Tom Robbins on Religion, God, & The Spiritual Life

Tom Robbins is the kind of author who people often say you either love or hate. All things considered, that is probably the best kind of author to be, as it reflects that level of truth telling which always inspires radically opposing emotions in others. Robbins is also the kind of author that we at The Living Hour would identify as an excellent example of the SBNR Progressive Christian, even though he would undoubtedly not describe himself in such terms. Regardless, Robbins displays the kind of attitude, wisdom, and joie de vivre that we admire.

The following are selected quotes from Tom Robbins covering the subject of God, religion, and the art of living:

**”A sense of humor…is superior to any religion so far devised.”

**”We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love.”

**”If by the quarter of the twentieth century godliness wasn’t next to something more interesting than cleanliness, it might be time to reevaluate our notions of godliness.”

**”What difference does it make if the Gospel is mostly a lie? It’s an engrossing story and the words of its hero are excellent words to live by, even today.”

**”If you believe in peace, act peacefully; if you believe in love, acting lovingly; if you believe every which way, then act every which way, that’s perfectly valid – but don’t go out trying to sell your beliefs to the system. You end up contradicting what you profess to believe in, and you set a bum example. If you want to change the world, change yourself.”

**”Curiosity, especially intellectual inquisitiveness, is what separates the truly alive from those who are merely going through the motions.”

**”All depression has its roots in self-pity, and all self-pity is rooted in people taking themselves too seriously.”

**”Anyone who maintains absolute standards of good and evil is dangerous. As dangerous as a maniac with a loaded revolver.”

**”Solace? That’s why God made fermented beverages and the blues.”

**”I believe in nothing, everything is sacred. I believe in everything, nothing is sacred.”

What might Tom Robbins say if he were a Zen teacher? Click on Zen to find out!

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Gain fresh insight into the Lord’s Prayer. Read our free online book The Lord’s Prayer for Daily Life. The prayer’s hidden teachings will enrich and inspire you. Click the following link to begin reading the Living Hour book now: The Lord’s Prayer.

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The Coming One

Gospel of Matthew 11

After Jesus had finished giving directions to his twelve disciples, he left that place in order to teach and preach in their towns. 2 Now John had heard in prison what the Christ was doing, and he sent a message by his disciples, 3 And asked: “Are you ‘The Coming One,’ or are we to look for someone else?” 4 The answer of Jesus to the question was: “Go and report to John what you hear and see: 5 The blind recover their sight, and the lame walk; the lepers are made clean and the deaf hear; the dead, too, are raised to life, and the gospel is told to the poor. 6 And blessed is the one who finds no hindrance in me.”

7 While these men were going back, Jesus began to say to the crowds with reference to John: 8 “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed waving in the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man richly dressed? Why, those who wear rich things are to be found in the courts of kings! 9 What, then, did you go for? To see a prophet? Yes, I tell you, and far more than a prophet.”

10 “This is the man of whom scripture says: ‘Behold, I am myself sending my messenger before thy face, And he shall prepare thy way before thee.’11 I tell you, no one born of a woman has yet appeared who is greater than John the Baptist; and yet the lowliest in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. 12 From the time of John the Baptist to this very hour, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force. 13 For the teaching of all the prophets and of the law continued until the time of John; 14 And, if you are ready to accept it, John is himself the Elijah who was destined to come. 15 Let those who have ears hear.

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The Meaning of The Lord’s Prayer

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16 But to what shall I compare the present generation? It is like little children sitting in the market–places and calling out to their playmates: 17 ‘We have played the flute for you, but you have not danced; We have wailed, but you have not mourned.’18 For, when John came, neither eating nor drinking, men said ‘He has a devil in him’; 19 And now that the Son of Man has come, eating and drinking, they are saying: ‘Here is a glutton and a wino, a friend of tax–gatherers and sinners!’ And yet wisdom is vindicated by her actions.”

20 Then Jesus began to reproach the towns in which most of his miracles had been done, because they had not repented: 21 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For, if the miracles which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. 22 Yet, I tell you, the doom of Tyre and Sidon will be more bearable in the day of judgment than yours.”

