In Yoke

 /// from Richard Rohr--our faith is universal--and wholly diverse, and inclusive The Spirit Is for All  Author Lisa Sharon Harper describes the diversity of the early church:  At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit rushed in and caused all those present to speak in languages that were not their own. Each person understood the others…. God established the confusion between languages at the Tower of Babel (see Genesis 11). At Pentecost, God brought the languages together, but not in the way we would imagine. God did not unite the world under one imperial language. Rather, the power of God made it possible to have unity in the midst of diversity. God made it possible for people to speak languages that were not their own and to understand one another.    And in the same way Jesus had broken gender and class barriers, this multiethnic, multilingual group turned its back on misogyny and economic favoritism. Peter [quoting Joel 3:1–2] explained to the crowd why women and slaves wer...

 Richard Rohr--laid out a gem...maybe thematic for 2024-- 1-21-24-CSS   Faith and Resilience       Father Richard defines resilience in the context of the Christian faith: Resilience  is really a secular word for what religion was trying to say with the word  faith.  Even Jesus emphasized faith more than love. Without a certain ability to let go, to trust, to allow, we won’t get to any new place. If we stay with order too long and we’re not resilient enough to allow a certain degree of disorder, we don’t get smarter, we just get rigid. Unfortunately, this is what characterizes so many religious people. They’re not resilient at all. Then there’s another set of people who have settled down in disorder—believing there’s no pattern, there’s nothing always true. It’s a deep cynicism about reality, and that’s equally problematic. I think such faith in both good order and acceptable disorder—creating a new kind of creative reorder—is actually somewhat ra...

The word kahuna , is a an indigenous Hawaiian, or Polynesian description of a being who evolves towards mastery, involving self-mastery.  No shaman or kahuna ever calls themselves a shaman or a kahuna.  It just isn't done.  It has to do with humility, and as we all know, the folks on the other side of the mirror who provide us with these special abilities and the energy with which to help others, they don't regard it highly when you go around calling yourself something. Humility is a key aspect of such a native wise man.

Fr. Rohr spoke to us through the writing of Cynthia Bourgeault. Today is a day which must begin in hope. For as the heavens reach beyond earth and time, we swim in mercy as in an endless sea. —Psalm 103:11 Cynthia Bourgeault explores the idea that mystical hope is something that arises from within us, not as a result of our own effort, but as a fruit of our ability to consciously abide in what she calls “the Mercy” of God. Bourgeault writes: We ourselves are not the source of that [mystical] hope; we do not manufacture it. But the source dwells deep within us and flows to us with an unstinting abundance, so much so that in fact it might be more accurate to say we dwell within it. . . . The term I will use to describe this embodying fullness is “the Mercy.” It is the water in which we swim. Mercy is the length and breadth and height and depth of what we know of God—and the light by which we know it. You might even think of it as the Being of God insofar as we can possibly penetrate into...

  A Sacramental Universe       Richard Rohr shares how Francis responded to the rising tide of “consumer” culture, which Francis’ father was fully engaged in as a wealthy merchant. Such a lesson for contemplatives today. This could be a definition of what it means to be a contemplative, which is to look at reality with much wider eyes than mere usability, functionality, or self-interest—with inherent enjoyment for a thing in itself as itself.                         ...

From Sri Easwaran: "When the senses contact sense objects, a person experiences cold or heat or pain. These experiences are fleeting; they come and go. Bear them patiently. "                      --------- BHAGAVAD GITA The Gita does not say that we should not go after pleasure. When I first heard this from my grandmother, I really took to the Gita immediately; but I wasn’t expecting what she said next: “The Gita doesn’t say not to go after pleasure; it says that when you go after pleasure you are also going after pain.” It is not possible for most of us to accept this. We are always cherishing the distant hope that while no other human being has ever succeeded in isolating pleasure, we are going to perform this miraculous operation and then live in a state of pleasure always. To enter a state of abiding joy we must sometimes say no to pleasure while accepting pain with a smile. Just as we should not pursue pleasure, we should...

 How to Embrace Your Sensitivity and See It as a Strength By Liv W .-- https://www.soulove.us/about Thanks to Liv whose insights struck a nerve with me. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ “Sensitive people feel so deeply they often have to retreat from the world, in order to dig beneath the layers of pain to find their faith and courage.” ~Shannon L. Alder Being a highly sensitive person can be rough in a world full of agendas, processes, rules, and numbers. Feelings and senses, being intangible and invisible, are often dismissed because not everyone experiences them in the same way. The intensity of those experiences varies, as well, depending on the individual, which makes it all the more confusing. Living in a society all about speed and efficiency, feelings can often be perceived as a hindrance to productivity. They are not seen as what they truly are—internal signs and guidance of what needs attention in the present...

