THE TRUTH IS NOW OUT: ALL THESE YEARS I HAVE LED A DOUBLE LIFE.

While trolling through the jungles of television programs to keep me entertained so I won’t have to watch the plastic flowers grow and hope feverishly that I don’t see one of them bloom, I came across several segments that offered this type of heading: “Now we know what we thought all along, so-and-so has led a double life,” teasing us by thinking that another famous hollywood actor or actress has dared to declare themselves as being gay.

This got me thinking about my own life and how I have lived a double life all these years, much of it in the closet, even though I didn’t know I was in it. The closet is a reference to a part of my life that I kept hidden, ironically, even from myself. I want to share with you my dual identity in the hopes that it will help others to make their identities known to others, and thus, to themselves.

ROMANCING MY TWO CITIZENSHIPS

The thought came to mind that the image of a double life is central to my Lay Cistercian spirituality, as I have come to build it within my temple of the Holy Spirit. The two dimensions of my humanity are: being a citizen of the earth (world) and living in the physical and mental universes, and being fulfilled by what I believe makes me happy in my lifespan. The second citizenship is about using that first citizenship, the one in which I engage with languages, science, philosophy, literature, and my interactions with all types of individuals to help me find meaning and discern what is right and wrong in my choices, to discern a deeper level of my evolution that the first one, by itself, can offer. I can’t move to this higher level of fulfillment of my humanity by starting with the second one, but only by realizing how to use the first citizenship of the world as a base platform from which I can reach that next level. There is a problem with my reaching. This first citizenship only happens if I have the energy to push myself up, as in evolution, automatically growing and moving in complexity and consciousness from the nature of matter to that which includes matter but evolves to life, then to life with rudimentary reasoning. (See Teilhard’s map of the movement of matter, unattributed).

In my conceptual concept of what reality looks like and how it all fits together, several observations about dual citizenship have prompted me to lead in that direction. They are:

We have reason, that no living species has, for a reason. Why? Is it a coincidence or an accident, or does nature have an intrinsic plan that moves us inexorably forward on the river of time, picking up complexity and consciousness as we enter our individual lifetime to discover something more than just being born, eating, staying alive, procreating, and then dying?

We can choose what reason tells us is good for us personally, or what doesn’t make us happy. This is the destiny of the citizenship of the world, the primacy of the individual. Because we exist in a condition that arose from animality, moving toward rationality, we retain vestiges of what keeps us animalistic (the Seven Deadly Sins). Some of us choose to move forward, guided by what is consistent with our nature, towards that deepest level of human maturation: spirituality. while others are stuck in the citizenship-of-the-world incumbency and can’t make the jump. We don’t have the energy at that first level of humanity (physical and mental) to move to a higher evolution. Unlike natural progression, where matter moves in complexity and consciousness automatically, we fail to realize that we are destined to something more than just self-gratification and what’s in it for me.

Humans, as good as they are with science, philosophy, literature, and politics (I add this grudgingly), do not contain either the why or the how to move to that next level of our human evolutionary journey. Stuck in a seeming floor of honey to walk through, humanity at the first level of citizenship gets stuck in sticky sweetness and has the tendency to give up and just admit, “That’s all, folks.” We must learn how to do it and why, but who is to show us? What is the way of humanity to move to that next level of evolution, one we are not even sure exists, or if it does, what awaits us? We just know that in the deepest recesses of our minds and hearts, we want to know more about who we are, how to love deeply and fiercely, and to know that what we believe is based on absolute truth beyond the inconsistency of the human individual or group ideology that corrupts with time.

We had to have help from outside of our human nature, from a higher source of energy that could reach down to lift us up, not to be divine in nature, but to be most human, spiritual sons and daughters of the Father and heirs to that next kingdom of the spirit, while still remaining now as both a citizen of the world and a citizen of heaven, now on earth. At the same time, we live, and in the next life (the implications of being an heir) with the divine nature that set all of this in motion.

Jesus came to show us and tell us how to walk a path through the minefield and where the mines (Seven Deadly Sins) are. He left us his real presence in the form of bread and wine at the Last Supper to continue this down through the centuries, of which I can choose not to participate.

Movement to this next level is easy, but extremely confusing with our citizenship of the earth. Athough it is our base to keep us alive and have the abiity to achieve our ultimate destiny as we were created, free will comes into the picture as a constant spoiler to what would otherwise be a slam and dunk humanity that got on the conveyor belt of life and got off at whatever the end is, without getting our individual hands dirty, bruised, cut up, and in the case of one of us, spiked with nails on hand and feet. Life is a battle between earthly and heavenly citizenship, with the prize being to fulfill nature’s intention to be fully human. We have reasons, and we can choose what we have reasoned. By ourselves, we have neither the capacity nor the capability to reach that next level of evolution without adopting the Christ Principle as THE way, THE truth, and THE life, the pathway through dissonance that leads to reasonance with all that is as it is. It is a free choice only by giving up or abandoning my way, what I think is true, and leading a life beyond my early citizenship, that I can search for ways to be present to Christ and become more like Jesus and less like my false self (Seven Deadly Sins), called capacitas dei. I have chosen to be a Lay Cistercian, following the prescriptions and ordinances of the Trappist Cistercians to build my Catholic Church with help from the Church. I am the cup that holds the wine Christ produces each day, from which I drink and receive energy.

I have not only come out of the closet to proclaim that I am a follower of the Master by being an active member of the Catholic Church, but also to know, love, and serve God in this lifetime and to be happy as a result of what I have discovered in the next life.

If you have slipped away from Christ for any reason, return to your roots and delve deeper into the mystery of your humanity that leads to the fulfillment of our species, and become an heir to the kingdom of heaven in heaven. Christ has always said YES to you; now is the time for you to say YES to those deepest longings of your heart. I did. I suggest you read my blog (isn’t that vanity) to keep up with the strict and demanding Catholicism that takes up the cross each day rather than eating cotton candy. https:thecenterforcontemplativepractice.org

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