23 “And you, Capernaum! Will you ‘exalt yourself to heaven’? ‘You shall go down to the place of death.’ For, if the miracles which have been done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have been standing to this day. 24 Yet, I tell you, the doom of Sodom will be more bearable in the day of judgment than yours.”

25 At that same time Jesus uttered the words: “I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that, though thou has hidden these things from the wise and learned, thou has revealed them unto babes. 26 Yes, Father, I thank thee that this has seemed good to thee. 27 Everything has been committed to me by my Father; nor does anyone fully know the Son, except the Father, nor fully know the Father, except the Son, and those to whom the Son may choose to reveal him.

28 Come to me, all you who toil and are burdened, and I will give you rest! 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am gentle and lowly at heart, and ‘you shall find rest for your souls’; 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

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To read Chapter 12 of the Gospel of Matthew, please go to: The Wisdom of Solomon

Gain fresh insight into the Lord’s Prayer. Read our free online book The Lord’s Prayer for Daily Life. The prayer’s hidden teachings will enrich and inspire you. Click the following link to begin reading the Living Hour Book now: The Lord’s Prayer.

Browse the entire Gospel of Matthew here: Gospel of Matthew

Trust Your Inner Wisdom?

Trust your “inner wisdom” is a lot like Joseph Campbell’s dictum follow your bliss. It sounds good on the surface, but it can just as likely lead us away from the Christ within as lead us toward our divinity and life’s purpose. This is because wisdom is not planted inside us like a burning bush but a mustard seed–a seed which takes years of learning, living, and loving for it to bloom up with fire. The seed of our inner wisdom also demands that we dissipate the cloud cover of our egos which so often stunts its growth and blurs its message.

Jesus’s wisdom, we are told, grew as he grew in years.¹ It was only after he had surpassed the wisdom of King Solomon² and put the devil (ego) behind him in the wilderness of his soul that he fully trusted his inner wisdom and began his ministry in earnest.

Inner wisdom is not downloaded from On High. It is a process of coalescing, of unification. Buddha’s enlightenment under the Bodhi tree didn’t arrive like a thunderbolt from the heavens. It was a coalescing of all his past meditations, learning, and experiences: all of the pieces of the puzzle suddenly fell into place. But before that could happen, Buddha had to collect all those pieces of knowledge. And that took time, patience, and diligence.

So, by all means do look toward your inner wisdom for guidance. But remember that there are many inner voices battling for your attention. Don’t trust the voice that you think is your “inner wisdom” blindly. Enter into a dialogue with it. Make sure the road it is calling you on has a heart. And look for the traps that your pride and ego sets along the way.

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Gain fresh insight into the Lord’s Prayer. Read our free online book The Lord’s Prayer for Daily Life. The prayer’s hidden teachings will enrich and inspire you. Click the following link to begin reading the Living Hour book now: The Lord’s Prayer.

1. Jesus grew in wisdom as he grew in years, and gained the blessing of God and men. – Mark 2:52 [↩]
2. She came from the very ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon; and here is more than a Solomon! – Luke 11:31 [↩]

Ethan Allen on God, Reason, Prayer, & Religion

In this final installment of our special series on the Founding Fathers and their thoughts on God, Religion, & the Divine, we move to farmer, politician, and guerilla revolutionary leader Ethan Allen, who perhaps is best known for leading the Green Mountain Boys (and other fighters) in their raid and capture Fort Ticonderoga, a strategic victory which severely hampered communication between the northern and southern units of the British army.

Like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, Ethan Allen might be best described as a Progressive Christian Deist who believed reason must take a paramount place in religious activity. The following passage is taken from Section IV of Ethan Allen’s book, Reason: The Only Oracle of Man (1784), and deals with the subject of prayer. In synch with the philosophy of prayer that guides our free book The Living Hour: The Lord’s Prayer for Daily, Allen writes:

Whoever has a just sense of the absolute perfection of God, and of their own imperfection, and natural subjection to his providence, cannot but from thence infer the impropriety of praying or supplicating to God, for this, that, or the other thing; or of remonstrating against his providence: inasmuch, as “known to God are all our wants;” and as we know, that we ourselves are inadequate judges of what would be best for us, all things considered.

