soul – Intelligent Christian Spirituality

BUTTERFLIES AND DEATH

Convergent evolution comes from and heads towards

maximum consciousness/Alpha and Omega/the Cosmic Christ.

The human soul that was always there becomes conscious

when human consciousness emerges

from the general groping of Nature towards self-reflection.

We are unique in that we reflect on things.

We are the universe becoming conscious of itself/

reflecting on itself/learning to direct itself

and its unconscious groping processes.

The original Greek word for “soul,” “psyche”

literally means “butterfly” because the soul/true self

is elusive/hard to pin down in an exotic butterfly case.

Fundamentalists need humility to understand

the Absolute Truth they think they have

only exists in the Mind of God –

humans are always groping/searching for their soul.

And arguments for the immortality of the soul

do not alleviate the universal/inescapable/

existential anxiety about death

which cannot be argued away –

fear of death drives humans toward evil

and so “Reasonable people, devoted to rationalism

fail to perceive either the depths of evil

or the depths of the holy.” -Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Not overthinking about death

and living in the Now with the Divine Present

alleviates the death-grip of evil:

Breathing in I relax my body

(reduces stress)

Breathing out I smile

(relaxes hundreds of facial muscles)

Dwelling in the Present Moment

(brings happiness here and now)

I know it is a Wonderful Moment

(brings pleasure/peace of mind/spirit/soul).

TAKING THE HARD/EASY ROAD WITH CHRIST

Jesus was a layman with no formal training as a priest

he was at parties and in the streets

far more than at liturgy. Yet the early Church

created elaborate liturgies to worship a man

who never asked to be worshiped

only followed. Worship is easy, following is hard.

So, we took the easy road.

Circa 250 AD Christians took the road to the desert

to escape Decian persecution/corruption/decadence

of the Roman Empire. Like Moses/Elijah/Jesus

they were convinced that in the absolute silence of the desert

they could hear God speak again.

In the desert they learned for all time

that God is in the present moment, the NOW.

In our NOW, people in both individualist and collectivist societies

feel anxiety about death/non-being.

Capitalist/ego societies encourage individuals

to assert themselves against the threat of non-being

whereas communist/state societies allay anxiety

with massive military parades and rituals

signifying the collective will survive

individual non-being – being part of the collective

saves you from death.

But both the capitalist and communist credos

are heresy. In Jesus the Christ one evolves

from fragmentation and alienation

of the individual and the masses

to wholeness and integration

from nihilism and irony

to deep meaning and value

from scarcity to abundance

from self-centeredness to self-transcendence.

When capitalism and communism both fail to satisfy the soul

it humbly turns back to God and finds

“Your soul is who you are in God and who God is in you.

Nothing more, nothing less” – Richard Rohr

and taking the hard road is surprisingly easy in Christ

who said “Take my yoke upon you for my yoke is easy

and my burden is light” – Matthew 11:28-30

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.

THE EVOLVING SEEKER

All sacred texts and philosophies attempt to articulate

ultimate truths and archetypal values

but they are always approximations of truth

that require fresh interpretations

with each new historical and cultural era.

Karl Rahner saw the limits of the philosophy of

Thomas Aquinas because Immanuel Kant

created a Copernican revolution in philosophy

by putting the human knower in the center

instead of Church authority.

Joseph Marechal, a Jesuit like Rahner

then overcame the limits of Kant’s philosophy

by seeing humans as dynamic seekers of knowledge

which includes Church authority (in part).

Bernard Lonergan, still another Jesuit

made a further breakthrough:

a new foundation for truth-seeking as not

“arguing about airy abstractions

but changing the seeker

by conversion of the intellect and emotions.”

Loving God with all your heart and mind.

The Principle and Foundation

of the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius

the founder of the Jesuits

is that we are created

to praise/reverence/serve God

and so, save our souls

and everything on Earth is made

to help us attain that end.

In this regard, evolution on Earth

has telos/directionality/purpose:

increasing organization and complexity

which increases differentiation and autonomy

which increases consciousness and love.

The “Cloud of Unknowing” is consciousness

of evolution to “that ultimate spiritual state where

in secret and alone

the believer centers all her/his love on God.”

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.

LOVE YOUR TRUE SELF

RECONCILING ANCIENT RELIGION AND MODERN SELF-HELP

All world religions would agree with St. Catherine of Sienna who said “Every evil is founded in self-love.” So how do we put ancient religion together with the modern self-help doctrine that you cannot love others if you don’t love yourself?

When we are born, we are unitive thinkers: we sense our oneness with everything. However, as we develop we learn the word “no” from our parents trying to curtail our behaviour. We start to separate from our parents and others and develop our own identity. We learn we are a boy or girl and a human being not a dog or cat. Later we learn our race, nationality and everything else that separates us from others.

Developing a sense of identity or ego is natural, healthy, and necessary to function in the world. However, if you think your ego, what separates you from everything, is all you are, it creates individualism, the source of all our problems. The illusion of separation transforms your ego into your false self, and life becomes every one for himself/herself.

Separation from others causes all social problems, and separation from nature is the root of all environmental problems. If you are really separate from others and the planet, what happens to them is not your concern. You can misuse them without any consequences. However, what happens to others and nature does impact us.

I was pondering why, in indigenous paintings, there are fish, bears, and birds inside peoples’ bodies? Suddenly I got it: indigenous people are unitive thinkers – fish, bears, and birds are part of who they are. They and the environment are one.

This is the solution to our environmental problems: the earth is us and we are the earth. Until we get that, we will continue to abuse the earth we depend on.

Jesus was also a unitive thinker. He said “God and I are one,” and what we do to the least among us – people who are starving, naked, or homeless – we do to him.

He also said the second greatest commandment, after loving God, is to love others as yourself. Perhaps he didn’t mean, as contemporary self-help would have it. “love others by first loving yourself,” but rather “love others because they are yourself.”

God is everywhere and that includes inside you, in your depths. As Thomas Merton, a Catholic monk, frequently said “When you meet your deepest self you meet God.”

God is not only love, God is peace, goodness, wisdom, forgiveness, patience, and kindness, and so are you. Your true essence, your true self, is all these things. In this sense you and God are one. This is what being the “imago dei,” the image of God, means. You are not God, God is greater than you, but you and God are one in spirit.

That is why it is good to love your true self, your soul, the self that is love, peace, and goodness. When you love your true self, you are loving God within you, and since God is in everything, you are loving everything through God. When you love all the virtues of your true self, you are doing exactly what others and the earth need: people who love peace, goodness, and love.

It is necessary to develop an ego, but it is also necessary to transcend the ego and realize that you have a larger, truer self. It is not healthy or wise to just love your ego, your false, illusory self. Loving just your ego is the root of all evil as St. Catherine said. She was thinking of love of the false self; contemporary self-help is presumably thinking of love of the true self, which is the foundation of all good.

What we need now is a civilization built on love of the true self, the soul, our best self, our “better angels,” not one based on love of ego, our “worst demons.” This would solve many of our problems.

As another holy woman, Mechthild of Magdeburg said:

“The soul is made of love and must ever strive to return to love. Therefore, it can never find rest or happiness in other things. It must lose itself in love. By its very nature it must seek God, who is love.”

Bruce Tallman is a London spiritual director, marriage coach, and religious educator of adults. www.brucetallman.com. For his weekly reflections on spirituality, see “The Big Picture” at https://brucetallmanblog.wordpress.com