Journey Reflection

Awesome Synchronicity

2012-01-31T00:00:00.000-05:00

Journer:Watch this YouTubeof Harvard students’ experiment of pendulum waves theory. It demonstrates the synchronicityin life, and when it happens,we are amazed. (via Ken Hamje)

Nez: As I watched, I imagined families,teams, movements—millions of humans acting in sync on behalf of the belovedEarth community. What a vision.

Namaste.

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Image: source

Faithful to Our Trust

2012-01-30T00:00:00.000-05:00

Whether humans have been faithful to theirtrust of preserving and enhancing Earth and its overall development is thepoint at issue in this the Ecological or Ecozoic Age…. The part serves thewhole. Our distinctive gifts of reason and free will are, similarly, intendedto serve the well-being of Earth…. (MargaretBerry, “Literature and Ecology,” 2011)

Journer: A profound statement of ourhuman role, to serve the Earth. At least we have great maps of the Earth.

Nez: Would that religious,educational, political, and economic leaders understood what this little lady knows. Humanleaders have basically sought to serve the well-being of themselves and some humans,but rarely the well-being of the whole Earth community.

Namaste.

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Image: source

The Rest Belongs to Others (Sunday Dialog 295)

2012-01-29T00:00:00.000-05:00

Nez: Mycolleague* said, “Determine what God has given you, and take from it what youneed; the remainder is needed by others.”

Journer: How do Idetermine what I need to live out my life?

Nez: On average, $50,000 US dollars a year for those in the West, though the 1% will howl. The remainder is needed by others.

Journer: I can’tbegin to imagine what a difference that would make for our beloved Earth community.

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* St. Augustinesource

Image: source

Blind To Greatness?

2012-01-28T00:00:00.000-05:00

Watch this short YouTube and read this article* and determine if you too would have walked on by.

Journer: How manytimes a day do I walk on by, blind to greatness?

Nez: More thanyou can count. Greatness is everywhere, all the time: the phenom at thestation, the hummingbird outside the window, a friend’s new book, a postalclerk’s style, a grandchild’s newest learning, a nation’s determination to befree, the movie “As It Is In Heaven,” a winter cabbage plant by the front stoop,a newly discovered planet, and U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Namaste.

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Note: via RichardGalbreath

Image: source

New Church Door Thesis

2012-01-27T00:00:00.000-05:00

We shall continue to have a worsening ecologic crisis until we reject the Christian axiom that nature has no reason for existence save to serve man. (Lynn White, 1967 source)

Journer: Is thisone of those beliefs I have to believe?

Nez: Crazy question, Journer. Why don’t you nail a newthesis on your church’s door that goes something like this: We humans are inexistence to serve the Earth community—our neighbor—and in so doing, we serve God.

Namaste.

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Image: source

“We Are Nature”

2012-01-26T00:00:00.000-05:00

I ask … [the audience] to find that place in their mind’seye, that place of peace and repose and tranquility and serenity, their perfectcomfort zone. I let them think about it…. But then I ask them: How many of youwere somewhere outdoors? 97% of the hands in the audience go up every time. AndI’ve done it around the world.… People gravitate to nature. It’s built intous…. We have it engrained in us. We are nature. We don’t come from nature. Weare nature. (Ray Anderson,

industrialist, who died in 2011 source)

Journer: What onEarth is not part of Earth’s nature?

Nez: The light ofthe Sun and the Moon, though they are very close relatives.

Namaste.

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Image: source

Most Fundamental Need

2012-01-25T00:00:00.000-05:00

…the most fundamental need we have as social animals islove. Children who are fed, clothed and sheltered but are never hugged, kissedand told they are loved are fundamentally crippled, physically andpsychically…. We need love to learn how to love, to empathize, to be a part ofthe human family. (David Suzuki,source)

Journer: I waslucky to have been loved as a child.

Nez: Great. And inyour family did you learn to love the rest of the Earth family?

Namaste.

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Image: source

We Have the Power

2012-01-24T00:00:00.000-05:00

…When we come to it

We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear….

~Maya Angelou, “ABrave and Startling Truth,” source, via Jack Gilles

Journer: I likeher poetry, especially “We … have the power to fashion for this earth a climate….”

Nez: And my prose: We have the power to fashion for our Earth progeny a climate free from warringbeliefs, unlivable temperatures, and crippling fear of the future.

Namaste.

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Image: source

This Much Reality

2012-01-23T00:00:00.000-05:00

Self-consciousness is … the source of the chronic anxietythat grips all human life and in which we are forced to view ourselves asmortals, who are destined to die. No other living creature has to managethis much reality…. (John Spong,“The Lecture Tour of Germany,Part III: Marburg,”8/12/11, via Ellie Stock)

Journer: “To managethis much reality” is a very apt phrase.

Nez: Only death bringspeace—yet most would rather be about managing the awesome reality of life.

Namaste.

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Image: source

Who We Are (Sunday Dialog 294)

2012-01-22T00:00:00.000-05:00

Nez: Mycolleague* said, “the universe, by definition, is a single gorgeous celebratoryevent.”

Journer: As anintegral part of the universe, we humans are also a single gorgeous celebratory event.

Nez: And Thomassays further that in the universe “all things attain their highest expression.”

Journer: That isfar more true than saying we humans are the ultimate expression of the universe.

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* Thomas Berry, The Dream of the Earth, p. 5, viaCarolyn Toben

Image: source (watch, see if it devolves and in a flash and evolves again)

In a Funk? Watch This...

2012-01-21T00:00:00.000-05:00

Watch buku, seemingly endless, sunrise and sunset photos (click each photo) by people like you around the Earth, to brighten your veryexistence, to give thanks for our wondrous Earth—not to mention the practical fact we would not be alivewithout our Sun’s energy. ~jpc

Journer: Humans crave such awesome beauty.

Nez: Surely putsour existence and that of the Earth community in a different light. Makes you deeply desire to live forward and not miss the wonder.

Namaste.

Humankind’s Real Power

2012-01-20T00:00:00.000-05:00

…following … ancient wisdom, science is discovering aplethora of evidence about our hardwiring for connection and compassion…. Darwinhimself, who was misunderstood to believe exclusively in our competitiveness,actually noted that humankind’s real power comes in their ability to performcomplex tasks together, to sympathize and cooperate. (Tom Shadyac’s movie “I Am,” about his transformative journey source)

Journer: Competition is out of hand today.

Nez: Jesus and Siddhartha certainly did not teach competition, but had hard sayings against competition for power, wealth, and division. Their message was and is about profound oneness.

Namaste.

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Image: source

Godly Context for Love

2012-01-19T00:00:00.000-05:00

God created this world. This is the most radical sociologicalstatement ever uttered … for it ... means that all the goods of nature,all the decisions of history and all the inventions of humanity belong to all….Profound love is love for everything that is, has been, and will be. (Joseph Mathews, Bending History, vol. II, p. 94)

Nez: Our human understanding of love imploded December 1968 with those photos from the Moon of the one Earth community. They grounded in a radical way the godly context of profound love Mathews was talking about a few years later. The reality of love, born out of the absolute fact that we are one, can transform us earthlings.

Be it so. Namaste.

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Image: source black and white photo of Earthrise by Apollo 8 astronauts as they were landing on the Moon, 12/24/68

Paul Simon: Natural Journer

2012-01-18T00:00:00.000-05:00

Journer: Paul Simonthinks it’s neat to be called a “God Chronicler by Accident” over the years because of themany bits in his songs of God, Jesus, Mary, angels, afterlife, etc. Hesays he’s not religious but kind of spiritual. Enjoy dipping into this interview/video,with some of his music, put together by PBS and Sojourners magazine.

Nez: It’srefreshing to listen to a natural journer—no formal belief system picked upinside a synagogue or church. He infers that life nurtured him in the “meaningof it all.” Just a 70-year-old who seems delighted with the profound journey he’s on.

Namaste.

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Share: 2011 Top 20 “Journey Reflection” Blogs www.transcribebooks.com
Image: source

Humans or Post-humans?

