The Apokatatastasis: A Poem

Breathing Under Water: A Poem

I built my house by the sea.

Not on the sands, mind you;
not on the shifting sand.
And I built it of rock.

A strong house
by a strong sea.
And we got well acquainted, the sea and I.
Good neighbors.
Not that we spoke much.
We met in silences.
Respectful, keeping our distance,
but looking our thoughts across the fence of sand.
Always, the fence of sand our barrier,
always, the sand between.

And then one day,
-and I still don’t know how it happened -
the sea came.
Without warning.

Without welcome, even
Not sudden and swift, but a shifting across the sand like wine,
less like the flow of water than the flow of blood.
Slow, but coming.
Slow, but flowing like an open wound.
And I thought of flight and I thought of drowning and I thought of death.
And while I thought the sea crept higher, till it reached my door.
And I knew, then, there was neither flight, nor death, nor drowning.
That when the sea comes calling, you stop being neighbors,
Well acquainted, friendly-at-a-distance neighbors,
And you give your house for a coral castle,
And you learn to breathe underwater.

— Sr. Carol Bieleck, RSCJ

The Franciscan Vision

St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio (1217–1274) took Francis and Clare’s practical lifestyle to the level of theology, philosophy, and worldview. Unlike many theologians of his time, Bonaventure paid little attention to fire and brimstone, sin, merit, justification, or atonement. His vision is positive, mystic, cosmic, intimately relational, and largely concerned with cleaning the lens of our perception and our intention so we can see and enjoy fully!

He starts very simply: “Unless we are able to view things in terms of how they originate, how they are to return to their end, and how God shines forth in them, we will not be able to understand.” [1] For Bonaventure, the perfection of God and God’s creation is a full circle, and to be perfect the circle must and will complete itself. He knows that Alpha and Omega are finally the same, and the lynchpin holding it all in unity is the “Christ Mystery,” or the essential unity of matter and spirit, humanity and divinity. The Christ Mystery is thus the template for all creation, and even more precisely the crucified Christ, who reveals the necessary cycle of loss and renewal that keeps all things moving toward ever further life. Now we know that the death and birth of every star and every atom is this same pattern of loss and renewal, yet this pattern is invariably hidden or denied, and therefore must be revealed by God—which is “the cross.”

Bonaventure’s theology is never about trying to placate a distant or angry God, earn forgiveness, or find some abstract theory of justification. He sees humanity as already being included in—and delighting in—an all-pervasive plan. As Paul’s school says, “Before the world was made, God chose us, chose us in Christ” (Ephesians 1:4). The problem is solved from the beginning. Rather than seeing history as a “fall from grace,” Bonaventure reveals a slow but real emergence and evolution into ever-greater consciousness of Love. He was the Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) of the 13th century.

One reason Bonaventure was so hopeful and positive is that he was profoundly Trinitarian. He saw love always and forever flowing between Father, Son, and Spirit and on to us. Bonaventure’s strong foundation in the Trinity gave him a nondual mind to deal with the ineffable mystery of God and creation. A dualistic mind closes down at any notion of Trinity or infinite love, because it cannot process it.

For Bonaventure, God, is not an offended monarch on a throne throwing down thunderbolts, but a “fountain fullness” that flows, overflows, and fills all things in one positive direction. Reality is thus in process and participatory; it is love itself, and not a mere Platonic world, an abstract idea, or a static impersonal principle. God as Trinitarian Flow is the blueprint and pattern for all relationships and thus all of creation, which we now know from contemporary science is exactly the case.

— Adapted from Richard Rohr, Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi (Franciscan Media: 2014), 162-165.

[1] Bonaventure, Collationes in Hexaëmeron (Lectures on the Six Days of Creation), 3.2. See Ilia Delio, Simply Bonaventure: An Introduction to His Life, Thought, and Writing, 2nd edition (New City Press: 2013), 171.

(Source: Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation)

Panentheism Anyone?

“Two practical conclusions follow from panentheism. A panentheistic consciousness demands ‘more of our powers of awareness’—we see ‘God in a grain of sand; and in a towering mountain; and in a crippled old man; and in an act of love; and in a tragic happening.’ To be panentheistic is to believe ‘in a living God, a God living everywhere.’

The second consequence of moving into panentheistic awareness is ‘the democracy of it all. A God who is everywhere is everybody’s. A truly democratic God. Available to the least as well as the greatest.’ The God of panentheism is not a ‘God of power-control; a sort of commander-in-chief of the universe’s ecstasies….No, a panentheistic God has shared the fun, the ecstasy, the joy, and the pains…with the littlest among us. That is spiritual democracy.’ Following that path will move us from an ‘I’ consciousness to a ‘We’ consciousness. It will render us vulnerable and may make us enemies of powers and principalities. A panentheistic God is an incarnational one in whom we recognize that ‘the world, and all of its pieces, is ultimately a manifestation of God.’…

…A panentheistic theology is an ecological theology in the deepest sense of that word. Why? Because panentheism restates the sacredness of all things, the Divine in-ness in all things, the presence of God in all things, creation (basileia) as ‘kingdom or reign of God.’ Recovering the sacredness of all beings from forests to oceans, rivers to polar bears, eagles to tigers, is to recover a lost relationship with the holiness of being. In this way, we are in a position to re-imagine our politics, economics, education and religions as agents for honoring the rights and dignity of all beings. Our home (‘eco’ in Greek) becomes livable again. Theism distances the Divine from the rest of nature. Panentheism reunites them. No wonder Carl Jung warned that one can lose one’s soul by worshiping a ‘God out there.’ Theism does that (and atheism is not far behind).”

