FIVE VERTICAL, CONTEMPLATIVE TOOLS TO KEEP MY FOCUS ON CHRIST’S PRESENCE

A Lay Cistercian reflects on spiritual reality with the totality of his life experiences.

As I mature in my daily attempts (and failures) to keep a profound focus on the most enigmatic and illusive concept in my Lectio Divina, I use all the tricks in the book. To be honest, I only have one trick, and that is to just sit in the presence of pure energy (God) and wait. That waiting is what focus is all about, for my human nature seeks to have an attention span of ten seconds before the temptation to move on to something that I think is more meaningful. This sloughing over all these topics that seem so esoteric is a sign that I am not focused at all. Some days, admittedly, are better than others.

This theme of “growing deeper” as I sit in a place surrounded by the silence and solitude of just waiting is “capacitas dei,” the almost imperceptible movement forward but at the same time gaining depth, is one of my key quests in contemplative practice. I need help, not only from the Holy Spirit but using the tools that I have been gifted purposefully and consciously forward (horizontal spiritual growth) and in complexity (vertical spiritual contemplation). Here are five such tools among the many that I find helpful for me to probe the darkness of the inner sanctum of my inner self, the place no one wants to look.

I. THE DIVINE TEMPLATE

The problem with my human instincts from the world is to fill up all those holes left unattended and unfilled in my life. Moving on from topic to topic until I find something that will amuse me or cause me to watch it on television, is called channel hopping. This is the side of me that is a secular humanist. Like Pavlov or B.F. Skinner, I choose what makes me happy and fulfilled, what titillates the senses and causes me to have a flush of lust. The filler for my holes in life can be those that come from my life experiences or they can be the combination of my life experience with those of Christ’s. Christ is the only Way, the only Truth, and the only Life that fills my humanity as nature intended.

When I died to my false self, first in Baptism and then later on in life as a Lay Cistercian, each day, each hour, I put on the new wedding garment of an adopted son (daughter) of the Father, and, make a commitment to act as a disciple of The Christ. It is the struggle between these two sides of me that is like a daily battle to see if one side wins or loses. I am not saying that being human is immoral or bad, but individuals can and do bad things, bad to God’s morality and Way. To choose Christ is to pick up my cross daily and follow Christ. In plain language, if I want God in my life I must choose to put him there as opposed to the default of my human nature, the citizen of the World. Because I am an adopted son (daughter) who also lives in the condition of Original Sin, I am affected by those effects, causing me to choose either my own will or God’s will.

As a Lay Cistercian practicing the Cistercian Way as I understand it, abandonment each day to God’s will is not the default of my humanity but takes an act of the will, one which demands I rise above my human nature and die to self, an idea totally foreign and fantasy to those who only have one citizenship. My realization is that the sign of contradiction in the Christ Principle shows me that just being a secular humanist, good as that is, won’t lift me up to the next level of my evolution, to be a citizen of the kingdom of heaven and heir to what that is.

If I want love somewhere, I must put it there. This is not the secular love that Erich Fromm spoke about in his book, The Art of Loving, although these authentic characteristics of love he mentions form the basis of what I consider love to be in the spiritual universe. The problem is, that love in the secular world is different from love in the kingdom of heaven. Christ tells us “I give you peace, but not as the world gives it.” This love is raised to the level of our highest human intelligence progression and possesses the divine energy to lift us up, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to be what we have proclaimed ourselves to be, sons and daughters of the Father. The peace that Christ gives, and what we share at each Eucharist in “the sign of peace” is not the absence of conflict within us but the presence of His love which we give to each other.

Being a Catholic is not easy because it takes profound focus on being an adopted son and daughter and constantly being worthy of adoption. To help us out, Christ gives his very self, body, blood, soul, and divinity to us in the Eucharist and bids us to love others as He has loved us. Because of original sin and its effects to drag us down to our animal roots, we must seek mercy and forgiveness daily but also through the Church Universal in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. These sacraments of milestones for us to traverse the minefields of our lives without being maimed or killed. Christ not only gives us the TRUTH but also the LIFE, so that we can trudge our unique WAY with all the help we need. The cross is our sign that we are followers of the Master, our Magister Noster (Our Teacher), who did not promise us cotton candy as food, but to use what each of us has gleaned from a lifetime of trying to discover what it means to be human, what it means to love, and what is the purpose of life. The Christ Principle gathers all reality unto Himself and transforms it from just secular humanity to adoption as His very own disciples, his friends. Jesus tells us that if we deny ourselves and transform ourselves into that adopted son or daughter (each one of us being unique and different) he will be a friend for us before the Father. Read John 17 to the end. https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/17

This is my life and describes my reality.

I live in three separate and distinct universes, all one, yet three dimensions. For each of the three universes, I ask the question, “What do you see?” and wait for the answer.

THE PHYSICAL UNIVERSE – This is what I can see and only what I observe. No meaning here. It is a cup, wood, colors, window, blurry background.

THE MENTAL UNIVERSE – Using this photo of a cup and window, my mind, housing the totality of all my human experiences so far, can look at this cup and ask the question, “What does this mean?” I answer with what I alone can give–the sum of my choices and their consequences. This is the citizenship of the world. The cup is my life, the window means I look outside for something outside of myself that is murky. The brown wood is simple and stark.

THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE- For the third time, I look at this photo (or any of the photos) and ask, “What does it mean with The Christ Principle as the center of my life?” I live in three universes, not just two. This third universe fulfills my humanity by answering the questions posed by my second universe.

