Transition and Transformation
Wednesday, November 21, 2018

Just as we have borne the image of the earthy one, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly one. . . . Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed, in an instant, in the blink of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For that which is corruptible must clothe itself with incorruptibility, and that which is mortal must clothe itself with immortality. —1 Corinthians 15:49, 51-53

Father Thomas Keating reflected on the process and meaning of death:

Death and resurrection, in the Christian perspective at least, can never be separated, and . . . in a very real sense, death is resurrection.

Death seems to be a process of transformation.

The idea that something is dying needs to be investigated to see what it is. It is not we who are really dying but only the false self that is experiencing the end of its illusory view of life—our personal, homemade self, which has been the object of our efforts and is secretly present in virtually all of our good deeds.

What’s dying is not the deepest self, but our dependence and over-identification with the mental ego and its projects, and our cultural conditioning and over-identification with it, including our roles in life.

From this perspective, the dying process is the culmination or the peak of the whole development of the spiritual journey, in which total surrender to God involves the gift of life itself, as we know it.

For that reason it’s not really death, but life reaching out to a fullness that we can’t imagine from this side of the dying process.

So death is . . . the final completion of this process of becoming fully alive and manifesting the triumph of the grace of God in us. [1]

Death could be looked upon as the birth canal into eternal life. A little confining and scary, maybe, yet it’s the passage into a vastly fuller life. Eternal life means perfect happiness without space or time limitations. It is spaciousness itself. You begin to taste it in deep contemplative prayer. You realize that you don’t give it to yourself; it’s already within you. [2]

Our new body will be spiritualized and not limited to its present physical presence and limitations. One aspect of creation is that, once you have been born into this world, you never die because, as the Hindu religions teach, each of us possesses deep within us an inalienable spark of divine love. [The Song of Songs says that love is stronger than death (8:6).] That spark is the same energy that created the Big Bang. . . . [3]

Nothing is more certain than death. It can’t simply be a disaster. It’s rather a transition like all the other transitions and developments of human consciousness all the way up to unity with Ultimate Reality. The latter involves freedom from the senses and our thinking processes; in other words, entering into the simplicity of the divine energy that pours itself out into the world through continuing creation. The divine energy sustains us with immense love and patience through all the stages of consciousness. [4]

Journal DJR
Good Morning Lord
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you. I am in a new phase and it’s like a kid in a candy store. It’s this freedom to let all people be who they are, (and me too) and the possibilities that this opens up. I’ve known this before, but evidently, only in my head. It’s now at a deeper level, so the possibilities are more expansive. Like I am marveling at the idea that I’m really considering leaving where I’ve been and start attending a Baptist church. Up until recently, that was the last place I thought I would find myself. What’s going on here anyway?

You are free. Truth sets you free. and you are gaining some truth in your studies and experiences. Freedom opens up options. You had blockages when you felt comfortable only with people who believed like you. Now that you are free from that and appreciating my diversity, you have more and richer options.

I do know myself, and I’ve previously run amuck with newfound freedoms.

Well, you know yourself. So don’t do that. But if you do, you know I love you, died for you and will be waiting for you to get back to me and take off another layer of blindness. Better yet, don’t ever leave, even if you leave. Take me with you if you go on a wild ride. I am with you, no matter what, just do your best to stay conscious. I like wild rides.

————-

Returning Home
Tuesday, November 20, 2018

I ask . . . that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You. . . . I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity. . . . Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am. . . . —John 17:20-24

At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known. —1 Corinthians 13:12

Two dear friends, Fathers Thomas Keating (1923–2018) and Joseph Boyle (1941–2018), lived many years in community at St. Benedict’s Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado, where they welcomed guests for contemplative retreats. A couple years ago, Lucette Verboven interviewed both of them. She asked Father Joseph if he expected at death to be transformed:

Yes, I expect death to be a transition. I think it is a movement into a space that is not limited by our body and our senses that are quite limited now. I like the phrase in St. Paul, that we will “see God face to face” [1 Corinthians 13:12] and we’ll relate to people and the beauty of who they are without the ego-agendas we have right now.

I see [life after death] as infinite love, as if the whole atmosphere of heaven is filled with God as a kind of vibration going through us. I think that we are going to see and know each other in God, whatever that word means. It strikes me as a homecoming, us returning home to where we come from. . . and all of our brothers and sisters are coming home as well. . . . I certainly have a very deep hope that it is a transition into an incredible related life. [1]

Similarly, Keating wrote:

Death is only a part of the process of living. If the Communion of Saints has become real for us, then every funeral is a celebration of eternal life. That is the great insight of the Mass of the Resurrection, the new funeral rite. Death is not an occasion only for sorrow, but an occasion of rejoicing that our friends or relatives have moved to a deeper level of union and that we will be with them again. [2]

We are all always connected to God and each other and every living being. Most of us just don’t realize it. Jesus prays that we could see things in their unity and wholeness.

