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6.23.2004

One River, Many Wells - Chapters 6 & 7

The Feminine Face of Divinity

God is understood as mother in the medieval Christian tradition. Mechtild of Magdeburg said: God is not only fatherly, God is also mother who lifts her mother's cloak wherein the child finds a home and lays its head on the maternal breast. Hildegard of Bingen offers images of a curved Divinity. We are surrounded with the roundness of divine compassion, she writes. Divinity is like a wheel, a circle, a whole. Meister Eckhart describes God as mother when he says: From all eternity God lies on a maternity bed giving birth. And, What does God do all day long? God gives birth. Acknowledging and desentimentalizing the work of Mary at the same time, he declares that we are all meant to be mothers of God.

English mystic of the late fourteenth century Julian of Norwich most developed the theme of God as mother.

Just as God is truly our Father, so also is God truly our Mother . . .
The deep Wisdom of the Trinity is our Mother. In her we are all enclosed . . .
[God is] our true Mother in whom we are endlessly carried and out of whom we will never come.
God is the true Father and Mother of Nature, and all natures that are made to flow out of God to work the divine will be restored and brought again into God.
God feels great delight to be our Mother.

- Matthew Fox, Ch. 6


Wisdom: Another Feminine Face of the Divine

All people are equal, as equal as the teeth of a comb. There is no claim of merit of an Arab over a non-Arab, or of a white over a black person, or of a male over a female.
He who honors women is honorable, he who insults them is lowly and mean.
He who has a female child and does not insult her and does not prefer his sons over her, will be ushered by God into paradise.

I urge you to treat women kindly. They are a trust. Be in awe of God's trust.

- Muhammad (founder of Islam)

The heart is a sanctuary at the center of which there is a little space, wherein the Great Spirit dwells, and this is the Eye. This is the Eye of the Great Spirit by which he sees all things, and through which we see him.

The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of men when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Tanka, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us. This is the real peace, and the others are but reflections of this.

- Black Elk, from the Native American tradition

You thought yourself a part, small;
Whereas in you there is a universe, the greatest.

That is to say, you think of yourself as a small thing, whereas in you there is hidden the biggest of the universes. . . . The meaning of the Qur'anic verse becomes clear to the Gnostic: "Wherever way you turn, there is the face of God.

- Ibn Al-Arabi, in the Islamic tradition

Enjoy - haven't updated for a few days - been busy - now it's time to out my son to bed as he's having trouble falling asleep by himself. :-)

Blessings & Peace,
Hugo

6.17.2004

One River, Many Wells - Chapter 5

Names for God

All the names which the soul gives to God it receives from the knowledge of itself.
- Meister Eckhart

We call divinity by many names. We might call Divinity God or Allah or Yahweh or Buddha or Christ or Tao or the Goddess or the Great Spirit or Creator or Redeemer or Liberator or Supreme Being or Rama, or Ground of All Being or Ra or Aten or Vishnu or Brahmin or Godhead or Nothingness or Mooramoora or Mystery or Beauty or Justice or Goodness or Wisdom and many more. The Hindu tradition says that there is only one Rama [God] and he has a thousand names. Still others say that there are an infinite number of names for God. . . . they reveal, as Eckhart says, something of our own souls. And they make it possible to reimagine ourselves and to let Divinity continue to evolve and cease making Divinity into our own projection.
- Matthew Fox

In the Christian mystical tradition, Meister Eckhart offers the following prayer: I pray God to rid me of God. What images and projections of Divinity do we need to more beyond and let go of?
- Matthew Fox

Matthew Fox goes through a litany (list) of names for God that St. Thomas Aquinas took from Scripture (almost 50 titles/names - too many to list here!). He then goes on to say: But Aquinas adds another and very powerful caveat: And the Divine One is none of these things insofar as God surpasses all things. Thus in Aquinas' view, God can be named by any being in the universe because God is the cause of every being in the universe. But Aquinas also warns us to live with this dialectic - that God is named by all beings and by no beings. To live this way is to dance the dance of truth. No name, absolutely no name, suffices for Divinity. Which is also to say that all names suffice for Divinity - but on a limited scale only.

The One Existence the wise call by many names.
- The Rig Veda (part of the Hindu Scriptures)

God has a million faces.
- Baghavad Gita

We all have images of God lying around in our heads and hearts. Even for Catholics, we have numerous images through which we approach the divine: the Sacred Heart, the Divine Mercy, the Holy Spirit, the Father, etc. The way we imagine God will necessarily color the way we pray, how we worship, and who and how we believe God to be.

