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Almost all the great teachers say something to this effect: “Do not judge.”
But great teachers aren’t asking us to turn off our common sense and our rational minds; they are pointing to something deeper.
The great teachers are saying that you cannot start seeing or understanding anything if you start with “No.”
Richard Rohr, in The Naked Now
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We must be first open to life. For life is the gift we receive and we are (everyone one of us) recipients of life.
Life teaches. Life is the pre-eminent teacher. To live life is to start with “Yes.” “Yes” affirms life and the gift and Give-Giver and our basic shared identity as human beings … sacred vessels.
It has been said that one only knows what one has first loved. It is in the “Yes” to life itself that allows us to see, and know, and grow, understand and experience more fully. The “Yes” avows that in receiving life, we love life and the Gift-Giver.
Absent “Yes” one tracks to divide, distort and isolate. The need to hide or control, deceive and argue soon flourishes when the fundamental “Yes” is denied, ignored.
Absent the primary “Yes,” as Rohr reminds, we are confinded to the shallows of fickled infatuation (from the Latin meaning “false fire”) not the indispensible breath of Love.
You see nothing can be known in its proper form without that First “Yes.”
The “First Yes” brings us to the fullness of human experience – life itself, our True Self, others, The Gift and The Gift Giver.
Shalom.
” … today … nothing in the world is more distasteful to a man than to take the path that leads to himself.”
Herman Hesse
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Yesterday I saw this fellow Beto O’Rouke on a midday T.V. show called The View. It was actually remarkable because it was so pathetic.
Here was a youngish looking man offering all sorts of self-hating criticisms to three overweight, unattractive women – two of whom are far past their prime. It was a dark and disturbed, inane act of confession. Confession about skin pigment (being White), gender (being Male), affluence (being the Son-in-Law of a man who is a wealthy Texan) and simply being Beto.
It is strange to see self-hatred or self-loathing but there is a fair amount of it among today’s liberals. Indeed, it seems to be a dreadful by-product of present day Leftism with their template of “identity” politics – and especially prevalent among Democrats vieing to become President.
It is, of course, self-loathing … and as such – utterly unhealthy. And, who, by God, would ever imagine that anyone would want someone with so such self-hated to lead a nation?
It appears the liberals have doubled-down on Mr. Obama’s nation-hopping “apology” tour that marked his early presidency. No one, by the way, attaches admiration to a head of state whose instinct is to grovel.
This strange liberal instinct of self-loathing brings to mind Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution whereby in the midst of Mao failed economics he unleashed hoards of young brain-washed Marxists to corner individuals and extract from them public “confessions” for their real or imagined “betrayals” of the State. Yes, the subjects were randomly selected for their “hatred of socialism” vintage Mao.
Some of those cornered were too “bourgeois.” Others were deemed to have courted “evil habits” of yesterday.
The Cultural Revolution is said to have resulted in 2 million dead, maybe more. The take-away is this: Mao understood that a fearful populace composed of people who carry self-guilt in order to avoid harsh treatment, imprisonment, exile or death is easier to control.
Yes, it is alarming to see people on the Left evoking such self-loathing as young Mr. O’Rouke willing presented for all to see. It is even more concerning that a political party seems to promote this sort of thing, expect it.
Cultures that separate from faith lead us to such states as self-hated. Those who display this are in no position to lead. A society were such illness is present had best rectify its disposition lest it decay and die a chaotic death.
Shalom.
The life of the spirit is not your life, but the life of God within us.
St. Teresa of Availa, in Life Written by Herself
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Spirirual growth is aided significantly when we allow questions to arise in us. What might that mean?
When something happens to us that we cannot quite understand, or when we experience something that is puzzling, even hurtful or disorienting – or something quite suprising and quite unexpected, it is good to pause and spend time asking yourself – what just happened? Ask – why did that happen and what does it mean or what does it tell or teach me about life, others, interactions, me and the nature and history of my personal journey and the themes that have thus far emerged in my life?
In becoming familiar with your spiritual journey, you become familiar with yourself, your potential, your present personal settings as they orient you (most likely) partially to what is within you, what is your whole and presently unlived story. And more to the point, in this questioning, you become wiser, more secure and find a relationship with God – your Creator.
Our journey is not so much about complete comprehension as it is about mystery – allowing the presence of mystery, and gaining stability in knowing not all things, but rather that – in growing in Spirit we need not know all things but only that all things are possible, even the things that we least expect and cannot predict. In this state, we depart from the common installation of those things that are not certain – our identity in politics, career, education, title, wealth, status, political party, ideology, possessions, habits, gender, sexuality “identity,” etc.
Remember as to the Spirit and spiritual development – we do not and cannot unilaterally craft a life; to attempt to do so is bound to lead to frustration, chaos, unhappiness and failure.