Either we learn how to live in communion with others, or, quite simply, we’re not ready for heaven and are already in hell. We have been invited—even now, even today, even this moment—to live in the Communion of Saints, in the Presence, in the Body, in the Life of the eternal and eternally Risen Christ.

There is only One Love that will lead and carry us across when we die. If we are already at home with Love here, we will quite readily move into heaven, Love’s eternal home. Death is not a changing of worlds, as most imagine, as much as the walls of this world infinitely expanding.

Journal DJR

Good Morning Lord,
It’s been a long time since I wrote out my perception of our dialogue together. It was previously rich for a season, but then it seemed to dry up ??? I have missed it. But many things are changing in my life and it seems like it may be time to be with You this way again.

I am always there for you and in you. (John 14:20) In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. But I don’t want you to develop dogma. You say, Blessed are the flexible and it’s true. I want my sons and daughters to be flexible and to experience my Love in many ways. Both giving and receiving. Stay flexible, and curious. My love will astound you.

It is. Like you have been showing JD and me… it is easiest and sometimes only seen in the rear view mirror. But as we dive deeper we are learning to walk in and feel your love and see it everywhere.

Good, keep on coming.

Some things you are showing me are deeper levels of what I’ve known before … Like that I can be OK just knowing and experiencing You… and that I don’t need to evangelize or convert those who don’t see things the same way. Everything belongs, Let it be, and all things work together… as Richard Rohr, the Beatles, and St Paul said. It is such a freedom. It opens up new possibilities. I feel so free, I didn’t realize the constriction I had been walking in. Wow! Thanks!

This is the freedom I want for all my kids. But don’t jump out there and start selling a new Freedom Pack. I’ve been teaching you what I had your elder brother Francis say… Preach the gospel always, but only if absolutely necessary, use words. So live free and walk with me. We’ll have a good time. And when you cross over, like Reba, we’ll have an even better time. And in a few cases, (Holy Spirit will let you know) I’ll have you share. If you’re really attentive, I’ll even give you the words.

Crossing over is easier if you’ve been walking close with me all along. Not just with obedience and checklists but heart to heart like you are learning.

Thanks for all the blessings. I have self identified as post-denominational and have enjoyed walking free of the the hierarchy and bureaucracy of denominations (and also political parties) Now my new opportunity, possibility is to walk in love and acceptance with people who see core issues differently than you’ve shown me. (Agree on the main things and agree to disagree on a few things and walk together sharing the Love)

You’ve said it well. Just go walk it out and my Spirit will lead you.

Death and Resurrection: Week 1
All Things New
Sunday, November 18, 2018
Behold, I make all things new. —Revelation 21:5
As I’ve recently faced my own mortality through cancer once again, I’ve been comforted by others who have experienced loss and aging with fearless grace. Over the next few days I’ll share some of their thoughts. Today, join me in reflecting on this passage from Quaker teacher and author Parker Palmer’s new book, On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity and Getting Old.
I’m a professional melancholic, and for years my delight in the autumn color show quickly morphed into sadness as I watched the beauty die. Focused on the browning of summer’s green growth, I allowed the prospect of death to eclipse all that’s life-giving about the fall and its sensuous delights.
Then I began to understand a simple fact: all the “falling” that’s going on out there is full of promise. Seeds are being planted and leaves are being composted as earth prepares for yet another uprising of green.
Today, as I weather the late autumn of my own life, I find nature a trustworthy guide. It’s easy to fixate on everything that goes to the ground as time goes by: the disintegration of a relationship, the disappearance of good work well done, the diminishment of a sense of purpose and meaning. But as I’ve come to understand that life “composts” and “seeds” us as autumn does the earth, I’ve seen how possibility gets planted in us even in the hardest of times.
Looking back, I see how the job I lost pushed me to find work that was mine to do, how the “Road Closed” sign turned me toward terrain that I’m glad I traveled, how losses that felt irredeemable forced me to find new sources of meaning. In each of these experiences, it felt as though something was dying, and so it was. Yet deep down, amid all the falling, the seeds of new life were always being silently and lavishly sown. . . .
Perhaps death possesses a grace that we who fear dying, who find it ugly and even obscene, cannot see. How shall we understand nature’s testimony that dying itself—as devastating as we know it can be—contains the hope of a certain beauty?
The closest I’ve ever come to answering that question begins with these words from Thomas Merton, . . . “There is in all visible things . . . a hidden wholeness.” [1]
In the visible world of nature, a great truth is concealed in plain sight. Diminishment and beauty, darkness and light, death and life are not opposites: they are held together in the paradox of the “hidden wholeness.” In a paradox, opposites do not negate each other—they cohabit and cocreate in mysterious unity at the heart of reality. Deeper still, they need each other for health, just as our well-being depends on breathing in and breathing out. . . .
When I give myself over to organic reality—to the endless interplay of darkness and light, falling and rising—the life I am given is as real and colorful, fruitful and whole as this graced and graceful world and the seasonal cycles that make it so. Though I still grieve as beauty goes to ground, autumn reminds me to celebrate the primal power that is forever making all things new in me, in us, and in the natural world.

