The Center Is Everywhere

Let the past, the present, and the future be the dimensions of time. Let the moment be the center where past and present and future meet. Every moment then is a center, even the moment of death. The center is everywhere, the circumference nowhere. ~John S. Dunne, The Way of All the Earth, p. 232

We are at the center in every moment. ~jpc

O to bask in such attention and inclusiveness. Namaste.

image: www.michellespark.com/Landscape/city1.html

On Earth, Now

Jesus is presented in this film [“The Passion of the Christ”] as preaching a wholly other-worldly and spiritual message with a kingdom “not of this world” whereas the Gospels [and Jewish literature of the time] clearly present Jesus as coming to usher in a very real “kingdom of God on earth.” ~James D. Tabor www.religiousstudies.uncc.edu/jdtabor/passion.html

Jesus was “spiritual” in this world and calls followers to be the same. This to me is the point of Christianity. ~jpc

As Ignatius used to say to his Jesuits, “On Earth, now.” Namaste.

image: biblia.com/jesusart/kingdom.htm

The God of You and Me

In biblical usage . . . “the god of Israel,” “the god of Abraham,” “my god,” “your god” . . . [are clearly not referring to “god” as] a personal name, but [are] being used in a symbolic way to refer to whatever values a person or a nation regards as supreme. This implies that if you were to ask, “Where shall I find the god of Abraham?” the appropriate answer would be, “Watch how Abraham lives his life and discern what he appears to regard as being his ultimate concern; that is all you will ever know of the god of Abraham. ~Lloyd Geering, Christianity Without God, p. 43, via David Reese

What will they see when they see the “god of Ted” or the “god of Cindy” or the “god of me”? ~jpc

O not to be seen as a desecration. Namaste.

image: Caravaggio's "The Sacrifice of Iassc," Uffizi Gallaery, Florence

Always Sustained

If we live
long enough
we’ll give up
our car keys,
walking cane
and walker,
our wheelchair,
and even,
yes, our bed.

But being
sustained
is not ours
to give up.

We’re always
sustained . . .
however,
whenever,
wherever . . .
forever.

~jpc, 9/3/06

Always sustained. Namaste.

image: COBE captured this edge-on view of our Milky Way galaxy (over 13 billion years old – what I call being sustained)

Interpreted Truth

If scientists are prepared to state their hypotheses, describe how they tested them, lay out their data, explain how they analyze their data and the conclusions they draw from their analyses – then it should not matter if they pray to Zeus, Jehovah, the Tooth Fairy, or nobody. ~Cornelia Dean, “Faith, Reason, God and Other Imponderables,” nytimes.com, 7/25/06, via Michael Dowd

Human truth is interpreted. Humans always add their personal interpretation to so-called pure, objective, scientific truth. Therefore, let us have the best interpretation of the truth possible, using the best methods possible, under the best scientific community of cross-examination possible. ~jpc

And let us hold gods suspect. Namaste.

image: "The Scientific Method" www.umpi.maine.edu/~stump/100week.html

Not a Theocracy

America wasn’t founded as a theocracy [subject to religious authority]. . . . America was founded by people trying to escape theocracies. Never in history have we had a Christian theocracy where it wasn’t bloody and barbaric. That’s why our Constitution wisely put in a separation of church and state.” ~Gregory A. Boyd, from Laurie Goodstein article, “Disowning Conservative Politics, Evangelical Pastor Rattles Flock,” nytimes.com, 7/30/06

The truth is that all power, secular or religious, comes from the heart of creation. We can use that spirit-given power to tear asunder or to reconcile. It is within our spirit-given authority to do so. ~jpc

O to reconcile the sons and daughters of Earth. Namaste.

Sunday Dialogue (XX)

Journer: What can I do to be more loving?

Nez: As one of my students* said, “The important thing is not to think much but to love much and so do that which best stirs you to love.” What has stirred you to love lately?

Journer: Last week it was being with my grandson and holding him a lot.

Nez: It’s good to get those love juices flowing.

______
* Teresa of Avila

image: jpc and the fourth jpc on his 20th bottle of the sojourn -- a whole lot of loving

Deep Family Life

After the baptism of his baby brother, 6-year-old Jason sobbed all the way home. His father asked him three times what was wrong. Finally, the boy replied, “That preacher said he wanted us brought up in a Christian home, but I want to stay with you guys.”

After laughing at this e-mail, I began to reflect on what it means to be brought up in a spiritual home environment these days. What are our rituals? Is our daily prayer life as disciplined as that of the Muslims? Is our family night as intentional as the traditional weekly Jewish meal? ~jpc

O for a deeply reflective family life. Namaste.