REFLECTIONS

• There must always be something or someone that is the key to whatever you measure yourself against.
• As Magister Noster, I choose Christ as the Principle from which all reality flows and into which all meaning emanates.
• I am free to select whatever center I think captures the meaning of life for me. I am not you; you are not me; God is not us; and we, most certainly, are not God.
• Render to God what is God’s and to human that which is human.
• No human has either the capacity or the capability to know God as He is. What humans can experience in the whispers of God is what God is like. Jesus, being both God and Human, came to actually TELL us how the Old Testament fulfilled the coming of the Messiah, but also to SHOW us how to meander through the minefields of life without getting destroyed by the false promises of the World. (Philippians 2:5-12)
• I use this Rule of Three (one reality with three distinct universes) as a way to link all reality together in a coherent pattern or theme.

WHAT DO YOU SEE? For the first answer to “What do you see?” I use scientific inquiry. I see what is there with what my senses and my intelligence tell me is there, nothing more. I see a dark brown foreground of the window upon which sits a white cup. The window sill looks old and weather-beaten, even though it is on the inside of what must be a shelter of some sort. It looks very worn and used. There is an old window that appears it have been in the rain because it is foggy and difficult to see through. I see what looks like a green landscape on the other side of the window, but it is not clear. All I can see are images. There is light on the other side of the window while the interior is very dark and rough looking.

The second time I asked the question, “What do you see?” I am using the physical plus the mental universes to grow deeper. This means I look at not only what is there but what it means to me. I use my reason and free will to separate out meaning from physical existence. Both are there, contained in one reality. Why is the background in the picture blurred? Is my life blurred, too?

The third time I asked the question, “What do you see?” I added the spiritual dimension. Now I see the physical universe and what is, the mental universe and why it is, or “what does it mean for me?” But, because I have been adopted by the Father in Baptism, I am given access to a deeper dimension of my humanity, that of looking at both physical and mental universes with the template provided by The Christ Principle. This is the big WHY. Of course, those who do not think there is a spiritual universe think this is so much la-la land. They are correct. The foolishness of God is wiser than all the wisdom of all humans combined.

Now, I use this photo to give me a visual representation of my life, and the context of the physical universe, using scientific inquiry, the depths of meaning and hope in that lone cup in the window of my life, straining to see what is only the other side but only looking as through a foggy glass, as St. Paul states. Christ alone through the energy of the Holy Spirit, allows me to take these two universes (physical and mental) and move to the deepest level of my humanity, one which allows me to view life with the purpose for which I was created, “to know, love and serve God in this world, and to be happy with God in the next.” (Baltimore Catechism, Question 6). It is in this spiritual universe that I can access what my human reasoning alone is incapable of reaching by itself, how the contradiction has become the principle, how the exception has become the rule, how Christ, the cornerstone, rejected by the builders, has become the cornerstone.

I use this Rule of Threes most often when I look out at reality. One reality, three distinct dimensions, each one with different purposes and different ways to access it. It is in this context that I find myself using Lectio Divina and other Lay Cistercian practices. The more I voluntarily place myself in the presence of this pure energy, this One God having three distinct persons, I grow accordingly. This is called capacitas dei, or Christ must increase and I must decrease. It costs no money but only takes my free will and places God’s will as my priority, thus fulfilling what nature intended my nature to be before The Fall.

II. THE BURDEN OF DUAL CITIZENSHIPS

I have two citizenships but only one center. My center, since 1962, has been Philippians 2:5, “Have in you the mind of Christ Jesus.” I have had two births, and perhaps three. One is my physical birth into the physical universe. Because I have human reasoning, I must acquire within myself what it means to be human.

The next citizenship is voluntary and lifts me up to be an adopted son (daughter) through Baptism. Each day becomes a new chance to be aware of my center and my relationship with God.

The third one is my realization that I wanted to live out my Faith using Cistercian practices and charisms. This is the Cistercian Way and I have been accepted as a Professed Lay Cistercian by the Abbot of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Monastery (Trappist) in Conyers, Georgia. This third way to seek what it means to be fully human has been the key to my seeking and finding answers to the question: How does it all fit together?

This dual citizenship is a way for me to address the three questions I must answer in order to move forward in my growth of what it means to be fully human. This is the Genesis Principle as found in the book of the same name.

1. What does it mean to be human, to fulfill what nature intended by our intelligent progression?
2. What does it mean to love authentically as nature intended?
3. What is true? How do I know what is good and what is evil? Who determines what is good or evil in my life?

As I mentioned earlier, Erich Fromm holds that humans are not born knowing how or what love is. Life is a search for meaning, as Viktor Frankl observed when he was in a Nazi prison camp, and those who have hope survived, while those for whom hope was an illusion, lost the will to live. He wrote of this experience in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning. Both of these books had an impact on how I view all reality fitting together.

The life of anyone signed with the cross at Baptism means that there will be struggles throughout the time you are alive to keep yourself centered. It is no wonder that Christ came to show us how to take up our cross daily and sustain ourselves amid physical, mental, and moral chaos that surrounds us like military training for being gassed. In this, analogy, gas is the condition in which we find ourselves. With Baptism, we receive a gas mask to use. Some know how to use it, while others do not. Our training comes from Christ, our Magister Noster, who walks the way of the cross so that we might discover the truth about how to get to heaven and thus receive our inheritance of profound love, profound knowledge, and also profound service. This is significant for my spiritual walk because it only comes from one source, a divine nature, that I can never fully appreciate, but to which I am invited as one with human nature, elevated by the redeeming help of The Christ Principle to be what my nature naturally intended. This is the dual citizenship or what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called the cost of discipleship. I call it the martyrdom of the ordinary because, while our dual citizenships are one to the visible eye, they are mundane and not exciting, a ploy from our Great Accuser to get us to deny Christ. Instead, as a Lay Cistercian, I renounce that earthly citizenship and die to self only to realize that is abandoning all, I receive the fullness of what it means to be human, that next step in my evolution, the reason for my existence. It is only when I freely and consciously offer to God my humanity in humility and obedience that Christ lifts me up to the next level of my humanity, that of an adopted son (daughter) of the Father. I must do this daily to survive the lure of the Devil, who goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