—————-

The Abyss of Grief
Monday, November 19, 2018

My friend and brilliant translator of many mystics, Mirabai Starr, who lives nearby in Taos, New Mexico, has encountered numerous deaths and losses, each cultivating in her a deeper spiritual practice and longing for God. But the death of her fourteen-year-old daughter, Jenny, in a car crash was “an avalanche,” Starr writes, “annihilating everything in its path”:

Suddenly, the sacred fire I have been chasing all my life engulfed me. I was plunged into the abyss, instantaneously dropped into the vast stillness and pulsing silence at which all my favorite mystics hint. So shattered I could not see my own hand in front of my face, I was suspended in the invisible arms of a Love I had only dreamed of. Immolated, I found myself resting in fire. Drowning, I surrendered, and discovered I could breathe under water.

So this was the state of profound suchness I had been searching for during all those years of contemplative practice. This was the holy longing the saints had been talking about in poems that had broken my heart again and again. This was the sacred emptiness that put that small smile on the face of the great sages. And I hated it. I didn’t want vastness of being. I wanted my baby back.

But I discovered that there was nowhere to hide when radical sorrow unraveled the fabric of my life. I could rage against the terrible unknown—and I did, for I am human and have this vulnerable body, passionate heart, and complicated mind—or I could turn toward the cup, bow to the Cupbearer, and say, “Yes.”

I didn’t do it right away, nor was I able to sustain it when I did manage a breath of surrender. But gradually I learned to soften into the pain and yield to my suffering. In the process, compassion for all suffering beings began unexpectedly to swell in my heart. I became acutely aware of my connectedness to mothers everywhere who had lost children, who were, at this very moment, hearing the impossible news that their child had died. . . . .

Grief strips us. According to the mystics, this is good news. Because it is only when we are naked that we can have union with the Beloved. We can cultivate spiritual disciplines designed to dismantle our identity so that we have hope of merging with the Divine. Or someone we love very much may die, and we may find ourselves catapulted into the emptiness we had been striving for. Even as we cry out in the anguish of loss, the boundless love of the Holy One comes pouring into the shattered container of our hearts. This replenishing of our emptiness is a mystery, it is grace, and it is built into the human condition.

Few among us would ever opt for the narrow gate of grief, even if it were guaranteed to lead us to God. But if our most profound losses—the death of a loved one, the ending of a marriage or a career, catastrophic disease or alienation from community—bring us to our knees before that threshold, we might as well enter. The Beloved might be waiting in the next room.

Death and Resurrection: Week 1

Do Not Be Afraid
Friday, November 16, 2018

I am aware of the phrase “true self” occurring only once in the Bible. Paul used the words to describe what he was desperately trying to locate in the midst of some major trials with his false self. He wrote of it in a telling way: “When I act against my own will, then it is not my true self doing it, but sin which lives in me” (Romans 7:20, Jerusalem Bible). Somehow, he knew there was a part of him that was authentic, steadfast, and true to its God-given and loving nature.

Paul then contrasted the true self with what we are calling the false self and he called “sin” (7:14-25). It is the self that is always passing away. This is our cozy image of ourselves as individual and autonomous, as separate from God and everyone and everything else. When this “separate” self is all we think we are, no wonder we are afraid of dying. Because this is all we know and have—if we have not discovered our soul, that is. The false self is terrified of death because it knows the mental construct that it calls “myself” is indeed passing away because it is merely self-constructed and fragile. The false self has no substance, no permanence, no vitality, only various forms of immediate gratification.

Whenever we are fearing death, whether physical death or the loss of some egoic attachment, we are in our false self at that moment. The false self is not really bad or evil, but just inadequate to the big questions of love, death, suffering, God, or infinity. God allows and uses all our diversionary tactics to get us to move toward our full and final destination, which is divine union—and thus wholeness. That is how perfect and patient divine love is: Nothing is wasted; even our mistakes are the raw material to turn us back into love.

The True Self will surely have doubts about the unknown. But the True Self is the Risen Christ in you, and hence, it is not afraid of death. It has already been to hell and back. The Risen Christ in us knows that it will never lose anything real by dying. This is the necessary suffering of walking the full human path. That is what Jesus did and why we are invited to “reproduce the pattern of his death,” each in our own way, so that we can also take our place in the “force field” of God’s universal resurrection (see Philippians 3:10-11 and Acts 3:21).