However, it's always good to remember that when we speak about God - when we give God names and attach images to God, we are always using limited language - we are using metaphors and symbols to approach Divinity. Since we are created, finite creatures, our language will never be able to fully comprehend or utter the infinite majesty and splendor that is God. We can only offer ourselves in humble worship of the Lord of Creation that graces us with his loving-kindness.

Blessings & Peace,
Hugo

6.16.2004

One River, Many Wells - Chapter 4 - My Comments

So here go my comments on the quotes I posted earlier . . .

I firmly believe that a community is needed for there to be any kind of development in people, whether that development is spiritual, social, psychological, etc. As I am fond of telling my students, it's easy to be a practicing Christian (or Buddhist, or Wiccan, or whatever) when it's just one person alone. If I were to live in the middle of a forest with just my little furry animal friends for company, I could probably be on the fast track for sainthood! No cars cutting in front of me as I drive (more or less!) the speed limit, no lines to wait in at the bank, no annoying people calling/beeping/emailing/faxing me, no distractions, no nothing!

But that would not be the most authentic expression of faith. Faith (trust) is tempered in the fires of our relationships. No relationship is ever perfect, and that gives us material to chew on as we struggle to define ourselves and our relationships to others and to the cosmos.

So we grow to the degree that we are with others. For Catholic Christians (but this goes for others whose faith traditions are especially rooted in community) especially, we are bound to a parish community. No one in that community is perfect. Lest I seem ambiguous, I'll spell it out: the priest, the assistant priest, the nuns that may work there, the youth minister, the DRE (Religious Education director), the catechists, the volunteers, the secretary, the maintenance people - everyone will make mistakes, everyone will have bad days, everyone will be hypocritical at one point or another.

And that's a good thing. We're not perfect, but sometimes we expect our church and everyone in it to be perfect - to be living saints.

As if we're given this special waiver to make mistakes while no one else can relax.

Our church will always make mistakes . . . always. And that's fine. We learn patience, compassion, forgiveness, mercy, greatness of heart and soul by rooting ourselves in our imperfect parish communities.

Sort of like our families - there is no perfectly happy family. There will always be that one uncle, step mother, grand parent, cousin, whatever that will get on our nerves, rub us the wrong way, maybe even nudge us towards hateful, murderous thoughts. :-)

But they're still family, and when they need us or when we need them, hopefully we're there for each other.

And so I stake my claim that in order to reach perfection we need relationships.

One last note - deep relationships are usually reserved for a select few family and friends. I can count only a few people that I would consider my closest companions . . . though I count many who I am proud to know. It's usually that way for most people as well. Learn to treasure those soul-companions you meet along your spiritual journey - they are truly heaven sent.

Blessings & Peace,
Hugo

One River, Many Wells - Chapter 4

Community & Interdependence

Community is the basis of much spirituality around the world . . . [a]and yet so much sense of community has been lost in the modern world. Loneliness in its many guises replaces community. Loneliness often speaks its sad story through addictions of alcohol, drugs, shopping, food, sex. For the human heart was not meant to be cut off from other hearts, either human or other than human.
- Matthew Fox

The loneliness of the seeker for community is sometimes unendurable.
- Howard Thurman

An individual reaches the level of personhood only in social relations, a person grows and develops through social relations with other persons.
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I really want to underscore the next two because of the beauty and wonder I felt when I first read them - I hope they are as moving to you as they were to me.

There is one who sings the song of his soul . . . who sings the song of his people. . . . Together with her, he sings her song, feels her anguish, delights in her hopes. . . . There is one whose soul expands until it extends beyond the borders of Israel, singing the song of humanity. . . . further until he unites with all of existence, with all creatures, with all worlds, singing a song with them all. There is one who ascends with all these songs in unison - the song of the soul, the song of the nation, the song of humanity, the song of the cosmos - resounding together, blending in harmony, circulating the sap of life, the sound of holy joy.
- The Kabbalah, a Jewish mystical text/way

A Jew never worships as an isolated individual but as a part of the Community of Israel. Yet it is within the heart of every individual that prayer takes place. . . . every act of worship is an act of participating in an eternal service, in the service of all souls of all ages.

Our kinship with nature is a kinship of praise. All beings praise God. We live in a community of praise. The cosmos is a congregation in need of a Cantor. . . . It is man who is the Cantor of the universe, and in whose life the secret of cosmic prayer is disclosed. When we sing we sing for all things. . . . The universe is a score of eternal music, and we are the cry, we are the voice.

