CHRIST AS MYSTIC HERO: The Longing of the Human Mind and Heart for Resonance.

NB: This is a long blog because I made the mistake of telling the Holy Spirit to hit me with more than my consciousness could assimilate. I thought I was a big boy. I now know that I am a Toddler. “That in all things, may God be glorified.” –St. Benedict I recommend reading this blog in short gulps.

Deep within the collective consciousness of our humanity, as it slips and slides down the complexities and consciousness of existing, I come up for air for 83.8 years of that time to gulp at whatever life presents to me that day. I use it to help me unravel the most challenging questions humans must face and may or may not answer. I use the dual citizenship technique to differentiate two levels of my humanity, the first one being merely human, but the second one is that of a step above humanity yet essential to my discovering of that higher dimension of being fulfilled as my nature originally intended, that of an adopted son or daughter of the Father. As such, whenever I look at the three questions that define what it means for me to participate in the marvelous mystery of what it means to be a member of that species called human. That I can even address such cosmic dimensions is a testament that there is both horizontal natural progression (my life to when I die) but also, because I chose it, a possibility to venture vertically and challenge the depths of human reasoning with the ability to say YES or NO to anything along the way.

As part of my Lectio Divina meditations, trending toward contemplation, I have evolved to the point that I do not depend upon my own reasoning and free will but willingly put my hands in the hands of the Holy Spirit to go where I dare not venture by myself, that upper room of my inner self and to just wait for whatever comes. This is a frightening situation, not having control of where my mind and free choices take me. I need to be tamed by the consistent and constant presence of being in the present to pure energy and assimilate the transformation as I have the capacity or capability. (capacitas dei) The product of this energy of God in me is to do all I can to know, love, and serve God in this lifetime so that I can be with the person that has been my center (off and on) for all these years, in the life to come. So simple yet so deep and complex.

I am not born with infused knowledge, nor the ability to love fiercely, nor do I know what is true beyond what I have control over. My conjecture is that since we are made in the image and likeness of the one who created all life, particularly humans, God left fingerprints or DNA on each atom, each animal, each human, with the invisible questions and answers to what would frustrate our race: what does it mean to be human at the highest level of our nature; how can I love fiercely; and finally, what is the template of absolute truth to know that we have resolved our longings of the mind and heart. Part of my worldview is to get those answers from God, as I come to believe (John 20:30-31) when my human knowledge is synced with absolute truth from The Christ Principle. I do this by learning to listen to the silence or whispers of Christ who sits next to me in that upper room of my inner self and just is. To hear those whispers I must daily abandon my citizenship of the world to embrace all that the world says is true but move to a higher level of my humanity, one not based on automatic natural selection but one I must choose to enter, unsure of all that this abandonment entails. Should I ever be proximate to a Magnatar Star, I would be incinerated into oblivion because of radiation, yet, when I sit next to Christ who is pure energy, I can soak up pure knowledge, pure love, and pure service as much as I allow myself to receive, and all without my neurons being fried. That only happens when I am humble enough to admit who I am in my relationship with God and ask Christ for mercy and the energy to give up my free will to enter the realm of the adopted son or daughter of the Father. Using the Rule of Opposites in my citizenship of the kingdom of heaven, everything is upside down. The Messiah comes as the weakest and poorest instead of the mighty warrior to slay the Romans and Greeks; the virgin shall conceive a child and he will be called wonderful, the Prince of Peace; if I want to gain power, I must abandon my dependence of the world and step out into the world that is like looking through a foggy glass. I must have in me “...the mind of Christ Jesus,” and daily seek mercy and just to be present to Christ in that inner sanctum of my inner self, the place no one wants to look. As I prescribe the parameters of my notion of reality, based on those things, good and bad, that I have selected to be a part of what has come to be me, now, more and more, I am convinced that The Christ Principle is the key to allowing all the pieces of my mosaic to come together and have meaning.

I offer two pieces of the puzzle that have recently come into focus: that of the three cosmic questions that all humans have indelibly tattoed on themself, and which are available to those who seek to discover a deeper humanity within themselves; plus, another mosaic piece on how I discovered what these three core longings of the heart are and how I use the Teilhard map of advancing complexity and consciousness to describe (not define) them in my innermost sanctum.

Ironically, what is at the center of my life, and what I must constantly renew and keep focused on, is also somehow intrinsically and irrevocably linked to three cosmic longings of my humanity, the song that I keep hearing played out over and over, the fingerprints or DNA of that pure energy that indelibly left their mark on my DNA but also on each person who has moved from animality to rationality and then to spirituality as adopted sons and daughters of the Father, the fulfillment of what it means to be human. I share these three indelible questions that seek resolution (rather than solving). My life becomes an enigmatic one that searches for resonance to the dissonance of my human condition (original sin).

THREE COSMIC QUESTIONS AT THE CORE OF MY HUMANITY THAT ARE MYSTERIES

I. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO REALIZE THE FULLNESS OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE HUMAN? WHAT IS THE NEXT LEVEL IN OUR HUMAN, INTELLIGENT PROGRESSION (EVOLUTION)? In my portfolio of what is essential, this tops the list. It is the most fundamental and simplistic urge we humans face. Because each human is different from another, we can form the next level of our evolution, the mind or mental universe. Evolution happens to us in the mental and physical universes of matter.

Characteristics

• There is an invisible longing for resonance that is attached to what it means to be human, one embedded deep within the twists of DNA, one unseen but felt faintly in each of us from the midsts of time itself.
• So illusive is this mysterious and invisible tendency, for lack of a better comparison, that each of us is born with it but doesn’t know it is there.
• It whispers to us at moments of trial and stress, it settles on us like the morning dew on the grass, there each day but gone is a fleeting moment, only to leave us puzzled with a feeling that there is more to life than what was and what is. It pulls us sometimes and pushes us on other occasions when our humanity bumps against that invisible wall sensing that something is not quite right or lacking in resolution.
• But what is good for us and what leads our humanity down the path of briars and thorns? This is the mystery of human fulfillment of what it means to be human, ever present as we make choices in life that either propel us forward or leave us sitting by the side of the road with four flat tires, waiting for USAA emergency services to arrive.
• There is no book on how to be human or how to grow deeper into self. All we have is two tools, human reasoning and the ability to say NO to any YES presented to us that, for whatever reason, we choose to ignore.
• Each of us has the answers to all questions right in front of us if we make the correct assumptions and conclusions based on those choices. Each of us is completely different in the way we assimilate meaning and what will make us fulfilled. What is the same is that one question tattooed on our spirit that leads us to the next challenging questions we must answer. These answers are not just a one-time YES or NO, but a process where there is movement in our lives and the daily complexities and consciousness that come with whatever might come our way.
• As time goes on, more and more events help shape what it means to be human, even to the point of being aware that I am aware of my direction in the future, invisible as that is.
• Life is about searching for what Dr. Viktor Frankle called the search for meaning. Erich Fromm wrote about it in his book, The Art of Loving. In my discoveries, Sacred Scripture is a book on how to answer those gnarly and seeming obtuse questions about purpose and what reality looks like.
• I use maps and a series of techniques that I have uncovered to allow me to think against a systematic approach to how my human exists in a context much larger than my lifespan. These techniques are the result of my Lay Cistercian Lectio Divina meditations. More on these techniques later on.
• The Teilhard map is one such way I look at where humanity and so my short time in its flow, is headed and how my destiny as a human is much more than just the sum of my one assimilation of experiences.
• There is a cumulative effect when reflecting on this particular map. First comes the base of our existence, matter, and all of its properties. This level is called creation and rides on the river of existence from its inception to Omega. Life begins and, along with matter and time, continues to grow from less complexity to more complex copies of itself, which is natural evolution. Now, we have not only the natural law of the physical universe but a whole new paradigm, living matter, one that contains all the characteristics of what went before it. That is not the end, but only the process of intelligent progression or the evolution of consciousness. Evolution is simply movement, one guided by natural law, in which we humans participate, but with a more complex paradigm for us. We matter, we inherit what life is and what evolution or complexity has accumulated, but there is something new about this life. We are animality but now with complexities and consciousness that only humans possess. We know that we know. We are aware that we are aware. In terms of our heritage, we share with all things and life that went before.
• Humans by nature are good at their core, but flawed in how each person responds to these three core questions. Putting in an unauthentic behavior or value system can lead to unintended consequences, in addition to those that are the results of that behavior.
• I have my whole lifetime to try to discern the answers to these three questions. What I discovered about them when I was thirty is quite different, in terms of how deeper I matured in complexity and consciousness. Not all ideologies lend themselves to either asking the correct answers or gradually uncovering the meaning of love or what is true about being human.
• This first question deals with knowledge of what it means to be human. Over a lifetime of searching down dead-end pathways that seem reasonable, I have come up with only one template that resolves the concept of what it means to be fully human at that next level of human evolution.
• I see reality differently than every other human because of my ability to reason based on the assumption that I choose in life to search for meaning. There are three elements of what it means to be human that I have identified as approaching answers, ones that, coincidentally, correspond with the three core questions. They are:
  • Knowledge of the process of my humanity from birth until this very moment.
  • Love is the overarching purpose for my humanity’s existence on earth.
  • Truth as to how it all fits together using The Christ Principle as a template to make sense out of all the gibberish of flawed human reasoning and choice.
• As movement inexorably assimulates the accumulated experiences of what it means to be human, our destiny is now penetrated by the individual life (Adam and Eve as archetypes of all humanity) and thus begins the process of trying to figure out how to act, not as an animal, but with those characteristics of the human species, the ability to reason (know that we know) and free will to choose not to be hostage to what before had been automatic in terms of physical and animal nature.
• Herein lies the problem. As that movement crept forward in its relentless trek to something that was always more than it was and more conscious than its predecessor, humans began to reflect on more than just eating and procreating (although that is probably the bulk of what goes on today). Humans came to know that they know and to be aware that they are aware of more than what nature could provide by natural progression. Complex human thought, or reasoning gradually evolved into what we know today, with one exception. Our movement is not complete in its resolution of what the race will become. And herein lies the seeming conundrum: to get to that next level of human progression, humans must make the jump from rationality to spirituality, one that, at least to the senses and reason, is the contradiction of what their experiences tell them is true.
• Genesis and what follows is the history (literary and historical) of why humans are in essence good but do both good and bad things that hurt their chances of fulfilling that next level of their evolution, the Christogenesis (according to the Teilhard map). God became human not to tell us what to do (Old Testament) but to show us what that message of the Old Testament means as each person lives out their lives in the context of how to choose what is good, not just for me personally, but what choice fulfills my destiny as I encounter my brief time alive to discover the meaning of what it means to be that next level in my evolution.

