What is it that connects the thoughts of the eminent and learned professor of our first reading with a baseball cap of our second? Surely they can't be connected ... can they? What is it that connects the thoughts about the beginning, the genesis of everything and a chemotherapy experience? Surely these couldn't be connected could they? I totally accept that at first glance they don't seem to offer anything that could be related at all, yet to me they are intimately related.

William Tiller's somewhat playful thoughts took place at breaks between conference sessions. Here he stated quite clearly that, in his way of looking at things, God is 'totally coherent'. He also suggests that to bring about our physical reality, to cause our physical reality to be formed then something would have to be changed, for our physical reality is far from being coherent and the two could not exist in the same place. If this is true then God exists in a different reality beyond space, time and dimension.

It seems that God wouldn't, even couldn't, just say "Let there be a physical reality." and have it appear is if by magic. In science this cannot happen. There has to be a process of change. To enable this change, God would have to have separated a part of itself from itself. Then God would have to have caused this part to become less coherent in a planned and developing way until this part itself created or developed the physical reality in which our universe is but a speck.

Now that doesn't seem much to do does it? There is God existing outside all the parameters that we know and probably a good deal of what we don't know as well. No space, or time, or anything physical either. What an immense task to undertake. I wonder what was so important that this task had to be done?

Well, I have no idea either but perhaps Clement of Alexandria around 200 AD (CE I should say) had when he wrote "God made man so that it could have a conversation." How can you learn if there is only you and nothing to interact with? You might think or conceptualise things, you might have a 'knowing' about everything that is, but perhaps in a static all knowing reality of 'selfness,' how would you even know what you know. Would you even be aware of another if you were everything? I wonder what caused God to fragment and know for the first time of another. What a frightening step that must have been, to be aware of the possibility, then the reality of an 'otherness'. But what a wonderful step this was to take, so full of endless possibilities. All this is surely inherent in William Tiller's model, it has to be.

Having taken that step and understood it in totality, God had set in motion a process that would create all that we have come from. What a fantastical journey of discovery this must have been for God, as each step in the separation from itself, brought into being the unlimited permutations of possibility of growth and development, of not only this reality that we live in, but for God as well. I bet God has a good laugh at the backhanded comedic way that we live our lives. Perhaps he cries with us also in our fumbling ineptitude as we try to live our lives against the pain we inflict on ourselves and others in this physical world.

So what does this mean for us? Well one thing would that seem to be a strong possibility is that we must all be somehow directly connected to God. If we are made from God stuff in a physical reality so that God can learn, then there must be an open line between us or at least a line that can be tapped by God. If this is how it is, then it does mean that we can communicate. If we know how, surely it is time to open this direct line and talk meaningfully to God.

Think how much better that would be for God. Not just eavesdropping but actual conversation. The payoff for God would be that perhaps one day God would learn something new or a different wrinkle or permutation on something old. To make this idea work sensibly, it would have to mean that, largely, God would have to keep out of interfering in our lives because God can't learn anything new if he is directing the show. It has to come from us doesn't it? In a sense we are the junior partners with a positive gain for both sides. All we have to do is to pick up the phone! God is already waiting for us to call.

So what else is inherent in this possibility of a relationship with God? Well, could it be that God might be waiting this minute for us to take the steps necessary, so that this conversation possibility can become a permanent ongoing relationship. Why is it like this? Why do we have to take any steps. Wouldn't it have been better or more convenient if we could just call God any time? Perhaps, but I don't think so. If we could call God any time we wanted to, just think of the complaints, drivel and demands that God would be on the receiving end of.

