As spring buds forth your praise, O Christ, We too proclaim you Lord and Lord, For in your person we have passed From exile to our Father's throne. Compassion like the wind you could bring, Has raised the radiant world restored, Flung open is the realm of life, To all whose life proclaims you Lord. New life springs up where all hope seems dead, As you throw down the walls we build, Walls of self-love like prison through, The resurrection life now gives. Amen.

[01:20]

I'm going to try to capture some of the main points that came to me this morning. I think Friday night first setting the situation that I think every human being struggles with the meaning of life. What is the meaning of life? And in order to clarify the meaning of life, one must clarify the meaning of birth and death. And we mentioned that how all religions have to face this and try to clarify it, all philosophies, all cultures have to try to come up with some classification of what is the meaning of birth and death in order to find the meaning of existence. And then we looked at Friday night also the fact that Christians gravitate far more towards birth than death. And tend to avoid the death thing, thus the importance of Christmas. And we mentioned that maybe even the Easter Triduum isn't as important because of the practice of infant baptism

[02:40]

which kept the emphasis on birth, the beginning of human life, which is then you tend to think of Christmas all the time. And that moved us then to, that being true, yet the Church continues to proclaim the centrality of the pastoral ministry, which is the ministry of birth and death. Death, resurrection, death, new life. The centrality of that ministry for Christian life and really from a Christian point of view for all life, for the whole Council. And we looked at even how the formation of the Scriptures and the whole birth of the Church arose from that event. That that event was a light that, even for Jesus' own consciousness, revealed the significance of his life more deeply. But more than casting a light on the meaning of life, it also has had some effective role. It has effective light. And then we said, well then let's look at, and that's where we went into the second talk, especially Saturday morning.

[03:46]

Let's look at that event. And we started to look at the strange paradox of birth, not so after death, as we might tend to think of the pastoral ministry, but trying to just explore that birth right in death and death in birth, Jesus reveals. And so you can't separate the two. But to keep the two together is the key to finding what's the secret pigment then, which is the secret for my life. And then we said he also reveals the full significance of sin death. And we brought in a lot of different theologians talking about that. That what we see in using our icons, we see depicted in the iconography and the art, the aspect of sin death. That which seeks to, as that line says, completely set a boundary on life. And that's it. A prison. That's what we were just saying, this tomb, you know, that locks us in.

[04:48]

And the alienation and separation of sin death. And the division within the person and between persons, and even with people of nature. And then we looked at what Jesus did. The same prop reveals Jesus' victory over sin death by love death. And we explored that, which is a true death, but it's a different kind of death. And that's why, classically, we have always said that phrase, by his death, he has destroyed death. And we said, how can death destroy death? How can seemingly the one who's been destroyed by death, conquered by death, actually conquer death? And we said, through another death. And Jesus fully said, he's the one who fully faces sin death, like no other human being, and exposes it. And takes the horror mask off death. And in some way, takes the power off death. And then, as we heard, it's funny that I ended up being the reader, and as I read last night, you know,

[05:52]

that he freely chooses death. He doesn't choose sin death. He experiences that, and it's not just his own, it's all of reality. All of humanity, but even sin death as it is a creation, according to their Christian point of view. He takes all of that, and makes a love death, an act of love death. Complete surrender, and points out the father to come. So then we went to, in the afternoon yesterday, looking at the problem of trust and fear. You know, we have difficulty with love death, because we have a fear of sin death, because we experience hurt in our lives. And we see sin death as the great wound, the great power that can hurt us, because it'll take away everything. It'll be the great event of loss. And then Jesus, we took the scene of the upper room, Jesus and John appearing to the disciples, with Thomas not there, and then with Padre Thomas there.

