Ultimate Reality

[I]n spirit ... nature is timelessly enveloped.... Spirit in its human manifestation is a [soulful] response of man [sic] to his Thou ... which appears and addresses him out of the mystery.... Spirit is not in the I, but between I and Thou.... Only in [our] power to enter into relation [are we] able to live in the spirit.... Every particular Thou is a glimpse through to the eternal Thou.... [S]pirit can penetrate and transform the world of It. ~Martin Buber, I and Thou, pp. 24, 39, 75, 100

The first key points by Buber to strike me: 1) nature, including us, is enveloped in spirit; 2) soulfulness is our seeing the eternal in the particular; 3) spirit is manifest to us in relationships; and 4) spirit transforms. ~jpc

. . . and spirit is ultimate reality. Namaste.

image: Shane McKinley's "Lucid Manifestation"

Human Greatness

When Albert Camus wrote ... that Simone Weil was “the only great mind of our time” ... what impressed him must have been this extraordinary capacity of hers to cut through the inert matter of partisan assumptions.... [By saying so, he is] raising fundamental questions. “Who says so? By what criteria? How do we know? How could such a thing as greatness be attributed to anyone in any time?” ~Desmond Avery, Beyond Power, p. 4

Is Lincoln great? Gandhi? Weil? How do we know? We look at the profound human journey, the best we know, and choose to say so. Universally great? Yes and no and no and yes. ~jpc

Greatness is a gift, a calling, and a compassionate responsibility. Namaste.

image: woman viewing artist Yan Pei-Ming's watercolor "U.S. Election: Obama/McCain 2008" at FIAC 2008 contemporary art show in Paris, 10/22/08 (REUTERS/Charles Platiau photo)

Great Human Journey

A new study shows that humans had the ability to make fire nearly 790,000 years ago, a skill that helped them migrate from Africa to Europe [via the Middle East]. ~reuters.com 10/26/08

We keep going back and back. How far, really? All the way, I guess. We have learned a lot, but still have a lot to learn. ~jpc

“Journey on. . . . Future is waiting for you.” Namaste.

image: reconstruction of a Neanderthal hunter from Europe and central Asia (600,000 years on) American Museum of Natural History

New Commandments

Instead of warfare with each other [the three Abrahamic faiths], these three ... peoples could be working together to heal the suicidal, genocidal, and ecocidal inclinations of our species. ~Gene Marshall, Realistic Living journal, June 2008, via LLC

Thus says Yahweh/God/Allah today: “Work together. Do not do war. Do not do suicide. Do not do genocide. Do not do ecocide.” ~jpc

“Write it large!” Namaste.

image http://tinyurl.com/5pm86b

"Peculiar Interim"

The meaning of the theme “Man [sic] between the Times” is at first simple to determine.... [T]he notion of an “interim” – a time that is neither past nor future, and yet both – [is an] understanding of the paradoxical existence of man ... [the] certainty of the unconditionedness of the divine demand and the divine grace.... [F]or him who lets God be his God, the past is extinguished and the future is open. ~Rudolf Bultmann, “Man Between the Times...,” Existence and Faith, pp. 248, 252, 253

The peculiar interim of our existence is the gracious gift of call from the center of being, from the heart of creation. ~jpc

Let us give thanks and respond faithfully. Namaste.

image: canweevolvenow.wordpress.com/.../

Sunday Dialogue CXXIV

Nez: My student* said, “we live as if our only task was ... to have relationships with other people.”

Journer: Well?

Nez: We humans act as though we are superior to everything else in this glorious universe. Then we turn around and act as though we are superior to other humans.

