Archive for July, 2018

Awakening to Our True Self

July 31st, 2018

Richard Rohr

Perennial Tradition
Awakening to Our True Self
Tuesday, July 31, 2018

The term “perennial philosophy” . . . refers to a fourfold realization: (1) there is only one Reality (call it, among other names, God, Mother, Tao, Allah, Dharmakaya, Brahman, or Great Spirit) that is the source and substance of all creation; (2) that while each of us is a manifestation of this Reality, most of us identify with something much smaller, that is, our culturally conditioned individual ego; (3) that this identification with the smaller self gives rise to needless anxiety, unnecessary suffering, and cross-cultural competition and violence; and (4) that peace, compassion, and justice naturally replace anxiety, needless suffering, competition, and violence when we realize our true nature as a manifestation of this singular Reality. The great sages and mystics of every civilization throughout human history have taught these truths in the language of their time and culture. —Rami Shapiro [1]
Education as it is currently understood, particularly in the West, ignores the human soul, or essential Self. This essential Self is not some vague entity whose existence is a matter of speculation, but our fundamental “I,” which has been covered over by social conditioning and by the superficiality of our rational mind. In North America we are in great need of a form of training that would contribute to the awakening of the essential Self. Such forms of training have existed in other eras and cultures and have been available to those with the yearning to awaken from the sleep of their limited conditioning and know the potential latent in the human being. —Kabir Helminski [2]
These are key reasons that the Center for Action and Contemplation is dedicated to reinvigorating the teaching of Christian contemplation. The consistent practice of contemplation helps to uncover our essential Self, our connected Self, our True Self.
Unfortunately, separateness is the chosen stance of the small self which has a hard time living in unity and love with the One, Ultimate Reality, and the diverse manifestations of this Reality (i.e., ourselves, other people, and everything else). The small self takes one side or the other in order to feel secure. It frames reality in a binary way: for me or against me, totally right or totally wrong, my group’s opinion or another group’s—all dualistic formulations.
That is the best the small egotistical self can do, yet it is not anywhere close to adequate. It might be an early level of intelligence, but it is not mature wisdom. The small self is still objectively in union with God, it just does not know it, enjoy it, or draw upon it. Jesus asked, “Is it not written in your own law, ‘You are gods’?” (John 10:34). But for most of us, this objective divine image has not yet become the subjective likeness (Genesis 1:26-27). Our life’s goal is to illustrate both the image and the likeness of God by living in conscious loving union with God. It is a moment by moment choice and surrender.

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Sarah Young, Jesus Calling

July 31, 2018

TRUST ME IN THE DEPTHS of your being. It is there that I live in constant communion with you. When you feel flustered and frazzled on the outside, do not get upset with yourself. You are only human, and the swirl of events going on all around you will sometimes feel overwhelming. Rather than scolding yourself for your humanness, remind yourself that I am both with you and within you. I am with you at all times, encouraging and supportive rather than condemning. I know that deep within you, where I live, My Peace is your continual experience. Slow down your pace of living for a time. Quiet your mind in My Presence. Then you will be able to hear Me bestowing the resurrection blessing: Peace be with you.

COLOSSIANS 1:27; To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

MATTHEW 28:20; and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

JOHN 20:19; On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came …

 

 

Perennial Tradition

July 30th, 2018

The One and the Many
Sunday, July 29, 2018

The beauty of the world is Christ’s tender smile for us coming through matter. —Simone Weil [1]

Much of our life we are trying to connect the dots, to pierce the heart of reality to see what is good, true, and beautiful for us. We want something lasting and transcendent.

How we search, however, will determine what we find or even want to find. I suggest that we should be searching primarily in the universal and wise depths of recurring symbols, metaphors, and sacred stories, which is where humans can find deep and lasting meaning—or personal truth. That is what we mean by the Perennial Tradition and why George Bernard Shaw wrote, “There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.” [2] The best religious metaphors assert not just a truth held by one religion, but a universal truth.

Metaphor is the only possible language available to religion because it alone is honest about Mystery. The underlying messages that different religions and denominations use are often in strong agreement, but they use different metaphors to communicate their own experience of union with God. Jesus says, for example, “There are other sheep I have that are not of this fold, and these I have to lead as well. They too listen to my voice” (John 10:16a). He is quite obviously talking metaphorically by calling people sheep. He is also saying that sometimes the outsider of the “flock” hears as well as the insider. Furthermore, he says that he cares about and respects the “other sheep,” which means that we should too. These are crucial points, and those who refuse to mine the metaphors will miss them.

