DIGGING FOR HEAVENLY GOLD ON EARTH: REALIZING WHAT IT MEANS TO BE HUMAN AT THE NEXT LEVEL OF OUR EVOLUTION.

WARNING: This blog is long and requires reading once or twice to dig out its gold. Don’t blame me, I only type it.

Erich Fromm, an existential psychologist and author of The Art of Loving, is one of the great influencers in how I view reality. (https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Art_of_Loving/m-8cEQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA6&printsec=frontcover) One of his ideas that appealed to me was his notion that Love is not automatically infused into humans at birth but must be learned. The method by which this is done is the subject of Fromm’s book.

I applied the concept of progressive learning to Faith, Love, and Truth, all of which humans must acquire as they develop complexity and consciousness in the various environments where each individual grows over time. This dissonance of nature is the off-putting odor of anarchy (mental, spiritual, and political), which refers to the unintended consequences of assumptions that are self-destructive and corrosive to the pursuit of a higher level of evolution than that of animals or primitive, modern humans. Why are humans so self-destructive and emotionally driven, even losing control in hysterical fits of personal assassinations and deflecting truth for the overthrow of reason, and the ambiguous product that comes from destroying the rule of law? I apply this to God, who, as the creator, attempted to help creation regain resonance from dissonance by laying out a pathway for humans to once again regain their humanity, evolving towards something higher rather than devolving back to animality. As humanity evolved from animal nature to something more, it seems we were not equipped to master the Art of Loving, much less the Art of Contemplative Practice.

This map, which I discovered (unattributed), of Teilhard de Chardin and his ideas about intelligent progression, is one of the key reasons I think about existence as a river of life; time is not chronological but is an unstoppable movement incorporating both complexity and growing consciousness of reality. Time manifests itself in our physical and even mental universes, yet remains constant and independent of matter, leading me to suspect that it is an energy in and of itself that extends from creation to the ultimate destiny of all creation (Omega). Within the banks of this river of life, humanity moves from animality through rationality to spirituality, the end process of human evolution.

It stands to reason (at least my reason) that if God is the creator of all that is. God’s fingerprints are on each atom of matter, so God would want to protect His investment and guide us through human nature to overcome the effects of moving from animality to rationality, and then to spirituality, our final level of evolution.

Humans, in their ongoing evolution from animality, still harbor lingering traces from the collective transition from animal to primitive human. I would even argue that all of us still have that lingering behavior that is just beneath the surface of humanity. There is a skinny line that separates our animal roots from our initial steps toward humanity. Instincts and behaviors, which are natural and even required by animals, somehow become entangled when humans revert to these tendencies and fail to align with our natural evolution as a species. Like Erich Fromm’s concept that we are not born knowing what Love is, being human is also an acquired taste for many. God’s intervention into the realm of humanity is to provide us with what we need, both as individuals, the Church, and each member of our species, to achieve a higher level of evolution (not a devolution to animality). This is the mythic story of Genesis, offering a more profound analysis of what and why humanity is so weak and fickle in its behavior.

I sometimes forget that, in the process of becoming what God intended, individual evolution can swing both ways, moving forward or backward. The questions that humans, at least this one, must confront to solve those three longings of the hungry heart won’t be found in false behaviors. So, if humans, by their own instincts, are prone to moving back and forth from their animal tendencies to their calling to be adopted sons and daughters of the father, then it would take a higher form of energy (more potent than nuclear fusion) to bring each individual with reason and freedom to choose, to be at that next level of our humaness. The problem arises when we realize that striving for righteousness has its challenges. On this earth, humanity often reverts to its default animal tendencies, the lowest form of our emerging humanity, which is often referred to as original Sin. Because we humans seek our own comfort and don’t like to expend energy on what we consider normal behavior, we grow complacent with being in that lower part of our evolving humanity. Growing means doing something that is not normal to our nature, seeking our own level of happiness.