2012-01-17T00:00:00.000-05:00

…most educated people, thoughfully aware that our biosphere is the outcome of several billion years ofDarwinian evolution, still somehow think that humans are the culmination of theevolutionary tree…. ~Martin Rees read

Journer: Reesuses the word “post-humans,” intimating we humans are hardly the culmination ofevolution.

Nez: We humanshave been around a short time of the billions of years past and are hoping fora future extension, not extinction. Either way, we are precursors of what’scoming.

Namaste.

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Image: source

See That All Flourish

2012-01-16T00:00:00.000-05:00

Twenty per cent of us have considerable power, influence,and money and we should use it…. We middle-class (and wealthier) folks must bewilling to “stand in the shoes” of … both oppressed human beings and otherlife-forms…. This concern includes the health of the biological systems such asclimate that help all creatures to flourish. (read Sallie McFague reflections upon the Ecology, Ethics andInterdependence conference, hosted by the Dalai Lama, Dharamshala, India,October 2011)

Journer: Before that in her reflections she talks about past “saints” who stepped out to care for all.

Nez: So glad that such saints of our day are passionate to see the beloved Earth community flourish.

Namaste.

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Image: Sallie and the Dalai source

The Way Life Is (Sunday Dialog 293)

2012-01-15T00:00:00.000-05:00

Nez: My student said, “The way life is destroys the way life is, and that’s the way life is.”

Journer: That makes me think life is bad.

Nez: Life is always ending, after each breath.

Journer: So life is not bad. Some say life, the way it is, is good—an enigma full of Yes.

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* John Baggett, RS-I seminar (Detroit 1968), via an attendee

Image: source (click to see their radiant faces)

“In the Fullness of Earth’s Time”

2012-01-14T00:00:00.000-05:00

…In the fullness of earth’s time

In the silent desert night

Unfolds a rose and lifts its head

To the wonder of dawn’s light

Praising life’s strange plight.

Creation’stiming is perfect.

It’smystery rebirth.

~Ellie Stock, from December 2011 song

Journer: Is that astatement of faith?

Nez: Yes, and knowingthe song writer as a profound activist, it is also a statement of truth, coming to bethrough the “great work” of her kind, who bet the Earth community will flourishagain as it has overall during the last 4.5 billion years.

Namaste.

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We celebrate theprofound journey of colleague AnitaGibson. She rests in peace.

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Image: Sattar Bahlulzade, “Flourishing Field” source

“The League”

2012-01-13T00:00:00.000-05:00

It was my destiny to join in a great experience. Having had the good fortuneto belong to the League, I was permitted to be a participant in a uniquejourney. What wonder it had at the time! How radiant and comet-like itseemed, and how quickly it has been forgotten.... (Hermann Hesse, The Journey to the East, long beginning excerpt)

Journer: I toobelonged to the League that centered me on the profound journey.

Nez: I hope you haven’tforgotten it or “allowed it to fall into disrepute,” as Hesse writes. But if you have, it sustains you nonetheless.

Namaste.

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Image: journeyingup the river to Bubun, Indonesia, about 1979 (Marge, jpc, Joel, and Rob, et al., where I caught malaria as a fishing village caught a new vision)

We Are the Founders

2012-01-12T10:59:00.000-05:00

We are awaiting the new global founding Fathers and Mothers who will frame an integral system of governance that will call us to our more encompassing future.… (Ken Wilber, “Integral Governance,” A Theory of Everything, p. 90 read)

Journer: Surely Wilber is not asking us to wait for such leaders.

Nez: No, he agrees that “We are the ones we have been waiting for.”*

Namaste.

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* Note: source

Ethically Interdependent

2012-01-11T00:00:00.000-05:00

When the world is bound together this tightly, everyone’s values and behavior matter more than ever, because they impact so many more people than ever.... We’ve gone from connected to interconnected to ethically interdependent. (Dov Seidman, quoted by Thomas Friedman source, via Randy Williams)

Journer: What’s the real difference between “connected,” “interconnected,” and “ethically interdependent”?

Nez: “Ethically interdependent” means humanity now lives on death ground—mostly in denial of that fact. Further irresponsibility means impending disaster for more and more species, even humans.

Namaste.

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Image: some of leaders at “Ecology, Ethics and Interdependence” conference, Dharamshala, India, October 2011 ... Sallie McFague on left of the Dalai Lama ... his opening remarks on YouTube (Maybe an Earth Community Prize—when a donor emerges—will stand beside his Nobel Peace Prize of 1989.)

Earth-centered Golden Rule

2012-01-10T00:00:00.000-05:00

…unless we learn to implement the Golden Rule globally, sothat we treat all people, all nations, as we would wish to be treatedourselves, we’re not going to have a viable world. ~Karen Armstrong source

Journer: Isn’tthis a human-centered statement?

Nez: We will not have a “viable world” for humans unless the Golden Rule is the waywe treat the whole Earth community.

Namaste.

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Image: source

Points of the Profound Journey

2012-01-09T00:00:00.000-05:00

The profound journey is about meaning …

being awestruck ... by the wonder of reality

The profoundjourney is about transformation …

being at one with ... and free for all that is

The profound journey is about intercommunion …

being consumed ... by care for and with the Earth community

The profoundjourney is about fulfillment …

being transparent ... to the numinous power at the heart of all

Namaste.

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~jpc, inspired by JosephMathews and the 50-yearsocio-spirit mission of the OrderEcumenical, Ecumenical Institute: Chicago, and the Institute of Cultural Affairs;and inspired by the cosmology and ecology of Thomas Berry and the Center for Ecozoic Studies
~Ellen Howie, image

Biggest Thing in Our Lives (Sunday Dialog 292)

2012-01-08T00:00:00.000-05:00

Nez: A wise man wrote, “The biggest thing in people’s lives is their loves and dreams and visions….”

Journer: But what if peoples’ loves, dreams, and visions are trivial.

Nez: Journer, you turn cynical at times. Are your loves, dreams, and vision trivial?

Journer: I don’t think so ... usually.

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* Jim Harrison via writersalmanac.org, 12/11/11

Image: source

Your Impossible Dream

2012-01-07T00:00:00.000-05:00

...AndI know if I’ll only be true

To this glorious quest

That my heart will lie peaceful & calm

When I’m laid to my rest....

(“The ImpossibleDream,” Man of La Mancha YouTube)

Nez: Whatis the impossible dream for you, Journer?

Journer: Afew more thousand years for the human race to express the dreamof the Earth community and to celebrate her with our unique universal gift ofprofound reflection and thanksgiving.

Namaste.

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Image: Zhangjiajie, the first national park of China, source (awesome, scary photos)

“Little Big Bang”

2012-01-06T00:00:00.000-05:00

This experience [of the spiritual impulse] is the most subtle and profound expression of the initial cosmic explosion—the … experience of the big bang as a surging compulsion for interior development and growth. The innermost regions of the cosmos are aspiring to evolve and be developed in and through you. (Andrew Cohen, Evolutionary Enlightenment read)

Journer: I like that, our spiritual impulse is an expression of the Big Bang.

Nez: Whoever/whatever “our” is, our profound interior compulsion catalyzes interior and external development and growth throughout our Universe—more bang now than in the beginning. That makes everything and you a “little Big Bang,” Journer, especially when you act impulsively and wisely.

Namaste.
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Image: source

All the Models for All

2012-01-05T00:00:00.000-05:00

“Germany can’t afford to fail, because the whole world is looking at the German model [of a nation powered by renewable energy sources] and asking, can Germany move us to new business models, new infrastructure?” said Jeremy Rifkin ... who has advised the European Union and Merkel. ~Melissa Eddy, Associated Press source

Journer: Go, Feldheim, Germany!

Nez: By all means, but none of us can afford to fail. All the models for all the Earth community.

Namaste.
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Image: source

Only Exists Interdependently

2012-01-04T00:00:00.000-05:00

2011 was a good year for protest and a bad year for government…. That was true in the Arab world, in Russia, in India, in Western Europe, in the United States and even in China. And everywhere, this year of mass defiance wrong-footed those who were supposed to be in the know. ~Chrystia Freeland read

Journer: She also writes, “2012 will be a good year for both if our political leaders can figure out the connection.”

