Friday, November 22, 2024

In her book Race and the Cosmos, Dr. Barbara Holmes expands the quest for justice and liberation to a cosmic level.  

The languages of physics and cosmology offer powerful analogies that reveal our cosmic and spiritual identities and empower our collective creativity. One thing is certain: Although we cannot reason our way out of this quandary, we can allow the universe to reveal its secrets through us. We can contemplate and consider together. We can expand our spiritual and cosmic vocabulary and allow the mysteries of life to permeate every cell. We have waited long enough. It’s time to take the transcendent leap forward in hopes of personal and communal healing as well as a shared cosmic future. [1] 

Holmes continues: 

Any community that we construct on Earth will be only a small model of a universe whose community includes billions of stars and planetary systems. Are we alone? We don’t know, but if we don’t know how to become a community with our own species, how shall we find harmony with other life forms in the cosmos? Our ideas of community begin with fragmentation, difference, and disparity seeking wholeness. 

Our beloved community is an attempt to hot-glue disparate cultures, language, and ethnic origins into one mutually committed whole. The universe tells a completely different story—that everything is enfolded into everything….  

Even though the languages of the new physics and cosmology discard mechanistic understandings of the universe in favor of potential, we love order. We see it where it doesn’t exist and impose it through our narratives. Everything that we do conceals the unity that seems to be intrinsic to our life space. We take pictures of objects that seem to be outside of self, we demarcate national boundaries, we align with friends and break with enemies, we give and receive in what seem to be neat sequential packets of life and experience….  

Perhaps in ways that we don’t yet understand, the struggle for justice on many fronts is an enfolding image of the whole—the embodiment of a holistic and unfragmented community. This community … would not be the logical outcome of progressive movements toward an ascertainable external goal, but would be the sum of past, present, and future expectations and disappointments. Then the community-called-beloved becomes all that we can and cannot conceive, all that lies beyond the horizon of apprehension but is available to us as part of the matrix of wholeness….  

We are one, and our wars and racial divisions cannot defeat the wholeness that lies just below the horizon of human awareness…. Diversity may not be a function of human effort or justice. It may just be the sea in which we swim. To enact a just order in human communities is to reclaim a sense of unity with divine and cosmological aspects of the life space. As Hebrew Scripture scholar Terence Fretheim suggests, the “Let us” discourse in Genesis [1:26] is a statement of the community of God. God is creating and ordering the universe, but does not do it alone. [2] 

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Sarah Young; Jesus Calling: November 22

A thankful attitude opens the windows of heaven. Spiritual blessings fall freely onto you through those openings into eternity. Moreover, as you look up with a grateful heart, you get glimpses of Glory through those windows. You cannot yet live in heaven, but you can experience foretastes of your ultimate home. Such samples of heavenly fare revive your hope. Thankfulness opens you up to these experiences, which then provide further reasons to be grateful. Thus, your path becomes an upward spiral: ever increasing in gladness.
     Thankfulness is not some sort of magic formula; it is the language of Love, which enables you to communicate intimately with Me. A thankful mindset does not entail a denial of reality with its plethora of problems. Instead, it rejoices in Me, your Savior, in the midst of trials and tribulations. I am your refuge and strength, an ever-present and well-proved help in trouble.

RELATED SCRIPTURE:

Habakkuk 3:17-18 (NIV)
17 Though the fig tree does not bud
    and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
    and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
    and no cattle in the stalls,
18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
    I will be joyful in God my Savior.

Additional insight from Habukkuk 3:17-19: Crop failure and the death of animals would devastate Judah. But Habakkuk affirmed that even in times of starvation and loss, he would still rejoice in the Lord. Habakkuk’s feelings were not dominated by the events around him but by faith in God’s ability to give him strength. When nothing makes sense and when your troubles seem to be more than you can bear, remember that God gives you strength. Take your eyes off your difficulties and look to him.

Psalm 46:1 (NIV)
Psalm 46
For the director of music. Of the Sons of Korah. According to alamoth. A song.
1 God is our refuge and strength,
    an ever-present help in trouble.

Additional insight from Psalm 46:1-48:14: Psalms 46 through 48 are hymns of praise, celebrating deliverance from some great foe. Psalm 46 may have been written when the Assyrian army invaded the land and surrounded Jerusalem during Hezekiah’s reign (2nd Kings 18:13-19:37).

Thursday, November 21, 2024

At the center of every crisis 
is an inner space 
so deep, so beckoning, 
so suddenly and daringly vast, 
that it feels like a universe, 
feels like God. 

When the unthinkable happens, 
and does not relent, 
we fall through our hubris 
toward an inner flow, 
an abiding and rebirthing darkness 
that feels like home. 
   —Barbara Holmes, “What Is Crisis Contemplation?” 

Dr. Barbara Holmes explains the essential conditions that give rise to crisis contemplation: 

The crisis begins without warning, shatters our assumptions about the way the world works, and changes our story and the stories of our neighbors. The reality that was so familiar to us is gone suddenly, and we don’t know what is happening….  

If life, as we experience it, is a fragile crystal orb that holds our daily routines and dreams of order and stability, then sudden and catastrophic crises shatter this illusion of normalcy. The crises … are usually precipitated by circumstances beyond the ordinary. I am referring to oppression, violence, pandemics, abuses of power, or natural disasters and planetary disturbances. 

Until the moment that the crisis begins, you feel relatively safe and situated. Suddenly, everything changes. You are stolen from your village, placed in chains, and loaded onto ships headed to the Americas to be sold as slaves. Or, you are rounded up, placed on trains headed for a German death camp: Auschwitz, Treblinka, Bergen-Belsen, or Dachau. Or, upon the orders of the US government, you and members of your tribe are rounded up to begin a forced march from native lands in North Carolina to Oklahoma. Or, without warning, they send you and other Asian neighbors to internment camps. In each circumstance, some of you will survive the experience, but many of you will not. [1]  

Holmes reflects on the distinct nature of crisis contemplation:  

When the ordinary isn’t ordinary anymore and the crisis is upon us, the self can center in this refuge that I am calling “crisis contemplation,” a space that is neither the result of spiritual seeking nor the voluntary entry into meditative spaces. It is a cracking open, the rupture and shattering of self, community, expectations, and presumptions about how the world works. It is the result of trauma, freefall, and wounding…. 

Contemplation after or during crisis is a stillness in the aftermath of a primal scream, the abyss of unknowing, and the necessity of surviving the trauma together. Perhaps our definitions of “contemplation” need adjustment to reflect our unique social locations and inward journeys. .