Jesus’ intention here that there be “only one flock” (John 10:16b), and his later prayer “that all may be one” (John 17:21-23), can be achieved only by overcoming all otherness—so Jesus speaks of the “other sheep.” The goal is never to overcome all differences, since God clearly created us different in limitless ways. Differences are not the same as otherness, or at least they need not be. Through clever metaphors such as sheep and flocks, unity and yet differentiation, Jesus resolves what is sometimes called “the first philosophical problem” of the one and the many. How does one reconcile diversity with any underlying unity? To do this, Jesus, himself, uses many metaphors, so it is difficult to say that even he has only one and completely consistent image of God—beyond love itself!

We must never be too tied to our own metaphors as the only possible way to speak the truth. Rather, we must approach all metaphors and symbols humbly and respectfully, keeping all the inner spaces of mind, heart, and body open at the same time. I would call such respectful and non-egocentric attention “prayer.”

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Perennial Wisdom
Monday, July 30, 2018

No one lives outside the walls of this sacred place, existence.
The holy water, I need it upon my eyes: it is you, dear, you—each form.

What mother would lose her infant—and we are that to God,
never lost from [Her] gaze are we? Every cry of the heart
is attended by light’s own arms.

You cannot wander anywhere that will not aid you.
Anything you can touch—God brought it into
the classroom of your mind.

Differences exist, but not in the city of love.
Thus my vows and yours, I know they are the same. . . .

The holy water my soul’s brow needs is unity.
Love opened my eye and I was cleansed
by the purity of each
form.

—Daniel Ladinsky, inspired by St. Francis of Assisi [1]

You can call it the collective unconscious; you can call it globalization; you can call it the One Spirit of God—the question is, why are so many people from different cultures, countries, ethnicities, educations, and religions saying very similar things today? This really is quite amazing and to my knowledge has no precedent in human history.

We are rediscovering the philosophia perennis, the perennial philosophy—an early nineteenth-century phrase that pointed to an idea of a shared universal truth. Some of us called it the “wisdom tradition” which keeps showing itself in all of the world religions throughout history. This wisdom cannot be dismissed as mere syncretism—a word sometimes used to dismiss something unfamiliar or different as merely lightweight thinking, skepticism, or just wrong.

Too many of God’s holy people from other “flocks” keep saying the same or very similar things for them to be false. Hearing the same thing in different language and images helps us see the same reality more clearly. It is like the blind men walking around the proverbial elephant and touching different parts of the one huge body of Christ.

As Rabbi Rami Shapiro explains it, “Perennial wisdom isn’t unique to any specific system of thought or belief, but rather a set of teachings common to all of them. Each articulation of perennial wisdom takes on the flavor of the system in which it rests. Mistaking the flavor for the substance leads us to imagine differences where none exist.” [2]

One way to summarize the essence of perennial wisdom (to paraphrase Aldous Huxley) is:

There is a Divine Reality underneath and inherent in the world of things;
There is in the human soul a natural capacity, similarity, and longing for this Divine Reality;
The final goal of existence is union with this Divine Reality. [3]

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Sarah Young, Jesus Calling

July 30, 2018

WORSHIP ME in the beauty of holiness. I created beauty to declare the existence of My holy Being. A magnificent rose, a hauntingly glorious sunset, oceanic splendor—all these things were meant to proclaim My Presence in the world. Most people rush past these proclamations without giving them a second thought. Some people use beauty, especially feminine loveliness, to sell their products. How precious are My children who are awed by nature’s beauty; this opens them up to My holy Presence. Even before you knew Me personally, you responded to My creation with wonder. This is a gift, and it carries responsibility with it. Declare My glorious Being to the world. The whole earth is full of My radiant beauty—My Glory!

PSALM 29:2 NKJV;  Psalm 29:2 King James Version (KJV). 2 Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

1 SAMUEL 2:2; There is no one holy like the LORD; there is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God.

ISAIAH 6:3; And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”

 

