John 1:1-5 (NRSV) - The Word Became Flesh "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 has come 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." Beyond all our thoughts and words, there is something more, something full of mystery. Take a moment please and think of the Gospel of John, where it is written, "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God." In indeed, think about how God brought creation into existence, how God created your life and my life. Genesis 1:1-3 (KJV) - In the Beginning Before there was creation itself, there was a wordless nothingness, an emptiness waiting to be filled, a formless void. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, 'Let there be light, and there was light". And creation was formed out of the formless void, and there with God in this moment of creation, in the beginning of all things, was the Eternal Word, perhaps born from a single desire and thought of God. "In the beginning was the Word." As a Christian, or even someone of another faith, have you ever thought of how your own relationship with creation is grounded in the Word or words, and how your life arises in and through all your relationships, with all creation? This is certainly true for a Christian in their relationship with Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word, the Word Made Flesh; as well as words from many other sacred traditions forming the world, words, like sutras, binding the family of humankind together. When we take time to dwell on our relationships, even those beyond our immediate family and friends, we begin to see how life arises from these many interconnections. Can you begin to imagine how you have touched my life, even if we have never met or spoken? Can you begin to imagine how you have touched the lives of other people too, and will continue to touch them? This is how powerful relationships are in the world. This is the Word, the Holy Spirit, at work within the world. And then imagine, please, how our own thoughts become words of our own, shaping our world, shaping our lives, our communities, our reality. We are all interconnected, perhaps even more so now, as we listen and come to know one another within a sacred community, as we listen to or even read each other’s words. Words have a life of their own. They shape our lives, and they interconnect us in marvelous ways. This is why writers love writing and use words to express themselves. It is why people love poetry, good plays, a compelling novel or story, or any appreciable writing in which we form a connection with one another. I’m sure that we have more than 300 books in our library at home, and at some level, there is a relationship with every single word in every single book, or even in the words I am typing now, hopefully making a connection with all of you. In Buddhism, this concept of our interconnectedness with life, all life, reality itself, out of which our lives arise, is called Dependent Origination or Dependent Arising, Pratītyasamutpāda in Sanskrit. Dependent Arising is hard to wrap your mind around, unless you know and have the right vocabulary, unless you have devoted time and energy to understanding Buddhism's beautifully symbolic and complex language, its words. For now, let’s simply say that it is a reality of shared interdependence and one that tells us, we are intimately interconnected to everything else in life, with one another, with all of creation. The Buddhist monk and teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, calls this concept interbeing, in his book, The Heart of Understanding, where he teaches that “To be” is to inter-be, and that “we cannot be alone, exist alone without anything else.” In Christianity, there is a remarkably similar and beautiful concept, it is found in a marvelous Greek word used by the early church fathers and mothers, to describe the mystery of the Trinity. It is the word, Perichoresis (peri-kor-es-is). Perichoresis is an ancient term in Christian theology, which refers to the indwelling of the Trinity, of how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are so intimately connected within their unity as one that there is an indwelling between them all. And that this indwelling is shared with us, in and through Christ, in the Paschal Mystery of Christ as the Incarnate Word, the Word Made Flesh. How appropriate, since not one of us can imagine living without words, living a life without words in some form. Let me go back, please to the wordless beginning of things, ultimate reality perhaps, to the Buddhist concept of Śūnyatā–Nirvana, emptiness. I’m struggling for a clear image or a metaphor to use in this dialogue, and it’s hard for me to find one. This is why I love to write poetry, because poetry for me is a transformational and transcending language. Perhaps it would help, as Jesus or a Tibetan or Zen Master might, to have you visualize the emptiness of an empty cup. The space that can be filled at any time, by anyone, by you, by God. This space, this emptiness, can be seen as the pure and infinite potential of all eternity, out of which all reality arises in a universe of infinite possibilities, or even of a given intimate moment within eternity, now in this present moment, in these words, even in the spaces between each word. You may also visualize it as an empty cup, a cup that is ready to receive the new wine of life or hot jasmine tea. What I’m trying to say, with all these words, is that sometimes we simply need to let go of all our words, all our images, and all our thoughts, even becoming lost for a while. Becoming lost can be a goodly thing, a needful thing. Because in doing so, we can develop a whole new language, and new images, like an artist, does when they are creating, be it a new symphony, a beautiful painting, a poem, a play, or a photograph that takes your breath away and leaves you speechless. I love that feeling of speechlessness, of emptiness, of being empty and ready to receive the next new thing. The secret I think is in understanding that each moment is the next new thing. It is a moment that is both, empty and full of infinite potential, a newness that is born out of every moment. I ended a poem once with these words. “We are the poet and the poem out of which each moment arises.” I know in my soul this is a powerful truth, one arising out of my own thoughts, words, and spiritual life. I love the dialog we may find within any sacred community, and the many gifts it brings us to discover such moments, to discover the newness of a moment, and to discover a new meaning in life within one another, new words even, words that God constantly shapes. Words that arise from a single point of emptiness and words that help us to shape the life we live into a new language, a new life. Words that help us to breathe as one body, in one single breath, and in one spirit together. There is something truly sacramental and spirit driven, inspired, by such a dialog, by such relationships. It is an indwelling where we do dwell within one another, Perichoresis. I'm thinking of Jesus now and the words we hear him say in John 10:10; "I came that they might have life, and have it more abundantly." And I'm thinking how much your life enriches my own life; how we enrich one another in our lives that God has given to us each. I just want us to realize this fully, to appreciate it fully, and know fully that we are all a part of that gift too, and to be grateful for the sacramental moments we share together, where we come to know and be fully known by God, where we come to be blest. I'm thinking that the Buddha would certainly agree with all this, in a sheer Buddhist enlightenment and wakefulness-practicing sort of way, practicing this way, this journey, this celebration of life. Many Blessings, Ron Starbuck Saint Julian Press Publisher-CEO Houston, Texas Reduction is Forbidden — Martin Buber
Reduction is forbidden...the whole cruel hour is at stake...and you must answer Him (God as Mystery)...
