The Divine Dance
Page 12
All I can give back to God, and all that God wants, is what God has first given to me: this little moment of incarnation, my little “I am” that echoes the great and eternal I Am in grateful awareness.
If God is the great I Am, then we would have to say that evil/Satan is the “I Am Not” who forever accuses others (Satan = the Accuser), denies humans their substance (the “Father of Lies”), and makes negation, opposition, and the creation of separateness his primary task.172
Be reminded that neuroscience now tells us that fear, negativity, and hatred stick like Velcro to the nerves, while positivity, gratitude, and appreciation slide away like Teflon from those same nerves—until we savor them, or choose them, for a minimum of a conscious fifteen seconds! Only then do they imprint!173 Please reflect on this. The positive, loving, and non-argumentative savoring of the moment is called contemplation.
Brazilian liberation theologian Leonardo Boff gives us an invitation to rejoin the great dance—not only of Trinity, but also of creation:
Creation exists in order to welcome the Trinity into itself. The Trinity seeks to welcome creation within itself.… [Realizing their divinity], men and women will reveal the motherly and fatherly face of God in communion, now including the Trinity with creation and creation with the Trinity.
It is the feast of the redeemed; it is the heavenly dance of those set free. It is the shared life of the sons and daughters in the home and homeland of the Trinity as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.…
This entire universe, these stars above our head, these forests, these birds, these insects, these rivers, and these stones, everything, everything, is...preserved, transfigured, and made temple of the Blessed Trinity. And we...live in a grand house, as in a single family, minerals, vegetables, animals, and humans with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.174
So join me, sisters and brothers, now and for the rest of your life, in allowing this positive flow of Life, marking and blessing your body consciously and slowly—with what is already happening within you:
“In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
Amen.
Next
Before we move on in our exploration of the Trinity, try to be here. Which, as you know, is the hardest place to be.
Can you be present to this little bit of now?
Get curious: see if you can be present in a positive way, knowing that, reading these words, you’re likely carrying the day’s events, the day’s memories, the day’s hurts, and the day’s disappointments.
We can let go of these right now, if we choose, because we’re going to move into a different kind of knowing, one that the ordinary mind with its ordinary cares simply isn’t up for.
Don’t be afraid of this silence.
Don’t be afraid of what first feels like boredom or nothingness.
Don’t be afraid of this silence, which is where God seems to be.
Don’t be afraid of this loneliness now and all that it might offer.
Out of this silence, and this hopefully more spacious place, let this prayer resonate in you:
God for us, we call you Father.
God alongside us, we call you Jesus.
God within us, we call you Holy Spirit.
You are the eternal mystery that enables, enfolds, and enlivens all things,
Even us and even me.
Every name falls short of your goodness and greatness.
We can only see who you are in what is.
We ask for such perfect seeing—
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.
Amen. (So be it.)175
* * *
12. John 3:17 (nkjv).
13. John 5:17 (jb).
14. John 14:26 (niv).
15. See The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 4th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012).
16. See, for example, Meister Eckhart: The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises and Defense (Classics of Western Spirituality), rev. ed. (New York: Paulist Press, 1981), 37.
17. See Genesis 1:26.
18. See Genesis 2:1.
19. See John 14:18.
20. See, for example, Romans 8:14–17; Galatians 4:5–7; Ephesians 1:5, 14.
21. See 1 Corinthians 15:51–58.
22. 1 Corinthians 3:22–23.
23. See Romans 8:28.
24. Colossians 3:11.
25. Colossians 3:4 (jb).
26. See Clark Pinnock, Most Moved Mover: A Theology of God’s Openness (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001).
27. Harper San Francisco, 1991.
28. See Deuteronomy 6:4.
29. See Cynthia Bourgeault, The Holy Trinity and the Law of Three: Discovering the Radical Truth at the Heart of Christianity (Boston: Shambhala, 2013).
30. See Acts 17:28.
31. See John 17, among many other passages in Scripture.
32. Saint Catherine of Genoa, in Life and Doctrine of Saint Catherine of Genoa, ed. Paul A. Boar Sr. (Veritatis Splendor Publications, 2012), 59. This is a reedited version of the work by the same title published in 1907 by Christian Press Association Publishing Company.
33. It’s right here in our Bibles! See 1 John 4:8, 16.
34. See John 3:8.
35. Donald Braun, The Journey from Ennuied (Victoria, BC, Canada: FriesenPress, 2015), v.
36. See, for example, John 20:21–22.
37. St. John of the Cross, “The Spiritual Canticle,” stanza 39, commentary, no. 4, in The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D. and Otilio Rodriguez, O.C.D. (Washington, DC: ICS [Institute of Carmelite Studies] Publications, 1973), 558. Translation of Obras de San Juan de la Cruz. Reprint; previously published in 1964 by Doubleday.
