Interfaith Services of the Lowcountry

Living in The Presence:
A Sample Spiritual Direction Dialogue

“What does it mean to live more spiritually?” Asked one of my former church members who had come in for her regular spiritual direction session with me. … Most often, she has arrived with a million things on her mind- all the usual list of duties or concerns- children, work, marriage, friends, church, etc., but today, it was different… I could sense that she was more pensive, introspective… Ready.
Once settled in her chair, she asked me the question again, “what does it mean to live more spiritually?” I paused for a moment, to listen… To discern and to make myself receptive to receiving a heartfelt reply. As I try to recall it, this is what I said:
“To live more spiritually is to be open to learning more about how best we can live in the Presence. ‘ She looked at me with a bit of a puzzled look, and offered a polite correction. “You mean to live in the present, right?” “No” I replied. I am sure that I did not get the two words confused.
After some silence, she asked, “What does living in the Presence mean?” I then offered an explanation:
“First we have to define and separate out what I mean from a lot of the New Age jargon. There is plenty of advice on the market today that urges us to live in the present moment- to avoid lingering over any regrets or not to be apprehensive about any future possibilities with their anticipatory anxieties. Over all, this is good advice… As far as it goes…

However, it still misses the mark, because it remains on the psychological level or the it only addresses the ego need for assurance and confirmation. To live spiritually, needs to have a transcendent dimension, and it requires an intimacy that often escapes our everyday awareness, or even the best of psychological advice. To incorporate, literally to enflesh the holy, asks us to be not only mindful, but also to realize our connection, our relationship to that which is larger and greater than oneself. Life and time cannot be reduced down to the feelings we need to affirm or the fears we need to avoid. Instead, consciousness, or the dimensions of the soul, are better understood as what kinds of connections we can make, what kinds of intimacy we can share, what ways life both transcends and includes the ordinary.”
She nodded cautiously, as if to agree while having her doubts…
She spoke to me about how she gets the basic idea, but is unsure about the connections I am referring to or how we can be connected to life on a deeper and larger scale. I tried to explain further:

“To be a spiritual person, is to know and be aware that there is a much larger reality that what either our culture or even our creative media proclaims. Being spiritual is , at its essence, being a warrior or being courageous enough to face one’s own darkness and welcome what those aspects of ourselves can teach us. Through our awareness we become personal alchemists- turning our personal lead into the gold of refined awareness, virtue, and values that promote compassionate connections to nature, to the world around us, to one another, and with ourselves. Being spiritual is a lifelong quest to follow the light of consciousness, to experience healing, and to foster a sustained sense of hope for the future.
It asks us to live beyond our discontents, and then live and breathe into new definitions of relational, being wise, being free yet responsible for the consequences of our lives- how we participate with others, how we function in culture, who we trust, how we love, and in what ways can we find the sacred dimension that exists in all that we say, touch, and do.
She responded with both delight and amazement.” Wow, that means whatever I call God is with me always!” “Yes!” I agreed. “But its also quite important that you do not unnecessarily limit what you mean by God, or restrict yourself to only a few ways that what is holy or divine can be known or understood. Some people will call this idea of God as Author or Source, Some prefer more classical language such as being Christ like, Krishna consciousness, Buddha nature, Holy Wisdom or Sophia. Whatever words you chose, they become the expression of your higher and deeper reality.
Whatever you desire to call it, this Love-Intelligence, is something real- a presence or a power, an energy or an effect that exists in you, around you, and can be felt when you are with others- be it your children, your lover, a close friend, or in a true spiritual community. Personally, I call this presence The Holy Spirit, or the Spirit of divine guidance and a Holy love.
(more dialogue ensues, and she speaks of a time when there was an intimacy with nature, when she experience a protective empathy or connection with the trees and fields around her childhood home…
” Yes, it often can come to us through an experience in nature, and yet, what is necessary is to realize that it is omnipresent, and that it is an omnipresence- always close at hand, IF we are willing and open to perceive it, invite it, welcome its presence within and among us. I am convinced that this is the way we humans come to experience whatever is holy or sacred in our relationships, and how it is that we can receive healing, assurance and peace.”
We ended our session shortly after this, taking some time in silence to retain what we have said, and how our words have affected us and how new ideas and realities have penetrated our awareness. She promised herself to take in these ideas more wholeheartedly, and to continue to aspire towards being open, inviting, and willingly receptive to these glimpses of grace…
As she walked out the door, my last words, as I have tried to recall them were these: “Living in the presence is not easy, but it is necessary for our spiritual and personal growth.”

