Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
St. Paul Writing His Epistles (detail), circa 1618-1620, attributed to Valentin de Boulogne (1591-1632).
"Understanding Paul Non-Dually""Weakness and Strength, Part I"
Tuesday, 14 April 2015
Another seeming duality which Paul constructs and then beautifully overcomes is the paradox of weakness and strength: "When I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Corinthians 12:10). Some call this the spirituality of imperfection, which is really just the Gospel, but which most of Christian history made into an impossible spirituality of "perfection."
Two of my favorite saints, Francis of Assisi and Thérèse of Lisieux, are grand exceptions to the upward/ascent path of most mainline Christianity. In his earliest biography, Francis is quoted as teaching the friars: "We must bear patiently not being good and not being thought good." It is a rare insight, as the common assumption is that one primarily needs to "think well of oneself"! Thérèse, who lived just over 100 years ago, teaches the same thing and says it is a "newway." She called it her Little Way and called herself a "Little Flower" in God's big garden. This spirituality of imperfection undermines the egoic use of religion for purposes of self-esteem.
Quite simply, both Francis and Thérèse recognized that you come to God not by being strong, but by being weak; not by being right, but through your mistakes; not by self-admiration but by self-forgetfulness. Surprise of surprises! But it shouldn't have been a surprise at all, because both Jesus and Paul taught it rather clearly. Yet it was just too obvious, simple, and counter-intuitive to be true. This teaching utterly levels the playing field of holiness, so all losers can win--which is everybody--if we are honest. This is pure Gospel, in my opinion, and worthy of being called "good news for all the people" (Luke 2:10)
This message is so central for the reform of religion itself that I wrote a shorter meditation, so you will read it at least twice.
Adapted from St. Paul: The Misunderstood Mystic (CD, MP3 download)
Gateway to Silence: "When I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Corinthians 12:10).
____________________________
Center for Action and Contemplation of Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States "Richard Rohr's Meditation: Grace and Law, Part II" for Monday, 13 April 2015
"The purpose of spiritual law is to sharpen your own awareness about who you really are and who God is for you. There you will recognize your own radical insufficiency and, in that same movement, find God's fullness."
"Grace and Law, Part II"
Monday, 13 April 2015
Why did Paul come to the subtle but crucial understanding of the limited and dangerous possibilities of law/requirements? Probably because Paul himself had been a man of the law, and he saw where it led him: to "breathing threats to slaughter the Lord's disciples" (Acts 9:1). As he tells us in Philippians (3:4-8), Paul was a perfect law-abiding Pharisee. "As far as the Law can make you perfect, I was faultless," he says. He seems to be wondering, "How could such perfect religious observance still create hateful and violent men like me?" That was Paul's utterly honest question, and he had the humility to answer it honestly. (Many folks today would be wise to ask the same question of themselves.)
What is the law really for? It's not to make God love you. God already loves you, and you cannot make God love you any more or any less by any technique whatsoever. The purpose of spiritual law is to sharpen your own awareness about who you really are and who God is for you. Then you will recognize your own radical insufficiency and, in that same movement, find God's fullness. If you have ever tried to get rid of a negative thought by mere will power, instead of by a "Higher Power," you have surely experienced this reality.
God not only allows us to make mistakes, but even uses our mistakes in our favor! That is the brilliant Gospel economy of grace, and it is the only thing worthy of being called "good news and a joy for all the people" (Luke 2:10). When you come out of the boxing ring of the creative tension of law and grace, you will know that you have finally won the match; but ironically, you will have won it by losing!
Adapted from Things Hidden; Scripture as Spirituality, pages 82-84; and New Great Themes of Scripture, disc 4 (CD)
Gateway to Silence: "When I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Corinthians 12:10).
____________________________
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
St. Paul Writing His Epistles (detail), circa 1618-1620, attributed to Valentin de Boulogne (1591-1632).
"Understanding Paul Non-Dually""Grace and Law, Part II"
Monday, 13 April 2015
Why did Paul come to the subtle but crucial understanding of the limited and dangerous possibilities of law/requirements? Probably because Paul himself had been a man of the law, and he saw where it led him: to "breathing threats to slaughter the Lord's disciples" (Acts 9:1). As he tells us in Philippians (3:4-8), Paul was a perfect law-abiding Pharisee. "As far as the Law can make you perfect, I was faultless," he says. He seems to be wondering, "How could such perfect religious observance still create hateful and violent men like me?" That was Paul's utterly honest question, and he had the humility to answer it honestly. (Many folks today would be wise to ask the same question of themselves.)
What is the law really for? It's not to make God love you. God already loves you, and you cannot make God love you any more or any less by any technique whatsoever. The purpose of spiritual law is to sharpen your own awareness about who you really are and who God is for you. Then you will recognize your own radical insufficiency and, in that same movement, find God's fullness. If you have ever tried to get rid of a negative thought by mere will power, instead of by a "Higher Power," you have surely experienced this reality.
God not only allows us to make mistakes, but even uses our mistakes in our favor! That is the brilliant Gospel economy of grace, and it is the only thing worthy of being called "good news and a joy for all the people" (Luke 2:10). When you come out of the boxing ring of the creative tension of law and grace, you will know that you have finally won the match; but ironically, you will have won it by losing!
Adapted from Things Hidden; Scripture as Spirituality, pages 82-84; and New Great Themes of Scripture, disc 4 (CD)
Gateway to Silence: "When I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Corinthians 12:10).