God Is Everywhere

July 27th, 2018

Richard Rohr

Eucharist
God Is Everywhere
Friday, July 27, 2018

The Incarnation Mystery is repeated and represented in the Eucharist. In it we have material reality, in the form of these universal foods of bread and wine, as the hiding place and the revelation place for God. We are reminded that God is always perfectly hidden and perfectly revealed in this very concrete and material world. This is the Cosmic Christ experience, more than simply a Jesus experience. If we deny that the spiritual can enter the material world, then we are in trouble, since that is exactly what we are—fully spiritual and fully material human beings. We probably need to encounter Incarnation in one focused, dramatic moment, and then the particular truth has a chance of becoming a universal truth, and even our own personal truth. We are supposed to struggle with this, just as Jesus’ disciples first did (see John 6:60)! Otherwise we are not sincerely engaged with it.
Human relationship with the divine normally starts with the specific, the concrete, the “scandal of the particular,” and then we universalize from there—but the realization process takes the whole of our lives. The sixteenth question in the old Baltimore Catechism was “Where is God?” and it was answered straightforwardly: “God is everywhere.” The pinnacle of prayer is reached when we can trust that we are constantly in the presence of God. We cannot not be in the presence of God! Where would we go? As the psalmist reflects, if we go up to the heavens or underneath the earth, we still can’t get away from God (see Psalm 139:7-10). God is either in all things, or God is in nothing. Eucharistic bread and wine ground this whole realization in one tremendous thing (which will still and always be too much to absorb, but we must begin somewhere).
In the Eucharist, we slowly learn how to surrender to the Presence in one place, in one thing, in one focused moment. The priest holds up the Host and says, “See it here, believe it here, get it here, trust it here.” Many Christians say they believe in the Presence in the Eucharist, but they don’t get that it is everywhere—which is the whole point! They don’t seem to know how to recognize the Presence of God when they leave the church, when they meet people who are of a different religion or race or sexual orientation or nationality. They cannot also trust that every person is created in the image of God. Jesus spent a great deal of his ministry trying to break down the false distinctions between “God’s here” and “God’s not there.” He dared to see God everywhere, even in sinners, in enemies, in failures, and in outsiders. Usually, early stage religion is not yet capable of that, but fortunately God is patient with all of us and with history itself.

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Sarah Young, Jesus Calling

July 27, 2018

HOPE IS A GOLDEN CORD connecting you to heaven. This cord helps you hold your head up high, even when multiple trials are buffeting you. I never leave your side, and I never let go of your hand. But without the cord of hope, your head may slump and your feet may shuffle as you journey uphill with Me. Hope lifts your perspective from your weary feet to the glorious view you can see from the high road. You are reminded that the road we’re traveling together is ultimately a highway to heaven. When you consider this radiant destination, the roughness or smoothness of the road ahead becomes much less significant. I am training you to hold in your heart a dual focus: My continual Presence and the hope of heaven.

ROMANS 12:12; Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

1 THESSALONIANS 5:8; But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.

HEBREWS 6:18–19; So God has given both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have.

 

 

The Universal and Unifying Meal

July 26th, 2018

Richard Rohr

Eucharist
The Universal and Unifying Meal
Thursday, July 26, 2018

The mystery of sharing food and a common table takes place on different levels. First there is the unifying idea of sharing the same food. Then there is the symbolism of the table itself: where you sit at the table, how the table is arranged, and who is invited. Together the food and table become a symbol of how our social world is also arranged. (Think of Anthony Bourdain’s CNN series on food, Parts Unknown, which became the context for communicating an entire life philosophy, political commentary, and study of international friendship.)
Jesus’ last supper was a meal of deep table friendship—with his closest followers—that evolved into the formatted, highly ritualized meal of bread and wine that many of us feel obligated to participate in today. The first disciples soon came to understand it as their special way of gathering, as the way to define their reality and their relationship with one another, a “memorial” meal with Jesus and thus with the larger society.
This communion meal was originally somewhat of a secret ritual (especially during times of persecution) by which the community defined itself and held itself together. Frankly, most people have never been ready for the Eucharist’s radically demanding message of solidarity with both suffering and resurrection at the same time. Therefore, we made it into a worthiness contest and something that we could supposedly understand with our mind—both a terrible waste of time, in my opinion. Catholics even publicly say, “Lord, I am not worthy” in the Mass, immediately before we walk up as if we are “worthy”—and others are not. Ken Wilber would call this a “performative contradiction” right in the heart of the liturgy.
Yes, we are to recognize Jesus himself in the Eucharist, but we are also to “recognize the Body” (see 1 Corinthians 11:29) of those present as the Body of Christ, too (as Paul goes on to describe at great length in 1 Corinthians 12). There is no true Eucharist without a living assembly because we are being saved together and as one. The message is corporate and historical. (Yet I grew up with priests in great numbers saying “private” Masses all by themselves. And some still say we did not need a liturgical renewal!)
The Eucharistic meal is meant to be a microcosmic event, summarizing at one table what is true in the whole macrocosm: We are one, we are equal in dignity, we all eat of the same divine food, and Jesus is still and always “eating with sinners” (for which people hated him) just as he did when on Earth.

