THE PATH OF OFFERING
“Our mission in this world is to let the Person
Communion shine through the
cosmic order. To do this is to be theotokos, the God-bearer, giving birth to God in the forms of
organized matter.” (The Holy
Thursday Revolution, Beatrice
Bruteau)
Living in the Communion Paradigm
In the canonical Gospel of John, Yeshua
informs us how to enter the Kingdom of God. When Nicodemus, a highly respected Jewish leader, visits
Yeshua in the darkness of night, Yeshua teaches, ”…I tell you the truth, no one
can see the Kingdom of God unless he is born again…Flesh gives birth to flesh,
but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.”
(John 3:3,6) To be
“born again” and enter the Kingdom is to dwell in what Beatrice Bruteau names
the “Communion Paradigm.” She
describes the Communion Paradigm as ”a symmetrical, reciprocal relation of enhancement
of being: that beings may be, may become, all that they can be, may act in
maximum freedom and be valued for their incomparable preciousness.” (The Holy Thursday Revolution, B. Bruteau)
The essence of the Communion Paradigm is “personhood in the Oneness of
the Divine Being.” We are
“born again” and enter the Kingdom of the Communion Paradigm through direct
participation in the Self-Gift of the Divine I AM. Our true personhood, our original face, is realized as child
of God.
To be “born again” is also to birth God in
the world. The Greek word,
“theotokos” means “God-bearer” or “God-birther”. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the title “Theotokos” was
officially bestowed upon Mary, the mother of Yeshua in the fifth century. Yet, our true being, who we are, is
potentially God-birther and God-bearer in the world of form. When empty of self-absorption, we
are filled with the Spirit of God.
What is the nature of the realization of
“theotokos”? In the first epistle
of John, the author writes, “God is love and those who abide in love, abide in
God.” (1st John
4:16) The word “love” is
translated from the Greek word “agape”. Distinct from “eros”, another Greek word for “love”,
which means self-seeking desire, “agape” indicates a self-offering love to the
beloved. Agape seeks nothing for
itself. As Bruteau states in The
Holy Thursday Revolution, “Agape
reaches out to the beloved, it ‘flares’ out, like a solar flare; it enters into
the beloved to nurture the beloved, to give life, to give being, to bestow
value.”
The early Greek Church Fathers used the
word “perichoresis” to describe the mutually overflowing love within the
Trinitarian God. “Perichoresis” means
an intimate indwelling or mutual interpenetration of the Father, Son and
Spirit. To become “theotokos”, we
are accessible to the flow of the Divine Trinitarian Life in our human
form. As Yeshua declares in
the Gospel of John, “…you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in
me, and I am in you.” (John 14:20) Our own personhood and humanity is the
locus of the upwelling and inflowing/outflowing of the Living Water. As Yeshua proclaims to the Samaritan
woman in the mystical encounter at Jacob’s well, “…If you knew the gift of God
and who it is that asks for a drink you would have asked him and he would have
given you living water.” (John
4:10) In the path of offering, we
become interiorly empty of obstacles, spacious enough to be a vessel of the
Living Water of Trinitarian Life.
We wholeheartedly drink from Christ’s Stream of Mercy. As Yeshua promises in the Gospel of
Thomas logion 108, “ Whoever drinks from my mouth will become like me, and I
will become them and what was hidden will be revealed.”
Kenotic Practice: Doorway to the Way of Offering
What is the encumbrance that seems to
block the flow of Living Water?
The unconscious enslavement to a separate self where we feverishly
compete against others for self-survival and self-fulfillment is the encumbrance. According to Beatrice Bruteau again in The
Holy Thursday Revolution, most
humans are ensnared in the “Domination Paradigm.” The Domination Paradigm is a zero-sum reality based on the
illusion of seeking for a self-fulfillment over and against all other beings,
in a world constructed on a competition for attainment of desires, in which the
strong, the clever, the resourceful, and the efficient win out over the weak
and the innocent. The Domination
Paradigm sadly has been “religionized” by institutional Christianity, which
holds forth a tyrannical, demanding “god” who showers blessings upon those who
please and pacify him and punishes the rebellious. A deity has been created who is a caricature, an abhorrently
ignorant, cruel, and childish despot.
In the Domination Paradigm salvation constitutes an allegiance with the
most powerful dictator, who has dominated all other contenders. Actually humans both fear and long for
Agape and the world of communion.
In entering the Communion Paradigm, we must abandon the private and
collective deals we have struck with a controlling, domineering deity and open
to the vast, limitless freedom of the mysterious Source of Life. All identities of being winner or
loser, vanquished or victorious dissolve into the Infinite Mercy Who
ceaselessly pours Her/Himself out in Self-gift into all Creation.
In The Awakened Heart, the contemplative spiritual teacher Gerald May
affirms that we must be freed from our primal addiction of compulsively seeking
objects of self-fulfillment and gratification. Paradoxically, authentic wholeness only occurs when we
surrender all ideas of self-fulfillment.
In spaciousness and emptiness, we become vessels of the Stream of Mercy,
the Divine Beloved. In kenotic
opening and self-offering we allow the inner Living Flame of Love, Yeshua’s
Fire, to consume us. As the fifth
century desert father, Abba Joseph exhorts, “Why not become become all
flame?”(Apothegmata). To become
“theotokos”, ignited by Yeshua’s Fire, we must enter the path of offering.
