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Published by

THE NEW CHURCH BOOK CENTER 2129 CHESTNUT STREET Philadelphia 3, Pennsylvania

One Cod, One World, One Life

Ministers, laymen, and religious writers are quite free

with such phrases as "two-world universê," "the other worId," "the other life," and "going ta the spiritual world."

Despite the familiarity of these phrases, and the gond

theology they are intended la express, they can he quite misleading. This kind of talk is apt ta be misunderstood

by others, and - more important - .it is likely ta confuse

our own thinking about some very basic questions, unless

we are quite clear about what we meall.

\ There is no othe,. world, there is no othe,. lire. There

) is one Gad, one world, Olle life, and we are living it right 1 now.

A shatement iike this could be misunderstood, tao, so 1

~ want to darify it immediately. By saying there is no "other" world, no "other" life, 1 am not for one moment denying the

absolute, unqualified reality of spiritual life in a spiritual

environment. Nor am 1 denying the reality of the life of our bodies and the enl'ironment that affects them. 1 am

denying that these two aspects of life and these two aspects of life's environment are separate, or that they can be

separate in any way. They are not separate in space: you cannat "go" from one ta the other. They are not separate

in timt': vou do Ilot live through one while you wait for

ONE GOD, ONE WORLD, ONE L1FE

the other. They are not separate in action: no event takes place in one without affecting the other. They are not separate in crea~ion: there is one Cod, and he has created one world and one life for us ta live.

By dividing one life into two, by making two aspects of living into two separate principles, two kinds of reality, two separate approaches ta Cod, we bave in one sense invalidated bath of them. From the point of view of the Lord's revela­tian of himself - from the religious viewpoint - we tend ta deny the validity and relevance of our own perceptions of the world we live in. But since we cannat deny that world altogether and keep on living, we have come ta think in 'a kind of dualism. Wc speak of a truer and a less-lru~

world, of a more-real and a less-real life. But this dualism is absolutely inconsistent with the reve!ation it tried ta defend, the revelation of Cod who says: "1 form light and create darkness, 1 make good and create evil . . . 1 am the Lord, there is no other; beside me there is no god." U1timately, helief in one Cod dell1'ands belief in one creation, one life.

From the point of vie\\' of experience and physical per­ception, on the other hand - from the knowledge of Gad through nature--we are forced ta recognize the reality of our natural world and life, and of the Cod who made and sus­tains il. But in defense of this reality, and in defense of

4

ONE GaD, ONE WORLD, ONE L1FE

the dependability of the physical senses that God gave us,

we have first ignored and then denied the present reality and actual importance of anything those senses cannot see or

experience. But since the life we live is just too big for such limitation, this also leads to dualism: a physic.al

world here and now, and a spiritual world some place else, or later on, or someho\V different. But dualism is just as inconsistent with scientific experiences as it is \Vith revela­

tion. The one wodd and one life that Gad has created is

bath material and spiritual, and is known by both physical and spiritual experience. The two aspects of reality, the

two aspects of experience, cannot be divided and set in opposition to each other, except by arbitrary insistenœ that

life is other than it really is: by self·assertion against the full reality of experience and against the Word of God.

Emanuel Swedenborg summ~d this up rather neatly by rsaying that man is a spirit who has a body. Man is spirit­

not will be-and he kas a body; he is not imprisoned by it, nor limited by it, but it is a necessary aspect of a crucial

stage in his personal development. The spirit and the body make one man, living one life in one world that is both

natmal and spiritual in its make-up. This is characteristically Swedenborgian, and it is a distinctively Swedenbor~àan pel" ~pective 011 spirit, lIature and life.

But what does ail this mean? How is life c1ifferent, if il

5

ONE GOD, ONE WORLD, ONE L1FE

15 5een m this larger, undivided perspective? There is not time here to answer that completely, but to the extent that 1 can, 1 want to answer it carefully; because if it did not

make any real difference, then the Swedenborgian perspec­

tive would not be very important, and would make no significant contribution to Christian understanding of life. However, 1 am convinced that -it does make a very real

difference in the meaning of life, the purpose of life, and

the signifieance and relevance of religion in the problems of life.

