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| Photo by Pop Nukoonrat |
"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” Matthew 7:7
I often find passages from the gospels a great stimulus to exploratory thinking. I’m not a believer. It seems to me that, to be a believer, is to think that we know what something means. The fact that I may look for meaning in a passage of text, first of all requires a degree of mystery. It is also an experiment. I don’t intend to try, as one might by researching context and language, to make a case for some kind of objective interpretation. I’m treating the passage as if it were a seed that I’m planting in my imagination to see what will grow there. I can’t make any claim for the healthiness of any plant that this experiment produces. I may be gardening in contaminated soil.
The above passage is a mysterious one. No doubt many who thought their faith was strong have asked for things they didn’t receive.
The passage guarantees that the asker will receive and the seeker will find. This sounds a bit like the theme of a Disney cartoon feature - “Don’t let go of your dreams and eventually they will come true.” It may be true that those who give up their dream are unlikely to achieve it, but there are plenty of people who hung onto a dream and came to a sticky end or found themselves mired in debt.
For the time being anyway lets ignore the guarantee. Maybe the guarantee comes back in if we understand the meaning of the passage. Maybe if we do it right, it’s bound to work, but I feel more comfortable being skeptical about that at this stage.
There are three things that it is suggested that we do : ask, seek and knock.
Ask
When we ask for something we describe what it is that we want or at least give it a name.
Unless we are asking for something trivial, we are most likely also admitting an insufficiency in our own ability to supply it.
What do we want? We might make like a beauty pageant contestant and say “World Peace.” But what exactly do we mean by “world peace”? What would it look like? How would a peaceful world need to function in order to maintain that state. What are the barriers which stand between us and it which we need to ask to be removed? The more specifically we can describe what we want, the better chance we have of that description acting as a blueprint that could draw us and others toward it as a reality.
So whether we get what we want can depend on the quality of our asking. If we ask for something which others want as well and in a way which inspires them to action then our wish may be granted.
The creative principle which we see in operation around us - both in nature and in culture - works through the formation of new wholes. Ecosystems are wholes in which the individual organisms interrelate in a way which not only keeps each species alive, but has allowed for increasing complexity both in the system and its most advanced members. In society, individuals come together in families to produce and raise offspring and individuals come together also to form organisations which engage in creative endeavours, such as producing increasingly powerful forms of technology. Individuals create by bringing parts together to form new wholes, for example I’m creating this blog post by bringing together a new arrangement of words.
One need not have a supernatural concept of God to see that bringing some new thing or new arrangement of things into being means opening up to this creative principle - looking outside ourselves, as well as beneath the surface of our inner self, perhaps - seeking the connections which are the very essence of creation.
Our pride may stand as a barrier to receiving the blessing we seek from the creative principle. Maybe we think we already know. Maybe we think we can already do. But if we get down on our knees and admit that we don’t know and we can’t do, then maybe we will be prepared to see a realisable potential we had been missing.
Seek
Seeking is all about looking. It is about paying attention.
Seeking means first admitting that something might exist. We can’t afford to be too cynical.
Only if we pay attention to the people around us and to the systems - natural, social and technological - of which we are a part, will we see the opportunities - the potential new connections - through which what we seek can come to pass.
If we get too caught up in our own personal schemes we lose sight of the power that we can have through our appreciation of the talents of others. Many a talent lies dormant because nobody has called upon it.
Knock
A knock is a determined action intended to call forth a response.
If we want something we need to take some kind of action. We need to initiate it, while at the same time remembering that there is much that we don’t know and much that we can’t do.
We might take action to share our vision. We might ask people what they need. It might involve literally knocking on doors.
***
If I can ask for anything, why not ask for the “Kingdom of Heaven”.
What does this phrase mean to me?
This is a potential which exists within us and within the world to manifest a community characterised by loving fellowship.
Thus, “…your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven…”, to me, means the realisation in the material world (“on earth”) of the matrix (“kingdom”) of love (“God”) which otherwise only exists in the world of positive potential (“heaven”).
Don’t we want to experience the ultimate pleasure and save ourselves from suffering?
The ultimate pleasure is that of loving connection with others or with the world around us in which we lose ourselves in the experience of being part of something larger. Maximising our ability to savour this pleasure requires a harmonious social environment and a harmonious relationship to the natural environment. Within the context of such a loving community, it would be much easier for us to work together to solve the practical problems which face us.
What stands between us and this potential loving community?
Egotism, greed, prejudice, aggression, despair, resentment… There are so many psychological barriers. There is so much in us which can make us enemies and thus lock us all out of “Heaven”.
Let’s imagine a tyrant who inflicts terrible suffering on his people. He is a fortress made of beliefs and behaviours which hold fear and guilt at bay. Can he acknowledge the common humanity of those he oppresses? No. Because to do so would be to confront his own guilt at having treated other humans so appallingly. Can he take his sword away from their throat? No. Because he fears they will rise up and exact their revenge. He really has no freedom of mind or freedom of behaviour. He is a reflexive pattern of oppression within which the loving being he was when he was born is imprisoned.
This is the extreme, but there is something of that tyrant in all of us. We have our rigid defensive beliefs and our fears which push people away.
The Kingdom is the state of freedom. Imprisonment is what keeps us from that kingdom. We are troubled by other’s selfishness, egotism, prejudice, violence. But these are their prisons. Each of us has our prison which is the source of our suffering and may contribute to the suffering of others. Our enemy is the jailer and not his victim.
So what do I ask for?
I ask not for justice, for justice is something which must be imposed. Instead I ask for the key which unlocks the prisons of the mind of which the injustices of the world are the outward expression.
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