[06:57]

And Jesus encountering them, still locked in that fear, and saying peace, the deepest significance of that peace. And then that leads us to today. And I want to start with, today's going to be kind of an unusual talk in some ways, but remember I'm just exploring here. Trying to maybe push the way we normally think about these things, and to think about it in a different way. It's not a question of being right or wrong, it's just thinking differently, and extending the parameters of our normal way of thinking. I had an experience here that was quite an unusual experience for me. Two years ago, a group of us were going to a meeting, and we were going to spend the night at the Tassajar Zen Center in Karmel Valley. And we'd been planning for weeks and weeks. And I had never been there, I think almost all of us hadn't. And it was going to be, you know, part of a dialogue with their tradition and our tradition.

[08:04]

And we left at dark, you know, it was five o'clock in the morning, it was still dark. And it was the end of August, early September, and it was still, the drought was still going on. And there were a lot of deer that were coming down on the road. So we were driving in our minivan, and it was packed, and we were all, surprisingly, even though it was early, we were all, for months, we were all chatting away like crazy. And at a certain point, I saw the light hitting, our car light hitting the eyes of the deer and making them, you know, that red flash look way off to the side, which was actually the water side of the road as we were going north. Which was just maybe two miles south of Pestilence. And I said, oh, you know, watch out for the deer. He said, oh yeah, I see it, I see it. And the deer was completely motionless, just looking as we were going along probably at a clip of 45 miles an hour or something like that. Well, the deer's hearing, just as we're starting to get close enough to pass the deer, it lunges out towards our vehicle.

[09:09]

And the driver, the brother that was driving, you know, grabs the steering wheel and starts to apply the brakes. And lets out a, oh, as it looks like there's nothing I can do. It's almost like saying, what? It's like a rendezvous with the car, there's nothing I can do. And I was in the seat right behind and I'd been talking to the two front people, so I was kind of leaning on the edge. And as the deer came up to the lights, its eyes met my eyes. And seemingly oblivious to about what was going to happen to it. And I was really, what would be the word, I was held by the eyes looking at my eyes. And then the moment was intact.

[10:14]

And the whole time I'm looking at this, and the deer died, you know, and so did our car. The radiator was shot and we never went. And the deer died within a moment, you know, on the side of the road. But there was just a silence and a heaviness that pervaded the whole group. There was, first of all, an experience of the death of our plans. That had been weeks and weeks in the planning. And we knew we couldn't continue. And we didn't think we'd be able to get another vehicle. And the times had called and somebody picked us up and we had to get to a phone, all of that stuff. And it was interesting to see the grief and the different things. Some didn't seem to talk about that first. Oh, darn it, that's it. And for me, I was still caught up with the deer because of that moment of engagement.

[11:15]

And I spent a lot of time reflecting. In fact, in the later homily, it had come to mind, preparing and giving a homily. And I think as I impacted, what was I experiencing? I saw myself as both in the car and in the eyes of the deer. As both realities. And at that point, just before impact, the car was a weapon. I was aware that I was inside a weapon. Like a spear of an ancient hunter about to penetrate into the game. Breaking through the circle of life that surrounded that animal and about to enter into it. And I was that spear. I was death confronting life. But I was also, in the deer, life confronting death.

[12:17]

Death colliding with life, plunging into life. Yet I was also, the deer, irresistibly drawn to the bright lights. Like the dawning sun. Totally innocent of what lay behind those lights, death. And at the moment of impact, the deer's eyes met mine. And I saw absolutely no fear in the eyes of the deer. No realization, seemingly, about what was to happen. And I saw myself and my own life on an unknown, yet absolutely certain, collision with death. And at that moment, it seemed like eternity. I was aware that time, my sense of chronological time, was altered. My ordinary sense of consciousness was changed. My sense of spatial reality, the normal ways I function in time and space, was changed, was extended.

[13:29]

Wilk Gang Gigerich, if I'm pronouncing his name correctly, writing in the Journal of Archetype and Culture, Spring Issue No. 54, 1933, he mentions the deeper significance of killing for the earliest of hunters. The spear was seen as an extension of the self of the hunter, and thus enabled that self to break through life's boundaries. To death. By which boundary the living organism is completely enclosed. The hunter thus inflicted the experience of death on himself through the hunt. This is the early experience. But while still in life, the hunter inflicted upon himself the experience of death through the sacrifice of the animal. And he made this experience the basis of his own no longer merely biological life.

