The Oneness of Reality Goes by Different Names, or Not

The divine essence, the Trinity, describes every aspect of reality. From incarnate matter through essential energies and forces by which matter comes into being and returns to no-thingness, reality is sacred, divine expression.

Hindus say, "There is nothing that is not God."

"The One has no limits. It is neither form, nor formless. It is indivisible. Everything that exists, exists in It. It seeks only Itself. It is eternal and the giver of eternity."
~The Apocryphon of John

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.*

~ Gospel of John

Buddhists prefer not to imbue reality with a divine immanence. But of course they value reality, with equal concern. Buddhist ideology goes straight to awakening and alleviation of suffering as its primary assertions, rather than assigning a theology. Of course, the alleviation of suffering is also the highest agenda of Hindus and Christians.

All of these consider the goal of attaining God-consciousness (enlightenment, or the awareness that all of what we experience is [divine] relationship as One) as the ultimate state of being, from which naturally flows compassionate doing and relationships of natural order.

May you know yourself as a divine expression of God within the divine expression of God.

_/\_Peggy @ ECUMENICUS

Art: Creation, 13th century Byzantine mosaic, St Marks Basilica Venice

*Heraclitus (ca. 535–475 BC), used the term, Logos, for a principle of order and knowledge. Aristotle referred to "reasoned discourse," Stoic philosophers used Logos as the divine animating principle of the Universe, Philo (20-50 CE) adopted the term into Jewish philosophy. The Gospel of John identifies the Logos, through which all things are made, as divine (theos) and further identifies Jesus as the incarnate Logos. The Hebrew equivalent to Logos is dabar or creative expression.

The colloquial meaning of logos among the religious Greeks of the first century was "god of gods", the divine mind of the gods or "supreme knowledge," also known as gnosis (awareness, enlightenment, insight).  ~adapted, Brad Scott, The Dabar of  Elohyim or the Logos of God.

Ladders to Heaven - Ascent to Love - Tzim Tzum of Life

Climbing the ladder
whose rungs are the names of God,
I come to myself.

Richard Zimler, Love's Voice, 72 Kabbalistic Haikus

The idea of ascending, as climbing a ladder, toward "Godliness," or Ultimate Being, in mind and action is found throughout faith traditions. However, this is not a one-way trip. In cultivating awareness or illumination/enlightenment we "see" and then we don't. We take one step forward and 2 steps back. 

In Christianity, this idea comes from Neoplatonism: "every effect remains in its cause, proceeds from it and returns to it." Proclus. 

Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (late 5th c apophatic mystic) wrote: "Inspired by the Father, each procession of the Light spreads itself generously toward us, and, in its power to unify, it stirs us by lifting us up. It returns us back to the oneness and deifying simplicity of the father who gathers us in."

One could certainly go on citing examples of the location of the Divine relative to the human. Scripture talks of temples and tents, mountains and deserts; of Jacob's dream of a ladder and Ezekiel's vision of chariots of man-angels and God on a throne in the firmament.

Ezekiel 1:26 And above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone: and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it.

Our human experience is not only comprised of this Neoplatonic idea of "procession and return" or being lifted toward the light and falling back toward material life, we are surrounded by it. This is change, the flux and flow of Life itself, from particles and waves to cosmic universe; the becoming and the retreating, moving toward and falling away, ascent and decline. The resolution of the Self (or awareness, if you prefer), the evolution of the cosmos. The miracle is that we can know this in our mind of objectivity and we can experience this in our mind of subjectivity.

Artwork: 

1. Heavenly Ladder, McGookin

2. Ladder to Heaven inspired by the writings of John Climacus (7th-century Christian monk at the monastery on Mount Sinai). Icon 13th century, St. Catherine's Monastery, Sinai. John Climacus is shown at the top of The Ladder of Divine Ascent, with other monks following him.

3. Heavenly ladder sent to Buddha (the Bodhi tree) to meet his deceased mother after enlightenment, Sanchi, India

_/\_Peggy @ ECUMENICUS

God Bless the Animals - Angels Unaware

Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. ~Hebrews 13:1,2

My blog today is very different from most.This morning I felt compelled to write about my dog, Maggie. I have dogs. I love dogs. I studied Veterinary Medicine because I love dogs, and other animals. Animals have always been my teachers. They don't have nearly the capacity that we do to objectify the self, and that keeps them grounded in the natural order of life...a benevolent and honorable posture. I have great reverence for that quality in animals. .

