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Common Ground
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| Essay by Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D.
July 9, 2020A democracy is only able to function and prosper if its diverse citizenry shares a common sense of what is good. A political common good, however, is made possible by the presence of common ground; this ground is the Reality of Being, the Essence of all that is. Without spiritual common ground, which is Being, the fragile political common good is a chimera, evident in the cultural blindness to and destruction of the beauty of George Floyd.
On one level, common ground is the spiritual space we create as we identify and pursue shared values. On a deeper level, we discover that the ground we share has always already been present. This ground is common because it is the Essence of what we are. Realizing our common ground is a spiritual path that radically changes how we perceive and receive one another. In its absence, fear blindly drives us to survive and we destroy beauty misperceived as threats.
During the inquisitorial religious madness of Europe’s Dark Ages, Meister Eckhart perceived with a clarity unlike most. In stark contrast to the prevailing culture he realized that “God is nearer to me than myself . . . He is also near and present for a stone or piece of wood, but they know nothing about this fact.” Amid pervasive and pandemic institutional fear of women and color and laity – of trust in human experience – Eckhart was developing a new language to express the True Nature of the very Ground of Reality; a language expressive of human experience as disclosive of the divine. In this spiritual path the human journey is not to connect a depraved humanity with a distant judgmental God-object, but to realize that the graciously empty Ground of Reality is the eternal Essence of everything, every one, that comes to be. (Here, Eckhart was not far from the Buddhist realization that which is form is emptiness and that which is emptiness, form.)
As he surveyed the early 14th century Eckhart beheld a church and its piety riddled with this false perception of creation living at a distance from the divine. This misperception was a dense fog shrouding medieval life, dulling experience, and blinding recognition of Reality. His preaching was ceaseless fire burning through the haze, awakening receptive hearts to the truth that creatures, simply as creatures, are divine. Nature is inherently sacred since it is nothing other than the bodying-forth of God. For the transformed heart “all things become simply God to you, for in all things you notice and love only God.” All that is is nothing other than God manifesting; Reality empty of all egoic identity and striving.
Eckhart was rediscovering a largely forgotten truth in the West: to be a human being is to have a heart longing to know the simple truth of its own nature. Recognizing, respecting, and courageously tending to this longing is the authentic human life, which is nothing other than the mystical life. Engaging the mystical life, we undertake the human journey whereby we discover we are blessed from the beginning not by being one with God, but by being of God: breaking through the fog to know directly from our own experience that “God’s ground is my ground, and my ground is God’s ground.” In this discovery is the human realization of our Christic nature.
Eckhart identifies three threads that intertwine like the braids of a Celtic spiral creating this spiritual path. As we follow this path we penetrate ever deeper and ever wider into the divine common ground. When we finally break through we taste for ourselves that everyone is nothing but the presence of boundless Being. We recognize each creature is Christ and our response is compassionate reception and a restorative justice that lifts and removes the knee pressed down upon any holy one – and every one is a holy one.
Thread One: Letting-Go
If we are to experience the ground of Being, we must learn to be in silence and stillness; we need to come to know our shadow and learn to let pass those thoughts and reactions that ordinarily hold our attention. This spiritual practice gradually becomes integral to our daily living.
The practice is to let go of images and reactions and passions (realizing emptiness). Letting go is neither denial nor denigration. We learn to release because these occupying attachments contract awareness and cause attention to become stuck on transient phenomena. Creation is so beautiful that our ego wants possession; attention becomes habitually absorbed by minutiae and we miss the subtle presence of Being itself.
The heart is discovering how to release what in fact cannot be held. We learn to become aware of the subtle presence of Holy Mystery arising as this spacious moment. As we become less identified with the desires and revulsions of our personalities, gracious space arises. The foreground of mental activity recedes so that the Ground of Reality may manifest. This is not a stingy act of suppression but a kind practice of noticing and releasing and relaxing.
We can be surprised that in letting go we might feel a sense of “poverty.” “He is a poor person who wills nothing and knows nothing and has nothing.” Eckhart adds: “true poverty of spirit consists in keeping oneself so free of God and of all one’s works that if God wants to act in the soul, God himself becomes the place wherein he wants to act – and this God likes to do.” As our soul becomes empty of ordinary preoccupations, we experience what Buddhism calls emptiness: the soul is as the sky, boundless space with clouds passing through. For Christians, this emptiness is the spacious presence of Holy Mystery, present as the absence of ordinary preoccupations.
In this direct experience of Holy Mystery, names and language can clutter. Eckhart invites us to let go even of God. Language seduces us into believing we know what Reality is. All the names we have learned to address Holy Mystery get in the way of simply being present with Reality. We forget that God, too, is a name, a symbol pointing to a Reality beyond the confines of all names. Beyond every name lies the true fullness of Holy Mystery, which Eckhart calls the Godhead. The Godhead is Holy Mystery beyond all images and names. Godhead arises as boundless, silent, Holy Ground. This spiritual path is not a practice of coming to arrive in the otherness of boundless love, but of being Boundless Love. All divisions burned away. Every form being only empty boundless Holy Mystery.
