Richard Rohr

Eastern Christianity
Trinity
Tuesday, September 11, 2018

Just as some Eastern fathers saw Christ’s human/divine nature as one dynamic unity, they also saw the Trinity as an Infinite Dynamic Flow. The Western Church tended to have a more static view of both Christ and the Trinity—more a mathematical conundrum than an invitation to new consciousness. In our attempts to explain the Trinitarian mystery, the Western Church overemphasized the individual names—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—but not so much the quality of the relationships between them, which is where all the power and meaning lies! So, let’s not spend too much time arguing about the gender of the Three. The real and essential point is how the three “persons” relate to one another: infinite outpouring and infinite receiving.
The Mystery of God as Trinity invites us into full participation with God—a flow, a relationship, a waterwheel of always outpouring love. God is a verb much more than a noun. Some Christian mystics taught that all of creation is being taken back into this flow of eternal life, almost as if we are a “Fourth Person” of the Trinity, or as Jesus put it, “so that where I am you also may be” (John 14:3).
The Cappadocian Fathers of the fourth century first developed this theology, though they readily admitted the Trinity is a wonderful mystery that can never fully be understood with the rational mind, but can only be known through love, prayer, and suffering. Contemplation of God as Trinity was made-to-order to undercut the dualistic mind. This view of Trinity invites us to interactively experience God as transpersonal (“Father”), personal (“Christ”), and even impersonal (“Holy Spirit”)—all at once.
The Cappadocian teaching moved to the West but was not broadly communicated. We find an active Trinitarianism in many Catholic mystics (e.g., Meister Eckhart, Julian of Norwich, John of the Cross, Teresa of Ávila). Scottish theologian Richard of St. Victor (1110–1173) reflected this early theology. He taught at great length that for God to be truth, God had to be one; for God to be love, God had to be two; and for God to be joy, God had to be three! [1]
True Trinitarian theology offers the soul endless creativity—an open horizon. Trinitarian thinkers do not seem to have much interest in things like hell, punishment, or any notion of earning or losing. They are only overwhelmed by infinite abundance and flow.
Our supposed logic has to break down before we can comprehend the nature of the universe and the bare beginnings of the nature of God. Paraphrasing physicist Niels Bohr, the doctrine of the Trinity is saying that God is not only stranger than we think, but stranger than we can think. Perhaps much of the weakness of many Christian doctrines and dogmas is that we’ve tried to understand them with a logical or rational mind instead of through love, prayer, and participation itself. In the end, only lovers seem to know what is going on inside of God. To all others, God remains an impossible and distant secret, just like the galaxies.

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Young, Sarah. Jesus Calling

REJOICE IN ME ALWAYS! No matter what is going on, you can rejoice in your Love-relationship with Me. This is the secret of being content in all circumstances. So many people dream of the day when they will finally be happy: when they are out of debt, when their children are out of trouble, when they have more leisure time, and so on. While they daydream, their moments are trickling into the ground like precious balm spilling wastefully from overturned bottles.

Fantasizing about future happiness will never bring fulfillment because fantasy is unreality. Even though I am invisible, I am far more Real than the world you see around you. My reality is eternal and unchanging. Bring your moments to Me, and I will fill them with vibrant Joy. Now is the time to rejoice in My Presence!

PHILIPPIANS 4: 4, 12; Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident …

PSALM 102: 27; But you remain the same, and your years will never end. The children of your servants will live in your presence; their descendants will be.

1 PETER 1: 8; Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.

Morning and Evening Devotional (Jesus Calling®) (Kindle Locations 6259-6262). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

The Patristic Period
Sunday, September 9, 2018

As I shared last week, the desert fathers and mothers focused more on the how than the what. Their spirituality was very practical: virtue and prayer-based. Now we turn to its parallel, the Patristic Period, which emphasized the what—the rational, philosophical, and theological foundations for the young Christian religion. This period stretches from around 100 CE (the end of the Apostolic Age) to either 451 CE (with the Council of Chalcedon) or as late as the eighth century (Second Council of Nicaea in 787 CE).

The word patristic comes from the Latin and Greek pater, father. The fathers of the early Church were primarily “Eastern” in that they lived in the Middle East and Asia, which are East relative to Europe. We must admit that because women were often not allowed education or formal authority in this patriarchal period of history and religion, the majority of documented leadership is by men. (I am sorry to say, much of today’s Church and culture is still not congruent with Jesus’ and Paul’s attitudes toward women, who were both far ahead of their cultural stage and training.)

Alexandria in Egyptian Africa was a primary center for learning and culture across many fields—philosophy, art, medicine, literature, and science—during the Hellenistic and Roman periods (310 BCE–330 CE). The library in Alexandria was probably the largest in the ancient world. Greek, Eastern, Jewish, and Christian thought intersected in this environment, bringing together diverse perspectives and many saints and scholars.