This morning at o’dark thirty I was checking my mail on the phone in my big easy chair. My tried and true buddy, Maggie, a black Shar Pei  cross loyally lay at my feet. I started to get up and glanced down to mark my step over her sleeping body and she looked up at me. Now, I am just in love with this little dog. So I immediately began to pet her and speak to her in my lovey-dovey voice about how thankful I am that she stopped by my house 4 years ago. In my mind, I go to this place of deep gratitude and wonder at the mystery of how so many of the dogs we’ve owned simply show up in our life, seemingly from nowhere. Such blessed gifts from God.

It was four years ago on an Ash Wed evening, that I came home to find my big dog, Spot, Security Central, had trapped something in a corner of the outside of our house. Thinking it would be an opossum or a ‘coon, or something of that nature, I went immediately over to see what Spot was guarding. It was a small black puppy, the size of a basketball, about 3 months old…Maggie. She was just petrified with fear, growling and snarling and all kinds of mean. Well, yeah! Spot is a gangster of a big dog and can be very intimidating. Suffice to say, we kept Maggie, as we do so many of the dogs and puppies that appear on our doorstep.

It’s bit of magic, I think, that these sweet animals come to us. Divine intervention, if you will. They have to have a mama and siblings somewhere, a place of origination. But that remains a mystery. We do have a dog whose mama was a wild stray that could not be caught. When she had puppies, my friend managed to corral the pups and find homes for them, but the mama dog remained feral. Most of the time, we don’t know where our dogs come from. But I feel they are supposed to find us. And they make incredibly loving pets.

So, this morning, I loved all over little Maggie, telling her how grateful I was that she chose to stay with us and how I loved her. I kissed the top of her soft black head, rose to standing, and strode toward my study. She, anticipating my movement, jumped up and ran for the kitchen (the treats). Half way between my study and the chair I looked back at her. She stood poised at the kitchen door looking at me with a shocked expression that said, “After all that lovey-dovey talk you aren’t going to give me a treat?”  Oh okay, I turned and went to appease her complete obsession with the “snaps.” My days of rationing treats are waning….dog lives, and my own, are too short for such nonsense. In the dog world, if you really want to profess your love, you pet, talk lovey-dovey and you treat. And so it is….

God bless the animals...may we remember that we share this planet with them and they depend on us to make good choices for them. Go love on your pet today and don't forget the treat! (NOT people food!)

_/\_Peggy

The Kingdom of God & The Inward World of Intuition

The Blue, by Billy Collins*

You can have Egypt and Nantucket.
The only place I want to visit is The Blue,
not the Wild Blue Yonder that seduces pilots,
but that zone where the unexpected dwells,
waiting to come out of it in the shape of bolts.

I want to walk its azure perimeter
where the unanticipated is coiled, on the mark,
ready to spring into the predicttable homes of earth.

I want to stroll through the pale indigo light
examining all the accidents about to rocket into time,
all the forgotten names about to fly from tongues.

I will scrutinize all the surprises of the future
and watch the brainstorms gathering darkly,
ready to hit the heads of inventors
laboring in their crackpot shacks.

A jaded traveler with an invisible passport,
I am at home with this heaven of the unforeseen,
waiting for the next whoosh of sudden departure
when, with no advance warning, to tiny augery,
the unpredictable plummets into our lives
from somewhere that looks like sky.

*Thank you John March!

I love to watch how people perceive/think. Here are some thoughts this poem stirred up. In the end, it is all about the Kingdom of God (and self knowledge) 

You know how, when we chat about our lives in the world, we compare destinations? You may say, "I went to Paris last year." And, if I had gone to Paris, I would say, "I did too!!" And we'd have this common ground for conversations about our experiences in Paris. This is widely and well-accepted practice.

Do you know that we also do that with our inward universe? Say, I read a poem, or a beautiful quote that incorporates a metaphor or simile such as, "I strolled through a pale indigo sky..." My inward experience recognizes that - I remember how it feels to be there. I may even have written a poem at one time about my presence in an indigo sky. I can feel and remember my experience in the implications of those words, just as if I were in that place.

The first scenario is a "Sensor" experience - we all have those. The second is an "Intuitive" experience. We all have those too....if we pay attention to them, we realize there is an inward universe just as vast and beautiful and intriguing, but still very much wilderness. And it is an advantage to have some understanding of this amazing, undiscovered land. In fact, there are gifts here that significantly enrich our travels in the physical world....

