A FOREWORD
Each week our blogs
are quite different in
scope, style and stretch.
Like people,
some are long,
some are short,
some are full,
some are thin.
This week our blog
is long and full.
It delves deeply
into the depths
of our reality.
Please take time
to gentle through it
and the extensive
addendum for ongoing
reflection and prayer.
There is more than enough
here for a week of
meditation and prayer.
"Festina lente" -
"Make haste slowly."
Thanks!
John Frank
******
Dear All of Us,
"All together now!"
After all,
"We're all in it together."
And just as surely,
together we are
"IT"
OK, OK!
Yes, I sure as heck
do hear you:
"Whence and why
this philosophical fog?"
Granted and for sure,
it's more than a bit much
for an opener.
But please don't let
an opaque opener
blackout our sharing together today.
Let's move right through the fog.
We can then break into the brightness
of a most fundamental
Soul Secret.
It recasts our whole spiritual life
the deeper we fall into its reality.
So, just a bit more fog
before the bright.
Pulsations to particles,
particles to places,
places to planets.
Pulsations to proteins,
proteins to people,
people to peoples.
We - all that is -
are not only
"Made of the same stuff."
We - all that is -
all together are
the stuff of the same
"IT"
Existence
that which
"IS"
- God -
It's like the varied together
of the ocean vast.
It swirls, ebbs and flows,
currents coursing, crisscrossing -
an endless dynamic unity.
How we are in this
Ocean of Existence just now
is much like a wave surging up
from ocean depths.
It rolls, building, cresting,
breaking, returning
to the ocean of itself.
We call it life span.
Yet the dynamic spans
endlessly more than
the how of any now.
At heart it's what some call
death and resurrection,
reincarnation/enlightenment,
eternal life.
We all do well to reverence
"IT"
as the Mystery of Existence.
Together being the
"IT"
that we are and are in
is variously voiced:
John 1:1-5:
"In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came into being through him,
and without him not one thing came into being.
What came into being in him was life,
and the life was the light of all people.
The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness did not overcome it."
"...All things..."
"...In him..."
So clearly and beautifully inclusive
Existence "in" Existence
Colossians 1: 15-17
"He (Christ) is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn of all creation;
for in him all things in heaven
and on earth were created,
things visible and invisible,
whether thrones or dominations or rulers or powers-
all things have been created through him and for him.
He himself is before all things, and
"... in him
all things
hold together."
Creation in Creator.
Creator in Creation.
Inclusive and Unitive.
Buddha:
"We are the same as plants,
as trees, as other people,
as the rain that falls.
We consist of that
which is around us,
we are the same
as everything."
Albert Einstein:
"A human being
is part of the whole,
called the universe."
The First Law of Thermodynamics:
"Energy (pulsations) cannot be created
nor destroyed, but only changed in form."
Existence
"IT"
just
"IS"
- divinely dynamic,
- divinely creative,
- present ever anew,
- unendingly right now
and always.
We together are the ocean of what is,
the sea of existence,
actively manifest, current,
in endless pulsations of energy.
We note and name few some we see -
motions and moments e.g.
Sandy and Tom, Rockies, sodium, symphonies,
Saturn, molecules, meals, wind, wheat -
identifiers, localizations of what
"IS"
"IS - NESS"
EXIST - STANCE
in
"IT'S"
infinitely diverse,
divine togetherness.
Every "other" is us and all that is in an other way.
Every "other" is Existence - variously the same.
The most lethal lie and illusion we suffer
is one which holds that
we all are not at all
"all-together,"
not diversely one,
but that we are at core separated individuals
bumping into other separated individuals,
be they people, animals, energies, elements,
- even God -
all divorced from fundamental togetherness,
unable to be united and excited
about diversified oneness.
That's a set up for upset.
And upset we have: racial, economic, religious,
political, ecological, cultural -
trys to divide what is not fundamentally divisible.
