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Thursday, March 31, 2011

Thoughts on The Mystic Portal

I am living the temporal humanity of Christ.
I bear His temporal pain and breathe His soul's suffering.
Yet only when the human is subsumed in His mystical Divinity
is there one Joy, one Love, the one Reality: God-Man.

Only then do the two worlds, temporal and mystical, 

become one reality, the Divine Reality.
The temporal is a shadow of the full humanity of Christ   

if without union in the mystical reality of His Divinity.

The temporal Catholic world is a holding cell 

for passage through the mystic portal, 
to become the full humanity of Christ in His Divinity
to be fully one in the One in the one true reality.

(I hope I am stating it meaningfully, accurately; 

words are incompetent secretaries to insights.)

It is something like this, and I must get through 

the mystic portal with His physical and soul suffering,
in order to be in the true reality: one reality of oneness in God.

Do you see that the Sacraments, all of them, 

but most frequently Eucharist in Mass 
and Reconciliation in Confession,  
are portal passage points 
for the temporal to enter into the mystical, 
and that without the One in reality of the mystical,
in these sacraments, there would be false reality? 

Jesus in His full humanity 

is the Divine ever-flowing into within the temporal.  
He is not the temporal occasionally touching the mystical.
 

When we pain-bearing soul-suffering humans pass 
through the mystic portal to be subsumed in His Divinity, 
we awash the temporal in and by His living waters.  
We then may fully live His humanity mystically Divine 
as we are become one with the One Reality.

Friday, March 25, 2011

Through the...

During the night I knew what to pray, and I began in earnest.  I am praying for God to get me through the mystic portal.  That is all.  That is what is needed here.  I know He has closed even the tiniest of mouse doors of the temporal Catholic world, and all that remain is the mystic portal of the mystical Catholic world.

Getting ready to go to Mass on this Feast of the Annunciation.  Later will go to confession for my upset which is probably my own fault at not staying clear of the temporal Catholic world snares and the people who get fussy over a simple desire to donate a dozen muffins.  That is a very small mouse hole issue, and  will be the finale to muffins.

My spiritual director says God wants other of me than muffins, however humble they may be.

I must write, and at least it seems the Lord has cleared off the wee mousies who seemed fixated on scrutinizing what I write.  Perhaps they felt they were protecting the Church, and that is a noble motive.  But if they want to nibble, I suppose they may.  Once through the mystic portal, nothing will obscure the spiritual realities yet while one exists physically in the temporal, with temporal emotions and intellect.  All will be governed by the mystical love of Christ, His infinite soul.

Love will wash back through to this other side, and the waves will recede with them those who want to be there, out into the world, temporal, Catholic or otherwise.  But through the mystic portal is where love abounds and emanates, and that is where I need to be and all should desire.  This other is tormented foolishness.  Fly from its blurred entrapment.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Lumbering Along

Very tired from various sorts of pain.  Inexplicable and absurd things happening (not just my own assessment), so know God is wanting my soul going in a more mystical direction than the pro-active temporal I was attempting.

Lots of time in prayer and quiet, and other than Mass, laying low waiting for answers and insights, finishing up the dissertation I'm reading on Bl. Angela of Foligno.  The chapter on darkness before union with and on-going peace in Christ is helpful.

Open to anything God may will, including relocating, although that would be quite the physical chore.  But we must always remain open, especially when doors are closing in some aspects.  Remain spiritually open to the Lord's will always.

Am very pleased and impressed with a couple of videos watched online of children who have written best-sellers regarding their near-death experiences and of heaven.  Jives with the death experience I had several years ago, and it reminds me that the spiritual realm is the focal point of love and eternity and true life.  Another aspect of the children's experiences (written by their dads) is that they were each Protestants, and they faced absolutely no persecution and scrutiny from within their Christian fold.  Catholics who have such experiences are brow-beaten and more.  Why?  I wonder if this is why God has been allowing Protestants such beautiful experiences? He knows they will write books that will encourage millions as they become best sellers on the NYTimes best-seller book list!

Monday, March 21, 2011

Opposition to Remaining in His Love

Never fathomed the strange opposition and high degree of eruptions arising against love--remaining in His love.

