C: Do you recall what your first idea of God was?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nB: Oh I think, I\u2019m not sure how much this has been colored with hindsight, but I think it was probably sort of the charismatic old man with a big beard hanging out up in the sky. I think that\u2019s probably the image I had of God as a kid.<\/p>\n
But I also learned to love books really young and I learned that from my father who at that time, especially \u2013 he\u2019s not that much of a reader as he was then \u2013 but he was a big reader and introduced me to Greek mythology, for instance, really early and it captivated me completely. Which I mixed up with Greek history \u2013 ancient history \u2013 as well so that my sense of the past was tied up with gods and heroes as much as it was with battles and modes of dress and stuff like that \u2013 buildings whose traces can still be found around. But there was a period when I was really young that I wanted to be an archeologist until I found out how much kind of boring work that involved.<\/p>\n
So, my sense of God had to have also been affected by pictures in my mind of Zeus and Thor and the other ancient gods.<\/p>\n
C: What do you think God is now?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nB: Um\u2026I like the Kabalistic view of God as \u2018the boundless,\u2019 which is basically a way of saying, I think, that there\u2019s no image that applies at all and there\u2019s no limits and every image that you could possibly think of is going to have limitations. Dealing with the boundless \u2013 I can kind of relate to that.<\/p>\n
But I don\u2019t know. It all remains to be seen.<\/p>\n
If you think of psychology, if you think of Jung or Freud and the Jungian archetypes that exist in our beings in that worldview, those have a divine aspect or offer a connection to the divine. And those are clearly images \u2013 the animus, the anima, the principles that we, in my dreams anyway, they show up as people \u2013 sometimes really screwball people.<\/p>\n
I remember \u2013 and this< I\u2019m sure it was God \u2013 but a dream I had a few years ago: I opened the door of my house, which was in the country looking over nice fields \u2013 and there\u2019s this old man in a suit, a yellow three-piece suit with a straw fedora and a cane and walking up my driveway. And he walks right up to my front door and I open the screen door and I\u2019m excited to see him \u2013 he\u2019s an old black man \u2013 and I said, \u2018Hi! Welcome!\u2019 and he looked and me and went, \u2018Putain<\/em>!\u2019 which, for those of you who aren\u2019t familiar with that, it\u2019s the French word for \u2018whore.\u2019<\/p>\n(laughter)<\/p>\n
Oh, OK. Clearly this man is telling me something.<\/p>\n
I think he was kind of telling me stop fooling around with vague concepts and an intellectual kind of involvement and get down to trying to feel that kind of visceral contact.<\/p>\n
So that\u2019s what I currently work on.<\/p>\n
C: Now, you said you became a Christian at some point. Can you talk about how that happened?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nB: Yeah, I married a Christian. At the time we talked about spirituality but we really didn\u2019t get down to religion too much. But over the first couple of years we were together, we talked a lot about that stuff.<\/p>\n
She had grown up in a very freethinking household. Her father was a scientist. They were spiritually aware people but very disinclined to kind of attach any kind of imagery to things. And by way of adolescent rebellion, she had sort of run off and become a Baptist.<\/p>\n
(laughter)<\/p>\n
Kids have to separate themselves from their parents in some way and that was hers.<\/p>\n
So we got into discussions about Christianity \u2013 she had abandoned that course after realizing that the people she had been with were very narrow-minded. They were glad to sign her up but they weren\u2019t so good at dealing with being human.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re not married any more and we haven\u2019t been for a very long time, but she remains a friend and she is a very psychic person with a lot of insight and she would have experiences that she couldn\u2019t talk about with these people because it sounded demonic to them. So she left that.<\/p>\n
But what she persuaded in getting me to do was to look at the Bible as something other than the chronicle of horrors that I had previously seen it as. We used to look in the Bible for the juicy bits, ya know? The guy stabbing his dagger into the king\u2019s belly until the fat closed over his fist \u2013 that was a good one. And bits of the woman who was killed because she saved her husband\u2019s life by grabbing his antagonist\u2019s genitals. But because she\u2019d touched a guy\u2019s genitals, she had to be killed.<\/p>\n