The Son of God became human not only to tell us but also to show us how to move to the next level of our evolution, which has a dual dimension: the kingdom of Heaven on earth and its continuation forever. At the same time, we live, and continuing on with what we have learned about the purpose of life, in a life that lasts forever. It is not without significance that the one sign for all those who realize what Jesus did, and at least try to do what He told us, is the cross. Think of it. It will be uncomfortable to be at the next level of our evolution on earth, and we will yo-yo back and forth between good and evil, even though we want to do good. The Catholic Church was founded by Christ to be a presence for us, much like a mother is always present to her children. The two ways the Church, the living Body of Christ, helps me, the individual, are to show me how to take that cross and traverse the gauntlet of false ideologies and temptations that Satan has in place, and offer me food for the journey (Eucharist) and a way to make all things new again and again (Reconciliation). Why do you think being a Catholic is so tricky?

It takes work to keep my center as Christ, and constant attention, or else we lose whatever gains we have made through our prayers and struggles. Through the Catholic Church, I have a formal way to reconnect with Christ, visible and instituted by Jesus. It is the Sacrament of Penance, or starting over again, and again, and again, until we reach our finality, to be with Christ forever and enjoy the fruits of what we have discovered about knowledge, Love, and the truth that I bring with me to Heaven to decorate my manion prepare for me as an adopted son (daughter) by the father.

It is in this context of acting out our nature that Sin, or missing the bullseye, if you are an archer, means we are devolving rather than evolving toward what our nature intended for us. For those accepting their adoption as sons or daughters of the father, the spiritual level is all about sustaining that covenant relationship of the Old Testament, of having God inserted into the human experience to TELL us and SHOW us how to dig past the mere physical and mental constraints of our humanity to open up our unlimited potential to know, to love, and to serve God, and to love others as Christ loved us. That, for me, is the nuclear fusion of Catholicism, one, holy, catholic, and apostolic, in the quantum entanglements that allow me, the individual, through the Church militant, to sit in the presence of Christ and wait.

In a more archetypal sense, original Sin refers to the insecurity of knowing what is true and what is not, what is good and what is not. Original Sin is a condition of humanity where we as a race were given the ability to choose, but, like Adam and Eve, did not know what was good for us or the choices that compel us forward. The purpose of Jesus’ insertion into space and time from a nature beyond our comprehension is to guide us in how to act. We are constantly bombarded with conflicting urges and false ideologies that seek to draw us away from the truth and the life we should consistently lead. Original Sin is the condition in which humans still experiment with what is good or bad for them, and sometimes make choices that feel good but are far from allowing us to move up in our evolution.

The Devil is a force that seeks to introduce an alternative to the truth, making it difficult for us to discern right from wrong. I alone can choose what is right for me and what I consider my purpose in life. God respects my right to choose and offers me energy to combat these animalistic urges. I am free to choose good or evil, even though my choices may be sinful and lead me astray from the path. Original Sin is that archetypal choice of Adam and Eve to devolve rather than embrace the truth. There is only one truth, one way, and one life that can propel us to that next level of our evolution, to live as adopted sons and daughters of the father who created all things, not just us. It is the resonance our humanity requires to choose either to move forward towards fulfillment or to regress into the mediocrity of humanity, only two-thirds fulfilled.

THE GENESIS PRINCIPLE — In the Teilhard map above, the Genesis Principle spans from creation to each day of my life, helping me with the Faith needed to see the invisibility of the spiritual life, but also to know how to communicate with God through Jesus Christ using the energy of the Holy Spirit. The Lay Cistercian Way, as I understand it, with all the experiences of my lifetime, to choose what is good for me, is something that precedes the profound prayers I use to sit in the presence of Christ (Liturgy of the Hours, Eucharist, Eucharistic Adoration, Lectio Divina, the Most Holy Rosary, penitential for me, and readings from Scripture and the Benedictine and Trappist monks and nuns, among all the Saints,) and wait for the coming of the Lord in my heart each day, I call these profound prayers because they are more formal ways of sitting in the presence of Christ, in silence and solitude. Each day is an eternity, each moment more than just human, ticking off that unforgiving clock until I die. I transform the ordinary to embrace the martyrdom of Ordinary Living with all those challenges still presenting themselves to me until I die in the Hope of the Resurrection.