Has been a battleground of forces and emotion ever since the peak of loving experience.  The mind and emotions come to a point of upset that foments hate or something close to it with tremendous, inexplicable frustrations.  Obstacles have been erected in daily life amid people and circumstances.  Focus on spiritual reading waxes and wanes. 

The temptation to flee the area is encouraged by loved ones in physical sense, and the mind explores any number of possibilities in order to be positively utilized instead of shut down, suffocated.  The spiritual director prays with the sometimes roiling soul, seeking God's will if there is any use He desires beyond a life of prayer and contemplation, or why the spiritual gifts?

Rejections roar from the very persons and places and experiences of which the soul offers itself and seeks acceptance.  Silly nonsense:  food pantry donations are found not-suitable.  Offering to donate home-baked muffins for a coffee-donut addition takes five days for approval.  No door opens for venturing into any ministry: large, small, or in between.

The neighbors begin afresh the torment and harassment now that spring is nigh.  Loved ones suggest simply walking away; let the bank take on the hermitage in a down economic market.

The anger and frustration build to overflow and verbalization of hate, interspersed with apologies to God for such raw, expressed emotion on Thursday night: a virtual agony in the garden.  Friday noon Mass brings the unfathomable mystic state, and peace beyond all understanding brings the body, mind, heart and spirit into love.  And this is despite the mind's continuing flow of residual upset.

St. Aelred's words in that morning's Office of Readings describes the soul's call to imitation of Christ.  He spoke not, he said not a word while led to the slaughter, other than to forgive those who persecuted him.  Jesus gave them all the benefit of the doubt.  They know not what they do.  Jesus taught ultimate patience and understanding when scourged and suffocated by ignorance.

If one is to be Christian, to follow Christ, expect persecution and death of innumerable formats.  Even when I know this, read it, reflect and beg to remain in Christ's love through the worst of obstacles and upsets, darkness and temptations to flee, the reminder repeats that Christ prayed for his enemies and asked the Father to forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Are the obstacles the way God is trying to answer the prayers for discernment?  More spiritual, not less?  Less temporal involvements, not more?  It is too soon to determine.  Too much tumult; the waters stirred and muddied still.  Now 'tis to make muffins to share with the "poor" stuffed among us, inside closed boxes. 

Perhaps the greatest poverty to address in our time among Christians is that of ignorance and fear of the spiritual: of the mystical Catholic world.  Perhaps ministry to the spiritually poor and fearful is the work God desires of me now.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Lenten Focus


Rain and chill today; yesterday saw first of yellow crocuses.

The spiritual director suggests that Jesus wants to draw me closer to Himself, and that I must not be afraid of this.  Also, he said that the Lord wants me to realize how much He loves me.  For Lent, to ponder these things, to allow Jesus to draw me yet closer, and to pray for the Church and those who have left...that they will return.

This Lent is physically better than last year when the body and spirit were in collapse.  It nearly happened again, but have removed body and soul from encounters with one who is not comfortable with the spiritual.  The two dimensions were not jiving.  Yet am praying very much for the person and hope he is praying for me.


As for other aspects, there is an inner-outer struggle of attempting an idea venture.  This has taken some time and effort, and is a little creative outlet, but the interface with more of the temporal world is not providing the inner peace.  Am not sure if it is due to my not having been much in the temporal, and if God would like my exposure to pray for specific issues of specific persons through social media.  However, the interface with the world through the idea venture has not garnered success thus far in a tangible sense.  Rather, there is an unrest and uneasiness at times with more difficulty focusing on the spiritual, or so it seems.

Perhaps this is the view from the stairway back into the world, and little excursions into that view stirs the memory as well as thoughts of returning, yet without any sense of inner delight.  The body, mind, heart and spirit are all the more aware that the other is not here, not now, and this is not able to succeed or find lasting purpose in that.

The reality of more temporal hurdles in order for temporal to succeed, plus more expenditure of time, bodily energy and resources, deflates that earlier enthusiasm.  Yes, it could be of interest to people if the spiritual was removed; this is the consensus, it seems from those out there in the temporal.  But the spiritual is the all, so even little mystical wisps escape in any endeavor, hoping to entice any souls to God and the reality of His All.