Ya know you find this \u2013 this is what I knew about the Bible as a teenager.<\/p>\n
But, Kitty showed me St. Paul\u2019s \u2013 whichever one of Paul\u2019s letters that talks about loves \u2013 and one of the great things about the letters of St. Paul is that the guy \u2013 there is such a clear sense of him as a person in those letters. I don\u2019t think I would have liked him very much.<\/p>\n
C: I know I wouldn\u2019t have\u2026<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nB: But I really liked what he had to say about love. About the tongues of men and angels and that whole passage is a beautiful invitation to think more about that stuff. And that\u2019s what Kitty offered me in terms of the Bible. So between that and reading CS Lewis and Tolkein and Charles Williams \u2013 who was another one of their cronies who wrote another amazing series of novels \u2013 almost impenetrable from a writing point of view \u2013 he was a terrible writer, but he was dealing with concepts that he seemed to have a really clear picture of \u2013 the bigger cosmos that we all inhabit and the way in which we interface with that cosmos, that are described in this series of seven novels dealing with kind of with the occult. Some of the people who are coming into these novels from the occult side are evil or represent evil and some do not. And his background seemed to, in some ways, parallel my own, some of the stuff that I\u2019d studied before I got interested in Christianity came through in these novels clearly, and that attracted me to him.<\/p>\n
So I came under the influence of these people and eventually I realized that I was in fact a Christian in every way except getting down on my knees and saying, identifying myself with Jesus as a person. And I did that. And then I was a Christian.<\/p>\n
C: And here you are.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nB: And here I am.<\/p>\n
C: When we talked about spirituality once before, I don\u2019t recall whether I asked you if you\u2019d still call yourself a Christian, and I can\u2019t recall what you might have answered. But would you?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nB: Um, I guess I\u2019m reluctant to not call myself a Christian because it\u2019s been such a big part of my life. But I know that there are Christians out there who would not consider me a Christian and would probably be offended at me using that word about myself.<\/p>\n
C: You\u2019re in good company, Bruce.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nB: I think so, actually.<\/p>\n
But, um, so\u2026 In a certain way I do think of myself as a Christian, but I\u2019ve learned so much from so many other sources that \u2026 and now we\u2019re reading this very interesting book by a Canadian theologian called \u2018The Pagan Christ,\u2019 in which he deals with his own shock and dismay when he realizes that basically all of the elements of the story of Jesus as handed down to us in the Bible are present 2,000 years earlier than that in the Egyptian story of Horus, who is born of a virgin, has 12 followers, is murdered by the state in a horrible fashion and rises from the dead.<\/p>\n
You think well\u2026does that mean Jesus was there then as Horus? Or does that mean that it\u2019s all metaphoric? Or something between the two? I don\u2019t know the answer. For this particular guy, Tim Harper I think his name is, he comes to the conclusion that it is metaphoric and that\u2019s how we should approach it and as that, for him, the stories are a source of inspiration and a model for us to approach God through. But it\u2019s not that easy for me to make that leap if I believe his take on things.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know the answer.<\/p>\n
I went to Jerusalem a couple of weeks ago. We were talking about this last night \u2013 Jerusalem seemed to me to be sort of a maelstrom of human spiritual hunger. It\u2019s just this vortex. It seemed to me that there will never be peace in the vicinity of Jerusalem, partly for that reason. And it seemed, when you saw the distinctions that people went to such lengths to make between themselves as Franciscans or Armenian Orthodox or Armenian Catholic or different sects of Judaism or of Islam \u2013 they\u2019re all there and they\u2019re all representing themselves in their various uniforms and with their various rituals and they are terribly suspicious of each other. And you think, \u2018This is as good as we get? This is a close as we get?\u2019 Everyone has their sense of it. The thing, in a way and this is off the top of my head, but the thing that that illustrates is more than anything else the subjective nature of our relationship with the Divine.<\/p>\n