In Thich Nhat Hanh’s words, “Enlightenment for a wave is the moment the wave realizes that it is water. At that moment, all fear of death disappears.” [1]

And in Stephen Levine’s:

But water is water, no matter what its shape or form. The solidity of ice imagines itself to be its edges and density. Melting, it remembers; evaporating, it ascends. [2]

So do not be afraid. Death to false self and the end of human life is simply a return to our Ground of Being, to God, to Love. Life doesn’t truly end; it simply changes form and continues evolving into ever new shapes and beauty.

_____________________________________________________________

Sarah Young; Jesus Calling

November 16, 2018

AS YOU LOOK at the day before you, you see a twisted, complicated path, with branches going off in all directions. You wonder how you can possibly find your way through that maze. Then you remember the One who is with you always, holding you by your right hand. You recall My promise to guide you with My counsel, and you begin to relax. As you look again at the path ahead, you notice that a peaceful fog has settled over it, obscuring your view. You can see only a few steps in front of you, so you turn your attention more fully to Me and begin to enjoy My Presence. The fog is a protection for you, calling you back into the present moment. Although I inhabit all of space and time, you can communicate with Me only here and now. Someday the fog will no longer be necessary, for you will have learned to keep your focus on Me and on the path just ahead of you.

PSALM 73: 23– 24; Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory.

PSALM 25: 4– 5; 4 Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths. 5 Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.

1 CORINTHIANS 13: 12; For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

Death and Resurrection: Week 1

Becoming Who You Are
Thursday, November 15, 2018

There is a thread you follow. It goes among
Things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.
—William Stafford [1]

My words for the thread that Stafford speaks of are the True Self. Your True Self is who you are, and always have been, created in the image and likeness of God who is love (1 John 4:8, 16). Love is both who you are and who you are still becoming, like a sunflower seed that becomes its own sunflower. Most of human history has called the True Self your “soul” or your participation in the eternal life of God.

The great surprise and irony is that “you,” or who you think you are, have nothing to do with your True Self’s original creation, and you can never get rid of it. It’s sort of disempowering and utterly empowering at the same time, isn’t it? All you can do is nurture your True Self, which is saying quite a lot. It is love becoming love in this unique form called “me.”

The dying process at every stage of life is a natural opportunity to let go of the small, separate self and return to the fullness of True Self. Kathleen Dowling Singh, who spent hundreds of hours contemplatively ministering to dying people, wrote:

As we return and/or are returned to our Original Nature, virtues that we have acquired, usually through deliberate cultivation, flow naturally as water from a spring. The qualities of loving-kindness, compassion, presence, centeredness, spaciousness, mercy, and confidence all radiate naturally forth from our transformed being as we come closer to death. . . . Many a time I have seen the dying comfort those in pain around them. . . .

Love appears to be the last connection the dying have with the world of form. We become expressive vehicles for the power of the Ground of Being [i.e., God], inhabited and vitalized by far greater Being. . . . The Ground of Being is, in a very real sense, Love. As we merge with it, self-consciousness and all questions of self-worth and previous psychological issues of lovability spontaneously melt. Love simultaneously pours into and pours out of us. . . .

With this basic change in identity, in the sense of who we are, death is no longer seen through the peephole of the mental ego. It ceases being a frightening enemy, a defeat, an unfortunate error in the universe and becomes, instead, an incredible moment of growth and transformation. It is a graduation into a previously unimaginable scale of being. [2]

_____________________________________________________

Sara Young Jesus Calling

APPROACH PROBLEMS with a light touch. When your mind moves toward a problem area you tend to focus on that situation so intensely that you lose sight of Me. You pit yourself against the difficulty as if you had to conquer it immediately. Your mind gears up for battle, and your body becomes tense and anxious. Unless you achieve total victory, you feel defeated. There is a better way. When a problem starts to overshadow your thoughts, bring this matter to Me. Talk with Me about it and look at it in the Light of My Presence. This puts some much-needed space between you and your concern, enabling you to see from My perspective.

You will be surprised at the results. Sometimes you may even laugh at yourself for being so serious about something so insignificant. You will always face trouble in this life. But more importantly, you will always have Me with you, helping you to handle whatever you encounter. Approach problems with a light touch by viewing them in My revealing Light.

LUKE 12: 25 ESV;  And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?

 PSALM 89: 15; Happy are those who hear the joyful call to worship, for they will walk in the light of your presence, LORD.

JOHN 16: 33; I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

The Illusion of Separation
Wednesday, November 14, 2018

Hopefully we begin life as “holy innocents” in the Garden, with a conscious connection to Being. The gaze of loving, caring parents can mirror us as the beloved and gives us a primal experience of life as union. But sooner or later we all have to leave the Garden. We can’t stay there. We begin the process of individuation, which includes at least four major splits, ways of forgetting our inherent oneness and creating an illusion of separation.

