The Path of Reverence

THE PATH OF REVERENCE

“My Beloved is the mountains,

solitary wooded valleys,

strange islands,

resounding rivers,

the whistling of love-stirring breezes,

The tranquil night

at the time of the rising dawn,

silent music,

sounding solitude,

the supper that refreshes and deepens love."

(The Spiritual Canticle, Saint John of the Cross)

The Human Choice:  Consecration or Desecration

 

      Spiritual words are not mere ideals to be believed or emulated, but experiential truths to be actualized in our daily lives.  At this critical time, perhaps more crucial than any other era, the choice before us is either holy consecration, holding sacred our world and our lives, or harmful desecration and the destruction of the ecosystems that support life as well as ourselves.  Most humans have not yet fully awakened to the sacred interconnection and communion with all creation and with the One Source from Whom all life springs.  Instead of sacralizing the earth and cherishing the intimacy we share with this planet and all its inhabitants, we desecrate the world, treating it with contempt, an object at our disposal to exploit and abuse.  Such are the fruits of desecration.  Inversely, the full expression and fruit of consecration is the path of reverence.

     The violation of our world today is rampant.  At this moment, as I write, a massive, catastrophic oil spill, wrought by corporate greed and negligence, threatens the environment of the entire Southern United States and Mexican Gulf Coast regions and is rapidly poisoning our oceans.  At this moment, a small percentage of humans over-consume the world’s resources in unsustainable ways, while the vast majority live in abysmal poverty and starvation.  At this moment, entire species and ecosystems are disappearing into extinction caused by human devastation and indifference.  And sadly, at this moment, humans murder and brutalize entire populations of human and non-human creatures who share the planet with us.  We idealize a consumerist social order that reduces every created being, every human relationship, into an object of consumption.  Sexual relationship is diminished into casual entertainment, too often a transitory “hook up” or mutual exploitation, rather than sacred intimacy.  Friendships and marital pairing are often measured in the terms of a market exchange.

De-Sacralization of the World in Organized Religion

 

     The broken relationship with ourselves, our fellow humans, our beautiful green planet as well as the living systems that sustains us, arises from the de-sacralizing of life.  Unfortunately, our legacy of religious beliefs frequently contributes to this harm.  The major religious traditions of East and West have often viewed the spiritual realm as being in opposition to the material realm.  The physical world has been described by religions in the West as “fallen” or “unholy” because of a mythical “original sin” committed by ancestral parents.  Religions of the East view the world as “maya” or illusion.  Thus, the suffering, degenerate realm of “samsara” must be escaped and transcended.  In both East and West, the material universe has not been seen or experienced as God’s body.  In the age of corporate capitalism, modern Christianity has often idolized profit and accumulation of possessions.  Christian “stewardship”, which cherishes, protects and reveres the natural world, has been twisted into a religious justification for abusing and exploiting our natural world for profit and pleasure.  As Yeshua states, “…You cannot serve God and Mammon.”  (Matt 6:24)  “Mammon”, from the Aramaic word “mamona”, is described as the false god of material wealth.  One greedily pursues and worships material accumulations for self-enhancement.  What do we truly worship?  Too many Christians today trust in Mammon rather than Christ.  Even churches are not revered as sanctuaries of quiet and peace, but places where backslapping and mundane social interactions prevail over the intention of reverencing sacred space and communing with God.

Relational Life is Sacred

  

     Human relationships, even the closest human spousal and familial bonds, are too often characterized by domination, abuse and exploitation rather than honored, cherished and protected.  Family and work relationships, as well as human creativity, are desecrated and devalued by economic competition and the corporate drive for profits.  The Domination Paradigm breeds alienation, despair and violence.

     To reverence relational life, we must be liberated from our captivity to the economic marketplace and narcissistic selfish societal culture.  Communion with the Divine grounds us in the sacred and allows us to be a vessel of care and nurturance in our world.