And how important it is to remember how subjective it is and not to require other people to approach the divine in the same way. And humanity being the sort of tribal creatures that we are, we want to make these divisions. There is something instinctive in us that requires us to create tribes and to have somebody to oppose us in order to make us valid, or something. And when you see that so clearly illustrated in the confined setting of the old city of Jerusalem, it\u2019s just \u2013 I don\u2019t know. It was interesting. I\u2019m still thinking. I don\u2019t know where that\u2019s going to take me yet.<\/p>\n
C: There\u2019s a debate going on in the States, and I don\u2019t know what the conversation is like in Canada, but and I think what it boils down to is in a political construct here mostly. But what I think it really boils down to is people debating over what it really means to be a Christian. And if you are a Christian what that should mean for your politics \u2013 and\u00a0 I mean that in a social-justice kind of way. What do you think that means? How has that played a role in your activism?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nB: Love your neighbor as yourself. It\u2019s pretty simple \u2013 until you try to practice it.<\/p>\n
(laughter)<\/p>\n
B: But it remains simple as a concept even if the neighbor is kind of smelly or whatever. It remains possible. And of course it also, in order to love your neighbor as yourself you have to start out first loving yourself, which is a big difficulty for a lot of people. We do the opposite. We project our self-hatred onto the neighbor and pretend that that, because it\u2019s outside of us, we don\u2019t have the problem. But it\u2019s our problem.<\/p>\n
So how do we translate that into the political arena? Well, it gets complicated when you\u2019re dealing with issues like immigration, which is obviously a big one right now here, and a lesser issue in Canada but we kind of argue about all the same things that you guys do a year later.<\/p>\n
(laughter)<\/p>\n
B: \u2026And with much less at stake, normally. But um, hah hah, ya know if you look at it \u2013 there are people somewhere in the world who are starving or who are victims of war and they\u2019re victims of a situation that they didn\u2019t create themselves \u2013 you go, well, that\u2019s simple. I need to help those people. How can I help those people? Well, there are all kinds of nonprofit organizations and all kinds of avenues for helping people when it\u2019s that obvious and it\u2019s important to take advantage of those things because there are people who are our more immediate neighbors at those nonprofits who devote their lives to making the lives of other people in the world a little better. And they deserve our support. Ok? So that\u2019s a simple take on it.<\/p>\n
But when it comes down to whom you vote for, it gets very dicey. I didn\u2019t vote in the last federal election in Canada because I couldn\u2019t stomach any of the candidates. They all looked like cheap liars to me and they still do. After the elections, we have a government that wants to be Bush-like but doesn\u2019t have America to work with.<\/p>\n
(laughter)<\/p>\n
So we\u2019re saved from the worst excesses by virtue of being a country that doesn\u2019t have any real power in the world. But the tendencies are there all the same.<\/p>\n
C: What are you doing when you feel the most centered, or spiritually alive or something like that? Or the most authentically you?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nB: Hmmm.<\/p>\n
C: It\u2019s a pop quiz.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nB: Hahahah. I don\u2019t know if I trust feeling authentically me. Hahahah. I\u2019m not sure what that means. There probably is a good answer to that but\u2026<\/p>\n
C: I can phrase it a different way: What are you doing when you feel closest to God?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nB: It\u2019s an accident and I can be doing anything.<\/p>\n
But most often it\u2019s in the presence of some \u2013 it can be a dream when I wake up and feel like there was something important about God in the dream, or it can be standing under a starry sky and feeling \u2013 that\u2019s probably the most dramatic moment \u2013 or standing on a seashore at night hearing the waves, feeling the rhythm of it, feeling a part of this enormous fluid clockwork mechanism (I\u2019m mixing metaphors horribly) but that\u2019s how it strikes me. There\u2019s this jigsaw thing that\u2019s going on that\u2019s always in motion, that\u2019s always sparkling and once in a while I get the feeling that I\u2019m a part of that in a conscious way. I think we\u2019re all part of it, obviously, but most of the time I\u2019m not thinking about that. I\u2019m thinking about something that I think I\u2019m supposed to think.<\/p>\n