Note: We celebrate the completed life of Marge Kloepfer (her service was held on September 9th). "Come, come, ye saints. . . . All is well, all is well."

image: www.johnpratt.com/.../lds/easter/elijah.html

The Point of Being Here

[T]he whole point of being here is to participate fully, radically, consciously in the evolutionary process. . . . [T]he goal is not merely to transcend the world so that you can be free of it, but to embrace the world completely, to embrace the entire process . . . and [be] the creative principle incarnate. ~Andrew Cohen, Weekly Quote, 9/4/06

This is one articulation of the point of our being here: To creatively care for all creation for all time. Another articulation: “To love God and serve Him forever.” How would you say it? ~jpc

O to get the point. Namaste.

image: beginnings of Fifth City Preschool in ghetto of Chicago (chapel in background), late 60's, via Jim Baumbach

Two New Books by jpc

BY COSMIC DESIGN
109 Spirit Poems (1974-2006)

"deep speaketh unto deep inspiring evolutionary care"

164 pages
$9.95

Read more and order www.tranScribebooks.com

I truly enjoyed your poems. (Your writing gets better and better.) My favorites are:

"On Their Behalf" (a poem that should be required reading for America), p. 45

"Nonviolence" (a look at a more responsible response by a superpower to violence done to the superpower), p. 49

"That Which Wakes All" (just two stanzas but how filled with meaning and beauty), p. 109

"What Gets Me Down" (describing our behavior and not minimizing the requirement for a new approach if we are to survive as a planet), p. 128

~Mildred McGuire, Industrial Engineer, Chattanooga


DAILY SPIRIT JOURNAL (Volume II)
Quotes and Reflections for 365 Days

"universal spirit journey ponderings"

236 pages
$11.95

Read more and order www.tranScribebooks.com

Profound Action

With a sense of true devotion within and contentment in the outward daily acts, face the challenges fully, but leave the consequences to the Great Power. ~P.P. Swami Gagangiri, via Roseanne Sands

Come from the deeps,
fully engage, and
let the consequences
blow in the wind
until tomorrow
when we do it all again. ~jpc

Inhale . . . exhale. Pray . . . engage. Namaste.

Celebrate We've Come This Far

[G]lobal warming will become, as it is elsewhere, a political given – something like crime or low test scores that every politician is pledged to fight. Their methods will differ (and those differences will be crucial), but the essential facts will be noncontroversial. It shouldn’t have taken us twenty years to reach this point . . . , but it’s cause for celebration that we’ve come this far. ~Bill McKibben, “Hot and Bothered: Facing Up to Global Warming,” christiancentury.org, 7/11/06

Celebrate, envision, and engage the next twenty years. Namaste.

This Is It

This is It
and I am It
and You are It
and so is That
and He is It
and She is It
and It is It
and That is That

Oh It is This
and This is Thus
and It is Them
and It is Us
and It is Now
and here It is
and here We are
so This Is It

~James Broughton poem in Graces: Prayers and Poems for Everyday Meals and Special Occasions, p. 183, via Kelley Cock

We rejoice in the poetic word. It would be amazing to know the images this little poem spins for each of us. The meaning is and is in our perception. ~jpc

And here We are. Namaste.

image: www.notbored.org/scp-photographs.html

Just Like Human Beings

“Isn’t it ironic the way people talk about dinosaurs?” Peter said. “Today we say an organization is ‘just like a dinosaur’ when we mean it’s slow and can’t adjust to change. But you know, the dinosaurs did manage to survive over a hundred times longer than humans have so far. Whatever being might take our place here in the future will probably say, ‘Just like humans beings – too bad they didn’t have the adaptive capabilities of dinosaurs!’” ~Peter Senge, Presence, p. 22, via Tim Watson

This is strong language, out to trigger evolutionary brooding. ~jpc

Let us pray (which includes action) for human species transformation. Namaste.

image: models of human and dinosaur by Dale Russell of Smithsonian

Sunday Dialogue (XIX)

Journer: Is life really worth living?

Nez: When someone asked my student* that, he answered, “It all depends on the liver.”

Journer: Did he mean it depends on my will to live?

Nez: More than that. It depends on the meaning you see in life – they’re your eyes.

______
* William James

image: "Granddaughter" Lauryn playing with the boy and birds sculpture, Greensboro Bicentennial Park

Wild Places

This collection of essays put me in the frame of mind to return to childhood experiences that have meant so much to me: the honeysuckle “jungle” hideout in the vacant lot across from our house, the sagebrush field down the street where we would crawl on our bellies to hide in the tall grasses, the bicycle track that we cleared on another vacant vine-covered lot, the big rock in the ditch down the street where we could kneel and watch the tadpoles. As Thomas says, “It takes a universe to make [and raise] a child.” ~Lynda L. Cock, review of Gary Paul Nabhan and Stephen Trimble’s book The Geography of Childhood: Why Children Need Wild Places for the quarterly The Ecozoic Reader http://www.ecozoicstudies.org/latest_issue.html

In the wilds we are often spiritized. Namaste.