[14:33]

It was a way of raising his consciousness, avoiding slipping into the dullness of merely biological existence. Such consciousness expansion required the sacrifice of life as it was known. Death cast its bright lights upon the sacrifice and this interchange. It's as if death illuminates as itself empties. And this was exactly my experience with the deer. My consciousness was expanded as both the deer and I was the experience of death. The experience of the sacrifice of life. As the philosopher Nietzsche once wrote, quote, death intrudes and shocks life out of the innocence of becoming.

[15:38]

Death intrudes and shocks life out of the innocence of becoming. Becoming is a sacrificial process every step of the way. And love is our becoming. That's the point I've been making. Love death is our becoming and it's sacrificial. This is why the cross remains the central symbol for Christianity. And why the dying Christ pierced by the spear, hunted by death, pierced by the spear, is the very self of the universe becoming whole. And thus liberated in love. He is thus revealed as our image and likeness of the Father.

[16:42]

As scripture tells us, he is the new Adam. The first of many to follow. He holds all things together in unity. He is the Alpha and the Omega. He is the sacrificial lamb. And the shepherd we heard this morning. And he is my soul. That longs for God as for running streams, the psalmist writes. The deer that longs for running streams. And elsewhere scripture says, they shall look upon him whom they have pierced. The paschal mystery is about that process of being. It is a full human realization achieved by Christ in which I am caught up. Calling forth my conscious cooperation and participation.

[17:50]

It is a call to a life of total communion. As a transformed embodied spirit in a transformed material world. The perfection of the human lies in our total openness. Openness to such an extent that we can be full of God yet empty of self. The more we are free for God and others in love, the more we become person. Person is a relational reality of I, you, we. As theologian Bach writes, and kind of taking his takeoff from Martin Buber and his whole, we've read some of him and his whole I, Thou theology, Bach writes, quote, it is only by means of you that the I becomes what it is.

[18:57]

The I is an echo of the you. And in the last analysis, a resonance of the divine you, end of quote. Christ's life and especially his death resurrection manifest the full depth of his communion and openness. The crucified risen one fills all reality, not being limited by time and space. Thus realizing to a maximum degree his being in and for God and others. But this requires sacrifice, a dying. Henry Nowlin writes in his book, I think it's called The Beloved of God. He writes, quote, we are called to make our death the greatest gift. Death is the means of every gift of self.

[19:59]

Culminating in that final gift of self in the final death. Dying is the way to the experience of being the beloved of God. It is the way to becoming pure gift that you already are. Life is a preparation for death as a final act of giving. But hopefully the culmination of a lifetime of increasingly, increasingly learning that this is the meaning of life. Is giving oneself, end of quote. Thus through his death and resurrection, Jesus actually strengthens, this is the miracle, he actually strengthens the bonds of love between himself and his disciples. Sin death is the tearing away, that's our experience and that's our horrible fear and that's what we imagine. It has that power to take us from everything we hold dear.

[21:00]

But love death will actually deepen whatever you thought you had and connected with in this life will actually be deepened. And that's why Paul can say, just because we didn't walk the streets of Palestine or Jerusalem with Jesus, we are not in an inferior position. We are actually at an advantage than those who knew Jesus in the flesh. Because we know Jesus in the spirit. We know Jesus in that reality of deeper communion with us and with all living reality. So what we are speaking of here is daily life. A paschal pattern you've been hearing me say. Which is human becoming in and with Christ in ordinary life. It is what Psalm 44 says, it is for you O Lord that we face death all day long. And we face sin death all day long with what?

[22:07]

Love death, in and with Jesus. Or Psalm 90 says, make us know O Lord the shortness of our life that we may gain wisdom of heart. The question, is there life after death? Is very much the question, is there life before death? And is there life in death? Facing death in and with Christ is facing life fully as selfless love. Blake, you've all heard of Blake. William Blake once wrote in one of his letters, not a poem, quote, death is simply moving from one room to another. End of quote. That kind of sort of caught my attention and I pondered that and it almost bothered me. It seemed too casual. But I started to think about that. Death is simply moving from one room to another. But I would add, death as an act of selfless love.