- Rabbi Abraham Heschel

We have, in my view, created a society in which people find it harder and harder to show one another basic affection. In place of the sense of community and belonging, which we find such a reassuring feature of less wealthy (and generally rural) societies, we find a high degree of loneliness and alienation. Despite the fact that millions live in close proximity to one another, it seems that many people, especially among the old, have no one to talk to but their pets.
- The Dalai Lama

All believers are brothers; so make peace between your brothers, and be mindful of your duty to Allah that you may be shown mercy.

The Believers are like a single man; if his eye is affected, all of him is affected, and if his head is affected all of him is affected. . . . None of you have believed until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself. . . .All creatures are God's children, and those dearest to God are the ones who treat His children kindly. He from whose injurious conduct his neighbor is not sage will not enter Paradise.

- The Qur'an

I'll post my thoughts on these quotes later on today - right now, it's time for a late breakfast - my family & I are hungry! :-)

Blessings & Peace,
Hugo

6.15.2004

One River, Many Wells - Chapter 3

Light

We now know that matter is trapped light: slow-moving light; or "frozen" light as physicist David Bohm puts it. Yet, because for every particle of matter in the universe there are one billion particles of light, we are amazed to learn how special matter is, how rare matter is, what a rare gift it is to be flesh or matter, that is, slow-moving light. Matter is light. It is very special light
- Matthew Fox

Yahweh, how great you are!
Clothed in majesty and glory,
wrapped in a robe of light!

- The Psalms

The word "glory" ("doxa" in Greek) bespeaks light, radiance, and splendor. Nature is filled with the glory of God, who is king of glory and has poured out the divine radiance into Creation. We hear that the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims His handiwork.
- Matthew Fox, commenting on the passage from the Psalms

The human body is a wick, and a light is kindled above. . . . The light on one's head needs oil, the oil of good deeds!
- The Zohor, a Jewish mystical text

I am the light of the world;
anyone who follows me will not be walking in the dark;
he will have the light of life.

As long as I am in the world
I am the light of the world.

- Jesus, John's Gospel, New Testament

The Word was the true light
that enlightens all men;
and he was coming into the world.

All that came to be had life in him
and that life was the light of people,
a light that shines in the dark,
a light that darkness could not overpower.

The Word was made flesh,
and dwelt among us,
and we saw his glory [doxa],
the glory that is his as the only Son of the Father,
full of grace and truth.

- John's Gospel

God is light; and one who approaches this light is illuminated.

God puts into creatures, along with a kind of "sheen," a reflection of God's own luminous "ray," which is the fountain of all light . . . Shining reflections of the divine radiance must be understood as the sharing of God's likeness and constitute those "beautifying" reflections that make beauty in things. The being of things is itself their light and the measure of the being of a thing is the measure of its light.

- St. Thomas Aquinas

There is no Creation that does not have a radiance. Be it greenness or seed, blossom or beauty. It could not be creation without it. All Creation is gifted with the ecstasy of God's light.
- Hildegard of Bingen

I like the theme of light (why else would I put it up here?!) - it reminds me of my high school years. . .

I started seriously re-attending Mass in High School as a freshman - I started playing trumpet with our choir, which is the way I believe the Spirit led me back home. I also started reading the Bible as a freshman, after a Senior that I knew challenged me to explore my Christianity more fully.

After this, I started attending a prayer group in a neighboring parish. Shortly thereafter, I clearly remember one night not being able to sleep. I was staring up at the bottom of the bunk bed (my younger brother slept on top), and I just could not sleep. So I started praying - talking to God. I started by telling him how I was doing, what was going on with my life. I then started praying for different things in my life, which led to praying for the people in my life. The more I talked, the more people it seemed I had to pray for - prayers of thanks, prayers of petition, prayers of wonder and awe. I talked with God that night for about three hours straight, sometimes crying, sometimes laughing, all the time marveling at the conversation.

When I woke up the next morning, I felt like some of the people in the gospels - like a veil had been removed from my sight . . . like a haziness had been blown away . . . like the dawn was over and the true light of the sun had finally flooded in.

I felt like a new life had started in me - like I had been flooded with the Spirit of fire & light and that it had transformed me just as Jesus had transformed at his transfiguration.

So I like the image of light. Quite a bit. :-)

Blessings & Peace,
Hugo

One River, Many Wells - Chapter 2

Creation- All Our Relations

The ultimate end of the divine will is the divine goodness, and the nearest thing to that among created things is the good of the whole universe. . . . Thus, among created things, what God cares for most is the order of the universe.