Journer: Sounds like we humans have a problem with our relationships.
_____
* Albert Camus, Notebooks 1942, 1951 (January 1943 entry)

image: rebranca46 photostream http://www.flickr.com/photos/59125128@N00/2957580101/

Diabolizing Others

We’re living in an age of anxiety where everybody is made insecure in their own deep sense of meaning by the fact that there are all these competing elements [or meanings]. One of the ways you can calm down that anxiety about your own sense of meaning is by diabolizing the others, making it absolutely clear and undeniable that they are wrong. ~Charles Taylor, interview with the John Templeton Foundation http://www.templeton.org/questions/spiritual_thinking/

Convincing others of the diabolical (evil, sinister, of the devil) nature of another person or group is evil, sinister, and of the devil, usually. ~jpc

Our justification does not come from painting the other as wrong. Namaste.

image: Herb Block's Joseph McCarthy, Washington Post, 3/4/54

Steeling Myself

The trouble with steeling yourself against the harshness of reality is that the same steel that secures your life against being destroyed secures your life also against being opened up and transformed by the holy power that life itself comes from. You can survive on your own. You can grow stronger on your own. You can even prevail on your own. But you cannot become human on your own. ~Frederick Buechner, quoted in Jim Winkler’s Faith in Action newsletter, 6/13/08, via Karen Bueno

We all know many who steel themselves well but who do not act human: caring for others and self as they respond to the ground of meaning. ~jpc

O to be human. Namaste.

image: there is meaning even if the sun does not come up tomorrow (photo by Jerome Hunter)

Seeing and Acting

Meditation is not to escape from society, but to come back to ourselves and see what is going on. Once there is seeing, there must be acting. With mindfulness, we know what to do and what not to do to help. ~Thich Nhat Hanh via “Editor’s (Arnold Kotler) Introduction,” Engaged Buddhist Reader

We were not born to meditate or see. We were not born to act or not act. We were born to be, which includes seeing and acting appropriately. ~jpc

Seeing what is really going on motivates us to do what is really necessary. Namaste.

image www.studentorg.umd.edu/desi/meditation/index.htm

What Gets Us Out of Bed?

[Lincoln] starts off, as far as we can tell, a deeply skeptical but powerfully moral person who, as he finds himself in the midst of history and potential cataclysm, feels it necessary to hang on to a more explicit belief in providence and faith. And so that resonates with me.... [T]he possibilities of paralysis are – Lincoln himself acknowledged are – sometimes too present. What gets him out of bed, that’s powerful stuff. ~Barack Obama, speaking to Newsweek in “More a Matter of Mystery than Magic,” by Jon Meacham, 7/21/08, p. 31

If “possibilities ... are sometimes too present,” even paralyzing, what gets a leader out of bed, gets us out of bed, gets me out of bed? I’d say, hanging on to a faithful response to the ever-present power at the heart of whatever situation I show up in. ~jpc

Power is always at hand to deal with what is at hand. Namaste.

image: the toll on Lincoln's face is telling http://tinyurl.com/2o7eg

Pluralism Is Our Greatness

Pew Forum [survey] underscores the fact that America is the most religious pluralistic nation in the world.... 68 percent of religious Americans believe there is more than one way to interpret the teachings of their own scriptures. Most Americans understand that our country was settled by people from different parts of the world who embrace different religious beliefs. That diversity should be celebrated, not feared. ~Welton Gaddy, post “Pluralism Is a Strength Not a Weakness, washingtonpost.com 7/7/08

During national elections the USA demonstrates it robust pluralism, but also, paradoxically, its intolerance of pluralism. Yet, why should we all be one religion, Christian, even Protestant, even Evangelical? Listening to Colin Powell's prophetic words on Sunday, some of us might live long enough to see a Muslim girl grow up to be President of our great nation. ~jpc

We can only be one in diversity. Namaste.

image http://tinyurl.com/5bxayq

Monkeymindedness

Don’t be tossed away by your monkey mind.... You make a decision to do something. You do it. Don’t be tossed away. And part of not being tossed away is understanding your mind and not believing it so much when it comes up with all these ... reasons not to do something. ~Natalie Goldberg http://tinyurl.com/673l85

Operating out of my druthers, letting myself be sidetracked, doing what comes naturally is being enslaved to my lastest monkey-flitting emotions. ~jpc

Monkeymindedness doesn't get it. Namaste.

image: Heather Gorham's interpretation of the monkey mind www.managingthemonkeymind.com/

Sunday Dialogue CXXIII

Nez: My student* said, “We humans are not hopelessly divided and doomed to self-destruct by a genetic predisposition toward greed and violence.”

