The Creative Mind of Christ
Sunday, June 3, 2018
God created each of us with particular gifts that we can discover and use in the service of co-creating a more whole and loving world. There are many parts of the Body of Christ; I am only one part, a “mouth.” When I first began to teach, no one was more surprised than I was that some people valued what I had to say! If I am able to speak well, it is only because somehow, by grace, God has helped me get my false self out of the way. When we are centered in our True Self we are most in touch with our creative source and most open to be a conduit of Love.
Fidelity to contemplative practice over months, years, and even a lifetime opens our hearts, minds, and bodies to the ongoing creative flow of Spirit. From our experiences of contemplation—union with Love—we can then live and work in ways that are more compassionate and healing.
We humans are creatures of habit; our brains are wired to think the same thoughts again and again like a broken record. Most of these habitual thoughts are dualistic and negative. We are obsessed with labeling things good or bad, right or wrong. Only very rarely do we change our minds about these pre-determined, fixed assumptions. Obviously, this limits our ability to be creative and think outside the box!
In contemplative practice, we refuse to identify with any one side (while still maintaining our intelligence and ability to think critically). We hold the tension of seeming conflicts and paradoxes, going beyond words to pure, open-ended experience, which has the potential to unify contradictions. This is a creative tension because when held with loving intention, something utterly new and creative can emerge.
Authentic and full knowing is subject to subject through a process of mirroring, seeing and being seen, observing reality as it is. This is the “mind of Christ” (see 1 Corinthians 2:16). It really is a different way of knowing, and you can recognize it by its gratuity, open-endedness, compassion, and by the way it is so creative and energizing in those who allow it.
Truly great thinkers and creatives take for granted that they have access to a different and larger mind. They recognize that a divine flow is already happening and that everyone can plug into it. In all cases, it is a participative kind of knowing, a being known through and not an autonomous knowing. This is how we can become co-creators with our loving Creator.
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The Third Way
Monday, June 4, 2018
The Christian way is to risk the attachments of love—and then keep growing in love. All of life is a lesson in learning to love more deeply and truly.
As we start trying to love, we begin to realize that we’re actually not loving very well. We are mostly meeting our own needs. The word for this is “codependency.” This kind of love is still impure and self-seeking and thus is not really love at all. So, we have to pull back and learn the great art of detachment, which is not aloofness but the purifying of attachment.
Our religion is neither solely detachment nor attachment; it’s a dance between the two. It’s neither entirely isolation, as symbolized by the desert, nor is it complete engagement, as symbolized by the city. Jesus moves back and forth between desert and city. In the city, he feels himself losing perspective, love, and center; so, Jesus goes out to the desert to discover the real again. And when Jesus is in the desert, his passionate union with the Father drives him back to the people in the city.
The creative, transformative dance between attachment and detachment is sometimes called the Third Way. It is the middle way between fight and flight, as Walter Wink describes it. [1] Some prefer to take on the world: to fight it, change it, fix it, and rearrange it. Others deny there is a problem at all. “Everything is beautiful,” they say and look the other way. Both instincts avoid holding the tension, the pain, and the essentially tragic nature of human existence.
The contemplative stance is the Third Way. We stand in the middle, neither taking the world on from another power position nor denying it for fear of the pain it will bring. We hold the hardness of reality and the suffering of the world until it transforms us, knowing that we are both complicit in evil and can participate in wholeness and holiness. Once we can stand in that third spacious way, neither directly fighting or fleeing, we are in the place of grace out of which genuine newness can come. This is where creativity and new forms of life and healing emerge.
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JUNE 4
WELCOME CHALLENGING TIMES
as opportunities to trust Me. You have Me beside you and My Spirit within you, so no set of circumstances is too much for you to handle. When the path before you is dotted with difficulties, beware of measuring your strength against those challenges. That calculation is certain to riddle you with anxiety. Without Me, you wouldn’t make it past the first hurdle! The way to walk through demanding days is to grip My hand tightly and stay in close communication with Me. Let your thoughts and spoken words be richly flavored with trust and thankfulness. Regardless of the day’s problems, I can keep you in perfect Peace as you stay close to Me.
Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds. —JAMES 1:2
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. —PHILIPPIANS 4:13 NKJV
You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. —ISAIAH 26:3
Young, Sarah. Jesus Calling
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