Historical Context — November 3, 2020 The year 2020 —will be marked as an historical and critical time in America. One must wonder what side of history we'll come down on and how this generation will be judged as a nation. Truly, how will historians see this moment in time? So, I am remembering the powerful words and work from the 20th century Jewish philosopher Martin Buber. Even though Buber's words and thoughts by today's 21st century standard, are not gender neutral, they are still worth remembering and sharing now. Buber describes totalitarian leaders as persons — who take over the organs of state through “negative charisma,” stripping real freedom and judgement from the ruled, and who are totally immersed in the political ends of attaining and retaining power. 1 —Such leaders are so thoroughly egotistical and narcissistic, they are devoid of any real connection to others, to the people, to themselves, and to the divine. They simply do not see themselves as being answerable to a higher power. They see themselves as the ultimate subject, covered in an armor of self-perpetuating clusters of thoughts and self-adulating fantasies that cannot be open to the “hidden light” of the divine. 1 —Such leaders recognize no one as being, so that everything around them becomes an object and subservient to their cause. 1 Martin Buber in his book Between Man and Man – talks about The Unique One (God) and The Single One (You, I, Us as individuals) — the relationship between the I and Thou. In the forward to his book, Martin Buber offers us an important and critical historical insight on --The Question to the Single One. 2 “The Question to the Single One, which contains some political inferences, is the elaboration of an address which I gave to the students of the three German-Swiss Universities at the close of 1933. The book appeared in Germany in 1936—astonishingly, since it attacks the life-basis of totalitarianism. The fact that it could be published with impunity is certainly to be explained from its not having been understood by the appropriate authorities.” 2 And this it seems is the conundrum we face today across American as a people of faith, any faith or faith simply in humanity, and the forces at play now in the present and within history. Is this a parallel moment in history, where humankind is being tested once more? How will we as human beings answer? Speaking of The Single One in Responsibility Martin Buber writes: “It cannot be that the relation of the human person to God is established by the subtraction of the world. The single one must therefore take his world, what of the world is extended and entrusted to him in his life, without any reduction into his life's devotion; he must let his world partake unabated of its essentiality. It cannot be that the Single One finds God's hands when he stretches his hands out and away beyond creation. He must put his arms round the vexatious world, whose true name is creation; only then do his fingers reach the realm of lighting and grace. It cannot be that the spirit of reduction reigns in the relation of faith as well. The Single One who lives in his relation of faith must wish to have it fulfilled in the uncurtailed measure of the life he lives. — He must face the hour which approaches him, the biographical and historical hour, just as it is, in its whole world content and apparently senseless contradiction, without weakening the impact of otherness in it. He must hear the message, stark and un-transfigured, which is delivered to him out of this hour, presented by this situation as it arrives. — Nor must he translate for himself its wild and crude profaneness into the chastely religious: he must recognize that the question put to him, with which the speech of the situation is fraught—whether it sounds with angels’ or with devils’ tongues—remains God’s question to him, of course without the devils thereby being turned into angels. It is a question wondrously tuned in the wild crude sound. — And he, the Single One, must answer, by what he does and does not do, he must accept and answer for the hour, the hour of the world, of all the world, as that which is given to him, entrusted to him. Reduction is forbidden; you are not at liberty to select what suits you, the whole cruel hour is at stake, the whole claims you, and you must answer — Him. You must hear the claim, however unharmoniously it strikes your ear—and let no-one interfere; give the answer from the depths, where a breath of what has been breathed in still hovers—and let no-one prompt you. This arch-command, for whose sake the Bible makes its God speak from the very time of creation, defines anew, when it is heard, the relation of the Single One to his community. The human person belongs, whether he wants to acknowledge it and take it seriously or not, to the community in which he is born or which he has happened to get into. But he who has realized what destiny means, even if it looks like doom, and what being placed there means, even if it looks like being misplaced, knows too that he must acknowledge it and take it seriously. But then, precisely then, he notes that true membership of a community includes the experience, which changes in many ways, and which can never be definitively formulated, of the boundary of this membership. If the Single One, true to the historico–biographical hour, perceives the word, if he grasps the situation of his people, his own situation, as a sign and demand upon him, if he does not spare himself and his community before God, then he experiences the boundary. He experiences it in such agony as if the boundary-post had pierced his soul. The Single One, the man living in responsibility, can carry out his political actions as well—and of course omissions are also actions—only from that ground of his being to which the claim of the fearful and kind God, the Lord of history and our Lord, wishes to penetrate.” 2 Reduction is forbidden...the whole cruel hour is at stake...and you must answer Him (God as Mystery)... 1. Martin Buber: The Hidden Dialogue by Dan Avon Twentieth Century Political Thinkers — 20th Century Political Thinkers Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. (May 19, 1998) Page 161 2. Between Man and Man by Martin Buber Publisher: The MacMillan Co. (1964, 1978) Routledge Classics eBook (2003) Pages 76 – 83 Between Man and Man by Martin BuberWE STARTED We started in the rumble seat of your friend's car. On a hot August night When you were twenty and I was nineteen. We had not tested life or traveled the hard road. I didn't know about you and you didn't know about me When fate stepped in and decided our destiny. The sign of our time were young people of our age. Starting out to restore what a war had taken and destroyed. We were young with passion in our eyes And small change in our pockets. We hadn't heard of charge cards Or jet planes or mortgages or split-level homes. We were in love, life was all new And we were just beginning. Edna Katharine Meinert–Starbuck July 12, 1990 SLOW LAZY LOVE I like that long slow lazy love We once had. It lay there just under the surface. It was in your eyes when you came in the door, Or across a room filled with people. On the drive home from a movie When you would touch my face With your fingertips. That long slow lazy love It grows because we have been together. — Edna Katharine Meinert–Starbuck
Saint Julian Press, Inc. © 2018 7/1/2020 TEA PARTY RELIGION – Edna StarbuckTEA PARTY RELIGIONHere I go again lord, "Tea Party Religion," I wonder just how the church has survived as long — as it has. Real life is no party. Real life is reaching out for something inside us. Real life is hurting, hating, loving, wanting waiting, forgiving, accepting. Not little cakes or cookies we can hold in our finger tips. Tea Party Religion I don't feel like my life is real, Lord I feel like it's a cover up. I am the way I am because people expect me to be this way. I would like to say, “who needs it,” break away, run. Tea Party Religion Some days are worse than others, But I put on my face and go. I can't cover my eyes though. If anyone ever really looked at me, they could see. I wonder why I let them use me like this. Is it because I see this same — image Not just in myself but in others. Tea Party Religion — with the little finger sticking out. Must be careful now; don't stick out anything more, Just couldn't get involved; who needs to get involved, There's even a time limit on it; 9 to 12 – 2 to 4 – 7 to 9. When all the while — it's already too late. My chance has passed by — I'm caught I don't want to be caught, I fight it Inside that is. No one knows. I want to be free. Help me to be free Lord, inside. Tea Party Religion — Edna Katharine Meinert–Starbuck
