Interspiritual Mysticism<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An\nUnspeakable Name<\/strong>\nMonday, \u202fSeptember 21,\n2020<\/p>\n\n\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p>Remember what God said to Moses: \u201cI AM Who I AM\u201d (Exodus\n3:14). <em>God is clearly not tied to a\nname, <\/em>nor does God\nseem to want us to tie Divinity to any one name. Which is why, in Judaism,\nGod\u2019s statement to Moses became God\u2019s unspeakable and unnamable identity. Some\nwould say that the name of God literally cannot be \u201cspoken,\u201d only breathed. [1]\nNow that was very wise, and sometimes I wish we had kept it up. This tradition\nalone should tell us to practice profound humility in regard to God, who gives\nus not a name, but only <em>pure presence<\/em>\u2014no handle that could allow\nus to think we \u201cknow\u201d who God is or have the divine as our private possession.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nChrist is always far too much for us, larger than any one era, culture, empire,\nor religion. Its radical inclusivity is a threat to any power structure and any\nform of arrogant thinking. Jesus by himself has usually been limited by the\nevolution of human consciousness in these first two thousand years, and held\ncaptive by culture, nationalism, and Western Christianity\u2019s own cultural\ncaptivity to a white, bourgeois, and Eurocentric worldview. We have often\nmissed the ways Jesus reveals himself, because \u201cthere stood among us one we did\nnot recognize\u201d (John 1:26). He came in mid-tone skin, from the underclass, a\nmale body with a female soul, from an often-hated religion, and living on the\nvery cusp between East and West. No one owns him, and no one ever will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus\nclearly says naming God correctly is not the priority, \u201cDo not believe those\nwho <em>say<\/em> \u2018Lord, Lord\u2019\u201d (Matthew 7:21; Luke 6:46.\nItalics added). It is those who \u201cdo it right\u201d that matter, he says, not those\nwho \u201csay it right.\u201d Yet verbal orthodoxy has been Christianity\u2019s preoccupation,\nat times even allowing us to burn people at the stake for not \u201csaying it\nright.\u201d We ended up spreading national cultures under the rubric of Jesus,\ninstead of a universally liberating message under the name of Christ. What I\ncall an incarnational worldview is the profound recognition of the presence of\nthe divine in literally \u201cevery thing\u201d and \u201cevery one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I would go so\nfar as to say that<em> the proof that you are a mature Christian is\nthat you can see Christ everywhere else. <\/em>Authentic God experience always expands your seeing and\nnever constricts it. What else would be worthy of God? <em>In God you do not include less and less; you always see\nand love more and more.<\/em> And it is from\nthis place that we lose any fear we have about entering into discussion,\nprayer, and friendship with people of other faith traditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Interspiritual Mysticism<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Solidarity\nInstead of Judgment<\/strong><br>\nSunday, \u202fSeptember 20,\n2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>In\nour one small and interwoven world, the great spiritual messengers of<\/em> all <em>the\nsacred traditions are a universal human treasure, to be received and reverenced\nwith the respect due an attained being, an exemplar of a higher level of human\nconsciousness.<\/em> \u2014Cynthia Bourgeault<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While\nmany Christians are familiar, and possibly even comfortable, with the idea of\ninterfaith dialogue, few have had exposure to the discipline of\ninterspirituality. While the first tends to be a respectful exchange of ideas;\nthe second is a shared journey into the depths of the heart. Most Christians\nhave been discouraged from exploring the teachings and practices of other\nreligions, but I believe the loving and universal scope of Jesus Christ\nprovides us with a model of how to recognize and celebrate truth on the many\ndifferent paths to God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Through\nJesus Christ, God\u2019s own broad, deep, and all-inclusive worldview is made\navailable to us. In fact, I\u2019d go so far as to say that the point of the\nChristian life is not to distinguish oneself from the other world religions,\nbut to stand in radical solidarity with everyone and everything else. This is\nthe full, final, and intended effect of the Incarnation\u2014symbolized by the\ncross, which is <em>God\u2019s great act\nof solidarity instead of judgment<\/em>. This is how we are to imitate Jesus, the good Jewish\nman who saw and called forth the divine in Gentiles like the Syro-Phoenician\nwoman and the Roman centurions who followed him; in Jewish tax collectors who\ncollaborated with the Empire; in zealots who opposed it; in sinners of all\nstripes; in eunuchs, pagan astrologers, and all those \u201coutside the law.