Getting Heaven into Us

Nowhere is my destination.

And no one is my identity.

 

My daily bread is powerlessness.

Temptations can be overwhelming.

Gone is every hope of help.

 

An abyss opens up within me.

I am falling, falling,

Plunging into non-existence.

 

Is this annihilation?

Or, is it the path to the Silent Love

That we are?. . .

 

               —Thomas Keating, “The Last Laugh”  (quoted in Richard Rohr’s blog 10/26/20

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I have been thinking a lot

about the “self” lately

 

maybe it is just that I am getting older

with far less road ahead of me, than behind me

 

maybe it is the chaos in which we now low live

as the earth screams in pain from the cruelty of human beings

and the poor suffer abuse at the hands of the poor

and the powerful manipulate and oppress

using their crumbling scraps of power

malignantly

 

it seems as if the air is full of ego

and our world is dominated by the actions of people

who cannot see, proverbially

beyond their own noses

 

where ME rules

and WE is diminished

 

into this darkness

which is as brooding and cold as a winters morning

come the words of one

who would transform

 

who would warm our hearts

and fill our souls

and transform our minds

 

the words echo

they bounce around my sometimes empty soul

unavoidable and insistent

 

the first shall be last

the last shall be first

the old must die for the new to be born

you must give to gain

you must deny yourself

you must die to live

 

these words flow from the mouth of Jesus

they permeate the Bible

 

how do we miss them?

how do we ignore them? (and we do)

how have we managed to make faith about

 

domination

power

control

retribution

 

how have we managed to change Jesus

in to a sick parody of himself?

 

the fact is these are hard times

these are frightening times

the raw appeal to hate is terrifying

the blatant abuse of power threatens all

(even those who celebrate it)

 

 

and we have done what people have often done

in such times

 

turned to ego

turned to self

turned to tools of ego, power and wealth

hoping for safety and survival

 

now, which it is hardest

now, when it is dangerous

now when it is costly

 

is the time to die to self

to let go of so many of the things we hold on to

grimly

 

to fall into that abyss

of fear and uncertainty

into that liminal undefined space

within us

 

for if we let go of the old

the new will come

 

if we die to self

we will be resurrected to a new self

our true self

 

empty we will be filled with the Spirit

empty we will be reformed

 

transformed by the Sacred

whose greatest desire is to turn the world right side up

and get heaven into us

rather than getting us into heaven!**

 

we will be reborn

and the world with us

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**  This wonderful concept comes from Gregory Jerome Bentley via Facebook