I use this map to help me begin to comprehend the complexity of what it means to be human. Several points become very clear to me.

1. Whatever a deeper search for the depths or next-level evolution means for me, it must entail both the notion of ongoing consciousness and dynamic complexity as time passes. The beginning of my life is not at the same level of maturity as I am now in my maturation. I am more than I was, simply because I have assimilated those encounters with persons and movements of thought (scientific inquiry and philosophy with their unique and respective disciplines), and the choices I have made that any of this makes sense to what I have selected as my core of being, in my case, Philippian 2:5, “Have in you the mind of Christ Jesus.” What looks like a simplistic motto from the Scriptures is, in reality, The Christ Principle, or what I use to measure if my humanity is real. I have chosen this center as the template of truth and the way to discover what is most profound and mysterious about being a human being. My understanding of the complexity of human nature is that both you and I can choose different centers or templates against which all reality may make sense to me but not to you. I call this disparity of assumptions. I am not you, and you are not me. Because we each live different lifestyles and encounter different people, literature, situations, and moral choices, we each have a unique notion of our worldview. The Christ Principle is one template of reality that allows each person to respect their integrity yet have one subjective truth that shapes how we think from a source outside of their humanity.
2. The progression of consciousness of my environment and its corresponding complexity means an intelligent progression from here to there (Alpha to Omega). Teilhard de Chardin views things as a constant and consistent development, not just of humanity, but the context in which humanity picked up the products of all humans, all movements of politics, military conquests, languages of how to describe what is most valuable to humanity (science, medicine, or the communication languages so people can share with each other). Like the famed fable of the six blind men of Hindostan by John G. Saxe, all the world’s languages approach the concept of God from their own perspective. The Teilhard map allows me to not be one of those six blind men, limited only to one of their senses. It helps me to see that evolution is much more than the Darwinian physical concepts of the origin of our species, but that there is movement in the physical universe of the cosmos, the universe of the mind through enlightenment and choosing the correct assumptions, and then entering what seems to be a contradictory level of growth called the spiritual universe. If you look at the map, this is a beginning and an ending, an Alpha and Omega. The purpose of all humanity, specifically my beginning and end, is to discover what it means to be human at that deepest level of reality, invisible to all the measurements of the physical and mental universes. In my search for meaning, I have only discovered one template that combines all things into one unified system of human experiences. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJVBQefNXIw
3. When I think of how God interacts with humanity, It is through other people, always a dangerous proposition because of the variety of ways each person “sees” God with the totality of their life experiences. But, it is also in me because I am at the apex or nexus of where humanity and divinity meet each moment. I am the ultimate reality even though I can be aware of other realities around me which I can use to answer these three cosmic questions. They must be answered in successive order so that the answer to the former helps to frame the answer of those following. I seek to see God based on how God sees God. This would be quite difficult, as those in the Old Testament found out. God sent His Son to us to tell us (Scriptures) and show us (The Church Universal) what reason alone would not have the mental energy to even ask the questions, much less give answers that we humans could process using our languages.
4. Four epochs within this Teilhard map.
   • THE GENESIS PRINCIPLE — The collection of ideas and stories that go from creation to the Incarnation of Christ becoming human (Philippians 2:5-12). These are examples of what happens when we assimilate the knowledge, love, and service of God into how we view our humanity. This principle shines light on the first question about my humanity and why there is such confusion about behaviors humans exhibit in their attempt to find fulfillment.
   • THE CHRIST PRINCIPLE — From the time God entered the physical universe as Jesus until Omega, Jesus becomes present to us in the flesh and not in words. This principle or change in the paradigm of reality answers the second question about our longing for love. The catch here is that good is not the default of human existence. I must place what is authentic love where there is chaos to establish the bed in which I spend my life.
   • THE PRINCIPLE OF TRUTH — In the Teilhard map, it is the Pneumatosphere and begins with the Ascension of Christ into Heaven and the anointing of The Twelve (The Church Universal) with a way to navigate the treacheries of being human (to die) and evolve beyond it. But, there is a catch. We must align what is meaningful about our humanity, what it means to love, and how to treat others with that love with the energy that comes from the Spirit of Truth. Absolute truth is not possible with humans because of original sin. Absolute truth is possible absolutely with the Divine Nature, and, with those who are adopted sons and daughters of the Father and heirs to the kingdom (fulfilling their destiny as that next level of what it means to be fully human). There is only one truth, although each human can choose what is at the center of their lives. If I choose unauthentic knowledge or love as true, this truth must originate from outside of my flawed human nature. What my nature allows me to choose is subjective and prone to move in the direction that the winds of my humanity take it.
   • MY INVESTMENT IN HUMAN NATURE — This fourth aspect of the Teilhard map isn’t on it but it is contained in it, my 83.7 years of it, to be exact. As part of this flow of existence from Alpha to Omega, I pop up to gulp air for 83.7 years or so and then continue with the flow of existence until the end. I have whatever time I have to answer these three questions correctly. This is why I have reason and the ability to choose something good for my probe. or conversely, what will stunt my growth or even suspend what is authentic to my human well-being.
   • I am not God’s computer, to be turned on when God wants or even to automatically write a script without my consent. I have the freedom to choose for a reason, just as I can reason for a reason. To think that, because God is so all-powerful (which God is) he would not prevent babies dying from malnutrition anywhere, or young men and women from being abducted to be sold into sexual servitude, or stop all pedophiles (priests, ministers, rabbis, males, females, all professions, and even parents) from perpetrating this horrific crime on an innocent victim, is to fail to realize that God did not create evil, (Adam and Eve did) in the archetypal story of creation and it has consequences for all humanity. God became human in nature to show us how to live in such a way that truth motivates us. Unfortunately for humans, we don’t always follow that advice. St. Paul laments about the enigmatic and quirky nature of humanity when he writes poignantly:
     • 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
     • 18 For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh. The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not.^k
     • 19 For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.
     • 20 Now if [I] do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
     • 21 So, then, I discovered the principle that when I want to do right, evil is at hand.
     • 22 For I take delight in the law of God, in my inner self,
     • 23^l  but I see in my members another principle at war with the law of my mind, taking me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.^*
     • 24 Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body?
     • 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore, I, with my mind, serve the law of God but, with my flesh, the law of sin.^m
   • The realization that my humanity is dual or split (citizen of the law of God with my spirit, citizen of the world, the law of sin) makes each choice of mine mirror that archetypal choice of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. To be sure, my experience tells me that the vast majority of those who call themselves by the title, Catholic Universal, Atheist, Agnostic, or none of the above, are unaware of the deep dimensions or the titanic battle taking place within them between the spirit and the flesh. Thanks be to God, I woke up to this self-awareness within my own life, due in large part to my acceptance of Lay Cistercian (Cistercian practices and charisms) and abandoning that reliance on my flesh side of my humanity to rise above it with the help of Jesus, my Hero, and Savior. I did not reclaim Jesus as much as Jesus, who is always there, gently opened my heart to be able to listen “…with the ear of my heart.” (St. Benedict) All I had to do was, with humility and obedience to the Law of God, wait patiently as I sat next to Christ in the upper room of my inner self (contemplation).
5. As I age, and not always so gracefully, I assimilate and assume into my human portfolio those experiences that answer this first question about my humanity. Like scientific inquiry, life is a process of discovery and experimentation as to what works, what fills that cosmic void for which there is no instruction booklet. The uniqueness of each human who ever realized that they knew that they knew is that what we assimilate into our inner self may be good for us or bad for our nature. I slough off those things that my reason says are unauthentic to moving forward in my evolution or I can embrace those same principles at my center that will not contain the energy in themselves to lift me up to the next level of my humanity. To make a simple concept even more complex, here is an oversimplified version of what I think human maturation is, based on the Teilhard map (above). Once humanity became more rational than animals (for example: Adam and Eve as prototypes), the movement continued to exercise its complexity and consciousness attributes on humanity as a species. Imprinted on the collective consciousness is that longing to move to the next level is the intelligent progression characteristic of all living things, sentient or not.
   • THE LOWEST LEVEL OF HUMAN EXISTENCE IS MORE ANIMALITY THAN RATIONALITY– Whenever that moment was when animality for our species “bubbled over” into reasoning, as Teilhard de Chardin states in this book, The Phenomenon of Man so that there was a marked difference, we began to become more and more conscious as a species. Movement from what was through what is to what will be is the fate of all humans, both collectively as a race and also my own personal lifespan. Gradually, we acquired more and more characteristics of an emerging humanity with reason and the freedom to choose, but with varied success.
     • “Sin entered the world through one man,” states St. Paul in Romans 5:12-14.
     • 12^* Therefore, just as through one person sin entered the world,^h and through sin, death, and thus death came to all, since all sinned^*—
     • 13 for up to the time of the law, sin was in the world, though sin is not accounted when there is no law.ⁱ
     • 14 But 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“
   • THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF OUR HUMAN EVOLUTION IS TO BE FULLY HUMAN AS AN ADOPTED SON OR DAUGHTER OF THE FATHER. At any time, at any moment, humans can revert to their animalistic nature, if they don’t control their urges for power, greed, lust, dominance, and control. The default of human nature is their animalistic past. Only human choice of what is good prevents evil from seducing the minds of the weak into doing behaviors that are impulsively animalistic. To put good in our lives is a choice, and does not come automatically because of our human nature. We don’t need to be Baptized to do good for others as a human being. The problem is, that humanity’s choices do not have sufficient power or energy to rise to the next level of humanity in and by themselves, that of being an adopted son or daughter of the Father and to actualize their inheritance, beginning on earth while they live. These three core questions that the human heart groans for resolution can only be satisfied by fulfilling what nature intended for our race. Jesus became human to not only tell us about it but to show us the way, what is true so that we could lead a life here on earth that is a struggle but one where we can walk the minefields of original sin.

II. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO LOVE FIERCELY? First, I remind you that this question is second in a sequence of three fundamental challenges each person faces because they are human. They must be solved in order, or so I found out the hard way. First comes knowledge, and, based on the conclusion of that first question, comes its resolution, that of love. But, again, a problem. What is love that is consistent with the highest levels of our humanity? There are good to be sure, but there are also bad choices for what it means to be human. If love is the result of knowledge at our core, what is it? Is there good love and bad love? How do we know the difference?

In the transition from animality to rationality, not only are we left to discern what it means to be human in the next level of our evolution, but we must discover the meaning of what it means to love. This innate drive is fundamental to being human and it continues to be an unfulfilled part of what it means to grow deeper into my human.

“Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee,” said St. Augustine. Be you Christian, Atheist, Agnostic, or none of the above, we all hunger during our short romance with life to discover that innate but elusive longing somewhere in the upper room of our inner self. With free will and my reasoning, I can try to place various ideas and ideologies into that lock that I hope will bring fulfillment to my dissolution and feeling that I am missing something. Love is at the core of, not only the human quest to resolve the longing of the human heart but is also at the center of that which produced all that is. God, we say, is love, realizing that the ultimate proof of love is walking the walk, or, God becoming human to show us how to correctly use love to get us to that next level of our evolution.

Erick Fromm’s book, The Art of Loving, was an eye-opener for me. I had never thought of what love might look like. Armed with some ideas of authentic and unauthentic love from Fromm’s book, I applied all of this to the spirituality that I had present at the time. I even wrote a book about this love.

In dealing with this inner longing for authentic love, I used the Rule of Threes to parse out what has been a confusing fusion of sex, the sexual instincts of humans, and love.

THE PHYSICAL NOTION OF LOVE — Love in this universe is the movement of animal love (the natural progress of animal nature). Humans also live in this universe and have inherited animal instincts for preservation, our strongest urge. This natural tendency is to satisfy the physical pleasure we get from our sexual organs without regard for the consequences. All living things display this predilection for procreation by their animal or human natures. The problem for humans is that they are human and not animals yet have these extremely strong urges beyond reason. By nature, we are good but because of our choices, we have a freedom that needs to be tamed. We need to learn how to use our minds to advance forward to that next level of our humanity and not devolve back into animalism. These primitive urges, which we inherit, are extremely strong and can lead to what is unauthentic for mature love. We must learn what it means to be human by trial and error. Because humans were messing it up, God intervened with Abraham and Issac in the context of a human sacrifice. and began to teach us as our Magister Noster (Our Rabbi, Our Teacher).

THE MENTAL NOTION OF LOVE — Because each of us has the ability (not the right) to choose what we think is good for us, and sexual satisfaction comes at the very top of that list, we must learn how to use our humanity in a way that is appropriate for our species. We are not animals that can’t and don’t control behaviors beyond what nature dictates. We have reason for a reason but reason alone does not allow us to use our sexuality in a way that we move forward in complexity and consciousness to a future destiny. If we allow sexual urges (not love) to be our center, then all we want is to satisfy that innate craving for more and more pleasure, until we can’t. We must learn how to balance and control those urges to move forward in our maturation. In our animal heritage, we have those natural urges for procreation, manifesting itself through seeking sexual gratification when we feel like it. Our mental notion of love as human has to do with taking that raw but necessary urge of sexual gratification and learning how to tame it so that it is not the ONLY reason we exist. To do that, we must move beyond our animality to that of seeking what it means to be human. To do that, we must confront the meaning of love, and not lust, as a genuine way for our humanity to move forward toward its fulfillment. We can only do that with the proper perspective on what it means to be human and to love others. The mental universe is all about the meaning of life. Butterflies don’t worry about what it means to be the best butterfly of their species, mainly because they don’t have self-awareness or the ability to choose that which is contrary to their nature. This question is all the more important to each human because no book tells us how to be the best we can be as a member of the human race. We have a lifetime of trying to find out the meaning of knowledge and love. We try to fit this or that template of meaning to make sense out of the cacophony life’s answers pose to these three questions. There is but one answer that satisfies the human heart, just as there is one reality that contains both the questions and the answers, one key that opens the door of meaning to allow our humanity to move beyond being a hostage to this earth’s pseudo answers to fulfill our human hearts. We must seek answers beyond our human nature to determine that last step in our evolution. But how? Where do we find this next level in what we see and experience around us, most of which seems so morally tainted and compromised by the personal plunder of individuals and ideologies lacking moral fiber?

THE NOTION OF SPIRITUAL LOVE –– Spiritual love exists when I abandon my notion of human love (The Art of Loving) and let go of my preconceived notions of what might be, based on my lifetime choices that are good and/or bad. For me to let go of what it means to be human without having anything to replace it is indeed a fairy tale, as atheists like to think of God. But, if I let go of what I have become with the energy of the Holy Spirit to lift me up to and maintain that next level of my humanity, being an adopted son or daughter of the Father, then I lose nothing of what I had before but gain an unlimited appreciation of what it means to fully human as nature intended. There is no spiritual love without denying self and putting on the new coat of the new creation. It gets confusing because I am now an adopted son (daughter) of the Father and view what the world says is fulfilling to my humanity as almost the opposite, turning my humanity upside down. This duality is the tension I feel when I must live in the world but not be of it. I am a pilgrim in a foreign land with no place to lay down my head, with my values being those of Christ rather than mine. I espouse a WAY of life that is TRUE to my humanity at its next level and so live a LIFE that makes no sense to my former assumptions and values but which leads me to become fully human as my nature intended.

The Christ Principle. Jesus, took on, what to me seemed a confounding transformation because He is Love. Philippians 2:5-12 gives us a clue about spiritual love when it says he left the comfort of being God to take on the nature of a slave. Pure Love became human, bearing in mind the condition of original sin and its corruption of human nature, to show humans the way. And what was it that? Strangely enough, it is the opposite of what humanity became with the inability to use reason and freedom of choice authentically. We were not born with infused knowledge, nor a silver spoon in our mouths, but each individual had to assimilate within themselves what it means to know, to love, and what is truth. That is why my notion is different than yours, not better, but quantitatively and qualitatively different.

The current fetish of all humans must somehow be equal has led to a procrustian lopping off of what individuals who hold the “heresy of equality” do to those with whom they don’t agree. To frame the equality of men and women as equal when that is a false question, can only lead to fractions, anger, and even hatred of other humans. I am not you; you are not me; God is not me; and I am, most certainly, not God. Each person is a receptacle for holding: the purpose of life, their purpose in that purpose of life, what reality looks like, how it all fits together, how to love fiercely, and you know you are going to die: now what? I call it the Divine Equation, not because it tells me anything about God but rather what God tells me about moving to that next level of my evolution, one where I need help to enter because it is a free choice on my part.

