Reflections on Care of Mind/Care of Spirit, by Gerald G. May, M.D.
Dr. May originally wrote Care of Mind/Care of Spirit as a teaching text to enable Spiritual Directors to appreciate the psychological-spiritual aspects of persons (p. xiv). I found and underlying theme behind the psychology of the mind and the spirituality of the spirit to be the concept of divine love. May states that human spirituality is the active process of love in one’s life (p. xvi) and that the integration of psychology and spiritual insight automatically occurs for spiritual guides when the spiritual guide remains open to the Source of Love, (p. xviii).
I noticed the concept of Divine Love as crucial to the foundational premises of this book. For those called to be Spiritual Directors, we should each be given the gifts to practice the art of spiritual guidance, and freely given the love for others to help care for others’ minds and spirits. This sharing of love, sharing of eternal mystery, is the root of the art.
Ignatius asks us to give up everything to live only in the love and grace of God. This is self-giving surrender (p. 17). It is surrending love. Our minds and spirits become whole as we surrender to the incarnated desires God has placed in our spirits, – desires of spiritual longing and union to attain, realize, and express divine unconditional love (p. 24). We are drawn by a force deep within to release our attachments, our very selves, in response to God’s beaconing love which asks for our very hearts (p. 24). For some, the fulfillments of this surrender to inborn love comes when young, for many it comes at a point of crises, for all I believe it comes as we grow old or are about to die, but we cannot just make it happen. It is a gift.
This underlying love of God and inborn desire to love God is not just for us. Although we are individually mind and spirit cared for by God’s love, we are not alone in this universe. We are not loved alone, we are loved and to love in communion with others, and with animals and other physical and spiritual beings like angels and those who have died and whose spirits reside in God, who is love (see p.54).
Interestingly, I write this on Ash Wednesday, 2018. Before our services I was praying for spiritual poverty to receive the grace of humility. Fr. Tom Ackerman’s homily happened to be on what we should give up for Lent. In short, he asked us to give up ourselves for Lent. What a wonderful idea! I quote from Dr. May:
Unconsciously that self-image is engaged in a life-or-death battle, and although all conscious intents may be in the direction of spiritual surrender and dying-to-self, a host of unconscious defenses will be brought to bear in order to preserve, bolster, and reassert that image of self, etc… (p. 59).
It is our crucial role as spiritual directors to attend to God’s power, love, and grace in facilitating this surrender of giving up ourselves too, to live only in God’s love and grace. Therefore, transcending the self-love we all have is giving up ourselves for Lent, as Fr. Ackerman recommended.
This is a loving surrender, somewhat like Jesus’ self-surrender on the cross to show us how much He loves us. So too, should we surrender ourselves on the crosses we bear in this life for Jesus. We offer ourselves to the unknowable mystery of God, giving up everything, surrendering our all (p 65).
As we give up ourselves in love to the divine Mystery, the divine Majesty, our attachments often seem to fall away like scales off our eyes. We lovingly die to the self and surrender to love, sharing God’s love in our lives and the passions we once held dear, like making money, being well thought of, golf, or football, politics, lose importance as we long to rest in a loving God. It is like dying (p.77).
In some ways we can be sad, losing ourselves, just like that. It is a grief similar to dying, really (p.98). We can mourn for our loss. Love hurts in many ways as we transition our lives for God’s purposes for us, as we give up all. The not knowing what to do, exactly, the dark nights groping for Divine love, the unknowing of it all, the loves lost, the loves gained, all meld together for the care of our mind and the care of our spirit. That is what love has to do with it, everything…
Looking back upon the one thing that stands out most to me regarding the four books we are reading and studying so far this Spring semester, I am most impressed by Dr. Gerald G. May’s insight in his book, “Addictions and Grace” that we are all addicted. May states that “we all suffer from both repression and addiction (p 2). He says “To be alive is to be addicted, and to be alive and addicted is to stand in need of grace.” (p. 11). These addictions attack our desires and in effect keep us from our true desire for freedom and our infused desire for unity with God and our desire for God. At first I partially dismissed the premise that we are all addicted but in view that as Ignation thinkers we are to be willing to give up everything to live only in the love and grace of God, I realized that is something to accept, in view of spiritual and or actual poverty, to realize I am still holding to some inordinate attachments myself. I am a mixed bag of goods with my own attachments still clinging in some ways, and in some ways partially dispensed of.