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Sarah Young, Jesus Calling

July 26, 2018

RELAX AND LET ME LEAD YOU through this day. I have everything under control: My control. You tend to peer anxiously into the day that is before you, trying to figure out what to do and when. Meanwhile, the phone or the doorbell rings, and you have to reshuffle your plans. All that planning ties you up in knots and distracts you from Me. Attentiveness to Me is not only for your quiet time, but for all your time. As you look to Me, I show you what to do now and next. Vast quantities of time and energy are wasted in obsessive planning. When you let Me direct your steps, you are set free to enjoy Me and to find what I have prepared for you this day.

PSALM 32:8; I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.

PSALM 119:35; Direct me in the path of your commands, for there I find delight. Turn my heart toward your statutes and not toward selfish gain. Turn my eyes away.

PSALM 143:8; Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life.

 

 

The Christian Mime

July 25th, 2018

The Christian Mime
Wednesday, July 25, 2018

At his last supper, which might also have been the Jewish Passover meal, Jesus gave us an action, a mime, a sacred ritual for his community that would summarize his core and lasting message for the world—one to keep repeating until his return to hold the group and teaching together. This deep message was to slowly sink in until “the bride” (those ready for divine intimacy) is fully ready to meet “the bridegroom” (Jesus the Christ) and drink at the eternal wedding feast (see Revelation 21:2 and elsewhere). The wedding banquet is also one of Jesus’ most common metaphors; he even starts his ministry at an intoxicating wedding banquet (John 2:1-11).

The Eucharistic mime, and that is what it is—a story enacted through motions more than words—has four main aspects that we are to imitate from Jesus’ first enactment (presented in varying ways in Matthew 26:26-28; Mark 14: 22-24; Luke 22:17-20, and another way by Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26). Given that, it is quite strange that we insist on one official wording when it is not even presented that way from the start.

1) You also should take your full life in your hands. In very physical and scandalously incarnational language, table bread is daringly called “my body” and wine is called “my blood.” You are saying a radical “yes” to both the physical universe itself and the bloody suffering of your own life and all the world.

2) You then thank God (eucharisteo in Greek), who is the Origin of all that life and who allows and uses the death that life includes. (During the Eucharistic Prayer, you are reminded of the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ.) You are making a choice for gratitude, abundance, and appreciation for Another, which has the power to radically de-center you. Your life and death are pure gift and must be given away in trust.

3) You choose to break your life and death wide open. You let your life be broken, used up, and you don’t spend your life protecting yourself. In handing over the small self you discover your True Self in God. “Unless the single grain of wheat dies, it remains just a grain of wheat” (John 12:24). The crushed grain and grapes become the broken bread and the intoxicating wine. There is no other way for the transformation to happen.

4) You then chew on this mystery for all the rest of your days! Divine truth is known by participation with and practice of, not by more thinking or discussing or even believing. You eventually have to “eat” the truth more than ever understand it.

Eucharist is a living mime, done first by Jesus and slowly, ever so slowly, also imitated by us.

We should hold ourselves apart from this meal only if we are not at least willing to try to live this way. That is the only real meaning of it being a “sacrificial meal.” Jesus did it “once and for all” and we are still considering whether we want to join in. It is not moral unworthiness as much as simple unreadiness that might keep us away from the table—and probably, if I were honest, it should have kept me from eating and drinking most days of my life when I had no intention or desire to take, give thanks, break open, and eat.

———————

AS YOU LISTEN to birds calling to one another, hear also My Love-call to you. I speak to you continually: through sights, sounds, thoughts, impressions, scriptures. There is no limit to the variety of ways I can communicate with you. Your part is to be attentive to My messages, in whatever form they come. When you set out to find Me in a day, you discover that the world is vibrantly alive with My Presence. You can find Me not only in beauty and birdcalls, but also in tragedy and faces filled with grief. I can take the deepest sorrow and weave it into a pattern for good. Search for Me and My messages as you go through this day. You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with your whole being.

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” —JOHN 10:27

Romans8:28; And we know [with great confidence] that God [who is deeply concerned about us] causes all things to work together [as a plan] for good for those who.

