EX CATHEDRA: Letter Two: A Passenger on the Highway to Omega

Observing the Stretch from the Rocker-Recliner

Introduction

I am still in the chair, the rocker-recliner now, watching more television than I care to admit. Much of it is boredom until I start writing down what I actually see. Whatever is received is received through the disposition of the one who receives it. For me, and only for me, the reality that arrives through the screen is filtered by eighty-six years of looking for what is true beyond my personal opinion. The eyes are old. Behind them sit the trips I made, the books I read, the failures I survived, and the quiet hours that taught me the difference between good and evil.

Conversation One gave the overview: one reality showing itself in three universes, each with its own nature and its own limits. When those limits are stretched past what they can carry, they snap back. Now I move to the next level of observation. I watch the physical universe of matter, the mental universe that only humans inhabit, and the spiritual universe that is my Omega. Teilhard de Chardin taught me to look for patterns across belief systems. The mental universe is where each person chooses categories of thinking and then tests them, silently, to see whether they hold. Those choices become the Center that either opens or closes the door to the third universe.

The third universe is unlike the first two. It moves toward complexity and consciousness, yet it is invisible after we die and, while we live, remains a reality we must choose. My mindset as an adopted son of the Father is the opposite of the other two. Reason and free will must be surrendered to a higher nature that comes down the stairs to the ground floor, takes us by the hand, and leads us. There is no elevator. The stairs are my life. I walk them as an adopted son, supported by Christ’s energy. Earth’s forces try to keep me from taking the next step. Cistercian spirituality provides the practices and mindset that help me stay focused as I climb.

What follows are the observations I have been collecting. They are not ranked by importance. They are simply what I see from the rocker-recliner. Each one contributes to the dangerous imbalance that must eventually return toward equilibrium and resonance. The physical universe reacts according to its own silent allegiance. The mental universe fractures under the weight of its own centers. The spiritual universe waits for the energy that only Christ can supply.

Conversation

In the physical universe, I see humans returning to animal roots: protecting territory, seizing land that isn’t theirs, and willing to kill for beliefs. I see populations that cannot grow enough food to feed themselves. I see most countries carrying unsustainable debt and futures they will not survive. Plate tectonics wake up. Volcanoes erupt. Flooding arrives in places that take decades to recover, if they recover at all. Water shortages remain unsolved. Subterranean water is depleted and, in some places, replaced by saltwater. Hurricanes and tornadoes destroy land. Heat rises. Waters warm. Deserts fill in what cannot be sustained. Large cities in almost every country swell as people leave the countryside, yet birth rates continue their paradoxical slide, leaving the future unsustainable. Governments control money and trade. Collective mindsets—dictators, socialist democrats, military juntas—limit the rights of citizens to favor an ideology. The environment is not alive, but it reacts to the force of nature to which it pays silent allegiance. Many lives, innocent of what nature does, will die or remain homeless for years. This is the stretch. The snap-back will return the systems toward the boundaries they were given.

In the mental universe, I see brother killing brother. Families are upended by war. Children are lost. Heritage is lost. Education is forfeited. Immigration arrives, not to assimilate, but to act as a cancer on the existing order. Students, nurses, doctors, and educators protest. Property is damaged. Law enforcement and the legal system are stretched to the breaking point. Students take on huge personal loans only to find that public tastes have changed and the jobs are gone. Thousands are laid off, each one carrying a mortgage, a family to feed, a student loan to repay. Disrespect for law enforcement grows, and with it the court and penal systems lose the money needed to sustain order. Fringe political parties incite violence under the guise of freedom of speech. Housing remains out of reach for salaries that once sustained it. Prisons fill. Trials backlog. Churches dissolve. Membership vanishes almost overnight. Societies move in mass, like buffalo, back toward being at home rather than eating out, shopping out, driving to events. Movie theaters lose money because ideology became more important than telling a good story. Fewer people go to Church, though a few places see membership increase. Trends glorify the individual and the religion of the month rather than changing society one person at a time. Racial victimhood is used as a weapon against those who do not fit the ideology of the moment. Political factionalism lets hatred override reason. Politicians fear standing for what is right rather than what is easy. The mental universe snaps back by taking lives. The centers people have chosen cannot hold the strain.

In the spiritual universe, I see television that glorifies violence and the Seven Deadly Sins. Nations cannot hold one set of moral beliefs because each citizen insists on the freedom to think whatever they want, yet cannot impose that same freedom on others. I see a Tower of Babel of churches and denominations. I see shallow believers who want cotton-candy Christianity and fear the work of taking up the cross. I see hatred in hearts that cannot find peace. I see people who do not believe in God—God is their right—yet cannot say what they do believe. I see little islands of grace that still fight the devaluation of human life and the idea that the individual is god. The Catholic Church is not immune. It suffers from factioning over clothing or ritual rather than over what Christ died for. The factionalism is real. Some will snap back and change direction. A few will choose to take up the cross even when it costs them everything. Only Christ can realign the spiritual universe. It takes divine energy. All humans must seek first the kingdom of Heaven. The way is rocky. It is not the wrong road. Christ helps each of us take the steps.

These observations are a fraction of what is visible from the rocker-recliner. They show the three universes moving out of resonance. The physical base stretches until nature restores its defaults. The mental universe fractures under the weight of each person serving as their own Supreme Court. The spiritual universe waits for the hand that comes down the stairs. Teilhard saw the long movement toward Omega. Against this backdrop, the Divine Equation asks six questions. The Christ Principle supplies the energy that lets a person walk the stairs without an elevator. Cistercian practice keeps the focus while the forces of earth try to stop the next step. From the chair, the choice remains open. The snap-back will not wait for consensus. It will simply return each universe toward the equilibrium it was given.

Prayer of Charles de Foucauld

Father, I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will. Whatever you may do, I thank you: I am ready for all, I accept all. Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures. I wish no more than this, O Lord. I commend my soul into your hands; I offer it to you with all the love of my heart, for I love you, Lord, and I need to give myself, to surrender myself into your hands, without reserve and with boundless confidence, for you are my Father. — Charles de Foucauld

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Copyright © Michael F. Conrad, Ed.D., with assistance from Grok. The Center for Contemplative Practice. All rights reserved.