The whole universe together participates in the divine goodness more perfectly, and represents it better, than any single creature whatever.

Every creature participates in some way in the likeness of the divine essence. All things love God. All things are united according to friendship to each other and to God.

- St. Thomas Aquinas

Creation is allowed in intimate love
to speak to the Creator as if to a lover.

- Hildegard of Bingen

Creation is the extension of God.
Creation is God encountered in space and time.
Creation is the infinite in the garb of the finite.
To attend to Creation is to attend to God.

- Ancient Rabbinic teaching

We all possess a little fragment of the first bit of life on earth. Consequently, everything that's alive is related - and a microscopic part of us all is three and a half billion years old.
- David Brower, scientist

When we look into the heart of a flower, we see clouds, sunshine, minerals, time, the earth, and everything else in the cosmos in it. Without clouds, there could be no rain, and there would be no flower. In fact, the flower is made entirely of non-flower elements; it has no independent, individual existence.

One thing is made up of all other things. One thing contains the whole cosmos. . . . A piece of bread contains sunshine. . . . Without a cloud, the wheat cannot grow. So when you eat a piece of bread, you eat the cloud, you eat the sunshine, you eat the minerals, time, space, everything.

- Thich Nhat Hanh

Every hydrogen atom in our bodies has been in existence for fourteen billion years - imagine how many stories they have to tell us alone. What a pity when culture distracts us from this deep self-awareness by its titillating bon-bons.
- Matthew Fox, commenting on Thich Nhat Hanh's quote

I arise today
Through the strength of heaven:
Light of the sun,
Radiance of the moon,
Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of wind,
Depth of sea,
Stability of earth,
Firmness of rock.

- St. Patrick

One of the Natural laws is that you've got to keep things pure. Especially the water. Keeping the water pure is one of the first laws of life. If you destroy the water, you destroy life. All life on Mother Earth depends on pure water, yet we spill every kind of dirt and filth and poison into it.

Another of the Natural laws is that all life is equal. That's our philosophy. You have to respect life - all life, not just your own. The key word is "respect." Unless you respect the earth, you destroy it. Unless you respect all life as much as your own, you become a destroyer, a murderer. Man sometimes thinks he's been elevated to be the controller, the ruler. But he's not. He's only a part of the whole. Man's job is not to exploit but to oversee, to be a steward. Man has responsibility, not power.

- Oren Lyons, Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the Onondaga Nation

I like the sacramental worldview espoused by my Catholic Christian faith - that all of creation can become a vehicle for God's grace, God's presence in our lives. Viewing the cosmos (all of creation) as a vehicle for God's continued self-revelation should, in theory, awaken us to the destruction we're scaring our home with. It should help us remember that we are stewards, not kings - workers, not the boss. Unfortunately (to paraphrase from the Fellowship of the Ring), we crave power, and one of the best ways to get power in our time is through wealth - and if that means destroying the planet, well - so what? We're only around a couple of years - the future generation can deal with it, right?

We are destroying God's life as surely as we are destroying our own, and in the process we are making it harder for our children and our children's children to live healthy, joyous lives.

May God grant us wisdom and humility to know better and, even more importantly, to act on that knowledge.

Blessings & Peace,
Hugo

6.14.2004

Interlude

Found another quote I liked, from a book I'm planning on buying called Dark Nights of the Soul by Thomas Moore.

Here it is:
Every human life is made up of the light and the dark, the happy and the sad, the vital and the deadening. How you think about this rhythm of moods makes all the difference. Are you going to hide out in self-delusion and distracting entertainments? Are you going to become cynical and depressed? Or are you going to open your heart to a mystery that is as natural as the sun and the moon, day and night, summer and winter.

Enjoy! :-)

Blessings & Peace,
Hugo

One River, Many Wells - Chapter 1

More quotes :-)

Deep Ecumenism and the Universality of Experience

The truly wise person kneels at the feet of all creatures.
- Mechtild of Magdeburg

The great religions of the world are not competitive but complementary. One religion is not the enemy of the other, but all religions are faced by common enemies: skepticism, atheism, and perhaps worst of all, severe indifference. Only if the religions of the world stand together will they preserve themselves [and] help to bring about a new manifestation of the world spirit.
- Nikhilananda, Hindu scholar

The worship of the different religions,
which are like so many small streams,
move together to meet God, who is like the ocean.

