Yet Never Going Under (II)

I sent my friend an e-mail to remind him that he, as a Christian layman, was “a genuine minister of God” in his life and death situation, and included these holy words to explain what I meant:

we [St. Paul and his companions] want to prove ourselves genuine ministers of God whatever we have to go through – patient endurance of troubles or even disasters, being flogged or imprisoned; being mobbed, having to work like slaves, having to go without food or sleep. All this we want to meet with sincerity, with insight and patience; by sheer kindness and the Holy Spirit; with genuine love, speaking the plain truth, and living by the power of God. Our sole defence, our only weapon, is a life of integrity, whether we meet honour or dishonour, praise or blame. Called “impostors” we must be true, called “nobodies” we must be in the public eye. Never far from death, yet here we are alive, always “going through it” yet never “going under”. We know sorrow, yet our joy is inextinguishable. We have “nothing to bless ourselves with” yet we bless many others with true riches. We are penniless, and yet in reality we have everything worth having. ~St. Paul, II Corinthians 6:4-10, The New Testament in Modern English, J.B. Phillips

And I further declared to him that we all are empowered as genuine ministers of God, and promised all the benefits. Namaste.

Yet Never Going Under (I)

I was on the phone with a good friend whose mother died last week, and his father can hardly comprehend the fact of her death. A month ago his older son was assaulted at gun point and his car taken; on Saturday the other son had a near-death skiing accident at Vail, demanding surgery and ICU care [where my friend was when he phoned]. Still more, my friend recently found out his job and pension are in serious doubt after some thirty years. I asked him if he felt like a target. His response, “No, I feel blessed.” I told him he was strange. He laughed the laugh of a man of faith.

Before flying to Vail with his wife, my friend put his mother’s funeral on hold. After seeing their son was going to make it, he flew back home late Sunday night as his wife stayed on with their son. On Monday morning he consoled his father and rescheduled his mother’s service for today. We celebrate the wonder of life and death with him and his family, with all creation, and spirit at its heart.

As St. Paul said, "always 'going through it' yet never 'going under.'" Namaste.

image by James B. Janknegt, "Walking on Water," www.bcartfarm.com

A Distant Zone

[Stephen Ames’] wife had half a lung removed in July after the British Open…. “It’s hard to focus and play golf. It’s next to impossible,” Ames said. “When I was playing the British Open last year, I’m standing over every shot going, ‘What am I doing with this golf ball?’ I was in a distant zone.” ~Doug Ferguson, AP, usatoday.com

That was then. Sunday Ames won the fifth biggest golf tournament by six strokes. Tiger was in the distant zone this tournament, meditating on his father’s possible death to cancer. ~jpc

Spirit at the heart of creation has its way of rezoning us. Namaste.

Mysterious Production

[T]he same currents that produced birds from dust and poetry from rocks produce egos from ids and sages from egos. ~Ken Wilber

Is it crazy to think those same currents can produce peace on earth among all? ~jpc

Let the mysterious currents of grace and peace take charge. Namaste.

We're All Theologians (II)

There is no man who does not have his own god or gods as the object of his highest desire and trust, or as the basis of his deepest loyalty and commitment. There is no one who is not to this extent also a theologian. ~Karl Barth, Evangelical Theology

Whatever be our relation to the official monotheism of our religious institutions, the private faith by which we live is likely to be a multifarious thing with many objects of devotion and worship…. Now to have faith and to have a god is one and the same thing…. And this being, whatever it be, is properly termed our god. ~H. Richard Niebuhr, "Faith in Gods and in God," Radical Monotheism

O to be faithful to "the God." Namaste.

____________

We celebrate the life and death of Dorothea Jean Stone Hunter. We also give thanks for the two wonderful caregivers to the end, Jerome and Connie. For all the saints ...

We're All Theologians (I)

You might remember that my take on this thing is that “god” – whatever else that may mean to whomever – is a Spirit. It/he/she IS Spirit. Jesus is Spirit incarnate. Our path to “Christian” behaviors is through full, worldwide communion with Spirit. Jesus taught/showed those around him how to do that. ~David Pope, concert pianist and with this blog a published theologian

I’d say this good Lutheran layman is on the way. I agree that communion with spirit is what Jesus was here to declare and demonstrate.

