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Death and Gravity

My dear ones keep departing and taking pieces of me with them and I remain torn, tossed, foot unsteady in their vacuous wake.

How can a person be so animated in body, with eyes so radiant, and so connected to me, and then just blown out like the flame of a candle?

In my bones there is a sure knowing, that this love never ends and that all God has made belongs, and returns to source. But this ground of certainty also has its limits as I face my own plunge into unknowing.

Strangely, I have begun to love this precipice. It whispers gentle and often: “let go, trust the edge of love and its vast unfathomable depths”.

Can death be such a friend, and approaching bride groom? What will happen to all my present boundaries and my sense of self? Do they just fall away like a robe from a naked body?

And what about my loved ones who have crossed over, will we know and be known again? Are they the gravitational pull, the summoning whisper I feel, that grows by the day?

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Dunsevrick, North Coast of Ireland

The landscape here is by far the most beautiful in all my travels.

Steep rocky cliffs, broad sandy beaches, thick tufts of spongy green turf, wild flowers-blue, yellow, violet. The streams are flowing from field, over rock paths and out to the sea. Sitting by the cliff edge there is a grand silence cut only by sound of sea birds and the water lapping against rock far below.

Natures beauty is so intense and vibrant it has the power to touch the soul and awaken it to God’s presence.

This experience of beauty is enriched by connection with loved ones, family and dearest of friends. Such beauty can’t be absorbed fully unless it is shared. I think that is because material beauty is really just a pointer, an invitation into communion, and union.

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Bangor to Newcastle

We left Bangor at 9AM.

Our first stop: The Grey Abby. Founded in 1149. Gothic arches, roofless ruins, sculptured memorials to men who gave entire lives to prayer.

On the road down the Ards peninsula toward Portaferry The mud flats at low tide in the lough are shimmering in the sun like glazing on pastry.

On the ferry to Strangford, the wind is whipping, eyes watering, the sound of gulls screeching, and the metal clanging as the cars roll of the ramp.

A stop in the wee cake shop for tea and scone with butter, cream, and jam.

Then on our way to Kiloghlea just like Van’s song. We can see in the distance the humped backs of the Mourns, black against silver sky and sliding into the sea.

Wising by the car window are
Heather-clumped fields of grass, wind-gnarled bushes,
Yellow-lichened rock shores and Stone-crumbled walls.

In Ardglass harbor sits two red-rusted tugs leaning over in the mud at low-tide. Around the point are manicured greens with eighteen flags whipping in the wind.

We stop at Dundrum Bay to hike through Dunes and out to the strand. The Dunes are covered in thick brown grasses and sit in clumps like a pride of wild cats.
A ring of burnt logs lays on the rough cobblestone strand. Dark clouds are making the sea turn black.

We return by pasture, passing brinded cows chewing patiently among the bluebells.

We reach Eniskinen House next to Tulleymore forrest, just under the Morn foothills. We hike the enchanted path down to the river past ancient trees.

On the way back we stop at Scrabo Tower built on a steep hill and overlooking the entire Ards peninsula. Strangford loch forms a vast shimmering water-plain below.

Back to Bangor, Onslow Gardens, where the air thin like the evening light. Thanks be to God for long Irish days.

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The Seed of Baptism

The Seed of Baptism

When a new baby is announced it is a moment of incredible joy and wonder. We look at the little face and the miniature features and we are in awe. Why?

Perhaps we are in awe of how everything is present in the little bundle, all the genetic material is there for growing into a full adult.

Perhaps we are in awe of the great mystery of life, and that the heart and soul of this new being will be tested, and will suffer much and also experience great joys.

At baptism we are born again as a child of God. We are set on a journey to become Christ in the world. The Holy Spirit fills us and provides all that we need to become a Christ in the world. All the divine genetic material is there, just like a seed planted in in the ground. If we can perceive how the whole tree is potentially present in a tiny seed, then we can glimpse the profound mystery of baptism.

As we behold the vulnerability and potentiality of an infant gazing up at us, let us call to mind the seed of baptism within each of us. Are we protecting, and nurturing this infinite potential, this boundless grace? We look all around us for what we think we need when its already there, planted within us.

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Crucified In the Middle

The fact that Christ was crucified in the middle is highly symbolic. To hold the center is to suffer for the common good.

There will always be radical and diabolical forces attempting to pull us apart. Who among us will suffer the tension of holding the middle?

To hold the center is to live the incarnation, with all its limitations and it’s inevitable pascal mystery.

To hold the center is to follow the person of Jesus, including a commitment to both his mystical body and His flawed institutional church.

To hold the center is to become Christ in the world through our own kenosis, our own act of self-emptying love for humanity.

To hold the center is to resist escaping into ideology and conspiracy, and to ground ourselves in the Word made flesh, and accept our own humanity.

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Kenotic Energy

Phil 2:2 “He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant”

We know from science that our entire physiology runs on electro-chemical energy. When this flow of energy is impeded our very life is in peril. All forms of energy involve a potential difference or “charge” held between polls that has a certain flow direction or “polarity” from a higher to lower state.

At the center of the Christian faith is the Kenosis of God, where he empties himself in love to bring us into intimate communion with himself. This primordial love energy that is the cause of our vast expanding universe is demonstrated in its most particular form in the incarnation. This is our point of invitation to join in the divine kenosis, to get into this great flow of energy. This means connecting our unique expression of self-emptying love (our vocation) with God’s universal self emptying love (the Pascal mystery). The energy flow is always from a higher to a lower state, and this is why humility is the electrolyte of love.