But when I forget what I\u2019m supposed to be thinking, and it\u2019s usually as I said in the presence of some kind of natural grandeur, I kind of whoah! Forget little me. This is the voice of the Real talking.<\/p>\n
C: What about your music? If I don\u2019t ask you about your music they\u2019re going to \u2026<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nB: In your book, Melissa Etheridge says she finds God in her music, which I really suspect. Nothing against Melissa \u2013 she\u2019s very good \u2013 but if I were to say I find God in my music I would think, \u2018You arrogant prick!\u2019 right after.<\/p>\n
(laughter)<\/p>\n
But, um, I don\u2019t know. Music for me is a way of sharing experience among people. I wrote one song for God, on purpose, and that was \u2018Lord of the Starfields.\u2019 I attempted to write a biblical psalm, and it\u2019s kind of written in the style of the psalms and it\u2019s addressed to God, in a way, and it\u2019s \u2026 ya know, I mean, I don\u2019t know if God\u2019s impressed by things like that. I suspect not really.<\/p>\n
What impresses God, if that word can even be applied, is the raw emotion, the raw feeling behind the creation of a song like that, which was there in that case. It\u2019s not always there in the songwriting process. The songs come out better when there is something raw and visceral going on, but sometimes that\u2019s a little harder to access. And sometimes you feel the feelings and there are no words to frame it in, so there is no song.<\/p>\n
C: Unless it\u2019s in \u201cSpeechless\u201d\u2026<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nD: Well, instrumental pieces offer a different kind of thing. I hadn\u2019t even really thought of about this \u2013 I had with other people\u2019s music. This harks back to the previous question about where God turns up and God can turn up in the incredible harmonies, the mathematical symmetry of Bach or the more kind of strenuous outside harmonies of Bartok. I mean, there is something sublime that comes through that music sometimes. And it comes through in a non-verbal way. You can listen to Bach chorales where there are lyrics, but the lyrics are not very important to me, and as a songwriter that\u2019s a kind of sacrilegious thing to say. But when I listen to a Bach chorale I\u2019m listening to the music and the sublimity \u2013 if that\u2019s a word \u2013 that comes through the music, not through my understanding of the music. That\u2019s something I should remember with my own songs.<\/p>\n
I had never applied that notion to my own work, but we put together a compilation of instrumental pieces that came out last fall (2005) and with a few new pieces on it, and hearing a whole album of instrumental stuff put it in a very different light for me. I realized that these pieces have something to say that\u2019s going to be very subjective. I don\u2019t know what another person will take from hearing those pieces. Hopefully they\u2019ll think that some of it is beautiful and be touched in some way. But I found that whatever was happening there is something very different from what those same instrumental pieces have done on the albums that they originally came out on where they function more like counter point to a bunch of words, or relief from a bunch of words, as they case may be. Cuz I do tend to be a little word-heavy in the songs.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m accused of that.<\/p>\n
C: They\u2019re always great stories. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\nDo you worship? And if so, how?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nB: I don\u2019t go to church. I did. In the \u201870s I did go to church pretty regularly, for the second half of the \u201870s, I guess. But then I moved from Ottawa to Toronto and I never found a church that I really felt as comfortable with and I started touring more, farther afield in the world, and ya know, I\u2019d wind up at a Catholic church service in Italy, which is the only kind you can find there \u2013 or the only kind I could find there \u2013 and couldn\u2019t take Communion because I\u2019m not a Catholic and I didn\u2019t want to compromise the priest.<\/p>\n
I could follow the service because it was close enough to what I was familiar with \u2013 I went to an Anglican church. But anyway, I drifted away from it and I haven\u2019t ever gone back.<\/p>\n