First, Ihe meaning of )ife. Since there is no "other" life, we will not find meaning by withdrawing from the

world, or waiting for reward or punishment in another life. Pain and disease, poverty and miser)', financial or personal

failure, must be seen as part of the ultimate meaning of this life we are living. But they are not all the meaning; neither is health, exuberanee, luxury and SUCC(~ss. The l11ôaning of

life is to be found in these things in relation to our personal

awareness of the reality and presence of the Lord, and our reactions to his influences. Thus, for example, if we an~

stricken with cancer, living in a right relationship to God

does not take the pain out of our life, nor ean our theology explain it away; but the pain, over-against the strength and

comfort of the relatio!lship to Cod, hammers out a tensioll. within which our life finds a meaning and a qllality which is

neither as bad as the pain nor as good as God - but which

6

ONE GOD, ONE WORLD, ONE L1FE

is real, and is ours, and whieh will lost aher that particlilar kind of pain is gone.

On the other hand, if we have health and suceess, and

ignore or refuse the inAnence of Cod, the health 'and suceess do not disappear. However, since these good things stand

in our life in relation to a darkness and emptiness where there could be light and power, the meaning of our life is

something between faidy good and nothing; and this is the quality we will have after we lose the consciousness K)f

physical health and material success.

The balance between these twa asp[~cts of lire is not determined only in the future; the experie!lce of generations has :_hown that when spiritual values and material values

are in conAict, the spiritual values provide the greater present satisfaction here and now. The reasons for this

are less important than the fact; and thf' fact is beyond question. The meaning of our one life is found in both material and spiritual f'xperience, and spiritual experience is the dominant influence over our total life.

Second, the pur"pose of life. Purpose is seen from the larger, unified perspective we are ~alking about. Psycholo­giSLS see the purpose of life as an '-adjustment 'I to our

environment. 1f the environment is defined only in physical terms, this is inadequate as a purpose in view

of aH the kinds of experience we know. In our church \H~ define the purposc of life as !!generatiO'Il. If re­

7

ONE GOD, ONE WORLD, ONE L1FE

generationis seen only as a preparation for a futur.., life, il is inadequate to provide a pm'pose for ail the kinds of challenges that we have to face in life as we know it now.

\ But if we remember that we live one life in one world, then regeneration is adjustment - adjustment to our total en­vironment in its spirit;;-al as well as its physical ~spe;;-ts,

And this is an adequate purpose to life.

Measured against this kind of pm'pose, every kind of experience contributes to the meaning of life, but none excludes the others. 1 spoke of such experiences as major disease on the one hand, life-Iong health and prosperity on the other. But what about the day you hated yourself be­cause your neglect hurt the feeling of someone you love, or you failcd in a task that someone counted on you for? What about the headache that spoiled a party? On the other hand, what about the sudden flash of inspiration that happily solved a problem? These liUle, day-by-day experiences of weakness and strength take on significance when they are Eeen as part of the total process of adjusting to your cUl11plete environment. They are neither wholly natural nor entirely spiritual, either in their cause or in the effect. They are symptoms of the ten­sion and auempted adjustment between your body and mind, and your soul that receives influx from the Lord, as this wholeness-of-you meets the spiritual and material factors and influences around you, When you accomplish

8

ONE GOO, ONE WORLO, ONE L1FE

a greaLer ullit)' between YO\lr jnner drive~ and y"ur COII­

scious intentions, this is progre~~ lowaro )'our purpose. rIf sickness or failure drives )'ou to see and aecept a greater

\ unity within )'ourself, the event is a gain on your Înner \ seale of values. If suceess, or reeovery from illness, canses

1the disintegration of a unity already attained, then it is a loss. Yet this progress or failure is not eonfined to vour

inner perception, because as you become more uni fied and

1 adjusted, you become belter -able to cope with ail factors of your total environment. You become a more effective

person. Although real success or failure in the whole of life cannot be judged by health, prosperity or visible suc­

1cess, it does not remain totally independent of them. Ali of life is a part of a single whole.