One beautiful aspect of having attempted stepping out there in order to hopefully draw in from out, is the reality that I can remain on the stairway, or at least to return from descent, anew, with insights that the other out there is uncomfortable except in short forays, and those better off reduced.  

But how does God wish to utilize the spiritual gifts?  The spiritual director and I are praying, asking Him.  Is there something other than a life of contemplation and prayer?  The heart is willing.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Remain in the Mystical Love

This soul's experience on the stairway to heaven is, as mentioned in earlier post, by necessity going to be rather personal from this point.  I do not having other persons experiences to write about, and this is new "place" for me.  So I share this, which is a turning point of understanding and of how I am to proceed.  Today also brought a call from a long-time professional contact, who helped work through some options and to say that now it is time to be as one is, to share gifts with others who desire to receive, and to be open to where God leads, in whatever venues accessible.


After two nights of devil dreams, last night was a beautiful one of a person who goes to Mass and who the Virgin Mary is pleased with!  (Not me, of course!)  

Walking through their midst will work well, for it is but one person (and those supposed others who are comfortable sharing their opinions with him) who has trouble finding a mystical state credible and cannot relate.  My work is to keep sending out to the one person and supposed others, much love, peace, joy during Mass and to lovingly walk through the midst of any of them who cannot relate. 

I will walk through any midst with the invisible, mystical LOVE of Christ.  Jesus walked through their midst, of the ones who rejected Him, yet He loved to His death and beyond.  [I am created to LOVE, not reject, as rejection is hate.  This is a powerful experience for me, again, to ponder.  One must walk through their midst in His LOVE, and that LOVE is what the man and the supposed others do not evidently understand, find credible, or can relate with.]

It was a joy to tell the beautiful soul this morning of the dream and to explain how the Virgin Mary is so pleased with her soul!  And to send love, healing, peace and joy from within the beautiful, peaceful, loving ecstasy to everyone, even the ones who reject and are not able to fully love [probably more than just me] anyone who they do not find credible or cannot relate.

The answer is in the last lines of the Nazareth Temple poem, and that is to remain in the mystical love of Christ when going in and out of the Nazareth Temple, and to be crucified in Him while there, during Mass, in the actualization of mystical love that flows out from the state to everyone regardless if they are willing and open to receive and not reject: love--even through a vehicle such as myself.

        Remain in His Mystical LOVE which conquers souls 
                 (and strengthens this soul) in unseen ways.

Monday, March 7, 2011

Stairway Life Extremely Challenging

Living in Christ in the Present Moment, arriving on the Stairway to Heaven, has unexpected and extreme challenges.  Never would have imagined how difficult it can be.  The devil attacks in ways that are unprecedented and without means of defense or preparation, by the particular soul being attacked.

All I can do is describe this battle for and in one individual.  It would vary with each soul and each soul's circumstances.  The trials are meted out per what would seem the most difficult and unexpected.  If temporal death seems bad, dying to the self seems far worse in sufferings.

For this soul, the sense of isolation crushes.  The rejection is very real and deeply felt in the temporal realm, and the pain within the spirit is suffocating.  One desires to run away from the isolation, and to do anything to regain some semblance of self-confidence among humanity.  Being able to do anything, return to what seemed normalcy in the temporal, becomes a desire.  Even if some program or position is a viable possibility, those desires and hopes are dashed by others who in their temporal positions can seemingly ruin one's chances for temporal success.

The sensation for this one soul is that of always being on the outside, looking in, but ignored and invisible, unless noticed as a nuisance.  Tremendous doubts arise as to one's credibility and relational abilities.  The one is even told as much and such.  All around are people being and doing, but this one soul is disallowed, rejected, and feels isolated in all levels.  Love seems lost; hope is sketchy.

More and in all, the individual discovers that it is a misfit, and others move and live and have their being in some other sphere of interaction.  Try to explain, and words are as mush.  For there is not means of rationally communicating the experience, and no means to change or correct the sense of fitting in.  Even in the place one would hope to find love and acceptance, the others are enabled in their circles of relating and functioning, and there is no opening connector.


In the intellect, the soul can grasp the concept of how surely, yes, it must be this way on the stairway to heaven, for how could one be on a stairway and expect to exist in the temporal, among those acceptable in the temporal?  The intellect comprehends the imagery and theoretical aspects; but the emotions and memory rail (even angrily) against the sense of loss.  And the loss is very real and tangible: of ripping, searing, interstitial, psychological magnitude.

