The Heart of It All

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Antoine de St. Exupery, consciousness, heart, invisible, judgment, Little Prince, love, mind, one, sacred heart of Jesus, see, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

How fitting for those gathered in this tiny town in Maine that we should be celebrating today the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. As we endeavor to move in prayer and practice from a stance of oneness, we are frequently reminded to “put the mind in the heart” and act from there. No judgment, no self-identification, just the love that flows out of a consciousness that we are all one. While not an easy goal, it is the simplest of practices – just breathing into the sense that the heart is central to our living and its steady beating is our lifeline to love.

For me, the Little Prince said it best. “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” (Antoine de St. Exupery)

 

 

 

 

 

One In God

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equal, God, Jesus, John, one, seeds of God, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, unity

When I read the gospel this morning (JN 5: 17-30) I was struck by the first few verses, not because of the declaration of Jesus but for the reaction of the people listening to him. Jesus was already in trouble for healing on the Sabbath for which he was being vilified, but when he said, “My Father is at work until now, and I am at work as well,” the people “were more determined to kill him because he was speaking of God as his own Father thus making himself God’s equal.”

As I pondered that small section of the text and the conclusion of detractors of Jesus, I heard in my head a line of one of the early “folk Mass” songs from the 1970’s: God is our Father, we are his sons (!); we are all one in Christ. Knowing ourselves as beloved children of God doing our best to work for God’s reign and the unity of all people in God is, or should be, the ultimate goal of life for all of us, as it was for Jesus. He came to model that way of living for us to follow.

As I think of Jesus in this situation, I feel compassion for him. Even though the conclusion they jumped to about his statement was correct (God is his own Father), their reaction of wanting to kill him was extreme. Clearly, his purpose was not to boast of privilege but rather to speak the truth of his unity with God, a mystery that we cannot understand but toward which we lean ever closer when speaking of Jesus and – may I dare to say – all of us. I am reminded of a quote that says, “We are not God but are each a seed of God…” and speaks of our responsibility to grow that seed into a flowering in God’s garden. However we imagine all of this to be true, what we do know is that the at the heart of the mystery is love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Visionary Seeing

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Alan Cohen, connect, gaze, honesty, joining, look, one, see, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Wisdom School

Last evening we welcomed 14 people to a Wisdom School here in Windsor. As an ice breaker, we made two concentric circles, facing each other, with the inner circle moving one person to the right each time a chime rang – once every 15 seconds. The task was simply to look the person in front of us in the eyes and hold that gaze until it was time to move.

I am not fond of that kind of exercise because it can be awkward and revealing to really look deeply at someone for a sustained period, but 15 seconds was relatively easy. It reveals something of ourselves to the other and we must be ready to offer it!

I was surprised to find Alan Cohen’s reflection today on the same topic. He is speaking of a chat the was having with an acquaintance that became something different when he said, “I caught Steve’s eyes and for a moment I could really see him. I saw beyond his job and his fear, and I saw the person that he was. I thanked him for his honesty…That moment was worth everything to me. It stood out in contrast to a day of unconscious business like a delicate flower growing in a pile of rubble. In that moment I remembered what friendship and human relations are all about. They are not about stuff and talk and presentation; they are about people joining in the place where we are one.”

Let us greet people today in genuine willingness to connect and offer ourselves in conscious and honest connection to each other for the good of all.

The Great Commandment

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God, Hebrew, Jesus, Lord, love, love your neighbor as yourself, Mark, one, psalms, The Shema, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Torah

Today’s gospel (MK 12: 28-34) is always a reminder to me of the rootedness of Christianity, that our heritage is the same ancestry as that of Jesus, stretching back thousands of years. I am always moved when I think of Jesus growing up reading/chanting the same psalms that I do and there is something perhaps even more visceral about his answer today to the scribe who asked him to name the first of all commandments. I envision Jesus standing up straight, sun as back-lighting, raising his voice to respond: Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Ehad. (Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.) I read a commentary recently that said, “The Shema does not have to be recited in Hebrew. It may be recited in any language the worshipper understands but the miracle of the Hebrew letters makes the prayer much more powerful in Hebrew even if you don’t understand the words.” I have found that to be true (as I’m sure some Christians find with some Latin hymns from our youth or others find in Sanskrit chants). I first learned a chant of the Shema some years ago in a Wisdom School session and continue to find in it a feeling of strength and identity that transcends the boundaries of religion. The meaning of the words is imprinted in me in a place deeper than my mind and calls me to an expansiveness that can only come from the heart.

We know the text that Jesus was quoting from the Torah. I will take it with me as companion today, my prayer being for a greater consciousness of unity across the world.

Hear, O Israel! the Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.

 

 

 

 

 

Two in One

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divisions, duality, Gospel of Thomas, Jan Phillips, No Ordinary Time, one, opposites, separate, spring, tension, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, unitive consciousness, variety of solutions, Western society

All during this week in a great variety of circumstances I have been engaged in conversations about unitive consciousness: the effort needed to grow in the realization that ultimately “we are all one.” I began this week by writing about it. I sat with people in individual spiritual direction considering practices that help us to move toward it. I participated in a study group on the Gospel of Thomas (logion 22) that considered the dual roles of effort and the energy of inspiration in pursuit of it. And yesterday in the midst of my scheduled day I spent an hour outside breathing in the peace and loveliness of a perfect spring day to remember the possibility of it.

None of these events took away the consciousness that there are deep divisions in our society and in nations around the world as well as in the personal lives of everyone I know – including myself. If, however, I maintain the hope that ultimate unity is the achievable goal, I am able at some fleeting moments to sense it within the distress and sometimes even the chaos of separation. I call on No Ordinary Time for some words of Jan Phillips and those “lights” on whom she depends to give credence to my own thoughts this morning. Listen:

If we can stay with the tension of opposites long enough – sustain it, be true to it – we can sometimes become vessels within which the divine opposites come together and give birth to a new reality. (Marie Louise von Franz (1915-1998)

Can you evolve your own thinking process beyond duality, beyond “right and wrong,” beyond “good and evil?” Can you accept that we are all right, only partly so? That we need to mix our thoughts up with others to come up with the greatest variety of solutions, the highest synthesis of consciousness? (Jan Phillips)

We grow up in a world that keeps things separate/Science is a thousand miles from faith/The right wing and the left are far divided/Though the angel cannot fly without them both. (Jan Phillips)

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. (F. Scott Fitzgerald) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just One

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all may be as one, heart-meld, Jesus, John, mind-meld, one, open our hearts, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, unconditional love, union, visionary seeing, Wisdom Schools

We have a chant that we sing sometimes at our Wisdom Schools, especially when we are speaking about “visionary seeing” and although it’s better when sung, you will get the idea by just reading it. It says: You the one, one in all. Say “I am; I am you.” It’s very easy to sing – simple words, simple tune – but far from easy to grasp.

The deepest prayer of Jesus as he was departing this world (JN 17) pleaded with God: “Holy Father, I pray that all may be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you, that they also may be in us…I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one…” As I was trying just now in writing those words to find a way to comment on it, I thought of Mr. Spock from Star Trek and the concept of a “mind-meld.” But the oneness Jesus is so earnestly desiring is not a simple mind-meld. Closer to the reality, I think, would be the concept of a “heart-meld.” How is it that we could come to be so united that it would be clear to all those who observe us that we are one with God? I believe the proof would be in the quality of our love, our unconditional love for one another and for all of creation. I slipped in that word unconditional because that is, I think, the key to everything. We often put conditions on our willingness: “I’ll be nice to her if she’s nice to me…” That doesn’t even get us in the door of “unconditional.”

We can only conjecture about the oneness quotient of the love Jesus had for God and the union it brought into being, but it would be a worthy subject for reflection on this Sunday. How might we open our hearts – even one step today – toward oneness? That’s probably all we’re asked – and that is certainly enough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Call to Oneness

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earthquake, love, new world, one, Peace, poem, The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton

In the silence of a vivid dawning sky, I hear the urgency of a Merton poem that I’m reading and make it my prayer, my sense of urgency, for this day:

Go tell the earth to shake and tell the thunder to wake the sky and tear the clouds apart. Tell my people to come out and wonder where the old world is gone. For a new world is born and all my people shall be one. So tell the earth to shake with marching feet of messengers of peace; proclaim my law of love to every nation, every race. For the old wrongs are over, the old days are gone. A new world is arising where my people shall be one… “Earthquake” from The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton, excerpted)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Diving Deep

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article of faith, Christianity, Ephesians, Eucharist, Jesus, John, one, Paul, Proverbs, psalm 34, remain, Taste and See, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, the will of God, wisdom, wisdom of knowing

Having just seen the ocean from a distance and longing to dive right in – one of my favorite metaphors for going deeper into mystery – I was drawn by the first line of the first reading to the topic of Wisdom this morning. Staying on the surface, taking things literally, does not allow us to understand the depths of things, perhaps especially when we are speaking of faith.

When Proverbs (9:1-6) tells us that Wisdom has built herself a house, we know that it would be impossible for a concept, an abstract characteristic, to accomplish such an architectural feat. So the author reminds us to forsake foolishness that you may live; advance in the way of understanding, and in this case that is easily done. Not so easy with the psalm refrain that sings (for the second time recently): Taste and see the goodness of the Lord. (PS 34) Paul is right there with advice about how to deal with that one as he says to the Ephesians (5:15-20) Watch carefully how you live, not as foolish persons but as wise…Do not continue in ignorance, but try to understand what is the will of God.

All of that is preamble to the crux of the message in this morning’s Scripture readings. It is John’s gospel that contains more of the “hard sayings” than the others, and the hardest of all is perhaps what we hear this morning (JN 6:51-58). Jesus says that whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life…whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in them. Theologians have wrestled with this “article of faith” throughout the history of Christianity and belief in interpretation varies, but I’m thinking this morning of how shocking it must have been for those crowds of people who were listening to those words spoken for the first time by Jesus – probably most of them having no concept of metaphor or any way to understand what is obviously a deeper truth than the surface meaning.

It is the word remain that is the touchstone for me as I participate in Eucharistic liturgies and trust that something of Christ’s life remains in my spirit as the Eucharistic species are assimilated into my body. The more conscious I become about that truth, the more I will understand what Jesus was talking about on that shocking, long ago day. Then, and only then, will I be transformed, forsaking the foolishness that says I am separated from others and coming to trust the wisdom of knowing that we are all one, as Jesus knew and lived, and lives still in us.

An Older Unity

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communication, communion, Kathleen Deignan, one, original unity, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton, unity, wordless

“And the deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion. It is wordless. It is beyond words, and it is beyond speech, and it is beyond concept. Not that we discover a new unity. We discover an older unity. My dear, we are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are.”

~ Thomas Merton
(from Thomas Merton’s Book of Hours by Kathleen Deignan)

The Secret Name

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blessing, God, name, one, praise, pray, psalm, Psalm 113, Star, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, universe

Psalm 113 is a psalm of praise that sang to me in a new way this morning from an alternate translation. Listen and see if any of the images “sing” to you:

Hallelujah! There is a name of One that only servants know, the name of God they carry deep inside and pray as source of blessing throughout life and time. It is a name they lift in honor and in praise from dawn till dusk. It flies above the nations like a flag and in the sky at night it hangs, a star of beauty. It is the name of One who sits enthroned and gazes out upon the blanket of the universe, but comes from underneath the weak like dust, and through the ashes to the poor, and lifts them up and sets them high as kings and queens of earth, and takes the barren, bitter, childless women and turns them into mothers of all the children.