church – Page 3 – Intelligent Christian Spirituality

MYSTICISM CURES RELIGION

Unhealthy and dysfunctional institutions

breed codependency in people –

the need to have others give us a sense

of identity and self-worth

as Christians reduced faith to belief –

assent to a list of ideas/doctrines

about God/Jesus/Church –

some extended it to belief

about women/science/politics

and we lost sight more and more

of “love your enemies”

and so became oppressive hypocrites

religion is only healthy

when it is about ego-transformation

not group superiority –

“my religion is better than your religion” –

or having correct doctrines

or being morally worthy enough to enter an afterlife

most people (80%) think civilization should move

toward a global vision

and in that regard

mysticism is the comprehensive “theory of everything”

people long for – something that makes sense

out of reality for everyone

just as Christianity used to do

the basic Christian understanding is that

you find your true self/true identity

by surrendering all your individual autonomy

to Christ

who makes you right with God

thru his Love and Penance

on the Cross for your sins

in God and God’s Love –

not in the Church and the Church’s love –

we and everything

become stabilized and eternalized –

if not established in God

we, and all things,

including the Church

perish.

THE THIRD WAVE

The second major arc of human development

after the pre-rational and before the trans-rational

is the anti-religious/atheistic stage

which is all about reason and science

and which brings seemingly staggering benefits

to humanity in terms of reducing suffering

but we are right on the edge

of the third wave of transformation:

from farming to industry to information –

from the suffering caused by the rational-industrial

to the visionary-informational

the visionary Paul Tillich developed and applied

the “Protestant Principle:” vigorous protest

(which is why they call it “Protest-antism”)

against all distortions of the Truth –

particularly rational ones against the Gospel

particularly the “demonic tendency”

to make the Church into an Absolute replacing God

and manipulate God with sacraments

since World War II modern society has gone thru

an “expressionist revolution:” replacing external authority

with inner authority – each person expresses

their authentic self/individuality/personal choices

of purpose and meaning

in a fractured commercialist society –

old loyalties to family/nation/religion are gone

and others revolt mindlessly against this loss

of the old values and the old Church

our formerly simple world has changed

to one of pluralism – both culturally and religiously –

consequently, the meaning of Christ must be changed

and expanded exponentially

beyond all protest

the humble scientific researcher

even though s/he is unaware of it

as he/she tries to penetrate

the secrets of the universe

is being led by the Cosmic Christ of Divine Love –

into the Third Wave after religion and science:

the perfect marriage of science and religion.

DEATH AND REBIRTH OF RELIGION

The emphasis on love as due to genes or neurochemical reactions

detracts from love as Omega – the final purpose and meaning

of life and the universe

Judy Cannato, author of Radical Amazement: Contemplative Lessons

from Black Holes/Supernovas/and Other Wonders of the Universe

found as she got to know the new sciences

of quantum mechanics and cosmology

they resonated more and more with her experience

of the Holy One –

she believes God’s vision/desire is unity

and this is what the new sciences tell us –

all things are already united –

and this needs to be the root of our own spirituality

in Fall/Redemption theology suffering and death

are the wages of sin

but in Creation Spirituality suffering

is due to the birth pangs of a constantly evolving universe

and death is a natural event –

a prelude to recycling and rebirth

traditionally, the Institutional Church made heaven and hell

into geographic locations – places in the universe

instead of what is within us and around us

but even someone as conservative as Pope John Paul II

believed heaven and hell

are primordially “states of consciousness” –

similarly, according to Simone Weil:

“God graciously invites all the damned into paradise

but for them paradise is hell”

since true religion is about consciousness

and the source of ultimate inner freedom

totalitarian systems feel obligated to attack it

but ironically they attack it with the same values

that religion holds such as communal/brotherly/sisterly love

which religion professed but failed at

but religion fails and is born again everywhere

– numerous Japanese Zen teachers criticize corrupt Buddhists

and thus invite non-Buddhists, Catholics in particular

(thanks to Thomas Merton, author of Zen and the Birds of Appetite)

to practice Zen – they felt Zen had a greater future in Catholicism

since it was dying in Japan.

THE REFUGE OF DIVINE LOVE

In Eastern Christianity they dwell on the cosmic significance of Christ

but in the West we focused too much on his saving work –

Augustine and Anselm claimed that Jesus came

only because we were ill – no illness, no Jesus

but contemporary theology believes Jesus came

to show us how to live/our true self – divine love –

repeat after me – “I am divine love”

the tremendous energy of love by which the universe

converges on itself passes through human sexuality –

the Christ comes to us through sex –

that is why Jesus performed his first miracle

at the wedding at Cana – Jesus saying symbolically:

“Before marriage/union/sex your life was water

now it is wine!”

but our sexuality is often dysfunctional

our wisdom is forever mixed up

with our craziness/neurosis/delusion/confusion

we need to wake up and accept this more and more –

this is better than constantly trying to change/perfect ourselves

peace lies in humble acceptance of our brokenness

and our need of God to put us back together

“The deadliest sin is to swim on the surface

for grace is found in the depths and death –

in falling/failing/not being in control/going down/not up”

– Richard Rohr in Falling Upward

too much security or insecurity leads to death

we need a healthy balance so we don’t become

either stagnant or overwhelmed by change

so we are not killed by the “future shock” –

the culture of constant change we live in

a prayer in Buddhism that is as common

as the “Our Father” in Christianity:

“I take refuge in the Buddha

I take refuge in the Dharma (the teaching)

I take refuge in the Sangha (the community)”

translated into Christianese:

“I take refuge in the Christ

I take refuge in the Beatitudes

I take refuge in the Church.”

