Being Here Now...
"Humankind is being brought to a moment where it will have to decide between suicide and adoration." -- Teilhard de Chardin
The last word in spirituality is the "new" first word in spirituality, politics and economics: "One". Not, "one percent": not, "some of us": but, every first and last one of us! We all -- and this precious blue Planet -- deserve the very best: love-without-limits: Love unrestrained by the lust for profits and the justifications for violence: We can choose a New Love for a Planet-Wide Movement of Regeneration and Liberation...
Being here now... but then...
I had a need to live a meaningful life and "normal" was never particularly attractive to me... so I started a "Catholic Worker House" (that was 1982) -- which eventually became "Dorothy's Place Hospitality Center" and an Intentional Community called the "Companions of the Way...
Two million meals, several shelters, health clinic, art gallery, work co-op, community garden, migrant farm worker projects, summer camps for children, and 30 years later, I left on a sabbatical into the "unknown" of the Midwest with my family: ultimately to decide that a new life experience was calling me (and us)...
Life and work with the homeless was my single most important teacher: learning the deep inner connections between "breaking" and "accessing" the indwelling Mystery of the "One Love Consciousness"... Yeshua, the Poet of Nazareth, the "Ragged-Man" St. Francis of Assisi, Mahatma Gandhi, Paramahansa Yogananda, Dorothy Day, St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila, and Rumi the Ecstatic were my essential inspirations... Ram Dass, Matthew Fox, Vandana Shiva, Nelson Mandela, Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Tessa Bielecki, Andrew Harvey, and Thomas Merton have been best friends for the journey... And continuing the "hippie vision" of Tribe, gentle personalism, oneness with nature, sexual rapture, communitarianism, and the daily "practice" of beauty in all of its forms is the Tao, the Way of Soulful Harmony, the Path into our realized human potential...
So, now I am a writer with my activism focused on sharing insights instead of soup and sandwiches. I continue as a student of the Mystery, the "Quantum -- One Love -- Heart Consciousness". But in these deeply troubling times, it is essential that what wisdom and grace we can summon be shared with others. It is of vital importance that we gather and "tribe" to organize, pray and meditate, work and play, listen and study, and dream and vision... We must not simply seek the strength to endure: we must struggle mightily for the world of peace, justice, equality, and reverence for the Earth that is possible...
We can make of our lives master-works of art, of poetry, of beauty, and of magic! We can, in fact, live in such a way that we "become the Mothers of G-d"... Mystics like Meister Eckhart, Hildegard of Bingen, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Rumi, and Hafiz are the Teachers we are in line with... Modern mystic-activists like Andrew Harvey, David Spangler, Matthew Fox, Ram Dass, Thich Nhat Hahn, the Dalai Lama, Neil Douglas-Klotz, and Adam Bucko... along with communities like Findhorn... and feminist-activists like Angela Davis, bell hooks, Alice Walker, Ani Difranco, Jean Shinoda Bolin, and Starhawk inform us as to where we are tending... In all of this, and more, we need to form "sacred circles" to assist in the complete eco-political-religious transformations that must occur if this precious blue Planet is to regenerate and humanity is to thrive... Have you ever listened to Riane Eisler, Ellen Grace O'Brian, David C. Korten, John Perkins, Vandana Shiva, or David Suzuki? Have you ever read "The Chalice & The Blade" and "Sacred Pleasure" by Eisler? How about "The Great Turning" by Korten? Or "Earth Democracy" by Vandana Shiva and "The Hope" by Andrew Harvey? Know this deep into your bones: another world is possible!
We can (!) bust our hearts wide open to embrace this entire Planet, everyone on it, and every sacred being and thing: we are One Inter-Being: this is the essential mysticism of our time: no separation! Living this Oneness is the monasticism of the 21st century: living this Oneness is gender reconciliation, is every human re-creation in mutual aid and adoration... Living this Oneness is the eco-feminism that will lead us from the temptations of the inherent selfishness, cowardice, laziness, and neo-fascism of the world wide Right-Wing... Remembering the words of Dostoevsky, "The world will be saved by beauty", we will activate our passions for possibilities in an exploration of a new gender equality, economics, politics, culture, and spirituality... And as important as anything else, we will not label our "opposites" as enemies! Violence, racism, sexism, greed, eco-destruction, and war-profiteering are fundamentally ugly and unattractive: we "allow" them through our fears -- which are deliberately cultivated by those who use those fears to build their own "circles" of privilege and power: we will disarm their power and privilege by constructing lives of beauty, radiance, kindness, mystical passion, an expansive human love, nonviolent direct action, and an activated compassion... Letting go of fear, we will rise in a new harmony...
So, if you have a mind to, turn these pages and find yourself welcomed into "the burninghand": afire with hope and certainty: "Come, my friends, 'tis not too late to seek a newer world." (Tennyson)... Feeling the warmth generated by one hand holding another... and another... and another... our "burninghands" will build a world worthy of every child... seven generations forward...
