Uncategorized – Page 10 – Intelligent Christian Spirituality

BELOVING OUR MOTHER – EARTH

The transition from “faith-as-experience” to “belief as opinion”

came from poor New Testament translations of the Greek:

in Greek “to believe” is a verb meaning “to trust” or “to belove”

in English it is a noun “My belief is that….”

Belief as “beloving” involves sexuality

and this involves the Third Buddhist Ethical Precept:

“Aware of the suffering caused by sexual misconduct

I vow to protect individuals/couples/families/society

by not engaging in sexual relations without love

and a long-term commitment”

in order to be more beloving, Brother Teasdale renounced sex

and adopted the lifestyle of a Hindu sannyasin (renunciate)

but one engaged in the world –

his book A Monk in the World

explains how he became a “Warrior-Monk”

which is what the world needs right now:

Prophet-Mystics in our midst right here/right now

we cannot hope to have a revival

of meaningful sacramental fundamentals

without a re-education about the necessity

in everyone’s life of the importance of myth/symbol/ritual

that crystallizes our purpose on planet Earth

the first Earth-rise above a lunar landscape

broke all the old mythology to pieces as we realized:

Earth and heaven are no longer separate:

Earth is floating in the heavens

Earth is a heavenly body

Earth is no longer the center of the universe –

cosmological centers are now everywhere!

Therefore, we can surrender

all our anxieties and ambitions

to the God who is everywhere –

God is no longer “Our Father who art in heaven”

but right here/right now

and therefore will provide what we need

right here/right now

to be happy and holy and loving

of this pale blue dot

this goddess, “Our Mother Earth.”

THE NON-VIOLENCE OF GOD

God gave matter existence/plants life/animals sensation/

humans all these degrees of being plus self-consciousness

“Humans are the source/center/purpose of all

social and economic life” – Gaudium Et Spes (a Vatican II document) –

therefore it is not surprising the social justice teaching of popes

for the past 125 years have focused on human dignity

communion/community/commission – this trinity sums up

an integrated human life that Henri Nouwen based on Luke 6

where Jesus prays all night (communion with God)

then chooses his apostles (community)

then sends them out to preach the Good News (commission)

modern secular irreligion/political pseudo-religion/

and the mysticism of totalitarianism

deprive humans of their own freedom

which is necessary for authentic religion –

thus they make humans morally sick in their depths/

change their love into hatred/

change humanity into a mechanized beast

bent on self-destruction

but Jesus grounded human non-violence

in God’s non-violence – but then the Apostle Paul

grounded human non-violence in God’s violence:

“Never avenge yourself but leave room for the wrath of God”

(Romans 12) – subversion of texts happens throughout the Bible –

the good principle is stated and then unfortunately subverted –

but it is unusual for Paul to subvert the teachings of Christ –

and since Paul believed God is violent

this unfortunately was used against Paul

to justify human violence and war

unfortunately, we always find ways to be violent

and exclude others – both liberals and conservatives

have their false superiority judgments –

liberals make “suspicion judgments” and therefore dismiss

hierarchies/authority/those at the ladder’s top

and conservatives make “worthiness judgments”

and dismiss those on the cesspool’s bottom

but fortunately the Prince of Peace is merciful/kind to all/

and above all our ignorant and petty judgments.

LOVE KNOWS NO HIERARCHY

In Japan, the traditional sects:

Pure Land/Nichiren/Zen Buddhism dwindle

and new ones faithful to Buddhist teachings

try to humanize Japanese culture

alienated by technology and debilitating wealth

in Japan, like many countries and religions

hierarchy dominates and is a dirty word for many

but both oppressive/dominator/political

and growth/actualization/psychological hierarchies

exist – and the latter serve us

by showing us the road to human development

in ancient Greece, even love had (age-related) hierarchies:

philia – the bond of family and friends when you are young

eros – the bond of lovers when you are adult

storge – the bond of empathy when you are broken by life

agape – the bond of God-love when you finally surrender

the supreme love – the love of God

was preceded for Augustine by the “love of wisdom” –

“philo-sophia” or “philosophy” which he discovered

thru the Roman philosopher Cicero’s book Hortentius –

love of wisdom turned Augustine away from his sinful life

and toward God

philia is love expressed in family and community –

brotherly/sisterly/communal love –

eros is love longing to be one with the other

storge is love feeling what the other feels

agape is love repaying evil with good

agape loves those broken/rejected/marginalized

but according to Carl Jung agape begins with self-knowledge –

a religious undertaking because it involves

getting to know your shadow – all the rejected/lost parts of your soul –

embracing your shadow is the main path to healing

and to the unconditional love of God – how can you believe

God unconditionally loves you

if you don’t unconditionally love yourself?

Spinoza, a philosopher, agrees with Erich Fromm, a psychologist:

proper love of the soul/self-love/self-affirmation/courage

and proper love of others and God are all interdependent

and so all loves are part of each other – all loves are one.