____________________________
Center for Action and Contemplation of Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States "Richard Rohr's Meditation: Sabbath -- Paul's Dialectical Teaching; Holding the Tension" for Saturday, 11 April 2015
"Think of one controversial issue that you are "suffering" with and acknowledge two or more possible outcomes or realities. Try to not take sides, but hold the pain of contradictions and seeming impossibilities."
Summary Sunday, April 5, 2015 - Saturday, April 11, 2015
Once the conflict has been overcome in you, and you realize you are a living paradox and so is everyone else, you begin to see life in a truly spiritual way. (Sunday)
You are a part of the body of Christ. The only way you are going to really respect your own and others' full and divine character is by recognizing we all participate in the one true unity. (Monday)
What Paul means by Christ is the participatory mystery of Jesus continued through time and space in us! (Tuesday)
The "body" concept realizes that the individual person cannot carry the weight of glory any more than he or she can carry the "burden of sin." (Wednesday)
The compassionate holding of essential meaninglessness or tragedy, as Jesus does on the cross, is the final and triumphant resolution of all the dualisms and dichotomies that we face in our own lives. We are thus "saved by the cross"! (Thursday)
The problem is not that you have a body; the problem is that you think you are separate from others. (Friday)
"Practice Holding the Tension"
Think of one controversial issue that you are "suffering" with and acknowledge two or more possible outcomes or realities. Try to not take sides, but hold the pain of contradictions and seeming impossibilities. Ask God to hold you since you cannot hold yourself.
As with contemplative prayer or meditation, whenever you get caught in thinking through the pros and cons or are tempted to choose a particular side, simply return to holding the tension. Rest in God's presence which holds you and the impossibility of this paradox.
Emerging from this spaciousness, you can now be taught by the Holy Spirit. It might just be wisdom you receive, instead of only knowledge.
Gateway to Silence: I am not separate.
____________________________Center for Action and Contemplation of Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States "Richard Rohr's Meditation: Flesh and Spirit" for Friday, 10 April 2015
"The problem is not that you have a body; the problem is that you think you are separate from others."
"Flesh and Spirit"
Friday, 10 April 2015
The dialectic that we probably struggle with the most is the one Paul creates between flesh and spirit. If I could change one word Paul uses, which so many people have struggled with, I would change the word sarx, translated "flesh" in most contemporary languages. John's Gospel uses this same word, sarx, in a positive way: "The Word became flesh" (John 1:14). But somehow we've come to associate Paul's usage negatively with the human body.
I don't think Paul ever intended for people to feel that their bodies are bad. After all, God took on a human body in Jesus! Paul does not use the word soma, which literally means "body." He is trying to introduce another idea and unfortunately uses a word that has caused untold confusion in Christian history. The closest alternative translation we could use might be the word "ego" or even the Freudian word "id." I think what Paul means by sarx is the trapped self, the small self, the partial self, or what Merton called the false self. Basically, spirit is the whole self, the Christ self that we fall into by grace. We are saved by a larger mystery in which we can only participate as one abiding member.The problem is not between body and spirit; it's between part and whole.
Paul never really reconciles this dichotomy because he defines flesh and spirit as opposites in both Romans and Galatians. If you read one chapter of Galatians or one chapter of Romans, you'll probably think, "Well, I've got to get out of the flesh in order to get into the spirit. But I don't know how to get out of the flesh!" That's because "flesh" in modern language sounds like embodiment. In fact, what most of us hear is sex. I want to say as strongly as I can, that's not what Paul is talking about! Paul uses the word sarx to talk about the separate self, the partial self, the entrapped self, the false self. It's the self that is trying to define itself apart from the Spirit, apart from the Big Self. It's you apart from God, the tiny self that you think you are, who takes yourself far too seriously and who is always needy and wanting something else. It's the self that is characterized by scarcity and fragility--and well it should be, because it's illusory and passing. This small self doesn't really exist in God's eyes as anything substantial or real. It's nothing but a construct of your own mind.
To easily get beyond this confusion, just substitute the word ego every time you hear Paul use the word flesh. It will get you out of this dead-end, false, and dualistic ping-pong game between body and spirit. The problem is not that you have a body; the problem is that you think you are separate from others. And then that fragile separate self tries to make itself superior besides. It will never work.
Adapted from Jesus as Liberator/Paul as Liberator (MP3 download); and St. Paul: The Misunderstood Mystic (MP3 download); and Great Themes of Paul: Life as Participation, disc 4 (CD)
Gateway to Silence: I am not separate.
____________________________Center for Action and Contemplation of Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States "Richard Rohr's Meditation: The Folly of the Cross" for Thursday, 9 April 2015
"The compassionate holding of essential meaninglessness or tragedy, as Jesus does on the cross, is the final and triumphant resolution of all the dualisms and dichotomies that we face in our own lives. We are thus "saved by the cross"!"