Jeremiah 29:13 NIV – You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

 

Eucharist…..Real Presence

July 24th, 2018

Richard Rohr

Eucharist
Real Presence
Tuesday, July 24, 2018

All my life as a Catholic, I have held the orthodox belief that the “Real Presence” of Christ is communicated in the bread and wine of the sacred meal (rather shockingly taught by Jesus in John 6:35-58). This is not a magical idea, but simply the mystery of incarnation taken to its logical conclusion—from creation itself, uniquely to Jesus’ body, to the human Body of Christ that we all are, and then to the very elements from the earth and human hands like bread and wine to serve as food for the journey. Why believe the universal Presence is “Real” if it is not also real in one concrete ordinary spot? (We are meant to struggle with this realization, as we see in John 6:60-66.)
The very notion of presence is inherently and necessarily relational and also somehow embodied. Note that Jesus did not say “Think about this,” “Prove this,” “Look at this,” “Carry this around,” and, surely not, “Argue about this.” He just said, “Eat this . . . and drink all of you” (Matthew 26:26-27). As Augustine (354-430) would preach later, the message is that you are what you eat and drink! [1]
We spent much of our history arguing about the “how” and the “if” and who could do what Catholics called the “transubstantiation” of the bread and wine instead of simply learning how to be present. We made the Eucharist into a magic act to be believed instead of a personal transformation to be experienced. We changed bread more than people, it seems to me. We emphasized the priest as the “transformer” instead of the people as the transformed. We made “Real Presence” into a doctrine (which has its very good meaning!), but we seldom taught people how to be really present (which is contemplation). When you are really present, you will experience the Real Presence for yourself.
The Eucharist is an encounter of the heart, knowing Presence through our available presence. In the Eucharist, we move beyond mere words or rational thought and go to that place where we don’t talk about the Mystery; we begin to chew on it.
We must move our knowing to the bodily, cellular, participative, and unitive level. Then we keep eating and drinking the Mystery until one day it dawns on us, in an undefended moment, “My God, I really am what I eat!” Henceforth we can trust and allow what has been true since the first moment of our existence: We are the very Body of Christ. We have dignity and power flowing through us in our naked existence—and everybody else does too, even though most of us do not know it. This is enough to guide and empower our entire faith journey. If Christians did not already have Eucharist as our central ritual, we would have to create something very similar.

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Sarah Young,

Jesus Calling

July 24, 2018

THANKFULNESS OPENS THE DOOR to My Presence. Though I am always with you, I have gone to great measures to preserve your freedom of choice. I have placed a door between you and Me, and I have empowered you to open or close that door. There are many ways to open it, but a grateful attitude is one of the most effective. Thankfulness is built on a substructure of trust. When thankful words stick in your throat, you need to check up on your foundation of trust. When thankfulness flows freely from your heart and lips, let your gratitude draw you closer to Me. I want you to learn the art of giving thanks in all circumstances. See how many times you can thank Me daily; this will awaken your awareness to a multitude of blessings. It will also cushion the impact of trials when they come against you. Practice My Presence by practicing the discipline of thankfulness.

PSALM 100:4; Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.

PSALM 31:14; “You are my God.” My times are in your hands; deliver me from the hands of my enemies, from those who pursue me.

1 THESSALONIANS 5:18; In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

 

July 23rd, 2018

The Shape of the Table
Sunday, July 22, 2018

Our spirituality is inseparable from the way we live in the world. Over the past several weeks we’ve explored some controversial topics: justice, economics, politics. If you’re still reading, thank you for hanging in there with me! Learning and growing is not always comfortable. Whether or not you agree with everything I say, all I ask is that you witness your response with patient and loving attention. From a contemplative stance you can see yourself and the world more truly and approach problems more creatively.

This week I’d like to bring all of this to the realm of embodiment through the Christian sacrament of Eucharist or “communion.” More than a theological statement that requires intellectual assent, the Eucharist is an invitation to socially experience the shared presence of God, and to be present in an embodied way. Remember, within a Trinitarian worldview, everything comes down to relationship.

First, let me share some context. In Jesus’ time, the dominant institution was the kinship system: the family, the private home. That’s why early Christians gathered in house churches, much different from the typical parish today. In Matthew’s Gospel the word house is used many times. Jesus is always going in and out of houses (as in 8:14, 9:10). What happened around the tables in those houses shaped and named the social order. Table friendship ends up defining how we see friendship in general.

Jesus often used domestic settings to rearrange the social order. Nowhere was that truer than with the meal—with whom, where, and what he ate. This is still true today, more than we might imagine. (Another example of Jesus changing the social order is in the relationship between employers and workers.) Jesus’ constant use of table relationships is perhaps his most central re-ritualization of what family means. Note that he is always trying to broaden the circle (see Luke 14:7-24 for three good examples). Jesus brought this all to fullness in his “last supper” with “the twelve.” This was not to emphasize male fellowship, but the full quorum of the twelve tribes of Israel. (I know it does not look that way to us now, but the Eucharistic meal was from the very beginning a gathering of both women and men, which shows how Christians understood equality.) [1]

Jesus didn’t want his community to have a social ethic; he wanted it to be a social ethic. Their very way of eating and organizing themselves was to be an affront to the system of dominance and power. They were to live in a new symbolic universe, especially symbolized by what we now call open table fellowship.