So, how can I find out love that does admit of the corruption of individual choice? What is true? If I do find out what is true, like espousing the way of life that Jesus taught, “to die to oneself only to rise with all that you had before, but now a deeper knowledge and appreciation of what it means to be human, what it means to love authentically as nature intended,” how can I know that what He said is absolutely true and not just the static background noise of humans seeking their own satisfaction?

III. WHAT IS ABSOLUTE TRUTH NOT CORRUPTED BY HUMAN NATURE? — In these three innate longings of the human heart that I experience, I now know that I know, and I know that love is the purpose of being at that most intense level of existence, even though I can sustain it for long periods without corruption back into my lower, false self.

The third question looms as pivotal in my quest for perfection, that of truth. What is truth? What can I do on earth that will provide me with a truth that is beyond the corruption of human values with its insistence on the infallibility of each human to be the source and guarantor of what is true for all humans? Do I want to relinquish my cherished choice as to what is true and give it to another person or an ideology, such as a political party or a religious polity, just to name a few candidates? This hurtel to any resolution must be resolved in my heart but where to look for a template in my temporal journey that satisfied my quest to be fully human? Is there such a belief system? Perhaps scientific inquiry is the solution? What can bring together all reality in such a way that it fits together as nature intended?

If there is a human equation to solve this bringing together all reality into one, it has escaped me so far. For my own personal worldview, I have identified three types of truth.

ABSOLUTE TRUTH – As I define it, this truth does not exist in space and time but in a completely different reality, that of divine nature. It is beyond human comprehension or the ability to access it. This is due to the nature of divinity that admits to no change, nor corruption of matter, no sin, and is always as it always was and will be. Humans don’t exist nor can they face such pure knowledge, pure love, and pure truth with our nature. Our neurons would be fried instantly like our bodies would be incinerated by being too close to the Sun. Are we, then, condemned to a life without the possibility of fulfilling those three innate longings of the human mind and heart? Like an indelible tattoo on our minds and hearts, these three unseen and yet keenly felt longings must be satisfied. The problem comes in what I use to satisfy the longing heart. Like a key that fits only one lock, these longings respond to only one truth, since absolute truth admits to being the only one to fit a lock created by the original sin of Adam and Eve, it does so absolutely.

OBJECTIVE TRUTH — This type of truth admits to being true for many ideologies or protocols (scientific inquiry, logic) but originates in the corruption of matter and mind and admits to change (more technology means more knowledge than was unavailable before). This is still true but this truth shifts depending on the knowledge gained. Truth is not absolute because it must admit to change. Additional considerations are that truth is held by many people to be true, although it is not true just because a majority hold it to be so. Objective truth originates from individual truths but gains its strength by others freely adopting it as the standard. This is an attempt to give humans a degree of certitude about what they have come to hold as their center and thus a way to identify what it means to be human at the highest level and also to love authentically.

This truth seeks to rise above the paradigm that seems to afflict all humans because of original sin, that each person is the center of existence. For me, I do hold that I am the center of existence, the only one who can say YES or NO to anything and anyone, including God. The question that this does not address is, “Is there a truth not only outside of me but outside of my human nature that can safely be the template against which I can answer these three core questions above? In my trial and error of what it means to be human, I have assimilated into my thinking the way that Jesus showed us to become our highest selves as humans. This is why I must give up my individuality (Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven) to embrace what “…seems foolish for the Gentiles and a stumbling block for the Jews.” Spirituality, as I use it, is not the opposite of human reasoning, although that is what it seems to those who don’t know how to make the transition. It is the sign of contradiction that comes from moving to that next dimension of our nature, to be adopted sons and daughters of the Father and heirs to the kingdom of heaven. In short, the tattoo on our spirit which we receive at Baptism is the key to entry into this world of opposites in the kingdom of heaven on earth, now, and later on in our continuation of living our humanity to its fullest after we die, the realm of incorruptibility.

The objective truth that comes from only our human nature, which has been corrupted by the poor choice of the archetypal figures Adam and Eve, is unable to move to the next level which requires a power to lift us up to that next level beyond mere human capability or capacity to do so. This is why Divine Nature reached down to earth at the Incarnation to scoop up all humanity and pay the price for our transgression once and for all. It is why only Christ, being both divine and human, could at the same time overshadow Mary to be full of grace and, at the same time, be the gift of God to humanity in the person of a human Jesus. Emmanuel!

INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM TO CHOOSE WHAT MAKES ME FULFILLED AS A HUMAN –– I have only one way to satisfy the hungry heart, to become what I am intended to be by nature, and that is to die to all that went before and abandon all THINGS, to lay prostrate (virtually) before God, realizing who I think God is with the capacity I have gained through humility and obedience. I dare not approach the Father and gaze on His face, lest I fry my neurons, but with Jesus as my Guide, my Sponsor at Baptism, my Advocate, along with the Holy Spirit. I can but say “Thanks be to God,” with my eyes lowered and my free will being in the presence of pure energy.

The only one to make that pledge of belief is me, not my parents. Baptized at birth, and God chose me to be an adopted son (daughter) of the Father. I must grow in Faith until I can make my own witness and commitment to the Father, just as my parents have nourished and nurtured me all those years until I could make my profession of Faith complete by my belief. Even then, I could lose it to unbelief or disbelief. I walk through the minefields of life knowing where to step because I follow in the footsteps of Christ. Often, I get lost or can’t find those footprints and must use the Sacrament of Reconciliation to give me a new copy of my map so I can continue my life in truth.

The problem with individual truth is that is it subjective and based on what you think at the time based on your life experiences. Each of us has assumptions about these three core innate longings of the human heart but with wildly different circumstances for each of us. The vast majority of humans don’t even know that they don’t know about Jesus. For those remaining, you choose a center of your lifetime and it may or may not include God as the cornerstone of what it means to fulfill these three core longings.

Characteristics

• Faith means I recognize that God is God and I am me and act appropriately with respect and reverence. (SB 7:10, Rule of St. Benedict)
• Belief means I consent to bring Jesus into my life each and every day. Belief does not create Faith, nor what is true, it reaffirms that Baptismal promise to start over anew with Christ as the Principle.
• Some traits I have that affect my choices are envy, jealousy, factions, pride, lust, drunkenness, hatred, anger, self-indulgence, ego, machoism, disrespect for other humans, gossiping, coveting neighbor’s goods or wife, lying, murderous intentions, dominance of others, lack of concern for the feelings of others.
• The whole enigmatic nature of being human is not only the choice but the enabling traits for good or evil that allow me to be seduced by evil or uplifted by good. The problem comes when I must choose. What is good for me? What is evil and will keep me held hostage by its confinement of my lower, animalistic tendencies.
• Absolute truth is about the choice I make for a system of truth or template that if I apply it to those individual selections I make in my life for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I am selfish by nature, not in a bad way but in a way that nature intended. I am the only one that can YES or NO to anything I assimilate into my worldview that I think will make me better. Unfortunately, not all choices are good for me. God comes from being divine to becoming both divine and human in nature to tell me how to act and what choices lead me to fulfill my destiny or those which lead to dissonance and corruption of my body, mind, and spirit. I can choose what is good or bad for me but with consequences.
• The Book of Genesis, and its subsequent Old Testament literature is about what is good and what is bad for my nature. They are stories of chosen people who experimented with various gods and their consequences.
• The New Testament is the fulfillment of these stories in terms of Jesus and how he fulfilled the mythic hero paradigm and showed us the way, by offering this opportunity to all humans who accept it.
• Truth is not arbitrary nor based on personal beliefs to make it true.
• My way of looking at life with Christ as a Principle is not your way. The Christ Principle is truth absolutely, but your and mine assimilation of it depends on the choices we make in our lives.
• I can reason and make choices based on what I think is best for me so that I can give my assent to this higher level of truth, absolute truth. If I choose poorly, or unauthentically, I miss the mark, Missing the mark is called, by the generic name, sin.
• God had to become one of us to save us from the Tower of Babel as a result of our human nature not knowing how to use our humanity as intended, how to love fiercely enough to move to that next level of our humanity, and finally, to know the template of truth that gives us what is right and not just what our humanity feels is easy and feels good.

ADAM AND EVE AS MYTHIC HEROES, AND CHRIST IS A MYSTIC HERO.

To put together this bright, crystal mosaic of Christ as the mystic hero, I have presented what I consider to be the reason why God had to become human (Philippians 2:5-12). In the Hero Myth of Joseph Campbell, there must be a need for a hero to come and endure the suffering of quests to die, then rise up to new life. Four paradigm shifts happen in the physical, mental, and spiritual timeline of what was, what is, and what will be. I use the Teilhard map to make the comparison between the three core longings of my humanity that keep pulling at my mind and heart for resolution. My answer to these three longings comes from the four paradigm shifts I will share below. They are:

THE GENESIS PRINCIPLE-– Humans use their ability to reason and pass on what they consider to be a way to explain that longing in their hearts to know, love, and that to be true. I use the term, The Genesis Principle, to point out that some humans attempt to explain why we are created by God as good but, when you look around you at others, they do some things good and many things that are destructive. Genesis is one ancient human document that peers into the mists of time to give some answers for people at the time. It is couched in the metaphor of a Garden to signify a before and after aspect to the pinnacle premise, that Adam and Eve, not God caused the uncontrollable behaviors we see but that God is the stability to an otherwise stormy sea of human evolution.

