Jesus Speaks to Occupy Wall Street

Posted on October 17, 2011 by pat

Jesus today addresses the Occupy Wall Street protestors around the world. He says:

Then he said to the crowd,
“Take care to guard against all greed,
for though one may be rich,
one’s life does not consist of possessions.” (Lk 12:14)

Using the words written by Rabbi Lerner, Jesus spells it our for us:

We want to replace a society based on selfishness and materialism with a society based on caring for each other and caring for the planet. We want a new bottom line so that institutions, corporations, government policies, and even personal behavior is judged rational or productive or efficient not only by how much money or power gets generated, but also by how much love and kindness, generosity and caring, environmental and ethical behavior, and how much we are able to respond to the universe with awe, wonder and radical amazement the grandeur and mystery of all Being. To take the first steps, we want to eliminate ban all money from elections except that supplied by government on an equal basis to all major candidates, require free and equal time for the candidates and prohibit buying other time or space, and require corporations to get a new corporate charter once every five years which they can only get if they can prove a satisfactory history of environmental and social responsibility to a jury of ordinary citizens. We call this the Environmental and Social Responsibility Amendment to the US Constitution (ESRA). We want to replace the mistaken notion that homeland security can be achieve through a strategy of world domination by our corporations suppoted by the US military and intelligence services with a strategy of generosity and caring for others in the world that will start by launching a Global Marshall Plan that dedicates 1-2% of our GMP ever year for the next twenty to once and for all eliminate global poverty homelessnes, hunger, inadequate education and inadequate health care–knowing that this, not an expanded militarr, is what will give us security. And we want a NEW New Deal that provides a job for everyone who wants to work, jobs that rebuild our environment and our infrastructre, and jobs that allow us to take better care of educating our youth and caring for the aged. That’s what we are for! And you can read more about them at www.spiritualprogressives.org

Jesus continues:

These are Gospel values which we must proclaim to empire. We must shout from the parks and the rooftops, “Jesus is Lord.” Do not build barns for your surplus because you cannot take it with you.

Simplify. Simplify. Simplify.

Posted on October 11, 2011 by pat

In the first chapter of Paul’s Letter to the Romans which he probably wrote from Corinth, Paul castigates those who have failed to recognize God in creation. They instead have gone off to worship idols and wallow in their sin. Their salvation is in the Gospel—Christ crucified like a common criminal and resurrected to new life.

People are sometimes unaware that, besides The Seven Storey Mountain, Merton published another book in 1948—The Spirit of Simplicity: Characteristic of the Cistercian Order. Scholars agree that Merton was the author. For him, in his early experience of Cistercian monasticism, simplicity was quite simple. Summing up the teaching of St. Bernard and the Little Exordium, Merton says:

[S]implicity consisted in getting rid of everything that did not help the monk arrive at union with God by the shortest possible way.

And the shortest possible way to arrive at union with God, who is Love, is by loving Him, in himself, and in our breather. (iii) Continue reading →

Holy Spirit, Rain Down!

Posted on October 6, 2011 by pat

If you then, who are wicked,
know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit
to those who ask him?” (Lk 11:13)

I have read the ask and you shall receive stuff so many times. This part jumped out at me like I had never read it before. This again represents the value of lectio divina—reading the scriptures slowly and thoughtfully.

We, who are at times wicked, usually know how to give good gifts to our children. How much more does God know how to give us the greatest gift—the Holy Spirit, the image of God in whose very likeness we exist? What to we have to do to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit? Just ask for it! The One Who Is, the Creator, gifts us with the very life breath of the Holy One if we but ask for it.

I am asking right now, “Come, Holy Spirit.”

I now sense and feel the very life of God within me in a new and powerful way!!!!! Like our rector, Fr. John, I am ready to break into song, “Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!”

