Thursday, September 19, 2019
"ALL TOGETHER "
Dear All Of Us,
It's great that each week we are "All Together" here at "frankly speaking".
We come from many lands, ethnicities, cultures, religions.
For all our variants, we are quite genuinely all together here,
focused on our spiritual lives.
More properly put, we are focused on living spiritually.
The limits of language!
Actually there is no such thing as our "spiritual life," something apart,
something occasional and distinct from good old garden variety everyday life.
The spiritual is the energy of our living.
The Latin "spiritus" means breathing, breath, breeze.
The spiritual is what animates, moves.
Take it way and you have a corpse.
Minimize it and you have a stalled soul.
Sure, there are spiritual practices - meditation, prayer, worship,
lectio divina, fasting, alms giving, spiritual direction.
They are times and activities to focus, refresh, guide our living spiritually.
So, let's take a closer look as we open ever more
to the delight, indeed, divinity, yet often difficulty,
of living spiritually and that
All Together.
For better or worse - aware our unaware - at our core and
all the way up to the surface and immediacy of right now, right here,
to our sweaty/sweet living on the street of everyday life, we are all together.
The fact that too many are not aware of this basic all togetherness
is the root of so much of the loneliness, alienation
and hostility that haunts our streets.
See a spectrum, center to surface, as well as across our living:
pain to delight, limit to wide open,
minimal to full bore, evil to good,
but see us always in life all together.
Examples::
- auto accident, man pinned under a car, group gathers to lift the car and
free the man - leader shouts "All Together!" - man saved.
- Great Grandma is turning ninety - the whole "famdamally"
from Topeka to Hoboken and Albuquerque is at the ready
as she enters to shouts of "All Together"
and the singing sores: "Happy Birthday To You!"
- us seeing through the immediacies of pain, ugliness, evil, hurt,
joy, creativity, generosity, integrity, to our foundational unity.
- on the streets of Chicago gangs shooting to pieces community efforts at
living peacefully and safely all together.
- the coalitions working to erase not so subtle segregation
in the school system.
- all sorts, healthy to sick, living together at The Catholic Worker House.
- around our planet far right nationalist working in concert (dissonance)
to resist and stymie diverse peoples from living together cooperatively.
- the congregation struggling all together to keep its inner city school open
for the newly arrived and marginalized.
- fifty men going out to the desert of New Mexico
for a week of retreat and grounding in male spirituality.
- farmers across the heartland laboring wheat for our tables and living.
- cloistered monks/nuns supporting souls in a life of solidarity with us
and love prayer for us
- young people catching on to humanity's all togertherness underneath
our many cultural costumes.
- ourselves realizing that the only thing strange about strangers is
our estrangement.
See it or not, know it or don't want to know it, embrace it or fight it,
we are basically, fundamentally, organically, ontologically all together.
We are One in diverse forms.
We all together spring from the same source.
"In him WE live, and move and have OUR being." (Acts 17:28)
The same life flows through us all together.
The same Spirit vivifies us all together.
Our living, our planet, prospers or pains in proportion
to our embrace of being and living all together.
To be alive and growing spiritually is to embrace all people and creation
as us in pluriform - unique, diverse, one - the power and paradox
of being basically all together.
But all is not well out here on the streets of Center City,
and that is where we live spiritually.
Our spiritual living is effected and effects.
World-wide all sorts of systems separate - governments, religions,
hate groups, political parties, mass media, corporations.
All sorts of persons militate to separate - politicians, media moguls,
financial and corporate leaders, religious and ethnic terrorists.
It is toxic.
We need to come up for air, some fresh, clean, invigorating air,that of
The Holy Spiritus, The Holy Breathing, The Holy Breath,The Holy Breeze .
Let's open the windows and let the Holy Breeze blow through us,
cleanse and purify our awareness, give us the runner's second wind.
Feel it in these breaths of fresh air:
- "The love of God creates in us such a oneing
that when it is truly seen,
no person can separate themselves
from another person."
- "In the sight of God all humans are oned,
and one person is all people
and all people are in one person."
- "By myself I am nothing at all,
but in general,
I AM the oneing of Love.
for it is in this oneing
that the life of all people exist."
Julian of Norwich
Medieval English mystic
- "...so we, who are many,
are one body in Christ,
and individually we are members
one of another."
Romans 12;5
- "Effortlessly,
Love flows from God into us
Like a bird
Who rivers the air
Without moving her wings.
… Thus we move in God's world
One in body and soul...
Though outwardly separate in form.