+bodies as engaged as our minds, but we must relinquish control and seek grounding within the mystical depths of inner spaces. [2]  

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Sarah Young; Jesus Calling: November 21

Thank Me throughout this day for My Presence and My Peace. These are gifts of supernatural proportions. Ever since the resurrection, I have comforted My followers with these messages: Peace be with you, and I will with you always. Listen as I offer you My Peace and Presence in full measure. The best way to receive these glorious gifts is to thank Me for them.
     It is impossible to spend too much time thanking and praising Me. I created you first and foremost to glorify Me. Thanksgiving and praise put you in proper relationship with Me, opening the way for My riches to flow into you. As you thank Me for My Presence and Peace, you appropriate My richest parts.

RELATED SCRIPTURE:

Luke 24:36 (NIV)
Jesus Appears to the Disciples
36 While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

Additional insight regarding Luke 24:36-43: Jesus’ body wasn’t a figment of the imagination or the appearance of a ghost – the disciples touched him, and he ate food. On the other hand, his body wasn’t a restored human body like Lazarus’ (John 11) – Jesus was able to appear and disappear. Jesus’ resurrected body was immortal. We will receive this kind of body at the resurrection of the dead (see 1st Corinthians 15:42-50). 

Matthew 28:20 (NIV)
20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Additional insight regarding Matthew 28:20: How is Jesus with us? Jesus was with the disciples physically until he ascended into heaven and then spiritually through the Holy Spirit (see Acts 1:4). The Holy Spirit would be Jesus’ presence that would never leave them (see John 14:26), Jesus continues to be with us today through his Spirit.

Hebrews 13:15 (NIV)
15 Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name.

The authentic mystic can never flee from the world. He or she must resonate with the suffering and the agony that is the common legacy of humankind.… And active mystics who live in the hurly-burly enter into the same inner silence as those who live in the desert. 
—William Johnston, Mystical Theology: The Science of Love 

Dr. Barbara Holmes describes the contemplative foundations of the civil rights movement:    

The world is the cloister of the contemplative. There is no escape. Always the quest for justice draws one deeply into the heart of God. In this sacred interiority, contemplation becomes the language of prayer and the impetus for prophetic proclamation and action. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks were classic contemplatives, deeply committed to silent witness, embodied and performative justice. The type of contemplative practices that emerged during the Civil Rights Movement became dramas that enacted a deep discontentment with things as they were. For years, the black church nurtured its members in the truth of their humanity and the potential for moral flourishing.   

The civil rights marches of the 1960s were contemplative—sometimes silent, sometimes drenched with song, but always contemplative. This may mean within the context of a desperate quest for justice that while weary feet traversed well-worn streets, hearts leaped into the lap of God. While children were escorted into schools by national guardsmen, the song “Jesus Loves Me” became an anthem of faith in the face of contradictory evidence. You cannot face German Shepherds and fire hoses with your own resources; there must be God and stillness at the very center of your being…. What saves you is the blessed merger of intuitive knowing with rationality, pain, and resolve.  

Like a spiritual earthquake, the resolve of the marchers affirmed the faith of foremothers and forefathers. Each step was a reclamation of the hope unborn. Each marcher embodied the communal affirmation of already/not yet sacred spaces…. The sacred act of walking together toward justice was usually preceded by a pre-march meeting that began with a prayer service, where preaching, singing, and exhortation prepared the people to move toward the hope they all held. This hope was carefully explicated by the leadership as a fulfillment of God’s promises. As a consequence, the movement that spilled from the churches to the streets was a ritual enactment of a communal faith journey toward the basileia [realm] of God…. 

The end result was that a purportedly Christian nation was forced to view its black citizens as a prototype of the suffering God, absorbing violence into their own bodies without retaliation. By contrast, stalwart defenders of the old order found themselves before God and their own reflective interiority with fire hoses, whips, and ropes in their hands. The crisis created by contemplative justice seeking guaranteed the eventual end of overt practices of domination, for domination could not withstand the steady gaze of the inner eye of thousands of awakened people.  

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The Idol of Knowledge: Puff Up vs. Build Up

I had a professor once tell me, “When you think you know everything they give you a bachelor’s degree. When you realize you don’t know anything they give you a master’s degree. When you realize you don’t know anything and neither does anyone else, they award you a doctorate degree.” His point was memorable. A little learning can make you arrogant, but the outcome of much learning should be humility.The Apostle Paul said something similar to the arrogant, divisive Christians in Corinth. The Corinthians were focused on status and hierarchy, and in the Greek culture where knowledge was highly valued, possessing more knowledge than others was a badge of honor—a sure way to climb the social ladder. But Paul, who was probably more educated than anyone in the Corinthian church, reminded them, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”Paul was not saying knowledge itself is a bad thing. Sadly, some Christians have used the Apostle’s words as an excuse for shunning education and learning, or for dismissing the advice of experts. There are Christian traditions that even shun theological training for their pastors and teachers, and that refer to seminaries as cemeteries because they believe higher education will kill genuine faith. Anti-intellectualism is not what Paul intended with his words to the Corinthians. Embracing ignorance is not how we avoid the idolatry of knowledge, and stupidity is not a mark of deep spirituality. Rather, Paul’s intent was to warn about the danger of valuing knowledge that is uncoupled from love.By itself, knowledge can make us arrogant and sinfully cause us to elevate ourselves above those who do not share our education. Using our knowledge for self-advancement, or to diminish the worth of others, is the opposite of what Paul did with his expansive knowledge. Instead, we are to couple our knowledge with a love that always seeks what is good for others. That means using our knowledge to build up others, and never to pull them down. It also means being careful not to exalt a leader simply because he or she possesses a brilliant mind. We ought to look for evidence of a deeper wisdom that resides beyond mere knowledge; a wisdom that reveals itself in a character of self-sacrifice and humility like Christ’s. DAILY SCRIPTURE 1 CORINTHIANS 8:1–3. 1 CORINTHIANS 13:1–13 WEEKLY PRAYER King Alfred the Great of Wessex (849 – 899) We pray to you, O Lord, who are the supreme Truth, and all truth is from you. We beseech you, O Lord, who are the highest Wisdom, and all the wise depend on you for their wisdom. You are the supreme Joy, and all who are happy owe it to you. You are the highest Good, and all goodness comes from you. You are the Light of minds, and all receive their understanding from you. We love you—indeed we love you above all things. We seek you, and are prepared to serve you. We desire to dwell under your power, for you are the King of all. Amen.

Dr. Barbara Holmes’ book Joy Unspeakable explores contemplative practices in the Black church. She shows us how contemplation can be practiced through community, music, and movement. 

