{"id":16687,"date":"2018-04-30T09:53:57","date_gmt":"2018-04-30T13:53:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=16687"},"modified":"2018-04-30T10:04:14","modified_gmt":"2018-04-30T14:04:14","slug":"16687","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=16687","title":{"rendered":"The Template of Reality"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mHWTLTM0Zt0\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Template of Reality<\/strong><br \/>\nSunday, April 29, 2018<\/p>\n<p>God is love. \u20141 John 4:8<\/p>\n<p>The physical structure of the universe is love. \u2014Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) [1]<\/p>\n<p>If a loving Creator started this whole thing\u2014the Big Bang, the evolution of diverse and beautiful life forms\u2014then there has to be a \u201cDNA connection,\u201d as it were, between the One who creates and what is created. The basic template of reality is Trinitarian, it\u2019s relational. God is relationship.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLet us create in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves,\u201d the Creator says (see Genesis 1:26). The Hebrew writer used the plural pronouns for some wonderful reason.<\/p>\n<p>St. Bonaventure (1221-1274) called the Trinity a \u201cfountain fullness\u201d of love. [2] God is unhindered dialogue, a positive and inclusive flow, an eternal waterwheel of self-emptying and outpouring love\u2014that knows it can completely self-empty because it will always be filled back up. This is the very definition and description of divine love; all human love merely imitates, approximates, and celebrates this same pattern.<\/p>\n<p>The energy in the universe is not in the planets or in the protons or neutrons, but in the relationship between them. Not in the particles but in the space between them. Not in the cells of organisms but in the way the cells feed and give feedback to one another. Not in any precise definition of the three persons of the Trinity as much as in the relationship between the Three! This is where all the power for infinite renewal is at work:<\/p>\n<p>The loving relationship between them. The infinite love flowing between them. The dance itself.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;<\/p>\n<p>Made for Love<br \/>\nMonday, April 30, 2018<\/p>\n<p>It is an entirely relational universe. If, at any time, we try to stop this life flow moving through us, with us, and in us, we fall into the true state of sin (and it is much more a state than a momentary behavior). What we call \u201csins\u201d cannot really separate us from God, because Divine Love is unilateral and unconditional and is not dependent on our receiving it. Rather it is our lonely and fearful illusion of separateness that makes us do sinful and selfish things. Try to make that switch in your understanding, and it will send you on a much more authentic spiritual path.<\/p>\n<p>Love must flow both toward us and out from us, or we do not experience or enjoy its full effects. The Law of Flow is simple, and Jesus states it in many different formulations, such as \u201cHappy are the merciful; they shall have mercy shown to them\u201d (Matthew 5:7).<\/p>\n<p>Sin is a refusal of mutuality and a closing down into separateness. In his classic book, The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis has a ghostly soul in hell shouting out, \u201cI don\u2019t want help. I want to be left alone.\u201d [1] Whenever we refuse mutuality toward anything, whenever we won\u2019t allow our deep inner-connectedness to guide us, whenever we\u2019re not attuned to both receiving and giving, you could say that the Holy Spirit is existentially (but not essentially) absent from our lives.<\/p>\n<p>Toxic, psychopathic, or sociopathic people cannot maintain or sustain relationships. They run from connection and commitment. Usually they are loners in a foundational way or they at least make interactions with them very difficult.<\/p>\n<p>I once met a psychiatrist who said something to me that initially I thought was an overstatement: \u201cRichard, at the end of your life, you\u2019ll realize that every mentally ill person you\u2019ve ever worked with is basically lonely.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, come on, that\u2019s a little glib, isn\u2019t it?\u201d I replied.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, I admit, there are surely physiological reasons for much mental illness, but loneliness might just be what activates it. Every case of nonphysiologically-based mental illness stems from a person who has been separated, cut off, living alone, and has forgotten how to relate in one way or another.\u201d I still wonder if that might be true.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s probably why God created the sexual drive\u2014the instinct for personal intimacy and mutual giving of delight\u2014to be so strong in most humans. (Sexuality is a much broader experience than genital intercourse for the purpose of reproduction.) When you allow yourself to be separated from self and others you become sick, toxic, and can do some very evil things\u2014and not even think of them as evil.<\/p>\n<p>If God is absolute relatedness, then any notion of salvation is simply the readiness, the capacity, and the willingness to stay in relationship (which almost always involves forgiveness). When the French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, wrote, \u201cHell is other people,\u201d he was, at least momentarily, in hell himself.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2014not you alone, nor me alone, but we\u2014are intrinsically like the Trinity, living in an absolute relatedness of self-emptying and infilling.<\/p>\n<p>This is love. Outside of this flow and communion, we all die very quickly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Template of Reality Sunday, April 29, 2018 God is love. \u20141 John 4:8 The physical structure of the universe is love. \u2014Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) [1] If a loving Creator started this whole thing\u2014the Big Bang, the evolution of diverse and beautiful life forms\u2014then there has to be a \u201cDNA connection,\u201d as it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"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\/16687"}],"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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16687"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16691,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16687\/revisions\/16691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}