Mystic Vision - Unitive Vision

     “The disciples asked him: ‘When will the kingdom come?’  Yeshua answered, ‘It will not come by watching for it.   No one will be saying, Look, here it is! or Look, there it is!  The Kingdom of the Father is spread over the whole earth, and people do not see it.’”  (Gospel of Thomas logion 113)

     Human evolution is now poised for, and in desperate need of, a mystic vision.  Karl Rahner, a German Catholic theologian in the Second Vatican Council convened in the early 1960’s, prophetically reflected, “The Christian of the future will be a mystic or will not exist at all.”  I believe this statement is a global prophecy for all people, not only Christians.  Our future survival and evolution as a conscious species depends on awakening to the mystic vision.  Arising across geography and time, the mystic vision is a unitive vision, which reveals the Living Flame of Love in the human heart is also the Living Flame of Love dwelling in the heart of the universe.  With the mystic vision, we abide in the Communion Paradigm where all life is sacred. 

     Our relationship with friends, co-workers, families, neighbors, communities and fellow creatures must be healed.  We practice the way of reverence by cherishing and cultivating our relationship with the Fire of the Beloved in the interior cave of the heart. . All other expressions of the Path of Reverence flow from the Center and Source of all relationships.

The Path of Reverence as Spiritual Practice

     “Yeshua said: I am the Light that shines on everyone.  I am the All.  The All came forth from me and the All came into me.  Split the wood, and I am there. Turn over the stone, and there you will find me.”  (Gospel of Thomas logion 77)

Reverence as Consecrated Awareness or Holy Perception:

  

     The path of reverence is fully tending to Yeshua’s sacred Fire within and without, with tenderness and attention.  Through a daily practice of communing with the Divine in silence and stillness and through the discipline of kenotic self-emptying practice in daily life, our soul is freed from the entrapment of the habitual patterns of mind and the egoic filters of separateness.  The practice of consecrated awareness enables holy perception.  The vision of the deepest heart becomes alive, spacious and clear.  Our spiritual sight is aligned with the Light of Christ, the “Lumen Christi”, Who shines within and upon all creation.  The Celtic prayers from the Christian community of Iona, Scotland, sing, “There is no plant in the ground but tells of your beauty, O Christ” and “Lighten my understanding of Your Presence all around, O Christ.” (Prayers of Iona, Newell)

     John Scotus Eriugena, a mystic and theologian from ninth century Ireland, listened to the Word within his heart and heard God resounding throughout all creation.  He wrote that God’s Essence is poured out in all creation and is ‘the light …of all visible and invisible existence”.  He realized that if God were to stop speaking, the whole universe would cease to exist.  Eriugena regarded the world as a “theophany”, a visible manifestation of God.  (Listening to the Heart of God, Newell)  Similarly, Morgan of Wales, or Pelagius, from the fourth century taught that God’s Presence vibrates in the heart of all creation and is the Source of innate goodness in the natural world.  He taught women to read scripture and emphasized that the treasure of the image of God is hidden in every newborn child, waiting to be unlocked.  Pelagius was excommunicated and condemned to death by the Church, accused as a heretic by Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, who insisted that every child is born in “original sin”.   (Listening to the Heartbeat of God, J. Newell) 

     Yet the mystic vision of the immanent Light of Christ in the heart of creation is widespread in the history of Christianity, although frequently condemned by religious authorities.  The Beguine movement, for example, flourished in northern Europe during the thirteenth century.  For a time some unmarried women were to make the choice to live in independent communities devoted to loving God and serving life in communities of prayer and service. These women were called Beguines.  In time, the Church authorities targeted the Beguines as heretics because they were “free spirits”.  Repression and persecution followed, including burning at the stake, and the Beguine movement faded.  A Beguine medieval mystic, Mechtild of Magdeburg, recorded her visions and love songs in a series of books, entitled, Flowing Light of the Godhead.   Affirming the insight that God indwells creation, she wrote, “The day of my spiritual awakening was the day I saw and I knew I saw, all things in God and God in all things.”  The fourth century mystic and Archbishop of Constantinople, Gregory of Nazianzus similarly shared, “Christ exists in all things that are.”  (Original Blessing, M. Fox)

     In holy perception we attune our vision to the Light and Presence of Christ with increasing sensitivity and attentiveness.  We see with undivided vision the Light that shines forth from the beginning.  The holy perception or mystical vision is described by the ninth century Celtic mystic, John Scotus Eriugena as “the true beholding of the light from the inner eyes” through the healing grace of Christ. (Listening for the Heartbeat of God, J. Newell).  In the path of reverence, we continually open our eyes to “behold” the holy in all life.  The natural fruit of  “beholding” the Light of Christ in all creation and in every circumstance is awe and adoration, a reverent interior posture of bowing.  In every moment of daily life, the tasks before us are doorways into the Divine if we see with unified vision.  Hence, as Brother Lawrence or Thich Nhat Hanh, when cooking or sweeping the floor, we are present, allowing God to see through our eyes.  When drinking coffee or communicating with loved ones or friends, we offer the gift of undivided and holy perception and bow to the Holy Presence Who indwells all life.