"The Folly of the Cross"
Thursday, 9 April 2015
Another dialectic that Paul presents is the perennial conflict of conservative and liberal. In his day, his own people, the Jews, became the stand-in for pious, law-abiding conservatives; the Greeks became his metaphor for intellectuals, cultural critics, and what we would call liberals. Paul sees the Jews trying to create order in the world by obedience to law and tribe. The Greeks try to create order by reason, understanding, logic, and education. Paul insists that neither of them can finally succeed because they do not have the ability to "incorporate the negative," which will always be present. He recognizes that the greatest enemy of ordinary daily goodness and joy is not imperfection, but the demand for some supposed perfection or order. There seems to be a dark side to almost everything; all things are subject to "the powers and principalities." Only the unitive or non-dual mind can accept this and not panic, but, in fact, grow because of it and grow beyond it.
Neither the liberal pattern nor the conservative pattern can deal with disorder and misery in any form. Paul believes that Jesus has revealed the only response that works. The revelation of the cross, he says, makes you indestructible, because it says there is a way through all absurdity and tragedy, and that way is precisely through accepting and even using absurdity and tragedy as part of God's unfathomable agenda. If you internalize the mystery of the cross, you won't fall into cynicism, failure, bitterness, or skepticism. The cross gives you a precise and profound way through the dark side of life and through all disappointments.
Paul allows both conservatives and liberals to define wisdom in their own ways, yet he dares to call both of them inadequate and finally wrong because he believes that such worldviews will eventually fail people. "God has shown up human wisdom as folly" on the cross (1 Corinthians 1:21), and this is "an obstacle that the Jews [his own people] cannot get over," and which the Gentiles or pagans think is simple "foolishness" (1:23).
For Paul, the code words for non-dual thinking, or true wisdom, are "foolishness" and "folly." He says, in effect, "My thinking is foolishness to you, isn't it?" It does not make sense unless you have confronted the mystery of the cross. Suffering, the "folly of the cross," breaks down the dualistic mind. Why? Because on the cross, God took the worst thing, the killing of the God-man, and made it into the best thing, the very redemption of the world. The compassionate holding of essential meaninglessness or tragedy, as Jesus does on the cross, is the final and triumphant resolution of all the dualisms and dichotomies that we face in our own lives. We are thus "saved by the cross"!
Adapted from Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi, pages 73-75; and A New Way of Seeing . . . A New Way of Being: Jesus and Paul (MP3 download); and In the Footsteps of St. Paul (published by Franciscan Media)
Gateway to Silence: I am not separate.
____________________________
Center for Action and Contemplation of Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States "Richard Rohr's Meditation: The Body of Transformation" for Wednesday, 8 April 2015
"The 'body' concept realizes that the individual person cannot carry the weight of glory any more than he or she can carry the 'burden of sin.'"
"The Body of Transformation"
Wednesday, 8 April 2015
Paul often uses physical language to describe spiritual states, as if they have a bodily aspect. Both sin and salvation are corporate concepts beginning with Israel itself. Modern science and neurology seem to be confirming this deep intuition. Paul specifically teaches the marriage of body and spirit through the Eucharist and community, both of which are called "The Body of Christ." As we come to understand gravitational, electro-magnetic, and quantum fields, the disjunction between matter and energy breaks down. Einstein himself said that matter and energy are "convertible concepts."
Try on these three Pauline concepts of Body, and see if they match your own experience:
1. The Body of Sin and Death (Romans 7:23-24): Paul points to the very real power of negative/death energy operating with material, measurable manifestations. Hate hangs out with hate and creates more hate. This body is also called "the false self" by Merton, "the flesh" and "the powers and principalities" by Paul, "the ego" by Freud, and "the devil" by most world religions. You cannot be naïve about the "Body of Sin and Death" or it will swallow you up without your awareness. The notion of a devil or evil spirit is a psychologically helpful way to speak of this and take it seriously (though your image of the devil doesn't have to be a horned creature with a tail!). To clarify: 1) the false self and ego are not in and of themselves evil; they are needed for healthy development and for our basic survival. They simply are not our true, full, authentic self; 2) by "flesh," Paul does not mean the human body. Both of these concepts will be explored in greater depth in Friday's meditation.
2. The Body of the Crucified (Philippians 3:8-12): Paul uses many expressions to describe those who are suffering inside the cauldron of transformation--either those who suffer various forms of persecution or those who live in solidarity with them. In the suffering state there is great potential for a real shift into our full nature and our True Self. If the suffering people of the world see God in their pain, they are actually in a common soul and material "body" of understanding for one another. The poor, prisoners, immigrants, homeless, addicts, and those who are marginalized or hurting often have a natural empathy and sympathy for one another. They know something together that the rest of us do not know. Baptism is supposed to be an initiation into sympathy and solidarity with this "body," but I'm afraid it seldom is (see Romans 6:3-4).
The "body of the crucified" is a brilliant psychological and spiritual understanding, pointing us away from the impossible burden of individualism. The weight of guilt, shame, and sin is far too much for the individual to bear. Thus we carry the mystery "in the Body," or "in Christ"--"Making up in our own body what still has to be undergone by Christ for the sake of the larger body, which we call the church" (Colossians 1:24).
3. The Body of the Risen One (1 Corinthians 15:35-56): Paul refers to "carrying the weight of eternal glory, which is out of all proportion" to "the suffering that trained us for it" (2 Corinthians 4:17). Again he uses a physical metaphor to describe the state of those who have come out on the other side initiated and transformed. The "body" concept realizes that the individual person cannot carry the weight of glory any more than he or she can carry the "burden of sin." Both sin and salvation are dealt with in one "lump sum," as is described in
The Cloud of Unknowing. The shared corporate mystery sustains the fragile individual. The transformed body is meant to be the positive and healing atmosphere of the church--and sometimes it is--but often it is also "enjoyed" in a gathering of joyful and altruistic people working for a common cause. This honest recognition is at the core of deep church satisfaction when church is done right and at the core of deep church dissatisfaction when it is not a loving, positive environment.
