A Blog Apart

I like the story on !!El Blogo Catastrofico!!, so I'm linking to it. :-)

Enjoy! :-)

Blessings & Peace,
Hugo

Still Awake and Writing

I'm re-formatting my brother-in-laws computer (which he's giving to his cousin) and it's being ornery, but I need to finish it tonight because the cousin is leaving in the morning. So while I let some software install/run I thought I'd update a bit more.

In prayer, God speaks only one word: the life of the one who prays (to paraphrase Karl Rahner). So it seems simple: the way to discern if any spiritual path is valid is to look at the fruits that in engenders in itrs practicioners. Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Huichol, Wiccan, etc. and ad infinitum - any spiritual path is to be judged by its fruits: does it lead to justice, compassion, the good, the right, wholeness, holiness, etc. . . . if it does, then it is valid.

Another thought: Christianity and I are in a relationship.

In order for a relationship to grow and mature, people must keep growing and maturing; the people involved must celebrate what has gone by, but they must also forge ahead, for to live in past experiences only is to kill the relationship. An unhealthy relationship is one in which the people are so focused on each other that they forget all else: other friends, work, school, time alone, etc. . . . such a relationship becomes unhealthy/unbalanced. In a healthy/balanced relationship, the people involved nurture each other - they draw their strength and energy from each other, but they then direct it outward to others, never losing the core relationship, but never dwelling on it exclusively.

Now, if I only focus on Christianities' past, what has gone before me, the relationship will die. I must celebrate what has gone before, but I must also make new experiences, find new ways of expressing and celebrating this relationship.

Likewise, if I focus too exclusively on Christianity (to the exclusion of all other religions), I'll stagnate, and the power and beauty I find in Christianity will rot within me. It's only by directing that energy outward that I can truly be transformed and empowered by my relationship with Christianity, but this means forming relations outside my primary relationship, which means with other religious paths. I must take what I've learned from my primary relationship with Christianity to these other relationships, but I must also take what I've learned in these other religions back to my primary religion; thus my relationship with Christianity is kept healthy/balanced and vital, full of new life, vigor, beauty and love.

I won't spurn my lover (Christ) - I don't want to fall into religious adultery, but I will maintain outside friendship/relationships . . .

I've discovered that to be in love is to be full of life, vitality and energy. To misuse or misdirect this love is to destroy the life/vitality/power/beauty/grace that flows from it. To live this in-love-ness correctly, however, is to geometrically enhance it's power.

So it must be with my lover. We must empower each other, I drawing strength from Christianity and it drawing strength from me. Only then is it true and good and liberating and empowering and alive and life-giving and affirming.

Christianity and I are in a relationship.

Blessings & Peace,
Hugo

Eternity

God has planted eternity in the human heart. - Ecclesiastes 3:11

One of the books I'm currently reading is The Purpose Driven Life. The 4th Chapter is titled Made to Last Forever. These are my thoughts/reflections on it . . .

God exists in timelessness (which is different from eternity - eternity lasts forever - timelessness is th absence of time). God's own life (grace) is a part of us. So we long to be part of that timeless existence - we yearn and desire to shift ourselves into God's time (kairos time). Individually and as a human family, we wait in joyful hope for the day when we will leave this imperfect and timebound world and move on to our final destination.

I like the sentence/idea of "living in light of eternity." It moves and shifts our perception (there's that word again!) from a selfish, self-centered worldview to one that is more inclusive of others; one that is other- and service-oriented.

However . . .

The author suggest that if this life was all there is, he would encourage people to "live it up."

The post-modern in me vehemently disagrees. Going back to Richard Rorty (another book I'm reading irony, contingency, & solidarity), we can still choose to passionately live a life dedicated to ideals of love, service and sacrifice. Even if this life were all God gave us, we could still choose to live it in such a way that we made a difference here and now, as well as later on for our children and their children. Timeless suffering or joy is a good motivator, but ultimately we could still choose to follow Jesus, and have our "reward" be nothing more than knowing that we had lived a life of congruency.

Again, though, I agree with another quote: Every act of our lives strikes some chord that will vibrate in eternity. Our actions here do have eternal consequences. As a Catholic, one of the teachings of my church is that our actions here - our sins and our good deeds - will determine our final resting place - either we're gonna be air-conditioned for all eternity, or we're gonna fry. :-) We condition ourselves in this life to live the next - so if we persist in unforgiveness (both giving and receiving) we will forever shut the door to the One who is Forgiveness. Accordingly, if we practice forgiveness and loving-kindness here and now, we will be able to accept the forgiveness of the One.

I also think our actions have temporal consequences, consequences that we can feel here and now, though these mostly involve conscience and quality of interior living.

"All life is suffering" (to quote the Buddha), and part of that suffering flows from our "unright" actions. Even if there was no hell, this life could become a lifetime of hell, made so by our own actions, our own thoughts, our own conscience.

Until tomorrow . . .

Blessings & Peace,
Hugo

The Difference

I was at Barnes & Nobles the other day, and I overheard a conversation between two young women (prob. college-aged) while I was browsing the theology/religion/spirituality section.

One of the girls (speaking to her companion) said something like, "the difference between me and you is that I have accepted Jesus into my heart . . ."

And that sparked the following thought . . .

We are created, hand crafted, one of a kind collectibles. We are unique creations of God. We have God's own breath and Spirit moving within us. It's Matthew Fox's "original blessing" all over again.

So I take it to mean that we already have Jesus in our hearts. Christian or not, believer or not, God's life - grace, God's own presence - is moving and animating us.

