Plato, a foundational Greek philosopher, has had far more influence on Christianity up to now than even Jesus often has! (I want to shock you into awareness!) Jesus says matter and spirit, divine and human are not enemies, but in fact are two sides of the same coin. They reveal one another, and are finally one! That is the meaning of his two raised fingers in much of Christian art.

Plato positions body and soul as irreconcilable enemies. Our moral theology, most of our sexual teaching, and our lackluster history of Earth care all show that we too have not seen matter and spirit, or body and soul, as friends, and as a result, have been Platonists more than Christians. (Part of the reason for this is Paul ¢â‚¬â„¢s unfortunate use of the the word  ¢â‚¬Å“flesh ¢â‚¬  in opposition to spirit. He would have made his point so much better, so much clearer, if he had used the word  ¢â‚¬Å“ego ¢â‚¬  instead.) Embodiment is not the problem, ego is!

Matter and spirit have never been separate, says the Christ Mystery. We live in One United Whole; there is no sacred and profane, no natural and supernatural. All is sacred and supernatural inside of the One Christ Mystery, who  ¢â‚¬Å“reconciles all things in Himself ¢â‚¬  (Colossians 1:15-20).

Adapted from Soul Centering Through Nature: Becoming a True Human Adult (webcast) (CD/DVD/MP3)

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When did the incarnation begin? It began with the  ¢â‚¬Å“Big Bang, ¢â‚¬  14.5 billion years ago, and you ¢â‚¬â„¢re the first generation that ¢â‚¬â„¢s ever known an approximate date for the materialization of the mystery. Our particular  ¢â‚¬Å“earth ¢â‚¬  came along around 4-5 billion years ago ¢â‚¬”much later, it seems. What was God doing 5 billion years ago? What was God doing 10 billion years ago? Was God really waiting for the Pope to appear? Was God waiting for the King James Version of the Bible? All of which happened only in the last nanosecond of geological time. God sure is impractical and terribly inefficient if His or Her goals are the same as ours. Who is this God?

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As humans we do have the advantage of what we call  ¢â‚¬Å“consciousness, ¢â‚¬  but that doesn ¢â‚¬â„¢t mean that other things do not also share in some rudimentary form of that consciousness. Maybe it ¢â‚¬â„¢s a quantitative difference, but not a qualitative difference. Paul often calls us the  ¢â‚¬Å“first fruits ¢â‚¬  of salvation or redemption, but that does not mean we are the only fruits. The little sheep and the big dog certainly have some degree of consciousness, too; in fact they sometimes put us to shame, and reveal the union of matter and spirit much better than we do, as does all of nature.

Adapted from Soul Centering Through Nature: Becoming a True Human Adult (webcast) (CD/DVD/MP3)

 ¢â‚¬Å“God has let us in on the mystery of His purpose, a hidden plan, ¢â‚¬  says Ephesians 1:3-11. And it sure is hidden, so well hidden that very few saw  ¢â‚¬Å“the plan God so kindly made from the very beginning in Christ. ¢â‚¬  John Duns Scotus said that  ¢â‚¬Å“Christ is the first idea in the mind of God. ¢â‚¬  In other words, God from the very beginning wanted to  ¢â‚¬Å“materialize. ¢â‚¬  The Divine wants to manifest itself in an endless outpouring of Trinitarian Love. The result is  ¢â‚¬Å“Christ ¢â‚¬  (which is not Jesus ¢â‚¬â„¢ last name, but what He came to reveal! See, for example, Acts 2:36).

Picture the Russian nesting dolls: each one captures and encloses a smaller one. The first doll and the last doll are the Christ Mystery. In between is the evolution and the ever-coming of this eternal hidden mystery. In the end God will bring together everything under the title of  ¢â‚¬Å“Christ ¢â‚¬  ¢â‚¬”everything in Heaven and everything on the Earth (Colossians 1:15-20). This is far bigger than the Christian religion; in fact many Christians fight it and resist this  ¢â‚¬Å“Second Coming, ¢â‚¬  and I know some Hindus, Jews, and Buddhists who are riding the full wave of Divine Love. The fact that many Christians have fought the very notion of evolution shows that we didn ¢â‚¬â„¢t understand the Cosmic Christ at all: God creates things that continue to create themselves (Romans 8:19-25), which is exactly what any true parent wants and fully understands. Why would God be different?

Jesus is the focused revelation of what God is doing everywhere and all the time. The Jesus story is the Universe story, and you do not need to be a Christian to see that. He is what Shakespeare would call  ¢â‚¬Å“the play within the play, ¢â‚¬  or the microcosm of the macrocosm. His role is to visibly hold together matter and spirit, divine and human ¢â‚¬”and thus reveal the Christ Mystery that always was and always will be. And you are in on that deal!

Adapted from Soul Centering Through Nature: Becoming a True Human Adult (webcast) (CD/DVD/MP3)

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When I first joined the Franciscan order in 1961, my novice master told me we could not cut down a tree without permission of the Provincial (our major religious superior). A little bit of Francis lasted 800 years! You see, wilderness is not just wilderness, utilitarian, or expendable. The natural world is not just an object for our consumption; it is much more for our reverence. Francis granted relational subjectivity to the natural world when he called it variously  ¢â‚¬Å“Brother Sun, ¢â‚¬   ¢â‚¬Å“Sister Fire, ¢â‚¬   ¢â‚¬Å“Brother Air, ¢â‚¬  and  ¢â‚¬Å“Sister Water ¢â‚¬  (from  ¢â‚¬Å“The Canticle to Brother Sun, ¢â‚¬  the first piece of known poetry in the Italian language). Nature itself deserved respect, mutuality, friendliness, and  ¢â‚¬Å“voice ¢â‚¬ !

