THE SPIRAL OF VIOLENCE

When good things can also be recognized as bad things, then you have the spiritual gift of discernment. This will also allow you to see that many things which are good for you are also bad things for other people, the animals, or the earth. It forces you beyond  ¢â‚¬Å“either/or ¢â‚¬  thinking toward  ¢â‚¬Å“both/and, ¢â‚¬  or non-dual, thinking. Once you have learned to discern the disguised nature of evil, you will be able to recognize that both perfection and imperfection are everywhere ¢â‚¬”everything is broken and fallen: weak and poor, you and me, your marriage, your children, and, yes, America and the Church, too.

 ¢â‚¬Å“Why do you call me good? ¢â‚¬  Jesus says.  ¢â‚¬Å“God alone is good! ¢â‚¬  (Mark 10:18). If Jesus can say this about himself, then we can surely say it concerning just about everything. He might have given you the greatest recipe for happiness for the rest of your life in that statement. Now you can start accepting things in their broken, faulty state. You will not be so constantly disappointed, and think people have let you down because they are not perfect. Nor do you have to wait for things to be perfect to fall in love with them.

Adapted from Spiral of Violence (CD/MP3)
Prayer:
Open my mind to discern good and evil.

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With the  ¢â‚¬Å“gift of discernment of spirits ¢â‚¬  (1 Corinthians 12:10) you can understand on a whole new level what we mean when we say  ¢â‚¬Å“God saves you, ¢â‚¬  because now you see with wisdom and truth. It does not mean this or that specific action will get you to heaven. It means that when  ¢â‚¬Å“your eye is single (or  ¢â‚¬Ëœsound ¢â‚¬â„¢), your whole body will be filled with light ¢â‚¬  (Luke 11:34). When you see things non-dually, in their wholeness, and do not split between the false “totally good” and  ¢â‚¬Å“totally bad, ¢â‚¬  you will grow up spiritually and begin to live honestly and wisely in this world.

I hope that this short introduction to the three sources of evil as the spiral of violence ¢â‚¬”1) the world’s agreed-upon systems, 2) individual sin, and 3) the demonic legitimization of oppressive and destructive power ¢â‚¬”can be a primary tool for the rest of your life, to help you discern what is truly good and what is often evil. And remember, the proper sequencing is important: if you nip the disguise of evil in the first stage, the next two largely lose most of their power to fool you.

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CONTEMPLATION IN ACTION
Prayer is not the avoidance of distractions, but precisely how you deal with distractions. Contemplation is not the avoidance of the problem, but a daily merging with the problem, and finding its full resolution. It is a way  ¢â‚¬Å“to look over [our] shoulder ¢â‚¬  for God (the brilliant insight of the anonymous author of the 14th Century book, The Cloud of Unknowing, Chapter 32).

The persistence of the distraction can actually steady your gaze, deepen your decision, and increase your freedom and desire for God and for grace ¢â‚¬”over  ¢â‚¬Å“this ¢â‚¬  or  ¢â‚¬Å“that ¢â‚¬  passing phenomenon. The  ¢â‚¬Å“shoulders ¢â‚¬  of the distraction become your necessary vantage point, and they create the crosshairs of your seeing. What you quickly and humbly learn in contemplation is that how you do anything is how you do everything.

I wasted so many years trying to deny, repress, or avoid distractions ¢â‚¬”which never worked. It is not the avoidance of problems that makes you a contemplative, but a daily holding of the problem, straight on. But not letting it hold onto you, and finding a resolution in the much deeper and more spacious  ¢â‚¬Å“peace of Christ, which will guard your heart and your mind ¢â‚¬  (Philippians 4:7). I never knew it would take such hourly vigilance to guard my heart and my mind from anger, judgment, fear, jealousy, and negativity of any kind. Only the vast peace of Christ can do it. Now it is my only daily discipline, much harder than poverty, chastity, and obedience ever were.

Adapted from Contemplation in Action, p. 18

Prayer:
Teach me to hold the paradox of contemplation in action.

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To reach the goal of compassion we must not stop with  ¢â‚¬Å“the first gaze. ¢â‚¬  It is  ¢â‚¬Å“the second gaze ¢â‚¬  that we struggle and wait for most of our lives. In the first half of life, we have a critical mind and a demanding heart and a lot of impatience. These characteristics are both gifts and curses, as you might expect. We cannot risk losing touch with either our angels or our demons. They are both good teachers. The trials of life invariably lead us to a second gaze. This is the gaze of compassion and patience. Now we look out at life from a place of Divine Intimacy where we are finally safe and at home.

Only the second gaze sees fully and truthfully. It is the gaze of God at you, which you have finally received like a long-awaited radio signal, and once you receive it, it just automatically bounces back to the Sender.

Adapted from Contemplation in Action, pp. 19-20

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At this time in history, the contemporary choice offered most Americans is between unstable correctness (liberals) and stable illusion (conservatives)! What a choice! It has little to do with real transformation in either case. How different from the radical orthodoxy of T. S. Eliot, who can say in Little Gidding,

You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel . . . .

There is a third way, and it probably is a way of  ¢â‚¬Å“kneeling. ¢â‚¬  Most people would just call it  ¢â‚¬Å“wisdom. ¢â‚¬  It demands a transformation of consciousness and a move beyond the dualistic win/lose mind of both liberals and conservatives. An authentic God encounter is the quickest and truest path to such wisdom, which is always non-dual consciousness and does not take useless sides on non-essential issues.

Neither expelling nor excluding (conservative temptation), nor perfect explaining (liberal temptation) is our task. True participation in God liberates us from our control towers and for the compelling and overarching vision of the Reign of God ¢â‚¬”where there are no liberals or conservatives. Here, the paradoxes ¢â‚¬”life and death, success and failure, loyalty to what is and risk for what needs to be ¢â‚¬”do not fight with one another, but lie in an endless embrace. We must penetrate behind them both ¢â‚¬”into the Mystery that bears them both. This is contemplation in action.

Read my favorite mystic, Julian of Norwich (1342-1420), and she will show you how to be a most traditional Christian, while breaking all the rules and orthodox ideas at the very same time. On the night of May 8, 1373, God “showed himself” to her and it took her more than twenty years to unpackage the experience. This English laywoman well deserves to be a doctor of spirituality. Her Revelations of Divine Love is a bottomless well of wisdom, love, and truth, and one of the few books I could return to every month and find something new ¢â‚¬”which, for me, is a sign of perennial and radical orthodoxy.

Adapted from Contemplation in Action, pp. 27-30

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We don ¢â‚¬â„¢t teach meditation to the young monks. They are not ready for it until they stop slamming doors.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh to Thomas Merton in 1966
The piercing truth of this statement struck me as a perfect way to communicate the endless disguises and devices of the false self. There is no more clever way for the false self to hide than behind the mask of spirituality. The human ego will always try to name, categorize, fix, control, and insure all its experiences. For the ego everything is a commodity. It lives inside of self-manufactured boundaries instead of inside the boundaries of the God-self. It lives out of its own superior image instead of mirroring the image of God. The ego is constantly searching for any solid and superior identity. A spiritual self-image gives us status, stability, and security. There is no better way to remain unconscious than to baptize and bless the forms of religion, even prayer itself, instead of surrendering to the Substance Itself. First stop slamming doors, and then you can begin in the kindergarten of spirituality. Too many priests, bishops, and ministers are still slamming doors.

In the name of seeking God, the ego pads and protects itself from self-discovery, which is an almost perfect cover for its inherent narcissism. I know this because I have done it all myself.

Adapted from Contemplation in Action, pp. 79-80