Hopewit

The burning of the leaves - Binyon In a February 23 meditation by Franciscan Fr. Richard Rohr, spiritual development is proposed to happen in three stages: order, disorder, reorder. Although his meaning is often made a bit opaque by his odd use of language (invented phrases like “unitive consciousness” ) I think his stages of spiritual development resonate with my experience. Only, I would have put it like this: Order: It’s where our spiritual journey begins. We understand all things through the screen of our family and community. Challenges to our faith tenets are threatening so are often summarily rejected; the unfamiliar feels dangerous. We are spiritually self-centered; the world revolves around us and our perception of God is highly influenced by our personal needs—a struggle to make the spiritual reality match our life’s realities, alleviate our fears. Disorder: Gradually, broadening experience begins to challenge our belief in the necessity of certainty. We enco...

"When peace like a river attendeth my way . . ." The South Carolina primaries are today. The state is heavy with military training facilities and military personnel so naturally, if you want electoral traction there, you don’t bad-mouth the military. It’s also a “Bible-Belt state” and the combination raises interesting questions about the mindset of some of its residents.      Take the worldview of one John Long: As Columbia resident John Long, who attended [Marco] Rubio's morning rally on Friday, said: Military credentials are one thing; faith credentials are another.      So long as "God and country" are in the mix with the military, he said, he's happy.      "There's not a Christian church anywhere that doesn't preach exactly the same values that we preach in the military," Long said.      "The very fact you have such a strong military presence in the Bible Belt, and that's also where t...

Old Panama City New Panama City I’m a nervous flier at the best of times, and if seated just behind the wings, the perception that they might be bending during turbulence evokes visions of dire consequences . . .  if they should happen to break off. I’ve been assured that their flexibility saves them from breaking, that a rigid wing structure would make safe flight impossible.       That’s my comfort when caught in turbulence.       It may not be a totally apt metaphor for the divisive political situations we find ourselves in, but if it were, it would remind us that when rapid change occurs (political, social, religious “turbulence”), it’s not rigidity that will carry us through to calmer times, it’s flexibility . Furthermore, it’s probably somewhat unfair to equate rigidity with conservatism and flexibility with liberalism , but there’s an element of truth in doing so.       ...

"God is love, therefore love is God." A friend recently disputed this syllogism (actually only 2/3 of a proper syllogism), and rightly so. "Macaroni is pasta, therefore pasta is macaroni" illustrates this logical fallacy; pasta can be penne, linguini, spaghetti, etc. It's not necessarily macaroni even though all macaroni is pasta.       The discussion arose as part of a more general foray into the question of the church's polity regarding same-sex unions. If the assumption is that God is love, therefore love is God , it follows for some that acceptance, inclusion and equality of same-sex-united persons would be a foregone conclusion. How can Love (God) deny anyone an intimate relationship (love) with another person? If God = Love, than love is the whole point of everything and the total meaning of everything God is and desires. So there is no space among God's followers for judgment, for division, because inclusion, equality, forbearance ar...