The soloist moves toward the center of the podium. The congregation of about 1,500 breathes with her as she moans, “Oh … oh … oh, Jesus.” Those are the only words to the song. Unless you are sitting within the sound of her voice, it is difficult to imagine how a song of two words can be a cry of anguish, balm, and celebration. In each soaring note, we participate in the unutterable spectrum of human striving. In this world, you will have trouble, but “oh, oh, oh, Jesus.” The shouts of exaltation give no indication of what is happening. Although it appears to be the usual charismatic congregational fare, in fact we are riding the stanzas through time to the hush arbors and swamp meetings, over the dangerous waters to safety. In this ordinary Sunday service, something has happened and we are changed. The worldly resistance to transcendence that we wore into the sanctuary has cracked open, and the contemplative moment carries us toward the very source of our being. 

Moments like this occur regularly in the black church, yet if you ask congregants about their “contemplative practices,” they would be confounded…. Despite numerous exceptions, black church worship is known for its heartfelt, rhythmic, and charismatic character. This depiction has become such an accepted view that contemplative practices remain a subliminal and unexamined aspect of black religious life. As a consequence, the practices are not nurtured, encouraged, or passed on to future generations. Yet, when contemplative moments occur, worship experiences seem to deepen…. 

In the midst of worship, an imperceptible shift occurred that moved the worshipping community from intentional liturgical action to transcendent indwelling. There is no way to describe this shift other than to say that “something happened.” During this sacred time, the perpetual restlessness of the human heart was stilled and transformed into abiding presence. Time shimmered and paused, slowing its relentless pace, and the order of worship no longer took precedence for those enthralled by a joy unspeakable. [1] 

Holmes considers the transcendent nature of “ecstatic singing”:  

It is anointed singing from consecrated singers … that allows access to the holy, but more specifically it is the repetition of verses that shifts perception … [and] allows individuals to fill in their own story, silently or through the cries of recognition and affirmation. This is the contemplative moment, the recognition that each and every member of the congregation shares the same angst over the troubles of the world and the need for reunion…. The “ohs” are repeated over and over again until every person remembers a time when they cried out for God’s intervention. A deep listening abides between every note and stanza. Those who listen know that the Holy Spirit is in control. [2] 

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Quote of the Week: from Learning from the Mystics…. John Chaffee

“To reach satisfaction in all
desire satisfaction in nothing.
To come to possess all
desire the possession of nothing.
To arrive at being all
desire to be nothing.
To come to the knowledge of all
desire the knowledge of nothing.

To come to enjoy what you have not
you must go by a way in which you enjoy not.
To come to the knowledge you have not
you must go by a way in which you know not.
To come to the possession you have not
you must go by a way in which you possess not.
To come to be what you are not
you must go by a way in which you are not.”
– The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book One, Chapter 13

Reflection:

Todos y nadas.  This is understood as the summation of St. John of the Cross’ teachings.  You may know him through The Dark Night of the Soul, but even that falls under the umbrella of his primary thought: todos y nadas (or, “everything and nothing”).

Looking at the quote, you may see the words “everything” and “nothing” are repeated both in vocabulary as well as theme.  One could say that St. John of the Cross had a healthy and holy understanding of “all or nothing” thinking!

For St. John of the Cross, the architecture or motivations of our lives have become inverted or distorted and it has become our ruin.

By seeking everything, we become nothing.  By seeking satisfaction, desire, being whole, and knowing we make ourselves dissatisfied, empty, fractured, and ignorant.  By seeking to enjoy, know, and possess all things, we end up not enjoying, knowing, or possessing anything.  This is such a brilliant analysis of the disordered loves of the heart and soul that it still rings true in our society today.

Everything and nothing.  Todos y nadas.

Do not look for satisfaction in anything, do not look to possess anything, do not look to be anything, do not look to learn everything.  Go the difficult way, find the path you did not know about, the one you do not already own as familiar territory, and go in a direction you are not already.

For St. John of the Cross, to seek nothing is to gain everything.

And, if we are being honest, that is rather close to the teaching of Christ…  “If you lose your life you will save it.  If you try to save your life you will lose it.”

Prayer

Heavenly Father, grant us the courage to follow the way that you have laid our for us.  Reorder the loves of our hearts so that we might be able to walk in the way that is everlasting.  Enable us to give up our pursuits of everything, that we might settle into our nothingness, and find that by your grace we are given everything.  In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen and amen.

Dr. Barbara Holmes: An Everyday Mystic

Our Daily Meditations this week honor the wisdom, teachings, and legacy of Dr. Barbara Holmes (1943–2024), a beloved CAC teacher. After her university career, “Dr. B,” as she was known to many CAC students and colleagues, enjoyed offering her perspective as an “everyday mystic.” 

Every person has had some mystical experience. Maybe the seas have not parted, and maybe they haven’t walked on water, but there have nevertheless been amazing miracles in our lives. We just haven’t shared them in community, so we don’t feel comfortable sharing them as individuals. I will tell you the basis of my personal mysticism so that you will consider yours….  

I’m an ordinary, everyday mystic. I’m not claiming special powers, just a life steeped in mystery. My family was comfortable with mysticism, spiritual discernment, and the use of spiritual gifts such as healing and words of knowledge. My Aunt Lee, a Gullah shaman Catholic, was my biggest influence. She saw dead people and mediated mystery for our family. She could tell you who was coming and going and how they were when they got to the other side!… She relayed messages from ancestors on the other side back to us….   

It seems that at least in her understanding, you could choose your age in the life after life. So when you saw people in dreams, you would see them embodied as the age that best reflected their spiritual joy. My dad chose his 50s, and when I see him in dreams, that’s what he looks like. My mom chose her late 30s. I’m not familiar with that look for my mom, so I always hesitate, because at this point on the spiritual side, she’s younger than I am. There were all kinds of rules about dreams and encounters. My aunt’s messages always included what they called “verification.” She would seal the deal with the information that no one would know except the loved ones who had gone on. She’d tell you where a piece of lost jewelry could be found, or the content of a few last words spoken in private….   

The weird part is that all of this seemed normal to me. Despite the fact that schooling and further education tried to invalidate my experience, I knew that everyday mysticism was real. I could not be persuaded or taught otherwise. I’m describing mysticism as a natural part of everyday life and all of the things that I’m describing happened in ordinary time. There was no weird music, sweeping cloaks, or spooky incantations … just a deep understanding of the sacred and a willingness to allow the gifts to lead. [1]  

CAC Dean of Faculty Brian McLaren encourages us to honor Dr. B’s life with our own lives:  

In honoring Dr. B, may we continue the struggle she so passionately embraced—the struggle for justice, the healing of the human spirit, and the call to radical creativity. May her “intelligence on fire” continue to burn within us as we move forward in love, action, and contemplation. [2] 

Encouraging Everyday Mysticism

Dr. Barbara Holmes continues to share her experiences as an ordinary, everyday mystic: 

What was it like growing up as an ordinary mystic? Dreams and visions were shared, discussed, and interpreted. Ancestors and elders communicated with us from the life after life. They issued warnings, blessings, and updates. It took a while for me to realize that what I considered normal was considered weird by everybody else.   

