Reconciliation and Love

Where there is reconciliation and agape [authentic love] there is no meaninglessness anymore. There is rather the experience of eternal life here and now. ~Paul Tillich, The Irrelevance and Relevance of the Christian Message, p. 58

Whether it be in a church or mosque, in family, among friends or among enemies, among humans or non-humans, we’re talking about the universal experience of eternal life here and now, through real reconciliation and love. ~jpc

So be it. Namaste.

Note: This is the end of volume II of the Daily Spirit Journal. Stay tuned.

Divine Reality

The phrase "the fellowship in (or of) Holy Spirit" refers to participation in . . . divine reality. ~JAT Robinson http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/jul1968/v25-2-article1.htm

Spirit and divinity operate in the most universal sense. Therefore, restrictions and qualifications do not apply. Like grace and love, spirit and divinity are absolutely universal. ~jpc

Good news: we are always living in divine reality. Namaste.

image: Pic Cards, "Going with the Flow"

Real-life Questions

The wife announces to her husband, Richard, who is sitting in an armchair reading the newspaper, that their insurance man is here to determine Richard’s life expectancy. The facial expressions of husband, wife, and insurance agent are funny. ~George Booth’s cartoon in The New Yorker, 7/16/90

Imagine the dialogue:

Agent: "Richard, the way I figure it, you've got about nine more years left, if you're lucky. What do you think?"
Richard: "Think about what?"
Agent: "About your life."
Richard: "Oh."

~jpc

Real-life questions keep knocking on our door. Namaste.

image: girl looking at butterfly in wonderment www.frenchfilm.vcu.edu/2003/film_simple.html

Reality Is Not Bad

[T]hese days, two responses have been tempting me. One response is to do nothing because it’s not enough anyway. After all, we have seen just about everything and nothing seems to be a real long-term solution. Is anything worth doing? Another response that tempts me is to allow guilt to taint my joy in life. Because I am so painfully aware of all the pain, waste, injustice, and destruction in this world, I sometimes find my joy is rendered hollow or is altogether elusive. How can I be happy when I know so much? ~Pamela Bergdall, EarthRise reflection, 7/25/06

Pamela articulates well what we all experience. She also cites two life examples that helped give her the courage to go on, to maintain a joyous heart even with eyes wide open. We all not only experience life as seemingly impossible, but we also witness heroic deeds that prove life is possible no matter what. ~jpc

Reality is not bad. Namaste.

Image: NASA photo of the Sun. Note: The Sun converts millions of tons of hydrogen into energy every second. It has been doing this for billions of years. A tiny fraction of that energy reaches the Earth and has made life here possible.

Sunday Dialogue (XVI)

Journer: Do you believe in miracles?

Nez: Depends upon your definition of "miracle."

Journer: What is your definition?

Nez: As one of my students* said, "There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."

______
* attributed to Einstein

image: this is my favorite screen saver of late -- a few flowers in a wild field

What Keeps Me Optimistic?

Part of what keeps me optimistic is knowing I’ve benefited from incredible progress in technology, which has enabled me to drive a motorized wheelchair with the slightest of finger movements and use a computer by voice. I’ve seen the flowering of the disability-rights movement and the enactment of access regulations. Perhaps most of all, I’ve managed to find love and have a family. Why shouldn’t my luck continue? And if other people find my story inspirational, I guess I’ll just have to live with it. ~Ben Mattlin, Newsweek, July 24, 2006, p. 19

Is this evolution at work? Yes. ~jpc

Let all declare the glory of creation. Namaste.

image: Ben Mattlin by Danny Rothenberg / Polaris for Newsweek

Unfolding Reality

The science of the past hundred years has made a seminal contribution to our knowledge of the sequence of events that marked the creative unfolding of the universe and all its wonders. ~David Korten, The Turning Point, p. 269, via Randy Williams

This is profound knowledge, the kind of knowing that alters our interiors and changes the way we relate. My reality: I am a universal earthling living in Greensboro, NC, USA, in the year 2006, over 13 billion years old and responsible for the next 5 billion years, give or take a few. How do we get used to such unfolding reality? ~jpc

Awesomely. Namaste.

image: Hubble photo at www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMFB91A90E_index_1.html

Idolatrous Mix

[R]eligion is more frequently a source of confusion than of light in the political realm. The tendency to equate our political with our Christian [religious] convictions causes politics to generate idolatry. ~Reinhold Niebuhr, Love and Justice, p. 59

Our forebearers were wise in separating government and religion. Idolatry and tyranny come in many forms because we are prone to make the relative absolute. ~jpc

Not to adulterate ultimate value. Namaste.

image: ohbaptistaddendum.tripod.com/indieday.htm

Really Related

In Harold Bloom’s account [Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine], Jesus, with his deep connection to the uncanny Yahweh, can seem like the last real Jew, rather than the first Christian. ~Jonathan Rosen, "So Who Is King of the Jews?" nytimes.com, 11/27/2005

What is the point? Jesus has manifested what it means for humans to be related to the heart of creation and therefore authenticallly related to creation. ~jpc