The Genesis Principle explains why humanity finds itself in such a pickle, or why good people are prone to silly and terrible behaviors that are not in keeping with their values. It would be so easy to be human at our highest level if it were not for original Sin. The Book of Genesis presents an ancient story about why humans often do bad things when they are essentially good. Like all the ideas in this archetypal story of what it means to be human and why humans ended up with the consequences of one action by Adam and Eve to fracture the relationship with God and put in place the timer for someone to come to redeem or buy back the pawn ticket that was hocked by this act of disobedience. One of the reasons Jesus became human was to be a ransom for many, a sacrifice to satisfy the debt that humanity owed to God for their Sin. Philippians 2:5-12 says it best.

To reconcile humans with God, whom Adam and Eve offended, it is appropriate that the one offended in this archetypal offense be given the satisfaction or restitution according to the nature of the one offended. In the case of Adam and Eve, they offended God, but the problem was that only a Divine Nature could make restitution adequately for the offense. This seemingly insignificant event is at the core of what it means to be human. In the Genesis Principle, humanity was given the chance to know (good from evil) but rejected the gift. To make amends to God, it would take God to offer a suitable offering to God as one of Divine Nature, saying sorry to that same Divine Nature. Impossible to do with human nature by itself. The only way to solve this conundrum was for God to prepare humanity to say they were sorry for the collective Sin of Adam and Eve. But therein lies the problem. I am not you, you are not me; God is not me, and I am certainly not God.

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My favorite verse in the Scriptures is Philippians 2:5-12. I have had this verse as the Lectio part of my Lectio Divina since 1962. To dig for heavenly gold, I ask you to read this quotation five times:

• The first time, just read it, slowly and deliberately.
• The second time, read it but treat is as a prayer to place yourself in the presence of Christ.
• The third time, read it and share it with others, or together in a group, then wait five minutes in solitude and silence. Next, have each person share their ideas about what they thought.
• The fourth time, read it, treat it as prayer, share it, but now add the dimension of trying to become what you read. How can you have in your mind the mind of Christ Jesus?
• The fifth time, without words, without reading anything, sit in the silence and solitude of your upper room of your inner self and wait. No words. This is contemplation, or at least it can be.
  
  • Plea for Unity and Humility.^*
  • 1 If there is any encouragement in Christ, any solace in love, any participation in the Spirit, any compassion and mercy,
  • 2 complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing.^a
  • 3 Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves,^b
  • 4 each looking out not for his own interests, but [also] everyone for those of others.^c
  • 5 Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus,^*
  • 6 Who, though he was in the form of God,^d
  • did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.^*
  • 7 Rather, he emptied himself,
  • taking the form of a slave,
  • coming in human likeness;^*
  • and found human in appearance,^e
  • 8 he humbled himself,^f
  • becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.^*
  • 9 Because of this, God greatly exalted him
  • and bestowed on him the name^*
  • that is above every name,^g
  • 10 that at the name of Jesus
  • every knee should bend,^*
  • of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,^h
  • 11 and every tongue confess that
  • Jesus Christ is Lord,^*
  • to the glory of God the Father.ⁱ (www.usccb.org)

THE CHRIST PRINCIPLE –– In the Teilhard map above, it is the time from the Annunciation of Christ to the Ascension into Heaven. I have an advocate on my behalf to present myself to the father, through, with, and in Jesus, using the power of the Holy Spirit. The Christ Principle is the evolution or continuation of the collective consciousness of all reality moving inexorably toward a point outside of itself (ex-sistere), a point Teilhard de Chardin called Point Omega.

