God in you seeks God

The Perennial Tradition, the mystical tradition that I love to build on, says that there is a capacity, a similarity, and a desire for divine reality inside all humans; and all world religions recognize this in their own way. It also states that what we seek is what we are, which is exactly why Jesus says that we will find it (see Matthew 7:7-8), because, as it were, it first found us!

The Perennial Tradition invariably concludes that you initially cannot see what you are looking for because what you are looking for is doing the looking! God is never an object to be found or possessed as we find other objects, but the One who shares your own deepest subjectivity—or your “self.” We normally call it our soul. Religion calls it “the Divine Indwelling.” Meister Eckhart put it best, perhaps, when he said, “The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me.”

Richard Rohr

Looking from Mystery

Your nature is not manipulation, but presence

'Window to the true source of healing' (Yago, Dublin 2012)

Perhaps it's time to stop trying to 'fix' the one in front of you, to stop trying to give them answers or solve their problems. You're not very good at that, friend. Your nature is not manipulation, but presence; not division, but wholeness.

 Perhaps it's time to stop pretending to be the all-knowing authority, the infallible teacher, the healed expert. 

Even with the best of intentions, you may unknowingly be interfering with their natural healing processes. You may be keeping them dependent on you, distracting them from a deep trust in their own first-hand experience. 

Remember, they may need to feel worse before they feel better. They may need to feel their pain more deeply before they open up to the true source of healing. They may need to die to who they thought they were, before they can truly live. True for them, true for you. 

It's certainly something to consider.

 

Jeff Foster

Becoming Human Again

In Integrating the New Science of Love and a Spirituality of Peace, the contributors explore the intersection between the science of attachment theory and the vision of Anabaptism. What emerges is a deeper sense of what it means to be human and a hope for a different tomorow, inspired by the kingdom of God as preached by Jesus of Nazareth.

"This book is about what it means to be human, and it may not be what you expect. Contemporary neuroscience is rapidly undermining some of our dearly held assumptions about who we are and how we function. This is not another idle academic conversation. These assumptions have been the basis of our educational and legal institutions, and changing them could have far-reaching consequences for how we structure our lives . . .

How we see ourselves is an urgent moral issue. The implications of attachment theory are personal, social, and global, and that is why this book is so important."

Howard Zehr, from the Foreword

Christian E. Early is Professor of Philosophy and Theology at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He is coeditor with Ted Grimsrud of A Pacifist Way of Knowing (Cascade Books, 2010).

Annmarie L. Early is Professor of Counseling at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Play, Laughter and Joy

Self-Acceptance Project: The fear & anxiety solution

                     

Tami Simon speaks with Dr. Schaub and several other contemporary luminaries in the fields of spirituality, psychology, and creativity. Together, they explore the questions around self-acceptance and investigate how we can overcome the difficulties of embracing who we are. Where do our self-critical voices come from? Can we silence them, or is there a better way to deal with them? Can we be motivated to change and excel while still accepting ourselves as we are? Why is it often so much easier to feel compassion and forgiveness towards others than towards ourselves?

Racial Healing

Rev. Sylvester "Tee" Turner

Rev. Sylvester “Tee” Turner is director of reconciliation programs for Hope in the Cities. He talks with Rob Corcoran about his approach to racial healing.

Was there a particular moment that was a turning point for you?

My “encounter” with the Confederate monument during Richmond’s first walk through history in 1993. I had seen that monument all my life. But that experience forced me to look at things from a new perspective, one that I did not want to look at.

Confederate Monument. Richmond

What do you mean?

I had to decide whether to tuck and run or come face to face with my own struggle. When you are raised in the South there are many survival mechanisms. To pretend that something doesn’t exist is one of those mechanisms. I had always denied the impact the statue was having on me. Being able to identify with the Confederate sense of pain and betrayal allowed me to see inside myself. Seeing how they were held in bondage by their grief helped me to understand and to deal with the bondage in my own life. The light clicked on. It became a doorway to healing.

You talk a lot about honoring “sacred stories” of each group. How do you do that without moral compromise?

John W. Franklin talks about his father saying that we need to tell the whole story no matter how painful or ugly it is. That has been the approach of Hope in the Cities. To the best of my ability I try to validate the experience of the other group. Not to justify it but to validate the fact that it is their truth. Until a level of respect is created you can’t have dialogue. If we say we are Americans than we have to own all our stories, the good, the bad and the ugly. And as we grow, we can let some stories go. This is the foundation for working towards reconciliation. It’s not about being right but about being healed.

Let’s talk about forgiveness.

Forgiveness frees me not the other person. When I have been victimized, the pain and suffering impacts me. It dictates how I treat other people and what I pass on. When I forgive, I am able to pass wholeness to my children and grandchildren. It has nothing to do with the other person. That person will need to repent in order to be free, but I don’t control that.

What do you want to say to America at this point in history?

We can all win if we work together and we will all lose if we stay divided. Most Americans actually want to work together but we don’t want to deal with the divisions caused by our racial and political history. Without a doubt race is a major component in the political debate. Racism grew out of greed and a class system that pitted poor whites against enslaved, and later freed blacks. We are all imprisoned to some extent by the history of slavery. Some of us are in maximum security prisons and others in minimum security prisons, but we’ve all suffered and we all need to be healed.

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