Story has it that Bultmann said, “If you put your pants on one leg at a time, you’re a theologian.” ~jpc

Good or bad theologians, the truth will judge. Namaste.

Meditating Like Monks in a Cemetery

[We live in a retirement center] made up of independent living apartments, assisted living and full nursing care. It has been quite an experience. It in many ways is like the monks of old going into the cemetery to meditate. People who live here are in all forms of living and dying. It really makes you aware of the finitude of life and challenges one’s compassion in every way. ~Joe Slicker, letter, Fall 2005

Joe declares later in his letter that they are “doing wonderfully.” A person of deep spiritual insight, he reflects that life is rich in whatever situation – and in self-conscious finitude comes heightened awareness. (In Washington, DC, we lived immediately up against a cemetery, visible from three sides of the house.) ~jpc

Daily we would meditate deeply. Namaste.

She Filled Full Her Dash

In the summer of 1963 she was part of a group arrested in Charleston, South Carolina, after they illegally entered the side of a bus terminal reserved for whites. While in jail she was savagely beaten, emerging with a damaged kidney and her eyesight permanently impaired. ~Robert Ellsberg, All Saints

Fannie Lou Hamer (1917 — 1977). Was she not fulfilled? Was she not a credit to her flag? Usually security and safety do not help fulfill life, do not fill full the dash between birth and death. After this poor black lady, educated to the fourth grade, attended that 1962 civil rights rally, there was no stopping her until she died of breast cancer in 1977 – when she completed her dash. She said, “Christianity is being concerned about your fellow man, not building a million-dollar church while people are starving right around the corner. Christ was a revolutionary person, out there where it was happening.”

Watch the saints go marching in. Namaste.

Fill Up Your Dash

The other day I heard from a colleague who had just had a birthday and had been reflecting on his incredibly full life. I responded, “Yea, feels like I’ve had about six great lives already,” which reminded me of the eulogistic remark “fill up your dash”: our birth date is certain and we think about our death date . . . there is the dash in between, the life between birth and death. ~jpc

Or consider Joseph Campbell’s remark: “What if you worked your whole life climbing the ladder only to discover at the end of your life the ladder was up against the wrong wall?”

Until the day they carve it on our stone – and beyond – the dash will be there, full-filled or not. Namaste.

Let's Watch Our Language

I am tired of the untrue and divisive phrases “Islamic militant” or “Muslim terrorist” I read and hear in the media. 1) We play into their strategy when we use religious labels, since they want all to believe they are about holy war. They are simply militants and terrorists from the Middle East or Asia, or wherever. 2) To infer that they are Islamic or Muslim is a lie when one understands their founder and their holy book. 3) We dare not tarnish the good name of the other 99 percent of Muslims of the Islamic faith. Hitler was a Christian but we did not call him a “Christian Nazi.” Likewise, we did not call Timothy McVeigh a “Christian bomber.” History will strip the labels and record that he and Hitler were misguided, bloody terrorists, as were the nineteen men who flew planes into the World Trade Towers. For the sake of our global human community, let’s all watch our language. ~jpc

Finally, we are all children of “God,” but none of us perfectly acts like it. Namaste.

"The Citadel Is Crumbling"

Dear Huston [Smith], It was wonderful seeing you. But when you said, when asked about your health, “The citadel is crumbling,” it had a profound effect on me. . . . And when, in touch with that all-pervasiveness [Spirit], I hear that the citadel of dearest Huston is crumbling, it is simply as it is, just so, and all is still right, and all is still well, and all is still good, and all still radiates the unending glory that we all are. ~Ken Wilber

A profound statement of faith, of understanding the way life is within the awareness that spirit is ever present. Even as the citadel crumbles, this is the word that transforms: life is good, my life is received, the past is approved, and the future is open. This is the grace that amazes, the truth that sets us free. ~jpc

Namaste.

Bill Moyers on Religion

Bill Moyers speaks to an audience in Greensboro [3/16/06] about the challenge of covering religion . . . . Moyers spoke as part of the Bryan Series, presented by Guilford College [Year of Spirit and Spirituality]. ~WUNC-NPR: Listen Here [59 minutes including Q/A]

We are witnessing today a coupling of ideology and theology that threatens our ability to meet the growing [crises]. Theology asserts propositions that need not be proven true, while ideologues hold stoutly to a worldview despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. The combination can make it impossible for a democracy to fashion real-world solutions to otherwise intractable challenges. ~Moyers on America: A Journalist and His Times (2004)

We can bow and dialogue whether we agree or not. Namaste.