Adapted from Great Themes of Paul: Life as Participation, disc 5 and insert (CD)
Gateway to Silence: I am not separate.
_____________________
Center for Action and Contemplation of Albquerque, New Mexico, United States "Richard Rohr's Meditation: You Cannot Get There, You Can Only Be There" for Tuesday, 8 April 2015
"What Paul means by Christ is the participatory mystery of Jesus continued through time and space in us!"
"You Cannot Get There, You Can Only Be There"
Tuesday, 7 April 2015
For Paul, community is the living organism that communicates the Gospel message. Paul, like Jesus, wants to change culture, not just send people away to a far off heaven! If Christ's cosmic message doesn't take form in a concrete group of people then, as far as Paul is concerned, it is an unbelievable message. An autonomous Christian is as impossible as an independent arm or leg. It will never work. Arms and legs exist only as parts. Believers exist as parts of the whole, the Body of Christ. Their very existence is the state that Paul calls love. Their existence is love. When Paul says "without love I am nothing" (1 Corinthians 13:2), he implies that he is inside of another Being who is Love. We train for this by loving real, live people. For Paul, this is what he means by Christ: the participatory mystery of Jesus continued through space and time in us!
Paul sees what we eventually call the "communion of saints" as alive, real, and operative in this world. I like to call it an "energy field" created by all those who share various parts of Christ. "Salvation" is something we can participate in right here and now. No one individual is adequate to the task, yet we said they could be. No wonder so many people have either inflated or negative self-images. The paradox, of course, is that many who go to church today are not at all in the love energy field, and many who do not belong to church at all fully exemplify it!
When Paul addresses his letters to "the saints," he is clearly not speaking of our later Roman idea of canonized saints. He is speaking of the people who make up his living communities and who are participating in this shared life of love in this world.
Paul does not make heroes of individuals, but as members of the Body they "shine like stars" as "perfect children of God among a deceitful and underhanded brood" (Philippians2:15). Following directly from Jesus, Paul sees his small communities as an adequate "leaven" by which God will eventually change the whole debauched Roman Empire. Talk about patience and confidence!
Adapted from Great Themes of Paul: Life as Participation, disc 9 (CD); and St. Paul: The Misunderstood Mystic (MP3 download)
Gateway to Silence: I am not separate.
____________________________
Center for Action and Contemplation of Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States "Richard Rohr's Meditation: The Body of Christ" for Monday, 6 April 2015
"You are a part of the body of Christ. The only way you are going to really respect your own and others' full and divine character is by recognizing we all participate in one primal unity and identity."
"The Body of Christ"
Monday, 6 April 2015
The first of Paul's dialectics that I want to point out is the philosophical problem of the one and the many. How do you reconcile the seemingly endless diversity and any final or true unity between the many things in the universe? I am convinced that only the mystical and non-dual mind can equally honor the individual and the whole at the same time.
Paul resolves this paradox through his doctrine of the Body of Christ: "For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ" (1 Corinthians 12:12). He goes on to illustrate his point by saying that some members are an eye, some a foot, some a hand. I, Richard, am just a mouth. You too are a part of the body of Christ. The only way you are going to really respect your own and others' full and divine character is by recognizing we all participate in one overarching unity.
This leads Paul to a very concrete missionary strategy of building living communities which can produce a visible and believable message. (This is quite different from the post-Protestant regression into mere individual salvation.) Paul is a collective, corporate thinker, who creates corporate audio-visual aids to spread the message. Yet for centuries we've interpreted his message as if he is speaking about individuals. This has made Paul seem more like a mere moralist rather than the mystic he is. Mystics tend to see things in wholes, we get preoccupied with the parts--and never get beyond that.
Paul seems to think, and I agree with him, that corporate evil can only be overcome or confronted with corporate good. Paul uses primitive yet very powerful words for the negative side of corporations, institutions, and nations--in various translations: "thrones, dominations, principalities, and powers" (Colossians 1:16). These are not "bad angels" as much as collective evil attitudes. However, because they are so widely shared, they no longer look like evil. Paul is pointing to the mass consciousness or collective cultural moods that control us, things we can't see when we're inside of them. And, because of this, and the way we are programmed to think, the powers and principalities are hard to resist.
For instance, I've never heard a single sermon on the tenth commandment--"Thou shalt not covet . . . anything that is thy neighbor's" (Exodus 20:17)--because coveting goods is the only game in town. It's called capitalism, consumerism, and advertising! It would be downright un-American to criticize any of these. In Paul's thinking, those big cultural blindnesses can only be overcome by a group of people living and affirming and supporting one another in an alternative lifestyle. The individual can hardly live an alternative consciousness by himself or herself. The pressure to conform is too great, and the eyes (and words) to see it are just not there. It is no surprise that the word "non-violence" did not come into usage till the early 20th century.
Adapted from Great Themes of Paul: Life as Participation, disc 9 (CD); and St. Paul: The Misunderstood Mystic (MP3 download)
Gateway to Silence: I am not separate.