III. THE COSMIC VIEW OF THE MOVEMENT OF REALITY INTO COMPLEXITY

My third way of seeking God each day in whatever comes my way is to give a context to this template of The Divine Equation. Speaking just for myself, the map of Teilhard de Chardin, Jesuit Paleontologist, and Cosmologist, has just opened up a new dimension of depth to my already deeper penetration into the Christ Principle. Like all scientific inquiry, today’s discoveries are not tomorrow’s research conclusions, mainly because our technologies allow us to expand our exploration of physical reality using new concepts and the cumulative effect of research. If you go back to the first concept, that of three distinct universes and one reality, this parallel becomes a way to view reality from a macro viewpoint, a cosmic map, if you will, of the evolution of the physical universe (matter, time, energy, space) but also the mental universe (new ideas about the physical universe because we know more to be able to probe ever deeper into what makes us tick. There is the interdependence of the physical universe with the mental universe. Because of humans’ capacity to learn and ask interrogatory questions, our technology has expanded exponentially, allowing the mind to grow ever deeper into penetrating the mysteries of the cosmos. But does evolution just end with the physical universe and the mental universe’s search for meaning? Depends.

In my understanding of Teilhard de Chardin’s concept of movement and complexity moving from creation to what he terms Omega, there is progressive intelligence, beginning with creation. I like this idea as a way to view the physical, mental, and spiritual universes as all having movement and complexity. If I just view reality as having two universes (physical and mental), then I limit myself to that next opportunity to expand my evolution to its next and logical evolution. Science uses these two universes as they should be to look at reality now and in the past to see how it is composed and its purpose. My Lay Cistercian Way looks at the physical and mental universes as giving me the capability and capacity to enter a new (spiritual) universe that seems to be at odds with the physical and mental ones. This next step in our human evolution is forward, and science can help but not completely answer how to do that.

In the second way of looking at reality, which I term dual citizenship, those who can’t discover how to make the jump from physicality and mentality to spirituality, can only see so much. For them, and I might add, rightly so, they see spirituality as so much opinion and fairy tales, like Santa Claus. My view of what reality looks like takes all that is good and true from the physical and mental universes (scientific inquiry is good, not evil) to move beyond that limited view of reality to one that includes the scope that uses measurements and assumptions not verified by the citizenship of the world. This is why the late Stephen Hawking (he is just an example) could not look at the cup you see in the first template and look beyond the level of physical properties, and then mental properties of meaning and application to the questions:

• What is the purpose of life?
• What is my purpose within that purpose?
• What does reality look like?
• How does it all fit together?
• How can I love fiercely?
• I know I am going to die; now what?

The tools to discover both questions and the answers do not come from human reasoning alone, because humanity does not have the mental energy to grasp what is going on. To see a universe that exists now that has its roots in the present but exists in the future is indeed a fairy tale unless you have the Divine Equation to unlock the next dimension of our human evolution, that of being adopted by the Father as sons and daughter destined for something our human reason thinks is unreasonable and can’t quite see it with reason alone. Look back at the first segment, where it shows the cup. When I look at the cup, I see three distinct levels of reality, the same thing I do daily in real life.

IV. THREE QUESTIONS WE ARE NOT BORN WITH BUT MUST USE OUR REASON AND FREE CHOICE TO MOVE TO THE NEXT LEVEL OF OUR INTELLIGENT PROGRESSION.

The first three of these tools have a core against which you measure the validity and authenticity of life; the dual citizenship with which we can translate what is good from what is not suitable for us and nature, not human reasoning alone, intended; the map that gives direction and purpose to the macro version (my 83 years, so far, is the micro version) of the Divine Equation. I use all the previous steps to help me move ever so slowly but cumulatively toward becoming deeper and deeper into whatever awaits me in my encounters with the Holy Spirit.

Using the Teilhard map of the “spine of reality,” another level, the fourth tool, allows me to seek solutions to three questions that all humans must answer with the totality of their accumulated learning, the purpose of life, and values that endure.

1. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE HUMAN?
2. WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LOVE FOR ME?
3. WHAT IS TRUE? WHO CHOOSES WHAT IS GOOD AND EVIL?

I share with you some of my reflections on these three core questions that will lead me to discovering in the next level of my human evolution.

I recognize that creation has milestones in its intelligent progression (movement) toward becoming more and more complex as it collectively gathers knowledge about what reality looks like and how it all fits together. The crucible in which all my life experiences are gathered and melded into one reality is my reason and ability to say YES or NO to what I think is meaningful to my humanity as I live out my allotted time on earth. This is the one and only center of my life. It is like trying to balance a chair on one prong. It takes skill to balance it, but it must be the correct chair, and I must constantly keep it balanced and not allow it to fall. If I do, and I assure you, I must start over again and make all things new again. Each human finds themselves on this line of reality in various conditions and social conditions. Each of us interacts not only with the complexity of an ever more sophisticated humanity but also with the movement individually and as part of humanity as a process.

