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Workers in the Vineyard

Our embedded childhood memories often echo the voices of our parents, or teachers calling on us to perform various tasks. Most of the time, we heard them and did what they asked. But sometimes, when we didn´t want, or pretended not to hear them, we either faced punishment, or faced difficulties.

Later on in our life, if we were awake enough, we could hear an inner call, which we felt we should listen to, because it might have had something to do with our task on earth, and in the wider sense, our destiny. For various reasons, we could not always respond to this call. And afterwards, we did not always notice the effect that this unresponsiveness may have caused. The call of destiny may have tried to reach us again and again. When we could not or would not hear it, we experienced difficulties in our life, but didn´t connect the difficulties to these calls.

And sometimes, in our everyday struggles, we may have heard about a very wise person, who wanted to lead us toward new concepts and ideas at the appropriate time. These ideas could bring fairness and brotherhood into the social life of human beings, because they came from a higher wisdom. But these ideas have to be grasped by influential persons, for example people in the government. If they are not fully accepted and implemented, life in society does not come to pass, social life becomes more and more difficult.

The workers in the vineyard all followed the demand of the master of the house, they heard the call. They were all paid the same wages, as agreed before-hand, no matter who ended up working less or more. It was fair and just, because it was agreed upon beforehand. But then they were troubled about it and felt it was unfair.

How do we feel about it? Yes it is unjust for those, who worked the whole day. They have had to put in much more effort and push themselves. Yes, we always look at work from the point of view of money. Mostly, we forget that work also has its creative and regenerative effect.

When we work in freedom by way of inner effort, in meditation, prayer or in the Act of Consecration of Man, we transform our soul and our whole being. We can certainly count on the assurance that through our inner work, if we also work through feeling such freedom in the outer world, we continually transform the earth, even if we cannot always see it. We shouldn´t forget, that we were born to do transformation on the earth. And if we forget the real reason and impulse, we will be called upon by destiny. But also, society shouldn´t walk out on the task of transforming society; otherwise, there will be more conflicts between people, or groups of people. Of course this cannot be achieved by individuals. Such tasks require the strength of whole groups of people, because after death, in the spiritual world, there is no possibility to work in freedom. Our only chance is to start our transformation while we are on earth, so that we can then enter the spiritual world fully prepared.

It could be a great help to learn this already in the childhood when we are called for necessities.

September 13, 2011/0 Comments/by CCNA

Essays and Articles

The Sower and the Seed

In paintings by Vincent van Gogh, it is not unusual to see a farmer sowing seeds with a typical one-arm gesture. Even though it is only a painting, we can recognise the devotion of the farmer.

In the past a farmer would pray before going into the fields to sow. The ritual of the seeds in his warm hand and the rhythm of his light steps did not change for centuries. The old farmers working in their fields were in perfect harmony with nature, and as they went through the process of growing the grain, they understood that nature was communicating God’s Word to them.

Today, we hardly ever see a lone farmer sowing seeds in his field. It was our parents’ generation that last witnessed the love of the farmer for the earth.

Nowadays we are accustomed to seeing big heavy machinery with great wheels and blades grinding through the ground. The seeds drop into the soil through a cold metal funnel. We can feel the artificiality of this process. And we can also feel this is not really progress, but rather a procedure now without heart. The devotion towards God’s creation has totally disappeared. But it is “the new reality.” We cannot change it. And so, this transformation and development has become a challenge for farmers and for us as consumers. We are no longer aware of the process. We do not always know what we are consuming, or better said: what we are fed. Our produce and our bread don’t come anymore from the loving hands of the old spiritual farmer.

What we now have to do is express our love for this earth. It is ours. But– do we love the earth with all its beauty? Do we love it in the spring, when we see the first green buds peaking out from the ground? Do we love it in summer, when the wind makes it dance? Do we love the droopy and slowly wilting plants in the last days of autumn? All these thoughts become relevant, only if we are aware that the earth is a spiritual entity.

