++++++++++++++++++++++++++
ARCHIVE.
For a list of all my published posts:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Blog
entries beginning with #101 are not essays but minimally-edited notes and
reviews from the files I've collected over the last few decades. I no longer
have the time and energy needed to sort out and put together into decent
essay-form the many varied ideas in these files, but I would like to share them
with all who are interested.
If
you have questions and think I might help, you're welcome to send me a
note: sam@macspeno.com
Post
#137 is the second of three collections of thoughts and reflections based on
the only book I know which deals explicitly with what the Christian Church
looks like in the Big History perspectives of the New Cosmology.
The book
is The Holy Web: Church and the New Universe Story by Cletus Wessels (Orbis Books,
2000). The author is a Dominican priest, pastor and theologian in the
Midwestern United States.
===
The
second part of this book defines church as a community of people who gather to
celebrate and serve, and describes four main aspects of it in the light of the
New Story.
The
church community:
• sees
the Mystery present and operative in all things;
•
promotes personal development as the continuation of cosmic evolution at the
level of the individual;
• has a
wholistic structure
• is
globally diverse culturally.
===
In a
chapter called "The Church of the Earth" the author uses three
contemporary scientific concepts: holons, fields, and implicate order.
He talks
about the earth under the images of (patriarchal) tomb and (feminist)
life-giving womb. He describes church as community of disciples (hearers).
I found
some of this to be not too clear, even fuzzy. I’m especially uncomfortable
especially with what seems to me its superficiality with regard to feminism.
But it also contains many stimulating ideas.
===
From
science we now know that all things are a unity evolving toward greater and
greater complexity. And that we humans are the earth come to
self-consciousness.
But we
find ourselves in a condition of alienation from it, as well as from one
another and from ourselves.
But in
fact the universe is one big web of relationships, and its dynamism can be
explained in terms of holons, fields, and implicate order.
---
Everything
is part of something else. Each thing tries to preserve itself, but it can
accommodate itself to other things by joining with them and becoming part of a
larger reality which can fall apart.
Besides
gravitational, magnetic and electrical fields, there are many other fields as
well. They make up the basic substance of the universe.
Fields
are like whole-ons (things made of less complex things and which can also be
part of more complex things) in that they preserve themselves and also adapt.
But they also seem to have “memory” which works in such a way that past events
make future ones of the same kind more likely. Fields that do this are called
morphogenic fields; they are built up through the accumulated behaviors of the
species members.
Despite
its apparent fragmentation, the world has an inner wholeness.
And
personal wholeness is necessary for our lives to feel worth living.
---
The earth
can be seen as a patriarchal Tomb. Male adolescents just want to mate, to spill
their seed. They don’t know yet that girls are people. Their need to ejaculate
semen without regard to the feelings of females is like humanity’s attempts to
conquer the earth.
Patriarchy
is characterized by male privilege, control-of-others, sexual inequality and
the legitimization of power structures.
Like the
Titanic, patriarchy is large, phallic and unsinkable, “but sink it did.” (The
bitterness found in the feminist movement comes through here.)
---
The earth
can also be seen as a life-giving Womb. But if we call for new earth, new
society, and new religion, all based on God as Sophia/Mother, we need some
understanding of why things became the way the are in the first place.
My view
is that if we don’t know why patriarchy is there, we won’t have a very good
idea of how to get rid of it; it’s not just going to go away all by itself.
No one
benefiting from patriarchy in any way is going to give it up except for
something better. We need recovery of sacred manhood-- of the hunting culture
shamanic/trickster maleness that has no need to be afraid of women, nature,
unconscious or other persons.
---
Wessels
describes the church as a "Community of Disciples." And he says that
a church in this sense-- of disciples-- "is precisely what Jesus
undoubtedly did found.” I.e., a community of persons who are willing to listen
and learn.
And when
we listen, we hear announced three cosmic principles: diversity, interiority,
and communion (Thomas Berry's basic principles of the new cosmology).
===
An
especially stimulating chapter in this book is "The Church of Deeper
Consciousness."
It deals
with personal inner growth and development as the continuation of cosmic
evolution, and with ritual as the ordinary means to its realization.
---
A quick
summary review of Cosmic Evolution and Human Consciousness
Consciousness
is latent in matter from the start. The human person, a “free center of
consciousness,” is the “condensate” of the separate parts of the nervous system
and molecules in the brain, which themselves are made of the most basic
chemical elements.
Thus,
those things we think of as most quintessentially human-- self-reflection, free
choice, love, awareness of meaning/significance of things, life, existence--
are essential aspects of cosmic evolution.
