religion – Page 4 – Intelligent Christian Spirituality

The Messy God in All Things

Raimon Pannikar and Paul Tillich support Teilhard’s view

that a new perspective of God is rising out of the old one –

a God more comfortable with the messiness of evolution

than with the order and structure of Greek metaphysics

the direction of evolution is now seen as

towards the maximization of goodness

and thus towards the incarnation of God –

if Christ is the Divine Word as Creator

and if Christ is the Word Incarnate as Jesus

Christ Jesus is also the Redeemer –

what is created in Love is redeemed in Love

through prayer Love is received

and through miracles Love is expressed

prayer is the medium for miracles

our night dreams show us

we contain in our unconscious

the miracle of secret Aladdin caves

a mythological world of jewels and ‘jinn’ –

spirits within that invite us into

the desire and dread of the human adventure –

to have our secure inner world dismantled/

deconstructed but also reconstructed

into a broader/more compassionate/

more fully human space

in general, it is better to approach God

through the Holy Spirit, as a living reality

than through theology as an abstract concept

self-abandonment to Divine Providence

in the present moment

begets faith

which helps us to see

God hides God’s Self

so we develop a pure faith

that can see God in everything –

in all life

and all evolution.

Unveiling Mysticism: The Journey to Unitive Life and the Pursuit of Truth

Salvation does not equal ‘piety’ or ‘ethical propriety’

salvation has to do with God’s love

for our deepest metaphysical nature –

our true self/the human person

which is beyond description/comprehension –

salvation is God’s ineffable love

and our ineffable love of God

and responsibility for our future

has now passed from God to us

“Our life and death are in our own hands

salvation is the realization and integration of this”

– Don Cupitt

“All history is a struggle against good and evil”

– Gaudium Et Spes (The Pastoral Constitution

on the Church in the Modern World, Vatican II)

Christ thus exhorts us to be holy

as God is holy

and God loves everyone

so to be holy is to love everyone

as God loves everyone – good or evil –

God allows sun and rain to fall on the just and unjust

Evelyn Underhill’s Mysticism has two parts:

1. The Mystic Fact: how mysticism relates

to Henri Bergson’s Elan Vital

and to modern psychology

2. The Mystic Way: the awakening/purification/training

of the self in the ascent to the blessedness

of the Unitive Life

“A God-fearing person must follow the Truth

regardless of the consequences

even though it endangers their life –

they must trust that a good deed

will have a good result –

they know it is better to die in the way of God

than to live in the way of Satan.”

– Gandhi

COMMON THREADS IN WORLD RELIGIONS

The world’s great religions, diverse as they are

share a common existential thread:

self-reflection and self-transcendence

to St. Paul baptism means you transcend/die

to the Roman Empire’s violence

maintaining its patriarchy/hierarchy/slavery

hierarchical and biblical authority

the mainstays of Catholicism and Protestantism

have been problematic for feminist theologians

because there are many ‘terror texts’

hard to believe as ‘inspired by God’

because they maintain subjugation/exclusion/

violence against women –

by seeing biblical texts as interactive with the reader

feminist theologians reclaimed the Bible for women

by biblical criticism prioritizing the life-giving/

political/ethical/nonviolent texts

but the vision of the hierarchical Fathers

of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965)

was to help the Church be evermore true

to its divinely-inspired mission:

to effectively serve all people

both men and women

with generosity/empathy/love

and in Buddhism the Three Jewels:

the Buddhist Trinity of Buddha/Dharma/Sangha

(Teacher/Teaching/Community)

are all meant to sow seeds

of love/peace/understanding

throughout the world

and in Taoism the sage Lao Tzu teaches us all

how to accomplish much

without effort

by allowing the Tao, the Hidden Force

motivating the universe

to act in and through us

spreading wisdom and joy everywhere

Spirit hides in all these traditions.