\u201d Jesus\nhad no trouble whatsoever with <em>otherness<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If\nwe are ready to reclaim the true meaning of \u201ccatholic,\u201d which is \u201cuniversal,\u201d\nwe must concentrate on including\u2014as Jesus clearly did\u2014instead of\nexcluding\u2014which he never did. <em>The only thing\nJesus excluded was exclusion itself.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After\nthe incarnation of Jesus, humanity could more easily imagine a give-and-take,\nrelational and forgiving God. Christians had a very good model and messenger in\nJesus, but many outliers actually came to the \u201cbanquet\u201d more easily, as Jesus\noften says in his parables of the resented and resisted banquet (Matthew\n22:1\u201310; Luke 14:7\u201324), where \u201cthe wedding hall was filled with guests, both\ngood and bad alike\u201d (Matthew 22:10). What are we to do with such divine\nirresponsibility, such endless largesse, such an unwillingness on God\u2019s part to\nbuild walls or create unneeded boundaries?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We must be\nhonest and humble about this: many people of other faiths, like Sufi masters,\nJewish prophets, many philosophers, and Hindu mystics, have lived in light of\nthe Divine encounter better than many Christians. And why would a God worthy of\nthe name God not care about <em>all<\/em> of God\u2019s children? (Read Wisdom 11:23\u201312:2 for\na powerful Scripture in this regard.) Does God really have favorites among\nGod\u2019s children? What an unhappy family that would create\u2014and indeed, <em>has<\/em> created.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Interspiritual Mysticism An Unspeakable Name Monday, \u202fSeptember 21, 2020 Remember what God said to Moses: \u201cI AM Who I AM\u201d (Exodus 3:14). God is clearly not tied to a name, nor does God seem to want us to tie Divinity to any one name. Which is why, in Judaism, God\u2019s statement to Moses became God\u2019s […]<\/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\/19339"}],"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=19339"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19340,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19339\/revisions\/19340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p>Remember what God said to Moses: \u201cI AM Who I AM\u201d (Exodus\n3:14). <em>God is clearly not tied to a\nname, <\/em>nor does God\nseem to want us to tie Divinity to any one name. Which is why, in Judaism,\nGod\u2019s statement to Moses became God\u2019s unspeakable and unnamable identity. Some\nwould say that the name of God literally cannot be \u201cspoken,\u201d only breathed. [1]\nNow that was very wise, and sometimes I wish we had kept it up. This tradition\nalone should tell us to practice profound humility in regard to God, who gives\nus not a name, but only <em>pure presence<\/em>\u2014no handle that could allow\nus to think we \u201cknow\u201d who God is or have the divine as our private possession.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nChrist is always far too much for us, larger than any one era, culture, empire,\nor religion. Its radical inclusivity is a threat to any power structure and any\nform of arrogant thinking. Jesus by himself has usually been limited by the\nevolution of human consciousness in these first two thousand years, and held\ncaptive by culture, nationalism, and Western Christianity\u2019s own cultural\ncaptivity to a white, bourgeois, and Eurocentric worldview. We have often\nmissed the ways Jesus reveals himself, because \u201cthere stood among us one we did\nnot recognize\u201d (John 1:26). He came in mid-tone skin, from the underclass, a\nmale body with a female soul, from an often-hated religion, and living on the\nvery cusp between East and West. No one owns him, and no one ever will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus\nclearly says naming God correctly is not the priority, \u201cDo not believe those\nwho <em>say<\/em> \u2018Lord, Lord\u2019\u201d (Matthew 7:21; Luke 6:46.\nItalics added). It is those who \u201cdo it right\u201d that matter, he says, not those\nwho \u201csay it right.\u201d Yet verbal orthodoxy has been Christianity\u2019s preoccupation,\nat times even allowing us to burn people at the stake for not \u201csaying it\nright.