Journer: Are you saying our better natures are above greed and violence?

Nez: We’re saying, under the truth of our connectedness and freedom, do what’s necessary to stop living out of greed and violence, individually, socially, and earthly.

Journer: Okay.

_____
* David Korten, “We Are Hard-Wired to Care and Connect,” http://www.yesmagazine.org

image: ominous clouds over Edgar Springs; photo by Belinda Lewis, Licking, Mo. www.mo.gov/mo/moweather7.htm

Cosmic Integrity

“Cosmology is about the aliveness of the universe,” [Mary Evelyn]Tucker said. She spoke of some formative influences on Thomas Berry, such as his earthy epiphany in a Carolina meadow, and the sense of rhythm – the daily rhythm of things – that monastic life gave him. “The meadow across the creek awakened him to the magic, and the monastery gave him a sense of the mystery,” said Tucker. ~CES Monthly Musings, Issue 15, July 2008

Clearly, Thomas operates out of the inner dimension of the cosmos. I listen to his external contexting because I trust his interior point of reference. ~jpc

His interior integer, or oneness with the cosmos, gives him his integrity. Namaste.

image: “Paon I” by citadin by naturephotographer.deviantart.com/

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note: Today is the service to celebrate the life and death of colleague David Zollars. From everlasting to everlasting, all is well, all is well.

Foundation of My Bounden Service

I am called to look through all my relationships – to self and to neighbor (all creation) – and to see at their heart my ultimate relationship as the transparent meaning of my journey. Or, to see the Other World in This World is my reason for being: to bow to what I see in This World and to dialog with that in relationship with the ultimate truth of the Other World, that all are connected, one, whole; and to call others to the same profound journey. All this is the foundation of my bounden service. ~jpc, reflecting on the words of Joseph Mathews from yesterday's post

I am related to and therefore called to serve all that is. Namaste.

image www.moederdegans.be/winanga_li_winangali_wmc_...

"You Can't Touch Me"

I lead a double life. I have this life that has relationships.... But I have another life, the one of looking through to the transparent meaning of life. A different world entirely.... [T]he Other World only exists in This World yet it’s another world.... In the Other World are humiliation, weakness, resentment, and suffering. In the Other World are dislocation, burned-out-ness, ineffectivity, and unfulfillment. They are all there. If I were at all adequate in articulating this, you would hear your fathers in the faith say: You can’t touch me. Not even the death of a beloved one can destroy me. ~Joseph W. Mathews, Bending History, “On Taking Care of Yourself,” p. 278 (pull-together of five of his Summer ’75 talks, by jpc)

On the profound journey we experience the Dark Night (original categories were humiliation yet glory, weakness yet strength, resentment yet care, and suffering yet salvation) and the Long March (original categories were rootless yet faithful, ineffective yet performing miracles, weary yet animating others, and unfulfilled yet perfect). ~JWM and colleagues, via Nan Grow and John Epps

We thank Joe for guiding us along the profound journey. Namaste.

(JWM: b. Breezewood, PA, 10/08/1911; d. Chicago, IL, 10/16/1977)

image http://www.resurgencepublishing.com/jwmphotos.htm

Meaning Is

God is not the automatic solution to all questions, but the assurance of meaning. Is the world spinning in a void, or is there a purpose to the pageant of life and death? ~David Wolpe, “Without God, There Is No Why,” washingtonpost.com, 10/3/08

I like “God is ... the assurance of meaning ... [in] the pageant of life and death.” We can count on meaning along the whole journey, no matter what. ~jpc

Meaning is ... always present. Namaste.

image: Denali National Park, Alaska (photo by Lew Dozier)

Voyaging

. . . Geese, too: more and more couples

voyaging north, great high-spirited congregations

taking the freezing air in and letting it out

as song, as if this frigid enterprise were all joy,

nothing to be afraid of.