IMPLICATIONS OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE HUMAN

Like Erich Fromm’s book, The Art of Loving, I also share his idea that we come into this world with a tabula rasa (our cupboard is bare, and our book of life experiences is blank). Without a book of life experiences or infused knowledge from the previous genitors, I must face life’s challenges and experiences armed with my human reason (at the start of its interaction with the environment) to determine who I am. I am not at the point of even asking that question, nor, if I did, could I answer it with the limited contexts in which my trial and error has provided me with good or bad choices. I act and react against my parents, siblings, and friends to give me space to intellectually breathe and find my space. My space is mine, not yours, a holdover from our ancient distant ancestors. I don’t like being told what to do if I don’t like it. I am not my brothers or sisters. All this plays out in the physical and mental universes without much interference from choices or their inevitable consequences. Good choices for me and those bad for me are more evidently visible. To deal with the unseen and invisible has always been the Achilles heel of science and strictly secular thinking (what is real is what you can see, and no one can tell you what to do {except your wife}).

• I was human when I was twenty-five and knew everything was different from my present age of 83, and I don’t even know what I don’t know.
• Life is a process of becoming. What that is depends on perspective. Perspective depends on what assumptions I make about life. I get these assumptions by testing my reason using my free will to discover what is good or bad for me by trial and error.
• My humanity seems endless in its capability and scalability. There is one catch. I must give up my humanity to jump to the next level of my intelligent design. It does not come automatically, as does my physical evolution. Regarding the Teilhard map, this step means my humanity can evolve just so far until I bump up against that next step, the Pneumosphere. I have reason and the ability to choose as a human being precisely so I can choose to abandon myself or die to self and so choose a reality outside of myself to die to my former merely physical and mental self to take on the mantle of an adopted son or daughter of the Father and thus heir to the kingdom of heaven. Heaven, then, begins from the moment of my Baptism, when God, through, with, and in Christ with the power of the Holy Spirit, lifted me up from being just a human being confined to the physical and mental world of my making, to that of one who throws open the doors of knowledge, love, and service to embrace that which nature had intended all along. Adam and Eve (the prototype of humanity) chose themselves rather than use the power of a force outside themselves, one that did not lead to fulfillment but dead-ended in being stagnant in their intelligent progression.
• Jesus, the second Adam (Romans 5), took on our nature to live all humanity up to reach that next plateau of evolution, the spiritual universe. This step is not automatic, although there is potential for each human to claim adoption. In Baptism, God chooses me and gives me adoption but also the tools I need in life to persevere in the minefields of being merely a human without spirituality. The Eucharist (Christ’s own Body and Blood for food for the journey) and the Forgiveness of Sins (making all things new) are distributed by the Holy Spirit through the Body of Christ to me so that I can daily convert my life from being an incomplete human being to that which was intended by nature all along. Evolution is not just in the physical and mental universes but also leads me to have the possibility to grow ever deeper in what it means to be human as nature intended.
• The point is, I must learn how to be human amid the pitfalls of human thinking that seek to limit me to see and be only a citizen of the earth rather than move from that state to one of higher (but still human) intelligent progression. My destiny, on the Teihard map, is Omega or a terminal existence in the future in terms of temporal time but actually exists right now in the NOWness of what I choose as good for me.
• As a Lay Cistercian using Cistercian practices and charisms as I know them, I abandon all the tools and tomfoolery of the world (earth) to die to myself each day so that I might continuously move deeper into the mystery of what it means to be human. Because of my context in original sin, that foggy mist of corruption and temptation to have me as the center of my life, I might be seduced by the charm of thinking that life is all about me, which it is. The paradox of life is that, according to Christ, we must give up our lives to reach the next level of our destiny, the kingdom of heaven. When I think of Christ being a Savior, this is the concept I think is most important. I have THE OPTION to abandon my will to give it as a gift to the Father in exchange for receiving everything and becoming incorruptible.
• The process of my movement towards more complexity is automatic. I can only evolve so far by my human intelligence and choices. When I give up my free will, totally unhuman thinking, I not only gain the next level of my human evolution, adoption as a son or daughter, but I begin to prepare to live in the kingdom of heaven in heaven by collecting how to live authentically in the kingdom of heaven on earth, until I forfeit this body for a glorified one (whatever it means).
• Learning to be more human means using intelligent design as intended by the flow of complexity and consciousness to consciously make a choice that I can’t move to that next level of existence by myself. I need help.
• This first quest to be human is all about knowledge beyond my powers, but not with the help of Christ and the Holy Spirit (my two advocates). Regarding progressive consciousness, knowledge alone is insufficient for me to be fully human, as was Christ. I need more. Fortunately, two other questions need to be confronted and answered with the totality of what I have accumulated in my lifetime to answer question one, “What does it mean to be human?”

IMPLICATIONS OF WHAT LOVE MEANS

Humans, according to Erich Fromm, in his book, The Art of Loving, states that we are not born knowing how to love. Our species alone can love and accept love as the purpose of why we are here. Using the Teilhard map, I see love as having a movement of complexity from the instincts of primate animals through Adam and Eve to my time on Earth. There are three dimensions, which I based on the Rule of Threes (see above).

LOVE AS PHYSICAL

The big myth of those who are sin-centered is that all love is sinful. Not so. God made humans good, but humans chose poorly and wanted to be equal to God (being able to determine what is a good or bad choice for themselves). All creation has physical love as part of its natural progression. In this universe, I exist along with other objects or living things.