38. See Isaiah 11:2; 1 Corinthians 12:8.
39. See Martin Buber, I and Thou (New York: Scribner, 1958).
40. See 2 Corinthians 3:18; Romans 1:20.
41. See, for example, Heinz Kohut, Self Psychology and the Humanities (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., 1985).
42. See 2 Corinthians 3:18.
43. St. Augustine, “Ten Homilies on the First Epistle of John,” trans. H. Browne, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, vol. 7, ed. Philip Schaff, rev. Joseph H. Myers (New York: The Christian Literature Company, 1888), 521.
44. Colossians 3:11.
45. Thankfully, I’ve already partly written it! See my book Eager to Love (Cincinnati, OH: Franciscan Media, 2014), app. I, 209.
46. See James 1:25.
47. See John 14:3, 18–20.
48. See Exodus 34:29–35.
49. Exodus 33:11; Numbers 12:8; Deuteronomy 34:10.
50. James 1:25.
51. See John 14:26.
52. See Heinz Kohut, The Restoration of the Self (Madison, CT: International Universities Press, 1977). This work (and most of Kohut’s other books) develops the concept of mirroring as basic to the formation of self, both positively and negatively. We need “self objects” that narcissistically mirror us back to ourselves, or we cannot begin to know who we are. This is called the “mirror transference.” We initially and necessarily “use” others so that we can ironically stop using others—and can freely pass on the mirroring to others, instead. A seeming paradox! Schizophrenics often stare in mirrors for extended periods trying to mirror themselves to themselves, presumably because they never received proper mirroring from another. It does not work to heal them; correct and perfect mirroring is achieved in the Trinity.
53. See, for example, David Benner, Surrender to Love (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 29.
54. Bourgeault, Law of Three, 208.
55. See http://www.robertlanza.com/the-biocentric-universe-theory-life-creates-time-space-and-the-cosmos-itself/.
56. See Genesis 1:26.
57. Notice that these are the same three prepositions that we use at the end of the Eucharistic Prayer (“through him, and with him, and in him”), to which the community responds with the great “Amen!”
58. See Matthew 5:7 (jb).
59. C S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 59. Emphasis added.
60. See Matthew 12:31–32; Luke 12:10.
61. See Ephesians 5:1.
62. John O’Donohue, “Fluent,” Conamara Blues (New York: Cliff Street Books, 2001), 23.
63. 1 Corinthians 1:25.
64. What? You haven’t read or watched any of Brené Brown’s wonderful research and teaching about vulnerability? Find your way to brenebrown.com immediately!
65. The initiation of young males, usually between the ages of 13–17, was the absolute norm in almost all indigenous cultures on all continents until this began to fall apart in the last couple of centuries. Here was the universal assumption: If the male is not made to walk journeys of powerlessness, you can assume he will almost always abuse any power that he attains. Such individualism and power-seeking ias toxic for the survival of any tribe or community. Thus, “rites of passage” assured at least some degree of humility, vulnerability, interiority, and spirituality in the male, who usually avoids all of these if he possibly can. Today, the male initiation community I cofounded continues to flourish as Illuman (Illuman.org). See also the worldwide ManKind Project (ManKindProject.org) and its women’s corollary, Woman Within (WomanWithin.org).
66. See John 14:2 (nkjv, kjv).
67. Ilia Delio, The Emergent Christ (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2011), 4–5.
68. Carl McColman, The Big Book of Christian Mysticism: The Essential Guide to Contemplative Spirituality (Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads Publishing Company, 2010), 165–166. Emphasis is in the original.
69. See Luke 12:32.
70. See, for example, Mark 9:35.
71. See, for example, Matthew 13:33 (nkjv, kjv).
72. See, for example, Matthew 13:33.
73. Mother Teresa, In the Heart of the World: Thoughts, Stories, and Prayers (Novato, CA: New World Library, 2010), 33.
74. See Revelation 1:8; 21:6; 22:13.
75. Immortal Diamond (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2013); Eager to Love (Cincinnati, OH: Franciscan Media, 2014).
76. See John 14:1–3.
77. C. Baxter Kruger, The Shack Revisited (New York: FaithWords, 2012), 62.
78. Bourgeault, Law of Three, 89.
79. A reality explored both seriously and playfully in Spencer Burke and Barry Taylor’s A Heretic’s Guide to Eternity (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006).
80. See Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Dare We Hope “That All Men Be Saved”? (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988) and David Burnfield, Patristic Universalism, 2nd ed. (privately published; printed by CreateSpace, Charleston, SC, 2016). These are only two of the many books that are demonstrating that the supposed heresy disparagingly called “universalism” by many Christians ias a rather common belief in the early Eastern church and even the Scriptures.