• With Christ, Christ having paid the ransom for many with his sacrifice of the cross, I can now use the power of the Holy Spirit to make both The Genesis Principle and The Christ Principle a real part of the way I discover who I am as a human, how to love authentically, and what truths are true and what is false. I call upon the name of the Lord with the realization that Christ is the Son of God, the Savior, the Messiah, My Lord and My God.
• With Christ, I can pack my bags with the treasures wants me to take with me to Heaven and decorate my mansion waiting for me.
• With Christ, I can have the certainty of Hope that the words to me in Scripture and the Tradition of the Church are actual.
• With Christ as my center, I have the energy to keep Him at that center as much as I can. I can be such a recidivist at times. There is always a pathway back to God through the Church and the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
• The Christ Principle moves reality, but especially humanity, forward toward its fulfillment. If Adam and Eve derailed humanity, or caused the condition in which we find ourselves operating at just the human level, then restoration of that track allowed the train of our humanity to, once again, experience what had been intended from its inception at creation.
• The Genesis Principle describes how reality was once on course for its evolution but was sidetracked by human choice. Another way of thinking about it is to consider primitive humans who do not know how to use their newly acquired reason and judgment. The only book on how to act came from their animal roots. Eventually, complexity and consciousness surpassed animal tendencies, using that great constant, time, as the catalyst, but just barely. The knowledge of good and evil, the concept of Love, and the resolution of the ambiguity between absolute truth and personal opinion left humanity with a profound sense of ambiguity about all of reality. We still inherit that fog of the unknown in all human endeavors and enterprises. Absolute truth is never possible within human nature because of original Sin.
• The Christ Principle restored resonance to a reality that screamed out from the effects of dissonance. But there is one more key to our human evolution that challenges original Sin and its overshadowing of all that is. If the Old Testament and the Genesis Principle focused on the covenant relationship of Israel and God, and recorded all those times humans missed the mark, then the New Testament, continuing its unbroken link with the past, focused on telling and showing humans the pathway on which they could again be authentically and fully human. It is about distinguishing good from evil and assessing the meaning of authentic human Love, a love so powerful it could propel its believers to the highest level of their humanity. Finally, it gave humans the means to know and love what is true, beyond the rationality of the individual and human limitations. The limitation is that any knowledge, Love, or truth originating solely from human evolution lacks the energy to advance to the next step without assistance from a higher energy. So, the Christ Principle initiated a change in the standard for humans held hostage by the archetypal Sin of Adam and Eve. But there is a problem. How can Jesus, who, as a human, lived and then died on the cross, continue to be present to those who follow His message of giving praise, honor, and glory to the Father, through and in Jesus Christ, with the power of the Holy Spirit? Humans could never originate this power or reestablish this relationship that would cause reality to move into its rightful place or resonance with all that was, is, or will be. How does Christ pass on to each individual through the consciousness and complexity of time what I need to become the highest level of my humanity, how to dig out spiritual gold within me that transforms me through the energy of the Holy Spirit, and the ability for a human to run the gauntlet of those effects of original Sin (not all of them sinful) to come out on the other side as a person destined to be an adopted son (daughter) of the father and heir to that deepest level of humanity for which I have always been destined.

THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH PRINCIPLE-– (From Pentecost to the end of time and the Omega) This is the establishment of a way to provide the truth, which leads to the life of adoption on earth while we live, then forever. The truth that is needed is not the truth that the world gives, just as the peace of Christ is not what the world says is peace. This finality is the gathering of all those who believe that Jesus is Lord, Son of God, Savior. This is the culmination of repeatedly discovering how to love fiercely as Christ loved us. This finality is the crucible of my upper room of my inner self that holds what I can absorb from being in the presence of the Real Presence of Christ, as sure as He walked the shores of Galilee, and asked Twelve individuals to move his followers forward in each age, each century, so that each person can have in them the mind of Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5) and with the Real Presence of Christ and power of the Holy Spirit, to know what is truth, love what is truth, and know and love a truth outside of the dissoance of mere human nature. For better or for worse, this is the Catholic Church (with 23 rites) that walks down the centuries accumulating God’s favor in each heart, and retaining the respositoy of what Jesus gave us to become more than mere humans at the physical and mental levels of evolution, but to ask God to become who you are at that level of your humanity, an adopted son or daughter of the father and heir to the untold riches in Heaven. To become this, the Church in each age, indeed in each year, provides what Christ told the Apostles they needed to pass on undiluted by the original Sin of those who seek to water down the message. The Church is a wineskin that holds what Christ wanted us to become as those who do what he commanded. As a Catholic, my purpose is to make all things new in my life each day (conversio morae), using tools of good works and contemplative practices that emphasize Christ must increase and I must decrease from my false self (capacitas dei).

Being Catholic for me is making new wineskins every day so that the wine Christ gives me, as I can receive it, does not spoil. It takes work for me to be a Catholic, an inconvenience to my nature, which has been tainted by its brush with original Sin. Being a Catholic with the proper perspective, that of taking up my personal cross each day, means I go against much of what the world throws at me as being my purpose.

What makes being a Catholic so difficult for me is original Sin. Because Adam and Eve missed choosing what was good for them and instead did what they thought would make them happy, this is now the default for all humans. Christ freed us from the limitations of our nature and its power with baptism, restoring us to proper communion with God. However, the bad news was that we still had to suffer through all those effects of living out our humanity, the effects of original Sin. This is why I must toil to make new wineskins each day and try to keep my head above the waters of our default nature.

The Genesis Principle (The Father) began with the beginning and continues to the end of time. The Christ Principle (Jesu, Son of God, Savior) begins with the Magnificat and extends from Genesis to the end of time. The Spirit of Truth Principle began with Pentecost, fulfills the Genesis Principle, and, along with the Christ Principle, enables humans (especially this one) to achieve the natural progression of their humanity to its original intended purpose. That is to know, Love, and serve God with all our minds, hearts, and strength, in this life and to be happy with God, forever, in Heaven, the destination of all reality in Omega.

MY SEMI-ORIGINAL THOUGHTS ABOUT ORIGINAL SIN

In the Book of Genesis, an event occurred between Adam and Eve (representing male and female humanity) and God. The context is a Garden. The stages of this relationship are a)The perfect relationship based on recognition of who you are and who God is; b)The rift caused by what God expected of humans not being fulfilled (humans not acting their human nature but wanting to be divine nature). The scenario highlights the very human tendency: if mom or dad tells you not to eat cookies from that jar, but you smell the aroma of oatmeal cookies, you might still stop yourself from reaching in to grab a couple.

The authors of the Book of Genesis (at least four traditions known to scholars) set forth a story of what humanity should be, but then something happened that changed the paradigm. After the Fall, the entire Old Testament illustrates the unintended consequences of that one archetypal act.

The Catholic Church carried on the tradition of baptism to move individual humans from a condition of alienation from God to that of being an adopted son or daughter of the Father. Jesus is the transformer that mediates between a God no human could face without having their neurons fried, and me. The Church is the conduit or wires that route the power of the Holy Spirit to my house and installs the plugs in the walls for me to use to light my way (see), so that I can function at a level above animal nature. In each person’s life, God gives the electricity through the Holy Spirit and the transformer, Christ, to power me. The purpose of this electricity (spiritual energy that originates outside of human capability or capacity to know what is happening) is to move my humanity, each person who ever lived is different, but uses the only power capable of sustaining the new relationship of Christ through the energy of the Holy Spirit in the upper room of my inner self (my spirit).

