Mersey Leven Catholic Parish
Mob: 0417 279 437; mdelaney@netspace.net.au
Assistant Priest: Fr Alexander Obiorah
Mob: 0447 478 297; alexchuksobi@yahoo.co.uk
Postal Address:
Parish Office: 90 Stewart Street , Devonport 7310
(Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am - 3pm)
Office Phone: 6424 2783 Fax: 6423 5160
Email: mlcathparish-dsl@keypoint.com.au
Email: mlcathparish-dsl@keypoint.com.au
Secretary: Annie Davies / Anne Fisher
Pastoral Council Chair: Mary Davies
Pastoral Council Chair: Mary Davies
Parish Mass Times: mlcpmasstimes.blogspot.com.au
Weekly Homily Podcast: podomatic.com/mikedelaney
Parish Magazine: mlcathparishnewsletter.blogspot.com.au
Year of Mercy Blogspot: mlcpyom.blogspot.com.au
Our Parish Sacramental Life
Baptism: Parents are asked to contact the Parish Office to make arrangements for attending a Baptismal Preparation Session and booking a Baptism date.
Reconciliation, Confirmation and Eucharist: Are received following a Family–centred, Parish-based, School-supported Preparation Program.
Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults: prepares adults for reception into the Catholic community.
Marriage: arrangements are made by contacting one of our priests - couples attend a Pre-marriage Program
Anointing of the Sick: please contact one of our priests
Reconciliation: Ulverstone - Fridays (10am - 10:30am)
Devonport - Saturday (5:15pm– 5.45pm)
Penguin - Saturday (5:15pm - 5:45pm)
Care and Concern: If you are aware of anyone who is in need of assistance and has given permission to be contacted by Care and Concern, please phone the Parish Office.
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PARISH OFFICE WILL RE-OPEN ON WEDNESDAY 27TH JANUARY, 2016
Weekday Masses 12th - 15th January, 2016
Tuesday: 9:30am Penguin
Wednesday: 9:30am Latrobe
Thursday: 10.30am Eliza Purton Nursing Home, West Ulverstone
12noon Devonport
Friday: 11.00am Mt St Vincent Nursing Home, West Ulverstone
Next Weekend 16th & 17th January, 2016
Saturday Vigil: 6:00pm Penguin & Devonport
Sunday Mass: 8:30am Port Sorell
9am Ulverstone
10:30am Devonport,
11am Sheffield
5pm Latrobe
Eucharistic Adoration:
Devonport: Friday - 10am - 12 noon
Devonport: Benediction - Recommence first Friday of February, 2016.
Prayer Groups:
Charismatic Renewal - Devonport (Emmaus House) Thursdays - 7:30pm - Recommencing 4th February, 2016
Christian Meditation - Devonport, Emmaus House - Wednesdays 7pm. Recommencing 3rd February, 2016
OLOL Piety Shop will be closed until 30th January, 2016
Your prayers
are asked for the sick: John Charlesworth, Cath Smith, Haydee Diaz, Valentin
Daug, Debbie Morris, Denise Payne, Hugh Hiscutt, Geraldine Roden, Joy Carter
& …
Let us pray
for those who have died recently: Cavell Robertson, John Steele, Tom Edwards, Ben Brennan, Fr Peter McGrath OFM, Matthew Martin, Michael Quillerat,
Sr Lorraine Sweeney, Greg Williams, Robert Pratt, Marie Williams, Guy d’Hondt,
Louise Hanlon, Joan Stewart, and Sr Augustine Healy. Also Joseph and Anne
Charlesworth and family and friends of the McLennan Family
Let us pray for those whose
anniversary occurs about this time: 7th
– 13th Jan
Ronald Bramich, Ellen Fay, Geoffrey Whitchurch, Gerard
Reynolds, Brett Hunniford, Gerald Kramer, Kelvin French, Bridget
Richards, Bernice Vidler and Gerry Doyle.
May they rest in peace
First Reading
Second Reading
Gospel: Luke 3:15-6, 21-2
PREGO REFLECTION ON THE GOSPEL
As I begin my prayer I pause and become aware of God’s
presence, in me, in the air I breathe, in everything around me.
I read Luke’s
account of John’s baptism. It is short but full of detail.
Can I enter into
that feeling of expectancy that the people have?
I listen to John the Baptist.
How can I recognise this powerful Jesus in my life?
Am I aware of living out of
the grace I have been given in baptism and all the gifts of the Holy Spirit?
I
see Jesus humbly being baptised and then watch him at prayer.
The Holy Spirit
descends on him and his Father speaks those words: ‘You are my Son, the
Beloved; my favour rests on you.’
What does this mean to Jesus? To me?
He has a
deeply spiritual experience and is confirmed in his mission.
I try to be with
him in this moment.
Can I remember a personal experience which led me to a
deeper understanding of God’s love and care for me, maybe to a renewed
commitment?
What does it mean to me today?
Jesus was baptised with ‘all the
people’ - he draws us into his relationship with the Father.
Can I draw
strength from this when praying with my community, my brothers and sisters?
I
speak to the Lord with gratitude in my heart and ask for a deeper understanding
of my own baptism and mission.