One of the first consequences of lhis kind of perspective on life is that it makes life more difficull. To rely on

natural ability to meet a natural environment, or concentrate

on spiritual development to be justified in a future spiriLual

life, is easier in ~ither c~se than this total approach to Lhe whole of life. But if wholeness is more complicated and

difficult, it is also more realistic. This is the kind of world we live in, the kind of life we live. Also, there are "hidden"

benefits, because built into this approach is the means of

bringing new power to bear on old problems.

For instance, this total viewpoint makes our reading lhe

Bible a more challenging and demanding experience, makillg

9

ONE GOD, ONE WORLD, ONE LIFE

it impossible to ignore either the plain message of ils hislon'

and mythology, or the deeper spiritual resourcc,; in il. HuI if this is harder, with dIe occasional mental and emotional

wrestling it forces upon us, il is also more rewarding in

the help il makes available for our lives. To take another example, the experiences we have in contact with art, litera­

ture, music, cannot be completely explained in terms of appeal to our physical senses. Affecting the whole of our

being - as everything must that cornes into our conseious­

ness - such experiences can bring us to spiritual heights or depths that make art related to religion, because religion

is related to life.

This perspective sheds a clear and useful light Oll life's

more troubling problems, too. Old age, for example, is disturbing with ils increasing weakness and physical dis­

ability, its lapses of memory, ils shortened spans of attention

and wandering of mind. But these same symptoms, seen r as signs of transition in one continuing life, are simply signs

of diminishing concern for material things and diminishing need for physical prowess - necessary stages in a graduai

transition between phases, and not an end of anything. In the same way, when we are young, the creative help we

reeeive from othe l'S, sepàrated from us by time, distance,

eveu death, is a powel'ful reaffirmation of the wholeness of one life we Jive in the one world created for us by the

One Cod.

10

Tension 1walIt to talk about tension. 1 a111 not concerned with

what to do, what to quit doing, or whal to take to relieve

it, escape it, or tranquilize il. Considering the way we are

put together, and the kind of life we live, tension is a!ways gOillg to be a part of our life, just as it always has been.

~ The only way to avoid tension and conflict - which is just

tension trying to resolve itself - is to quit living. And to learn to live is to learn what to do with the tensions and

confliets of life.

The Bible 1s, among other things, a kind of minor HI

which we can see our life not only as we know it, but also as

il rullS in the deeper depths wc cannot otherwise see, and as il might be if we I1ved to our fullesl. And it is signifi­

cant in this connection that the Bible, from beginning to end,

is virtually one long record of struggle, conflict and tension. There are mOments of peace - the Seventh Day of Creation,

So101110n's forty years' reign, and a few others - but they are described by a verse here and a few chapter~ there in a

long story of national and personal conflict.

"In the beginning ... the parth was waste and void, and

(larkness was ujJon the face of the deep, and the spirit of God' was lIIoving over the face of the waters." From the

heginning, the stage was set for the s!!:!1gg1e: chaos and

Il

TENSION

darkness .. , and Ù1e spirit of Cod. And in the fm;L aet of creation, Cod said, "Let there be light" and there was light;

by Lhat light man sees the choice before him, and the battle is on.

When Cod formed man from the dust of the earth, and breathed into hil11 the breath of life, what did he do?

He put together in one life - one Iife which cannot be divided - two conAicting, incompatible elements, Man lives

- chemistry and mystery, inertia and power, matter and

spirit, life and death - and inescapable tension.