Even with this self-realization, I am also conflicted with those sins and addictions of my society at large. Due to this personal and societal complicacy I am not free to desire only God’s love and grace. Even to explain it this way makes me realize I have not accepted my own responsibility for evil and if I am concerned so much, why don’t I just STOP IT, or at least stop my part of it? For instance, take our society’s love of war, for our main example in this reflection. What am I to do about it? Originally I thought of entitling this reflection “War Junkie”, or “Addicted to War”, or War and Grace”. However, these names have already been used by others who recognize the same problem that I have chosen to discuss.
I am complicit with our nation’s war mentality which some believe insures our freedom and creates peace. The prior statement, ensuring peace by war, to maintain a nation, is exactly opposite of Jesus’ instructions to love our enemies and do good to those who despitefully use us in seeking the inner Peace and Kingdom He was really discussing. Dr. May echoes rule 98 of Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises when he states “detachment does just the opposite. It seems liberation of desire, an enhancement of passion, the freedom to love with all one’s being, and the willingness to bear the pain such love can bring.” (p.15). The Spex, rule 98 promotes the willingness to bear all wrongs. It is this suffering love that brings detachment and personal freedom as it is greased by the wheels of grace.
See:
(098)
Eternal Lord of All Things
Eternal Lord of all things, in the presence of Thy infinite goodness, and of Thy glorious mother, and of all the saints of Thy heavenly court, this is the offering of myself which I make with Thy favor and help. I protest that it is my earnest desire and my deliberate choice, provided only it is for Thy greater service and praise, to imitate Thee in bearing all wrongs and all abuse and all poverty, both actual and spiritual, should Thy most holy majesty deign to choose and admit me to such a state and way of life (http://spex.ignatianspirituality.com/SpiritualExercises/Puhl#marker-p101)
True freedom is the freedom to love one another, including our enemy. If we maintain our addictions to war and killing this is what May describes as a security addiction (p.31). May states, “we can and should trust in God for our ultimate security” and he speaks of relaxing our grip about lessor sources of security. So, why has religion, including Christianity as a whole, including the institutional Roman Catholic Church, which I attend, supported war in the past, even calling it “just” war? Why do some Jesuit institutions of higher learning support ROTC programs on campus and teach little about non-violence? Also, why do I pay my taxes, 60% or so which go to support of war, not including hidden taxes we are not considering? Complicacy, is that why?
Satan does not want us to realize we are in slavery. We deny we are in slavery. You may deny it and may be mad at me now as you read this. I deny my own slavery in many ways too. We are at war with Satan, not flesh and blood, and generally do not know it or admit it. War, the myth of redemptive violence to establish “freedom” is really enslavement to Satan’s original desires and intentions for us. It separates us from God’s love and grace, whatever addiction we are battling. We defend our addictions and enslavement to war, killing, and redemptive violence with repression, rationalization, and denial.
Tomorrow we will quit, just after we win the battle. Our minds have been tricked and we have been addicted. Our only solution is to quit it, and quit it now. But how? We are in collusion with the system, we are complicit. There is no easy way out perhaps until we hit “rock bottom” as may happen one day. How do we confess our own sins and the sins of a nation? How do we stop the mind tricks? How do we STOP IT NOW!? I am not so sure I know. May states “our motivations are always mixed and our hearts are never completely pure (p. 108). It is not just war, but all our addictions to which we are enslaved. Maybe one day we have hit rock bottom, then we can STOP IT. Maybe, when the Kingdom comes.