In parting, I remind you of Mother Mary: “[Mary] was deeply disturbed [by the words of the angel] and wondered what they might mean. Luke: 1:29 (Emphasis added.)
Ask questions. Aim them particularly at yourself. In this, you grow in the Spirit and peace, understanding and wisdom emerge.
Shalom.
Mother is the name of God in the lips and hearts of little children.
William Makepeace Thackray
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Is there really anything more important one could do than be a Mother? I highly doubt it.
When you pose this question you realize that those blessed to be women who focus on something “more” have perhaps forgotten how extraordinary is their blessing, their sacred election to be givers and bearers of life.
Honestly, where would we be if their were no Mothers? Yes, nowhere – we would NOT exist.
So great is this reality that we often forget all the unique gifts women have – none of which exceed what is supplied them by their capacity to carry life within and govern the development of their children and their family.
Life depends on Mothers. How greatly we have been blessed. Would it not be a most remarkable day when we cherished Motherhood and held it up as the single most important role in human existence.
Happy Mother’s Day!
Shalom.
“The devout Christian of the future will either be a ‘mystic’ … or he will cease to be anything at all.”
Karl Rahner
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Have you ever asked yourself how Jesus might have experienced life, and faith, and His relationship with The Father?
Our life is more a question of fully experiencing the human and hence divine experience of being a human being than anything else.
Yes, our completion and fullness relies on the full experience of human experience for in that our gift is made for completion – for a joining of mortal and immortal reality.
We are made to know fully – from Aplha to Omega. In this we enter the Mystery. There is: Truth, identity and relationship with God and all others, all things. Therein is contentment, peace, traquility and the absence of fear and doubt, and uncertainty, anger and hostility. Therein is love – the all surpassing love that is of God, that is God.
But alas, we do not see and opt to divide one from another. The lesser among us divide so as to control, claim authority, impose narrow views that they alone conjure up or acquire from some favortite figure whose wandering defied God. Marx comes to mind.
In lesser “gods” is foolishness, conflict, ignorance and illness.
The land is littered with those who foolishly chose ideology over God and doing so they close the mind and heart, and alter all opportunity for wisdom, faith, tranquility, peace, truth, compassion, humility, understanding, the experience of human experience – and the transcendence that is available to all.
Yes, we are an odd lot – given fullness, we seek division and hostility.
It is far better to know how to know than be told what to know. It is far better to know how to see than be told what to see. This is the difference between the curse of ideologues and Christ, between the rote “believer,” and one who believes because he sees and knows from the experience God in the experience of human experience.
When we settle into division – the proclaimation of “me,” “me vs. them,” “us vs. the others” we are the antithesis of fullness in being, we are less than we are made to be, blinded not sighted. You see we are of the Whole, nothing less.
Shalom.
After trips and computer problems, we are back to a more regaular schedule. Writing in the morning. Here we go.
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Man without God is no longer man.
Nicholas Berdyaev, in The End of Our Time
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I write about faith and culture – secular culture in particular, that is: culture hostile to God, culture that “glorifies” not God but man himself and herself.
Our nation was founded on liberty that relies on belief in God and the honor that accrues to those who realize that they have a sacred relationship with their Creator. As Berdyaev says so simply and accurately: “Man without God is not man.”
The relationship between God, and belief, liberty and the human person is vital to our success, freedom and security. Yet, alas we see the Democrat Party of the Left acting in opposition to our wellbeing because they do not appreciate and protect our legacy of God-belief-liberty-freedom-success-security.
What we see today in the lawlessness of Congressman Nadler’s attempt to discredit a good man and excellent lawyer in Attorney General William Barr as is expected. “Expected” you say? Yes, we have seen this Democrat disregard for law as the product of godlessness and its predictable by-products: chaos and destruction.
For those who question this characterization of the Democrats – I sight an article by Charles Krauthammer in The Washington Post from August 16, 2013 (when it used to be a relatively serious and somewhat reliable newspaper). The article was entitled “The Lawless Presidency” aimed at Barack Obama and his lawless actions – actions that discredit the U.S. Constitution and show us man shrunken to miniture when he acts without God.
Doctor Krauthammer reports the following – Mr. Obama’s Justice Department unilaterally deviated from federal drug laws so as not to punish otherwise punishable crimes. Likewise, the Obama administration waived portions of the dubious Obamacare law without any provison of the law allowing this. He personally directed a “70-plus-percent subsidy for insurance premiums paid by congressman and their personal staffs – under a law that denies subsidies for anyone that well off.” Likewise he lawlessly suspended a cornerstone of Obamacare “the employer mandate.”
