For the Week of December 10 and Beyond:
The Truth: Seeing Is Freeing; Freeing is Healing
I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened,
so that you will know what is the hope of God's calling,
what are the riches of the glory of God's inheritance in the saints,
and what is the surpassing greatness of God's power toward us …
- Ephesians 1:18-19
Jesus replied to Thomas, "I am the Way, and the Truth and the Life.
Everyone is on this journey deeper into Beloved Source,
and this journey is what I am here with you to reveal.
This journey into and beyond union is the wayless Way.
As it goes for me, so it goes for you."
- John 14:6 (Contemplative Inner Transformation Version, CIT)
The object of this Way is to get in touch with Higher Emotional Center
directly through love.
- Maurice Nicoll, Commentaries, "Commentary on Conscious Love," February 8, 1945, Vol. 2, p. 611
The Truth – Seeing Is Freeing; Freeing is Healing
Review and Preview
During the year 2020 we discovered that we could connect more deeply than we ever realized, even while we are physically apart. We discovered that there are many fellow pilgrims of this Way and Work all around our country and world, and we have grown deeper together. This has been a year of discovering the many ways the Work not only draws us deeper, but also draws and holds us together.
In 2020, we have been on the wayless Way of the Work. As individuals and as a community, as Work Partners and Journey Groups, we have learned how to be increasingly freed from our fragmentation, multiplicity, sleep, reactivity and negativity. We have learned how to see ourselves more truthfully and more completely. And not only see ourself for what it is and isn't – we have received the grace of understanding others as they are and aren't. As we each read this, may we celebrate the countless ways the Work has freed us a bit more from the tyranny of our unconscious depths and opened and expanded us to greater love, consciousness and understanding.
And so, it is with great anticipation that we unveil our 2021 wish and annual aim theme:
Truth Opens the Eyes of our Hearts To understand and experience a deeper seeing – through the purification and illumination of
the emotional (inner) parts of centers.
We wish to see Truth in and through all and everything; to deepen and expand our seeing, for in our seeing is freeing and in our freeing is healing.
A bit of background on the word "seeing"
It turns out truth and seeing go hand in hand. The Greek word for contemplation, θεωρία (theōría), and its various cognates, translate into English as contemplation by way of the Latin contemplatio. The root idea of the Greek word theoria, contemplation, is seeing. This is a direct bridge connecting the practice of Centering Prayer with the Work practice of self-observation.
Perhaps Plotinus, the third-century philosopher of the inner life, was to the ancient world what Thomas Keating is to us. In an illuminating teaching on the importance of contemplation, Plotinus invites us to understand that
"We must close our eyes and invoke a new manner of seeing … a wakefulness that is the birthright of us all, though few put it to use."
Echoing Plotinus, we can hear Thomas Keating's voice say, "Close your eyes and half the world goes away." And in this inner world of seeing and silence, anything is possible. And so it is that on the spiritual journey, truth and inner seeing go hand in hand.
If truth and inner seeing go together, perhaps the word "awakening" is also a synonym for seeing. The Greek word for Truth is ἀλήθεια (Alethia). This word is comprised of the negative particle "A" – meaning no, not or non. And the root Lethe – meaning sleep or forget. So, the Greek word for Truth means non-sleep. Awake. Waking. Remember!
So, Truth is that which awakens us, helps us remember ourselves and keeps us from falling back asleep. The practices of contemplation, self-observation, non-identification and Self-remembering are how we connect with Truth and get transformed by Truth. Bearing all that in mind, notice the connection between these practices. They are practices of seeing at deeper and more psychological and spiritual levels. This year's aim will be a significant fusion of the two streams that feed our church: the contemplative and the esoteric: Centering Prayer and the Work of Inner Christianity. In short:
Contemplation is a way of seeing and being seen. The Work of Inner Christianity is a way of freeing and being freed.
Paired, these practices and ideas will meet us wherever we may be on the journey. Till the end, all of us can keep consenting to seeing and being seen until completely transparent in Christ, as Christ.
Seeing and the Emotional Center
If Truth is a kind of seeing, then the Truth isn't just intellectual. It's also emotional and physical. Truth is a full-spectrum experience of both seeing and being seen. Of both feeling and being felt. Truth deeply opens, reveals and, most importantly, heals our emotional center. And in large part, it is to the mystery and beauty that is the emotional center that we will give our attention in 2021. Not just for the sake of Truth – but for the sake of Truth opening, freeing and healing the emotional center, and all its aspects and dimensions.
For some, self-discovery is frightening. That's because we often can't bear what we see. That's why we will proceed slowly, kindly and with deep empathy for the human condition. We need each other for this Work of seeing and freeing.
Finally, paradoxically, sometimes the only way we can see deeply, and see more completely, is through the darkness of unseeing -- when we walk by faith in the spiritual nights where the only Truth seems to be that we can't see anything right now. These nights also belong to the wayless Way that draws us deeper and freer of self.
Let us make a wish to continue the journey together, working ever deeper, through the nights and through the days.
We have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.
- Poet Sarah Williams, "The Old Astronomer to His Pupil"
Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a Work student who has no need to be ashamed,
rightly consenting to the word of truth.
- cf 2 Timothy 2.15
Homework
- Until we meet again on January 14, 2021, let us each Wish and Work along these lines:
Daily, take time to be still and silent and watch the morning and/or evening light, slowly fade in and out. Observe what emotions arise.
Twice daily, paired with your Centering Prayer, read out loud to yourself, using every center (intellectual, emotional and moving): Christ's revelation, "I am the Way and the Truth" allows no separation between the Way (means) and its end (Truth). Our end being transformation into Christ, when the Christian comes to the end of his journey there is the same truth he began with, only now unveiled in all its reality and marvel. The journey is one of gradual transformation, ever seeingand living more profoundlythe Truth already with us. Truth was never somewhere beyond or down the road, it is always here and now, the means (Christ) being the end Itself. - Bernadette Roberts, "Means-Ends," The Christian Contemplative Journey, Essays on the Path, pp. 237-238
Wishing you and yours a most beloved
and meaningful conscious Christmas!
Invitation: We are looking for a volunteer experienced with Mailchimp templates and e-communications to serve The Journey School in 2021. If interested, please email Pamela Begeman for more details. The commitment would be about one hour per week.
Attend tonight's class: 7pm Central Time via Zoom only.
Click on this link and Zoom should open automatically on your laptop or tablet, or
Open Zoom, click on Join Meeting and enter this meeting ID: 996-101-9778. When prompted for a Passcode, enter: CCH.
The Journey School Archive: The class content archive is organized by class and class date and includes free mp3 recordings of each class, as well as a link to the class email. The glossary of terms may be found here.