To pray for any thing, which we can obtain by the due application of our natural powers, and neglect the means of procuring it, is impertinence and laziness in the abstract; and to pray for that which God in the course of his providence, has put out of our power to obtain, is only murmuring against God, and finding fault with his providence, or acting the inconsiderate part of a child; for example, to pray for more wisdom, understanding, grace or faith; for a more robust constitution, handsomer figure, or more of a gigantic size, would be the same as tolling God, that we are dissatisfied with our inferiority in the order of being; that neither our souls nor bodies suit us; that he has been too sparing of his beneficence; that we want more wisdom, and organs better fitted for show, agility and superiority.

But we ought to consider, that “we cannot add one Cubit to our stature,” or alter the construction of our organic frame; and that our mental talents are finite; and that in a vast variety of proportions and disproportions, as our Heavenly Father in his order of nature, and scale of being saw fit; who has nevertheless for the encouragement of intelligent nature ordained, that it shall be capable of improvement, and consequently of enlargement; therefore, “whosoever lacketh wisdom,” instead of “asking it of God,” let him improve what he has, that he may enlarge the original stock; this is all the possible way of gaining in wisdom and knowledge, a competency of which will regulate our faith. But it is too common for great faith and little knowledge to unite in the same person; such persons are beyond the reach of argument and their faith immovable, though it cannot remove mountains.

The only way to procure food, raiment, or the necessaries or conveniences of life, is by natural means; we do not get them by wishing or praying for, but by actual exertion; and the only way to obtain virtue or morality is to practice and habituate ourselves to it, and not to pray to God for it: he has naturally furnished us with talents or faculties suitable for the exercise and enjoyment of religion, and it is our business to improve them aright, or we must suffer the consequences of it. We should conform ourselves to reason, the path of mortal rectitude, and in so doing, we cannot fail of recommending ourselves to God, and to our own consciences. This is all the religion which reason knows or can ever approve of.

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Gain fresh insight into the Lord’s Prayer. Read our free online book The Lord’s Prayer for Daily Life. The prayer’s hidden teachings will enrich and inspire you. Click the following link to begin reading the Living Hour book now: The Lord’s Prayer.

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Kahlil Gibran & The Ass Loaded With Books of Wisdom

The Lebanese-American writer Kahlil Gibran is best known for his elegant and moving book The Prophet. But Gibran produced many other works during his short life, which ended in 1931. Since his death, Gibran has inspired countless spiritual progressives, including artists like John Lennon who paraphrased Gibran’s famous verse, “Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it so that the other half may reach you,” in the Beatle’s song Julia, from the White Album.

In A Second Treasury of Kahlil Gibran there is one passage that is especially poignant and should be recalled frequently by Progressive Christians and all who are walking the path of spiritual progress:

A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle. If your knowledge doesn’t teach you the real value of things, nor frees you from the bondage of matter, you will never come near the altar of Truth. If your knowledge doesn’t teach you to rise above human weakness and misery to help lead others on the right path, you are indeed someone of little worth and will remain so until judgment day.¹

Learn the words of wisdom uttered by the wise and apply them to your own life. Live them, but do not make a grand show of reciting them in public–for someone who repeats what they do not fully understand is no better than an ass loaded with books. Remember that one person who is just gives the Devil greater affliction than a million blind believers in God.

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Gain fresh insight into the Lord’s Prayer. Read our free online book The Lord’s Prayer for Daily Life. The prayer’s hidden teachings will enrich and inspire you. Click the following link to begin reading the Living Hour book now: The Lord’s Prayer.

1. In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus says: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”. This does not mean that we are to wring our hands over yesterday’s sins, so as to prepare ourselves for tomorrow’s final day of judgment. There is no singular last day. Our day of judgment is here with us always, and in a million different ways. It demands only that we make a decision, and make it on our own. – The Lord’s Prayer For Daily Life, pg. 27 [↩]