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.

____________________________________________________

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
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.

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.

_____________________________________________________

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.

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
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

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
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.”

Hope and Humility
Wednesday, July 18, 2018

At a time when our politics may seem bleak and hopeless, poet, peacemaker, minister, and scholar John Philip Newell offers us both encouragement and challenge:
We live in a moment of grace. Through the hedges of our divisions we are beginning to glimpse again the beauty of life’s oneness. We are beginning to hear, in a way that humanity has never heard before, the essential harmony that lies at the heart of the universe. And we are beginning to understand, amidst the horror and suffering of our divisions, that we will be well to the extent that we move back into relationship with one another, whether as individuals and families or as nations and species. . . .
[Newell reminds us of the Holocaust and how Germany, under Hitler’s command, murdered millions of Jews in Poland.] The German nation was not alone in this. Some of our worst inhumanities as nations, including Britain and America, have been perpetrated on foreign soil and kept at a distance, as if to hide from our own soul the sacrilege of what we are doing. . . . Something in our collective psyche has pretended that the families of another land are not as sacred as the sons and daughters of our own. . . .
Think of the hubris of our lives. Think of our individual arrogance, the way we pursue our own well-being at the neglect and even expense of [others]. . . . Think of the hubris of our nationhood, pretending that we could look after the safety of our homeland by ignoring and even violating the sovereignty of other lands. Think of the hubris of our religion, raising ourselves up over other wisdom traditions and even trying to force our ways on them. Think of the hubris of the human species, pretending that we could look after our own health while exploiting and endangering the life of other species. . . .
[This] is opposite to the way of Jesus, who taught the strength of humility, of being close to the humus, close to the Ground from which we and all things come. The humblest, says Jesus, are “the greatest” (Matthew 18:4). Not that following Jesus’ path of humility is straightforward. Constantly there is tension—the tension of discerning how to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, how to honor the heart of another nation as we honor our own homeland, how to revere the truths of another wisdom tradition as we cherish our own inheritance, how to protect the life of other species as we guard the sanctity of our own life-form. Jesus knew such tension. He was tempted to use his wisdom and his power of presence to serve himself, to lift himself up over others. But to the tempter, he says, “Away with you, Satan!” (Matthew 4:10). Away with the falseness of believing that I can love myself and demean others.

___________________________________________________

Sarah Young,

Jesus Calling

July 18, 2018

I AM NEARER than you think, richly present in all your moments. You are connected to Me by Love-bonds that nothing can sever. However, you may sometimes feel alone because your union with Me is invisible. Ask Me to open your eyes so that you can find Me everywhere. The more aware you are of My Presence, the safer you feel. This is not some sort of escape from reality; it is tuning in to ultimate reality. I am far more Real than the world you can see, hear, and touch. Faith is the confirmation of things we do not see and the conviction of their reality, perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses.

PSALM 90:14; Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.

ACTS 17:27–28; God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28’For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’

