When Pope John XXIII talked about "the signs of the times" -- poverty, nuclearism, sexism -- I began to read these new signs with a new conscience and with a new sense of religious life in mind. Most of all, I began to read the scriptures through another lens. Who was this Jesus who "consorted with sinners" and cured on the Sabbath? Most of all, who was I who purported to be following him while police dogs snarled at black children and I made sure not to be late for prayer or leave my monastery after dark? What was "the prophetic dimension" of the Church supposed to be about if not the concerns of the prophets -- the widows, the orphans, the foreigners and the broken, vulnerable of every society?
We prayed the psalms five times a day for years, but I had failed to hear them. What I heard in those early years of religious life was the need to pray. I forgot to hear what I was praying. Then, one day I realized just how secular the psalmist was in comparison to the religious standards in which I had been raised: "You, O God, do see trouble and grief. ... You are the helper of the weak," the psalmist argues. No talk of fuzzy, warm religion here. This was life raw and hard. This was what God called to account (Psalm 10:14). This was sin.
When the Latin American bishops talked about a "fundamental option for the poor," I began to see the poor in our inner-city neighborhood for the first time. When Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. finally stood up in Birmingham, Ala., I stood up, too. I was ready now. Like the blind man of Mark's gospel, I could finally see. The old question had been answered. The sin to be repented, amended, eradicated was the great systemic sin against God's little ones. For that kind of sin, in my silence, I had become deeply guilty.
I had new questions then but they were far more energizing than the ones before them. I began to look more closely at what "living a good life" could possibly mean in a world that was so full of suffering, so full of greed.
I began to realize that "a good life" had something do with making life good for other people. Slowly, slowly I began to arrive at the oldest Catholic truth of them all: all of life is good and that sanctity does not consist in denying that. Sanctity consists in making life good for everyone whose life we touch.
Benetvision Sister Joan Chittister
Joan Chittister - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sister Joan Chittister, OSB: Catholicism: A Changing Church ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o
Hell is fiction, sin is fiction, heaven is fiction, religion is fiction. The only evidence supporting those ideas are the ideas themselves, which isn't evidence.
You obviously didn't watch the latter half of the video, where he talks about the pointlessness of prayer. Because if God has a plan for each of us --- an argument often spouted by the religious --- then prayer is irrelevant.
Religion creates sickness and then offers the cure.
How convenient.
"My friends, My brothers, I am with you at last. For long have I waited to bring to you the Light of the future. My Brothers and I look to this coming time as an opportunity for Service. We, too, My friends, grow by the manifestation of this divine attribute. Naught which stems from God but serves, My brothers. Learn and believe that this is so. Through service to man, man will come to God. It was ever so. Make a life of Service your vow for the future time and know the bliss of the Love of God."
- Messages from Maitreya the Christ
If Jesus came to set mankind free of irrational law, which he did as stated in Matthew, and to atone for sin, would that include women, and the sins committed against women by men?
If Lord means master, which it does, and sin means, missed the mark, which it does, perhaps she missed the mark when she called him Master?
Jesus came to elevate mankind to their righful inheritance as valued, and worthy. He came to do that for all, not just men. If he is master, then she is slave and that goes against the teachings in the New Testament. He was raising her in status, hence all women, not demoting them. They had already been demoted, hence no need to demote them further but to raise them.
well stated. now without that perception of being separate from this infinite oneness there is no expression of this infinite oneness. ie no creation ie no us ie no you or me to interact.
ie ignorance/unawareness is mandatory for expression to occur. think about it. if infinite created us perfect like its infinite self there is no us just isness.
the necessity of creation is imperfections, which is simply unawareness.
likewise the necessity of unique souls is variety and all variety is some level of difference (ie less than) from infinite awareness.
for christians they would do well to think of adam and eve as created innocent and not sinful. ie original innocence not original sin. but the human ego takes to sin and guilt like a duck takes to water. ie sin and guilt are self confirmatory. ie look at me I am separate from God.
or as frank sang I gotta be me.
eating from the tree of knowledge is the journey of the soul defined. rather nicely I might add except it right over the christians head.
plus guilt sells like hot cakes when the collection plate is passed. :-)
But to read the Scriptures as a living voice offering insight into the world in which we live provides us with an opportunity to minister to those around us...thus affect change and exposing us to things that will change us in return. Yes, it's that strange process called sanctification.
My elderly neighbor says she appreciates me taking her to the doctor and to the grocery store and bringing over meals so much more than those people from her church who say they pray for her. (Maybe they prayed that some atheist would giver her a ride and a pot of soup?)
when he was censored by the church the local church gave me his videos and books. what a treasure.
a priest awaking is a sight to see.
I'll take it a step further. I haven't encountered anyone who hasn't taken this approach to the subject matter who seems to be in much of a position to say anything truly meaningful on the subject.
We've all got a responsibility to call attention to correct info the best way we can. I certainly hope people don't think they need everyone showing up in the religious section repeating the same old lines back to one another.
"No understanding of the spiritual crisis in the world is possible without clear consideration of causes.
According to Maitreya, complacency is the root of all evil in the world. What can be summed up as the ‘I’m all right Jack’ mentality leads both individuals and institutions to become estranged from the realities of life, and therefore to ineffective solutions. Complacency is a form of corruption which is not ‘outside’ but inside. The mind itself is potentially constructive or destructive."
- World Teacher Maitreya through an associate as reported by Share International
Lauri Lumby
Authentic Freedom Ministries
http://yourspiritualtruth.com