Daily Excerpt: An Afternoon's Dictation (Greenebaum) - Introduction
Today's book excerpt comes from An Afternoon's Dictation by Steven Greenebaum.
Introduction
These are hugely difficult times. When I began this book,
COVID was loose and taking lives across the country and around the world as
wars were raging and murdering so many innocents. Now, as wars continue, there
are new diseases raging while many struggle to learn to live with “long COVID.”
All this as people are at long last recognizing that the environment is in
crisis yet continue to argue vehemently over what if anything to do about it.
In the United States and much of what has been called the “free world,” the
very nature of freedom itself is the topic of vehement and often virulent
argument. The future of the Earth is in question. More personally, and for me
of equal importance, the quality of life we are leaving for posterity is also
in question. Even if, as I fervently hope, humanity at last rises to the
occasion and begins to work in earnest to save itself and the planet, there are
some dark times ahead—very dark times.
In the face of this darkness, why write a book? Particularly
with my health so “iffy,” why spend what energy remains to me writing? For me,
the answer is hope. Yet, hope without action becomes merely a dream that
disappears with the morning. So, I write.
I deeply believe that if we are to find our way out of the
darkness we will need to come together. We will need to find and cleave to what
can unite us. We will need, if you will, a positive, hopeful, action-based
spiritual renewal.
To be clear, this book cannot be and is in no way intended
to provide “the answer.” My hope is that it may help us to navigate our journey
through the darkness to find and renew our spiritual selves. How? Reasonable
question! In this book, I want to share fully what was shared with me some
twenty years ago at a time when I had lost all sense of optimism and was
sinking into a personal abyss of darkness. The why of the abyss may be found in
my spiritual memoir, “One Family:
Indivisible.” In brief, for several months in 1999, in the privacy of my
home, I angrily demanded, several times every day, frequently out loud and
sometimes in my mind, “God, you’re there? I want five minutes, and I want
answers!”
Of course, it is one thing to demand answers but quite
another to actually get them! After months of pleading for answers to the great
questions of my life, an inner voice that I knew wasn’t mine told me to get
some paper and a pen and write. Ok, then! I got paper and, well, took
dictation. Three pages of it.
The honest truth of it is that having received the
revelations I’d so angrily demanded, I had no idea what to do with them. I then
pondered, indeed studied and lived with these revelations, for roughly ten
years before things at last gelled. Parts of the dictation made immediate
sense. Yet other parts became clear only after a lot of study.
These revelations changed my life. In the end, not only did
I feel I understood what had been revealed to me, but I was also launched upon
the path of Interfaith that I have walked ever since. What was revealed to me
that day has not only given me purpose and direction but also hope—hope for
myself, and for humanity.
Out of those years of studying the revelations I’d been
gifted, three books slowly emerged. My first book, The Interfaith Alternative, was derived directly from my study of
the revelations, which had not only set me on the path of respecting the
diversity of our spiritual traditions but also caused me to found the Living
Interfaith church. The second book, Practical
Interfaith, came two years later and
in answer to those who had said, “Interfaith sounds beautiful, but is it
practical?” It was based on what I had learned in the day-to-day world about
actually starting an Interfaith congregation. Five years later came my third
book, One Family: Indivisible. It was a personal sharing,
warts and all, of my spiritual life from childhood to the present, including
the receipt of the revelations and how I came to embrace the whole of the human
family as my own.
One might reasonably ask, “Why wait to share the revelations
until the third book?” This decision was based on life experience. Rightly or
wrongly, I felt that there was so much controversy over the question of God (Is
there a God or isn’t there; and if there is, what is the nature of God?) that I
believed if I started with the revelations, too many people would be distracted
by asking, was it from God or not? I believed then, as I believe now, that the
call of Interfaith is a call to all of us—ALL of us. It calls to us whether we
embrace God or not and regardless of how we relate to God, if indeed we
believe.
