In the mystery of social love there is found the realization of the other not only as one to be loved by us, but also as one who can become more perfect by loving us. The vocation to charity is a call not only to love but to be loved. The man who does not care all whether or not he is loved is ultimately unconcerned about the true welfare of the other and of society. Hence we cannot love unless we also consent to be loved in return. (Thomas Merton, Consent to Love [New York: Regina Press, 1970]).

God loves us. This awareness gradually permeated the social consciousness of the Israelites and was accepted by them as an exclusive benefit of their worship of the one true God. However, receiving God’s love depended on one’s ability to keep 10 laws of behavior, a cause-and-effect concept of ideal personal behavior and of social relationships. Obeying the Ten Commandments built a powerful community—one that could dominate or destroy predatory neighbors but that also condemned most of the sick and the weak to marginalization or death.

Their prophets foresaw a time when warfare would become unnecessary. Led by “a prince of peace” they would live with God’s laws no longer coerced but with those laws “written in their hearts.” They believed Solomon was allowed to build the Temple in Jerusalem because he was not preoccupied with war like his father, King David. When Jesus arrived, He also was not a conqueror in the manner of King David. He saw the human body with its mind and heart centered on God as more important than Solomon’s temple. As “the temple of the Holy Spirit” such people could carry the concept of the God-Who-Loves to the furthest ends of the earth. Jesus radically improved the ways people thought about themselves as forgivable and as learners and about one another as equally forgivable and capable of renewal.

We see Jesus’s thinking about others outside the privileged circle of Judaism changing in His conversation with a Samaritan woman seeking healing for her daughter. As he recognized that faith was not exclusive to people of his personal tradition, he realized his teachings and his example could help all humans. He accomplished that shift in Judaic legalism by forgiving people and showing them how to forgive one another and themselves. Thus, the Prince of Peace changed the concept of God’s exclusive love to include an expansive mercy. That work of bringing the merciful love of God into lives that formerly were condemned or marginalized continues not only through the followers of Jesus but to those of many religious traditions who have studied psychological principles such as “positive reinforcement.” It does not bring universal healing instantly but it draws those who are not healed and those who are trying to heal under the mantle of merciful love.

Jesus lived in an awareness of God’s love that poured unimaginable healing and creative energy through him to everyone he touched. He also received the stumbling efforts of people to love him. He said to Philip, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14: 9). Or, as my friend Father Ron Armstrong said, “Nothing is more sacred than the person sitting next to you because God has breathed His spirit into every human being.” Love begets love. However, the ancient concept of exclusiveness and the old legalistic guidelines remain, even among Christians. We continue to try to build communities of peace where one God co-ordinates the activity of His people through the Holy Spirit yet we continue to condemn and marginalize those whose behavior we do not understand and have not yet learned how to heal. Only a few uphold the total pacifism of Jesus. We are complacent with our lack of faith.

And what is “faith” and where is it supposed to lead us or get for us? What do the words mean that Jesus “opens the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers” (The Anglican Book of Common Prayer)? Is the Kingdom of Heaven only something that happens in an afterlife or can we expect to transform the world of the living? By learning about Jesus’s forgiveness and healing while he was ministering to people, I became able to catch glimpses of God’s love for me despite my failures and hurts. That’s what it means “to come to God through Jesus.” It’s not a mysterious process: it’s rational learning that compares my behavior with Jesus’s behavior that was much superior to mine. By recognizing that shortfall, by facing my failures and admitting my anger and hurt and blame against others (“confession”), a change took place in my brain’s neurology.

The idealizing capacity of the left-brain acknowledges the literal reality perceived by the right-brain, which often is expressed symbolically in images (pictures) or imagery (descriptive words). The ability of the left-brain to conceptualize a situation different from literal reality is called “imagination.” Impediments to cerebral integration are resolved when a person accepts forgiveness. The two hemispheres of the brain integrate faster with a higher level of left-brain dominance. The left-brain is relieved of its preoccupation with failure and can develop a higher degree of control over the tension on the stapedius muscle in the right ear, which controls the states of consciousness in the brain. The release of tension between the hemispheres allows the person to develop higher levels of control over thought processes and over behavior. One of the changes in thought processes is a “liberated” imagination. In my circle of friends, the term for that change was “the Baptism in the Holy Spirit.” When a group of people similarly were changed, we called their interactions “the renewal.”

Another change in thought processes is the somewhat limited capacity to glimpse things and events in future time: genuine prophecy. When I was “renewed” through a life confession, I become able to hear words and see images that were extraordinary to me. They are like the words and images that the Biblical prophets heard and saw. They are like the signposts Jesus and his disciples experienced that became their way of navigating life. They have guided me and my husband on our journey—the long, muddy road we have traveled together raising exceptional children. That road led me to a new gate into the “New Jerusalem.” Through an understanding of how the right ear controls the mind and body and how it can be strengthened, marginalized and rejected members of society have new hope of gaining normal physical and mental health. People whose hearing is improved and repaired become able to learn greater self-control, which is the essential biological condition to “God’s laws being written on their hearts.”

People who develop better stapedius muscle strength and flexibility (“tonus”) stand a better chance of learning how to control the ear’s tiny muscles so that “inner listening” can occur, so that perception of the future is more likely to happen, and so that greater control over behavior can be achieved. For millennia, many people have achieved that state of consciousness without understanding the mechanism. Music has played a much larger role in those experiences than most people realized. Understanding the mechanism and the means of healing a damaged or weak ear could go a long way towards “opening the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers.” Prophetic insights and foretelling are only two of the likely results of such healing that can pave the way to God’s Kingdom becoming a reality among the troubled people of Earth.