One of the key teachers of the Alexandrian school, Origen (184–254), is considered by some to be the first Christian theologian. Many of his ideas, particularly apocatastasis (“universal restoration”), were largely misunderstood and thus declared heretical in the sixth century. The Alexandrian interactive/dynamic/mystical understanding of Jesus’ human and divine natures (developed by Athanasius, Cyril, and Bishop Dioscorus) became dominant for a while but was later rejected at the Council of Chalcedon, which insisted that Jesus had two very distinct natures. These then became hard to reconnect on any practical level—in Jesus and in us!

Building on the work of the Alexandrian school, the Cappadocian Fathers (in what is now Turkey) further advanced early Christian theology with their doctrine on the Trinity. The three theologian saints Basil the Great (330–379), his younger brother Gregory of Nyssa (c. 332–395), and Gregory of Nazianzus (329–389) sought to give Christianity a solid scholarly status, on par with Greek philosophy of the time. They developed an intellectual rationale for Christianity’s central goal: humanity’s healing and loving union with God.

We’ll explore these early Eastern theologians’ views on Christ, Trinity, theosis, universal salvation, and hesychasm (prayer of rest) throughout this week’s meditations.

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Christ is Everyman and Everywoman
Monday, September 10, 2018

Many passages in the New Testament give a cosmic meaning to Jesus as the Eternal Christ (Colossians 1, Ephesians 1, John 1), but the Eastern fathers of the Church were the first (and last) to make this into a full theology until Bonaventure and Duns Scotus in the thirteenth century and Teilhard de Chardin in the twentieth century. This theology of Christ was never developed in the West, which is why it seems like a new idea to most Catholics and Protestants.

Many of the Alexandrian school in Egypt saw Jesus as a dynamic or interactive union of human and divine in one person. They saw Christ as the living icon of the eternal union of matter and Spirit in all of creation. Jesus was fully human, just as he was fully divine at the same time, but dualistic thinkers find that impossible to process, so they usually choose one or the other. For example, many Christians believe Jesus is divine and we are human, missing the major point of putting the two together! Matter and Spirit must be found to be inseparable in Christ before we have the courage and insight to acknowledge and honor the same in ourselves and in the entire universe. Christ is the Archetype of Everything.

One of my favorite Orthodox scholars, Olivier Clément (1921-2009), helps explain the Eastern fathers’ understanding of Christ:

How could humanity on earth, enslaved by death, recover its wholeness? It was necessary to give to dead flesh the ability to share in the life-giving power of God. He, though he is Life by nature, took a body subject to decay in order to destroy in it the power of death and transform it into life. As iron when it is brought in contact with fire immediately begins to share its colour, so the flesh when it has received the life-giving Word into itself is set free from corruption. Thus he put on our flesh to set it free from death. [1]

The whole of humanity, “forms, so to speak, a single living being.” In Christ we form a single body, we are all “members of one another.” For the one flesh of humanity and of the earth “brought into contact” in Christ “with the fire” of his divinity, is henceforward secretly and sacramentally deified. [2]

Unfortunately, at the Council of Chalcedon, this view—the single, unified nature of Christ—was rejected for the “orthodox” belief, held to this day by most Christian denominations, which emphasizes two distinct natures in Jesus instead of a synthesis. Sometimes what seems like orthodoxy is, in fact, a well-hidden heresy!

Even science confirms that there is no clear division between matter and spirit. Everything is interpenetrating. As Franciscan scientist and theologian Ilia Delio often says, “We are in the universe and the universe is in us.” Christ’s very nature mirrors this universal reality, that we are all one, just as he is one within himself.

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Young, Sarah. Jesus Calling
September 10, 2018

AM ALWAYS AVAILABLE TO YOU. Once you have trusted Me as your Savior, I never distance Myself from you. Sometimes you may feel distant from Me. Recognize that as feeling; do not confuse it with reality. The Bible is full of My promises to be with you always. As I assured Jacob, when he was journeying away from home into unknown places, I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go. My last recorded promise to My followers was: Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. Let these assurances of My continual Presence fill you with Joy and Peace. No matter what you may lose in this life, you can never lose your relationship with Me.

ISAIAH 54: 10; Though the mountains be shaken
and the hills be removed,
yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken
nor my covenant of peace be removed,”
says the Lord, who has compassion on you.

GENESIS 28: 15; 15 I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

MATTHEW 28: 19– 20 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Richard Rohr