[23:09]

Is moving from one room to a larger room. To a larger room. To a larger room. To an ever more expansive room. Dying as loving is an expanding process of becoming more and more ourselves. As Christ. Our Christ self. Our consciousness becomes more and more Christ consciousness. Which is the pure expansiveness of God. That's why Paul could say it's no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives. And we've been talking about an experience of expansive consciousness. And so when we understand this is what sin does. But love death. You see, love death.

[24:12]

Starts to tell us that sin death can be experienced as a passion. Not as a human being. You know I think this is what we all struggle with. Is this the meaning of human life? That there's birth and the moment I die I have to do whatever I'm going to do in that short span of my heart. But the pastoral history, the revelation of the death resurrection of Jesus is religious language. We say the gates of heaven are open. What we're saying is there's a doorway created. And that doorway oddly enough becomes larger and larger, at least experientially, the more we make choices that are love death choices. And not a fear of sin death keeps enclosing that box. We tend to approach all reality by drawing boxes around it. People, expressions, and God. Which is a limited consciousness. So the way to say death is simply moving from one room to another.

[25:18]

Of course the next room is going to be larger. And when we say I'm going to emerge and that's all it is. It's moving from a small room to a larger room to a larger room. And then I think eventually what a person begins to realize is that everything has at least a margin. Things aren't quite as boxed in as sin death is always tempting us and trying to give in to us. This is reality and act accordingly. And Jesus is saying no that's not reality and act accordingly. It's my reality. I am reality. And that's why Paul will love that whole theme of freedom. One is an experience of conscription, of enslavement, of being in prison. You know that story of the disciples and their let out of prison experience. But it's really also a very symbolic story of this inner experience that's going on in all creation. All doors are being opened. All attempts to confine reality, to restrict reality.

[26:18]

To pin it up for the sake of human fear. The way we think we can have control. I've always loved Meister Eckhart's image of the Godhead as wild stallions running free in an endless meadow. Whenever I read that I was just dumbfounded that Eckhart would use such an earthly image. Because it's rather abstract at times. Once while I was watching the movie Man from Snowy River, the many scenes of the wild stallions, the Brombees as they call them, running free in the meadows and mountains of Australia, touched something deep within me. Something deep in me recognized itself and its people. That's what Eckhart is talking about. That I'm made in that image of the Godhead. Stallions running free in an endless meadow. Nothing to corral or box them in.

[27:20]

In his poem Ulysses, Tennyson writes, quote, I am a part of all that I have met. Yet all experience is an art. Where through gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades forever and ever when I move. How dull it is to pause to make an end. To rust unburnished. Not to shine in me. Let me repeat that. I am a part of all that I have met. Yet all experience is an art. Where through gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades forever and ever when I move. How dull it is to pause to make an end. To rust unburnished. Not to shine in you. I think to live consciously and faithfully Christ's paschal pattern

[28:27]

is to make all experience an art where through gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades. To resist this way of dying in love to live for self alone in fear is to rust unburnished. It is not to shine in me. I remember when I was in New Hampshire last year and I was flying back from here actually in the month of March which was winter weather, certainly back there and there was a little bit of a storm when I was flying in from Chicago into Manchester airport and there was some snow so it was a little bit of a shaky landing and there was a bit of fog but we landed fine and I could see there was really pelting snow and outside and Father Bruno was there to pick me up and finally got my luggage and started driving home. About a 20 minute drive but of course he was going slower

[29:29]

because of the snow which was just falling then and had a little bit of sleet at times, it was extremely slippery. I remember just walking out to the car from the airport I almost fell several times. So we're within one mile of the house and he hits a patch of ice and starts to skid. The first thing I let out of my mouth is steer in the direction of the skid. Every Easterner has had that verb in them I'm not sure we know what it means because your natural instinct is to right what seems to be wrong. But within a second I could see that he started spinning like on a dime so what else is there to say? Sit tight and enjoy the ride. So I just sat there and we're spinning I don't know how many times and of course everything is white and glistening with the fresh snow and it's night so the lights are in the distance but it's kind of that odd thing and it was the most amazing experience.