Wake up and chant with me, “Come, Holy Spirit, fill our hearts, our minds, our very lives with the power of Infinite Love unfolding in the cosmos and within each one of us.” “Rain down the Son of justice who heals us and makes us whole, makes us divine!”

Imam–Good Samaritan

Posted on October 3, 2011 by pat

Sometimes I like to re-imagine Gospel stories by putting them in a contemporary perspective. When asked who was neighbor, Jesus told a story—the story of the Good Samaritan. Religious officials passed by and ignored the wounded man in the ditch. A despised Samaritan—a member of a religious sect despised by mainstream Jews—tended to the man’s wounds and took him to an inn for treatment and recuperation for which he paid the inn keeper out of pocket.

Many Christians and Jews, after a long history of crusades and inquisitions, do not look favorably upon Muslims, do not perceive Muslims as neighbors. Perhaps today, Jesus would tell the story in this way:

A certain man was traveling from Atlanta to Macon when he was carjacked by thieves who beat him, left him half-dead in a ditch along the highway, and sped off in his Cadillac Escalade. A Catholic priest, driving by, saw the man but kept on going. Likewise, a Jewish rabbi saw the man and stepped on the accelerator. Later, a Muslim imam saw the man in the ditch and stopped his car. He rendered first aid and, unable to raise 911, he loaded the man in his car and took him to the emergency room. The man’s wallet had been stolen so the hospital could not ID him nor determine whether he had insurance. The imam gave them his business card and said, “If he does not have insurance, our mosque will foot the bill.

Then, Jesus would ask, “Who was brother to his man?”

Islamophobia is running rampant. Two years ago I was preparing to teach a class on Islam through the Institute for Continuing Learning at Young Harris College. I was telling a person I considered to be a devout Christian about the course. When I said the course was entitled, “Islam—Can We Live with It?” The person immediately retorted, “I should hope not!”

Writing in Creighton’s Daily Reflection (http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/100311.html ), Dick Hauser, SJ, asks, “Who are the individuals or groups in our lives for whom we lack compassion? For whom have we not yet become neighbor?” This is the question we, as Christians, must ask ourselves. Do we believe Muslims are and can be merciful, compassionate neighbors? Do we see them as brothers and sisters in Christ? Or, do we let our fears overwhelm our Christian responsibility to love our neighbors?

Consider All as “Dung”

Posted on October 2, 2011 by pat

The One Who Is Speaks Beauty

For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:8-9)

Paul reverts to slang in this passage in order to shock his readers into attention. Paul thought nothing was more important than Christ crucified and resurrected. His courage in proclaiming the Gospel is obvious. He is proclaiming to the world that a man conidered a criminal by the Romans was crucified and is now Lord and Messiah—a most radical claim. For Paul nothing is more important than faith in the Risen Christ whom he proclaims as Messiah, the One who fulfills the promise of Israel.

The translation above says he counts all things as rubbish. Fr. Thomas Keating, Trappist monk from Snowmass taught us long ago that the Greek word for rubbish is really a slang word for fecal matter—dung to put it more politely. The NET Bible translator’s note reads:

The word here translated as “dung” was often used in Greek as a vulgar term for fecal matter. As such it would most likely have had a certain shock value for the readers. That may well be Paul’s meaning here, especially since the context is about what the flesh produces.(2294)

We must also remember, as Paul shocks us, that “flesh” is not our bodies. Flesh is all that is not of God. Merton changed the terminology to bring out its true meaning. Flesh is the false self—again, all that is not of God. All that is of the flesh is s___, to use the English vulgar term. Continue reading →

Contemplation and Creation

Posted on September 30, 2011 by pat

Lake Chatuge Morning

I have just finished reading Monica Weis’ book, The Environmental Vision of Thomas Merton. The book is thoroughly researched and gives great insight into Merton’s growth into ecological consciousness. Careful study of Merton’s journals charts his progress.