Saint Julian Press, Inc. © 2018 RESURRECTION On a dark spring afternoon In the rising wind and rain of a precedent storm Men walking by, stopped, and read the sign, Nodded their heads in approval and went on. One jokingly saying, “A job well done, —that one will bother us no more.” Not knowing God's love cannot be put to death on a cross. This is why we have Good Friday then Easter. DARKNESS It’s so dark in here Lord. I can't see what's going on, Can you? Can't you do something about it? Can't you turn on the light? But that's crazy. I know you've tried. I know the darkness bothers you too. I know the closed doors bother you. I know, Because you've been standing outside so long Just outside. Waiting. Wanting just one small opening. It doesn't take much of Your light And we can begin to see. Why are the minds of men so dark? And — hard to get into? CASSIE & ME I didn't see it coming The leaving I mean I was caught up in the todays I so enjoyed the times with her The two of us We baked the cookies, Walked to the store, A visit with a neighbor. Watched the mourning dove build its nest and hatch its young She would get so excited When she saw the little heads Come up out of the nest Each day brought a new flower a new joy No, I didn't see it coming I was too busy Watching Cassie grow — Edna Katharine Meinert–Starbuck
Saint Julian Press, Inc. © 2018 6/21/2020 BE RECONCILED WITH ONE ANOTHERBE RECONCILED WITH ONE ANOTHERThere is Something About Being An Episcopalian
BE RECONCILED WITH ONE ANOTHER
—AS we grieve for so many African Americans who have died violently and still endure a systemic oppression that has lasted centuries. Please take a moment to think about these thoughts in the context of a more profound racial reconciliation that asks us as a people of faith to approach this dialogue with a greater sense of commitment and compassion. In which, we are called every day into a new and renewing relationship with one another by God. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr. That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.” —John 17:21 “There is something more important than dividing a church or a nation into conservatives and liberals. We must be both. We must conserve and liberate at the same time. We can never severe our ties from that part of history, which belongs to us.” — Robert P. Starbuck, PhD, MDiv, In My Father’s House Are Many Mansions (Saint Julian Press, Inc. November 1, 2018) Indeed, we live in a “network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” No matter where we may be on our journey in life. As Christians, we are reconciled through Chris. The Holy Spirit dwells within us each. We live in this spirit of reconciliation. Indeed, the Holy Spirit is actively at work within the world and within us, teaching us to be as one, to be in union with the divine and one another, across all of humanity. Just as the Holy Spirit is calling us as Christians to be involved in Social Justice, and the critical social justice issues of our time. “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” —John 14:26-27 We are one people, created by God, we live within the world and within in this “network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” Do not let your hearts be troubled, do not be afraid. This beautiful concept of Unity and Non-Duality compliments one another intimately. Unity and Non-Duality are spiritual concepts found in Christian scripture, in all the great core religions and wisdom traditions of humanity and human history, in myth and metaphor, in storytelling, and most especially in poetry. All sacred scriptures are poetry. Imagine the literature found in all the books of the Bible, the literature of all faiths, as sacred poetry—Spiritual Poetry. Imagine scripture as a type of software program we are using to program our minds; the Spirit-Soul operating system, the Divine Core Language of Creation (DCLC) perhaps, with many variations or versions. If Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the WORD, the Incarnate Word of God, we must also come to realize that our words, spoken or written to one another matter a great deal. What we say and how we say it matters, because it shapes the reality that arises within our communities and across any society. Our thoughts and words spoken out loud become litanies, even when, especially when we speak or misspeak thoughtlessly and incompletely, or with intentional deceit. As believers, this makes a mockery of the WORD, dwelling within us each, binding us together as God’s people, and the sacramental spiritual practices we follow. We betray that heritage as a people of faith when we misspeak or misuse language or the Word of God, and in doing so dismiss the suffering of others within the world. We forget, who we are and ought to be as God’s people. We must remember, as in the word —Remembrance, that our sacramental spiritual practices (praxis): liturgy, ritual, prayer, and meditation are an extension of the Holy Spirit working within the world. Such practices and participation in a sacred community are helping us to grow spiritually, programing our mind —reconciling us with one another and renewing us as a people. And they are marked by an outward and visible sign, and an inward and spiritual grace in union with Christ and new life in the Holy Spirit. For many traditional Christians, these sacramental practices center on the celebration of the Eucharist & Great Thanksgiving (Holy Communion), Holy Baptism, Confirmation, Reconciliation & Forgiveness, Healing & Unction, Liturgy & Prayer —literally the work of the people, Marriage & Ordination, and participation in a sacred community of faith, seeing God working within and all around us. We hold these things to be sacred and life affirming, just as we are asked to hold each other as sacred and affirm one another’s life. We fail to do this when injustice is allowed to reign within the world or across our communities. We fail to do this by not seeing these injustice and continue to do nothing. “Lord, forgive us for what we do not do.” “Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.” —The Book of Common Prayer According to the use of The Episcopal Church. One of the many reasons I love being an Episcopalian—Anglican, is the liturgy we use is poetry. The writing is inspired. It is both spiritual and poetic in nature; it has a literary quality and uses symbolic imagery, which are an invocation to the Holy Spirit. Reading or listening to inspired poetry is a sacramental experience, in this sense, it is similar to the Eucharist, where we receive the body and blood of Christ, the Logos, Christ as the Word. God's sacred Word, Christ as the Logos, the Trinity, as well as the words we hear and pray as liturgies are absorbed into our being, they are what we are becoming, a more Christlike future self. Except there is no time, time is an abstraction, and God is a Verb. God is Spirit and Love; God is eternal loving-kindness working within the world. Here are the Eternal Now and the Reign of God that are both imminent and infinitely present; where God is found here and now, and known in this moment. This future self already is, since God's love is eternally transforming and boundless, without end. This spiritually whole, and holy reconciled, part of us, exists now. It is God's Spirit reaching within us to lead us forward, to discover the fullness of our own humanity. The Holy Spirt dwells within us and is an intimate part of our whole being, moving within us and across all creation. It is a Mystery. We know this, it is written within us, it is part of God’s universal plan. And the close connection our Spirit-Soul has, an eternal one, to the Divine Ultimate Mystery of God, knows this at the deepest levels of the soul-spirit-self-mind, —our full spiritual consciousness. In a subtle divine memory that flows and moves throughout our whole being. In Christian theology, we speak of Christ as being both fully human and fully divine. Christianity has celebrated this divine aspect for over two thousand years. What has been so often, not understood or celebrated as clearly, is the human side of this equation, this dance, this Perichoresis, and living in the fullness of our humanity and living a more abundant spiritual life. Perichoresis, is an ancient term in Christian theology, which refers to the indwelling of the Trinity, of how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are intimately connected within their unity as one that there is an indwelling between them all. And that this indwelling is shared with us, in and through Christ, in the Paschal Mystery of Christ as the Incarnate Word, the Word Made Flesh. Our presence on this earth, in this reality, is no accident; it is a gift. We are here to learn and, in many cases, to teach or help one another, to love one another in our fragile common humanity, to heal the world, to create heaven on earth. When we take time to pay attention, it is a blessing. It is a blessing to see how God, the Divine Ultimate Mystery is calling us into a relationship with one another. When we stop judging one another so quickly, and start loving one another in the frailness and vulnerability of our humanity, this is a blessing. And in the end, invoking our human nature to love, and to come through with grace and graciousness. Indeed, embracing the fullness of God's love for everyone, is an intimate part of our faith and practice. Being gracious and accepting of others, especially those whom we may not fully understand or appreciate is how we work through our human diversity and come to know and be known. In his interfaith dialogue book titled, Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian, in writing about Thich Nhat Hanh’s idea of “interbeing,” pluralist theologian Paul F. Knitter tells us that understanding God through relationships is critical and that the source and power of our relationships are driven by the presence of the “Holy Spirit.” Ephphatha, be opened —in the words of Christ, uttered by Christ when healing the man who was deaf and dumb ( Mark 7:34 ). Be opened to the Holy Spirit at work. There is and can be no exclusion of others here. Our lives unfold and happen for a reason. God has prepared and repaired our hearts for this moment in time, this moment of reconciliation, normalization, and acceptance. A moment where we are completely open to one another, just as we are, as who we are now, as God has touched and helped us to form the life we live and hope to live. The importance of this concept is summarized by this: “behind and within all the different images and symbols, Christians use for God—The Creator, Father (Abba), Redeemer, Word, Spirit, the most fundamental, the deepest truth Christians can speak of God is that God is the source and power of relationships.” This is true across any sacred community or faith where the Spirit, unseen and invisible, is moving in and with and through all of humankind, calling us into a relationship with one another, even across faiths, across all of humanity. There have been many times in my journey when I have known this, where I feel the Spirit actively at work in all of our relationships, and in this process opening up new relationships. Another way to view this, as Paul Knitter explained to me once in a conversation, is that in meditation, Buddhism asks us “to let go of all concepts, and to let go, and open ourselves radically and utterly to the present moment, and in the trust, this moment contains all we need.” “This setting aside of words and imagery and opening oneself to what St. Paul calls God as Spirit, letting that Spirit make itself (or herself or himself) felt within us, grow within us, to lead us.” It is ultimately a process of letting God be God, of being itself, and then living abundantly into the promise of our life, where we are truly given all that we need. We find this idea beautifully expressed in these two scriptures from the Gospel of John, and the book of Romans. “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” --John 14:26-27 “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” --Romans 8:26-27 IN this spirit of deep understanding, in how we are intimately interconnected with one another now, these words bear repeating. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr.
Take some time please to listen to and explore these thoughts from the Ninth Bishop of Texas, C. Andrew Doyle.
The Bishop of Texas
4/20/2020 A REMEMBRANCE IN AMERICAA REMEMBRANCE IN AMERICAThe answers run deep they have not changed since I was a child, but I have changed across all the years I am older now, and my father, now more than the memories left dwelling within me taught us that we must ask the right questions in life to reveal whatever truth is seeking its place within the world I am sitting in a church pew listening to his voice, speaking out as an affirmation of life and as a prophet, in a prophetic voice in the voice of Amos or Hosea we are more than we know if only we could see one another more clearly, there are too many people speaking their own harsh truths today and falsehoods run riot across the landscape of an America we thought we knew, and now don’t recognize in the rhetoric of these times we have forgotten what we once knew, or chosen to forget our own history the revisionists want to win and it is up to us to stop them this is the truth of Christ he both conserved and liberated at the same time to challenge the powers that be, and what followed was the crucifixion it does not end there of course what we have forgotten, what we are forgetting is that on Easter morning there was a resurrection and once you know and see this your whole worldview changes it changes forever, we must each walk the road to Emmaus and break bread with one another we are not our deepest fears or enmity we are not the hostility and hate we fear we are something more found not in the flesh but in the Spirit flowing within praying in and with and through us even when we have forgotten how to pray on our own this is what we must remember and celebrate in our remembrance of Christ celebrating Easter everywhere Ron Starbuck © 2020 from New Poems
4/12/2020 On the Third MorningON THE THIRD MORNINGOn the Third Morning John 20: 1-18 and Luke 24:1-12 On the third morning The women came first, Somehow knowing in their wisdom As women often do! Anxious with sorrow, Walking in the stillness of night Just before dawn And the movement of day. They came, Looking for their Lord. Where they found the stone turned, Rolled from His tomb. Their Lord’s body gone, Taken away! Two disciples came later, to learn That this was more than an “idle tale,” Of women, unbelieved. When entering the tomb, they too saw The linens that once wrapped His body, Lying where he was laid. Then Returned home in amazement, Not recalling the scriptures Or the words of Jesus, Even the one whom he most loved. While Mary stayed, weeping outside, to See angels sitting in the tomb Where once her Lord’s body lay. Jesus speaks, calling Mary by name after asking; “Woman, why do you weep? Whom do you seek? The living are not Among the dead.” She sees him now, Rabbouni, her teacher, Moving to embrace him, at last knowing his face and voice. He says; “Hold me not, for I must ascend to my Father. Go, and tell my brothers, what you have seen and heard.” He has Risen, He has Risen! He has risen from the places of the dead and dying, He has risen from the solitude of the tomb. He has Risen, to his Father and our Father. He has Risen, to his God and our God. Hallelujah, Christ is Risen! Let us rise as well, above the noises and distractions of life to understand that God calls us too to death and resurrection. Calling us to die immeasurable times; To die daily in ourselves. Let there be a death to our egos and selfishness, A death to our poverty of spirit and faithlessness, A death to doubt, hopelessness, and sorrow, A death to grief where grief can no longer be borne, A death to intolerance and “the wish to kill,” A death to violence and war, and fearful hearts, A death to abused and unloved hearts. Let there be a death to it all! Let the illusion and suffering of life be washed away by the Passion of Christ, creating in us the mind of Christ! So that we me may join with Him In many Resurrections, Let there be Resurrections upon Resurrections One after another and another, let there be resurrections without end. Ron Starbuck © 2016 from — There Is Something About Being An Episcopalian. He, Qi. Empty Tomb, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=46107 [retrieved March 26, 2016]. Original source: heqigallery.com. THE VOYAGERS —by Ruth Comfort Mitchell, is a new Saint Julian Press poetry reading podcast. This is a poem which my father recited often when I was child and used in some of his sermons.
#nationalpoetrymonth 3/21/2020 ON A NEW MORNING by Ron StarbuckON A NEW MORNING The sun rose. And afterwards, As before, it set. And repeated this sequence, as a Cycle of life. We did not cherish its light or warmth Often enough. And then it was gone. Too frequently, we were inattentive or Simply held the world at a distance. Away from the affections of our own Hearts, away from one another. Today, time has slowed, and a stillness has Descended upon the earth. As if, things not yet seen, have suddenly been Revealed in an ecstasy of anguish. Something new, beyond agony, has entered our sight And step by step the world transforms itself. On morning walks, even in our self-imposed Separation, we find some reassurance. In a neighbor’s presence, a tentative glance, A simple acknowledgment becomes a benediction. Even the mockingbirds are singing new songs, Ones we never heard before, listen. Hidden in the bright melodies, angels call out Our name. This too, is a blessing. Ron Starbuck
Copyright © 2020 3/17/2020 A Poet's WorkA POET'S WORK
The Literature & Poetry of Faith ~ The Paschal Mysterythere is something old and new at work within the world temporal and eternal undying, and yet fragile worldly, and everlasting a Word, made flesh a thought given form a form, which is formless, a Spirit unseen and invisible which is known through love intimately sought as a grace freely given a first born child, who is both human and divine a reconciliation made real in heaven and here upon the earth an indwelling a resurrection of the flesh and a healing of the soul Ron Starbuck © 2016 From ~ Alternative Forms of the Great Thanksgiving Eucharistic Prayer B ~ Episcopal Book of Common Prayer "At your command all things came to be: the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses, and this fragile earth, our island home. By your will they were created and have their being. From the primal elements you brought forth the human race, and blessed us with memory, reason, and skill. You made us the rulers of creation. But we turned against you, and betrayed your trust; and we turned against one another. Have mercy, Lord, for we are sinners in your sight. Again and again, you called us to return. Through prophets and sages you revealed your righteous Law. And in the fullness of time you sent your only Son, born of a woman, to fulfill your Law, to open for us the way of freedom and peace. By his blood, he reconciled us. By his wounds, we are healed." 3/17/2020 Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 ~ PodcastSonnet XVIIIShall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed, And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed: But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st, Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st, So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Road to Big Bend National Park
Confessions of a Cowboy Christian and Practicing Buddhist
Beyond miles and miles of Sonoran and Chihuahuan desert
Criss-crossing the Southwest and Northern Mexico, Where local folks know how to stand, tall in the saddle, as they say Across a landscape that seems to go nigh on to forever Even beyond the Boundlessness of you, O God, Here imaginations may touch the beauty of all creation And horizons meet the very edge of eternity. Here you may see beyond all boundaries From Terlingua to Tucson, Marfa to Manhattan, Edna to El Paso Across vistas of high desert plains, Mountains, valleys, arroyos, Streams and rivers merging together. Where fingers of saguaro cactus Point upwards in prayer, While honey and velvet mesquite, Whitethorn acacia, Althorn, ocotillo, lechugilla, Agave and creosote bush Bow with grace when touched by the breath of God traveling on windblown currents. O Lord, let such a landscape echo back Through each of us, Expanding our sight, to become a vision That comes to see heaven reflected Through your divine made eyes. May such a vision arise in us all As it did for Christ and the Buddha To echo, again and again As we view heaven Through divine made eyes. Ron Starbuck Copyright 2010 and 2020
Heaven Nirvana Sunyata Groundlessness Openness
"Might be imagined as a process, indeed the process itself by which in which and through which everything has its being." Chapter 1, Nirvana and God the Transcendent Other from Without Buddha I Could not be a Christian by theologian Paul F. Knitter. The world arises around us through our relationships across all of creation, we do not exist alone. In his book, Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian, in writing about Thich Nhat Hanh and his thoughts on inter-being, Paul F. Knitter tells us that understanding God through relationships is critical and that the source and power of our relationships is driven by the presence of the Holy Spirit. The importance of this concept is summarized by this: "behind and within all the different images and symbols, Christians use for God: Creator, Father (Abba), Redeemer, Word, Spirit, the most fundamental, the deepest truth Christians can speak of God is that God is the source and power of relationships." Another way to view this, as Paul Knitter explained to me once in a conversation, is that in meditation Buddhism asks us "to let go of all concepts, and to let go and open ourselves radically and utterly to the present moment, and in the trust that this present moment contains all that I need. This is a setting aside of words and imagery and opening oneself to what St. Paul calls God as Spirit, letting that Spirit make itself (or herself or himself) felt within us, grow within us, to lead us." We find this idea beautifully expressed in these two scriptures. The Gospel of John, and in the book of Romans. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. ~ John 14:26-27 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. ~ Romans 8:26-27 There Is Something About Being An Episcopalian Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen. ~ The Episcopal Church Book of Common Prayer 1/8/2019 We Are the Plumb LineWe Are the Plumb LineAMOS 7:1-15 (NRSV)
7 This is what he showed me: the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. 8 And the Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said, “See, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel; I will never again pass them by; 9 the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.” 10 Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent to King Jeroboam of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the very center of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words. 11 For thus Amos has said, ‘Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel must go into exile away from his land.’” 12 And Amaziah said to Amos, “O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there; 13 but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.” 14 Then Amos answered Amaziah, “I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees, 15 and the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ We are reminded in the book of Amos, of who God loves within the world. God chose Israel for a special task, indeed; God places a great responsibility on the Hebrew people to enact God’s justice and righteousness within the world. God also places them on the same level as all other nations and judges any behavior, to the contrary, harshly. For God, is the God of all nations, and God seeks justice and righteousness among the people of all nations. God is calling into question the behavior and policies of Israel. There is a symbolic and literary metaphor at work here in this holy scripture. America today in the truest sense we can imagine is ancient Israel in the time of Amos, as a nation, we are chosen to enact God's mercy, compassion, justice, and righteousness. Our responsibilities for this enactment and action are part of our core values and mission as a nation and people. Since the end of World War II, and the horrific holocaust witnessed durning that wartime, it has been seen and known as a sacred calling. It is a calling embedded in our traditional "Judaeo–Christian" or "Abrahamic Faiths" — ideals and vision as a liberal democracy. We find these same values at work in many other world faiths, which are now a part of a diverse landscape we share and live in together across America. Amos and other prophets view Israel as hostile towards God, whenever Israel is guilty of injustice to the innocent, the poor, the sick, and the young. And the disenfranchised and dispossessed people of the nation and of the world. God is not only holding Israel and America to this standard, but all the nations of the world. Amos lived in the first half of the eighth century BC. He was a herdsman and a trimmer of sycamore trees. He was a simple man, living a simple life. And yet, God calls him to be a prophet and to announce a judgement on the people of Israel. God’s judgement falls upon the rich and the spoiled of every nation, those who willfully refuse to hear the cry of God’s people across all the nations of the world. In the Book of Amos, God’s judgement falls upon the political leadership and wealthy people of Israel for both the oppression of the poor and their support of idolatry and injustice. In a 21st Century Post-Truth world, how humankind and the nations of the world imitate this behavior today is a key question we must ask ourselves. Idolatry may come in many forms; our ideologies become idols when we ignore and oppress who God loves within the world. Our political divisions, our tribalism, our social judgements and perspectives and actions that harm others can be idolatrous. Because they prevent us, from enacting God’s love and compassion, helping to create the “Reign or Kingdom of God” within the world. MATTHEW 25:31-46 (NIV) In chapter 25 of the Gospel of Matthew, we find another scripture that touches on this same theme, the parable of the sheep and goats. It is important to read these passages as a rule and guide to how we should treat one another and the strangers we encounter in life or at our national borders. In a Post-Truth world, this is true not only for us individually, but collectively too, certainly within our own communities, but also as a society and as a nation. We should hold ourselves, as well as our political and global leaders accountable. They need our perspective. In many ways we are the “Plumb Line” in the midst of God’s people. So much is up to us, since as democracies, we may help select this leadership. The Sheep and the Goats 31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. 34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ 37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ 40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ 41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ 44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ 45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ 46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” Sycamore Tree Photo © 2018 - Saint Julian Press, Inc. 12/16/2018 An Introduction to A White Colt's TaleAn Introduction to A White Colt's TaleA Theological Introduction Our family is a family of readers. Our love for reading began at a young age with stories told from the Bible. In our home and at church, we were taught and encouraged to engage our imaginations through Children’s Bible stories. We first learned of God’s love and the diversity of creation through storytelling. We learned to see these stories as a way of renewal, redemption, reconciliation, forgiveness, salvation, spiritual insight and formation. They became for us a way of living, a way of being and transformation. As an ageless and sacramental story, A White Colt’s Tale, offers children and adults a hopeful message. One which is about the power of love to heal and transform the world through our friendships with one another, and the mystery and grace of God. The story of Jesus and Manuelo’s friendship, is our story too. Their story acts as an invocation of the Holy Spirit; however, you may see the Spirit at work in your own life and friendships. It honors all the relationships and friendships that move through our lives. Theologian Paul F. Knitter, who was the Paul Tillich Professor of Theology, World Religions and Culture at Union Theological Seminary, NYC, tells us that understanding God through relationships is critical. And that the source and power of our relationships and friendships are driven by the presence of the Holy Spirit. “What Christians have seen in Jesus of Nazareth is a God who creates and is present to the world through relationships, the same kind of relationships that we say exist in the very nature of God: relationships of knowing, of giving, of loving that bring forth ever more life and existence. Behind and within all the different images and symbols Christians may use for God – Creator, Father, Redeemer, Word, Spirit – the most fundamental, the deepest truth Christians can speak of God is that God is the source and power of relationships. That sounds abstract. But it’s not. It’s the most basic, and the simplest, thing we can say about ourselves and about God: we exist through relationships of knowing and loving and giving because that’s how God exists. To experience and believe in a Trinitarian God is to experience and believe in a God who is not, as Tillich would say, the Ground of Being, but the Ground of InterBeing. God is the activity of giving and receiving, of knowing and loving, of losing and finding, of dying and living that embraces and infuses all of us, all of creation.” 1 The story of Manuelo and Jesus is timeless. Their devotion to one another helps us to see something beyond ourselves actively at work within the world. In the Christian vocabulary that I learned to love as a child, the power of the “Holy Spirit” calls us into a relationship with one another. These are the interconnections and celestial quantum entanglements at play in our relationships across all creation. God as a Verb. God is InterBeing. God is an intimate part of our Being or InterBeing. In Paul Knitter’s thought — “God is the field – of InterBeing – within which, as we read in the New Testament, “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). — Or, from the divine perspective, there is “one God above all things, through all things, and in all things” (Eph. 4:6).” 2 Here we may encounter the greater — Mysteries & Graces of God — dwelling and resting within all humanity. They flow in and with and through us and arise from our relationships with one another. We do not need to name them by the words of any solitary faith. Here we may celebrate the love and compassion that flows through all human faiths, unveiled and revealed in our sacred stories and scriptures. For there is a season and a time to everything under heaven. Ecclesiastes 3 (KJV) To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace. 1 John 4:16 (NRSV) So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. 1 Corinthians 13 (NRSV) When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.
The concept of InterBeing referenced by Paul Knitter, comes from — The Heart of Understanding: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra – by Thich Nhat Hanh, where he covers Buddhist ideas on Śūnyatā – Emptiness – InterBeing – Dependent Arising or Origination. As a theologian, Paul Knitter, sees a similar parallel at play in these verses from the book of Acts and Ephesians. Acts 17:28-29 (NRSV) For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’ Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. Ephesians 4:4-6 (NRSV) There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. In the Anglican Communion — Christian tradition, sacraments are seen as “outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace.” The Sacraments — The Episcopal Church Book of Common Prayer — An Outline of the Faith (Page 845)
Whenever we engage in an interfaith dialogue one of the first things we must do is to learn and appreciate the vocabulary of that faith. When you consider all our words and images about God, the Divine, or the Presence of a Greater Mystery, such images are "formed by the art and imaginations of mortals." These images arise from our interactions and relationships within creation itself, going back to the beginning of humankind. Human beings are seekers, we seek to understand the greatest mysteries of creation through the pursuit of faith, traditions, spiritual formation and practice (praxis), scripture, liturgy, literature, poetry, truth, reason, knowledge, and science. Scientific studies have shown that wellness, healing, and positive medical outcomes are intimately entangled with our spiritual life, wholeness and holiness are complimentary. Many Blessings, Ron Starbuck Publisher/CEO Saint Julian Press The Book of Common Prayer — An Outline of the Faith
|
eBook
|
Print
|
The Last Disclosure ~ The Sixteenth Revelation
The Last Disclosure ~ The Sixteenth Revelation
A new translation by Ron Starbuck
Dedicated to Edna Katharina Meinert – Starbuck
our eyes shall suddenly open
and within this clarity of sight
uncluttered by yearning
our vision fully transformed
our hope made full – our desires silent
in the mystery of creation
where – God as spirit
where – God as truth
leads us towards enlightenment
and knowledge
where – Christ
as noble teacher
reveals creation’s light
in this light we will see
and understand that
faith and compassion
are our radiances in the
darkness of night: the light
which is God, our everlasting day
God is the ground of our beseeching
And of our being and becoming
Love is her meaning – Love without end
and all shall be well, and all shall be well,
and all manner of thing shall be well
51 Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, 52 in a
moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the
dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put
on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 When this perishable
body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is
written will be fulfilled:
“Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
55 “Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”
7/31/2018
RADICAL AMAZEMENT – Acts 17:28
RADICAL AMAZEMENT – Acts 17:28
This is how it begins
With a single breathe
Followed by another
You can see the world
As it really is, if
You will only look
It is the Glory of God
Reflected in and with and through
All living things – through you
This is not a mystery
It is not even a miracle
It is simply what is – creation
It is seeing clearly
As if for the first time
Through the eyes of a child
You are that child
Who knows intuitively
Who they are, and
Where they come from
God is more than we may imagine
God is the one radiance
That pervades all things
Of all faiths – the one in whom
We live and move
And have our being
Ron Starbuck © 2018
Hubble Telescope Photograph: http://sci.esa.int/hubble/36356-hubble-finds-infant-stars-in-neighbouring-galaxy/
"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 has come 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."
How poetic, beyond all our thoughts and words there is something more, something full of mystery. Take a moment please and think of the Gospel of John, where it is written.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.” Indeed, think about how God brought creation into existence, how God created your life and my life.
Genesis 1:1-3 (KJV) - In the Beginning
Before there was creation itself, there was a wordless nothingness, an openness waiting to be filled, a formless void.
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, 'Let there be light, and there was light”.
And creation was formed out of the formless void, and there with God in this moment of creation, in the beginning of all things, was the Eternal Word, perhaps born from a single desire and thought of God.
"In the beginning was the Word.”
As a person of any faith, have you ever thought of how your own relationship with creation is grounded in the Word or words, in poetic symbols and metaphors. And how your life arises in and through all your relationships, with all creation?
How words from any culture and sacred tradition form your concept of reality and construct your world. And that words, like sutras, bind the family of humankind together. When we take time to dwell on our relationships, even those beyond our immediate family and friends, we begin to see how life arises from these many interconnections. Words - Concepts - Images - Symbols - Metaphors.
Can you begin to imagine how you have touched my life, even if we have never met or spoken? Can you begin to imagine how you have touched the lives of other people too, and will continue to touch them?
This is how powerful relationships are in the world. This is the Word, the Holy Spirit, actively at work within the world. And then imagine, please, how our own thoughts become words of our own, shaping our world, shaping our lives, our communities, our reality.
We are all interconnected, perhaps even more so now, as we listen and come to know one another within any sacred community, as we listen to or even read each other’s words. Words have a life of their own, they shape our lives, and they interconnect us in marvelous ways.
This is why writers love to write and use words to express themselves, it is why people love poetry, good plays, a compelling novel or story, or any appreciable writing in which we form a connection with one another.
In Buddhism, this concept of our interconnectedness with life, all life, reality itself, out of which our lives arise, is called Dependent Origination or Dependent Arising, Pratītyasamutpāda in Sanskrit.
Dependent Arising is hard to wrap your mind around, unless you know and have the right vocabulary, unless you have devoted time and energy to understanding Buddhism's beautifully symbolic and complex language, its words.
For now, let’s simply say that it is a reality of shared interdependence and one that tells us, we are intimately interconnected to everything else in life, with one another, with all of creation. The Buddhist monk and teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, calls this concept interbeing, in his book, The Heart of Understanding, where he teaches that “To be” is to inter-be, and that “we cannot be alone, exist alone without anything else.”
In the Christian tradition, there is a remarkably similar and beautiful concept, it is found in a marvelous Greek word used by the early church fathers and mothers, to describe the mystery of the Trinity. It is the word, Perichoresis (peri-kor-es-is).
Perichoresis is an ancient term in Christian theology, which refers to the indwelling of the Trinity, of how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are so intimately connected within their unity as one that there is an indwelling between them all. And that this indwelling is shared with us, in and through Christ, in the Paschal Mystery of Christ as the Incarnate Word, the Word Made Flesh.
How poetic, since not one of us can imagine living without words, living a life without words in some form. It is a metaphor that points us towards the deeper mystery of creation, of the divine.
Let me go back, please to the wordless beginning of things, ultimate reality perhaps, to the Buddhist concept of Śūnyatā–Nirvana, emptiness, or rather the openness of creation that is ever changing and expanding. Endless, Worlds Without End, to use a poetic image.
I’m struggling for a clear image or a metaphor to use in this dialogue, and it’s hard for me to find one. This is why I love to write poetry, because poetry for me is a transformational and transcending language.
Perhaps it would help, as Christ or a Tibetan or Zen Master might, to have you visualize the emptiness or openness of an empty cup. The space that can be filled at any time, by anyone, by you, by God. This space, this openness, can be seen as the pure and infinite potential of all eternity, out of which all reality arises in an open universe of infinite possibilities, or even of a given intimate moment within eternity.
Now in this present moment, in these words, even in the spaces between each word. You may also visualize it as an empty cup, a cup that is ready to receive the new wine of life or hot jasmine tea.
What I’m trying to say, with all these words, is that sometimes we simply need to let go of all our words, all our images, all our thoughts, even becoming lost for a while. Becoming lost can be a goodly thing, a needful thing.
Because in doing so, we can develop a whole new language, and new images, like an artist, does when they are creating, be it a new symphony, improvisational jazz, a beautiful painting, a poem, a play, or a photograph that takes your breath away and leaves you speechless.
I love that feeling of speechlessness, of emptiness, of being empty and ready to receive the next new thing. The secret I think is in understanding that each moment is the next new thing. It is a moment that is open and full of infinite potential, a newness that is born out of every moment.
I love the dialog we may find within any sacred community, and the many gifts it brings us to discover such moments, to discover the newness of a moment, and to discover a new meaning in life within one another, new words even. Words that arise from a single point of emptiness and words that help us to shape the life we live into a new language, a new life.
Words that help us to breathe together as one body, with one breath, in one spirit. There is something truly sacramental and spirit driven, inspired, by such a dialog, by such relationships. It is an indwelling where we learn to dwell within one another.
Perichoresis.
I'm thinking of Jesus now and the words we hear him say in John 10:10; "I came that they might have life, and have it more abundantly.”
And I'm thinking how much your life enriches my own life; how we enrich one another in our lives that arise within and out of one another. In a life that God has given to us each and that arises out of the mystery we find within creation.
I just want us to realize this fully, to appreciate it fully, and know fully that we are all a part of that gift too, and to be grateful for the sacramental moments we share together, where we come to know and be fully known by God, where we come to be blest. Where through a greater understanding of how our life arises from our many relationships, we are living a blessed life.