Characteristics

• Like everything in this universe, I don’t have a choice but to obey the laws of the physical universe. Everything has a beginning and an ending.
• Life is a progression of movement from what was to what will be within that beginning and ending.
• Life has a way of passing on energy and matter as it progresses towards its maturation.
• Love is not just a human construct but at the very core of what it means to physically exist.
• Love is present as matter becomes more complex in its accumulation of needs.
• Love is procreation, where all existence seeks to not only exist but to replicate that complexity with a more profound desire to reach its destiny.
• Love, in this sense, means, as a human being with awareness of what is going on, I have been allowed to move deeper into the mystery of my human existence and not only horizontally (from creation to Omega, as the Teilhard map shows), but for me personally, vertically. I am one in this universe with all matter, and love is the energy that encapsulates all physical energy through its inexorable movement and complexity toward an unseen destiny for its occupants.
• Everything in this universe is good. Human nature is fundamentally good by nature but weakened and wounded by the misuse of the natural outcome. I call that original sin, the condition of missing the mark or not fulfilling our humanity as originally intended.
• The physical universe contains all that was, or all that is now. Humans are a part of this because none of us just popped into existence from nothing. Everything came from something. I am inexorably linked to everything that came before me. I inherit the combined energy and matter of everything that went before me. Who I am is a direct result of all that is. A wonderful website that illustrates my ideas is http://www.organism.earth. Teilhard de Chardin, the Jesuit Anthropologist, is mentioned in the various quotes from those with a universal scope of thinking.
• This is the universe that seeks to replicate itself. Humans, as part of it, have one of their strongest urges as a result of that innate tendency. Humans share that with all other life forms. When I look out at the universe from the beginning to what I hope the ending is, as a single life force, I notice that it has the characteristics of complexity as it matures toward its destiny. I am like a molecule in the grand scheme of reality but an important one. I am one of the molecules that knows that it knows. I have the capacity and the capability to realize that I exist in the midst of where I find myself during my short, 83+ years of human existence. I can know, I can love, and fulfill my purpose in life, unlike anything before me. I am a new paradigm as a human species, but there is always more to life than just existence. I can move to the next stage of love, that of being human. This is no accident of nature because nature has been preprogrammed, just as my individual DNA is the script from which I live out my unique purpose within the parameters of space, time, and matter.
• In this universe, I share matter, time, space, and the characteristics of matter with all else that is.

LOVE AS MENTAL

Using the Teilhard map (above), there are at least five steps, or paradigm changes that my humanity makes to allow me to love.

• Creation– Love begets love in all creation
• Life– Life sustains love by replication
• Human– Humanity sustains love through procreation but also by distinguishing authentic love from unauthentic love (as indicated in Erich Fromm’s book, the Art of Loving)
• Christ– Humanity is lifted up to the next stage of its evolution by Pure Knowledge, Pure Love, and Pure Service
• Holy Spirit– (The enigma of the Church, the enlightenment to see the way, the truth, and the life and fulfill the three questions each human must confront, whether they realize it or not. I claim 83 years of this stage, so far, as I prepare for the completion of my human existence.
• Omega– the fulfillment and completion of the cycle of love is eternal and completes the final stage of human evolution, adoption as sons and daughters of the Father, and existence without boundaries of beginning or end.

I hold that humanity not only made these steps consistent with the movement and complexity given by God’s DNA onto matter and began its movement (time), but that at the nexus of each step, existence did not possess the energy to lift itself up to the next step, but needed help. At each of these critical steps, God, being the author of all that is, lifted us up to that next level of evolution and allowed nature to continue its flow unblocked by its own powerlessness.

I hold that God infused reason and free will into my prototype (Adam and Eve) when humanity could not make that high step by itself and needed help. Genesis is the archetypal story of how that happened using anthropomorphic representation (e.g., the garden, God walks in the garden as owner, Adam and Eve are gardeners to keep all living things as they should be according to their nature).

Because Adam and Eve chose poorly, humanity was good by nature but wounded by the choices they made and by not knowing what was good or bad for them. They now had to choose what would help them or hurt them as they acted out the experiences of their lives. This choice of what love is is the basis for what it means to be human, but also what it means to be an adopted son or daughter of the Father. Without having God’s absolute truth to shine a light on where to step, humanity keeps stumbling down the evolutionary path of its progression. With God’s help, which entails admitting to ourselves that we don’t know it all, we reach out to the future and say, “Be it done unto me, according to your Word.” The Blessed Mother said it more succinctly, when she told us, “Do what he tells you.”

Because God’s fingerprints are on each atom, and they move toward Omega, the purpose of their nature, the choice becomes the key to not only being human as we know it but the one thing over which God has no control. Why? Because God created us in that DNA with God’s image and likeness. Image (knowledge, love, and service) and likeness (Father loves the Son, and together they love the Holy Spirit, the product of their love.)This is our template for the kingdom of heaven and why Christ had to come to tell us HOW to do that as He would show us.

