Posted on 17 February 2015, 10:27

Near Death Experiences, communications through mediums, clairvoyance, synchronicity and more, all owe their reality to the fact that spirit/mind is timeless, spaceless, and is an unbroken seamless whole, where all, so-to-speak is “entangled” with all else.

Sound religion also depends on this fact. If there were no seamless whole, then creativity, prayer, prophecy, healing, inspiration, communion, peak experiences and love would not be a reality. In such a seamless whole many negative events also occur. We often need to withhold judgement as to what is positive or negative, since the positive sometimes leads to lack of growth, whereas the negative sometimes leads to the positive. In this seamless whole “good” isn’t separated from the “negative.”

With regard to the physical aspect of reality, there is sound evidence that all energy in the universe is likewise entangled. So far as the everyday world is concerned, we don’t need a degree in physics to see this for ourselves. Take the loaf of bread on the breakfast table. You bought it in a shop. What was the process by which it arrived at the shop? Ultimately, aren’t countless thousands of people involved in its production? Ultimately All That Is, is involved. Such thoughts are also pursued in the science of ecology.

All That is, is one system, one unbroken Whole. On this assumption all scientific endeavour is based. Explanations of phenomena in this part of the universe are held to be valid for all parts of the universe of the Whole.

Sound spirituality has the same assumption. What we call God is seen as in all, through all and above all. God is All That Is. Beyond describing, beyond comprehension. A number of the writers of the Bible speak of such an everywhere God. The Gospel of St John and St. Paul especially. Others see God as separate. This is especially so in the books of the Law, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, - the Pentateuch.

Consider this Celtic hymn:

“God who is everywhere present on earth,
No one can picture completely,
yet to the eye of the faithful God comes
and shows himself always uniquely.

Singing or sad, weeping or glad -
such are the glimpses of God that we’re given.
Laughter and cheers, anger and tears-
these we inherit from earth and from heaven.

Shrouded in smoke or else high on the hill,
quaking with nature’s own violence -
that was the Lord found frightening his friends,
but later he met them in silence.

God is the father who teaches his child
wisdom and values to cherish;
God is the mother who watches her young
and never will let her child perish.

Spear in the hand or with tears on the cheek,
monarch and shepherd and lover;
many the faces of God we have known
and many we’ve yet to discover.

Can we be certain of how the Lord looks,
Deep though our faith and conviction
when in the face of the Saviour we see
the smile of divine contradiction?”

[Copyright 1987 WGPG Iona community Glasgow. G51 3UU Scotland.]

I like the words, but wonder whether using words like “God” and “Saviour” can lead us to separate such a God from the reality that “he” contains and represents? Creation takes place. Love comes. There is inspiration. But from which directions do these events come?

If we can agree that the words of Stephen in Afterlife Teaching of Stephen the Martyr are indeed the words of that Stephen, then they are of great interest. For in speaking of the great Christian doctrines he interprets them always in terms of the God who is All That Is, closely following the thought of the Gospel of John, and much of St Paul’s teachings.

We may well already have learned them by heart, but let us read again the words of John Donne’s No man is an island:

“No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend’s
Or of thine own were:
Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.”

It is truer to say that all of us are participants in a Greater Whole, or All That Is, than to say that we are separate beings.

Our thoughts, our moral or immoral behaviour are very influenced by the communities to which we belong, as well as our personal histories. For this reason Jesus said, Do not judge..”For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” [Mt.7:2] Forgiveness is only second to love, the great commandment. Daily we are assaulted with news of unspeakable atrocities, slavery, genocide, apparent evil without end. But whatever the evil, healing will only come when there is ultimate forgiveness. An example of this healing came through the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa.

“Love to faults is always blind,
Always is to joy inclined.
Lawless, winged, and unconfined,
And breaks all chains from every mind.” ~ William Blake

“How can a God of love permit such atrocities?” is a frequent cry. The atrocities occur because we human beings, as agents of God in the physical world, have lost the knowledge of our own divinity, and the divinity of All That Is. In this physical world we are being guided through pain towards love.

Of course the primary truth is that we are eternal beings that do not die. And also that the experiences in the physical are the means of development in the spiritual.  Readers of White Crow Books will have learned a lot about the dimension of Spirit, and the role of the physical. For us the hymn of Arthur Campbell Aigner will be especially meaningful.

“God is working his purpose out
as year succeeds to year:
God is working his purpose out,
and the time is drawing near;
nearer and nearer draws the time,
the time that shall surely be,
when the earth shall be filled
with the glory of God
as the waters cover the sea.

From utmost east to utmost west,
wherever foot hath trod,
by the mouth of many messengers
goes forth the voice of God;
give ear to me, ye continents,
ye isles, give ear to me,
that earth may filled
with the glory of God
as the waters cover the sea.”

It would be good if those of us who belong to a church, mosque or temple could cease to allow ourselves to be confused by the contradictory understandings of God that are presented to us by our religions. Either he is an authority figure in the sky, or God is the Lord of the Dance in whom we participate.

From time to time I may give an account of what Stephen the Martyr has to say about the main Christian doctrines. Perfectly “Biblical”, no Christian would disagree with what he has to say, neither would those belonging to other world faiths. He removes confusion by proclaiming what Jesus, Paul, the mystics of all religions say, and what modern scientists also say, “Hear O …., the Lord your God is One.”

Michael Cocks edits the journal, The Ground of Faith.
Afterlife Teaching From Stephen the Martyr by Michael Cocks is published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and other bookstores.
His forthcoming book, Into the Wider Dream will be published Winter/Spring 2015 by White Crow Books.

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