With the Icon of St. Hildegard watching over us...
The great Jewish / Christian mystic, Simone Weil, wrote "We have been created by Love, for Love, to become Love." Isn't this profoundest of sentences worthy of replacing every single Creed written and developed by man?
"All creation is gifted with the ecstasy of God's light." -- St. Hildegard
"Only the mystics bring what is creative to religion itself." -- Carl Jung
"When you lack the verdancy of justice, your soul is dry, totally without tender goodness, totally without illuminating virtue." -- St. Hildegard
"The spirit / likes to dress up like this / ten fingers / ten toes..." -- Mary Oliver
As the World Mystics teach, "we have been created by Love, for Love, to become Love"...
Isn't this profoundest of sentences worthy of serving as the new guidepost for the transformation of political parties and the global economic system?
Doesn't this profoundest of sentences require of us a truly radical renewal of our primary and fundamental relationships? We, of course, must begin with our own mind-heart: this is the only genuine path towards the healing and cleansing we need. How many times and in how many ways have we been hurt? How many times and in how many ways have we hurt others? Everything -- including the possibility of transformation-- hinges upon the essential nature of this foundational point. "We have been created by Love, for Love, to become Love"... Is there any more needful thing in the spiritual life (political life) than that of this "turning away" from every notion and practice of separation?
Reflect seriously upon the words and actions of every candidate for any and every political office: does he or she cultivate the attitudes and actions of one who would unite or as one who would profit from division?
If, in fact, "we have been created by Love, for Love, to become Love", then isn't it of great importance that we cultivate loving as our way and rule of life? If we are proposing to live as if this is true, then don't the words of Thomas Berry indicate the height, breadth, and depth of loving as our way and rule of life: "The small self of the individual reaches its completion in the Great Self of the universe..." In other words, we have within us infinite fields of possibilities!
So, in conclusion, a Twenty-first Century Renewal of Spiritual Life begins with a transformative mind-shift: we activate our capacity for loving through cultivating compassion, empathy, and the power of forgiveness. Secondly, and in unison with the first, we activate our will for an awakening into the power of connections: nothing is separate from anything else: as we are, so too, is every other: including every eco-system and the entire Planet. And finally, as our wrap-around theology, we intentionally cultivate the practice of human and eco-justice; we intentionally cultivate communities of nonviolence, beauty, and kindness; and we welcome every opportunity for awe, wonder, home-making, and the delight of simple human pleasure... for it is true that we have been created by Love, for Love, to become Love...
[If any of this has the appearance of somehow excluding Jesus, Allah, Krishna, the Buddha, the Mother, the Tao, the Torah, or any Path that any of us might follow and believe in with our whole mind and heart... well, sorry, but you just haven't thought deeply enough about these words... please continue!]
The great Jewish / Christian mystic, Simone Weil, wrote "We have been created by Love, for Love, to become Love." Isn't this profoundest of sentences worthy of replacing every single Creed written and developed by man?
"All creation is gifted with the ecstasy of God's light." -- St. Hildegard
"Only the mystics bring what is creative to religion itself." -- Carl Jung
"When you lack the verdancy of justice, your soul is dry, totally without tender goodness, totally without illuminating virtue." -- St. Hildegard
"The spirit / likes to dress up like this / ten fingers / ten toes..." -- Mary Oliver
As the World Mystics teach, "we have been created by Love, for Love, to become Love"...
Isn't this profoundest of sentences worthy of serving as the new guidepost for the transformation of political parties and the global economic system?
Doesn't this profoundest of sentences require of us a truly radical renewal of our primary and fundamental relationships? We, of course, must begin with our own mind-heart: this is the only genuine path towards the healing and cleansing we need. How many times and in how many ways have we been hurt? How many times and in how many ways have we hurt others? Everything -- including the possibility of transformation-- hinges upon the essential nature of this foundational point. "We have been created by Love, for Love, to become Love"... Is there any more needful thing in the spiritual life (political life) than that of this "turning away" from every notion and practice of separation?
Reflect seriously upon the words and actions of every candidate for any and every political office: does he or she cultivate the attitudes and actions of one who would unite or as one who would profit from division?
If, in fact, "we have been created by Love, for Love, to become Love", then isn't it of great importance that we cultivate loving as our way and rule of life? If we are proposing to live as if this is true, then don't the words of Thomas Berry indicate the height, breadth, and depth of loving as our way and rule of life: "The small self of the individual reaches its completion in the Great Self of the universe..." In other words, we have within us infinite fields of possibilities!
So, in conclusion, a Twenty-first Century Renewal of Spiritual Life begins with a transformative mind-shift: we activate our capacity for loving through cultivating compassion, empathy, and the power of forgiveness. Secondly, and in unison with the first, we activate our will for an awakening into the power of connections: nothing is separate from anything else: as we are, so too, is every other: including every eco-system and the entire Planet. And finally, as our wrap-around theology, we intentionally cultivate the practice of human and eco-justice; we intentionally cultivate communities of nonviolence, beauty, and kindness; and we welcome every opportunity for awe, wonder, home-making, and the delight of simple human pleasure... for it is true that we have been created by Love, for Love, to become Love...
[If any of this has the appearance of somehow excluding Jesus, Allah, Krishna, the Buddha, the Mother, the Tao, the Torah, or any Path that any of us might follow and believe in with our whole mind and heart... well, sorry, but you just haven't thought deeply enough about these words... please continue!]
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