Once you grant subjectivity to the natural world, everything changes. Things out there are no longer mere objects with you as the controlling subject, but you now share mutuality with all things. Be careful, this will change your life! For so long now, creation has been a mere commodity, and wilderness has been an arbitrary add-on, a mere backdrop for our human dramas. But we were the only actor on the stage that God cared about, it seemed! Says who? This soul lie is now catching up with us. The contemplative mind does not see things in terms of consumption or capitalistic advantage. It is a new set of eyes, given by God, that allows us to appreciate creation in itself, and for its own sake, until the end, when  ¢â‚¬Å“There is only Christ: He is everything and He is in everything ¢â‚¬  (Colossians 3:11). An authentic believer should be on the front lines of such seeing  ¢â‚¬Å“so that God may be all in all ¢â‚¬  (1 Corinthians 15:28).

Adapted from Soul Centering Through Nature: Becoming a True Human Adult (webcast) (CD/DVD/MP3)

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LIVING ON OUR ONE EARTH

 ¢â‚¬Å“Axial Consciousness ¢â‚¬  began between 800 and 200 B.C. when humans began conceptualizing and thinking abstractly, yet religion was still deeply connected to myth and story. You see both overlapping in the Greeks with their mathematics and philosophy, but they still have all their mythic gods too. There must be a balancing of the non ¢â‚¬â€˜rational and the rational and that is when history is most creative. Richard Tarnas, in his book The Passion of the Western Mind, says that all of history can be seen as a pendulum swinging between the romantic and the rational, and only now and then do they come together. When they do, we seem to have an explosion of genius.

When religion is merely romantic (read sentimental, based in emotional conditioning and fundamentalist and tribal thinking) it becomes idolatrous, self-congratulating, self-maintaining, and incapable of honest selfcriticism. When it is merely rational, it becomes cold legalism and doctrinal belief systems, with no warming God contact. I have found that extended quiet time in the natural world somehow synthesizes the two ¢â‚¬”actual spiritual experience that is absorbed in a way that touches both head and heart simultaneously. (For some reason, church services swing to one side or the other, all dogma or all emotion.)

Adapted from Soul Centering Through Nature: Becoming a True Human Adult (webcast) (CD/DVD/MP3)

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Everything has been moving apart into greater individualism and separation for much of the last 2,000 years, until this round globe started filling up, and we met one another on the other side ¢â‚¬”other religions, cultures, ethnicities, and beliefs. We cannot plead ignorance of one another any longer. This globalization made us aware that God created and loves not only  ¢â‚¬Å“Catholics from Kansas, ¢â‚¬  but Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists, as well, and even other Christians! (Sort of amazing that we should even have to say this!)

The one thing we all have in common is that we are all breathing the same air, relying upon the same Brother Sun, and walking on this same Mother Earth, which absolutely feeds and sustains every one of us! It is indeed  ¢â‚¬Å“a common good. ¢â‚¬  We now have an ability to read reality truthfully, experiencing ourselves first and foremost as members of ONE Earth community, even before we are this or that. No other people in history have been able to look back at this lone planet hanging in space. There are no national borders visible. We are the first to see and hopefully think globally! If we do not soon learn to respect and protect this limited planet with its limited resources, Christ at his  ¢â‚¬Å“second coming ¢â‚¬  will return to a total wasteland of plastics, pollutants, and  ¢â‚¬Å“eternal ¢â‚¬  Styrofoam. We have not followed God ¢â‚¬â„¢s command to  ¢â‚¬Å“cultivate and care ¢â‚¬  for the garden he has given us (Genesis 2:15). It might not be worth returning to.

Adapted from Soul Centering Through Nature: Becoming a True Human Adult (webcast) (CD/DVD/MP3)

Before 800 B.C., the thinking on the whole planet, no matter the continent, was tribal, cosmic, mythic, and ritualistic (German philosopher Karl Jasper ¢â‚¬â„¢s notion of  ¢â‚¬Å“pre-axial consciousness ¢â‚¬ ). Owen Barfield calls it  ¢â‚¬Å“original participation. ¢â‚¬  Simply by watching the sky, birds, and trees, the seasons, darkness and light, people knew they belonged. Though we call these people uncivilized people, Owen Barfield conjectures they might have had healthier psyches than we do because they lived in an enchanted universe where everything belonged, including themselves. The natural cycles of darkness and light, death and growth, loss and renewal, which were everywhere all the time, were their teachers. They  ¢â‚¬Å“participated ¢â‚¬  naturally!

So we should not necessarily think of them as backward or primitive peoples. The very word  ¢â‚¬Å“pagan ¢â‚¬  is a dismissive word used by the urban elites meaning  ¢â‚¬Å“those who live in the country. ¢â‚¬  We thought by moving into so-called civilization, we were better, smarter, and more evolved. Most people who have ever lived learned of the divine through the natural world. God did not leave them  ¢â‚¬Å“orphans ¢â‚¬  (John 14:18). They perhaps saw and met God in everything, and yet from our distance we called them animists or pantheists. Religion was much more about healing and harmonizing.  ¢â‚¬Å“Salvation ¢â‚¬  was not a reward you got after you died for good moral behavior. God could be found now and IN ALL things! (Which, by the way, is the motto of both the Franciscans and the Jesuits,who rediscovered original participation through Jesus.)

Adapted from Soul Centering Through Nature: Becoming a True Human Adult (webcast) (CD/DVD/MP3)

Starter Prayer:

I am part of the whole.