Fully Divine and Fully Human

What does it mean? What does it require of us?

If one follows the mystic path, one can detect the divine in the human and the human in the divine in every creation. It is a peculiar privilege of the human being that we are both “human” (prone to error, partiality, learning, falling) and “divine” (capable of great love, gracefulness, sacrifice, and moral and spiritual brilliance).

Enter religion. Religion seems intent on trying to capture lightning (or spirit) in a bottle and then sell it to the masses as some kind of elixir, when the true elixir is divine essence itself EXPRESSED THROUGH the human being him or herself.

Human experience cannot be resolved into the purely spiritual. Rejecting the physical as mere illusion neglects our body and our mind. Human endeavor cannot be reduced to the merely physical. Doing so loses our heart and our soul. We are inextricably both divine and human. But how do we reconcile the apparent contradictions between the two?

Where and how does the eternal of spirit meet the temporal body? Where and how does the joy and goodness of spirit interface with the harshness and abuse of the world? Why is it that the creative fire in a child’s heart must face the extinguishing foam of conventional education? We have a bias shown in our “education” of children. We don’t trust, believe in, or truly support the spirit. We are broken children. Why else would we continue to “civilize” a child out of free expression and empathy in order to “prepare” them for a so-called cruel world.

I am going through a great upheaval and reveal on this question as I read and listen to Leo Tolstoy’s Critique of Dogmatic Theology.

My conclusion? This apparent opposition is a delusion. It is time for spirit to rise and take its rightful place at the head of the table. World proceeds from spirit, and all worlds are created in the image of spirit. Humans, no less, are created in the image of a wonderful Artist. However, we have allowed confusion to swamp clarity in our merging of the LANGUAGES of the spirit and world and the working out of their beneficial RELATIONSHIP. We have allowed opportunists to take advantage of our ignorance.

This led me to a divinely inspired meditation, the words forming in my heart from sincere desire to provide a response to this enigma. I will share with you the words that arose in me:

Fully divine and fully human means fully FAITH (spiritual) and fully WORK (moral and ethical), simultaneous and unified, not one over the other OR one without the other. To be reborn of the spiritual life if to be freed of the burden of labor against an impossible karmic or spiritual demand that exceeds earthly resources and abilities. Rebirth of moral and ethical life proceeds from liberation to the spiritual life. The gratitude and grace of the awakened spirit casts aside earthly debt in a great jubilee. Trauma and abuse lose their authority and intimidation. One emerges in love and honor of self, neighbor, and world in all actions. This is the foundation of moral and ethical liberation and responsibility.

Or else why would the Lamb of Christ be anything other than another actual lamb, a scapegoat, an innocent put up for slaughter to pay the damages accrued by the unrepentant evils and evil-doers of the world. It should never be the case where evil is ENABLED by the simple trope of dumping its harms on the innocent, and therefore absolving itself.

This brings to mind the Bible passage on the Unforgiving Servant where a king, moved by compassion, forgives the huge debt of one of his subjects. However, this same subject, lacking gratitude, still attempts to extract a much smaller debt from someone who owes him. Upon hearing this unkindness and hypocrisy, the king punishes his ungrateful subject mightily.

Yet the “reverse Robin Hood” opposite now applies. Our societies are run by reckless, ungrateful people, who reap trillions in profit on high-risk bets. When their imprudence and corruption and bring down the global economy, THEY are bailed out and rewarded, rather than punished. Their undeserved deliverance is used to create GREATER disparity and concentration of wealth. The innocent pay.

These moral criminals, these anti-spiritualists delight in their abuses and laugh that the rest of us will “get our reward in heaven” while they continue to be richly rewarded and protected now. They seem almost delight by their power to create greater misery, and what do we have to console ourselves? Nothing— except this: We have been given life by spirit and the capacity to love each other, which outstrips by far any reward given by the world.

It is up to us to act upon that grace, not to laze about or do greater sins to others, not to victimize anew, but to rid ourselves of our predatory inclinations altogether and to do good instead of evil. We must stand in the breach demonstrating the BEST of both worlds, the fully human (moral and ethical) and the fully divine (spiritual and faithful) in the face of institutions (including churches) who demonstrate the worst of both worlds, in which Jesus’ sacrifice is turned against itself and misapplied to RELIEVE people of their responsibilities BOTH to DO good morally and to BE good spiritually.

We do this by refusing the game offered by a world devolving into false piety, obsession with social image, political power, and economic rank and by withdrawing all energy and connection to those who drunkenly attempt to control our perception, information, learning, money, and memory. We do this by both the faith and works of a true and joyous soul.

All blessings, Zeus