- Rajjab, Hindu mystic

All religions,
all this singing,
is one song.
The differences are just
illusion and vanity.
The sun's light looks a little different
on this wall than it does on that wall . . .
but it's still one light.

- Rumi, Sufi poet & mystic

Through the practice of deep looking and deep listening, we become free, able to see the beauty and values in our own and others' tradition. Yet, to get to the point of seeing the beauty and value in others' traditions, one must look and listen deeply into one's own. One must practice some path along the journey that leads to depth. One must enter the well of mystical experience.
- Matthew Fox, quoting and expanding on Buddhist practitioner Thich Nhat Hanh

When you touch someone who authentically represents a tradition, you not only touch his or her tradition, you also touch your own.
- Thich Nhat Hanh

It is my belief that in the Presence of God there is neither male nor female, white nor black, Gentile nor Jew, Protestant nor Catholic, Hindu, Buddhist, nor Moslem, but a human spirit stripped to the literal substance of itself before God.
- Howard Thurman, spiritual mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Every truth without exception - and whoever may utter it - is from the Holy Spirit. The old pagan virtues were from God. Revelation has been made to many pagans.
- St. Thomas Aquinas, 13th-century theologian & Doctor of the Church

As a practicing Roman Catholic, I especially like the last quote from Aquinas - it reminds me that even in my own faith tradition there have been those individuals who have so deeply touched the heart of God that they no longer have to fear other religious traditions - they can affirm God's own Spirit blowing where it will and speaking to all people of authentic good will.

Enjoy - more quotes forthcoming!

Blessings & Peace,
Hugo

One River, Many Wells - Introduction

I'm re-reading a book I got about a year ago called One River, Many Wells by Matthew Fox. I really like some of the quotes from the book, so I'll post here for the edification of those that read! :-)

From the Introduction

Humanity will find that it is not a diversity of creeds, but the very same creed which is everywhere proposed . . . . Even though you are designated in terms of different religions, yet you presuppose in all this diversity one religion which you call wisdom.
- Nicholas of Cusa, 15th-century theologian, scientist, mystic and Cardinal

If one starts with doctrines, the arguments are endless . . . . But when one comes to the level of interior experience, that is where the meeting takes place. That is the challenge.
- Fr. Bede Griffith, Benedictine monk, speaking of sharing our faith with others of different faiths

Divinity is an Underground river that no one can stop and no one can dam up.
- Meister Eckhart, Catholic mystic

There is one underground river - but there are many wells into that river: an African well, a Taoist well, a Buddhist well, a Jewish well, a Muslim well, a goddess well, a Christian well, and aboriginal wells. Many wells but one river. To go down a well is to practice a tradition, but we would make a grave mistake (an idolatrous one) if we confused the well itself with the flowing waters of the underground river.
- Matthew Fox, commenting on the quote above by Meister Eckhart

The biggest obstacle to interfaith sharing is people's unhealthy relationships to their own faith.
- The Dalai Lama

All paths lead to God, for God is on them all equally for the person who knows.
- Meister Eckhart

The book is divided into 4 sections (Relating to Creation, Relating to Divinity, Relating to Ourselves, and Relating to the Future), with 18 total chapters subdivided into those 4 categories.

Matthew Fox aims to provide source quotations from all of the worlds spiritual/religions traditions in order for the reader to start to see how the 18 themes he proposes cut across religious boundaries and make up a human longing for the divine, for God.

For this introduction, I would only add a caution, one which is touched on in the quotations I gave but which I would to like make explicit: In order, I think, to fully appreciate the beauty and wonder that each and every world religion can give us, we need to be fully rooted in our own faith. For example, I cannot share the beauty and richness of my Catholic Christian tradition if I do not know it well. I cannot give to others what I do not have. I can make connections with other faiths to the degree that I have already connected with my own faith. If I never go deeply into my well (to extend Meister Eckhart's metaphor from above), I will never by able to share deeply with others. We can only share our experience and grasp of our own faith. If we sample too many wells but never delve deeply into one of them, our spirituality, like our well-delving, will be shallow - easily uprooted and blown away with any obstacle that comes before us.

So take time to get to know your spiritual/religious tradition - what you learned as a child growing up in your household. For some reason - your to find or create - God put you into that household, that faith - see if you look through the eyes of Divinity and find the wonder, the richness, the Spirit-filled exuberance that all religions have to offer. Then and only then will you be ready to learn from other faiths, and to share what you yourself know as well.

Blessings & Peace,
Hugo