It was a beautiful day yesterday, a fall day at the end of October in 2017. Leaves are changing and I am at St. Ignatius House in Atlanta, GA, for a class in Spiritual Direction. I arose very early this morning intending, I thought, to do my daily reflections with Scripture and do some review of material for the class, but I didn’t.
It came to me to go first into the Adoration Chapel to just sit with the Host and Jesus (Catholics believe in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist). I did some centering prayer, trying not to think of anything, just breathing in, “Yah” and out “weh” or “Yahweh.” I did that a while and since I was very close to the Monstrance,[i] I got up just to be sure the Host was actually in there.
Now I believe that God is in all things and all things are in God. The Apostle Paul noted a Greek poet, “In Him you live and move and have being.”[ii] I believe that, but some theologians don’t believe Paul really believed what he quoted. I recently talked to one of them who does not believe that. But I do.
I was reminded while I sat in meditation of the last complete sentence my Uncle, Bill McCulley, said to me as I, my wife, Wink, my sister Janelle Deblois, and I heard as we put him to bed toward the end of his life and Bill looked up in a fleeting glimpse of his old self and asked, “John, you here?” Bill soon died of Alzheimer’s, an insidious disease. Bill didn’t know anything much, even most of the time what his name was. Of course I “know” a lot more how to talk, how to add and subtract, how to read and write, etc. Bill did not know anything. It was like he was in a vast cloud of unknowing[iii] But as I looked down on him and heard the words, “John, you here,” it was so precious to me. I hope to remember those words all my life. Maybe he is looking down on me now as a part of the vast cloud of witnesses or the Communion of Saints.[iv] Maybe he will welcome me again when we meet again and I arrive wherever he is, in God, in heaven, wherever, and Bill greets me in a loving voice, with the words, “John, you here.”
Now I was not supposed to be thinking of anything in my centering prayer, attempting to enter the vast cloud of unknowing, the Divine union with the Mystery, the One God, but my prayer turned into meditation and I went up to the Monstrance and looked closely, knowing not to touch it, and looked to be sure the Host was present there, it was, and I asked, “Jesus, You here?”
I sat back down and wept silently since other people here are in a silent retreat, although I was all alone in the Adoration Chapel, excepting with Jesus, of course. Jesus was there too. If you don’t believe that, believe Jesus was is in me and He is in you, at least the image of the Divine and Mysterious One is in us all. I thought that as little as I know, and all the religions and religious institutions of the world know, including Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and Islamic, if all poured together in a bucket, would know nothing, being just be a drop in the ocean compared to what God knows. God knows how to talk in all languages including Angelic ones, He knows how to read and write in all languages too, and how to order and create the whole universe, how to create life and how to take life, just at the right time, like he took my uncle Bill’s life and received him unto Himself.
I know God heard me when I asked, “Jesus, You here?” I know He was looking down when I asked Him that, thinking I am precious in His sight, that I am a beloved sinner and He knows all of my sins since He lives in me, and I live in Him. I love you Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Divine One, and you too, Bill McCulley, and you too, the reader whom God loves, and is in, at least by His image inside of you.
Please ask yourself, if you do not believe, or if you do believe, “Jesus, You here?”
For me it has been a day of Desolations and Consolations…
The consolations came at the end of the day and this is what I want to tell you about…
Wink called, asking me to pick up some food for supper on the way home. I was in West End, where our business is located, and she mentioned Long John Silver’s/Taco Bell restaurant. I mentioned I did not know if it was Long John Silver’s anymore. I went by and the sign said Taco Bell, not a combination of restaurants as I do believe was once there.