The notion of God is the human solution to the corruption of human nature by each one of us not having the discipline or control of our emotions or bad choice of values. What is the heresy of the individual becoming that God who determines good or evil for all humanity is that God is not us and we, certainly are not God. We should act our nature. I am not a butterfly, nor a monkey, but have the dignity of being created in the image and likeness of God. All Catholicism is, as I practice it, is to realize what it means to be human using The Christ Principle of loving others as He did for me, then sharing it (service) with all, not just those who are Baptized.

Characteristics of The Genesis Principle

• The timeline of The Genesis Principle is from what is marked as “Creation” forward until the end or Omega.
• A principle is one, huge compilation of truths that, like a black hole, suck in everything around it, but then distribute it out to the surrounding environments of knowledge, love, and service.
• “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” are principles that correspond to the three core values innate in each human. My life’s mission is to be aware of all three principles and then to discern how to apply them to whatever comes my way, each day.
• It is from this moment, chronicled in the mythic book, Genesis, that we can read today, the explanation that at least four traditions had to ask and answer that first core question, “How did we end up in the mess I see around me? If God is so good, how come humans act so bad?”
• The Genesis account of how humans got us into trouble, not God, is part of the Abrahamic tradition with the assumption that God is one and what God made is good. It is humans who, through their choice of what they thought was good but was actually toxic to human evolution, got us into the state we find ourselves in today.
• Myth, far from being a fairy tale, even if it is based on the historical lives of others, is the deepest and most telling of all stories that contain who we are as a people especially personified as the mythic hero who overcomes many obstacles to bring knowledge and meaning to all. Again, I am presupposing you have watched my blog about Joseph Campbell and the mythic hero.
• I use The Genesis Principle with its mythic depiction of where we came from and how we lost our innocence as an archetype of human nature that is essentially good but flawed due to our free choice that was authentic. This template is at the core of human knowledge about what it means to be human.
• Myths are stories about the deepest aspirations of the human mind and heart. The hero may or may not be historical. In the case of Genesis, the story is real but I suspect the types of Adam and Eve are not historical but more allegorical in that deepest sense. Jesus, then is not mythical as much as a mystical hero, who takes upon his shoulders the sins of many as a ransom for the sin of the mythic Adam and Eve.
• The innate longings of the human heart are imprints to remind each human that they must resolve that dissolution caused by the one act of Adam and Eve, prototypes of us all, in our search for meaning.
• The Genesis Principle is more than just a historical person getting into trouble. Adam is us; Eve is the mother of us all. This magnificent portrayal of human longing for power and glory through prideful, self-enrichment is only surpassed by the choice that was made and its consequence, i.e., death, pain, suffering, working for survival, and modesty.
• At the heart of this archetypal myth is the realization that humans can choose evil as well as good and that choosing what is good for themselves might not always be the right choice for our destiny as a race.
• With God alone always exists the right choice and there are consequences, even today for wrong choices.
• Now, the human condition is called original sin or missing the mark of what should have been the correct choice. This archetypal statement of humanity’s descent into Hell or being bound to a solution that is only possible through reliance on human reasoning and free choosing of what the individual thinks will restore resonance to the dissonance of how humans act.
• Without intervention from divine nature that lifts us up to that next level of our humanity, a place that restores humanity’s movement forward at the deepest level of our being, we flounder and try to jump over a wall that is always too high for any attempt.
• Just when all seemed lost, there are signs that a Hero might overcome this chasm and help to restore resonance with how nature was created to act. Signs and wonders of a covenant between Israel and God slowly emerged with traditions that hinted at someone to redeem the lost innocence.
• Over the centuries, the flame of hope was kept alive by the Torah and Prophets who hinted that the future would be better.
• This period from when life began and then evolved physically and mentally to prepare for a spiritual reunion with how our nature was intended, moves forward with the flow of consciousness and complexity from the physical universe, to life becoming existent, to humans, as typified by Adam and Eve, to the next level of automatic intelligent progress, the Hero actually shows up in a way no one expected and set about the restoration of Israel and all of the human to righteousness.
• Knowledge is the key to unlocking the meaning of what it means to be human at that next level. Not merely human knowledge which is information and proof based, but emanating from a totally other nature. Unlike the Harry Potter character, Lord Vortimort, “He who must not be named,” This pure knowledge is self-generative and alive, “He who cannot be named or proved.” Humans have no way to identify why this nature might be. What we can and do have is that nature, because of love, the energy of divinity, astoundingly leaves the security of that nature to take on the nature of a servant, so that each of us at least can answer those three innate questions inscribed on our inner sanctum.
• The Christ Principle is the product of this divine knowledge. Knowledge, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, precedes love for humans. Knowledge is both the question and the answer to this first core yearning of the human heart. Love is the second core question that needs resolution. For that, I use The Christ Principle, the personification of divine love that became one us of to show us how to be fully human by using the energy of the Holy Spirit to sustain us until we reach Omega.
• As a Lay Cistercian, I use the example of Christ to focus on silence, solitude, prayer, and work, in the context of a gathering of community. Each person approaches these three core longings tattooed on the heart with the diversity of their life experiences. What is absolute is The Christ Principle, the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

THE CHRIST PRINCIPLE-– On the Teilhard map, this is called “Christogenesis.” Remember that the evolution of reality according to this hypothesis is creation through the movement of the ever complexity of matter and consciousness toward the genesis of life. It moves or evolves with the genesis of Christ along with the genesis of the Spirit as paradigm shifts along its pathway.

The insertion of the Hero, Jesus, into this timeline, marks not a change in matter, but the fulfillment of human nature forging ahead as intended, despite the baggage of original sin (the fickleness yet nobility of human choice). Jesus, Son of Man, had a beginning with the Incarnation Moment when divinity embraced humanity in the person of Jesus, how, both human and divine natures inhabit one person. The historical Christ is the mystic Hero who dies to His divinity to rise to a new dimension, one that carries with Him all humanity. (Philippians 2:5-12) Jesus and Mary are types in the same way Adam and Eve are typical to the Genesis Principle.

Read the inspiring insights St. Paul has between The Genesis Principle morphing seamlessly into The Christ Principle and why God’s salvific gift of love allowed each human to reclaim the evolution of their humanity as originally intended. I offer you the whole citation plus footnotes for you to ponder over the implications of what St. Paul says in terms of the three innate core longings of the human heart and how pure knowledge, and now pure love overshadowed humanity to allow us to access a true way to live the deepest dimensions of our humanity using the choices of each one of us makes to define life as we experience it. Once again, take your time in teasing out the purpose of Christ in making all things new again.

Faith, Hope, and Love.^*

1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace^* with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,^a

2 through whom we have gained access [by faith] to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in hope of the glory of God.^b

3 Not only that, but we even boast of our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance,

4 and endurance, proven character, and proven character, hope,^c

5and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the holy Spirit that has been given to us.^d

6For Christ, while we were still helpless, yet died at the appointed time for the ungodly.

7Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die.^*

8But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.^e

9How much more then, since we are now justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath.^f

10 Indeed, if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, how much more, once reconciled, will we be saved by his life.^g

11 Not only that, but we also boast of God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

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^*—

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

14 But 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

Grace and Life through Christ.

15 But the gift is not like the transgression. For if by that one person’s transgression the many died, how much more did the grace of God and the gracious gift of the one person Jesus Christ overflow for the many.

16 And the gift is not like the result of the one person’s sinning. For after one sin there was the judgment that brought condemnation; but the gift, after many transgressions, brought acquittal.

17 For if, by the transgression of one person, death came to reign through that one, how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of justification come to reign in life through the one person Jesus Christ.

18 In conclusion, just as through one transgression condemnation came upon all, so through one righteous act acquittal and life came to all.^k

19 For just as through the disobedience of one person the many were made sinners, so through the obedience of one the many will be made righteous.^l

20 The law entered in^* so that transgression might increase but, where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more,^m

2 1so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through justification for eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.ⁿ

* [5:1–11] Popular piety frequently construed reverses and troubles as punishment for sin; cf. Jn 9:2. Paul therefore assures believers that God’s justifying action in Jesus Christ is a declaration of peace. The crucifixion of Jesus Christ displays God’s initiative in certifying humanity for unimpeded access into the divine presence. Reconciliation is God’s gift of pardon to the entire human race. Through faith one benefits personally from this pardon or, in Paul’s term, is justified. The ultimate aim of God is to liberate believers from the pre-Christian self as described in Rom 1–3. Since this liberation will first find completion in the believer’s resurrection, salvation is described as future in Rom 5:10. Because this fullness of salvation belongs to the future it is called the Christian hope. Paul’s Greek term for hope does not, however, suggest a note of uncertainty, to the effect: “I wonder whether God really means it.” Rather, God’s promise in the gospel fills believers with expectation and anticipation for the climactic gift of unalloyed commitment in the holy Spirit to the performance of the will of God. The persecutions that attend Christian commitment are to teach believers patience and to strengthen this hope, which will not disappoint them because the holy Spirit dwells in their hearts and imbues them with God’s love (Rom 5:5).

* [5:1] We have peace: a number of manuscripts, versions, and church Fathers read “Let us have peace”; cf. Rom 14:19.

* [5:7] In the world of Paul’s time the good person is especially one who is magnanimous to others.

* [5:12–21] Paul reflects on the sin of Adam (Gn 3:1–13) in the light of the redemptive mystery of Christ. Sin, as used in the singular by Paul, refers to the dreadful power that has gripped humanity, which is now in revolt against the Creator and engaged in the exaltation of its own desires and interests. But no one has a right to say, “Adam made me do it,” for all are culpable (Rom 5:12): Gentiles under the demands of the law written in their hearts (Rom 2:14–15), and Jews under the Mosaic covenant. Through the Old Testament law, the sinfulness of humanity that was operative from the beginning (Rom 5:13) found further stimulation, with the result that sins were generated in even greater abundance. According to Rom 5:15–21, God’s act in Christ is in total contrast to the disastrous effects of the virus of sin that invaded humanity through Adam’s crime.

* [5:12] Inasmuch as all sinned: others translate “because all sinned,” and understand v 13 as a parenthetical remark. Unlike Wis 2:24, Paul does not ascribe the entry of death to the devil.

* [5:20] The law entered in: sin had made its entrance (12); now the law comes in alongside sin. See notes on Rom 1:18–32; 5:12–21. Where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more: Paul declares that grace outmatches the productivity of sin.

Characteristics of The Christ Principle ––

• In the fullness of time, The Genesis Principle paved the way for The Christ Principle, which is the fulfillment of what had gone on before. This Christ Principle began with Jesus’ birth (Incarnation) and has no end.
• This second principle must be contiguous with the first one, the third one dependent upon the two that preceded it. All are one yet three distinct missions and purposes. Sound familiar?
• We only know about divine love from that source of divine love, made flesh to dwell among us.
• Being a Lay Cistercian, conscious of movement in my life with complexity and consciousness (See Teilhard Map), my way is to use Cistercian charisms and practices, as I know them and can practice them outside the monastery, to simply place myself in the presence of Christ and wait.
• Like a seasoned, old, married couple who sit on the front porch swing and sway together, not saying a word, love blairs forth in ways not anticipated. Being a Lay Cistercian, as I have crafted it, means that all I have to do is die to my false self, be humble in the presence of Christ in the inner sanctum of my inner self (RB 7:10), and let my humanity relish the resonance of what it means to be a fuller human than before, what it means to love as Christ loved me, and the astonishing depths to which I am exposed when accompanied by the Holy Spirit. There is no happiness, no joy, no physical pleasure more satisfying than to satisfy the hungry heart with the gift of divine self that God extends to me and all humans if they are but aware.
• This spiritual universe is God’s playground, and, if I do want to play in God’s sandbox, I must use God’s rules of knowledge, love others as Christ loved me, and be willing to share and not covet that covenant. Jesus is the Messiah because he taught us to give away this precious gift of love and not hoard it, keeping it exclusively for one people only.
• This love of The Christ Principle is not corrupt (meaning humans use it but it doesn’t last and dissolves back into the past quickly) but is a person, The Son of God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior. No wonder science is unable to grasp the heights and depths of the mystic dynamics of Love. Love puts me into contact with The Christ Principle through the energy of the Holy Spirit so that I might “fill up” my humanity with what it needs to answer that first and second core question about knowledge and love. I can only do this if I have the mindset, the world view (weltanschauung) my humanity but also know how to grow deeper in its mystic depths through being present to Christ in contemplation of silence and solitude.

THE PRINCIPLE OF ABSOLUTE TRUTH

If knowledge of the correct question then where to find the answer leads to the second core of my being, love. Then what I place as that answer may either be true or false, good or bad. The whole concept behind The Genesis Principle is the teaching moment for those listening to this mythic enactment of how to deal with a humanity that is unpredictable and unruly, one who needs help in both knowledge and also what it means to love authentically.

Unfortunately for humanity, there is no book on this other than trial and error. The singular outcome of The Genesis Principle for me is “Who determines what is good or evil for me and for all humanity?” Only a truth that is outside of the corruption of time and matter can provide such a guarantee that is not dependent upon the limitations of human behavior but is true for all humans in all circumstances. This is the meaning of a principle and why I term Jesus as The Christ Principle. That is why, at least in my perception of what is real, The Christ Principle is the way, the truth, leading to an authentic life intended by nature but flawed by Adam and Eve.

Characteristics of The Principle of Truth

When I try to discern the answer to that first core question about “What does it mean to be human?” I use the knowledge of my life experiences as the anvil on which I shape what I think love is, the answer to this second longing of the human heart. Like it or not, I must now apply a template or key to all of the above to differentiate my personal experiences from that which is true to everyone in every way (the definition of a principle). I know I am only the template for those things I have selected as my center. It does not apply to anyone but me. As good as this is, it is not good enough to lift up my reasoning and ability to choose what is authentic for me, to the level where I actually know it is true. And herein lies a seeming conundrum. How do I know that what I know is true? If I stake all my chips on what I believe to be the correct questions and answers to that tri-fold longing in my heart, how do I know it is true.

• One of those pesky and irritant products of my choice is that I must not only choose what I have found to be true for me but also to now choose the key to those test questions that are constructed and graded by The Magister Noster, the teacher outside of my human nature, one who is absolute truth personified. There is no way that my humanity by itself can wrestle with the concepts of divinity and how humanity can humans can communicate with nature outside of its own parameters of knowing and loving. What should have been a brick wall is actually one that I can scale with help.
• The Christ Principle is God or divinity becoming humanity, as impossible and astounding as that sounds, is the keystone upholding all reality and through which I can access what I need to answer the gnawing and persistent groaning of my humanity to seek resonance to the dissonance of original sin. Indeed, atheists are correct, it is a fairy tale. But more than a false tale, I would suggest an unreadable map that I know how to interpret through Christ alone and which allows me to maneuver through the minefields of life to reach my intended destiny as a human being.
• Again, that shibboleth pops up, “How do you know that this template of The Christ Principle is true? “You have a right to your opinion,” you say, “but don’t think that your truth applies to me or anyone else.”
• When you think of it, I can’t force what I have discovered about truth on you because you have the unique human characteristic of being able to say YES or NO to me. This is precisely why I hold to be true that to gain admittance to that next level of my human evolution, one that demands that I use my human reasoning and freedom to make choices that are authentic and have the power of the resurrection (to lift my nature up to that next level). This last leg of my evolution is personal and individual to me alone. Baptism means that God has loved me so much that I am now am now an adopted son (daughter) of the Father. I am not God or divine nature, but, because Jesus walks the path of the hero, the route from his birth to his death and resurrection and ascension to the Father, I can walk that same path and not just be limited to a humanity constantly permeated by the imperfection of being human. My nature is good, my intentions are good sometimes, but I do bad things because of original sin. St. Paul’s stunning passage has always endeared him to me. Romans 7:15-13
• Truth is not relative but must be absolute, above and beyond human corruption of change. Yet, there is no way that I can know the absolute truth with my personal opinion of what reality might be for me. I have the absolute right to say YES or NO to anything I want, because of my freedom to choose, yet, if I choose poorly, it makes no difference to truth, but only to my false interpretation of it.
• I am not you; you are not me; God is not us;, and, most certainly, we are not God.
• Just because I have an opinion of what is real, does not mean it is true. Herein lies the paradox.