Always Got a God

Man [sic] . . . never exists without a god or gods; some things there are to which he must cling as . . . the centers of value. As a rule men [sic] are polytheists. . . . Sometimes they live for Jesus’ God, sometimes for country and sometimes for Yale. For the most part they make gods out of themselves or out of the work of their own hands. ~H. Richard Niebuhr, The Meaning of Revelation, pp. 56-7

The last thing I’d give up is my number-one god. But will it deliver and fulfill? ~jpc

Gods really are jealous. Namaste.

image: www.ancientworlds.net

Wide-open Spirituality Structures

According to the Pew Research Center, religious use of the Internet jumped from 20 million to nearly 82 million between 2000 and 2004. . . . “Technology has allowed thousands – if not millions – of people to begin to develop spirituality outside of the traditional . . . structures,” Tom Ferguson [associate deputy of interfaith relations for the Episcopal Church] said. ~Lona O’Connor, “Divine Inventions: Gadgets Hot Source of Spirituality,” Palm Beach Post, 6/25/06

Spirit is always at hand – just is, here, now. Spirit does not originate in institutions and with professionals, thank goodness. ~jpc

Go wherever thou wilt to celebrate spirit’s presence. Namaste.

image: this image only used as an example for the reflection

Can We Humans Make It?

Determined to see through the politics of these three pieces of media, I was deeply addressed by them: “When the Levees Broke” (four hours on HBO); “The Path to 9/11” (four hours on ABC); and the article “A General’s New Plan To Battle Radical Islam” (front page of Wall Street Journal, 9/2/06, via Jerome Hunter – read reprint below*). The three raised the question “Can we humans make it?” and moved me to prayers of repentance, compassion, and thanksgiving.

Our human venture within the earth venture seems way out of hand. Often our human acts are full of evil, obsession with power, and heroism. What a piece of work we humans are! ~jpc

The Psalmist prays, “O Lord, come to our assistance . . . make haste to help us.” That assistance is always at hand. Namaste.

* Note: wsj.com article http://www.moneyweb.co.za/shares/international_news/991266.htm

Hardheaded Nonviolence

The strategy against terrorism requires undermining the social base of extremism by driving a wedge between militants and their potential sympathizers. The goal should be to separate militants from their support base. ~David Cortright (author of Gandhi and Beyond: Nonviolence for an Age of Terrorism), “Nonviolence and the Strategy Against Terrorism,” sojo.net, 8/28/06, via LLC

This strategy would be using the terrorists’ tactics against them. I’m not a “rocket scientist” on this matter, but I do know humans are bright enough to figure it out. Gandhi’s movement was a mighty blow against South African apartheid, the crowning blow for India’s freedom, and the primary force behind racial justice in the USA. ~jpc

Lasting global peace. Namaste.

Note: Tim Watson recently told me about the Center for Nonviolent Communication www.cnvc.org.

image: www.csecenter.org/Pub/Community/SNV.shtml

9/11 Double Anniversary

Michael Nagler, a professor at UC Berkeley, points out that today is also the 100th anniversary of “nonviolence,” when Gandhi introduced the first campaign of nonviolent resistance at the Empire Theatre in Johannesburg on September 11, 1906. ~cobbled from a David Rebstock e-mail, 8/17/06

These two events – 9/11/1906 and 9/11/2001 – declare an evolutionary indicative: since we will never be able to control human-to-human violence with military means, and since no nation’s inhabitants can ever be secure, it’s time to invest our resources more wisely and effectively. ~jpc

Let us honor the dead, the living, and the unborn with methods that bow to creation’s needs. Namaste.

image: (Reuters) The "Tribute in Light"

Sunday Dialogue (XVIII)

Journer: Why do we grieve over what is lost, like at 9/11?

Nez: Because it’s the nature of the heart.

Journer: When do we know we’re beyond the grieving?

Nez: When we come to rejoice in what is found, as one of my Sufi students has said.


______
image: www.valdezlink.com/9-11_.htm

Satyagraha

Gandhi coined the Hindi word “Satyagraha” a hundred years ago with this explanation: “Truth (Satya) implies love, and firmness (agraha) engenders and therefore serves as a synonym for force . . . the Force which is born of Truth and love . . . or nonviolence.”

Let us lift up the anniversary of modern nonviolence and do what many others will be doing, watching the movie “Gandhi” – at least my twelfth time. ~jpc

O for force born of truth and love. Namaste.

