Journey Reflection

Sunday Dialogue CXIII

2008-07-27T00:01:00.000-04:00

Journer: Which peoples claim to be the chosen these days?

Nez: My student* said, “Every people is a chosen people in its own mind.”

Journer: Is that a good thing?

Nez: Yes, if we all believe ALL are chosen.

_____
* Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth, p. 105 image: "Wellcome" http://tinyurl.com/

Looking for Me?

2008-07-26T00:01:00.004-04:00

... you will not find me ... in Indian shrine rooms,

nor in synagogues, nor in cathedrals....

When you really look for me, you will see me
instantly....

[I am] the breath inside the breath.

~Kabir, from “Are you Looking for Me?” The Kabir Book, p. 33 (adapted)

Kabir was a religious reformer of India’s religions [15th century], yet he was still religious, even sainted. Are you in tune with religion, out to reform religion, or indifferent to religion? ~jpc

Doesn’t matter, says spirit, “If you're looking for me, I’m present, instantly.” Namaste.

_____

image: In Praise of African Spirits Series, The Art of Dr. Yasmin Sayyed

Great Faith

2008-07-25T00:01:00.004-04:00

[W]hat is most vitally necessary to the thinking earth is a faith – and a great faith – and ever more faith ... that if we are not to perish smothered in the very stuff of our being, is what we must at all costs secure. And it is there that we find what I may well be so bold as to call the evolutionary role of religions. ~Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Activation of Energy, p. 238

What is smothering us? A planetary anxiety due to natural and human-caused crises. What will save us? Teilhard says a great faith. ~jpc

Religions, pick up your evolutionary role. Namaste.

Virgin Born

2008-07-24T00:01:00.002-04:00

St. John demythologizes “virgin birth”: we are all born of a virgin, all children of the spirit. Let us deliteralize the scriptures and live their message of truth. ~jpc, Our Universal Spirit Journey, p. 228

How do I know? Often it comes to me that I am ... good, whole, accepted, loved, forgiven, and perfect just as I am – one in a zillion – as seen through spirit’s lens. ~jpc

Eternally thankful to be spirit’s child. Namaste.

image: "Birth of Venus," Sandro Botticelli

Extra Reflection: "Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth" http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080722.html
credit: Matt Harding & Melissa Nixon (via Diann McCabe) .
Try to keep from smiling deeply.

To Contact the Divine

2008-07-23T00:01:00.000-04:00

The spiritual formation of humans in the third millennium will undoubtedly include ... an immersion into the deep creative powers of the universe ... [as] the most direct contact a human can have of the divine. ~Brian Swimme, Foreward to Teilhard de Chardin’s The Human Phenomenon, p. xv

This assumes that the divine is in our midst, at the heart of “the deep creative powers of the universe.” ~jpc

Go deep: breathe, look, listen, feel, decide, and love deeply. Namaste.

image: view from Argyll Hotel Iona http://tinyurl.com/69utvr

Joy to Be a Child

2008-07-22T00:01:00.000-04:00

We believe that a child’s true nature is to be free, have freedom, and not to be tied to a schedule, a seat, a classroom, a building – especially when there is so much outside to learn and explore. Especially through to age seven. Why should a child have to sit still and be quiet? It’s a joy to be a child with all that energy, wonder, curiosity! ~www.thoughtoffering.blogs.com/ice_seeds/

I believe this, yet I also believe that freedom is not just about spontaneity. ~jpc

What think ye? Namaste.

image http://tinyurl.com/5lgsak

"Ecumenical"

2008-07-21T00:01:00.000-04:00

Along with his ecumenical heritage (African-American, Thai and Chinese with strains of Caucasian and American Indian), [Tiger] Woods brought a gift for drama and a prodigious talent. ~Chip Brown, “It’s Good to Be Immortal,” nytimes.com, 6/1/08

This sportswriter got it right: “ecumenical” is not a religious word per se. It has an Earth-centered meaning, from the Greek, to care for the big house and all its inhabitants. ~jpc

Plenty of room to grow ecumenically. Namaste.

image dlibrary.acu.edu.au/.../aejt_4/farid.htm

Daily Spirit Journal, vol. IV

2008-07-20T11:34:00.010-04:00

Daily Spirit Journal, vol. IV, is published and being shipped to individuals and bookstores. Back cover description:
Quotes & Reflections for 365 Days
These reflections honor and yet transcend traditional religious and secular articulation. They bow to creation . . . and spirit at its heart. The broad spectrum of quotes, from Lao Tzu to D.H. Lawrence to Paul Tillich to Rachel Carson to Ken Wilber to the author, intends to make the reader’s spirit journey more conscious. During each one-minute reflection, expect deep nourishment for the day. ~compiled by John P. Cock with his reflections

His eleven books include a spirit journey novel, memoir, book of poems, and musings on spirituality, care of the earth, theology, cosmology, and vocation.

US $11.95: order at tranScribebooks@triad.rr.com ($10.75 till 7/31/08 + $3 s/h in US); read about at www.tranScribebooks.com

Sunday Dialogue CXII

2008-07-20T00:01:00.001-04:00

Journer: How do you define God?

Nez: My student* said, “God retreats in the face of definition.”

Journer: What about when you call his ... or her ... or its name?

Nez: Just as the Hebrews would not even pronounce the name “God,” I fudge with the finger quotes when I speak the word, and I write it in italics or within quote marks.
______
* John Bowker, The Sense of God, p. 115 . . . image: tapestry Noah Li-Leger
______
We celebrate the journey of Kay Townley with those at her memorial service this day. She journeys on, as do we all, from everlasting to everlasting, in spirit's way of grace and peace. Namaste.

In Sleepy Land

2008-07-19T00:01:00.000-04:00

The hero’s journey always begins with the call. . . . [A] guide must come to say, “Look, you’re in Sleepy Land. Wake. Come on a trip.... So you’re at home here? Well, there’s not enough of you there.” ~A Joseph Campbell Companion, p. 77

The profound journey is a dialogue between guide – person or event – and journer. We can name those seminal moments as well as the ongoing wakeup calls. ~jpc

Sleep is not our calling. Namaste.

image www.gregschwartz.net/gallery2/main.php?g2_vie...

Communion

2008-07-18T00:01:00.000-04:00

Nothing on Earth was a mere “thing.” Every being had its own divine, numinous, subjectivity, its self, its center, its unique identity. Every being was a presence to every other being. ~Thomas Berry, “The Spirituality of Earth,” Riverdale Papers

Berry was spinning on communion that was the “primitive genius of humans. For in earlier years humans experienced both the intimacy and the destiny of their relation with Earth.” ~jpc

Communion is our essential nature. Namaste.

image: lunarcelt ancient wisdoms of the druids and bards www.earthwise.org.au/celtica.html

USA 10-Year Plan

2008-07-17T08:27:00.005-04:00

July 16th post of "Other Arrangements" re to energy and global warming is considered for the USA in this T. Boone Pickens plan (5-minute video clip at http://www.pickensplan.com/) via LLC

Truth

2008-07-17T00:01:00.000-04:00

... “Truth,” said a traveller,
“Is a breath, a wind,
A shadow, a phantom;
Long have I pursued it,
But never have I touched
The hem of its garment.” ...

~Stephen Crane, from “XXVIII,” Crane: Prose and Poetry, p. 1308

Is our reason for being to find the truth or to live out the truth we’ve found? ~jpc

Namaste.

image: "Truth Emerged," monoprint by Andrea Fono www.fonoart.com/trees.html

Other Arrangements

2008-07-16T00:01:00.002-04:00

[We have the] desperate wish to keep our “Happy Motoring” utopia running by means other than oil and its byproducts. But the truth is that no combination of solar, wind and nuclear power, ethanol, biodiesel, tar sands and used French-fry oil will allow us to power . . . future [motoring]. We have to make other arrangements. ~James Howard Kunstler, “Wake Up, America. We’re Driving Toward Disaster,” washingtonpost.com, 5/25/08, via JPC II

Winning planning is never built on illusion. ~jpc

Illusion or reality? Namaste.

image http://tinyurl.com/43gggd

The Moment

2008-07-14T00:01:00.004-04:00

[W]e have here assumed a new organ: Faith; a new presupposition: the consciousness of Sin; a new decision: the Moment; and a new Teacher: the God in Time. ~Kierkegaard’s summary of Philosophical Fragments (chp. 5) http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=2512&C=2384 (link to this and four complete SK books)

Throughout the five chapters, Kierkegaard spins on “the Moment” as when the eternal trembles our consciousness and demands an “either/or” decision. It is a profound moment when spirit is real. ~jpc

The transforming moment awaits my “Yes” of faith. Namaste.

_____

image: sculpture by Light Waves at the "Ebuddy Battle Rezzable" http://tinyurl.com/6k8krj

Power of Connectivity

2008-07-14T00:01:00.000-04:00

David Singh Grewal writes: “Everything is being globalized except politics.... We live in a world in which our relations of sociability – our commerce, culture, ideas, manners – are increasingly shared, coordinated by newly global conversations in these domains, but in which our politics remains inescapably ... centered in the nation states.” ~Roger Cohen, op-ed, nytimes.com, 5/26/08

Sociability exists on the power of connectivity, not the power of divide, compete, and conquer. ~jpc

We exist for union. Namaste.

image: "Castle Dreams" in sand http://www.harrisand.org/2003_gallery/castle_dreams.jpg

Sunday Dialogue CXI

2008-07-13T00:01:00.000-04:00

Journer: What is true love?

Nez: My student* said, “True love is an acceptance of all that is, has been, will be ... and will not be.”

Journer: That doesn’t sound very passionate.

Nez: Passion is what you bring to it, Journer.

______
* anonymous
image: "The Enamoured" by Marc Chagall, http://www.art.com/

You Still Eat Meat?

2008-07-12T00:01:00.001-04:00

Americans and Europeans eat meat because we want to, not because we have to. And we do it at the expense of animals, people and the environment [and our own health and life-span]. We would do well to consider a dietary change. ~Kathy Freston, “You Call Yourself a Progressive – But You Still Eat Meat?” 3/14/07 http://tinyurl.com/5gwsfo via Jim Rippey

I used to think going vegetarian was a personal thing. Even though we’ve sworn off red meat, pretty much, we’ll die remiss in our ... let’s call it “CRQ” (comprehensive responsibility quotient). ~jpc

CRQ keeps after us. Namaste.

image www.dilbert.com

The Biggest Story

2008-07-11T00:01:00.000-04:00

Any journalist worth his or her salt knows the real story is to define what it means to be spiritual. This is the biggest story – not only of the decade but of the century. ~Bill Moyers, quoted in Sam Keen’s Hymns to an Unknown God, p. xv

“What it means to be spiritual” is more and more being interpreted by economic, political, and cultural interests in society. Reason: there’s nothing without spirituality. Better said, spirituality – or its defilement – is at the heart of everything. ~jpc

The biggest story of life. Namaste.

image: the text says, "NBC.com ... GO GREEN ... green is universal"

Passion for Justice

2008-07-10T00:01:00.000-04:00

When young people have to leave the church to pursue social justice, as I did as a teenager, it is a tragedy. But when their passion for justice can reenergize the life of the church, it is a blessing. ~Jim Wallis, The Great Awakening, p. 60, via Karen Bueno

Let the justice dialogue go on in religious groups, even if it is controversial. I can’t imagine Jesus, for example, would have chased such out of the temple. ~jpc

But let us deeply bow to each other as we dialogue. Namaste.

image http://ali1k.wordpress.com/

Blows as It Will

2008-07-09T00:01:00.001-04:00

Donald Bloesch maintains that “Understanding happens when God’s Word speaks to us anew as we submit ourselves to his authority and direction mediated through Scripture. We begin to know when the text becomes transparent to its transcendent meaning through the action of the Spirit in the biblical words and the human heart.” ~Holy Scripture, p. 178, http://www.luthersem.edu/ctrf/jctr/Vol01/Colyer.htm

I simply say, we are awakened to meaning transparently: through any medium, anytime, anywhere. ~jpc

Spirit is unbounded, free, and freeing. Namaste.

image: "The Wind Blows up the Skirts of Her Coat as She Walks Alone at Sunset Past a Leafless Tree," Giclee Print www.art.com

Do We Matter?

2008-07-08T00:01:00.000-04:00

I don’t agree with the idea that it would not matter if humanity became extinct as long as life went on. I think of the Earth as one life, worded by humanity, its voice. If humanity became extinct there would be no one to articulate the songs and poems of the Earth. ~Sofia: The Sea of Faith (UK) magazine, editorial #87, “All Change” http://tinyurl.com/3rn8ha

Along with Teilhard de Chardin and Thomas Berry, let us lift up the reflective and symbolic role of humans on behalf of the future of the whole Earth community. ~jpc

Yes, we matter. Namaste.

image: portion of Sadequain's Mural at Mangla Dam, Pakistan www.sadequain.net/Murals/murals.htm

Collapsing Distinction

2008-07-07T00:01:00.002-04:00

Our rigid, narrow self/other distinction is coming to an end.... We have maintained it a long time, and built a civilization upon it that seeks the conquest of nature and human nature. The present convergence of crises ... is a birth crisis, propelling us from an old world, an old self, into a new. ~Charles Eisenstein, “Down with Descartes: For Better or Worse, the Distinction between Humans and Nature is Collapsing,” orionmagazine.com, May/June 2008 http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/2968/ (good, short article)

Descartes’ self/other understanding has led us to see ourselves as separate from and reigning over what we would use as an “it” rather than honor as a “thou,” e.g., the non-human or those we deem inferior. ~jpc

The old world is changing. Namaste.

image: Keith Shore murphydesign1.blogspot.com/2007_11_01_archive...

Sunday Dialogue CX

2008-07-06T00:01:00.000-04:00

Journer: What is the 4th of July celebration really about?

Nez: My student* said, from a human perspective, at least, “Survival is the second law of life. The first is that we are all one.”

Journer: What does “we are all one” have to do with the 4th?

Nez: Read the U.S. Declaration of Independence: in the “Introduction” – equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle [the people]; in the “Preamble” – with liberty and justice for all; and in the “Conclusion” – we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

______
* Joseph Campbell, A Joseph Campbell Companion, p. 54

image: 4th of July, 1819, Philadelphia, by John Lewis Krimmel

Little More than Idolatry

2008-07-05T00:01:00.000-04:00

The Gospel of Thomas and other Gnostic gospels offer us a new angle on Jesus and I think we honor that. When orthodox defenders of traditional religious formulas attack alternative understandings, it is because they have assumed that their view has captured truth. That is little more than idolatry. ~J. S. Spong, weekly Q&A, 5/21/08, via Dick Kroeger

Therefore, “idolatry” is restricting our understanding of truth to what someone in authority said, to what’s in some book, or to what my own cherished viewpoint is. ~jpc

Since time began, idolatry has caused the fall. Namaste.

image: "The Adoration of the Golden Calf" by Nicolas Poussin