{"id":18557,"date":"2020-01-24T09:31:54","date_gmt":"2020-01-24T14:31:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18557"},"modified":"2020-01-24T09:31:54","modified_gmt":"2020-01-24T14:31:54","slug":"action-and-contemplation-part-three-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18557","title":{"rendered":"Action and Contemplation: Part Three"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>&nbsp;<strong>The Peasant\u2019s\nAlphabet&nbsp;<\/strong><br>\nFriday, January 24, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/eKcImiTxqKg\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p>Abba&nbsp;Poemen&nbsp;(340\u2013450)&nbsp;taught that the\nright question in all circumstances was&nbsp;\u201cWho am I?\u201d&nbsp;[1]&nbsp;St.\nFrancis&nbsp;of Assisi (1182\u20131226)&nbsp;would spend whole nights\npraying&nbsp;\u201cWho are you, my most dear God, and who am I&nbsp;. . . ?\u201d\n[2]&nbsp;It is through encountering the absolute safety of God that we discover\nour&nbsp;True&nbsp;Self, and in finding our truest self, we find a God who is\nalways and forever larger than we expected. The truth of our identity, wrapped\nup in God, gives us a deep sense of radical&nbsp;okayness&nbsp;and yet humility\nabout our fragility. What a paradox!&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read these\nsayings and let them stir deeper questions and reflection. This is the power of\nthese simple stories.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One day\nAbba&nbsp;Arsenius&nbsp;consulted an old Egyptian monk about his own thoughts.\nSomeone noticed this and said to him, \u201cAbba&nbsp;Arsenius, how is it that you\nwith such a good Latin and Greek education, ask this peasant about your\nthoughts?\u201d He replied, \u201cI have indeed been taught Latin and Greek, but I do not\nknow even the alphabet of this peasant.\u201d&nbsp;[3]&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Abba Anthony said, \u201cA time\nis coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they\nwill attack him saying, \u2018You are mad, you are not like us.\u2019\u201d&nbsp;[4]&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Abba Isaiah, when someone\nasked him what avarice was, replied, \u201cNot to believe that God cares for you, to\ndespair of the promises of God and to love boasting.\u201d&nbsp;[5]&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I hope this\nbrief introduction to the&nbsp;Desert Fathers and&nbsp;Mothers has given you at\nleast a taste of why their simple spirituality is so valuable for us today. If\nyou are drawn to read more of their sayings, don\u2019t be surprised if you are\nquickly offended by some of their seeming lower-stage thinking.&nbsp;Stay with\nthem, in honesty and&nbsp;humility, and I\u2019m sure they will teach you something\nof your own human nature and God\u2019s benevolence. In their irrelevance to our\nworld, these&nbsp;<em>abbas<\/em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>ammas<\/em>&nbsp;end up being\namazingly relevant, precisely because their frame of reference is so utterly\ndifferent than ours. We all need radically different frames to recognize our\nown limitations.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The practice of\ncontemplation&nbsp;took root in these mystics&nbsp;under&nbsp;extreme\ncircumstances\u2014in&nbsp;the desert wilderness and&nbsp;at&nbsp;the height of the\nRoman Empire.\nLooking&nbsp;for&nbsp;God,&nbsp;first&nbsp;in&nbsp;cities&nbsp;and then&nbsp;far&nbsp;away\nfrom&nbsp;mainstream culture,&nbsp;they&nbsp;ultimately&nbsp;found&nbsp;God\u2019s\npresence within themselves, once they got still enough to recognize\nit.&nbsp;For all their idiosyncratic teachings and practices, the&nbsp;desert\nmystics provide a&nbsp;common thread&nbsp;of love&nbsp;running\nthrough&nbsp;their&nbsp;stories. In the words of our own beloved teacher James\nFinley:&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the freedom with which\nyou freely choose to give yourself in love to the love that gives itself to\nyou, in that reciprocity of love, your destiny is fulfilled, and God&#8217;s will for\nyou is consummated. That all of life when you distill&nbsp;it out to its simplest\nterms, it&nbsp;has to&nbsp;do in the intimate always utterly personal way that\neach of us serendipitously stumbles upon this great truth. When everything is\nsaid and done, only love is real, only love endures. Outside of love, there is\nnothing, nothing at all.&nbsp;[6]&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Contemplation helps\nus&nbsp;reconnect with&nbsp;our source, which is love, and&nbsp;compels us to\nembody&nbsp;love&nbsp;in&nbsp;our&nbsp;actions.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;The Peasant\u2019s Alphabet&nbsp; Friday, January 24, 2020 Abba&nbsp;Poemen&nbsp;(340\u2013450)&nbsp;taught that the right question in all circumstances was&nbsp;\u201cWho am I?\u201d&nbsp;[1]&nbsp;St. Francis&nbsp;of Assisi (1182\u20131226)&nbsp;would spend whole nights praying&nbsp;\u201cWho are you, my most dear God, and who am I&nbsp;. . . ?\u201d [2]&nbsp;It is through encountering the absolute safety of God that we discover our&nbsp;True&nbsp;Self, and in finding our [&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\/18557"}],"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=18557"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18558,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18557\/revisions\/18558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}