The tension can be elil11inated only by eliminating one

aspect of life; and doing so eliminates life itself. To think

of man as he can be measured in physical stature, is to see him as awfully small. "What is man, that thou art mindful of hil11?" asks the Psalmist, and sees that the answer cannot

be in man, but in God, who made man onl)' a little less than God himself - which is about as close as the Hebrew

language can come to saying that man is a spiritual being,

On the other hand, to think of man as pure spirit - to eliminate or subordinate the body - is almost 'l'orse. A

fOl'mless spirit, a breath imprisoned by Aesh until it can escape and be absorbed into the total life·force from God,

wiÙlOut body, without individuality, without appearance,

\\iLhollt personality --- this is so foreigll Ll) the Christian traditioll that almo;;t from the begillning Chrislians \l'ere

12

TENSION

distinguished from others by this article of faith. "Wc believe in the Resurrection of the Body" \Vas not an ex­

pression of materialism, for il referred specifically to a spiritual body; it was an early, pre-philosophical affinua­

tion of the great truth of wholeness. Our life is a whole of body and spirit, and they cannot be separated. Until the

body is transformed and becomes spiritual, these two

elements will be in constant tension.

This is the tension that troubled Paul in Romans 7.

He was writing about the Law - the Ten Commandments

and the myriad of details appended to them. Paul was

a subtle thinker, and he had just made the point that since breaking the law was sin, there would not have bœn

nearly as much sin if the law had not been there to bn'ak. Yet, of course, the law cannot be called the cause of sin.

But if the law was not the cause of sin, what was? 1 am

not the cause of my own sin, Paul says, hecause 1 want to keep the law. What makes me hreak the law when 1

really want to keep it? It must he something in me, something that has no good in il. Life for Paul was ont'

long strugg'le between these two elements in himself. and

he could not escape from eilher. He had no douht about the eventual outcome of the struggle, but that did not make it any easier while it was going~ 0;: He was both spiritual

and unspirituaL both surrendered and attuned to Cod. "I1Ù

fighting ap;ainst Cod.

13

TEt~SION

Il is interesting and significant that bath Paul and

Emanuel Swedenborg provide the same kino of resolution la this particular kind of tension. "There is no eondemna­

~:on for those who are united with Jesus Christ, because in

Christ Jesus the life.giving law of the Spirit has set you free from the law of sin and death," says Paul. Swedenborg

says that a few bad actions will not condemn a good man

any more than good actions will save a bad man: it is the internai orientation and intention that is critieal. Bath

Paul and Swedenborg advocate keeping the Ten Command­

ments and living a good Christian life, but both recognize that the inner motivation - the life's love, the intent of the

spirit - is more important than extemal actions, or

observance of a legal code.

This is important for a total understanding of life, and it is comforting, tao. Il is good to know that our slips and

failings in moments of weakness are not fatal to our re­

generation. Of course, it is equally challenging to remember that ail our piety is of no account unless our subconscious

spiritual intention is right. But ail this is really beside the point. This has to do with the eventual outcome of the

strugg~~. Il has to do \Vith the future. Il does not settle the eonfliet now, nor does it relieve the tension of the confliet while in progress, nor solve the problem of the moment.

Let us forget about Paul's tension for a Illompnt and think

14

TENSION

about our own - yours and mine. What can 1 do? As honestly as 1 can know myself, 1 believe the Cospel and the teachings of the church; 1 do make an effort to live as Christians live; 1 read my Bible, 1 pray; 1 have, in fact, feh some of the consequences of spiritual renewal in my own life; then, bang! it aIl seems to faIl apart. The falling apart, of course, is only an illusion. It is the confrontation of this aspect of my life with another side that seems to have no connection, that appears completely incompatible with il. Something happens that has an effect which simply cannat occur in a lUe transformed by the grace of Cod, a Christian life - yet there it is.