Nez: Not just the political leaders. All of us have to figure out the connection in this wild and glorious world that only exists interdependently. During 2011, Earth community in every shape and form screamed this truth.

Namaste.
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Image: source

2012 Mantra

2012-01-03T00:00:00.000-05:00

…to understand theworld … knowledge is not enough … you must see it, touch it, live in itspresence and drink the vital heat of existence in the very heart ofreality. ~Teilhard de Chardin, The Heart of Matter, p. 71, via JosephSlicker

Journer: Slicker added, “the purpose of life is to learn to love” the very heart of reality in all existence.

Nez: Journer, there’s a 2012 mantra in there for you, with bestwishes from Joe and Teilhard—say, about a dozen words you can cobble together and utter at least 365 times this year.

Namaste.

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Image: source “Moving Forward,” by Fakhri Bohang

Salvific

2012-01-02T00:00:00.000-05:00

Looking at thefamous “earthrise” photograph, [Joseph] Campbell had this tosay in the year of his own death: “You see the whole Earth … as reference notto political and social problems, but to the deep human spiritual problem—theopening of the heart and eyes to the wonder of the world we’re in. With that, Ithink humanity is saved.” (read*—also watch slide show*)

Journer: Campbell thought the Earthrise to be the transcendent and unifying symbol forthe future of the Earth community.

Nez: If that’s the truth, let Earthrise be the only tattoo onyour body, maybe on your prominent hand, where you’ll see it hundreds of times aday as a reminder to open your heart and eyes to its wonder. Could be salvific,Journer.

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* Source: J. Marler, “JosephCampbell: The Mythic Journey,” p. 61

Image: source by crew of Apollo 8, December 24, 1968, from our Moon

Begin 2012 (Sunday Dialog 291)

2012-01-01T00:00:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year!

After reviewing yesterday’s reflections on 2011 …

I say, as I start the new year …
My most significant need …
My focus beyond self …
My prayer for the Earth community …
I intend to participate in …
I want to be able to say at the end of 2012 that I …

Namaste.

For all that has been – Thanks! / To all that shall be – Yes!

~Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings, p. 89

Celebrate 2011

2011-12-31T00:00:00.000-05:00

Before starting, review your written reflections of a year ago. Then contemplate images of 2011, maybe with these iconic and memorable photos (Washington Post/Reuters), at your own speed.

Next, using the reflection guide below, write in your journal or computer file—whatever you can review next year (maybe cut and paste and type on a computer document or print and write).

My 2011 Reflections

Global events and the event for me . . .
National events and the event for me . . .
Community events and the event for me . . .
Family events and the event for me . . .
Personal events and the event for me . . .

Laughed big-time when . . .
Wept over . . .
Enraged because of . . .
Hopeful because of . . .
Joyful about . . .

Really struggled with . . .
Creativity flowed when . . .
Big idea began to dawn when . . .
Was empowered by . . .
Wish I had done . . .
Stood tall in the midst of . . .
Most transformative event of the year . . .

My journey of the past year has been like . . .
My story line that is emerging . . .
My name for 2011: The Great Year of ___________________
I will celebrate 2011 by . . .

For Auld Lang Syne! (shed a tear of joy and sorrow … For Times Gone By!)

A Spark Will Fly

2011-12-30T00:00:00.000-05:00

I sit for long nights all by myself and don’t have a thought in my head. I’m dry. I’m blocked, or so it seems.... But ... eventually ... a spark will fly, and I’ll be off, sailing, my ego gone. I won’t know my name. I won’t know what time it is. Then, I’m a composer. ~Leonard Bernstein, High fidelity Musical America, Vol. 28, Issue 2, p. 57, via LLC

Journer: A common experience, probably.

Nez: So we know where real creativity comes from. And often you have to be blocked, dry, and seemingly blind to see the spark fly and experience the joy of creation.

Namaste.
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Image: Holly Werner, “Creative Spark” source

Unstuff

2011-12-29T00:00:00.000-05:00

…for my 70th birthday party, I asked guests not to bring gifts. Instead of receiving, I gave. For each of the 42 guests, I wrapped in newspaper an object gleaned from my closets…. Each guest chose a wrapped gift and then, amid uproarious laughter and much hawking, they traded until most everyone went home with something they wanted. Now … I have what I want and know where it is. I experience a delightful ease of living. ~Fran Korten, “Let’s Unstuff the Holidays,” Yes! magazine, 12/1/11, via LLC

Journer: Our consumerism stuffs us, sometimes to the point of inner pain.

Nez: A longtime movement has operated on “It’s more blessed to unstuff.”

Namaste.
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Image: source

Historical Hope

2011-12-28T00:00:00.000-05:00

[The question is, will we] see reality as reason to despair or as the very foundation for hope…. We are the children of a history steeped in despair turned to hope…. ~Joan Chittister source 7/19/11, via Randy Williams

Journer: Is the glass mostly full of despair or hope?

Nez: The historical/universal reality ofdespair turned to hope—at least over the last 13.7 billion years—inspires us tolive in hope, Journer.

Namaste.
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Image: Big Bang source

Contentless Christ

2011-12-27T00:00:00.000-05:00

The “contentless Christ” or the “Christ happening” does not depend on any historical tradition. It is a process that is part of life itself. There is no content—behavioral, historical, sociological, psychological, religious, or economic—that is required for that happening to occur. It just happens, and when it does, everything for us humans is transformed. That’s something well worth celebrating! ~John Epps, 12/20/2011 e-mail (adapted with permission)

Journer: We could say such a life-changing event comes from the heart of life.

Nez: Also, that happening or event does not even depend on belief or faith. It comes as it will and leaves any person, religious or not, with the freedom to flow with the transformation.

Namaste.
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Image: source

Figures of the Future

2011-12-26T00:00:00.000-05:00

The great and rare mystics of the past (from Buddha to Christ…) were, in fact, ahead of their time, and are still ahead of ours. In other words, they are not figures of the past. They are figures of the future. ~Ken Wilber, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, p. 253

Journer: Does that mean we haven’t caught up with them?

Nez: Yes. We have not as fully lived at one with that power at the heart of all as they have.

Namaste.
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Image: source

Common Heart of Things (Sunday Dialog 290)

2011-12-25T00:00:00.000-05:00

Nez: Teilhard* said, “The presence of the incarnate Word … at the common heart of things … is essentially grace.”

Journer: And for Christians this is revealed through Jesus, born at Christmas.

Nez: Journer, try to imagine a life without transforming grace at the center—the very heart of forgiveness, love, communion, hope, joy, meaning, and purpose. Truly, grace is that without which, that matters most.

Journer: Verily, and the cause for profound celebration. A grace-filled Christmas to you, Nez.

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* Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, ed. Ursala King, p. 96
Image: source

“United”

2011-12-24T00:00:00.000-05:00

Journer: Participate in this new YouTube by Playing for Change. The words are simple. It is the spiritual message this year, whatever religion or none, whatever language:

We have to bring the world together.

We have to live as one.
We shall overcome.

Nez: This is as spiritual as it gets—whether religious or secular—the “world together” living “as one.”

Namaste.
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Image: source

I Wanna Wish You …

2011-12-23T00:00:00.000-05:00

Journer: Nez, I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas, with the help of a super YouTube featuring José Feliciano and the Peanuts Choir.

Nez: You all have great spirit when you let it loose, even Charlie Brown. This Christmas may you experience the joy of being alive as yousing, dance, share, give, love, and serve.

Namaste.
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Image: source

WAHO Christmas

2011-12-22T00:00:00.000-05:00

Last year, Americans spent $450 billion on Christmas. Clean water for the whole world, including every poor person on the planet, would cost about $20 billion. Let’s just call that what it is: A material blasphemy of the Christmas season. ~Jim Wallis source 12/15/11, via LLC

Journer: I think he’s right, especially over the last seventy-five years in the USA.