No! God wants a conversation, not just demands for the ready answers to our problems. So there are little things that we have to be able to accomplish first. We have to make ourselves a little bit more 'cohesive'. We have to have made progress towards 'knowing ourselves' by accepting who we have been. We must have begun to get a handle on how our reality really works. We must have moved forward on our own individual spiritual path. We must have become more calm and focused through meditation. We must move towards God and for every step we make, I feel that God will take an equivalent step towards us. We don't have to go all the way but we do have to be making some progress. We do have to be grasping Paul's 'fruit of the spirit'. No grasping is not the right word is it? Perhaps 'attaining' is a better word. We have to be within the realm of the 'fruits of the spirit'. We have to have begun to 'become' so as to make possible a becoming.

'Become what?' I hear you say. To become, we have to be who we really are or who we were when we were children, when life hadn't yet taught us to become something different. Invariably this is hidden underneath layer upon layer of our fixation on self, things, money, work and status. We have become lost in the labyrinth that we and our society have made for ourselves.

Enough of that rambling now, what about the baseball caps!

This is also quite simple, because to make the baseball cap thing work, we have to begin to, guess what, change ourselves. We have to accept that we really know what the baseball cap is going to ensure. Despite the poisoning chemotherapy and the cancer it is trying to get rid of we will survive to live life to the full. We will have to do just that. As we have seen from the reading many have done just this.

Doctors and scientists who want to put down such thinking as wishful thinking, statistical chance, or as irrelevant, and call it the placebo effect to put it down because they know that it isn't true, are in fact totally wrong. They are wrong because they are either not looking for the scientific evidence or they don't know where to look for it. There is, however, plenty of good, sound research that shows that the placebo effect in fact works and it always has.

There is documented research that a significant number of doctors' patients actually begin to get better on the way to the surgery before ever having seen the doctor. Also, heart and cancer patients who have a positive attitude towards the outcome of their condition, are more likely to survive it than those who have a negative and reinforcing attitude that they are not going to survive their condition.

At the present the pharmaceutical industry is pouring millions into triggering the placebo effect because it makes their drugs thirty percent more effective for only the marginal cost of reshaping and/or re-colouring tablets plus representing the packaging. Advertising on television and the re-branding of old drugs under new names is all about accessing the increased effectiveness that the placebo effect gives. A drug that is clinically proven to be only 30 to 40 percent effective can become the 60 to 70 percent wonder drug. The drug companies have known this for some time now and have been systematically buying up the old drugs, rebranding and putting them back on the market with an identical chemical formulation. They are not doing this out of the kindness of their hearts are they? They are doing it because they know that it works.

On balance the pessimist has a shorter more limited life than the optimist. Research is showing that the optimist who expects to achieve is much more likely to achieve what he wants out of life. also, an optimist who expects and believes that what is wanted will come to him, will, on balance, find the wanted arriving. This process is further augmented by the optimist actually asking for what they need and then letting the thought go, 'knowing' that it will happen anyway… and it does! 'Ask and it shall be given unto you' really does work. It works because you expect it to happen, you have the right mind set, and because you have become more 'cohesive'.

The down side of this great outcome is that a negative mindset will scupper any plans and wishes through the 'negative placebo effect'. If you know you will never achieve or have any good luck then that is what you will experience. So on those Sundays when the congregation is small, please don't focus on this being a frequent occurrence because it will raise the chances of that happening more frequently. Just ask, "what is our purpose today that requires a small congregation?" The last time I did this two children walked in off the street during the service and stayed to the end. I don't know why they came that day, perhaps they just wanted to get out of the rain. I might never know, but this seemed to happen in response to my question. So be careful what you say, think and believe because you might just bring this into our shared world.

What did Jesus say in the Gospel of saying Thomas 113 " The Kingdom of the father is already spread out on the earth and people aren't aware of it." and from saying 3a "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you and it is outside of you." However if we know it is here already then we should just act as if it is and if we really know that this is true, then it will be so and we will reap the benefit of this important progress. The Kingdom of Heaven really is here now, if you can just allow yourself to be in it. We can all do this!

So you, me, God and everything are all really tied up together along with the creation of all things and the effectiveness of baseball caps in the treatment of cancer.

Joe Potter  29/05/2011