{"id":16111,"date":"2017-10-24T09:00:18","date_gmt":"2017-10-24T13:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=16111"},"modified":"2017-10-24T09:43:54","modified_gmt":"2017-10-24T13:43:54","slug":"the-shape-of-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=16111","title":{"rendered":"The Shape of Reality"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/odLy_giolIc\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Shape of Reality<\/strong><br \/>\nTuesday, October 24, 2017   Richard Rohr<\/p>\n<p>As I shared in my book The Divine Dance, and earlier this year, I believe that the Trinity is the very shape of the universe. Reality\u2014like God\u2019s own self\u2014is a flow of mutual giving and receiving. [1] God as Relationship, or Trinity, can actually allow our scientific and spiritual cosmologies to finally operate as one, because we are inside of a flow instead of a prison.<br \/>\nSpiritual intuitions are almost always on some level correct. Only when we literalize them and make them wooden, mechanical, and fundamentalist do they lose the flow\u2014and the flow is where the life always is. Show me a single example of life where there is not movement, growth, and change. What we could know as a Divine Wave, we have for the most part related to as a static particle god. This demotion made a whole bunch of Christian dogmas appear to be about magic\u2014purely transactional exchanges with a later reward only for an exclusive few. Our \u201cgood news\u201d was no longer catholic, or universal, but merely ethnic, cultural, and earthbound.<br \/>\nThe \u201cPerennial Tradition\u201d (gathering common and recurring themes in all the world\u2019s wisdom lineages) invariably taught some version of \u201cas above, so below,\u201d as Huston Smith insisted. \u201cGod in heaven\u201d was usually seen to mirror any ideal \u201cearth below.\u201d We see echoes of this reciprocal language in the Lord\u2019s Prayer: \u201cYour kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven\u201d (Matthew 6:10). If we update this language for the quantum era\u2014moving from the \u201cGreat Chain of Being\u201d to the \u201cNested Holarchy of Being,\u201d as the philosopher Ken Wilber puts it [2]\u2014we can also speak of as within, so without. If all reality is a holon and has a fractal character, as physicists tell us, then each part contains and mirrors the whole. If the cosmos as we know it originates from a \u201cBig Bang\u201d\u2014from a \u201cLet it be\u201d\u2014that means that one point explodes with life and gives birth to the many lives. And the original DNA somehow remains intact.<br \/>\nWhen does this many cease to be one? When did this one ever not contain the many? Never! This is what the relational pattern of the universe is teaching us, from Godhead to geochemistry and everything in between. The shape of the cosmos\u2014quasar to quark\u2014is a reflection of the Trinitarian God.<br \/>\nHow do we learn to recognize and participate in this flowing reality? Scientists and mystics alike tell us: Be present! Experiment! Stay curious. This is Contemplation 101. Let go of what you \u201cthink\u201d is your mental center\u2014it is normally too small to understand the atom, galaxies, or the energy that births and animates all existence. Such momentous truth can occasionally be caught but it is not easily taught. We relied far too much on verbal education instead of full- bodied transformation. Moses\u2019 burning bush was not an intellectual exercise, nor did Teresa of \u00c1vila\u2019s ecstasies happen in a classroom. We rightly speak of faith as a \u201cgift\u201d as opposed to any reasoned conclusion. You fall into it more than reason toward it.<br \/>\nWe\u2019re standing in the middle of an awesome and major Mystery\u2014life itself\u2014and the only appropriate response to this is humility. If we\u2019re resolved that this is where we want to go\u2014into the Mystery, not trying to hold God and reality but to let God and reality hold us\u2014then I think religion is finally in its proper and appropriate place. Anyone who has undergone God is humble; in fact, they are the most humble of all.<\/p>\n<p>Gateway to Silence:<br \/>\nDivine Reality, endlessly knowable<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Proper Perspective<\/strong><br \/>\nBy Oswald Chambers<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ\u2026 \u20142 Corinthians 2:14<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>The proper perspective of a servant of God must not simply be as near to the highest as he can get, but it must be the highest. Be careful that you vigorously maintain God\u2019s perspective, and remember that it must be done every day, little by little. Don\u2019t think on a finite level. No outside power can touch the proper perspective.<br \/>\nThe proper perspective to maintain is that we are here for only one purpose\u2014 to be captives marching in the procession of Christ\u2019s triumphs. We are not on display in God\u2019s showcase\u2014 we are here to exhibit only one thing\u2014 the \u201ccaptivity [of our lives] to the obedience of Christ\u201d (2 Corinthians 10:5). How small all the other perspectives are! For example, the ones that say, \u201cI am standing all alone, battling for Jesus,\u201d or, \u201cI have to maintain the cause of Christ and hold down this fort for Him.\u201d But Paul said, in essence, \u201cI am in the procession of a conqueror, and it doesn\u2019t matter what the difficulties are, for I am always led in triumph.\u201d Is this idea being worked out practically in us? Paul\u2019s secret joy was that God took him as a blatant rebel against Jesus Christ, and made him a captive\u2014 and that became his purpose. It was Paul\u2019s joy to be a captive of the Lord, and he had no other interest in heaven or on earth. It is a shameful thing for a Christian to talk about getting the victory. We should belong so completely to the Victor that it is always His victory, and \u201cwe are more than conquerors through Him\u2026\u201d (Romans 8:37).<br \/>\n\u201cWe are to God the fragrance of Christ\u2026\u201d (2 Corinthians 2:15). We are encompassed with the sweet aroma of Jesus, and wherever we go we are a wonderful refreshment to God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Shape of Reality Tuesday, October 24, 2017 Richard Rohr As I shared in my book The Divine Dance, and earlier this year, I believe that the Trinity is the very shape of the universe. Reality\u2014like God\u2019s own self\u2014is a flow of mutual giving and receiving. [1] God as Relationship, or Trinity, can actually allow [&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":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16111"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16111"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16113,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16111\/revisions\/16113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}