I close my prayer glorifying the Trinity. Glory
be...
First Reading: Isaiah 62:1-5
Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 12:4-11
Gospel: John 2:1-11
WEEKLY RAMBLINGS
Each year on the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord I ask the
question – Do you know the date of your Baptism? I believe that it is an
important date in people’s lives and deserves to be celebrated. So if you don’t
know the date I would like to encourage you to see if you can find out and make
it a day of celebration. Watch this space for further details about how you
might be able to do this if you were baptised somewhere in Tasmania a few years
ago.
The New Year is well and truly up and running. In the next
few weeks we will be offering the opportunity for parishioners to join a Lenten
Discussion Group. An invitation will be extended for children and their
families to be part of the Sacramental Program for 2016 – the first stage
taking place during the Season of Lent.
The Parish Pastoral Council will recommence and the first
order of business will be seeking nominations from parishioners willing to be
part of this important part of our Parish Life. Also we will see the
recommencement of many of our Parish groups including the Charismatic Prayer
and the Contemplation groups – both significant sources of prayer and support
for both those involved and the whole parish.
As we set out to make 2016 a successful year in our Parish I
pray that we will be able to build on what we have, find new ways to be
witnesses to the Good News and become more faith filled and faithful daughters
and sons of our Loving God.
Please take care on the roads and in your homes
ONLY IN SILENCE
an article by Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. The original article can be found here
Her attempt to cope with her situation drove her in many directions, initially to anger and hopelessness but eventually to monasteries, to the wisdom of monasticism, and, under its direction, into the deep well of silence, that desert that lurks so threateningly inside each of us. Away from all the noises of the world, in the silence of her own soul, inside the chaos of her raging, restless insides she found the wisdom and strength not just to cope with her illness but to also find a deeper meaning and joy in her life.
There are, as John Updike poetically puts it, secrets that are hidden from health, though, as Vandekerckhove makes evident, they can be uncovered in silence. However uncovering the secrets that silence has to teach us is not easy. Silence, until properly befriended, is scary and the process of befriending it is the soul’s equivalent of crossing a hot desert. Our insides don’t easily become calm, restlessness doesn’t easily turn into solitude, and the temptation to turn to the outside world for consolation doesn’t easily give way to the idea of quiet. But there’s a peace and a meaning that can only be found inside the desert of our own chaotic and raging insides. The deep wells of consolation lie at the end of an inner journey through heat, thirst, and dead-ends that must be pushed through with dogged fidelity. And, as for any epic journey, the task is not for the faint of heart.
Here’s how Vandekerckhove describes one aspect of the journey: “Inner noise can be quite exhausting. That’s probably why so many flee to the seduction of exterior background noises. They prefer to have the noise just wash over them. But if you want to grow spiritually, you have to stay inside of the room of your spiritual raging and persevere. You have to continue to sit silently and honestly in God’s presence until the raging quiets down and your heart gradually becomes cleansed and quieted. Silence forces us to take stock of our actual manner of being human. And then we hit a wall, a dead point. No matter what we do, no matter what we try, something in us continues to feel lost and estranged, despite the myriad ways of society to meet our human needs. Silence confronts us with an unbearable bottomlessness, and there appears no way out. We have no choice but to align ourselves with the religious depth in us.”
There’s a profound truth: Silence confronts us with an unbearable bottomlessness and we have no choice but to align ourselves with the religious depth inside us. Sadly, for most of us, we will learn this only by bitter conscription when we have to actually face our own death. In the abandonment of dying, stripped of all options and outlets we will, despite struggle and bitterness, have to, in the words of Karl Rahner, allow ourselves to sink into the incomprehensibility of God. Moreover, before this surrender is made, our lives will always remain somewhat unstable and confusing and there will always be dark, inner corners of the soul that scare us.
But a journey into silence can take us beyond our dark fears and shine healing light into our darkest corners. But, as Vandekerckhove and other spiritual writers point out, that peace is usually found only after we have reached an impasse, a “dead point” where the only thing we can do is “to pierce the negative.”
In her book, The Taste of Silence, Vandekerckhove recounts how an idealistic friend of hers shared his dream of going off by himself into some desert to explore spirituality. Her prompt reaction was not much to his liking: “A person is ready to go to any kind of desert. He’s willing to sit anywhere, as long as it’s not his own desert.” How true. We forever hanker after idealized deserts and avoid our own.
The spiritual journey, the pilgrimage, the Camino, we most need to make doesn’t require an airline ticket, though an experienced guide is recommended. The most spiritually rewarding trip we can make is an inner pilgrimage, into the desert of our own silence.
As human beings we are constitutively social. This means, as the bible so bluntly puts it, that it is not good for the human person to be alone. We are meant to be in community with others. Heaven will be a communal experience; but, on the road there, there’s a certain deep inner work that can only be done alone, in silence, away from the noise of the world.
