I wanted to take a minute today to share a resource some of you might find useful in your spiritual path: Richard Rohr's Mediations from Center for Action and Contemplation. Signing up is free, and you have a choice in receiving meditations on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. You can sign up here. Two sample mediations (one from today and a weekly summary from the week of January 4 through 10) follow:
Blessed be,
Joel
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God Creates Things that Create Themselves
Monday, January 26, 2015
In Romans 8:22, Paul says, "From the beginning until now, the entire creation as we know it has been groaning in one great act of giving birth." That is a very feminine notion of creation, giving birth slowly through labor pains. It complements Genesis' masculine statement: "Let there be light!" (1:3). Just this one line from Paul should be enough to justify a Christian belief in evolution. Yet to this day, the issue of evolution still divides some Christians, questioning what is rather obvious: that God creates things that create themselves. Wouldn't this be the greatest way that God could create--to give autonomy, freedom, and grace to things to keep self-creating even further? (Non-creative minds tend to not see or allow creativity anywhere else. In fact, that is what makes them so uncreative!)
Healthy parents love their children so much that they want them to keep growing, producing, and performing to their highest potential. Good parents are even excited when their children surpass them, as my uneducated farmer parents were when I went off to higher studies. Mature parents are generative about their children and say, in my paraphrase of Jesus' words: "Don't get too excited about the things that we did. You're going to do even greater things!" (John14:12). Immature parents only see their children as images and extensions of themselves. True love empowers and delights in the even larger and independent successes of those they love. (It is often would-be successful sons who are most resented and abused by jealous and weak fathers.)
For a long time most people were satisfied with a very static universe. Yet Jesus understands reality as dynamic and evolutionary. Clearly there is an unfolding to the universe (we are literally still expanding!). Reality is going somewhere. It's moving, until "In the end there will only be Christ. He is everything and he is in everything" (Colossians 3:11). The One > Multiplicity > Conscious Unity seems to be the underlying pattern. Paul sees history as an ongoing process of ever greater inclusion of every lesser force until in the end, "God will be all in all" (1 Corinthians15:28). The notion of the Cosmic Christ is precisely "the One" reality that includes everything and excludes nothing. As St. Bonaventure put it, "God is the One whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere."
Adapted from Christ, Cosmology, and Consciousness (MP3 download);
and A New Cosmology: Nature as the First Bible, disc 2 (CD, MP3 download)
Copyright © 2015 Center for Action and Contemplation
cac.org
Center for Action and Contemplation | 1823 Five Points Rd. SW (phys) | PO Box 12464 (mailing) |Albuquerque | NM | 87195
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The Wisdom Tradition
Summary
Sunday, January 4 - Saturday, January 10, 2015
What I teach is true not because "Richard Rohr says so." This wisdom is grounded in the unchanging yet ever fresh and relevant themes of a mature spirituality. (Sunday)
Unity is the reconciliation of differences, and those differences must be maintained--and yet overcome! You must actually distinguish things and separate them before you can spiritually unite them. (Monday)
"The real Source of Wisdom lies in a higher or more vivid realm of divine consciousness that is neither behind us nor ahead of us but always surrounding us." -Cynthia Bourgeault (Tuesday)
All that a true spiritual teacher really does is "second the motions" of the primal and ever present Holy Spirit. (Wednesday)
An alternative orthodoxy is never stingy with grace or inclusion because it has surrendered to a God who is infinitely magnanimous and creative in the ways of love and mercy. (Thursday)
"Through the practice of deep looking and deep listening, we become free, able to see the beauty and values in our own and others' traditions." -Thich Nhat Hanh (Friday)
Practice
Audio and Lectio Divina
Audio Divina
Listen to this passage read from The Book of Wisdom, accompanied by flute, marimba, and keyboard. You might follow the same steps as described below for lectio divina. Click here to listen. ("Meditations on Wisdom," Transformations, by Matthew Pennington and John Pennington; used with permission.)
Lectio Divina
With the first reading, listen with your heart's ear for a phrase or word that stands out for you. During the second reading, reflect on what touches you, perhaps speaking that response aloud or writing in a journal. Third, respond with a prayer or expression of what you have experienced and what it calls you to. Fourth, rest in silence after the reading.
And now I understand everything, hidden or visible,
for Wisdom, the designer of all things, has instructed me.
For within her is a spirit intelligent, holy,
unique, manifold, subtle,
mobile, incisive, unsullied,
lucid, invulnerable, benevolent, shrewd,
irresistible, beneficent, friendly to human beings,
steadfast, dependable, unperturbed,
almighty, all-surveying,
penetrating all intelligent, pure and most subtle spirits.
For Wisdom is quicker to move than any motion;
she is so pure, she pervades and permeates all things.
She is a breath of the power of God,
pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty;
so nothing impure can find its way into her.
For she is a reflection of the eternal light,
untarnished mirror of God's active power,
and image of his goodness.
Although she is alone, she can do everything;
herself unchanging, she renews the world,
and, generation after generation, passing into holy souls,
she makes them into God's friends and prophets;
for God loves only those who dwell with Wisdom.
She is indeed more splendid than the sun,
she outshines all the constellations;
compared with light, she takes first place,
for light must yield to night,
but against Wisdom evil cannot prevail.
- The Book of Wisdom 7:21-30 (The New Jerusalem Bible)
Gateway to Silence
Wisdom pervades and penetrates all things.
For Further Study
Things Hidden: Scripture As Spirituality
"The Perennial Tradition," Oneing, Vol. 1 No. 1
Copyright © 2014 Center for Action and Contemplation
cac.org
Center for Action and Contemplation | 1823 Five Points Rd. SW (phys) | PO Box 12464 (mailing) |Albuquerque | NM | 87195
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