So, here I am at the age of 85+, watching life flow past me with a roar, trying to take a gulp of water that quenches my spiritual self from a fire hydrant fully open. It can be done, but you must know how to do it. The big mistake I have made, and still continue to make, if I don’t watch out, is to fall back into my false self and lose that perspective that allows me to exist at the highest level of my humanity (once again, that reestablished relatonship with God, now made possible by the sacrifice of Christ to the father in atonement for the sins of many. While I live, and this has always been the case, I never took the time to dig for the gold in my inner self. This would allow me to plug my appliance into the wall socket and turn on the power that has always been there for me.

After baptism, I just realized, all I have to do is place myself in the presence of Christ (plug myself into the Mystery of Faith) and turn on the juice (waiting in silence and solitude until my motor kicks in and I can be the person I was designed to be as portrayed in the Garden of Eden before the Fall.

The problem is, and this is the part I always overlook, that I must work daily to keep myself centered with Christ so my plug doesn’t get pulled out by a humanity with a short memory span.

This demands work for me, and I can’t do it by myself. Christ must be present to me each day, each hour, as I live out my life, constantly pulled by my human nature to revert to a physical and mental approach to life without the help of Christ or the power of the Holy Spirit to sustain myself. Christ left the Church, that conduit that must be built and sustained in each age, through each century, to connect me with the living Christ (not a memory but His real presence) to save me from being animalistic or humanistic. Just as the priests in the Old Testament of the Tribe of Levi made present to the people the sacrifice of animals as sacred, so too the priests of the Catholic Church keep the sacrifice of Christ as Real Presence, now, so that I can bring that same Jesus into my upper room of my inner self and grow with God’s energy (caacitas dei).

Spirituality is the ultimate goal of my human nature. When I freely choose to make that just from the seen to the seen and the unseen, I use that power from God in my inner sanctum to raise me up to adoption as a son (daughter) of the Father. While living each day, the effects of original Sin tend to corrupt me, although God created me as good, and the Sin of Adam threw away my birthright until Christ restored it. The Catholic Church is not God, but is what Jesus instituted to help me (and all the other me’s) to keep our heads above water. At the same time, we live and tread slowly to avoid the dissonance of humanity, while each day, trying to convert ourselves (conversio morae) by being present as much as possible to Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. Catholicism is a fight for righteousness in a sea of ambiguity, lack of Love, and a truth that is relative and not absolute (original Sin). It is the conduit constructed with the blood of martyrs, the faithfulness of believers down through the centuries, so that I can say, “Jesus is Lord.”

I am not a theologian, a scholar, or learned teacher of the Catholic Faith, nor do I speak for any Lay Cistercian or Trappist group. I am a voice in the wilderness saying, “Make straight the way of the Lord,” in my heart only. Here are a few examples of Original Sin that I have in my life. These items are my life, only as a physical and mental one, without the addition of my birthright from Christ.