The
universe at its most complex level, the human, is characterized by these
things. They are marginal neither to any individual, nor society, nor the
universe; they are, in fact, what the universe has been all about for the last
15 billion years.
---
Human
consciousness is latent in matter from the start. And because individuation is
fueled by ritual, and ritual is at the heart of the cosmic evolutionary
process.
---
New Story
Aspects of Traditional Christianity:
The
paschal process is intrinsic to the cosmos. How wonderful and important, then,
to celebrate the Passover Seder each year! And this-- the passover process--
seems to be precisely what the Universe is asking of the institutional church.
In a
chapter called "The Whole-archical Church" the author describes what
a church community would look like if it saw itself as a self-organizing
system.
He deals
with three problem areas: clericalism, ministry and leadership.
With
regard to clericalism, he notes that the sacred order of the universe is not
hierarchical but "whole-archical."
With
regard to ministry, he notes that biblical imagery about the Holy Spirit
describes the same thing as the psychological imagery of the Self within. The
process of individuation is the unfolding of who/what we are and are to become,
which is in our genes from the start. It follows a directive principle or
driving force that teaches and guides us and connects us with All.
With
regard to leadership, when understood as a faith community and a community of
disciples, the church promotes inner growth and development via symbolic ritual
and offers service to those in need.
Wessels
says that local churches, like bioregions, have six characteristic functions:
Self-propagation, Self-nourishment, Self-education, Self-governance,
Self-healing, Self-fulfilling.
---
The
fundamental tension between chaos and cosmos, which is always disturbing any
system, results in either disintegration or transfiguration.
Coercion
and/or disregard for others creates negative energy; openness creates positive
energy.
To keep
energy flowing, maximalize information-sharing: respect, relate and
communicate; the result is increased self-identification and identification
with the community.
But:
maintaining self-identity is only possible when the community is clear about
its inner vision, which has to be thought of as a field permeated with the
vision, where “Everybody counts and everybody contributes.”
---
The
vision is that the cosmos is the kingdom of God. The whole universe is the basilia. And if humanity is the cosmos
become conscious of itself, the church community is the cosmos become conscious
of itself as theophany.
And this
consciousness manifests itself as efforts toward reconciliation (uniting what
has become alienated, divided, separated), healing (repairing and curing the
immense damage we see around us), and liberation (freeing all who suffer from
oppression by any power).
---
Three big
concerns. The Clergy and Laity distinction is no longer viable.
Ministry
means the promotion of awareness of the Mystery always and everywhere giving
itself, and a constant challenge to whatever restricts that awareness.
Ministry
requires a call, competence and the consent of community. Leadership is functional
not ontological.
===
Another
chapter deals with the relationship between local churches and the universal
church, the primacy of Rome and infallibility, in terms of whole-ons. It really
doesn’t say much that hasn’t been said long ago. (And about which no action has
been taken in my lifetime as far as I’m aware.)
One
insight. “How then can we determine what church structures are authentic and
are unfoldings of the presence of God in the church?”
Wessels
response: “Life is intent of finding what works, not what’s ‘right.’
It is the
ability to keep finding solutions that is important; any one solution is
temporary. In an organization, there are no permanent right answers; the
capacity to keep changing, to find what works now, is what keeps any organization
alive.”
This is
that “true but irrelevant” view which has been my judgment of the church since
late childhood.
===
The book
concludes with a section relating the characteristics of the church described
here with the traditional marks of the church, “One, Holy, Catholic and
Apostolic.” I’ve added Medicine Wheel coordinates to his list.
The
church is ONE (Thinking, East, Morning, Spring): the Church of the Earth. An
Earth-based church sees the universe and cosmic All as theophany. It sees
humanity as the cosmos’ self-awareness, and the Church community as cosmos’
self-awareness as theophany.
The
church is HOLY (Intuition, West, Evening, Autumn): the Church of Expanded
Consciousness. Focused on Meaning and expanding of awareness; uses Jungian/Depth
Psychology. Promotes proclamation, owning and empowerment by earth and psyche’s
energies via ritual celebration.
The
church is CATHOLIC (Feeling, South, Daytime, Summer): the Church of World
Cultures. Concerned with sociology and cultures.
The
church is APOSTOLIC (Sensation, North, Night, Winter): the Church of the
Whole-archy. Leads to service of those in need: liberation, healing and
reconciliation-- the signs of the kingdom.
+++
No comments:
Post a Comment