{"id":21159,"date":"2022-03-22T09:53:48","date_gmt":"2022-03-22T13:53:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=21159"},"modified":"2022-03-22T09:59:49","modified_gmt":"2022-03-22T13:59:49","slug":"nondual-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=21159","title":{"rendered":"Nondual Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/T1-l0awKd8k\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Today Father Richard examines a specific example of Paul\u2019s nondual, \u201cboth-and\u201d thinking. Paul saw Christ\u2019s cross as a third way beyond the cultural-religious conflicts of his time.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the dialectics that Paul presents is the perennial\nconflict that today we call conservative and liberal. In his writings, Paul\u2019s\nown people, the Jews, became the stand-in for pious, law-abiding conservatives;\nthe Greeks provided his metaphor for intellectuals, cultural critics, and\npeople we would call liberals. Paul sees the Jews trying to create order in the\nworld by obedience to law, tradition, and kinship ties. The Greeks try to\ncreate order by reason, understanding, logic, and education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Paul insists that neither of them can finally succeed because they do not have the ability to \u201cincorporate the negative,\u201d which will always be present. <strong>He recognizes that\u00a0<\/strong><em><strong>the greatest enemy of ordinary daily goodness and joy is not imperfection, but the demand for some supposed perfection or order<\/strong>.<\/em>\u00a0<strong>There seems to be a shadow side to almost everything; all things are subject to \u201cthe powers and principalities\u201d (Ephesians 6:12). Only the unitive or nondual mind can accept this and not panic, but, in fact, grow because of it and grow beyond it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Neither the liberal pattern nor the conservative pattern can deal with disorder and misery. Paul believes that Jesus has revealed the only response that works<\/strong>. The revelation of the cross, he says, makes us indestructible, because it says there is a way through all absurdity and tragedy.\u00a0<em><strong>That way is precisely through accepting and even using absurdity and tragedy as part of God\u2019s unfathomable agenda.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><strong>If we can internalize the mystery of the cross, we won\u2019t fall into cynicism, failure, bitterness, or skepticism<\/strong>. The cross gives us a precise and profound way through the shadow side of life and through all disappointments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Paul allows both conservatives and liberals to define wisdom in their own ways, yet he dares to call both inadequate and finally wrong.<\/strong> He believes that such worldviews will eventually fail people. \u201cGod has shown up human wisdom as folly\u201d on the cross (1 Corinthians 1:21), and this is \u201can obstacle that the Jews cannot get over,\u201d and which the Gentiles or pagans think is simple \u201cfoolishness\u201d (1:23).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For Paul, the code words for nondual thinking, or true wisdom, are \u201cfoolishness\u201d and \u201cfolly.\u201d He says, in effect, \u201cMy thinking is foolishness to you, isn\u2019t it?\u201d Admittedly, it does not make sense unless we have confronted the mystery of the cross. <strong>Suffering, the \u201cfolly of the cross,\u201d breaks down the dualistic mind. Why? Because on the cross, God took the worst thing, the killing of the God-human, and made it into the best thing, the very redemption of the world. The compassionate holding of essential meaninglessness or tragedy, as Jesus does on the cross, is the final and triumphant resolution of all the dualisms and dichotomies that we face in our own lives. We are thus \u201csaved by the cross\u201d! Does that now make ultimate sense?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>____________________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>REJOICE AND BE THANKFUL! As you walk with Me through this\nday, practice trusting and thanking Me all along the way. Trust is the channel\nthrough which My Peace flows into you. Thankfulness lifts you up above your\ncircumstances. I do My greatest works through people with grateful, trusting\nhearts. Rather than planning and evaluating, practice trusting and thanking Me\ncontinually. This is a paradigm shift that will revolutionize your life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>PHILIPPIANS 4:4; Rejoice in the Lord always, I say rejoice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>PSALM 95:1\u20132; Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. \u00b2Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>PSALM 9:10; Those who know your name trust in you, for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2 CORINTHIANS 2:14 NKJV; Now thanks be to God who always\nleads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His\nknowledge in every place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Young, Sarah. Jesus Calling Morning and Evening Devotional\n(Jesus Calling\u00ae) (p. 168). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today Father Richard examines a specific example of Paul\u2019s nondual, \u201cboth-and\u201d thinking. Paul saw Christ\u2019s cross as a third way beyond the cultural-religious conflicts of his time. One of the dialectics that Paul presents is the perennial conflict that today we call conservative and liberal. In his writings, Paul\u2019s own people, the Jews, became the [&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":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21159"}],"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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21159"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21162,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21159\/revisions\/21162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}