The first split is very understandable. We split ourselves from other selves. We see mom and dad and other family members over there, and we’re over here. We start looking out at life with ourselves as the center point. It’s the beginning of egocentricity. My ego is the center; what I like, what I want, what I need is what matters. Please know that the ego is not bad; it is just not all. The development of a healthy, strong ego is important to human growth.

The second split divides life from death. It comes when we first experience the death of someone we know, perhaps a beloved pet or grandparent. The ego begins differentiating those who are alive and those who are gone. We may then spend our whole life trying to avoid any kind of death, including anything that’s negative, uncomfortable, difficult, unfamiliar, dangerous, or demanding. But at some point, we’ll discover that life and death, negative and positive, are part of the same unavoidable reality. Everything is living and dying simultaneously.

The third split separates mind from body and soul. In the West, we typically give the mind priority and come to identify strongly with our thoughts. As Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am.” By the age of seven most of us “think we are our thinking” and it’s our thinking that largely defines us. This is the lie that meditation helps us unravel.

The fourth split is the acceptable self from the unacceptable self. We split from our shadow self and pretend to be our idealized self, or what others say we should be. The shadow self contains not only the qualities of which we’re ashamed but also the positive and beautiful traits we’ve forgotten or fear (our “golden” shadow, as some call it).

Splitting is a coping mechanism, a way of surviving. But as we grow, find healing for trauma, and develop mature emotional and spiritual practices, we become able to incorporate that which we have denied and from which we’ve split. Each of these four illusions must—and will—be overcome, either in this world, in our last days and hours, or afterward. That is “resurrection”!

Each of these splits from reality makes any experience of God or our True Self largely impossible. Spiritual practices and the process of dying are both about overcoming these four splits. Kathleen Dowling Singh observed:

The Path of Return involves the healing of previously created dualities [or splits]—in reverse order. . . . The mental ego is humblingly and disturbingly divested of its false sense of being and stripped of its illusions. The sense of self, quite often kicking and screaming, begins its return to the underlying Ground of Being, its own Essential Nature. [1]

——————–

BASK IN THE LUXURY of being fully understood and unconditionally loved. Dare to see yourself as I see you: radiant in My righteousness, cleansed by My blood. I view you as the one I created you to be, the one you will be in actuality when heaven becomes your home. It is My Life within you that is changing you from glory to glory. Rejoice in this mysterious miracle! Thank Me continually for the amazing gift of My Spirit within you.
Try to depend on the help of the Spirit as you go through this day of life. Pause briefly from time to time so you can consult with this Holy One inside you. He will not force you to do His bidding, but He will guide you as you give Him space in your life. Walk along this wondrous way of collaboration with My Spirit.

PSALM 34: 5; Those who look to him are radiant,
and their faces shall never be ashamed.

2 CORINTHIANS 5: 21; For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 CORINTHIANS 3:18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

GALATIANS 5: 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

Science: Week 2

Discovering Our Story
Friday, November 13, 2015

Today we are realizing that “science and religion are long lost dance partners,” to use Rob Bell’s words. Ilia Delio writes, “Raimon Panikkar said that when theology is divorced from cosmology, we no longer have a living God, but an idea of God. God then becomes a thought that can be accepted or rejected rather than the experience of divine ultimacy. Because theology has not developed in tandem with science (or science in tandem with theology) since the Middle Ages, we have an enormous gap between the transcendent dimension of human existence (the religious dimension) and the meaning of physical reality as science understands it (the material dimension). This gap underlies our global problems today, from the environmental crisis to economic disparity and the denigration of women.” [1]

Stephen Hawking, a theoretical physicist and cosmologist, believes humans have an innate drive to make sense of the world. But, he says,

Up to now, most scientists have been too occupied with the development of new theories that describe what the universe is to ask why. On the other hand, the people whose business it is to ask why, the philosophers [and, I would add, theologians] have not been able to keep up with the advance of scientific theory. . . . If we do discover a complete theory [of the universe], it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason—for then we would know the mind of God. [2]

Mary Evelyn Tucker and Brian Swimme have helped our generation rediscover our common narrative, our shared cosmology. They write:

Just as we are realizing the vast expanse of time that distinguishes the evolution of the universe over some 13.7 billion years, we are recognizing how late is our arrival in this stupendous process. Just as we are becoming conscious that Earth took more than 4 billion years to bring forth this abundance of life, it is dawning on us how quickly we are foreshortening its future flourishing. We need, then, to step back, to assimilate our cosmological context. If scientific cosmology gives us an understanding of the origins and unfolding of the universe, philosophical reflection on scientific cosmology gives us a sense of our place in the universe. [3]