I went in and asked the girl behind the counter, a light skinned black girl, if this was a Long John Silver’s too anymore. She said no, but offered to look one up for me. I noticed she had a Silver Christian cross hanging from her neck and sensed a common Spirit between us. I said that is OK, I will just order something here. I finally figured out what we needed, with her assistance, and she asked for a name to place on the order. I said Cooper… (BTW., I am writing this in Cooper Black type set…) [This is not showing in this font on WordPress] She said, I am a Cooper too, and explained that that is her name now or that she is related to Coopers in South Alabama and Jacksonville, Florida. I said, “Good, we may be related.” I told her my Great Great Grandfather was a conductor on the underground railroad, and asked her about her family history, but she did not know much about it..
I mentioned that I did not recall any of my ancestors having slaves, because we were from up North in Illinois, but that we could be related in some way. I offered her my hand and said, that it was good to meet her and we may be related.
When the order came up, she brought it out to me and we struck up another conversation about the family name. She told me about her second cousin in Jacksonville, FL and thought of his name. I asked her if he was fully white or partially white, and she said fully white. I said we may be related, and told her about a Genealogical book my Brother, Joe had written, about our ancestry going back to the Mayflower. I gave her my business card and asked her to email me and I could share it with her. We hugged each other, and I told her my shop was right down the street, just over the viaduct, and asked her to come down to see me one day.
I was thinking on the way home with our Taco Bell food, how the day had been cycles of desolations and consolations, and how this was a wonderful consolation to share one’s inner spirit with another created in
God’s image. I still do not understand why we cannot all get along in the world….
I think we are all related; all of us brothers and sisters, and we should all love one another… I know I am naïve, but I hope to die that way…. What is it we cannot understand about the unconditional love of God, which is supposed to be in us, if we wear the cross around our necks, or symbolically carry the cross, or even if we are not Christians at all, that we do not understand about this love of God?
Cooper White, – Cooper Black… What is the difference? I just can’t see any difference….
As a matter partially of time and chance this past week, I stopped by Panera Bread at a time of the day I would not normally be there because I was on my home to pick up a check out of my home office. I noticed as I sat down a Muslim man in the back of the restaurant. I have had several conversations with this man and his friend, Sammy, also a Muslim, when I used to go by Starbucks on the way to work early in the morning. (Since we were given a Keurig coffee machine, my Starbucks visits are virtually nil.) I noticed him sitting in the back of the restaurant in what appeared to be deep thought or meditation, so I did not greet him. After several minutes he came by me on the way apparently back from getting a drink refill and he asked my, knowing my beliefs in Peace and Nonviolence, this question:
“Have you had any Peaceful thoughts lately?”
“Yes, I have,” I said, and invited him to sit down with me at my table. I got out my small Samsung tablet and opened my You Version Bible App up to the place already in the memory, which I reflected on just the day before. I quote it below from Philippians 4:
1 And so, my most beloved and most desired brothers, my joy and my crown: stand firm in this way, in the Lord, most beloved.
2 I ask Euodia, and I beg Syntyche, to have the same understanding in the Lord.
3 And I also ask you, as my genuine companion, to assist those women who have labored with me in the Gospel, with Clement and the rest of my assistants, whose names are in the Book of Life.
4 Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say, rejoice.
5 Let your modesty be known to all men. The Lord is near.
6 Be anxious about nothing. But in all things, with prayer and supplication, with acts of thanksgiving, let your petitions be made known to God.
7 And so shall the peace of God, which exceeds all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
8 Concerning the rest, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is chaste, whatever is just, whatever is holy, whatever is worthy to be loved, whatever is of good repute, if there is any virtue, if there is any praiseworthy discipline: meditate on these.
9 All the things that you have learned and accepted and heard and seen in me, do these. And so shall the God of peace be with you.
10 Now I rejoice in the Lord exceedingly, because finally, after some time, your feelings for me have flourished again, just as you formerly felt. For you had been preoccupied.
11 I am not saying this as if out of need. For I have learned that, in whatever state I am, it is sufficient.
12 I know how to be humbled, and I know how to abound. I am prepared for anything, anywhere: either to be full or to be hungry, either to have abundance or to endure scarcity.
