Save Me From Religion

The church is missing a theology of suffering and the cross
Religious people can no longer feel the earth beneath their feet
The can not see heaven descending like a cloud upon the earth
We can no longer feel the light of creation's glory shining on our faces

We can no longer dance the faith or keep up or in step with the Spirit
Can we taste the goodness of God on our lips?
Is the garden of paradise on our minds?
We have lost and forgotten the mystical, beauty, mystery, and the sacramental
Not only have we lost them but many a religious person stands against them
Please God, save us from religion

The Sactified Body and the Sactified Earth

The world is charged with the grandeur of God  -  Gerard Manley Hopkins

The whole world is my altar  -  Teilhard de Chardin

We need a new way of understanding and making sense of the world we live in.  A new way of perceiving and thinking, a new way of sensing and knowing.  Teilhard's view is the cosmos is the theatre of divine energy.  This universe on fire or ablaze echoes the Greek fathers in their patristic understanding of creation and the universe. 

Some critics have tried to level the pantheism charge against Teilhard's theology but they simply did not understand him.  His views not only follow the Chalcedon definition of human and divine without mixture and without confusion but his deeply synergistic understanding of spiritual transformation is deeply within the Greek fathers understanding.  A union of love and a communion of the will.  For Teilhard, the incarnation of Christ is making all things new, perfecting, and restoring all closely related to Irenaeus notion of recapitulation.  This all leads to what Teilhard calls a theology of redemption, deification, and participation in the divine life with God (2 Peter 1:4)

Deification for Teilhard is not just participation in the divine life but the whole created order being drawn towards God.  This all happens through Christ through grace.  This sacramental theology becomes a transfiguration of matter itself.  This is a logical extension for Teilhard of patristic theology's understanding of the Eucharist as an agent of deification.  All initiative comes from God and overflows from God.  This grand vision is nothing less than the unity of all creation in Jesus Christ.

Most people would not identify Teilhard's theology as either Patristic much less some kind of ressourcement of Christian theology.  Even though there are some departures and new understandings at times, one should not forget that a "return to the sources" was for Christian theology to be revised and refreshed in its own context and not just repeat what others have said in the past.  It is to imitate earlier Christian moves of reconciling scripture with the world and church with all of creation.  What one finds in Teilhard's theology is a Christian understanding that follows the spirit and substance of tradition that is deeply sacramental and contemplative immersed in God's love.

Theology as Poetry: Part 2

Christian theology as poetry is a spiritual awakening not just to God but to oneself.  God through His spiritual DNA gives intuitive gifts that work with His Spirit that leads to spiritual contemplation.  The soul may have always had these latent gifts from the beginning or from a spiritual awakening, a poetic instinct comes alive through the mystical experience.  One sees heaven, creation, God, people, and Scripture in a new light.  What was once hidden is revealed or what was always there is now seen as if for the first time.

Like a blind man coming out of a cave only to see the world for the first time in all its splendid glory, light, colors, and beauty.  This is a poetry of experience and a poetry of knowledge all converging together into one harmonic song.  Secrets become revelations and the obscure still shrouded in mystery becomes personal and full of ecstasy.  Like a person who could never understand or really "see" art, so the mystical theologian still sees in part and knows in part, but in a deeper more personal way of knowing.  The objects and the world around did not change but the way one knows has been transformed.

There is no theological poetry without mystical experience and no mystical experience that stirs the poetic imagination.  The world becomes a sacrament of holy fire and human vision is changed by a vision whose source is the Spirit of the living God.  A kind of mystical death takes place where pride gives way to humility and self gives way to God's abiding presence.  One still seeks God but one is also possessed by God all at the same time in the eternal now.  Time itself has been transformed from chronological time to time that has no end.

This poetic knowledge is not just speculative or rational but experiential and incarnational at its core.  One does not leave this world for another world but becomes more firmly rooted into being an agent of change as God's kingdom collides with the powers and energies of this dark world.  The soul sleeps in the rest and presence of God as it is fully awake to all of creation.  Mystical death and life, crucifixion and resurrection, all join together as heaven and earth join as one in mystic marriage to the Messiah bridegroom.

The Holy Other

God's radiant light fills more than the colors of the rainbow.  God's holy presence whispers to our inner ear and enlivens our heart with God's goodness and grace.  God knows everything about us.  He knows our shortcomings, our wounds, our dreams and our failures.  God knows it all yet His holy presence shines in love towards each of us.

God touches my ears with celestial music and awakens my heart with celebration.  Miracles are all around for those who have eyes of faith to see.  The Spirit of God radiates everywhere and my path is illumined with peace to walk free of fear.  God is taking me to places unknown to me but since God is with me, his calmness encircles me.

God takes my arrogance and transforms it into humility.  God takes my defiance and turns it into reverence.  My black and white life is now Technicolor by the Spirit of the Living God.  Divine wisdom guides my path and God establishes truth, beauty and goodness before me.  The only way to know inner joy is to discover your true self in Christ.

God is removing the veil that separates and partitions creation from ourselves.    God is moving the ground under my faith as He lifts my soul to heaven.  Christ is the center of gravity as I breath and flow in God's waters of divine love.  The whole universe is filled with miracles and with the sacrament of God's holy presence.