I regret to say that there has been a massive loss of hope in Western history, a hope still so grandly evident in people like Julian of Norwich, Francis of Assisi, and Bonaventure. (Are not the World Wars of Christian countries a clear sign of this loss? Genocides are surely a symptom of deep self-loathing and fear.) Bonaventure’s God was so much bigger and more glorious than someone to be afraid of, or the one who punished bad guys—because his cosmos was itself huge, benevolent, and coherent. Did his big God beget an equally big and generous cosmos? Or did his big cosmos imply a very big God? You can start on either side. For many in our time, an initial reverence for the universe leads them to reverence whoever created this infinity of Mystery and Beauty. [4] We must now admit that it did not work very well the other way around. Those focused primarily on talking about God somehow couldn’t see a universe as holy, as big, and as good as the one who supposedly created it.

May this awe and reverence lead us to care for each other and our common home quickly, before we run out of time.

Most Recent Post

Friend,

When I founded the Center for Action and Contemplation in 1987—and even when we began sending my Daily Meditations in 2007—I never imagined how this work would evolve and grow. Over the years, our readers’ generosity has made so much possible! As I witness how hearts and minds have changed, I’m convinced that the CAC’s mission is still important.

Twice a year we pause the Daily Meditations to ask for your support. Even with all the suffering in the world and my own experiences of heart attack and cancer, I trust that God is healing and transforming all pain. In the time I have left, I have a renewed passion to help others recognize the divine image in themselves and every other created being. I believe this divine seeing will help reconcile our differences and change the way we live. These are the eyes that have taught me everything important.

I hope the CAC’s contemplative teachings awaken Love within each person. If you’ve been impacted by this work, please consider donating. Even a few dollars make a big difference!

We are committed to keeping the Daily Meditations free. As our online community grows, both our joy and our costs increase. But donations keep the daily emails going—day in and day out. Donations also fund scholarships and the creation of other programs that bring this critical, prophetic wisdom to new light.

Take a moment to read our Executive Director Michael’s note below about how you can help and the special gift we’d like to share. Tomorrow the Daily Meditations will continue exploring the surprising places in which God’s “image and likeness” is found—even in loss and dying.

Together let’s continue cultivating the likeness of God in ourselves and in our world.

Sarah Young

Jesus Calling

November 13, 2018

I AM CHRIST IN YOU, the hope of Glory. The One who walks beside you, holding you by your hand, is the same One who lives within you. This is a deep, unfathomable mystery. You and I are intertwined in an intimacy involving every fiber of your being. The Light of My Presence shines within you, as well as upon you. I am in you, and you are in Me; therefore nothing in heaven or on earth can separate you from Me!

As you sit quietly in My Presence, your awareness of My Life within you is heightened. This produces the Joy of the Lord, which is your strength. I, the God of hope, fill you with all Joy and Peace as you trust in Me, so that you may bubble over with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

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.

ISAIAH 42: 6;  I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant …

NEHEMIAH 8: 10; Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy.

ROMANS 15: 13 AMP;  May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing [through the experience of your faith] that by the power of the Holy Spirit you will.

The Ground of Being
Sunday, November 11, 2018

The fact that life and death are “not two” is extremely difficult to grasp, not because it is so complex, but because it is so simple. —Ken Wilber [1]

We miss the unity of life and death at the very point where our ordinary mind begins to think about it. —Kathleen Dowling Singh [2]

To accept death is to accept God. —Thomas Keating [3]

It is no surprise that we humans would deny death’s coming, fight it, and seek to avoid the demise of the only self we have ever known. As hospice worker and psychotherapist Kathleen Dowling Singh put it, “[Death] is the experience of ‘no exit,’ a recognition of the fact that the situation is inescapable, that one is utterly at the mercy of the power of the Ground of Being. . . . It is absurd and monstrous.” [4]

“The Ground of Being,” a commanding phrase that theologian Paul Tillich (1886–1965) used, is an excellent metaphor for what most of us would call God (Acts 17:28). For Singh, it is the source and goal that we deeply desire and desperately fear. It is the Mysterium Tremendum of Rudolf Otto (1869–1937), which is alluring and frightful at the same time. Both God and death feel like “engulfment,” as when you first gave yourself totally to another person. It is the very union that will liberate us, yet we resist, retrench, and run. This is why historic male initiation rites invited the young man to face God and death head on—ahead of time—so he could know for himself that it could do his True Self no harm—but in fact would reveal it. Though we may resist dying at first, afterward we can ask ourselves, “What did I ever lose by dying?”