What happens? What am 1 talking about? It has been many things in my life, possibly different ones in yours. lt could be physical affiiction, for example: cancer, arthritis, a crippling accident, or something less permanent that still prevents you from doing what you want to do or need to do. Or it can be the death of someone you love or someone you depended on. There is no theological ex­planation that seriously helps ta relieve the tension that such events bring into our lives. Job wrestled with his problem until he realized that there was po point in asking the questions - that the answer is God and Cod is beyond human understanding. 50 Job praised Cod instead of chal· lenging him, praised him for the pain as weIl as for the good things, and found a way to bear the tension. Paul,

15

TENSION

too, afRictcd with sorne disorder -- epilepsy, probably ­prayed that God would remove it so he could work more effectively for God and his Church; but the affiiction re­mained. It remained, Paul felt, so that he would not forget that it was God's strength and not his that was responsible for his accomplishments. But living with the tension did not remove the agony of the epileptic fits. Jesus cxplained that a certain man was born blind so that God's glory might

be revealed when he was healed, but he did not explain

the affliction of blindness and the anguish it causes. Jesus

himself agonized over the tension of Martha's grief when

her brother Lazarus died; even though he could raise Lazarus

eventually, he could not but weep at the tension of her

present grief. And this is the point: even though the love of

( God provides rewlution of the conflict, we still must learn

'1 to live with the tension o[ the moment. Perhaps this is the

real substance of the meaning of faith.

But affiiction, hard as it is to bear, still cornes from outside

and so does not present the agonizing problem that comes

with failures from within. If, as Christians, we have felt

our life enriched and boldened by power from the Lord,

how do we explain to our~elves the next time - the Lime

we [ail so completely to do what is needed, what is right?

How do we explain the actual pain that we cause - not

wilfully, perhaps, but nevertheless consciously - as if in

lb

TENSION

IVar belween OUI' OWll parts the lower nature has won

control '?

"Why do the wicked prosper'?" (Jeremiah 12:1.) Harder still: "Why don't I? Why do 1 feel hurt, do nothing good and lasting'?" If our religion is genuine, we can trust that these things will not ultimately condemn us, but what about now? What about the agony and the tension in our mind and heart when we see ourseIves fail? Is there an answer that is meaningful and helpful at such times of personal crisis?

To be honest - and anything but absolute, radical honesty falls apart and fails under the stress of real tension - to be honest, 1 must say 1 do not kno\\'. There are an· swers that have been meaningful to others, there is an answer that has helped me; but part of this basic tension of life that 1 am talking about is that the best answer we know sometimes fails to help at ail. To be satisfactory at all, the answer must account for the fact that sometimes il will fail to answer the question that cries from the very depths of our life.

The Swedenborgian perspective is the most satisfactory approach to this problem that l know. The goal and business of uur physical life is the transformation of our lIatural selve;; inlo sOlllethillg more compatible with

spiritual essence. liege}l(~ra!Lon is a business of .Égl~ing

17

TENSION

ternptations. Temptation is tension between two conflicting desires of two conflicting parts of ourselves. There is in faet no escape From that tension; to not ~g~t it, means to return to a lower level of regeneration, and the tensions that operate there; to fight it and win is to rise into the tensions of a higher level of life.

Remember Jesus in Gethsemane. On the one hand, he wanted to escape the struggle and pain before him: "Let this eup (this agonizing eonfliet) pass from me." On the other hand, he had another desire: "Thy will be done." This tension was 50 desperate it is hard to imagine; it is said that he sweated blood. The eventual glorious outeome did nothing to relieve the tension in the garden.

( For him, in an ultimate sense, as it is for us in varying ) degrees, the only thing to do with tension - the only thing

that works - is to mect it, aeeept it as real and necessary, 1 open ourselves to it and let il grow in us, let it break into ( eonfliet and then struggle in that eonflid for ail we are

worth.

There is no peace, no permanent peace, whiÎe Iwo

incompatible aspeets are inseparable in us. But for those who accept the tension and fight the fig9t, there is no condemnation, but eventual fre~dom From the chemistry, illertia, matter and death: freedolll to eternal life.

