The Master's Ladder Step by Step
Step Three
Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth.
Dan 12:10 Many shall be purified, and be made white, and be refined; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.
Do you understand the difference between untempered and imperceptible strength. We could use the words brittle and subtle instead. The pine that will snap in the wind and the oak that will sway into all kinds of deformity, dance in the wind like a modern dancer swaying and bending, its strength never compromised. There is pig iron like the heavy iron of a piano plate, which cannot bend very far before it cracks, untempered, raw, only having one kind of strength capable of handling tons of end to end pressure, but alter the angle of the pressure and it will snap like a twig, and the imperceptible strength of ribbon-steal rail, which dances under the weight of heavy trains; being a single rail many miles long has the ability to bend to the curves and up hill and down hill grades without compromise of its inner strength. If you made the same rail of iron, it would have thousands of cracks the first time it was tested with the weight of the train, and would probably fail altogether, pretty quickly.
For the human personality, meekness, which could also be translated humility, denote tempered material what holds imperceptible strength; strength that is hidden in gentleness, but strength that is capable of maximum kinetic force, yet, incapable of violence. Meekness is inseparable from love. "Joh_15:13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." Of course Jesus was talking about his own sacrifice, but not just that. Every time we hold humility enough to endanger ourselves for the sake of others, we express, both love and meekness. Brittle pride or cowardly fear would value itself too greatly to take the risk.
We have all met, and have maybe been the person of brittle, inflexibility, unable to bend, adapt, accommodate, holding strength “in one molded shape” like the pig iron cast in a wet sand mold, the metal poured into the form and when cooled having only that one form, easily cracked. I knew a family that had an heirloom set of beautiful cast iron patio furniture, beautiful flower pattern the templates carved by a relative, a pattern prettier than anything I've seen in New Orleans or Charleston. Their four-year-old son, small for his age, beat the lawn set apart with ease in less than an hour's time. There wasn't a piece of it left, much bigger than an adult's hand. One blow, testing the strength it does not have and it shatters almost like glass. The artifact may be very beautiful, strong able to carry much weight and yet brittle and easily destroyed.
We used to have a catchall name, "nervous breakdown" when a personality would shatter into pieces, incapable of handling the ordinary encounters and chores of life; we spoke of such a person being “shattered by grief, loss, tragedy.” Now we have in the religion of this modern culture, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the false mental health profession, outlining nearly 300 mental illnesses, where false therapies are prescribed, including powerful mind altering drugs that destroy the person. We have always known that some people were so brittle that it would take very little to shatter them. Fear of being shattered is the very thing that keeps us from daring to risk deep healing of psycho-pathos. It is the resistance the Psychologist/Psychiatrist name. We fear the stress will leave us shattered, or at least broken.
Real meekness and pious/religious acting are in-congruent. They cannot exist in the same place, in the same respect and at the same time. I am not talking about stylized sacramental behavior, but the normal everyday persona. We have been the brittle religious person, sometime. That is the opposite of meekness, the opposite of strength.
I was sitting in my favorite Roman Catholic monastery chapel, my mind was quiet, I was just enjoying the time, and I looked up to see a couple in their sixties fussing about a candle box, lighting a candle; he turned and walked with the lighted candle to where it would be placed about thirty feet away, walked in a very pious, stylized way, holding the candle with two hands in front of him, and she followed three feet behind, with very straight posture, hands together, like a Christmas angel, their walk was not natural but ceremonial, processional, very deliberate step by step. I knew instantly that they were recent converts. There is absolutely nothing wrong with what they did, but it struck me as what it was, little children playing at dress-up, playing the role of the pious person. I subsequent got to know them and they were delightful and very natural people whose behavior in the casual setting was not affected in the slightest; warm easy laughter, easy smiles, even some “pointed” joking; they were real people. Had they carried their “pious” demeanor outside the sacramental setting, I would have quickly learn to avoid them.
Remember I am speaking as a man and in no way belittling women (any more than men) when I say: When I see some putrid little feminized religious pose, some holy meek act parading as the spirit of the All Mighty it makes me want to take a shower. The false sweet-whining cultish voices and swishy manner is more offensive to me personally than an over-bearing Bible Thumper, filled with passions, in your face, constantly composing his comeback lines with such passion he has lost his ability to “hear.” These, are two sides of the coin called “religious prideful acting.” These are rolls substituted for person-hood and life.