Blink of an Eye

The universe expanded rapidly – growing from the size of a marble to billions of light years across – within the first trillionth of a second after its cataclysmic birth, astrophysicists reported Thursday. The finding, based on data from NASA’s WMAP satellite, supports a 2-decade-old physics theory called “inflation,” which describes how the cosmos grew over 13.7 billion years from a subatomic flicker into a vast expanse of stars and galaxies. ~Dan Vergano, “Big Bang Unfolded in the Blink of an Eye,” usatoday.com 3/16/06

A trillionth of a second and look at us 13.7 billion years later. We're all whirling around in our universe together! Think we’ve not all been on the same journey! Think we’re not all headed into the future together! I’d say the evolving cosmic creation is who we are. Creation never ends. I’m a “creationist,” out of this understanding, and will not give the word over to someone who speaks literally of seven days and 6,000 years – or even 200,000 years. ~jpc

The big picture showers us with awe. Namaste.

click for larger image from usatoday.com image: NASA/WMAP Science Team for a timeline of the expansion of the universe

In But Not Of

What parishioner of any denomination [megachurch, Christian left, Christian right, and Roman Catholic are highlighted] wants to hear that the Gospels are "a deep threat to the institutional church," since Jesus opposed "just about every form of religion we know"? ~David Gates reviewing Gary Willis' latest book, What Jesus Meant (Newsweek, 3/20/06), via llc

. . . and a deep threat to every other institution: political, economic, cultural? Jesus was just plain offensive. Can't settle down with Jesus. Can't even quote him except, "Love 'Father' and Neighbor" -- especially the "enemy" -- and "Hallowed be thy name." Though Jesus was not establishment in any sense, neither was he disestablishment. He was not out to "oppose" but to transform with his "Father's" set of values [not our political "family values"], which were/are absolutely in this world but absolutely not of it. ~jpc

O, to appreciate the mysterious ways of Jesus and his "Father." Namaste.

We remember George Yost on this his memorial day. "For All the Saints who from their labors rest." Amen and Amen.

A Sort of Salvation

“I am your own
way of looking at things,” she said. “When
you allow me to live with you, every
glance at the world around you will be
a sort of salvation.” And I took her hand.

~William Stafford, "When I Met My Muse," The Way It Is

Novelist Alice Hoffman said her writing started to happen when she realized she could “take everyday realities and transform them into something fabulous.” As the poem says, "every glance at the world around you will be a sort of salvation." Salvation is always at hand, even when washing dishes. ~jpc

O, to see the way it really is. Namaste.

Events of the Day

A colleague’s personal word about the violent death of non-violent Tom Fox in Iraq; seeing the Oscar winner Crash, a movie full of shocking brokenness and healing in spite of; hearing of the escalation of violence in Iraq and getting clear that there is no exit plan at this stage that makes sense for all concerned; performing the last rites for our two-year-old fish, “Buddy,” as we buried him under our beautiful yellow pansies; starting tax preparation and recapping the nuts and bolts of 2005; talking with one of my high school girlfriends about the death of her mother, who got down to sixty pounds but chipper as she said last goodbyes; and reading a biographical sketch of the compassionate theologian Yves Congar – these are some of the events that linger as I wind down and ready for dreamtime. My thought for the day is what Congar wrote about the church, and we can also say about the rest of creation, and our lives: “at once holy and always in need of reformation.” ~jpc

Life is a communion, a wholeness, that we can’t and don’t want to escape. Namaste.

image: Congar, a master theologian of Vatican II

Turning Point

"At that point, all I believed made no sense. It was the turning point of my life."

This is a recent quote. What kind of event might have precipitated it? What might have been the outcome for the person? The assassination of JFK was a turning point for me. What has been a turning point for you? ~jpc

Spirit is alive and well in our time through experiences like these. Namaste.

photo: Associated Press, 11/22/1963, in The Houston Chronicle

"Why I Am a Christian (Sort Of)"

I joined a Christian church to be part of [the] hope for the future, to struggle to make religion a force that can help usher into existence a world in which we can imagine living in peace with each other and in sustainable relation to the non-human world. ~Robert Jensen, “Why I Am a Christian (Sort Of),” via Richard Kroeger

Rather honest statement. Why am I part of the religion I am, or on the spiritual path I am? ~jpc

O, to be part of the hope for the future. Namaste.