Despite this history and my acquaintance with biblical mystery, I tried to subdue the mysticism in me as I entered the academic world. I remember creating the longest, most boring PowerPoint ever on the subject of mysticism when I first started teaching. I used words like “noetic” and “ineffable.” Of course, my students went into an academic stupor, and I wondered why they didn’t get it. Instead, I should have wondered why I was hiding in plain sight. The students already knew that something was different about my process and background, and they sought me out to tell me their stories.… 

I know about everyday mystics because they were in my house, in my family, at the corner store, and hugging me at church.… They mediated the realms of life and the life after life. They were amazing, and they were a little bit scary, too.   

The everyday mystics I grew up with had knapsacks full of spiritual gifts. They could conjure in the kitchen, offer blessed assurance, and braid hair. An aunt or a grandma could shake the dirt from a bunch of beets and transform it into a dish that took you to heaven, even when you don’t like beets. The elders knew how to cure you of your ailments…. The mystics I knew could get a prayer through. They could birth babies and they could bring you messages from the other side.  

Holmes invites us to recognize divine presence and mystery in all of life:   

I hear mystery in drumming, in singing bowls, rattles, and in basic hymns, but that’s not the only place mysticism is found. Sacred texts of all faiths contain stories of wondrous happenings. In the Christian tradition we have virgin births, burning bushes not consumed, waters parting, healing, and prophetic leadership. Yet some Christians are nervous as to whether miracles are tied to faith! Miracles and mysteries can be extraordinary. They can be experienced by the entire community or as a vision or a dream for an individual. Today, we are not looking for colossal mysteries like the parting of the seas. We just want to tap into, or at least recognize, everyday mysticism. Our ancestors hosted this type of mysticism for ages, and we didn’t lose our connection to those many sources of wisdom until more recent generations when we decided that scientific verification and proof would be the only criteria by which we decide between reality and delusion. But we can make better decisions now. We can acknowledge the continued value of science as we explore our worlds and while we continue our dance with the mysteries of life.   

God Contains All Pasts and Futures

MARK LONGHURST NOV 17

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says God to John of Patmos (Revelation 1:8).

Alpha is the first, the beginning. Omega is the last, the end. Alpha and Omega are on the literal level simply the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet.

But what does it mean to call God—or rather, to hear God say through John through sacred text—that “I am the Alpha and the Omega”? People who are fed up with patriarchal religion, like myself and so many others, don’t need another Alpha God before whom all others submit. But that’s just what we turned God and Jesus into: the one before whom all will bow. And as I’ve been exploring in this Revelation series, we turned “the end” into something to be afraid of rather than a narrative arc of hopefulness.

Readers of the Gospel of John may be familiar with statements that begin with “I Am.” It’s a mysterious phrase, hearkening back to a desert encounter between Moses and God. Moses wishes to know just who this voice is speaking a life call to him from a burning bush. “Liberate my people,” God says, and Moses understandably replies: “Who are you? Why should I believe you? Can I trust my experience?” To which God replies, “I Am Who I Am.” I am—in different words—existence, aliveness, being itself and mystery. This mystery-presence identifies in John’s Gospel as “Bread of Life,” “Resurrection and Life,” “Way, Truth, and Life,” and more. Whatever this is, it is beginning and end.

To read John of Patmos telling of his own encounter with I Am, like the disciples telling of their time with Jesus, like the storytellers writing about Moses, is to be drawn into relationship with that same mystery-presence.

One way I’ve been thinking about “Alpha and Omega” is that God contains my past and my future, along with the past and future.

I think of my family heritage, much of which still remains unknown to me—grandparents settling outside of Albany, NY; other grandparents rooting down in rural, Southern Illinois. My mom, dad, sister and I living first in small-town Michigan, then Geneva, Switzerland, and so on. I think of the gifts my grandparents gave: the simple life of George and “Peg,” baking bread, tending their expansive vegetable and flower gardens, beginning each day with prayer. Or the kindness and life-affirming nature of my other grandma, Phyllis, who never missed an opportunity to get dressed up and go out for cocktails at The Elks. The past unveils the shadow side, of course, too, of rigid control in one grandfather and alcoholism and deceit in the other. God contains my past, the parts I know about and don’t, the family story that unfolded to this present moment and to me.

God contains my future—the opportunities, delights, transformations, joys, struggles, and tragedies—that I do not know about. Including my own end, the great personal mystery of my own eventual death. Each of our bodies has an end, after all; my thinking is it’s better to develop a relationship with that unknown moment now rather than wait until the last minute!

My past and future matter to me, of course, but in cosmic scope they are hardly important. God’s Alpha is the gestating presence at the very beginning, in the first expansion-explosion of the Big Bang. God’s Omega is not a fearful punishing end, but a hopeful point towards which that same universe itself, including us, is expanding.

Photo by NASA Hubble Space Telescope on Unsplash

We are in the realm of science, but more importantly, the realm of mystics who seek to uncover the meaning behind and within beginnings and ends. Take the French Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin, banned for years by the Catholic Church but making a comeback today. He wrote of Christ as the “Omega point,” Christ as the center of the evolutionary process itself, and also the direction towards which everything is converging. This Christ is far more than a human Jesus, but a personal, cosmic dynamism. Here’s Teilhardian scholar Ilia Delio on the “Omega point”:

Through his penetrating view of the universe, Teilhard found Christ present in the entire cosmos, from the least particle of matter to the convergent human community. Christ invests himself organically with all of creation, immersing himself in things, in the heart of matter, and thus unifying the world. 

My alpha and omega find themselves in the universe’s alpha and omega, which finds itself in God as Alpha and Omega. This brings me great hope in a time in which so many human lives are deemed “unworthy.” My life matters profoundly, and yours does, too, but not in the sense that we are ourselves very important. Instead, we participate in the loving presence of God and reality. We find ourselves in a much larger story.

Author Mungi Ngomane explores the lessons of ubuntu she learned from her grandfather, Bishop Desmond Tutu (1931–2021): 

If we are able to see ourselves in other people, our experience in the world will inevitably be a richer, kinder, more connected one. If we look at others and see ourselves reflected back, we inevitably treat people better.  

This is ubuntu.   

Ubuntu shouldn’t be confused with kindness, however. Kindness is something we might try to show more of, but ubuntu goes much deeper. It recognizes the inner worth of every human being—starting with yourself….   