After reading this sample session, I now invite you to reflect on these wise words from the Creation mystic, Meister Eckhart, who wrote:
“Spirituality is not found by taking flight from the world,
not by running away from things or feelings, but by running
into them, and running through them.
We must learn to connect ourselves to the Presence there,
no matter where we are or with whom. We must learn to
penetrate our layers of darkness in order to find our core,
our true selves. In order to find God to find peace and love,
abiding there.]”

Again, Yet, or Spill?
Taking a look at our ecological and ethical crisis, and making some soul searching conclusions about church, culture, and the changes in consciousness that are needed, and how best to take an inclusive approach to cleaning up our self created mess!

After listening intently to the President’s address last night on the disaster in the Gulf, and in conjunction with some excellent supportive quotes, from Sojourners and other sources, I would like to offer a reflection on the current… And ongoing socioeconomic and cutural-industrial crisis from a spiritual and religious point of view…

I begin by offering this quote from the poet and social critic, Mary Oliver:
We will be known as a culture that feared death and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity for the few and cared little for the penury of the many. We will be known as a culture that taught and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke little if at all about the quality of life for people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a commodity.
Mary Oliver, from her poem “Of the Empire”

From the writings of progressive Catholic theologian, Donald Gelpi, we find similar questions and an exposition of his larger ecclesial and cultural concerns. He gives us his reflections on the Spirit, the Church, and human nature in these words:

“In my darker moments I began to wonder if humans can achieve authentic faith in the Spirit in a fragmented church composed of fragmented people. Both personal and pastoral experience have taught me that our human perception of God is filtered through feeling, through image, through language, through spontaneous beliefs and prejudices. And evaluative filters can either illuminate or distort our sense of the divine.
Our creedal stance is shaped by ritual but also marred by superstition, neurosis, and human limitation. It is conditioned by history, molded by half-understood abstractions. Our denominational creeds are like the froth that scuds across beach flats in the wake of a storm. The thundering debates that engendered them have subsided into oblivion.
Because it is a form of human awareness, Spirit consciousness flickers. It has flickered in my own life. It flickers in the lives of most Christians. The forces that shape or inhibit Spirit awareness in both individuals and communities interweave in complex patterns. And unless we criticize those forces they will continue to inhibit and distort Christian awareness of the Spirit. One such force is theology.”

