All posts by Jonah

Thirsting for Living Light

The daffodils, the lilies and tulips have wrested themselves free of the weight of earth. Their thirst for the sun’s rays has overcome the downward pull of the mud. And in the Sun’s power of attraction, the blossoms open and are filled with light.

Every human soul is also a flower longing to bloom. For the destiny of every human being is to blossom and be filled with His light, permeated with Gods warmth. And yet, like the flower, what fuels our journey to the Son is not our personal power but our thirst, our need for His liquid rays. Like the flower, what sustains our journey to God is not our might, but that our thirst for the Son overcomes the pull of our darkness. That is why we pray at the altar, ‘Therefore make strong, oh Christ, that in me which wrests itself free of the load of sin…and …joins with You!’

Dear friends, there is indeed something called The Law of Attraction. But the true law of attraction does not come from thinking only positive thoughts or the power in our hearts to imagine what we want, despite what the popular books say. But just like the flower, who is pulled up through the longing for the sun AND down by gravity, the true law of attraction for the human soul lives BOTH in the power of the spiritual sun of Christ as well as in the downward pull of our darkness. The only question remains is what are we more thirsty for? His light or the obsession with our darkness? For whatever we fill ourselves with, that we become.

In the Act of Consecration, our sacred service, we practice thirsting for Christ. For our work at the altar is nothing more than opening ourselves to Christ’s longing to be close to us. May we let him in! May we drink his living light!

This contemplation by Rev. Evans is inspired by the Tulip.

God in Us

“…Only he who feels this kingliness, this divinity of love itself, will become quite free from the secret desire for recognition and gratitude. He knows that such love is the only possible divine attitude towards all beings. For the highest God has nothing above him, but everything under him. His life can only consist in this: that he turns to those that are under him. One has not yet any real divine life within one if one does not feel that God seeks in us also those who need help. Only in the kingdom of love does one find that God is really in us.”

Friedrich Rittelmeyer, Founding Priest of The Christian Community, from his book ‘Meditation’.

Giving Gold

Only one thing has changed at the altar as we move from Easter to Ascension. The green on the chasuble has become gold. But how does green become gold?

Green is made of yellow and blue. But any artist will tell us that we cannot get gold simply be adding more of what is already there, more yellow or blue. We must add something that is not there yet. We must give gold to green.

At Ascension, every human soul is called to become spiritual artists and give to the green of nature, golden substance. For since the Christ has disperesed his essence throughout the atmosphere and in the depths of our hearts, our human task is to now paint into nature the colour that it is lacking. Our mission is to give to nature the golden substance of love.

For everywhere in nature we find wisdom, but not love. The lion is guided by the wisdom of ‘lion-ness’ but never will ask itself if killing the dear is a good or loving thing to do? The leaves on the trees transform carbon dioxide into nourishing oxygen for us. But they do it not out of love but the wisdom that has been laid down by the Gods into the leaf. It is our task, the human task, since the Ascension, to give to nature the love that it lacks.

Dear friends, in this way, the green of nature has become our canvas. The golden substance of Christs love, our paint. And the human heart is our brush.

 

This contemplation by Rev. Evans was inspired by Ascension.

Holy Spirit

“Whoever knows my aims and takes them into his will…” (John 14)

From Easter morning onwards the disciples walk for 40 days with the Risen One. But they are as if in a dream, not fully conscious, often not even realizing who He is.

Then the flame of the Holy Spirit comes over them after 50 days and enlightenment comes to them. They understand the true nature of Him, who walked with them. They start to remember all that they experienced before and after the Deed of Life and Death on Golgotha. This knowledge kindles in their souls and from then on they go out into the world, able to speak His words and do His deeds.

They have taken His aims into their will.

Christ is in us. He walks with us every day of our lives. And yet, we are hardly aware of his presence. Unrecognized He is at our side, as he was with the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Unrecognized He speaks to us, as He spoke to them.

The gift of the Holy Spirit, our growing consciousness and knowledge will help us understand His aims and kindle our own soul forces. Then also we can go out into the world, speaking His words, fulfilling His deeds. Everything we do will be permeated by His light.

Thus He speaks to us:

“Whoever knows my aims and takes them into His will, he it is who truly loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.” (John 14)

This contemplation by Rev. Contreras was inspired by the living Christ.

Unnatural Love

Now that spring finally has arrived everything in nature is coming to life again. The flow of juices in
trunks, stems and vines travels upward into the farthest reaches of the branches, letting new leaves unfold from buds and flowers grow. A branch grows from the trunk or vine it is connected to. It is fed by the vine by a simple act of nature.
There is no need for the branch to be aware of this process or to contemplate it in any way. The branch has no need to feel anything for the vine. It does not need to love it. Nature has put them together and nature will let them grow.

How different is it for us humans! We have grown from a spiritual source as branches grow from a vine, but we have long since become disconnected from it and feel its loss. Like the branches in the gospel (John 15) we are in danger of drying up inside, of being cut off from the last remnants of the spirit – or rather cutting ourselves off. Our connection to the spirit is not – as it still was in very ancient time – a naturally given one. It is one that needs our awareness, one we need to achieve.

Our connection to the spirit needs a deed – the deed of Love. True love is a deed that connects us to each other and to the spirit. It is a deed that connects us to Christ. He himself has gone through the Mystery of Life and Death on Golgotha as a deed of love to be connected to us.

Through this connection our love streams to him and his love to us, giving us life. Through this love we can bear much fruit.

This contemplation by Rev. Contreras is inspired by John 15.

Our Sacred Name

We are all becoming sheep. For becoming sheep means that within each one of our hearts there lives the voice of Christ. He calls us by name and asks us to follow. He leads us to true nourishment and life. And yet, in our Gospel today, this nourishment, this abundant life where Christ is leading us looks very different than what we might imagine. For we hear that the Good Shepherd is offering up His life for the sheep, so that the sheep can have life. For the Good shepherd, abundant life is not having it all, but giving all for the life of others.

But if He is to lead us to this life, do we know His voice? Can we hear Him calling our name?

For the true name etched into the spirit of every human being is “Loving in Freedom” because freely choosing to love the world in a unique way, gives the soul its real meaning. ‘Become a being that freely loves’, this is the sound of His voice.

And yet there are so many other voices in us, so many thieves and robbers. Those voices would tell us cynically that really we only ever serve ourselves. Those voices would tempt us not to love others, but that it is because of others that we suffer. The robbers and thieves in us steal abundant life by enticing us to put our energy into blame, justifying ourselves, comforting ourselves.

Dear friends, Christ is calling each one of us by our sacred name, but to follow this call we must discern His voice and find our sheep. For at the end, on our deathbed, our lives will feel meaningful only to the extent that we are able to love.

This contemplation by Rev. Evans was inspired by John 20 and The Good Shepherd.

The Risen One Has Wounds

In our gospel today, Thomas recognizes The Risen One by touching His wounds. Its not majestic light or profound wisdom that awakens Thomas. For Thomas, the wound is the very doorway to knowing Christ.

Every human soul, each one of us is also a Thomas. For in our time, we are called to know the living Christ, not merely believe. And like Thomas, we too cannot know the Christ in us, the Christ in others unless we touch the wound. However, even though every human being is wounded, not everyone’s wounds reveal The Risen One. If the wounds we carry are infected and closed up, full of resentment, bitterness and anger toward the world, then Christ remains un-raised in us. But if our wound is the very thing that has cracked us open to the light, so that from our wound peace, tenderness and love ray out to human beings, then Christ comes alive in us.

Dear friends, this is why the Risen Christ always appears in the gospels and in our lives with wounds and with peace. For The Christ in us in not how wise, light-filled or free from pain we are. The Christ in us appears when peace-filled love, streaming through our brokenness, touches the hearts of others.

This contemplation by Rev. Evans was inspired by John 20

 

What Leads Us to Easter?

On Holy Saturday, everything outside was covered in ice. The branches had become flutes of glass. And the rays of light that glistened through the ice, quickly melted the crystal garden.

And yet, throughout Holy Week we have heard in our passiontide epistle not of rays of light, but of a ray of grief. That in a ‘grave of hope, a ray of grief penetrates our gaze’.

At Holy Saturday, the transition from the cross to the resurrection, we can ask what is it that leads us to new life? What is it that allows resurrection to find us?

Like the sun melting the ice outside with its rays, the human soul must allow the light of the cross to melt us- the light of the cross to inspire us to let go. For the ray of grief that is meant to enter our gaze is the knowledge that we must let go of that which is of the old self, that we must let go of that in us that no longer serves the higher. We must be willing to die if the new is to be born. And this is a grief because we have grown to love our worn out selves. This dying is also grief because its hard to let things go that we have carried so long.

Dear friends, it is only hope and the knowledge that we must die that will lead us to Easter. May our hearts truly hear Him who speaks to all human beings preparing for resurrection: O man, from a grave of hope, a ray of grief penetrates your gaze.

This contemplation by Rev. Evans was inspired by our Passiontide Liturgy.

He is the Creative Process

Old forces and new forces, old worlds and new worlds coexist. They are present at the same time and complement each other. They overlap each other. But the transition from something old into something new is frequently hard and does not necessarily come naturally. The more radically different old and new are from each other, the harder it gets.

It is hard for us to let go of things we have grown accustomed and attached to. It is hard to embrace
new ideas and new ways of thinking, new places and new people, different ways of living. And
sometimes it is hard to change just one tiny little habit…

When Christ enters into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday the Gospel tells us a curious story. Christ is riding on a donkey – but according to the words of the Gospel he is also riding on the donkey’s foal. Thus, in a picture, we are told how he bridges two different states of being – one old, one new.

In Christ is present that mysterious element that is able to lift up the old and transform it, resurrect it, into something entirely new. He is the living transition. He is the creative process that takes us unto a higher plane of existence.

We welcome Christ into our soul and he will walk with us, steadfastly, through old and new, through
death and life and, just as the black colour of Passiontide turns into Easter-Red, through the transitions in our lives and in our beings.

This contemplation by Rev. Contreras was inspired by Palm Sunday.

Seeing with Love

It is said that love is blind. Many of us have experienced this; a love that is so enthralled with someone, so head over heals with someone or something that we don’t notice the shadows, the red flags, the weaknesses of our beloved. The bliss and pleasure of falling in love makes us blind.

And yet there is a deeper kind of love, a love that is not blind, a love that is not limited to pleasure but can hold pain.

For in our gospel today (John 8 the woman who committed adultery), the one who is Love shows it to us. Christ’s love sees fully the accussed woman. He sees fully her shadows and sins but does not judge or dismiss her. His love also sees fully her becoming, her potential true humanity. Christ shows us a love that accepts and feels the pain of each others failings and weaknesses, while at the same time always holds each heart in its highest light.

And this love can live in us…

By practicing bearing with each others painful weaknesses without blame or condemnation, by practicing remembering the highest in each one of our brothers and sisters no matter how irritating they are.

This is Love. 

This contemplation by Rev. Evans was inspired by John 8