[Oe List ...] Fwd: [DailyMeditations] 2/4/20: Moving Beyond Evil: Wisdom from Howard Thurman

Tue Feb 4 12:55:07 PST 2020

Jack,

What can I say? This is so powerful, so insightful and so useful. I deeply appreciate the call to be quiet and experience the experience first and also your compassionate observation of what is happening with people in the world now. Personally, I don’t feel so articulate, but I have no appetite for condemnation, fear-mongering or even despair at the political or societal level, so I tend to just keep my mouth shut. Yet, that somehow feels like it is suppressive. I think I will read your message over and over in the coming days.

Seth Longacre
Sethlongacre at gmail.com
Sent from one of my iThingies, please excuse typos and brevity

> On Feb 4, 2020, at 06:13, Jack Gilles via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
> 
> 
> Marianna,
> 
> Greetings from Litibu! We keep Bill and your spirit alive in our midst with the great stories of beginning the Dream. Just had to get that in!
> 
> All who decide to take on this topic walk on fragile ground. By that I mean, we are using words as if they conveyed the same meaning, understanding to all. The RS-I short course of: "First, point to a “going-on-ness” and then give it a name." serves us a reminder of how not to dialogue.
> 
> We experience actions taken “out there" and we respond from “in here”. We all have filters that inform us through our senses to somehow make sense of the going-on-ness we point to. Remember that those of us who have spent most of our lives in the West, tend to have filters that require left-brain activity; words, rationality and specifics (particulars). It shapes our speech and images of what is real. This process is especially strong, though of course not limited to, men. The Universal dynamics of masculine-feminine are in both sexes. We need more holistic, non-verbal (arts, symbolic and Myth (poetry) to communicate fully. 
> 
> I do not want to reduce this vital topic to a treatise on human behavior. But we do need to stand still, let silence speak, before we rush into sociological answers and solutions. 
> 
> Our ability, and indeed everyone’s ability to keep the social fabric within some boundaries is to grasp what is it that tells us: “Stop! you are beyond the boundary.”. We are now experiencing two things, the boundaries have shifted, and the “ties that bind” are breaking. Let me ground that.
> 
> Nations, lines on a map, names we gave that which inside the lines, were a great advance in the human journey. It gave us a new “sense" of substance, a story, identity, and a way to create myths that spoke emotionally. We forget it was/is an invention. They don’t exist. Just like we can say it’s raining and cold someplace and not in another we have no problem in seeing that weather is a continuum. it changes and we accept (or curse!) the change. But things that change very slowly, like the coming into being and the going out of being of nations is feared, resisted, fought over, mobilized against, seen as an enemy and even died for. If it kills that which I love, then it has to be Evil. 
> 
> We now are living in a time of accelerated change. Everything is changing. We “live” with the fires in Australia, the pandemics, the instant banking and global commerce, and on and on. They came so fast and we are so slow! Hell, I have a phone that I have no idea of all the things it can do. I just want to talk to someone! But we all know there is no going back. And what we experience today will do nothing but get faster and faster. It's like we are standing on a pile of rubble and there is not a bright new shiny house to move into. It's a desert, a swamp, and it is easy to say, “The hell with you, I am going to survive, so let me accumulate a safe place, build a wall, gets some guns and find a few more to keep al the doors covered”. Or maybe I should speak of the Mormon Church with its billions of dollars stashed in growth investments to get prepared for the “end times”. And if you don’t think this is feared, just go out where people are shouting USA, USA and tell them a new world is coming! Let us know the date of your funeral!
> 
> The “ties that bind” are breaking. I call these Disciplines. We may go on a diet, but unless we develop a new way of living, the habit comes right back. We have a lot of ties that are more like rubber bands. And now, when they break, there are none to replace them. To what boundary do you hook one end? To what internal capacity to you hook the other? 
> 
> I won’t go longer, but you have just entered the start of my new book (still being written). A hint: it has a lot to do with the NRM. 
> 
> Peace,
> 
> Jack
> 
> 
> 
>> On Feb 4, 2020, at 05:31, Marianna Bailey via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
>> 
>> Dear Colleagues,
>> This is one meditation dealing with evil. There are others on the website. I”m concerned about this country and the evil that has been set loose. I’m also re-thinking my participation on Facebook. Do you have any thoughts on that subject? 
>> Marianna Bailey
>> 
>>> Begin forwarded message:
>>> 
>>> From: "Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox" <Team at DailyMeditationsWithMatthewFox.Org>
>>> Subject: [DailyMeditations] 2/4/20: Moving Beyond Evil: Wisdom from Howard Thurman
>>> Date: February 4, 2020 at 3:32:37 AM EST
>>> To: "Marianna Bailey" <wmbailey at charter.net>
>>> 
>>> View this post on our website
>>> 
>>> The Creation Spirituality Lineage Calling All Social and Environmental Activists, Mystic Explorers, Justice Makers, Cosmic Thinkers, Earth Keepers
>>> 
>>> Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox 
>>> 
>>> Moving Beyond Evil: Wisdom from Howard Thurman
>>> 
>>> Meditation #268, February 4, 2020
>>> Transforming Evil
>>> For two weeks or so—interrupted by several meditations on generosity—we have been meditating on Evil.  That is an important meditation for Evil is possible wherever humans gather. Evil is often in the air like a wind that brings chaos with it.
>>> It takes self-criticism and criticism of one’s institutions including government and media, religion and the legal world, agriculture and art, to begin to stand up to Evil.
>>> 
>>> Indeed, Evil is smart and loves to attach itself to power places and to do so subtly as long as possible, hiding from plain sight.  Evil happens.  And it can happen anew with each generation if we are not vigilant.
>>> 
>>> Self-Reflection of woman in mirror. Photo by Brad Lloydon Unsplash
>>> The lessons to learn from Hitler and his cult are many.  His followers were completely subservient to him.  Whatever he said or did or wanted to do was fine with him—he gave the marching orders and his followers cravenly followed.  Cowardice reigned—courage went out the door.  Fear took over souls and society alike.  Resentment reigned.
>>> 
>>> Violent riot police retaliate against protestors. Photo by Spenser on Unsplash.
>>> Hitler’s followers were not just everyday citizens responding to promises of a better life but government officials, judicial pooh bahs, university professors, fellow politicians, media experts, business men and industrialists who abandoned all conscience to participate in his cult.
>>> One person described such a movement as a cult of persons “hopelessly addicted to power.”  Yes, power was everything so it took precedence over everything else.  Truly an idolatrous goings on.  Power was god and Hitler cultists worshipped at the feet of the fuhrer who could do no wrong.
>>> One fights evil with all that one has at one’s disposal.  This includes moral outrage and the energy that accompanies such outrage—the energy to resist and to gather allies and to strategize and to interfere with lies and resentments that are being preached. 
>>> 
>>> Young Adult eco-justice activists protesting on behalf of the planet.Photo by Callum Shaw on Unsplash.
>>> We do not want to spend too much time in the room with evil.  We do not want to give it all the headlines.  Evil is itself narcissistic and wants the spotlight so we want to resist giving it all it wants.
>>> 
>>> Scanned: November 17, 2005 Howard Thurman Dean Thurman @ Marsh Chapel March 6, 1959 Historical. Photo originally posted to Boston University’s School of Theology, Howard Thurman Papers Project.
>>> We want to meditate on—and execute—ways out of evil.  We have done this frequently in our Meditations by sharing stories about people and movements who have demonstrated the courage and vision to bring good into the world. Among those people and movements are the mystics.  
>>> Consider Howard Thurman, for example, who was so instrumental as a visionary behind the civil right movement.  Among his profound questions is the following:
>>> Precisely what does it mean to experience oneself as a human being? In the first place, it means that the individual must have a sense of kinship to life that transcends and goes beyond the immediate kinship of family or the organized kinship that binds him ethnically or racially or nationally.
>>> See Matthew Fox, “Hitler as a Religious Figure,” in Matthew Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society, pp.389-398.
>>> 
>>> See Matthew Fox, Christian Mystics: 365 Readings and Meditations, p. 210.
>>> 
>>> Banner Image: Scene from Selma movie, re-enacting the March on Washington. Photo by History in HD on Unsplash
>>> 
>>> To view Matthew's video, please click the image. You will be taken to today's post on the Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox website, where you can see the meditation in a larger version and also view Comments from meditation participants and answers to questions that are posed.  In this way a kind of community is developing around the DM. 
>>> If you can't reach Matthew's video on the website, try his YouTube channel here.
>>> Queries for Contemplation
>>> 
>>> Hitler’s movement is often called a cult.  Do you recognize in our world today movements that are also cult-like and made up of people “hopelessly addicted to power”?
>>> 
>>> Howard Thurman’s question is a big one and puts struggle into a larger context: What does it mean to experience oneself as a human being?  What is a human being?
>>> Recommended Reading 
>>> Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
>>> 
>>> Fox makes the point that religion has so often oversold the concept of “sin” that it has left us without language or power to combat evil. Through comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them. 
>>> 
>>>  
>>>  
>>> Christian Mystics: 365 Readings & Meditations
>>> 
>>> The 365 writings in Christian Mystics represent a wide-ranging sampling of these readings for modern-day seekers of all faiths — or no faith. The visionaries quoted range from Julian of Norwich to Martin Luther King, Jr., from Thomas Merton to Dorothee Soelle and Thomas Berry.
>>> 
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