"Why study attention? What is the faculty of attention? It could almost be said that a human being is attention. Whatever occupies our attention-whether inwardly or outwardly, whether profound or trivial--is what we are at that moment.  Therefore, if we are attentive only to the outer world, we forfeit our inner life. On the other hand, if we are excessively introverted, we cut ourselves off from the impressions of the outer worlds that could enrich and enliven us. If we attend only to the material world, we sacrifice the spiritual. If we think we can focus exclusively on the spiritual, we might lose ourselves in a world of dreams that never connect with reality. We need not only attention, but balance - balance between the narrow and the wide, and the inner, the material and the spiritual.  Life requires so much of us that none of us can afford to be without our full attention. More often than we know, moments come that will make a difference to the quality of our lives. Th...

Richard Rohr's post this morning is particularly meaningful. Spark of the Divine Friday,  August 7, 2020   Matthew Fox has studied, written, and taught on theology and the mystics for decades. In one of his books on Meister Eckhart, Fox writes: In the soul, Eckhart maintains, there is “something like a spark of divine nature, a divine light, a ray, an imprinted picture of the divine nature.” [1] . . . But we have to make contact with this divine spark by emptying ourselves or letting go. And then we will know the unity that already exists. [2] Indian-born teacher Eknath Easwaran (1910–1999) puts it in similar terms: Life’s real and highest goal . . . [is] to discover this spark of the divine that is in our hearts. . . . When we realize this goal, we discover simultaneously that the divinity within ourselves is one and the same in all—all individuals, all creatures, all of life. [3] Meister Eckhart was frequently criticized by his contemporaries (and still is by some people today) b...

  Change Is Inevitable Sunday,  July 5, 2020   The word   change   normally refers to new beginnings. But the mystery of transformation more often   happens not when something new begins, but when something old falls apart . The pain of something old falling apart—chaos—invites the soul to listen at a deeper level, and sometimes forces the soul to go to a new place. Most of us would never go to new places in any other way. The mystics use many words to describe this chaos: fire, dark night, death, emptiness, abandonment, trial, the Evil One. Whatever it is, it does not feel good and it does not feel like God. We will normally do   anything   to keep the old thing from falling apart, yet this is when we need patience and guidance, and the   freedom to let go   instead of tightening our controls and certitudes. Perhaps Jesus is describing just this phenomenon when he says, “It is a narrow gate and a hard road that leads to ...

From Franciscan Mystic, Fr. Richard Rohr...  Facing Reality Friday, September 13, 2019 To love is to be conscious, and to be fully conscious would mean we are capable of loving. Sin always proceeds from lack of consciousness. Most people are just not aware and not fully living in their own present moment. When Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing” (Luke 23:34), he was absolutely right. Most people are on cruise control, and most of their reactions are habituated responses—not fully conscious choices. We may have moments when we are conscious of our real motivations and actual goals, but it takes years of practice, honesty, and humility to be consistently awake. Whenever we do not love, we are at that moment unconscious. If we consistently choose to defend our imagined state of separateness, then, spiritually speaking, we are unconscious, or in religious language “in sin.” As has often been said, unless we make the unconscious conscious, ...

Darkness and Light Darkness is not dark for you, and night shines as the day. Darkness and light are but one. —Psalm 139:12 Perhaps the most universal way to name the two spiritual traditions of knowing and not-knowing is light and darkness. The formal theological terms are kataphatic or “affirmative” way—employing words, concepts, and images—and apophatic or “negative” way—moving beyond words and ideas into silence and beyond-rational knowing. I believe both ways are good and necessary, and together they create a magnificent form of higher consciousness called biblical faith. The apophatic way, however, has been largely underused, undertaught, and underdeveloped since the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment. In fact, Westerners became ashamed of our “not-knowing” and tried to fight our battles rationally. For several centuries, Christianity in the West has been in a defensive mode, a siege mentality where not-knowing and the mystical tradition are considered too risky....

from "Living Presence"- Kabir Helminski. According to Attar's "Remembrance of the Saints", a group of prominent Sufis were denounced as blasphemous heretics before the Caliph of Baghdad. The Caliph ordered them to appear before him.  Without trial the Caliph ordered these five pious men-Abu Hamza, Raqqam, Shebli, Nuri, and Junaid-- to be immediately slain. The executioner was about to slay Raqqam when Nuri thrust himself fearlessly into Raqqam's place. Laughing with joy, he cried, "Kill me first!" "It's not your turn yet, said the executioner, "and a sword should not be wielded to hastily." "I wish to die first. I prefer my friends to myself. Life is the most precious thing in this world, and I would like to give the last minutes to serving my brothers. I do this even though one moment in the world is dearer to me than a thousand years in the next. For this world is the place of service, while the other world is the pla...

