The Richard Rohr Meditation: "Collective Consciousness" The Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States for Friday, 4 May 2018

The Richard Rohr Meditation: "Collective Consciousness" The Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States for Friday, 4 May 2018

Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation

From the Center for Action and Contemplation

Week Eighteen: "Relationships"

"Collective Consciousness"
Friday, May 4, 2018
The dynamic relationships in a family, classroom, workplace, or grassroots movement can have an evolutionary effect, creating new ways of thinking and being. Louis Savary and Patricia Berne share how Christopher Bache, a college professor, noticed what he called “collective consciousness” emerge when he gave assignments to small groups of students. Many showed abilities “as team members” that he hadn’t witnessed before in their individual work:

Bache recognized that each of the teams in his classroom had a life of its own . . . [and] enjoyed a kind of “collective consciousness.” They were thinking as one unit and each person seemed to have access to the consciousness of the others. When someone on the team made a good suggestion, everyone on the team seemed to recognize its value, so it became easy to implement with minimal discussion, without people taking sides, pro and con. . . . [1]

Savary and Berne turn to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to explain how this happens:

Teilhard’s insight [that union differentiates] revealed that each student teamhad become a true unity, or “union.” It had also become a new being. . . .The team as a unit was more complex than any of the individuals in the team, and their shared consciousness was richer . . . than any of the team members.

Furthermore, that new being (the Third Self, or the team, itself) allowed each member to find a fuller identity and capacity within that team. Each student was, in Teilhard’s words, “differentiating” himself [or herself]. . . . In order to contribute to the success of the team, each member was challenged by that team spirit to manifest latent abilities in themselves. . . .

Love is the most powerful force or energy in the universe. That power is multiplied in relationships. Love’s potency is released most powerfully among people who have formed a relationship (a union). People who truly unite for a purpose beyond themselves become “differentiated” as they unite and work together in a shared consciousness to achieve their larger purpose.

. . . . In a true relationship, no one’s individuality is lost. It is increased. That is the beauty of Connections.

These unions that enjoy a collective consciousness become the launching pads for the next stage of evolution, as we learn consciously how to create them and use them. [2]

I see groups working creatively on many fronts, often outside church and political structures, with a growing capacity for what many call “intersectionality” (recognizing the interconnectedness of race, gender, and class). One wonderful example is the new Poor People’s Campaign led by Rev. William Barber and Rev. Liz Theoharis, and joined by people across the United States. They’re continuing Martin Luther King, Jr.’s work to dismantle racism, poverty, and war. (Learn more about the Poor People’s Campaign and how you can join below today’s meditation.) Next week we’ll explore more of the generativity and healing that can happen within such community.
Gateway to Presence: If you want to go deeper with today’s meditation, take note of what word or phrase stands out to you. Come back to that word or phrase throughout the day, being present to its impact and invitation.

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[1] Louis Savary and Patricia Berne, Teilhard de Chardin on Love: Evolving Human Relationships (Paulist Press: 2017), 53.
[2] Ibid., 54-55.
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Richard Rohr Meditation: "Third Self" The Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States for Thursday, 3 May 2018

Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation

From the Center for Action and Contemplation

Week Eighteen: "Relationships"

"Third Self"
Thursday, May 3, 2018
We speak of the “sexual revolution” of the 1960s and 70s. I think what has happened thus far is only the rumblings before the real revolution, the movement beyond either/or to both/and. God and evolution are inviting us toward a relational wholeness that is a synergy and a life energy higher than either one apart but even larger than both together.
Decades ago, Jesuit philosopher and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) intuited where this evolution is headed. Husband and wife team Louis Savary and Patricia Berne translate Teilhard’s often complex, abstract ideas into words we might understand and to which we may relate:

Teilhard, studying the human race over many thousands of years, realized that humanity was indeed learning to evolve in love. And once enough people began living with agape love, it would create a revolution like no other revolution. In time, such all-embracing love would bring about true freedom, true peace, and true harmony on Earth. . . .

Two things happen in any loving relationship. First, a new being—the relationship—is born with its own unique potentials and purpose. Second, the relationship—this new being—enhances and develops the individuals within it, each with their own unique potentials and purpose. Both effects, when recognized and developed, foster evolution. . . .

St. Thomas Aquinas was onto something important in the twelfth century when he wrote, in Latin, Relatio realis est. In English, this means something like “A relationship is something real.” If something is real, it means that it exists and can have an effect on other things, an effect that individual elements of the relationship by themselves might not be able to have. This is true of relationships on all levels of existence.

Among human beings, it is easy to see that a relationship has a life of its own and can have an effect on things—both on the individuals that make up the relationship and on things outside the relationship. Think of what close-knit groups of people can accomplish, for example, sports teams, research teams, ministry groups, and certain famous families. . . .

[In] Teilhard’s approach, when two people come together in a caring and productive way, not only are the two relating people enhanced and their capacities developed by their interaction, but their union, or relationship, becomes itself a Third Self [which] Teilhard calls . . . “a psychic unity” or “higher soul” or “higher center.” . . . The Third-Self relationship is capable of accomplishing more than either [of the members] alone.
Gateway to Presence: If you want to go deeper with today’s meditation, take note of what word or phrase stands out to you. Come back to that word or phrase throughout the day, being present to its impact and invitation.

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Louis Savary and Patricia Berne, Teilhard de Chardin on Love: Evolving Human Relationships (Paulist Press: 2017), 7, 39-40, 44-45.
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"Image and Likeness"
2018 Daily Meditations Theme
God said, “Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness.” (Genesis 1:26)
Richard Rohr explores places in which God’s presence has often been ignored or assumed absent. God’s “image” is our inherent identity in and union with God, an eternal essence that cannot be destroyed. “Likeness” is our personal embodiment of that inner divine image that we have the freedom to develop—or not—throughout our lives. Though we differ in likeness, the imago Dei persists and shines through all created things.
Over the course of this year’s Daily Meditations, discover opportunities to incarnate love in your unique context by unveiling the Image and Likeness of God in all that you see and do.
Each week builds on previous topics, but you can join at any time! Click the video to learn more about the theme and to find meditations you may have missed.

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Inspiration for this week's banner image: Love is the most powerful force or energy in the universe. That power is multiplied in relationships. Love’s potency is released most powerfully among people who have formed a relationship. (Louis Savary and Patricia Berne)

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