Spirit Movement

At the heart of all forms and events in our universe, there is one power or spirit permeating all, allowing each to be holographic of and synchronistic with everyone and everything. . . .

The change we envision will not come from the ought of sustainability, will not come from more democratic governments, more economic prosperity, or a better educated populace. It will come from a more conscious spirit journey . . . of a growing movement of people around the planet. ~jpc/llc, from “Introduction” to At One with the Heart of Creation

We pray for motivation and wisdom. Namaste.

top image, Hubble, 1998; drawing by Sheyla Nathanael, age 8, Australia

Fine Delight

Oh when man has escaped from the barbed-wire entanglement
of his own ideas and his own mechanical devices
there is a marvellous rich world of contact and sheer fluid beauty . . .
we can but touch, and wonder, and ponder, and make our effort
and dangle in a last fastidious fine delight. . . .

~D. H. Lawrence, from “Terra Incognita,” The Complete Poems, p. 666

• Let us, like a child, delight in the marvelous rich world that is our earth community?
• Namaste.

Deep Speaketh Unto Deep

What’s running the show
is what’s coming up from down below.

~Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

Campbell says the subconscious is running the show, or it is an illusion to think our consciousness is running it, an illusion that produces the “Darth Vader” type. True guidance comes from the deeps of being. ~jpc

Deep speaketh unto our deeps. Namaste.

image at http://www.pparc.ac.uk/nw/press/gamma.asp

What's Not In "God's" Image?

The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos. ~Stephen Jay Gould

Think Gould had a point? Could our human species bias be in revolution so we will have to change all publications, even religious – new scriptural versions, hymnals, and books of rituals – like we have been trying to do in rightful response to the feminine revolution? Sure will take a lot more trees. ~jpc

These creation rights revolutions just never stop. Namaste.

image, NASA, spiral galaxy NGC 7742

Global Warming Test http://www.environmentaldefense.org/quiz.cfm?ContentID=5066

The Face in the Mirror

Sartre’s play No Exit is quite different . . . [from] the play I am writing here today: there are mirrors, but when you look in the mirror, you see the face of the Son of Man. Lela Mosely, that means that you and I and John [his son], up there in heaven, . . . look somewhat alike. ~Joseph Mathews, “Endlessness”

In that mirror we all look like the blessed one, the perfect one, the anointed one, the chosen one. Identifying with “the Man”: this is what it means to be loved of “God." Being the “little christs” we are is what Luther and Mathews understood by christology. It has to do with the happening of identity, not belief in some god. ~jpc

O, to be who we really are. Namaste.

Filmmakers' Vocation

JAT Robinson wrote of "mystery at the heart of reality," paraphrasing V.A. van Peursen: "'God' acquires identity only as a constantly re-encountered dimension of the ordinary events of nature and history."*

During the 78th Academy Awards, I heard them trying to articulate the vocation of the filmmaker or storyteller. Bishop Robinson does a good job of it: through "ordinary events" we experience mystery's presence. ~jpc

We celebrate ways to "experience our experience" of depth reality. Namaste.

*http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/jul1968/v25-2-article1.htm

There Was a Twinkle

In the midst of whatever she did, there was a twinkle . . . that indicated more, something hidden, another dimension, a mysterious quality. . . . Lyn could cling stubbornly to values many of us considered passé, but she was also relentlessly open to the new, however many sacred cows it demolished. No matter how committed she was to a project, you always knew her real commitment went further. The twinkle proved it. ~Raymond Spencer, from eulogy at Evelyn Johnston Mathews Edwards’ memorial service, 6/13/1998

What we are committed to symbolizes a deeper commitment. ~jpc

An ultimate commitment affords authentic attachment and detachment. Namaste.

"Clara" Means . . .

[T]he better you knew Lyn, the more aware you became of Mystery. . . . Perhaps that was one of her greatest gifts to us who were her friends and colleagues: translucence to the Mystery. ~Raymond Spencer, from eulogy at Evelyn Johnston Mathews Edwards’ memorial service, 6/13/1998

My new granddaughter’s name “Clara” means “translucent to the mystery,” best I can tell by looking up definitions and reading this quote – and especially by looking at her as I hold her. It occurs to me that "Transparent to the Mystery" as a tombstone epitaph would be awesome. ~jpc

O, to be seen through. Namaste.

photo by Albert Mizzi, "See Through"

So Journey On . . .