\u201d We ended up spreading national cultures under the rubric of Jesus,\ninstead of a universally liberating message under the name of Christ. What I\ncall an incarnational worldview is the profound recognition of the presence of\nthe divine in literally \u201cevery thing\u201d and \u201cevery one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I would go so\nfar as to say that<em> the proof that you are a mature Christian is\nthat you can see Christ everywhere else. <\/em>Authentic God experience always expands your seeing and\nnever constricts it. What else would be worthy of God? <em>In God you do not include less and less; you always see\nand love more and more.<\/em> And it is from\nthis place that we lose any fear we have about entering into discussion,\nprayer, and friendship with people of other faith traditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Interspiritual Mysticism<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Solidarity\nInstead of Judgment<\/strong><br>\nSunday, \u202fSeptember 20,\n2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>In\nour one small and interwoven world, the great spiritual messengers of<\/em> all <em>the\nsacred traditions are a universal human treasure, to be received and reverenced\nwith the respect due an attained being, an exemplar of a higher level of human\nconsciousness.<\/em> \u2014Cynthia Bourgeault<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While\nmany Christians are familiar, and possibly even comfortable, with the idea of\ninterfaith dialogue, few have had exposure to the discipline of\ninterspirituality. While the first tends to be a respectful exchange of ideas;\nthe second is a shared journey into the depths of the heart. Most Christians\nhave been discouraged from exploring the teachings and practices of other\nreligions, but I believe the loving and universal scope of Jesus Christ\nprovides us with a model of how to recognize and celebrate truth on the many\ndifferent paths to God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Through\nJesus Christ, God\u2019s own broad, deep, and all-inclusive worldview is made\navailable to us. In fact, I\u2019d go so far as to say that the point of the\nChristian life is not to distinguish oneself from the other world religions,\nbut to stand in radical solidarity with everyone and everything else. This is\nthe full, final, and intended effect of the Incarnation\u2014symbolized by the\ncross, which is <em>God\u2019s great act\nof solidarity instead of judgment<\/em>. This is how we are to imitate Jesus, the good Jewish\nman who saw and called forth the divine in Gentiles like the Syro-Phoenician\nwoman and the Roman centurions who followed him; in Jewish tax collectors who\ncollaborated with the Empire; in zealots who opposed it; in sinners of all\nstripes; in eunuchs, pagan astrologers, and all those \u201coutside the law.\u201d Jesus\nhad no trouble whatsoever with <em>otherness<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If\nwe are ready to reclaim the true meaning of \u201ccatholic,\u201d which is \u201cuniversal,\u201d\nwe must concentrate on including\u2014as Jesus clearly did\u2014instead of\nexcluding\u2014which he never did. <em>The only thing\nJesus excluded was exclusion itself.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After\nthe incarnation of Jesus, humanity could more easily imagine a give-and-take,\nrelational and forgiving God. Christians had a very good model and messenger in\nJesus, but many outliers actually came to the \u201cbanquet\u201d more easily, as Jesus\noften says in his parables of the resented and resisted banquet (Matthew\n22:1\u201310; Luke 14:7\u201324), where \u201cthe wedding hall was filled with guests, both\ngood and bad alike\u201d (Matthew 22:10). What are we to do with such divine\nirresponsibility, such endless largesse, such an unwillingness on God\u2019s part to\nbuild walls or create unneeded boundaries?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We must be\nhonest and humble about this: many people of other faiths, like Sufi masters,\nJewish prophets, many philosophers, and Hindu mystics, have lived in light of\nthe Divine encounter better than many Christians. And why would a God worthy of\nthe name God not care about <em>all<\/em> of God\u2019s children? (Read Wisdom 11:23\u201312:2 for\na powerful Scripture in this regard.) Does God really have favorites among\nGod\u2019s children? What an unhappy family that would create\u2014and indeed, <em>has<\/em> created.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Interspiritual Mysticism An Unspeakable Name Monday, \u202fSeptember 21, 2020 Remember what God said to Moses: \u201cI AM Who I AM\u201d (Exodus 3:14). God is clearly not tied to a name, nor does God seem to want us to tie Divinity to any one name. Which is why, in Judaism, God\u2019s statement to Moses became God\u2019s […]<\/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\/19339"}],"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=19339"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19340,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19339\/revisions\/19340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}