I was dumbfounded at the perspective that it's normal to keep nature and spirituality separated. Even growing up on the conservative side, it never occurred to me that you couldn't talk in church about experiencing God in nature, through nature. Of course, you have to be careful in how you phrase it so that you aren't saying nature *is* The Divine, but I can't fathom feeling like you have to keep the two loves separate. At the same time, I did write in my seminary application that I think caring for nature is a form of ministry. I wanted to get rejected by any place where that would be a problem.
I was able to finish reading the first five chapters, and I resonated with so much of Victoria’s experience. Her vulnerable sharing of her journey helps to imagine it, and to reflect on my own. I see her struggle with institutionalism, with the corollary of rigidity and exclusivity, with the objectification of anyone who doesn’t fit the mold, and with individualism. Historically every great renewal movement has institutionalized at the high cost of those who were seeking purpose and meaning. I think Augustine was one of the first to put his finger on this paradox, “The Church is a whore, but she’s my mother.” I would call him the first “edge walker.”
However you frame it, the struggle is real. I appreciate the Methodists adding experience to the three legged stool they inherited from Thomas Hooker, who first articulated the authority of scripture, tradition, and reason. To his credit, Hooker actually meant “reason” as inclusive of experience rather than simply cerebral, but I think it was helpful to make experience explicit.
I do have a different antidote for exhaustion on the social activist path (besides wholeheartedness.). As Gregory Boyle puts it, “Saving people is for the Coast Guard. Our mission is to SAVOR them.” “And guess what?” he says. “Since everything is connected to everything else, when people are savored, they are saved. And WE are saved.” Savoring is something Victoria does so naturally in nature, and that’s what makes her wholehearted. Maybe she and her son, Alex, could think about a “savoring” movement to recover from all the social warrior exhaustion.
Victoria’s journey is so authentic that it is inspiring, and I couldn’t help but to think of the Spiritual Types you posted as a wider lens through which to look at her spiritual path — and ours. (I’m referring to the diagram you posted in the Chapter Questions and Comments — the diagram Urban Holmes created with the horizontal and vertical axes of apophatic-kataphatic and speculative-affective dimensions. (Can you add “affective” to the bottom of your chart?) However it was Corrine Ware who labeled the four types — Head Spirituality, Heart Spirituality, Mystical Spirituality, and Social Action Spirituality (which she also called Kingdom Spirituality). Here is a link to the explanation and questionnaire used by Corinne. https://carollanfear.weebly.com/uploads/1/0/5/1/10516291/the_ammended_spirituality_wheel.pdf
I can see Victoria rejecting head spirituality, embracing heart spirituality and mystical spirituality, and finally social action spirituality. And then I think she is moving toward integration of her spiritual paths. But I also feel like Victoria defies being analyzed and labeled from an outside observer. So what I can say more personally is that reading about her struggle and using the phenomenology of prayer chart created by Urban Holmes along with the spiritual types identified by Corinne Ware, helps me to examine my own past journey, and to become more intentional about how my journey might be more integrated in the future. What I hope is to continue my head spirituality with my interfaith dialogue group and my engagement with a local Episcopal Church, to pursue my mystical journey with my discussion group on the Biblical Foundation of Christian Spirituality followed by Centering Prayer each week, to savor my homeless friends and support them in challenging the political obstacles to ending homelessness in Corpus Christi, and to create opportunities to savor my non-human friends who I do have a deep desire to know more intimately, but am not prioritizing. I think it is the glue I need to hold me together, to integrate my journey, and to transform me into a more authentic person.
Bruce this is such a beautiful reflection. I love the goal of integrating all the paths and I think your savoring invitation is exactly what Victoria is encouraging us to do. Thanks for weaving all these prices together. I will add the link you shared to the resources part of the post. I look forward to reading it.
Ch. 2: When I read the part about wholeheartedness, my gut instinct was think the concept is elitist. I'm glad you mentioned the economic factors that can limit a person's options.
I had a nearly simultaneous thought that it takes risk to be wholehearted. Wholeheartedness requires enthusiasm and commitment to one ideal at the expense of others. In a culture that equates respect with "you do you," it can feel rude, even inhumane, to have an unwavering commitment to one thing.
From another perspective, being wholehearted means risking social isolation when those in your community have different values or commitments. Sometimes it seems like our society is stuck in the middle-school phase of adapting to fit in rather than progressing to the adult stage of self-differentiation and respecting people for their differentiation. There is some social good in adapting to cultural expectations. It keeps us from being antisocial, rude, self-entitled people. The challenge is to be good members of a community while also being self-differentiated and embracing wholeheartedness.