Early Christianity
Practical Prayer
Friday, September 7, 2018

In the same way as the early church, the desert Christians were deeply committed to Jesus’ teachings and lived practice. Withdrawal to the wilderness—whether into close-knit communities or solitude—was only for the sake of deeper encounter and presence.
Diana Butler Bass describes the natural flow from prayer to active love:
[Jesus’ invitation to] “Come follow me” was intimately bound up with the practice of prayer. For prayer connects us with God and others, “part of this enterprise of learning to love.” Prayer is much more than a technique, and early Christians left us no definitive how-to manual on prayer. Rather, the desert fathers and mothers believed that prayer was a disposition of wholeness, so that “prayer and our life must be all of a piece.” They approached prayer, as early church scholar Roberta Bondi notes, as a practical twofold process: first, of “thinking and reflecting,” or “pondering” what it means to love others; and second, as the “development and practice of loving ways of being.” [1] In other words, these ancients taught that prayer was participation in God’s love, the activity that takes us out of ourselves, . . . and conforms us to the path of Christ.” [2]
The desert fathers and mothers—abbas and ammas—learned to be sparing and intentional with their words and to preach more through their lifestyle than through sermons. There were few “doctrines” to prove at this time in Christianity, only an inner life to be experienced. Abba Isidore of Pelusia (5th century) said, “To live without speaking is better than to speak without living. For the former who lives rightly does good even by his silence but the latter does no good even when he speaks. When words and life correspond to one another they are together the whole of philosophy.” [3]
An old abba was asked what was necessary to do to be saved. He was sitting making rope. Without glancing up, he said, “You’re looking at it.” Just as so many of the mystics have taught us, doing what you’re doing with presence and intention is prayer. As other spiritual teachers have taught in many forms, “When we walk, we walk; when we chop wood, we chop wood; when we sleep, we sleep.” As you know, this is much harder than it first seems.
Belden Lane helps clear away any romanticism we might associate with desert spirituality:
[The] desert is, preeminently, a place to die. Anyone retreating to an Egyptian or Judean monastery, hoping to escape the tensions of city life, found little comfort among the likes of an Anthony or a Sabas. The desert offered no private therapeutic place for solace and rejuvenation. One was more likely to be carried out feet first than to be restored unchanged to the life one had left. [4]
In the tradition of Moses and Jesus, the Christians who wandered into the desert entered a wild, fierce, unknown place where they would encounter both “demons” and “angels” (Mark 1:13)—their own shadowy selves which contained both good and bad. Belden Lane writes: “Amma Syncletica refused to let anyone deceive herself by imagining that retreat to a desert monastery meant the guarantee of freedom from the world. The hardest world to leave, she knew, is the one within the heart.” [5]

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Young, Sarah. Jesus Calling Morning

September 6, 2018

 ENJOY THE WARMTH OF MY PRESENCE shining upon you. Feel your face tingle as you bask in My Love-Light. I delight in you more than you can imagine. I approve of you continuously, for I see you cloaked in My Light, arrayed in My righteousness. There is no condemnation for those who are clothed in Me! That is why I abhor the use of guilt as a means of motivation among Christians.

 Some pastors try to whip their people into action with guilt-inducing sermons. This procedure can drive many people to work harder, but the end does not justify the means. Guilt-evoking messages can undermine the very foundation of grace in a believer’s heart. A pastor may feel successful when his people are doing more, but I look at their hearts. I grieve when I see grace eroding, with weeds of anxious works creeping in. I want you to relax in the assurance of My perfect Love. The law of My Spirit of Life has set you free from the law of sin and death.

 ISAIAH 61: 10; I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his.

ROMANS 8: 1– 2; There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.1 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus …

Early Christianity

Richard Rohr 
Seeking Spiritual Freedom
Thursday, September 6, 2018

A brother was restless in the community and often moved to anger. So he said: “I will go, and live somewhere by myself. And since I shall be able to talk or listen to no one, I shall be tranquil, and my passionate anger will cease.” He went out and lived alone in a cave. But one day he filled his jug with water and put it on the ground. It happened suddenly to fall over. He filled it again, and again it fell. And this happened a third time. And in a rage he snatched up the jug and broke it. Returning to his right mind, he knew that the demon of anger had mocked him, and he said: “Here am I by myself, and he has beaten me. I will return to the community. Wherever you live, you need effort and patience and above all God’s help.” —Story of a desert father [1]
As the Christian church moved from bottom to top, protected and pampered by the Roman Empire, people like Anthony of the Desert (c. 250-c. 356), John Cassian (c. 360-c. 435), Evagrius Ponticus (c. 345-399), Syncletica (c. 270-c. 350) and other early Christians went off to the deserts of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria to find spiritual freedom, live out Jesus’ teachings, and continue growing in the Spirit. It was in these deserts that a different mind called contemplation was taught.
As an alternative to empire and its economy, these men and women emphasized lifestyle practice, psychologically astute methods of prayer, and a very simple spirituality of transformation into Christ. The desert communities grew out of informal gatherings of monks or nuns, functioning much like families. A good number also became hermits to mine the deep mystery of their inner experience. This movement paralleled the monastic pattern in Hinduism and Buddhism.
The desert tradition preceded the emergence of systematic theology and formal doctrine. Christian faith was first a lifestyle before it was a belief system. Since the desert dwellers were often formally uneducated, they told stories, much like Jesus did, to teach about essential issues of ego, love, virtue, surrender, peace, divine union, and inner freedom.
Thomas Merton described those early Christians in the wilderness as people “who did not believe in letting themselves be passively guided and ruled by a decadent state,” who didn’t wish to be ruled or to rule. He continues, saying that they primarily sought their “true self, in Christ”; to do so, they had to reject “the false, formal self, fabricated under social compulsion ‘in the world.’ They sought a way to God that was uncharted and freely chosen, not inherited from others who had mapped it out beforehand.” [2] Can you see why we might need to learn from them?