Mark David Chapman, the infamous assassin, before his murder of John Lennon, stepped to my table at McDonalds in Decatur, Georgia and reached to hand me a Gospel track, in what was a very practiced condescending manner. When I would not take it from his hand, he laid it on my table, offended that I had subtly challenged his religious act, turned red in the face and proceeded to preach me a little gentle sermon that highly embarrassed his mother. His words were filled with bitterness, anger and judgment, where without realizing what he was doing, he pronounced curses upon me in the name of the Jesus of his invention. I never said a word, I just looked at him in silence. His mother said, “Mark, this gentleman does not want to be bothered.” That was only partly true. I've never found casual contact with strangers the slightest bit awkward, and in fact, most times enjoy it, unless I realize that the words and motions do not match the intent as is the case say with con men and salesmen, you know what I mean, the practiced opening lines for a 'purpose.' My discomfort was that I did not want to embarrass this young man in front of whom I had assumed was his mother. That discomfort of course increased when I saw the murderous anger just under the “oh so nice” “oh so sweet” “oh so clean-cut” “oh so meek” “oh so phony, persona”; it is modern psychopathic Pharisee-ism.
Jesus condemned holy theatrical acts. He was criticized for breaking some of the holy theatrical customs commonly expected of a “rabbi.” Besides being a Rabbi, while healing, raising the dead and teaching, Jesus was first a MAN. The Hollywood portrayals of Jesus, and other New Testament Characters, with stylized soft-speak, constantly impressing upon the viewer the magnitude of their words, ever so inhumanly sweet, especially the early portrayals that were sanctioned by the Roman Catholic Church, where every line was delivered in a sing-song pattern; I'm sure some humble priest's religionized impression of what holy speak meekness is supposed to produce. Those movies were the worse. I can understand the temptation to act, especially when one is spiritually young (read immature), the temptation to a religious or holy act is very powerful. But it is the antithesis of healing.
The danger of religious “acting” is that one may get very good at it. Practice enough and you begin to fool people. Become an expert and you may actually cover your wolfish-murderous-self in sheep's costume, and become a very, very convincing hypocrite. It is the very definition of hypocrisy – hypocrisy has the same Greek root as Acting and Actor. True meekness is FIRST, finding the honesty, the humility to BE who we are without acting, without hiding ourselves from our flaws, dismissing the temptation to “fake it till we make it.” The first rule of meekness is “what you see is what you get.” Meekness keeps one from game-playing, pretending knowledge, gift, talent, or any other quality one does not possess. Meekness keeps the spiritual work real, empowers one to lay all “facades” aside.
This culture is very 'religious' even when the pretense is the rejection of all religions. This culture is highly superstitious, believes in all kinds of magic, collectively holds mythologies of demons and ghosts, aliens, and creatures of the night. It requires seeking positive energy and rejects negative energy. In the religion of this culture only what reinforces our religious delusions is viewed as positive. Positive energy is then enjoyed in the company of those who hold the same superstitions. The cultural cults of this era are legend. Star Trek Trekkies, Comic-Con actors, Dungeon and Dragon roll players, Bucket Challengers, I even occasionally see old tennis shoes still, wrapped around power lines. Clubs, and hobbies and more sinister groups, Player Clubs, Wife Swapping, Sadomasochistic Clubs, Drug Clubs and Cliques, NASCAR, NFL, etc, become the central focus of living. The biggest and saddest and most powerful of these social cults are the lethargic population who sit hours every day, before a T.V. screen, their psyche absorb, taking lessons from, and holding love and concern for disembodies characters that flicker on the screen. This is the most powerful cult, because it holds services twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, an endless loop, squeezing out the experience of real life. You see, people of the culture avail themselves of "services" wherein they benefit from the comfort of the positive energy of the event, sports, concerts, mega church services, the favorite crowd at the bar, the friends who are as equally warped. Sadly, Negative energy is experienced when any common superstition of the culture or fantasy society of the culture is questioned. The experience of this cultural positive energy leads one deeper into the common illusion, delusion and superstitions of the cultural religions.