Ubuntu tells us we are only who we are thanks to other people. Of course we have our parents to credit for bringing us into the world, but beyond this there are hundreds—if not thousands—of relationships, big and small, along the way, which teach us something about life and how to live it well. Our parents or guardians teach us how to walk and talk. Our teachers at school teach us how to read and write. A mentor might help us find fulfilling work. A lover might teach us emotional lessons, both good and bad—we learn from all experiences. Every interaction will have brought us to where we are today. [1] 

Theologian Dr. Michael Battle reflects on the spirituality of ubuntu:  

[Ubuntu] is a difficult worldview for many Westerners who tend to understand self as over and against others—or as in competition with others. In a Western worldview, interdependence may easily be confused with codependence, a pathological condition in which people share a dependence on something that is not life-giving, such as alcohol or drugs. Ubuntu, however, is about symbiotic and cooperative relationships—neither the parasitic and destructive relationships of codependence nor the draining and alienating relationships of competition.  

Perhaps Desmond Tutu … put it best when he said:  

A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished. [2] … 

Our planet cannot survive if we define our identity only through competition. If I know myself as strong only because someone else is weak, if I know myself as a black person only because someone else is white, then my identity depends on a perpetual competition that only leaves losers. If I know myself as a man only by dominating women, if I know myself as a Christian only because someone else is going to hell, then both my masculinity and my Christianity are devoid of content.  

Rather than reinforcing competitive ways of knowing self, Ubuntu offers a way of discovering self-identity through interdependence. As such, it is possible to argue that my very salvation is dependent on yours—radical stuff for Western ears to hear, yet vital to the survival of the earth. [3]  

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5 On Friday John Chaffee

1.”There is still one prophet through whom we can inquire of the Lord, but I hate him because he never prophesies anything good about me but always bad. He is Micaiah, son of Imlah.”- 1 Kings 22:8 NIV. In the Hebrew Scriptures, there is a story about Micaiah, son of Imlah, who is considered one of the few or last prophets who listened to Yahweh. Fascinatingly, the kings of his day ran about to all the other prophets because they told the kings what they wanted to hear.  One king, Josephat, chose to avoid Micaiah because ‘he never prophesies anything good about [him].’ One thing that stands out to me about the role of a prophet is that they do not preach doom and gloom to those who are not on their side; instead, they preach doom and gloom to those on their side.  As I see it, this is the counter to the conventional, pop-culture understanding of a prophet.   True prophets are more often critical thinkers about their own leadership. Isaiah preached to Israel that their exile experience was just, but also that it could be considered a new exodus.  Ezekiel rails against his own leadership for having lost perspective of the holy and, therefore, calls for a rebuilding of the Temple.  Jeremiah goes with Israel into exile, saying that they deserved whatever hardship came their way because they abandoned the Covenant made with Yahweh.  We need to pay careful attention to the people fulfilling the role of a prophet today.  It is not the people who are applauding the leadership.  Again, true prophets are the ones who can think critically about their own leadership and call them out for when they have lost the plot, live without integrity, have lost sight of compassionate justice, and fall into ethics that are far below that of the Sermon on the Mount. 2.”Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the ‘Beloved.’  Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.”- Henri Nouwen, Dutch Priest” Beloved” is our true name. 3.”The state wants men to render it the same idolatry they formerly rendered the church.”- Frederick Nietzsche, German Philosopher. Civil religion is alive and well.  In the vacuum of religion’s departure or devaluation in today’s culture, we cannot help but go somewhere to find a narrative to live within that tells us what values we ought to live by.   Nietzsche is correct here. When belief in God is subverted or dismissed, we tend to place our hopes in the government. Even worse, we merge faith in God with faith in the government, repeating the mistakes made after Constantine made Christianity the formal religion of the Roman Empire. As soon as that happened, Christianity lost its prophetic voice. 4.”The people who know God well — mystics, hermits, prayerful people, those who risk everything to find God — always meet a lover, not a dictator.”- Fr. Richard Rohr, Franciscan Friar To all who actively wonder if God is infinite love, I would point to the experiences of the saints, mystics, sages, hermits, and holy fools of the Church. Thomas Aquinas, the Christian philosopher who “baptized” Aristotelian thinking for use in the Church, gave up writing his magnum opus, the Summa Theologica.  He gave it up because he had an experience of the love and glory of God that was so grand and beautiful that he realized everything he had ever written about God was “as straw.”  Meaning it was only suitable for the flooring of a barn. The Gospel has always been that God is love, not some cosmic pharaoh, retributive Marduk, or tyrannical divine emporer. 5.”All spiritual speech is 90% intuition and 10% ordering it.”- Thomas Merton, Trappist Monk. Intuition is a tricky thing.  It is a little hard to define, but it is that sense we get when we use something other than logic to observe the world around us and allow our intuition to inform what we might do in a given situation. I have noticed over the years how particular interpretations of spirituality dismiss, bypass, or gaslight someone’s internal compass or intuition.  Some interpretations seek to devalue someone listening to their gut instincts, leading people to trust others (usually those in authority) more than themselves.  This, to me, feels inauthentic and dehumanizing.  Any interpretation of spirituality worth its salt will empower and encourage people to listen to God for themselves and not seek to control the actions or decisions of others.  I wonder what churches could look like if we focused on helping people to listen to God for themselves… Be free, and listen to God for yourself, with the total weight of the responsibility of what you choose to do next.

All My Relations 

Thursday, November 14, 2024

Randy and Edith Woodley explore interconnectedness through Indigenous traditions and language:  

Traditional Native Americans feel a sense of interconnectedness at a deep level. We connect the physical to the emotional to the spiritual, and ourselves to one another and the natural world. We connect the whole community of creation to our civic responsibilities. In Indigenous thinking, there is no such thing as separation of one part of our life from another.   

An example of the interconnectedness is found among the Lakota. Some of the most basic structures to Lakota life were the warrior societies. Yet there existed (and remains) a lifeway of harmony, expressed through a belief in the interrelatedness of all things. This included, for the Lakota, all the Sioux tribes, other tribes, and other humans, as well as all the animals, birds, insects, plants, and the rest of the community of creation. They express this interrelatedness through the words of a common prayer: mitakuye oyasin…. [1]   

Giving credence to this idea—that all people and things are related to one another—opens us to immense possibility. What if we once again saw ourselves as family to the whole community of creation? We must come to the realization that all the world is our relative.  

By realizing the connectedness of humankind to all animal and plant life, the Lakota believe that we become aware of new possibilities for preserving all living things. In humanity’s dependence on the Earth, the Lakota and others believe we can learn to sustain our planet and can find fresh prospects for nurturing food, conserving water, and developing renewable energy. All this and more is contained in their two simple prayer words: mitakuye oyasin, “All my relations.”   

