Writing in the Sand: Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels

by Thomas Moore

I suspect that our tendency to sentimentalize him or turn him into a moral crusader is a defense against the sheer radical challenge of his intellect. As long as we piously enshrine his personality, we don't have to feel the full force of his vision for humanity.

There are two ways to be spiritually secure: One is to attach to a fixed and uncomplicated teaching, leadership, and set of moral standards. Another is to be open to life, ever deepening your understanding and giving up all defensiveness around your convictions. Jesus represents this second approach.

Jesus' way is to live from a deeper source, with values that cannot be codified in a list of rules. Central among his values is love, understood as profound respect for the other.

look for insight rather than fact and nuance rather than definitive interpretations.

Usually, traditional means unconscious-we may not have thought much about important words that we use as the basis for our spirituality.

reveal the kingdom by the way you live and act-not that you live morally and virtuously but that you work at healing, wakening, caring for, and calming others.2

If you read Jesus as a moral teacher, you try to live a better life, but you don't change your basic understanding of what life is all about. This is the plain vanilla approach to Jesus: live a good life. I prefer the spice approach, catching the subtle humor, the biting paradox, and even sometimes the absurdity. These turn your mind upside down and inside out-the only way to freshen your imagination.

The same is true of the spiritual life. If we are zealots, passionate about the way we have found to make sense of life and dismissive of other ways, or if we don't see how complex life is and are not prepared to forgive ourselves and

others for mistakes, then our spirituality is in danger of being neurotic, easily threatened and therefore excessively defended.

A problem is a challenge to our intelligence that can be solved; a mystery is a reality so deep and subtle that you have to find your way into it and have your life changed by it.

problem (question) (unknown) vs mystery