Today, the word of God can speak to us through different pictures and in many different ways. But the question is always: are we open to God’s spiritual Word when we relate to nature? The truth is, we should not reap the gifts of nature and then forget about it.

Let’s think for a moment how it is said during the service for children: they can lift up their thoughts and feelings to the spirit, to the spirit that lives and works, that lives and works in stone, plant and animal, that lives in human thinking and human doing.

It is obvious that nowadays the children are already learning to appreciate these thoughts and feelings. During the Sunday Service for Children they are given this wonderful chance. And for us, as adults– could we become responsible for the word of God as it speaks to us in all these different forms? Then we can find in our soul a new morality towards all living things on this earth. In prayer we can also pray for the earth, that it will not be destroyed before its time. Only on earth can we– as human beings– fulfil our task for the future in order to become spiritual beings.

The paintings of van Gogh have given us the possibility of looking at both sides, of looking at the morality in his art and also of looking at how it was in the past with the old farmers. From both we can learn and understand how God’s Word speaks in the world, and now we have to find our own way of seeing and hearing it, of becoming connected with it.

September 13, 2011/0 Comments/by CCNA

Essays and Articles

A Few Thoughts on Membership and its Relationship to Other Paths

I am sometimes asked what it means to be a member of The Christian Community. It means that an individual has taken part in the sacramental life of the congregation for a sufficient length of time and has come to experience the Act of Consecration of Man, the Communion service as his or her “spiritual home.” Among those seeking for answers to the question of meaning and wholeness in a fractured world are those who find help through communion, through participation in Christ. Such communion is union with a being who is the bearer of one’s “real” self, one’s “higher” self. We experience a kind of unification for a time, the world appears a bit more coherent. Having found a “spiritual home” one can then feel more at home in the earthly world.

Yet membership does not mean that one’s only access to the spirit is in the sacraments, nor need it signify one’s decision that the Christ can be found only in one Church. Christ is at work everywhere in the world and would be heard in the depths of every human soul. Communion with him, which will always be holy whenever it really occurs, can take place in different ways. And it is in the nature of Christ himself that no single path to communion with him, be it meditation, the sacraments or the largely unconscious path of destiny can claim exclusiveness or greater validity for a modern human being. Any path that leads to Christ is worthy, for he said “I am the way …” Yet every path also has its dangers: meditation: spiritual vanity; ritual: spiritual indolence; destiny: resentment and refusal to wake up. These risks are not unique to each path but overlap in large measure just as the various paths can overlap in the lives of individuals. Anyone following a path of spiritual discipline and meditation will be only strengthened in those endeavors by an inwardly active participation in ritual, in the sacraments. But only if, for personal reasons residing deep within the should, they themselves want to participate in ritual. There is no question of should. On the other hand, regular attendance at the Act of Consecration of Man, or any other valid form of the Eucharist, when accompanied by a fervent heart filled with an “active receptivity,” will serve to stimulate one’s thinking by way of the heart. With thinking thus become more lively and flexible it is natural then for an individual to seek for an expanded understanding of the ideas heard, thought and prayed in the ritual. This may lead people to study, for example, the spiritual researches of Rudolf Steiner. Thus, as one would expect of two paths leading to the same goal, Christ himself, the two ways serve to complement and support one another.

Rudolf Steiner was once asked whether an initiate, someone able to directly commune with beings in the spiritual world, would also take communion in the form of bread and wine. He responded that the answer depended entirely upon the initiate, that there is no general principle. In this most personal area there are no rules as to which path or combination of paths any individual or type of individual should follow in seeking communion with Christ. The only certainty is that everyone is individually responsible for deciding which paths are fruitful for him or her.

An individual who has experienced the sacraments in The Christian Community can come to the insight: “Yes, here is reality, here is healing and help for life. Here I find the strength that helps me to help others. Here is a source of THE GOOD in and for the world. I want to unite with this community that the Good endure, that the Good be spread further in the world.” When anyone come comes to this conclusion and wants to become a member of the Christian Community he or she should arrange to meet with a priest to discuss the next step.

September 13, 2011/0 Comments/by CCNA