{"id":19702,"date":"2021-01-08T09:40:44","date_gmt":"2021-01-08T14:40:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19702"},"modified":"2021-01-08T10:31:32","modified_gmt":"2021-01-08T15:31:32","slug":"when-things-are-unveiled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19702","title":{"rendered":"When Things Are Unveiled"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/OcOS9j-NXRQ\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p>I have read the scriptures since childhood and\npreached on them continually over the last fifty years in my role as a priest;\nbut over the last year, I\u2019ve found myself drawn to them in a different way. I\nhave been looking, if not for answers, then for wisdom, solidarity, and always\nfor needed inspiration. Perhaps it\u2019s not surprising that this past year I have\nfrequently returned to what we might call the \u201capocalyptic\u201d readings found in\nthe synoptic gospels (Matthew 24, Luke 21, Mark 13) and also in the entire Book\nof Revelation. Don\u2019t be nervous! I\u2019m not looking for signs of the \u201cend times\u201d\nor trying to predict anything. I\u2019m simply trying to understand what is being\n\u201crevealed\u201d in all that is happening. Remember, the word \u201capocalyptic\u201d simply\nmeans to \u201cunveil.\u201d It was never meant to be a synonym for bad news!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Apocalyptic literature \u201cpulls back the curtain\u201d to reveal what is real,\nwhat is true, and what is lasting. It\u2019s never what we think it is! That is the\ngift of this literature and a time like the one we\u2019re living through. It shocks\nus out of what we take for granted as normal so that we can redefine normal. It\nuses hyperbolic language and images, such as stars falling from the sky and the\nmetaphor of the moon turning to blood to help us recognize that we\u2019re not in my\nhome state of Kansas anymore. It\u2019s not that it\u2019s the end of <em>the<\/em>&nbsp;world,\nbut it helps us imagine the end of \u201cour world\u201d as we know it. That doesn\u2019t mean\n<em>life<\/em>&nbsp;doesn\u2019t go on, but that our lives won\u2019t go on\nthe way we thought they would, could, and even should. It allows us to see that\nwhat we thought was necessary and inevitable, simply isn\u2019t, and that everything\nis eventually \u201cGone, gone, utterly gone!\u201d as many Buddhists chant daily in the\nDiamond Sutra (scripture).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When things are \u201cunveiled,\u201d we stop taking things for granted. That\u2019s\nwhat major events like the COVID-19 pandemic do for us. They reframe reality in\na radical way and offer us an invitation to greater depth and breadth. If we\ntrust the universal pattern, the wisdom of all times and all places, including\nthe creation and evolution of the cosmos itself, we know that an ending is also\nthe place for a new beginning. Death is followed by a new kind of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I invite you to continue practicing some form of contemplative prayer this year. Our problems begin when we fight reality, push it away, or insist that the way I \u201csee\u201d reality, from my own limited perspective, is the only valid reality. Any contemplative practice that serves to welcome life as it is will change us. We will dive into this \u201cunveiled\u201d\u2014and even unpleasant\u2014reality positively and preemptively, saying, \u201cCome God, and teach me your good lessons.\u201d We need such a practice to lessen our resistance to change and our tight grasp around things. Let us seek to pray this way for as long as it takes us to arrive at a full \u201cYes\u201d to Reality. Only then can its lessons come through to us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"252\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Screen-Shot-2021-01-08-at-10.21.27-AM-500x252.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-19705\" srcset=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Screen-Shot-2021-01-08-at-10.21.27-AM-500x252.png 500w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Screen-Shot-2021-01-08-at-10.21.27-AM-300x151.png 300w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Screen-Shot-2021-01-08-at-10.21.27-AM-768x387.png 768w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Screen-Shot-2021-01-08-at-10.21.27-AM.png 1940w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have read the scriptures since childhood and preached on them continually over the last fifty years in my role as a priest; but over the last year, I\u2019ve found myself drawn to them in a different way. I have been looking, if not for answers, then for wisdom, solidarity, and always for needed inspiration. [&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\/19702"}],"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=19702"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19707,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19702\/revisions\/19707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}