HEBREWS 11:1 AMP; 1Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

Richard Rohr

The Politics of Connectedness

Tuesday, July 17, 2018

As I shared last week, the role of religion is to reconnect us—to our truest selves, each other, and to God. If we are all made in God’s image, we are already connected through our inherent, divine DNA. But we’ve forgotten and need reminding! Social psychologist Diarmuid O’Murchu writes about the importance of connection within politics.
Three words encapsulate a new way of being political as we strive to come home to ourselves as a planetary, cosmic and spiritual species: interdependence, sustainability, and justice. In recent decades, we witness a growing awareness of how everything is interconnected and interdependent. But that awareness has scarcely begun to seep into the consciousness of the political arena.
The universe that sustains our existence and the planet that nurtures our relational well-being require political strategies and structures that will both honour and enhance that relational interdependence. And this applies not merely to people but to all creatures inhabiting creation, as well as to the various ecosystems that sustain and nourish our mutual co-existence. In fact, other life forms innately veer in this direction. It is we humans, as vociferous consumers, who threaten the ecological equilibrium. . . .
According to [James Robertson], the shift to a more sustainable political policy will involve:
. . . a shift of emphasis away from means towards ends; away from economic growth towards human development; away from quantitative towards qualitative values and goals; away from the impersonal and organizational towards the personal and interpersonal; and away from the earning and spending of money towards the meeting of real human needs and aspirations. A culture that has been masculine, aggressive and domineering in its outlook will give place to one which is more feminine, cooperative and supportive. A culture that has exalted the uniformly European will give place to one which values the multi-cultural richness and diversity of human experience. An anthropocentric worldview that has licensed the human species to exploit the rest of nature as if from above and outside it, will give place to an ecological worldview. We shall recognize that survival and self-realization alike require us to act as what we really are—integral parts of an ecosystem much larger, more complex, and more powerful than ourselves. [1]
. . . Alternative structures can achieve little without a new vision of how reality works. The real conversion confronting humanity today is a transformation of consciousness rather than mechanistic changes in human or social behavior.
I am consciously advocating a subversive strategy for future political engagement. Current models of political activity are largely beyond reform. We need to withhold our support and redirect our imagination and energy into different, more egalitarian, ecological and sustainable ways for relating to creation and to other people.

_______________________________________________________

Sarah Young, Jesus Calling

July 17, 2018

COME AWAY WITH ME for a while. The world, with its nonstop demands, can be put on hold. Most people put Me on hold, rationalizing that someday they will find time to focus on Me. But the longer people push Me into the background of their lives, the harder it is for them to find Me. You live among people who glorify busyness; they have made time a tyrant that controls their lives. Even those who know Me as Savior tend to march to the tempo of the world. They have bought into the illusion that more is always better: more meetings, more programs, more activity. I have called you to follow Me on a solitary path, making time alone with Me your highest priority and deepest Joy. It is a pathway largely unappreciated and often despised. However, you have chosen the better thing, which will never be taken away from you. Moreover, as you walk close to Me, I can bless others through you.

SONG OF SONGS 2:13; The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance. Arise, come, my darling; my beautiful one, come with me.”

LUKE 10:41–42; Martha, Martha,” the LORD answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42but few things are needed-or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Another Power
Sunday, July 15, 2018

Doom to you who legislate evil, who make laws that make victims—laws that make misery for the poor, that rob my destitute people of dignity, exploiting defenseless widows, taking advantage of homeless children. —Isaiah 10:1-2, The Message

Beside the streams of Babylon, we sat and wept, trying to remember Mount Zion. —Psalm 137:1

As a follower of both Jesus and Francis of Assisi, my primary moral viewpoint is not based in the well-being of those who are on top but at the bottom. Parker Palmer describes the impact when this is not our priority: “When we forget that politics is about weaving a fabric of compassion and justice on which everyone can depend, the first to suffer are the most vulnerable among us—our children, our elderly, our mentally ill, our poor, and our homeless. As they suffer, so does the integrity of our democracy.” [1]

In light of this, I will be sharing parts of a document I helped compose with a group of twenty-three Christian leaders and elders of various denominations. We presented “Reclaiming Jesus: A Confession of Faith in a Time of Crisis” to the White House on May 24 in a pilgrimage of over 1,000 believers. [2] As a Franciscan Catholic, I proudly wore the habit of St. Francis. For the vulnerable who have been rendered more vulnerable by the current United States’ administration, we lament and pray and promise to stand with you. We acknowledge and affirm:

We are living through perilous and polarizing times as a nation, with a dangerous crisis of moral and political leadership at the highest levels of our government and in our churches. We believe the soul of the nation and the integrity of faith are now at stake.

