A space in time to assess this life

Today-January 14, 2010- I depart my day to day routines, my home, my family, my work, my church, my hometown, and leave for a 3 day “retreat”. I am grateful to Leslie for this giving me the space, and freedom from the day to day responsibilities, to do this.

This retreat is of a somewhat spiritual nature, especially if one relates truth, reality, and life’s values as spiritual. ( and I do)…

My desire for the next three days of retreat is to come to grips with the present malaise, and seek to grasp the meaning of the past ten year period, and hopefully construct an aim for the next decade, all in the perceived will of the Source of Life- aka God.

Raimon Panikkar, in his short book, called Experience of God: Icons of the Mystery, begins to explore the ground of knowledge that I possibly am called to explore at this juncture of my life experience... what meaning or significance my life has, and must have, must be filtered through and weighed- in light of the indwelling, omnipresent One, and its expression in the cosmic Christ.

I have found this book, written by a Christian-Hindu Indian professor/mystic, to be of immense value. He is ‘spot on’ regarding how we in the West have come to misintepret and by our practice, literally disregard the core teachings of the life path taken by the historical person Jesus, of Nazareth/Bethlehem, who through this intentional life path, became the Christ. It is His wisdom path, this practice of life manifested in his teachings, and the analogy that his life represents, that endures, and actually “lives”, eternally.

I am convinced of the aim of Paul_

that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed unto his death

This is the exploration of reality that I believe I am given the opportunity to be seeking at this juncture of my life experience.

Panikkar explores three New Testament texts, which he says give expression to the de-Hellenization, and de-Hebraization of the universal Christian belief system.

(I have been interested for many years now on redirecting my personal beliefs and faith upon the Cosmic Christ, and not on the culturally tinged Jesus of the post Constantine/Catholic/Baptist/Texan western cultural traditions in which I was raised, many of which I have generally rejected.)

Panikkar uses three texts to seek to explain “God” from a truly Christian perspective, using two excerpts from the Apostle Paul(Acts 17:28), and (I Cor. 15:28) , and one from the Apostle John(John 1:18).

On the retreat I am departing for today, I will ponder these three texts.

  • In ipso enim vivimus, et movemur, et sumus - “It is in him that we have life, and move, and exist”
  • Deum nemo vidit umquam - “No one has ever seen God”
  • Ut sit Deus omnia in omnibus – “So that God may be all in all”

This promises to be illuminating.

 

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