THE HUMAN RAMIFICATIONS OF COSMIC YES AND NO STRINGS

The fourth type of cross-cutting strings or patterns that span all reality is that of a YES or a NO. This is how I dissect all reality into its manageable components, the physical universe of matter and energy. This mental universe is aware that there is a YES or NO, then the spiritual universe seeks to fulfill the other two. I will be looking at this phenomenon using my Rule of Threes.

Bear with me as I review the previous three strings that stretch from what is in the beginning to what is at the end.

1. Corruption and Incorruption: In the physical universe, one in which we live as our base of human existence, we shall matter, energy, time, properties of matter, using the law of nature to allow us to be. In t e mental universe, we have evolved our collective mental consciousness to develop languages to communicate with each other, delving into the interrogatories (Why, What, How, When, Where, and So What) to find answers that begin to answer the wonder that we have about what is around us (visible) and within us invisible). Our hearts are restless until they rest in the human truth. The final universe is that of the spiritual one, the most misunderstood or misused because people have the wrong assumptions about it. This is why Christ became human and suffered, died on the cross, that we could be heirs of the incorruptibility of this third universe and adopted heirs of the kingdom of heaven. There is a problem. As a human being, I am subject to the laws of the physical and mental universes. I have a beginning. I will l have an end. I suffer pain, and I experience love with others. I have to work each day to keep myself centered on Christ, the energy source of energy outside of myself. There is the duality of moving between hatred and love. I must always s struggle to be good to keep evil from encroaching into my incorruption. I am corrupt but also incorruptible because of Baptism. Christ gives me the energy to be faithful to my call of adoption.
2. Resonance and Dissonance: Simultaneous with the previous pattern is one where I find my reality has resonance but also dissonance. This is the string in tune with how reality is (resonance) or not (dissonance). Sin is an aberration of what is the intended way of being. All reality seeks resonance with its nature. This is the reality behind the saying of St. Augustine, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.” We look at resonance and dissonance in previous blogs using The Rule of Threes.
3. Light and Darkness: This string, like the two that have gone before, plays its own notes, yet there is just one lyre. Humans have their five senses to interact with their environment as they live out their lives. Our choices are the strings we pluck in our lyre based on God’s song. We use The Rule of Threes as it applies to the themes of light and darkness to point out aberrations in all reality.

This brings us to the current blog exploring the topic of YES and NO as it applies to The Divine Equation and how my own choices can influence how I can fulfill my destiny as a human being.

THE FOURTH STRING: YES AND NO

Characteristics of both YES and NO

When I think of YES or NO in the context of the three universes having one reality, I try to describe them as such:

THE POWER OF YES

• Anytime there is a YES, it means that someone uttered it.
• YES presupposes intelligence, even a cosmic YES.
• YES is a word that means, “Let it be so,” or “Move forward.”
• YES means “Let it be done to me according to your WORD.”
• YES is positive energy that means fulfilling our intended purpose in life.
• YES happens at many different levels, especially at the beginning and end of anything incorruptible.
• YES means that all reality is in resonance with everything else.
• YES and NO can exist together in a corrupt universe of matter and mind, but not in a universe that is incorruptible.
• YES is one of the choices to discover what is authentic and purposeful about the World in which they live.
• YES is the result of a choice that gives life.
• YES is something that always requires an answer or affirmation.
• YES is present in all three universes (Physical, Mental, and Spiritual) and the basis for the corruptibility of matter and mind, plus the incorruptibility of the spiritual dimension to humans.
• YES is the most crucial Word that each human can utter.
• As a human being, only I can utter a YES within the context of my short existence of seventy or eighty years.
• YES is the mind’s consent to the YES of another person or persons.

THE POWER OF NO

• Along with YES, NO is also powerful. Here are some characteristics.
• NO means “S op,” “Don’t proceed.”
• NO is a blocking word, one that is negative.
• NO stops, love.
• NO, as a choice, might be anything terrible for human evolution or fulfillment.
• NO is not the absence of GOOD, but rather the presence of the possibility of choosing a value that will cause the death of YES.
• Each individual has the power to choose YES or NO regarding their invitation to be an adopted son or daughter of the Father.
• Some consequences happen due to choosing either a YES or a NO.
• Each individual says choose NO to the invitation of God to be an adopted son or daughter without recrimination.

Using these characteristics, let me walk you through my reflections on three distinct universes composing one reality.