Note: Read Bishop James K. Mathew’s book Satyagraha: The Matchless Weapon (1989); and also read about other demonstrations of nonviolent resistance at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_resistance.

images: 1) Gandhi Memorial in Washington, D.C. 2) bag www.whatwouldgandhido.net/

Our Source of Greatness

I am that I am, I am light, I am love, I am peace, I am beauty, I am joy, I am one with Mother Earth, I am one with . . . Creation, I am one with everyone within the reach of my voice. And in this togetherness, we ask the Divine . . . to eradicate all negatives from our minds, from our words, and from our actions. And so be it. Ase, ase, ase. ~Babatunde Olatunji, Nigerian drummer who died in 2003

“Ase,” (a word of the Yoruba, pronounced ah-SHAY) besides meaning “amen” or “Happy New Year,” also means something like the intrinsic power, energy, or life force of a piece of creation. This gift of power constitutes our being. It is the source of our greatness when we’re in touch with it. ~jpc

O to be the small but great “I am.” Namaste.

Love and Perception

Love all God’s creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light! Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. ~Dostoevsky’s character Father Zosima in The Brothers Karamazov (Penguin, vol. I, p. 375)

Maybe perceiving comes first, before the loving. ~jpc

O to see the mystery in all things. Namaste.

image: members.tripod.com/~ozpk/karamazov

Other Forms of Consciousness

[O]ur normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness quite different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence; but . . . [n]o account of the universe . . . can be final which [disregards] these other forms of consciousness. . . . ~William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 378

Persons in history exhibiting a deep consciousness of spirit – like Jesus, and Siddhartha before him, and Teresa of Avila after him – have changed history more than most. ~jpc

Guess what the world needs now. Namaste.

image: www.weepingcherry.com/.../siddhartha_chpt_8.html

Being In Charge

From an interview with Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project and author of The Language of God (July 2006): “I became an atheist because, as a graduate student studying quantum physics, life seemed to be reducible to second-order differential equations. Mathematics, chemistry and physics had it all. And I didn’t see any need to go beyond that. Frankly, I was at a point in my young life where it was convenient for me to not have to deal with a God. I kind of liked being in charge myself.” ~Steve Paulson, “The Believer,” via Ida Forbis http://www.salon.com/books/int/2006/08/07/collins/index.html

Naturally, most of us had rather be in charge than “deal with God” (or what you call it). That’s not bad, just less fulfilling. ~jpc

O to be in league with spirit. Namaste.

image: Human Genome Project http://www.hgsc.bcm.tmc.edu/graphics/genome3.jpg

Reunion Wisdom

As the years have passed, my family has learned to graciously accept the breadth of religious faith and political practice that we bring to a reunion. Mind you, we have not grown more homogenous; quite the contrary. But we now enjoy being together. That’s due in large part to our revised expectations of what a family must be. To start, we no longer aim to argue each other into our own likeness. ~David Batstone, “Finding Common Ground at Family Reunions,” sojo.net, 7/19/06, via LLC

At the many family reunions of the summer, we talked little religion and politics and much family tree. It was refreshing to be together. ~jpc

We are thankful for our ancestors and our extended family. Namaste.

image: Slusher (Mama's family) Reunion, 2005, Floyd County, Virginia (jpc, center, seated on log behind dog; son Jeremiah far right)

Sunday Dialogue (XVII)

Journer: What is the secret to effective action?

Nez: Real preparation.

Journer: What does that look like?

Nez: My student* said it very well as he helped revolutionize Europe and western religion: “I have so much to do [today] that I shall have to spend the first three hours in prayer.”

_____
* Martin Luther

Note: watch “Luther,” 2003 movie.

Can't Read about Faith and Catch It

There is no continuous movement from an objective inquiry into the life of Jesus to a knowledge of him as the Christ. . . . Only a decision of the self, a leap of faith, a metanoia or revolution of the mind can lead from observation to participation. . . . ~H. Richard Niebuhr, The Meaning of Revelation, p. 61

Faith is more than beliefs, more than knowing about the historical Jesus, more than joining a religious body, more than memorizing holy words and praying in Jesus’ name. Faith is a discontinuous conversion of the mind, heart, and will – propelling one to profound participation. ~jpc

O to be faith ever and again. Namaste.

image: William Tye, "Leap of Faith" www.artroundtown.com/ballot.html

Prayer of Communion

O thou –
Spirit of our spirit,
Breath of our breath,
Soul of our soul,
Heart of our heart,
Vision of our vision,
Will of our will,
Love of our love –
We would speak thy word,
Be thy eyes and ears,
thy hands and feet,
thy sense and force . . .

As together with thee
And thy children
We commune with
And serve creation
In thy holy now.
Namaste.

~jpc

. . . and on . . . to volume III . . .

image: Melanie Weidner, "Deep Breath" http://www.listenforjoy.com/art/deepbreath.html