Krauthhammer further reveals that Mr. Obama granted exemptions from the law to preferred businesses, unions, and “other well-lobbied, very special interests.” Krauthammer also reports Mr. Obama unilaterally eased immigration law and exceeded his authority and gutted the legislative process in doing so.
The point to be made is this: Mr. Obama (a man of no particular achievement or work record) acted unilaterally – acted far outside his lawful authority – and no one protested and no one stopped him. Congressman Nadler is proceeding in the same manner.
So we come to this: man unrestained and without God is far less than man and the problems he creates are utterly destructive. A moderately faithful man would know this – alas this is the Democrat Party of the Left today. No God, no man.
Today Democrats are a lawless and destructive cohort. Our silence and acquiesence will be our demise.
As Doctor Krauthammer notes acts such as we saw with Mr. Obama (and like we see with the Democrats today) are “banana republic stuff.”
Shalom.
… it is difficult for churches, government, and leaders to move beyond ego, the desire for control, and public posturing. Everything divides into oppositions … vested interests pulling against one another. Truth is no longer possible at this level of conversation.
… you can lead people only as far as you yourself have gone …
Richard Rohr, in The Naked Now
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Richard Rohr writes of two monks of the 11th and 12th century – Hugh of St. Victor monastery in Paris, France, and Richard of the same monastery. He tells us that these monks wrote that humans have been given three different ways of seeing. One way arises from the eyes that produce thoughts. The second way of seeing leads to reason, and to reflection and meditation. The third way of seeing leads to true understanding and contemplation.
It is the third way of seeing that is the rarest and most evolved. Whereas the first way of seeing is common, it produces little depth of experience, is more concrete and binds one to the immediate without nuance. The second way of seeing allows one to relish his or her power to conceive of the material disposition of the world. Ah, but the third way of seeing allows one to do more – it allows one to “taste” existence, to be in awe before the underlying mystery, coherence, and spaciousness that connects one with everything!
The third way of seeing is seeing as a mystic sees – seeing as God has designed us to see. This seeing exceeds the senses, does not rest on knowledge and intellect alone – but rather sees in a manner that expands his or her consciousness – and in this is transformed, made whole, lives in and above at the same time, is mortal and immortal, contented, whole and wise in ways that neither the senses nor intellect can offer.
In commenting on this Rohr says “I cannot emphasize strongly enough that the separation and loss of these three necessary eyes is at the basis of much of the short-sight-edness and religious crises in the Western world.” Hence the above quote that leads into today’s blog.
The view that Rohr shares, Dear Friends, highlights how and why “identity politics” is so destructive, so wrong-headed, so primitive, tribal, hostile, aggressive, hateful and unappetizing. Those with greater depth of human experience cannot abide that which pits one against another in a death struggle. We are, after all, not made to be enemies to one another but rather brothers and sisters to one another.
This historic moment requires us to see as the mystic sees.
Shalom.
Life demands for its completion and fulfillment a balance between joy and sorrow. But because suffering is … disagreeable, people naturally prefer not to ponder how much fear and sorrow fall to the lot of man. So they speak … about progress and the greatest possible happiness, forgetting happiness … is poisoned if the measure of suffering has not been fulfilled.
Carl Jung, M.D., in Psychotherapy and a Philosophy of Life (Collected Works, Vol. 16)
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Where are the adults and wisdom figures today? Not in politics. Not in higher education. Not in media. Not in journalism. Not in public life. Not in the law. Surely not in the established bureaucracies of the government. And most assuredly not in entertainment. Not among the Leftists and the whining ideologues, nor among the “professional” advocacy class and the liberals on television or the products of “identity politics.”
Nope, we are short of mature, wise adults.
In large measure this is due to having few people with honestly examined lives. Few who are familiar with human psychology, philosophy, the history of Western Civilization or history itself, few familiar with the Classics of literature, and fewer still who are spiritually developed and hence engaged in faith and guided by a religious narrative.
Super-power notwithstanding, a nation does not survive that is not populated with those who are broadly educated and are humbled by a life in which both joy and sorrow have been experienced.
When I look at the assembled collection of Democrat presidential aspirants I think only of this – “what a motley crew!” Not a one to whom I’d feel comfortable giving a sharpened pencil. Likewise, I prefer not to give attention to anyone in journalism – such is the state of that enterprise today.
So where does this leave one? To the task of independent self-education – becoming familiar with a range of disciplines that instruct as to the collected understanding of the human person for good and ill. And from this base – to the individual life lived to experience and know both joy and sorrow … which renders us sober, grateful, insightful, steady, humble, wise, courageous, faithful and joy-filled.
Alas the miss-mash we see in the nonsense of a secular society stripped of wisdom and insight ought to call us back to common sense, more silence than chatter, and quiet application of life dedicated to proper education and conduct now simply honored in their abandonment.
Shalom.
Spirlaw 