Reverence as Holy Tenderness

     In the Gospel of Thomas logion 15, Yeshua states,  “Love your brother and sister as your soul; protect them as you do the pupil of your eye.”  In this logion, Yeshua provides a poetic metaphor of love.  He correlates love to the physical eye, which is miraculously powerful, able to perceive the universe, yet also vulnerable.  According to Yeshua, just as we safeguard our eyesight, we must provide tender care and protection to our “brothers” and sisters”.  Who are our “brothers” and “sisters”?   All creatures who share our world, human and nonhuman, are our relations.  In the Gospel of Thomas logion 15, Yeshua also equates the preciousness of love with true seeing.  With our inner eyes, with holy perception, we perceive Love everywhere. 

     In the path of reverence, the companion of consecrated awareness or holy perception is consecrated intention of love or holy tenderness.  Through daily practice of inner communion with the Divine and kenotic self-emptying, consecrated awareness or holy perception is freed.  Likewise through daily practice, holy tenderness is released from the impediment of habitual egoic patterns.  Through holy perception and holy tenderness, we unite with and rest in the spaciousness of Christ’s Heart.  Hence, by giving nurture and care to every creature we meet as well as every task before us, we practice the path of reverence.  We extend holy tenderness in warmly greeting a stranger on the street or extending politeness and courtesy to drivers in traffic and fellow shoppers in the grocery store.  We offer holy tenderness and devoted respect to our spouse at the dinner table and in the intimacy of sexual union.  Holy tenderness is also the gift we share with family pets as well as the loving concern we extend to the flowers, birds, insects and other creatures we encounter in our garden, yard or neighborhood walk.  Nonhuman creatures and the environment are “the least of these,” “the little ones”, in whom Christ’s presence and Light resides.  In the twelfth century, Saint Francis devoted himself to tenderly serving all life.   In his “Canticle of the Sun”, he expressed respect and honor to “brother sun’, “sister moon and stars”, “brothers wind and air”, “sister water”, “brother fire”, “sister earth, our mother”.  If the great mystic and saint, Francis of Assisi loved creatures of this world as his brothers and sisters in the universal circle of life, should not this also be true for us?

     Twenty years ago, on an early summer’s morning, I was walking to join a circle of meditation practitioners for a time of shared silence and inner communion together.  When crossing the street in front of the meditation center, I saw a wounded sparrow flopping around in the street, frantically trying to fly.  Apparently a car had just hit the bird.  I intuitively picked up the bird with both hands and held it firmly until it stopped struggling.  Softly whispering words of encouragement, I cradled the frightened little creature with one hand and carefully placed it in the pocket of my windbreaker jacket.  The bird stirred slightly once or twice during the two periods of meditation.  At the conclusion of the community meditation period, I walked into the meditation center garden and gently removed the small sparrow from my pocket to see if it were still living and able to move.  I held the bird extended on the palm of my right hand and after a brief moment of orientation, the bird flapped its wings and flew away.  Such is the healing balm of meditation, which cradles both human and bird, mutually bathed in God’s tenderness.  We learn to rest in healing holy tenderness and fly into the vast freedom of the Heart.

Practice of Reverence – Fulfillment of the Great Commandment

     In the Gospel of Mark, a teacher of the law asks Yeshua, “…Of all of the commandments, which is the greatest?”.  Yeshua answers, “The greatest one is this: ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one God.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength’.  The second greatest is… ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’..”  (Mark 12:28-31)

  

    In the Christ Mystery, all beings who share the circle of life are our neighbor.  All beings are embraced within the One Self, Who is God.  The practice of reverence is the fulfillment of the Great Commandment.  In the path of reverence, all actions are infused with the presence and awareness of holy perception and with the exquisite care of holy tenderness.