The Woodleys share the insight of an Iroquois teacher:  

Tadodaho, also known as Chief Leon Shenandoah, commented:   

The teachings are very good. The most important thing is that each individual must treat all others, all the people who walk on Mother Earth, including every nationality, with kindness. That covers a lot of ground. It doesn’t apply only to my people. I must treat everyone I meet the same. When people turn their thoughts to the Creator, they give the Creator power to enter their minds and bring good thoughts. The most difficult part of this is that the Creator desired that there be no bloodshed among human beings and that there be peace, good relations, and always a good mind. [2]  

Like the Lakota concept of mitakuye oyasin, the Iroquois philosophy seeks to bring all people together in one accord by recognizing that all people and creation are inter-connected…. This way of living is substantiated among various Native peoples, so many of whom have a common value of harmony. Ojibway elder Eddie Benton Banai writes, “Today, we should use these ancient teachings to live our lives in harmony with the plan that the Creator gave us. We are to do these things if we are to be the natural people of the Universe.” [3]  

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Sarah Young Jesus Calling

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 is giving and your pleasure is receiving flow that together in joyous harmony.

RELATED SCRIPTURE:
Psalm 23:5 (NIV)
5 You prepare a table before me
    in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.

Additional insight regarding Psalm 23:5,6: In ancient Near Eastern culture, at a feast it was customary to anoint a person with fragrant oil. Hosts were also expected to protect their guests at all costs. God offers the protection of a host even when enemies surround us. In the final scene of this psalm (23:6), we see that believers will dwell with the Lord. God, the perfect shepherd and host, promises to guide and protect us throughout our lives and to bring us into his house forever.
John 3:16 (NIV)
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Additional insight regarding John 3:16: The message of the Good News comes to a focus in this verse. God’s love is not static or self-centered; it reaches out and draws others in. Here God sets the pattern of true love, the basis for all love relationships – when you love someone dearly, you are willing to give freely to the point of self-sacrifice. God paid dearly with the life of his Son, the highest price he could pay. Jesus accepted our punishment, paid the price for our sins, and then offered us the new life that he had bought for us. When we share the Good News with others, our love must be like Jesus’ – willingly giving us our own comfort and security so that others might just us in receiving God’s love.

Additional insight regarding John 3:16: Some people are repulsed by the idea of eternal life because their lives are miserable. But eternal life is not an extension of a person’s miserable, mortal life; eternal life is God’s life embodied in Christ given to all believers now as a guarantee that they will live forever. In eternal life, there is no death, sickness, enemy, evil, or sin. When we don’t know Christ, we make choices as though this life is all we have. In reality, this life is just the introduction to eternity. Receive this new life by faith and begin to evaluate all that happens from an eternal perspective.

Additional insight regarding John 3:16: To “believe” is more than an intellectual agreement that Jesus is God. It means to put our trust and confidence in him and he alone can save us. It is to put Christ in charge of our present plans and eternal destiny. Believing is both trusting his words as reliable, and relying on him for the power to change. If you have never trusted Christ, let this promise of everlasting be yours – and believe.

Luke 11:9-10 (NIV)
9 “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

Romans 8:32 (NIV)
32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
Additional insight regarding Romans 8:31-34: Do you ever think that because you aren’t good enough for God, he will not save you? Do you ever feel as if salvation is for everyone else but you? Then these verses are especially for you. If God gave his Son for you, he isn’t going to hold back the gift of salvation! If Christ gave his life for you, he isn’t to turn around and condemn you! He will not withhold anything you need to live for him. The book of Romans is more than a theological explanation of God’s redeeming grace – it is a letter of comfort and confidence addressed for you.

Author Debie Thomas considers how the biblical metaphor of a vine and branches invites us to come to terms with our interconnectedness: 

I can’t imagine a more counter-cultural and challenging vision of the Christian life than the one Jesus offers in this Gospel. “I am the vine, and you are the branches,” he tells his disciples. “Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me, you can do nothing” [John 15:4–5]. If those words aren’t blunt enough, he continues: “Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned” (v. 6). Burned? Gulp….   

We are meant to be tangled up together. We are meant to live lives of profound interdependence, growing into, around, and out of each other. We cause pain and loss when we hold ourselves apart, because the fate of each individual branch affects the vine as a whole. In this metaphor, dependence is not a matter of personal morality or preference; it’s a matter of life and death.…    

If God is the vine grower, Jesus is the vine, and we are the branches, what should we do? We have only one task: to abide. To tarry, to stay, to cling, to remain, to depend, to rely, to persevere, to commit. To hang in there for the long haul. To make ourselves at home.   

But “abide” is a tricky word. Passive on the one hand, and active on the other. To abide is to stay rooted in place. But it is also to grow and change. It’s a vulnerable-making verb: if we abide, we’ll get pruned. It’s a risky verb: if we abide, we’ll bear fruit that others will see and taste. It’s a humbling verb: if we abide, we’ll have to accept nourishment that is not of our own making. It’s a communal verb; if we abide, we will have to coexist with our fellow branches.  

Thomas emphasizes the reality of our shared life, even when messy and difficult:

I can’t imagine that there was ever a time when Jesus’s followers found the metaphor of the vine easy to apply in daily life. But it’s especially challenging to do so now. We live in bitterly divided times. We have good reasons to be cautious and self-protective, even within the church. It’s hard in our self-promoting culture to confess that we are lost and lifeless on our own. That our glory lies in surrender, not self-sufficiency….  

If only we would consent to see reality as it truly is. “I am the vine,” Jesus tells his disciples. “You are the branches.” It’s a done deal. Whether we like it or not, our lives are bound up in God’s and in each other’s. The only true life we will live in this world is the life we consent to live in relationship, messy and entangled though it might be. The only fruit worth sharing with the world is the fruit we’ll produce together.   

