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Posted by on May 7, 2011

Sharing in Divine Mercy

The second Sunday of Easter is known as Divine Mercy Sunday. The Gospel reading (Jn 20:19-31) tells of Jesus’ appearance to His disciples in the Upper Room on Easter Sunday evening. He appeared among them, wished them Peace, showed them His wounds and asked for something to eat. Then He breathed on them, the breath of the Holy Spirit,  and told them to forgive sins. He told them to continue the work He had begun, taking the Good News of God’s love out to all the world.

When I was growing up, the message of this Gospel’s story of the granting of power to forgive sin was generally presented in terms of the power of priest to forgive sins in the sacrament of Penance (now more often known as Reconciliation). However, as I listened to the Gospel proclamation last Sunday, the Good News I heard was of the gift given to all of us as followers and disciples of Jesus – the power to forgive those who hurt us in some way.

Forgiveness does not come easily to anyone. When hurts come along, it’s often much more satisfying to plot revenge, or bask in a stew of martyred pouting or otherwise hold on to the hurt. But Jesus knew something we often miss. The one most hurt, the one most diminished, the one who suffers most from such behavior is the one who engages in it! Perhaps that is why He was so quick to forgive those who had abandoned and denied Him just a few days earlier.

As we live our calling as followers of Jesus, we share the task of bringing forgiveness, reconciliation and peace to our families, communities, nations and world. Anything that stands in the way of this mission is to be suspect. We can’t forgive through our own power. Some wounds are just too deep for our human ability to heal. But Jesus is with us and He can heal them if we are willing to open them to His touch. And as we receive healing, we are called to pass it on, so that the waves of forgiveness and healing at last embrace all the people of the world. It’s truly a noble calling.

Peace be with you.

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Posted by on Apr 28, 2011

Easter Week Daze

I tried to blog during Holy Week. I would like to say that I was too caught up in ecstasy to touch the keyboard, but I was really silenced. It wasn’t really writer’s block. It was more a sense of something I am learning in my old age – to keep my mouth shut. As an extrovert this is an occurrence of note, since I don’t often know what I am thinking until I am expressing it.

Per usual, after the stress of the event, I can begin talking or writing about my experiences of Lent and Holy Week now that we are in Easter Tide.

Easter Triduum, from Holy Thursday to Easter Vigil, is a montage of one highly charged event ebbing and flowing over many others. The breaking of the bread at the Last Supper; Judas sent off on his errand; Jesus looking for support and finding us asleep. The darkness at noon covers all creation. Nicodemus asks for the body of Jesus. Mary of Magdala weeping as she asked the Gardener, “Where have you laid him?” followed by the overpoweringly personal entreaty of a close Friend, “Mary.” The disillusioned disciples heading back home and being consoled by a stranger Whom they invited in for the evening. The guest only reveals Himself in the moment of the breaking of the bread. After all of the betrayals, the abandonment, with the marks of the crucifixion on His body, His first words to the men who “threw Him under the bus” was “Peace.” In all of previous salvation history, God’s messengers manifest with the same greeting of peace, but now God does it directly, for the first time.

I understand that the traditional teaching is that the sacrifice of Jesus satisfied the Father’s need for atonement, but somehow, it is hard for me to imagine that God, in Jesus, would not take offense at the rejection of his goodness. Yet, Jesus doesn’t take offense even as the disciples and all of us cower in hiding.

The only thing that I can compare this daze to is to singing the last note of Hadyn’s Creation Mass as a member of the Loyola Men’s Chorus. The director had told us that we would know if we had succeeded if there was a deafening silence before the audience responded. The last note hung in the air. The director brought his thumb and forefinger together; the note evaporated high in the nave. The silence was profound and seemed to last forever. The temperature dropped and then there was thunderous applause.

I am still in the coolness of the silence after that last note. It is not a bad place to be. I hope you are too. Peace.

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Posted by on Apr 26, 2011

Violence and Atonement: A Necessary Link?

Violence and Atonement: A Necessary Link?

Fireweed by Joseph N. Hall

The relationship between violence and atonement is closely woven in scripture and theology but it seems inimical to me. As a life long Catholic, anthropologist, and amateur theologian, I grew up with the notion of the Mass as the unbloody sacrifice of Calvary. Things changed after Vatican II to a focus on the Paschal mystery. Despite all of the language we have about the Father requiring satisfaction, it does seem contrary to Jesus’ own teaching about the fact that human fathers, “evil as you are,” would not give your son a stone when he asks for bread. (Matt 7:11)

Clearly, there is patriarchal and tribal language in the concept of satisfaction. This is still prevalent, as seen in a recent gang rape case in Pakistan. A young woman was brutally gang raped by men of another sub-tribe because her 13 year old brother had apparently flirted with a young girl of the other group. To settle the conflict and avoid greater reprisals, the elders of the young woman’s group offered her as a settlement. http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/22/world/la-fg-pakistan-rape-20110422

This is not only revolting to our current sensibilities, but it challenges the notion of sacrifice in the tribal sense. My own existentialist take on redemption has to do with authenticity. God took upon Himself our human condition and brought mercy, healing, and peace. For this he was publicly tortured to death.

My own post-modern sense is that the Father is not so much offended by our sin as appalled by it, as an act of vandalism or destruction of works of great beauty conceived in boundless love. The freedom that is required for the reciprocation of love can also be used to reject it. I personally cannot conceive of an infinite God who is somehow diminished or “offended.” To continue to anthropomorphize the Father as a post-modern, post-Freudian human father leads us to a Father, Son, and Spirit caught up in the continuing ongoing creation of bonum diffusivum sibi – good diffusive of itself. The Incarnation and Christ event are the result of an unlimited and unconditional love.

Clearly, this post-modern language flies in the face of Old Testament pastoral society and the cult of Temple sacrifice in the New Testament. Early Christians had to find a way to explain the Christ event in their own cultural and historical context. However, there is no denying that a post-modern Father is less monstrous to the secular humanist ethics and sensibilities that derive from the Christian tradition of the West.

As terrible as the death of Jesus was, it was completely overshadowed by the fact that no evil can come between us and the Love of God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:39)

The great peril of a tribal metaphor is not its irrelevance nor its systemic violence, but rather the chasm it creates between God and us that continues to be the original and fundamental blasphemy alienating us from God and ourselves. The preface to the Eucharistic prayer at the Mass of the Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday begins in astonishment “Father, you love us still and sent us the Christ.” Yes, what amazement there is, that in spite of our rejection, God never stopped loving us.

The demand for violence attributed to the Father elevates evil to the level of the divine. The unrelenting intrusion of the divine in the human train wreck, of necessity, requires God to confront violence; which he does with non-violence – even to death on a cross. (Philippians 2:8)

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Posted by on Apr 11, 2011

Violence and Atonement: A Necessary Link?

St.Thomas: The Post-Modern Realist

Sun Shining Through Clouds

St Thomas the Apostle is often known as Doubting Thomas because he refused initially to believe the reports of the resurrection of the Lord. In today’s gospel reading from St. John (Jn 11:1-45), the raising of Lazarus from the dead, I saw something for the first time about St. Thomas that changed my view of him.

Jesus receives word that his fried Lazarus is seriously ill and prepares to head back to Bethany near Jerusalem. The apostles don’t think this is a good idea because they had just left the area after threats against the Master’s life. Jesus tells his uncomprehending followers that Lazarus is dead, but they are returning to Bethany so that his followers can see Him for who He is. This doesn’t appear to make any sense. It is a pointless suicide mission. Thomas doesn’t doubt. He is quite certain, but he is loyal and will not leave his master. His statement, “Let us go and die with Him,” is not skeptical. It is very certain. It is almost absurd in a 20th century style worthy of an an existentialist play.

In fact, Thomas is the grown up we are supposed to be. Look at the facts. Be reasonable, sensible. You may be willing, out of love, to sacrifice yourself for a great cause or a great love, but you approach it with knowledge, with courage, stoically.

This scene actually creates a set of book ends. The matching scene is the encounter with Jesus after the Resurrection, after Thomas had declared that he wouldn’t believe the reports until he saw Jesus personally. None of the apostles died with Jesus. In fact, at the time of his arrest Jesus told the authorities to take Him but to leave them alone. We all know the story of how they – and all of us – scattered in the night when the Shepherd was struck. Peter follows at some distance only to deny Him three times. John is the only man at the foot of the cross. In His time of need Jesus can count on His mother and a handful of women. All too true – real enough for the followers then and now.

Somehow it is easier to “to go and die with Him.” It sounds noble, altruistic. It is easier to believe in the finality of death than the open endedness that is resurrection. El sentido trágico de la vida – the famous Spanish existentialist manifesto – The meaning of life is tragedy. Yes, I know that is not the more literal translation – the tragic sense of life. The death of Jesus would indeed be the Great Tragedy another one of his great disappointments, another cosmic joke perpetrated on an accidentally occurring Homo sapiens.

As post modern people and followers, we are so overcome with the senseless suffering and death of millions that we claim that we believe. Yet our faith is more of an adolescent, impotent tantrum of defiance, because, in the end the facts are the facts. So, let us go and die with Him.

This is an interesting set up for Palm Sunday and Easter. Of course, this is just what St. John’s Gospel does. Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life. The challenge to us and to Thomas is to believe in a life beyond tragedy, absurdity, meaninglessness.

Yeah, well, heard that, been there… but it can’t work. It’s foolish. We are all dying. Just be brave about it. It is what it is. Resignation to the inevitable makes sense. Resurrection by our Best Friend who cries in grief and loss for us doesn’t make any sense at all. Or does it?

Image by Robert & Mihaela Vicol – Released to the Public Domain

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Posted by on Mar 9, 2011

Violence and Atonement: A Necessary Link?

Ash Wednesday: Spiritual R & R – Reconciliation and Renewal

Receiving the Ashes in the Sign of the Cross


Ash Wednesday begins the season of Lent. It tends to be a day when people think about what they are going to give up in preparation for Easter. Fasting can be seen as a convenient type of dieting. Almsgiving can be reduced to cleaning out the closets.

However, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are ancient practices in societies and religions all across the world. They are ways to produce altered states of consciousness and encounters with the divine. In the Christian tradition they are part of the “via negativa” or negative way. Generally, we tend to see this type of deprivation against the historical backdrop of hermits in the desert rejecting the “flesh” of worldly temptation and indulgence. Of course this conflicts with our consumer culture of comfort and instant gratification. It also conflicts with a more positive psychological model in which the focus on human weakness is replaced with a focus on human self-fulfillment and actualization.

In the secular model of well being, human and social limitations can be overcome by refocusing our attention and modifying our behavior. Hammering down our feeling and emotions – especially sexual ones – is sometimes seen as harming mental health. By denying our interior tensions and conflicts, we can fail to confront the real challenges we should be facing in our psychological development.

Lent itself is an old word for Spring – that time when the world comes to life again. The “via negativa,” the more traditional model of asceticism (an interesting Greek word for athletic training), and the contemporary model of self affirmation are not really opposed. They can actually be healthy correctives. If we focus exclusively on restraining ourselves we not only ignore opportunities for growth, we can also ignore what God is calling us to do. Focusing only on my needs and self-fulfillment can also lead to such an inward narcissistic self-absorbed focus that we cut ourselves off from true happiness.

In subsequent posts, as we journey through Lent, I will share with you some more reflections on being happy, holy, and healthy. This is a wonderful season for reconciliation with ourselves and others and a time of renewal for our call to serve and to engage in the coming of the Kingdom – the age of justice.

So.. what am I going to get for Lent?

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Posted by on Dec 24, 2010

A Pilgrimage on the Pathway of Peace

In Advent we journey with our sisters and brothers around the world, all children of the same God, to the Kingdom of Peace and Justice. Christ, as Key of Knowledge is our guide along the pathway of peace.

O Key of Knowledge, guide us in our pilgrimage,
we ever seek, yet unfulfilled remain,
open to us the pathway of your peace.

For you, O Lord, my soul in stillness waits,
truly my hope is in you.

My Soul in Stillness Waits by Marty Haugen, 1982

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Posted by on Dec 23, 2010

Advent – The Coming or Arrival of Something Extremely Important

Advent is a liturgical season for Christians. It’s also a term that means arrival or the coming of something extremely important. One of the O antiphons refers to Christ as the Root of Life who draws all to Himself, giving birth again to hope through His dying and rising. May we welcome His advent in our lives.

O Root of Life, implant your seed within us,
and in your advent, draw us all to you,
our hope reborn in dying and in rising.

For you, O Lord, my soul in stillness waits,
truly my hope is in you.

My Soul in Stillness Waits, by Marty Haugen, 1982

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Posted by on Dec 21, 2010

Waiting in Stillness

The final days of Advent are often filled with activity and anxiety. Where will I find the perfect gift for Uncle Joe? Will Aunt Susie be bringing her “famous” casserole (that no one really likes)? How will I be able to smile and seem merry when I’m still grieving the loss of my husband/child/friend?

There are so many cares and worries in each of our lives that it can be hard to set them aside and be at peace as we approach the feast of Christmas. Yet what we are celebrating is the coming of the Prince of Peace into our world – into our personal lives.

The hymn by Marty Haugen, My Soul in Stillness Waits, based on the O Antiphons and Psalm 95 is a special reminder of what really matters in these final few days before Christmas. Today I share the first verse and refrain as a point for meditation and peace.

O Lord of Light, our only hope of glory,
your radiance shines in all who look to you,
come light the hearts of all in dark and shadow.

For you, O Lord, my soul in stillness waits,
truly my hope is in you.

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Posted by on Dec 17, 2010

Advent – A Time to Be At Peace

We’re now approaching the fourth Sunday of Advent and the number days until Christmas grows shorter. We’ve heard readings of Hope/Expectation for the Coming of Christ in our days and at the end of days. We’ve heard readings of Peace, with images of children playing safely beside the adder’s lair and lambs being safe with lions. Readings of Joy were proclaimed last week, with the promise of the Lord coming to set things right and signs of the coming of the Kingdom of God already present in the life and work of Jesus. Next Sunday we’ll hear of the Lord’s promise and reassurance to St. Joseph that Mary’s pregnancy was divinely blessed and of Joseph’s acceptance of that gift.

As I’ve moved through these days and weeks, I’ve been reflecting on what peace means in daily life. It seems to me that peace is more than the absence of armed conflict between nations. Peace is a way of living. It springs from a place of openness and gratitude.

Peace means being gracious when another person fails to notice, even in passing, that you have gone out of your way to do something just for him or her. Peace means accepting an apology without needing to shame the one offering it. Peace means choosing to be kind rather than insisting on being right. Peace means looking beyond the gift one has received to see the love with which it was given.

Peace flows out of a place of gratitude for gifts received and shared. It giggles with a small child discovering the joys of a puddle. It smiles with the fond memories of a grandparent who is watching another’s child. It holds hands and spends quiet time with the person nearing the end of this life.

Advent is about hope, peace, joy and the coming of the light of the world. May each of us remember this truth as we hear the enticements of the mall and feel the pressure to “make Christmas memorable” by doing many things and buying lots of merchandise. Advent is a time for hope, peace, joy, and sharing with Christ the wonder of being a bringer of hope, peace and joy to others.

Come, Lord Jesus, Come!

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Posted by on Nov 27, 2010

In the Beginning – A Gift for the New Year from Deep Space Astronomy

Once again we are at a beginning time. The First Sunday of Advent begins the liturgical year. It is New Year’s Day in our Catholic community.

The readings in Advent begin by speaking of things to come – specifically the coming of the Lord of Hosts, the coming of the Son of Man. We are reminded to be ready, to move away from acts of evil and put on the armour of light, to walk in the light of the Lord. It’s a time of anticipation as well as a time to take stock of our lives and change the things that keep us from being ready for the Lord’s coming into our lives.

This year our Gospel readings will be primarily from the Gospel of St. Matthew, Cycle A. The readings we’ll hear will be those from a community that saw Jesus as the Mercy of God and the church as the kingdom of God coming into being here and now, in this life we share on Earth. For those who’d like to know more about the Gospel of St. Matthew, I recommend Megan McKenna’s, Matthew: The Book of Mercy. She has also written a set of commentaries on the Sunday and daily readings from all three Cycles of liturgical readings used in Roman Catholic liturgies —  Tasting the Word of God, Vol. 1 (Sunday) and Vol 2 (Daily).

As we begin this new year, with all the uncertainty, challenges, joys and blessings it will bring, I’d like to share a gift from the Lord with you. These pictures were taken with the Hubble telescope of places in the universe where normally nothing can be seen. May they be a reminder that although we may not be able to see what God has in mind for us, or all the beauty that surrounds us, or all the wonders that flow through God’s creation (including each of us), there are marvelous surprises waiting for us to be ready and able to perceive them.

Hubble Telescope Ultra Deep Field

Happy New Year!

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Posted by on Nov 24, 2010

A Time for Gratitude as a Year Ends

As we approach the end of one liturgical year and the beginning of a new one, it’s good to stop and be grateful for the gifts we have received.  As it happens, in the United States we do just that on the 4th Thursday of November, our Thanksgiving Day.

Tomorrow, as we share meals, prayer, board games, football games, outdoor fun and indoor visiting, may we remember the wonders we have seen. The sunrises and sunsets. The sunny days and the rainy, stormy ones. The days of gentle breezes and the days of gale force winds. If we have been through great storms, may we be grateful for having come through them to safer days. If this has been a peaceful year, may we be grateful for the gift of peace and pray for strength to continue to trust the Lord when next we face challenges and hard times.

In this year, people have been born and people have moved on to the next stage of their lives with the Lord, the one we don’t yet share with them. We have seen children growing and parents aging. We hope to be growing ourselves in wisdom, age and grace – always growing in grace and graciousness, a sign of God’s presence in our lives overflowing into our dealings with other people.

We thank our readers for spending time with us here at Theologika.net. It is truly a blessing to be a part of a worldwide community and to share hopes, dreams and visions with all of you.

This song by Mary Chapin Carpenter from “Come Darkness, Come Light: Twelve Songs of Christmas” is a reminder of the gift of community we share.

Happy Thanksgiving.

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Posted by on Jun 6, 2010

Corpus Christi: Who’s Feeding on Whom?

Today is the feast of Corpus Christi, the Body and Blood of Christ. We celebrate the great gift of the Eucharist – a feast of thanksgiving. We celebrate that the Lord has given His very being to us to be food for our journey through our lives here and now – from this day to the day of our birth into eternal life in the next here and now.

I’m struck today by the contrast between the Lord’s gift of allowing us to eat of His body and blood, soul and divinity and the way in which those spirits not in union with God, the evil ones, feed on our energies when we choose to welcome them into our lives even for a moment.

It became very clear to me again yesterday how quickly and subtly they will move in and start draining energy away from individuals and families. I received a notice in the mail regarding a challenge we’ve been facing as a result of the problems in the global financial markets hitting “Main Street.” I don’t know what the notice means, but it’s not a great situation and it could be the first step of more challenges coming. On the other hand, it might not mean anything negative at all.

But I was tired and a bit stressed and I found myself fretting about it. Then other things started popping up with their “… and did you remember that he …” and “… can you believe the nerve of …” Nothing huge involved. Nothing to which I would not have agreed. Just that quiet, insidious little voice encouraging me to feel upset, tired, a little resentful, or whatever.

As I got more out of sorts, others in the family also got edgy, including the resident baby.

Finally, my children sent me for a walk with the baby and fixed dinner themselves. On the walk, a relatively quiet activity with a very young child in a stroller, I realized what was happening. I closed the feeding trough to the spirits who had crept in and I asked my Guardian Angel and the Holy Spirit to protect me and us from their influence.

One thing I’ve learned – that kind of prayer is never ignored. I was better immediately and we had a lovely dinner and pleasant evening.

So, how does this relate to Corpus Christi? We can choose to allow the evil spirits to invade. We can feed them. The expression, “What’s eating you?” is absolutely an accurate description of an unseen reality. Or we can keep closing that restaurant when they come around and instead feed on the love of God, the body and blood of our Lord.

The neat thing is this. To the extent we feed on the Lord, we can then help feed those around us in positive ways. Everything becomes manageable again. Problems can be solved. Joy returns.

I still don’t know what that notice means, but whatever it means, all will be well as long as I/we remember Who should feed whom.

Happy Feast of Corpus Christi.

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Posted by on May 26, 2010

Violence and Atonement: A Necessary Link?

Pentecost Insights on Laundry Day

Dove of Peace by Pablo Picasso

We celebrated the feast of Pentecost this past Sunday. It’s the Birthday of the Church and one of my favorite celebrations. Without the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, we would most likely never have heard the Good News of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. His followers were just plain too scared to tell what they had witnessed.

At Pentecost, the Lord’s promise that He would ask the Father to send an Advocate to us, one who would continue to teach us what we need to know, was fulfilled. We entered the age of the Holy Spirit, an age that continues to our day.

I was musing on the wonders of the coming of the Spirit and the importance of the event yesterday while doing laundry and caring for my 14 month old grandson. (Yes, he’s a beautiful child and a rare delight!) I’d had a conversation on Sunday with a non-Catholic friend who had really never heard of Pentecost in her religious experience. We had talked about the coming of the Holy Spirit, the timing of the feast in relation to Easter and the effect of the Spirit’s coming on the early Christian community. I’m always surprised to find again that people are not aware of the story of the Church and the many twists and turns of its history. There is so often a sense that all was clear and settled from the start. The Acts of the Apostles makes it clear that the first followers of The Way were feeling their way and responding to the promptings of the Holy Spirit just as we must today.

My grandson loves to fold clothes. Up until a week ago, he simply stood by the davenport (sofa, couch) and pulled the clothes off as fast as he could. Once they were all on the floor, he’d hand them to me as fast as he could. Then I’d pick all of them up and we’d repeat the process, with a few more actually getting folded at each repetition! Last week he discovered that he no longer needs to hold a big person’s hand to walk or even run. So now he grabs an article of clothing from the stack and takes off racing across the room with it, dropping it at some point along his way.

He was laughing happily and carrying a handkerchief when suddenly he stopped. Several of us, including the child, have had colds, including runny noses. He’s been fascinated by the blowing of noses that has been occurring around the household. He put the handkerchief to his nose and made a loud blowing sound through his lips. He was so proud of himself. He was certain he’d figured out how to make that amazing noise that all of us had been making. In fact, he was so delighted, that he raced back to the davenport, grabbed a shirt and repeated the feat. Then a sock… Then a pair of pants…  Each time he simply beamed with delight and laughed uproariously.

It struck me, as I watched and laughed with him, that we are blessed that the gifts of the Holy Spirit continue to be poured out among us, with the Spirit continuing to teach us in our day too. As we learn so much more in the worlds of science, math, psychology, anthropology and all the other realms of human knowledge, it is truly a blessing that the Holy Spirit is with us, enlightening our hearts so we can see the Lord’s hand in all of creation in ever more wondrous ways. Imagine how sad it would be if we were forever condemned to the level of understanding of a small child who believes that blowing his nose requires use of his mouth! It’s a fine step on the way to understanding of the real way to perform the task, but only a step. With the grace of the Holy Spirit, we too move forward in our journey, growing up a little more each day and each generation, to see the wonders the Lord has wrought for us.

Happy Birthday, Church.

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Posted by on Apr 9, 2010

Violence and Atonement: A Necessary Link?

Great Love or Great Suffering – Two Paths to Non-duality

Richard Rohr, OFM

Recently I’ve been listening to Fr. Richard Rohr’s three CD set, Exploring and Experiencing The Naked Now, a recording of two webcasts in which he talks about his work on non-dual thinking and the insights of the contemplative/mystic tradition of Christianity. Rohr’s work provides a fine background for the last couple of weeks of Lent and moving into Easter.

A central insight of Rohr’s work is that non-dualistic thinking is central to experiencing the mystery of Christ and the Trinity. God is One, yet we know God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The contrast boggles the mind when we try to explain, define or otherwise pin down the mystery. Our minds, trained to make logical distinctions and put all we experience into categories of “this/not that,” find it hard to deal with the “yes/and”  of combining such seemingly irreconcilable statements. Nevertheless, Jesus calls us into the mystery and teaches through example, images and stories that seem to contradict each other. In one place, for example, he says that his followers are to turn the other cheek when someone strikes them. In another, he counsels that it’s time to take swords along to the place where he and is friends planned to spend the night. At yet another, he turns over the tables of the money-changers in the temple and drives them out. Then when the chips are down, he heals the ear of the servant of the High Priest in the Garden of Gethsemane and goes to his death without offering resistance. So which is it? Non-violent always or Violent sometimes? Do we simply choose one meaning – the one that suits what we want to do – or are we supposed to try to make some logical sense of the contrasting statements/actions or must we somehow live in the mystery, without needing to explain it logically. And if we do that, won’t we be seen as somehow immature and childish?

Rohr suggests that a return to the contemplative mindset is essential in the long-run. It is the ultimate goal of the spiritual life. Union with God, a return to the non-duality of the Garden of Eden, is the final goal of our lives and quest. We start non-dualistically as infants and small children. We move away from non-dualism around the age of reason and begin to be able to separate from God, make wrong choices, and, dare I say it, to sin. We learn what is right and what is wrong. We learn to make distinctions. Then we think we’ve got it all set for the rest of our lives. But we’re right smack dab in the middle of a dualistic world and mindset. So everything gets phrased in terms of win/lose or “limited good” (a concept from anthropology) — what is good for you will take something from me. We forget, or perhaps haven’t consciously experienced, that God’s love comes to us like water flowing through a pipeline or electricity flowing down a wire. As long as there’s no blockage, it just keeps coming. The critical thing is to keep the pipe open, the transmission line unbroken. But that gets scary. The “what ifs” start raising their ugly heads. And we fight against anyone or anything that seems to threaten the way things are now, even if it’s not ideal. And so we block the flow, partially or totally.

Rohr argues that the only way we can move beyond dualism in our thinking and again enter non-dualistic reality is through the path of great love or the path of great suffering.  In both situations, the normal ways of coping or experiencing reality fall away.  We don’t have the energy to block the flow. We’re too deeply in the joy or sorrow. “Everything’s coming up roses …” as the song says. Or, alternatively, we cry out, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” Where are you when I need you God? In either condition, we are open to experience the wonder of God’s love and compassion without trying to (or even being capable of) splitting it into dualistic compartments or categories. The experiences are too overwhelming, too all encompasing, too intense to allow for separation and dualism. And then we can grow in wisdom. And we experience redemption – a return to union with our God – set free from the normal ties that hold us bound in worry of losing our “secure” duality.

Meanwhile, “back at the farm,” the troubles and tragedies of world events continue through Holy Week.  A small group of people are arrested for plotting to kill a police officer and then kill more officers at his funeral, all in the name of Christ. What madness is this? Bombs explode in crowded places around the world, in the name of God. What madness is that? How can religious people believe that the creator of all of us and of all of the wonders of the universe could want us to be killing each other? And how could we dare to think we do it in his name, by his authorization? How can Christians be terrorists, as Leonard Pitts notes in a recent column? Is our God really so helpless or so impotent that he could condone such action, such dualistic us/them action?

Jesus went to the cross rather than try to force God’s hand to free his nation from the Romans by inciting a rebellion, as some would have liked. He went to the cross rather than deny the truth that God is more interested in the way we treat each other than in the sacrifices we bring to the altar. He went to the cross rather than run away and deny that he had experienced a very special relationship with his Father, one that the Father wants to share with the rest of us too. And redemption came out of that great passionate love and suffering. Easter came to all the world and our separation from God came to a resounding end.

May each of us move forward in this Easter season in joy and trust, building on the faith of our younger years and beginning to enter into the world of contemplation, of not dividing the “real” from the “ideal,” of really believing the Good News, that love is all that really matters, and love will make all the suffering lead to the peace and deep, deep joy of the children of God.

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