Levels of
Development – Week 2
Early
Levels: Instinctive and Magical
This week I
will be describing my understanding of the stages of development outlined by
Spiral Dynamics, which were popularized by Don Beck and now taught widely by
Ken Wilber and others. As I mentioned last week, we may have momentary states
at different levels of consciousness, but it takes practice and life's urging
to keep our mind naturally and regularly at more mature stages. Even then we
may return to a previous stage in a stressful situation. We can observe these
levels not only in personal human development, but in the evolution of history
and cultures themselves.
The spiral
begins with the lowest tier of subsistence levels. The first of these is called
the Beige level, which is the Instinctive/Survivalistic level. Its basic theme
is "Do what you must just to stay alive" with a preference for
pleasure over pain. [1] Looking backward, we see our species, Homo sapiens, was
probably situated at this level of consciousness 100,000 years ago. And this is
also where we start as infants. At this primal stage there is no
differentiation from your mother or from nature; she is you and you are her.
Here there is a sense of absorption and innocence, a naïveté about reality.
This is home base, security, and comfort. Life is all about your own bodily
pleasure and survival. Thinking at this stage is dualistic and egocentric, as
it needs to be. Only 0.1% of adults worldwide remain at this level. [2] Of
course, such survival instincts must be activated in any of us for emergency
situations.
The second
level of Spiral Dynamics is the Purple or Magical/Animistic level. Here, life
is a world of magical good and bad forces. Your goal at this level is to align
with the right forces, to have the right gods on your side. You want to have
the power and to be on the side of good and defeat evil. We often see little
boys at this level who want to be superheroes and little girls who want to be
princesses. The basic idea is to "Keep the gods happy and the tribe's nest
warm and safe." [3] The individual is not as important as the group;
belonging to the group gives the individual a sense of identity and safety.
The Purple,
Magical/Animistic level began about 50,000 years ago. Don Beck says that at
this point in human evolution, "a mutation occurred to awaken in the brain
the first real ability to assign cause and effect. This was the first sense of
the metaphysical." [4] It became important to honor and obey the
spirit-being and the group's leaders, rituals, and customs. Sacred objects,
symbols, places, rituals, and stories must be preserved. The Magical/Animistic
level appeared in popular Catholicism throughout the Middle Ages. Approximately
10% of the world's population and 1% of the world's power is still at this
Purple level. [5]
Every level
has a good and appropriate value and a negative quality. We must learn to
transcend the negative part--moving on to the next higher stage, the bigger
field--while including the good part of the previous stage. But we can really
only do this consciously once we've reached second tier, non-dualistic
thinking, beginning at the seventh level. Up until that point, we tend to
especially over-react against the stage we just completed--as does history
itself.
When you move
beyond the Purple level, hopefully you transcend the idea of God as a spirit
you can coax and control by magic and superstition. An enlightened person at
the higher levels also realizes that you don't have to react against that idea
or put people down who are still at that level. Most people see their own level
as the only way and previous levels as totally wrong. This is our foundational
narcissism. Yet higher level, non-dualistic thinkers can still include parts of
the Purple level. For example, perhaps wearing a cross or a medal of a saint
can help your focus, attention, and identity, and does not have to be a magical
totem; rituals can help heal the psyche and form community; and, as we explored
earlier this year, myths can hold great archetypal meaning. Sophisticated later
stages need to stop over-reacting against the good and appropriate values of
the purple level. Wilber's phrase "transcend and include" is the
ongoing principle.
References:
[1] Don Beck
in an interview with Jessica Roemischer, "The Never-Ending Upward
Quest," What Is Enlightenment?, Fall/Winter 2002,
www.mcs-international.org/downloads/046_spiraldynamics_wie.pdf, 6.
[2] Ken
Wilber, "The Integral Vision at the Millennium," Part I, excerpts
from Introduction to The Collected Works of Ken Wilber, Volume 7 (Shambhala:
2000), www.fudomouth.net/thinktank/now_integralvision.htm.
[3] Don
Beck, "The Never-Ending Upward Quest," 7.
[4] Ibid.,
11.
[5] Ken
Wilber, "The Integral Vision at the Millennium."
Adapted from
Richard Rohr, In the Beginning . . . Six hours with Rob Bell and Richard Rohr
on Reclaiming the Original Christian Narrative (Center for Action and
Contemplation: 2014), discs 2 and 4, CD, MP3 download.
Red: The
Impulsive Hero
The third
level of development in Spiral Dynamics is the Red or Impulsive/Egocentric
level. This is where the individual first realizes that he or she is distinct
from the tribe and breaks free from group constraints. This level first emerged
10,000 years ago. The basic theme of the Red level is to "Be what you are
and do what you want, regardless." [1] People at the Red level enjoy
themselves to the fullest, without feeling guilty. The individual feels "I
have the ability to control and manipulate the good and bad forces." He or
she conquers and dominates other aggressors.
At the Red
level, powerful, impulsive, egocentric, heroic individuals emerge. This was the
basis of feudal empires in the West, where "Feudal lords protect
underlings in exchange for obedience and labor." We see examples of the
Red level in "the 'terrible twos,' rebellious youth, . . . James Bond
villains, soldiers of fortune, wild rock stars, Attila the Hun, Lord of the
Flies." Twenty percent of the world's adult population and 5% of world
power are still at the Red level. [2]
As I
mentioned before, each movement forward tends to throw out the previous stages,
and the immediately preceding stage it throws out with a vengeance! This has
been the way with most revolutions and reformations up to now. The Red level,
early Protestant Reformation reacted against the Purple level of popular
Catholicism--to create the modern individual--and threw out things like icons,
statues, the rosary, and what they saw as the "magical"
transubstantiation of the bread and the wine into the Body and Blood of Christ.
Individual reformers were seen as heroes, rescuing the people from tribal
belonging systems and forced membership. This had to happen to move forward.
The movement had to "protest" against the previous level.
According to
Don Beck, what is good about the Red level, which will hopefully be included at
the higher stages, are "wonderful spurts of creativity, heroic acts, and
the ability to break from tradition and chart a whole new pathway." [3] We
need to go through and integrate some good Red level characteristics to grow
up!
References:
[1] Don Beck
in an interview with Jessica Roemischer, "The Never-Ending Upward
Quest," What Is Enlightenment?, Fall/Winter 2002,
www.mcs-international.org/downloads/046_spiraldynamics_wie.pdf, 6.
[2] Ken
Wilber, "The Integral Vision at the Millennium," Part I, excerpts
from Introduction to The Collected Works of Ken Wilber, Volume 7 (Shambhala:
2000), www.fudomouth.net/thinktank/now_integralvision.htm.
[3] Don
Beck, "The Never-Ending Upward Quest," 12.
Adapted from
Richard Rohr, In the Beginning . . . Six hours with Rob Bell and Richard Rohr
on Reclaiming the Original Christian Narrative (Center for Action and
Contemplation: 2014), discs 2 and 4, CD, MP3 download.
Blue: Our
Mythic Truth
The fourth
level of Spiral Dynamics is the Blue or Purposeful/Authoritarian level, which
began approximately 5,000 years ago. I like to call it Our Mythic Truth. Here
one discovers a deeper source of meaning, direction, and purpose that holds us
together: creeds, codes, and cults. The Blue world is a secure existence of
unquestioned truth "with outcomes determined by an all-powerful Other or
Order." [1] These are the "true believers," the concrete-literal
fundamentalists who love certitude and knowing who is right and who is wrong.
Of course, they know they are right and will be rewarded for being right.
However, as Pope Francis said while traveling in Africa recently,
"Fundamentalism is always a tragedy. It is not religious, it lacks God, it
is idolatrous. . . . Such people think they know absolute truth and thus they
corrupt religion." This is the world of flags and unquestioned group
believing. There is only one right way to think in the Blue level. It is very
tribal.
The Blue
existence is structured by laws, regulations, and discipline. Violating the
rules has serious repercussions, both now and forever. Guilt is used to keep
everyone in line. People at the Blue level are comfortable with rigid social
hierarchies. These people are loyalists, for good and for ill. They are willing
to sacrifice for the transcendent cause. It creates religious fundamentalists,
joiners, and patriots. Blue makes up 40% of the world's population and 30% of
world power. [2]
People who
grow beyond this level hopefully let go of the idea that religion and security
imply doggedly holding out and holding on to unquestionable beliefs. Yet the
patience, perseverance, loyalty, and willingness to sacrifice found at the Blue
level are well worth keeping.
In order to
get beyond this level, people must undergo some sort of minor death to their
egocentricity. Unfortunately, many do not undergo this necessary small death,
leaving many narcissistic personalities inside Christianity who buy the
Christian myth as a highly egocentric form of delayed gratification, so they
can win in the end and "go to heaven." There is no love required for
this; it's simply another way of winning and being in control, yet it has
passed for "faith" for centuries because almost all of us were at the
Blue level until the 1960's.
If you allow
life to help you die to your egocentricity, you can move beyond the egocentric
levels into the sociocentric levels of development. The most common life
circumstance that offers death to the ego is marriage. If you marry with any
sincerity and are honest about relationship, you are giving up half of your
egocentricity. If marriage doesn't convert you, these wonderful little beings
called children often come along and take away your egocentricity for at least the
next twenty years! That's why I think most people are called to marriage and
child rearing. It's the surest path to death of the ego, if you really allow
your partner and children to mirror you, revealing your ordinary and weak self,
and also helping you to experience unconditional love. Life has a way of
revealing that you are not the center of anything and forcing you to give up
control. We must keep growing--and that always implies death to the previous
level--which many just will not do. Again and again we must move beyond our
narcissism.
References:
[1] Ken
Wilber, "The Integral Vision at the Millennium," Part I, excerpts
from Introduction to The Collected Works of Ken Wilber, Volume 7 (Shambhala:
2000), www.fudomouth.net/thinktank/now_integralvision.htm.
[2] Ibid.
Adapted from
Richard Rohr, In the Beginning . . . Six hours with Rob Bell and Richard Rohr
on Reclaiming the Original Christian Narrative (Center for Action and
Contemplation: 2014), discs 2 and 4, CD, MP3 download.
Orange: Rational
Organization
The fifth
level of development, what Spiral Dynamics calls the Orange or
Achievist/Strategic level, began about 300 years ago. You can also call it the
Rational/Organizational level. Ken Wilber writes, "At this wave, the self
'escapes' from the 'herd mentality' of blue, and seeks truth and meaning in
individualistic terms-- . . . experimental, objective, mechanistic,
operational--'scientific' in the typical sense." [1] (Perhaps you have
noticed that the levels keep moving from individualistic to group oriented and
back again.) Society as a whole decided that if we became rational,
organizational, effective, intelligent, and educated that would do it. That's
the myth of modernism. Most of corporate America is at the Orange level. This strategic
approach is needed in order to be effective in business, engineering, and
medicine.
The basic
theme of the Orange level is to "Act in your own self-interest by playing
the game to win." [2] At this stage, it is believed that people who are
self-reliant, educated, and willing to take risks will "win."
Societies will prosper through competitiveness and technology. Earth is a
machine with natural laws that can be mastered. The Orange level
"Manipulates Earth's resources to create and spread the abundant good
life." [3] America largely built itself with this mentality.
The Orange
level was the basis of the historical period called the Enlightenment, but it
was not full enlightenment at all. The Rational/Organizational level is also
seen in Vatican II Catholicism and mainline Protestantism today. These people
are smart, informed, and think they are at the head of the pack! Boston, New
York, and Silicone Valley come to mind. People at the Achievist/Strategic level
make up 30% of the population and 50% of those in power. [4]
At every
stage (until you get to the higher, enlightened stages) you think you are at
the final stage. The Orange stage thought it was the summit. It substituted
correct, rational, scientific process for Truth. Orange-consciousness has
essentially ruled Western culture since the 1960's and is still widespread. Yet
it so overstated its case that in recent years many, particularly the
Millennial Generation, have turned to "postmodernism." Only being
rational does not solve the human problem; just being scientific and logical
does not make people whole, happy, or satisfied at any deep level.
Remember, as
we move from each level, we try to transcend the worst of the level and include
the best. We need to transcend the way the Orange level substituted propriety,
reason, and correct process for faith and truth and love. We would do well to
hold onto a proper use of intelligence and reason even when we move on to the
trans-rational or mystical tier of consciousness.
References:
[1] Ken
Wilber, "The Integral Vision at the Millennium," Part I, excerpts
from Introduction to The Collected Works of Ken Wilber, Volume 7 (Shambhala:
2000), www.fudomouth.net/thinktank/now_integralvision.htm.
[2] Don Beck
in an interview with Jessica Roemischer, "The Never-Ending Upward
Quest," What Is Enlightenment?, Fall/Winter 2002,
www.mcs-international.org/downloads/046_spiraldynamics_wie.pdf, 6.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ken
Wilber, "The Integral Vision at the Millennium," Part I, excerpts
from Introduction to The Collected Works of Ken Wilber, Volume 7 (Shambhala:
2000), www.fudomouth.net/thinktank/now_integralvision.htm.
Adapted from
Richard Rohr, In the Beginning . . . Six hours with Rob Bell and Richard Rohr
on Reclaiming the Original Christian Narrative (Center for Action and
Contemplation: 2014), discs 2 and 4, CD, MP3 download.
Green:
Pluralistic Equality
The sixth
level of Spiral Dynamics is the Green or Communitarian/Egalitarian level. I
call it the level of Pluralistic Equality, seen clearly in postmodernism. It is
very politically correct. It was only in the 1960's that we Americans, who said
in our Declaration of Independence "all men are created equal,"
started recognizing that we really didn't mean all humans are created equal. We
didn't mean women and we didn't mean black people. We originally just meant
land-owning white men! In the 1960s we finally realized that civil rights
needed to be applied broadly and equally, regardless of gender, class, or race,
and we also began to face the hypocrisy and evil of our warlike mentality. Not
surprisingly, there was strong pushback from the Blue, Red, and Purple levels.
Spiral
Dynamics describes the basic theme of the Green level as "Seek peace
within the inner self and explore, with others, the caring dimensions of
community." [1] The Green level goes beyond the cold rationality of the
Orange level and emphasizes feelings, caring, and sensitivity. It tries to free
"The human spirit . . . from greed, dogma, and divisiveness" and to
share "the Earth's resources and opportunities equally among all."
Green decision making is done "through reconciliation and consensus
processes." [2] This stage is anti-hierarchy and strongly egalitarian. It
comprises 10% of the world population and 15% of people in power. [3]
Ken Wilber
cleverly calls the dark side of the Green level "Boomeritis." It's
the disease that the Baby Boomers like myself are likely to have, but just
can't see. A combination of arrogance and individualism keeps people trapped at
this "Mean Green" level. It seems we have just enough enlightenment
to reject everybody below us as naïve, and at the same time we can't imagine
anyone being smarter than we are. The mystical, non-dual levels look ridiculous
to academic and sophisticated Greens. Wilber also calls this
"flatland" because it's contemptuous of both higher and lower levels.
Mean Green people will not let go of either their separateness or superiority.
Their ego is still in charge.
The 1% of
people who transcend the Green Level to enter the Second Tier or
"Being" levels do so by going through a major death to the ego. It is
some kind of "Dark Night" experience beyond their control. Now they
know that the Green idea of pluralistic equality is not the highest meaning of
enlightenment. Yet they do not throw out the wonderful and needed values of
human rights, equality, and human dignity. The Green level is the great advance
made in the last fifty years, but we are not done yet!
References:
[1] Don Beck
in an interview with Jessica Roemischer, "The Never-Ending Upward
Quest," What Is Enlightenment?, Fall/Winter 2002,
www.mcs-international.org/downloads/046_spiraldynamics_wie.pdf, 6.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ken
Wilber, "The Integral Vision at the Millennium," Part I, excerpts
from Introduction to The Collected Works of Ken Wilber, Volume 7 (Shambhala:
2000), www.fudomouth.net/thinktank/now_integralvision.htm.
Adapted from
Richard Rohr, In the Beginning . . . Six hours with Rob Bell and Richard Rohr
on Reclaiming the Original Christian Narrative (Center for Action and
Contemplation: 2014), discs 2 and 4, CD, MP3 download.
Non-Dual
Consciousness
People who
have moved to second tier consciousness finally have the humility to include
the value of every previous stage while also moving beyond its limiting
boundaries. Ken Wilber writes, "Using what we would recognize as mature
vision-logic, second-tier awareness thinks in terms of the overall spiral of
existence, and not merely in terms of any one level." [1] He says only
healthy religion is prepared to be the conveyor belt to move you all the way to
the top stages, to the mystical level. Education can get you to the Green
level, but information of itself cannot get you to the enlightenment stage.
That's what the saints meant when they said it is done to you. You can't do it
on your own, although you can allow it. Or you may be dragged there, kicking
and screaming, through the sufferings and loves of your life which slowly
transform you. Only 1% of the world's population and 5% of those in power have
grown to the second tier. [2]
Here we can
acknowledge that at certain times an earlier level response is required. As Ken
Wilber writes, "In emergency situations, we can activate red power drives;
in response to chaos, we might need to activate blue order; in looking for a
new job, we might need orange achievement drives; in marriage and with friends,
close green bonding." [3] Second-tier consciousness sees the full picture
of development and knows that each step is necessary to wholeness.
The seventh
stage is the Yellow Integrative level. It first became observable around fifty
years ago. The basic theme is to "Live fully and responsibly as what you
are, and learn to become more" of what you are. [4] At this level,
individuals can think both horizontally and vertically. Hierarchies are valued
again if they are actualizing people. You stop overreacting to all authority as
Orange and Green levels do. When we use the word "hierarchy" here I
am not talking about the Catholic hierarchy of roles and power, although there
are some overlaps. I am talking about any notion of higher and lower, better
and worse. This is what was rejected at the Green level, where you thought no
one is better than anyone else. At the wisdom level, you can acknowledge,
"She is smarter than I am; he is better educated than I am; she is more
enlightened than I am; he has something to teach me." This comes with the
overwhelming humility of the enlightened stages. Truly holy people are always
humble and never rebellious.
At the
Yellow level, human lives and society are seen much like vibrant, resilient
ecosystems where chaos and fluctuation are expected. People at this level bring
to the table flexibility, spontaneity, and functionality. They respect and
value differences and find ways to integrate them into interdependent
processes.
The last
stage Spiral Dynamics has identified is the Turquoise or Holistic level. Its
basic theme is to "Experience the wholeness of existence through mind and
spirit." [5] Taking the metaphor of ecosystems even further, the Turquoise
level understands the entire world as "a single, dynamic organism with its
own collective mind." [6] I would call it the mind and body of Christ.
While people at this stage can recognize their individuality and separateness,
they can hold the paradox of also being a part of the whole, connected with
everything else in existence. Intuition and cooperation rather than violence
are now the primary modes of thinking and doing. These people can actually live
Jesus' command to love their enemies, which is quite unlikely in the first tier
where such thinking is both absurd and impossible.
There may be
even more stages we have not yet glimpsed or imagined; but the second-tier,
Yellow and Turquoise levels help us understand that the trajectory of life is
headed somewhere good, toward union. Trust the process and surrender to the
urgings of life, gradually growing you up into fullness.
References:
[1] Ken
Wilber, "The Integral Vision at the Millennium," Part I, excerpts
from Introduction to The Collected Works of Ken Wilber, Volume 7 (Shambhala:
2000), www.fudomouth.net/thinktank/now_integralvision.htm.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Don Beck
in an interview with Jessica Roemischer, "The Never-Ending Upward
Quest," What Is Enlightenment?, Fall/Winter 2002,
www.mcs-international.org/downloads/046_spiraldynamics_wie.pdf, 7.
[5] Ibid.,
7.
[6] Ibid.,
7.
Everlasting Father
This article by Sister Teresa White from the website Thinking Faith Continues the development of the names taken from Isaiah 9:6 of the one who was to come into the world. The original article and the previous two articles can be found here
Some years ago, I made a retreat in Ryde on the Isle of Wight. Walking by the sea one evening, I saw three striking sand models lying side by side on the beach: a huge shark, its mouth full of razor-sharp teeth; an elegant woman with seaweed hair; and a man sitting on a throne, complete with crown, orb and sceptre. I stood there quietly for some time, marvelling at the confident artistry of these intricate figures – they reminded me of the stone carvings of a Gothic cathedral. Aware that the sea was rapidly moving nearer as the tide came in, I pondered their forthcoming natural but inevitable obliteration.
All of a sudden, a tiny girl appeared at my side. ‘My daddy made them,’ she said, bursting with pride. ‘But soon the tide will wash them away.’ She ran as near as she could to the models – a clear case of reflected glory – then she disappeared as fast as she had come, her pink bath-robe billowing out behind her in the wind. Minutes later, two teenage boys carrying cricket bats ran up to the models. They battered them in seconds. Once again, a pink whirlwind sped past me, ignoring me this time. Miniscule and furious, she stood in front of the boys, tears streaming down her face. ‘Don’t do that! You mustn’t do that!’ she wailed. ‘My daddy made them.’ It was too late. The models were already destroyed… The child’s father must have been watching, for he came quickly forward, swept his little daughter into his arms and hugged her warmly. As they moved away together, I heard him gently reassuring her that he’d make more models in the morning.
Reflecting on this incident afterwards, I realised it had touched me deeply. The father, whose absence – he appears only at the very end – is ‘like a presence’ (‘The Absence’, R. S. Thomas), pervades the entire scene, and he exhibits some of the enduring qualities of fatherhood which Christians attribute to God. He is the one who fashioned out of sand those amazing figures, so clearly loved and admired by his daughter. And then, silently standing there, watching over his child, the father mirrors God’s providence and concern. His daughter is in distress, and in the face of that distress he is loving and compassionate, kind and understanding. The little girl in her turn openly loves her father and praises his handiwork. She also gladly accepts the consolation he offers her. An interesting touch is that both daughter and father show mercy: the daughter makes no demand for punishment for the two boys, nor does her father denounce them… Is it fanciful to suggest that this father is in some sense an image, a reflection, of the ‘Everlasting Father’ of chapter 9, verse 6 of Isaiah’s prophecy?
Christians traditionally ascribe to Christ the four Messianic titles given in that verse. All the Hebrew prophets speak first to their contemporaries, and in the proximate sense, Isaiah is referring here to the king of his own times, Ahaz, and appears to be conferring these titles on the recently born royal son, Hezekiah: ‘For there is a child born for us…’ He sees the child as in some sense God’s viceroy: ‘… and dominion is laid upon his shoulders’. Hezekiah began to reign about 720 BC and, influenced by Isaiah, he tried to set his people, religiously speaking, on a fresh course and to make law and justice a reality in his kingdom. Nevertheless, Isaiah did not find in Hezekiah, or indeed in any ruler of his own generation, a truly messianic king, a man after God’s own heart and guided entirely by the Spirit of God. The prophetic vision, however, embraces past, present and future, and Isaiah’s declaration relates also to the ideal king, Emmanuel (cf. Is. 7:14), who would be God’s instrument and offer hope of a universal deliverance by reversing the injustice and corruption of the kings of the past. And for Christians, when, year after year, we sing Handel’s famous chorus, ‘For unto Us a Child Is Born’, during our Christmas celebrations, and when we repeat with triumphant musical insistence the names given to the Child: ‘Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace’, it is Jesus we are singing about. We take in our stride even the third of the titles, ‘Everlasting Father’, although, if we think about it, it is the most surprising of the four when applied to Jesus.
For Christians, ‘Father’, as used here, alongside the prefix ‘everlasting’ with its divine associations, offers a compelling theological analogy, through which we learn something of God through our human experience of fatherhood. To call God ‘Everlasting Father’ is to proclaim God’s perennial care for his people, his love and compassion and forgiveness. Yet the Son being named as Father is ostensibly confusing for us, given our doctrine of the Trinity: Jesus’s designation, as the second Person of the Trinity, is not Father, but Son. Jesus the Christ is distinct from the Father, and we refer to him as God’s only-begotten and beloved Son. Jesus himself frequently calls the first Person his Father, prays to him as Father, teaches his disciples to call the first Person ‘Father’ too, and is our advocate with the Father. As the Way, the Truth and the Life, he leads us to the Father. Jesus was sent by the Father, comes from him and, at his Ascension, goes to him. The Father anoints the Son, and commits all judgment to him.
So in what sense may this appellation of ‘Everlasting Father’ be applied to Jesus the Christ? In the Bible, Father, referring to God, signifies the One who is the cause of being, and it may rightly be applied to Jesus, who is, as our liturgy expresses it, ‘the author of our salvation’ (Collect of the second Friday of Advent). The Davidic covenant (2 Sam 7:14) held that God would be to the king a father, and the king would be to God a son. Isaiah appears to be saying that the God who enthroned the kings of David’s line would come himself in the fullness of time and rule as the Messiah-King, as the Father of his people. He sees a divine plan unfolding in history and divine promises progressively realised while moving towards their final accomplishment. For Christians, the Messiah-King is Jesus, who is a Father with respect to those who are adopted into the family of his followers and who, generation after generation, are renewed by his Spirit and grace: to these he is an ‘everlasting Father’. Paul called him the Second Adam, and as such he is the father of the regenerated human race: ‘As in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive’ (1 Cor 15:22). Jesus is, as he himself says, the expressed image of the Father: ‘I came in the name of my Father’ (John 5: 43) and ‘I and the Father are one’ (John 10: 30). For Christians, the Messiah, Jesus, is the ‘Everlasting Father’ (the Douay/Rheims version translates this title as ‘the Father of the world to come’), and is the One who is Sovereign Lord over the ever-changing years – he produces and directs eternity, he will reign for ever.
It is clear that, for Isaiah, the fatherhood of God as expressed in this title is inseparable from kingship; for him, the Messiah would be a powerful and truly righteous ruler. Yet the title ‘Everlasting Father’ encompasses far more than royal power. In the story at the beginning of this article, an anonymous human father is seen to reflect in a humble, everyday way some of the qualities we attribute to God. He reminds us that the Everlasting Father not only rules his people with authority and in justice, but watches over them in love, heals them, comforts them. Does not fatherhood in this sense include and embrace motherhood? Christian theology has always insisted on the essential ‘unnameability’ of God, maintaining that God is beyond all names and words, beyond human gender classifications, in a way that would not have been the case for Isaiah. A long-standing tradition, exemplified especially by Cyril of Alexandria and Anselm of Canterbury, had no hesitation in speaking of God in both male and female terms, and in attributing characteristics most commonly associated with motherhood to the divine. Julian of Norwich confidently followed this tradition: ‘As truly as God is our Father,’ she wrote, ‘so truly God is our Mother’ (The Shewings of Julian of Norwich, §59). She even spoke of the Creation in maternal terms: ‘...we were created by the motherhood of love’ (§60). For her, God is not ‘like’ a mother, but rather, by analogy, a good mother (just like the father in the story) in some way resembles God. How interesting it would be to hear Julian’s comments on this verse from Isaiah chapter 9...
Sister Teresa White belongs to the Faithful Companions of Jesus. A former teacher, she spent many years in the ministry of spirituality at Katherine House, a retreat and conference centre run by her congregation in Salford.
FOUR REASONS CHURCHES DON’T CHANGE (EVEN WHEN THEY NEED TO)
From the weekly blog by Fr Michael White, Pastor of the Church of the Nativity, Baltimore USA
There’s one difference between God and the Church: God doesn’t need to change. But, the most effective and successful churches are constantly changing. The message and the mission never change- that’s a God thing- but the methods and techniques we use to communicate that mission/message are in constant need of re-shaping to reach the ever-changing identity of the lost in every time and place. Change can’t happen without effective leadership, but engineering change, especially a culture change, is perhaps the most challenging task a leader can face.
At Nativity, we faced about every obstacle to change in the book. Here are four real-life obstacles every church leader needs to be aware of that stood in our way and that you will experience too, if you’re trying to transition your church.
Death By Meeting
If you remember the classic movie Groundhog Day, Phil, a weatherman played by Bill Murray wakes up and re-lives the same day, replaying the exact event and conversation over and over again, and each day, he goes a little bit crazier. Does that remind you of your staff or ministry meetings? The same people always bring up the same issue, and every meeting ends with the same decision (or indecision) and everyone is a little worse off than before.
My friend and business consultant Patrick Lencioni addresses this in his book Death by Meeting. Change won’t and can’t happen without a meeting strategy geared toward producing measurable action.
Criticism Trumps Creativity
Change is always the result of a creative process, and healthy criticism is also essential. But it usually pans out that one good idea meets four objections. Why? Being critical is easier than being creative. Even among peers, sharing a new idea is often a vulnerable and nerve-wracking practice. The more ideas are deconstructed outright, the less willing that person will be to share next time around. Even if you don’t adopt every new idea (you can’t and probably shouldn’t), find ways to reward and encourage creative thinking and problem solving. In most settings, criticism far exceeds creative thinking.
To counteract this, at Nativity, we have an approach called granting “permission to fail.” If you really want the light-bulb idea, think like Thomas Edison, who when asked: ‘Isn’t it a shame that with the tremendous amount of work you have done you haven’t been able to get any results?’ , replied: “I have gotten lots of results! I know several thousand things that won’t work!'”
Major on the Minors, Minor on the Majors
Small thinking begets small things. God wants something bigger for your church, but churches so often exert enormous amounts of time and energy on making decisions about small things that ultimately don’t matter for your mission. The problem isn’t that these small decisions exist; there are a thousand little things that need to be decided. The problem is letting them dominate the agenda and drag on indefinitely.
One leadership principle is “the first thing is to keep the first thing the first thing.” Sit with that a minute- what is the “first thing” for you church? Is it your favorite program or structure, or reaching the unchurched?
Loving the Past While Fearing the Future
Nostalgia is a powerful emotion. It’s also human nature to make the past seem better than it really was. It’s also probably the most personally painful obstacle to change to get over.
The best litmus test for this is your language and communication style. Irrelevant, out of date cultural references inevitable make the message and mission seem irrelevant. You won’t be able to break free until you let your fear of missed opportunity exceed your fear of change.
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