SOCIAL JUSTICE and POVERTY

We have a new Pope, Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina.  He stands first and foremost for social justice, especially in his concern for the poor.  Poverty will be his focus.  Hopefully, the notion of  'poverty' will be expanded beyond the economistic reduction which the media has already begun to accentuate.  Poverty is not only about material impoverishment but, in the extreme, also spiritual impoverishment.  More specifically and to the point one could be no more impoverished than when one has been sexually abused as a child by a priest of the Catholic Church.

If this Pope does not take seriously child abuse, this spiritual scourge that eats at the foundations of Catholicism and the heart of Christianity, then he will rank no more highly than any within the lineage of Popes thus far.  Until now no Pope has taken the corruption of abuse seriously.  Why?  It continues.  Cover-ups continue.  Lack of compassion continues.  Systematic deferral of the problem continues.  Paying the problem to go away continues.  Dealing with this paramount issue has not even begun.

Facing and dealing with the issue of child abuse will shake the foundations of this church.  They know this.  If they confront the infinite depth of this sin, the structure will shift beyond imagination.

Interestingly Bergoglio takes the name of Francis. Francis was never ordained, preached poverty and repentance.  The patron saint of nature.  Will Bergoglio vow poverty?  Repent?  Respect the Environment?

Will Bergoglio impoverish "poverty?"  Or will he deal with the absolute curse of "poverty" as a whole? When 'poverty' is understood in its robust and deeply rooted sense it will enable dealing with the desecration of innumerable children by sexual abuse, the denigration of the environment by materialism run amok and the decay of the very essence of the spirituality of the religious life itself.

Jesus said that what we do to the least of them, we do unto him.  Who could be lesser than the child?  Who more innocently vulnerable?  Bergoglio could make himself "naked" like Francis.  He could make the Chruch "naked" to its loss of its own soul.

Like the proverbial 'Emperor,' the Church has no clothes.  And as the fable goes, it took a child to speak the truth, possibly an abused and forgotten child.

MASS MEDIA WHORES

Regarding the darkness of being:  It just dawned on me a proper name for certain media figures such as Kim Kardashian.  She's a MASS MEDIA WHORE.  She sells her image, vacuous and meaningless as it is, for money.  She should be thankful that so many of us thrive and survive psychologically on images.

Loving involvement from without

Jesus maintained that we must be in the world but not of the world.  Yet, "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son."  Is it not the case that to truly love the world one must be in it but not of it?  When I am "of it" I expect it to 'love' me.  When I am in it but not of it, it's not that I don't appreciate love but I don't expect it to make me love, feel or be in or of the nature of love.

INVOKING TIME

Dreaming is the mind outside of time; wakefulness is the mind inside time.

NOT ENOUGH OF A GOOD THING?

It was once noted that there seems to be enough religion in the world to make us hate one another but not enough to make us love one another.

ORIGINATING INNER REALITY

What is it that arises from the authentic being of my Source? Or should I be asking what does it feel like to be the flow of authentic experience from the Heart? … This ‘withinness’/‘withoutness’ continues to bother me. After all where does this flow of self come from? Yes, “from within” may well be an adequate expression. But the notion that “if I remain still the world will come to me” seems to ring true in so far as it means that this “authenticity” also comes from without. It’s like an inflated tire, or “inner tube,” that is rolling round within itself. What is at any give time on the outside may as well have been on the inside and at one time was. So I am always within the without and “without” the within. That is the only way I can be within.

Experiencing Without the Ego

I saw what it was like to be present not as "me" but just present. It was that space of realizing that nothing is about me. I was actually experiencing but I wasn't there, just experiencing. The "withinness" was experiencing and I wasn't trying to make anything of it. It wasn't an intellectual 'insight.' I had nothing to say about this presence because it wasn't mine. I didn't have it. I was it. I realized what it meant to "stop the search." It's not lost unless I try to put it in a space to understand it, thus trying to convince my ego that "I got it." If I'm searching for "it" then it becomes impossible to "see." It can't be objectified, thought, perceived. No "it." No "me." To try to "grasp" it in any way with the mind is like gouging your eyes out and then trying to see. All in the empty, infinite moment of the timeless now. There is the only place I can be without me.