Chapter 7: A Contemplative Stance
Why do we humans dwell in negativity? Why do we refuse Resurrection? Fear and negativity spread and unite people. Fear ends up being the last capital sin. It causes contraction which the ego loves. The soul moves by expansion, saying yes. We have to experience this, name our demon, before we can exorcise it.
We need someone to hold and accompany us on the journey inward. Negativity gives us a false place to stand. Hate makes the world go round much more than love does. The Risen Christ frees us from the NEED to fear and hate. Jesus exposed the lie of hatred. We have to face our capacity for fear and hate and then work towards and fall into love (72).
Religion and politics both judged Jesus to be the problem. Top down authority was wrong! Jesus accepted hate and made us look at it in a new way. He turned the murder of God into the redemption of the world. He did NOT change his Father’s mind, but changed the way we see the Father. If God is NOT hateful or punitive, then what right do WE have?
Jesus taught life could have a positive story and (2) that God is far different and far better than we ever thought. He taught the pattern of being rejected and then forgiving. In meditation, we see this process and weep ahead of time. It cannot remain theoretical.
There is a rebel and a dictator in each of us. Fear sparks these roles. We disguise our fear of losing something to justify our negative acts. Religion taught Law and obedience as the solution to all problems, but it needed to teach discernment—teach it compassionately. We talk about justice but mean vengeance.
In Jesus’ temptations, he faced his own potential for evil, selfishness, power. To discern these in others, we need a 20” meditation twice a day. It is a dying, a letting go. After ecstasy, the laundry.
Great religion introduces us to someone we can trust so we can give up creating patterns and know that we are guided. Fear people are “head” people (76). When you are in your mind, you are never at peace. We have to be in a much larger Unified Field. Scapegoating is the story of most human history (Lev. 16).
"Meditation is refusing to project our anxieties elsewhere, and learning to hold and fact them within myself and within God.” Satan means ‘accuser.’ Jesus did not project the human problem—he suffered it and transformed it. Therefore, we come to God through our weakness. Jesus’ “wounds were NOT necessary to convince God we were lovable; [they] were to convince us of the path and price of transformation.” Who would have created as the image of God a naked, bleeding, wounded man? “If you don’t transform your pain you will always transmit it.” (80).
Jesus on the cross was NOT paying any price to God as if God needed to be talked into loving His creation! Jesus was refusing to pass on the negative energy that we killing him—like a transformer that is NOT returning evil energy. “That is how he took away the sin of the world.”
In the 13th century theories about redemption, Dominicans and Jesuits posited that Jesus was paying a ransom (from Jewish practice); but Duns Scotus said: “Jesus wasn’t changing God’s mind about us, but rather He was changing our mind about God.” Jesus’ incarnation and death were NOT necessary. They are a pure gift. We were NOT saved to pay any debt, “but purely to reveal to the soul Divine Love.” God is unconditionally in love with what he has created!
Chapter 8: Finding Our Charism
Meditation is a vocation. Time to talk about the lever. There are many. They are called gifts in 1 Cor. 12. The church should be teaching discernment and empowering gifts. Do people have the gifts of healing, preaching, leading or are they just put into roles or educated into slots? “Untold damage has been done because we let office, role, title, vestments and formal ordination try to substitute for the free gifts of God.” “We tried to create the gifts where they were not and we refused to see they where they were” (85).
Jonah went from darkness to personal vocation; from ego driven to soul driven. You have to do it or you are not you. It’s also important to find what is NOT your gift. Most of us are really good at only one or two things. There are 3 levels of social ministry: (1)Basic—hands on: Time and money and a generous heart; (2) Education and healing: give people survival skills; (3) Social advocacy: critiquing injustice, activism. Let go some gifts to do others contemplatively and peacefully and with integrity. Avoid the tyranny of the Urgent. “Too much good work becomes a violence to yourself and finally to those around you.” But support the other levels. Avoid comparisons about who is doing more. These are ego games.
The Gospel is NOT about being nice, but about being honest and just. MLK wanted win/win solutions and deep spiritual conversion. Rohr founded CAC to assist activists in spiritual conversion so they would not be as angry and negative as the people they were fighting. They spend 80% at CAC on contemplation and ‘social critique’ takes care of itself. You go from power to vulnerability and solidarity from within. Prayer removes paranoia and narcissism. Most people do not want this. If you do not become generative, then you become estranged—securing your last years around yourself. Generate life for the next generation!
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