Nez: Water is so elemental to human existence, wouldn’t it be a profound symbol to spend $50 billion on water, $300 billion blocking carbon emission from entering the atmosphere, and $50 billion on remedial health care—water, atmosphere, and health … WAH!—and spend the final $50 billion on gifting others—WAHO! An Earth community Christmas next year! Jesus would shout, “Hallelujah! You are beginning to get the message.”

Namaste.
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Image: source

“How Can I Keep from Singing”

2011-12-21T00:00:00.000-05:00

…What tho’ the tempest loudly roars,

I hear the truth, it liveth.

And tho’ the darkness round me close,

Songs in the night it giveth!

No storm can shake my inmost calm

While to that rock I’m clinging;

Since love is lord of heaven and earth

How can I keep from singing?...

~PeteSeeger (YouTube) and othersadapted lyrics and made popular Robert Lowry’s 1869 song (LLC’s favorite over last five years—last two verses of YouTube passed on by LLC’s cousin DorisTroutman Plenn)

Journer: What I call a profound song. After so many years since I first heard Pete sing it, this old song will probably be humming me throughout the holidays, for it’s down deep inside.

Nez: The truth is, darkness cannot put out the light.

Namaste.
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Image: shadow of Earth falling across face of Moon—six-pointed decorative star on Christmas Tree in foreground, above Vladivostok, Russia—during 12/21/10 full lunar eclipse, first to coincide with the Winter Solstice since 1638 (Rueters/Yuri Maltsev)

Goodwill to All

2011-12-20T00:00:00.000-05:00

Ya … got to think who it is we kill ... people who’ve told us to live together in harmony and try to love one another. Jesus, Gandhi, Lincoln, John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, John Lennon—they all said, “Try to live together peacefully.” Bam! Right in the f------ head! Apparently we’re not ready for that! ~George Carlin source

Journer: This quote will send a shiver as I sing “Peace on Earth, Goodwill to All” this season.

Nez: We still are not ready. We kill the messenger who deeply assaults our belief systems, our values, our prejudices. Nevertheless, keep singing “Goodwill to All”—including the non-human—until it becomes our operating reality.

Namaste.
______
Image: Georges Rouault, Christ mocked by soldiers, c. 1932 (Museum of Modern Art, NYC, USA)

“… or birthday”

2011-12-19T00:00:00.000-05:00

Despair at bottom is hopelessness
believing the power at the heart of life
is really no power at all …
we’re on our way
to the bitter end

Faith at bottom is hopefulness
believing the power at the heart of all
is finally the real power …
we’re on its way
to the promised land

Always deciding to live
in despair or faith ...
bitter end or
promised land ...
deathday … or birthday

~jpc, birthday 2011

Journer: Happy birthday.

Nez: New birth.

Namaste.
______
Image: source

Divinely Inspired (Sunday Dialog 289)

2011-12-18T00:00:00.000-05:00

Nez: Miller* said, “Mythology/religion is ‘divinely inspired, humanly constructed.’”

Journer: How does divine inspiration come about?

Nez: It rarely comes out of rational and strategic thinking. It often comes out of dreams and encounters. Then the construction begins.

Journer: So the dreams of Thomas Berry and Joseph Mathew are still undergoing human construction.
_____
* Chris Miller, Joseph Campbell Foundation blogs source
Image: source (What do you see dreaming above the Earth?)

Actually Love

2011-12-17T00:00:00.000-05:00

Journer: The closing clip from “Love Actually,” a favorite Christmas movie of the decade, is a clue to what Christmas is about. Watch YouTube and see if you get it, Nez.

Nez: (after the clip) Well, feel more loving, but…. What am I supposed to get, Journer, that the Christmas spirit is contagious when you actually start showing some love?

Namaste.
______
Image: a promo from “Love Actually” movie
Song on YouTube: “God Only Knows,” composed by Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, lyrics by Tony Asher

Separation and Reunion

2011-12-16T00:00:00.000-05:00

One way tounderstand this symbol [of Islam] is that the circle representsthe world, or perhaps the individual soul. But, to be spiritually awakened,that circle must be broken open. That edge, which is the wall of separation, isbroken open by the star—the light of God, enlightenment. ~Ivan M. Granger blog 12/12/11, via Jack Gilles

Randy Williams: This is parallel with the breaking inof the Christ word. It would be interesting to make a list of all thethings the breaking in of the word does to/for us: it exposes us,disillusions us, enlightens us, convicts us, motivates us, beckons us, etc.

Nez:Both the light of Allah and the word of Christ burst “our separation from the Groundof being, others, and self,”* and in that moment the profound journey of reunionwith all three is radically possible in a new way.

Namaste.

______

Image: source (adapted)

* Note: language of Paul Tillich in “YouAre Accepted,” The Shaking of theFoundations, pp. 156-63

Worldly Transformation

2011-12-15T00:00:00.000-05:00

[In Sao Paulo, Scharmer was in dialog with Natura company leaders.] Luiz [Seabra] embodies the presence of the open mind, open heart, and open will in a palpable way that continues to inspire his community of a million-plus collaborators. ~Otto Scharmer blog 12/13/11 (also read Indonesian story of example of transformative political leadership)

Journer: Sharmer’s mission is working with global/local leaders in contemplating transformative action. His job seems to be economic, political, cultural healer.

Nez: Authentic methods for helping to release the “presence of the open mind, open heart, and open will” are the essence of Earth community transformation.

Namaste.

______

Image: from Scharmer Facebook page (see part of “open mind, open heart, and open will” projected behind his arm)

“Where Are the Wedgeblades?”

2011-12-14T00:00:00.000-05:00

Journer: In Phoenix, Shadow Rock Church has a very interesting page on its site (“Where Are the Wedgeblades?”) of children lying on it, drawing it, making hand signals of it, hugging it, and pointing to thewedgeblade, that D. H. Lawrence wroteabout this way (from 2007 blog):

…Like a … wedge-blade …
If only I am keen and hard like the sheer tip of a wedge
Driven by invisible blows,
The rock will split….

Nez:Lawrence istalking about our being “borrowed” by a “fine, fine wind” and “inserted” intothe “chaos of the world,” sometimes splitting it and releasing transformation. What a profound guiding image for kids, and anyone else.

Namaste.

______

Image: a wedgeblade photo in frontof the church; also carved on the end of each pew; in the architecture of theshape of the sanctuary; by the altar table; on its bulletin and web page …obviously a primary symbol of Shadow Rock’s understanding of being church (wedgeblade image introduced in aseminar led by the Ecumenical Institute almost four decades ago—and led by thechurch many, many times since for membership training, sometimes with the help of the Institute)

Wild Law

2011-12-13T00:00:00.000-05:00

The concept of “a wild law,” which grants equal rights to nature, is based on the idea that humans do not have an explicit right to destroy our natural environment. Under wild law, natural ecosystems’ rights supersede the interests of any one species (including humans). Obviously, this idea can be incredibly controversial. Even in Bolivia, where they’ve amended their constitution to give nature equal rights to people, they are still working out the details. ~Cole Mellino article, via Chenoa Stock, Bolivia

Journer: Watch a compelling YouTube (April 2010) at the World People’s Summit on Climate Change in Bolivia by Cormac Cullinan,* a South African whose vocation as a lawyer was transformed by his encounters with Thomas Berry.

Nez: Berry—who in his late ‘80s was flying around the globe meeting with legal leaders (including Cullinan) to consider the substance and form of “Earth jurisprudence”—was passionate about “wild law.”

Namaste.

______

* Note: Cullinan’s book (excerpts) Wild Law: A Manifesto for Earth Justice, Foreword by Thomas Berry

Image: source

Bending History II

2011-12-12T00:00:00.000-05:00

Hardly anyone, upon hearing Joe Mathews speak, was ever the same. He spoke from “the deeps” of his own life to “the deeps” of every life. In this ... book, he’s still addressing those deeps while ... offering methods of effective social action leading to a New Social Vehicle. ~William A. Holmes

Journer: These methods have been used effectively by tens of thousands globally, from individuals, teams, local communities, companies, organizations, methods associations, educational institutions, to United Nations agencies.