O to be really related. Namaste.

image: "Compassion Mandala," Br. R. Lentz, ofm

Best Global Solution

So a world of liberal [as opposed to closed] sovereign states qualifies as the second-best solution, after world government, to the problems of nuclear war, economic collapse, and global climate change. If not the best of all imaginable solutions, it is the best of all feasible ones. ~Michael Mandelbaum, The Ideas that Conquered the World: Peace, Democracy, and Free Markets in the Twenty-first Century, p. 398, via Tom Morris

How to honor and evolve the structures of our global village? Besides care of the earth, what is the vision we all have in common? ~jpc

Bow and dialouge every chance we make. Namaste.

image: www.rizzi-haus.de/Englisch/looklife.htm

Let the Divine Be the Divine

[I]n earlier Christian ages the tradition considered that there were two revelatory sources, one the manifestation of the divine in the natural world and the other the manifestation of the divine in the biblical world. These needed to be interpreted in and through each other. In this context to save the Earth is an essential part of saving the pristine divine presence. ~Thomas Berry, "The Christian Future," unpublished paper

Revelation comes every which way. Namaste.

image: "Morning," www.flickr.com/photos/happyhorizons/page2/

Sunday Dialogue (XV)

Journer: How can we bring peace on earth?

Nez: You ask a deeply spiritual and religious question.

Journer: I do?

Nez: Yes. I'm reminded of what one of my students* said: "When we care more for God . . . than for our images of God, we are united."

______
* Matin Buber

image: Larissa Prinsen, age 15, S.A. www.icaci.org/children2001/21-30.htm

Holy Humor

Transcendence restores humor Spirit restores humor. Suddenly, smiling returns. Too many representatives of too many movements – even many very good movements, such as feminism, environmentalism, meditation, spiritual studies – seem to lack humor altogether. In other words, they lack lightness, they lack a distance from themselves. ~Ken Wilber

The "birds of the air, lilies of the field” and "seek ye first the Kingdom and all else will be added” tell me I cannot force "the kingdom" but can lean back on creation that has learned a bit over billions of years. Trust spirit's presence. Like a baby, laugh, experiencing the mercy of being. ~jpc

At one with the kingdom, sustained by it and serving it. Namaste.

image: www.hanscomfamily.com

Living Human Population on Earth

By 1800 – 1 billion
By 1930 – 2 billion
By 1960 – 3 billion
By 2000 – 6 billion
By 2010 – 7 billion
By 2025 – 8 billion
By 2050 – 9 billion

By these estimates, population more than tripled since my father’s birth in 1906 and gross economy is six times more. What we are living through boggles the imagination and global systems. ~jpc

What should we pray for? Namaste.

I Ask Forgiveness

A Christian leader in the 16th century stopped short of the horror of the concentration camps but pretty much suggested the program that Hitler implemented four centuries later. Because Jews would not convert to Christianity and admit that Jesus was the only son of God, Christians lashed out. I continue to ask forgiveness for all those who would harm and even murder those who will not believe as they do. This "sin" is near the top of the list for me. ~jpc

Enough of such religious sin! Namaste.

image: (Wikipedia: "Jew") Jews (identifiable by the distinctive hats that they were required to wear) being killed by Christian knights (French Bible illustration from 1250; if it's in the Bible, it must be God's will)

Another Take on "Namaste"

In India, when we meet and part
we often say “Namaste,”
which means I honor the place in you
where the entire universe resides.
I honor the place in you
of love, of light, of truth, of peace. . . .

~Ram Dass, via Alice Baumbach

Namaste.

Profound Song Fest

Over 100 Jewish and Muslim religious leaders, and 100 experts in Jewish-Muslim dialogue, came together for three days of dialogue, prayer, and practical project building. . . . The mayor of Seville welcomed all of us, recalling that during the Golden Age, Seville was a place where Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived in peaceful co-existence. . . . The Chief Rabbi . . . sat next to the Imam and started to sing the most beautiful Piyutim (sacred songs) in Arabic, then in Hebrew. Before we knew it, the Rabbis and Imams were sitting in the circle together chanting sacred songs back and forth in Hebrew and Arabic for three hours! ~2nd World Congress of Imams and Rabbis for Peace, Seville, Spain, March 19-22, 2006, via George Holcombe

O to be united in spirit. Namaste.

image: http://www.hommesdeparole.org

Her Turning Point

“They shot hundreds of bullets into him, shouting, ‘God is great!’” she [Dr. Wafa Sultan, a Syrian-American psychiatrist, Los Angeles] said. “At that point, I lost my trust in their god and began to question all our teachings. It was the turning point of my life, and it has led me to this present point. I had to leave. I had to look for another god. . . .” ~John M. Broder, “For Muslim Who Says Violence Destroys Islam, Violent Threats,” nytimes.com, 3/11/06

O that authentic demythologization of Islam is beginning. ~jpc

Spirit encounters give courage. Namaste.

Sunday Dialogue (XIV)

Journer: Do you believe in evolution?

Nez: Relative to what?

Journer: I don’t understand your question.