18

The Other Side of the CoinThe life we live, aud the world we live it in, is something

like a coin. A coin has two sicles; in most cases they are not alike, and in any event they are not the same. You cannot look at one side of a coin and say - at least, not honestly and accurately - ''This is what the coin really is; the other side does not count, or it isn't as important." And, most certainly, you cannot have a coin that does not have another side: that would be simply a reflected image of a coin, and you could not pick it up, jingle it, spend it, or even lose it through a hole in Y0uf pocket, because it would not really exist. And, final1y, if you have a coin and keep one side always up, never looking at the other side, the other side does not go away; it continues to be the other side of the coin as long as you have a coin at aIl.

Now, that is far enough to take that analogy, because analogies sometimes tend to get in their own way. The coin l am talking ahout is life, as l said ; one side is what we cali "physical," "material," or "natural;" the other side is what Swedenborg and much of the Christian tradition calls "spiritual," although some modern theologians, as weil as some biologists, physicists, neurologists and others have different terminologies for the same thing. It is true of life, as with the coin, that we cannot look at one aspect and say, "This is lire; lire is a complex function of atoms

19

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN

and e!eolric force· fields," withol.lt laking accollnl o( the other sicle of the coin, any more than we can say, "Life is a spiritual phenomenoll," and forget the reality of the physical pleasures it can enjoy.

There is no life that does not have both sicles of the coin. Where or when we think we see Sileh life, we sec only a reflected image of life - nothing that breathes and grows, and interacts with us. Ignoring one aspect of life cloes not make that aspect go away. "The fool says in his heart, them is no Cod," but God guides and suslains him anyway. The man who says there is no such thing as spirit, is spirit whether he believes it himself or not. On the other side of the coin, denying the physical realities does not prevent a woman from burning her finger, or dying of cancer, and changing terminology does not diminish the seriousness of death. Noel Coward once had a character in one of his plays correct a euphemis. tic Christian Scientist: "Milly did not pass over, pass under, or pass out. She died." There are two sides to the coin of life, and while they are different, they are in­separable - except in the sense that we can look at one side without seeing the other, even though it is there, and it reaUy is quite difficult to see bath sides at once with equal clarity.

Living with two different aspects indissolubly bound to­

20

THE OTHER SIDE Or THE COIN

gcthn by this phenolllenoll we cali life, produces ail i.1I­escapable, but creative tensioll. 1 have spoken of this before. But it also produces happiness. It is important to know about this, and understand il, because ignoring one aspect of your life will not remove or nullify its effects, whereas taking the whole life into account can help you live better. It makes a difference in your work, your play, your worship. lt can help you in almost anything you do in life, as a matler of fact, but let us look brieRy at those three areas.

Psychiatrists say that the most common basic problem that brings patients to them today is "Iack of identity." People do not know who they are. Of course, even in psychiatrie cases, they generally know their name, address, ancestry, occupation, and so forth. They know as lUuch as anyone e!se - anyone looking al them - needs to know who they are, but not enough to satisfy themselves. They have no identity in the sense that they do not kno\\' what makes them different from anyone e!se, they do not know why they were born, what they are living for, or what it means to be who they are. Not only psychiatrists notice this. In less extreme, but equally obvious forms, it is observed by ministers, and particularly by those who study the whole population by sociological means. One thing sociologists notice particularly is that this sense of "105t­ness" began to spread from an isolated phenomenon to an almost universal one, at the same time that the ways in

21

THË OTHER SI DE OF THE COIN

which people Illake a living hefran to change. l'('opl(· u~ed to find identity in s(~veral ways which have di~­

'appeared or becollle irrelevanl, hut one of t11e lllu~l

important was their occupation. A mail \l'as known by his trade; many of the proper names we know today had their

oI'igins in the name of an occupation or trade. A man

considered the product or service of his occupation as a satis­factory goal in life -- good enough for his father, for him,

for his son. A woman found satisfaction in providing a home for her family, and identity in her husband's place in

the community. But this has changed. Few men today

have the sole responsibility for producing anything; many men contribute to a process of production so vast and com­

plex that no one can find identily in the result of his work. The same is true of homemaking, which has not beGome

easier, so mUGh as it has beGome complicated, mechanical, standardized and imperwnal. The more details we examine

in this question, the more obvious it becomes: from a material viewpoint, there is nothing we do or make that

provides any real satisfaction or identity.