---excerpt from Fr. Richard Rohr, explaining what he believes to be true about the Perennial Tradition. Rami Shapiro illuminates his teaching. Very instructive in my own spiritual and metaphysical understanding. Finding the One in the Many Sunday, August 5, 2018 Over the next several weeks, I will explore the divine image and likeness in many spiritual streams throughout history and around the world. I can’t even attempt to give an exhaustive study—there are so many wonderful examples from the Perennial Tradition. I’ll simply focus on the religious expressions which have most influenced and broadened my own life. The Jewish mystical teacher Rabbi Rami Shapiro writes: To me, religions are like languages: no language is true or false; all languages are of human origin; each language reflects and shapes the civilization that speaks it; there are things you can say in one language that you cannot say as well in another; and the more languages you speak, the more nuanced your under...

A human being fashions his consequences as surely as he fashions his goods or his dwelling. Nothing that he says, thinks, or does is without consequences.                                                                          – Norman Cousins Galatians 6:7-9 (KJV) "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.  And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." This Judeo-Christian scriptural truth, illustrated by the concept of photosynthesis and growth of vegetation from the Letter to the Galatians, by the founder of Christianity, Saul of Tarsus, nee "Paul", is also...

Be my mirror, able to sort out the thoughts and intentions of my own sullied and sinful heart. Please Lord Christ, liberate me from my own self. By your spirit, help me not to evaluate, judge, or act. Help me to be nothing, so that I may receive something. Save me, Lord, from my own tyrannical ego, my own self, my own tyrannical ego/self -From my own judgments -from my own opinions -from my own feelings about everything, about anything Through your Spirit - enable me to allow your love to guide and control my seemingly always undisciplined emotions. May my own tyrannical emotions, and ego, my own self, may it die.  Like the mystics say, may I “die before I die”.   So that my life and my motives may be “born again”. May my personhood and my “personality” be in direct continuity with your life, your love, your “mind”. For I am created in Your Image.  Who “I am” is a further breathing forth of the eternal and perfect “I AM WHO I A...

God has given us a dark wine so potent that, 
drinking it, we leave the two worlds. God has put into the form of hashish a power
 to deliver the taster from self-consciousness. God has made sleep so 
that it erases every thought. God made Majnun love Layla so much that
 just her dog would cause confusion in him. There are thousands of wines 
that can take over our minds. Don't think all ecstacies
 are the same!
 Jesus was lost in his love for God.
 His donkey was drunk with barley. Drink from the presence of saints,
 not from those other jars. Every object, every being,
 is a jar full of delight. Be a connoisseur,
 and taste with caution. Any wine will get you high.
 Judge like a king, and choose the purest, the ones unadulterated with fear,
 or some urgency about "what's needed." Drink the wine that moves you 
as a camel moves when it's been untied, and is just ambling about. ---------------Mathnawi IV, 2683-96
The Essential Rumi, Coleman Bark...

Living in Wisdom The Bhagavad Gita Passages for Meditation Arjuna : Tell me of those who live in wisdom, Ever aware of the Self, O Krishna; How do they talk, how sit, how move about? Sri Krishna: They live in wisdom Who see themselves in all and all in them, Whose love for the Lord of Love has consumed Every selfish desire and sense craving Tormenting the heart. Not agitated By grief or hankering after pleasure, They live free from lust and fear and anger. Fettered no more by selfish attachments, They are not elated by good fortune Nor depressed by bad. Such are the seers. Even as a tortoise draws in its limbs, The wise can draw in their senses at will. Aspirants abstain from sense pleasures, But they still crave for them. These cravings all Disappear when they see the Lord of Love. For even of those who tread the path, The stormy senses can sweep off the mind. But they live in wisdom who subdue them And keep their minds ever absorbed in me. Whe...

  Fr. Richard Rohr expresses the almost indescribable meaning of "The Christ". It is Universal. I resonate with his insight into how he views the second coming of Christ. Fr. Rohr:   Christ is the radiant light of God’s glory and the perfect copy of God’s nature, sustaining the universe by God’s powerful command.  —Hebrews 1:3, Jerusalem Bible Christ is not Jesus’ last name. The word  Christ  is a title, meaning the Anointed One, which we so consistently applied to Jesus that to us it became like a name. But a study of Scripture, Tradition, and the experience of many mystics reveals a much larger, broader, and deeper meaning to “the Christ.”  Frankly, it is a metaphysical concept more than a religious one, although almost all people today would see it as a religious name for Jesus. The above passage from Hebrews says that Christ “sustains the universe.” Christ is a religious concept because it can be used to describe rea...

I must confess a "grandfather like" sense of presence in the Spirit this morning. Because of the miraculous messaging system that is Facebook, I can more ably sense more accurately what I have felt after having been able to be mobile and agile for the past three years.  For those of you who have known me for years, you may not have realized that for about 9 years, I was blessed( along with Leslie) to have served as a college parent/small group docent at Calvary Baptist Church in Waco, most of the time in the Camelot period when Julie PR was pastor.(1998-2007-and then intermittently on to 2009).  I was also being taught by my spiritual director, Burt Burleson, about the wider scope of the Spirit’s progressive voice. During this period of time, I was "the college minister" to so many individuals. The people I was blessed to have met during this time where little Baylor Bear “cubs”—college students, who were drawn to this community because of the compelling ...