• The answer that I have come to believe is based on the difference between opinion and belief. This perception of mine comes from looking at reality as two completely different but identical realities. The first one is opinion, which comes from my being human and an individual who wakes up along the timeline of existence for 83+ years in my case, and has a unique experience about what life presents itself each day; you have an opinion and I have an opinion. Both are equal but both are not the same in what we assimilate through our daily choices. Second is belief, which is my opinion about something outside of myself that I choose as a way to reflect on the realities. Humans seek what is true because of that innate longing to have their opinion give them the keys to unlock their purpose. One of those choices of belief is The Christ Principle, the one that I have and continue to select each day to be one with what is true about all reality that came before, now, and what will come in the future.
• Belief is my choice that may or may not make sense with the information I have but makes perfect sense when I apply The Christ Principle to my Divine Equation. Faith only comes from God; belief means I want some of that Faith inside me. “Be it done unto me, according to your word.“
• Both Faith and belief inside me are not a conveyor belt of automatic entrance into Heaven. It is more like the hunk of cheese you sit out on the counter that, if left there long enough, becomes moldy. Mold is the original sin of the cheese of human existence. It is always there, this side of Heaven, where there is no rust, mold, or corruption of matter or human aspirations.
• I must walk the path intended for me. Just because my path is rocky, doesn’t mean I am on the wrong road. I have someone who walked their walk carrying a cross after being humiliated and belittled only to be crucified. The sign of contradiction has become the key to Heaven. Daily, I must struggle with the effects of original sin, with the seductions that come from Satan to obfuscate absolute truth.
• Belief should not be confused with Faith which is the source of its power. Belief is always the individual consent of Faith I must make each day to overshadow each day with the mind and will of Christ.
• As a human citizen of earth, I can do many noble good works to enhance and grow my humanity toward the upper reaches of its capability and capacity. As a human citizen of the earth, but one who has been chosen by God as an adopted son (daughter), I can do everything as a citizen of the earth does but now I fulfill the path that evolution intended by my consent of that Faith in me. Now, if I give someone a cup of water or receive a cup of water, in the name of Christ, that person’s reward will be great in Heaven. (Mark 9:41) One is good and very altruistic, and the other is transformative of the one both giving and receiving the cup of water. This cup of blessing is the living water that, if we drink it, we will have to enter life. Sharing my Faith through good works shares the life of Christ in me with others. Read Chapter 4 of St. Benedict’s Rule for the Tools of Good Works. Good works come as a result of my Faith and belief in Christ, the product of my encounter with divine energy.
• Belief is the template of absolute truth (outside of my human nature) which, when applied to the three core and innate longings of the heart (to know, to love, and to be true), resolves the dissonance of my humanity as it collides with my belief in the spiritual universe. www. organism.earth
• Belief means I not only have an opinion but have selected a way that gives me the confidence that what I have chosen is true. Is it? Doesn’t that make all truth relative, since everyone has an opinion? Belief is the assent of the mind and the heart to what fulfills reality and takes it to that next level. This is dying to self because you step out of your comfort zone to a place that may or may not be true. This is where Faith comes in. The question for me is not. “Is my opinion or belief true?” but rather “Using my reasoning and choice, what is the way, what is true, and what is the life, as I apply The Christ Principle to the corruption of matter and mind?” Jesus foresaw this when he taught his disciples that “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed.” A fairy tale? You bet but much, much more than that as all of this ties together with Christ as Mystic Hero to allow me to say YES or NO to move deeper into my humanness. Christ saved me from having the choice of only the physical and mental universes (my humanity without God) as my purpose for life to that of opening up the physical and mental universes to select the spiritual universe (one entered into only with my YES).
• Because of original sin and the corruption of matter and mind, my choice must be YES every day to keep myself centered on Christ and “Have in me the mind of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:5) Being a member of the Gathering of Lay Cistercians of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Monastery (Trappist) in Conyers, Georgia, I have chosen and been accepted by the Abbot and monks of this monastery to try to live the Rule of St. Benedict as interpreted by Cistercian practices and charisms as I am and wherever I am. My passion is to be aware that I am in the presence of the Real Presence of Jesus and use these practices and techniques to sit down in silence and solitude and wait, just wait.

The Christ Principle is my template to translate what might seem a hodgepodge of ideologies and myths that allow me to have the most certitude that what I believe through the teachings and power of Christ to transform my broken and unruly behaviors into a coherent way of thinking that is true. This is my life.

God intervened in human affairs because human nature by itself own power is flawed (original sin) and prone to two different ways to find fulfillment: good and evil (or won’t get you there). Like any good Father of those who are adopted sons and daughters, God saw that humanity was lost and would never be able to reach its potential using the human emotional tools as a way of reasoning about what is good for human nature. Humans would always choose what is easy and not what is right. God sent his Son to be one of us, to be the mystic Hero that shows us HOW to walk the path of what is good for us while still being tempted to evil by Satan until we die. Embracing the Christ Principle as my center, I have all the help and tools I need to fight the good fight, bear my cross daily, and, using the power of the Holy Spirit, transform my false self to that of its intended and rightful position as fully human.

God selected one person, a nomadic, wandering Armenian, to begin a conversion from humanity based on animal emotions and tendencies for self-preservation. The question is not, “Are human emotions or self-preservation good for us, but rather, they don’t have the power to lift up my humanity to the next level of evolution, that of being an adopted son or daughter of the Father and receiving tools to mine heavenly gold on earth while we live, treasures which we can then take with us to heaven that has no corruption and is permanent. Only the rich get to heaven, but the secret is that it must be God’s riches we take with us, not what we consider to be treasures. Remember! Heaven is God’s playground; if we want to play in that sandbox, we must use God’s rules, not ours. This is what I understand the act of love where I die to myself and my will, only to find out that I lost nothing by that act of obedience but gained a whole new dimension of my humanity, one for which I was destined all along, but waylaid by the choice of Adam and Eve.

Being a Catholic means I keep getting more and more ways to have Christ as my center. (Philippians 2:5) While all members of the Church are sinful and stand in the need of prayer (except for Christ and his Mother, Mary), what is holy comes from God, not humans. I tend to muff up the Gospel message but do my best with what I have. I know that the Catholic Church is true, in part, because I can see the vain attempts to center around Christ and the hapless times we centered ourselves around false power, vainglory, and externals. So, how do I know that all this is true and that God loved me so much to give his Only Son just for me to be able to say YES or NO to the invitation to be an adopted son or daughter? I don’t have absolute certitude with human knowledge alone, but with human knowledge informed by Faith in God, it doesn’t matter. I have chosen a person, The Christ Principle, as the way to find the truth so that I can have life now and in the life to come.

One of the consequences of that original, archetypal sin of Adam and Eve was not knowing what good or evil is about being human. Some behaviors are healthful to my humanity, and others are, as Erick Fromm states in his book The Art of Loving, destructive and “authentic.” These behaviors are drugs, alcohol, and orgiastic sex and don’t lead to authentic human love. View this YouTube about what Fromm thinks are the four attributes all love must have. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alOiNes-LCk

IV. MY ASSIMULATION OF THE CHRIST PRINCIPLE INTO MY WORLDVIEW.

Being a Lay Cistercian novice (we are all novices at speaking silence), I have embraced a particular set of skills so that I can more closely focus on my interior self, or perhaps, more appropriately, to first seek the kingdom of heaven in the deep interior of my inner self. In this place, I am in the presence of God, waiting and without personal agenda.

The big conundrum humanity faces is to find out what is good for our humanity and how to do it, what it means to love fiercely (unconditionally), and who determines what is valid beyond the YES or NO of any individual’s opinion or belief. In my worldview, Christ addresses what I consider to be the three innate longings of the human heart. There is a clash between the resonance of nature and the human mind and the spiritual universe. It is uncomfortable to be a Catholic because all humans live in the dissonance of human imperfection that longs for resolution or redemption. Humanity, by its own natural powers, does not have the energy to lift up our nature to that next level of human evolution, being a pilgrim in a foreign land and uncomfortable with the possibility of being incorrect in our choices to resolve this existential feeling.

It is not without significance that the one sign we keep constantly before us is the cross. God receives me as an adopted son or daughter of the Father and tattoos on our spiritual self an indelible mark to signify that to remain in the kingdom of heaven (on earth), we must fight the good fight and see the finish line (the kingdom of heaven in heaven or Omega, on the Teilhard map above) to be able to long for it. Catholics cannot bear the sign on the cross on their foreheads and, at the same time, do evil (Galatians 5). Evil and good cannot exist in the same upper room of my inner self. I must sweep it clean daily and use the Sacrament of Reconciliation instituted by Christ to give grace and to make all things new within me again and again and again. My way of the cross is heavy with the missed opportunities. I had to do good but failed to see it or do it because I chose what was easy over what was right.

Christ is a Mystic Hero because he did not just tell us what to do, and who would believe a way that is so difficult and means I must die to my free will and abandon my instincts, only to embrace that next level of my humanity, adoption as a son (daughter) of the Father and a member of the Family of God? The Hero followed the mission of His Father, even though it was fraught with disbelief, unbelief, and apathy. The way of the cross Christ chose was not symbolic or a fairy tale. Still, the embodiment of the Hero alone dying to his humanity so that we all could enter that next realm of humanness, resonance, incorruptibility, knowledge of what is true beyond human choice, and how to love others as Christ loved us is our path to follow. There is only one path, fraught with starting over and over as we hobble down its corridor, but each human defines the obstacles on that path by the choices we make (or don’t make). One Christ equals one way, one path, but your path is not my path because of how I choose to answer those three innate questions of knowledge, love, and truth.

The cross is the key to unlocking the not-so-secret way of acting as a human to move from the physical and mental universes (matter and mind) to the next level of our human evolution. This jump must be one each individual makes, not humanity as a whole. The cross is a clue that when we make this jump, the next dimension (spiritual universe) will look exactly as it did when we were merely citizens of the world, but with several strange differences. First, like Dorothy opening the door into a technicolor new land, The Land of Oz, we find ourselves pilgrims in a foreign land with nowhere to call home. Reality makes sense now using the Rule of Opposites. This is why each prayer we make, when we offer Eucharist or go to Confession, we do so “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” One of the reasons Jesus took on the mantel of mystic hero is to tell us that business as usual won’t be able to lift us up to that next level of our humanity. This energy must come from outside our nature, and so, in the fullness of time, God sent his Only Son to tell us the way to go and walk the authentic way Himself and then bid us to follow Him. Being Catholic is far from being perfect. It is the realization that I am an adopted son, yet holding the dissonance of my former self in place. I must take up my cross daily to not let the corrupting mists of original sin rust my iron. Daily.