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Young, Sarah. Jesus Calling

September 6, 2018

DO EVERYTHING IN DEPENDENCE ON ME. The desire to act independently— apart from Me— springs from the root of pride. Self-sufficiency is subtle, insinuating its way into your thoughts and actions without your realizing it. But apart from Me, you can do nothing: that is, nothing of eternal value. My deepest desire for you is that you learn to depend on Me in every situation. I move heaven and earth to accomplish this purpose, but you must collaborate with Me in this training. Teaching you would be simple if I negated your free will or overwhelmed you with My Power. However, I love you too much to withdraw the godlike privilege I bestowed on you as My image-bearer. Use your freedom wisely by relying on Me constantly. Thus you enjoy My Presence and My Peace.

JOHN 15: 5; I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

EPHESIANS 6: 10; Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, which you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. …

GENESIS 1: 26– 27; Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”.

Christianity in the Desert
Wednesday, September 5, 2018

For too long, little or no honor has been paid to those who have laid the foundations in Africa for the preservation of Christianity throughout the world. . . . [T]he roots and headwaters for this monastic flourishing had their source in African soil. Unfortunately, black saints have been depicted as white and African bishops have been portrayed as Europeans. The remembrance and acknowledgment of our historic spiritual foundations is long overdue. —Paisius Altschul [1]

Today Barbara Holmes continues exploring the forgotten gifts of early Christianity, particularly from its African legacies.

African participants in the early church remained in the shadows of the main theological discourse despite the scholarship of Tertullian [c. 155-c. 240], Augustine [354-430], Cyprian [c. 200-258], and others of African descent who were instrumental in the expansion and theological grounding of the early church. Although initially the spread of Islam limited the expansion of North African Christian practices to sub-Saharan Africa, the trajectories of today’s Christian contemplative practices can be traced to early Christian communities in the Middle East and Africa.

Some of these communities were led by women. . . . After Christianity became a state religion, the freedom that women found in Spirit-led Christian sects was foreclosed by an increasingly hierarchical religious structure. In response, many retreated to remote desert areas to continue their spiritual quests.

The desert may initially seem barren, dull, and colorless, but eventually our perceptions start to change. . . . Here we empty ourselves of our own obstacles to God. In the space of this emptiness, we encounter the enormity of God’s presence. . . . The aromas teach us that the desert becomes the place of a mature repentance and conversion toward transformation into true radical freedom. [2]

If the desert is a place of renewal, transformation, and freedom, and if the heat and isolation served as a nurturing incubator for nascent monastic movements, one wonders if a desert experience is necessary to reclaim this legacy.

One need not wonder long when there are so many deserts within reach. Today’s wilderness can be found in bustling suburban and urban centers, on death row, in homeless shelters in the middle of the night, in the eyes of a hospice patient, and in the desperation of AIDS orphans in Africa and around the world. Perhaps these are the postmodern desert mothers and fathers. Perhaps contemplative spaces can be found wherever people skirt the margins of inclusion. Perhaps those whom we value least have the most to teach.

We are in need of those values central to African monasticism and early Christian hospitality; they include communal relationships, humility, and compassion. Laura Swan sums up these virtues in the word apatheia, defined as “a mature mindfulness, a grounded sensitivity, and a keen attention to one’s inner world as well as to the world in which one has journeyed.” [3] Inevitably, the journey takes each of us in different directions; however, by virtue of circumstances or choice, each of us will at some point in our lives find ourselves on the outskirts of society listening to the silence coming from within. During these times, we realize that contemplation is a destination as well as a practice. The monastics knew this and valued both.

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September 5 MORNING I AM YOUR BEST FRIEND, as well as your King. Walk hand in hand with Me through your life. Together we will face whatever each day brings: pleasures, hardships, adventures, disappointments. Nothing is wasted when it is shared with Me. I can bring beauty out of the ashes of lost dreams. I can glean Joy out of sorrow, Peace out of adversity. Only a Friend who is also the King of kings could accomplish this divine alchemy. There is no other like Me!
The friendship I offer you is practical and down-to-earth, yet it is saturated with heavenly Glory. Living in My Presence means living in two realms simultaneously: the visible world and unseen, eternal reality. I have equipped you to stay conscious of Me while walking along dusty, earthbound paths. JOHN 15: 13– 15; ISAIAH 61: 3; 2 CORINTHIANS 6: 10