___________________________
Center for Action and Contemplation of Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States "Richard Rohr's Meditation: Paul as Non-dual Teacher" for Sunday, 5 April 2015
"Once the conflict has been overcome in you, and you realize you are a living paradox and so is everyone else, you begin to see life in a truly spiritual way."
"Paul as Non-dual Teacher"
Sunday, 5 April 2015
(Easter Sunday)
Meeting the Risen Christ on the road to Damascus changed everything for Paul. He experienced the great paradox that the crucified Jesus was in fact alive! And he, a "sinner," was in fact chosen and beloved. This pushed Paul from the usual either/or, dualistic thinking to both/and, mystical thinking. The truth in paradoxical language lies neither in the affirmation nor in the denial of either side, but precisely in the resolution of the tug of war between the two. The German philosopher Hegel called this process thesis, antithesis, synthesis. The human mind usually works on the logical principle of contradiction, according to which a proposition cannot be both true and false at the same time. Yet that is exactly what higher truths invariably undo (e.g., God is both one and three, Jesus is both human and divine, bread and wine are both matter and Spirit). Unfortunately, since the Reformation and the Enlightenment, we Western, educated people have lost touch with paradoxical, mystical, or contemplative thinking. We've wasted five centuries taking sides!
Not only did Paul's way of thinking change, his way of being in the world was also transformed. Suddenly the persecutor--and possibly murderer--of Christians is the "chosen vessel" of Christ, chosen and sent "to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel" (Acts 9:15). This overcomes the strict line between good and bad, between evil and virtue. The paradox has been overcome in Paul's very person. He now knows that he is both sinner and saint, as we too must trust. These two seeming contradictions don't cancel one another out. Once the conflict has been overcome in you, and you realize you are a living paradox and so is everyone else, you begin to see life in a truly spiritual way.
Perhaps this is why Paul loves to teach dialectically. He presents two seemingly opposing ideas, such as weakness and strength, flesh and spirit, law and grace, faith and works, Jew and Greek, male and female. Normal dualistic thinking usually takes one side and dismisses the other, stopping there. Paul is the first clear successor to Jesus as a non-dual teacher. He forces you onto the horns of the dilemma and thus invites you to wrestle with the paradox. If you stay with him in the full struggle, you'll see he eventually brings reconciliation on a higher level, beyond the conflict that he himself first illustrates. Many readers stay with the conflict and then dislike Paul. We will go much further this week, I hope.
Adapted from Great Themes of Paul: Life as Participation, disc 6 (CD); and A New Way of Seeing . . . A New Way of Being: Jesus and Paul (MP3 download); and St. Paul: The Misunderstood Mystic (MP3 download)
Gateway to Silence: I am not separate.____________________________
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
St. Paul Preaching in Athens (detail) by Raphael (1483-1520), Royal Collection of the United Kingdom.
"Paul's Dialectical Teaching"Summary Sunday, April 5, 2015 - Saturday, April 11, 2015
Once the conflict has been overcome in you, and you realize you are a living paradox and so is everyone else, you begin to see life in a truly spiritual way. (Sunday)
You are a part of the body of Christ. The only way you are going to really respect your own and others' full and divine character is by recognizing we all participate in the one true unity. (Monday)
What Paul means by Christ is the participatory mystery of Jesus continued through time and space in us! (Tuesday)
The "body" concept realizes that the individual person cannot carry the weight of glory any more than he or she can carry the "burden of sin." (Wednesday)
The compassionate holding of essential meaninglessness or tragedy, as Jesus does on the cross, is the final and triumphant resolution of all the dualisms and dichotomies that we face in our own lives. We are thus "saved by the cross"! (Thursday)
The problem is not that you have a body; the problem is that you think you are separate from others. (Friday)
"Practice Holding the Tension"
Think of one controversial issue that you are "suffering" with and acknowledge two or more possible outcomes or realities. Try to not take sides, but hold the pain of contradictions and seeming impossibilities. Ask God to hold you since you cannot hold yourself.
As with contemplative prayer or meditation, whenever you get caught in thinking through the pros and cons or are tempted to choose a particular side, simply return to holding the tension. Rest in God's presence which holds you and the impossibility of this paradox.
Emerging from this spaciousness, you can now be taught by the Holy Spirit. It might just be wisdom you receive, instead of only knowledge.
Gateway to Silence: I am not separate.
____________________________Center for Action and Contemplation of Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States "Richard Rohr's Meditation: Flesh and Spirit" for Friday, 10 April 2015
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
St. Paul Preaching in Athens (detail) by Raphael (1483-1520), Royal Collection of the United Kingdom.
"Paul's Dialectical Teaching""Flesh and Spirit"
Friday, 10 April 2015
The dialectic that we probably struggle with the most is the one Paul creates between flesh and spirit. If I could change one word Paul uses, which so many people have struggled with, I would change the word sarx, translated "flesh" in most contemporary languages. John's Gospel uses this same word, sarx, in a positive way: "The Word became flesh" (John 1:14). But somehow we've come to associate Paul's usage negatively with the human body.
I don't think Paul ever intended for people to feel that their bodies are bad. After all, God took on a human body in Jesus! Paul does not use the word soma, which literally means "body." He is trying to introduce another idea and unfortunately uses a word that has caused untold confusion in Christian history. The closest alternative translation we could use might be the word "ego" or even the Freudian word "id." I think what Paul means by sarx is the trapped self, the small self, the partial self, or what Merton called the false self. Basically, spirit is the whole self, the Christ self that we fall into by grace. We are saved by a larger mystery in which we can only participate as one abiding member.The problem is not between body and spirit; it's between part and whole.