Nez: Joseph Mathews and the Ecumenical Institute and Institute of Cultural Affairs—who helped create, pilot, and spread these transformative methods—were and are profound social methodologians. They beat all.

Namaste.

______

Image: Bending History, Talks of Joseph Wesley Mathews, Volume II: Societal Reformulation—Toward a New Social Vehicle (Give a book by ordering from Resurgence Publishing or Amazon)

Jesus’ Gospel (Sunday Dialog 288)

2011-12-11T00:00:00.000-05:00

Journer: I cannot believe the heart ofJesus’ message was “I will die for your sins so you can be forgiven and go toheaven after you die … if you believe I am your savior.”*

Nez: To use Bible images, the heart of Jesus’ gospel is God so loves the world and us in it that it’sonly natural we want to love God withall our heart, soul, mind, and strength; and we want to love God’s Earth community—our neighbor—the same way.

Journer: That I can believe, but I can’tever love God and the Earth communitywith all my heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Nez: Who can? That’s a big reason graceabounds at the heart of God’s kingdom, hereand now, and forever.

______

* Note: inspired by Marcus Borg source via David Rebstock

Image: source

What’s It All About?

2011-12-10T00:00:00.000-05:00

…As sure as I believe there’s a heaven above, Alfie,

I know there's something much more,

Something even non-believers can believe in.

I believe in love, Alfie.

Without true love we just exist, Alfie.

Until you find the love you’ve missed you’re nothing, Alfie….

~“Alfie,” big hit, sung by Dionne Warwick (YouTube) and Burt Bacharach

(Bacharach/David song for the movie)

Journer: Is that a romantic song?

Nez: Secondarily, sure, but primarily it’s a song about the profound journey of love.

Namaste.

______

Image: from 1966 movie, starring Michael Caine

Big Story

2011-12-09T00:00:00.000-05:00

Theoverarching story of the Bible begins in a garden that speaks of ourrelatedness to all creation, and it ends in a city which speaksto our being in community with all people of the earth. Let this overarching narrative of reconciliation and healingbe our new starting point for anew relationship … with the Bible. ~KenHeintzelman sermon, 10/16/11, Shadow RockUCC, Phoenix (USA)

Journer: Those are very helpful bookends to the Bible story. Shameit is not often preached and understood in Christian churches and Jewishsynagogues.

Nez:All the pieces of the big story are there for humans to be reconciled with the whole Earthcommunity, and spirit at its heart.

Namaste.

______

Image: illustration of cross references among chapters of books of the Bible source—maybe a bit over the top, as though ultimate truth can be figured out systematically and rationally

Transform Capitalism’s Mission

2011-12-08T00:00:00.000-05:00

...there is a deep sense that capitalism in the West has become unfair…. Calls for a fairer system will not go away. If anything, they will spread and grow louder. The West has no choice but to strike a better balance…. [R]emember, a global paradigm shift implies a significant change in opportunities, and not just risks. ~Mohamed A. El-Erian, CEO, PIMCO source

Journer: He seems more realistic and fair-minded than most professional capitalists.

Nez: We will see. We know capitalism will not save the Earth community. We must pray and watch that “they/we”—all sinful—transform capitalism’s mission.

Namaste.

______
Image: Creative Capitalism review (steps in a new emphasis, but probably not a book Michael Moore would read—dialog, at least, growing more serious)

In or Out, Intensify

2011-12-07T00:00:00.000-05:00

If you and I are going to understand [the Christian] New Testament, then we must “demythologize” it, that is, we must remove the experience from the “mythology” of the first century and recast it in terms of the “mythology” of our time. ~John Spong, “The Lecture Tour of Germany, Part III: Marburg,” 8/12/11, via Ellie Stock

Journer: If I have to believe literally in angels, virgin birth, resurrection, heaven, etc., forget it. But as myth amd story, they are very meaningful to me.

Nez: No matter how meaningful your re-mythologizing of scripture, traditionalists may try to kick you out along with Bultmann, Spong, and other interpreters of traditional truth. In or out, intensify your profound journey.

Namaste.

______

Image: with seminarian’s Pentecost letter, describing his intensified journey to Christian denomination leader source

Miraculously Sustained

2011-12-06T00:00:00.000-05:00

When a tree is cutdown and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its wholehistory in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of itsyears, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, allthe happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and theluxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. ~Hermann Hesse, from his book Wandering read

Journer: A metaphor for our personal journey as well.

Nez:Both tree and we are on the profound journey, miraculously ... sustained in themidst of universal tough love.

Namaste.

______

Image: source

Holy Force

2011-12-05T00:00:00.000-05:00

When the inner joy … of compassionate service … is married to a practical and pragmatic drive to transform all existing political, economic and social institutions, a … holy force … is born. ~Andrew Harvey, The Hope, p. xviii

Journer: Nez, you’d say a holy force of caring humans operating in response to the force at the heart of all.

Nez: A swelling holy force, if it is not crazy fanatical but is non-violent, is what the world needs now.

Namaste.

______

Image: tree of life symbol of Wiser Earth (WE) that is out to network and serve those transforming the Earth link

Social-Spirit Pioneers (Sunday Dialog 287)

2011-12-04T00:00:00.000-05:00

Nez: My colleague* said, “Our crisis is a birth of a more universal, co-creative humanity … [led by] social-spirit pioneers.”

Journer: Who must step forward and help us live through this great transition.

Nez: And most of them are not in the economic or political circles, who seem to spend their vital energies defending their power and stakes.

Journer: So that leaves the cultural circle, those who fundamentally care about the heart of the seemingly unsolvable issues of our time: yes, social-spirit pioneers, like Gandhi and Mandela, of our era.
_____
* Barbara Marx Hubbard, interview source
Image: Wolly's ice cart in Paramaribo, Suriname, with Gandhi and Mandela images (Nicholas Laughlin photo, 6/26 /09) link

“Noospheric Accord”

2011-12-03T00:00:00.000-05:00

“Saving the biosphere” depends first and foremost on human beings reaching mutual understanding … as to common ends. And that intersubjective accord occurs only in the noosphere. Anything short of that noospheric accord will continue to destroy the biosphere. ~Ken Wilber, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution read

Journer: Whatever is that accord?

Nez: Wilber’s saying thenoosphere accordtakes place at the heart, soul, spirit level. “Saving thebiosphere” for future generations must be worked out down deep.

Namaste.

______

Image: depiction of noösphere understanding of Teilhard de Chardin source

Mystery’s Job

2011-12-02T00:00:00.000-05:00

Egoic consciousness is the one we all normally operate with, until we are told there is something else. At the egoic level it is all about me, my preferences, my choices, my needs, my desires, and me and my group as the central reference point. Most people do not even know there is another way of thinking or feeling. It was religion’s job to tell them about a different [consciousness]. ~Richard Rohr source via George Holcombe

Journer: What else’s job to reveal to us a different consciousness?

Nez: What about the mystery at the heart of life, however it shows itself, whether through Einstein’s universal equations, global warming truth, living with other cultures, social media, or encounters with your mate? The mystery is everywhere, Journer.

Namaste.
______
Image: Albert Einstein office photo taken the day he died at 76 (AP Photo/Jacob Harris) link via Danny Mittleman

That One Desire

2011-12-01T00:00:00.000-05:00

Your spiritual longing may seem like your personal desire, but is it really? Could there really be anything personal about that pure, passionate aspiration to awaken, to become, to evolve? The entire universe, including your own experience in this very moment, is the expression and manifestation of that one desire. ~Andrew Cohen, Evolutionary Enlightenment, ch. 5 read

Journer: That one desire ...

Nez: ... lies at the heart of all that is, including all of us. And wherever we are on its journey, down deep we express that one desire to be here now and to evolve together.

Namaste.

______

Image: from cover of The Evolutionary Journey, book by Barbara Marx Hubbard

Eternal Perspective

2011-11-30T00:00:00.000-05:00

It seems plain that without rediscovery of the other world…, no answer to the problems of secular civilization … will be forthcoming. Time will not yield its secrets to those who cannot look upon it from this perspective of eternity. ~H. Richard Niebuhr, “Toward a New Other-worldliness” (part III), Theology Today (vol. I, no. 1, 1944)

Journer: I think I get what he’s saying, but eternity is hard to grasp.

