Dear CO Few guys
A phrase I used a lot back when I first started teaching contemplation was the idea associated with Albert Einstein that no problem can be solved by the same consciousness that created it. It is so brilliant! It makes the case for contemplation almost better than anything.
I don’t believe I’m overstating it when I say that only the contemplative mind can help bring forward the new consciousness needed to awaken a more loving, just, and sustainable world. We need a practice that touches our unconscious conditioning where all our wounds and defense mechanisms lie. That’s the only way we can be changed at any significant or lasting level.
Because we’ve got to be honest — the dualistic, calculating, and judging mind is almost exclusively the way most of us Western people think. This gives us false superiority, false security, and false righteousness. Is it any wonder why our culture, politics, and religion are in the state that they are in?
Nevertheless, I still have hope. I always will. More and more people are discovering contemplation as a way of being, reconciling, and bridge-building guided by their inner experience of God. We’re not throwing out our rational mind, but rather we’re adding nondual, contemplative consciousness. When we have both, we’re able to see more deeply, wisely, and justly. This creates humble people, loving people, and patient people.
Thank you for being one of these people and for caring deeply about this work. The Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) is not funded by any large institution or foundation but by people like you who give freely and joyfully to support it. Through your support, we can help more people become contemplative instruments of love and transformation in this suffering world.
Please read the letter below from CAC’s Executive Director, Michael Poffenberger, about the important opportunities ahead. Tomorrow, the Daily Meditations return to explore the spiritual journey of homecoming.
Peace and Every Good,
Richard Rohr, OFM
Dear CO Few guys
When you look at the state of the world, it is clear that business as usual will not cut it. As a global community, we are facing a complex set of interrelated challenges. We need to approach these challenges from a different mind (contemplation) to find a way forward that recognizes all life as sacred, precious, and connected.
At the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC), we aim to serve as a catalyzing force for change of consciousness inside Christianity and each of our communities. By working towards our vision of transformed people helping to transform our world, we are part of a movement that seeks to recover Jesus’ focus on nondual thinking, simplicity of lifestyle, nonviolence, love of creation and the healing of our beautiful and suffering world. Over the next few years, our work at CAC will focus on sustaining and growing this impact for future generations. Excitingly, this is already in motion, thanks to the support and generosity of people like you.
We pause the Daily Meditations, twice per year, and invite your financial support. If you are able to support the work of the CAC, please consider making a one-time donation or recurring monthly gift.
We specifically appreciate those of you who have chosen to give to CAC every month to support this work. Your consistent support provides the confidence, resources, and stability needed to invest significantly in expanding our team, technology, faculty, and ability to offer more programs “in the gift” so that money is never the barrier to access for any sincere student.
If you are able, I would like to invite you to consider joining the Bonaventure Circle of Support, CAC’s growing community of monthly givers, making Christian contemplative wisdom more accessible to a new generation of spiritual seekers. With your ongoing support, more people will experience the transformative power of the contemplative path and discover their belovedness in God—many for the very first time.
As we navigate the incredible challenges and opportunities of the next few years, our highest aim is to honor and share the best parts of the Christian tradition and the traditions of others so that this contemplative wisdom might serve the flourishing of humanity, all beings, and all of creation.
We thank you for your partnership and support in this mission and journey.
In loving gratitude,
Michael Poffenberger
Executive Director
Center for Action and Contemplation
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| The Peril of People Pleasers |
 Jesus ends his Sermon on the Mount with one of the best-known parables in Scripture. He contrasts a wise man who built his house upon the rock with a foolish man who built his on the sand. It is a simple image easily understood even by children. Perhaps that is why it is so frequently found in Sunday school songs and vacation Bible school programs.Although the story is well known, its meaning is not. In my experience, most Christians who know about the wise and the foolish builder completely misunderstand Jesus’ intent for the parable. This is likely the result of well-intentioned but misguided teaching we received as children. I recall being told in Sunday school that the man who built his house upon the rock was a metaphor for Christians, and the foolish man represented non-Christians. The story was used as an evangelistic warning. Those who reject Jesus, we were told, are heading for destruction just like the man whose house fell when the storm came. A closer examination of the parable and its context, however, reveals something different.The parable is about two houses that appear to be identical; the only difference exists below the surface where no one can see. Jesus is not comparing Christians and non-Christians; he is contrasting two kinds of professing Christians—the genuine and the false. Above the surface, they appear the same. As John Stott said, “Both read the Bible, go to church, listen to sermons and buy Christian literature. The reason you often cannot tell the difference between them is that the deep foundations of their lives are hidden from view.”The parable warns us that the most important thing about us, what defines our life and our destiny, is hidden from the view of others. It cannot be seen or praised by those around us, and it goes far deeper than labels or affiliations. Therefore, if we live for the affirmation of others or feel content that we are accepted by the right group we are unlikely to give much attention to our foundations. In other words, if we care most about what others can see we will neglect what only God can see. That error, Jesus warns, will put us in great peril. He says it is the secret, hidden reality upon which we construct our identity that matters most. The world celebrates the grandeur of the house, but the Lord alone knows the quality of its foundation. DAILY SCRIPTURE MATTHEW 7:24-27 MATTHEW 6:2-6 GALATIANS 1:10 WEEKLY PRAYERFrom Charles Kingsley (1819 – 1875) Lift up our hearts, O Christ, above the false shows of things, above laziness and fear, above selfishness and covetousness, above whim and fashion, up to the everlasting Truth that you are; that we may live joyfully and freely, in the faith that you are our King and Savior, our Example and our Judge, and that, so long as we are loyal to you, all will ultimately be well. Amen. |
Click Image for John White's Original Vision For CO2's