…..You should love God mindlessly, that is, so that your soul is without mind and free
…..from all mental activities… You should love him as he is, a not-God, not-mind,
…..not person, not- image – even more, as he is a pure, clear One, separate from
…..all twoness.
Thread Two: Birthing
As we grow in our capacity to release, we experience ourselves continually being born anew. The logos (or spiritual dynamic) of this path is that the birthing process never ends. The Mystery is that there is no end state to our spiritual maturation as authentic humans of Being. We continue to discover identifications, fixations, reactions that divide, confuse and fog Reality. Spiritual practice is our continual birthing into spacious awareness, and this birthing is being birthed as Christ.
Thread Three: Breakthrough
In this spiritual path our practice is breakthrough from the fog of our limited and small sense of self. Just as an infant must leave the mother’s womb to survive and thrive, so too must we shed our small egoic self, our precious personality, and allow our soul to discover her boundless Ground of Being. This death is deliverance. “In this death the soul loses all her desires, all images, all understandings and all form and is stripped of all her being. . . This spirit is dead and is buried in the Godhead, for the Godhead lives as no other than itself.”
What the soul discovers is who she has always been from the beginning but did not know. The only path into this awareness has been her willingness to forsake “all things, God and creatures.” The complete surprise is that in realizing the Ground of Being she has returned to the land of her soul. She is home.
The soul now knows the most precious Absolute truth: whoever we behold is Holy Mystery beautifully embodied. This means that when the police officer casually placed his knee upon the neck of George Floyd and pressed his face into the pavement, he was grinding the bones of the beautiful face of Holy Mystery into the concrete. Nothing else. Nothing less.
Without the breakthrough to common ground a spiritual path through the fog of hatred – not uncommonly expressed a social “niceness” – is not truly possible; the common good becomes hostage to human blindness, and ruthlessly tribal. In truth, we live in a culture where Holy Mystery – contracted by ego into meanness and hatred – is speaking to our heart, asking to become known and realized once again as the land of our soul.~ Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D.
Read online here
About the Author
Kevin G. Thew Forrester, Ph.D. is an Episcopal priest, a student of the Diamond Approach for over a decade, as well as a certified teacher of the Enneagram in the Narrative Tradition. He is the founder of the Healing Arts Center of in Marquette, Michigan, and the author of five books, including I Have Called You Friends, Holding Beauty in My Soul’s Arms, and My Heart is a Raging Volcano of Love for You and Beyond my Wants, Beyond my Fears: The Soul’s Journey into the Heartland. Visit Kevin’s Blog: Essential Living: For The Soul’s Journey.
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Question & Answer
Q: By Jillian
I would be interested to learn if you think people will return to church and prayer – in a time of chaos and crisis? Do you think people need something to “cling to?” Here in Australia we are also in shut down mode and I fear for those who are already in debt, lost jobs, business closed and the mental health aspect of some. I’ve read of suicides after the Great Depression, share market collapse and you hope that it doesn’t occur again. As I’m an interested political volunteer, I suggested words of hope and encouragement might be needed rather than “Do this or else you’ll die” which is not particularly comforting. Not everyone will die.
A: By Rev. Fran Pratt
Dear Jillian,It's interesting you ask this question. I personally think it's more a time of "letting go" than of "clinging to." I think this is a moment of collective apocalypse - meaning, a great revealing, or unveiling. And I see, at least here in the US, a lot of structures that need tearing down; and I believe this drawn-out moment is clarifying that reality for many people. Here we are literally tearing down colonialist and exploitative-capitalist monuments. And I think the slowdown of economies is highlighting things we can let go of and feel free to radically re-imagine going forward.
I don’t need people to be in church, necessarily. But I do hope that the Church can become a voice for change. I hope it can get over its ego and overcome its centuries-long history of capitulation to empire and active participation in colonization. Again, this is a case of the Church needing to be rebuilt and re-imagined. In many cases, our leaving speaks louder than our staying. I think a lot of folks are realizing that, and also that the Church is not the only sacred space. People are getting creative and making sacred space in zoom calls and protests and marches and distanced outdoor visits. People are learning to “pray with their feet.”
Basically, I think people who are doggedly asleep, are mostly going to remain asleep. But I pray that a higher consciousness prevails and is "contagious" in terms of waking up to the Kin-dom of God and its availability to us in this moment. And, I let go of control of other people, while hanging on to compassion and empathy (and indeed hands-and-feet helping) for those who are desperate.
I agree that "do this or die" is not helpful, and I've been pleasantly surprised by the messaging I've seen around here that is more along the lines of "we're in this together, we can do hard things, etc." I’ve been encouraged by the response here in the US to the increased visibility of racism and systemic inequity, a badly needed awakening by the white majority. And I hope that the awakening will give way to Right Action, politically and societally.
The things I personally cling to are very broad and generous: That the divine is ultimately loving and good. That we are lovingly given free will on this earth. That the challenges we encounter are here to teach us. That we can learn to live inside a paradigm of abundance (Kin-dom) rather than a paradigm of scarcity. That every human is made in the image of the Divine and deserving of dignity and safety. That we have agency and capacity for change. For me, if those are here, then here is Church. I can let go of what doesn’t align. ~ Rev. Fran Pratt
Read and share online here
About the Author
Rev. Fran Pratt is a pastor, writer, musician, and mystic. Making meaningful and beautiful liturgy to be spoken, practiced, and sung, is at the heart of her creative drive. Fran authored a book of congregational litanies, and regularly creates and shares modern liturgy on her website and Patreon. Her prayers are prayed in churches of various sizes and traditions across the globe. She writes, speaks, and consults on melding ancient and new liturgical streams in faith and worship. Fran is Pastor of Worship and Liturgy at Peace of Christ Church in Round Rock, Texas. |
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| Please continue to send us your feedback… we are listening. We aim to give voice to many different perspectives that are relevant and inspiring along this spiritually progressing path. We are not here to tell you what to believe or how to act. We are here to support your journey, to share and learn together.Thank you for being a part of this community! |
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Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited
Seeking to Understand the Rhetoric of the Health Reform Debate
Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong
September 10. 2009I went to my local post office in New Jersey last week only to be confronted by a group of demonstrators who had set up a table filled with pamphlets and information about the communist plot to take over health care in America. Several slogans were quite visible on their posters. One said “Stop Socialist Medicine,” another portrayed President Obama with the signature moustache of Adolf Hitler. Some of the available literature hinted that the proposed health care reforms were actually part of a plot to cut medical costs by euthanizing senior citizens. Making a cameo appearance in this new setting was the old abortion issue, with the suggestion that Obama’s health care reform proposal was a not-so-subtle attempt to finance abortion with public funds and thus to violate the consciences of the pro-life minority. People walking in and out of the post office were given the various fear lines and were urged to pick up materials that would validate their wildest charges. What we had witnessed on television at Town Meetings across the country had now appeared in our local community. As an advocate of free speech guaranteed to us by the Constitution of the United States I do not oppose anyone seeking, by whatever lawful means they choose, to win public support for whatever issue they espouse. I do find it interesting to note, however, that while the content of the issues that draw out this kind of paranoid response changes from time to time, the emotions of at least a small segment of the American population that always seems to be threatened to the point of hysteria by changing law, changing practice and even changing consciousness, remain the same. It is not the content of the heath care reform debate, but the reality of these extreme emotions that show up in every period of social transition that I seek to understand today.In order to set this discussion into a context of history, recall that the primary theme in America’s 2008 presidential campaign was “change.” Mr. Obama not only ran on that theme, but he also embodied it. He was an African-American candidate. Never before in the history of the world has a nation chosen as its highest leader a member of a racial minority that had once been enslaved and then segregated by the majority. This was an amazing accomplishment. One obvious sign of that election was that racism, so deep in our national character, was now in a steep decline. If that change was not significant enough, this 47-year-old Illinois Senator represented a new, post-baby-boomer generation. The torch of leadership that had moved from the World War II generation to the Vietnam generation with the election of Bill Clinton in 1992 and in 1996 had now passed rather swiftly beyond Vietnam to a generation skeptical of all wars of aggression and especially the failed wars of Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr. Obama further epitomized change in his outspoken defense of equality for women in all areas of life and in his clear opposition to any law or practice that calls into question the full rights of America’s gay and lesbian population. His actions and subsequent appointments made these convictions clear and operative. In this election our nation had voted by large majorities to surge forward to embrace a new world. Such a surge, however, inevitably carries many people whose ability to adapt to change is limited into the backwaters of debilitating fear and gives birth to the rhetoric of paranoia that we are now seeing.Prior to this election much of this latent and irrational anger in our body politic had been focused on homophobia, the popular wedge issue during the years of George W. Bush’s administration. That prejudice had, however, run its course and had been largely relegated to the uninformed and increasingly irrelevant religious voices that typically represent the past. There was Pope Benedict XVI, well into his 80s, articulating a long since abandoned theory that homosexuality was an abnormality, a sickness or at least a deviation from the norm that should be changed if possible and repressed if not. There was evangelist Pat Robertson, also an octogenarian, who loses credibility on issue after issue by quoting a literal Bible and by suggesting that God will send hurricanes to punish gay-friendly communities. Finally, there was the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, younger but still dated, trying to preserve the last vestige of the British Empire, known as the Anglican Communion, by sacrificing women, gay people and modern knowledge on the altar of Christian unity. These voices of yesterday have no real credibility except among those who inhabit America’s religious ghettoes and among the populations of the third world that have not yet achieved access to the modern world. Few people today buy yesterday’s rhetoric that “the institution of marriage is being undermined by gay lobbyists” or that “acceptance of homosexuality will lead to generalized moral degeneracy.” The day of playing the “homosexual card” to create a winning political strategy has clearly passed. All of the movement is now in the other direction. Vermont has changed civil unions to equal marriage for gay and lesbian couples. Iowa has enacted laws making gay marriage legal. The national assemblies of both the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America have passed resolutions by large majorities opening the process of ordination of deacons, priests and bishops to qualified candidates irrespective of their sexual orientation and asserting that those who live in faithful, monogamous homosexual partnerships are completely acceptable for election and confirmation in any position the church has to offer. These two church bodies are also preparing liturgies suitable for gay marriages to be ready soon.If one looks at the history of fear and paranoia in the body politic of this nation, it is clear that homosexual people simply replaced black people as “legitimate” targets for those ever-present wells of hostility that had nowhere to go when racism began to die. Now it has become equally inappropriate to treat gay and lesbians as outcasts, so the anger, fear and paranoia of those who cannot adjust to a new world had to find another target. The health care debate offered that in spades. Those afraid of change fastened onto this subject with stunning swiftness.The depth of people’s anxiety over change, augmented by the insecurity brought on by the economic turndown and fueled by the powerful industries making fortunes on health care now coalesced to create an epidemic of fear in the debate over the reform of our health care system. So sudden, so hostile and irrational was the depth of the public response that even the Obama administration appeared to be caught off guard. When they recovered their political moorings they revealed a lack of understanding by attacking the absurdities rather than addressing the substance of people’s fears. Now, recognizing that mistake, they have attempted to recapture the initiative by having the president address a joint session of the Congress and to use that opportunity to refocus the debate. The work of reform will now have a chance to move on. To do so at least four principles will need to be faced and addressed.
- There is at present enormous waste in American health care. We spend 17% of our gross national product on health care, which is 40% to 50% higher than in any other developed nation, almost all of which have nationalized health care programs. Despite this cost, a significant portion of our population is without heath insurance and even more stand to lose it if they become unemployed. There is no evidence to suggest that this greater cost makes better health care possible and indeed much evidence that it does not. In fragmented “private” systems, tests are regularly duplicated by doctors who do not have access to previous test results.
- People need to recognize that they are already paying an enormous premium to cover those who have no insurance. If health care were universal, then the premiums for all people would go down. Hospitals across this land are required by law to care for those who come to them in need of help. This is so regardless of whether they have insurance or whether they are citizens, legal aliens or illegal aliens. The charge that the proposed health reform bill will cover health care for illegal aliens is nothing more than a smokescreen scare tactic. The real issue is that emergency room medical care, which the uninsured are now using, is the most expensive care possible and emergency room doctors have no ability to practice wellness or preventive care. It would thus be far cheaper to offer medical care to all people than to continue the present system. Health care reform must not be held hostage to xenophobic immigration fears.
- Reality must be faced in that if no reform of our present system is forthcoming, health care as presently practiced in America will not be sustainable for anyone. Businesses will continue to cut back benefits and will look for reasons to dismiss those with pre-existing conditions that are costly. Health care will become a luxury for the rich and the stability of our entire way of life will be called into question.
- Finally the time has come for this nation and our elected leaders to face the fact that universal health care is a moral issue. This administration must claim and defend this high ground if this debate is to be successfully won. Nothing dissipates fear as quickly as successful leadership. Nothing feeds fear more than weak and ineffective waffling. Failure at this moment would be a national catastrophe, an act of surrender to the most irrational voices in the land, the voices of fear, anger and paranoia in the face of change.
A note from history may be helpful: when Social Security was passed in the Franklin Roosevelt administration, a similar rhetoric of government takeover, socialism, and communism rang throughout the land. The media voice of that day was not Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity but a Catholic priest named Father Charles Coughlin, but the misinformation was the same. That administration took the heat, passed the program and the rest is history. I pass on to our President the words of a very wise man: “When you do an audacious thing, you do not then tremble at your own audacity.”~ John Shelby Spong |
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Announcements
Films for an anti-racist education
We’re highlighting a number of films about Systemic Racism. The Power to Heal reveals how Medicare fights racial segregation in the U.S. healthcare system; A Dangerous Idea reveals the gross history of eugenics and ongoing biological nonsense used to justify the pathology of white privilege; and Love & Solidarity explores how non-violent protests lead by Rev. James Lawson have proven an effective strategy. READ ON ... |
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