But I pray from time to time. I meditate a little bit, from time to time. Which I think of as a kind of prayer, because it involves opening myself to whatever might come in. And I feel like I don\u2019t\u2019 think I really am able to execute this very well, but I feel like my whole life is supposed to be a prayer, that everything I do is in some way supposed to be in tune with the will of God \u2013 if the Boundless can be said to have \u2018will.\u2019<\/p>\n
But I think it does.<\/p>\n
C: How do you figure it out, though?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nB: Well, I don\u2019t think you figure it out. I think that trying to figure it out is what gets us into trouble all the time. But feeling it in some genuine way \u2013 and that I realize is a very loaded notion \u2013 but feeling it in some genuine way is a truer way to deal with it.<\/p>\n
I find \u2013 something will tell me, \u2018Don\u2019t go in that store; go in that other store.\u2019 And I\u2019ll go in the other store and there will be someone in there that I\u2019ll end up having an encounter with that was meaningful, whereas if I had gone in the other story it wouldn\u2019t have been. Tiny little things like this happen all the time, if you listen. If I listen to that little voice that says, \u2018Go here and not there,\u2019 which I\u2019m not very good at doing. But once in a while I do and it produces surprising results, frequently.<\/p>\n
C: I have one last question I\u2019d like to ask, and I\u2019m sure folks here would probably like to ask you a few things themselves \u2026 I\u2019m thinking back to something you said at the beginning when I asked you how you would describe yourself spiritually and then later you saying that you wouldn\u2019t not call yourself a Christian but that you continue \u2013 you are a seeker and you find truth other places, at least that\u2019s how I\u2019m interpreting what you said. At the beginning of my book [The God Factor], it starts with a quote from my philosophy professor at Wheaton College \u2013 the only thing I remember from his 8 o\u2019clock Introduction to Philosophy class, when he said, \u2018All truth is God\u2019s truth,\u2019 which to me means, if it\u2019s true \u2013 it doesn\u2019t matter who it\u2019s coming from \u2013 it\u2019s really coming from God. And I was wondering if you could share with these folks a story you told me last night about Nepal and the fellow you met coming down the mountain.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nB: Oh, man, yeah.<\/p>\n
C: It\u2019s a great story.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nB: Well, I don\u2019t know\u2026<\/p>\n
C: I think it\u2019s a great story.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nB: Well, I went to Nepal in 1987 on behalf of a Canadian nonprofit that does work there among other places in the Third World. I was there for five weeks traveling around and traveling almost entirely on foot, because that\u2019s how you do it in Nepal. The last week or so we were there, on the pretext of going to the Everest region to look at Sir Edmund Hillary\u2019s projects with the sherpa people, we went trekking, basically, in the general direction of Mt. Everest. We didn\u2019t get there because of time considerations. But we\u2019re going up and up and up and up these incredible mountains in this incredibly scenery in this landscape where every time you turn a corner there\u2019s what\u2019s called a chorten<\/em> \u2013 a pile of rocks, basically, with \u2018Hail to the Jewel and the lotus\u2019 written on every rock that people have put there for centuries. They\u2019re always at a little crossroads and the little roads or pathways are not, of course, what we think of as roads.<\/p>\nSo we came over a mountain into a village at one point and the villagers were all away at the local market, but we could hear this bizarre music \u2013 Tibetan style music \u2013 and it was a funeral. And we kind of crashed the funeral and hung around for a while. The funeral was going on for days. This wasn\u2019t part of the story but I\u2019m telling it anyway: the people whose relative was being honored at the funeral had spent a year scraping up enough money to hire all of these monks and nuns to come and conduct the funeral, which was lasting three or four days of constant music and constant chanting and prayer and whatever. So this is the kind of landscape that we\u2019re in.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re walking up this beautiful trail, and a party of people that became very quickly were Americans were coming down the other way. There was this old gentleman, a guy in his \u2013 older than me (I was a little younger in \u201987 of course), this guy I would guess was in his maybe late 70s and he had spent his entire life in Nepal, or at least he had spent 25 or there abouts years in Nepal after he had left his job as a teacher at a seminary here, some kind of evangelical college here in the States. He boasted to me that he had taught Robert Schuller, the guy who has the Crystal Cathedral. But he was bitter. He was about to leave Nepal. He had gone on this trek up to see the Everest base camp as kind of the last thing he was doing in Nepal before leaving for good.<\/p>\n
