Sacred Communication/Journey 2018

[Class at the Nolan Trail] Yellow long needle pine, walnut, oak, tulip popper, and loblolly pines scattered amongst the vicinity, each stretching their arms to the heavens, thirsting for more light. The trees growing in isolation are large and strong, showing off there full canopies due to the complete sunlight coverage received. These tall ancient ancestors sing songs and share stories amongst one another of the views they have seen. Stories that transcend through history and into the present day. These vast connectors speak to us humans as we step into their home, the forest. For we are only there temporarily because their home is not ours. These tall ancestors speak in gentle terms, making apparent to us the aliments they face due to impeding changes occurring around them. Changes such as rising sea levels that erode their roots, and deplete the nutrients needed for healthy growth; changes of deforestation, warming temperatures, and anomalous storms that threaten their home. Our a...

In this chapter the author seems to argue that prayer can be caught in the "mimetic violence". This can also lead us to what not only we desire, but also what we compete with in violent ways to get the desired object. The author also goes into detail about when we do the action of praying, we need to make room for the sacred as well. In the reading I also understood that self-emptying is a form of reciprocity. To be able to understand self-emptying, we can look for examples in the Bible. The author gives us two examples in the Bible, "The first is "empty waste" that existed before creation". "The second is the creative breath, the ruah or "spirit of God," that hovers over it".  Overall, what I have gained from this chapter is that if I practice prayer as kenosis the mimetic actions that I have can be undone, Also by practicing self emptying into my prayers I can become closer with God. Benson, Bruce Ellis, and Norman Wirzba.  The Phen...

October 10, 2018 [Outside Reading][Tao Te Ching] What we look at but can't see we call invisible, What we listen to but can't hear we call inaudible, what we touch but can't feel we call infinitesimal. These three qualities are unfathomable, collapse together in the null set, defining the universe. Its heights aren't bright, its depths aren't dark. It keeps changing, can't be named, becomes nothing again.  Call it the shapeless shape, the formless image, indeterminable, unimaginable. Confront it, you can't see the front. Follow it, you can't see the rear. Grasp the ancient way to direct today's affairs, Knowing the ancient beginning is known as the heart of the way. This excerpt from the Tao Te Ching reminds me of the sublime nature of the wilderness. Just as the wind comes and goes but is never present and is always present, the Tao, or "the way" is also like this. It's the inexplicable nature of the world ...

[Landscapes of the Sacred] In Lane's section "The Golden Earth as Middle Place," he examines Native American spirituality and the reverence these people have towards the earth. After discussing the Lakota as true naturalists- lovers of nature, Lane states "one's relation to the soil, therefore, is a means of making subtle connections with the holy" (Lane, 1998). Perhaps Lane is meaning that to be intimately connected to the divine, one must gain a relatedness to the soil they are upon. Since the Creator of the World, beautifully and wonderfully made even aspect of this natural world, to have an experience with the holy is to dive your hands into the land He created. If one has ever dug there hands into soil before, they would understand the profound mystery and joy found in holding that pile of dirt. A calming and soothing experience occurs as an individual is acquainted with the rawness of the holy. Lane makes the proposition that we should learn from t...

From reading these 29 pages the author goes into detail on how to pray and how prayer has a deeper meaning than just the action of doing so. Prayer is private and is an act of an inner I. I have also learned that silence is an important part of prayer. "Even though God speaks in silence, there is a voice we hear" (Benson and Wirzba, 20). When I pray I tend to talk a lot, and instead I need to be silent for a moment. The author also mentions how prayer is a task of a lifetime, meaning that you have to work at it and that it needs to be a consistent act everyday and even multiple times a day. Prayer also tends to help develop ourselves. I learned that in prayer its not only about the connection to the Divine, but prayer is also about us. We often pray about our struggles in life and from that prayer we hope to find meaning. The authors also go into detail about the difference between knowledge and wisdom as well. Benson, Bruce Ellis, and Norman Wirzba.  The Phenomenology of P...