I'll stop now before I write an essay on wholeheartedness, but I think it's worth exploring our concepts of what the term means and what would be the result of putting those definitions into practice.
This is my reflection on the two questions about the word “church,”
1. How do you define the word church?
2. What is another word that better fits gatherings of those seeking to connect with the sacred through nature?
Defining the word “church” works as well for me as trying to think of a different word. I think, however, that part of the problem we have with the word “church” is the conventional meaning, which represents the “old story.” It seems like writing the “new story” is a good way to change the context.
And actually, the conventional story, is not the oldest story. I think that the new story is grounded in the original story. The oldest story goes back to the original Greek word, ekklesia, which was a translation of the Hebrew word, “quahal,” which simply meant “assembly” or “convening.” Before it was used in reference to Christ followers, it was a secular word for any assembly that came together for a specific purpose, like to make decisions or to do business (as opposed leaving it up to an unorganized throng). It could even refer to groups of devotees to a god or goddess. So, although it did generally imply that such an assembly was gathering of people, the word could have been used to mean an assembly of human or non-human entities convening themselves or summoned to work together with intention and purpose. It would be within the original scope of the word for us to use it to refer to an assembly or even a gathering of voices of all rocks, and dolphins, and ferns, and humans around the world.
I don’t know if it was ever used in such a creative or imaginative way, or if it was always restricted from the beginning to only human citizens or social gatherings. I imagine that the larger meaning would have been more poetic than the general use of the word, but the word itself could certainly have been used in such a larger sense, in keeping with the language of nature glorifying God. Other religions describe a ekklesia (an assembly) of a council of gods of goddesses. I haven’t looked very hard for it, but it is certainly conceivable that there were stories and poems that reflect images in our own scripture about a choir of trees, and sun, and moon, and stars, and sea monsters, and snow, and mountains “uniting to praise the name of the Lord.” And there are mountains and hills and trees of the field bursting in song and clapping their hands “for the Lord’s redemption.” And a universal chorus where “every creature in heaven and earth and under the earth and on the sea join in a unified hymn of praise, honor, and glory to God and the Lamb.” That was an ekklesia, and assembly, a church. When Victoria Looez uses the term “Church of the Wild,” she is using the word “church” in exactly the way it should be used when describing an assembly or convening of living things for some specific purpose. She is imagining a cosmic church in the original sense of that word. I wonder if we have to redefine it, or just claim it as the perfect word for such a gathering or uniting.
In addition to the larger possible meanings of the word “church” in the first century, there was another word, from the eleventh century that enriches and enlarges the meaning. That word is Catholic, from the Latin word “catholicus,” which was a translation of the Greek word “katholou,”
The public meaning of this word meant “all embracing,” or “universal,” or “inclusive.” Contrary to the meaning incorporated into the name of the Roman Catholic Church, this word was an extremely generous concept. It could easily include all of nature, insofar as nature has its own voice to bring to the assembly of the earth, for the purpose of glorifying God in one voice — the whole inclusive catholic church. “Wherever Christ is,” said St Ignatius in 107 AD, there is the Catholic Church. So where is Christ? Where ISN’T Christ.
As Richard Rohr puts it “Christ is a name for the transcendent within of every ‘thing’ in the universe.” Christ is a name for the immense spaciousness of all true Love. Christ refers to an infinite horizon that pulls us from within and pulls us forward too. Christ is another name for everything — in its fullness.”
In other words, we inherited a rich vocabulary, which has been hijacked by those of us at the top of the food chain to refer to us. The words aren’t the problem, it is the way we have hijacked them and restricted their meaning to something more anthropocentric, and more dogmatic, and even more divisive, rather than unitive.
We did the same thing to words like “orthodoxy” which means, at the root, “upright (ortho) praise (doxa). But it soon became “right belief.” And heretic meant “different thinking,” which soon became “wrong thinking.” In the competitive struggle for recognition and authority, we Christians followers hijacked a number of words to make ourselves the “one true way to the one true God.”
Even given this rather tribal side of the early church, keep in mind that for the first thousand years, the mission of the church was not focused on individual salvation but on the universal reconciliation of all things (apokatastisis), and its twin, the divinization (theosis) of all things, which is the transformation on the journey of apokatastisis. This mission was not focused on individuals, or even just on human beings. Not even just those who were Jesus followers. It was the divinization and reconciliation of “all things,” all creation. Creation itself was being transformed and reconciled, not just some people, not just anthropic life forms. Creation. Through participation and collaboration with the Creator. This was the mission of the Church — to participate in the restoration of all creation. So even though the Church saw itself as the one true way to the one true God, it was committed to the a mission that was larger than itself, that was expansive and inclusive.
If it is possible to strip away the layers of meaning we have imposed on our inherited vocabulary, there is plenty of room to re-define it in much broader and inclusive and expansive possibilities. We could, if we wish, reclaim our heritage and take over the world by simply embracing and savoring it. By summoning all things to a meeting (an ekklesia, an assembly) of minds and hearts and spirits for the sake of participating in both physical and divine nature, of fulfilling our identity as matter and spirit, of becoming fully ourselves as beings (people, animals, and things), and fully one with Being itself. That is what the Universal Christ is.
I can understand inventing a new vocabulary, too, and discarding our old language. But I am wondering out loud about simply reclaiming the deeper, more traditional, meaning of our heritage rather than restricting ourselves to the conventional meanings we have developed to make everything revolve around us, and depend on us, and look up to us as the top of the hierarchy of being.
Our new story is really our oldest story, when religion still meant re-ligare [as in ligament] — to rebind and hold together, rather than to go along with the illusion of separateness. Everything is “one” for those who have the “ears to hear,” and the “eyes to see.”
“Our new story is really our oldest story, when religion still meant re-ligare [as in ligament] — to rebind and hold together, rather than to go along with the illusion of separateness. Everything is “one” for those who have the “ears to hear,” and the “eyes to see.”” AMEN
I am curious, if you reject doctrine of original sin (which I reject), then there was never cosmic separation. So reconciliation of all things in my mind is more about awaking to the fact we were never separated in the first place. So reconciling as a mission makes no sense to me. Awakening to the sacred - makes sense. Reconciliation assumes a broken relationship. Thoughts?
“ fulfilling our identity as matter and spirit, of becoming fully ourselves as beings (people, animals, and things), and fully one with Being itself. That is what the Universal Christ is.” I like this as mission of church - bringing all to fullness and wholeness. That resonates more than reconciling.
Great question. It is the right question because it is difficult to talk about a paradox — separate but “one.” We recognize that we can’t be separated from the ground of our existence, from the life force that sustains us, or from the presence of Divine Presence. But we also recognize some sort of separation, or alienation, or estrangement.
As you put it, separation is not absolute, but it is indeed our experience, even if it is a relative experience. So how do we explain that?
I think the first most critical recognition is that this is not personal or individual. Individual salvation is a corollary to some individual problem that has to be fixed. But the apokatastisis (universal restoration of the universe) is not focused on individuals as much as on the collective, or social, or systemic realities we are part of. We have to get over our automatic interpretation that everything is about “me”personally. Even that is a paradox, because this is, at the same time, ALL about “me.”
We can explain our estrangement or alienation as simply existential or experiential, which I think is a pretty good way to understand it.
However, I think it goes deeper. I think that at that level, we can understand that collectively as well as individually, the process of growth and development begins w individuation — the capacity to know our uniqueness — my/our own gifts, strengths, feelings, wants, needs, and whatever else makes me/us unique and not simply enmeshed in the identity of other individuals or societies. It is a normal and healthy thing to develop a strong sense of self, or identity. Individuation is the only way to healthy, integrated relationships with others personally or globally. In making us free and unique, God gives us “space” to “become” and to develop a relationship with God freely. The trajectory of that is integration — with all things.
That doesn’t mean we did anything wrong. Or that the Adam and Eve story has to mean that we did. Perhaps, as primordial representations of humanity, the “fall” was merely the experience of self, as distinct from all other selves, from all other beings, and from Being itself.
I could also explain our estrangement in terms of systems in which I live, and move, and have my being. Intentionally or not, consciously or not, I am participating in systems that are harmful, destructive, and oppressive. I don’t sense any discriminatory bone in my body, but I am part of the systems of racism, sexism, classism, and anthropcentricity. These systems are bigger than I am and are disguised as good and right and true, and as necessary. These systems are invisible to me most of the time. My enlightenment is more than just recognizing that I am “one” with God, but that I am a participant in the segregation and/or oppression of other human beings, other life forms, and the ecosystem at large.
Apokatastisis is not just about my restoration with God, or just about my restoration with those who I have unconsciously played my part in putting on the street, where I offer them a little of my bread in exchange for a little of their dignity.
I am part of systemic evil. I have some culpability for that. But, as you said said, or implied, the evil in the world is the symptom, not the problem. I am the product, not just of my own choices, but of my environment, my upbringing, my world, and systems that are bigger than I am.
Maybe I could point to the bumper sticker that says, “Please be patient, God isn’t finished with me yet.” Maybe the world is just not grown up yet, not developed, not mature. And maybe the raising of consciousness is waking up, but it is also growing up. The collaboration of amazing grace and great effort.
I like the practice in Islam of zikr — remembering. Maybe we can say that the problem is that we just forget. Like the little boy telling his baby sister, “Quick, tell me about God, I think I am starting to forget.”
One last thing to put into perspective is the word sin. The Greek word for sin is “hamartia,” which simply means “missing the mark.” That has come to mean a moral mark we are falling short of. But if our destiny is to become fully human and fully divine, we still have a long way to go.
Love this. I like your "growing up" metaphor. We are growing into the fullness of our collective potential. The human systems we have put into place are missing that mark and only humans working collectively with collective insight and energy from the source can shift those systems. It is not that we are earning our way back to God, but that we are choosing a different way of being that rejects the human system and chooses the sacred way.
Language is so slippery! The ruts that have been formed through endless repetition are so deep that trying to climb out of them feels like such a challenge. It makes me long for new words, new stories to point back to the original message that as you say has been hijacked.
I think you’ve got what I am trying to say. And to think that the early Church Fathers were having this conversation 2,000 years ago is mind boggling.
Christianity is only one path, but it’s the one I’m on, and I love it at its heights and depths of mind, and heart, and soul.
Unfortunately the last thousand years have replaced our greatest Christ myth (first born, or manifestation, of a new matter-spirit reality, the path to integrated creature/Creator Christhood, the energy to follow the path) has been replaced by the myth of substitutionary atonement (the payment for a debt we cannot pay for besmirching the good name of our Master and deserving punishment).
Yes, Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, but John isn’t talking about the man, Jesus. He is talking about the Logos, the Manifestation of “God,” the integrated reality that transforms the universe, the Christ, the “Oneness” of all things.
I must have met my word limit on my last comment (below). But you can see where I was going. I don’t know the “real” answer to the implications of the apokatastisis — the restoration of all things. It does mean that something in this world is incomplete, or broken, or unenlightened, or unfinished, or missing the mark, or just that we are all on a journey, all growing up into our final metamorphosis — transformation into our higher form. Maybe the world is still a caterpillar on the way to becoming a butterfly, anthropic (human) life form on its way to becoming theanthropic (divine-human) life form.
Your question is the million dollar question. I don’t know one right way to answer it. I can just try to explain the implications of what it means for the creation to be restored. And to emphasize that this great restoration does not happen to us individually but collectively. We are all in this together. All for one and one for all. I am not restored until you are restored, and even God is not complete until we are all complete.
I love this reminder, "This great restoration does not happen to us individually."
I think the most helpful term for me is awakening or perhaps turning toward or perhaps claiming our universal divine nature. This image of an angry God who must be appeased through some kind of human effort or the sacrifice of Jesus just does not make sense in the whole narrative.
So the work of the church/gathering/assembly is the awaking to our inclusion in the abundant love of the source of all.
Yes/but. Yes enlightenment, but transformation. Theosis. Divinization. Metamorphosis. Which is more than awakening to the truth. It is embracing the truth. It is the hero’s journey through the risks and perils of becoming the truth, the beauty, the fullness. Knowing AND being known. Revealed. Discovered.
Not like just waking up from a sleep, but like awaking from a spell that lingers, growing wings, battling enemies, and learning how to live in the larger reality our eyes are slowly opening up to. Becoming who/what we are but who/what we aren’t fully yet. As in our baptismal liturgy, “raised into the full stature of Christ.” Christhood. Buddhahood. Bodisatvas.
Restored to ourselves. Restored to the Garden. Restored to Union, but not the undifferentiated whole we were before. The universal ocean but one particular unique drop within it. Newness. Abundance. Wholeness. Pleroma. Novel, but returned to an ancient, primordial perfection.
Love this: As Richard Rohr puts it “Christ is a name for the transcendent within of every ‘thing’ in the universe.” Christ is a name for the immense spaciousness of all true Love. Christ refers to an infinite horizon that pulls us from within and pulls us forward too. Christ is another name for everything — in its fullness.”