In all cultures, sharing food is a complex interaction that symbolizes social relationships and defines social boundaries almost more than any other daily event. Whom you eat with defines whom you don’t eat with. Certain groups of people eat certain kinds of food. Through our choices and behavior at table, we name and identify ourselves.

This might seem like an unfair example to some, but today a vegetarian (or even vegan) diet has become a conscious choice for many because they’ve studied the politics of food: who eats meat and who can’t eat meat; what eating meat is doing not only to our health but even to the planet. Researchers surmise that the meat-heavy Western diet contributes to one-fifth of global emissions on our planet. [2] Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh writes:

As a spiritual family and a human family, we can all help avert climate change with the practice of mindful eating. Going vegetarian may be the most effective way to stop climate change. [3]

Jesus already showed us in practice and in ritual that the spiritual, social, political, and economic move together as one. In fact, that is what makes something “spiritual”—that is whole, combining sacred and secular, matter and spirit.

———————-

A Bigger, Inclusive Table
Monday, July 23, 2018

The table of bread and wine is now to be made ready. It is the table of company of Jesus, and all who love him. It is the table of sharing with the poor of the world, with whom Jesus identified himself. It is the table of communion with the earth, in which Christ became incarnate. So come to this table, you who have much faith and you who would like to have more; you who have been here often and you who have not been for a long time; you who have tried to follow Jesus, and you who have failed; come. It is Christ who invites us to meet him here. —An Invitation, Iona Abbey [1]

Jesus’ most consistent social action was eating in new ways and with new people, encountering those who were oppressed or excluded from the system. A great number of Jesus’ healings and exorcisms take place while he’s entering or leaving a house for a meal. In the process he redefines power and the kingdom of God. Jesus shows us that spiritual power is primarily exercised outside the structure of temple and synagogue.

As Christianity developed, the Church moved from Jesus’ meal with open table fellowship to its continuance in the relatively safe ritual meal we call the Eucharist. Unfortunately, that ritual itself came to redefine social reality in a negative way, in terms of worthiness and unworthiness—the opposite of Jesus’ intention! Even if we deny that our intention is to define membership, it is clearly the practical message people hear today. It is strange and inconsistent that sins of marriage and sexuality seem to be the only ones that exclude people from the table when other sins like greed and hatefulness are more of a public scandal.

Notice how Jesus is accused by his contemporaries. By one side, he’s criticized for eating with tax collectors and sinners (Matthew 9:10-11, for example); by the other side, he’s judged for eating too much (Luke 7:34) or with the Pharisees and lawyers (Luke 7:36-50, 11: 37-54, 14:1). He ate with both sides. He ate with lepers (Mark 14:3), he received a woman with a bad reputation at a men’s dinner (Luke 7:36-37), and he even invited himself over to a “sinner’s” house (Luke 19:1-10). He didn’t please anybody, it seems, always breaking the rules and making a bigger table.

During Jesus’ time, religious law was being interpreted almost exclusively through the Book of Leviticus, particularly chapters 17-24, the Law of Holiness. Jesus critiques his own tradition. He refuses to interpret the Mosaic law in terms of inclusion/exclusion, the symbolic self-identification of Judaism as the righteous, pure, elite group. Jesus continually interprets the Law of Holiness in terms of the God whom he has met—and that God is always compassion and mercy.

JULY 23 I AM THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. Men crawl through their lives cursing the darkness, but all the while I am shining brightly. I desire each of My followers to be a Light-bearer. The Holy Spirit who lives in you can shine from your face, making Me visible to people around you. Ask My Spirit to live through you as you wend your way through this day. Hold My hand in joyful trust, for I never leave your side. The Light of My Presence is shining upon you. Brighten up the world by reflecting who I AM. When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said,

“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” —JOHN 8:12

“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” —MATTHEW 5:14–16

And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. —2 CORINTHIANS 3:18

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me —EXODUS 3:14

Young, Sarah. Jesus Calling

  • Nurturing Empathy

    July 20th, 2018

    Nurturing Empathy
    Friday, July 20, 2018

    Sister of Social Service Simone Campbell, famously known as “the nun on the bus,” is one of the most passionately and compassionately engaged faith leaders I know. In last fall’s issue of Oneing, the Center for Action and Contemplation’s journal, she offered some practical wisdom for how we can stay connected with our own heart and others:

    I live at the intersection of politics and religion. . . . My faith impels me into the public square. It is abundantly clear that Pope Francis is correct when he says that faith has real consequences in the world . . . and these consequences involve politics. . . .