We have within us -- right now -- the capacity to choose global adoration!
The last word in spirituality is the "new" first word in spirituality, politics and economics: "One". Not, "one percent": not, "some of us": but, every first and last one of us! We all -- and this precious blue Planet -- deserve the very best: love-without-limits: Love unrestrained by the lust for profits and the justifications for violence: We can choose a New Love for a Planet-Wide Movement of Regeneration and Liberation...
Being here now... but then...
I had a need to live a meaningful life and "normal" was never particularly attractive to me... so I started a "Catholic Worker House" (that was 1982) -- which eventually became "Dorothy's Place Hospitality Center" and an Intentional Community called the "Companions of the Way...
Two million meals, several shelters, health clinic, art gallery, work co-op, community garden, migrant farm worker projects, summer camps for children, and 30 years later, I left on a sabbatical into the "unknown" of the Midwest with my family: ultimately to decide that a new life experience was calling me (and us)...
Life and work with the homeless was my single most important teacher: learning the deep inner connections between "breaking" and "accessing" the indwelling Mystery of the "One Love Consciousness"... Yeshua, the Poet of Nazareth, the "Ragged-Man" St. Francis of Assisi, Mahatma Gandhi, Paramahansa Yogananda, Dorothy Day, St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila, and Rumi the Ecstatic were my essential inspirations... Ram Dass, Matthew Fox, Vandana Shiva, Nelson Mandela, Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Tessa Bielecki, Andrew Harvey, and Thomas Merton have been best friends for the journey... And continuing the "hippie vision" of Tribe, gentle personalism, oneness with nature, sexual rapture, communitarianism, and the daily "practice" of beauty in all of its forms is the Tao, the Way of Soulful Harmony, the Path into our realized human potential...
So, now I am a writer with my activism focused on sharing insights instead of soup and sandwiches. I continue as a student of the Mystery, the "Quantum -- One Love -- Heart Consciousness". But in these deeply troubling times, it is essential that what wisdom and grace we can summon be shared with others. It is of vital importance that we gather and "tribe" to organize, pray and meditate, work and play, listen and study, and dream and vision... We must not simply seek the strength to endure: we must struggle mightily for the world of peace, justice, equality, and reverence for the Earth that is possible...
We can make of our lives master-works of art, of poetry, of beauty, and of magic! We can, in fact, live in such a way that we "become the Mothers of G-d"... Mystics like Meister Eckhart, Hildegard of Bingen, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Rumi, and Hafiz are the Teachers we are in line with... Modern mystic-activists like Andrew Harvey, David Spangler, Matthew Fox, Ram Dass, Thich Nhat Hahn, the Dalai Lama, Neil Douglas-Klotz, and Adam Bucko... along with communities like Findhorn... and feminist-activists like Angela Davis, bell hooks, Alice Walker, Ani Difranco, Jean Shinoda Bolin, and Starhawk inform us as to where we are tending... In all of this, and more, we need to form "sacred circles" to assist in the complete eco-political-religious transformations that must occur if this precious blue Planet is to regenerate and humanity is to thrive... Have you ever listened to Riane Eisler, Ellen Grace O'Brian, David C. Korten, John Perkins, Vandana Shiva, or David Suzuki? Have you ever read "The Chalice & The Blade" and "Sacred Pleasure" by Eisler? How about "The Great Turning" by Korten? Or "Earth Democracy" by Vandana Shiva and "The Hope" by Andrew Harvey? Know this deep into your bones: another world is possible!
We can (!) bust our hearts wide open to embrace this entire Planet, everyone on it, and every sacred being and thing: we are One Inter-Being: this is the essential mysticism of our time: no separation! Living this Oneness is the monasticism of the 21st century: living this Oneness is gender reconciliation, is every human re-creation in mutual aid and adoration... Living this Oneness is the eco-feminism that will lead us from the temptations of the inherent selfishness, cowardice, laziness, and neo-fascism of the world wide Right-Wing... Remembering the words of Dostoevsky, "The world will be saved by beauty", we will activate our passions for possibilities in an exploration of a new gender equality, economics, politics, culture, and spirituality... And as important as anything else, we will not label our "opposites" as enemies! Violence, racism, sexism, greed, eco-destruction, and war-profiteering are fundamentally ugly and unattractive: we "allow" them through our fears -- which are deliberately cultivated by those who use those fears to build their own "circles" of privilege and power: we will disarm their power and privilege by constructing lives of beauty, radiance, kindness, mystical passion, an expansive human love, nonviolent direct action, and an activated compassion... Letting go of fear, we will rise in a new harmony...
So, if you have a mind to, turn these pages and find yourself welcomed into "the burninghand": afire with hope and certainty: "Come, my friends, 'tis not too late to seek a newer world." (Tennyson)... Feeling the warmth generated by one hand holding another... and another... and another... our "burninghands" will build a world worthy of every child... seven generations forward...
We have within us -- right now -- the capacity to choose global adoration!