Weis makes a distinction which is critical for us today. Merton thought about millennial consciousness and ecological consciousness. To me, millennial conscious is the old “eat, drink, and make merry for tomorrow we die” approach. A contemporary iteration of this trend of thought is encapsulated in “Drill, baby, drill” or “Drill now!” It is all about reaping (raping)the earth’s resources without regard to the consequences such as the dire consequences of environmental destruction in the tar sands oil venture. People who espouse, “Get it and get it now” would be more comfortable with Ronald Reagan than with Al Gore. People who are uninformed often attribute the downfall of Soviet Communism with Reagan’s stand down. Those who know the facts realize that the Soviet empire collapsed under the weight of its rapacious pillaging of natural resources. When these were depleted in Germany and other Eastern Block countries, the empire collapsed. Continue reading →

Technology and Contemplation

Posted on September 27, 2011 by pat

We participated in a conference sponsored by the Merton Center at Bellarmine University in Louisville last weekend—“Contemplation in a Technological Era: Thomas Merton’s Insight for the Twenty-First Century.” I am still trying to digest what was presented at the conference. The papers will be in the next edition of the Merton Annual which comes out next spring. In the meantime, it will be back to the drawing board with study of what Merton has to say about the topic. Continue reading →

Hummingbirds and Contemplative Photography

Posted on September 16, 2011 by pat

John Howard Griffin loaned Thomas Merton a camera and that began Merton’s exploration of contemplative photography. Two years ago, I co-led a retreat on Merton with Father James Behrens at the Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Georgia. Father James, like Abbot Dom Michael, is following in the footsteps of Merton’s contemplative photography. I am learning form them and I recently taught a course on The Zen of Photography at the Institute for Continuing Learning at Young Harris College.

Contemplative photography teaches me how to be present to what is happening here and now. It does not fall in the mode of travel photography where you shoot numerous pictures of places you have never really been (You have been too busy just taking pictures.)

My latest rich experience of contemplative has been photographing hummingbirds as they come to our feeders. Sometime I get sneak shots of them through the kitchen window. Most of the time, I sit in a folding chair in the front drive with my camera on a monopod and armed with a 400 mm or 300mm lens. To get the pictures you have be in a contemplative mode—sitting quietly and patiently waiting for the hummingbirds. They hum back and forth. They spot me and fly away. Soon, however, they get used to me sitting there and come to the feeder. Their little hearts can beat as much as 1260 beats per minute. They can hover. They can fly backwards. Their main food is insects; however, they love the nectar in the feeders. They manifest the glory of their Creator.

9/11: Remembered, Revisited, Redirected

Posted on September 10, 2011 by pat

Jesus is Lord!

The question of the week is, “Where were you on 9/11?” There is another question to be asked but we will hold that for a moment.

I had recently retired as a public school educator in Gwinnett County, Georgia and I was fortunate to get a post-retirement consultant’s job with a company in Cambridge, Massachusetts; however, I would be working with schools in Georgia. Having been offered the job, I was invited to a training session for all the company leadership and consultants in Boston. I boarded a Delta jet in Atlanta on 9/9/01. It is the only time I have been on a plane that was returned to the gate because of mechanical problems. Repairs were made and we took off for Boston. In hindsight, the delay may have been an omen of things to come. Continue reading →

Prayer

Posted on September 7, 2011 by pat

[Our church has a weekly soaking prayer service. I led the meditation at last night’s service. I wanted to share this reflection on prayer with you. The quotes from Richard Rohr come from daily messages he sends to subscribers.]

One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. (Lk 6:12)

Jesus went to pray. Look at the events leading up to Lk 6:12.

He forgave the sins of the paralytic.
He chose Levi, a tax collector, and then went to a party at Levi’s house.
His disciples plucked grain as they walked through the field on the Sabbath
He healed the withered hand of the man in the synagogue on the Sabbath

No wonder Jesus went to be with Abba God. His enemies were on his case. They confronted him on each of these occasions. Continue reading →

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