Death—whether one of many deaths to the false self or our physical dying—is simply returning to our spacious Ground of Being, to our foundation in Love. Kathleen Singh again:

Love is the natural condition of our being, revealed when all else is relinquished, when one has already moved into transpersonal levels of identification and awareness. Love is simply an open state with no boundaries and, as such, is a most inclusive level of consciousness. Love is a quality of the Ground of Being itself. In this regard and at this juncture in the dying process, love can be seen as the final element of life-in-form and the gateway to the formless. [5]

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Nearing Death
Monday, November 12, 2018

Yesterday I introduced Kathleen Dowling Singh (1946–2017), a hospice worker and psychotherapist who accompanied many people at death’s threshold. She was a dear friend and someone whose wisdom I greatly respect. Last year Singh made her own journey passing from life through death and into greater life. In her remarkable book, The Grace in Dying, Singh described what she called the “Nearing Death Experience” that she observed time and again:

I realized that what I had been witnessing in the process of dying was grace, all around, shimmering and penetrating. I began, with newly opened eyes, to observe the subtlety of this grace and to observe the qualities of grace in those nearing death. I became aware that all of the observed qualities of the Nearing Death Experience point to the fact that there is profound psychoalchemy occurring here, a passage to deeper being. As I worked with dying people from all walks of life and at many different levels of spiritual evolution, normative patterns of change, of transformations in consciousness, became apparent.

There appears to be a universal, sequential progression into deeper, subtler, and more enveloping dimensions of awareness, identity, and being as we begin to die—a movement from the periphery into the Center. Further, I realized that the transformation I was observing in people who were nearing death was the same psychoalchemy—in a greatly accelerated mode—that I had noticed in myself through two and a half decades of practicing contemplative disciplines and in the people with whom I had worked as a psychospiritual counselor.

I have come to believe that the time of dying effects a transformation from perceived tragedy to experienced grace. Beyond that, I think this transformation is a universal process. Although relatively unexamined, the Nearing Death Experience has profound implications. Dying offers the possibility of entering the radiance, the vastness, of our Essential Nature, at least for a few precious moments. . . .

The Nearing Death Experience implies a natural and conscious remerging with the Ground of Being from which we have all once unconsciously emerged. A transformation occurs from the point of terror at the contemplation of the loss of our separate, personal self to a merging into the deep, nurturing, ineffable experience of Unity.

My experience is that most people who are dying have no conscious desire for transcendence; most of us do not live at the level of depth where such a longing is a conscious priority. And, yet, everyone does seem to enter a transcendent and transformed level of consciousness in the Nearing Death Experience. . . . It is rather profound and encouraging to contemplate these indications that the life and death of a human being is so exquisitely calibrated as to automatically produce union with Spirit.

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THIS IS A TIME OF ABUNDANCE in your life. Your cup runneth over with blessings. After plodding uphill for many weeks, you are now traipsing through lush meadows drenched in warm sunshine. I want you to enjoy to the full this time of ease and refreshment. I delight in providing it for you. Sometimes My children hesitate to receive My good gifts with open hands. Feelings of false guilt creep in, telling them they don’t deserve to be so richly blessed. This is nonsense-thinking because no one deserves anything from Me. My kingdom is not about earning and deserving; it’s about believing and receiving. When a child of Mine balks at accepting My gifts, I am deeply grieved. When you receive My abundant blessings with a grateful heart, I rejoice. My pleasure in giving and your pleasure in receiving flow together in joyous harmony.

PSALM 23: 5 KJV;
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

JOHN 3: 16;
“For God loved the world in this way:[a] He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.

LUKE 11: 9– 10;
“So I say to you, keep asking,[a] and it will be given to you. Keep searching,[b] and you will find. Keep knocking,[c] and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who searches finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

ROMANS 8: 32
“So I say to you, keep asking, and it will be given to you. Keep searching, and you will find. Keep knocking,[c] and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who searches finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

The Meaning of Spiritual Love
Wednesday, November 7, 2018

When you looked at me
Your eyes imprinted your grace in me;
For this you loved me ardently;
And thus my eyes deserved
To adore what they behold in you.
. . . And let us go forth to behold ourselves in your beauty.
—John of the Cross [1]

When we read poetry as beautiful and profound as this verse, we can see why John of the Cross (1542–1591) was far ahead of his time in the spiritual and psychological understanding of how love works and how it changes us at a deep level. He consistently speaks of divine love as the template and model for all human love, and human love as the necessary school and preparation for any transcendent encounter.

In the inspired passage above, John describes the very process of love at its best. Here is my paraphrase:

You give a piece of yourself to the other.
You see a piece of yourself in the other (usually unconsciously).
This allows the other to do the same in return.
You do not need or demand anything back from them,
because you know that you are both participating
in a single, Bigger Gazing and Loving—
one that fully satisfies and creates an immense Inner Aliveness.
Simply to love is its own reward.

You accept being accepted—for no reason and by no criteria whatsoever! This is the key that unlocks everything in me, for others, and toward God. So much so that we call it “salvation”!