Nez: As one of my students* wrote, “You will come to see that all evolves us.”
______
*Rumi

image: 129.110.23.73:7000/13767/

Mystery's at the Center

I no longer have much interest in the supernatural, or what is mistakenly referred to as “mystical” events and experience. . . . I now find the most marvelous things in the everyday, the ordinary, the common, the simple and tangible. ~The Unpublished Letters of Edward Abbey, “Cactus Chronicles,” orionmagazine.org, July/August 2006

“Mistakenly” is the key word, for “mystical events and experience” point to quite the same as the “marvelous things in the everyday, the ordinary, the common, the simple and tangible,” that is if we understand mystery’s at the center and not at the boundaries of life. ~jpc

We would be centered. Namaste.

Spiritual Edge

One either lives out of the spirit or one lives out of her/his personal, human understanding. What would it mean to “abide in the spirit” rather than in this-worldliness and my-worldliness? Some say this is the spiritual question of our time. What would you say the spiritual question is? ~jpc

O to abide in the spirit. Namaste.

image: Nairobi (AFP) -- baby hippo and tortoise, surrogate mother (via Doris Hahn)

Unique and Unrepeatable

You’re unique – just like everyone else. ~anonymous

You’re different from everyone else, but you’re still like everyone else in that you’re unique and unrepeatable. Just to think each of the 6.5 billion humans is unique, or each of the zillion ants is unique. No creation template. ~jpc

You are the best Mary Jane McGillicutty ever created. Namaste.

Earnest Prayer

He who prays earnestly is aware of his own situation and his “neighbor’s,” but he sees it under the Spiritual Presence’s influence and in the light of the divine direction of life’s processes. ~Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. III, p. 119, via Joyce Marshall

Just watching CNN news all day is not earnest prayer but a quite possible cause of depression. ~jpc

Action is a key to earnest prayer. Namaste.

image: Br. John (center, my nephew), Brother Andrew , and neighbor boy ring monastery bells in South Africa

Change the World

Thomas Berry said today (1/7/05) on the way to lunch, with his wry smile, “I’ve never wanted to change the world. I just wanted to write down a few ideas.” I broke out laughing and he joined in. Thomas has surely changed the world – and my world – by helping us to see it the way it is, a wondrous universe full of grace. ~jpc

O to change the world by helping others to see it the way it is. Namaste.

Notable Sermon

God preaches – a noted clergyman –
And the sermon is never long;
So instead of getting to heaven at last,
I’m going all along!

~Emily Dickinson, from “A Service of Song,” 1890

When we’re listening, we’re going all along. Namaste.

Sunday Dialogue (XIII)

Journer: How do I keep the faith?

Nez: Wrong question. Ask only “How do I share the faith?”

Journer: Doesn’t that assume I’ve got it . . . and therefore kept it?

Nez: You lose what you try to keep and keep what you give away.

Revealed Truth

When I was young I was sure of everything; in a few years, having been mistaken a thousand times, I was not half so sure of most things as I was before; at present, I am hardly sure of anything but what God has revealed to me. ~attributed to John Wesley

For me, a central piece of revealed truth is this fact: my life has meaning and purpose in the midst of the meaning and purpose of creation. ~jpc

How can we live without that fact? Namaste.

image: "Labyrinth" by Ellen Howie

note: "Recent estimates have put the age of the universe at 13.7 billion years, and the new research suggests it may actually be 15.8 billion years old." http://www.newscientistspace.com/article.ns?id=dn9676&print=true, via Jann McGuire

Hopefilled

There is always an orientation of hope because the universe is in charge. ~Thomas Berry, talk at Katherine Clay Edwards Library, Greensboro, NC, 6/25/05

Got to hand it to our universe: at least 13.7 billion years old, with unbelievable struggles and glories in its evolving creation all the way, not missing a day. ~jpc

When we are aware, how can we not be hopefilled? Namaste.

Authentic Action

The warrior as teacher teaches three techniques: losing self-importance, assuming responsibility for one’s acts, and using death as an adviser. . . . A warrior lives by acting, not by thinking about acting. ~Carlos Castaneda, The Wheel of Time, p. 49, 43

What would you add to this list describing authentic action? The first thing I would add is “action on behalf of what?” ~jpc

Every moment is a moment of action/no-action. Namaste.

Power Now

There is no less holiness at this time – as you are reading this – than there was the day . . . in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as Ezekiel was a captive by the river Chebar, when the heavens opened and he saw visions of God. ~Annie Dillard, For the Time Being, p. 59

Why do we doubt Annie’s truth? What makes us think the past and the future are more holy? How are we depreciating the power of the spirit now. ~jpc

Power-full day. Namaste.

image: from album cover of Moonchild's "How Now Spirit, Whither Wander You?"

I Bud Again

I bud again,
After so many deaths I live. . . .

~George Herbert, from “The Flower”

When was the last time I came alive after a “death”? What is the promise in such an experience? ~jpc

Living is such sweet mystery. Namaste.

image: http://www.botos.com/weekly/imgp8506a_800.jpg