Lucifer is very aware that he must teach theology to those he fears will slip from his grasp. “Everybody's got to have something to believe in” it is as common to the human condition as breathing.
I wrote this decades ago:
“Every human is a de facto "theologian" whether one intends to speculate on theological principles or not. One cannot function without it. Whether one's foundational beliefs are well thought out or a mish-mash lazily gathered from the culture, it is still a theological foundation . . . Whether one believes that some accidental force caused Being, or Sam, the dog, is giving you instructions (reference to Son of Sam serial killer), you are theologizing. Understanding that it is impossible to escape the necessity of theologizing, even if one is atheist or agnostic, animist, taoist, hindu, christian, bhuddhist, or jew, . . .”
Without realizing it, the first step on the ladder was coming to realize that our own prideful theology has at least in part failed us. Step two was beginning process of examining the damage our prideful theology has caused. Step three is finding the meekness, the humility to examine the source of that prideful theology, hold to whatever in it is true, and reject what is false. It is the willingness to bend and sway in the storm of our own psyche and not hide from it; it is the strength to not hesitate and to shatter what can be and must be shattered, in us.
If the goal of coming to FAITH is the healing of our psycho-pathos, to in a real and organic way, become like Jesus, able to endure his divine presence, it means becoming step by step more human, LESS religious; MORE natural, instead of LESS natural. It is not our goal to become a “religious person” but to find the meekness to become truly and completely human.
The false ideas that blocked our turning to God, discussed in Step one, made us “un-natural.” In Step Two, the collection of preciously held grief, hurts, tragedies, pride, ego, lusts, greed, injuries, etc, we collected in our heart, served to reduce our humanity, to stifle the full range of healthy emotion, to make us un-naturally brittle; The sinful things that did us violence, that violated our psyche, our bodies, our minds; These damages are real, and come to us, all of the accumulated artifacts of the scars of living, besides our own sins, there are the sins of the culture, the sins of those we love, friends and family, as we talked about in the introduction:
“Improper use of;
Unfortunate experience of;
Wrongful understanding of;
material experience and the nature of matter itself,
causes damage to character and scars upon the psyche/soul, which is not healed by simple Christian conversion. But which can become healed in time, through spiritual discipline via the synergistic work of the Holy Spirit creating wisdom, knowledge and understanding.”
This improper use of, wrongful understanding of, is the power of the culture that creates in us heretical theology and leads us into fearful superstitions. How do we, consciously, purposefully, and intentionally free ourselves from the cultural religion that has caused us to have a suffering soul?
Saint Paul said the solution was true worship. He said, “By God's mercy, I sincerely ask you, to bring yourselves together as a collective living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to the Lord, which is your rational liturgizing.” Roman 12:1 – do the words study it actually says this. Why do you do this? Because the worship of the Church is very different that the spirituality of the trance, different from the hypnotic spirituality of emotions, though it uses emotion, it contains worship, praise, lessons of many kinds, literal, figurative, and a wealth of Iconographic Visuals all teaching lessons with layers of meaning that become opened, layer upon layer, as one is faithful to the Work. Work- that is what Liturgy means, the Work of worship, the people's work. Present in the ACTION of the WORK, is Wisdom creating healing that cannot be written in a book, but must be experienced. Why does one expose oneself to this worship, presenting oneself, standing in rank to worship using the mind, the voice, the eyes, the ears, the body in standing and bowing etc. So that one can gain the power of inner strength capable of turning the brittle, subtle, capable of curing us of superstition, of the religion of the culture, to BREAK the conformity to it, to create in oneself a renewed and regenerated NOUS – the spiritual capacity where we open communication with God, for real, beyond the confines of our imagination and personal radical independent spirituality, but by the Holy Spirit in the wisdom of the words, the song and hymns, the poetry, the art, the sounds, the ascetic discipline of proper worship.