It's as crazy as an ocean drop refusing
to be what it is, water in the sea,
the sea in the ocean drop (Rumi).
Valerie Kaur masterfully ponders
the paradox that we are
in our various sameness.
She shares it in her new book,
See No Stranger:
- "You are the part of me I don't know yet" (p. 6)
- "I see no stranger, I see no enemy", Guru Nanck (p.7)
- She invites us to see, sense, scintillate
in the wonder of us all together
in our diversified oneness,
to be wonderstruck -
- to love and live the interconnectedness
and interdependence of all that
"IS"
- It is a Sanskrit truth that
- we can look upon anyone or any thing and say:
"Tat tram asi"
"I am that."
- It is the African philosophy
"Ubuntu"
"I am because you are."
- It is the Mayan precept
"In-La-Kech"
"You are my other me."
( p.14 )
Down deep and for real
we refuse "e-strange-ment".
Deep down and for real we
See No Stranger
so we
- go hug a tree
- cuddle a baby
- play the cello
- farm
- drive a bus
- write poetry
- make love
- do science
- invite a disagreeable neighbor over for BBQ
- attend a religious service other than our own
- pray for - hold In The Love Who Is God -
the people who irk the liv'n hell out of us
- give the street beggar five bucks for supper
and not fuss that he/she might drink that supper
- use up no more than we need
- read up, listen up, on the reasoning and feelings of
our political, cultural, religious opposites
- invite them to join in with us for a common cause,
e.g. spending a Saturday working together at
Habitat for Humanity and then going out together
for pizza and beer at the end of our day of shared labor and more
( if you're from uptown, then host a catered wine and cheese tasting
at you place - and be sure to move the Lexus off the drive )
- when watching the news we really do choose to love
those crazy bastards that make us nuts
Because
We're in it together"
Together we are
'IT"
All together now!
That's
"IT"
John Frank
******
During our quiet time in the days,
even weeks ahead,
here are a few Spirit Springs to imbibe,
to follow should you care to consider them.
It's best to not try to push through
all of them all at once.
Better to take one or two at a time
- sense it, see it anew and now -
PRAY AND PONDER
We are one, after all, you and I,
together we suffer, together we exist
and forever will recreate one another."
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Namaste'
My soul honors your soul.
I honor the place in you
where the entire universe resides.
I honor the light, love, truth, beauty
and peace within you,
because it is within me.
In sharing these things
we are united,
we are the same,
we are one.
The eternal Tao.
Prior to time with no beginning,
beyond space with no end,
yet right here in the forever Now;
all prevailing,
The great Oneness of the All!
Leland Lewis
Random Molecular Mirroring
Now you are the body of Christ,
and each of you is part of it.
1 Corinthians 12:27
O Holy Spirit you are the mighty way
in which everything that
is
in the heavens, on the earth,
and under the earth,
is penetrated with connectedness,
is penetrated with relatedness.
Hildegard of Bingen
Matter is spirit moving slow enough
to be seen.
Teilhard de Chardin
E Pluribus Unum
One from many.
And just as assuredly,
One in many.
Life's real and highest goal is
to discover this spark of the divine
that is in our hearts.
When we realize this goal,
we discover simultaneously
that the divinity within ourselves
is one and the same in all -
all individuals, all creatures, all of life.
Eknath Easwaran
( 1910 - 1998 )
By means of all created things,
without one exception,
the divine assails us,
penetrates us, and molds us.
We imagine it as distinct and inaccessible,
when in fact we are steeped
in its burning layers.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
******
Warmest welcome to all new here.
Thank you for joining in
our weekly gathering here at
"frankly speaking"
spirituality for the street
- it goes online early Thursdays morning
east coast USA time
johnfrankshares.blogspot.com
(easily bookmarked)
- an email version arrives on Fridays
the sign up is top right above online
- Blog Archive
right column above online
makes available all past postings.
Have A Blessed Week
" ALL together now! "
******
