{"id":18576,"date":"2020-02-04T09:45:54","date_gmt":"2020-02-04T14:45:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18576"},"modified":"2020-02-04T09:55:10","modified_gmt":"2020-02-04T14:55:10","slug":"a-minority-position","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18576","title":{"rendered":"A Minority Position"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1MzrLQTjNxI\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong><br><\/strong>Tuesday, February 4, 2020<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better. Oppositional energy only creates more of the same.<\/em>&nbsp;\u2014One of the Center for Action &amp; Contemplation\u2019s Eight Core Principles&nbsp;[1]&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Throughout history, the Franciscan School has typically been a minority position inside of the Roman Catholic and larger Christian tradition.&nbsp;While not everyone shares our way of thinking,&nbsp;it has never been condemned or considered heretical\u2014in fact quite the opposite.&nbsp;It has been allowed and affirmed because we&nbsp;simply&nbsp;emphasize&nbsp;different teachings of Jesus,&nbsp;offer&nbsp;new perspectives and behaviors, and focus on the full and final implications of the&nbsp;incarnation of God in Christ.&nbsp;(I\u2019m not sure why that puts us in the minority of Christians, but so be it!)&nbsp;For Franciscans, the incarnation&nbsp;is not just about Jesus but&nbsp;is manifested everywhere.&nbsp;Once&nbsp;we&nbsp;learn how to see spiritually, \u201cThe whole world is our cloister!\u201d&nbsp;in the words of&nbsp;St.&nbsp;Francis himself.&nbsp;[2]&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From the very beginning,&nbsp;Franciscanism&nbsp;was sort of a para-church&nbsp;<em>on the edge of the inside<\/em>&nbsp;of organized Christianity,&nbsp;similar to&nbsp;others who had occupied that same position: desert fathers and mothers, many early monastics before they become clericalized and domesticated, Celtic Christianity, and even some religious orders down to our own time.&nbsp;Most Catholics are accustomed to such groups living on the side and the edge of the parish church system, but this is also why Francis&nbsp;of Assisi&nbsp;has often been called \u201cthe first Protestant.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But how did Francis&nbsp;do&nbsp;what he did,&nbsp;from the inside and&nbsp;without&nbsp;oppositional energy?&nbsp; Francis\u2019 starting place was&nbsp;<em>human suffering instead of human sinfulness<\/em>&nbsp;and God\u2019s identification with that suffering in Jesus. That did not put him in conflict with any Catholic&nbsp;dogmas or structures,&nbsp;merely&nbsp;to the side of&nbsp;them. His Christ was universal&nbsp;while also deeply&nbsp;personal, his cathedral was creation itself, he preferred the bottom of society to the top.&nbsp;Francis showed us that&nbsp;<em>practical truth is more likely found at the bottom and the edges than at the top or the&nbsp;center of most groups, institutions, and cultures<\/em>&nbsp;(another one of the&nbsp;Center\u2019s&nbsp;Core Principles).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since&nbsp;Jesus himself was humble and poor, then the pure and simple imitation of Jesus became&nbsp;Francis\u2019&nbsp;life agenda. He was a fundamentalist, not about doctrinal Scriptures, but about&nbsp;<em>lifestyle Scriptures<\/em>:&nbsp;take nothing for your journey;&nbsp;eat what is set before you;&nbsp;work for your wages;&nbsp;wear no shoes. This is still revolutionary thinking for most&nbsp;Christians, although it is the very \u201cmarrow of the Gospel,\u201d to use Francis\u2019 own phrase.&nbsp;[3]&nbsp;He&nbsp;knew&nbsp;intuitively&nbsp;what many educators have now proven\u2014that&nbsp;<em>humans tend to live themselves into new ways of thinking more than think themselves into new ways of living<\/em>&nbsp;(yet another Core Principle).&nbsp;The lecture method changes very few people at any deep or long-lasting level. It normally does not touch the unconscious, where all our hurts and motives lie hidden and disguised.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Gateway to Action &amp; Contemplation:<\/strong><br><em>What word or phrase resonates with or challenges me? What sensations do I notice in my body? What is mine to do?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Prayer for Our Community:<\/strong><br><em>O Great Love, thank you for living and loving in us and through us. May all that we do flow from our deep connection with you and all beings. Help us become a community that vulnerably shares each other\u2019s burdens and the weight of glory. Listen to our hearts\u2019 longings for the healing of our world. [Please add your own intentions.] . . . Knowing you are hearing us better than we are speaking, we offer these prayers in all the holy names of God, amen.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tuesday, February 4, 2020 The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better. Oppositional energy only creates more of the same.&nbsp;\u2014One of the Center for Action &amp; Contemplation\u2019s Eight Core Principles&nbsp;[1]&nbsp;&nbsp; Throughout history, the Franciscan School has typically been a minority position inside of the Roman Catholic and larger Christian tradition.&nbsp;While not [&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\/18576"}],"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=18576"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18578,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18576\/revisions\/18578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}