[As Christians,] it is time to be followers of Jesus before anything else—nationality, political party, race, ethnicity, gender, geography—our identity in Christ precedes every other identity. . . . “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). [3]

Parker Palmer broadens this shared responsibility to those of other faiths:

All three traditions [Christianity, Judaism, and Islam] are misunderstood because some of their alleged adherents engage in hateful and violent behavior that distorts and defies the values they claim to represent. At their core, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and all of the major world religions are committed to compassion and hospitality. . . . In this fact lies the hope that we might reclaim their power to help reweave our tattered civic fabric. [4]

The Hebrew prophets, Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammed first appear to be “nothing,” outside the system, and really of no consequence. But like leaven and yeast, their much deeper power rises, again and again, in every age, while kings, tyrants, and empires change and pass away.

——————————-

Service Instead of Domination
Monday, July 16, 2018

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. —2 Corinthians 13:13

Without the nondual mind, it’s almost impossible for us to find another way of doing politics. Grounding social action in contemplative consciousness is not a luxury for a few but a cultural necessity. Both the Christian religion and American psyche need deep cleansing and healing from our many unhealed wounds. Only a contemplative mind can hold our fear, confusion, vulnerability, and anger and guide us toward love.

Contemplative Christians can model a way of building a collaborative, compassionate politics. I suggest we start by reclaiming the wisdom of Trinity, a circle dance of mutuality and communion. Humans—especially the powerful, the wealthy, and supporters of the patriarchal system—are more comfortable with a divine monarch at the top of pyramidal reality. So Christians made Jesus into a distant, imperial God rather than a living member of divine-human relationship.

Spiritual power is more circular or spiral, and not so much hierarchical. It’s shared and shareable. God’s Spirit is planted within each of us and operating as each of us (see Romans 5:5)! Trinity shows that God’s power is not domination, threat, or coercion. All divine power is shared power and the letting go of autonomous power.

There’s no seeking of power over in the Trinity, but only power with—giving away and humbly receiving. This should have changed all Christian relationships: in churches, marriage, culture, and even international relations. Isaiah tried to teach such servanthood to Israel in the classic four “servant songs.” [1] But Hebrew history preceded what Christianity repeated: both traditions preferred kings, wars, and empires instead of suffering servanthood or leveling love.

Since this is so ingrained in our psyche, we must work hard to dismantle systems of domination. I emphatically state, together with my fellow Christian elders and leaders:

We believe our elected officials are called to public service, not public tyranny, so we must protect the limits, checks, and balances of democracy and encourage humility and civility on the part of elected officials. . . .

We reject any moves toward autocratic political leadership and authoritarian rule. . . . Disrespect for the rule of law, not recognizing the equal importance of our three branches of government, and replacing civility with dehumanizing hostility toward opponents are of great concern to us. Neglecting the ethic of public service and accountability, in favor of personal recognition and gain often characterized by offensive arrogance, are not just political issues for us. They raise deeper concerns about political idolatry, accompanied by false and unconstitutional notions of authority. [2]

What if we actually surrendered to the inner Trinitarian flow and let it be our primary teacher? Our view of politics and authority would utterly change. We already have all the power (dynamis) we need both within us and between us—in fact, Jesus assures us that we are already “clothed” in it “from on high” see Luke 24:49—-“And now I will send the Holy Spirit, just as my Father promised. But stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from heaven.”

———————–

SELF-PITY IS A SLIMY, BOTTOMLESS PIT. Once you fall in, you tend to go deeper and deeper into the mire. As you slide down those slippery walls, you are well on your way to depression, and the darkness is profound. Your only hope is to look up and see the Light of My Presence shining down on you. Though the Light looks dim from your perspective, deep in the pit, those rays of hope can reach you at any depth. While you focus on Me in trust, you rise ever so slowly out of the abyss of despair. Finally, you can reach up and grasp My hand. I will pull you out into the Light again. I will gently cleanse you, washing off the clinging mire. I will cover you with My righteousness and walk with you down the path of Life.

He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the LORD. —PSALM 40:2–3

Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him for the help of His presence. —PSALM 42:5 NASB

The LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love. —PSALM 147:11

Young, Sarah. Jesus Calling