Paul never really reconciles this dichotomy because he defines flesh and spirit as opposites in both Romans and Galatians. If you read one chapter of Galatians or one chapter of Romans, you'll probably think, "Well, I've got to get out of the flesh in order to get into the spirit. But I don't know how to get out of the flesh!" That's because "flesh" in modern language sounds like embodiment. In fact, what most of us hear is sex. I want to say as strongly as I can, that's not what Paul is talking about! Paul uses the word sarx to talk about the separate self, the partial self, the entrapped self, the false self. It's the self that is trying to define itself apart from the Spirit, apart from the Big Self. It's you apart from God, the tiny self that you think you are, who takes yourself far too seriously and who is always needy and wanting something else. It's the self that is characterized by scarcity and fragility--and well it should be, because it's illusory and passing. This small self doesn't really exist in God's eyes as anything substantial or real. It's nothing but a construct of your own mind.
To easily get beyond this confusion, just substitute the word ego every time you hear Paul use the word flesh. It will get you out of this dead-end, false, and dualistic ping-pong game between body and spirit. The problem is not that you have a body; the problem is that you think you are separate from others. And then that fragile separate self tries to make itself superior besides. It will never work.
Adapted from Jesus as Liberator/Paul as Liberator (MP3 download); and St. Paul: The Misunderstood Mystic (MP3 download); and Great Themes of Paul: Life as Participation, disc 4 (CD)
Gateway to Silence: I am not separate.
____________________________Center for Action and Contemplation of Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States "Richard Rohr's Meditation: The Folly of the Cross" for Thursday, 9 April 2015
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
St. Paul Preaching in Athens (detail) by Raphael (1483-1520), Royal Collection of the United Kingdom.
"Paul's Dialectical Teaching""The Folly of the Cross"
Thursday, 9 April 2015
Another dialectic that Paul presents is the perennial conflict of conservative and liberal. In his day, his own people, the Jews, became the stand-in for pious, law-abiding conservatives; the Greeks became his metaphor for intellectuals, cultural critics, and what we would call liberals. Paul sees the Jews trying to create order in the world by obedience to law and tribe. The Greeks try to create order by reason, understanding, logic, and education. Paul insists that neither of them can finally succeed because they do not have the ability to "incorporate the negative," which will always be present. He recognizes that the greatest enemy of ordinary daily goodness and joy is not imperfection, but the demand for some supposed perfection or order. There seems to be a dark side to almost everything; all things are subject to "the powers and principalities." Only the unitive or non-dual mind can accept this and not panic, but, in fact, grow because of it and grow beyond it.
Neither the liberal pattern nor the conservative pattern can deal with disorder and misery in any form. Paul believes that Jesus has revealed the only response that works. The revelation of the cross, he says, makes you indestructible, because it says there is a way through all absurdity and tragedy, and that way is precisely through accepting and even using absurdity and tragedy as part of God's unfathomable agenda. If you internalize the mystery of the cross, you won't fall into cynicism, failure, bitterness, or skepticism. The cross gives you a precise and profound way through the dark side of life and through all disappointments.
Paul allows both conservatives and liberals to define wisdom in their own ways, yet he dares to call both of them inadequate and finally wrong because he believes that such worldviews will eventually fail people. "God has shown up human wisdom as folly" on the cross (1 Corinthians 1:21), and this is "an obstacle that the Jews [his own people] cannot get over," and which the Gentiles or pagans think is simple "foolishness" (1:23).
For Paul, the code words for non-dual thinking, or true wisdom, are "foolishness" and "folly." He says, in effect, "My thinking is foolishness to you, isn't it?" It does not make sense unless you have confronted the mystery of the cross. Suffering, the "folly of the cross," breaks down the dualistic mind. Why? Because on the cross, God took the worst thing, the killing of the God-man, and made it into the best thing, the very redemption of the world. The compassionate holding of essential meaninglessness or tragedy, as Jesus does on the cross, is the final and triumphant resolution of all the dualisms and dichotomies that we face in our own lives. We are thus "saved by the cross"!
Adapted from Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi, pages 73-75; and A New Way of Seeing . . . A New Way of Being: Jesus and Paul (MP3 download); and In the Footsteps of St. Paul (published by Franciscan Media)
Gateway to Silence: I am not separate.
____________________________
Center for Action and Contemplation of Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States "Richard Rohr's Meditation: The Body of Transformation" for Wednesday, 8 April 2015
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
St. Paul Preaching in Athens (detail) by Raphael (1483-1520), Royal Collection of the United Kingdom.
"Paul's Dialectical Teaching""The Body of Transformation"
Wednesday, 8 April 2015
Paul often uses physical language to describe spiritual states, as if they have a bodily aspect. Both sin and salvation are corporate concepts beginning with Israel itself. Modern science and neurology seem to be confirming this deep intuition. Paul specifically teaches the marriage of body and spirit through the Eucharist and community, both of which are called "The Body of Christ." As we come to understand gravitational, electro-magnetic, and quantum fields, the disjunction between matter and energy breaks down. Einstein himself said that matter and energy are "convertible concepts."
