{"id":23315,"date":"2024-01-22T09:48:34","date_gmt":"2024-01-22T14:48:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=23315"},"modified":"2024-01-22T10:00:52","modified_gmt":"2024-01-22T15:00:52","slug":"23315","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=23315","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Jason Gray - Order Disorder Reorder (lyric video)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/n9cNpW7kS9M?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Faith and Resilience<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p>Sunday, January 21, 2024<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Father Richard defines resilience in the context of the Christian faith:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Resilience<\/em>&nbsp;is really a secular word for what religion was trying to say with the word&nbsp;<em>faith.&nbsp;<\/em>Even <strong>Jesus emphasized faith more than love. Without a certain ability to let go, to trust, to allow, we won\u2019t get to any new place. If we stay with order too long and we\u2019re not resilient enough to <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">allow a certain degree of disorder, we don\u2019t get smarter, we just get rigid.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Unfortunately, this is what characterizes so many religious people. They\u2019re not resilient at all. Then there\u2019s another set of people who have settled down in disorder\u2014believing there\u2019s no pattern, there\u2019s nothing always true. It\u2019s a deep cynicism about reality, and that\u2019s equally problematic. I think such faith in both good order and acceptable disorder\u2014creating <strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">a new kind of creative reorde<\/span><\/strong>r\u2014is actually somewhat rare. [1]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>To have faith, to grow toward love, union, salvation, or enlightenment, we must be moved from&nbsp;<em>order&nbsp;<\/em>to&nbsp;<em>disorder&nbsp;<\/em>and then ultimately to&nbsp;<em>reorder.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Eventually our ideally ordered universe\u2014our \u201cpersonal salvation\u201d project [2], as Thomas Merton called it\u2014must and will disappoint us, if we are honest. Our spouse dies, we were rejected on the playground as a child, we find out we\u2019re needy, we fail an exam for a coveted certification, or we finally realize that many people are excluded from our own well-deserved \u201clife, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.\u201d <strong>This is the&nbsp;<em>disorder&nbsp;<\/em>stage, or what Christians call from the Adam and Eve story the \u201cfall.\u201d It is&nbsp;<em>necessary in some form&nbsp;<\/em>if any real growth is to occur; but some of us find this stage so uncomfortable we try to flee back to our first created order\u2014even if it is killing us and the very things we love.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>There is no nonstop flight to reorder. <\/strong>Various systems call it \u201cenlightenment,\u201d \u201cexodus,\u201d \u201cnirvana,\u201d \u201cheaven,\u201d \u201cspringtime,\u201d or even \u201cresurrection.\u201d<strong>&nbsp;<em>Reorder&nbsp;<\/em>is life on the other side of death, the victory on the other side of failure, the joy on the other side of the pains of childbirth. It is an insistence on going&nbsp;<em>through<\/em>\u2014<em>not under, over, or around.&nbsp;<\/em>To arrive there, we must endure, learn from, and include disorder, transcending the first na\u00efve order\u2014<em>but also still including it!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Happiness is the spiritual outcome and result of resilience, full growth, and maturity. This is why I am calling it \u201creorder.\u201d Ultimately, <strong>we are taken to happiness\u2014we cannot find our way there by willpower or cleverness. <\/strong>Yet we all try! We seem insistent on not recognizing the universal pattern of growth and change. Trees grow strong by reason of winds and storms. Boats are not meant to stay in permanent dry dock or harbor. Baby animals must be educated by their mothers in the hard ways of survival, or they almost always die young.<strong> It seems that each of us has to learn on our own what is well hidden but also in plain sight. [3]<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Consecrating the Chaos<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Dr. Otis Moss III considers difficulties we face as individuals and in community:&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>A true crisis\u2014a threat to yourself or someone you love\u2014can sometimes do wonders to focus the mind. In the moment, if we have spiritual practices in place or we are blessed with inspiration, the noise and confusion may recede for a little while, and we may see again what matters. But \u2026 you don\u2019t get that kind of clarity every time your blood pressure rises.\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In our darkest times, when the storm anxiety, worry, and chaos sweeps over an entire community, such feelings are everywhere. People who have children or elders worry they can\u2019t keep them safe. Those blessed with jobs worry about losing them. Even following the news can be too much to take. People with mental health issues feel even more intensely challenged. People who self-medicate do it more and more. Activists who work in their communities start saying to themselves, \u201cThe more I do to fight back, the more the pressure builds. The dam is cracking, and every time I plug a hole with my finger, ten more holes show up.\u201d The question haunts us:&nbsp;<em>When will this end?<\/em><em>&nbsp;\u2026<\/em><em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Struggling in all that confusion, uncertainty, and violence, we become spiritually worn down. It\u2019s too hard to keep believing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We get&nbsp;<em>tired.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We think:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>My road is too hard.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The powerful will never treat people right.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>I\u2019ve tried everything, there\u2019s nothing to be done.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>It\u2019s no use<\/em><em>.<\/em><em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Moss believes faith can sustain us in chaos:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>In the storm of chaos, lost in confusion and disorder, \u2026 the question is whether there might be some way to use the harsh, unpredictable winds and the relentless currents of our lives to get us moving to where we actually want to go. Do we have the spiritual audacity and the practical means to turn chaotic energy to our own purposes?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When you take on the confusion and the violence and you refine them, purify them into something new, you are doing what in the vocabulary of faith we call&nbsp;<strong><em>consecrating&nbsp;<\/em>your chaos<em>.<\/em>&nbsp;To&nbsp;<em>consecrate&nbsp;<\/em>is to make holy, to put it into service for good. In consecrating chaos, you engage it, tame it, name it, take what seemed out of control and charge it with a duty.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The model here is the creation itself. We read in Genesis [1:2] that in the beginning, \u201cThe earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep.\u201d Scripture begins with a whole world of chaos. Then God begins to find the possibilities of design in that formless void, separating light from darkness, water from land\u2026.<strong> God consecrates the chaos, giving it form. It is presented to us as an act of creativity and of choice. God works in the chaotic void until there is order and light, and it is good. The Genesis story reminds us that the void is not as empty as we think. Chaos is never as chaotic as we fear.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>=================== Closing Thought<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>&#8220;We do not preach great things; we live them.<\/strong><strong>&#8220;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>&#8211;&nbsp;<\/strong><a><strong>North African Christian Saying from the 3rd Century AD<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What we do is more important than what we say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Faith and Resilience Sunday, January 21, 2024 Father Richard defines resilience in the context of the Christian faith: Resilience&nbsp;is really a secular word for what religion was trying to say with the word&nbsp;faith.&nbsp;Even Jesus emphasized faith more than love. Without a certain ability to let go, to trust, to allow, we won\u2019t get to any [&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\/23315"}],"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=23315"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23320,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23315\/revisions\/23320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}