And he said he was so disappointed because he had spent all of this time trying to bring God to the people of Nepal. He said, \u2018These people don\u2019t want to know God.\u2019 Well, they didn\u2019t want to know his God. They didn\u2019t get his God. And he didn\u2019t get them, at all. I felt so bad for this guy. I felt sort of judgmental, I have to say, but I also felt like what a tragedy this was. This guy had been there all of these years and he hadn\u2019t got that this whole place is steeped in Spirit and to me it was just so obvious. I don\u2019t know what that means in the day-to-day and of course when you live in a place you become sucked in in a way that a casual observer might not be, so ya know, it\u2019s not fair for me to judge him. But it just seemed like such a waste of that energy. Ya know?<\/p>\n
C: Maybe it\u2019s just not seeing God in other people?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nB: Well, I think it\u2019s the tribalism thing. I think it\u2019s the conviction that your version of God is the only real one and\u00a0 \u2013 I mean, this is what we\u2019re taught in church \u2013 everybody that doesn\u2019t believe the way we do is condemned to a hereafter of torment. And he\u2019s out there trying to save these people from that hereafter of torment and they\u2019re going, \u2018Well, I don\u2019t think so. We\u2019ve got our way of looking at these things and maybe you should take a look at it.\u2019<\/p>\n
The thing, too, and it\u2019s part of the picture when you talk about Nepal and I\u2019m sure it\u2019s probably true in other places, proselytizing is illegal in Nepal for anyone on behalf of any faith. But it works fine for the Buddhists and the Hindus because they\u2019re not into proselytizing anyway. And the Christians and the Muslims have a harder time in Nepal. A Catholic priest was jailed while I was there because he was caught proselytizing. That was part of the landscape that this guy had to face, too, which, of course, I didn\u2019t have to deal with because I wasn\u2019t there for that.<\/p>\n
But I think it was a clear illustration, as clear as any that I\u2019ve come across, of the problem when we try to identify God, when God becomes some kind of extension of a human construct, which the God that we grow up with \u2013 the same God with the long hair and the beard \u2013 is probably the same God that guy believed in, that God is not trustworthy. Ya know?<\/p>\n
C: Thank you for answering my questions, Bruce, I appreciate it. If anyone has a few questions for Bruce Cockburn or for myself, I\u2019m sure we\u2019d be happy to answer.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
AUDIENCE 1: I do. You mentioned some classical writers who are all dead \u2013 Lewis and Tolkien \u2013 are there any contemporary writers, Christian writers in particular, that you have found useful or influential for you?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nB: There\u2019s a guy named Bob Ekblad who\u2019s a Presbyterian minister who put out his first book recently, which is called Reading the Bible with the Damned<\/em>. Which is about his experience as a kind of aid worker in Central America and in his current practice of a prison ministry in Washington State, where he\u2019s dealing with a lot of people from Central America, too. And it\u2019s a pretty interesting take. I think he would probably consider himself an evangelical, but he\u2019s one of the good ones.<\/p>\n(laughter)<\/p>\n
This book, The Pagan Christ<\/em>, I found very interesting. It\u2019s a disturbing book and not a terribly great piece of literature, but definitely worth reading, I think, too.<\/p>\nAUDIENCE 2: I wonder how you balance being, apparently, the sincere, seeking Bruce Cockburn that everybody thinks is so cool and the public Bruce Cockburn that has to schlep his way to Ann Arbor to do a gig like this.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nB: I came because I wanted to. The answer to the question is I try to keep there from being too much of a gap between those two things. I actually don\u2019t do very much that doesn\u2019t fit with who I think I am. Over the years I\u2019ve learned to accommodate the music business to a greater degree than I did in the beginning. But I see that in human terms. I mean, I go to a radio station and the radio guys have their jobs that they\u2019re doing and if I relate to them as human beings, we\u2019re not really \u2013 it stops being the business game. As long as I\u2019m able to do that, I don\u2019t feel like I have to do too much of the other stuff.<\/p>\n