Nez: Without the rediscovery of the eternal perspective, we will continue to journey from our separated, human-centered, self-centered perspective.

Namaste.

______

Image: source

Big Education

2011-11-29T00:00:00.000-05:00

Jiddu Krishnamurti’s educational aims:*

1. Global outlook: … a holistic outlook free from all prejudice.

2. Concern for man and the environment: Humanity is part of nature, and if nature is not cared for, it will boomerang on man….

3. Religious spirit, which includes the scientific temper: The religious mind is … in communion....

Journer: Krishnamurti lived from 1895 to 1986 and operated out of an unusuallybig context.

Nez: And fundamental to that big context is a person’s operating from inside out, in communion with nature—including humans.

Namaste.

______

* Note: As the River Joins the Ocean: Reflections about J. Krishnamurti, by Giddu Narayan, p. 64, via Wikipedia

Image: source (also a link to Sir Martin Rees’ Ted Global talk ... big thoughts from the Big Bang up to and through changes in the 21st century and the next 6 billion years till the Sun goes down for the last time)

Living Beyond Earth’s Means

2011-11-28T00:00:00.000-05:00

Why is so much going wrong everywhere at once? …We humans are facing what has been variously described as collapse, bottleneck, overshoot, catastrophe, the long emergency, and Nature’s revenge because we are breaking Life’s paramount rule: We are living beyond Earth’s means. Our activities are bankrupting Earth’s four billion year old living trust accounts. ~Ellen LaConte, Life Rules, chapter 1 excerpt

Journer: Like with our heads stuck in enhancing our personal journeys.

Nez: When we focus on our personal and human journeys more than our profound and Earth-centered journey, we contradict life rules and all suffer big time.

Namaste.

_____

Image: Appalachian mountaintop-removal coal mining, USA (PBS documentary “Deep Down”) source

Dream of Reality (Sunday Dialog 286)

2011-11-27T00:00:00.000-05:00

Nez: My student* said, “A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.”

Journer: Not quite sure what he’s saying.

Nez: Without global media, imagine communicating with 7 billion humanswhat’s happening with global warming. Our dreams are becoming one.

Journer: From dreaming together comes transformative action together, hopefully.

_____

* John Lennon (source unknown)

Image: women spinning their green shawls to express unity during the protest against corruption in Bangalore, India, 11/4/11 (Manjunath Kiran / AFP/Getty Images)
_____

We celebrate the profound journey of colleague Nesan Devasundram. He rests in peace. Namaste.

“Peace All Over the World”

2011-11-26T00:00:00.000-05:00

Profound YouTube “Peace All over the World” (2:30”), by Playing for Change, featuring Robert Bradley

Journer: “Peace All over the World” is a dream, right?

Nez: Peace IS at the heart of this world, Journer, always breaking forth, and waiting for us to get it, live it, and pass it on.

Namaste.

_____

We celebrate the profound journeys of cousin Evelyn Slusher and colleague Jon Stringham, whose memorialservices were yesterday and today. They rest in peace.

Grand Consciousness

2011-11-25T00:00:00.000-05:00

…maybe every one of those seven billion is … another manifestation, a unique expression of grand consciousness itself, appearing in a very particular form—that’s you—so it may “know itself” in just that way. ~Mark Morford source

Journer: Cool. I am “a unique expression of grand consciousness itself.”

Nez: And all the other 6,999,999,999 humans on planet Earth need to know that truth about themselves. Let’s tell ‘em, because, when it sinks in, it will make a world of difference.

Namaste.

________

We celebrate the profound journey of Bob Pless, childhood friend of jpc. He rests in peace.

________

Image: source

Thanks for Vocation

2011-11-24T00:00:00.000-05:00

...the universe is accomplishing [the] great work of making divinity explicit.

~Brian Swimme interview on the thought of Teilhard de Chardin

Journer: Since we humans are a part of the universe, our great work is making divinity explicit.

Nez: Everyone and everything can give exceeding great thanks for their divine vocation.

Namaste.
_____
Image: source
Another Thanksgiving Reflection: click Comment and read top one, a Thanksgiving letter by Archbishop Alex J. Brunett, using a reflection by jpc

Revision of 11/25/2004 blog post

Networks of Grace

2011-11-23T00:00:00.000-05:00

It is essential … that sacred activists, while pursuing their individual spiritual paths and embracing their own specific kinds of service, learn to work together and to form empowering and encouraging “networks of grace”…. ~Andrew Harvey, The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism excerpt

Journer: I like that image, “networks of grace”—grace being the ultimate glue.

Nez: This is what Tillich might have referred to as networks of grace, brought together and bound by shared transformative relationships with the ground of being, others, and self.

Namaste.
______
Image: Buddha approaching the bodhi tree (ancient Gandhara, Pakistan, 2-3rd centuries), Norton Simon Foundation, California

Born to Lead, Not Block

2011-11-22T00:00:00.000-05:00

If quality of life requires a shared notion of our collective responsibility for the larger community in which we dwell, the question becomes “Where does that community end?” In the new era ... the larger community we all inhabit—the biosphere itself. ~Jeremy Rifkin new book, The Third Industrial Revolution, 9/28/11 huffingtonpost.com excerpt, via Forrest Craver

Journer: In Rifkin’s evolving picture we are beginning to measure “economic prosperity based on quality of life indicators, rather than mere gross economic output” [i.e., old GDP].

Nez: Wouldn’t it be something if the economic and political sectors became leaders rather than blocks to the larger community evolution?

Namaste.

______

Image: source

Profound Meditation

2011-11-21T00:00:00.000-05:00

What I attempt when I sit in stillness to meditate is letting go of my self, my personal history, my possessions, my thoughts, my beliefs (e.g., in heaven), my dreams, my fears—to travel back to before the Big Bang and identify with the mystery that was present in nothingness. ~Jann McGuire e-mail, 10/26/11, inspired by Andrew Cohen’s new book, Evolutionary Enlightenment

Journer: Increasingly, humans are back there, in there, out there, doing all manner of profound meditation.

Nez: We are getting the dimensions and relationships right, yearning to be about the evolutionary task that calls us all.

Namaste.

______

Image: source

“The Beginning Is Near” (Sunday Dialog 285)

2011-11-20T00:00:00.000-05:00

Nez: My student* said, “I believe the spiritual impulse today is calling us not away from the world but towards that big next step we need to take in our world.”

Journer: In-world spirituality makes sense to me.

Nez: We stand on tiptoe to see past and future—and especially what’s always at hand, now.

Journer: “The beginning is near.”

_____

* Andrew Cohen, Prologue, Evolutionary Enlightenment

Image: source (click image to enlarge)

Takes on Spirituality

2011-11-19T00:01:00.000-05:00

Spirituality is direct communion, or the seeking of direct communion, with the Divine.... com means with, union means joining into one. Spiritual communication is ... realising that you are already One with the Divine, indivisible and eternal. source

Journer: Could you give me a more practical take on spirituality, Nez?

Nez: Profound communion can be experienced, whether alone or on a crowded train to Dhaka.

Namaste.

_____
Image: [click to enlarge] Bangladeshi Muslim devotees return home, Dhaka, 1/24/10 (AP/Monjur Ahmed)

Deficit and Surfeit

2011-11-18T00:00:00.000-05:00

Not only are we suffering nature deficit, we are experiencing information surfeit. ~Andrew Weil, “Don’t Let Chaos Get You Down,” Newsweek 7-14, 2011, p. 10

jpc: I find when I do my daily mile up and down this sidewalk, I meditate, contemplate, and pray. I’m in nature with the sun, wind, rain and snow, little critters, birds, trees, fragrant honeysuckle bushes (on the right), and my spouse—a force of nature. I notice I end up humming or whistling a lot on this short journey.

Nez: That is obviously helping you deal with your nature deficit. But don’t you spend a lot of time on the world wide web?

Namaste.