Religions mark human journey events
that have just evented us again:
Wednesday we welcomed Clara into our world;
Thursday we sent cousin Susan out.

Mystified by how we come, be, and go . . .
we journey on.
In eternity before birth, during life, and after death . . .
we journey on.

How can anything in being ever go out?
Spirit has more room than the universes it traverses . . .
so journey on . . .
without end. Amen.

~jpc

image: early January, cousin Susan holding JPC III (born 12/8/05)

Poets' Messages

Everyone ... wants to say in their own terms what it means to be alive. Poetry is the most common way, because the material of poetry is the stream of language that is constantly going on in our heads. It’s very low tech. Anyone can do it. ~Robert Hass*

Take the time to write. You can do your life’s work in half an hour a day. ~Ibid.*

I think that all poets are sending religious messages, because poetry is, in such great part, the comparison of one thing to another ... and to insist, as all poets do, that all things are related to each other, comparable to each other, is to go toward making an assertion of the unity of all things. ~Richard Wilbur*

Poets all, Namaste.

*from "The Writer’s Almanac," March 1, 2006 (via Diann McCabe) http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org

Mythic Possessiveness

“If the Logos in its fullness had not appeared in Jesus, no salvation would be possible for anybody.” And there Justin [Martyr] steps over the line . . . and into mythic posses-siveness. . . . [T]he sad thing about this proprietary stance is that (1) it separates and divides Christians from all other humans and other world citizens; (2) it divides Christ from all Christians, because Christ is, in the final analysis, unique; and (3) it ultimately divides God from this world altogether, since the Incarnation and the Ascension, for this earth, both happened only once. ~Ken Wilber

No one possesses "the Incarnation." It comes howsoever it comes, to whomsoever it comes, and whensoever it comes, even every moment. Namaste.

Evolutionaries All

To use or abuse what exists is one style. In the evolutionary sweep of things, such style deforms. A more radical style transforms, one that understands that what exists is part of the good creation and that the future belongs to all. Both evolutionary styles are powerful.

By tendency, one style claims superiority and one bows; one puts down and one affirms; one dominates and one partners; one divides and one unites; one takes and one gives; one harms and one heals. Among humans, these styles are recognizable in individuals, families, organizations, communities, institutions (e.g., economic, political, religious, educational), nations, and cultural tribes.

Human style is mostly learned and can be changed by event and disciplined intention. For good or ill, local-planetary evolution (or devolution) is directly and immediately in our hands . . . through our style . . . in every situation. ~jpc

In sum, "Love one another." Namaste.

Welcome, Clara!

On the day you were born
the Earth turned, the Moon pulled,
the Sun flared, and, then, with a push,
you slipped out of the dark quiet
where suddenly you could hear . . .
a circle of people singing
with voices familiar and clear. . . .
they whispered into your open, curving ear,
"We are so glad you've come."

~Debra Frasier, from On the Day You Were Born

At 5:12 p.m. today, the universe through Mommy Veronica and Daddy Jeremiah gave birth to Clara Wordsworth (9 lbs./1 oz.; 21 in. long). They and we grandparents -- from Spain and USA -- stood in awe and gave great thanks for the mystery of birth and life.

She is so much to love. Namaste.

In Memorium

We celebrate the completed life of our dear cousin Susan.

"For all the saints who from their labor rest. . . ."

"You Are a Magical Creature"

If you tell someone they are wonderful –
capable of magic –
a small spark,
maybe a chemical reaction of hope
jumps the synapse of skepticism
about self and world,
and creates a new combustion
capable of generating
magic and hope in others.
If only we would go around –
honestly and sincerely –
proclaiming each other’s wonderfulness
more capacity could be released
than any realist would ever dare believe.
The shy leaping moment
when a person
thinks, feels, believes
against all odds
that he or she can make a difference
is the beginning of transformation
not only of the self
but of the entire society.

~attributed to Sharon L. Connelly (via Audrey Ayers, 1987)

O, to be an agent of transformation. Namaste.

image: www.rhoadsart.com/ fm/fmindex.html