81. See http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/44106.
82. The Exploratorium in San Francisco. See their reflection “Oppenheimer, the Poems, and Trinity,” exploratorium.edu/doctoratomic/2_1R.swf.
83. See Alex Wellerstein, “The First Light of Trinity,” New Yorker (July 16, 2015), newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-first-light-of-the-trinity-atomic-test.
84. To hear a haunting, ambient musical setting of Oppenheimer’s actual statement, look up Linkin Park’s “The Radiance” from A Thousand Suns, their 2010 album meditating on the nuclear fears that Oppenheimer and his collaborators unleashed.
85. See Proverbs 18:21.
86. The saying “The universe is not only stranger than we think but even stranger than we are capable of thinking” is widely attributed to German theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg. Similarly, British geneticist, biometrician, and physiologist J. B. S. Haldane said, “Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.” See J. B. S. Haldane, “Possible Worlds,” Possible Worlds and Other Papers, 1927.
87. Matthew 6:10 (niv).
88. See Ken Wilber, “From the Great Chain of Being to Postmodernism in Three Easy Steps” (2006), 2, 4, www.kenwilber.com/Writings/PDF/FromGC2PM_GENERAL_2005_NN.pdf.
89. Contrast this with 2 Peter 1:4 (niv), “[God] has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.”
90. Ephesians 1:3–14, based on the New International Version.
91. Daniel Walsh, unpublished notes from his teaching at the Gethsemani monastery. Walsh taught regularly at the monastery from the late 1950s to the early 1960s.
92. See Ephesians 1:4.
93. Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, trans. Elizabeth Spearing (New York: Penguin Classics, 1998), 46.
94. See Von Balthasar, Dare We Hope?
95. See 1 Corinthians 13:13.
96. 1 John 4:16 (jb).
97. See Ken Wilber, The One Two Three of God (Boulder, Colorado: Sounds True, 2006).
98. See, for example, Deuteronomy 32:4; Psalm 18:2.
99. See, for example, Isaiah 49:14–15.
100. See 1 Corinthians 1:30.
101. See, for example, Matthew 23:37.
102. See, for example, John 20:22.
103. See, for example, Psalm 104:29–30.
104. See John 14:26 (kjv). Other translations use “Helper,” “Counselor,” and “Advocate.”
105. For a comprehensive—though not exhaustive—look at feminine images for God (Creator, Redeemer, and Spirit) in the Bible, see mikemorrell.org/2012/05/biblical-proofs-for-the-feminine-face-of-God-in-scripture. And for an excellent exploration of nonhuman imagery for God in Scripture, see Lauren Winner’s Wearing God: Clothing, Laughter, Fire, and Other Overlooked Ways of Meeting God (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2015).
106. See Isaiah 4:5.
107. See B. Doyle, “God as a Dog: Metaphorical Allusions in Psalm 59,” in Metaphor in the Hebrew Bible, ed. P. Van Hecke (Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press, 2005), 41–54.
108. Dave Andrews, an Australian teacher, theologian, activist, and community organizer, has written an invaluable community formation resource based on a deep understanding of Trinitarian relationship. It’s difficult to find in North America, but see his Compassionate Community Work Course at www.daveandrews.com.au/ccwc.html.
109. See Numbers 6:25–26.
110. See Psalm 42:2; 89:15–16; 95:2.
111. From Aurora Leigh; read it in its entirety at http://www.bartleby.com/236/86.html.
112. Note Jesus’ words to Thomas the doubter in John 20:24–29.
113. See James 1:17.
114. Reflect on James 1:19–24. This oldest of New Testament letters sounds almost Buddhist at times in its emphasis on praxis over theory. (Luther, quite unfortunately, did not like James one bit.)
115. See John 14.
116. See Romans 8:26 (j
b).
117. Philippians 2:6 (jb).
118. John 1:39.
119. Cynthia Bourgeault, my friend, colleague, and co-teacher in the Living School, has penned an excellent book exploring these themes, called The Holy Trinity and the Law of Three: Discovering the Radical Truth at the Heart of Christianity (Boston: Shambhala, 2013), which I have cited previously. This book—an exploration of the doctrine of the Trinity paired with the teachings of an enigmatic, turn-of-the-twentieth-century, Turkish-Russian teacher, G. I. Gurdjieff—is so unique in its own right that my brief Law of Three example will have to suffice here. That said, I highly recommend you check her book out in its entirety if you’re feeling called to further explore the Trinitarian implications of the Law of Three. And if you’re interested in our Living School offerings, go to https://cac.org/living-school.