Richard Rohr<\/p>\n
Beloved Children of God<\/strong><\/a>\nThursday, September 21, 2017<\/strong>\n<\/iframe><br \/>\nBecause it is crucial to our understanding of nonviolence, let me repeat: <em>The root of violence is the illusion of separation\u2014from God, from Being itself, from being somehow one with everyone and everything. <\/em>Most of our conflicts arise from a very fragile sense of the self. When we\u2019re full of fear, the enemy is everywhere. We endlessly look for the problem outside of ourselves so we can expel or exterminate it. If a prophetic peacemaker attempts to take our chosen object of hatred away from us, we turn our hatred on them. Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and many others were persecuted or killed because they challenged the myth of scapegoating. <em>If we don\u2019t own our own evil, we will always project it elsewhere and attack it there. <\/em><\/p>\n<p>Only people who recognize their own evil, or at least their complicity in evil, stop this unconscious scapegoating pattern. Their experience of radical union with God makes it possible for them to own their own shadow, their own capacity for evil, and not need to hate it in other people. Fully conscious people do not scapegoat; unconscious people do almost nothing else.<\/p>\n<p>On the fiftieth World Day of Peace, Pope Francis said:<\/p>\n<p>I wish peace to every man, woman and child, and I pray that the image and likeness of God in each person will enable us to acknowledge one another as sacred gifts endowed with immense dignity. Especially in situations of conflict, let us respect this, our \u201cdeepest dignity,\u201d and make active nonviolence our way of life. [1]<\/p>\n<p>How can we make nonviolence a way of life? Last week we heard from John Dear, nonviolent activist and author, and I\u2019d like to share more of his words:<\/p>\n<p>Practicing nonviolence means claiming our fundamental identity as the beloved sons and daughters of the God of peace, and thus, going forth into the world of war as peacemakers to love every other human being. . . . The problem is: we don\u2019t know who we are. . . . The challenge then is to remember who we are, and therefore be nonviolent to ourselves and others.<\/p>\n<p>Living nonviolence requires daily meditation, contemplation, study, concentration, and mindfulness. Just as mindlessness leads to violence, steady mindfulness and conscious awareness of our true identities lead to nonviolence and peace. The deeper we go into mindful nonviolence, the more we live the truth of our identity as sisters and brothers of one another, and sons and daughters of the God of peace. The social, economic, and political implications of this practice are astounding: if we are sons and daughters of a loving Creator, then every human being is our sister and brother, and we can never hurt anyone on earth ever again, much less be silent in the face of war, starvation, racism, sexism, nuclear weapons, systemic injustice, and environmental destruction. [2]<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gateway to Silence:<br \/>\n<\/strong>Love your enemies.<\/p>\n<p>_______________________________________________________<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Missionary\u2019s Predestined Purpose<\/strong><\/p>\n<h4>By <a href=\"https:\/\/utmost.org\/oswald-chambers-bio\">Oswald Chambers<\/a><\/h4>\n<p><!-- \/.col-12 --> <!-- \/.row --><\/p>\n<div class=\"clearfix\">\u00a0<strong>Now the Lord says, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant\u2026 \u2014Isaiah 49:5<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"clearfix\">The first thing that happens after we recognize our election by God in Christ Jesus is the destruction of our preconceived ideas, our narrow-minded thinking, and all of our other allegiances\u2014 we are turned solely into servants of God\u2019s own purpose. The entire human race was created to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. Sin has diverted the human race onto another course, but it has not altered God\u2019s purpose to the slightest degree. And when we are born again we are brought into the realization of God\u2019s great purpose for the human race, namely, that He created us for Himself. This realization of our election by God is the most joyful on earth, and we must learn to rely on this tremendous creative purpose of God. The first thing God will do is force the interests of the whole world through the channel of our hearts. The love of God, and even His very nature, is introduced into us. And we see the nature of Almighty God purely focused in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=John+3:16\">John 3:16<\/a>\u2014 <em>\u201cFor God so loved the world<\/em>\u2026.\u201d<\/div>\n<section class=\"entry-content\">\n<div class=\"post-content\">\n<p>We must continually keep our soul open to the fact of God\u2019s creative purpose, and never confuse or cloud it with our own intentions. If we do, God will have to force our intentions aside no matter how much it may hurt. A missionary is created for the purpose of being God\u2019s servant, one in whom God is glorified. Once we realize that it is through the salvation of Jesus Christ that we are made perfectly fit for the purpose of God, we will understand why Jesus Christ is so strict and relentless in His demands. He demands absolute righteousness from His servants, because He has put into them the very nature of God.<\/p>\n<p>Beware lest you forget God\u2019s purpose for your life.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Richard Rohr Beloved Children of God Thursday, September 21, 2017 Because it is crucial to our understanding of nonviolence, let me repeat: The root of violence is the illusion of separation\u2014from God, from Being itself, from being somehow one with everyone and everything. Most of our conflicts arise from a very fragile sense of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16023"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16023"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16028,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16023\/revisions\/16028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}