“Can’t Not Get Wet”

2011-11-17T00:00:00.000-05:00

What Dogen saw in the monk’s bow, and what the Genjokoan unpacks … is really important to [a] sensitive bullshit detector.... Don’t accept a dry, conceptual understanding.… [I]n the middle of the great ocean you can’t not get wet. Look! Look! ~Wild Fox Zen, doshoport source “...More on Genjokoan and the Monk Bowing”

...

Journer: We have to be profound bullshit detecters on the journey.

Nez: Else one plays mind games and does not see and experience reality, and maybe even drowns in the great ocean.

Namaste.

_____

Image: source

Hope Beyond Hope

2011-11-16T00:00:00.000-05:00

Hope is at the heart of every situation—always there. Just IS. Hope beyond hope is not hoping the future will turn out the way we want it; it’s knowing the future will ever be. ~jpc

Journer: That’s much different from I hope our marriage will be happy or that we humans will get our act together.

Nez: We’re talking about hope that appears from wherever eternal grace and love and communion come from. Hope is about the eternal, that is always past, present, and future—hope does spring eternal.

Namaste.

_____
Image: “Paths Beneath the Desert,” Lucy Ridsdale source

Change How We See

2011-11-15T00:00:00.000-05:00

“Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality,” says one of my favorite Byzantine mystics [Maximos]. I did this when a child; I do it now as well in the most creative moments of my life. ~Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco, p. 45, via Steve Harrington

Journer: My colleague Steve also sent this most popular YouTube, with the above sign, that suggests even a change of words can help us see.

Nez: Anything to help us to see reality better, a change of eyes, a change of words, and a wordsmith passing by, maybe a Kazantzakis.

Namaste.

_____

Image: source

A Rite of Passage

2011-11-14T00:00:00.000-05:00

Grand Kaitlyn is 16!!

Talk about Grand:

K … karing!

A … aware!

I … independent!
T … talented!

L … loving! (also, leader)

Y … yes-sayer!

N … never-say-quit-sayer! (also, “nitid”)

jpc/LLC: She’s the oldest of our ten grands and especially special.

Nez: Sounds like a profound member of the Earth community.

_____

Images: Kaitlyn at c. 6 and 15

My God (Sunday Dialog 284)

2011-11-13T00:00:00.000-05:00

Nez: My student* said, “I’m amongst the chosen few…. / Cause my god’s better than your god.”

Journer: Is that craziness still going on today?

Nez: Are you kidding, Journer?

Journer: Yes. A shame when our gods’ protectors divide us even more than our politicians and their supporters.

_____

* Tina Louise, “My God’s Better Than Your God” (poem: good point; ? form) source

Image: http://lifeanddoctrine.blogspot.com/2008/09/unitarian-universalist-condolences-and.html

A Better Hu-man

2011-11-12T00:00:00.000-05:00

Journer: Enjoy YouTube “A Better Man,” by Playing for Change, featuring Keb’ Mo’, and tell me if you feel like a better hu-man.

Nez: I swear I do, Journer. The power of music, being global reps of the hu-man community, smiles, kids dancing, all of it makes me feel like a better hu-man. Now, go do some caring act before the feeling fades away.

Namaste.

______

Image: Keb’ Mo’ source

Soulless?

2011-11-11T00:00:00.000-05:00

…people … are empty inside…. If we knew that a number of people are actually dead and that a number of these dead people govern our lives, we should go mad with horror. ~G. I. Gurdjieff source

Journer: Do you think we humans are basically dead inside, soulless?

Nez: No and yes, but the pain of this new birth we’re into as humanity—if we live through it—will do wonders for our soullessness as manifested in our human separateness, wealth disparity, consumerism, wastefulness, militarism, nationalism, “politicism,” terrorism, cartelism, hedonism, fundamentalism, human-centeredness, rape of Earth, global warming, etcetera.

Namaste.

______

Image: movie “Soulless” trailer source

“Hot of the Uth”

2011-11-10T00:00:00.000-05:00

Said by 5-year-old, whose “r’s” had not come in yet, sitting at a restaurant table with his family when Thomas Berry stopped by:* “Fust he wanted me to know how much he loved the uth, and then he said, ‘The hot of the uth neva stops beating.’”

...

Journer: And I bet the boy will not soon forget that the Earth has a heart that never stops beating.

Nez: Thomas not only cared about the environment of the Earth. He also responded to the numinous power at its heart—as a child does.

Namaste.

______

* Note: story told by Carolyn Toben at The Legacy of Thomas Berry event, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA, 2/26/10

Image: source

“Great Work” Mantra

2011-11-09T00:00:00.000-05:00

I do not do the Great Work for myself alone: we work for the ancestors and the children. I do not do the Great Work by myself alone: we companion and help one another. I do not do the Great Work by my powers alone: we participate in the movement of the universe unfolding and infolding, out of and into its Mysterious Source and Goal. ~John G. Sullivan, e-mail to jpc

Journer: The “Great Work” is becoming Thomas Berry’s most remembered phrase.

Nez: Yes. He told us that our Great Work—whether we choose it or not—is to dream about, rehearse the story of, care for, and allow the total Earth community to flourish, to be its greatness.

Namaste.

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Note: Thomas was born November 9, 1914, in Greensboro, NC, USA.

Image: Thomas at his desk in his Hermitage in Greensboro (Caroline Webb photo, August 2003)

Eternal Rep

2011-11-08T00:00:00.000-05:00

A tree says: a kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life…. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail. ~Hermann Hesse, readings from his book Wandering, via Pat Webb

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Journer: I give form to and reveal the eternal? Really?

Nez: Yes, Journer, you are a representative of the eternal. If the eternal is the heart of all that is, as an “is,” you eithermanifest that heart or give it a bad name.

Namaste.

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Image: “Spring Field,” nationalgeographic.com (photo by Guiuliano Mangani, My Shot, 4/14/11)

Crippled Movement

2011-11-07T00:00:00.000-05:00

[T]he this-worldly Christianity of our day is as truncated and crippled a movement as its other-worldly counterpart of the so-called dark ages was. ~H. Richard Niebuhr*

Journer: What will it take to heal this crippled movement?

Nez: What he says in his paper, Christians living out of the authentic understanding of the Other World—the Kingdom—in This World, like their leader did.

Namaste.

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* Note: “Toward a New Other-worldliness” (part I), Theology Today (vol. I, no. 1, 1944), via Larry Philbrook

Image: an Asian, African, Arab, and European Jesus source

Power Beyond (Sunday Dialog 283)

2011-11-06T00:01:00.000-04:00

Journer: Your student* writes, “seeing life whole means recognizing it to be dependent on what is beyond it.”

Nez: The truth is, the powers of this world possess no ultimate power, be they nations, -isms, terrorists, dictators, the rich, the royalty, or popes.

Journer: He’s speaking truth to power, be it corporate or individual.

Nez: All are dependent on the powers of the universe and the Earth community—and the power at their heart—that demand shared power, care, and “Namaste” bows.

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* Desmond Avery, Beyond Power: Simone Weil and the Notion of Authority, p. 110

Image: J.M.W. Turner, “The Lake of Zug,” Metropolitan Museum of Art

3 Lumps of Flesh?

2011-11-05T00:00:00.000-04:00

Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden … and, now, Moammar Gadhafi. No matter how much a mythologized despot or mastermind builds up a cult of personality in life, when an undignified death arrives, the incontrovertible reality is hard to avoid: We are, in the end, merely lumps of flesh. ~Ted Anthony, “Leaders, Once Mythic, Reduced in Death,” Associated Press, 10/23/11

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Journer: Just lumps of flesh in the end?

Nez: Yes and no. Yes, we’re lumps of flesh, as we witness when breath and heartbeat are gone. No, for all humans have experienced profound consciousness and spirit, some more, some less. All conscious humans have had awareness of love, joy, care, pain, death, and even forgiveness.

Namaste.