• I am going to die;
• I often do the things I don’t want to do, then turn around and don’t do the things I should. (St. Paul)
• I find that I have to go to the dentist and physician to help my deteriorating body from dying.
• I get tired of watching people make it a profession to hate each other rather than solving problems that are ruining the country.
• I don’t like having to exercise with my rollator one mile a day.
• I don’t like being told I have to exercise with my rollator for one mile a day.
• I don’t like to drink prune juice to keep my bowels from turning to concrete.
• I don’t like it when someone has to drive me to the physician’s office for a check-up or for a medical procedure (and I have four physicians I see regularly).
• When I eat, I have to eat wholesome foods because of my cardiac condition (I love pancakes and German Chocolate Cake).
• I am tired most days, with some days being better than others.
• I have to take six or seven medications (not including One-A-Day) with the side effects still popping up unannounced.
• I am confined to using a rollator for mobility around the house, and I don’t get out much.
• I have to convert myself as much as I can remember to do so daily, from the tendencies to devolve into my humanity rather than move forward. I will discuss The Seven Deadly Sins in my next blog and share with you my struggles to keep my head above water.
• I must work hard constantly and consistently to be a Catholic of the Roman Rite who is constantly being seduced to reduce my religion to being one to discover if the Pope made a mistake, or if the Church’s individuals are less than what I consider spiritual. (Idolatry on my part)
• “Everything I love is either illegal, immoral, or fattening.” –Mark Twain
• For most of my life, and even now, I have taken the easy path rather than doing what Christ did and walking the path of the cross.
• I must convert myself each day to having in me the mind of Christ Jesus (conversio morae) and consciously place myself in Christ’s presence through the Catholic Church’s spiritual means.
• The Church has provided for sinners like me to become more like Christ and less like my false self (capacitas dei). The way of the cross is never easy, but it is always right.
• I must fight the good fight and run the race to win the prize that Christ won for me by His saving act of Love on the cross. It is not easy, nor should it be.
• Being human without the cross can seem challenging and even bewildering if your family member has dementia or cancer. Those who are raised by Christ to the level of adoption still have the same challenges as those without Christ. The difference is that with Christ, there is Hope that the words He said to the Apostles and disciples are actual.
• I have the difficult choice of always deciding in the courtroom of my inner self, what is right and what is good. I have two choices: 1. I choose right from wrong based on just my human feelings and urges; 2. I can choose right from wrong based on something outside of myself, to which I give my consent and allegiance for fulfillment. And, to make things even more complicated, this second choice can be further divided into a) A human organization or political group expressing ideologies that may or may not be authentic to what Christ teaches, and b) a way of thinking that embodies a truth outside of human experience but which, nevertheless neccessary for each individual human to access to move to their next level of evolution. We have reason for a reason (animals have intelligence of some sort, but do not have reasoning) and the ability to freely choose outside of our nature to adopt a way of acting that leads to the life intended for us before the Fall in the Garden of Eden.
• Just because my path has been rocky doesn’t mean I have been on the wrong path. Indeed, because it is rocky, I have had to work hard to walk on it, needing the help of the Holy Spirit, which makes all the effects of original Sin meaningful.

All of these life experiences of wandering in the desert of my own dissolution for forty years, all the times I preferred myself to the Love of Christ (St. Benedict, Rule, Chapter 4), all the times I have kept the Faith and had to make all things new with new wineskins each day, lead me to one Psalm in Scripture, Psalm 84. Here it is. If you choose, you can join me in using those five steps I have outlined above to dig for heavenly gold.

So far, I have talked about the three longings deep within me, which, no matter how much I read, study, or think, I haven’t found the answers to, yet still gnaw at my inner self. I keep digging deeper and deeper and find out that, with Christ as my source of energy, I have yet to hit bottom. Francis Thompson’s classic tale of how God won’t let us go, no matter how much we protest, is something you should read slowly and carefully, if you haven’t done so already. I used this poem to slough away the trivial pursuits of my toward being human and discover a deeper meaning to life. I encourage you to dig for that spiritual goal within you.

Ironically, I have found that to grow to the deepest level of my humanity and to resolve the longing in my heart, I must give up what I consider my citizenship in this world. I must embrace what might seem like folly to enter into a realm of resonance and peace for my inner self.

I now eagerly anticipate entering the upper room of my inner self and sitting next to Christ on my couch, content to be in the Real Presence of the energy that satisfies my hungry heart.

The third part of this trilogy of my evolution will address how I have chosen to implement my adoption as heir to the kingdom of heaven on earth, and later, in heaven, the place Jesus has prepared for those who love Him. I will share some ideas about what is good or evil and why I chose what God gave to humanity through the Prophets and Christ, passed on undiluted by the Catholic Church. Each day, I use these tools to help me dig for the gold that is contained inside me. Evil is fool’s gold. Good is pure gold. God, through Christ, tells me where to dig, how to dig, and if the gold is dross or pure energy.

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