Holy Communion in the Sacred Body of Christ

“We are the universe becoming conscious of its capacity to be in communion with the Holy Mystery that lies at the Source of our being.”

(Making the Shift, E. Prevallet)

    Before the Eucharist or Agape Liturgy was Romanized in the institutional church, it was celebrated in a sacred circle of lay persons seated at a table meal or feast.  As a ritual for the remembrance of Yeshua, early Christians awakened to the living Presence of Christ within and amongst themselves.  Known as “people of the Way” or “followers of the Way”, early Christians followed Christ into the ever deepening and broadening depths of Love.  The Agape liturgy, at its deepest level, is the Mystery of mutual self-giving between the Divine Beloved and creation.  The Eucharist is rooted in the mystical Judaic tradition which describes the relationship between humans and Divine as a cosmic wedding feast, where all existence is moving toward greater intimacy with the Source of creation.  In mystical Christianity and Eastern Orthodoxy, this sacred union is called Theosis or Christification of the soul.  Our destiny as humans is to be the universe conscious of itself in God.  In the path of reverence, full expression and fruit of mystical Christianity, we awaken to our unique, essential personhood in mutual communion with the Divine Personhood of Christ.

      As Yeshua teaches in the Gospel of Thomas 108, “Whoever drinks what flows from my mouth will come to be as I am and I also will come to be as they are, so that what is hidden can become manifest.”   We flow with the mutual indwelling and self-giving Trinitarian Life, described as “perichoresis” by the fourth century Greek Fathers from Cappodocia, Turkey.  Literally translated from the composite Greek word “peri” and choreoi”, “periochoresis” means a “round dance” or “circle dance.”  In the Eucharist, we are invited to join the dance in God.  “Periochoresis” is expressed in the stanza below from a contemporary text of the sacred Agape Liturgy:
 

“Through Christ, with Christ, and in Christ,

our humanity is consecrated

and transfigured in the Beloved.

Thus we enter the stream of our Beloved’s life

with full adoration and self-offering love;

Thus we share in the Everlasting Banquet

of Eternal Life.  Amen”

(Agape/Eucharistic Liturgy closing prayer, W. Ryan)

     In the unitive mystical vision, we are the consecrated bread and wine, lifted up and offered, the body and blood of the Cosmic Christ, transformed and conscious of our sacramental divinization.  The twentieth century French Jesuit theologian, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, envisioned all creation evolving toward the Omega Point where the fullness of the incarnation of Christ, the Divine Living Word made flesh, is realized.  In the Celtic Christian mystical vision, Christ is the Aliveness at the heart of all creation as well as the One Who embraces the entire universe.  In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, Christ is the Universal “Pantocrator”, a Greek word meaning All-mighty or All-powerful.  Nothing exists outside of Christ.

     The time is ripe for a new mystical awakening of the Christ mystery.  Uniting our lives utterly with the Divine Beloved in Christ, we let go of our fixations on organizational loyalties and identities and are transformed into Christ and the Mystical Body of Christ, Who permeates and embraces all life.  The Universal Indwelling Christ must be our true religion whether or not we choose to participate in the institutional Church.  The simple truth is that our sacred Path is Yeshua the Universal Christ, the inner Living Flame of Love, the Fire that burns brightly in our heart and the Heart of the Universe.

     The nature of God is Unconditional Self-Offering Love and exquisite Presence and Tenderness.  In the Prayer of the Heart, we participate in the Divine Stream of Love Who moves through all human and nonhuman creation.  The nineteenth century Russian author, Dostoyevsky, elegantly expresses the breadth and depth of the Path that is Yeshua.  He writes,

" Love all of God's creation,

the whole and every grain of sand of it.

Love every leaf, every ray of God's light.

Love the animals, love the plants, love everything.

If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things.

Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day.

And you will come at last to love the whole world

with an all-embracing love."

(The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky)

     I conclude our reflection on the life of intimacy with the Christ Mystery within and among us by intoning this, my daily chant, that expresses profoundly both our heart’s longing and the utter simplicity of our ceaseless practice of inner communion with Yeshua the Christ, the Living Flame of Love at the center of our Heart.

“Yeshua, Yeshua,

You in me, I in You.”