Yet surely this is how it must be, even if the soul is not prepared at all for the pain and grief of being on the outside. The soul is yet present, only able to peer in from beyond, excluded, disconnected in an emptiness never experienced previously.

Reading some others who followed this path, does help some.  But the mind tries to doubt that they should have had to endure the trials, the exclusion, the lack of understanding, the tremendous isolation.  It shouldn't have to be this way!  But again, maybe it does.  Maybe this is what it takes for the soul to endure, to let go, to release the heart-grip of belonging and being credible and relatable to and with others.

How sweet to hear the spiritual director say:  It only matters if you are credible to God! And: Do not lose heart!  Do not lose heart, dear one!  Yet, he questions.  The soul harbors this cancerous fear: Not even its soul guide understands?

To live in this life, exist in the temporal, yet not be in the temporal, is a shattering and severely dehumanizing process.  There seems no end to it, but if the others described in old books adapted, then there is hope...if the individual soul can trust and cling to Christ and His mercy.  This struggle is against the temporal world, even of the temporal Catholic world, that seems to have disregarded, isolated, the one  trying to stabilize body and soul on the stairway.  

Where does it lead?  There is even some deep hurts crying out, "It doesn't have to be this way anymore!"  But evidently it does: the expunging of the soul.  It is not easy to trust that this is necessary: so painful, so empty.  Is this really the stairway?  Doubts erupt in daylight dreams as well as night.  

The soul--in the body but somewhere else than where it has been for years--wants to flee and cannot.  And no one around understands how painful to not be able to enter back into what is not there anymore, the way it was.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

A Prayer Poem

The Nazareth Temple

Rejection is hate.  
Why go into a place of hate? 
Desire to love to learn to love, not hate;
being in a place of rejection
is being in a place of hate.

Here is one loving response of Christ:
Walk through their midst
and never return to Nazareth. 
Jesus walked away.
Did those who rejected Him
consider that He was rejecting them? 

It is the temporal perspective, to reject and hate. 
God is love.
Cassocks and candlesticks,
Latin glorias and sergeant-at-arms
will not the inner make. 
Who in the temple interprets the tongues?

Lord, help me never return to Nazareth. 
Better to let the world reject
and be crucified by the world
than to be in a temple of rejection: hate.
The outer does not the inner make. 

Where is the love?
Some may say not all therein reject,
only the high priests and Pharisees.
Do those who reject know love?
Love does not reject. 

Ought love reject hate? 
Unless forever in Christ's mystic love,
crucified once and for all:
God help me not go back into
the Nazareth Temple of rejection: hate.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Reading

Reading a doctoral dissertation on the life.  It is very easy to read, so don't let the type of work it is hinder one from reading any volume.  This "book" is mostly of the spiritual life, of Bl. Angela de Foligno yet the times and biography are necessary to understand her mystical existence.  

Reading Angela is very helpful in returning to more spiritual understanding and connecting.  The Da seems to be seeking elsewhere, having been curious about a Billy Graham book and now one by a Methodist who quotes the typical Merton and Nouen and otherwise writes about what Methodists do not know except through what they read of Catholics' writings.

Figure that out.  To me, if one wants to progress in Christ in each present moment, reading books by people who have never experienced the Eucharist or the sacrament of reconciliation does not make sense.  Well, curiosity.  He says he is just curious.  Didn't curiosity kill the cat?

Now to return to here to my spiritually directed assignment: continue praying for how God desires to use me, if and when, in His Church.  Plus do good, spiritual reading, and also to love, of course, as best one can in the midst of experiments with dangling projects, not much different than dangling participles or prepositions.

Still, again, it is repeated: One can not be what one is not.  Only be oneself. This is the rub in relating, as well as in how one does even practical things.  If one's way of perceiving is not as others', then they start wanting things to be given them in only ways that they can easily perceive rather than for them to try to learn something new and different, to see and think more expansively, perhaps, or at least to try to see beneath the surface even just a little.

