NEW SKINS FOR NEW WINE: A DEEPER DISCUSSION ABOUT OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE TRUTH–II

This installment is the second in a series about my thoughts on a)objective and subjective truth in the corruption of matter and mind and b)my observations and comments about what is real as it relates to original sin.

Here are my thoughts about how all humans are subject to intelligent progression, which includes moving not only horizontally (from beginning to end of anything) but also vertically, which is how deep my Lectio Divina takes me. I don’t control horizontal movement, e.g., I can’t stop time from happening or stop my life. In the same way, I don’t have the option of choosing how deep I can go to penetrate the implications of what it means to be human. Some say we use only 10% of our mental energy, while others reject that and say we use 100%. So far, my experience has been I can use 10% with just my human reasoning and freedom to choose what is good or bad for me. By joining with the Holy Spirit, I can use whatever capacity I have created in the timeframe I call being alive (capacitas dei). The new wine is the Holy Spirit and The Christ Principle. The new skins are whatever I do through good works and willing offering my will to the Father through, with, and in Jesus Christ, using the power of the Holy Spirit. I constantly struggle to keep my opening expanding and not let it return to its default state of original sin.

THE METAMORPHOSIS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

Once again, I think of the Holy Spirit as the new wine poured into my new skin each day. Each day is a new adventure because I don’t know what to expect. I do know that I make my morning offering each morning as I sit on the side of my bed through Christ to the Father, seeking mercy on my lack of Faith and offering this day as atonement for my sins of the past (actually more like being a complete nincompoop for most of my life).

It is my contention that when I am in the presence of the Holy Spirit and Christ, there is an effect on my humanity in that it grows more and more toward what it means to be fully human. The insufficiency of human nature (due to original sin) is that humans can never achieve their true destiny by nature. This is why Jesus came to save us from the effects of original sin that keeps us anchored to a materially and morally corrupt world. In this context, objective truth (the divine nature) reaches down to human nature and lifts it up. That which is the higher nature (divine) can lift up the following nature, not to be divine, but to its final destination. The Blessed Mother, for example, is lifted up by the Holy Spirit to receive the fulness of her humanity while she is on earth. At the same time, the rest of us must wait until we die and reach that final state of attainment of what was intended by our nature as our final destiny.

The Coming of Jesus’ Hour.^*

20Now there were some Greeks^* among those who had come up to worship at the feast.ⁿ

21^* They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, “Sir, we would like to see Jesus.”^o

22Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus.^p

23^* Jesus answered them,^q “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.

24^* Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat;^r but if it dies, it produces much fruit.

25Whoever loves his life^* loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.^s

26Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be. The Father will honor whoever serves me.^t

27“I am troubled^* now. Yet what should I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour.^u

28Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it and will glorify it again.”^v

29The crowd there heard it and said it was thunder; but others said, “An angel has spoken to him.”^w

30Jesus answered and said, “This voice did not come for my sake but for yours.^x

31Now is the time of judgment on this world; now the ruler of this world^* will be driven out.^y

32And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.”^z

33He said this indicating the kind of death he would die.

34So the crowd answered him, “We have heard from the law that the Messiah remains forever.^* Then how can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?”^a

35Jesus said to them, “The light will be among you only a little while. Walk while you have the light, so that darkness may not overcome you. Whoever walks in the dark does not know where he is going.^b

36While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of the light.”^c

Looking back at my lifetime, I have shed my spiritual skin at least six times that I think are significant. My book, The Divine Equation, describes these shed skins in more detail. They are the six questions plus my six answers that answer the question, “What is truth?” The point I am trying to make is that neither the questions nor the answers to what it means to be fully human come from the world because it exists in the corruption of matter and mind (everything has a beginning and an end). Truth is the adequation of the mind with reality. This can happen only in the objectivity of the divine nature, where there is no change and moths will not consume our treasures. When I think of Jesus as my Savior, I am reminded that He came to give us the way, what is true, and a life on earth that will lead to the eternal fulfillment of our humanity.

Treasure in Heaven.

19^* “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal.^j

20 But store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal.

2 1For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.^k

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/6

As an adopted son (daughter) or the Father, I am invited to grow in, with, and through Christ to glorify the Father with the Son, all overshadowed by the Holy Spirit. This begins with my Baptism and continues each day that I seek God with the totality of who I have become.