Meekness is the virtue by which through the Power of the Holy Spirit, we take possession of ourselves, so that we may bring ourselves to the disciplines of healing. Step one, admitting our own way has not worked and we are in pain, can be almost passive, Step two, cracking open the heart and beginning the examination of our damage, is less passive, but still based in our wish to stop hurting. Both of these can be done almost in a casual way, to a lesser degree of benefit by ourselves, to a greater degree of benefit with a physician – a priest or other properly prepared faithful person, entering the discipline of taking to ourselves a spiritual father, a co-physician with Christ for our healing, that is another layer of pro-active meekness. Only the meek may begin confession, and at the same time truly enter the worship of the Church.The earth this work will cause us to inherit is our own material being, we gain by the power of the Holy Spirit “self-possession” no longer fearful of the things that can shatter our brittleness, but humility to endure that shattering as many times as it takes to become leather and not glass. We begin the warfare with “the flesh” in cooperation with and empowered by the Holy Spirit, under the guidance and assistance of our spiritual father. We start searching for the hidden deformities, the things we have not yet perceived as damage. This takes huge meekness.
Do you realize what power of meekness has to be present to genuinely enter the psychotherapy of true healing? To TRULY open our silliness, our shame, our insanity, our suffering soul to another person. The meek confess their sins and I'm not just talking about some “Bless me Father for I have sinned” and some quick and rote absolution. No this is the work of TRUE therapeutic TREATMENT of the whole person. It cannot be accomplished in “abstraction” since it has organic reality. It cannot happen in isolation, since it is a function of “fellowship” requiring us to dare not claim embrace of God while denying or avoiding embrace of those he has provided to assist and guide us. It assumes dialog more than mental imagination or even verbalization in isolation, it is ORGANIC healing and has to be PRODUCED on the material plane, spoken, examined, shared and lived.
Nothing is more common than prideful and insincere prayer. It is the very meaning of taking God's name in vain. I love the examples of it in movies where pushed to his last straw the murderer is as likely to ask God's help for escape as he is to ask God's help arranging his next murder. We are all capable of murderous and meaningless prayer, vain, empty, a mockery of the True Way.
True meekness rather than creating some swishy character and religious affectations, creates rather the power of Godly FORCE in our lives. The FORCE, Power, energy – whatever term you want to give the strength of the Holy Spirit to “fess'up”, to “face the music” to stop the psychopathic defense mechanisms, to sell our resistance to Christ, for sanity's sake, to view how our NOUS has become scattered into many things that cannot enliven it. In meekness we become empowered to gather the divergent parts of ourselves from the abstractions, attractions, lusts, greed, envies, and material to which we have given ourselves, against God's will. The Holy Fathers called this process, coming to sanity. Meekness, is a state cured of idolatry, where no longer giving ourselves to “idols” we become whole, single. It is where we consciously and with help in God's mercy expel the passions that have distorted us, bent our thought processes, warped our emotions, damaged our ability to love, bogged us in fear. It requires FIRST the meek dedication to be who we are without acting. Even if and especially if that person is very ugly.
Most people do not have any idea how scattered they are across the relationships, illusions, delusion and abstractions of their lives and what ugliness that idolatry has created. It is very common to have a work persona, and several different social persona, and for certain, if we are religious a “religious” persona. The persona for the Saturday night bar and for the Sunday Liturgy may be very, very different and it should not be.
Jesus was Not a hateful man, brittle or harsh, but he was a very forceful man.
Buddha said "When you overpower others you have violent force, when you overpower yourself you have strength." There is nothing wrong with the use of force, against those who violate. Violence should be met with force instead of passion. Meek force may take many forms, everything from deadly force, to acceptance of martyrdom, and in meekness and humility before God you will know what action is at any moment appropriated and according to God's will.
Today with all the emphasis upon "super-heroes" this generation is reared upon a literal lust for power over others. Bullying and the epidemic of the bitterness of fear, murder and suicides are real in our society.
"Blessed are the meek" not “Blessed are the weak” . . . weakness and meekness are polar opposites.