13 Everything is possible in him who has strengthened me. (Emphasis is mine.)
The Muslim man studiously and respectfully silently read the text for several minutes in deep thought as I silently watched. After a while he looked up to me and said, “It is very Islamic, isn’t it?” “Yes, it is,” I agreed, and we started another long and mutually respectful and, by the way, Peaceful, conversation.
I told him about the Inter-Faith city wide Prayer Service I had attempted to activate a couple of months ago for the sake of the Refugees, both Christian and Muslim refugees and pointed him to my blog site, http://www.jcooperforpeace.org where I posted the Prayer Service. I told him my idea had already been shared with another of my Muslim friends, Mirza Beg, who was to forward it to the local Mosque, or Islamic Center as they call in here in Tuscaloosa. I asked him to talk it up and perhaps just a few of us could have a smaller event than the city wide event I had envisioned. Even though the Mayor of Tuscaloosa had agreed to help in any way he could, I could not garner support from the Christian churches I had contacted whom I was asking to host the event.
We continued our conversation and the Muslim man told me he had been looking into the Spirituality of the Native American Indians. One of the American Indian wise sayings, he said, is: “If God created you a crow, you do not have to become an Eagle.” I told him I liked that and many Indian Spiritual sayings and I had recently been through an 8 or 9 month St. Ignatian Spiritual Exercise Retreat. I told him of the many ways I personally think God can reveal himself to us humans, and concerning the Indians we were talking about, that God can reveal himself and to Indians as one walks in silence through the forest, even without a word written or spoken, God can do this, as one walks in Peace. I mentioned that to me, God has revealed himself sometimes as a Father, sometimes as a Son, and sometimes as the Holy Spirit, but still, I believe there is only one God. I shared my idea that one could take all the knowledge of the American Indians, and the Jewish religion, the Christian religion, and the Islamic religion, and all the knowledge of the Atheist religion, and put them all in a bucket, stir them all up and dump them into the ocean, and it would not be a drop in the ocean compared to the vast knowledge of an infinite God. He understood, and I mentioned again the Scripture we had just read, although I did not quote it again at that time. Here is a principle part of it below.
7 And so shall the peace of God, which exceeds all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:7)
I don’t think he would have agreed exactly with the Jesus Christ part of it, but then, apparently many Christians do not believe it either, not understand it, in that many Christian folk like to be guarded by weapons, guns, and “Peacemaking” six-shooters, not by the Peace of God. It appears in America that the “tougher” and more one believes in guarding oneself, the better, especially in the Political realm.
I cannot share everything now, we talked about, this is already too long, but the point I want to highlight especially at this “season” of Christmas 2015 is this:
“Have you had any Peaceful thoughts lately?”
If you have not had any, I ask, why not? Could it be the Prince of the Power of the Air is getting through to us through the Media and the Political systems of this world? Why not turn off the Media for an hour or two a day and silently reflect upon your Scriptures, either your Hebrew ones, Christian ones, Islamic ones, or, even just take a silent walk in the woods, just like the Indians and reflect on the Peace God has very clearly said he came to give us, which goes beyond understanding. This Peace is a gift of Grace and Mercy. Yes, it does sound Islamic, but it sounded to Abraham, like a gracious and merciful God, before the Jewish people, before the Christian people, and before the Muslim people. It is a Grace that has extended to all Abraham’s offspring, which by extension is all mankind.
Have you had any Peaceful thoughts lately? Accept this gift, get some of it; Let this be the year of God’s favor for you…..
Just to think… Whatever tragedies hit our lives, just to pick up our eyes to look into the eyes of another beautiful human being created in God’s Image, is one step to Eternity.. It is a step outside of ourselves, into the I Am of another..