THE GREAT PASSOVER

The great feat in all humanity is the resurrection of Christ from the dead as a ransom for the many. This redemption from being a hostage to our human nature is played out in each of our lifetimes on earth as we seek to find the answers to the three questions that our nature by itself cannot provide automatically at our birth. They are.

1. What does it mean to be human and what is the next step in the fulfillment of our humanity?
2. What is the meaning of love?
3. What is truth?

Baptism is the event where God chooses me formally as an adopted son (daughter) and provides me with the energy necessary to complete whatever time I have left in the correct way, to include absolute truth, and so lead the life that is a sign of contradiction to the world but leads to fulfilling my human nature.

This adoption lifts me up with the energy of the Holy Spirit to be able to begin to know, love, and serve God on this earth (until death) and thereafter to be with God and claim my inheritance promised from before there was a tick to the celestial clock. All I have to do is be aware of how to sit in the presence of pure knowledge, pure love, and pure service and assimilate what I can to grow in Christ daily (capacitas dei). This desire or longing to be in the presence of what seems to my human nature as a fairy tale and spooky children’s fantasies, is possible only when I die to my old self and emergy to the next level of my intelligent progression, an adopted son of the Father, still very much on earth with original sin, but now with a destination that is not of this world, or Point Omega.

Solving the mystery of humanity (the three challenges humans have to move to the next level of our human evolution) involves using the key. This key is a sign of contradiction, one which makes no sense to the world because I have to abandon my humanity and lose it to find it at a deeper level. This evolution is not automatic but requires each person to recognize the way, the truth, and so lead a life that looks the same as what the world offers but now using the power of the Holy Spirit to be aware of the possibility of the manifestability of all being encountered in my journey.

THE WAY

A key to my understanding of everything in the Scriptures and through the teachings of the Catholic Magisterium is that the Holy Spirit is there to keep humans from doing too much damage to the barc of Peter as it meanders its way through time. Scriptures, according to John 20:30-31 is there at all to give us what is needed in our belief systems to center us on THE WAY of the cross, and how humanity either accepts or rejects the help God gives to us as we make our individual way in the time allotted to us.

As much as I try to discover what my humanity is and to seek the purpose of life through my own efforts alone, I fail. Scriptures, if nothing else, are a history of those who tried to live their lives with God and without God. The results are not pretty.

THE TRUTH

This is where and how truth interfaces with my personal ability to say YES or NO to anything, even to deny God without being zapped by the Truth Nazis. Individuals (Adam and Eve) or Governments try to coopt truth using their limited influence. Because all humans and institutions live in the corruptibility of time, no human institutions can own the truth. That doesn’t mean that absolute truth does not exist. Absolute truth is the absence of change absolutely. Both individuals and the Church exist in space and time, but with an exception, we have that dual citizenship because God reached down to lift us up the Church through Christ so that each of us could access absolute truth (from God alone) and overcome the unintended consequences of original sin (death). I participate in this super life when I give up my humanity (kenosis) and abandon my personal will to embrace absolute truth. Doing so, means I move to a level of humanity intended by God before the Fall in the Garden of Eden, a place intended by God before Adam and Eve ruined it. There is only absolute truth in heaven or, when I access the kingdom of heaven on earth as an adopted son or daughter. What seems like an innocuous contradiction in terms is actually a cosmic shift in my humanity as I reach out to what seems incredulous and ridiculous to my senses and human experiences to just sit in the presence of Christ and imbibe energy as I am capable (capacita dei).

My Lay Cistercian Way is meeting Christ each day where I am and as I am. I consciously place my will on the altar of sacrifice as did Abraham, and say, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” I don’t have to care what comes my way each day. My focus is “Having in me the mind of Christ Jesus,” as much as I can, without becoming religiously paranoid. Balance is key here.

THE LIFE

There is no life without the way that is true. There is only one way, and Christ both told us and showed us how to walk it in each age. “The life “means living out what I have discovered about what it means to be fully human (the kingdom of heaven on earth and the fulfillment of my humanity in the kingdom of heaven in heaven). There is no life with the correct way and the absolute truth as a beacon on the lighthouse to warn us of the high waves of original sin.

• New wine comes from my interaction with the Holy Spirit each day
• New wineskins come from the Church as it struggles to fit new ideas into old skins.
• It is Christ who makes all things new.
• It is Christ who says, “If you eat this flesh and drink this blood, you will have life in you.”

uiodg