    I currently lead NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, based in Washington, DC. . . . We lobby on Capitol Hill [to shape federal legislation] on issues of income and wealth disparity in our nation. . . . At NETWORK, we often say that our care for the common good is care for “the 100%” instead of the 99% or the 1%. . . .

    My meditation practice has led me to see that God is alive in all. No one can be left out of my care. Therefore this political work is anchored in caring for those whom we lobby as well as those whose cause we champion. This was illustrated for me . . . when I was with four of my colleagues lobbying a Republican Senator on healthcare legislation. I commented on the story of a constituent and asked her how her colleagues could turn their eyes away from the suffering and fear of their people. . . .

    She said that many of her colleagues . . . did not get close to the candid stories of their people. In fact, some did not see these constituents as “their people.” Tears sprang to my eyes at her candor and the pain that keeps us sealed off from each other because of political partisanship. Compassion spills out of safe containers to flood our lives.

    It is breaking my heart that some of these same politicians want to dismantle healthcare and force millions off of healthcare they receive through the Affordable Care Act. Pope Francis is correct when he says that “health is not a consumer good, but a universal right, so access to health services cannot be a privilege.” [1] Some in Congress want to take away healthcare coverage in order to make a partisan point. It is these members of Congress that I have a difficult time caring about. . . .

    However, I find that our position “for the 100%” requires an empathy that stretches my being beyond my imagining. Finding a way to not vilify or divide into “them” and “us” in today’s federal politics goes against . . . current custom. . . .

    So my contemplative practice is to attempt to sit open-handed and listen to the “wee small voice” that sometimes whispers ideas and ways forward.

    —————————

    SEEK MY FACE, and you will find all that you have longed for. The deepest yearnings of your heart are for intimacy with Me. I know because I designed you to desire Me. Do not feel guilty about taking time to be still in My Presence. You are simply responding to the tugs of divinity within you. I made you in My image, and I hid heaven in your heart. Your yearning for Me is a form of homesickness: longing for your true home in heaven. Do not be afraid to be different from other people. The path I have called you to travel is exquisitely right for you. The more closely you follow My leading, the more fully I can develop your gifts. To follow Me wholeheartedly, you must relinquish your desire to please other people. However, your closeness to Me will bless others by enabling you to shine brightly in this dark world.

    As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? —PSALM 42:1–2

    Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. —PSALM 34:5

    So that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe. —PHILIPPIANS 2:15

    Young, Sarah. Jesus Calling

    Nurturing Empathy

    July 20th, 2018

    Richard Rohr,Nurturing Empathy
    Friday, July 20, 2018

    Sister of Social Service Simone Campbell, famously known as “the nun on the bus,” is one of the most passionately and compassionately engaged faith leaders I know. In last fall’s issue of Oneing, the Center for Action and Contemplation’s journal, she offered some practical wisdom for how we can stay connected with our own heart and others:
    I live at the intersection of politics and religion. . . . My faith impels me into the public square. It is abundantly clear that Pope Francis is correct when he says that faith has real consequences in the world . . . and these consequences involve politics. . . .
    I currently lead NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, based in Washington, DC. . . . We lobby on Capitol Hill [to shape federal legislation] on issues of income and wealth disparity in our nation. . . . At NETWORK, we often say that our care for the common good is care for “the 100%” instead of the 99% or the 1%. . . .
    My meditation practice has led me to see that God is alive in all. No one can be left out of my care. Therefore this political work is anchored in caring for those whom we lobby as well as those whose cause we champion. This was illustrated for me . . . when I was with four of my colleagues lobbying a Republican Senator on healthcare legislation. I commented on the story of a constituent and asked her how her colleagues could turn their eyes away from the suffering and fear of their people. . . .
    She said that many of her colleagues . . . did not get close to the candid stories of their people. In fact, some did not see these constituents as “their people.” Tears sprang to my eyes at her candor and the pain that keeps us sealed off from each other because of political partisanship. Compassion spills out of safe containers to flood our lives.
    It is breaking my heart that some of these same politicians want to dismantle healthcare and force millions off of healthcare they receive through the Affordable Care Act. Pope Francis is correct when he says that “health is not a consumer good, but a universal right, so access to health services cannot be a privilege.” [1] Some in Congress want to take away healthcare coverage in order to make a partisan point. It is these members of Congress that I have a difficult time caring about. . . .
    However, I find that our position “for the 100%” requires an empathy that stretches my being beyond my imagining. Finding a way to not vilify or divide into “them” and “us” in today’s federal politics goes against . . . current custom. . . .
    So my contemplative practice is to attempt to sit open-handed and listen to the “wee small voice” that sometimes whispers ideas and ways forward.