[30:34]

I felt like I was on the threshold of life and death. Like I was right at the doorway and I was going through this type of process but now I'm in front of right here. How did you get up? With the car. With the car spinning around. Right on the threshold. For the half of this space and it was very much the sense the sense I had that this was a bigger reality. When the car is standing straight exactly under your control you're smaller. Now that it was in the in-between reality and that was very much the sense I felt I was standing in a doorway a small room in a bigger room and somebody was spitting in front of me. And my sense of time changed linear time was not the same at all. It felt like eternity and it felt like I was in a dance that I was dancing with death and oddly enough there was absolutely no fear.

[31:41]

I was tantalized. I was awed. I was intrigued. And I remember after the car finally spun out and hit the snowbank and we couldn't pull out and Bruno had to go get someone to help us I felt so alive. More alive than I did before when everything was what, standard, secure and controlled. I felt all tingling, alive and happy. Now you say, well of course you were happy you were all safe. No, it wasn't that kind of experience at all. In fact I wouldn't have mind taking the ride again. And a young man stopped coming the other direction and offered help and I felt an incredible oneness with him.

[32:45]

Like I had known him all my life. In this instant death and my trusting surrender opened me to a larger reality. It was an experience of helplessness yet blessing. Both life threatening and life enhancing. The awakening Christian begins to see Christ's Paschal pattern more frequently in his or her own life. And as well in the lives of others. And in the life of the world. And also the awakening Christian begins to see their own frequent resistances to it. In the fear of losing the self we cling so tightly to.

[33:46]

I remember back there in New Hampshire watching the TV news and at that time we were getting so much about the Bosnian situation particularly with Sarajevo that was surrounded and all the horrible things. It's one thing to read about it on the paper as we do here, but there we had television so to actually see the visual images and the ways those things impact you. And this one night they were doing well of course it was a tape but it had been live earlier that day and they were running it on the news that night of this young couple a Christian and a Muslim from the city. And I can't remember if they were married or they were going to be married but they were very much in love and they decided that there was just no future this was going to drag on and on there so they wanted to try to sneak out of the city. And they had talked to their parents and to the elders and leaders and got permission

[34:49]

to try to sneak out of the city. And so there's an interview taking place and then the cameraman shows them there's a little map stack on each of their backs sneaking away and of course they have to go through this area of the city called No Man's Land or No Person's Land meaning it's kind of a dangerous area for sniper fire. And the camera's just seeing them go off and the commentator's saying one and then they left for there they go and they're going for a better life. It's kind of a human interest story and all of a sudden of course without planning it you see the young man get shot and fall beside the woman. And you hear the shock and the commentator because this all happened live it was totally unplanned the camera got a little bit unsteady and then you see the young woman get shot and fall down beside him. And I remember I'm still getting emotional because as I saw it I let out a scream and this anger

[35:52]

and this sniper you can't know them as persons you don't kill people you know as persons you have to reduce them to something else. And just to snuff out and you know they were young and there was nothing for them and it just seemed so senseless and that's the senselessness of skin death that's worse just cutting it off. And the tears you know were flowing down my and I was standing I had been sitting on this soft couch and I was standing going no no no and I was then saying to God this is senseless you know and then I saw a gal her arm go up in the air and reach out and embrace the other. And I was dumbfounded rather than being concerned with her own wounds

[36:52]

and death being the victim of skin death and caught up in it you see love death there. And that's the cripple that's the paschal passage. And in that weakness as I tried to say is a tremendous strength that we don't understand. Seemingly victims and powerless they were more powerful than the sniper and the army surrounding Sarajevo at that moment. From our point of view and that's the power the world still does not know and cannot embrace. That is the love that's stronger than skin death. But it is another kind of death it is another kind of selflessness. And I saw Christ in them.