COSMIC SHIFTS IN CONSCIOUSNESS

The only direction of evolution is “convergence” –

which is both positive and creative –

the creation of evermore complex life forms

the “Axial Period” within that positive direction

happened between 800 and 200 years before Christ

in China (Confucius and Lao Tzu)/India (Buddha)/

Persia (Zoroaster)/Israel (Prophets)

all arose and transformed everything

that human beings could be

Hugh and Richard Saint Victor

Christian philosophers/mystics

wrote in the 12^th century that there are three eyes:

the first eye of flesh gives us sight

the second eye of reason gives us meditation/reflection

and the third eye of contemplation gives us true understanding –

the ability to see with the eyes of the heart –

the brothers Saint Victor continued the God-given

unfolding of human consciousness

but in Buddhism and Christianity there has also always been

a “contemptus mundi” – a contempt for the world

however, churches in the postmodern world

can no longer pretend they are the only sources of grace

and that the Holy Spirit is not active in all civilizations

or churches will continue to become irrelevant/fringe groups

the tradition of churches condemning their best thinkers

like Meister Eckhart (who in 1329 was labelled a heretic)

means that the real victim was not Eckhart himself

but Christianity since Eckhart’s “Creation Spirituality “

which is Jewish/biblical/prophetic

was replaced by an anti-intellectual asceticism

which is apolitical/dualistic/introverted not world-shaking

still, conscious evolution goes on –

Christianity finally shifted from the fall/redemption

Era of Peter from Constantine’s Holy Roman Empire

in 310 AD to the 1960s – the beginning of the Era of John

a mystic of the Cosmic Christ

who promoted Cosmic Consciousness

and noted that even Peter was a mystic –

for he repeated three times

“Lord, you know that I love you” (John 21:15-17).

LOVE IN EAST AND WEST

In Buddhism, Warrior-Boddhisattvas

(those who delay entering Nirvana

to help others on Earth get there)

train in: interdependence –

if I hurt others I hurt myself –

it is love not aggression that will save the planet –

others are not different from themselves –

we are all one –

and they train their hearts to open

in increasingly difficult situations

getting in touch with our True Self/God within

enables Boddhisattvas and us to listen/speak/act from the heart

“For without compassion all religious beliefs and practices

are useless and empty” – Albert Nolan

we now have so many tools to help us be compassionate

such as the Enneagram which exposes the hidden worldviews

we have been unconsciously operating out of our whole lives

and thus helps couples to view

their partners foibles more compassionately

and their own foibles more critically

in previous cultures

belief in God had nothing to do

with the modern obsession with weighing evidence

for the existence of God –

God must laugh at our attempts

to weigh God in the balance

as if our thoughts or intellectual choice of doctrines

determined whether God existed or not –

in previous cultures

belief in God

was like a marriage vow –

“I do” commit myself

to love and serve you, my God

mindful presence

spent with the one we love

is the fullest expression of True Love

and mindful generosity

is the greatest gift

we can offer our loved one –

the gift of our True Presence.

SECRET SOCIETIES

Spirit is not something that goes on in time forever

but rather is a Timeless Moment, an Eternal Now

a Pure Present that never ends

and is timeless yet holds all time in its hands

across the aeons, the Holy Spirit

who John MacQuarrie refers to as “Unitive Being”

has been the principle linking the macro and micro –

the Cosmic Christ and Jesus of Nazareth

Karl Marx would criticize the above as just religious philosophy

since he criticized philosophers as a group

that just interprets the world but never changes it

changing the world takes courage and persistence

which is why boys who want to become men

must go through rituals of initiation

be separated from the Mother

experience an ordeal of pain such as circumcision

in order to be admitted

into the Secret/Sacred Society of Men

girls on the other hand are naturally initiated

into the Secret/Sacred Society of Women

through the pain of childbirth

philosophy may seem useless to some

but Integral Theory gets its hands dirty with Earth

by linking the three main schools of environmental ethics:

– the bioequality school: all creatures have equal value

– the animal rights/Whiteheadian school: not all creatures

have equal intrinsic value – there exists a hierarchy of values

– the stewardship school: those with a higher intrinsic value

have greater responsibility for taking care of all creatures

but right-wing Christians would think this was too “communal”

too close to “communism” – acting like a community of care

so, our biggest threat comes not from secular atheists

but from fundamentalists, Protestant or Catholic

whose absolute certainty about their beliefs

based on their belief in the infallibility of scripture or the pope

has made them into a Secret Society of Religious Atheists

so secret they don’t realize what they have done

and what they have become

because they have stripped God of all mystery.