ARMCHAIR CATHOLICISM

As churches institutionalized, they professionalized

and a professional elite took over, the clergy

who focused on how to live the Christian life but lost the why –

the motivations of regular lay believers

Catholic clergy have been wrestling with laity forever:

when Catholicism fought the heretical monster

it labeled “modernism”

it condemned modernism’s chief architects:

Galileo/Darwin/Marx/Freud

all Christian and Jewish-atheist laymen

who threatened the church’s

classicism/Hellenism/Thomism

however, Bernard Lonergan’s “transcendental precepts”

that underlie his General Epistemological Method (G.E.M.)

that underlies all the hard and soft sciences:

attentiveness (paying attention)/intelligence (what seems to be happening?)/

reasonableness (is that accurate?)/responsibility (what should be done?)

gave Catholicism a new way of doing theology

that matched our fast-emerging world civilization

hopefully Lonergan’s work will not be subverted

because assertion and then subversion

of the good/true/beautiful

is the basic pattern of the Bible –

the nonviolent resistance of Jesus to the “normal” state

of his society – the violent Roman Empire –

is met with his murder

when individualism reigns in our society

Christian charity alleviates the suffering of individuals

but ignores the unjust structures/laws

made by the privileged to protect the privileged

that cause the suffering in the first place

“A Merchant Mentality destroys compassion and the soul –

and the sin behind all sin is dualism – splitting things apart”

– Matthew Fox

rather than meditating on God from our armchair

it would be more fruitful to actually unite

with “others” who are least like us

and find Jesus the Christ in them too.

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.

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.

UNIVERSAL COMMUNION

With relativity and quantum mechanics

scientists began to see the oneness of all things/

got rid of former Newtonian dualisms/

such as separation of observer and what is observed/

came to see the whole

as energy penetrated by consciousness

just as all mystics do –

science started to catch up with mysticism!

“God creates light/dark/well-being/woe –

there is only one God

not a god who creates light and well-being

and another god who creates darkness and death

as in dualistic Manichaeism”

– Deutero-Isaiah

the Center of the World which unites all things

may be the Tree of Life

or the World Navel

or a Cosmic Human

like Buddha or the Son of God –

wherever the Energies of Eternity

break into the Everydayness of Time

we need some kind of mythology/deep truth to live –

Carl Jung’s personal mythology of meaning

expressed also in Western mystics

was that God made us

to become more and more conscious

so that God could become more and more conscious

and more fully penetrate the whole Cosmos

Jung’s view was that the future of Christianity

lay in the realization of the Cosmic Christ within each person –

this involves not making a person into a “God”

but rather helping them to consciously discover

the True Self/Christ-Self within each one of us

thus the bread and wine are not just symbols –

they contain God/Ultimate Reality/the Ground of All

just as we do –

the Church calls us to mindfulness in the Eucharist –

that God is in the Eucharist

just as God is in us.

DRAWING ALL THINGS TOGETHER

Ken Wilber’s Integral Philosophy includes everything:

“I” equals self and consciousness

“It” equals body and organism

“We” equals culture and worldview

“Its” equals social systems and environment

Jesus also included everything:

he saw humans as creatures alongside other creatures

flowers/sparrows/foxes – Jesus saw humans as a very important

part of nature but not above or separate from it:

“All things bright and beautiful

all creatures great and small

all things wise and wonderful

the Lord God made them all”

– United Church of Canada children’s hymn

John Macquarrie, the great Anglican theologian, used objective natural law

to challenge the relativism/subjectivism of existentialists –

there needs to be a dialectical tension between subjective authenticity

which Buddhism/Confucianism/and particularly Jesus advanced

and objective/public/universal values derived from nature and its laws –

we need to include both subjectivism and objectivism

the Church and its sacraments were meant to be divine invitations

to meaningfully explore how everything is interconnected/related

but sometimes it devolves into just an institution

with rituals that command legal observance

and the objective dominates the subjective

it was Ambrose’s ability to subjectively/symbolically

interpret Old Testament passages about violence

Augustine had taken objectively/literally

that began to create cracks in Augustine’s Manichean/

anti-Catholic stance until he was converted to the Church

the objective physical sciences may see the movement of evolution

towards greater complexity and consciousness

as biogenesis or cosmogenesis

but in subjective Christian terms it is Christogenesis

the coming to be and unfolding of the Cosmic Christ

the Church as the Universal Beloved Community was meant to be

the instrument of, and integral to, Christogenesis

the drawing together of all creatures and all things–

the I/It/We/Its.