A Lesson In the Earth's Composition

Think of our Earth. It is composed of three general parts: liquid center or core, hard surface or crust and an amorphous, changing mantle in between. Man has a generally similar composition: spirit center or core, body on the surface and an amorphous, changing soul in between.

Yes, we seem to many to be a surface, body people with little access to our natural Center. Yes, the unconverted person lives on the boundaries of his life almost exclusively. And if the surface of our lives were consistently evil, then our lives would be easier to moralize about. But boundaries and edges are not bad as much as they are passing, accidental, sometimes illusory, too often needy of defense and decoration.

Our skin is not bad; it’s just not our soul. However, “skin” might be the only beginning point available to a modern people. But we often remain on the surface for so long it seems like life. Not many people are telling us there is anything more. Some speak of a mysterious “soul” but even less do you hear about your core, your center, your SPIRIT.

As we live on the surface of the earth, our life is concerned with the surface. We occasionally recognize the mantle under the surface when a volcano erupts or an earthquake shifts the surface plates or we visit hot springs or geysers. But very, very seldom does the average man consider the core or the center of the earth. But without the core with its heat and power, the mantle and the crust could not exist. Likewise, without our spirit, the soul and body could not exist. You are what you are at your core. You are a spirit; you have a soul (a mind, emotions and will); and you live in a body. Your spirit, your core is stable and unchanging just as the core of the earth is forever a liquid. Your soul is amorphous, changeable, just as the mantle of the earth is amorphous, sometimes harder, sometimes softer depending on the influences coming from the core and the crust. And your body is your surface contact with what’s around you and is controlled by your soul, just as the hard plates of the earth’s crust are controlled by the mantle underneath. This is a rough analogy which we can see as a type.

Just as the earth is a whole sphere and real knowledge demands that we think of it that way, the person living on the surface must come to see that real knowledge demands that he see himself as a whole sphere. He must make an “inner journey” of understanding. This inner journey is the blood, guts, and history of the whole Bible. It is both an awakening and a quieting, a passion for and a surrendering to, a caring and a not-caring. We are both core and surface and we are not meant to be in charge of either one.

Each person comes into this world with the “wrong core”. Of course, as we live on the surface of our “earth model”, we can’t see our core or even feel much influence of our core, but it is there operating in us with an unknown action. The Bible says that we are born with the nature or “core” of Satan. But we don’t realize it. Things look pretty nice and normal from our surface perspective. What the “core” is doing to our amorphous “mantle” underneath is virtually unrecognized.

God’s purpose in our existence is to recreate us as an analogous “new earth” with a brand new and different “core”- God Himself in the Spirit of Christ. Then there will be no more destructive actions coming up at us from the spirit core through the mantle of our souls.

But an unknowing person has to begin somewhere. For most of us the beginning point is on the surface of our lives. Yet the teachers tell us not to stay there! The journey from the rigors of the surface to the exchange of core centers is called conversion.

We don’t resolve the question about our core in our heads. The body is usually the beginning point. Living in this material world, with a physical body, and in a culture of affluence which usually only rewards the outer self; it is both more difficult to know our spiritual self and all the more necessary. Our skin-encapsulated egos are the only self that most of us know, and therefore for many people their only beginning place. But these egos are not the only or even the best place to begin.

Our contemporary culture often doesn’t see the need for any “inner journey” of conversion. In fact, we actively avoid and fear it. In most cases we no longer even have the tools to go inward, because we are inflamed and entrapped in the outer self in the private surfaces of our private lives. In such a culture, the core seems remote and distant. People on the crust of the earth need an earthquake to jar their thinking about what is underneath them.

And when they have been awakened to the destructive core beneath them and have called out for a new creation core in Christ, how do they accept and deal with it? By thinking about it? By praying and meditating? By silence and solitude? Yes, all of these. But perhaps mostly by living - and living consciously. The surface things, when they are suffered and enjoyed and felt and listened to, lead us back to the Center where God is obvious.