Wisdom versus False Religion

Spirituality is about growth without limits/

/waking up/blessing others/gratitude

we would not think to do good

if God had not already moved us to it –

good spirituality always gets you in touch

with what God is already doing within you

the only true joy in life is to escape

from the prison of the False Self

and by love enter into union

with God who dwells within you

love cannot remain blind –

it has to become conscious

to see reality as it is/people as they are

and go beyond disillusionment to commitment

to love all there is

despite all the flaws

particularly in human beings

if we want growth in friendship/marriage/religious life

Richard Rohr equates internal resurrection

with finding our True Self

which may cause one to not fit in

with any particular religious system

since a lot of religion is obsessed

with the False Self

since the opposite of faith is not doubt

but certainty/thinking you have all the answers

and you/not they are right about everything

the ego/small/False Self

loves to be right/safe/not uncertain

Seneca, a statesman/dramatist/Stoic philosopher

of ancient Rome wrote extensively about

the relationship of courage to religion:

“Undisturbed by fears

and unspoiled by pleasures

we fear neither death

nor the gods.”

the beginning of wisdom

is to love/not fear God.

The Fifth Awakening

Awakenings occur when society’s old institutions break down:

the First Awakening (1730-1760) in North America

ended European forms of religion

and ushered in Protestant Evangelicalism

the Second Awakening (1800-1830)

ended Calvinist dominance of theology

the Third Awakening (1890 – 1920) had two parts:

the social gospel and Pentecostalism

the Fourth Awakening (1962-1965)

was the Second Vatican Council

the Fifth Great Awakening has been happening

since the 1970s thru the new science

which does not prove or disprove the existence of God

nor does it contradict the basic beliefs of our faith

what the believer looks for in science is not proof

but a more accurate understanding of reality

The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra showed how

outstanding scientists shocked by

relativity and quantum theory

turned to Eastern mysticism to understand reality

and Carl Jung’s belief that all humans

are communally connected and interdependent

led to his theory of the Collective Unconscious

which fit well with the quantum universe

and Jesus, like mystics everywhere, was a unitive thinker

who talked about his unity with the poor:

“To the extent you took care of one of these

sisters and brothers of mine, even the least of them,

you did it to me”

– Matthew 25: 31-46

to love Christ is to take care of the most needy –

that is why ministers of the gospel, as Henri Nouwen put it

must be “wounded healers”

or they cannot enter authentically into the suffering

of a dislocated world/

a rootless generation/

a dying person

unless they have experienced the awakening of suffering

in their own heart.

Authentic Spirituality

Spirituality should move people from

mortality to immortality/

sin to salvation/

law to grace/

bondage to freedom/

ignorance to enlightenment/

suffering to fullness of life

without transformation religion is merely

the institutionalization of spirituality –

a belief and belonging system –

there is no change of consciousness/motivation –

conversion means moving from outer to inner authority

– from “the Church says”

to “given what the Church says

what also does the Holy Spirit/my conscience/

my experience say?” –

inner authority leads to the True Self/God within

true piety is not turning our face from West to East

true piety gives of its substance:

alms to the needy/strangers/travellers

ransoming of slaves

when I seek God, every event/moment/

sows God’s seeds in my will

and eventually Bibles burst out of my mouth

we are paradoxically both empty and full

full of emptiness/empty of fullness

and there is satisfaction in being empty

if we let God come in and fill us up

the divine/human encounter

in the Sacraments

is with my own True Self/the Church/God

and therefore should change

planetary/cosmic consciousness

transform the small/egoic self/the Church/

and the world’s cosmic messiness.

TEACHINGS OF THE LIVING CHRIST

The birthing of the universe is miraculous:

one-trillionth of a % faster = universe flies apart

one-trillionth of a % slower = universe collapses into itself

only God could pull this off

only God is able to do all things

including bringing life out of death

as with Christ

according to the Buddhist saint Thich Nhat Hahn

“After Buddha’s death devotion turned

from the Dharmakaya (the teaching)

to the Eternal Buddha (the Teacher)

Buddha became in Mahayana Buddhism

the Buddha of Faith/the Living Buddha

like the Christ of Faith/the Living Christ”

(Living Buddha, Living Christ)

Jesus taught thru the Bible that love takes place

in personal care for:

children: “Let the little children come to me,

and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven

belongs to such as these” (Matthew 19:14)

parents: “Honor your father and mother

that your days may be long in the land

that the Lord your God is giving you” (Exodus 20:12)

the sick and poor: “Come to me, all you who are weary

and burdened, and I will give you rest –

take my yoke upon you and learn from me

for I am gentle and humble in heart” (Matthew 11: 28-30)

Jesus also taught thru the Church

“Contemplative prayer is a gift/a grace

that can only be accepted in humility and poverty”

(Catechism of the Catholic Church)

and he taught thru the saints

like Teresa of Avila

that “If you get to the fifth inner mansion

there is absolute certainty

that God has planted Godself

in the center of your soul

and at that point your only desire

is to do God’s will”

(The Interior Castle).