Awakening

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Christ has no body

Robert Holden on the Beatitudes

Psychologist and Hay House contributor Robert Holden has written two posts (part 1 and part 2) on a mystical interpretation of the Beatitudes. He begins by 'explaining that Christian mystics recognize most scriptures offer three levels of meaning':

The first is the level of stone, which conveys the literal, written meaning of the words; the second is the level of water, when the words speak to your heart; and the third is the level of wine, when water turns to wine, and you have a direct experience of the spiritual meaning of the words.

His explanations are brief, but worth a read for those, like me, who are exploring these important teachings from Jesus.

Selfish mindfulness

An interesting take on mindfulness from professor of psychology Thomas Joiner in Friday's WaPo:

What we might call authentic mindfulness [the nonjudgmental awareness of the richness, subtlety and variety of the present moment], I found, is a noble and potentially useful idea. But true mindfulness is being usurped by an imposter, and the imposter is loud and strutting enough that it has replaced the original in many people’s understanding of what mindfulness is. ... 

Mindfulness, as popularly promoted and practiced, can itself be a distraction. It purports to draw on ancient traditions as an antidote to modern living. Yet it exacerbates the modern tendency toward navel-gazing, while asking us to resist useful aspects of our nature.

Much more worth checking out in the longer article.

Ikigai

I came across the Japanese concept of ikigai in one of my feeds recently. There seems to be a useful connection with recovery ... i.e., learning to answer the "why do I get up in the morning?" question in a better way.

Presence and awareness

Hoping to be saved

I recently watched To The Bone, the Netflix movie about one girl's battle with anorexia. This quote by Keanu Reeve's character (Dr. Beckham) towards the end may feel trite or cliche to some (as it did to Ellen in the story), but it really resonated with me:

This idea you have, that there's a way to be safe, it's childish and cowardly. It stops you from experiencing anything, including anything good. ... Stop waiting for life to be easy. Stop hoping for somebody to save you. You don't need another person lying to you. Things don't all add up, but you are resilient. Face some hard facts and you could have an incredible life.

Cardinal Tobin on faith

This:

We’re encouraged to compartmentalize faith. Faith is seen as equivalent to worship and thereby reduced to an hour on Sunday morning, if that. It really impoverishes the notion of faith, of which the biblical image is a type of vision, a different way of looking at things. 

Faith is not an opiate or belief in the pie in the sky and the great by‑and‑by. It’s about the great drama of human existence and seeing something differently. I think that part of ministry and the life of the church is to help people make that connection, to see something differently. 

Faith tells me that my life with God is not simply about me and Jesus, because if it’s just me and Jesus, then it’s mainly about me. Faith impels me to have the vision to see other people not as objects or people who will do things that will meet my needs but as fellow daughters and sons of God, as brothers and sisters, as fellow pilgrims.

No such thing

"No such thing" is the title of Mirabai Starr's cover article in the Summer 2017 issue of The Mendicant, the newsletter of Richard Rohr's Center for Action and Contemplation which looks at Christian mystic Julian of Norwich's take on sin.

Julian description of her experience of the Divine:

I did not see any sin. I believe that sin has no substance, not a particle of being, and cannot be detected at all except by the pain it causes. It is only the pain that has substance, for a while, and it serves to purify us, and make us know ourselves and ask for mercy.

Starr adds (emphasis mine):

Julian informs us that the suffering we cause ourselves through our acts of greed and unconsciousness is the only punishment we endure. God, who is All-Love, is “incapable of wrath,” and so it is a complete waste of time, Julian realized, to wallow in guilt. The truly humble thing to do when we have stumbled is to hoist ourselves to our feet as swiftly as we can and rush into the arms of God, where we will remember who we really are. ... 

Sin is nothing but separation from our Divine Source, and separation from the Holy One is nothing but illusion. We are always and forever connected in love with our Beloved. Therefore sin is not real; only love is real.

Addiction and connection

Marc Lewis on what the overdose epidemic teaches us:

In short, we need opioids to feel safe and to connect with each other. Then what does it say about our life-style if our natural supply isn’t sufficient? It says we are stressed and isolated. That’s a problem we need to resolve. ... 

The early 21st century offers less structure and stability through religion, and through extended family relationships, than we have experienced in thousands of years. And maybe that’s just the way it is. But we don’t have to throw away the basic currency of security and interconnectedness entirely. We can build social structures — governments, corporations, community organizations, and systems of education and care — that encourage stability, hope, and trust in our day-to-day lives. ... If we fail to do that, many of us will want to hook ourselves up to an opioid pump. Just to endure.