The opposite of this flow is self-centeredness, which is an attempt to reverse the polarity of God’s image in us. In so doing we impede or resist the divine-human flow of energy. We are in a sense resisting the incarnation. The result is a negative inflammatory response within us that will lead to division, illnesses, and disorder. We become dammed-up and unable to experience the full flow of kenotic energy the we were made for.

To let go and enter the Kenotic flow is to discover true happiness and joy. It can also be a path of vulnerability and suffering, but the type of suffering that is unitive, creative and flowing outward, not stuck, dammed up or bitter.

This kenotic energy is self-actualizing in the sense that we find our true self only when are able to release our grip on self, just as Christ “did not count equality with God as something to be grasped”. Saint John Paul 2 phased it this way: “We only discover our self in the gift of our self” (JP2).

How do we practice this Kenotic energy, this Christic-Yoga? Its simple:

Be a servant: “I came to serve, not to be served”.

Become aware and compassionate: “My food is to do the will of God”

Be in communion and community: “I do nothing on my own”

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No Resume Required

We go through life building our resumes, as if they are our true identity. Even in our religious obligations, and our service we are unconsciously collecting our little badges and points. What we often fail to realize is that at our Baptism God throws away our resume, because we have become his beloved child. We no longer need a resume, just like a child does not need a resume to be accepted in his own home. If we can understand this simple message, that what the Father said to Jesus at his baptism was also meant for us:

“This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased”,

then we have everything we need to succeed in life’s journey.

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The Best Wine is for Weddings

The Wedding Feast of Cana is the first sign or miracle of Jesus. The fact that it takes place at a wedding is significant. Marriage is the icon of God’s approach to man. As the prophet says “your builder wishes to marry you” (Isiah 62:5). And through Hosea the Lords says:
“I will espouse you to me forever: I will espouse you in right and in justice, in love and in mercy; I will espouse you in fidelity, and you shall know the Lord”(Hosea 2:19)

If Jesus came to reveal the Father’s love for us, and His great desire is to be fully united with us, then it is fitting and prophetic that His ministry begins at a wedding.

Wine is a symbol of joy, and the highest joy is the nuptial union because it points us to the union of Christ and His spouse-which is us.

Marriage is an icon of God’s love for His creation, and wine is a symbol of the intoxicating joy that such a covenant love provides.

Jesus initiates this New Covenant with us by turning the water of the old covenant used for ritual cleansing into the New Wine of the Holy Spirit so that we might enter into the joy of the Lord. That we might have intimacy with God.

The best wine is reserved for last, to point us to the wedding feast of God and man which is eternal life.

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Behold the Eucharist

When we look upon the elevated bread, two realities are becoming one. Our life and Christ’s life are held up before us.

And as we gaze upon the altar, two other realities are merging: the table of feasting and thanksgiving with the altar of sacrifice and worship.

This encounter happens in one particular place and time but it also opens out onto a vast terrace of all times, places, and persons.

When the priest’s fingers grasp the host to lift it, so too our God is holding us and elevating us. As the bread is broken open, so to is our life. We all must leave the womb of security to be birthed into this vulnerable and broken world, and as we break into this life, we are also broken for the world, and thus become bread for each other. It is the Christ who reveals to us this purpose for humanity and invites us to join in.

This pascal mystery is all around us and within us. Just consider the bread we consume, with its supply chain of brokenness and self emptying love. First the earth must be broken open in order to accept the seed, and then the seed must fall and die, and then the sky must also break open and let go of the water she has stored so the broken seed might spout, and the farmer must suffer the hard labor of Cain to gather and harvest the wheat, and the grain must endure the threshing, crushing and grinding down.

Why so much falling, breaking and letting go? Is this what we must bring to the table of abundance and joy? Perhaps it is our self-emptying love joined to His that prepares the table of abundance before us. And what is left, but to give Thanks.

We sit and gaze upon this unfathomable mystery of bread transformed into a real divine presence. And we reflect on the mystery of our own lives offered up and joined into God’s life.

Does it seem strange that the highest form of worship is a meal together, a feast of thanksgiving that is at the same time a memorial of sacrifice?

And what do we make of this cup that is lifted up? This wine mingled with water. The wine of intoxication, and of the Holy Spirit and joy; but also the blood of sacrifice. And the tiny drop of water, our human nature, falling into the cup, being united with a vast sea of divinity. This is the cup of your life that is being held up before you. Can you accept it ? Will you drink all of it? Can you recognize the divine nature within the brokenness, and growing ever fuller within you? Can you see how everything comes together at this table, both the joy and the sorrow? This is the Eucharist, the joyous gift of communion, of becoming one, and of giving thanks?

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“Everyone will be Salted with Fire” Mark 9:49

What a strange phrase. Salt is used here as a verb, “Salted”, to imply you will be preserved or saved by fire. Both salt and fire can burn us and cause us pain, but the similarity ends there, because salt preserves while fire consumes and transforms.

We are Baptized in the Holy Spirit and with fire. In other words, we are filled with God’s Love, which is a form of energy that burns within us and transforms us.

Our path to safety and wholeness is paradoxically not to try and protect ourselves behinds walls of wealth and power, but to empty ourselves, and allow ourselves to be consumed by Love.

To be “salted with fire” is to become Christ in the world, to become love. Allowing this Love to burn us up will not only save and preserve us, but it will enable others around us to be saved. Christ’s self-emptying love is what enables us to be “salted with fire”, to be baptized into Christ.

“Everyone” is offered this salting with fire. God comes to us disguised as our life, weather we have the privilege of baptism or not. And we can choose to become the love that approaches us or to self-isolate, protect and defend our ourselves against it. The path that seems like a dying is the saving one. The losing of ones self in the fire of God’s love is the only way to preserve our true self and others.