So, I included the revelations in One Family: Indivisible and did so pretty much without comment. At
the time, it felt wrong to be adding any interpretations. This feeling was
based on a private fear. I feared being seen as some kind of prophet. Good
flaming grief, all I am and ever will be is the very human and
imperfect me. The last thing I wanted was a discussion about me to get in the
way of the call to Interfaith even as I felt obligated to share the dictation.
Happily, I am now thoroughly convinced that no one is ever going to
confuse me with a prophet, nor should they. Ever! But as I talked to and heard
from people who’d read the book, I came to realize that sharing the revelations
without comment had left the work unfinished. So here, in what will be my final
book, I want not only to share the dictation again but also what I made of it.
After twenty years of pondering and working with it, what has been revealed?
As I hope will be clear, I am in no way attempting to
provide the last word on the revelations. My thoughts are not intended to end
discussion. What I hope is that they can be a beginning. I will share what was
dictated to me and what, after long hours and years of living with it, I
believe it communicates: a message of hope, and a guide for those of us who
want to live meaningful lives. I also want to share what I made of that message
and why.
Still, that sharing is only my take. I can only write about
what I know. So, among other things, it’s important to acknowledge that I write
from a Western perspective. I am also aware that I write from a Jewish
perspective, albeit as part of the Reform movement. Orthodox Jews, not to
mention folks from spiritual traditions other than Judaism, will, I feel sure,
read and adapt what’s here to their own experiences and needs. Yes, I believe
we are all one family. Blet’s be honest, our family has been separated a very
long time.
In addition, as I delved further and further into our
diverse spiritual traditions and their histories, it became ever clearer that
the enlightenment I’d received had been received by so very many before me.
Yes, the wording may be different. I’m a Western English speaker, living at
that moment at the cusp of the 21st century, but the essence was the
same. So, please do expect some déjà vu as you read. The message isn’t
new. We’ve heard it again and again across the centuries. My guess is that we
will keep hearing it over and over until we stop preaching about it and
actually act—integrating it into our lives as a family.
In the appendices, I share two gently different versions of
the dictation I received. The first is a recounting of the revelations as I
wrote them down. The second is a reorganization, and only that, of the order of
the revelations into the groupings that occurred to me after I’d lived with
them for well over ten years. These are the groupings that make up the six
sections of the book. For clarity, each chapter will contain the relevant
revelations in a large font.
As An Afternoon’s
Dictation is published, however deep the hole in which we find ourselves,
we face a basic truth. We can accept living in that deep hole or not. And if we
reject living in this emotional and spiritual hole, we are going to need each
other to climb out. However difficult and long that climb, I believe we owe the
effort to our children and to children yet to come. And as we make that climb,
may we free our souls of the fear of “them” that has so crippled our efforts to
this moment.
I particularly want to include in our effort to climb out of
that darkness, those of my human family who question all spiritual paths, and
most particularly any who feel excluded as “other” by people who cleave to a
particular path and a particular definition of the divine. We are in this
together, all of us. Let us exclude none of good will and join hands as we come
together to free ourselves from the spiritual abyss.
We must hang on to hope and each other—and then work together to make that hope real. We are one family. If we will embrace that and work together, we may just come through this.
Last, I want to hold high two important books that have been and remain hugely helpful. There are indeed many important and wonderful books out there. I want to point out two books on the scriptures of our world’s spiritual traditions that I’ve found especially valuable. One Heart: Universal Wisdom from the World’s Scriptures (Marlowe & Company) and World Scripture: A Comparative Anthology of Sacred Text” (Paragon House). I am grateful for both books, and the reader should know that as I sought examples from differing scriptures, I particularly consulted these two books and have used them as a source for quotes throughout the book. A heartfelt THANK YOU to Andrew Wilson, who edited World Scripture, and Bonnie Louise Kuchler, who edited One Heart. I would strongly recommend both books to anyone seeking to delve even more deeply into our diverse and profound scriptures.
Indies Today runner-up
Firebird Book Awards honorable mention
Pacific Book Award finalist (runner-up)
American Legacy Book Awards finalist
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