    ________________________________________________________

    Sarah Young, Jesus Calling

    July 20, 2018

    SEEK MY FACE, and you will find all that you have longed for. The deepest yearnings of your heart are for intimacy with Me. I know because I designed you to desire Me. Do not feel guilty about taking time to be still in My Presence. You are simply responding to the tugs of divinity within you. I made you in My image, and I hid heaven in your heart. Your yearning for Me is a form of homesickness: longing for your true home in heaven. Do not be afraid to be different from other people. The path I have called you to travel is exquisitely right for you. The more closely you follow My leading, the more fully I can develop your gifts. To follow Me wholeheartedly, you must relinquish your desire to please other people. However, your closeness to Me will bless others by enabling you to shine brightly in this dark world.

    PSALM 42:1–2; As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. 2My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?

    PSALM 34:5; Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.

    PHILIPPIANS 2:15; so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky

     

     

    Wisdom of the Heart

    July 19th, 2018

    Wisdom of the Heart
    Thursday, July 19, 2018

    The human heart is the first home of democracy. It is where we embrace our questions. Can we be equitable? Can we be generous? Can we listen with our whole beings, not just our minds, and offer our attention rather than our opinions? —Terry Tempest Williams [1]
    My fellow faculty member Cynthia Bourgeault writes that “the heart is first and foremost an organ of spiritual perception. Its primary function is to look beyond the obvious, the boundaried surface of things, and see into a deeper reality.” [2] Within the contemplative heart you are indestructible, even though you feel quite vulnerable and unsure of yourself in many ways. Inside this sacred space you can love and critique America at the same time. You can weep for the bigger evil of which both sides are victims and imagine an alternative universe because you have now been there yourself. [3]
    Parker Palmer reflects on the necessity of heart-consciousness within politics:
    When all of our talk about politics is either technical or strategic, to say nothing of partisan and polarizing, we loosen or sever the human connections on which empathy, accountability, and democracy itself depend. If we cannot talk about politics in the language of the heart—if we cannot be heartbroken, for example, that the wealthiest nation on earth is unable to summon the political will to end childhood hunger at home—how can we create a politics worthy of the human spirit, one that has a chance to serve the common good? . . .
    Here are five interlocking habits of the heart . . . deeply ingrained patterns of receiving, interpreting, and responding to experience that involve our intellects, emotions, self-images, and concepts of meaning and purpose. These five habits, taken together, are crucial to sustaining a democracy.
    We must understand that we are all in this together. Ecologists, economists, ethicists, philosophers of science, and religious and secular leaders have all given voice to this theme. . . .
    We must develop an appreciation of the value of “otherness.”. . . [This] can remind us of the ancient tradition of hospitality to the stranger. . . .
    We must cultivate the ability to hold tension in life-giving ways. . . . When we allow [these] tensions to expand our hearts, they can open us to new understandings of ourselves and our world, enhancing our lives and allowing us to enhance the lives of others. . . .
    We must generate a sense of personal voice and agency. Insight and energy give rise to new life as we speak and act, expressing our version of truth while checking and correcting it against the truths of others. . . .
    We must strengthen our capacity to create community. . . . The steady companionship of two or three kindred spirits can kindle the courage we need to speak and act as citizens. [4]

    ____________________________________________________

    Young, Sarah. Jesus Calling

    July 19, 2018

    BRING ME ALL YOUR FEELINGS, even the ones you wish you didn’t have. Fear and anxiety still plague you. Feelings per se are not sinful, but they can be temptations to sin. Blazing missiles of fear fly at you day and night; these attacks from the evil one come at you relentlessly. Use your shield of faith to extinguish those flaming arrows. Affirm your trust in Me, regardless of how you feel. If you persist, your feelings will eventually fall in line with your faith. Do not hide from your fear or pretend it isn’t there. Anxiety that you hide in the recesses of your heart will give birth to fear of fear: a monstrous mutation. Bring your anxieties out into the Light of My Presence, where we can deal with them together. Concentrate on trusting Me, and fearfulness will gradually lose it foothold within you.

    EPHESIANS 6:16; In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

    1 JOHN 1:5–7; Light and Darkness, Sin and Forgiveness – This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at.

    ISAIAH 12:2; Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The LORD, the LORD himself, is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation.”