{"id":16533,"date":"2018-03-15T09:27:48","date_gmt":"2018-03-15T13:27:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=16533"},"modified":"2018-03-15T09:36:26","modified_gmt":"2018-03-15T13:36:26","slug":"kinship-with-all-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=16533","title":{"rendered":"Kinship with All Life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Richard Rohr<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Thursday, March 15, 2018<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/m5o23U2eZTk\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nJoanna Macy vividly reconnects our seemingly separate selves with nature, both present and past:<br \/>\nThe conventional notion of the self with which we have been raised and to which we have been conditioned by mainstream culture is being undermined. What Alan Watts [1915-1973] called \u201cthe skin-encapsulated ego\u201d . . . is being replaced by wider constructs of identity and self-interest\u2014by what philosopher Arne Naess [1912-2009] termed the ecological self, co-extensive with other beings and the life of our planet. It is what I like to call \u201cthe greening of the self.\u201d . . .<br \/>\nAmong those who are shedding these old constructs of self . . . is John Seed, director of the Rainforest Information Centre in Australia. One day . . . I asked him: \u201cYou talk about the struggle against the lumber companies and politicians to save the remaining rain forests. How do you deal with the despair?\u201d<br \/>\nHe replied, \u201cI try to remember that it\u2019s not me, John Seed, trying to protect the rain forest. Rather, I am part of the rain forest protecting itself. I am that part of the rain forest recently emerged into human thinking.\u201d This is what I mean by the greening of the self. It involves a combining of the mystical with the pragmatic, transcending separateness, alienation, and fragmentation. It is . . . \u201ca spiritual change,\u201d generating a sense of profound interconnectedness with all life. . . .<br \/>\n. . . Unless you have some roots in a spiritual practice that holds life sacred and encourages joyful communion with all your fellow beings, facing the enormous challenges ahead becomes nearly impossible. . . .<br \/>\nBy expanding our self-interest to include other beings in the body of the Earth, the ecological self also widens our window on time. It enlarges our temporal context, freeing us from identifying our goals and rewards solely in terms of our present lifetime. The life pouring through us, pumping our heart and breathing through our lungs, did not begin at our birth or conception. Like every particle in every atom and molecule of our bodies, it goes back through time to the first splitting and spinning of the stars.<br \/>\nThus the greening of the self helps us to reinhabit time and our own story as life on Earth. We were present in the primal flaring forth, and in the rains that streamed down on this still-molten planet, and in the primordial seas. In our mother\u2019s womb we remembered that journey, wearing vestigial gills and tail and fins for hands. Beneath the outer layer of our neocortex and what we learned in school, that story is in us\u2014the story of a deep kinship with all life, bringing strengths that we never imagined. When we claim this story as our innermost sense of who we are, a gladness comes that will help us to survive.<\/p>\n<p>______________________________________________<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Discipline of Dismay<\/strong><br \/>\nBy Oswald Chambers<\/p>\n<p><strong>As they followed they were afraid. \u2014Mark 10:32<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>At the beginning of our life with Jesus Christ, we were sure we knew all there was to know about following Him. It was a delight to forsake everything else and to throw ourselves before Him in a fearless statement of love. But now we are not quite so sure. Jesus is far ahead of us and is beginning to seem different and unfamiliar\u2014 \u201cJesus was going before them; and they were amazed\u201d (Mark 10:32).<br \/>\nThere is an aspect of Jesus that chills even a disciple\u2019s heart to its depth and makes his entire spiritual life gasp for air. This unusual Person with His face set \u201clike a flint\u201d (Isaiah 50:7) is walking with great determination ahead of me, and He strikes terror right through me. He no longer seems to be my Counselor and Friend and has a point of view about which I know nothing. All I can do is stand and stare at Him in amazement. At first I was confident that I understood Him, but now I am not so sure. I begin to realize that there is a distance between Jesus and me and I can no longer be intimate with Him. I have no idea where He is going, and the goal has become strangely distant.<br \/>\nJesus Christ had to understand fully every sin and sorrow that human beings could experience, and that is what makes Him seem unfamiliar. When we see this aspect of Him, we realize we really don\u2019t know Him. We don\u2019t recognize even one characteristic of His life, and we don\u2019t know how to begin to follow Him. He is far ahead of us, a Leader who seems totally unfamiliar, and we have no friendship with Him.<br \/>\nThe discipline of dismay is an essential lesson which a disciple must learn. The danger is that we tend to look back on our times of obedience and on our past sacrifices to God in an effort to keep our enthusiasm for Him strong (see Isaiah 50:10-11). But when the darkness of dismay comes, endure until it is over, because out of it will come the ability to follow Jesus truly, which brings inexpressibly wonderful joy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Richard Rohr Thursday, March 15, 2018 Joanna Macy vividly reconnects our seemingly separate selves with nature, both present and past: The conventional notion of the self with which we have been raised and to which we have been conditioned by mainstream culture is being undermined. What Alan Watts [1915-1973] called \u201cthe skin-encapsulated ego\u201d . [&hellip;]<\/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\/16533"}],"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=16533"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16537,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16533\/revisions\/16537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}