Hope For An Ancient Christian Community

In a corner of 21st Century Turkey, a congregation still worships in the language of Christ. At an early morning Sunday church service, chanting in Aramaic fills the air together with the sweet scent of incense. Men pray standing, their palms open to heaven. Most of the women are behind a wooden lattice at the back, their heads covered in scarves. These people are Assyrians and the region they know as Tur Abdin was once the heartland of their ancient Christian church. At the turn of the last century an estimated 200,000 Assyrians still lived here. Today there are fewer than 3,000 left. But recently, there have been signs of a possible revival.

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Deepening

When we follow the symbolic discipline of moving into the well of our Self, we find that we develop an increased capacity of inward perception. This capacity seems to be inherent in human beings and is a natural mode of awareness. Since it is inward, however, it tends to be little used in cultural situations where the individual’s attention is constantly being pressured by the outer environment. When, on the other hand, we establish an atmosphere that makes is possible for the attention to be turned inward in a quiet way, this capacity shows itself to be very actively and strongly present in persons who would have thought they did not possess it at all.

—Ira Progoff

Totsy's Death

Remember Gary and Emily O'Conner in your prayers. Gary's Mother, fondly known as "Totsy" (Mary Elizabeth O'Connor) died on December 17th. The funeral was yesterday. It was beautiful, and a tribute to her life as well as to Gary and Emily's love and care for her. We're glad for each gift given to humanity through the mystery of an individual soul. Her's was special, and we are grateful for each life lived fully in this transient world.

Divinity

Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.

I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.

It is a great art to saunter.

— Thoreau

Dreams

To everyone of us there must come a time when the whole universe will be found to have been a dream, when we find the soul is infinitely better than the surroundings. It is only a question of time, and time is nothing in the infinite.

-Sai Baba

A Seeking God

In His teaching about the Kingdom, Jesus introduces a new concept; that is that God is the seeking God. In doing so He wasn't bringing new theoretical truth about God. As George Eldon Ladd writes;
"God is one who is to be experienced, not a teaching to be imparted. ... In one sense the God of Judaism was not the God of the Old Testament. The God of the prophets was constantly active in history both to judge and to save his people; the God of Judaism had withdrawn from the evil world and was no longer redemptively working in history." We see this unfortunate mindset too often in the Evangelical world. It seems that many think God has left His written Word and a hand full of guys with big brains to interpret it for the rest of us. Very, very sad.Francis Schaefer often wrote that we serve a God who interacts in space-time history. He rightly understood that God has moved, is moving, and will continue to move redemptively. With Jesus we see an extraordinary interaction - the messianic salvation was present! The Kingdom of God had come near! God has taken the initiative to seek out and to save the lost sinner! To redeem from darkness into the light!With the breaking in of His Kingdom, God has shown Himself to be a seeking God. Jesus came to minister to sinners. He does not deny sin nor make light of guilt. But rather than condemn, He meets them at their point of need and restores what was lost. Somehow evangelicals are often missing the mark by constant focus on our faults. In response to that, it seems many are over-looking our spiritual guilt and confusing the work of the Kingdom as only restoring physical and emotional brokenness. Both are wrong. We were all morally guilty but rather than condemnation and rules, the Kingdom brings good news which restores our whole being and brings freedom.So here, now, we find that God is a seeking God. He searches for the sheep that strays. He seeks the coin that gets lost. He welcomes home the prodigal son.

Rick Ianniello

Peace of Mind

Life without Truth is Life without Integrity; Life without Integrity is Life without Peace of Mind. But let's be straight, here. Peace of Mind does not come from outside, from expensive insurance or a fancy security system. Peace of Mind is when the mind, at this point tense and rigid, relaxes and lets itself be held by experience, Truth, something larger, more fundamental; instead of trying to maintain itself, with all its drama, arguments, opinions, beliefs. If the mind is supported by Reality, in line with Truth and the Universe, it can be still and at peace. If the structures of the mind are at odds with Reality, in denial of Truth and the Universe, it will be fighting, in a state of conflict with the world around it. This is at the heart of all conflict in the world, making itself known through misunderstandings, miscommunications, greed. Greed, the unsatisfied and unsatisfiable state of wanting more, comes of ignorance, which is failure to see the Reality of things. If one really knew the peace of being in harmony with Truth, one would not trade it for money or power over others.

May I know this Peace.

--John Adams

Transcendental Meditation

Here is a link to a study that shows that meditation in general, and Transcendental Meditation in particular, has a powerful and positive effect upon biological health. The effects were seen as particularly significant in stress reduction and the lowering of high blood pressure. No study, of course, can chart the powerful spiritual effects of meditation, but the wisdom community knows by experience how important this practice is to the maintenance and growth of spiritual life.

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Agape Love

Life is the Sacred Mystery singing to itself,
dancing to its drum, telling tales, improvising,
playing and we are all that Spirit,
our stories all but one cosmic story
that we are love indeed,
that perfect love in me seeks the love in you,
and if our eyes could ever meet without fear
we would recognize each other and rejoice,
for love is life believing in itself.

...Manitongquat, Native American Poet

All the world’s people, whatever their religious beliefs, are part of the same family. We all have the same general needs, problems, desires, and dreams. When we embrace the possibility of agape love, we are expressing, amidst our differences, a unity of purpose, a common hope. As we begin the third millenium, what vision could be more important.

Agape

The one original transcendent Shakti, the Mother stands above all the worlds and bears in her eternal consciousness the Supreme Divine. Alone, she harbors the absolute Power and the ineffable Presence; containing or calling the Truths that have to be manifested, she brings them down from the Mystery in which they were hidden into the light of her infinite consciousness and gives them a form of force in her omnipotent power and her boundless life and a body in the universe.

-Sri Aurobindo