[37:58]

And I saw them particularly this young woman choosing making a conscious choice for love death in the face of skin death. Through such awareness we can consciously choose to join ourselves to this paschal process and allow it to enlighten and guide all of our decisions and choices and our way of being in the world. Instead of spending more and more money for more and more material comforts in a consumeristic society I think we begin then to spend ourselves in love for that treasure buried in the field for that pearl of great price Jesus' images for the kingdom of God. I remember a retreat I gave

[39:00]

a youth retreat I gave many years ago at a place called Cottontail Ranch in Malibu Malibu Canyon. The big group 50 something teenagers juniors and seniors men and women and I had a whole team that gave the retreat and I was the head of the team and it was a rather dynamic retreat that tried to move the people and open them to possibilities from Friday night till Sunday. And there was this one guy from the high school where I taught it was an all boys high school that was just so resistant to the dynamics you know seemingly really boxed in and we used a lot of small group exercises as you have to do with young people they can't sit listening to long talks I don't think I ever talked more than 15 minutes at a clip and they were frustrated with him because he was just so non-cooperative and fall asleep he was using sleep as a real defense of course

[40:01]

either the family situation as folks were going through a divorce at the time it was very traumatic for them but he had a brother there who was really into the dynamic of the retreat and really trying to open himself to this love death reality of dying to self and love for others because one experiences God's love for oneself that way in Jesus and finally we got to the very end you know and I mean people are just so open and are in touch with that love at that point and see another way of living life beyond the fear and the self-sentiment but not him and I really felt powerless I said Lord I don't know what to do with this guy I've tried everything you've ever shown me I've been praying about him the team would be praying about him we would meet you know every night at the end of the day and go over everything and who's having a problem and you know which kids and I said

[41:02]

I just feel so helpless you know and finally one of the last things we would do after the Liturgy of the Word would be a mass at the end this would not be in a church it would be in a large there was actually no church at the retreat so we'd be getting in the same place where we had the activities we'd just set it up for a mass and they were all sitting on the floor and I was at the other end on the floor and they only had a low table there and we would call it the Past the Candle and for all the activities we used to light the Christ candle so then we of course had it there for the mass and so then they passed the candle and each one would share what they had learned in the course of the retreat and you know as they're going on you know a lot of them were in tears because of this opening experience and and how they felt they had come to understand the meaning of Christ death and resurrection is life for them everything went around and of course this young man way off this side and the candle started on this side

[42:02]

and he kind of sprawled out and kind of passed there and I was saying oh what is he going to say he's probably not even going to say anything so the candle comes to him and he says I know you're probably all kind of angry at me for not really cooperating and resisting and well life is hard for me right now and I'm afraid to open up I'm afraid to get hurt things going on and of course I think everybody or most of us knew about the candle and the situation and stuff like that he said you know the only person I can really say I've ever loved and let love me has been my uncle and I think he had passed away or moved away or something but that person wasn't there for him and he said and so I just didn't want to open myself to God or anybody else to play it safe he said but there's someone here who like my uncle

[43:02]

I've experienced that person's love and has really touched me and at this point he's starting to cry of course we're all dumbfounded he waits for the ninth hour you know and my goodness what's going on so we you know and then we're all wondering well who who did God finally use to touch this person and awaken in him you know and it's going on and on and this person is Father God I was so caught by surprise that I started weeping of course I never started weeping but it just so caught me by surprise in my whole sense of failure and that you know I was getting nowhere and of course it's not me it's the Lord but I remember at that moment I I remember saying if this is it I want to die and it's interesting I made a connection between that flooding of openness and love

[44:03]

and death right somehow I I sensed or I recognized this has something to do with the pastoral pattern that I was ready to die in that moment but for the Christian anyway that love the self sacrificing love is what cast a light upon our life and our physical death and gives it all meaning and that's why Paul can say for me to live is Christ to die is healing okay I'd like to open it up now for any comments or questions or any anything you might have as we come to the end of this retreat you didn't