It gets weird \u2013 my first taste of high-level politics, when I actually started meeting heads of state in connection with issue-related stuff of one type or another, there was kind of a heady intoxication that went with that. I thought, \u2018Oh, I have power!\u2019 The lure of power was out there. I didn\u2019t feel like I really had it but I could get it if I played my cards right. But thank God I got over that. I realized, well, what liars these guys were and that I\u2019d never be as good a liar as they were. So not to hold myself up as any paragon of virtue, but there are people who have skills and talents and mine isn\u2019t that one.<\/p>\n
(laughter)<\/p>\n
AUDIENCE 3: I wonder how you relate to reincarnation and whether that has any resonance for you.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nB: \u2018In my Father\u2019s house, there are many mansions.\u2019 Uh, it was suggested to me years and years ago that that was a reference by Jesus to reincarnation. I don\u2019t know one way or the other, but I feel like one lifetime isn\u2019t enough and I kind of \u2026 I guess my \u2026 I\u2019m not sure that I hold onto this assumption the way that I would hold onto a Teddy Bear when I was a kid or something, but I kind of assume that we have more than one life. At this point in my life, I feel like death is some kind of graduation ceremony and we\u2019re on to the next level of education after that, whatever it is. I\u2019m not sure if we can come back in human form or whether the bundle of energy that is in us goes somewhere else, but I do feel like I have a sense that I\u2019ve been here before and that I might be here again.<\/p>\n
AUDIENCE 4: Cathleen I have a question for you. Would you consider yourself a seeker of the truth? You hear that term a lot. And if so, what is the truth that people are seeking?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nC: Wow. I wish you\u2019d asked Bruce that. It\u2019s a tough one.<\/p>\n
(Bruce laughs)<\/p>\n
Am I a seeker of truth? I certainly hope so. I\u2019m a Christian. I use that term begrudgingly only because I suck at it.<\/p>\n
(laughter)<\/p>\n
I\u2019m trying to be a Christian, in the true sense of what that word means. And I guess\u2026 what is truth? Dang, with three minutes left in the hour. God, I guess? I think when people are seeking truth, I think the ultimate truth is God and so what they\u2019re really looking for is God. And I suppose that leads to the question, \u2018Well, what is God?\u2019 And I don\u2019t think I\u2019m going to try to box that in. I don\u2019t think you can box that in.<\/p>\n
So, am I a seeker after truth? Am I a seeker after God? Yes. And that\u2019s why I wrote the book [The God Factor]. And that\u2019s why I do what I do for a living, which I enjoy a great deal. And that\u2019s the way I try to live my life, and in my best moments, I think I\u2019m kind of heading in that direction.<\/p>\n
B: C.S. Lewis said that all it takes to be a Christian is a belief in the reality of Christ. So you can\u2019t really suck at it.<\/strong><\/p>\nC: Are you sure?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nB: Well, he was sure, and I\u2019m taking his word for it.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As for our public “interview,” it too remains one of my favorite of all time. For years I’ve meant to take a couple of hours to transcribe it and post it so all of you could read (and hear) Bruce’s thoughtful responses to my questions about his faith. I’ve sat down many times to do so, never finishing until tonite. So with my apologies for taking five years to share it with you, I give you the Bruce Cockburn “God Factor” interview in its entirety. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2102,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[778,779,586,780,13,21,781,446,782,783,413,59],"class_list":["post-4166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-godstuff-2","tag-778","tag-ann-arbor-book-festival","tag-bruce-cockburn","tag-canada","tag-christian","tag-faith","tag-lord-of-the-starfields","tag-ontario","tag-seeker","tag-speechless","tag-spirituality","tag-the-god-factor"],"yoast_head":"\n
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