Sunday, May 26, 2013

Mansion, Castle and Matter? Not Sure.

This Swallow made much noise at me today.
Last summer I picked-up the book The Wisdom Jesus:  Transforming Heart and Mind - A New Perspective on Christ and His Message (Cynthia Bourgeault). A couple of weeks ago I began reading it again after hearing an excellent homily that referenced the author. The thing that I enjoy about the book is that Jesus is made to come to life in the reading in ways that were not clear before. Today's reading dealt with resurrection, ascension and Pentecost. I offer a quote from the book, "What Jesus does so profoundly demonstrate to us in his passage from death to life is that the walls between the realms are paper thin. Along the entire ray of creation, the 'mansions' are interpenetrating and mutually permeable by love." 

Now, this excites me as a reference to the house of God as having many rooms. I have always wondered what that meant. Of course, I know the jokes about the different Christian denominations and religions having rooms in heaven with the one group that has their own room because they believe they would be the only group saved by God's love. And, there are so many other references to this mansion that I have come across over the years. I think of St. Teresa of Avila and the journey through the Interior Castle (another of my favorite reads). It was only today that I put the mansion and the castle in the same place as I reflected on what it means to have paper-thin walls separating the realms. Basically this is also tying into some thoughts I have been having about quantum mechanics and the illusion of the material world as being composed of solids. Oh my goodness...I do not have any intention of pulling all of this material together. So, basically when I think of the mansion, castle and the material world as being interconnected the only thing I know is that we live in this moment connected to all that has gone before and will come in the future. It is right now that all of it comes together in harmony (this is also influenced from my sangha meeting yesterday--we discussed the topic of now). Jesus' living in the first century of this Common Era is as alive today as ever if we are attentive to the realms, and what I usually consider a veil more than paper-thin walls. I am struggling to articulate anything coherent, yet somehow the quote created an experience of mystery this afternoon. Have a good w

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