Try on these three Pauline concepts of Body, and see if they match your own experience:
1. The Body of Sin and Death (Romans 7:23-24): Paul points to the very real power of negative/death energy operating with material, measurable manifestations. Hate hangs out with hate and creates more hate. This body is also called "the false self" by Merton, "the flesh" and "the powers and principalities" by Paul, "the ego" by Freud, and "the devil" by most world religions. You cannot be naïve about the "Body of Sin and Death" or it will swallow you up without your awareness. The notion of a devil or evil spirit is a psychologically helpful way to speak of this and take it seriously (though your image of the devil doesn't have to be a horned creature with a tail!). To clarify: 1) the false self and ego are not in and of themselves evil; they are needed for healthy development and for our basic survival. They simply are not our true, full, authentic self; 2) by "flesh," Paul does not mean the human body. Both of these concepts will be explored in greater depth in Friday's meditation.
2. The Body of the Crucified (Philippians 3:8-12): Paul uses many expressions to describe those who are suffering inside the cauldron of transformation--either those who suffer various forms of persecution or those who live in solidarity with them. In the suffering state there is great potential for a real shift into our full nature and our True Self. If the suffering people of the world see God in their pain, they are actually in a common soul and material "body" of understanding for one another. The poor, prisoners, immigrants, homeless, addicts, and those who are marginalized or hurting often have a natural empathy and sympathy for one another. They know something together that the rest of us do not know. Baptism is supposed to be an initiation into sympathy and solidarity with this "body," but I'm afraid it seldom is (see Romans 6:3-4).
The "body of the crucified" is a brilliant psychological and spiritual understanding, pointing us away from the impossible burden of individualism. The weight of guilt, shame, and sin is far too much for the individual to bear. Thus we carry the mystery "in the Body," or "in Christ"--"Making up in our own body what still has to be undergone by Christ for the sake of the larger body, which we call the church" (Colossians 1:24).
3. The Body of the Risen One (1 Corinthians 15:35-56): Paul refers to "carrying the weight of eternal glory, which is out of all proportion" to "the suffering that trained us for it" (2 Corinthians 4:17). Again he uses a physical metaphor to describe the state of those who have come out on the other side initiated and transformed. The "body" concept realizes that the individual person cannot carry the weight of glory any more than he or she can carry the "burden of sin." Both sin and salvation are dealt with in one "lump sum," as is described in
The Cloud of Unknowing. The shared corporate mystery sustains the fragile individual. The transformed body is meant to be the positive and healing atmosphere of the church--and sometimes it is--but often it is also "enjoyed" in a gathering of joyful and altruistic people working for a common cause. This honest recognition is at the core of deep church satisfaction when church is done right and at the core of deep church dissatisfaction when it is not a loving, positive environment.
Adapted from Great Themes of Paul: Life as Participation, disc 5 and insert (CD)
Gateway to Silence: I am not separate.
_____________________
Center for Action and Contemplation of Albquerque, New Mexico, United States "Richard Rohr's Meditation: You Cannot Get There, You Can Only Be There" for Tuesday, 8 April 2015
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
St. Paul Preaching in Athens (detail) by Raphael (1483-1520), Royal Collection of the United Kingdom.
"Paul's Dialectical Teaching""You Cannot Get There, You Can Only Be There"
Tuesday, 7 April 2015
For Paul, community is the living organism that communicates the Gospel message. Paul, like Jesus, wants to change culture, not just send people away to a far off heaven! If Christ's cosmic message doesn't take form in a concrete group of people then, as far as Paul is concerned, it is an unbelievable message. An autonomous Christian is as impossible as an independent arm or leg. It will never work. Arms and legs exist only as parts. Believers exist as parts of the whole, the Body of Christ. Their very existence is the state that Paul calls love. Their existence is love. When Paul says "without love I am nothing" (1 Corinthians 13:2), he implies that he is inside of another Being who is Love. We train for this by loving real, live people. For Paul, this is what he means by Christ: the participatory mystery of Jesus continued through space and time in us!
Paul sees what we eventually call the "communion of saints" as alive, real, and operative in this world. I like to call it an "energy field" created by all those who share various parts of Christ. "Salvation" is something we can participate in right here and now. No one individual is adequate to the task, yet we said they could be. No wonder so many people have either inflated or negative self-images. The paradox, of course, is that many who go to church today are not at all in the love energy field, and many who do not belong to church at all fully exemplify it!
When Paul addresses his letters to "the saints," he is clearly not speaking of our later Roman idea of canonized saints. He is speaking of the people who make up his living communities and who are participating in this shared life of love in this world.
Paul does not make heroes of individuals, but as members of the Body they "shine like stars" as "perfect children of God among a deceitful and underhanded brood" (Philippians2:15). Following directly from Jesus, Paul sees his small communities as an adequate "leaven" by which God will eventually change the whole debauched Roman Empire. Talk about patience and confidence!
Adapted from Great Themes of Paul: Life as Participation, disc 9 (CD); and St. Paul: The Misunderstood Mystic (MP3 download)
Gateway to Silence: I am not separate.
____________________________
Center for Action and Contemplation of Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States "Richard Rohr's Meditation: The Body of Christ" for Monday, 6 April 2015
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
St. Paul Preaching in Athens (detail) by Raphael (1483-1520), Royal Collection of the United Kingdom.