I  find it interesting that, because the sensor experience is something we all must have and use collectively, we find it to be a more valid and acceptable platform for socialization. Our culture is more extrovert than introvert, more sensor-biased (77%) than intuitor (23%). The introverts and the intuitor-biased folks have to conform to that - they have to abandon their natural energetic needs and perception gifts to fit in. And it truly causes difficulties for some of them, because they are, in essence, denying them self.

So if we understand the ways we bring perceptive experience to our circumstances, that is, that we BOTH sense the facts (outward) and intuit through memory and feeling (inward) to create the entire experience we are having, we understand our self much better. And we understand those who are majorly introverts and/or intuitors in the ways they approach the world.When it comes to spirituality it is essential that we understand the inward universe.

Here are a couple quotes that illustrate the importance of this point:

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” 

~Carl Jung

"If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you." 

~Gospel of Thomas

What these refer to is subjective experience - intuition and feeling - present in every experience whether recognized or not.

Contemplative practices - meditation and prayer - will cultivate subjective experience. When we eliminate the distractions - the noise - of our outer perceiving, we can tune in (literally) to the inner universe of Self, and get to know who we really are. We realize the Kingdom of God because we are at One, reconciled, with all that is. We reconcile (or "re--friend") our outer:inner person, our sensing:intuiting and thinking:feeling, and bring that balanced person to a more reconciled world experience. 

“If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself, if you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation.”
~ Attributed to Lao Tzu ( more likely Hua Hu Ching, Wang Fou, ca. 300 CE)

Peace and "Be Still" to you, Peggy _/\_

Further reading on the Kingdom of God within you and self knowledge: 

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/story/thomas.html

THAT LIVES IN US

If you put your hands on this oar with me,
they will never harm another, and they will come to find
they hold everything you want.

If you put your hands on this oar with me, they would no longer
lift anything to your
mouth that might wound your precious land-
that sacred earth that is
your body.

If you put your soul against this oar with me,
the power that made the universe will enter your sinew
from a source not outside your limbs, but from a holy realm
that lives in us.

Exuberant is existence, time a husk.
When the moment cracks open, ecstasy leaps out and devours space;
love goes mad with the blessings, like my words give.

Why lay yourself on the torturer’s rack of the past and future?
The mind that tries to shape tomorrow beyond its capacities
will find no rest.

Be kind to yourself, dear- to our innocent follies.
Forget any sounds or touch you knew that did not help you dance.
You will come to see that all evolves us.

If you put your heart against the earth with me, in serving
every creature, our Beloved will enter you from our sacred realm
and we will be, we will be
so happy.

- Rumi, From ‘Love Poems From God’ by Daniel Ladinsky.

Moving into autumn, one gets a sense of the deep humility of Life. Red sumac and bittersweet line the fence rows and acorns crunch underfoot. A gust of wind lifts red, yellow, and brown leaves from their childhood homes and carries them into the unknown, a new place to serve the eternal order. And eventually the stoic trusses of their birthplace stand empty of those laughing children, whose shimmering and shaking brought such life through the summer months.

Perhaps it is those very trusses that were used to turn the oar on which we are invited to put our hand; to hold the surrendered life and know that without it, we could not make this journey. This insight brings us to our knees in reverence for such a tenderly graced give and take that lays the humility of our being before the work of our hands, the doing; the willingness to let go before any and all new expression can birth. Like the push and pull of the oar, or the eternal stillness that stirs between strokes.

Peace to you all on this journey...be still....and know,  Peggy
Photography by Life in the Northwoods

Until Your Own Dawn

Daybreak: everything in this world is a luminous divine dream

I have spun.

I did not know life was a fabric woven by my soul.

Any form that can appear to you-should I confess this?-

it is something I made.

All roots nurse from me.

God’s art is mine.  I did not want His divine talent.

It simply grew in my heart from

the way I

loved.

Existence is as a young child moving through

a lane at night;

it wanted to

hold my

hand.

Here, dear earth, hold me,

until your own

dawn.

— St. Catherine of Siena, 1347-1380, Dominican Doctor of the Church

Artwork: Mike Karakas

St. Catherine of Siena was devoted to relieving suffering in the world. "Strange," she once said, "that so much suffering is caused because of the misunderstanding of God's true nature. God's heart is more gentle than the Virgin's kiss upon the Christ. And God's forgiveness to all, to any thought or act, is more certain than our own being." At the age of seven years Catherine desired so strongly to wed God that she left home with a loaf of bread and attempted to live alone in a cave. She had a vision, while there, of God telling her how brave she was, but to "let the wedding be later." The next thing she knew she woke up in her own bed. Was it a dream or reality? Later, she took her brother to the cave and asked him to enter and let her know of anything he found there. He brought out two sticks bound in the shape of a cross. Catherine had made this during her stay there with thread torn from the hem of her skirt.