Richard Rohr

Early Christianity
A Rhythm of Retreat and Return
Tuesday, September 4, 2018

As Christianity rose to a position of power, rational thinking and individuals’ needs took priority over embodied, nondual consciousness and relationships. One of our CONSPIRE 2018 teachers, Barbara Holmes, recalls the early church’s commitment to contemplation and community and how, even when mainstream Christianity lost these threads, groups in Africa and the Middle East continued to cultivate them.
From the beginning, Jesus’s ministry modeled the interplay between prophetic utterance, public theology, and intense spiritual renewal. He launches his three-year ministry from the desert wilderness, a place that will be the home of latter-day desert mothers and fathers. After an intense time of fasting, testing, and submission to the leading of the Holy Spirit, Jesus returns ready to fulfill his calling. These rhythms of activism and contemplation, engagement and withdrawal resonate throughout his life.
As for the early church, its origins are steeped in the intimacy of close communal groups in house churches and catacombs. During the first century, Paul refers to the knowledge of God as an understanding that exceeds rational and objective thought. This knowledge can be experienced as presence. The prophets and wisdom literature celebrate the accessibility of this presence and extol the mysteries of the human/divine relationship. Theological contemplation usually assumes the tangible reality of God’s love, our shortcomings, and the inexplicable possibility of reunion. Accordingly, relationship is a primary goal of Christian life.
This willingness to engage God through a devout community of committed individuals is a theme repeated in many religious communities. However, the specific Christian mandate to “be in but not of the world” seems to be the necessary orientation that fosters and encourages connections to the multiple realities of faith. Persecution only strengthened the tendency toward a life that emphasized interiority as well as liberation. The first era of persecution, during the formative years of the Christian church, also spurred the development of contemplative practices.
We are familiar with the story of persecution and martyrdom in early Christianity. However, we are not as familiar with the history of persecution and martyrdom . . . in the African Christian church at the hands of Emperor Diocletian [244-311]. Those who went silently to their deaths include Saint Sophia, Saint Catherine (martyred by Maximus), and Saint Damiana, who was killed with the other devotees in the monastery that she founded [in Egypt]. As most historians note, the end of public persecution marked the shift in Christian status from a beleaguered sect to the state religion of Rome.
When Christianity began, it was small and intense, communal and set apart, until it found favor with the state. Those adherents who witnessed Rome’s public affirmation of Christianity in the fourth century realized that the contemplative aspects of the faith could not be nurtured under the largesse of the state. And so, in the fifth century, monasticism flourished in the [African and Middle Eastern] desert as Christian converts retreated for respite and spiritual clarity. Although the desert mothers and fathers sought harsh and isolated sites, they soon found that they were not alone. The decision to retreat drew others to them. Communities formed as city dwellers came out to seek advice and solace. The historical model of contemplation offers the rhythm of retreat and return. It was in the wilderness that African contemplatives carved out unique spiritual boundaries.

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Sarah Young Jesus Calling

September 4, 2018

IN CLOSENESS TO ME, you are safe. In the intimacy of My Presence, you are energized. No matter where you are in the world, you know you belong when you sense My nearness. Ever since the Fall, man has experienced a gaping emptiness that only My Presence can fill. I designed you for close communication with your Creator. How I enjoyed walking in the garden with Adam and Eve before the evil one deceived them!

When you commune with Me in the garden of your heart, both you and I are blessed. This is My way of living in the world— through you! Together we will push back the darkness, for I am the Light of the world.

PSALM 32: 7; You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.

ROMANS 1: 6; And you also are among those Gentiles who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

GENESIS 3: 8– 9; Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God.

JOHN 8: 12; Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness.

The Beginnings of the Way
Sunday, September 2, 2018

If we look closely at the evolution of religion over time, we see that there has been gradual growth toward the goal of union with God. Religions continue to change, “transcending and including,” as Ken Wilber says, learning from old ways and opening to new. Christianity is no different from other religions in this regard. Over the next few weeks I will focus on people and communities within Christianity who were somehow transformed and “got it” at a mature level for their time in history.

Christianity first emerged not as a new religion, but as a reform and sect of Judaism within Judea and the Mediterranean. Wherever Paul, Peter, and other early missionaries traveled, they formed small communities of believers in “The Way,” a movement that emphasized Jesus’ teachings, death, and resurrection as the path to transformation. Gradually the movement grew and took on a life of its own, welcoming non-Jews as well as Jews, becoming more inclusive and grace-oriented, until it eventually called itself “catholic” or universal. By 80 CE, there were Christians as far away as India and France.

The “Early Church” period (the five hundred or so years following Jesus’ resurrection) was a time of dramatic change in culture, politics, and economy. All these changes affected the development of the fledgling religion, shaping liturgy, rituals, and theology. Historian Diana Butler Bass writes, “for all the complexity of primitive Christianity, a startling idea runs through early records of faith: Christianity seems to have succeeded because it transformed the lives of people in a chaotic world.” [1] During this time, Christianity was not so much about doctrines or eternal salvation, but about how to live a better life here and now, within the “Reign of God.”

From the perspective of occupying Roman powers, the Christian sect was radical because it encouraged alternative behaviors that were both attractive to those at the bottom and threatening to the worldview of empire. Rather than acquiring wealth, this new sect shared possessions equally. Followers of The Way lived together with people of different ethnicities and social classes rather than following classist and cultural norms.

Early Christianity is largely unknown and of little interest to most Western Christians. The very things the early Christians emphasized—such as the prayer of quiet, the Trinity, divinization, universal restoration, and the importance of practice—have been neglected, to our own detriment. With the schism between what are now the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches in 1054 CE, Christians, in effect, excommunicated one another. Every time the church divided, it also divided up Christ, and both sides of the divide were weaker as a result.

