HEAVEN/HERE/NOW

By reversing the relationship between being and union

Teilhard de Chardin overturned classical metaphysics

and introduced a new principle of reality – hyperphysics –

being comes out of union not vice versa –

the whole/community precedes the individual.

 

According to the great Protestant theologian Paul Tillich

communal non-being threatens humanity in three ways:

  1. our ontic self-affirmation is threatened:

relatively by ‘fate’ (contingent/circumstantial/existence)

absolutely by death

  1. our spiritual self-affirmation is threatened:

relatively by emptiness

absolutely by meaninglessness

  1. our moral self-affirmation is threatened:

relatively by guilt

absolutely by condemnation.

 

And according to Richard Rohr’s Immortal Diamond

we cannot discover our True Self

until we overcome the four splits of the False Self:

  1. our idealized self split from our shadow self
  2. our mind split from our body
  3. our life split from our death
  4. our self split from others.

 

But Christ unites all/overcomes all non-being/splits

makes invisible visible/incomprehensible comprehensible –

God became human so that Christ may be first

not only in the spiritual realm

but also in the material realm.

 

If we could trust that “Your name is already written

in heaven” as Jesus said, it would immediately resolve

our most basic anxiety – that we are not good enough –

and would make all competing/criticizing/conquering unnecessary –

we would no longer suffer condemnation by ourselves/others/God.

 

Material things cannot dwell in each other

but spiritual things can: God/humans/all angels

dwell in each other in all joy and happiness

though we discern it not – unless we wake up to hyperphysics

and discover heaven/here/now.

 

SOUL’S PURPOSE: BEING/MEANING/PROPHECY

Anxiety about meaninglessness

comes from the loss of an ultimate concern

a spiritual center, an answer to the question

of the meaning of existence, a meaning

which gives meaning to all meanings.

The purpose of the soul is pure being

not doing this specific thing or that.

The soul is thus a master of

non-addiction/non-grasping/non-clinging

to anything – pure non-attachment.

The goal of the spiritual life

is not to get rid of shadow

but to include and integrate it.

Without shadow, we would be flat and dull –

shadow gives us personality/depth/substance.

Our supposed inner adversary – our shadow

which we want to destroy – is our friend

when it points out our errors to us.

If the soul stops feeding

on the pleasure of the senses

it enters a “dark night of the senses”

that eventually leads to a “dark night of the soul”

that depends on faith alone.

These dark nights of sense and soul are voids

that paradoxically give light.

Religious faith is forever a struggle

between darkness and light/good and evil

pastoral and prophetic.

Institutions are always pastoral –

baptizing shared values/giving comfort and stability/

resisting change.

But prophets agitate for change

to get people out of their comfortable pews

thus institutions forever resist prophets.

Poets/artists/mystics/prophets

are often lonely creative individuals

because they do not fit in a competitive society

that spends all its energy on ephemerals.

They need powerful married love leading to Divine Love

which sheds shadow by its shining light.

ONE COSMIC FAMILY

In Heidegger’s concept of “Being”

God is no concept

no transcendent Creator-God

but Activity in the World

Self-Giving Presence.

All mystics agree

no magical/mythical Being 

totally transcends the world

but Infinite Consciousness 

lives in the world

in community, in peoples’

joys and sorrows.

Augustine sees

the wicked try to flee 

God

who is everywhere –

God the One

who never abandons the wicked

in their sin and sorrow.

Infinite Consciousness

is Being

“I Am” in Church

Beloved Community

born of Spirit, born of humans

Sacrament of Divine Liberation.

Although the anti-Paul 

in Timothy I and II 

wrote women into silence 

in Church

St. Thecla, second century celibate-ascetic 

Church-Leader

was more popular than the Virgin. 

Black-and-White thinking

separating soul (good) from body (bad)

made men uncomfortable

with women’s bodies and sexuality

but feminist theologians see

Wisdom as Co-Creator 

working in female (and male) bodies

creating right relationships.

Womanist theologians see

God and God’s desires

in daily intimacy, daily communion

with God’s Beloved People

the Everlasting Rock of the spiritual life.

Christians and Buddhists

mindlessly practicing rituals 

find little joy 

because human meaning 

is evolution becoming aware of itself,

Infinite Consciousness 

becoming mindful.

Like Hindu and Taoist mystics

scientists now open their eyes

and see the universe for the first time

as a unified web.

Like a spider’s web 

shimmering in the sun after rain

God catches scientists 

in the web of life.

No longer pure observers

scientists now see everything

not as objects or idols

but as icons

of Infinite Consciousness

Brother Sun, Sister Moon 

and all things 

dancing in 

One Cosmic Family.