As the Source strikes the note,
Humanity sings -
The Holy Spirit is our harpist,
And all strings
Which are touched in Love
Must sound.
Mechthild of Magdeburg
Medieval Mystic
So, OK. If we all are fundamentally one and I try to live it out,
say by trying to hug every passenger boarding my flight to Huston,
the TSA people would likely hold me for observation.
Hopefully that kind of oneness will one day
be cleared for take off.
Between now and when, how do we see and live
the oneness we are with all others?
In our prayer and reflection this week let's really open our windows,
invoke and invite The Holy Breeze, ponder and pray over:
- what systems separate me from others -
my social circle, employment, family systems,
religious affiliations, politics, my thinking/feeling patterns,
the places where I go for shopping, education, recreation ?
- what people in my life militate to separate me from others:
family members, friends, my social media contacts,
authors, "talking heads," entertainers, the politicians
I support and follow, people at work?
- what sort of estrangement makes others strangers to me?
- now let's go back over the above three and detail to positive -
name names!! - what and who draw me closer
to realizing and living out our basic all togetherness?
- Let's take time with each of the quotes above from
Julian of Norwich
Romans 12:5
Mechthild of Magdeburg
What does The Spirit say through them to our spirit?
What insight is given?
What corrective is there?
What encouragement is offered?
What widening and deepening is invited?
be as specific as
your local librarian,
or a data analysist.
- draw all of the above into a prayerful love embrace
- jot down an action plan for the next week -
- what will I do this week to deal with systemic,
separating systems?
- what will I do this week to deal with the people
who militate to separate me from others?
- conversely and positively what systems can I embrace
and support that sustain and strengthen our togetherness?
- what can I do this week to connect with people
who live and nurture our togetherness?
All the best at being All Together.
Thanks for this chance to be just that.
Welcome to those joining in with us for the first time.
"How good and pleasant it is when God's people
live together in unity."
Psalm 133:1
See you next week.
Holding us all together in
God's Dear Love,
John Frank
*****
"frankly speaking"
- is posted online each Thursday evening
east coast USA time at
johnfrankshares.blogspot.com
and can be bookmarked for ready access
- is available by automatic email each Friday -
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- past postings are available at
Blog Archive
right column online.
Thank You!!
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Thursday, September 12, 2019
LOVE - MISCHIEF
Dear All Of Us,
So, spiritually what gives,
what's going on?
What's coming down and across?
Are we having one heck of a good time?
Does our spirit have some sparkle to it?
Do we have a twinkle in our soul?
Do the other kids out here
on the playground of life want in on it?
Are we down right and contagiously joyful
because we have taken Jesus at his word:
"I have said these things to you
so that my joy may be in you,
and your joy may be complete"?
Are we hot wired for flat out, outrageous liveliness
because we have taken Jesus up on his offer:
"I have come that you might have life
and have it to the full"?
Have we bought in with old Irenaeus:
"The glory of God is a person fully alive"?
Are we banging it out on all eight cylinders?
Have we let God brake open the seed of self,
freeing us for abundance?
Have we wised up, set down, outgrown
the so sober, serious, stiffy, stuffy
moralistic, up tight, merit badge religion
of too many churches?
Are we tag teaming it with God
and having a blow out of delightful
"LOVE - MISCHIEF"
FOR OUR WORLD?
Tell you what.
This week how about we spend time
and huddle with good old Hafiz?
He's really one of the best at all this.
Here's a page from his playbook:
"It used to be
That when I would wake up in the morning
I could with confidence say,"What am "I" going to do?"
That was before the seed cracked open.
Now Hafiz is certain:
There are two of us housed in this body
Doing the shopping together in the market and
Tickling each other while fixing the evening's food.
Now when I awake all the internal instruments
Play the same music:
"God, what love-mischief can
we do for the world today?"
That's more than a week's worth of prayerful wondering.
In that holy wondering:
Let's see all the way inside ourselves
and check out who's in there with us
(better yet, within whom we are).
Let's see all the way inside ourselves
and ask God to crack open the seed of self,
opening us to to abundance
Let's see all the way inside ourselves
and accept God's loving enfoldment there
Let's listen all the way inside ourselves
and hear the internal instruments play
"God, what love-mischief
can we do for the world today?"
and then have one heck of a time
with God at making
Love - Mischief for the World.
So, spiritually what gives, what's going on?
Well, what's coming down is
that we get to lighten up
and make
LOVE - MISCHIEF
FOR THE WORLD
with God and getting one heaven
of a tickle out of it!!
Glad we can have
these Holy Huddles
here each week.
.
John Frank
*****
References:
- John 15:11
- John 10:10
- St. Irenaeus of Lyon,
Against Heresies, 185 AD
- Hafiz Sufi Mystic,
The Gift, translated by
Daniel Ladinsky
*****
Thanks to all who share word of
"frankly speaking"
and invite others to join in.
A new posting goes online each Thursday evening
east coast USA time at
johnfrankshares@blogspot.com
*****
Welcome to the Love-Mischief-Makers
who are new here this week.
A special happiness at first time participation
from Belize and a substantial number
of first timers from Russia.
We're tickled to be together!
*****
SEE YOU NEXT WEEK!
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Thursday, September 5, 2019
AN INSIDE JOB
Dear All Of Us,
A main stay and stream
of many a detective stoy
is the discovery that
"It's an inside job."
The answer to the mystery
isn't out there somewhere.
Rather, the answer is right there
within the mystery.
It's "an inside job."
Augustine, the sinner become saint,
the great theologian of the early church,
was also a great detective in his own way and time.
After a lot of evil doing on his part,
he "cracked the case,"
the mystery of love and joy.
He had spent half a lifetime wrong focused -
fouled himself and cohorts of other wrong seekers.
He flung his body and mind wide and far.
He bedded and embraced all sorts
of people, pleasures, persuasions,
concepts and contrivances
seeking satisfaction and exhilaration,
seeking love and joy.
His torrid living ended
in a "cold case" -
no resolution.
He was deadened, cloyed.
Like all great detectives
Augustine finally realized that
he was looking
in the wrong places,
in the wrong directions,
for the right thing.
Refocused, redirected,
he discovered that
in the case of love and joy
it's always
"an inside job."
What he pursued wasn't outside him,
it had been within him all along.
He summed up the case
of love and joy this way:
"Late have I loved you,
O Beauty ever ancient,
ever new,
late have I loved you!
You were within me,
but I was outside,
and it was there
I searched for you.
In my unloveliness
I plunged into
the lovely things
that you created.
You were with me,
but I was not with you."
Like Augustine,
we too are like detectives.
We are always trying
to "crack the case,"
to solve the mystery.
What works the good?
Where lies love and joy?
How has it been with us?
How is it with us right now?
Where are we focused?
I'll try to answer my own question.
I so regret those years longing and looking
from the edge of my body outward,
looking and longing out there as far as my money,
my pride, position, passion could propel me to dead ends.
Slowly I realized this perfect love and joy we all seek isn't out there at all.
It's "an inside job," one that grows from the inside outward.
It does so with care and sharing for
"...the lovely things that you created."
It has meant being centered.
It has meant living from the inside out.
It has meant accepting that "Beauty ever ancient, ever new"
the Beauty that is my core and center.
It has meant embracing The Being
that embraces me into being.
It has meant embracing all "the lovely things you have created,"
one with their Creator
Long ago the Zen Buddhist realized the centrality
of just that - the Center.
For them satori refers to the experience of kensho,
"seeing into one's true nature,"
They named it enlightenment.
An inside job.
The Pharisees quizzed Jesus
about when that perfect love and joy,
that kingdom of God,
would come.
He told them it is
"not coming with things
that can be observed,
nor will they say,
'Look, here it is!' or
'There it is!'
For, in fact,
the kingdom of God
is within you." (1)
It's not out there somewhere.
It's "an inside job."
Paul chased around
looking for the answer
to life out there
in observance of the law.
He got rerouted, righted:
"And it is no longer I who live,
but Christ who lives in me." (2)
"An inside job."
God is centered in us
and God sure wants
our company right there
because with God it's
AN INSIDE JOB
that works out ever so beautifully.
Thanks for this chance to
Soul Sleuth.
In God's Dear Love,
John Frank
*****
(1) Luke 17:21
(2) Galatians 2:20
*****
A FEW PRAYER PROMTS
In bare, naked honesty
- how much am I
soul centered?
- what are the ways and times
I soul center?
- in deciding/choosing
do I start at soul center
and work outward from there?
- what are the main draws
that tempt me to skip that
and first seek love and joy
in someone/something "out there"?
- how willing am I to let God
"love the socks off me"
in the chamber of my deepest innerness?
- how convinced am I that
one with the Creator at my center
I can then move outward with the Creator
and most fully experience
"the lovely things you have created"?
- where and in what is my day to day life centered?
*****
Welcome to those joining us for the first time this week.
Great to be together and share, to crack the case from the inside out!
*****
Postings go online
Thursday evenings
east coast USA time.
See you all next week!!
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