So we have recipes, for example, and they are not written out in the typical format.  That is because the cook does not cook in typical format but rather prays through cooking and creates what the Creator allows.  The cook uses up whatever is on hand, and makes do, and the outcome is never the same but is always outstanding due to God, of course, and cooking in Christ in the present moment.

But if others do not want to read the process, which is trying to teach how to perceive, think, and exist in a different way than routine, then the point is rather lost, and the way of perceiving will not be learned or tried.  If it all takes too much time, then that is a problem to begin with.  We have to always make sure we have time, as God gives us time as a gift.  If we cannot read through 500 words explaining how to utilize the gifts God has given us, and at the same time prepare a practical recipe, then the point is missed.

And there we have it, and that is why we have dockers and floaters in this world, or spiritually speaking, the temporal and the mystical, the thinkers with the brain and the thinkers with the heart.


Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Why Jesus Did Not Defend Himself

This morning, awoke with an understanding of why Jesus did not defend Himself.

Besides the theological answer that He was born to suffer and die for the salvation of mankind, there is this reality: He knew it was pointless to defend Himself.  Jesus vaguely responded to questions of who He was: It is you who say that I am.

We read often enough in the Gospels that Jesus tried innumerable times to explain the spiritual life to not only the people round about Him, but also to His followers and disciples.  They simply could not comprehend, in varying degrees of some understanding to none.  Seems Jesus realized it was pointless to try to explain or make a defense when those who loved Him could not "get it".

What is the point of my coming to this understanding, of which I am not able to express all that well?  It has to do with realizing that there is no point in trying to explain, repeatedly, or to justify, upon that which others have opined or made judgment.  It becomes tedious to explain what some experience is like, over and over, or to then accept that it might be one thing, such as spiritual, only to have others decide it is not...when they are not in the experience.

However, the reaction, the response, needs to be a gentle laying down of my end of the rope.  Perhaps even agree with the inquisitors and accusers, and then let them think and do as they will, for they are going to do that, anyway.

When some experience is beyond most persons' experiential reservoir, but these people have standards and tests by which they judge temporal experiences.  They are incapable of accurately judging a non-temporal experience.  So they resort to watching every little move or indicator of what they know in the known, and pit those against notions they have of the unknown, even though they have not experienced the unknown and rationalize paranormal experiences.  

The result is that the person who experiences must consider Christ's position in a real and concrete sense, for His way of being and doing and speaking become all the more vital.  Thus, to simply not try to explain any more, to be like the lamb led to the slaughter, or even to disappear from the scene (He walked through their midst...) become the necessarily learned reaction.  It can be painful.

The pain is in the isolation and the acceptance that one is dehumanized, of sorts, and checks out of the game, so to speak, and simply allows those who seem caught up in forming opinions and making judgments, to form their opinions and make their judgments, even if incorrect.  There comes that moment of reckoning:  They are going to form the opinions and judgments regardless of what one says or does, unless the words or actions go against the opiners' and judges' mindsets, and then the opinions and judgments are even more negative.  

Jesus walked through their midst time and again, until He finally was so out of their midst that He rose into the mists between earth and heaven, and allowed His humanity to be floated along like a balloon on a string, until they needled and pounced, so sure of the correctness of their opinions and judgments.  Pilot did ask; but Jesus was already set in His mission and knew there was no sense in trying to defend Himself.  He did repeat an explanation, but He knew the others were asking that which He had already explained.  He spoke from the mists into their midst, but they were in the temporal midst so deeply that they could not see beyond themselves and their opinions and judgments.

This is the experience that may occur to those who remain in His love and are being conformed to Christ.  What is surprising--even hard to take--is that the experiences of being conformed are so actual.  They are meted out in current day and time and temporal means, and also knife into the body, mind, heart and soul.  One is scourged, beaten, defamed, denounced, excluded, disallowed, and forgotten.  In fact, they want the one who poses a conflict to their perceived temporal mindsets and norms, to voluntarily leave but cannot come right out and say so.  

The one being dehumanized, who is being conformed to the image and likeness of Christ, must accept that he or she may not be handling it well at all.  Did not Jesus agonize, as well?  Yet it is best to comprehend that there is really no way out, no way back in, no turning around into welcomed acceptance.  No, but there is a form of enlightenment and victory when one gently lays down the end of the rope, and says: It is as you say it is.  It is you who say that I am....