In Chapter Three, “The Path of Kenosis”, I
describe the process by which we realize interior freedom through
self-emptiness. The path of
offering, however, is not a separate step from the way of kenosis. Self-emptying and self-offering are
a simultaneous interior movement of “giving up” our self-seeking agenda and
“giving over” to the Beloved all desires and expectations. In each moment, with wholehearted
attention and intention, we trust our offering merges with and is carried by
the Divine Stream of Mercy. We are
freed from the addiction of seeking self-fulfillment and are available to be
filled with Christ’s Love.
Self-Offering in Daily Life
We do not control the events in our lives
or the world around us. Yet, we
have the gifts of awareness and will as well as the freedom to make choices
that affect our life and our world.
We can choose to offer ourselves to the Divine Self-Offering Who flows
in and through us. When we choose
to be present to the Presence and respond wholeheartedly to all beings, human
and nonhuman, we become “theotokos”.
We can bear and birth God in our lives, no matter what the
circumstances.
Motivations
How do we practice self-offering in our
daily lives? In order to be an
offering, a vessel of birthing God in our human form and in the world, we must
observe and release from the self-motivations that arise in our mind while we
give ourselves to our deepest longing for the Divine in the Heart. In a passage from The Beloved is My
Refuge, I write, “In the human
condition our motivations are often fear based. They are driven by the compulsions of the ego to enhance and
protect our misdirected drives for control, affection and security. Through the practice of vigilant
presence we continually open to see our hidden motivations of the mind, honestly,
as they are, however twisted and misdirected. Through vigilant presence we become aware of the inner
disharmony between the motivations of the mind and the deeper intention of the
heart. Through the continual
opening to presence, we accept the pain of this disharmony and learn from it,
returning to our deepest motivation”.
Yeshua reveals that
God's motivation is always love.
Knowing or unknowing, our deepest intention in the heart is also love. In the way of offering, we continually
return to the singular desire to love God and love creation. The practice of self-offering is the
practice of ceaseless prayer.
Self-offering is more than an abstract mental discipline. We release from defensive reactions,
fear-driven motivations and compulsions that impede the flow of God's Love
through our own life and ceaselessly re-member and return to communion with the
Divine in each moment. Just as we
surrender ourselves in love during our sitting practice, we also open to God’s
Love in the midst of activity.
Self-offering is not an emotion, even though tenderness and sensitivity
often arise. In an act of will and
commitment, every moment, during emotional highs and lows, we willingly
consecrate ourselves in service to God’s Love flowing in and through our lives.
Offering of Self to Divine Mercy and Healing
In cultivating interior awareness, we are
painfully aware of how often we are captured by the misdirected, convoluted,
and usually unconscious motivations of our egoic mind, which is disharmonious
and injurious to others and ourselves.
Rather than reactively self-justify or self-condemn, we learn to accept
the pain of our choices and acts.
We simply offer with open hands, our humanity’s brokenness to the Divine
Heart of infinite Mercy and Healing.
When captivated by defending or attempting to perfect an illusory
separate self, we return home to God’s Love. Contrition and conversion are the doorway into theotokos.
Offering the World to Divine Mercy
In the news events of the day, we can be tempted to
worry or despair. We can also be
overwhelmed with the cares and concerns of our loved ones and friends. In the Path of Devotion I spoke of how
I offer prayers of mercy or intercession in my formal times of practice. My practice also extends throughout the
day. When my consciousness is
weighed by fear, concern or sorrow for the suffering in the world, with open
hands, I gather all beings and give over a prayer of offering into the Stream
of Mercy. In intercessory prayer,
we are freed from the obsessive need to control out of fear. We trust the universe is held by a
limitless Love Who moves through all places and circumstances. Self-offering fulfills the great
commandment to “Love my neighbor as myself”.
The Little Way of Ceaseless Offering
Many great teachers across mystical
traditions have taught the way of self-offering in daily life. In the seventeenth century, Brother
Lawrence of the Resurrection called the way of self-offering “practicing the
Presence of God.” As a Carmelite
Monk in France, he learned that the alchemy of inner communion and interior
transformation simmered in the kitchen where he washed potatoes, swept floors
and scrubbed pots. Being attentive
and devoted to the Divine Presence every task became self-offering love. He united his life with the Stream of
Love and poured out love in his monastic community and the world.
Similarly, in nineteenth century France, the
young girl, Therese of Lisieux discovered that her vocation as a monastic nun
was really the vocation of love.
In every moment, she offered herself to the Divine Beloved. During the most sublime joy and painful
suffering, in every earthly task and spiritual worship, her life was a
love-offering to her community and world.
She called her path of self-offering love the “Little Way.”
During the Viet Nam War, while napalm
bombs and Agent Orange ravaged his country, the Zen monk, Thich Nhat Hanh,
practiced self-offering through the way of mindfulness. Acutely aware of the suffering of his
own people and the environment, as well as the suffering of those who inflicted
harm, he extended loving-kindness to all beings. Currently in his eighties, he has been a prolific writer and
spiritual teacher for decades, inspiring millions. He teaches that everyone can awaken through the simple
discipline of mindfulness. By
slowing down, paying attention to the breath, being aware when walking,
smiling, cooking and eating, we extend gentleness and loving-kindness in our
world.
