Living with Holy Mystery is the spiritual schooling of the soul. The method of the schooling is the spiritual practices that teach us how to become embodiments of the Source: meditation; spiritual exploration; breath, body, and movement; and liturgy.
We are becoming aware of what we are: Boundless love is the Source of life and the longing of the soul. As we live from the Source, we become more curious about life, which means we question, ceaselessly.
When you gaze up into the night sky, perhaps from the sateen darkness of Glacier National Park, or the cozy vestibule of your backyard, what do you see? Pin-wheeling galaxies? Endless expanse of interstellar space? Familiar special neighbors such as Orion or Ursa Major?
A 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.
Metaphors are powerful, because they describe and prescribe our relationships with one another with so few words. Their power lies in their awesome capacity to evoke a world. Metaphors can manifest and deepen our sense of the Holy Mystery, or they can mask and distort. Oftentimes it is a mixture. But the difference is real, and it matters.
What an existential conundrum it is for us human beings as we long for someone to see us for the truth of what we are, while at the same time fearing to be seen for the truth of what we think we are and that others might perceive. A very tiring dance.
In my last column, “Terrifying and Terrible Texts: Knowing the Difference between Study and Liturgy,” I offered a basic and broad and personal vision of liturgy as “essentially a spiritual practice wherein we gather together to experience becoming embodiments of Being in the present moment.” We gather as unique personal jewels of Life. This vision begins my response to Bishop Spong’s query in Unbelievable: can Christian liturgies be made to reflect “reality rather than nostalgia.” Let me now develop this further in three ways: liturgy as personal spiritual practice of the individual; a reformed liturgical church year; and examples of eucharistic prayers (personal practice in a communal context) informed by this new vision of liturgy. This column will focus on liturgy as personal spiritual practice of the individual, which is the foundation for the subsequent essay on church year and eucharistic prayers.
Quite recently, a dear friend and colleague within a spiritual group in which we both participate raised a question, a heartfelt concern, about a book we were asked to read. This particular text, written in the middle of the last century, is a psychotherapy book that explores an energetic understanding of how the mind and body are interconnected. The book has much to commend it. However, my friend was in pain over the blatant homophobia in this piece and was wondering how I and others were experiencing the text and whether it was even appropriate for our study.
As Moses climbs the mountain, he arrives at his soul’s summit out of breath, bone-weary, and hungry; hungry to know the truth of what it is he searches for. He is an embodiment of humanity’s search for the truth of its Being.
What is happening in the human soul when someone, such as the President of the United Sates, refers to the predominately black countries of Africa and that of Haiti with dehumanizing racist rhetoric? What is happening in the human soul when political leaders seek simplistic solutions to cultural shifts in the erection of walls? What is happening in the human soul when the U.S. President fails to condemn neo-Nazi violent demonstrations?