Tom Harpur 4-Book Bundle. Tom Harpur
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be known by a deep, intuitive knowing of the heart and mind together. That is why the Psalmist of old said, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” It is an invitation, under a metaphor, to experiment and to trust that ultimate presence for oneself. You can know God’s reality both with intuition and rationally. This is true gnosis, a knowing that nothing can shake.
World religions can never experience what it means to be born again without a clear awareness of their true purpose and raison d’être. It is to constantly remind their followers of who they really are, from whence they came and whither they eventually are bound. The authentic spiritual journey the religions came into being to foster and nurture is that of personal transformation for the believer. There is an illustration from the lore of classical Greece which for me illuminates this process. The famous sculptor Pheidias (c. 480–c. 430 BCE) spoke of his art not as imposing his own form on the blocks of marble upon which he worked. Instead, he said he saw his task as that of liberating from the inert stone the lovely shape or being that was already there within. Each cut or blow of his chisel was aimed at revealing the beauty of the image that was already present beneath the rough exterior, as it were, struggling to be free. So too with the spiritual dynamics of transformation or metamorphosis from within ourselves. With our inner eye fixed steadfastly upon the model of wholeness (holiness) afforded by the teachings of all the great world faiths, we are daily being changed and set ever freer to be what we are meant to become. The Spirit is the master sculptor behind it all. As St. Paul says, “We all . . . beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being changed into the same image from glory unto glory, as by the spirit of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3:18). The Greek word for “changed” in the text means “metamorphosized.”
Although my eightieth birthday is behind me, I feel so much younger now in spirit because of a lively, reasonable hope engendered by a fresh understanding of life itself. Because, in the end, there is the assurance that while here we have no “continuing city,” ultimately “we seek one which is to come.” If we daily practise sitting still and “waiting upon God,” as the Psalmist says (what the Buddhists and those who use their meditative approach call “mindfulness”), we find the Spirit of God working always within us. I believe that while the natural body steadily grows older, our inner self (the true self) is being renewed by the energy of the Spirit within. To be very direct—I don’t mean that I hear some voice speaking to me, or see some mystical visions of another realm, or feel some strange otherworldly emotions within, although I am aware that some do. In a lifetime of prayer and of trying to be faithful to such truth as has been made plain to me, I have never once had what I would describe as a supernatural encounter of any kind. Yes, there have been great heights and some inevitable lows. But I do try to spend some time in meditation—or directing my thoughts and heart to the God within me and without—every day. In Christian terms, this is the Christ within. This often happens when I am alone in my study in the morning. But if not there, then while walking the dog or enjoying nature in our daily strolls. At times the awareness of the divine presence is very vivid, at others not so much. However, one’s trust in God doesn’t depend on what you feel; it depends on an act of will and of total commitment.
Readers of my work over the years and of what I have set out in these pages are naturally aware that I am critical of the evangelical faith in which I was reared and which for many years I served. It would be an error, however, to suppose that I am unaware of great debts owed by me to that community of believers or to think that I make the mistake of lumping all of them together under the label “the religious right.” Evangelicals today are far from being a homogeneous group and significant changes are presently taking place within their ranks. Top American evangelist Tony Campolo, who in the 1990s made headlines when he agreed to be a spiritual counsellor to President Bill Clinton, in his 2004 book Speaking My Mind said that evangelical Christianity “has been highjacked by the religious right.” He hammers those in the movement who have given the world the impression that to be evangelical is to be anti-feminist, anti-gay, pro-war and pro-gun, pro–capital punishment, negative towards other faiths and oblivious of the world’s poor. Campolo is on the liberal side on all these issues. He notes in particular the deep need for respect of Islam: “We don’t want to call its prophet evil. We believe we have got to learn to live in the same world with our Islamic brothers and sisters and we want to be friends. We do not want to be in some kind of holy war.” Campolo has been severely criticized by extremists, of course. But it is a fact that he represents a fast-growing group of evangelicals in the United States and Canada who are breaking through the typical media stereotypes. These folks are anything but anti-intellectual or dumb. They are grounds for hope.
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