{"id":18301,"date":"2019-09-23T10:19:28","date_gmt":"2019-09-23T14:19:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18301"},"modified":"2019-09-23T10:32:31","modified_gmt":"2019-09-23T14:32:31","slug":"18301","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18301","title":{"rendered":"Love is Universal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Oneness<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Love Is Universal<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Monday, September 23, 2019<\/strong><br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/T9ifzzMD7zk\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nEvery rational creature, every person, and every angel has two main strengths: the power to know and the power to love. God made both of these, but [God is] not knowable through the first one. To the power of love, however, [God] is entirely known, because a loving soul is open to receive God\u2019s abundance. . . . [God\u2019s] very nature makes love endless and miraculous. God will never stop loving us. Consider this truth, and, if by grace you can make love your own, do. For the experience is eternal joy; its absence is unending suffering. \u2014The Cloud of Unknowing [1]<br \/>\nIn the fourteenth century, the inspired, anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing taught that God in Christ dealt with sin, death, forgiveness, and salvation \u201call in one lump.\u201d It is a most unusual, even homely, phrase, but for me, this corporate and mystical reading of history contributes to the unitive vision we are seeking, as we try to understand the Universal Christ. Jesus by himself looks like an individual, albeit a divine individual, but the Christ is a compelling image for this \u201cone-lump\u201d view of reality. In the fourteenth century, The Cloud\u2019s author would\u2019ve enjoyed the last remnants of mystical holism before the Reformation and Enlightenment elevated dualistic thinking. The writer reflected the more Eastern church understanding of the resurrection as a universal phenomenon, and not just the lone Jesus rising from the dead and raising his hands as if he just scored a touchdown, as is depicted in most Western art\u2014and even in a giant mosaic that looms over the University of Notre Dame\u2019s football stadium.<br \/>\nI am convinced that the Gospel offers us a holistic, \u201call in one lump\u201d understanding of things. We also see this idea everywhere in Pauline passages, expressed in different ways: \u201cin that one body he condemned sin\u201d (Romans 8:3); \u201cHe experienced death for all humankind\u201d (Hebrews 2:19); he has done suffering and sacrifice \u201conce and for all\u201d (Hebrews 7:28); or the embodiment language of Philippians, where Jesus is said to lead us through the \u201cpattern of sin and death\u201d so we can \u201ctake our place in the pattern of resurrection\u201d (3:9-12). And of course, this all emerges from Jesus\u2019 major metaphor of the \u201cReign of God,\u201d a collective notion which some scholars say is just about all that he talks about. Until we start reading the Jesus story through the collective lens of Christ, I honestly think Christians miss much of his core message and limit its meaning to individual salvation, reward, and punishment. Without a universal and unifying spirituality, society will remain untransformed.<br \/>\n<strong>Only surrendering humbly to the radical path of love will result in the discovery that God is not the object of our longing and love, but is the loving itself.<\/strong> As the author of The Cloud teaches, God is the force that is binding, moving, sustaining, and transforming all of humanity and all of creation with every breath and every evolutionary shift on our planet.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Oneness<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>The Suffering of God<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Sunday, September 22, 2019<\/strong><br \/>\nI am not alone in my tiredness or sickness or fears, but at one with millions of others from many centuries, and it is all part of life. \u2014Etty Hillesum [1]<br \/>\nJust days before I began writing my book about the Universal Christ, I learned that I would have to put down my fifteen-year-old black Lab because she was suffering from inoperable cancer. Venus had been giving me a knowing and profoundly accepting look for weeks, but I did not know how to read it. Deep down, I did not want to know. After her diagnosis, every time I looked at her, she gazed up at me with those same soft and fully permissive eyes, as if to say, \u201cIt is okay. You can let me go. I know it is my time.\u201d But she patiently waited until I, too, was ready.<br \/>\nIn the weeks before she died, Venus somehow communicated to me that all sadness, whether cosmic, human, or canine, is one and the same. Somehow, her eyes were all eyes, even God\u2019s eyes, and the sadness she expressed was a divine and universal sadness.<br \/>\nWhen we carry our small suffering in solidarity with humanity\u2019s one universal longing for deep union, it helps keep us from self-pity or self-preoccupation. We know that we are all in this together. It is just as hard for everybody else, and our healing is bound up in each other\u2019s. Almost all people are carrying a great and secret hurt, even when they don\u2019t know it. This realization softens the space around our overly defended hearts. It makes it hard to be cruel to anyone. It somehow makes us one\u2014in a way that easy comfort and entertainment never can.