PICKING UP LOOSE ENDS: Thoughts that fell through the cracks. The river of life.

More often than I would like to admit, there are just some “out there” thoughts I have in my Lectio Divina, where I get sidetracked before realizing that I am off message and getting back to normal (whatever that is). I tried to gather some of these thoughts because they truly come from a place beyond my attention span.

No order of importance, just some ideas based on Philippians 2:5: “Have in you the mind of Christ Jesus.” Hold onto your seat.

ALL REALITY HAS A NATURE UNIQUE TO WHICH IT MUST RESPOND. When thinking about the most fundamental processes in reality, there is matter, which makes up the substance of who we are, including all chemicals, gases, gravity, time, evolution of matter, movement of matter toward more complexity and consciousness (Teilhard), leading to what is neither matter nor a gas, nor bound by the laws of nature, nor the limitations of the human condition (death).

THERE ARE THREE NATURES, ALL HAVING DIFFERENT CHARACTERISTICS, ORDER OF COMPLEXITY AND CONSCIOUSNESS, BUT ALL UNITED TOGETHER.

The Physical Universe is all matter, including inanimate and animate matter, gases, and the properties of matter. It is the one science that tries to discover, using the human mind, and define what is, using accepted tools of mathematics, science, medicine, cosmology, and so on. The physical universe is the basis for all that is, at the atomic level as well as the processes that govern how matter acts according to its nature. Humans can’t control these laws; they can only observe them.

Humans live in the Physical Universe but have evolved the ability to reason and make choices that are natural to this nature (humans don’t control the physical universe but exist within it at the next phase of evolution: the ability to choose not to follow rules that apply to humans.

The Mental Universe, as described by this unattributed map of Teilhard de Chardin’s thinking, contains the physical universe, which has evolved to include life. Matter ultimately evolves toward consciousness: living cells, with humans as the highest form, as we know them. Humans are the only ones who live in this universe, though they still live alongside animals, plants, and environmental conditions that shape their existence.

Matter, as a natural entity, operates within rules and parameters it does not control (humans don’t control matter). In the mental universe, humans alone can choose not to change matter, but to choose this option or that option because of reason and the freedom to choose, an individual trait each human has because of human nature.

Where the physical universe (all matter, including human answers to that nature, does not deviate), the mental universe, which grew in complexity and consciousness from matter, does not change the physical universe, but has evolved a life form that can either stay or improve; how that human species can govern matter by free use of the will that is not automatically tied to physical nature.

The things that humans can change are not physical matter, but now ideas, moods, feelings, relationships, happiness, and other invisible but real ways of behaving to allow humans to continue to evolve, according to the laws of nature (which they don’t control), but each individual has a choice not bound by the natural law, but the freedom to create an invisible layer of matter, one tied inextricably to it, but with some wiggle room to choose what that person’s will wants to make them fulfilled at the time. Humans use matter and its properties to enhance meaning for those with reason.

The Mental Universe introduces humans through repeated trials and errors to adopt what is good for the individual (Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs), but now groups of people hold views that tend to organize around one or two people as spokespersons for those views (tribes, politics, religions, anarchists).

The Mental Universe seeks to use the interrogatories (who, what, why, where, when, how, and what’s in it for me) to do what is best for the individual, including what is best for humanity as a whole.

The Mental Universe is now completely separate from inanimate or animalistic matter; it is matter plus, or matter that knows that it knows. This next level has its own peculiar laws. No books exist to show what being human is like, what will move them forward in evolution, or what will cause individuals (as parts of human societies) to choose what is bad for them. No boundaries exist except those individuals make. The Mental Universe has laws humans may not overstep, but individual opinion always trumps a collective rational response. I can choose to say there is no god out there, based on my reason, and, strangely enough, I would be correct, based on the assumptions that the physical and mental universe compose all that there is to what we call reality (loosely named).

But remember that pesky movement from Alpha to Omega governs matter, and we are an integral part of it.

Movement is the only constant in all of reality. Heraclitus of Ephesus (c. 535–475 BCE) wrote that everything in the universe is in perpetual flux. I use his thinking, along with Teilhard’s map of reality, to show that individuals have a unique Alpha (birth) and Omega (death), but that this is part of the river of existence. Human death, therefore, is more than one lifetime; it is one leaf on a tree of life in one year, continuing to the ultimate Omega of all that is matter and mind.

So far, there is a Physical Universe, and we are part of it. Then the mental universe, inhabited only by humans, which we can see, but also realize that something else exists beyond our sight; if we don’t have it, we devolve back into animalistic hubris. But is that all there is to the River of Life?

THE PATTERN OF THE FLOW

Is the purpose of the Physical Universe to give me a platform to use my reason and free will? Why? Where the Physical and Mental universes each have their own laws of nature, their purpose is to allow me, again using the right set of assumptions (The Divine Equation), to open the possibility of a third Universe (there all along) but accessible not by nature, but by the individual’s reason and free choice, to know what is true not just from matter and mind, but to make a choice to move to the highest level of humanity, one accessible only by an individual saying YES.

This third universe, bound to the other two, fills the gap between my death (my own personal Omega) and the Omega of all three universes. It is the spiritual universe, and you can find it by looking at the Teilhard map to see what happens as matter and mind continue to flow, and I, with my 86.2 years, along with it, to a point that is invisible.

I write this as a Catholic so as not to fly a false flag. The flow of evolution has now come to a place in its movement where humans have been fumbling around trying to make sense of the visible and invisible (Roman and Greek Gods, Baal) but not getting anywhere because the Physical and Mental Universes don’t have the energy to move individuals to that next level. This is where God gave Himself to us (His Son) to make Himself one of us (Philippians 2:5-12) so that we had knowledge to see the way forward, and how to love in such a way that the energy from Jesus lifts us up to that next level of our evolution, to be an adopted son or daughter of the Father and heirs to the kingdom of heaven.

The problem with the spiritual universe is that it is real yet invisible. As I said before in another article, “The problem with invisibility is you can’t see it.” Jesus came to show us how to move to that next level of evolution by telling us (Scripture) and showing us what to repeat over and over (Eucharist and Penance), so we can love with all our minds, hearts, and strength, and love our neighbor as ourselves. Jesus said it best. “Blessed are those who do not see, yet believe.”

The Catholic Church exists to build the railroad from what Jesus said and did (John 21) directly to me, through twenty centuries of building through swamps, digging tunnels in mountains, sweating in the heat of the one who resists us at every turn by trying to get us to use the Seven Deadly Sins as core values rather than the Gift of the Spirit from Jesus.

At this point, I’ll stop writing another segment about how the Catholic Church is the way, the truth, and the life (and helps us find our way) in each age.

Please visit my website, https://thecenterforcontemplativepractice.org, and search for the next level. Catholic Church. Please join me in saying the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary in reparation for your sins and for those in Purgatory.

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Copyright © Michael F. Conrad, Ed.D. The Center for Contemplative Practice. All rights reserved. Produced in collaboration with Grok. No part of this work may be reproduced, distributed, or used for commercial profit without the express written permission of Michael F. Conrad.

AI Statement of Authorship: These ideas and written materials are from Michael F. Conrad, Ed.D., his 68 books, and 1,230 blogs. I use Grok to organize materials. Grok does not initiate any assistance or contribute without my direct approval. These retreat pages were arranged with a contribution from Grok, at the request of Michael F. Conrad, so that Anawim readers might receive the ideas in a scrollable retreat form. The thoughts, premises, and spiritual judgments remain those of Michael F. Conrad. Grok contributed structure, phrasing assistance, and document design. Nothing here is offered as official teaching of the Catholic Church, nor as a substitute for the care of a physician, confessor, or spiritual director.

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