The Center for contemplative practice
A Lay Cistercian Looks at Spiritual Reality
SUICIDE MAKES PERFECT SENSE
Wait! I am not advocating for suicide, assisted suicide, or murder. What I am doing is presenting you with one of my Lectio Divina meditations on Phil 2:5. Christ is like us in all things but sin. Who determines what sin is? You? The answer may surprise you. I think it is acceptable to hold that suicide makes perfect sense. There is one caveat. It only makes sense in two universes (physical and mental), sometimes referred to as the world in Scriptures. John 17. The world against the spirit is a powerful theme through the Scriptures. St. Paul refers to thinking in two universes as “the flesh” Galatians 5:13-26. This “flesh” is opposed to the “spirit”. I term the “spirit” as thinking with three universes “physical, mental but also spiritual universes:.
Living in three univeses (physical is your base, mental gives you the ability to choose and the reason to choose reality you can’t see and spiritual, which puts it all together and gives you a reason you have reason) means you choose God as your center. This means you recognize that you live in God’s playground (while you live and later, in Heaven). It is God’s rules you follow.
When you live in just two universes (physical and mental), this is the world’s values. You take your meaning from what the world says feels good now. You won’t be able to comprend, much less do contemplation. You won’t be able to die to self to live and love as Christ loved us. You won’t be able to explain how to have in you the mind of Christ Jesus.
Here are ten values that, if I lived in the world, I might not be afraid to hold as true, if I just believed in two universes and not three (if that makes any sense).
- Suicide is acceptable because you have charge of your life and no one can tell you what to believe.
- Adultery is acceptable because you make up the rules you hold. You have the right to fulfill your human desires and be happy in life.
- Murder is acceptable because you don’t care about human life, as long as you don’t get caught by societal laws.
- Stealing is not wrong as long as you don’t get caught.
- Abortion is not wrong because I have the right to my body and am the source of my morality. Religion that does not agree with my instincts is outdated and irrelevant.
- Lying is not wrong because there is no objective truth. The truth is what I say it is.
- Pornography is acceptable because, if you don’t like it, you don’t have to read it or look at it.
- Hating others rather than disagreing with their ideas is a curious product of our age is acceptible and even enouraged, especially in politics.
- Fornication and anything to do with sexual gratification, acting on the animal level of just what’s in it for me, is acceptable. Who cares? Who is the person I measure myself against?
- It is okay for me to have no room for God in my heart. There is only room for me in my heart. I don’t have to love others. Life ends at death.
As a Lay Cistercian, I realize that I make choices in life, ones that affect my view of what is real and what is true. The big choice is making God (with that Christ as the Son of God) as my center. The problem with center is, they don’t remain stationary. It would be great if they did. This is why constant conversion is required to keep my mind anchored in having the mind of Christ Jesus. This is why I have to take up my cross daily and seek to make God new in all things. Daily! Original Sin exists in both the two universes (physical and mental) and three universes (physical universe, mental universe, and spiritual universe on earth{not in Heaven}). Because of this effect of Adam and Eve’s sin, I have to work to keep myself centered, to fight the temptation to be god, to do my faith and not just say my faith (Matthew 25:31-46).
I can’t watch many television programs (except for Sports and National Geographic and the History Channel and Discovery Channel) without these top ten sins being promoted and condoned.
THE REMEDY
I practice Lay CStercian practices and charisms and try to seek God throuugh loving others as Christ first loved me. Does this make Original Sin and the tempation to live in two universes go away? I wish.
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The Center for contemplative practice 