But what about the other side of the coin? \Vhat is your

occupation, spirituaIly? It is a giving of yourself, quite

completely, Lo someone eise. You give time, which is very precious because you never can get any more. You

give ability, which is uniquely yours, and effort which in its time and place is essential to an enterprise. Forget for

22

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN

the moment ÙIe physical product or service of your com­pany; it provides a use to somebody. The more people iL serves, the greater use it is. Usually, those jobs which are most complicated, and leave you farthest removed from the results of your work, are those which serve the largest numœr of people. You get paid for your work, because this is how ilie persan who buys what you make is able to perform a use for you. Now this is aH quite theoretical and intellectual, but lliis is the only basis there ever was for satisfaction in one's occupation.

What has happened in our modern culture is ÙIaL the material aspect has œcome so far removed from the essence of the situation that wc lose ail source of sati6faction unless we look at ÙIe spiritual si de of the coin. Our personal satisfaction in a job weil done usually has to come from our own knowledge of our service to our larger neighbor, the community, and to our worship of God in performing that use. It does not come, as it once did, to Lhe home-shop craftsman in results he could see and Feel, or in someone's telling him what good work he had none. Our satisfaction today must be internaI - spiritual, llltimately - and our identity is derived from the relation­ships we develop through use to a community tao large to he known physicaUy. In the last analysis, that community is lIlankind, with wham we have a spiritual relationship, but cannot have any other kind. In other words, the same

23

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN

tendellcies which drive us to what we call Il more materially­centered culture, also drive us to need for awareness of spiritual factors and values in our lives. We cannot see one side of the coin so clearly, anymore, so it becomes ail the more important to look at the other side.

As people began to lose any direct feelings of satisfaction and identity from their work, something happened to their play. The resort and recreation business has boomed, as people look harder and harder for new ways to rest up and to "re-create" themselves, without knowing what they are

resting fwm, or re-creating themselves for. There are not many people whose occupation exhausts them physically to a point where they need extended rest to recoup their strength. V:lhat does happen is that in the course of dealing with the material necessities of our daily lives, coping with the forces that affect us in various ways, we become so in­volved with material details and with things outside our­selves that we lose touch with the center of our lives. When we forget ourseIves, our spiritual needs and activities and our lives become disjointed, meaningless, tom by inner conflicts. We need spiritual recreation to restore unity. Frequently for short periods, and occasionally for longer periods, we have to withdraw from the complex system of rnaterial and external details that form the context of our daily lives. By changing the substance and pattern of this system - as in travel --- or hy reducing it to 'a minimum - as lyillg 011

24

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN

a beach, or sitting on a porch with a mountain view - wc give ourseIves a chance to pull our spiritual selves together. If we do not realize that this is what we are doing, we may devote our recreational opportunities to more and more frantic searches for diverting physical experiences, and so lose the whole value of recreation. We must look at the spiritual side of life, if we are going to live as adequately and as satisfactorily as we might.

Now, it should be obvious that worship has a spiritual aspect. One might even ask what other aspect there is. WeIl, look for a moment at what is usually considered the central, the normative phase of worship: corporate wor­ship on Sunday morning. What is material about this? It requires a special building, and one that is quite expen­sive, compared to the minimum cost of shelter for group activity. It requires the services of a minister who, by virtue of his length of training and degree of commitment of time and effort to his job, ought to be weIl-pa id in material money. It usually requires adherence to a par­ticular for111, which is not spiritual in itself. Now, aIl these material aspects can be - and often are - invested with spiritual values, and Sunday morning worship is often a deeply spiritual experience for many people. But the point is that the spirituality is not here in the service, to be ab­Gorbed simply by coming. If it is here at aIl, it is brought to the service, in gerrn form, at least, hy each of us, and de­