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Ideas and Affections

Click Here for Audio A significant portion of contemporary Christianity is preoccupied with the mind and oblivious to the heart. This is the inheritance of the Protestant Reformation and the European Enlightenment which emphasized learning, reason, and ideas as the foundation of both individual and social behavior. As a result, many of us assume that our faith is strong so long as we affirm the right ideas about God, but we may give little attention to where the true loyalties of our hearts are directed.We also apply this standard to the spiritual leaders we follow. For example, the popular Rise & Fall of Mars Hill podcast produced by Christianity Today in 2021, profiled the ministry of Mark Driscoll. Before his downfall in 2015, Driscoll was a hot commodity, especially among young evangelical men. Many of my peers binged Driscoll’s sermons online, devoured his books, and traveled to conferences where he spoke. The pugnacious pastor from Seattle had built a brand by using anger, name-calling, and foul language while advocating for Reformed theology and patriarchal moral values. When I asked young men why they followed Mark Driscoll I often got the same answer—”Because he’s preaching the truth!”“Maybe,” I would reply, “but there’s a reason ‘truth’ isn’t listed among the fruit of the Spirit but love, peace, and kindness are.” The elevation of a leader like Driscoll is what happens when we care more about content than character, when we emphasize the mind and overlook the heart, and when we define spiritual fruit with book sales and weekend attendance rather than with flourishing relationships and self-control. The same error that led to great pain for the good people at Mars Hill Church, and thousands of others who followed Mark Driscoll, is also what makes us susceptible to idolatry.Don’t misunderstand me—ideas matter. Holding correct beliefs about God is important, and believing something incorrect about God is harmful, but we are called to something far more than intellectual agreement with a doctrinal statement. We are called to love God above all else and worship him only. A strong biblical case can be made that a person may hold correct beliefs and still be an idolater because at its core idolatry is about the affections of our heart not merely than the ideas in our mind. Richard Lints explains why idolatry has more in common with the sin of adultery than with the sin of heresy: “Idols are dangerous in the same way that outside love interests are dangerous to a marriage. Adulterous liaisons inevitably pull the marriage apart at the seams. As with adultery, so idolatry is about both wrong beliefs (e.g. a belief about where satisfaction can be found) but more importantly corrupted desires.”This is why the Apostle Paul instructed Timothy to keep watch over both his doctrine (ideas) and his life (affections). Likewise, we ought to fill our minds with the truth about God and cultivate practices of life that will turn our hearts toward him so that our hearts are not corrupted by ungodly desires for power, wealth, fame, influence, or any other idol that is common both in our culture and within the church. DAILY SCRIPTURE MATTHEW 6:19–21 1 TIMOTHY 4:11–16 WEEKLY PRAYER. Serapion, Bishop of Thmuis (c. 360) We ask for your help, Father of Christ, Lord of all that is, Creator of all the created, Maker of all that is made; we stretch out clean hands to you and lay bare our minds, Lord, before you. Have mercy, we pray to you; spare us, be kind to us, improve us; fill us with virtue, faith and knowledge.Look at us, Lord; we bring our weaknesses before you to see. Be kind and merciful to all of us here gathered together; have pity on this people of yours and show them your favor, make them equitable, temperate and pure; send out angelic powers to make this your people—all that compose it—holy and noble. Amen.

Dear CO Few brothers, (annual update and funding letter from Richard)

I have become increasingly convinced that we need a worldwide paradigm shift in Christian consciousness for how we relate to God. Thomas Kuhn said that a paradigm shift becomes necessary when the previous paradigm becomes so full of holes and patchwork “fixes” that a complete overhaul—which once looked utterly threatening—now appears as a lifeline.  

I believe we are at precisely such a moment when it comes to Christianity’s image of God.   

A few weeks back a friend asked me, “When you speak of the need for a paradigm shift, what is the primary shift that you are talking about?” Admittedly, there was much I could have offered, but I shared that the most significant shift in our view of God is the move beyond the reward/punishment paradigm. 

In my first years of preaching in the 1970s, I often told a Sufi-inspired story called “The Angel with the Torch and the Pail.” The story goes like this: 

An angel was walking down the streets of the world carrying a torch in one hand and a pail of water in the other. A person asked the angel, “What are you doing with that torch and pail?”  

The angel said, “With the torch I am burning down the mansions of heaven, and with the pail I am putting out the fires of hell. Then, and only then, will we see who truly loves God.”  

Operating with love as the source, not fear of punishment or even promise of reward, is a radically different Christian paradigm. To do this takes an experience of love from the Infinite One. Then you are free to love others and even to truly love yourself. The most loving people I have met across the world in my lifetime of teaching and travelling all seemed to know that if love is the goal, it must be love for everybody. 

Thank you for being a partner in shifting the paradigm towards infinite love. The Center for Action and Contemplation is primarily funded by people like you who give freely and joyfully to support it. Everything we offer the world is made possible through your support and participation. We are deeply grateful for each and every one of you.   

 Twice per year, we pause and ask for your financial support. If you have been impacted by the CAC’s programs, including these Daily Meditations, please consider donating. We appreciate every gift, regardless of the amount.

Please read the letter below from CAC’s Executive Director Michael Poffenberger about our vision for the future and how you can support it. Tomorrow, the Daily Meditations will continue exploring the theme of “Reconnecting to Our Source.”

Peace and Every Good,  

Richard Rohr, OFM

Dear Dave,

In a 1992 article aptly titled “Not the Center for Activism and Introspection,” Richard explained why he named our organization the Center for Action and Contemplation. By contemplation, Richard meant the deliberate seeking of God through a willingness to detach from the passing self, the tyranny of emotions, the addiction to self-image, and the false promises of the world. Action, as he used the word, meant a decisive commitment toward involvement and engagement in the social order. Richard then added this line that has always stuck out to me: 

Though “Love” is not in our Center’s name, I hope that it is the driving force behind all we do, just as it was for Jesus who knew God’s love intimately and fully, and for the early church who proclaimed that “God is love” (1 John 4:7-8). 

The new paradigm of Christian consciousness is not actually new—it is just radically different to many of us who learned a very different story of God. Returning to the root image of God as love is a process of unlearning that requires moving from a dualistic mindset to a more contemplative, non-dual awareness. 

The CAC works to catalyze this paradigm shift where spirituality and action are not separate but integrally connected, leading to personal healing and social transformation​. This process calls for a transformation in consciousness where internal spiritual growth is directly connected with external efforts for collective healing. 

As we approach 2025, we are redoubling our efforts to make our work accessible to a new and broader generation of spiritual seekers. In the coming months, we are excited to share the details of several significant initiatives we’ve been working on behind the scenes for many years. Your support has helped make this possible. 

We encourage everyone who is able to consider becoming a monthly donor through the Bonaventure Circle of Support, the CAC’s monthly giving community making Christian contemplative wisdom more accessible to a new generation of spiritual seekers. Support from this community provides the CAC with the steady and predictable funding needed to enhance our programs, offer scholarships, grow our faculty, and introduce more people to the Christian contemplative path of transformation. 

We thank you for your trust and partnership in making this possible.  

In loving gratitude,  

Father Richard Rohr reflects on the painful consequences of feeling disconnected from God, self, one another, and the earth. Understanding the Trinity as the source of reality’s interconnectedness leads to healing: 

I’m convinced that beneath the ugly manifestations of our present evils—political corruption, ecological devastation, warring against one another, hating each other based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or nationality—the greatest dis-ease facing us right now is our profound and painful sense of disconnection. We feel disconnected from God certainly, but also from ourselves (especially our bodies), from each other, and from our world. Our sense of this fourfold isolation is plunging humanity into increasingly destructive behavior and much mental distress.  