In this terrible world of the past month and a half, let us not let Evil creep up on us and invite us to partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…
Accepting what is evilly inspired…
Let us hear the cry of our brother’s blood rising up from the earth,
Let us be aware that a major culprit of the violence and killing of the past few weeks is religion…
Let us walk in the Garden with God, as did Adam, and Eve, before religion…
Let us believe in God, as did Abraham, before religion…
Religion is a temporary phenomenon in this world’s history…
Religion is created by man in his own image as a bridge to reach the One God whose Kingdom already lives in us, and we in Him…
Relationships with God, and each other, and the supernatural ability to hear our brother’s blood cry from the ground are primal gifts we should strive to possess….
Not to strive against each other,
I think we are our brother’s keeper, all of our brothers…
Listen to your brother’s blood, and the survivors of our brothers’ blood who have bled under the altar of Evil, and have gone before us…..
As I reflect upon the world situation today, having had an extended conversation with one of my Catholic friends just yesterday, about the world situation, its wars, the danger presented to ancient Iraqi Christians presented by Islamic infighting in ancient lands around the city of Mosel, (near the foundational city of Nineveh) and Pope Francis and his efforts to make a difference in the world, I am reminded of the scripture below:
James 4:1-10
4:1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
4 You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? 6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
“God opposes the proud
but gives grace to the humble.”
7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
NIV
It is not my intention to give an in depth exegesis of the text above, but what I am thinking about is the topic of submission.
The text above specifically addresses the cause of fighting and wars among a specific group of people, Christians, and I do not put the word Christian in quotes this time. these are real foundational Christians that were at war with one another. The text mentions also an inner battle, a battle that is within us, within Christians, that is, and I personally believe a battle that is within all human beings. The text mentions the proper way to resist the forces of Evil which seem to plague the world and estrange Christians, and I believe all mankind from the closeness and nearness to God which God desires for us. Although the text is specifically written to Christians at war with one another, I can only imagine that submission to God, and a recognition of the fallen nature within us, and the nascent seed or spark of God within us that enables mankind to interface with God, is a solution to this world’s war and overcoming Evil, whether or not we are Christians at this time.
Before going any farther, I need to state that I am a committed Christian, and attempt to express my views from within this Christian culture, not to the exclusion of other cultures and belief systems which may also have important and valuable contributions to the Kingdom of God, such as the Islamic sect of Sufism, whose leader was Rumi, or Mahatma Gandhi, Mohammad, or others. If I am wrong in any way, please feel free to offer your comments from whatever belief system you frequent.
Submit yourselves…. (plural) indicates we live in community with each other. Specifically we are speaking in context of Christian community, but I believe the principle may be applied to all mankind as a method of overcoming Evil. Also, firstly, I believe we should submit our self, singular in this quest of overcoming Evil.
Most of us in any belief system want to overcome Evil. In overcoming Evil, from my viewpoint, Nonviolence “works” but it does not always “win” or work if we use it to overcome others externally. Our focus in nonviolence should be to overcome firstly the selfish self within us and to submit to the image of God or seed of God within us.
The softening and nurturing of the inner seed within us and the realization that we are delivered from evil within ourselves firstly is crucial before we can nonviolently resist external evils in society or internal evils in others. We cannot deliver ourselves. It takes, a village, as in the Lord’s prayer, “Deliver us from evil” a trust and submission to God to deliver “us” from our internal selfishness.
Some call this a conversion experience. Some call this inner blooming of the seed of the Kingdom of God within us being “Born Again. Others call it being infected by the spirit of Jesus.
As we submit ourselves to one another, in love for one another, this blossoming of our spirits can result in radical transformation, not just of ourselves, or, our self, but the internal softening of other selves, and self, as the nonviolent, peaceful inner submission and infection interfaces and joins other like minds or selves created in God’s image.
“Albert Einstein once observed, “A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.”
All people, even from a scientific perspective, are really one entity. And so, yes, it makes perfect sense that the actions of one affect us all. Just as a problem with our foot affects our entire body, toxic fumes in China can disrupt the atmosphere around the globe. Judaism says this principle holds true spiritually as well. The sins of one person impact us all.”
Albert Einstein, a fellow member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, by the way, seems to have thought, that if we, as human beings are thinking that our self is not connected and accountable to others and perhaps should be in submission to others, we are suffering from delusionary thoughts that are outside of the universe of reality. Let us then, submit ourselves to one another.
The Book of Romans is about submission. Submission to authority is just one point. The major point before submission to external forces (have you ever met authority as a person? I have not.) is to submit to God and offer ourselves in submission to God first, as in the text from James 4 above, and above all, and if needed, and nonviolently submit to authority and in some cases resist that authority because we have submitted to God firstly. If the authority is motivated by Evil intents, perhaps it will actually be afraid, and flee from us. But, we must keep in mind, perhaps Evil will not immediately flee, and our desire is to continue submission to God, regardless of the consequences.
Before we can be effective in this submission, it is necessary we are in relationship with “others” even the “others” we may believe we “resist” such as policemen with dogs, military people with tanks, political people not telling the complete truth, people who make nuclear weapons, people who seem to be in opposition to us, or otherwise we might term as “enemies.”
An often overlooked tool of nonviolence and submission, and never used as an exhaustion of the “all means” tenant of the “just” war theory is that we “love our enemies.” Sometimes the enemy can be us, and inside our own selves if we are not in submission to the seed of inner love in ourselves, planted by a Divine source, waiting upon fruition. By developing some kind of dialog, some kind of relationship, and some kind of love for the “enemy” we embark upon a journey of overcoming evil with good.
I like the idea Pope Francis had just this week as I begin to write this, to invite opposing parties such as Israel and Palestinian leaders to pray together with him and the leader of the Orthodox Church. This has been termed “ineffective” by some, but to me, it has had an internal effect upon those involved and an internal effect upon all who hear of the matter. Concerning the Pope, as I edit this article, today, June 22, 2014, just yesterday the Pope issued excommunication orders for the Italian Mafia whom he termed glorifies violence and Evil. Let us all pray for Pope Francis and his protection, as he wrestles with Evil forces who would like to see him dead.
It is not just our own selves, but our own Nations, and the entire world that is seems, according to Christian tradition God desires to be in submission:
Rev 7:9-10
9 After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. 10 And they cried out in a loud voice:
“Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb.”
Rev 7:11-12
11 All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying:
“Amen!
Praise and glory
and wisdom and thanks and honor
and power and strength
be to our God for ever and ever.
Amen!”
NIV
The above Scripture, seems to me, to be the nexus of the Kingdom of God and the original intent of the creation of the good earth. The Kingdom of God is not just intended for American culture, but for all of mankind. I think it is a narrow view if we include only our own nation, our own denomination, or the Roman Catholic Church only, or the Eastern Orthodox Church only, of even the Christian religion only, and attempt to exclude Jewish folk, Islamic folk, Atheist folk, or any folk, for that matter, who can imagine this kinder and gentler vision of the internal seed of God planted within us, and submit to it.
In the end we must conclude that our inner submission is about finding and joining the Kingdom of God that is within us, which is a Kingdom proclaimed by a Gospel of Peace, Good News that is told about in Hebrew scriptures as a Kingdom of Grace and Peace beginning with God walking with us in our gardens, internal gardens, that is, and envisioned as the beating of our swords into plowshares, and envisioned as the child playing at the hole of the asp, with a lion and a lamb and no more hurt or pain. Also this peaceable Kingdom of God was promoted by Jesus whose inner being reveals to us the image of God who asks us to begin loving our enemies, NOW, TODAY, including defeating any enemies we have within us, such as hatred, jealousy, and selfishness and overcoming the Evil within us with the divine Love He has placed in us via the image of God, the foretaste of the fulfilled Kingdom of God within every man regardless of race, religion, or nationality.