<br \/>\nSome mystics go so far as to say that individual suffering doesn\u2019t exist at all and that there is only one suffering. It is all the same, and it is all the suffering of God. The image of Jesus on the cross somehow communicates that to the willing soul. A Crucified God is the dramatic symbol of the one suffering that God fully enters into with us\u2014much more than just for us, as many Christians were trained to think.<br \/>\nIf suffering, even unjust suffering (and all suffering is unjust), is part of one Great Mystery, then I am willing to carry my little portion. Etty Hillesum (1914\u20131943), a young, Dutch, Jewish woman who died in Auschwitz, truly believed her suffering was also the suffering of God. She even expressed a deep desire to help God carry some of it:<br \/>\nAnd that is all we can manage these days and also all that really matters: that we safeguard that little piece of You, God, in ourselves. And perhaps in others as well. Alas, there doesn\u2019t seem to be much You Yourself can do about our circumstances, about our lives. Neither do I hold You responsible. You cannot help us, but we must help You and defend Your dwelling place inside us to the last. [2]<br \/>\nSuch freedom and generosity of spirit are almost unimaginable to me. What creates such altruistic and loving people?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Peacemakers<\/strong><br \/>\nSummary: Sunday, September 15\u2014Friday, September 20, 2019<br \/>\nMuch of Christianity seems to have forgotten Jesus\u2019 teachings on nonviolence. We\u2019ve relegated visions of a peaceful kingdom to a far distant heaven, hardly believing Jesus could have meant we should turn the other cheek here and now. (Sunday)<br \/>\nNonviolence is not ineffective, passive, weak, utopian, na\u00efve, unpatriotic, marginal, simplistic, or impractical, but it recognizes evil in the world and responds to it with good. \u2014Ken Butigan (Monday)<br \/>\nGandhi spoke of making himself zero but seemed to have become instead a kind of cosmic conduit, a channel for some tremendous universal power, an \u201cinstrument of peace.\u201d \u2014Eknath Easwaran (Tuesday)<br \/>\nIt is urgent to understand Gandhi\u2019s message that nonviolence is a way of thinking, a way of life, not a tactic, but a way of putting love to work in resolving problems, healing relationships, and generally raising the quality of our lives. \u2014Eknath Easwaran (Wednesday)<br \/>\nI saw that the Sermon on the Mount was the whole of Christianity for those who wanted to live a Christian life. It is that Sermon which has endeared Jesus to me. \u2014Mahatma Gandhi (Thursday)<br \/>\nIf you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. If you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together. \u2014 Shared by Lilla Watson (Friday)<\/p>\n<p>Practice: Vow of Nonviolence<br \/>\nYears ago, the Center for Action and Contemplation staff, volunteers, and friends were invited to say this vow together. Today I renew my commitment to nonviolence and invite you to make this vow your own as well.<br \/>\nRecognizing the violence in my own heart, yet trusting in the goodness and mercy of God, I vow for one year to practice the nonviolence of Jesus who taught us in the Sermon on the Mount:<br \/>\nBlessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons and daughters of God. . . . You have learned how it was said, \u201cYou must love your neighbor and hate your enemy\u201d; but I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you. In this way, you will be daughters and sons of your Creator in heaven (Matthew 5:9, 43-45).<br \/>\nBefore God the Creator and the Sanctifying Spirit, I vow to carry out in my life the love and example of Jesus<br \/>\nby striving for peace within myself and seeking to be a peacemaker in my daily life;<br \/>\nby accepting suffering rather than inflicting it;<br \/>\nby refusing to retaliate in the face of provocation and violence;<br \/>\nby persevering in nonviolence of tongue and heart;<br \/>\nby living conscientiously and simply so that I do not deprive others of the means to live;<br \/>\nby actively resisting evil and working nonviolently to abolish war and the causes of war from my own heart and from the face of the earth.<br \/>\nGod, I trust in Your sustaining love and believe that just as You gave me the grace and desire to offer this, so You will also bestow abundant grace to fulfill it. [1]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oneness Love Is Universal Monday, September 23, 2019 Every rational creature, every person, and every angel has two main strengths: the power to know and the power to love. God made both of these, but [God is] not knowable through the first one. To the power of love, however, [God] is entirely known, because a [&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\/18301"}],"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=18301"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18304,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18301\/revisions\/18304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}