THE GREAT REVERSAL

There was a development from first generation Christians who

focused on the special relationship of Jesus to God

to second generation Christians who

to counter growing Gnosticism

focused on Jesus as the Cosmic Christ

as the only way to redemption

the kingdom/queendom/kindom of God

is available to us here and now

because Jesus is the door

thru which we enter the kingdom/salvation/life everlasting

and we do not go to the kingdom – the kingdom comes to us –

since Jesus not only is the door – he stands at the door/knocks/and asks

will we let “Thy kingdom come” to us?

this is the Great Reversal: Jesus showed us

we cannot deduce anything about Jesus

from speculation about God – everything about God

must come from what we know about Jesus

Jesus unconditionally accepts sinners –

he does not condemn them

but gives them a strong challenge:

he will not tolerate

objectively destructive behaviour that ruins people

therefore repentance – turning from sin –

is the key to Christ’s door

of a new beginning –

Jesus unconditionally accepts sinners

but does not unconditionally accept their sin

“Besides the ‘Communion of Saints’

we should also affirm the ‘Communion of Sinners’

since all of us firmly belong to both groups”

– Richard Rohr

“God says ‘Abide in me, abide in my love,

make your home in the love

of the homemaking God

and you will bear much fruit’”

– Canadian folk music legend

Bruce Cockburn

THE POVERTY OF THE RICH

Biblical salvation is about liberation –

the Book of Exodus is the prototype

of God liberating us

but people often prefer the security of slavery

to the uncertainty of freedom –

God meant the Israelites to be a beacon of light

to the world – a liberated community

dedicated to peace and justice –

but their need for “security” is undoing them

we could be secure/happy/content

with God’s grace and the life God has given us

but in our culture we need approval

which comes from having truckloads of money –

if you are poor, capitalism excludes you –

you are excommunicated

from the heavenly banquet of western culture

but the poor have a spiritual advantage over the rich

since the rich can take away their pain too easily –

they can fill their emptiness with travel

distract their loneliness with shopping or fine dining

whereas the poor must face their poverty

and learn its lessons

the “Fifth Buddhist Precept: Mindful Consuming”

reminds us to not ingest toxins like

violent movies/mindless television/

numbing netsurfing/cynical books

in the 1960s, just as Asia ran headlong

into the craze for money and industrialization

Asian meditation poured into the West

because westerners were desperate

for things of the spirit

but the West has always had its own mysticism/mystics

which organized religion largely ignored

and so churches have emptied to the East –

more people practice yoga/meditation than go to church

although some spiritual experiences happen

as random insights or miraculous encounters

most experiences of God come through prayer –

prayer is a way for westerners to find God

and become liberated from their spiritual poverty.

THE PARADOXICAL GOOD NEWS

The deeper and wider our knowledge of God

the greater our love of God

but Christians tend to limit love to humans

and not see it in other species or in the universe itself

therefore we focus on inner love and outer darkness

another classic duality/division in our thinking

true nondual language is paradoxical

like a Zen koan – “I am different from all others

yet the same as them” – this is true in life

because life itself is paradoxical

and even though Christianity stands or falls on Christology

we couldn’t handle the paradox of Christ:

both human and God – and so we spiritualized Jesus –

we couldn’t handle the humanity of Jesus

like the docetist heretics – so we made Jesus into pure God

rather than the God/human

and we made salvation totally spiritual

so that Christianity had only a limited impact on the world

and we didn’t have to change – so far

but when we divorce theology from cosmology

we get just an idea of God

rather than the living God

and there exists a tremendous gap

between the transcendent/religious dimension

and the material/science dimension of life –

life becomes divided against itself

but contemplation opens our dualistic minds

to the paradoxical Good News

of intelligent Christian spirituality:

our fulfillment/salvation is received not achieved

but we have to work out our salvation

with fear and trembling

“for it is God who works in you

both to will and to work

for God’s good pleasure”

Philippians 2: 12-13.

FALLING AND RISING CONSCIOUSNESS

If there is such a thing, “original sin” would be the fall

of the human person from contemplative union with God

and “kyriarchy” would be the fall from union with others –

it is “lordship” – it goes beyond male patriarchy –

white women have lorded it over

both black women and black men for centuries –

lordship is a deeper problem than patriarchy

Ken Wilber’s Integral Vision has color-coded levels

of consciousness that explain all our falls and risings

and cause us to interpret divine beings differently

depending on our level:

red: the magic Jesus

amber: Jesus the lawgiver

orange: Jesus the world wisdom teacher

green: Jesus the savior through multiple paths

turquoise: Christ-consciousness in all people

violet: Jesus the Eternal Self beyond all suffering

similarly, the Enneagram, a powerful tool for alleviating suffering

distinguishes three different types of human beings:

gut/sexual

heart/social

head/self-preserving

who develop/grow/love in different ways

since love is the drawing and driving force

which activates and empowers the universe

it is seemingly contradicted

by “survival of the fittest”

plus nature’s other ways of being violent:

volcanoes/hurricanes/tornadoes/earthquakes –

but love is not always a purely positive force –

it often involves suffering in its movement

towards greater wholeness/greater being

in all our ordinary activities

sin and grace contend

so what we need is sober realism

rooted in the hope the Holy Spirit gives us

rather than naïve optimism – we need to:

despite trying family problems exercise charity

despite deadening routine find meaning

despite the frustrations of daily life nurture contemplation

despite powerful oppressive systems work for justice.