Characteristics

• If everything in the physical universe is good because of its source, the mental universe, with its unique components of human reasoning and freedom to choose good or evil for its nature, then we discover an unintended consequence of the sin of Adam and Eve. Sin. This condition is crucial to understanding what it means to be human and also the meaning of love.
• Sin comes into the world through one man, says St. Paul in Romans 5. With the mental universe comes choice, that defining quality that makes the mental universe unique among living things. To restore humans to their rightful progress there needs to be a use of free will where the individual chooses God for God and not themselves, as did Adam and Eve.
• Humans have reason and choice for a reason. We move beyond automatic love as in the physical universe where there is no choice, to a whole new nature, human, which now must learn the meaning of what it means to love as one who has all the emotions and insecurities of what it means to love authentically.
• Humans don’t like others telling them what to do, but we all seek to tell others what to do based on what we think is good for us. Herein is the dilemma.
• Based merely on secular thinking, the fundamental authority for deciding what love is is me. And where do I get my assumptions about what is good or evil? From the life experiences that have shaped who I am and who I will become.
• In this context, I feel a powerful urge to procreate and satisfy the body’s need to feel good. I am the source of what it means to control my human instincts and impulses.
• Human nature as wounded by the poor choice of Adam and Eve is considered to be that citizen of the Earth or the World, as mentioned above. God does not have a place in the human consciousness unless I alone put God there. There can be love, as described by Erich Fromm, in The Art of Loving, but it is merely human love with humans (imperfect mental energy). There must be a way to move beyond authentic love as a human to stretch out our collective hand to that next level of human evolution. Just as a football game cannot end with a flag, human nature, and its search for meaning, cannot end with dysfunction of its human nature. Human nature cannot fix itself, it needs to move beyond that step which it cannot take and seek help to take the next step. Why the next step? Movement doesn’t stop; Complexity doesn’t stop. It just can’t move beyond its own boundaries set by human nature.
• We have the physical universe, which we share with all reality, as well as the mental one, which all humans share, although not equally, to allow all humans the chance to move to the final stage of attainment.
• The mental universe allows humans to ask interrogatory questions about purpose and meaning.
• Human love is not automatic, nor is spirituality. It is one of many choices that each human makes as they accumulate meaning into what forms their unique view of reality. Some choices help us to become more human as our nature intended and others can kill our progress. God sends Jesus to show us what leads to our destiny in Omega, in heaven by helping our walk on earth. There is one problem. We have to give up all we know, all we love, and all that is success in our human self (false self) to abandon what is to accept God’s way of thinking. This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to the human reason nor the coveted ability to choose and say YES or NO to anything.
• Along those same lines, when the rich young man asked Jesus what he must do to be saved, Jesus told him he had to go, sell all he had, give it to the poor, and come follow him. He walked away, and I imagine so do most of us who hear these words. Consider this “deeper” penetration into the concept of being perfect.
• Jesus does not ask the impossible of humans to move forward in their daily conversion of heart and mind to God. He merely says, “Do what I do.” Mary echoed that sentiment when, at the Wedding Feast of Cana, she told the incredulous wine steward, “Do what he tells you.” Applied to the notion of selling what you have, giving it to the poor, and following Christ, the assumption that I have had is that He means physical riches of the world, such as money. Somehow, that doesn’t make sense, unless Jesus wants only a handful of people to make the cut. Rather, I sense something larger at work here, an approach that Jesus, Himself, uses but also one in which he wants each one of his followers to adopt, a mindset, if you will, for growing deeper in adoption as a son (daughter) of the Father. Philippians 2:5-12 provides a contextual hint to this process which is called kenosis in Greek but means emptying the jug of water completely to the last drop. Another word, made relevant by St. Charles de Foucauld, is “abandonment,” the leaving behind of those things that we think make us more human in favor of moving to a whole new paradigm, the kingdom of heaven on earth which leads to the kingdom of heaven in heaven. When Christ tells the rich young man to give up his riches, he is actually telling him not to place riches at the center of his life, but rather, by abandoning all that the world says is meaningful and renewing it with what God’s purpose is for humans, there is a new skin to hold the new wine Christ gives us each day.
• Some call this a “leap of Faith,” while others call it conversio morae. It is the fairy tale that atheists taunt Christians with unaware that they are throwing them into the briar patch where they are destined to survive.

LOVE AS SPIRITUAL

The spiritual universe is the natural result of an intelligent progression (see Teilhard map). If the physical universe asks the question, “What does reality look like?” then the mental universe allows humans to probe the meaning of the physical universe using reason and free choice. It is left for the spiritual universe to provide the answers to these two milestones of creation, life, and humanity. But, therein lies the problem. The hiccup in reality is the sin of Adam and Eve, or the exception becoming the rule, so to speak.

Humans are born into a state of original sin, or a condition of imperfection, subject to the floundering of their reasoning and free choices being influenced by our animal past. We have the seven deadly sins as default rather than being free from struggle or a smooth path to our intended destiny in heaven (Omega or the completion of reality). Each person’s pathway is different because of what they place at their center and the choices they make as a result of their reasoning. The default is not automatically God but rather whatever human reasoning conjures up as that ultimate solution to ethics and morals. The curse of choice is that everyone has it and must give a YES or NO to anything that leads to a better future. The options are vast and complex, ranging from unbelief (apathy) to atheism (denying God) to believers of Christianity, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, and multiple other ways of describing the purpose of life. If all of them are correct, then none of them are correct, a veritable Tower of Bable, all jostling to prove they are correct to others. “My god can beat your god,” is the mantra of the righteous, yet there can be only one truth.

This notion of spirituality is my own and is informed by the events and testing reality during my time on earth. I can change my position and have done so many times, based on new wine that has come my way. My task in life is to make new skins through conversio morae (movement forward) and capacitas dei, (moving forward) by constantly increasing my capacity for what is by using the way, the truth, and life from a source outside of my human experience.

To get there is a bit of a conundrum. I can only access the city of God (citizenship in heaven on earth and later on in heaven) by dying to self, or as St. Benedict instructs in RB 4:10 to “renounce yourself in order to follow Christ.” Humans don’t like to think of tempering their emotions and rerouting their free will to accept God as the arbiter of truth, absolute truth. Returning to the Tower of Babel, choice becomes a problem because each human has their own religion, their own center of morality. So many religions that say, “Follow me, I am the truth.” What should we believe? You have a reason for a reason, so use it. You also can choose a spirituality that fits what you reason, so be careful what you wish for and test it in and out of season.