Yet many are discovering that the Infinite Flow of the Trinity—and our practical, felt experience of this gift—offers the utterly grounded  reconnection with God, with self, with others, and with our world that all spirituality, and arguably, even politics, aim for, but which conventional religion and politics fail to access.  

Trinity overcomes the foundational philosophical problem of “the one and the many.” Serious seekers invariably wonder how things can be both deeply connected and yet clearly distinct. In the paradigm of Trinity, we have three autonomous “Persons,” as we call them, who are nevertheless in perfect communion, given and surrendered to each other with Infinite Love. With the endless diversity in creation, it’s clear that God is not at all committed to uniformity but instead desires unity—which is the great work of the Spirit—or diversity united by love. Uniformity is mere conformity and obedience to law and custom; whereas spiritual unity is that very diversity embraced and protected by an infinitely generous love. This is the problem that our politics and any superficial religion are still unable to resolve.  

Trinity is all about relationship and connection. We know the Trinity through experiencing the Flow itself. The principle of one is lonely; the principle of two is oppositional and moves us toward preference and exclusion; the principle of three is inherently moving, dynamic, and generative. Trinity was made to order to undercut all dualistic thinking. Yet for all practical purposes, Christianity shelved it because our dualistic theologies could not process it.  

God is not a being among other beings, but rather the  Ground of Being itselfwhich then flows through all beings. As Paul says to the intellectuals in Athens, this God “is not far from us, but is the one in whom we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:27–28). The God whom Jesus reveals is presented as unhindered dialogue, a positive and inclusive flow, and a waterwheel of outpouring love that never stops! St. Bonaventure called God a “fountain fullness” of love. [1]  

Nothing can stop the flow of divine love; we cannot undo the eternal pattern even by our worst sin. God is always winning, and God’s love will finally win in the end. Nothing humans can do will stop the relentless outpouring force that is the divine dance. Love does not lose, nor does God lose. That’s what it means to be God!  

The Pain of Separateness

In this homily, Father Richard describes the pain we cause ourselves when we choose to live from a sense of separateness:  

We go through our lives, our years on this Earth, thinking of ourselves as separate. That sense of separateness basically causes every stupid, sinful, silly thing we ever do. The little, separate self takes offense when people don’t show us proper respect. The separate self lies, steals, and does unkind things to other people. When we’re separate, everything becomes about protecting and defending ourselves. It can consume our lives. 

One word for overcoming that false sense of separateness, that illusory self, is heaven; quite frankly, that is what death offers us. It is simply returning to the Source from which we came, where all things are one. The whole gospel message is radical union with God, with neighbor, and even with ourselves. I think that’s why so many people are drawn to church each week—to receive communion and eventually, hopefully, realize that we are in communion. 

Probably no gospel story says this more clearly and forthrightly than the parable of the vine and the branches (John 15:1–10). Jesus says, “I am the vine, God is the vine grower, and you are the branches.” As long as we remain in that relationship, we are in love and in union. Whenever we do anything unloving, at that moment, we’re out of union. Even if it’s just a negative, angry, or judgmental thought, we’re doing that out of a sense of disunion—always! And Jesus is very clear. He says that state is useless. Once the branch is cut off from the vine, we might as well throw it into the fire because it will not bear any fruit. He’s not making a threat; he’s just talking practically as if he were the vineyard owner. 

That’s a pretty strong statement about us and the choices we make from that unnecessary state of separateness. We have never been separate from God except in our thoughts, but our thoughts don’t make it true! Nor are we separate from anyone else. Whatever separates us from one another—nationality, religion, ethnicity, economics, language—are all just accidentals that will all pass away. We are one in God, with Christ, and with one another. “I am the vine and you are the branches” (John 15:5). If only we could live that way every hour! 

We all pull back into ourselves. We pout and complain and resent and fear. That’s what the little self does. The little self, the branch cut off from the vine, can do nothing according to this gospel. So Jesus says, “Remain in me as I remain in you” (John 15:4). The promise is constant from God’s side. The only question is from our side. Do we choose to live in that union? Every time we do something with respect, with love, with sympathy, with compassion, with caring, with service, we are operating in union. 

Learning from the Mystics: John of the Cross

Quote of the Week: “Some spiritual fathers are likely to be a hindrance and harm rather than a help to these souls that journey on this road.  Such directors have neither understanding nor experience of these ways.  They are like the builders of the tower of Babel.  When these builders were supposed to provide the proper materials for the project, they brought entirely different supplies because they failed to understand the language.  And thus nothing was accomplished.  Hence, it is arduous and difficult for a soul in these periods of the spiritual life when it can’t understand itself or find anyone else who understands it.” – Prologue of The Ascent of Mount Carmel Reflection: The Dark Night of the Soul, the experience of having all of one’s idols and certainties stripped away is incredibly difficult.  It is not an experience that people search for, but it often happens to people.  Here, St. John of the Cross offers some profound wisdom… Just because someone is a religious leader, that does not mean that they will know what you are going through or how to speak to it.  They may give you a look as if you are speaking a completely different language from them. And so, the admonition here is to be incredibly careful who you speak to about your own Dark Night of the Soul.  Your vulnerability may not be treated with care, and you may be subject to “advice” that shames you for going through a long season of doubt, silence from God, loss of the “sweetness” of faith experiences, etc. That being said, there are spiritual directors and other sages that can speak to these things.  These wonderful people may not be in the pulpit but instead found in the pages of figures similar to St. John of the Cross, sitting quietly in the pew near you, or a small group at a retreat center.  Be careful who you talk to about your Dark Night of the Soul, not everyone will understand.  Treasure your experience like a pearl, and share it with people that will receive it as such. Prayer Dear Lord, help us to find your saints.  Grant us the grace to find people that can not only speak to but empathize with our own Dark Night of the Soul.  We recognize that to follow you deeply might be a lonely and exilic experience, yet we trust that you are leading us into deeper waters for the sake of greater love and union with you.  Grant us courage during the Dark Night of the Soul.  In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen and amen.

Life Overview of St. John of the Cross:  Who Were They: Juan de Yepes y Alvarez, later known as Juan de la Cruz (John of the Cross) Where: Born in Fontiveros, Spain.  Died in Ubeda, Spain. When: June 24, 1542-December 14, 1591 Why He is Important: Understood as a prime example of scholasticism and spirituality. What Was Their Main Contribution: John of the Cross is most known for his commentary on his own poetry, of which the Dark Night of the Soul is one of a few main texts.  He was jailed and beaten by his religious superiors and escaped to only then write some of his most enduring work.   Click here for The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross.