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 5th - 8th January, 2016
Tuesday: 9:30am Penguin
Wednesday: 9:30am Latrobe
Thursday: 12noon Devonport
Friday: 9:30am Ulverstone
Next Weekend 9th & 10th 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: Recommences 8th January, 2016.
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: 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, 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.
Let us pray
for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 31st Dec – 6th
Jan
Tori Enniss, Pearl Sheridan, William Cousins, Bill Kruk,
Ian Stubbs, Nicola Tenaglia, Roy Beechey, Joshua & Elizabeth Delaney,
Alfred Harrison, Virginia Miller, Catherine Gibbons, Graham Hollister, Agnes
& William Marshall. Also Audrey Enniss
May they rest in peace
Weekly Ramblings
As I write these ramblings the old year is still here and
the new one is just hours away. As usual so much has happened over these twelve
months and yet so much is still the same (albeit a little older, slower and
greyer).
When I arrived two years ago I asked members of the Parish
Pastoral Council to stay on so that there might be some continuity. Those who
stayed the extra time have indicated that they would like to conclude their
time on the Council and so in the early part of this year we will be calling
for nominations for the Pastoral Council. We are also needing to further
support the work done by the current Finance Committee by seeking a couple of
extra members – another area where parishioners might be able to help. Please
pray that we will have good people willing to be part of these important groups
in our Parish.
Our Sacramental Program will restart early in the new year
and it will also have a new look with the move of Belinda Chapman and the
family to George Town – details about when things are starting afresh will be
made when schools return in February.
A reminder that there has been a change in the nominated
dates for the two whole of Parish Celebrations. Rather than choosing the Feast
of a different Mass Centre each year the PPC thought that it would be better to
celebrate Pentecost and Christ the King each year with the Mass Centres having
their celebration on or about the feast day. Our Lady of Lourdes will be the 1st
Centre to celebrate a feast day and their celebrations will be on Saturday 6th
& Sunday 7th February – the week before the 11th (feast day).
MY TOP BOOKS FOR 2015
Fr Ron Rolheiser's top books for 2015. The original article can be found here
Taste, as St. Augustine said some 1700 years ago, is subjective. That should be acknowledged upfront whenever someone recommends a reading list. In my case, I need to state too that I’m not a full-time critic. It’s not like I’ve read 200 books this past year and these rose to the top. I read when I can, follow book reviews, am fortunate enough to live with academic colleagues who tip each other off on good books, and I have friends who will occasionally tell me that a certain book “has to be read”. From out of that, comes this list. These are the books that most touched me this past year:
Among books on spirituality, I single out these:
The Taste of Silence, Bieke Vandekerckhove. They say that the book you need to read finds you at the time you most need to read it. That was the case here. Vandekerckhove is a young Belgian writer who, twenty years ago, was diagnosed with amyothrophic lateral sclerosis, Lou Gehrig’s disease. Her normal life ended with that sentence and, after an initial descent into darkness, she found strength by making an inner journey into the deep silence that resides inside us all. Her description of her journey is remarkable.
Beyond the Abortion Wars, a way forward for a new generation, Charles Camosy. This is an important book that will healthily shake-up both Pro-Life and Pro-Choice readers by showing that, not only are we closer to each other than we thought, but there is a way, together, to walk out of the present political, social, religious, and legal stalemate within which we find ourselves.
The Reluctant Disciple, Daring to Believe, David Wells. Wells, a young British layman, offers us a warm, witty, and exquisitely balanced insight into how spirituality and life interface in today’s world for a person caught up in the ordinary duties and concerns of life. Among other things, it’s a spirituality for those who don’t like the word spirituality.
Mercy in the City, Kerry Weber. Weber, a young writer on the editorial staff at America Magazine, chronicles her own journey through a Lenten season. This is a warm read, very good book, with deceptive depth.
A Religion of One’s Own, A Guide to Creating a Personal Spirituality in a Secular World, Thomas Moore. This book will upset a lot of people for its rather existential concept of community and ecclesiology, but Thomas Moore writes, as always, with a freshness, insight, and depth that brings a healthy challenge to everyone.
The World Beyond Your Head, On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction, Matthew B. Crawford. Not a spirituality book in se, but this book delivers on its title. If you can wade through the philosophical parts, which are taxing, Crawford gives you a lot, really a lot, to think about.
In terms of novels, I particularly Iiked these:
The Children Act, Ian McEwan. A major, world-class novelist, McEwan gives us here a warm, easy-to-read story that packs a deeper metaphor.
The Anchoress, Robyn Cadwallader. Did you ever wonder how people like Julian of Norwich lived? What really was an anchoress? Cadwallader gives us a fictional picture of what someone like Julian of Norwich would have lived out.
Purity, Jonathan Franzen. It takes 600 pages for this story to sort itself out. But it’s vintage Jonathan Franzen. He tells a good story
Lying Awake, Mark Salzman. The story of a young Carmelite nun who has to discern illness from mysticism. This book is 15 years old, but well worth the read.
The Painter of Silence, Georgina Harding. Set in Romania just after World War II, Harding sets humanity and soul into the tragedy of war and into human brokenness in general. A great read, along the lines of All the Light We Cannot See.
Finally, a special category: Each year I write a column on suicide. I don’t claim any special insight into that singular sadness that surrounds a suicide, both in society at large and in church circles. I write on this issue simply because there’s just too little out there to help anyone understand and cope with the loss of a loved one through suicide. During the past year, I received three separate books, all written by a mother who had lost a child to suicide. The stories, while stunningly unique in that each person is his or her own mystery, bear an eerie resemblance to each other, not because they are each written by a mother trying to come to grips with a tragic loss of her own child, but that in each case a grieving mother is describing a very similar kind of person, namely, a beautiful, over-sensitive young person who, in effect, is too-bruised to cope with ordinary life. All three of these books are worth the read and, read together, will scar your heart.
Healing the Wound of my Daughter’s Suicide, Lois Severson.
Damage Done, Suicide of an Only Son, Gloria Hutchinson.
My Daughter, Her Suicide, and God, Marjorie Antus.
Happy reading!
Levels of
Development: Week 1
taken from the daily emails posted by Fr Richard Rohr. To subscribe to these emails click here
We Do Grow,
Change, and Evolve
In the next
section of my lineage, I will be discussing one of the most helpful and
clarifying elements for the modern mind: understanding things in terms of
developmental stages. As a preacher and teacher, I know that I can say one
thing and it will be heard on as many as ten different levels, depending upon
the inner psychological and spiritual maturity of the listener. Thomas Aquinas
said the same in one of his foundational principles of philosophy:
"Whatever is received is received according to the mode of the
receiver." We now call this "developmental psychology."
I can give
what I think is a lousy sermon, yet a humble woman will come to me after mass
in tears of gratitude for the beauty of something that spoke to her deeply. She
may not be highly educated, but she is spiritually evolved. Another
"smart" but cognitively rigid person will hear the same sermon and is
only convinced that I am a heretic. Mature people can make lemonade out of
lemons. Immature people can turn the sweetest lemonade tart and sour. It's
always interesting after Mass to hear what people heard me say, and how
different it is from what I thought I said. I've learned just to accept their
understanding as a sign of where they are on the spiritual/human journey. [1] I
am quite sure this is what the evangelists are referring to when they
frequently say Jesus "knew their thoughts" (Luke 6:8; 9:47). You can
actually be trained in "reading souls" and recognizing where people
are coming from and headed toward. I doubt if you can be a good spiritual
director or educator without some foundational knowledge of stages of
consciousness and development.
Jesus
clearly recognized levels of development in his parable about the four kinds of
soil (Matthew 13:1-23; Mark 4:1-20; Luke 8:4-15) and how they each received the
same seed differently. Teresa of Ávila's "mansions" and John of the
Cross' "nights" of the senses and of the spirit were other clever
metaphors aiming us in the same direction. Then in the last century it began to
explode: Jean Piaget looked at cognitive development, Lawrence Kohlberg focused
on moral development, and Abraham Maslow gave us a hierarchy of human needs.
More recently, James Fowler described stages of faith, and Bill Plotkin gave us
his Soulcentric Developmental Wheel which outlines the link between nature and
soulful growth. Not as much attention has been given to women's models of
growth, but two excellent examples are Nicola Slee's study, Women's Faith
Development, and Carol Gilligan's ground-breaking work. My own attempt to
correlate the various schemas of development for spiritual directors can be
found in the first appendix of my book, The Naked Now.
In recent
decades, building on many of these models, I have come to find great insight in
the work of Clare Graves, Don Beck, Christopher Cowan, and Ken Wilber. They
teach a spiraling form of development that integrates the biopsychosocial and
spiritual stages, which they call Spiral Dynamics. What I find especially
compelling here is that these schemas show how history itself has paralleled
the levels of individual development and growth. The trajectory is the same.
This gives us a kind of tool for discernment, for reading and critiquing
oneself, and also for reading history and understanding how we have come to
this critical and perplexing point in human existence, stage by stage. [2]
From a faith
perspective, learning about levels of development can give us understanding and
compassion for ourselves and for others. It can also give us hope, especially
during the dark times when things seem to be falling apart, personally or
globally. Between each stage there is always a necessary dying or period of
darkness when the previous stage stops working. This mirrors what so many
Christian mystics have taught. We need to help one another keep the soul open
at such times, trusting that God and grace will move us forward when we are
ready. I truly believe that consciousness is evolving toward ever deeper union
and wholeness, even though it may not seem that way in the short run. As with
everything, we move three steps forward and two steps backwards. [3] Some call
this "Holy Affirming" and "Holy Denying" which eventually
moves us to a third something at a higher level of awareness.
References:
[1] Adapted
from Richard Rohr, Levels of Spiritual Growth (Center for Action and
Contemplation: 2009), CD, MP3 download.
[2] 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), disc 2, CD, MP3 download.
[3] Adapted
from Richard Rohr, Where You Are Is Where I'll Meet You (Center for Action and
Contemplation: 2009), disc 1, CD, MP3 download.
Growth Is
Real and Needed
Dr. Clare
Graves, whose research was foundational to the formation of Spiral Dynamics,
writes, "What I am proposing is that the psychology of the mature human
being is an unfolding, oscillating, spiraling process, marked by progressive
subordination of older, lower-order behavior systems to newer, higher-order
systems as [a human's] existential problems change." [1] Graves posited,
in the words of Don Beck, that the "deeper patterns in the evolution of
human consciousness . . . reflect different activation levels of our dynamic
neurological equipment." [2]
I'll own
that I am out of my league here, trying to explain neuroscience! But if you'll
bear with me, I will give you a layman's summary of what I've learned about
"our dynamic neurological equipment." I am fascinated by recent
studies of the brain that support Graves' idea that the evolution and growth of
the human brain affects our level of consciousness. We need every angle we can
find to try to understand ourselves, and even what is happening in history,
which often feels so hopeless.
Much of what
I'll be sharing about brain research comes from Joseph Chilton Pearce and his
book, The Biology of Transcendence. The study of neuroscience and brain
development indicates that we are wired for transcendence, for the ever bigger
picture, but it is all highly dependent on being exposed to living models and
personal nurturance as we move from one stage to the next. Fowler and Kohlberg
said the same thing: We all need living models. How important we are for one
another! This is a good argument for some form of church community--to gather
enlightened, transformed, loving people together so they rub off on one
another. Beyond models, we also need nurturing: mothering and fathering, loving,
and partnering at the critical stages of brain development, which are almost
all in the first twenty-five years of life.
Throughout
childhood and adolescence, the individual regions of the brain and the pathways
connecting them are still under development. Between the ages of fifteen and
the early twenties, excess gray matter and unused neural pathways are pruned to
make the brain more efficient. A myelin sheath--like electrical
insulation--forms around a nerve to increase the speed of electrical
communication between neurons that are being used. In this way, the brain's
regions are stabilized and prior brain developments become permanent. It
appears that the pruning occurs starting at the back of the brain, moving
forward. The prefrontal cortex is the last section to undergo myelination. The
prefrontal cortex helps you inhibit impulses, make decisions, make plans, think
long-term, achieve goals, and evaluate rewards and risks. Research shows that
our human brain is not fully developed until around age twenty-five.
Teens are
much more sensitive to peer approval than they were as children or will be as
adults. We often see this in teenagers as a desire to do something wonderful,
to be someone great, to connect with something momentous. It's actually
transcendence they are searching for. But because there aren't living models
around them of saints, of mystics, of people who've got the big picture, they
settle for rock stars, movie stars, or professional athletes. That's the only
greatness offered to them in a secular culture. They will try to become rich or
famous, which looks like greatness, and yet it is still inside what I call the
false or small self. It is not yet the fully connected self, the Great Self,
the God Self.
If, between
the ages of fifteen and twenty-five, the young person has both models and
enough nurturance (and maybe even an experience of initiation), the visionary,
idealistic worldview takes off for the rest of his or her life. That's why such
a person is never satisfied and keeps searching for more transcendence,
yearning for closer connection with God, with others, and with the universe. I
hope you know such a person. They are the prime movers for all of us.
If during
this early period there are no strong models or wisdom elders, the prefrontal
cortex does not keep the neural pathways for transcendence active and
accessible. The young person becomes just the opposite: cynical and negative,
with a deep, cosmic disappointment that this greatness will not happen to them.
"I'm not part of something momentous," he or she concludes. "I'm
just dumb old me." So to give oneself significance they may compete on a music
or dance show or even join ISIS--anything big and noisy. Pearce says this is
what we see in many Western teenagers today, because we haven't offered them
anything greater or deeper--or within.
Pearce
suggests many young people even revert to earlier levels of brain development
because their disappointment is so great. Some revert to the reptilian brain
where they only react to life in terms of freeze, fight, or flight. That type
of person divides the world into simplistic good guys and bad guys. We call
this dualistic thinking, or "all or nothing thinking." There is no
ability to subtly read the soul. This is the character of many politicians,
preachers, and people attracted to a kind of religion that affirms their good
buy/bad guy worldview and takes away their inner anxiety.
Hopefully
life and God bring new opportunities--through experiences of great suffering
and great love--to "rewire" our brains even if we have not
experienced the nurturing and guidance we needed at key stages.
References:
[1] Clare
Graves, as quoted by Jessica Roemischer, "The Never-Ending Upward
Quest," What Is Enlightenment?, Fall/Winter 2002,
www.mcs-international.org/downloads/046_spiraldynamics_wie.pdf, 6.
[2] Don Beck
in an interview with Jessica Roemischer, "The Never-Ending Upward
Quest," 8.
Drawn from
Joseph Chilton Pearce, The Biology of Transcendence: A Blueprint of the Human
Spirit (Park Street Press: 2004).
Adapted from
Richard Rohr, True Self/False Self (Franciscan Media: 2003), disc 3.
The Evolving
Brain
According to
Joseph Chilton Pearce, there are five "brains," each building upon
the other. Pearce writes: "at each stage of development each new system is
dependent upon the full function of the system that developmentally preceded
it." [1] Both Pearce and Ken Wilber say that a smaller and smaller portion
of the human population makes it to each higher level of brain development.
At the
bottom of the pyramid is the old reptilian brain. This is probably what Freud
would have called the Id. It's the survival instinct and the reproductive urge
on a sensory-motor level.
Above that
is the old mammalian brain, the limbic system, which controls basic emotions of
fear, pleasure, and anger. It feeds our basic emotional needs of hunger, sex,
power, control, and nurturing. What Freud calls the Ego begins here. This
feeling and remembering brain holds the pain body that goes deep and can even
"possess" us for decades after we've been hurt. This brain is
necessary because it gives us the emotional intelligence by which we read the
meanings and social cues of daily interactions. It can be either a helpful
emotional program or a wounded and angry one. It largely resides in our
unconscious, only brought to the surface by either conflict or honest insight.
Next is the
new mammalian brain or the neo-cortex. This too contributes to our egoic self.
The neo-cortex has two hemispheres--the left brain and the right brain. The
left or logical brain focuses on analytical, sequential, and logical thinking.
The left brain deals with old, familiar, settled material that you have made
logical and orderly. If you are primarily left-brained, you can become very
logical but also very rigid and, as you get older, respond from the few neural
grooves you've used in repetitive ways. You may not be able to understand
people who don't think exactly like you do. Without collaboration with the
right brain, there is not much capacity for empathy or solidarity, much less
intimacy with others.
The right or
creative brain is nonverbal and intuitive, using images rather than words to
find and express meaning. It is the part of the brain that can deal with new
material in new ways. Both hemispheres are important and both need education
and development by mentoring and modeling. The right brain, however, has far
more connections to the next level of the brain, the prefrontal lobes. That's
why right-brained people can often be more imaginative and can adjust better to
change. This may also be an aspect of spiritual intelligence.
The left
brain apparently does not have many neural connections to the two remaining
"higher" brains. So you normally need some encounter with mystery,
paradox, non-rational truth or beauty, and inconsistency itself in order to
develop your right/creative brain, and therefore the next two brains. This is
why we grow through conflict and not through any easy order or the maintaining
of comfort. I believe this is what Jesus means when he shockingly says, "I
have come not to bring peace, but the sword" (Matthew 10:34). Most of
Jesus' core teaching should put you in conflict with business as usual and with
what you took for granted! The Gospel creates necessary conflicts that grow
people up. What a shame that we made it into a simplistic answer book rather
than read its deep transformative message.
Around age
15, a great brain surge begins in the prefrontal lobes. This is what I think
Freud would have called the Superego. Historically, this was the age for
initiation to assure the small ego would be given a great challenge at this
time. Helicopter parents are of no help here. This developmental process
integrates all the lower brains and aims you outward and upward. Myelination
stabilizes all the neurons that have been used up to now. But all the synapses
that have not been used are actually pruned away. What a loss to nature and the
world! If there's no one loving our young people, believing in them,
challenging them, and modeling for them the next stage, they fail to develop
the potential of the prefrontal lobes, which connects them to the fifth brain.
They inevitably become angry, sullen, and cynical.
The fifth
brain is located in the heart--literally, the muscular organ that circulates
our life-blood. All of the poetry and songs about the heart "knowing"
were not just idle chatter; we now have scientific validation that the heart
shares brain-like functions. The connection of the prefrontal lobes to the
heart has been demonstrated electromagnetically and at the neural and hormonal
levels too. [2]
The simplest
indicator that someone is living at all of the brain's levels is that they are
not violent in thought, word, or action. They do not need to hurt or humiliate
the other or themselves. It doesn't mean that they cannot say hard things, but
it doesn't come from a place of malice or a desire to cause pain. Quite
frankly, they can "understand" the human soul. They are humans
themselves!
References:
[1] Joseph
Chilton Pearce, The Biology of Transcendence: A Blueprint of the Human Spirit
(Park Street Press: 2004), 50.
[2] Drawn
from Doc Childre and Howard Martin, The HeartMath Solution: The Institute of
Heart- Math's Revolutionary Program for Engaging the Power of the Heart's
Intelligence (HarperCollins: 1999), 28-34.
The Process
of Divinization
Joseph
Chilton Pearce's book, The Biology of Transcendence, points to both culture and
the cultural entrapment of Christianity as blockages to potential growth toward
transcendence. Each stage of brain development provides a biological window to
connect with higher levels. But if the child or teenager is threatened or
shamed, these possibilities for higher connection die off and the connections
to the more primitive, reflexive, reptilian brain--which is hardwired for
defense and survival--are strengthened. People stop developing or they even
regress. Unfortunately, our culture's approach to childrearing and even the
Church's teaching style have focused on shaming, punishing, and threatening,
just the opposite of what Jesus modeled. Pearce points out that Jesus and other
great spiritual teachers throughout history intended to awaken us to "the
illusion of culture and the reality of our transcendent nature." [1]
Indeed,
Christianity has not emphasized our inherent transcendent nature for at least
the last five hundred years. We just wanted to flee earth and get to heaven!
Christianity allowed itself to be co-opted by cultures for the purpose of
social control and order. As Todd Wynward, a longtime friend in New Mexico and
a former intern of the CAC, writes in his book Rewilding the Way, "We are
the people God's been waiting for. Why is this so hard for modern Christians to
believe and embrace? Because God's amazing expectations, and our divine
potential, have been hijacked by empire-based Christendom and subverted by the
framing stories of dominant culture. . . . Your native, indigenous character as
a child of God has been distorted. . . ." [2]
It has not
always been this way. The early church fathers and mothers were quite clear
about God's goal for humanity. Augustine (354-430) described the mysterion, the
mystery, in one phrase: "For even as Christ became a human being, so now
human beings could become like Christ." It is that simple. What Christ put
together, we too have the opportunity to put together. In the second century,
Irenaeus said that Jesus became what we are in order to make us what he himself
is. That's daring language. We lost the courage to talk that way in later
centuries. Christianity became much more juridical and rational, much more
transactional than transformational.
The early church
understood the mystery of holiness as a true process of theosis, which is the
Greek word for divinization (2 Peter 1:4). Gregory of Nazianzen (c. 306-391)
said, "Let us seek to be like Christ, because Christ also became like us:
to become gods through him since he himself, through us, became a man. He took
the worst upon himself to make us a gift of the best." This teaching
lasted probably into the 14th century to some degree, but largely among the
mystics, and only among those who prayed from within.
Dame Julian
of Norwich (c. 1342-1416) has this deep sense of the organic union between the
soul and God. Hers is still an optimistic worldview. In Chapter 54 of
Revelations of Divine Love, Julian writes, "So greatly ought we to rejoice
that God dwells within us, and more greatly ought we to rejoice that our soul
dwells in God. . . . In fact I saw no difference between God and my substance.
[Wow!] But as it were we were all one. And still my understanding accepted that
our substance is in God." That is to say, God is God, and our substance is
a creature in that God. This is why she's still considered orthodox. Julian is
fascinated with that absolute unity, and yet she maintains the I-Thou
relationship of the two. [3] We are one and not two, and yet we are two and not
one! Think about that.
Tomorrow we
will begin to delve into Spiral Dynamics, a developmental schema integrating
spirituality and the sciences of biology, psychology, and sociology. Like
Julian of Norwich, it is very optimistic. Rather than blocking the evolution of
consciousness as much of Christianity seems to have done in the last few
centuries, Spiral Dynamics is acknowledging that as humans adapt to changing
conditions, new intelligences are awakened that in turn shape our future. As
Wynward puts it, "divinely revolutionized humans are to be conspirators
with God's dream of heaven on earth." [4] Ken Wilber says that only
healthy religion is prepared to operate "as a conveyor belt" moving
us all the way to the higher stages of consciousness. Mere education cannot do
that.
References:
[1] Joseph
Chilton Pearce, The Biology of Transcendence: A Blueprint of the Human Spirit
(Park Street Press: 2004), 126-127.
[2] Todd
Wynward, Rewilding the Way: Break Free to Follow an Untamed God (Herald Press:
2015), 26.
[3] Adapted
from Richard Rohr, True Self/False Self (Franciscan Media: 2003), disc 3, CD.
[4] Wynward,
Rewilding the Way, 25.
Growing into
Union
(originally posted on Thomas Merton Day)
So many of
our problems can be resolved if we understand that people are at different
levels of emotional, mental, and spiritual maturity. I am told that United
States diplomats are given an intense course in Spiral Dynamics before they are
sent to other countries because they need to have some empathy for the levels
of development they are likely to find there. I remember how horrifying it was
for me and a group of missionaries overseas, standing outside a couple's home
when I realized that our presence was keeping the man from beating his wife
inside. We knew as soon as we walked away he'd continue, and there was little
we could do to change the whole culture.
When I later
asked the woman, "Why do you let your husband do that?"
She replied,
"Because I was bad, Father."
"Who
decided you were bad?"
"He
did, Father."
I know it
blows your mind, but this is early stage consciousness, which is all about
power and staying at your proper level. Whoever wields the power is considered
to be right. In many if not most cultures, men have had all the power and women
submitted to this, because that's the way patriarchal systems function.
But who are
we to judge? It was only a little more than a hundred years ago that people in
the United States, people who called themselves Christian (including Jesuits on
the East coast), not only tolerated slavery, but had slaves. Even though most
Americans have moved beyond considering humans as property, we still have a
long way to go in terms of true racial and gender equality. A significant
number of Americans are still at the early Purple and Red levels, which we will
explore next week. Spiral Dynamics risks appearing to be politically incorrect,
but without anger or violence.
I am
offering you these levels of development as a tool for understanding yourself,
others, and history; but please know that it does not come close to describing
the complexity and the subtlety of the human person or the spiritual journey.
Also recognize that the ego wants to decide its level, and it's very likely to
pick a high one--which is ironic, because at the highest levels of development,
the ego is less and less interested in categorizing things up and down. It is
in many ways artificial and even unhealthy to talk about higher and lower
levels because this will appeal to the small self and lead to assessing ourselves
in ways that are fundamentally untrue. Yet, we do need to understand
development so we can see where the trajectory of growth is heading--toward
union with God, others, creation, and our own mind, heart and body. Otherwise
we have no criteria by which to discern maturity from sickness. Without this
awareness, many unhealthy people have led both churches and countries. This is
the danger and also the need for a developmental theory.
It is also
important to distinguish between stages and states. You can have a momentary
state of unitive or high level consciousness, where you experience your union
with God, with other humans, and with animals, the sun, the moon, and the
stars. But a momentary state doesn't mean you've practiced it and changed your
hardwiring so that it has become a lasting stage. A momentary state has to be
practiced for years before it can become a genuine new stage of consciousness.
And still it's up to God, grace, time, love, and suffering to nudge you forward
and to keep you there. Even then, at times--for example, when we're hungry,
angry, lonely, tired (H.A.L.T.)--we all backslide. Knowing this will help you
understand and forgive yourself and others.
Reference:
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), disc 2, CD, MP3 download.
Spiral
Dynamics
Next week we
will look more closely at each level, but for now I'd like to give you an
overview of the entire spiral of human development. This model was popularly
introduced by Don Beck and has been adopted by many others, including Ken
Wilber. Each level, which describes both individuals and societies, is
represented by a color.
The early
levels of development are the most dualistic and egocentric.
FIRST
TIER--SUBSISTENCE LEVELS
Egocentric
Early Levels:
1) Beige:
Instinctive/Survivalistic (0.1% of adults in the world)
2) Purple:
Magical/Animistic (10% of adults)
3) Red:
Impulsive/Egocentric (20% of adults)
4) Blue:
Purposeful/Authoritarian (40% of adults)
At this
point, some minor death of egocentricity is required in order to move forward.
Sociocentric
Middle Levels:
5) Orange:
Achievist/Strategic (30% of world population; 50% of people in power)
6) Green:
Communitarian/Egalitarian (10% of world population; 20% in developed countries;
15% of people in power)
Many of the
people who reach the Green level stop here, believing they've made it to the
top. Up to now each higher level has been contemptuous of the levels below,
reacting most strongly against the level they most recently left. What Ken
Wilber calls "Boomeritis" often occurs at the Green level. It is a
combination of arrogance and individualism which will not finally let go of the
ego's separateness and superiority. A major death of the ego must be undergone
in order to move forward to the Second Tier of development. This cannot be
engineered by the ego, but is always initiated by Reality/God/Circumstances.
This is the necessary "Dark Night of the Soul" which most will not
allow.
SECOND
TIER--BEING LEVELS
Wisdom or Non-Dual Consciousness:
7) Yellow:
Integrative
8)
Turquoise: Holistic
(Less than
2% of the world population and less than 1% of those in power are at the level
of second tier consciousness.)
Only at the
Wisdom levels of consciousness can we have the freedom and ability to include
the value of previous stages and not need to hate or reject any of them. There
is a cosmic humility and a "rediscovery of hierarchy" in the second
tier, whereby you are fully open to people still growing up and the possibility
that there are people far beyond where you are now. You are now fully free to
love, believe, and hope in everything.
Reference:
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), disc 2, CD, MP3 download.
Mighty God
This is the second in a series presented on the website Thinking Faith. written by Fr David Neuhaus sj it arises from the passage from the Prophet Isaiah. The original article and the others in the sries can be found hereFor a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Isaiah 9:6 is a favourite Christmas verse. Christians know exactly whom Isaiah is referring to, especially as they prepare to celebrate Christmas. However, it is important to point out that two groups of readers of the Isaiah text challenge this seemingly clear-cut Christian understanding. Our Jewish brothers and sisters read the same text but do not see there any reference to Jesus. Furthermore, academic exegetes, scientific interpreters of the Bible, ask whether it is coherent and sensible to claim that the author of this verse, writing in the second half of the 8th century BC, was indeed referring to Jesus of Nazareth. Moreover, is it probable that Isaiah referred to a small child, who was born in his time, as ‘mighty God’?
Of course, any answer to this question has to confront the issue of identifying the child in the Isaiah text, who according to the verse has already been born in the time of Isaiah. Some Christians might still insist that it is Jesus of Nazareth. After all, they might argue, Isaiah is a prophet so he knows what will be. However, a prophet is not a fairytale fortune-teller who predicts the future clearly, but rather a person sent by God to bring a message of warning or of consolation to the people of his or her time – a specific people at a specific time. The child in Isaiah 9:6 ‘has been born for us’ and Isaiah is surely referring to an identifiable child as he writes for the residents of Jerusalem and the Kingdom of Judah in the time of King Ahaz, a time of great tribulation for the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah. As Christian readers of the Bible, we are called to realise that the simplistic understanding of Old Testament prophecy as directly speaking about Jesus is only one valid reading of the text, and is problematic on many different levels.
Isaiah is sent to his people in the 8th century BC, when king and people are seized with anxiety, looking around at a frighteningly threatening world. It would be simply sadistic for God to wink at them and say: ‘What are you worried about? Hang on for 700 years and I will send Jesus!’ So what is Isaiah referring to when he transmits the message about a child who has been born and seems to be named ‘mighty God’? He is surely pointing to something within the world of his listeners that will bring them comfort and reveal who God is. This child, like the one born of the young woman in Isaiah 7:14, proclaims that God is with us in our trouble and that God will be ultimately victorious.
Many Jewish and academic exegetes have suggested that the child in question is the heir to the throne in Isaiah’s day: Hezekiah, son of Ahaz, who will be remembered as one of the few kings who ‘did what was right in the sight of the Lord just as his ancestor David had done’ (2 Kings 18:3). Of course, it is then striking and clearly unusual to call a human child ‘mighty God’! The great Jewish medieval commentator, Rabbi Solomon son of Isaac, known as Rashi (1040-1105), put forward the claim that in fact the three divine titles – ‘Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father’ – refer not to the child but to the one naming the child. ‘For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father names him [calls his name] Prince of Peace’. Other exegetes have argued that in the Hebrew construction the word translated as ‘God’ might instead be the descriptor of the word translated as ‘mighty’. They argue that a reasonable translation of the expression might be ‘great hero’ – the Hebrew word El (translated ‘God’) might refer to being Godlike in grandeur, and the Hebrew word gibor (translated ‘mighty’) might refer to the substantive ‘strongman’ or ‘hero’. This would then fit into the string of descriptions: Wonderful Counsellor, Great Strongman, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
The difficulty with the term ‘mighty God’ is borne out when we look at the ancient Greek translation of the Isaiah text. It would seem that the rather clumsy translation seeks to expunge the problematic possibility of divine identification of a human child in the Hebrew text. The Greek does not have the word El (theos in Greek) but rather the word angelos – ‘a messenger’. Translations of the Greek text tend to affiliate the word ‘messenger’ with the preceding ‘wonderful counsellor’ – messenger of great counsel. The Greek text might indeed preserve an ancient understanding of the Hebrew.
Does this then mean that the modern translation of our Old Testament should be ‘corrected’? Centuries of Christians have understood this text, and many others in the Book of Isaiah, to refer to Jesus Christ. I would be reluctant to give up on the possibility that the text calls a small child ‘mighty God’, even though I need to admit that what I understand might not have been exactly what the original author meant. In fact, perhaps what he meant in this particular case is indeed closer to what my Jewish brothers and sisters understand when they read the same verse. However, what I see in the text is what I recognise as the culmination of God’s plan in the birth of a child, given to us, who is indeed ‘mighty God’, a birth that took place hundreds of years after that other child was born.
Through the centuries, two communities have been reading the Bible alongside one another. These readings have not peacefully coexisted but challenged one another, and in too many cases this has meant that we read the Bible against one another. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Old Testament texts in which Christians see Christ. In fact, an essential part of the greatness of the Fathers of the Church was their Christological reading of the Old Testament, making it everywhere relevant for the Church that seeks Christ. Wherever they looked they saw Christ. Today, do we judge this perspective to be wrong because it does not conform to what exegetes tell us might have been the original authors’ intention? Is it wrong because Jewish readers do not see what Christian readers see?
The new relationship with the Jewish people, which we celebrate this year in the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council and of the publication of Nostra aetate, obliges us to broaden our understanding of the Biblical texts we take for granted. Traditionally, Christians had assumed that Jews were blind in their reading of the Old Testament because they did not perceive the figure of Christ, who Christians claimed was prefigured and promised in these ancient Scriptures. The basis for this accusation can be found in Paul’s writings: ‘their minds were hardened. Indeed, to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, that same veil is still there, since only in Christ is it set aside’ (2 Corinthians 3:14). This had been an important pillar in the ‘teaching of contempt’ that characterised too much of Christian discourse about Jews and Judaism.
However, today, Christians are encouraged to respect the Jewish reading of the Scriptures that are also theirs. They are also encouraged to take seriously the fruits of academic research. Christians now admit that they see Christ in the Old Testament not because he is objectively there but because he becomes perceptible to the Christian who reads the Old Testament text in the light of the New. As the 2001 document of the Pontifical Biblical Commission explained:
Although the Christian reader is aware that the internal dynamism of the Old Testament finds its goal in Jesus, this is a retrospective perception whose point of departure is not in the text as such, but in the events of the New Testament proclaimed by the apostolic preaching. It cannot be said, therefore, that Jews do not see what has been proclaimed in the text, but that the Christian, in the light of Christ and in the Spirit, discovers in the text an additional meaning that was hidden there. (The Jewish People and their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible (2001), §21)
The Jewish reading of the Scriptures, according to the teaching of this revolution, is not an expression of blindness but rather an authentic understanding of these Scriptures:
Christians can and ought to admit that the Jewish reading of the Bible is a possible one, in continuity with the Jewish Sacred Scriptures from the Second Temple period, a reading analogous to the Christian reading which developed in parallel fashion. Both readings are bound up with the vision of their respective faiths, of which the readings are the result and expression. Consequently, both are irreducible (The Jewish People and their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible (2001), §22)
An integral part of the revolution in Jewish-Christian relations is the realisation that Jews and Christians share a language and a spiritual heritage that is based on the Scriptures they share – called the Old Testament by Christians, the TaNaKh by Jews. However, one of the important ways the Christian reading of the Old Testament differs from the Jewish one is in the identification of the Messiah, omnipresent in the Christian reading and only discretely hinted at in the Jewish one. Faith in Jesus distinguishes the Christian reading of the Bible from the Jewish one.
It should be quite obvious that Isaiah lived long before any debate between Jews and Christians. In fact, by applying historical and critical methods to the text, it becomes a little clearer to one and all who the prophet is and in what context he is writing. Undoubtedly, the verse referred to a child who was in that context, a child who would also be ‘God with us’ in a situation where God seemed so distant. However, the fact that this text became Holy Scripture for Jews and for Christians means that millennia of readers have found new and additional meaning in it. Whatever the precise historical reference, the text teaches us to speak about God, a God we know through faith. It is this faith that forms our understanding not of what Isaiah might have meant back then, but what his words meant to those who wrote the story of Jesus and what they mean to us as Christians right now.
From the perspective of our Christian faith, we know that the same God who speaks through Isaiah then sends His Son, God incarnate, Mighty God. This is not objectively in the text of Isaiah but rather is understood by those who read Isaiah in the light of the life of Christ. Our Jewish brothers and sisters read the same text but do not see what we see, yet what they see might illuminate aspects of what the text has to say that we cannot see because we focus so exclusively on Jesus.
In a newly published document to mark the 50th anniversary of Nostra aetate’s paragraph 4, the Holy See’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews explains:
After centuries of opposing positions it has been the duty of Jewish-Catholic dialogue to bring these two new ways of reading the Biblical writings into dialogue with one another in order to perceive the ‘rich complementarity’ where it exists and ‘to help one another to mine the riches of God’s word’ (Evangelii gaudium, §249). (A reflection on theological questions pertaining to Catholic-Jewish relations, §31)
This Christmas, let us again be challenged rather than threatened by the difference in understanding of the words ‘mighty God’ so that we deepen relationship rather than sever it, and grow together in bringing light to this world rather than contributing to darkness. The ‘mighty God’ we seek surely expects nothing less!
Fr David M. Neuhaus SJ serves as Latin Patriarchal Vicar within the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. He is responsible for Hebrew-speaking Catholics in Israel as well as the Catholic migrant populations. He teaches Holy Scripture at the Latin Patriarchate Seminary and at the Salesian Theological Institute in Jerusalem and also lectures at Yad Ben Zvi.
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