The Adventure of Advent IV

The Birth of Metacognition, a Fable

It could be said the Christ the man, the Anointed One, worthy of rich fragrances and oils, is (symbolically) the Advent of Meta-Cognition. Capable of breathing the ether of the Divine, he had no need to live in the fog of tribal human primate socio-cultural concerns, but could break free from the Law and live in accord with God (even as God).

(Before we think we can simply do this as he did, it is essential to note that he lived purely — free from the errors triggered by lust and malicious motivations. He was able to do this effortlessly. We, on the other hand, must work to come into touch with our divine orientations, and it takes practice and commitment, dedication, and forgiveness of self and others. In dukkha’s endless spiral of desire and aversion, we must reset ourselves each day, accepting our failures and the failures of others, praying for sustenance and insight toward Wisdom.)

It could be said that Christ consciousness, the unity of the man with the Holy Spirit, is the advent of Distributed Cognition. The Law had worked toward this through the advent of writ and debate, but it now became potentially embodied within the whole of the Church of the Faithful, provided we practice with unity and embody the principles, taking for granted where possible the good will of the other, and trusting they will forgive us our errors as we forgive theirs.

This becomes, in some important sense, Modernity, with its aspirations toward collective liberation from the constraints of the threats of the world, although (as we see each day) we fail and fail and fail. The moment we take it for granted, it fails. When we critique it in such a way so as to become cynical, it fails. When the algorithms take us into our foxholes of isolation, when we silo into online groups who reinforce our biases, when we start to see the other as a foreigner unknowable to us, we fail and fail and fail.

We each have limited cognitive bandwidth. (Some may seem to have more or less — although I’m suspicious that is innate as much as circumstantial, which says as much about our education system as it does anything else). We have the potential to be self-aware, and can imagine the same kind of self-awareness in others. We can influence, but not control (else we become evil, violent, authoritarian and dictatorial). We can participate. We can invest in the process of becoming and being, take on perspectives and experience vistas of vantage even within our own minds (which are part of the divine mind).

Tonight we light the final candle on the wreath. We celebrate the birth itself, this awakening to the suffering of the World, the embodiment within it, the sacrifices that women make to render it possible. Tonight we celebrate Potential becoming Expression, omnipresent and eternal.