So it seems to become an issue of perception, not acceptance. When we are awakened to the reality of God with us, it's only a shift in perception. It goes back to having a sacramental worldview, a view that says that all creation is charged with the beauty, the majesty, the grandeur of God - including us. (We are part of creation, after all!)

The individual sacraments, especially the sacraments of initiation, then become moments when we are awakened to the mystery of God already residing in the depths of our soul. They help shift our perception to the point where we can recognize, not accept, that we are already members of God's family, members of the Body of Christ for Christian believers. They continually call us to this shift, this metanoia, this conversion. Every Eucharist, every Reconciliation - they challenge us to move our awareness of God's presence deeper and deeper.

I remember once, in college, going on a retreat to a camp somewhere in Texas. During one of our break times several of us walked on a small ledge overlooking an ancient river bed. We had to walk the ledge with our bodies pressed against the rock face, inching side to side along the precarious perch. I was doing fine, until we stopped for an unknown reason. I happened to glance up, and inches from my right hand I saw a spider about 1.5 times the size of my hand just sitting there.

I don't like spiders.

My perception shifted - I was no longer walking on a narrow ledge in relative comfort . . . I was inches away from a feared enemy. I froze. I couldn't move on. If I hd been alone, I might have stood rooted to that spot, jumping if the spider got too close, or inching away as fast as I could if it finally moved away.

I also remember a story I read in The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People (or it might've been in Stephen Covey's son's book, The Seven Habits of Highly Successful Teens - can't remember which one), about a man who boards a bus with his two children. The man sits down, oblivious to the bus, his kids and everyone else on the bus, while his children proceed to run, jump, shout and generally annoy everyone else on the bus. A woman finally works up the nerve to confront the father, asking him to reign in his children. The man proceeds to tell her, and everyone else on the bus, that they are coming from the hospital - they have just learned of his wife's death. He says that he does not know how to handle it, and neither do his children.

Again, the perception on that bus was changed for the other passengers. They no longer thought of this man in negative terms; they only had compassion for his plight and for the suffering of his children.

A case of perception shifting the reality of each person.

I think the Church's emphasis on discernment fits this well - as we develop our intuition and intellect, it becomes easier to listen to the still, small voice of god enshrined in our very bones - we become better able to follow the Spirit's promptings - we become better able to join our lives and our stories to The Story, the life of God and the story of redemption and salvation being played out in our world.

I've been corrupted :-) to the point where I can't preach an elite salvation, a salvation of gnosis, where only those with the right passwords can get in. I have an inkling that God may be more just and merciful that we can ever imagine.

I would like to believe, along with my Muslim brethren, that even the Devil will, @ the end of time, be converted, shaken from it's self-imposed exile of pride and unforgiveness.

Speaking of which, I'm moving toward seeing Lucifer as it's portrayed in Job - the Satan, the anadvocate, the tempter, the tester - someone/something in God's employment that does what God needs it to do . . .

But more on that another time.

Wishing everyone a (belated) happy New Year . . .

Blessings & Peace,
Hugo

One Spirit, Many Wells - Chapter 10 (Part II)

More quotes from the Chapter on Meditation and Mindfulness

When you want to lay yourself open for the divine
like a snare that is hollowed out to its depth
like a canopy that projects a shadow
from the divine heat and light
into your soul,
then go into your inner place physically,
or to that story or symbol that reminds you of the sacred.
Close the door of your awareness to
the public person you think yourself to be.
Pray to the parent of creation, with your inner sense,
the outer senses turned within.
Veiling yourself, the mystery may be unveiled through you.
By opening yourself to the flow of the sacred,
somewhere, resounding in some inner form,
the swell of the divine ocean can move through you.
The breathing life of all reveals itself
in the way you live your life.
- Jesus, Matthew Ch 6, translated directly from the Aramaic

[I]f children were told from their birth:
"You are eternal, you have a place in you that is full of wisdom, full of strength, full of blessedness," this truth would become a power in their lives even when they grow up and other negative influences begin to prevail. . . . A wonderful beauty of appearance and of character comes to you.
- Swami Ashkananda

Empty your mind of all thoughts.
Let your heart be at peace.
Watch the turmoil of beings,
but contemplate their return.
Each separate being in the universe
returns to the common source.
Returning to the source is serenity.
- The Tao Te Ching

To know Tao
meditate
and still the mind.
Knowledge comes with perseverance. . . .
When enlightenment arrives
don't talk too much about it;
just live it in your own way.
- Loy Ching Yuen

God is not found in the soul by adding anything, but by a process of subtraction.
- Meister Eckhart

In the pursuit of knowledge,
every day something is added.
In the practice of the Tao,
every day something is dropped . . .
True mastery can be gained
by letting things go their own way.
It can't be gained by interfering.

If you want to be given everything,
give everything up . . .
If you open yourself to loss,
you are at one with loss
and you can accept it completely.
- Tao Te Ching

If you think of yourself as something,
then God cannot clothe himself in you,
for God is infinite.
No vessel can contain God,
unless you think of yourself as Ayin . . .
Think of yourself as Ayin and forget yourself totally.
Then you can transcend time,
rising to the world of thought,
where all is equal:
life and death, ocean and dry land.
- The Kabbalah

The recollection of God makes the heart calm.
- The Qur'an

Secretly we spoke,
that wise one and me.
I said, Tell me the secrets of the world.
He said, Sh . . . Let silence
Tell you the secrets of the world.
- Rumi

Enjoy! :-)

Blessings & Peace,
Hugo