25

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN

veloped and shared by r~al spiritual cffor!. And that effort is a difficult one to IDLlsler in the courEe of an hour on Sunday morning. If your attention in your work and play and family life is centered ail week on the material side of the coin, the chances of tuming the coin over when you come into the material context of church, are very slim. If you have sought spiritual values in your work and play and family life, directed your activities toward spiritual goals, then the church building and the forro of worship become channels for your spiritual approach to God in a very .pecial way. But without a spiritual life - consciously 6piritual - Sunday moming worship is not the spiritual experience it was intended to be. And if it is not that, it is difficult to see what it can be that is worthwhile.

It must be remembered that this consciously spiritual life is in no way a rejection or devaluation of physical realities, malerial ends, or natural pleasures. Because neither the material nor the spiritual aspects of life can exist withoul the other, neither can be fully enjoyed without a full acceptance and appreciation of the other. The real goal is a consciously whole life, in which ail the senses, physical and spiritual, are enjoyed, ail insights are accepted, ail comprehension is unified.

But the material side of the coin is L1suany more obviolls; l-ht~ other side must he looked for. Furtht'nnore, ht'cauS<' of

26

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN

the relation of spirit ta matter in the arder of creation (spirit being pl'imary and enduring), it is, in a way, the "head" side of the coin. Jesus said to store up treasures in heaven, for "where your treasure is, there will your heart he also." The heaven he spoke of is within you - it is the spiritual side of your coin of life. If what you want most is there, then your work, your play, your worship will ail hecome more meaningful in every respect. And how do l'ou find this heaven? How turn the coin over, ta become more familial' with its other side? You have ta look. Therc is no simple formula, for formulas are material ta begin with. Look for the values that yon recognize as enduring and meaningful. Look for them in your work, l'our play, your worship, l'our reading of the Word of Gad. And Ireasure them, for where your treasure is. there will l'our heart he also.

27

PARTIAL LIST OF CHURCHES

BALTIMORE NEW YORK 901 Dartmouth Rd. 351h St. bel. Park & Lexington Aves.

BOSTON ORANGE, N. J. 134 Bowdoin Street Essex Ave. near Main St.

CAMBRIDGE PHILADELPHIA� Quincy & Kirkland Sis. 22nd & Cheslnul Streels�

CHICAGO PITTSBURGH 5710 S. Woodlawn Sandusky SI. neac North Ave.

CINCINNATI PORTLAN D. ORE. Oak Street & Winslow S.E. 96th St. a.! Mill

CLEVELAND SAN DltGO 12600 Euclid, E. Cleveland 4144 Campus Avenue

DETROIT SAN FRANCISCO M'eyers Rd. & Curlis SI. Lyon & Washington Sis.

EL CE'RRITO, CAUF. ST. LOUIS 1420 Navellier St. 1045 Daulel Lane

GULFPORT, MISS. ST. PAUL� 2608 Kelley Avenue S. E. Cor. Virginia & Selby Ave.�

KITCHENER, ONT. ST. PETERSBURG, FLA.� Margarel Ave. N. & Queen St. 1915 Fifth SI., N.�

LOS ANGELES WASHINGTON, D.C. 509 S. Westmoreland Ave. 161h & Corcoran Streels

WILMINGTON, DEL. Pennsylvania Ave. & Broome St.

(See in City Oirectories under:

NEW CHURCH, CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM, SWEDENWRGIAN.)

NEW CHl1RCH BOOK STORES

NEW CHURCH BOOK CENTER MASS. NEW CHURCH UNION 2129 Chestnul Sireel 134 Bowdoin Sireel Philadelphia 3, Pa. Boston 8, Mass

THE NEW CHURCH PRESS LOS ANGELES BOOK ROOM 79 Orange Sireel 509 S. Westmoreland Avenue

Brooklyn l, New York Los Angeles, California�

SWEDENBORG FOUNDATlON, INC.� 150 Fifth Avenue�

New York", N. Y.�

... "'~

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