Father Richard acknowledges the shift that is required to recognize and honor the soul of nature:

Acknowledging the intrinsic value, beauty, and even soul of creation, elements, plants, and animals is a major paradigm shift for most Western Christians. In fact, many in the past often dismissed such thinking as animism or paganism. We limited God’s love and salvation to our own human species and then in this theology of scarcity, we did not even have enough love left to cover all of humanity! To be honest, God ended up looking quite stingy and inept—hardly “victorious,” as our Easter hymns claim.

The word profane comes from the Latin words pro (“in front of”) and fanum (“temple”). We thought we lived “outside the temple.” Without a nature-based spirituality, it was a profane universe, bereft of Spirit. We had to keep building shrines and churches to capture and hold our now domesticated and tamed God. Soon we didn’t know where to look for the divine, as we made God’s presence so limited. We became like fish swimming around looking for water, and often arguing about who owned the water!

I’m not saying that God is all things or that all things are God (pantheism). I am saying that each living thing reveals some aspect of God. God is greater than the whole of our universe, and as Creator inter-penetrates all created things (panentheism). [1]

When God manifests spirit through matter, then matter becomes a holy thing. The material world is the place where we can comfortably worship God just by walking on it, loving it, and respecting it. Everything visible, without exception, is the outpouring of God. What else could it really be? The incarnation is not only “God becoming Jesus.” It is a much broader event, which is why John’s Gospel first describes God’s presence in the general word “flesh” (John 1:14). This is the ubiquitous Christ that we continue to encounter in other human beings, in a mountain, a blade of grass, a spider web, or a starling. [2] When we can enjoy all these things as holy, “we experience the universe as a communion of subjects, not as a collection of objects” as the “geologian” Fr. Thomas Berry said so wisely. [3]

When we love something, we grant it soul, we see its soul, and we let its soul touch ours. We must love something deeply to know its soul (anima). Before the resonance of love, we are largely inattentive to the meaning, value, and power of ordinary things to “save” us and help us live in union with the Source of all being. In fact, until we can appreciate and even delight in the soul of other things, even trees and animals, we probably haven’t discovered our own souls either. Soul knows soul through love, which Jesus teaches as the great commandment (Matthew 22:37–39). [4]

__________________________________________

Five For Friday John Chafee

1.
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

• Carl Rogers, American Psychologist
   
  The work of Carl Rogers has been drifting to the forefront for me.  Something about his approach of having “unconditional positive regard” for people resonates with me…  Probably because there is some lesson in that topic that is next for me to learn.

The Christian tradition has held on to the truth of this quote for a long time.  When we say that “grace changes people” it is because there is some ancient and universal truth that when we accept ourselves exactly as we are we are then most able to change.

Shame, on the other hand, has the unfortunate consequence of leading people to hide/excuse/rationalize/deny their problematic sides rather than accept them and confront them.

Grace and shame are in a sense dialectical opposites of one another.

2.
“Father Dan Berrigan was here: an altogether winning and warm intelligence and a man who, I think, has more than anyone I have ever met the true wide-ranging and simple heart of the Jesuit: zeal, compassion, understanding, and uninhibited religious freedom. Just seeing him restores one’s hope in the Church.”

• Thomas Merton, 20 Century Trappist Monk
   
  Most of my heroes in the Christian tradition were the punks and hooligans who stirred the pot, disrupted the status quo, and challenged conventions.  What is striking about these figures is that they came from deep devotion and reverence for the core of the faith, just like Jesus.  Most reformations were begun by people who were more than simply distanced admirers of Jesus and were people who sought to live out their cruciform lives with wholehearted conviction…  Just like Berrigan and Merton.

3.
“Religion depends on the maturity of the one interpreting it. If it is being interpreted by someone immature and unwell, then it will be immature and unwell. If it is being interpreted by someone mature and loving, then it will be mature and loving.”

• From The Wonderstanding of Father Simeon
   
  When I wrote The Wonderstanding of Father Simeon, I did not know what was coming out of me at the time.

By the time I was more than halfway done, I realized that the dialogue between the two main characters was two sides of my personality reconciling with each other, my cynical side with my monastic side.  Sometimes I would write a sentence or paragraph and realize that I just worded something I believed to be true but had not said out loud before…

Today’s 3rd quote was one of those insights.  Religion in the hands of mature people will always be interpreted in a mature manner.

4.
“Your imperfections do not shock me, for I see myself with so many.”

• Teresa of Avila, 16th Century Carmelite Nun
   
  Perhaps one of the reasons we fail to show compassion or hospitality for others is that we fail to see ourselves in others.  The reality is that we have far more in common than we initially realize. 

5.

• Chuck DeGroat, Pastor and Professor
   
  A short while ago Chuck wrote a fantastic book, When Narcissism Comes to Church.  It is a compassionate exploration of what can happen when there is narcissistic leadership and/or a narcissistic church culture.

In the book he covers how church cultures can be seduced by narcissistic leadership who (without their knowledge) have a pathological need to be in the spotlight and to do large or grand things for “God.”

He also covers how unhealthy church cultures have a vested interest in NOT confronting the unhealth within their emotional system because they have invested too much time and capital around the narcissistic leader who is still able to “fill the pews.”

Healthy church cultures are committed to action, not to whispering lip service.  They may not be perfect, but they at least can self-correct, self-diagnose, and self-regulate.  Chuck DeGroat is absolutely correct, healthy churches walk the walk rather than just talk the talk.

Parable of the Week:

The Gardening Samurai

One day, an older Samurai warrior was out in his garden.

A potential student approached him and inquired if he was still able or willing to take on a protege.

The Samurai put down his gardening tools, stood, and turned around to inspect the potential student.

He was young and strapping, clearly physically fit, and brandishing two swords at his hips, one short and one long.

The Samurai inspected him for a moment more, but not at anything without, he was inspecting something within the young man.

“No, I will not train you.  Go home to your family.”

“But I cannot, I gave everything up to follow this path in life.  I have trained and disciplined myself on my own for this moment… and you reject me?”

“You have not yet discovered that gardening tools are more desirable than blades.  You are in love with war, not with peace.”

• Previous Entry: A Pattern of Reciprocity
• Next Entry: Next Post