THE PHYSICAL UNIVERSE

• This is the universe composed of matter, energy, time, space, including all life forms on earth, including humans. It forms the base where everything living has just the correct amount of gases, light, water, and temperature to move from simplicity to complexity.
• The physical universe is corrupt because everything in it has a beginning and an ending. It deteriorates and breaks down over time. The physical universe is not corrupt in the moral sense.
• The physical universe began with a YES from a power that is pure energy, incorruptible, outside of the physical universe.
• There is nothing outside of the physical universe, as the late Steven Hawking once remarked. I think that is true, with this caveat. This nothingness is pure energy with intelligence, to say an infinite YES. St. John’s Gospel begins with the statement, “In the beginning was the Word.” St. John was not an astrophysicist with the knowledge we have today. He was a poet looking at the deeper meaning of reality to reveal that what made everything around him, corrupt though it might seem, is love.
• What has the “Word” that existed before there was matter? It was YES. YES, created all that is physical reality. Isn’t there more to it? YES.

THE MENTAL UNIVERSE

Although humans populate the physical universe because they are composed of matter and exist in time, something is different about humans than other life forms.

Humans inhabit their own universe that exists simultaneously with their physical base.

Only humans exist in the universe where we are the only living things that know that we know. We can look at the physical universe and ask WHY, WHAT, HOW, WHEN, and SO WHAT? Humans can say YES or NO to the choices that they present to their reason.

There are three segments in the book of Genesis: Before the Fall, The Fall, and The Consequences of Poor Choice. (Genesis 2-3) In this story, humans were created before the Fall. Their nature was good because what God creates is after God’s image and likeness. In this tremendous archetypal story, Adam and Eve were given a choice of good or evil and chose poorly because of Satan’s suggestions (temptations). The consequences of the story are immediate.
“Who told you that you were naked?” asked God. Adam and Eve, representing all of humanity, have corrupted the mores or moral choices of those to come. The four traditions of Genesis (J, P, Yahwist, and Elohist) reflect what was gnawing at the consciences of those early Israelites. Why do good people do bad things, and why do I do the things I don’t want to do and not do the things I want to do (St. Paul). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFcuFF4DBEc

Several thoughts became clear in trying to make sense of all these ideas. Adam and Eve was a NO to the offer of God to be Gardeners.

The nature of humanity is good. Individual humans are wounded by Original Sin and suffer the corruptive effects of this archetypal event by Adam and Eve. They must die.

God is not the cause of evil but is the source of good.

Human choice is either from within oneself as the source of good or evil or chooses what God says is true.

There is always a struggle between what is good and what is evil. The consequences or wages of sin, the wrong choice is death. The consequence of voluntarily placing oneself in the presence of God in the act of obedience is life.

From the time of Adam and Eve until Christ, humans, particularly the Israelites, waited on someone to redeem them from the consequences of Original Sin. The Messiah would be someone who would be able to say YES to take away the sin of Adam and Eve for the ransom of many.

Scriptures in the Old Testament are a history of Israel making a YES choice or a NO choice and its consequences.

THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE

This universe began with a YES, but it was not from whom you would expect. The YES of Jesus was to redeem humanity by suffering voluntarily and giving up his life to the Father in reparation for the single sin of Adam and Eve. Before he was born, this universe began with a YES from Mary, Jesus’ mother. (Luke 1-2)

Humanity’s Sin through Adam.

12^* Therefore, just as through one person sin entered the world,^h and through sin, death, and thus death came to all, inasmuch as all sinned^*—

13for up to the time of the law, sin was in the world, though sin is not accounted when there is no law.ⁱ

14But death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin after the pattern of the trespass of Adam, who is the type of the one who was to come.^j

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/romans/5

We venerate and honor (not adore) Mary because a human uttered a YES so that Jesus could take on our nature and utter the YES that allowed us to become adopted sons and daughters of the Father. (Philippians 2:5-12)

With the redemption of Christ, we have an Advocate before the Father (whom we cannot approach) to help us while on earth to overcome the minefields of the World and to keep ourselves centered on the cross by the power of the Holy Spirit.

We have the power, through the incorruptibility of Christ, to turn our NOs into YESes through Eucharist and Forgiveness of Sins.

THE SINGULARITY OF A SOLIDARY YES OR NO

All of these YESes or NOs in reality (physical, mental, or spiritual) exist so that I can have the freedom to say YES or NO to the invitation of Jesus to be an adopted son (daughter) of the Father.

I don’t depend upon your YES or NO for my salvation or adoption. I can say NO to God alone, or I can say YES. St. Thomas Aquinas is quoted as saying, “Knowledge comes before love.” Sin means my center of The Christ Principle wavers and careens down the road of life, sometimes going off the road. As Lay Cistercian with the habit of humility, I try not to let myself go too long before I measure myself against the heart of Christ and ask for mercy and forgiveness. I must do this daily. It is called conversion morae or constant measuring of your life against the love Christ showed for us.

I am so important in God’s plan that all creation was there just for me (or just for you). All of this goes back to that first YES of the nothingness of God and is confirmed by my YES each time I take time to sit down next to the heart of Christ and wait in peace.

What questions should you be asking about your YES or NO?