I have applied for and been accepted as a Lay Cistercian by the Abbot and monastic community of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit (Trappist) in Conyers, Georgia. As such, I am focused on having in me, each day, the mind of Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5) using Cistercian practices and charisms (humility, obedience, love, abandonment of my will to that of the Father). http://www.trappist.net

Can you answer this next statement? If there is no one to hear the sound of a tree falling in the forest, does it make a sound? If God, through Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit, is constantly communicating with me but I don’t hear it, is that communication not real just because I did not hear it or respond? As I try to assimilate all the sights, sounds, smells, feelings, and emotions of life into a worldview that propels me ever deeper into the mystery of my humanity, I become more and more aware that I don’t have to DO anything to please God other than offer the gift of my free will to conform to the reality about me. To be able to fulfill the longings of my heart in the three areas of knowledge, love, and truth, I must fit the proper keys into the proper locks. Jesus as a Hero tells me what to do and how to do it by following his example, but He won’t do it for me, That would betray the element of human nature, free will, that differentiates me from animals and also from those humans whose way of thinking does not include the spiritual universe. There is a significant difference between someone who gives a cup of cold water to someone thirsty and another who uses that same cup from the same well to offer it to someone, but now “in Christ’s name.” Both are good and noble, but one is done in the name of the physical and mental universes only, while the other person’s motives are to do as Christ suggests in Matthew 25.

Here are some ways that The Christ Principle has saved me and my humanity from languishing in the mental universe alone.

• The Hero saves all humanity not just Catholics or Jews, or none of the above.
• All humanity does not respond to this gift of immortality and truth in the same way. Many people don’t care about dying to themselves because they have not addressed those three longings contained in the depths of their inner sanctuary. They either do, or don’t, or don’t care.
• I have no control over what others believe or put at the center of their lives. I do have control over my center, with the realization that My Lay Cistercian Way is how I have chosen to keep Christ as the focal point of everyday events and challenges.
• The Devil tempts me daily to replace my God with false gods. It is difficult to maintain my focus on Christ in the midst of what is displayed as fulfilling my human nature by societies and ideologies.
• I must struggle and work hard to keep myself centered on what is authentic in my life. Looking away for an unguarded moment may result in my losing my balance and equilibrium, The Sacrament of Reconciliation is the way the Church helps individuals to restore that balance and make all things new, once again. Individuals don’t have Sacraments, only the Church Universal as our mother and protector. On the other hand, the Universal Church is composed of only individual humans who all have one, authentic center to move forward in their existence with the complexity of their individual experiences and also with the collective consciousness of humanity as a species. That all of us must work for our daily bread is the result of original sin. That all of us are bid to share what we have and help each other in just the ordinary aspects of life is our innate call to love each other, even though our animality sometimes keeps popping up and scaring us to do what is easy rather than what we should do as adopted sons and daughters of the Father.
• The spiritual universe often parallels the physical and mental universes. When there is dissonant reality and I choose a truth that will not allow my human nature to fulfill its intended purpose according to its nature, it is as if two giant tectonic plates are scraping past each other. With enough time and enough energy, there will be a release of energy (e.g. San Andreas Fault), and a springboard effect results (an earthquake). Just as physical laws of nature and properties of matter and energy apply to the physical and mental universes, the spiritual universe also rubs against the world (John 14:30) and causes a shock wave. Spiritual nature seeks its own equilibrium, that of the kingdom of heaven (on earth and in the life to come). I like to think of my lifetime in terms of the dual worlds or dual citizenship approach to life. It helps me to keep The Christ Principle in perspective.
  • CITIZEN OF THE WORLD –– In this world, I find out what it means to be human using the reasoning and choices that I have made to select what I think is the meaning of life itself. I am a hostage to my human nature, having only recently (in geologic time) moved from animality to being a rudimentary human. The problem in moving from animality to rationality is that there is no one to tell you how to use your reasoning for what is good or bad for you, nor is there a book of instructions on HOW TO. I own 83.8 years of this world. My nature requires that I move from this world to become what that nature intended. But, there is a problem. To get to that next level of my evolution, and this applies to each individual of our species, without exception, I use that faculty of reasoning and free choice to choose something entirely alien to what went before. I must literally die to everything my reasoning and choices to this point have pointed me toward and abandoned all. It is as if I have a day job of some kind and to get a promotion, I must quit that job and walk away from, up until that time, all my education, my experiences, my notion of why I am here, and the meaning of love. Not only does it not make sense, (atheists correctly call this sacrifice of self by the name of fairy tale, which it is), but I don’t know if there is a job on the other side waiting for me. I might think so and hope so, but certitude is like looking through a glass darkly and just knowing that there might be something there. St. Paul uses the analogy of the “world versus the flesh,” while St. John in Chapter 14.
  • Characteristics
    • These are the two universes (physical and mental) in which I wake up to begin assimilating who I am from life experiences and experimentation as to what is true.
    • The mental universe is one where all humans use their reasoning and free choice to create a nest in which to lay the eggs of their accomplishments and sustain life.
    • The mental universe would not exist without the physical one, the foundations of physical reality. The mental universe is only open to humans.
    • Not all humans are noble and worth emulating. Wrong choices result in wrong thinking which results in unauthentic behavior.
    • I can only enter the spiritual universe, that next step in my human evolution, through an act of the will to choose what I think fulfills my humanity.
    • The physical and mental universes are what St. Paul describes as the world and what St. John mentions in Chapter 14:30 of his Gospel when talking about the Ruler of the World.
    • To enter the spiritual universe takes an act of the will but also being accepted by God as a son or daughter of the Father.
    • The dichotomy is a necessary way for me to separate what the world says is good and what God says is necessary for us to be fully human.
    • I remain a citizen of the world from my birth to my death. I begin dual citizenship in the spirit when God accepts me into the family and marks me with the indelible sign of the cross.
    • Part of the inheritance I have from the Father is to collect all those wonders and activities that I want to take to heaven after I die. While I live, I prepare to die. Death has no power over me but my spiritual life lives from Baptism through my physical lifetime until I passover into my reward.
  • I like to use the photo of a blurry window to describe my lie (the cup) as I await what I think is on the other side.

THE CITIZENSHIP OF HEAVEN (ON EARTH AND LATER, WITH GOD…FOREVER.

I have dual citizenship, that of the kingdom of the earth (world) and co-existing in the same time and space of my life, my adoption as son (daughter) of the Father. These two worlds exist simultaneously. One, the kingdom of the earth (world) is where I try to find meaning using just the human capabilities and capacities afforded me as I move through each day. On top of that, superseding the world is my dimension of the addition of a spiritual universe to that of the kingdom of the world. This kingdom of heaven citizenship is not the result of natural evolution or progression but is based on my choice to accept the worldview of Jesus as interpreted by the Catholic Universal Church. Even more to the point, it is based on God the Father choosing me to be an heir and empowering me with all that I need to “seek first the kingdom of heaven on earth and all things will be provided.” The important thing is to be aware of what is taking place in my life each day, as I use the Cistercian practices and charisms (as I know them) to transform my kingdom of the earth into one that actually fulfills my humanity. Not everyone can subscribe to this radical thinking.

The Christ Principle as Hero provides me with not only the knowledge of reality but also the actual energy from The Spirit of Truth (Holy Spirit) to sustain me against the omnipresent seductions of the Ruler of the World. (See John 14). This mystic Hero, Jesus, is not only a ransom for all of us from the grip of original sin but is a real presence to point the way to being fulfilled as human nature intended, the template of truth that unlocks the three penetrating questions pestering our unconsciousness for resolution as nature intended, leading to a life that is intended for humans as a result of their evolutionary process, to claim the inheritance now and in the life to come.

I dare not let my spirituality just happen to me by chance, but must continuously struggle between the requirements of my citizenship of the world as it interacts with my citizenship of the spiritual universe. It is not that my citizenship in the world as a human is bad as much as it is incomplete and unable to energize me to that next level each day. Being Catholic is embracing a mindset where all I do is try to place myself in the presence of Christ and be content to just be present in the Real Presence. My Lay Cistercian practices help me to focus on my center (Philippians 2:5) and to become aware that I am aware that my former life up to this time is so much foolishness compared to what I know and know how to love as Christ loved us. This act of my will to abandon my desires and purpose (the world) fulfills the secret longing in my heart for resolution (the spirit). St. Augustine said, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.”

I encourage you to listen to the poem, The Hound of Heaven, by Francis Thompson, read by Tom O’Bedlem. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6hNu8U7NSc I need to say no more. Listen with the “ear of your heart.” The advice of the Blessed Mother comes to mind, “Do what he tells you.” For you it may be to read these contemplative practice blogs which are a bit demanding; for me, it is to share with you what I have become due to the transformation power of Christ and how I wandered 60 years in the Desert of Self-Illusions of what it meant to be what it means to be an adopted son (daughter) of the Father, without ever asking Christ to help me. Now, I know, thanks be to God, and can only say, over and over, “Be it done unto me, according to your Word.”

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