— Matthew Fox in "How I found God in everyone and everywhere" by Andrew M. Davis(p. 149,154)

There Be Dragons!

HERE THERE BE DRAGONS...

Mystics are the map-makers of the landscape of God's Mystery. Never popular when alive, nor acknowledged by the conclaves of the religious establishments, Mystics wander alone… toward the map-less boarders of Inner Reality.

It used to be when cartographers developed maps of the ancient world they would leave the edges of the known world as a mysterious place of vagueness and danger. “THERE BE DRAGONS HERE", was the phrase left at the edges these maps, the edges of the known world, warning ships brave enough to voyage beyond the boundaries of reality that there could be danger. Wayfarers would be crossing the POINT OF NO RETURN.

Whenever we venture out beyond the maps of conformity: whether they be religious maps, theological, social, educational, conventional, etc., we head full on into the unknown. This unknown, far from frightening off the mystic, is where we prefer to tread. Mystics find their comfort in the ineffable Mystery of Reality, because their goal is not to try and conform this Mystery to conventional parameters, but to let it be Free and untamed.

Mystics don't run from dragons; they learn to ride them.

Out beyond the boundaries of orthodoxy and religion, you find, on whatever religious or philosophical “map" you are using, a clear end to what is knowable by the words, rites and rituals of religions. It’s at the edge of these knowable boundaries, written on virtually every religious map, ”There be Mystics here".

Mystics are the outcasts of religion. They play with dragons, frolic in the Mystery of God and come and go in and out of sight from the safe shores of orthodoxy. No one plays with Mystics. They are used as live bait for casting into deep oceans of being. Religionists wait to see if they return from the lands of dragons and mist covered mountains.

Some Mystics return with amazing stories of other worlds and indescribable sights. Their language changes to match the ineffable they have seen. Their appearance altars: a far off look in their eyes, their hearts on fire with the oblation of distant worlds and the songs of the Tathagata. Other Mystics never return, having befallen the lure of the boundless ecstasy of Divine Bliss.

The thing is, either way, religion needs the Mystic. Mystics are the offerings churches throw to the dragons to appease their gods of orthodoxy, not knowing that these offerings actually merit the entrance into Mystery. Truth needs the unorthodox journeys of those who climb to dragons lairs, map the cloud covered landscape of God's hidden Face and brave the journey across the Tintagel sea.

Mystics change the maps of the religious world. They rewrite the boundaries of Mystery to tell us: “Here there be Boundlessness", “Here there be Vast and Infinite Love”, “Here there be Radiant Emptiness", “Here there be Endless Bliss", “Here there be the Face of God".

And whatever words can be grasped of their ineffable mutterings, the esoteric maps of reality begin to be rewritten by the fire of living, breathing dragons.

For 56 years I have looked for my place among the religious landscape and finally know where I was meant to play:

Out here…

At the edge of the known…

Within the Mystery...

Where the boundaries of knowledge end and scriptures grow silent..

Out here…

Where there be dragons….

By~rOn Wright

Matthew: Jesus is the Embodiment of Torah

The Greek word translated "genealogy" at the beginning of Matthew's gospel is the same word for "genesis" translated from the LXX in Genesis 2:4. Matthew uses apocalyptic imagery to reveal Jesus is the new genesis of creation as well as the fulfillment of OT promises and prophecies.

Jesus is greater than Jonah and Solomon (12:41-42) and even greater than the temple itself (12:6). The Torah says the Shekinah glory of God is present among two who study the Torah (Mishnah, Avot 3.2, 6). Jesus very presence embodies the Torah when he says, "Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them" (18:20).

Matthew's last supper scene has intertextual connections to Ex.24 of the covenant banquet and the messianic promise of deliverance found in Zechariah 9. When the crowd later cries out to Pilate "His blood be on us and our children" and Pilate washes his hands of "this man's blood" in Matthew 27, these are not statements of condemnation of the Jewish people but following the promise of Zechariah, is to secure their liberation and salvation that goes all the way back to the beginning of Matthew's gospel, "He will save his people from their sins" (Matt.1:21).

Throughout Matthew's gospel Jesus is portrayed as the embodiment of both Israel and the Torah. The messiah is a sufferer like Israel and the Messiah is like the Torah where God's presence is with His people. The same language of "I am with you" in Matthew 28:20 is identical to Haggai 1:13. Jesus is Emmanuel, "God with us."

Is Jesus Moses 2.0?

Why does the modern church mix and match and patch together the Old and New Testament Scriptures reading the Bible like a flat one-dimensional book?

Why do modern Christians post the ten commandments in classrooms and courthouses but not portions of the sermon on the mount?

Why do we parrot Billy Graham "the bible says" giving equal authority to every text within the written scriptures and usually not distinguishing between the written word and the living Word?

It is easy to promote violence form the Old Testament but not as easy to promote violence from the New Testament.

Is Jesus Moses 2.0 or is Jesus something greater?


(questions and ideas from Andy Stanley's new book, Irresistible)