Congratulations to the White Sox

Congratulations to the Chicago White Sox. Last time they won, the Bolsheviks overthrew the Tsar, Einstein discovered relativity, the Germans took their first run at world domination (at least in modern times), and Karl Barth wiped the smile off God's face.  Can't wait to see what happens this time. 

~Randy Williams

We Look For

In a shrinking world,
we look for the
largest context
in which to frame
our understanding:
namely, all that is.
Taking this giant step
we look not for
some Other Being
but for traces
of the Mystery
in ourselves.

~T.C. Wright, from “Savoring the Universe II,” Autumn Medley: Poems and Stories, 10/2005

We look for the traces of thy presence this day. Namaste.

Meister Eckhart

I Am

. . . that I am [the one that I am] belongs to no one but myself, not to man nor angel, no, nor yet to God excepting in so far as I am one with God.

~Meister Eckhart

Even though I do not belong to anyone or anything, I am the one who is one with all that is: spirit, my universe, mother earth, all beings, all species, all human settlements, my family, and my own innerbeing. Those relationships are who I am. I am not just someone called “me, myself, and I.” ~jpc

The verse of a song comes to mind:

What shall be, somehow depends on me,
What I am, have been and now decide to be;
And all those of Way become my we,
And this we becomes the larger me.

I give thanks for the wonder of the all that I am, the largest me. Namaste.

Andrew Cohen

Enlightenment Is Evolving

[E]nlightenment itself is evolving. I don’t think that what the world needs now is more people resting in the timeless ground of being. I think we have to resist the temptation to get lost in timelessness and begin to embrace the overwhelming urgency of the evolutionary crisis we’re in.

~Andrew Cohen

O Thou, enlighten us in the crisis we are in. Namaste.

Eckhart Tolle

Present

Beyond the beauty of the external forms, there is more here: something that cannot be named, something ineffable, some deep, inner, holy essence. . . . It only reveals itself to you when you are present.

~Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

Spirit’s already present. We are already present and yearn to be more nearly present this day. Namaste.

Paul Tillich

Spirit (The Holy; Numinous Other) . . .

is always present and always escaping (p. 19) . . . is mediated by some piece of finite reality (p. 22) . . . [is] the power of being in everything that is (p.13) . . . is the eternal conquest of nonbeing (p. 74); [the bottom line for us humans:] the divine Spirit [is] working within our spirit [creating] faith (p. 52).

~Tillich, Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality

O divine spirit, work within our spirit to create faith in ultimate reality. Namaste.

Earth-centered Spirituality?

Christians are recovering an earth-centered pneumatology that experiences God’s spirit immanent in creation as the power of life-giving breath (ruah), the Wisdom (logos) continually working to transform and renew all life and the love that sustains it. Biblical images portray the Spirit as “a healing and subversive life-form – as water, light, dove, mother, fire, breath . . . wind [Mark Wallace],” and comforter of the suffering.

~Dieter T. Hessel, Forum on Religion and Ecology

Let us celebrate the fact that spirit’s always present. Namaste.

Eye on the World

by Maximillian Schneider


http://www.visions-of-science.co.uk/f-2005winners.htm

"Keeping an eye on the world"

An eye studies a self-contained ecosystem in which every organism feeds on another, or its waste products. All this sealed globe needs to sustain it is light, so that the plant can produce oxygen. This is identical to the Earth, a sealed ecosystem reliant on sunlight, the only difference being that we observe the Earth from within.

Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks Museum

"not a happy experience. . . . I had not planned to be arrested," stressing that it wasn't, as many have romanticized, because her feet were tired that she didn't move, but because she was "tired of being oppressed . . . just plain tired." ~Booklist

Pope Benedict will not confer sainthoold on Rosa, but we can. ~jpc

William Sloan Coffin

Faith Is . . .

The founding pastor of Riverside Church in New York once wrote, “The world has tried in two ways to get rid of Jesus: first, by crucifying him, and second, by worshipping him.” Jesus doesn’t ask us to worship him. He said, “Follow me.”

~William Sloan Coffin (via Alice Baumbach)

Let us follow Jesus’ faith in his “Father” and Jesus’ love for his “Father’s” creation. Namaste.

"Worship"

by Paul Rapson
blue ink diffusing into water
http://www.visions-of-science.co.uk/f-2005winners.htm

Rudolf Bultmann

The Real Questions

[T]here does not seem to be any universally agreed upon definition of what the “Christian view” of God is. And, though Bultmann certainly considers himself a Christian (though some others may not . . .), it does not seem to me to be an overly important question. The real questions, it seems to me, are these: What do I encounter in the existential depth of my own lived experience? At the bottom of my own frustration and despair, what do I find? And, whatever I do find, how do I choose to live before it? (italics added)

. . . for Bultmann . . . the question is: is this power [“God is the enigmatic power beyond time, yet master of the temporal, beyond being, yet working in it.”] just “the enigma” or “fate” or is it my “Father?” Regardless of how one answers this question, until he has asked this question he has not asked about God.

~Houston A. Craighead

O Thou, who meets us in the depths of our existence, we dare to call thee friend, even Father, as did Jesus in his darkest night. Namaste.

Paul Tillich

Paul Tillich Park, New Harmony, Indiana, USA

Thank God

God does not make grace dependent on the existence of religion. God is greater than the religion in which God is manifest.

~Tillich, The Irrelevance and Relevance of the Christian Message

Let us thank God that authentic religion is dependent on grace. Namaste.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

If Theology Seems Irrelevant

Bonhoeffer as older boy sitting at the table with his family: “If theology seems irrelevant, . . . then it is because it has been improperly presented. I shall change that.”

~Denise Giardina, Saints and Villains

The following week of quotes present theology at its best, as far as I am concerned. ~jpc

Let us make depth language relevant again. Namaste.

E. L. Doctorow

Spacetime Journey

What we are supposed to keep in mind, in our mind, is that the universe didn’t burst out into pre-existent available space, it was the space that blew out, taking everything with it in a great expansive flowering, a silent flash into being in a second or two of the entire outrushing universe of gas and matter and darkness-light, a cosmic floop of nothing into the volume and chronology of spacetime. Okay?

~E. L. Doctorow, City of God

Our universe, as far as we know, is the result of this ongoing happening. ~jpc

We journey on with the great host and give thanks for the incredible trip, all the way. Namaste.

Martin Buber

Appearance, Address, and Response

Spirit in its human manifestation is a response of man to . . . Thou . . . which appears and addresses him out of the mystery.

~Martin Buber, I and Thou

Turn it around: Out of the mystery, Thou appears, addresses us, and we respond, all of which means spirit is manifest in our lives. ~jpc

Eternal Thou, we bow to thee this day. Namaste.

Wrath and Mercy of God

In olden times it was said that the other can be the wrath of God, and if so, rage often comes before bowing to the other as the mercy of God. ~jpc

Granddaughter Kaitlyn (9)

click on photo

Doing What I Love

To keep Mother’s spirits up I used to sing to her. She wanted me to sing "My Happiness" and "That's When Your Heartaches Begin." My friend helped me make a recording. Mom loved it so much she wore it out listening to it. You could say it was all coming together. I loved music, I wanted to write and sing music, and I wanted to be famous doing what I loved.

~from Kaitlyn’s bio of Elvis

Ken Wilber

Everybody Is Right

I have one major rule: everybody is right. More specifically, everybody – including me – has some important pieces of the truth, and all of those pieces need to be honored. ~Collected Works of Ken Wilber

Grandson Nolan (7) & the Earth Fable

click on photo

From Nolan's Reading Book (2nd Grade)

You know that you can help too – it’s not so rough.
Pick up your toys and trash and stuff.
Keep our planet Earth clean and make it better,
recycle things and do not litter.
Being ecological won’t give you a rash!
Do you want to live on a planet of trash?

~George Poppel, The Planet of Trash: An Environmental Fable, 1987

Loren Eiseley

Spirit Questions

Who first rocked my cradle
or what wild thing left me
upon my parents’ doorstep
is a mystery. . . .

~Loren Eiseley, Notes of an Alchemist

“Daddy, where did I come from?” Why does every small child ask this question, and why is s/he not satisfied with “wild thing” and stork answers? The story about where we come from is a question that opens up spirit dialogue, which is grounded in the fact of all facts, mystery. ~jpc

Isness Just Is

[T]here is some "mysterious power" that is making you insecure and powerless to become absolutely secure. Every human being has had or can have an experience of this mysterious power. This power is an actual presence in every person’s life. So, says Bultmann, if you have experienced this power, you have had an experience of God. . . .

This wonder and mystery of having an existence at all is also an experience of that Presence that Bultmann points to with the word "God."

There is no need to ask whether this Presence is real. This ISNESS just IS.

~Gene W. Marshall, "Theological Dialogue: Marcus Borg and Rudolf Bultmann"

Joseph W. Mathews (1911-1977)

Anniversary of the Death of Joseph W. Mathews (10/16/1977)

~Joseph Wesley Mathews, “The Time My Father Died,” Bending History, pp. 33, 35:

I looked at my father [as I led those gathered for his last rites]. . . . I knew his unknown greatness. I knew his qualities next to genius that never found deliverance. I knew his secret sense of failure. I knew things he never knew I knew. I knew the dark nights of his soul. I knew . . . well, what I knew was his life. His spirit’s journey. That was it. It was his life I knew in that moment. It was frozen now. It was all in now. It was complete. It was finished. It was offered up for what it was. This was the difference made by death.

In the name of the church, I spoke his life out loud. Not excusing, not glorifying, I spoke just of his life as I saw it then. And then I pronounced it good and great and utterly significant before the One who had given it to history, just as it was. Not as it might have been, not as it could have been abstractly considered, not as I might have wanted it to be or others felt it should have been, not even as Papa might have wanted it altered. I sealed it as acceptable to God, then, just as it was finished.

The celebration ended in the burial grounds [with] . . .

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.

And some of those present there for the sake of all history and all creation said, “Amen.”

Joseph W. Mathews

To Follow Jesus Is To . . .

To follow in the steps of the representational Jesus is not to imitate his words or reproduce his deeds. It is to be and do as a free person. . . . It is to walk out across the uncertain, ambiguous, anxious deeps of my life in gratitude, humility and compassion. . . .

[H]e lived his life as the meaning of his life, and announced the cosmic permission for all people thus to live.

~Joseph W. Mathews, “The Christ of History,” Bending History, p. 53

Jesus shows us that faith is possible, that freedom is possible, that giving oneself is possible. Jesus demonstrates the great commandment of life: faithfulness on behalf of all. Without our fidelity to the Jesus style in history, we do not grasp the full significance of life. ~jpc

Joseph W. Mathews

Sin Is Refusal To Be Who We Really Are

Sin is the refusal to be consciousness. . . . To use theological language, sin is only rebellion against God. That happens when you refuse the resentment you are, when you refuse the suffering you are, when you say, “I have had enough of this,” which means, “I am going to do my best to get myself out of the profound depths of consciousness. I have had enough of it.” . . . Sin is refusing to be fulfilled. It is refusing to endure drained-out-ness. It is refusing to have hope. Do you see that this is precisely the point and the only point where, to use the images of the Persians, Satan attacks?

~Joseph Mathews, “On Taking Care of Yourself,” Bending History, p. 279-80

We could say sin is refusal to be who we really are. Joseph has a pretty good check-list: I am my profound consciousness, my resentment, my suffering, my drained-out-ness, my fulfillment, my hope. Spirit attacks and sometimes graces me into accepting who I really am -- and I have full life. ~jpc

Mary Oliver

Tell Me

Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

~Mary Oliver, from “The Summer Day”

Note from Randy Williams: I've been sitting around grousing over the fact that very few people ever comment, and it dawned on me, hell, I'm a people. I won't respond unless I have something to contribute, but I will when I do.

Angelina Jolie: UN Humanitarian Award

Photo by John Smock, AP
www.usatoday.com
. . . for her work with refugees.

Annie Dillard

 

Leaving It All On the Field

We can live any way we want. People take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience – even of silence – by choice. The thing is to stalk your calling.
. . . I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you. . . . Seize it and let it seize you up aloft even, till your eyes burn out and drop; let your musky flesh fall off in shreds, and let your very bones unhinge and scatter, loosened over fields, over fields and woods, lightly, thoughtless, from any height at all, from as high as eagles (italics added).

~Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk

This quote is especially for all of us who are considering “retirement.” Joel Pack – who teaches college in Virginia close to Hollins College, where Annie went and fell in love with and married her creative writing professor – sent me this quote today: “Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't.” So please read Annie’s quote again and especially the part after “till.” Being around Thomas Berry, Bishop J. K. Mathews, and Ruth Gilbert and Lynda Cock’s fathers – all over 90 – I sense they are living out Annie’s exhortation. To extend her metaphor, they’re “leaving it all on the field,” to use a sports term, which was probably borrowed from warriors on the field of battle. We’re all going to be buried on the field anyway, whether we’re there by choice or carried there. ~jpc

1905, The Year of Miracles for Einstein

Little wonder that those after Newton called him lucky – "for there is only one universe to discover, and he discovered it."

But what of Einstein? Well, Einstein felt compelled to apologize to Newton. "Newton, forgive me," Einstein wrote in his Autobiographical Notes. "You found the only way which, in your age, was just about possible for a man of highest thought and creative power." Forgive him? For what? For replacing Newton's system with his own – and, like Newton, for putting his mark on virtually every branch of physics.

~Thomas Levenson, “Genius Among Geniuses” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einstein/genius

It Is Necessarily So

It ain't necessarily so
It ain't necessarily so
De things dat yo' liable to read in de Bible
It ain't necessarily so. . . .

~George and Ira Gershwin, from “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” Porgy and Bess

It is not true because the bible says so. The bible says so because it’s essentially true. The Old and New Testaments are commentary on truth, reflecting humans’ deep experience of reality. All holy scriptures communicate interpretations of truth. None communicates absolute truth, but thank goodness enough is revealed for wholeness and fulfillment. In that sense, it is necessarily so, as are the newest pieces of testaments of our deep experience of reality. Truth, like creation, is always marching to zion, always evolving. ~jpc

Note: go to Search This Blog – at the top of the page – and type in the slot your name or Kierkegaard’s, or a subject such as “grace,” and immediately get the quotes, by dates, since August 2004.

Nikki Giovanni

Who Is "You"?

I love you
because it’s been so good
for so long
that if I didn’t love you
I’d have to be born again
and that is not a theological statement
I am pitiful in my love for you

~Nikki Giovanni, from “Resignation”

Who is the "you" that you love that much? How does that relationship affect your life? "It makes me ____________________." ~jpc