The street person feels cold and rejection and has to go to a deeper place for warmth. The hero pushes against his own self-interested boundaries and finds that they don’t matter. The alcoholic recognizes how he has hurt his family and breaks through to a compassion beyond himself. In each case, the boundaries - surface things - suffer, inform and then partially self-destruct. They are all found to be unnecessary, and even part of the problem. That which feels the pain also lets it go, and the Center under the amorphous mantle and troubled surface stands revealed and sufficient! We don’t find our own Center; we don’t find God; GOD FINDS US!

The troubled body and the amorphous soul are the place of contact and the place of surrender. I don’t believe that we think ourselves into a new way of living. WE LIVE OURSELVES INTO A NEW WAY OF THINKING! The journeys around the surface lead us to a greater journey through the soul mantle to the radical and absolute LIFE at the core Center. Then, by what is certainly a vicious and virtuous circle, the Center calls all the journeys at the surface back into question!

The ruthless ambition of the businessman can lead him back to the very failure and emptiness that is the point of his final conversion. Is the ambition therefore good or evil? Do we really have to sin to know salvation?

That doesn’t mean that we should set out to intentionally sin. We only see the pattern after the fact. Julian of Norwich, a man of God in early England, put it perfectly: “Usually, first we fall and later we see it - and both are the mercy of God.” Wow! How did we ever lose that kind of wisdom?

The overwhelming problem today is that people - who have very little hint of their own psychological or theological center - are creating and letting go of boundaries.

Those who create their own boundaries often end up with hardened and defended surfaces, without permeability for others to move in or out. They may become either racists, afraid of the “not-me”; or co-dependents, manipulating the world to meet their love and security needs.

Those who too easily let go of boundaries will seek their soul and spirit forever outside themselves: “She will make me happy.” “I need him for my sense of self” They often pride themselves on their openness and tolerance. But even here there is both virtue and vice. When tolerance is rooted in God, it is certainly the voice of wisdom. But the too-quick tolerance of the skeptic is usually no more than a need to be liked or a need to be popular. The first is the authentic lover, the grounded agent of change. The second serves a selfish ego. Unfortunately, the second is much more common on the American scene today, in social justice circles and elsewhere.

Those who have firmed up their boundaries too quickly without finding their essential Center will be the enemies of cooperation, the enemies of forgiveness, and the enemies of vulnerability and peace-making between nations and classes and individuals.

The greatest gift of surrendered and core-exchanged people is that they know themselves as part of a much larger history, of a larger universe, of a larger Plan. They may seem conservative, knowing that they only stand on the shoulders of their Godly ancestors and that they are meant to be another shoulder for the generation to come. Yet they are paradoxically liberal, open and reformist, because they have no private agendas and self-interest to protect. People who have learned to live from their God-centers, where God lives and reigns, know which boundaries are worth maintaining and which can be surrendered. Both reflect an obedience.

Probably the most obvious indication of people not recreated at the core, and therefore eccentric people is that they are a pain to live with! Every ego boundary must be defended, negotiated, and glorified: my reputation, my nation, my job, and even my ball team are really all I have to tell myself that I am somebody. No wonder wisdom understanding and community have come upon hard times!

In this new century, we find ourselves condemned to live in a world where the surfaces reign supreme. Most of the gods we have met in our narcissistic age have been no more than projected and magnified images of surface selves.

Conclusion

We live on a beautiful blue and green planet Earth and have grown to understand much about its composition. Unfortunately, we can only humanly deduce some idea about its future destiny.

In the Christian, the analogous “New Earth of God” person, the stable core of the nature of God will shape the mantle of the soul which, in turn, will stabilize the surface plates of activity. There will be peace on the waters and on the land. And any external influences hitting the surface will be counteracted, used, or eliminated.

In addition, we know that this New Earth Christian has an eternal destiny. There is no doubt about the future. This “Earth” will not overheat at its core and blow up. It will not cool down at its core and become dead and frozen. No comets or meteors will smash it and destroy
it.

So the converted person needs to grow in the knowledge of who he is at his Center. This puts all surface activity in perspective. And his soul (mind, emotions and will) are to be totally controlled by his Center ( Spirit in union with God through Jesus Christ). Then all the surface boundaries which the body deals with will ultimately be used by God for the good of the whole person (Romans 8:28). This is the school-house of life:
The inward journey to core recognition and the exchange of core nature forming A NEW EARTH OF GOD.

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