~Eamon Grennan, “Opposing Forces” from Matter of Fact, via writersalmanac.org, 7/11/08

Is this frigid voyage, for all of us, full of fear or joy? Let us humans be reminded of Columbus and sailors facing the unknown. ~jpc

Voyage on, birds of the air, humans of the sea, all creation evolving. Namaste.

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image themarvelousinnature.wordpress.com/.../

An Excellence High

Lynda and I just had brunch at my favorite eatery in Greensboro, Herbie’s Place. (The photo tells the source of the name.) Some reasons it’s my favorite: a super motivated staff follows the young female owner in running up and down, smiling, chatting with customers; ambiance, especially at the counter seats, watching two Latinos keeping up with five waitresses’ orders, clicking their spatulas at the grill – usually one in each hand – or cracking two eggs with one hand; and reasonable prices. I told Lynda the spirit of the whole experience gives me a high (before we walk it off just out the side door and onto the path to our two-mile walk in General Greene’s Park – the leader who wore down General Cornwallis and his Brits and sent them limping to Jamestown to surrender and leave us motley colonizers to rule ourselves). ~jpc

Excellence is always a highlight. Namaste.

image: Thomas Berry and Randy Williams holding up Herbie outside Herbie’s Place

Sunday Dialogue CXXII

Nez: My student* said, “We are hard-wired to care and connect.”

Journer: Meaning, by nature?

Nez: Nothing more natural.

Journer: Why do we suppress what comes naturally?

_____
* David Korten, “We Are Hard-Wired to Care and Connect,” via David Zhart http://www.yesmagazine.org,

image: Jane Goodall and chimpanzee http://tinyurl.com/42dypo

Good Playing Field

[W]e seem bent on dividing all things into a contest of Win and Lose, and declaring the Losers are losers. Nearly half of us are routinely asked to disappear while the slim majority works its will. But the playing field is the planet earth, and I for one have no place else to go. ~Barbara Kingsolver, Small Wonder, p. 18, via LLC

Seeing with good eyes, there are no losers. Creation, as is, is good. ~jpc

On this good and only playing field, there are no first and last – only first. Namaste.

image http://tinyurl.com/4twfx9

Silent Witness

Standing just 150 feet from the platform on which President Abraham Lincoln delivered his most famous speech, one of the few remaining “witness trees” to the Battle of Gettysburg has been severely damaged by a storm.... The tree ... “was there as a silent witness – to the battle, to the aftermath, to the burials, to the dedication of the cemetery,” park historian John Heiser said. ~Associated Press, 8/9/08, via Jerome Hunter

Everything is at the center of the universe and witnesses all solitary and communal events. Our journeys are held sacred in the memory of witnesses. ~jpc

We are one creation. Namaste.

image http://tinyurl.com/3s8xku "Witness Tree," one of the living witnesses of those Gettysburg events

The Imaginal Realm

[T]he work of Henri Corbin ... influenced Jung [with] the mundus imaginalis. I call it the imaginal realm.... [I]t always has a sacred dimension to it which is awe-ful.... [T]he imaginal initially stuns us with its presence. ~Robert Romanysyn (author of The Soul in Grief), “A Conversation with Dolores E. Brien: Part Two,” 6/5/05 http://tinyurl.com/5suclc

The “imaginal realm” is good poetry for the “sacred dimension” that “stuns us with its presence.” ~jpc

Present to its presence. Namaste.

