[thomasmerton] Ascension Words

[Guest guest]

Father Pat....a very eloquent apology of why we christians need not lower

our eyes in shame before the wisdom of the east....a marriage of east and

west is just now beginning....great ones recently passed, Thomas Merton to

buddhism and Bede Griffeths to vedanta, reached out foy synthesis...great

ones among us like Pope John Paul (tenatively), Thich Nhat Hahn and the Dali

Lama are still marching among us....and then there are the foot-soldiers in

the ranks here...myself and brother ken, who insist that is can be

done...are doing it in our personal practice...uniting the old dualities

into a new reality....without paradox/contraries is no

progression....christ, mary shiva, buddha, kwan yin.....many names, many

faces.....of the one beloved.....neither masculine nor feminine, east or

west, monotheistic or polythestic....sacred or profane.....all of these and

more.....that is my beloved, my mirabai...my dark one.....^^~~~~~~

 

further up and further in,

 

white wolfe

 

 

[thomasmerton] Ascension Words

 

> Dear Merton Group,

>

> A priest-hermit friend, Rich Kropf, sent the attached today. I was

> inspired and hope you will be as well. His email:

> rwkropf

>

> Patrick Collins

>

>

> Ascension

>

> The transfer of the feast of the Ascension of Christ from "Ascension

> Thursday" (40 days after Easter) to today (7th. Sunday of Easter or

> the Sunday before Pentecost) perhaps illustrates, within the Church,

> the same crisis of belief that has long existed in the outside,

> "secular" world -- a crisis that was best demonstrated by Russia's

> first Cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, who reported, upon return from the

> first manned earth-orbit, that he'd looked all around him and no where

> could see God or Jesus up there above the clouds.

>

> Indeed, the gospels themselves seem rather confused when it comes to

> locating this event in time and space. It is only Luke who gives us

> the forty days time period, and he, contrary to Matthew, who locates

> the event "on a mountain in Galilee", tells us that it took place out

> near the village of Bethany just East of Jerusalem. Mark's Gospel

> originally seems to have had no reference to the Ascension at all,

> with its later-on added ending giving us no location -- which would

> seem to indicate that this later editor already was aware of the

> discrepancy between Matthew and Luke. And John's gospel completely

> ignores the whole episode.

>

> It seems to me that what we are up against, as believers, however, is

> not so much a conflict over historical details as a crisis of belief

> induced by our failure to understand the symbolic nature of the

> language of faith. We are, very much, like those two-dimensional

> creatures that the popular science books talk about when trying to

> explain Einstein's theory of relativity in terms of a three-

> dimensional universe. We still speak of heaven as "up" (and hell as

> "down") and of Jesus as sitting on God's "right hand" where the

> reality in is another dimension entirely or more exactly beyond the

> realm or categories of space-time.

>

> And yet, for all that, I do not think that this two-dimensional

> language is without value or deep significance -- even if, for no

> other reason, it still speaks so eloquently of our own human needs.

> Many, for example, have pointed out that what our religious sense,

> especially here in America, so sorely lacks is a true sense of

> "transcendence", that is, that American religion has become

> "horizontalized" into, at best, doing good things for people or, at

> the minimum, just showing up on Sundays for church. As a result, many

> people have been drawn to "New Age" cults, many of them heavily

> influences by ancient oriental spiritualities which seem to them, at

> least, to promise a more directly vertical "ascent" to divinity

> through mysticism and other inward-turning techniques. On the other

> hand, more conservative Christians seem equally upset with those

> liberal Christians who continually challenge them to prove the

> sincerity of their belief by more than just "good works" or "charity",

> but by a radical transformation of society into the "kingdom of God"

> on earth.

>

> All this demonstrates, I think, the wisdom contained in the symbolism

> of the Cross. Just as a cross is made up of the intersection of two

> members, a vertical post and a horizontal beam, so too Christianity

> must contain, and hold in balance, two dimensions. We must retain

> that "ascensional" direction that characterizes all genuine religion.

> Otherwise we will have earned the scorn of those who look for true

> transcendence or something more than a fixation on our own self-

> enhancement. But on the other hand, we must also retain a strong

> "horizontal" sense of out-reach and service to others, the strong

> conviction that in each human being we meet we also our brother or

> sister in Christ. Without that latter, Christianity itself

> will deserve the criticisms that it has sometimes so justly deserved

> as merely preaching "a pie in the sky when you die" or having become,

> as so many other religions too often have, an "escape-hatch from the

> world."

>

> This does not mean that individual vocations or callings may not

> differ greatly within the dimensions illustrated by the Cross. When

> Christ "ascended", St. Paul tells us, he showered upon earth a great

> variety of gifts. Some, he tells us, will be apostles, others

> teachers, still others "miracle-workers" or healers, some just down-

> to-earth "administrators" -- just reviewing some of the functions

> evident in the structure of the early church. So too today in

> "christianized" society (or at least in what is left of it). Each of

> us will be called by our talents and inclinations to a different role

> in life. But still, we need to always keep in mind these two

> dimensions of our life here in the world. Without the interaction

> between both of them, our life will have turned out to be only one-

> dimensional, and on that score, woefully incomplete.

>

> R.W. Kropf

>

>

> "Christ came on earth to form contemplatives" Thomas Merton

>

> Your use of is subject to

>

>

>