MANIFEST TRANSFORMATION

Buddhists talk about rebirth not reincarnation

but things are not born nor do they die –

they are manifest/remanifest/transformed –

flowers are manifest (latent) within sun/soil/rain/seed

remanifest in flowers of stunning creativity/color

transformed into soil when they wither –

reality contains no birth/death/being/nonbeing/

no something out of nothing/no nothing out of something

things are always everywhere all at once

but things do emerge – the new paradigm/scientific story

of the universe expands our imagination/causes us to let go

of anthropocentric views of God and humans

allowing us to embrace the entire cosmos

we all emerge as apprentices – we learn everything we do

by imitation: smiling/laughing/walking/eating/feeling

“We all long to be filled with endless joy and bliss

for we are made for this”

– Julian of Norwich

we all long for the happiness

the Beatitudes of Jesus made manifest

and God is the only one who can remanifest us in bliss

in the Incarnation God completes what God began

with the creation of the cosmos

and crowns it with eternal significance –

the Incarnation is the realization

of what is manifest in human nature –

union with God

in the Second Vatican Council the Catholic Church

reminded us the Holy Spirit

is active in the whole world/cosmos –

in all religions/art/science/technology/politics

and most of all in peoples’ consciences

where the still small voice of God

subtly transforms our minds/hearts/actions/

communities/civilizations

transforming hate into love

war into peace

that surpasses all understanding.

PROPHETS CRYING

In The Integral Vision, the greatest book of the 21^st century

because it puts all knowledge together in a single system,

Ken Wilber asserts that all human potential

can be simplified to five essential elements:

quadrants (I/We/It/Its)/ levels (of consciousness)/

lines (of development)/states (of experience)/

types (of personality) which are existential realities

not theoretical concepts – we can experience all of them

similarly, all Christology has to be experiential

not just academic because prophetess Ilia Delio claims

all mystics arrive at a profound experience

of Christ in the universe – Christ experienced in daily life

as millions of believers testify

by the end of the 17^th century our experience

of our place in the cosmos had radically shifted:

humans no longer occupied the center of the universe

and since spots were discovered on the surface of the sun

we knew the heavenly realm had blemishes

and so the heavenly and earthly realms

were no longer distinctly different –

there was no longer “a perfect realm up there”

versus “an imperfect realm down here”

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a prophet

crying in the wilderness of a scientific/evolutionary age

“Make way for the Lord”

as well as a Desert Father

working lifelong in China’s vast deserts

telling us about new ways to look at Christ

which the Church had difficulty embracing

staunch Catholic tradition was unbroken/unbreakable

and behind/underlying/in front of contemporary Catholicism

Franciscans today carry on the tradition of St Francis of Assisi

and Catholic philosophers wrestle today

with similar problems to St Thomas Aquinas –

spirituality and religion still search for the sacred

not ego-based values of health/happiness/success

but for a person/law/principle that transcends the self –

spirituality in the world but not of the world

not purely imminent pantheism nor purely transcendent theism

but imminent and transcendent panentheism –

prophets still cry for the human/God or God/human.

THE BROAD AND NARROW GATES

In our scientific age “More than knowledge

that comes from research, we need wisdom

that comes from prayer” – William Johnston, SJ

“To know your origins is to know your True Self”

– Lao Tzu

“hell” is “perpetual alienation from the True Self” –

it is constantly living in the False Self

so that your whole life is false

the True Self is hidden in God

so that most of us don’t discover our origins

until we die –

“Broad is the gate that leads to destruction

and many enter through it;

narrow is the gate that leads to eternal life”

– Jesus in Matthew 7:13-14

to enter by the narrow gate/find eternal life

we must understand Teresa of Avila’s

first four mansions in her Interior Castle

which can be summarized by reference to the will:

First Mansion: will marked by self-indulgence

Second Mansion: will marked by spiritual growth

but not steadfastness

Third Mansion: will marked by beginning of resolution

Fourth Mansion: will marked by steadfast union

with the Divine Will in prayer

every day every one out of ignorance and fear

mentally or physically strikes out at “the enemy”

and so the pain in the world goes on –

before the broad gate of aggression we could rather ask

“Do I want war or peace in my inner and outer worlds?”

fear always fears

that what it loves will be taken away

regret always regrets

that what it loved was taken away

but nothing God loves

can be taken away from God –

so that if you are in God

there is nothing to fear or regret.