One of the glaring omissions so far in the Gulf debacle is the silence of a majority of our mainstream churches. I suspect that some of that reason is their lack of a theological and spiritual connection to ecology and to the ecosystem, and how some churches remain largely uninformed concerning the connection between ecology, Spirit, and life! However, there maybe a more pernicious yet largely unconscious motive which is that most churches, affecting the Protestant ones most acutely, as they have relied on laizze fare capitalism for their funding. It is speculated that 50% of the churches in the East continue to exist because of the historically generous endowments from a few generations ago, and those funds being provided by industrialists whose fortunes were amassed from a general disregard for the ecological results of their industry… and worse, the lack of a theological conscience gave an implicit permission to begin the now looming ecocide that first began with their amoral, yet all too profitable enterprises.
Complicit corporate disregard for an ecologically based consciousness has acted as a systemic and accumulating poison to the biosphere and to the point of species extinction and the endangerment of sentient life. The mounting consequences of industrial ignorance and its greed fueled incentives, has fostered an systemic corporate myopia and an economic stolidness that becomes entrenched and insistent in seeking to satisfy its rapacious and exploitive needs. As a consequence, corporate petroleum and other aggregate businesses, avidly demonstrate an almost total disregard or a glaring disrespect for the privilege of the extraction and expanding use of nature’s gracious bounty.
This alienation from the land, the self, and the patterns of connection that that exists between humanity, life, and planetary survival are just beginning to be bravely accounted for and proclaimed. Historically, our churches and our Calvinist/Protestant ancestral brands of theology have lacked either the sufficient moral courage or the ethical candor to address these issues when they first arrived on the economic and industrial scene. The devil’s bargain between Protestantism and capitalism has only superficially benefited both- the costs to the integrity of a Christ-like concern for the creation, all of its creatures, and for our sisters and brothers has become reduced to a token, if not inconsequential concern. Few churches budget for social justice or economic parity or humanitarian outreach in any substantial or meaningful way. Polite forms of charity, versus true generosity appears paramount- after all, the churches have to worry about their own survival as social intuitions, right? Its popular to ask “What would Jesus Do or What would he say?” I ask, how did the average Christian in most of our modern churches miss his disregard for money, property, and wealth? How is it that we have conveniently forgotten about
“leave everything, take up your cross, and follow me!” And other such declaratives appear regularly throughout the Gospels and their parables about how the rich are spiritually impoverished. Not that social and ecological pioneers such as Rachel Carson in the 1950′s have not tried valiantly to sound the alarm bell, its was never really heard! It has been the whining and incessant clamor for jobs, wrapped up in the prosperity myth as part of the American way of life that drowns out even the most constant and compassionate voices.
As I see it, churches, synagogues, mosques, etc., and every genuine spiritual community that is rooted in compassion and justice are now being summoned- by the tranformative archetypes of the collective unconsciousness- be they angels, dreams, intuitions, or simply empathetically attending to the overwhelming physical evidence- to compel our religious institutions to accept their moral leadership by earnestly and openly take up the gauntlet, to respond wholeheartedly to the crisis, and accelerate the growing awareness of the necessity for wholesale economic and personal change that will eventually lead to a full scale cultural transformation!

From Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners Magazine:
First, we have to change our language. This isn’t a little “spill,” it is an environmental catastrophe — the potential contamination of a whole gulf (already a third is now off limits for fishing) and hundreds of miles of coastline, and it threatens to expand to an ocean and more coastlines. It will bring the destruction of critical wetlands, endanger countless species, end human ways of life dependent upon the sea, and now, it will increase the danger of a hurricane season that could dump not just water, but waves of oil just miles inland from the coasts.

Theologically, we are witnessing a massive despoiling of God’s creation. We were meant to be stewards of the Gulf of Mexico, the wetlands that protect and spawn life, the islands and beaches, and all of God’s creatures who inhabit the marine world. But instead, we are watching the destruction of all that. Why? Because of the greed for profits; because of deception and lies; because of both private and public irresponsibility. And at the root, because of an ethic of endless economic growth, fueled by carbon-based fossil fuels, that is ultimately unsustainable and unstable.

It’s not just that BP has lied, even though they have — over and over — to cover up their behavior and avoid their obligations. It is that BP is a lie; what it stands for is a lie. It is a lie that we can continue to live this way, a lie that our style of life is stable and sustainable, a lie that these huge oil companies are really committed to a safe and renewable energy future. BP should indeed be made to pay for this crime against the creation — likely with its very existence.

But I am also reminded of what G.K. Chesterton once said when asked what was most wrong with the world. He reportedly replied, “I am.” Already, we are hearing some deeper reflection on the meaning of this daily disaster. Almost everyone now apparently agrees with the new direction of a “clean energy economy.” And we know that will require a re-wiring of the energy grid (which many hope BP will have no part in). But it will also require a re-wiring of ourselves — our demands, requirements, and insatiable desires. Our oil addiction has led us to environmental destruction, endless wars, and the sacrifice of young lives, and it has put our very souls in jeopardy. New York Times columnist Tom Freidman recently wondered about the deeper meaning of the Great Recession when he asked, “What if it’s telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last fifty years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically and that 2008 was when we hit the wall — when Mother Nature and the market both said, ‘No More.’” The Great Spill makes the point even more.

There is not one answer to this calamity; there are many: corporate responsibility, for a change; serious government regulation, for a change; public accountability, for a change; and real civic mobilization to protect the endangered waters, coasts, species, and people’s livelihoods. But at a deeper level, we literally need a conversion of our habits of the heart, our energy sources, and our lifestyle choices. At a deep level, what’s not working in the U.S. is our lifestyle — particularly the consumerist energy habits we showcase to the rest of the world. Moving toward a “clean energy economy” will require more than just a re-wiring of the energy grid; it will also take a re-wiring of ourselves — a conversion, really, of our habits of the heart. We must adjust our expectations, demands, and values.

Remember, this incident that now threatens to smear the Gulf waters is only the latest insult to the residents and wildlife of that area. First was the accumulating “dead zone in the Gulf from the toxic pesticides, chemical farming, and animal waste disposal from factory farms, then there was the disregard for adequate housing standards in the lower wards of New Orleans, and the dismal, halting and regressive response to Katrina- some five years ago which is still a pressing, stubborn problem where there are still many residents living on the edge of a social disaster. And now… We have what might be considered a deadly gas and petroleum deluge… Who could say what will be next?

There is much to be done… Starting with the basic personal steps of energy conservation in our homes and daily routines, outward to every social group we belong or support, and implore them to make visible and substantial commitments to sustainablity and to proclaim that compassionate, ethical change and the demand for a theological and religious stance that promotes ecological justice is truly a matter of moral integrity and a true case of defending natural security! (Q: What is our National Guard doing in Iraq? How much greater and more important would their presence be in assisting with in prevention and clean up- here… Where we genuinely need them!)

One last glaring point… Because of our greed and the insistence on a profitable bottom line at any cost, we have encouraged a business mentality that does not willingly take into account the consequences of its actions. Is it too far fetched, too aggressive, too interfering in the life of these multinational corporations to insist that at least 10% of their profits be reserved for safety measures, or to create an ongoing substantially funded escrow account that gives the necessary assistance to localities and communities to protect themselves from the aftermath of a soulless technology?

Of course, there are many things we can do… Some would be judged unrealistic, others too unlikely to succeed, but here is one that I received as I was completing my ideas for this blog…
I want to share this with you and ask that you take this petition seriously… And ask your church or spiritual group members to sign it, and then work for whatever reforms and changes that are needed in our country, and in our own lifestyle choices…

Dear Rev. Peter,

Every day, people ask us what they can do about the catastrophe in the Gulf. Here’s one concrete thing: end our addiction to oil.

The Center for Biological Diversity and 350.org took an historic step in the desperate fight against climate catastrophe when we petitioned the EPA to establish a national cap for greenhouse gas pollution under the Clean Air Act. The petition seeks to cap atmospheric CO2 at 350 parts per million, the level leading scientists say is necessary to avoid the worst impacts of global warming.

More than 100 groups signed on in support of our legal petition. Tens of thousands of individuals are lending their names, including the nation’s preeminent climate scientist, Dr. James Hansen, author Barbara Kingsolver, musician Bonnie Raitt, and actor Ed Begley, Jr.

Please take one minute to join us in moving toward a real solution to oil spills by calling on the EPA to do its job as science, the law, the tragedy in the Gulf, and common sense require. Sign the People’s Petition to Cap Carbon at 350 parts per million today.

And if you’ve already signed the petition, thank you. But to reach 500,000 signatures, we need your help again. Please commit to getting just 10 friends to sign the People’s Petition to Cap Carbon at 350 parts per million. You can forward this email or share this link on your Facebook page.
Click here to find out more and sign the petition.
If you have trouble following the link, go to http://action.biologicaldiversity.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=2773.

Petition:

I support the legal petition filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and 350.org to the EPA to cap atmospheric carbon dioxide levels at 350 parts per million — the level science says is necessary to avoid the worst impacts of global warming — under the Clean Air Act.

For four decades, the Clean Air Act has protected the air we breathe through a proven, successful system of pollution control that saves lives and creates economic benefits exceeding its costs by many times. It’s time to fully use one of our strongest existing tools for reducing greenhouse gas pollution: the Clean Air Act.

Now is the time to enforce the Act, not gut it. I urge you to move swiftly to grant the petition and enforce the Clean Air Act.

i thank god for this amazing day

i thank god for this amazing day, for leaping greenly spirits of trees and blue true dream of sky, and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes

I who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun’s birthday, this is the birth day of life and love and wings: and of the gay great happening illimitably earth

how should tasting touching hearing seeing breathing any– lifted from the no of nothing– humanly merely being doubt the imaginable you?

now the ears of my ears awake and now the ees of my eyes are opened!
e.e. cummings

May your life be like a wildflower, growing freely in the beauty aand joy of each day…
Native American proverb

We are one, ater all, you and I; together we suffer, together we exist, and forever will recreate each other.
Pierre Teihard de Chardin

From the book, A Year With Rilke, his selection for June 21st:

Constellation
Look at the sky. Is there no constellation named Rider?
For the image is imprinted on the mind: this arrogance made from Earth and a second one astride,driving him, and holding him back.

Hunted, then harnessed: Isn’t this the sinewqy nature of our being?
Path and turning, a touch to guide. New distances.
And the two are one.

But are they? Or is it only the going that unites them? When they stop
they belong again to table or pasture.

The starry patterns fool us, too. Still it pleases us for a moment to believe in them. That is all we need.
Sonnets to Orpheus I,11

Myth Deprivation
Excerpts from a reflection by Eugene Kennedy from his book, The Joy of Being Human, for June 22nd…

Dr. Jan Ehrenwald, a psychiatrist, suggested that [we moderns] suffer from what he has called “myth deprivation.” … He means that {humanity] needs myths in which to believe– not fairy stories but the kinds of legends through which through which we pass on basic truths about ourselves–just as [we] need heroes to imitate and great visions to lead him on. When [humans] make ruin of their myths, turning everything sour and making antiheroes to stand over the graves of the dead gods, when men, in other words, tangle the lines of their own belief systems, they can only surrender themselves to the winds of fate. What we understgand about [humankind] at this time in historyconfirms something that should never have been forgotten: [Humans] cannot survive without beliefs any more than they could survive without air or water. [[we doe not reach or attain our fullsense of personhood] unless or until one searches for what is trustworthy, unloess he or she opens themselves up to some way of explaining the world and one’s life. It is a strange thing that this need keeps reasserting itself , no mtter how often it is thought to have been eliminated for good.
….dreams…
[Our human need to believe is obvious. Desperate things happen to us when we abandon the possibilities of faith and trust. We become more primitive and less like a human being....] What [humanity] needs is th rediscover the dreams he needs to put him or herself back together as a person. This is religious business, not a humanistic sideline, and it is an effort to which we all can contribute as long as we perserve the capacity to trust and the will to make that practical in the lives of those with whom we live.

The Sun, The Soul, and the Longest Day:
A Consideration of the solstice points in one’s life
The Rev. Peter Edward Lanzillotta, Ph.D.

This morning, my topic for you goes beyond the usual confines of academic religion, and those ethical and justice themes that liberal religious outlooks are so well known for presenting. Today’s theme is a mythopoetic one- it’s about symbols and syncronicites and the archetypal connections between the yearly cycle of the Sun, the solstice, and the changes in one’s life; the revolutions of the heart, the seasons of the soul.
The inescapable importance of the warmth and light of the Sun on earthly life cannot be disputed. We know that the Sun and sunshine affects all life cycles and the patterns of growth in all living things. I propose, through the connections and corelatons of myth and metaphor, that the Sun has other influences on us- on our psyches, our attitudes, our sense of self and soul in the context of wholeness and life.
The light, heat, vitality and energy we unselfishly and indifferently receive from the Sun have been known to affect people’s moods and temperaments. We have all heard of situations and conditions wherein the amount of sunshine is involved a person receives changes or alters their mood and attitude towards daily life. In warm climates or prolonged humidity, the extra sun of the summer can make them testy, aggressive and “hot under the collar.
Where I came from in New England it was the opposite. The lack of sun was always blamed, along with the local weatherman predictions, for people being grumpy, pessimistic, and impatient for the spring thaw and desire to feel the summer’s warmth.
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In psychological theory and literature, there seems to be a strong connection between people’s moods and the amount of sunshine they receive- there is even a recognized mental or emotional illness called SAD (Seasonal Adjusted Disorder) where a person has to have artificial sunlight installed in their home to cure certain forms of depression. That certainly gives validity to the claim that the Sun does certainly affect us on many levels!
The Sun corresponds poetically to what Emerson called the Soul of the Whole. Its effect on our existence are a sum total, for it directly and unmistakably influences all of life. Much earlier in human culture, during the Renaissance, people were much more in touch or in tune with the cycles of the Sun, and how it affected their city and rural life. The philosopher and alchemist Marsillo Ficino, writing in his metaphysical treatise on the planets, put it this way:
[Our sun, besides maintaining the particular power of itself
promotes the common power of life all through us, but especially
through the heart, the source of intimate fire for the soul. Similarly, the World Soul flourishes through the Sun, unfolding and shining, giving us the common power of life.

In later contemporary language, we have the observations of Carl Jung and Thomas Moore, a Jungian trained theologian whose book, Care Of The Soul and other works have become popular. Carl Jung spoke of this tendency and recommends that we maintain our connection to the Sun and the Soul. He gave this statement for our consideration. He said that:
The concept of Sol or the Sun [has much] to do with the growth
of modern consciousness- especially as we derive and connect the observations of the natural world with our inner being.”

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In his first book, The Planets Within, Thomas Moore makes this observation and conclusion:
There is a solar consciousness, an awareness of the spiritual value in material things, bringing these things to life, animating them … giving them soul.”

This ability of the Sun to influence us can be taken one step further. As our emotional patterns and possibilities are very much a part of each of us, so too, it could be said that the Sun adds to the vitality and to the clarity of our identities; that the Sun affects the human soul or psyche as well. Moore points out that we should read these mythic and astrological symbols as an internal landscape, not as hard science. He favors the view that the symbolic qualities of the planets, the Sun and the Moon, and the stars of the heavens, create for us distinct patterns for discernment- they create patterns not only in the night sky, but also in our psyches- [a sky-chart within. The planets in this sky within, somehow correspond with the deeply felt movements and inclinations of the soul.] In the mythopoetic language of astrology and mythology, these movements and the patterns they create, can be seen as celestial clues to our internal workings, and their movements might be barely perceptible at first, but within time can be cumulative and transformative.
We will soon celebrate the summer solstice- the day in astronomy where the sun shines for the longest time, creating the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. The opposite occurs on or about December 21, some six months away. That is the time of the winter solstice, when we experience the least amount of sunshine, or what we call the shortest day of the year. Just to round out this quick refresher in Astronomy 101, the days in March and
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September when there is equal or a balanced amount of day and night are called the vernal and autumnal equinoxes.
From a mythical viewpoint, one that can connect a deep sense of light to the energy within us, the experience of the light and warmth of the Sun gives our souls a clue for their best expression. The length of daylight corresponds to the time we are urged or encouraged to go or be outdoors in the light, and the sun also signals when it is best for our psyches or souls to seek the darkness for contemplation and rest.
The longest time period for light and outward energies occurs during June-July and the Shortest time occurs between December and January. In the time of increasing light, the soil and the soul warms to invite growth, expansion and the planting of seeds. Fertile possibilities now can take root, and grow in the earth and in our minds and hearts. In this time of the expansion of light and heat, plants grow to the peak of their height and ripeness, and the creative energies of nature dominate landscape and life. As this time period applies to humans, what seems to happen more in June or July than any other time of the year?
Hmm… let’s see… traditionally there are more weddings during this time period than any other… more children are conceived …. more people graduate, ripen, mature or move out and away,, further up and into the world…. are there any others you can name or add?
Conversely, what could be said about the shortest days? They correspond to an ingathering, a more restful, contemplative and focused energy- a time for reading, introspection, meditation, evaluation and for welcoming more warmth and quiet into our lives.
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I suspect that is one of the psychic reasons that the crass, commercial crunch of Christmas is so hard to endure… It goes against the natural rhythms of sun, soul, and life! But since it is an artificial holiday anyway, I am all for simplification. Christmas is more accurately celebrated on January 6th or if celebrating Jesus, more likely that he was born in early February or March- but that’s another sermon!
The reason for bringing your attention to these cycles and seasons of the Sun, and their potential effects on us, is my concern for the health and well being of each of you as a spiritual and soulful person. In the fields of transpersonal psychology and theology where I make my academic home, it is affirmed and supported that when a person, or a culture, or a nation loses its sense of natural rhythms, cycles and seasons, it endangers their soul; it puts at risk our needed attunement to nature as sacred, which results in a loss of regard for our needs to nurture and reflect, express and create along with these natural cycles.
In astrological and mythological symbolism, the sun has come to represent the core, true individuality of a person, as opposed to the learned personality these cultural ideas and attitudes that comprise social conduct, behaviors, perceptions, and outlooks. The Sun is the signature self; how we most naturally relate to what is sacred and holy in ourselves, in others, and in nature; The Sun reveals how we best express the gifts and graces, talents, desires, and skills of this life.

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It is postulated by soul-centered therapists and clergy that when a person or a culture forgets about the sun and the seasons, they lose contact with the essentials of life- the more heart-centered empathetic and nurturing ways that make relationships more enjoyable and a gratitude for life and love more sustainable.
A couple of provocative, maybe loaded questions:
Do you feel that our society has lost touch with these seasons and reasons? How can we best recover our souls?
Maybe it is that need to recognize and affirm natural ways and cycles of revealed truth that is behind our church membership’s interest in recapturing many of the Native American celebrations, or the Wiccan and Celtic wisdom traditions, that clearly celebrate the seasons with reverence and delight???
Going a little deeper, we can see in the mythical literature a need to look to the Sun and the seasons as ways to define our inner being. In The Upanishads, the ancient sacred texts of Hinduism, we are given a reply to the question the Brahman asks of Ajuna, one of the gods of light and life:
“[Who are you? ... I am a season, and the child of the seasons. I am sprung from the womb of infinite space, the seed of the husband and the wife, I am the light of the year, the Self of all that is; and whatever you are, I am also. ... I am but a phase of the universal life, and a child of the manifest cycles... I am a spark of the Divine, evolved through the cycle of the twelve stages, and by my means, is all growth accomplished.]”

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Moving to the consideration of the solstice as the longest and shortest days, we are given the contrasting image and the complementary rotations or resonance that represents the revolving seasons of the soul. One definition of the cycles of the year and the seasons is this; A year, in the life of day and night, is the way the soul moves, manifests and matures itself.
Some of the physical phenomena that can have mythopoetic and metaphysical correlation’s are these: The solstice points are the only time in the whole year that the Sun stays stationary or is seen as standing still. This station can be seen as a time of concentrated self or soul energy that reinforces what you know about yourself and can affirm the next steps in your path to more complete selfhood. Second, the two solstice points act as complementary and supplementary mirrors of beginnings and endings. The solstice points act as the mirror that has two faces- one summer one is concave- a view that elongates the search for authenticity and true definitions, and the winter one has a convex face that widens and deepens introspection, assessment, discipline and inner peace. These points at the beginning of the summer and the winter act as the two faces in the mirror of our being. They complement one another by showing our psyches our inner make-up- the inner impulse that portrays how we can be attracted to the new search, and they place before us the completion of an important life’s task– These two points give us a special time for expressing and then for integrating what you know about yourself.
Lastly, the solstice points are an opportune and gracious time for the recapturing and the reconnecting of your personal and relational missing links- those parts of you that you had previously let go or places in your life where you have felt lacking or that something is missing.
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The solstice time period offers us the spiritual opportunity that gives us time and energy to reclaim and reconnect them. From these phenomena, we gain insights into our soul life. From these celestial cycles, we find a path to our inner work, our inner release.
As the seasons transpire, circling the cosmos in their divinely ordered rounds, we who value renewal and the potentials for self and soul, are urged to align and attune ourselves to these cycles, and adjust ourselves to accepting that we are creatures who need to heed the rhythm and flow of energy and life.
A parting thought, from one of my recent research projects about connections and correlation’s between grace and time:
“[We live in a soul-centered universe, and all beings share in the blessed perpetual motion of the world within and the world without. At the very center and circumference of life is the Anima Mundi, the World Soul represented symbolically by the Sun. This world soul beckons us to heed the rhythms of existence, drawing us into the ever-flowing constant relationship to all that is and all that could be. ...
These cycles of time and awareness are ours to comprehend; to translate and apply to the complex world of human understanding and behavior.
By following the mythic path of The Sun that will reveal out inner and outer connections to a more seasonal, sensual and soulful life, we can find more of the answers to how our restless, wandering souls can search and find our true selves.]”

Happy Solstice…
and may the blessings of the long time Sun be with you!

Invocation/Offertory/Benediction Merton and Zen
Two monks, one a Christian and the other a Zen disciple were walking together, discussing spiritual ideals as they went along…. The Christian asked, ” Where is the Buddha? the Zen monk replied,” Buddha is found or remains in whatever give up or throw away. ( from yourself ) Persisting, the Christian then inquired, Who is Buddha? and the Zen monk replied, ” Who are you?” Turning the tables, we are given the Koan in Western terms… The Zen monk asked, ” Where is Christ?” The Christian monk answers, ” Christ is found in the first and in the last, in the beginning and in the ending” Persisting, the Zen monk inquires, ” Who is Christ?” and the Christian monk states, ” Who are you?”

Offertory Statement
Before I grasped Zen, mountains looked like mountains, and rivers like rivers. WHen I got into Zen, mountains no longer were just mountains, and rivers were no longer just rivers. But when I understood Zen, mountains were mountains, and rivers were rivers.
Before I grasped the essence of church, money was just money and community was just community. When I got into the essence of church, money was no longer just money and the community was no longer just a community. But when I understood the meaning of church and community, money was money and community was community. The offertory koan for the support of this church community will now be inscrutably understood and received.

Benediction:
In the words of Eckhart, Christianity and Zen merge… For this I know :The only way to live is like a rose, which can live without knowing why.

Selected Reading: Meditation by Thomas Merton

“[ Meditation is spiritual work, sometimes difficult work. But it is the work of love and of desire. It is not something that can be practiced without effort, at least in the beginning. And the sincerity, humility, and perseverance of our efforts will be proportionate to our desire. This desire, in turn, is a gift of grace. Anyone who imagines that they can progress in mediation without praying for the grace to continue, will soon give up. ... Meditation is almost all contained in this one idea: the idea of awakening our interior self and attuning ourselves inwardly to the presence of the Holy Spirit... In mental prayer, in silence and in attunement, we must allow our interior perceptions to become refined or purified. Some of those perceptions will not fit our idea of the spiritual life at all, which serves to humble us. Much of the coldness and dryness in modern prayer will be an unconscious defense against the grace that threatens the ego or that unsettles and changes us.... Without realizing it, life without prayer and meditation desensitizes us so that we can no longer perceive grace, listen for our inner voice, receive intuition, or be open to emptiness and the fullness that is found in Christ.

Meditation is then always to be associated in practice with abandonment to the will and action of God.... Meditation that does not seek to bring our whole being into conformity with God's will must remain sterile and abstract. But any sincere ,interior prayer and meditation cannot fail to be rewarded by grace. ...

And as St. Theresa of Avila believed, no one who was faithful to the practice of prayer and meditation could ever lose their soul, and would gain a clear and calm sense of Paradise.]”

Pastoral Reflection: Eckhart looks at the interior life .

Thomas Merton looked for a Christian mystic that closely resembled or who intuitively understood Eastern mysticism and the philosophy of emptiness known as Zen. He found the person that even the Hindu, Jain, Buddhist and Zen contemplative call one of their own: Meister Eckhart. “[ The shell must be cracked apart if what is in it is to come out, for if you want the kernel, you must break the shell. And therefore, if you want to discover God's nakedness, you must destroy its symbols, and the farther you get into the core or kernel of spirituality, the closer and emptier you become, until you come to the essence. When you come to the One truth the One reality that gathers all things into itself, there you must stay.] … I pray God will rid me of God, and that the highest thing that one can let go of is to let go of God, for the sake of God. ” The spiritual life, for students of Zen, for disciples of mystical Western teachings, for U-U’s, is to rid oneself of all the negative images of God, all the false or harmful teachings, the judgmental beliefs, the punishing practices, the superficial use of symbols. . . and move one’s awareness past all those associations and experiences to the center or the essence of oneself, and there in the profound quiet and emptiness, God will live and become known to you.