Through these meditations, I will try to reclaim some of the forgotten pieces of the Christian tradition for our wholeness and blessing, hopefully bringing us closer to what it means to be created in the image and likeness of God. Not knowing this early heritage will allow us to cling to superficial Christian distinctions that emerged much later, and largely as historical accidents.

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Early Christianity

A Changing Religion
Monday, September 3, 2018

Much of what Jesus taught seems to have been followed closely during the first several hundred years after his death and resurrection. As long as Jesus’ followers were on the bottom and the edge of empire, as long as they shared the rejected and betrayed status of Jesus, they could grasp his teaching more readily. Values like nonparticipation in war, simple living, inclusivity, and love of enemies could be more easily understood when Christians were gathering secretly in the catacombs, when their faith was untouched by empire, rationalization, and compromise.

Several writings illustrate this early commitment to Jesus’ teachings on simplicity and generosity. For example, the Didache, compiled around 90 CE, says: “Share all things with your brother, and do not say that they are your own. For if you are sharers in what is imperishable, how much more in things which perish!” [1]

The last great formal persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire ended in 311 CE. In 313, Constantine (c. 272-337) legalized Christianity. It became the official religion of the Roman Empire in 380. After this structural change, Christianity increasingly accepted, and even defended, the dominant social order, especially concerning money and war. Morality became individualized and largely focused on sexuality. The church slowly lost its free and alternative vantage point. Texts written in the hundred years preceding 313 show it was unthinkable that a Christian would fight in the army, as the army was killing Christians. By the year 400, the entire army had become Christian, and they were now killing the “pagans.”

Before 313, the church was on the bottom of society, which is the privileged vantage point for understanding the liberating power of Gospel for both the individual and for society. Within the space of a few decades, the church moved from the bottom to the top, literally from the catacombs to the basilicas. The Roman basilicas were large buildings for court and other public assembly, and they became Christian worship spaces.

When the Christian church became the established religion of the empire, it started reading the Gospel from the position of maintaining power and social order instead of experiencing the profound power of powerlessness that Jesus revealed. In a sense, Christianity almost became a different religion!

The failing Roman Empire needed an emperor, and Jesus was used to fill the power gap. In effect, we Christians took Jesus out of the Trinity and made him into God on a throne. An imperial system needs law and order and clear belonging systems more than it wants mercy, meekness, or transformation. Much of Jesus’ teaching about simple living, nonviolence, inclusivity, and love of enemies became incomprehensible. Relationship—the shape of God as Trinity—was no longer as important. Christianity’s view of God changed: the Father became angry and distant, Jesus was reduced to an organizing principle, and for all practical and dynamic purposes, the Holy Spirit was forgotten.

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Sarah Young, Jesus Calling

September 3, 2018

LET THE DEW OF MY PRESENCE refresh your mind and heart. So many, many things vie for your attention in this complex world of instant communication. The world has changed enormously since I first gave the command to be still, and know that I am God. However, this timeless truth is essential for the well-being of your soul. As dew refreshes grass and flowers during the stillness of the night, so My Presence revitalizes you as you sit quietly with Me.

A refreshed, revitalized mind is able to sort out what is important and what is not. In its natural condition, your mind easily gets stuck on trivial matters. Like the spinning wheels of a car trapped in mud, the cogs of your brain spin impotently when you focus on a trivial thing. As soon as you start communicating with Me about the matter, your thoughts gain traction, and you can move on to more important things. Communicate with Me continually, and I will put My thoughts into your mind.

PSALM 46: 10; He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

LUKE 10: 39– 42; She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be.