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Image: “Moammar Gaddafi, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein All Killed in Past Five Years,” Elizabeth Flock, washingtonpost.com, 10/21/11 [Saddam Hussein (file photo); Osama bin Laden (Rahimullah Yousafzai/AP); Moammar Gaddafi (Reuters/Ismail Zitouny)]

“To Be of Use”

2011-11-04T00:00:00.000-04:00

…I want to be with people who submerge

in the task, who go into the fields to harvest

and work in a row and pass the bags along,

who are not parlor generals and field deserters

but move in a common rhythm

when the food must come in or the fire be put out….

~Marge Piercy, from her poem “To Be Of Use

”jpc: My granddaughter introduced me to her poetry.

Nez: I like that she is all about grounding her poetry in reality.

Namaste.
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Image: source

The Big Context

2011-11-03T00:00:00.000-04:00

Like it or not, man [sic] is a part of the universal will and he must somehow tune in and willingly participate in the rhythms of universal life. The harmonization and unification of the individual and the universal will—the Chinese identification with the Tao, the Stoic acceptance of destiny, or the Christian will of God—is one of the highest human goals, even if it is seldom realized. (Roberto Assagioli, Sam Keen interview with him, via Judi White)

Journer: That’s our big context you keep talking about

Nez: Basically, simply being at one with what is.

Namaste.
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Image: “Stephen Hawking: Master of the Universe” series in toto (1 hr:37) source

Flourishing Earth Community

2011-11-02T00:00:00.000-04:00

Everything is in the melting-pot, everything mingles, and I’d like to ask what will emerge from this mingling. Where is it taking us, and what kind of future will there be for religion? ~Don Cupitt, Above Us Only Sky, p. 109

Journer: What do you think about the melting-pot theory of global culture, especially as it’s all accelerated by social media?

Nez: Hopefully we will become more tolerant, respectful, and peaceful as we are forced to join together to create a flourishing Earth community for all—which has become the only sane option.

Namaste.

Image: all religions sign in Indian village source, via koshin

Your True Presence

2011-11-01T00:00:00.000-04:00

I like to define mindfulness as the energy that helps us to be there one hundred percent [in every moment of our daily life]. It is the energy of [our] true presence. ~Thich Nhat Hanh, “100 Percent,” Your True Home, p. 10

Journer: That’s a pretty big order, 100 percent.

Nez: Can you imagine the power for good such mindfulness generates, even at 50 percent?

Namaste.

Image: brother holding little sister (Rumi Album: Wall Photos · 62 of 164 facebook.com)

Whine or Dance

2011-10-31T00:00:00.000-04:00

The “whining” button they presented me, with the vertical line through it (“STOP WHINING!” was the message), was a slap to my perception of self. I don’t want to be around whiners either. I keep the button in view as a reminder: will I whine about life or dance with my given situation? Seems like I have a choice. ~jpc, on four-day golf outing when body and swing were falling apart

Journer: That’s hard news.

Nez: And when the dying body can’t dance any longer, you can still dance, for you have seen it done.

Namaste.

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Image: Get a button if you need it.

What Is Right? (Sunday Dialog 282)

2011-10-30T00:00:00.000-04:00

Nez: My student said something like, “The question is not who is right, but what is right.”

Journer: Drucker’s exact quote* is, “Efficiency is doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right things.”

Nez: The question for the human citizens of the Earth community is “What is right?”—like dealing with global warming, war, 3 billion humans trying to live on $2.50 USD a day (highlighting the staggering economic disparity among humans).

Journer: What is right is up to the Earth community to meet together and settle; and while meeting, we humans have to speak for the non-human constituency as well.

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* Peter Drucker, The Effective Executive (Kindle version), via Paul Schrijnen and Randy Williams

Image: http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/support-community-leaders-india/updates/

"Viva la Vida"

2011-10-29T00:00:00.000-04:00

Journer: Listen and watch another global anthem (?), “Viva la Vida” YouTube, the Coldplay band concert in Tokyo (many others on YouTube: e.g., Chicago, Berlin, London, Sydney). What seems to get the global multitudes is the chorus they take over during the song.

Nez: We could even say the words are profound if we add to “I used to rule the world” the words “and now we all do.” I suspect what more deeply gets the multitudes is a sense after humanity in harmony, in unison doing a symbolic act.

Namaste.
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Image: Coldplay, Perth concert attendant: “The best part ... the ‘Viva La Vida’ chorus that had the audience chanting all the way back to the carpark and it stuck in my head all weekend.”

Genesis of Universal Compassion

2011-10-28T00:00:00.000-04:00

The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another. ~Thomas Merton*

Journer: And universal compassion comes from …

Nez: The drive for love and connection comes from the heart of “Was, Is, and Ever Shall Be,” “W-I-E,” for short. If you’re here, you can’t help being compassionate. It’s in your genes.

Namaste.

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* Note: from Merton’s final address, during a conference on East-West monastic dialogue, delivered just two hours before his tragic death (10 December 1968), via Religious Education, vol. 73, p. 292

Image: watercolor painting by Madeleine Tuttle source

Woman of Iron

2011-10-27T00:00:00.000-04:00

We owe a responsibility not only to those who are in Israel but also to those generations that are no more, to those millions who have died within our lifetime, to Jews all over the world, and to generations of Jews to come. We hate war. We do not rejoice in victories. We rejoice when a new kind of cotton is grown, and when strawberries bloom in Israel. ~Golda Meir, As Good as Golda: The Warmth and Wisdom of Israel’s Prime Minister (1970), p. 28

Journer: We just saw the 1982 movie “A Woman Named Golda,” starring Igrid Bergman. Long and powerful, it’s about a Russian-American Jew who went to live in a kibbutz as a young woman and ended up playing a leading role in building a nation in the last part of the 20th century—no less, in the Middle East. Many would say, “No Israel without Golda.”

Nez: Sort of a Moses and a Mother Teresa all in one profoundly vocated woman.

Namaste.

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Image: Golda with children and youth in Kibbutz Shefayim, 7/24/50, at age 52 (2004 Univ. of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries digital image)

Ultimate Ying-Yang

2011-10-26T00:00:00.000-04:00

Our human destiny is to become the heart of the universe that embraces the whole of the Earth community. We are just a speck in the universe, but we are beings with the capacity to feel comprehensive compassion in the midst of an ocean of intimacy. That is the direction of our becoming more fully human. ~Brian Swimme and Mary Evelyn Tucker, Journey of the Universe, p. 115 (also a movie), via Randy Williams

Journer: Talk about a big contextfor the soon-to-be 7 billion of us humans on planet Earth.

Nez: In one sense we are the conscious andcaring heart of all, or “comprehensive compassion.” In a deeper sense of comprehensivecompassion, we are cared for by the heart of all. Together, the ultimate ying-yang.

Namaste.

Image: source

“Oh My God”

2011-10-25T00:00:00.000-04:00

When people see my images a lot of times they’ll say, “Oh, My God!” …The “Oh” means it caught your attention, makes you present…. The “My” means it connects to something deep inside your soul…. And “God” … is that personal journey we want to be on … to feel like we’re connected to a universe that celebrates life. ~Louie Schwartzberg, “Gratitude,” powerful YouTube, via Larry Ward

Journer: What clarity of wisdom the young girl and the old man on the video give us about the essence of gratitude. Wow.

Nez: We, old and young, are beginning to get the message, and most of it is coming through the eyes to the heart to the will. Isn’t it wonderful to be alive!

Namaste.

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Image: Louie Schwartzberg “MovingArt” gallery

Blessed Are the Poor

2011-10-24T00:00:00.000-04:00

Do we possess the air we breath … the wife, the husband, the lover we live with? No.... They are gifts given for the limited time of their presence with us. The deep truth is that we possess nothing…. We are poor, completely poor. Blessed are the poor in Spirit…. ~Gene Marshall, “Christian Theology after the Death of Myth,” Realistic Living, June 2011, p. 3

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Journer: To know this is to be the poor in spirit who inherit “the kingdom” now.

Nez: Goes beyond knowing. It’s about deep thanks that life’s this way—an utter gift—nothing to do with anything we know or do or be, finally.

Namaste.

Image: artisan working on a statue of Mother Teresa before her 101st birth anniversary (8/26/11), at a workshop in Kolkata, India (Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters)