Reflection: “The contemporary white institutional churches of the United States….”

Posted on January 30, 2021 by Herb Stone

poem: winter equinox 4:01 a.m. northern hemisphere

Posted on December 21, 2020 by Herb Stone

poem: winter equinox 4:01 a.m.
northern hemisphere

shortest day
longest night
first winter’s day
arriving
at our door
patiently

pre-dawn
cold, wet fog
obliterating
settling
blanketing all
silently

nothing astir
all in its burrow
save the winter hare
and snowy owl
in stillness
anticipatingly

season’s visions
stars in the east
the light of the world
the fire of the spirit
Universal Cosmic Christ
Emmanuel

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
December 21, 2020

image courtesy of Lowell Observatory

(reader’s note: Jupiter and Saturn
will form rare “Christmas Star” on
winter solstice. On December 21, 2020,
Jupiter and Saturn will appear closer
in Earth’s night sky than they have
since 1226 A.D.)

Advent Reflections: Baby Jesus, Mature Jesus, Crucified Jesus, Cosmic Christ

Posted on December 20, 2020 by Herb Stone

Advent Reflections: Baby Jesus, Mature Jesus, Crucified Jesus, Cosmic Christ

It is relatively easy for most of us to believe in Jesus as a sweet babe in the manger and to dwell on this peaceful image. However, Jesus matures and later resists the Empire’s Kings and Caesars and their oppression and social injustices. This mature rebel Jesus can be much more difficult for many to accept.

Jesus’ entire birth, life, death, and resurrection were in resistance to the ways of this worldly Imperialistic Empire, and its systems of power, control, domination, and violence.

Jesus, and his family, were under the Empire’s suffocating control from the moment of his birth on the dirt floor of that animal stall with only some straw as a blanket. They had traveled to Bethlehem for the King’s census so the King could know all that he possessed, controlled, and dominated in his Empire. Then they had to suddenly flee to Egypt to escape the King’s infanticide which was an effort to kill the baby Jesus to eliminate his threat to the Empire.

Jesus’ entire adult ministry was in resistance to the contemporary religious and political powers of that time that imposed the letter of the law and not it’s spirit thereby oppressing and marginalizing all the common people of that time and place in often the most cruel ways.

Jesus’ radical resistance was his Good News of the kingdom of God, and its’ alternative community, grounded in grace, love, mercy, distributive justice, peace, and hope! At this time, oppressed people were clamoring for a Messiah who would be their King and vanquish the worldly Empire of the Kings and Emperors. The authorities were afraid that Jesus might be this ‘King of the people’ that they were waiting for and thus saw him as a threat leading to his being constantly under the suspicion and surveillance of the authorities and ultimately resulting in his cruel crucifixion on the cross.

At the time of his coming before the authorities and being crucified, because Jesus had not violently destroyed the kings and their Empires but rather demonstrated peaceful resistance, he was mocked, spat on, scourged, whipped, stripped, denied, abandoned, and killed in the most cruel way possible by the Empire, its religious collaborators, and those same people who called him Messiah.

Because the Cosmic Christ, the savior and hope of the world, never stops resisting the evil Empires of this world and never stops calling for the peaceful, diverse, inclusive neighborly community of God’s kin-dom, we must never stop witnessing and resisting the contemporary Empire of today’s world where we now live and are all still pawns in the oppressor’s control and domination.

This Advent, be a witness and resist the ways of this world, its’ Empires, and their systems of domination which separate us from God! It is the Christ-like thing to do all year long.

Herb Stone, here&now working poetry

photo ‘Snow in the Little Wood’ by Herb Stone

reflection: Universal Cosmic Christ conciousness by whatever name

Posted on December 14, 2020 by Herb Stone

reflection: Universal Cosmic Christ consciousness

by whatever name

Now in the season of Advent, according to the Christian liturgical calendar, it is well to reflect upon the coming of Jesus, the Christ, and the incarnation of Christ consciousness into the world. This highest consciousness of the divine is universal to humanity, and available to our experience through many religious, spiritual, and other traditions, and alluded to by many names: Cosmic Christ consciousness, the omega point, Supreme consciousness, nirvana, moksha, and so on.

Once this consciousness speaks directly with, in, and through us as an individual, and is expressed with, in, and through our day-to-day thoughts, words, and deeds, which is the mystical expression of That I Am in our lives, we are liberated to know our most true Self and our most authentic belonging. Until such time, this highest way of knowing, remains at risk of being viewed as mere religious history, doctrine, and beliefs, inaccessible to many and unfulfilled in practice. Thus the Christ child’s coming and his peaceable kingdom here on Earth is for naught swallowed in a world of human power, control, and violence.

This consciousness, as revealed, in the incarnation of Jesus, the Christ, is our only true hope for life together, in the Cosmos, on the Earth, in the world, in communities, for all beings. All authentic traditions and their teachers teach this practice and way of knowing: Gandhi, Thich Naht Hahn, Paramahansa Yogananda, Thomas Merton, Pierre de Chardin, Richard Rohr, etc.

As human beings, we must awaken from the illusions of this world (Maya), and have the eyes to see and the ears to hear our human and non-human teachers, including the Earth, and participate in the letting go, emptying, and thousand little deaths preparing and opening to Self truth, mutuality, and the authentic community of belonging in, with, and through Universal Cosmic Christ consciousness.

Reflection: summa vitae meae, scio te ipsum

Posted on December 7, 2020 by Herb Stone

Reflection: summa vitae meae, scio te ipsum

Preface: I was deeply moved to write the following brief account summarizing the sum of my life’s purpose and expression and endeavors to know my self, which I must humbly preface with a poem from Mechthild of Magdeburg, a medieval mystic:

“Of all that God has shown me

I can speak just the smallest word,

Not more than a honey bee

Takes on her foot

From an overspilling jar.”

And so I begin. From my earliest childhood memories, before I understood their connotation and significance, and certainly since I was old enough to read and write, I have spent a lifetime endeavoring to understand and experience the truth of dreams, visions, creativity, religious experience, and spiritual traditions and practices.

Having studied the world religions and a plethora of spiritual traditions, read a library full of religious and spiritual literature, practiced numerous spiritual practices, spent years in intensive self inquiry, participated in the life of the Lutheran church, and endeavored to express it all creatively,

certainly I see this as the primary purpose and expression of my life (summan vitae meae) to this point and continuing forward. All else flows from this source.

And what of this life’s purpose and its expression? It has gifted me with some of the greatest stories ever told from the beginning of time, the great spiritual and religious literature and art of the ages, life transforming spiritual practices for mind, body, and spirit, an awareness and consciousness of that which creates, wounds, heals, sustains, and makes us whole, the shadows of self and the truth of Self, and the authenticity of mutual relationships and true belonging together in community.

From my earliest memories until now as a septuagenarian, I have come to know there is no greater purpose in life than to know our own true Self (scio te ipsum) wholly body, mind, and spirit and to enter fully into the mutuality of relationships and life together in authentic community walking one another home always.

Beloved, until we know ourselves, we cannot help ourself, or anyone else.

Khrisnamurti said, “When I understand myself, I understand you, and out of that understanding comes love.”

Ram Dass said, “Be here now.”

Gary Zukav wrote, we “may learn through the fear and doubt of our personality or through the courage and wisdom of the soul. The choice is ours to make.”

da, da, da

damyata, datta, dayadhvam

shanti, shanti, shanti