We are all asked by God to be members of this Kingdom and all be our brother’s keepers, and by Jesus to love one another, as he loved us. However, there are requirements of membership like believing in the Kingdom within us, and submitting to it. We have eternity to submit, and I believe we can submit to it out of the depths of hell, whatever, hell may be to us, but I also believe for us, and for you, that today is the day to do it. It is better to do it now. The invitation from Christian sources for your inner submission to a Kingdom that is within you, and is coming soon, an invitation that is continual, from God who comes to us internally, to whom we ought to submit internally, is recited below:
Rev 22:17-21
17 The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.
18 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. 19 And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.
20 He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.”
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
21 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.
NIV
I have not always made the wised decisions in life, obviously, or maybe I would not be continually getting myself in the precarious situations in which I often find myself…
I admit, if my concerns were only about wealth, I have been so gullible to believe in and trust the inherit goodness I believe lives in every human being created in the Image of God. I am just a fool, according to some. I hope it is not all my fault, concerning my business problems, that is, although I believe much of it is obviously my fault, but I believe the economic conditions of our United States economy decimated by our warlike inclinations affirmed by the President Bush administration, and confirmed by the current King of Drones, President Obama, causing a collapse in our economy, which, just today, has been pronounced as “healed,” according to the jobs report that indicates we have recovered every job we lost…. (what about the millions who have entered the job market since 2007?)
“Oh, here we go again!” According to some I know and love, it is just John the radical preaching and ranting again… Really?
Am I just a fool?
I would rather be a fool, if I am to be one, for Christ!
A lot of people have been fools for Christ, Western, and Eastern, and even some in the Sufi sect of Islam, (which I would like to be in, if I were Muslim) have been just “crazy” for God. Pope Francis has chosen his name from St. Francis of Assisi, whose followers gave up their possession and preached Jesus in the streets. Just Fools, in their day….
Reminds me of the lady I and others call “Preacher Lady” here in Tuscaloosa…. I have written about her before…. I just spoke to her again this past week. She was standing in the middle of the street beside our business property, open Bible in hand, preaching away. I went over and talked to her again for quite a while. I asked her if she was a Prophetess, and offered her a glass of water. We spoke of the Bible. Apparently she feels called to preach to the City of Tuscaloosa… Reminds me of Peace Pilgrim, who walked thousands and thousands of miles in the 1950s, 1960s, and up into the 1970s preaching about Peace…. Reminds me of the Prophet Jonah, whom Ben Talmadge is preaching about this month, who knew in advance he would be a Fool for Christ because of the message he was to preach to Nineveh. Jonah knew God was Gracious and Merciful and would change his mind, and Jonah did not want to look like a fool… Reminds me of the Jewish Fool for God, Isaiah who walked around naked for a while…
Reminds me of the Apostle Paul, giving up his “religious” position, to be quoted:
“We are fools for Christ’s sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honourable, but we are despised.” (KJV).
And also:
“For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness.” (1 Corinthians 3:19)
“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18)
“For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.” (1 Corinthians 1:21)
Reminds me a little of myself too, with my concerns for the Kingdom of God and the Gospel of Peace, which few seem to deem important in our United States warrior society… Give us a gun, not give us peace….
Oh Well….
Just one more reminder, and I will shut up my foolish mouth…. I am reminded of Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, and a fellow Pacifist and “Fool for Christ.” Below is a link to a one woman play about Dorothy Day, entitled “Fool for Christ:”
John Cooper was born in Paris, Illinois in January, 1949. He was born Roman Catholic and grew up on his father’s and uncles’ farms. After graduating from Marshall, IL High School he attended Samford University in Birmingham, AL. He left college and became a cabinet maker, having his own business for about 45 years. About 7 years ago he returned to the Catholic Church of his youth. Having recently passed along his business to a younger person, John attended Spring Hill College in Mobile, AL and obtained his CSD degree in Spiritual Direction.
jcooperFORpeace 