[45:09]

comment on it but what you quoted was a great analogy of passing from life to death and walking from one room to another I thought well yes but the door was shut you can't go back into the first room and then as you expand on that you said well it's really passing from one room to a larger room and you had a larger room reminds me of the experience you shared with us yesterday when you came here before you became a monk here and you were being told that your heart wasn't alive so maybe as you pass on we are too large to come back into the first room that's a nice way of putting it I suppose like the disciples immediately after the death of Jesus we try to get back into that room remember that one scene where they go back to fishing we pick up where we left off before we met

[46:09]

this guy and it's just not going to be possible they've been expanded already and the expansion will continue for them yeah good way to finish I suppose

[48:04]

but what Jesus gives us you see is so much greater than those others you know and those are helpful but as you know there are a lot of people who don't even have that so what do you tell them you try to help them discover this other presence this other reality that's always been there this reality that's been with them always loving them and so even if they have no human experience of it it makes it harder I think but not impossible it makes it harder for them to try to get in contact because as I said the normal avenue God uses is our human relationships but there are people who have horrendous childhoods of abuse and they're the ones that I think have a harder time not laying that on God then God then I can't trust God I can't trust anyone but it's not impossible if you know

[49:05]

people that have been through that and you listen to their conversion stories they do encounter a trust that's beyond human trust right but that's why I mentioned that's what ongoing conversion is you know it's realizing my trust is limited you know my trust in things is limited and I have to always go from a smaller room into a bigger room that's that's the process of I like that's when the journey that's a journey but without Christ I don't think they'd be the journey at all it would death sin death would completely frame our life and we would do the best we can within that frame and that's it you die that's the end so the Christian it's what's on the other side you see you know what happens when you it's not only you know that what you in fact the box

[50:05]

of your consciousness goes into a bigger room but what's over here comes in both ways and that's why a future is privileged for the Christian Christ reveals our future where it means you are now and that's why you just say and what happens to the world you see the margins start to crumble with which we block off life out of safety trying to be safe and not get hurt so our that future is always invading my present love is as um I think it's also Blake who says we are on this earth but a short while to learn to be to know to be to fear these things of love these things of love are constantly coming my way both from within my self and from outside of myself like two hands of a potter I am in between love

[51:06]

there's love on the inside of me pushing outwards and there's love on the outside pushing inward and I am that reality that's shaped by by that. But also there's sin death trying to shape them in a certain way. See, that's the struggle, you know, and not to give in to the other, but we talk about the sermon of doing God's will, it's what's recognizing the shaping that's going on as love death and cooperating, joining ourselves to that project. I had a professor in Germany who, he was such a professor who, and he said that we should say we can act with love, we should say, he said it wasn't really just the Hitler course, and that we thought of it as something that we, I don't know, don't do it, but something that we have to take, or, you know, have to take, to take. But to actually make it an active, responsive group, was in a way to teach that love death, to move in the faith.

[52:13]

I don't have any other part about it, but I think he's probably right. Right. Yeah, it's really a daily choice about how you live, living in the faith, living in the faith. I think part of the question that he's asking, which is a German, is New York death, I mean there is no alternative really, once you realize how little control, this, this, did you tell me all about the car accident? Oh yeah, Krebs image, yeah. I went through that, I have that on the wall, in my car. And you just sit there, and there really is nothing you can do, and so you sit there, and the wonder of it is the feeling of, you're totally not in control, and for me at least, there are too many times that I don't imagine that I am, and I work very hard to be in control,

[53:17]

and it's a wonderful lesson, to, it's the same thing as earthquakes, very much the same scene, I mean you can do things like sit in the right place, but there's really nothing you can do. Yeah, you'd have to get in a plane I suppose to do that. It's a wonderful way to experience the fact that it's not, you're totally not in control, and you have to be in control. I think both of those reveal something that's true, but see our normal consciousness does not like to think about it, and that is, we're on a planet that's moving, how fast is the planet moving on its axis? But it's quite fast, but because we don't feel it, like if we were in a car going the same speed, we'd be aware, but we don't feel it that way, so we don't have the, we say terra firma, and that's not reality, and you see we start to make everything within that as if that's the way we are, so the spinning car thing is a lesson about life, I'm on a