Evolving Earth Jurisprudence

On Sunday [September 27, 2008], Ecuador’s human citizens voted their approval of a new constitution; reports vary but approximately two-thirds of people voted yes.... The document included language making Ecuador the first nation to legislate rights for nature. ~“Ecuador Grants Rights to Nature” http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2008/09/ecuador_grants_rights_to_natur.html

Included in the Constitutional document voted on: “Natural communities and ecosystems possess the unalienable right to exist, flourish and evolve within Ecuador. Those rights shall be self-executing, and it shall be the duty and right of all Ecuadorian governments, communities, and individuals to enforce those rights.” ~via http://www.ecozoicstudies.org/

“The idea of developing ‘Earth Jurisprudence’ [an international initiative] first emerged in 1996 through a workshop and talks at Schumacher College, by Thomas Berry.” ~http://www.earthjurisprudence.org/content/who.html

We celebrate the great work evolving. Namaste.

image: Earth Jurisprudence web page logo (link above)

Raise Your Voice

If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless ... then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence. ~J.K.Rowling, Harvard commencement speech, 6/5/08 http://harvardmagazine.com/go/jkrowling.html

Rowling, author of Harry Potter fiction, suggests Harvard grads of status and influence raise their voices on behalf of – and used her status and influence to do so. ~jpc

Let us all raise our voices on behalf of. Namaste.

image: JPC II raising his voice on behalf of new urban design

Life ... Here and Now

When anyone of us says “I will live tomorrow,” he indulges in a dangerous fantasy about living. The life that the dawn brings us is the only life we have. Life is in the here and now, not the there and afterwards. [This] day, with all the travail and joy that it brings to our doorstep, is the expression of eternal life. Either we meet it, we live it – or we miss it. ~Vimal Thakar, from Totality in Essence http://www.prahlad.org/gallery/vimala_thakar.htm; read at the “Celebration of the Completed Life of Katharine Rash Townley,” 7/20/08

Can’t put off eternal life. Get it now or.... ~jpc

Eternal is no more future than past or present. Namaste.

image http://tinyurl.com/3mntyb

Sunday Dialogue CXXI

Journer: Tell me again about “the numinous.”

Nez: You mean experiencing life’s deepest dimension ... the very breath of life?

Journer: Like our first or last breath?

Nez: Like those truly awesome experiences that almost choke us or take our breath away?

______
image http://tinyurl.com/4onupf

"Yud"

The Hebrew word YHVH [one of the names of the God of Israel] is a concept, not a proper name. The root of the concept is HVH, which in Hebrew means approximately what the words “To Be” mean in English.... And when you put a ‘yud’ (Y) in front of a root of a verb in Hebrew you are indicating future tense.... In context, it means the transformative force, that which makes possible the movement from what is to what should be. ~Michael Lerner, tikkun.org, 6/29/08, via Karen Bueno

Life is full of transformative force that calls us to be. ~jpc

O YUD. Namaste.

image puffin.creighton.edu/jesuit/andre/yahweh.html

Soul Mate

[T]o live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful.... [A soul mate’s] purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your ... addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life. ~Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love, p. 149, via Veronica Wordsworth

Hard to covenant to a soul mate? Yes. But maybe we should marry such a person, if she or he does all that awesome stuff. ~jpc

Oh, soul mate! Namaste.

image: LLC at midwest Profound Journey Dialog, 9/08

Present

Meaning is present in all places and at all times. On this universal journey in this world, meaning is everywhere and at every moment – for meaning is at the heart of what is, like it’s always been and always will be.

Is life meaningful? Yes, whether or not I am present. ~jpc

O to be present to meaning. Namaste.

image http://tinyurl.com/4twfx9

Building a Life Together

[W]e don’t just need a bailout. We need a buildup.... [W]hen this bailout is over, we need ... to launch an E.T., energy technology, revolution with the same urgency as this bailout. Otherwise, all we will have done is bought ourselves a respite, but not a future. The exciting thing about the energy technology revolution is that it spans the whole economy – from green-collar construction jobs to high-tech solar panel designing jobs. It could lift so many boats. ~Thomas Friedman, “Green the Bailout,” nytimes.com, 9/27/08

The confluent global crises of war, oil, and finance are calling for our building a life together caring for our Earth community. ~jpc

Be it so. Namaste.

image: “Abstraction 4” http://tinyurl.com/3jj4l7