The meaning of love, in my experience, might be expressed by three concepts:

1. GOD IS LOVE. As far as I can tell, our purpose on earth is tied up with how I discover what love is and what it means to be human and what is good and evil. We are made in the image and likeness of God. When God, the Word, imprinted his DNA on each atom and molecule, reality gained purpose and direction, or as Teilhard’s map suggests, complexity and movement (KNOWLEDGE). When Christ bought back our “happy fault,,” and restored our humanity to its potential, that was LOVE. When the Holy Spirit, through the Church, facilitates energy to each age through my free-will offering to the Father of gratitude, in, with, and through Christ, I gain the energy I need to sustain my adoption as a son or daughter of the Father on my journey to Forever.
2. CHRIST IS LOVE MADE FLESH. Philippians 2:5-12 is my favorite passage, not only because I have it as my center, but because it tells me that the spiritual love that I seek is pure energy, and this pure energy is alive. St. Paul gives a hint as to this energy. Listen to this with the “ear of your heart.” The Eucharist and Eucharistic Adoration are two ways the love of Christ is made present in each age. He is not the God of invisibility but did not hesitate to become flesh in the person of Jesus Christ but more importantly for me, He is here right now. The Lay Cistercian Way helps me to be present to Christ in ways that were always there but which I have not become aware exist. Christ first loved me so that I could return it to others.

Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus,^*

6Who,^* though he was in the form of God,^d

did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.^*

7Rather, he emptied himself,

taking the form of a slave,

coming in human likeness;^*

and found human in appearance,^e

8he humbled himself,^f

becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.^*

9Because of this, God greatly exalted him

and bestowed on him the name^*

that is above every name,^g

10that at the name of Jesus

every knee should bend,^*

of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,^h

11and every tongue confess that

Jesus Christ is Lord,^*

to the glory of God the Father.ⁱ

3. LOVE IS SHARING THE GOD IN YOU WITH OTHERS

The wonderful passage in St. Paul provides much food for thought.

1 Corinthians

1 If I speak in human and angelic tongues^* but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.^a

2 And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.^b

3 If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.^c

4^* Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, [love] is not pompous, it is not inflated,^d

5 it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury,^e

6 it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.

7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.^f

8^* Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing.

9 For we know partially and we prophesy partially,

10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

11 When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things.

12 At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.^g

13^* So faith, hope, love remain, these three;^h but the greatest of these is love.

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1corinthians/13

Characteristics

• I feel love when I think of Mary’s Magnificat.
• I feel loved when Mary wraps her mantle of humility and obedience to the will of the Father around me in silence and solitude
• God has chosen me, I have not chosen God. Jesus loved me first so we could know what spiritual love is. The Holy Spirit is now with me as I see the love of Christ as not what the world offers, as good as that is sometimes.
• Love is contemplation in the upper room of my heart where there is only me and my two Advocates.
• Love is longing to be present with Jesus, Mary, Joesph, and St. Michael when there is confusion of thoughts and the temptation to replace Jesus with Satan.
• Love is saying the words, Jesus is Lord, when thoughts become lustful, prideful, hateful, duplicitous, and vengeful.
• Love is reading Chapter 4 of the Rule of St. Benedict every day, “and listening with the ear of the heart.”
• Love is being aware that heaven is my real home and that I am grateful for adoption as the son (daughter) of the Father.
• Love as Christ wants us to practice it is not the default and automatic fallback for my behavior. I must choose Love to make it present.

III. WHAT IS TRUE? WHO CHOOSES WHAT IS GOOD AND EVIL?

The haunting remnants of our humanity are all tied up with choice and my personal assimilation of behaviors into what is collectively called “What makes me be me?” Some choices I make are good for me and some are bad for me? During a lifetime, I pick up more and more clues as to what makes sense of good and evil and also how to change, if I have gone down the wrong path.

I am the final arbiter of what is good or bad for me, depending on the center I have selected to be my template. My investigations into choice have led to the conclusion that I choose what I think is best for me, based on the center I have selected as the key to meaning. In some cases, I have selected the wrong center, such as power, money, fame, adulation, or lust. I can keep my center sustained depending on how strongly I believe it makes me happy or fulfilled. In one sense, what is true is my choice and I have the final say in what makes me, me. There are consequences to my actions, such as physical or spiritual depression with the effect that center has on me. If I choose drugs is THE truth, all my thoughts and cravings go into making that happen in my life, even with disastrous consequences.

But there is a more authentic and less traveled way for me, one where I must control my human tendencies to self-indulgence. I choose the template or the key that is truth outside of myself, one which is at odds with my feelings and seemingly lacks reasonableness. I have to give up my humanity to possess the next level of my humanness. I become a citizen of the spiritual world, a member of the Body of Christ, the Church, and constantly at odds with my citizenship in the world. I must constantly choose what I know to be right rather than give in to my animalistic tendencies (false self).

As a conservator of truth, I give away my will to self-gratification in favor of the rocky road of absolute truth, one that has its authority in divine nature. This is absolutely truth, absolutely, and admits no change. Christ is the same now, tomorrow, and forever. The caveat of this way of abandonment of personal truth in favor of a way that is truth and leads to life is that I am always besieged by the influences of original sin to slip and slide down the slope of recidivism to my former false self. Original sin is my default and I must continuously choose good over evil each moment I can think about it, or suffer the consequences of backsliding on my Faith. I use personal choice to choose what God tells me will allow me to fulfill my humanity rather than what my animalistic tendencies urge me to do. These are the seven deadly sins and the virtues that help to contain them. https://www.goodcatholic.com/your-guide-to-the-seven-deadly-sins/

V. PROBING VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL MOVEMENT IN SPIRITUAL AWARENESS

HORIZONTAL MOVEMENT IN SPIRITUAL AWARENESS

There are two dimensions of my Lay Cistercian spirituality that I have just recently uncovered or rediscovered. There is a horizontal dimension, consistent with the Teilhard Map called movement, and a vertical one, which he calls complexity, both of which comprise my concept of intelligent design.