"Paul's Dialectical Teaching""The Body of Christ"
Monday, 6 April 2015
The first of Paul's dialectics that I want to point out is the philosophical problem of the one and the many. How do you reconcile the seemingly endless diversity and any final or true unity between the many things in the universe? I am convinced that only the mystical and non-dual mind can equally honor the individual and the whole at the same time.
Paul resolves this paradox through his doctrine of the Body of Christ: "For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ" (1 Corinthians 12:12). He goes on to illustrate his point by saying that some members are an eye, some a foot, some a hand. I, Richard, am just a mouth. You too are a part of the body of Christ. The only way you are going to really respect your own and others' full and divine character is by recognizing we all participate in one overarching unity.
This leads Paul to a very concrete missionary strategy of building living communities which can produce a visible and believable message. (This is quite different from the post-Protestant regression into mere individual salvation.) Paul is a collective, corporate thinker, who creates corporate audio-visual aids to spread the message. Yet for centuries we've interpreted his message as if he is speaking about individuals. This has made Paul seem more like a mere moralist rather than the mystic he is. Mystics tend to see things in wholes, we get preoccupied with the parts--and never get beyond that.
Paul seems to think, and I agree with him, that corporate evil can only be overcome or confronted with corporate good. Paul uses primitive yet very powerful words for the negative side of corporations, institutions, and nations--in various translations: "thrones, dominations, principalities, and powers" (Colossians 1:16). These are not "bad angels" as much as collective evil attitudes. However, because they are so widely shared, they no longer look like evil. Paul is pointing to the mass consciousness or collective cultural moods that control us, things we can't see when we're inside of them. And, because of this, and the way we are programmed to think, the powers and principalities are hard to resist.
For instance, I've never heard a single sermon on the tenth commandment--"Thou shalt not covet . . . anything that is thy neighbor's" (Exodus 20:17)--because coveting goods is the only game in town. It's called capitalism, consumerism, and advertising! It would be downright un-American to criticize any of these. In Paul's thinking, those big cultural blindnesses can only be overcome by a group of people living and affirming and supporting one another in an alternative lifestyle. The individual can hardly live an alternative consciousness by himself or herself. The pressure to conform is too great, and the eyes (and words) to see it are just not there. It is no surprise that the word "non-violence" did not come into usage till the early 20th century.
Adapted from Great Themes of Paul: Life as Participation, disc 9 (CD); and St. Paul: The Misunderstood Mystic (MP3 download)
Gateway to Silence: I am not separate.
___________________________
Center for Action and Contemplation of Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States "Richard Rohr's Meditation: Paul as Non-dual Teacher" for Sunday, 5 April 2015
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
St. Paul Preaching in Athens (detail) by Raphael (1483-1520), Royal Collection of the United Kingdom.
"Paul's Dialectical Teaching""Paul as Non-dual Teacher"
Sunday, 5 April 2015
(Easter Sunday)
Meeting the Risen Christ on the road to Damascus changed everything for Paul. He experienced the great paradox that the crucified Jesus was in fact alive! And he, a "sinner," was in fact chosen and beloved. This pushed Paul from the usual either/or, dualistic thinking to both/and, mystical thinking. The truth in paradoxical language lies neither in the affirmation nor in the denial of either side, but precisely in the resolution of the tug of war between the two. The German philosopher Hegel called this process thesis, antithesis, synthesis. The human mind usually works on the logical principle of contradiction, according to which a proposition cannot be both true and false at the same time. Yet that is exactly what higher truths invariably undo (e.g., God is both one and three, Jesus is both human and divine, bread and wine are both matter and Spirit). Unfortunately, since the Reformation and the Enlightenment, we Western, educated people have lost touch with paradoxical, mystical, or contemplative thinking. We've wasted five centuries taking sides!
Not only did Paul's way of thinking change, his way of being in the world was also transformed. Suddenly the persecutor--and possibly murderer--of Christians is the "chosen vessel" of Christ, chosen and sent "to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel" (Acts 9:15). This overcomes the strict line between good and bad, between evil and virtue. The paradox has been overcome in Paul's very person. He now knows that he is both sinner and saint, as we too must trust. These two seeming contradictions don't cancel one another out. Once the conflict has been overcome in you, and you realize you are a living paradox and so is everyone else, you begin to see life in a truly spiritual way.
Perhaps this is why Paul loves to teach dialectically. He presents two seemingly opposing ideas, such as weakness and strength, flesh and spirit, law and grace, faith and works, Jew and Greek, male and female. Normal dualistic thinking usually takes one side and dismisses the other, stopping there. Paul is the first clear successor to Jesus as a non-dual teacher. He forces you onto the horns of the dilemma and thus invites you to wrestle with the paradox. If you stay with him in the full struggle, you'll see he eventually brings reconciliation on a higher level, beyond the conflict that he himself first illustrates. Many readers stay with the conflict and then dislike Paul. We will go much further this week, I hope.
Adapted from Great Themes of Paul: Life as Participation, disc 6 (CD); and A New Way of Seeing . . . A New Way of Being: Jesus and Paul (MP3 download); and St. Paul: The Misunderstood Mystic (MP3 download)
Gateway to Silence: I am not separate.____________________________
Center for Action and Contemplation
cac.org
Center for Action and Contemplation
cac.org
Center for Action and Contemplation
1823 Five Points Road SW (physical)
PO Box 12464 (mailing)
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87195 United States
____________________________
____________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment