED.”

“Thank you so much for confirming what I heard in my movie.”

“You’re welcome.”

We continued to talk. He’s from Alexandria. And one of the books to be published will feature some events in that ancient city. I almost never carry my own books with me, but on this trip, I had a copy of The Oasis Within inside my computer bag. I was planning to re-read it on the flight home. But at that moment, I was overcome with a very strong conviction that I was supposed to give it to my driver, Walid. So I did. A book about Walid for my new friend Walid.

It’s a wonderful, spooky world in which we live, and a wonderfully spooky life we can have when we open up and step out and talk to people about things that mean something to us—and then listen.

May your day and week and upcoming month be wonderfully spooky, as well.

The Joy of the Deeper Mind at Work

Joy awaits us all. When we work with the ordinary levels of our mind, everything's harder that it could be. When we clear away the clutter and get beyond the chatter of the normal conscious mind, joyous magic can happen.

I recently posted on social media that I had, a few days ago, finished the final major editing of the eight books that now exist in a series of novels that I've been working on for five years, since February 2011. It's the first experience of writing where I wasn't working hard in my conscious mind to think and compose. It was all a gift of the deeper mind, a layer of mentality or soul, if you will, that we all have, but that we don't often enough draw on, day to day.

These books and the stories they convey came to me, as I've said before, like a movie in my head, a translucent screening of an action and adventure story far beyond anything I could ever have created out of my ordinary operating resources. In fact, when I first started reading the manuscripts out loud to my wife, she interrupted to say, "Who are you and what have you done with my husband?" It was all that different from my nineteen previous books, all non-fiction.

One reviewer of the prologue to the series, The Oasis Within, suggested that a series of conversations between people crossing the desert wasn't that big a stretch for me, and not that far out of my comfort zone as a philosopher who is always talking about life wisdom. And he was right. But there are all these little details and plot points in Oasis that I never would have thought to develop. And there's a reason that The Oasis Within is a prologue to the new series and not a numbered volume of it. It's mostly great conversations. It prepares one of the characters for the action that's to come. And it prepared me for it, as well. But a younger reader, or a reader who just loves action can start with Book One of the series, Walid and the Mysteries of Phi, the book that's now recently out by the title The Golden Palace, which is full of action, adventure, mystery, and intrigue and brings us philosophy in an entirely new key. And all the other books are like that one in this regard, too. It's like slowly walking up to a door, and opening it, and what's inside takes you completely by surprise and launches you into an adventure that just won't stop.

Early in the process, when I learned to calm my conscious mind and just relax and release, the magic would happen. With the deeper mind at work, you feel more like a receptacle, or a conduit. I've mentioned here before, I think, Elizabeth Gilbert's new book Big Magic, where she tells several stories about this remarkable kind of creative experience. It's joyous and practically effortless in its level of self-perceived exertion. How often can we say of our job, paradoxically, that "It's the hardest I've ever worked" and "It's the easiest thing I've ever done" and "It's been pure joy" all at the same time?

This is a hallmark of the deeper mind at work. There is amazing persistence of accomplishment and a sense of ease, and an overflowing of joy to match. The joy is wondrous, deep and high, wide and focused, inner and outer somehow at the same time. It animates everything else you do. It's remarkable, and it's maybe meant to be our most natural state—when we've peeled away all else, all the accretions of consciousness and contrary emotion, when we get down, deep to our most fundamental resource, one that's both natural and transformative at the same time.

I heartily recommend working from your deeper mind and experiencing the joy that's there awaiting you. I'm hoping that another book will also come to me the same way. After a million and two thousand and five hundred and more words, I feel like I'm just getting started. And isn't that the way our work should feel?

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.