1 CORINTHIANS 14: 33 NKJV; For God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.

Richard Rohr

Hinduism
Action and Contemplation
Friday, August 17, 2018

There are three major texts in Hinduism and Indian philosophy:
The Vedas are the most ancient Sanskrit writings (as much as three to four thousand years old) containing hymns, philosophy, guidance, and rituals.
The Upanishads—which means “what is learned sitting at the feet of”—are later (800-200 BCE), even more mystical texts which elaborate on many of the ancient themes. There are probably thirteen major and many minor Upanishads.
The Bhagavad Gita emerged in various translations from four centuries before Christ to four centuries afterward. It is an extended dialogue between Prince Arjuna, who is a passenger in a chariot, and Lord Krishna, who is teaching him how to drive the chariot. The 700 classic verses amount to an extended commentary on “action and contemplation.”
The Bhagavad Gita describes Lord Krishna, one of Hinduism’s central gods, as both this and that, totally immanent and yet fully transcendent, physical and yet formless, the deepest inner self and yet the Godself (Bhagavad Gita 10). Krishna has even been called “The Unknown Christ of Hinduism”—the same mystery of spirit and matter that we Western Christians, with our dualistic minds, struggled to put together in Jesus.
Krishna, like Jesus, also shows the integration of action and contemplation. The Gita does not counsel that we all become monks or solitaries. Rather, Lord Krishna tells Prince Arjuna that the true synthesis is found in a life-long purification of motive, intention, and focus in our world of action. The Gita calls the active person to a life of interiority and soul discovery. How can we do “pure action”? Only by gradually detaching from all the fruits of action and doing everything purely for the love of God, Lord Krishna teaches.
Jesus says the same thing in several places (Mark 12:30, for example): “You shall love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” Jesus even counsels the same love toward the neighbor (Matthew 22:39). The only way to integrate action and contemplation is to go ahead and do your action, but every day to ask yourself why you’re doing it. Is it to make money? Is it to have a good reputation? Is it to keep busy? Or is it for the love of God? Then you will discover the true Doer!
Reflect on these passages from the Bhagavad Gita (4:18, 23-24):
The wise see that there is action in the midst of inaction,
and inaction in the midst of action.
Their consciousness is unified,
and every act is done with complete awareness.
When a man has let go of attachments,
when his mind is rooted in wisdom,
everything he does is worship,
and his actions all melt away.
God is the offering. God
is the offered, poured out by God;
God is attained by all those
who see God in every action.
In the Gita, Prince Arjuna is the noble individual soul (“Atman”), and Lord Krishna is the personification of the Divine (“Brahman”). Already in the ancient Vedas, Atman and Brahman were discovered to be one, at least in a foundational sense. This is exactly as Jesus proclaimed when he said, “I and the Father are One” (John 10:30). Teresa of Ávila begins her journey through The Interior Castle by proclaiming God’s castle and chosen dwelling is precisely “the beauty and amplitude of the human soul.” [1] This is without doubt the true Perennial Wisdom Tradition.

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Young, Sarah. Jesus Calling Morning

August 17, 2018

FIND ME in the midst of the maelstrom. Sometimes events whirl around you so quickly that they become a blur. Whisper My Name in recognition that I am still with you. Without skipping a beat in the activities that occupy you, you find strength and Peace through praying My Name. Later, when the happenings have run their course, you can talk with Me more fully. Accept each day just as it comes to you. Do not waste your time and energy wishing for a different set of circumstances. Instead, trust Me enough to yield to My design and purposes. Remember that nothing can separate you from My loving Presence; you are Mine.

PHILIPPIANS 2: 9– 11; Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, …

PSALM 29: 11; The LORD gives strength to his people; the LORD blesses his people with peace.

ISAIAH 43: 1; But now, this is what the LORD says– he who created you, Jacob, he who formed you, Israel: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; …

Richard Rohr

Hinduism
Parts of a Whole
Thursday, August 16, 2018

Inspiration for this week’s banner image: The Bhagavad Gita does not counsel that we all become monks or solitaries. Rather, the true synthesis is found in a life-long purification of motive, intention, and focus in our world of action. The Gita calls the active person to a life of interiority and soul discovery. How can we do “pure action”? Only by gradually detaching from all the fruits of action and doing everything purely for the love of God. —Richard Rohr

Several central ideas affirmed by Jesus were already formed in the ancient Hindu Vedas, then unfolded by the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita. Three of these ideas are advaita, karma, and maya.
The word advaita is loosely translated as “having no duality,” implying that the proper or spiritual way of understanding things is outside the realm of comparison or judgment. The contemplative mind sees things in their unity and connection before it separates them as not completely one, but not two either. If you first emphasize dissimilarity and distinction, it is almost impossible to ever get back to unitive consciousness or similarity, from which most compassion, or at least tolerance, proceeds. If you start with advaita, you can still go back to making needed and helpful distinctions, but now love and union is prior to knowledge and information.
That is the unique and brilliant starting place of so many Eastern religions, as I believe it was for Jesus! Read Jesus’ words: “My Father’s sun shines on the good and the bad; his rain falls on the just and the unjust” (Matthew 5:45); “Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me” (Matthew 25:40). With a dualistic mind, such statements are just idealistic poetry, which is largely how many Christians have read them.
For the Hindu, karma is the nature of the universe and moves us toward purification of motive and honesty about why we are doing what we are doing. Karma is an absolute law of cause and effect. What goes around comes around—eventually! We are responsible for our own thoughts and motives—which create the Real—and we cannot avoid the consequences. Negative thoughts will destroy us. We are punished by our sins more than for our sins. Goodness is its own reward now; we do not need to wait for heaven later.
I am convinced that Jesus taught the karmic world view, but many Christians understood him inside a reward and punishment framework. Here are just a couple illustrations: “If you show mercy, mercy will be shown to you” (Matthew 5:7, Luke 6:37); “The standard you use will be used for you” (Mark 4:24).
The third supreme idea of Hinduism is maya. This is often translated as “illusion,” but a better translation might be “tricky.” When Hinduism (or Buddhism, which is a child of Hinduism) states that all the world of forms is maya (or emptiness), it is trying to help you look deeper and broader so as not to be tricked by the short term pay-offs of the ego.
The Upanishads illustrate maya as “tricky” using the familiar experience of finding a rope on a path. We jump back, thinking it’s a snake, but it isn’t. Mirabai Starr says, “Wisdom comes with being able to engage in inquiry with curiosity (with childlike wonderment as Jesus calls it) [in order] to see what really is, and to discover it’s not something we have to defend ourselves against.” [1] Reality is hard, maya says, but also benevolent.
All phenomena pass themselves off as total and final in their independent and free existence. But just wait a while, look deeper, and you will see that all things are parts of much larger ecosystems of connection and life. In their separateness, they will pass. Everything is qualified and provisional and contingent on something else. The illusion of our separateness makes it hard for us to see and seek the common good or to rest in Divine Union.