[54:23]

spinning object all the time, and it is also moving around, and so everything is fluid and moving, and it's amazing how we resist that reality, and don't feel very secure, that makes us feel anxious, you know, so we have to get a sense of thing that's permanent. So I think people have these experiences, but they quickly jump back, phew, that's over, and they miss, there's a window that's open, and they miss that, how can I bring this, and make this more a part of the life, what has just happened, that there's more to what life is about than I normally perceive. But this, you know, this Paschal Pattern is difficult, I remember a very close friend, a mother of eight children, who I was very close to the family, and she called me and asked me to come over one day, and I was teaching in a high school at the time, with

[55:24]

another religious community, and I didn't know what she wanted to say, and so I came over, well she started to blast me with, I guess a number of things about our relationship that were bothering her, she saved them all up, I mean I was totally unprepared for it, and I felt like I was just, was on a cross, and she was inserting one nail after another, you know, and finally, it's interesting how the task my defense took, I said, are you through? I got the sense that she wanted me, she wanted me to be engaged with her, and I took the task of not giving her the satisfaction, so she said, for the moment, you know, and she was all upset, and I was shaking, but trying not to show it, and I stood up and I said, fine, I don't have to sit here and hate this, and I just walked out, got in my car, and drove off. See, there's sin death going on there, that's a death scene, isn't it? I'm willing to just cut it. Fortunately, I didn't get two blocks, you know, and I was

[56:32]

reflecting, and I said, is this what I really want? To let this relationship die, that kind of death, and so I drove back, and swallowed my pride and whatever else, you know, but that was a pastoral experience, you know, of dying, and choosing another kind of death, which was the death going back, you know, and trying to talk it out, and to deal with my own hurt feelings, because she was hurting me, definitely, because we were good friends, but naturally, we were more vulnerable that way, but I guess that's what I'm trying to, the pastoral pattern is there, it's going on, the choices are there all the time, and it's nothing other than what's central to Christian faith, the pastoral mystery, it's really the heart of everything, and it's this mystery of birth and death, [...] all the time, so by me going back, I died for self, in love

[57:36]

death, and something new was born between her and I, but it was not the last time, that's our life, that's our way of life. In the image of the earthquake, my remembrance of the 89 earthquake was, the, at one minute, there's this big shelf, and it's just a shelf, after the earthquake, because there were people talking to each other on the street, and directing traffic, and cooking meals to each other, out on the sidewalk, and things like this, and how quickly those walls went back up again, but for a minute, for about 24 hours, there was that sense of awareness, that there was a connection, and then of course, the earthquake. I just wanted to comment, I've been thinking from yesterday about people who don't believe

[58:39]

in heaven, and I've not heard people like myself, who do believe in heaven, even if there isn't a heaven, at least we have this nice feeling, until we die, and when we die, we won't know anyway, if there isn't a heaven. Yeah, some others have said that, even if what we believe isn't true, in a certain sense, you can say it brings out something that's true, I think, and that's best, in terms of the potential in a human being. So you can say that, but the truth is very important, the whole Christian thing stands on that being true. I just wanted to ask, I'm not very close, but the Episcopalian is as far as she's gotten, and she doesn't believe in heaven, but she expects a good person, I don't know why she expects a good person, if she doesn't believe in heaven.

[59:41]

Well, it may be that she doesn't believe it in a certain way, you know, heaven in a certain way of thinking about it, because she believes in life after death. She's an Episcopalian. She can't be. It's not only Roman Catholics that say that, that's Christian, you know, that's fundamentally Christian. That's after they were Lutheran, and then the mother decided they would become Christian children. Right, but that's Lutheran, that's Christian teaching, every Christian, that's the whole meaning, Christ has died and Christ is risen, that's the central. So it sounds like that's just her own personal, but it may again be how she's been taught about heaven. When we're young, we tend to convey to kids, you have to find constant things, you tend to make it a place, like another room. When we're young, we tend to convey to kids, you have to find constant things, you tend

[60:33]

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