The Buddha would certainly agree with all this, in a sheer Buddhist enlightenment and wakefulness practicing sort of way. Practicing this way, this journey — this celebration of life in a marvelous divine dance, a perichoresis.
Many Blessings,
Ron Starbuck
Saint Julian Press, Inc. © 2014 and © 2018-2019
As human beings we are constantly changing from one thought to another, therefore who I may think I am in any given moment is being changed and transformed from one moment to the next.
In some forms of Buddhism they express this as three minds or even as a form of stored consciousness.
The Tibetan Buddhist view defines it as: very subtle mind, which does NOT dissolve in death; subtle mind, which does dissolve in death and which refers to a "dreaming mind" or "unconscious mind"; and gross mind, which does not exist when one is sleeping.
States of Consciousness or Something More?
The gross mind is less permanent than the subtle mind, which does not exist in death. Still, the very subtle mind, does continue, there is a subtle memory at play here. One that will encounter and "catch on" to life again.
Then we begin to see a new subtle mind or entity emerge. One that will in time develop its own personality, and that entity, the soul or psyche, experiences a new life or karma in a new time or current continuum.
Sometimes we can get tripped up by our own vocabulary or lack of vocabulary. Our concept of "I" or "Me" actually changes all the time, based on our own life experiences. And other faiths may use a different description or concept of the soul, than what we are used to hearing.
We are constantly changing and growing, and out of this constant change or impermanence a new self is constantly arising in relationship with everything else around it. A new being is continuous arising from the being that was before, from your own consciousness. And there is a continuity that continues on and moves into the future, inside and outside of time.
In Jewish thought there are several different names or concepts of the soul-spirit; נפש nephesh (literally "living being"), רוח ruach (literally "wind"), נשמה neshama (literally "breath"), חיה chaya (literally "life") and יחידה yechidah (literally "singularity") are used to describe the soul or spirit.
The People of God, across all cultures and civilizations, are a diverse people. We are still one people, one race, the human race. It is important to take time to understand one another in this context. In an historic and cultural context out of which our languages, vocabulary, and faiths arise.
Life - Reality - Transformation – Resurrection – Rebirth - New Being - It Happens!
The point is, it is happening now, all the time, and it's a Mystery that we cannot always name.
I am remembering now, two of my favorite scriptures from the New Testament; ones I have always found to be full of mystery and great comfort.
New Revised Standard Version, Anglicized (NRSVA)
1 John 4:16: God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.
1 Corinthians 13
8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.
So, as a Buddhist-Christian or Christian-Buddhist, how am I to understand this Mystery? I'll talk about that later on, in part two, engaging in the dialogue.
The Soul
The Over-Soul by Ralph Waldo Emerson
7/26/2018
The Dialogue - Engaging in the Dialogue
How may a Christian perceive and understand the Buddhist concept of Śūnyatā – Nirvana, written of in the Heart Sutra, Mahāyāna Buddhist literature? Where the Heart Sutra teaches Śūnyatā–Nirvana, is that, which is empty of emptiness, and is that, which, points a Buddhist to an experience and union with Ultimate Truth, Ultimate Reality, as the Perfection of Wisdom. A teaching that leads a Buddhist to great wisdom and compassion.
How may we understand “emptiness is form, form is emptiness,” coming from a spiritual tradition like Christianity that is theistic?
May a Christian embrace a non-theistic approach to understanding the Divine Mystery, and still hold on to their theistic relationship with the Divine? My simple answer is, yes.
One that I have learned from Paul F. Knitter, author of Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian, as well as other writers and theologians. I believe that we may do both, understand and see the Divine through both a Buddhist and a Christian lens.
In Buddhism, emptiness points towards a concept, which tells us that our sense of self as being permanent is false and that the self we may actively identify with is empty of such permanence. Buddhism refers to this false self as not-self, or no-self, anattā (uhn-uht-tah), it is an ego clinging self that leads to suffering, misperceptions, and false projections.
Indeed, what we may think of as "oneself" is largely the ego, who is not our truest deepest self in union with the Divine Mystery, or for a Christian, in union with Christ and through Christ, in unity with the Holy Trinity. Quite often, the ego is selfish and self-centered, blind to a greater and more meaningful spiritual life.
The Buddhist concept of anattā (uhn-uht-tah) is not proclaiming that humans have no soul, as a Western mind might think of a soul. There is a soul in Buddhism, Ātman, seen as our intrinsic nature, even our Buddha nature. It is seen as a greater self, a truer self, and to find this self, they learn to let go of all concepts of the self. I know that this may sound strange to Western ears.
A Christian might think of it as the image of God within themselves, the spirit within that belongs to God, their Christlike nature, or the Holy Spirit who dwells within us each. Even in Christianity, it is taught that to find our life in Christ, we must give up the life we know and who we think we are. In this sense there is also a letting go of the self.
Matthew 10:39 (NRSV): "Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it." . . .
Luke 9:23-24 (NRSV): "Then he said to them all, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it."
Buddha In Blue by Colin Clark
http://www.artmastery.com/enlargement_blue_buddha_07.html
Publisher's Blog
RON STARBUCK is the Publisher/CEO/Executive Editor of Saint Julian Press, Inc., in Houston, Texas; a poet and writer, an Episcopalian, and author of There Is Something About Being An Episcopalian, When Angels Are Born, Wheels Turning Inward, and most recently A Pilgrimage of Churches, four rich collections of poetry, following a poet’s mythic and spiritual journey that crosses easily onto the paths of many contemplative traditions.
Archives
April 2024
March 2024
February 2024
January 2024
November 2023
May 2023
April 2023
January 2023
December 2022
November 2022
June 2022
May 2022
February 2022
October 2021
September 2021
July 2021
February 2021
December 2020
November 2020
July 2020
June 2020
April 2020
March 2020
January 2019
December 2018
October 2018
July 2018
June 2018
May 2018
December 2017
September 2017
July 2017
April 2017
March 2017
January 2017
December 2016
November 2016
October 2016
September 2016
August 2016
July 2016
June 2016
May 2016
April 2016
March 2016
February 2016
December 2015
September 2015
August 2015
July 2015
June 2015
May 2015
April 2015
February 2015
January 2015
October 2014
September 2014
May 2014
Categories
All Anglican Anglican Communion Books Buddhism Christianity Christmas Easter Episcopalian Ghost Story Interbeing Interconnections Interfaith Dialogue Jesus John Cobb Literature Mystery Nativity Paul F. Knitter Paul Knitter Poems Poetry Theology Thich Nhat Hanh Vietnam War
Web Hosting by IPOWER
|
|
As an Amazon Associate — Saint Julian Press, Inc. may earn funds from any qualifying purchases.
This arrangement does help to sustain the press and allow us to publish more books by more authors.