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Young, Sarah. Jesus Calling Morning

MEET ME in early morning splendor. I eagerly await you here. In the stillness of this holy time with Me, I renew your strength and saturate you with Peace. While others turn over for extra sleep or anxiously tune in to the latest news, you commune with the Creator of the universe. I have awakened in your heart strong desire to know Me. This longing originated in Me, though it now burns brightly in you.

When you seek My Face in response to My Love-call, both of us are blessed. This is a deep mystery, designed more for your enjoyment than for your understanding. I am not a dour God who discourages pleasure. I delight in your enjoyment of everything that is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable. Think on these things, and My Light in you will shine brighter day by day.

ISAIAH 40: 31;But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they.

PSALM 27: 4; One thing I ask from the LORD, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the.Lord

PHILIPPIANS 4: 8; Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there.

Stages of Life
Wednesday, August 15, 2018

Beginning with Jesus’ four kinds of soil and receptivity (Matthew 13:4-9), to John of the Cross’ “dark nights” and Teresa of Ávila’s “interior mansions,” through the modern schemas of Jean Piaget, James Fowler, Lawrence Kohlberg, Eric Erikson, Abraham Maslow, Carol Gilligan, and others, each clarify that there is a clear direction and staging to maturity and therefore to human life.

Unless we can somehow chart this trajectory, we have no way to discern growth and what might be a full, fuller, or fullest human response. Neither do we have any criteria for discerning an immature, regressive, or even sick response. When pluralism itself becomes the goal, a postmodern dilemma is created. There must be a direction to ripening, but we must also recognize that any steps toward maturity are by necessity immature. An understanding of ripening teaches us the wisdom of timing, love, and patience, and allows us to be wise instead of judgmental.

Hinduism teaches that there are four major stages of life: (1) the student, (2) the householder, (3) the forest dweller or hermit (the “retiree” from business as usual), and (4) the beggar or wanderer (the wise or fully enlightened person who is not overly attached to anything and is detached from everything and thus ready for death). I once saw these four stages represented in four stained glass windows in a Catholic church in Bangalore, showing how central this cultural paradigm is to the wider Indian culture, not just practicing Hindus.

Western cultures tend to recognize and honor only the first two stages at best. We are an adolescent culture. Seeing these missing pieces in our societies, I helped develop men’s initiation rites and have explored later stages of life. [1] My experience tells me that when we do not intentionally cultivate the third and fourth stages, we lose their skills and fail to create the elders needed to understand the first and second stages and guide us through and beyond them.

This is foundational to the spiritual problems we are experiencing in Western religion and culture today, and probably why we now seem to have an epidemic of mental and emotional illness. It seems so many people are angry and afraid, especially at religion itself. I hope they do not waste too many years there because reactivism is an early-stage response. They are angry because we do not honor variety, staging, interiority, or depth in most of organized Christianity; but their attachment to that very anger becomes a hindrance.

Becoming a “forest dweller” and “beggar” is a slow, patient learning and letting go. This ripening is a seeming emptying out to create readiness for a new kind of fullness, about which we are never sure. If we do not allow our own ripening, resistance and denial set in. Yet when we surrender to our own natural journey, we find authentic hope, hope that is not identified with outcomes or goals.

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August 15 MORNING
I AM THE GOD OF ALL TIME and all that is. Seek Me not only in morning quietness but consistently throughout the day. Do not let unexpected problems distract you from My Presence. Instead, talk with Me about everything, and watch confidently to see what I will do. Adversity need not interrupt your communion with Me. When things go “wrong,” you tend to react as if you’re being punished. Instead of this negative response, try to view difficulties as blessings in disguise. Make Me your Refuge by pouring out your heart to Me, trusting in Me at all times.

Psalm 105:3-5
3 Glory in His holy name;
Let the hearts of those rejoice who seek the Lord!
4 Seek the Lord and His strength;
Seek His face evermore!
5 Remember His marvelous works which He has done,
His wonders, and the judgments of His mouth,

Psalm 55:17
17 Evening, morning and noon
I cry out in distress,
and he hears my voice.

Psalm 32:6
6 Therefore let all the faithful pray to you
while you may be found;
surely the rising of the mighty waters
will not reach them.

Psalm 62:8
8 Trust in him at all times, you people;
pour out your hearts to him,
for God is our refuge.

Young, Sarah. Jesus Calling Morning and Evening Devotional (Jesus Calling®) (Kindle Locations 5668-5670). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.