Thus, meekness is accepting a literal interpretation of the Apostle Paul's words, "All things work together for the good of those who Love the Lord and are the called according to his purpose” NOT taken as an abstraction, but as a LIVED Experience. Meekness is rightly and truly faith in God, and the realization that the Will of God for us is always something interesting and vital and ultimately filled with meaning and irrational joy, present even in great grief and suffering. Without meekness we can't approach God's will. Without meekness even the exercise of Worship and ascetic discipline degenerates into merely “religion” and holds nothing healing for us. The object of worship is not so we can become “good in GOD's eyes.” Which is the western view of salvation, but rather that we may take the medicines, eat the food, gain the nutrition, practice the exercise and patience endurance, organically enough to become healed. This healing, being a conformity to His will, is not to become someone else, but to uncover the reality of who we were purposed to be in HIM. It is the object of this healing, to fill the “earth” that we possess, our own material being with HIS glory.
"All the earth shall be filled with His glory."
"His soul shall dwell at ease, and His seed (prayers) shall inherit the earth."
"The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice."
Having the meekness to accept the Lord's reign in our own lives at the level of our own heart -the prayer, hymn and praise of the heart, is our true mission on earth. It is also our mission to teach others, not at the point of a gun, not by entrapping people in laws, not by violent confrontation, not by cunning Evangelical salesmanship, but by living/healing example. It is true spiritual meekness that creates “dominion” that is the power to change all of existence. It is this meekness that teaches us that "we do not wrestle against flesh and blood" but against spiritual powers. And first we have to wrestle with the spiritual powers to whom we have given ourselves, our flesh, our emotions, our affections for our lusts and passions. It is this meekness that allows us to realize that He is the ultimate Spiritual Power and our pitiful battles against flesh and bone are a waste of our own lives and promise, if we do so in vain. That waste is evil in His sight.
It is the meekness that Jesus himself perfectly demonstrated in the Garden of Gethsemane. Sweating blood he conquered the fear of the animal man and said,
"Not my will but Thine."
This is the meekness Jesus meant. It is a meekness that is "strength," it is "force" for change.
So this is what Jesus meant when he said,"Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth." A person whose strength is in the Lord gains their own soil, gains their own earth, he conquers his egocentric and insane passions. Conquers what Saint Patrick calls “the natural lusts that war within the hostile lust that mar our course.” It is Spiritual/Physical Centering, “not my will but thine” yet, willing to use ANY force necessary. With the knowledge of Force, our previous state of violence is exposed. When we suffered the religion of the culture, we did not know the line between the proper and improper use of material being. So we were victim to our base passions, what the scripture called, the works of the flesh manifested, (manifested of course means brought into actuality in this world) which are:
Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like:
We are warned that such things, not just the practice of such thing, but holding affection for them in our heart, bars us from the kingdom of God.
In Submission to God, not in a passive way but in an active and biological-organic way, not in an abstract way, that is "claiming salvation" but in an actual objective life experienced, working out our salvation with fear the trembling, We Gain Our Whole Life.
When Saint Paul was being held in house arrest by the governor Felix, he called Paul to him to hear for himself what it was that Paul was teaching. Pay close attention to the quick summation of this encounter as recorded in Acts of the Apostles.
Act 24:24 Now after some days, when Felix arrived with Drusilla his wife, who was Jewish, he sent for Paul and heard him concerning the faith in Christ.
And as he reasoned about righteousness, self-control, and the judgment which is going to be, Felix became afraid and answered, "Go away for now; but when I have opportunity I will summon you."
I was not theory Paul instructed, but disciplined experience of THE WAY, the name followers of Jesus had given themselves. Christian is a name like Mohammedian, a derisive term. The life of The Faith in Jesus Christ is the disciplined way, or simply "THE WAY" actually THE ONLY WAY to cure psycho-pathos and gain the Life of Experience of God's Eternal Reign.
You understand here, that "faith in Christ" was not an abstraction, but organically experienced in the discipline of reasoned, right action, self-control. Meekness - force filled willingness - is essential to this journey upon The Way.
"For yet a little while and the wicked shall not be; yes, thou shalt diligently look for his place and it shall not be. But the meek shall inherit the earth and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace."
Realize this has a double meaning, having gained a certain degree of relief from psycho-pathos, we experience peace, and there is of course the eschatological meaning, when HE will have conquered not only the evil in us, but also put down every enemy, the last being death.
Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.
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