BOUNDARIES TO BEING HUMAN: Exploring tantalizing possibilities of “What If” ideas.

Try as I might, I can’t rid myself of the wish I made to the Holy Spirit about ten years ago when, in a fit of haughtiness and exuberance, I bragged to the same Holy Spirit, whom I had considered a friend and now equal, that I wanted to know a fraction of what that Spirit knows. I can’t say that I have been cursed by God or even told, “Be careful what you wish for, you may get it, then regret it.” The folly of youth at age 76 is not without its pitfalls, many of which are like a minefield just waiting for me to make a false move.

The problem with filling up my sandbox in god’s playground is that they are God’s rules, not mine. The saying of mine came back to haunt me: “I am not you, you are not me, God is not me; and, most certainly, I am not God.” From that day to this day, my pride has been exposed as it is when I compare myself to the Holy Spirit. I am a pitiful Lay Cistercian who seeks to expand my knowledge, love, and service by loving others as I can and not consistently as I should. What I should have been doing was to become the receptacle of the energy of the Holy Spirit as I could assimilate it, rather than seeking to be the Holy Spirit so I could be better than others who call upon the same Holy Spirit to seek mercy from Christ.

My Lectio Divina sessions, the core of My Lay Cistercian Way, is like drinking water from a fire hydrant, fully gushing water from its hose. Like the Scripture passage from John 21, which tells of Christ’s shared stories, there are so many that even the world could not contain them; I only write what I remember. And what I remember at age 83.8 is limited to remembering if I took my heart medicine that morning. Still, the Holy Spirit does not stop gushing during my Lectio, leaving me to scrape together a few ideas to share with you and maybe discern what all of this means regarding The Christ Principle, which is still ongoing.

THE DELIGHTS OF HAVING REASON FOR A REASON AND KNOWING THAT I KNOW

Here are some random thoughts from one of my recent Lectio Divina meditations (not contemplations) centered around possibility or “What If” thinking.

WHAT IF… out of all those galaxies and swarms of physical energy, the seemingly limitless number of Suns and their planets, with all the most recent advancements in technology and theories of the cosmos, Earth is the only planet where any life forms are found? Statistically, there must be life out there. Dr. Frank Drake even has a model to determine the probability of life elsewhere. https://science.nasa.gov/universe/exoplanets/are-we-alone-in-the-universe-revisiting-the-drake-equation/ I am not here to disprove or approve scientific inquiry, which is my preferred language when thinking cosmologically. I do wonder about the implications IF WE ARE THE ONLY LIFE THAT KNOW THAT WE KNOW. What are the implications of integrating spirituality into what I know of the physical and mental universes with the experiences I have gained over a lifetime of “What Iffing?” I wonder.

WHAT IF… atheists are correct, and there is no god out there as I have come to believe? Here are some of my thoughts.

Did the God that does not exist just cease to exist when those who reject the concept reject it, say in 2024, or has it been so from the beginning? I am just going back in time and writing out all those references to god? What do I do with the Ten Commandments? Even if God does not exist, the Ten Commandments have guided and continue to influence the boundaries of moral behavior for those holding the Judeo-Christian traditions. Does this mean the Ten Commandments never existed? If they exist, do I deny all the behaviors associated with these boundary markers to my human behavior, past and present? So, what do I put in its place? Democratic or Republican rationalism and casuistry? I wonder.

If God doesn’t exist, what does exist that can satisfactorily answer the questions of the human heart: 1. What does it mean to be human at my most profound level of evolution? 2. How can I love fiercely? 3. What is actual beyond human corruption of matter and mind, the truth that is absolute and admits of not change? I wonder.

How must I travel as a member of the human species? What truth will lead me in that way, unique to me alone as I assimilate the existence around me in my lifetime? What is the life for which my innermost self pines for resolution to the seemingly unfinished Divine Equation? I wonder.

WHAT IF… the purpose of a higher, divine nature is to dip down into the corruption of mind and matter (not morally corrupt) and show us what those boundaries to being human are, and, by becoming human (Philippians 2:5-12), show us how to live in such a way as to inherit that next level of our human evolution, albeit a voluntary one that each individual must make with their own reason and free choice? I wonder.

WHAT IF...the free choice of any human is no choice about god stuff, either through sincere ignorance or even belief in what is absolutely true? Do people go to heaven if they don’t have the knowledge, love, or truth to survive in a place with no sin? How do they get a second chance to get it right? I wonder.

The basis of scientific inquiry is wonder. The same is true of spiritual reality and the mystery of Faith, except God has visited us and told and shown us how to walk in the minefields of life without getting hurt too much. I wonder.

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