To put it another way, what I let God see and accept in me also becomes what I can see and accept in myself. And even more, it becomes that whereby I see everything else. This is why it is crucial to allow God and at least one other person to see us in our imperfection and even in our nakedness, as we are—rather than as we ideally wish to be. It is also why we must give others this same experience of being looked upon in their imperfection; otherwise, they will never know the essential and utterly transformative mystery of grace. This is the glue that binds the universe of persons together.

Such utterly free and gratuitous love is the only love that validates, transforms, and changes us at the deepest levels of consciousness. It is what we all desire and what we were created for. Once we allow it for ourselves, we will almost naturally become a conduit of the same for others. In fact, nothing else will attract us anymore or even make much sense.

Can you let God “look upon you in your lowliness,” as Mary put it (Luke 1:48), without waiting for some future moment when you believe you are worthy? Simply love what God sees in you. Many of us never go there, because to be loved in this way is to live in the naked now, and it is indeed a very naked moment.

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WORSHIP ME in the beauty of holiness. All true beauty reflects some of who I AM. I am working My ways in you: the divine Artist creating loveliness within your being. My main work is to clear out debris and clutter, making room for My Spirit to take full possession. Collaborate with Me in this effort by being willing to let go of anything I choose to take away. I know what you need, and I have promised to provide all of that— abundantly!
Your sense of security must not rest in your possessions or in things going your way. I am training you to depend on Me alone, finding fulfillment in My Presence. This entails being satisfied with much or with little, accepting either as My will for the moment. Instead of grasping and controlling, you are learning to release and receive. Cultivate this receptive stance by trusting Me in every situation.

PSALM 29: 2 NKJV;
Give unto the Lord the glory due to His name;
Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

PSALM 27: 4;
One thing have I asked of the Lord,
that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord
and to inquire[a] in his temple.

PSALM 52: 8
But I am like a green olive tree
in the house of God.
I trust in the steadfast love of God
forever and ever.

Young, Sarah. Jesus Calling Morning

Richard Rohr
Seeing with God’s Eyes
Tuesday, November 6, 2018

Love [people] even in [their] sin, for that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on earth. Love all God’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you have perceived it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love. —Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov [1]
God refuses to be known in the way we usually know other objects; God can only be known by loving God. Yet much of religion has tried to know God by words, theories, doctrines, and dogmas. Belief systems have their place; they provide a necessary and structured beginning point, just as the dualistic mind is good as far as it goes. But then we need the nondual or mystical mind to love and fully experience limited ordinary things and to peek through the cloud to glimpse infinite and seemingly invisible things. This is the contemplative mind that can “know spiritual things in a spiritual way,” as Paul says (1 Corinthians 2:13).
What does it mean when Jesus tells us to love God with our whole heart, soul, mind (not just our dualistic mind), and strength (Luke 10:27)? What does it mean, as the first commandment instructs us, to love God more than anything else? To love God is to love what God loves. To love God means to love everything . . . no exceptions.
Of course, that can only be done with divine love flowing through us. In this way, we can love things and people in themselves, for themselves—not for what they do for us. That’s when we begin to love our family, friends, and neighbors apart from what they can do for us or how they make us look. We love them as living images of God in themselves, despite their finiteness.
Now that takes work: constant detachment from ourselves—our conditioning, preferences, and knee-jerk reactions. We can only allow divine love to flow by way of contemplative consciousness, where we stop eliminating and choosing. This is the transformed mind (see Romans 12:2) that allows us to see God in everything and empowers our behavior to almost naturally change.
Religion, from the root religio, means to reconnect, to bind back together. I would describe mystical moments as those attention-grabbing experiences that overcome the gap between you and other people, events, or objects, and even God, where the illusion of separation disappears. The work of spirituality is to look with a different pair of nondual eyes, beyond what Thomas Merton calls “the shadow and the disguise” [2] of things until we can see them in their connectedness and wholeness. In a very real sense, the word “God” is just a synonym for everything. So if you do not want to get involved with everything, stay away from God.

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Young, Sarah. Jesus Calling

November 6, 2018

SEEK TO PLEASE ME above all else. As you journey through today, there will be many choice-points along your way. Most of the day’s decisions will be small ones you have to make quickly. You need some rule of thumb to help you make good choices. Many people’s decisions are a combination of their habitual responses and their desire to please themselves or others. This is not My way for you. Strive to please Me in everything, not just in major decisions. This is possible only to the extent that you are living in close communion with Me.

When My Presence is your deepest delight, you know almost instinctively what will please Me. A quick glance at Me is all you need to make the right choice. Delight yourself in Me more and more; seek My pleasure in all you do.

JOHN 8: 29; And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.”

HEBREWS 11: 5– 6; 5 By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God. 6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that …

PSALM 37: 4; Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.