Catherine joined the Dominican Order and lived a life of both deep contemplation and active devotion to the suffering and destitute. She died at the young age of 33. Although completely uneducated, she was highly revered as a theologian, even during her lifetime, and was officially made a Doctor of the Church in 1970. Her book, The Dialogue, can be found here: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/catherine/dialog/dialog.html

Grace and Peace of the ever-present New, Peggy _/\_

The Contemplative Practice of Lectio Divina

In Christianity, Lectio Divina (Latin for divine reading) is a traditional practice of scriptural reading, meditation and prayer intended to promote communion with God and to increase the meaning of sacred text. It is a process of bringing life to scripture and scripture to life.

Lectio Divina is not intellectual, it is experiential and insightful. The focus of Lectio Divina is not an analysis of biblical passages, but on holding them in mind and allowing the Spirit to reveal their meaning. It is a contemplative practice that moves one from active (reading and thinking) to receptive (intuiting and feeling).

The roots of Christian scriptural reflection and interpretation go back to Jewish liturgical practices when the scriptures were proclaimed, interpreted and preached in the synagogue. Time was allowed for the spoken scripture to be savored and memorized by those present so that the wisdom imparted would continue in daily life. This “hearing” of the Word into memory involved the whole person, body, heart and spirit, so that even in the slightest moments in life, God’s direction could be revealed.

Before the emergence of the Western monastic communities, a key contribution to the foundation of Lectio divina came from Origen in the 3rd century, with his view of "Scripture as a sacrament.” Origen believed that The Word (i.e. Logos) was incarnate in Scripture and could therefore touch and teach readers and hearers. Christ as the "interpretive key" unlocks the message in Scriptural texts.

The monastic practice of Lectio Divina was first established in the 5^th-6th century by Saint Benedict of Nursia, and later, in the 11th century, a Carthusian prior, Guigo, formalized the practice of Lectio Divina, into 4 steps of deepening thoughtfulness:

Lectio (reading): An attentive, slow, repetitious recitation of a short passage of scripture.

Meditatio (meditation): An effort to understand the passage and apply it to my own life.

Oratio (prayer): Engaging or talking with God about the passage.

Contemplatio (contemplation): Allowing oneself to be absorbed in the words of God as the Holy Spirit draws us into God’s presence through scripture.

Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

if I settle on the far side of the sea,

even there your hand will guide me,

your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me

and the light become night around me,”

even the darkness will not be dark to you;

the night will shine like the day,

for darkness is as light to you.

Psalm 139:7-12

Instructions:

Select a passage of scripture to read. You may use the Psalm printed above or find something in a book that touches your soul.

Lectio – In lectio we read slowly, attentively, gently listening to hear a word or phrase that is God's word for us this day.

Meditatio – Indentify a word or a passage in the Scriptures that speaks to you in a personal way, take it in and ponder it.

Read the scripture again….

Oratio – Lift up to God in prayer the thoughts and feelings that God’s word has evoked within you.

Read the scripture again….

Contemplatio - Rest in the presence of the One who has used His word as

a means of inviting you to accept His transforming embrace.

We can practice contemplation on objects as well as on text. In fact, just this morning I posted a Richard Rohr quote on FB about becoming "the other." And I likened it to Martin Buber's I-Thou or Thich Nhat Hanh's notion of Interbeing. Here is the quote: 

"When there is the encounter with the other, when there is mutuality, when there is presence, when there is giving and receiving, and both are changed in that encounter, that is the moment when you can begin to move toward transformation." 

- Richard Rohr

The process of lectio divina moves us from conceptual to consensual, from active to receptive, from objective to subjective, from without to within. This is the goal of all spiritual practices.

My you quiet your thinking long enough to receive the rich messages that are waiting for you! 

_/\_Peggy

History adapted from:

1. Opening to God: Lectio Divina and Life as Prayer by David G. Benner, 2010.
2. Christian Spirituality: Themes From the Tradition by Lawrence S. Cunningham, Keith J. Egan, 1996.
3. Meditative Prayer by Richard J. Foster, 1983, Intervarsity Press.
4. Teaching World Civilization with Joy and Enthusiasm by Benjamin Lee Wren, 2004.
5. The Way of Perfection by Teresa of Avila, 2007.
6. Reading to Live: the Evolving Practice of Lectio Divina by Raymond Studzinski, 2010.