I was dumbfounded at the perspective that it's normal to keep nature and spirituality separated. Even growing up on the conservative side, it never occurred to me that you couldn't talk in church about experiencing God in nature, through nature. Of course, you have to be careful in how you phrase it so that you aren't saying nature *is* The Divine, but I can't fathom feeling like you have to keep the two loves separate. At the same time, I did write in my seminary application that I think caring for nature is a form of ministry. I wanted to get rejected by any place where that would be a problem.
I am thankful my seminary offered Celtic spirituality. I have never been in a church that thought of nature as the first book of God.
I was able to finish reading the first five chapters, and I resonated with so much of Victoria’s experience. Her vulnerable sharing of her journey helps to imagine it, and to reflect on my own. I see her struggle with institutionalism, with the corollary of rigidity and exclusivity, with the objectification of anyone who doesn’t fit the mold, and with individualism. Historically every great renewal movement has institutionalized at the high cost of those who were seeking purpose and meaning. I think Augustine was one of the first to put his finger on this paradox, “The Church is a whore, but she’s my mother.” I would call him the first “edge walker.”
However you frame it, the struggle is real. I appreciate the Methodists adding experience to the three legged stool they inherited from Thomas Hooker, who first articulated the authority of scripture, tradition, and reason. To his credit, Hooker actually meant “reason” as inclusive of experience rather than simply cerebral, but I think it was helpful to make experience explicit.
I do have a different antidote for exhaustion on the social activist path (besides wholeheartedness.). As Gregory Boyle puts it, “Saving people is for the Coast Guard. Our mission is to SAVOR them.” “And guess what?” he says. “Since everything is connected to everything else, when people are savored, they are saved. And WE are saved.” Savoring is something Victoria does so naturally in nature, and that’s what makes her wholehearted. Maybe she and her son, Alex, could think about a “savoring” movement to recover from all the social warrior exhaustion.
Victoria’s journey is so authentic that it is inspiring, and I couldn’t help but to think of the Spiritual Types you posted as a wider lens through which to look at her spiritual path — and ours. (I’m referring to the diagram you posted in the Chapter Questions and Comments — the diagram Urban Holmes created with the horizontal and vertical axes of apophatic-kataphatic and speculative-affective dimensions. (Can you add “affective” to the bottom of your chart?) However it was Corrine Ware who labeled the four types — Head Spirituality, Heart Spirituality, Mystical Spirituality, and Social Action Spirituality (which she also called Kingdom Spirituality). Here is a link to the explanation and questionnaire used by Corinne. https://carollanfear.weebly.com/uploads/1/0/5/1/10516291/the_ammended_spirituality_wheel.pdf
I can see Victoria rejecting head spirituality, embracing heart spirituality and mystical spirituality, and finally social action spirituality. And then I think she is moving toward integration of her spiritual paths. But I also feel like Victoria defies being analyzed and labeled from an outside observer. So what I can say more personally is that reading about her struggle and using the phenomenology of prayer chart created by Urban Holmes along with the spiritual types identified by Corinne Ware, helps me to examine my own past journey, and to become more intentional about how my journey might be more integrated in the future. What I hope is to continue my head spirituality with my interfaith dialogue group and my engagement with a local Episcopal Church, to pursue my mystical journey with my discussion group on the Biblical Foundation of Christian Spirituality followed by Centering Prayer each week, to savor my homeless friends and support them in challenging the political obstacles to ending homelessness in Corpus Christi, and to create opportunities to savor my non-human friends who I do have a deep desire to know more intimately, but am not prioritizing. I think it is the glue I need to hold me together, to integrate my journey, and to transform me into a more authentic person.
Bruce this is such a beautiful reflection. I love the goal of integrating all the paths and I think your savoring invitation is exactly what Victoria is encouraging us to do. Thanks for weaving all these prices together. I will add the link you shared to the resources part of the post. I look forward to reading it.
Ch. 2: When I read the part about wholeheartedness, my gut instinct was think the concept is elitist. I'm glad you mentioned the economic factors that can limit a person's options.
I had a nearly simultaneous thought that it takes risk to be wholehearted. Wholeheartedness requires enthusiasm and commitment to one ideal at the expense of others. In a culture that equates respect with "you do you," it can feel rude, even inhumane, to have an unwavering commitment to one thing.
From another perspective, being wholehearted means risking social isolation when those in your community have different values or commitments. Sometimes it seems like our society is stuck in the middle-school phase of adapting to fit in rather than progressing to the adult stage of self-differentiation and respecting people for their differentiation. There is some social good in adapting to cultural expectations. It keeps us from being antisocial, rude, self-entitled people. The challenge is to be good members of a community while also being self-differentiated and embracing wholeheartedness.
I'll stop now before I write an essay on wholeheartedness, but I think it's worth exploring our concepts of what the term means and what would be the result of putting those definitions into practice.
This is my reflection on the two questions about the word “church,”
1. How do you define the word church?
2. What is another word that better fits gatherings of those seeking to connect with the sacred through nature?
Defining the word “church” works as well for me as trying to think of a different word. I think, however, that part of the problem we have with the word “church” is the conventional meaning, which represents the “old story.” It seems like writing the “new story” is a good way to change the context.
And actually, the conventional story, is not the oldest story. I think that the new story is grounded in the original story. The oldest story goes back to the original Greek word, ekklesia, which was a translation of the Hebrew word, “quahal,” which simply meant “assembly” or “convening.” Before it was used in reference to Christ followers, it was a secular word for any assembly that came together for a specific purpose, like to make decisions or to do business (as opposed leaving it up to an unorganized throng). It could even refer to groups of devotees to a god or goddess. So, although it did generally imply that such an assembly was gathering of people, the word could have been used to mean an assembly of human or non-human entities convening themselves or summoned to work together with intention and purpose. It would be within the original scope of the word for us to use it to refer to an assembly or even a gathering of voices of all rocks, and dolphins, and ferns, and humans around the world.
I don’t know if it was ever used in such a creative or imaginative way, or if it was always restricted from the beginning to only human citizens or social gatherings. I imagine that the larger meaning would have been more poetic than the general use of the word, but the word itself could certainly have been used in such a larger sense, in keeping with the language of nature glorifying God. Other religions describe a ekklesia (an assembly) of a council of gods of goddesses. I haven’t looked very hard for it, but it is certainly conceivable that there were stories and poems that reflect images in our own scripture about a choir of trees, and sun, and moon, and stars, and sea monsters, and snow, and mountains “uniting to praise the name of the Lord.” And there are mountains and hills and trees of the field bursting in song and clapping their hands “for the Lord’s redemption.” And a universal chorus where “every creature in heaven and earth and under the earth and on the sea join in a unified hymn of praise, honor, and glory to God and the Lamb.” That was an ekklesia, and assembly, a church. When Victoria Looez uses the term “Church of the Wild,” she is using the word “church” in exactly the way it should be used when describing an assembly or convening of living things for some specific purpose. She is imagining a cosmic church in the original sense of that word. I wonder if we have to redefine it, or just claim it as the perfect word for such a gathering or uniting.
In addition to the larger possible meanings of the word “church” in the first century, there was another word, from the eleventh century that enriches and enlarges the meaning. That word is Catholic, from the Latin word “catholicus,” which was a translation of the Greek word “katholou,”
The public meaning of this word meant “all embracing,” or “universal,” or “inclusive.” Contrary to the meaning incorporated into the name of the Roman Catholic Church, this word was an extremely generous concept. It could easily include all of nature, insofar as nature has its own voice to bring to the assembly of the earth, for the purpose of glorifying God in one voice — the whole inclusive catholic church. “Wherever Christ is,” said St Ignatius in 107 AD, there is the Catholic Church. So where is Christ? Where ISN’T Christ.
As Richard Rohr puts it “Christ is a name for the transcendent within of every ‘thing’ in the universe.” Christ is a name for the immense spaciousness of all true Love. Christ refers to an infinite horizon that pulls us from within and pulls us forward too. Christ is another name for everything — in its fullness.”
In other words, we inherited a rich vocabulary, which has been hijacked by those of us at the top of the food chain to refer to us. The words aren’t the problem, it is the way we have hijacked them and restricted their meaning to something more anthropocentric, and more dogmatic, and even more divisive, rather than unitive.
We did the same thing to words like “orthodoxy” which means, at the root, “upright (ortho) praise (doxa). But it soon became “right belief.” And heretic meant “different thinking,” which soon became “wrong thinking.” In the competitive struggle for recognition and authority, we Christians followers hijacked a number of words to make ourselves the “one true way to the one true God.”
Even given this rather tribal side of the early church, keep in mind that for the first thousand years, the mission of the church was not focused on individual salvation but on the universal reconciliation of all things (apokatastisis), and its twin, the divinization (theosis) of all things, which is the transformation on the journey of apokatastisis. This mission was not focused on individuals, or even just on human beings. Not even just those who were Jesus followers. It was the divinization and reconciliation of “all things,” all creation. Creation itself was being transformed and reconciled, not just some people, not just anthropic life forms. Creation. Through participation and collaboration with the Creator. This was the mission of the Church — to participate in the restoration of all creation. So even though the Church saw itself as the one true way to the one true God, it was committed to the a mission that was larger than itself, that was expansive and inclusive.
If it is possible to strip away the layers of meaning we have imposed on our inherited vocabulary, there is plenty of room to re-define it in much broader and inclusive and expansive possibilities. We could, if we wish, reclaim our heritage and take over the world by simply embracing and savoring it. By summoning all things to a meeting (an ekklesia, an assembly) of minds and hearts and spirits for the sake of participating in both physical and divine nature, of fulfilling our identity as matter and spirit, of becoming fully ourselves as beings (people, animals, and things), and fully one with Being itself. That is what the Universal Christ is.
I can understand inventing a new vocabulary, too, and discarding our old language. But I am wondering out loud about simply reclaiming the deeper, more traditional, meaning of our heritage rather than restricting ourselves to the conventional meanings we have developed to make everything revolve around us, and depend on us, and look up to us as the top of the hierarchy of being.
Our new story is really our oldest story, when religion still meant re-ligare [as in ligament] — to rebind and hold together, rather than to go along with the illusion of separateness. Everything is “one” for those who have the “ears to hear,” and the “eyes to see.”
“Our new story is really our oldest story, when religion still meant re-ligare [as in ligament] — to rebind and hold together, rather than to go along with the illusion of separateness. Everything is “one” for those who have the “ears to hear,” and the “eyes to see.”” AMEN
I am curious, if you reject doctrine of original sin (which I reject), then there was never cosmic separation. So reconciliation of all things in my mind is more about awaking to the fact we were never separated in the first place. So reconciling as a mission makes no sense to me. Awakening to the sacred - makes sense. Reconciliation assumes a broken relationship. Thoughts?
“ fulfilling our identity as matter and spirit, of becoming fully ourselves as beings (people, animals, and things), and fully one with Being itself. That is what the Universal Christ is.” I like this as mission of church - bringing all to fullness and wholeness. That resonates more than reconciling.
Great question. It is the right question because it is difficult to talk about a paradox — separate but “one.” We recognize that we can’t be separated from the ground of our existence, from the life force that sustains us, or from the presence of Divine Presence. But we also recognize some sort of separation, or alienation, or estrangement.
As you put it, separation is not absolute, but it is indeed our experience, even if it is a relative experience. So how do we explain that?
I think the first most critical recognition is that this is not personal or individual. Individual salvation is a corollary to some individual problem that has to be fixed. But the apokatastisis (universal restoration of the universe) is not focused on individuals as much as on the collective, or social, or systemic realities we are part of. We have to get over our automatic interpretation that everything is about “me”personally. Even that is a paradox, because this is, at the same time, ALL about “me.”
We can explain our estrangement or alienation as simply existential or experiential, which I think is a pretty good way to understand it.
However, I think it goes deeper. I think that at that level, we can understand that collectively as well as individually, the process of growth and development begins w individuation — the capacity to know our uniqueness — my/our own gifts, strengths, feelings, wants, needs, and whatever else makes me/us unique and not simply enmeshed in the identity of other individuals or societies. It is a normal and healthy thing to develop a strong sense of self, or identity. Individuation is the only way to healthy, integrated relationships with others personally or globally. In making us free and unique, God gives us “space” to “become” and to develop a relationship with God freely. The trajectory of that is integration — with all things.
That doesn’t mean we did anything wrong. Or that the Adam and Eve story has to mean that we did. Perhaps, as primordial representations of humanity, the “fall” was merely the experience of self, as distinct from all other selves, from all other beings, and from Being itself.
I could also explain our estrangement in terms of systems in which I live, and move, and have my being. Intentionally or not, consciously or not, I am participating in systems that are harmful, destructive, and oppressive. I don’t sense any discriminatory bone in my body, but I am part of the systems of racism, sexism, classism, and anthropcentricity. These systems are bigger than I am and are disguised as good and right and true, and as necessary. These systems are invisible to me most of the time. My enlightenment is more than just recognizing that I am “one” with God, but that I am a participant in the segregation and/or oppression of other human beings, other life forms, and the ecosystem at large.
Apokatastisis is not just about my restoration with God, or just about my restoration with those who I have unconsciously played my part in putting on the street, where I offer them a little of my bread in exchange for a little of their dignity.
I am part of systemic evil. I have some culpability for that. But, as you said said, or implied, the evil in the world is the symptom, not the problem. I am the product, not just of my own choices, but of my environment, my upbringing, my world, and systems that are bigger than I am.
Maybe I could point to the bumper sticker that says, “Please be patient, God isn’t finished with me yet.” Maybe the world is just not grown up yet, not developed, not mature. And maybe the raising of consciousness is waking up, but it is also growing up. The collaboration of amazing grace and great effort.
I like the practice in Islam of zikr — remembering. Maybe we can say that the problem is that we just forget. Like the little boy telling his baby sister, “Quick, tell me about God, I think I am starting to forget.”
One last thing to put into perspective is the word sin. The Greek word for sin is “hamartia,” which simply means “missing the mark.” That has come to mean a moral mark we are falling short of. But if our destiny is to become fully human and fully divine, we still have a long way to go.
Love this. I like your "growing up" metaphor. We are growing into the fullness of our collective potential. The human systems we have put into place are missing that mark and only humans working collectively with collective insight and energy from the source can shift those systems. It is not that we are earning our way back to God, but that we are choosing a different way of being that rejects the human system and chooses the sacred way.
Language is so slippery! The ruts that have been formed through endless repetition are so deep that trying to climb out of them feels like such a challenge. It makes me long for new words, new stories to point back to the original message that as you say has been hijacked.
I think you’ve got what I am trying to say. And to think that the early Church Fathers were having this conversation 2,000 years ago is mind boggling.
Christianity is only one path, but it’s the one I’m on, and I love it at its heights and depths of mind, and heart, and soul.
Unfortunately the last thousand years have replaced our greatest Christ myth (first born, or manifestation, of a new matter-spirit reality, the path to integrated creature/Creator Christhood, the energy to follow the path) has been replaced by the myth of substitutionary atonement (the payment for a debt we cannot pay for besmirching the good name of our Master and deserving punishment).
Yes, Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, but John isn’t talking about the man, Jesus. He is talking about the Logos, the Manifestation of “God,” the integrated reality that transforms the universe, the Christ, the “Oneness” of all things.
I must have met my word limit on my last comment (below). But you can see where I was going. I don’t know the “real” answer to the implications of the apokatastisis — the restoration of all things. It does mean that something in this world is incomplete, or broken, or unenlightened, or unfinished, or missing the mark, or just that we are all on a journey, all growing up into our final metamorphosis — transformation into our higher form. Maybe the world is still a caterpillar on the way to becoming a butterfly, anthropic (human) life form on its way to becoming theanthropic (divine-human) life form.
Your question is the million dollar question. I don’t know one right way to answer it. I can just try to explain the implications of what it means for the creation to be restored. And to emphasize that this great restoration does not happen to us individually but collectively. We are all in this together. All for one and one for all. I am not restored until you are restored, and even God is not complete until we are all complete.
I love this reminder, "This great restoration does not happen to us individually."
I think the most helpful term for me is awakening or perhaps turning toward or perhaps claiming our universal divine nature. This image of an angry God who must be appeased through some kind of human effort or the sacrifice of Jesus just does not make sense in the whole narrative.
So the work of the church/gathering/assembly is the awaking to our inclusion in the abundant love of the source of all.
Yes/but. Yes enlightenment, but transformation. Theosis. Divinization. Metamorphosis. Which is more than awakening to the truth. It is embracing the truth. It is the hero’s journey through the risks and perils of becoming the truth, the beauty, the fullness. Knowing AND being known. Revealed. Discovered.
Not like just waking up from a sleep, but like awaking from a spell that lingers, growing wings, battling enemies, and learning how to live in the larger reality our eyes are slowly opening up to. Becoming who/what we are but who/what we aren’t fully yet. As in our baptismal liturgy, “raised into the full stature of Christ.” Christhood. Buddhahood. Bodisatvas.
Restored to ourselves. Restored to the Garden. Restored to Union, but not the undifferentiated whole we were before. The universal ocean but one particular unique drop within it. Newness. Abundance. Wholeness. Pleroma. Novel, but returned to an ancient, primordial perfection.
Love this: As Richard Rohr puts it “Christ is a name for the transcendent within of every ‘thing’ in the universe.” Christ is a name for the immense spaciousness of all true Love. Christ refers to an infinite horizon that pulls us from within and pulls us forward too. Christ is another name for everything — in its fullness.”