Think of a fire in your neighborhood,.. around the corner. Or a car accident,... Maybe there's an explosion at the factory around the corner, that shatters a few of the windows in your house. Or, maybe there's an earthquake off the shores of Japan, followed by ocean waves that begin to ripple onto your shores in Los Angeles, California.....5,500 miles away,... merely around the corner.
The circumference of our planet is 25,000 miles, large enough to maintain some distance between neighborhoods, small enough to feel the ripples of whatever happens everywhere.
Reminders that we are a global neighborhood come in all forms. This week alone, in a Pennsylvania Amish community, 7 children died in a house fire, leaving devastated parents, a diminished community and a saddened world. A few miles outside of Philadelphia, a teenager took the life of his twin brother and their parents, leaving a shaken and bewildered community and a diminished and saddened world. Affects us all. The ripple effects enter our worlds, wash onto our shores and diminishes and saddens all of us. Let's remember in prayer and hold dear in our hearts those who are "flushed" away by waters of Tsunami's or those who are taken from us in house fires or home murders. If you measure a light year as 6 trillion miles, with the star closest to our sun being 4.5 light years away, on this planet, whether 10 miles, 5,500 miles or 25,000 miles, they're all merely around the corner or maybe even next door. Let's keep our world in prayer.
Welcome
Welcome to All. This blog is a discussion site, looking at our lives through our experiences, our spiritual, and, not so spiritual lens, ....what our lives look like at The Front. We are and some would argue, always have been, in interesting times. Servants, past and present have been at constant struggle with whatever the issues of the day have been. Where do we even begin to name them: poverty, hunger, education, shelter, .... and did I mention poverty? Fifty-one years ago, President Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty, a war by the way, we're still fighting. Then again, we've always been at war with poverty, and yet poverty has remained steadfast. Jesus apparently got it right: "The poor will always be with you." But Jesus was a smart man. Did he mean what we think? Does poverty always have to be with us. Let's talk about this, and whatever else, in real and truthful ways. Let's view our lives from The Front.
If you have come to help me, then you are wasting your time. If you have come because your liberation is linked to mine, then we will work together.
----(Anonymous) Australian Aborigine Activist
--mailto:--neilpitts@aol.com
----(Anonymous) Australian Aborigine Activist
--mailto:--neilpitts@aol.com
Contemplative Action
The Rite of Initiation: You are going to die
A shocking statement. Perhaps. But the Franciscan Priest, Richard Rohr,,who has studied the Rite of Initiation has said the following::
"Every initiation rite I've studied had some ritual, dramatic, or theatrical way to experience crossing the threshold from life to death in symbolic form. Some ritual of death and resurrection was the centerpiece of all male initiation. It is probably why Jesus sought out and submitted to John the Baptist's offbeat death and rebirth ritual down by the riverside, when his own temple had become more concerned with purity codes than with transformation. It is probably why Jesus kept talking to his disciples, three times in Mark's Gospel, about the necessity of this death journey, and why three times they changed the subject (8:31-10:45). It is undoubtedly why Jesus finally stopped talking about it, and just did it, not ritually but actually. Death and resurrection, the paschal mystery, is the theme of every single Eucharist no matter what the feast or season. It takes us many seasons and even years to overcome our resistance to death.
"The transformational journey of death and resurrection is the only real message. It makes you indestructible. The real life, God's life, is running through you and in you already. But allowing it to flow freely doesn't come easily. When you do, the spiritual journey really begins. Up to that moment it is just religion. Everything up to then is creating the container, but you have not yet found the contents; you are creating the wineskins, as Jesus says, but you are not yet drinking the intoxicating wine."
No comments:
Post a Comment