Vertical Lay Cistercian Awareness –– I use the term “Lay Cistercian” in my awareness to designate how Lectio Divina and the Cistercian practices and core competencies have been at the center of both my movement forward in time (from here to there) but also how I have matured spiritually in place (like aging in place). I realize that vertical awareness is mine and mine alone to capture. It is the sum total of who I am and who I am meant to be as an adopted son (daughter) of the Father.

Characteristics:

Vertical spirituality is all contained in the movement of NOW. What sounds like a conundrum means that there is movement or dynamics in each horizontal moment of now, where my will confronts reality and I assimilate it based on my concepts of what is at my center. My center is only one of many values that my free will makes as a primary or core choice of that one principle on which all others depend. For me, I have selected Philippians 2:5 as my center (“Have in you the mind of Christ Jesus.” Over and over and over, I keep trying to penetrate both horizontally (from here to there) but also vertically, based on how deep (high) I can achieve at each vertical moment.

These tools you are reading have a beginning and an ending (horizontally placing my mind and heart in the presence of Christ in time) but also a never-ending depth (or height) that allows me to immerse myself in the presence of pure knowledge (Father), pure love (the Son) and pure service (the Holy Spirit). I need both vertical and horizontal spirituality to increase my complexity as a human being, but also movement, to ensure that my intelligent progression is moving towards its finality, Omega.

As applied to Cistercian spirituality, as I understand it at this level of my maturity, I see complexity as the vertical axis of “capcitas dei,” or growing in my capacity to “Have in me the mind of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:5). The horizontal axis is “conversio morae,” or the movement based on my will converting my wishes to include those of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as primary, while my humanity and its urges, tainted by the influence of original sin, are transformed from being animalistic to that of spiritualistic. These two components are at work most effectively when I realize that The Christ Principle is the template that unlocks the dynamics of simply sitting in the presence of pure energy (God) and patiently waiting for whatever comes my way each day. For those who only exist in the physical and mental universes (without God or against God), it is very much a theoretical exercise without proof or credibility, and so it is. For those who have abandoned (died to self because of the redemptive sacrifice of Christ to give us a way, the truth, so we can live an authentically human life), what seems to be logical and reality in favor of what is described as a fairy tale or Easter Bunny thinking, is actually the cornerstone of reality, that which fulfills each of our individual complexities and deepest penetrations of our human evolution. Theoretical? I hope so.

This movement and complexity happen when I am before the Blessed Sacrament, or purposefully place myself in Lectio Divina mode in the upper room of my inner self, and seek God each day as God is and not as I am. I need humility and obedience as my weapons of choice to beat back the interference that Satan inevitably throws up to counter any of my moves. It is the tension that I must bear as being a citizen of the earth (world) and yet living as a citizen of the kingdom of heaven on earth. Like cosmic background noise that is “just there,” original sin is the ever-present effect of the sin of Adam and I must consider its effects as I try to keep my equilibrium as an adopted son (daughter).

Horizontal Lay Cistercian Awareness –– If vertical spirituality plumbs the depths (and heights) of humanity in search of fulfillment (St. Augustine says “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee), then horizontal Lay Cistercian Awareness is the time I carve out of my day to do vertical spirituality. For a Lay Cistercian, it means attending the monthly Gathering Day at the Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit (Trappist), it means that Lectio Divina is my daily horizontal prayer so I might go vertical with Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit. In reality, these prayer times (Eucharist, Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, Reconciliation, Lectio Divina, Reading Sacred Scripture) had the added benefit of my having to use the attributes of consistency of purpose and constancy of longing to be in the presence of Love (The Trinity). It takes an act of my will to not only want to be with Jesus, heart to heart but also go against my human default that says that I don’t have time for this silliness. I will never achieve mastery of any of these techniques of good works because they are just that, tools, ever-changing and growing (capacitas dei), ever allowing me to seek God each day where I am and as I am (conversio morae).

More and more, I have that elusive awareness that the cross I bear is my humanity challenged by my adoption as a son (daughter) of the Father. I don’t always know how, or even if some of this is true, due to the fickle nature that I share as a citizen of the world. I do know that there is a level of awareness out there into which I must place my trust and confidence that, when actualized in horizontal and vertical prayer, allows me to just sit there in my innermost thoughts and soak up whatever I need to survive the onslaughts, bumps, and bruises of human nature.

These five techniques complement the tools of Good Works in Chapter 4 of the Rule of St. Benedict. They are part of My Cistercian Way and offers me opportunities to be in the presence of the one I love, knowing that, if I love Christ with all my heart, all my mind, and all my strength, I am fulfilling my humanity as intended by my nature. (Deuteronomy 6:5 and Mattheww 22:36) It is this almost fanatical desire to seek God each day that stokes the fires of my heart to want to grow more in, with, and through Christ and less in me.

Good works, properly understood, don’t automatically mean you get to heaven because you do them, but it does mean that they come from Faith, and Faith is enhanced in the sanctuary of the upper room of my inner self through these techniques and by using the tools for Good Works (Chapter 4 of the Rule of St. Benedict). Faith is service to others as Christ would have us do.

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